"Austerity in women is sometimes the accompaniment of a rare
power of loving. And when it is so their attachment is strong
as death; their fidelity as resisting as the diamond."--AMIEL.
The newspapers arrived at tea-time at Garstone. Every afternoon Mrs.
Garstone and Mrs. Courtenay drove out along the straight high-road to
D---- to fetch the papers and post the letters; four miles in and four
miles out; the grey pair one day and the bays the next, in the old
yellow chariot. It was the rule of the house. And after tea and rusks,
and a poached egg under a cover for Mr. Garstone, that gentleman read
the papers aloud in a voice that trembled and halted like the spinnet
in the southern parlour.
"Is Parliament prorogued yet?" Mrs. Garstone asked regularly every
afternoon.
Mr. Garstone, without answering, struck his key-note at the births, and
quavered slowly through the marriages and deaths. Before he had arrived
on this particular afternoon at the fact that Princess Beatrice had
walked with Prince Henry of Battenberg, Mrs. Garstone was already
nodding between her little rows of white curls. Mrs. Courtenay was
awake, but she looked too solemnly attentive to continue in one stay.
"The remains of the Dean of Gloucester," continued Mr. Garstone, "will
be interred at Gloucester Cathedral on Friday next."
The information was received, like most sedatives, without comment.
Latest intelligence. Colliery explosion at Snarley.
"Di, has not John coal-pits at Snarley?" asked Mrs. Courtenay, becoming
suddenly wide awake.
"Yes," said Di.
"Explosion of fire-damp," continued Mr. Garstone, slower than ever. "No
particulars known. Great loss of life apprehended. Mr. Tempest of
Overleigh, to whom the mine belonged, instantly left Godalmington Court,
where he was the guest of Lord Carradock, and proceeded at once to the
spot, where he organized a rescue party led by himself. Mr. Tempest was
the first to descend the shaft. The gravest anxiety was felt respecting
the fate of the rescuing party. Vast crowds assembled at the pit's
mouth. No further news obtainable up to date of going to press."
Mrs. Courtenay looked at Di.
"He must be mad to have gone down himself," she said agitatedly. "What
could he possibly do there?"
"His duty," said Di; and she got up and left the room. How could any one
exist in that hot close atmosphere? She was suffocating.
The hall was cold enough. She shivered as she crossed it, and went up
the white shallow stairs to her own room, where a newly lit fire was
spluttering. She knelt down before it and pushed a burning stick further
between the bars, blackening her fingers. It would catch the paper at
the side now.--John had gone down the shaft.--Yes, it would catch. The
paper stretched itself and flared up. She went and stood by the window.
"John has gone down," she said, half aloud. Her heart was quite numb.
Only her body seemed to care. Her limbs trembled, and she sat down on
the narrow window seat, her hands clutching the dragon hasp of the
window, her eyes looking absently out.
There was a fire in the west. Upon the dreaming land the dreaming mist
lay pale. The sentinel trees stood motionless and dark, each folded in
his mantle of grey. Only the water waked and knew its God. And far
across the sleeping land, in the long lines of flooded meadow, the fire
trembled on the upturned face of the water, like the reflection of the
divine glory in a passionate human soul.
It passed. The light throbbed and died, but Di did not stir. And as she
sat motionless, her mind slipped sharp and keen out of its lethargy and
restlessness, like a sword from its scabbard.
"Now, at this moment, is he alive or dead?"
And at the thought of death, that holiest minister who waits on life,
all the rebellious anger, all the nameless fierce resentment against her
lover--because he _was_ her lover--fell from her like a garment, died
down like Peter's lies at the glance of Christ.
The evening deepened its mourning for the dead day. One star shook in
the empty sky, above the shadow and the mist.
"Love the gift is Love the debt." Di perceived that at last. A great
shame fell upon her for the divided feelings, the unconscious struggle
with her own heart, of the last few weeks. It appeared to her now
ignoble, as all elementary phases of feeling, all sheaths of deep
affections must appear, in the moment when that which they enfolded and
protected grows beyond the narrow confines which it no longer needs.
_If he is dead?_ Di twisted her hands.
Who, one of two that have loved and stood apart has escaped that pang,
if death intervene? A moment ago and the world was full of messengers
waiting to speed between them at the slightest bidding. A penny stamp
could do it. But there was no bidding. A moment more and all
communication is cut off. No Armada can cross that sea.
"Perhaps he is dying; and I sit here," she said. "I would give my life
for him, and I cannot do a hand's turn." And she rocked herself to and
fro.
For the first time in her life Di dashed herself blindly against one of
God's boundaries; and the shock that a first realization of our
helplessness always brings, struck her like a blow. She could do
nothing.
Many impulsive people, under the intolerable pressure of their own
impotence, make a feverish pretence of action, and turn stones and
pebbles, as they cannot turn heaven and earth; but Di was not impulsive.
And the gong sounded, first far away in the western wing, and then at
the foot of the staircase.
Many things fail us in this world; youth, love, friendship, take to
themselves wings; but meals are not among our migratory joys. Amid the
shifting quicksands of life they stand fast as milestones.
Di dressed and went downstairs. It seemed years since she had last seen
the "parlour," and old Mr. Garstone standing alone before the fire.
He did not appear aged.
"It's later than it was," he remarked; and she had a dim recollection
that in some misty bygone time he invariably used to say those
particular words every evening, and that she used to smile and nod and
say, "Yes, Uncle George."
And so she smiled now, and repeated like a parrot, "Yes, Uncle George."
And he said, "Yes, Diana, yes."
* * * * *
Breakfast was later than usual next morning. It always is when one has
lain awake all night. But it ended at last, and Di was at last at
liberty to rush up to her room, pull on an old waterproof and felt hat,
and dart out unobserved into the rain.
The white mist closed in upon her, and directly she was out of sight of
the house she began to run. There were no aimless wanderings and pacings
to-day. Oh, the relief of rapid movement after the long inertia of the
night, the joy of feeling the rain sweeping against her face! She did
not know the way to D----, but she could not miss it. It was only four
miles off. It was eleven now. The morning papers would be in by this
time. If she walked hard she would be back by luncheon-time.
And, in truth, a few minutes before two Di emerged from her room in the
neatest and driest of blue serge gowns. Only her hair, which curled more
crisply than usual, showed that she had been out in the damp. She had
come home dead beat and wet to the skin, but she had hardly known it. A
new climbing agitated joy pulsated in her heart, in the presence of
which cold and fatigue could not exist; in the presence of which no
other feeling can exist--for the time.
"Are you glad John is out of danger?" said Mrs. Courtenay that evening
as they went upstairs together, after Mr. Garstone had read of John's
narrow escape--John had been one of the few among the rescuing party who
had returned.
"Very glad," said Di; and she was on the point of telling her
grandmother of her expedition to D---- that morning, when a sudden novel
sensation of shyness seized her, and she stopped short.
Mrs. Courtenay sighed as she settled herself for her nap before dinner.
"Has she inherited her father's heartlessness as well as his yellow
hair?" she asked herself.
Mrs. Courtenay had lived long enough to know how few and far between are
those among our fellow-creatures whose hearts are not entirely engrossed
by the function of their own circulation. Youth believes in universal
warmth of heart. It is as common as rhubarb in April. Later on we
discern that easily touched feelings, youth's dearest toys, are but
toys; shaped stones that look like bread. Later on we discern how
fragile is the woof of sentiment to bear the wear and tear of life.
Later still, when sorrow chills us, we learn on how few amid the many
hearths where we are welcome guests a fire burns to which we may stretch
our cold hands and find warmth and comfort.
END OF VOL. II.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES. _D. & Co._