DIANA CAREW;
OR,
FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE.
BY
MRS. FORRESTER,
AUTHOR OF "DOLORES," "FAIR WOMEN," "MY HERO," ETC. ETC.
"Yet, when we look deeply into life, we shall perhaps find hardly any
stretch of invention more singular than the scenes daily realizing
around us: nevertheless, if one idea not familiar to the mind nor in
the scope of our own immediate knowledge be presented to ne, we all
cry 'Romance!' nor recollect that this word is the most comprehensive
one in the whole dictionary, as it includes every idea unknown to the
person who pronounces it."--_Life of a Lover_.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900.
NOTICE.--It was intended to call this Novel by its second title, "FOR
A WOMAN'S SAKE," under the impression that it was an original one.
The work had been thus printed when it was discovered that the title
had been used before. The Author has therefore prefixed it by
another.
Contents
I. Diana's Story
II. Diana's Story
III. Diana's Story
IV. Diana's Story
V. Diana's Story
VI. Diana's Story
VII. Diana's Story
VIII. Diana's Story
IX. Diana's Story
X. Diana's Story
XI. Diana's Story
XII. Diana's Story
XIII. Diana's Story
XIV. Not Told by Diana
XV. Not Told by Diana
XVI. Not Told by Diana
XVII. Diana's Story
XVIII. Diana's Story
XIX. Diana's Story
XX. Diana's Story
XXI. Diana's Story
XXII. Not Told by Diana
XXIII. Not Told by Diana
XXIV. Not Told by Diana
XXV. Not Told by Diana
XXVI. Diana's Story
XXVII. Diana's Story
XXVIII. Diana's Story
XXIX. Diana's Story
XXX. Diana's Story
XXXI. Diana's Story
XXXII. Diana's Story
XXXIII. Diana's Story
XXXIV. Diana's Story
XXXV. Diana's Story
XXXVI. Diana's Story
XXXVII. Not Told by Diana
XXXVIII. Not Told by Diana
XXXIX. Not Told by Diana
XL. Not Told by Diana
XLI. Diana's Story
XLII. Diana's Story
XLIII. Diana's Story
XLIV. Not Told by Diana
XLV. Diana's Story
XLVI. Not Told by Diana
FOR A WOMAN'S SAKE.
CHAPTER I
DIANA'S STORY.
"Here comes Diana of the Ephesians! Ask her what the thinks!"
I, Diana Carew, am the person thus apostrophized. The speaker is my
only brother, Wyndham--commonly called Curly--Carew. The third
person is my father,--God bless him! A dearer, kinder father never
breathed.
He smiles, and lays his hand on my shoulder, as having deposited my
burden--a jet-black kitten and a creamy-white one--one on each of
Curly's shoulders, I seat myself on his knee.
"Read that, Di," he says, putting into my hand a heavily-crested and
monogramed envelope, directed in a lady-like hand to Wyndham Carew,
Esq.
With eager curiosity I take out the note it contains, and read as
follows:
"DEAR MR. CAREW,--
"We really cannot allow you to condemn your pretty daughter"--(I feel
flattered, and blush a little: it is not often I have that adjective
applied to me.)
"Aha, Miss Vanity!" cries Curly, "I see the rose come to your damask
cheek at the soft impeachment. Proceed, _pretty daughter_."
"Don't interrupt her, Curly."
--"To the hermit's life," I read on, "you persist in leading
yourself,--much to the regret and disappointment of your neighbors."
"Who is this polite lady?" I inquire, referring to the end of the
note. "Oh, Mrs. Warrington!"
"We have some friends coming to us on New Year's Day, and if you,
with your son and daughter, will spend a few days here, we shall be
delighted to see you all. We hope to prevail upon you to join us;
but, if you are as resolute as usual in declining all invitations, do
not deprive us of the pleasure of seeing your young people. Mr.
Warrington has still some fair shooting left, if that will be any
inducement to you personally; and he bids me say he will mount your
son as often as he likes. Tell Miss Carew we shall have a little
dancing, and, I hope, some other amusements for the young ladies. I
warn you I do not intend to take any refusal as far as she is
concerned; and if you do not yield at once to my request, I shall
come over and press it personally.
"Mr. Warrington joins me in kindest regards, and believe me, dear Mr.
Carew,
"Very sincerely yours,
"GEORGIANA WARRINGTON."
My eyes glisten, the color deepens in my face as I read, and when I
have finished I look up eagerly in my father's face.
"Well, my dear" (his kind eyes shining tenderly upon me), "what do
you say?"
"Oh, papa, _could_ we go?"
"I suppose you would like it very much?"
"Oh!" (with a great sigh, which, if it expresses what I feel, must
speak volumes).
"If you do not, people will think I am a tyrannical old ogre, who
keeps you shut up like the fathers in story-books."
"Oh, dad, do let us go!" cries Curly, with enthusiasm. "It will be
such glorious fun!--and old Warrington has such splendid horses.
_I'll_ show them the way!" (his blue eyes flashing with delight at
the bare thought of hunting on one of Mr. Warrington's mounts).
"My dear fellow, suppose you staked or broke the back or threw one of
his two-hundred-guinea hunters! How would you feel?"
"Never fear, dad: I'll be as steady as old Time."
"Well," says papa, thoughtfully, "if you are both so anxious, I do
not see any very important objection to your going."
"But you will go too?" we both cry, in a breath.
He shakes his head, and sighs a little.
"No, children, my visiting days are over, and you know I do not care
to accept kindnesses I cannot return."
"Then _I_ shall not go,--that is very certain," I say, decisively,
but with a little swelling of disappointment in my throat.
"Nor I," adds Curly, in a dejected tone.
Our father looks at us both with a fond smile.
"What! do you think I am not to be trusted by myself for a few days?"
he asks, putting a hand on each of our shoulders. "Mrs. Warrington
is quite right. I must not keep Di shut up forever. It is time she
came out; and I do not know any one under whose auspices I should
better like her to do so than Mrs. Warrington's. Why, how old are
you, Di? Seventeen?"
"Eighteen last month, papa, you know," I answer, reproachfully. "But
I shall _not_ go without you. I shouldn't care the _least_ for it.
And, besides," as a sudden and most important reflection occurs to
me, "_I have nothing to go in._"
"Beauty unadorned's adorned the most," spouts Curly. "Thank Heaven!"
(grandly), "those considerations don't affect me!"
"Ah!" says my father, ruefully, "I forgot that. To be sure, that is
a very important point. And I suppose" (looking at me inquiringly)
"ladies' dress is a tremendous business in the present day."
"Oh, yes," I reply, cheerfully, having quite made up my mind now to
the impossibility of going. "Miss Pratt told me that when she was at
Lady Gwyneth Desborough's for three days, the ladies changed their
dresses four times a day, and had different ones every day."
"Indeed!" says papa, smiling. "But I do not suppose you would be
expected to dress like Lady Gwyneth, though I hardly fancy she had
many more dresses than you have, before she married poor little
Desborough."
"Well," I reply, with more emphasis than elegance, "I would rather go
about in a cotton gown all my life than have married _him_!"
"Oh, he isn't a bad little chap," remarks Curly, "if he wasn't so
dreadfully ashamed of the shop, and so fond of talking about his
father-in-law the earl."
"But, Di," puts in my father, "you must have one or two dresses, I
suppose. You always seem to me" (doubtfully) "to look very nice."
I shake my head.
"Only this," pointing to my well-worn serge, "and an old black silk
for Sundays, that has been turned twice, and a white muslin, so
shrunk that the body wouldn't meet last time it came from the wash.
No" (with mournful emphasis), "it is very certain I cannot go to Mrs.
Warrington's."
"Oh, dear!" cries Curly, ruefully, "what a selfish beggar I have
been, running the Dad up such tailors' bills at Eton, and all the
time poor little Di has had to do without."
"Why, Curly," I respond, quickly, "what in the world do I want with
clothes here? And if you were different from the other boys--I mean
fellows--at Eton, it would never do."
"Come," says my father, "it's not too late now. Gay and you must lay
your heads together and see what can be done. I think I have a
ten-pound note somewhere, and I suppose if you had a dress for the
day, and another for the evening, that would do just for a few days."
"Ten pounds!" I cry. The idea of spending such a sum all at once
upon my dress seems preposterous. "But I am not going. Curly can
go; you and I will stop at home together, papa, and be as happy
as--as----"
"As what?" asks papa, smiling.
"As anything," I respond, lamely, not finding a suitable, comparison.
"Now, I have made up my mind that you shall both go," says my father,
"so I shall proceed to my room and write to Mrs. Warrington that you
and Curly will be there on New Year's Day. And you, Di, go and
consult with Gay; you have a fortnight before you to prepare."
"Papa," I say, obstinately, "I will _not_ go. I do not care about
it; indeed I do not."
"You will be a good, obedient little daughter, and do as I tell you,"
he answers, going off to write the letter, and leaving me irresolute
and uncomfortable in my mind.
"Curly," I say, appealing distressedly to my brother, "I _can't_--I
_won't_ go, and leave papa."
"Nonsense, Di! the Dad will be happy enough. You'll have to leave
him some day, when you get married."
"Get married!" I retort, in exceeding scorn. "Yes, a great deal of
chance of that! Why" (reflecting), "I don't suppose I've spoken to a
man--a gentleman, at least--since I was grown up."
"What, not old Stiggins?"
"Don't speak disrespectfully of your spiritual pastors and masters,
sir; but I don't call him a man."
"Ho, ho! I wonder which he would call the most disrespectful?--you
or I?"
"Well" (sighing), "I will go and talk to Gay. Oh, Curly! don't pull
Othello's tail."
Othello is the black kitten; the white one rejoices in the name of
Desdemona.
"I'll come too." And he marches off to the housekeeper's room, by
courtesy, where Gay, our faithful old nurse and general factotum,
sits darning stockings for the million.
Curly throws open the door.
"Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,"
he commences, in a loud and important voice, "having for some time
past remarked a dearth of beauty about the court, and hearing that,
in the wilds of Blankshire, there blooms unseen an exquisite creature
of the name of Diana Carew, hereby intimate that her presence is
forthwith commanded at Buckingham Palace; which being interpreted, my
dear old Susannah, means that Di is going to pay a swell visit, and
that you have to set about providing her with a suitable wardrobe."
"What ever does the boy mean?" cries Gay, bewildered, looking up at
us over her spectacles.
"What I say, O unbelieving Jewess," dragging her work from her
surprised hands and shying it to the farther corner of the room.
"Away with melancholy!--away with worsted stockings! From henceforth
Diana will walk in silk attire,--will captivate the heart of some
lord of high degree, and restore the shattered fortunes of the house
of Carew." And Curly, in the blitheness of his young heart, hugs his
old nurse, to the great detriment of her cap-strings.
She tries to look angry and to expostulate, but who can be angry with
Curly? Of all the cheery faces, of all the beaming blue eyes brimful
of laughter, of all the curly golden locks whence he gets his
sobriquet, there are none to equal those of my young brother; and,
more than that, he has the sweetest disposition and the kindest heart
in the world. If he is a little aggravating sometimes, I should like
to know what a boy is worth whose animal spirits do not run away with
him now and then.
"Now, Miss Di, my dear, do you tell me what it's all to do with,"
says Gay, apostrophizing me in despair of getting any rational answer
out of her pet,--for Curly is her pet without a shadow of doubt, and
I don't know that I am very jealous of her preference. Don't we all
pet and adore him?
"We are invited to Warrington Hall," I answer, "and papa wishes us to
go; he won't go himself."
"Oh, my dear, what _will_ you do for clothes?" cries practical Gay,
at once closing with the obstacle that had only been an after-thought
with me.
"Papa has offered to give me ten pounds; but what is the use of
wasting _all_ that money in clothes?" I say, lugubriously. "After
all, I don't suppose I should enjoy going to Warrington very much. I
think I'll run down and ask papa to decline for me."
"Rash girl, forbear!" cries Curly, catching me by the arm, and
striking a tragic attitude. "I've made up my mind you _shall_ go,
and I prophesy you will meet my future brother-in-law, who will be
rich, and who will mount me and give me shooting, pay my debts, and,
in short, make himself a convenience to me generally. You know, Di"
(holding me at arm's length and looking critically at me), "though I
say it who shouldn't, you're not altogether what one would call an
ugly girl; rather the other way.
Your hair is like the raven's wing,
Your brown eyes flash like anything.
Hold on I till I get two more lines to rhyme.
Your pearly teeth and coral lip,
And nose just turned up at the tip,
I end, laughing.
"By jingo, that makes a complete portrait: don't it, Susannah, my
dear?"
"Well, Master Curly, _I_ don't see that her nose turns up at the tip.
I'm sure a straighter one----"
"Now, Gay," I cry, rudely breaking in upon her defense of my
appearance, "never mind my nose, but let's think of what I am to
wear, if I do go after all."
"I suppose ten pounds wouldn't buy a velvet gown, would it?" asks
Curly, doubtfully.
"A velvet gown!" I laugh. "A nice matronly old person you would make
of me!"
"Indeed," he retorts, "I can tell you Archdale's sisters both have
velvet gowns, and they are younger than you,--at least, one of them
is; but," dropping his voice, "he told me they cost five-and-twenty
guineas each."
"Well," I return, with some contempt, "I am not Archdale's sister,
and if I had twenty-five guineas I think I could employ them better."
"Di," says Curly, laying a hand on my shoulder, "I don't think you'll
find ten pounds go quite so far as you think, and" (blushing a
little) "if you should want any more I have a fiver that I've been
saving up and haven't any very particular use for."
For answer I throw my arms round his neck and give him a fervent hug,
whilst Gay contemplates us both with an expression of beatitude,
murmuring,--
"Lord bless the dear children!"