NOT TOLD BY DIANA.
Diana is awake early next morning: indeed, she has not passed a very
tranquil night. A great crisis in her life has come; but what lies
beyond? She hardly dares to think: fain would she content herself
with the present, but the thought of what is to follow will creep in.
She had imagined for the minute, whilst the man she loved was at her
side, that she could live for all time on that memory; and yet
already she is hankering and longing to see him again, and thinking
how blank and void to-day will be without him. She hears the sound
of wheels, and springs out of bed. She can just catch a glimpse of
the dog-cart, and the horse pawing and scraping the ground. A minute
later she hears the sound of Captain Montagu's voice, and cranes her
neck eagerly behind the blind to get one more glimpse of him. _His_
face is not pale nor haggard, as, somehow, she half expects to see
it, as hers is, unless her mirror tells a false tale; he looks cheery
and _debonnair_, and gives a pleasant farewell smile and nod to
Simkins who comes out to wish him God-speed. His portmanteau and bag
are in, he lights a cigar, takes the reins, jumps in, and--is gone.
Gone! Diana feels acutely at this moment how much of pain one little
four-lettered word can hold. She whispers it painfully to herself
over and over again, Gone from her forever! Will he remember her?
Will he think longingly, lingeringly, as she does, over last night's
scene?--or is it only a repetition, with a trifling variation, of
scenes that he has gone through many a time before? Why, why did he
make that hateful speech?--why tell her he could never be alone with
a woman without making love to her? And was it always the same,--the
man in play, the woman in earnest? A passage from Madame de Staël
will haunt her: "_L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes cest un
épisode dans celle des hommes_." Over and over again it repeats
itself as she plaits her long hair and dresses tardily for
breakfast,--breakfast that was so cheery yesterday, that will be so
dull, she thinks, sighing, to-day. It is a bright, warm day again:
she wishes it were stormy and wet; she would rather hear the wind
howling dismally in the wide chimney, and the rain pattering against
the window-panes: it would be far more in consonance with her
feelings.
"I cannot stay here any longer," she says to herself. "I will write
to-day and tell papa that he _must_ send for me home."
Sir Hector is short and snappish with her this morning: evidently he
is ill pleased at her defalcation the previous evening; but his son
tries by every means in his power to make things pleasant.
"Will you ride this morning?" he asks her. "There is a charming ride
for a sunny morning that I have not yet taken you,--all through shady
lanes and a delicious wood."
Sha shivers a little at the last word, but tries to smile as she
assents to his proposal. Yes, she will like to ride very much.
Anything for a change; anything to take her out of herself. Hector
feels, and is, quite another man this morning: the nightmare of his
brother's presence being removed, he can smile and be genial again,
and the ugly curves about his mouth shrink away to nothing. It is a
morning to make any one blithe who has the faintest, smallest reason
for being glad; it is a morning to break the heart of any one who has
a secret sorrow gnawing at his breast. When nature is so passing
fair and one is at discord with her, at discord with happiness, what
is her loveliness but "sweet bells jangled out of tune"?
Is this grave silent maiden, who forces a little pale smile in answer
when he speaks to her, the joyous laughing Diana of three days ago?
so full of life and spirits that she would have let him make love to
her had he willed it, out of sheer high spirits and the pleasure of
life? He will be very patient with her, but as they ride along he
falls to wondering what charm his brother possesses for winning
smiles and gay glad words from every woman he comes across.
"I never in my life heard him say anything that was not utterly
commonplace," he thinks. "Are women, even good women, really so
shallow as to be caught by a merely handsome face and a trick of
manner?"
"What did you do yesterday?" he asks, abruptly,--so abruptly that the
quick color rushes uncontrollably through her fair face.
"How you startle one!" she says, with some pettishness.
"Did I?" he replies, penitently. "I am very sorry. I am afraid I am
rather a bear."
"Not that," she says, recovering herself; "but you are silent for a
long time, and then you burst out suddenly upon one in a way that
takes one's breath away."
"Do I?" he exclaims, eagerly. "I am so sorry,--awfully sorry, as the
correct phrase is now. But," returning to his former question, "what
_did _you do yesterday?"
"I don't know" (carelessly): "nothing, I think,--pottered about the
garden."
"Is that all?"
"Do you insist upon the minutest details?" she asks, with a look he
does not quite comprehend.
"I don't insist on anything," he rejoins, with some coldness.
"After breakfast I sang for an hour; then we went into the garden and
sat under a tree, and your brother caught three carp."
She does not tell him how; and he chooses to imagine, not being a
fisherman, nor knowing the exceeding difficulty of catching those
wily fish with fly or worm, that Captain Montagu angled for them in
the usual manner, "a worm at one end of the rod, a fool at the
other." He reflects to himself with inward satisfaction that fishing
and love-making are two things that do not go very well together.
"And after that?"
"After that" (averting her face and pulling leaves off the
low-hanging boughs within her reach), "oh, after that we strolled
into the wood to look at the primroses and hyacinths. Have you seen
them?--they are exquisite. I never saw so many together before."
"Will you show them to me?" he asks, bending a little towards her;
but they have emerged into the open, and she puts her horse into a
canter without answering. Go there with him! not for worlds! is it
not sacred to a memory? Let no unhallowed feet profane its precincts.
When they reach home, Diana finds Lady Montagu in the drawing-room.
Is it her fancy, or is the kiss my lady bestows upon her a shade less
warm and her manner a little less affectionate than usual?
"She is angry with me because her favorite son has gone," Diana
thinks, forlornly. "Why does she not blame the right person for
sending him away?--am I not tenfold more grieved than she? As long
as she lives, he will always be the same to her, and now" (tears
rising at the thought) "he is never to be anything more to me." She
takes her embroidery, and the two ladies work assiduously: very
little conversation passes between them. After lunch they drive
together, but still Diana feels painfully that she is under a cloud.
The only thing that could have consoled her would be to hear Captain
Montagu's mother speak of him, and she has never even so much as
mentioned his name. Well, she will be back at the dear old home
soon: why did she ever leave it? She has written to her father
telling him that she is home-sick, and that she _will positively_
return home the next day but one following. He must write her by
return of post summoning her back, but, if not, why, she will go
without; but in any case _she will go home_. This is an unusual
display of willfulness for Miss Diana; but then it is a very unusual
occasion. All through the drive she is thinking how she will broach
the subject to her hostess (the letter is safely on its way by now);
at last she says, rushing at her subject,--
"I fear I must be leaving you very soon, Lady Montagu. I have had
a--a delightful visit; but papa will be missing me sadly, and I quite
expect a summons" (feeling guilty), "perhaps to-morrow or the next
day."
"My dear, you must not think of it," answers my lady, with her old
kind manner. "What should we do without you? I, for one, cannot
spare you. Sir Hector will be quite lost without his chess; and as
for Hector----"
"I think you could all do better without me than papa," interrupts
Diana; "though it is very kind of you to say you will miss me."
"But, my dear," says Lady Montagu, with a pleasant smile, "your papa
will have to spare you altogether some day; and it is better to
accustom him to the idea by degrees."
"He will never have to spare me for long," answers Diana, heaving a
great sigh, but speaking in a resolute tone so unusual to her that
Lady Montagu looks askance at her.
"Young girls always talk like that," she says, but lets the subject
drop. Later in the day she tells Hector what has passed. She has
sent for him to her boudoir, and he has answered the summons in haste.
He looks bitterly pained.
"Oh, mother!" he says, at last, "why of all days should you have had
a headache on that one unlucky day?"
"My dear," answers Lady Montagu, softly, "I think you take alarm too
easily. I do not imagine Diana can be so foolish as to think
anything of Charlie. I am sure she is too lady-like and right-minded
to care for a man who has not given her any encouragement."
"_Encouragement_! Grant me patience!" mutters Hector, in a fierce
_sotto voce_, turning sharply to the window.
"What did you say?" asks Lady Montagu, mildly, and he makes the
answer that people generally do when they say and mean a good deal.
"Nothing!"
"We know," proceeds my lady, gently, all unconscious of the daggers
she is planting in the heart of her first-born, "that Charlie has a
very winning manner; but no girl, I should hope, would be foolish
enough to construe his pleasant little caressing ways into any
serious intentions. He is the same to every woman, even to me"
(smiling a little), "your father says."
"You remember the old fable of the boys and the frog, mother," Hector
interrupts, roughly, unconsciously betraying the fear that he has
been chary of acknowledging even to himself. "What is play to you is
death to me."
"You do not think, really," says Lady Montagu, incredulously, "that
Diana has taken a serious fancy to Charlie?"
"Fancy!" murmurs Hector to himself; "ay, that is a good word to apply
to a woman's liking." Then, aloud,--
"I don't know what to think; my heart is so in this matter that I
have not the least chance of judging impartially. Mother"
(earnestly), "I have not courage to speak to her myself. I love her
so much that I am actually afraid of her. Will you not" (pleadingly)
"speak for me,--tell her how intensely I love her, and--and" (smiling
rather doubtfully) "say the best you can of me, mother? I don't
think I am the sort of fellow to take a girl's _fancy_,--that was the
word you used,--and yet we seemed to get on very well before--before
I went away. I had great hope of her that morning when she went to
the station with me."
"Of course, dear," Lady Montagu replies, nervously, "I will do
anything to contribute to your happiness; but" (smiling up in his
face) "I hardly think a mother is a good medium for a man's
love-making,--in this country, at all events. Why not tell her
yourself? Indeed it would come much better from you."
He shakes his head.
"I cannot; but you--at all events you can prepare her mind. Not
to-night,--somehow, I do not think she would take it so well
to-night,--but to-morrow. Don't refuse me, mother!"
His heart is in his voice, and so his mother consents so the
unthankful task. On the following afternoon, when she and Diana have
come in from their drive and are sitting together over their work,
Lady Montagu, with a little ruffled uncomfortable sensation at her
heart, broaches the theme.
"I shall be very lonely this time to-morrow," she says, gently,
lifting her sweet gray eyes from the gorgeous silks with which she is
embroidering a great damask rose; "that is, if you persist in leaving
us."
"You are very, very kind," Diana replies, answering the look with one
equally pleasant and affectionate; "and I shall miss you every bit as
much,--perhaps more. You know" (most unwittingly giving the very cue
that the other wants) "you are the first person who ever made me feel
the want of a mother."
"Come and sit by me," says Lady Montagu, holding out her hand; and
Diana, rising, crosses over and sits beside her on the sofa.
Lady Montagu takes one of her hands and strokes it softly.
"Let me be your mother in reality," she whispers, softly, looking in
Diana's face with kind, humid eyes. "Let me plead my son's cause
with you."
Diana's head droops: the tears are welling in her eyes too: what
would she ask better than to be daughter to so kind and sweet a
mother?--daughter, but not in the way she means. She is silent, but
her silence may signify anything, and Lady Montagu takes heart of
grace.
"Ever since Hector first saw you," she proceeds, still caressing the
slim white hand, "he has loved you,--devotedly. I never thought it
possible he could come to care so much for any one." In truth, his
worship of Diana has caused his mother much secret wonder. "Let me
give him good news: may I?" she urges. "I need not praise him to
you; you have seen how good, how noble-minded he is, and I feel sure
he would make you a devoted husband."
Diana looks up at last. She has been wanting all the time to stop
her friend, but has not known how.
"Don't think me ungrateful," she says, in a low, constrained voice.
"I feel deeply the--the honor and the kindness that you and--and Mr.
Montagu do me, but indeed" (turning away her head) "it is impossible
for me to think of him except as a friend."
"My love," cries Lady Montagu, feeling as if somehow she had
fulfilled her mission badly, "do not be in haste to decide. You are
such a child,--what are you? only eighteen,--he can afford to wait;
and in time--in time, I hope, you will think differently. Only,
pray, pray do not say positively that it is impossible: he would take
it so to heart. I have been a little too sudden: it _is_ rather
shocking to the feelings of a young girl to hear so solemn a subject
broached hastily. I remember quite well" (a pink blush rising in her
delicate face) "when there was first question of my marrying Sir
Hector, I could not bring myself all at once to the idea. Let me
tell him that you will think about it."
"No," Diana answers, in a low, firm voice; "it would only be
deceiving him. I like, I respect Mr. Montagu very much, but _I_
could not ever care for him enough to be his wife."
Lady Montagu, glancing at her, sees that she is not to be moved.
Ever so slight a feeling of anger at the rejection of her son creeps
into her kind heart.
"I think," she says, "it would be hardly possible for you to be so
decided in your refusal of my son unless there was some one else whom
you preferred. Perhaps there is already some one of whom we have not
heard, who----"
"No, no, no!" interrupts Diana, hastily, turning her head away to
hide the hot blushes that are dyeing her cheek.
"My love," whispers Lady Montagu, urged by a sudden impulse, "I may
be wrong--I hope I am, but I do trust" (very earnestly) "that you are
not allowing any thought of--of my younger son to interfere with your
happiness. It would be utterly impossible for him, with his
extravagant habits, to marry any but a rich woman; and--forgive my
saying so--that little manner of his which is so charming and
caressing does not really mean anything."
Diana rises suddenly and walks to the window, and as suddenly returns
and confronts Lady Montagu.
"I should be extremely sorry, Lady Montagu," she says, with great
spirit, "for you to labor under any erroneous impressions with regard
to my feelings for Captain Montagu. I have as little thought of
marrying your younger as your elder son!" And, flying off to her
room, she flings herself into a chair in a passion of tears.