NOT TOLD BY DIANA.
As Hector rode home, he felt that all pleasure in life, all love of
it, was gone from him. Until now he had always had hope, however dim
or vague, that Diana would be his one day; now he realized fully the
futility of his dreams. In one hour's time, life had grown black and
bitter: it held nothing for him in the future that he valued. Many a
boy in his passionate disappointment has felt the same, and in a
month's time has laughed again and gone about the world with a very
cheery comfortable interest in it; but this would not be the case
with Hector. He was not reckless or impulsive; he knew his own mind;
having lost the one woman whom he loved, no other could ever take her
place. There might be a thousand more made after the same external
pattern, women with bright eyes, sweet red lips, and gracious ways,
but there was only one Diana Carew for him. He had never loved or
much desired any other woman; this one possessed all his heart. And
she had tossed it lightly, nay, contemptuously, away.
For a few hours he kept up bravely. He dined with his mother, talked
to her cheerfully, as though to-day had been as commonplace as other
days, read or seemed to read the papers as usual while she dozed, and
kissed her with the wonted affectionate kiss when she retired for the
night. He too went to his room, and there he laid his arms on the
table, and, burying his face in them, sobbed--not like a child, as
the common phrase runs, but--as only a stern grown man can sob, and
he, if God is merciful to him, but once in a lifetime. It was his
farewell to love, to hope, to life, all but the mere mechanical
every-day part of it. What should he do? he asked himself; if he
stayed on here alone, with all the huge long hours in which to eat
his heart out in vain regrets, he should go mad. Then he formed a
bitter resolve. How many a time had he not heard of men going to the
devil when overtaken by grievous disappointment, and coming back
after a time the worse perhaps in health and pocket, but tolerably
cured of their heart-aches, anyhow with the wounds cauterized. He
had never been a saint; he had as much of earthly alloy as most men,
not bad men, have; but he had never loved vice for its own sake, had
always had a healthy disgust for its grossness and coarseness; but
now he meant to fly to its foul waters for the nepenthe without which
he needs must die or lose his reason. He was going to try
dissipation, like a man of sober, temperate habits might toss off
glass after glass of brandy as an antidote to the agonies of
neuralgia. So he went, and returned a fortnight later in the state a
man of his temperament would naturally do, his nerves unstrung, his
whole soul filled with unutterable loathing and horror of himself and
all connected with his moral experiment. He had a new remedy in view
now. He longed for death as men long "after hid treasures," but he
would not take his life with his own hand; that would be unmanly,
that would stain his ancient name with dishonor. But there were
other means. He took to hunting every day when there was a meet
within twenty miles. He had always been a fair rider, now he became
a desperate one,--rode as straight as a die; no place was too big or
too ugly for him. The best riders in the field looked askance at
him. "By Jove!" said one to another, "one would think a fellow who
has just come in to a title and such a property as Montagu would set
a little more value on his life. Hang me, if one wouldn't think the
fellow wanted to break his neck!"
And of course, as it always happens when a man burns to shake off
life, it clings all the stronger in him. Sir Hector came scathless
out of his rides for death, without a bruise or a scratch: he seemed
to bear a charmed life. And he would come home worn out and sleep
for hours from sheer exhaustion, and then, as regularly as the hour
of two came round, he would wake up, and be delivered over to his
tormentor,--memory. He tried to read, but Diana's eyes looked out at
him from the pages; try as he might, he could not escape her. And in
the morning he would come down white, wild, haggard-looking, and, if
it was a hunting-day, would mount his horse, or, if not, would go
over his farms, or take a gun and walk twenty miles after birds; but
his hand and eye were unsteady, and he did not often hit anything
now. When he did, he felt an unsportsmanlike feeling of regret, and
would take the dead bird in his hand, smooth the ruffled feathers
gently, and say, "I might have left the life in you, since you
enjoyed it. I wish to God you were alive again, and I was dead!"
His mind had quite lost the strong, firm balance which it had
possessed formerly in a greater degree than most men's.
Lady Montagu was away for a few weeks at Hastings, to get over the
worst of the winter, but she was coming home for Christmas, which
would soon be here now. Simkins remarked with genuine distress the
change in his master, and confided his doubts and fears to Mrs.
Bishop, the comely housekeeper, with whom, at no very far distant
date, he contemplated setting up the "Montagu Arms." With the
penetration of her sex, she made a very good guess at the cause of
the change in Sir Hector, and was not long in bringing Simkins round
to her own view of the case.
"Oh, woman! woman!" he said, apostrophizing the sex in general, and
Mrs. Bishop in particular, "what you has to answer for! Not but what
I must say, if there is to be a new Lady Montagu, there's no one I
would like to see occupying the place better than Miss Carew."
"Tut!" answered Mrs. Bishop, huffily; "we don't want no more
mistresses here than my lady."
Sir Hector had always made a point of going to church on Sunday
mornings; not that he took any particular pleasure in it, but because
he considered it right for the sake of example. He found it
wearisome work sometimes listening to the vicar's platitudes. In his
heart he was skeptically inclined, like many intellectual men, and
insisted on bringing revelation to the test of reason. At home,
however, and in his own parish, he eschewed all argument on
theological subjects, and, for aught any one at Alford knew to the
contrary, his religious convictions were as deep and sincere as those
of the vicar himself. In church he behaved with the decorum and
propriety of a gentleman: who was to know that one half the time he
was indignantly refuting to himself the axioms delivered from
reading-desk and pulpit, and the other half thinking of utterly
irrelevant subjects? He had great ideas of consistency, too: it
seemed a monstrous absurdity, not to say crime, to pray to God on a
Sunday to deliver you from sins that you had the fullest intention of
committing probably the very next week. He steadfastly refused to
"eat and drink his own damnation" by communicating whilst his life
was still impure. This was the only religious exercise of which he
seemed outwardly unobservant. But in the future's happy vistas he
had dreamed of a time when all this would be changed, when his life
would be pure without effort, when he would banish all doubts from
his heart, and, kneeling beside the woman he loved, would, with a
glad heart, also offer up ungrudgingly his prayer and praise.
There are very few men who do not look for and respect piety in a
woman: even a bad man is shocked by irreligion or flippant sneers at
virtue from a woman's lips. Hector had watched Diana in church with
stealthy and secret gladness,--had gazed at her sweet serious face,
listened to her devout utterances, longed for her dear sake to be
better, and looked forward to the time when she, by her example and
influence, should lead him too heavenwards. And now all these hopes
were shattered in the dust, and there was nothing left for him but to
"curse God and die." How could he pray to a God who had decreed the
utter ruin and blasting of his life? how love him as a Father who
would not willingly afflict, when he had laid this crushing misery
upon him? And between him and heaven now there was a great gulf
fixed,--the gulf of deliberate sin. But, though he had ceased even
formally to utter a prayer, he nevertheless went to church,--partly
from habit, partly from a sense of responsibility, and chiefly to get
rid of two hours of the weary Sabbath. The Sunday before
Christmas-day he went as usual. A stranger was doing duty, and
Hector prepared himself to listen with a shade more interest than
usual to the sermon. It was no marvel of oratory or elocution,--a
few plain words, plainly spoken; but they gave Hector the idea of a
new weapon wherewith to repel the enemy that beset him in the night
and in the noonday. The preacher was quite a young man, nothing much
to look at, but he had that most excellent gift in a preacher, the
art, whether it was art or not, of making his hearers feel that he
was thoroughly in earnest. Moreover, he knew when to stop: he did
not fatigue his already half-weary congregation with a lengthy
discourse. His sermon occupied just thirteen minutes by the clock in
the organ-gallery, and when he had made his point he concluded. Some
such words as these they were:
"Which among us has led a life so charmed that there has not entered
into it a bitter grief and disappointment? And here to-day, I doubt
not, there are hearts which are troubled, sorrowful, perhaps
despairing. And to those hearts I speak now. I say to them, have
you ever tried prayer? I do not mean the morning and even prayers
that you gabble through by rote, prayers many of them set and formal
ones for things which perhaps you do not want,--but prayer, the very
outpouring of your souls, the prayer you would pray on your knees
with all the intensity your voice and heart could command if you were
asking the life of one you loved better than yourself, of an earthly
sovereign or judge. If you have, I will answer for it that you never
pleaded to my Master in vain. I do not say that he saw fit to give
you the thing for which you asked: in your blindness you may have
asked something which, had it been granted, would have been your
curse instead of your blessing; but you have gained peace, strength,
courage; you have been able to say, afterwards, 'It is better if the
will of God be so.' If you have never tried it,--if you have said to
yourself, 'What does God care? he will not trouble himself to look
down upon my wants and sufferings,' or if you have thought, 'God must
hate me, because I have led a wicked life: I dare not approach him,'
here, now, in his name I bid you shake off all doubt and fear.
Prayer is the talisman against misery. Go to him; go in secret,
where no disturbing thoughts from the outside world can beset you,
and there pour out all your soul to him as you have never yet done to
God or man; strive as Jacob strove when he cried out in his anguish,
'I will not let thee go except thou bless me,' and I, the humblest of
his ministers, will answer for my great Lord and Master that he who
goes unto him humbly, sincerely, urgently, shall in no wise be cast
out."
There was no grandeur or even originality in the words; the speaker
was commonplace enough, but his eyes kindled as he uttered them, his
voice trembled with strong feeling, and, as he spoke, there was such
intense conviction in his utterance that no one could think he was
preaching a remedy whose efficacy he had not himself proved.
Hector, whose heart was hardened like the nether millstone, said to
himself, as he walked home, "I too will try if there is balm in his
Gilead." And he who had not knelt in sincere prayer to God since he
was a youth, shut himself in his room and prayed with wild intensity.
But he rose from his knees cold, unconscious of any response to his
agony of entreaty. He had but beaten the air with vain and empty
words.
But had he prayed aright? He had not besought resignation, or
submission, or the power to get good out of what seemed evil: he
prayed that the woman he longed for might be his, or that he might
forget her. He felt as though God were angry with him and would not
hear him. Who were those, he wondered bitterly, who had tried the
paths of sin and found them fair and flowery? Apples of the Dead
Sea, that filled the mouth with gall-bitter ashes, they had been to
him. Then, since vice was hateful and virtue impossible, what should
he do but die? The next two days he rode harder than ever: his
favorite hunter was killed, but he got off, as usual, without a
scratch.
On the third day Lady Montagu returned. She was positively
frightened at the change in her son as he helped her out of the
carriage. "My dear boy," she cried, anxiously, "what is the matter
with you? Why did you not send for me before?"
"Matter!" he answered, laughing a laugh that sounded painfully hollow
and unmirthful. "What should be the matter? I am as well as ever I
was in my life. Why, mother, you look as scared as if you had seen a
ghost."
She put her hand on his arm and went with him to her boudoir.
"Hector," she said, when they were alone, with a searching glance
into his eyes, "something must ail you, or you could not be so
changed in a month."
"I expect," he answered, with a bitter laugh, "that you have come
straight from the sight of your handsome son, and had forgotten how
ugly I was."
Lady Montagu looked at him in unfeigned painful amazement. He was
never wont to speak bitterly to her.
"The truth is," he said, changing his tone, "I have been hunting a
good deal lately. You see, there is not a great deal of excitement
in this lively place, and I expect it has taken it out of me a
little." Then he added, abruptly, "Perhaps I may as well make all my
confession at once, to save you the trouble of worming it out of me
by degrees. I asked Miss Carew again, and she refused me."
Lady Montagu looked at him with all her mother's love yearning out of
her wet gray eyes. If perhaps she had loved her bright handsome son
the best in fair days, in the dark ones her heart went out to the one
in trouble, as the mother's heart always does.
"My poor boy!" she said, softly, clasping his hands tenderly in hers.
And, but for the shame of it, the stern man would fain have laid his
grieved head upon that tender breast, and poured his bitter pain into
the loving, listening ear, as he had done long years ago in his
childhood.
But now he drew himself away, and said, huskily, "God bless you,
mother! I know you are sorry for me; but, if you love me, never
speak of it again! Men get over these things," he added, with a
smile so wan it almost broke her heart to see.
She said not another word, but as she watched him all that evening
her anxiety deepened: she felt there must be something physically as
well as mentally amiss, to make his face so drawn and sharp, his eyes
so hollow and sunken, his usually firm strong hands so shaking and
nervous. The next day she sent a note to the doctor, who, as is not
unseldom the case, was also the tried and trusted friend of the
family.
"Come and dine with us in a friendly way to-night," she wrote.
"There is something very wrong with Hector."
Mr. Benyon was shrewd, kindly, practical: under his auspices Hector
and his brother had gone through the infantine troubles that were
then considered _de rigueur_, had won their interested affections by
prescribing nice instead of nasty remedies when they were ill, and by
romping with them when they got well again; and the liking had not
slackened when they grew to men. He often dined at the Court, and
was always a welcome guest. On this occasion, though his dining was
no unusual event, Hector understood perfectly that he had been sent
for on his account. But he made no sign, and received the doctor
with his usual cordial courtesy. When Lady Montagu left them after
dinner, Mr. Benyon continued to sip his wine with his wonted
enjoyment, talked about sport, local matters, and so forth. All the
same he was watching his companion narrowly. He observed his
restlessness, saw how little he ate, how hurriedly and without any
pleasure he gulped down his wine, as a man might swallow a soothing
draught. He saw how sunken his eyes were, how livid the lines
underneath them, how his cheeks were sunken and his lips so parched
and dry he had frequently to moisten them. The doctor did not like
the look of him. He said to himself, shrewdly, "There's a woman at
the bottom of this, I suspect, or he's taken to gambling: most
probably the former." It was no good to lead up gently to the
subject, he concluded. Hector was not easy to tackle. So, suddenly,
without any preface, he said, looking hard at him, with his glass
midway back from his mouth to the table,--
"There's something wrong with you, my friend: you want a little of my
advice."
"What a penetrating fellow you are, Benyon!" returned Hector, with a
mirthless laugh. "Of course my mother didn't put you up to this?"
"It don't want much putting up to," answered the other, bluntly. "Do
you happen to have looked in the glass lately? I suppose I might ask
the usual question, 'Who is she?' though it's nothing to my purpose
to know; but, rather, what the deuce has she been doing to you?"
"Who can minister to a mind diseased?" said Hector, wearily.
"I can, to a certain extent. Keep your digestion right, eat more,
drink less, and get as much exercise and fresh air as you can."
"I've hunted five and six days for the last three weeks, and have
been in the saddle, on an average, eight hours out of every
twenty-four."
"The deuce you have! If you go on like that, you'll knock yourself
up completely. You're not used to so much of it; and in your present
state it is likely to do you a great deal more harm than good. Try
something else; get some one to lend you a yacht, and go off to the
Mediterranean."
Hector laughed a harsh grating laugh.
"Rare good thing, the deck of a yacht, when you want to get out of
yourself! Try again, Benyon."
The doctor rose, and came round to where Hector was sitting.
"My pulse, eh?" (anticipating him). "There you are; and my tongue is
quite at your service."
Mr. Benyon sat down in front of him, looking grave, and said,
quietly,--
"This won't do: you can't stand this sort of game much longer."
"No," replied Hector, coolly: "I shall be in the lake with the carp,
or in a lunatic-asylum."
"I should not wonder," said Benyon, calmly. "Your nerves are
unstrung, your brain is over-excited, and both are acting most
injuriously on your stomach."
"My dear fellow, I am as wise as that myself. There is only one
chance for me: give me of the waters of Lethe. I haven't tried that
yet. Your chloral and morphia will poison me quicker than brandy: so
much the better."
"There is something you want more than drugs or opiates."
"And that is?"
"A little common sense. Why, what the deuce!" cried the doctor,
warmly, "a cool-headed, sensible fellow like you to let anything
bring you to this state! I couldn't have believed it of you."
"Could you not? Suppose, now" (with suppressed fire), "that you
loved a woman to madness and felt you could not live without her: how
would you cure yourself of your passion?"
"How?" answered Benyon, promptly. "Why, marry her if she were
single, or run away with her if she were married."
"Ay, but suppose she was free, and yet no earthly means, neither
love, mercy, nor pity, would make her consent to be yours?"
"Then I would forget her," rejoined the doctor, stoutly.
"If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she he?"
"But if you can't!" cried Hector, passionately. "You say I am a
cool-headed, sensible fellow: do you suppose I haven't tried? Tried!
good God! what have I not tried? perpetual motion, excess,--in short"
(laughing harshly), "all the good old approved remedies for the
disease."
"And that is precisely the way you've brought yourself to your
present condition. Now, I don't want to frighten you, but it's my
duty to tell you the plain truth: if you go on like this you'll bring
on paralysis or softening of the brain. You must make an effort to
shake it off. Occupy your mind with something, no matter what; take
a fair amount of exercise, without overdoing it; and, above all,
beware of stimulants. I only wish," said Benyon, smiling and laying
a kind hand on his shoulder, "I could cure you right off by giving
you the young lady; only perhaps the remedy might be worse than the
disease."
"The girl I love is an angel," said Hector, fiercely, "and I would
give every acre of Alford to possess her."
"I talked in that way once," remarked the doctor, ruefully. Report
said his lady had been a beauty and a temper. It said, furthermore,
that when the former attribute departed it left the latter in greater
force than ever.