DIANA'S STORY.
He is gone,--gone! and I am sitting at the window, in the full hot
sunshine, trying to think. Is it real? I pinch myself, as I have
read in books of people doing to make sure they are awake. That is
hardly a good test, though, for in some happy dreams I have similarly
assured myself of the reality of my own wakefulness. Well, there is
no mistake this time. I, Diana Carew, am in full wide-awake
possession of all the senses that have been bestowed upon me. I feel
the warm sunshine on my face and throat, I hear the sweet jubilance
of the birds and the sonorous hum of the big handsome bees, I see the
chestnut-tree that looks like a gigantic chandelier with its
thousands of wax candles, and the green fields yonder all golden with
buttercups, and I smell the heavy-scented azaleas, the lilacs, and
the wallflowers. And, since I last looked out, that has come to pass
which, in my wildest dreams of possible bliss, has never taken the
shape in which it comes real to me to-day. The man whom I have loved
with all my love, loved unswervingly in good report and evil report,
has come to me, come, not poor, with the thought of sacrificing
himself in coming, but gifted with many gifts. He has asked me to be
his wife, a fate than which none in this world can seem to me more
altogether blissful or to be desired. And yet I am not happy. Truly
there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. As my mind
shapes the sentence that the great humorist has made immortally
ridiculous, I cannot help thinking how Curly, a couple of years ago,
used to weary our ears with its constant iteration, notably, "And
though the Christy Minstrels never perform out of London, yet I am
not happy." I smile in memory of my boy, and then my thoughts return
to graver considerations.
I have let him go without satisfying myself on a hundred points.
Whilst he was with me, the joyful fact of his presence made me
oblivious of all else; but now that he is gone, and I can think
seriously, cruel doubts rise up and array themselves against me.
With their winged shafts they pierce every joint in the armor of my
loving confidence. How is it possible that he can have come to care
for me so suddenly, when last autumn he could treat me with
systematic indifference, even making love to another woman before my
eyes,--when in the preceding summer he could coldly avoid me and take
an interest in another man's love for me? Why, too, had he delayed
so long to come to me, when he was so near me? How could he go away
from me now and wish his proposal to be kept secret? The more I
think over it, the stronger grows the ugly doubt in my heart of his
love for me. He has come to-day under the influence of his regret
for his brother, to fulfill his last wish. At last I see how Hector
loved me, and a bitter yearning regret for him fills my heart. As a
mountain to a mole-hill, his love stands in comparison with
Charlie's. What greater proof of love could I have had than his
conquering the feeling that was the bitterest of his life,--the
thought of my being his brother's wife! At last, too late, I see the
full nobility and generosity of his character: what can I do now but
weep blinding tears of unavailing regret? And yet, could I summon
him back in the flesh, I know I could never have loved him with the
love he craved: to marry him would have been not one whit less a
sacrifice, from which I should have shrunk as much now as then.
But to have gained happiness, such happiness as I had never dreamed
of, and for the taste of it to be like ashes in my mouth! After long
and painful thought, I decide upon keeping the event of to-day a
secret even from papa; a painful prescience comes to me that this
happiness will never be fulfilled. So I content myself with telling
him that Sir Charles Montagu has been over to call, and, after a few
indifferent questions about him, papa drops the subject. There is
one great hope to which I cling; he will write to me, and in his
letters perhaps he will say something to satisfy my hungry heart.
A few days after our interview, his first letter comes. It is only a
short one, principally about his mother, and their plans for the
summer. It ends thus:
"Dearest, if you think this letter cold and indifferent, I have tried
to make it so. I feel as if we both owe it to Hector not to let
ourselves be happy and forget him yet."
As I read, my miserable unbelief in him grows stronger. _He does not
love me_. His is not a nature to be acted upon by any such scruples
as he pretends; the first element of his sensuous, indolent nature is
to indulge himself in everything that pleases him: if (and I go back
to the sentence of his which has always galled me so bitterly)--if he
could never be ten minutes alone with a woman without wanting to make
love to her, could he be cool and indifferent towards the woman he
really loved and meant to make his wife? My heart indignantly
rejects the idea.
"No, no, no! he does not love me!" I say to myself, bitterly, "any
more than he did last summer, last autumn." I do not answer his
letter; I cannot; what should I say?--but I dig a grave for my
new-born hopes, and give them decent burial, and try to smile, as if
all the joy and hope of my life were not buried with them. Yet
somewhere, as in Pandora's box, lying under all the doubts and fears
and miseries, there is a little winged Hope lying, that his presence
may kindle into life some day, if Fate be not too cruel. I do not
even conjecture how strong it is until, one morning a fortnight
later, a letter comes to me that slays it outright. The envelope is
directed in a strange hand: inside there are a few words in the same
writing, and inclosed is a letter from him. I read first the words
in the unknown hand; "The sender thinks it only fair to Miss Carew
that she should be made acquainted with the real state of Sir Charles
Montagu's feelings."
Then, trembling and heart-sick, I go to my own room, and, locking
myself in, read his letter twice over. This is it:
"MY DARLING,--
"After what has happened lately, how can I ever hope to make you
think kindly of me again? To profess my love for you, and then to
tell you I am going to marry another woman! But I promised my
brother,--I gave him my sacred word; and how dare I go back from a
promise made more sacred still by death? My own darling, I know you
do love me, unworthy though I am of your sweet love. The thought
that I shall never be anything more to you half breaks my heart. I
love you. I do not love her,--need I tell _you_ that? If I had
never given that hateful promise to Hector, we might have been so
awfully happy now! Only, if I marry her,--and I hardly see how I can
get out of it,--never think that I did not love you with all my heart
and soul, and would have asked no greater happiness than to have you
for my wife, if Fate had not been against us. She complains of my
being unloverlike; if she could only know how utterly unloverlike I
feel towards her! So, my darling,--for the last time I dare call you
so,--good-by, and may your lot be a happier one than that to which I
am miserably looking forward! C.M."
When I have read the letter twice through, I lay it down and lean my
head upon my hands. I feel stunned, as though some one had struck me
a heavy blow. One thought iterates itself again and again: Hector is
revenged,--Hector is revenged! Ay, had I treated him with the
wantonest, most heartless cruelty, had I laid myself out to win his
love and then spurned it, he would yet be amply, fully revenged. How
can we gauge our sorrows? I thought the hours when I believed my boy
dying, the bitterest ever given mortal soul to know; but the anguish
I feel now seems not less keen. To be spoken of by him with
shuddering dislike,--to have inspired in him nor love nor liking,--to
have been asked tardily, reluctantly to be his wife because he had
given his word to his brother! Oh, it was an easy task to give him
up for his own sake, that I might not mar his fortunes, when I
thought he had some little love for me; but now, to give him up to
another woman,--a woman he loves passionately,--loves as ardently as
he is indifferent to me!
"What have I done to deserve this misery?" I cry, beating my hands
together in an agony of pain and shame. "Oh, what have I done?--what
have I done?"
I push my hair off my brow, and rub my hands hard against it, to try
and still its throbbing. Is it like this, I wonder, that people
begin to go mad? If I could only get away somewhere! I cannot stay
in this place,--cannot go on leading this monotonous life. I will go
to papa and beg him to take me away at once,--I care not where, if
only it be a long, long way off. I am in a fever of impatience. I
do not even step to look at myself in the glass nor to smooth my
disheveled hair. I thrust the letter into my pocket and run swiftly
downstairs to his study. He looks up from his writing as I enter,
then, dropping his pen, cries,--
"Di, my child, what ails you?"
With an unconscious instinct I run to him, fling myself down before
him, and bury my head in his knees. His kind arms are round me, and
he murmurs, brokenly,--
"Poor little girl!--poor child!"
At his tender voice, at the sound of its great pity, I break into
tears and sohs and bitter crying. In all my life I have never cried
like this before.
And papa strokes my head, and presses my hands in his, and says, "For
God's sake, child, do not cry like this! My poor little girl, what
is it? What can I say to comfort you?"
I had not dreamed of this outburst. I meant to have come quietly and
said to him, "Papa, I am not happy. I want you to take me away
somewhere. Please do not ask me any questions;" but, somehow, at
sight of him, at the sound of his kind voice, I break down.
What shall I tell him? What account shall I give of my bitter pain
and grief?
He waits patiently as any woman until my sobs die away; then he
says,--
"Tell me about it, dear. What makes you unhappy?"
But I am silent. How can I tell him?
He waits yet a little, and then, stroking my head fondly says,--
"Am I not your father? Who can feel for your pain as I do? If your
mother were living, you would take your trouble to her; but, since
she is dead" (sighing), "let me be father and mother both to you."
I would fain tell him, but the words will not come. How can one tell
one's father of one's foolish, unreturned love?
"Do you think I never noticed," he goes on, "how changed you were
after you first went to Warrington? Do you think a father can be so
dull and blind as not to notice when his children suffer? Do you
think, my poor little girl, I never guessed the cause of your
unhappiness because it was out of my power to help you?"
At last my lips unclose.
"I will tell you," I cry, hurriedly; and, nerving myself with a great
effort, my face turned away from him,--turned to the light where the
cruel sun streams in unmindful of my heart's pain,--stammer out
incoherently, sobbingly, painfully, my "plain, unvarnished tale."
"You know when I first went to Warrington, when I first met poor Sir
Hector, his brother, Captain Montagu, was there. He could not help
it" (with a sigh that nearly rives my chest asunder): "he was always
used to see beautiful, fashionable women. What should he think about
a little stupid country-girl? But I--I shall never care for any one
again."
"So," says papa, in a low voice, "that was why you refused Sir Hector
and Lord Seldon."
"Then," I proceed, becoming more and more embarrassed with my
recital, and looking away for help out through the sunshine and the
deep-colored roses to the far blue heaven, "then when I was at Alford
he came home unexpectedly, and we were together a good deal. I don't
know why" (my voice faltering), "perhaps--perhaps he could not help
seeing I--I cared for him, but he asked me very generously to marry
him."
"Well?" papa's voice is low and impatient.
"Well," I echo, reproachfully, "as if I would have let him burden
himself with me who had nothing, when he had been used to every
luxury all his life. No" (with a touch of pride): "he was willing to
take me, but I would not have him."
Papa makes an impatient movement. I hurry on. "When I met him in
town, he avoided me. I don't suppose" (sighing) "he ever had thought
much about me, and then, you know, at the Desboroughs' every one
thought he was going to marry the heiress. From that time until the
other day when he came here I have never seen him."
"And is it possible," papa asks, wonderingly, "that you have gone on
caring for him all this time, when he has never even kept up a
pretense of thinking of you?"
His words stab me to the heart. I put my hands before my face to
hide the fire of shame that burns my cheeks.
"He came the other day," I falter, "to ask me to marry him!"
"What!" cries papa, in a voice of utter astonishment.
"He came," I go on, coldly, not sparing myself, "because Hector's
last wish was that he should marry me."
"Oh, Di, Di!" exclaims papa, in a low, unsteady voice; "where are
your women's eyes and hearts, that you cannot appreciate such a noble
fellow as that, but fritter away your love on one who is not worthy
to be mentioned in the same year with him? Well" (impatiently), "and
what did you say to him? Did you refuse him again for his own sake?"
"No," I mutter; "no."
"Well, then, in heaven's name, why did he not come to me, like an
honorable man, and why are you in such grief to-day?"
"He did not speak to you," I return, hastening to defend the man I
love, "because--because, poor Hector having been dead so short a
time, he did not wish anything known yet. He thought it would look
unfeeling."
"Oh!" utters papa, doubtfully. "But, Di, we have not come to the
cause of your trouble yet."
"It is this," I cry, taking the letter and inclosed lines from my
pocket and thrusting them into his hand.
He takes it, and while he reads I look up for the first time and scan
his face. He makes no sign, utters no word; and yet his face is
eloquent enough to me. I have seen enough. I hide my eyes with my
hands.
"Poor little girl!" I hear him murmur, presently, in a broken voice.