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The English Library
No. 168
DIANA TRELAWNY
BY MRS. OLIPHANT
_IN ONE VOLUME_
_OTHER VOLUMES BY THE SAME AUTHOR
PUBLISHED IN_
The English Library
77. 78. THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN 2 Vols.
95. 96. THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR 2 Vols.
156. 157. THE CUCKOO IN THE NEST 2 Vols.
171. 172. THE VICTORIAN AGE OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2 Vols.
_Copyright Edition_
DIANA TRELAWNY
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
_“WITHIN THE PRECINCTS,” “THE RAILWAY MAN AND HIS CHILDREN,”
“AT HIS GATES,” “THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR,” “THE CUCKOO
IN THE NEST,” ETC._
LEIPZIG
HEINEMANN AND BALESTIER
_LIMITED_, _LONDON_
1893
CONTENTS
CHAPT. PAGE
I.--HERSELF 1
II.--HER NEIGHBOURS 14
III.--TO ITALY 32
IV.--THE TWO LITTLE WOMEN 53
V.--THE PALAZZO DEI SOGNI 70
VI.--NEW ARRIVALS 86
VII.--THE ENGLISH LADY IN PISA 103
VIII.--AN EVENING PARTY 118
IX.--WARNINGS AND CONSULTATIONS 133
X.--THE TWO LITTLE WOMEN 149
XI.--THE PROPOSAL 165
XII.--THE HOUSE OF DREAMS 183
XIII.--A SURPRISE 200
XIV.--DESPAIR 218
XV.--THE SPOSA 235
XVI.--A SYMPATHISING FRIEND 252
XVII.--THE WEDDING-DAY 270
XVIII.--AFTERWARDS 286
DIANA
CHAPTER I.
HERSELF.
Diana Trelawny was a great heiress in the ordinary sense of the word,
though the term was one which she objected to strongly. She was rather a
great proprietor and landowner, no longer looking forward to any
inheritance, but in full possession of it. She had a fine estate, a fine
old English house, and a great deal of money in all kinds of stocks and
securities. Besides this, she was a handsome woman, quite sufficiently
handsome in the light of her wealth to be called beautiful--not a girl,
a beautiful woman of thirty, with some talents, a great deal of
character, and a most enviable and desirable position. She was not,
indeed, chairman of the quarter-sessions, as she might have been had
she written herself Daniel instead of Diana, nor was she even on the
commission of the peace. She did not, so far as I am aware, regret
either of these disabilities; but these, and a few more of the same
kind, were the chief things that distinguished her from the other great
county magnates. She paid very little attention to these points of
difference. A woman who is rich, and has a commanding position, has few
but sentimental grievances to complain of. These sentimental grievances
are often very disagreeable, and tell like personal insults by times;
but they are practically inoperative in cases like that of Miss
Trelawny. She had broken the bonds of youth, the only ones which, in her
position, might have restrained her. She had no objections that all the
country and all the world should know she was thirty; and being thirty,
she claimed full independence, which was as fully accorded to her. She
had no tastes or inclinations to make that independence unlovely; and no
theory of emancipation which demanded exceptional boldness of fact to
justify it--a thing which gets many women into trouble. Her house was as
pleasant a house as could be found, her society courted, her character
respected. She had all the advantages of a country gentleman, and she
had other advantages inseparable from the fact that she was a lady and
not a gentleman. A marriageable young squire of her age and good looks
would no doubt have been an extremely popular and much-sought-after
person; but Diana was more popular and more sought after than any young
squire. For even if you take the very worst view of English society, and
believe that managing mothers and daughters eager to be married are as
abundant as blackberries, the fact still remains that certain reticences
must be observed, and that the best women do not throw themselves at the
hero’s head--or feet. Whereas, in Diana’s case, these reticences were
scarcely necessary, for everybody paid undisguised court to the
beautiful, wealthy, smiling, and gracious young woman, and the best men
in the neighbourhood thought no shame to throw themselves at _her_
head--or feet, as the case might be. She was more openly courted than
any man, for it was more seemly and fit that she should be courted, and
no disgrace to the noblest. The county was more proud of her, more
devoted to her, than it would have been to any male potentate. It made a
kind of queen of her, always in dutiful and loyal subordination to the
real mistress of these realms; but Diana was the queen of the county.
Thus her sex was nothing but an additional pedestal to this enviable
person: for to be sure she did not much care, being as yet
indifferently interested in politics, for the disadvantage of having no
vote.
Diana, however, had not always been so fortunate and so great: she was
not born the heiress of the Chase, and of all the good things involved
in that. Old Lady Trelawny, its last ruler, was a Trelawny born, and
princess of the name, as well as a Trelawny by marriage. She and her
husband had united the two branches of the family, he having the title
and she the property: and had intended in so doing to re-found and
concentrate in their descendants the strength of the race, which had
become straggling and weakly, running into wild offshoots of collaterals
which sucked all the strength from the parent stem. But, alas! there is
nothing more remarkable than the indifference of Providence to such
arrangements, even in the most important families. In this case Heaven
took no notice of the intention at all, but simply left this pair
childless, as if their offspring had been of no consequence, confounding
all their designs. They could not believe for a long time that such a
neglect was possible; but they lived long enough to get over their
surprise, and to form a great many new plans for their future heir, who
had to be chosen within a certain circle of kinship. It may be supposed
that this choice, which had to be made among them, fluttered the family
of Trelawny beyond measure, and kept up for years a wonderful excitement
in all its branches. Such a possibility hanging over one’s head is very
bad for the character, and it is to be feared that the Trelawnys in
general made exhibitions of their eagerness in a way which did not
please the sharp-sighted old pair to whom the privilege of choice was
given.
The only one of all the lineage who did not answer to the general call,
and put in some claim more or less servilely to his chance of the
inheritance, was a certain Captain John, who had disappeared from the
surface of the family long before, and Lady Trelawny knew why. Up to the
time when the old lady was seventy, it still seemed quite clear to her
that Captain John kept out of the way because he could not bear to see
her the wife of Sir John, though such had been her position for the last
half-century.
The old pair were at Brighton when the husband’s last illness began; and
looking from their windows, in the feebleness of their old age, they
watched daily a certain procession of girls from one of the many girls’
schools (or should I not say establishments for young ladies?) in the
place, which amused the old people much. It was an event in Sir John’s
dull morning when they passed with their fresh faces, in charge of a
handsome, stately young woman, who was the English governess. By degrees
both Sir John and my lady became interested in this girl: and it may be
supposed what a leap of additional warmth was given to the rising fancy
when they found out that her name, too, was Trelawny. Trelawnys are not
so plentiful as Browns: the old lady drove to Mrs. Seymour’s school to
find out who she was, and sent her half-a-dozen invitations before Diana
could be persuaded to go. “Why should I go? I would in a moment if I
could do anything for them; but they are smothered in friends and
doctors and servants,” said the proud young woman. Mrs. Seymour, who was
a sensible person, coaxed and persuaded and half compelled the visit;
and when it turned out that this stately Diana was the only child of
Captain John, it may be supposed what excitement awoke among all the
Trelawnys. It gave the old lady a great shock at first, for she had
believed in Captain John as living on somewhere in mournful old
bachelorhood, keeping out of sight and out of the world in order to
escape the misery of seeing herself at seventy the wife of another, and
her _désillusionment_ cost her a pang. Afterwards, when she found out
that Captain John had married late in life--he was older by ten years
than she--a homely little clergyman’s daughter who had been kind to him
in a little village in Wales where he fished and dreamed his life away,
and had died there a dozen years before, her heart was touched more than
ever; and it was Lady Trelawny’s tears that persuaded Diana, against her
will, to leave her independent position and become the nurse and
companion of the old people. Before Sir John died the decision was made,
but it was the old lady who carried it out. Captain John had been the
nearest in blood, first cousin to both husband and wife. His daughter
was, of all the Trelawnys, the one most near to them, their natural
heir.
A year afterwards Diana had become Miss Trelawny of the Chase, a very
great lady, and had taken the county by storm at the first glance.
Perhaps, indeed, their want of any previous familiarity with her had
something to do with the position to which she rose immediately in her
own right. The county had not seen her grow up, and did not know all her
youthful faults and weaknesses, as was the case with most of her
fellow-magnates. She came into it full-grown, full-blown, beautiful,
stately, independent, neither to be snubbed nor patronised nor put down.
The episode of the school, which might have sentenced a humbler woman to
exclusion from the reigning caste, what did it matter in a Trelawny?
Your princesses born can do anything, the humblest offices. She neither
bragged of it nor was ashamed of it, but would mention it simply in her
conversation when need was, in the most matter-of-fact way, as a
princess ought to do. What did it matter to her one way or another? The
humility and the greatness were immaterial to Diana. She was herself in
all times and places, and had been herself before she became Miss
Trelawny of the Chase; though the title (really a title in the
circumstances) suited her admirably. Her neighbour, Mr. Biddulph, called
her “the image that fell down from Jupiter.” Such was her position in
the world, eminent, rich, remarkable in position, yet something
more--something that had nothing to do with her position, which was
simply her, and her alone.
There was one thing, however, which startled the county much, and filled
it with disapproval, which would have been warmer had there been any
real belief in the purpose announced. Diana declared from the beginning
that she would not marry. This is not an announcement which excites very
warm belief in any case. If it is not believed of a man, how should it
be of a woman, to whom (as everybody still believed in those days) it is
the one thing needful? This, however, was what Diana said, quite
seriously, without, it was supposed, meaning any joke; and, indeed,
joking was not in her character. She said in so many words that she did
not mean to marry. There was a great deal to do on the estate, she said,
which was true; for the old Trelawnys had done little, and had not at
all marched with the times, but contented themselves with the state of
affairs which had existed a hundred years ago, or at least in the
beginning of the century. The farming was bad, the cottages were bad,
everything was behind in Trelawny parish. “But a gentleman could do all
that so much better than you could,” her friends said to her. “It is my
business, and not any problematical gentleman’s,” said this
impracticable young woman. She had a belief in celibacy which was
incredible to the community in general; and thought, however bad it
might be to make that state compulsory, that unmarried persons, both lay
and clerical, were an advantage here and there to their
fellow-creatures. The question was discussed continually between her and
her neighbours, the Biddulphs, to whom such a rebellion against all the
rules which regulate human life seemed monstrous, and not to be put up
with. It was un-English, they said--it was wicked; but Diana only
smiled. One thing was certain, that this fad kept up her importance and
her unique position as the finest of matches could not have done; and it
seemed to some of her friends that it was more to Diana’s credit to
allege this as the reason, than to allow it to be believed that she was
guilty of the eccentricity of despising or objecting to matrimony. “She
would be nobody if she married,” they said. “She would just be like
other people; but Miss Trelawny of the Chase is a great personage.” This
was so much more reasonable, so much more natural a motive, everybody
felt, than any foolish fancy about work to be done or personal
responsibilities to be upheld, that the neighbourhood was quite glad to
adopt it. “Diana likes to be important,” was an answer to everything;
and Diana did not contradict the opinion so universally formed. Perhaps
she did like the importance of her position, and even the suitors and
suitors’ friends who paid such court to her, in hopes of appropriating,
some time or other, her solid attractions of money and land and social
position to themselves. So Queen Elizabeth did too, I suppose, whatever
were the real motives of that astute sovereign for declining to share
her throne. Diana did not want her throne to be shared; but she did not,
perhaps, being human, dislike the great competition there was for the
vacant place.
Besides this, probably there had been experiences in her life which made
the question of marriage less attractive to her. Few people live to be
thirty without something of the kind, happy or unhappy; but nobody in
the neighbourhood of Trelawny had been taken into her confidence in this
respect. So she lived in the great house a cheerful and busy life,
working at her estate as few landlords take the trouble to work, making
a profession of it which cannot be said to be usual. Sometimes she was
alone, but more generally there were guests to give the semblance of a
family to the huge old mansion; and very pleasant society Diana managed
to gather round her,--people of all kinds, almost of all classes, within
the limits which education and refinement made possible--poor people and
rich people, great people and small people, in a _mélange_ which was
both picturesque and pleasant. There is nothing that gives such a zest
to society as having been shut out from it for years; and if it was at
all common for the poor and aspiring to be frequently raised at once
into the possession of great means and independence as had happened to
Diana, nothing, I believe, would benefit more by this than society. What
dreams she had entertained in her loneliness, when Mrs. Seymour’s
parlour was the highest sphere possible to her, of the fine company she
would like to see if she had the power! To sit and work, and listen
diligently to the words of wisdom which fell from the lips of the senior
curate, sometimes on her own account venturing a respectful remark as to
the last story in the ‘Monthly Packet,’ was all that Diana could hope
for in those days; and as she sat with her head bowed and her mind half
impatient, half amused, listening to the conversation of these her
superiors, it would be endless to tell how many fascinating groups she
gathered round her, how much brilliant conversation went flashing about,
while Mrs. Seymour prosed, and the curate at his ease laid down the law.
Sometimes she was half afraid these good people would hear the fun and
the laughter that were going on so near them, and would bend her head
close over her needlework to hide the smile upon her face. Strange
freaks of fancy? for often now, when the beautiful drawing-room at the
Chase was full of the best society, Diana, drooping her head, would hear
again Mrs. Seymour prosing and the curate laying down the law, and
listen to them a while with a smile on her face and very gentle
thoughts. But in all probability, had she been born in the purple at
Trelawny, and never sat in Mrs. Seymour’s parlour, she would have been
satisfied with the county magnates and fine people within reach, and
would not have made those efforts after _good_ society which the county
enjoyed, yet looked upon with suspicion--wondering why its own
provisions in that particular should not be good enough for her, as they
had been for her forefathers. It did not injure her popularity,
however--rather increased it. The Chase was a pleasant house to visit,
and its mistress “a delightful person to know:” and she was one of the
best matches in England, and might at any moment turn anybody’s second
son into an important county gentleman. Can the reader be surprised that
on all accounts, and in every section of society, there should be but
one opinion about such an important and attractive person as Miss
Trelawny of the Chase?