The Whitsuntide recess passed--for the wanderers in Italy--in a glorious
prodigality of sun, a rushing of bud and leaf to "feed in air," a
twittering of birds, a splendor of warm nights, which for once indorsed
the traditional rhapsodies of the poets. The little party of friends
which had met at Assisi moved on together to Siena and Perugia, except
for Marion Vincent and Frobisher. They quietly bade farewell, and went
their way.
When Marion kissed Diana at parting, she said, with emphasis:
"Now, remember!--you are not to come to London! You are not to go to
work in the East End. I forbid it! You are to go home--and look
lovely--and be happy!"
Diana's eyes gazed wistfully into hers.
"I am afraid--I hadn't thought lately of coming to London," she
murmured. "I suppose--I'm a coward. And just now I should be no good
to anybody."
"All right. I don't care for your reasons--so long as you go home--and
don't uproot."
Marion held her close. She had heard all the girl's story, had shown her
the most tender sympathy. And on this strange wedding journey of hers
she knew that she carried with her Diana's awed love and yearning
remembrance.
But now she was eager to be gone--to be alone again with her best
friend, in this breathing-space that remained to them.
So Diana saw them off--the shabby, handsome man, with his lean, proud,
sincere face, and the woman, so frail and white, yet so indomitable.
They carried various bags and parcels, mostly tied up with string, which
represented all their luggage; they travelled with the peasants,
fraternizing with them where they could; and it was useless, as Diana
saw, to press luxuries on either of them. Many heads turned to look at
them, in the streets or on the railway platform. There was something
tragic in their aspect; yet not a trace of abjectness; nothing that
asked for pity. When Diana last caught sight of them, Marion had a
_contadino's_ child on her knee, in the corner of a third-class
carriage, and Frobisher opposite--he spoke a fluent Italian--was
laughing and jesting with the father. Marion, smiling, waved her hand,
and the train bore them away.
* * * * *
The others moved to Perugia, and the hours they spent together in the
high and beautiful town were for all of them hours of well-being. Diana
was the centre of the group. In the eyes of the three men her story
invested her with a peculiar and touching interest. Their knowledge of
it, and her silent acceptance of their knowledge, made a bond between
her and them which showed itself in a hundred ways. Neither Ferrier, nor
Chide, nor young Forbes could ever do too much for her, or think for her
too loyally. And, on the other hand, it was her inevitable perception of
their unspoken thoughts which gave her courage toward them--a kind of
freedom which it is very difficult for women to feel or exercise in the
ordinary circumstances of life. She gave them each--gratefully--a bit of
her heart, in different ways.
Bobbie had adopted her as elder sister, having none of his own; and by
now she knew all about his engagement, his distaste for the Foreign
Office, his lack of prospects there, and his determination to change it
for some less expensive and more remunerative calling. But Lady Niton
was the dragon in the path. She had all sorts of ambitious projects for
him, none of which, according to Forbes, ever came off, there being
always some better fellow to be had. Diplomacy, in her eyes, was the
natural sphere of a young man of parts and family, and as for the money,
if he would only show the smallest signs of getting on, she would find
it. But in the service of his country Bobbie showed no signs whatever of
"getting on." He hinted uncomfortably, in his conversations with Diana,
at the long list of his obligations to Lady Niton--money lent, influence
exerted, services of many kinds--spread over four or five years, ever
since, after a chance meeting in a country-house, she had appointed
herself his earthly, providence, and he--an orphan of good family, with
a small income and extravagant tastes--had weakly accepted her bounties.
"Now, of course, she insists on my marrying somebody with money. As if
any chaperon would look at me! Two years ago I did make up to a nice
girl--a real nice girl--and only a thousand a year!--nothing so
tremendous, after all. But her mother twice carried her off, in the
middle of a rattling ball, because she had engaged herself to me--just
like sending a naughty child to bed! And the next time the mother made
me take _her_ down to supper, and expounded to me her view of a
chaperon's duties: 'My business, Mr. Forbes'--you should have seen her
stony eye--'is to _mar_, not to make. The suitable marriages make
themselves, or are made in heaven. I have nothing to do with them,
except to keep a fair field. The unsuitable marriages have to be
prevented, and will be prevented. You understand me?' 'Perfectly,' I
said. 'I understand perfectly. To _mar_ is human, and to make divine?
Thank you. Have some more jelly? No? Shall I ask for your carriage?
Good-night.' But Lady Niton won't believe a word of it! She thinks I've
only to ask and have. She'll be rude to Ettie, and I shall have to punch
her head--metaphorically. And how can you punch a person's head when
they've lent you money?"
Diana could only laugh, and commend him to his Ettie, who, to judge from
her letters, was a girl of sense, and might be trusted to get him out of
his scrape.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Ferrier, the man of affairs, statesman, thinker, and
pessimist, found in his new friendship with Diana at once that
"agreement," that relaxation, which men of his sort can only find in the
society of those women who, without competing with them, can yet by
sympathy and native wit make their companionship abundantly worth while;
and also, a means, as it were, of vicarious amends, which he very
eagerly took.
He was, in fact, ashamed for Lady Lucy; humiliated, moreover, by his own
small influence with her in a vital matter. And both shame and
humiliation took the form of tender consideration for Lady
Lucy's victim.
It did not at all diminish the value of his kindness, that--most
humanly--it largely showed itself in what many people would have
considered egotistical confessions to a charming girl. Diana found a
constant distraction, a constant interest, in listening. Her solitary
life with her scholar father had prepared her for such a friend. In the
overthrow of love and feeling, she bravely tried to pick up the threads
of the old intellectual pleasures. And both Ferrier and Chide, two of
the ablest men of their generation, were never tired of helping her thus
to recover herself. Chide was an admirable story-teller; and his mere
daily life had stored him with tales, humorous and grim; while Ferrier
talked history and poetry, as they strolled about Siena or Perugia; and,
as he sat at night among the letters of the day, had a score of
interesting or amusing comments to make upon the politics of the moment.
He reserved his "confessions," of course, for the _tête-à-tête_ of
country walks. It was then that Diana seemed to be holding in her
girlish hands something very complex and rare; a nature not easily to be
understood by one so much younger. His extraordinary gifts, his
disinterested temper, his astonishing powers of work raised him in her
eyes to heroic stature. And then some very human weakness, some natural
vanity, such as wives love and foster in their husbands, but which, in
his case appeared merely forlorn and eccentric--some deep note of
loneliness--would touch her heart, and rouse her pity. He talked
generally with an amazing confidence, not untouched perhaps with
arrogance, of the political struggle before him; believed he should
carry the country with him, and impose his policy on a divided party.
Yet again and again, amid the flow of hopeful speculation, Diana became
aware, as on the first evening of Assisi, of some hidden and tragic
doubt, both of fate and of himself, some deep-rooted weariness, against
which the energy of his talk seemed to be perpetually reacting and
protesting. And the solitariness and meagreness of his life in all its
personal and domestic aspects appalled her. She saw him often as a great
man--a really great man--yet starved and shelterless--amid the storms
that were beating up around him.
The friendship between him and Chide appeared to be very close, yet not
a little surprising. They were old comrades in Parliament, and Chide was
in the main a whole-hearted supporter of Ferrier's policy and views;
resenting in particular, as Diana soon discovered, Marsham's change of
attitude. But the two men had hardly anything else in common. Ferrier
was an enormous reader, most variously accomplished; while his political
Whiggery was balanced by a restless scepticism in philosophy and
religion. For the rest he was an ascetic, even in the stream of London
life; he cared nothing for most of the ordinary amusements; he played a
vile hand at whist (bridge had not yet dawned upon a waiting world); he
drank no wine, and was contentedly ignorant both of sport and games.
Chide, on the other hand, was as innocent of books as Lord Palmerston.
All that was necessary for his career as a great advocate he could
possess himself of in the twinkling of an eye; his natural judgment and
acuteness were of the first order; his powers of eloquence among the
most famous of his time; but it is doubtful whether Lady Niton would
have found him much better informed about the politics of her youth than
Barton himself; Sir James, too, was hazy about Louis Philippe, and could
never remember, in the order of Prime Ministers, whether Canning or Lord
Liverpool came first. With this, he was a simple and devout Catholic;
loved on his holiday to serve the mass of some poor priest in a mountain
valley; and had more than once been known to carry off some lax
Catholic junior on his circuit to the performance of his Easter duties,
willy-nilly--by a mixture of magnetism and authority. For all games of
chance he had a perfect passion; would play whist all night, and conduct
a case magnificently all day. And although he was no sportsman in the
ordinary sense, having had no opportunities in a very penurious youth,
he had an Irishman's love of horseflesh, and knew the Derby winners from
the beginning with as much accuracy as Macaulay knew the Senior
Wranglers.
Yet the two men loved, respected, and understood each other. Diana
wondered secretly, indeed, whether Sir James could have explained to her
the bond between Ferrier and Lady Lucy. That, to her inexperience, was a
complete mystery! Almost every day Ferrier wrote to Tallyn, and twice a
week at least, as the letters were delivered at _table d'hôte,_ Diana
could not help seeing the long pointed writing on the thin black-edged
paper which had once been for her the signal of doom. She hardly
suspected, indeed, how often she herself made the subject of the man's
letters. Ferrier wrote of her persistently to Lady Lucy, being
determined that so much punishment at least should be meted out to that
lady. The mistress of Tallyn, on her side, never mentioned the name of
Miss Mallory. All the pages in his letters which concerned her might
never have been written, and he was well aware that not a word of them
would ever reach Oliver. Diana's pale and saddened beauty; the dignity
which grief, tragic grief, free from all sordid or ignoble elements, can
infuse into a personality; the affection she inspired, the universal
sympathy that was felt for her: he dwelt on these things, till Lady
Lucy, exasperated, could hardly bring herself to open the envelopes
which contained his lucubrations. Could any subject, in correspondence
with herself, be more unfitting or more futile?--and what difference
could it all possibly make to the girl's shocking antecedents?
* * * * *
One radiant afternoon, after a long day of sight-seeing, Diana and Mrs.
Colwood retreated to their rooms to write letters and to rest; Forbes
was hotly engaged in bargaining for an Umbrian _primitif_, which he had
just discovered in an old house in a back street, whither, no doubt, the
skilful antiquario had that morning transported it from his shop; and
Sir James had gone out for a stroll, on the splendid road which winds
gradually down the hill on which Perugia stands, to the tomb of the
Volumnii, on the edge of the plain, and so on to Assisi and Foligno, in
the blue distance.
Half-way down he met Ferrier, ascending from the tomb. Sir James turned,
and they strolled back together. The Umbrian landscape girdling the
superb town showed itself unveiled. Every gash on the torn white sides
of the eastern Apennines, every tint of purple or porcelain-blue on the
nearer hills, every plane of the smiling valley as it wound southward,
lay bathed in a broad and searching light which yet was a light of
beauty--of infinite illusion.
"I must say I have enjoyed my life," said Ferrier, abruptly, as they
paused to look back, "though I don't put it altogether in the
first class!"
Sir James raised his eyebrows--smiled--and did not immediately reply.
"Chide, old fellow," Ferrier resumed, turning to him, "before I left
England I signed my will. Do you object that I have named you one of
the two executors?"
Sir James gave him a cordial glance.
"All right, I'll do my best--if need arises. I suppose, Johnnie, you're
a rich man?"
The name "Johnnie," very rarely heard between them, went back to early
days at the Bar, when Ferrier was for a time in the same chambers with
the young Irishman who, within three years of being called, was making a
large income; whereas Ferrier had very soon convinced himself that the
Bar was not for him, nor he for the Bar, and being a man of means had
"plumped" for politics.
"Yes, I'm not badly off," said Ferrier; "I'm almost the last of my
family; and a lot of money has found its way to me first and last. It's
been precious difficult to know what to do with it. If Oliver Marsham
had stuck to that delightful girl I should have left it to him."
Sir James made a growling sound, more expressive than articulate.
"As it is," Ferrier resumed, "I have left half of it to my old Oxford
college, and half to the University."
Chide nodded. Presently a slight flush rose in his very clear
complexion, and he looked round on his companion with sparkling eyes.
"It is odd that you should have started this subject. I too have just
signed a new will."
"Ah!" Ferrier's broad countenance showed a very human curiosity. "I
believe you are scarcely more blessed with kindred than I?"
"No. In the main I could please myself. I have left the bulk of what I
had to leave--to Miss Mallory."
"Excellent!" cried Ferrier. "She treats you already like a daughter."
"She is very kind to me," said Sir James, with a touch of ceremony that
became him. "And there is no one in whom I feel a deeper interest."
"She must be made happy!" exclaimed Ferrier--"she _must_! Is there no
one--besides Oliver?"
Sir James drew himself up. "I hope she has put all thought of Oliver out
of her mind long since. Well!--I had a letter from Lady Felton last
week--dear woman that!--all the love-affairs in the county come to roost
in her mind. She talks of young Roughsedge. Perhaps you don't know
anything of the gentleman?"
He explained, so far as his own knowledge went. Ferrier listened
attentively. A soldier? Good. Handsome, modest, and capable?--better.
Had just distinguished himself in this Nigerian expedition--mentioned in
despatches last week. Better still!--so long as he kept clear of the
folly of allowing himself to be killed. But as to the feelings of the
young lady?
Sir James sighed. "I sometimes see in her traces of--of
inheritance--which make one anxious."
Ferrier's astonishment showed itself in mouth and eyes.
"What I mean is," said Sir James, hastily, "a dramatic, impassioned way
of looking at things. It would never do if she were to get any damned
nonsense about 'expiation,' or not being free to marry, into her head."
Ferrier agreed, but a little awkwardly, since the "damned nonsense" was
Lady Lucy's nonsense, and both knew it.
They walked slowly back to Assisi, first putting their elderly heads
together a little further on the subject of Diana, and then passing on
to the politics of the moment--to the ever present subject of the party
revolt, and its effect on the election.
"Pshaw!--let them attack you as they please!" said Chide, after they had
talked awhile. "You are safe enough. There is no one else. You are like
the hero in a novel, 'the indispensable.'"
Ferrier laughed.
"Don't be so sure. There is always a 'supplanter'--when the time is
ripe."
"Where is he? Who is he?"
"I had a very curious letter from Lord Philip this morning," said
Ferrier, thoughtfully.
Chide's expression changed.
Lord Philip Darcy, a brilliant but quite subordinate member of the
former Liberal Government, had made but occasional appearances in
Parliament during the five years' rule of the Tories. He was a traveller
and explorer, and when in England a passionate votary of the Turf. An
incisive tongue, never more amusing than when it was engaged in railing
at the English workman and democracy in general, a handsome person, and
a strong leaning to Ritualism--these qualities and distinctions had not
for some time done much to advance his Parliamentary position. But
during the preceding session he had been more regular in his attendance
at the House, and had made a considerable impression there--as a man of
eccentric, but possibly great ability. On the whole, he had been a loyal
supporter of Ferrier's; but in two or three recent speeches there had
been signs of coquetting with the extremists.
Ferrier, having mentioned the letter, relapsed into silence. Sir James,
with a little contemptuous laugh, inquired what the nature of the
letter might be.
"Oh, well, he wants certain pledges." Ferrier drew the letter from his
pocket, and handed it to his friend. Sir James perused it, and handed
it back with a sarcastic lip.
"He imagines you are going to accept that programme?"
"I don't know. But it is clear that the letter implies a threat if I
don't."
"A threat of desertion? Let him."
"That letter wasn't written off his own bat. There is a good deal behind
it. The plot, in fact, is thickening. From the letters of this morning I
see that a regular press campaign is beginning."
He mentioned two party papers which had already gone over to the
dissidents--one of some importance, the other of none.
"All right," said Chide; "so long as the _Herald_ and the _Flag_ do
their duty. By-the-way, hasn't the _Herald_ got a new editor?"
"Yes; a man called Barrington--a friend of Oliver's."
"Ah!--a good deal sounder on many points than Oliver!" grumbled Sir
James.
Ferrier did not reply.
Chide noticed the invariable way in which Marsham's name dropped between
them whenever it was introduced in this connection.
As they neared the gate of the town they parted, Chide returning to the
hotel, while Ferrier, the most indefatigable of sight-seers, hurried off
toward San Pietro.
He spent a quiet hour on the Peruginos, deciding, however, with himself
in the end that they gave him but a moderate pleasure; and then came out
again into the glow of an incomparable evening. Something in the light
and splendor of the scene, as he lingered on the high terrace, hanging
over the plain, looking down as though from the battlements, the
_flagrantia moenia_ of some celestial city, challenged the whole life
and virility of the man.
"Yet what ails me?" he thought to himself, curiously, and quite without
anxiety. "It is as though I were listening--for the approach of some
person or event--as though a door were open--or about to open--"
What more natural?--in this pause before the fight? And yet politics
seemed to have little to do with it. The expectancy seemed to lie
deeper, in a region of the soul to which none were or ever had been
admitted, except some friends of his Oxford youth--long since dead.
And, suddenly, the contest which lay before him appeared to him under a
new aspect, bathed in a broad philosophic air; a light serene and
transforming, like the light of the Umbrian evening. Was it not possibly
true that he had no future place as the leader of English Liberalism?
Forces were welling up in its midst, forces of violent and revolutionary
change, with which it might well be he had no power to cope. He saw
himself, in a waking dream, as one of the last defenders of a lost
position. The day of Utopias was dawning; and what has the critical mind
to do with Utopias? Yet if men desire to attempt them, who shall
stay them?
Barton, McEwart, Lankester--with their boundless faith in the power of a
few sessions and measures to remake this old, old England--with their
impatiences, their readiness at any moment to fling some wild arrow from
the string, amid the crowded long-descended growths of English life: he
felt a strong intellectual contempt both for their optimisms and
audacities--mingled, perhaps; with a certain envy.
Sadness and despondency returned. His hand sought in his pocket for the
little volume of Leopardi which he had taken out with him. On that king
of pessimists, that prince of all despairs, he had just spent half an
hour among the olives. Could renunciation of life and contempt of the
human destiny go further?
Well, Leopardi's case was not his. It was true, what he had said to
Chide. With all drawbacks, he had enjoyed his life, had found it
abundantly worth living.
And, after all, was not Leopardi himself a witness to the life he
rejected, to the Nature he denounced. Ferrier recalled his cry to his
brother: "Love me, Carlo, for God's sake! I need love, love,
love!--fire, enthusiasm, life."
"_Fire, enthusiasm, life_." Does the human lot contain these things, or
no? If it does, have the gods mocked us, after all?
Pondering these great words, Ferrier strolled homeward, while the
outpouring of the evening splendor died from Perusia Augusta, and the
mountains sank deeper into the gold and purple of the twilight.
As for love, he had missed it long ago. But existence was still rich,
still full of savor, so long as a man's will held his grip on men and
circumstance.
All action, he thought, is the climbing of a precipice, upheld above
infinity by one slender sustaining rope. Call it what we like--will,
faith, ambition, the wish to live--in the end it fails us all. And in
that moment, when we begin to imagine how and when it may fail us, we
hear, across the sea of time, the first phantom tolling of the
funeral bell.
There were times now when he seemed to feel the cold approaching breath
of such a moment. But they were still invariably succeeded by a
passionate recoil of life and energy. By the time he reached the hotel
he was once more plunged in all the preoccupations, the schemes, the
pugnacities of the party leader.
* * * * *
A month later, on an evening toward the end of June, Dr. Roughsedge,
lying reading in the shade of his little garden, saw his wife
approaching. He raised himself with alacrity.
"You've seen her?"
"Yes."
With this monosyllabic answer Mrs. Roughsedge seated herself, and slowly
untied her bonnet-strings.
"My dear, you seem discomposed."
"I hate _men_!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, vehemently.
The doctor raised his eyebrows. "I apologize for my existence. But you
might go so far as to explain."
Mrs. Roughsedge was silent.
"How is that child?" said the doctor, abruptly. "Come!--I am as fond of
her as you are."
Mrs. Roughsedge raised her handkerchief.
"That any man with a heart--" she began, in a stifled voice.
"Why you should speculate on anything so abnormal!" cried the doctor,
impatiently. "I suppose your remark applies to Oliver Marsham. Is she
breaking her own heart?--that's all that signifies."
"She is extremely well and cheerful."
"Well, then, what's the matter?"
Mrs. Roughsedge looked out of the window, twisting her handkerchief.
"Nothing--only--everything seems done and finished."
"At twenty-two?" The doctor laughed, "And it's not quite four months
yet since the poor thing discovered that her doll was stuffed with
sawdust. Really, Patricia!"
Mrs. Roughsedge slowly shook her head.
"I suspect what it all means," said her husband, "is that she did not
show as much interest as she ought in Hugh's performance."
"She was most kind, and asked me endless questions. She made me promise
to bring her the press-cuttings and read her his letters. She could not
possibly have shown more sympathy."
"H'm!--well, I give it up."
"Henry!"--his wife turned upon him--"I am convinced that poor child will
never marry!"
"Give her time, my dear, and don't talk nonsense!"
"It isn't nonsense! I tell you I felt just as I did when I went to see
Mary Theed, years ago--you remember that pretty cousin of mine who
became a Carmelite nun?--for the first time after she had taken the
veil. She spoke to one from another world--it gave one the shivers!--and
was just as smiling and cheerful over it as Diana--and it was just as
ghastly and unbearable and abominable--as this is."
"Well, then," said the doctor, after a pause, "I suppose she'll take to
good works. I hope you can provide her with a lot of hopeless cases in
the village. Did she mention Marsham at all?"
"Not exactly. But she asked about the election--"
"The writs are out," interrupted the doctor. "I see the first borough
elections are fixed for three weeks hence; ours will be one of the last
of the counties; six weeks to-day."
"I told her you thought he would get in."
"Yes--by the skin of his teeth. All his real popularity has vanished
like smoke. But there's the big estate--and his mother's money--and the
collieries."
"The Vicar tells me the colliers are discontented--all through the
district--and there may be a big strike--"
"Yes, perhaps in the autumn, when the three years' agreement comes to an
end--not yet. Marsham's vote will run down heavily in the mining
villages, but it'll serve--this time. They won't put the other man in."
Mrs. Roughsedge rose to take off her things, remarking, as she moved
away, that Marsham was said to be holding meetings nightly already, and
that Lady Lucy and Miss Drake were both hard at work.
"Miss Drake?" said the doctor, looking up. "Handsome girl! I saw Marsham
in a dog-cart with her yesterday afternoon."
Mrs. Roughsedge flushed an angry red, but she said nothing. She was
encumbered with parcels, and her husband rose to open the door for her.
He stooped and looked into her face.
"You didn't say anything about _that_, Patricia, I'll be bound!"
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Diana was wandering about the Beechcote garden, with her
hands full of roses, just gathered. The garden glowed under the
westering sun. In the field just below it the silvery lines of new-cut
hay lay hot and fragrant in the quivering light. The woods on the
hill-side were at the richest moment of their new life, the earth-forces
swelling and rioting through every root and branch, wild roses climbing
every hedge--the miracle of summer at its height.
Diana sat down upon a grass-bank, to look and dream. The flowers
dropped beside her; she propped her face on her hands.
The home-coming had been hard. And perhaps the element in it she had
felt most difficult to bear had been the universal sympathy with which
she had been greeted. It spoke from the faces of the poor--the men and
women, the lads and girls of the village; with their looks of curiosity,
sometimes frank, sometimes furtive or embarrassed. It was more politely
disguised in the manners and tones of the gentle people; but everywhere
it was evident; and sometimes it was beyond her endurance.
She could not help imagining the talk about her in her absence; the
discussion of the case in the country-houses or in the village. To the
village people, unused to the fine discussions which turn on motive and
environment, and slow to revise an old opinion, she was just the
daughter--
She covered her eyes--one hideous word ringing brutally, involuntarily,
through her brain. By a kind of miserable obsession the talk in the
village public-houses shaped itself in her mind. "Ay, they didn't hang
her because she was a lady. She got off, trust her! But if it had been
you or me--"
She rose, trembling, trying to shake off the horror, walking vaguely
through the garden into the fields, as though to escape it. But the
horror pursued her, only in different forms. Among the educated
people--people who liked dissecting "interesting" or "mysterious"
crimes--there had been no doubt long discussions of Sir James Chide's
letter to the _Times_, of Sir Francis Wing's confession. But through all
the talk, rustic or refined, she heard the name of her mother bandied;
forever soiled and dishonored; with no right to privacy or courtesy any
more--"Juliet Sparling" to all the world: the loafer at the street
corner--the drunkard in the tavern--
The thought of this vast publicity, this careless or cruel scorn of the
big world--toward one so frail, so anguished, so helpless in
death--clutched Diana many times in each day and night. And it led to
that perpetual image in the mind which we saw haunting her in the first
hours of her grief, as though she carried her dying mother in her arms,
passionately clasping and protecting her, their faces turned to each
other, and hidden from all eyes besides.
Also, it deadened in her the sense of her own case--in relation to the
gossip of the neighborhood. Ostrich-like, she persuaded herself that not
many people could have known anything about her five days' engagement.
Dear kind folk like the Roughsedges would not talk of it, nor Lady Lucy
surely. And Oliver himself--never!
She had reached a point in the field walk where the hill-side opened to
her right, and the little winding path was disclosed which had been to
her on that mild February evening the path of Paradise. She stood still
a moment, looking upward, the deep sob of loss rising in her throat.
But she wrestled with herself, and presently turned back to the house,
calm and self-possessed. There were things to be thankful for. She knew
the worst. And she felt herself singularly set free--from ordinary
conventions and judgments. Nobody could ever quarrel with her if, now
that she had come back, she lived her own life in her own way. Nobody
could blame her--surely most people would approve her--if she stood
aloof from ordinary society, and ordinary gayeties for a while, at any
rate. Oh! she would do nothing singular or rude. But she was often tired
and weak--not physically, but in mind. Mrs. Roughsedge knew--and Muriel.
Dear Hugh Roughsedge!--he was indeed a faithful understanding friend.
She was proud of his letters; she was proud of his conduct in the short
campaign just over; she looked forward to his return in the autumn. But
he must not cherish foolish thoughts or wishes. She would never marry.
What Lady Lucy said was true. She had probably no right to marry. She
stood apart.
But--but--she must not be asked yet to give herself to any great
mission--any set task of charity or philanthropy. Her poor heart
fluttered within her at the thought, and she clung gratefully to the
recollection of Marion's imperious words to her. That exaltation with
which, in February, she had spoken to the Vicar of going to the East End
to work had dropped--quite dropped.
Of course, there was a child in the village--a dear child--ill and
wasting--in a spinal jacket, for whom one would do anything--just
anything! And there was Betty Dyson--plucky, cheerful old soul. But that
was another matter.
What, she asked, had she to give the poor? She wanted guiding and
helping and putting in the right way herself. She could not preach to
any one--wrestle with any one. And ought one to make out of others' woes
plasters for one's own? To use the poor as the means of a spiritual
"cure" seemed a dubious indecent thing; more than a touch in it of
arrogance--or sacrilege.
* * * * *
Meanwhile she had been fighting her fight in the old ways. She had been
falling back on her education, appealing to books and thought, reminding
herself of what the life of the mind had been to her father in his
misery, and of those means of cultivating it to which he would certainly
have commended her. She was trying to learn a new foreign language, and,
under Marion Vincent's urging, the table in the little sitting-room was
piled with books on social and industrial matters, which she diligently
read and pondered.
It was all struggle and effort. But it had brought her some reward. And
especially through Marion Vincent's letters, and through the long day
with Marion in London, which she had now to look back upon. For Miss
Vincent and Frobisher had returned, and Marion was once more in her
Stepney rooms. She was apparently not much worse; would allow no talk
about herself; and though she had quietly relinquished all her old
activities, her room was still the centre it had long been for the
London thinker and reformer.
Diana found there an infinity to learn. The sages and saints, it seemed,
are of all sides and all opinions. That had not been the lesson of her
youth. In a comforting heat of prejudice her father had found relief
from suffering, and his creeds had been fused with her young blood.
Lately she had seen their opposites embodied in a woman from whom she
shrank in repulsion--whose name never passed her lips--Oliver's
sister--who had trampled on her in her misery. Yet here, in Marion's
dingy lodging, she saw the very same ideas which Isabel Fotheringham
made hateful, clothed in light, speaking from the rugged or noble faces
of men and women who saw in them the salvation of their kind.
The intellect in Diana, the critical instinct resisted. And, moreover,
to have abandoned any fraction of the conservative and traditional
beliefs in which she had been reared was impossible for her of all
women; it would have seemed to her that she was thereby leaving those
two suffering ones, whom only her love sheltered, still lonelier in
death. So, beneath the clatter of talk and opinion, run the deep
omnipotent tides of our real being.
But if the mind resisted, the heart felt, and therewith, the soul--that
total personality which absorbs and transmutes the contradictions of
life--grew kinder and gentler within her.
One day, after a discussion on votes for women which had taken place
beside Marion's sofa, Diana, when the talkers were gone, had thrown
herself on her friend.
"Dear, you can't wish it!--you can't believe it! To brutalize--unsex
us!"
Marion raised herself on her elbow, and looked down the narrow cross
street beneath the windows of her lodging. It was a stifling evening.
The street was strewn with refuse, the odors from it filled the room.
Ragged children with smeared faces were sitting or playing listlessly in
the gutters. The public-house at the corner was full of animation, and
women were passing in and out. Through the roar of traffic from the main
street beyond a nearer sound persisted: a note of wailing--the
wailing of babes.
"There are the unsexed!" said Marion, panting. "Is their brutalization
the price we pay for our refinement?" Then, as she sank back: "Try
anything--everything--to change that."
Diana pressed the speaker's hand to her lips.
But from Marion Vincent, the girl's thoughts, as she wandered in the
summer garden, had passed on to the news which Mrs. Roughsedge had
brought her. Oliver was speaking every night, almost, in the villages
round Beechcote. Last week he had spoken at Beechcote itself. Since Mrs.
Roughsedge's visit, Diana had borrowed the local paper from Brown, and
had read two of Oliver's speeches therein reported. As she looked up to
the downs, or caught through the nearer trees the lines of distant
woods, it was as though the whole scene--earth and air--were once more
haunted for her by Oliver--his presence--his voice. Beechcote lay on the
high-road from Tallyn to Dunscombe, the chief town of the division.
Several times a week, at least, he must pass the gate. At any moment
they might meet face to face.
The sooner the better! Unless she abandoned Beechcote, they must learn
to meet on the footing of ordinary acquaintances; and it were best
done quickly.
Voices on the lawn! Diana, peeping through the trees, beheld the Vicar
in conversation with Muriel Colwood. She turned and fled, pausing at
last in the deepest covert of the wood, breathless and a little ashamed.
She had seen him once since her return. Everybody was so kind to her,
the Vicar, the Miss Bertrams--everybody; only the pity and the kindness
burned so. She wrestled with these feelings in the wood, but she none
the less kept a thick screen between herself and Mr. Lavery.
She could never forget that night of her misery when--good man that he
was!--he had brought her the message of his faith.
But the great melting moments of life are rare, and the tracts between
are full of small frictions. What an incredible sermon he had preached
on the preceding Sunday! That any minister of the national
church--representing all sorts and conditions of men--should think it
right to bring his party politics into the pulpit in that way! Unseemly!
unpardonable!
Her dark eyes flashed--and then clouded. She had walked home from the
sermon in a heat of wrath, had straightway sought out some blue ribbon,
and made Tory rosettes for herself and her dog. Muriel had laughed--had
been delighted to see her doing it.
But the rosettes were put away now--thrown into the bottom of a drawer.
She would never wear them.
The Vicar, it seemed, was no friend of Oliver's--would not vote for him,
and had been trying to induce the miners at Hartingfield to run a Labor
man. On the other hand, she understood that the Ferrier party in the
division were dissatisfied with him on quite other grounds: that they
reproached him with a leaning to violent and extreme views, and with a
far too lukewarm support of the leader of the party and the leader's
policy. The local papers were full of grumbling letters to that effect.
Her brow knit over Oliver's difficulties. The day before, Mr. Lavery,
meeting Muriel in the village street, had suggested that Miss Mallory
might lend him the barn for a Socialist meeting--a meeting, in fact, for
the harassing and heckling of Oliver.
Had he come now to urge the same plea again? A woman's politics were
not, of course, worth remembering!
She moved on to a point where, still hidden, she could see the lawn. The
Vicar was in full career; the harsh creaking voice came to her from the
distance. What an awkward unhandsome figure, with his long, lank
countenance, his large ears and spectacled eyes! Yet an apostle, she
admitted, in his way--a whole-hearted, single-minded gentleman. But the
barn he should not have.
She watched him depart, and then slowly emerged from her hiding-place.
Muriel, putting loving hands on her shoulders, looked at her with eyes
that mocked a little--tenderly.
"Yes, I know," said Diana--"I know. I shirked. Did he want the barn?"
"Oh no. I convinced him, the other day, you were past praying for."
"Was he shocked? 'It is a serious thing for women to throw themselves
across the path of progress,'" said Diana, in a queer voice.
Muriel looked at her, puzzled. Diana reddened, and kissed her.
"What did he want, then?"
"He came to ask whether you would take the visiting of Fetter Lane--and
a class in Sunday-school."
Diana gasped.
"What did you say?"
"Never mind. He went away quelled."
"No doubt he thought I ought to be glad to be set to work."
"Oh! they are all masterful--that sort."
Diana walked on.
"I suppose he gossiped about the election?"
"Yes. He has all sorts of stories--about the mines--and the Tallyn
estates," said Muriel, unwillingly.
Diana's look flashed.
"Do you believe he has any power of collecting evidence fairly? I don't.
He sees what he wants to see."
Mrs. Colwood agreed; but did not feel called upon to confirm Diana's
view by illustrations. She kept Mr. Lavery's talk to herself.
Presently, as the evening fell, Diana sitting under the limes watching
the shadows lengthen on the new-mown grass, wondered whether she had any
mind--any opinions of her own at all. Her father; Oliver; Mr. Ferrier;
Marion Vincent--she saw and felt with them all in turn. In the eyes of a
Mrs. Fotheringham could anything be more despicable?
The sun was sinking when she stole out of the garden with some flowers
and peaches for Betty Dyson. Her frequent visits to Betty's cottage were
often the bright spots in her day. With her, almost alone among the poor
people, Diana was conscious of no greedy curiosity behind the spoken
words. Yet Betty was the living chronicle of the village, and what she
did not know about its inhabitants was not worth knowing.
Diana found her white and suffering as usual, but so bubbling with news
that she had no patience either with her own ailments or with the
peaches. Waving both aside, she pounced imperiously upon her visitor,
her queer yellowish eyes aglow with "eventful living."
"Did you hear of old Tom Murthly dropping dead in the medder last
Thursday?"
Diana had just heard of the death of the eccentric old man who for fifty
years--bachelor and miser--had inhabited a dilapidated house in
the village.
"Well, he did. Yo may take it at that--yo may." (A mysterious phrase,
equivalent, no doubt, to the masculine oath.) "'Ee 'ad a lot of
money--Tom 'ad. Them two 'ouses was 'is what stands right be'ind
Learoyds', down the village."
"Who will they go to now, Betty?"
Betty's round, shapeless countenance, furrowed and scarred by time,
beamed with the joy of communication.
"_Chancery!_" she said, nodding. "Chancery'll 'ave 'em, in a
twelvemonth's time from now, if Mrs. Jack Murthly's Tom--young
Tom--don't claim 'em from South Africa--and the Lord knows where
_ee_ is!"
Diana tried to follow, held captive by a tyrannical pair of eyes.
"And what relation is Mrs. Jack Murthly to the man who died?"
"Brother's wife!" said Betty, sharply. "I thought you'd ha' known that."
"But if nothing is heard of the son, Betty--of young Tom--Mrs. Murthly's
two daughters will have the cottages, won't they?"
Betty's scorn made her rattle her stick on the flagged floor.
"They ain't daughters!--they're only 'alves."
"Halves?" said Diana, bewildered.
"Jack Murthly worn't their father!" A fresh shower of nods. "Yo may take
it at that!"
"Well, then, who--?"
Betty bent hastily forward--Diana had placed herself on a stool before
her--and, thrusting out her wrinkled lips, said, in a hoarse whisper:
"Two fathers!"
There was a silence.
"I don't understand, Betty," said Diana, softly.
"Jack was '_is_ father, all right--Tom's in South Africa. But he worn't
_their_ father, Mrs. Jack bein' a widder--or said so. They're only
'alves--and 'alves ain't no good in law; so inter Chancery those 'ouses
'll go, come a twelvemonth--yo may take it at that!" Diana laughed--a
young spontaneous laugh--the first since she had come home. She kept
Betty gossiping for half an hour, and as the stream of the village life
poured about her, in Betty's racy speech, it was as though some
primitive virtue entered into her and cheered her--some bracing voice
from the Earth-spirit--whose purpose is not missed
"If birth proceeds--if things subsist."
She rose at last, held Betty's hand tenderly, and went her way,
conscious of a return of natural pleasure, such as Italy had never
brought her, her heart opening afresh to England and the English life.
Perhaps she would find at home a letter from Mr. Ferrier--her dear,
famous friend, who never forgot her, ignorant as she was of the great
affairs in which he was plunged. But she meant to be ignorant no longer.
No more brooding and dreaming! It was pleasant to remember that Sir
James Chide had taken a furnished house--Lytchett Manor--only a few
miles from Beechcote, and that Mr. Ferrier was to be his guest there as
soon as politics allowed. For her, Diana, that was well, for if he were
at Tallyn they could have met but seldom if at all.
She had made a round through a distant and sequestered lane in order to
prolong her walk. Presently she came to a deep cutting in the chalk,
where the road, embowered in wild roses and clematis, turned sharply at
the foot of a hill. As she approached the turn she heard sounds--a man's
voice. Her heart suddenly failed her. She looked to either side--no
gate, no escape. Nothing for it but to go forward. She turned
the corner.
Before her was a low pony carriage which Alicia Drake was driving. It
was drawn up by the side of the road, and Alicia sat in it, laughing and
talking, while Oliver Marsham gathered a bunch of wild roses from the
road-side. As Diana appeared, and before either of them saw her, Marsham
returned to the carriage, his hands full of flowers.
"Will that content you? I have torn myself to ribbons for you!"
"Oh, don't expect too much gratitude--_Oliver!_" The last word was low
and hurried. Alicia gathered up the reins hastily, and Marsham looked
round him--startled.
He saw a tall and slender girl coming toward them, accompanied by a
Scotch collie. She bowed to him and to Alicia, and passed quickly on.
"Never mind any more roses," said Alicia. "We ought to get home."
They drove toward Tallyn in silence. Alicia's startling hat of white
muslin framed the red gold of her hair, and the brilliant
color--assisted here and there by rouge--of her cheeks and lips. She
said presently, in a sympathetic voice:
"How sorry one is for her!"
Marsham made no reply. They passed into the darkness of overarching
trees, and there, veiled from him in the green twilight, Alicia no
longer checked the dancing triumph in her eyes.