Uncle Falcon's Will
Luncheon would have been an awkward affair, owing to David's nervous awe
of Mrs. Marmaduke Vane and his extreme trepidation in her presence, had
it not been for Diana's tact and vivacity.
She took the bull by the horns, explaining David's mistake, and how it
was entirely her own fault for being so ambiguous and inconsequent in
her speech--"as you have told me from my infancy, dear Chappie"; and she
laughed so infectiously over the misunderstanding and over the picture
she drew of poor David's dismay and horror, that Mrs. Marmaduke Vane
laughed also, and forgave David.
"And to add to poor Cousin David's confusion, he had made sure, at first
sight, that you were at least a duchess," added Diana tactfully; "and
they don't have them in Central Africa; so Cousin David felt very shy.
Didn't you, Cousin David?"
David admitted that he did; and Mrs. Vane began to like "Diana's
missionary."
"I have often noticed," pursued Miss Rivers, "that the very people who
are the most brazen in the pulpit, who lean over the side and read your
thoughts; who make you lift your unwilling eyes to theirs, responsive;
who direct the flow of their eloquence full upon any unfortunate person
who is venturing at all obviously to disagree--are the very people who
are most apt to be shy in private life. You should see my Cousin David
fling challenge and proof positive at a narrow-minded lady, with an
indignant rustle, and a red feather in her bonnet. I believe her husband
is a tenant-farmer of mine. I intend to call, in order to discuss Cousin
David's sermons with her. I shall insist upon her showing me the passage
in _her_ Bible where it says that there were three Wise Men."
Then Diana drew David on to tell of his African congregations, of the
weird experiences in those wild regions; of the perils of the jungle,
and the deep mystery of the forest. And he made it all sound so
fascinating and delightful, that Mrs. Marmaduke Vane became quite
expansive, announcing, as she helped herself liberally to
_pâté-de-foie-gras_, that she did not wonder people enjoyed being
missionaries.
"You should volunteer, Chappie dear," said Diana. "I daresay the society
sends out ladies. Only--fancy, if you came back as thin as Cousin
David!"
In the drawing-room, she sent him to the piano; and Mrs. Vane allowed
her coffee to grow cold while she listened to David's music, and did not
ask Diana to send for more, until David left the music stool.
Then Diana reminded her chaperon of an engagement she had at Eversleigh.
"The motor is ordered at half-past two, dear; and be sure you stay to
tea. Never mind if they don't ask you. Just remain until tea appears.
They can but say: '_Must_ you stay? _Can't_ you go?' And they won't do
that, because they are inordinately proud of your presence in their
abode."
Mrs. Vane rose reluctantly, expressing regret that she had unwittingly
made this engagement, and murmuring something about an easy postponement
by telegram.
But Diana was firm. Such a disappointment must not be inflicted upon any
family on Boxing-day. It could not be contemplated for a moment.
Mrs. Marmaduke Vane took David's hand in both her plump ones, and patted
it, kindly.
"Good-bye, my dear Mr. Rivers," she said with _empressement_. "And I
hope you will have a quite delightful time in Central Africa. And mind,"
she added archly, "if Diana decides to come out and see you there, _I_
shall accompany her."
Honest dismay leapt into David's eyes.
"It is no place for women," he said, helplessly. Then looked at Diana.
"I assure you, Miss Rivers, it is no place for women."
"Never fear, Cousin David," laughed Diana. "You have fired Mrs. Vane
with a desire to rough it; but I do not share her ardour, and she could
not start without me. Could you, Chappie dear? Good-bye. Have a good
time."
She turned to the fire, with an air of dismissal, and pushed a log into
place with her toe.
David opened the door, waited patiently while Mrs. Vane hoarsely
whispered final farewell pleasantries; then closed it behind her portly
back.
When he returned to the hearthrug, Diana was still standing gazing
thoughtfully into the fire, one arm on the mantel-piece.
"Oh, the irony of it!" she said, without looking up. "She hopes you will
have a quite delightful time; and, as a matter of fact, you are going
out to die! Cousin David, do you _really_ expect never to return?"
"In all probability," said David, "I shall never see England again.
They tell me I cannot possibly live through another five years out
there. They think two, or at most three, will see me through. Who can
tell? I shall be grateful for three."
"Do you consider it right, deliberately to sacrifice a young life, and a
useful life, by returning to a place which you know must cost that life?
Why not seek another sphere?"
"Because," said David, quietly, "my call is there. Some one must go; and
who better than one who has absolutely no home-ties; none to miss or
mourn him, but the people for whom he gives his life? It is all I have
to give. I give it gladly."
"Let us sit down," said Diana, "just as we sat last night, in those
quiet moments before the motor came round. Only now, I can talk--and,
oh, Cousin David, I have so much to say! But first I want you to tell
me, if you will, all about yourself. Begin at the beginning. Never mind
how long it takes. We have the whole afternoon before us, unless you
have anything to take you away early."
She motioned him to an easy chair, and herself sat on the couch, leaning
forward in her favourite attitude, her elbow on her knee, her chin
resting in the palm of her hand. Her grey eyes searched his face. The
firelight played on her soft hair.
"Begin at the beginning, Cousin David," she said.
"There is not much to tell of my beginnings," said David, simply. "My
parents married late in life. I was their only child--the son of their
old age. My home was always a little heaven upon earth. They were not
well off; we only had what my father earned by his practice, and village
people are apt to be slack about paying a doctor's bills. But they made
great efforts to give me the best possible education; and, a generous
friend coming to their assistance, I was able to go to Oxford." His eyes
glowed. "I wish you could know all that that means," he said; "being
able to go to Oxford."
"I can imagine what it would mean--to you," said Diana.
"While I was at Oxford, I decided to be ordained; and, almost
immediately after that decision, the call came. I held a London curacy
for one year, but, as soon as I was priested, by special leave from my
Bishop, and arrangement with my Vicar, I went out to Africa. During the
year I was working in London, I lost both my father and my mother."
"Ah, poor boy!" murmured Diana. "Then you had no one."
David hesitated. "There was Amy," he said.
Diana's eyelids flickered. "Oh, there was 'Amy.' That might mean a good
deal. Did 'Amy' want to go out to Central Africa?"
"No," said David; "nor would I have dreamed of taking her there. Amy and
I had lived in the same village all our lives. We had been babies
together. Our mothers had wheeled us out in a double pram. We were just
brother and sister, until I went to college; and then we thought we were
going to be--more. But, when the call came, I knew it must mean
celibacy. No man could take a woman to such places. I knew, if I
accepted, I must give up Amy. I dreaded telling her. But, when at last I
plucked up courage and told her, Amy did not mind very much, because a
gentleman-farmer in the neighbourhood was wanting to marry her. Amy was
very pretty. They were married just before I sailed. Amy wanted me to
marry them. But I could not do that."
Diana looked at the thin sensitive face.
"No," she said; "you could not do that."
"I thought it best not to correspond during the five years," continued
David, "considering what we had been to one another. But when I was
invalided home, I looked forward, in the eager sort of way you do when
you are very weak, to seeing Amy again. I had no one else. As soon as I
could manage the journey, I went down--home; and--and called at Amy's
house. I asked for Mrs. Robert Carsdale--Amy's married name. A very
masculine noisy lady, whom I had never seen before, walked into the room
where I stood awaiting Amy. She had just come in from hunting, and
flicked her boot with her hunting-crop as she asked me what I wanted. I
said: "I have called to see Mrs. Robert Carsdale." She said: "Well? I am
Mrs. Robert Carsdale," and stared at me, in astonishment.
"So I asked for Amy. She told me where to--to find Amy, and opened the
hall door. Amy had been dead three years. Robert Carsdale had married
again. I found Amy's grave, in our little churchyard, quite near my own
parents'. Also the grave of her baby boy. It was all that was left of
Amy; and, do you know, she had named her little son 'David.'"
"Oh, you poor boy!" said Diana. "You poor, poor boy! But, do you know, I
think Amy in heaven was better for you, than Amy on earth. I don't hold
with marriage. Had you cared very much?"
"Yes, I had cared a good deal," replied David, in a low voice; "but as
a boy cares, I think. Not as I should imagine a man would care. A man
who really cared _could_ not have left her to another man, could he?"
"I don't hold with matrimony," said Diana again; and she said it with
forceful emphasis.
"Nor do I," said David; "and my people out in Africa are all the family
I shall ever know. I faced that out, when I accepted the call. No man
has a right to allow a woman to face nameless horrors and hardships, or
to make a home in a climate where little children cannot live."
"Ah, I do so agree with you!" cried Diana. "I once attended a missionary
meeting where a returned missionary from India told us how she and her
husband had had to send their little daughter home to England when she
was seven years old, and had not seen her again until she was sixteen.
'When we returned to England,' she told the meeting, 'I should not have
known my daughter had I passed her in the street!' And every one thought
it so pathetic, and so devoted. But it seemed to me false pathos, and
unpardonable neglect of primary duties. Who could take that mother's
place to that little child of seven years old? And, from the age of
seven to sixteen, how a girl needs her own mother. What call could come
before that first call--her own little child's need of her? And what do
you think that missionary-lady's work had been? Managing a school for
heathen children! All the time she was giving an account of these
children of other people and her work among them, I felt like calling
out: 'How about your own?' Cousin David, I didn't put a halfpenny in the
plate; and I have hated missionaries ever since!"
"That is not quite just," said David. "But I do most certainly agree
with you, that first claims should come first. And therefore, a man who
feels called to labour where wife and children could not live, must
forego these tender ties, and consider himself pledged to celibacy."
"It is the better part," said Diana.
David made no answer. It had not struck him in that light before. He had
always thought he was foregoing an unknown but an undoubted joy.
A silence fell between them. He was pondering her last remark; she was
considering him, and trying to fathom how much sincerity of conviction,
strength of will, and tenacity of purpose, lay behind that gentle
manner, and straightforward simplicity of character.
Diana was a fearless cross-country rider. She never funked a fence, nor
walked a disappointed horse along, in search of a gap or a gate. But
before taking a high jump she liked to know what was on the other side.
So, while David pondered Diana's last remark, Diana studied David.
At length she said: "Do you remember my first appearance at Brambledene
church, on a Sunday evening, about five weeks ago?"
Yes; David remembered.
"I arrived late," said Diana. "I walked up the church to blasts of
psalmody from that noisy choir."
David smiled. "You were never late again," he said.
"Mercy, no!" laughed Diana. "You gave one the impression of being the
sort of person who might hold up the entire service, while one
unfortunate late-comer hurried abashed into her pew. Are many parsons so
acutely conscious of the exact deportment of each member of their
congregations?"
"I don't know," answered David. "I suppose the keen look-out one has to
keep for unexpected and sometimes dangerous happenings, at all
gatherings of our poor wild people, has trained one to it. I admit, I
would sooner see the glitter of an African spear poised in my direction
from behind a tree trunk, than see Mrs. Smith nudge her husband, in
obvious disagreement with the most important point in my sermon."
"Well," continued Diana, "I came. And what do you think brought me?"
David had no suggestion to make as to what had brought Diana.
"Why, after you had come down for an interview with my god-father and
spent a night at the Rectory, I motored over to see him, just before he
went for his cure. He told me all about you; and, among other things,
that you were going back knowing that the climate out there could only
mean for you a very few years of life; and I came to church because I
wanted to see a man whose religion meant more to him than even life
itself--I, who rated life and health as highest of all good; most
valuable of all possessions.
"I came to _see_--wondering, doubting, incredulous. I stayed to
_listen_--troubled, conscience-stricken, perplexed. First, I believed in
_you_, Cousin David. Then I saw the Christ-life in you. Then I longed to
have what you had--to find Him myself. Yesterday, He found me. To-day, I
can humbly, trustfully say: 'I know Whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day.' I am far from being what I ought to be; my life just
now is one tangle of perplexities; but the darkness is over, and the
true light now shineth. I hope, from this time onward, to be a follower
of the Star."
"I thank God," said David Rivers.
"And now," continued Diana, after a few moments of happy silence, "I am
going to burden you, Cousin David, with a recital of my difficulties;
and I am going to ask your advice. Let me tell you my past history, as
shortly as possible.
"This dear old place is my childhood's home. My earliest recollection is
of living here with my mother and my grandfather. My father, Captain
Rivers, who was heir to the whole property, died when I was three years
old. I barely remember him. The property was entailed on male heirs, and
failing my father, it came to a younger brother of my grandfather, a
great-uncle of mine, a certain Falcon Rivers, who had fallen out with
most of his relations, gone to live in America, and made a large fortune
out there. My grandfather and my mother never spoke of Uncle Falcon, and
I remember, as a child, having the instinctive feeling that even to
think of Uncle Falcon was an insidious form of sin. It therefore had its
attractions. I quite often thought of Uncle Falcon!
"Toward the close of his life, my grandfather became involved in money
difficulties. Much of the estate was mortgaged. I was too young and
heedless to understand details, but it all resulted in this: that when
my grandfather died, he was unable to leave much provision for my
mother, or for me. We had to turn out of Riverscourt; Uncle Falcon was
returning to take possession. So we went to live in town, on the merest
pittance, and in what, after the luxuries to which I had always been
accustomed, appeared to me abject poverty. I was then nineteen. My
mother, who had been older than my father, was over fifty.
"Then followed two very hard years. Uncle Falcon wrote to my mother; but
she refused to see him, or to have any communication with him. She would
not show me his letter. We were absolutely cut off from the old home,
and all our former surroundings. Once or twice we heard, in roundabout
ways, how much Uncle Falcon's wealth was doing for the old place.
Mortgages were all paid off; tumbled-down cottages were being rebuilt;
the farms were put into proper order, and let to good tenants. American
money has a way of being useful, even in proud old England.
"Any mention of all this, filled my mother with an extreme bitterness,
to which I had not then the key, and which I completely failed to
understand.
"One morning, at breakfast, she received an envelope, merely containing
a thin slip of paper. Her beautiful face--my mother was a very lovely
woman--went, as they say in story-books, whiter than the table-cloth.
She tore the paper across, and across again, and flung the fragments
into the fire. They missed the flames, and fluttered down into the
fender. I picked them up, and, right before her, pieced them together.
It was a cheque from Uncle Falcon for a thousand pounds. 'Oh, Mamma
dear!' I said. I was so tired of running after omnibuses, and pretending
we liked potted meat lunches.
"She snatched the fragments out of my fingers, and dropped them into the
heart of the fire.
"'Anyway, it was kind of Uncle Falcon,' I said.
"'Do not mention his name,' cried my mother, with white lips; and I
experienced once more the fascination of the belief, which had been mine
in childhood, that Uncle Falcon, and the Prince of Darkness, were
somehow akin.
"To cut a long story short, at the end of those two hard years, my
mother died. A close friend of ours was matron in the Hospital of the
Holy Star--ah, yes, how curious! I had forgotten the name--a beautiful
little hospital in the Euston Road, supported by private contributions.
She accepted me for training. I found the work interesting, and soon
got on. You may have difficulty in believing it, Cousin David, but I
make a quite excellent nurse. I studied every branch, passed various
exams., looked quite professional in my uniform, and should have been a
ward Sister before long--when the letter came, which again changed my
whole life.
"It was from Uncle Falcon! He had kept himself informed of my movements
through our old family lawyer, Mr. Inglestry, who, during those years,
had never lost sight of poor mamma, nor of me. I can remember Uncle
Falcon's letter, word for word.
"'My Dear Niece,' he wrote, 'I am told you are by now a duly qualified
hospital nurse. My body is in excellent health, but my brain--which I
suppose I have worked pretty strenuously--has partially given way; with
the result that my otherwise healthy body is more or less helpless on
the right side. My doctor tells me I must have a trained nurse; not in
constant attendance--Heaven protect the poor woman, if _that_ were
necessary!--but somewhere handy in the house, in case of need.
"'Now why should I be tended in my declining years, by a stranger, when
my own kith and kin is competent to do it? And why should I bring a
stray young woman to this beautiful place, when the girl whose rightful
home it is, might feel inclined to return to it?
"'I hear from old What's-his-name, that you bear no resemblance whatever
to your father, but are the image of what your mother was, at your age.
That being the case, if you like to come home, my child, I will make
your life as pleasant as I can, for her sake.
"'Your affectionate unknown uncle,
"'FALCON RIVERS.'
"Well--I went.
"I arrived in uniform, not sure what my standing was to be in the house,
but thankful to be back there, on any terms, and irresistibly attracted
by the spell of Uncle Falcon.
"Our own old butler opened the door to me. I nearly fell upon his neck.
The housekeeper, who had known me from infancy, took me up to my room.
They wept and laughed, and seemed to look upon my uniform as one of Miss
Diana's pranks--half funny, half naughty. Truth to tell, I did feel
dressed up, when I found myself inside the old hall again.
"In twenty-four hours, Cousin David, I was installed as the daughter of
the house.
"Of Uncle Falcon's remarkable personality, there is not time to tell
you now. We took to each other at once, and, before long, he felt it
right to put away, at my request, the one possible cause of
misunderstanding there might have been between us, by telling me the
true reason of his alienation from home, and his breach with my
grandfather and my parents.
"Uncle Falcon was ten years younger than my grandfather. My mother, then
a very lovely woman, in the perfection of her beauty, was ten years
older than my father, a young subaltern just entering the army. My
mother was engaged to Uncle Falcon, who loved her with an intensity of
devotion, such as only a nature strong, fiery, rugged as his, could
bestow.
"During a visit to Riverscourt, shortly before the time appointed for
her marriage to Uncle Falcon, then a comparatively poor man with no
prospects--my mother met my father. My father fell in love with her, and
my mother jilted Uncle Falcon in order to marry the young heir to the
house and lands of Riverscourt. Poor mamma! How well I could understand
it, remembering her love of luxury, and of all those things which go
with an old country place and large estates. Uncle Falcon never spoke to
her again, after receiving the letter in which she put an end to their
engagement; but he had a furious scene with my grandfather, who had
connived at the treachery toward his younger brother; and then
horsewhipped the young subaltern, in his father's presence.
"Shortly afterwards, he sailed for America, and never returned.
"Then--oh, irony of fate! After three years of married life, the young
heir died, without a son, and Uncle Falcon stood to inherit Riverscourt,
as the last in the entail.
"Meanwhile everything he touched had turned to gold, and he only waited
my grandfather's decease to return as master to the old home, with the
large fortune which would soon restore it to its pristine beauty and
grandeur.
"How well I could now understand my grandfather's silent fury, and my
mother's remorseful bitterness! By her own infidelity, she had made
herself the _niece_ of the man whose wife she might have been, and whose
wealth, position, and power would all have been laid at her feet. Also,
I am inclined to think she had not been long in realising and regretting
the treasure she had lost, in the love of the older man. I always knew
mamma had few ideals, and no illusions. Many of my own pronounced views
on the vital things in life are the product of her disillusionising
philosophy. Poor mamma! Oh, Cousin David, I see it hurts you each time
I say '_poor_ mamma'! Yet you cannot know what it means, when one's
kindest thoughts of one's mother must needs be prefixed by the adjective
'poor.' Yes, I know it is a sad state of things when pity must be called
in to soften filial judgment. But then life is full of these sad things,
isn't it? Anyway I have found it so. Had my mother left me one single
illusion regarding men and marriage, I might not now find myself in the
difficult position in which I am placed to-day.
"However, for one thing I have always been thankful--one hour when I can
remember my mother with admiration and respect: that morning at
breakfast, in our humble suburban villa, when she tore up and flung to
the flames Uncle Falcon's cheque for a thousand pounds.
"A close intimacy, and a deep, though undemonstrative, affection, soon
arose between Uncle Falcon and myself. His life-long fidelity to his
love for my mother seemed to transfer itself to me, and to be at last
content in having found an object. My every wish was met and gratified.
He insisted upon allowing me a thousand a year, merely as pocket-money,
while still defraying all large expenses for me, himself. Hunters,
dogs, everything I could wish, were secured and put at my disposal. His
last gift to me was the motor-car which brought you here to-day.
"His sense of humour was delightful; his shrewd keen judgment of men and
things, instructive and entertaining. But--he had one peculiarity. So
sure was he of his own discernment, and so accustomed to bend others to
his iron will, that if one held a different view from his and ventured
to say so, he could never rest until he had won in the argument and
brought one round to his way of thinking. He was never irritable over
the point; he kept his temper, and controlled his tongue. But he never
rested until he had convinced and defeated a mental opponent.
"He and I agreed upon most subjects, but there was one on which we
differed; and Uncle Falcon could never bring himself to let it be. In
spite of his own hard experience and consequent bachelorhood,--perhaps
because of it,--he was an ardent believer in marriage. He held that a
woman was not meant to stand alone; that she missed her proper vocation
in life if she refused matrimony; and that she attained her full
perfection only when the marriage tie had brought her to depend, for her
completion and for her happiness, upon her rightful master--man.
"On the other hand, I, as you may have discovered, Cousin David, regard
the whole idea of marriage with abhorrence. I hold that, as things now
stand in this civilization of ours, a woman's one absolute right is her
right to herself. She is her own inalienable possession. Why should she
give herself up to a man; becoming his chattel, to do with as he
pleases? Why should she lose all right over her own person, her own
property, her own liberty of action and regulation of circumstance? Why
should she change her very name for his? If the two could stand on a
platform of absolute independence and equality, the thing might be
bearable--for some. It would still be intolerable to me! But, as the law
and social usage now stand, marriage is--to the woman--practically
slavery; and, therefore, an unspeakable degradation!"
Diana's eyes flashed; her colour rose; her firm chin seemed more than
ever to be moulded in marble.
David, sole representative of the tyrant man, quailed beneath the lash
of her indictment. He knew Diana was wrong. He felt he ought to say that
marriage was scriptural; and that woman was intended, from the first, to
be in subjection to man. But he had not the courage of his convictions;
nor could he brook the thought of any man attempting to subjugate this
glorious specimen of womanhood, invading her privacy, or in any way
presuming to dispute her absolute right over herself. So he shrank into
his large armchair, and took refuge in silence.
"When I proclaimed my views to Uncle Falcon," continued Diana, "he would
hear me to the end, and then say: 'My dear girl, after the manner of
most women orators, you mount the platform of your own ignorance, and
lay down the law from the depths--or, perhaps I should say, shallows--of
your own absolute inexperience. Get married, child, and you will tell a
different story.'
"Then Uncle Falcon set himself to compass this result, but without
success. However profound might be my inexperience, I knew how to keep
men at arm's length, thank goodness! But, as the happy years went by, we
periodically reverted to our one point of difference. At the close of
each discussion, Uncle Falcon used to say: 'I shall win, Diana! Some day
you will have to admit that I have won.' His eyes used to gleam beneath
his shaggy brows, and I would turn the subject; because I could not give
in, yet I felt it was becoming almost a mania with Uncle Falcon.
"It was the only thing in which I failed to please him. His pride in my
riding, and in anything else I could do, was touching beyond words. He
remodelled the kennels, and financed the hunt in our neighbourhood, on
condition that I was Master.
"One day his speech suddenly became thick and difficult. He sent for Mr.
Inglestry, our old family friend and adviser, and was closeted with him
for over an hour.
"When Mr. Inglestry came out of the library, his face was grave; his
manner, worried.
"'Go to your uncle, Miss Rivers,' he said. 'He has been exciting himself
a good deal, over a matter about which I felt bound to expostulate, and
I think he needs attention.'
"I went into the library.
"Uncle Falcon's eyes were brighter than ever, though his lips twitched.
'I shall win, Diana,' he said. 'Some day you will have to admit that I
have won. You will have to say: "Uncle Falcon, you have won."'
"I knelt down in front of him. 'No other man will ever win me, dear. So
I can say it at once. Uncle Falcon, you have won.'
"'Foolish girl!' he said; then looked at me with inexpressible
affection. 'I w-want you to be happy,' he said. 'I w-want you to be as
h-happy as I would have made Geraldine.'
"Geraldine was my mother.
"On the following day, Uncle Falcon sent for another lawyer, a young man
just opening a practice in Riversmead. He arrived with his clerk, but
only spent a very few minutes in the library, and as we have never heard
from him since, no transaction of importance can have taken place. Mr.
Inglestry had the will and the codicil.
"A few nights later, I was summoned to my uncle's room. He neither spoke
nor moved again; but his eyes were still bright beneath the bushy
eyebrows. He knew me to the end. Those living eyes, in the already dead
body, seemed to say: 'Diana, I shall win.'
"At dawn, the brave, dauntless soul left the body, which had long
clogged it, and launched out into the Unknown. My first conscious prayer
was: that he might not there meet either my father or my mother, but
some noble kindred spirit, worthy of him. Cousin David, you would have
liked Uncle Falcon."
"I am sure I should have," said David Rivers.
"Go into the library," commanded Diana, "the door opposite the
dining-room, and study the portrait of him hanging over the
mantel-piece, painted by a famous artist, two years ago."
David went.
Diana rang, and sent for a glass of water; went to the window, and
looked out; crossed to a mirror, and nervously smoothed her abundant
hair. Hitherto she had been cantering smoothly over open country. Now
she was approaching the leap. She must keep her nerve--or she would find
herself riding for a fall.
"Did you notice his eyes?" she asked, as David sat down again.
"Yes," he answered; "wonderful eyes; bright, as golden amber. You must
not be offended--you would not be, if you could know how beautiful they
were--but the only eyes I ever saw at all like them, belonged to a
_Macacus Cynomolgus_, a little African monkey--who was a great pet of
mine."
"I quite understand," said Diana. "I know the eyes of that species of
monkey. Now, tell me? Did Uncle Falcon's amber eyes say anything to
you?"
"Yes," said David. "It must have been simply owing to all you have told
me. But, the longer I looked at them--the more clearly they said: 'I
shall win.'"
"Well, now listen," said Diana, "if my history does not weary you. When
Mr. Inglestry produced Uncle Falcon's will, he had left everything to
me: Riverscourt, the whole estate, the four livings of which he held the
patronage, and--his immense fortune. Cousin David, I am so rich that I
have not yet learned how to spend my money. I want you to help me. I
have indeed the gift of gold to offer to the King. I wish you to have,
at once, all you require for the church, the schools, the
printing-press, and the boat, of which you spoke. And then, I wish you
to have a thousand a year--two, if you need them--for the current
expenses of your work, and to enable you to have a colleague. Will you
accept this, Cousin David, from a grateful heart, guided by you, led by
the Star, and able to-day to offer it to the King?"
At first David made no reply. He sat quite silent, his head thrown back,
his hands clasping his knee; and Diana knew, as she watched the working
of the thin white face, that he was striving to master an emotion such
as a man hates to show before a woman.
Then he sat up, loosing his knee, and answered very simply:
"I accept--for the King and for His work, Miss Rivers; and I accept on
behalf of my poor eager waiting people out there. Ah, if you could know
how much it means----!" His voice broke.
Diana felt the happy tears welling up into her own eyes.
"And we will call the church," said David, presently, "the Church of the
Holy Star."
"Very well," said Diana. "Then that is settled. You have helped me with
my first gift, Cousin David. Now you must advise and help me about the
second. And, indeed, the possibility of offering the first depends
almost entirely upon the advice you give me about the second. You know
you said the frankincense meant our ideals--the high and holy things in
our lives? Well, my ideals are in sore peril. I want you to advise me as
to how to keep them. Listen! There was a codicil to Uncle Falcon's
will--a private codicil known only to Mr. Inglestry and myself, and only
to be made known a year after his death, to those whom, if I failed to
fulfil its conditions, it might then concern. Riverscourt, and all this
wealth, are mine, only on condition that I am married, within twelve
months of Uncle Falcon's death. He has been dead, eleven."
Diana paused.
"Good God!" said David Rivers; and it was not a careless exclamation. It
was a cry of protest from his very soul. "On condition that you are
married!" he said. "And to whom?"
"No stipulation was made as to that," replied Diana. "But Uncle Falcon
had three men in his mind, all of whom he liked, and each of whom
considers himself in love with me: a famous doctor in London, a
distinguished cleric in our cathedral town, and a distant cousin, Rupert
Rivers, to whom the whole property is to go, if I fail to fulfil the
condition."
David sat forward, with his elbows on his knees, and rumpled his hair
with his hands. Horror and dismay were in his honest eyes.
"It is unbelievable!" he said. "That he should really care for you, and
wish your happiness, and yet lay this burden upon you after his death.
His mind must have been affected when he made that codicil."
"So Mr. Inglestry says; but not sufficiently affected to enable us to
dispute it. The idea of bending me to matrimony, and of forcing me to
admit that it was the better part, had become a monomania with Uncle
Falcon."
David sat with his head in his hands, his look bent upon the floor. Now
that he knew of this cruel condition imposed upon the beautiful girl
sitting opposite to him, he could not bring himself to lift his eyes to
hers. She should be looked at only with admiration and wonder; and now a
depth of pity would be in his eyes. Therefore he kept them lowered.
"So," said Diana, "you see how I am placed. If I refuse to fulfil the
condition, on the anniversary of Uncle Falcon's death we must tell
Rupert Rivers of the codicil; I shall have to hand over everything to
him; leave my dear home, and go back to the life of running after
omnibuses, and pretending to enjoy potted meat lunches! On the other
hand, if--in order to keep my home, my income, all the luxuries I love,
my position in the county, and the influence which I now for the first
time begin to value for the true reason--I marry one of these men, or
one of half a dozen others who would require only the slightest
encouragement to propose to me at once, I fail to keep true to my own
ideals; I practically barter myself and my liberty, in order to keep the
place which is rightfully my own; I sink to the level of the women I
have long despised, who marry for money."
"You must not do that," said David. "Nay, more; you _could_ not do that.
But is not your Cousin Rupert a man whom you might learn to love; a man
you could marry for the real reasons?"
Diana laughed, bitterly.
"Cousin David," she said, "shortly before grandpapa died, I was engaged
to Rupert Rivers for a fortnight. At the end of that time I loathed my
own body. Young as I was, and scornfully opposed by my mother, I took
matters into my own hands, and broke off the engagement."
David looked perplexed.
"It should not have had that effect upon you," he said, slowly. "I don't
know much about it, but it seems to me that a man's love and worship
should tend to make a woman reverence her own body, and regard her
beauty in a new light, because of his delight in it. I remember--" a
sudden flush suffused David's pale cheeks, but he brought forth his
reminiscence bravely, for Diana's sake: "I remember kissing Amy's hand
the evening before I first went to college, and she wrote and told me
that for days afterwards that hand had seemed unlike the other, and
whenever she looked at it she remembered that I had kissed it."
Diana's laughter was in her eyes. She did not admit it to her voice. She
felt very much older, at that moment, than David Rivers.
"Oh, you dear boy!" she said. "What can you, with your Amy and your
Africans, know of such men as Rupert, or the doctor, or even--even the
church dignitary? _You_ would love a woman's soul, and cherish her body
because it contained it. _They_ make one feel that nothing else matters
much, so long as one is beautiful. And after having been looked at by
them for a little while, one feels inclined to smash one's mirror."
David lifted quiet eyes to hers. They seemed deep wells of childlike
purity; yet there was fire in their calm depths.
"When you _are_ so beautiful," he said, simply, "you can't blame a man
for thinking so, when he looks at you."
Diana laughed, blushing. She was surfeited with compliments; yet this of
David's, so unpremeditated, so impersonal, pleased her more than any
compliment had ever pleased her.
But, in an instant, she was grave again. Momentous issues lay before
her. Uncle Falcon had been dead eleven months.
"Then would you advise me to marry, and thus retain the property?" she
suggested.
"God forbid!" cried David. "That you should be compelled to leave here,
seems intolerable; but it would be infinitely more intolerable that you
should make a loveless marriage. Give up all, if needs must, but--keep
your ideals."
Diana glanced at him, from beneath half-lifted lids.
"That will mean, Cousin David, that you cannot have the money for your
church, your school, your printing-press, and your steam-launch; nor the
yearly income for current expenses."
Now, curiously enough, David had not thought of this. His mind had been
completely taken up with the idea of Diana running after omnibuses and
lunching cheaply on potted meat.
The great disappointment now struck him with full force; but he did not
waver for an instant.
"How could I build the Church of the Holy Star on the proceeds of your
lost ideals?" he said. "If my church is to be built, the money will be
found in some other way."
"There _is_ another way," said Diana, suddenly.
David looked up, surprised at the forceful decision of her tone.
"What other way is there?" he asked.
Diana rose; walked over to the window and stood looking across the
spacious park, at the pale gold of the wintry sunset.
She was in full view, at last, of her high fence, and did not yet know
what lay beyond it. She headed straight for it; but she rode on the
curb.
She walked back to the fireplace, and stood confronting him; her superb
young figure drawn up to its full height.
Her voice was very quiet; her manner, very deliberate, as she answered
his question.
"I want _you_ to marry me, Cousin David," she said, "on the morning of
the day on which you start for Central Africa."