CHAPTER XIII
Owing to the scantiness of Sunday trains, Marsham did not arrive atBeechcote village till between nine and ten at night. He left his bag atthe village inn, tried to ignore the scarcely concealed astonishmentwith which the well-known master--or reputed master--of Tallyn wasreceived within its extremely modest walls, and walked up to themanor-house. There he had a short conversation with Mrs. Colwood, whodid not propose to tell Diana of his arrival till the morning.
"She does not know that I wrote to you," said the little lady, in herpale distress. "She wrote to you herself this evening. I hope I have notdone wrong."
Marsham reassured her, and they had a melancholy consultation. Diana, itseemed, had insisted on getting up that day as usual. She had totteredacross to her sitting-room and had spent the day there alone, writing afew letters, or sitting motionless in her chair for hours together. Shehad scarcely eaten, and Mrs. Colwood was sure she had not slept at allsince the shock. It was to be hoped that out of sheer fatigue she mightsleep, on this, the second night. But it was essential there should beno fresh excitement, such as the knowledge of Marsham's arrival wouldcertainly arouse.
Mrs. Colwood could hardly bring herself to speak of Fanny Merton. Shewas, of course, still in the house--sulking--and inclined to blameeverybody, her dead uncle in particular, rather than herself. But,mercifully, she was departing early on the Monday morning--to somefriends in London.
"If you come after breakfast you will find Miss Mallory alone. I willtell her first thing that you are here."
Marsham assented, and got up to take his leave. Involuntarily he lookedround the drawing-room where he had first seen Diana the day before.Then it was flooded by spring sunshine--not more radiant than her face.Now a solitary lamp made a faint spot of light amid the shadows of thepanelled walls. He and Mrs. Colwood spoke almost in whispers. The oldhouse, generally so winning and sympathetic, seemed to hold itselfsilent and aloof--as though in this touch of calamity the living were nolonger its master and the dead generations woke. And, up-stairs, Dianalay perhaps in her white bed, miserable and alone, not knowing that hewas there, within a few yards of her.
Mrs. Colwood noiselessly opened a garden door and so dismissed him. Itwas moonlight outside, and instead of returning to the inn he took theroad up the hill to the crest of the encircling down. Diverging a littleto the left, he found himself on the open hill-side, at a pointcommanding the village and Beechcote itself, ringed by its ancientwoods. In the village two dim lights, far apart, were visible; lights,he thought, of sickness or of birth?--for the poor sleep early. One ofthe Beechcote windows shone with a dim illumination. Was she there, andsleepless? The sky was full of light; the blanched chalk down on whichhe stood ran northward in a shining curve, bare in the moon; but in thehollow below, and on the horizon, the dark huddled woods kept watch,guarding the secrets of night. The owls were calling in the treesbehind him--some in faint prolonged cry, one in a sharp shrieking note.And at whiles a train rushed upon the ear, held it, and died away; or abreeze crept among the dead beech leaves at his feet. Otherwise not asound or show of life; Marsham was alone with night and himself.
Twenty-four hours--little more--since on that same hill-side he had heldDiana in his arms in the first rapture of love. What was it that hadchanged? How was it--for he was frank with himself--that the love whichhad been then the top and completion of his life, the angel of allgood-fortune within and without, had become now, to some extent, aburden to be borne, an obligation to be met?
Certainly, he loved her well. But she came to him now, bringing as hermarriage portion, not easy joy and success, the full years of prosperityand ambition, but poverty, effort, a certain measure of disgrace, andthe perpetual presence of a ghastly and heart-breaking memory. He shrankfrom this last in a positive and sharp impatience. Why should JulietSparling's crime affect him?--depress the vigor and cheerfulness ofhis life?
As to the effort before him, he felt toward it as a man of weakunpractised muscle who endeavors with straining to raise a physicalweight. He would make the effort, but it would tax his whole strength.As he strolled along the down, dismally smoking and pondering, he madehimself contemplate the then and now--taking stock, as it were, of hislife. In this truth-compelling darkness, apart from the stimulus of hismother's tyranny, he felt himself to be two men: one in love with Diana,the other in love with success and political ambition, and money as theagent and servant of both. He had never for one moment envisaged thefirst love--Diana--as the alternative to, or substitute for the secondlove--success. As he had conceived her up to twenty-four hours before,Diana was to be, indeed, one of the chief elements and ministers ofsuccess. In winning her, he was, in fact, to make the best of bothworlds. A certain cool analytic gift that he possessed put all thisplainly before him. And now it must be a choice between Diana and allthose other desirable things.
Take the poverty first. What would it amount to? He knew approximatelywhat was Diana's fortune. He had meant--with easy generosity--to leaveit all in her hands, to do what she would with. Now, until his mothercame to her senses, they must chiefly depend upon it. What could he addto it? He had been called to the Bar, but had never practised.Directorships no doubt, he might get, like other men; though not soeasily now, if it was to be known that his mother meant to make a pauperof him. And once a man whom he had met in political life, who was nodoubt ignorant of his private circumstances, had sounded him as towhether he would become the London correspondent of a great Americanpaper. He had laughed then, good-humoredly, at the proposal. Perhaps thething might still be open. It would mean a few extra hundreds.
He laughed again as he thought of it, but not good-humoredly. The wholething was so monstrous! His mother had close on twenty thousand a year!For all her puritanical training she liked luxury--of a certainkind--and had brought up her son in it. Marsham had never gambled orspeculated or raced. It was part of his democratic creed and his QuakerAncestry to despise such modes of wasting money, and to be scornful ofthe men who indulged in them. But the best of housing, service, andclothes; the best shooting, whether in England or Scotland; the bestgolfing, fishing, and travelling: all these had come to him year afteryear since his boyhood, without question. His mother, of course, hadprovided the majority of them, for his own small income and hisallowance from her were absorbed by his personal expenses, hisParliamentary life, and the subscriptions to the party, which--inaddition to his mother's--made him, as he was well aware, a person ofimportance in its ranks, quite apart from his record in the House.
Now all that must be given up. He would be reduced to anincome--including what he imagined to be Diana's--of less than half hispersonal spending hitherto; and those vast perspectives implied in theinheritance at his mother's death of his father's half million must alsobe renounced.
No doubt he could just maintain himself in Parliament. Buteverything--judged by the standards he had been brought up in--would bedifficult where everything till now had been ease.
He knew his mother too well to doubt her stubbornness, and his feelingwas bitter, indeed. Bitter, too, against his father, who had left him inthis plight. Why had his father distrusted and wronged him so? Herecalled with discomfort certain collisions of his youth; certaindisappointments at school and college he had inflicted on his father'sambition; certain lectures and gibes from that strong mouth, in hisearly manhood. Absurd! If his father had had to do with a reallyspendthrift and unsatisfactory son, there might have been some sense init. But for these trifles--these suspicions--these foolish notions of adoctrinaire--to inflict this stigma and this yoke on him all his days!
Suddenly his wanderings along the moon-lit hill came to a stand-still.For he recognized the hollow in the chalk--the gnarled thorn--the wideoutlook. He stood gazing about him--a shamed lover; conscious of a dozencontradictory feelings. Beautiful and tender Diana!--"Stick to her,Oliver!--she is worth it!" Chide's eager and peremptory tone smote onthe inward ear. Of course he would stick to her. The only thing which itgave him any pleas
ure to remember in this nightmare of a day was his ownanswer to Ferrier's suggestion that Diana might release him: "Do youimagine I could be such a hound as to let her?" As he said it, he hadbeen conscious that the words rang well; that he had struck the rightattitude, and done the right thing. Of course he had done the rightthing! What would he, or any other decent person, have thought of a manwho could draw back from his word, for such a cause?
No!--he resigned himself. He would do nothing mean and ungentlemanly. Apolicy of waiting and diplomacy should be tried. Ferrier might be ofsome use. But, if nothing availed, he must marry and make the best ofit. He wondered to what charitable societies his mother would leaveher money!
Slowly he strolled back along the hill. That dim light, high up on theshrouded walls of Beechcote, seemed to go with him, softly, insistentlyreminding him of Diana. The thought of her moved him deeply. He longedto have her in his arms, to comfort her, to feel her dependent on himfor the recovery of joy and vitality. It was only by an obstinate andeager dwelling upon her sweetness and charm that he could protecthimself against the rise of an invading wave of repugnance anddepression; the same repugnance, the same instinctive longing to escape,which he had always felt, as boy or man, in the presence of sickness, ordeath, or mourning.
* * * * *
Marsham had been long asleep in his queer little room at "The GreenMan." The last lights were out in the village, and the moon had set.Diana stole out of bed; Muriel must not hear her, Muriel whose eyes werealready so tired and tear-worn with another's grief. She went to thewindow, and, throwing a shawl over her, she knelt there, looking out.She was dimly conscious of stars, of the hill, the woods; what shereally _saw_ was a prison room as she was able to imagine it, and hermother lying there--her young mother--only four years older than she,Diana, was now. Or again she saw the court of law--the judge in theblack cap--and her mother looking up. Fanny had said she was small andslight--with dark hair.
The strange frozen horror of it made tears--or sleep--orrest--impossible. She did not think much of Marsham; she could hardlyremember what she had written to him. Love was only another anguish. Norcould it protect her from the images which pursued her. The only thoughtwhich seemed to soothe the torture of imagination was the thoughtstamped on her brain tissue by the long inheritance of centuries--thethought of Christ on Calvary. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsakenme?" The words repeated themselves again and again. She did not pray inwords. But her agony crept to the foot of what has become through theaction and interaction of two thousand years, the typical andrepresentative agony of the world, and, clinging there, made wildappeal, like the generations before her, to a God in whose hand lie thecreatures of His will.
* * * * *
"Mrs. Colwood said I might come and say good-bye to you," said FannyMerton, holding her head high.
She stood on the threshold of Diana's little sitting-room, looking in.There was an injured pride in her bearing, balanced by a certain anxietywhich seemed to keep it within bounds.
"Please come in," said Diana.
She rose with difficulty from the table where she was forcing herself towrite a letter. Had she followed her own will she would have been up ather usual time and down to breakfast. But she had turned faint whiledressing, and Mrs. Colwood had persuaded her to let some tea be broughtup-stairs.
Fanny came in, half closing the door.
"Well, I'm off," she said, flushing. "I dare say you won't want to see_me_ again."
Diana came feebly forward, clinging to the chairs.
"It wasn't your fault. I must have known--some time."
Fanny looked at her uneasily.
"Well, of course, that's true. But I dare say I--well I'm no good atbeating about the bush, never was! And I was in a temper, too--that wasat the bottom of it."
Diana made no reply. Her eyes, magnified by exhaustion and pallor,seemed to be keeping a pitiful shrinking watch lest she should be hurtagain--past bearing. It was like the shrinking of a child that has beentortured, from its tormentor.
"You are going to London?"
"Yes. You remember those Devonshire people I went to stay with? One ofthe girls is up in London with her aunt. I'm going to board with thema bit."
"My lawyers will send the thousand pounds to Aunt Merton when they havearranged for it," said Diana, quietly. "Is that what you wish?"
A look of relief she could not conceal slipped into Fanny's countenance.
"You're going to give it us--after all?" she said, stumbling over thewords.
"I promised to give it you."
Fanny fidgeted, but even her perceptions told her that further thankswould be out of place.
"Mother'll write to you, of course. And you'd better send fifty poundsof it to me. I can't go home under three months, and I shall run short."
"Very well," said Diana.
"Good-bye," said Fanny, coming a little nearer. Then she looked roundher, with a first genuine impulse of something like remorse--if the wordis not too strong. It was rather, perhaps, a consciousness of havingmanaged her opportunities extremely badly. "I'm sorry you didn't likeme." she said, abruptly, "and I didn't mean to be nasty."
"Good-bye." Diana held out her hand; yet trembling involuntarily as shedid so. Fanny broke out:
"Diana, why do you look like that? It's all so long ago--you can't doanything--you ought to try and forget it."
"No, I can't do anything," said Diana, withdrawing her right hand fromher cousin, and clasping both on her breast. "I can only--"
But the word died on her lips; she turned abruptly away, adding,hurriedly, in another tone: "If you ever want anything, you know we'realways here--Mrs. Colwood and I. Please give us your address."
"Thanks." Fanny retreated; but could not forbear, as she reached thedoor, from letting loose the thought which burned her inner mind. Sheturned round deliberately. "Mr. Marsham'll cheer you up, Diana!--you'llsee. Of course, he'll behave like a gentleman. It won't make a bit ofdifference to you. I'll just ask Mrs. Colwood to tell me when it's allfixed up."
Diana said nothing. She was hanging over the fire, and her face washidden. Fanny waited a moment, then opened the door and went.
* * * * *
As soon as the carriage conveying Miss Merton to the station had safelydriven off, Mrs. Colwood, who, in no conventional sense, had beenspeeding the parting guest, ran up-stairs again to Diana's room.
"She's gone?" said Diana, faintly. She was standing by the window. Asshe spoke the carriage came into view at a bend of the drive anddisappeared into the trees beyond. Mrs. Colwood saw her shiver.
"Did she leave you her address?"
"Yes. Don't think any more about her. I have something to tell you."
Diana's painful start was the measure of her state. Muriel Colwood puther arms tenderly round the slight form.
"Mr. Marsham will be here directly. He came last night--too late--Iwould not let him see you. Ah!" She released Diana, and made a rapidstep to the window. "There he is!--coming by the fields."
Diana sat down, as though her limbs trembled under her.
"Did you send for him?"
"Yes. You forgive me?"
"Then--he hasn't got my letter."
She said it without looking up, as though to herself.
Mrs. Colwood knelt down beside her.
"It is right he should be here," she said, with energy, almost withcommand; "it is the right, natural thing."
Diana stooped, mechanically, and kissed her; then sprang up, quivering,the color rushing into her cheeks. "Why, he mayn't even know!" She threwa piteous look at her companion.
"He does know, dear--he does know."
Diana composed herself. She lifted her hands to a tress of hair that wasunfastened, and put it in its place. Instinctively she straightened herbelt, her white collar. Mrs. Colwood noticed that she was in blackagain, in one of the dresses of her mourning.
* *
* * *
When Marsham turned, at the sound of the latch, to see Diana coming in,all the man's secret calculations and revolts were for the momentscattered and drowned in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours cangrief so work on youth? He ran to her, but she held up a hand whicharrested him half-way. Then she closed the door, but still stood nearit, as though she feared to move, or speak, looking at him with herappealing eyes.
"Oliver!"
He held out his hands.
"My poor, poor darling!"
She gave a little cry, as though some tension broke. Her lips almostsmiled; but she held him away from her.
"You're not--not ashamed of me?"
His protests were the natural, the inevitable protests that any man withred blood in his veins must need have uttered, brought face to face withso much sorrow and so much beauty. She let him make them, while her lefthand gently stroked and caressed his right hand which held hers; yet allthe time resolutely turning her face and her soft breast away, as thoughshe dreaded to be kissed, to lose will and identity in the mere delightof his touch. And he felt, too, in some strange way, as though the blowthat had fallen upon her had placed her at a distance from him; notdisgraced--but consecrate.
"Will you please sit down and let us talk?" she said, after a moment,withdrawing herself.
She pushed a chair forward, and sat down herself. The tears were in hereyes, but she brushed them away unconsciously.
"If papa had told me!" she said, in a low voice--"if he had only toldme--before he died."
"It was out of love," said Marsham; "but yes--it would have beenwiser--kinder--to have spoken."
She started.
"Oh no--not that. But we might have sorrowed--together. And he wasalways alone--he bore it all alone--even when he was dying."
"But you, dearest, shall not bear it alone!" cried Marsham, finding herhand again and kissing it. "My first task shall be to comfort you--tomake you forget."
He thought she winced at the word "forget."
"When did you first guess--or know?"
He hesitated--then thought it best to tell the truth.
"When we were in the lime-walk."
"When you asked--her name? I remember"--her voice broke--"how you wrungmy hand! And you never had any suspicion before?"
"Never. And it makes no difference, Diana--to you and me--none. I wantyou to understand that now--at once."
She looked at him, smiling tremulously. His words became him; even inher sorrow her eyes delighted in his shrewd thin face; in the fair hair,prematurely touched with gray, and lying heavily on the broad brow; inthe intelligence and distinction of his whole aspect.
"You are so good to me--" she said, with a little sob. "No--no!--please,dear Oliver!--we have so much to talk of." And again she prevented himfrom taking her in his arms. "Tell me"--she laid her hand on hispersuasively: "Sir James, of course, knew from the beginning?"
"Yes--from the beginning--that first night at Tallyn. He is coming downthis afternoon, dearest. He knew you would want to see him. But it maynot be till late."
"After all, I know so little yet," she said, bewildered. "Only--onlywhat Fanny told me."
"What made her tell you?"
"She was angry with me--I forget about what. I did not understand atfirst what she was saying. Oliver"--she grasped his hand tightly, whilethe lids dropped over the eyes, as though she would shut out even hisface as she asked her question--"is it true that--that--the deathsentence--"
"Yes," said Marsham, reluctantly. "But it was at once commuted. Andthree weeks after the sentence she was released. She lived, Sir Jamestells me, nearly two months after your father brought her home."
"I wrote last night to the lawyers"--Diana breathed it almost in awhisper. "I am sure there is a letter for me--I am sure papa wrote."
"Promise me one thing!" said Marsham. "If they send you newspapers--formy sake, don't read them. Sir James will tell you, this afternoon,things the public have never known--facts which would certainly havealtered the verdict if the jury had known. Your poor mother struck theblow in what was practically an impulse of self-defence, and theevidence which mainly convicted her was perjured evidence, as the liarwho gave it confessed years afterward. Sir James will tell you that. Hehas the confession."
Her face relaxed, her mouth trembled violently.
"Oh, Oliver!--Oliver!" She was unable to bear the relief his wordsbrought her: she broke down under it.
He caught her in his arms at last, and she gave way--she let herself beweak--and woman. Clinging to him with all the pure passion of a womanand all the trust of a child, she felt his kisses on her cheek, and herdeep sobs shook her upon his breast. Marsham's being was stirred to itsdepths. He gave her the best he had to give; and in that moment ofmortal appeal on her side and desperate pity on his, their natures metin that fusion of spirit and desire wherewith love can lend even tragedyand pain to its own uses.
* * * * *
And yet--and yet!--was it in that very moment that feeling--on the man'sside--"o'erleaped itself, and fell on the other"? When they resumedconversation, Marsham's tacit expectation was that Diana would now showherself comforted; that, sure of him and of his affection, she would nowbe ready to put the tragic past aside; to think first and foremost ofher own present life and his, and face the future cheerfully. Amisunderstanding arose between them, indeed, which is, perhaps, one ofthe typical misunderstandings between men and women. The man, impatientof painful thoughts and recollections, eager to be quit of them asweakening and unprofitable, determined to silence them by the pleasantclamor of his own ambitions and desires; the woman, priestess of thepast, clinging to all the pieties of memory, in terror lest she forgetthe dead, feeling it a disloyalty even to draw the dagger from thewound--between these two figures and dispositions there is a deep andnatural antagonism.
It showed itself rapidly in the case of Marsham and Diana; for theirmoment of high feeling was no sooner over, and she sitting quietlyagain, her hand in his, the blinding tears dashed away, than Marsham'smind flew inevitably to his own great sacrifice. She must be comforted,indeed, poor child! yet he could not but feel that he, too, deservedconsolation, and that his own most actual plight was no less worthy ofher thoughts than the ghastly details of a tragedy twenty years old.
Yet she seemed to have forgotten Lady Lucy!--to have no inkling of thereal situation. And he could find no way in which to break it.
For, in little broken sentences of horror and recollection, she keptgoing back to her mother's story--her father's silence and suffering. Itwas as though her mind could not disentangle itself from the load whichhad been flung upon it--could not recover its healthiness of action amidthe phantom sights and sounds which beset imagination. Again and againshe must ask him for details--and shrink from the answers; must hide hereyes with the little moan that wrung his heart; and break out inejaculations, as though of bewilderment, under a revelation so singularand so terrible.
It was to be expected, of course; he could only hope it would soon pass.Secretly, after a time, he was repelled and wearied. He answered herwith the same tender words, he tried to be all kindness; but moreperfunctorily. The oneness of that supreme moment vanished and didnot return.
Meanwhile, Diana's perceptions, stunned by the one overmasteringthought, gave her no warning. And, in truth, if Marsham could haveunderstood, the process of mental recovery was set going in her by justthis freedom of utterance to the man she loved--these words and looksand tears--that brought ease after the dumb horror of the first hours.
At last he made an effort, hiding the nascent impatience in a caress.
"If I could only persuade you not to dwell upon it too persistently--toput it from your thoughts as soon and as much as you can! Dear, we shallhave our own anxieties!"
She looked up with a sudden start.
"My mother," he said, reluctantly, "may give us trouble."
The color rushed into Diana's cheeks, and ebbed with equal sud
denness.
"Lady Lucy! Oh!--how could I forget? Oliver!--she thinks--I am not fit!"
And in her eyes he saw for the first time the self-abasement he haddreaded, yet perhaps expected, to see there before. For in her firstquestion to him there had been no real doubt of him; it had been thenatural humility of wounded love that cries out, expecting the replythat no power on earth could check itself from giving were thecase reversed.
"Dearest! you know my mother's bringing up: her Quaker training, and herrather stern ideas. We shall persuade her--in time."
"In time? And now--she--she forbids it?"
Her voice faltered. And yet, unconsciously, she had drawn herself alittle together and away.
Marsham began to give a somewhat confused and yet guarded account of hismother's state of mind, endeavoring to prepare her for the letter whichmight arrive on the morrow. He got up and moved about the room as hespoke, while Diana sat, looking at him, her lips trembling from time totime. Presently he mentioned Ferrier's name, and Diana started.
"Does _he_ think it would do you harm--that you ought to give me up?"
"Not he! And if anybody can make my mother hear reason, it will beFerrier."
"Lady Lucy believes it would injure you in Parliament?" faltered Diana.
"No, I don't believe she does. No sane person could."
"Then it's because--of the disgrace? Oliver!--perhaps--you ought to giveme up?"
She breathed quick. It stabbed him to see the flush in her cheekscontending with the misery in her eyes. She could not pose, or play apart. What she could not hide from him was just the conflict between herlove and her new-born shame. Before that scene on the hill there wouldhave been her girlish dignity also to reckon with. But the greater hadswallowed up the less; and from her own love--in innocent and simplefaith--she imagined his.
So that when she spoke of his giving her up, it was not her pride thatspoke, but only and truly her fear of doing him a hurt--by which shemeant a hurt in public estimation or repute. The whole business side ofthe matter was unknown to her. She had never speculated on hiscircumstances, and she was constitutionally and rather proudlyindifferent to questions of money. Vaguely, of course, she knew that theMarshams were rich and that Tallyn was Lady Lucy's. Beyond, she hadnever inquired.
This absence of all self-love in her attitude--together with hercomplete ignorance of the calculation in which she was involved--touchedhim sharply. It kept him silent about the money; it seemed impossible tospeak of it. And yet all the time the thought of it clamored--perhapsincreasingly--in his own mind.
He told her that they must stand firm--that she must be patient--thatFerrier would work for them--and Lady Lucy would come round. And she,loving him more and more with every word, seeing in him a god ofconsolation and of chivalry, trusted him wholly. It was characteristicof her that she did not attempt heroics for the heroics' sake; there wasno idea of renouncing him with a flourish of trumpets. He said he lovedher, and she believed him. But her heart went on its knees to him in agratitude that doubled love, even in the midst of her achingbewilderment and pain.
* * * * *
He made her come out with him before luncheon; he talked with her ofpolitics and their future; he did his best to scatter the nightmare inwhich she moved.
But after awhile he felt his efforts fail. The scenes that held her mindbetrayed themselves in her recurrent pallor, the trembling of her handin his, her piteous, sudden looks. She did not talk of her mother, buthe could not presently rouse her to talk of anything else; she satsilent in her chair, gazing before her, her slender hands on her knee,dreaming and forlorn.
Then he remembered, and with involuntary relief, that he must get backto town, and to the House, for an important division. He told her, andshe made no protest. Evidently she was already absorbed in the thoughtof Sir James Chide's visit. But when the time came for him to go she letherself be kissed, and then, as he was moving away, she caught his hand,and held it wildly to her lips.
"Oh, if you hadn't come!--if you hadn't come!" Her tears fell on thehand.
"But I did come!" he said, caressing her. "I was here last night--didMrs. Colwood tell you? Afterward--in the dark--I walked up to the hill,only to look down upon this house, that held you."
"If I had known," she murmured, on his breast, "I should have slept."
He went--in exaltation; overwhelmed by her charm even in this eclipse ofgrief, and by the perception of her passion.
But before he was half-way to London he felt that he had been ratherfoolish and quixotic in not having told her simply and practically whathis mother's opposition meant. She must learn it some day; better fromhim than others. His mother, indeed, might tell her in the letter shehad threatened to write. But he thought not. Nobody was more loftilysecret as to business affairs than Lady Lucy; money might not haveexisted for the rare mention she made of it. No; she would base heropposition on other grounds.
These reflections brought him back to earth, and to the gloomy ponderingof the situation. Half a million!--because of the ill-doing of a poorneurotic woman--twenty years ago!
It filled him with a curious resentment against Juliet Sparling herself,which left him still more out of sympathy with Diana's horror and grief.It must really be understood, when they married, that Mrs. Sparling'sname was never to be mentioned between them--that the whole grimybusiness was buried out of sight forever.
And with a great and morbid impatience he shook the recollection fromhim. The bustle of Whitehall, as he drove down it, was like wine in hisveins; the crowd and the gossip of the Central Lobby, as he pressed hisway through to the door of the House of Commons, had never been so fullof stimulus or savor. In this agreeable, exciting world he knew hisplace; the relief was enormous; and, for a time, Marsham washimself again.
* * * * *
Sir James Chide came in the late afternoon; and in her two hours withhim, Diana learned, from lips that spared her all they could, theheart-breaking story of which Fanny had given her but thecrudest outlines.
The full story, and its telling, taxed the courage both of hearer andspeaker. Diana bore it, as it seemed to Sir James, with the piteoussimplicity of one in whose nature grief had no pretences to overcome.The iron entered into her soul, and her quick imagination made hertorment. But her father had taught her lessons of self-conquest, and inthis first testing of her youth she did not fail. Sir James wasastonished at the quiet she was able to maintain, and touched to theheart by the suffering she could not conceal.
Nothing was said of his own relation to her mother's case; but he sawthat she understood it, and their hearts moved together. When he rose totake his leave she held his hand in hers with such a look in her eyes asa daughter might have worn; and he, with an emotion to which he gavelittle outward expression, vowed to himself that henceforward she shouldlack no fatherly help or counsel that he could give her.
He gathered, with relief, that the engagement persisted, and theperception led him to praise Marsham in a warm Irish way. But he couldnot find anything hopeful to say of Lady Lucy. "If you only hold to eachother, my dear young lady, things will come right!" Diana flushed andshrank a little, and he felt--helplessly--that the battle was for theirfighting, and not his.
Meanwhile, as he had seen Mr. Riley, he did his best to prepare her forthe letters and enclosures, which had been for twenty years in thecustody of the firm, and would reach her on the morrow.
But what he did not prepare her for was the letter from Lady LucyMarsham which reached Beechcote by the evening post, after Sir Jameshad left.
The letter lay awhile on Diana's knee, unopened. Muriel Colwood,glancing at her, went away with the tears in her eyes, and at last thestumbling fingers broke the seal.
"MY DEAR MISS MALLORY,--I want you to understand why it is that I must oppose your marriage with my son. You know well, I think, how gladly I should have welcomed you as a daughter but for this terrible revelation. As it is, I
cannot consent to the engagement, and if it is carried out Oliver must renounce the inheritance of his father's fortune. I do not say this as any vulgar threat. It is simply that I cannot allow my husband's wealth to be used in furthering what he would never have permitted. He had--and so have I--the strongest feeling as to the sacredness of the family and its traditions. He held, as I do, that it ought to be founded in mutual respect and honor, and that children should have round about them the help that comes from the memory of unstained and God-fearing ancestors. Do you not also feel this? Is it not a great principle, to which personal happiness and gratification may justly be sacrificed? And would not such a sacrifice bring with it the highest happiness of all?
"Do not think that I am cruel or hard-hearted. I grieve for you with all my soul, and I have prayed for you earnestly, though, perhaps, you will consider this mere hypocrisy. But I must first think of my son--and of my husband. Very possibly you and Oliver may disregard what I say. But if so, I warn you that Oliver is not indifferent to money, simply because the full development of his career depends on it. He will regret what he has done, and your mutual happiness will be endangered. Moreover, he shrinks from all painful thoughts and associations; he seems to have no power to bear them; yet how can you protect him from them?
"I beg you to be counselled in time, to think of him rather than yourself--if, indeed, you care for him. And should you decide rightly, an old woman's love and gratitude will be yours as long as she lives.
"Believe me, dear Miss Mallory, very sincerely yours,
"LUCY MARSHAM."
Diana dragged herself up-stairs and locked her door. At ten o'clock Mrs.Colwood knocked, and heard a low voice asking to be left alone. She wentaway wondering, in her astonishment and terror, what new blow hadfallen. No sound reached her during the night--except the bluster of anorth wind rushing in great gusts upon the hill-side and the woods.