George Meredith
Diana of the Cross Ways
Dedicated to
Sir Frederick Pollock
Bart
A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty the daughter of an
illustrious Irish House came under the shadow of a calumny It has
latterly been examined and exposed as baseless The story of Diana
of the Crossways is to be read as fiction
Chapter I
Of Diaries and Diarists Touching the Heroine
Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century there is
frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her wit »an
unusual combination« in the deliberate syllables of one of the writers who is
however not disposed to personal irony when speaking of her It is otherwise in
his case and a general fling at the sex we may deem pardonable for doing as
little harm to womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother
Earth though men must look some day to have it returned to them which is a
certainty and indeed full surely will our idlehanded youngster too in his
riper season be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles
coming on him he knows not whence for we are all of us distinctly marked to get
back what we give even from the thing named inanimate nature
The »LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS« are studded with examples of
the dinnertable wit of the time not always worth quotation twice for smart
remarks have their measured distances many requiring to be à brûle pourpoint
or within throw of the pistol to make it hit in other words the majority of
them are addressed directly to our muscular system and they have no effect when
we stand beyond the range On the contrary they reflect sombrely on the springs
of hilarity in the generation preceding us with due reserve of credit of
course to an animal vivaciousness that seems to have wanted so small an
incitement Our old yeomanry farmers returning to their beds over ferny commons
under bright moonlight from a neighbours harvesthome eased their bubbling
breasts with a ready roar not unakin to it Still the promptness to laugh is an
excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people and
undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to the
spouting of laughter This should comfort us while we skim the sparkling
passages of the »Leaves« When a nation has acknowledged that it is as yet but
in the fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our purest sense to golden
sentences a readier appreciation will be extended to the gift which is to
strike not the dazzled eyes the unanticipating nose the ribs the sides and
stun us twirl us hoodwink mystify tickle and twitch by dexterities of
lingual sparring and shuffling but to strike roots in the mind the Hesperides
of good things
We shall then set a price on the unusual combination A witty woman is a
treasure a witty Beauty is a power Has she actual beauty actual wit not
simply a tidal material beauty that passes current any pretty flippancy or
staggering pretentiousness Grant the combination she will appear a veritable
queen of her period fit for homage at least meriting a disposition to believe
the best of her in the teeth of foul rumour because the well of true wit is
truth itself the gathering of the precious drops of right reason wisdoms
lightning and no soul possessing and dispensing it can justly be a target for
the world however well armed the world confronting her Our temporary world
that Old Credulity and stonehurling urchin in one supposes it possible for a
woman to be mentally active up to the point of spiritual clarity and also
fleshly vile a guide to life and a biter at the fruits of death both open mind
and hypocrite It has not yet been taught to appreciate a quality certifying to
sound citizenship as authoritatively as acres of land in fee simple or coffers
of bonds shares and stocks and a more imperishable guarantee The multitude of
evil reports which it takes for proof are marshalled against her without
question of the nature of the victim her temptress beauty being a sufficiently
presumptive delinquent It does not pretend to know the whole or naked body of
the facts it knows enough for its fumy dubiousness and excepting the
sentimental of men a rocketheaded horde ever at the heels of fair faces for
ignition and up starring away at a hint of tearfulness excepting further by
chance a solid champion man or some generous woman capable of faith in the
pelted solitary of her sex our temporary world blows direct East on her
shivering person The scandal is warrant for that the circumstances of the
scandal emphasize the warrant And how clever she is Cleverness is an attribute
of the selecter missionary lieutenants of Satan We pray to be defended from her
cleverness she flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner
The wary stuff their ears the stolid bid her best sayings rebound on her
reputation Nevertheless the world as Christian remembers its professions and
a portion of it joins the burly in morals by extending to her a rough old
charitable mercifulness better than sentimental ointment but the heaviest blow
she has to bear to a character swimming for life
That the lady in question was much quoted the Diaries and Memoirs testify
Hearsay as well as hearing was at work to produce the abundance and it was a
novelty in England where in company the men are the pointed talkers and the
women conversationally fair Circassians They are or they know that they should
be it comes to the same Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil
to them The mutes have here and there a sketch or label attached to their
names they are strikingly handsome they are very goodlooking occasionally
they are noted as extremely entertaining in what manner is inquired by a
curious posterity that in so many matters is left unendingly to jump the empty
and gaping figure of interrogation over its own full stop Great ladies must
they be at the web of politics for us to hear them cited discoursing Henry
Wilmers is not content to quote the beautiful Mrs Warwick he attempts a
portrait Mrs Warwick is quite Grecian She might pose for a statue He
presents her in carpenters lines with a dab of schoolbox colours effective
to those whom the Keepsake fashion can stir She has a straight nose red lips
raven hair black eyes rich complexion a remarkably fine bust and she walks
well and has an agreeable voice likewise delicate extremities The writer was
created for popularity had he chosen to bring his art into our literary market
Perry Wilkinson is not so elaborate he describes her in his »Recollections«
as a splendid brune eclipsing all the blondes coming near her and »what is
more the beautiful creature can talk« He wondered for she was young new to
society Subsequently he is rather ashamed of his wonderment and accounts for
it by »not having known she was Irish« She »turns out to be Dan Merions
daughter«
We may assume that he would have heard if she had any whiff of a brogue Her
sounding of the letter R a trifle scrupulously is noticed by Lady Pennon »And
last not least the lovely Mrs Warwick twenty minutes behind the dinnerhour
and rrreally fearing she was late« After alluding to the soft influence of
her beauty and ingenuousness on the vexed hostess the kindly old marchioness
adds that it was no wonder she was late »for just before starting from home
she had broken loose from her husband for good and she entered the room
absolutely houseless« She was not the less »astonishingly brilliant« Her
observations were often »so unexpectedly droll I laughed till I cried« Lady
Pennon became in consequence one of the stanch supporters of Mrs Warwick
Others were not so easily won Perry Wilkinson holds a balance when it goes
beyond a question of her wit and beauty Henry Wilmers puts the case aside and
takes her as he finds her His cousin the clever and cynical Dorset Wilmers
whose method of conveying his opinions without stating them was famous repeats
on two occasions when her name appears in his pages »handsome lively witty«
and the stressed repetition of calculated brevity while a fiery scandal was
abroad concerning the lady implies weighty substance the reservation of a
constables truncheon that could legally have knocked her character down to the
pavement We have not to ask what he judged But Dorset Wilmers was a political
opponent of the eminent Peer who yields the second name to the scandal and
politics in his day flushed the conceptions of men His short references to
»that WarwickDannisburgh affair« are not verbally malicious He gets wind of
the terms of Lord Dannisburghs will and testament noting them without comment
The oddness of the instrument in one respect may have served his turn we have
no grounds for thinking him malignant The death of his enemy closes his
allusions to Mrs Warwick He was growing ancient and gout narrowed the circle
he whirled in Had he known this »handsome lively witty« apparition as a woman
having political and social views of her own he would not one fancies have
been so stingless Our England exposes a sorry figure in his Reminiscences He
struck heavily round and about him wherever he moved he had by nature a
tarnishing eye that cast discolouration His unadorned harsh substantive
statements excluding the adjectives give his Memoirs the appearance of a body
of facts attractive to the historic Muse which has learnt to esteem those
brawny sturdy giants marching club on shoulder independent of henchman in
preference to your panoplied knights with their puffy squires once her
favourites and windfilling to her columns ultimately found indigestible
His exhibition of his enemy Lord Dannisburgh is of the class of noble
portraits we see swinging over innportals grossly unlike in likeness The
possibility of the mans doing or saying this and that adumbrates the
improbability he had something of the character capable of it too much good
sense for the performance We would think so and still the shadow is round our
thoughts Lord Dannisburgh was a man of ministerial tact official ability
Pagan morality an excellent general manager if no genius in statecraft But he
was careless of social opinion unbuttoned and a laugher We know that he could
be chivalrous toward women notwithstanding the perplexities he brought on them
and this the DorsetDiary does not show
His chronicle is less mischievous as regards Mrs Warwick than the
paragraphs of Perry Wilkinson a gossip presenting an image of perpetual
chatter like the waxenfaced street advertizements of light and easy dentistry
He has no belief no disbelief names the proparty and the con recites the
case and discreetly overdiscreetly and pictures the trial tells the list of
witnesses records the verdict so the case went and some thought one thing
some another thing only it is reported for positive that a miniature of the
incriminated lady was cleverly smuggled over to the jury and juries sitting
upon these cases ever since their bedazzlement by Phryne as you know And
then he relates an anecdote of the husband said to have been not a bad fellow
before he married his Diana and the naming of the Goddess reminds him that
the second person in the indictment is now everywhere called The elderly
shepherd but immediately after the bridal bells this husband became sour and
insupportable and either she had the trick of putting him publicly in the
wrong or he lost all shame in playing the churlish domestic tyrant The
instances are incredible of a gentleman Perry Wilkinson gives us two or three
one on the authority of a personal friend who witnessed the scene at the
Warwick whisttable where the fair Diana would let loose her silvery laugh in
the intervals She was hardly out of her teens and should have been dancing
instead of fastened to a table A difference of fifteen years in the ages of the
wedded pair accounts poorly for the husbands conduct however solemn a business
the game of whist We read that he burst out at last with bitter mimicry »yang
yang yang« and killed the bright laugh shot it dead She had outraged the
decorum of the squaretable only while the cards were making Perhaps her
toodead ensuing silence as of one striving to bring back the throbs to a slain
bird in her bosom allowed the gap between the wedded pair to be visible for it
was dated back to prophecy as soon as the trumpet proclaimed it
But a multiplication of similar instances which can serve no other purpose
than that of an apology is a miserable vindication of innocence The more we
have of them the darker the inference In delicate situations the chatterer is
noxious Mrs Warwick had numerous apologists Those trusting to her perfect
rectitude were rarer The liberty she allowed herself in speech and action must
have been trying to her defenders in a land like ours for here and able to
throw its shadow on our giddy uppercircle the rigour of the game of life
relaxed though it may sometimes appear would satisfy the staidest whistplayer
She did not wish it the reverse even when claiming a space for laughter the
breath of her soul as she called it and as it may be felt in the early youth
of a lively nature She especially with her multitude of quick perceptions and
imaginative avenues her rapid summaries her sense of the comic demanded this
aërial freedom
We have it from Perry Wilkinson that the union of the divergent couple was
likened to another union always in a Court of Law There was a distinction most
analogies will furnish one and here we see England and Ireland changeing their
parts until later after the breach when the Englishman and Irishwoman resumed
a certain resemblance to the yoked Islands
Henry Wilmers I have said deals exclusively with the wit and charm of the
woman He treats the scandal as we might do in like manner if her story had not
to be told But these are not reporting columns very little of it shall trouble
them The position is faced and that is all The position is one of the battles
incident to women their hardest It asks for more than justice from men for
generosity our civilization not being yet of the purest That cry of hounds at
her disrobing by Law is instinctive She runs and they give tongue she is a
creature of the chase Let her escape unmangled it will pass in the record that
she did once publicly run and some old dogs will persist in thinking her
cunninger than the virtuous which never put themselves in such positions but
ply the distaff at home Never should reputation of woman trail a scent How
true and true also that the women of waxwork never do and that the women of
happy marriages do not nor the women of holy nunneries nor the women lucky in
their arts It is a test of the civilized to see and hear and add no yapping to
the spectacle
Thousands have reflected on a Diarists power to cancel our Burial Service
Not alone the clerics good work is upset by him but the sextons as well He
howks the graves and transforms the quiet worms busy on a single poor
peaceable body into winged serpents that disorder sky and earth with a deadly
flight of zigzags like military rockets among the living And if these are
given to cry too much to have their tender sentiments considered it cannot be
said that History requires the flaying of them A gouty Diarist a sheer gossip
Diarist may thus in the bequest of a trail of reminiscences explode our
temples for our very temples have powder in store our treasuries our
homesteads alive with dynamitic stuff nay disconcert our inherited
veneration dislocate the intimate connexion between the tugged flaxen forelock
and a title
No similar blame is incurred by Henry Wilmers No blame whatever one would
say if he had been less copious or not so subservient in recording the ladys
utterances for though the wit of a woman may be terse quite spontaneous as
this ladys assuredly was here and there she is apt to spin it out of a museful
mind at her toilette or by the lonely fire and sometimes it is imitative
admirers should beware of holding it up to the withering glare of print she
herself quoting an obscure maximmonger says of these lapidary sentences that
they have merely »the value of chalkeggs which lure the thinker to sit« and
tempt the vacuous to strain for the like one might add besides flattering the
world to imagine itself richer than it is in eggs that are golden Henry Wilmers
notes a multitude of them »The talk fell upon our being creatures of habit and
how far it was good She said It is there that we see ourselves crutched
between love grown old and indifference ageing to love« Critic ears not present
at the conversation catch an echo of maxims and aphorisms overchannel
notwithstanding a feminine thrill in the irony of ageing to love The quotation
ranks rather among the testimonies to her charm
She is fresher when speaking of the war of the sexes For one sentence out
of many though we find it to be but the clever literary clothing of a common
accusation »Men may have rounded Seraglio Point they have not yet doubled
Cape Turk«
It is war and on the male side Ottoman war her experience reduced her to
think so positively Her main personal experience was in the social class which
is primitively venatorial still canine under its polish
She held a brief for her beloved Ireland She closes a discussion upon Irish
agitation by saying rather neatly »You have taught them it is English as well
as common human nature to feel an interest in the dog that has bitten you«
The dog periodically puts on madness to win attention we gather then that
England in an angry tremour tries him with watergruel to prove him sane
Of the Irish priest and she was not of his retinue when he was deemed a
revolutionary Henry Wilmers notes her saying »Be in tune with him he is in
the keynote for harmony He is shepherd doctor nurse comforter anecdotist
and funmaker to his poor flock and you wonder they see the burning gateway of
their heaven in him Conciliate the priest«
It has been partly done done late when the poor flock have found their
doctoring and shepherding at other hands their bulbfood and fiddle that she
petitioned for to keep them from a complete shaving off their patch of bog and
scrub soil without any perception of the tremendous transatlantic magnification
of the fiddle and the splitting discord of its latest inspiriting jig
And she will not have the consequences of the »weariful old Irish duel
between Honour and Hunger judged by bread and butter juries«
She had need to be beautiful to be tolerable in days when Englishmen stood
more openly for the strong arm to maintain the Union Her troop of enemies was
of her summoning
Ordinarily her topics were of wider range and those of a woman who mixed
hearing with reading and observation with her musings She has no doleful
ejaculatory notes of the kind peculiar to women at war containing onethird of
speculative substance to two of sentimental a feminine plea for comprehension
and a squire and it was probably the reason as there is no reason to suppose
an emotional cause why she exercised her evident sway over the mind of so plain
and straightforward an Englishman as Henry Wilmers She told him that she read
rapidly »a great deal at one gulp« and thought in flashes a way with the
makers of phrases She wrote she confessed laboriously The desire to prune
compress overcharge was a torment to the nervous woman writing under a sharp
necessity for payment Her songs were shot off on the impulsion prose was the
heavy task »To be pointedly rational« she said »is a greater difficulty for
me than a fine delirium« She did not talk as if it would have been so he
remarks One is not astonished at her appearing an actress to the flatminded
But the basis of her womans nature was pointed flame In the fulness of her
history we perceive nothing histrionic Capricious or enthusiastic in her youth
she never trifled with feeling and if she did so with some showy phrases and
occasionally proffered commonplaces in gilt as she was much excited to do her
moods of reflection were direct always large and honest universal as well as
feminine
Her saying that »A woman in the pillory restores the original bark of
brotherhood to mankind« is no more than a cry of personal anguish She has
golden apples in her apron She says of life »When I fail to cherish it in
every fibre the fires within are waning« and that drives like rain to the
roots She says of the world generously if with tapering idea »From the point
of vision of the angels this ugly monster only half out of slime must appear
our one constant hero«
It can be read maliciously but abstain
She says of Romance »The young who avoid that region escape the title of
Fool at the cost of a celestial crown« Of Poetry »Those that have souls meet
their fellows there«
But she would have us away with sentimentalism Sentimental people in her
phrase »fiddle harmonics on the strings of sensualism« to the delight of a
world gaping for marvels of musical execution rather than for music For our
world is all but a sensational world at present in maternal travail of a
soberer a braver a brightereyed Her reflections are thus to be interpreted
it seems to me She says »The vices of the worlds nobler half in this day are
feminine« We have to guard against »halfconceptions of wisdom hysterical
goodness an impatient charity« against the elementary state of the altruistic
virtues distinguishable as the sickness and writhings of our egoism to cast its
first slough Idea is there The funny part of it is our finding it in books of
fiction composed for payment Manifestly this lady did not chameleon her pen
from the colour of her audience she was not of the uniformed rank and file
marching to drum and fife as gallant interpreters of popular appetite and going
or gone to soundlessness and the icy shades
Touches inward are not absent »To have the sense of the eternal in life is
a short flight for the soul To have had it is the souls vitality«
And also »Palliation of a sin is the hunted creatures refuge and final
temptation Our battle is ever between spirit and flesh Spirit must brand the
flesh that it may live«
You are entreated to repress alarm She was by preference lighthanded and
her saying of oratory that »It is always the more impressive for the spice of
temper which renders it untrustworthy« is light enough
On Politics she is rhetorical and swings she wrote to spur a junior
politician »It is the first business of men the school to mediocrity to the
covetously ambitious a sty to the dullard his amphitheatre arms of Titans to
the desperately enterprising Olympus to the genius«
What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature She saw their
existing posture clearly yet believed as men disincline to do that they grow
She says that »In their judgements upon women men are females voices of the
present sexual dilemma« They desire to have »a still woman who can make a
constant society of her pins and needles« They create by stoppage a volcano
and are amazed at its eruptiveness »We live alone and do not much feel it till
we are visited« Love is presumeably the visitor Of the greater loneliness of
women she says »It is due to the prescribed circumscription of their minds of
which they become aware in agitation Were the walls about them beaten down
they would understand that solitariness is a common human fate and the one
chance of growth like space for timber« As to the sensations of women after
the beating down of the walls she owns that the multitude of the timorous would
yearn in shivering affright for the old prisonnest according to the sage
prognostic of men but the flying of a valiant few would form a vanguard And we
are informed that the beginning of a motive life with women must be in the head
equally with men by no means a truism when she wrote Also that »men do not so
much fear to lose the hearts of thoughtful women as their strict attention to
their graces« The present market is what men are for preserving an observation
of still reverberating force Generally in her character of the feminine
combatant there is a turn of phrase like a dimple near the lips showing her
knowledge that she was uttering but a tart measure of the truth She had always
too much lambent humour to be the dupe of the passion wherewith as she says
»we lash ourselves into the persuasive speech distinguishing us from the
animals«
The instances of her drollery are rather hinted by the Diarists for the
benefit of those who had met her and could inhale the atmosphere at a word
Drolleries humours reputed witticisms are like odours of roast meats past
with the picking of the joint Idea is the only vital breath They have it
rarely or it eludes the chronicler To say of the great erratic and forsaken
Lady A after she had accepted the consolations of Bacchus that her name
was properly signified in asterisks »as she was now nightly an Ariadne in
heaven through her God« sounds to us a roundabout with wit somewhere and fun
nowhere Sitting at the roast we might have thought differently Perry Wilkinson
is not happier in citing her reply to his compliment on the reviewers unanimous
eulogy of her humour and pathos the »merry clown and poor pantaloon demanded
of us in every work of fiction« she says lamenting the writers compulsion to
go on producing them for applause until it is extremest age that knocks their
knees We are informed by Lady Pennon of »the most amusing description of the
first impressions of a pretty English simpleton in Paris« and here is an
opportunity for ludicrous contrast of the French and English styles of pushing
flatteries »piping to the charmed animal« as Mrs Warwick terms it in another
place but Lady Pennon was acquainted with the silly woman of the piece and
found her amusement in the wonderful truth of that representation
Diarists of amusing passages are under an obligation to paint us a realistic
revival of the time or we miss the relish The odour of the roast and more a
slice of it is required unless the humorous thing be preternaturally spirited
to walk the earth as one immortal among a number less numerous than the mythic
Gods »He gives good dinners« a candid old critic said when asked how it was
that he could praise a certain poet In an island of chills and fogs coelum
crebris imbribus ac nebulis foedum the comic and other perceptions are
dependent on the stirring of the gastric juices And such a revival by any of us
would be impolitic were it a possible attempt before our systems shall have
been fortified by philosophy Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply to
relate and we can copy from him
Then ah then moreover will the novelists Art now neither blushless
infant nor executive man have attained its majority We can then be voraciously
historical honestly transcriptive Rosepink and dirty drab will alike have
passed away Philosophy is the foe of both and their silly cancelling contest
perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes as it always is where a phantasm
falseness reigns will no longer baffle the contemplation of natural flesh
smother no longer the soul issuing out of our incessant strife Philosophy bids
us to see that we are not so pretty as rosepink not so repulsive as dirty
drab and that instead of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects the sight
of ourselves is wholesome bearable fructifying finally a delight Do but
perceive that we are coming to philosophy the stride toward it will be a
giants a century a day And imagine the celestial refreshment of having a
pure decency in the place of sham real flesh a soul born active windbeaten
but ascending Honourable will fiction then appear honourable a fount of life
an aid to life quick with our blood Why when you behold it you love it and
you will not encourage it or only when presented by dead hands Worse than
that alternative dirty drab your recurring rosepink is rebuked by hideous
revelations of the filthy foul for nature will force her way and if you try to
stifle her by drowning she comes up not the fairest part of her uppermost
Peruse your Realists really your castigators for not having yet embraced
Philosophy As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended nature is
unimpeachable flowerlike yet not too decoratively a flower you must have her
with the stem the thorns the roots and the fat bedding of roses In this
fashion she grew says historical fiction thus does she flourish now would say
the modern transcript reading the inner as well as exhibiting the outer
And how may you know that you have reached to Philosophy You touch her
skirts when you share her hatred of the sham decent her derision of
sentimentalism You are one with her when but I would not have you a thousand
years older Get to her if in no other way by the sentimental route that
very winding path which again and again brings you round to the point of
original impetus where you have to be unwound for another whirl your point of
original impetus being the grossly material not at all the spiritual It is
most true that sentimentalism springs from the former merely and badly aping
the latter fine flower or pinnacle flamespire of sensualism that it is
could it do other and accompanying the former it traverses tracts of desert
here and there couching in a garden catching with one hand at fruits with
another at colours imagining a secret ahead and goaded by an appetite
sustained by sheer gratifications Fiddle in harmonics as it may it will have
these gratifications at all costs Should none be discoverable at once you are
at the Cave of Despair beneath the funereal orb of Glaucoma in the thick midst
of poniarded slitthroat ropedependant figures placarded across the bosom
Disillusioned Infidel Agnostic Miserrimus That is the sentimental route to
advancement Spirituality does not light it evanescent dreams are its
oillamps often with wick askant in the socket
A thousand years You may count full many a thousand by this route before
you are one with divine Philosophy Whereas a single flight of brains will reach
and embrace her give you the savour of Truth the right use of the senses
Realitys infinite sweetness for these things are in philosophy and the
fiction which is the summary of actual Life the within and without of us is
prose or verse plodding or soaring philosophys elect handmaiden To such an
end let us bend our aim to work knowing that every form of labour even this
flimsiest as you esteem it should minister to growth If in any branch of us
we fail in growth there is you are aware an unfailing aboriginal democratic
old monster that waits to pull us down certainly the branch possibly the tree
and for the welfare of Life we fall You are acutely conscious of yonder old
monster when he is mouthing at you in politics Be wary of him in the heart
especially be wary of the disrelish of brainstuff You must feed on something
Matter that is not nourishing to brains can help to constitute nothing but the
bodies which are pitched on rubbish heaps Brainstuff is not lean stuff the
brainstuff of fiction is internal history and to suppose it dull is the
profoundest of errors how deep you will understand when I tell you that it is
the very football of the holidayafternoon imps below They kick it for pastime
they are intelligences perverted The comic of it the adventurous the tragic
they make devilish to kindle their Ogygian hilarity But sharply comic
adventurous instructively tragic it is in the interwinding with human
affairs to give a flavour of the modern day reviving that of our Poet between
whom and us yawn Times most hollow jaws Surely we owe a little to Time to
cheer his progress a little to posterity and to our country Dozens of writers
will be in at yonder yawning breach if only perusers will rally to the
philosophic standard They are sick of the woodeny puppetry they dispense as on
a racecourse to the roaring frivolous Well if not dozens halfdozens
gallant pens are alive one can speak of them in the plural I venture to say
that they would be satisfied with a dozen for audience for a commencement They
would perish of inanition unfed unapplauded amenable to the laws perchance
for an assault on their last remaining pair of ears or heels to hold them fast
But the example is the thing sacrifices must be expected The example might
one hopes create a taste A great modern writer of clearest eye and head now
departed capable in activity of presenting thoughtful women thinking men
groaned over his puppetry that he dared not animate them flesh though they
were with the fires of positive brainstuff He could have done it and he is of
the departed Had he dared he would for he was Titan enough have raised the
Art in dignity on a level with History to an interest surpassing the narrative
of public deeds as vividly as mans heart and brain in their union excel his
plain lines of action to eruption The everlasting pantomime suggested by Mrs
Warwick in her exclamation to Perry Wilkinson is derided not unrighteously by
our graver seniors They name this Art the pasture of idiots a method for
idiotizing the entire population which has taken to reading and which soon
discovers that it can write likewise that sort of stuff at least The forecast
may be hazarded that if we do not speedily embrace Philosophy in fiction the
Art is doomed to extinction under the shining multitude of its professors They
are fast capping the candle Instead therefore of objurgating the timid
intrusions of Philosophy invoke her presence I pray you History without her
is the skeleton map of events Fiction a picture of figures modelled on no
skeletonanatomy But each with Philosophy in aid blooms and is humanly
shapely To demand of us truth to nature excluding Philosophy is really to bid
a pumpkin caper As much as legs are wanted for the dance Philosophy is
required to make our human nature credible and acceptable Fiction implores you
to heave a bigger breast and take her in with this heavenly preservative
helpmate her inspiration and her essence You have to teach your imagination of
the feminine image you have set up to bend your civilized knees to that it must
temper its fastidiousness shun the grossness of the overdainty Or to speak in
the philosophic tongue you must turn on yourself resolutely track and seize
that burrower and scrub and cleanse him by which process during the course of
it you will arrive at the conception of the right heroical woman for you to
worship and if you prove to be of some spiritual stature you may reach to an
ideal of the heroical feminine type for the worship of mankind an image as yet
in poetic outline only on our upper skies
»So well do we know ourselves that we one and all determine to know a
purer« says the heroine of my columns Philosophy in fiction tells among
various other matters of the perils of this intimate acquaintance with a
flattering familiar in the purer a person who more than ceases to be of use to
us after his ideal shall have led up men from their flint and arrowhead caverns
to intercommunicative daylight For when the fictitious creature has performed
that service of helping to civilize the world it becomes the most dangerous of
delusions causing first the individual to despise the mass and then to join
the mass in crushing the individual Wherewith let us to our story the froth
being out of the bottle
Chapter II
An Irish Ball
In the Assembly Rooms of the capital city of the Sister Island there was a
public Ball to celebrate the return to Erin of a British hero of Irish blood
after his victorious Indian campaign a mighty struggle splendidly ended and
truly could it be said that all Erin danced to meet him but this was the pick
of the dancing past dispute the pick of the supping Outside those halls the
supping was done in Lazarus fashion mainly through an excessive straining of
the organs of hearing and vision which imparted the readiness for more
declared by physicians to be the state inducing to sound digestion Some one
spied the figure of the hero at a window and was fed some only to hear the tale
chewed the cud of it some told of having seen him mount the steps and sure it
was that at an hour of the night no matter when and never mind a drop or two
of cloud he would come down them again and have an Irish cheer to freshen his
pillow For tis Ireland gives England her soldiers her generals too Farther
away over field and bogland the whiskies did their excellent ancient service
of watering the dry and drying the damp to the toast of »Lord Larrian God
bless him he s an honour to the old country« and a bit of a sigh to follow
hints of a story and loud laughter a drink a deeper sigh settling into
conversation upon the brave Lord Larrians deeds and an Irish regiment he
favoured had no taste for the enemy without the backing of his boys Not he
Why he d never march to battle and they not handy because when he struck he
struck hard he said And he has a wound on the right hip and two fingers off
his left hand has bled for England to show her what Irishmen are when they re
well treated
The fine old warrior standing at the upper end of the long saloon tall
straight greyhaired martial in his aspect and decorations was worthy to be
the flagpole for enthusiasm His large grey eyes lightened from time to time as
he ranged them over the floating couples and dropped a word of inquiry to his
aide Captain Sir Lukin Dunstane a good model of a cavalry officer though
somewhat a giant equally happy with his chief in passing the troops of animated
ladies under review He named as many as were known to him Reviewing women
exquisitely attired for inspection all variously and charmingly smiling is a
relief after the monotonous regiments of men Ireland had done her best to
present the hero of her blood an agreeable change and he too expressed a
patriotic satisfaction on hearing that the faces most admired by him were of the
native isle He looked upon one that came whirling up to him on a young
officers arm and swept off into the crowd of tops for a considerable while
before he put his customary question She was returning on the spin when he
said
»Who is she«
Sir Lukin did not know »She s a new bird she nodded to my wife I ll
ask«
He manoeuvred a few steps cleverly to where his wife reposed The
information he gathered for the behoof of his chief was that the handsome
creature answered to the name of Miss Merion Irish aged somewhere between
eighteen and nineteen a dear friend of his wifes and he ought to have
remembered her but she was a child when he saw her last
»Dan Merion died I remember about the day of my sailing for India« said
the General »She may be his daughter«
The bright cynosure rounded up to him in the web of the waltz with her dark
eyes for Lady Dunstane and vanished again among the twisting columns
He made his way handsomely bumped by an apologetic pair to Lady Dunstane
beside whom a seat was vacated for him and he trusted she had not overfatigued
herself
»Confess« she replied »you are perishing to know more than Lukin has been
able to tell you Let me hear that you admire her it pleases me and you shall
hear what will please you as much I promise you General«
»I do Who wouldnt« said he frankly
»She crossed the Channel expressly to dance here tonight at the public Ball
in honour of you«
»Where she appears the first person falls to second rank and accepts it
humbly«
»That is grandly spoken«
»She makes everything in the room dust round a blazing jewel«
»She makes a poet of a soldier Well that you may understand how pleased I
am she is my dearest friend though she is younger than I as may be seen she
is the only friend I have I nursed her when she was an infant my father and
Mr Dan Merion were chums We were parted by my marriage and the voyage to
India We have not yet exchanged a syllable she was snapped up of course the
moment she entered the room I knew she would be a taking girl how lovely I
did not guess You are right she extinguishes the others She used to be the
sprightliest of living creatures and to judge by her letters that has not
faded She s in the market General«
Lord Larrian nodded to everything he heard concluding with a mock doleful
shake of the head »My poorest subaltern« he sighed in the theatrical but
cordially melancholy style of green age viewing Cythereas market
His poorest subaltern was richer than he in the wherewithal to bid for such
prizes
»What is her name in addition to Merion«
»Diana Antonia Merion Tony to me Diana to the world«
»She lives over there«
»In England or anywhere wherever she is taken in She will live I hope
chiefly with me«
»And honest Irish«
»Oh she s Irish«
»Ah« the General was Irish to the heels that night
Before further could be said the fair object of the dialogue came darting on
a trip of little runs both hands out all her face one tender sparkle of a
smile and her cry proved the quality of her blood »Emmy Emmy my heart«
»My dear Tony I should not have come but for the hope of seeing you here«
Lord Larrian rose and received a hurried acknowledgement of his courtesy
from the usurper of his place
»Emmy we might kiss and hug we re in Ireland I burn to But you re not
still ill dear Say no That Indian fever must have gone You do look a dash
pale my own you re tired«
»One dance has tired me Why were you so late«
»To give the others a chance To produce a greater impression by suspense
No and no I wrote you I was with the Pettigrews We caught the coach we caught
the boat we were only two hours late for the Ball so we did wonders And good
Mrs Pettigrew is pining somewhere to complete her adornment I was in the
crush spying for Emmy when Mr Mayor informed me it was the duty of every
Irishwoman to dance her toes off if she d be known for what she is And twirl
a man had me by the waist and I dying to find you«
»Who was the man«
»Not to save these limbs from the lighted stake could I tell you«
»You are to perform a ceremonious bow to Lord Larrian«
»Chatter first a little«
The plea for chatter was disregarded It was visible that the hero of the
night hung listening and in expectation He and the Beauty were named to one
another and they chatted through a quadrille Sir Lukin introduced a
fellowHarrovian of old days Mr Thomas Redworth to his wife
»Our weatherprophet meteorologist« he remarked to set them going »you
remember in India my pointing to you his name in a newspaperletter on the
subject He was generally safe for the cricketing days«
Lady Dunstane kindly appeared to call it to mind and she led upon the theme
queried at times by an abrupt »Eh« and »I beg pardon« for manifestly his
gaze and one of his ears if not the pair were given to the young lady
discoursing with Lord Larrian Beauty is rare luckily is it rare or judging
from its effect on men and the very stoutest of them our world would be
internally a more distracted planet than we see to the perversion of business
courtesy rights of property and the rest She perceived an incipient victim
of the hundreds she anticipated and she very tolerantly talked on »The weather
and women have some resemblance they say Is it true that he who reads the one
can read the other«
Lord Larrian here burst into a brave old laugh exclaiming »Oh good«
Mr Redworth knitted his thick brows »I beg pardon Ah women Weather and
women No the one point more variable in women makes all the difference«
»Can you tell me what the General laughed at«
The honest Englishman entered the trap with promptitude »She said who is
she may I ask you«
Lady Dunstane mentioned her name
Daughter of the famous Dan Merion The young lady merited examination for
her fathers sake But when reminded of her laughtermoving speech Mr Redworth
bungled it he owned he spoilt it and candidly stated his inability to see the
fun »She said St Georges Channel in a gale ought to be called St Patricks
something I missed some point That quadrilletune the Pastourelle or
something «
»She had experience of the Channel last night« Lady Dunstane pursued and
they both while in seeming converse caught snatches from their neighbours
during a pause of the dance
The sparkling Diana said to Lord Larrian »You really decline to make any of
us proud women by dancing tonight«
The General answered »I might do it on two stilts I cant on one« He
touched his veteran leg
»But surely« said she »there s always an inspiration coming to it from
its partner in motion if one of them takes the step«
He signified a woeful negative »My dear young lady you say dark things to
grey hairs«
She rejoined »If we were over in England and you fixed on me the stigma of
saying dark things I should never speak without being thought obscure«
»Its because you flash too brightly for them«
»I think it is rather the reminiscence of the tooth that once received a
stone when it expected candy«
Again the General laughed he looked pleased and warmed »Yes that s their
way that s their way« and he repeated her words to himself diminishing their
importance as he stamped them on his memory but so heartily admiring the lovely
speaker that he considered her wit an honour to the old country and told her
so Irish prevailed up to boilingpoint
Lady Dunstane not less gratified glanced up at Mr Redworth whose brows
bore the knot of perplexity over a strong stare He too stamped the words on
his memory to see subsequently whether they had a vestige of meaning
Terrifically precocious he thought her Lady Dunstane in her quick sympathy
with her friend read the adverse mind in his face And her reading of the mind
was right wrong altogether her deduction of the corresponding sentiment
Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers
They beheld a quaint spectacle a gentleman obviously an Englishman
approached with the evident intention of reminding the Beauty of the night of
her engagement to him and claiming her as it were in the lions jaws He
advanced a foot withdrew it advanced withdrew eager for his prize not
overenterprising in awe of the illustrious General she entertained
presumeably quite unaware of the pretenders presence whereupon a voice was
heard »Oh if it was minuetting you meant before the lady I d never have
disputed your right to perform sir« For it seemed that there were two
claimants in the field an Irishman and an Englishman and the former having a
livelier sense of the situation hung aloof in waiting for her eye the latter
directed himself to strike bluntly at his prey and he continued minuetting now
rapidly blinking flushed angry conscious of awkwardness and a tangle
incapable of extrication He began to blink horribly under the raillery of his
rival The General observed him but as an object remote and minute a fly or
gnat The face of the brilliant Diana was entirely devoted to him she amused
Lady Dunstane had the faint lines of a decorous laugh on her lips as she
said »How odd it is that our men show to such disadvantage in a Ballroom I
have seen them in danger and there they shine first of any and one is proud of
them They should always be facing the elements or in action« She glanced at
the minuet which had become a petrified figure still palpitating bent
forward an interrogative reminder
Mr Redworth reserved his assent to the proclamation of any English
disadvantage A whiff of Celtic hostility in the atmosphere put him on his
mettle »Wherever the man is tried« he said
»My lady« the Irish gentleman bowed to Lady Dunstane »I had the honour
Sullivan Smith at the castle «
She responded to the salute and Mr Sullivan Smith proceeded to tell her
half in speech half in dots most luminous of a civil contention between the
English gentleman and himself as to the possession of the loveliest of partners
for this particular ensuing dance and that they had simultaneously made a rush
from the Lower Courts namely their cards to the Upper being the lady and
Mr Sullivan Smith partly founded his preferable claim on her Irish descent and
on his acquaintance with her eminent defunct father one of the everradiating
stars of his quenchless country
Lady Dunstane sympathized with him for his not intruding his claim when the
young lady stood preengaged as well as in humorous appreciation of his
imaginative logic
»There will be dancing enough after supper« she said
»If I could score one dance with her I d go home supperless and feasted«
said he »And that s not saying much among the hordes of hungry troopers
tiptoe for the signal to the buffet See my lady the gentleman as we call
him there he is working his gamut perpetually up to da capo Oh but it s a
sheep trying to be wolf he s sheepeyed and he s wolf pathetic and
larcenous Oh now who d believe it the man has dared I d as soon
think of committing sacrilege in a cathedral«
The man was actually to quote his indignant rival »breaching the
fortress« and pointing out to Diana Merion »her name on his dirty scrap of
paper« a shocking sight when the ladys recollection was the sole point to be
aimed at and the only umpire »As if all of us couldnt have written that and
hadnt done it« Mr Sullivan Smith groaned disgusted He hated bad manners
particularly in cases involving ladies and the bad manners of a Saxon fired his
antagonism to the race individual members of which he boasted of forgiving and
embracing honouring So the man blackened the race for him and the race was
excused in the man But his hatred of bad manners was vehement and would have
extended to a fellowcountryman His own were of the antecedent century
therefore venerable
Diana turned from her pursuer with a comic woeful lifting of the brows at
her friend Lady Dunstane motioned her fan and Diana came bending head
»Are you bound in honour«
»I dont think I am And I do want to go on talking with the General He is
so delightful and modest my dream of a true soldier telling me of his last
big battle bit by bit to my fishing«
»Put off this person for a square dance down the list and take out Mr
Redworth Miss Diana Merion Mr Redworth he will bring you back to the
General who must not totally absorb you or he will forfeit his popularity«
Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advocate of his
claims to whom on his relinquishing her Mr Sullivan Smith remarked »Oh
sir the law of it where a lady s concerned You re one for evictions I
should guess and the antihuman process It s that letter of the law that
stands between you and me and mine and yours But you ve got your congee and
my blessing on ye«
»It was a positive engagement« said the enemy
Mr Sullivan Smith derided him »And a pretty partner you ve pickled for
yourself when she keeps her positive engagement«
He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn She pleaded weariness
He proposed to sit beside her and divert her She smiled but warned him that
she was English in every vein He interjected »Irish men and English women
though it s putting the cart before the horse the copper pennies where the
gold guineas should be So here s the gentleman who takes the oyster like the
lawyer of the fable English is he But we read the last shall be first And
English women and Irish men make the finest coupling in the universe«
»Well you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man«
said Lady Dunstane at the same time informing the obedient Diana then
bestowing her hand on Mr Redworth to please her friend that he was a
schoolfellow of her husbands
»Favour cant help coming by rotation except in very extraordinary
circumstances and he was ahead of me with you and takes my due and twould be
hard on me if I werent thoroughly indemnified« Mr Sullivan Smith bowed »You
gave them just the start over the frozen minute for conversation they were
total strangers and he doesnt appear a bad sort of fellow for a temporary
mate though he s not perfectly sure of his legs And that we ll excuse to any
man leading out such a fresh young beauty of a Bright Eyes like the stars of a
winters night in the frosty season over Columkill or where you will so that
s in Ireland to be sure of the likeness to her«
»Her mother was half English«
»Of course she was And what was my observation about the coupling Dan
Merion would make her Irish all over And she has a vein of Spanish blood in
her for he had and she s got the colour But you spoke of their coupling
or I did Oh a man can hold his own with an English rolypoly mate he s not
stifled But a woman hasnt his power of resistance to dead weight She s
volatile she s frivolous a rattler and gabbler havent I heard what they
say of Irish girls over there She marries and it s the end of her sparkling
She must choose at home for a perfect harmonious partner«
Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple danced excellently
together
»It d be a bitter thing to see if the fellow couldnt dance after leading
her out« sighed Mr Sullivan Smith »I heard of her over there They call her
the Black Pearl and the Irish Lily because she s dark They rack their poor
brains to get the laugh of us«
»And I listen to you« said Lady Dunstane
»Ah if all England half a quarter the smallest piece of the land were
like you my lady I d be loyal to the fingernails Now is she engaged
when I get a word with her«
»She is nineteen or nearly and she ought to have five good years of
freedom I think«
»And five good years of serfdom I d serve to win her«
A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would be
small chance for Mr Sullivan Smith after a life of bondage if she knew her
Diana in spite of his tongue his tact his lively features and breadth of
shoulders
Up he sprang Diana was on Mr Redworths arm »No refreshments« she said
and »this is my refreshment« taking the seat of Mr Sullivan Smith who
ejaculated
»I must go and have that gentlemans name« He wanted a foe
»You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment Tony«
said her friend
»Yes with the General«
»He is a noble old man«
»Superb And dont say old man With his uniform and his height and his grey
head he is like a glorious October day just before the brown leaves fall«
Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly the favourite of her
childhood as Lady Dunstane well remembered and they smiled together at the
scenes and times it recalled
»Do you still write verses Tony«
»I could about him At one part of the fight he thought he would be beaten
He was overmatched in artillery and it was a cavalry charge he thundered on
them riding across the field to give the word of command to the couple of
regiments riddled to threads that gained the day That is life when we dare
death to live I wonder at men who are men being anything but soldiers I told
you madre my own Emmy I forgave you for marrying because it was a soldier«
»Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man But you have not told me a word
of yourself What has been done with the old Crossways«
»The house you know is mine And it s all I have ten acres and the
house furnished and let for less than two hundred a year Oh how I long to
evict the tenants They cant have my feeling for the place where I was born
They re people of tolerably good connections middling wealthy I suppose of
the name of Warwick and as far as I can understand they stick there to be
near the Sussex Downs for a nephew who likes to ride on them I ve a half
engagement barely legible to visit them on an indefinite day and cant bear
the idea of strangers masters in the old house I must be driven there for
shelter for a roof some month And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow
just to doat on the outside of it That s your Tony«
»She s my darling«
»I hear myself speak But your voice or mine madre it s one soul Be sure
I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you dear and dearest
No secrets never a shadow of a deception or else I shall feel I am not fit to
live Was I a bad correspondent when you were in India«
»Pretty well Copious letters when you did write«
»I was shy I knew I should be writing to Emmy and another and only when I
came to the flow could I forget him He is very finely built and I dare say he
has a head I read of his deeds in India and quivered But he was just a bit in
the way Men are the barriers to perfect naturalness at least with girls I
think You wrote to me in the same tone as ever and at first I had a struggle
to reply And I who have such pride in being always myself«
Two staring semicircles had formed one to front the Hero the other the
Beauty These half moons imperceptibly dissolved to replenish and became a
fixed obstruction
»Yes they look« Diana made answer to Lady Dunstanes comment on the
curious impertinence She was getting used to it and her friend had a
gratification in seeing how little this affected her perfect naturalness
»You are often in the world dinners dances« she said
»People are kind«
»Any proposals«
»Nibbles«
»Quite heartfree«
»Absolutely«
Dianas unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an eclipse
The block of sturdy gazers began to melt The General had dispersed his
group of satellites by a movement with the Mayoress on his arm construed as the
signal for procession to the suppertable
Chapter III
The Interior of Mr Redworth and the Exterior of Mr Sullivan Smith
»It may be as well to take Mr Redworths arm you will escape the crush for
you« said Lady Dunstane to Diana »I dont sup Yes go You must eat and he
is handiest to conduct you«
Diana thought of her chaperon and the lateness of the hour She murmured to
soften her conscience »Poor Mrs Pettigrew«
And once more Mr Redworth outwardly imperturbable was in the maëlstrom of
a happiness resembling tempest He talked and knew not what he uttered To give
this matchless girl the best to eat and drink was his business and he performed
it Oddly for a man who had no loaded design marshalling the troops in his
active and capacious cranium he fell upon calculations of his income present
and prospective while she sat at the table and he stood behind her Others were
wrangling for places chairs plates glasses gamepie champagne she had
them the lady under his charge to a certainty would have them so far good and
he had seven hundred pounds per annum seven hundred and fifty in a favourable
aspect at a stretch
»Yes the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera of
Carinis« she said in full accord with her taste »and Tellio for tenor
certainly«
A fair enough sum for a bachelor four hundred personal income and a
prospect of higher dividends to increase it three hundred odd from his office
and no immediate prospects of an increase there no one died there no elderly
martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be persuaded to die they were
too tough to think of retiring Say seven hundred and fifty eight hundred
if the commerce of the country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in
or eightfifty or nine ten
»I could call him my poet also« Mr Redworth agreed with her taste in
poets »His letters are among the best ever written or ever published the
raciest English I know Frank straight out capital descriptions The best
English letterwriters are as good as the French You dont think so in
their way of course I dare say we dont sufficiently cultivate the art We
require the supple tongue a closer intercourse of society gives«
Eight or ten hundred Comfortable enough for a man in chambers To dream
of entering as a householder on that sum in these days would be stark
nonsense and a man two removes from a baronetcy has no right to set his
reckoning on deaths if he does he becomes a sort of meditative assassin But
what were the Fates about when they planted a man of the ability of Tom Redworth
in a Government office Clearly they intended him to remain a bachelor for life
And they sent him over to Ireland on inspection duty for a month to have sight
of an Irish Beauty
»Think war the finest subject for poets« he exclaimed »Flatly no I dont
think it I think exactly the reverse It brings out the noblest traits in human
character I wont own that even It brings out some but under excitement when
you have not always the real man Pray dont sneer at domestic life Well
there was a suspicion of disdain Yes I can respect the hero military or
civil with this distinction that the military hero aims at personal reward «
»He braves wounds and death« interposed Diana
»Whereas the civilian hero «
»Pardon me let me deny that the soldierhero aims at a personal reward«
she again interposed
»He gets it«
»If he is not beaten«
»And then he is no longer a hero«
»He is to me«
She had a womans inveterate admiration of the profession of arms Mr
Redworth endeavoured to render practicable an opening in her mind to reason He
admitted the grandeur of the poetry of Homer We are a few centuries in advance
of Homer We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice to propitiate celestial wrath
nor do we revel in details of slaughter He reasoned with her he repeated
stories known to him of civilian heroes and won her assent to the heroical
title for their deeds but it was languid or not so bright as the deeds
deserved or as the young lady could look and he insisted on the civilian
hero impelled by some unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought
also the thing he was his plain mind and matteroffact nature Possibly she
caught a glimpse of that After a turn of fencing in which he was impressed by
the vibration of her tones when speaking of military heroes she quitted the
table saying »An argument between one at supper and another handing plates is
rather unequal if eloquence is needed As Pat said to the constable when his
hands were tied You beat me with the fists but my spirit is towering and kicks
freely«
Eight hundred a thousand a year two thousand are as nothing in the
calculation of a householder who means that the mistress of the house shall have
the choicest of the fruits and flowers of the Four Quarters and Thomas Redworth
had vowed at his first outlook on the world of women that never should one of
the sisterhood coming under his charge complain of not having them in profusion
Consequently he was a settled bachelor In the character of disengaged and
unaspiring philosophical bachelor he reviewed the revelations of her character
betrayed by the beautiful virgin devoted to the sanguine coat The thrill of her
voice in speaking of soldierheroes shot him to the yonder side of a gulf Not
knowing why for he had no scheme desperate or other in his head the least
affrighted of men was frightened by her tastes and by her aplomb her
inoffensiveness in freedom of manner and selfsufficiency sign of purest
breeding and by her easy peerless vivacity her proofs of descent from the
blood of Dan Merion a wildish blood The candour of the look of her eyes in
speaking her power of looking forthright at men and looking the thing she
spoke and the play of her voluble lips the significant repose of her lips in
silence her weighing of the words he uttered for a moment before the prompt
apposite reply down to her simple quotation of Pat alarmed him he did not ask
himself why His manly self was not intruded on his cogitations A mere eight
hundred or thousand per annum had no place in that midst He beheld her quietly
selecting the position of dignity to suit her an eminent military man or
statesman or wealthy nobleman she had but to choose A war would offer her the
decorated soldier she wanted A war Such are women of this kind The thought
revolted him and pricked his appetite for supper He did service by Mrs
Pettigrew to which lady Miss Merion as she said promoted him at the table
and then began to refresh in person standing
»Malkin that s the fellows name« he heard close at his ear
Mr Sullivan Smith had drained a champagneglass bottle in hand and was
priming the successor to it He cocked his eye at Mr Redworths quick stare
»Malkin And now we ll see whether the interior of him is grey or black or
tabby or tortoiseshell or any other colour of the Malkin breed«
He explained to Mr Redworth that he had summoned Mr Malkin to answer to
him as a gentleman for calling Miss Merion a jilt »The man sir said in my
hearing she jilted him and that s to call the lady a jilt There s not a
point of difference not a shade I overheard him I happened by the blessing of
Providence to be by when he named her publicly jilt And it s enough that she
s a lady to have me for her champion The same if she had been an Esquimaux
squaw I ll never live to hear a lady insulted«
»You dont mean to say you re the donkey to provoke a duel« Mr Redworth
burst out gruffly through turkey and stuffing
»And an Irish lady the young Beauty of Erin« Mr Sullivan Smith was
flowing on He became frigid he politely bowed »Two sir if you havent the
grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and cant be obliterated«
»Fiddle and go to the deuce« Mr Redworth cried
»Would a soft slap o the cheek persuade you sir«
»Try it outside and dont bother me with nonsense of that sort at my
supper If I m struck I strike back I keep my pistols for bandits and
lawbreakers Here« said Mr Redworth better inspired as to the way of
treating an ultra of the isle »touch glasses you re a gentleman and wont
disturb good company Byandby«
The pleasing prospect of byandby renewed in Mr Sullivan Smith his
composure They touched the foaming glasses upon which in a friendly manner
Mr Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as soon as Mr Redworth
had finished supper quite finished supper for the reason that the term donkey
affixed to him was like a minster cap of schooldays ringing bells on his
topknot and also that it stuck in his gizzard
Mr Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical »If you fight you
re a donkey for doing it But you wont fight«
»But I will fight«
»He wont fight«
»Then for the honour of your country you must But I d rather have him
first for I havent drunk with him and it should be a case of necessity to put
a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man you ve drunk with And
what s in your favour she danced with ye She seemed to take to ye and the
man she has the smallest sugarmelting for is sacred if he s not sweet to me
If he retracts«
»Hypothetically No«
»But supposititiously«
»Certainly«
»Then we grasp hands on it It s Malkin or nothing« said Mr Sullivan
Smith swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe How one sane
man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent young ladys
reputation passed his rational conception
Sir Lukin hastened to Mr Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays and
fellows
»I ll tell you what« said the civilian »There are Irishmen and Irishmen
I ve met cool heads and long heads among them and you and I knew Jack Derry
who was good at most things But the burlesque Irishman cant be caricatured
Nature strained herself in a fit of absurdity to produce him and all that Art
can do is to copy«
This was his prelude to an account of Mr Sullivan Smith whom as a
specimen he rejoiced to have met
»There s a chance of mischief« said Sir Lukin »I know nothing of the man
he calls Malkin I ll inquire presently«
He talked of his prospects and of the women Fair ones in his opinion
besides Miss Merion were parading he sketched two or three of his partners with
a broad brush of epithets
»It wont do for Miss Merions name to be mixed up in a duel« said
Redworth
»Not if she s to make her fortune in England« said Sir Lukin »It s
probably all smoke«
The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of metaphorical smoke and
fire and no mean report startled the company of supping gentlemen At the
pitch of his voice Mr Sullivan Smith denounced Mr Malkin in presence for a
cur masquerading as a cat
»And that is not the scoundrels prime offence For what d ye think He
trumps up an engagement to dance with a beautiful lady and because she cant
remember binds her to an oath for a dance to come and then holding her
prisoner to m he sulks the dirty dogcat goes and sulks and he wont dance
and wont do anything but screech up in corners that he s jilted He said the
word Dozens of gentlemen heard the word And I demand an apology of Misterr
Malkin or And none of your guerrier nodding and bravado Mister Malkin at
me if you please The case is for settlement between gentlemen«
The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin driven to extremity by the
worrying stood in braced preparation for the English attitude of defence His
tormentor drew closer to him
»Mind I give you warning if you lay a finger on me I ll knock you down«
said he
Most joyfully Mr Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry »For a
specimen of manners in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen I ask ye« he
addressed the ring about him to put his adversary entirely in the wrong before
provoking the act of war And then as one intending gently to remonstrate he
was on the point of stretching out his finger to the shoulder of Mr Malkin
when Redworth seized his arm saying »I m your man me first you re due to
me«
Mr Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces Now
was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds He threatened Saxondom Man up man
down he challenged the race of shortlegged thickset woodenpated
curmudgeons and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the notion
of powder and ball Redworth in the struggle to haul him away received a blow
from him »And you ve got it you would have it« roared the Celt
»Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort« Redworth said
and he observed generally »No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in good company«
»But that s true as Writ And I offer excuses if you ll come along with
me and a couple of friends The thing has been done before by torchlight and
neatly«
»Come along and come alone« said Redworth
A way was cleared for them Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth who had no
doubt of his ability to manage Mr Sullivan Smith
He managed that finehearted but purely sensational fellow so well that Lady
Dunstane and Diana after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub below beheld
them entering the long saloon amicably with the nods and looks of gentlemen
quietly accordant
A little later Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth and he smoothed her
apprehensions delivering himself much to her comfort thus »In no case would
any ladys name have been raised The whole affair was nonsensical He s a
capital fellow of a kind capable of behaving like a man of the world and a
gentleman Only he has or thinks he has like lots of his countrymen a raw
wound something that itches to be grazed Champagne on that Irishmen as
far as I have seen of them are like horses bundles of nerves and you must
manage them as you do with all nervous creatures with firmness but good
temper You must never get into a fury of the nerves yourself with them Spur
and whip they dont want they ll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it
They want the bridlerein That seems to me the secret of Irish character We
English are not bad horsemen It s a wonder we blunder so in our management of
such a people«
»I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof« said she
He shrugged »There s little chance of it«
To reward him for his practical discretion she contrived that Diana should
give him a final dance and the beautiful girl smiled quickly responsive to his
appeal He was moreover sensible in her look and speech that he had advanced
in her consideration to be no longer the mere spinning stick a young ladys
partner By which he humbly understood that her friend approved him A gentle
delirium enfolded his brain A householders life is often begun on eight
hundred a year on less on much less sometimes on nothing but resolution to
make a fitting income carving out a fortune Eight hundred may stand as a
superior basis That sum is a distinct point of vantage If it does not mean a
carriage and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the stars of society
it means at any rate security and then the heart of the man being strong and
sound
»Yes« he replied to her »I like my experience of Ireland and the Irish
and better than I thought I should St Georges Channel ought to be crossed
oftener by both of us«
»I m always glad of the signal« said Diana
He had implied the people of the two islands He allowed her interpretation
to remain personal for the sake of a creeping deliciousness that it carried
through his blood
»Shall you soon be returning to England« he ventured to ask
»I am Lady Dunstanes guest for some months«
»Then you will Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey He talks of quitting the
Service«
»I cant believe it«
His thrilled blood was chilled She entertained a sentiment amounting to
adoration for the profession of arms
Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night that the
festivity might not be dashed by his departure perhaps to a certain degree to
prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene At last Sir Lukin had the word from
him and came to his wife Diana slipped across the floor to her accommodating
chaperon whom for the sake of another five minutes with her beloved Emma she
very agreeably persuaded to walk in the train of Lord Larrian and forth they
trooped down a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies resembling oak and
birchtrees under a tempered gale even to the shedding of leaves for here a
turban was picked up by Sir Lukin there a jewelled earring by the
selfconstituted attendant Mr Thomas Redworth At the portico rang a wakening
cheer really worth hearing The rain it rained and hats were formless as in
the first conception of the edifice backs were damp boots liquidly musical
the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty with much pulling at the stem
but the cheer arose magnificently and multiplied itself touching at the same
moment the heavens and Dianas heart at least drawing them together for she
felt exalted enraptured as proud of her countrymen as of their hero
»That s the natural shamrock after the artificial« she heard Mr Redworth
say behind her
She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying over him in
gratitude for a timely word well said And she never forgot the remark nor he
the look
Chapter IV
Containing Hints of Dianas Experiences and of what They Led to
A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes had
crossed the Channel back to England and old Ireland was left to her rains from
above and her undrained bogs below her physical and her mental vapours her
ailments and her bogbred doctors as to whom the governing country trusted they
would be silent or discourse humorously
The residence of Sir Lukin Dunstane in the county of Surrey inherited by
him during his recent term of Indian services was on the hills where a day of
Italian sky or better a day of our breezy Southwest washed from the showery
night gives distantly a tower to view and a murky web not without colour the
everflying banner of the metropolis the smoke of the citys chimneys if you
prefer plain language At a first inspection of the house Lady Dunstane did not
like it and it was advertized to be let and the auctioneer proclaimed it in
his dialect Her taste was delicate she had the sensitiveness of an invalid
twice she read the stalking advertizement of the attractions of Copsley and
hearing Diana call it the plush of speech she shuddered she decided that a
place where her husbands family had lived ought not to stand forth
meretriciously spangled and daubed like a showbooth at a fair for a bait
though the grandiloquent man of advertizing letters assured Sir Lukin that a
public agape for the big and gaudy mouthful is in no milder way to be caught as
it is apparently the case She withdrew the trumpeting placard Retract we
likewise banner of the metropolis That plush of speech haunts all efforts to
swell and illuminate citizen prose to a princely poetic
Yet Lady Dunstane herself could name the bank of smoke when looking
Northeastward from her summerhouse the flag of London and she was a person
of the critical mind well able to distinguish between the simple metaphor and
the superobese A year of habitation induced her to conceal her dislike of the
place in love cats love she owned Here she confessed to Diana she would
wish to live to her end It seemed remote where an invigorating upper air gave
new bloom to her cheeks but she kept one secret from her friend
Copsley was an estate of nearly twelve hundred acres extending across the
ridge of the hills to the slopes North and South Seven counties rolled their
backs under this commanding height and it would have tasked a pigeon to fly
within an hour the stretch of country visible at the Copsley windows Sunrise to
right sunset leftward the borders of the grounds held both flaming horizons
So much of the heavens and of earth is rarely granted to a dwelling The
drawback was the structure which had no charm scarce a face »It is written
that I should live in barracks« Lady Dunstane said The colour of it taught
white to impose a sense of gloom Her cats love of the familiar inside corners
was never able to embrace the outer walls Her sensitiveness too was racked by
the presentation of so pitiably ugly a figure to the landscape She likened it
to a coarsefeatured country wench whose cleaning and decorating of her
countenance makes complexion grin and ruggedness yawn Dirty dilapidated hung
with weeds and parasites it would have been more tolerable She tried the
effect of various creepers and they were as a staring paint What it was like
then she had no heart to say
One may however fall on a pleasureable resignation in accepting great
indemnities as Diana bade her believe when the first disgust began to ebb »A
good hundred over there would think it a Paradise for an asylum« she signified
London Her friend bore such reminders meekly They were readers of books of all
sorts political philosophical economical romantic and they mixed the
diverse readings in thought after the fashion of the ardently youthful Romance
affected politics transformed economy irradiated philosophy They discussed
the knotty question Why things were not done the things being confessedly to
do and they cut the knot Men men calling themselves statesmen declined to
perform that operation because forsooth other men objected to have it
performed on them And common humanity declared it to be for the common weal If
so then it is clearly indicated as a course of action we shut our eyes against
logic and the vaunted laws of economy They are the knot we cut or would cut
had we the sword Diana did it to the tune of Garryowen or Planxty Kelly O for
a despot The cry was for a beneficent despot naturally a largeminded
benevolent despot In short a despot to obey their bidding Thoughtful young
people who think through the heart soon come to this conclusion The heart is
the beneficent despot they would be He cures those miseries he creates the
novel harmony He sees all difficulties through his own sanguine hues He is the
musical poet of the problem demanding merely to have it solved that he may
sing clear proof of the necessity for solving it immediately
Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation to make
it happy Diana was leader Her fine ardour and resonance and more than the
convincing ring of her voice the girls impassioned rapidity in rushing through
any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth or beating down obstacles to form one
and coming swiftly to some solution constituted her the chief of the pair of
democratic rebels in questions that clamoured for instant solution By dint of
reading solid writers using the brains they possessed it was revealed to them
gradually that their particular impatience came perhaps of the most earnest
desire to get to a comfortable termination of the inquiry the heart aching
for mankind sought a nest for itself At this point Lady Dunstane took the lead
Diana had to be tugged to follow She could not accept a perhaps that cast
dubiousness on her disinterested championship She protested a perfect certainty
of the single aim of her heart outward But she reflected She discovered that
her friend had gone ahead of her
The discovery was reached and even acknowledged before she could persuade
herself to swallow the repulsive truth O self self self are we eternally
masking in a domino that reveals your hideous old face when we could be most
positive we had escaped you Eternally the desolating answer knelled
Nevertheless the poor the starving the overtaxed in labour they have a right
to the cry of Now now They have and if a cry could conduct us to the secret
of aiding healing feeding elevating them we might swell the cry As it is
we must lay it on our wits patiently to track and find the secret and meantime
do what the individual with his poor pittance can A miserable contribution
sighed the girl Old Self was perceived in the sigh She was haunted
After all one must live ones life Placing her on a lower pedestal in her
selfesteem the philosophy of youth revived her and if the abatement of her
personal pride was dispiriting she began to see an advantage in getting inward
eyes
»It s infinitely better I should know it Emmy I m a reptile Pleasure
here pleasure there I m always thinking of pleasure I shall give up thinking
and take to drifting Neither of us can do more than open purses and mine s
lean If the old Crossways had no tenant it would be a purse all mouth And
charity is haunted like everything we do Only I say with my whole strength
yes I am sure in spite of the men professing that they are practical the rich
will not move without a goad I have and hold you shall hunger and covet
until you are strong enough to force my hand that s the speech of the
wealthy And they are Christians In name Well I thank heaven I m at war with
myself«
»You always manage to strike out a sentence worth remembering Tony« said
Lady Dunstane »At war with ourselves means the best happiness we can have«
It suited her frail as her health was and her wisdom striving to the
spiritual of happiness War with herself was far from happiness in the bosom of
Diana She wanted external life action fields for energies to vary the
struggle It fretted and rendered her ill at ease In her solitary rides with
Sir Lukin through a long winter season she appalled that excellent but
conventionallyminded gentleman by starting nay supporting theories next to
profane in the consideration of a landowner She spoke of Reform of the Repeal
of the Corn Laws as the simple beginning of the grants due to the people She
had her ideas of course from that fellow Redworth an occasional visitor at
Copsley and a man might be a donkey and think what he pleased since he had a
vocabulary to back his opinions A woman Sir Lukin held was by nature a mute
in politics Of the thing called a Radical woman he could not believe that she
was less than monstrous »with a nose« he said and doubtless horse teeth
hatchet jaws slatternly in the gown slipshod awful As for a girl an
unmarried handsome girl admittedly beautiful her interjections echoing a
man were ridiculous and not a little annoying now and then for she could be
piercingly sarcastic Her vocabulary in irony was a quiverful He admired her
and liked her immensely complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics He
pardoned her on the score of the petty difference rankling between them in
reference to his abandonment of his Profession for here she was patriotically
wrongheaded Everybody knew that he had sold out in order to look after his
estates of Copsley and Dunena secondly and in the first place to nurse and be
a companion to his wife He had left her but four times in five months he had
spent just three weeks of that time away from her in London No one could doubt
of his having kept his pledge although his wife occupied herself with books and
notions and subjects foreign to his taste his understanding too he owned
And Redworth had approved of his retirement had a contempt for soldiering
»Quite as great as yours for civilians I can tell you« Sir Lukin said dashing
out of politics to the vexatious personal subject Her unexpressed disdain was
ruffling
»Mr Redworth recommends work he respects the working soldier« said Diana
Sir Lukin exclaimed that he had been a working soldier he was ready to
serve if his country wanted him He directed her to anathematize Peace instead
of scorning a fellow for doing the duties next about him and the mention of
Peace fetched him at a bound back to politics He quoted a distinguished Tory
orator to the effect that any lengthened term of peace bred maggots in the
heads of the people
»Mr Redworth spoke of it he translated something from Aristophanes for a
retort« said Diana
»Well we re friends eh« Sir Lukin put forth a hand
She looked at him surprised at the unnecessary call for a show of
friendship she touched his hand with two tips of her fingers remarking »I
should think so indeed«
He deemed it prudent to hint to his wife that Diana Merion appeared to be
meditating upon Mr Redworth
»That is a serious misfortune if true« said Lady Dunstane She thought so
for two reasons Mr Redworth generally disagreed in opinion with Diana and
contradicted her so flatly as to produce the impression of his not even sharing
the popular admiration of her beauty and further she hoped for Diana to make
a splendid marriage The nibbles threatened to be snaps and bites There had
been a proposal in an epistle a quaint effusion from a gentleman avowing that
he had seen her and had not danced with her on the night of the Irish ball He
was rejected but Diana groaned over the task of replying to the unfortunate
applicant so as not to wound him »Shall I have to do this often I wonder«
she said
»Unless you capitulate« said her friend
Dianas exclamation »May I be heartfree for another ten years« encouraged
Lady Dunstane to suppose her husband quite mistaken
In the Spring Diana went on a first pilgrimage to her old home The
Crossways and was kindly entertained by the uncle and aunt of a treasured
nephew Mr Augustus Warwick She rode with him on the Downs A visit of a week
humanized her view of the intruders She wrote almost tenderly of her host and
hostess to Lady Dunstane they had but »the one fault of spoiling their nephew«
Him she described as a »gentlemanly official« a picture of him His age was
thirtyfour He seemed »fond of her scenery« Then her pen swept over the Downs
like a flying horse Lady Dunstane thought no more of the gentlemanly official
He was a barrister who did not practise in nothing the man for Diana Letters
came from the house of the Pettigrews in Kent from London from Halford Manor
in Hertfordshire from Lockton Grange in Lincolnshire after which they ceased
to be the thrice weekly and reading the latest of them Lady Dunstane imagined
a flustered quill The letter succeeding the omission contained no excuse and
it was brief There was a strange interjection as to the wearifulness of
constantly wandering like a leaf off the tree Diana spoke of looking for a
return of the dear winter days at Copsley That was her station Either she must
have had some disturbing experience or Copsley was dear for a Redworth reason
thought the anxious peruser musing dreaming putting together divers shreds of
correspondence and testing them with her intimate knowledge of Dianas
character Lady Dunstane conceived that the unprotected beautiful girl had
suffered a persecution it might be an insult She spelt over the names of the
guests at the houses Lord Wroxeter was of evil report Captain Rampan a Turf
captain had the like notoriety And it is impossible in a great house for the
hostess to spread her ægis to cover every dame and damsel present She has to
depend on the women being discreet the men civilized
»How brutal men can be« was one of Dianas incidental remarks in a
subsequent letter relating simply to masculine habits In those days the famous
ancestral plea of the passion for his charmer had not been altogether socially
quashed down among the provinces where the bottle maintained a sort of sway
and the beauty which inflamed the sons of men was held to be in coy expectation
of violent effects upon their boiling blood There were one hears that there
still are remnants of the pristine male who if resisted in their suing
conclude that they are scorned and it infuriates them some also whose passion
for the charmer is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex by a bully
imposition of sheer physical ascendancy whenever they see it flying with an air
of gallant independence and some who dedicate their lives to a study of the
arts of the Lord of Reptiles until they have worked the crisis for a display of
him in person Assault or siege they have achieved their triumphs they have
dominated a frailer system of nerves and a young woman without father or
brother or husband to defend her is cryingly a weak one therefore inviting
to such an order of heroes Lady Dunstane was quickwitted and had a talkative
husband she knew a little of the upper social world of her time She was
heartily glad to have Diana by her side again
Not a word of any serious experience was uttered Only on one occasion while
they conversed something being mentioned of her tolerance a flush of swarthy
crimson shot over Diana and she frowned with the outcry »Oh I have
discovered that I can be a tigress«
Her friend pressed her hand saying »The cause a good one«
»Women have to fight«
Diana said no more There had been a bad experience of her isolated position
in the world
Lady Dunstane now indulged a partial hope that Mr Redworth might see in
this unprotected beautiful girl a person worthy of his esteem He had his
opportunities and evidently he liked her She appeared to take more cordially
to him She valued the sterling nature of the man But they were a hopeless
couple they were so friendly Both ladies noticed in him an abstractedness of
look often when conversing as of a man in calculation they put it down to an
ambitious mind Yet Diana said then and said always that it was he who had
first taught her the art of observing On the whole the brilliant marriage
seemed a fairer prospect for her how reasonable to anticipate Lady Dunstane
often thought when admiring the advance of Dianas beauty in queenliness for
never did woman carry her head more grandly more thrillingly make her presence
felt and if only she had been an actress showing herself nightly on a London
stage she would before now have met the superb appreciation melancholy to
reflect upon
Diana regained her happy composure at Copsley She had as she imagined no
ambition The dulness of the place conveyed a charm to a nature recovering from
disturbance to its clear smooth flow Air light books and her friend these
good things she had they were all she wanted She rode she walked with Sir
Lukin or Mr Redworth for companion or with Saturday and Sunday guests Lord
Larrian her declared admirer among them »Twenty years younger« he said to
her shrugging with a merry smile drawn a little at the corners to sober
sourness and she vowed to her friend that she would not have had the heart to
refuse him »Though« said she »speaking generally I cannot tell you what a
foreign animal a husband would appear in my kingdom« Her experience had wakened
a sexual aversion of some slight kind enough to make her feminine pride
stipulate for perfect independence that she might have the calm out of which
imagination spreads wing Imagination had become her broader life and on such
an earth under such skies a husband who is not the fountain of it certainly
is a foreign animal he is a discordant note He contracts the ethereal world
deadens radiancy He is gross fact a leash a muzzle harness a hood whatever
is detestable to the free limbs and senses It amused Lady Dunstane to hear
Diana say one evening when their conversation fell by hazard on her future
that the idea of a convent was more welcome to her than the most splendid
marriage »For« she added »as I am sure I shall never know anything of this
love they rattle about and rave about I shall do well to keep to my good single
path and I have a warning within me that a step out of it will be a wrong one
for me dearest«
She wished her view of the yoke to be considered purely personal drawn from
no examples and comparisons The excellent Sir Lukin was passing a great deal of
his time in London His wife had not a word of blame for him he was a
respectful husband and attentive when present but so uncertain owing to the
sudden pressure of engagements that Diana bound on a second visit to The
Crossways doubted whether she would be able to quit her friend whose condition
did not allow of her being left solitary at Copsley He came nevertheless a day
before Dianas appointed departure on her round of visits She was pleased with
him and let him see it for the encouragement of a husband in the observance of
his duties One of the horses had fallen lame so they went out for a walk at
Lady Dunstanes request It was a delicious afternoon of Spring with the full
red disk of sun dropping behind the brown beechtwigs She remembered long
afterward the sweet simpleness of her feelings as she took in the scent of wild
flowers along the lanes and entered the woods jaws of another monstrous and
blackening experience He fell into the sentimental vein and a man coming from
that heated London life to these glorified woods might be excused for doing so
though it sounded to her just a little ludicrous in him She played tolerantly
second to it she quoted a snatch of poetry and his whole face was bent to her
with the petition that she would repeat the verse Much struck was this giant
ex Ah how fine grand He would rather hear that than any opera it was
diviner »Yes the best poetry is« she assented »On your lips« he said She
laughed »I am not a particularly melodious reciter« He vowed he could listen
to her eternally eternally His face on a screw of the neck and shoulders was
now perpetually threequarters fronting Ah she was going to leave »Yes and
you will find my return quite early enough« said Diana stepping a trifle more
briskly His fist was raised on the length of the arm as if in invocation »Not
in the whole of London is there a woman worthy to fasten your shoebuckles My
oath on it I look I cant spy one« Such was his flattering eloquence
She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compliments »And here of
all places« They were in the heart of the woods She found her hand seized
her waist Even then so impossible is it to conceive the unimaginable even when
the apparition of it smites us she expected some protesting absurdity or that
he had seen something in her path What did she hear And from her friends
husband
If stricken idiotic he was a gentleman the tigress she had detected in her
composition did not require to be called forth halfadozen words direct
sharp as fangs and teeth with the eyes burning over them sufficed for the work
of defence »The man who swore loyalty to Emma« Her reproachful repulsion of
eyes was unmistakeable withering as masterful as a superior force on his
muscles What thing had he been taking her for She asked it within and he
of himself in a reflective gasp Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud
with the wrath above she had the look of a Goddess in anger He stammered
pleaded across her flying shoulder Oh horrible loathsome pitiable to hear
»A momentary aberration her beauty he deserved to be shot could
not help admiring quite lost his head on his honour never again«
Once in the roadway and Copsley visible she checked her arrowy pace for
breath and almost commiserated the dejected wretch in her thankfulness to him
for silence Nothing exonerated him but at least he had the grace not to beg
secresy That would have been an intolerable whine of a poltroon adding to her
humiliation He abstained he stood at her mercy without appealing
She was not the woman to take poor vengeance But Oh she was profoundly
humiliated shamed through and through The question was I guilty of any
lightness anything to bring this on me would not be laid And how she pitied
her friend This house her hearts home was now a wreck to her nay worse a
hostile citadel The burden of the task of meeting Emma with an open face
crushed her like very guilt Yet she succeeded After an hour in her bedchamber
she managed to lock up her heart and summon the sprite of acting to her tongue
and features which ready attendant on the suffering female host performed his
liveliest throughout the evening to Emmas amusement and to the culprit
exdragoons astonishment in whom to tell the truth of him her sparkle and
fun kindled the sense of his being less criminal than he had supposed with a
dim vision of himself as the real proven donkey for not having been a harmless
dash more so But to be just as well as penetrating this was only the effect
of her personal charm on his nature So it spurred him a moment when it struck
this doleful man that to have secured one kiss of those fresh and witty
sparkling lips he would endure forfeits pangs anything save the hanging of his
culprits head before his Emma Reflection washed him clean Secresy is not a
medical restorative by no means a good thing for the baffled
amorouslyadventurous cavalier unless the ladys character shall have been
firmly established in or over his hazy wagging noddle Reflection informed him
that the honourable generous proud girl spared him for the sake of the house
she loved After a night of tossing he rose right heartily repentant He showed
it in the best manner not dramatically On her accepting his offer to drive her
down to the valley to meet the coach a genuine illumination of pure gratitude
made a better man of him both to look at and in feeling She did not hesitate
to consent and he had half expected a refusal She talked on the way quite as
usual cheerfully if not altogether so spiritedly A flash of her matchless wit
now and then reduced him to that abject state of man beside the fair person he
has treated high cavalierly which one craves permission to describe as pulp He
was utterly beaten
The sight of Redworth on the valley road was a relief to them both He had
slept in one of the houses of the valley and spoke of having had the intention
to mount to Copsley Sir Lukin proposed to drive him back He glanced at Diana
still with that calculating abstract air of his and he was rallied He
confessed to being absorbed in railways the new lines of railways projected to
thread the land and fast mapping it
»You ve not embarked money in them« said Sir Lukin
The answer was »I have all I possess« And Redworth for a sharp instant
set his eyes on Diana indifferent to Sir Lukins bellow of stupefaction at such
gambling on the part of a prudent fellow
He asked her where she was to be met where written to during the Summer
in case of his wishing to send her news
She replied »Copsley will be the surest I am always in communication with
Lady Dunstane« She coloured deeply The recollection of the change of her
feeling for Copsley suffused her maiden mind
The strange blush prompted an impulse in Redworth to speak to her at once of
his venture in railways But what would she understand of them as connected
with the mighty stake he was playing for He delayed The coach came at a trot
of the horses admired by Sir Lukin round a corner She entered it her maid
followed the door banged the horses trotted She was off
Her destiny of the Crossways tied a knot barred a gate and pointed to a
new direction of the road on that fine spring morning when beechbuds were near
the burst cowslips yellowed the meadowflats and skylarks quivered upward
For many long years Redworth had in his memory for a comment on
procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in his calculating faculty the
blue back of a coach
He declined the vacated place beside Sir Lukin promising to come and spend
a couple of days at Copsley in a fortnight Saturday week He wanted he said
to have a talk with Lady Dunstane Evidently he had railways on the brain and
Sir Lukin warned his wife to be guarded against the speculative mania and
advise the man if she could
Chapter V
Concerning the Scrupulous Gentleman who Came too Late
On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley with a shade
deeper of the calculating look under his thick brows habitual to him latterly
He found Lady Dunstane at her desk pen in hand the paper untouched and there
was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat resembling his own as he would
have observed had he been openminded enough to notice anything except that
she was writing a letter He begged her to continue it he proposed to read a
book till she was at leisure
»I have to write and scarcely know how« said she clearing her face to
make the guest at home and taking a chair by the fire »I would rather chat for
half an hour«
She spoke of the weather frosty but tonic bad for the last days of
hunting good for the farmer and the country let us hope
Redworth nodded assent It might be surmised that he was brooding over those
railways in which he had embarked his fortune Ah those railways She was not
long coming to the wailful exclamation upon them both to express her personal
sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear England and lead to a little modest
offering of a womans counsel to the rash adventurer for thus could she
serviceably put aside her perplexity awhile Those railways When would there be
peace in the land Where one single nook of shelter and escape from them And
the English blunt as their senses are to noise and hubbub would be revelling
in hisses shrieks puffings and screeches so that travelling would become an
intolerable affliction »I speak rather as an invalid« she admitted »I conjure
up all sorts of horrors the whistle in the night beneath ones windows and the
smoke of trains defacing the landscape hideous accidents too They will be
wholesale and past help Imagine a collision I have borne many changes with
equanimity I pretend to a certain degree of philosophy but this mania for
cutting up the land does really cause me to pity those who are to follow us
They will not see the England we have seen It will be patched and scored
disfigured a sort of barbarous Maori visage England in a New Zealand mask
You may call it the sentimental view In this case I am decidedly sentimental
I love my country I do love quiet rural England Well and I love beauty I
love simplicity All that will be destroyed by the refuse of the towns flooding
the land barring accidents as Lukin says There seems nothing else to save
us«
Redworth acquiesced »Nothing«
»And you do not regret it« he was asked
»Not a bit We have already exchanged opinions on the subject Simplicity
must go and the townsman meet his equal in the countryman As for beauty I
would sacrifice that to circulate gumption A bushelful of nonsense is talked
pro and con it always is at an innovation What we are now doing is to take a
longer and a quicker stride that is all«
»And establishing a new field for the speculator«
»Yes and I am one and this is the matter I wanted to discuss with you
Lady Dunstane« said Redworth bending forward the whole man devoted to the
point of business
She declared she was complimented she felt the compliment and trusted her
advice might be useful faintly remarking that she had a womans head and not
less was implied as much as not more in order to give strength to her
prospective opposition
All his money she heard was down on the railway table He might within a
year have a tolerable fortune and of course he might be ruined He did not
expect it still he fronted the risks »And now« said he »I come to you for
counsel I am not held among my acquaintances to be a marrying man as it s
called«
He paused Lady Dunstane thought it an occasion to praise him for his
considerateness
»You involve no one but yourself you mean« Her eyes shed approval »Still
the day may come I say only that it may and the wish to marry is a rosy
colouring equal to a flying chariot in conducting us across difficulties and
obstructions to the deed And then one may have to regret a previous rashness«
These practical men are sometimes obtuse she dwelt on that vision of the
future
He listened and resumed »My view of marriage is that no man should ask a
woman to be his wife unless he is well able to support her in the comforts not
to say luxuries she is accustomed to« His gaze had wandered to the desk it
fixed there »That is Miss Merions writing« he said
»The letter« said Lady Dunstane and she stretched out her hand to press
down a leaf of it »Yes it is from her«
»Is she quite well«
»I suppose she is She does not speak of her health«
He looked pertinaciously in the direction of the letter and it was not
rightly mannered That letter of all others was covert and sacred to the
friend It contained the weightiest of secrets
»I have not written to her« said Redworth
He was astonishing »To whom To Diana You could very well have done so
only I fancy she knows nothing has never given a thought to railway stocks and
shares she has a loathing for speculation«
»And speculators too I dare say«
»It is extremely probable« Lady Dunstane spoke with an emphasis for the
man liked Diana and would be moved by the idea of forfeiting her esteem
»She might blame me if I did anything dishonourable«
»She certainly would«
»She will have no cause«
Lady Dunstane began to look as at a cloud charged with remote explosions
and still for the moment she was unsuspecting But it was a flitting moment
When he went on and very singularly droning to her ear »The more a man loves a
woman the more he should be positive before asking her that she will not have
to consent to a loss of position and I would rather lose her than fail to give
her all not be sure as far as a man can be sure of giving her all I think
she s worthy of« then the cloud shot a lightning flash and the doors of her
understanding swung wide to the entry of a great wonderment A shock of pain
succeeded it Her sympathy was roused so acutely that she slipped over the
reflective rebuke she would have addressed to her silly delusion concerning his
purpose in speaking of his affairs to a woman Though he did not mention Diana
by name Diana was clearly the person And why had he delayed to speak to her
Because of this venture of his money to make him a fortune for the assurance of
her future comfort Here was the best of men for the girl not displeasing to
her a good strong trustworthy man pleasant to hear and to see only erring
in being a trifle too scrupulous in love and a fortnight back she would have
imagined he had no chance and now she knew that the chance was excellent in
those days with this revelation in Dianas letter which said that all chance
was over
»The courtship of a woman« he droned away »is in my mind not fair to her
until a man has to the full enough to sanction his asking her to marry him And
if he throws all he possesses on a stake to win her give her what she has
a right to claim he ought Only at present the prospect seems good He
ought of course to wait Well the value of the stock I hold has doubled and it
increases I am a careful watcher of the market I have friends brokers and
railway Directors I can rely on them«
»Pray« interposed Lady Dunstane »specify I am rather in a mist the
exact point upon which you do me the honour to consult me« She ridiculed
herself for having imagined that such a man would come to consult her upon a
point of business
»It is« he replied »this whether as affairs now stand with me I have
an income from my office and personal property say between thirteen and
fourteen hundred a year to start with whether you think me justified in asking
a lady to share my lot«
»Why not But will you name the lady«
»Then I may write at once In your judgement Yes the lady I have not
named her I had no right Besides the general question first in fairness to
the petitioner You might reasonably stipulate for more for a friend She could
make a match as you have said « he muttered of »brilliant« and »the
highest« and his humbleness of the honest man enamoured touched Lady Dunstane
She saw him now as the man of strength that she would have selected from a
thousand suitors to guide her dear friend
She caught at a straw »Tell me it is not Diana«
»Diana Merion«
As soon as he had said it he perceived pity and he drew himself tight for
the stroke »She s in love with some one«
»She is engaged«
He bore it well He was a bigchested fellow and that excruciating twist
within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their course to
grind the contrary to that of the heart was revealed in one short lift and
gasp a compression of the tremendous change he underwent
»Why did you not speak before« said Lady Dunstane Her words were
tremulous
»I should have had no justification«
»You might have won her« She could have wept her sympathy and her
selfcondolence under disappointment at Dianas conduct joined to swell the
feminine flood
The poor fellows quick breathing and blinking reminded her of cruelty in a
restropect She generalized to ease her spirit of regret by hinting it without
hurting »Women really are not puppets They are not so excessively luxurious
It is good for young women in the early days of marriage to rough it a little«
She found herself droning as he had done
He had ears for nothing but the fact
»Then I am too late«
»I have heard it today«
»She is engaged Positively«
Lady Dunstane glanced backward at the letter on her desk She had to answer
the strangest of letters that had ever come to her and it was from her dear
Tony the baldest intimation of the weightiest piece of intelligence which a
woman can communicate to her hearts friend The task of answering it was now
doubled »I fear so I fancy so« she said and she longed to cast eye over the
letter again to see if there might possibly be a loophole behind the lines
»Then I must make my mind up to it« said Redworth »I think I ll take a
walk«
She smiled kindly »It will be our secret«
»I thank you with all my heart Lady Dunstane«
He was not a weaver of phrases in distress His blunt reserve was eloquent
of it to her and she liked him the better could have thanked him too for
leaving her promptly
When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter at a hasty
glimpse It was of one paragraph and fired its shot like a cannon with the
muzzle at her breast
»My own Emmy I have been asked in marriage by Mr Warwick and have
accepted him Signify your approval for I have decided that it is the
wisest thing a waif can do We are to live at The Crossways for four
months of the year so I shall have Dada in his best days and all my
youngest dreams my sunrise and morning dew surrounding me my old home
for my new one I write in haste to you first burning to hear from
you Send your blessing to yours in life and death through all
transformations
TONY«
That was all Not a word of the lover about to be decorated with the title of
husband No confession of love nor a single supplicating word to her friend in
excuse for the abrupt decision to so grave a step Her previous description of
him as a »gentlemanly official« in his appearance conjured him up most
distastefully True she might have made a more lamentable choice a silly
lordling or a hero of scandals but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler
mould he failed to harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like
Tony Perhaps Mr Redworth also failed in something Where was the man fitly to
mate her Mr Redworth however was manly and trustworthy of the finest Saxon
type in build and in character He had great qualities and his excess of
scrupulousness was most pitiable
She read »The wisest thing a waif can do« It bore a sound of desperation
Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love Or was she masking the
passion No had it been a case of love she would have written very differently
to her friend
Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Dianas
novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness and
despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line »Wonders are always
happening« She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise naturally betraying it
»I must hope and pray that you have not been precipitate« Her curiosity to
inspect the happiest of men the most genuine part of her letter was expressed
coldly When she had finished the composition she perused it and did not
recognize herself in her language though she had been so guarded to cover the
wound her Tony dealt their friendship in some degree injuring their sex For
it might now after such an example verily seem that women are incapable of a
translucent perfect confidence their impulses caprices desperations tricks
of concealment trip a heartwhole friendship Well tomorrow if not today
the tripping may be expected Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly to a lowered
view of her Tonys character This was her unconscious act of reprisal Her
brilliant beloved Tony dazzling but in beauty and the gifted mind stood as one
essentially with the common order of women She wished to be settled Mr
Warwick proposed and for the sake of living at The Crossways she accepted him
she the lofty scorner of loveless marriages who had said how many times
that nothing save love excused it She degraded their mutual high standard of
womankind Diana was in eclipse full three parts The bulk of the gentlemanly
official she had chosen obscured her But I have written very carefully thought
Lady Dunstane dropping her answer into the postbag She had indeed been so
careful that to cloak her feelings she had written as another person Women
with otiose husbands have a task to preserve friendship
Redworth carried his burden through the frosty air at a pace to melt icicles
in Greenland He walked unthinkingly right ahead to the red West as he
discovered when pausing to consult his watch Time was left to return at the
same pace and dress for dinner he swung round and picked up remembrances of
sensations he had strewn by the way She knew these woods he was walking in her
footprints she was engaged to be married Yes his principle never to ask a
woman to marry him never to court her without bankbook assurance of his
ability to support her in cordial comfort was right He maintained it and
owned himself a donkey for having stuck to it Between him and his excellent
principle there was war without the slightest division Warned of the danger of
losing her he would have done the same again confessing himself donkey for his
pains The principle was right because it was due to the woman His rigid
adherence to the principle set him belabouring his donkeyribs as the proper
due to himself For he might have had a chance all through two Winters The
opportunities had been numberless Here in this beech wood near that
thornbush on the juniper slope from the corner of chalk and sand in junction
to the corner of clay and chalk all the length of the wooded ridge he had
reminders of her presence and his priceless chances and still the standard of
his conduct said No while his heart bled
He felt that a chance had been More sagacious than Lady Dunstane from his
not nursing a wound he divined in the abruptness of Dianas resolution to
accept a suitor a sober reason and a fitting one for the wish that she might
be settled And had he spoken If he had spoken to her she might have given
her hand to him to a dishonourable brute A blissful brute But a worse than
donkey Yes his principle was right and he lashed with it and prodded with
it drove himself out into the sour wilds where bachelordom crops noxious weeds
without a hallowing luminary and clung to it bruised and bleeding though he
was
The gentleness of Lady Dunstane soothed him during the term of a visit that
was rather like purgatory sweetened by angelical tears He was glad to go
wretched in having gone She diverted the incessant conflict between his
insubordinate self and his castigating but avowedly sovereign principle Away
from her he was the victim of a flagellation so dire that it almost drove him
to revolt against the lord he served and somehow the many memories at Copsley
kept him away Sir Lukin when speaking of Dianas engagement to that fellow
Warwick exalted her with an extraordinary enthusiasm exceedingly hard for the
silly beast who had lost her to bear For the present the place dearest to
Redworth of all places on earth was unendurable
Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the market fast as
asparagusheads for cutting a circumstance that added stings to reflection Had
he been only a little bolder a little less the fanatical devotee of his rule of
masculine honour less the slave to the letter of success But why reflect
at all Here was a goodly income approaching perhaps a seat in Parliament a
station for the airing of his opinions and a social status for the wife now
denied to him The wife was denied to him he could conceive of no other The
tyrantridden reticent tenacious creature had thoroughly wedded her in mind
her view of things had a throne beside his own even in their differences He
perceived agreeing or disagreeing the motions of her brain as he did with
none other of women and this it is which stamps character on her divides her
from them upraises and enspheres He declined to live with any other of the
sex
Before he could hear of the sort of man Mr Warwick was a perpetual object
of his quest the bridal bells had rung and Diana Antonia Merion lost her
maiden name She became the Mrs Warwick of our footballing world
Why she married she never told Possibly in amazement at herself
subsequently she forgot the specific reason That which weighs heavily in
youth and commits us to desperate action will be a trifle under older eyes to
blunter senses a more enlightened understanding Her friend Emma probed for the
reason vainly It was partly revealed to Redworth by guesswork and a putting
together of pieces yet quite luminously as it were by touch of
tentaclefeelers one evening that he passed with Sir Lukin Dunstane when the
lachrymose exdragoon and son of Idlesse had rather more than dined
Chapter VI
The Couple
Six months a married woman Diana came to Copsley to introduce her husband They
had run over Italy »the Italian Peninsula« she quoted him in a letter to Lady
Dunstane and were furnishing their London house Her first letters from Italy
appeared to have a little bloom of sentiment Augustus was mentioned as liking
this and that in the land of beauty He patronized Art and it was a pleasure to
hear him speak upon pictures and sculptures he knew a great deal about them
»He is an authority« Her humour soon began to play round the fortunate man who
did not seem to the readers mind to bear so well a sentimental clothing His
pride was in being very English on the Continent and Dianas instances of his
lofty appreciations of the garden of Art and Nature and statuesque walk through
it would have been more amusing if her friend could have harmonized her idea of
the couple A description of »a bit of a wrangle between us« at Lucca where an
Italian postmaster on a journey of inspection claimed a share of their
carriage and audaciously attempted entry was laughable but jarred Would she
some day lose her relish for ridicule and see him at a distance He was
generous Diana said she saw fine qualities in him It might be that he was
lavish on his bridal tour She said he was unselfish kind affable with his
equals he was cordial to the acquaintances he met Perhaps his worst fault was
an affected superciliousness before the foreigner not uncommon in those days
»You are to know dear Emmy that we English are the aristocracy of Europeans«
Lady Dunstane inclined to think we were nevertheless in the mouth of a
gentlemanly official the frigid arrogance added a stroke of caricature to his
deportment On the other hand the reports of him gleaned by Sir Lukin sounded
favourable He was not taken to be preternaturally stiff nor bright but a
goodish sort of fellow good horseman good shot good character In short the
average Englishman excelling as a cavalier a slayer and an orderly subject
That was a somewhat elevated standard to the patriotic Emma Only she would
never have stipulated for an average to espouse Diana Would he understand her
and value the best in her Another and unanswered question was how could she
have condescended to wed with an average There was transparently some secret
not confided to her friend
He appeared Lady Dunstanes first impression of him recurred on his
departure Her unanswered question drummed at her ears though she remembered
that Tonys art in leading him out had moderated her rigidly judicial summary of
the union during a greater part of the visit But his requiring to be led out
was against him Considering the subjects his talk was passable The subjects
treated of politics pictures Continental travel our manufactures our wealth
and the reasons for it excellent reasons wellweighed He was handsome as men
go rather tall not too stout precise in the modern fashion of his dress and
the pair of whiskers encasing a colourless depression up to a long thin
straight nose and closed lips indicating an aperture The contraction of his
mouth expressed an intelligence in the attitude of the firmly negative The lips
opened to smile the teeth were faultless an effect was produced if a cold one
the colder for the unparticipating northern eyes eyes of that half cloud and
blue which make a kind of hueless grey and are chiefly striking in an
authoritative stare Without contradicting for he was exactly polite his look
signified a person conscious of being born to command in fine an aristocrat
among the »aristocracy of Europeans« His differences of opinion were prefaced
by a »Pardon me« and pausing smile of the teeth then a succinctly worded
sentence or two a perfect settlement of the dispute He disliked argumentation
He said so and Diana remarked it of him speaking as a wife who merely noted a
characteristic Inside his boundary he had neat phrases opinions in packets
Beyond it apparently the world was void of any particular interest Sir Lukin
whose boundary would have shown a narrower limitation had it been defined stood
no chance with him Tory versus Whig he tried a wrestle and was thrown They
agreed on the topic of Wine Mr Warwick had a fine taste in wine Their
afterdinner sittings were devoted to this and the alliterative cognate theme
equally dear to the gallant exdragoon from which it resulted that Lady
Dunstane received satisfactory information in a mans judgement of him »Warwick
is a clever fellow and a thorough man of the world I can tell you Emmy« Sir
Lukin further observed that he was a gentlemanly fellow »A gentlemanly
official« Dianas primary dash of portraiture stuck to him so true it was As
for her she seemed to have forgotten it Not only did she strive to show him to
advantage by leading him out she played second to him subserviently fondly
she quite submerged herself content to be dull if he might shine and her talk
of her husband in her friends bluechamber boudoir of the golden stars where
they had discussed the world and taken counsel in her maiden days implied
admiration of his merits He rode superbly he knew Law he was prepared for any
position he could speak really eloquently she had heard him at a local
meeting And he loved the old Crossways almost as much as she did »He has
promised me he will never ask me to sell it« she said with a simpleness that
could hardly have been acted
When she was gone Lady Dunstane thought she had worn a mask in the natural
manner of women trying to make the best of their choice and she excused her
poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own cost But she could not
excuse her for having married the man Her first and her final impression
likened him to a house locked up and empty a London house conventionally
furnished and decorated by the upholsterer and empty of inhabitants How a
brilliant and beautiful girl could have committed this rashness was the
perplexing riddle the knottier because the man was idle and Diana had
ambition she despised and dreaded idleness in men Empty of inhabitants even
to the ghost Both human and spiritual were wanting The mind contemplating him
became reflectively stagnant
I must not be unjust Lady Dunstane hastened to exclaim at a whisper that
he had at least proved his appreciation of Tony whom he preferred to call
Diana as she gladly remembered and the two were bound together for a moment
warmly by her recollection of her beloved Tonys touching little petition »You
will invite us again« and then there had flashed in Tonys dear dark eyes the
look of their old love drowning They were not to be thought of separately She
admitted that the introduction to a woman of her friends husband is crucially
trying to him he may well show worse than he is Yet his appreciation of Tony
in espousing her was rather marred by Sir Lukins report of him as a desperate
admirer of beautiful woman It might be for her beauty only not for her
spiritual qualities At present he did not seem aware of their existence But
to be entirely just she had hardly exhibited them or a sign of them during the
first interview and sitting with his hostess alone he had seized the occasion
to say that he was the happiest of men He said it with the nearest approach to
fervour she had noticed Perhaps the very fact of his not producing a highly
favourable impression should be set to plead on his behalf Such as he was he
was himself no simulator She longed for Mr Redworths report of him
Her compassion for Redworths feelings when beholding the woman he loved
another mans wife did not soften the urgency of her injunction that he should
go speedily and see as much of them as he could »Because« she gave her
reason »I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend through her
marriage and is only one the richer«
Redworth buckled himself to the task He belonged to the class of his
countrymen who have a dungeonvault for feelings that should not be suffered to
cry abroad and into this oubliette he cast them letting them feed as they
might or perish It was his heart down below and in no voluntary musings did
he listen to it to sustain the thing Grimly lord of himself he stood
emotionless before the world Some worthy fellows resemble him and they are
called deephearted He was dungeondeep The prisoner underneath might clamour
and leap none heard him or knew of him nor did he ever view the day Dianas
frank »Ah Mr Redworth how glad I am to see you« was met by the calmest
formalism of the wish for her happiness He became a guest at her London house
and his report of the domesticity there and notably of the lord of the house
pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husbands He saw the kind of man
accurately as far as men are to be seen on the surface and she could say
assentingly without anxiety »Yes yes« to his remarks upon Mr Warwick
indicative of a man of capable head in worldly affairs commonplace beside his
wife The noble gentleman for Diana was yet unborn they tacitly agreed
Meantime one must not put a mortal husband to the fiery ordeal of his wifes
deserts they agreed likewise »You may be sure she is a constant friend« Lady
Dunstane said for his comfort and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade
of disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder »I could calculate on it« For
though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit she wished to see
that he held an image of Diana surely a woman to kindle poets and heroes the
princes of the race and it was a curious perversity that the two men she had
moved were merely excellent emotionless ordinary men with heads for business
Elsewhere out of England Diana would have been a woman for a place in song
exalted to the skies Here she had the destiny to inflame Mr Redworth and Mr
Warwick two railway Directors bent upon scoring the country to the likeness of
a childs lines of hopscotch in a gravelyard
As with all invalids the pleasure of living backward was haunted by the
tortures it evoked and two years later she recalled this outcry against the
Fates She would then have prayed for Diana to inflame none but such men as
those two The original error was of course that rash and most inexplicable
marriage a step never alluded to by the driven victim of it Lady Dunstane
heard rumours of dissensions Diana did not mention them She spoke of her
husband as unlucky in railway ventures and of a household necessity for money
nothing further One day she wrote of a Government appointment her husband had
received ending the letter »So there is the end of our troubles« Her friend
rejoiced and afterward looking back at her satisfaction saw the dire beginning
of them
Lord Dannisburghs name as one of the admirers of Mrs Warwick was dropped
once or twice by Sir Lukin He had dined with the Warwicks and met the eminent
member of the Cabinet at their table There is no harm in admiration especially
on the part of one of a crowd observing a star No harm can be imputed when the
husband of a beautiful woman accepts an appointment from the potent Minister
admiring her So Lady Dunstane thought for she was sure of Diana to her inmost
soul But she soon perceived in Sir Lukin that the old Dogworld was preparing
to yelp on a scent He of his nature belonged to the hunting pack and with a
cordial feeling for the quarry he was quite with his world in expecting to see
her run and readiness to join the chase No great scandal had occurred for
several months The world was in want of it and he too with a very cordial
feeling for the quarry piously hoping she would escape already had his nose to
ground collecting testimony in the track of her He said little to his wife
but his world was getting so noisy that he could not help half pursing his lips
as with the soft whistle of an innuendo at the heels of it Redworth was in
America engaged in carving up that hemisphere She had no source of information
but her husbands chance gossip and London was death to her and Diana writing
faithfully twice a week kept silence as to Lord Dannisburgh except in naming
him among her guests She wrote this which might have a secret personal
signification »We women are the verbs passive of the alliance we have to
learn and if we take to activity with the best intentions we conjugate a
frightful disturbance We are to run on lines like the steamtrains or we come
to no station dash to fragments I have the misfortune to know I was born an
active I take my chance«
Once she coupled the names of Lord Larrian and Lord Dannisburgh remarking
that she had a fatal attraction for antiques
The death of her husbands uncle and illness of his aunt withdrew her to The
Crossways where she remained nursing for several months reading diligently as
her letters showed and watching the approaches of the destroyer She wrote like
her former self subdued by meditation in the presence of that inevitable The
world ceased barking Lady Dunstane could suppose Mr Warwick to have now a
reconciling experience of his wifes noble qualities He probably did value them
more He spoke of her to Sir Lukin in London with commendation »She is an
attentive nurse« He inherited a considerable increase of income when he and his
wife were the sole tenants of The Crossways but disliking the house for
reasons hard to explain by a man previously professing to share her attachment
to it he wished to sell or let the place and his wife would do neither She
proposed to continue living in their small London house rather than be cut off
from The Crossways which he said was ludicrous people should live up to
their position and he sneered at the place and slightly wounded her for she
was open to a wound when the cold fire of a renewed attempt at warmth between
them was crackling and showing bits of flame after she had given proof of her
power to serve Service to himself and his relatives affected him He deferred
to her craze for The Crossways and they lived in a larger London house up to
their position which means ever a trifle beyond it and gave choice
dinnerparties to the most eminent His jealousy slumbered Having ideas of a
seat in Parliament at this period and preferment superior to the post he held
Mr Warwick deemed it sagacious to court the potent patron Lord Dannisburgh
could be and his wife had his interests at heart the forktongued world said
The cry revived Stories of Lord D and Mrs W whipped the hot pursuit The
moral repute of the great Whig lord and the beauty of the lady composed
inflammable material
»Are you altogether cautious« Lady Dunstane wrote to Diana and her friend
sent a copious reply »You have the fullest right to ask your Tony anything and
I will answer as at the Judgement bar You allude to Lord Dannisburgh He is
near what Dadas age would have been and is I think I can affirm next to my
dead father and my Emmy my dearest friend I love him I could say it in the
streets without shame and you do not imagine me shameless Whatever his
character in his younger days he can be honestly a womans friend believe me
I see straight to his heart he has no disguise and unless I am to suppose that
marriage is the end of me I must keep him among my treasures I see him almost
daily it is not possible to think I can be deceived and as long as he does me
the honour to esteem my poor portion of brains by coming to me for what he is
good enough to call my counsel I shall let the world wag its tongue Between
ourselves I trust to be doing some good I know I am of use in various ways No
doubt there is a danger of a womans head being turned when she reflects that a
powerful Minister governing a kingdom has not considered her too insignificant
to advise him and I am sensible of it I am I assure you dearest on my guard
against it That would not attach me to him as his homely friendliness does He
is the most amiable cheerful benignant of men he has no feeling of an enemy
though naturally his enemies are numerous and venomous He is full of
observation and humour How he would amuse you In many respects accord with
you And I should not have a spark of jealousy Some day I shall beg permission
to bring him to Copsley At present during the Session he is too busy as you
know Me his crystal spring of wisdom he can favour with no more than an
hour in the afternoon or a few minutes at night Or I get a pencilled note from
the benches of the House with an anecdote or news of a Division I am sure to
be enlivened
So I have written to you fully simply frankly Have perfect faith in your
Tony who would she vows to heaven die rather than disturb it and her hearts
beloved«
The letter terminated with one of Lord Dannisburghs anecdotes exciting to
merriment in the season of its freshness and a postscript of information
»Augustus expects a mission about a month uncertain whether I accompany him«
Mr Warwick departed on his mission Diana remained in London Lady Dunstane
wrote entreating her to pass the month her favourite time of the violet
yielding to the cowslip at Copsley The invitation could not be accepted but
the next day Diana sent word that she had a surprise for the following Sunday
and would bring a friend to lunch if Sir Lukin would meet them at the corner of
the road in the valley leading up to the heights at a stated hour
Lady Dunstane gave the listless baronet his directions observing »Its
odd she never will come alone since her marriage«
»Queer« said he of the serenest absence of conscience and that there must
be something not entirely right going on he strongly inclined to think
Chapter VII
The Crisis
It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box of a
fourinhand and the peerless Diana beside him cockaded lackeys in plain
livery and the ladys maid to the rear But Lord Dannisburghs visit was a
compliment and the freak of his driving down under the beams of Aurora on a
sober Sunday morning capital fun so with a gaiety that was kept alive for the
invalid Emma to partake of it they rattled away to the heights and climbed
them and Diana rushed to the arms of her friend whispering and cooing for
pardon if she startled her guilty of a little whiff of blarney Lord
Dannisburgh wanted so much to be introduced to her and she so much wanted her
to know him and she hoped to be graciously excused for thus bringing them
together »that she might be chorus to them« Chorus was a pretty fiction on the
part of the thrilling and topping voice She was the very radiant Diana of her
earliest opening day both in look and speech a queenly comrade and a spirit
leaping and shining like a mountain water She did not seduce she ravished The
judgement was taken captive and flowed with her As to the prank of the visit
Emma heartily enjoyed it and hugged it for a holiday of her own and doating on
the beautiful darkeyed fresh creature who bore the name of the divine
Huntress she thought her a true Dian in stature step and attributes the
genius of laughter superadded None else on earth so sweetly laughed none so
spontaneously victoriously provoked the healthful openness Her delicious
chatter and her museful sparkle in listening equally quickened every sense of
life Adorable as she was to her friend Emma at all times she that day struck a
new fountain in memory And it was pleasant to see the great lords admiration
of this wonder One could firmly believe in their friendship and his winning
ideas from the abounding bubbling well A recurrent smile beamed on his face
when hearing and observing her Certain dishes provided at the table were
Dianas favourites and he relished them asking for a second help and
remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things They lunched eating
like boys They walked over the grounds of Copsley and into the lanes and
across the meadows of the cowslip rattling chatting enlivening the frosty
air happy as children biting to the juices of ripe apples off the tree But
Tony was the tree the dispenser of the rosy gifts She had a moment of
reflection only a moment and Emma felt the pause as though a cloud had
shadowed them and a spirit had been shut away Both spoke of their happiness at
the kiss of parting That melancholy note at the top of the wave to human hearts
conscious of its enforced decline was repeated by them and Dianas eyelids
blinked to dismiss a tear
»You have no troubles« Emma said
»Only the pain of the goodbye to my beloved« said Diana »I have never
been happier never shall be Now you know him you think with me I knew you
would You have seen him as he always is except when he is armed for battle
He is the kindest of souls And soul I say He is the one man among men who
gives me notions of a soul in men«
The eulogy was exalted Lady Dunstane made a little mouth for Oh in
correction of the transcendental touch though she remembered their foregone
conversations upon men strange beings that they are and understood Dianas
meaning
»Really really honour« Diana emphasized her extravagant praise to print
it fast »Hear him speak of Ireland«
»Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the Irishwoman«
»He is past thoughts of catching dearest At that age men are pools of
fish or what you will they are not anglers Next year if you invite us we
will come again«
»But you will come to stay in the Winter«
»Certainly But I am speaking of one of my holidays«
They kissed fervently The lady mounted the grey and portly lord followed
her Sir Lukin flourished his whip and Emma was left to brood over her friends
last words »One of my holidays« Not a hint to the detriment of her husband had
passed The stray beam balefully illuminating her marriage slipped from her
involuntarily Sir Lukin was troublesome with his ejaculations that evening and
kept speculating on the time of the arrival of the fourinhand in London upon
which he thought a great deal depended They had driven out of town early and
if they drove back late they would not be seen as all the cacklers were sure
then to be dressing for dinner and he would not pass the Clubs »I couldnt
suggest it« he said »But Dannisburgh s an old hand But they say he snaps his
fingers at tattle and laughs Well it doesnt matter for him perhaps but a
game of two Oh it ll be all right They cant reach London before dusk
And the cat s away«
»It s more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could have married that
man« said his wife
»I ve long since given it up« said he
Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome telling of her drive home
to smoke and solitude with a new host of romantic sensations to keep her
company She wrote thrice in the week and the same addition of one to the
ordinary number next week Then for three weeks not a line Sir Lukin brought
news from London that Warwick had returned nothing to explain the silence A
letter addressed to The Crossways was likewise unnoticed The supposition that
they must be visiting on a round appeared rational but many weeks elapsed
until Sir Lukin received a printed sheet in the superscription of a former
military comrade who had marked a paragraph It was one of those journals now
barely credible dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle wherein initials
raised sewerlamps and Asmodeus lifted a roof leering hideously Thousands
detested it and fattened their crops on it Domesticated beasts of superior
habits to the common will indulge themselves with a luxurious roll in carrion
for a revival of their original instincts Society was largely a purchaser The
ghastly thing was dreaded as a scourge hailed as a refreshment nourished as a
parasite It professed undaunted honesty and operated in the fashion of the
worms bred of decay Success was its boasted justification The animal world
when not rigorously watched will always crown with success the machine
supplying its appetites The old dogworld took signal from it The onelegged
devil waved his wooden hoof and the creatures in view the hunt was
uproarious Why should we seem better than we are down with hypocrisy cried
the censor morum spicing the lamentable derelictions of this and that great
person male and female The plea of corruption of blood in the world to excuse
the public chafing of a grievous itch is not less old than sin and it offers a
merry day of frisky truant running to the animal made unashamed by another and
another stripped branded and stretched flat Sir Lukin read of Mr and Mrs W
and a distinguished Peer of the realm The paragraph was brief it had a
flavour Promise of more to come pricked curiosity He read it enraged feeling
for his wife and again indignant feeling for Diana His third reading found
him out he felt for both but as a member of the whispering world much behind
the scenes he had a longing for the promised insinuations just to know what
they could say or dared say The paper was not shown to Lady Dunstane A run to
London put him in the tide of the broken dam of gossip The names were openly
spoken and swept from mouth to mouth of the scandalmongers gathering matter as
they flew He knocked at Dianas door where he was informed that the mistress
of the house was absent More than official gravity accompanied the
announcement Her address was unknown Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his
wife He began with a hesitating circumlocution in order to prepare her mind
for bad news She divined immediately that it concerned Diana and forcing him
to speak to the point she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence It
stopped her heart
The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion to
recollection Why had not Diana come to her she asked herself and asked her
husband who as usual was absolutely unable to say Under compulsory
squeezing he would have answered that she did not come because she could not
fib so easily to her bosom friend and this he thought notwithstanding his
personal experience of Dianas generosity But he had other personal experiences
of her sex and her sex plucked at the bright star and drowned it
The happy day of Lord Dannisburghs visit settled in Emmas belief as the
cause of Mr Warwicks unpardonable suspicions and cruelty Arguing from her own
sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet health to her frame
she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish innocence in Dianas conduct
and she recalled her looks her words every fleeting gesture even to the
ingenuousness of the noble statesmans admiration of her for the confusion of
her unmanly and unworthy husband And Emma was nevertheless a thoughtful person
only her heart was at the head of her thoughts and led the file whose
reasoning was accurate on erratic tracks All night her heart went at fever
pace She brought the repentant husband to his knees and then doubted strongly
doubted whether she would whether in consideration for her friend she could
intercede with Diana to forgive him In the morning she slept heavily Sir Lukin
had gone to London early for further tidings She awoke about midday and found
a letter on her pillow It was Dianas Then while her fingers eagerly tore it
open her heart the champion rider overnight sank It needed support of
facts and feared them not in distrust of that dear persecuted soul but
because the very bravest of hearts is of its nature a shivering defender
sensitive in the presence of any hostile array much craving for material
support until the mind and spirit displace it depute it to second them instead
of leading
She read by a dull November foglight a mixture of the dreadful and the
comforting and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment hugged it though
conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console
The close of the letter struck the blow After bluntly stating that Mr
Warwick had served her with a process and that he had no case without suborning
witnesses Diana said »But I leave the case and him to the world Ireland or
else America it is a guiltless kind of suicide to bury myself abroad He has my
letters They are such as I can own to you and ask you to kiss me and kiss me
when you have heard all the evidence all that I can add to it kiss me You
know me too well to think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips But I cannot
face the world In the dock yes Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle
on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression I cannot do that
I see myself wearing a false grin your Tony No I do well to go This is my
resolution and in consequence my beloved my only truly loved on earth I do
not come to you to grieve you as I surely should Nor would it soothe me
dearest This will be to you the best of reasons It could not soothe me to see
myself giving pain to Emma I am like a pestilence and let me swing away to the
desert for there I do no harm I know I am right I have questioned myself it
is not cowardice I do not quail I abhor the part of actress I should do it
well too well destroy my soul in the performance Is a good name before such
a world as this worth that sacrifice A convent and selfquenching cloisters
would seem to me like holy dew But that would be sleep and I feel the powers
of life Never have I felt them so mightily If it were not for being called on
to act and mew I would stay fight meet a bayonethedge of charges and rebut
them I have my natural weapons and my cause It must be confessed that I have
also more knowledge of men and the secret contempt it must be the best of
them entertain for us Oh and we confirm it if we trust them But they have
been at a wicked school
I will write From whatever place you shall have letters and constant
I write no more now In my present mood I find no alternative between
rageing and drivelling I am henceforth dead to the world Never dead to
Emma till my breath is gone poor flame I blow at a bedroom candle
by which I write in a brown fog and behold what I am though not even
serving to write such a tangled scrawl as this I am of no mortal
service In two days I shall be out of England Within a week you shall
hear where I long for your heart on mine your dear eyes You have
faith in me and I fly from you I must be mad Yet I feel calmly
reasonable I know that this is the thing to do Some years hence a grey
woman may return to hear of a butterfly Diana that had her day and
disappeared Better than a mewing and courtseying simulacrum of the
woman I drivel again Adieu I suppose I am not liable to capture and
imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to appear I have left
London This letter and I quit the scene by different routes I would
they were one My beloved I have an ache I think I am wronging you I
am not mistress of myself and do as something within me wiser than I
dictates You will write kindly Write your whole heart It is not
compassion I want I want you I can bear stripes from you Let me hear
Emmas voice the true voice This running away merits your reproaches
It will look like I have more to confess the tigress in me wishes it
were I should then have a reckless passion to fold me about and the
glory infernal if you name it so and so it would be of suffering
for and with some one else As it is I am utterly solitary sustained
neither from above nor below except within myself and that is all fire
and smoke like their new engines I kiss this miserable sheet of
paper Yes I judge that I have run off a line and what a line
which hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow until they
feel the transgression in wreck How immensely nature seems to prefer
men to women But this paper is happier than the writer
Your TONY«
That was the end Emma kissed it in tears They had often talked of the
possibility of a classic friendship between women the alliance of a mutual
devotedness men choose to doubt of She caught herself accusing Tony of the
lapse from friendship Hither should the true friend have flown unerringly
The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound She reperused it
perused and meditated The flight of Mrs Warwick She heard that cry fatal
But she had no means of putting a hand on her »Your Tony« The coldness might
be set down to exhaustion it might yet her not coming to her friend for
counsel and love was a positive weight in the indifferent scale She read the
letter backwards and by snatches here and there many perusals and hours passed
before the scattered creature exhibited in its pages came to her out of the
flying threads of the web as her living Tony whom she loved and prized and was
ready to defend against the world By that time the fog had lifted she saw the
sky on the borders of milky cloudfolds Her invalids chill sensitiveness
conceived a sympathy in the baring heavens and lying on her sofa in the
drawingroom she gained strength of meditative vision weak though she was to
help through ceasing to brood on her wound and herself She cast herself into
her dear Tonys feelings and thus it came that she imagined Tony would visit
The Crossways where she kept souvenirs of her father his cane and his
writingdesk and a precious miniature of him hanging above it before leaving
England for ever The fancy sprang to certainty every speculation confirmed it
Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The Crossways at
once The West wind blew and gave her a view of the Downs beyond the weald from
her southern window She thought it even possible to drive there and reach the
place on the chance of her vivid suggestion some time after nightfall but a
walk across the room to try her forces was too convincing of her inability She
walked with an ebony silvermounted stick a present from Mr Redworth She was
leaning on it when the card of Thomas Redworth was handed to her
Chapter VIII
In which is Exhibited How a Practical Man and a Divining Woman Learn to Respect
One Another
»You see you are my crutch« Lady Dunstane said to him raising the stick in
reminder of the present
He offered his arm and hurriedly informed her to dispose of dull personal
matter that he had just landed She looked at the clock »Lukin is in town You
know the song Alas I scarce can go or creep While Lukin is away I do not
doubt you have succeeded in your business over there Ah Now I suppose you have
confidence in your success I should have predicted it had you come to me« She
stood either musing or in weakness and said abruptly »Will you object to
lunching at One oclock«
»The sooner the better« said Redworth She had sighed her voice betrayed
some agitation strange in so serenelyminded a person
His partial acquaintance with the Herculean Sir Lukins reputation in town
inspired a fear of his being about to receive admission to the distressful
confidences of the wife and he asked if Mrs Warwick was well The answer
sounded ominous with its accompaniment of evident pain »I think her health is
good«
Had they quarrelled He said he had not heard a word of Mrs Warwick for
several months
»I heard from her this morning« said Lady Dunstane and motioned him to a
chair beside the sofa where she half reclined closing her eyes The sight of
tears on the eyelashes frightened him She roused herself to look at the clock
»Providence or accident you are here« she said »I could not have prayed for
the coming of a truer man Mrs Warwick is in great danger You know our
love She is the best of me heart and soul Her husband has chosen to act on
vile suspicions baseless I could hold my hand in the fire and swear She has
enemies or the jealous fury is on the man I know little of him He has
commenced an action against her He will rue it But she you understand this
of women at least they are not cowards in all things but the horror of
facing a public scandal my poor girl writes of the hatefulness of having to
act the complacent put on her accustomed self She would have to go about a
mark for the talkers and behave as if nothing were in the air full of darts
Oh that general whisper it makes a coup de massue a gale to sink the
bravest vessel and a woman must preserve her smoothest front chat smile
or else Well she shrinks from it I should too She is leaving the country«
»Wrong« cried Redworth
»Wrong indeed She writes that in two days she will be out of it Judge her
as I do though you are a man I pray You have seen the hunted hare It is our
education we have something of the hare in us when the hounds are full cry
Our bravest our best have an impulse to run By this poor Wat far off upon a
hill Shakespeare would have the divine comprehension I have thought all round
it and come back to him She is one of Shakespeares women another character
but one of his own another Hermione I dream of him seeing her with that
eye of steady flame The bravest and best of us at bay in the world need an eye
like his to read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies«
Insensibly Redworth blinked His consciousness of an exalted compassion for
the lady was heated by these flights of advocacy to feel that he was almost
seated beside the sovereign poet thus eulogized and he was of a modest nature
»But you are practical« pursued Lady Dunstane observing signs that she
took for impatience »You are thinking of what can be done If Lukin were here I
would send him to The Crossways without a moments delay on the chance the
mere chance it shines to me If I were only a little stronger I fear I might
break down and it would be unfair to my husband He has trouble enough with my
premature infirmities already I am certain she will go to The Crossways Tony
is one of the women who burn to give last kisses to things they love And she
has her little treasures hoarded there She was born there Her father died
there She is three parts Irish superstitious in affection I know her so
well At this moment I see her there If not she has grown unlike herself«
»Have you a stout horse in the stables« Redworth asked
»You remember the mare Bertha you have ridden her«
»The mare would do and better than a dozen horses« He consulted his watch
»Let me mount Bertha I engage to deliver a letter at The Crossways tonight«
Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she
sought but said »Will you find your way«
He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise »She has often
pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies about three miles
from the Downs near a village named Storling on the road to Brasted The house
has a small plantation of firs behind it and a bit of river rare for Sussex
to the right An old straggling red brick house at Crossways a stones throw
from a fingerpost on a square of green roads to Brasted London Wickford
Riddlehurst I shall find it Write what you have to say my lady and confide
it to me She shall have it tonight if she s where you suppose I ll go
with your permission and take a look at the mare Sussex roads are heavy in
this damp weather and the frost coming on wont improve them for a tired beast
We havent our rails laid down there yet«
»You make me admit some virtues in the practical« said Lady Dunstane and
had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of his passion
for Diana it would have touched her far less than his exact memory of Dianas
description of her loved birthplace
She wrote
»I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you I see my ship
making for the rocks You break your Emmas heart It will be the second
wrong step I shall not survive it The threat has made me incapable of
rushing to you as I might have had strength to do yesterday I am
shattered and I wait panting for Mr Redworths return with you He has
called by accident as we say Trust to him If ever heaven was active
to avert a fatal mischance it is today You will not stand against my
supplication It is my life I cry for I have no more time He starts
He leaves me to pray like the mother seeing her child on the edge of
the cliff Come This is your breast my Tony And your soul warns you
it is right to come Do rightly Scorn other counsel the cowards
Come with our friend the one man known to me who can be a friend of
women
Your EMMA«
Redworth was in the room »The mare ll do it well« he said »She has had her
feed and in five minutes will be saddled at the door«
»But you must eat dear friend« said the hostess
»I ll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way There seems a chance and
the time for lunching may miss it«
»You understand «
»Everything I fancy«
»If she is there«
»One break in the run will turn her back«
The sensitive invalid felt a blow in his following up the simile of the
hunted hare for her friend but it had a promise of hopefulness And this was
all that could be done by earthly agents under direction of spiritual as her
imagination encouraged her to believe
She saw him start after fortifying him with a tumbler of choice Bordeaux
thinking how Tony would have said she was like a lady arming her knight for
battle On the back of the mare he passed her window after lifting his hat and
he thumped at his breastpocket to show her where the letter housed safely The
packet of provision bulged on his hip absurdly and blessedly to her sight not
unlike the man in his combination of robust serviceable qualities as she
reflected during the later hours until the sun fell on smouldering November
woods and sensations of the frost he foretold bade her remember that he had
gone forth riding like a huntsman His greatcoat lay on a chair in the hall
and his travellingbag was beside it He had carried it up from the valley
expecting hospitality and she had sent him forth half naked to weather a frosty
November night She called in the groom whose derision of a greatcoat for any
gentleman upon Bertha meaning work for the mare appeased her remorsefulness
Brisby the groom reckoned how long the mare would take to do the distance to
Storling with a rider like Mr Redworth on her back By seven Brisby
calculated Mr Redworth would be knocking at the door of the Three Ravens Inn
at Storling when the mare would have a decent grooming and Mr Redworth was
not the gentleman to let her be fed out of his eye More than that Brisby had
some acquaintance with the people of the inn He begged to inform her ladyship
that he was half a Sussex man though not exactly born in the county his
parents had removed to Sussex after the great event and the Downs were his
first field of horseexercise and no place in the world was like them fair
weather or foul Summer or Winter and snow ten feet deep in the gullies The
grandest air in England he had heard say
His mistress kept him to the discourse for the comfort of hearing hard bald
matteroffact and she was amused and rebuked by his assumption that she must
be entertaining an anxiety about masters favourite mare But ah that Diana
had delayed in choosing a mate had avoided her disastrous union with perhaps a
more imposing man to see the true beauty of masculine character in Mr
Redworth as he showed himself today How could he have doubted succeeding One
grain more of faith in his energy and Diana might have been mated to the right
husband for her an openminded clearfaced English gentleman Her speculative
ethereal mind clung to bald matteroffact today She would have vowed that it
was the sole potentially heroical Even Brisby partook of the reflected rays
and he was very benevolently considered by her She dismissed him only when his
recounting of the stages of Berthas journey began to fatigue her and deaden the
medical efficacy of him and his like Stretched on the sofa she watched the
early sinking sun in Southwestern cloud and the changes from saffron to
intensest crimson the crown of a November evening and one of frost
Redworth struck on a southward line from chalkridge to sand where he had a
pleasant footing in familiar country under beeches that browned the ways along
beside a meadowbrook fed by the heights through pines and across deep
sandruts to full view of weald and Downs Diana had been with him here in her
maiden days The coloured back of a coach put an end to that dream He lightened
his pocket surveying the land as he munched A favourable land for rails and
she had looked over it and he was now becoming a wealthy man and she was a
married woman straining the leash His errand would not bear examination it
seemed such a desperate long shot He shut his inner vision on it and pricked
forward When the burning sunset shot waves above the juniper and yews behind
him he was far on the weald trotting down an interminable road That the
people opposing railways were not people of business was his reflection and it
returned persistently for practical men even the most devoted among them will
think for themselves their army which is the rational calls them to its
banners in opposition to the sentimental and Redworth joined it in the
abstract summoning the horrible state of the roads to testify against an enemy
wanting almost in common humaneness A slip of his excellent stepper in one of
the halffrozen pits of the highway was the principal cause of his confusion of
logic she was half on her knees Beyond the market town the roads were so bad
that he quitted them and with the indifference of an engineer struck a line of
his own Southeastward over fields and ditches favoured by a round horizon moon
on his left So for a couple of hours he went ahead over rolling fallow land to
the meadowflats and a pale shining of freshets then hit on a lane skirting the
water and reached an amphibious village five miles from Storling he was
informed and a clear traverse of lanes not to be mistaken »if he kept a sharp
eye open« The sharpness of his eyes was divided between the swordbelt of the
starry Hunter and the shifting lanes that zigzagged his course below The Downs
were softly illumined still it amazed him to think of a woman like Diana
Warwick having an attachment to this district so hard of yield mucky
featureless fit but for the rails she sided with her friend in detesting
Reasonable women too The moon stood high on her march as he entered Storling
He led his good beast to the stables of The Three Ravens thanking her and
caressing her The ostler conjectured from the look of the mare that he had been
out with the hounds and lost his way It appeared to Redworth singularly that
near the ending of a wild goose chase his plight was pretty well described by
the fellow However he had to knock at the door of The Crossways now in the
silent night time a certainly empty house to his fancy He fed on a snack of
cold meat and tea standing and set forth clearly directed if he kept a sharp
eye open Hitherto he had proved his capacity and he rather smiled at the
repetition of the formula to him of all men A turning to the right was taken
one to the left and through the churchyard out of the gate round to the
right and on By this route after an hour he found himself passing beneath
the bare chestnuts of the churchyard wall of Storling and the sparkle of the
edges of the dead chestnutleaves at his feet reminded him of the very ideas he
had entertained when treading them The loss of an hour strung him to pursue the
chase in earnest and he had a beating of the heart as he thought that it might
be serious He recollected thinking it so at Copsley The long ride and
nightfall with nothing in view had obscured his mind to the possible behind
the thick obstruction of the probable again the possible waved its marshlight
To help in saving her from a fatal step supposing a dozen combinations of the
conditional mood became his fixed object since here he was of that there was
no doubt and he was not here to play the fool though the errand were foolish
He entered the churchyard crossed the shadow of the tower and hastened along
the path fancying he beheld a couple of figures vanishing before him He
shouted he hoped to obtain directions from these natives the moon was bright
the gravestones legible but no answer came back and the place appeared to
belong entirely to the dead »I ve frightened them« he thought They left a
queerish sensation in his frame A ride down to Sussex to see ghosts would be an
odd experience but an undigested dinner of tea is the very grandmother of
ghosts and he accused it of confusing him sight and mind Out of the gate now
for the turning to the right and on He turned He must have previously turned
wrongly somewhere and where A light in a cottage invited him to apply for the
needed directions The door was opened by a woman who had never heard tell of
The Crossways nor had her husband nor any of the children crowding round them
A voice within ejaculated »Crassways« and soon upon the grating of a chair an
old man whom the woman named her lodger by way of introduction presented
himself with his hat on saying »I knows the spot they calls Crassways« and he
led Redworth understood the intention that a job was to be made of it and
submitting said »To the right I think« He was bidden to come along if he
wanted they Crassways and from the right they turned to the left and further
sharp round and on to a turn where the old man otherwise incommunicative
said »There down thik theer road and a post in the middle«
»I want a house not a post« roared Redworth spying a bare space
The old man despatched a finger travelling to his nob »Naw there s neer
a house But thats crassways for four roads if it s crassways you wants«
They journeyed backward They were in such a maze of lanes that the old man
was master and Redworth vowed to be rid of him at the first cottage This
however they were long in reaching and the old man was promptly through the
gardengate hailing the people and securing information before Redworth could
well hear He smiled at the dogged astuteness of a denseheaded old creature
determined to establish a claim to his fee They struck a lane sharp to the
left
»You re Sussex« Redworth asked him and was answered »Naw the Sheers«
Emerging from deliberation the old man said »Ah m a Hampshireman«
»A capital county«
»Heigh« The old man heaved his chest »Once«
»Why what has happened to it«
»Once it were a capital county I say Hah you asks me what have happened
to it You take and go and look at it now And down heer ll be no better soon
I tells em When ah was a boy old Hampshire was a proud country wi the old
coaches and the old squires and Harvest Homes and Christmas merryings
Cutting up the land There s no pride in livin theer nor anywhere as I sees
now«
»You mean the railways«
»Its the Devil come up and abroad ower all England« exclaimed the
melancholy ancient patriot
A little cheering was tried on him but vainly He saw with unerring
distinctness the triumph of the Foul Potentate nay his personal appearance in
they theer puffin engines The country which had produced Andrew Hedger as he
stated his name to be would never show the same old cricketing commons it did
when he was a boy Old England he declared was done for
When Redworth applied to his watch under the brilliant moonbeams he
discovered that he had been listening to this natural outcry of a decaying and
shunted class full threequarters of an hour and The Crossways was not in
sight He remonstrated The old man plodded along »We must do as were
directed« he said
Further walking brought them to a turn Any turn seemed hopeful Another
turn offered the welcome sight of a blazing doorway on a rise of ground off the
road Approaching it the old man requested him to bide a bit and stalked the
ascent at long strides A vigorous old fellow Redworth waited below observing
how he joined the group at the lighted door and as it was apparent put his
question of the whereabout of The Crossways Finally in extreme impatience he
walked up to the group of spectators They were all and Andrew Hedger among
them the most entranced and profoundly reverent observing the dissection of a
pig
Unable to awaken his hearing Redworth jogged his arm and the shake was
ineffective until it grew in force
»Ive no time to lose have they told you the way«
Andrew Hedger yielded his arm He slowly withdrew his intent fond gaze from
the fair outstretched white carcase and with drooping eyelids he said »Ah
could eat hog a solid hower«
He had forgotten to ask the way intoxicated by the aspect of the pig and
when he did ask it he was hard of understanding given wholly to his last
glimpses
Redworth got the directions He would have dismissed Mr Andrew Hedger but
there was no doing so »I ll show ye on to the Crossways House« the latter
said implying that he had already earned something by showing him the Crossways
post
»Hog s my feed« said Andrew Hedger The gastric springs of eloquence moved
him to discourse and he unburdened himself between succulent pauses »Theyve
killed him early Hes fat and he might ha been fatter But hes fat Theyve
got their Christmas ready that they have Lord you should see the
chitterlings and the sausages hung up to and along the beams Thats a crown
for any dwellin They runs em round the top of the room its like a Mayday
wreath in old times Homefed hog Theyve a treat in store they have And snap
your fingers at the world for many a long day And the hams They cure their own
hams at that house Old style Thats what I say of a hog Hes good from end to
end and beats a Christian hollow Everybody knows it and owns it«
Redworth was getting tired In sympathy with current conversation he said a
word for the railways they would certainly make the flesh of swine cheaper
bring a heap of hams into the market But Andrew Hedger remarked with contempt
that he had not much opinion of foreign hams nobody knew what they fed on Hog
he said would feed on anything where there was no choice they had wonderful
stomachs for food Only when they had a choice they left the worst for last
and homefed filled them with stuff to make good meat and fat what we calls
prime bacon As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm Redworth let him
dilate on his theme and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour which
roused some distant classic recollection an odd jumble
They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream
»Now ye have it« said the hogworshipper »that may be the house I
reckon«
A dark mass of building with the moon behind it shining in spires through
a mound of firs met Redworths gaze The windows all were blind no smoke rose
from the chimneys He noted the dusky square of green and the fingerpost
signalling the centre of the four roads Andrew Hedger repeated that it was the
Crossways house neer a doubt Redworth paid him his expected fee whereupon
Andrew shouldering off wished him a hearty good night and forthwith departed
at high pedestrian pace manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved
anatomy
There stood the house Absolutely empty thought Redworth The sound of the
gatebell he rang was like an echo to him The gate was unlocked He felt a
return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the gardenpath in the
shadow of the house Here she was born here her father died and this was the
station of her dreams as a girl at school near London and in Paris Her heart
was here He looked at the windows facing the Downs with dead eyes The vivid
idea of her was a phantom presence and cold assuring him that the bodily Diana
was absent Had Lady Dunstane guessed rightly he might perhaps have been of
service
Anticipating the blank silence he rang the housebell It seemed to set
wagging a weariful tongue in a corpse The bell did its duty to the last note
and one thin revival stroke for a finish as in days when it responded livingly
to the guest He pulled and had the reply just the same with the faint
terminal touch resembling exactly a »There« at the close of a voluble delivery
in the negative Absolutely empty He pulled and pulled The bell wagged
wagged This had been a house of a witty host a merry girl junketting guests
a house of hilarious thunders lightnings of fun and fancy Death never seemed
more voiceful than in that wagging of the bell
For conscience sake as became a trusty emissary he walked round to the
back of the house to verify the total emptiness His apprehensive despondency
had said that it was absolutely empty but upon consideration he supposed the
house must have some guardian likely enough an old gardener and his wife lost
in deafness doubleshotted by sleep There was no sign of them The night air
waxed sensibly crisper He thumped the backdoors Blank hollowness retorted on
the blow He banged and kicked The violent altercation with wood and wall
lasted several minutes ending as it had begun Flesh may worry but is sure to
be worsted in such an argument
»Well my dear lady« Redworth addressed Lady Dunstane aloud while
driving his hands into his pockets for warmth »weve done what we could The
next best thing is to go to bed and see what morning brings us«
The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamywitted women from
the point of view of the practical man was aided by the intense frigidity of
the atmosphere in leading him to criticize a sex not much used to the exercise
of brains »And they hate railways« He associated them in the matter of
intelligence with Andrew Hedger and Company They sank to the level of the
temperature in his esteem as regarded their intellects He approved their
warmth of heart The nipping of the victims toes and fingertips testified
powerfully to that
Round to the front of the house at a trot he stood in moonlight Then for
involuntarily he now did everything running with a dash up the steps he seized
the sullen pendant bellhandle and worked it pumpwise till he perceived a
smaller bellknob beside the door at which he worked pistonwise Pump and
piston the hurlyburly and the tinkler created an alarm to scare cat and mouse
and Cardinal spider all that run or weave in desolate houses with the good
result of a certain degree of heat to his frame He ceased panting No stir
within nor light That white stare of windows at the moon was undisturbed
The Downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy grey silk No wonder that she had
loved to look on them
And it was no wonder that Andrew Hedger enjoyed prime bacon Bacon
frizzling fat rashers of real homefed on the fire none of your foreign
suggested a genial refreshment and resistance to antagonistic elements Nor was
it granting health granting a sharp night the temperature at least fifteen
below zero an excessive boast for a man to say he could go on eating for a
solid hour
These were notions darting through a half nourished gentleman nipped in the
frame by a severely frosty night Truly a most beautiful night She would have
delighted to see it here The Downs were like floating islands like fairyladen
vapours solid as Andrew Hedgers hour of eating visionary as too often his
desire
Redworth muttered to himself after taking the picture of the house and
surrounding country from the sward that he thought it about the sharpest night
he had ever encountered in England He was cold hungry dispirited and
astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any of his thoughts from
old Andrew Hedger Nature was at her pranks upon him
He left the garden briskly as to the legs and reluctantly He would have
liked to know whether Diana had recently visited the house or was expected It
could be learnt in the morning but his mission was urgent and he on the wings
of it He was vexed and saddened
Scarcely had he closed the gardengate when the noise of an opening window
arrested him and he called The answer was in a feminine voice youngish not
disagreeable though not Dianas
He heard none of the words but rejoined in a bawl »Mrs Warwick Mr
Redworth«
That was loud enough for the deaf or the dead
The window closed He went to the door and waited It swung wide to him
and O marvel of a womans divination of a woman there stood Diana
Chapter IX
Shows How a Position of Delicacy for a Lady and Gentleman Was Met in Simple
Fashion Without Hurt to Either
Redworths impulse was to laugh for very gladness of heart as he proffered
excuses for his tremendous alarums and in doing so the worthy gentleman
imagined he must have persisted in clamouring for admission because he
suspected that if at home she would require a violent summons to betray
herself It was necessary to him to follow his abashed sagacity up to the mark
of his happy animation
»Had I known it was you« said Diana bidding him enter the passage She
wore a black silk mantilla and was warmly covered
She called to her maid Danvers whom Redworth remembered a firm woman of
about forty wrapped like her mistress in headcovering cloak scarf and
shawl Telling her to scour the kitchen for firewood Diana led into a
sittingroom »I need not ask you have come from Lady Dunstane« she said »Is
she well«
»She is deeply anxious«
»You are cold Empty houses are colder than out of doors You shall soon
have a fire«
She begged him to be seated
The small glow of candlelight made her dark rich colouring orange in
shadow
»House and grounds are open to a tenant« she resumed »I say goodbye to
them tomorrow morning The old couple who are in charge sleep in the village
tonight I did not want them here You have quitted the Government service I
think«
»A year or so since«
»When did you return from America«
»Two days back«
»And paid your visit to Copsley immediately«
»As early as I could«
»That was true friendliness You have a letter for me«
»I have«
He put his hand to his pocket for the letter
»Presently« she said She divined the contents and nursed her resolution
to withstand them Danvers had brought firewood and coal Orders were given to
her and in spite of the opposition of the maid and intervention of the
gentleman Diana knelt at the grate observing »Allow me to do this I can lay
and light a fire«
He was obliged to look on she was a woman who spoke her meaning She knelt
handling paper firewood and matches like a housemaid Danvers proceeded on her
mission and Redworth eyed Diana in the first fireglow He could have imagined
a Madonna on an old black Spanish canvas
The act of service was beautiful in gracefulness and her simplicity in
doing the work touched it spiritually He thought as she knelt there that
never had he seen how lovely and how charged with mystery her features were the
dark large eyes full on the brows the proud line of a straight nose in right
measure to the bow of the lips reposeful red lips shut and their curve of the
slumbersmile at the corners Her forehead was broad the chin of a sufficient
firmness to sustain that noble square the brows marked by a soft thick brush to
the temples her black hair plainly drawn along her head to the knot revealed
by the mantilla fallen on her neck
Elegant in plainness the classic poet would have said of her hair and
dress She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do That
which was proper to her position complexion and the hour surely marked her
appearance Unaccountably this night the fair fleshly presence overweighted
her intellectual distinction to an observer bent on vindicating her innocence
Or rather he saw the hidden in the visible
Owner of such a woman and to lose her Redworth pitied the husband
The crackling flames reddened her whole person Gazing he remembered Lady
Dunstane saying of her once that in anger she had the nostrils of a warhorse
The nostrils now were faintly alive under some sensitive impression of her
musings The olive cheeks pale as she stood in the doorway were flushed by the
firebeams though no longer with their swarthy central rose tropic flower of a
pure and abounding blood as it had seemed She was now beset by battle His
pity for her and his eager championship overwhelmed the spirit of compassion
for the foolish wretched husband Dolt the man must be Redworth thought and
he asked inwardly Did the miserable tyrant suppose of a woman like this that
she would be content to shine as a candle in a grated lanthorn The generosity
of men speculating upon other mens possessions is known Yet the man who loves
a woman has to the full the husbands jealousy of her good name And a lover
that without the claims of the alliance can be wounded on her behalf is less
distracted in his homage by the personal luminary to which mans manufacture of
balm and incense is mainly drawn when his love is wounded That contemplation of
her incomparable beauty with the multitude of his ideas fluttering round it
did somewhat shake the personal luminary in Redworth He was conscious of pangs
The question bit him How far had she been indiscreet or wilful and the bite of
it was a keen acid to his nerves A woman doubted by her husband is always and
even to her champions in the first hours of the noxious rumour until they have
solidified in confidence through service a creature of the wilds marked for
our ancient running Nay more than a cynical world these latter will be
sensible of it The doubt casts her forth the general yelp drags her down she
runs like the prey of the forest under spotting branches clear if we can think
so but it has to be thought in devotedness her character is abroad Redworth
bore a strong resemblance to his fellowmen except for his power of faith in
this woman Nevertheless it required the superbness of her beauty and the
contrasting charm of her humble posture of kneeling by the fire to set him on
his right track of mind He knew and was sure of her He dispersed the
unhallowed fry in attendance upon any stirring of the reptile part of us to
look at her with the eyes of a friend And if a little mouse of a thought
scampered out of one of the chambers of his head and darted along the passages
fetching a sweat to his brows Well whatsoever the fact his heart was hers He
hoped he could be charitable to women
She rose from her knees and said »Now please give me the letter«
He was entreated to excuse her for consigning him to firelight when she left
the room
Danvers brought in a dismal tallow candle remarking that her mistress had
not expected visitors her mistress had nothing but tea and bread and butter to
offer him Danvers uttered no complaint of her sufferings happy in being the
picture of them
»Im not hungry« said he
A plate of Andrew Hedgers own would not have tempted him The foolish
frizzle of bacon sang in his ears as he walked from end to end of the room an
illusion of his fancy pricked by a frostedged appetite But the anticipated
contest with Diana checked and numbed the craving
Was Warwick a man to proceed to extremities on a mad suspicion What kind
of proof had he
Redworth summoned the portrait of Mr Warwick before him and beheld a
sweeping of close eyes in cloud a long upper lip in cloud the rest of him was
all cloud As usual with these conjurations of a face the index of the nature
conceived by him displayed itself and no more but he took it for the whole
physiognomy and pronounced of the husband thus delineated that those close
eyes of the long upper lip would both suspect and proceed madly
He was invited by Danvers to enter the dining
There Diana joined him
»The best of a dinner on bread and butter is that one is ready for supper
soon after it« she said swimming to the teatray »You have dined«
»At the inn« he replied
»The Three Ravens When my fathers guests from London flooded The
Crossways The Three Ravens provided the overflow with beds On nights like this
I have got up and scraped the frost from my windowpanes to see them step into
the old fly singing some song of his The inn had a good reputation for
hospitality in those days I hope they treated you well«
»Excellently« said Redworth taking an enormous mouthful while his heart
sank to see that she who smiled to encourage his eating had been weeping But
she also consumed her bread and butter
»That poor maid of mine is an instance of a woman able to do things against
the grain« she said »Danvers is a fosterchild of luxury She loves it great
houses plentiful meals and the crowd of twinkling footmens calves Yet you
see her here in a desolate house consenting to cold and I know not what
terrors of ghosts poor soul I have some mysterious attraction for her She
would not let me come alone I should have had to hire some old Storling
grannam or retain the tattling keepers of the house She loves her native
country too and disdains the foreigner My tea you may trust«
Redworth had not a doubt of it He was becoming a teataster The merit of
warmth pertained to the beverage »I think you get your tea from Scoppins in
the City« he said
That was the warehouse for Mrs Warwicks tea They conversed of Teas the
black the green the mixtures each thinking of the attack to come and the
defence Meantime the cut bread and butter having flown Redworth attacked the
loaf He apologized
»Oh pay me a practical compliment« Diana said and looked really happy at
his unfeigned relish of her simple fare
She had given him one opportunity in speaking of her maids love of native
country But it came too early
»They say that bread and butter is fattening« he remarked
»You preserve the mean« said she
He admitted that his health was good For some little time to his vexation
at the absurdity she kept him talking of himself So flowing was she and so
sweet the motion of her mouth in utterance that he followed her lead and he
said odd things and corrected them He had to describe his ride to her
»Yes the view of the Downs from Dewhurst« she exclaimed »Or any point
along the ridge Emma and I once drove there in Summer with clotted cream from
her dairy and we bought freshplucked wortleberries and stewed them in a
hollow of the furzes and ate them with ground biscuits and the clotted cream
iced and thought it a luncheon for seraphs Then you dropped to the road round
under the sandheights and meditated railways«
»Just a notion or two«
»You have been very successful in America«
»Successful perhaps we exclude extremes in our calculations of the still
problematical«
»I am sure« said she »you always have faith in your calculations«
Her innocent archness dealt him a stab sharper than any he had known since
the day of his hearing of her engagement He muttered of his calculations being
human he was as much of a fool as other men more
»Oh no« said she
»Positively«
»I cannot think it«
»I know it«
»Mr Redworth you will never persuade me to believe it«
He knocked a rising groan on the head and rejoined »I hope I may not have
to say so tonight«
Diana felt the edge of the dart »And meditating railways you scored our
poor land of herds and flocks and night fell and the moon sprang up and on
you came It was clever of you to find your way by the moonbeams«
»Thats about the one thing I seem fit for«
»But what delusion is this in the mind of a man succeeding in everything he
does« cried Diana curious despite her wariness »Is there to be the revelation
of a hairshirt ultimately a Journal of Confessions You succeeded in
everything you aimed at and broke your heart over one chance miss«
»My heart is not of the stuff to break« he said and laughed off her
fortuitous thrust straight into it »Another cup yes I came «
»By night« said she »and cleverly found your way and dined at The Three
Ravens and walked to The Crossways and met no ghosts«
»On the contrary or at least I saw a couple«
»Tell me of them we breed them here We sell them periodically to the
newspapers«
»Well I started them in their natal locality I saw them going down the
churchyard and bellowed after them with all my lungs I wanted directions to
The Crossways I had missed my way at some turning In an instant they were
vapour«
Diana smiled »It was indeed a voice to startle delicate apparitions So do
roar Hyrcanean tigers Pyramus and Thisbeslaying lions One of your ghosts
carried a loaf of bread and dropped it in fright one carried a pound of fresh
butter for home consumption They were in the churchyard for one in passing to
kneel at her fathers grave and kiss his tombstone«
She bowed her head forgetful of her guard
The pause presented an opening Redworth left his chair and walked to the
mantelpiece It was easier to him to speak not facing her
»You have read Lady Dunstanes letter« he began
She nodded »I have«
»Can you resist her appeal to you«
»I must«
»She is not in a condition to bear it well You will pardon me Mrs Warwick
«
»Fully Fully«
»I venture to offer merely practical advice You have thought of it all but
have not felt it In these cases the one thing to do is to make a stand Lady
Dunstane has a clear head She sees what has to be endured by you Consider she
appeals to me to bring you her letter Would she have chosen me or any man for
her messenger if it had not appeared to her a matter of life and death You
count me among your friends«
»One of the truest«
»Here are two then and your own good sense For I do not believe it to be
a question of courage«
»He has commenced Let him carry it out« said Diana
Her desperation could have added the cry And give me freedom That was the
secret in her heart She had struck on the hope for the detested yoke to be
broken at any cost
»I decline to meet his charges I despise them If my friends have faith in
me and they may I want nothing more«
»Well I wont talk commonplaces about the world« said Redworth »We can
none of us afford to have it against us Consider a moment to your friends you
are the Diana Merion they knew and they will not suffer an injury to your good
name without a struggle But if you fly You leave the dearest you have to the
whole brunt of it«
»They will if they love me«
»They will But think of the shock to her Lady Dunstane reads you «
»Not quite No not if she even wishes me to stay« said Diana
He was too intent on his pleading to perceive a signification
»She reads you as clearly in the dark as if you were present with her«
»Oh why am I not ten years older« Diana cried and tried to face round to
him and stopped paralyzed »Ten years older I could discuss my situation as
an old woman of the world and use my wits to defend myself«
»And then you would not dream of flight before it«
»No she does not read me no She saw that I might come to The Crossways
She no one but myself can see the wisdom of my holding aloof in contempt of
this baseness«
»And of allowing her to sink under that which your presence would arrest
Her strength will not support it«
»Emma Oh cruel« Diana sprang up to give play to her limbs She dropped on
another chair »Go I must I cannot turn back She saw my old attachment to this
place It was not difficult to guess Who but I can see the wisest course for
me«
»It comes to this that the blow aimed at you in your absence will strike
her and mortally« said Redworth
»Then I say it is terrible to have a friend« said Diana with her bosom
heaving
»Friendship I fancy means one heart between two«
His unstressed observation hit a bell in her head and set it reverberating
She and Emma had spoken written the very words She drew forth her Emmas
letter from under her left breast and read some halfblinded lines
Redworth immediately prepared to leave her to her feelings trustier guides
than her judgement in this crisis
»Adieu for the night Mrs Warwick« he said and was guilty of eulogizing
the judgement he thought erratic for the moment »Night is a calm adviser Let
me presume to come again in the morning I dare not go back without you«
She looked up As they faced together each saw that the other had passed
through a furnace scorching enough to him though hers was the delicacy
exposed The reflection had its weight with her during the night
»Danvers is getting ready a bed for you she is airing linen« Diana said
But the bed was declined and the hospitality was not pressed The offer of it
seemed to him significant of an unwary cordiality and thoughtlessness of
tattlers that might account possibly for many things supposing a fool or
madman or malignants to interpret them
»Then good night« said she
They joined hands He exacted no promise that she would be present in the
morning to receive him and it was a consolation to her desire for freedom
until she reflected on the perfect confidence it implied and felt as a
quivering butterfly impalpably pinned
Chapter X
The Conflict of the Night
Her brain was a steamwheel throughout the night everything that could be
thought of was tossed nothing grasped
The unfriendliness of the friends who sought to retain her recurred For
look to fly could not be interpreted as a flight It was but a stepping aside
a disdain of defending herself and a wrapping herself in her dignity Women
would be with her She called on the noblest of them to justify the course she
chose and they did in an almost audible murmur
And O the rich reward A black archwaygate swung open to the glittering
fields of freedom
Emma was not of the chorus Emma meditated as an invalid How often had Emma
bewailed to her that the most grievous burden of her malady was her fatal
tendency to brood sickly upon human complications She could not see the
blessedness of the prospect of freedom to a woman abominably yoked What if a
miserable woman were dragged through mire to reach it Married the mire was her
portion whatever she might do That man but pass him
And that other the dear the kind careless highhearted old friend He
could honestly protest his guiltlessness and would smilingly leave the case to
go its ways Of this she was sure that her decision and her pleasure would be
his They were tied to the stake She had already tasted some of the mortal
agony Did it matter whether the flames consumed her
Reflecting on the interview with Redworth though she had performed her part
in it placidly her skin burned It was the beginning of tortures if she stayed
in England
By staying to defend herself she forfeited her attitude of dignity and lost
all chance of her reward And name the sort of world it is dear friends for
which we are to sacrifice our one hope of freedom that we may preserve our fair
fame in it
Diana cried aloud »My freedom« feeling as a butterfly flown out of a box
to stretches of sunny earth beneath spacious heavens Her bitter marriage
joyless in all its chapters indefensible where the man was right as well as
where insensately wrong had been imprisonment She excused him down to his last
madness if only the bonds were broken Here too in this very house of her
happiness with her father she had bound herself to the man voluntarily quite
inexplicably Voluntarily as we say But there must be a spell upon us at
times Upon young women there certainly is
The wild brain of Diana armed by her later enlightenment as to the laws of
life and nature dashed in revolt at the laws of the world when she thought of
the forces natural and social urging young women to marry and be bound to the
end
It should be a spotless world which is thus ruthless
But were the world impeccable it would behave more generously
The world is ruthless dear friends because the world is hypocrite The
world cannot afford to be magnanimous or even just
Her dissensions with her husband their differences of opinion and puny
wranglings hoistings of two standards reconciliations for the sake of decency
breaches of the truce and his detested meanness the man behind the mask and
glimpses of herself too the halfknown halfsuspected developing creature
claiming to be Diana and unlike her dreamed Diana deformed by marriage
irritable acerb rebellious constantly justifiable against him but not in her
own mind and therefore accusing him of the double crime of provoking her and
perverting her these were the troops defiling through her head while she did
battle with the hypocrite world
One painful sting was caused by the feeling that she could have loved
whom An ideal Had he the imagined but unvisioned been her yokefellow would
she now lie raising cagedbeast cries in execration of the yoke She would not
now be seeing herself as hare serpent tigress The hypothesis was reviewed in
negatives she had barely a sense of softness just a single little heave of the
bosom quivering upward and leadenly sinking when she glanced at a married
Diana heartily mated The regrets of the youthful for a life sailing away under
medical sentence of death in the sad eyes of relatives resemble it She could
have loved Goodbye to that
A womans brutallest tussle with the world was upon her She was in the
arena of the savage claws flung there by the man who of all others should have
protected her from them And what had she done to deserve it She listened to
the advocate pleading her case she primed him to admit the charges to say the
worst in contempt of legal prudence and thereby expose her transparent
honesty The very things awakening a mad suspicion proved her innocence But was
she this utterly simple person Oh no She was the Diana of the pride in her
power of fencing with evil by no means of the order of those ninny young women
who realize the popular conception of the purely innocent She had fenced and
kept her guard Of this it was her angry glory to have the knowledge But she
had been compelled to fence Such are men in the world of facts that when a
woman steps out of her domestic tangle to assert because it is a tangle her
rights to partial independence they sight her for their prey or at least they
complacently suppose her accessible Wretched at home a woman ought to bury
herself in her wretchedness else may she be assured that not the cleverest
wariest guard will cover her character
Against the husband her cause was triumphant Against herself she decided
not to plead it for this reason that the preceding Court which was the public
and only positive one had entirely and justly exonerated her But the holding
of her hand by the friend half a minute too long for friendship and the
overfriendliness of looks letters frequency of visits would speak within her
She had a darting view of her husbands estimation of them in his present mood
She quenched it they were trifles things that women of the world have to
combat The revelation to a fairminded young woman of the majority of men being
naught other than men and some of the friendliest of men betraying confidence
under the excuse of temptation is one of the shocks to simplicity which leave
her the alternative of misanthropy or philosophy Diana had not the heart to
hate her kind so she resigned herself to pardon and to the recognition of the
state of duel between the sexes active enough in her sphere of society The
circle hummed with it many lived for it Could she pretend to ignore it Her
personal experience might have instigated a less clear and less intrepid nature
to take advantage of the opportunity for playing the popular innocent who runs
about with astonished eyes to find herself in so hunting a world and wins
general compassion if not shelter in unsuspected and unlicenced places There
is perpetually the inducement to act the hypocrite before the hypocrite world
unless a woman submits to be the humbly knitting housewife unquestioningly
worshipful of her lord for the world is ever gracious to an hypocrisy that pays
homage to the mask of virtue by copying it the world is hostile to the face of
an innocence not conventionally simpering and quite surprised the world prefers
decorum to honesty »Let me be myself whatever the martyrdom« she cried in
that phase of young sensation when to the blooming woman the putting on of a
mask appears to wither her and reduce her to the show she parades Yet in
common with her sisterhood she owned she had worn a sort of mask the world
demands it of them as the price of their station That she had never worn it
consentingly was the plea for now casting it off altogether showing herself as
she was accepting martyrdom becoming the first martyr of the modern womans
cause a grand position and one imaginable to an excited mind in the dark
which does not conjure a critical humour as light does to correct the feverish
sublimity She was then this martyr a woman capable of telling the world she
knew it and of confessing that she had behaved in disdain of its rigider rules
according to her own ideas of her immunities O brave
But was she holding the position by flight It involved the challenge of
consequences not an evasion of them
She moaned her mental steamwheel stopped fatigue brought sleep
She had sensationally led her rebellious wits to the Crossways distilling
much poison from thoughts on the way and there for the luxury of a still
seeming indecision she sank into oblivion
Chapter XI
Recounts the Journey in a Chariot with a Certain Amount of Dialogue and a
Small Incident on the Road
In the morning the fight was over She looked at the signpost of The Crossways
whilst dressing and submitted to follow obediently as a puppet the road
recommended by friends though a voice within that she took for the intimations
of her reason protested that they were wrong that they were judging of her
case in the general and unwisely disastrously for her
The mistaking of her desires for her reason was peculiar to her situation
»So I suppose I shall some day see The Crossways again« she said to
conceive a compensation in the abandonment of freedom The nights red vision of
martyrdom was reserved to console her secretly among the unopened lockers in
her treasury of thoughts It helped to sustain her and she was too conscious of
things necessary for her sustainment to bring it to the light of day and examine
it She had a pitiful bit of pleasure in the gratification she imparted to
Danvers by informing her that the journey of the day was backward to Copsley
»If I may venture to say so maam I am very glad« said her maid
»You must be prepared for the questions of lawyers Danvers«
»Oh maam they ll get nothing out of me and their wigs wont frighten
me«
»It is usually their baldness that is most frightening my poor Danvers«
»Nor their baldness maam« said the literal maid »I never cared for their
heads or them Ive been in a Case before«
»Indeed« exclaimed her mistress and she had a chill
Danvers mentioned a notorious Case adding »They got nothing out of me«
»In my Case you will please to speak the truth« said Diana and beheld in
the lookingglass the primming of her maids mouth The sight shot a sting
»Understand that there is to be no hesitation about telling the truth of
what you know of me« said Diana and the answer was »No maam«
For Danvers could remark to herself that she knew little and was not a
person to hesitate She was a maid of the world with the quality of
faithfulness by nature to a good mistress
Redworths further difficulties were confined to the hiring of a conveyance
for the travellers and hotwater bottles together with a postillion not
addicted to drunkenness He procured a postingchariot an ancient and musty of
a late autumnal yellow unrefreshed by paint the only bottles to be had were
Dutch schiedam His postillion inspected at Storling carried the flag of
habitual inebriation on his nose and he deemed it adviseable to ride the mare
in accompaniment as far as Riddlehurst notwithstanding the postillions vows
upon his honour that he was no drinker The emphasis to a gentleman acquainted
with his countrymen was not reassuring He had hopes of enlisting a trustier
fellow at Riddlehurst but he was disappointed and while debating upon what to
do for he shrank from leaving two women to the conduct of that inflamed
troughsnout Brisby despatched to Storling by an afterthought of Lady
Dunstanes rushed out of the Riddlehurst inn taproom and relieved him of the
charge of the mare He was accommodated with a seat on a stool in the chariot
»My triumphal car« said his captive She was very amusing about her postillion
Danvers had to beg pardon for laughing »You are happy« observed her mistress
But Redworth laughed too and he could not boast of any happiness beyond the
temporary satisfaction nor could she who sprang the laughter boast of that
little She said to herself in the midst of the hilarity »Wherever I go now
in all weathers I am perfectly naked« And remembering her readings of a
certain wonderful old quarto book in her fathers library by an eccentric old
Scottish nobleman wherein the wearing of garments and sleeping in houses is
accused as the cause of human degeneracy she took a forced merry stand on her
return to the primitive healthful state of man and woman and affected scorn of
our modern ways of dressing and thinking Whence it came that she had some of
her wildest seizures of iridescent humour Danvers attributed the fun to her
mistresss gladness in not having pursued her bent to quit the country Redworth
saw deeper and was nevertheless amazed by the airy hawkpoise and pouncedown
of her wit as she ranged high and low now capriciously generalizing now
dropping bolt upon things of passage the postillion jogging from rum to gin
the rustics baconly agape the horsekneed ostlers She touched them to the life
in similes and phrases and next she was aloft derisively philosophizing but
with a comic afflatus that dispersed the sharpness of her irony in mocking
laughter The afternoon refreshments at the inn of the county markettown and
the English idea of public hospitality as to manner and the substance provided
for wayfarers were among the themes she made memorable to him She spoke of
everything tolerantly just naming it in a simple sentence that fell with a
ring and chimed their hosts ready acquiescence in receiving orders his
contemptuous disclaimer of stuff he did not keep his flat indifference to the
sheep he sheared and the phantom halfcrown flickering in one eye of the
anticipatory waiter the pervading and confounding smell of stale beer over all
the apartments the prevalent notion of bread butter tea milk sugar as
matter for the exercise of a native inventive genius these were reviewed in
quips of metaphor
»Come we can do better at an inn or two known to me« said Redworth
»Surely this is the best that can be done for us when we strike them with
the magic wand of a postillion« said she
»It depends as elsewhere on the individuals entertaining us«
»Yet you admit that your railways are rapidly polishing off the individual«
»They will spread the metropolitan idea of comfort«
»I fear they will feed us on nothing but that big word It booms a curfew
bell for every poor little light that we would read by«
Seeing their beaconnosed postillion preparing to mount and failing in his
jump Redworth was apprehensive and questioned the fellow concerning potation
»Lord sir they call me half a horse but I cant bide water« was the
reply with the assurance that he had not »taken a pailful«
Habit enabled him to gain his seat
»It seems to us unnecessary to heap on coal when the chimney is afire but
he may know the proper course« Diana said convulsing Danvers and there was
discernibly to Redworth under the influence of her phrases a likeness of the
flaming halfhorse with the animals all smoking in the frost to a railway
engine »Your wrinkled centaur« she named the man Of course he had to play
second to her and not unwillingly but he reflected passingly on the
instinctive push of her rich and sparkling voluble fancy to the initiative
which women do not like in a woman and men prefer to distantly admire English
women and men feel toward the quickwitted of their species as to aliens having
the demerits of aliens wordiness vanity obscurity shallowness an empty
glitter the sin of posturing A quickwitted woman exerting her wit is both a
foreigner and potentially a criminal She is incandescent to a breath of rumour
It accounted for her having detractors a heavy counterpoise to her enthusiastic
friends It might account for her husbands discontent the reduction of him to
a state of mere masculine antagonism What is the husband of a vanward woman He
feels himself but a diminished man The English husband of a voluble woman
relapses into a dreary mute Ah for the choice of places Redworth would have
yielded her the loquent lead for the smallest of the privileges due to him who
now rejected all except the public scourging of her The conviction was in his
mind that the husband of this woman sought rather to punish than be rid of her
But a part of his own emotion went to form the judgement
Furthermore Lady Dunstanes allusion to her enemies made him set down her
growing crop of backbiters to the trick she had of ridiculing things English If
the English do it themselves it is in a professionally robust a jocose kindly
way always with a glance at the other things great things they excel in and
it is done to have the credit of doing it They are keen to catch an inimical
tone they will find occasion to chastise the presumptuous individual unless it
be the leader of a party therefore a power for they respect a power Redworth
knew their quaintnesses without overlooking them he winced at the acid of an
irony that seemed to spring from aversion and regretted it for her sake He
had to recollect that she was in a sharpstrung mood bitterly surexcited
moreover he reminded himself of her many and memorable phrases of enthusiasm for
England Shakespeareland as she would sometimes perversely term it to sink
the country in the poet English fortitude English integrity the English
disposition to do justice to dependents adolescent English ingenuousness she
was always ready to laud Only her enthusiasm required rousing by circumstances
it was less at the brim than her satire Hence she made enemies among a placable
people
He felt that he could have helped her under happier conditions The
beautiful vision she had been on the night of the Irish Ball swept before him
and he looked at her smiling
»Why do you smile« she said
»I was thinking of Mr Sullivan Smith«
»Ah my dear compatriot And think too of Lord Larrian«
She caught her breath Instead of recreation the names brought on a fit of
sadness It deepened she neither smiled nor rattled any more She gazed across
the hedgeways at the white meadows and baretwigged copses showing their last
leaves in the frost
»I remember your words Observation is the most enduring of the pleasures of
life and so I have found it« she said There was a brightness along her
undereyelids that caused him to look away
The expected catastrophe occurred on the descent of a cutting in the sand
where their cordial postillion at a trot bumped the chariot against the sturdy
wheels of a waggon which sent it reclining for support upon a beechtrees huge
intertwisted serpent roots amid strips of brown bracken and pendant weeds
while he exhibited one short stump of leg all boot in air No one was hurt
Diana disengaged herself from the shoulder of Danvers and mildly said
»That reminds me I forgot to ask why we came in a chariot«
Redworth was excited on her behalf but the broken glass had done no damage
nor had Danvers fainted The remark was unintelligible to him apart from the
comforting it had been designed to give He jumped out and held a hand for them
to do the same »I never foresaw an event more positively« said he
»And it was nothing but a back view that inspired you all the way« said
Diana
A waggoner held the horses another assisted Redworth to right the chariot
The postillion had hastily recovered possession of his official seat that he
might as soon as possible feel himself again where he was most intelligent and
was gay in stupidity indifferent to what happened behind him Diana heard him
counselling the waggoner as to the common sense of meeting small accidents with
a cheerful soul
»Lord« he cried »I been pitched a somerset in my time and taken up for
dead and that didnt beat me«
Disasters of the present kind could hardly affect such a veteran But he was
painfully disconcerted by Redworths determination not to entrust the ladies any
farther to his guidance Danvers had implored for permission to walk the mile to
the town and thence take a fly to Copsley Her mistress rather sided with the
postillion who begged them to spare him the disgrace of riding in and
delivering a box at the Red Lion
»What ll they say And they know Arthur Dance well there« he groaned
»What Arthur chariotin a box And me a better man to his work now than I been
for many a long season fit for double the journey A bit of a shake always
braces me up I could read a newspaper right off small print and all Come
along sir and hand the ladies in«
Danvers vowed her thanks to Mr Redworth for refusing They walked ahead
the postillion communicated his mixture of professional and human feelings to
the waggoners and walked his horses in the rear meditating on the
weakheartedness of gentryfolk and the means for escaping being chaffed out of
his boots at the Old Red Lion where he was to eat drink and sleep that night
Ladies might be fearsome after a bit of a shake he would not have supposed it
of a gentleman He jogged himself into an arithmetic of the number of nips of
liquor he had taken to soothe him on the road in spite of the gentleman »For
some of em are sworn enemies of poor men as yonder one neer a doubt«
Diana enjoyed her walk beneath the lingering brownred of the frosty
November sunset with the scent of sandearth strong in the air
»I had to hire a chariot because there was no twohorse carriage« said
Redworth »and I wished to reach Copsley as early as possible«
She replied smiling that accidents were fated As a certain marriage had
been The comparison forced itself on her reflections
»But this is quite an adventure« said she reanimated by the brisker flow
of her blood »We ought really to be thankful for it in days when nothing
happens«
Redworth accused her of getting that idea from the perusal of romances
»Yes our lives require compression like romances to be interesting and
we object to the process« she said »Real happiness is a state of dulness When
we taste it consciously it becomes mortal a thing of the Seasons But I like
my walk How long these November sunsets burn and what hues they have There is
a scientific reason only dont tell it me Now I understand why you always used
to choose your holidays in November«
She thrilled him with her friendly recollection of his customs
»As to happiness the looking forward is happiness« he remarked
»Oh the looking back back« she cried
»Forward that is life«
»And backward death if you will and still it is happiness Death and our
postillion«
»Ay I wonder why the fellow hangs to the rear« said Redworth turning
about
»Its his cunning strategy poor creature so that he may be thought to have
delivered us at the head of the town for us to make a purchase or two if we go
to the inn on foot« said Diana »We ll let the manoeuvre succeed«
Redworth declared that she had a head for everything and she was flattered
to hear him
So passing from the southern into the western road they saw the townlights
beneath an amber sky burning out sombrely over the woods of Copsley and entered
the town the postillion following
Chapter XII
Between Emma and Diana
Diana was in the arms of her friend at a late hour of the evening and Danvers
breathed the amiable atmosphere of footmen once more professing herself
perished This maid of the world who could endure hardships and loss of society
for the mistress to whom she was attached no sooner saw herself surrounded by
the comforts befitting her station than she indulged in the luxury of a wailful
dejectedness the better to appreciate them She was unaffectedly astonished to
find her outcries against the cold and the journeyings to and fro interpreted as
a servingwomans muffled comments on her mistresss behaviour Lady Dunstanes
maid Bartlett and Mrs Bridges the housekeeper and Foster the butler
contrived to let her know that they could speak an if they would and they
expressed their pity of her to assist her to begin the speaking She bowed in
acceptance of Fosters offer of a glass of wine after supper but treated him
and the other two immediately as though they had been interrogating bigwigs
»They wormed nothing out of me« she said to her mistress at night
undressing her »But what a set they are Theyve got such comfortable places
theyve all their days and hours for talk of the doings of their superiors They
read the vilest of those town papers and they put their two and two together of
what is happening in and about And not one of the footmen thinks of staying
because its so dull and they and the maids object did one ever hear to
the three uppers retiring when theyve done dining to the private room to
dessert«
»That is the custom« observed her mistress
»Foster carries the decanter maam and Mrs Bridges the biscuits and
Bartlett the plate of fruit and they march out in order«
»The man at the head of the procession probably«
»Oh yes And the others though they have everything except the wine and
dessert dont like it When I was here last they were new and hadnt a word
against it Now they say its invidious Lady Dunstane will be left without an
underservant at Copsley soon I was asked about your boxes maam and the
moment I said they were at Dover that instant all three peeped They let out a
mouse to me They do love to talk«
Her mistress could have added »And you too my good Danvers« trustworthy
though she knew the creature to be in the main
»Now go and be sure you have bedclothes enough before you drop asleep« she
said and Danvers directed her steps to gossip with Bartlett
Diana wrapped herself in a dressinggown Lady Dunstane had sent her and sat
by the fire thinking of the powder of tattle stored in servants halls to
explode beneath her and but for her choice of roads she might have been among
strangers The liking of strangers best is a curious exemplification of
innocence
»Yes I was in a muse« she said raising her head to Emma whom she
expected and sat armed to meet unaccountably ironnerved »I was questioning
whether I could be quite as blameless as I fancy if I sit and shiver to be in
England You will tell me I have taken the right road I doubt it But the road
is taken and here I am But any road that leads me to you is homeward my
darling« She tried to melt determining to be at least open with her
»I have not praised you enough for coming« said Emma when they had
embraced again
»Praise a little your truest friend of women Your letter gave the tug I
might have resisted it«
»He came straight from heaven But cruel Tony where is your love«
»It is unequal to yours dear I see I could have wrestled with anything
abstract and distant from being certain But here I am«
»But my own dear girl you never could have allowed this infamous charge to
be undefended«
»I think so Ive an odd apathy as to my character rather like death when
one dreams of flying the soul What does it matter I should have left the flies
and wasps to worry a corpse And then goodbye gentility I should have worked
for my bread I had thoughts of America I fancy I can write and Americans one
hears are gentle to women«
»Ah Tony theres the looking back And of all women you«
»Or else dear well perhaps once on foreign soil in a different air I
might might have looked back and seen my whole self not shattered as I feel
it now and come home again compassionate to the poor persecuted animal to
defend her Perhaps that was what I was running away for I fled on the
instinct often a good thing to trust«
»I saw you at The Crossways«
»I remembered I had the dread that you would though I did not imagine you
would reach me so swiftly My going there was an instinct too I suppose we are
all instinct when we have the world at our heels Forgive me if I generalize
without any longer the right to be included in the common human sum Pariah and
taboo are words we borrow from barbarous tribes they stick to me«
»My Tony you look as bright as ever and you speak despairingly«
»Call me enigma I am that to myself Emmy«
»You are not quite yourself to your friend«
»Since the blow I have been bewildered I see nothing upright It came on me
suddenly stunned me A bolt out of a clear sky as they say He spared me a
scene There had been threats and yet the sky was clear or seemed When we
have a man for arbiter he is our sky«
Emma pressed her Tonys unresponsive hand feeling strangely that her friend
ebbed from her
»Has he to mislead him« she said colouring at the breach in the
question
»Proofs He has the proofs he supposes«
»Not to justify suspicion«
»He broke open my desk and took my letters«
»Horrible But the letters« Emma shook with a nervous revulsion
»You might read them«
»Basest of men That is the unpardonable cowardice« exclaimed Emma
»The world will read them dear« said Diana and struck herself to ice
She broke from the bitter frigidity in fury »They are letters none very
long sometimes two short sentences he wrote at any spare moment On my
honour as a woman I feel for him most The letters I would bear any
accusation rather than that exposure Letters of a man of his age to a young
woman he rates too highly The world reads them Do you hear it saying it could
have excused her for that fiddlefaddle with a younger a young lover And had
I thought of a lover I had no thought of loving or being loved I confess I
was flattered To you Emma I will confess You see the public ridicule
and half his age he and I would have appeared a romantic couple Confess I
said Well dear the stake is lighted for a trial of its effect on me It is
this he was never a dishonourable friend but men appear to be capable of
friendship with women only for as long as we keep out of pulling distance of
that line where friendship ceases They may step on it we must hold back a
league I have learnt it You will judge whether he disrespects me As for him
he is a man at his worst not one of the worst at his best better than very
many There now Emma you have me stripped and burning there is my full
confession Except for this yes one thing further that I do rage at the
ridicule and could choose but for you to have given the world cause to revile
me or think me romantic Something or somebody to suffer for would really be
agreeable It is a singular fact I have not known what this love is that they
talk about And behold me marched into Smithfield societys heretic if you
please I must own I think it hard«
Emma chafed her cold hand softly
»It is hard I understand it« she murmured »And is your Sunday visit to us
in the list of offences«
»An item«
»You gave me a happy day«
»Then it counts for me in heaven«
»He set spies on you«
»So we may presume«
Emma went through a sphere of tenuious reflections in a flash
»He will rue it Perhaps now he may now be regretting his wretched
frenzy And Tony could pardon she has the power of pardoning in her heart«
»Oh certainly dear But tell me why it is you speak tonight rather unlike
the sedate philosophical Emma in a tone well tolerably sentimental«
»I am unaware of it« said Emma who could have retorted with a like
reproach »I am anxious I will not say at present for your happiness for your
peace and I have a hope that possibly a timely word from some friend Lukin or
another might induce him to consider«
»To pardon me do you mean« cried Diana flushing sternly
»Not pardon Suppose a case of faults on both sides«
»You address a faulty person my dear But do you know that you are hinting
at a reconcilement«
»Might it not be«
»Open your eyes to what it involves I trust I can pardon Let him go his
ways do his darkest or repent But return to the roof of the basest of men
who was guilty of the unpardonable cowardice You expect me to be superhuman
When I consent to that I shall be out of my womans skin which he has branded
Go back to him« She was taken with a shudder of head and limbs »No I really
have the power of pardoning and I am bound to for among my debts to him this
present exemption that is like liberty dragging a chain or say an escaped
felon wearing his manacles should count I am sensible of my obligation The
price I pay for it is an immoveable patch attractive to male idiots I have
heard and a mark of scorn to females Between the two the remainder of my days
will be lively Out out damned spot But it will not And not on the hand on
the forehead We ll talk of it no longer I have sent a note with an
enclosure to my lawyers I sell The Crossways if I have the married womans
right to any scrap of property for money to scatter fees«
»My purse dear Tony« exclaimed Emma »My house You will stay with me Why
do you shake your head With me you are safe« She spied at the shadows in her
friends face »Ever since your marriage Tony you have been strange in your
trick of refusing to stay with me And you and I made our friendship the pledge
of a belief in eternity We vowed it Come I do talk sentimentally but my
heart is in it I beg you all the reasons are with me to make my house your
home You will You know I am rather lonely«
Diana struggled to keep her resolution from being broken by tenderness And
doubtless poor Sir Lukin had learnt his lesson still her defensive instincts
could never quite slumber under his roof not because of any further fear that
they would have to be summoned it was chiefly owing to the consequences of his
treacherous foolishness For this halfhome with her friend thenceforward denied
to her she had accepted a protector called husband rashly past credence in
the retrospect but it had been her propelling motive and the loathings roused
by her marriage helped to sicken her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she
had suffered the shock precipitating her to an act of insanity
»I do not forget you were an heiress Emmy and I will come to you if I need
money to keep my head up As for staying two reasons are against it If I am to
fight my battle I must be seen I must go about wherever I am received So my
field is London That is obvious And I shall rest better in a house where my
story is not known«
Two or three questions ensued Diana had to fortify her fictitious objection
by alluding to her maids prattle of the household below and she excused the
hapless overfed idle people of those regions
To Emma it seemed a not unnatural sensitiveness She came to a settled
resolve in her thoughts as she said »They want a change London is their
element«
Feeling that she deceived this true heart however lightly and necessarily
Diana warmed to her forgiving her at last for having netted and dragged her
back to front the enemy an imposition of horrors of which the scene and the
travelling with Redworth the talking of her case with her most intimate friend
as well had been a distempering foretaste
They stood up and kissed parting for the night
An odd world where for the sin we have not participated in we must fib and
continue fibbing she reflected She did not entirely cheat her clearer mind
for she perceived that her step in flight had been urged both by a weak
despondency and a blind desperation also that the world of a fluid civilization
is perforce artificial But her mind was in the background of her fevered
senses and when she looked in the glass and mused on uttering the word »Liar«
to the lovely image her senses were refreshed her mind somewhat relieved the
face appeared so sovereignly defiant of abasement
Thus did a nature distraught by pain obtain some short lull of repose Thus
moreover by closely reading herself whom she scourged to excess that she might
in justice be comforted she gathered an increasing knowledge of our human
constitution and stored matter for the brain
Chapter XIII
Touching the First Days of Her Probation
The result of her sleeping was that Dianas humour locked up overnight
insisted on an excursion as she lay with halfburied head and open eyelids
thinking of the firm of lawyers she had to see and to whom and to the legal
profession generally she would be under outward courtesies nothing other than
the woman Warwick She pursued the woman Warwick unmercifully through a series
of interviews with her decorous and crudelyminded defenders accurately
perusing them behind their senior staidness Her scorching sensitiveness
sharpened her intelligence in regard to the estimate of discarded wives
entertained by men of business and plain men of the world and she drove the
woman Warwick down their ranks amazed by the vision of a puppet so unlike to
herself in reality though identical in situation That woman reciting her side
of the case gained a gradual resemblance to Danvers she spoke primly
perpetually the creature aired her handkerchief she was bent on softening those
sugarloaves the hard businessmen applying to her for facts Facts were treated
as unworthy of her mere stuff of the dustheap mutton old shoes she swam
above them in a cocoon of her spinning sylphidine unseizable and between
perplexing and mollifying the slaves of facts she saw them at their heels a
tearful fry abjectly imitative of her melodramatic performances The spectacle
was presented of a band of legal gentlemen vociferating mightily for swords and
the onset like the Austrian empresss Magyars to vindicate her just and holy
cause Our Lawcourts failing they threatened Parliament and for a last
resort the country We are not going to be the woman Warwick without a stir my
brethren
Emma an early riser that morning for the purpose of a private consultation
with Mr Redworth found her lying placidly wakeful to judge by appearances
»You have not slept my dear child«
»Perfectly« said Diana giving her hand and offering the lips »Im only
having a warm morning bath in bed« she added in explanation of a chill
moisture that the touch of her exposed skin betrayed for whatever the fun of
the woman Warwick there had been sympathetic feminine horrors in the frame of
the sentient woman
Emma fancied she kissed a quiet sufferer A few remarks very soon set her
wildly laughing Both were laughing when Danvers entered the room rather
guilty being late and the sight of the primvisaged maid she had been driving
among the lawyers kindled Dianas comic imagination to such a pitch that she ran
riot in drolleries carrying her friend headlong on the tide
»I have not laughed so much since you were married« said Emma
»Nor I dear proving that the bar to it was the ceremony« said Diana
She promised to remain at Copsley three days »Then for the campaign in Mr
Redworths metropolis I wonder whether I may ask him to get me lodgings a
sittingroom and two bedrooms The Crossways has a board up for letting I
should prefer to be my own tenant only it would give me a hundred pounds more
to get a substitutes money I should like to be at work writing instantly Ink
is my opium and the pen my nigger and he must dig up gold for me It is
written Danvers you can make ready to dress me when I ring«
Emma helped the beautiful woman to her dressinggown and the step from her
bed She had her thoughts and went down to Redworth at the breakfasttable
marvelling that any husband other than a madman could cast such a jewel away
The material loveliness eclipses intellectual qualities in such reflections
»He must be mad« she said compelled to disburden herself in a congenial
atmosphere which however she infrigidated by her overflow of exclamatory
wonderment a curtain that shook voluminous folds luring Redworth to dreams of
the treasure forfeited He became rigidly practical
»Provision will have to be made for her Lukin must see Mr Warwick She
will do wisely to stay with friends in town mix in company Women are the best
allies for such cases Who are her solicitors«
»They are mine Braddock Thorpe and Simnel«
»A good firm She is in safe hands with them I dare say they may come to an
arrangement«
»I should wish it She will never consent«
Redworth shrugged A womans never fell far short of outstripping the sturdy
pedestrian Time to his mind
Diana saw him drive off to catch the coach in the valley regulated to meet
the train and much though she liked him she was not sorry that he had gone
She felt the better clad for it She would have rejoiced to witness the
departure on wings of all her friends except Emma to whom her coldness
overnight had bound her anew warmly in contrition And yet her friends were
wellbeloved by her but her emotions were distraught
Emma told her that Mr Redworth had undertaken to hire a suite of convenient
rooms and to these she looked forward the nest among strangers where she
could begin to write earning bread an idea that with the pride of
independence conjured the pleasant morning smell of a bakery about her
She passed three peaceable days at Copsley at war only with the luxury of
the house On the fourth a letter to Lady Dunstane from Redworth gave the
address of the best lodgings he could find and Diana started for London
She had during a couple of weeks besides the first fresh exercising of her
pen as well as the severe gratification of economy a savage exultation in
passing through the streets on foot and unknown Save for the plunges into the
office of her solicitors she could seem to herself a woman who had never
submitted to the yoke What a pleasure it was after finishing a number of
pages to start Eastward toward the lawyerregions full of imaginary cropping
incidents and from that churchyard Westward against smoky sunsets or in
welcome fogs an atom of the crowd She had an affection for the crowd They
clothed her She laughed at the gloomy forebodings of Danvers concerning the
perils environing ladies in the streets after dark alone The lights in the
streets after dark and the quick running of her blood combined to strike
sparks of fancy and inspirit the task of composition at night This new
strange solitary life cut off from her adulatory society both by the shock
that made the abyss and by the utter foreignness threw her in upon her natural
forces recasting her and thinning away her memory of her past days excepting
girlhood into the remote She lived with her girlhood as with a simple little
sister They were two in one and she corrected the dreams of the younger
protected and counselled her very sagely advising her to love Truth and look
always to Reality for her refreshment She was ready to say that no habitable
spot on our planet was healthier and pleasanter than London As to the perils
haunting the head of Danvers her experiences assured her of a perfect immunity
from them and the maligned thoroughfares of a great city she was ready to
affirm contrasted favourably with certain hospitable halls
The longsuffering Fates permitted her for a term to enjoy the generous
delusion Subsequently a sweet surprise alleviated the shock she had sustained
Emma Dunstanes carriage was at her door and Emma entered her sittingroom to
tell her of having hired a house in the neighbourhood looking on the park She
begged to have her for guest sorrowfully anticipating the refusal At least
they were to be near one another
»You really like this life in lodgings« asked Emma to whom the stiff
furniture and narrow apartments were a dreariness the miserably small fire of
the sittingroom an aspect of cheerless winter
»I do« said Diana »yes« she added with some reserve and smiled at her
damped enthusiasm »I can eat when I like walk work and I am working My
legs and my pen demand it Let me be independent Besides I begin to learn
something of the bigger world outside the one I know and I crush my mincing
tastes In return for that I get a sense of strength I had not when I was a
drawingroom exotic Much is repulsive But I am taken with a passion for
reality«
They spoke of the lawyers and the calculated period of the trial of the
husband too and his inciting belief in the falseness of his wife »That is his
excuse« Diana said her closed mouth meditatively dimpling the corners over
thoughts of his grounds for fury He had them though none for the incriminating
charge The Sphinx mouth of the married woman at war and at bay must be left
unriddled She and the law differed in their interpretation of the dues of
wedlock
But matters referring to her case were secondary with Diana beside the
importance of her storing impressions Her mind required to hunger for
something and this Reality which frequently she was forced to loathe she
forced herself proudly to accept despite her youthfulness Her philosophy
swallowed it in the lump as the great serpent his meal she hoped to digest it
sleeping likewise Her visits of curiosity to the Law Courts where she stood
spying and listening behind a veil gave her a great deal of tough substance to
digest There she watched the process of the tortures to be applied to herself
and hardened her senses for the ordeal She saw there the ribbed and shanked old
skeleton world on which our fair fleshly is moulded After all your Fools
Paradise is not a garden to grow in Charons ferryboat is not thicker with
phantoms They do not live in mind or soul Chiefly women people it a certain
class of limp men women for the most part they are sown there And put their
garden under the magnifying glass of intimacy what do we behold A world not
better than the world it curtains only foolisher
Her conversations with Lady Dunstane brought her at last to the point of her
damped enthusiasm She related an incident or two occurring in her career of
independence and they discussed our state of civilization plainly and gravely
save for the laughing peals her phrases occasionally provoked as when she named
the intruders and disturbers of solitarilyfaring ladies »Cupids footpads«
Her humour was created to swim on waters where a prescribed and cultivated
prudery should pretend to be drowning
»I was getting an exalted idea of English gentlemen Emmy Rich and rare
were the gems she wore I was ready to vow that one might traverse the larger
island similarly respected I praised their chivalry I thought it a privilege
to live in such a land I cannot describe to you how delightful it was to me to
walk out and home generally protected I might have been seriously annoyed but
that one of the clerks articled he called himself of our lawyers happened
to be by He offered to guard me and was amusing with his modest tiptoe air
No I trust to the English common man more than ever He is a man of honour I
am convinced he is matchless in any other country except Ireland The English
gentleman trades on his reputation«
He was condemned by an afflicted delicacy the sharpest of critical
tribunals
Emma bade her not to be too sweeping from a bad example
»It is not a single one« said Diana »What vexes me and frets me is that I
must be a prisoner or allow Danvers to mount guard And I cant see the end of
it And Danvers is no magician She seems to know her countrymen though She
warded one of them off by saying to me This is the crossing my lady He
fled«
Lady Dunstane affixed the popular title to the latter kind of gentleman She
was irritated on her friends behalf and against the worrying of her
sisterhood thinking in her heart nevertheless that the passing of a face and
figure like Dianas might inspire honourable emotions pitiable for being
hapless
»If you were with me dear you would have none of these annoyances« she
said pleading forlornly
Diana smiled to herself »No I should relapse into softness This life
exactly suits my present temper My landlady is respectful and attentive the
little housemaid is a willing slave Danvers does not despise them pugnaciously
they make a home for me and I am learning daily Do you know the less ignorant
I become the more considerate I am for the ignorance of others I love them
for it« She squeezed Emmas hand with more meaning than her friend apprehended
»So I win my advantage from the trifles I have to endure They are really
trifles and I should once have thought them mountains«
For the moment Diana stipulated that she might not have to encounter friends
or others at Lady Dunstanes dinnertable and the season not being favourable
to those gatherings planned by Lady Dunstane in her project of winning
supporters there was a respite during which Sir Lukin worked manfully at his
three Clubs to vindicate Dianas name from the hummers and hawers gaining half
a dozen hot adherents and a body of lukewarm sufficiently stirred to be
desirous to see the lady He worked with true champion zeal although an
interview granted him by the husband settled his opinion as to any possibility
of the two ever coming to terms Also it struck him that if he by misadventure
had been a woman and the wife of such a fellow by Jove his apostrophe to
the father of the gods of pagandom signifying the amount of matter Warwick would
have had reason to complain of in earnest By ricochet his military mind
rebounded from his knowledge of himself to an ardent faith in Mrs Warwicks
innocence for as there was no resemblance between them there must he
deduced be a difference in their capacity for enduring the perpetual company of
a prig a stick a petrified poser Moreover the novel act of advocacy and the
nature of the advocacy had effect on him And then he recalled the scene in the
winter beechwoods and Dianas wilddeer eyes her perfect generosity to a
traitor and fool How could he have doubted her Glimpses of the corrupting
cause for it partly penetrated his density a conqueror of ladies in mid
career doubts them all Of course he had meant no harm nothing worse than some
pretty philandering with the loveliest woman of her time And by Jove it was
worth the rebuff to behold the Beauty in her wrath
The reflections of Lothario however much tending tardily to do justice to a
particular lady cannot terminate wholesomely But he became a gallant partisan
His portrayal of Mr Warwick to his wife and his friends was fine caricature
»The fellow had his hand up at my first word stood like a sentinel under
inspection Understand Sir Lukin that I receive you simply as an acquaintance
As an intermediary permit me to state that you are taking superfluous trouble
The case must proceed It is final She is at liberty in the meantime to draw
on my bankers for the provision she may need at the rate of five hundred pounds
per annum He spoke of the lady now bearing my name He was within an inch of
saying dishonouring I swear I heard the dis and he caught himself up He again
declined any attempt towards reconciliation It could only be founded on evasion
of the truth to be made patent on the day of trial Half his talk was lawyers
lingo The fellows teeth looked like frost If Lots wife had a brother his
name s Warwick How Diana Merion who could have had the pick of the best of
us ever came to marry a fellow like that passes my comprehension queer
creatures as women are He can ride thats about all he can do I told him Mrs
Warwick had no thought of reconciliation Then Sir Lukin you will perceive
that we have no standpoint for a discussion I told him the point was for a man
of honour not to drag his wife before the public as he had no case to stand on
less than nothing You should have seen the fellows face He shot a sneer up
to his eyelids and flung his head back So I said Goodday He marches me to
the door with his compliments to Lady Dunstane I could have floored him for
that Bless my soul what fellows the world is made of when heres a man
calling himself a gentleman who just because he gets in a rage with his wife
for one thing or another and past all competition the handsomest woman of her
day and the cleverest the nicest the best of the whole boiling has her out
for a public horsewhipping and sets all the idiots of the kingdom against her
I tried to reason with him He made as if he were going to sleep standing«
Sir Lukin gratified Lady Dunstane by his honest championship of Diana And
now in his altered mood the thrice indebted rogue was just cloudily conscious
of a desire to propitiate his dear wife by serving her friend he began a
crusade against the scandalnewspapers going with an Irish military comrade
straight to the editorial offices and leaving his card and a warning that the
chastisement for print of the name of the lady in their columns would be
personal and condign Captain Carew Mahony albeit unacquainted with Mrs
Warwick had espoused her cause She was a woman she was an Irishwoman she was
a beautiful woman She had therefore three positive claims on him as a soldier
and a man Other Irish gentlemen animated by the same swelling degrees were
awaking to the intimation that they might be wanted Some words were dropped
here and there by General Lord Larrian he regretted his age and infirmities A
goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been selected to protect her steps in
the public streets when it was bruited that the General had sent her a present
of his great Newfoundland dog Leander to attend on her and impose a required
respect But as it chanced that her address was unknown to the volunteer
constabulary they had to assuage their ardour by thinking the dog luckier than
they
The report of the dog was a fact He arrived one morning at Dianas
lodgings with a soldier to lead him and a card to introduce the Hercules of
dogs a very ideal of the species toweringly big benevolent reputed a rescuer
of lives disdainful of dogfighting devoted to his guardians office with a
majestic paw to give and the noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever
expressed by mortal male enfolded about the head kissed patted hugged
snuggled informed that he was his new mistresss one love and darling
She despatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian sure of her touch
upon an Irish heart
The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a mistress enamoured of
him »He is my husband« she said to Emma and started a tear in the eyes of her
smiling friend »he promises to trust me and never to have the law of me and
to love my friends as his own so we are certain to agree« In rain snow
sunshine through the parks and the streets he was the shadow of Diana
commanding on the whole apart from some desperate attempts to make him serve
as introducer a civilized behaviour in the legions of Cupids footpads But he
helped innocently enough to create an enemy
Chapter XIV
Giving Glimpses of Diana Under Her Cloud Before the World and of Her Further
Apprenticeship
As the day of her trial became more closely calculable Dianas anticipated
alarms receded with the deadening of her heart to meet the shock She fancied
she had put on proofarmour unconscious that it was the turning of the inward
flutterer to steel which supplied her cuirass and shield The necessity to brave
society in the character of honest Defendant caused but a momentary twitch of
the nerves Her heart beat regularly like a serviceable clock none of her
faculties abandoned her save songfulness and none belied her excepting a
disposition to tartness almost venomous in the sarcastic shafts she let fly at
friends interceding with Mr Warwick to spare his wife when she had determined
to be tried A strange fit of childishness overcame her powers of thinking and
was betrayed in her manner of speaking though to herself her dwindled humour
allowed her to appear the towering Britomart She pouted contemptuously on
hearing that a Mr Sullivan Smith a remotely recollected figure had besought
Mr Warwick for an interview and gained it by stratagem »to bring the man to
his senses« but an ultraIrishman did not compromise her battlefront as the
busybody supplications of a personal friend like Mr Redworth did and that the
latter without consulting her should be »one of the plaintive crew whining
about the heels of the Plaintiff for a mercy she disdained and rejected« was
bitter to her taste
»He does not see that unless I go through the fire there is no justification
for this wretched character of mine« she exclaimed Truce treaty withdrawal
signified publicly pardon not exoneration by any means and now that she was in
armour she had no dread of the public So she said Redworths being then
engaged upon the canvass of a borough added to the absurdity of his meddling
with the dilemmas of a woman »Dear me Emma think of stepping aside from the
parliamentary road to entreat a husband to relent and arrange the domestic
alliance of a contrary couple Quixottry is agreeable reading a silly
performance« Lady Dunstane pleaded his friendship She had to quit the field
where such darts were showering
The first dinnerparty was aristocratic easy to encounter Lord and Lady
Crane Lady Pennon Lord and Lady Esquart Lord Larrian Mr and Mrs Montvert
of Halford Manor Lady Singleby Sir Walter Capperston friends admirers of
Diana patrons in the phrase of the time of her father were the guests Lady
Pennon expected to be amused and was gratified for Diana had only to open her
mouth to set the great lady laughing She petitioned to have Mrs Warwick at her
table that day week because the marquis was dying to make her acquaintance and
begged to have all her sayings repeated to him vowed she must be salt in the
desert »And remember I back you through thick and thin« said Lady Pennon To
which Diana replied »If I am salt in the desert you are the spring« and the
old lady protested she must put that down for her book The witty Mrs Warwick
of whom wit was expected had many incitements to be guilty of cheap wit and
the beautiful Mrs Warwick being able to pass anything she uttered gave good
and bad alike under the impulsion to give out something that the stripped and
shivering Mrs Warwick might find a cover in applause She discovered the social
uses of cheap wit she laid ambushes for anecdotes a telling form of it among a
people of no conversational interlocution especially in the circles depending
for dialogue upon perpetual fresh supplies of scandal which have plentiful
crops yet not sufficient The old dinner and supper tables at The Crossways
furnished her with an abundant store and recollection failing she invented
Irish anecdotes are always popular in England as promoting besides the
wholesome shake of the sides a kindly sense of superiority Anecdotes also are
portable unlike the lightning flash which will not go into the pocket they
can be carried home they are disbursable at other tables These were Dianas
weapons She was perforce the actress of her part In happier times when light
of heart and natural her vogue had not been so enrapturing Doubtless Cleopatra
in her simple Egyptian uniform would hardly have won such plaudits as her stress
of barbaric Oriental splendours evoked for her on the swan and serpent Nilebarge
not from posterity at least It is a terrible decree that all must act who
would prevail and the more extended the audience the greater need for the mask
and buskin
From Lady Pennons table Diana passed to Lady Cranes Lady Esquarts Lady
Singlebys the Duchess of Rabys warmly clad in the admiration she excited
She appeared at Princess Thérèse Parylis first ball of the season and had her
circle not of worshippers only She did not dance The princess a fair
Austrian benevolent to her sisterhood an admirer of Dianas contrasting
complexion would have had her dance once in a quadrille of her forming but
yielded to the mute expression of the refusal Wherever Mrs Warwick went her
arts of charming were addressed to the women Men may be counted on for falling
bowled over by a handsome face and pointed tongue women require some wooing
from their ensphered and charioted sister particularly if she is clouded and
old women excellent buttresses must be suavely courted Now to woo the
swimming matron and court the settled dowager she had to win forgiveness for
her beauty and this was done easily done by forbearing to angle with it in
the press of nibblers They ranged about her individually unnoticed Seeming
unaware of its effect where it kindled she smote a number of musical female
chords compassion among them A general grave affability of her eyes and smiles
was taken for quiet pleasure in the scene Her fitful intentness of look when
conversing with the older ladies told of the mind within at work upon what they
said and she was careful that plain dialogue should make her comprehensible to
them Nature taught her these arts through which her wit became extolled
entirely on the strength of her reputation and her beauty did her service by
never taking aim abroad They are the womans arts of selfdefence as
legitimately and honourably hers as the manful use of the fists with a coarser
sex If it had not been nature that taught her the practice of them in
extremity the sagacious dowagers would have seen brazenness rather than
innocence or an excuseable indiscretion in the part she was performing They
are not lightly duped by one of their sex Few tasks are more difficult than for
a young woman under a cloud to hoodwink old women of the world They are the
prey of financiers but Time has presented them a magic ancient glass to scan
their sex in
At Princess Parylis Ball two young men of singular elegance were observed
by Diana little though she concentered her attention on any figures of the
groups She had the womans faculty transiently bestowed by perfervid jealousy
upon men of distinguishing minutely in the calmest of indifferent glances She
could see without looking and when her eyes were wide they had not to dwell to
be detective It did not escape her that the Englishman of the two hurried for
the chance of an introduction nor that he suddenly after putting a question to
a man beside him retired She spoke of them to Emma as they drove home »The
princesss partner in the first quadrille Hungarian I suppose He was like
a Tartar modelled by a Greek supple as the Scythians bow braced as the
string He has the air of a born horseman and valses perfectly I wont say he
was handsomer than a young Englishman there but he had the advantage of
soldierly training How different is that quick springy figure from our young
mens lounging style It comes of military exercise and discipline«
»That was Count Jochany a cousin of the princess and a cavalry officer«
said Emma »You dont know the other I am sure the one you mean must be Percy
Dacier«
His retiring was explained the Hon Percy Dacier was the nephew of Lord
Dannisburgh often extolled to her as the promising youngster of his day with
the reserve that he wasted his youth for the young gentleman was decorous and
studious ambitious according to report a politician taking to politics much
too seriously and exclusively to suit his uncles pattern for the early period
of life Uncle and nephew went their separate ways rarely meeting though their
exchange of esteem was cordial
Thinking over his abrupt retirement from the crowded semicircle Diana felt
her position pinch her she knew not why
Lady Dunstane was as indefatigable by day as by night in the business of
acting goddess to her beloved Tony whom she assured that the service instead
of exhausting gave her such healthfulness as she had imagined herself to have
lost for ever The word was passed and invitations poured in to choice
conversational breakfasts private afternoon concerts all the humming seasons
assemblies Mr Warwicks treatment of his wife was taken by implication for
lunatic wherever she was heard or seen he had no case a jury of some hundreds
of both sexes ready to be sworn pronounced against him Only the personal
enemies of the lord in the suit presumed to doubt and they exercised the
discretion of a minority
But there is an upper middle class below the aristocratic boasting an
aristocracy of morals and eminently persuasive of public opinion if not
commanding it Previous to the relaxation by amendment of a certain legal
process this class was held to represent the austerity of the country At
present a relaxed austerity is represented and still the bulk of the members
are of fair repute though not quite on the level of their pretensions They
were then while more sharply divided from the titular superiors they are
socially absorbing very powerful to brand a womans character whatever her
rank might be having innumerable agencies and avenues for that high purpose to
say nothing of the printingpress Lady Dunstanes anxiety to draw them over to
the cause of her friend set her thinking of the influential Mrs Cramborne
Wathin with whom she was distantly connected the wife of a potent
serjeantatlaw fast mounting to the Bench and knighthood the centre of a
circle and not strangely that despite her deficiency in the arts and graces
for she had wealth and a cook a husband proud of his winecellar and the
ambition to rule all the rewards together with the expectations of the
virtuous She was a lady of incisive features bound in stale parchment
Complexion she had none but she had spotlessness of skin and sons and
daughters just resembling her like cheaper editions of a precious quarto of a
perished type You discerned the imitation of the type you acknowledged the
inferior compositor Mr Cramborne Wathin was by birth of a grade beneath his
wife he sprang behind a curtain of horror from tradesmen The Bench was in
designation for him to wash out the stain but his children suffered in large
hands and feet short legs excess of bone prominences misplaced Their mother
inspired them carefully with the religion she opposed to the pretensions of a
nobler blood while instilling into them that the blood they drew from her was
territorial far above the vulgar Her appearance and her principles fitted her
to stand for the Puritan rich of the period emerging by the aid of an extending
wealth into luxurious worldliness and retaining the maxims of their forefathers
for the discipline of the poor and erring
Lady Dunstane called on her ostensibly to let her know she had taken a
house in town for the season and in the course of the chat Mrs Cramborne
Wathin was invited to dinner »You will meet my dear friend Mrs Warwick« she
said and the reply was »Oh I have heard of her«
The formal consultation with Mr Cramborne Wathin ended in an agreement to
accept Lady Dunstanes kind invitation
Considering her husbands plenitude of old legal anecdotes and her own
diligent perusal of the funny publications of the day that she might be on the
level of the wits and celebrities she entertained Mrs Cramborne Wathin had a
right to expect the leading share in the conversation to which she was
accustomed Every honour was paid to them they met aristocracy in the persons
of Lord Larrian of Lady Rockden Colonel Purlby the Pettigrews but neither of
them held the table for a moment the topics flew and were no sooner up than
down they were unable to get a shot They had to eat in silence occasionally
grinning because a woman labouring under a stigma would rattlerattle as if
the laughter of the company were her due and decency beneath her notice Some
one alluded to a dog of Mrs Warwicks whereupon she trips out a story of her
dogs amazing intelligence
»And pray« said Mrs Cramborne Wathin across the table merely to slip in a
word »what is the name of this wonderful dog«
»His name is Leander« said Diana
»Oh Leander I dont think I hear myself calling to a dog in a name of
three syllables Two at the most«
»No so I call Hero if I want him to come immediately« said Diana and the
gentlemen to Mrs Cramborne Wathins astonishment acclaimed it Mr Redworth
at her elbow explained the point to her disgust
That was Dianas offence
If it should seem a small one let it be remembered that a snub was
intended and was foiled and foiled with an apparent simplicity enough to
exasperate had there been no laughter of men to back the countering stroke A
woman under a cloud she talked pushed to shine she would be heard would be
applauded Her chronicler must likewise admit the error of her giving way to a
petty sentiment of antagonism on first beholding Mrs Cramborne Wathin before
whom she at once resolved to be herself for a holiday instead of acting
demurely to conciliate Probably it was an antagonism of race the shrinking of
the skin from the burr But when Tremendous Powers are invoked we should treat
any simple revulsion of our blood as a vice The Gods of this worlds contests
demand it of us in relation to them that the mind and not the instincts
shall be at work Otherwise the course of a prudent policy is never to invoke
them but avoid
The upper class was gained by her intrepidity her charm and her elsewhere
offending wit however the case might go It is chivalrous but not alas
inflammable in support of innocence The class below it is governed in estimates
of character by accepted patterns of conduct yet where innocence under
persecution is believed to exist the members animated by that belief can be
enthusiastic Enthusiasm is a heavensent steeplechaser and takes a flying leap
of the ordinary barriers it is more intrusive than chivalry and has a passion
to communicate its ardour Two letters from stranger ladies reached Diana
through her lawyers and Lady Dunstane Anonymous letters not so welcome being
male effusions arrived at her lodgings one of them comical almost over the
verge to pathos in its termination »To me you will ever be the Goddess Diana
my faith in woman«
He was unacquainted with her
She had not the heart to think the writers donkeys How they obtained her
address was a puzzle they stole in to comfort her slightly They attached her
to her position of Defendant by the thought of what would have been the idea of
her character if she had flown a reflection emanating from inexperience of the
resources of sentimentalists
If she had flown She was borne along by the tide like a butterfly that a
fish may gobble unless a friendly hand shall intervene And could it in nature
She was past expectation of release The attempt to imagine living with any
warmth of blood in her vindicated character for the sake of zealous friends
consigned her to a cold and empty house upon a foreign earth She had to set her
mind upon the mysterious enshrouded Twelve with whom the verdict would soon be
hanging that she might prompt her human combativeness to desire the vindication
at such a price as she would have to pay for it When Emma Dunstane spoke to her
of the certainty of triumphing she suggested a possible dissentient among the
fateful Twelve merely to escape the drumming sound of that hollow big word The
irreverent imp of her humour came to her relief by calling forth the Twelve in
the tone of the clerk of the Court and they answered to their names of trades
and crafts after the manner of Titanias elves and were questioned as to their
fitness by education habits enlightenment to pronounce decisively upon the
case in dispute the case being plainly stated They replied that the long
habit of dealing with scales enabled them to weigh the value of evidence the
most delicate Moreover they were Englishmen and anything short of downright
bullet facts went to favour the woman For thus we right the balance of legal
injustice toward the sex we conveniently wink maam A rough oldfashioned
way for us Is it a Breach of Promise She may reckon on her damages we have
daughters of our own Is it a suit for Divorce Well we have wives of our
own and we can lash or we can spare thats as it may be but we ll keep the
couple tied let em hate as they like if they cant furnish porkbutchers
reasons for sundering because the man makes the money in this country My
goodness what a funny people sir Its our way of holding the balance
maam But would it not be better to rectify the law and the social system
dear sir Why maam we find it comfortabler to take cases as they come in
the style of our fathers But dont you see my good man that you are
offering scapegoats for the comfort of the majority Well maam there always
were scapegoats and always will be we find it comes round pretty square in the
end
»And I may be the scapegoat Emmy It is perfectly possible The grocer the
porkbutcher drysalter stationer teamerchant et caetera they sit on me I
have studied the faces of the juries and Mr Braddock tells me of their
composition And he admits that they do justice roughly a rough and tumble
country to quote him though he says they are honest in intention«
»More shame to the man who drags you before them if he persists« Emma
rejoined
»He will I know him I would not have him draw back now« said Diana
catching her breath »And dearest do not abuse him for if you do you set me
imagining guiltiness Oh heaven suppose me publicly pardoned No I have
kinder feelings when we stand opposed It is odd and rather frets my
conscience to think of the little resentment I feel Hardly any He has not
cause to like his wife I can own it and I am sorry for him heartily No two
have ever come together so naturally antagonistic as we two We walked a dozen
steps in stupefied union and hit upon crossways From that moment it was tug
and tug he me I him By resisting I made him a tyrant and he by insisting
made me a rebel And he was the maddest of tyrants a weak one My dear he was
also a doubledealer Or no perhaps not in design He was moved at one time by
his interests at another by his idea of his honour He took what I could get
for him and then turned and drubbed me for getting it«
»This is the creature you try to excuse« exclaimed indignant Emma
»Yes because but fancy all the smart things I said being called my
sallies can a woman live with it because I behaved I despised him too
much and I showed it He is not a contemptible man before the world he is
merely a very narrow one under close inspection I could not or did not
conceal my feeling I showed it not only to him to my friend Husband grew to
mean to me stifler lungcontractor iron mask inquisitor everything
antinatural He suffered under my sallies and it was the worse for him when he
did not perceive their drift He is an upright man I have not seen marked
meanness One might build up a respectable figure in negatives I could add a
row of noughts to the single number he cherishes enough to make a millionnaire
of him but strike away the first the rest are wind Which signifies that if
you do not take his estimate of himself you will think little of his negative
virtues He is not eminently that is to say not saliently selfish not
rancorous not obtrusive tatatata But dull dull as a woollen nightcap
over eyes and ears and mouth Oh an executioners black cap to me Dull and
suddenly staring awake to the idea of his honour I rendered him ridiculous I
had caught a trick of using mens phrases Dearest now that the day of trial
draws nigh you have never questioned me and it was like you to spare me pain
but now I can speak of him and myself« Diana dropped her voice Here was
another confession The proximity of the trial acted like fire on her faded
recollection of incidents It may be that partly the shame of alluding to them
had blocked her womans memory For one curious operation of the charge of
guiltiness upon the nearly guiltless is to make them paint themselves pure
white to the obliteration of minor spots until the whiteness being
acknowledged or the ordeal imminent the spots recur and press upon their
consciences She resumed in a rapid undertone »You know that a certain degree
of independence had been if not granted by him conquered by me I had the
habit of it Obedience with him is imprisonment he is a blind wall He
received a commission greatly to his advantage and was absent He seems to
have received information of some sort He returned unexpectedly at a late
hour and attacked me at once middling violent My friend and that he is
was coming from the House for a ten minutes talk as usual on his way home to
refresh him after the long sitting and bearbaiting he had nightly to endure
Now let me confess I grew frightened Mr Warwick was off his head as they say
crazy and I could not bear the thought of those two meeting While he raged I
threw open the window and put the lamp near it to expose the whole interior
cunning as a veteran intriguer horrible but it had to be done to keep them
apart He asked me what madness possessed me to sit by an open window at
midnight in view of the public with a damp wind blowing I complained of want
of air and fanned my forehead I heard the steps on the pavement I stung him to
retort loudly and I was relieved the steps passed on So the trick succeeded
the trick It was the worst I was guilty of but it was a trick and it branded
me trickster It teaches me to see myself with an abyss in my nature full of
infernal possibilities I think I am hewn in black rock A woman who can do as I
did by instinct needs to have an angel always near her if she has not a
husband she reveres«
»We are none of us better than you dear Tony only some are more fortunate
and many are cowards« Emma said »You acted prudently in a wretched situation
partly of your own making partly of the circumstances But a nature like yours
could not sit still and moan That marriage was to blame The English notion of
women seems to be that we are born white sheep or black circumstances have
nothing to do with our colour They dread to grant distinctions and to judge of
us discerningly is beyond them Whether the fiction that their homes are purer
than elsewhere helps to establish the fact I do not know there is a class
that does live honestly and at any rate it springs from a liking for purity
but I am sure that their method of impressing it on women has the dangers of
things artificial They narrow their understanding of human nature and that is
not the way to improve the breed«
»I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator
human natures fringes mere finishing touches not a part of the texture« said
Diana »the pretty ornamentation However I fancy I perceive some tolerance
growing in the minds of the dominant sex Our old lawyer Mr Braddock who
appears to have no distaste for conversations with me assures me he expects the
day to come when women will be encouraged to work at crafts and professions for
their independence That is the secret of the opinion of us at present our
dependency Give us the means of independence and we will gain it and have a
turn at judging you my lords You shall behold a world reversed Whenever I am
distracted by existing circumstances I lay my finger on the material
conditions and I touch the secret Individually it may be moral with us
collectively it is material gross wrongs gross hungers I am a married
rebel and thereof comes the social rebel I was once a dancing and singing
girl You remember the night of the Dublin Ball A Channel sea in uproar
stirred by witches flows between«
»You are as lovely as you were then I could say lovelier« said Emma
»I have unconquerable health and I wish I could give you the half of it
dear I work late into the night and I wake early and fresh in the morning I
do not sing that is all A few days more and my character will be up before
the Bulls Head to face him in the arena The worst of a position like mine is
that it causes me incessantly to think and talk of myself I believe I think
less than I talk but the subject is growing stale as those who are long dying
feel I dare say if they do not take it as the compensation for their
departure«
The Bulls Head or British Jury of Twelve with the wig on it was faced
during the latter half of a week of good news First Mr Thomas Redworth was
returned to Parliament by a stout majority for the Borough of Orrybridge the
Hon Percy Dacier delivered a brilliant speech in the House of Commons
necessarily pleasing to his uncle Lord Larrian obtained the command of the
Rock the house of The Crossways was let to a tenant approved by Mr Braddock
Diana received the opening proofsheets of her little volume and an instalment
of the modest honorarium and finally the Plaintiff in the suit involving her
name was adjudged to have not proved his charge
She heard of it without a change of countenance
She could not have wished it the reverse she was exonerated But she was
not free far from that and she revenged herself on the friends who made much
of her triumph and overlooked her plight by showing no sign of satisfaction
There was in her bosom a revolt at the legal consequences of the verdict or
blunt acquiescence of the Law in the conditions possibly to be imposed on her
unless she went straight to the relieving phial and the burden of keeping it
under set her wildest humour alight somewhat as Redworth remembered of her on
the journey from The Crossways to Copsley This ironic fury coming of the
contrast of the outer and the inner would have been indulged to the extent of
permanent injury to her disposition had not her beloved Emma immediately after
the tension of the struggle ceased required her tenderest aid Lady Dunstane
chanted victory and at night collapsed By the advice of her physician she was
removed to Copsley where Dianas labour of anxious nursing restored her through
love to a saner spirit The hopefulness of life must bloom again in the heart
whose prayers are offered for a life dearer than its own to be preserved A
little return of confidence in Sir Lukin also refreshed her when she saw that
the poor creature did honestly in his shaggy rough male fashion reverence and
cling to the flower of souls he named as his wife His piteous groans of
selfaccusation during the crisis haunted her and made the conduct and nature
of men a bewilderment to her still young understanding Save for the knot of her
sensations hardly a mental memory but a sullen knot which she did not
disentangle to charge him with his complicity in the blind rashness of her
marriage she might have felt sisterly as warmly as she compassionated him
It was midwinter when Dame Gossip who keeps the exotic world alive with her
fanning whispers related that the lovely Mrs Warwick had left England on board
the schooneryacht Clarissa with Lord and Lady Esquart for a voyage in the
Mediterranean and behind her hand that the reason was urgent inasmuch as she
fled to escape the meshes of the terrific net of the marital law brutally
whirled to capture her by the man her husband
Chapter XV
Introduces the Hon Percy Dacier
The Gods of this worlds contests against whom our poor stripped individual is
commonly in revolt are as we know not miners they are reapers and if we
appear no longer on the surface they cease to bruise us they will allow an
arena character to be cleansed and made presentable while enthusiastic friends
preserve discretion It is of course less than magnanimity they are not
proposed to you for your worship they are little Gods temporary as that great
wave their parent human mass of the hour But they have one worshipful element
in them which is the divine insistancy upon there being two sides to a case
to every case And the People so far directed by them may boast of
healthfulness Let the individual shriek the innocent triumphant have in
honesty to admit the fact One side is vanquished according to decree of Law
but the superior Council does not allow it to be extinguished
Dianas battle was fought shadowily behind her for the space of a week or
so with some advocates on behalf of the beaten man then it became a
recollection of a beautiful woman possibly erring misvalued by a husband who
was neither a man of the world nor a gracious yokefellow nor anything to match
her She however once out of the public flames had to recall her scorchings
to be gentle with herself Under a defeat she would have been angrily
selfvindicated The victory of the ashen laurels drove her mind inward to gird
at the hateful yoke in compassion for its pair of victims Quite earnestly by
such means yet always bearing a comical eye on her subterfuges she escaped the
extremes of personal blame Those advocates of her opponent in and out of court
compelled her honest heart to search within and own to faults But were they not
natural faults It was her marriage it was marriage in the abstract her own
mistake and the worlds clumsy machinery of civilization these were the capital
offenders not the wife who would laugh ringingly and would have friends of the
other sex and shot her epigrams at the helpless despot and was at times yes
vixenish a nature driven to it but that was the word She was too generous to
recount her charges against the vanquished If his wretched jealousy had ruined
her the secret high tribunal within her bosom which judged her guiltless for
putting the sword between their marriage tie when they stood as one because a
quarrelling couple could not in honour play the embracing pronounced him just
pardonable She distinguished that he could only suppose manlikely one bad
cause for the division
To this extent she used her unerring brains more openly than on her night
of debate at The Crossways The next moment she was off in vapour meditating
grandly on her independence of her sex and the passions Love she did not know
it she was not acquainted with either the criminal or the domestic God and
persuaded herself that she never could be She was a Diana of coldness
preferring friendship she could be the friend of men There was another who
could be the friend of women Her heart leapt to Redworth Conjuring up his
clear trusty face at their grasp of hands when parting she thought of her
visions of her future about the period of the Dublin Ball and acknowledged
despite the erratic step to wedlock a gain in having met and proved so true a
friend His face figure character lightest look lightest word all were
loyal signs of a man of honour cold as she he was the man to whom she could
have opened her heart for inspection Rejoicing in her independence of an
emotional sex the impulsive woman burned with a regret that at their parting
she had not broken down conventional barriers and given her cheek to his lips in
the antiinsular fashion with a brotherly friend And why not when both were
cold Spirit to spirit she did delightfully refreshed by her capacity to do so
without a throb He had held her hand and looked into her eyes half a minute
like a dear comrade as little arousing her instincts of defensiveness as the
clearing heavens and sisterly love for it was his due a sisters kiss He
needed a sister and should have one in her Emmas recollected talk of Tom
Redworth painted him from head to foot brought the living man over the waters
to the deck of the yacht A stout champion in the person of Tom Redworth was
left on British land but for some reason past analysis intermixed that is
among a swarm of sensations Diana named her champion to herself with the formal
prefix perhaps because she knew a mans Christian name to be dangerous
handling They differed besides frequently in opinion when the habit of
thinking of him as Mr Redworth would be best Women are bound to such small
observances and especially the beautiful of the sisterhood whom the world soon
warns that they carry explosives and must particularly guard against the
ignition of petty sparks She was less indiscreet in her thoughts than in her
acts as is the way with the reflective daughter of impulse though she had fine
mental distinctions what she could offer to do spirit to spirit for instance
held nothing to her mind of the intimacy of calling the gentleman plain Tom in
mere contemplation of him Her friend and champion was a volunteer far from a
mercenary and he deserved the reward if she could bestow it unalarmed They
were to meet in Egypt Meanwhile England loomed the home of hostile forces ready
to shock had she been a visible planet and ready to secrete a virus of her
past history had she been making new
She was happily away borne by a whiter than swans wing on the sapphire
Mediterranean Her letters to Emma were peeps of splendour for the invalid her
way of life on board the yacht and sketches of her host and hostess as lovers
in wedlock on the other side of our perilous forties sketches of the bays the
towns the people priests dames cavaliers urchins infants shifting groups
of supple southerners flashed across the page like a web of silk and were
dashed off redolent of herself as lightly as the silvery spray of the blue
waves she furrowed telling without allusions to the land behind her that she
had dipped in the wells of blissful oblivion Emma Dunstane as is usual with
those who receive exhilarating correspondence from makers of books condemned
the authoress in comparison and now first saw that she had the gift of writing
Only one cry »Italy Eden of exiles« betrayed the seeming of a moan She wrote
of her poet and others immediately Thither had they fled with adieu to
England
How many have waved the adieu And it is England nourishing England
protecting them England clothing them in the honours they wear Only the
posturing lower natures on the level of their buskins can pluck out the
pocketknife of sentimental spite to cut themselves loose from her at heart in
earnest The higher bleed as they may too pressingly feel their debt Diana
had the Celtic vivid sense of country In England she was Irish by hereditary
and by wilful opposition Abroad gazing along the waters observing comparing
reflecting above all reading of the struggles at home the things done and
attempted her soul of generosity made her though not less Irish a daughter of
Britain It is at a distance that striving countries should be seen if we would
have them in the pure idea and this young woman of fervid mind a reader of
public speeches and speculator on the tides of politics desirous further to
feel herself rather more in the pure idea began to yearn for England long
before her term of holiday exile had ended She had been flattered by her
friend her wedded martyr at the stake as she named him to believe that she
could exercise a judgement in politics could think even speak acutely on
public affairs The reports of speeches delivered by the men she knew or knew
of set her thrilling and she fancied the sensibility to be as independent of
her sympathy with the orators as her political notions were sovereignly above a
sex devoted to trifles and the feelings of a woman who had gone through fire
She fancied it confidently notwithstanding a peculiar intuition that the plunge
into the nobler business of the world would be a haven of safety for a woman
with blood and imagination when writing to Emma »Mr Redworths great success
in Parliament is good in itself whatever his views of present questions and I
do not heed them when I look to what may be done by a man of such power in
striking at unjust laws which keep the really numerically betterhalf of the
population in a state of slavery If he had been a lawyer It must be a lawyers
initiative a lawyers Bill Mr Percy Dacier also spoke well as might have
been expected and his uncles compliment to him was merited Should you meet
him sound him He has read for the Bar and is younger than Mr Redworth The
very young men and the old are our hope The middleaged are hard and fast for
existing facts We pick our leaders on the slopes the incline and decline of
the mountain not on the upper tableland midway where all appears to men so
solid so tolerably smooth save for a few excrescences roughnesses gradually
to be levelled at their leisure which induces one to protest that the
middleage of men is their time of delusion It is no paradox They may be
publicly useful in a small way I do not deny it at all They must be near the
gates of life the opening or the closing for their minds to be accessible to
the urgency of the greater questions Otherwise the world presents itself to
them under too settled an aspect unless of course Vesuvian Revolution shakes
the land And that touches only their nerves I dream of some old Judge There
is one if having caught we could keep him But I dread so tricksy a pilot You
have guessed him the ancient Puck We have laughed all day over the paper
telling us of his worrying the Lords Lady Esquart congratulates her husband in
being out of it Puck bien ridé and bewigged might perhaps except that at the
critical moment he would be sure to plead allegiance to Oberon However the
work will be performed by some one I am prophetic when maidens are
grandmothers when your Tony is wearing a perpetual laugh in the unhusbanded
regions where there is no institution of the weddingtie«
For the reason that she was not to participate in the result of the old
Judges or young heros happy championship of the cause of her sex she
conceived her separateness high aloof and actually supposed she was a
contemplative simply speculative political spirit impersonal albeit a woman
This as Emma smiling at the lines had not to learn was always her secret
pride of fancy the belief in her possession of a disengaged intellect
The strange illusion so clearly exposed to her correspondent was
maintained through a series of letters very slightly descriptive dated from the
Piræus the Bosphorus the coasts of the Crimea all more or less relating to
the latest news of the journals received on board the yacht and of English
visitors fresh from the country she now seemed fond of calling home Politics
and gentle allusions to the curious exhibition of love in marriage shown by her
amiable host and hostess »these dear Esquarts who are never tired of one
another but courtly courting tempting me to think it possible that a fortunate
selection and a mutual deference may subscribe to human happiness« filled the
paragraphs Reviews of her first literary venture were mentioned once »I was
well advised by Mr Redworth in putting ANTONIA for authoress She is a buff
jerkin to the stripes and I suspect that the signature of D A M written in
full would have cawed woefully to hear that her style is affected her
characters nullities her cleverness forced etc etc As it is I have much
the same contempt for poor Antonias performance Cease penning little fool
She writes with some comprehension of the passion of love I know her to be a
stranger to the earliest cry So you see dear that utter ignorance is the
mother of the Art Dialogues occasionally pointed She has a sister who may do
better But why was I not apprenticed to a serviceable profession or a trade
I perceive now that a hangeron of the market had no right to expect a happier
fate than mine has been«
On the Nile in the winter of the year Diana met the Hon Percy Dacier He
was introduced to her at Cairo by Redworth The two gentlemen had struck up a
House of Commons acquaintanceship and finding themselves bound for the same
destination had grown friendly Redworths arrival had been pleasantly
expected She remarked on Daciers presence to Emma without sketch or note of
him as other than much esteemed by Lord and Lady Esquart These with Diana
Redworth Dacier the German Eastern traveller Schweizerbarth and the French
Consul and Egyptologist Duriette composed a voyaging party up the river of
which expedition Redworth was Lady Dunstanes chief writer of the records His
novel perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing and his
tenderness to the Beautys coquettry between the two foreign rivals moved a
deeper feeling The German had a guitar the Frenchman a voice Diana joined
them in harmony They complained apart severally of the accompaniment and the
singer Our English criticized them apart and that is at any rate to occupy a
post though it contributes nothing to entertainment At home the Esquarts had
sung duets Diana had assisted Redworths manly chestnotes at the piano Each
of them declined to be vocal Diana sang alone for the credit of the country
Italian and French songs Irish also She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and
Garryowen all the way »Madame est Irlandaise« Redworth heard the Frenchman
say and he owned to what was implied in the answering tone of the question »We
should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven« So Tony in exile still managed to
do something for her darling Erin The solitary woman on her heights at Copsley
raised an exclamation of »Oh that those two had been or could be united« She
was conscious of a mystic symbolism in the prayer
She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of another Writing
from Venice Diana mentioned Mr Percy Dacier as being engaged to an heiress »A
Miss Asper niece of a mighty shipowner Mr Quintin Manx Lady Esquart tells
me money fabulous and necessary to a younger son devoured with ambition The
elder brother Lord Creedmore is a common Nimrod always absent in Hungary
Russia America hunting somewhere Mr Dacier will be in the Cabinet with the
next Ministry« No more of him A new work by ANTONIA was progressing
The Summer in South Tyrol passed like a royal procession before young eyes
for Diana and at the close of it descending the Stelvio idling through the
Valtelline Como Lake was reached Diana full of her work living the double
life of the author At Bellagio one afternoon Mr Percy Dacier appeared She
remembered subsequently a disappointment she felt in not beholding Mr Redworth
either with him or displacing him If engaged to a lady he was not an ardent
suitor nor was he a pointedly complimentary acquaintance His enthusiasm was
reserved for Italian scenery She had already formed a sort of estimate of his
character as an indifferent observer may do and any woman previous to the
inflaming of her imagination if that is in store for her and she now fell to
work resetting the puzzle it became as soon her positive conclusions had to be
shaped again »But women never can know young men« she wrote to Emma after
praising his good repute as one of the brotherhood »He drops pretty sentences
now and then no compliments milky nuts Of course he has a head or he would
not be where he is and that seems always to me the most enviable place a young
man can occupy« She observed in him a singular conflicting of a buoyant animal
nature with a curb of studiousness as if the fardels of age were piling on his
shoulders before youth had quitted its pastures His build of limbs and his
features were those of the finelybred English he had the English taste for
sports games manly diversions and in the bloom of life under thirty his
head was given to bend The head bending on a tall upright figure where there
was breadth of chest told of weights working She recollected his open look
larger than inquiring at the introduction to her and it recurred when she
uttered anything specially taking What it meant was past a guess though
comparing it with the frank directness of Redworths eyes she saw the
difference between a look that accepted her and one that dilated on two
opinions
Her thought of the gentleman was of a brilliant young charioteer in the ruck
of the race watchful for his chance to push to the front and she could have
said that a dubious consort might spoil a promising career It flattered her to
think that she sometimes prompted him sometimes illumined He repeated
sentences she had spoken »I shall be better able to describe Mr Dacier when
you and I sit together my Emmy and a stroke here and there completes the
painting Set descriptions are good for puppets Living men and women are too
various in the mixture fashioning them even the external presentment to be
livingly rendered in a formal sketch I may tell you his eyes are pale blue his
features regular his hair silky brownish his legs long his head rather
stooping only the head his mouth commonly closed these are the facts and
you have seen much the same in a nursery doll Such literary craft is of the
nursery So with landscapes The art of the pen we write on darkness is to
rouse the inward vision instead of labouring with a Dropscene brush as if it
were to the eye because our flying minds cannot contain a protracted
description That is why the poets who spring imagination with a word or a
phrase paint lasting pictures The Shakespearian the Dantesque are in a line
two at most He lends an attentive ear when I speak agrees or has a quaint
pucker of the eyebrows dissenting inwardly He lacks mental liveliness
cheerfulness I should say and is thankful to have it imparted One suspects he
would be a dull domestic companion He has a veritable thirst for hopeful views
of the world and no spiritual distillery of his own He leans to depression
Why The broken reed you call your Tony carries a cargo all of her manufacture
she reeks of secret stills and here is a young man a sapling oak inclined
to droop His nature has an air of imploring me que je larrose I begin to
perform Mrs Dr Pangloss on purpose to brighten him the mind the views He
is not altogether deficient in conversational gaiety and he shines in exercise
But the world is a poor old ball bounding down a hill to an Irish melody in
the evening generally by request So far of Mr Percy Dacier of whom I have
some hopes distant perhaps delusive that he may be of use to our cause He
listens It is an auspicious commencement«
Lugano is the Italian lake most lovingly encircled by mountain arms and
every height about it may be scaled with ease The heights have their nest of
waters below for a home scene the southern Swiss peaks with celestial Monta
Rosa in prospect It was there that Diana reawakened after the trance of a
deadly draught to the glory of the earth and her share in it She wakened like
the Princess of the Kiss happily not to kisses to no sign touch or call that
she could trace backward The change befell her without a warning After writing
deliberately to her friend Emma she laid down her pen and thought of nothing
and into this dreamfulness a wine passed filling her veins suffusing her mind
quickening her soul and coming whence out of air out of the yonder of air
She could have imagined a seraphic presence in the room that bade her arise and
live take the cup of the wells of youth arrested at her lips by her marriage
quit her wintry bondage for warmth light space the quick of simple being And
the strange pure ecstasy was not a transient electrification it came in waves
on a continuous tide looking was living walking flying She hardly knew that
she slept The heights she had seen rosy at eve were marked for her ascent in
the dawn Sleep was one wink and fresh as the dewy field and rockflowers on
her way upward she sprang to more and more of heaven insatiable happily
chirruping over her possessions The threading of the town among the dear common
people before others were abroad was a pleasure and pleasant her solitariness
threading the gardens at the base of the rock only she astir and the first
rough steps of the winding footpath the first closed buds the sharper air the
uprising of the mountain with her ascent and pleasant too was her hunger and
the nibble at a little loaf of bread A linnet sang in her breast an eagle
lifted her feet The feet were verily winged as they are in a season of youth
when the blood leaps to light from the pressure of the under forces like a
source at the wellheads and the whole creature blooms vital in every energy as
a spirit To be a girl again was magical She could fancy her having risen from
the dead And to be a girl with a womans broader vision and receptiveness of
soul with knowledge of evil and winging to ethereal happiness this was a
revelation of our human powers
She attributed the change to the influences of natures beauty and grandeur
Nor had her womans consciousness to play the chrysalis in any shy recesses of
her heart she was nowhere veiled or torpid she was illumined like the
Salvatore she saw in the evening beams and mounted in the mornings and she had
not a spot of secresy all her nature flew and bloomed she was bird flower
flowing river a quivering sensibility unweighted unshrouded Desires and hopes
would surely have weighted and shrouded her She had none save for the upper
air the eyes of the mountain
Which was the dream her past life or this ethereal existence But this ran
spontaneously and the other had often been stimulated her vivaciousness on
the Nileboat for a recent example She had not a doubt that her past life was
the dream or deception and for the reason that now she was compassionate
large of heart toward all beneath her Let them but leave her free they were
forgiven even to prayers for their wellbeing The plural number in the case was
an involuntary multiplying of the single coming of her incapacity during this
elevation and rapture of the senses to think distinctly of that One who had
discoloured her opening life Freedom to breathe gaze climb grow with the
grasses fly with the clouds to muse to sing to be an unclaimed self
dispersed upon earth air sky to find a keener transfigured self in that
radiation she craved no more
Bear in mind her beauty her charm of tongue her present state of white
simplicity in fervour was there ever so perilous a woman for the most guarded
and clearesteyed of young men to meet at early morn upon a mountain side
Chapter XVI
Treats of a Midnight Bell and of a Scene of Early Morning
On a round of the mountains rising from Osteno Southeastward of Lugano the
Esquart party rose from the natural grotto and headed their carriages up and
down the defiles halting for a night at Rovio a little village below the
Generoso lively with waterfalls and watercourses and they fell so in love with
the place that after roaming along the flowery borderways by moonlight they
resolved to rest there two or three days and try some easy ascents In the
diurnal course of nature being pleasantly tired they had the avowed intention
of sleeping there so they went early to their beds and carelessly wished one
another goodnight none of them supposing slumber to be anywhere one of the
warlike arts a paradoxical thing you must battle for and can only win at last
when utterly beaten Hard by their inn close enough for a priestly homily to
have been audible stood a church campanile wherein hung a Bell not ostensibly
communicating with the demons of the pit in daylight rather a merry comrade
But at night when the children of nerves lay stretched he threw off the mask
As soon as they had fairly nestled he smote their pillows a shattering blow
loud for the retold preluding quarters incredibly clanging the number ten Then
he waited for neighbouring campanili to box the ears of slumbers votaries in
turn whereupon under pretence of excessive conscientiousness or else
oblivious of his antecedent damnable misconduct or perhaps in actual league and
trapdoor conspiracy with the surging goblin hosts beneath us he resumed his
blaring strokes a sonorous recapitulation of the number all the others
likewise It was an alarum fit to warn of Attila or Alaric and not simply the
maniacal noise invaded the fruitful provinces of sleep like Hun and Vandal the
irrational repetition ploughed the minds of those unhappy somnivolents leaving
them worse than sheared by barbarians disrupt as by earthquake with the
unanswerable question to Providence Why Why twice
Designing slumberers are such infants When they have undressed and
stretched themselves flat it seems that they have really gone back to their
mothers breasts and they fret at whatsoever does not smack of nature or
custom The cause of a repetition so senseless in its violence and so
unnecessary set them querying and kicking until the inevitable quarters
recommenced Then arose an insurgent rabble in their bosoms it might be the
loosened imps of darkness urging them to speculate whether the proximate
monster about to dole out the eleventh hour in uproar would again forget himself
and repeat his dreary arithmetic a second time for they were unaware of his
religious obligation following the hour of the district to inform them of the
tardy hour of Rome They waited in suspense curiosity enabling them to bear the
first crash callously His performance was the same And now they took him for a
crazy engine whose madness had infected the whole neighbourhood Now was the
moment to fight for sleep in contempt of him and they began by simulating an
entry into the fortress they were to defend plunging on their pillows
battening down their eyelids breathing with a dreadful regularity Alas it
came to their knowledge that the Bell was in possession and they the besiegers
Every resonant quarter was anticipated up to the blow without averting its
murderous abruptness and an executioner Midnight that sounded in addition to
the reiterated quarters four and twenty ringing hammerstrokes with the aching
pause between the twelves left them the prey of the legions of torturers which
are summed though not described in the title of a sleepless night
From that period the curse was milder but the victims raged They swam on
vasty deeps they knocked at rusty gates they shouldered all the weapons of
black Insomnias armoury and became her soldiery doing her will upon
themselves Of her originally sprang the inspired teaching of the doom of men to
excruciation in endlessness She is the fountain of the infinite ocean whereon
the exceedingly sensitive soul is tumbled everlastingly with the diversion of
hot pincers to appease its appetite for change
Dacier was never the best of sleepers He had taken to exercise his brains
prematurely not only in learning but also in reflection and a reflectiveness
that is indulged before we have a rigid mastery of the emotions or have slain
them is apt to make a young man more than commonly a child of nerves nearly as
much so as the dissipated with the difference that they are hilarious while
wasting their treasury which he is not and he may recover under favouring
conditions which is a point of vantage denied to them Physically he had stout
reserves for he had not disgraced the temple His intemperateness lay in the
craving to rise and lead a precocious ambition This apparently modest young
man started with an aim and if in the distance and with but a slingstone like
the slender shepherd fronting the Philistine all his energies were in his aim
at Government He had hung on the fringe of an Administration His party was
out and he hoped for higher station on its return to power Many perplexities
were therefore buzzing about his head among them at present one sufficiently
magnified and voracious to swallow the remainder He added force to the
interrogation as to why that Bell should sound its inhuman strokes twice by
asking himself why he was there to hear it A strange suspicion of a bewitchment
might have enlightened him if he had been a man accustomed to yield to the
peculiar kind of sorcery issuing from that sex He rather despised the power of
women over men and nevertheless he was there listening to that Bell instead
of having obeyed the call of his family duties when the latter were urgent He
had received letters at Lugano summoning him home before he set forth on his
present expedition The noisy alarum told him he floundered in quags like a
silly creature chasing a marshlamp But was it so Was it not on the contrary
a serious pursuit of the secret of a womans character Oh a woman and her
character Ordinary women and their characters might set to work to get what
relationship and likeness they could They had no secret to allure This one
had she had the secret of lake waters under rock unfathomable in limpidness
He could not think of her without shooting at nature and natures very sweetest
and subtlest for comparisons As to her sex his active mans contempt of the
petticoated secret attractive to boys and graylings made him believe that in
her he hunted the mind and the spirit perchance a double mind a twilighted
spirit but not a mere woman She bore no resemblance to the bundle of women
Well she was worth studying she had ideas and could give ear to ideas
Furthermore a couple of the members of his family inclined to do her injustice
At least they judged her harshly owing he thought to an inveterate opinion
they held regarding Lord Dannisburghs obliquity in relation to women He shared
it and did not concur in their verdict upon the woman implicated That is to
say knowing something of her now he could see the possibility of her innocence
in the special charm that her mere sparkle of features and speech and her
freshness would have for a man like his uncle The possibility pleaded strongly
on her behalf while the darker possibility weighted by his uncles reputation
plucked at him from below
She was delightful to hear delightful to see and her friends loved her and
had faith in her So clever a woman might be too clever for her friends
The circle he moved in hummed of women prompting novices as well as
veterans to suspect that the multitude of them and notably the fairest yet
more the cleverest concealed the serpent somewhere
She certainly had not directed any of her arts upon him Besides he was half
engaged And that was a burning perplexity not because of abstract scruples
touching the necessity for love in marriage The young lady great heiress
though she was and willing as she allowed him to assume graceful too reputed
a beauty struck him cold He fancied her transparent only Arctic Her
transparency displayed to him all the common virtues and a serene possession of
the inestimable and eminent one outweighing all but charm wit ardour
intercommunicative quickness and kindling beauty airy grace were qualities
that a man it seemed had to look for in women spotted by a doubt of their
having the chief and priceless
However he was not absolutely plighted Nor did it matter to him whether
this or that woman concealed the tail of the serpent and trail excepting the
singular interest this woman managed to excite and so deeply as set him
wondering how that Resurrection Bell might be affecting her ability to sleep
Was she sleeping or waking His nervous imagination was a torch that
alternately lighted her lying asleep with the innocent like a babe and tossing
beneath the overflow of her dark hair hounded by haggard memories She
fluttered before him in either aspect and another perplexity now was to
distinguish within himself which was the aspect he preferred Great Nature
brought him thus to drink of her beauty under the delusion that the act was a
speculation on her character
The Bell with its clash throb and long swoon of sound reminded him of her
name Diana An attribute or a derision
It really mattered nothing to him save for her being maligned and if most
unfairly then that face of the varying expressions and the rich voice and the
remembered gentle and taking words coming from her appealed to him with a
supplicating vividness that pricked his heart to leap
He was dozing when the Bell burst through the thin division between slumber
and wakefulness recounting what seemed innumerable peals hard on his cranium
Gray daylight blanched the window and the bed his watch said five of the
morning He thought of the pleasure of a bath beneath some dashing sprayshowers
and jumped up to dress feeling a queer sensation of skin in his clothes the
sign of a feverish night and yawning he went into the air Leftward the narrow
village street led to the footway along which he could make for the
mountainwall He cast one look at the head of the campanile silly as an owlish
roysterers glazed stare at the young Aurora and hurried his feet to check the
yawns coming alarmingly fast in the place of ideas
His elevation above the valley was about the kneecap of the Generoso Waters
of past rainclouds poured down the mountainsides like veins of metal here and
there flinging off a shower on the busy descent only dubiously animate in the
lack lustre of the huge bulk piled against a yellow East that wafted fleets of
pinky cloudlets overhead He mounted his path to a level with inviting
grassmounds where water circled running from scoops and cups to curves and
brookstreams and in his fancy calling to him to hear them To dip in them was
his desire To roll and shiver braced by the icy flow was the spell to break
that baleful incantation of the intolerable night so he struck across a ridge
of boulders wreck of a landslip from the height he had hugged to the open
space of shadowed undulations and soon had his feet on turf Heights to right
and to left and between them aloft a sky the rosy wheelcourse of the chariot
of morn and below among the knolls choice of sheltered nooks where waters
whispered of secresy to satisfy Diana herself They have that whisper and waving
of secresy in secret scenery they beckon to the bath and they conjure classic
visions of the pudency of the Goddess irate or unsighted The semimythological
state of mind built of old images and favouring haunts was known to Dacier
The name of Diana playing vaguely on his consciousness helped to it He had no
definite thought of the mortal woman when the highest grassroll near the rock
gave him view of a bowered source and of a pool under a chain of cascades
bounded by polished shelves and slabs The very spot for him he decided at the
first peep and at the second with fingers instinctively loosening his
waistcoatbuttons for a commencement he shouldered round and strolled away
though not at a rapid pace nor far before he halted
That it could be no other than she the figure he had seen standing beside
the pool he was sure Why had he turned Thoughts thick and swift as a blush in
the cheeks of seventeen overcame him and queen of all the thought bringing the
picture of this mountainsolitude to vindicate a woman shamefully assailed
She who found her pleasure in these haunts of nymph and Goddess at the fresh
cold bosom of nature must be clear as day She trusted herself to the
loneliness here and to the honour of men from a like irreflective sincereness
She was unable to imagine danger where her own impelling thirst was pure
The thoughts it will be discerned were but flashes of a momentary vivid
sensibility Where a womans charm has won half the battle her character is an
advancing standard and sings victory let her do no more than take a quiet
morning walk before breakfast
But why had he turned his back on her There was nothing in his presence to
alarm nothing in her appearance to forbid The motive and the movement were
equally quaint incomprehensible to him for after putting himself out of sight
he understood the absurdity of the supposition that she would seek the secluded
sylvan bath for the same purpose as he Yet now he was debarred from going to
meet her She might have an impulse to bathe her feet Her name was Diana
Yes and a married woman and a proclaimed one And notwithstanding those
brassy facts he was ready to side with the evidence declaring her free from
stain and further to swear that her blood was Dianas
Nor had Dacier ever been particularly poetical about women The present
Diana had wakened his curiosity had stirred his interest in her pricked his
admiration but gradually until a sleepless night with its flock of
ravenfancies under that dominant Bell ended by colouring her the moment she
stood in his eyes as freshly as the morning heavens We are much influenced in
youth by sleepless nights they disarm they predispose us to submit to soft
occasion and in our youth occasion is always coming
He heard her voice She had risen up the grassmound and he hung brooding
halfway down She was dressed in some texture of the hue of lavender A violet
scarf loosely knotted over the bosom opened on her throat The loop of her black
hair curved under a hat of gray beaver Memorably radiant was her face
They met exchanged greetings praised the beauty of the morning and struck
together on the Bell She laughed »I heard it at ten I slept till four I
never wake later I was out in the air by halfpast Were you disturbed«
He alluded to his troubles with the Bell
»It sounded like a felons heart in skeleton ribs« he said
»Or a prosers tongue in a hollow skull« said she
He bowed to her conversible readiness and at once fell into the background
as he did only with her to perform accordant bass in their dialogue for when a
woman lightly caps our strained remarks we gallantly surrender the leadership
lest she should too cuttingly assert her claim
Some sweet wild cyclamen flowers were at her breast She held in her left
hand a bunch of buds and blown cups of the pale purple meadowcrocus He admired
them She told him to look round He confessed to not having noticed them in the
grass what was the name Colchicum in Botany she said
»These are plucked to be sent to a friend otherwise Im reluctant to take
the life of flowers for a whim Wild flowers I mean I am not sentimental about
garden flowers they are cultivated for decoration grown for clipping«
»I suppose they dont carry the same signification« said Dacier in the
tone of a pupil to such themes
»They carry no feeling« said she »And that is my excuse for plucking
these where they seem to spring like our towndream of happiness I believe
they are sensible of it too but these must do service to my invalid friend who
cannot travel Are you ever as much interested in the woes of great ladies as of
country damsels I am not not unless they have natural distinction You have
met Lady Dunstane«
The question sounded artless Dacier answered that he thought he had seen
her somewhere once and Diana shut her lips on a rising undersmile
»She is the coeur dor of our time the one soul I would sacrifice these
flowers to«
»A bit of a bluestocking I think I have heard said«
»She might have been admitted to the Hotel Rambouillet without being
anything of a Précieuse She is the woman of the largest heart now beating«
»Mr Redworth talked of her«
»As she deserved I am sure«
»Very warmly«
»He would«
»He told me you were the Damon and Pythias of women«
»Her one fault is an extreme humility that makes her always play second to
me and as I am apt to gabble I take the lead and I am froth in comparison I
can reverence my superiors even when tried by intimacy with them She is the
next heavenly thing to heaven that I know Court her if ever you come across
her Or have you a mans horror of women with brains«
»Am I expressing it« said he
»Do not breathe London or Paris here on me« She fanned the crocuses under
her chin »The early morning always has this I wish I had a word touch
whisper gleam beat of wings I envy poets now more than ever of
Eden I was going to say Prose can paint evening and moonlight but poets are
needed to sing the dawn That is because prose is equal to melancholy stuff
Gladness requires the finer language Otherwise we have it coarse anything but
a reproduction You politicians despise the little distinctions twixt tweedledum
and tweedledee I fancy«
Of the poetic sort Daciers uncle certainly did For himself he confessed
to not having thought much on them
»But how divine is utterance« she said »As we to the brutes poets are to
us«
He listened somewhat with the head of the hanged A beautiful woman choosing
to rhapsodize has her way and is not subjected to the critical commentary
within us He wondered whether she had discoursed in such a fashion to his
uncle
»I can read good poetry« said he
»If you would have this valley or mountaincleft one should call it
described only verse could do it for you« Diana pursued and stopped glanced
at his face and smiled She had spied the end of a towel peeping out of one of
his pockets »You came out for a bath Go back by all means and mount that
rise of grass where you first saw me and down on the other side a little to
the right you will find the very place for a bath at a corner of the rock a
natural fountain a bubbling pool in a ring of brushwood with falling water so
tempting that I could have pardoned a push about five feet deep Lose no time«
He begged to assure her that he would rather stroll with her it had been
only a notion of bathing by chance when he pocketed the towel
»Dear me« she cried »if I had been a man I should have scurried off at a
signal of release quick as a hare I once woke up in a field with my foot on its
back«
Daciers eyebrows knotted a trifle over her eagerness to dismiss him he was
not used to it but rather to be courted by women and to condescend
»I shall not long Im afraid have the pleasure of walking beside you and
hearing you I had letters at Lugano My uncle is unwell I hear«
»Lord Dannisburgh«
The name sprang from her lips unhesitatingly
His nodded affirmative altered her face and her voice
»It is not a grave illness«
»They rather fear it«
»You had the news at Lugano«
He answered the implied reproach »I can be of no service«
»But surely«
»Its even doubtful that he would be bothered to receive me We hold no
views in common excepting one«
»Could I« she exclaimed »O that I might If he is really ill But if it is
actually serious he would perhaps have a wish I can nurse I know I have the
power to cheer him You ought indeed to be in England«
Dacier said he had thought it better to wait for later reports »I shall
drive to Lugano this afternoon and act on the information I get there Probably
it ends my holiday«
»Will you do me the favour to write me word and especially tell me if you
think he would like to have me near him« said Diana »And let him know that if
he wants nursing or cheerful companionship I am at any moment ready to come«
The flattery of a beautiful young woman to wait on him would be very
agreeable to Lord Dannisburgh Dacier conceived Her offer to go was possibly
purely charitable But the prudence of her occupation of the post obscured
whatever appeared admirable in her devotedness Her choice of a man like Lord
Dannisburgh for the friend to whom she could sacrifice her good name less
falteringly than she gathered those fieldflowers was inexplicable and she
herself a darker riddle at each step of his reading
He promised curtly to write »I will do my best to hit a flying address«
»Your Club enables me to hit a permanent one that will establish the
communication« said Diana »We shall not sleep another night at Rovio Lady
Esquart is the lightest of sleepers and if you had a restless time she and her
husband must have been in purgatory Besides permit me to say you should be
with your party The times are troublous not for holidays Your holiday has
had a haunted look creditably to your conscience as a politician These Corn
Law agitations«
»Ah but no politics here« said Dacier
»Politics everywhere in the Courts of Faëry They are not discord to me«
»But not the last day the last hour« he pleaded
»Well only do not forget your assurance to me that you would give some
thoughts to Ireland and the cause of women Has it slipped from your memory«
»If I see the chance of serving you you may trust to me«
She sent up an interjection on the misfortune of her not having been born a
man
It was to him the one smart of sourness in her charm as a woman
Among the boulderstones of the ascent to the path he ventured to propose a
little masculine assistance in a hand stretched mutely Although there was no
great need for help her natural kindliness checked the inclination to refuse
it When their hands disjoined she found herself reddening She cast it on the
exertion Her heart was throbbing It might be the exertion likewise
He walked and talked much more airily along the descending pathway as if he
had suddenly become more intimately acquainted with her
She listened trying to think of the manner in which he might be taught to
serve that cause she had at heart and the colour deepened on her cheeks till it
set fire to her underlying consciousness blood to spirit A tremour of alarm
ran through her
His request for one of the crocuses to keep as a souvenir of the morning was
refused »They are sacred they were all devoted to my friend when I plucked
them«
He pointed to a halfopen one with the petals in disparting pointing to
junction and compared it to the famous tiptoe balletposture arms above head
and fingers like swallows meeting in air of an operatic danseuse of the time
»I do not see it because I will not see it« she said and she found a
personal cooling and consolement in the phrase We have this power of
resisting invasion of the poetic by the commonplace the spirit by the blood if
we please though you men may not think that we have Her alarmed
sensibilities bristled and made head against him as an enemy She fancied for
the aforesaid reason because she chose that it was on account of the offence
to her shy morning pleasure by his Londonizing At any other moment her natural
liveliness and trained social ease would have taken any remark on the eddies of
the tide of converse and so she told herself and did not the less feel
wounded adverse armed He seemed somehow to have dealt a mortal blow to the
happy girl she had become again The woman she was protested on behalf of the
girl while the girl in her heart bent lowered sad eyelids to the woman and
which of them was wiser of the truth she could not have said for she was
honestly not aware of the truth but she knew she was divided in halves with
one half pitying the other one rebuking and all because of the incongruous
comparison of a wild flower to an opera dancer Absurd indeed We human
creatures are the silliest on earth most certainly
Dacier had observed the blush and the check to her flowing tongue did not
escape him as they walked back to the inn down the narrow street of black rooms
where the women gossiped at the fountain and the cobbler threaded on his
doorstep His novel excitement supplied the deficiency sweeping him past minor
reflections He was however surprised to hear her tell Lady Esquart as soon
as they were together at the breakfasttable that he had the intention of
starting for England and further surprised and slightly stung too when on the
poor ladys moaning over her recollection of the midnight Bell and vowing she
could not attempt to sleep another night in the place Diana declared her
resolve to stay there one day longer with her maid and explore the
neighbourhood for the wild flowers in which it abounded Lord and Lady Esquart
agreed to anything agreeable to her after excusing themselves for the
necessitated flight piteously relating the story of their sufferings My lord
could have slept but he had remained awake to comfort my lady
»True knightliness« Diana said in praise of these long married lovers and
she asked them what they had talked of during the night
»You my dear partly« said Lady Esquart
»For an opiate«
»An invocation of the morning« said Dacier
Lady Esquart looked at Diana and at him She thought it was well that her
fair friend should stay It was then settled for Diana to rejoin them the next
evening at Lugano thence to proceed to Luino on the Maggiore
»I fear it is goodbye for me« Dacier said to her as he was about to step
into the carriage with the Esquarts
»If you have not better news of your uncle it must be« she replied and
gave him her hand promptly and formally hardly diverting her eyes from Lady
Esquart to grace the temporary gift with a look The last of her he saw was a
waving of her arm and a finger pointing triumphantly at the Bell in the tower
It said to an understanding unpractised in the feminine mysteries »I can sleep
through anything« What that revealed of her state of conscience and her nature
his efforts to preserve the lovely optical figure blocked his guessing He was
with her friends who liked her the more they knew her and he was compelled to
lean to their view of the perplexing woman
»She is a riddle to the world« Lady Esquart said »but I know that she is
good It is the best of signs when women take to her and are proud to be her
friend«
My lord echoed his wife She talked in this homely manner to stop any notion
of philandering that the young gentleman might be disposed to entertain in
regard to a lady so attractive to the pursuit as Dianas beauty and delicate
situation might make her seem
»She is an exceedingly clever person and handsomer than report which is
uncommon« said Dacier becoming voluble on towntopics Miss Asper incidentally
among them He denied Lady Esquarts charge of an engagement the matter hung
His letters at Lugano summoned him to England instantly
»I have taken leave of Mrs Warwick but tell her I regret et caetera« he
said »and by the way as my uncles illness appears to be serious the longer
she is absent the better perhaps«
»It would never do« said Lady Esquart understanding his drift immediately
»We winter in Rome She will not abandon us I have her word for it Next
Easter we are in Paris and so home I suppose There will be no hurry before we
are due at Cowes We seem to have become confirmed wanderers for two of us at
least it is likely to be our last great tour«
Dacier informed her that he had pledged his word to write to Mrs Warwick of
his uncles condition and the several appointed haltingplaces of the Esquarts
between the lakes and Florence were named to him Thus all things were openly
treated all had an air of being on the surface the communications passing
between Mrs Warwick and the Hon Percy Dacier might have been perused by all
the world None but that portion of it sage in suspiciousness which objects to
such communications under any circumstances could have detected in their
correspondence a spark of coming fire or that there was common warmth She did
not feel it nor did he The position of the two interdicted it to a couple
honourably sensible of social decencies and who were be it added kept apart
The blood is the treacherous element in the story of the nobly civilized of
which secret Diana a wife and no wife a prisoner in liberty a blooming woman
imagining herself restored to transcendent maiden ecstasies the highest
youthful poetic had received some faint intimation when the blush flamed
suddenly in her cheeks and her heart knelled like the towers of a city given
over to the devourer She had no wish to meet him again Without telling herself
why she would have shunned the meeting Disturbers that thwarted her simple
happiness in sublime scenery were best avoided She thought so the more for a
fitful blur to the simplicity of her sensations and a task she sometimes had in
restoring and toning them after that sweet morning time in Rovio
Chapter XVII
»The Princess Egeria«
London say what we will of it is after all the head of the British giant and
if not the liveliest in bubbles it is past competition the largest brothpot of
brains anywhere simmering on the hob over the steadiest of furnaces too And
the oceans and the continents as you know are perpetual and copious
contributors either to the heating apparatus or to the contents of the pot Let
grander similes be sought This one fits for the smoky receptacle cherishing
millions magnetic to tens of millions more with its caked outside of grime
and the inward substance incessantly kicking the lid prankish but never
casting it off A good stew you perceive not a parlous boiling Weak as we may
be in our domestic cookery our political has been sagaciously adjusted as yet
to catch the ardours of the furnace without being subject to their volcanic
activities
That the social is also somewhat at fault we have proof in occasional
outcries over the absence of these or those particular persons famous for
inspiriting It sticks and clogs The improvizing songster is missed the
convivial essayist the humorous Dean the travelled cynic and he the one of
his day the iridescent Irishman whose remembered repartees are a feast sharp
and ringing at divers tables descending from the upper to the fat citizens
where instead of coming in the sequence of talk they are exposed by blasting
like fossil teeth of old Deluge sharks in monotonous walls of our
chalkquarries Nor are these the less welcome for the violence of their
introduction among a people glad to be set burning rather briskly awhile by the
most unexpected of digs in the ribs Dan Merion to give an example That was
Dan Merions joke with the watchman and he said that other thing to the Marquis
of Kingsbury when the latter asked him if he had ever won a donkeyrace And
old Dan is dead and we are the duller for it which leads to the question Is
genius hereditary And the affirmative and negative are respectively maintained
rather against the Yes in the dispute until a member of the audience speaks of
Dan Merions having left a daughter reputed for a sparkling wit not much below
the level of his own Why are you unaware that the Mrs Warwick of that scandal
case of Warwick versus Dannisburgh was old Dan Merions girl and his only child
It is true for a friend had it from a man who had it straight from Mr
Braddock of the firm of Braddock Thorpe and Simnel her solicitors in the
action who told him he could sit listening to her for hours and that she was
as innocent as day a wonderful combination of a good woman and a clever woman
and a real beauty Only her misfortune was to have a furiously jealous husband
and they say he went mad after hearing the verdict
Diana was talked of in the London circles A witty woman is such salt that
where she has once been tasted she must perforce be missed more than any of the
absent the dowering heavens not having yet showered her like very plentifully
upon us Then it was first heard that Percy Dacier had been travelling with her
Miss Asper heard of it Her uncle Mr Quintin Manx the millionnaire was an
acquaintance of the new Judge and titled dignitary Sir Cramborne Wathin and
she visited Lady Wathin at whose table the report in the journals of the
Nileboat party was mentioned Lady Wathins table could dispense with witty
women and for that matter witty men The intrusion of the spontaneous on the
stereotyped would have clashed She preferred as hostess the old legal
anecdotes sure of their laugh and the citations from the manufactories of fun
in the Press which were current and instantly intelligible to all her guests
She smiled suavely on an impromptu pun because her experience of the humorous
appreciation of it by her guests bade her welcome the upstart Nothing else
impromptu was acceptable Mrs Warwick therefore was not missed by Lady Wathin
»I have met her« she said »I confess I am not one of the fanatics about Mrs
Warwick She has a sort of skill in getting men to clamour If you stoop to
tickle them they will applaud It is a way of winning a reputation« When the
ladies were separated from the gentlemen by the stream of Claret Miss Asper
heard Lady Wathin speak of Mrs Warwick again An allusion to Lord Dannisburghs
fit of illness in the House of Lords led to her saying that there was no doubt
he had been fascinated and that in her opinion Mrs Warwick was a dangerous
woman Sir Cramborne knew something of Mr Warwick »Poor man« she added A
lady present put a question concerning Mrs Warwicks beauty »Yes« Lady Wathin
said »she has good looks to aid her Judging from what I hear and have seen
her thirst is for notoriety Sooner or later we shall have her making a noise
you may be certain Yes she has the secret of dressing well in the French
style«
A simple newspaper report of the expedition of a Nileboat party could stir
the Powers to take her up and turn her on their wheel in this manner
But others of the sons and daughters of London were regretting her prolonged
absence The great and exclusive Whitmonby who had dined once at Lady Wathins
table and vowed never more to repeat that offence to his patience lamented
bitterly to Henry Wilmers that the sole woman worthy of sitting at a little
Sunday evening dinner with the cream of the choicest men of the time was away
wasting herself in that insane modern chase of the picturesque He called her a
perverted Célimène
Redworth had less to regret than the rest of her male friends as he was
receiving at intervals pleasant descriptive letters besides manuscript sheets
of ANTONIAS new piece of composition to correct the proofs for the press and
he read them critically he thought He read them with a watchful eye to guard
them from the critics ANTONIA whatever her faults as a writer was not one of
the order whose Muse is the Public Taste She did at least draw her inspiration
from herself and there was much to be feared in her work if a sale was the
object Otherwise Redworths highly critical perusal led him flatly to admire
This was like her and that was like her and here and there a phrase gave him
the very play of her mouth the flash of her eyes Could he possibly wish or
bear to have anything altered But she had reason to desire an extended sale of
the work Her aim in the teeth of her independent style was at the means of
independence a feminine method of attempting to conciliate contraries and
after despatching the last sheets to the printer he meditated upon the several
ways which might serve to assist her the main way running thus in his mind
We have a work of genius Genius is good for the public What is good for the
public should be recommended by the critics It should be How then to come at
them to get it done As he was not a member of the honourable literary craft
and regarded its arcana altogether externally it may be confessed of him that
he deemed the Incorruptible corruptible not of course with filthy coin slid
into sticky palms Critics are human and exceedingly beyond the common lot
when touched and they are excited by mysterious hints of loftiness in
authorship by rumours of veiled loveliness whispers of a general anticipation
and also Editors can jog them Redworth was rising to be a Railway King of a
period soon to glitter with rails iron in the concrete golden in the
visionary He had already his Court much against his will The powerful
magnetic attractions of those who can help the world to fortune was exercised
by him in spite of his disgust of sycophants He dropped words to right and left
of a coming work by ANTONIA And who was ANTONIA Ah there hung the riddle
An exalted personage So much so that he dared not name her even in confidence
to ladies he named the publishers To men he said he was at liberty to speak of
her only as the most beautiful woman of her time His courtiers of both sexes
were recommended to read the new story THE PRINCESS EGERIA
Oddly one great lady of his Court had heard a forthcoming work of this
title spoken of by Percy Dacier not a man to read silly fiction unless there
was meaning behind the lines that is rich scandal of the aristocracy
diversified by stinging epigrams to the address of discernible personages She
talked of THE PRINCESS EGERIA nay laid her finger on the identical Princess
Others followed her Dozens were soon flying with the torch a new work
immediately to be published from the pen of the Duchess of Stars And the
Princess who lends her title to the book is a living portrait of the Princess of
Highest Eminence the Hope of all Civilization Orders for copies of THE
PRINCESS EGERIA reached the astonished publishers before the book was
advertized
Speaking to editors Redworth complimented them with friendly intimations of
the real authorship of the remarkable work appearing He used a certain
penetrative mildness of tone in saying that »he hoped the book would succeed«
it deserved to it was original but the originality might tell against it All
would depend upon a favourable launching of such a book »Mrs Warwick Mrs
Warwick« said the most influential of editors Mr Marcus Tonans »what that
singularly handsome woman The Dannisburgh affair Shes Whitmonbys
heroine If she writes as cleverly as she talks her work is worth trumpeting«
He promised to see that it went into good hands for the review and a prompt
review an essential point none of your long digestions of the contents
Dianas indefatigable friend had fair assurances that her book would be
noticed before it dropped dead to the public appetite for novelty He was
anxious next notwithstanding his admiration of the originality of the
conception and the cleverness of the writing lest the Literary Reviews should
fail »to do it justice« he used the term for if they wounded her they would
take the pleasure out of success and he had always present to him that picture
of the beloved woman kneeling at the firegrate at The Crossways which made the
thought of her suffering any wound his personal anguish so crucially sweet and
saintly had her image then been stamped on him He bethought him in
consequence while sitting in the House of Commons engaged upon the affairs of
the nation and honestly engaged for he was a vigilant worker that the Irish
Secretary Charles Rainer with whom he stood in amicable relations had an
interest to the extent of reputed ownership in the chief of the Literary
Reviews He saw Rainer on the benches and marked him to speak to him Looking
for him shortly afterward the man was gone »Off to the Opera if hes not too
late for the drop« a neighbour said smiling queerly as though he ought to
know and then Redworth recollected current stories of Rainers fantastical
devotion to the popular prima donna of the angelical voice He hurried to the
Opera and met the vomit and heard in the crushroom how divine she had been
that night A fellow member of the House tolerably intimate with Rainer
informed him between frightful stomachic roulades of her final aria of the
likeliest place where Rainer might be found when the Opera was over not at his
Club nor at his chambers on one of the bridges Westminster he fancied
There was no need for Redworth to run hunting the man at so late an hour
but he was drawn on by the similarity in dissimilarity of this devotee of a
woman who could worship her at a distance and talk of her to everybody Not
till he beheld Rainers tall figure cutting the bridgeparapet with a star over
his shoulder did he reflect on the views the other might entertain of the
nocturnal solicitation to see justice done to a ladys new book in a particular
Review and the absurd outside of the request was immediately smothered by the
natural simplicity and pressing necessity of its inside
He crossed the road and said »Ah« in recognition »Were you at the Opera
this evening«
»Oh just at the end« said Rainer pacing forward »Its a fine night Did
you hear her«
»No too late«
Rainer pressed ahead to meditate by himself as was his wont Finding
Redworth beside him he monologuized in his depths »They ll kill her She puts
her soul into it gives her blood Theres no failing of the voice You see how
it wears her Shes doomed Half a years rest on Como somewhere she
might be saved She wont refuse to work«
»Have you spoken to her« said Redworth
»And next to Berlin Vienna A horse would be I I dont know her«
Rainer replied »Some of their women stand it Shes delicately built You cant
treat a lute like a drum without destroying the instrument We look on at a
murder«
The haggard prospect from that step of the climax checked his delivery
Redworth knew him to be a sober man in office a man with a head for
statecraft he had made a weighty speech in the House a couple of hours back
This Opera cantatrice no beauty though gentle thrilling winning was his
corner of romance
»Do you come here often« he asked
»Yes I cant sleep«
»London at night from the bridge looks fine By the way «
»Its lonely here thats the advantage« said Rainer »I keep silver in my
pocket for poor girls going to their homes and Im left in peace An hour
later theres the dawn down yonder«
»By the way« Redworth interposed and was told that after these nights of
her singing she never slept till morning He swallowed the fact sympathized
and resumed »I want a small favour«
»No business here please«
»Not a bit of it You know Mrs Warwick You know of her Shes
publishing a book I want you to use your influence to get it noticed quickly
if you can«
»Warwick Oh yes a handsome woman Ah yes the Dannisburgh affair yes
What did I hear They say shes thick with Percy Dacier at present Who was
talking of her Yes old Lady Dacier So shes a friend of yours«
»Shes an old friend« said Redworth composing himself for the dose he had
taken was not of the sweetest and no protestations could be uttered by a man of
the world to repel a charge of tattlers »The truth is her book is clever I
have read the proofs She must have an income and she wont apply to her
husband and literature should help her if shes fairly treated Shes Irish by
descent Merions daughter witty as her father Its odd you havent met her
The mere writing of the book is extraordinarily good If its put into capable
hands for review thats all it requires And full of life bright dialogue
capital sketches The books a piece of literature Only it must have
competent critics«
So he talked while Rainer ejaculated »Warwick Warwick« in the irritating
tone of dozens of others »What did I hear of her husband He has a post
Yes yes Some one said the verdict in that case knocked him over heart
disease or something«
He glanced at the dark Thames water »Take my word for it the groves of
Academe wont compare with one of our bridges at night if you seek philosophy
You see the London above and the London below round us the sleepy city and the
stars in the water looking like souls of suicides I caught a girl with a bad
fit on her once I had to lecture her Its when we become parsons we find out
our cousinship with these poor peripatetics whose last philosophy is a jump
across the parapet The bridge at night is a bath for a public man But choose
another leave me mine«
Redworth took the hint He stated the title of Mrs Warwicks book and
imagined from the thoughtful cast of Rainers head that he was impressing THE
PRINCESS EGERIA on his memory
Rainer burst out with clenched fists »He beats her The fellow lives on
her and beats her strikes that woman He drags her about to every Capital in
Europe to make money for him and the scoundrel pays her with blows«
In the course of a heavy tirade against the scoundrel Redworth apprehended
that it was the cantatrices husband He expressed his horror and regret
paused and named THE PRINCESS EGERIA and a certain Critical Review Another
outburst seemed to be in preparation Nothing further was to be done for the
book at that hour So with a blunt »Good night« he left Charles Rainer pacing
and thought on his walk home of the strange effects wrought by women unwittingly
upon men Englishmen those women or some of them as little knowing it as the
moon her traditional influence upon the tides He thought of Percy Dacier too
In his bed he could have wished himself peregrinating a bridge
THE PRINCESS EGERIA appeared with the reviews at her heels a pack of
clappers causing her to fly over editions clean as a doe the gates and hedges
to quote Mr Sullivan Smith who knew not a sentence of the work save what he
gathered of it from Redworth at their chance meeting on Piccadilly pavement
and then immediately he knew enough to blow his huntsmans horn in honour of the
sale His hallali rang high »Heres another Irish girl to win their laurels
Tis one of the blazing successes A most enthralling work beautifully
composed And where is she now Mr Redworth since she broke away from that
husband of hers that wears the clothes of the worst tailor ever begotten by a
thread on a needle as I tell every soul of em in my part of the country«
»You have seen him« said Redworth
»Why sir wasnt he on show at the Court he applied to for relief and
damages as we heard when we were watching the case daily scarce drawing our
breath for fear the innocent and one of our own blood would be crushed Sure
there he stood ay and looking the very donkey for a woman to flip off her
fingers like the dust from my great uncles prise of snuff Shes a glory to
the old country And better you than another Id say since it wasnt an
Irishman to have her but what induced the dear lady to take him is the
question were all of us asking And its mournful to think that somehow you
contrive to get the pick of us in the girls If ever were united twill be by
a trick of circumvention of that sort pretty sure Theres a turn in the market
when they shut their eyes and drop to the handiest and Londons a vortex that
poor dear dull old Dublin cant compete with I ll beg you for the address of
the lady her friend Lady Dunstane«
Mr Sullivan Smith walked with Redworth through the park to the House of
Commons discoursing of Rails and his excellent old friends rise to the top
rung of the ladder and Beanstalk land so elevated that one had to look up at
him with watery eyes as if one had flung a ball at the meridian sun Arrived at
famed St Stephens he sent in his compliments to the noble patriot and
accepted an invitation to dinner
»And mind you read THE PRINCESS EGERIA« said Redworth
»Again and again my friend The book is bought« Sullivan Smith slapped his
breastpocket
»Theres a bit of Erin in it«
»It sprouts from Erin«
»Trumpet it«
»Loud as cavalry to the charge«
Once with the title stamped on his memory the zealous Irishman might be
trusted to become an ambulant advertizer Others personal friends adherents
courtiers of Redworths were active Lady Pennon and Henry Wilmers in the
upper circle Whitmonby and Westlake in the literary spread the fever for this
new book The chief interpreter of public opinion caught the way of the wind and
headed the gale
Editions of the book did really run like fires in summer furze and to such
an extent that a simple literary performance grew to be respected in Great
Britain as representing Money
Chapter XVIII
The Authoress
The effect of a great success upon Diana at her second literary venture was
shown in the transparent sedateness of a letter she wrote to Emma Dunstane as
much as in her immediate and complacent acceptance of the magical change of her
fortunes She spoke one thing and acted another but did both with a lofty calm
that deceived the admiring friend who clearly saw the authoress behind her mask
and feared lest she should be too confidently trusting to the powers of her pen
to support an establishment
»If the public were a perfect instrument to strike on I should be tempted
to take the wonderful success of my PRINCESS at her first appearance for a proof
of natural aptitude in composition and might think myself the genius I know it
to be as little a Stradivarius as I am a Paganini It is an eccentric machine
in tune with me for the moment because I happen to have hit it in the ringing
spot The book is a new face appealing to a mirror of the common surface
emotions and the kitchen rather than the dairy offers an analogy for the real
value of that topskim I have not seen what I consider good in the book once
mentioned among the laudatory notices except by your dear hand my Emmy Be
sure I will stand on guard against the vaporous generalizations and other
tricks you fear Now that you are studying Latin for an occupation how good
and wise it was of Mr Redworth to propose it I look upon you with awe as a
classic authority and critic I wish I had leisure to study with you What I do
is nothing like so solid and durable
THE PRINCESS EGERIA originally I must have written word of it to you I
remember the evening off Palermo was conceived as a sketch by gradations she
grew into a sort of semiScudéry romance and swelled to her present portliness
That was done by a great deal of piecing not to say puffing of her frame She
would be healthier and have a chance of living longer if she were reduced by a
reversal of the processes But how would the judicious clippings and prickings
affect our pensive public Now that I have furnished a house and have a fixed
address under the paws of creditors I feel I am in the wizardcircle of my
popularity and subscribe to its laws or waken to incubus and the desert Have I
been rash You do not pronounce If I have bound myself to pipe as others
please it need not be entirely and I can promise you it shall not be but
still I am sensible when I lift my little quill of having forced the note of a
woodland wren into the popular nightingales which may end in the daws from
straining or worse a toywhistle
That is in the field of literature Otherwise within me deep I am not
aware of any transmutation of the celestial into coined gold I sound myself
and ring clear Incessant writing is my refuge my solace escape out of the
personal net I delight in it as in my early morning walks at Lugano when I
went threading the streets and by the lake away to the heavenly mount like a
dim idea worming upward in a sleepy head to bright wakefulness
My anonymous critic of whom I told you is intoxicating with eulogy The
signature Apollonius appears to be of literarymiddle indication He marks
passages approved by you I have also had a complimentary letter from Mr
Dacier
For an instance of this delight I have in writing so strong is it that I
can read pages I have written and tear the stuff to strips I did yesterday
and resume as if nothing had happened The waves within are ready for any
displacement That must be a good sign I do not doubt of excelling my PRINCESS
and if she received compliments the next may hope for more Consider too the
novel pleasure of earning money by the labour we delight in It is an answer to
your question whether I am happy Yes as the savage islander before the ship
entered the bay with the fire My blood is wine and I have the slumbers of an
infant I dream wake forget my dream barely dress before the pen is
galloping barely breakfast no toilette till noon A savage in good sooth You
see my Emmy I could not house with the companionable person you hint at The
poles can never come together till the earth is crushed She would find my
habits intolerable and I hers contemptible though we might both be
companionable persons My dear I could not even live with myself My blessed
little quill which helps me divinely to live out of myself is and must
continue to be my one companion It is my mountain height morning light wings
cup from the springs my horse my goal my lancet and replenisher my key of
communication with the highest grandest holiest between earth and heaven the
vital air connecting them
In justice let me add that I have not been troubled by hearing of any of the
mysterious legal claims et caetera I am sorry to hear bad reports of health I
wish him entire felicity no step taken to bridge division The thought of it
makes me tigrish
A new pianist playing his own pieces at Lady Singlebys concert has given
me exquisite pleasure and set me composing songs not to his music which could
be rendered only by sylphs moving to soft recorders in the humour of wildness
languor bewitching caprices giving a new sense to melody How I wish you had
been with me to hear him It was the most Æolian thing ever caught from a
nightbreeze by the soul of a poet
But do not suppose me having headlong tendencies to the melting mood The
above by the way is a Pole settled in Paris and he is to be introduced to me
at Lady Pennons What do you say to my being invited by Mr Whitmonby to aid
him in writing leading articles for the paper he is going to conduct write as
you talk and it will do he says I am choosing my themes To write of
politics as I talk seems to me like an effort to jump away from my shadow
The black dog of consciousness declines to be shaken off If some one commanded
me to talk as I write I suspect it would be a way of winding me up to a sharp
critical pitch rapidly
Not good news of Lord D I have had messages Mr Dacier conceals his alarm
The PRINCESS gave great gratification She did me her best service there Is it
not cruel that the interdict of the censor should force me to depend for
information upon such scraps as I get from a gentleman passing my habitation on
his way to the House And he is not he never has been sympathetic in that
direction He sees my grief and assumes an undertakerly air with some notion
of acting in concert one supposes little imagining how I revolt from that
crapehatband formalism of sorrow
One word of her we call our inner I I am not drawing upon her resources for
my daily needs not wasting her at all I trust certainly not walling her up
to deafen her voice It would be to fall away from you She bids me sign myself
my beloved ever ever your Tony«
The letter had every outward show of sincereness in expression and was
endowed to wear that appearance by the writers impulse to protest with so
resolute a vigour as to delude herself Lady Dunstane heard of Mr Daciers
novel attendance at concerts The world made a note of it for the gentleman was
notoriously without ear for music
Dianas comparison of her hours of incessant writing to her walks under the
dawn at Lugano her boast of the similarity of her delight in both deluded her
uncorrupted conscience to believe that she was now spiritually as free as in
that fair season of the new spring in her veins She was not an investigating
physician nor was Lady Dunstane otherwise they would have examined the
material points of her conduct indicators of the spiritual secret always What
are the patients acts The patients mind was projected too far beyond them to
see the forefinger they stretched at her and the friends was not that of a
prying doctor on the look out for betraying symptoms Lady Dunstane did ask
herself why Tony should have incurred the burden of a costly household a very
costly Sir Lukin had been at one of Tonys little dinners but her wish to
meet the world on equal terms after a long dependency accounted for it in
seeming to excuse The guests on the occasion were Lady Pennon Lady Singleby
Mr Whitmonby Mr Percy Dacier Mr Tonans »Some other woman« Sir Lukin
said and himself He reported the cookery as matching the conversation and
that was princely the wines not less an extraordinary fact to note of a woman
But to hear Whitmonby and Diana Warwick How he told a story neat as a
postmans knock and she tipped it with a remark and ran to a second drawing in
Lady Pennon and then Dacier »and me« cried Sir Lukin »she made us all toss
the ball from hand to hand and all talk up to the mark and none of us noticed
that we all went together to the drawingroom where we talked for another hour
and broke up fresher than we began«
»That break between the men and the women after dinner was Tonys aversion
and I am glad she has instituted a change« said Lady Dunstane
She heard also from Redworth of the unexampled concert of the guests at Mrs
Warwicks dinner parties He had met on one occasion the Esquarts the
Pettigrews Mr Percy Dacier and a Miss Paynham Redworth had not a word to say
of the expensive household Whatever Mrs Warwick did was evidently good to him
On another evening the party was composed of Lady Pennon Lord Larrian Miss
Paynham a clever Mrs Wollasley Mr Henry Wilmers and again Mr Percy Dacier
When Diana came to Copsley Lady Dunstane remarked on the recurrence of the
name of Miss Paynham in the list of her guests
»And Mr Percy Daciers too« said Diana smiling »They are invited each
for specific reasons It pleases Lord Dannisburgh to hear that a way has been
found to enliven his nephew and my little dinners are effective I think He
wakes Yesterday evening he capped flying jests with Mr Sullivan Smith But you
speak of Miss Paynham« Diana lowered her voice on half a dozen syllables till
the halftones dropped into her steady look »You approve Emmy«
The answer was »I do true or not«
»Between us two dear I fear In either case she has been badly used
Society is big engine enough to protect itself I incline with British juries to
do rough justice to the victims She has neither father nor brother I have had
no confidences but it wears the look of a cowardly business With two words in
his ear I could arm an Irishman to do some work of chastisement he would
select the rascals necktie for a cause of quarrel and lords have to stand
their ground as well as commoners They measure the same number of feet when
stretched their length However vengeance with the heavens though they seem
tardy Lady Pennon has been very kind about it and the Esquarts invite her to
Lockton Shoulder to shoulder the tide may be stemmed«
»She would have gone under but for you dear Tony« said Emma folding arms
round her darlings neck and kissing her »Bring her here some day«
Diana did not promise it She had her vision of Sir Lukin in his fit of
lunacy
»I am too weak for London now« Emma resumed »I should like to be useful
Is she pleasant«
»Sprightly by nature She has worn herself with fretting«
»Then bring her to stay with me if I cannot keep you She will talk of you
to me«
»I will bring her for a couple of days« Diana said »I am too busy to
remain longer She paints portraits to amuse herself She ought to be pushed
wherever she is received about London while the season is warm One season will
suffice to establish her She is pretty near upon six and twenty foolish of
course she pays for having had a romantic head Heavy payment Emmy I drive at
laws but hers is an instance of the creatures wanting simple human kindness«
»The good law will come with a better civilization but before society can
be civilized it has to be debarbarized« Emma remarked and Diana sighed over
the task and the truism
»I should have said in younger days because it will not look plainly on our
nature and try to reconcile it with our conditions But now I see that the sin
is cowardice The more I know of the world the more clearly I perceive that its
top and bottom sin is cowardice physically and morally alike Lord Larrian owns
to there being few heroes in an army We must fawn in society What is the
meaning of that dread of one example of tolerance O my dear let us give it the
right name Society is the best thing we have but it is a crazy vessel worked
by a crew that formerly practised piracy and now in expiation professes
piety fearful of a discovered Omnipotence which is in the image of themselves
and captain Their old habits are not quite abandoned and their new one is used
as a lash to whip the exposed of us for a propitiation of the capricious
potentate whom they worship in the place of the true God«
Lady Dunstane sniffed »I smell the leading article«
Diana joined with her smile »No the style is rather different«
»Have you not got into a trick of composing in speaking at times«
Diana confessed »I think I have at times Perhaps the daily writing of all
kinds and the nightly talking I may be getting strained«
»No Tony but longer visits in the country to me would refresh you I miss
your lighter touches London is a school but you know it not a school for
comedy nor for philosophy that is gathered on my hills with London distantly
in view and then occasional descents on it well digested«
»I wonder whether it is affecting me« said Diana musing »A metropolitan
hack and while thinking myself free thrice harnessed and all my fun gone Am
I really as dull as a tract my dear I must be or I should be proving the
contrary instead of asking My pitfall is to fancy I have powers equal to the
first lookout of the eyes of the morning Enough of me We talked of Mary
Paynham If only some right good man would marry her«
Lady Dunstane guessed at the right good man in Dianas mind »Do you bring
them together«
Diana nodded and then shook doleful negatives to signify no hope
»None whatever if we mean the same person« said Lady Dunstane bethinking
her in the spirit of wrath she felt at such a scheme being planned by Diana to
snare the right good man that instead of her own true lover Redworth it might
be only Percy Dacier So filmy of mere sensations are these little ideas as they
flit in converse that she did not reflect on her friends ignorance of
Redworths love of her or on the unlikely choice of one in Daciers high
station to reinstate a damsel
They did not name the person
»Passing the instance which is cruel I will be just to society thus far«
said Diana »I was in a boat at Richmond last week and Leander was revelling
along the mudbanks and took it into his head to swim out to me and I was
moved to take him on board The ladies in the boat objected for he was not only
wet but very muddy I was forced to own that their objections were reasonable
My sentimental humaneness had no argument against muslin dresses though my dear
dogs eyes appealed pathetically and he would keep swimming after us The
analogy excuses the world for protecting itself in extreme cases nothing
nothing excuses its insensibility to cases which may be pleaded You see the
pirate crew turned pious ferocious in sanctity« She added half laughing »I
am reminded by the boat I have unveiled my anonymous critic and had a woeful
disappointment He wrote like a veteran he is not much more than a boy I
received a volume of verse and a few lines begging my acceptance I fancied I
knew the writing and wrote asking him whether I had not to thank him and
inviting him to call He seems a nice lad of about two and twenty mad for
literature and he must have talent Arthur Rhodes by name I may have a chance
of helping him He was an articled clerk of Mr Braddocks the same who
valiantly came to my rescue once He was with us in the boat«
»Bring him to me some day« said Lady Dunstane
Miss Paynhams visit to Copsley was arranged and it turned out a failure
The poor young lady came in a flutter thinking that the friend of Mrs Warwick
would expect her to discourse cleverly She attempted it to Dianas amazement
Lady Dunstanes opposingly corresponding stillness provoked Miss Paynham to
expatiate for she had sprightliness and some mental reserves of the common
order Clearly Lady Dunstane mused while listening amiably Tony never could
have designed this gabbler for the mate of Thomas Redworth
Percy Dacier seemed to her the more likely one in that light and she
thought so still after Sir Lukin had introduced him at Copsley for a couple of
days of the hunting season Tonys manner with him suggested it she had a dash
of leadership They were not intimate in look or tongue
But Percy Dacier also was too good for Miss Paynham if that was Tonys plan
for him Lady Dunstane thought with the relentlessness of an invalid and
recluses distaste An aspect of penitence she had not demanded but the silly
gabbler under a stigma she could not pardon
Her opinion of Miss Paynham was diffused in her silence
Speaking of Mr Dacier she remarked »As you say of him Tony he can
brighten and when you give him a chance he is entertaining He has fine gifts
If I were a member of his family I should beat about for a match for him He
strikes me as one of the young men who would do better married«
»He is doing very well but the wonder is that he doesnt marry« said
Diana »He ought to be engaged Lady Esquart told me that he was A Miss Asper
great heiress and the Daciers want money However there it is«
Not many weeks later Diana could not have spoken of Mr Percy Dacier with
this air of indifference without corruption of her inward guide
Chapter XIX
A Drive in Sunlight and a Drive in Moonlight
The fatal time to come for her was in the Summer of that year
Emma had written her a letter of unwonted bright spirits contrasting
strangely with an inexplicable oppression of her own that led her to imagine her
recent placid life the pause before thunder and to share the mood of her
solitary friend she flew to Copsley finding Sir Lukin absent as usual They
drove out immediately after breakfast on one of those high mornings of the
bared bosom of June when distances are given to our eyes and a soft air fondles
leaf and grassblade and beauty and peace are overhead reflected if we will
Rain had fallen in the night Here and there hung a milkwhite cloud with folded
sail The Southwest left it in its bay of blue and breathed below At moments
the fresh scent of herb and mould swung richly in warmth The young beechleaves
glittered pools of rainwater made the roadways laugh the grassbanks under
hedges rolled their interwoven weeds in cascades of manyshaded green to right
and left of the pair of dappled ponies and a squirrel crossed ahead a lark
went up a little way to ease his heart closing his wings when the burst was
over startled blackbirds darting with a clamour like a broken cockcrow
looped the wayside woods from hazel to oakscrub short flights quick spirts
everywhere steady sunshine above
Diana held the reins The whip was an ornament as the plume of feathers to
the general officer Lady Dunstanes ponies were a present from Redworth who
always chose the pick of the land for his gifts They joyed in their trot and
were the very lovebirds of the breed for their pleasure of going together so
like that Diana called them the Dromios Through an old gravelcutting a gateway
led to the turf of the down springy turf bordered on a long line clear as a
racecourse by golden gorse covers and leftward over the gorse the dark ridge
of the fir and heath country ran companionably to the Southwest the valley
between with undulations of wood and meadow sunned or shaded clumps mounds
promontories away to broad spaces of tillage banked by wooded hills and dimmer
beyond and farther the faintest shadowiness of heights as a veil to the
illimitable Yews junipers radiant beeches and gleams of the servicetree or
the whitebeam spotted the semicircle of swelling green Down black and silver
The sun in the valley sharpened his beams on squares of buttercups and made a
pond a diamond
»You see Tony« Emma said for a comment on the scene »I could envy Italy
for having you more than you for being in Italy«
»Feature and colour« said Diana »You have them here and on a scale that
one can embrace I should like to build a hut on this point and wait for such a
day to return It brings me to life« She lifted her eyelids on her friends
worn sweet face and knowing her this friend up to death past it in her hopes
she said bravely »It is the Emma of days and scenes to me It helps me to
forget myself as I do when I think of you dearest but the subject has
latterly been haunting me I dont know why and ominously as if my nature were
about to horrify my soul But I am not sentimentalizing you are really this day
and scene in my heart«
Emma smiled confidingly She spoke her reflection »The heart must be
troubled a little to have the thought The flower I gather here tells me that we
may be happy in privation and suffering if simply we can accept beauty I wont
say expel the passions but keep passion sober a trotter in harness«
Diana caressed the ponies heads with the droop of her whip »I dont think
I know him« she said
Between sincerity and a suspicion so cloaked and dull that she did not feel
it to be the opposite of candour she fancied she was passionless because she
could accept the visible beauty which was Emmas prescription and test and she
forced herself to make much of it cling to it devour it with envy of Emmas
contemplative happiness through whose grave mind she tried to get to the peace
in it imagining that she succeeded The cloaked and dull suspicion weighed
within her nevertheless She took it for a mania to speculate on herself There
are states of the crimson blood when the keenest wits are childish notably in
greathearted women aiming at the majesty of their sex and fearful of
confounding it by the look direct and the downright word Yet her nature
compelled her inwardly to phrase the sentence »Emma is a wife« The character
of her husband was not considered nor was the meaning of the exclamation
pursued
They drove through the gorse into wild land of heath and flowering hawthorn
and along by tracts of yew and juniper to another point jutting on a furzy
sandmound rich with the mild splendour of English scenery which Emma stamped
on her friends mind by saying »A cripple has little to envy in you who can fly
when she has feasts like these at her doors«
They had an inclination to boast on the drive home of the solitude they had
enjoyed and just then as the road in the wood wound under great beeches they
beheld a London hat The hat was plucked from its head A clearfaced youth
rather flushed dusty at the legs addressed Diana
»Mr Rhodes« she said not discouragingly
She was petitioned to excuse him he thought she would wish to hear the news
in town last night as early as possible he hesitated and murmured it
Diana turned to Emma »Lord Dannisburgh« her paleness told the rest
Hearing from Mr Rhodes that he had walked the distance from town and had
been to Copsley Lady Dunstane invited him to follow the ponycarriage thither
where he was fed and refreshed by a teabreakfast as he preferred walking on
tea he said »I took the liberty to call at Mrs Warwicks house« he informed
her »the footman said she was at Copsley I found it on the map I knew the
direction and started about two in the morning I wanted a walk«
It was evident to her that he was one of the young squires bewitched whom
beautiful women are constantly enlisting There was no concealment of it though
he stirred a sad enviousness in the invalid lady by descanting on the raptures
of a walk out of London in the youngest light of day and on the common objects
he had noticed along the roadside and through the woods more sustaining
closer with nature than her compulsory feeding on the cream of things
»You are not fatigued« she inquired hoping for that confession at least
but she pardoned his boyish vaunting to walk the distance back without any
fatigue at all
He had a sweeter reward for his pains and if the business of the chronicler
allowed him to become attached to pure throbbing felicity wherever it is
encountered he might be diverted by the blissful unexpectedness of good fortune
befalling Mr Arthur Rhodes in having the honour to conduct Mrs Warwick to
town No imagined happiness even in the heart of a young man of two and twenty
could have matched it He was by her side hearing and seeing her not less than
four hours To add to his happiness Lady Dunstane said she would be glad to
welcome him again She thought him a pleasant specimen of the selfvowed squire
Diana was sure that there would be a communication for her of some sort at
her house in London perhaps a message of farewell from the dying lord now
dead Mr Rhodes had only the news of the evening journals to the effect that
Lord Dannisburgh had expired at his residence the Priory Hallowmere in
Hampshire A message of farewell from him she hoped for knowing him as she
did it seemed a certainty and she hungered for that last gleam of life in her
friend She had no anticipation of the burden of the message awaiting her
A consultation as to the despatching of the message had taken place among
the members of Lord Dannisburghs family present at his death Percy Dacier was
one of them and he settled the disputed point after some time had been spent
in persuading his father to take the plain view of obligation in the matter and
in opposing the dowager countess his grandmother by stating that he had
already sent a special messenger to London Lord Dannisburgh on his deathbed
had expressed a wish that Mrs Warwick would sit with him for an hour one night
before the nails were knocked in his coffin He spoke of it twice putting it
the second time to Percy as a formal request to be made to her and Percy had
promised him that Mrs Warwick should have the message He had done his best to
keep his pledge aware of the disrelish of the whole family for the ladys name
to say nothing of her presence
»She wont come« said the earl
»She ll come« said old Lady Dacier
»If the woman respects herself she ll hold off it« the earl insisted
because of his desire that way He signified in mutterings that the thing was
improper and absurd a piece of sentiment sickly senility unlike Lord
Dannisburgh Also that Percy had been guilty of excessive folly
To which Lady Dacier nodded her assent remarking »The woman is on her
mettle From what Ive heard of her shes not a woman to stick at trifles She
ll take it as a sort of ordeal by touch and she ll come«
They joined in abusing Percy who had driven away to another part of the
country Lord Creedmore the heir of the house was absent hunting in America
or he might temporarily have been taken into favour by contrast Ultimately they
agreed that the woman must be allowed to enter the house but could not be
received The earl was a widower his mother managed the family and being hard
to convince she customarily carried her point save when it involved Percys
freedom of action She was one of the veterans of her sex that age to toughness
and the hysterical fuss she apprehended in the visit of this woman to Lord
Dannisburghs deathbed and body did not alarm her For the sake of the
household she determined to remain shut up in her room Before night the house
was empty of any members of the family excepting old Lady Dacier and the
outstretched figure on the bed
Dacier fled to escape the hearing of the numberless ejaculations reawakened
in the family by his uncles extraordinary dying request They were an outrage
to the lady of whom he could now speak as a privileged champion and the
request itself had an air of proving her stainless a white soul and efficacious
advocate at the celestial gates reading the mind of the dying man So he
thought at one moment he had thought so when charged with the message to her
had even thought it a natural wish that she should look once on the face she
would see no more and say farewell to it considering that in life it could not
be requested But the susceptibility to sentimental emotion beside a deathbed
with a dying mans voice in the ear requires fortification if it is to be
maintained and the review of his uncles character did not tend to make this
very singular request a proof that the ladys innocence was honoured in it His
epicurean uncle had no profound esteem for the kind of innocence He had always
talked of Mrs Warwick with warm respect for her Dacier knew that he had
bequeathed her a sum of money The inferences were either way Lord Dannisburgh
never spoke evilly of any woman and he was perhaps bound to indemnify her
materially as well as he could for what she had suffered On the other hand
how easy it was to be the dupe of a woman so handsome and clever Unlikely too
that his uncle would consent to sit at the Platonic banquet with her Judging
by himself Dacier deemed it possible for man He was not quick to kindle and
had lately seen much of her had found her a Lady Egeria helpful in counsel
prompting inspiriting reviving as wellwaters and as temperately cool not
one sign of native slipperiness Nor did she stir the mud in him upon which
proud man is built The shadow of the scandal had checked a few shifty
sensations rising now and then of their own accord and had laid them with the
ladys benign connivance This was good proof in her favour seeing that she
must have perceived of late the besetting thirst he had for her company and
alone or in the medley equally To see her hear exchange ideas with her and
to talk of new books try to listen to music at the opera and at concerts and
admire her playing of hostess were novel pleasures giving him fresh notions of
life and strengthening rather than disturbing the course of his lifes
business
At any rate she was capable of friendship Why not resolutely believe that
she had been his uncles true and simple friend He adopted the resolution
thanking her for one recognized fact he hated marriage and would by this
time have been in the yoke but for the agreeable deviation of his path to her
society Since his visit to Copsley moreover Lady Dunstanes idolizing of her
friend had influenced him Reflecting on it he recovered from the shock which
his uncles request had caused
Certain positive calculations were running side by side with the
speculations in vapour His messenger would reach her house at about four of the
afternoon If then at home would she decide to start immediately Would she
come That was a question he did not delay to answer Would she defer the visit
Death replied to that She would not delay it
She would be sure to come at once And what of the welcome she would meet
Leaving the station in London at six in the evening she might arrive at the
Priory all impediments counted between ten and eleven at night Thence coldly
greeted or not greeted to the chamber of death
A pitiable and cruel reception for a woman upon such a mission
His mingled calculations and meditations reached that exclamatory terminus
in feeling and settled on the picture of Diana about as clear as light to
blinking eyes but enough for him to realize her being there and alone woefully
alone The supposition of an absolute loneliness was most possible He had
intended to drive back the next day when the domestic storm would be over and
take the chances of her coming It seemed now a piece of duty to return at
night a traverse of twenty rough up and down miles from Itchenford to the
heathland rolling on the chalk wave of the Surrey borders easily done after
the remonstrances of his host were stopped
Dacier sat in an open carriage facing a slip of bright moon Poetical
impressions emotions any stirrings of his mind by the sensational stamp on it
were new to him and while he swam in them both lulled and pricked by his novel
accessibility to natures lyrical touch he asked himself whether if he were
near the throes of death the thought of having Diana Warwick to sit beside his
vacant semblance for an hour at night would be comforting And why had his uncle
specified an hour of the night It was a sentiment like the request curious in
a man so little sentimental Yonder crescent running the shadowy round of the
hoop roused comparisons Would one really wish to have her beside one in death
In life ah But suppose her denied to us in life Then the desire for her
companionship appears passingly comprehensible Enter into the sentiment you
see that the hour of darkness is naturally chosen And would even a grand old
Pagan crave the presence beside his dead body for an hour of the night of a
woman he did not esteem Dacier answered no The negative was not echoed in his
mind He repeated it and to the same deadness
He became aware that he had spoken for himself and he had a fit of
sourness For who can say he is not a fool before he has been tried by a woman
Daciers wretched tendency under vexation to conceive grotesque analogies
antipoetic not to say cockney similes which had slightly chilled Diana at
Rovio set him looking at yonder crescent with the hoop as at the shape of a
white cat climbing a wheel Men of the northern blood will sometimes lend their
assent to poetical images even to those that do not stun the mind like
bludgeons and imperatively by much repetition command their assent and it is
for a solid exchange and interest in usury with soft poetical creatures when
they are so condescending but they are seized by the grotesque In spite of
efforts to efface or supplant it he saw the white cat nothing else even to
thinking that she had jumped cleverly to catch the wheel He was a true
descendant of practical hardgrained fighting Northerners of gnarled dwarf
imaginations chivalrous though they were and heroes to have serviceable and
valiant gentlemen for issue Without at all tracing back to its origin his
detestable image of the white cat on the dead circle he kicked at the links
between his uncle and Diana Warwick whatever they had been particularly at the
present revival of them Old Lady Daciers blunt speech and his fathers fixed
opinion hissed in his head
They were ignorant of his autumnal visit to the Italian Lakes after the
winters Nileboat expedition and also of the degree of his recent intimacy
with Mrs Warwick or else as he knew he would have heard more hissing things
Her patronage of Miss Paynham exposed her to attacks where she was deemed
vulnerable Lady Dacier muttered old saws as to the flocking of birds he did
not accurately understand it thought it indiscreet at best But in regard to
his experience he could tell himself that a woman more guileless of luring
never drew breath On the contrary candour said it had always been he who had
schemed and pressed for the meeting He was at liberty to do it not being bound
in honour elsewhere Besides despite his acknowledgement of her beauty Mrs
Warwick was not quite his ideal of the perfectly beautiful woman Constance
Asper came nearer to it He had the English taste for red and white and for
cold outlines he secretly admired a statuesque demeanour with a statues eyes
The national approbation of a reserved haughtiness in woman a tempered disdain
in her slightly lifted small upperlip and drooped eyelids was shared by him
and Constance Asper if not exactly aristocratic by birth stood well for that
aristocratic insular type which seems to promise the husband of it a casket of
all the trusty virtues as well as the security of frigidity in the casket Such
was Daciers native taste consequently the attractions of Diana Warwick for him
were he thought chiefly mental those of a Lady Egeria She might or might not
be good in the vulgar sense She was an agreeable woman an amusing companion
very suggestive inciting animating and her past history must be left as her
own Did it matter to him What he saw was bright a silver crescent on the side
of the shadowy ring Were it a question of marrying her That was out of the
possibilities He remembered moreover having heard from a man who professed
to know that Mrs Warwick had started in married life by treating her husband
cavalierly to an intolerable degree »Such as no Englishman could stand« the
portly old informant thundered describing it and her in racy vernacular She
might be a devil of a wife She was a pleasant friend just the soft bit sweeter
than male friends which gave the flavour of sex without the artful seductions
He required them strong to move him
He looked at last on the green walls of the Priory scarcely supposing a
fair watcher to be within for the contrasting pale colours of dawn had ceased
to quicken the brilliancy of the crescent and summer daylight drowned it to
fainter than a silver coin in water It lay dispieced like a pulled rag
Eastward over Surrey stood the full rose of morning The Priory clock struck
four When the summons of the bell had gained him admittance and he heard that
Mrs Warwick had come in the night he looked back through the doorway at the
rosy colour and congratulated himself to think that her hour of watching was at
an end A sleepy footman was his informant Women were in my lords
dressingroom he said Upstairs at the deathchamber Dacier paused No sound
came to him He hurried to his own room paced about and returned Expecting to
see no one but the dead he turned the handle and the two circles of a shaded
lamp on ceiling and on table met his gaze
Chapter XX
Dianas NightWatch in the Chamber of Death
He stepped into the room and thrilled to hear the quiet voice beside the bed
»Who is it«
Apologies and excuses were on his tongue The vibration of those grave tones
checked them
»It is you« she said
She sat in shadow her hands joined on her lap An unopened book was under
the lamp
He spoke in an underbreath »I have just come I was not sure I should find
you here Pardon«
»There is a chair«
He murmured thanks and entered into the stillness observing her
»You have been watching You must be tired«
»No«
»An hour was asked only one«
»I could not leave him«
»Watchers are at hand to relieve you«
»It is better for him to have me«
The chord of her voice told him of the gulfs she had sunk in during the
night The thought of her endurance became a burden
He let fall his breath for patience and tapped the floor with his foot
He feared to discompose her by speaking The silence grew more fearful as
the very speech of Death between them
»You came I thought it right to let you know instantly I hoped you would
come tomorrow«
»I could not delay«
»You have been sitting alone here since eleven«
»I have not found it long«
»You must want some refreshment tea«
»I need nothing«
»It can be made ready in a few minutes«
»I could not eat or drink«
He tried to brush away the impression of the tomb in the heavilycurtained
chamber by thinking of the summermorn outside he spoke of it the rosy sky
the dewy grass the piping birds She listened as one hearing of a quitted
sphere
Their breathing in common was just heard if either drew a deeper breath At
moments his eyes wandered and shut Alternately in his mind Death had vaster
meanings and doubtfuller Life cowered under the shadow or outshone it He
glanced from her to the figure in the bed and she seemed swallowed
He said »It is time for you to have rest You know your room I will stay
till the servants are up«
She replied »No let this night with him be mine«
»I am not intruding «
»If you wish to remain «
No traces of weeping were on her face The lampshade revealed it colourless
and lustreless her eyes She was robed in black She held her hands clapped
»You have not suffered«
»Oh no«
She said it without sighing nor was her speech mournful only brief
»You have seen death before«
»I sat by my father four nights I was a girl then I cried till I had no
more tears«
He felt a burning pressure behind his eyeballs
»Death is natural« he said
»It is natural to the aged When they die honoured « She looked where the
dead man lay »To sit beside the young cut off from their dear opening life
« A little shudder swept over her »Oh that«
»You were very good to come We must all thank you for fulfilling his wish«
»He knew it would be my wish«
Her hands pressed together
»He lies peacefully«
»I have raised the lamp on him and wondered each time So changeless he
lies But so like a sleep that will wake We never see peace but in the features
of the dead Will you look They are beautiful They have a heavenly sweetness«
The desire to look was evidently recurrent with her Dacier rose
Their eyes fell together on the dead man as thoughtfully as Death allows to
the creatures of sensation
»And after« he said in low tones
»I trust to my Maker« she replied »Do you see a change since he breathed
his last«
»Not any«
»You were with him«
»Not in the room Two minutes later«
»Who «
»My father His niece Lady Cathairn«
»If our lives are lengthened we outlive most of those we would have to close
our eyes He had a dear sister«
»She died some years back«
»I helped to comfort him for that loss«
»He told me you did«
The lamp was replaced on the table
»For a moment when I withdraw the light from him I feel sadness As if the
light we lend to anything were of value to him now«
She bowed her head deeply Dacier left her meditation undisturbed The birds
on the walls outside were audible tweeting chirping
He went to the windowcurtains and tried the shutterbars It seemed to him
that daylight would be cheerfuller for her He had a thirst to behold her
standing bathed in daylight
»Shall I open them« he asked her
»I would rather the lamp« she said
They sat silently until she drew her watch from her girdle »My train starts
at halfpast six It is a walk of thirtyfive minutes to the station I did it
last night in that time«
»You walked here in the dark alone«
»There was no fly to be had The stationmaster sent one of his porters with
me We had a talk on the road I like those men«
Dacier read the hour by the mantelpiece clock »If you must really go by the
early train I will drive you«
»No I will walk I prefer it«
»I will order your breakfast at once«
He turned on his heel She stopped him »No I have no taste for eating or
drinking«
»Pray « said he in visible distress
She shook her head »I could not I have twenty minutes longer I can find
my way to the station it is almost a straight road out of the parkgates«
His heart swelled with anger at the household for the treatment she had been
subjected to judging by her resolve not to break bread in the house
They resumed their silent sitting The intervals for a word to pass between
them were long and the ticking of the timepiece fronting the deathbed ruled
the chamber scarcely varied
The lamp was raised for the final look the leavetaking
Dacier buried his face thinking many things the common multitude in
insurrection
»A servant should be told to come now« she said »I have only to put on my
bonnet and I am ready«
»You will take no «
»Nothing«
»It is not too late for a carriage to be ordered«
»No the walk«
They separated
He roused the two women in the dressingroom asleep with heads against the
wall Thence he sped to his own room for hat and overcoat and a sprinkle of
cold water Descending the stairs he beheld his companion issuing from the
chamber of death Her lips were shut her eyelids nervously tremulous
They were soon in the warm sweet open air and they walked without an
interchange of a syllable through the park into the white hawthorn lane glad to
breathe Her nostrils took long draughts of air but of the change of scene she
appeared scarcely sensible
At the parkgates she said »There is no necessity for your coming«
His answer was »I think of myself I gain something every step I walk with
you«
»Today is Thursday« said she »The funeral is «
»Monday has been fixed According to his directions he will lie in the
churchyard of his village not in the family vault«
»I know« she said hastily »They are privileged who follow him and see the
coffin lowered He spoke of this quiet little restingplace«
»Yes its a good end I do not wonder at his wish for the honour you have
done him I could wish it too But more living than dead that is a natural
wish«
»It is not to be called an honour«
»I should feel it so an honour to me«
»It is a friends duty The word is too harsh it was his friends desire
He did not ask it so much as he sanctioned it For to him what has my sitting
beside him been«
»He had the prospective happiness«
»He knew well that my soul would be with him as it was last night But he
knew it would be my poor human happiness to see him with my eyes touch him with
my hand before he passed from our sight«
Dacier exclaimed »How you can love«
»Is the village church to be seen« she asked
»To the right of those elms that is the spire The black spot below is a
yew You love with the whole heart when you love«
»I love my friends« she replied
»You tempt me to envy those who are numbered among them«
»They are not many«
»They should be grateful«
»You have some acquaintance with them all«
»And an enemy Had you ever one Do you know of one«
»Direct and personal designedly I think not We give that title to those
who are disinclined to us and add a dash of darker colour to our errors Foxes
have enemies in the dogs heroines of melodramas have their persecuting
villains I suppose that conditions of life exist where one meets the original
complexities The bad are in every rank The inveterately malignant I have not
found Circumstances may combine to make a whisper as deadly as a blow though
not of such evil design Perhaps if we lived at a Court of a magnificent despot
we should learn that we are less highly civilized than we imagine ourselves but
that is a fire to the passions and the extreme is not the perfect test Our
civilization counts positive gains unless you take the melodrama for the truer
picture of us It is always the most popular with the English And look what
a month June is Yesterday morning I was with Lady Dunstane on her heights and
I feel double the age He was fond of this wild country We think it a desert a
blank whither he has gone because we will strain to see in the utter dark and
nothing can come of that but the bursting of the eyeballs«
Dacier assented »Theres no use in peering beyond the limits«
»No« said she »the effect is like the explaining of things to a dull head
the finishing stroke to the understanding Better continue to brood We get to
some unravelment if we are left to our own efforts I quarrel with no priest of
any denomination That they should quarrel among themselves is comprehensible in
their wisdom for each has the specific But they show us their way of solving
the great problem and we ought to thank them though one or the other abominate
us You are advised to talk with Lady Dunstane on these themes She is
perpetually in the antechamber of death and her soul is perennially sunshine
See the pretty cottage under the laburnum curls Who lives there«
»His gamekeeper Simon Rofe«
»And what a playground for the children that bit of common by their
gardenpalings and the pond and the blue hills over the furzes I hope those
people will not be turned out«
Dacier could not tell He promised to do his best for them
»But« said she »you are the lord here now«
»Not likely to be the tenant Incomes are wanted to support even small
estates«
»The reason is good for courting the income«
He disliked the remark and when she said presently »Those windmills make
the landscape homely« he rejoined »They remind one of our wheeling London
gamins round the cab from the station«
»They remind you« said she and smiled at the chance discordant trick he
had remembering occasions when it had crossed her
»This is homelier than Rovio« she said »quite as nice in its way«
»You do not gather flowers here«
»Because my friend has these at her feet«
»May one petition without a rival then for a souvenir«
»Certainly if you care to have a common buttercup«
They reached the station five minutes in advance of the train His coming
manoeuvre was early detected and she drew from her pocket the little book he
had seen lying unopened on the table and said »I shall have two good hours for
reading«
»You will not object I must accompany you to town Permit it I beg
You shall not be worried to talk«
»No I came alone and return alone«
»Fasting and unprotected Are you determined to take away the worst
impression of us Do not refuse me this favour«
»As to fasting I could not eat and unprotected no woman is in England if
she is a thirdclass traveller That is my experience of the class and I shall
return among my natural protectors the most unselfishly chivalrous to women in
the whole world«
He had set his heart on going with her and he attempted eloquence in
pleading but that exposed him to her humour he was tripped
»It is not denied that you belong to the knightly class« she said »and it
is not necessary that you should wear armour and plumes to proclaim it and your
appearance would be ample protection from the drunken sailors travelling you
say on this line and I may be deplorably mistaken in imagining that I could
tame them But your knightliness is due elsewhere and I commit myself to the
fortune of war It is a battle for women everywhere under the most favourable
conditions among my dear common English I have not my maid with me or else I
should not dare«
She paid for a thirdclass ticket amused by Daciers look of entreaty and
trouble
»Of course I obey« he murmured
»I have the habit of exacting it in matters concerning my independence« she
said and it arrested some rumbling notions in his head as to a piece of
audacity on the starting of the train They walked up and down the platform till
the bell rang and the train came rounding beneath an arch
»Oh by the way may I ask« he said »was it your article in Whitmonbys
journal on a speech of mine last week«
»The guilty writer is confessed«
»Let me thank you«
»Dont But try to believe it written on public grounds if the task is not
too great«
»I may call«
»You will be welcome«
»To tell you of the funeral the last of him«
»Do not fail to come«
She could have laughed to see him jumping on the steps of the thirdclass
carriages one after another to choose her company for her In those
predemocratic blissful days before the miry Deluge the opinion of the
requirements of poor English travellers entertained by the Seigneur Directors of
the class above them was that they differed from cattle in stipulating for
seats With the exception of that provision to suit their weakness the
accommodation extended to them resembled pens and the seats were emphatically
seats of penitence intended to grind the sitter for his mean pittance payment
and absence of aspiration to a higher state Hard angular wood a low roof a
shabby square of window aloof demanding of him to quit the seat he insisted on
having if he would indulge in views of the passing scenery such was the
furniture of dens where a refinement of castigation was practised on villain
poverty by denying leathers to the windows or else buttons to the leathers so
that the windows had either to be up or down but refused to shelter and freshen
simultaneously
Dacier selected a compartment occupied by two old women a mother and babe
and little maid and a labouring man There he installed her with an eager look
that she would not notice
»You will want the window down« he said
She applied to her fellowtravellers for the permission and struggling to
get the window down he was irritated to animadvert on these carriages of the
benevolent railway Company
»Do not forget that the wealthy are well treated or you may be unjust«
said she to pacify him
His mouth sharpened its line while he tried arts and energies on the
refractory window She told him to leave it »You cant breathe this
atmosphere« he cried and called to a porter who did the work remarking that
it was rather stiff
The door was banged and fastened Dacier had to hang on the step to see her
in the farewell From the platform he saw the top of her bonnet and why she
should have been guilty of this freak of riding in an unwholesome carriage
tasked his power of guessing He was too English even to have taken the
explanation for he detested the distinguishing of the races in his country and
could not therefore have comprehended her peculiar tenacity of the sense of
injury as long as enthusiasm did not arise to obliterate it He required a
course of lessons in Irish
Sauntering down the lane he called at Simon Rofes cottage and spoke very
kindly to the gamekeepers wife That might please Diana It was all he could do
at present
Chapter XXI
»The Young Minister of State«
Descriptions in the newspapers of the rural funeral of Lord Dannisburgh had the
effect of rousing flights of tattlers with a twittering of the disused name of
Warwick our social Gods renewed their combat and the verdict of the jury was
again overhauled to be attacked and maintained the carpers replying to the
champions that they held to their view of it as heads of bulldogs are expected
to do when they have got a grip of one It is a point of muscular honour with
them never to relax their hold They will tell you why they formed that
opinion from the first And but for the swearing of a particular witness upon
whom the plaintiff had been taught to rely the verdict would have been
different to prove their soundness of judgement They could speak from private
positive information of certain damnatory circumstances derived from authentic
sources Visits of a gentleman to the house of a married lady in the absence of
the husband Oh The British Lucretia was very properly not legally at home to
the masculine world of that day She plied her distaff in pure seclusion
meditating on her absent lord or else a fair proportion of the masculine world
which had not yet has not yet doubled Cape Turk approved her condemnation to
the sack
There was talk in the feminine world at Lady Wathins assemblies The
elevation of her husband had extended and deepened her influence on the levels
where it reigned before but without strange as we may think it now assisting
to her own elevation much aspired for to the smooth and lively upper pavement
of Society above its tumbled strata She was near that distinguished surface
not on it Her circle was practically the same as it was previous to the coveted
nominal rank enabling her to trample on those beneath it And women like that
Mrs Warwick a woman of no birth no money not even honest character enjoyed
the entry undisputed circulated among the highest because people took her
rattle for wit and because also our nobility Lady Wathin feared had no due
regard for morality Our aristocracy brilliant and ancient though it was
merited rebuke She grew severe upon aristocratic scandals whereof were plenty
among the frolicsome host just overhead as vexatious as the drawingroom party
to the lodger in the floor below who has not received an invitation to partake
of the festivities and is required to digest the noise But if ambition is
oversensitive moral indignation is ever consolatory for it plants us on the
Judgement Seat There indeed we may sitting with the very Highest forget our
personal disappointments in dispensing reprobation for misconduct however
eminent the offenders
She was Lady Wathin and once on an afternoons call to see poor Lady
Dunstane at her townhouse she had been introduced to Lady Pennon a patroness
of Mrs Warwick and had met a snub an icy checkbow of the aristocratic head
from the top of the spinal column and not a word not a look the halfturn
of a head devoid of mouth and eyes She practised that forbidding checkbow
herself to perfection so the endurance of it was horrible A noli me tangere
her husband termed it in his ridiculous equanimity and he might term it what
he pleased it was insulting The solace she had was in hearing that hideous
Radical Revolutionary things were openly spoken at Mrs Warwicks evenings with
her friends impudently named the elect of London Pleasing to reflect upon
Mrs Warwick as undermining her supporters to bring them some day down with a
crash Her elect of London were a queer gathering by report of them And Mr
Whitmonby too no doubt a celebrity was the righthand man at these
dinnerparties of Mrs Warwick Where will not men go to be flattered by a
pretty woman He had declined repeated successive invitations to Lady Wathins
table But there of course he would not have had the freedom that is she
rejoiced in thinking defensively and offensively a moral wall enclosed her
topics The Hon Percy Dacier had been brought to her Thursday afternoon by Mr
Quintin Manx and he had one day dined with her and he knew Mrs Warwick a
little he said The opportunity was not lost to convey to him entirely in the
interest of sweet Constance Asper that the moral world entertained a settled
view of the very clever woman Mrs Warwick certainly was He had asked Diana
on their morning walk to the station whether she had an enemy so prone are
men educated by the Drama and Fiction in the belief that the garden of
civilized life must be at the mercy of the old wild devourers to fancy villain
whispers an indication of direct animosity Lady Wathin had no sentiment of the
kind
But she had become acquainted with the other side of the famous Dannisburgh
case the unfortunate plaintiff and compassion as well as morality moved her
to put on a speaking air when Mr Warwicks name was mentioned She pictured him
to the ladies of her circle as one of our true gentlemen in his deportment and
his feelings He was she would venture to say her ideal of an English
gentleman »But now« she added commiseratingly »ruined ruined in his health
and in his prospects« A lady inquired if it was the verdict that had thus
affected him Lady Wathins answer was reported over moral or substratum
London »He is the victim of a fatal passion for his wife and would take her
back tomorrow were she to solicit his forgiveness« Morality had something to
say against this active marital charity attributable it was to be feared to
weakness of character on the part of the husband Still Mrs Warwick undoubtedly
was one of those women of Satanic construction who have the art of enslaving
the men unhappy enough to cross their path The nature of the art was hinted
with the delicacy of dainty feet which have to tread in mire to get to safety
Men alas are snared in this way Instances too numerous for the good repute of
the swinish sex were cited and the question of how Morality was defensible
from their grossness passed without a tactical reply There is no defence Those
women come like the Cholera Morbus and owing to similar causes They will
prevail until the ideas of men regarding women are purified Nevertheless the
husband who could forgive even propose to forgive was deemed by consent
generous however weak Though she might not have been wholly guilty she had
bitterly offended And he despatched an emissary to her The theme one may
in their language fear was relished as a sugared acid It was renewed in the
late Autumn of the year when ANTONIA published her new book entitled THE
YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE The signature of the authoress was now known and from
this resurgence of her name in public suddenly a radiation of tongues from the
circle of Lady Wathin declared that the repentant Mrs Warwick had gone back to
her husbands bosom and forgiveness The rumour spread in spite of sturdy
denials at odd corners counting the redhot proposal of Mr Sullivan Smith to
eat his head and boots for breakfast if it was proved correct It filled a yawn
of the Clubs for the afternoon Soon this wanton rumour was met and stifled by
another of more morbific density heavily charged as that which led the sad
Eliza to her pyre
ANTONIAS hero was easily identified THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE could be
he only who was now at all her parties always meeting her had been spied
walking with her daily in the park near her house on his march down to
Westminster during the session and who positively went to concerts and sat
under fiddlers to be near her It accounted moreover for his treatment of
Constance Asper What effrontery of the authoress to placard herself with him
in a book The likeness of the hero to Percy Dacier once established became
striking to glaringness a proof of her ability and more of her audacity
still more of her intention to flatter him up to his perdition By the things
written of him one would imagine the conversations going on behind the scenes
She had the wiles of a Cleopatra not without some of the Nilenes experiences
A youthful AntonyDacier would be little likely to escape her toils And so
promising a young man The sigh the tear for weeping over his destruction
almost fell such vivid realizing of the prophesy appeared in its pathetic
pronouncement
This low rumour or malaria began blowing in the winter and did not travel
fast for strangely there was hardly a breath of it in the atmosphere of
Dacier none in Dianas It rose from groups not so rapidly and largely mixing
and less quick to kindle whose crazy sincereness battened on the smallest
morsel of fact and collected the fictitious by slow absorption But as guardians
of morality often doing good duty in their office they are persistent When
Parliament assembled Mr Quintin Manx a punctual member of the House if
nothing else arrived in town He was invited to dine with Lady Wathin After
dinner she spoke to him of the absent Constance and heard of her being well
and expressed a great rejoicing at that Whereupon the burly old shipowner
frowned and puffed Constance he said had plunged into these new spangle
candle and high singing services was all for symbols harps effigies what
not Lady Wathins countenance froze in hearing of it She led Mr Quintin to a
wallsofa and said »Surely the dear child must have had a disappointment for
her to have taken to those foolish displays of religion It is generally a
sign«
»Well maam my lady I let girls go their ways in such things I dont
interfere But its that fellow or nobody with her She has fixed her girls
mind on him and if she cant columbine as a bride she will as a nun Young
people must be at some harlequinade«
»But it is very shocking And he«
»He plays fast and loose warm and cold Im ready to settle twenty times a
noblemans dowry on my niece and shes a fine girl a handsome girl educated
up to the brim fit to queen it in any drawingroom He holds her by some arts
that dont hold him it seems Hes all for politics«
»Constance can scarcely be his dupe so far I should think«
»How do you mean«
»Everything points to one secret of his conduct«
»A woman«
Lady Wathins head shook for her sexs pained affirmative
Mr Quintin in the same fashion signified the downright negative »The
fellows as cold as a fish«
»Flattery will do anything There is I fear one«
»Widow wife maid«
»Married I regret to say«
»Well if hed get over with it« said Quintin in whose notions the
seductiveness of a married woman could be only temporary for all the reasons
pertaining to her state At the same time his view of Percy Dacier was changed
in thinking it possible that a woman could divert him from his political and
social interests He looked incredulous
»You have heard of a Mrs Warwick« said Lady Wathin
»Warwick I have Ive never seen her At my brokers in the City yesterday
I saw the name on a Memorandum of purchase of Shares in a concern promising ten
per cent and not likely to carry the per annum into the plural He told me she
was a grand kind of woman past advising«
»For what amount«
»Some thousands I think it was«
»She has no money« Lady Wathin corrected her emphasis »or ought to have
none«
»She cant have got it from him«
»Did you notice her Christian name«
»I dont recollect it if I did I thought the woman a donkey«
»Would you consider me a busybody were I to try to mitigate this womans
evil influence I love dear Constance and should be happy to serve her«
»I want my girl married« said old Quintin »Hes one of my Parliamentary
chiefs with firstrate prospects good family good sober fellow at least I
thought so by nature I mean barring your incantations He suits me she
liking him«
»She admires him I am sure«
»Shes dead on end for the fellow«
Lady Wathin felt herself empowered by Quintin Manx to undertake the release
of sweet Constance Aspers knight from the toils of his enchantress For this
purpose she had first an interview with Mr Warwick and next she hurried to
Lady Dunstane at Copsley There after jumbling Mr Warwicks connubial
dispositions and Mrs Warwicks last book and Mr Percy Daciers engagement to
the great heiress in a gossipy hotchpotch she contrived to gather a few items
of fact as that THE YOUNG MINISTER was probably modelled upon Mr Percy Dacier
Lady Dunstane made no concealment of it as soon as she grew sensible of the
angling But she refused her help to any reconciliation between Mr and Mrs
Warwick She declined to listen to Lady Wathins entreaties She declined to
give her reasons These bookworm women whose pride it is to fancy that they
can think for themselves have a great deal of the heathen in them as morality
discovers when it wears the enlistment ribands and applies to them to win
recruits for a service under the direct blessing of Providence
Lady Wathin left some darts behind her in the form of moral exclamations
and really intended morally For though she did not like Mrs Warwick she had
no wish to wound other than by stopping her further studies of the Young
Minister and conducting him to the young lady loving him besides restoring a
bereft husband to his own How sadly pale and worn poor Mr Warwick appeared
The portrayal of his withered visage to Lady Dunstane had quite failed to gain a
show of sympathy And so it is ever with your bookworm women pretending to be
philosophical You sound them vainly for a manifestation of the commonest human
sensibilities They turn over the leaves of a Latin book on their laps while you
are supplicating them to assist in a work of charity
Lady Wathins interjectory notes haunted Emmas ear Yet she had seen
nothing in Tony to let her suppose that there was trouble of her heart below the
surface and her Tony when she came to Copsley shone in the mood of the day of
Lord Dannisburghs drive down from London with her She was running on a fresh
work talked of composition as a trifle
»I suppose the YOUNG MINISTER is Mr Percy Dacier« said Emma
»Between ourselves he is« Diana replied smiling at a secret guessed »You
know my model and can judge of the likeness«
»You write admiringly of him Tony«
»And I do admire him So would you Emmy if you knew him as well as I do
now He pairs with Mr Redworth he also is the friend of women But he lifts us
to rather a higher level of intellectual friendship When the ice has melted
and it is thick at first he pours forth all his ideas without reserve and
they are deep and noble Ever since Lord Dannisburghs death and our sitting
together we have been warm friends intimate I would say if it could be said
of one so selfcontained In that respect no young man was ever comparable with
him And I am encouraged to flatter myself that he unbends to me more than to
others«
»He is engaged or partly I hear why does he not marry«
»I wish he would« Diana said with a most brilliant candour of aspect
Emma read in it that it would complete her happiness possibly by
fortifying her sense of security and that seemed right Her own meditations
illumined by the beautiful face in her presence referred to the security of Mr
Dacier
»So then life is going smoothly« said Emma
»Yes at a good pace and smoothly not a torrent Thameslike without
oerflowing full It is not Lugano and the Salvatore Perhaps it is better as
action is better than musing«
»No troubles whatever«
»None Well except an adorer at times I have to take him as my portion An
impassioned Caledonian has a little bothered me I met him at Lady Pennons and
have been meeting him as soon as I put foot out of my house ever since If I
could impress and impound him to marry Mary Paynham I should be glad By the
way I have consented to let her try at a portrait of me No I have no
troubles I have friends the choicest of the nation I have health a field for
labour fairish success with it a mind alive such as it is I feel like that
midsummer morning of our last drive out together the sun high clearish
clouded enough to be cool And still I envy Emmy on her sofa mastering Latin
biting at Greek What a wise recommendation that was of Mr Redworths He works
well in the House He spoke excellently the other night«
»He runs over to Ireland this Easter«
»He sees for himself and speaks with authority He sees and feels
Englishmen mean well but they require an extremity of misery to waken their
feelings«
»It is coming he says and absit omen«
»Mr Dacier says he is the one Englishman who may always be sure of an Irish
hearing and he does not cajole them you know But the English defect is really
not want of feeling so much as want of foresight They will not look ahead A
famine ceasing a rebellion crushed they jog on as before with their Dobbin
trot and blinker confidence in Saxon energy They should study the Irish I
think it was Mr Redworth who compared the governing of the Irish to the
management of a horse the rider should not grow restive when the steed begins
to kick calmer firm calm persuasive«
»Does Mr Dacier agree«
»Not always He has the inveterate national belief that Celtic blood is
childish and the consequently illogical disregard of its hold of impressions
The Irish for I have them in my heart though I have not been among them for
long at a time must love you to serve you and will hate you if you have done
them injury and they have not wiped it out they with a treble revenge or you
with cordial benefits I have told him so again and again ventured to suggest
measures«
»He listens to you Tony«
»He says I have brains It ends in a compliment«
»You have inspired Mr Redworth«
»If I have I have lived for some good«
Altogether her Tonys conversation proved to Emma that her perusal of the
model of THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE was an artists free open and not
discoloured by the personal tincture Her heart plainly was free and
undisturbed She had the same girls love of her walks where wildflowers grew
if possible a keener pleasure She hummed of her happiness in being at Copsley
singing her Planxty Kelly and The Puritani by turns She stood on land she was
not on the seas Emma thought so with good reason
She stood on land it was true but she stood on a cliff of the land the
seas below and about her and she was enabled to hoodwink her friend because the
assured sensation of her firm footing deceived her own soul even while it took
short flights to the troubled waters Of her firm footing she was exultingly
proud She stood high close to danger without giddiness If at intervals her
soul flew out like lightning from the rift a mere shot of involuntary fancy it
seemed to her the suspicion of instability made her draw on her treasury of
impressions of the mornings at Lugano her loftiest purest dearest and these
reinforced her She did not ask herself why she should have to seek them for
aid In other respects her mind was alert and held no sly covers as the fiction
of a perfect ignorant innocence combined with common intelligence would have us
to suppose that the minds of women can do She was honest as long as she was not
directly questioned pierced to the innermost and sanctum of the bosom She
could honestly summon bright light to her eyes in wishing the man were married
She did not ask herself why she called it up The remorseless progressive
interrogations of a Jesuit Father in pursuit of the bosoms verity might have
transfixed it and shown her to herself even then a tossing vessel as to the
spirit far away from that firm land she trod so bravely
Descending from the woody heights upon London Diana would have said that
her only anxiety concerned young Mr Arthur Rhodes whose position she
considered precarious and who had recently taken a drubbing for venturing to
show a peep of his head like an early crocus in the literary market Her
ANTONIAS last book had been reviewed obediently to smart taps from the then
commanding bâton of Mr Tonans and Mr Whitmonbys choice picking of specimens
down three columns of his paper A Literary Review Charles Rainers property
had suggested that perhaps »the talented authoress might be writing too
rapidly« and another actuated by the public taste of the period for our
»vigorous homely Saxon« in one and two syllable words had complained of a
»tendency to polysyllabic phraseology« The remainder a full majority had
sounded eulogy with all their bandinstruments drum trumpet fife trombone
Her foregoing work had raised her to Fame which is the Court of a Queen when
the lady has beauty and social influence and critics are her dedicated
courtiers gaping for the royal mouth to be opened and reserving the kicks of
their independent manhood for infamous outsiders whom they hoist in the style
and particular service of pitchforks They had fallen upon a little volume of
verse »like a body of barndoor hens on a stranger chick« Diana complained
and she chid herself angrily for letting it escape her forethought to propitiate
them on the authors behalf Young Rhodes was left with scarce a feather and
what remained to him appeared a preposterous ornament for the decoration of a
shivering and welted poet He laughed or tried the mouth of laughter ANTONIAS
literary conscience was vexed at the different treatment she had met and so
imperatively needed that the reverse of it would have threatened the smooth
sailing of her costly household A merrygoround of creditors required a
corresponding whirligig of receipts She felt mercenary debased by comparison
with the wellscourged versemason Orpheus of the untenanted city who had done
his publishing ingenuously for glory a good instance of the comicpathetic She
wrote to Emma begging her to take him in at Copsley for a few days »I told
you I had no troubles I am really troubled about this poor boy He has very
little money and has embarked on literature I cannot induce any of my friends
to lend him a hand Mr Redworth gruffly insists on his going back to his
lawclerks office and stool and Mr Dacier says that no place is vacant The
reality of Lord Dannisburghs death is brought before me by my helplessness He
would have made him an assistant private Secretary pending a Government
appointment rather than let me plead in vain«
Mr Rhodes with his travelling bag was packed off to Copsley to enjoy a
change of scene after his run of the gauntlet He was very heartily welcomed by
Lady Dunstane both for her Tonys sake and his own modest worship of that
luminary which could permit of being transparent but chiefly she welcomed him
as the living proof of Tonys disengagement from anxiety since he was her one
spot of trouble and could easily be comforted by reading with her and
wandering through the Spring woods along the heights He had a happy time
midway in air between his accomplished hostess and his protecting Goddess His
bruises were soon healed Each day was radiant to him whether it rained or
shone and by his looks and what he said of himself Lady Dunstane understood
that he was in the highest temper of the human creature tuned to thrilling
accord with nature It was her generous Tonys work She blessed it and liked
the youth the better
During the stay of Mr Arthur Rhodes at Copsley Sir Lukin came on a visit
to his wife He mentioned reports in the scandalpapers one that Mr P D
would shortly lead to the altar the lovely heiress Miss A Percy Dacier and
Constance Asper another that a reconciliation was to be expected between the
beautiful authoress Mrs W and her husband »Perhaps its the best thing she
can do« Sir Lukin added
Lady Dunstane pronounced a womans unforgiving »Never« The revolt of her
own sensations assured her of Tonys unconquerable repugnance In conversation
subsequently with Arthur Rhodes she heard that he knew the son of Mr Warwicks
attorney a Mr Fenn and he had gathered from him some information of Mr
Warwicks condition of health It had been alarming young Fenn said it was
confirmed heartdisease His father frequently saw Mr Warwick and said he was
fretting himself to death
It seemed just a possibility that Tonys natural compassionateness had
wrought on her to immolate herself and nurse to his end the man who had wrecked
her life Lady Dunstane waited for news At last she wrote touching the report
incidentally There was no reply The silence ensuing after such a question
responded forcibly
Chapter XXII
Between Diana and Dacier the Wind East Over Bleak Land
On the third day of the Easter recess Percy Dacier landed from the Havre steamer
at Caen and drove straightway for the sandy coast past fields of colza to
brineblown meadows of coarse grass and then to the low dunes and long
stretching sands of the ebb in semicircle a desolate place at that season with
a dwarf fishingvillage by the shore an East wind driving landward in streamers
every object that had a scrap to fly He made head to the inn where the first
person he encountered in the passage was Dianas maid Danvers who relaxed from
the dramatic exaggeration of her surprise at the sight of a real English
gentleman in these woebegone regions to inform him that her mistress might be
found walking somewhere along the seashore and had her dog to protect her
They were to stay here a whole week Danvers added for a conveyance of her
private sentiments Second thoughts however whispered to her shrewdness that his
arrival could only be by appointment She had been anticipating something of the
sort for some time
Dacier butted against the stringing wind that kept him at a rocking incline
to his left for a mile He then discerned in what had seemed a dredgers dot on
the sands a ladys figure unmistakably she without the corroborating
testimony of Leander pawdeep in the lowtide water She was out at a distance
on the ebbsands hurtled gyred beaten to all shapes in rolls twists
volumes like a blown bannerflag by the pressing wind A kerchief tied her
bonnet under her chin Bonnet and breastribands rattled rapidly as
drummersticks She stood near the little running ripple of the flat seawater
as it hurried from a long streaked back to a tiny imitation of spray When she
turned to the shore she saw him advancing but did not recognize when they met
she merely looked with wide parted lips This was no appointment
»I had to see you« Dacier said
She coloured to a deeper red than the roseconjuring wind had whipped in her
cheeks Her quick intuition of the reason of his coming barred a mental evasion
and she had no thought of asking either him or herself what special urgency had
brought him
»I have been here four days«
»Lady Esquart spoke of the place«
»Lady Esquart should not have betrayed me«
»She did it inadvertently without an idea of my profiting by it«
Diana indicated the scene in a glance »Dreary country do you think«
»Anywhere« said he
They walked up the sandheap The roaring Easter with its shrieks and
whistles at her ribands was not favourable to speech His »Anywhere« had a
penetrating significance the fuller for the break that left it vague
Speech between them was commanded he could not be suffered to remain She
descended upon a sheltered pathway running along a ditch the border of pastures
where cattle cropped raised heads and resumed their one comforting occupation
Diana gazed on them smarting from the buffets of the wind she had met
»No play of their tails today« she said as she slackened her steps »You
left Lady Esquart well«
»Lady Esquart I think was well I had to see you I thought you would be
with her in Berkshire She told me of a little seaside place close to Caen«
»You had to see me«
»I miss you now if its a day«
»I heard a story in London «
»In London there are many stories I heard one Is there a foundation for
it«
»No«
He breathed relieved »I wanted to see you once before if it was true
It would have made a change in my life a gap«
»You do me the honour to like my Sunday evenings«
»Beyond everything London can offer«
»A letter would have reached me«
»I should have had to wait for the answer There is no truth in it«
Her choice was to treat the direct assailant frankly or imperil her defence
by the ordinary feminine evolutions which might be taken for inviting poor
pranks always
»There have been overtures« she said
»Forgive me I have scarcely the right to ask speak of it«
»My friends may use their right to take an interest in my fortunes«
»I thought I might on my way to Paris turn aside coming by this
route«
»If you determined not to lose much of your time«
The coolness of her fencing disconcerted a gentleman conscious of his
madness She took instant advantage of any circuitous move she gave him no
practicable point He was little skilled in the arts of attack and felt that
she checked his impetuousness respected her for it chafed at it writhed with
the fervours precipitating him here and relapsed on his pleasure in seeing her
face hearing her voice
»Your happiness I hope is the chief thought in such a case« he said
»I am sure you would consider it«
»I cant quite forget my own«
»You compliment an ambitious hostess«
Dacier glanced across the pastures »What was it that tempted you to this
place«
»A poet would say it looks like a figure in the shroud It has no features
it has a sort of grandeur belonging to death I heard of it as the place where I
might be certain of not meeting an acquaintance«
»And I am the intruder«
»An hour or two will not give you that title«
»Am I to count the minutes by my watch«
»By the sun We will supply you an omelette and piquette and send you back
sobered and friarly to Caen for Paris at sunset«
»Let the fare be Spartan I could take my black broth with philosophy every
day of the year under your auspices What I should miss «
»You bring no news of the world or the House«
»None You know as much as I know The Irish agitation is chronic The
Cornlaw threatens to be the same«
»And your Chief in personal colloquy«
»He keeps a calm front I may tell you there is nothing I would not
confide to you he has let fall some dubious words in private I dont know what
to think of them«
»But if he should waver«
»Its not wavering Its the openness of his mind«
»Ah the mind We imagine it free The House and the country are the
sentient frame governing the mind of the politician more than his ideas He
cannot think independently of them nor I of my natural anatomy You will test
the truth of that after your omelette and piquette and marvel at the quitting
of your line of route for Paris As soon as the mind attempts to think
independently it is like a kite with the cord cut and performs a series of
darts and frisks that have the look of wildest liberty till you see it fall
flat to earth The openness of his mind is most honourable to him«
»Ominous for his party«
»Likely to be good for his country«
»That is the question«
»Prepare to encounter it In politics I am with the active minority on
behalf of the inert but suffering majority That is my rule It leads unless
you have a despotism to the conquering side It is always the noblest I wont
say listen to me only do believe my words have some weight This is a question
of bread«
»It involves many other questions«
»And how clearly those leaders put their case They are admirable debaters
If I were asked to write against them I should have but to quote them to
confound my argument I tried it once and wasted a couple of my precious
hours«
»They are cogent debaters« Dacier assented »They make me wince now and
then without convincing me I own it to you The confession is not agreeable
though its a small matter«
»Ones pride may feel a touch with the foils as keenly as the point of a
rapier« said Diana
The remark drew a sharp look of pleasure from him
»Does the Princess Egeria propose to dismiss the individual she inspires
when he is growing most sensible of her wisdom«
»A young Minister of State should be gleaning at large when holiday is
granted him«
Dacier coloured »May I presume on what is currently reported«
»Parts parts a bit here a bit there« she rejoined »Authors find their
models where they can and generally hit on the nearest«
»Happy the nearest«
»If you run to interjections I shall cite you a sentence from your latest
speech in the House«
He asked for it and to school him she consented to flatter with her
recollection of his commonest words »Dealing with subjects of this nature
emotionally does not advance us a calculable inch«
»I must have said that in relation to hard matter of business«
»It applies There is my hostelry and the spectral form of Danvers utterly
dépaysée Have you spoken to the poor soul I can never discover the links of
her attachment to my service«
»She knows a good mistress I have but a few minutes if you are
relentless May I shall I ever be privileged to speak your Christian name«
»My Christian name It is Pagan In one sphere I am Hecate Remember that«
»I am not among the people who so regard you«
»The time may come«
»Diana«
»Constance«
»I break no tie I owe no allegiance whatever to the name«
»Keep to the formal title with me We are Mrs Warwick and Mr Dacier I
think I am two years younger than you socially therefore ten in seniority and
I know how this flower of friendship is nourished and may be withered You see
already what you have done You have cast me on the discretion of my maid I
suppose her trusty but I am at her mercy and a breath from her to the people
beholding me as Hecate queen of Witches I have a sensation of the scirocco
it would blow«
»In that event the least I can offer is my whole life«
»We will not conjecture the event«
»The best I could hope for«
»I see I shall have to revise the next edition of THE YOUNG MINISTER and
make an emotional curate of him Observe Danvers The woman is wretched and now
she sees me coming she pretends to be using her wits in studying the things
about her as I have directed She is a riddle I have the idea that any morning
she may explode and yet I trust her and sleep soundly I must be free though I
vex the worlds watchdogs So Danvers you are noticing how thoroughly
Frenchwomen do their work«
Danvers replied with a slight mincing »They may maam but they chatter
chatter so«
»The result proves that it is not a waste of energy They manage their fowls
too«
»Theyve no such thing as mutton maam«
Dacier patriotically laughed
»She strikes the apology for wealthy and leisurely landlords« Diana said
Danvers remarked that the poor fed meagrely in France She was not convinced
of its being good for them by hearing that they could work on it sixteen hours
out of the four and twenty
Mr Percy Daciers repast was furnished to him half an hour later At sunset
Diana taking Danvers beside her walked with him to the line of the country
road bearing on Caen The wind had sunk A large brown disk paused rayless on
the western hills
»A Dacier ought to feel at home in Normandy and you may have sprung from
this neighbourhood« said she simply to chat »Here the land is poorish and a
mile inland rich enough to bear repeated crops of colza which tries the soil I
hear As for beauty those blue hills you see enfold charming valleys I
meditate an expedition to Harcourt before I return An English professor of his
native tongue at the Lycée at Caen told me on my way here that for twenty
shillings a week you may live in royal ease round about Harcourt So we have our
bed and board in prospect if fortune fails us Danvers«
»I would rather die in England maam« was the maids reply
Dacier set foot on his carriagestep He drew a long breath to say a short
farewell and he and Diana parted
They parted as the plainest of sincere good friends each at heart
respecting the other for the repression of that which their hearts craved any
word of which might have carried them headlong bound together on a
Mazepparace with scandal for the hounding wolves and social ruin for the
rocks and torrents
Dacier was the thankfuller the most admiring of the two at the same time
the least satisfied He saw the abyss she had aided him in escaping and it was
refreshful to look abroad after his desperate impulse Prominent as he stood
before the world he could not think without a shudder of behaving like a young
frenetic of the passion Those whose aim is at the leadership of the English
people know that however truly based the charges of hypocrisy soundness of
moral fibre runs throughout the country and is the national integrity which may
condone old sins for present service but will not have present sins to flout
it He was in tune with the English character The passion was in him
nevertheless and the stronger for a slow growth that confirmed its union of the
mind and heart Her counsel fortified him her suggestions opened springs her
phrases were goldenlettered in his memory and more she had worked an
extraordinary change in his views of life and aptitude for social converse he
acknowledged it with genial candour Through her he was encouraged led excited
to sparkle with the witty feel new gifts or a greater breadth of nature and
thanking her he became thirstily susceptible to her dark beauty he claimed to
have found the key of her and he prized it She was not passionless the blood
flowed warm Proud chaste she was nobly spirited having an intellectual
refuge from the besiegings of the blood a rockfortress The wife no wife
appeared to him striking the higher elements of the man the commonly masculine
also Would he espouse her had he the chance tomorrow this instant With
her to back him he would be doubled in manhood doubled in brain and
heartenergy To call her wife spring from her and return a man might accept
his fate to fight Trojan or Greek sure of his mark on the enemy
But if after all this imputed Helen of a decayed Paris passed submissive
to the legitimate solicitor back to her husband
The thought shot Dacier on his legs for a look at the blank behind him He
vowed she had promised it should not be Could it ever be after the ruin the
meanly suspicious fellow had brought upon her Diana voluntarily reunited to
the treacherous cur
He sat resolving sombrely that if the debate arose he would try what force
he had to save her from such an ignominy and dedicate his life to her let the
world wag its tongue So the knot would be cut
Men unaccustomed to a knot in their system find the prospect of cutting it
an extreme relief even when they know that the cut has an edge to wound
mortally as well as pacify The wound was not heavy payment for the rapture of
having so incomparable a woman his own He reflected wonderingly on the husband
as he had previously done and came again to the conclusion that it was a poor
creature abjectly jealous of a wife he could neither master nor equal nor
attract And thinking of jealousy Dacier felt none none of individuals only
of facts her marriage her bondage Her condemnation to perpetual widowhood
angered him as at an unrighteous decree The sharp sweet bloom of her beauty
fresh in swarthiness under the whipping Easter cried out against that loathed
inhumanity Or he made it cry
Being a stranger to the jealousy of men he took the soft assurance that he
was preferred above them all Competitors were numerous not any won her eyes as
he did She revealed nothing of the same pleasures in the shining of the others
touched by her magical wand Would she have pardoned one of them the »Diana«
bursting from his mouth
She was not a woman for trifling still less for secresy He was as little
the kind of lover Both would be ready to take up their burden if the burden
was laid on them Diana had thus far impressed him
Meanwhile he faced the cathedral towers of the ancient Norman city standing
up in the smoky hues of the West and a sentence out of her book seemed fitting
to the scene and what he felt He rolled it over luxuriously as the next of
delights to having her beside him She wrote of »Thoughts that are bare dark
outlines coloured by some old passion of the soul like towers of a distant
city seen in the funeral waste of day« His bluff English antipoetic training
would have caused him to shrug at the stuff coming from another pen he might
condescendingly have criticized it with a sneer embalmed in humour The words
were hers she had written them almost by a sort of anticipation he imagined
for he at once fell into the mood they suggested and had a full crop of the
bare dark outlines of thoughts coloured by his particular form of passion
Diana had impressed him powerfully when she set him swallowing and
assimilating a sentence ethereally thin in substance of mere sentimental
significance that he would antecedently have read aloud in a drawingroom
picking up the book by hazard as your modern specimen of romantic vapouring
Mr Dacier however was at the time in observation of the towers of Caen fresh
from her presence animated to some conception of her spirit He drove into the
streets desiring half determining to risk a drive back on the morrow
The cold light of the morrow combined with his fear of distressing her to
restrain him Perhaps he thought it well not to risk his gains He was a
northerner in blood He may have thought it well not further to run the personal
risk immediately
Chapter XXIII
Records a Visit to Diana from One of the Worlds Good Women
Pure disengagement of contemplativeness had selected Percy Dacier as the model
of her YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE Diana supposed Could she otherwise have dared
to sketch him She certainly would not have done it now
That was a reflection similar to what is entertained by one who has dropped
from a precipice to the midway ledge over the abyss where caution of the whole
sensitive being is required for simple selfpreservation How could she have
been induced to study and portray him It seemed a form of dementia
She thought this while imagining the world to be interrogating her When she
interrogated herself she flew to Lugano and her celestial Salvatore that she
might be defended from a charge of the dreadful weakness of her sex Surely she
there had proof of her capacity for pure disengagement Even in recollection the
springs of spiritual happiness renewed the bubbling crystal play She believed
that a divineness had wakened in her there to strengthen her to the end ward
her from any complicity in her sexs culprit blushing
Daciers cry of her name was the cause she chose to think of the excessive
circumspection she must henceforth practise precariously footing embracing
hardest earth the plainest rules to get back to safety Not that she was
personally endangered or at least not spiritually she could always fly in soul
to her heights But she had now to be on guard constantly in the fencing
attitude And watchful of herself as well That was admitted with a ready
frankness to save it from being a necessitated and painful confession for the
voluntary acquiescence if it involved her in her sex claimed an individual
exemption »Women are women and I am a woman but I am I and unlike them I
see we are weak and weakness tempts in owning the prudence of guarded steps I
am armed It is by dissembling feigning immunity that we are imperilled« She
would have phrased it so with some anger at her feminine nature as well as at
the subjection forced on her by circumstances
Besides her position and Percy Daciers threw the fancied danger into
remoteness The world was her stepmother vigilant to become her judge and the
world was his taskmaster hopeful of him yet able to strike him down for an
offence She saw their situation as he did The course of folly must be bravely
taken if taken at all Disguise degraded her to the reptiles
This was faced Consequently there was no fear of it
She had very easily proved that she had skill and selfpossession to keep
him rational and therefore they could continue to meet A little outburst of
frenzy to a reputably handsome woman could be treated as the froth of a passing
wave Men have the trick infants their fevers
Dianas days were spent in reasoning Her nights were not so tuneable to the
superior mind When asleep she was the sport of elves that danced her into
tangles too deliciously unravelled and left new problems for the wiseeyed and
anxious morning She solved them with the thought that in sleep it was the mere
ordinary woman who fell a prey to her tormentors awake she dispersed the
swarm her sky was clear Gradually the persecution ceased thanks to her active
pen
A letter from her legal adviser old Mr Braddock informed her that no
grounds existed for apprehending marital annoyance and late in May her
household had resumed its customary round
She examined her accounts The Debit and Credit sides presented much of the
appearance of male and female in our jogtrot civilization They matched
middling well with rather too marked a tendency to strain the leash and run
frolic on the part of friend Debit the wanton male which deepened the blush
of the comparison Her father had noticed the same funny thing in his effort to
balance his tugging accounts »Now then for a look at Man and Wife« except that
he made Debit stand for the portly frisky female Credit the decorous and
contracted other half a prim gentleman of a constitutionally lean habit of
body remonstrating with her »You seem to forget that we are married my dear
and must walk in step or bundle into the Bench« Dan Merion used to say
Diana had not so much to rebuke in Mr Debit or not at the first reckoning
But his ways were curious She grew distrustful of him after dismissing him
with a quiet admonition and discovering a series of ambush bills which he must
have been aware of when he was allowed to pass as an honourable citizen His
answer to her reproaches pleaded the necessitousness of his purchases and
expenditure a capital plea and Mrs Credit was requested by him in a
courteous manner to drive her pen the faster so that she might wax to a
corresponding size and satisfy the worlds idea of fitness in couples She would
have costly furniture because it pleased her taste and a French cook for a
like reason in justice to her guests and trained servants and her tribe of
pensioners flowers she would have profuse and fresh at her windows and over the
rooms and the pictures and engravings on the walls were always for the good
reason mentioned choice ones and she had a love of old lace she loved colours
as she loved cheerfulness and silks and satin hangings Indian ivory carvings
countless mirrors Oriental woods chairs and desks with some feature or a
flourish in them delicate tables with antelope legs of approved workmanship in
the chronology of European upholstery and marble clocks of cunning device to
symbol Time mantelpiece decorations illustrated editions of her favourite
authors her bedchambers too gave the nest for sleep a dainty cosiness in
aërial draperies Hence more or less directly the peccant bills Credit was
reduced to reckon to a nicety the amount she could rely on positively her fixed
income from her investments and the letting of The Crossways the days of
halfyearly payments that would magnify her to some proportions beside the
alarming growth of her partner who was proud of it and referred her to the
treasures she could summon with her pen at a murmur of dissatisfaction His
compliments were sincere they were seductive He assured her that she had
struck a rich vein in an inexhaustible mine by writing only a very little
faster she could double her income counting a broader popularity treble it
and so on a tide of success down the widening river to a sea sheer golden
Behold how it sparkles Are we then to stint our winged hours of youth for want
of courage to realize the riches we can command Debit was eloquent he was
unanswerable
Another calculator an accustomed and lamentablyscrupulous arithmetician
had been at work for some time upon a speculative summing of the outlay of
Dianas establishment as to its chances of swamping the income Redworth could
guess pretty closely the cost of a household if his care for the holder set him
venturing on averages He knew nothing of her ten per cent investment and
considered her fixed income a beggarly regiment to marshal against the invader
He fancied however in his ignorance of literary profits that a popular writer
selling several editions had come to an El Dorado There was the mine It
required a diligent working Diana was often struck by hearing Redworth ask her
when her next book might be expected He appeared to have an eagerness in
hurrying her to produce and she had to say that she was not a nimble writer
His flattering impatience was vexatious He admired her work yet he did his
utmost to render it little admirable His literary taste was not that of young
Arthur Rhodes to whom she could read her chapters appearing to take counsel
upon them while drinking the eulogies she suspected him of prosaically wishing
her to make money and though her exchequer was beginning to know the need of
it the authors lofty mind disdained such sordidness to be excused
possibly for a failing productive energy She encountered obstacles to
imaginative composition With the pen in her hand she would fall into heavy
musings break a sentence to muse and not on the subject She slept unevenly at
night was drowsy by day unless the open air was about her or animating
friends Redworths urgency to get her to publish was particularly annoying when
she felt how greatly THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE would have been improved had
she retained the work to brood over it polish rewrite passages perfect it
Her musings embraced long dialogues of that work never printed they sprang up
they passed from memory leaving a distaste for her present work THE
CANTATRICE far more poetical than the preceding in the opinion of Arthur
Rhodes and the story was more romantic modelled on a Prima Donna she had met
at the musical parties of Henry Wilmers after hearing Redworth tell of Charles
Rainers quaint passion for the woman or the idea of the woman Diana had
courted her studied and liked her The picture she was drawing of the amiable
and gifted Italian of her villain Roumanian husband and of the eccentric
highminded devoted Englishman was good in a fashion but considering the
theme she had reasonable apprehension that her CANTATRICE would not repay her
for the time and labour bestowed on it No clever transcripts of the dialogue of
the day occurred no hairbreadth scapes perils by sea and land heroisms of
the hero fine shrieks of the heroine no set scenes of catching pathos and
humour no distinguishable points of social satire equivalent to a smacking of
the public on the chaps which excites it to grin with keen discernment of the
authors intention She did not appeal to the senses nor to a superficial
discernment So she had the anticipatory sense of its failure and she wrote her
best in perverseness of course she wrote slowly she wrote more and more
realistically of the characters and the downright human emotions less of the
wooden supernumeraries of her story labelled for broad guffaw or deluge tears
the grappling natural links between our public and an author Her feelings were
aloof They flowed at a hint of a scene of THE YOUNG MINISTER She could not put
them into THE CANTATRICE And Arthur Rhodes pronounced this work poetical beyond
its predecessors for the reason that the chief characters were alive and the
reader felt their pulses He meant to say they were poetical inasmuch as they
were creations
The slow progress of a work not driven by the authors feelings necessitated
frequent consultations between Debit and Credit resulting in altercations
recriminations discord of the yoked and divergent couple To restore them to
their proper trot in harness Diana reluctantly went to her publisher for an
advance item of the sum she was to receive and the act increased her distaste
An idea came that she would soon cease to be able to write at all What then
Perhaps by selling her invested money and ultimately The Crossways she would
have enough for her term upon earth Necessarily she had to think that short in
order to reckon it as nearly enough »I am sure« she said to herself »I shall
not trouble the world very long« A strange languor beset her scarcely
melancholy for she conceived the cheerfulness of life and added to it in
company but a nervelessness as though she had been left by the stream on the
banks and saw beauty and pleasure sweep along and away while the sun that
primed them dried her veins At this time she was gaining her widest reputation
for brilliancy of wit Only to welcome guests were her evenings ever spent at
home She had no intimate understanding of the deadly wrestle of the
conventional woman with her nature which she was undergoing below the surface
Perplexities she acknowledged and the prudence of guardedness »But as I am
sure not to live very long we may as well meet« Her meetings with Percy Dacier
were therefore hardly shunned and his behaviour did not warn her to
discountenance them It would have been cruel to exclude him from her select
little dinners of eight Whitmonby Westlake Henry Wilmers and the rest she
perhaps aiding schooled him in the conversational art She heard it said of
him that the courted discarder of the sex hitherto a mere politician was
wonderfully humanized Lady Pennon fell to talking of him hopefully She
declared him to be one of the men who unfold tardily and only await the
mastering passion If the passion had come it was controlled His command of
himself melted Diana How could she forbid his entry to the houses she
frequented She was glad to see him He showed his pleasure in seeing her
Remembering his tentative indiscretion on those foreign sands she reflected
that he had been easily checked and the like was not to be said of some others
Beautiful women in her position provoke an intemperateness that contrasts
touchingly with the selfrestraint of a particular admirer Her impassioned
Caledonian was one of a host to speak of whom and their fits of lunacy even to
her friend Emma was repulsive She bore with them foiled them passed them
and recovered her equanimity but the contrast called to her to dwell on it the
selfrestraint whispered of a depth of passion
She was shocked at herself for a singular tremble she experienced without
any beating of the heart on hearing one day that the marriage of Percy Dacier
and Miss Asper was at last definitely fixed Mary Paynham brought her the news
She had it from a lady who had come across Miss Asper at Lady Wathins
assemblies and considered the great heiress extraordinarily handsome
»A golden miracle« Diana gave her words to say »Good looks and gold
together are rather superhuman The report may be this time true«
Next afternoon the card of Lady Wathin requested Mrs Warwick to grant her a
private interview
Lady Wathin as one of the order of women who can do anything in a holy
cause advanced toward Mrs Warwick unabashed by the burden of her mission and
spinally prepared behind benevolent smilings to repay dignity of mien with a
similar erectness of dignity They touched fingers and sat The preliminaries to
the matter of the interview were brief between ladies physically sensible of
antagonism and mutually too scornful of subterfuges in one anothers presence to
beat the bush
Lady Wathin began »I am you are aware Mrs Warwick a cousin of your
friend Lady Dunstane«
»You come to me on business« Diana said
»It may be so termed I have no personal interest in it I come to lay
certain facts before you which I think you should know We think it better that
an acquaintance and one of your sex should state the case to you instead of
having recourse to formal intermediaries lawyers «
»Lawyers«
»Well my husband is a lawyer it is true In the course of his professional
vocations he became acquainted with Mr Warwick We have latterly seen a good
deal of him He is I regret to say seriously unwell«
»I have heard of it«
»He has no female relations it appears He needs more care than he can
receive from hirelings«
»Are you empowered by him Lady Wathin«
»I am Mrs Warwick We will not waste time in apologies He is most anxious
for a reconciliation It seems to Sir Cramborne and to me the most desireable
thing for all parties concerned if you can be induced to regard it in that
light Mr Warwick may or may not live but the estrangement is quite
undoubtedly the cause of his illness I touch on nothing connected with it I
simply wish that you should not be in ignorance of his proposal and his
condition«
Diana bowed calmly »I grieve at his condition His proposal has already
been made and replied to«
»Oh but Mrs Warwick an immediate and decisive refusal of a proposal so
fraught with consequences «
»Ah but Lady Wathin you are now outstepping the limits prescribed by the
office you have undertaken«
»You will not lend ear to an intercession«
»I will not«
»Of course Mrs Warwick it is not for me to hint at things that lawyers
could say on the subject«
»Your forbearance is creditable Lady Wathin«
»Believe me Mrs Warwick the step is I speak in my husbands name as
well as my own strongly to be advised«
»If I hear one word more of it I leave the country«
»I should be sorry indeed at any piece of rashness depriving your numerous
friends of your society We have recently become acquainted with Mr Redworth
and I know the loss you would be to them I have not attempted an appeal to your
feelings Mrs Warwick«
»I thank you warmly Lady Wathin for what you have not done«
The aristocratic airs of Mrs Warwick were annoying to Lady Wathin when she
considered that they were borrowed and that a pattern morality could regard the
woman as ostracized nor was it agreeable to be looked at through eyelashes
under partially lifted brows She had come to appeal to the feelings of the
wife at any rate to discover if she had some and was better than a wild
adventuress
»Our life below is short« she said To which Diana tacitly assented
»We have our little term Mrs Warwick It is soon over«
»On the other hand the platitudes concerning it are eternal«
Lady Wathin closed her eyes that the like effect might be produced on her
ears »Ah they are the truths But it is not my business to preach Permit me
to say that I feel deeply for your husband«
»I am glad of Mr Warwicks having friends and they are many I hope«
»They cannot behold him perishing without an effort on his behalf«
A chasm of silence intervened Wifely pity was not sounded in it
»He will question me Mrs Warwick«
»You can report to him the heads of our conversation Lady Wathin«
»Would you it is your husbands most earnest wish and our house is open
to his wife and to him for the purpose and it seems to us that indeed it
might avert a catastrophe you would necessarily deplore would you consent to
meet him at my house«
»It has already been asked Lady Wathin and refused«
»But at my house under our auspices«
Diana glanced at the clock »Nowhere«
»Is it not pardon me a wifes duty Mrs Warwick at least to listen«
»Lady Wathin I have listened to you«
»In the case of his extreme generosity so putting it for the present Mrs
Warwick that he asks only to be heard personally by his wife It may preclude
so much«
Diana felt a hot wind across her skin
She smiled and said »Let me thank you for bringing to an end a mission that
must have been unpleasant to you«
»But you will meditate on it Mrs Warwick will you not Give me that
assurance«
»I shall not forget it« said Diana
Again the ladies touched fingers with an interchange of the social grimace
of cordiality A few words of compassion for poor Lady Dunstanes invalided
state covered Lady Wathins retreat
She left it struck her ruffled sentiments an icy libertine whom any
husband caring for his dignity and comfort was well rid of and if only she
could have contrived allusively to bring in the name of Mr Percy Dacier just
to show these arrant coquettes or worse that they were not quite so privileged
to pursue their intrigues obscurely as they imagined it would have soothed her
exasperation
She left a woman the prey of panic
Diana thought of Emma and Redworth and of their foolish interposition to
save her character and keep her bound She might now have been free The
struggle with her manacles reduced her to a state of rebelliousness from which
issued vivid illuminations of the one means of certain escape an abhorrent
hissing cavern that led to a place named Liberty her refuge but a hectic
place
Unable to write hating the house which held her a fixed mark for these
attacks she had an idea of flying straight to her beloved Lugano lake and
there hiding abandoning her friends casting off the slaves name she bore and
living free in spirit She went so far as to reckon the cost of a small
household there and justify the violent step by an exposition of retrenchment
upon her large London expenditure She had but to say farewell to Emma no other
tie to cut One morning on the Salvatore heights would wash her clear of the
webs defacing and entangling her
Chapter XXIV
Indicates a Soul Prepared for Desperation
The month was August four days before the closing of Parliament and Diana
fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes to run down with her to Copsley He came to
her invitation joyfully reminding her of Lady Dunstanes wish to hear some
chapters of THE CANTATRICE and the MS was packed They started taking rail
and fly and winding up the distance on foot August is the month of sober
maturity and majestic foliage songless but a crowned and royalrobed queenly
month and the youngsters appreciation of the homely scenery refreshed Diana
his delight in being with her was also pleasant She had no wish to exchange him
for another and that was a strengthening thought
At Copsley the arrival of their luggage had prepared the welcome Warm
though it was Diana perceived a change in Emma an unwonted reserve a
doubtfulness of her eyes in spite of tenderness and thus thrown back on
herself thinking that if she had followed her own counsel as she called her
impulse in old days there would have been no such present misery she at once
and unconsciously assumed a guarded look Based on her knowledge of her honest
footing it was a little defiant Secretly in her bosom it was sharpened to a
slight hostility by the knowledge that her mind had been straying The guilt and
the innocence combined to clothe her in mail the innocence being positive the
guilt so vapoury But she was armed only if necessary and there was no
requirement for armour Emma did not question at all She saw the alteration in
her Tony she was too full of the tragic apprehensiveness overmastering her to
speak of trifles She had never confided to Tony the exact nature and the growth
of her malady thinking it mortal and fearing to alarm her dearest
A portion of the manuscript was read out by Arthur Rhodes in the evening
the remainder next morning Redworth perceptibly was the model of the English
hero and as to his person no friend could complain of the sketch his
cleareyed heartiness manliness wholesomeness a word of Lady Dunstanes
regarding him and his handsome braced figure were well painted Emma forgave
the insistance on a certain bluntness of the nose in consideration of the fond
limning of his honest and expressive eyes and the light on his temples which
they had noticed together She could not so easily forgive the realistic picture
of the man an exaggeration she thought of small foibles that even if they
existed should not have been stressed The turn for calculating was shown up
ridiculously Mr Cuthbert Dering was calculating in his impassioned moods as
well as in his cold His head was a long division of ciphers He had statistics
for spectacles and beheld the world through them and the mistress he
worshipped
»I see« said Emma during a pause »he is a Saxon You still affect to have
the race en grippe Tony«
»I give him every credit for what he is« Diana replied »I admire the finer
qualities of the race as much as any one You want to have them presented to you
in enamel Emmy«
But the worst was an indication that the mania for calculating in and out of
season would lead to the catastrophe destructive of his happiness Emma could
not bear that Without asking herself whether it could be possible that Tony
knew the secret or whether she would have laid it bare her sympathy for
Redworth revolted at the exposure She was chilled She let it pass she merely
said »I like the writing«
Diana understood that her story was condemned
She put on her robes of philosophy to cloak discouragement »I am glad the
writing pleases you«
»The characters are as true as life« cried Arthur Rhodes »The Cantatrice
drinking porter from the pewter at the slips after harrowing the hearts of her
audience is dearer to me than if she had tottered to a sofa declining
sustenance and because her creatrix has infused such blood of life into her
that you accept naturally whatever she does She was exhausted and required the
porter like a labourer in the cornfield«
Emma looked at him and perceived the poet swamped by the admirer Taken in
conjunction with Mr Cuthbert Derings frenzy for calculating she disliked the
incident of the porter and the pewter
»While the Cantatrice swallowed her draught I suppose Mr Dering counted
the cost« she said
»It really might be hinted« said Diana
The discussion closed with the accustomed pro and con upon the wart of
Cromwells nose Realism rejoicing in it Idealism objecting
Arthur Rhodes was bidden to stretch his legs on a walk along the heights in
the afternoon and Emma was further vexed by hearing Tony complain of Redworths
treatment of the lad whom he would not assist to any of the snug little posts
he was notoriously able to dispense
»He has talked of Mr Rhodes to me« said Emma »He thinks the profession of
literature a delusion and doubts the wisdom of having poets for clerks«
»JohnBullish« Diana exclaimed »He speaks contemptuously of the poor boy«
»Only inasmuch as the foolishness of the young man in throwing up the Law
provokes his practical mind to speak«
»He might take my word for the young mans ability I want him to have the
means of living that he may write He has genius«
»He may have it I like him and have said so If he were to go back to his
lawstool I have no doubt that Redworth would manage to help him«
»And make a worthy ancient Braddock of a youth of splendid promise Have I
sketched him too Saxon«
»It is the lens and not the tribe Tony«
THE CANTATRICE was not alluded to any more but Emmas disapproval blocked
the current of composition already subject to chokings in the brain of the
author Diana stayed three days at Copsley one longer than she had intended so
that Arthur Rhodes might have his fill of country air
»I would keep him but I should be no companion for him« Emma said
»I suspect the gallant squire is only to be satisfied by landing me safely«
said Diana and that small remark grated though Emma saw the simple meaning
When they parted she kissed her Tony many times Tears were in her eyes It
seemed to Diana that she was anxious to make amends for the fit of alienation
and she was kissed in return warmly quite forgiven notwithstanding the deadly
blank she had caused in the imagination of the writer for pay distracted by the
squabbles of Debit and Credit
Diana chatted spiritedly to young Rhodes on their drive to the train She
was profoundly discouraged by Emmas disapproval of her work It wanted but that
one drop to make a recurrence to the work impossible There it must lie And
what of the aspects of her household Perhaps after all the Redworths of the
world are right and Literature as a profession is a delusive pursuit She did
not assent to it without hostility to the worlds Redworths »They have no
sensitiveness we have too much We are made of bubbles that a wind will burst
and as the wind is always blowing your practical Redworths have their crow of
us«
She suggested advice to Arthur Rhodes upon the prudence of his resuming the
yoke of the Law
He laughed at such a notion saying that he had some expectations of money
to come
»But I fear« said he »that Lady Dunstane is very very ill She begged me
to keep her informed of your address«
Diana told him he was one of those who should know it whithersoever she
went She spoke impulsively her sentiments of friendliness for the youth being
temporarily brightened by the strangeness of Emmas conduct in deputing it to
him to fulfil a duty she had never omitted »What can she think I am going to
do«
On her table at home lay a letter from Mr Warwick She read it hastily in
the presence of Arthur Rhodes having at a glance at the handwriting anticipated
the proposal it contained and the official phrasing
Her gallant squire was invited to dine with her that evening costume
excused
They conversed of Literature as a profession of poets dead and living of
politics which he abhorred and shied at and of his prospects He wrote many
rejected pages enjoyed an income of eighty pounds per annum and eked out a
subsistence upon the modest sum his pen procured him a sum extremely
insignificant but great Nature was his own the world was tributary to him the
future his bejewelled and expectant bride Diana envied his youthfulness
Nothing is more enviable nothing richer to the mind than the aspect of a
cheerful poverty How much nobler it was contrasted with Redworths amassing of
wealth
When alone she went to her bedroom and tried to write tried to sleep Mr
Warwicks letter was looked at It seemed to indicate a threat but for the
moment it did not disturb her so much as the review of her moral prostration
She wrote some lines to her lawyers quoting one of Mr Warwicks sentences
That done his letter was dismissed Her intolerable languor became alternately
a defeating drowsiness and a fever She succeeded in the effort to smother the
absolute cause it was not suffered to show a front at the cost of her
knowledge of a practised selfdeception »I wonder whether the world is as bad
as a certain class of writers tell us« she sighed in weariness and mused on
their soundings and probings of poor humanity which the world accepts for the
very bottomtruth if their dredge brings up sheer refuse of the abominable The
world imagines those to be at our natures depths who are impudent enough to
expose its muddy shallows She was in the mood for such a kind of writing she
could have started on it at once but that the theme was wanting and it may
count on popularity a great repute for penetration It is true of its kind
though the dredging of nature is the miry form of art When it flourishes we may
be assured we have been overenamelling the higher forms She felt and shuddered
to feel that she could draw from dark stores Hitherto in her works it had been
a triumph of the good They revealed a gaping deficiency of the subtle insight
she now possessed »Exhibit humanity as it is wallowing sensual wicked
behind the mask« a voice called to her she was allured by the contemplation of
the widemouthed old dragon Ego whose portrait decently painted establishes
an instant touch of exchange between author and public the latter detected and
confessing Next to the pantomime of Humour and Pathos a cynical surgical knife
at the human bosom seems the surest talisman for this agreeable exchange and
she could cut She gave herself a taste of her powers She cut at herself
mercilessly and had to bandage the wound in a hurry to keep in life
Metaphors were her refuge Metaphorically she could allow her mind to
distinguish the struggle she was undergoing sinking under it The banished of
Eden had to put on metaphors and the common use of them has helped largely to
civilize us The sluggish in intellect detest them but our civilization is not
much indebted to that major faction Especially are they needed by the
pedestalled woman in her conflict with the natural Diana saw herself through
the haze she conjured up »Am I worse than other women« was a piercing
twithought Worse would be hideous isolation The not worse abased her sex
She could afford to say that the world was bad not that women were
Sinking deeper an anguish of humiliation smote her to a sense of drowning
For what if the poetic ecstasy on her Salvatore heights had not been of origin
divine had sprung from other than spiritual founts had sprung from the
reddened sources she was compelled to conceal Could it be She would not
believe it But there was matter to clip her wings quench her light in the
doubt
She fell asleep like the wrecked flung ashore
Danvers entered her room at an early hour for London to inform her that Mr
Percy Dacier was below and begged permission to wait
Diana gave orders for breakfast to be proposed to him She lay staring at
the wall until it became too visibly a reflection of her mind
Chapter XXV
Once More the Crossways and a Change of Turnings
The suspicion of his having come to impart the news of his proximate marriage
ultimately endowed her with sovereign calmness She had need to think it and
she did Tea was brought to her while she dressed she descended the stairs
revolving phrases of happy congratulation and the worlds ordinary epigrams upon
the marriagetie neatly mixed
They read in one anothers faces a different meaning from the empty words of
excuse and welcome Daciers expressed the buckling of a strong set purpose
but grieved by the look of her eyes he wasted a moment to say »You have not
slept You have heard «
»What« said she trying to speculate and that was a sufficient answer
»I hadnt the courage to call last night I passed the windows Give me your
hand I beg«
She gave her hand in wonderment and more wonderingly felt it squeezed Her
heart began the hammerthump She spoke an unintelligible something saw herself
melting away to utter weakness pride reserve simple prudence all going
crumbled ruins where had stood a fortress imposing to men Was it love Her
heart thumped shiveringly
He kept her hand indifferent to the gentle tension
»This is the point I cannot live without you I have gone on Who was
here last night Forgive me«
»You know Arthur Rhodes«
»I saw him leave the door at eleven Why do you torture me Theres no time
to lose now You will be claimed Come and let us two cut the knot It is the
best thing in the world for me the only thing Be brave I have your hand
Give it for good and for heavens sake dont play the sex Be yourself Dear
soul of a woman I never saw the soul in one but in you I have waited nothing
but the dread of losing you sets me speaking now And for you to be sacrificed a
second time to that Oh no You know you can trust me On my honour I take
breath from you You are my better in everything guide goddess dearest
heart Trust me make me master of your fate«
»But my friend« the murmur hung in her throat He was marvellously
transformed he allowed no space for the arts of defence and evasion
»I wish I had the trick of courting Theres not time and Im a simpleton
at the game We can start this evening Once away we leave it to them to settle
the matter and then you are free and mine to the death«
»But speak speak What is it« Diana said
»That if we delay Im in danger of losing you altogether«
Her eyes lightened »You mean that you have heard he has determined «
»Theres a process of the law But stop it Just this one step and it ends
Whether intended or not it hangs over you and you will be perpetually
tormented Why waste your whole youth and mine as well For I am bound to you
as much as if we had stood at the altar where we will stand together the
instant you are free«
»But where have you heard «
»From an intimate friend I will tell you sufficiently intimate from
Lady Wathin Nothing of a friend but I see this woman at times She chose to
speak of it to me it doesnt matter why She is in his confidence and pitched
me a whimpering tale Let those people chatter But its exactly for those
people that you are hanging in chains all your youth shrivelling Let them
shout their worst Its the bark of a day and you wont hear it half a year
and it will be over and I shall bring you back the husband of the noblest
bride in Christendom You dont mistrust me«
»It is not that« said she »But now drop my hand I am imprisoned«
»Its asking too much Ive lost you too many times I have the hand and I
keep it I take nothing but the hand Its the hand I want I give you mine I
love you Now I know what love is and the word carries nothing of its weight
Tell me you do not doubt my honour«
»Not at all But be rational I must think and I cannot while you keep my
hand«
He kissed it »I keep my own against the world«
A cry of rebuke swelled to her lips at his conquerors tone It was not
uttered for directness was in his character and his wooing loyal save for
bitter circumstances delicious to hear and so narrow was the ring he had wound
about her senses that her loathing of the circumstances pushed her to
acknowledge within her bell of a heart her love for him
He was luckless enough to say »Diana«
It rang horridly of her husband She drew her hand to loosen it with
repulsing brows »Not that name«
Dacier was too full of his honest advocacy of the passionate lover to take a
rebuff There lay his unconscious mastery where the common arts of attack would
have tripped him with a quickwitted woman and where a man of passion not
allowing her to succumb in dignity would have alarmed her to the breaking loose
from him
»Lady Dunstane calls you Tony«
»She is my dearest and oldest friend«
»You and I dont count by years You are the dearest to me on earth Tony«
She debated as to forbidding that name
The moments pause wrapped her in a mental hurricane out of which she came
with a heart stopped her olive cheeks ashenhued She had seen that the step
was possible
»Oh Percy Percy are we mad«
»Not mad We take what is ours Tell me have I ever ever disrespected you
You were sacred to me and you are though now the change has come Look back on
it it is time lost years that are dust But look forward and you cannot
imagine our separation What I propose is plain sense for us two Since Rovio I
have been at your feet Have I not some just claim for recompense Tell me
Tony«
The sweetness of the secret name the privileged name in his mouth stole
through her blood melting resistance
She had consented The swarthy flaming of her face avowed it even more than
the surrender of her hand He gained much by claiming little he respected her
gave her no touches of fright and shame and it was her glory to fall with
pride An attempt at a caress would have awakened her view of the whitherward
but she was treated as a sovereign lady rationally advised
»Is it since Rovio Percy«
»Since the morning when you refused me one little flower«
»If I had given it you might have been saved«
»I fancy I was doomed from the beginning«
»I was worth a thought«
»Worth a life worth ten thousand«
»You have reckoned it all like a sane man family position the world
the scandal«
»All I have long known that you were the mate for me You have to weather a
gale Tony It wont last My dearest it wont last many months I regret the
trial for you but I shall be with you burning for the day to reinstate you and
show you the queen you are«
»Yes we two can have no covert dealings Percy« said Diana They would be
hateful baseness Rejecting any baseness it seemed to her that she stood in
some brightness The light was of a lurid sort She called on her heart to glory
in it as the light of tried love the love that defied the world Her heart
rose She and he would at a single step give proof of their love for one
another and this kingdom of love how different from her recent craven
languors this kingdom awaited her was hers for one word and beset with the
oceans of enemies it was unassailable If only they were true to the love they
vowed no human force could subvert it and she doubted him as little as of
herself This new kingdom of love never entered by her acclaiming her was
wellnigh unimaginable in spite of the many hooded messengers it had despatched
to her of late She could hardly believe that it had come
»But see me as I am« she said she faltered it through her direct gaze on
him
»With chains to strike off Certainly it is done« he replied
»Rather heavier than those of the slavemarket I am the deadest of burdens
It means that your enemies personal if you have any and political you have
numbers will raise a cry Realize it You may still be my friend I forgive
the bit of wildness«
She provoked a renewed kissing of her hand for magnanimity in love is an
overflowing danger and when he said »The burden you have to bear outweighs
mine out of all comparison What is it to a man a public man or not The woman
is always the victim Thats why I have held myself in so long« her strung
frame softened She half yielded to the tug on her arm
»Is there no talking for us without foolishness« she murmured The
foolishness had wafted her to sea far from sight of land »Now sit and speak
soberly Discuss the matter Yes my hand but I must have my wits Leave me
free to use them till we choose our path Let it be the brains between us as
far as it can You ask me to join my fate to yours It signifies a sharp battle
for you dear friend perhaps the blighting of the most promising life in
England One question is can I countervail the burden I shall be by such help
to you as I can afford Burden is no word I rake up a buried fever I have
partially lived it down and instantly I am covered with spots The old false
charges and this plain offence make a monster of me«
»And meanwhile you are at the disposal of the man who falsely charged you
and armed the world against you« said Dacier
»I can fly The world is wide«
»Time slips Your youth is wasted If you escape the man he will have
triumphed in keeping you from me And I thirst for you I look to you for aid
and counsel I want my mate You have not to be told how you inspire me I am
really less than half myself without you If I am to do anything in the world
it must be with your aid you beside me Our hands are joined one leap Do you
not see that after well it cannot be friendship It imposes rather more on
me than I can bear You are not the woman to trifle nor I Tony the man for it
with a woman like you You are my spring of wisdom You interdict me altogether
can you or we unite our fates like these hands now Try to get yours
away«
Her effort ended in a pressure Resistance nay to hesitate at the joining
of her life with his after her submission to what was a scorching fire in
memory though it was less than an embrace accused her of worse than
foolishness
»Well then« said she »wait three days Deliberate Oh try to know
yourself for your clear reason to guide you Let us be something better than
the crowd abusing us not simple creatures of impulse as we choose to call the
animal What if we had to confess that we took to our heels the moment the idea
struck us Three days We may then pretend to a philosophical resolve Then come
to me or write to me«
»How long is it since the old Rovio morning Tony«
»An age«
»Date my deliberations from that day«
The thought of hers having to be dated possibly from an earlier day robbed
her of her summit of feminine isolation and she trembled chilled and flushed
she lost all anchorage
»So it must be tomorrow« said he reading her closely »not later Better
at once But women are not to be hurried«
»Oh dont class me Percy pray I think of you not of myself«
»You suppose that in a day or two I might vary«
She fixed her eyes on him expressing certainty of his unalterable
stedfastness The look allured It changed her head shook She held away and
said »No leave me leave me dear dear friend Percy my dearest I will not
play the sex I am yours if if it is your wish It may as well be tomorrow
Here I am useless I cannot write not screw a thought from my head I dread
that process of the Law a second time Tomorrow if it must be But no
impulses Fortune is blind she may be kind to us The blindness of Fortune is
her one merit and fools accuse her of it and they profit by it I fear we all
of us have our turn of folly we throw the stake for good luck I hope my sin is
not very great I know my position is desperate I feel a culprit But I am sure
I have courage perhaps brains to help At any rate I may say this I bring no
burden to my lover that he does not know of«
Dacier pressed her hand »Money we shall have enough My uncle has left me
fairly supplied«
»What would he think« said Diana half in a glimpse of meditation
»Think me the luckiest of the breeched I fancy I hear him thanking you for
making a man of me«
She blushed Some such phrase might have been spoken by Lord Dannisburgh
»I have but a poor sum of money« she said »I may be able to write abroad
Here I cannot if I am to be persecuted«
»You shall write with a new pen« said Dacier »You shall live my darling
Tony You have been held too long in this miserable suspension neither maid nor
wife neither woman nor stockfish Ah shameful But we ll right it The step
for us is the most reasonable that could be considered You shake your head
But the circumstances make it so Courage and we come to happiness And that
for you and me means work Look at the case of Lord and Lady Dulac Its
identical except that she is no match beside you and I do not compare her
antecedents with yours But she braved the leap and forced the world to swallow
it and now you see shes perfectly honoured I know a place on a peak of the
Maritime Alps exquisite in summer cool perfectly solitary no English snow
round us pastures at our feet and the Mediterranean below There my Tony
Tomorrow night we start You will meet me shall I call here well then at
the railway station the SouthEastern for Paris say twenty minutes to eight
I have your pledge You will come«
She sighed it then said it firmly to be worthy of him Kind Fortune
peeping under the edge of her bandaged eyes appeared willing to bestow the
beginning of happiness upon one who thought she had a claim to a small taste of
it before she died It seemed distinguishingly done to give a bite of happiness
to the starving
»I fancied when you were announced that you came for congratulations upon
your approaching marriage Percy«
»I shall expect to hear them from you tomorrow evening at the station dear
Tony« said he
The time was again stated the pledge repeated He forbore entreaties for
privileges and won her gratitude
They named once more the place of meeting and the hour more significant to
them than phrases of intensest love and passion Pressing hands sharply for
pledge of good faith they sundered
She still had him in her eyes when he had gone Her old world lay shattered
her new world was up without a dawn with but one figure the sun of it to
light the swinging strangeness
Was ever man more marvellously transformed or woman more wildly swept from
earth into the clouds So she mused in the hum of her tempest of heart and
brain forgetful of the years and the conditions preparing both of them for this
explosion
She had much to do the arrangements to dismiss her servants write to
houseagents and her lawyer and write fully to Emma write the enigmatic
farewell to the Esquarts and Lady Pennon Mary Paynham Arthur Rhodes Whitmonby
stanch in friendship but requiring friendly touches Henry Wilmers and
Redworth He was reserved to the last for very enigmatical adieux he would
hear the whole story from Emma must be left to think as he liked
The vague letters were excellently well composed she was going abroad and
knew not when she would return bade her friends think the best they could of
her in the meantime Whitmonby was favoured with an anecdote to be read as an
apologue by the light of subsequent events But the letter to Emma tasked Diana
Intending to write fully her pen committed the briefest sentences the
tenderness she felt for Emma wakening her heart to sing that she was loved
loved and knew love at last and Emmas foreseen antagonism to the love and the
step it involved rendered her pleadings in exculpation a stammered confession of
guiltiness ignominious unworthy of the pride she felt in her lover »I am like
a cartridge rammed into a gun to be discharged at a certain hour tomorrow«
she wrote and she sealed a letter so frigid that she could not decide to post
it All day she imagined hearing a distant cannonade The light of the day
following was not like earthly light Danvers assured her there was no fog in
London
»London is insupportable I am going to Paris and shall send for you in a
week or two« said Diana
»Allow me to say maam that you had better take me with you« said
Danvers
»Are you afraid of travelling by yourself you foolish creature«
»No maam but I dont like any hands to undress and dress my mistress but
my own«
»I have not lost the art« said Diana chafing for a magic spell to
extinguish the woman to whom immediately pitying her she said »You are a
good faithful soul I think you have never kissed me Kiss me on the forehead«
Danvers put her lips to her mistresss forehead and was asked »You still
consider yourself attached to my fortunes«
»I do maam at home or abroad and if you will take me with you «
»Not for a week or so«
»I shall not be in the way maam«
They played at shutting eyes The petition of Danvers was declined which
taught her the more and she was emboldened to say »Wherever my mistress goes
she ought to have her attendant with her« There was no answer to it but the
refusal
The hours crumbled slowly each with a blow at the passages of retreat
Diana thought of herself as another person whom she observed not counselling
her because it was a creature visibly pushed by the Fates In her own mind she
could not perceive a stone of solidity anywhere nor a face that had the
appearance of our common life She heard the cannon at intervals The things she
said set Danvers laughing and she wondered at the womans mingled mirth and
stiffness Five oclock struck Her letters were sent to the post Her boxes
were piled from stairs to door She read the labels for her goodbye to the
hated name of Warwick why ever adopted Emma might well have questioned why
Women are guilty of such unreasoning acts But this was the close to that
chapter The hour of six went by Between six and seven came a sound of knocker
and bell at the streetdoor Danvers rushed into the sittingroom to announce
that it was Mr Redworth Before a word could be mustered Redworth was in the
room He said »You must come with me at once«
Chapter XXVI
In Which a Disappointed Lover Receives a Multitude of Lessons
Dacier waited at the station a good figure of a sentinel over his luggage and a
spy for one among the inpouring passengers Tickets had been confidently taken
the private division of the carriages happily secured On board the boat she
would be veiled Landed on French soil they threw off disguises breasted the
facts And those They lightened He smarted with his eagerness
He had come well in advance of the appointed time for he would not have had
her hang about there one minute alone
Strange as this adventure was to a man of prominent station before the
world and electrical as the turningpoint of a destiny that he was given to
weigh deliberately and farsightedly Dianas image strung him to the pitch of
it He looked nowhere but ahead like an archer putting hand for his arrow
Presently he compared his watch and the terminus clock She should now be
arriving He went out to meet her and do service Many cabs and carriages were
peered into couples inspected ladies and their maids wives and their husbands
an August exodus to the Continent Nowhere the starry she But he had a fund
of patience She was now in some block of the streets He was sure of her sure
of her courage Tony and recreancy could not go together Now that he called her
Tony she was his close comrade known the name was a caress and a promise
breathing of her as the rose of sweetest earth He counted it to be a month ere
his family would have wind of the altered position of his affairs possibly a
year to the day of his making the dear woman his own in the eyes of the world
She was dear past computation womanly yet quite unlike the womanish women
unlike the semimales courteously called dashing unlike the sentimental His
present passion for her lineaments declared her surpassingly beautiful though
his critical taste was rather for the white statue that gave no warmth She had
brains and ardour she had grace and sweetness a playful petulancy enlivening
our atmosphere and withal a refinement a distinction not to be classed and
justly might she dislike the being classed Her humour was a perennial
refreshment a running well that caught all the colours of light her wit
studded the heavens of the recollection of her In his heart he felt that it was
a stepping down for the brilliant woman to give him her hand a condescension
and an act of valour She who always led or prompted when they conversed had
now in her generosity abandoned the lead and herself to him and she deserved
his utmost honouring
But where was she He looked at his watch looked at the clock They said
the same ten minutes to the moment of the trains departure
A man may still afford to dwell on the charms and merits of his hearts
mistress while he has ten minutes to spare The dropping minutes however
detract one by one from her individuality and threaten to sink her in her sex
entirely It is the inexorable clock that says she is as other women Dacier
began to chafe He was unaccustomed to the part he was performing and if she
failed him She would not She would be late though No she was in time His
long legs crossed the platform to overtake a tall lady veiled and dressed in
black He lifted his hat he heard an alarmed little cry and retired The clock
said Five minutes a secret chiromancy in addition indicating on its face the
word Fool An odd word to be cast at him It rocked the icy pillar of pride in
the background of his nature Certainly standing solus at the hour of eight
PM he would stand for a fool Hitherto he had never allowed a woman the
chance to posture him in that character He strode out returned scanned every
ladys shape and for a distraction watched the veiled lady whom he had
accosted Her figure suggested pleasant features Either she was disappointed or
she was an adept At the shutting of the gates she glided through not without a
fearful look around and at him She disappeared Dacier shrugged His novel
assimilation to the ratrabble of amatory intriguers tapped him on the shoulder
unpleasantly A luckless member of the fraternity too The bell the clock and
the train gave him his title »And I was ready to fling down everything for the
woman« The trial of a superb London gentlemans resources in the lovepassion
could not have been much keener No sign of her
He who stands ready to defy the world and is baffled by the absence of his
fair assistant is the fool doubled so completely the fool that he heads the
universal shout he does not spare himself The sole consolation he has is to
revile the sex Women women Whom have they not made a fool of His uncle as
much as any and professing to know them Him also the man proud of escaping
their wiles »For this woman « he went on saying after he had lost sight of
her in her sexs trickeries The nearest he could get to her was to conceive
that the arrant coquette was now laughing at her utter subjugation and befooling
of the man popularly supposed invincible If it were known of him The idea of
his being a puppet fixed for derision was madly distempering He had only to ask
the affirmative of Constance Asper tomorrow A vision of his determining to do
it somewhat comforted him
Dacier walked up and down the platform passing his pile of luggage
solitary and eloquent on the barrow Never in his life having been made to look
a fool he felt the red heat of the thing as a man who has not blessedly become
acquainted with the swish in boyhood finds his untempered blood turn to poison
at a blow he cannot healthily take a licking But then it had been so splendid
an insanity when he urged Diana to fly with him Any one but a woman would have
appreciated the sacrifice
His luggage had to be removed He dropped his porter a lordly fee and drove
home From that astonished solitude he strolled to his Club Curiosity mastering
the wrath it was mixed with he left his Club and crossed the park southward in
the direction of Dianas house abusing her for her inveterate attachment to the
regions of Westminster There she used to receive Lord Dannisburgh innocently
no doubt assuredly quite innocently and her husband had quitted the district
Still it was rather childish for a woman to be always haunting the seats of
Parliament Her disposition to imagine that she was able to inspire statesmen
came in for a share of ridicule for when we know ourselves to be ridiculous a
retort in kind unjust upon consideration is balm The woman dragged him down
to the level of common men that was the peculiar injury and it swept her
undistinguished into the stream of women In appearance as he had proved to the
fellows at his Club he was perfectly selfpossessed mentally distracted and
bitter hating himself for it snapping at the cause of it She had not merely
disappointed she had slashed his high conceit of himself curbed him at the
first animal dash forward and he champed the bit with the fury of a thwarted
racer
Twice he passed her house Of course no light was shown at her windows They
were scanned malignly
He held it due to her to call and inquire whether there was any truth in the
report of Mrs Warwicks illness Mrs Warwick She meant to keep the name
A maidservant came to the door with a candle in her hand revealing red
eyelids She was not aware that her mistress was unwell Her mistress had left
home some time after six oclock with a gentleman She was unable to tell him
the gentlemans name William the footman had opened the door to him Her
mistresss maid Mrs Danvers had gone to the Play with William She thought
that Mrs Danvers might know who the gentleman was The girls eyelids blinked
and she turned aside Dacier consoled her with a piece of gold saying he would
come and see Mrs Danvers in the morning
His wrath was partially quieted by the new speculations offered up to it He
could not conjure a suspicion of treachery in Diana Warwick and a treachery so
foully cynical She had gone with a gentleman He guessed on all sides he
struck at walls as in complete obscurity
The mystery of her conduct troubling his wits for the many hours was
explained by Danvers With a sympathy that she was at pains to show she
informed him that her mistress was not at all unwell and related of how Mr
Redworth had arrived just when her mistress was on the point of starting for
Paris and the Continent because poor Lady Dunstane was this very day to undergo
an operation under the surgeons at Copsley and she did not wish her mistress to
be present but Mr Redworth thought her mistress ought to be there and he had
gone down thinking she was there and then came back in hot haste to fetch her
and was just in time as it happened by two or three minutes
Dacier rewarded the sympathetic woman for her intelligence which appeared
to him to have shot so far as to require a bribe Gratitude to the person
soothing his unwontedly ruffled temper was the cause of the indiscretion in the
amount he gave
It appeared to him that he ought to proceed to Copsley for tidings of Lady
Dunstane Thither he sped by the handy railway and a timely train He reached
the parkgates at three in the afternoon telling his flyman to wait As he
advanced by short cuts over the grass he studied the look of the rows of
windows She was within and strangely to his clouded senses she was no longer
Tony no longer the deceptive woman he could in justice abuse He and she so
close to union were divided A hand resembling the palpable interposition of
Fate had swept them asunder Having the poorest right not any to reproach
her he was disarmed he felt himself a miserable intruder he summoned his
passion to excuse him and gained some unsatisfied repose of mind by
contemplating its devoted sincerity which roused an effort to feel for the
sufferer Diana Warwicks friend With the pair of surgeons named the most
eminent of their day in attendance the case must be serious To vindicate the
breaker of her pledge his present plight likewise assured him of that and
nearing the house he adopted instinctively the funeral step and mood just
sensible of a novel smallness For the fortifying testimony of his passion had
to be put aside he was obliged to disavow it for a simpler motive if he applied
at the door He stressed the motive produced the sentiment and passed thus
naturally into hypocrisy as lovers precipitated by their blood among the crises
of human conditions are often forced to do He had come to inquire after Lady
Dunstane He remembered that it had struck him as a duty on hearing of her
dangerous illness
The door opened before he touched the bell Sir Lukin knocked against him
and stared
»Ah who you« he said and took him by the arm and pressed him on
along the gravel »Dacier are you Redworths in there Come on a step come
Its the time for us to pray Good God Theres mercy for sinners If ever there
was a man But oh good God shes in their hands this minute My saint is
under the knife«
Dacier was hurried forward by a powerful hand »They say it lasts about five
minutes four and a half or more My God When they turned me out of her room
she smiled to keep me calm She said Dear husband the veriest wretch and
brutallest husband ever poor woman and a saint a saint on earth Emmy«
Tears burst from him
He pulled forth his watch and asked Dacier for the time
»A minutes gone in a minute Its three minutes and a half Come faster
Theyre at their work Its life or death Ive had death about me But for a
woman and your wife and that brave soul She bears it so Women are the
bravest creatures afloat If they make her shriek it ll be only if she thinks
Im out of hearing No I see her She bears it They maynt have begun yet
It may all be over Come into the wood I must pray I must go on my knees«
Two or three steps in the wood at the mossed roots of a beech he fell
kneeling muttering exclaiming
The tempest of penitence closed with a blind look at his watch which he
left dangling He had to talk to drug his thoughts
»And mind you« said he when he had rejoined Dacier and was pushing his arm
again rounding beneath the trees to a view of the house »for a man steeped in
damnable iniquity She bears it all for me because I begged her for the chance
of her living Its my doing this knife Macpherson swears there is a chance
Thomson backs him But theyre at her cutting The pain must be awful the
mere pain The gentlest creature ever drew breath And women fear blood and
her own And a head She ought to have married the best man alive not a I
cant remember her once complaining of me not once A common donkey compared
to her All I can do is to pray And she knows the beast I am and has forgiven
me There isnt a blessed text of Scripture that doesnt cry out in praise of
her And they cut and hack « He dropped his head The vehement big man
heaved shuddering His lips worked fast
»She is not alone with them unsupported« said Dacier
Sir Lukin moaned for relief He caught his watch swinging and stared at it
»What a good fellow you were to come Nows the time to know your friends
Theres Diana Warwick true as steel Redworth came on her tiptoe for the
Continent he had only to mention Emmy wanted to spare her She would not
have sent wanted to spare her the sight I offered to stand by Chased me
out Diana Warwicks there worth fifty of me Dacier Ive had my swordblade
tried by Indian horsemen and I know what true as steel means Shes there And
I know she shrinks from the sight of blood My oath on it she wont quiver a
muscle Next to my wife you may take my word for it Dacier Diana Warwick is
the pick of living women I could prove it They go together I could prove it
over and over Shes the loyallest woman anywhere Her one error was that
marriage of hers and how she ever pitched herself into it none of us can
guess« After a while he said »Look at your watch«
»Nearly twenty minutes gone«
»Are they afraid to send out word Its that window« He covered his eyes
and muttered sighed He became abruptly composed in appearance »The worst of a
black sheep like me is Im such an infernal sinner that Providence But
both surgeons gave me their word of honour that there was a chance A chance
But its the end of me if Emmy Good God no the knifes enough dont let
her be killed It would be murder Here am I talking I ought to be praying I
should have sent for the parson to help me I cant get the proper words
bellow like a rascal trooper strung up for the cat It must be twentyfive
minutes now Whos alive now«
Dacier thought of the Persian Queen crying for news of the slaughtered with
her mind on her lord and husband »Who is not dead« Diana exalted poets and
here was an example of the truth of one to nature and of the poor husbands
depth of feeling They said not the same thing but it was the same cry de
profundis
He saw Redworth coming at a quick pace
Redworth raised his hand Sir Lukin stopped »Hes waving«
»Its good« said Dacier
»Speak are you sure«
»I judge by the look«
Redworth stepped unfalteringly
»Its over all well« he said He brushed his forehead and looked sharply
cheerful
»My dear fellow my dear fellow« Sir Lukin grasped his hand »Its more
than I deserve Over She has borne it She would have gone to heaven and left
me Is she safe«
»Doing well«
»Have you seen the surgeons«
»Mrs Warwick«
»What did she say«
»A nod of the head«
»You saw her«
»She came to the stairs«
»Diana Warwick never lies She wouldnt lie not with a nod Theyve saved
Emmy do you think«
»It looks well«
»My girl has passed the worst of it«
»Thats over«
Sir Lukin gazed glassily The necessity of his agony was to lean to the
belief at a beckoning that Providence pardoned him in tenderness for what
would have been his loss He realized it and experienced a sudden calm
testifying to the positive pardon
»Now look here you two fellows listen half a moment« he addressed
Redworth and Dacier »Ive been the biggest scoundrel of a husband unhung and
married to a saint and if shes only saved to me I ll swear to serve her
faithfully or may a thunderbolt knock me to perdition and thank God for his
justice Prayers are answered mind you though a fellow may be as black as a
sweep Take a warning from me Ive had my lesson«
Dacier soon after talked of going The hope of seeing Diana had abandoned
him the desire was almost extinct
Sir Lukin could not let him go He yearned to preach to him or any one from
his personal text of the sinner honourably remorseful on account of and
notwithstanding the forgiveness of Providence and he implored Dacier and
Redworth by turns to be careful when they married of how they behaved to the
sainted women their wives never to lend ear to the devil nor to believe as he
had done that there is no such thing as a devil for he had been the victim of
him and he knew The devil he loudly proclaimed has a multiplicity of lures
and none more deadly than when he baits with a petticoat He had been hooked
and had found the devil in person He begged them urgently to keep his example
in memory By following this and that wildfire he had stuck himself in a bog a
common result with those who would not see the devil at work upon them and it
required his dear suffering saint to be at deaths doors cut to pieces and
gasping to open his eyes But thank heaven they were opened at last Now he
saw the beast he was a filthy beast unworthy of tying his wifes shoestring
No confessions could expose to them the beast he was But let them not fancy
there was no such thing as an active DEVIL about the world
Redworth divined that the simply sensational man abased himself before
Providence and heaped his gratitude on the awful Power in order to render it
difficult for the promise of the safety of his wife to be withdrawn
He said »There is good hope« and drew an admonition upon himself
»Ah my dear good Redworth« Sir Lukin sighed from his elevation of
outspoken penitence »you will see as I do some day It is the devil think as
you like of it When you have pulled down all the Institutions of the Country
what do you expect but ruins That Radicalism of yours has its day You have to
go through a wrestle like mine to understand it You say the day is fine lets
have our game Old England pays for it Then you ll find how you love the old
land of your birth the noblest ever called a nation with your Corn Law
Repeals eh Dacier You ll own it was the devil tempted you I hear you
apologizing Pray God it maynt be too late«
He looked up at the windows »She may be sinking«
»Have no fears« Redworth said »Mrs Warwick would send for you«
»She would Diana Warwick would be sure to send Next to my wife Diana
Warwicks shed send never fear I dread that room Id rather go through a
regiment of sabres though its over now And Diana Warwick stood it The worst
is over you told me By heaven women are wonderful creatures But she hasnt a
peer for courage I could trust her most extraordinary thing that marriage of
hers not a soul has ever been able to explain it trust her to the death«
Redworth left them and Sir Lukin ejaculated on the merits of Diana Warwick
to Dacier He laughed scornfully »And thats the woman the world attacks for
want of virtue Why a fellow hasnt a chance with her not a chance She comes
out in blazing armour if you unmask a battery I dont know how it might be if
she were in love with a fellow I doubt her thinking men worth the trouble I
never met the man But if she were to take fire Troyd be nothing to it I
wonder whether we might go in I dread the house«
Dacier spoke of departing
»No no wait« Sir Lukin begged him »I was talking about women They are
the devil or he makes most use of them and you must learn to see the cloven
foot under their petticoats if youre to escape them Theres no protection in
being in love with your wife I married for love I am I always have been in
love with her and I went to the deuce The music struck up and away I waltzed
A woman like Diana Warwick might keep a fellow straight because shes all round
you shes man and woman in brains and legged like a deer and breasted like a
swan and a regular sheaf of arrows in her eyes Dark women ah But she has a
contempt for us you know Thats the secret of her Redworths at the door
Bad Is it bad I never was particularly fond of that house hated it I love
it now for Emmys sake I couldnt live in another though I should be haunted
Rather her ghost than nothing though Im an infernal coward about the next
world But if youre right with religion you neednt fear What I cant
comprehend in Redworth is his Radicalism and getting richer and richer«
»Its not a vow of poverty« said Dacier
»He ll find they dont coalesce or his children will Once the masses are
uppermost Its a bad day Dacier when weve no more gentlemen in the land
Emmy backs him so I hold my tongue Tomorrows a Sunday I wish you were
staying here Id take you to church with me we shirk it when we havent a
care It couldnt do you harm Ive heard capital sermons Ive always had the
good habit of going to church Dacier Nows the time for remembering them Ah
my dear fellow Im not a parson It would have been better for me if I had
been«
And for you too his look added plainly He longed to preach he was
impelled to chatter
Redworth reported the patient perfectly quiet breathing calmly
»Laudanum« asked Sir Lukin »Now theres a poison weve got to bless And
we set up in our wisdom for knowing what is good for us«
He had talked his hearers into a stupefied assent to anything he uttered
»Mrs Warwick would like to see you in two or three minutes she will come
down« Redworth said to Dacier
»That looks well eh That looks bravely« Sir Lukin cried »Diana Warwick
wouldnt leave the room without a certainty I dread the look of those men I
shall have to shake their hands And so I do with all my heart only But God
bless them But we must go in if shes coming down«
They entered the house and sat in the drawingroom where Sir Lukin took up
from the table one of his wifes Latin books a Persius bearing her marginal
notes He dropped his head on it with sobs
The voice of Diana recalled him to the present She counselled him to
control himself in that case he might for one moment go to the chamberdoor and
assure himself by the silence that his wife was resting She brought permission
from the surgeons and doctor on his promise to be still
Redworth supported Sir Lukin tottering out
Dacier had risen He was petrified by Dianas face and thought of her as
whirled from him in a storm bearing the marks of it Her underlip hung for
short breaths the big drops of her recent anguish still gathered on her brows
her eyes were tearless lustreless she looked ancient in youth and distant by
a century like a tall woman of the vaults issuing whiteringed not of our
light
She shut her mouth for strength to speak to him
He said »You are not ill You are strong«
»I Oh strong I will sit I cannot be absent longer than two minutes The
trial of her strength is to come If it were courage we might be sure The day
is fine«
»A perfect August day«
»I held her through it I am thankful to heaven it was no other hand than
mine She wished to spare me She was glad of her Tony when the time came I
thought I was a coward I could have changed with her to save her I am a
strong woman fit to submit to that work I should not have borne it as she did
She expected to sink under it All her dispositions were made for death
bequests to servants and to to friends every secret liking they had
thought of«
Diana clenched her hands
»I hope« Dacier said
»You shall hear regularly Call at Sir Williams house tomorrow He sleeps
here tonight The suspense must last for days It is a question of vital power
to bear the shock She has a mind so like a flying spirit that just before the
moment she made Mr Lanyan Thomson smile by quoting some saying of her Tonys«
»Try byandby to recollect it« said Dacier
»And you were with that poor man How did he pass the terrible time I
pitied him«
»He suffered he prayed«
»It was the best he could do Mr Redworth was as he always is at the trial
a pillar Happy the friend who knows him for one He never thinks of himself in
a crisis He is sheer strength to comfort and aid They will drive you to the
station with Mr Thomson He returns to relieve Sir William tomorrow I have
learnt to admire the men of the knife No profession equals theirs in
selfcommand and beneficence Dr Bridgenorth is permanent here«
»I have a fly and go back immediately« said Dacier
»She shall hear of your coming Adieu«
Diana gave him her hand It was gently pressed
A wonderment at the utter change of circumstances took Dacier passingly at
the sight of her vanishing figure
He left the house feeling he dared have no personal wishes It had ceased
to be the lovers hypocrisy with him
The crisis of mortal peril in that house enveloped its inmates and so
wrought in him as to enshroud the stripped outcrying husband of whom he had no
clear recollection save of the mans agony The two women striving against
death devoted in friendship were the sole living images he brought away they
were a new vision of the world and our life
He hoped with Diana bled with her She rose above him high beyond his
transient human claims He envied Redworth the common friendly right to be near
her In reflection long after her simplicity of speech washed pure of the
bloodemotions for token of her great nature during those two minutes of their
sitting together was dearer sweeter to the lover than if she had shown by
touch or word that a faint allusion to their severance was in her mind and this
despite a certain vacancy it created
He received formal information of Lady Dunstanes progress to convalescence
By degrees the simply official tone of Dianas letters combined with the ceasing
of them and the absence of her personal charm to make a gentleman not remarkable
for violence in the passion so calmly reasonable as to think the dangerous
presence best avoided for a time Subject to fits of the passion he certainly
was but his position in the world was a counselling spouse jealous of his good
name He did not regret his proposal to take the leap he would not have
regretted it if taken On the safe side of the abyss however it wore a
gruesome look to his cool blood
Chapter XXVII
Contains Matter for Subsequent Explosion
Among the various letters inundating Sir Lukin Dunstane upon the report of the
triumph of surgical skill achieved by Sir William Macpherson and Mr Lanyan
Thomson was one from Lady Wathin dated Adlands an estate of Mr Quintin
Manxs in Warwickshire petitioning for the shortest line of reassurance as to
the condition of her dear cousin and an intimation of the period when it might
be deemed possible for a relative to call and offer her sincere congratulations
a letter deserving a personal reply one would suppose She received the
following in a succinct female hand corresponding to its terseness every t
righteously crossed every i punctiliously dotted as she remarked to Constance
Asper to whom the communication was transferred for perusal
»Dear Lady Wathin Lady Dunstane is gaining strength The measure of
her pulse indicates favourably She shall be informed in good time of
your solicitude for her recovery The day cannot yet be named for visits
of any kind You will receive information as soon as the house is open
I have undertaken the task of correspondence and beg you to believe
me
Very truly yours
D A WARWICK«
Miss Asper speculated on the handwriting of her rival She obtained permission
to keep the letter with the intention of transmitting it per post to an
advertising interpreter of character in caligraphy
Such was the character of the fair young heiress exhibited by her
performances much more patently than the run of a quill would reveal it
She said »It is rather a pretty hand I think«
»Mrs Warwick is a practised writer« said Lady Wathin »Writing is her
profession if she has any She goes to nurse my cousin Her husband says she is
an excellent nurse He says what he can for her But you must be in the last
extremity or she is ice His appeal to her has been totally disregarded Until
he drops down in the street as his doctor expects him to do some day she will
continue her course and even then « An adventuress desiring her freedom
Lady Wathin looked She was too devout a woman to say what she thought But she
knew the world to be very wicked Of Mrs Warwick her opinion was formed She
would not have charged the individual creature with a criminal design all she
did was to stuff the person her virtue abhorred with the wickedness of the
world and that is a common process in antipathy
She sympathized moreover with the beautiful devotedness of the wealthy
heiress to her ideal of man It had led her to make the acquaintance of old Lady
Dacier at the house in town where Constance Asper had first met Percy Mrs
Grafton Winstanleys house representing neutral territory or debateable land
for the occasional intercourse of the upper class and the climbing in the
professions or in commerce Mrs Grafton Winstanley being on the edge of
aristocracy by birth her husband like Mr Quintin Manx a lord of fleets Old
Lady Daciers bluntness in speaking of her grandson would have shocked Lady
Wathin as much as it astonished had she been less of an ardent absorber of
aristocratic manners Percy was plainly called a donkey for hanging off and on
with a handsome girl of such expectations as Miss Asper »But what you cant do
with a horse you cant hope to do with a donkey« She added that she had come
for the purpose of seeing the heiress of whose points of person she delivered a
judgement critically appreciative as a horsefanciers on the racing turf »If a
girl like that holds to it shes pretty sure to get him at last Its no use to
pull his neck down to the water«
Lady Wathin delicately alluded to rumours of an entanglement an admiration
he had ahem
»A married woman« the veteran nodded »I thought that was off She must be
a clever intriguer to keep him so long«
»She is undoubtedly clever« said Lady Wathin and it was mumbled in her
hearing »The woman seems to have a taste for our family«
They agreed that they could see nothing to be done The young lady must
wither Mrs Warwick have her day The veteran confided her experienced why to
Lady Wathin »All the tales you tell of a woman of that sort are sharp sauce to
the palates of men«
They might be to the men of the dreadful gilded idle class
Mrs Warwicks day appeared indefinitely prolonged judging by Percy
Daciers behaviour to Miss Asper Lady Wathin watched them narrowly when she had
the chance a little ashamed of her sex or indignant rather at his display of
courtliness in exchange for her open betrayal of her preference It was almost
to be wished that she would punish him by sacrificing herself to one of her many
brilliant proposals of marriage But such are women precisely because of his
holding back he tightened the cord attaching him to her tenacious heart This
was the truth For the rest he was gracefully courteous an observer could
perceive the charm he exercised He talked with a ready affability latterly
with greater social ease evidently not acting the indifferent conqueror or so
consummately acting it as to mask the air And yet he was ambitious and he was
not rich Notoriously was he ambitious and with wealth to back him a great
entertaining house troops of adherents he would gather influence be propelled
to leadership The vexation of a constant itch to speak to him on the subject
and the recognition that he knew it all as well as she tormented Lady Wathin
He gave her comforting news of her dear cousin in the Winter
»You have heard from Mrs Warwick« she said
He replied »I had the latest from Mr Redworth«
»Mrs Warwick has relinquished her post«
»When she does you may be sure that Lady Dunstane is perfectly
reestablished«
»She is an excellent nurse«
»The best I believe«
»It is a good quality in sickness«
»Proof of good all through«
»Her husband might have the advantage of it His state is really pathetic
If she has feeling and could only be made aware she might perhaps be persuaded
to pass from the friendly to the wifely duty«
Mr Dacier bent his head to listen and he bowed
He was fast in the toils and though we have assurance that evil cannot
triumph in perpetuity the aspect of it throning provokes a kind of despair How
strange if ultimately the lawyers once busy about the uncle were to take up the
case of the nephew and this time reverse the issue by proving it For poor Mr
Warwick was emphatic on the question of his honour It excited him dangerously
He was longsuffering but with the slightest clue terrible The unknotting of
the entanglement might thus happen and Constance Asper would welcome her hero
still
Meanwhile there was actually nothing to be done a deplorable absence of
motive villainy apparently an absence of the beneficent Power directing events
to their proper termination Lady Wathin heard of her cousins having been
removed to Cowes in May for light Solent and Channel voyages on board Lord
Esquarts yacht She heard also of heavy failures and convulsions in the City of
London quite unconscious that the Fates or agents of the Providence she
invoked to precipitate the catastrophe were then beginning cavernously their
performance of the part of villain in Dianas history
Diana and Emma enjoyed happy quiet sailings under May breezes on the
manycoloured Southwestern waters heart in heart again the physical weakness
of the one the moral weakness of the other creating that mutual dependency
which makes friendship a pulsating tie Dianas confession had come of her
letter to Emma When the latter was able to examine her correspondence Diana
brought her the heap for perusal her own sealed scribble throbbing with all
the fatal mighthavebeen under her eyes She could have concealed and
destroyed it She sat beside her friend awaiting her turn hearing her say at
the superscription »Your writing Tony« and she nodded She was asked »Shall
I read it« She answered »Read« They were soon locked in an embrace Emma had
no perception of coldness through those brief dry lines her thought was of the
matter
»The danger is over now« she said
»Yes that danger is over now«
»You have weathered it«
»I love him«
Emma dropped a heavy sigh in pity of her remotely in compassion for
Redworth the loving and unbeloved She was too humane and wise of our nature to
chide her Tony for having her sexs heart She had charity to bestow on women
in defence of them against men and the world it was a charity armed with the
weapons of battle The wife madly stripped before the world by a jealous
husband and left chained to the rock her youth wasting her blood arrested
her sensibilities chilled and assailing her under their multitudinous disguises
and for whom the world is merciless called forth Emmas tenderest
commiseration and that wife being Tony and stricken with the curse of love in
other circumstances the blessing Emma bled for her
»But nothing desperate« she said
»No you have saved me«
»I would knock at deaths doors again and pass them to be sure of that«
»Kiss me you may be sure I would not put my lips to your cheek if there
were danger of my faltering«
»But you love him«
»I do and because I love him I will not let him be fettered to me«
»You will see him«
»Do not imagine that his persuasions undermined your Tony I am subject to
panics«
»Was it your husband«
»I had a visit from Lady Wathin She knows him She came as peacemaker She
managed to hint at his authority Then came a letter from him of supplication
interpenetrated with the hint a suffused atmosphere Upon that unexpected by
me my let me call him so once forgive me lover came Oh he loves me or
did then Percy He had been told that I should be claimed I felt myself the
creature I am a wreck of marriage But I fancied I could serve him I saw
golden My vanity was the chief traitor Cowardice of course played a part In
few things that we do where self is concerned will cowardice not be found And
the hallucination colours it to seem a lovely heroism That was the second time
Mr Redworth arrived I am always at crossways and he rescues me on this
occasion unknowingly«
»Theres a divinity « said Emma »When I think of it I perceive that
Patience is our beneficent fairy godmother who brings us our harvest in the
long result«
»My dear does she bring us our labourers rations to sustain us for the
day« said Diana
»Poor fare but enough«
»I fear I was born godmotherless«
»You have stores of patience Tony only now and then fits of desperation«
»My natures frailty the gap in it we will give it no fine names they
cover our pitfalls I am open to be carried on a tide of unreasonableness when
the coward cries out But I can say dear that after one rescue a similar
temptation is unlikely to master me I do not subscribe to the worlds decrees
for love of the monster though I am beginning to understand the dues of
allegiance We have ceased to write letters You may have faith in me«
»I have with my whole soul« said Emma
So the confession closed and in the present instance there were not any
forgotten chambers to be unlocked and ransacked for addenda confessions
The subjects discoursed of by the two endeared the hours to them They were
aware that the English of the period would have laughed a couple of women to
scorn for venturing on them and they were not a little hostile in consequence
and shot their epigrams profusely applauding the keener that appeared to score
the giant bulk of their intolerant enemy who holds the day but not the morrow
Us too he holds for the day to punish us if we have temporal cravings He
scatters his gifts to the abject tossing to us rebels bare dogbiscuit But the
life of the spirit is beyond his region we have our morrow in his day when we
crave nought of him Diana and Emma delighted to discover that they were each
the rebel of their earlier and less experienced years each a member of the
malcontent minor faction the salt of earth to whom their salt must serve for
nourishment as they admitted relishing it determinedly not without
gratification
Sir Lukin was busy upon his estate in Scotland They summoned young Arthur
Rhodes to the island that he might have a taste of the new scenes Diana was
always wishing for his instruction and refreshment and Redworth came to spend a
Saturday and Sunday with them and showed his disgust of the idle boy as usual
at the same time consulting them on the topic of furniture for the Berkshire
mansion he had recently bought rather vaunting the Spanish pictures his
commissioner in Madrid was transmitting The pair of rebels vexed by his
treatment of the respectful junior took him for an incarnation of their enemy
and pecked and worried the man astonishingly He submitted to it like the
placable giant Yes he was a Liberal and furnishing and decorating the house
in the stability of which he trusted Why not We must accept the world as it
is try to improve it by degrees Not so humanity will not wait for you the
victims are shrieking beneath the bricks of your enormous edifice behind the
canvas of your pictures »But you may really say that luxurious yachting is an
odd kind of insurgency« avowed Diana »Its the tangle we are in«
»Its the coat we have to wear and why fret at it for being comfortable«
»I dont half enough when I think of my shivering neighbours«
»Money is of course a rough test of virtue« said Redworth »We have no
other general test«
Money The ladies proclaimed it a mere material test Diana gazing on sunny
sea with an especial disdain And name us your sort of virtue There is more
virtue in poverty He denied that Inflexibly British he declared money and
also the art of getting money to be hereditary virtues deserving of their
reward The reward a superior wealth and its fruits Yes the power to enjoy and
spread enjoyment and let idleness envy both He abused idleness and by
implication the dilettante insurgency fostering it However he was
compensatingly heterodox in his view of the Laws persecution of women their
pertinacious harpings on the theme had brought him to that and in consideration
of the fact as they looked from yacht to shore of their being rebels
participating largely in the pleasures of the tyrants court they allowed him
to silence them and forgave him
Thoughts upon money and idleness were in confusion with Diana She had a
household to support in London and she was not working she could not touch THE
CANTATRICE while Emma was near Possibly she again ejaculated the Redworths of
the world were right the fruitful labours were with the mattock and hoe or the
mind directing them It was a crushing invasion of materialism so she proposed
a sail to the coast of France and thither they flew touching Cherbourg
Alderney Sark Guernsey and sighting the low Brittany rocks Memorable days to
Arthur Rhodes He saw perpetually the one golden centre in new scenes He heard
her voice he treasured her sayings her gestures her play of lip and eyelid
her lift of head lightest movements were imprinted on him surely as the
heavens are mirrored in the quiet seas firmly and richly as earth answers to
the sprinkled grain For he was blissfully athirst untroubled by a hope She
gave him more than she knew of a present that kept its beating heart into the
future a height of sky a belief in nobility permanent through manhood down to
age She was his foamborn Goddess of those leaping waters differently hued
crescented a different influence He had a happy week and it charmed Diana to
hear him tell her so In spite of Redworth she had faith in the fruitbearing
powers of a time of simple happiness and shared the youths in reflecting it
Only the happiness must be simple that of the glass to the lovely face no
straining of arms to retain no heaving of the bosom in vacancy
His poverty and capacity for pure enjoyment led her to think of him almost
clingingly when hard news reached her from the quaint old City of London which
despises poverty and authorcraft and all mean adventurers and bows to the
lordly merchant the mighty financier Redworths incarnation of the virtues
Happy days on board the yacht Clarissa Diana had to recall them with effort
They who sow their money for a promising high percentage have built their
habitations on the sides of the most eruptive mountain in Europe Ætna supplies
more certain harvests wrecks fewer vineyards and peaceful dwellings The greed
of gain is our volcano Her wonder leapt up at the slight inducement she had
received to embark her money in this Company a SouthAmerican mine collapsed
almost within hearing of the trumpets of prospectus after two punctual payments
of the halfyearly interest A Mrs Ferdinand Cherson an elder sister of the
pretty Mrs FryarGunnett had talked to her of the cost of things one afternoon
at Lady Singlebys gardenparty and spoken of the City as the place to help to
swell an income if only you have an acquaintance with some of the chief City
men The great mine was named and the rush for allotments She knew a couple of
the Directors They vowed to her that ten per cent was a trifle the fortune to
be expected out of the mine was already clearly estimable at forties and
fifties For their part they anticipated cent per cent Mrs Cherson said she
wanted money and had therefore invested in the mine It seemed so consequent
the cost of things being enormous She and her sister Mrs FryarGunnett owned
husbands who did their bidding because of their having the brains it might be
understood Thus five thousand pounds invested would speedily bring five
thousand pounds per annum Diana had often dreamed of the City of London as the
seat of magic and taking the Citys contempt for authorcraft and the intangible
as from its point of view justly founded she had mixed her dream strangely
with an ancient notion of the Citys probity Her brokers shaking head did not
damp her ardour for shares to the full amount of her ability to purchase She
remembered her satisfaction at the allotment the golden castle shot up from
this fountain mine She had a frenzy for mines and fished in some English with
smaller sums »I am now a miner« she had exclaimed between dismay at her
audacity and the pride of it Why had she not consulted Redworth He would
peremptorily have stopped the frenzy in its first intoxicating effervescence
She like Mrs Cherson like all women who have plunged upon the cost of things
wanted money She naturally went to the mine Address him for counsel in the
person of dupe she could not shame was a barrier Could she tell him that the
prattle of a woman spendthrift as Mrs Cherson had induced her to risk her
money Latterly the reports of Mrs FryarGunnett were not of the flavour to
make association of their names agreeable to his hearing
She had to sit down in the buzz of her selfreproaches and amazement at the
behaviour of that reputable City shrug and recommence the labour of her pen
Material misfortune had this one advantage it kept her from speculative
thoughts of her lover and the meaning of his absence and silence
Dianas perusal of the incomplete CANTATRICE was done with the cold critical
eye interpreting for the public She was forced to write on nevertheless and
exactly in the ruts of the foregoing matter It propelled her No longer
perversely of necessity she wrote her best convinced that the work was doomed
to unpopularity resolved that it should be at least a victory in style A fit
of angry cynicism now and then set her composing phrases as baits for the
critics to quote condemnatory of the attractiveness of the work Her mood was
bad In addition she found Whitmonby cool he complained of the coolness of her
letter of adieu complained of her leaving London so long How could she expect
to be his Queen of the London Salon if she lost touch of the topics He made no
other allusion They were soon on amicable terms at the expense of flattering
arts that she had not hitherto practised But Westlake revealed unimagined
marvels of the odd corners of the masculine bosom He was the man of her circle
the neatest in epigram the widest of survey an Oriental traveller a
distinguished writer and if not personally bewitching remarkably a gentleman
of the world He was wounded he said as much It came to this admitting that
he had no claims he declared it to be unbearable for him to see another
preferred The happier was unmentioned and Diana scraped his wound by rallying
him He repeated that he asked only to stand on equal terms with the others her
preference of one was past his tolerance She told him that since leaving Lady
Dunstane she had seen but Whitmonby Wilmers and him He smiled sarcastically
saying he had never had a letter from her except the formal one of invitation
»Powers of blarney have you forsaken a daughter of Erin« cried Diana
»Here is a friend who has a craving for you and I talk sense to him I have
written to none of my set since I last left London«
She pacified him by doses of cajolery new to her tongue She liked him
abhorred the thought of losing any of her friends so the cajoling sentences ran
until Westlake betrayed an inflammable composition and had to be put out and
smoked sullenly Her resources were tried in restoring him to reason The months
of absence from London appeared to have transformed her world Tonans was
moderate The great editor rebuked her for her prolonged absence from London
not so much because it discrowned her as Queen of the Salon but candidly for
its rendering her service less to him Everything she knew of men and affairs
was to him stale
»How do you get to the secrets« she asked
»By sticking to the centre of them« he said
»But how do you manage to be in advance and act the prophet«
»Because I will have them at any price and that is known«
She hinted at the peccant City Company
»I think I have checked the mining mania as I did the railway« said he
»and so far it was a public service Theres no checking of maniacs«
She took her whipping within and without »On another occasion I shall apply
to you Mr Tonans«
»Ah there was a time when you could have been a treasure to me« he
rejoined alluding of course to the Dannisburgh days
In dejection as she mused on those days and on her foolish ambition to
have a London house where her light might burn she advised herself with
Redworths voice to quit the house arrest expenditure and try for happiness
by burning and shining in the spirit devoting herself as Arthur Rhodes did
purely to literature It became almost a decision
Percy she had still neither written to nor heard from and she dared not
hope to meet him She fancied a wish to have tidings of his marriage it would
be peace if in desolation Now that she had confessed and given her pledge to
Emma she had so far broken with him as to render the holding him chained a
cruelty and his reserve whispered of a rational acceptance of the end between
them She thanked him for it an act whereby she was instantly melted to such
softness that a dread of him haunted her Coward take up your burden for
armour she called to her poor dungeoned self wailing to have common
nourishment She knew how prodigiously it waxed on crumbs nay on the
imagination of small morsels By way of chastizing it she reviewed her life
her behaviour to her husband until she sank backward to a depth deprived of air
and light That life with her husband was a dungeon to her nature deeper than
any imposed by present conditions She was then a revolutionary to reach to the
breath of day She had now to be only not a coward and she could breathe as
others did »Women who sap the moral laws pull down the pillars of the temple on
their sex« Emma had said Diana perceived something of her personal debt to
civilization Her struggles passed into the doomed CANTATRICE occupying days and
nights under pressure for immediate payment the silencing of friend Debit
ridiculously calling himself Credit in contempt of sex and conduct on the
ground that he was he solely by virtue of being she He had got a trick of
singing operatic solos in the form and style of the delightful tenor Tellio and
they were touching in absurdity most real in unreality Exquisitely trilled
after Tellios manner
»The tradesmen all beseech ye
The landlord cook and maid
Complete THE CANTATRICE
That they may soon be paid«
provoked her to laughter in pathos He approached posturing himself
operatically with perpetual new verses rhymes to Danvers rhymes to Madame
Sybille the cook Seeing Tellio at one of Henry Wilmers private concerts
Dianas lips twitched to dimples at the likeness her familiar had assumed She
had to compose her countenance to talk to him but the moment of song was the
trial Lady Singleby sat beside her and remarked »You have always fun going on
in you« She partook of the general impression that Diana Warwick was too
humorous to nurse a downright passion
Before leaving she engaged Diana to her annual gardenparty of the closing
season and there the meeting with Percy occurred not unobserved Had they been
overheard very little to implicate them would have been gathered He walked in
full view across the lawn to her and they presented mask to mask
»The beauty of the day tempts you at last Mrs Warwick«
»I have been finishing a piece of work«
Lovely weather beautiful dresses agreed Diana wore a yellow robe with a
black bonnet and he commented on the becoming hues for the first time he
noticed her dress Lovely women Dacier hesitated One he saw But surely he
must admire Mrs FryarGunnett And who steps beside her transparently
fascinated with visage at threequarters to the rays within her bonnet Can it
be Sir Lukin Dunstane and beholding none but his charmer
Dacier withdrew his eyes thoughtfully from the spectacle and moved to woo
Diana to a stroll She could not restrain her feet she was out of the ring of
her courtiers for the moment He had seized his opportunity
»It is nearly a year« he said
»I have been nursing nearly all the time doing the work I do best«
»Unaltered«
»A year must leave its marks«
»Tony«
»You speak of a madwoman a good eleven months dead Let her rest Those are
the conditions«
»Accepted if I may see her«
»Honestly accepted«
»Imposed fatally I have to own I have felt with you you are the wiser
But admitting that surely we can meet I may see you«
»My house has not been shut«
»I respected the house I distrusted myself«
»What restores your confidence«
»The strength I draw from you«
One of the Beauties at a gardenparty is lucky to get as many minutes as had
passed in quietness Diana was met and captured But those last words of Percys
renewed her pride in him by suddenly building a firm faith in herself Noblest
of lovers she thought and brooded on the little that had been spoken the much
conveyed for a proof of perfect truthfulness
The world had watched them It pronounced them discreet if culpable
probably cold to the passion both Of Daciers coldness it had no doubt and
Dianas was presumed from her comical flights of speech She was given to him
because of the known failure of her other adorers He in the front rank of
politicians attracted her with the lustre of his ambition she him with her
mingling of talent and beauty An astute world right in the main owing to
perceptions based upon brute nature utterly astray in particulars for the
reason that it takes no count of the soul of man or woman Hence its glee at a
catastrophe its poor stock of mercy And when no catastrophe follows the
prophet for the honour of the profession must decry her as cunning beyond
aught yet revealed of a serpent sex
Save for a word or two the watchman might have overheard and trumpeted his
report of their interview at Dianas house After the first pained breathing
when they found themselves alone in that room where they had plighted their
fortunes they talked allusively to define the terms imposed on them by Reason
The thwarted step was unmentioned it was a past madness But Wisdom being
recognized they could meet It would be hard if that were denied They talked
very little of their position both understood the mutual acceptance of it and
now that he had seen her and was again under the spell Daciers rational mind
together with his delight in her presence compelled him honourably to bow to
the terms Only as these were severe upon lovers the innocence of their
meetings demanded indemnification in frequency
»Come whenever you think I can be useful« said Diana
They pressed hands at parting firmly and briefly not for the ordinary
dactylology of lovers but in sign of the treaty of amity
She soon learnt that she had tied herself to her costly household
Chapter XXVIII
Dialogue Round the Subject of a Portrait with Some Indications of the Task for
Diana
An enamoured Egeria who is not a princess in her worldly state nor a goddess by
origin has to play one of those parts which strain the womans faculties past
naturalness She must never expose her feelings to her lover she must make her
counsel weighty otherwise she is little his nymph of the pure wells and what
she soon may be the world will say She has also most imperatively to dazzle
him without the betrayal of artifice where simple spontaneousness is beyond
conjuring But feelings that are constrained becloud the judgement besides
arresting the fine jet of delivery wherewith the mastered lover is taught
through his ears to think himself prompted and submit to be controlled by a
creature superfeminine She must make her counsel so weighty in poignant
praises as to repress impulses that would rouse her own and her betraying
impulsiveness was a subject of reflection to Diana after she had given Percy
Dacier metaphorically the key of her house Only as his true Egeria could she
receive him She was therefore grateful she thanked and venerated this noblest
of lovers for his not pressing to the word of love and so strengthening her to
point his mind freshen his moral energies and inspirit him His chivalrous
acceptance of the conditions of their renewed intimacy was a radiant
knightliness to Diana elevating her with a living image for worship he so
near once to being the absolute lord of her destinies How to reward him was
her sole dangerous thought She prayed and strove that she might give him of her
best to practically help him and she had reason to suppose she could do it
from the visible effect of her phrases He glistened in repeating them he had
fallen into the habit before witnesses too in the presence of Miss Paynham
who had taken earnestly to the art of painting and obtained her dear Mrs
Warwicks promise of a few sittings for the sketch of a portrait near the close
of the season »A very daring thing to attempt« Miss Paynham said when he was
comparing her first outlines and the beautiful breathing features »Even if one
gets the face the lips will seem speechless to those who know her«
»If they have no recollection« said Dacier
»I mean the endeavour should be to represent them at the moment of
speaking«
»Put it into the eyes« He looked at the eyes
She looked at the mouth »But it is the mouth more than the eyes«
He looked at the face »Where there is character you have only to study it
to be sure of a likeness«
»That is the task with one who utters jewels Mr Dacier«
»Bright wit I fear is above the powers of your art«
»Still I feel it could be done See now that«
Dianas lips had opened to say »Confess me a model model I am dissected
while I sit for portrayal I must be for a moment like the frog of the two
countrymen who were disputing as to the manner of his death when he stretched
to yawn upon which they agreed that he had defeated the truth for both of them
I am not quite inanimate«
»Irish countrymen« said Dacier
»The story adds that blows were arrested so confer the nationality as you
please«
Diana had often to divert him from a too intent perusal of her features with
sparkles and stories current or invented to serve the immediate purpose
Miss Paynham was Mrs Warwicks guest for a fortnight and observed them
together She sometimes charitably laid down her pencil and left them having
forgotten this or that They were conversing of general matters with their usual
crisp precision on her return and she was rather like the two countrymen in
debating whether it was excess of coolness or discreetness though she was
convinced of their inclinations and expected love some day to be leaping up
Diana noticed that she had no reminder for leaving the room when it was Mr
Redworth present These two had become very friendly according to her hopes
and Miss Paynham was extremely solicitous to draw suggestions from Mr Redworth
and win his approval
»Do I appear likely to catch the mouth now do you think Mr Redworth«
He remarked smiling at Dianas expressive dimple that the mouth was
difficult to catch He did not gaze intently Mr Redworth was the genius of
friendship the friend of women Mrs Warwick had said of him Miss Paynham
discovered it as regarded herself The portrait was his commission to her
kindly proposed secretly of course to give her occupation and the chance of
winning a vogue with the face of a famous Beauty So many however were Mrs
Warwicks visitors and so lively the chatter she directed that accurate
sketching was difficult to an amateurish hand Whitmonby Sullivan Smith
Westlake Henry Wilmers Arthur Rhodes and other gentlemen literary and
military were almost daily visitors when it became known that the tedium of the
beautiful sitter required beguiling and there was a certainty of finding her at
home On Mrs Warwicks Wednesday numerous ladies decorated the group Then was
heard such a rillet of dialogue without scandal or politics as nowhere else in
Britain all vowed it subsequently for to the remembrance it seemed magical
Not a breath of scandal and yet the liveliest flow Lady Pennon came attended
by a Mr Alexander Hepburn a handsome Scot at whom Dacier shot one of his
instinctive keen glances before seeing that the hostess had mounted a transient
colour Mr Hepburn in settling himself on his chair rather too briskly
contrived the next minute to break a precious bit of China standing by his
elbow and Lady Pennon cried out with sympathetic anguish »Oh my dear what a
trial for you«
»Brittle is foredoomed« said Diana unruffled
She deserved compliments and would have had them if she had not wounded the
most jealous and petulant of her courtiers
»Then the Turk is a sapient custodian« said Westlake vexed with her flush
at the entrance of the Scot
Diana sedately took his challenge »We Mr Westlake have the philosophy of
ownership«
Mr Hepburn penitentially knelt to pick up the fragments and Westlake
murmured over his head »As long as it is we who are the cracked«
»Did we not start from China«
»We were consequently precipitated to Stamboul«
»You try to elude the lesson«
»I remember my first paedagogue telling me so when he rapped the book on my
cranium«
»The mark of the book is not a disfigurement«
It was gently worded and the shrewder for it The mark of the book if not
a disfigurement was a characteristic of Westlakes fashion of speech Whitmonby
nodded twice for signification of a palpable hit in that bout and he noted
within him the foolishness of obtruding the remotest allusion to our personality
when crossing the foils with a woman She is down on it like the lightning
quick as she is in her contracted circle politeness guarding her from a
riposte
Mr Hepburn apologized very humbly after regaining his chair Diana smiled
and said »Incidents in a drawingroom are prizeshots at Dulness«
»And in a diningroom too« added Sullivan Smith »I was one day at a
dinnerparty apparently of undertakers hired to mourn over the joints and the
birds in the dishes when the ceiling came down and we all sprang up merry as
crickets It led to a pretty encounter and a real prizeshot«
»Does that signify a duel« asked Lady Pennon
»Twould be the vulgar title to bring it into discredit with the populace
my lady«
»Rank me one of the populace then I hate duelling and rejoice that it is
discountenanced«
»The citizens and not the populace I think Mr Sullivan Smith means«
Diana said »The citizen is generally right in morals My father also was
against the practice when it raged at its prettiest I have heard him relate a
story of a poor friend of his who had to march out for a trifle and said as
he accepted the invitation Its all nonsense and walking to the measured
length Its all nonsense you know and when lying on the ground at his last
gasp I told you it was all nonsense«
Sullivan Smith leaned over to Whitmonby and Dacier amid the ejaculations
and whispered »A ladys way of telling the story and excuseable to her
she had to Jonah the adjective What the poor fellow said was « he murmured
the sixtypounder adjective as in the belly of the whale to rightly emphasize
his noun
Whitmonby nodded to the superior relish imparted by the vigour of masculine
veracity in narration »A story for its native sauce piquante« he said
»Nothing without it«
They had each a dissolving grain of contempt for women compelled by their
delicacy to spoil that kind of story which demands the piquant accompaniment to
flavour it racily and make it passable For to see insipid mildness complacently
swallowed as an excellent thing knowing the rich smack of savour proper to the
story is your anecdotal gentlemans annoyance But if the anecdote had
supported him Sullivan Smith would have let the expletive rest
Major Carew Mahoney capped Mrs Warwicks tale of the unfortunate duellist
with another that confessed the practice absurd though he approved of it and
he cited Lord Larrians opinion »It keeps men braced to civil conduct«
»I would not differ with the dear old lord but no the pistol is the
sceptre of the bully« said Diana
Mr Hepburn with the widest of eyes on her in perpetuity warmly agreed
and the man was notorious among men for his contrary action
»Most righteously our Princess Egeria distinguishes her reign by prohibiting
it« said Lady Singleby
»And how« Sullivan Smith sighed heavily »how Id ask are ladies to be
protected from the bully«
He was beset »So it was all for us all in consideration for our benefit«
He mournfully exclaimed »Why surely«
»That is the funeral apology of the Rod at the close of every barbarous
chapter« said Diana
»Too fine in mind too fat in body that is a consequence with men dear
madam The conqueror stands to his weapons or he loses his possessions«
»Mr Sullivan Smith jumps at his pleasure from the special to the general
and will be back if we follow him Lady Pennon It is the trick men charge to
women showing that they can resemble us«
Lady Pennon thumped her knee »Not a bit Theres no resemblance and they
know nothing of us«
»Women are a blank to them I believe« said Whitmonby treacherously
bowing and Westlake said »Traces of a singular scrawl have been observed when
they were held in close proximity to the fire«
»Once on the top of a coach« Whitmonby resumed »I heard a comely dame of
the period when summers are ceasing threatened by her husband with a divorce
for omitting to put sandwiches in their luncheonbasket She made him the
inscrutable answer Ah poor man you will go down ignorant to your grave We
laughed and to this day I cannot tell you why«
»That laugh was from a basket lacking provision and I think we could
trace our separation to it« Diana said to Lady Pennon who replied »They
expose themselves they get no nearer to the riddle«
Miss Courtney a rising young actress encouraged by a smile from Mrs
Warwick remarked »On the stage we have each our parts equally«
»And speaking parts not personæ mutæ«
»The stage has advanced in verisimilitude« Henry Wilmers added slyly and
Diana rejoined »You recognize a verisimilitude of the mirror when it is in
advance of reality Flatter the sketch Miss Paynham for a likeness to be seen
Probably there are still Old Conservatives who would prefer the personation of
us by boys«
»I dont know« Westlake affected dubiousness »I have heard that a step to
the riddle is gained by a serious contemplation of boys«
»Serious«
»That is the doubt«
»The doubt throws its light on the step«
»I advise them not to take any leap from their step« said Lady Pennon
»It would be a way of learning that we are no wiser than our sires but
perhaps too painful a way« Whitmonby observed »Poor Mountford Wilts boasted of
knowing women and he married To jump into the mouth of the enigma is not to
read it«
»You are figures of conceit when you speculate on us Mr Whitmonby«
»An occupation of our leisure my lady for your amusement«
»The leisure of the hummingtop a thousand to the minute with the pretence
that it sleeps« Diana said
»The sacrilegious hand to strip you of your mystery is withered as it
stretches« exclaimed Westlake »The sage and the devout are in accord for
once«
»And whichever of the two I may be Im one of them happy to do my homage
blindfold« Sullivan Smith waved the sign of it
Diana sent her eyes over him and Mr Hepburn seeing Dacier »That rosy
mediævalism seems the utmost we can expect« An instant she saddened foreboding
her words to be ominous because of suddenly thirsting for a modern cry from
him the silent She quitted her womans fit of earnestness and took to the
humour that pleased him »Aslaugas knight at his blind mans buff of devotion
catches the hem of the tapestry and is found by his lady kissing it in a trance
of homage five hours long Sir Hilary of Agincourt returned from the wars to
his castle at midnight hears that the châtellaine is away dancing and remains
with all his men mounted in the courtyard till the grey morn brings her back
Adorable We had a flag flying in those days Since men began to fret the
riddle they have hauled it down halfmast Soon we shall behold a bare pole and
hats on around it That is their solution«
A smile circled at the hearing of Lady Singleby say »Well I am all for our
own times however literal the men«
»We are two different species« thumped Lady Pennon swimming on the theme
»I am sure I read what they write of women And their heroines«
Lady Esquart acquiesced »We are utter fools or horrid knaves«
»Natures original hieroglyphs which have that appearance to the peruser«
Westlake assented
»And when they would decipher us and they hit on one of our arts the
literary pirouette they perform is memorable« Diana looked invitingly at
Dacier »But I for one discern a possible relationship and a likeness«
»I think it exists behind a curtain« Dacier replied
»Before the era of the Nursery Liberty to grow independence is the key of
the secret«
»And what comes after the independence« he inquired
Whitmonby musing that some distraction of an earnest incentive spoilt Mrs
Warwicks wit informed him »The two different species then break their shallow
armistice and join the shock of battle for possession of the earth and we are
outnumbered and exterminated to a certainty So I am against independence«
»Socially a Mussulman subject to explosions« Diana said »So the eternal
duel between us is maintained and men will protest that they are for
civilization Dear me I should like to write a sketch of the women of the
future dont be afraid the far future What a different earth you will
see«
And very different creatures the gentlemen unanimously surmised Westlake
described the fairer portion no longer the weaker frightful hosts
Diana promised him a sweeter picture if ever she brought her hand to paint
it
»You would be offered up to the English national hangman Jehoiachim Sneer«
interposed Arthur Rhodes evidently firing a gun too big for him of
premeditated charging as his patroness perceived but she knew him to be
smarting under recent applications of the swish of Mr Sneer and that he rushed
to support her She covered him by saying »If he has to be encountered he
kills none but the cripple« wherewith the dead pause ensuing from a dose of
outlandish speech in good company was bridged though the youth heard Westlake
mutter unpleasantly »Jehoiachim« and had to endure a stare of Daciers who
did not conceal his want of comprehension of the place he occupied in Mrs
Warwicks gatherings
»They know nothing of us whatever« Lady Pennon harped on her dictum
»They put us in a case and profoundly study the captive creature« said
Diana »but would any man understand this « She dropped her voice and drew
in the heads of Lady Pennon Lady Singleby Lady Esquart and Miss Courtney
»Real womans nature speaks A maid of mine had a follower She was a good girl
I was anxious about her and asked her if she could trust him Oh yes maam
she replied I can hes quite like a female I longed to see the young man to
tell him he had received the highest of eulogies«
The ladies appreciatingly declared that such a tale was beyond the
understandings of men Miss Paynham primmed her mouth admitting to herself her
inability to repeat such a tale an act that she deemed not quite like a lady
She had previously come to the conclusion that Mrs Warwick with all her
generous qualities was deficient in delicate sentiment owing perhaps to her
coldness of temperament Like Dacier also she failed to comprehend the
patronage of Mr Rhodes it led to suppositions indefinite truly and not
calumnious at all but a young poet rather goodlooking and well built is not
the same kind of wingchick as a young actress like Miss Courtney Mrs
Warwicks latest shieldling he is hardly enrolled for the reason that was
assumed to sanction Mrs Warwicks maid in the encouragement of her follower
Miss Paynham sketched on with her thoughts in her bosom a damsel castigatingly
pursued by the idea of sex as the direct motive of every act of every person
surrounding her deductively therefore that a certain form of the impelling
passion mild or terrible or capricious or it might be less pardonable was
unceasingly at work among the human couples up to decrepitude And she too
frequently hit the fact to doubt her gift of reading into them Mr Dacier was
plain and the state of young Mr Rhodes and the Scottish gentleman was at
least a vehement admirer But she penetrated the breast of Mr Thomas Redworth
as well mentally tore his mask of friendship to shreds He was kind indeed in
commissioning her to do the portrait His desire for it and his urgency to have
the features exactly given besides the infrequency of his visits of late when
a favoured gentleman was present were the betraying signs Deductively
moreover the lady who inspired the passion in numbers of gentlemen and set
herself to win their admiration with her lively play of dialogue must be
coquettish she could hold them only by coldness Anecdotes epigrams
drolleries do not bubble to the lips of a woman who is under an emotional
spell rather they prove that she has the spell for casting It suited Mr
Dacier Miss Paynham thought it was cruel to Mr Redworth at whom of all her
circle the beautiful woman looked when speaking to him sometimes tenderly
»Beware the silent one of an assembly« Diana had written She did not think
of her words while Miss Paynham continued mutely sketching The silent ones
with much conversation around them have their heads at work critically
perforce the faster if their hands are occupied and the point they lean to do
is the pivot of their thoughts Miss Paynham felt for Mr Redworth
Diana was unaware of any other critic present than him she sought to
enliven not unsuccessfully notwithstanding his English objection to the pitch
of the converse she led and a suspicion of effort to support it just a
doubt with all her easy voluble run of the possibility of naturalness in a
continuous cleverness But he signified pleasure and in pleasing him she was
happy in the knowledge that she dazzled was her sense of safety Percy hated
scandal he heard none He wanted stirring cheering in her house he had it He
came daily and as it was her wish that new themes new flights of converse
should delight him and show her exhaustless to preserve her ascendancy she
welcomed him without consulting the world He was witness of Mr Hepburns
presentation of a costly China vase to repair the breach in her array of
ornaments and excuse a visit Judging by the absence of any blow within he saw
not a sign of coquettry Some such visit had been anticipated by the prescient
woman so there was no reddening She brought about an exchange of sentences
between him and her furious admirer sparing either of them a glimpse of which
was the sacrifice to the other amusing them both Dacier could allow Mr
Hepburn to outsit him and he left them proud of his absolute confidence in
her
She was mistaken in imagining that her social vivacity mixed with
comradeship of the active intellect was the charm which kept Mr Percy Dacier
temperate when he well knew her to distinguish him above her courtiers Her
powers of dazzling kept him tame they did not stamp her mark on him He was one
of the order of highly polished men ignorant of women who are impressed for
long terms by temporary flashes that hold them bound until a fresh impression
comes to confirm or obliterate the preceding Affairs of the world he could
treat competently he had a head for high politics and the management of men
the feminine half of the world was a confusion and a vexation to his
intelligence characterless and one woman at last appearing decipherable he
fancied it must be owing to her possession of character a thing prized the more
in women because of his latent doubt of its existence Character that was the
mark he aimed at that moved him to homage as neither sparkling wit nor
incomparable beauty nor the unusual combination did To be distinguished by a
woman of character beauty and wit for jewellery was his minor ambition in
life and if Fortune now gratified it he owned to the flattery It really
seemed by every test that she had the quality Since the day when he beheld her
by the bedside of his dead uncle and that one on the French seasands and
again at Copsley ghostly white out of her wrestle with death bleeding holy
sweat of brow for her friend the print of her features had been on him as an
index of depth of character imposing respect and admiration a sentiment
imperilled by her consent to fly with him Her subsequent reserve until they met
by an accident that the lady at any rate was not responsible for proved the
quality positively And the nature of her character at first suspected
vanquished him more by comparison than her vivid intellect which he
originally and still lingeringly appreciated in condescension as a singular
accomplishment thrilling at times now and then assailably feminine But after
her consent to a proposal that caused him retrospective worldly shudders and
her composed recognition of the madness a character capable of holding him in
some awe was real majesty and it rose to the clear heights with her mental
attributes for satellites His tendency to despise women was wholesomely checked
by the experience to justify him in saying Here is a worthy one She was health
to him as well as trusty counsel Furthermore where he respected he was a
governed man free of the common masculine craze to scale fortresses for the
sake of lowering flags Whilst under his impression of her character he
submitted honourably to the ascendancy of a lady whose conduct suited him and
whose preference flattered whose presence was very refreshing whose letters
were a stimulant Her letters were really running wellwaters not a lovers
delusion of the luminous mind of his lady They sparkled in review and preserved
their integrity under critical analysis The reading of them hurried him in
pursuit of her from house to house during the autumn and as she did not hint at
the shadow his coming cast on her his conscience was easy Regarding their
future his political anxieties were a mountainous defile curtaining the
outlook They met at Lockton where he arrived after a recent consultation with
his Chief of whom and the murmurs of the Cabinet he spoke to Diana openly in
some dejection
»They might see he has been breaking with his party for the last four
years« she said »The plunge to be taken is tremendous«
»But will he He appears too despondent for a header«
»We cannot dance on a quaking floor«
»No its exactly that quake of the floor which gives much qualms to me as
well« said Dacier
»A treble Neptunes power« she rejoined for his particular delectation
»Enough if he hesitates I forgive him his nausea He awaits the impetus and it
will reach him and soon He will not wait for the mob at his heels I am
certain A Minister who does that is a post and goes down with the first
bursting of the dam He has tried compromise and discovered that it does not
appease the Fates is not even a makeshiftmending at this hour He is a man of
nerves very sensitively built as quick quicker than a woman I could almost
say to feel the tremble of the air forerunner of imperative changes«
Dacier brightened fondly »You positively describe him paint him to the
life without knowing him«
»I have seen him and if I paint whose are the colours«
»Sometimes I repeat you to him and I get all the credit« said Dacier
»I glow with pride to think of speaking anything that you repeat« said
Diana and her eyes were proudly lustreful
Their love was nourished on these mutual flatteries Thin food for passion
The innocence of it sanctioned the meetings and the appointments to meet When
separated they were interchanging letters formally worded in the apostrophe and
the termination but throbbingly full or Diana thought so of Percys letters
with grateful justice for his manner of opening his heart in amatory
correspondence was to confide important secret matters up to which mark she
sprang to reply in counsel He proved his affection by trusting her his respect
by his tempered style »A Greenland style of writing« she had said of an
unhappy gentlemans epistolary compositions resembling it and now the same
official baldness was to her mind Italianly rich it called forth such volumes
Flatteries that were thin food for passion appeared the simplest exchanges
of courtesy and her meetings with her lover judging by the nature of the
discourse they held so consequent to their joint interest in the great crisis
anticipated as to rouse her indignant surprise and a turn for downright
rebellion when the Argus world signified the fact of its having one eye or
more wide open
Debit and Credit too her buzzing familiars insisted on an audience at
each ear and at the housedoor on her return to London
Chapter XXIX
Shows the Approaches of the Political and the Domestic Crisis in Company
There was not much talk of Diana between Lady Dunstane and her customary visitor
Tom Redworth now She was shy in speaking of the lovestricken woman and more
was in his mind for thought than for speech She sometimes wondered how much he
might know ending with the reflection that little passing around was unknown to
him He had to shut his mind against thought against all meditation upon Mrs
Warwick it was based scientifically when speculating and calculating on the
material element a talisman Men and women crossing the high seas of life he
had found most readable under that illuminating inquiry as to their means An
inspector of seaworthy ships proceeds in like manner Whence would the money
come He could not help the bent of his mind but he could avoid subjecting her
to the talismanic touch The girl at the Dublin Ball the woman at the
firegrate of The Crossways both in one were his Diana Now and then hearing
an ugly whisper his manful sympathy with the mere woman in her imprisoned
liberty defended her desperately from charges not distinctly formulated within
him »Shes not made of stone« That was a height of selfabnegation to shake
the poor fellow to his roots but then he had no hopes of his own and he
stuck to it Her choice of a man like Dacier too of whom Redworth judged
highly showed nobility She irradiated the man but no baseness could be in
such an alliance If allied they were bound together for good The tie
supposing a villain world not wrong was only not the sacred tie because of
impediments The tie he deliberated and said stoutly No Men of Redworths
nature go through sharp contests though the duration of them is short and the
tussle of his worship of this woman with the materialistic turn of his mind was
closed by the complete shutting up of the latter under lock and bar so that a
man very little of an idealist was able to sustain her in the pure imagination
where she did almost belong to him She was his in a sense because she might
have been his but for an incredible extreme of folly The dark ring of the
eclipse cast by some amazing foolishness round the shining crescent perpetually
in secret claimed the whole sphere of her by what might have been while
admitting her lost to him in fact To Thomas Redworths mind the lack of perfect
sanity in his conduct at any period of manhood was so entirely past belief that
he flew at the circumstances confirming the charge and had wrestles with the
angel of reality who did but set him dreaming backward after flinging him
He heard at Lady Wathins that Mrs Warwick was in town for the winter »Mr
Dacier is also in town« Lady Wathin said with an acid indication of the
needless mention of it »We have not seen him« She invited Redworth to meet a
few friends at dinner »I think you admire Miss Asper in my idea a very saint
among young women and you know what the young women of our day are She will
be present She is you are aware Englands greatest heiress Only yesterday
hearing of that poor man Mr Warwicks desperate attack of illness heart
and of his having no relative or friend to soothe his pillow he is lying in
absolute loneliness she offered to go and nurse him Of course it could not
be done It is not her place The beauty of the character of a dear innocent
young girl with every gratification at command who could make the offer
strikes me as unparalleled She was perfectly sincere she is sincerity She
asked at once Where is he She wished me to accompany her on a first visit I
saw a tear«
Redworth had called at Lady Wathins for information of the state of Mr
Warwick concerning which a rumour was abroad No stranger to the vagrant
compassionateness of sentimentalists rich idle consciencepricked or
praisecatching he was unmoved by the tale that Miss Asper had proposed to go
to Mr Warwicks sickbed in the uniform of a Sister of Charity »Speaking
French« Lady Wathin exclaimed and his head rocked as he said »An Englishman
would not be likely to know better«
»She speaks exquisite French all European languages Mr Redworth She
does not pretend to wit To my thinking depth of sentiment is a far more
feminine accomplishment It assuredly will be found a greater treasure«
The modest man modest in such matters was led by degrees to fancy himself
sounded regarding Miss Asper a piece of sculpture glacially decorative of the
domestic mansion in person to his thinking and as to the nature of it not a
Diana with all her faults
If Diana had any faults in a world and a position so heavily against her
He laughed to himself when alone at the neatly implied bitter reproach cast on
the wife by the forsaken young lady who proposed to nurse the abandoned husband
of the woman bereaving her of the man she loved Sentimentalists enjoy these
tricks the conceiving or the doing of them the former mainly which are
cheaper and equally effective Miss Asper might be deficient in wit this was a
form of practical wit occasionally exhibited by creatures acting on their
instincts Warwick he pitied and he put compulsion on himself to go and see the
poor fellow the subject of so sublime a generosity Mr Warwick sat in an
armchair his legs out straight on the heels his jaw dragging hollow cheeks
his hands loosely joined improving in health he said A demure woman of middle
age was in attendance He did not speak of his wife Three times he said
disconnectedly »I hear reports« and his eyelids worked Redworth talked of
general affairs without those consolatory efforts useless between men which
are neither medicine nor good honest water he judged by personal feelings In
consequence he left an invalid the sourer for his visit
Next day he received a brieflyworded summons from Mrs Warwick
Crossing the park on the line to Dianas house he met Miss Paynham who
grieved to say that Mrs Warwick could not give her a sitting and in a still
mournfuller tone imagined he would find her at home and alone by this time »I
left no one but Mr Dacier there« she observed
»Mrs Warwick will be disengaged tomorrow no doubt« he said consolingly
Her head performed the negative »They talk politics and she becomes
animated loses her pose I will persevere though I fear I have undertaken a
task too much for me«
»I am deeply indebted to you for the attempt« Redworth bowed to her and set
his face to the Abbeytowers which wore a different aspect in the smoked grey
light since his two minutes of colloquy He had previously noticed that meetings
with Miss Paynham produced a similar effect on him a not so very impressionable
man And how was it done She told him nothing he did not know or guess
Diana was alone Her manner after the greeting seemed feverish She had
not to excuse herself for abruptness when he heard the nature of the subject
Her counsellor and friend was informed in feminine style that she had
requested him to call for the purpose of consulting him with regard to a matter
she had decided upon and it was the sale of The Crossways She said that it
would have gone to her heart once she supposed she had lost her affection for
the place or had got the better of her superstitions She spoke lamely as well
as bluntly The place was hers she said her own property Her husband could
not interdict a sale
Redworth addressed himself to her smothered antagonism »Even if he had
rights as they are termed I think you might count on their not being
pressed«
»I have been told of illness« She tapped her foot on the floor
»His present state of health is unequal to his ordinary duties«
»Emma Dunstane is fully supplied with the latest intelligence Mr Redworth
You know the source«
»I mention it simply «
»Yes yes What I have to protest is that in this respect I am free The
Law has me fast but leaves me its legal view of my small property I have no
authority over me I can do as I please in this without a collision or the
dread of one It is the married womans perpetual dread when she ventures a
step Your Law originally presumed her a Chinafooted animal And more I have a
claim for maintenance«
She crimsoned angrily
Redworth showed a look of pleasure hard to understand »The application
would be sufficient I fancy« he said
»It should have been offered«
»Did you not decline it«
»I declined to apply for it I thought But Mr Redworth another thing
concerning us all I want very much to hear your ideas of the prospects of the
League because I know you have ideas The leaders are terrible men they
fascinate me They appear to move with an army of facts They are certainly
carrying the country I am obliged to think them sincere Common agitators would
not hold together as they do They gather strength each year If their
statistics are not illusory an army of phantoms instead of one of facts and
they knock at my head without admission I have to confess they must win«
»Ultimately it is quite calculable that they will win« said Redworth and
he was led to discourse of rates and duties and prohibitive tariffs to a woman
surprisingly athirst curious for every scrap of intelligence relating to the
power organization and schemes of the League »Common sense is the secret of
every successful civil agitation« he said »Rap it unremittingly on crowds of
the thickest of human heads and the response comes at last to sweep all before
it You may reckon that the country will beat the landlords for that is our
question Is it one of your political themes«
»I am not presumptuous to such a degree a poor scholar« Diana replied
»Women striving to lift their heads among men deserve the sarcasm«
He denied that any sarcasm was intended and the lesson continued When she
had shaped in her mind some portion of his knowledge of the subject she
reverted casually to her practical business Would he undertake to try to obtain
a purchaser of The Crossways at the price he might deem reasonable She left
the price entirely to his judgement And now she had determined to part with the
old place the sooner the better She said that smiling and Redworth smiled
outwardly and inwardly Her talk of her affairs was clearer to him than her
curiosity for the mysteries of the League He gained kind looks besides warm
thanks by the promise to seek a purchaser especially by his avoidance of prying
queries She wanted just this excellent automaton factotum and she referred
him to Mr Braddock for the titledeeds et caetera the chirping phrase of
ladies happily washing their hands of the mean details of business
»How of your last work« he asked her
Serenest equanimity rejoined »As I anticipated it is not popular The
critics are of one mind with the public You may have noticed they rarely
flower above that rocky surface THE CANTATRICE sings them a false note My next
will probably please them less«
Her mobile lips and brows shot the faint upperwreath of a smile hovering
It was designed to display her philosophy
»And what is the name of your next« said he
»I name it THE MAN OF Two MINDS if you can allow that to be in nature«
»Contradistinguished from the woman«
»Oh you must first believe the woman to have one«
»You are working on it«
»By fits And I forgot Mr Redworth I have mislaid my receipts and must
ask you for the address of your winemerchant or will you Several dozen of
the same wines I can trust him to be in awe of you and the good repute of my
table depends on his honesty«
Redworth took the definite order for a large supply of wine
She gave him her hand a lost hand dear to hold needing to be guided he
feared For him it was merely a hand cut off from the wrist and he had
performed that executive part A wiser man would now have been the lord of it
So he felt with his burning wish to protect and cherish the beloved woman
while saying »If we find a speedy bidder for The Crossways you will have to
thank our railways«
»You« said Diana confident in his ability to do everything of the
practical kind
Her ingenuousness tickled him He missed her comic touches upon men and
things but the fever shown by her manner accounted for it
As soon as he left her she was writing to the lover who had an hour
previously been hearing her voice the note of her theme being Party and how to
serve it when to sacrifice it to the Country She wrote carolling bars of the
Puritani marches and such will passion do that her choice of music was quite
in harmony with her theme The martiallyamorous melodies of Italian Opera in
those days fostered a passion challenged to intrepidity from the heart of
softness gilding at the same time and putting warm blood even into dull
arithmetical figures which might be important to her lover her hero fronting
battle She condensed Redworths information skilfully heartily giving it and
whatever she had imbibed as her own down to the remark »Common sense in
questions of justice is a weapon that makes way into human heads and wins the
certain majority if we strike with it incessantly« Whether anything she wrote
was her own mattered little the savour of Percys praise which none could
share with her made it instantly all her own Besides she wrote to strengthen
him she naturally laid her friends and the world under contribution and no
other sort of writing was possible Percy had not a common interest in fiction
still less for high comedy He liked the broad laugh when he deigned to open
books of that sort puns and strong flavours and harlequin surprises and her
work would not admit of them however great her willingness to force her hand
for his amusement consequently her inventiveness deadened She had to cease
whipping it »My poor old London cabhorse of a pen shall go to grass« she
sighed looking to the sale of The Crossways for money looking no farther
Those marshalled battalions of Debit and Credit were in hostile order the
weaker simply devoted to fighting for delay when a winged messenger bearing the
form of old Mr Braddock descended to her with the reconciling news that a
hermit bachelor an acquaintance of Mr Redworths both of whom wore a gloomy
hue in her mind immediately had offered a sum for the purchase of The
Crossways Considering the outoftheway district Mr Braddock thought it an
excellent price to get She thought the reverse but confessed that double the
sum would not have altered her opinion Double the sum scarcely counted for the
service she required of it for much more than a year The money was paid shortly
after into her Bank and then she enjoyed the contemptuous felicity of tossing
meat to her lions tigers wolves and jackals who but for the fortunate
intervention would have been feeding on her These menagerie beasts of prey
were the ladys tradesmen Debits hungry brood She had a rapid glimpse of a
false position in regarding that legitimate band so scornfully another glimpse
likewise of a day to come when they might not be stopped at the door She was
running a race with something with what It was unnamed it ran in a shroud
At times she surprised her heart violently beating when there had not been a
thought to set it in motion She traced it once to the words next year
incidentally mentioned Free was a word that checked her throbs as at a
question of life or death Her solitude excepting the hours of sleep if then
was a time of irregular breathing The something unnamed running beside her
became a dreadful familiar the race between them past contemplation for
ghastliness »But this is your Law« she cried to the world while blinding her
eyes against a peep of the shrouded features
Singularly she had but to abandon hope and the shadowy figure vanished
the tragic race was ended How to live and think and not to hope the slave of
passion had this problem before her
Other tasks were supportable though one seemed hard at moments and was not
passive it attacked her The men and women of her circle derisively
unanimously disbelieved in an innocence that forfeited reputation Women were
complimentarily assumed to be not such gaping idiots And as the weeks advanced
a change came over Percy The gentleman had grown restless at covert
congratulations hollow to his knowledge however much caressing vanity and
therefore secretly a wound to it One day after sitting silent he bluntly
proposed to break »this foolish trifling« just in his old manner though not so
honourably not very definitely either Her hand was taken
»I feared that dumbness« Diana said letting her hand go but keeping her
composure »My friend Percy I am not a liontamer and if you are of those
animals we break the chapter Plainly you think that where there appears to be
a choice of fools the woman is distinctly designed for the person Drop my
hand or I shall repeat the fable of the Goose with the Golden Eggs«
»Fables are applicable only in the schoolroom« said he and he ventured on
»Tony«
»I vowed an oath to my dear Emma as good as to the heavens and that of
itself would stay me from being insane again« She released herself »Signor
Percy you teach me to suspect you of having an idle wish to pluck your
plaything to pieces to boast of it Ah my friend I fancied I was of more
value to you You must come less often even to not at all if you are one of
those idols with feet of clay which leave the print of their steps in a room or
fall and crush the silly idolizer«
»But surely you know « said he »We cant have to wait long« He looked
full of hopeful meanings
»A reason « She kept down her breath A longdrawn sigh followed
through parted lips She had a sensation of horror »And I cannot propose to
nurse him Emma will not hear of it« she said »I dare not Hypocrite to that
extreme Oh no But I must hear nothing As it is I am haunted Now let this
pass Tony me no Tonies I am atony to such whimpering business now we are in
the van of the struggle All round us it sounds like war Last night I had Mr
Tonans dining here he wished to meet you and you must have a private meeting
with Mr Whitmonby he will be useful others as well You are wrong in
affecting contempt of the Press It perches you on a rock but the swimmer in
politics knows what draws the tides Your own people your set your class are
a drag to you like inherited superstitions to the wakening brain The greater
the glory For you see the lead you take You are saving your class They should
lead and will if they prove worthy in the crisis Their curious error is to
believe in the stability of a monumental position«
»Perfectly true« cried Dacier and the next minute heated by approbation
was begging for her hand earnestly She refused it
»But you say things that catch me« he pleaded »Remember it was nearly
mine It soon will be mine I heard yesterday from Lady Wathin well if it
pains you«
»Speak on« said Diana resigned to her thirsty ears
»He is not expected to last through the autumn«
»The calculation is hers«
»Not exactly judging from the symptoms«
Diana flashed a fiery eye into Daciers and rose She was past danger of
melting with her imagination darkened by the funeral image but she craved
solitude and had to act the callous to dismiss him
»Good Enough for the day Now leave me if you please When we meet again
stifle that ravens croak I am not a Sister of Charity but neither am I a
vulture hovering for the horse in the desert to die A poor simile when it is
my own and not anothers breath that I want Nothing in nature only gruesome
German stories will fetch comparisons for the yoke of this Law of yours It
seems the nightmare dream following an ogres supper«
She was not acting the shiver of her frame
Tomorrow was open to him and prospect of better fortune so he departed
after squeezing the hand she ceremoniously extended
But her womans intuition warned her that she had not maintained the
sovereign impression which was her security And hope had become a flame in her
bosom that would no longer take the common extinguisher The race she ran was
with a shrouded figure no more but with the figure of the shroud she had to
summon paroxysms of a pity hard to feel images of sickness helplessness the
vaults the last human silence for the stilling of her passionate heart And
when this was partly effected the question Am I going to live renewed her
tragical struggle Who was it under the vaults in the shroud between the
planks and with human sensibility to swell the horror Passion whispered of a
vaster sorrow needed for herself and the hope conjuring those frightful
complexities was needed to soothe her She pitied the man but she was an
enamoured woman Often of late she had been sharply stung relaxed as well by
the observations of Danvers assisting at her toilette Had she beauty and charm
beauty and rich health in the young summer blooming of her days and all
doomed to waste No insurgency of words arose in denunciation of the wrong done
to her nature An undefined heavy feeling of wrong there was just perceptive
enough to let her know without gravely shaming that one or another must be
slain for peace to come for it is the case in which the world of the Laws
overloading her is pitiless to women deaf past eartrumpets past intercession
detesting and reviling them for a feeble human cry and for one apparent step of
revolt piling the pelted stones on them It will not discriminate shades of hue
it massacres all the shadowed They are honoured after a fashion at a certain
elevation Descending from it and purely to breathe common air thus in her
mind they are scourged and outcast And alas the very pleading for them
excites a sort of ridicule in their advocate How She was utterly even
desperately nay personally earnest and her humour closed her lips though
comical views of the scourged and outcast coming from the opposite party the
huge bully world she would not have tolerated Diana raged at a prevailing
strength on the part of that huge bully world which seemed really to embrace
the atmosphere Emma had said »The rules of Christian Society are a blessed
Government for us women We owe it so much that there is not a brick of the
fabric we should not prop« Emmas talk of obedience to the Laws being Laws
was repeated by the rebel with an involuntary unphrased comparison of the
vessel in dock and the vessel at sea
When Dacier next called to see Mrs Warwick he heard that she had gone to
Copsley for a couple of weeks The lesson was emphasized by her not writing
and was it the tricky sex or the splendid character of the woman which dealt
him this punishment Knowing how much Diana forfeited for him he was moved to
some enthusiasm despite his inclination to be hurt
She on her return to London gained a considerable increase of knowledge as
to her position in the eye of the world and unlike the result of her
meditations derived from the clamouring tradesmen whom she could excuse she
was neither illuminated nor cautioned by that dubious look she conscientiously
revolted Lady Pennon hinted a word for her Government »A good deal of what you
so capitally call Green tea talk is going on my dear« Diana replied without
pretending to misunderstand »Gossip is a beast of prey that does not wait for
the death of the creature it devours They are welcome to my shadow if the
liberty I claim casts one and it feeds them« To which the old lady rejoined
»Oh I am with you through thick and thin I presented you at Court and I stand
by you Only walk carefully Women have to walk with a train You are too
famous not to have your troops of watchers«
»But I mean to prove« said Diana »that a woman can walk with her train
independent of the common reserves and artifices«
»Not on highways my dear«
Diana praising the speaker referred the whole truth in that to the
material element of her metaphor
She was more astonished by Whitmonbys candid chiding but with him she
could fence and men are easily diverted She had sent for him to bring him and
Percy Dacier together to a conference Unaware of the project he took the
opportunity of their privacy to speak of the great station open to her in London
being imperilled and he spoke of tongues and ahem A very little would have
induced him to fill that empty vocable with a name
She had to pardon the critic in him for an unpleasant review of her hapless
CANTATRICE and as a means of evasion she mentioned the poor book and her
slaughter of the heroine that he had complained of
»I killed her I could not let her live You were unjust in accusing the
authoress of heartlessness«
»If I did I retract« said he »She steers too evidently from the centre of
the vessel She has the organ in excess«
»Proof that it is not squandered«
»The point concerns direction«
»Have I made so bad a choice of my friends«
»It is the common error of the sprightly to suppose that in parrying a
thrust they blind our eyes«
»The world sees always what it desires to see Mr Whitmonby«
»The world my dear Mrs Warwick is a blundering machine upon its own
affairs but a cruel sleuthhound to rouse in pursuit«
»So now you have me chased by sight and scent And if I take wing«
»Shots volleys You are lawful game The choice you have made of your
friends should oblige you to think of them«
»I imagine I do Have I offended any or one«
»I will not say that You know the commotion in a French kitchen when the
guests of the house declined a particular dish furnished them by command The
cook and his crew were loyal to their master but for the love of their Art
they sent him notice It is ill serving a mad sovereign«
Diana bowed to the compact little apologue
»I will tell you another story traditional in our family from my
greatgrandmother a Spanish woman« she said »A cavalier serenaded his
mistress and rascal mercenaries fell upon him before he could draw sword He
battered his guitar on their pates till the lattice opened with a cry and
startled them to flight Thrice blessed and beloved he called to her above in
reference to the noise it was merely a diversion of the accompaniment Now
there was loyal service to a sovereign«
»You are certainly an angel« exclaimed Whitmonby »I swallow the story and
leave it to digestion to discover the appositeness Whatever tuneful instrument
one of your friends possesses shall solace your slumbers or batter the pate of
your enemy But discourage the habitual serenader«
»The musician you must mean is due here now by appointment to meet you«
said Diana and set him momentarily agape with the name of Mr Percy Dacier
That was the origin of the alliance between the young statesman and a
newspaper editor Whitmonby accepting proposals which suited him quitted the
house after an hour of political talk no longer inclined to hint at the
habitual serenader but very ready to fall foul of those who did as he proved
when the numbers buzzed openly Times were masculine the excitement on the eve
of so great a crisis and Dianas comprehension of it and fine heading cry put
that weak matter aside Moreover he was taught to suppose himself as welcome a
guest as Dacier and the cook could stand criticism the wines wonderful to
say of a ladys table were trusty the talk on the political evenings and the
social and anecdotal suppernights ran always in perfect accord with his ideal
of the conversational orchestra an improvized harmony unmatched elsewhere She
did not he considered so perfectly assort her dinnerguests that was her one
fault She had therefore to strain her adroitness to cover their deficiencies
and fuse them But what other woman could have done it She led superbly If an
Irishman was present she kept him from overflooding managed to extract just
the flavour of him the smack of salt She did even at Whitmonbys table on a
redletter Sunday evening in concert with him and the Dean bring down that
cataract the Bodleian to the levels of interchanging dialogue by seasonable
touches inimitably done and never done before Sullivan Smith unbridled in
the middle of dinner was docile to her »Irishmen« she said pleading on their
behalf to Whitmonby who pronounced the race too raw for an Olympian feast »are
invaluable if you hang them up to smoke and cure« and the master of social
converse could not deny that they were responsive to her magic The
suppernights were mainly devoted to Percys friends He brought as many as he
pleased and as often as it pleased him and it was her pride to provide
Cleopatra banquets for the lover whose anxieties were soothed by them and to
whom she sacrificed her name willingly in return for a generosity that certain
chance whispers of her heart elevated to the pitch of measureless
So they wore through the Session and the Autumn clouds heavier the League
drumming the cry of Ireland »ominously Banshee« as she wrote to Emma
Chapter XXX
In which There Is a Taste of a Little Dinner and an Aftertaste
»But Tony lives« Emma Dunstane cried on her solitary height with the full
accent of envy marking the verb and when she wrote enviously to her friend of
the life among bright intelligences and of talk worth hearing it was a happy
signification that health frail though it might be had grown importunate for
some of the play of life Diana sent her word to name her day and she would
have her choicest to meet her dearest They were in the early days of December
not the best of times for improvized gatherings Emma wanted however to taste
them as they cropped she was also owing to her long isolation timid at a
notion of encountering the pick of the London world prepared by Tony to behold
a wonder more than worthy of them as her friend unadvisedly wrote That was why
she came unexpectedly and for a mixture of reasons went to an hotel Fatality
designed it so She was reproached but she said »You have to write or you
entertain at night I should be a clog and fret you My hotel is Maitlands
excellent I believe I am to lie on the pillow where a crowned head reposed You
will perceive that I am proud as well as comfortable And I would rather meet
your usual set of guests«
»The reason why I have been entertaining at night is that Percy is harassed
and requires enlivening« said Diana »He brings his friends My house is open
to them if it amuses him What the world says is past a thought I owe him too
much«
Emma murmured that the world would soon be pacified
Diana shook her head »The poor man is better able to go about his affairs
and I am honestly relieved It lays a spectre As for me I do not look ahead I
serve as a kind of secretary to Percy I labour at making abstracts by day and
at night preside at my suppertable You would think it monotonous no incident
varies the course we run I have not time to ask whether it is happiness It
seems to bear a resemblance«
Emma replied »He may be everything you tell me He should not have chosen
the last night of the Opera to go to your box and sit beside you till the fall
of the curtain The presence at the Opera of a man notoriously indifferent to
music was enough in itself«
Diana smiled with languor »You heard of that But the Opera was The
Puritani my favourite And he saw me sitting in Lady Pennons box alone We
were compromised neckdeep already I can kiss you my own Emmy till I die but
what the world says is what the wind says Besides he has his hopes If I
am blackened ever so thickly he can make me white Dear me if the world knew
that he comes here almost nightly It will and does it matter I am his in
soul the rest is wastepaper a halfprinted sheet«
»Provided he is worthy of such devotion«
»He is absolute worthiness He is the prince of men I dread to say mine
for fear But Emmy will not judge him tomorrow by contrast with more voluble
talkers I can do anything but read poetry now That kills me See him
through me In nature character intellect he has no rival Whenever I despond
and it comes now and then I rebuke myself with this one admonition Simply
to have known him Admit that for a woman to find one who is worthy among the
opposite creatures is a happy termination of her quest and in some sort
dismisses her to the Shades an uncomplaining ferrybird If my end were at hand
I should have no cause to lament it We women miss life only when we have to
confess we have never met the man to reverence«
Emma had to hear a very great deal of Mr Percy Dianas comparison of
herself to the busy bee at a windowpane was more in her old manner and her
friend would have hearkened to the marvels of the gentleman less unrefreshed
had it not appeared to her that her Tony gave in excess for what was given in
return She hinted her view
»It is expected of our sex« Diana said
The work of busy bee at a windowpane had at any rate not spoilt her beauty
though she had voluntarily profitlessly become this mans drudge and her
sprightly fancy her ready humour and darting look all round in discussion were
rather deadened
But the loss was not perceptible in the circle of her guests Present at a
dinner little indicating the last were Whitmonby in lively trim for shuffling
dealing cutting trumping or drawing trumps Westlake polishing epigrams under
his eyelids Henry Wilmers who timed an anecdote to strike as the passing hour
without freezing the current Sullivan Smith smoked cured and ready to
flavour Percy Dacier pleasant listener measured speaker and young Arthur
Rhodes the neophyte of the hostesss training of whom she had said to Emma
»The dear boy very kindly serves to frank an unlicenced widow« and whom she
prompted and made her utmost of with her natural tact These she mixed and
leavened The talk was on high levels and low an enchantment to Emma Dunstane
now a story a question opening new routes sharp sketches of known personages
a paradox shot by laughter as soon as uttered and all so smoothly not a shadow
of the dominant holderforth or a momentary prospect of dead flats the mellow
ring of appositeness being the concordant note of deliveries running linked as
they flashed and a tolerant philosophy of the sage in the world recurrently the
keynote
Once only had Diana to protect her nurseling He cited a funny line from a
recent popular volume of verse in perfect à propos looking at Sullivan Smith
who replied that the poets had become too many for him and he read none now
Diana said »There are many Alexanders but Alexander of Macedon is not dwarfed
by the number« She gave him an opening for a smarter reply but he lost it in a
comment against Whitmonbys cardinal rule »The neatest turn of the wrist that
ever swung a hero to crack a crown« and he bowed to young Rhodes »I ll read
your versicler tomorrow morning early« The latter expressed a fear that the
hour was too critical for poetry
»I have taken the dose at a very early hour« said Whitmonby to bring
conversation to the flow again »and it effaced the critical mind completely«
»But did not silence the critical nose« observed Westlake
Wilmers named the owner of the longest nose in Europe
»Potentially indeed a critic« said Diana
»Nights beside it must be fearful and good matter for a divorce if the
poor dear lady could hale it to the doors of the Vatican« Sullivan Smith
exclaimed »But theres character in noses«
»Calculable by inches« Dacier asked
»More than in any other feature« said Lady Dunstane »The Riffords are all
prodigiously gifted and amusing suspendens omnia naso It should be prayed for
in families«
»Totum ut te faciant Fabulle nasum« rejoined Whitmonby »Lady Isabella
was reading the tale of the German princess who had a sentinel stationed some
hundred yards away to whisk off the flies and she owned to me that her hand
instinctively travelled upward«
»Candour is the best concealment when one has to carry a saddle of
absurdity« said Diana »Touchstones poor thing but mine own is godlike in
its enveloping fold«
»The most comforting sermon ever delivered on property in poverty« said
Arthur Rhodes
Westlake assented »His choice of Audrey strikes me as an exhibition of the
sure instinct for pasture of the philosophical jester in a forest«
»With natures woman if he can find her the urban seems equally at home«
said Lady Dunstane
»Baron Pawle is an example« added Whitmonby »His cook is a pattern wife to
him I heard him say at table that she was responsible for all except the wines
I wouldnt have them on my conscience with a Judge my lady retorted«
»When poor Madame de Jacquières was dying« said Wilmers »her confessor sat
by her bedside prepared for his ministrations Pour commencer mon ami jamais
je nai fait rien hors nature«
Lord Wadaster had uttered something tolerably similar »I am a sinner and
in good society« Sir Abraham Hartiston a minor satellite of the Regent
diversified this »I am a sinner and go to good society« Madame la Comtesse de
la RocheAigle the cause of many deaths declared it unwomanly to fear anything
save »les revenants« Yet the countess could say the pretty thing »Foot on a
flower then think of me«
»Sentimentality puts up infant hands for absolution« said Diana
»But tell me« Lady Dunstane inquired generally »why men are so much
happier than women in laughing at their spouses«
They are humaner was one dictum they are more frivolous ironically
another
»It warrants them for blowing the buglehorn of masculine superiority night
and morning from the castlewalls« Diana said
»I should imagine it is for joy of heart that they still have cause to
laugh« said Westlake
On the other hand are women really pained by having to laugh at their
lords Curious little speeches flying about the great world affirmed the
contrary But the fair speakers were chartered libertines and their laugh
admittedly had a biting acid The parasite is concerned in the majesty of the
tree
»We have entered Botany Bay« Diana said to Emma who answered »A metaphor
is the Deus ex machinâ of an argument« and Whitmonby to lighten a shadow of
heaviness related allusively an anecdote of the LawCourts Sullivan Smith
begged permission to black cap it with Judge FitzGeralds sentence upon a
convicted criminal »Your plot was perfect but for One above« Dacier cited an
execrable impromptu line of the Chief of the Opposition in Parliament The
Premier it was remarked played him like an angler his fish on the hook or
say Mr Serjeant Rufus his witness in the box
»Or a French journalist an English missionary« said Westlake and as the
instance was recent it was relished
The talk of Premiers offered Whitmonby occasion for a flight to the Court of
Vienna and Kaunitz Wilmers told a droll story of Lord Busbys missing the
Embassy there Westlake furnished a sample of the tranquil sententiousness of
Busbys brother Robert during a stormy debate in the House of Commons
»I remember« Dacier was reminded »hearing him say when the House
resembled a Chartist riot Let us stand aside and meditate on Life If Youth
could know in the season of its reaping of the Pleasures that it is but sowing
Doctors bills«
Latterly a malady had supervened and Bob Busby had retired from the
universal to the special his mysterious case
»Assure him that is endemic He may be cured of his desire for the
exposition of it« said Lady Dunstane
Westlake chimed with her »Yes the charm in discoursing of ones case is
over when the individual appears no longer at odds with Providence«
»But then we lose our Tragedy« said Whitmonby
»Our Comedy too« added Diana »We must consent to be Busbied for the sake
of the instructive recreations«
»A curious idea though« said Sullivan Smith »that some of the grand
instructive figures were in their day colossal bores«
»So you see the marvel of the poets craft at last« Diana smiled on him
and he vowed »I ll read nothing else for a month« Young Rhodes bade him
beware of a deluge in proclaiming it
They rose from table at ten with the satisfaction of knowing that they had
not argued had not wrangled had never stagnated and were digestingly
refreshed as it should be among grown members of the civilized world who mean
to practise philosophy making the hour of the feast a balanced recreation and a
regeneration of body and mind
»Evenings like these are worth a pilgrimage« Emma said embracing Tony
outside the drawingroom door »I am so glad I came and if I am strong enough
invite me again in the Spring Tomorrow early I start for Copsley to escape
this London air I shall hope to have you there soon«
She was pleased by hearing Tony ask her whether she did not think that
Arthur Rhodes had borne himself well for it breathed of her simply friendly
soul
The gentlemen followed Lady Dunstane in a troop Dacier yielding perforce
the last adieu to young Rhodes
Five minutes later Diana was in her dressingroom where she wrote at night
on the rare occasions now when she was left free for composition Beginning to
dwell on THE MAN OF TWO MINDS she glanced at the woman likewise divided if not
similarly and she sat brooding She did not accuse her marriage of being the
first fatal step her error was the step into Society without the wherewithal
to support her position there Girls of her kind airing their wings above the
sphere of their birth are cryingly adventuresses As adventuresses they are
treated Vain to be shrewish with the world Rather let us turn and scold our
nature for irreflectively rushing to the cream and honey Had she subsisted on
her small income in a country cottage this task of writing would have been
holiday Or better if as she preached to Mary Paynham she had apprenticed
herself to some productive craft The simplicity of the life of labour looked
beautiful What will not look beautiful contrasted with the fly in the web She
had chosen to be one of the flies of life
Instead of running to composition her mind was eloquent with a sermon to
Arthur Rhodes in Redworths vein more sympathetically of course »For I am
not one of the lecturing Mammonites« she could say
She was far from that Penitentially in the thick of her disdain of the
arrogant moneygetters she pulled out a drawer where her bankbook lay and
observed it contemplatively jotting down a reflection before the dread book of
facts was opened »Gaze on the moral path you should have taken you are asked
for courage to commit a sanctioned suicide by walking back to it stripped a
skeleton self« She sighed forth »But I have no courage I never had«
The book revealed its tale in a small pencilled computation of the
bankclerks on the peccant side Credit presented many pages blanks She
seemed to have withdrawn from the struggle with such a partner
It signified an immediate appeal to the usurers unless the publisher could
be persuaded with three parts of the book in his hands to come to the rescue
Work roared old Debit the sinner turned slavedriver
Diana smoothed her wrists compressing her lips not to laugh at the
simulation of an attitude of combat She took up her pen
And strange to think she could have flowed away at once on the stuff that
Danvers delighted to read wicked princes rogue noblemen titled wantons
daisy and lily innocents traitorous marriages murders a gallows dangling a
corpse dotted by a moon and a woman bowed beneath She could have written with
the certainty that in the upper and the middle as well as in the lower classes
of the country there would be a multitude to read that stuff so cordially
despite the gaps between them are they one in their literary tastes And why
should they not read it Her present mood was a craving for excitement for
incident wild action the primitive machinery of our species any amount of
theatrical heroics pathos and clowngabble A panorama of scenes came sweeping
round her
She was however harnessed to a different kind of vehicle and had to drag
it The sound of the housedoor shutting imagined perhaps was a fugitive
distraction Now to animate The Man of Two Minds
He is courting but he is burdened with the task of tasks He has an ideal
of womanhood and of the union of couples a delicacy extreme as his attachment
and he must induce the lady to school herself to his ideal not allowing her to
suspect him less devoted to her person while she an exacting idol will drink
any quantity of idealization as long as he starts it from a full acceptance of
her acknowledged qualities Diana could once have tripped the scene along
airily She stared at the opening sentence a heavy bit of moralized
manufacture fit to yoke beside that on her view of her bankbook
»It has come to this I have no head« she cried
And is our public likely to muster the slightest taste for comic analysis
that does not tumble to farce The doubt reduced her whole MS to a leaden
weight composed for sinking Percys addiction to burlesque was a further
hindrance for she did not perceive how her comedy could be strained to gratify
it
There was a knock and Danvers entered
»You have apparently a liking for late hours« observed her mistress »I
told you to go to bed«
»It is Mr Dacier« said Danvers
»He wishes to see me«
»Yes maam He apologized for disturbing you«
»He must have some good reason«
What could it be Dianas glass approved her appearance She pressed the
black swell of hair above her temples rather amazed curious inclined to a
beating of the heart
Chapter XXXI
A Chapter Containing Great Political News and Therewith an Intrusion of the
LoveGod
Dacier was pacing about the drawingroom as in a place too narrow for him
Diana stood at the door »Have you forgotten to tell me anything I ought to
know«
He came up to her and shut the door softly behind her holding her hand
»You are near it I returned But tell me first You were slightly under a
shadow this evening dejected«
»Did I show it«
She was growing a little suspicious but this cunning touch of loverlike
interest dispersed the shade
»To me you did«
»It was unpardonable to let it be seen«
»No one else could have observed it«
Her womans heart was thrilled for she had concealed the dejection from
Emma
»It was nothing« she said »a knot in the book I am writing We poor
authors are worried now and then But you«
His face rippled by degrees brightly to excite a reflection in hers
»Shall I tune you with good news I think it will excuse me for coming
back«
»Very good news«
»Brave news as far as it goes«
»Then it concerns you«
»Me you the country«
»Oh do I guess« cried Diana »But speak pray I burn«
»What am I to have for telling it«
»Put no price You know my heart I guess or fancy It relates to your
Chief«
Dacier smiled in a way to show the lock without the key and she was
insensibly drawn nearer to him speculating on the smile
»Try again« said he keenly appreciating the blindness to his motive of her
studious dark eyes and her openlipped breathing
»Percy I must be right«
»Well you are He has decided«
»Oh that is the bravest possible When did you hear«
»He informed me of his final decision this afternoon«
»And you were charged with the secret all the evening and betrayed not a
sign I compliment the diplomatic statesman But when will it be public«
»He calls Parliament together the first week of next month«
»The proposal is No more compromises«
»Total«
Diana clapped hands and her aspect of enthusiasm was intoxicating »He is a
wise man and a gallant Minister And while you were reading me through I was
blind to you« she added meltingly
»I have not made too much of it« said he
»Indeed you have not«
She was radiant with her dark lightnings yet visibly subject to him under
the spell of the news he had artfully lengthened out to excite and overbalance
her and her enthusiasm was all pointed to his share in the altered situation
as he well knew and was flattered in knowing
»So Tony is no longer dejected I thought I could freshen you and get my
excuse«
»Oh a high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird I soar Now I do
feel proud I have longed for it to have you leading the country not tugged
at like a waggon with a treble team uphill We two are a month in advance of all
England You stand by him only to hear it for I am sure of it«
»We stand or fall together«
Her glowing look doated on the faithful lieutenant
»And if the henchman is my hero I am but a waitingwoman But I must admire
his leader«
»Tony«
»Ah no« she joined her hands wondering whither her armed majesty had
fled »no softness no payments Flatter me by letting me think you came to a
head not a silly womans heart with one name on it as it has not to betray
I have been frank you need no proofs « The supplicating hands left her
figure an easy prey to the storm and were crushed in a knot on her bosom She
could only shrink »Ah Percy you undo my praise of you my pride in
receiving you«
They were speechless perforce
»You see Tony my dearest I am flesh and blood after all«
»You drive me to be ice and doorbolts«
Her eyes broke over him reproachfully
»It is not so much to grant« he murmured
»It changes everything between us«
»Not me It binds me the faster«
»It makes me a loathsome hypocrite«
»But Tony is it so much«
»Not if you value it low«
»But how long do you keep me in this ragpuppets state of suspension«
»Patience«
»Dangling and swinging day and night«
»The ragpuppet shall be animated and repaid if I have life I wish to
respect my hero Have a little mercy Our day will come perhaps as wonderfully
as this wonderful news My friend drop your hands Have you forgotten who I am
I want to think Percy«
»But you are mine«
»You are abasing your own«
»No by heaven«
»Worse dear friend you are lowering yourself to the woman who loves you«
»You must imagine me superhuman«
»I worship you or did«
»Be reasonable Tony What harm Surely a trifle of recompense Just to let
me feel I live You own you love me Then I am your lover«
»My dear friend Percy when I have consented to be your paramour this kind
of treatment of me will not want apologies«
The plain speaking from the wound he dealt her was effective with a
gentleman who would never have enjoyed his privileges had he been of a nature
unsusceptible to her distinct wish and meaning
He sighed »You know how my family bother me The woman I want the only
woman I could marry I cant have«
»You have her in soul«
»Body and soul it must be I believe you were made without fire«
»Perhaps The element is omitted with some of us happily some think Now
we can converse There seems to be a measurement of distances required before
men and women have a chance with their brains or before a man will understand
that he can be advised and seconded When will the Cabinet be consulted«
»Oh a few days Promise me «
»Any honourable promise«
»You will not keep me waiting longer than the end of the Session«
»Probably there will be an appeal to the country«
»In any case promise me have some compassion«
»Ah the compassion You do not choose your words Percy or forget who is
the speaker«
»It is Tony who forgets the time she has kept her lover dangling Promise
and I will wait«
»You hurt my hand sir«
»I could crack the knuckles Promise«
»Come to me tomorrow«
»Tomorrow you are in your armour triple brass All creation cries out for
now We are mounted on barbs and you talk of ambling«
»Arthur Rhodes might have spoken that«
»Rhodes« he shook off the name in disgust »Pet him as much as you like
dont « he was unable to phrase his objection
She cooled him further with eulogies of the chevaleresque manner of speaking
which young Mr Rhodes could assume till for very wrath of blood not
jealousy he had none of any man with her and not passion the little he had
was a fitful gust he punished her coldness by taking what hastily could be
gathered
Her shape was a pained submission and she thought Where is the woman who
ever knows a man as women do think when one of their artifices of evasion
with a lover or the trick of imposingness has apparently been subduing him
But the pain was less than previously for she was now mistress of herself
fearing no abysses
Dacier released her quickly saying »If I come tomorrow shall I have the
promise«
She answered »Be sure I shall not lie«
»Why not let me have it before I go«
»My friend to tell you the truth you have utterly distracted me«
»Forgive me if I did hurt your hand«
»The hand You might strike it off«
»I cant be other than a mortal lover Tony Theres the fact«
»No the fault is mine when I am degraded I trust you theres the error«
The trial for Dacier was the sight of her quicklifting bosom under the mask
of cold language an attraction and repulsion in union a delirium to any lover
impelled to trample on weak defences But the evident pain he inflicted moved
his pity which helped to restore his conception of the beauty of her character
She stood so nobly meek And she was never prudish only selfrespecting
Although the great news he imparted had roused an ardent thirst for holiday and
a dash out of harness and he could hardly check it he yielded her the lead
»Trust me you may« he said »But you know we are one The world has given
you to me me to you Why should we be asunder Theres no reason in it«
She replied »But still I wish to burn a little incense in honour of myself
or else I cannot live It is the truth You make Death my truer friend and at
this moment I would willingly go out You would respect me more dead than alive
I could better pardon you too«
He pleaded for the red mouths pardon remotely irritated by the suspicion
that she swayed him overmuch and he had deserved the small benevolences and
donations of love crumbs and heavenly dews
»Not a word of pardon« said Diana »I shall never count an iota against you
in the dark backward and abysm of Time This news is great and I have sunk
beneath it Come tomorrow Then we will speak upon whatever you can prove
rational The hour is getting late«
Dacier took a draught of her dark beauty with the crimson he had kindled
over the cheeks Her lips were firmly closed her eyes grave dry but seeming
to waver tearfully in their heavy fulness He could not doubt her love of him
and although chafing at the idea that she swayed him absurdly beyond the
credible in his world of wagtongues he resumed his natural soberness as a
garment not very uneasily fitting whence it ensued for so are we influenced
by the garb we put on us that his manly sentiment of revolt in being condemned
to play second was repressed by the refreshment breathed on him from her lofty
character the pure jewel proffered to his inward ownership
»Adieu for the night« he said and she smiled He pressed for a pressure of
her hand She brightened her smile instead and said only »Good night Percy«
Chapter XXXII
Wherein We Behold a Giddy Turn at the Spectral Crossways
Danvers accompanied Mr Dacier to the housedoor Climbing the stairs she found
her mistress in the drawingroom still
»You must be cold maam« she said glancing at the firegrate
»Is it a frost« said Diana
»Its midnight and midwinter maam«
»Has it struck midnight«
The mantelpiece clock said five minutes past
»You had better go to bed Danvers or you will lose your bloom Stop you
are a faithful soul Great things are happening and I am agitated Mr Dacier
has told me news He came back purposely«
»Yes maam« said Danvers »He had a great deal to tell«
»Well he had« Diana coloured at the first tentative impertinence she had
heard from her maid »What is the secret of you Danvers What attaches you to
me«
»Im sure I dont know maam Im romantic«
»And you think me a romantic object«
»Im sure I cant say maam Id rather serve you than any other lady and
I wish you was happy«
»Do you suppose I am unhappy«
»Im sure but if I may speak maam so handsome and clever a lady and
young I cant bear to see it«
»Tush you silly woman You read your melting tales and imagine I must go
and write for money it is my profession And I havent an idea in my head This
news disturbs me Ruin if I dont write so I must I cant«
Diana beheld the ruin She clasped the great news for succour Great indeed
and known but to her of all the outer world She was ahead of all ahead of Mr
Tonans
The visionary figure of Mr Tonans petrified by the great news drinking it
and confessing her ahead of him in the race for secrets arose toweringly She
had not ever seen the Editor in his den at midnight With the rumble of his
machinery about him and fresh matter arriving and flying into the
printingpress it must be like being in the very furnacehissing of Events an
Olympian Council held in Vulcans smithy Consider the bringing to the Jove
there news of such magnitude as to stupefy him He too who had admonished her
rather sneeringly for staleness in her information But this news great though
it was and throbbing like a heart plucked out of a breathing body throbbed but
for a brief term a day or two after which great though it was immense it
relapsed into a common organ a possession of the multitude merely historically
curious
»You are not afraid of the streets at night« Diana said to her maid as
they were going upstairs
»Not when were driving maam« was the answer
THE MAN OF TWO MINDS faced his creatrix in the dressingroom still
delivering that most ponderous of sentences a smothering pillow
I have mistaken my vocation thought Diana I am certainly the flattest
proser who ever penned a line
She sent Danvers into the bedroom on a trifling errand unable to bear the
womans proximity and oddly unwilling to dismiss her
She pressed her hands on her eyelids Would Percy have humiliated her so if
he had respected her He took advantage of the sudden loss of her habitual
queenly initiative at the wonderful news to debase and stain their intimacy The
lovers behaviour was judged by her sensations she felt humiliated plucked
violently from the throne where she had long been sitting securely very
proudly That was at an end If she was to be better than the loathsomest of
hypocrites she must deny him his admission to the house And then what was her
life
Something that was pressing her low she knew not how and left it
unquestioned incited her to exaggerate the indignity her pride had suffered
She was a dethroned woman Deeper within an unmasked actress she said Oh she
forgave him But clearly he took her for the same as other women consenting to
receive a privileged visitor And sounding herself to the soul was she so
magnificently better Her face flamed She hugged her arms at her breast to
quiet the beating and dropped them when she surprised herself embracing the
memory He had brought political news and treated her as name the thing Not
designedly it might be her position invited it »The world had given her to
him« The world is always a prophet of the mire but the world is no longer an
utterly mistaken world She shook before it
She asked herself why Percy or the world should think highly of an
adventuress who was a denounced wife a wretched author and on the verge of
bankruptcy She was an adventuress When she held The Crossways she had at least
a bit of solid footing now gone An adventuress without an idea in her head
witness her dullard The Man of Two Minds at his work of sermonizing his
mistress
The tremendous pressure upon our consciousness of the material cause when
we find ourselves cast among the breakers of moral difficulties and endeavour to
elude that mudvisaged monster chiefly by feigning unconsciousness was an
experience of Dianas in the crisis to which she was wrought Her wits were too
acute her nature too direct to permit of a lengthened confusion She laid the
scourge on her flesh smartly I gave him these privileges because I am weak as
the weakest base as my enemies proclaim me I covered my womans vile weakness
with an air of intellectual serenity that he choosing his moment tore away
exposing me to myself as well as to him the most ordinary of reptiles I kept
up a costly household for the sole purpose of seeing him and having him near me
Hence this bitter need of money Either it must be money or disgrace Money
would assist her quietly to amend and complete her work Yes and this want of
money in a review of the last two years was the material cause of her
recklessness It was her revived and uprising pudency declared the principal
the only cause Mere want of money
And she had a secret worth thousands The secret of a day no more
anybodys secret after some four and twenty hours
She smiled at the fancied elongation and stare of the features of Mr Tonans
in his editorial midnight den
What if he knew it and could cap it with something novel and stranger
Hardly But it was an inciting suggestion
She began to tremble as a lightningflash made visible her fortunes
recovered disgrace averted hours of peace for composition stretching before
her a summer afternoons vista
It seemed a duel between herself and Mr Tonans and she sure of her triumph
Diana victrix
»Danvers« she called
»Is it to undress maam« said the maid entering to her
»You are not afraid of the streets you tell me I have to go down to the
City I think It is urgent Yes I must go If I were to impart the news to
you your head would be a tolling bell for a month«
»You will take a cab maam«
»We must walk out to find one I must go though I should have to go on
foot Quick with bonnet and shawl muffle up warmly We have never been out so
late but does it matter Youre a brave soul Im sure and you shall have your
fee«
»I dont care for money maam«
»When we get home you shall kiss me«
Danvers clothed her mistress in furs and rich wrappings Not paid for was
Dianas desperate thought and a wrong one but she had to seem the precipitated
bankrupt and succeeded She was near being it The boiling of her secret carried
her through the streets rapidly and unobservantly except of such small things as
the glow of the lights on the pavements and the hushed cognizance of the houses
in silence to a thoroughfare where a willing cabman was met The destination
named he nodded alertly he had driven gentlemen there at night from the House
of Commons he said
»Our Parliament is now sitting and you drive ladies« Diana replied
»I hope I know one never mind the hour« said he of the capes
He was bidden to drive rapidly
»Complexion a tulip you do not often see a pale cabman« she remarked to
Danvers who began laughing as she always expected to do on an excursion with
her mistress
»Do you remember maam the cabman taking us to the coach when you thought
of going to the continent«
»And I went to The Crossways I have forgotten him«
»He declared you was so beautiful a lady he would drive you to the end of
England for nothing«
»It must have been when I was paying him Put it out of your mind Danvers
that there are individual cabmen They are the painted flowers of our
metropolitan thoroughfares and we gather them in rows«
»They have their feelings maam«
»Brandied feelings are not pathetic to me«
»I like to think kindly of them« Danvers remarked in reproof of her
inhumanity adding »They may overturn us« at which Diana laughed
Her eyes were drawn to a brawl of women and men in the street »Ah that
miserable sight« she cried »It is the everlasting nightmare of London«
Danvers humped femininely injured by the notice of it She wondered her
mistress should deign to
Rolling on between the blind and darkened houses Diana transferred her
sensations to them and in a fit of the nerves imagined them beholding a funeral
convoy without followers
They came in view of the domed cathedral hearing in a pause of the wheels
the bell of the hour »Faster faster my dear man« Diana murmured and they
entered a small still square of many lighted windows
»This must be where the morrow is manufactured« she said »Tell the man to
wait Or rather its the mirror of yesterday we have to look backward to see
forward in life«
She talked her cool philosophy to mask her excitement from herself
Her card marked »Imperative two minutes« was taken up to Mr Tonans
They ascended to the editorial anteroom Doors opened and shut hasty feet
traversed the corridors a dull hum in dumbness told of mighty business at work
Diana received the summons to the mighty head of the establishment Danvers was
left to speculate She heard the voice of Mr Tonans »Not more than two« This
was not a place for compliments Men passed her hither and yonder cursorily
noticing the presence of a woman She lost very strangely to her the sense of
her sex and became an object a disregarded object Things of more importance
were about Her feminine selfesteem was troubled all idea of attractiveness
expired Here was manifestly a spot where women had dropped from the secondary
to the cancelled stage of their extraordinary career in a world either blowing
them aloft like soapbubbles or quietly shelving them as supernumeraries A
gentleman sweet vision shot by to the editors door without even looking
cursorily He knocked Mr Tonans appeared and took him by the arm dictating at
a great rate perceived Danvers frowned at the female and requested him to
wait in the room which the gentleman did not once casting eye upon a woman At
last her mistress returned to her escorted so far by Mr Tonans and he
refreshingly bent his back to bow over her hand so we have the satisfaction of
knowing that we are not such poor creatures after all Suffering in person
Danvers was revived by the little show of homage to her sex
They descended the stairs
»You are not an Editor of a paper but you may boast that you have been near
the nest of one« Diana said when they resumed their seats in the cab She
breathed deeply from time to time as if under a weight or relieved of it but
she seemed animated and she dropped now and again a funny observation of the
kind that tickled Danvers and caused the maid to boast of her everywhere as
better than a Play
At home Danvers busied her hands to supply her mistress a cup of refreshing
tea and a plate of biscuits Diana had stunned herself with the strange weight
of the expedition and had not a thought In spite of tea at that hour she
slept soundly through the remainder of the night dreamlessly till late into the
morning
Chapter XXXIII
Exhibits the Springing of a Mine in a Newspaper Article
The powers of harmony would seem to be tried to their shrewdest pitch when
Politics and Love are planted together in a human breast This apparently
opposite couple can nevertheless chant a very sweet accord as was shown by
Dacier on his homeward walk from Dianas house Let Love lead the God will make
music of any chambercomrade He was able to think of affairs of State while
feeling the satisfied thirst of the lover whose pride irritated by confidential
wild eulogies of the beautiful woman had recently clamoured for proofs of his
commandership The impression she stamped on him at Copsley remained but it
could not occupy the foreground for ever He did not object to play second to
her sprightly wits in converse if he had some warm testimony to his mastery
over her blood For the world had given her to him enthusiastic friends had
congratulated him she had exalted him for true knightliness and he considered
the proofs well earned though he did not value them low They were little by
comparison They lighted instead of staining her unparalleled high character
She loved him Full surely did she love him or such a woman would never
have consented to brave the world once in their project of flight and next
even more endearingly when contemplated in the sacrifice of her good name not
omitting that fervent memory of her pained submission but a palpitating
submission to his caress She was in his arms again at the thought of it He
had melted her and won the confession of her senses by a surprise and he owned
that never had woman been so vigilantly selfguarded or so watchful to keep her
lover amused and aloof Such a woman deserved long service But then the long
service deserved its time of harvest Her surging look of reproach in submission
pointed to the golden time and as he was a man of honour pledged to her for
life he had no remorse and no scruple in determining to exact her dated
promise on this occasion deliberately She was the woman to be his wife she
was his minds mate they had hung apart in deference to mere scruples too long
During the fierce battle of the Session she would be his help his fountain of
counsel and she would be the rosy gauzeveiled more than cold helper and
adviser the being which would spur her womanly intelligence to acknowledge on
this occasion deliberately the wisdom of the step They had been so close to
it She might call it madness then now it was wisdom Each had complete
experience of the other and each vowed the step must be taken
As to the secret communicated he exulted in the pardonable cunning of the
impulse turning him back to her house after the guests had gone and the
dexterous play of his bait on the line tempting her to guess and quit her
queenly guard Though it had not been distinctly schemed the review of it in
that light added to the enjoyment It had been dimly and richly conjectured as a
hoped result Small favours from her were really worth thrice worth the utmost
from other women They tasted the sweeter for the winning of them artfully an
honourable thing in love Nature rewarding the lovers ingenuity and
enterprise inspires him with old Greek notions of right and wrong and love is
indeed a fluid mercurial realm continually shifting the principles of rectitude
and larceny As long as he means nobly what is there to condemn him Not she in
her heart She was the presiding divinity
And she his Tony that splendid Diana was the woman the world abused Whom
will it not abuse
The slough she would have to plunge in before he could make her his own with
the worlds consent was already up to her throat She must and without further
hesitation be steeped that he might drag her out washed of the imputed
defilement and radiant as she was in character Reflection now said this not
impulse
Her words rang through him At every meeting she said things to confound his
estimate of the wits of women or be remembered for some spirited ring they had
A high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird He murmured it and flew
with her She quickened a vein of imagination that gave him entrance to a
strangely brilliant sphere above his own where she sustaining he too could
soar and he did scarce conscious of walking home undressing falling asleep
The act of waking was an instantaneous recovery of his emotional rapture of
the overnight nor was it a bar to graver considerations His Chief had gone
down to a house in the country his personal business was to see and sound the
followers of their party after another sight of his Tony She would be sure to
counsel sagaciously she always did She had a marvellous intuition of the
natures of the men he worked with solely from his chance descriptions of them
it was as though he started the bird and she transfixed it And she should not
have matter to ruffle her smooth brows that he swore to She should sway him as
she pleased be respected after her prescribed manner The promise must be
exacted nothing besides the promise You see Tony you cannot be less than
Tony to me now he addressed the gentle phantom of her Let me have your word
and I am your servant till the Session ends Tony blushes her swarthy crimson
Diana fluttering rebukes her but Diana is the appeasable Goddess Tony is the
woman and she loves him The glorious Goddess need not cut them adrift they
can show her a book of honest pages
Dacier could truthfully say he had worshipped done knightly service to the
beloved woman homage to the aureole encircling her Those friends of his
covertly congratulating him on her preference doubtless thought him more
privileged than he was but they did not know Diana and they were welcome if
they would only believe to the knowledge that he was at the feet of this most
sovereign woman He despised the particular Satyrworld which whatever the
nature or station of the woman crowns the desecrator and bestows the title of
Fool on the worshipper He could have answered voraciously that she had kept him
from folly
Nevertheless the term to service must come In the assurance of the
approaching term he stood braced against a blowing world happy as men are when
their muscles are strung for a prize they pluck with the energy and aim of their
whole force
Letters and morning papers were laid for him to peruse in his dressingroom
He read his letters before the bath Not much public news was expected at the
present season While dressing he turned over the sheets of Whitmonbys
journal Dull comments on stale tidings Foreign news Home news with the
leaders on them identically dull Behold the effect of Journalism a witty man
sparkling overnight gets into his pulpit and proses because he must say
something and he really knows nothing Journalists have an excessive
overestimate of their influence They cannot as Diana said comparing them with
men on the Parliamentary platform cannot feel they are aboard the big vessel
they can only strive to raise a breeze or find one to swell and they cannot
measure the stoutness or the greatness of the good ship England Daciers
personal ambition was inferior to his desire to extend and strengthen his
England Parliament was the field Government the office How many conversations
had passed between him and Diana on that patriotic dream She had often filled
his drooping sails he owned it proudly and while the world both the hoofed
and the rectilinear portions were biting at her character Had he fretted her
selfrespect He blamed himself but a devoted service must have its term
The paper of Mr Tonans was reserved for perusal at breakfast He reserved
it because Tonans was an opponent tricksy and surprising now and then amusing
too unlikely to afford him serious reflections The recent endeavours of his
journal to whip the Governmentteam to a rightaboutface were annoying
preposterous Dacier had admitted to Diana that Tonans merited the thanks of the
country during the discreditable Railway mania when his articles had a fine
exhortative and prophetic twang and had done marked good Otherwise as
regarded the Ministry the veering gusts of Tonans were objectionable he raised
the breeze wantonly as well as disagreeably Any one can whip up the populace if
he has the instruments and Tonans frequently intruded on the Ministrys
prerogative to govern The journalist was bidding against the statesman But
such is the condition of a rapidly Radicalizing country We must take it as it
is
With a complacent What now Dacier fixed his indifferent eyes on the first
column of the leaders
He read and his eyes grew horny He jerked back at each sentence
electrified staring The article was shorter than usual Total Repeal was
named the precise date when the Minister intended calling Parliament together
to propose it The »Total Repeal« might be guesswork an Editors bold stroke
but the details the date were significant of positive information The
Ministers definite and immediate instructions were exactly stated
Where could the fellow have got hold of that Dacier asked the blank
ceiling
He frowned at vacant corners of the room in an effort to conjure some
speculation indicative of the source
Had his Chief confided the secret to another and a traitor Had they been
overheard in his library when the project determined on was put in plain speech
The answer was no impossible to each question
He glanced at Diana She But it was past midnight when he left her And she
would never have betrayed him never never To imagine it a moment was an
injury to her
Where else could he look It had been specially mentioned in the
communication as a secret by his Chief who trusted him and no others Up to the
consultation with the Cabinet it was a thing to be guarded like life itself
Not to a soul except Diana would Dacier have breathed syllable of any secret
and one of this weight
He ran down the article again There were the facts undeniable facts and
they detonated with audible roaring and rounding echoes of them over England
How did they come there As well inquire how man came on the face of the earth
He had to wipe his forehead perpetually Think as he would in exaltation of
Diana to shelter himself he was the accused He might not be the guilty but he
had opened his mouth and though it was to her only and she as Dunstane had
sworn true as steel he could not escape condemnation He had virtually
betrayed his master Diana would never betray her lover but the thing was in
the air as soon as uttered and off to the printingpress Daciers grotesque
fancy under annoyance pictured a stream of small printers devils in flight from
his babbling lips
He consumed bits of breakfast with a sour confession that a
newspaperarticle had hit him at last and stunningly
Hat and coat were called for The state of aimlessness in hot perplexity
demands a show of action Whither to go first was as obscure as what to do
Diana said of the Englishmans hat and coat that she supposed they were to make
him a walking presentment of the house he had shut up behind him A shot of the
eye at the glass confirmed the likeness but with a ruefully wryfaced
repudiation of it internally Not so shut up the reverse of that a common
babbler
However there was no doubt of Diana First he would call on her The
pleasantest dose in perturbations of the kind is instinctively taken first She
would console perhaps direct him to guess how the secret had leaked But so
suddenly immediately It was inexplicable
Sudden and immediate consequences were experienced On the steps of his
house his way was blocked by the arrival of Mr Quintin Manx who jumped out of
a cab bellowing interjections and interrogations in a breath Was there
anything in that article He had read it at breakfast and it had choked him
Dacier was due at a house and could not wait he said rather sharply he was
not responsible for newspaper articles Quintin Manx a senior gentleman and
junior landowner vowed that no Minister intending to sell the country should
treat him as a sheep The shepherd might go he would not carry his flock with
him But was there a twinkle of probability in the story that article
Dacier was unable to inform him he was very hurried had to keep an
appointment
»If I let you go will you come and lunch with me at two« said Quintin
To get rid of him Dacier nodded and agreed
»Two oclock mind« was bawled at his heels as he walked off with his long
stride unceremoniously leaving the pursy gentleman of sixty to settle with his
cabman far to the rear
Chapter XXXIV
In Which It Is Darkly Seen How the Criminals Judge May Be Loves Criminal
When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not think much of the thing we
have clutched for support Our balance is restored and we have not fallen that
is the comfortable reflection we stand as others do and we will for the future
be warned to avoid the dizzy stations which cry for resources beyond a common
equilibrium and where a slip precipitates us to ruin
When further it is a woman planted in a burning blush having to idealize
her feminine weakness that she may not rebuke herself for grovelling the mean
material acts by which she sustains a tottering position are speedily swallowed
in the one pervading flame She sees but an ashen curl of the path she has
traversed to safety if anything
Knowing her lover was to come in the morning Dianas thoughts dwelt wholly
upon the way to tell him as tenderly as possible without danger to herself
that her time for entertaining was over until she had finished her book
indefinitely therefore The apprehension of his complaining pricked the memory
that she had something to forgive He had sunk her in her own esteem by
compelling her to see her womans softness But how high above all other men her
experience of him could place him notwithstanding He had bowed to the figure of
herself dearer than herself that she set before him and it was a true figure
to the world a too fictitious to any but the most knightly of lovers She
forgave and a shudder seized her Snake she rebuked the delicious run of
fire through her veins for she was not like the idol woman of imperishable
type who are never for a twinkle the prey of the blood statues created by
mans common desire to impress upon the sex his possessing pattern of them as
domestic decorations
When she entered the room to Dacier and they touched hands she rejoiced in
her coolness without any other feeling or perception active Not to be unkind
not too kind this was her task She waited for the passage of commonplaces
»You slept well Percy«
»Yes and you«
»I dont think I even dreamed«
They sat She noticed the cloud on him and waited for his allusion to it
anxious concerning him simply
Dacier flung the hair off his temples Words of Titanic formation were
hurling in his head at journals and journalists He muttered his disgust of
them
»Is there anything to annoy you in the papers to she asked and thought how
handsome his face was in anger
The paper of Mr Tonans was named by him »You have not seen it«
»I have not opened it yet«
He sprang up »The truth is those fellows can now afford to buy right and
left corrupt every soul alive There must have been a spy at the keyhole Im
pretty certain I could swear it was not breathed to any ear but mine and
there it is this morning in black and white«
»What is« cried Diana turning to him on her chair
»The thing I told you last night«
Her lips worked as if to spell the thing »Printed do you say« she rose
»Printed In a leading article loud as a trumpet a hue and cry running
from end to end of the country And my Chief has already had the satisfaction of
seeing the secret he confided to me yesterday roared in all the thoroughfares
this morning Theyve got the facts his decision to propose it and the date
the whole of it But who could have betrayed it«
For the first time since her midnight expedition she felt a sensation of the
full weight of the deed She heard thunder
She tried to disperse the growing burden by an inward summons to contempt of
the journalistic profession but nothing would come She tried to minimize it
and her brain succumbed Her views of the deed last night and now throttled
reason in two contending clutches The enormity swelled its dimensions taking
shape and pointing magnetically at her She stood absolutely amazedly bare
before it
»Is it of such very great importance« she said like one supplicating him
to lessen it
»A secret of State If you ask whether it is of great importance to me
relatively it is of course Nothing greater Personally my conscience is clear
I never mentioned it couldnt have mentioned it to any one but you Im not
the man to blab secrets He spoke to me because he knew he could trust me To
tell you the truth Im brought to a dead stop I cant make a guess Im
certain from what he said that he trusted me only with it perfectly certain
I know him well He was in his library speaking in his usual conversational
tone deliberately nor overloud He stated that it was a secret between us«
»Will it affect him«
»This article Why naturally it will You ask strange questions A Minister
coming to a determination like that It affects him vitally The members of the
Cabinet are not so devoted It affects us all the whole Party may split
it to pieces Theres no reckoning the upset right and left If it were false
it could be refuted we could despise it as a trick of journalism Its true
Theres the mischief Tonans did not happen to call here last night absurd I
left later than twelve«
»No but let me hear« Diana said hurriedly for the sake of uttering the
veracious negative and to slur it over »Let me hear « She could not muster
an idea
Her delicious thrilling voice was a comfort to him He lifted his breast
high and thumped it trying to smile »After all its pleasant being with you
Tony Give me your hand you may Im bothered confounded by this morning
surprise It was like walking against the muzzle of a loaded cannon suddenly
unmasked One cant fathom the mischief it will do And I shall be suspected
and cant quite protest myself the spotless innocent Not even to ones hearts
mistress to the wife of the bosom I suppose Im no Roman You wont give me
your hand Tony you might seeing I am rather «
A rush of scalding tears flooded her eyes
»Dont touch me« she said and forced her sight to look straight at him
through the fiery shower »I have done positive mischief«
»You my dear Tony« He doated on her face »I dont blame you I blame
myself These things should never be breathed Once in the air the devil has
hold of them Dont take it so much to heart The things bad enough to bear as
it is Tears Let me have the hand I came on my honour with the most honest
intention to submit to your orders but if I see you weeping in sympathy«
»Oh for heavens sake« she caught her hands away from him »dont be
generous Whip me with scorpions And dont touch me« cried Diana »Do you
understand You did not name it as a secret I did not imagine it to be a secret
of immense immediate importance«
»But what« shouted Dacier stiffening
He wanted her positive meaning as she perceived having hoped that it was
generally taken and current and the shock to him over
»I had I had not a suspicion of doing harm Percy«
»But what harm have you done No riddles«
His features gave sign of the break in their common ground the widening
gulf
»I went it was a curious giddiness I cant account for it I thought
«
»Went You went where«
»Last night I would speak intelligibly my mind has gone Ah you look It
is not so bad as my feeling«
»But where did you go last night What to Tonans«
She drooped her head she saw the track of her route cleaving the darkness
in a demoniacal zigzag and herself in demons grip
»Yes« she confronted him »I went to Mr Tonans«
»Why«
»I went to him «
»You went alone«
»I took my maid«
»Well«
»It was late when you left me «
»Speak plainly«
»I am trying I will tell you all«
»At once if you please«
»I went to him why There is no accounting for it He sneered constantly
at any stale information«
»You gave him constant information«
»No in our ordinary talk He railed at me for being out of it I must be
childish I went to show him oh my vanity I think I must have been
possessed«
She watched the hardening of her lovers eyes They penetrated and through
them she read herself insufferably
But it was with hesitation still that he said »Then you betrayed me«
»Percy I had not a suspicion of mischief«
»You went straight to this man«
»Not thinking «
»You sold me to a journalist«
»I thought it was a secret of a day I dont think you no you did not
tell me to keep it secret A word from you would have been enough I was in
extremity«
Dacier threw his hands up and broke away He had an impulse to dash from the
room to get a breath of different air He stood at the window observing
tradesmens carts housemaids blank doors dogs a beggar fifer Her last words
recurred to him He turned »You were in extremity you said What is the
meaning of that What extremity«
Her large dark eyes flashed powerlessly her shape appeared to have
narrowed her tongue too was a feeble penitent
»You ask a creature to recall her acts of insanity«
»There must be some signification in your words I suppose«
»I will tell you as clearly as I can You have the right to be my judge I
was in extremity that is I saw no means I could not write it was ruin
coming«
»Ah you took payment for playing spy«
»I fancied I could retrieve Now I see the folly the baseness I was
blind«
»Then you sold me to a journalist for money«
The intolerable scourge fetched a stifled scream from her and drove her
pacing but there was no escape she returned to meet it
The room was a cage to both of them and every word of either was a sting
»Percy I did not imagine he would use it make use of it as he has done«
»Not And when he paid for it«
»I fancied it would be merely of general service if any«
»Distributed I see not leading to the exposure of the communicant«
»You are harsh but I would not have you milder«
The meekness of such a mischiefdoer was revolting and called for the lash
»Do me the favour to name the sum I am curious to learn what my imbecility
was counted worth«
»No sum was named«
»Have I been bought for a song«
»It was a suggestion no definite nothing stipulated«
»You were to receive money«
»Leave me a bit of veiling No you shall behold me the thing I am Listen
I was poor «
»You might have applied to me«
»For money That I could not do«
»Better than betraying me believe me«
»I had no thought of betraying I hope I could have died rather than
consciously betray«
»Money My whole fortune was at your disposal«
»I was beset with debts unable to write and last night when you left me
abject It seemed to me that you disrespected me «
»Last night« Dacier cried with lashing emphasis
»It is evident to me that I have the reptile in me Percy Or else I am
subject to lose my reason I went I went like a bullet I cannot describe
it I was mad I need a strong arm I want help I am given to think that I do
my best and can be independent I break down I went blindly now I see it
for the chance of recovering my position as the gambler casts and he wins or
loses With me it is the soul that is lost No exact sum was named thousands
were hinted«
»You are hardly practical on points of business«
»I was insane«
»I think you said you slept well after it« Dacier remarked
»I had so little the idea of having done evilly that I slept without a
dream«
He shrugged the consciences of women are such smooth deeps or running
shallows
»I have often wondered how your newspaper men got their information« he
said and muttered »Money women« adding »Idiots to prime them And I one of
the leaky vessels Well we learn I have been rather astonished at times of
late at the scraps of secret knowledge displayed by Tonans If he flourishes his
thousands The wonder is he doesnt corrupt the Ministers wives Perhaps he
does Marriage will become a dangersign to Parliamentary members Foreign women
do these tricks women of a wellknown stamp It is now a full year I think
since I began to speak to you of secret matters and congratulated myself I
recollect on your thirst for them«
»Percy if you suspect that I have uttered one word before last night you
are wrong I cannot paint my temptation or my loss of sense last night
Previously I was blameless I thirsted yes but in the hope of helping you«
He looked at her She perceived how glitteringly loveless his eyes had
grown It was her punishment and though the enamoured womans heart protested
it excessive she accepted it
»I can never trust you again« he said
»I fear you will not« she replied
His coming back to her after the departure of the guests last night shone on
him in splendid colours of singleminded loverlike devotion »I came to speak to
my own heart I thought it would give you pleasure thought I could trust you
utterly I had not the slightest conception I was imperilling my honour «
He stopped Her bloodless fixed features revealed an intensity of anguish
that checked him Only her mouth a little open for the sharp breath appeared
dumbly beseeching Her large eyes met his like steel to steel as of one who
would die fronting the weapon
He strangled a loathsome inclination to admire
»So good bye« he said
She moved her lips
He said no more In half a minute he was gone
To her it was the plucking of life out of her breast
She pressed her hands where heart had been The pallor and cold of death
took her body
Chapter XXXV
Reveals How the True Heroine of Romance Comes Finally to Her Time of Triumph
The shutting of her housedoor closed for Dacier that womans history in
connection with himself He set his mind on the consequences of the act of folly
the trusting a secret to a woman All were possibly not so bad none should be
trusted
The air of the street fanned him agreeably as he revolved the horrible
project of confession to the man who had put faith in him Particulars might be
asked She would be unnamed but an imagination of the effect of naming her
placarded a notorious woman in fresh paint two members of the same family her
victims
And last night no later than last night he had swung round at this very
corner of the street to give her the fullest proof of his affection He beheld a
dupe trotting into a carefullylaid pitfall She had him by the generosity of
his confidence in her Moreover the recollection of her recent feeble phrasing
when she stood convicted of the treachery when a really clever woman would have
developed her resources led him to doubt her being so finely gifted She was
just clever enough to hoodwink He attributed the dupery to a trick of imposing
the idea of her virtue upon men Attracted by her good looks and sparkle they
entered the circle of her charm became delightfully intimate suffered a
rebuff and were from that time prepared to serve her purpose How many other
wretched dupes had she dangling He spied at Westlake spied at Redworth at old
Lord Larrian at Lord Dannisburgh at Arthur Rhodes dozens Old and young were
alike to her if she saw an end to be gained by keeping them hooked Tonans too
and Whitmonby Newspaper editors were especially serviceable Perhaps a young
Minister of State held the foremost rank in that respect if completely duped
and squeezeable he produced more substantial stuff
The background of ice in Daciers composition was brought to the front by
his righteous contempt of her treachery No explanation of it would have
appeased him She was guilty and he condemned her She stood condemned by all
the evil likely to ensue from her misdeed Scarcely had he left her house last
night when she was away to betray him He shook her from him without a pang
Crediting her with the one merit she had that of not imploring for mercy he
the more easily shook her off Treacherous she had not proved theatrical So
there was no fuss in putting out her light and it was done He was justified by
the brute facts Honourable courteous kindly gentleman highly civilized an
excellent citizen and a patriot he was icy at an outrage to his principles and
in the dominion of Love a sultan of the bowstring and chopper period
sovereignly endowed to stretch a finger for the scimitared Mesrour to make the
erring woman head and trunk with one blow and away with those remnants This
internally he did Enough that the brute facts justified him
St Jamess park was crossed and the grass of the Green park to avoid
inquisitive friends He was obliged to walk exercise action of any sort was
imperative and but for some engagement he would have gone to his fencingrooms
for a bout with the master He remembered his engagement and grew doubly
embittered He had absurdly pledged himself to lunch with Quintin Manx that
was to pretend to eat while submitting to be questioned by a political dullard
strong on his present right to overhaul and rail at his superiors The house was
one of a block along the NorthWestern line of Hyde park He kicked at the
subjection to go there but a promise was binding though he gave it when
stunned He could have silenced Mr Manx with the posing interrogation Why have
I so long consented to put myself at the mercy of a bore For him he could not
answer it though Manx as leader of the Shipping interest was influential The
man had to be endured like other doses in politics
Dacier did not once think of the great shipowners niece till Miss
Constance Asper stepped into her drawingroom to welcome him She was an image
of repose to his mind The calm pure outline of her white features refreshed him
as the Alps the Londoner newly alighted at Berne smoke wrangle the wrestling
citys wickedness behind him
»My uncle is very disturbed« she said »Is the news if I am not very
indiscreet in inquiring«
»I have a practice of never paying attention to newspaper articles« Dacier
replied
»I am only affected by living with one who does« Miss Asper observed and
the lofty isolation of her head above politics gave her a moral attractiveness
in addition to physical beauty Her watercolour sketches were on her uncles
walls the beautiful in nature claimed and absorbed her She dressed with a
pretty rigour a lovely simplicity picturesque of the nunnery She looked
indeed a highborn young ladyabbess
»Its a dusty game for ladies« Dacier said abhorring the women defiled by
it
And when one thinks of the desire of men to worship women there is a pathos
in a mans discovery of the fair young creature undefiled by any interest in
public affairs virginal amid her bowers environments
The angelical beauty of a virgin mind and person captivated him by
contrast His natural taste was to admire it shunning the lures and tangles of
the women on high seas notably the married who by the way contrive to
ensnare us through wonderment at a cleverness caught from their traffic with the
masculine world often if we did but know a parrotrepetition of the last
male visitors remarks But that which the fair maiden speaks though it may be
simple is her own
She too is her own or vowed but to one She is on all sides impressive in
purity The world worships her as its perfect pearl and we are brought
refreshfully to acknowledge that the world is right
By contrast the white radiation of Innocence distinguished Constance Asper
celestially As he was well aware she had long preferred him the reserved
among many pleading pressing suitors Her steady faithfulness had fed on the
poorest crumbs
He ventured to express the hope that she was well
»Yes« she answered with eyelids lifted softly to thank him for his concern
in so humble a person
»You look a little pale« he said
She coloured like a seawater shell »I am inclined to paleness by nature«
Her uncle disturbed them Lunch was ready He apologized for the absence of
Mrs Markland a maternal aunt of Constance who kept house for them Quintin
Manx fell upon the meats and then upon the Minister Dacier found himself
happily surprised by the accession of an appetite He mentioned it to escape
from the worrying of his host as unusual with him at midday and Miss Asper
supporting him in that effort said benevolently »Gentlemen should eat they
have so many fatigues and troubles« She herself did not like to be seen eating
in public Her lips opened to the morsels as with a birds bill though with
none of the pecking eagerness we complacently observe in poultry
»But now I say positively how about that article« said Quintin
Dacier visibly winced and Constance immediately said »Oh spare us
politics dear uncle«
Her intercession was without avail but by contrast with the woman
implicated in the horrible article it was a carol of the seraphs
»Come you can say whether theres anything in it« Daciers host pushed
him
»I should not say it if I could« he replied
The mild sweetness of Miss Aspers look encouraged him
He was touched to the quick by hearing her say »You ask for Cabinet
secrets uncle All secrets are holy but secrets of State are under a seal next
to divine«
Next to divine She was the mouthpiece of his ruling principle
»Im not prying into secrets« Quintin persisted »all I want to know is
whether theres any foundation for that article all Londons boiling about it
I can tell you or its only newspapers humbug«
»Clearly the oracle for you is the Editors office« rejoined Dacier
»A pretty sort of answer I should get«
»It would at least be complimentary«
»How do you mean«
»The net was cast for you and the sight of a fish in it«
Miss Asper almost laughed »Have you heard the choir at St Catherines«
she asked
Dacier had not He repented of his worldliness and drinking persuasive
claret said he would go to hear it next Sunday
»Do« she murmured
»Well you seem to be a pair against me« her uncle grumbled »Anyhow I
think its important People have been talking for some time and I dont want
to be taken unawares I wont be a yoked ox mind you«
»Have you been sketching lately« Dacier asked Miss Asper
She generally filled a book in the autumn she said
»May I see it«
»If you wish«
They had a short tussle with her uncle and escaped He was conducted to a
room midway upstairs an heiresss conception of a saintly little room and more
impressive in purity indeed it was than a saints with the many crucifixes
gold and silver emblems velvet prieDieu chairs jewelclasped sacred volumes
every invitation to meditate in luxury on an ascetic religiousness
She depreciated her sketching powers »I am impatient with my imperfections
I am therefore doomed not to advance«
»On the contrary that is the state guaranteeing ultimate excellence« he
said much disposed to drone about it
She sighed »I fear not«
He turned the leaves comparing her modesty with the performance The third
of the leaves was a subject instantly recognized by him It represented the
place he had inherited from Lord Dannisburgh
He named it
She smiled »You are good enough to see a likeness My aunt and I were
passing it last October and I waited for a day to sketch«
»You have taken it from my favourite point of view«
»I am glad«
»How much I should like a copy«
»If you will accept that«
»I could not rob you«
»I can make a duplicate«
»The look of the place pleases you«
»Oh yes the pines behind it the sweet little village church even the
appearance of the rustics it is all impressively old English I suppose you
are very seldom there«
»Does it look like a home to you«
»No place more«
»I feel the loneliness«
»Where I live I feel no loneliness«
»You have heavenly messengers near you«
»They do not always come«
»Would you consent to make the place less lonely to me«
Her bosom rose In deference to her maidenly understanding she gazed
inquiringly
»If you love it« said he
»The place« she said looking soft at the possessor
»Constance«
»Is it true«
»As you yourself Could it be other than true This hand is mine«
»Oh Percy«
Borrowing the worlds poetry to describe them the long prayedfor Summer
enveloped the melting snows
So the recollection of Dianas watch beside his uncles deathbed was wiped
out Ay and the hissing of her treachery silenced This maidenly hand put him
at peace with the world instead of his defying it for a worthless woman who
could not do better than accept the shelter of her husbands house as she ought
to be told if her friends wished her to save her reputation
Dacier made his way downstairs to Quintin Manx by whom he was hotly
congratulated and informed of the extent of the young ladys fortune on the
strength of which it was expected that he would certainly speak a private word
in elucidation of that newspaper article
»I know nothing of it« said Dacier but promised to come and dine
Alone in her happiness Constance Asper despatched various brief notes under
her goldsymbolled crest to sisterly friends one to Lady Wathin containing the
single line
»Your prophesy is confirmed«
Dacier was comfortably able to face his Club after the excitement of a
proposal with a bride on his hands He was assaulted concerning the article
and he parried capitally Say that her lips were rather cold at any rate they
invigorated him Her character was guaranteed not the hazy idea of a dupe And
her fortune would be enormous a speculation merely due to worldly prudence and
prospective ambition
At the dinnertable of four in the evening conversation would have seemed
dull to him by contrast had it not been for the presiding grace of his bride
whose habitually eminent feminine air of superiority to the repast was throned
by her appreciative receptiveness of his looks and utterances Before leaving
her he won her consent to a very early marriage on the plea of a possibly
approaching Session and also that they had waited long The consent
notwithstanding the hurry of preparations it involved besides the annihilation
of her desire to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savour the
congratulation of her friends and have the choir of St Catherines rigorously
drilled in her favourite anthems was beautifully yielded to the pressure of
circumstances
There lay on his table at night a letter a bulky letter No need to tear it
open for sight of the signature the superscription was redolent of that
betraying woman He tossed it unopened into the fire
As it was thick it burned sullenly discolouring his name on the address
as she had done and still offering him a last chance of viewing the contents
She fought on the consuming fire to have her exculpation heard
But was she not a shameless traitor She had caught him by his love of his
country and hope to serve it She had wound into his heart to bleed him of all
he knew and sell the secrets for money A wonderful sort of eloquence lay there
on those coals no doubt He felt a slight movement of curiosity to glance at
two or three random sentences very slight And why read them now They were
valueless to him mere outcries He judged her by the brute facts She and her
slowlyconsuming letter were of a common blackness Moreover to read them when
he was plighted to another woman would be senseless In the discovery of her
baseness she had made a poor figure Doubtless during the afternoon she had
trimmed her intuitive Belial art of making »the worse appear the better cause«
queer to peruse and instructive in an unprofitable department of knowledge
the tricks of the sex
He said to himself with little intuition of the popular taste She wouldnt
be a bad heroine of Romance He said it derisively of the Romantic But the
right worshipful heroine of Romance was the frontface female picture he had won
for his walls Poor Diana was the flecked heroine of Reality not always the
same not impeccable not an ignorantinnocent nor a guileless good under good
leading devoted to the death in a grave crisis often wrestling with her
terrestrial nature nobly and a growing soul but not one whose purity was
carved in marble for the assurance to an Englishman that his possession of the
changeless thing defies time and his fellows is the pillar of his home and
universally enviable Your fair one of Romance cannot suffer a mishap without a
plotting villain perchance many of them to wreak the dread iniquity she
cannot move without him she is the marble block and if she is to have a
feature he is the sculptor she depends on him for life and her human history
at least is married to him far more than to the rescuing lover No wonder then
that men should find her thrice cherishable featureless or with the most
moderate possible indication of a countenance Thousands of the excellent simple
creatures do and every reader of her tale On the contrary the heroine of
Reality is that woman whom you have met or heard of once in your course of
years and very probably despised for bearing in her composition the motive
principle at best you say a singular mixture of good and bad anything but
the feminine ideal of man Feature to some excess you think distinguishes her
Yet she furnishes not any of the sweet sensual excitement pertaining to her
spotless rival pursued by villany She knocks at the doors of the mind and the
mind must open to be interested in her Mind and heart must be wide open to
excuse her sheer descent from the pure ideal of man
Daciers wandering reflections all came back in crowds to the judicial Bench
of the Black Cap He felt finely apart from the treason that her want of money
degraded her him too by contact Money she might have had to any extent upon
application for it of course How was he to imagine that she wanted money
Smilingly as she welcomed him and his friends entertaining them royally he was
bound to think she had means A decent propriety bound him not to think of the
matter at all He naturally supposed she was capable of conducting her affairs
And money It soiled his memory though the hour at Rovio was rather pretty
and the scene at Copsley touching other times also short glimpses of the
woman were taking The flood of her treachery effaced them And why reflect
Constance called to him to look her way
Dianas letter died hard The corners were burnt to black tissue with an
edge or two of discoloured paper A small frayed central heap still resisted
and in kindness to the necessity for privacy he impressed the firetongs to
complete the execution After which he went to his desk and worked under the
presidency of Constance
Chapter XXXVI
Is Conclusive as to the Heartlessness of Women with Brains
Hymenæal rumours are those which might be backed to run a victorious race with
the tale of evil fortune and clearly for the reason that mans livelier half is
ever alert to speed them They travel with an astonishing celerity over the
land like flames of the dry beaconfaggots of old time in announcement of the
invader or a conquest gathering as they go wherein to say nothing of their
vastly wider range they surpass the electric wires Mans nuptial half is
kindlingly concerned in the launch of a new couple it is the business of the
fair sex and man himself very strangely but nature quickens him still lends
a not unfavouring eye to the preparations of the matrimonial vessel for its oily
descent into the tides where billows will soon be rising captain and mate soon
discussing the fateful question of who is commander We consent it appears to
hope again for mankind here is another chance Or else assuming the happiness
of the pair that pomp of ceremonial contrasted with the little windblown
candle they carry between them catches at our weaker fibres After so many
ships have foundered some keel up like poisoned fish at the first drink of
water it is a gallant spectacle let us avow and either the world perpetuating
it is heroical or nature incorrigible in the species Marriages are unceasing
Friends do it and enemies the unknown contractors of this engagement or
armistice inspire an interest It certainly is both exciting and comforting to
hear that man and woman are ready to join in a mutual affirmative say Yes
together again It sounds like the end of the war
The proclamation of the proximate marriage of a young Minister of State and
the greatest heiress of her day notoriously »The young Minister of State« of
a famous book written by the beautiful now writhing woman madly enamoured of
him and the heiress whose dowry could purchase a Duchy this was a note to
make the gossips of England leap from their beds at the midnight hour and wag
tongues in the marketplace It did away with the political hubbub over the
Tonans article and let it noise abroad like nonsense The Hon Percy Dacier
espouses Miss Asper and she rescues him from the snares of a siren he her from
the toils of the Papists She would have gone over to them she was going when
luckily for the Protestant Faith Percy Dacier intervened with his proposal
Town and country buzzed the news and while that dreary League trumpeted about
the business of the nation a people suddenly become Oriental chattered of
nothing but the blissful union to be celebrated in princely state with every
musical accessory short of Operatic
Lady Wathin was an active agent in this excitement The excellent woman
enjoyed marriages of High Life which as there is presumably wealth to support
them are manifestly under sanction and a marriage that she could consider one
of her own contrivance had a delicate flavour of a marriage in the family not
quite equal to the seeing a dear daughter of her numerous progeny conducted to
the altar but excelling it in the pomp that bids the heavens open She and no
other spread the tidings of Miss Aspers debating upon the step to Rome at the
very instant of Percy Daciers declaration of his love and it was a beautiful
struggle that of the halfdedicated nun and her deeprooted earthly passion
love prevailing She sent word to Lady Dunstane »You know the interest I have
always taken in dear Constance Asper« etc inviting her to come on a visit a
week before the end of the month that she might join in the ceremony of a
wedding »likely to be the grandest of our time« Pitiful though it was to think
of the bridal pair having but eight or ten days at the outside for a honeymoon
the beauty of their mutual devotion to duty was urged by Lady Wathin upon all
hearers
Lady Dunstane declined the invitation She waited to hear from her friend
and the days went by she could only sorrow for her poor Tony divining her
state However little of wrong in the circumstances they imposed a silence on
her decent mind and no conceivable shape of writing would transmit condolences
She waited with a dull heartache by no means grieving at Daciers engagement
to the heiress until Redworth animated her as the bearer of rather startling
intelligence indirectly relating to the soul she loved An accident in the
street had befallen Mr Warwick Redworth wanted to know whether Diana should be
told of it though he had no particulars to give and somewhat to his
disappointment Lady Dunstane said she would write She delayed thinking the
accident might not be serious and the information of it to Diana surely would
be so Next day at noon her visitor was Lady Wathin evidently perturbed and
anxious to say more than she dared but she received no assistance After
beating the air in every direction especially dwelling on the fond reciprocal
affection of the two devoted lovers to be united within three days time Lady
Wathin said at last »And is it not shocking I talk of a marriage and am
appalled by a death That poor man died last night in the hospital I mean poor
Mr Warwick He was recovering getting strong and well and he was knocked down
at a streetcrossing and died last night It is a warning to us«
»Mr Redworth happened to hear of it at his Club near which the accident
occurred and he called at the hospital Mr Warwick was then alive« said Lady
Dunstane adding »Well if prevention is better than cure as we hear
Accidents are the specific for averting the maladies of age which are a certain
crop«
Lady Wathins eyelids worked and her lips shut fast at the coldhearted
remark void of meaning
She sighed »So ends a life of misery my dear«
»You are compassionate«
»I hope so But Indeed I must speak if you will let me I think of the
living«
Lady Dunstane widened her eyes »Of Mrs Warwick«
»She has now the freedom she desired I think of others Forgive me but
Constance Asper is to me as a daughter I have perhaps no grounds for any
apprehension Love so ardent so sincere was never shown by bridegroom elect
and it is not extraordinary to those acquainted with dear Constance But one may
be a worshipped saint and experience defection The terrible stories one hears
of a power of fascination almost « Lady Wathin hung for the word
»Infernal« said Lady Dunstane whose brows had been bent inquiringly »Have
no fear The freedom you allude to will not be used to interfere with any
entertainment in prospect It was freedom my friend desired Now that her jewel
is restored to her she is not the person to throw it away be sure And pray
drop the subject«
»One may rely you think«
»Oh Oh«
»This release coming just before the wedding «
»I should hardly suppose the man to be the puppet you depict or indicate«
»It is because men so many are not puppets that one is conscious of
alarm«
»Your previous remark« said Lady Dunstane »sounded superstitious Your
present one has an antipodal basis But as for your alarm check it and spare
me further My friend has acknowledged powers Considering that she does not use
them you should learn to respect her«
Lady Wathin bowed stiffly She refused to partake of lunch having she
said satisfied her conscience by the performance of a duty and arranged with
her flyman to catch a train Her cousin Lady Dunstane smiled loftily at
everything she uttered and she felt that if a woman like this Mrs Warwick
could put division between bloodrelatives she could do worse and was to be
dreaded up to the hour of the nuptials
»I meant no harm in coming« she said at the shaking of hands
»No no I understand« said her hostess »you are henhearted over your
adopted brood The situation is perceptible and your intention creditable«
As one of the good women of the world Lady Wathin in departing was
indignant at the tone and dialect of a younger woman not modestly concealing her
possession of the larger brain Brains in women she both dreaded and detested
she believed them to be devilish Here were instances they had driven poor
Sir Lukin to evil courses and that poor Mr Warwick straight under the wheels
of a cab Sir Lukins name was trotting in public with a naughty Mrs
FryarGunnetts Mrs Warwick might still trim her arts to baffle the marriage
Women with brains moreover are all heartless they have no pity for distress
no horror of catastrophes no joy in the happiness of the deserving Brains in
men advance a household to station but brains in women divide it and are the
wrecking of society Fortunately Lady Wathin knew she could rally a powerful
moral contingent the aptitude of which for a oneminded cohesion enabled it to
crush those fractional daughters of mischief She was a really good woman of the
world heading a multitude the same whom you are accustomed to hear exalted
lucky in having had a guided girlhood a thickcurtained prudence and in having
stock in the moral funds shares in the sentimental tramways Wherever the world
laid its hoards or ran its lines she was found and forcible enough to be
eminent though at fixed hours of the day even as she washed her hands she
abjured worldliness a performance that cleansed her If she did not make
morality appear loveable to the objects of her dislike it was owing to her want
of brains to see the origin nature and right ends of morality But a world yet
more deficient than she esteemed her cordially for being a bulwark of the
present edifice which looks a solid structure when the microscope is not
applied to its components
Supposing Percy Dacier a dishonourable tattler as well as an icy lover and
that Lady Wathin through his bride had become privy to the secret between him
and Diana There is reason to think that she would have held it in terror over
the baneful woman but not have persecuted her for she was by no means the
active malignant of theatrical plots No she would have charged it upon the
possession of brains by women and have had a further motive for inciting the
potent dignitary her husband to employ his authority to repress the sexs
exercise of those fell weapons hurtful alike to them and all coming near them
So extreme was her dread of Mrs Warwick that she drove from the London
railway station to see Constance and be reassured by her tranquil aspect
Sweet Constance and her betrothed Percy were together examining a missal
Lady Dunstane despatched a few words of the facts to Diana She hoped to
hear from her rather hoped for the moment not to see her No answer came The
great day of the nuptials came and passed She counted on her husbands
appearance the next morning as the good gentleman made a point of visiting her
to entertain the wife he adored whenever he had a wallet of gossip that would
overlay the blank of his absence He had been to the church of the wedding he
did not say with whom all the world was there and he rapturously described
the ceremony stating that it set women weeping and caused him to behave like a
fool
»You are impressionable« said his wife
He murmured something in praise of the institution of marriage when
celebrated impressively it seemed
»Tony calls the social world the theatre of appetites as we have it at
present« she said »and the world at a wedding is one may reckon in the
second act of the hungry tragicomedy«
»Yes there s the breakfast« Sir Lukin assented Mrs FryarGunnett was
much more intelligible to him in fact quite so as to her speech
Emmas heart now yearned to her Tony Consulting her strength she thought
she might journey to London and on the third morning after the DacierAsper
marriage she started
Dianas door was open to Arthur Rhodes when Emma reached it
»Have you seen her« she asked him
His head shook dolefully »Mrs Warwick is unwell she has been working too
hard«
»You also Im afraid«
»No« He could deny that whatever the look of him
»Come to me at Copsley soon« said she entering to Danvers in the passage
»My mistress is upstairs my lady« said Danvers »She is lying on her bed«
»She is ill«
»She has been lying on her bed ever since«
»Since what« Lady Dunstane spoke sharply
Danvers retrieved her indiscretion »Since she heard of the accident my
lady«
»Take my name to her Or no I can venture«
»I am not allowed to go in and speak to her You will find the room quite
dark my lady and very cold It is her command My mistress will not let me
light the fire and she has not eaten or drunk of anything since She will
die if you do not persuade her to take nourishment a little for a beginning
It wants the beginning«
Emma went upstairs thinking of the enigmatical maid that she must be a
good soul after all Dianas bedroom door was opened slowly
»You will not be able to see at first my lady« Danvers whispered »The bed
is to the left and a chair I would bring in a candle but it hurts her eyes
She forbids it«
Emma stepped in The chill thick air of the unlighted London room was
cavernous She almost forgot the beloved of her heart in the thought that a
living woman had been lying here more than two days and nights fasting The
proof of an uttermost misery revived the circumstances within her to render her
friends presence in this desert of darkness credible She found the bed by
touch silently and distinguished a dark heap on the bed she heard no
breathing She sat and listened then she stretched her hand and met her Tonys
It lay open It was the hand of a drowned woman
Shutters and curtains and the fireless grate gave the room an appalling
likeness to the vaults
So like to the home of death it seemed that in a few minutes the watcher
had lost count of time and kept but a wormy memory of the daylight She dared
not speak for some fear of startling for the worse fear of never getting
answer Tonys hand was lifeless Her clasp of it struck no warmth
She stung herself with bitter reproaches for having let common mundane
sentiments worthy of a Lady Wathin bar her instant offer of her bosom to the
beloved who suffered in this depth of mortal agony Tonys love of a man as she
should have known would be wrought of the elements of our being when other
women named Happiness she said Life in division Death Her body lying still
upon the bed here was a soul borne onward by the river of Death
The darkness gave sight after a while like a curtain lifting on a veil the
dead light of the underworld Tony lay with her face up her underlip dropped
straight from head to feet The outline of her face without hue of it could be
seen sign of the hapless women that have souls in love Hateful love of men
Emma thought and was moved to feel at the wrist for her darlings pulse He has
killed her the thought flashed as with pangs chilling her frame the pressure
at the wrist continued insensible of the faintest beat She clasped it
trembling in pain to stop an outcry
»It is Emmy« said the voice
Emmas heart sprang to heaven on a rush of thanks
»My Tony« she breathed softly
She hung for a further proof of life in the motionless body »Tony« she
said
The answer was at her hand a threadlike return of her clasp
»It is Emmy come to stay with you never to leave you«
The thin still answer was at her hand a moment the fingers fell away A
deep breath was taken twice to say »Dont talk to me«
Emma retained the hand She was warned not to press it by the deadness
following its effort to reply
But Tony lived she had given proof of life Over this little wavering taper
in the vaults Emma cowered cherishing the hand silently hoping for the voice
It came »Winter«
»It is a cold winter Tony«
»My dear will be cold«
»I will light the fire«
Emma lost no time in deciding to seek the matchbox The fire was lit and it
flamed it seemed a revival in the room Coming back to the bedside she
discerned her Tonys lacklustre large dark eyes and her hollow cheeks her
mouth open to air as to the drawingin of a sword rather as to the releaser
than the sustainer Her feet were on the rug her maid had placed to cover them
Emma leaned across the bed to put them to her breast beneath her fur mantle
and held them there despite the halfanimate tug of the limbs and the shaft of
iciness they sent to her very heart When she had restored them to some warmth
she threw aside her bonnet and lying beside Tony took her in her arms heaving
now and then a deep sigh
She kissed her cheek
»It is Emmy«
»Kiss her«
»I have no strength«
Emma laid her face on the lips They were cold even the breath between them
cold
»Has Emmy been long «
»Here dear I think so I am with my darling«
Tony moaned The warmth and the love were bringing back her anguish
She said »I have been happy It is not hard to go«
Emma strained to her »Tony will wait for her souls own soul to go the two
together«
There was a faint convulsion in the body »If I cry I shall go in pain«
»You are in Emmys arms my beloved«
Tonys eyes closed for forgetfulness under that sensation A tear ran down
from her but the pain was lax and neighboured sleep like the pleasure
So passed the short winter day little spoken
Then Emma bethought her of a way of leading Tony to take food and she said
»I shall stay with you I shall send for clothes I am rather hungry Dont
stir dear I will be mistress of the house«
She went below to the kitchen where a few words in the ear of a Frenchwoman
were sufficient to waken immediate comprehension of what was wanted and smart
service within ten minutes an appetizing bouillon sent its odour over the
bedroom Tony days back had said her last to the act of eating but Emma
sipping at the spoon and expressing satisfaction was a pleasant picture The
bouillon smelt pleasantly
»Your servants love you« Emma said
»Ah poor good souls«
»They crowded up to me to hear of you Madame of course at the first word
was off to her pots And we English have the habit of calling ourselves the
practical people This bouillon is consummate However we have the virtues
of barbarians we can love and serve for love I never tasted anything so good
I could become a glutton«
»Do« said Tony
»I should be ashamed to drain the bowl all to myself a solitary toper is a
horrid creature unless he makes a song of it«
»Emmy makes a song of it to me«
»But pledge me is a noble saying when you think of humanitys original
hunger for the whole It is there that our civilizing commenced and I am
particularly fond of hearing the call It is grandly historic So pledge me
Tony We two can feed from one spoon it is a closer bond than the loving cup I
want you just to taste it and excuse my gluttony«
Tony murmured »No« The spoon was put to her mouth She sighed to resist
The stronger will compelled her to move her lips Emma fed her as a child and
nature sucked for life
The first effect was a gush of tears
Emma lay with her that night when the patient was the better sleeper But
during the night at intervals she had the happiness of feeling Tonys hand
travelling to make sure of her
Chapter XXXVII
An Exhibition of Some Champions of the Stricken Lady
Close upon the hour of ten every morning the fortuitous meeting of two gentlemen
at Mrs Warwicks housedoor was a signal for punctiliously stately greetings
the salutation of the raised hat and a bow of the head from a position of
military erectness followed by the remark »I trust you are well sir« to
which the reply »I am very well sir and trust you are the same« was deemed a
complimentary fulfilment of their mutual obligation in presence Mr Sullivan
Smiths initiative imparted this exercise of formal manners to Mr Arthur
Rhodes whose renewed appearance at the minute of his own arrival he viewed
as he did not conceal with a disappointed and a reproving eye The inquiry
after the state of Mrs Warwicks health having received its tolerably
comforting answer from the footman they left their cards in turn then
descended the doorsteps faced for the performance of the salute and departed
their contrary ways
The pleasing intelligence refreshed them one morning that they would be
welcomed by Lady Dunstane Thereupon Mr Sullivan Smith wheeled about to Mr
Arthur Rhodes and observed to him »Sir I might claim by right of seniority
to be the foremost of us two in offering my respects to the lady but the way is
open to you«
»Sir« said Mr Arthur Rhodes »permit me to defer to your many superior
titles to that distinction«
»The honour sir lies rather in the bestowing than in the taking«
»I venture to think sir that though I cannot speak pure Castilian I
require no lesson from a Grandee of Spain in acknowledging the dues of my
betters«
»I will avow myself conquered sir by your overpowering condescension«
said Mr Sullivan Smith »and I entreat you to ascribe my acceptance of your
brief retirement to the urgent character of the business I have at heart«
He laid his fingers on the panting spot and bowed
Mr Arthur Rhodes likewise bowing deferentially fell to rearward
»If I mistake not« said the Irish gentleman »I am indebted to Mr Rhodes
and we have been joint participators in the hospitality of Mrs Warwicks
table«
The English gentleman replied »It was there that I first had the pleasure
of an acquaintance which is graven on my memory as the words of the wise king
on tablets of gold and silver«
Mr Sullivan Smith gravely smiled at the unwonted match he had found in
ceremonious humour in Saxonland and saying »I shall not long detain you Mr
Rhodes« he passed through the doorway
Arthur waited for him pacing up and down for a quarter of an hour when a
totally different man reappeared in the same person and was the Sullivan Smith
of the rosy beaming features and princely heartiness He was accosted »Now my
dear boy it s your turn to try if you have a chance and good luck go with ye
I ve said what I could on your behalf for you re one of ten thousand in this
country you are«
Mr Sullivan Smith had solemnified himself to proffer a sober petition
within the walls of the newly widowed ladys house namely for nothing less
than that sweet ladys now unfettered hand and it had therefore been perfectly
natural to him until his performance ended with the destruction of his hopes
to deliver himself in the high Castilian manner Quite unexpected however was
the reciprocal loftiness of tone spontaneously adopted by the young English
squire for whom in consequence he conceived a cordial relish and as he paced
in the footsteps of Arthur anxious to quiet his curiosity by hearing how it had
fared with one whom he had to suppose the second applicant he kept ejaculating
»Not a bit The fellow cant be Saxon And she had a liking for him She s nigh
coming of the age when a woman takes to the chicks Better he than another if
it s to be any one For he s got fun in him he carries his own condiments
instead of borrowing from the popular castors as is their way over here But I
might have known there s always sure to be salt and savour in the man she
covers with her wing Excepting if you please my dear lady a bad shot you
made at a rascal cur no more worthy of you than Beelzebub of Paradise No
matter The daughters of Erin must share the fate of their mother Isle that
their tears may shine in the burst of sun to follow For personal and patriotic
motives I would have cheered her and been like a wild ass combed and groomed
and tamed by the adorable creature But her friend says there s not a whisk of
a chance for me and I must roam the desert kicking up and worshipping the
star I hail brightest They know me not who think I cant worship Why what
were I without my star At best a pickled porker«
Sullivan Smith became aware of a ravishing melodiousness in the soliloquy
as well as a clean resemblance in the simile He would certainly have proceeded
to improvize impassioned verse if he had not seen Arthur Rhodes on the
pavement »So here s the boy Query the face he wears«
»How kind of you to wait« said Arthur
»We ll call it sympathy for convenience« rejoined Sullivan Smith »Well
and what next«
»You know as much as I do Thank heaven she is recovering«
»Is that all«
»Why what more«
Arthur was jealously inspected
»You look openhearted my dear boy« Sullivan Smith blew the sound of a
reflective ahem »Excuse me for cornemusing in your company« he said »But
seriously there was only one thing to pardon your hurrying to the ladys door
at such a season when the wind tells tales to the world She s down with a
cold you know«
»An influenza« said Arthur
The simplicity of the acquiescence was vexatious to a champion desirous of
hostilities to vindicate the lady in addition to his anxiety to cloak her sad
plight
»She caught it from contact with one of the inhabitants of this country
Tis the fate of us Irish and we re condemned to it for the sin of getting
tired of our own I begin to sneeze when I land at Holyhead Unbutton a
waistcoat here in the hope of meeting a heart and you re lucky in escaping a
pulmonary attack of no common severity while the dog that infected you scampers
off to celebrate his honeymoon mayhap Ah but call at her house in shoals the
world ll soon be saying it s worse than a coughing cold If you came to lead
her out of it in triumph the laugh d be with you and the lady well covered
D ye understand«
The allusion to the dogs honeymoon had put Arthur Rhodes on the track of
the darting crackermetaphor
»I think I do« he said »She will soon be at Copsley Lady Dunstanes
house on the hills and there we can see her«
»And that s next to the happiness of consoling if only it had been
granted She s not an ordinary widow to be caught when the tear of lamentation
has opened a practicable path or waterway to the poor nightcapped jewel within
So and you re a candid admirer Mr Rhodes Well and I ll be one with you
for there s not a star in the firmament more deserving of homage than that
lady«
»Lets walk in the park and talk of her« said Arthur »There s no sweeter
subject to me«
His boyish frankness rejoiced Sullivan Smith »As long as you like nor to
me« he exclaimed »And that ever since I first beheld her on the night of a
Ball in Dublin before I had listened to a word of her speaking and she bore
her fathers Irish name none of your Warwicks and your But let the cur go
barking He cant tell what he s lost perhaps he doesnt care And after
inflicting his hydrophobia on her tender fame Pooh sir you call it a
civilized country where you and I and dozens of others are ready to start up as
brothers of the lady to defend her and are paralyzed by the Law Tis a law
they ve instituted for the protection of dirty dogs their majority«
»I owe more to Mrs Warwick than to any soul I know« said Arthur
»Lets hear« quoth Sullivan Smith proceeding »She s the Arabian Nights
in person that s sure and Shakespeares Plays tragic and comuc and the Book
of Celtic History and Erin incarnate down with a cold no matter where but
we know where it was caught So there s a pretty library for who s to own her
now she s enfranchized by circumstances and a poetical figure too«
He subsided for his companion to rhapsodize
Arthur was overcharged with feeling and could say only »It would be
another world to me if I lost her«
»True but what of the lady«
»No praise of mine could do her justice«
»That may be but its negative of yourself and not a portrait of the
object Hasnt she the brain of Socrates or better say Minerva on the bust
of Venus and the remainder of her finished off to an exact resemblance of her
patronymic Goddess of the bow and quiver«
»She has a wise head and is beautiful«
»And chaste«
Arthur reddened he was prepared to maintain it could not speak it
»She is to us in this London what the run of water was to Theocritus in
Sicily the nearest to the visibly divine« he said and was applauded
»Good and on you go Top me a few superlatives on that and I m your echo
my friend Isnt the seeing and listening to her like sitting under the silvery
canopy of a fountain in high Summer«
»All the comparisons are yours« Arthur said enviously
»Mr Rhodes you are a poet I believe and all you require to loosen your
tongue is a drop of Bacchus so if you will do me the extreme honour to dine
with me at my Club this evening we ll resume the toast that should never be
uttered dry You reprove me justly my friend«
Arthur laughed and accepted The Club was named and the hour and some
items of the little dinner the birds and the year of the wines
It surprised him to meet Mr Redworth at the table of his host A greater
surprise was the partial thaw in Redworths bearing toward him But as it was
partial and he a youth and poor not even the genial influences of Bacchus
could lift him to loosen his tongue under the repressing presence of the man he
knew to be his censor though Sullivan Smith encouraged him with praises and
opportunities He thought of the many occasions when Mrs Warwicks art of
management had produced a tacit harmony between them She had no peer The
dinner failed of the pleasure he had expected from it Redworths bluntness
killed the flying metaphors and at the end of the entertainment he and Sullivan
Smith were drumming upon politics
»Fancies he has the key of the Irish difficulty« said the latter clapping
hand on his shoulder by way of blessing as they parted at the Clubsteps
Redworth asked Arthur Rhodes the way he was going and walked beside him
»I suppose you take exercise dont get colds and that kind of thing« he
remarked in the old bullying fashion and changed it abruptly »I am glad to
have met you this evening I hope you ll dine with me one day next week Have
you seen Mrs Warwick lately«
»She is unwell she has been working too hard« said Arthur
»Seriously unwell do you mean«
»Lady Dunstane is at her house and speaks of her recovering«
»Ah You ve not seen her«
»Not yet«
»Well goodnight«
Redworth left him and only when moved by gratitude to the lad for his
mention of Mrs Warwicks »working too hard« as the cause of her illness
recollected the promised dinner and the need for having his address
He had met Sullivan Smith accidentally in the morning and accepted the
invitation to meet young Rhodes because these two of all men living were for
the moment dearest to him as Diana Warwicks true and simple champions and he
had intended a perfect cordiality toward them both the end being a semiwrangle
with the patriot and a patronizing bluntness with the boy who by the way
would hardly think him sincere in the offer of a seat at his table He owned
himself incomplete He never could do the thing he meant in the small matters
not leading to fortune But they led to happiness Redworth was guilty of a
sigh for now Diana Warwick stood free doubly free he was reduced to reflect
in a wavering dubiousness Her more than inclination for Dacier witnessed by
him and the shot of the world flying randomly on the subject had struck this
cuirassier making light of his armour without causing any change of his
habitual fresh countenance As for the scandal it had never shaken his faith in
her nature He thought of the passion His heart struck at Dianas and whatever
might by chance be true in the scandal affected him little if but her heart
were at liberty That was the prize he coveted having long read the nature of
the woman and wedded his spirit to it She would complete him
Of course infatuated men argue likewise and scandal does not move them At
a glance the lower instincts and the higher spirit appear equally to have the
philosophy of overlooking blemishes The difference between appetite and love is
shown when a man after years of service can hear and see and admit the
possible and still desire in worship knowing that we of earth are begrimed and
must be cleansed for presentation daily on our passage through the miry ways
but that our souls if flame of a soul shall have come of the agony of flesh
are beyond the baser mischances partaking of them indeed but sublimely Now
Redworth believed in the soul of Diana For him it burned and it was a
celestial radiance about her unquenched by her shifting fortunes her
wilfulnesses and it might be errors She was a woman and weak that is not
trained for strength She was a soul therefore perpetually pointing to growth
in purification He felt it and even discerned it of her if he could not have
phrased it The something sovereignly characteristic that aspired in Diana
enchained him With her or rather with his thought of her soul he understood
the right union of women and men from the roots to the flowering heights of
that rare graft She gave him comprehension of the meaning of love a word in
many mouths not often explained With her wound in his idea of her he
perceived it to signify a new start in our existence a finer shoot of the tree
stoutly planted in good gross earth the senses running their live sap and the
minds companioned and the spirits made one by the wholenatured conjunction In
sooth a happy prospect for the sons and daughters of Earth divinely indicating
more than happiness the speeding of us compact of what we are between the
ascetic rocks and the sensual whirlpools to the creation of certain nobler
races now very dimly imagined
Singularly enough the man of these feelings was far from being a social
rebel His Diana conjured them forth in relation to her but was not on his
bosom to enlighten him generally His notions of citizenship tolerated the
female Pharisees as ladies offering us an excellent social concrete where
quicksands abound and without quite justifying the Lady Wathins and Constance
Aspers of the world whose virtues he could set down to accident or to acid
blood he considered them supportable and estimable where the Mrs
FryarGunnetts were innumerable threatening to become a majority as they will
constantly do while the sisterhood of the chaste are wattled in formalism and
throned in sourness
Thoughts of Diana made phantoms of the reputable and their reverse alike He
could not choose but think of her She was free and he too and they were as
distant as the horizon sail and the raftfloating castaway Her passion for
Dacier might have burnt out her heart And at present he had no claim to visit
her dared not intrude He would have nothing to say if he went save to answer
questions upon points of business as to which Lady Dunstane would certainly
summon him when he was wanted
Riding in the park on a frosty morning he came upon Sir Lukin who looked
gloomy and inquired for news of Diana Warwick saying that his wife had
forbidden him to call at her house just yet »She s got a cold you know« said
Sir Lukin adding »confoundedly hard on women eh Obliged to keep up a show
And I d swear by all thats holy Diana Warwick hasnt a spot not a spot to
reproach herself with I fancy I ought to know women by this time And look
here Redworth last night that is I mean yesterday evening I broke with a
woman a lady of my acquaintance you know because she would go on
scandalmongering about Diana Warwick I broke with her I told her I d have
out any man who abused Diana Warwick and I broke with her By Jove Redworth
those women can prove spitfires They ve bags of venom under their tongues
barleysugar though they look and that s her colour But I broke with her for
good I doubt if I shall ever call on her again And in point of fact, I wont«
Mrs FryarGunnett was described in the colouring of the lady
Sir Lukin after some further remarks rode on and Redworth mused on a
moral world that allows a woman of Mrs FryarGunnetts like to hang on to it
and to cast a stone at Diana forgetful in his championship that Diana was not
disallowed a similar licence
When he saw Emma Dunstane some days later she was in her carriage driving
as she said to Lawyerland for an interview with old Mr Braddock on her
friends affairs He took a seat beside her »No Tony is not well« she replied
to his question under the veil of candour »She is recovering but she you
can understand suffered a shock She is not able to attend to business and
certain things have to be done«
»I used to be her man of business« Redworth observed
»She speaks of your kind services This is mere matter for lawyers«
»She is recovering«
»You may see her at Copsley next week You can come down on Wednesdays or
Saturdays«
»Any day Tell her I want her opinion upon the state of things«
»It will please her but you will have to describe the state of things«
Emma feared she had said too much She tried candour again for concealment
»My poor Tony has been struck down low I suppose it is like losing a diseased
limb she has her freedom at the cost of a blow to the system«
»She may be trusted for having strength« said Redworth
»Yes« Emmas mild monosyllable was presently followed by an exclamation
»One has to experience the irony of Fate to comprehend how cruel it is« Then
she remembered that such language was peculiarly abhorrent to him
»Irony of Fate« he echoed her »I thought you were above that literary
jargon«
»And I thought I was or thought it could be put in a dialect practically
explicable« she answered smiling at the lion roused
»Upon my word« he burst out »I should like to write a book of Fables
showing how donkeys get into grinding harness and dogs lose their bones and
fools have their sconces cracked and all run jabbering of the irony of Fate to
escape the annoyance of tracing the causes And what are they nine times out of
ten plain want of patience or some debt for indulgence There s a subject
let some one write Fables in illustration of the irony of Fate and I ll
undertake to tackon my grandmothers maxims for a moral to each of em We
prate of that irony when we slink away from the lesson the rod we conjure And
you to talk of Fate It s the seed we sow individually or collectively I m
boundup in the prosperity of the country and if the ship is wrecked it ruins
my fortune but not me unless I m boundup in myself At least I hope that s
my case«
He apologized for intruding Mr Thomas Redworth
His hearer looked at him thinking he required a more finely pointed gift of
speech for the ironical tongue but relishing the tonic directness of his
faculty of reason while she considered that the application of the phrase might
be brought home to him so as to render my Grandmothers moral a conclusion less
comfortingly if quite intelligibly summary And then she thought of Tonys
piteous instance and thinking with her heart the tears insisted on that bitter
irony of the heavens which bestowed the longwithheld and coveted boon when it
was empty of value or was but as a handful of spices to a shroud
Perceiving the moisture in her look Redworth understood that it was foolish
to talk rationally But on her return to her beloved the real quality of the
man had overcome her opposing state of sentiment and she spoke of him with an
iteration and throb in the voice that set a singular query whirring round
Dianas ears Her senses were too heavy for a suspicion
Chapter XXXVIII
Convalescence of a Healthy Mind Distraught
From an abandonment that had the last pleasure of life in a willingness to yield
it up Diana rose with her friends help in some state of fortitude resembling
the effort of her feet to bear the weight of her body She plucked her courage
out of the dust to which her heart had been scattered and tasked herself to
walk as the world does But she was indisposed to compassionate herself in the
manner of the burdened world She lashed the creature who could not raise a head
like others and made the endurance of torture a support such as the pride of
being is to men She would not have seen any similarity to pride in it would
have deemed it the reverse It was in fact the painful gathering of the atoms
composing pride For she had not only suffered she had done wrongly and when
that was acknowledged by the light of her sufferings the wrongdoing appeared
gigantic chorussing eulogies of the man she had thought her lover and who was
her lover once before the crime against him In the opening of her bosom to
Emma he was painted a noble figure one of those that Romance delights to
harass for the sake of ultimately the more exquisitely rewarding He hated
treachery she had been guilty of doing what he most hated She glorified him
for the incapacity to forgive it was to her mind godlike And her excuses of
herself
At the first confession she said she had none and sullenly maintained that
there was none to exonerate Little by little her story was related her
version of the story for not even as woman to woman friend to greathearted
friend pure soul to soul could Diana tell of the state of shivering abjection
in which Dacier had left her on the fatal night of the many causes conducing to
it and of the chief That was an unutterable secret bound by all the laws of
feminine civilization not to be betrayed Her excessive selfabasement and
exaltation of him who had struck her down rendered it difficult to be
understood and not till Emma had revolved it and let it ripen in the mind some
days could she perceive with any clearness her Tonys motives or mania The
very word Money thickened the riddle for Tony knew that her friends purse was
her own to dip in at her pleasure yet she to escape so small an obligation
had committed the enormity for which she held the man blameless in spurning her
»You see what I am Emmy« Diana said
»What I do not see is that he had grounds for striking so cruelly«
»I proved myself unworthy of him«
But does a man pretending to love a woman cut at one blow for such a cause
the ties uniting her to him Unworthiness of that kind is not commonly the
capital offence in love Tonys deep prostration and her resplendent picture
of her judge and executioner kept Emma questioning within herself Gradually
she became enlightened enough to distinguish in the man a known if not common
type of the externally soft and polished internally hard and relentless who
are equal to the trials of love only as long as favouring circumstances and
seemings nurse the fair object of their courtship
Her thoughts recurred to the madness driving Tony to betray the secret and
the ascent unhelped to get a survey of it and her and the conditions was
mountainous She toiled up but to enter the regions of cloud sure nevertheless
that the obscurity was penetrable and excuses to be discovered somewhere Having
never wanted money herself she was unable perfectly to realize the urgency of
the need she began however to comprehend that the very eminent gentleman
before whom all human creatures were to bow in humility had for an extended
term considerably added to the expenses of Tonys household by inciting her to
give those little dinners to his political supporters and bringing comrades
perpetually to supperparties careless of how it might affect her character and
her purse Surely an honourable man was bound to her in honour Tonys remark
»I have the reptile in me dear« her exaggeration of the act in her resigned
despair was surely no justification for his breaking from her even though he
had discovered a vestige of the common reptile to leave her with a stain on her
name There would not have been a question about it if Tony had not exalted
him so loftily refusing in visible pain to hear him blamed
Danvers had dressed a bed for Lady Dunstane in her mistresss chamber where
often during the night Emma caught a sound of stifled weeping or the long
falling breath of wakeful grief One night she asked whether Tony would like to
have her by her side
»No dear« was the answer in the dark »but you know my old pensioners the
blind fifer and his wife I ve been thinking of them«
»They were paid as they passed down the street yesterday my love«
»Yes dear I hope so But he flourishes his tune so absurdly I ve been
thinking that is the part I have played instead of doing the females duty of
handing round the tincup for pennies I wont cry any more«
She sighed and turned to sleep leaving Emma to disburden her heart in
tears
For it seemed to her that Tonys intellect was weakened She not merely
abased herself and exalted Dacier preposterously she had sunk her intelligence
in her sensations a state that she used to decry as the sin of mankind the
origin of error and blood
Strangely too the proposal came from her or the suggestion of it
notwithstanding her subjectedness to the nerves that she should show her face
in public She said »I shall have to run about Emmy when I can fancy I am
able to rattle up to the old mark At present I feel like a wrestler who has
had a fall As soon as the stiffness is over it s best to make an appearance
for the sake of ones backers though I shall never be in the wrestling ring
again«
»That is a good decision when you feel quite yourself dear Tony« Emma
replied
»I dare say I have disgraced my sex but not as they suppose I feel my new
self already and can make the poor brute go through fire on behalf of the old
What is the task merely to drive a face«
»It is not known«
»It will be known«
»But this is a sealed secret«
»Nothing is a secret that has been spoken It s in the air and I have to
breathe to live by it And I would rather it were out She betrayed him Rather
that than have them think anything They will exclaim How could she I have
been unable to answer it to you my own heart How Oh our weakness is the
swiftest dog to hunt us we cannot escape it But I have the answer for them
that I trust with my whole soul none of them would have done the like«
»None my Tony would have taken it to the soul as you do«
»I talk dear If I took it honestly I should be dumb soon dust The
moment we begin to speak the guilty creature is running for cover She could
not otherwise exist I am sensible of evasion when I open my lips«
»But Tony has told me all«
»I think I have But if you excuse my conduct I am certain I have not«
»Dear girl accounting for it is not the same as excusing«
»Who can account for it I was caught in a whirl Oh nothing supernatural
my weakness which it pleases me to call a madness shift the ninetyninth
When I drove down that night to Mr Tonans I am certain I had my clear wits
but I felt like a bolt I saw things but at too swift a rate for the conscience
of them Ah let never Necessity draw the bow of our weakness it is the soul
that is winged to its perdition I remember I was writing a story named THE MAN
OF TWO MINDS I shall sign it By the Woman of Two Natures If ever it is
finished Capacity for thinking should precede the act of writing It should I
do not say that it does Capacity for assimilating the public taste and
reproducing it is the commonest The stuff is perishable but it pays us for
our labour and in so doing saves us from becoming tricksters Now I can see
that Mr Redworth had it in that big head of his the authoress outliving her
income«
»He dared not speak«
»Why did he not dare«
»Would it have checked you«
»I was a shot out of a gun and I am glad he did not stand in my way What
power charged the gun is another question Dada used to say that it is the
devils masterstroke to get us to accuse him So fare ye well old Nickie Ben
My dear I am a black sheep a creature with a spotted reputation I must wash
and wash and not with water with sulphurflames« She sighed »I am down
there where they burn You should have let me lie and die You were not kind I
was going quietly«
»My love« cried Emma overborne by a despair that she traced to the womans
concealment of her bleeding heart »you live for me Do set your mind on that
Think of what you are bearing as your debt to Emma Will you«
Tony bowed her head mechanically
»But I am in love with King Death and must confess it« she said »That
hideous eating you forced on me snatched me from him And I feel that if I had
gone I should have been mercifully forgiven by everybody«
»Except by me« said Emma embracing her »Tony would have left her friend
for her last voyage in mourning And my dearest will live to know happiness«
»I have no more belief in it Emmy«
»The mistake of the world is to think happiness possible to the senses«
»Yes we distil that fine essence through the senses and the act is called
the pain of life It is the death of them So much I understand of what our
existence must be But I may grieve for having done so little«
»That is the sound grief with hope at the core not in love with itself
and wretchedly mortal as we find self is under every shape it takes especially
the chief one«
»Name it«
»It is best named Amor«
There was a writhing in the frame of the hearer for she did want Love to be
respected not shadowed by her misfortune Her stillflushed senses protested on
behalf of the eternalness of the passion and she was obliged to think Emmas
cold condemnatory intellect came of the noknowledge of it
A letter from Mr Tonans containing an enclosure was a sharp trial of
Dianas endurance of the irony of Fate She had spoken of the irony in allusion
to her freedom Now that according to a communication from her lawyers she was
independent of the task of writing the letter which paid the price of her
misery bruised her heavily
»Read it and tear it all to strips« she said in an abhorrence to Emma who
rejoined »Shall I go at once and see him«
»Can it serve any end But throw it into the fire Oh no simulation of
virtue There was not I think a stipulated return for what I did But I
perceive clearly I can read only by events that there was an understanding
You behold it I went to him to sell it He thanks me says I served the good
cause well I have not that consolation If I had thought of the cause of
anything high it would have arrested me On the fire with it«
The letter and square slip were consumed Diana watched the blackening
papers
»So they cease their sinning Emmy and as long as I am in torment I may
hope for grace We talked of the irony It means the pain of fire«
»I spoke of the irony to Redworth« said Emma »incidentally of course«
»And he fumed«
»He is really not altogether the Mr Cuthbert Dering of your caricature He
is never less than acceptably rational I wont repeat his truisms but he said
or I deduced from what he said that a grandmothers maxims would expound the
enigma«
»Probably the simple is the deep in relation to the mysteries of life«
said Diana whose wits had been pricked to a momentary activity by the letter
»He behaves wisely so perhaps we are bound to take his words for wisdom Much
nonsense is talked and written and he is one of the worlds reserves who need
no more than enrolling to make a sturdy phalanx of common sense Its a pity
they are not enlisted and drilled to express themselves« She relapsed »But
neither he nor any of them could understand my case«
»He puts the idea of an irony down to the guilt of impatience Tony«
»Could there be a keener irony than that A friend of Dadas waited
patiently for a small fortune and when it arrived he was a wornout man just
assisted to go decently to his grave«
»But he may have gained in spirit by his patient waiting«
»Oh true We are warmer if we travel on foot sunward but it is a
discovery that we are colder if we take to ballooning upward The material good
reverses its benefits the more nearly we clasp it All life is a lesson that we
live to enjoy but in the spirit I will brood on your saying«
»It is your own saying silly Tony as the only things worth saying always
are« exclaimed Emma as she smiled happily to see her friends mind reviving
though it was faintly and in the dark
Chapter XXXIX
Of Nature with One of Her Cultivated Daughters and a Short Excursion in
AntiClimax
A mind that after a long season of oblivion in pain returns to wakefulness
without a keen edge for the world is much in danger of souring permanently
Dianas love of nature saved her from the dire mischance during a two months
residence at Copsley by stupefying her senses to a state like the barely
conscious breathing on the verge of sleep February blew Southwest for the
pairing of the birds A broad warm wind rolled clouds of every ambiguity of form
in magnitude over peeping azure or skimming upon lakes of blue and lightest
green or piling the amphitheatre for majestic sunset Or sometimes those
daughters of the wind flew linked and low semipurple threatening the shower
they retained and teaching gloom to rouse a songful nest in the bosom of the
viewer Sometimes they were April variable to soar with rainskirts and sink
with sunshafts Or they drenched wood and field for a day and opened on the
high Southwestern star Daughters of the wind but shifty daughters of this
wind of the dropping sun they have to be watched to be loved in their
transformations
Diana had Arthur Rhodes and her faithful Leander for walking companions If
Arthur said »Such a day would be considered melancholy by London people« she
thanked him in her heart as a benefactor who had revealed to her things of the
deepest The simplest were her food Thus does Nature restore us by drugging
the brain and making her creature confidingly animal for its new growth She
imagined herself to have lost the power to think certainly she had not the
striving or the wish Exercise of her limbs to reach a point of prospect and of
her ears and eyes to note what bird had piped what flower was out on the banks
and the leaf of what tree it was that lay beneath the budding satiated her
daily desires She gathered unknowingly a sheaf of landscapes images keys of
dreamed horizons that opened a world to her at any chance breath altering shape
or hue a different world from the one of her old ambition Her fall had brought
her renovatingly to earth and the saving naturalness of the woman recreated her
childlike with shrouded recollections of her strange taste of life behind her
with a tempered fresh blood to enjoy aimlessly and what would erewhile have
been a barrenness to her sensibilities
In time the craving was evolved for positive knowledge and shells and
stones and weeds were deposited on the librarytable at Copsley botanical and
geological books comparingly examined Emma Dunstane always eager to assist for
the samples wafted her into the heart of the woods Poor Sir Lukin tried three
days of their society and was driven away headlong to Clublife He sent down
Redworth with whom the walks of the zealous inquirers were profitable though
Diana in acknowledging it to herself reserved a decided preference for her
foregone ethereal mood larger and untroubled by the presence of a man The
suspicion Emma had sown was not excited to an alarming activity but she began
to question could the best of men be simply a womans friend was not long
service rather less than a proof of friendship She could be blind when her
heart was on fire for another Her passion for her liberty however received no
ominous warning to look to the defences He was the same blunt speaker and
knotted his brows as queerly as ever at Arthur in a transparent calculation of
how this fellow meant to gain his livelihood She wilfully put it to the credit
of Arthurs tact that his elder was amiable without denying her debt to the
good man for leaving her illness and her appearance unmentioned He forbore even
to scan her features Dianas wan contemplativeness in which the sparkle of
meaning slowly rose to flash as we see a bubble rising from the deeps of
crystal waters caught at his heart while he talked his matteroffact But her
instinct of a present safety was true She and Arthur discovered and it set
her first meditating whether she did know the man so very accurately that he
had printed for private circulation when at Harrow School a little book a
record of his observations in nature Lady Dunstane was the casual betrayer He
shrugged at the nonsense of a boys publishing anybodys publishing he held for
a doubtful proof of sanity His excuse was that he had not published opinions
Let us observe and assist in our small sphere not come mouthing to the
footlights
»We retire« Diana said for herself and Arthur
»The wise thing is to avoid the position that enforces publishing« said
he to the discomposure of his raw junior
In the fields he was genially helpful commending them to the study of the
Southwest wind if they wanted to forecast the weather and understand the
climate of our country »We have no Seasons or only a shuffle of them Old
calendars give seven months of the year to the Southwest and thats about the
average Count on it you may generally reckon what to expect When you dont
have the excess for a year or two you are drenched the year following« He knew
every bird by its flight and its pipe habits tricks hints of sagacity homely
with the original human and his remarks on the sensitive life of trees and
herbs were a spell to his thirsty hearers Something of astronomy he knew but
in relation to that science he sank his voice touchingly to Diana who felt
drawn to kinship with him when he had a pupils tone An allusion by Arthur to
the poetical work of Aratus led to a memorably pleasant evenings discourse
upon the long reading of the stars by these our mortal eyes Altogether the mind
of the practical man became distinguishable to them as that of a plain brother
of the poetic Diana said of him to Arthur »He does not supply me with similes
he points to the source of them« Arthur with envy of the man of positive
knowledge disguised an unstrung heart in agreeing
Redworth alluded passingly to the condition of public affairs Neither of
them replied Diana was wondering how one who perused the eternal of nature
should lend a thought to the dusty temporary of the world Subsequently she
reflected that she was asking him to confine his great male appetite to the
nibble of bread which nourished her immediate sense of life Her reflections
were thin as mist coming and going like the mist with no direction upon her
brain if they sprang from it When he had gone welcome though Arthur had seen
him to be she rebounded to a broader and cheerfuller liveliness Arthur was
flattered by an idea of her casting off incubus a most worthy gentleman and a
not perfectly sympathetic associate Her eyes had their lost light in them her
step was brisker she challenged him to former games of conversation excursions
in blank verse here and there as the mood dictated They amused themselves and
Emma too She revelled in seeing Tonys younger face and hearing some of her
natural outbursts That Dacier never could have been the man for her would have
compressed and subjected her and inflicted a further taste of bondage in
marriage she was assured She hoped for the day when Tony would know it and
haply that another whom she little comprehended was her rightful mate
March continued Southwesterly and grew rainier as Redworth had foretold
bidding them look for gales and storm and then the change of wind It came
after wettings of a couple scorning the refuge of dainty townsfolk under
umbrellas and proud of their likeness to dripping wayside wildflowers Arthur
stayed at Copsley for a week of the crisp Northeaster and what was it when he
had taken his leave that brought Tony home from her solitary walk in dejection
It could not be her seriously regretting the absence of the youthful companion
she had parted with gaily appointing a time for another meeting on the heights
and recommending him to repair idle hours with strenuous work The fit passed
and was not explained The winds are sharp with memory The hard shrill wind
crowed to her senses of an hour on the bleak sands of the French coast the
beginning of the curtained misery inscribed as her happiness She was next day
prepared for her term in London with Emma who promised her to make an
expedition at the end of it by way of holiday to see The Crossways which Mr
Redworth said was not tenanted
»You wont go through it like a captive« said Emma
»I dont like it dear« Diana put up a comic mouth »The debts we owe
ourselves are the hardest to pay That is the discovery of advancing age and I
used to imagine it was quite the other way But they are the debts of honour
imperative I shall go through it grandly you will see If I am stopped at my
first recreancy and turned directly the contrary way I think I have courage«
»You will not fear to meet any one« Emma said
»The world and all it contains I am robust eager for the fray an Amazon
a brazenfaced hussy Fear and I have parted I shall not do you discredit
Besides you intend to have me back here with you And besides again I burn to
make a last brave appearance I have not outraged the world dear Emmy whatever
certain creatures in it may fancy«
She had come out of her dejectedness with a shrewder view of Dacier equally
painful for it killed her romance and changed the garden of their
companionship in imagination to a waste Her clearing intellect prompted it
whilst her nature protested and reviled her to uplift him He had loved her »I
shall die knowing that a man did love me once« she said to her widowed heart
and set herself blushing and blanching But the thought grew inveterate »He
could not bear much« And in her quick brain it shot up a crop of similitudes
for the quality of that mans love She shuddered as at a swift cleaving of
cold steel He had not given her a chance he had not replied to her letter
written with the pen dipped in her hearts blood he must have gone straight
away to the woman he married This after almost justifying the scandalous world
after She realized her sensations of that night when the housedoor had
closed on him her feeling of lost sovereignty degradation feminine danger
friendlessness and she was unaware and never knew nor did the world ever
know what cunning had inspired the frosty Cupid to return to her and be warmed
by striking a bargain for his weighty secret She knew too well that she was not
of the snows which do not melt however high her conceit of herself might place
her Happily she now stood out of the sun in a bracing temperature Polar and
her compassion for women was deeply sisterly in tenderness and understanding
She spoke of it to Emma as her gain
»I have not seen that you required to suffer to be considerate« Emma said
»It is on my conscience that I neglected Mary Paynham among others and
because you did not take to her Emmy«
»The reading of it appears to me that she has neglected you«
»She was not in my confidence and so I construe it as delicacy One never
loses by believing the best«
»If one is not duped«
»Expectations dupe us not trust The light of every soul burns upward Of
course most of them are candles in the wind Let us allow for atmospheric
disturbance Now I thank you dear for bringing me back to life I see that I
was really a selfish suicide because I feel I have power to do some good and
belong to the army When we are beginning to reflect as I do now on a
recovered basis of pure health we have the world at the dawn and know we are
young in it with great riches great things gained and greater to achieve
Personally I behold a queer little wriggling worm for myself but as one of the
active world I stand high and shapely and the very thought of doing work is
like a draught of the desertsprings to me Instead of which I have once more
to go about presenting my face to vindicate my character Mr Redworth would
admit no irony in that At all events it is anticlimax«
»I forgot to tell you Tony you have been proposed for« said Emma and
there was a rush of savage colour over Tonys cheeks
Her apparent apprehensions were relieved by hearing the name of Mr Sullivan
Smith
»My poor dear countryman And he thought me worthy did he Some day when
we are past his repeating it I ll thank him«
The fact of her smiling happily at the narration of Sullivan Smiths absurd
proposal by mediatrix proved to Emma how much her nature thirsted for the
smallest support in her selfesteem
The second campaign of London was of bad augury at the commencement owing
to the ridiculous intervention of a streetorgan that ground its pipes in a
sprawling roar of one of the Puritani marches just as the carriage was landing
them at the door of her house The notes were harsh dissonant drunken
interlocked and horribly torn asunder intolerable to ears not keen to extract
the tune through dreadful memories Diana sat startled and paralyzed The melody
crashed a revival of her days with Dacier as in gibes and yet it reached to
her heart She imagined a Providence that was trying her on the threshold
striking at her feebleness She had to lock herself in her room for an hour of
deadly abandonment to misery resembling the run of poison through her blood
before she could bear to lift eyes on her friend to whom subsequently she said
»Emmy there are wounds that cut sharp as the enchanters sword and we dont
know we are in halves till some rough old intimate claps us on the back merely
to ask us how we are I have to join myself together again as well as I can It
s done dear but dont notice the cement«
»You will be brave« Emma petitioned
»I long to show you I will«
The meeting with those who could guess a portion of her story did not
disconcert her To Lady Pennon and Lady Singleby she was the brilliant Diana of
her nominal luminary issuing from cloud Face and tongue she was the same and
once in the stream she soon gathered its current topics and scattered her
arrowy phrases Lady Pennon ran about with them declaring that the beautiful
speaker if ever down was up and up to her finest mark Mrs FryarGunnett had
then become the blazing regnant antisocial star a distresser of domesticity
the magnetic attraction in the spirituous flames of that wild snapdragon bowl
called the Upper class and she was angelically blonde a strawcoloured Beauty
»A lovely wheatsheaf if the head were ripe« Diana said of her
»Threshed says her fame my dear« Lady Pennon replied otherwise allusive
»A wheatsheaf of contention for the bread of wind« said Diana thinking of
foolish Sir Lukin thoughtless of talking to a gossip
She would have shot a lighter dart had she meant it to fly and fix
Proclaim ye classics what minor Goddess or primal Iris or Ate sped
straight away on wing to the empty wheatsheafears of the goldenvisaged Amabel
FryarGunnett daughter of Demeter in the field to behold of Aphrodite in her
rosy incendiarism for the many of men filling that pearly concave with a
perversion of the uttered speech such as never lady could have repeated nor
man if less than a reaping harvester which verily for women to hear is to
stamp a substantial damnatory verification upon the delivery of the saying
»Mrs Warwick says of you that you re a bundle of straws for everybody and
bread for nobody«
Or stranger speculation through what and what number of conduits
curious and variously colouring did it reach the fair Amabel of the
infantincradle smile in that deformation of the original utterance To pursue
the thing would be to enter the subtersensual perfumed caverns of a Romance of
Fashionable Life with no hope of coming back to light other than by tail of
lynx like the great Arabian seaman at the last page of the final chapter A
prospectively popular narrative indeed and coin to reward it and applause But
I am reminded that a story properly closed on the marriage of the heroine
Constance and her young Minister of State has no time for conjuring chemists
bouquet of aristocracy to lure the native taste When we have satisfied English
sentiment our task is done in every branch of art I hear and it will account
to posterity for the condition of the branches Those yet wakeful eccentrics
interested in such a person as Diana to the extent of remaining attentive till
the curtain falls demand of me to gatherup the threads concerning her which
my gardener sweeping his pile of dead leaves before the storm and night advises
me to do speedily But it happens that her resemblance to her sex and species of
a civilized period plants the main threads in her bosom Rogues and a policeman
or a hurried change of front of all the actors are not a part of our slow
machinery
Nor is she to show herself to advantage Only those who read her womans
blood and character with the head will care for Diana of the Crossways now that
the knot of her history has been unravelled Some little love they must have for
her likewise and how it can be quickened on behalf of a woman who never
sentimentalizes publicly and has no dollydolly compliance and muses on actual
life and fatigues with the exercise of brains and is in sooth an alien a
princess of her kind and time but a foreign one speaking a language distinct
from the mercantile trafficking in ideas this is the problem For to be true
to her one cannot attempt at propitiation She said worse things of the world
than that which was conveyed to the boxed ears of Mrs FryarGunnett Accepting
the war declared against her a second time she performed the common mental
trick in adversity of setting her personally known innocence to lessen her
generally unknown error but anticipating that this might become known and the
other not and feeling that the motives of the acknowledged error had served to
guard her from being the culprit of the charge she writhed under she rushed out
of a meditation compounded of mind and nerves with derision of the worlds
notion of innocence and estimate of error It was a mood lasting through her
stay in London and longer to the discomfort of one among her friends and it
was worthy of The Anticlimax Expedition as she called it
For the rest her demeanour to the old monster world exacting the servility
of her in repayment for its tolerating countenance was faultless Emma beheld
the introduction to Mrs Warwick of his bride by Mr Percy Dacier She had
watched their approach up the Ballroom thinking how differently would
Redworth and Tony have looked Differently had it been Tony and Dacier but
Emma could not persuade herself of a possible harmony between them save at the
cost of Tonys expiation of the sin of the greater heart in a performance
equivalent to Suttee Perfectly an English gentleman of the higher order he
seemed the effigy of a tombstone one fixed upright and civilly proud of his
effigy bride So far Emma considered them fitted She perceived his quick eye
on her corner of the room necessarily for a man of his breeding without a
change of expression An emblem pertaining to her creed was on the heroines
neck also dependant at her waist She was white from head to foot a symbol of
purity Her frail smile appeared deeply studied in purity Judging from her look
and her reputation Emma divined that the man was justly mated with a devious
filmy sentimentalist likely to »fiddle harmonics on the sensual strings« for
him at a mad rate in the years to come Such fiddling is indeed the peculiar
diversion of the opulent of a fatly prosperous people who take it one may
concede to them for an inspired elimination of the higher notes of life the
very highest That saying of Tonys ripened with full significance to Emma now
Not sensualism but sham spiritualism was the meaning and however fine the
notes they come skilfully evoked of the underbrute in us Reasoning it so she
thought it a saying for the penetration of the most polished and deceptive of
the later human masks She had besides be it owned a triumph in conjuring a
sentence of her friends like a swords edge to meet them for she was boiling
angrily at the ironical destiny which had given to those Two a beclouding of her
beloved whom she could have rebuked in turn for her insane caprice of passion
But when her beloved stoodup to greet Mrs Percy Dacier all idea save
tremulous admiration of the valiant woman who had been wounded nigh to death
passed from Emmas mind Diana tempered her queenliness to address the favoured
lady with smiles and phrases of gentle warmth of goodness of nature and it
became a halo rather than a personal eclipse that she cast
Emma looked at Dacier He wore the prescribed conventional air subject in
half a minute to a rapid blinking of the eyelids His wife could have been
inimically imagined fascinated and dwindling A spot of colour came to her
cheeks She likewise began to blink
The happy couple bowed proceeding and Emma had Daciers back for a study
We score on that flat slate of man unattractive as it is to hostile
observations and unprotected the device we choose Her harshest was the
positive thought that he had taken the woman best suited to him Doubtless he
was a man to prize the altarcandle above the lamp of day She fancied the
backview of him shrunken and straitened perhaps a mere hostile fancy though
it was conceivable that he should desire as little of these meetings as
possible Eclipses are not courted
The specially womanly exultation of Emma Dunstane in her friends noble
attitude seeing how their sex had been struck to the dust for a trifling error
easily to be overlooked by a manful lover and had asserted its dignity in
physical and moral splendour in selfmastery and benignness was unshared by
Diana As soon as the business of the expedition was over her orders were
issued for the sale of the lease of her house and all it contained »I would
sell Danvers too« she said »but the creature declines to be treated as
merchandize It seems I have a faithful servant very much like my life not
quite to my taste the one thing out of the wreck with my dog«
Before quitting her house for the return to Copsley she had to grant Mr
Alexander Hepburn posthaste from his Caledonia a private interview She came
out of it noticeably shattered Nothing was related to Emma beyond the remark
»I never knew till this morning the force of No in earnest« The weighty little
word womans native watchdog and guardian if she calls it to her aid in
earnest had encountered and withstood a fiery ancient host astonished at its
novel power of resistance
Emma contented herself with the result »Were you much supplicated«
»An Operatic FourthAct« said Diana by no means feeling so flippantly as
she spoke
She received while under the impression of this mans honest if primitive
ardour of courtship or effort to capture a characteristic letter from
Westlake choicely phrased containing presumeably an application for her hand
in the generous offer of his own Her reply to a pursuer of that sort was easy
Comedy after the barbaric attack refreshed her wits and reliance on her
natural fencing weapons To Westlake the unwritten No was conveyed in a series
of kindly ironic subterfuges that played it like an impish flea across the
pages just giving the bloom of the word and rich smiles come to Emmas life in
reading the dexterous composition which however proved so thoroughly to
Westlakes taste that a second and a third exercise in the comedy of the
negative had to be despatched to him from Copsley
Chapter XL
In which We See Nature Making of a Woman a Maid Again and a Thrice Whimsical
On their way from London after leaving the station the drive through the
valley led them past a field where cricketers were at work bowling and batting
under a vertical sun not a very comprehensible sight to ladies whose practical
tendencies as observers of the other sex incline them to question the gain of
such an expenditure of energy The dispersal of the alphabet over a printed page
is not less perplexing to the illiterate As soon as Emma Dunstane discovered
the Copsley headgamekeeper at one wicket and actually Thomas Redworth facing
him bat in hand she sat up greatly interested Sir Lukin stopped the carriage
at the gate and reminded his wife that it was the day of the year for the men
of his estate to encounter a valley Eleven Redworth like the good fellow he
was had come down by appointment in the morning out of London to fill the
number required Copsley being weak this year Eight of their wickets had fallen
for a lamentable figure of twentynine runs himself cleanbowled the first
ball But Tom Redworth had got fast hold of his wicket and already scored fifty
to his bat »There grand hit« Sir Lukin cried the ball flying hard at the
rails »Once a cricketer always a cricketer if you ve legs to fetch the runs
And Pullen s not doing badly His business is to stick We shall mark them a
hundred yet I do hate a score on our side without the two 00s« He accounted
for Redworths mixed colours by telling the ladies he had lent him his flannel
jacket which against black trousers looked odd but not ill
Gradually the enthusiasm of the booth and bystanders converted the flying of
a leather ball into a subject of honourable excitement
»And why are you doing nothing« Sir Lukin was asked and he explained
»My stumps are down I m married« He took his wifes hand prettily
Diana had a malicious prompting She smothered the wasp and said »Oh look
at that«
»Grand hit again Oh good good« cried Sir Lukin clapping to it while
the longhitoff ran spinning his legs into one for an impossible catch and the
batsmen were running and stretching bats and the ball flying away flying back
and others after it and still the batsmen running till it seemed that the ball
had escaped control and was leading the fielders on a coltish innings of its
own defiant of bowlers
Diana said merrily »Bravo our side«
»Bravo old Tom Redworth« rejoined Sir Lukin »Four and a three And
capital weather havent we Hope we shall have same sort day next month
return match my ground I ve seen Tom Redworth score old days over two
hundred t his bat And he used to bowl too But bowling wants practice And
Emmy look at the old fellows lining the booth pipe in mouth and cheering They
do enjoy a day like this We ll have a supper for fifty at Copsleys it s
fun By Jove we must have reached up to near the hundred«
He commissioned a neighbouring boy to hie to the booth for the latest
figures and his emissary taught lightning a lesson
Diana praised the little fellow
»Yes he s a real English boy« said Emma
»We ve thousands of em thousands ready to your hand« exclaimed Sir
Lukin »and a confounded Radicalized country « he muttered gloomily of »lets
us be kicked any amount of insult meek as gruel making of the finest
army the world has ever seen You saw the papers this morning Good heaven how
a nation with an atom of selfrespect can go on standing that sort of bullying
from foreigners We do We re insulted and we re threatened and we call for a
hymn Now then my man what is it«
The boy had flown back »Ninetytwo marked sir ninetynine runs one more
for the hundred«
»Well reckoned and mind you re up at Copsley for the return match And
Tom Redworth says they may bite their thumbs to the bone they dont hurt us
I tell him he has no sense of national pride He says we re not prepared for
war We never are And whose the fault Says we re a peaceful people but
ware who touches us He doesnt feel a kick Oh clever snick Hurrah for the
hundred Two three No dont force the running you fools though they
re wild with the ball ha no all right« The wicket stood Hurrah
The heat of the noonday sun compelled the ladies to drive on
»Enthusiasm has the privilege of not knowing monotony« said Emma »He looks
well in flannels«
»Yes he does« Diana replied aware of the reddening despite her having
spoken so simply »I think the chief advantage men have over us is in their
amusements«
»Their recreations«
»That is the better word« Diana fanned her cheeks and said she was warm »I
mean the permanent advantage For you see that age does not affect them«
»Tom Redworth is not a patriarch my dear«
»Well he is what would be called mature«
»He cant be more than thirtytwo or three and that for a man of his
constitution means youth«
»Well I can imagine him a patriarch playing cricket«
»I should imagine you imagine the possible chances He is the father who
would play with his boys«
»And lock up his girls in the nursery« Diana murmured of the extraordinary
heat
Emma begged her to remember his heterodox views of the education for girls
»He bats admirably« said Diana »I wish I could bat half as well«
»Your batting is with the tongue«
»Not so good And a solid bat or bludgeon to defend the poor stumps is
surer But there is the difference of cricket when your stumps are down you
are idle at leisure not a miserable prisoner«
»Supposing all marriages miserable«
»To the mind of me« said Diana and observed Emmas rather saddened eyelids
for a proof that schemes to rob her of dear liberty were certainly planned
They conversed of expeditions to Redworths Berkshire mansion and to The
Crossways untenanted at the moment as he had informed Emma who fancied it
would please Tony to pass a night in the house she loved but as he was to be of
the party she coldly acquiesced
The woman of flesh refuses pliancy when we want it of her and will not
until it is her good pleasure be bent to the development called a climax as
the puppetwoman mother of Fiction and darling of the multitude ever amiably
does at a hint of the Nuptial Chapter Diana in addition sustained the weight
of brains Neither with waxen optics nor with subservient jointings did she go
through her pathways of the world Her direct individuality rejected the
performance of simpleton and her lively blood the warmer for its containment
quickened her to penetrate things and natures and if as yet in justness to the
loyal male friend she forbore to name him conspirator she read both him and
Emma whose inner bosom was revealed to her without an effort to see But her
characteristic chasteness of mind not coldness of the blood which had
supported an arduous conflict past all existing rights closely to depict and
which barbed her to pierce to the wishes threatening her freedom deceived her
now to think her flaming blushes came of her relentless divination on behalf of
her recovered treasure whereby the clear reading of others distracted the view
of herself For one may be the cleverest alive and still hoodwinked while blood
is young and warm
The perpetuity of the contrast presented to her reflections of Redworths
healthy open practical cheering life and her own freakishly interwinding
darkly penetrative simulacrum of a life cheerless as well as useless forced
her humiliated consciousness by degrees in spite of pride to the knowledge
that she was engaged in a struggle with him and that he was the stronger it
might be the worthier she thought him the handsomer He throve to the light of
day and she spun a silly web that meshed her in her intricacies Her intuition
of Emmas wishes led to this he was constantly before her She tried to laugh
at the image of the concrete cricketer halfflannelled and red of face the
lucky calculator as she named him to Emma who shook her head and sighed The
abstract healthful and powerful man able to play besides profitably working
defied those poor efforts Consequently at once she sent up a bubble to the
skies where it became a spheral realm of far too fine an atmosphere for men to
breathe in it and thither she transported herself at will whenever the
contrast with its accompanying menace of a tyrannic subjugation overshadowed
her In the above the kingdom composed of her shattered romance of life and her
present aspirings she was free and safe Nothing touched her there nothing
that Redworth did She could not have admitted there her ideal of a hero It was
the sublimation of a virgins conception of life better fortified against the
enemy She peopled it with souls of the great and pure gave it illimitable
horizons dreamy nooks ravishing landscapes melodies of the poets of music
Higher and more celestial than the Salvatore it was likewise now she could
assure herself serenely independent of the horrid bloodemotions Living up
there she had not a feeling
The natural result of this habit of ascending to a superlunary home was the
loss of an exact sense of how she was behaving below At the Berkshire mansion
she wore a supercilious air almost as icy as she accused the place of being
Emma knew she must have seen in the library a row of her literary ventures
exquisitely bound but there was no allusion to the books Mary Paynhams
portrait of Mrs Warwick hung staring over the fireplace and was criticized as
though its occupancy of that position had no significance
»He thinks she has a streak of genius« Diana said to Emma
»It may be shown in time« Emma replied for a comment on the work »He
should know for the Spanish pictures are noble acquisitions«
»They are doubtless good investments«
He had been foolish enough to say in Dianas hearing that he considered
the purchase of the Berkshire estate a good investment It had not yet a name
She suggested various titles for Emma to propose »The Funds« or »Capital
Towers« or »Dividend Manor« or »Railholm« blind to the evidence of inflicting
pain Emma from what she had guessed concerning the purchaser of The Crossways
apprehended a discovery there which might make Tonys treatment of him unkinder
seeing that she appeared actuated contrariously and only her invalids new
happiness in the small excursions she was capable of taking to a definite spot
of some homely attractiveness moved her to follow her own proposal for the
journey Diana pleaded urgently childishly in tone to have Arthur Rhodes with
them »so as to be sure of a sympathetic companion for a walk on the Downs« At
The Crossways they were soon aware that Mr Redworths domestics were in
attendance to serve them Manifestly the house was his property and not much of
an investment The principal bedroom her fathers once and her own devoted
now to Emmas use appalled her with a resemblance to her London room She had
noticed some of her furniture at »Dividend Manor« and chosen to consider it in
the light of a bargain from a purchase at the sale of her goods Here was her
bed her writingtable her chair of authorship desks books ornaments
watercolour sketches And the drawingroom was fitted with her brackets and
étagères holding every knickknack she had possessed and scattered small
bronzes antiques ivory junks quaint ivory figures Chinese and Japanese bits
of porcelain silver incenseurns dozens of dainty sundries She had a shamed
curiosity to spy for an omission of one of them all were there The Crossways
had been turned into a trap
Her reply to this blunt wooing conspired she felt justified in thinking
between him and Emma was emphatic in muteness She treated it as if unobserved
At night in bed the scene of his mission from Emma to her under this roof
barred her customary ascent to her planetary kingdom Next day she took Arthur
after breakfast for a walk on the Downs and remained absent till ten minutes
before the hour of dinner As to that young gentleman he was near to being
caressed in public Arthurs opinions his good sayings were quoted his
excellent companionship on really poetical walks and perfect sympathy praised
to his face Challenged by her initiative to a kind of language that threw
Redworth out he declaimed »We pace with some who make young morning stale«
»Oh stale as peel of fruit long since consumed« she chimed
And so they proceeded and they laughed Emma smiled a little Redworth did
the same beneath one of his questioning frowns a sort of fatherly grimace
A suspicion that this man when infatuated was able to practise the
absurdest benevolence the burlesque of chivalry as a manadmiring sex esteems
it stirred very naughty depths of the woman in Diana labouring under her
perverted mood She put him to proof for the chance of arming her wickedest to
despise him Arthur was petted consulted cited flattered all round all but
caressed She played with a reserve the maturish young woman smitten by an
adorable youth and enjoyed doing it because she hoped for a visible effect
more paternal benevolence and could do it so dispassionately Coquettry Emma
thought was most unworthily shown and it was of the worst description
Innocent of conspiracy she had seen the array of Tonys lost household
treasures she wondered at a heartlessness that would not even utter common
thanks to the friendly man for the compliment of prizing her portrait and the
things she had owned and there seemed an effort to wound him
The invalided woman charitable with allowances for her erratic husband
could offer none for the woman of a long widowhood that had become a trebly
sensitive maidenhood abashed by her knowledge of the world animated by her
abounding blood cherishing her new freedom dreading the menacer feeling that
though she held the citadel she was daily less sure of its foundations and
that her hope of some last romance in life was going for in him shone not a
glimpse He appeared to Diana as a fatal power attracting her without sympathy
benevolently overcoming one of those good men strong men who subdue and do
not kindle The enthralment revolted a nature capable of accepting subjection
only by burning In return for his moral excellence she gave him the moral
sentiments esteem gratitude abstract admiration perfect faith But the man
She could not now say she had never been loved and a flood of tenderness rose
in her bosom swelling from springs that she had previously reproved with a
desperate severity the unhappy unsatisfied yearning to be more than loved to
love It was alive out of the wreck of its first trial This the secret of her
natural frailty was bitter to her pride chastelyminded as she was it whelmed
her And then her comic imagination pictured Redworth dramatically making love
And to a widow It proved him to be senseless of romance Poetic men take aim at
maidens His devotedness to a widow was charged against him by the widows
shudder at antecedents distasteful to her soul a discoloration of her life She
wished to look entirely forward as upon a world washed clear of night not to
be cast back on her antecedents by practical wooings or words of love to live
spiritually free of the shower at her eyelids attendant on any idea of her
loving The woman who talked of the sentimentalists »fiddling harmonics«
herself stressed the material chords in her attempt to escape out of herself
and away from her pursuer
Meanwhile she was as little conscious of what she was doing as of how she
appeared Arthur went about with the moony air of surcharged sweetness and a
speculation on it alternately tiptoe and prostrate More of her intoxicating
wine was administered to him in utter thoughtlessness of consequences to one
who was but a boy and a friend almost of her own rearing She told Emma when
leaving The Crossways that she had no desire to look on the place again she
wondered at Mr Redworths liking such a solitude In truth the look back on it
let her perceive that her husband haunted it and disfigured the man of real
generosity as her heart confessed but whom she accused of a lack of prescient
delicacy for not knowing she would and must be haunted there Blaming him her
fountain of colour shot up at a murmur of her unjustness and the poor mans
hopes
A week later the youth she publicly named her Arthur came down to Copsley
with news of his having been recommended by Mr Redworth for the post of
secretary to an old Whig nobleman famous for his patronage of men of letters
And besides he expected to inherit he said and gazed in a way to sharpen her
instincts The wine he had drunk of late from her flowing vintage was in his
eyes They were on their usual rambles out along the heights »Accept by all
means and thank Mr Redworth« said she speeding her tongue to intercept him
»Literature is a good stick and a bad horse Indeed I ought to know You can
always write I hope you will«
She stepped fast hearing »Mrs Warwick Diana May I take your hand«
This was her pretty piece of work »Why should you If you speak my
Christian name no you forfeit any pretext And pray dont loiter We are
going at the pace of the firm of Potter and Dawdle and you know they never got
their shutters down till it was time to put them up again«
Nimblefooted as she was she pressed ahead too fleetly for amorous
eloquence to have a chance She heard »Diana« twice through the rattling of
her discourse and flapping of her dress
»Christian names are coin that seem to have an indifferent valuation of the
property they claim« she said in the Copsley garden »and as for hands at
meeting and parting here is the friendliest you could have Only dont look
rueful My dear Arthur spare me that or I shall blame myself horribly«
His chance had gone and he composed his face No hope in speaking had
nerved him merely the passion to speak Diana understood the state and pitied
the naturally modest young fellow and chafed at herself as a senseless
incendiary who did mischief right and left from seeking to shun the apparently
inevitable A sidethought intruded that he would have done his wooing
poetically not in the burly storm or bullSaxon she apprehended Supposing
it imperative with her to choose She looked up and the bird of broader wing
darkened the whole sky bidding her know that she had no choice
Emma was requested to make Mr Redworth acquainted with her story all of
it »So that this exalted friendship of his may be shaken to a common level
He has an unbearably high estimate of me and it hurts me Tell him all and
more than even you have known but for his coming to me on the eve of your
passing under the surgeons hands I should have gone flung the world my
glove A matter of minutes Ten minutes later The train was to start for France
at eight and I was awaited I have to thank heaven that the man was one of
those who can strike icily Tell Mr Redworth what I say You two converse upon
every subject One may be too loftily respected in my case By and by for he
is a tolerant reader of life and women I think we shall be humdrum friends of
the lasting order«
Emmas cheeks were as red as Dianas »I fancy Tom Redworth has not much to
learn concerning any person he cares for« she said »You like him I have lost
touch of you my dear and ask«
»I like him that I can say He is everything I am not But now I am free
the sense of being undeservedly overesteemed imposes fetters and I dont like
them I have been called a Beauty Rightly or other I have had a Beautys
career and a curious caged beasts life I have found it Will you promise me to
speak to him And also thank him for helping Arthur Rhodes to a situation«
At this the tears fell from her And so enigmatical had she grown to Emma
that her bosom friend took them for a confessed attachment to the youth
Dianas wretched emotion shamed her from putting any inquiries whether
Redworth had been told He came repeatedly and showed no change of face always
continuing in the form of huge hovering griffin until an idea instead of the
monster bird struck her Might she not after all be cowering under
imagination The very maidenly idea wakened her womanliness to reproach her
remainder of pride not to see more accurately It was the reason why she
resolved against Emmas extreme entreaties to take lodgings in the South
valley below the heights where she could be independent of fancies and
perpetual visitors but near her beloved at any summons of urgency which Emma
would not habitually send because of the coming of a particular gentleman
Dresses were left at Copsley for dining and sleeping there upon occasion and
poor Danvers despairing over the riddle of her mistress was condemned to the
melancholy descent »It s my belief« she confided to Lady Dunstanes maid
Bartlett »she ll hate men all her life after that Mr Dacier«
If women were deceived and the riddle deceived herself there is excuse for
a plain man like Redworth in not having the slightest clue to the daily shifting
feminine maze he beheld The strange thing was that during her maiden time she
had never been shifty or flighty invariably limpid and direct
Chapter XLI
Contains a Revelation of the Origin of the Tigress in Diana
An afternoon of high summer blazed over London through the Citys awning of
smoke and the three classes of the population relaxed by the weariful
engagement with what to them was a fruitless heat were severally bathing their
ideas in dreams of the contrast possible to embrace breezy seas or moors
aërial Alps cool beer The latter if confessedly the lower comfort is the
readier at command and Thomas Redworth whose perspiring frame was directing
his inward vision to fly for solace to a trim new yacht built on his lines
beckoning from Southampton Water had some of the amusement proper to things
plucked off the levels in the conversation of a couple of journeymen close
ahead of him as he made his way from a quiet street of brokers offices to a
City Bank One asked the other if he had ever tried any of that cold stuff they
were now selling out of barrows with cream His companion answered that he had
not got much opinion of stuff of the sort and what was it like
»Well it s cheap it aint bad it s cooling But it aint refreshing«
»Just what I reckoned all that newfangle rubbish«
Without a consultation the conservatives in beverage filed with a smart
turn about worthy of veterans at parade on the drillground into a
publichouse and a dialogue chiefly remarkable for absence of point furnished
matter to the politicians head of the hearer Provided that their beer was
unadulterated Beer they would have and why not in weather like this But how
to make the publican honest And he was not the only trickster preying on the
multitudinous poor copper crowd rightly to be protected by the silver and the
golden Revelations of the arts practised to plump them with rawearth and
minerals in the guise of nourishment had recently knocked at the door of the
general conscience and obtained a civil reply from the footman Repulsive as the
thought was to one still holding to Whiggish Liberalism though flying various
Radical kites he was caught by the decisive ultratorrent and whirled to amid
the necessity for the interference of the State to stop the poisoning of the
poor Upper classes have never legislated systematically in their interests and
quid rabidæ tradis ovile lupæ says one of the multitude We may be seeing
fangs of wolves where fleeces waxed The State that makes it a vital principle
to concern itself with the helpless poor meets instead of waiting for
Democracy which is a perilous flood but when it is dammed Or else in course
of time luxurious yachting my friend will encounter other reefs and breakers
than briny oceans Capital whereat Diana Warwick aimed her superbest sneer
has its instant duties She theorized on the side of poverty and might do so
he had no right to be theorizing on the side of riches Across St Georges
Channel the cry for humanity in Capital was an agony He ought to be there
doing not cogitating The post of Irish Secretary must be won by real service
founded on absolute local knowledge Yes and sympathy if you like but
sympathy is for proving not prating
These were the meditations of a man in love veins arteries headpiece in
love and constantly brooding at a solitary height over the beautiful coveted
object only too bewildered by her multifarious evanescent feminine evasions as
of colours on a ruffled water to think of pouncing for he could do nothing to
soften nothing that seemed to please her and all the while the motive of her
mind impelled him in reflection beyond practicable limits even pointing him to
apt quotations Either he thought within her thoughts or his own were at her
disposal Nor was it sufficient for him to be sensible of her influence to
restrain the impetus he took from her He had already wedded her morally and
much that he did as well as whatever he debated came of Diana more than if
they had been coupled when his downright practical good sense could have
spoken She held him suspended swaying him in that posture and he was not a
whit ashamed of it The beloved woman was throned on the very highest of the
man
Furthermore not being encouraged he had his peculiar reason for delay
though now he could offer her wealth She had once in his hearing derided the
unpleasant hiss of the ungainly English matrons title of Mrs There was no harm
in the accustomed title to his taste but she disliking it he did the same on
her special behalf and the prospect funereally draped of a title
sweetersounding to her ears was above his horizon Bear in mind that he
underwent the reverse of encouragement Any small thing to please her was
magnified and the anticipation of it nerved the modest hopes of one who deemed
himself and any man alive deeply her inferior
Such was the mood of the lover condemned to hear another malignant scandal
defiling the name of the woman he worshipped Sir Lukin Dunstane extremely
hurried bumped him on the lower step of the busy Bank and said »Pardon« and
»Ha Redworth making money«
»Why what are you up to down here« he was asked and he answered »Down to
the Tower to an officer quartered there Not bad quarters but an infernal
distance Business«
Having cloaked his expedition to the distance with the comprehensive word
he repeated it by which he feared he had rendered it too significant and he
said »No no nothing particular« and that caused the secret he contained to
swell in his breast rebelliously informing the candid creature of the fact of
his hating to lie whereupon thus he poured himself out in the quieter bustle
of an alley off the main thoroughfare »You re a friend of hers I m sure you
care for her reputation you re an old friend of hers and she s my wifes
dearest friend and I m fond of her too and I ought to be and ought to know
and do know pure Strike off my fist if there s a spot on her character And
a scoundrel like that fellow Wroxeter Damnedest rage I ever was in Swears
down at Lockton when she was a girl Why Redworth I can tell you when
Diana Warwick was a girl «
Redworth stopped him »Did he say it in your presence«
Sir Lukin was drawnup by the harsh question »Well no not exactly« He
tried to hesitate but he was in the hot vein of a confidence and he wanted
advice »The cur said it to a woman hang the woman And she hates Diana
Warwick I cant tell why a regular snakes hate By Jove how women can
hate«
»Who is the woman« said Redworth
Sir Lukin complained of the mob at his elbows »I dont like mentioning
names here«
A convenient open door of offices invited him to drag his receptacle and
possible counsellor into the passage where immediately he bethought him of a
postponement of the distinct communication but the vein was too hot »I say
Redworth I wish you d dine with me Let s drive up to my Club Very well
two words And I warn you I shall call him out and make it appear it s about
another woman who ll like nothing so much if I know the Jezebel Some women
are hussies let em be handsome as houris And she s a fireship by heaven
she is Come you re a friend of my wifes but you re a man of the world and
my friend and you know how fellows are tempted Tom Redworth Cur though he
is he s likely to step out and receive a lesson Well he s the favoured
cavalier for the present hm FryarGunnett Swears he told her
circumstantially and it was down at Lockton when Diana Warwick was a girl
Swears she ll spit her venom at her so that Diana Warwick shant hold her head
up in London Society what with that cur Wroxeter Old Dannisburgh and Dacier
And it does count a list doesnt it confound the handsome hag She s
jealous of a dark rival I ve been down to Colonel Hartswood at the Tower and
he thinks Wroxeter deserves horsewhipping and we may manage it I know you re
dead against duelling and so am I on my honour But you see there are cases
where a lady must be protected and anything new left to circulate against a
lady who has been talked of twice Oh by Jove it must be stopped If she has
a male friend on earth it must be stopped on the spot«
Redworth eyed Sir Lukin curiously through his wrath
»We ll drive up to your Club« he said
»Hartswood dines with me this evening to confer« rejoined Sir Lukin »Will
you meet him«
»I cant« said Redworth »I have to see a lady whose affairs I have been
attending to in the City and I m engaged for the evening You perceive my
good fellow« he resumed as they rolled along »this is a delicate business
You have to consider your wife Mrs Warwicks name wont come up but another
womans will«
»I meet Wroxeter at a gamblinghouse he frequents and publicly call him
cheat slap his face if need be«
»Sure to« repeated Redworth »No stupid pretext will quash the womans
name Now such a thing as a duel would give pain enough«
»Of course I understand« Sir Lukin nodded his clear comprehension »But
what is it you advise to trounce the scoundrel and silence him«
»Leave it to me for a day Let me have your word that you wont take a step
positively neither you nor Colonel Hartswood I ll see you by appointment at
your Club« Redworth looked up over the chimneys »We re going to have a storm
and a gale I can tell you«
»Gale and storm« cried Sir Lukin »what has that got to do with it«
»Think of something else for a time«
»And that brute of a woman deuced handsome she is if you care for fair
women Redworth she s a Venus jumped slap out of the waves and the Devil
for sire that you learn running about sowing her lies She s a yellow
witch Oh but she s a shameless minx And a blackleg cur like Wroxeter Any
woman intimate with a fellow like that stamps herself I loathe her Sort of
woman who swears in the morning you re the only man on earth and next day
that evening engaged fee to Polly Hopkins and it s a gentleman a
nobleman my lord been going on behind your back half the season and she
isnt hissed when she abuses a lady a saint in comparison You know the world
old fellow Brighton Richmond visits to a friend as deep in the bog How
FryarGunnett a man after all can stand it And drives of an afternoon for
an airing by heaven You re out of that mess Redworth not much taste for
the sex and you re right you re lucky Upon my word the corruption of
society in the present day is awful it s appalling I rattled at her and
oh dear me perks on her hind heels and defies me to prove and she s no
pretender but hopes she s as good as any of my chaste Dianas My dear old
friend it s when you come upon women of that kind you have a sickener And I
m bound by the best there is in a man honour gratitude all the list to
defend Diana Warwick«
»So you see for your wifes sake your name cant be hung on a woman of
that kind« said Redworth »I ll call here the day after tomorrow at three
PM«
Sir Lukin descended and vainly pressed Redworth to run up into his Club for
refreshment Said he roguishly »Who s the lady«
The tone threw Redworth on his frankness
»The lady I ve been doing business for in the City is Miss Paynham«
»I saw her once at Copsley goodlooking Cleverish«
»She has ability«
Entering his Club Sir Lukin was accosted in the readingroom by a cavalry
officer a Colonel Launay an old Harrovian who stood at the window and asked
him whether it was not Tom Redworth in the cab Another of the same School
standing squared before a sheet of one of the evening newspapers heard the name
and joined them saying »Tom Redworth is going to be married some fellow told
me«
»He ll make a deuced good husband to any woman if its true« said Sir
Lukin with Miss Paynham ringing in his head »He s a coolblooded old boy and
likes women for their intellects«
Colonel Launay hummed in meditative emphasis He stared at vacancy with a
tranced eye and turning a similar gaze on Sir Lukin as if through him burst
out »Oh by George I say what a hugging that woman ll get«
The cocking of ears and queries of Sir Lukin put him to the test of his
right to the remark for it sounded of occult acquaintance with interesting
subterranean facts and there was a communication in brief syllables and the
dot language crudely masculine Immensely surprised Sir Lukin exclaimed »Of
course when fellows live quietly and are careful of themselves Ah you may
think you know a man for years and you dont you dont know more than an inch
or two of him Why of course Tom Redworth would be uxorious the very man
And tell us what has become of the Firefly now One never sees her Didnt
complain«
»Very much the contrary«
Both gentlemen were grave believing their knowledge in the subterranean
world of a wealthy city to give them a positive cognizance of female humanity
and the substance of Colonel Launays communication had its impressiveness for
them
»Well its a turn rightaboutface for me« said Sir Lukin »What a world
we live in I fancy I ve hit on the woman he means to marry had an idea of
another woman once but he s one of your friendly fellows with women Thats
how it was I took him for a fish Great mistake I admit But Tom Redworth s a
man of morals after all and when those men do break loose for a plunge ha
Have you ever boxed with him Well he keeps himself in training I can tell
you«
Sir Lukins round of visits drew him at night to Lady Singlebys where he
sighted the identical young lady of his thoughts Miss Paynham temporarily a
guest of the house and he talked to her of Redworth and had the satisfaction
to spy a blush a rageing blush which avowal presented her to his view as an
exceedingly goodlooking girl so that he began mentally to praise Redworth for
a manly superiority to small trifles and the worlds tattle
»You saw him today« he said
She answered »Yes He goes down to Copsley tomorrow«
»I think not« said Sir Lukin
»I have it from him« She closed her eyelids in speaking
»He and I have some rather serious business in town«
»Serious«
»Dont be alarmed not concerning him«
»Whom then You have told me so much I have a right to know«
»Not an atom of danger I assure you«
»It concerns Mrs Warwick« said she
Sir Lukin thought the guess extraordinary He preserved an impenetrable air
But he had spoken enough to set that giddy head spinning
Nowhere during the night was Mrs FryarGunnett visible Earlier than usual
she was riding next day in the Row alone for perhaps two minutes and Sir Lukin
passed her formally saluting He could not help the look behind him she sat so
bewitchingly on horseback He looked and behold her ridingwhip was raised
erect from the elbow It was his horse that wheeled compulsorily he was borne
at a short canter to her side
»Your commands«
The handsome Amabel threw him a sombre glance from the corners of her
uplifted eyelids and snakish he felt it but her colour and the line of her
face went well with sullenness and her arts of fascination cast aside she
fascinated him more in seeming homelier girlish If the trial of her beauty of
a woman in a temper can bear the strain she has attractive lures indeed
irresistible to the amorous idler and when in addition being the guilty
person she plays the injured her show of temper on the taking face pitches him
into perplexity with his own emotions creating a desire to strike and be
stricken howl and set howling which is of the happiest augury for tender
reconcilement on the terms of the gentleman on his kneecap
»You ve been doing a pretty thing« she said and briefly she named her
house and half an hour and flew Sir Lukin was left to admire the figure of the
horsewoman Really her figure had an air of vindicating her successfully
except for the poison she spat at Diana Warwick And what pretty thing had he
been doing He reviewed dozens of speculations until the impossibility of
seizing one determined him to go to Mrs FryarGunnett at the end of the
halfhour »Just to see what these women have to say for themselves«
Some big advance drops of Redworths thunderstorm drawing gloomily overhead
warned him to be quick and get his horse into stables Dismounted the
sensational man was irresolute suspecting a female trap But curiosity
combined with the instinctive turning of his nose in the direction of the ladys
house led him thither to an accompaniment of celestial growls which impressed
him judging by that naughtygirl face of hers and the womans tongue she had
as a likely prelude to the scene to come below
Chapter XLII
The Penultimate Showing a Final Struggle for Liberty and Run Into Harness
The prophet of the storm had forgotten his prediction which however was of
small concern to him apart from the ducking he received midway between the
valley and the heights of Copsley whither he was bound on a mission so serious
that according to his custom in such instances he chose to take counsel of his
active legs an adviseable course when the brain wants clearing and the heart
fortifying Dianas face was clearly before him through the deluge now in
single features the dimple running from her mouth the dark bright eyes and cut
of eyelids and nostrils alive under their lightning now in her whole radiant
smile or musefully listening nursing a thought Or she was obscured and he
felt the face The individuality of it had him by the heart beyond his powers
of visioning On his arrival he stood in the hall adrip like one of the trees
of the lawn laughing at Lady Dunstanes anxious exclamations His portmanteau
had come and he was expected she hurried out at the first ringing of the bell
to greet and reproach him for walking in such weather
»Diana has left me« she said when he reappeared in dry clothing »We are
neighbours she has taken cottagelodgings at Selshall about an hours walk
one of her wild dreams of independence Are you disappointed«
»I am« Redworth confessed
Emma coloured »She requires an immense deal of humouring at present The
fit will wear off only we must wait for it Any menace to her precious liberty
makes her prickly She is passing the day with the Pettigrews who have taken a
place near her village for a month She promised to dine and sleep here if she
returned in time What is your news«
»Nothing the world wags on«
»You have nothing special to tell her«
»Nothing« he hummed »nothing I fancy that she does not know«
»You said you were disappointed«
»It s always a pleasure to see her«
»Even in her worst moods I find it so«
»Oh moods« quoth Redworth
»My friend they are to be reckoned with women«
»Certainly what I meant was that I dont count them against women«
»Good but my meaning was I think I remember your once comparing them
and the weather and you spoke of the one point more variable in women You may
forestall your storms There is no calculating the effect of a few little words
at a wrong season«
»With women I suppose not I have no pretension to a knowledge of the sex«
Emma imagined she had spoken plainly enough if he had immediate designs
and she was not sure of that and wished rather to shun his confidences while
Tony was in her young widowhood revelling in her joy of liberty By and by was
her thought perhaps next year She dreaded Tonys refusal of the yoke and her
ironhardness to the dearest of men proposing it and moreover her further to
be apprehended holding to the refusal for the sake of consistency if it was
once uttered For her own sake she shrank from hearing intentions that
distressing the good man she would have to discountenance His candour in
confessing disappointment and his open face his excellent sense too gave her
some assurance of his not being foolishly impetuous After he had read to her
for an hour as his habit was on evenings and wet days their discussion of this
and that in the book lulled any doubts she had of his prudence enough to render
it even a dubious point whether she might be speculating upon a wealthy bachelor
in the oldfashioned ultrafeminine manner the which she so abhorred that she
rejected the idea Consequently Redworths proposal to walk down to the valley
for Diana and bring her back struck her as natural when a shaft of western
sunshine from a whitened edge of raincloud struck her windows She let him go
without an intimated monition or a thought of one thinking simply that her Tony
would be more likely to come having him for escort Those are silly women who
are always imagining designs and intrigues and future palpitations in the
commonest actions of either sex Emma Dunstane leaned to the contrast between
herself and them
Danvers was at the house about sunset reporting her mistress to be on her
way with Mr Redworth The maids tale of the dreadful state of the lanes
accounted for their tardiness and besides the sunset had been magnificent
Diana knocked at Emmas bedroom door to say outside hurriedly in passing how
splendid the sunset had been and beg for an extra five minutes Taking full
fifteen she swam into the drawingroom lively with kisses on Emmas cheeks
and excuses referring her misconduct in being late to the seductions of Sol in
his glory Redworth said he had rarely seen so wonderful a sunset The result of
their unanimity stirred Emmas bosom to matchmaking regrets and the walk of
the pair together alone under the propitious flaming heavens appeared to her
now as an opportunity lost From sisterly sympathy she fancied she could
understand Tonys libertyloving reluctance she had no comprehension of the
backwardness of the man beholding the dear woman handsomer than in her maiden or
her married time and sprightlier as well She chatted deliciously and drew
Redworth to talk his best on his choicer subjects playing over them like a
firewisp determined at once to flounder him and to make him shine Her tender
esteem for the man was transparent through it all and Emma whose evening had
gone happily between them said to her in their privacy before parting »You
seemed to have been inspired by Sol my dear You do like him dont you«
Diana vowed she adored him and with a face of laughter in rosy suffusion
put Sol for Redworth Redworth for Sol but watchful of Emmas visage said
finally »If you mean the mortal man I think him up to almost all your
hyperboles as far as men go and he departed to his nights rest which I hope
will be good like a king Not to admire him would argue me senseless
heartless I do I have reason to«
»And you make him the butt of your ridicule Tony«
»No I said like a king and he is one He has to me morally the grandeur
of your Sol sinking Cæsar stabbed Cato on the swordpoint He is Roman
Spartan Imperial English if you like the pick of the land It is an honour
to call him friend and I do trust he will choose the pick among us to make her
a happy woman if she s for running in harness There I cant say more«
Emma had to be satisfied with it for the present
They were astonished at breakfast by seeing Sir Lukin ride past the windows
He entered with the veritable appetite of a cavalier who had ridden from London
fasting and why he had come at that early hour he was too hungry to explain
The ladies retired to read their letters by the mornings post whereupon Sir
Lukin called to Redworth »I met that woman in the park yesterday and had to
stand a volley I went beating about London for you all the afternoon and
evening She swears you rated her like a scullery wench and threatened to ruin
Wroxeter Did you see him She says the story s true in one particular that
he did snatch a kiss and got mauled Not so much to pay for it But what a
ruffian eh«
»I saw him« said Redworth »He s one of the new set of noblemen who take
bribes to serve as baits for transactions in the City They help to the ruin of
their order or are signs of its decay We wont judge it by him He favoured me
with his word of honour that the thing you heard was entirely a misstatement
and so forth apologized I suppose He mumbled something«
»A thorough cur«
»He professed his readiness to fight if either of us was not contented«
»He spoke to the wrong man I ve half a mind to ride back and have him out
for that rascal osculation and the lady unwilling and she a young one a
girl under the protection of the house By Jove Redworth when you come to
consider the scoundrels men can be it stirs a fellows bile There s a deal of
that sort of villany going and succeeding sometimes He deserves the whip or a
bullet«
»A sermon from Lukin Dunstane might punish him«
»Oh I m a sinner I know But go and tell one woman of another woman and
that a lie That s beyond me«
»The gradations of the deeps are perhaps measureable to those who are in
them«
»The sermon s at me pop« said Sir Lukin »By the way I m coming round
to think Diana Warwick was right when she used to jibe at me for throwing up my
commission Idleness is the devil or mother of him I manage my estates but
the truth is it doesnt occupy my mind«
»Your time«
»My mind I say«
»Whichever you please«
»You re crusty today Redworth Let me tell you I think and hard too
when the fit s on me However you did right in stopping I ll own a piece
of folly and shutting the mouths of those two though it caused me to come in
for a regular drencher But a pretty woman in a rightdown termagant passion is
good theatre because it cant last at that pace and you re sure of your
agreeable tableau Not that I trust her ten minutes out of sight or any woman
except one or two my wife and Diana Warwick Trust those you ve tried old
boy Diana Warwick ought to be taught to thank you though I dont know how its
to be done«
»The fact of it is« Redworth frowned and rose »I ve done mischief I had
no right to mix myself in it I m seldom caught off my feet by an impulse but
I was I took the fever from you«
He squared his figure at the window and looked up on a driving sky
»Come lets play open cards Tom Redworth« said Sir Lukin leaving the
table and joining his friend by the window »You moral men are doomed to be
marrying men always and quite right Not that one doesnt hear a roundabout
thing or two about you no harm Very much the contrary as the world goes
But you re the man to marry a wife and if I guess the lady she s a sensible
girl and wont be jealous I d swear she only waits for asking«
»Then you dont guess the lady« said Redworth
»Mary Paynham«
The desperate halflaugh greeting the name convinced more than a dozen
denials
Sir Lukin kept edging round for a full view of the friend who shunned
inspection »But is it can it be it must be after all why of course
it is But the thing staring us in the face is just what we never see Just the
husband for her and she s the wife Why Diana Warwick s the very woman of
course I remember I used to think so before she was free to wed«
»She is not of that opinion« Redworth blew a heavy breath and it should be
chronicled as a sigh but it was hugely masculine
»Because you didnt attack the moment she was free thats what upset my
calculations« the sagacious gentleman continued for a vindication of his
acuteness then seizing the reply »Refuses You dont mean to say you re the
man to take a refusal and from a green widow in the blush Did you see her
cheeks when she was peeping at the letter in her hand She colours at half a
word takes the lift of a finger for Hymen coming And lots of fellows are
after her I know it from Emmy But you re not the man to be refused You re
her friend her champion That woman FryarGunnett would have it you were the
favoured lover and sneered at my talk of old friendship Women are always down
dead on the facts cant put them off a scent«
»There s the mischief« Redworth blew again »I had no right to be
championing Mrs Warwicks name Or the world wont give it at all events I m
a blundering donkey Yes she wishes to keep her liberty And upon my soul I
m in love with everything she wishes I ve got the habit«
»Habit be hanged« cried Sir Lukin »You re in love with the woman I know
a little more of you now Mr Tom You re a fellow in earnest about what you
do You re feeling it now on the rack by heaven though you keep a bold face
Did she speak positively sort of feminine of you re the monster not the
man or measured little doctors dose of pity worse sign You re not going«
»If you ll drive me down in half an hour« said Redworth
»Give me an hour« Sir Lukin replied and went straight to his wifes
blueroom
Diana was roused from a meditation on a letter she held by the entrance of
Emma in her bedchamber to whom she said »I have here the very craziest bit of
writing but what is disturbing you dear«
Emma sat beside her panting and composing her lips to speak »Do you love
me I throw policy to the winds if only I can batter at you for your heart and
find it Tony do you love me But dont answer give me your hand You have
rejected him«
»He has told you«
»No He is not the man to cry out for a wound He heard in London Lukin
has had the courage to tell me after his fashion Tom Redworth heard an old
story coming from one of the baser kind of women grossly false he knew I
mention only Lord Wroxeter and Lockton He went to man and woman both and had
it refuted and stopped their tongues on peril as he of all men is able to do
when he wills it«
Observing the quick change in Tonys eyes Emma exclaimed »How you looked
disdain when you asked whether he had told me But why are you the handsome
tigress to him of all men living The dear fellow dear to me at least since
the day he first saw you has worshipped you and striven to serve you and
harder than any Scriptural service to have the beloved woman to wife I know
nothing to compare with it for he is a man of warmth He is one of those rare
men of honour who can command their passion who venerate when they love and
those are the men that women select for punishment Yes you It is to the woman
he loves that he cannot show himself as he is because he is at her feet You
have managed to stamp your spirit on him and as a consequence he defends you
now for flinging him off And now his chief regret is that he has caused his
name to be coupled with yours I suppose he had some poor hope seeing you free
Or else the impulse to protect the woman of his heart and soul was too strong I
have seen what he suffered years back at the news of your engagement«
»Oh for Gods sake dont« cried Tony tears running over and her dream
of freedom her visions of romance drowning
»It was like the snapping of the branch of an oak when the trunk stands
firm« Emma resumed in her desire to scourge as well as to soften »But similes
applied to him will strike you as incongruous« Tony swayed her body for a
negative very girlishly and consciously »He probably did not woo you in a
poetic style or the courtly by prescription« Again Tony swayed she had to hug
herself under the stripes and felt as if alone at sea with her dear heavens
pelting »You have sneered at him for his calculating to his face and it was
when he was comparatively poor that he calculated to his cost that he dared
not ask you to marry a man who could not offer you a tithe of what he considered
fit for the peerless woman Peerless I admit There he was not wrong But if he
had valued you half a grain less he might have won you You talk much of
chivalry you conceive a superhuman ideal to which you fit a very indifferent
wooden model while the man of all the world the most chivalrous He is a
man quite other from what you think him anything but a Cuthbert Dering or a Man
of Two Minds He was in the drawingroom below on the day I received your last
maiden letter from The Crossways now his property in the hope of making it
yours«
»I behaved abominably there« interposed Tony with a gasp
»Let it pass At any rate that was the prick of a needle not the blow of a
sword«
»But marriage dear Emmy marriage Is marriage to be the end of me«
»What amazing apotheosis have you in prospect And are you steering so
particularly well by yourself«
»Miserably But I can dream And the thought of a husband cuts me from any
dreaming Its all dead flat earth at once«
»Would you have rejected him when you were a girl«
»I think so«
»The superior merits of another «
»Oh no no no no I might have accepted him and I might not have made
him happy I wanted a hero and the jewelled garb and the feather did not suit
him«
»No he is not that description of layfigure You have dressed it and
gemmed it and made your discovery Here is a true man and if you can find me
any of your heroes to match him I will thank you He came on the day I speak
of to consult me as to whether with the income he then had Well I had to
tell him you were engaged The man has never wavered in his love of you since
that day He has had to bear something«
This was an electrical bolt into Tonys bosom shaking her from selfpity
and shame to remorseful pity of the suffering lover and the tears ran in
streams as she said »He bore it Emmy he bore it« She sobbed out »And he
went on building a fortune and batting Whatever he undertakes he does perfectly
approve of the pattern or not Oh I have no doubt he had his nest of wishes
piping to him all the while only it seems quaint dear quaint and against
everything we ve been reading of lovers Love was his bread and butter« Her
dark eyes showered »And to tell you what you do not know of him his way of
making love is really« she sobbed »pretty It it took me by surprise I
was expecting a bellow and an assault of horns and if dear you will say
what boardingschool girl have you got with you and I feel myself getting
childish if Sol in his glory had not been so m majestically m
magnificent nor seemed to show me the king kingdom of my dreams I might
have stammered the opposite word to the one he heard Last night when he took
my hand kindly before going to bed I had a fit for dropping on my knees to him
I saw him bleed and he held himself right royally I told you he did Sol in
his moral grandeur How infinitely above the physical monarch is he not Emmy
What one dislikes is the devotion of all that grandeur to win a widow It
should be a maiden princess You feel it so I am sure And here am I as if a
maiden princess were I demanding romantic accessories of rubious vapour in the
man condescending to implore the widow to wed him But tell me does he know
everything of his widow everything I shall not have to go through the
frightful chapter«
»He is a man with his eyes awake he knows as much as any husband could
require to know« said Emma adding »My darling he trusts you It is the soul
of the man that loves you as it is mine You will not tease him Promise me
Give yourself frankly You see it clearly before you«
»I see compulsion my dear What I see is a regiment of Proverbs bearing
placards instead of guns and each one a taunt at women especially at widows
They march they form square they enclose me in the middle and I have their
inscriptions to digest Read that crazy letter from Mary Paynham while I am
putting on my bonnet I perceive I have been crying like a raw creature in her
teens I dont know myself An advantage of the darker complexions is our
speedier concealment of the traces«
Emma read Miss Paynhams letter and returned it with the comment »Utterly
crazy« Tony said »Is it not I am to Pause before I trifle with a noble heart
too long She is to have her happiness in the constant prayer for ours and she
is warned by one of those intimations never failing her that he runs a serious
danger It reads like a Wizards Almanack And here Homogeneity of sentiment
the most perfect is unable to contend with the fatal charm which exercised by
an indifferent person must be ascribed to original predestination She should
be under the wing of Lady Wathin There is the mother for such chicks But I ll
own to you Emmy that after the perusal I did ask myself a question as to my
likeness of late to the writer I have drivelled I was shuddering over it
when you came in I have sentimentalized up to thin smoke And she tells a truth
when she says I am not to count social cleverness she means volubility as a
warrant for domineering a capacious intelligence because of the gentlemans
modesty Agreed I have done it I am contrite I am going into slavery to make
amends for presumption Banality thy name is marriage«
»Your business is to accept life as we have it« said Emma and Tony
shrugged She was precipitate in going forth to her commonplace fate and
scarcely looked at the man requested by Emma to escort her to her cottage After
their departure Emma fell into laughter at the last words with the kiss of her
cheeks »Here goes old Ireland« But from her look and from what she had said
upstairs Emma could believe that the singular sprite of girlishness invading
and governing her latterly had yielded place to the woman she loved
Chapter XLIII
Nuptial Chapter and of How a Barely Willing Woman Was Led to Bloom with the
Nuptial Sentiment
Emma watched them on their way through the park till they rounded the
beechwood talking it could be surmised of ordinary matters the face of the
gentleman turning at times to his companions which steadily fronted the gale
She left the ensuing to a prayer for their good direction with a chuckle at
Tonys evident feeling of a ludicrous posture and the desperate rush of her
agile limbs to have it over But her prayer throbbed almost to a supplication
that the wrong done to her beloved by Dacier the wound to her own sisterly
pride rankling as an injury to her sex might be cancelled through the union of
the woman noble in the sight of God with a more manlike man
Meanwhile the feet of the couple were going faster than their heads to the
end of the journey Diana knew she would have to hoist the signal and how The
prospect was dumbfoundering She had to think of appeasing her Emma Redworth
for his part actually supposed she had accepted his escorting in proof of the
plain friendship offered him overnight
»What do your birds do in weather like this« she said
»Cling to their perches and wait patiently It s the bad time with them
when you dont hear them chirp«
»Of course you foretold the gale«
»Oh well it did not require a shepherd or a skipper for that«
»Your grand gift will be useful to a yachtsman«
»You like yachting When I have tried my new schooner in the Channel she is
at your command for as long as you and Lady Dunstane please«
»So you acknowledge that birds things of nature have their bad time«
»They profit ultimately by the deluge and the wreck Nothing on earth is
tuckedup in perpetuity«
»Except the dead But why should the schooner be at our command«
»I shall be in Ireland«
He could not have said sweeter to her ears or more touching
»We shall hardly feel safe without the weatherwise on board«
»You may count on my man Barnes I have proved him He is up to his work
even when he s bilious only in that case occurring about once a fortnight
you must leave him to fight it out with the elements«
»I rather like men of action to have a temper«
»I cant say much for a bilious temper«
The weather today really seemed of that kind she remarked He assented in
the shrug manner not to dissent she might say what she would He helped
nowhere to a lead and so quick are the changes of mood at such moments that she
was now far from him under the failure of an effort to come near But thoughts
of Emma pressed
»The name of the new schooner Her name is her picture to me«
»I wanted you to christen her«
»Launched without a name«
»I took a liberty«
Needless to ask but she did »With whom«
»I named her Diana«
»May the Goddess of the silver bow and crescent protect her To me the name
is ominous of mischance«
»I would commit my fortunes and life « He checked his tongue
ejaculating »Omens«
She had veered straight away from her romantic aspirations to the blunt
extreme of thinking that a widow should be wooed in unornamented matteroffact
as she is wedded with a wilt thou and I will and no decorative illusions
Downright for the unpoetic creature if you please So she rejected the
accompaniment of the silver Goddess and high seas for an introduction of the
crisis
»This would be a thunderer on our coasts I had a trial of my sailing powers
in the Mediterranean«
As she said it her musings on him then with the contrast of her position
toward him now fierily brushed her cheeks and she wished him the man to make
one snatch at her poor lost small butterfly bit of freedom so that she might
suddenly feel in haven at peace with her expectant Emma He could have seen the
inviting consciousness but he was absurdly watchful lest the flying sprays of
border trees should strike her He mentioned his fear and it became an excuse
for her seeking protection of her veil »It is our natural guardian« she said
»Not much against timber« said he
The worthy creatures anxiety was of the pattern of cavaliers escorting
dames an exaggeration of honest zeal a present example of clownish goodness
it might seem until entering the larch and firwood along the beaten heights
there was a rocking and straining of the shallowrooted trees in a tremendous
gust that quite pardoned him for curving his arm in a hoop about her and holding
a shoulder in front The veil did her positive service
He was honourably scrupulous not to presume A right good unimpulsive
gentleman the same that she had always taken him for and liked
»These firs are not taproots« he observed by way of apology
Her dress volumed and her ribands rattled and chirruped on the verge of the
slope »I will take your arm here« she said
Redworth received the little hand saying »Lean to me«
They descended upon great surges of wind piping and driving every light
surfaceatom as foam and they blinked and shook even the man was shaken But
their arms were interlinked and they grappled the battering enemy made them
one It might mean nothing or everything to him it meant the sheer blissful
instant
At the foot of the hill he said »It s harder to keep to the terms of
yesterday«
»What were they« said she and took his breath more than the fury of the
storm had done
»Raise the veil I beg«
»Widows do not wear it«
The look revealed to him was a fugitive of the wilds no longer the
glittering shooter of arrows
»Have you « changed to me was the signification understood »Can you
for life Do you think you can«
His poverty in the pleading language melted her »What I cannot do my best
of friends is to submit to be seated on a throne with you petitioning Yes as
far as concerns this hand of mine if you hold it worthy of you We will speak
of that Now tell me the name of the weed trailing along the hedge there«
He knew it well a common hedgerow weed but the placid diversion baffled
him It was clematis he said
»It drags in the dust when it has no firm arm to cling to I passed it
beside you yesterday with a flaunting mind and not a suspicion of a likeness
How foolish I was I could volubly sermonize only it should be a young maid to
listen Forgive me the yesterday«
»You have never to ask You withdraw your hand was I rough«
»No« she smiled demurely »it must get used to the shackles but my cottage
is in sight I have a growing love for the place We will enter it like plain
people if you think of coming in«
As she said it she had a slight shock of cowering under eyes tolerably
hawkish in their male glitter but her coolness was not disturbed and without
any apprehensions she reflected on what has been written of the silly division
and war of the sexes which two might surely enter on an engagement to live
together amiably unvexed by that barbarous old fowl and falcon interlude Cool
herself she imagined the same of him having good grounds for the delusion so
they passed through the cottagegarden and beneath the low porchway into her
little sittingroom where she was proceeding to speak composedly of her
preference for cottages while untying her bonnetstrings »If I had begun my
life in a cottage« when really a big stormwave caught her from shore and
whirled her to midsea out of every sensibility but the swimming one of her
loss of self in the man
»You would not have been here« was all he said She was up at his heart
fastlocked undergoing a change greater than the sea works her thoughts one
blush her brain a firefount This was not like being seated on a throne
»There« said he loosening his hug »now you belong to me I know you from
head to foot After that my darling I could leave you for years and call you
wife and be sure of you I could swear it for you my life on it That s what
I think of you Dont wonder that I took my chance the first I have
waited«
Truer word was never uttered she owned coming into some harmony with mans
kiss on her mouth the man violently metamorphozed to a stranger acting on
rights she had given him And who was she to dream of denying them Not an idea
in her head Bound verily to be thankful for such love on hearing that it dated
from the night in Ireland »So in love with you that on my soul your
happiness was my marrow whatever you wished anything you chose It s
reckoned a fools part No its love the love of a woman the one woman I
was like the hand of a clock to the springs I taught this old watchdog of a
heart to keep guard and bury the bones you tossed him«
»Ignorantly admit« said she and could have bitten her tongue for the
empty words that provoked »Would you have flung him nothing« and caused a
lowering of her eyelids and shamed glimpses of recollections »I hear you have
again been defending me I told you I think I wished I had begun my girls
life in a cottage All that I have had to endure or so it seems to me it
may be my way of excusing myself I know my cunning in that peculiar art I
would take my chance of mixing among the highest and the brightest«
»Naturally«
»Culpably«
»It brings you to me«
»Through a muddy channel«
»Your husband has full faith in you my own«
»The faith has to be summoned and is buffeted as we were just now on the
hill I wish he had taken me from a cottage«
»You pushed for the best society like a fish to its native sea«
»Pray say a salmon to the riverheads«
»Better« Redworth laughed joyfully between admiration of the tongue that
always outflew him and of the face he reddened
By degrees her apter and neater terms of speech helped her to a notion of
regaining some steps of her sunken ascendancy under the weight of the novel
masculine pressure on her throbbing blood and when he bent to her to take her
lords farewell of her after agreeing to go and delight Emma with a message
her submission and her personal pride were not so much at variance perhaps
because her buzzing head had no ideas »Tell Emma you have undertaken to wash
the blackamoor as white as she can be« she said perversely in her spite at
herself for not coming as it were out of the dawn to the man she could consent
to wed and he replied »I shall tell her my dark girl pleads for a fortnights
grace before she and I set sail for the West coast of Ireland« conjuring a
picture that checked any protest against the shortness of time and Emma would
surely be his ally
They talked of the Dublin Ball painfully to some of her thoughts But
Redworth kissed that distant brilliant night as freshly as if no belabouring
years rolled in the chasm which led her to conceive partly and wonderingly
the nature of a strong mans passion and it subjugated the woman knowing of a
contrast The smart of the blow dealt her by him who had fired the passion in
her became a burning regret for the loss of that fair fame she had sacrificed to
him and could not bring to her truer lover though it was but the outer view of
herself the worlds view only she was generous and of honest conscience and
but for the sake of the truer lover she would mentally have allowed the world
to lash and abuse her without a plea of material purity Could it be named The
naming of it in her clear mind lessened it to accidental By good fortune she
was no worse She said to Redworth when finally dismissing him »I bring no
real disgrace to you my friend« To have had this sharp spiritual battle at
such a time was proof of honest conscience rarer among women as the world has
fashioned them yet than the purity demanded of them His answer »You are my
wife« rang in her hearing
When she sat alone at last she was incapable despite her natures
imaginative leap to brightness of choosing any single period auspicious or
luminous or flattering since the hour of her first meeting this man rather
than the grey light he cast on her promising helpfulness and inspiring a
belief in her capacity to help Not the Salvatore high raptures nor the nights
of social applause could appear preferable she strained her shattered wits to
try them As for her superlunary sphere it was in fragments and she mused on
the singularity considering that she was not deeply enamoured Was she so at
all The question drove her to embrace the dignity of being reasonable under
Emmas guidance For she did not stand firmly alone her story confessed it
Marriage might be the archway to the road of good service even as our passage
through the flesh may lead to the better state She had thoughts of the kind
and had them while encouraging herself to deplore the adieu to her little
muskscented sittingroom where a modest freedom breathed and her
individuality had seemed pointing to a straighter growth
She nodded subsequently to the truth of her happy Emmas remark »You were
created for the world Tony« A woman of blood and imagination in the warring
world without a mate whom she can revere subscribes to a likeness with those
independent minor realms between greedy mighty neighbours which conspire and
undermine when they do not openly threaten to devour So then this union the
return to the wedding yoke received sanction of greytoned reason She was not
enamoured she could say it to herself She had however been surprised both
by the man and her unprotesting submission surprised and warmed unaccountably
warmed Clearness of mind in the woman chaste by nature however little ignorant
it allowed her to be in the general review of herself could not compass the
immediately personal with its acknowledgement of her subserviency to touch and
pressure and more stranger her readiness to kindle She left it unexplained
Unconsciously the image of Dacier was effaced Looking backward her heart was
moved to her longconstant lover with most pitying tender wonderment stormy
man as her threatened senses told her that he was Looking at him she had to
mask her being abashed and mastered And looking forward her soul fell in
prayer for this true mans never repenting of his choice Sure of her now Mr
Thomas Redworth had returned to the station of the courtier and her feminine
sovereignty was not ruffled to make her feel too feminine Another revelation
was his playful talk when they were more closely intimate He had his humour as
well as his hearty relish of hers
»If all Englishmen were like him« she chimed with Emma Dunstanes eulogies
under the influence
»My dear« the latter replied »we should simply march over the Four
Quarters and be blessed by the nations Only avoid your trick of dashing
headlong to the other extreme He has his faults«
»Tell me of them« Diana cooed for an answer »Do I want the flavour A
girl would be satisfied with superhuman excellence A widow asks for feature«
»To my thinking the case is that if it is a widow who sees the superhuman
excellence in a man she may be very well contented to cross the bridge with
him« rejoined Emma
»Suppose the bridge to break and for her to fall into the water he
rescuing her then perhaps«
»But it has been happening«
»But piecemeal in extension so slowly I go to him a derelict bearing a
story of the sea empty of ideas I remember sailing out of harbour passably
well freighted for commerce«
»When Tom Redworth has had command of the derelict a week I should like to
see her«
The mention of that positive captaincy drowned Diana in morning colours She
was dominated physically and morally submissively too What she craved in the
absence of the public whiteness which could have caused her to rejoice in
herself as a noble gift was the spring of enthusiasm Emma touched a quivering
chord of pride with her hint at the good augury and foreshadowing of the larger
Union in the Irishwomans bestowal of her hand on the openminded Englishman
she had learned to trust The aureole glimmered transiently she could neither
think highly of the woman about to be wedded nor poetically of the man nor
therefore rosily of the ceremony nor other than vacuously of life And yet as
she avowed to Emma she had gathered the three rarest good things of life a
faithful friend a faithful lover a faithful servant the two latter exposing
an unimagined quality of emotion Danvers on the night of the great day for
Redworth had undressed her with trembling fingers and her mistress was led to
the knowledge that the maid had always been all eye and on reflection to admit
that it came of a sympathy she did not share
But when Celtic brains are reflective on their emotional vessel they shoot
direct as the arrow of logic Dianas glance at the years behind lighted every
moving figure to a shrewd transparency herself among them She was driven to
the conclusion that the granting of any of her hearts wild wishes in those days
would have lowered her or frozen Dacier was a coldly luminous image still a
tolling name no longer conceivably her mate Recollection rocked not she The
politician and citizen was admired she read the man more to her own
discredit than to his but she read him and if that is done by the one of two
lovers who was true to love it is the God of the passion pronouncing a final
release from the shadow of his chains
Three days antecedent to her marriage she went down the hill over her
cottage chimneys with Redworth after hearing him praise and cite to Emma
Dunstane sentences of a mornings report of a speech delivered by Dacier to his
constituents She alluded to it that she might air her power of speaking of the
man coolly to him or else for the sake of stirring afresh some sentiment he had
roused and he repeated his high opinion of the orators political wisdom
whereby was revived in her memory a certain reprehensible view belonging to her
period of mockgirlish naughtiness too vile as to his paternal benevolence
now to clear vision the loftiest manliness What did she do She was Irish
therefore intuitively decorous in amatory challenges and interchanges But she
was an impulsive woman and foliage was thick around only a few small birds and
heaven seeing and penitence and admiration sprang the impulse It had to be
this or a burst of weeping she put a kiss upon his arm
She had omitted to think that she was dealing with a lover a man of
smothered fire who would be electrically alive to the act through a
coatsleeve Redworth had his impulse He kept it under she felt the big
breath he drew in Imagination began busily building a nest for him and
enthusiasm was not sluggish to make a home of it The impulse of each had
wedded in expression and repression her sensibility told her of the stronger
She rose on the morning of her marriage day with his favourite Planxty Kelly
at her lips a natural bubble of the notes Emma drove down to the cottage to
breakfast and superintend her brides adornment as to which Diana had spoken
slightingly as well as of the ceremony and the institution and this life
itself she would be married out of her cottage a widow a cottager a woman
under a cloud yes a sober person taking at last a right practical step to
please her two best friends The change was marked She wished to hide it
wished to confide it Emma was asked »How is he this morning« and at the
answer describing his fresh and spirited looks and his kind ways with Arthur
Rhodes and his fun with Sullivan Smith and the satisfaction with the
bridegroom declared by Lord Larrian invalided from his Rock and unexpectingly
informed of the wedding Diana forgot that she had kissed her and this time
pressed her lips in a manner to convey the secret bridally
»He has a lovely day«
»And bride« said Emma
»If you two think so I should like to agree with my dear old lord and bless
him for the prize he takes though it feels itself at present rather like a
Christmas bonbon a piece of sugar in the wrap of a rhymed motto He is kind
to Arthur you say«
»Like a cordial elder brother«
»Dear love I have it at heart that I was harsh upon Mary Paynham for her
letter She meant well and I fear she suffers And it may have been a bit my
fault Blind that I was When you say cordial elder brother you make him appear
beautiful to me The worst of that is one becomes aware of the inability to
match him«
»Read with his eyes when you meet him this morning my Tony«
The secret was being clearly perceived by Emma whose pride in assisting to
dress the beautiful creature for her marriage with the man of men had a tinge
from the hymenæal brand exulting over Dacier and in the compensation coming to
her beloved for her first luckless footing on this road
»How does he go down to the church« said Diana
»He walks down Lukin and his Chief drive He walks with your Arthur and
Mr Sullivan Smith He is on his way now«
Diana looked through the window in the direction of the hill »That is so
like him to walk to his wedding«
Emma took the place of Danvers in the office of the robing for the maid as
her mistress managed to hint was too steeped in the colour of the occasion to
be exactly tasteful and had the art no doubt through sympathy of charging
permissible common words with explosive meanings she was in an amorous
palpitation of the reflected state After several knockings and enterings of
the bedchamberdoor she came hurriedly to say »And your pillow maam I had
almost forgotten it« A question that caused her mistress to drop the gaze of a
moan on Emma with patience trembling Diana preferred a hard pillow and
usually carried her own about »Take it« she had to reply
The friends embraced before descending to step into the fateful carriage
»And tell me« Emma said »are not your views of life brighter today«
»Too dazzled to know It may be a lamp close to the eyes or a radiance of
sun I hope they are«
»You are beginning to think hopefully again«
»Who can really think and not think hopefully You were in my mind last
night and you brought a little boat to sail me past despondency of life and the
fear of extinction When we despair or discolour things it is our senses in
revolt and they have made the sovereign brain their drudge I heard you
whisper with your very breath in my ear There is nothing the body suffers that
the soul may not profit by That is Emmas history With that I sail into the
dark it is my promise of the immortal teaches me to see immortality for us It
comes from you my Emmy«
If not a great saying it was in the heart of deep thoughts proof to Emma
that her Tonys mind had resumed its old clear highaiming activity therefore
that her nature was working sanely and that she accepted her happiness and
bore love for a dower to her husband No blushing confession of the womans love
of the man would have told her so much as the return to mental harmony with the
laws of life shown in her darlings pellucid little sentence
She revolved it long after the day of the wedding To Emma constantly on
the dark decline of the unillumined verge between the two worlds those words
were a radiance and a nourishment Had they waned she would have trimmed them to
feed her during her soulsisters absence They shone to her of their vitality
She was lying along her sofa facing her Southwestern window one afternoon of
late November expecting Tony from her lengthened honeymoon trip while a sunset
in the van of frost not without celestial musical reminders of Tonys husband
began to deepen and as her friend was coming she mused on the scenes of her
friends departure and how Tony issuing from her cottage porch had betrayed
her feelings in the language of her sex by stooping to lift above her head and
kiss the smallest of her landladys children ranged up the gardenpath to bid
her farewell over their strewing of flowers and of her murmur to Tony
entering the churchyard among the gravemounds »Old Ireland wont repent it«
and Tonys rejoinder at the sight of the bridegroom advancing beaming »A
singular transformation of Old England« and how having numberless ready
sources of laughter and tears down the run of their heartinheart intimacy all
spouting up for a word in the happy tremour of the moment they had both bitten
their lips and blinked on a moisture of the eyelids Now the dear woman was
really wedded wedded and mated Her letters breathed in their own lively or
thoughtful flow of the perfect mating Emma gazed into the depths of the waves
of crimson where brilliancy of colour came out of central heaven
preternaturally near on earth till one shade less brilliant seemed an ebbing
away to boundless remoteness Angelical and mortal mixed making the glory
overhead a sign of the close union of our human conditions with the ethereal and
psychically divined Thence it grew that one thought in her breast became a
desire for such extension of days as would give her the blessedness to clasp in
her lap if those kind heavens would grant it a child of the marriage of the
two noblest of human souls one the dearest and so have proof at heart that her
country and our earth are fruitful in the good for a glowing future She was
deeply a woman dumbly a poet True poets and true women have the native sense
of the divineness of what the world deems gross material substance Emmas
exaltation in fervour had not subsided when she held her beloved in her arms
under the dusk of the withdrawing redness They sat embraced with hands locked
in the unlighted room and Tony spoke of the splendid sky »You watched it
knowing I was on my way to you«
»Praying dear«
»For me«
»That I might live long enough to be a godmother«
There was no reply there was an involuntary little twitch of Tonys
fingers