The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 12

Outwardly--perfunctorily--Sir James's aspect while she was speaking answered to hers. If she was pleased, he was pleased too. He congratulated her; he entered into her schemes for Miss Merton's amus.e.m.e.nt. Really, all the time, the man's aspect was singularly grave, he listened carefully to every word; he observed the speaker.

"The young lady's mother is your aunt?"

"She was my mother's sister."

"And they have been long in Barbadoes?"

"I think they migrated there just about the same time we went abroad--after my mother's death."

Sir James said little. He encouraged her to talk on; he listened to the phrases of memory or expectation which revealed her history--her solitary bringing-up--her reserved and scholarly father--the singular closeness, and yet as it seemed strangeness of her relation to him. It appeared, for instance, that it was only an accident, some years before, which had revealed to Diana the very existence of these cousins. Her father had never spoken of them spontaneously.

"I hope she will be everything that is charming and delightful," he said at last as he rose. "And remember--I am to come and see you!"

He stooped his gray head, and gently touched her hand with an old man's freedom.

Diana warmly renewed her invitation.

"There is a house near you that I often go to--Sir William Felton's. I am to be there in a few weeks. Perhaps I shall even be able to make acquaintance with Miss f.a.n.n.y!"

He walked away from her.

Diana could not see the instant change of countenance which accompanied the movement. Urbanity, gentleness, kind indulgence vanished. Sir James looked anxious and disturbed; and he seemed to be talking to himself.

The rest of the morning pa.s.sed heavily. Diana wrote some letters, and devoutly hoped the rain would stop. In the intervals of her letter-writing, or her study of the clouds, she tried to make friends with Miss Drake and Mrs. Fotheringham. But neither effort came to good.

Alicia, so expansive, so theatrical, so much the centre of the situation, when she chose, could be equally p.r.i.c.kly, monosyllabic, and repellent when it suited her to be so. Diana talked timidly of dress, of London, and the Season. They were the subjects on which it seemed most natural to approach Miss Drake; Diana's att.i.tude was inquiring and propitiatory. But Alicia could find none but careless or scanty replies till Madeleine Varley came up. Then Miss Drake's tongue was loosened. To her, as to an equal and intimate, she displayed her expert knowledge of shops and _modistes_, of "people" and their stories. Diana sat snubbed and silent, a little provincial outsider, for whom "seasons" are not made. Nor was it any better with Mrs. Fotheringham. At twelve o'clock that lady brought the London papers into the drawing-room. Further information had been received from the Afghan frontier. The English loss in the engagement already reported was greater than had been at first supposed; and Diana found the name of an officer she had known in India among the dead. As she pondered the telegram, the tears in her eyes, she heard Mrs. Fotheringham describe the news as "on the whole very satisfactory." The nation required the lesson. Whereupon Diana's tongue was loosed and would not be quieted. She dwelt hotly on the "sniping,"

the treacheries, the midnight murders which had preceded the expedition, Mrs. Fotheringham listened to her with flas.h.i.+ng looks, and suddenly she broke into a denunciation of war, the military spirit, and the ignorant and unscrupulous persons at home, especially women, who aid and abet politicians in violence and iniquity, the pa.s.sion of which soon struck Diana dumb. Here was no honorable fight of equal minds. She was being punished for her advocacy of the night before, by an older woman of tyrannical temper, toward whom she stood in the relation of guest to host. It was in vain to look round for defenders. The only man present was Mr. Barton, who sat listening with ill-concealed smiles to what was going on, without taking part in it.

Diana extricated herself with as much dignity as she could muster, but she was too young to take the matter philosophically. She went up-stairs burning with anger, the tears of hurt feeling in her eyes. It seemed to her that Mrs. Fotheringham's attack implied a personal dislike; Mr.

Marsham's sister had been glad to "take it out of her." To this young cherished creature it was almost her first experience of the kind.

On the way up-stairs she paused to look wistfully out of a staircase window. Still raining--alack! She thought with longing of the open fields, and the shooters. Was there to be no escape all day from the ugly oppressive house, and some of its inmates? Half shyly, yet with a quickening of the heart, she remembered Marsham's farewell to her of that morning, his look of the night before. Intellectually, she was comparatively mature; in other respects, as inexperienced and impressionable as any convent girl.

"I fear luncheon is impossible!" said Lady Lucy's voice.

Diana looked up and saw her descending the stairs.

"Such a pity! Oliver will be so disappointed."

She paused beside her guest--an attractive and distinguished figure. On her white hair she wore a lace cap which was tied very precisely under her delicate chin. Her dress, of black satin, was made in a full plain fas.h.i.+on of her own; she had long since ceased to allow her dressmaker any voice in it; and her still beautiful hands flashed with diamonds, not however in any vulgar profusion. Lady Lucy's mother had been of a Quaker family, and though Quakerism in her had been deeply alloyed with other metals, the moral and intellectual self-dependence of Quakerism, its fastidious reserves and discrimination were very strong in her.

Discrimination indeed was the note of her being. For every Christian, some Christian precepts are obsolete. For Lady Lucy that which runs--"Judge Not!"--had never been alive.

Her emphatic reference to Marsham had brought the ready color to Diana's cheeks.

"Yes--there seems no chance!--" she said, shyly, and regretfully, as the rain beat on the window.

"Oh, dear me, yes!" said a voice behind them. "The gla.s.s is going up.

It'll be a fine afternoon--and we'll go and meet them at Holme Copse.

Sha'n't we, Lady Lucy?"

Mr. Ferrier appeared, coming up from the library laden with papers. The three stood chatting together on the broad gallery which ran round the hall. The kindness of the two elders was so marked that Diana's spirits returned; she was not to be quite a pariah it seemed! As she walked away toward her room, Mr. Ferrier's eyes pursued her--the slim round figure, the young loveliness of her head and neck.

"Well!--what are you thinking about her?" he said, eagerly, turning to the mistress of the house.

Lady Lucy smiled.

"I should prefer it if she didn't talk politics," she said, with the slightest possible stiffness, "But she seems a very charming girl."

"She talks politics, my dear lady, because living alone with her father and with her books, she has had nothing else to talk about but politics and books. Would you rather she talked scandal--or Monte Carlo?"

The Quaker in Lady Lucy laughed.

"Of course if she married Oliver, she would subordinate her opinions to his."

"Would she!" said Mr. Ferrier--"I'm not so sure!"

Lady Lucy replied that if not, it would be calamitous. In which she spoke sincerely. For although now the ruler, and, if the truth were known, the somewhat despotic ruler of Tallyn, in her husband's lifetime she had known very well how to obey.

"I have asked various people about the Mallorys," she resumed. "But n.o.body seems to be able to tell me anything."

"I trace her to Sir Thomas of that ilk. Why not? It is a Welsh name!"

"I have no idea who her mother was," said Lady Lucy, musing. "Her father was very refined--_quite_ a gentleman."

"She bears, I think, very respectable witness to her mother," laughed Ferrier. "Good stock on both sides; she carries it in her face."

"That's all I ask," said Lady Lucy, quietly.

"But that you _do_ ask!" Her companion looked at her with an eye half affectionate, half ironic. "Most exclusive of women! I sometimes wish I might unveil your real opinions to the Radical fellows who come here."

Lady Lucy colored faintly.

"That has nothing to do with politics."

"Hasn't it? I can't imagine anything that has more to do with them."

"I was thinking of character--honorable tradition--not blood."

Ferrier shook his head.

"Won't do. Barton wouldn't pa.s.s you--'A man's a man for a' that'--and a woman too."

"Then I am a Tory!" said Lady Lucy, with a smile that shot pleasantly through her gray eyes.

"At last you confess it!" cried Ferrier, as he carried off his papers.

But his gayety soon departed. He stood awhile at the window in his room, looking out upon the sodden park--a rather gray and sombre figure. Over his ugly impressiveness a veil of weariness had dropped. Politics and the strife of parties, the devices of enemies and the dissatisfaction of friends--his soul was tired of them. And the emergence of this possible love-affair--for the moment, ardent and deep as were the man's affections and sympathies, toward this Marsham household, it did but increase his sense of moral fatigue. If the flutter in the blood--and the long companions.h.i.+p of equal love--if these were the only things of real value in life--how had _his_ been worth living?