The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 53

Lord Philip Darcy, a brilliant but quite subordinate member of the former Liberal Government, had made but occasional appearances in Parliament during the five years' rule of the Tories. He was a traveller and explorer, and when in England a pa.s.sionate votary of the Turf. An incisive tongue, never more amusing than when it was engaged in railing at the English workman and democracy in general, a handsome person, and a strong leaning to Ritualism--these qualities and distinctions had not for some time done much to advance his Parliamentary position. But during the preceding session he had been more regular in his attendance at the House, and had made a considerable impression there--as a man of eccentric, but possibly great ability. On the whole, he had been a loyal supporter of Ferrier's; but in two or three recent speeches there had been signs of coquetting with the extremists.

Ferrier, having mentioned the letter, relapsed into silence. Sir James, with a little contemptuous laugh, inquired what the nature of the letter might be.

"Oh, well, he wants certain pledges." Ferrier drew the letter from his pocket, and handed it to his friend. Sir James perused it, and handed it back with a sarcastic lip.

"He imagines you are going to accept that programme?"

"I don't know. But it is clear that the letter implies a threat if I don't."

"A threat of desertion? Let him."

"That letter wasn't written off his own bat. There is a good deal behind it. The plot, in fact, is thickening. From the letters of this morning I see that a regular press campaign is beginning."

He mentioned two party papers which had already gone over to the dissidents--one of some importance, the other of none.

"All right," said Chide; "so long as the _Herald_ and the _Flag_ do their duty. By-the-way, hasn't the _Herald_ got a new editor?"

"Yes; a man called Barrington--a friend of Oliver's."

"Ah!--a good deal sounder on many points than Oliver!" grumbled Sir James.

Ferrier did not reply.

Chide noticed the invariable way in which Marsham's name dropped between them whenever it was introduced in this connection.

As they neared the gate of the town they parted, Chide returning to the hotel, while Ferrier, the most indefatigable of sight-seers, hurried off toward San Pietro.

He spent a quiet hour on the Peruginos, deciding, however, with himself in the end that they gave him but a moderate pleasure; and then came out again into the glow of an incomparable evening. Something in the light and splendor of the scene, as he lingered on the high terrace, hanging over the plain, looking down as though from the battlements, the _flagrantia moenia_ of some celestial city, challenged the whole life and virility of the man.

"Yet what ails me?" he thought to himself, curiously, and quite without anxiety. "It is as though I were listening--for the approach of some person or event--as though a door were open--or about to open--"

What more natural?--in this pause before the fight? And yet politics seemed to have little to do with it. The expectancy seemed to lie deeper, in a region of the soul to which none were or ever had been admitted, except some friends of his Oxford youth--long since dead.

And, suddenly, the contest which lay before him appeared to him under a new aspect, bathed in a broad philosophic air; a light serene and transforming, like the light of the Umbrian evening. Was it not possibly true that he had no future place as the leader of English Liberalism?

Forces were welling up in its midst, forces of violent and revolutionary change, with which it might well be he had no power to cope. He saw himself, in a waking dream, as one of the last defenders of a lost position. The day of Utopias was dawning; and what has the critical mind to do with Utopias? Yet if men desire to attempt them, who shall stay them?

Barton, McEwart, Lankester--with their boundless faith in the power of a few sessions and measures to remake this old, old England--with their impatiences, their readiness at any moment to fling some wild arrow from the string, amid the crowded long-descended growths of English life: he felt a strong intellectual contempt both for their optimisms and audacities--mingled, perhaps; with a certain envy.

Sadness and despondency returned. His hand sought in his pocket for the little volume of Leopardi which he had taken out with him. On that king of pessimists, that prince of all despairs, he had just spent half an hour among the olives. Could renunciation of life and contempt of the human destiny go further?

Well, Leopardi's case was not his. It was true, what he had said to Chide. With all drawbacks, he had enjoyed his life, had found it abundantly worth living.

And, after all, was not Leopardi himself a witness to the life he rejected, to the Nature he denounced. Ferrier recalled his cry to his brother: "Love me, Carlo, for G.o.d's sake! I need love, love, love!--fire, enthusiasm, life."

"_Fire, enthusiasm, life_." Does the human lot contain these things, or no? If it does, have the G.o.ds mocked us, after all?

Pondering these great words, Ferrier strolled homeward, while the outpouring of the evening splendor died from Perusia Augusta, and the mountains sank deeper into the gold and purple of the twilight.

As for love, he had missed it long ago. But existence was still rich, still full of savor, so long as a man's will held his grip on men and circ.u.mstance.

All action, he thought, is the climbing of a precipice, upheld above infinity by one slender sustaining rope. Call it what we like--will, faith, ambition, the wish to live--in the end it fails us all. And in that moment, when we begin to imagine how and when it may fail us, we hear, across the sea of time, the first phantom tolling of the funeral bell.

There were times now when he seemed to feel the cold approaching breath of such a moment. But they were still invariably succeeded by a pa.s.sionate recoil of life and energy. By the time he reached the hotel he was once more plunged in all the preoccupations, the schemes, the pugnacities of the party leader.

A month later, on an evening toward the end of June, Dr. Roughsedge, lying reading in the shade of his little garden, saw his wife approaching. He raised himself with alacrity.

"You've seen her?"

"Yes."

With this monosyllabic answer Mrs. Roughsedge seated herself, and slowly untied her bonnet-strings.

"My dear, you seem discomposed."

"I hate _men_!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, vehemently.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. "I apologize for my existence. But you might go so far as to explain."

Mrs. Roughsedge was silent.

"How is that child?" said the doctor, abruptly. "Come!--I am as fond of her as you are."

Mrs. Roughsedge raised her handkerchief.

"That any man with a heart--" she began, in a stifled voice.

"Why you should speculate on anything so abnormal!" cried the doctor, impatiently. "I suppose your remark applies to Oliver Marsham. Is she breaking her own heart?--that's all that signifies."

"She is extremely well and cheerful."

"Well, then, what's the matter?"

Mrs. Roughsedge looked out of the window, twisting her handkerchief.

"Nothing--only--everything seems done and finished."

"At twenty-two?" The doctor laughed, "And it's not quite four months yet since the poor thing discovered that her doll was stuffed with sawdust. Really, Patricia!"

Mrs. Roughsedge slowly shook her head.

"I suspect what it all means," said her husband, "is that she did not show as much interest as she ought in Hugh's performance."

"She was most kind, and asked me endless questions. She made me promise to bring her the press-cuttings and read her his letters. She could not possibly have shown more sympathy."

"H'm!--well, I give it up."

"Henry!"--his wife turned upon him--"I am convinced that poor child will never marry!"