The Testing of Diana Mallory - Mrs. Humphry Ward (novels to read for beginners txt) 📗

/> "Oh, there's an hour--time enough!"

Diana drew forward an arm-chair for Fanny, and settled herself into the corner of a sofa. Her dog jumped up beside her, and laid his nose on her lap.

Fanny held herself straight. Her color under the powder had heightened a little. The two girls confronted each other, and, vaguely, perhaps, each felt the strangeness of the situation. Fanny was twenty, Diana twenty-three. They were of an age when girls are generally under the guidance or authority of their elders; comparatively little accustomed, in the normal family, to discuss affairs or take independent decisions. Yet here they met, alone and untrammelled; as hostess and guest in the first place; as kinswomen, yet comparative strangers to each other, and conscious of a secret dislike, each for the other. On the one side, an exultant and partly cruel consciousness of power; on the other, feelings of repugnance and revolt, only held in check by the forces of a tender and scrupulous nature.

Fanny cleared her throat.

"Well, of course, Mrs. Colwood's told me all you've been saying to her. And I don't say I'm surprised."

Diana opened her large eyes.

"Surprised at what?"

"Surprised--well!--surprised you didn't see your way all at once, and that kind of thing. I know I'd want to ask a lot of questions--shouldn't I, just! Why, that's what I expected. But, you see, my time in England's getting on. I've nothing to say to my people, and they bother my life out every mail."

"What did you really come to England for?" said Diana, in a low voice. Her attitude, curled up among the cushions of the sofa, gave her an almost childish air. Fanny, on the other hand, resplendent in her scarlet dress and high coiffure, might have been years older than her cousin. And any stranger watching the face in which the hardness of an "old campaigner" already strove with youth, would have thought her, and not Diana, the mistress of the house.

At Diana's question, Fanny's eyes flickered a moment.

"Oh, well, I had lots of things in my mind. But it was the money that mattered most."

"I see," murmured Diana.

Fanny fidgeted a little with one of the three bead necklaces which adorned her. Then she broke out:

"Look here, Diana, you've never been poor in your life, so you don't know what it's like being awfully hard up. But ever since father died, mother's had a frightful lot of trouble--all of us to keep, and the boys' schooling to pay, and next to nothing to do it on. Father left everything in a dreadful muddle. He never had a bit of sense--"

Diana made a sudden movement. Fanny looked at her astonished, expecting her to speak. Diana, however, said nothing, and the girl resumed:

"I mean, in business. He'd got everything into a shocking state, and instead of six hundred a year for us--as we'd always been led on to expect--well, there wasn't three! Then, you know, Uncle Mallory used to send us money. Well" (she cleared her throat again and looked away from Diana), "about a year before he died he and father fell out about something--so _that_ didn't come in any more. Then we thought perhaps he'd remember us in his will. And that was another disappointment. So, you see, really mother didn't know where to turn."

"I suppose papa thought he had done all he could," said Diana, in a voice which tried to keep quite steady. "He never denied any claim he felt just. I feel I must say that, because you seem to blame papa. But, of course, I am very sorry for Aunt Bertha."

At the words "claim" and "just" there was a quick change of expression in Fanny's eyes. She broke out angrily: "Well, you really don't know about it, Diana, so it's no good talking. And I'm not going to rake up old things--"

"But if I don't know," said Diana, interrupting, "hadn't you better tell me? Why did papa and Uncle Merton disagree? And why did you think papa ought to have left you money?" She bent forward insistently. There was a dignity--perhaps also a touch of haughtiness--in her bearing which exasperated the girl beside her. The haughtiness was that of one who protects the dead. But Fanny's mind was not one that perceived the finer shades.

"Well, I'm not going to say!" said Fanny, with vehemence. "But I can tell you, mother _has_ a claim!--and Uncle Mallory _ought_ to have left us something!"

The instant the words were out she regretted them. Diana abandoned her childish attitude. She drew herself together, and sat upright on the edge of the sofa. The color had come flooding back hotly into her cheeks, and the slightly frowning look produced by the effort to see the face before her distinctly gave a peculiar intensity to the eyes.

"Fanny, please!--you must tell me why!"

The tone, resolute, yet appealing, put Fanny in an evident embarrassment.

"Well, I can't," she said, after a moment--"so it's no good asking me." Then suddenly, she hesitated--"or--at least--"

"At least what? Please go on."

Fanny wriggled again, then said, with a burst:

"Well, my mother was Aunt Sparling's younger sister--you know that--don't you?--"

"Of course."

"And our grandfather died a year before Aunt Sparling. She was mother's trustee. Oh, the money's all right--the trust money, I mean," said the girl, hastily. "But it was a lot of other things--that mother says grandpapa always meant to divide between her and Aunt Sparling--and she never had them--nor a farthing out of them!"

"What other things? I don't understand."

"Jewels!--there!--jewels--and a lot of plate. Mother says she had a right to half the things that belonged to her mother. Grandpapa always told her she should have them. And there wasn't a word about them in the will."

"_I_ haven't any diamonds," said Diana, quietly, "or any jewels at all, except a string of pearls papa gave me when I was nineteen, and two or three little things we bought in Florence."

Fanny Merton grew still redder; she stared aggressively at her cousin:

"Well--that was because--Aunt Sparling sold all the things!"

Diana started and recoiled.

"You mean," she said--her breath fluttering--"that--mamma sold things she had no right to--and never gave Aunt Bertha the money!"

The restrained passion of her look had an odd effect upon her companion. Fanny first wavered under it, then laughed--a laugh that was partly perplexity, partly something else, indecipherable.

"Well, as I wasn't born then, I don't know. You needn't be cross with me, Diana; I didn't mean to say any harm of anybody. But--mother says"--she laid an obstinate stress on each word--"that she remembers quite well--grandpapa meant her to have: a diamond necklace; a _riviere_" (she began to check the items off on her fingers)--"there were two, and of course Aunt Sparling had the best; two bracelets, one with turquoises and one with pearls; a diamond brooch; an opal pendant; a little watch set with diamonds grandma used to wear; and then a lot of plate! Mother wrote me out a list--I've got it here."

She opened a beaded bag on her wrist, took out half a sheet of paper, and handed it to Diana.

Diana looked at it in silence. Even her lips were white, and her fingers shook.

"Did you ever send this to papa?" she asked, after a minute.

Fanny fidgeted again.

"Yes."

"And what did he say? Have you got his letter?"

"No; I haven't got his letter."

"Did he admit that--that mamma had done this?"

Fanny hesitated: but her intelligence, which was of a simple kind, did not suggest to her an ingenious line of reply.

"Well, I dare say he didn't. But that doesn't make any difference."

"Was that what he and Uncle Merton quarrelled about?"

Fanny hesitated again; then broke out: "Father only did what he ought--he asked for what was owed mother!"

"And papa wouldn't give it!" cried Diana, in a strange note of scorn; "papa, who never could rest if he owed a farthing to anybody--who always overpaid everybody--whom everybody--"

She rose suddenly with a bitten lip. Her eyes blazed--and her cheeks. She walked to the window and stood looking out, in a whirlwind of feeling and memory, hiding her face as best she could from the girl who sat watching her with an expression half sulky, half insolent. Diana was thinking of moments--recalling forgotten fragments of dialogue--in the past, which showed her father's opinion of his Barbadoes brother-in-law: "A grasping, ill-bred fellow"--"neither gratitude, nor delicacy"--"has been the evil genius of his wife, and will be the ruin of his children." She did not believe a word of Fanny's story--not a word of it!

She turned impetuously. Then, as her eyes met Fanny's, a shock ran through her--the same sudden, inexplicable fear which had seized on Mrs. Colwood, only more sickening, more paralyzing. And it was a fear which ran back to and linked itself with the hour of heart-searching in the wood. What was Fanny thinking of?--what was in her mind--on her lips? Impulses she could not have defined, terrors to which she could give no name, crept over Diana's will and disabled it. She trembled from head to foot--and gave way.

She walked up to her cousin.

"Fanny, is there any letter--anything of grandpapa's--or of my mother's--that you could show me?"

"No! It was a promise, I tell you--there was no writing. But my mother could swear to it."

The girl faced her cousin without flinching. Diana sat down again, white and tremulous, the moment of energy, of resistance, gone. In a wavering voice she began to explain that she had, in fact, been inquiring into her affairs, that the money was not actually at her disposal, that to provide it would require an arrangement with her bankers, and the depositing of some securities; but that, before long, it should be available.

Fanny drew a long breath. She had not expected the surrender. Her eyes sparkled, and she began to stammer thanks.

"Don't!" said Diana, putting out a hand. "If I owe it you--and I take it on your word--the money shall be paid--that's all. Only--only, I wish you had not written to me like that; and I ask that--that--you will never, please, speak to me about it again!"

She had risen, and was standing, very tall and rigid, her hands pressing against each other.

Fanny's face clouded.

"Very well," she said, as she rose from her seat, "I'm sure I don't want to talk about it. I didn't like the job a bit--nor did mother. But if you are poor--and somebody owes you something--you can't help trying to get it--that's all!"

Diana said nothing. She went to the writing-table and began to arrange some letters. Fanny looked at her.

"I say, Diana!--perhaps you won't want me to stay here after--You seem to have taken against me."

Diana turned.

"No," she said, faintly. Then, with a little sob: "I thought of nothing but your coming."

Fanny flushed.

"Well, of course you've been very kind to me--and all that sort of thing. I wasn't saying you hadn't been. Except--Well, no, there's one thing I _do_ think you've been rather nasty about!"

The girl threw back her head defiantly.

Diana's pale face questioned her.

"I was talking to your maid yesterday," said Fanny, slowly, "and she says you're going to stay at some smart place next week, and you've been getting a new dress for it. And you've never said a _word_ to me about it--let alone