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

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Marsham suddenly broke out:

"Sir James!--I know you thought there were excuses--almost justification--for what that poor creature did. I was a boy of fifteen at the time you made your famous speech, and I only know it by report. You spoke, of course, as an advocate--but I have heard it said--that you expressed your own personal belief. Wherever the case is discussed, there are still--as you know--two opinions--one more merciful than the other. If the line you took was not merely professional; if you personally believed your own case; can you give me some of the arguments--you were probably unable to state them all in court--that convinced you? Let me have something wherewith to meet my mother. She won't look at this altogether from the worldly point of view. She will have a standard of her own. Merely to belittle the thing, as long past and forgotten, won't help me. But if I _could_ awaken her pity!--if you could give me the wherewithal--"

Sir James turned away. He walked to the window and stood there a minute, his face invisible. When he returned, his pallor betrayed what his steady and dignified composure would otherwise have concealed.

"I can tell you what Mrs. Sparling told me--in prison--with the accents of a dying woman--what I believed then--what I believe now.--Moreover, I have some comparatively recent confirmation of this belief.--But this is too public!"--he looked round the library--"we might be disturbed. Come to my room to-night. I shall go up early, on the plea of letters. I always carry with me--certain documents. For her child's sake, I will show them to you."

At the last words the voice of the speaker, rich in every tender and tragic note, no less than in those of irony or invective, wavered for the first time. He stooped abruptly, took up the book he had been reading, and left the room.

Marsham, too, went up-stairs. As he passed along the main corridor to his room, lost in perplexity and foreboding, he heard the sound of a woman's dress, and, looking up, saw Alicia Drake coming toward him.

She started at sight of him, and under the bright electric light of the passage he saw her redden.

"Well, Oliver!--you stayed a good while."

"Not so very long. I have been home nearly an hour. I hope the horses went well!"

"Excellently. Do you know where Sir James is?"

It seemed to him the question was significantly asked. He gave it a cold answer.

"Not at this moment. He was in the smoking-room a little while ago."

He passed her abruptly. Alicia Drake pursued her way to the hall. She was carrying some letters to the post-box near the front door. When she arrived there she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other a moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds."

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.

When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on the whitened grass; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and passionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a moment, her hands clasped on her breast, recalling Marsham's words of love and comfort, resting on him, reaching out through him to the Power behind the world, which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, this joy in the soul!

And yet, her mood, her outlook--like Marsham's--was no longer what it had been on the hill-side. No ugly light of revelation had broken upon her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them--she hardly knew how or why--from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said--except to Muriel--till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face. The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver; rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear whatever there might be to bear.

She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the drawing-room--with intervals between the strummings--as though the player stopped to listen for something or some one. Diana shrank into herself. She ran up-stairs noiselessly to her sitting-room, and opened the door as quietly as possible.

"Muriel!"

The voice was almost a whisper. Mrs. Colwood did not hear it. She was bending over the fire, with her back to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. Mrs. Colwood started. She hastily rose, turning her face from Diana.

"Is that you? I thought you were still out."

Diana crossed the floor, and put her arm round the little gentle woman, whose breath was still shaken by the quiet sobs she was trying desperately to repress.

"Muriel, dear!--what is it?"

Mrs. Colwood found her voice, and her composure.

"Nothing! I was foolish--it doesn't matter."

Diana was sure she understood. She was suddenly ashamed to bring her own happiness into this desolate and widowed presence, and the kisses with which, mutely, she tried to comfort her friend, were almost a plea to be forgiven.

But Muriel drew herself away. She looked searchingly, with recovered self-command, into Diana's face.

"Has Mr. Marsham gone?"

"Yes," said Diana, looking at her.

Then the smile within broke out, flooding eyes and lips. Under the influence of it, Mrs. Colwood's small tear-stained face passed through a quick instinctive change. She, too, smiled as though she could not help it; then she bent forward and kissed Diana.

"Is it all right?"

The peculiar eagerness in the tone struck Diana. She returned the kiss, a little wistfully.

"Were you so anxious about me? Wasn't it--rather plain?"

Mrs. Colwood laughed.

"Sit down there, and tell me all about it."

She pushed Diana into a chair and sat down at her feet. Diana, with some difficulty, her hand over her eyes, told all that could be told of a moment the heart of which no true lover betrays. Muriel Colwood listened with her face against the girl's dress, sometimes pressing her lips to the hand beside her.

"Is he going to see Lady Lucy to-morrow?" she asked, when Diana paused.

"Yes. He goes up by the first train."

Both were silent awhile. Diana, in the midst of all the natural flutter of blood and pulse, was conscious of a strong yearning to tell her friend more--to say: "And he has brought me comfort and courage--as well as love! I shall dare now to look into the past--to take up my father's burden. If it hurts, Oliver will help me."

But she had been brought up in a school of reticence, and her loyalty to her father and mother sealed her lips. That anxiety, that burden, nobody must share with her but Oliver--and perhaps his mother; his mother, so soon to be hers.

Muriel Colwood, watching her face, could hardly restrain herself. But the moment for which her whole being was waiting in a tension scarcely to be borne had not yet come. She chastened and rebuked her own dread.

They talked a little of the future. Diana, in a blessed fatigue, threw herself back in her chair, and chattered softly, listening now and then for the sounds of the piano in the room below, and evidently relieved whenever, after a silence, fresh fragments from some comic opera of the day, much belied in the playing, penetrated to the upper floor. Meanwhile, neither of them spoke of Fanny Merton. Diana, with a laugh, repeated Marsham's proposal for a six weeks' engagement. That was absurd! But, after all, it could not be very long. She hoped Oliver would be content to keep Beechcote. They could, of course, always spend a good deal of time with Lady Lucy.

And in mentioning that name she showed not the smallest misgiving, not a trace of uneasiness, while every time it was uttered it pricked the shrinking sense of her companion. Mrs. Colwood had not watched and listened during her Tallyn visit for nothing.

At last a clock struck down-stairs, and a door opened. Diana sprang up.

"Time to dress! And I've left Fanny alone all this while!"

She hurried toward the door; then turned back.

"Please!--I'm not going to tell Fanny just yet. Neither Fanny nor any one--till Lady Lucy knows. What happened after we went away? Was Fanny amused?"

"Very much, I should say."

"She made friends with Miss Drake?"

"They were inseparable, till Miss Drake departed."

Diana laughed.

"How odd! That I should never have prophesied. And Mr. Birch? I needn't have him to lunch again, need I?"

"Miss Merton invited him to tea--on Saturday."

Diana reddened.

"Must I--!" she said, impetuously; then stopped herself, and opened the door.

Outside, Fanny Merton was just mounting the stairs, a candle in her hand. She stopped in astonishment at the sight of Diana.

"Diana! where have you been all this time?"

"Only talking to Muriel. We heard you playing; so we thought you weren't dull," said Diana, rather penitently.

"I was only playing till you came in," was the sharp reply. "When did Mr. Marsham go?"

Diana by this time was crossing the landing to the door of her room, with Fanny behind her.

"Oh, quite an hour ago. Hadn't we better dress? Dinner will be ready directly."

Fanny took no notice. She entered her cousin's room, in Diana's wake.

"Well?" she said, interrogatively. She leaned her back against the wardrobe, and folded her arms.

Diana turned. She met Fanny's black eyes, sparkling with excitement.

"I'll give you my news at dinner," said Diana, flushing against her will. "And I want to know how you liked Miss Drake."

Fanny's eyes shot fire.

"That's all very fine! That means, of course, that you're not going to tell me anything!"

"Fanny!" cried Diana, helplessly. She was held spellbound by the passion, the menace in the girl's look. But the touch of shrinking in her attitude roused brutal violence in Fanny.

"Yes, it does!" she said, fiercely. "I understand!--don't I! I am not good enough for you, and you'll make me feel it. You're going to make a smart marriage, and