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

nothing of this intimate relation which had sprung up so rapidly between her and Ferrier. While he acknowledged its beauty and delicacy, the very thought of it, even at this moment, filled him with an irritable jealousy. The new bond had arisen out of the wreck of those he had himself broken; Ferrier had turned to her, and she to Ferrier, just as he, by his own acts, had lost them both; it might be right and natural; he winced under it--in a sense, resented it--none the less.

And all the time he never ceased to be conscious of the newspaper in his breast-pocket, and of that faint pencilled line that seemed to burn against his heart.

Would she shrink from him, finally and irrevocably, if she knew it? Once or twice he looked at her curiously, wondering at the power that women have of filling and softening a situation. Her broken talk of Ferrier was the only possible talk that could have arisen between them at that moment without awkwardness, without risk. To that last ground of friendship she could still admit him, and a wounded self-love suggested that she chose it for his sake as well as Ferrier's.

Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must have drawn her conclusions. Four months after the breach with her!--and such a breach! As he walked beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast--distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, separated forever from the good opinion of this girl whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the shock of Barrington's unpardonable behavior.

Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting irritation. He had been the victim of circumstance as much as she. His will hardened to a passionate self-defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that must and should be conquered. He had to live his life. He would live it.

They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch. Linnets and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing blue.

Diana turned suddenly toward the house.

"I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her roof forever.

They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.

"You knew him, of course, from a child?" she said to him, glancing at him with timid interrogation.

In reply he forced himself to play that part of Ferrier's intimate--almost son--which, indeed, she had given him, by implication, throughout her own talk. In this she had shown a tact, a kindness for which he owed her gratitude. She must have heard the charges brought against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, noble creature that she was, she had not believed them. He could have thanked her aloud, till he remembered that marked newspaper in his pocket.

Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress. He stooped to free it. Then for the first time he saw her shrink. The instinctive service had made them man and woman again--not mind and mind; and he perceived, with a miserable throb, that she could not be so unconscious of his identity, his presence, their past, as she had seemed to be.

She had lost--he realized it--the bloom of first youth. How thin was the hand which gathered up her dress!--the hand once covered with his kisses. Yet she seemed to him lovelier than ever, and he divined her more woman than ever, more instinct with feeling, life, and passion.

* * * * *

Sir James's messenger met them half-way. At the door the ambulance waited.

Chide, bareheaded, and a group of doctors, gardeners, and police stood beside it.

"I follow you," said Marsham to Sir James. "There is a great deal to do."

Chide assented coldly. "I have written to Broadstone, and I have sent a preliminary statement to the papers."

"I can take anything you want to town," said Marsham, hastily. "I must go up this evening."

He handed Broadstone's telegram to Sir James.

Chide read it and returned it in silence. Then he entered the ambulance, taking his seat beside the shrouded form within. Slowly it drove away, mounted police accompanying it. It took a back way from Beechcote, thus avoiding the crowd, which on the village side had gathered round the gates.

Diana, on the steps, saw it go, following it with her eyes; standing very white and still. Then Marsham lifted his hat to her, conscious through every nerve of the curiosity among the little group of people standing by. Suddenly, he thought, she too divined it. For she looked round her, bowed to him slightly, and disappeared with Mrs. Colwood.

* * * * *

He spent two or three hours at Lytchett, making the first arrangements for the funeral, with Sir James. It was to be at Tallyn, and the burial in the churchyard of the old Tallyn church. Sir James gave a slow and grudging assent to this; but in the end he did assent, after the relations between him and Marsham had become still more strained.

Further statements were drawn up for the newspapers. As the afternoon wore on the grounds and hall of Lytchett betrayed the presence of a number of reporters, hurriedly sent thither by the chief London and provincial papers. By now the news had travelled through England.

Marsham worked hard, saving Sir James all he could. Another messenger arrived from Lord Broadstone, with a pathetic letter for Sir James. Chide's face darkened over it. "Broadstone must bear up," he said to Marsham, as they stood together in Chide's sanctum. "It was not his fault, and he has the country to think of. You tell him so. Now, are you off?"

Marsham replied that his fly had been announced.

"What'll they offer you?" said Chide, abruptly.

"Offer me? It doesn't much matter, does it?--on a day like this?" Marsham's tone was equally curt. Then he added: "I shall be here again to-morrow."

Chide acquiesced. When Marsham had driven off, and as the sound of the wheels died away, Chide uttered a fierce inarticulate sound. His hot Irish heart swelled within him. He walked hurriedly to and fro, his hands in his pockets.

"John!--John!" he groaned. "They'll be dancing and triumphing on your grave to-night, John; and that fellow you were a father to--like the rest. But they shall do it without me, John--they shall do it without me!"

And he thought, with a grim satisfaction, of the note he had just confided to the Premier's second messenger refusing the offer of the Attorney-Generalship. He was sorry for Broadstone; he had done his best to comfort him; but he would serve in no Government with John's supplanters.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Marsham was speeding up to town. At every way-side station, under the evening light, he saw the long lines of placards: "Sudden death of Mr. Ferrier. Effect on the new Ministry." Every paper he bought was full of comments and hasty biographies. There was more than a conventional note of loss in them. Ferrier was not widely popular, in the sense in which many English statesmen have been popular, but there was something in his personality that had long since won the affection and respect of all that public, in all classes, which really observes and directs English affairs. He was sincerely mourned, and he would be practically missed.

But the immediate effect would be the triumph of the Cave, a new direction given to current politics. That no one doubted.

Marsham was lost in tumultuous thought. The truth was that the two articles in the _Herald_ of that morning, which had arrived at Tallyn by nine o'clock, had struck him with nothing less than consternation.

Ever since his interview with Barrington, he had persuaded himself that in it he had laid the foundations of party reunion; and he had since been eagerly scanning the signs of slow change in the attitude of the party paper, combined--as they had been up to this very day--with an unbroken personal loyalty to Ferrier. But the article of this morning had shown a complete--and in Oliver's opinion, as he read it at the breakfast-table--an extravagant _volte-face_. It amounted to nothing less than a vehement appeal to the new Prime Minister to intrust the leadership of the House of Commons, at so critical a moment, to a man more truly in sympathy with the forward policy of the party.

"We have hoped against hope," said the _Herald_; "we have supported Mr. Ferrier against all opposition; but a careful reconsideration and analysis of his latest speeches--taken together with our general knowledge public and private, of the political situation--have convinced us, sorely against our will, that while Mr. Ferrier must, of course, hold one of the most important offices in the new Cabinet, his leadership of the Commons--in view of the two great measures to which the party is practically pledged--could only bring calamity. He will not oppose them; that, of course, we know; but is it possible that he can _fight them through_ with success? We appeal to his patriotism, which has never yet failed him or us. If he will only accept the peerage he has so amply earned, together with either the War Office or the Admiralty, and represent the Government in the Lords, where it is sorely in need of strength, all will be well. The leadership of the Commons must necessarily fall to that section of the party which, through Lord Philip's astonishing campaign, has risen so rapidly in public favor. Lord Philip himself, indeed, is no more acceptable to the moderates than Mr. Ferrier to the Left Wing. Heat of personal feeling alone would prevent his filling the part successfully. But two or three men are named, under whom Lord Philip would be content to serve, while the moderates would have nothing to say against them."

This was damaging enough. But far more serious was the "communicated" article on the next page--"from a correspondent"--on which the "leader" was based.

Marsham saw at once that the "correspondent" was really Barrington himself, and that the article was wholly derived from the conversation which had taken place at Tallyn, and from the portions of Ferrier's letters, which Marsham had read or summarized for the journalist's benefit.

The passage in particular which Ferrier's dying hand had marked--he recalled the gleam in Barrington's black eyes as he had listened to it, the instinctive movement in his powerful hand, as though to pounce, vulturelike, on the letter--and his own qualm of anxiety--his sudden sense of having gone too far--his insistence on discretion.

Discretion indeed! The whole thing was