The Testing of Diana Mallory, Mrs. Humphry Ward [e book reader online TXT] 📗

the full stream of Parliament.

"They will be much more interesting to me," said Marsham, in a low steady voice, "than anything I shall be doing in Parliament."

Diana rose, in sudden vague terror--as though with the roar in her ears of rapids ahead--murmured some stammering thanks, walked across the room, lowered a lamp which was flaming, and recovered all her smiling self-possession. But she talked no more of her own affairs. She asked him, instead, for news of Miss Vincent.

Marsham answered, with difficulty. If there had been sudden alarm in her, there had been a sudden tumult of the blood in him. He had almost lost his hold upon himself; the great words had been almost spoken.

But when the conversation had been once more guided into normal channels, he felt that he had escaped a risk. No, no, not yet! One false step--one check--and he might still find himself groping in the dark. Better let himself be missed a little!--than move too soon. As to Roughsedge--he had kept his eyes open. There was nothing there.

So he gave what news of Marion Vincent he had to give. She was still in Bethnal Green working at her inquiry, often very ill, but quite indomitable. As soon as Parliament began she had promised to do some secretarial work for Marsham on two or three mornings a week.

"I saw her last week," said Marsham. "She always asks after you."

"I am so glad! I fell in love with her. Surely"--Diana hesitated--"surely--some day--she will marry Mr. Frobisher?" Marsham shook his head.

"I think she feels herself too frail."

Diana remembered that little scene of intimacy--of tenderness--and Marsham's words stirred about her, as it were, winds of sadness and renunciation. She shivered under them a little, feeling, almost guiltily, the glow of her own life, the passion of her own hopes.

Marsham watched her as she sat on the other side of the fire, her beautiful head a little bent and pensive, the firelight playing on the oval of her cheek. How glad he was that he had not spoken!--that the barrier between them still held. A man may find heaven or hell on the other side of it. But merely to have crossed it makes life the poorer. One more of the great, the irrevocable moments spent and done--yielded to devouring time. He hugged the thought that it was still before him. The very timidity and anxiety he felt were delightful to him; he had never felt them before. And once more--involuntarily, disagreeably--he thought of Alicia Drake, and of the passages between them in the preceding summer.

Alicia was still at Tallyn, and her presence was, in truth, a constant embarrassment to him. Lady Lucy, on the contrary, had a strong sense of family duty toward her young cousin, and liked to have her for long visits at Tallyn or in London. Marsham believed his mother knew nothing of the old flirtation between them. Alicia, indeed, rarely showed any special interest in him now. He admitted her general discretion. Yet occasionally she would put in a claim, a light word, now mocking, now caressing, which betrayed the old intimacy, and Marsham would wince under it. It was like a creeping touch in the dark. He had known what it was to feel both compunction and a kind of fear with regard to Alicia. But, normally, he told himself that both feelings were ridiculous. He had done nothing to compromise either himself or her. He had certainly flirted with Alicia; but he could not honestly feel that the chief part in the matter had been his.

These thoughts passed in a flash. The clock struck, and regretfully he got up to take his leave. Diana rose, too, with a kindling face.

"My cousin will be here directly!" she said, joyously.

"Shall I find her installed when I come next time?"

"I mean to keep her as long--as long--as ever I can!"

Marsham held her hand close and warm a moment, felt her look waver a second beneath his, and then, with a quick and resolute step, he went his way.

He was just putting on his coat in the outer hall when there was a sound of approaching wheels. A carriage stopped at the door, to which the butler hurried. As he opened it Marsham saw in the light of the porch lamp the face of a girl peering out of the carriage window. It was a little awkward. His own horse was held by a groom on the other side of the carriage. There was nothing to do but to wait till the young lady had passed. He drew to one side.

Miss Merton descended. There was just time for Marsham to notice an extravagant hat, smothered in ostrich feathers, a large-featured, rather handsome face, framed in a tangled mass of black hair, a pair of sharp eyes that seemed to take in hungrily all they saw--the old hall, the butler, and himself, as he stood in the shadow. He heard the new guest speak to the butler about her luggage. Then the door of the inner hall opened, and he caught Diana's hurrying feet, and her cry--

"Fanny!"

He passed the lady and escaped. As he rode away into the darkness of the lanes he was conscious of an impression which had for the moment checked the happy flutter of blood and pulse. Was _that_ the long-expected cousin? Poor Diana! A common-looking, vulgar young woman--with a most unpleasant voice and accent. An unpleasant manner, too, to the servants--half arrogant, half familiar. What a hat!--and what a fringe!--worthy of some young "lidy" in the Old Kent Road! The thought of Diana sitting at table with such a person on equal terms pricked him with annoyance; for he had all his mother's fastidiousness, though it showed itself in different forms. He blamed Mrs. Colwood--Diana ought to have been more cautiously guided. The thought of all the tender preparation made for the girl was both amusing and repellent.

Miss Merton, he understood, was Diana's cousin on the mother's side--the daughter of her mother's sister. A swarm of questions suddenly arose in his mind--questions not hitherto entertained. Had there been, in fact, a _mesalliance_--some disagreeable story--which accounted, perhaps, for the self-banishment of Mr. Mallory?--the seclusion in which Diana had been brought up? The idea was most unwelcome, but the sight of Fanny Merton had inevitably provoked it. And it led on to a good many other ideas and speculations of a mingled sort connected, now with Diana, now with recollections, pleasant and unpleasant, of the eight or ten years which had preceded his first sight of her.

For Oliver Marsham was now thirty-six, and he had not reached that age without at least one serious attempt--quite apart from any passages with Alicia Drake--to provide himself with a wife. Some two years before this date he had proposed to a pretty girl of great family and no money, with whom he supposed himself ardently in love. She, after some hesitation, had refused him, and Marsham had had some reason to believe that in spite of his mother's great fortune and his own expectations, his _provenance_ had not been regarded as sufficiently aristocratic by the girl's fond parents. Perhaps had he--and not Lady Lucy--been the owner of Tallyn and its L18,000 a year, things might have been different. As it was, Marsham had felt the affront, as a strong and self-confident man was likely to feel it; and it was perhaps in reaction from it that he had allowed himself those passages with Alicia Drake which had, at least, soothed his self-love.

In this affair Marsham had acted on one of the convictions with which he had entered public life--that there is no greater help to a politician than a distinguished, clever, and, if possible, beautiful wife. Distinction, Radical though he was, had once seemed to him a matter of family and "connection." But after the failure of his first attempt, "family," in the ordinary sense, had ceased to attract him. Personal breeding, intelligence, and charm--these, after all, are what the politician who is already provided with money, wants to secure in his wife; without, of course, any obvious disqualification in the way of family history. Diana, as he had first met her among the woods at Portofino, side by side with her dignified and gentlemanly father, had made upon him precisely that impression of personal distinction of which he was in search--upon his mother also.

The appearance and the accent, however, of the cousin had struck him with surprise; nor was it till he was nearing Tallyn that he succeeded in shaking off the impression. Absurd! Everybody has some relations that require to be masked--like the stables, or the back door--in a skilful arrangement of life. Diana, his beautiful, unapproachable Diana, would soon, no doubt, be relieved of this young lady, with whom she could have no possible interests in common. And, perhaps, on one of his week-end visits to Tallyn and Beechcote, he might get a few minutes' conversation with Mrs. Colwood which would throw some light on the new guest.

* * * * *

Diana meanwhile, assisted by Mrs. Colwood, was hovering about her cousin. She and Miss Merton had kissed each other in the hall, and then Diana, seized with a sudden shyness, led her guest into the drawing-room and stood there speechless, a little; holding her by both hands and gazing at her; mastered by feeling and excitement.

"Well, you _have_ got a queer old place!" said Fanny Merton, withdrawing herself. She turned and looked about her, at the room, the flowers, the wide hearth, with its blazing logs, at Mrs. Colwood, and finally at Diana.

"We are so fond of it already!" said Diana. "Come and get warm." She settled her guest in a chair by the fire, and took a stool beside her. "Did you like Devonshire?"

The girl made a little face.

"It was awfully quiet. Oh, my friends, of course, made a lot of fuss over me--and that kind of thing. But I wouldn't live there, not if you paid me."

"We're very quiet here," said Diana, timidly. She was examining the face beside her, with its bright crude color, its bold eyes, and sulky mouth, slightly underhung.

"Oh, well, you've got some good families about, I guess. I saw one or two awfully smart carriages waiting at the station."

"There are a good many nice people," murmured Diana. "But there is not much going on."

"I expect you could invite a good many here if you wanted," said the girl, once more looking round her. "Whatever made you take this place?"

"I like old things so much," laughed Diana. "Don't you?"

"Well, I don't know. I think there's more style about a new house. You can have electric light and all that sort of thing."

Diana admitted it, and changed the subject. "Had the journey been cold?"

Freezing, said Miss Merton. But a young man had lent her his fur coat to put over her knees, which had improved matters. She laughed--rather consciously.

"He lives near here. I told him I was sure you'd ask him to something, if he called."

"Who was he?"

With much rattling of the bangles on her wrists, Fanny produced a card from her hand-bag. Diana looked at it in dismay. It was the card of a young solicitor whom she had once met at a local tea-party, and decided to avoid thenceforward.

She said