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

_legno_--with one wretched toast-rack of a horse. And not one of them thought of walking. Each of them with his brown petticoats, and an umbrella as big as himself. Ugh! I offered to push behind, and they glared at me. What do you think St. Francis would have said to them? Kicked them out of that _legno_, pretty quick, I'll bet you!"

Diana surveyed the typical young Englishman indulging a typically Protestant mood.

"I thought there were only a few old men left," she said, "and that it was all very sad and poetic?"

"That used to be so," said Ferrier, glancing round the church, so as to make sure that Chide was safely occupied in seeing as much of the Giotto frescos on the walls as the fading light allowed. "Then the Pope won a law-suit. The convent is now the property of the Holy See, the monastery has been revived, and the place seems to swarm with young monks. However, it is you ladies that ruin them. You make pretty speeches to them, and look so charmingly devout."

"There was a fellow at San Damiano this morning," interrupted Bobbie, indignantly; "awfully good-looking--and the most affected cad I ever beheld. I'd like to have been his fag-master at Eton! I saw him making eyes at some American girls as we came in; then he came posing and sidling up to us, and gave us a little lecture on 'Ateismo.' Ferrier said nothing--stood there as meek as a lamb, listening to him--looking straight at him. I nearly died of laughing behind them."

"Come here, Bobbie, you reprobate!" cried Chide from a distance. "Hold your tongue, and bring me the guide-book."

Bobbie strolled off, laughing.

"Is it all a sham, then," said Diana, looking round her with a smile and a sigh: "St. Francis--and the 'Fioretti'--and the 'Hymn to the Sun'? Has it all ended in lazy monks--and hypocrisy?"

"Dante asked himself the same question eighty years after St. Francis's death. Yet here is this divine church!"--Ferrier pointed to the frescoed walls, the marvellous roof--"here is immortal art!--and here, in your mind and in mine, after six hundred years, is a memory--an emotion--which, but for St. Francis, had never been; by which indeed we judge his degenerate sons. Is that not achievement enough--for one child of man?"

"Six hundred years hence what modern will be as much alive as St. Francis is now?" Diana wondered, as they strolled on.

He turned a quiet gaze upon her.

"Darwin? At least I throw it out."

"Darwin!" Her voice showed doubt--the natural demur of her young ignorance and idealism.

"Why not? What faith was to the thirteenth century knowledge is to us. St. Francis rekindled the heart of Europe, Darwin has transformed the main conception of the human mind."

In the dark she caught the cheerful patience of the small penetrating eyes as they turned upon her. And at the same time--strangely--she became aware of a sudden and painful impression; as though, through and behind the patience, she perceived an immense fatigue and discouragement--an ebbing power of life--in the man beside her.

"Hullo!" said Bobbie Forbes, turning back toward them, "I thought there was no one else here."

For suddenly they had become aware of a tapping sound on the marble floor, and from the shadows of the eastern end there emerged two figures: a woman in front, lame and walking with a stick, and a man behind. The cold reflected light which filled the western half of the church shone full on both faces. Bobbie Forbes and Diana exclaimed, simultaneously. Then Diana sped along the pavement.

"Who?" said Chide, rejoining the other two.

"Frobisher--and Miss Vincent," said Forbes, studying the new-comers.

"Miss Vincent!" Chide's voice showed his astonishment. "I thought she had been very ill."

"So she has," said Ferrier--"very ill. It is amazing to see her here."

"And Frobisher?"

Ferrier made no reply. Chide's expression showed perplexity, perhaps a shade of coldness. In him a warm Irish heart was joined with great strictness, even prudishness of manners, the result of an Irish Catholic education of the old type. Young women, in his opinion, could hardly be too careful, in a calumnious world. The modern flouting of old decorums--small or great--found no supporter in the man who had passionately defended and absolved Juliet Sparling.

But he followed the rest to the greeting of the new-comers. Diana's hand was in Miss Vincent's, and the girl's face was full of joy; Marion Vincent, deathly white, her eyes, more amazing, more alive than ever, amid the emaciation that surrounded them, greeted the party with smiling composure--neither embarrassed, nor apologetic--appealing to Frobisher now and then as to her travelling companion--speaking of "our week at Orvieto"--making, in fact, no secret of an arrangement which presently every member of the group about her--even Sir James Chide--accepted as simply as it was offered to them.

As to Frobisher, he was rather silent, but no more embarrassed than she. It was evident that he kept an anxious watch lest her stick should slip upon the marble floor, and presently he insisted in a low voice that she should go home and rest.

"Come back after dinner," she said to him, in the same tone as they emerged on the piazza. He nodded, and hurried off by himself.

"You are at the Subasio?" The speaker turned to Diana. "So am I. I don't dine--but shall we meet afterward?"

"And Mr. Frobisher?" said Diana, timidly.

"He is staying at the Leone. But I told him to come back."

After dinner the whole party met in Diana's little sitting-room, of which one window looked to the convent, while the other commanded the plain. And from the second, the tenant of the room had access to a small terrace, public, indeed, to the rest of the hotel, but as there were no other guests the English party took possession.

Bobbie stood beside the terrace window with Diana, gossiping, while Chide and Ferrier paced the terrace with their cigars. Neither Miss Vincent nor Frobisher had yet appeared, and Muriel Colwood was making tea. Bobbie was playing his usual part of the chatterbox, while at the same time he was inwardly applying much native shrewdness and a boundless curiosity to Diana and her affairs.

Did she know--had she any idea--that in London at that moment she was one of the main topics of conversation?--in fact, the best talked-about young woman of the day?--that if she were to spend June in town--which of course she would not do--she would find herself a _succes fou_--people tumbling over one another to invite her, and make a show of her? Everybody of his acquaintance was now engaged in retrying the Wing murder, since that statement of Chide's in the _Times_. No one talked of anything else, and the new story that was now tacked on to the old had given yet another spin to the ball of gossip.

How had the story got out? Bobbie believed that it had been mainly the doing of Lady Niton. At any rate, the world understood perfectly that Juliet Sparling's innocent and unfortunate daughter had been harshly treated by Lady Lucy--and deserted by Lady Lucy's son.

Queer fellow, Marsham!--rather a fool, too. Why the deuce didn't he stick to it? Lady Lucy would have come round; he would have gained enormous _kudos_, and lost nothing. Bobbie looked admiringly at his companion, vowing to himself that she was worth fighting for. But his own heart was proof. For three months he had been engaged, _sub rosa_, to a penniless cousin. No one knew, least of all Lady Niton, who, in spite of her championship of Diana, would probably be furious when she did know. He found himself pining to tell Diana; he would tell her as soon as ever he got an opportunity. Odd!--that the effect of having gone through a lot yourself should be that other people were strongly drawn to unload their troubles upon you. Bobbie felt himself a selfish beast; but all the same his "Ettie" and his debts; the pros and cons of the various schemes for his future, in which he had hitherto allowed Lady Niton to play so queer and tyrannical a part--all these burned on his tongue till he could confide them to Diana.

Meanwhile the talk strayed to Ferrier and politics--dangerous ground! Yet some secret impulse in Diana drew her toward it, and Bobbie's curiosity played up. Diana spoke with concern of the great man's pallor and fatigue. "Not to be wondered at," said Forbes, "considering the tight place he was in, or would soon be in." Diana asked for explanations, acting a part a little; for since her acquaintance with Oliver Marsham she had become a diligent reader of newspapers. Bobbie, divining her, gave her the latest and most authentic gossip of the clubs; as to the various incidents and gradations of the now open revolt of the Left Wing; the current estimates of Ferrier's strength in the country; and the prospects of the coming election.

Presently he even ventured on Marsham's name, feeling instinctively that she waited for it. If there was any change in the face beside him the May darkness concealed it, and Bobbie chattered on. There was no doubt that Marsham was in a difficulty. All his sympathies at least were with the rebels, and their victory would be his profit.

"Yet as every one knows that Marsham is under great obligations to Ferrier, for him to join the conspiracy these fellows are hatching doesn't look pretty."

"He won't join it!" said Diana, sharply.

"Well, a good many people think he's in it already. Oh, I dare say it's all rot!" the speaker added, hastily; "and, besides, it's not at all certain that Marsham himself will get in next time."

"Get in!" It was a cry of astonishment--passing on into constraint. "I thought Mr. Marsham's seat was absolutely safe."

"Not it." Bobbie began to flounder. "The fact is it's not safe at all; it's uncommonly shaky. He'll have a squeak for it. They're not so sweet on him down there as they used to be."

Gracious!--if she were to ask why! The young man was about hastily to change the subject when Sir James and his companion came toward them.

"Can't we tempt you out, Miss Mallory?" said Ferrier. "There is a marvellous change!" He pointed to the plain over which the night was falling. "When we met you in the church it was still winter, or wintry spring. Now--in two hours--the summer's come!"

And on Diana's face, as she stepped out to join him, struck a buffet of warm air; a heavy scent of narcissus rose from the flower-boxes on the terrace; and from a garden far below came the sharp thin prelude of a nightingale.

* * * * *

For about half an hour the young girl and the veteran of politics walked up and down--sounding each other--heart reaching out to heart--dumbly--behind the veil of words. There was a secret link between them. The politician was bruised and weary--well aware that just as Fortune seemed to have brought one of her topmost prizes within his grasp, forces and events were gathering in silence to contest it with him. Ferrier had been twenty-seven years in the House of Commons; his chief life was there, had always been there; outside that maimed and customary pleasure he found, besides, a woman now white-haired. To rule--to lead that House had been the ambition of his life. He had