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

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"Poor Hugh!" said Mrs. Roughsedge to her husband on their return, as she stood beside him, in his study. Her voice was low, for Hugh had only just gone up-stairs, and the little house was thinly built.

The doctor rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and then looked round him for a cigarette.

"Yes," he said, slowly; "but he enjoyed his walk home."

"Henry!"

Hugh had walked back to the village with Mrs. Colwood, who had an errand there, and it was true that he had talked much to her out of earshot of his parents, and had taken a warm farewell of her at the end.

"Why am I to be 'Henry'-ed?"--inquired the doctor, beginning on his cigarette.

"Because you must know," said his wife, in an energetic whisper, "that Hugh had almost certainly proposed to Miss Mallory before we arrived, and she had refused him!"

The doctor meditated.

"I still say that Hugh enjoyed his walk," he repeated; "I trust he will have others of the same kind--with the same person."

"Henry, you are really incorrigible!" cried his wife. "How can you make jokes--on such a thing--with that girl's face before you!"

"Not at all," said the doctor, protesting. "I am not making jokes, Patricia. But what you women never will understand is, that it was not a woman but a man that wrote--

"'If she be not fair for me-- What care I--'"

"Henry!" and his wife, beside herself, tried to stop his mouth with her hand.

"All right, I won't finish," said the doctor, placidly, disengaging himself. "But let me assure you, Patricia, whether you like it or not, that that is a male sentiment. I quite agree that no nice woman could have written it. But, then, Hugh is not a nice woman--nor am I."

"I thought you were so fond of her!" said his wife, reproachfully.

"Miss Mallory? I adore her. But, to tell the truth, Patricia, I want a daughter-in-law--and--and grand-children," added the doctor, deliberately, stretching out his long limbs to the fire. "I admit that my remarks may be quite irrelevant and ridiculous--but I repeat that--in spite of everything--Hugh enjoyed his walk."

* * * * *

One October evening, a week later, Lady Lucy sat waiting for Sir James Chide at Tallyn Hall. Sir James had invited himself to dine and sleep, and Lady Lucy was expecting him in the up-stairs sitting-room, a medley of French clocks and china figures, where she generally sat now, in order to be within quick and easy reach of Oliver.

She was reading, or pretending to read, by the fire, listening all the time for the sound of the carriage outside. Meanwhile, the silence of the immense house oppressed her. It was broken only by the chiming of a carillon clock in the hall below. The little tune it played, fatuously gay, teased her more insistently each time she heard it. It must really be removed. She wondered Oliver had not already complained of it.

A number of household and estate worries oppressed her thoughts. How was she to cope with them? Capable as she was, "John" had always been there to advise her, in emergency--or Oliver. She suspected the house-steward of dishonesty. And the agent of the estate had brought her that morning complaints of the head gamekeeper that were most disquieting. What did they want with gamekeepers now? Who would ever shoot at Tallyn again? With impatience she felt herself entangled in the endless machinery of wealth and the pleasures of wealth, so easy to set in motion, and so difficult to stop, even when all the savor has gone out of it. She was a tired, broken woman, with an invalid son; and the management of her great property, in which her capacities and abilities had taken for so long an imperious and instinctive delight, had become a mere burden. She longed to creep into some quiet place, alone with Oliver, out of reach of this army of servants and dependents, these impassive and unresponsive faces.

The crunching of the carriage wheels on the gravel outside gave her a start of something like pleasure. Among the old friends there was no one now she cared so much to see as Sir James Chide. Sir James had lately left Parliament and politics, and had taken a judgeship. She understood that he had lost interest in politics after and in consequence of John Ferrier's death; and she knew, of course, that he had refused the Attorney-Generalship, on the ground of the treatment meted out to his old friend and chief. During the month of Oliver's second election, moreover, she had been very conscious of Sir James's hostility to her son. Intercourse between him and Tallyn had practically ceased.

Since the accident, however, he had been kind--very kind.

The door opened, and Sir James was announced. She greeted him with a tremulous and fluttering warmth that for a moment embarrassed her visitor, accustomed to the old excess of manner and dignity, wherewith she kept her little world in awe. He saw, too, that the havoc wrought by age and grief had gone forward rapidly since he had seen her last.

"I am afraid there is no better news of Oliver?" he said, gravely, as he sat down beside her.

She shook her head.

"We are in despair, Nothing touches the pain but morphia. And he has lost heart himself so much during the last fortnight."

"You have had any fresh opinion?"

"Yes. The last man told me he still believed the injury was curable, but that Oliver must do a great deal for himself. And that he seems incapable of doing. It is, of course, the shock to the nerves, and--the general--disappointment--"

Her voice shook. She stared into the fire.

"You mean--about politics?" said Sir James, after a pause.

"Yes. Whenever I speak cheerfully to him, he asks me what there is to live for. He has been driven out of politics--by a conspiracy--"

Sir James moved impatiently.

"With health he would soon recover everything," he said, rather shortly.

She made no reply, and her shrunken faded look--as of one with no energy for hope--again roused his pity.

"Tell me," he said, bending toward her--"I don't ask from idle curiosity--but--has there been any truth in the rumor of Oliver's engagement to Miss Drake?"

Lady Lucy raised her head sharply. The light came back to her eyes.

"She was engaged to him, and three weeks after his accident she threw him over."

Sir James made a sound of amazement. Lady Lucy went on:

"She left him and me, barely a fortnight afterward, to go to a big country-house party in the north. That will show you--what she's made of. Then she wrote--a hypocritical letter--putting it on _him_. _He_ must not be agitated, nor feel her any burden upon him; so, for _his_ sake, she broke it off. Of course, they were to be cousins and friends again just as before. She had arranged it all to her own satisfaction--and was meanwhile flirting desperately, as we heard from various people in the north, with Lord Philip Darcy. Oliver showed me her letter, and at last told me the whole story. I persuaded him not to answer it. A fortnight ago, she wrote again, proposing to come back here--to 'look after' us--poor things! This time, _I_ replied. She would like Tallyn, no doubt, as a place of retreat, should other plans fail; but it will not be open to her!"

It was not energy now--vindictive energy--that was lacking to the personality before him!

"An odious young woman" exclaimed Sir James, lifting hands and eyebrows. "I am afraid I always thought so, saving your presence, Lady Lucy. However, she will want a retreat; for her plans--in the quarter you name--have not a chance of success."

"I am delighted to hear it!" said Lady Lucy, still erect and flushed. "What do you know?"

"Simply that Lord Philip is not in the least likely to marry her, having, I imagine, views in quite other quarters--so I am told. But he is the least scrupulous of men--and no doubt if, at Eastham, she threw herself into his arms--'what mother's son,' et cetera. Only, if she imagined herself to have caught him--such an old and hardened stager!--in a week--her abilities are less than I supposed."

"Alicia's self-conceit was always her weak point."

But as she spoke the force imparted by resentment died away. Lady Lucy sank back in her chair.

"And Oliver felt it very much?" asked Sir James, after a pause, his shrewd eyes upon her.

"He was wounded, of course--he has been more depressed since; but I have never believed that he was in love with her."

Sir James did not pursue the subject, but the vivacity of the glance bent now on the fire, now on his companion, betrayed the marching thoughts behind.

"Will Oliver see me this evening?" he inquired, presently.

"I hope so. He promised me to make the effort."

A servant knocked at the door. It was Oliver's valet.

"Please, my lady, Mr. Marsham wished me to say he was afraid he would not be strong enough to see Sir James Chide to-night. He is very sorry--and would Sir James be kind enough to come and see him after breakfast to-morrow?"

Lady Lucy threw up her hands in a little gesture of despair, Then she rose, and went to speak to the servant in the doorway.

When she returned she looked whiter and more shrivelled than before.

"Is he worse to-night?" asked Sir James, gently.

"It is the pain," she said, in a muffled voice; "and we can't touch it--yet. He mustn't have any more morphia--yet."

She sat down once more. Sir James, the best of gossips, glided off into talk of London, and of old common friends, trying to amuse and distract her. But he realized that she scarcely listened to him, and that he was talking to a woman whose life was being ground away between a last affection and the torment it had power to cause her. A new Lady Lucy, indeed! Had any one ever dared to pity her before?

Meanwhile, five miles off, a girl whom he loved as a daughter was eating her heart out for sorrow over this mother and son--consumed, as he guessed, with the wild desire to offer them, in any sacrificial mode they pleased, her youth and her sweet self. In one way or another he had found out that Hugh Roughsedge had been sent about his business--of course, with all the usual softening formulae.

And now there was a kind of mute conflict going on between himself and Mrs. Colwood on the one side, and Diana on the other side.

No, she should not spend and waste her youth in the vain attempt to mend this house of tragedy!--it was not to be tolerated--not to be thought of. She would suffer, but she would get over it; and Oliver would probably die. Sooner or later she would begin life afresh, if only he was able to stand between her and the madness in her heart.

But as he sat there, looking at Lady Lucy, he realized that it might have been better for his powers and efficacy as a counsellor if he, too, had held aloof from this house of pain.