CHAPTER VII
"I shall soon be back," said Diana--"very soon. I'll just take this bookto Dr. Roughsedge. You don't mind?"
The question was addressed--in a deprecatory tone--to Mrs. Colwood, whostood beside her at the Beechcote front door.
Muriel Colwood smiled, and drew the furs closer round the girl's slimthroat.
"I shall mind very much if you don't stay out a full hour and get a goodwalk."
Diana ran off, followed by her dog. There was something in the mannerboth of the dog and its mistress that seemed to show impetuousescape--and relief.
"She looks tired out!" said the little companion to herself, as sheturned to enter the hall. "How on earth is she going to get through sixweeks of it?--or six months!"
The house as she walked back through it made upon her the odd impressionof having suddenly lost some of its charm. The peculiar sentiment--as ofa warmly human, yet delicately ordered life, which it had breathed outso freely only twenty-four hours before, seemed to her quick feelingto have been somehow obscured or dissipated. All its defects,old or new--the patches in the panelling, the darkness of thepassages--stood out.
And "all along of Eliza!" All because of Miss Fanny Merton! Mrs. Colwoodrecalled the morning--Miss Merton's late arrival at the breakfast-table,and the discovery from her talk that she was accustomed to breakfast inbed, waited upon by her younger sisters; her conversation at breakfast,partly about the prices of clothes and eatables, partly in boastingreminiscence of her winnings at cards, or in sweepstakes on the "run,"on board the steamer. Diana had then devoted herself to the display ofthe house, and her maid had helped Miss Merton to unpack. The processhad been diversified by raids made by Miss Fanny on Diana's ownwardrobe, which she had inspected from end to end, to an accompanimentof critical remark. According to her, there was very little that wasreally "shick" in it, and Diana should change her dressmaker. The numberof her own dresses was large; and as to their colors and make, Mrs.Colwood, who had helped to put away some of them, could only supposethat tropical surroundings made tropical tastes. At the same time thecontrast between Miss Fanny's wardrobe, and what she herself reported,in every tone of grievance and disgust, of the family poverty, wassurprising, though no doubt a great deal of the finery had been ascheaply bought as possible.
By luncheon-time Diana had shown some symptoms of fatigue, perhaps--Mrs.Colwood hoped!--of revolt. She had been already sharply questioned as tothe number of servants she kept and the wages they received, as to thepeople in the neighborhood who gave parties, and the ages and incomes ofsuch young or unmarried men as might be met with at these parties. MissMerton had boasted already of two love-affairs--one the unsuccessfulengagement in Barbadoes, the other--"a near thing"--which had enlivenedthe voyage to England; and she had extracted a promise from Diana to askthe young solicitor she had met with in the train--Mr. Fred Birch--tolunch, without delay. Meanwhile she had not--of her own initiative--saidone word of those educational objects, in pursuit of which she wassupposed to have come to England. Diana had proposed to her the names ofcertain teachers both of music and languages--names which she hadobtained with much trouble. Miss Fanny had replied, rather carelessly,that she would think about it.
It was at this that the eager sweetness of Diana's manner to her cousinhad shown its first cooling. And Mrs. Colwood had curiously observedthat at the first sign of shrinking on her part, Miss Fanny's demeanorhad instantly changed. It had become sugared and flattering to a degree.Everything in the house was "sweet"; the old silver used at table, withthe Mallory crest, was praised extravagantly; the cooking no less. Yetstill Diana's tired silence had grown; and the watching eyes of thisamazing young woman had been, in Mrs. Colwood's belief, now insolentlyand now anxiously, aware of it.
Insolence!--that really, if one came to think of it, had been the noteof Miss Merton's whole behavior from the beginning--an ill-concealed,hardly restrained insolence, toward the girl, two years older thanherself, who had received her with such tender effusion, and was,moreover, in a position to help her so materially. What could it--whatdid it mean?
Mrs. Colwood stood at the foot of the stairs a moment, lost in a tranceof wonderment. Her heart was really sore for Diana's disappointment, forthe look in her face, as she left the house. How on earth could thevisit be shortened and the young lady removed?
The striking of three o'clock reminded Muriel Colwood that she was totake the new-comer out for an hour. They had taken coffee in themorning-room up-stairs, Diana's own sitting-room, where she wrote herletters and followed out the lines of reading her father had laid downfor her. Mrs. Colwood returned thither; found Miss Merton, as it seemedto her, in the act of examining the letters in Diana's blotting-book;and hastily proposed to her to take a turn in the garden.
Fanny Merton hesitated, looked at Mrs. Colwood a moment dubiously, andfinally walked up to her.
"Oh, I don't care about going out, it's so cold and nasty. And, besides,I--I want to talk to you."
"Miss Mallory thought you might like to see the old gardens," said Mrs.Colwood. "But if you would rather not venture out, I'm afraid I must goand write some letters."
"Why, you were writing letters all the morning! My fingers would dropoff if I was to go on at it like that. Do you like being a companion? Ishould think it was rather beastly--if you ask me. At home they did talkabout it for me. But I said: 'No, thank you! My own mistress, ifyou please!'"
The speaker sat down by the fire, raised her skirt of purple cloth, andstretched a pair of shapely feet to the warmth. Her look wasgood-humored and lazy.
"I am very happy here," said Mrs. Colwood, quietly. "Miss Mallory is socharming and so kind."
Miss Fanny cleared her throat, poked the fire with the tip of her shoe,fidgeted with her dress, and finally said--abruptly:
"I say--have all the people about here called?"
The tone was so low and furtive that Mrs. Colwood, who had been puttingaway some embroidery silks which had been left on the table by Diana,turned in some astonishment. She found the girl's eyes fixed uponher--eager and hungry.
"Miss Mallory has had a great many visitors"--she tried to pitch herwords in the lightest possible tone--"I am afraid it will take her along time to return all her calls."
"Well, I'm glad it's all right about that!--anyway. As mamma said, younever know. People are so queer about these things, aren't they? As ifit was Diana's fault!"
Through all her wrath, Muriel Colwood was conscious of a sudden pang ofalarm--which was, in truth, the reawakening of something already vaguelyfelt or surmised. She looked rather sternly at her companion.
"I really don't know what you mean, Miss Merton. And I never discussMiss Mallory's affairs. Perhaps you will kindly allow me to go tomy letters."
She was moving away when the girl beside her laughed again--ratherangrily--and Mrs. Colwood paused, touched again by instinctive fear.
"Oh, of course if I'm not to say a word about it--I'm not--that's all!Well, now, look here--Diana needn't suppose that I've come all this wayjust for fun. I had to say that about lessons, and that kind of thing--Ididn't want to set her against me--but I've ... Well!--why should I beashamed, I should like to know?"--she broke out, shrilly, sitting erect,her face flushing deeply, her eyes on fire. "If some one owes yousomething--why shouldn't you come and get it? Diana owes my mother_money!_--a lot of money!--and we can't afford to lose it. Mother'sawfully sweet about Diana--she said, 'Oh no, it's unkind'--but I sayit's unkind to _us_, not to speak, when we all want money so bad--andthere are the boys to bring up--and--"
"Miss Merton--I'm very sorry--but really I cannot let you talk to me ofMiss Mallory's private affairs. It would neither be right--norhonorable. You must see that. She will be in by tea-time herself.Please!--"
Muriel's tone was gentle; but her attitude was resolution itself. FannyMerton stared at the frail slim creature in her deep widow's black; hercolor rose.
"Oh, very well. Do as you like!--I'm agreeable! Only I thoughtperhaps--as you and Diana
seem to be such tremendous friends--you'd liketo talk it over with me first. I don't know how much Diana knows; and Ithought perhaps you'd give me a hint. Of course, she'll know all therewas in the papers. But my mother claims a deal more than the trustmoney--jewels, and that kind of thing. And Uncle Mallory treated usshamefully about them--_shamefully_! That's why I'm come over. I mademother let me! Oh, she's so soft, is mother, she'd let anybody off. ButI said, 'Diana's rich, and she _ought_ to make it up to us! If nobodyelse'll ask her, I will!'"
The girl had grown pale, but it was a pallor of determination and ofpassion. Mrs. Colwood had listened to the torrent of words, held againsther will, first by astonishment, then by something else. If it should beher duty to listen?--for the sake of this young life, which in these fewweeks had so won upon her heart?
She retraced a few steps.
"Miss Merton, I do not understand what you have been saying. If you haveany claim upon Miss Mallory, you know well that she is the soul ofhonor and generosity. Her one desire is to give everybody _more_ thantheir due. She is _too_ generous--I often have to protect her. But, as Ihave said before, it is not for me to discuss any claim you may haveupon her."
Fanny Merton was silent for a minute--staring at her companion. Then shesaid, abruptly:
"Does she ever talk to you about Aunt Sparling?"
"Her mother?"
The girl nodded.
Mrs. Colwood hesitated--then said, unwillingly: "No. She has mentionedher once or twice. One can see how she missed her as a child--how shemisses her still."
"Well, I don't know what call she has to miss her!" cried Fanny Merton,in a note of angry scorn. "A precious good thing she died when shedid--for everybody."
Mrs. Colwood felt her hands trembling. In the growing darkness of thewinter afternoon it seemed to her startled imagination as though thisblack-eyed black-browed girl, with her scowling passionate face, wereentering into possession of the house and of Diana--an evil and invadingpower. She tried to choose her words carefully.
"Miss Mallory has never talked to me of her parents. And, if you willexcuse me, Miss Merton--if there is anything sad--or tragic--in theirhistory, I would rather hear it from Miss Mallory than from you!"
"Anything sad?--anything _sad_? Well, upon my word!--"
The girl breathed fast. So, involuntarily, did Mrs. Colwood.
"You don't mean to say"--the speaker threw her body forward, and broughther face close to Mrs. Colwood--"you are not going to tell me that youdon't know about Diana's mother?"
She laid her hand upon Muriel's dress.
"Why should I know? Please, Miss Merton!" and with a resolute movementMrs. Colwood tried to withdraw her dress.
"Why, _everybody_ knows!--everybody!--everybody! Ask anybody in theworld about Juliet Sparling--and you'll see. In the saloon, coming over,I heard people talk about her all one night--they didn't know who _I_was--and of course I didn't tell. And there was a book in the ship'slibrary--_Famous Trials_--or some name of that sort--with the wholething in it. You don't know--about--Diana's _mother_?"
The fierce, incredulous emphasis on the last word, for a moment,withered all reply on Mrs. Colwood's lips. She walked to the doormechanically, to see that it was fast shut. Then she returned. She satdown beside Diana's guest, and it might have been seen that she hadsilenced fear and dismissed hesitation. "After all," she said, withquiet command, "I think I will ask you, Miss Merton, to explain whatyou mean?"
* * * * *
The February afternoon darkened round the old house. There was a lightpowdering of snow on grass and trees. Yet still there were breathingsand bird-notes in the air, and tones of color in the distance, whichobscurely prophesied the spring. Through the wood behind the house thesnow-drops were rising, in a white invading host, over the groundcovered with the red-brown deposit of innumerable autumns. Above theirglittering white, rose an undergrowth of laurels and box, through whichagain shot up the magnificent trunks--gray and smooth and round--of thegreat beeches, which held and peopled the country-side, heirs of itsancestral forest. Any one standing in the wood could see, through theleafless trees, the dusky blues and rich violets of the encirclinghill--hung there, like the tapestry of some vast hall; or hear from timeto time the loud wings of the wood-pigeons as they clattered through thetopmost boughs.
Diana was still in the village. She had been spending her hour of escapemostly with the Roughsedges. The old doctor among his books was nowsufficiently at his ease with her to pet her, teach her, and, whennecessary, laugh at her. And Mrs. Roughsedge, however she might feelherself eclipsed by Lady Lucy, was, in truth, much more fit to ministerto such ruffled feelings as Diana was now conscious of than thatdelicate and dignified lady. Diana's disillusion about her cousin was,so far, no very lofty matter. It hurt; but on her run to the village thenatural common-sense Mrs. Colwood had detected had wrestled stoutly withher wounded feelings. Better take it with a laugh! To laugh, however,one must be distracted; and Mrs. Roughsedge, bubbling over with gossipand good-humor, was distraction personified. Stern Justice, in theperson of Lord M.'s gamekeeper, had that morning brought back Diana'stwo dogs in leash, a pair of abject and convicted villains, from thedelirium of a night's hunting. The son of Miss Bertram's coachman hadonly just missed an appointment under the District Council by one placeon the list of candidates. A "Red Van" bursting with Socialistliterature had that morning taken up its place on the village green; andDiana's poor housemaid, in payment for a lifetime's neglect, must nowlose every tooth in her head, according to the verdict of the localdentist, an excellent young man, in Mrs. Roughsedge's opinion, butready to give you almost too much pulling out for your money. On allthese topics she overflowed--with much fun and unfailing good-humor. Sothat after half an hour spent with Mrs. Roughsedge and Hugh in thelittle drawing-room at the White Cottage, Diana's aspect was verydifferent from what it had been when she arrived.
Hugh, however, had noticed her pallor and depression. He was obstinatelycertain that Oliver Marsham was not the man to make such a girl happy.Between the rich Radical member and the young officer--poor, slow ofspeech and wits, and passionately devoted to the old-fashioned idealsand traditions in which he had been brought up--there was a naturalantagonism. But Roughsedge's contempt for his brilliant and successfulneighbor--on the ground of selfish ambitions and unpatriotictrucklings--was, in truth, much more active than anything Marsham hadever shown--or felt--toward himself. For in the young soldier thereslept potentialities of feeling and of action, of which neither he norothers were as yet aware.
Nevertheless, he faced the facts. He remembered the look with whichDiana had returned to the Beechcote drawing-room, where Marsham awaitedher, the day before--and told himself not to be a fool.
Meanwhile he had found an opportunity in which to tell her, unheard byhis parents, that he was practically certain of his Nigerianappointment, and must that night break it to his father and mother. AndDiana had listened like a sister, all sympathy and kind looks, promisingin the young man's ear, as he said good-bye at the garden gate, that shewould come again next day to cheer his mother up.
He stood looking after her as she walked away; his hands in his pockets,a flush on his handsome face. How her coming had glorified andtransformed the place! No womanish nonsense, too, about this going ofhis!--though she knew well that it meant fighting. Only a kindling ofthe eyes--a few questions as practical as they were eager--and then thatfluttering of the soft breath which he had noticed as she bent overhis mother.
But she was not for him! Thus it is that women--the noblest and thedearest--throw themselves away. She, with all the right and properfeelings of an Englishwoman, to mate with this plausible Radical andLittle Englander! Hugh kicked the stones of the gravel savagely to rightand left as he walked back to the house--in a black temper with hispoverty and Diana's foolishness.
But was she really in love? "Why then so pale, fond lover?" He found akind of angry comfort in the remembrance of her drooping looks. Theywere no cred
it to Marsham, anyway.
Meanwhile Diana walked home, lingering by the way in two or threecottages. She was shyly beginning to make friends with the people. Anold road-mender kept her listening while he told her how a Tallyn keeperhad peppered him in the eye, ten years before, as he was crossing BarrowCommon at dusk. One eye had been taken out, and the other was almostuseless; there he sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale--"MusterMarsham--Muster Henry Marsham--had been verra kind--ten shillin' a week,and an odd job now and then. I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times--butther's noa good in grumblin'--is there?"
Next door, in a straggling line of cottages, she found a gentle,chattering widow whose husband had been drowned in the brew-house atBeechcote twenty years before, drowned in the big vat!--before any onehad heard a cry or a sound. The widow was proud of so exceptional atragedy; eager to tell the tale. How had she lived since? Oh, a bit hereand a bit there. And, of late, half a crown from the parish.
Last of all, in a cottage midway between the village and Beechcote, shepaused to see a jolly middle-aged woman, with a humorous eye and astream of conversation--held prisoner by an incurable disease. She wasabsolutely alone in the world. Nobody knew what she had to live on. Butshe could always find a crust for some one more destitute than herself,and she ranked high among the wits of the village. To Diana she talkedof her predecessors--the Vavasours--whose feudal presence seemed to bestill brooding over the village. With little chuckles of laughter, shegave instance after instance of the tyranny with which they had lordedit over the country-side in early Victorian days: how the "MadamVavasour" of those days had pulled the feathers from the village-girls'hats, and turned a family who had offended her, with all theirbelongings, out into the village street. But when Diana rejoiced thatsuch days were done, the old woman gave a tolerant: "Noa--noa! They werenone so bad--were t' Vavasours. Only they war no good at heirin."
"Airing?" said Diana, mystified.
"Heirin," repeated Betty Dyson, emphatically. "Theer was old SquireHenry--wi' noabody to follow 'im--an' Mr. Edward noa better--and nowthissun, wi nobbut lasses. Noa--they war noa good at heirin--moor's t'pity." Then she looked slyly at her companion: "An' yo', miss? yo'll begettin' married one o' these days, I'll uphowd yer."
Diana colored and laughed.
"Ay," said the old woman, laughing too, with the merriment of a girl."Sweethearts is noa good--but you mun ha' a sweetheart!"
Diana fled, pursued by Betty's raillery, and then by the thought of thislonely laughing woman, often tormented by pain, standing on the brink ofugly death, and yet turning back to look with this merry indulgent eyeupon the past; and on this dingy old world, in which she had played soragged and limping a part. Yet clearly she would play it again if shecould--so sweet is mere life!--and so hard to silence in the breast.
Diana walked quickly through the woods, the prey of one of those vaguestorms of feeling which test and stretch the soul of youth.
To what horrors had she been listening?--the suffering of the blindedroad-mender--the grotesque and hideous death of the young laborer in hisfull strength--the griefs of a childless and penniless old woman? Yetlife had somehow engulfed the horrors; and had spread its quiet wavesabove them, under a pale, late-born sunshine. The stoicism of the poorrebuked her, as she thought of the sharp impatience and disappointmentin which she had parted from Mrs. Colwood.
She seemed to hear her father's voice. "No shirking, Diana! You askedher--you formed absurd and exaggerated expectations. She is here; andshe is not responsible for your expectations. Make the best of her, anddo your duty!"
And eagerly the child's heart answered: "Yes, yes, papa!--dear papa!"
And there, sharp in color and line, it rose on the breast of memory, thebeloved face. It set pulses beating in Diana which from her childhoodonward had been a life within her life, a pain answering to pain, thechild's inevitable response to the father's misery, always discerned,never understood.
This abiding remembrance of a dumb unmitigable grief beside which shehad grown up, of which she had never known the secret, was indeed one ofthe main factors in Diana's personality. Muriel Colwood had at onceperceived it; Marsham had been sometimes puzzled by the signs of it.
To-day--because of Fanny and this toppling of her dreams--the dark mood,to which Diana was always liable, had descended heavily upon her. Shehad no sooner rebuked it--by the example of the poor, or the remembranceof her father's long patience--than she was torn by questions, vehement,insistent, full of a new anguish.
Why had her father been so unhappy? What was the meaning of that cloudunder which she had grown up?
She had repeated to Muriel Colwood the stock explanations she had beenaccustomed to give herself of the manner and circumstances of herbringing-up. To-day they seemed to her own mind, for the first time,utterly insufficient. In a sudden crash and confusion of feeling it wasas though she were tearing open the heart of the past, passionatelyprobing and searching.
Certain looks and phrases of Fanny Merton were really working in hermemory. They were so light--yet so ugly. They suggested something, butso vaguely that Diana could find no words for it: a note of desecration,of cheapening--a breath of dishonor. It was as though a mourner, shutin for years with sacred memories, became suddenly aware that all thetime, in a sordid world outside, these very memories had been the sportof an unkind and insolent chatter that besmirched them.
Her mother!
In the silence of the wood the girl's slender figure stiffened itselfagainst an attacking thought. In her inmost mind she knew well that itwas from her mother--and her mother's death--that all the strangeness ofthe past descended. But yet the death and grief she remembered had neverpresented themselves to her as they appear to other bereaved ones. Whyhad nobody ever spoken to her of her mother in her childhood andyouth?--neither father, nor nurses, nor her old French governess? Whyhad she no picture--no relics--no letters? In the box of "SparlingPapers" there was nothing that related to Mrs. Sparling; that she knew,for her father had abruptly told her so not long before his death. Theywere old family records which he could not bear to destroy--thehonorable records of an upright race, which some day, he thought, "mightbe a pleasure to her."
Often during the last six months of his life, it seemed to her now, inthis intensity of memory, that he had been on the point of breaking thesilence of a lifetime. She recalled moments and looks of agonized effortand yearning. But he died of a growth in the throat; and for weeksbefore the end speech was forbidden them, on account of the constantdanger of hemorrhage. So that Diana had always felt herself starved ofthose last words and messages which make the treasure of bereaved love.Often and often the cry of her loneliness to her dead father had beenthe bitter cry of Andromache to Hector; "I had from thee, in dying, nomemorable word on which I might ever think in the year of mourning whileI wept for thee."
Had there been a quarrel between her father and mother?--or somethingworse?--at which Diana's ignorance of life, imposed upon her by herupbringing, could only glance in shuddering? She knew her mother haddied at twenty-six; and that in the two years before her death Mr.Mallory had been much away, travelling and exploring in Asia Minor. Theyoung wife must have been often alone. Diana, with a sudden catching ofthe breath, envisaged possibilities of which no rational being of fullage who reads a newspaper can be unaware.
Then, with an inward passion of denial, she shook the whole nightmarefrom her. Outrage!--treason!--to those helpless memories of which shewas now the only guardian. In these easy, forgetting days, when the oldpassions and endurances look to us either affected or eccentric, such alife, such an exile as her father's, may seem strange even--so sheaccused herself--to that father's child. But that is because we are meansouls beside those who begot us. We cannot feel as they; and ourconstancy, compared to theirs, is fickleness.
So, in spirit, she knelt again beside her dead, embracing their coldfeet and asking pardon.
The tears clouded her eyes; she wandered blindly on through the woodtill she was conscio
us of sudden light and space. She had come to aclearing, where several huge beeches had been torn up by a storm someyears before. Their place had been filled by a tangle of many saplings,and in their midst rose an elder-bush, already showing leaf, amid thebare winterly wood. The last western light caught the twinkling leafbuds, and made of the tree a Burning Bush, first herald of the spring.
The sight of it unloosed some swell of passion in Diana; she foundherself smiling amid her tears, and saying incoherent things that onlythe wood caught.
To-day was the meeting of Parliament. She pictured the scene. Marshamwas there, full of projects and ambitions. Innocently, exultantly, shereminded herself how much she knew of them. If he could not have hersympathy, he must have her antagonism. But no chilling exclusions andreserves! Rather, a generous confidence on his side; and a gradual, achild-like melting and kindling on hers. In politics she would neveragree with him--never!--she would fight him with all her breath andstrength. But not with the methods of Mrs. Fotheringham. No!--what havepolitics to do with--with--
She dropped her face in her hands, laughing to herself, the delicioustremors of first love running through her. Would she hear from him? Sheunderstood she was to be written to, though she had never asked it. Butought she to allow it? Was it _convenable_? She knew that girls now didwhat they liked--threw all the old rules overboard. But--proudly--shestood by the old rules; she would do nothing "fast" or forward. Yet shewas an orphan--standing alone; surely for her there might be morefreedom than for others?
She hurried home. With the rush of new happiness had come back the oldpity, the old yearning. It wasn't, wasn't Fanny's fault! She--Diana--hadalways understood that Mr. Merton was a vulgar, grasping man of nobreeding who had somehow entrapped "your aunt Bertha--who was veryfoolish and very young"--into a most undesirable marriage. As for Mrs.Merton--Aunt Bertha--Fanny had with her many photographs, among themseveral of her mother. A weak, heavy face, rather pretty still. Dianahad sought her own mother in it, with a passionate yet shrinkingcuriosity, only to provoke a rather curt reply from Fanny, in answer toa question she had, with difficulty, brought herself to put:
"Not a bit! There wasn't a scrap of likeness between mother and AuntSparling."
* * * * *
The evening passed off better than the morning had done. Eyes more acutein her own interests than Diana's might have perceived a change in FannyMerton, after her long conversation with Mrs. Colwood. A certainexcitement, a certain triumph, perhaps an occasional relenting andcompunction: all these might have been observed or guessed. She madeherself quite amiable: showed more photographs, talked still morefrankly of her card-winnings on the steamer, and of the flirtation whichhad beguiled the voyage; bespoke the immediate services of Diana's maidfor a dress that must be done up; and expressed a desire for another anda bigger wardrobe in her room. Gradually a tone of possession, almost ofcommand, crept in. Diana, astonished and amused, made no resistance.These, she supposed, were West-Indian manners. The Colonies are likehealthy children that submit in their youth, and then grow up and orderthe household about. What matter!
Meanwhile Mrs. Colwood looked a little pale, and confessed to aheadache. Diana was pleased, however, to see that she and Fanny weregetting on better than had seemed to be probable in the morning. Fannywished--nay, was resolved--to be entertained and amused, Mrs. Colwoodthrew herself with new zest into the various plans Diana had made forher cousin. There was to be a luncheon-party, an afternoon tea, and soforth. Only Diana, pricked by a new mistrust, said nothing in publicabout an engagement she had (to spend a Saturday-to-Monday with LadyLucy at Tallyn three weeks later), though she and Muriel made anxiousplans as to what could be done to amuse Fanny during the two days.
Diana was alone in her room at night when Mrs. Colwood knocked. WouldDiana give her some lavender-water?--her headache was still severe.Diana new to minister to her; but, once admitted, Muriel said no more ofher headache. Rather she began to soothe and caress Diana. Was she inbetter spirits? Let her only intrust the entertaining of Fanny Merton toher friend and companion--Mrs. Colwood would see to it. Diana laughed,and silenced her with a kiss.
Presently they were sitting by the fire, Muriel Colwood in a largearm-chair, a frail, fair creature, with her large dark-circled eyes, andher thin hands and arms; Diana kneeling beside her.
"I had no idea what a poison poverty could be!" said Muriel, abruptly,with her gaze on the fire.
"My cousin?" Diana looked up startled. "Was that what she was saying toyou?"
Muriel nodded assent. Her look--so anxious and tender--held, envelopedher companion.
"Are they in debt?" said Diana, slowly.
"Terribly. They seem to be going to break up their home."
"Did she tell you all about it?"
Mrs. Colwood hesitated.
"A great deal more than I wanted to know!" she said, at last, as thoughthe words broke from her.
Diana thought a little.
"I wonder--whether that was--what she came home for?"
Mrs. Colwood moved uneasily.
"I suppose if you are in those straits you don't really think ofanything else--though you may wish to."
"Did she tell you how much they want?" said Diana, quickly.
"She named a thousand pounds!"
Muriel might have been describing her own embarrassments, so scarlet hadshe become.
"A thousand pounds!" cried Diana, in amazement. "But then why--why--doesshe have so many frocks--and play cards for money--and bet on races?"
She threw her arms round Mrs. Colwood's knees impetuously.
Muriel's small hand smoothed back the girl's hair, timidly yet eagerly.
"I suppose that's the way they've been brought up."
"A thousand pounds! And does she expect me to provide it?"
"I am afraid--she hopes it."
"But I haven't got it!" cried Diana, sitting down on the floor. "I'vespent more than I ought on this place; I'm overdrawn; I ought to beeconomical for a long time. You know, Muriel, I'm not really rich."
Mrs. Colwood colored deeper than ever. But apparently she could think ofnothing to say. Her eyes were riveted on her companion.
"No, I'm not rich," resumed Diana, with a frown, drawing circles on theground with her finger. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have taken this house. Idare say it was horrid of me. But I couldn't have known--could I?--thatFanny would be coming and want a thousand pounds?"
She looked up expecting sympathy--perhaps a little indignation. Mrs.Colwood only said:
"I suppose she would not have come over--if things had not been _very_bad."
"Why didn't she give me some warning?" cried Diana--"instead of talkingabout French lessons! But am I bound--do _you_ think I am bound?--togive the Mertons a thousand pounds? I know papa got tired of giving themmoney. I wonder if it's _right_!"
She frowned. Her voice was a little stern. Her eyes flashed.
Mrs. Colwood again touched her hair with a hand that trembled.
"They are your only relations, aren't they?" she said, pleadingly.
"Yes," said Diana, still with the same roused look.
"Perhaps it would set them on their feet altogether."
The girl gave a puzzled laugh.
"Did she--Muriel, did she ask you to tell me?"
"I think she wanted me to break it to you," said Mrs. Colwood, after amoment. "And I thought it--it might save you pain."
"Just like you!" Diana stooped to kiss her hand. "That's what yourheadache meant! Well, but now--ought I--ought I--to do it?"
She clasped her hands round her knees and swayed backward andforward--pondering--with a rather sombre brow. Mrs. Colwood's expressionwas hidden in the darkness of the big chair.
"--Always supposing I can do it," resumed Diana. "And I certainlycouldn't do it at once; I haven't got it. I should have to sellsomething, or borrow from the bank. No, I must think--I must think overit," she added more resolutely, as though her way cleared.
"Of c
ourse," said Mrs. Colwood, faintly. Then she raised herself. "Letme tell her so--let me save you the conversation."
"You dear!--but why should you!" said Diana, in amazement.
"Let me."
"If you like! But I can't have Fanny making you look like this. Please,please go to bed."
* * * * *
An hour later Mrs. Colwood, in her room, was still up and dressed,hanging motionless, and deep in thought, over the dying fire. And beforeshe went to sleep--far in the small hours--her pillow was wetwith crying.
The Testing of Diana Mallory Page 7