“Does she mean it, do you think?” asked Robin, turning eagerly to
Priscilla— “Will she marry me, after all?”
“I shouldn’t wonder!” and the old woman nodded sagaciously— “Let her sleep on it, lad! — an’ you sleep on it, too! — The storm’s nigh over — an’ mebbe our dark cloud ‘as a silver lining!”
Half-an-hour later on she went to her own bed — and on the way thought she would peep into Innocent’s room and see how she fared — but the door was locked. Vexed at her own lack of foresight in not possessing herself of the key before the girl had been carried to her room, she left her own door open that she might be ready in case of any call — and for a long time she lay awake watchfully, thinking and wondering what the next day would bring forth — till at last anxiety and bewilderment of mind were overcome by sheer fatigue and she slept. Not so Robin Clifford. Excited and full of new hope which he hardly dared breathe to himself, he made no attempt to rest — but paced his room up and down, up and down, like a restless animal in a cage, waiting with hardly endurable impatience for the dawn. Thoughts chased each other in his brain too quickly to evolve any practical order out of them, — he tried to plan out what he would do with the coming day — how he would let the farm people know that Innocent had returned — how he would send a telegram to her friend Miss Leigh in London to say she was safe in her old home — and then the recollection of her literary success swept over his mind like a sort of cloud — her fame! — the celebrity she had won in that wider world outside Briar Farm — was it fair or honest to her that he should take advantage of her weak and half-distraught condition and allow her to become his wife? — she, whose genius was already acknowledged by a wide and discerning public, and who might be considered as only at the beginning of a brilliant and prosperous career?
“For, after all, I am only a farmer,” he said— “And with the friends she has made for herself she might marry any one! The best way for me will be to give her time — time to recover from this — this terrible trouble she seems to have on her mind — this curse of that fancy for Amadis de Jocelyn! — by Heaven, I’d kill him without a minute’s grace if I had him in my power!”
Still pacing to and fro and thinking, he wore the slow hours away, and at last the grey peep of a misty, silvery dawn peered through his window. He threw the lattice open and leaned out — the scent of the wet fields and trees after the night’s storm was sweet and refreshing, and copied his heated blood. He reviewed the whole situation with greater calmness, — and decided that he must not be selfish enough to grasp at the proffered joy of marriage with the only woman he had ever loved unless he could be made sure that it would be for her own happiness.
“Just now she hardly knows what she is saying or doing,” he mused, sadly— “Some great disappointment has broken her spirit and she is wounded and in pain, — but when she is quite herself and has mastered her grief, she will see things in a different light — she will realise the fame she has won, — the brilliant name she has made — yes! — she must think of all this — she must not wrong herself or injure her position by marrying me!”
The silver-grey dawn brightened steadily, and in the eastern sky long folds of silky mist began to shred away in thin strips of delicate vapour showing peeps of pale amber between, — fitful touches of faint rose-colour flitted here and there against the gold, — and with a sense of relief that the day was at last breaking and that the sky showed promise of the sun, he left his room, and stepping noiselessly into the outside corridor, listened. Priscilla’s door was wide open — and as he passed he looked in, — she was fast asleep. He could not hear a sound, — and though he walked on cautious tip-toe along the little passage which led to the room where Innocent slept and waited there a minute or two, straining his ears for any little sigh, or sob, or whisper, none came; — all was silent. Quietly he went downstairs, and, opening the hall door, stepped out into the garden. Every shrub and plant was dripping with wet — many were beaten down and broken by the fury of the night’s storm, and there was more desolation than beauty in the usually well-ordered and carefully-tended garden. The confusion of fallen flowers and trailing stems made a melancholy impression on his mind, — at another time he would scarcely have heeded what was, after all, only the natural havoc wrought by high winds and heavy rains, — but this morning there seemed to be more than the usual ruin. He walked slowly round to the front of the house — and there looked up at the projecting lattice window of Innocent’s room. It was wide open. Surprised, he stopped underneath it and looked up, half expecting to see her, — but only a filmy white curtain moved gently with the first stirrings of the morning air. He stood a moment or two irresolute, recalling the night when he had climbed up by the natural ladder of the old wistaria and had heard her tell the plaintive little story of her “base-born” condition, with tears in her eyes, and the pale moonshine lighting up her face like the face of an angel in a dream.
“And she had written her first book already then!” he thought— “She had all that genius in her and I never knew!”
A deeper brightness in the sky began to glow, and a light spread itself over the land — the sun was rising. He looked towards the low hills in the east, and saw the golden rim lifting itself like the edge of a cup above the horizon, — and as it ascended higher and higher, some fleecy white clouds rolled softly away from its glittering splendour, showing glimpses of tenderest ethereal blue. A still and solemn beauty invested all the visible scene, — a sacred peace — the peace of an obedient and law-abiding nature wherein man alone creates strange discord. Robin looked long and lovingly at the fair prospect,-the wide meadows, the stately trees warmly tinted with autumnal glory, and thought —
“Could she be happier than here? — safe in the arms of love? — safe and sheltered from all trouble in the home she once idolised?”
He would not answer his own inward query — and suddenly the fancy seized him to call her by name, as he had called her on that moonlit night long ago, and persuade her to look out on the familiar fields shining in the sunlight of the morning.
“Innocent!”
There was no answer.
He called a little louder —
“Innocent!”
Still silence. A robin hopped out from the cover of wet leaves and peered at him questioningly with its bold bright eye. Acting on an irresistible impulse he set his foot on the gnarled root of the old wistaria and started to climb to the window-sill. Three minutes sufficed him to reach it — he looked into the little room, — the room which had formerly been the study of the “Sieur Amadis de Jocelin” — and there seated at the old oak table with her head bowed down upon her hands and her hair covering her as with a veil, was Innocent. The sunlight flashed brightly in upon her — and immediately above her the golden beams traced out as with a pencil of light the arms of the old French knight with the faded rose and blue of his shield and motto illumining with curiously marked distinctness the words he himself had carved beneath his own heraldic emblems:
“Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!”
She was very strangely still, — and a cold fear suddenly caught at
Robin’s heart and half choked his breath.
“Innocent!” he cried. Then, leaping into the room like a man in sudden frenzy, he rushed towards that motionless little figure — threw his arms about it — lifted it — caressed it…
“Innocent! Look at me! Speak to me!”
The fair head fell passively back against his shoulder with all its wealth of rippling hair — the fragile form he clasped was helpless, lifeless, breathless! — and with a great shuddering sob of agony, he realised the full measure of his life’s despair. Innocent was dead! — and for her, as for the “Sieur Amadis,” the quaint words shining above her in the morning sunlight were aptly fitted —
“Who here seekynge Forgetfulness Did here fynde Peace!”
. . . . . . .
Many things in life come too
late to be of rescue or service, and justice is always tardy in arrival. Too late was Pierce Armitage, after long years of absence, to give his innocent child the simple heritage of a father’s acknowledgment; he could but look upon her dead face and lay flowers on her in her little coffin. The world heard of the sudden death of the young and brilliant writer with a faintly curious concern — but soon forgot that she had ever existed. No one knew, no one guessed the story of her love for the French painter, Amadis de Jocelyn — he was abroad at the time of her death, and only three persons secretly connected him with the sorrow of her end — and these were Lord Blythe, Miss Leigh and Robin Clifford. Yet even these said nothing, restrained by the thought of casting the smallest scandal on the sweet lustre of her name. And Amadis de Jocelyn himself? — had he no regret? — no pity? If the truth must be told, he was more relieved than pained, — more flattered than sorry! The girl had died for him, — well! — that was more or less a pleasing result of his power! She was a silly child — obsessed by a “fancy” — it was not his fault if he could not live up to that “fancy” — he liked “facts.” His picture of her was the success of the Salon that year, and he was admired and congratulated, — this was enough for him.
“One of your victims, Amadis?” asked a vivacious society woman he knew, critically studying the portrait on the first day of its exhibition.
He nodded, smilingly.
“Really? And yet — Innocent?”
He nodded again.
“Very much so! She is dead!”
. . . . . . .
Sorrow and joy, strangely intermingled, divided the last years of life for good Miss Leigh. The shock of the loss and death of the girl to whom she had become profoundly attached, followed by the startling discovery that her old lover Pierce Armitage was alive, proved almost too much for her frail nerves — but her gratitude to God for the joy of seeing the beloved face once again, and hearing the beloved voice, was so touching and sincere that Armitage, smitten to the heart by the story of her long fidelity and her tenderness for his forsaken daughter, offered to marry her, earnestly praying her to let him share life with her to the end. This she gently refused, — but for the rest of her days she — with him and Lord Blythe — made a trio of friends, — a compact of affection and true devotion such as is seldom known in this work-a-day world. They were nearly always together, — and the memory of Innocent, with her young life’s little struggle against fate ending so soon in disaster, was a link never to be broken save by death, which breaks all.
L’ENVOI
A few evenings since, I who have written this true story of a young girl’s romantic fancy, passed by Briar Farm. The air was very still, and a red sun was sinking in a wintry sky. The old Tudor farmhouse looked beautiful in the clear half-frosty light — but the trees in the old bye road were leafless, and though the courtyard gate stood open there were no flowers to be seen beyond, and no doves flying to and fro among the picturesque gables. I knew, as I walked slowly along, that just a mile distant, in the small churchyard of the village, Innocent, the “base-born” child of sorrow, lay asleep by her “Dad,” the last of the Jocelyns, — I knew also that not far off from their graves, the mortal remains of the faithful Priscilla were also resting in peace — and I felt, with a heavy sadness at my heart, that the fame of the old house was wearing out and that presently its tradition, like many legendary and romantic things, would soon be forgotten. But just at the turn of a path, where a low stile gives access to the road, I saw a man standing, his arms folded and leaning on the topmost bar of the stile — a man neither old nor young, with a strong quiet face, and almost snow-white hair — a man quite alone, whose attitude and bearing expressed the very spirit of solitude. I knew him for the master of the farm — a man greatly honoured throughout the neighbourhood for justice and kindness to all whom he employed, but also a man stricken by a great sorrow for which there can be no remedy.
“Will he never marry?” I thought, — but as I put the question to myself I dismissed it almost as a blasphemy. For Robin Clifford is one of those rarest souls among men who loves but once, and when love is lost finds it not again. Except, — perhaps? — in a purer world than ours, where our “fancies” may prove to have had a surer foundation than our “facts.”
THE END
The Young Diana
AN EXPERIMENT OF THE FUTURE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
EPILOGUE
The first edition’s title page
CHAPTER I
ONCE upon a time, in earlier and less congested days of literary effort, an Author was accustomed to address the Public as “Gentle Reader.” It was a civil phrase, involving a pretty piece of flattery. It implied three things: first, that if the Reader were not “gentle,” the Author’s courtesy might persuade him or her to become so — secondly, that criticism, whether favourable or the reverse, might perhaps be generously postponed till the reading of the book was finished, — and thirdly, that the Author had no wish to irritate the Reader’s feelings, but rather sought to prepare and smooth the way to a friendly understanding. Now I am at one with my predecessors in all these delicate points of understanding, and as I am about to relate what every person of merely average intelligence is likely to regard as an incredible narrative, I think it as well to begin politely, in the old-fashioned “grand” manner of appeal, which is half apologetic and half conciliatory. “Gentle Reader,” therefore, I pray you to be friends with me! Do not lose either patience or temper while following the strange adventures of a very strange woman, — though in case you should be disappointed in seeking for what you will not find, let me say at once that my story is not of the Sex Problem type. No! My heroine is not perverted from the paths of decency and order, or drawn to a bad end; in fact, I cannot bring her to an end at all, as she is still very much alive and doing uncommonly well for herself. Any end for Diana May would seem not only incongruous, but manifestly impossible.
Life, as we all know, is a curious business. It is like a stage mask with two faces, — the one comic, the other tragic. The way we look at it depends on the way it looks at us. Some of us have seen it on both sides, and are neither edified nor impressed.
Then, again — life is a series of “sensations.” We who live now are always describing life. They who lived long ago did the same. It seems that none of us have ever found, or can ever find, anything better to occupy ourselves withal. All through the ages the millions of human creatures who once were born and who are now dead, passed their time on this planet in experiencing “sensations,” and relating their experiences to one another, each telling his or her little “tale of woe” in a different way. So anxious were they, and so ‘anxious are we, to explain the special and individual manner in which our mental and physical vibrations respond to the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves, that all systems of religion, government, science, art and philosophy have been, and are, evolved simply and solely out of the pains and pleasures of a mass of atoms who are “feeling” things and trying to express their feelings to each other. These feelings they designate by various lofty names, such as “faith,” “logic,” “reason,” “opinion,” “wisdom,” and so forth; and upon them they build temporary fabrics of Law and Order, vastly solid in appearance, yet collapsible as a house of cards, and crumbling at a touch,
while every now and again there comes a sudden, unlooked-for interruption to their discussions and plans — a kind of dark pause and suggestion of chaos, such as a great war, a plague or other unwelcome “visitation of God,” wherein “feelings” almost cease, or else people are too frightened to talk about them. They are chilled into nervous silence and wait, afflicted by fear and discouragement, till the cloud passes and the air clears. Then the perpetual buzz of “feeling” begins again in the mixed bass and treble of complaint and rejoicing, — a kind of monotonous noise without harmony. External Nature has no part in it, for Man is the only creature that ever tries to explain the phenomena of existence. It is not in the least comprehensible why he alone should thus trouble and perplex himself, — or why his incessant consideration and analysis of his own emotions should be allowed to go on, — for, whatsoever education may do for us, we shall never be educated out of the sense of our own importance. Which is an odd fact, moving many thoughtful minds to never-ending wonder.
My heroine, Diana May, wondered. She was always wondering. She spent weeks, and months, and years, in a chronic state of wonder. She wondered about herself and several other people, because she thought both herself and those several other people so absurd. She found no use for herself in the general scheme of things, and tried, with much patient humility, to account for herself. But though she read books on science, books on psychology, books on natural and spiritual law, and studied complex problems of evolution and selection of species till her poor dim eyes grew dimmer, and the “lines from nose to chin” became ever longer and deeper, she could discover no way through the thick bog of her difficulties. She was an awkward numeral in a sum; she did not know why she came in or how she was to be got out.
Her father and mother were what are called “very well-to-do people,” with a pleasantly suburban reputation for respectability and regular church attendance. Mr. James Polydore May, — this was his name in full, as engraved on his visiting card — was a small man in stature, but in self-complacency the biggest one alive. He had made a considerable fortune in a certain manufacturing business which need not here be specified, and he had speculated with it in a shrewd and careful manner which was not without a touch of genius, the happy result being that he had always gained and never lost. Now at the, age of sixty, he was free from all financial care, and could rattle gold and silver in his trouser-pockets with a sense of pleasure in their clinking sound, — they had the sweetness of church-bells which proclaim the sure nearness of a prosperous town. He was not a bad-looking little veteran, — he had, as he was fond of saying of himself, “a good chest measurement,” and though his legs were short, they were not bandy. Inclined to corpulence, the two lower buttons of his waistcoat were generally left undone, that he might the more easily stretch himself after a full meal. His physiognomy was not so much intelligent as pugnacious — his bushy eyebrows, hair and moustache gave him at certain moments the look of an irascible old terrier. He had keen small eyes, coming close to the bridge of a rather pronounced Israelitish nose, and to these characteristics was added a generally assertive air, — an air which went before him like an advancing atmosphere, heralding his approach as a “somebody” — that sort of atmosphere which invariably accompanies nobodies. His admiration of the fair sex was open and not always discreet, and from his youth up he had believed himself capable of subjugating any and every woman. He had an agreeable “first manner” of his own on introduction, — a manner which was absolutely deceptive, giving no clue to the uglier side of his nature. His wife could have told whole stories about this “first manner” of his, had she not long ago given up the attempt to retain any hold on her own individuality. She had been a woman of average intelligence when she married him, — commonplace, certainly, but good-natured and willing to make the best of everything; needless to say that the illusions of youth vanished with the first years of wedded life (as they are apt to do), and she had gradually sunk into a flabby condition of resigned nonentity, seeing there was nothing else left for her. The dull, tame tenor of her days had once been interrupted by the birth of her only child Diana, who as long as she was small and young, and while she was being educated under the usual system of governesses and schools, was an object of delight, affection, amusement and interest, and who, when she grew up and “came out” at eighteen as a graceful, pretty girl of the freshest type of English beauty, gave her mother something to love and to live for, — but alas! — Diana had proved the bitterest of all her disappointments. The “coming-out” business, the balls, the race-meetings and other matrimonial traps had been set in vain; — the training, the music, the dancing, the “toilettes had failed to attract, — and Diana had not married. She had fallen in love, as most girls do before they know much about men, — and she had engaged herself to an officer with “expectations” for whom, with a romantic devotion as out of date as the poems of Chaucer, she had waited for seven long years in a resigned condition of alarming constancy, — and then, when his “expectations” were realized, he had promptly thrown her over for a fairer and younger partner. By that time Diana was what is called “getting on.” All this had tried the temper of Mrs. James Polydore May considerably — and she took refuge from her many vexations in the pleasures of the table and the consolations of sleep. The result of this mode of procedure was that she became corpulent and unwieldy, — her original self was swallowed up in a sort of featherbed of adipose tissue, from which she peered out on the world with protruding, lustreless eyes, the tip of her small nose seeming to protest feebly against the injustice of being well-nigh walled from sight between the massive flabby cheeks on either side of its never classic and distinctly parsimonious proportions. With over-sleep and over-eating she had matured into a stupid and somewhat obstinate woman, with a habit of saying unmeaningly nice or nasty things: — she would “gush” affectionately to all and sundry, — to the maid who fastened her shoes as ardently as to a friend of many years’ standing, — yet she would mock her own guests behind their backs, or unkindly criticize the physical and mental defects of the very man or woman she had flattered obsequiously five minutes before. So that she was not exactly a “safe” acquaintance, — you never knew where to have her. But, — as is often the case with these placidly smiling, obese ladies, — everyone seemed to be in a conspiracy to call her “sweet,” and “dear” and “kind,” whereas in very truth she was one of the most selfish souls extant. Her charities were always carefully considered and bestowed in quarters where she was likely to get most credit for them, — her profusely expressed sympathy for other people’s troubles exhausted itself in a few moments, and she would straightway forget what form of loss or misfortune she had just been commiserating; — while, despite her proverbial “dear” and “sweet” attributes, she had a sulky temper which would hold her in its grip for days, during which time she would neither speak nor be spoken to. Her chief interest and attention were centred on eatables, and she always made a point of going to breakfast in advance of her husband, so that she might select for herself the most succulent morsels out of the regulation dish of fried bacon, before he had a chance to look in. Husband and wife were always arguing with each other, and both were always wrong in each other’s opinion. Mrs. James Polydore May considered her worser half as something of a wayward and peevish child, and he in turn looked upon her as a useful domestic female—” perfectly simple and natural,” he was wont to say, a statement which, if true, would have been vastly convenient to him as he could then have deceived her more easily. But “deeper than ever plummet sounded” was the “simplicity” wherewith Mrs. James Polydore May was endowed, and the “natural” way in which she managed to secure her own comfort, convenience and ease while assuming to be the most guileless and unselfish of women; indeed there were times when she was fairly astonished at herself for having “arranged things so cleverly,” as she expressed it. Whenever a woman of her type admits to having “arranged things cleverly” you may be sure that the most astute lawyer alive could
never surpass her in the height or the depth of duplicity.
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