Here their mutual personal compliments were interrupted by the hurried entrance of Grace Laurie, looking pale and scared.
“Oh, ‘m, I’m afraid some accident has happened to Miss Diana!” she said, breathlessly. “I’ve been all the way down to the cove, and — and—”
Here she suddenly burst out crying. Mr. May bounced up from his chair.
“Deuce take the woman! — don’t stand there grizzling! What’s the matter? Speak out!”
Mrs. May stared feebly, her mouth opening slowly, like that of a fish on dry land.
“What — what is it, Grace?” she stammered. “You frighten me!”
“Yes, ‘m, I know, but I can’t help it!” Grace answered. gaspingly. “But — but I’ve been down to the cove — and all round in every place, and there’s Miss Diana’s clothes all put together on the rocks, with her shoes and hat and bathing towel, but — but — there’s no Miss Diana!” Here her emotions got the better of her, and she gave a small scream. “Oh, oh! I’m sure she’s drowned! — oh, Miss Diana, poor thing! I’m sure she’s drowned! — she’s been carried off her feet by the waves! — there was a high tide this morning, and I know she’s drowned! She’s drowned, she’s drowned!”
Her voice rose to a high shrill pitch, and she wrung her hands.
Mrs. May struggled weakly out of her chair, and then dropped heavily into it again.
“Drowned! Diana! Don’t be foolish, Grace! It’s not possible!”
Mr. May seized his cap and threw if on his head.
“Here, I’ll soon put a stop to all this nonsense!” he said. “Let me get down to the cove, — what’s the good of a parcel of silly fools of women shrieking and crying before they know what’s happened!” He marched up to Grace Laurie and grasped her by the shoulder. “Now, be calm! Can you be calm?”
Grace caught her breath, and wriggled herself away from the nip of his fingers.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, repeat what you said just now, — you went down to the cove and saw — —”
“Miss Diana’s clothes, — all put by on the rocks, just as she always puts them out of the way when she’s going to bathe,” said Grace. “And her bathing towel, — that hasn’t been used. And her shoes and stockings. But Miss Diana’s gone!”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” moaned Mrs. May. “What dreadful dreadful things you are saying! What are we to do? Oh, I feel so ill! My sweet Diana! — my only, only precious child! Oh, James, James!”
And with her face suddenly working up into all sorts of lines and creases as though it were an india-rubber mask pulled from behind, she began to weep slowly and tricklingly, like a tap with a stoppage in its middle.
“Be quiet!” shouted Mr. May fiercely. “You unnerve me with all this snivelling! — and I won’t be unnerved! I’m going myself to the cove — I’ll soon dear up this business! I don’t believe anything has happened to Diana, — it’s a fine morning, and she’s probably enjoying a swim, — she can swim like a fish — you know she can! — she couldn’t drown!” And with a half-suppressed oath he trotted out, all fuss and feathers, like an angry turkey-cock, his whole mentality arrayed against fate and circumstance, resolved to show that he was stronger than either.
By this time the ill news had spread, and the servants, the gardeners, and a few of the villagers went running down to the cove. It was true there had been a high tide that morning, — there was yet the glistening trail of the loftiest wave on the rocks where the freshly tossed seaweed clung. Safe out of all possible reach of the water, and neatly piled together on a ledge of rock, were Diana’s simple garments, as Grace had said, — with her hat, stockings and shoes and the unused bathing towel. A veteran sailor had joined the group of onlookers, and now, drawing his pipe from his mouth, he asked:
“What time did the leddy coom down ’ere?”
Mr. May had by now lost a little of his self-assertiveness and was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He was not a man of sentiment; though he could often feign emotion successfully enough to deceive the very elect. But just now he was, as he would himself have said, “very much upset.” He knew that he ought to appear to his own servants and to the villagers like a fond father distracted with anxiety and suspense, and he was aware that his dumpy figure in tight white flannels did not “dress” the part. He replied curtly:
“She was here a little before six, I’m told—”
“Ah, poor thing, then she’s been carried out of her depth!” said the old “salt.”
“There’s a main deal o’ suction with the sea in this ’ere cove when full fide cooms in—”
“She’s an excellent swimmer,” said Mr. May, gazing at the sea in a vaguely disappointed way, as though he thought each wave that swept slowly in ought to bring Diana riding triumphantly on top of it.
“Ay, ay! — that may be! — but swimmin’ winnot allers save a woman what’s light weight an’ ain’t got the muscles of a man, There’s a force o’ water ’ere sometimes as ‘ud sweep a cart an ‘oss off like a bit o’ straw! Ay, ay! — she’s gone for sure! an’ mebbe her poor body’ll never come nigh — leastways not ’ere, — it might, lower down the coast.” Here Grace Laurie, who was with the other servants watching, began to cry bitterly.
“Oh, Miss Diana!” she sobbed. “She was so good and kind! Oh, poor, dear Miss Diana!”
The old sailor patted her gently on the shoulder, “Now don’t ye fret, don’t ye fret, my girl!” he said. “We’re all swept off our feet sooner or later, when the big tide cooms in! — some goes first an’ others last, — but ’tis all the same! Now you just pull yerself together an’ take the poor leddy’s clothes back ‘ome — an’ I an’ my mates will watch all along shore, an’ if we hears anythin’ or finds anythin’—”
Mr. May coughed noisily.
“I am the father of the unfortunate lady,” he said stiffly. “I cannot yet believe or realize this — this awful business; but anything you can do will be suitably rewarded — of course—”
“Thanky, sir, thanky! I makes no doubt on’t! — but I’ll not worrit ye with the hows an’ the whens in yer sorrer, for sorrer ye must ‘ave, for all ye looks so dry. What we ‘ears we’ll let ye know an’ what we finds too—”
And he subsided into silence, watching Grace, who, with choked sobs and tears, took up Diana’s clothes as tenderly as if they were living objects. Some of the other servants wept too, out of sympathy, and Jonson, the butler, approached his master with solemn deference.
“Will you take my harm, sir?” he said.
Mr. May stared at him angrily, — then, remembering the circumstances, assumed a melancholy and resigned air.
“No, Jonson, thank you!” he answered.” I will walk home alone.” Then, after a pause, “You and Grace had better see to Mrs. May, — prepare her a little — it will be a terrible blow to her—”
He turned away, and as he went, the group of sight-seers went also, slowly dispersing and talking about the fatality in hushed voices, as though they were afraid the sea would hear.
The old sailor remained behind, smoking and watching the waves. Presently he saw something on the surface of the water that attracted his attention, and he went to the edge of the breaking surf and waited till the object was cast at his feet. It was a woman’s white canvas bathing shoe.
“Ay. ‘Tother’ll mebbe come in presently,” he said. “Poor soul! — they’se washed off her feet, — she’s gone, for sure! I’ll keep this a bit — in case ‘tother comes.”
And shaking it free from the sand and dripping water, he put it in his jacket pocket, and resumed his smoky meditations.
Meanwhile at Rose Lea the worst had been told. Mrs. May, weeping profusely, and tottering like a sack too full to stand upright, had been put to bed in a state bordering on collapse. Mr. May occupied himself in sending off telegrams and writing letters; two representatives of the local press called, asking for details of the “Shocking Bathing Fatality,” which they secured, first from the bereaved Mr. M
ay himself, next from the butler, then from the maid, then from the cook, and then from the kitchen-maid, “who ‘ad been the last to see the poor dear lady,” with the result that they had a sufficiently garbled and highly-coloured account to make an almost “sensational” column in their profoundly dull weekly newspaper.
The day wore on, — the house was invested with a strange silence; Diana’s presence, Diana’s busy feet tripping here and there on household business might have been considered trifling things; but the fact that she was no longer in evidence created a curious, empty sense of loneliness. Mrs. May remained in bed, moaning and weeping drearily, with curtains drawn to shut out the aggressively brilliant sunshine; and Mr. May began to take a mysterious pleasure in writing the letters which told his friends in, London and elsewhere of his “tragic and irreparable loss.” He surprised himself by the beautiful sentences he managed to compose. “Our only darling child, who was so beloved and precious to us and to all who knew her” — was one. “I shall do my best to cheer and support my dear wife, who is quite prostrated by this awful calamity,” was another. “You know how dear she was and how deeply cherished!” was a third. Sometimes, while he was writing, a small twinge of conscience hurt the mental leather whereof he was largely composed, and he realized his own hypocrisy. He knew he was not really sorry for what had happened. And yet — memory pointed him backward with something of reproach to the day when Diana, a pretty and winsome child, with fair hair dancing about her in bright curls, had clambered on his knee and caressed his ugly face, as though it were an adorable object, — and to the after time, when as a girl in the fine bloom of early youth, she had gone with him to her first ball, sweet and fresh as the roses which adorned her simple white gown, and had charmed everyone by her grace, gentleness and exquisite speaking voice, which in its softly modulated tones, exercised a potent witchery on all who heard it. True, — she had missed all her chances, — or rather all her chances had somehow missed her; and she had grown not exactly old, but passée — and — it was a pity she had not married! — but now! — now all her failures and shortcomings were for ever at an end! She was drowned; — the sea had wedded her and set its salty weed among her hair in place of the never-granted orange-blossom. Mr. May shivered a little at this thought, — after all, the sea was a cold and cruel grave for his only child! And yet no tear of human or fatherly emotion generated itself out of his dry brain to moisten his hard little eyes. He stiffened himself in his chair and resumed the writing of his letters which announced the “sudden and awful bereavement” which had befallen him, and was charmed by the ease with which the tenderest expressions concerning his dead daughter flowed from his pen.
And, after a long, sobbing, snoring sleep, Mrs. May woke up to the practical every-day points of the situation and realized that there could be no funeral. This was an awful blow! Unless — unless the poor body of the drowned woman came ashore there could be no black procession winding its doleful way through the flowering lanes of the little Devonshire village, where it would have been picturesque to make a “show” of mourning. So far, the sea had cheated the undertaker.
“I cannot even put a wreath upon my darling’s coffin!” she moaned. “And she loved flowers!”
Fresh sobs and tears followed this new phase of misfortune. Mrs. May was accustomed to find balm in Gilead for the death of any friend by sending a wreath for the corpse, — and her husband had been heard to say that if he died first he would be sure to have “a nasty wet wreath laid on his chest before he was cold.”
Most of the burden and heat of the day fell on the maid, Grace Laurie, who had to take cups of soup, glasses of wine, and other strengthening refreshment to Mrs. May in her bedroom, and to see that Mr. May “had everything he wanted,” which is the usual rule of a house sustained by the presence of a man. She was an honest, warmhearted girl, and was genuinely sorry for the loss of Diana, far more so than were the “bereaved” parents. Once, during the late afternoon, when it was verging towards sunset, she went to Diana’s room and entered it half trembling, moved by a sort of superstitious fear lest she should perhaps see the spirit of its late occupant. The window was open, and a rosy glow from the sky flushed the white muslin curtains with pale pink, and gave deeper colour to a posy of flowers in a vase on the dressing-table. Everything was scrupulously tidy; the servants had made the bed early in the morning, before the fatality had become known, and the whole room had an attractive air of peaceful expectation as though confident of its owner’s return. Grace opened the wardrobe, — there were all the few dresses Diana possessed, in their usual places, with two or three simple country hats. Was there anything missing? No sooner did this thought enter her head than Grace began to search feverishly. She opened drawers and boxes and cupboards, — but, so far as she knew, everything was as it always appeared to be. Yet she could not be quite sure. She was not Diana’s own maid, except by occasional service and favour, — her duties were, strictly speaking, limited to personal attendance on Mrs. May. Diana was accustomed to do everything for herself, arranging and altering her own clothes, and even making them sometimes, so that Grace never quite knew what she really had in the way of garmerits. But as she looked through all the things hurriedly, they seemed to be just what Diana had brought with her from Richmond for the summer, and no more. The clothes found on the sea-shore Grace had herself placed on one chair, all folded in a sad little heap together. She opened the small jewel-box that always stood on the dressing-table, and recognized everything in it, even to the wristlet-watch which Diana always left behind when she went to bathe; apparently there was nothing missing. For one moment a sudden thought had entered her head, that perhaps Diana had run away? — but she as quickly realized the absurdity of such an idea!
“How stupid of me!” she said. “She had no cause to run away.”
She looked round once again, sadly and hopelessly, — then went out and closed the door softly behind her. She felt there was a something mysterious and suggestive in that empty room.
Towards dinner-time Mrs. May struggled out of bed and sat up in an arm-chair, swathed in a voluminous dressing-gown.
“I cannot go down to dinner!” she wailed, to Grace. “The very idea of it is terrible! Tell Mr. May I want to speak to him.”
Grace obeyed, and presently Mr. May came in obedience to the summons, wearing a curious expression of solemn shamefacedness, as if he had done a mean trick some time and had just been found out. His wife gazed at him with red, watery eyes.
“James,” she said, quaveringly, “it’s dreadful to have to remember what you said last night about poor Diana! — oh, it’s dreadful!”
“What did I say?” he asked, nervously. “I — I forget—”
“You said — oh, dear, oh, dear! I hope God may forgive you! — you said Diana was ‘in the way!’ You did! — Our child! Oh, James, James! Your words haunt me! You said she was ‘in the way,’ and now she has been taken from us! Oh, what a punishment for your wicked words! And you a father! Oh, how shall we ever get over it!”
Mr. Polydore May sat down by his wife’s chair and looked foolish; He knew he ought to say that it was indeed a dreadful thing, and that of course they could never get over it — but all the time he was perfectly aware that the “getting over it” would be an easy matter for them both. He had even already imagined it possible to secure a young and pretty “companion housekeeper” to assist Mrs. May in the cares of domestic management, and, when required, to wait upon James Polydore himself with all that deferential docility which should be easy to command for a suitable salary. That would be one way of “getting over it” quite pleasantly, — but in reply to his wife’s melancholy adjuration, he judged it wisest to be silent.
She went on, drearily:
“Fortunately I have one black dress; it belonged to my poor sister’s set of mourning for her husband, but as she married again and went to Australia within the year, it’s really as good as new, and she sold it to me for a pound. And Grace can alter my b
onnet; it’s black, but it has a pink flower, — I must get a crape poppy instead, and black gloves, — Oh, James! — and you wore white flannels this morning! — I’m glad you’ve had the decency to change them!”
Mr. May had certainly changed them, — partly out of conviction that such change was necessary, and partly because Jonson, the butler, had most urgently suggested it. And he was now attired in his “regulation” Sunday suit, which gave him the proper appearance of a respectable J.P. in mourning. All day he had practised an air of pious resignation and reserved sadness it was difficult to keep it up because his nature was captious and irascible, especially when things happened that were opposed to his personal convenience and comfort. His efforts to look what he was not gave him the aspect of a Methodist minister disappointed in the silver collection.
But perhaps on the whole, his wife was a greater humbug than he was. She was one of those curious but not uncommon characters who imagine themselves to be “full of feeling,” when truly they have no feeling at all. Nobody could “gush” with more lamentable pathos than she over a calamity occurring to any of her friends or acquaintance, but no trouble had ever yet lessened her appetite, or deprived her of sleep. Her one aim in life was to seem all that was conventionally correct, — to seem religious, when she was not, to seem sorry, when she was not, to seem glad, when she was not, to seem kind, when she was not, to seem affectionate, when she was not. Her only real passions were avarice, tuft-hunting and gluttony, — these were the fundamental chords of her nature, hidden deep behind the fat, urbane mask of flesh which presented itself as a woman to the world. There are thousands like her, who, unfortunately, represent a large section of the matronhood of Britain.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 838