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diff --git a/4470.txt b/4470.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42bdc25 --- /dev/null +++ b/4470.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17255 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Diana of the Crossways, Complete, by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Diana of the Crossways, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Last Updated: March 7, 2009 +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4470] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK 1. + I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE + II. AN IRISH BALL + III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN + SMITH + IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO + V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE + VI. THE COUPLE + VII. THE CRISIS + VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN + LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + + BOOK 2. + IX. SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN WAS + MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER. + X. THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT + XI. RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF + DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL INCIDENT ON THE ROAD + XII. BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA + XIII. TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION + XIV. GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD AND + OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP + XV. INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER + XVI. TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL, AND OF A SCENE OF EARLY MORNING + XVII. THE PRINCESS EGERIA + + BOOK 3. + XVIII. THE AUTHORESS + XIX. A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT + XX. DIANA'S NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH + XXI. THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE + XXII. BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER: THE WIND EAST OVER BLEAK LAND + XXIII. RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S GOOD WOMEN + XXIV. INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION + XXV. ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS + XXVI. IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTITUDE OF LESSONS + + + BOOK 5. + XXXVI. IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS + XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY + XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT + XXXIX. OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A SHORT + EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX + XL. IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND A + THRICE WHIMSICAL + XLI. CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA + XLII. THE PENULTIMATE: SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND RUN + INTO HARNESS + XLIII. NUPTIAL CHAPTER: AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS LED TO + BLOOM WITH NUPTIAL SENTIMENT + + + + + + A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty, + the daughter of an illustrious Irish House, + came under the shadow of a calumny. It has + latterly been examined and exposed as baseless. + The story of Diana of the Crossways is to be read + as fiction. + + + + +CHAPTER I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE + +Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, +there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty +and her wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables of +one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when +speaking of her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the +sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the +stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must +look some day to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and +indeed full surely will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper +season; be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, +coming on him he knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly +marked to get back what we give, even from the thing named inanimate +nature. + +The 'LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS' are studded with examples +of the dinner-table wit of the time, not always worth quotation twice; +for smart remarks have their measured distances, many requiring to be a +brule pourpoint, or within throw of the pistol, to make it hit; in +other words, the majority of them are addressed directly to our muscular +system, and they have no effect when we stand beyond the range. On +the contrary, they reflect sombrely on the springs of hilarity in the +generation preceding us; with due reserve of credit, of course, to an +animal vivaciousness that seems to have wanted so small an incitement. +Our old yeomanry farmers--returning to their beds over ferny commons +under bright moonlight from a neighbour's harvest-home, eased their +bubbling breasts with a ready roar not unakin to it. Still the +promptness to laugh is an excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit +to come in a people; and undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed +piece of wit is witness to the spouting of laughter. This should comfort +us while we skim the sparkling passages of the 'Leaves.' When a nation +has acknowledged that it is as yet but in the fisticuff stage of the +art of condensing our purest sense to golden sentences, a readier +appreciation will be extended to the gift: which is to strike not the +dazzled eyes, the unanticipating nose, the ribs, the sides, and stun +us, twirl us, hoodwink, mystify, tickle and twitch, by dexterities of +lingual sparring and shuffling, but to strike roots in the mind, the +Hesperides of good things. We shall then set a price on the 'unusual +combination.' A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power. +Has she actual beauty, actual wit?--not simply a tidal material beauty +that passes current any pretty flippancy or staggering pretentiousness? +Grant the combination, she will appear a veritable queen of her period, +fit for homage; at least meriting a disposition to believe the best of +her, in the teeth of foul rumour; because the well of true wit is truth +itself, the gathering of the precious drops of right reason, wisdom's +lightning; and no soul possessing and dispensing it can justly be a +target for the world, however well armed the world confronting her. Our +temporary world, that Old Credulity and stone-hurling urchin in one, +supposes it possible for a woman to be mentally active up to the point +of spiritual clarity and also fleshly vile; a guide to life and a biter +at the fruits of death; both open mind and hypocrite. It has not yet +been taught to appreciate a quality certifying to sound citizenship as +authoritatively as acres of land in fee simple, or coffers of bonds, +shares and stocks, and a more imperishable guarantee. The multitudes +of evil reports which it takes for proof, are marshalled against her +without question of the nature of the victim, her temptress beauty being +a sufficiently presumptive delinquent. It does not pretend to know +the whole, or naked body of the facts; it knows enough for its furry +dubiousness; and excepting the sentimental of men, a rocket-headed +horde, ever at the heels of fair faces for ignition, and up starring +away at a hint of tearfulness; excepting further by chance a solid +champion man, or some generous woman capable of faith in the pelted +solitary of her sex, our temporary world blows direct East on her +shivering person. The scandal is warrant for that; the circumstances of +the scandal emphasize the warrant. And how clever she is! Cleverness is +an attribute of the selecter missionary lieutenants of Satan. We pray to +be defended from her cleverness: she flashes bits of speech that catch +men in their unguarded corner. The wary stuff their ears, the stolid bid +her best sayings rebound on her reputation. Nevertheless the world, +as Christian, remembers its professions, and a portion of it joins the +burly in morals by extending to her a rough old charitable mercifulness; +better than sentimental ointment, but the heaviest blow she has to bear, +to a character swimming for life. + +That the lady in question was much quoted, the Diaries and Memoirs +testify. Hearsay as well as hearing was at work to produce the +abundance; and it was a novelty in England, where (in company) the +men are the pointed talkers, and the women conversationally fair +Circassians. They are, or they know that they should be; it comes to the +same. Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil to them. The +mutes have here and there a sketch or label attached to their +names: they are 'strikingly handsome'; they are 'very good-looking'; +occasionally they are noted as 'extremely entertaining': in what manner, +is inquired by a curious posterity, that in so many matters is left +unendingly to jump the empty and gaping figure of interrogation over its +own full stop. Great ladies must they be, at the web of politics, for +us to hear them cited discoursing. Henry Wilmers is not content to quote +the beautiful Mrs. Warwick, he attempts a portrait. Mrs. Warwick is +'quite Grecian.' She might 'pose for a statue.' He presents her in +carpenter's lines, with a dab of school-box colours, effective to those +whom the Keepsake fashion can stir. She has a straight nose, red lips, +raven hair, black eyes, rich complexion, a remarkably fine bust, and she +walks well, and has an agreeable voice; likewise 'delicate extremities.' +The writer was created for popularity, had he chosen to bring his art +into our literary market. + +Perry Wilkinson is not so elaborate: he describes her in his +'Recollections' as a splendid brune, eclipsing all the blondes coming +near her: and 'what is more, the beautiful creature can talk.' He +wondered, for she was young, new to society. Subsequently he is rather +ashamed of his wonderment, and accounts for it by 'not having known she +was Irish.' She 'turns out to be Dan Merion's daughter.' + +We may assume that he would have heard if she had any whiff of a brogue. +Her sounding of the letter R a trifle scrupulously is noticed by Lady +Pennon: 'And last, not least, the lovely Mrs. Warwick, twenty minutes +behind the dinner-hour, and r-r-really fearing she was late.' + +After alluding to the soft influence of her beauty and ingenuousness +on the vexed hostess, the kindly old marchioness adds, that it was no +wonder she was late, 'for just before starting from home she had broken +loose from her husband for good, and she entered the room absolutely +houseless!' She was not the less 'astonishingly brilliant.' Her +observations were often 'so unexpectedly droll I laughed till I cried.' +Lady Pennon became in consequence one of the stanch supporters of Mrs. +Warwick. + +Others were not so easily won. Perry Wilkinson holds a balance when it +goes beyond a question of her wit and beauty. Henry Wilmers puts the +case aside, and takes her as he finds her. His cousin, the clever and +cynical Dorset Wilmers, whose method of conveying his opinions without +stating them was famous, repeats on two occasions when her name appears +in his pages, 'handsome, lively, witty'; and the stressed repetition of +calculated brevity while a fiery scandal was abroad concerning the lady, +implies weighty substance--the reservation of a constable's truncheon, +that could legally have knocked her character down to the pavement. +We have not to ask what he judged. But Dorset Wilmers was a political +opponent of the eminent Peer who yields the second name to the scandal, +and politics in his day flushed the conceptions of men. His short +references to 'that Warwick-Dannisburgh affair' are not verbally +malicious. He gets wind of the terms of Lord Dannisburgh's will and +testament, noting them without comment. The oddness of the instrument +in one respect may have served his turn; we have no grounds for thinking +him malignant. The death of his enemy closes his allusions to Mrs. +Warwick. He was growing ancient, and gout narrowed the circle he whirled +in. Had he known this 'handsome, lively, witty' apparition as a woman +having political and social views of her own, he would not, one fancies, +have been so stingless. Our England exposes a sorry figure in his +Reminiscences. He struck heavily, round and about him, wherever he +moved; he had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration. His +unadorned harsh substantive statements, excluding the adjectives, +give his Memoirs the appearance of a body of facts, attractive to the +historic Muse, which has learnt to esteem those brawny sturdy giants +marching club on shoulder, independent of henchman, in preference to +your panoplied knights with their puffy squires, once her favourites, +and wind-filling to her columns, ultimately found indigestible. + +His exhibition of his enemy Lord Dannisburgh, is of the class of noble +portraits we see swinging over inn-portals, grossly unlike in likeness. +The possibility of the man's doing or saying this and that adumbrates +the improbability: he had something of the character capable of it, too +much good sense for the performance. We would think so, and still the +shadow is round our thoughts. Lord Dannisburgh was a man of ministerial +tact, official ability, Pagan morality; an excellent general manager, +if no genius in statecraft. But he was careless of social opinion, +unbuttoned, and a laugher. We know that he could be chivalrous toward +women, notwithstanding the perplexities he brought on them, and this the +Dorset-Diary does not show. + +His chronicle is less mischievous as regards Mrs. Warwick than the +paragraphs of Perry Wilkinson, a gossip presenting an image of perpetual +chatter, like the waxen-faced street advertizements of light and easy +dentistry. He has no belief, no disbelief; names the pro-party and the +con; recites the case, and discreetly, over-discreetly; and pictures +the trial, tells the list of witnesses, records the verdict: so the +case went, and some thought one thing, some another thing: only it is +reported for positive that a miniature of the incriminated lady was +cleverly smuggled over to the jury, and juries sitting upon these eases, +ever since their bedazzlement by Phryne, as you know.... And then he +relates an anecdote of the husband, said to have been not a bad fellow +before he married his Diana; and the naming of the Goddess reminds him +that the second person in the indictment is now everywhere called 'The +elderly shepherd';--but immediately after the bridal bells this husband +became sour and insupportable, and either she had the trick of putting +him publicly in the wrong, or he lost all shame in playing the churlish +domestic tyrant. The instances are incredible of a gentleman. Perry +Wilkinson gives us two or three; one on the authority of a personal +friend who witnessed the scene; at the Warwick whist-table, where the +fair Diana would let loose her silvery laugh in the intervals. She +was hardly out of her teens, and should have been dancing instead of +fastened to a table. A difference of fifteen years in the ages of the +wedded pair accounts poorly for the husband's conduct, however solemn +a business the game of whist. We read that he burst out at last, with +bitter mimicry, 'yang--yang--yang!' and killed the bright laugh, shot +it dead. She had outraged the decorum of the square-table only while +the cards were making. Perhaps her too-dead ensuing silence, as of one +striving to bring back the throbs to a slain bird in her bosom, allowed +the gap between the wedded pair to be visible, for it was dated back to +prophecy as soon as the trumpet proclaimed it. + +But a multiplication of similar instances, which can serve no other +purpose than that of an apology, is a miserable vindication of +innocence. The more we have of them the darker the inference. In +delicate situations the chatterer is noxious. Mrs. Warwick had numerous +apologists. Those trusting to her perfect rectitude were rarer. The +liberty she allowed herself in speech and action must have been trying +to her defenders in a land like ours; for here, and able to throw +its shadow on our giddy upper-circle, the rigour of the game of life, +relaxed though it may sometimes appear, would satisfy the staidest +whist-player. She did not wish it the reverse, even when claiming a +space for laughter: 'the breath of her soul,' as she called it, and as +it may be felt in the early youth of a lively nature. She, especially, +with her multitude of quick perceptions and imaginative avenues, her +rapid summaries, her sense of the comic, demanded this aerial freedom. + +We have it from Perry Wilkinson that the union of the divergent couple +was likened to another union always in a Court of Law. There was a +distinction; most analogies will furnish one; and here we see England +and Ireland changeing their parts, until later, after the breach, when +the Englishman and Irishwoman resumed a certain resemblance to the yoked +Islands. + +Henry Wilmers, I have said, deals exclusively with the wit and charm of +the woman. He treats the scandal as we might do in like manner if her +story had not to be told. But these are not reporting columns; very +little of it shall trouble them. The position is faced, and that is all. +The position is one of the battles incident to women, their hardest. It +asks for more than justice from men, for generosity, our civilization +not being yet of the purest. That cry of hounds at her disrobing by Law +is instinctive. She runs, and they give tongue; she is a creature of the +chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she +did once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking +her cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such +positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of woman +trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork never +do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of +holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It is a test of the +civilized to see and hear, and add no yapping to the spectacle. + +Thousands have reflected on a Diarist's power to cancel our Burial +Service. Not alone the cleric's good work is upset by him; but the +sexton's as well. He howks the grave, and transforms the quiet worms, +busy on a single poor peaceable body, into winged serpents that disorder +sky and earth with a deadly flight of zig-zags, like military rockets, +among the living. And if these are given to cry too much, to have their +tender sentiments considered, it cannot be said that History requires +the flaying of them. A gouty Diarist, a sheer gossip Diarist, may thus, +in the bequest of a trail of reminiscences, explode our temples (for +our very temples have powder in store), our treasuries, our homesteads, +alive with dynamitic stuff; nay, disconcert our inherited veneration, +dislocate the intimate connexion between the tugged flaxen forelock and +a title. + +No similar blame is incurred by Henry Wilmers. No blame whatever, one +would say, if he had been less, copious, or not so subservient, in +recording the lady's utterances; for though the wit of a woman may be +terse, quite spontaneous, as this lady's assuredly was here and there, +she is apt to spin it out of a museful mind, at her toilette, or by the +lonely fire, and sometimes it is imitative; admirers should beware of +holding it up to the withering glare of print: she herself, quoting an +obscure maximmonger, says of these lapidary sentences, that they have +merely 'the value of chalk-eggs, which lure the thinker to sit,' +and tempt the vacuous to strain for the like, one might add; besides +flattering the world to imagine itself richer than it is in eggs that +are golden. Henry Wilmers notes a multitude of them. 'The talk fell upon +our being creatures of habit, and how far it was good: She said:--It +is there that we see ourselves crutched between love grown old +and indifference ageing to love.' Critic ears not present at the +conversation catch an echo of maxims and aphorisms overchannel, +notwithstanding a feminine thrill in the irony of 'ageing to love.' The +quotation ranks rather among the testimonies to her charm. + +She is fresher when speaking of the war of the sexes. For one sentence +out of many, though we find it to be but the clever literary clothing of +a common accusation: 'Men may have rounded Seraglio Point: they have not +yet doubled Cape Turk.' + +It is war, and on the male side, Ottoman war: her experience reduced her +to think so positively. Her main personal experience was in the social +class which is primitively venatorial still, canine under its polish. + +She held a brief for her beloved Ireland. She closes a discussion upon +Irish agitation by saying rather neatly: 'You have taught them it is +English as well as common human nature to feel an interest in the dog +that has bitten you.' + +The dog periodically puts on madness to win attention; we gather then +that England, in an angry tremour, tries him with water-gruel to prove +him sane. + +Of the Irish priest (and she was not of his retinue), when he was deemed +a revolutionary, Henry Wilmers notes her saying: 'Be in tune with +him; he is in the key-note for harmony. He is shepherd, doctor, nurse, +comforter, anecdotist and fun-maker to his poor flock; and you wonder +they see the burning gateway of their heaven in him? Conciliate the +priest.' + +It has been partly done, done late, when the poor flock have found their +doctoring and shepherding at other hands: their 'bulb-food and fiddle,' +that she petitioned for, to keep them from a complete shaving off their +patch of bog and scrub soil, without any perception of the tremulous +transatlantic magnification of the fiddle, and the splitting discord of +its latest inspiriting jig. + +And she will not have the consequences of the 'weariful old Irish duel +between Honour and Hunger judged by bread and butter juries.' + +She had need to be beautiful to be tolerable in days when Englishmen +stood more openly for the strong arm to maintain the Union. Her troop of +enemies was of her summoning. + +Ordinarily her topics were of wider range, and those of a woman who +mixed hearing with reading, and observation with her musings. She has +no doleful ejaculatory notes, of the kind peculiar to women at war, +containing one-third of speculative substance to two of sentimental--a +feminine plea for comprehension and a squire; and it was probably the +reason (as there is no reason to suppose an emotional cause) why she +exercised her evident sway over the mind of so plain and straightforward +an Englishman as Henry Wilmers. She told him that she read rapidly, 'a +great deal at one gulp,' and thought in flashes--a way with the makers +of phrases. She wrote, she confessed, laboriously. The desire to prune, +compress, overcharge, was a torment to the nervous woman writing under +a sharp necessity for payment. Her songs were shot off on the impulsion; +prose was the heavy task. 'To be pointedly rational,' she said, 'is a +greater difficulty for me than a fine delirium.' She did not talk as +if it would have been so, he remarks. One is not astonished at her +appearing an 'actress' to the flat-minded. But the basis of her woman's +nature was pointed flame: In the fulness of her history we perceive +nothing histrionic. Capricious or enthusiastic in her youth, she never +trifled with feeling; and if she did so with some showy phrases and +occasionally proffered commonplaces in gilt, as she was much excited +to do, her moods of reflection were direct, always large and honest, +universal as well as feminine. + +Her saying that 'A woman in the pillory restores the original bark of +brotherhood to mankind,' is no more than a cry of personal anguish. +She has golden apples in her apron. She says of life: 'When I fail to +cherish it in every fibre the fires within are waning,' and that drives +like rain to the roots. She says of the world, generously, if with +tapering idea: 'From the point of vision of the angels, this ugly +monster, only half out of slime, must appear our one constant hero.' It +can be read maliciously, but abstain. + +She says of Romance: 'The young who avoid that region escape the title +of Fool at the cost of a celestial crown.' Of Poetry: 'Those that have +souls meet their fellows there.' + +But she would have us away with sentimentalism. Sentimental people, +in her phrase, 'fiddle harmonics on the strings of sensualism,' to the +delight of a world gaping for marvels of musical execution rather than +for music. For our world is all but a sensational world at present, +in maternal travail of a soberer, a braver, a brighter-eyed. Her +reflections are thus to be interpreted, it seems to me. She says, 'The +vices of the world's nobler half in this day are feminine.' We have +to guard against 'half-conceptions of wisdom, hysterical goodness, +an impatient charity'--against the elementary state of the altruistic +virtues, distinguishable as the sickness and writhings of our egoism +to cast its first slough. Idea is there. The funny part of it is our +finding it in books of fiction composed for payment. Manifestly this +lady did not 'chameleon' her pen from the colour of her audience: she +was not of the uniformed rank and file marching to drum and fife +as gallant interpreters of popular appetite, and going or gone to +soundlessness and the icy shades. + +Touches inward are not absent: 'To have the sense of the eternal in life +is a short flight for the soul. To have had it, is the soul's vitality.' +And also: 'Palliation of a sin is the hunted creature's refuge and final +temptation. Our battle is ever between spirit and flesh. Spirit must +brand the flesh, that it may live.' + +You are entreated to repress alarm. She was by preference light-handed; +and her saying of oratory, that 'It is always the more impressive for +the spice of temper which renders it untrustworthy,' is light enough. +On Politics she is rhetorical and swings: she wrote to spur a junior +politician: 'It is the first business of men, the school to mediocrity, +to the covetously ambitious a sty, to the dullard his amphitheatre, arms +of Titans to the desperately enterprising, Olympus to the genius.' +What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature. She saw their +existing posture clearly, yet believed, as men disincline to do, that +they grow. She says, that 'In their judgements upon women men are +females, voices of the present (sexual) dilemma.' They desire to have 'a +still woman; who can make a constant society of her pins and needles.' +They create by stoppage a volcano, and are amazed at its eruptiveness. +'We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited.' Love is +presumably the visitor. Of the greater loneliness of women, she says: +'It is due to the prescribed circumscription of their minds, of which +they become aware in agitation. Were the walls about them beaten down, +they would understand that solitariness is a common human fate and the +one chance of growth, like space for timber.' As to the sensations of +women after the beating down of the walls, she owns that the multitude +of the timorous would yearn in shivering affright for the old +prison-nest, according to the sage prognostic of men; but the flying +of a valiant few would form a vanguard. And we are informed that the +beginning of a motive life with women must be in the head, equally with +men (by no means a truism when she wrote). Also that 'men do not so much +fear to lose the hearts of thoughtful women as their strict attention +to their graces.' The present market is what men are for preserving: an +observation of still reverberating force. Generally in her character of +the feminine combatant there is a turn of phrase, like a dimple near the +lips showing her knowledge that she was uttering but a tart measure of +the truth. She had always too much lambent humour to be the dupe of the +passion wherewith, as she says, 'we lash ourselves into the persuasive +speech distinguishing us from the animals.' + +The instances of her drollery are rather hinted by the Diarists for the +benefit of those who had met her and could inhale the atmosphere at a +word. Drolleries, humours, reputed witticisms, are like odours of +roast meats, past with the picking of the joint. Idea is the only vital +breath. They have it rarely, or it eludes the chronicler. To say of +the great erratic and forsaken Lady A****, after she had accepted +the consolations of Bacchus, that her name was properly signified in +asterisks 'as she was now nightly an Ariadne in heaven through her God,' +sounds to us a roundabout, with wit somewhere and fun nowhere. Sitting +at the roast we might have thought differently. Perry Wilkinson is +not happier in citing her reply to his compliment on the reviewers' +unanimous eulogy of her humour and pathos:--the 'merry clown and poor +pantaloon demanded of us in every work of fiction,' she says, lamenting +the writer's compulsion to go on producing them for applause until it is +extremest age that knocks their knees. We are informed by Lady Pennon +of 'the most amusing description of the first impressions of a pretty +English simpleton in Paris'; and here is an opportunity for ludicrous +contrast of the French and English styles of pushing flatteries--'piping +to the charmed animal,' as Mrs. Warwick terms it in another place: but +Lady Pennon was acquainted with the silly woman of the piece, and found +her amusement in the 'wonderful truth' of that representation. + +Diarists of amusing passages are under an obligation to paint us a +realistic revival of the time, or we miss the relish. The odour of the +roast, and more, a slice of it is required, unless the humorous thing +be preternaturally spirited to walk the earth as one immortal among a +number less numerous than the mythic Gods. 'He gives good dinners,' a +candid old critic said, when asked how it was that he could praise a +certain poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebris imbribus +ac nebulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the +stirring of the gastric juices. And such a revival by any of us would +be impolitic, were it a possible attempt, before our systems shall have +been fortified by philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist +simply to relate, and we can copy from him. + +Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's Art, now neither blushless +infant nor executive man, have attained its majority. We can then be +veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. Rose-pink and dirty drab +will alike have passed away. Philosophy is the foe of both, and their +silly cancelling contest, perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes, +as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, will no longer baffle +the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no longer the soul issuing +out of our incessant strife. Philosophy bids us to see that we are not +so pretty as rose-pink, not so repulsive as dirty drab; and that instead +of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects, the sight of ourselves +is wholesome, bearable, fructifying, finally a delight. Do but perceive +that we are coming to philosophy, the stride toward it will be a +giant's--a century a day. And imagine the celestial refreshment of +having a pure decency in the place of sham; real flesh; a soul born +active, wind-beaten, but ascending. Honourable will fiction then appear; +honourable, a fount of life, an aid to life, quick with our blood. Why, +when you behold it you love it--and you will not encourage it?--or only +when presented by dead hands? Worse than that alternative dirty drab, +your recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous revelations of the filthy +foul; for nature will force her way, and if you try to stifle her by +drowning, she comes up, not the fairest part of her uppermost! Peruse +your Realists--really your castigators for not having yet embraced +Philosophy. As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, nature is +unimpeachable, flower-eke, yet not too decoratively a flower; you must +have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the fat bedding of +roses. In this fashion she grew, says historical fiction; thus does she +flourish now, would say the modern transcript, reading the inner as well +as exhibiting the outer. + +And how may you know that you have reached to Philosophy? You touch her +skirts when you share her hatred of the sham decent, her derision of +sentimentalism. You are one with her when--but I would not have you a +thousand years older! Get to her, if in no other way, by the sentimental +route:--that very winding path, which again and again brings you round +to the point of original impetus, where you have to be unwound for +another whirl; your point of original impetus being the grossly +material, not at all the spiritual. It is most true that sentimentalism +springs from the former, merely and badly aping the latter,--fine +flower, or pinnacle flame-spire, of sensualism that it is, could it do +other? and accompanying the former it traverses tracts of desert here +and there couching in a garden, catching with one hand at fruits, with +another at colours; imagining a secret ahead, and goaded by an appetite, +sustained by sheer gratifications. Fiddle in harmonics as it may, +it will have these gratifications at all costs. Should none be +discoverable, at once you are at the Cave of Despair, beneath the +funereal orb of Glaucoma, in the thick midst of poniarded, slit-throat, +rope-dependant figures, placarded across the bosom Disillusioned, +Infidel, Agnostic, Miserrimus. That is the sentimental route to +advancement. Spirituality does not light it; evanescent dreams: are its +oil-lamps, often with wick askant in the socket. + +A thousand years! You may count full many a thousand by this route +before you are one with divine Philosophy. Whereas a single flight of +brains will reach and embrace her; give you the savour of Truth, the +right use of the senses, Reality's infinite sweetness; for these things +are in philosophy; and the fiction which is the summary of actual Life, +the within and without of us, is, prose or verse, plodding or soaring, +philosophy's elect handmaiden. To such an end let us bend our aim to +work, knowing that every form of labour, even this flimsiest, as you +esteem it, should minister to growth. If in any branch of us we fail in +growth, there is, you are aware, an unfailing aboriginal democratic old +monster that waits to pull us down; certainly the branch, possibly the +tree; and for the welfare of Life we fall. You are acutely conscious of +yonder old monster when he is mouthing at you in politics. Be wary of +him in the heart; especially be wary of the disrelish of brainstuff. You +must feed on something. Matter that is not nourishing to brains can help +to constitute nothing but the bodies which are pitched on rubbish heaps. +Brainstuff is not lean stuff;--the brainstuff of fiction is internal +history, and to suppose it dull is the profoundest of errors; how deep, +you will understand when I tell you that it is the very football of +the holiday-afternoon imps below. They kick it for pastime; they are +intelligences perverted. The comic of it, the adventurous, the tragic, +they make devilish, to kindle their Ogygian hilarity. But--sharply +comic, adventurous, instructively tragic, it is in the interwinding with +human affairs, to give a flavour of the modern day reviving that of our +Poet, between whom and us yawn Time's most hollow jaws. Surely we owe a +little to Time, to cheer his progress; a little to posterity, and to our +country. Dozens of writers will be in at yonder yawning breach, if only +perusers will rally to the philosophic standard. They are sick of the +woodeny puppetry they dispense, as on a race-course to the roaring +frivolous. Well, if not dozens, half-dozens; gallant pens are alive; +one can speak of them in the plural. I venture to say that they would +be satisfied with a dozen for audience, for a commencement. They would +perish of inanition, unfed, unapplauded, amenable to the laws perchance +for an assault on their last remaining pair of ears or heels, to hold +them fast. But the example is the thing; sacrifices must be expected. +The example might, one hopes, create a taste. A great modern writer, of +clearest eye and head, now departed, capable in activity of presenting +thoughtful women, thinking men, groaned over his puppetry, that he dared +not animate them, flesh though they were, with the fires of positive +brainstuff. He could have done it, and he is of the departed! Had he +dared, he would (for he was Titan enough) have raised the Art in dignity +on a level with History; to an interest surpassing the narrative of +public deeds as vividly as man's heart and brain in their union excel +his plain lines of action to eruption. The everlasting pantomime, +suggested by Mrs. Warwick in her exclamation to Perry Wilkinson, is +derided, not unrighteously, by our graver seniors. They name this Art +the pasture of idiots, a method for idiotizing the entire population +which has taken to reading; and which soon discovers that it can write +likewise, that sort of stuff at least. The forecast may be hazarded, +that if we do not speedily embrace Philosophy in fiction, the Art is +doomed to extinction, under the shining multitude of its professors. +They are fast capping the candle. Instead, therefore, of objurgating the +timid intrusions of Philosophy, invoke her presence, I pray you. History +without her is the skeleton map of events: Fiction a picture of figures +modelled on no skeleton-anatomy. But each, with Philosophy in aid, +blooms, and is humanly shapely. To demand of us truth to nature, +excluding Philosophy, is really to bid a pumpkin caper. As much as +legs are wanted for the dance, Philosophy is required to make our human +nature credible and acceptable. Fiction implores you to heave a bigger +breast and take her in with this heavenly preservative helpmate, her +inspiration and her essence. You have to teach your imagination of the +feminine image you have set up to bend your civilized knees to, that it +must temper its fastidiousness, shun the grossness of the over-dainty. +Or, to speak in the philosophic tongue, you must turn on yourself, +resolutely track and seize that burrower, and scrub and cleanse him; +by which process, during the course of it, you will arrive at the +conception of the right heroical woman for you to worship: and if you +prove to be of some spiritual stature, you may reach to an ideal of the +heroical feminine type for the worship of mankind, an image as yet in +poetic outline only, on our upper skies. + +'So well do we know ourselves, that we one and all determine to know +a purer,' says the heroine of my columns. Philosophy in fiction tells, +among various other matters, of the perils of this intimate acquaintance +with a flattering familiar in the 'purer'--a person who more than ceases +to be of else to us after his ideal shall have led up men from their +flint and arrowhead caverns to intercommunicative daylight. For when the +fictitious creature has performed that service of helping to civilize +the world, it becomes the most dangerous of delusions, causing first the +individual to despise the mass, and then to join the mass in crushing +the individual. Wherewith let us to our story, the froth being out of +the bottle. + + + + +CHAPTER II. AN IRISH BALL. In the Assembly Rooms of the capital city of +the Sister Island there was a public Ball, to celebrate the return +to Erin of a British hero of Irish blood, after his victorious Indian +campaign; a mighty struggle splendidly ended; and truly could it be said +that all Erin danced to meet him; but this was the pick of the dancing, +past dispute the pick of the supping. Outside those halls the supping +was done in Lazarus fashion, mainly through an excessive straining of +the organs of hearing and vision, which imparted the readiness for more, +declared by physicians to be the state inducing to sound digestion. Some +one spied the figure of the hero at the window and was fed; some only to +hear the tale chewed the cud of it; some told of having seen him mount +the steps; and sure it was that at an hour of the night, no matter when, +and never mind a drop or two of cloud, he would come down them again, +and have an Irish cheer to freshen his pillow. For 'tis Ireland gives +England her soldiers, her generals too. Farther away, over field and +bogland, the whiskies did their excellent ancient service of watering +the dry and drying the damp, to the toast of 'Lord Larrian, God bless +him! he's an honour to the old country!' and a bit of a sigh to follow, +hints of a story, and loud laughter, a drink, a deeper sigh, settling +into conversation upon the brave Lord Larrian's deeds, and an Irish +regiment he favoured--had no taste for the enemy without the backing of +his 'boys.' Not he. Why, he'd never march to battle and they not handy; +because when he struck he struck hard, he said. And he has a wound on +the right hip and two fingers off his left hand; has bled for England, +to show her what Irishmen are when they're well treated. + +The fine old warrior standing at the upper end of the long saloon, tall, +straight, grey-haired, martial in his aspect and decorations, was worthy +to be the flag-pole for enthusiasm. His large grey eyes lightened from +time to time as he ranged them over the floating couples, and dropped a +word of inquiry to his aide, Captain Sir Lukin Dunstane, a good model of +a cavalry officer, though somewhat a giant, equally happy with his chief +in passing the troops of animated ladies under review. He named as +many as were known to him. Reviewing women exquisitely attired for +inspection, all variously and charmingly smiling, is a relief after the +monotonous regiments of men. Ireland had done her best to present the +hero of her blood an agreeable change; and he too expressed a patriotic +satisfaction on hearing that the faces most admired by him were of the +native isle. He looked upon one that came whirling up to him on a young +officer's arm and swept off into the crowd of tops, for a considerable +while before he put his customary question. She was returning on the +spin when he said, + +'Who is she?' + +Sir Lukin did not know. 'She 's a new bird; she nodded to my wife; I'll +ask.' + +He manoeuvred a few steps cleverly to where his wife reposed. The +information he gathered for the behoof of his chief was, that the +handsome creature answered to the name of Miss Merion; Irish; aged +somewhere between eighteen and nineteen; a dear friend of his wife's, +and he ought to have remembered her; but she was a child when he saw her +last. + +'Dan Merion died, I remember, about the day of my sailing for India,' +said the General. 'She may be his daughter.' + +The bright cynosure rounded up to him in the web of the waltz, with +her dark eyes for Lady Dunstane, and vanished again among the twisting +columns. + +He made his way, handsomely bumped by an apologetic pair, to Lady +Dunstane, beside whom a seat was vacated for him; and he trusted she had +not over-fatigued herself. + +'Confess,' she replied, 'you are perishing to know more than Lukin has +been able to tell you. Let me hear that you admire her: it pleases +me; and you shall hear what will please you as much, I promise you, +General.' + +'I do. Who wouldn't?' said he frankly. + +'She crossed the Channel expressly to dance here tonight at the public +Ball in honour of you.' + +'Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank, and accepts +it humbly.' + +'That is grandly spoken.' + +'She makes everything in the room dust round a blazing jewel.' + +'She makes a poet of a soldier. Well, that you may understand how +pleased I am, she is my dearest friend, though she is younger than I, as +may be seen; she is the only friend I have. I nursed her when she was +an infant; my father and Mr. Dan Merion were chums. We were parted by my +marriage and the voyage to India. We have not yet exchanged a syllable: +she was snapped up, of course, the moment she entered the room. I knew +she would be a taking girl: how lovely, I did not guess. You are right, +she extinguishes the others. She used to be the sprightliest of living +creatures, and to judge by her letters, that has not faded. She 's in +the market, General.' + +Lord Larrian nodded to everything he heard, concluding with a mock +doleful shake of the head. 'My poorest subaltern!' he sighed, in +the theatrical but cordially melancholy style of green age viewing +Cytherea's market. + +His poorest subaltern was richer than he in the wherewithal to bid for +such prizes. + +'What is her name in addition to Merion?' + +'Diana Antonia Merion. Tony to me, Diana to the world.' + +'She lives over there?' + +'In England, or anywhere; wherever she is taken in. She will live, I +hope, chiefly with me.' + +'And honest Irish?' + +'Oh, she's Irish.' + +'Ah!' the General was Irish to the heels that night. + +Before further could be said the fair object of the dialogue came +darting on a trip of little runs, both hands out, all her face one +tender sparkle of a smile; and her cry proved the quality of her blood: +'Emmy! Emmy! my heart!' + +'My dear Tony! + +I should not have come but for the hope of seeing you here.' + +Lord Larrian rose and received a hurried acknowledgement of his courtesy +from the usurper of his place. + +'Emmy! we might kiss and hug; we're in Ireland. I burn to! But you're +not still ill, dear? Say no! That Indian fever must have gone. You do +look a dash pale, my own; you're tired.' + +'One dance has tired me. Why were you so late?' + +'To give the others a chance? To produce a greater impression by +suspense? No and no. I wrote you I was with the Pettigrews. We caught +the coach, we caught the boat, we were only two hours late for the +Ball; so we did wonders. And good Mrs. Pettigrew is, pining somewhere +to complete her adornment. I was in the crush, spying for Emmy, when Mr. +Mayor informed me it was the duty of every Irishwoman to dance her toes +off, if she 'd be known for what she is. And twirl! a man had me by the +waist, and I dying to find you.' + +'Who was the man?' + +'Not to save these limbs from the lighted stake could I tell you!' + +'You are to perform a ceremonious bow to Lord Larrian.' + +'Chatter first! a little!' + +The plea for chatter was disregarded. It was visible that the hero of +the night hung listening and in expectation. He and the Beauty were +named to one another, and they chatted through a quadrille. Sir Lukin +introduced a fellow-Harrovian of old days, Mr. Thomas Redworth, to his +wife. + +'Our weather-prophet, meteorologist,' he remarked, to set them +going; 'you remember, in India, my pointing to you his name in a +newspaper--letter on the subject. He was generally safe for the +cricketing days.' + +Lady Dunstane kindly appeared to call it to mind, and she led upon +the them-queried at times by an abrupt 'Eh?' and 'I beg pardon,' for +manifestly his gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given to +the young lady discoursing with Lord Larrian. Beauty is rare; luckily +is it rare, or, judging from its effect on men, and the very stoutest of +them, our world would be internally more distracted planet than we see, +to the perversion of business, courtesy, rights of property, and +the rest. She perceived an incipient victim, of the hundreds she +anticipated, and she very tolerantly talked on: 'The weather and women +have some resemblance they say. Is it true that he who reads the one can +read the other?' + +Lord Larrian here burst into a brave old laugh, exclaiming, 'Oh! good!' + +Mr. Redworth knitted his thick brows. 'I beg pardon? Ah! women! Weather +and women? No; the one point more variable in women makes all the +difference.' + +'Can you tell me what the General laughed at?' + +The honest Englishman entered the trap with promptitude. 'She said:--who +is she, may I ask you?' + +Lady Dunstane mentioned her name. + +Daughter of the famous Dan Merion? The young lady merited examination +for her father's sake. But when reminded of her laughter-moving speech, +Mr. Redworth bungled it; he owned he spoilt it, and candidly stated +his inability to see the fun. 'She said, St. George's Channel in a gale +ought to be called St. Patrick's--something--I missed some point. That +quadrille-tune, the Pastourelle, or something...' + +'She had experience of the Channel last night,' Lady Dunstane pursued, +and they both, while in seeming converse, caught snatches from their +neighbours, during a pause of the dance. + +The sparkling Diana said to Lord Larrian, 'You really decline to make +any of us proud women by dancing to-night?' + +The General answered: 'I might do it on two stilts; I can't on one.' He +touched his veteran leg. + +'But surely,' said she, 'there's always an inspiration coming to it from +its partner in motion, if one of them takes the step.' + +He signified a woeful negative. 'My dear young lady, you say dark things +to grey hairs!' + +She rejoined: 'If we were over in England, and you fixed on me the +stigma of saying dark things, I should never speak without being thought +obscure.' + +'It's because you flash too brightly for them.' + +'I think it is rather the reminiscence of the tooth that received a +stone when it expected candy.' + +Again the General laughed; he looked pleased and warmed. 'Yes, that 's +their way, that 's their way!' and he repeated her words to himself, +diminishing their importance as he stamped them on his memory, but so +heartily admiring the lovely speaker, that he considered her wit an +honour to the old country, and told her so. Irish prevailed up to +boiling-point. + +Lady Dunstane, not less gratified, glanced up at Mr. Redworth, whose +brows bore the knot of perplexity over a strong stare. He, too, stamped +the words on his memory, to see subsequently whether they had a vestige +of meaning. Terrifically precocious, he thought her. Lady Dunstane, in +her quick sympathy with her friend, read the adverse mind in his face. +And her reading of the mind was right, wrong altogether her deduction of +the corresponding sentiment. + +Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers. + +They beheld a quaint spectacle: a gentleman, obviously an Englishman, +approached, with the evident intention of reminding the Beauty of the +night of her engagement to him, and claiming her, as it were, in the +lion's jaws. He advanced a foot, withdrew it, advanced, withdrew; eager +for his prize, not over-enterprising; in awe of the illustrious General +she entertained--presumeably quite unaware of the pretender's presence; +whereupon a voice was heard: 'Oh! if it was minuetting you meant before +the lady, I'd never have disputed your right to perform, sir.' For it +seemed that there were two claimants in the field, an Irishman and an +Englishman; and the former, having a livelier sense of the situation, +hung aloof in waiting for her eye; the latter directed himself to strike +bluntly at his prey; and he continued minuetting, now rapidly blinking, +flushed, angry, conscious of awkwardness and a tangle, incapable of +extrication. He began to blink horribly under the raillery of his rival. +The General observed him, but as an object remote and minute, a fly or +gnat. The face of the brilliant Diana was entirely devoted to him she +amused. + +Lady Dunstane had the faint lines of a decorous laugh on her lips, as +she said: 'How odd it is that our men show to such disadvantage in a +Ball-room. I have seen them in danger, and there they shine first of +any, and one is proud of them. They should always be facing the elements +or in action.' She glanced at the minuet, which had become a petrified +figure, still palpitating, bent forward, an interrogative reminder. + +Mr. Redworth reserved his assent to the proclamation of any English +disadvantage. A whiff of Celtic hostility in the atmosphere put him on +his mettle. 'Wherever the man is tried,' he said. + +'My lady!' the Irish gentleman bowed to Lady Dunstane. 'I had the honour +... Sullivan Smith... at the castle...' + +She responded to the salute, and Mr. Sullivan Smith proceeded to tell +her, half in speech, half in dots most luminous, of a civil contention +between the English gentleman and himself, as to the possession of the +loveliest of partners for this particular ensuing dance, and that they +had simultaneously made a rush from the Lower Courts, namely, their +cards, to the Upper, being the lady; and Mr. Sullivan Smith partly +founded his preferable claim on her Irish descent, and on his +acquaintance with her eminent defunct father--one of the ever-radiating +stars of his quenchless country. + +Lady Dunstane sympathized with him for his not intruding his claim when +the young lady stood pre-engaged, as well as in humorous appreciation of +his imaginative logic. + +'There will be dancing enough after supper,' she said. + +'If I could score one dance with her, I'd go home supperless and +feasted,' said he. 'And that's not saying much among the hordes of +hungry troopers tip-toe for the signal to the buffet. See, my lady, the +gentleman, as we call him; there he is working his gamut perpetually up +to da capo. Oh! but it's a sheep trying to be wolf; he 's sheep-eyed +and he 's wolf-fanged, pathetic and larcenous! Oh, now! who'd believe +it!--the man has dared... I'd as soon think of committing sacrilege in a +cathedral!' + +The man was actually; to quote his indignant rival, 'breaching the +fortress,' and pointing out to Diana Merion 'her name on his dirty scrap +of paper': a shocking sight when the lady's recollection was the sole +point to be aimed at, and the only umpire. 'As if all of us couldn't +have written that, and hadn't done it!' Mr. Sullivan Smith groaned +disgusted. He hated bad manners, particularly in cases involving +ladies; and the bad manners of a Saxon fired his antagonism to the +race; individual members of which he boasted of forgiving and embracing, +honouring. So the man blackened the race for him, and the race was +excused in the man. But his hatred of bad manners was vehement, +and would have extended to a fellow-countryman. His own were of the +antecedent century, therefore venerable. + +Diana turned from her pursuer with a comic woeful lifting of the brows +at her friend. Lady Dunstane motioned her fan, and Diana came, bending +head. + +'Are you bound in honour?' + +'I don't think I am. And I do want to go on talking with the General. He +is so delightful and modest--my dream of a true soldier!--telling me of +his last big battle, bit by bit, to my fishing.' + +'Put off this person for a square dance down the list, and take out Mr. +Redworth--Miss Diana Merlon, Mr. Redworth: he will bring you back to +the General, who must not totally absorb you, or he will forfeit his +popularity.' + +Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advocate of his +claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. Sullivan Smith remarked: +'Oh! sir, the law of it, where a lady's concerned! You're one for +evictions, I should guess, and the anti-human process. It's that letter +of the law that stands between you and me and mine and yours. But you've +got your congee, and my blessing on ye!' + +'It was a positive engagement,' said the enemy. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him. 'And a pretty partner you've pickled for +yourself when she keeps her positive engagement!' + +He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn. She pleaded +weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and divert her. She smiled, but +warned him that she was English in every vein. He interjected: +'Irish men and English women! though it's putting the cart before the +horse--the copper pennies where the gold guineas should be. So here's +the gentleman who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the fable. +English is he? But we read, the last shall be first. And English women +and Irish men make the finest coupling in the universe.' + +'Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man,' +said Lady Dunstane, at the same time informing the obedient Diana, then +bestowing her hand on Mr. Redworth to please her friend, that he was a +schoolfellow of her husband's. + +'Favour can't help coming by rotation, except in very extraordinary +circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, and takes my due, and +'twould be hard on me if I weren't thoroughly indemnified.' Mr. Sullivan +Smith bowed. 'You gave them just the start over the frozen minute for +conversation; they were total strangers, and he doesn't appear a bad +sort of fellow for a temporary mate, though he's not perfectly sure +of his legs. And that we'll excuse to any man leading out such a fresh +young beauty of a Bright Eyes--like the stars of a winter's night in the +frosty season over Columkill, or where you will, so that's in Ireland, +to be sure of the likeness to her.' + +'Her mother was half English.' + +'Of course she was. And what was my observation about the coupling? +Dan Merion would make her Irish all over. And she has a vein of Spanish +blood in her; for he had; and she's got the colour.--But you spoke of +their coupling--or I did. Oh, a man can hold his own with an English +roly-poly mate: he's not stifled! But a woman hasn't his power of +resistance to dead weight. She's volatile, she's frivolous, a rattler +and gabbler--haven't I heard what they say of Irish girls over there? +She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling. She must choose at home +for a perfect harmonious partner.' + +Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple danced excellently +together. + +'It'd be a bitter thing to see, if the fellow couldn't dance, after +leading her out!' sighed Mr. Sullivan Smith. 'I heard of her over there. +They, call her the Black Pearl, and the Irish Lily--because she's dark. +They rack their poor brains to get the laugh of us.' + +'And I listen to you,' said Lady Dunstane. + +'Ah! if all England, half, a quarter, the smallest piece of the land +were like you, my lady, I'd be loyal to the finger-nails. Now, is she +engaged?--when I get a word with her?' + +'She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good years of +freedom, I think.' + +'And five good years of serfdom I'd serve to win her!' + +A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would +be small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith; after a life of bondage, if she +knew her Diana, in spite of his tongue, his tact, his lively features, +and breadth of shoulders. + +Up he sprang. Diana was on Mr. Redworth's arm. 'No refreshments,' she +said; and 'this is my refreshment,' taking the seat of Mr. Sullivan +Smith, who ejaculated, + +'I must go and have that gentleman's name.' He wanted a foe. + +'You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment, +Tony,' said her friend. + +'Yes, with the General!' + +'He is a noble old man.' + +'Superb. And don't say "old man." With his uniform and his height and +his grey head, he is like a glorious October day just before the brown +leaves fall.' + +Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the favourite of her +childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remembered, they smiled together at the +scenes and times it recalled. + +'Do you still write verses, Tony?' + +'I could about him. At one part of the fight he thought he would be +beaten. He was overmatched in artillery, and it was a cavalry charge he +thundered on them, riding across the field to give the word of command +to the couple of regiments, riddled to threads, that gained the day. +That is life--when we dare death to live! I wonder at men, who are men, +being anything but soldiers! I told you, madre, my own Emmy, I forgave +you for marrying, because it was a soldier.' + +'Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man. But you have not told me a +word of yourself. What has been done with the old Crossways?' + +'The house, you know, is mine. And it's all I have: ten acres and the +house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year. Oh! how +I long to evict the tenants! They can't have my feeling for the place +where I was born. They're people of tolerably good connections, middling +wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can +understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, +who likes to ride on them. I've a half engagement, barely legible, to +visit them on an indefinite day, and can't bear the idea of strangers +masters in the old house. I must be driven there for shelter, for a +roof, some month. And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to +doat on the outside of it. That's your Tony.' + +'She's my darling.' + +'I hear myself speak! But your voice or mine, madre, it's one soul. Be +sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you, dear +and dearest! No secrets, never a shadow of a deception, or else I shall +feel I am not fit to live. Was I a bad correspondent when you were in +India?' + +'Pretty well. Copious letters when you did write.' + +'I was shy. I knew I should be writing, to Emmy and another, and only +when I came to the flow could I forget him. He is very finely built; and +I dare say he has a head. I read of his deeds in India and quivered. +But he was just a bit in the way. Men are the barriers to perfect +naturalness, at least, with girls, I think. You wrote to me in the same +tone as ever, and at first I had a struggle to reply. And I, who have +such pride in being always myself!' + +Two staring semi-circles had formed, one to front the Hero; the other +the Beauty. These half moons imperceptibly dissolved to replenish, and +became a fixed obstruction. + +'Yes, they look,' Diana made answer to Lady Dunstane's comment on the +curious impertinence. She was getting used to it, and her friend had +a gratification in seeing how little this affected her perfect +naturalness. + +'You are often in the world--dinners, dances?' she said. + +'People are kind.' + +'Any proposals?' + +'Nibbles.' + +'Quite heart-free?' + +'Absolutely.' + +Diana's unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an eclipse. + +The block of sturdy gazers began to melt. The General had dispersed +his group of satellites by a movement with the Mayoress on his arm, +construed as the signal for procession to the supper-table. + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH, AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. +SULLIVAN SMITH + +'It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will escape the crush +for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana. 'I don't sup. Yes! go! You must +eat, and he is handiest to conduct you.' + +Diana thought of her chaperon and the lateness of the hour. She +murmured, to soften her conscience, 'Poor Mrs. Pettigrew!' + +And once more Mr. Redworth, outwardly imperturbable, was in the +maelstrom of a happiness resembling tempest. He talked, and knew not +what he uttered. To give this matchless girl the best to eat and drink +was his business, and he performed it. Oddly, for a man who had no +loaded design, marshalling the troops in his active and capacious +cranium, he fell upon calculations of his income, present and +prospective, while she sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others +were wrangling for places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, champagne: +she had them; the lady under his charge to a certainty would have them; +so far good; and he had seven hundred pounds per annum--seven hundred +and fifty, in a favourable aspect, at a stretch.... + +'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera +of Carini's,' she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for +tenor, certainly.'--A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred +personal income, and a prospect of higher dividends to increase it; +three hundred odd from his office, and no immediate prospects of an +increase there; no one died there, no elderly martyr for the advancement +of his juniors could be persuaded to die; they were too tough to think +of retiring. Say, seven hundred and fifty.... eight hundred, if the +commerce of the country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in; +or eight-fifty or nine ten.... + +'I could call him my poet also,' Mr. Redworth agreed with her taste in +poets. 'His letters are among the best ever written--or ever published: +the raciest English I know. Frank, straight out: capital descriptions. +The best English letter-writers are as good as the French-- + +You don't think so?--in their way, of course. I dare' say we don't +sufficiently cultivate the art. We require the supple tongue a closer +intercourse of society gives.'--Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable +enough for a man in chambers. To dream of entering as a householder on +that sum, in these days, would be stark nonsense: and a man two removes +from a baronetcy has no right to set his reckoning on deaths:--if he +does, he becomes a sort of meditative assassin. But what were the +Fates about when they planted a man of the ability of Tom Redworth in +a Government office! Clearly they intended him to remain a bachelor for +life. And they sent him over to Ireland on inspection duty for a month +to have sight of an Irish Beauty.... + +'Think war the finest subject for poets?' he exclaimed. 'Flatly no: I +don't think it. I think exactly the reverse. It brings out the noblest +traits in human character? I won't own that even. It brings out some +but under excitement, when you have not always the real man.--Pray don't +sneer at domestic life. Well, there was a suspicion of disdain.--Yes, I +can respect the hero, military or civil; with this distinction, that the +military hero aims at personal reward--' + +'He braves wounds and death,' interposed Diana. + +'Whereas the civilian hero--' + +'Pardon me, let me deny that the soldier-hero aims at a personal +reward,' she again interposed. + +'He gets it.' + +'If he is not beaten.' + +'And then he is no longer a hero.' + +'He is to me.' + +She had a woman's inveterate admiration of the profession of aims. Mr. +Redworth endeavoured to render practicable an opening in her mind to +reason. He admitted the grandeur of the poetry of Homer. We are a few +centuries in advance of Homer. We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice to +propitiate celestial wrath; nor do we revel in details of slaughter. He +reasoned with her; he repeated stories known to him of civilian heroes, +and won her assent to the heroical title for their deeds, but it was +languid, or not so bright as the deeds deserved--or as the young lady +could look; and he insisted on the civilian hero, impelled by some +unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought, also the thing +he was--his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught a +glimpse of that. After a turn of fencing, in which he was impressed by +the vibration of her tones when speaking of military heroes, she quitted +the table, saying: 'An argument between one at supper and another +handing plates, is rather unequal if eloquence is needed. As Pat said to +the constable, when his hands were tied, You beat me with the fists, but +my spirit is towering and kicks freely.'--Eight hundred? a thousand a +year, two thousand, are as nothing in the calculation of a householder +who means that the mistress of the house shall have the choicest of the +fruits and flowers of the Four Quarters; and Thomas Redworth had vowed +at his first outlook on the world of women, that never should one of +the sisterhood coming under his charge complain of not having them in +profusion. Consequently he was a settled bachelor. In the character +of disengaged and unaspiring philosophical bachelor, he reviewed the +revelations of her character betrayed by the beautiful virgin devoted to +the sanguine coat. The thrill of her voice in speaking of soldier-heroes +shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing why, for he had no +scheme, desperate or other, in his head, the least affrighted of men +was frightened by her tastes, and by her aplomb, her inoffensiveness in +freedom of manner and self-sufficiency--sign of purest breeding: and by +her easy, peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from the blood of +Dan Merion--a wildish blood. The candour of the look of her eyes in +speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and looking the thing +she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the significant repose of +her lips in silence, her weighing of the words he uttered, for a moment +before the prompt apposite reply, down to her simple quotation of Pat, +alarmed him; he did not ask himself why. His manly self was not intruded +on his cogitations. A mere eight hundred or thousand per annum had no +place in that midst. He beheld her quietly selecting the position of +dignity to suit her: an eminent military man, or statesman, or wealthy +nobleman: she had but to choose. A war would offer her the decorated +soldier she wanted. A war! Such are women of this kind! The thought +revolted him, and pricked his appetite for supper. He did service by +Mrs. Pettigrew, to which lady Miss Merion, as she said, promoted him, at +the table, and then began to refresh in person, standing. + +'Malkin! that's the fellow's name' he heard close at his ear. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and +was priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's +quick stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is +grey, or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of the +Malkin breed.' + +He explained to Mr. Redworth that he had summoned Mr. Malkin to answer +to him as a gentleman for calling Miss Merion a jilt. 'The man, sir, +said in my hearing, she jilted him, and that's to call the lady a jilt. +There's not a point of difference, not a shade. I overheard him. I +happened by the blessing of Providence to be by when he named her +publicly jilt. And it's enough that she's a lady to have me for her +champion. The same if she had been an Esquimaux squaw. I'll never live +to hear a lady insulted.' + +'You don't mean to say you're the donkey to provoke a duel!' Mr. +Redworth burst out gruffly, through turkey and stuffing. + +'And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!' Mr. Sullivan Smith was +flowing on. He became frigid, he politely bowed: 'Two, sir, if you +haven't the grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and +can't be obliterated.' + +'Fiddle! and go to the deuce!' Mr. Redworth cried. + +'Would a soft slap o' the cheek persuade you, sir?' + +'Try it outside, and don't bother me with nonsense of that sort at my +supper. If I'm struck, I strike back. I keep my pistols for bandits and +law-breakers. Here,' said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of +treating an ultra of the isle; 'touch glasses: you're a gentleman, and +won't disturb good company. By-and-by.' + +The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sullivan Smith his +composure. They touched the foaming glasses: upon which, in a friendly +manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as +soon as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper: for the +reason that the term 'donkey' affixed to him was like a minster cap of +schooldays, ringing bells on his topknot, and also that it stuck in his +gizzard. + +Mr. Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical. 'If you fight, +you're a donkey for doing it. But you won't fight.' + +'But I will fight.' + +'He won't fight.' + +'Then for the honour of your country you must. But I'd rather have +him first, for I haven't drunk with him, and it should be a case of +necessity to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man +you've drunk with. And what's in your favour, she danced with ye. She +seemed to take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting for +is sacred if he's not sweet to me. If he retracts!' + +'Hypothetically, No.' + +'But supposititiously?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Then we grasp hands on it. It's Malkin or nothing!' said Mr. Sullivan +Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe. How one +sane man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent +young lady's reputation, passed his rational conception. + +Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays +and fellows. + +'I'll tell you what,' said the civilian, 'There are Irishmen and +Irishmen. I've met cool heads and long heads among them, and you and I +knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things. But the burlesque Irishman +can't be caricatured. Nature strained herself in a 'fit of absurdity to +produce him, and all that Art can do is to copy.' + +This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a +specimen, he rejoiced to have met. + +'There's a chance of mischief,' said Sir Lukin. 'I know nothing of the +man he calls Malkin. I'll inquire presently.' + +He talked of his prospects, and of the women. Fair ones, in his opinion, +besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched two or three of his +partners with a broad brush of epithets. + +'It won't do for Miss Merion's name to be mixed up in a duel,' said +Redworth. + +'Not if she's to make her fortune in England,' said Sir Lukin. 'It's +probably all smoke.' + +The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of metaphorical smoke, +and fire, and no mean report, startled the company of supping gentlemen. +At the pitch of his voice, Mr. Sullivan Smith denounced Mr. Malkin in +presence for a cur masquerading as a cat. + +'And that is not the scoundrel's prime offence. For what d' ye think? He +trumps up an engagement to dance with a beautiful lady, and because +she can't remember, binds her to an oath for a dance to come, and then, +holding her prisoner to 'm, he sulks, the dirty dogcat goes and sulks, +and he won't dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that +he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentlemen heard the word. And +I demand an apology of Misterr Malkin--or...! And none of your guerrier +nodding and bravado, Mister Malkin, at me, if you please. The case is +for settlement between gentlemen.' + +The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin, driven to extremity by +the worrying, stood in braced preparation for the English attitude of +defence. His tormentor drew closer to him. + +'Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I'll knock you +down,' said he. + +Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry. 'For a +specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen... I ask +ye!' he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely in +the wrong before provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending +gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger +to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying: 'I +'m your man: me first: you're due to me.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces. +Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds. He threatened Saxondom. +Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, +wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers +shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Redworth, in the struggle to +haul him away, received a blow from him. 'And you've got it! you would +have it!' roared the Celt. + +'Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,' Redworth +said; and he observed generally: 'No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in +good company.' + +'But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses--if you'll come along +with me and a couple of friends. The thing has been done before by +torchlight--and neatly.' + +'Come along, and come alone,' said Redworth. + +A way was cleared for them. Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth, who had no +doubt of his ability to manage Mr. Sullivan Smith. + +He managed that fine-hearted but purely sensational fellow so well that +Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub +below, beheld them entering the long saloon amicably, with the nods and +looks of gentlemen quietly accordant. + +A little later, Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and he smoothed her +apprehensions, delivering himself, much to her comfort, thus: 'In +no case would any lady's name have been raised. The whole affair was +nonsensical. He's a capital fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like +a man of the world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like +lots of his countrymen, a raw wound--something that itches to be grazed. +Champagne on that!... Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, are, like +horses, bundles of nerves; and you must manage them, as you do with all +nervous creatures, with firmness, but good temper. You must never get +into a fury of the nerves yourself with them. Spur and whip they don't +want; they'll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it. + +They want the bridle-rein. That seems to me the secret of Irish +character. We English are not bad horsemen. It's a wonder we blunder so +in our management of such a people.' + +'I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof,' said +she. + +He shrugged. 'There's little chance of it!' + +To reward him for his practical discretion, she contrived that Diana +should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly +responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, sensible in her look and +speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer +the mere spinning stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly +understood that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his +brain. A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: +on less: on much less:--sometimes on nothing but resolution to make +a fitting income, carving out a fortune. Eight hundred may stand as a +superior basis. That sum is a distinct point of vantage. If it does +not mean a carriage and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the +stars of society, it means at any rate security; and then, the heart of +the man being strong and sound... + +'Yes,' he replied to her, 'I like my experience of Ireland and the +Irish; and better than I thought I should. St. George's Channel ought to +be crossed oftener by both of us.' + +'I'm always glad of the signal,' said Diana. + +He had implied the people of the two islands. He allowed her +interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creeping +deliciousness that it carried through his blood. + +'Shall you soon be returning to England?' he ventured to ask. + +'I am Lady Dunstane's guest for some months.' + +'Then you will. Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey. He talks of quitting +the Service.' + +'I can't believe it!' + +His thrilled blood was chilled. She entertained a sentiment amounting to +adoration for the profession of arms! + +Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night, +that the festivity might not be dashed by his departure; perhaps, to a +certain degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene. At last +Sir Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife. Diana slipped +across the floor to her accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of +another five minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded +to walk in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped down a +pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees +under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a +turban was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the +self-constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth. At the portico rang a +wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were +formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, +boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty, +with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose magnificently, and +multiplied itself, touching at the same moment the heavens and Diana's +heart-at least, drawing them together; for she felt exalted, enraptured, +as proud of her countrymen as of their hero. + +'That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial!' she heard Mr. +Redworth say, behind her. + +She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying over him, in +gratitude for a timely word well said. And she never forgot the remark, +nor he the look. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED +TO + +A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes +had crossed the Channel back to England, and old Ireland was left to +her rains from above and her undrained bogs below; her physical and her +mental vapours; her ailments and her bog-bred doctors; as to whom the +governing country trusted they would be silent or discourse humorously. + +The residence of Sir Lukin Dunstane, in the county of Surrey, inherited +by him during his recent term of Indian services, was on the hills, +where a day of Italian sky, or better, a day of our breezy South-west, +washed from the showery night, gives distantly a tower to view, and a +murky web, not without colour: the ever-flying banner of the metropolis, +the smoke of the city's chimneys, if you prefer plain language. At a +first inspection of the house, Lady Dunstane did not like it, and it was +advertized to be let, and the auctioneer proclaimed it in his dialect. +Her taste was delicate; she had the sensitiveness of an invalid: twice +she read the stalking advertizement of the attractions of Copsley, and +hearing Diana call it 'the plush of speech,' she shuddered; she decided +that a place where her husband's family had lived ought not to stand +forth meretriciously spangled and daubed, like a show-booth at a fair, +for a bait; though the grandiloquent man of advertizing letters assured +Sir Lukin that a public agape for the big and gaudy mouthful is in no +milder way to be caught; as it is apparently the case. She withdrew the +trumpeting placard. Retract we likewise 'banner of the metropolis.' That +plush of speech haunts all efforts to swell and illuminate citizen prose +to a princely poetic. + +Yet Lady Dunstane herself could name the bank of smoke, when looking +North-eastward from her summerhouse, the flag of London: and she was a +person of the critical mind, well able to distinguish between the simple +metaphor and the superobese. A year of habitation induced her to conceal +her dislike of the place in love: cat's love, she owned. Here, she +confessed to Diana, she would wish to live to her end. It seemed remote, +where an invigorating upper air gave new bloom to her cheeks; but she +kept one secret from her friend. + +Copsley was an estate of nearly twelve hundred acres, extending across +the ridge of the hills to the slopes North and South. Seven counties +rolled their backs under this commanding height, and it would have +tasked a pigeon to fly within an hour the stretch of country visible at +the Copsley windows. Sunrise to right, sunset leftward, the borders of +the grounds held both flaming horizons. So much of the heavens and of +earth is rarely granted to a dwelling. The drawback was the structure, +which had no charm, scarce a face. 'It is written that I should live in +barracks,' Lady Dunstane said. The colour of it taught white to impose a +sense of gloom. Her cat's love of the familiar inside corners was never +able to embrace the outer walls. Her sensitiveness, too, was racked +by the presentation of so pitiably ugly a figure to the landscape. +She likened it to a coarse-featured country wench, whose cleaning and +decorating of her countenance makes complexion grin and ruggedness yawn. +Dirty, dilapidated, hung with weeds and parasites, it would have been +more tolerable. She tried the effect of various creepers, and they were +as a staring paint. What it was like then, she had no heart to say. + +One may, however, fall on a pleasurable resignation in accepting great +indemnities, as Diana bade her believe, when the first disgust began +to ebb. 'A good hundred over there would think it a Paradise for an +asylum': she signified London. Her friend bore such reminders meekly. +They were readers of books of all sorts, political, philosophical, +economical, romantic; and they mixed the diverse readings in thought, +after the fashion of the ardently youthful. Romance affected politics, +transformed economy, irradiated philosophy. They discussed the knotty +question, Why things were not done, the things being confessedly to do; +and they cut the knot: Men, men calling themselves statesmen, declined +to perform that operation, because, forsooth, other men objected to +have it performed on them. And common humanity declared it to be for the +common weal! If so, then it is clearly indicated as a course of action: +we shut our eyes against logic and the vaunted laws of economy. They +are the knot we cut; or would cut, had we the sword. Diana did it to the +tune of Garryowen or Planxty Kelly. O for a despot! The cry was for +a beneficent despot, naturally: a large-minded benevolent despot. In +short, a despot to obey their bidding. Thoughtful young people who +think through the heart soon come to this conclusion. The heart is the +beneficent despot they would be. He cures those miseries; he creates the +novel harmony. He sees all difficulties through his own sanguine hues. +He is the musical poet of the problem, demanding merely to have it +solved that he may sing: clear proof of the necessity for solving it +immediately. + +Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation, to +make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardour and resonance, and more +than the convincing ring of her voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity +in rushing through any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating +down obstacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, +constituted her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in questions +that clamoured for instant solution. By dint of reading solid writers, +using the brains they possessed, it was revealed to them gradually that +their particular impatience came perhaps of the most earnest desire to +get to a comfortable termination of the inquiry: the heart aching for +mankind sought a nest for itself. At this point Lady Dunstane took the +lead. Diana had to be tugged to follow. She could not accept a 'perhaps' +that cast dubiousness on her disinterested championship. She protested +a perfect certainty of the single aim of her heart outward. But she +reflected. She discovered that her friend had gone ahead of her. + +The discovery was reached, and even acknowledged, before she could +persuade herself to swallow the repulsive truth. O self! self! self! are +we eternally masking in a domino that reveals your hideous old face when +we could be most positive we had escaped you? Eternally! the desolating +answer knelled. Nevertheless the poor, the starving, the overtaxed in +labour, they have a right to the cry of Now! now! They have; and if +a cry could conduct us to the secret of aiding, healing, feeding, +elevating them, we might swell the cry. As it is, we must lay it on our +wits patiently to track and find the secret; and meantime do what the +individual with his poor pittance can. A miserable contribution! sighed +the girl. Old Self was perceived in the sigh. She was haunted. + +After all, one must live one's life. Placing her on a lower pedestal +in her self-esteem, the philosophy of youth revived her; and if the +abatement of her personal pride was dispiriting, she began to see an +advantage in getting inward eyes. + +'It's infinitely better I should know it, Emmy--I'm a reptile! Pleasure +here, pleasure there, I'm always thinking of pleasure. I shall give +up thinking and take to drifting. Neither of us can do more than open +purses; and mine's lean. If the old Crossways had no tenant, it would be +a purse all mouth. And charity is haunted, like everything we do. Only +I say with my whole strength yes, I am sure, in spite of the men +professing that they are practical, the rich will not move without a +goad. I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet, until you are strong +enough to force my hand:--that 's the speech of the wealthy. And they +are Christians. In name. Well, I thank heaven I'm at war, with myself.' + +'You always manage to strike out a sentence worth remembering, Tony,' +said Lady Dunstane. 'At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we +can have.' + +It suited her, frail as her health was, and her wisdom striving to the +spiritual of happiness. War with herself was far from happiness in the +bosom of Diana. She wanted external life, action, fields for energies, +to vary the struggle. It fretted and rendered her ill at ease. In her +solitary rides with Sir Lukin through a long winter season, she appalled +that excellent but conventionally-minded gentleman by starting, +nay supporting, theories next to profane in the consideration of a +land-owner. She spoke of Reform: of the Repeal of the Corn Laws as the +simple beginning of the grants due to the people. She had her ideas, of +course, from that fellow Redworth, an occasional visitor at Copsley; +and a man might be a donkey and think what he pleased, since he had a +vocabulary to back his opinions. A woman, Sir Lukin held, was by nature +a mute in politics. Of the thing called a Radical woman, he could not +believe that she was less than monstrous: 'with a nose,' he said; and +doubtless, horse teeth, hatchet jaws, slatternly in the gown, slipshod, +awful. As for a girl, an unmarried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, +her interjections, echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little +annoying now and them, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her +vocabulary in irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her +immensely; complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics. He +pardoned her on the score of the petty difference rankling between them +in reference to his abandonment of his Profession, for here she was +patriotically wrong-headed. Everybody knew that he had sold out in order +to look after his estates of Copsley and Dunena, secondly: and in the +first place, to nurse and be a companion to his wife. He had left her +but four times in five months; he had spent just three weeks of that +time away from her in London. No one could doubt of his having kept his +pledge, although his wife occupied herself with books and notions and +subjects foreign to his taste--his understanding, too, he owned. And +Redworth had approved of his retirement, had a contempt for soldiering. +'Quite as great as yours for civilians, I can tell you,' Sir Lukin +said, dashing out of politics to the vexatious personal subject. Her +unexpressed disdain was ruffling. + +'Mr. Redworth recommends work: he respects the working soldier,' said +Diana. + +Sir Lukin exclaimed that he had been a working soldier; he was ready to +serve if his country wanted him. He directed her to anathematize Peace, +instead of scorning a fellow for doing the duties next about him: and +the mention of Peace fetched him at a bound back to politics. He quoted +a distinguished Tory orator, to the effect, that any lengthened term of +peace bred maggots in the heads of the people. + +'Mr. Redworth spoke of it: he translated something from Aristophanes for +a retort,' said Diana. + +'Well, we're friends, eh?' Sir Lukin put forth a hand. + +She looked at him surprised at the unnecessary call for a show, +of friendship; she touched his hand with two tips of her fingers, +remarking, 'I should think so, indeed.' + +He deemed it prudent to hint to his wife that Diana Merion appeared to +be meditating upon Mr. Redworth. + +'That is a serious misfortune, if true,' said Lady Dunstane. She thought +so for two reasons: Mr. Redworth generally disagreed in opinion with +Diana, and contradicted her so flatly as to produce the impression of +his not even sharing the popular admiration of her beauty; and, further, +she hoped for Diana to make a splendid marriage. The nibbles threatened +to be snaps and bites. There had been a proposal, in an epistle, a +quaint effusion, from a gentleman avowing that he had seen her, and had +not danced with her on the night of the Irish ball. He was rejected, but +Diana groaned over the task of replying to the unfortunate applicant, +so as not to wound him. 'Shall I have to do this often, I wonder?' she +said. + +'Unless you capitulate,' said her friend. + +Diana's exclamation: 'May I be heart-free for another ten years!' +encouraged Lady Dunstane to suppose her husband quite mistaken. + +In the Spring Diana, went on a first pilgrimage to her old home, +The Crossways, and was kindly entertained by the uncle and aunt of a +treasured nephew, Mr. Augustus Warwick. She rode with him on the Downs. +A visit of a week humanized her view of the intruders. She wrote almost +tenderly of her host and hostess to Lady Dunstane; they had but 'the one +fault--of spoiling their nephew.' Him she described as a 'gentlemanly +official,' a picture of him. His age was thirty-four. He seemed 'fond +of her scenery.' Then her pen swept over the Downs like a flying horse. +Lady Dunstane thought no more of the gentlemanly official. He was a +barrister who did not practise: in nothing the man for Diana. Letters +came from the house of the Pettigrews in Kent; from London; from Halford +Manor in Hertfordshire; from Lockton Grange in Lincolnshire: after which +they ceased to be the thrice weekly; and reading the latest of them, +Lady Dunstane imagined a flustered quill. The letter succeeding the +omission contained no excuse, and it was brief. There was a strange +interjection, as to the wearifulness of constantly wandering, like +a leaf off the tree. Diana spoke of looking for a return of the dear +winter days at Copsley. That was her station. Either she must have had +some disturbing experience, or Copsley was dear for a Redworth reason, +thought the anxious peruser; musing, dreaming, putting together divers +shreds of correspondence and testing them with her intimate knowledge +of Diana's character, Lady Dunstane conceived that the unprotected +beautiful girl had suffered a persecution, it might be an insult. She +spelt over the names of the guests at the houses. Lord Wroxeter was of +evil report: Captain Rampan, a Turf captain, had the like notoriety. And +it is impossible in a great house for the hostess to spread her aegis +to cover every dame and damsel present. She has to depend on the women +being discreet, the men civilized. + +'How brutal men can be!' was one of Diana's incidental remarks, in a +subsequent letter, relating simply to masculine habits. In those days +the famous ancestral plea of 'the passion for his charmer' had not been +altogether socially quashed down among the provinces, where the bottle +maintained a sort of sway, and the beauty which inflamed the sons of men +was held to be in coy expectation of violent effects upon their boiling +blood. There were, one hears that there still are, remnants of the +pristine male, who, if resisted in their suing, conclude that they +are scorned, and it infuriates them: some also whose 'passion for the +charmer' is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex, by a bully +imposition of sheer physical ascendancy, whenever they see it flying +with an air of gallant independence: and some who dedicate their lives +to a study of the arts of the Lord Of Reptiles, until they have worked +the crisis for a display of him in person. Assault or siege, they have +achieved their triumphs; they have dominated a frailer system of nerves, +and a young woman without father, or brother, or husband, to defend her, +is cryingly a weak one, therefore inviting to such an order of heroes. +Lady Dunstane was quick-witted and had a talkative husband; she knew a +little of the upper social world of her time. She was heartily glad to +have Diana by her side again. + +Not a word of any serious experience was uttered. Only on one occasion +while they conversed, something being mentioned of her tolerance, a +flush of swarthy crimson shot over Diana, and she frowned, with the +outcry 'Oh! I have discovered that I can be a tigress!' + +Her friend pressed her hand, saying, 'The cause a good one!' + +'Women have to fight.' + +Diana said no more. There had been a bad experience of her isolated +position in the world. + +Lady Dunstane now indulged a partial hope that Mr. Redworth might see +in this unprotected beautiful girl a person worthy of his esteem. He had +his opportunities, and evidently he liked her. She appeared to take more +cordially to him. She valued the sterling nature of the man. But they +were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly. Both ladies noticed in +him an abstractedness of look, often when conversing, as of a man in +calculation; they put it down to an ambitious mind. Yet Diana said then, +and said always, that it was he who had first taught her the art of +observing. On the whole, the brilliant marriage seemed a fairer prospect +for her; how reasonable to anticipate, Lady Dunstane often thought when +admiring the advance of Diana's beauty in queenliness, for never did +woman carry her head more grandly, more thrillingly make her presence +felt; and if only she had been an actress showing herself nightly on +a London stage, she would before now have met the superb appreciation, +melancholy to reflect upon! + +Diana regained her happy composure at Copsley. She had, as she imagined, +no ambition. The dulness of the place conveyed a charm to a nature +recovering from disturbance to its clear smooth flow. Air, light, books, +and her friend, these good things she had; they were all she wanted. She +rode, she walked, with Sir Lukin or Mr. Redworth, for companion; or with +Saturday and Sunday guests, Lord Larrian, her declared admirer, among +them. 'Twenty years younger!' he said to her, shrugging, with a merry +smile drawn a little at the corners to sober sourness; and she vowed +to her friend that she would not have had the heart to refuse him. +'Though,' said she, 'speaking generally, I cannot tell you what a +foreign animal a husband would appear in my kingdom.' Her experience +had wakened a sexual aversion, of some slight kind, enough to make her +feminine pride stipulate for perfect independence, that she might have +the calm out of which imagination spreads wing. Imagination had become +her broader life, and on such an earth, under such skies, a husband +who is not the fountain of it, certainly is a foreign animal: he is a +discordant note. He contracts the ethereal world, deadens radiancy. +He is gross fact, a leash, a muzzle, harness, a hood; whatever is +detestable to the free limbs and senses. It amused Lady Dunstane to hear +Diana say, one evening when their conversation fell by hazard on her +future, that the idea of a convent was more welcome to her than the most +splendid marriage. 'For,' she added, 'as I am sure I shall never know +anything of this love they rattle about and rave about, I shall do well +to keep to my good single path; and I have a warning within me that a +step out of it will be a wrong one--for me, dearest!' + +She wished her view of the yoke to be considered purely personal, drawn +from no examples and comparisons. The excellent Sir Lukin was passing a +great deal of his time in London. His wife had not a word of blame for +him; he was a respectful husband, and attentive when present; but so +uncertain, owing to the sudden pressure of engagements, that Diana, +bound on a second visit to The Crossways, doubted whether she would be +able to quit her friend, whose condition did not allow of her being left +solitary at Copsley. He came nevertheless a day before Diana's appointed +departure on her round of visits. She was pleased with him, and let +him see it, for the encouragement of a husband in the observance of his +duties. One of the horses had fallen lame, so they went out for a walk, +at Lady Dunstane's request. It was a delicious afternoon of Spring, +with the full red disk of sun dropping behind the brown beech-twigs. She +remembered long afterward the sweet simpleness of her feelings as she +took in the scent of wild flowers along the lanes and entered the woods +jaws of another monstrous and blackening experience. He fell into the +sentimental vein, and a man coming from that heated London life to these +glorified woods, might be excused for doing so, though it sounded to her +just a little ludicrous in him. She played tolerantly second to it; she +quoted a snatch of poetry, and his whole face was bent to her, with the +petition that she would repeat the verse. Much struck was this giant +ex-dragoon. Ah! how fine! grand! He would rather hear that than any +opera: it was diviner! 'Yes, the best poetry is,' she assented. 'On +your lips,' he said. She laughed. 'I am not a particularly melodious +reciter.' He vowed he could listen to her eternally, eternally. +His face, on a screw of the neck and shoulders, was now perpetually +three-quarters fronting. Ah! she was going to leave. 'Yes, and you will +find my return quite early enough,' said Diana, stepping a trifle +more briskly. His fist was raised on the length of the arm, as if in +invocation. 'Not in the whole of London is there a woman worthy to +fasten your shoe-buckles! My oath on it! I look; I can't spy one.' Such +was his flattering eloquence. + +She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compliments. 'And +here, of all places!' They were in the heart of the woods. She found her +hand seized--her waist. Even then, so impossible is it to conceive the +unimaginable even when the apparition of it smites us, she expected some +protesting absurdity, or that he had seen something in her path.--What +did she hear? And from her friend's husband! + +If stricken idiotic, he was a gentleman; the tigress she had detected in +her composition did not require to be called forth; half-a-dozen words, +direct, sharp as fangs and teeth, with the eyes burning over them, +sufficed for the work of defence. 'The man who swore loyalty to Emma!' +Her reproachful repulsion of eyes was unmistakeable, withering; as +masterful as a superior force on his muscles.--What thing had he been +taking her for?--She asked it within: and he of himself, in a reflective +gasp. Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud, with the wrath above: +she had: the look of a Goddess in anger. He stammered, pleaded across +her flying shoulder--Oh! horrible, loathsome, pitiable to hear!... 'A +momentary aberration... her beauty... he deserved to be shot!... could +not help admiring... quite lost his head.. on his honour! never again!' + +Once in the roadway, and Copsley visible, she checked her arrowy +pace for breath, and almost commiserated the dejected wretch in her +thankfulness to him for silence. Nothing exonerated him, but at least +he had the grace not to beg secresy. That would have been an intolerable +whine of a poltroon, adding to her humiliation. He abstained; he stood +at her mercy without appealing. + +She was not the woman to take poor vengeance. But, Oh! she was +profoundly humiliated, shamed through and through. The question, was +I guilty of any lightness--anything to bring this on me? would not be +laid. And how she pitied her friend! This house, her heart's home, was +now a wreck to her: nay, worse, a hostile citadel. The burden of the +task of meeting Emma with an open face, crushed her like very guilt. Yet +she succeeded. After an hour in her bedchamber she managed to lock up +her heart and summon the sprite of acting to her tongue and features: +which ready attendant on the suffering female host performed his +liveliest throughout the evening, to Emma's amusement, and to the +culprit ex-dragoon's astonishment; in whom, to tell the truth of him, +her sparkle and fun kindled the sense of his being less criminal than he +had supposed, with a dim vision of himself as the real proven donkey +for not having been a harmless dash more so. But, to be just as well +as penetrating, this was only the effect of her personal charm on his +nature. So it spurred him a moment, when it struck this doleful man +that to have secured one kiss of those fresh and witty sparkling lips he +would endure forfeits, pangs, anything save the hanging of his culprit's +head before his Emma. Reflection washed him clean. Secresy is not +a medical restorative, by no means a good thing for the baffled +amorously-adventurous cavalier, unless the lady's character shall have +been firmly established in or over his hazy wagging noddle. Reflection +informed him that the honourable, generous, proud girl spared him for +the sake of the house she loved. After a night of tossing, he rose right +heartily repentant. He showed it in the best manner, not dramatically. +On her accepting his offer to drive her down to the valley to meet the +coach, a genuine illumination of pure gratitude made a better man of +him, both to look at and in feeling. She did not hesitate to consent; +and he had half expected a refusal. She talked on the way quite as +usual, cheerfully, if not altogether so spiritedly. A flash of her +matchless wit now and then reduced him to that abject state of man +beside the fair person he has treated high cavalierly, which one craves +permission to describe as pulp. He was utterly beaten. + +The sight of Redworth on the valley road was a relief to them both. He +had slept in one of the houses of the valley, and spoke of having had +the intention to mount to Copsley. Sir Lukin proposed to drive him back. +He glanced at Diana, still with that calculating abstract air of his; +and he was rallied. He confessed to being absorbed in railways, the new +lines of railways projected to thread the land and fast mapping it. + +'You 've not embarked money in them?' said Sir Lukin. + +The answer was: 'I have; all I possess.' And Redworth for a sharp +instant set his eyes on Diana, indifferent to Sir Lukin's bellow of +stupefaction at such gambling on the part of a prudent fellow. + +He asked her where she was to be met, where written to, during the +Summer, in case of his wishing to send her news. + +She replied: 'Copsley will be the surest. I am always in communication +with Lady Dunstane.' She coloured deeply. The recollection of the change +of her feeling for Copsley suffused her maiden mind. + +The strange blush prompted an impulse in Redworth to speak to her at +once of his venture in railways. But what would she understand of them, +as connected with the mighty stake he was playing for? He delayed. +The coach came at a trot of the horses, admired by Sir Lukin, round a +corner. She entered it, her maid followed, the door banged, the horses +trotted. She was off. + +Her destiny of the Crossways tied a knot, barred a gate, and pointed to +a new direction of the road on that fine spring morning, when beech-buds +were near the burst, cowslips yellowed the meadow-flats, and skylarks +quivered upward. + +For many long years Redworth had in his memory, for a comment on +procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in his calculating faculty, +the blue back of a coach. + +He declined the vacated place beside Sir Lukin, promising to come and +spend a couple of days at Copsley in a fortnight--Saturday week. He +wanted, he said, to have a talk with Lady Dunstane. Evidently he had +railways on the brain, and Sir Lukin warned his wife to be guarded +against the speculative mania, and advise the man, if she could. + + + + +CHAPTER V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE + +On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley, with a +shade deeper of the calculating look under his thick brows, habitual to +him latterly. He found Lady Dunstane at her desk, pen in hand, the paper +untouched; and there was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat +resembling his own, as he would have observed, had he been open-minded +enough to notice anything, except that she was writing a letter. He +begged her to continue it; he proposed to read a book till she was at +leisure. + +'I have to write, and scarcely know how,' said she, clearing her face to +make the guest at home, and taking a chair by the fire, 'I would rather +chat for half an hour.' + +She spoke of the weather, frosty, but tonic; bad for the last days of +hunting, good for the farmer and the country, let us hope. + +Redworth nodded assent. It might be surmised that he was brooding +over those railways, in which he had embarked his fortune. Ah! those +railways! She was not long coming to the wailful exclamation upon them, +both to express her personal sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear +England, and lead to a little, modest, offering of a woman's counsel +to the rash adventurer; for thus could she serviceably put aside her +perplexity awhile. Those railways! When would there be peace in the +land? Where one single nook of shelter and escape from them! And +the English, blunt as their senses are to noise and hubbub, would be +revelling in hisses, shrieks, puffings and screeches, so that travelling +would become an intolerable affliction. 'I speak rather as an invalid,' +she admitted; 'I conjure up all sorts of horrors, the whistle in the +night beneath one's windows, and the smoke of trains defacing the +landscape; hideous accidents too. They will be wholesale and past +help. Imagine a collision! I have borne many changes with equanimity, I +pretend to a certain degree of philosophy, but this mania for cutting up +the land does really cause me to pity those who are to follow us. They +will not see the England we have seen. It will be patched and scored, +disfigured... a sort of barbarous Maori visage--England in a New Zealand +mask. You may call it the sentimental view. In this case, I am decidedly +sentimental: I love my country. I do love quiet, rural England. Well, +and I love beauty, I love simplicity. All that will be destroyed by the +refuse of the towns flooding the land--barring accidents, as Lukin says. +There seems nothing else to save us.' + +Redworth acquiesced. 'Nothing.' + +'And you do not regret it?' he was asked. + +'Not a bit. We have already exchanged opinions on the subject. +Simplicity must go, and the townsman meet his equal in the countryman. +As for beauty, I would sacrifice that to circulate gumption. A bushelful +of nonsense is talked pro and con: it always is at an innovation. What +we are now doing, is to take a longer and a quicker stride, that is +all.' + +'And establishing a new field for the speculator.' + +'Yes, and I am one, and this is the matter I wanted to discuss with you, +Lady Dunstane,' said Redworth, bending forward, the whole man devoted to +the point of business. + +She declared she was complimented; she felt the compliment, and trusted +her advice might be useful, faintly remarking that she had a woman's +head: and 'not less' was implied as much as 'not more,' in order to give +strength to her prospective opposition. + +All his money, she heard, was down on the railway table. He might within +a year have a tolerable fortune: and, of course, he might be ruined. He +did not expect it; still he fronted the risks. 'And now,' said he, 'I +come to you for counsel. I am not held among my acquaintances to be a +marrying man, as it's called.' + +He paused. Lady Dunstane thought it an occasion to praise him for his +considerateness. + +'You involve no one but yourself, you mean?' Her eyes shed approval. +'Still the day may come... I say only that it may: and the wish to marry +is a rosy colouring... equal to a flying chariot in conducting us across +difficulties and obstructions to the deed. And then one may have to +regret a previous rashness.' + +These practical men are sometimes obtuse: she dwelt on that vision of +the future. + +He listened, and resumed: 'My view of marriage is, that no man should +ask a woman to be his wife unless he is well able to support her in +the comforts, not to say luxuries, she is accustomed to.' His gaze had +wandered to the desk; it fixed there. 'That is Miss Merion's writing,' +he said. + +'The letter?' said Lady Dunstane, and she stretched out her hand to +press down a leaf of it. 'Yes; it is from her.' + +'Is she quite well?' + +'I suppose she is. She does not speak of her health.' + +He looked pertinaciously in the direction of the letter, and it was not +rightly mannered. That letter, of all others, was covert and sacred to +the friend. It contained the weightiest of secrets. + +'I have not written to her,' said Redworth. + +He was astonishing: 'To whom? To Diana? You could very well have done +so, only I fancy she knows nothing, has never given a thought to railway +stocks and shares; she has a loathing for speculation.' + +'And speculators too, I dare say!' + +'It is extremely probable.' Lady Dunstane spoke with an emphasis, for +the man liked Diana, and would be moved by the idea of forfeiting her +esteem. + +'She might blame me if I did anything dishonourable!' + +'She certainly would.' + +'She will have no cause.' + +Lady Dunstane began to look, as at a cloud charged with remote +explosions: and still for the moment she was unsuspecting. But it was +a flitting moment. When he went on, and very singularly droning to her +ear: 'The more a man loves a woman, the more he should be positive, +before asking her, that she will not have to consent to a loss of +position, and I would rather lose her than fail to give her all--not +be sure, as far as a man can be sure, of giving her all I think she's +worthy of': then the cloud shot a lightning flash, and the doors of her +understanding swung wide to the entry of a great wonderment. A shock of +pain succeeded it. Her sympathy was roused so acutely that she slipped +over the reflective rebuke she would have addressed to her silly +delusion concerning his purpose in speaking of his affairs to a woman. +Though he did not mention Diana by name, Diana was clearly the person. +And why had he delayed to speak to her?--Because of this venture of his +money to make him a fortune, for the assurance of her future comfort! +Here was the best of men for the girl, not displeasing to her; a good, +strong, trustworthy man, pleasant to hear and to see, only erring in +being a trifle too scrupulous in love: and a fortnight back she would +have imagined he had no chance; and now she knew that the chance was +excellent in those days, with this revelation in Diana's letter, which +said that all chance was over. + +'The courtship of a woman,' he droned away, 'is in my mind not fair to +her until a man has to the full enough to sanction his asking her +to marry him. And if he throws all he possesses on a stake... to win +her--give her what she has a right to claim, he ought.... Only at +present the prospect seems good.... He ought of course to wait. Well, +the value of the stock I hold has doubled, and it increases. I am a +careful watcher of the market. I have friends--brokers and railway +Directors. I can rely on them.' + +'Pray,' interposed Lady Dunstane, 'specify--I am rather in a mist--the +exact point upon which you do me the honour to consult me.' She +ridiculed herself for having imagined that such a man would come to +consult her upon a point of business. + +'It is,' he replied, 'this: whether, as affairs now stand with me--I +have an income from my office, and personal property... say between +thirteen and fourteen hundred a year to start with--whether you think me +justified in asking a lady to share my lot?' + +'Why not? But will you name the lady?' + +'Then I may write at once? In your judgement.... Yes, the lady. I have +not named her. I had no right. Besides, the general question first, in +fairness to the petitioner. You might reasonably stipulate for more for +a friend. She could make a match, as you have said...' he muttered of +'brilliant,' and 'the highest'; and his humbleness of the honest man +enamoured touched Lady Dunstane. She saw him now as the man of strength +that she would have selected from a thousand suitors to guide her dear +friend. + +She caught at a straw: 'Tell me, it is not Diana?' + +'Diana Merion!' + +As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew himself tight +for the stroke. 'She's in love with some one?' + +'She is engaged.' + +He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that excruciating +twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their +course to grind the contrary to that of the heart, was revealed in +one short lift and gasp, a compression of the tremendous change he +underwent. + +'Why did you not speak before?' said Lady Dunstane. Her words were +tremulous. + +'I should have had no justification!' + +'You might have won her!' She could have wept; her sympathy and her +self-condolence under disappointment at Diana's conduct joined to swell +the feminine flood. + +The poor fellow's quick breathing and blinking reminded her of cruelty +in a retrospect. She generalized, to ease her spirit of regret, by +hinting it without hurting: 'Women really are not puppets. They are not +so excessively luxurious. It is good for young women in the early days +of marriage to rough it a little.' She found herself droning, as he had +done. + +He had ears for nothing but the fact. + +'Then I am too late!' + +'I have heard it to-day.' + +'She is engaged! Positively?' + +Lady Dunstane glanced backward at the letter on her desk. She had to +answer the strangest of letters that had ever come to her, and it was +from her dear Tony, the baldest intimation of the weightiest piece of +intelligence which a woman can communicate to her heart's friend. The +task of answering it was now doubled. 'I fear so, I fancy so,' she said, +and she longed to cast eye over the letter again, to see if there might +possibly be a loophole behind the lines. + +'Then I must make my mind up to it,' said Redworth. 'I think I'll take a +walk.' + +She smiled kindly. 'It will be our secret.' + +'I thank you with all my heart, Lady Dunstane.' + +He was not a weaver of phrases in distress. His blunt reserve was +eloquent of it to her, and she liked him the better; could have thanked +him, too, for leaving her promptly. + +When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter at a hasty +glimpse. It was of one paragraph, and fired its shot like a cannon with +the muzzle at her breast:-- + + 'MY OWN EMMY,--I have been asked in marriage by Mr. Warwick, and + have accepted him. Signify your approval, for I have decided that + it is the wisest thing a waif can do. We are to live at The + Crossways for four months of the year, so I shall have Dada in his + best days and all my youngest dreams, my sunrise and morning dew, + surrounding me; my old home for my new one. I write in haste, to + you first, burning to hear from you. Send your blessing to yours in + life and death, through all transformations, + 'TONY.' + +That was all. Not a word of the lover about to be decorated with the +title of husband. No confession of love, nor a single supplicating word +to her friend, in excuse for the abrupt decision to so grave a step. +Her previous description of, him, as a 'gentlemanly official' in his +appearance, conjured him up most distastefully. True, she might have +made a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scandals; +but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler mould, he failed to +harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like Tony. Perhaps +Mr. Redworth also failed in something. Where was the man fitly to mate +her! Mr. Redworth, however, was manly and trustworthy, of the finest +Saxon type in build and in character. He had great qualities, and his +excess of scrupulousness was most pitiable. + +She read: 'The wisest thing a waif can do.' It bore a sound of +desperation. Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love. Or +was she masking the passion? No: had it been a case of love, she would +have written very differently to her friend. + +Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Diana's +novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness, +and despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line: 'Wonders +are always happening.' She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise; +naturally betraying it. 'I must hope and pray that you have not been +precipitate.' Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, the most +genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly. + +When she had finished the composition she perused it, and did not +recognize herself in her language, though she had been so guarded to +cover the wound her Tony dealt their friendship--in some degree injuring +their sex. For it might now, after such an example, verily seem that +women are incapable of a translucent perfect confidence: their impulses, +caprices, desperations, tricks of concealment, trip a heart-whole +friendship. Well, to-morrow, if not to-day, the tripping may be +expected! Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly to a lowered view of +her Tony's character. This was her unconscious act of reprisal. Her +brilliant beloved Tony, dazzling but in beauty and the gifted mind, +stood as one essentially with the common order of women. She wished +to be settled, Mr. Warwick proposed, and for the sake of living at +The Crossways she accepted him--she, the lofty scorner of loveless +marriages! who had said--how many times! that nothing save love excused +it! She degraded their mutual high standard of womankind. Diana was in +eclipse, full three parts. The bulk of the gentlemanly official she had +chosen obscured her. But I have written very carefully, thought Lady +Dunstane, dropping her answer into the post-bag. She had, indeed, been +so care ful, that to cloak her feelings, she had written as another +person. Women with otiose husbands have a task to preserve friendship. + +Redworth carried his burden through the frosty air at a pace to melt +icicles in Greenland. He walked unthinkingly, right ahead, to the red +West, as he discovered when pausing to consult his watch. Time was left +to return at the same pace and dress for dinner; he swung round and +picked up remembrances of sensations he had strewn by the way. She knew +these woods; he was walking in her footprints; she was engaged to be +married. Yes, his principle, never to ask a woman to marry him, never to +court her, without bank-book assurance of his ability to support her in +cordial comfort, was right. He maintained it, and owned himself a donkey +for having stuck to it. Between him and his excellent principle there +was war, without the slightest division. Warned of the danger of losing +her, he would have done the same again, confessing himself donkey for +his pains. The principle was right, because it was due to the woman. His +rigid adherence to the principle set him belabouring his donkey-ribs, as +the proper due to himself. For he might have had a chance, all through +two Winters. The opportunities had been numberless. Here, in this beech +wood; near that thornbush; on the juniper slope; from the corner of +chalk and sand in junction, to the corner of clay and chalk; all the +length of the wooded ridge he had reminders of her presence and his +priceless chances: and still the standard of his conduct said No, while +his heart bled. + +He felt that a chance had been. More sagacious than Lady Dunstane, +from his not nursing a wound, he divined in the abruptness of Diana's +resolution to accept a suitor, a sober reason, and a fitting one, for +the wish that she might be settled. And had he spoken!--If he had spoken +to her, she might have given her hand to him, to a dishonourable brute! +A blissful brute. But a worse than donkey. Yes, his principle was right, +and he lashed with it, and prodded with it, drove himself out into the +sour wilds where bachelordom crops noxious weeds without a hallowing +luminary, and clung to it, bruised and bleeding though he was. + +The gentleness of Lady Dunstane soothed him during the term of a visit +that was rather like purgatory sweetened by angelical tears. He was +glad to go, wretched in having gone. She diverted the incessant conflict +between his insubordinate self and his castigating, but avowedly +sovereign, principle. Away from her, he was the victim of a flagellation +so dire that it almost drove him to revolt against the lord he served, +and somehow the many memories at Copsley kept him away. Sir Lukin, when +speaking of Diana's 'engagement to that fellow Warwick,' exalted her +with an extraordinary enthusiasm, exceedingly hard for the silly beast +who had lost her to bear. For the present the place dearest to Redworth +of all places on earth was unendurable. + +Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the market, fast +as asparagus-heads for cutting: a circumstance that added stings +to reflection. Had he been only a little bolder, a little less the +fanatical devotee of his rule of masculine honour, less the slave to the +letter of success.... But why reflect at all? Here was a goodly income +approaching, perhaps a seat in Parliament; a station for the airing of +his opinions--and a social status for the wife now denied to him. +The wife was denied to him; he could conceive of no other. The +tyrant-ridden, reticent, tenacious creature had thoroughly wedded her +in mind; her view of things had a throne beside his own, even in their +differences. He perceived, agreeing or disagreeing, the motions of her +brain, as he did with none other of women; and this it is which stamps +character on her, divides her from them, upraises and enspheres. He +declined to live with any other of the sex. + +Before he could hear of the sort of man Mr. Warwick was--a perpetual +object of his quest--the bridal bells had rung, and Diana Antonia Merion +lost her maiden name. She became the Mrs. Warwick of our footballing +world. + +Why she married, she never told. Possibly, in amazement at herself +subsequently, she forgot the specific reason. That which weighs heavily +in youth, and commits us to desperate action, will be a trifle under +older eyes, to blunter senses, a more enlightened understanding. Her +friend Emma probed for the reason vainly. It was partly revealed to +Redworth, by guess-work and a putting together of pieces, yet quite +luminously, as it were by touch of tentacle-feelers--one evening that he +passed with Sir Lukin Dunstane, when the lachrymose ex-dragoon and son +of Idlesse, had rather more than dined. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE COUPLE + +Six months a married woman, Diana came to Copsley to introduce her +husband. They had run over Italy: 'the Italian Peninsula,' she quoted +him in a letter to Lady Dunstane: and were furnishing their London +house. Her first letters from Italy appeared to have a little bloom of +sentiment. Augustus was mentioned as liking this and that in the land of +beauty. He patronized Art, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak upon +pictures and sculptures; he knew a great deal about them. 'He is an +authority.' Her humour soon began to play round the fortunate man, +who did not seem, to the reader's mind, to bear so well a sentimental +clothing. His pride was in being very English on the Continent, and +Diana's instances of his lofty appreciations of the garden of Art and +Nature, and statuesque walk through it, would have been more amusing if +her friend could have harmonized her idea of the couple. A description +of 'a bit of a wrangle between us' at Lucca, where an Italian +post-master on a journey of inspection, claimed a share of their +carriage and audaciously attempted entry, was laughable, but jarred. +Would she some day lose her relish for ridicule, and see him at a +distance? He was generous, Diana, said she saw fine qualities in him. +It might be that he was lavish on his bridal tour. She said he was +unselfish, kind, affable with his equals; he was cordial to the +acquaintances he met. Perhaps his worst fault was an affected +superciliousness before the foreigner, not uncommon in those days. +'You are to know, dear Emmy, that we English are the aristocracy of +Europeans.' Lady Dunstane inclined to think we were; nevertheless, +in the mouth of a 'gentlemanly official' the frigid arrogance added a +stroke of caricature to his deportment. On the other hand, the reports +of him gleaned by Sir Lukin sounded favourable. He was not taken to be +preternaturally stiff, nor bright, but a goodish sort of fellow; good +horseman, good shot, good character. In short, the average Englishman, +excelling as a cavalier, a slayer, and an orderly subject. That was a +somewhat elevated standard to the patriotic Emma. Only she would never +have stipulated for an average to espouse Diana. Would he understand +her, and value the best in her? Another and unanswered question was, +how could she have condescended to wed with an average? There was +transparently some secret not confided to her friend. + +He appeared. Lady Dunstane's first impression of him recurred on his +departure. Her unanswered question drummed at her ears, though she +remembered that Tony's art in leading him out had moderated her rigidly +judicial summary of the union during a greater part of the visit. But +his requiring to be led out, was against him. Considering the subjects, +his talk was passable. The subjects treated of politics, pictures, +Continental travel, our manufactures, our wealth and the reasons for +it--excellent reasons well-weighed. He was handsome, as men go; rather +tall, not too stout, precise in the modern fashion of his dress, and the +pair of whiskers encasing a colourless depression up to a long, thin, +straight nose, and closed lips indicating an aperture. The contraction +of his mouth expressed an intelligence in the attitude of the firmly +negative. + +The lips opened to smile, the teeth were faultless; an effect was +produced, if a cold one--the colder for the unparticipating northern +eyes; eyes of that half cloud and blue, which make a kind of hueless +grey, and are chiefly striking in an authoritative stage. Without +contradicting, for he was exactly polite, his look signified a person +conscious of being born to command: in fine, an aristocrat among the +'aristocracy of Europeans.' His differences of opinion were prefaced by +a 'Pardon me,' and pausing smile of the teeth; then a succinctly worded +sentence or two, a perfect settlement of the dispute. He disliked +argumentation. He said so, and Diana remarked it of him, speaking as, a +wife who merely noted a characteristic. Inside his boundary, he had neat +phrases, opinions in packets. Beyond it, apparently the world was void +of any particular interest. Sir Lukin, whose boundary would have shown a +narrower limitation had it been defined, stood no chance with him. Tory +versus Whig, he tried a wrestle, and was thrown. They agreed on the +topic of Wine. Mr. Warwick had a fine taste in wine. Their after-dinner +sittings were devoted to this and the alliterative cognate theme, +equally dear to the gallant ex-dragoon, from which it resulted that Lady +Dunstane received satisfactory information in a man's judgement of him. +'Warwick is a clever fellow, and a thorough man of the world, I can tell +you, Emmy.' Sir Lukin further observed that he was a gentlemanly fellow. +'A gentlemanly official!' Diana's primary dash of portraiture stuck to +him, so true it was! As for her, she seemed to have forgotten it. Not +only did she strive to show him to advantage by leading him out; +she played second to him; subserviently, fondly; she quite submerged +herself, content to be dull if he might shine; and her talk of her +husband in her friend's blue-chamber boudoir of the golden stars, where +they had discussed the world and taken counsel in her maiden days, +implied admiration of his merits. He rode superbly: he knew Law: he was +prepared for any position: he could speak really eloquently; she had +heard him at a local meeting. And he loved the old Crossways almost as +much as she did. 'He has promised me he will never ask me to sell it,' +she said, with a simpleness that could hardly have been acted. + +When she was gone, Lady Dunstane thought she had worn a mask, in the +natural manner of women trying to make the best of their choice; and +she excused her poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own +cost. But she could not excuse her for having married the man. Her first +and her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty: a +London house conventionally furnished and decorated by the upholsterer, +and empty of inhabitants. How a brilliant and beautiful girl could have +committed this rashness, was the perplexing riddle: the knottier because +the man was idle: and Diana had ambition; she despised and dreaded +idleness in men. Empty of inhabitants even to the ghost! Both human and +spiritual were wanting. The mind contemplating him became reflectively +stagnant. + +I must not be unjust! Lady Dunstane hastened to exclaim, at a whisper +that he had at least proved his appreciation of Tony; whom he preferred +to call Diana, as she gladly remembered: and the two were bound together +for a moment warmly by her recollection of her beloved Tony's touching +little petition: 'You will invite us again?' and then there had flashed +in Tony's dear dark eyes the look of their old love drowning. They were +not to be thought of separately. She admitted that the introduction to +a woman of her friend's husband is crucially trying to him: he may well +show worse than he is. Yet his appreciation of Tony in espousing her, +was rather marred by Sir Lukin's report of him as a desperate admirer of +beautiful woman. It might be for her beauty only, not for her spiritual +qualities! At present he did not seem aware of their existence. But, to +be entirely just, she had hardly exhibited them or a sign of them during +the first interview: and sitting with his hostess alone, he had seized +the occasion to say, that he was the happiest of men. He said it with +the nearest approach to fervour she had noticed. Perhaps the very fact +of his not producing a highly favourable impression, should be set to +plead on his behalf. Such as he was, he was himself, no simulator. She +longed for Mr. Redworth's report of him. + +Her compassion for Redworth's feelings when beholding the woman he loved +another man's wife, did not soften the urgency of her injunction that he +should go speedily, and see as much of them as he could. 'Because,' she +gave her reason, 'I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend +through her marriage, and is only one the richer.' + +Redworth buckled himself to the task. He belonged to the class of his +countrymen who have a dungeon-vault for feelings that should not be +suffered to cry abroad, and into this oubliette he cast them, letting +them feed as they might, or perish. It was his heart down below, and in +no voluntary musings did he listen to it, to sustain the thing. Grimly +lord of himself, he stood emotionless before the world. Some worthy +fellows resemble him, and they are called deep-hearted. He was +dungeon-deep. The prisoner underneath might clamour and leap; none heard +him or knew of him; nor did he ever view the day. Diana's frank: +'Ah, Mr. Redworth, how glad I am to see you!' was met by the calmest +formalism of the wish for her happiness. He became a guest at her London +house, and his report of the domesticity there, and notably of the lord +of the house, pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husband's. He saw the +kind of man accurately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and +she could say assentingly, without anxiety: 'Yes, yes,' to his remarks +upon Mr. Warwick, indicative of a man of capable head in worldly +affairs, commonplace beside his wife. The noble gentleman for Diana +was yet unborn, they tacitly agreed. Meantime one must not put a mortal +husband to the fiery ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise. +'You may be sure she is a constant friend,' Lady Dunstane said for +his comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of +disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: 'I could calculate on +it.' For though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit, she +wished to see that he held an image of Diana:--surely a woman to +kindle poets and heroes, the princes of the race; and it was a curious +perversity that the two men she had moved were merely excellent, +emotionless, ordinary men, with heads for business. Elsewhere, out of +England, Diana would have been a woman for a place in song, exalted +to the skies. Here she had the destiny to inflame Mr. Redworth and Mr. +Warwick, two railway Directors, bent upon scoring the country to the +likeness of a child's lines of hop-scotch in a gravel-yard. + +As with all invalids, the pleasure of living backward was haunted by the +tortures it evoked, and two years later she recalled this outcry against +the Fates. She would then have prayed for Diana to inflame none but such +men as those two. The original error was; of course, that rash and most +inexplicable marriage, a step never alluded to by the driven victim of +it. Lady Dunstane heard rumours of dissensions. Diana did not mention +them. She spoke of her husband as unlucky in railway ventures, and of a +household necessity for money, nothing further. One day she wrote of a +Government appointment her husband had received, ending the letter: 'So +there is the end of our troubles.' Her friend rejoiced, and afterward +looking back at her satisfaction, saw the dire beginning of them. + +Lord Dannisburgh's name, as one of the admirers of Mrs. Warwick, was +dropped once or twice by Sir Lukin. He had dined with the Warwicks, and +met the eminent member of the Cabinet at their table. There is no harm +in admiration, especially on the part of one of a crowd observing a +star. No harm can be imputed when the husband of a beautiful woman +accepts an appointment from the potent Minister admiring her. So Lady +Dunstane thought, for she was sure of Diana to her inmost soul. But she +soon perceived in Sir Lukin that the old Dog-world was preparing to yelp +on a scent. He of his nature belonged to the hunting pack, and with a +cordial feeling for the quarry, he was quite with his world in expecting +to see her run, and readiness to join the chase. No great scandal had +occurred for several months. The world was in want of it; and he, too, +with a very cordial feeling for the quarry, piously hoping she would +escape, already had his nose to ground, collecting testimony in the +track of her. He said little to his wife, but his world was getting so +noisy that he could not help half pursing his lips, as with the soft +whistle of an innuendo at the heels of it. Redworth was in America, +engaged in carving up that hemisphere. She had no source of information +but her husband's chance gossip; and London was death to her; and Diana, +writing faithfully twice a week, kept silence as to Lord Dannisburgh, +except in naming him among her guests. She wrote this, which might have +a secret personal signification: 'We women are the verbs passive of the +alliance; we have to learn, and if we take to activity, with the best +intentions, we conjugate a frightful disturbance. We are to run +on lines, like the steam-trains, or we come to no station, dash to +fragments. I have the misfortune to know I was born an active. I take my +chance.' + +Once she coupled the names of Lord Larrian and Lord Dannisburgh, +remarking that she had a fatal attraction for antiques. + +The death of her husband's uncle and illness of his aunt withdrew her +to The Crossways, where she remained nursing for several months, reading +diligently, as her letters showed, and watching the approaches of the +destroyer. She wrote like her former self, subdued by meditation in the +presence of that inevitable. The world ceased barking. Lady Dunstane +could suppose Mr. Warwick to have now a reconciling experience of his +wife's noble qualities. He probably did value them more. He spoke of her +to Sir Lukin in London with commendation. 'She is an attentive nurse.' +He inherited a considerable increase of income when he and his wife were +the sole tenants of The Crossways, but disliking the house, for reasons +hard to explain by a man previously professing to share her attachment +to it, he wished to sell or let the place, and his wife would do +neither. She proposed to continue living in their small London +house rather than be cut off from The Crossways, which, he said, was +ludicrous: people should live up to their position; and he sneered at +the place, and slightly wounded her, for she was open to a wound when +the cold fire of a renewed attempt at warmth between them was crackling +and showing bits of flame, after she had given proof of her power to +serve. Service to himself and his relatives affected him. He deferred +to her craze for The Crossways, and they lived in a larger London house, +'up to their position,' which means ever a trifle beyond it, and gave +choice dinner-parties to the most eminent. His jealousy slumbered. +Having ideas of a seat in Parliament at this period, and preferment +superior to the post he held, Mr. Warwick deemed it sagacious to court +the potent patron Lord Dannisburgh could be; and his wife had his +interests at heart, the fork-tongued world said. The cry revived. +Stories of Lord D. and Mrs. W. whipped the hot pursuit. The moral repute +of the great Whig lord and the beauty of the lady composed inflammable +material. + +'Are you altogether cautious?' Lady Dunstane wrote to Diana; and her +friend sent a copious reply: 'You have the fullest right to ask your +Tony anything, and I will answer as at the Judgement bar. You allude to +Lord Dannisburgh. He is near what Dada's age would have been, and is, +I think I can affirm, next to my dead father and my Emmy, my dearest +friend. I love him. I could say it in the streets without shame; and you +do not imagine me shameless. Whatever his character in his younger days, +he can be honestly a woman's friend, believe me. I see straight to his +heart; he has no disguise; and unless I am to suppose that marriage +is the end of me, I must keep him among my treasures. I see him almost +daily; it is not possible to think I can be deceived; and as long as he +does me the honour to esteem my poor portion of brains by coming to me +for what he is good enough to call my counsel, I shall let the world wag +its tongue. Between ourselves, I trust to be doing some good. I know I +am of use in various ways. No doubt there is a danger of a woman's head +being turned, when she reflects that a powerful Minister governing a +kingdom has not considered her too insignificant to advise him; and I +am sensible of it. I am, I assure you, dearest, on my guard against it. +That would not attach me to him, as his homely friendliness does. He is +the most amiable, cheerful, benignant of men; he has no feeling of an +enemy, though naturally his enemies are numerous and venomous. He is +full of observation and humour. How he would amuse you! In many respects +accord with you. And I should not have a spark of jealousy. Some day +I shall beg permission to bring him to Copsley. At present, during +the Session, he is too busy, as you know. Me--his "crystal spring of +wisdom"--he can favour with no more than an hour in the afternoon, or a +few minutes at night. Or I get a pencilled note from the benches of +the House, with an anecdote, or news of a Division. I am sure to be +enlivened. + +'So I have written to you fully, simply, frankly. Have perfect faith in +your Tony, who would, she vows to heaven; die rather than disturb it and +her heart's beloved.' + +The letter terminated with one of Lord Dannisburgh's anecdotes, exciting +to merriment in the season of its freshness;--and a postscript of +information: 'Augustus expects a mission--about a month; uncertain +whether I accompany him.' + +Mr. Warwick departed on his mission. Diana remained in London. Lady +Dunstane wrote entreating her to pass the month--her favourite time of +the violet yielding to the cowslip--at Copsley. The invitation could not +be accepted, but the next day Diana sent word that she had a surprise +for the following Sunday, and would bring a friend to lunch, if Sir +Lukin would meet them at the corner of the road in the valley leading up +to the heights, at a stated hour. + +Lady Dunstane gave the listless baronet his directions, observing: 'It's +odd, she never will come alone since her marriage.' + +'Queer,' said he of the serenest absence of conscience; and that there +must be something not entirely right going on, he strongly inclined to +think. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE CRISIS + +It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box +of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana beside him, cockaded lackeys +in plain livery and the lady's maid to the rear. But Lord Dannisburgh's +visit was a compliment, and the freak of his driving down under the +beams of Aurora on a sober Sunday morning capital fun; so with a gaiety +that was kept alive for the invalid Emma to partake of it, they rattled +away to the heights, and climbed them, and Diana rushed to the arms of +her friend, whispering and cooing for pardon if she startled her, guilty +of a little whiff of blarney:--Lord Dannisburgh wanted so much to be +introduced to her, and she so much wanted her to know him, and she hoped +to be graciously excused for thus bringing them together, 'that she +might be chorus to them!' Chorus was a pretty fiction on the part of +the thrilling and topping voice. She was the very radiant Diana of her +earliest opening day, both in look and speech, a queenly comrade, and +a spirit leaping and shining like a mountain water. She did not seduce, +she ravished. The judgement was taken captive and flowed with her. As +to the prank of the visit, Emma heartily enjoyed it and hugged it for +a holiday of her own, and doating on the beautiful, darkeyed, fresh +creature, who bore the name of the divine Huntress, she thought her +a true Dian in stature, step, and attributes, the genius of +laughter superadded. None else on earth so sweetly laughed, none +so spontaneously, victoriously provoked the healthful openness. Her +delicious chatter, and her museful sparkle in listening, equally +quickened every sense of life. Adorable as she was to her friend Emma +at all times, she that day struck a new fountain in memory. And it was +pleasant to see the great lord's admiration of this wonder. One could +firmly believe in their friendship, and his winning ideas from the +abounding bubbling well. A recurrent smile beamed on his face when +hearing and observing her. Certain dishes provided at the table were +Diana's favourites, and he relished them, asking for a second help, +and remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things. They +lunched, eating like boys. They walked over the grounds of Copsley, +and into the lanes and across the meadows of the cowslip, rattling, +chatting, enlivening the frosty air, happy as children biting to the +juices of ripe apples off the tree. But Tony was the tree, the dispenser +of the rosy gifts. She had a moment of reflection, only a moment, and +Emma felt the pause as though a cloud had shadowed them and a spirit had +been shut away. Both spoke of their happiness at the kiss of parting. +That melancholy note at the top of the wave to human hearts conscious of +its enforced decline was repeated by them, and Diana's eyelids blinked +to dismiss a tear. + +'You have no troubles?' Emma said. + +'Only the pain of the good-bye to my beloved,' said Diana. 'I have never +been happier--never shall be! Now you know him you think with me? I knew +you would. You have seen him as he always is--except when he is armed +for battle. He is the kindest of souls. And soul I say. He is the one +man among men who gives me notions of a soul in men.' + +The eulogy was exalted. Lady Dunstane made a little mouth for Oh, in +correction of the transcendental touch, though she remembered their +foregone conversations upon men--strange beings that they are!--and +understood Diana's meaning. + +'Really! really! honour!' Diana emphasized her extravagant praise, to +print it fast. 'Hear him speak of Ireland.' + +'Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the Irishwoman?' + +'He is past thoughts of catching, dearest. At that age men are pools of +fish, or what you will: they are not anglers. Next year, if you invite +us, we will come again.' + +'But you will come to stay in the Winter?' + +'Certainly. But I am speaking of one of my holidays.' + +They kissed fervently. The lady mounted; the grey and portly lord +followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and Emma was left to brood +over her friend's last words: 'One of my holidays.' Not a hint to +the detriment of her husband had passed. The stray beam balefully +illuminating her marriage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was +troublesome with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating +on the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; upon which he +thought a great deal depended. They had driven out of town early, and +if they drove back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were +sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs. 'I +couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand. But they +say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it doesn't matter +for him, perhaps, but a game of two.... Oh! it'll be all right. They +can't reach London before dusk. And the cat's away.' + +'It's more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could have married +that man,' said his wife. + +'I've long since given it up,' said he. + +Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome, telling of her drive +home to smoke and solitude, with a new host of romantic sensations to +keep her company. She wrote thrice in the week, and the same addition of +one to the ordinary number next week. Then for three weeks not a line. +Sir Lukin brought news from London that Warwick had returned, nothing +to explain the silence. A letter addressed to The Crossways was likewise +unnoticed. The supposition that they must be visiting on a round, +appeared rational; but many weeks elapsed, until Sir Lukin received a +printed sheet in the superscription of a former military comrade, +who had marked a paragraph. It was one of those journals, now barely +credible, dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials +raised sewer-lamps, and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering hideously. +Thousands detested it, and fattened their crops on it. Domesticated +beasts of superior habits to the common will indulge themselves with a +luxurious roll in carrion, for a revival of their original instincts. +Society was largely a purchaser. The ghastly thing was dreaded as a +scourge, hailed as a refreshment, nourished as a parasite. It professed +undaunted honesty, and operated in the fashion of the worms bred of +decay. Success was its boasted justification. The animal world, when not +rigorously watched, will always crown with success the machine supplying +its appetites. The old dog-world took signal from it. The one-legged +devil-god waved his wooden hoof, and the creatures in view, the hunt was +uproarious. Why should we seem better than we are? down with hypocrisy, +cried the censor morum, spicing the lamentable derelictions of this and +that great person, male and female. The plea of corruption of blood in +the world, to excuse the public chafing of a grievous itch, is not less +old than sin; and it offers a merry day of frisky truant running to +the animal made unashamed by another and another stripped, branded, and +stretched flat. Sir Lukin read of Mr. and Mrs. W. and a distinguished +Peer of the realm. The paragraph was brief; it had a flavour. Promise +of more to come, pricked curiosity. He read it enraged, feeling for his +wife; and again indignant, feeling for Diana. His third reading found +him out: he felt for both, but as a member of the whispering world, much +behind the scenes, he had a longing for the promised insinuations, just +to know what they could say, or dared say. The paper was not shown to +Lady Dunstane. A run to London put him in the tide of the broken dam of +gossip. The names were openly spoken and swept from mouth to mouth of +the scandalmongers, gathering matter as they flew. He knocked at Diana's +door, where he was informed that the mistress of the house was absent. +More than official gravity accompanied the announcement. Her address was +unknown. Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his wife. He began with +a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind for bad news. +She divined immediately that it concerned Diana, and forcing him to +speak to the point, she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence. +It stopped her heart. + +The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion +to recollection. Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and +asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say. Under +compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come +because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he +thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity. +But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at +the bright star and drowned it. + +The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in Emma's belief as +the cause of Mr. Warwick's unpardonable suspicions and cruelty. Arguing +from her own sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet +health to her frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish +innocence in Diana's conduct, and she recalled her looks, her words, +every fleeting gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the noble +statesman's admiration of her, for the confusion of her unmanly and +unworthy husband. And Emma was nevertheless a thoughtful person; only +her heart was at the head of her thoughts, and led the file, whose +reasoning was accurate on erratic tracks. All night her heart went at +fever pace. She brought the repentant husband to his knees, and then +doubted, strongly doubted, whether she would, whether in consideration +for her friend she could, intercede with Diana to forgive him. In +the morning she slept heavily. Sir Lukin had gone to London early for +further tidings. She awoke about midday, and found a letter on her +pillow. It was Diana's. Then while her fingers eagerly tore it open, her +heart, the champion rider over-night, sank. It needed support of facts, +and feared them: not in distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but +because the very bravest of hearts is of its nature a shivering +defender, sensitive in the presence of any hostile array, much craving +for material support, until the mind and spirit displace it, depute it +to second them instead of leading. + +She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the dreadful and the +comforting, and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment, hugged it, though +conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console. + +The close of the letter struck the blow. After bluntly stating that Mr. +Warwick had served her with a process, and that he had no case without +suborning witnesses, Diana said: 'But I leave the case, and him, to the +world. Ireland, or else America, it is a guiltless kind of suicide to +bury myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can own to +you; and ask you to kiss me--and kiss me when you have heard all the +evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me. You know me too well to +think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips. But I cannot face the +world. In the dock, yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle, +on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I cannot +do that. I see myself wearing a false grin--your Tony! No, I do well +to go. This is my resolution; and in consequence,--my beloved! my only +truly loved on earth! I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely +should. Nor would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best of +reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma. I am +like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there I +do no harm. I know I am right. I have questioned myself--it is not +cowardice. I do not quail. I abhor the part of actress. I should do +it well--too well; destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good +name before such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and +self-quenching;--cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. But that +would be sleep, and I feel the powers of life. Never have I felt them +so mightily. If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would +stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them. I have my +natural weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have also more +knowledge of men and the secret contempt--it must be--the best of them +entertain for us. Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them. But they have +been at a wicked school. + +'I will write. From whatever place, you shall have letters, and +constant. I write no more now. In my present mood I find no alternative +between rageing and drivelling. I am henceforth dead to the world. Never +dead to Emma till my breath is gone--poor flame! I blow at a bed-room +candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I am--though +not even serving to write such a tangled scrawl as this. I am of no +mortal service. In two days I shall be out of England. Within a week +you shall hear where. I long for your heart on mine, your dear eyes. You +have faith in me, and I fly from you!--I must be mad. Yet I feel calmly +reasonable. I know that this is the thing to do. Some years hence a grey +woman may return, to hear of a butterfly Diana, that had her day and +disappeared. Better than a mewing and courtseying simulacrum of the +woman--I drivel again. Adieu. I suppose I am not liable to capture and +imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to appear. I have left +London. This letter and I quit the scene by different routes--I would +they were one. My beloved! I have an ache--I think I am wronging you. I +am not mistress of myself, and do as something within me, wiser, than +I, dictates.--You will write kindly. Write your whole heart. It is not +compassion I want, I want you. I can bear stripes from you. Let me hear +Emma's voice--the true voice. This running away merits your reproaches. +It will look like--. I have more to confess: the tigress in me wishes +it were! I should then have a reckless passion to fold me about, and the +glory infernal, if you name it so, and so it would be--of suffering +for and with some one else. As it is, I am utterly solitary, sustained +neither from above nor below, except within myself, and that is all +fire and smoke, like their new engines.--I kiss this miserable sheet of +paper. Yes, I judge that I have run off a line--and what a line! which +hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow until they feel +the transgression in wreck. How immensely nature seems to prefer men to +women!--But this paper is happier than the writer. + + 'Your TONY.' + +That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had often talked of the +possibility of a classic friendship between women, the alliance of a +mutual devotedness men choose to doubt of. She caught herself accusing +Tony of the lapse from friendship. Hither should the true friend have +flown unerringly. + +The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. She reperused +it, perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. Warwick! She heard that +cry-fatal! But she had no means of putting a hand on her. 'Your Tony.' +The coldness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not +coming to her friend for counsel and love was a positive weight in the +indifferent scale. She read the letter backwards, and by snatches here +and there; many perusals and hours passed before the scattered creature +exhibited in its pages came to her out of the flying threads of the web +as her living Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to defend +gainst the world. By that time the fog had lifted; she saw the sky +on the borders of milky cloudfolds. Her invalid's chill sensitiveness +conceived a sympathy in the baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the +drawing-room she gained strength of meditative vision, weak though she +was to help, through ceasing to brood on her wound and herself. She +cast herself into her dear Tony's feelings; and thus it came, that she +imagined Tony would visit The Crossways, where she kept souvenirs of her +father, his cane, and his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him +hanging above it, before leaving England forever. The fancy sprang to +certainty; every speculation confirmed it. + +Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The +Crossways at once. The West wind blew, and gave her a view of the Downs +beyond the Weald from her southern window. She thought it even +possible to drive there and reach the place, on the chance of her vivid +suggestion, some time after nightfall; but a walk across the room to try +her forces was too convincing of her inability. She walked with an ebony +silver-mounted stick, a present from Mr. Redworth. She was leaning on it +when the card of Thomas Redworth was handed to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING +WOMAN LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + +'You see, you are my crutch,' Lady Dunstane said to him,--raising the +stick in reminder of the present. + +He offered his arm and hurriedly informed her, to dispose of dull +personal matter, that he had just landed. She looked at the clock. +'Lukin is in town. You know the song: "Alas, I scarce can go or creep +While Lukin is away." I do not doubt you have succeeded in your business +over there. Ah! Now I suppose you have confidence in your success. I +should have predicted it, had you come to me.' She stood, either musing +or in weakness, and said abruptly: 'Will you object to lunching at one +o'clock?' + +'The sooner the better,' said Redworth. She had sighed: her voice +betrayed some agitation, strange in so serenely-minded a person. + +His partial acquaintance with the Herculean Sir Lukin's reputation in +town inspired a fear of his being about to receive admission to the +distressful confidences of the wife, and he asked if Mrs. Warwick was +well. The answer sounded ominous, with its accompaniment of evident +pain: 'I think her health is good.' + +Had they quarrelled? He said he had not heard a word of Mrs. Warwick for +several months. + +'I--heard from her this morning,' said Lady Dunstane, and motioned him +to a chair beside the sofa, where she half reclined, closing her eyes. +The sight of tears on the eyelashes frightened him. She roused herself +to look at the clock. 'Providence or accident, you are here,' she said. +'I could not have prayed for the coming of a truer' man. Mrs. Warwick is +in great danger.... You know our love. She is the best of me, heart +and soul. Her husband has chosen to act on vile suspicions--baseless, +I could hold my hand in the fire and swear. She has enemies, or the +jealous fury is on the man--I know little of him. He has commenced an +action against her. He will rue it. But she... you understand this of +women at least;--they are not cowards in all things!--but the horror +of facing a public scandal: my poor girl writes of the hatefulness of +having to act the complacent--put on her accustomed self! She would have +to go about, a mark for the talkers, and behave as if nothing were in +the air-full of darts! Oh, that general whisper!--it makes a coup de +massue--a gale to sink the bravest vessel: and a woman must preserve +her smoothest front; chat, smile--or else!--Well, she shrinks from it. I +should too. She is leaving the country.' + +'Wrong!' cried Redworth. + +'Wrong indeed. She writes, that in two days she will be out of it. Judge +her as I do, though you are a man, I pray. You have seen the hunted +hare. It is our education--we have something of the hare in us when the +hounds are full cry. Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to run. "By +this, poor Wat far off upon a hill." Shakespeare would have the divine +comprehension. I have thought all round it and come back to him. She +is one of Shakespeare's women: another character, but one of his +own:--another Hermione! I dream of him--seeing her with that eye of +steady flame. The bravest and best of us at bay in the world need an eye +like his, to read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies.' + +Insensibly Redworth blinked. His consciousness of an exalted compassion +for the lady was heated by these flights of advocacy to feel that he was +almost seated beside the sovereign poet thus eulogized, and he was of a +modest nature. + +'But you are practical,' pursued Lady Dunstane, observing signs that +she took for impatience. 'You are thinking of what can be done. If Lukin +were here I would send him to The Crossways without a moment's delay, on +the chance, the mere chance:--it shines to me! If I were only a little +stronger! I fear I might break down, and it would be unfair to my +husband. He has trouble enough with my premature infirmities already. +I am certain she will go to The Crossways. Tony is one of the women who +burn to give last kisses to things they love. And she has her little +treasures hoarded there. She was born there. Her father died there. She +is three parts Irish--superstitious in affection. I know her so well. At +this moment I see her there. If not, she has grown unlike herself.' + +'Have you a stout horse in the stables?' Redworth asked. + +'You remember the mare Bertha; you have ridden her.' + +'The mare would do, and better than a dozen horses.' He consulted +his watch. 'Let me mount Bertha, I engage to deliver a letter at The +Crossways to-night.' + +Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she +sought, but said: 'Will you find your way?' + +He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise. 'She has often +pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies, about three +miles from the Downs, near a village named Storling, on the road to +Brasted. + +The house has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of +river--rare for Sussex--to the right. An old straggling red brick house +at Crossways, a stone's throw from a fingerpost on a square of green: +roads to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddlehurst. I shall find it. Write +what you have to say, my lady, and confide it to me. She shall have it +to-night, if she's where you suppose. I 'll go, with your permission, +and take a look at the mare. Sussex roads are heavy in this damp +weather, and the frost coming on won't improve them for a tired beast. +We haven't our rails laid down there yet.' + +'You make me admit some virtues in the practical,' said Lady Dunstane; +and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of +his passion for Diana, it would have touched her far less than his exact +memory of Diana's description of her loved birthplace. + +She wrote: + + 'I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you. I see my ship + making for the rocks. You break your Emma's heart. It will be the + second wrong step. I shall not survive it. The threat has made me + incapable of rushing to you, as I might have had strength to do + yesterday. I am shattered, and I wait panting for Mr. Redworth's + return with you. He has called, by accident, as we say. Trust to + him. If ever heaven was active to avert a fatal mischance it is + to-day. You will not stand against my supplication. It is my life I + cry for. I have no more time. He starts. He leaves me to pray-- + like the mother seeing her child on the edge of the cliff. Come. + This is your breast, my Tony? And your soul warns you it is right + to come. Do rightly. Scorn other counsel--the coward's. Come with + our friend--the one man known to me who can be a friend of women. + + 'Your EMMA.' + +Redworth was in the room. 'The mare 'll do it well,' he said. 'She has +had her feed, and in five minutes will be saddled at the door.' + +'But you must eat, dear friend,' said the hostess. + +'I'll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way. There seems a chance, +and the time for lunching may miss it.' + +'You understand...?' + +'Everything, I fancy.' + +'If she is there!' + +'One break in the run will turn her back.' + +The sensitive invalid felt a blow in his following up the simile of the +hunted hare for her friend, but it had a promise of hopefulness. And +this was all that could be done by earthly agents, under direction of +spiritual, as her imagination encouraged her to believe. + +She saw him start, after fortifying him with a tumbler of choice +Bordeaux, thinking how Tony would have said she was like a lady arming +her knight for battle. On the back of the mare he passed her window, +after lifting his hat, and he thumped at his breast-pocket, to show her +where the letter housed safely. The packet of provision bulged on his +hip, absurdly and blessedly to her sight, not unlike the man, in his +combination of robust serviceable qualities, as she reflected during +the later hours, until the sun fell on smouldering November woods, and +sensations of the frost he foretold bade her remember that he had gone +forth riding like a huntsman. His great-coat lay on a chair in the hall, +and his travelling-bag was beside it. He had carried it up from the +valley, expecting hospitality, and she had sent him forth half naked to +weather a frosty November night! She called in the groom, whose derision +of a great-coat for any gentleman upon Bertha, meaning work for the +mare, appeased her remorsefulness. Brisby, the groom, reckoned how long +the mare would take to do the distance to Storling, with a rider like +Mr. Redworth on her back. By seven, Brisby calculated, Mr. Redworth +would be knocking at the door of the Three Ravens Inn, at Storling, +when the mare would have a decent grooming, and Mr. Redworth was not the +gentleman to let her be fed out of his eye. More than that, Brisby had +some acquaintance with the people of the inn. He begged to inform her +ladyship that he was half a Sussex man, though not exactly born in the +county; his parents had removed to Sussex after the great event; and the +Downs were his first field of horse-exercise, and no place in the world +was like them, fair weather or foul, Summer or Winter, and snow ten feet +deep in the gullies. The grandest air in England, he had heard say. + +His mistress kept him to the discourse, for the comfort of hearing hard +bald matter-of-fact; and she was amused and rebuked by his assumption +that she must be entertaining an anxiety about master's favourite mare. +But, ah! that Diana had delayed in choosing a mate; had avoided her +disastrous union with perhaps a more imposing man, to see the true +beauty of masculine character in Mr. Redworth, as he showed himself +to-day. How could he have doubted succeeding? One grain more of faith +in his energy, and Diana might have been mated to the right husband +for her--an open-minded clear-faced English gentleman. Her speculative +ethereal mind clung to bald matter-of-fact to-day. She would have vowed +that it was the sole potentially heroical. Even Brisby partook of the +reflected rays, and he was very benevolently considered by her. She +dismissed him only when his recounting of the stages of Bertha's journey +began to fatigue her and deaden the medical efficacy of him and his +like. Stretched on the sofa, she watched the early sinking sun in +South-western cloud, and the changes from saffron to intensest crimson, +the crown of a November evening, and one of frost. + +Redworth struck on a southward line from chalk-ridge to sand, where he +had a pleasant footing in familiar country, under beeches that browned +the ways, along beside a meadowbrook fed by the heights, through pines +and across deep sand-ruts to full view of weald and Downs. Diana had +been with him here in her maiden days. The coloured back of a coach put +an end to that dream. He lightened his pocket, surveying the land as he +munched. A favourable land for rails: and she had looked over it: and +he was now becoming a wealthy man: and she was a married woman straining +the leash. His errand would not bear examination, it seemed such +a desperate long shot. He shut his inner vision on it, and pricked +forward. When the burning sunset shot waves above the juniper and yews +behind him, he was far on the weald, trotting down an interminable road. +That the people opposing railways were not people of business, was his +reflection, and it returned persistently: for practical men, even the +most devoted among them, will think for themselves; their army, which +is the rational, calls them to its banners, in opposition to the +sentimental; and Redworth joined it in the abstract, summoning the +horrible state of the roads to testify against an enemy wanting almost +in common humaneness. A slip of his excellent stepper in one of the +half-frozen pits of the highway was the principal cause of his confusion +of logic; she was half on her knees. Beyond the market town the roads +were so bad that he quitted them, and with the indifference of an +engineer, struck a line of his own Southeastward over fields and +ditches, favoured by a round horizon moon on his left. So for a couple +of hours he went ahead over rolling fallow land to the meadow-flats and +a pale shining of freshets; then hit on a lane skirting the water, +and reached an amphibious village; five miles from Storling, he was +informed, and a clear traverse of lanes, not to be mistaken, 'if he kept +a sharp eye open.' The sharpness of his eyes was divided between the +sword-belt of the starry Hunter and the shifting lanes that zig-tagged +his course below. The Downs were softly illumined; still it amazed him +to think of a woman like Diana Warwick having an attachment to this +district, so hard of yield, mucky, featureless, fit but for the rails +she sided with her friend in detesting. Reasonable women, too! The moon, +stood high on her march as he entered Storling. He led his good beast +to the stables of The Three Ravens, thanking her and caressing her. The +ostler conjectured from the look of the mare that he had been out with +the hounds and lost his way. It appeared to Redworth singularly, that +near the ending of a wild goose chase, his plight was pretty well +described by the fellow. However, he had to knock at the door of The +Crossways now, in the silent night time, a certainly empty house, to his +fancy. He fed on a snack of cold meat and tea, standing, and set forth, +clearly directed, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' Hitherto he had proved +his capacity, and he rather smiled at the repetition of the formula to +him, of all men. A turning to the right was taken, one to the left, and +through the churchyard, out of the gate, round to the right, and on. +By this route, after an hour, he found himself passing beneath the bare +chestnuts of the churchyard wall of Storling, and the sparkle of the +edges of the dead chestnut-leaves at his feet reminded him of the very +ideas he had entertained when treading them. The loss of an hour strung +him to pursue the chase in earnest, and he had a beating of the heart +as he thought that it might be serious. He recollected thinking it so +at Copsley. The long ride, and nightfall, with nothing in view, had +obscured his mind to the possible behind the thick obstruction of the +probable; again the possible waved its marsh-light. To help in saving +her from a fatal step, supposing a dozen combinations of the conditional +mood, became his fixed object, since here he was--of that there was +no doubt; and he was not here to play the fool, though the errand were +foolish. He entered the churchyard, crossed the shadow of the tower, +and hastened along the path, fancying he beheld a couple of figures +vanishing before him. He shouted; he hoped to obtain directions from +these natives: the moon was bright, the gravestones legible; but no +answer came back, and the place appeared to belong entirely to the dead. +'I've frightened them,' he thought. They left a queerish sensation +in his frame. A ride down to Sussex to see ghosts would be an odd +experience; but an undigested dinner of tea is the very grandmother of +ghosts; and he accused it of confusing him, sight and mind. Out of the +gate, now for the turning to the right, and on. He turned. He must have +previously turned wrongly somewhere--and where? A light in a cottage +invited him to apply for the needed directions. The door was opened by +a woman, who had never heard tell of The Crossways, nor had her husband, +nor any of the children crowding round them. A voice within ejaculated: +'Crassways!' and soon upon the grating of a chair, an old man, whom the +woman named her lodger, by way of introduction, presented himself with +his hat on, saying: 'I knows the spot they calls Crassways,' and he led. +Redworth understood the intention that a job was to be made of it, and +submitting, said: 'To the right, I think.' He was bidden to come along, +if he wanted 'they Crassways,' and from the right they turned to the +left, and further sharp round, and on to a turn, where the old man, +otherwise incommunicative, said: 'There, down thik theer road, and a +post in the middle.' + +'I want a house, not a post!' roared Redworth, spying a bare space. + +The old man despatched a finger travelling to his nob. 'Naw, there's +ne'er a house. But that's crassways for four roads, if it 's crassways, +you wants.' + +They journeyed backward. They were in such a maze of lanes that the +old man was master, and Redworth vowed to be rid of him at the first +cottage. This, however, they were long in reaching, and the old man +was promptly through the garden-gate, hailing the people and securing +'information, before Redworth could well hear. He smiled at the dogged +astuteness of a dense-headed old creature determined to establish a +claim to his fee. They struck a lane sharp to the left. + +'You're Sussex?' Redworth asked him, and was answered: 'Naw; the +Sheers.' + +Emerging from deliberation, the old man said: 'Ah'm a Hampshireman.' + +'A capital county!' + +'Heigh!' The old man heaved his chest. 'Once!' + +'Why, what has happened to it?' + +'Once it were a capital county, I say. Hah! you asks me what have +happened to it. You take and go and look at it now. And down heer'll +be no better soon, I tells 'em. When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was +a proud country, wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and Harvest +Homes, and Christmas merryings.--Cutting up the land! There's no pride +in livin' theer, nor anywhere, as I sees, now.' + +'You mean the railways.' + +'It's the Devil come up and abroad ower all England!' exclaimed the +melancholy ancient patriot. + +A little cheering was tried on him, but vainly. He saw with unerring +distinctness the triumph of the Foul Potentate, nay his personal +appearance 'in they theer puffin' engines.' The country which had +produced Andrew Hedger, as he stated his name to be, would never show +the same old cricketing commons it did when he was a boy. Old England, +he declared, was done for. + +When Redworth applied to his watch under the brilliant moonbeams, +he discovered that he had been listening to this natural outcry of +a decaying and shunted class full three-quarters of an hour, and The +Crossways was not in sight. He remonstrated. The old man plodded along. +'We must do as we're directed,' he said. + +Further walking brought them to a turn. Any turn seemed hopeful. Another +turn offered the welcome sight of a blazing doorway on a rise of ground +off the road. Approaching it, the old man requested him to 'bide a bit,' +and stalked the ascent at long strides. A vigorous old fellow. Redworth +waited below, observing how he joined the group at the lighted door, +and, as it was apparent, put his question of the whereabout of The +Crossways. Finally, in extreme impatience, he walked up to the group +of spectators. They were all, and Andrew Hedger among them, the most +entranced and profoundly reverent, observing the dissection of a pig. + +Unable to awaken his hearing, Redworth jogged his arm, and the shake was +ineffective until it grew in force. + +'I've no time to lose; have they told you the way?' + +Andrew Hedger yielded his arm. He slowly withdrew his intent fond gaze +from the fair outstretched white carcase, and with drooping eyelids, he +said: 'Ah could eat hog a solid hower!' + +He had forgotten to ask the way, intoxicated by the aspect of the pig; +and when he did ask it, he was hard of understanding, given wholly to +his last glimpses. + +Redworth got the directions. He would have dismissed Mr. Andrew Hedger, +but there was no doing so. 'I'll show ye on to The Crossways House,' the +latter said, implying that he had already earned something by showing +him The Crossways post. + +'Hog's my feed,' said Andrew Hedger. The gastric springs of eloquence +moved him to discourse, and he unburdened himself between succulent +pauses. 'They've killed him early. He 's fat; and he might ha' been +fatter. But he's fat. They've got their Christmas ready, that they have. +Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and--the sausages hung up to and +along the beams. That's a crown for any dwellin'! They runs 'em round +the top of the room--it's like a May-day wreath in old times. Home-fed +hog! They've a treat in store, they have. And snap your fingers at the +world for many a long day. And the hams! They cure their own hams at +that house. Old style! That's what I say of a hog. He's good from end to +end, and beats a Christian hollow. Everybody knows it and owns it.' + +Redworth was getting tired. In sympathy with current conversation, he +said a word for the railways: they would certainly make the flesh of +swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams into the market. But Andrew Hedger +remarked with contempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams: +nobody, knew what they fed on. Hog, he said, would feed on anything, +where there was no choice they had wonderful stomachs for food. Only, +when they had a choice, they left the worst for last, and home-fed +filled them with stuff to make good meat and fat 'what we calls prime +bacon.' As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let +him dilate on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour, +which roused some distant classic recollection:--an odd jumble. + +They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream. + +'Now ye have it,' said the hog-worshipper; 'that may be the house, I +reckon.' + +A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining in spires +through a mound of firs, met Redworth's gaze. The windows all were +blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys. He noted the dusky square of +green, and the finger-post signalling the centre of the four roads. +Andrew Hedger repeated that it was The Crossways house, ne'er a doubt. +Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, shouldering +off, wished him a hearty good night, and forthwith departed at high +pedestrian pace, manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved +anatomy. + +There stood the house. Absolutely empty! thought Redworth. The sound of +the gate-bell he rang was like an echo to him. The gate was unlocked. +He felt a return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the +garden-path, in the shadow of the house. Here she was born: here her +father died: and this was the station of her dreams, as a girl at school +near London and in Paris. Her heart was here. He looked at the windows +facing the Downs with dead eyes. The vivid idea of her was a phantom +presence, and cold, assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent. Had +Lady Dunstane guessed rightly, he might perhaps have been of service! + +Anticipating the blank silence, he rang the house-bell. It seemed to set +wagging a weariful tongue in a corpse. The bell did its duty to the +last note, and one thin revival stroke, for a finish, as in days when it +responded livingly to the guest. He pulled, and had the reply, just the +same, with the faint terminal touch, resembling exactly a 'There!' at +the close of a voluble delivery in the negative. Absolutely empty. He +pulled and pulled. The bell wagged, wagged. This had been a house of +a witty host, a merry girl, junketting guests; a house of hilarious +thunders, lightnings of fun and fancy. Death never seemed more voiceful +than in that wagging of the bell. + +For conscience' sake, as became a trusty emissary, he walked round to +the back of the house, to verify the total emptiness. His apprehensive +despondency had said that it was absolutely empty, but upon +consideration he supposed the house must have some guardian: likely +enough, an old gardener and his wife, lost in deafness double-shotted by +sleep! There was no sign of them. The night air waxed sensibly crisper. +He thumped the backdoors. Blank hollowness retorted on the blow. He +banged and kicked. The violent altercation with wood and wall lasted +several minutes, ending as it had begun. + +Flesh may worry, but is sure to be worsted in such an argument. + +'Well, my dear lady!'--Redworth addressed Lady Dunstane aloud, while +driving his hands into his pockets for warmth--'we've done what we +could. The next best thing is to go to bed and see what morning brings +us.' + +The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamy-witted women +from the point of view of the practical man, was aided by the intense +frigidity of the atmosphere in leading him to criticize a sex not much +used to the exercise of brains. 'And they hate railways!' He associated +them, in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and Company. +They sank to the level of the temperature in his esteem--as regarded +their intellects. He approved their warmth of heart. The nipping of the +victim's toes and finger-tips testified powerfully to that. + +Round to the front of the house at a trot, he stood in moonlight. Then, +for involuntarily he now did everything running, with a dash up the +steps he seized the sullen pendant bell-handle, and worked it pumpwise, +till he perceived a smaller bell-knob beside the door, at which he +worked piston-wise. Pump and piston, the hurly-burly and the tinkler +created an alarm to scare cat and mouse and Cardinal spider, all that +run or weave in desolate houses, with the good result of a certain +degree of heat to his frame. He ceased, panting. No stir within, nor +light. That white stare of windows at the moon was undisturbed. + +The Downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy grey silk. No wonder that she +had loved to look on them! + +And it was no wonder that Andrew Hedger enjoyed prime bacon. Bacon +frizzling, fat rashers of real homefed on the fire-none of your +foreign-suggested a genial refreshment and resistance to antagonistic +elements. Nor was it, granting health, granting a sharp night--the +temperature at least fifteen below zero--an excessive boast for a man to +say he could go on eating for a solid hour. + +These were notions darting through a half nourished gentleman nipped in +the frame by a severely frosty night. Truly a most beautiful night! +She would have delighted to see it here. The Downs were like floating +islands, like fairy-laden vapours; solid, as Andrew Hedger's hour of +eating; visionary, as too often his desire! + +Redworth muttered to himself, after taking the picture of the house +and surrounding country from the sward, that he thought it about the +sharpest night he had ever encountered in England. He was cold, hungry, +dispirited, and astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any +of his thoughts from old Andrew Hedger. Nature was at her pranks upon +him. + +He left the garden briskly, as to the legs, and reluctantly. He would +have liked to know whether Diana had recently visited the house, or was +expected. It could be learnt in the morning; but his mission was urgent +and he on the wings of it. He was vexed and saddened. + +Scarcely had he closed the garden-gate when the noise of an opening +window arrested him, and he called. The answer was in a feminine voice, +youngish, not disagreeable, though not Diana's. + +He heard none of the words, but rejoined in a bawl: 'Mrs. Warwick!--Mr. +Redworth!' + +That was loud enough for the deaf or the dead. + +The window closed. He went to the door and waited. It swung wide to him; +and O marvel of a woman's divination of a woman! there stood Diana. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN +WAS MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER + +Redworth's impulse was to laugh for very gladness of heart, as he +proffered excuses for his tremendous alarums and in doing so, the worthy +gentleman imagined he must have persisted in clamouring for admission +because he suspected, that if at home, she would require a violent +summons to betray herself. It was necessary to him to follow his abashed +sagacity up to the mark of his happy animation. + +'Had I known it was you!' said Diana, bidding him enter the passage. She +wore a black silk mantilla and was warmly covered. + +She called to her maid Danvers, whom Redworth remembered: a firm woman +of about forty, wrapped, like her mistress, in head-covering, cloak, +scarf and shawl. Telling her to scour the kitchen for firewood, Diana +led into a sitting-room. 'I need not ask--you have come from Lady +Dunstane,' she said. 'Is she well?' + +'She is deeply anxious.' + +'You are cold. Empty houses are colder than out of doors. You shall soon +have a fire.' + +She begged him to be seated. + +The small glow of candle-light made her dark rich colouring orange in +shadow. + +'House and grounds are open to a tenant,' she resumed. 'I say good-bye +to them to-morrow morning. The old couple who are in charge sleep in +the village to-night. I did not want them here. You have quitted the +Government service, I think?' + +'A year or so since.' + +'When did you return from America?' + +'Two days back.' + +'And paid your visit to Copsley immediately?' + +'As early as I could.' + +'That was true friendliness. You have a letter for me?' + +'I have.' + +He put his hand to his pocket for the letter. + +'Presently,' she said. She divined the contents, and nursed her +resolution to withstand them. Danvers had brought firewood and coal. +Orders were given to her, and in spite of the opposition of the maid and +intervention of the gentleman, Diana knelt at the grate, observing: + +'Allow me to do this. I can lay and light a fire.' + +He was obliged to look on: she was a woman who spoke her meaning. She +knelt, handling paper, firewood and matches, like a housemaid. +Danvers proceeded on her mission, and Redworth eyed Diana in the first +fire-glow. He could have imagined a Madonna on an old black Spanish +canvas. + +The act of service was beautiful in gracefulness, and her simplicity in +doing the work touched it spiritually. He thought, as she knelt there, +that never had he seen how lovely and how charged with mystery her +features were; the dark large eyes full on the brows; the proud line of +a straight nose in right measure to the bow of the lips; reposeful red +lips, shut, and their curve of the slumber-smile at the corners. Her +forehead was broad; the chin of a sufficient firmness to sustain: that +noble square; the brows marked by a soft thick brush to the temples; +her black hair plainly drawn along her head to the knot, revealed by the +mantilla fallen on her neck. + +Elegant in plainness, the classic poet would have said of her hair and +dress. She was of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. +That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely +marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly +presence over-weighted her intellectual distinction, to an observer +bent on vindicating her innocence. Or rather, he saw the hidden in the +visible. + +Owner of such a woman, and to lose her! Redworth pitied the husband. + +The crackling flames reddened her whole person. Gazing, he remembered +Lady Dunstane saying of her once, that in anger she had the nostrils of +a war-horse. The nostrils now were faintly alive under some sensitive +impression of her musings. The olive cheeks, pale as she stood in the +doorway, were flushed by the fire-beams, though no longer with their +swarthy central rose, tropic flower of a pure and abounding blood, as it +had seemed. She was now beset by battle. His pity for her, and his +eager championship, overwhelmed the spirit of compassion for the foolish +wretched husband. Dolt, the man must be, Redworth thought; and he asked +inwardly, Did the miserable tyrant suppose of a woman like this, that +she would be content to shine as a candle in a grated lanthorn? The +generosity of men speculating upon other men's possessions is known. Yet +the man who loves a woman has to the full the husband's jealousy of her +good name. And a lover, that without the claims of the alliance, can be +wounded on her behalf, is less distracted in his homage by the personal +luminary, to which man's manufacture of balm and incense is mainly drawn +when his love is wounded. That contemplation of her incomparable beauty, +with the multitude of his ideas fluttering round it, did somewhat +shake the personal luminary in Redworth. He was conscious of pangs. The +question bit him: How far had she been indiscreet or wilful? and +the bite of it was a keen acid to his nerves. A woman doubted by her +husband, is always, and even to her champions in the first hours of the +noxious rumour, until they had solidified in confidence through service, +a creature of the wilds, marked for our ancient running. Nay, more than +a cynical world, these latter will be sensible of it. The doubt casts +her forth, the general yelp drags her down; she runs like the prey of +the forest under spotting branches; clear if we can think so, but it has +to be thought in devotedness: her character is abroad. Redworth bore a +strong resemblance to, his fellowmen, except for his power of faith in +this woman. Nevertheless it required the superbness of her beauty and +the contrasting charm of her humble posture of kneeling by the fire, +to set him on his right track of mind. He knew and was sure of her. +He dispersed the unhallowed fry in attendance upon any stirring of +the reptile part of us, to look at her with the eyes of a friend. And +if...!--a little mouse of a thought scampered out of one of the chambers +of his head and darted along the passages, fetching a sweat to his +brows. Well, whatsoever the fact, his heart was hers! He hoped he could +be charitable to women. + +She rose from her knees and said: 'Now, please, give me the letter.' + +He was entreated to excuse her for consigning him to firelight when she +left the room. + +Danvers brought in a dismal tallow candle, remarking that her mistress +had not expected visitors: her mistress had nothing but tea and bread +and butter to offer him. Danvers uttered no complaint of her sufferings; +happy in being the picture of them. 'I'm not hungry,' said he. + +A plate of Andrew Hedger's own would not have tempted him. The foolish +frizzle of bacon sang in his ears as he walked from end to end of the +room; an illusion of his fancy pricked by a frost-edged appetite. But +the anticipated contest with Diana checked and numbed the craving. + +Was Warwick a man to proceed to extremities on a mad suspicion?--What +kind of proof had he? + +Redworth summoned the portrait of Mr. Warwick before him, and beheld a +sweeping of close eyes in cloud, a long upper lip in cloud; the rest of +him was all cloud. As usual with these conjurations of a face, the index +of the nature conceived by him displayed itself, and no more; but he +took it for the whole physiognomy, and pronounced of the husband thus +delineated, that those close eyes of the long upper lip would both +suspect and proceed madly. + +He was invited by Danvers to enter the dining-room. + +There Diana joined him. + +'The best of a dinner on bread and butter is, that one is ready for +supper soon after it,' she said, swimming to the tea-tray. 'You have +dined?' + +'At the inn,' he replied. + +'The Three Ravens! When my father's guests from London flooded The +Crossways, The Three Ravens provided the overflow with beds. On nights +like this I have got up and scraped the frost from my window-panes to +see them step into the old fly, singing some song of his. The inn had a +good reputation for hospitality in those days. I hope they treated you +well?' + +'Excellently,' said Redworth, taking an enormous mouthful, while his +heart sank to see that she who smiled to encourage his eating had been +weeping. But she also consumed her bread and butter. + +'That poor maid of mine is an instance of a woman able to do things +against the grain,' she said. 'Danvers is a foster-child of luxury. +She loves it; great houses, plentiful meals, and the crowd of twinkling +footmen's calves. Yet you see her here in a desolate house, consenting +to cold, and I know not what, terrors of ghosts! poor soul. I have some +mysterious attraction for her. She would not let me come alone. I should +have had to hire some old Storling grannam, or retain the tattling +keepers of the house. She loves her native country too, and disdains the +foreigner. My tea you may trust.' + +Redworth had not a doubt of it. He was becoming a tea-taster. The merit +of warmth pertained to the beverage. 'I think you get your tea from +Scoppin's, in the City,' he said. + +That was the warehouse for Mrs. Warwick's tea. They conversed of Teas; +the black, the green, the mixtures; each thinking of the attack to +come, and the defence. Meantime, the cut bread and butter having flown, +Redwerth attacked the loaf. He apologized. + +'Oh! pay me a practical compliment,' Diana said, and looked really happy +at his unfeigned relish of her simple fare. + +She had given him one opportunity in speaking of her maid's love of +native country. But it came too early. + +'They say that bread and butter is fattening,' he remarked. + +'You preserve the mean,' said she. + +He admitted that his health was good. For some little time, to his +vexation at the absurdity, she kept him talking of himself. So flowing +was she, and so sweet the motion of her mouth in utterance, that he +followed her lead, and he said odd things and corrected them. He had to +describe his ride to her. + +'Yes! the view of the Downs from Dewhurst,' she exclaimed. 'Or any point +along the ridge. Emma and I once drove there in Summer, with clotted +cream from her dairy, and we bought fresh-plucked wortleberries, and +stewed them in a hollow of the furzes, and ate them with ground biscuits +and the clotted cream iced, and thought it a luncheon for seraphs. Then +you dropped to the road round under the sand-heights--and meditated +railways!' + +'Just a notion or two.' + +'You have been very successful in America?' + +'Successful; perhaps; we exclude extremes in our calculations of the +still problematical.' + +'I am sure,' said she, 'you always have faith in your calculations.' + +Her innocent archness dealt him a stab sharper than any he had known +since the day of his hearing of her engagement. He muttered of his +calculations being human; he was as much of a fool as other men--more! + +'Oh! no,' said she. + +'Positively.' + +'I cannot think it.' + +'I know it.' + +'Mr. Redworth, you will never persuade me to believe it.' + +He knocked a rising groan on the head, and rejoined 'I hope I may not +have to say so to-night.' + +Diana felt the edge of the dart. 'And meditating railways, you scored +our poor land of herds and flocks; and night fell, and the moon sprang +up, and on you came. It was clever of you to find your way by the +moonbeams.' + +'That's about the one thing I seem fit for!' + +'But what delusion is this, in the mind of a man succeeding in +everything he does!' cried Diana, curious despite her wariness. 'Is +there to be the revelation of a hairshirt ultimately?--a Journal of +Confessions? You succeeded in everything you aimed at, and broke your +heart over one chance miss?' + +'My heart is not of the stuff to break,' he said, and laughed off her +fortuitous thrust straight into it. 'Another cup, yes. I came...' + +'By night,' said she, 'and cleverly found your way, and dined at The +Three Ravens, and walked to The Crossways, and met no ghosts.' + +'On the contrary--or at least I saw a couple.' + +'Tell me of them; we breed them here. We sell them periodically to the +newspapers!' + +'Well, I started them in their natal locality. I saw them, going down +the churchyard, and bellowed after them with all my lungs. I wanted +directions to The Crossways; I had missed my way at some turning. In an +instant they were vapour.' + +Diana smiled. 'It was indeed a voice to startle delicate apparitions! So +do roar Hyrcanean tigers. Pyramus and Thisbe--slaying lions! One of your +ghosts carried a loaf of bread, and dropped it in fright; one carried a +pound of fresh butter for home consumption. They were in the churchyard +for one in passing to kneel at her father's grave and kiss his +tombstone.' + +She bowed her head, forgetful of her guard. + +The pause presented an opening. Redworth left his chair and walked to +the mantelpiece. It was easier to him to speak, not facing her. + +'You have read Lady Dunstane's letter,' he began. + +She nodded. 'I have.' + +'Can you resist her appeal to you?' + +'I must.' + +'She is not in a condition to bear it well. You will pardon me, Mrs. +Warwick...' + +'Fully! Fully!' + +'I venture to offer merely practical advice. You have thought of it all, +but have not felt it. In these cases, the one thing to do is to make a +stand. Lady Dunstane has a clear head. She sees what has to be endured +by you. Consider: she appeals to me to bring you her letter. Would she +have chosen me, or any man, for her messenger, if it had not appeared to +her a matter of life and death? You count me among your friends.' + +'One of the truest.' + +'Here are two, then, and your own good sense. For I do not believe it to +be a question of courage.' + +'He has commenced. Let him carry it out,' said Diana. + +Her desperation could have added the cry--And give me freedom! That was +the secret in her heart. She had struck on the hope for the detested +yoke to be broken at any cost. + +'I decline to meet his charges. I despise them. If my friends have faith +in me--and they may!--I want nothing more.' + +'Well, I won't talk commonplaces about the world,' said Redworth. 'We +can none of us afford to have it against us. Consider a moment: to your +friends you are the Diana Merion they knew, and they will not suffer an +injury to your good name without a struggle. But if you fly? You leave +the dearest you have to the whole brunt of it. + +'They will, if they love me.' + +'They will. But think of the shock to her. Lady Dunstane reads you--' + +'Not quite. No, not if she even wishes me to stay!' said Diana. + +He was too intent on his pleading to perceive a signification. + +'She reads you as clearly in the dark as if you were present with her.' + +'Oh! why am I not ten years older!' Diana cried, and tried to face round +to him, and stopped paralyzed. 'Ten years older, I could discuss my +situation, as an old woman of the world, and use my wits to defend +myself.' + +'And then you would not dream of flight before it!' + +'No, she does not read me: no! She saw that I might come to The +Crossways. She--no one but myself can see the wisdom of my holding +aloof, in contempt of this baseness.' + +'And of allowing her to sink under that which your presence would +arrest. Her strength will not support it.' + +'Emma! Oh, cruel!' Diana sprang up to give play to her limbs. She +dropped on another chair. 'Go I must, I cannot turn back. She saw my old +attachment to this place. It was not difficult to guess... Who but I can +see the wisest course for me!' + +'It comes to this, that the blow aimed at you in your absence will +strike her, and mortally,' said Redworth. + +'Then I say it is terrible to have a friend,' said Diana, with her bosom +heaving. + +'Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two.' + +His unstressed observation hit a bell in her head, and set it +reverberating. She and Emma had spoken, written, the very words. She +drew forth her Emma's letter from under her left breast, and read some +half-blinded lines. + +Redworth immediately prepared to leave her to her feelings--trustier +guides than her judgement in this crisis. + +'Adieu, for the night, Mrs. Warwick,' he said, and was guilty of +eulogizing the judgement he thought erratic for the moment. 'Night is a +calm adviser. Let me presume to come again in the morning. I dare not go +back without you.' + +She looked up. As they faced together each saw that the other had passed +through a furnace, scorching enough to him, though hers was the delicacy +exposed. The reflection had its weight with her during the night. + +'Danvers is getting ready a bed for you; she is airing linen,' Diana, +said. But the bed was declined, and the hospitality was not pressed. +The offer of it seemed to him significant of an unwary cordiality +and thoughtlessness of tattlers that might account possibly for many +things--supposing a fool or madman, or malignants, to interpret them. + +'Then, good night,' said she. + +They joined hands. He exacted no promise that she would be present in +the morning to receive him; and it was a consolation to her desire for +freedom, until she reflected on the perfect confidence it implied, and +felt as a quivering butterfly impalpably pinned. + + + + +CHAPTER X. THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT + +Her brain was a steam-wheel throughout the night; everything that could +be thought of was tossed, nothing grasped. + +The unfriendliness of the friends who sought to retain her recurred. For +look--to fly could not be interpreted as a flight. It was but a stepping +aside, a disdain of defending herself, and a wrapping herself in her +dignity. Women would be with her. She called on the noblest of them to +justify the course she chose, and they did, in an almost audible murmur. + +And O the rich reward. A black archway-gate swung open to the glittering +fields of freedom. + +Emma was not of the chorus. Emma meditated as an invalid. How often had +Emma bewailed to her that the most, grievous burden of her malady was +her fatal tendency to brood sickly upon human complications! She could +not see the blessedness of the prospect of freedom to a woman abominably +yoked. What if a miserable woman were dragged through mire to reach it! +Married, the mire was her portion, whatever she might do. That man--but +pass him! + +And that other--the dear, the kind, careless, high-hearted old friend. +He could honestly protest his guiltlessness, and would smilingly leave +the case to go its ways. Of this she was sure, that her decision and +her pleasure would be his. They were tied to the stake. She had already +tasted some of the mortal agony. Did it matter whether the flames +consumed her? + +Reflecting on the interview with Redworth, though she had performed her +part in it placidly, her skin burned. It was the beginning of tortures +if she stayed in England. + +By staying to defend herself she forfeited her attitude of dignity and +lost all chance of her reward. And name the sort of world it is, dear +friends, for which we are to sacrifice our one hope of freedom, that we +may preserve our fair fame in it! + +Diana cried aloud, 'My freedom!' feeling as a butterfly flown out of +a box to stretches of sunny earth beneath spacious heavens. Her bitter +marriage, joyless in all its chapters, indefensible where the man was +right as well as where insensately wrong, had been imprisonment. She +excused him down to his last madness, if only the bonds were broken. +Here, too, in this very house of her happiness with her father, she had +bound herself to the man voluntarily, quite inexplicably. Voluntarily, +as we say. But there must be a spell upon us at times. Upon young women +there certainly is. + +The wild brain of Diana, armed by her later enlightenment as to the laws +of life and nature, dashed in revolt at the laws of the world when she +thought of the forces, natural and social, urging young women to marry +and be bound to the end. + +It should be a spotless world which is thus ruthless. + +But were the world impeccable it would behave more generously. + +The world is ruthless, dear friends, because the world is hypocrite! The +world cannot afford to be magnanimous, or even just. + +Her dissensions with her husband, their differences of opinion, and puny +wranglings, hoistings of two standards, reconciliations for the sake +of decency, breaches of the truce, and his detested meanness, the +man behind the mask; and glimpses of herself too, the half-known, +half-suspected, developing creature claiming to be Diana, and unlike +her dreamed Diana, deformed by marriage, irritable, acerb, rebellious, +constantly justifiable against him, but not in her own mind, and +therefore accusing him of the double crime of provoking her and +perverting her--these were the troops defiling through her head while +she did battle with the hypocrite world. + +One painful sting was caused by the feeling that she could have +loved--whom? An ideal. Had he, the imagined but unvisioned, been her +yoke-fellow, would she now lie raising caged-beast cries in execration +of the yoke? She would not now be seeing herself as hare, serpent, +tigress! The hypothesis was reviewed in negatives: she had barely a +sense of softness, just a single little heave of the bosom, quivering +upward and leadenly sinking, when she glanced at a married Diana +heartily mated. The regrets of the youthful for a life sailing away +under medical sentence of death in the sad eyes of relatives resemble +it. She could have loved. Good-bye to that! + +A woman's brutallest tussle with the world was upon her. She was in +the arena of the savage claws, flung there by the man who of all others +should have protected her from them. And what had she done to deserve +it? She listened to the advocate pleading her case; she primed him to +admit the charges, to say the worst, in contempt of legal prudence, and +thereby expose her transparent honesty. The very things awakening a mad +suspicion proved her innocence. But was she this utterly simple person? +Oh, no! She was the Diana of the pride in her power of fencing with +evil--by no means of the order of those ninny young women who realize +the popular conception of the purely innocent. She had fenced and kept +her guard. Of this it was her angry glory to have the knowledge. But she +had been compelled to fence. Such are men in the world of facts, that +when a woman steps out of her domestic tangle to assert, because it is +a tangle, her rights to partial independence, they sight her for their +prey, or at least they complacently suppose her accessible. Wretched at +home, a woman ought to bury herself in her wretchedness, else may she be +assured that not the cleverest, wariest guard will cover her character. + +Against the husband her cause was triumphant. Against herself she +decided not to plead it, for this reason, that the preceding Court, +which was the public and only positive one, had entirely and justly +exonerated her. But the holding of her hand by the friend half a minute +too long for friendship, and the over-friendliness of looks, letters, +frequency of visits, would speak within her. She had a darting view of +her husband's estimation of them in his present mood. She quenched it; +they were trifles, things that women of the world have to combat. The +revelation to a fair-minded young woman of the majority of men being +naught other than men, and some of the friendliest of men betraying +confidence under the excuse of temptation, is one of the shocks to +simplicity which leave her the alternative of misanthropy or philosophy. +Diana had not the heart to hate her kind, so she resigned herself +to pardon, and to the recognition of the state of duel between the +sexes-active enough in her sphere of society. The circle hummed with +it; many lived for it. Could she pretend to ignore it? Her personal +experience might have instigated a less clear and less intrepid nature +to take advantage of the opportunity for playing the popular innocent, +who runs about with astonished eyes to find herself in so hunting a +world, and wins general compassion, if not shelter in unsuspected +and unlicenced places. There is perpetually the inducement to act the +hypocrite before the hypocrite world, unless a woman submits to be the +humbly knitting housewife, unquestioningly worshipful of her lord; for +the world is ever gracious to an hypocrisy that pays homage to the +mask of virtue by copying it; the world is hostile to the face of an +innocence not conventionally simpering and quite surprised; the world +prefers decorum to honesty. 'Let me be myself, whatever the martyrdom!' +she cried, in that phase of young sensation when, to the blooming woman; +the putting on of a mask appears to wither her and reduce her to the +show she parades. Yet, in common with her sisterhood, she owned she had +worn a sort of mask; the world demands it of them as the price of their +station. That she had never worn it consentingly, was the plea for +now casting it off altogether, showing herself as she was, accepting +martyrdom, becoming the first martyr of the modern woman's cause--a +grand position! and one imaginable to an excited mind in the dark, +which does not conjure a critical humour, as light does, to correct +the feverish sublimity. She was, then, this martyr, a woman capable of +telling the world she knew it, and of, confessing that she had behaved +in disdain of its rigider rules, according to her own ideas of her +immunities. O brave! + +But was she holding the position by flight? It involved the challenge of +consequences, not an evasion of them. + +She moaned; her mental steam-wheel stopped; fatigue brought sleep. + +She had sensationally led her rebellious wits to The Crossways, +distilling much poison from thoughts on the way; and there, for the +luxury of a still seeming indecision, she sank into oblivion. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF +DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL INCIDENT ON THE ROAD + +In the morning the fight was over. She looked at the signpost of The +Crossways whilst dressing, and submitted to follow, obediently as a +puppet, the road recommended by friends, though a voice within, that she +took for the intimations of her reason, protested that they were +wrong, that they were judging of her case in the general, and +unwisely--disastrously for her. + +The mistaking of her desires for her reasons was peculiar to her +situation. + +'So I suppose I shall some day see The Crossways again,' she said, to +conceive a compensation in the abandonment of freedom. The night's red +vision of martyrdom was reserved to console her secretly, among the +unopened lockers in her treasury of thoughts. It helped to sustain her; +and she was too conscious of things necessary for her sustainment to +bring it to the light of day and examine it. She had a pitiful bit of +pleasure in the gratification she imparted to Danvers, by informing her +that the journey of the day was backward to Copsley. + +'If I may venture to say so, ma'am, I am very glad,' said her maid. + +'You must be prepared for the questions of lawyers, Danvers.' + +'Oh, ma'am! they'll get nothing out of me, and their wigs won't frighten +me.' + +'It is usually their baldness that is most frightening, my poor +Danvers.' + +'Nor their baldness, ma'am,' said the literal maid; 'I never cared for +their heads, or them. I've been in a Case before.' + +'Indeed!' exclaimed her mistress; and she had a chill. + +Danvers mentioned a notorious Case, adding, 'They got nothing out of +me.' + +'In my Case you will please to speak the truth,' said Diana, and beheld +in the looking-glass the primming of her maid's mouth. The sight shot a +sting. + +'Understand that there is to be no hesitation about telling the truth of +what you know of me,' said Diana; and the answer was, 'No, ma'am.' + +For Danvers could remark to herself that she knew little, and was not +a person to hesitate. She was a maid of the world, with the quality of +faithfulness, by nature, to a good mistress. + +Redworth's further difficulties were confined to the hiring of a +conveyance for the travellers, and hot-water bottles, together with a +postillion not addicted to drunkenness. He procured a posting-chariot, +an ancient and musty, of a late autumnal yellow unrefreshed by paint; +the only bottles to be had were Dutch Schiedam. His postillion, +inspected at Storling, carried the flag of habitual inebriation on his +nose, and he deemed it adviseable to ride the mare in accompaniment +as far as Riddlehurst, notwithstanding the postillion's vows upon his +honour that he was no drinker. The emphasis, to a gentleman acquainted +with his countrymen, was not reassuring. He had hopes of enlisting +a trustier fellow at Riddlehurst, but he was disappointed; and while +debating upon what to do, for he shrank from leaving two women to the +conduct of that inflamed troughsnout, Brisby, despatched to Storling by +an afterthought of Lady Dunstane's, rushed out of the Riddlehurst inn +taproom, and relieved him of the charge of the mare. He was accommodated +with a seat on a stool in the chariot. 'My triumphal car,' said his +captive. She was very amusing about her postillion; Danvers had to +beg pardon for laughing. 'You are happy,' observed her mistress. But +Redworth laughed too, and he could not boast of any happiness beyond the +temporary satisfaction, nor could she who sprang the laughter boast +of that little. She said to herself, in the midst of the hilarity, +'Wherever I go now, in all weathers, I am perfectly naked!' And +remembering her readings of a certain wonderful old quarto book in her +father's library, by an eccentric old Scottish nobleman, wherein the +wearing of garments and sleeping in houses is accused as the cause of +human degeneracy, she took a forced merry stand on her return to the +primitive healthful state of man and woman, and affected scorn of our +modern ways of dressing and thinking. Whence it came that she had some +of her wildest seizures of iridescent humour. Danvers attributed the fun +to her mistress's gladness in not having pursued her bent to quit the +country. Redworth saw deeper, and was nevertheless amazed by the airy +hawk-poise and pounce-down of her wit, as she ranged high and low, now +capriciously generalizing, now dropping bolt upon things of passage--the +postillion jogging from rum to gin, the rustics baconly agape, the +horse-kneed ostlers. She touched them to the life in similes and +phrases; and next she was aloft, derisively philosophizing, but with +a comic afflatus that dispersed the sharpness of her irony in +mocking laughter. The afternoon refreshments at the inn of the county +market-town, and the English idea of public hospitality, as to manner +and the substance provided for wayfarers, were among the themes she made +memorable to him. She spoke of everything tolerantly, just naming it in +a simple sentence, that fell with a ring and chimed: their host's ready +acquiescence in receiving, orders, his contemptuous disclaimer of stuff +he did not keep, his flat indifference to the sheep he sheared, and the +phantom half-crown flickering in one eye of the anticipatory waiter; the +pervading and confounding smell of stale beer over all the apartments; +the prevalent, notion of bread, butter, tea, milk, sugar, as matter for +the exercise of a native inventive genius--these were reviewed in quips +of metaphor. + +'Come, we can do better at an inn or two known to me,' said Redworth. + +'Surely this is the best that can be done for us, when we strike them +with the magic wand of a postillion?' said she. + +'It depends, as elsewhere, on the individuals entertaining us.' + +'Yet you admit that your railways are rapidly "polishing off" the +individual.' + +'They will spread the metropolitan idea of comfort.' + +'I fear they will feed us on nothing but that big word. It booms--a +curfew bell--for every poor little light that we would read by.' + +Seeing their beacon-nosed postillion preparing too mount and failing +in his jump, Redworth was apprehensive, and questioned the fellow +concerning potation. + +'Lord, sir, they call me half a horse, but I can't 'bids water,' was the +reply, with the assurance that he had not 'taken a pailful.' + +Habit enabled him to gain his seat. + +'It seems to us unnecessary to heap on coal when the chimney is afire; +but he may know the proper course,' Diana said, convulsing Danvers; and +there was discernibly to Redworth, under the influence of her phrases, +a likeness of the flaming 'half-horse,' with the animals all smoking in +the frost, to a railway engine. 'Your wrinkled centaur,' she named the +man. Of course he had to play second to her, and not unwillingly; but +he reflected passingly on the instinctive push of her rich and sparkling +voluble fancy to the initiative, which women do not like in a woman, and +men prefer to distantly admire. English women and men feel toward the +quick-witted of their species as to aliens, having the demerits of +aliens-wordiness, vanity, obscurity, shallowness, an empty glitter, +the sin of posturing. A quick-witted woman exerting her wit is both a +foreigner and potentially a criminal. She is incandescent to a breath of +rumour. It accounted for her having detractors; a heavy counterpoise +to her enthusiastic friends. It might account for her husband's +discontent-the reduction of him to a state of mere masculine antagonism. +What is the husband of a vanward woman? He feels himself but a +diminished man. The English husband of a voluble woman relapses into a +dreary mute. Ah, for the choice of places! Redworth would have yielded +her the loquent lead for the smallest of the privileges due to him who +now rejected all, except the public scourging of her. The conviction was +in his mind that the husband of this woman sought rather to punish than +be rid of her. But a part of his own emotion went to form the judgement. + +Furthermore, Lady Dunstane's allusion to her 'enemies' made him set +down her growing crops of backbiters to the trick she had of +ridiculing things English. If the English do it themselves, it is in a +professionally robust, a jocose, kindly way, always with a glance at the +other things, great things, they excel in; and it is done to have the +credit of doing it. They are keen to catch an inimical tone; they will +find occasion to chastise the presumptuous individual, unless it be the +leader of a party, therefore a power; for they respect a power. Redworth +knew their quaintnesses; without overlooking them he winced at the acid +of an irony that seemed to spring from aversion, and regretted it, +for her sake. He had to recollect that she was in a sharp-strung mood, +bitterly surexcited; moreover he reminded himself of her many and +memorable phrases of enthusiasm for England--Shakespeareland, as she +would sometimes perversely term it, to sink the country in the poet. +English fortitude, English integrity, the English disposition to do +justice to dependents, adolescent English ingenuousness, she was always +ready to laud. Only her enthusiasm required rousing by circumstances; +it was less at the brim than her satire. Hence she made enemies among a +placable people. + +He felt that he could have helped her under happier conditions. The +beautiful vision she had been on the night of the Irish Ball swept +before him, and he looked at her, smiling. + +'Why do you smile?' she said. + +'I was thinking of Mr. Sullivan Smith.' + +'Ah! my dear compatriot! And think, too, of Lord Larrian.' + +She caught her breath. Instead of recreation, the names brought on a fit +of sadness. It deepened; shy neither smiled nor rattled any more. She +gazed across the hedgeways at the white meadows and bare-twigged copses +showing their last leaves in the frost. + +'I remember your words: "Observation is the most, enduring of the +pleasures of life"; and so I have found it,' she said. There was a +brightness along her under-eyelids that caused him to look away. + +The expected catastrophe occurred on the descent of a cutting in the +sand, where their cordial postillion at a trot bumped the chariot +against the sturdy wheels of a waggon, which sent it reclining for +support upon a beech-tree's huge intertwisted serpent roots, amid strips +of brown bracken and pendant weeds, while he exhibited one short stump +of leg, all boot, in air. No one was hurt. Diana disengaged herself from +the shoulder of Danvers, and mildly said: + +'That reminds me, I forgot to ask why we came in a chariot.' + +Redworth was excited on her behalf, but the broken glass had done no +damage, nor had Danvers fainted. The remark was unintelligible to him, +apart from the comforting it had been designed to give. He jumped out, +and held a hand for them to do the same. 'I never foresaw an event more +positively,' said he. + +'And it was nothing but a back view that inspired you all the way,' said +Diana. + +A waggoner held the horses, another assisted Redworth to right the +chariot. The postillion had hastily recovered possession of his official +seat, that he might as soon as possible feel himself again where he was +most intelligent, and was gay in stupidity, indifferent to what happened +behind him. Diana heard him counselling the waggoner as to the common +sense of meeting small accidents with a cheerful soul. + +'Lord!' he cried, 'I been pitched a Somerset in my time, and taken up +for dead, and that didn't beat me!' + +Disasters of the present kind could hardly affect such a veteran. But +he was painfully disconcerted by Redworth's determination not to +entrust the ladies any farther to his guidance. Danvers had implored +for permission to walk the mile to the town, and thence take a fly to +Copsley. Her mistress rather sided with the postillion; who begged them +to spare him the disgrace of riding in and delivering a box at the Red +Lion. + +'What'll they say? And they know Arthur Dance well there,' he groaned. +'What! Arthur! chariotin' a box! And me a better man to his work now +than I been for many a long season, fit for double the journey! A bit of +a shake always braces me up. I could read a newspaper right off, small +print and all. Come along, sir, and hand the ladies in.' + +Danvers vowed her thanks to Mr. Redworth for refusing. They walked +ahead; the postillion communicated his mixture of professional and human +feelings to the waggoners, and walked his horses in the rear, meditating +on the weak-heartedness of gentryfolk, and the means for escaping being +chaffed out of his boots at the Old Red Lion, where he was to eat, +drink, and sleep that night. Ladies might be fearsome after a bit of a +shake; he would not have supposed it of a gentleman. He jogged himself +into an arithmetic of the number of nips of liquor he had taken to +soothe him on the road, in spite of the gentleman. 'For some of 'em are +sworn enemies of poor men, as yonder one, ne'er a doubt.' + +Diana enjoyed her walk beneath the lingering brown-red of the frosty +November sunset, with the scent of sand-earth strong in the air. + +'I had to hire a chariot because there was no two-horse carriage,' said +Redworth, 'and I wished to reach Copsley as early as possible.' + +She replied, smiling, that accidents were fated. As a certain marriage +had been! The comparison forced itself on her reflections. + +'But this is quite an adventure,' said she, reanimated by the brisker +flow of her blood. 'We ought really to be thankful for it, in days when +nothing happens.' + +Redworth accused her of getting that idea from the perusal of romances. + +'Yes, our lives require compression, like romances, to be interesting, +and we object to the process,' she said. 'Real happiness is a state of +dulness. When we taste it consciously it becomes mortal--a thing of the +Seasons. But I like my walk. How long these November sunsets burn, and +what hues they have! There is a scientific reason, only don't tell it +me. Now I understand why you always used to choose your holidays in +November.' + +She thrilled him with her friendly recollection of his customs. + +'As to happiness, the looking forward is happiness,' he remarked. + +'Oh, the looking back! back!' she cried. + +'Forward! that is life.' + +'And backward, death, if you will; and still at is happiness. Death, and +our postillion!' + +'Ay; I wonder why the fellow hangs to the rear,' said Redworth, turning +about. + +'It's his cunning strategy, poor creature, so that he may be thought to +have delivered us at the head of the town, for us to make a purchase or +two, if we go to the inn on foot,' said Diana. 'We 'll let the manoeuvre +succeed.' + +Redworth declared that she had a head for everything, and she was +flattered to hear him. + +So passing from the southern into the western road, they saw the +town-lights beneath an amber sky burning out sombrely over the woods of +Copsley, and entered the town, the postillion following. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA + +Diana was in the arms of her friend at a late hour of the evening, and +Danvers breathed the amiable atmosphere of footmen once more, professing +herself perished. This maid of the world, who could endure hardships and +loss of society for the mistress to whom she was attached, no sooner +saw herself surrounded by the comforts befitting her station, than +she indulged in the luxury of a wailful dejectedness, the better to +appreciate them. She was unaffectedly astonished to find her outcries +against the cold and the journeyings to and fro interpreted as a +serving-woman's muffled comments on her mistress's behaviour. Lady +Dunstane's maid Bartlett, and Mrs. Bridges the housekeeper, and Foster +the butler, contrived to let her know that they could speak an if they +would; and they expressed their pity of her to assist her to begin the +speaking. She bowed in acceptance of Fosters offer of a glass of wine +after supper, but treated him and the other two immediately as though +they had been interrogating bigwigs. + +'They wormed nothing out of me,' she said to her mistress at night, +undressing her. 'But what a set they are! They've got such comfortable +places, they've all their days and hours for talk of the doings of their +superiors. They read the vilest of those town papers, and they put their +two and two together of what is happening in and about. And not one of +the footmen thinks of staying, because it 's so dull; and they and the +maids object--did one ever hear?--to the three uppers retiring, when +they 've done dining, to the private room to dessert.' + +'That is the custom?' observed her mistress. + +'Foster carries the decanter, ma'am, and Mrs. Bridges the biscuits, and +Bartlett the plate of fruit, and they march out in order.' + +'The man at the head of the procession, probably.' + +'Oh yes. And the others, though they have everything except the wine and +dessert, don't like it. When I was here last they were new, and hadn't a +word against it. Now they say it's invidious! Lady Dunstane will be left +without an under-servant at Copsley soon. I was asked about your boxes, +ma'am, and the moment I said they were at Dover, that instant all three +peeped. They let out a mouse to me. They do love to talk!' + +Her mistress could have added, 'And you too, my good Danvers!' +trustworthy though she knew the creature to be in the main. + +'Now go, and be sure you have bedclothes enough before you drop asleep,' +she said; and Danvers directed her steps to gossip with Bartlett. + +Diana wrapped herself in a dressing-gown Lady Dunstane had sent her, and +sat by the fire, thinking of the powder of tattle stored in servants' +halls to explode beneath her: and but for her choice of roads she might +have been among strangers. The liking of strangers best is a curious +exemplification of innocence. + +'Yes, I was in a muse,' she said, raising her head to Emma, whom she +expected and sat armed to meet, unaccountably iron-nerved. 'I was +questioning whether I could be quite as blameless as I fancy, if I sit +and shiver to be in England. You will tell me I have taken the right +road. I doubt it. But the road is taken, and here I am. But any road +that leads me to you is homeward, my darling!' She tried to melt, +determining to be at least open with her. + +'I have not praised you enough for coming,' said Emma, when they had +embraced again. + +'Praise a little your "truest friend of women." Your letter gave the +tug. I might have resisted it.' + +'He came straight from heaven! But, cruel Tony where is your love?' + +'It is unequal to yours, dear, I see. I could have wrestled with +anything abstract and distant, from being certain. But here I am.' + +'But, my own dear girl, you never could have allowed this infamous +charge to be undefended?' + +'I think so. I've an odd apathy as to my character; rather like death, +when one dreams of flying the soul. What does it matter? I should have +left the flies and wasps to worry a corpse. And then-good-bye gentility! +I should have worked for my bread. I had thoughts of America. I fancy I +can write; and Americans, one hears, are gentle to women.' + +'Ah, Tony! there's the looking back. And, of all women, you!' + +'Or else, dear-well, perhaps once on foreign soil, in a different air, I +might--might have looked back, and seen my whole self, not shattered, as +I feel it now, and come home again compassionate to the poor persecuted +animal to defend her. Perhaps that was what I was running away for. I +fled on the instinct, often a good thing to trust.' + +'I saw you at The Crossways.' + +'I remembered I had the dread that you would, though I did not imagine +you would reach me so swiftly. My going there was an instinct, too. I +suppose we are all instinct when we have the world at our heels. Forgive +me if I generalize without any longer the right to be included in +the common human sum. "Pariah" and "taboo" are words we borrow from +barbarous tribes; they stick to me.' + +'My Tony, you look as bright as ever, and you speak despairingly.' + +'Call me enigma. I am that to myself, Emmy.' + +'You are not quite yourself to your friend.' + +'Since the blow I have been bewildered; I see nothing upright. It came +on me suddenly; stunned me. A bolt out of a clear sky, as they say. He +spared me a scene: There had been threats, and yet the sky was clear, or +seemed. When we have a man for arbiter, he is our sky.' + +Emma pressed her Tony's unresponsive hand, feeling strangely that her +friend ebbed from her. + +'Has he... to mislead him?' she said, colouring at the breach in the +question. + +'Proofs? He has the proofs he supposes.' + +'Not to justify suspicion?' + +'He broke open my desk and took my letters.' + +'Horrible! But the letters?' Emma shook with a nervous revulsion. + +'You might read them.' + +'Basest of men! That is the unpardonable cowardice!', exclaimed Emma. + +'The world will read them, dear,' said Diana, and struck herself to ice. +She broke from the bitter frigidity in fury. 'They are letters--none +very long--sometimes two short sentences--he wrote at any spare moment. +On my honour, as a woman, I feel for him most. The letters--I would bear +any accusation rather than that exposure. Letters of a man of his age to +a young woman he rates too highly! + +The world reads them. Do you hear it saying it could have excused her +for that fiddle-faddle with a younger--a young lover? And had I thought +of a lover!... I had no thought of loving or being loved. I confess +I was flattered. To you, Emma, I will confess.... You see the public +ridicule!--and half his age, he and I would have appeared a romantic +couple! Confess, I said. Well, dear, the stake is lighted for a trial of +its effect on me. It is this: he was never a dishonourable friend; but +men appear to be capable of friendship with women only for as long as we +keep out of pulling distance of that line where friendship ceases. They +may step on it; we must hold back a league. I have learnt it. You will +judge whether he disrespects me. As for him, he is a man; at his worst, +not one of the worst; at his best, better than very many. There, now, +Emma, you have me stripped and burning; there is my full confession. +Except for this--yes, one thing further--that I do rage at the ridicule, +and could choose, but for you, to have given the world cause to revile +me, or think me romantic. Something or somebody to suffer for would +really be agreeable. It is a singular fact, I have not known what +this love is, that they talk about. And behold me marched into +Smithfield!--society's heretic, if you please. I must own I think it +hard.' + +Emma chafed her cold hand softly. + +'It is hard; I understand it,' she murmured. 'And is your Sunday visit +to us in the list of offences?' + +'An item.' + +'You gave me a happy day.' + +'Then it counts for me in heaven.' + +'He set spies on you?' + +'So we may presume.' + +Emma went through a sphere of tenuious reflections in a flash. + +'He will rue it. Perhaps now... he may now be regretting his wretched +frenzy. And Tony could pardon; she has the power of pardoning in her +heart.' + +'Oh! certainly, dear. But tell me why it is you speak to-night rather +unlike the sedate, philosophical Emma; in a tone-well, tolerably +sentimental?' + +'I am unaware of it,' said Emma, who could have retorted with a like +reproach. 'I am anxious, I will not say at present for your happiness, +for your peace; and I have a hope that possibly a timely word from some +friend--Lukin or another--might induce him to consider.' + +'To pardon me, do you mean?' cried Diana, flushing sternly. + +'Not pardon. Suppose a case of faults on both sides.' + +'You address a faulty person, my dear. But do you know that you are +hinting at a reconcilement?' + +'Might it not be?' + +'Open your eyes to what it involves. I trust I can pardon. Let him +go his ways, do his darkest, or repent. But return to the roof of the +"basest of men," who was guilty of "the unpardonable cowardice"? You +expect me to be superhuman. When I consent to that, I shall be out of my +woman's skin, which he has branded. Go back to him!' She was taken with +a shudder of head and limbs. 'No; I really have the power of pardoning, +and I am bound to; for among my debts to him, this present exemption, +that is like liberty dragging a chain, or, say, an escaped felon wearing +his manacles, should count. I am sensible of my obligation. The price +I pay for it is an immovable patch-attractive to male idiots, I have +heard, and a mark of scorn to females. Between the two the remainder of +my days will be lively. "Out, out, damned spot!" But it will not. And +not on the hand--on the forehead! We'll talk of it no longer. I have +sent a note, with an enclosure, to my lawyers. I sell The Crossways, if +I have the married woman's right to any scrap of property, for money to +scatter fees.' + +'My purse, dear Tony!' exclaimed Emma. 'My house! You will stay with +me? Why do you shake your head? With me you are safe.' She spied at the +shadows in her friend's face. 'Ever since your marriage, Tony, you have +been strange in your trick of refusing to stay with me. And you and I +made our friendship the pledge of a belief in eternity! We vowed it. +Come, I do talk sentimentally, but my heart is in it. I beg you--all the +reasons are with me--to make my house your home. You will. You know I am +rather lonely.' + +Diana struggled to keep her resolution from being broken by tenderness. +And doubtless poor Sir Lukin had learnt his lesson; still, her defensive +instincts could never quite slumber under his roof; not because of any +further fear that they would have to be summoned; it was chiefly owing +to the consequences of his treacherous foolishness. For this half-home +with her friend thenceforward denied to her, she had accepted a +protector, called husband--rashly, past credence, in the retrospect; +but it had been her propelling motive; and the loathings roused by her +marriage helped to sicken her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she +had suffered the shock precipitating her to an act of insanity. + +'I do not forget you were an heiress, Emmy, and I will come to you if I +need money to keep my head up. As for staying, two reasons are +against it. If I am to fight my battle, I must be seen; I must go +about--wherever I am received. So my field is London. That is obvious. +And I shall rest better in a house where my story is not known.' + +Two or three questions ensued. Diana had to fortify her fictitious +objection by alluding to her maid's prattle of the household below; and +she excused the hapless, overfed, idle people of those regions. + +To Emma it seemed a not unnatural sensitiveness. She came to a settled +resolve in her thoughts, as she said, 'They want a change. London is +their element.' + +Feeling that she deceived this true heart, however lightly and +necessarily, Diana warmed to her, forgiving her at last for having +netted and dragged her back to front the enemy; an imposition of +horrors, of which the scene and the travelling with Redworth, the +talking of her case with her most intimate friend as well, had been a +distempering foretaste. + +They stood up and kissed, parting for the night. + +An odd world, where for the sin we have not participated in we must +fib and continue fibbing, she reflected. She did not entirely cheat her +clearer mind, for she perceived that her step in flight had been urged +both by a weak despondency and a blind desperation; also that the world +of a fluid civilization is perforce artificial. But her mind was in the +background of her fevered senses, and when she looked in the glass and +mused on uttering the word, 'Liar!' to the lovely image, her senses were +refreshed, her mind somewhat relieved, the face appeared so sovereignly +defiant of abasement. + +Thus did a nature distraught by pain obtain some short lull of repose. +Thus, moreover, by closely reading herself, whom she scourged to excess +that she might in justice be comforted, she gathered an increasing +knowledge of our human constitution, and stored matter for the brain. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION + +The result of her sleeping was, that Diana's humour, locked up +overnight, insisted on an excursion, as she lay with half-buried head +and open eyelids, thinking of the firm of lawyers she had to see; and to +whom, and to the legal profession generally, she would be, under outward +courtesies, nothing other than 'the woman Warwick.' She pursued the +woman Warwick unmercifully through a series of interviews with her +decorous and crudely-minded defenders; accurately perusing them behind +their senior staidness. Her scorching sensitiveness sharpened her +intelligence in regard to the estimate of discarded wives entertained +by men of business and plain men of the world, and she drove the woman +Warwick down their ranks, amazed by the vision of a puppet so unlike to +herself in reality, though identical in situation. That woman, reciting +her side of the case, gained a gradual resemblance to Danvers; she spoke +primly; perpetually the creature aired her handkerchief; she was bent on +softening those sugarloaves, the hard business-men applying to her +for facts. Facts were treated as unworthy of her; mere stuff of the +dustheap, mutton-bones, old shoes; she swam above them in a cocoon +of her spinning, sylphidine, unseizable; and between perplexing and +mollifying the slaves of facts, she saw them at their heels, a tearful +fry, abjectly imitative of her melodramatic performances. The spectacle +was presented of a band of legal gentlemen vociferating mightily for +swords and the onset, like the Austrian empress's Magyars, to vindicate +her just and holy cause. Our Law-courts failing, they threatened +Parliament, and for a last resort, the country! We are not going to be +the woman Warwick without a stir, my brethren. + +Emma, an early riser that morning, for the purpose of a private +consultation with Mr. Redworth, found her lying placidly wakeful, to +judge by appearances. + +'You have not slept, my dear child?' + +'Perfectly,' said Diana, giving her hand and offering the lips. 'I'm +only having a warm morning bath in bed,' she added, in explanation of a +chill moisture that the touch of her exposed skin betrayed; for whatever +the fun of the woman Warwick, there had been sympathetic feminine +horrors in the frame of the sentient woman. + +Emma fancied she kissed a quiet sufferer. A few remarks very soon set +her wildly laughing. Both were laughing when Danvers entered the room, +rather guilty, being late; and the sight of the prim-visaged maid she +had been driving among the lawyers kindled Diana's comic imagination +to such a pitch that she ran riot in drolleries, carrying her friend +headlong on the tide. + +'I have not laughed so much since you were married,' said Emma. + +'Nor I, dear; proving that the bar to it was the ceremony,' said Diana. + +She promised to remain at Copsley three days. 'Then for the campaign +in Mr. Redworth's metropolis. I wonder whether I may ask him to get me +lodgings: a sitting-room and two bedrooms. The Crossways has a board up +for letting. I should prefer to be my own tenant; only it would give me +a hundred pounds more to get a substitute's money. I should like to be +at work writing instantly. Ink is my opium, and the pen my nigger, and +he must dig up gold for me. It is written. Danvers, you can make ready +to dress me when I ring.' + +Emma helped the beautiful woman to her dressing-gown and the step +from her bed. She had her thoughts, and went down to Redworth at the +breakfast-table, marvelling that any husband other than a madman could +cast such a jewel away. The material loveliness eclipses intellectual +qualities in such reflections. + +'He must be mad,' she said, compelled to disburden herself in a +congenial atmosphere; which, however, she infrigidated by her overflow +of exclamatory wonderment--a curtain that shook voluminous folds, +luring Redworth to dreams of the treasure forfeited. He became rigidly +practical. + +'Provision will have to be made for her. Lukin must see Mr. Warwick. She +will do wisely to stay with friends in town, mix in company. Women are +the best allies for such cases. Who are her solicitors?' + +'They are mine: Braddock, Thorpe, and Simnel.' + +'A good firm. She is in safe hands with them. I dare say they may come +to an arrangement.' + +'I should wish it. She will never consent.' + +Redworth shrugged. A woman's 'never' fell far short of outstripping the +sturdy pedestrian Time, to his mind. + +Diana saw him drive off to catch the coach in the valley, regulated to +meet the train, and much though she liked him, she was not sorry that +he had gone. She felt the better clad for it. She would have rejoiced to +witness the departure on wings of all her friends, except Emma, to whom +her coldness overnight had bound her anew warmly in contrition. And yet +her friends were well-beloved by her; but her emotions were distraught. + +Emma told her that Mr. Redworth had undertaken to hire a suite of +convenient rooms, and to these she looked forward, the nest among +strangers, where she could begin to write, earning bread: an idea that, +with the pride of independence, conjured the pleasant morning smell of a +bakery about her. + +She passed three peaceable days at Copsley, at war only with the luxury +of the house. On the fourth, a letter to Lady Dunstane from Redworth +gave the address of the best lodgings he could find, and Diana started +for London. + +She had during a couple of weeks, besides the first fresh exercising +of her pen, as well as the severe gratification of economy, a savage +exultation in passing through the streets on foot and unknown. Save for +the plunges into the office of her solicitors, she could seem to herself +a woman who had never submitted to the yoke. What a pleasure it +was, after finishing a number of pages, to start Eastward toward the +lawyer-regions, full of imaginary cropping incidents, and from that +churchyard Westward, against smoky sunsets, or in welcome fogs, an atom +of the crowd! She had an affection for the crowd. They clothed her. +She laughed at the gloomy forebodings of Danvers concerning the perils +environing ladies in the streets after dark alone. The lights in the +streets after dark and the quick running of her blood, combined to +strike sparks of fancy and inspirit the task of composition at night. +This new, strange, solitary life, cut off from her adulatory society, +both by the shock that made the abyss and by the utter foreignness, +threw her in upon her natural forces, recasting her, and thinning away +her memory of her past days, excepting girlhood, into the remote. She +lived with her girlhood as with a simple little sister. They were two +in one, and she corrected the dreams of the younger, protected and +counselled her very sagely, advising her to love Truth and look always +to Reality for her refreshment. She was ready to say, that no habitable +spot on our planet was healthier and pleasanter than London. As to the +perils haunting the head of Danvers, her experiences assured her of a +perfect immunity from them; and the maligned thoroughfares of a great +city, she was ready to affirm, contrasted favourably with certain +hospitable halls. + +The long-suffering Fates permitted her for a term to enjoy the generous +delusion. Subsequently a sweet surprise alleviated the shock she had +sustained. Emma Dunstane's carriage was at her door, and Emma +entered her sitting-room, to tell her of having hired a house in the +neighbourhood, looking on the park. She begged to have her for guest, +sorrowfully anticipating the refusal. At least they were to be near one +another. + +'You really like this life in lodgings?' asked Emma, to whom the stiff +furniture and narrow apartments were a dreariness, the miserably small +fire of the sitting-room an aspect of cheerless winter. + +'I do,' said Diana; 'yes,' she added with some reserve, and smiled at +her damped enthusiasm, 'I can eat when I like, walk, work--and I am +working! My legs and my pen demand it. Let me be independent! Besides, I +begin to learn something of the bigger world outside the one I know, and +I crush my mincing tastes. In return for that, I get a sense of strength +I had not when I was a drawing-room exotic. Much is repulsive. But I am +taken with a passion for reality.' + +They spoke of the lawyers, and the calculated period of the trial; of +the husband too, in his inciting belief in the falseness of his wife. +'That is his excuse,' Diana said, her closed mouth meditatively dimpling +the comers over thoughts of his grounds for fury. He had them, though +none for the incriminating charge. The Sphinx mouth of the married woman +at war and at bay must be left unriddled. She and the law differed in +their interpretation of the dues of wedlock. + +But matters referring to her case were secondary with Diana beside the +importance of her storing impressions. Her mind required to hunger for +something, and this Reality which frequently she was forced to loathe, +she forced herself proudly to accept, despite her youthfulness. Her +philosophy swallowed it in the lump, as the great serpent his meal; she +hoped to digest it sleeping likewise. Her visits of curiosity to the Law +Courts, where she stood spying and listening behind a veil, gave her a +great deal of tough substance to digest. There she watched the process +of the tortures to be applied to herself, and hardened her senses for +the ordeal. She saw there the ribbed and shanked old skeleton world on +which our fair fleshly is moulded. After all, your Fool's Paradise +is not a garden to grow in. Charon's ferry-boat is not thicker with +phantoms. They do not live in mind or soul. Chiefly women people it: a +certain class of limp men; women for the most part: they are sown there. +And put their garden under the magnifying glass of intimacy, what do we +behold? A world not better than the world it curtains, only foolisher. + +Her conversations with Lady Dunstane brought her at last to the point of +her damped enthusiasm. She related an incident or two occurring in her +career of independence, and they discussed our state of civilization +plainly and gravely, save for the laughing peals her phrases +occasionally provoked; as when she named the intruders and disturbers of +solitarily-faring ladies, 'Cupid's footpads.' Her humour was created to +swim on waters where a prescribed and cultivated prudery should pretend +to be drowning. + +'I was getting an exalted idea of English gentlemen, Emmy. "Rich and +rare were the gems she wore." I was ready to vow that one might traverse +the larger island similarly respected. I praised their chivalry. I +thought it a privilege to live in such a land. I cannot describe to you +how delightful it was to me to walk out and home generally protected. I +might have been seriously annoyed but that one of the clerks-"articled," +he called himself--of our lawyers happened to be by. He offered to +guard me, and was amusing with his modest tiptoe air. No, I trust to the +English common man more than ever. He is a man of honour. I am convinced +he is matchless in any other country, except Ireland. The English +gentleman trades on his reputation.' + +He was condemned by an afflicted delicacy, the sharpest of critical +tribunals. + +Emma bade her not to be too sweeping from a bad example. + +'It is not a single one,' said Diana. 'What vexes me and frets me is, +that I must be a prisoner, or allow Danvers to mount guard. And I can't +see the end of it. And Danvers is no magician. She seems to know her +countrymen, though. She warded one of them off, by saying to me: "This +is the crossing, my lady." He fled.' + +Lady Dunstane affixed the popular title to the latter kind of gentleman. +She was irritated on her friend's behalf, and against the worrying of +her sisterhood, thinking in her heart, nevertheless, that the passing +of a face and figure like Diana's might inspire honourable emotions, +pitiable for being hapless. + +'If you were with me, dear, you would have none of these annoyances,' +she said, pleading forlornly. + +Diana smiled to herself. 'No! I should relapse into softness. This +life exactly suits my present temper. My landlady is respectful and +attentive; the little housemaid is a willing slave; Danvers does not +despise them pugnaciously; they make a home for me, and I am learning +daily. Do you know, the less ignorant I become, the more considerate I +am for the ignorance of others--I love them for it.' She squeezed +Emma's hand with more meaning than her friend apprehended. 'So I win my +advantage from the trifles I have to endure. They are really trifles, +and I should once have thought them mountains!' + +For the moment Diana stipulated that she might not have to encounter +friends or others at Lady Dunstane's dinner-table, and the season not +being favourable to those gatherings planned by Lady Dunstane in her +project of winning supporters, there was a respite, during which Sir +Lukin worked manfully at his three Clubs to vindicate Diana's name from +the hummers and hawers, gaining half a dozen hot adherents, and a body +of lukewarm, sufficiently stirred to be desirous to see the lady. He +worked with true champion zeal, although an interview granted him by the +husband settled his opinion as to any possibility of the two ever coming +to terms. Also it struck him that if he by misadventure had been a woman +and the wife of such a fellow, by Jove!... his apostrophe to the father +of the gods of pagandom signifying the amount of matter Warwick would +have had reason to complain of in earnest. By ricochet his military +mind rebounded from his knowledge of himself to an ardent, faith in +Mrs. Warwick's innocence; for, as there was no resemblance between them, +there must, he deduced, be a difference in their capacity for enduring +the perpetual company of a prig, a stick, a petrified poser. Moreover, +the novel act of advocacy, and the nature of the advocacy, had effect +on him. And then he recalled the scene in the winter beech-woods, and +Diana's wild-deer eyes; her, perfect generosity to a traitor and fool. +How could he have doubted her? Glimpses of the corrupting cause for it +partly penetrated his density: a conqueror of ladies, in mid-career, +doubts them all. Of course he had meant no harm, nothing worse than some +petty philandering with the loveliest woman of her time. And, by Jove! +it was worth the rebuff to behold the Beauty in her wrath. + +The reflections of Lothario, however much tending tardily to do justice +to a particular lady, cannot terminate wholesomely. But he became a +gallant partisan. His portrayal of Mr. Warwick to his wife and his +friends was fine caricature. 'The fellow had his hand up at my first +word--stood like a sentinel under inspection. "Understand, Sir Lukin, +that I receive you simply as an acquaintance. As an intermediary, permit +me to state that you are taking superfluous trouble. The case must +proceed. It is final. She is at liberty, in the meantime, to draw on +my bankers for the provision she may need, at the rate of five hundred +pounds per annum." He spoke of "the lady now bearing my name." He was +within an inch of saying "dishonouring." I swear I heard the "dis," +and he caught himself up. He "again declined any attempt towards +reconciliation." It could "only be founded on evasion of the truth to be +made patent on the day of trial." Half his talk was lawyers' lingo. +The fellow's teeth looked like frost. If Lot's wife had a brother, his +name's Warwick. How Diana Merion, who could have had the pick of +the best of us, ever came to marry a fellow like that, passes my +comprehension, queer creatures as women are! He can ride; that's about +all he can do. I told him Mrs. Warwick had no thought of reconciliation. +"Then, Sir Lukin, you will perceive that we have no standpoint for a +discussion." I told him the point was, for a man of honour not to drag +his wife before the public, as he had no case to stand on--less than +nothing. You should have seen the fellow's face. He shot a sneer up to +his eyelids, and flung his head back. So I said, "Good-day." He marches +me to the door, "with his compliments to Lady Dunstane." I could have +floored him for that. Bless my soul, what fellows the world is made of, +when here's a man, calling himself a gentleman, who, just because he +gets in a rage with his wife for one thing or another--and past all +competition the handsomest woman of her day, and the cleverest, +the nicest, the best of the whole boiling--has her out for a public +horsewhipping, and sets all the idiots of the kingdom against her! +I tried to reason with him. He made as if he were going to sleep +standing.' + +Sir Lukin gratified Lady Dunstane by his honest championship of Diana. +And now, in his altered mood (the thrice indebted rogue was just +cloudily conscious of a desire to propitiate his dear wife by serving +her friend), he began a crusade against the scandal-newspapers, going +with an Irish military comrade straight to the editorial offices, and +leaving his card and a warning that the chastisement for print of the +name of the lady in their columns would be personal and condign. Captain +Carew Mahony, albeit unacquainted with Mrs. Warwick, had espoused her +cause. She was a woman, she was an Irishwoman, she was a beautiful +woman. She had, therefore, three positive claims on him as a soldier +and a man. Other Irish gentlemen, animated by the same swelling degrees, +were awaking to the intimation that they might be wanted. Some words +were dropped here and there by General Lord Larrian: he regretted his +age and infirmities. A goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been +selected to protect her steps in the public streets; when it was bruited +that the General had sent her a present of his great Newfoundland dog, +Leander, to attend on her and impose a required respect. But as it +chanced that her address was unknown to the volunteer constabulary, they +had to assuage their ardour by thinking the dog luckier than they. + +The report of the dog was a fact. He arrived one morning at Diana's +lodgings, with a soldier to lead him, and a card to introduce:--the +Hercules of dogs, a very ideal of the species, toweringly big, +benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, disdainful of dog-fighting, +devoted to his guardian's office, with a majestic paw to give and the +noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male +enfolded about the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that +he was his new mistress's one love and darling. + +She despatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian, sure of her +touch upon an Irish heart. + +The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a mistress enamoured +of him. 'He is my husband,' she said to Emma, and started a tear in the +eyes of her smiling friend; 'he promises to trust me, and never to have +the law of me, and to love my friends as his own; so we are certain to +agree.' In rain, snow, sunshine, through the parks and the streets, +he was the shadow of Diana, commanding, on the whole, apart from +some desperate attempts to make him serve as introducer, a civilized +behaviour in the legions of Cupid's footpads. But he helped, innocently +enough, to create an enemy. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD +AND OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP + +As the day of her trial became more closely calculable, Diana's +anticipated alarms receded with the deadening of her heart to meet the +shock. She fancied she had put on proof-armour, unconscious that it was +the turning of the inward flutterer to steel, which supplied her cuirass +and shield. The necessity to brave society, in the character of honest +Defendant, caused but a momentary twitch of the nerves. Her heart beat +regularly, like a serviceable clock; none of her faculties abandoned +her save songfulness, and none belied her, excepting a disposition to +tartness almost venomous in the sarcastic shafts she let fly at friends +interceding with Mr. Warwick to spare his wife, when she had determined +to be tried. A strange fit of childishness overcame her powers of +thinking, and was betrayed in her manner of speaking, though--to herself +her dwindled humour allowed her to appear the towering Britomart. She +pouted contemptuously on hearing that a Mr. Sullivan Smith (a remotely +recollected figure) had besought Mr. Warwick for an interview, and +gained it, by stratagem, 'to bring the man to his senses': but an +ultra-Irishman did not compromise her battle-front, as the busybody +supplications of a personal friend like Mr. Redworth did; and that the +latter, without consulting her, should be 'one of the plaintive crew +whining about the heels of the Plaintiff for a mercy she disdained and +rejected' was bitter to her taste. + +'He does not see that unless I go through the fire there is no +justification for this wretched character of mine!' she exclaimed. +Truce, treaty, withdrawal, signified publicly pardon, not exoneration +by any means; and now that she was in armour she had no dread of the +public. So she said. Redworth's being then engaged upon the canvass of +a borough, added to the absurdity of his meddling with the dilemmas of +a woman. 'Dear me, Emma! think of stepping aside from the parliamentary +road to entreat a husband to relent, and arrange the domestic +alliance of a contrary couple! Quixottry is agreeable reading, a silly +performance.' Lady Dunstane pleaded his friendship. She had to quit the +field where such darts were showering. + +The first dinner-party was aristocratic, easy to encounter. Lord and +Lady Crane, Lady Pennon, Lord and Lady Esquart, Lord Larrian, Mr. and +Mrs. Montvert of Halford Manor, Lady Singleby, Sir Walter Capperston +friends, admirers of Diana; patrons, in the phrase of the time, of her +father, were the guests. Lady Pennon expected to be amused, and was +gratified, for Diana had only to open her mouth to set the great lady +laughing. She petitioned to have Mrs. Warwick at her table that day +week, because the marquis was dying to make her acquaintance, and begged +to have all her sayings repeated to him; vowed she must be salt in the +desert. 'And remember, I back you through thick and thin,' said Lady +Pennon. To which Diana replied: 'If I am salt in the desert, you are the +spring'; and the old lady protested she must put that down for her book. +The witty Mrs. Warwick, of whom wit was expected, had many incitements +to be guilty of cheap wit; and the beautiful Mrs. Warwick, being able to +pass anything she uttered, gave good and bad alike, under the impulsion +to give out something, that the stripped and shivering Mrs. Warwick +might find a cover in applause. She discovered the social uses of cheap +wit; she laid ambushes for anecdotes, a telling form of it among a +people of no conversational interlocution, especially in the circles +depending for dialogue upon perpetual fresh supplies of scandal; which +have plentiful crops, yet not sufficient. The old dinner and supper +tables at The Crossways furnished her with an abundant store; and +recollection failing, she invented. Irish anecdotes are always popular +in England, as promoting, besides the wholesome shake of the sides, a +kindly sense of superiority. Anecdotes also are portable, unlike the +lightning flash, which will not go into the pocket; they can be carried +home, they are disbursable at other tables. These were Diana's weapons. +She was perforce the actress of her part. + +In happier times, when light of heart and natural, her vogue had not +been so enrapturing. Doubtless Cleopatra in her simple Egyptian uniform +would hardly have won such plaudits as her stress of barbaric Oriental +splendours evoked for her on the swan and serpent Nile-barge--not from +posterity at least. It is a terrible decree, that all must act who would +prevail; and the more extended the audience, the greater need for the +mask and buskin. + +From Lady Pennon's table Diana passed to Lady Crane's, Lady Esquart's, +Lady Singleby's, the Duchess of Raby's, warmly clad in the admiration +she excited. She appeared at Princess Therese Paryli's first ball of the +season, and had her circle, not of worshippers only. She did not dance. +The princess, a fair Austrian, benevolent to her sisterhood, an admirer +of Diana's contrasting complexion, would have had her dance once in +a quadrille of her forming, but yielded to the mute expression of the +refusal. Wherever Mrs. Warwick went, her arts of charming were addressed +to the women. Men may be counted on for falling bowled over by a +handsome face and pointed tongue; women require some wooing from their +ensphered and charioted sister, particularly if she is clouded; and old +women--excellent buttresses--must be suavely courted. Now, to woo +the swimming matron and court the settled dowager, she had to win +forgiveness for her beauty; and this was done, easily done, by +forbearing to angle with it in the press of nibblers. They ranged about +her, individually unnoticed. Seeming unaware of its effect where it +kindled, she smote a number of musical female chords, compassion among +them. A general grave affability of her eyes and smiles was taken +for quiet pleasure in the scene. Her fitful intentness of look when +conversing with the older ladies told of the mind within at work upon +what they said, and she was careful that plain dialogue should make her +comprehensible to them. Nature taught her these arts, through which her +wit became extolled entirely on the strength of her reputation, and her +beauty did her service by never taking aim abroad. They are the woman's +arts of self-defence, as legitimately and honourably hers as the manful +use of the fists with a coarser sex. If it had not been nature that +taught her the practice of them in extremity, the sagacious dowagers +would have seen brazenness rather than innocence--or an excuseable +indiscretion--in the part she was performing. They are not lightly duped +by one of their sex. Few tasks are more difficult than for a young woman +under a cloud to hoodwink old women of the world. They are the prey of +financiers, but Time has presented them a magic ancient glass to scan +their sex in. + +At Princess Paryli's Ball two young men of singular elegance were +observed by Diana, little though she concentered her attention on any +figures of the groups. She had the woman's faculty (transiently bestowed +by perfervid jealousy upon men) of distinguishing minutely in the +calmest of indifferent glances. She could see without looking; and when +her eyes were wide they had not to dwell to be detective. It did not +escape her that the Englishman of the two hurried for the chance of an +introduction, nor that he suddenly, after putting a question to a man +beside him, retired. She spoke of them to Emma as they drove home. 'The +princess's partner in the first quadrille... Hungarian, I suppose? He +was like a Tartar modelled by a Greek: supple as the Scythian's bow, +braced as the string! He has the air of a born horseman, and valses +perfectly. I won't say he was handsomer than a young Englishman there, +but he had the advantage of soldierly training. How different is that +quick springy figure from our young men's lounging style! It comes of +military exercise and discipline.' + +'That was Count Jochany, a cousin of the princess, and a cavalry +officer,' said Emma. 'You don't know the other? I am sure the one you +mean must be Percy Dacier.' + +His retiring was explained: the Hon. Percy Dacier was the nephew of Lord +Dannisburgh, often extolled to her as the promising youngster of his +day, with the reserve that he wasted his youth: for the young gentleman +was decorous and studious; ambitious, according to report; a politician +taking to politics much too seriously and exclusively to suit his +uncle's pattern for the early period of life. Uncle and nephew went +their separate ways, rarely meeting, though their exchange of esteem was +cordial. + +Thinking over his abrupt retirement from the crowded semicircle, Diana +felt her position pinch her, she knew not why. + +Lady Dunstane was as indefatigable by day as by night in the business of +acting goddess to her beloved Tony, whom she assured that the service, +instead of exhausting, gave her such healthfulness as she had imagined +herself to have lost for ever. The word was passed, and invitations +poured in to choice conversational breakfasts, private afternoon +concerts, all the humming season's assemblies. Mr. Warwick's treatment +of his wife was taken by implication for lunatic; wherever she was heard +or seen, he had no case; a jury of some hundreds of both sexes, ready to +be sworn, pronounced against him. Only the personal enemies of the lord +in the suit presumed to doubt, and they exercised the discretion of a +minority. + +But there is an upper middle class below the aristocratic, boasting an +aristocracy of morals, and eminently persuasive of public opinion, +if not commanding it. Previous to the relaxation, by amendment, of a +certain legal process, this class was held to represent the austerity +of the country. At present a relaxed austerity is represented; and still +the bulk of the members are of fair repute, though not quite on the +level of their pretensions. They were then, while more sharply divided +from the titular superiors they are socially absorbing, very powerful +to brand a woman's character, whatever her rank might be; having +innumerable agencies and avenues for that high purpose, to say nothing +of the printing-press. Lady Dunstane's anxiety to draw them over to the +cause of her friend set her thinking of the influential Mrs. Cramborne +Wathin, with whom she was distantly connected; the wife of a potent +serjeant-at-law fast mounting to the Bench and knighthood; the centre of +a circle, and not strangely that, despite her deficiency in the arts +and graces, for she had wealth and a cook, a husband proud of his +wine-cellar, and the ambition to rule; all the rewards, together with +the expectations, of the virtuous. She was a lady of incisive features +bound in stale parchment. Complexion she had none, but she had +spotlessness of skin, and sons and daughters just resembling her, like +cheaper editions of a precious quarto of a perished type. You discerned +the imitation of the type, you acknowledged the inferior compositor. +Mr. Cramborne Wathin was by birth of a grade beneath his wife; he +sprang (behind a curtain of horror) from tradesmen. The Bench was in +designation for him to wash out the stain, but his children suffered in +large hands and feet, short legs, excess of bone, prominences misplaced. +Their mother inspired them carefully with the religion she opposed to +the pretensions of a nobler blood, while instilling into them that the +blood they drew from her was territorial, far above the vulgar. Her +appearance and her principles fitted her to stand for the Puritan rich +of the period, emerging by the aid of an extending wealth into luxurious +worldliness, and retaining the maxims of their forefathers for the +discipline of the poor and erring. + +Lady Dunstane called on her, ostensibly to let her know she had taken +a house in town for the season, and in the course of the chat Mrs. +Cramborne Wathin was invited to dinner. 'You will meet my dear friend, +Mrs. Warwick,' she said, and the reply was: 'Oh, I have heard of her.' + +The formal consultation with Mr. Cramborne Wathin ended in an agreement +to accept Lady Dunstane's kind invitation. + +Considering her husband's plenitude of old legal anecdotes, and her own +diligent perusal of the funny publications of the day, that she might be +on the level of the wits and celebrities she entertained, Mrs. Cramborne +Wathin had a right to expect the leading share in the conversation +to which she was accustomed. Every honour was paid to them; they met +aristocracy in the persons of Lord Larrian, of Lady Rockden, Colonel +Purlby, the Pettigrews, but neither of them held the table for a moment; +the topics flew, and were no sooner up than down; they were unable to +get a shot. They had to eat in silence, occasionally grinning, because +a woman labouring under a stigma would rattle-rattle, as if the laughter +of the company were her due, and decency beneath her notice. Some one +alluded to a dog of Mrs. Warwick's, whereupon she trips out a story of +her dog's amazing intelligence. + +'And pray,' said Mrs. Cramborne Wathin across the table, merely to slip +in a word, 'what is the name of this wonderful dog?' + +'His name is Leander,' said Diana. + +'Oh, Leander. I don't think I hear myself calling to a dog in a name of +three syllables. Two at the most.' + +No, so I call Hero! if I want him to come immediately,' said Diana, and +the gentlemen, to Mrs. Cramborne Wathin's astonishment, acclaimed it. +Mr. Redworth, at her elbow, explained the point, to her disgust... + +That was Diana's offence. + +If it should seem a small one, let it be remembered that a snub was +intended, and was foiled; and foiled with an apparent simplicity, enough +to exasperate, had there been no laughter of men to back the countering +stroke. A woman under a cloud, she talked, pushed to shine; she would be +heard, would be applauded. Her chronicler must likewise admit the error +of her giving way to a petty sentiment of antagonism on first beholding +Mrs. Cramborne Wathin, before whom she at once resolved to be herself, +for a holiday, instead of acting demurely to conciliate. Probably it was +an antagonism of race, the shrinking of the skin from the burr. But when +Tremendous Powers are invoked, we should treat any simple revulsion of +our blood as a vice. The Gods of this world's contests demand it of us, +in relation to them, that the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at +work. Otherwise the course of a prudent policy is never to invoke them, +but avoid. + +The upper class was gained by her intrepidity, her charm, and her +elsewhere offending wit, however the case might go. It is chivalrous, +but not, alas, inflammable in support of innocence. The class below it +is governed in estimates of character by accepted patterns of conduct; +yet where innocence under persecution is believed to exist, the members +animated by that belief can be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is a heaven-sent +steeplechaser, and takes a flying leap of the ordinary barriers; it +is more intrusive than chivalry, and has a passion to communicate its +ardour. Two letters from stranger ladies reached Diana, through her +lawyers and Lady Dunstane. Anonymous letters, not so welcome, being male +effusions, arrived at her lodgings, one of them comical almost over the +verge to pathos in its termination: 'To me you will ever be the Goddess +Diana--my faith in woman!' + +He was unacquainted with her! + +She had not the heart to think the writers donkeys. How they obtained +her address was a puzzle; they stole in to comfort her slightly. They +attached her to her position of Defendant by the thought of what would +have been the idea of her character if she had flown--a reflection +emanating from inexperience of the resources of sentimentalists. + +If she had flown! She was borne along by the tide like a butterfly that +a fish may gobble unless a friendly hand shall intervene. And could it +in nature? She was past expectation of release. The attempt to imagine +living with any warmth of blood in her vindicated character, for the +sake of zealous friends, consigned her to a cold and empty house upon +a foreign earth. She had to set her mind upon the mysterious enshrouded +Twelve, with whom the verdict would soon be hanging, that she might +prompt her human combativeness to desire the vindication at such a price +as she would have to pay for it. When Emma Dunstane spoke to her of the +certainty of triumphing, she suggested a possible dissentient among the +fateful Twelve, merely to escape the drumming sound of that hollow big +word. The irreverent imp of her humour came to her relief by calling +forth the Twelve, in the tone of the clerk of the Court, and they +answered to their names of trades and crafts after the manner of +Titania's elves, and were questioned as to their fitness, by education, +habits, enlightenment, to pronounce decisively upon the case in dispute, +the case being plainly stated. They replied, that the long habit of +dealing with scales enabled them to weigh the value of evidence the +most delicate. Moreover, they were Englishmen, and anything short of +downright bullet facts went to favour the woman. For thus we light the +balance of legal injustice toward the sex: we conveniently wink, ma'am. +A rough, old-fashioned way for us! Is it a Breach of Promise?--She may +reckon on her damages: we have daughters of our own. Is it a suit for +Divorce?--Well, we have wives of our own, and we can lash, or we can +spare; that's as it may be; but we'll keep the couple tied, let 'em +hate as they like, if they can't furnish pork-butchers' reasons +for sundering; because the man makes the money in this country.--My +goodness! what a funny people, sir!--It 's our way of holding the +balance, ma'am.--But would it not be better to rectify the law and the +social system, dear sir?--Why, ma'am, we find it comfortabler to take +cases as they come, in the style of our fathers.--But don't you see, +my good man, that you are offering scapegoats for the comfort of the +majority?--Well, ma'am, there always were scapegoats, and always will +be; we find it comes round pretty square in the end. + +'And I may be the scapegoat, Emmy! It is perfectly possible. The grocer, +the pork-butcher, drysalter, stationer, tea-merchant, et caetera--they +sit on me. I have studied the faces of the juries, and Mr. Braddock +tells me of their composition. And he admits that they do justice +roughly--a rough and tumble country! to quote him--though he says they +are honest in intention.' + +'More shame to the man who drags you before them--if he persists!' Emma +rejoined. + +'He will. I know him. I would not have him draw back now,' said Diana, +catching her breath. 'And, dearest, do not abuse him; for if you do, you +set me imagining guiltiness. Oh, heaven!--suppose me publicly pardoned! +No, I have kinder feelings when we stand opposed. It is odd, and rather +frets my conscience, to think of the little resentment I feel. Hardly +any! He has not cause to like his wife. I can own it, and I am sorry for +him, heartily. No two have ever come together so naturally antagonistic +as we two. We walked a dozen steps in stupefied union, and hit upon +crossways. From that moment it was tug and tug; he me, I him. By +resisting, I made him a tyrant; and he, by insisting, made me a rebel. +And he was the maddest of tyrants--a weak one. My dear, he was also a +double-dealer. Or no, perhaps not in design. He was moved at one time +by his interests; at another by his idea of his honour. He took what I +could get for him, and then turned and drubbed me for getting it.' + +'This is the creature you try to excuse!' exclaimed indignant Emma. + +'Yes, because--but fancy all the smart things I said being called my +"sallies"!--can a woman live with it?--because I behaved... I despised +him too much, and I showed it. He is not a contemptible man before the +world; he is merely a very narrow one under close inspection. I could +not--or did not--conceal my feeling. I showed it not only to him, to my +friend. Husband grew to mean to me stifler, lung-contractor, iron mask, +inquisitor, everything anti-natural. He suffered under my "sallies": and +it was the worse for him when he did not perceive their drift. He is +an upright man; I have not seen marked meanness. One might build up a +respectable figure in negatives. I could add a row of noughts to the +single number he cherishes, enough to make a millionnaire of him; but +strike away the first, the rest are wind. Which signifies, that if +you do not take his estimate of himself, you will think little of his: +negative virtues. He is not eminently, that is to say, not saliently, +selfish; not rancorous, not obtrusive--tata-ta-ta. But dull!--dull as +a woollen nightcap over eyes and ears and mouth. Oh! an executioner's +black cap to me. Dull, and suddenly staring awake to the idea of his +honour. I "rendered" him ridiculous--I had caught a trick of "using +men's phrases." Dearest, now that the day of trial draws nigh--you have +never questioned me, and it was like you to spare me pain--but now I +can speak of him and myself.' Diana dropped her voice. Here was another +confession. The proximity of the trial acted like fire on her faded +recollection of incidents. It may be that partly the shame of alluding +to them had blocked her woman's memory. For one curious operation of +the charge of guiltiness upon the nearly guiltless is to make them paint +themselves pure white, to the obliteration of minor spots, until the +whiteness being acknowledged, or the ordeal imminent, the spots recur +and press upon their consciences. She resumed, in a rapid undertone: +'You know that a certain degree of independence had been, if not granted +by him, conquered by me. I had the habit of it. Obedience with him is +imprisonment--he is a blind wall. He received a commission, greatly to +his advantage, and was absent. He seems to have received information of +some sort. He returned unexpectedly, at a late hour, and attacked me at +once, middling violent. My friend--and that he is! was coming from the +House for a ten minutes' talk, as usual, on his way home, to refresh him +after the long sitting and bear-baiting he had nightly to endure. Now +let me confess: I grew frightened; Mr. Warwick was "off his head," as +they say-crazy, and I could not bear the thought of those two meeting. +While he raged I threw open the window and put the lamp near it, to +expose the whole interior--cunning as a veteran intriguer: horrible, but +it had to be done to keep them apart. He asked me what madness possessed +me, to sit by an open window at midnight, in view of the public, with a +damp wind blowing. I complained of want of air and fanned my forehead. I +heard the steps on the pavement; I stung him to retort loudly, and I was +relieved; the steps passed on. So the trick succeeded--the trick! It +was the worst I was guilty of, but it was a trick, and it branded me +trickster. It teaches me to see myself with an abyss in my nature full +of infernal possibilities. I think I am hewn in black rock. A woman who +can do as I did by instinct, needs to have an angel always near her, if +she has not a husband she reveres.' + +'We are none of us better than you, dear Tony; only some are more +fortunate, and many are cowards,' Emma said. 'You acted prudently in +a wretched situation, partly of your own making, partly of the +circumstances. But a nature like yours could not sit still and moan. +That marriage was to blame! The English notion of women seems to be that +we are born white sheep or black; circumstances have nothing to do +with our colour. They dread to grant distinctions, and to judge of us +discerningly is beyond them. Whether the fiction, that their homes are +purer than elsewhere, helps to establish the fact, I do not know: there +is a class that does live honestly; and at any rate it springs from a +liking for purity; but I am sure that their method of impressing it +on women has the dangers of things artificial. They narrow their +understanding of human nature, and that is not the way to improve the +breed.' + +'I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator; +human nature's fringes, mere finishing touches, not a part of the +texture,' said Diana; 'the pretty ornamentation. However, I fancy I +perceive some tolerance growing in the minds of the dominant sex. +Our old lawyer Mr. Braddock, who appears to have no distaste for +conversations with me, assures me he expects the day to come when +women will be encouraged to work at crafts and professions for their +independence. That is the secret of the opinion of us at present--our +dependency. Give us the means of independence, and we will gain it, and +have a turn at judging you, my lords! You shall behold a world reversed. +Whenever I am distracted by existing circumstances, I lay my finger on +the material conditions, and I touch the secret. Individually, it may be +moral with us; collectively, it is material-gross wrongs, gross hungers. +I am a married rebel, and thereof comes the social rebel. I was once a +dancing and singing girl: You remember the night of the Dublin Ball. A +Channel sea in uproar, stirred by witches, flows between.' + +'You are as lovely as you were then--I could say, lovelier,' said Emma. + +'I have unconquerable health, and I wish I could give you the half of +it, dear. I work late into the night, and I wake early and fresh in the +morning. I do not sing, that is all. A few days more, and my character +will be up before the Bull's Head to face him in the arena. The worst of +a position like mine is, that it causes me incessantly to think and +talk of myself. I believe I think less than I talk, but the subject is +growing stale; as those who are long dying feel, I dare say--if they do +not take it as the compensation for their departure.' + +The Bull's Head, or British Jury of Twelve, with the wig on it, was +faced during the latter half of a week of good news. First, Mr. Thomas +Redworth was returned to Parliament by a stout majority for the Borough +of Orrybridge: the Hon. Percy Dacier delivered a brilliant speech in +the House of Commons, necessarily pleasing to his uncle: Lord Larrian +obtained the command of the Rock: the house of The Crossways was let +to a tenant approved by Mr. Braddock: Diana received the opening +proof-sheets of her little volume, and an instalment of the modest +honorarium: and finally, the Plaintiff in the suit involving her name +was adjudged to have not proved his charge. + +She heard of it without a change of countenance. + +She could not have wished it the reverse; she was exonerated. But she +was not free; far from that; and she revenged herself on the friends who +made much of her triumph and overlooked her plight, by showing no +sign of satisfaction. There was in her bosom a revolt at the legal +consequences of the verdict--or blunt acquiescence of the Law in the +conditions possibly to be imposed on her unless she went straight to +the relieving phial; and the burden of keeping it under, set her wildest +humour alight, somewhat as Redworth remembered of her on the journey +from The Crossways to Copsley. This ironic fury, coming of the contrast +of the outer and the inner, would have been indulged to the extent +of permanent injury to her disposition had not her beloved Emma, +immediately after the tension of the struggle ceased, required her +tenderest aid. Lady Dunstane chanted victory, and at night collapsed. +By the advice of her physician she was removed to Copsley, where Diana's +labour of anxious nursing restored her through love to a saner spirit. +The hopefulness of life must bloom again in the heart whose prayers are +offered for a life dearer than its own to be preserved. A little return +of confidence in Sir Lukin also refreshed her when she saw that the poor +creature did honestly, in his shaggy rough male fashion, reverence and +cling to the flower of souls he named as his wife. His piteous groans of +self-accusation during the crisis haunted her, and made the conduct and +nature of men a bewilderment to her still young understanding. Save for +the knot of her sensations (hardly a mental memory, but a sullen knot) +which she did not disentangle to charge him with his complicity in the +blind rashness of her marriage, she might have felt sisterly, as warmly +as she compassionated him. + +It was midwinter when Dame Gossip, who keeps the exotic world alive +with her fanning whispers, related that the lovely Mrs. Warwick had +left England on board the schooner-yacht Clarissa, with Lord and Lady +Esquart, for a voyage in the Mediterranean: and (behind her hand) that +the reason was urgent, inasmuch as she fled to escape the meshes of the +terrific net of the marital law brutally whirled to capture her by the +man her husband. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER + +The Gods of this world's contests, against whom our poor stripped +individual is commonly in revolt, are, as we know, not miners, they are +reapers; and if we appear no longer on the surface, they cease to +bruise us: they will allow an arena character to be cleansed and made +presentable while enthusiastic friends preserve discretion. It is of +course less than magnanimity; they are not proposed to you for your +worship; they are little Gods, temporary as that great wave, their +parent human mass of the hour. But they have one worshipful element in +them, which is, the divine insistency upon there being two sides to a +case--to every case. And the People so far directed by them may boast of +healthfulness. Let the individual shriek, the innocent, triumphant, +have in honesty to admit the fact. One side is vanquished, according +to decree of Law, but the superior Council does not allow it to be +extinguished. + +Diana's battle was fought shadowily behind her for the space of a week +or so, with some advocates on behalf of the beaten man; then it became +a recollection of a beautiful woman, possibly erring, misvalued by a +husband, who was neither a man of the world nor a gracious yokefellow, +nor anything to match her. She, however, once out of the public flames, +had to recall her scorchings to be gentle with herself. Under a defeat, +she would have been angrily self-vindicated. The victory of the ashen +laurels drove her mind inward to gird at the hateful yoke, in compassion +for its pair of victims. Quite earnestly by such means, yet always +bearing a comical eye on her subterfuges, she escaped the extremes of +personal blame. Those advocates of her opponent in and out of court +compelled her honest heart to search within and own to faults. But were +they not natural faults? It was her marriage; it was marriage in +the abstract: her own mistake and the world's clumsy machinery of +civilization: these were the capital offenders: not the wife who would +laugh ringingly, and would have friends of the other sex, and shot her +epigrams at the helpless despot, and was at times--yes, vixenish; a +nature driven to it, but that was the word. She was too generous to +recount her charges against the vanquished. If his wretched jealousy had +ruined her, the secret high tribunal within her bosom, which judged her +guiltless for putting the sword between their marriage tie when they +stood as one, because a quarrelling couple could not in honour play the +embracing, pronounced him just pardonable. She distinguished that he +could only suppose, manlikely, one bad cause for the division. + +To this extent she used her unerring brains, more openly than on her +night of debate at The Crossways. The next moment she was off in vapour, +meditating grandly on her independence of her sex and the passions. +Love! she did not know it, she was not acquainted with either the +criminal or the domestic God, and persuaded herself that she never could +be. She was a Diana of coldness, preferring friendship; she could be the +friend of men. There was another who could be the friend of women. Her +heart leapt to Redworth. Conjuring up his clear trusty face, at their +grasp of hands when parting, she thought of her visions of her future +about the period of the Dublin Ball, and acknowledged, despite the +erratic step to wedlock, a gain in having met and proved so true a +friend. His face, figure, character, lightest look, lightest word, all +were loyal signs of a man of honour, cold as she; he was the man to +whom she could have opened her heart for inspection. Rejoicing in her +independence of an emotional sex, the impulsive woman burned with +a regret that at their parting she had not broken down conventional +barriers and given her cheek to his lips in the anti-insular fashion +with a brotherly friend. And why not when both were cold? Spirit to +spirit, she did, delightfully refreshed by her capacity to do so without +a throb. He had held her hands and looked into her eyes half a minute, +like a dear comrade; as little arousing her instincts of defensiveness +as the clearing heavens; and sisterly love for it was his due, a +sister's kiss. He needed a sister, and should have one in her. Emma's +recollected talk of 'Tom Redworth' painted him from head to foot, +brought the living man over the waters to the deck of the yacht. A stout +champion in the person of Tom Redworth was left on British land; but +for some reason past analysis, intermixed, that is, among a swarm of +sensations, Diana named her champion to herself with the formal +prefix: perhaps because she knew a man's Christian name to be dangerous +handling. They differed besides frequently in opinion, when the habit of +thinking of him as Mr. Redworth would be best. Women are bound to such +small observances, and especially the beautiful of the sisterhood, whom +the world soon warns that they carry explosives and must particularly +guard against the ignition of petty sparks. She was less indiscreet +in her thoughts than in her acts, as is the way with the reflective +daughter of impulse; though she had fine mental distinctions: what she +could offer to do 'spirit to spirit,' for instance, held nothing to +her mind of the intimacy of calling the gentleman plain Tom in mere +contemplation of him. Her friend and champion was a volunteer, far +from a mercenary, and he deserved the reward, if she could bestow it +unalarmed. They were to meet in Egypt. Meanwhile England loomed the home +of hostile forces ready to shock, had she been a visible planet, and +ready to secrete a virus of her past history, had she been making new. + +She was happily away, borne by a whiter than swan's wing on the sapphire +Mediterranean. Her letters to Emma were peeps of splendour for the +invalid: her way of life on board the yacht, and sketches of her host +and hostess as lovers in wedlock on the other side of our perilous +forties; sketches of the bays, the towns, the people-priests, +dames, cavaliers, urchins, infants, shifting groups of supple +southerners-flashed across the page like a web of silk, and were dashed +off, redolent of herself, as lightly as the silvery spray of the blue +waves she furrowed; telling, without allusions to the land behind her, +that she had dipped in the wells of blissful oblivion. Emma Dunstane, as +is usual with those who receive exhilarating correspondence from makers +of books, condemned the authoress in comparison, and now first saw that +she had the gift of writing. Only one cry: 'Italy, Eden of exiles!' +betrayed the seeming of a moan. She wrote of her poet and others +immediately. Thither had they fled; with adieu to England! + +How many have waved the adieu! And it is England nourishing, England +protecting them, England clothing them in the honours they wear. Only +the posturing lower natures, on the level of their buskins, can pluck +out the pocket-knife of sentimental spite to cut themselves loose from +her at heart in earnest. The higher, bleed as they may, too pressingly +feel their debt. Diana had the Celtic vivid sense of country. In England +she was Irish, by hereditary, and by wilful opposition. Abroad, gazing +along the waters, observing, comparing, reflecting, above all, reading +of the struggles at home, the things done and attempted, her soul of +generosity made her, though not less Irish, a daughter of Britain. It +is at a distance that striving countries should be seen if we would have +them in the pure idea; and this young woman of fervid mind, a reader +of public speeches and speculator on the tides of politics (desirous, +further, to feel herself rather more in the pure idea), began to yearn +for England long before her term of holiday exile had ended. She had +been flattered by her friend, her 'wedded martyr at the stake,' as +she named him, to believe that she could exercise a judgement in +politics--could think, even speak acutely, on public affairs. The +reports of speeches delivered by the men she knew or knew of, set her +thrilling; and she fancied the sensibility to be as independent of her +sympathy with the orators as her political notions were sovereignty +above a sex devoted to trifles, and the feelings of a woman who had gone +through fire. She fancied it confidently, notwithstanding a peculiar +intuition that the plunge into the nobler business of the world would be +a haven of safety for a woman with blood and imagination, when writing +to Emma: 'Mr. Redworth's great success in Parliament is good in itself, +whatever his views of present questions; and I do not heed them when I +look to what may be done by a man of such power in striking at unjust +laws, which keep the really numerically better-half of the population +in a state of slavery. If he had been a lawyer! It must be a lawyer's +initiative--a lawyer's Bill. Mr. Percy Dacier also spoke well, as might +have been expected, and his uncle's compliment to him was merited. +Should you meet him sound him. He has read for the Bar, and is younger +than Mr. Redworth. The very young men and the old are our hope. The +middleaged are hard and fast for existing facts. We pick our leaders on +the slopes, the incline and decline of the mountain--not on the upper +table-land midway, where all appears to men so solid, so tolerably +smooth, save for a few excrescences, roughnesses, gradually to be +levelled at their leisure; which induces one to protest that the +middle-age of men is their time of delusion. It is no paradox. They may +be publicly useful in a small way. I do not deny it at all. They must be +near the gates of life--the opening or the closing--for their minds to +be accessible to the urgency of the greater questions. Otherwise the +world presents itself to them under too settled an aspect--unless, of +course, Vesuvian Revolution shakes the land. And that touches only their +nerves. I dream of some old Judge! There is one--if having caught +we could keep him. But I dread so tricksy a pilot. You have guessed +him--the ancient Puck! We have laughed all day over the paper telling +us of his worrying the Lords. Lady Esquart congratulates her husband on +being out of it. Puck 'biens ride' and bewigged might perhaps--except +that at the critical moment he would be sure to plead allegiance +to Oberon. However, the work will be performed by some one: I am +prophetic:--when maidens are grandmothers!--when your Tony is wearing a +perpetual laugh in the unhusbanded regions where there is no institution +of the wedding-tie.' + +For the reason that she was not to participate in the result of the old +Judge's or young hero's happy championship of the cause of her sex, she +conceived her separateness high aloof, and actually supposed she was a +contemplative, simply speculative political spirit, impersonal albeit a +woman. This, as Emma, smiling at the lines, had not to learn, was always +her secret pride of fancy--the belief in her possession of a disengaged +intellect. + +The strange illusion, so clearly exposed to her correspondent, was +maintained through a series of letters very slightly descriptive, dated +from the Piraeus, the Bosphorus, the coasts of the Crimea, all more or +less relating to the latest news of the journals received on board the +yacht, and of English visitors fresh from the country she now seemed +fond of calling 'home.' Politics, and gentle allusions to the curious +exhibition of 'love in marriage' shown by her amiable host and hostess: +'these dear Esquarts, who are never tired of one another, but courtly +courting, tempting me to think it possible that a fortunate selection +and a mutual deference may subscribe to human happiness:--filled the +paragraphs. Reviews of her first literary venture were mentioned once: +'I was well advised by Mr. Redworth in putting ANTONIA for authoress. +She is a buff jerkin to the stripes, and I suspect that the signature +of D. E. M., written in full, would have cawed woefully to hear that +her style is affected, her characters nullities, her cleverness forced, +etc., etc. As it is, I have much the same contempt for poor Antonia's +performance. Cease penning, little fool! She writes, "with some +comprehension of the passion of love." I know her to be a stranger to +the earliest cry. So you see, dear, that utter ignorance is the mother +of the Art. Dialogues "occasionally pointed." She has a sister who may +do better.--But why was I not apprenticed to a serviceable profession or +a trade? I perceive now that a hanger-on of the market had no right to +expect a happier fate than mine has been.' + +On the Nile, in the winter of the year, Diana met the Hon. Percy Dacier. +He was introduced to her at Cairo by Redworth. The two gentlemen had +struck up a House of Commons acquaintanceship, and finding themselves +bound for the same destination, had grown friendly. Redworth's arrival +had been pleasantly expected. She remarked on Dacier's presence to Emma, +without sketch or note of him as other than much esteemed by Lord and +Lady Esquart. These, with Diana, Redworth, Dacier, the German Eastern +traveller Schweizerbarth, and the French Consul and Egyptologist +Duriette, composed a voyaging party up the river, of which expedition +Redworth was Lady Dunstane's chief writer of the records. His novel +perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing; and his +tenderness to the Beauty's coquettry between the two foreign rivals, +moved a deeper feeling. The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice; +Diana joined them in harmony. They complained apart severally of the +accompaniment and the singer. Our English criticized them apart; and +that is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to +entertainment. At home the Esquarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted +Redworth's manly chest-notes at the piano. Each of them declined to +be vocal. Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and +French songs, Irish also. She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and +Garryowen all the way. 'Madame est Irlandaise?' Redworth heard the +Frenchman say, and he owned to what was implied in the answering tone of +the question. 'We should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven!' So +Tony in exile still managed to do something for her darling Erin. The +solitary woman on her heights at Copsley raised an exclamation of, 'Oh! +that those two had been or could be united!' She was conscious of a +mystic symbolism in the prayer. + +She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of another. Writing +from Venice, Diana mentioned Mr. Percy Dacier as being engaged to an +heiress; 'A Miss Asper, niece of a mighty shipowner, Mr. Quintin Manx, +Lady Esquart tells me: money fabulous, and necessary to a younger son +devoured with ambition. The elder brother, Lord Creedmore, is a common +Nimrod, always absent in Hungary, Russia, America, hunting somewhere. +Mr. Dacier will be in the Cabinet with the next Ministry.' No more of +him. A new work by ANTONIA was progressing. + +The Summer in South Tyrol passed like a royal procession before young +eyes for Diana, and at the close of it, descending the Stelvio, idling +through the Valtelline, Como Lake was reached, Diana full of her work, +living the double life of the author. At Bellagio one afternoon Mr. +Percy Dacier appeared. She remembered subsequently a disappointment she +felt in not beholding Mr. Redworth either with him or displacing him. If +engaged to a lady, he was not an ardent suitor; nor was he a pointedly +complimentary acquaintance. His enthusiasm was reserved for Italian +scenery. She had already formed a sort of estimate of his character, as +an indifferent observer may do, and any woman previous to the inflaming +of her imagination, if that is in store for her; and she now fell to +work resetting the puzzle it became as soon her positive conclusions had +to be shaped again. 'But women never can know young men,' she wrote +to Emma, after praising his good repute as one of the brotherhood. 'He +drops pretty sentences now and then: no compliments; milky nuts. Of +course he has a head, or he would not be where he is--and that seems +always to me the most enviable place a young man can occupy.' She +observed in him a singular conflicting of a buoyant animal nature with +a curb of studiousness, as if the fardels of age were piling on his +shoulders before youth had quitted its pastures. + +His build of limbs and his features were those of the finely-bred +English; he had the English taste for sports, games, manly diversions; +and in the bloom of life, under thirty, his head was given to bend. The +head bending on a tall upright figure, where there was breadth of chest, +told of weights working. She recollected his open look, larger than +inquiring, at the introduction to her; and it recurred when she uttered +anything specially taking. What it meant was past a guess, though +comparing it with the frank directness of Redworth's eyes, she saw the +difference between a look that accepted her and one that dilated on two +opinions. + +Her thought of the gentleman was of a brilliant young charioteer in the +ruck of the race, watchful for his chance to push to the front; and she +could have said that a dubious consort might spoil a promising career. +It flattered her to think that she sometimes prompted him, sometimes +illumined. He repeated sentences she had spoken. 'I shall be better +able to describe Mr. Dacier when you and I sit together, my Emmy, and a +stroke here and there completes the painting. Set descriptions are +good for puppets. Living men and women are too various in the mixture +fashioning them--even the "external presentment"--to be livingly +rendered in a formal sketch. I may tell you his eyes are pale blue, +his features regular, his hair silky, brownish, his legs long, his head +rather stooping (only the head), his mouth commonly closed; these are +the facts, and you have seen much the same in a nursery doll. Such +literary craft is of the nursery. So with landscapes. The art of the +pen (we write on darkness) is to rouse the inward vision, instead of +labouring with a Drop-scene brush, as if it were to the eye; because our +flying minds cannot contain a protracted description. That is why the +poets, who spring imagination with a word or a phrase, paint lasting +pictures. The Shakespearian, the Dantesque, are in a line, two at most. +He lends an attentive ear when I speak, agrees or has a quaint +pucker of the eyebrows dissenting inwardly. He lacks mental +liveliness--cheerfulness, I should say, and is thankful to have it +imparted. One suspects he would be a dull domestic companion. He has +a veritable thirst for hopeful views of the world, and no spiritual +distillery of his own. He leans to depression. Why! The broken reed you +call your Tony carries a cargo, all of her manufacture--she reeks of +secret stills; and here is a young man--a sapling oak--inclined to +droop. His nature has an air of imploring me que je d'arrose! I begin +to perform Mrs. Dr. Pangloss on purpose to brighten him--the mind, the +views. He is not altogether deficient in conversational gaiety, and he +shines in exercise. But the world is a poor old ball bounding down a +hill--to an Irish melody in the evening generally, by request. So far +of Mr. Percy Dacier, of whom I have some hopes--distant, perhaps +delusive--that he may be of use to our cause. He listens. It is an +auspicious commencement.' + +Lugano is the Italian lake most lovingly encircled by mountain arms, and +every height about it may be scaled with esce. The heights have their +nest of waters below for a home scene, the southern Swiss peaks, with +celestial Monta Rosa, in prospect. It was there that Diana reawakened, +after the trance of a deadly draught, to the glory of the earth and her +share in it. She wakened like the Princess of the Kiss; happily not to +kisses; to no sign, touch or call that she could trace backward. The +change befell her without a warning. After writing deliberately to her +friend Emma, she laid down her pen and thought of nothing; and into +this dreamfulness a wine passed, filling her veins, suffusing her mind, +quickening her soul: and coming whence? out of air, out of the yonder of +air. She could have imagined a seraphic presence in the room, that bade +her arise and live; take the cup of the wells of youth arrested at her +lips by her marriage; quit her wintry bondage for warmth, light, space, +the quick of simple being. And the strange pure ecstasy was not a +transient electrification; it came in waves on a continuous tide; +looking was living; walking flying. She hardly knew that she slept. The +heights she had seen rosy at eve were marked for her ascent in the dawn. +Sleep was one wink, and fresh as the dewy field and rockflowers on her +way upward, she sprang to more and more of heaven, insatiable, happily +chirruping over her possessions. The threading of the town among +the dear common people before others were abroad, was a pleasure and +pleasant her solitariness threading the gardens at the base of the rock, +only she astir; and the first rough steps of the winding footpath, the +first closed buds, the sharper air, the uprising of the mountain with +her ascent; and pleasant too was her hunger and the nibble at a little +loaf of bread. A linnet sang in her breast, an eagle lifted her feet. +The feet were verily winged, as they are in a season of youth when +the blood leaps to light from the pressure of the under forces, like a +source at the wellheads, and the whole creature blooms, vital in every +energy as a spirit. To be a girl again was magical. She could fancy her +having risen from the dead. And to be a girl, with a woman's broader +vision and receptiveness of soul, with knowledge of evil, and winging to +ethereal happiness, this was a revelation of our human powers. + +She attributed the change to the influences of nature's beauty and +grandeur. Nor had her woman's consciousness to play the chrysalis in +any shy recesses of her heart; she was nowhere veiled or torpid; she was +illumined, like the Salvatore she saw in the evening beams and mounted +in the morning's; and she had not a spot of seeresy; all her nature +flew and bloomed; she was bird, flower, flowing river, a quivering +sensibility unweighted, enshrouded. Desires and hopes would surely have +weighted and shrouded her. She had none, save for the upper air, the +eyes of the mountain. + +Which was the dream--her past life or this ethereal existence? But +this ran spontaneously, and the other had often been stimulated--her +vivaciousness on the Nile-boat, for a recent example. She had not a +doubt that her past life was the dream, or deception: and for the reason +that now she was compassionate, large of heart toward all beneath her. +Let them but leave her free, they were forgiven, even to prayers for +their well-being! The plural number in the case was an involuntary +multiplying of the single, coming of her incapacity during this +elevation and rapture of the senses to think distinctly of that One who +had discoloured her opening life. Freedom to breathe, gaze, climb, +grow with the grasses, fly with the clouds, to muse, to sing, to be +an unclaimed self, dispersed upon earth, air, sky, to find a keener +transfigured self in that radiation--she craved no more. + +Bear in mind her beauty, her charm of tongue, her present state of white +simplicity in fervour: was there ever so perilous a woman for the most +guarded and clearest-eyed of young men to meet at early morn upon a +mountain side? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL, AND OF A SCENE OF EARLY MORNING + +On a round of the mountains rising from Osteno, South eastward of +Lugano, the Esquart party rose from the natural grotto and headed their +carriages up and down the defiles, halting for a night at Rovio, +a little village below the Generoso, lively with waterfalls and +watercourses; and they fell so in love with the place, that after +roaming along the flowery borderways by moonlight, they resolved to rest +there two or three days and try some easy ascents. In the diurnal course +of nature, being pleasantly tired, they had the avowed intention of +sleeping there; so they went early to their beds, and carelessly wished +one another good-night, none of them supposing slumber to be anywhere +one of the warlike arts, a paradoxical thing you must battle for and can +only win at last when utterly beaten. Hard by their inn, close enough +for a priestly homily to have been audible, stood a church campanile, +wherein hung a Bell, not ostensibly communicating with the demons of the +pit; in daylight rather a merry comrade. But at night, when the children +of nerves lay stretched, he threw off the mask. As soon as they had +fairly nestled, he smote their pillows a shattering blow, loud for the +retold preluding quarters, incredibly clanging the number ten. Then he +waited for neighbouring campanili to box the ears of slumber's votaries +in turn; whereupon, under pretence of excessive conscientiousness, or +else oblivious of his antecedent, damnable misconduct, or perhaps in +actual league and trapdoor conspiracy with the surging goblin hosts +beneath us, he resumed his blaring strokes, a sonorous recapitulation +of the number; all the others likewise. It was an alarum fit to warn +of Attila or Alaric; and not, simply the maniacal noise invaded +the fruitful provinces of sleep like Hun and Vandal, the irrational +repetition ploughed the minds of those unhappy somnivolents, leaving +them worse than sheared by barbarians, disrupt, as by earthquake, with +the unanswerable question to Providence, Why!--Why twice? + +Designing slumberers are such infants. When they have undressed and +stretched themselves, flat, it seems that they have really gone back to +their mothers' breasts, and they fret at whatsoever does not smack +of nature, or custom. The cause of a repetition so senseless in its +violence, and so unnecessary, set them querying and kicking until the +inevitable quarters recommenced. Then arose an insurgent rabble in +their bosoms, it might be the loosened imps of darkness, urging them to +speculate whether the proximate monster about to dole out the eleventh +hour in uproar would again forget himself and repeat his dreary +arithmetic a second time; for they were unaware of his religious +obligation, following the hour of the district, to inform them of the +tardy hour of Rome. They waited in suspense, curiosity enabling them to +bear the first crash callously. His performance was the same. And now +they took him for a crazy engine whose madness had infected the whole +neighbourhood. Now was the moment to fight for sleep in contempt of him, +and they began by simulating an entry into the fortress they were +to defend, plunging on their pillows, battening down their eyelids, +breathing with a dreadful regularity. Alas! it came to their knowledge +that the Bell was in possession and they the besiegers. Every resonant +quarter was anticipated up to the blow, without averting its murderous +abruptness; and an executioner Midnight that sounded, in addition to +the reiterated quarters, four and twenty ringing hammerstrokes, with the +aching pause between the twelves, left them the prey of the legions +of torturers which are summed, though not described, in the title of a +sleepless night. + +From that period the curse was milder, but the victims raged. They swam +on vasty deeps, they knocked at rusty gates, they shouldered all the +weapons of black Insomnia's armoury and became her soldiery, doing her +will upon themselves. Of her originally sprang the inspired teaching of +the doom of men to excruciation in endlessness. She is the fountain of +the infinite ocean whereon the exceedingly sensitive soul is tumbled +everlastingly, with the diversion of hot pincers to appease its appetite +for change. + +Dacier was never the best of sleepers. He had taken to exercise his +brains prematurely, not only in learning, but also in reflection; and +a reflectiveness that is indulged before we have a rigid mastery of +the emotions, or have slain them, is apt to make a young man more than +commonly a child of nerves: nearly as much so as the dissipated, with +the difference that they are hilarious while wasting their treasury, +which he is not; and he may recover under favouring conditions, which is +a point of vantage denied to them. Physically he had stout reserves, for +he had not disgraced the temple. His intemperateness lay in the craving +to rise and lead: a precocious ambition. This apparently modest +young man started with an aim--and if in the distance and with but a +slingstone, like the slender shepherd fronting the Philistine, all his +energies were in his aim--at Government. He had hung on the fringe of +an Administration. His party was out, and he hoped for higher station on +its return to power. Many perplexities were therefore buzzing about his +head; among them at present one sufficiently magnified and voracious +to swallow the remainder. He added force to the interrogation as to why +that Bell should sound its inhuman strokes twice, by asking himself why +he was there to hear it! A strange suspicion of a bewitchment might have +enlightened him if he had been a man accustomed to yield to the peculiar +kind of sorcery issuing from that sex. He rather despised the power of +women over men: and nevertheless he was there, listening to that Bell, +instead of having obeyed the call of his family duties, when the latter +were urgent. He had received letters at Lugano, summoning him home, +before he set forth on his present expedition. The noisy alarum told him +he floundered in quags, like a silly creature chasing a marsh-lamp. But +was it so? Was it not, on the contrary, a serious pursuit of the secret +of a woman's character?--Oh, a woman and her character! Ordinary women +and their characters might set to work to get what relationship and +likeness they could. They had no secret to allure. This one had: she +had the secret of lake waters under rock, unfathomable in limpidness. +He could not think of her without shooting at nature, and nature's very +sweetest and subtlest, for comparison. As to her sex, his active man's +contempt of the petticoated secret attractive to boys and graylings, +made him believe that in her he hunted the mind and the spirit: +perchance a double mind, a twilighted spirit; but not a mere woman. +She bore no resemblance to the bundle of women. Well, she was worth +studying; she had ideas, and could give ear to ideas. Furthermore, a +couple of the members of his family inclined to do her injustice. At +least, they judged her harshly, owing, he thought, to an inveterate +opinion they held regarding Lord Dannisburgh's obliquity in relation to +women. He shared it, and did not concur in, their verdict upon the woman +implicated. That is to say, knowing something of her now, he could see +the possibility of her innocence in the special charm that her mere +sparkle of features and speech, and her freshness would have for a man +like his uncle. The possibility pleaded strongly on her behalf, while +the darker possibility weighted by his uncle's reputation plucked at him +from below. + +She was delightful to hear, delightful to see; and her friends loved +her and had faith in her. So clever a woman might be too clever for her +friends!... + +The circle he moved in hummed of women, prompting novices as well as +veterans to suspect that the multitude of them, and notably the fairest, +yet more the cleverest, concealed the serpent somewhere. + +She certainly had not directed any of her arts upon him. Besides he was +half engaged. And that was a burning perplexity; not because of abstract +scruples touching the necessity for love in marriage. The young lady, +great heiress though she was, and willing, as she allowed him to +assume; graceful too, reputed a beauty; struck him cold. He fancied +her transparent, only Arctic. Her transparency displayed to him all the +common virtues, and a serene possession of the inestimable and eminent +one outweighing all; but charm, wit, ardour, intercommunicative +quickness, and kindling beauty, airy grace, were qualities that a man, +it seemed, had to look for in women spotted by a doubt of their having +the chief and priceless. + +However, he was not absolutely plighted. Nor did it matter to him +whether this or that woman concealed the tail of the serpent and trail, +excepting the singular interest this woman managed to excite, and +so deeply as set him wondering how that Resurrection Bell might be +affecting her ability to sleep. Was she sleeping?--or waking? His +nervous imagination was a torch that alternately lighted her lying +asleep with the innocent, like a babe, and tossing beneath the overflow +of her dark hair, hounded by haggard memories. She fluttered before him +in either aspect; and another perplexity now was to distinguish within +himself which was the aspect he preferred. Great Nature brought him +thus to drink of her beauty, under the delusion that the act was a +speculation on her character. + +The Bell, with its clash, throb and long swoon of sound, reminded him of +her name: Diana!--An attribute? or a derision? + +It really mattered nothing to him, save for her being maligned; and if +most unfairly, then that face of the varying expressions, and the rich +voice, and the remembered gentle and taking words coming from her, +appealed to him with a supplicating vividness that pricked his heart to +leap. + +He was dozing when the Bell burst through the thin division between +slumber and wakefulness, recounting what seemed innumerable peals, hard +on his cranium. Gray daylight blanched the window and the bed: his watch +said five of the morning. He thought of the pleasure of a bath beneath +some dashing spray-showers; and jumped up to dress, feeling a queer +sensation of skin in his clothes, the sign of a feverish night; and +yawning he went into the air. Leftward the narrow village street led to +the footway along which he could make for the mountain-wall. He cast one +look at the head of the campanile, silly as an owlish roysterer's glazed +stare at the young Aurora, and hurried his feet to check the yawns +coming alarmingly fast, in the place of ideas. + +His elevation above the valley was about the kneecap of the Generoso. +Waters of past rain-clouds poured down the mountain-sides like veins of +metal, here and there flinging off a shower on the busy descent; only +dubiously animate in the lack lustre of the huge bulk piled against a +yellow East that wafted fleets of pinky cloudlets overhead. He mounted +his path to a level with inviting grassmounds where water circled, +running from scoops and cups to curves and brook-streams, and in his +fancy calling to him to hear them. To dip in them was his desire. To +roll and shiver braced by the icy flow was the spell to break that +baleful incantation of the intolerable night; so he struck across a +ridge of boulders, wreck of a landslip from the height he had hugged, to +the open space of shadowed undulations, and soon had his feet on turf. +Heights to right and to left, and between them, aloft, a sky the rosy +wheelcourse of the chariot of morn, and below, among the knolls, choice +of sheltered nooks where waters whispered of secresy to satisfy Diana +herself. They have that whisper and waving of secresy in secret scenery; +they beckon to the bath; and they conjure classic visions of the pudency +of the Goddess irate or unsighted. The semi-mythological state of mind, +built of old images and favouring haunts, was known to Dacier. The name +of Diana, playing vaguely on his consciousness, helped to it. He had no +definite thought of the mortal woman when the highest grass-roll near +the rock gave him view of a bowered source and of a pool under a chain +of cascades, bounded by polished shelves and slabs. The very spot for +him, he decided at the first peep; and at the second, with fingers +instinctively loosening his waist-coat buttons for a commencement, he +shouldered round and strolled away, though not at a rapid pace, nor far +before he halted. + +That it could be no other than she, the figure he had seen standing +beside the pool, he was sure. Why had he turned? Thoughts thick and +swift as a blush in the cheeks of seventeen overcame him; and queen +of all, the thought bringing the picture of this mountain-solitude to +vindicate a woman shamefully assailed.--She who found her pleasure in +these haunts of nymph and Goddess, at the fresh cold bosom of nature, +must be clear as day. She trusted herself to the loneliness here, and to +the honour of men, from a like irreflective sincereness. She was unable +to imagine danger where her own impelling thirst was pure... + +The thoughts, it will be discerned, were but flashes of a momentary +vivid sensibility. Where a woman's charm has won half the battle, her +character is an advancing standard and sings victory, let her do no more +than take a quiet morning walk before breakfast. + +But why had he turned his back on her? There was nothing in his presence +to alarm, nothing in her appearance to forbid. The motive and the +movement were equally quaint; incomprehensible to him; for after putting +himself out of sight, he understood the absurdity of the supposition +that she would seek the secluded sylvan bath for the same purpose as +he. Yet now he was, debarred from going to meet her. She might have an +impulse to bathe her feet. Her name was Diana.... + +Yes, and a married woman; and a proclaimed one! + +And notwithstanding those brassy facts, he was ready to side with the +evidence declaring her free from stain; and further, to swear that her +blood was Diana's! + +Nor had Dacier ever been particularly poetical about women. The present +Diana had wakened his curiosity, had stirred his interest in her, +pricked his admiration, but gradually, until a sleepless night with its +flock of raven-fancies under that dominant Bell, ended by colouring her, +the moment she stood in his eyes, as freshly as the morning heavens. +We are much influenced in youth by sleepless nights: they disarm, they +predispose us to submit to soft occasion; and in our youth occasion is +always coming. + +He heard her voice. She had risen up the grass-mound, and he hung +brooding half-way down. She was dressed in some texture of the hue of +lavender. A violet scarf loosely knotted over the bosom opened on her +throat. The loop of her black hair curved under a hat of gray beaver. +Memorably radiant was her face. + +They met, exchanged greetings, praised the beauty of the morning, and +struck together on the Bell. She laughed: 'I heard it at ten; I slept +till four. I never wake later. I was out in the air by half-past. Were +you disturbed?' + +He alluded to his troubles with the Bell. + +'It sounded like a felon's heart in skeleton ribs,' he said. + +'Or a proser's tongue in a hollow skull,' said she. + +He bowed to her conversible readiness, and at once fell into the +background, as he did only with her, to perform accordant bass in +their dialogue; for when a woman lightly caps our strained remarks, we +gallantly surrender the leadership, lest she should too cuttingly assert +her claim. + +Some sweet wild cyclamen flowers were at her breast. She held in +her left hand a bunch of buds and blown cups of the pale purple +meadow-crocus. He admired them. She told him to look round. He confessed +to not having noticed them in the grass: what was the name? Colchicum, +in Botany, she said. + +'These are plucked to be sent to a friend; otherwise I'm reluctant to +take the life of flowers for a whim. Wild flowers, I mean. I am not +sentimental about garden flowers: they are cultivated for decoration, +grown for clipping.' + +'I suppose they don't carry the same signification,' said Dacier, in the +tone of a pupil to such themes. + +'They carry no feeling,' said she. 'And that is my excuse for plucking +these, where they seem to spring like our town-dream of happiness. I +believe they are sensible of it too; but these must do service to my +invalid friend, who cannot travel. Are you ever as much interested in +the woes of great ladies as of country damsels? I am not--not unless +they have natural distinction. You have met Lady Dunstane?' + +The question sounded artless. Dacier answered that he thought he +had seen her somewhere once, and Diana shut her lips on a rising +under-smile. + +'She is the coeur d'or of our time; the one soul I would sacrifice these +flowers to.' + +'A bit of a blue-stocking, I think I have heard said.' + +'She might have been admitted to the Hotel Rambouillet, without being +anything of a Precieuse. She is the woman of the largest heart now +beating.' + +'Mr. Redworth talked of her.' + +'As she deserved, I am sure.' + +'Very warmly.' + +'He would!' + +'He told me you were the Damon and Pythias of women.' + +'Her one fault is an extreme humility that makes her always play second +to me; and as I am apt to gabble, I take the lead; and I am froth in +comparison. I can reverence my superiors even when tried by intimacy +with them. She is the next heavenly thing to heaven that I know. Court +her, if ever you come across her. Or have you a man's horror of women +with brains?' + +'Am I expressing it?' said he. + +'Do not breathe London or Paris here on me.' She fanned the crocuses +under her chin. 'The early morning always has this--I wish I had a +word!--touch... whisper... gleam... beat of wings--I envy poets now more +than ever!--of Eden, I was going to say. Prose can paint evening and +moonlight, but poets are needed to sing the dawn. That is because prose +is equal to melancholy stuff. Gladness requires the finer language. +Otherwise we have it coarse--anything but a reproduction. You +politicians despise the little distinctions "twixt tweedledum and +tweedledee," I fancy.' + +Of the poetic sort, Dacier's uncle certainly did. For himself he +confessed to not having thought much on them. + +'But how divine is utterance!' she said. 'As we to the brutes, poets are +to us.' + +He listened somewhat with the head of the hanged. A beautiful woman +choosing to rhapsodize has her way, and is not subjected to the critical +commentary within us. He wondered whether she had discoursed in such a +fashion to his uncle. + +'I can read good poetry,' said he. + +'If you would have this valley--or mountain-cleft, one should call +it--described, only verse could do it for you,' Diana pursued, and +stopped, glanced at his face, and smiled. She had spied the end of a +towel peeping out of one of his pockets. 'You came out for a bath! Go +back, by all means, and mount that rise of grass where you first saw +me; and down on the other side, a little to the right, you will find the +very place for a bath, at a corner of the rock--a natural fountain; a +bubbling pool in a ring of brushwood, with falling water, so tempting +that I could have pardoned a push: about five feet deep. Lose no time.' + +He begged to assure her that he would rather stroll with her: it had +been only a notion of bathing by chance when he pocketed the towel. + +'Dear me,' she cried, 'if I had been a man I should have scurried off at +a signal of release, quick as a hare I once woke up in a field with my +foot on its back.' + +Dacier's eyebrows knotted a trifle over her eagerness to dismiss him: +he was not used to it, but rather to be courted by women, and to +condescend. + +'I shall not long, I'm afraid, have the pleasure of walking beside you +and hearing you. I had letters at Lugano. My uncle is unwell, I hear.' + +'Lord Dannisburgh?' + +The name sprang from her lips unhesitatingly. + +His nodded affirmative altered her face and her voice. + +'It is not a grave illness?' + +'They rather fear it.' + +'You had the news at Lugano?' + +He answered the implied reproach: 'I can be of no, service.' + +'But surely!' + +'It's even doubtful that he would be bothered to receive me. We hold no +views in common--excepting one.' + +'Could I?' she exclaimed. 'O that I might! If he is really ill! But if +it is actually serious he would perhaps have a wish... I can nurse. I +know I have the power to cheer him. You ought indeed to be in England.' + +Dacier said he had thought it better to wait for later reports. 'I shall +drive to Lugano this afternoon, and act on the information I get there. +Probably it ends my holiday.' + +'Will you do me the favour to write me word?--and especially tell me if +you think he would like to have me near him,' said Diana. 'And let him +know that if he wants nursing or cheerful companionship, I am at any +moment ready to come.' + +The flattery of a beautiful young woman to wait on him would be very +agreeable to Lord Dannisburgh, Dacier conceived. Her offer to go was +possibly purely charitable. But the prudence of her occupation of the +post obscured whatever appeared admirable in her devotedness. Her +choice of a man like Lord Dannisburgh for the friend to whom she +could sacrifice her good name less falteringly than she gathered those +field-flowers was inexplicable; and she herself a darker riddle at each +step of his reading. + +He promised curtly to write. 'I will do my best to hit a flying +address.' + +'Your Club enables me to hit a permanent one that will establish the +communication,' said Diana. 'We shall not sleep another night at Rovio. +Lady Esquart is the lightest of sleepers, and if you had a restless +time, she and her husband must have been in purgatory. Besides, permit +me to say, you should be with your party. The times are troublous--not +for holidays! Your holiday has had a haunted look, creditably to your +conscience as a politician. These Corn Law agitations!' + +'Ah, but no politics here!' said Dacier. + +'Politics everywhere!--in the Courts of Faery! They are not discord to +me.' + +'But not the last day--the last hour!' he pleaded. + +'Well! only do not forget your assurance to me that you would give some +thoughts to Ireland--and the cause of women. Has it slipped from your +memory?' + +'If I see the chance of serving you, you may trust to me.' + +She sent up an interjection on the misfortune of her not having been +born a man. + +It was to him the one smart of sourness in her charm as a woman. + +Among the boulder-stones of the ascent to the path, he ventured to +propose a little masculine assistance in a hand stretched mutely. +Although there was no great need for help, her natural kindliness +checked the inclination to refuse it. When their hands disjoined she +found herself reddening. She cast it on the exertion. Her heart was +throbbing. It might be the exertion likewise. + +He walked and talked much more airily along the descending pathway, as +if he had suddenly become more intimately acquainted with her. + +She listened, trying to think of the manner in which he might be taught +to serve that cause she had at heart; and the colour deepened on her +cheeks till it set fire to her underlying consciousness: blood to +spirit. A tremour of alarm ran through her. + +His request for one of the crocuses to keep as a souvenir of the morning +was refused. 'They are sacred; they were all devoted to my friend when I +plucked them.' + +He pointed to a half-open one, with the petals in disparting pointing +to junction, and compared it to the famous tiptoe ballet-posture, arms +above head and fingers like swallows meeting in air, of an operatic +danseuse of the time. + +'I do not see it, because I will not see it,' she said, and she found a +personal cooling and consolement in the phrase.--We have this power of +resisting invasion of the poetic by the commonplace, the spirit by the +blood, if we please, though you men may not think that we have! Her +alarmed sensibilities bristled and made head against him as an enemy. +She fancied (for the aforesaid reason--because she chose) that it was on +account of the offence to her shy morning pleasure by his Londonizing. +At any other moment her natural liveliness and trained social ease would +have taken any remark on the eddies of the tide of converse; and so +she told herself, and did not the less feel wounded, adverse, armed. He +seemed somehow--to have dealt a mortal blow to the happy girl she had +become again. The woman she was protested on behalf of the girl, while +the girl in her heart bent lowered sad eyelids to the woman; and which +of them was wiser of the truth she could not have said, for she was +honestly not aware of the truth, but she knew she was divided in halves, +with one half pitying the other, one rebuking: and all because of the +incongruous comparison of a wild flower to an opera dancer! Absurd +indeed. We human creatures are the silliest on earth, most certainly. + +Dacier had observed the blush, and the check to her flowing tongue did +not escape him as they walked back to the inn down the narrow street of +black rooms, where the women gossiped at the fountain and the cobbler +threaded on his doorstep. His novel excitement supplied the deficiency, +sweeping him past minor reflections. He was, however, surprised to +hear her tell Lady Esquart, as soon as they were together at the +breakfast-table, that he had the intention of starting for England; +and further surprised, and slightly stung too, when on the poor lady's, +moaning over her recollection of the midnight Bell, and vowing she could +not attempt to sleep another night in the place, Diana declared her +resolve to stay there one day longer with her maid, and explore the +neighbourhood for the wild flowers in which it abounded. Lord and Lady +Esquart agreed to anything agreeable to her, after excusing themselves +for the necessitated flight, piteously relating the story of their +sufferings. My lord could have slept, but he had remained awake to +comfort my lady. + +'True knightliness!' Diana said, in praise of these long married lovers; +and she asked them what they had talked of during the night. + +'You, my dear, partly,' said Lady Esquart. + +'For an opiate?' + +'An invocation of the morning,' said Dacier. + +Lady Esquart looked at Diana and, at him. She thought it was well that +her fair friend should stay. It was then settled for Diana to rejoin +them the next evening at Lugano, thence to proceed to Luino on the +Maggiore. + +'I fear it is good-bye for me,' Dacier said to her, as he was about to +step into the carriage with the Esquarts. + +'If you have not better news of your uncle, it must be,' she replied, +and gave him her hand promptly and formally, hardly diverting her eyes +from Lady Esquart to grace the temporary gift with a look. The last of +her he saw was a waving of her arm and finger pointing triumphantly at +the Bell in the tower. It said, to an understanding unpractised in the +feminine mysteries: 'I can sleep through anything.' What that revealed +of her state of conscience and her nature, his efforts to preserve the +lovely optical figure blocked his guessing. He was with her friends, who +liked her the more they knew her, and he was compelled to lean to their +view of the perplexing woman. + +'She is a riddle to the world,' Lady Esquart said, 'but I know that she +is good. It is the best of signs when women take to her and are proud to +be her friend.' + +My lord echoed his wife. She talked in this homely manner to stop any +notion of philandering that the young gentleman might be disposed to +entertain in regard to a lady so attractive to the pursuit as Diana's +beauty and delicate situation might make her seem. + +'She is an exceedingly clever person, and handsomer than report, which +is uncommon,' said Dacier, becoming voluble on town-topics, Miss +Asper incidentally among them. He denied Lady Esquart's charge of an +engagement; the matter hung. + +His letters at Lugano summoned him to England instantly. + +'I have taken leave of Mrs. Warwick, but tell her I regret, et caetera,' +he said; 'and by the way, as my uncle's illness appears to be serious, +the longer she is absent the better, perhaps.' + +'It would never do,' said Lady Esquart, understanding his drift +immediately. 'We winter in Rome. She will not abandon us--I have her +word for it. Next Easter we are in Paris; and so home, I suppose. There +will be no hurry before we are due at Cowes. We seem to have become +confirmed wanderers; for two of us at least it is likely to be our last +great tour.' + +Dacier informed her that he had pledged his word to write to +Mrs. Warwick of his uncle's condition, and the several appointed +halting-places of the Esquarts between the lakes and Florence were named +to him. Thus all things were openly treated; all had an air of being +on the surface; the communications passing between Mrs. Warwick and the +Hon. Percy Dacier might have been perused by all the world. None but +that portion of it, sage in suspiciousness, which objects to such +communications under any circumstances, could have detected in their +correspondence a spark of coming fire or that there was common warmth. +She did not feel it, nor did he. The position of the two interdicted it +to a couple honourably sensible of social decencies; and who were, be it +added, kept apart. The blood is the treacherous element in the story +of the nobly civilized, of which secret Diana, a wife and no wife, a +prisoner in liberty, a blooming woman imagining herself restored to +transcendent maiden ecstacies--the highest youthful poetic--had received +some faint intimation when the blush flamed suddenly in her cheeks and +her heart knelled like the towers of a city given over to the devourer. +She had no wish to meet him again. Without telling herself why, she +would have shunned the meeting. Disturbers that thwarted her simple +happiness in sublime scenery were best avoided. She thought so the more +for a fitful blur to the simplicity of her sensations, and a task she +sometimes had in restoring and toning them, after that sweet morning +time in Rovio. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. 'THE PRINCESS EGERIA' + +London, say what we will of it, is after all the head of the British +giant, and if not the liveliest in bubbles, it is past competition the +largest broth-pot of brains anywhere simmering on the hob: over the +steadiest of furnaces too. And the oceans and the continents, as you +know, are perpetual and copious contributors, either to the heating +apparatus or to the contents of the pot. Let grander similes besought. +This one fits for the smoky receptacle cherishing millions, magnetic to +tens of millions more, with its caked outside of grime, and the inward +substance incessantly kicking the lid, prankish, but never casting it +off. A good stew, you perceive; not a parlous boiling. Weak as we may be +in our domestic cookery, our political has been sagaciously adjusted as +yet to catch the ardours of the furnace without being subject to their +volcanic activities. + +That the social is also somewhat at fault, we have proof in occasional +outcries over the absence of these or those particular persons famous +for inspiriting. It sticks and clogs. The improvising songster is +missed, the convivial essayist, the humorous Dean, the travelled cynic, +and he, the one of his day, the iridescent Irishman, whose remembered +repartees are a feast, sharp and ringing, at divers tables descending +from the upper to the fat citizen's, where, instead of coming in the +sequence of talk, they are exposed by blasting, like fossil teeth of old +Deluge sharks in monotonous walls of our chalk-quarries. Nor are these +the less welcome for the violence of their introduction among a people +glad to be set burning rather briskly awhile by the most unexpected of +digs in the ribs. Dan Merion, to give an example. That was Dan Merion's +joke with the watchman: and he said that other thing to the Marquis of +Kingsbury, when the latter asked him if he had ever won a donkey-race. +And old Dan is dead, and we are the duller for it! which leads to the +question: Is genius hereditary? And the affirmative and negative are +respectively maintained, rather against the Yes is the dispute, until +a member of the audience speaks of Dan Merion's having left a daughter +reputed for a sparkling wit not much below the level of his own. Why, +are you unaware that the Mrs. Warwick of that scandal case of Warwick +versus Dannisburgh was old Dan Merion's girl--and his only child? It +is true; for a friend had it from a man who had it straight from Mr. +Braddock, of the firm of Braddock, Thorpe and Simnel, her solicitors in +the action, who told him he could sit listening to her for hours, and +that she was as innocent as day; a wonderful combination of a good woman +and a clever woman and a real beauty. Only her misfortune was to have +a furiously jealous husband, and they say he went mad after hearing the +verdict. + +Diana was talked of in the London circles. A witty woman is such salt +that where she has once been tasted she must perforce be missed more +than any of the absent, the dowering heavens not having yet showered her +like very plentifully upon us. Then it was first heard that Percy Dacier +had been travelling with her. Miss Asper heard of it. Her uncle, Mr. +Quintin Manx, the millionnaire, was an acquaintance of the new Judge and +titled dignitary, Sir Cramborne Wathin, and she visited Lady Wathin, +at whose table the report in the journals of the Nile-boat party was +mentioned. Lady Wathin's table could dispense with witty women, and, +for that matter, witty men. The intrusion of the spontaneous on the +stereotyped would have clashed. She preferred, as hostess, the old legal +anecdotes sure of their laugh, and the citations from the manufactories +of fun in the Press, which were current and instantly intelligible to +all her guests. She smiled suavely on an impromptu pun, because her +experience of the humorous appreciation of it by her guests bade her +welcome the upstart. Nothing else impromptu was acceptable. Mrs. Warwick +therefore was not missed by Lady Wathin. 'I have met her,' she said. 'I +confess I am not one of the fanatics about Mrs. Warwick. She has a sort +of skill in getting men to clamour. If you stoop to tickle them, they +will applaud. It is a way of winning a reputation.' When the ladies were +separated from the gentlemen by the stream of Claret, Miss Asper +heard Lady Wathin speak of Mrs. Warwick again. An allusion to Lord +Dannisburgh's fit of illness in the House of Lords led to her saying +that there was no doubt he had been fascinated, and that, in her +opinion, Mrs. Warwick was a dangerous woman. Sir Cramborne knew +something of Mr. Warwick; 'Poor man!' she added. A lady present put a +question concerning Mrs. Warwick's beauty. 'Yes,' Lady Wathin said, 'she +has good looks to aid her. Judging from what I hear and have seen, her +thirst is for notoriety. Sooner or later we shall have her making a +noise, you may be certain. Yes, she has the secret of dressing well--in +the French style.' + +A simple newspaper report of the expedition of a Nileboat party could +stir the Powers to take her up and turn her on their wheel in this +manner. + +But others of the sons and daughters of London were regretting her +prolonged absence. The great and exclusive Whitmonby, who had dined once +at Lady Wathin's table, and vowed never more to repeat that offence to +his patience, lamented bitterly to Henry Wilmers that the sole woman +worthy of sitting at a little Sunday evening dinner with the cream of +the choicest men of the time was away wasting herself in that insane +modern chase of the picturesque! He called her a perverted Celimene. + +Redworth had less to regret than the rest of her male friends, as he was +receiving at intervals pleasant descriptive letters, besides manuscript +sheets of ANTONIA'S new piece of composition, to correct the proofs for +the press, and he read them critically, he thought. He read them with +a watchful eye to guard them from the critics. ANTONIA, whatever her +faults as a writer, was not one of the order whose Muse is the Public +Taste. She did at least draw her inspiration from herself, and there +was much to be feared in her work, if a sale was the object. Otherwise +Redworth's highly critical perusal led him flatly to admire. This was +like her, and that was like her, and here and there a phrase gave him +the very play of her mouth, the flash of her eyes. Could he possibly +wish, or bear, to, have anything altered? But she had reason to desire +an extended sale of the work. Her aim, in the teeth of her independent +style, was at the means of independence--a feminine method of attempting +to conciliate contraries; and after despatching the last sheets to the +printer, he meditated upon the several ways which might serve to, assist +her; the main way running thus in his mind:--We have a work of genius. +Genius is good for the public. What is good for the public should be +recommended by the critics. It should be. How then to come at them to, +get it done? As he was not a member of the honourable literary craft, +and regarded its arcana altogether externally, it may be confessed of +him that he deemed the Incorruptible corruptible;--not, of course, with +filthy coin slid into sticky palms. Critics are human, and exceedingly, +beyond the common lot, when touched; and they are excited by mysterious +hints of loftiness in authorship; by rumours of veiled loveliness; +whispers, of a general anticipation; and also Editors can jog them. +Redworth was rising to be a Railway King of a period soon to glitter +with rails, iron in the concrete, golden in the visionary. He had +already his Court, much against his will. The powerful magnetic +attractions of those who can help the world to fortune, was exercised by +him in spite of his disgust of sycophants. He dropped words to right and +left of a coming work by ANTONIA. And who was ANTONIA?--Ah! there hung +the riddle.--An exalted personage?--So much so that he dared not name +her even in confidence to ladies; he named the publishers. To men he +said he was at liberty to speak of her only as the most beautiful woman +of her time. His courtiers of both sexes were recommended to read the +new story, THE PRINCESS EGERIA. + +Oddly, one great lady of his Court had heard a forthcoming work of this +title spoken of by Percy Dacier, not a man to read silly fiction, +unless there was meaning behind the lines: that is, rich scandal of +the aristocracy, diversified by stinging epigrams to the address of +discernible personages. She talked of THE PRINCESS EGERIA: nay, laid her +finger on the identical Princess. Others followed her. Dozens were soon +flying with the torch: a new work immediately to be published from the +pen of the Duchess of Stars!--And the Princess who lends her title to +the book is a living portrait of the Princess of Highest Eminence, the +Hope of all Civilization.--Orders for copies of THE PRINCESS EGERIA +reached the astonished publishers before the book was advertized. + +Speaking to editors, Redworth complimented them with friendly +intimations of the real authorship of the remarkable work appearing. He +used a certain penetrative mildness of tone in saying that 'he hoped +the book would succeed': it deserved to; it was original; but the +originality might tell against it. All would depend upon a favourable +launching of such a book. 'Mrs. Warwick? Mrs. Warwick?' said the most +influential of editors, Mr. Marcus Tonans; 'what! that singularly +handsome woman?.. The Dannisburgh affair?... She's Whitmonby's heroine. +If she writes as cleverly as she talks, her work is worth trumpeting.' +He promised to see that it went into good hands for the review, and a +prompt review--an essential point; none of your long digestions of the +contents. + +Diana's indefatigable friend had fair assurances that her book would be +noticed before it dropped dead to the public appetite for novelty. He +was anxious next, notwithstanding his admiration of the originality +of the conception and the cleverness of the writing, lest the Literary +Reviews should fail 'to do it justice': he used the term; for if they +wounded her, they would take the pleasure out of success; and he had +always present to him that picture of the beloved woman kneeling at the +fire-grate at The Crossways, which made the thought of her suffering any +wound his personal anguish, so crucially sweet and saintly had her +image then been stamped on him. He bethought him, in consequence, while +sitting in the House of Commons; engaged upon the affairs of the nation, +and honestly engaged, for he was a vigilant worker--that the Irish +Secretary, Charles Raiser, with whom he stood in amicable relations, +had an interest, to the extent of reputed ownership, in the chief of the +Literary Reviews. He saw Raiser on the benches, and marked him to speak +for him. Looking for him shortly afterward, the man was gone. 'Off to +the Opera, if he's not too late for the drop,' a neighbour said, smiling +queerly, as though he ought to know; and then Redworth recollected +current stories of Raiser's fantastical devotion to the popular prima +donna of the angelical voice.--He hurried to the Opera and met the +vomit, and heard in the crushroom how divine she had been that night. +A fellow member of the House, tolerably intimate with Raiser, informed +him, between frightful stomachic roulades of her final aria, of the +likeliest place where Raiser might be found when the Opera was over: not +at his Club, nor at his chambers: on one of the bridges--Westminster, he +fancied. + +There was no need for Redworth to run hunting the man at so late an +hour, but he was drawn on by the similarity in dissimilarity of this +devotee of a woman, who could worship her at a distance, and talk of +her to everybody. Not till he beheld Raiser's tall figure cutting the +bridge-parapet, with a star over his shoulder, did he reflect on the +views the other might entertain of the nocturnal solicitation to see +'justice done' to a lady's new book in a particular Review, and the +absurd outside of the request was immediately smothered by the natural +simplicity and pressing necessity of its inside. + +He crossed the road and said, 'Ah?' in recognition. 'Were you at the +Opera this evening?' + +'Oh, just at the end,' said Raiser, pacing forward. 'It's a fine night. +Did you hear her?' + +'No; too late.' + +Raiser pressed ahead, to meditate by himself, as was his wont. Finding +Redworth beside him, he monologuized in his depths: 'They'll kill her. +She puts her soul into it, gives her blood. There 's no failing of the +voice. You see how it wears her. She's doomed. Half a year's rest on +Como ... somewhere... she might be saved! She won't refuse to work.' + +'Have you spoken to her?' said Redworth. + +'And next to Berlin! Vienna! A horse would be.... + +I? I don't know her,' Raiser replied. 'Some of their women stand it. +She's delicately built. You can't treat a lute like a drum without +destroying the instrument. We look on at a murder!' + +The haggard prospect from that step of the climax checked his delivery. + +Redworth knew him to be a sober man in office, a man with a head for +statecraft: he had made a weighty speech in the House a couple of +hours back. This Opera cantatrice, no beauty, though gentle, thrilling, +winning, was his corner of romance. + +'Do you come here often?' he asked. + +'Yes, I can't sleep.' + +'London at night, from the bridge, looks fine. By the way...' + +'It 's lonely here, that's the advantage,' said Rainer; 'I keep silver +in my pocket for poor girls going to their homes, and I'm left in peace. +An hour later, there's the dawn down yonder.' + +'By the way,' Redworth interposed, and was told that after these nights +of her singing she never slept till morning. He swallowed the fact, +sympathized, and resumed: 'I want a small favour.' + +'No business here, please!' + +'Not a bit of it. You know Mrs. Warwick.... You know of her. She 's +publishing a book. I want you to use your influence to get it noticed +quickly, if you can.' + +'Warwick? Oh, yes, a handsome woman. Ah, yes; the Dannisburgh affair, +yes. What did I hear!--They say she 's thick with Percy Dacier at +present. Who was talking of her! Yes, old Lady Dacier. So she 's a +friend of yours?' + +'She's an old friend,' said Redworth, composing himself; for the dose he +had taken was not of the sweetest, and no protestations could be uttered +by a man of the world to repel a charge of tattlers. 'The truth is, her +book is clever. I have read the proofs. She must have an income, and she +won't apply to her husband, and literature should help her, if she 's +fairly treated. She 's Irish by descent; Merion's daughter, witty as her +father. It's odd you haven't met her. The mere writing of the book is +extraordinarily good. If it 's put into capable hands for review! that's +all it requires. And full of life... bright dialogue.. capital sketches. +The book's a piece of literature. Only it must have competent critics!' + +So he talked while Rainer ejaculated: 'Warwick? Warwick?' in the +irritating tone of dozens of others. 'What did I hear of her husband? He +has a post.... Yes, yes. Some one said the verdict in that case knocked +him over--heart disease, or something.' + +He glanced at the dark Thames water. 'Take my word for it, the groves +of Academe won't compare with one of our bridges at night, if you seek +philosophy. You see the London above and the London below: round us the +sleepy city, and the stars in the water looking like souls of suicides. +I caught a girl with a bad fit on her once. I had to lecture her! +It's when we become parsons we find out our cousinship with these poor +peripatetics, whose "last philosophy" is a jump across the parapet. The +bridge at night is a bath for a public man. But choose another; leave me +mine.' + +Redworth took the hint. He stated the title of Mrs. Warwick's book, +and imagined from the thoughtful cast of Rainer's head, that he was +impressing THE PRINCESS EGERIA On his memory. + +Rainer burst out, with clenched fists: 'He beats her! The fellow lives +on her and beats her; strikes that woman! He drags her about to every +Capital in Europe to make money for him, and the scoundrel pays her with +blows.' + +In the course of a heavy tirade against the scoundrel, Redworth +apprehended that it was the cantatrice's husband. He expressed his +horror and regret; paused, and named THE PRINCESS EGERIA and a certain +Critical Review. Another outburst seemed to be in preparation. Nothing +further was to be done for the book at that hour. So, with a blunt 'Good +night,' he left Charles Rainer pacing, and thought on his walk home of +the strange effects wrought by women unwittingly upon men (Englishmen); +those women, or some of them, as little knowing it as the moon her +traditional influence upon the tides. He thought of Percy Dacier too. In +his bed he could have wished himself peregrinating a bridge. + +The PRINCESS EGERIA appeared, with the reviews at her heels, a pack of +clappers, causing her to fly over editions clean as a doe the gates and +hedges--to quote Mr. Sullivan Smith, who knew not a sentence of the work +save what he gathered of it from Redworth, at their chance meeting on +Piccadilly pavement, and then immediately he knew enough to blow his +huntsman's horn in honour of the sale. His hallali rang high. 'Here's +another Irish girl to win their laurels! 'Tis one of the blazing +successes. A most enthralling work, beautifully composed. And where is +she now, Mr. Redworth, since she broke away from that husband of hers, +that wears the clothes of the worst tailor ever begotten by a thread on +a needle, as I tell every soul of 'em in my part of the country?' + +'You have seen him?' said Redworth. + +'Why, sir, wasn't he on show at the Court he applied to for relief +and damages? as we heard when we were watching the case daily, scarce +drawing our breath for fear the innocent--and one of our own blood, +would be crushed. Sure, there he stood; ay, and looking the very donkey +for a woman to flip off her fingers, like the dust from my great uncle's +prise of snuff! She's a glory to the old country. And better you than +another, I'd say, since it wasn't an Irishman to have her: but what +induced the dear lady to take him, is the question we 're all of us +asking! And it's mournful to think that somehow you contrive to get the +pick of us in the girls! If ever we 're united, 'twill be by a trick of +circumvention of that sort, pretty sure. There's a turn in the market +when they shut their eyes and drop to the handiest: and London's a +vortex that poor dear dull old Dublin can't compete with. I 'll beg you +for the address of the lady her friend, Lady Dunstane.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith walked with Redworth through the park to the House of +Commons, discoursing of Rails and his excellent old friend's rise to the +top rung of the ladder and Beanstalk land, so elevated that one had +to look up at him with watery eyes, as if one had flung a ball at the +meridian sun. Arrived at famed St. Stephen's, he sent in his compliments +to the noble patriot and accepted an invitation to dinner. + +'And mind you read THE PRINCESS EGERIA,' said Redworth. + +'Again and again, my friend. The book is bought.' Sullivan Smith slapped +his breastpocket. + +'There's a bit of Erin in it.' + +'It sprouts from Erin.' + +'Trumpet it.' + +'Loud as cavalry to the charge!' + +Once with the title stamped on his memory, the zealous Irishman might +be trusted to become an ambulant advertizer. Others, personal friends, +adherents, courtiers of Redworth's, were active. Lady Pennon and Henry +Wilmers, in the upper circle; Whitmonby and Westlake, in the literary; +spread the fever for this new book. The chief interpreter of public +opinion caught the way of the wind and headed the gale. + +Editions of the book did really run like fires in summer furze; and to +such an extent that a simple literary performance grew to be respected +in Great Britain, as representing Money. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. THE AUTHORESS + +The effect of a great success upon Diana, at her second literary +venture, was shown in the transparent sedateness of a letter she wrote +to Emma Dunstane, as much as in her immediate and complacent acceptance +of the magical change of her fortunes. She spoke one thing and acted +another, but did both with a lofty calm that deceived the admiring +friend who clearly saw the authoress behind her mask, and feared lest +she should be too confidently trusting to the powers of her pen to +support an establishment. + +'If the public were a perfect instrument to strike on, I should be +tempted to take the wonderful success of my PRINCESS at her first +appearance for a proof of natural aptitude in composition, and might +think myself the genius. I know it to be as little a Stradivarius as +I am a Paganini. It is an eccentric machine, in tune with me for the +moment, because I happen to have hit it in the ringing spot. The book is +a new face appealing to a mirror of the common surface emotions; and the +kitchen rather than the dairy offers an analogy for the real value of +that "top-skim." I have not seen what I consider good in the book once +mentioned among the laudatory notices--except by your dear hand, +my Emmy. Be sure I will stand on guard against the "vaporous +generalizations," and other "tricks" you fear. Now that you are studying +Latin for an occupation--how good and wise it was of Mr. Redworth to +propose it!--I look upon you with awe as a classic authority and critic. +I wish I had leisure to study with you. What I do is nothing like so +solid and durable. + +'THE PRINCESS EGERIA' originally (I must have written word of it to +you--I remember the evening off Palermo!) was conceived as a sketch; by +gradations she grew into a sort of semi-Scudery romance, and swelled to +her present portliness. That was done by a great deal of piecing, not to +say puffing, of her frame. She would be healthier and have a chance of +living longer if she were reduced by a reversal of the processes. But +how would the judicious clippings and prickings affect our "pensive +public"? Now that I have furnished a house and have a fixed address, +under the paws of creditors, I feel I am in the wizard-circle of my +popularity and subscribe to its laws or waken to incubus and the desert. +Have I been rash? You do not pronounce. If I have bound myself to pipe +as others please, it need not be entirely; and I can promise you it +shall not be; but still I am sensible when I lift my "little quill" +of having forced the note of a woodland wren into the popular +nightingale's--which may end in the daw's, from straining; or worse, a +toy-whistle. + +'That is, in the field of literature. Otherwise, within me deep, I am +not aware of any transmutation of the celestial into coined gold. +I sound myself, and ring clear. Incessant writing is my refuge, my +solace--escape out of the personal net. I delight in it, as in my early +morning walks at Lugano, when I went threading the streets and by the +lake away to "the heavenly mount," like a dim idea worming upward in a +sleepy head to bright wakefulness. + +'My anonymous critic, of whom I told you, is intoxicating with eulogy. +The signature "Apollonius" appears to be of literary-middle indication. +He marks passages approved by you. I have also had a complimentary +letter from Mr. Dacier: + +'For an instance of this delight I have in writing, so strong is it that +I can read pages I have written, and tear the stuff to strips (I did +yesterday), and resume, as if nothing had happened. The waves within are +ready for any displacement. That must be a good sign. I do not doubt +of excelling my PRINCESS; and if she received compliments, the next may +hope for more. Consider, too, the novel pleasure of earning money by +the labour we delight in. It is an answer to your question whether I am +happy. Yes, as the savage islander before the ship entered the bay with +the fire-water. My blood is wine, and I have the slumbers of an +infant. I dream, wake, forget my dream, barely dress before the pen is +galloping; barely breakfast; no toilette till noon. A savage in good +sooth! You see, my Emmy, I could not house with the "companionable +person" you hint at. The poles can never come together till the earth is +crushed. She would find my habits intolerable, and I hers contemptible, +though we might both be companionable persons. My dear, I could not even +live with myself. My blessed little quill, which helps me divinely to +live out of myself, is and must continue to be my one companion. It +is my mountain height, morning light, wings, cup from the springs, my +horse, my goal, my lancet and replenisher, my key of communication with +the highest, grandest, holiest between earth and heaven-the vital air +connecting them. + +'In justice let me add that I have not been troubled by hearing of +any of the mysterious legal claims, et caetera. I am sorry to hear bad +reports of health. I wish him entire felicity--no step taken to bridge +division! The thought of it makes me tigrish. + +'A new pianist playing his own pieces (at Lady Singleby's concert) has +given me exquisite pleasure' and set me composing songs--not to his +music, which could be rendered only by sylphs moving to "soft recorders" +in the humour of wildness, languor, bewitching caprices, giving a new +sense to melody. How I wish you had been with me to hear him! It was +the most AEolian thing ever caught from a night-breeze by the soul of a +poet. + +'But do not suppose me having headlong tendencies to the melting mood. +(The above, by the way, is a Pole settled in Paris, and he is to be +introduced to me at Lady Pennon's.)--What do you say to my being invited +by Mr. Whitmonby to aid him in writing leading articles for the paper he +is going to conduct! "write as you talk and it will do," he says. I am +choosing my themes. To write--of politics--as I talk, seems to me like +an effort to jump away from my shadow. The black dog of consciousness +declines to be shaken off. If some one commanded me to talk as I write! +I suspect it would be a way of winding me up to a sharp critical pitch +rapidly. + +'Not good news of Lord D. I have had messages. Mr. Dacier conceals +his alarm. The PRINCESS gave great gratification. She did me her best +service there. Is it not cruel that the interdict of the censor should +force me to depend for information upon such scraps as I get from a +gentleman passing my habitation on his way to the House? And he is not, +he never has been, sympathetic in that direction. He sees my grief, and +assumes an undertakerly air, with some notion of acting in concert, one +supposes little imagining how I revolt from that crape-hatband formalism +of sorrow! + +'One word of her we call our inner I. I am not drawing upon her +resources for my daily needs; not wasting her at all, I trust; certainly +not walling her up, to deafen her voice. It would be to fall away from +you. She bids me sign myself, my beloved, ever, ever your Tony.' + +The letter had every outward show of sincereness in expression, and was +endowed to wear that appearance by the writer's impulse to protest with +so resolute a vigour as to delude herself. Lady Dunstane heard of Mr. +Dacier's novel attendance at concerts. The world made a note of it; for +the gentleman was notoriously without ear for music. + +Diana's comparison of her hours of incessant writing to her walks under +the dawn at Lugano, her boast of the similarity of her delight in +both, deluded her uncorrupted conscience to believe that she was now +spiritually as free: as in that fair season of the new spring in her +veins. She, was not an investigating physician, nor was Lady Dunstane, +otherwise they would have examined the material points of her +conduct--indicators of the spiritual secret always. What are the +patient's acts? The patient's, mind was projected too far beyond them to +see the fore finger they stretched at her; and the friend's was not that +of a prying doctor on the look out for betraying symptoms. Lady Dunstane +did ask herself why Tony should have incurred the burden of a costly +household--a very costly: Sir Lukin had been at one of Tony's little' +dinners: but her wish to meet the world on equal terms, after a long +dependency, accounted for it in seeming to excuse. The guests on the +occasion were Lady Pennon. Lady Singleby, Mr. Whitmonby, Mr. Percy +Dacier, Mr. Tonans;--'Some other woman,' Sir Lukin said, and himself. +He reported the cookery as matching the conversation, and that was +princely; the wines not less--an extraordinary fact to note of a woman. +But to hear Whitmonby and Diana Warwick! How he told a story, neat as +a postman's knock, and she tipped it with a remark and ran to a second, +drawing in Lady Pennon, and then Dacier, 'and me!' cried Sir Lukin; +'she made us all toss the ball from hand to hand, and all talk up to +the mark; and none of us noticed that we all went together to the +drawing-room, where we talked for another hour, and broke up fresher +than we began.' + +'That break between the men and the women after dinner was Tony's +aversion, and I am glad she has instituted a change,' said Lady +Dunstane. + +She heard also from Redworth of the unexampled concert of the guests at +Mrs. Warwick's dinner parties. He had met on one occasion the Esquarts, +the Pettigrews, Mr. Percy Dacier, and a Miss Paynham. Redworth had not +a word to say of the expensive household. Whatever Mrs. Warwick did was +evidently good to him. On another evening the party was composed of Lady +Pennon, Lord Larrian, Miss Paynham, a clever Mrs. Wollasley, Mr. Henry +Wilmers, and again Mr. Percy Dacier. + +When Diana came to Copsley, Lady Dunstane remarked on the recurrence of +the name of Miss Paynham in the list of her guests. + +'And Mr. Percy Dacier's too,' said Diana, smiling. 'They are invited +each for specific reasons. It pleases Lord Dannisburgh to hear that +a way has been found to enliven his nephew; and my little dinners are +effective, I think. He wakes. Yesterday evening he capped flying jests +with Mr. Sullivan Smith. But you speak of Miss. Paynham.' Diana lowered +her voice on half a dozen syllables, till the half-tones dropped into +her steady look. 'You approve, Emmy?' + +The answer was: 'I do--true or not.' + +'Between us two, dear, I fear!... In either case, she has been badly +used. Society is big engine enough to protect itself. I incline with +British juries to do rough justice to the victims. She has neither +father nor brother. I have had no confidences: but it wears the look of +a cowardly business. With two words in his ear, I could arm an Irishman +to do some work of chastisement: he would select the rascal's necktie +for a cause of quarrel and lords have to stand their ground as well as +commoners. They measure the same number of feet when stretched their +length. However, vengeance with the heavens! though they seem tardy. +Lady Pennon has been very kind about it; and the Esquarts invite her to +Lockton. Shoulder to shoulder, the tide may be stemmed.' + +'She would have gone under, but for you, dear Tony!' said Emma' folding +arms round her darling's neck anal kissing her. 'Bring her here some +day.' + +Diana did not promise it. She had her vision of Sir Lukin in his fit of +lunacy. + +'I am too weak for London now,' Emma resumed. 'I should like to be +useful. Is she pleasant?' + +'Sprightly by nature. She has worn herself with fretting.' + +'Then bring her to stay with me, if I cannot keep you. She will talk of +you to me.' + +'I will bring her for a couple of days,' Diana said. 'I am too busy to +remain longer. She paints portraits to amuse herself. She ought to be +pushed, wherever she is received about London, while the season is warm. +One season will suffice to establish her. She is pretty, near upon six +and twenty: foolish, of course:--she pays for having had a romantic +head. Heavy payment, Emmy! I drive at laws, but hers is an instance of +the creatures wanting simple human kindness.' + +'The good law will come with a better civilization; but before society +can be civilized it has to be debarbarized,' Emma remarked, and Diana +sighed over the task and the truism. + +I should have said in younger days, because it will not look plainly on +our nature and try to reconcile it with our conditions. But now I see +that the sin is cowardice. The more I know of the world the more clearly +I perceive that its top and bottom sin is cowardice, physically and +morally alike. Lord Larrian owns to there being few heroes in an army. +We must fawn in society. What is the meaning of that dread of one +example of tolerance? O my dear! let us give it the right name. Society +is the best thing we have, but it is a crazy vessel worked by a crew +that formerly practised piracy, and now, in expiation, professes piety, +fearful of a discovered Omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves +and captain. Their old habits are not quite abandoned, and their new one +is used as a lash to whip the exposed of us for a propitiation of the +capricious potentate whom they worship in the place of the true God.' + +Lady Dunstane sniffed. 'I smell the leading article.' + +Diana joined with her smile, 'No, the style is rather different.' + +'Have you not got into a trick of composing in speaking, at times?' + +Diana confessed, 'I think I have at times. Perhaps the daily writing of +all kinds and the nightly talking... I may be getting strained.' + +'No, Tony; but longer visits in the country to me would refresh you. I +miss your lighter touches. London is a school, but, you know it, not a +school for comedy nor for philosophy; that is gathered on my hills, +with London distantly in view, and then occasional descents on it well +digested.' + +'I wonder whether it is affecting me!' said Diana, musing. 'A +metropolitan hack! and while thinking myself free, thrice harnessed; and +all my fun gone. Am I really as dull as a tract, my dear? I must be, +or I should be proving the contrary instead of asking. My pitfall is +to fancy I have powers equal to the first look-out of the eyes of the +morning. Enough of me. We talked of Mary Paynham. If only some right +good man would marry her!' + +Lady Dunstane guessed at the right good man in Diana's mind. 'Do you +bring them together?' + +Diana nodded, and then shook doleful negatives to signify no hope. + +'None whatever--if we mean the same person,' said Lady Dunstane, +bethinking her, in the spirit of wrath she felt at such a scheme being +planned by Diana to snare the right good man, that instead of her own +true lover Redworth, it might be only Percy Dacier. So filmy of mere +sensations are these little ideas as they flit in converse, that she did +not reflect on her friend's ignorance of Redworth's love of her, or +on the unlikely choice of one in Dacier's high station to reinstate a +damsel. + +They did not name the person. + +'Passing the instance, which is cruel, I will be just to society thus +far,' said Diana. 'I was in a boat at Richmond last week, and Leander +was revelling along the mud-banks, and took it into his head to swim +out to me, and I was moved to take him on board. The ladies in the boat +objected, for he was not only wet but very muddy. I was forced to own +that their objections were reasonable. My sentimental humaneness had +no argument against muslin dresses, though my dear dog's eyes appealed +pathetically, and he would keep swimming after us. The analogy excuses +the world for protecting itself in extreme cases; nothing, nothing +excuses its insensibility to cases which may be pleaded. You see +the pirate crew turned pious-ferocious in sanctity.' She added, half +laughing: 'I am reminded by the boat, I have unveiled my anonymous +critic, and had a woeful disappointment. He wrote like a veteran; he is +not much more than a boy. I received a volume of verse, and a few lines +begging my acceptance. I fancied I knew the writing, and wrote asking +him whether I had not to thank him, and inviting him to call. He seems +a nice lad of about two and twenty, mad for literature; and he must have +talent. Arthur Rhodes by name. I may have a chance of helping him. He +was an articled clerk of Mr. Braddock's, the same who valiantly came to +my rescue once. He was with us in the boat.' + +'Bring him to me some day,' said Lady Dunstane. + +Miss Paynham's visit to Copsley was arranged, and it turned out a +failure. The poor young lady came in a flutter, thinking that the friend +of Mrs. Warwick would expect her to discourse cleverly. She attempted +it, to Diana's amazement. Lady Dunstane's opposingly corresponding +stillness provoked Miss Paynham to expatiate, for she had sprightliness +and some mental reserves of the common order. Clearly, Lady Dunstane +mused while listening amiably, Tony never could have designed this +gabbler for the mate of Thomas Redworth! + +Percy Dacier seemed to her the more likely one, in that light, and she +thought so still, after Sir Lukin had introduced him at Copsley for a +couple of days of the hunting season. Tony's manner with him suggested +it; she had a dash of leadership. They were not intimate in look or +tongue. + +But Percy Dacier also was too good for Miss Paynham, if that was Tony's +plan for him, Lady Dunstane thought, with the relentlessness of an +invalid and recluse's distaste. An aspect of penitence she had not +demanded, but the silly gabbier under a stigma she could not pardon. + +Her opinion of Miss Paynham was diffused in her silence. + +Speaking of Mr. Dacier, she remarked, 'As you say of him, Tony, he can +brighten, and when you give him a chance he is entertaining. He has fine +gifts. If I were a member of his family I should beat about for a match +for him. He strikes me as one of the young men who would do better +married.' + +'He is doing very well, but the wonder is that he doesn't marry,' said +Diana. 'He ought to be engaged. Lady Esquart told me that he was. A Miss +Asper--great heiress; and the Daciers want money. However, there it is.' + +Not many weeks later Diana could not have spoken of Mr. Percy Dacier +with this air of indifference without corruption of her inward guide. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT + +The fatal time to come for her was in the Summer of that year. + +Emma had written her a letter of unwonted bright spirits, contrasting +strangely with an inexplicable oppression of her own that led her to +imagine her recent placid life the pause before thunder, and to sharp +the mood of her solitary friend she flew to Copsley, finding Sir Lukin +absent, as usual. They drove out immediately after breakfast, on one of +those high mornings of the bared bosom of June when distances are given +to our eyes, and a soft air fondles leaf and grass-blade, and beauty and +peace are overhead, reflected, if we will. Rain had fallen in the night. +Here and there hung a milk-white cloud with folded sail. The South-west +left it in its bay of blue, and breathed below. At moments the fresh +scent of herb and mould swung richly in warmth. The young beech-leaves +glittered, pools of rain-water made the roadways laugh, the grass-banks +under hedges rolled their interwoven weeds in cascades of many-shaded +green to right and left of the pair of dappled ponies, and a squirrel +crossed ahead, a lark went up a little way to ease his heart, closing +his wings when the burst was over, startled black-birds, darting with a +clamour like a broken cockcrow, looped the wayside woods from hazel +to oak-scrub; short flights, quick spirts everywhere, steady sunshine +above. + +Diana held the reins. The whip was an ornament, as the plume of feathers +to the general officer. Lady Dunstane's ponies were a present from +Redworth, who always chose the pick of the land for his gifts. They +joyed in their trot, and were the very love-birds of the breed for their +pleasure of going together, so like that Diana called them the Dromios. +Through an old gravel-cutting a gateway led to the turf of the down, +springy turf bordered on a long line, clear as a racecourse, by golden +gorse covers, and leftward over the gorse the dark ridge of the fir and +heath country ran companionably to the Southwest, the valley between, +with undulations of wood and meadow sunned or shaded, clumps, mounds, +promontories, away to broad spaces of tillage banked by wooded hills, +and dimmer beyond and farther, the faintest shadowiness of heights, as a +veil to the illimitable. Yews, junipers, radiant beeches, and gleams of +the service-tree or the white-beam spotted the semicircle of swelling +green Down black and silver. The sun in the valley sharpened his beams +on squares of buttercups, and made a pond a diamond. + +'You see, Tony,' Emma said, for a comment on the scene, 'I could envy +Italy for having you, more than you for being in Italy.' + +'Feature and colour!' said Diana. 'You have them here, and on a scale +that one can embrace. I should like to build a hut on this point, and +wait for such a day to return. It brings me to life.' She lifted her +eyelids on her friend's worn sweet face, and knowing her this friend +up to death, past it in her hopes, she said bravely, 'It is the Emma +of days and scenes to me! It helps me to forget myself, as I do when I +think of you, dearest; but the subject has latterly been haunting me, I +don't know why, and ominously, as if my nature were about to horrify my +soul. But I am not sentimentalizing, you are really this day and scene +in my heart.' + +Emma smiled confidingly. She spoke her reflection: 'The heart must be +troubled a little to have the thought. The flower I gather here tells me +that we may be happy in privation and suffering if simply we can accept +beauty. I won't say expel the passions, but keep passion sober, a +trotter in harness.' + +Diana caressed the ponies' heads with the droop of her whip: 'I don't +think I know him!' she said. + +Between sincerity and a suspicion so cloaked and dull that she did not +feel it to be the opposite of candour, she fancied she was passionless +because she could accept the visible beauty, which was Emma's +prescription and test; and she forced herself to make much of it, cling +to it, devour it; with envy of Emma's contemplative happiness, through +whose grave mind she tried to get to the peace in it, imagining that +she succeeded. The cloaked and dull suspicion weighed within her +nevertheless. She took it for a mania to speculate on herself. There are +states of the crimson blood when the keenest wits are childish, notably +in great-hearted women aiming at the majesty of their sex and fearful of +confounding it by the look direct and the downright word. Yet her nature +compelled her inwardly to phrase the sentence: 'Emma is a wife!' The +character of her husband was not considered, nor was the meaning of the +exclamation pursued. + +They drove through the gorse into wild land of heath and flowering +hawthorn, and along by tracts of yew and juniper to another point, +jutting on a furzy sand-mound, rich with the mild splendour of English +scenery, which Emma stamped on her friend's mind by saying: 'A cripple +has little to envy in you who can fly when she has feasts like these at +her doors.' + +They had an inclination to boast on the drive home of the solitude they +had enjoyed; and just then, as the road in the wood wound under great +beeches, they beheld a London hat. The hat was plucked from its head. A +clear-faced youth, rather flushed, dusty at the legs, addressed Diana. + +'Mr. Rhodes!' she said, not discouragingly. + +She was petitioned to excuse him; he thought she would wish to hear the +news in town last night as early as possible; he hesitated and murmured +it. + +Diana turned to Emma: 'Lord Dannisburgh!' her paleness told the rest. + +Hearing from Mr. Rhodes that he had walked the distance from town, +and had been to Copsley, Lady Dunstane invited him to follow +the pony-carriage thither, where he was fed and refreshed by a +tea-breakfast, as he preferred walking on tea, he said. 'I took the +liberty to call at Mrs. Warwick's house,' he informed her; 'the +footman said she was at Copsley. I found it on the map--I knew the +directions--and started about two in the morning. I wanted a walk.' + +It was evident to her that he was one of the young squires bewitched +whom beautiful women are constantly enlisting. There was no concealment +of it, though he stirred a sad enviousness in the invalid lady by +descanting on the raptures of a walk out of London in the youngest light +of day, and on the common objects he had noticed along the roadside, +and through the woods, more sustaining, closer with nature than her +compulsory feeding on the cream of things. + +'You are not fatigued?' she inquired, hoping for that confession at +least; but she pardoned his boyish vaunting to walk the distance back +without any fatigue at all. + +He had a sweeter reward for his pains; and if the business of the +chronicler allowed him to become attached to pure throbbing felicity +wherever it is encountered, he might be diverted by the blissful +unexpectedness of good fortune befalling Mr. Arthur Rhodes in having the +honour to conduct Mrs. Warwick to town. No imagined happiness, even in +the heart of a young man of two and twenty, could have matched it. He +was by her side, hearing and seeing her, not less than four hours. To +add to his happiness, Lady Dunstane said she would be glad to welcome +him again. She thought him a pleasant specimen of the self-vowed squire. + +Diana was sure that there would be a communication for her of some sort +at her house in London; perhaps a message of farewell from the dying +lord, now dead. Mr. Rhodes had only the news of the evening journals, +to the effect that Lord Dannisburgh had expired at his residence, the +Priory, Hallowmere, in Hampshire. A message of farewell from him, +she hoped for: knowing him as she did, it seemed a certainty; and +she hungered for that last gleam of life in her friend. She had no +anticipation of the burden of the message awaiting her. + +A consultation as to the despatching of the message, had taken place +among the members of Lord Dannisburgh's family present at his death. +Percy Dacier was one of them, and he settled the disputed point, after +some time had been spent in persuading his father to take the plain view +of obligation in the matter, and in opposing the dowager countess, his +grandmother, by stating that he had already sent a special messenger to +London. Lord Dannisburgh on his death-bed had expressed a wish that Mrs. +Warwick would sit with him for an hour one night before the nails were +knocked in his coffin. He spoke of it twice, putting it the second time +to Percy as a formal request to be made to her, and Percy had promised +him that Mrs. Warwick should have the message. He had done his best +to keep his pledge, aware of the disrelish of the whole family for the +lady's name, to say nothing of her presence. + +'She won't come,' said the earl. + +'She'll come,' said old Lady Dacier. + +'If the woman respects herself she'll hold off it,' the earl insisted +because of his desire that way. He signified in mutterings that the +thing was improper and absurd, a piece of sentiment, sickly senility, +unlike Lord Dannisburgh. Also that Percy had been guilty of excessive +folly. + +To which Lady Dacier nodded her assent, remarking, 'The woman is on +her mettle. From what I've heard of her, she's not a woman to stick at +trifles. She'll take it as a sort of ordeal by touch, and she 'll come.' + +They joined in abusing Percy, who had driven away to another part of the +country. Lord Creedmore, the heir of the house, was absent, hunting +in America, or he might temporarily have been taken into favour by +contrast. Ultimately they agreed that the woman must be allowed to enter +the house, but could not be received. The earl was a widower; his mother +managed the family, and being hard to convince, she customarily carried +her point, save when it involved Percy's freedom of action. She was one +of the veterans of her sex that age to toughness; and the 'hysterical +fuss' she apprehended in the visit of this woman to Lord Dannisburgh's +death-bed and body, did not alarm her. For the sake of the household she +determined to remain, shut up in her room. Before night the house was +empty of any members of the family excepting old Lady Dacier and the +outstretched figure on the bed. + +Dacier fled to escape the hearing of the numberless ejaculations +re-awakened in the family by his uncle's extraordinary dying request. +They were an outrage to the lady, of whom he could now speak as a +privileged champion; and the request itself had an air of proving her +stainless, a white soul and efficacious advocate at the celestial gates +(reading the mind of the dying man). So he thought at one moment: he had +thought so when charged with the message to her; had even thought it +a natural wish that she should look once on the face she would see no +more, and say farewell to it, considering that in life it could not +be requested. But the susceptibility to sentimental emotion beside a +death-bed, with a dying man's voice in the ear, requires fortification +if it is to be maintained;' and the review of his uncle's character +did not tend to make this very singular request a proof that the lady's +innocence was honoured in it. His epicurean uncle had no profound esteem +for the kind of innocence. He had always talked of Mrs. Warwick--with +warm respect for her: Dacier knew that he had bequeathed her a sum of +money. The inferences were either way. Lord Dannisburgh never spoke +evilly of any woman, and he was perhaps bound to indemnify her +materially as well as he could for what she had suffered.--On the +other hand, how easy it was to be the dupe of a woman so handsome +and clever.--Unlikely too that his uncle would consent to sit at +the Platonic banquet with her.--Judging by himself, Dacier deemed it +possible for man. He was not quick to kindle, and had lately seen much +of her, had found her a Lady Egeria, helpful in counsel, prompting, +inspiriting, reviving as well-waters, and as temperately cool: not one +sign of native slipperiness. Nor did she stir the mud in him upon which +proud man is built. The shadow of the scandal had checked a few shifty +sensations rising now and then of their own accord, and had laid them, +with the lady's benign connivance. This was good proof in her favour, +seeing that she must have perceived of late the besetting thirst he had +for her company; and alone or in the medley equally. To see her, hear, +exchange ideas with her; and to talk of new books, try to listen to +music at the opera and at concerts, and admire her playing of +hostess, were novel pleasures, giving him fresh notions of life, and +strengthening rather than disturbing the course of his life's business. + +At any rate, she was capable of friendship. Why not resolutely believe +that she had been his uncle's true and simple friend! He adopted the +resolution, thanking her for one recognized fact:--he hated marriage, +and would by this time have been in the yoke, but for the agreeable +deviation of his path to her society. Since his visit to Copsley, +moreover, Lady Dunstane's idolizing, of her friend had influenced him. +Reflecting on it, he recovered from the shock which his uncle's request +had caused. + +Certain positive calculations were running side by side with the +speculations in vapour. His messenger would reach her house at about +four of the afternoon. If then at home, would she decide to start +immediately?--Would she come? That was a question he did not delay to +answer. Would she defer the visit? Death replied to that. She would not +delay it. + +She would be sure to come at once. And what of the welcome she would +meet? Leaving the station at London at six in the evening, she might +arrive at the Priory, all impediments counted, between ten and eleven at +night. Thence, coldly greeted, or not greeted, to the chamber of death. + +A pitiable and cruel reception for a woman upon such a mission! + +His mingled calculations and meditations reached that exclamatory +terminus in feeling, and settled on the picture of Diana, about as clear +as light to blinking eyes, but enough for him to realize her being there +and alone, woefully alone. The supposition of an absolute loneliness +was most possible. He had intended to drive back the next day, when the +domestic storm would be over, and take the chances of her coming. It +seemed now a piece of duty to return at night, a traverse of twenty +rough up and down miles from Itchenford to the heath-land rolling on the +chalk wave of the Surrey borders, easily done after the remonstrances of +his host were stopped. + +Dacier sat in an open carriage, facing a slip of bright moon. Poetical +impressions, emotions, any stirrings of his mind by the sensational +stamp on it, were new to him, and while he swam in them, both lulled and +pricked by his novel accessibility to nature's lyrical touch, he asked +himself whether, if he were near the throes of death, the thought of +having Diana Warwick to sit beside his vacant semblance for an hour at +night would be comforting. And why had his uncle specified an hour of +the night? It was a sentiment, like the request: curious in a man so +little sentimental. Yonder crescent running the shadowy round of the +hoop roused comparisons. Would one really wish to have her beside one +in death? In life--ah! But suppose her denied to us in life. Then the +desire for her companionship appears passingly comprehensible. Enter +into the sentiment, you see that the hour of darkness is naturally +chosen. And would even a grand old Pagan crave the presence beside his +dead body for an hour of the night of a woman he did not esteem? Dacier +answered no. The negative was not echoed in his mind. He repeated it, +and to the same deadness. + +He became aware that he had spoken for himself, and he had a fit of +sourness. For who can say he is not a fool before he has been tried by +a woman! Dacier's wretched tendency under vexation to conceive grotesque +analogies, anti-poetic, not to say cockney similes, which had slightly +chilled Diana at Rovio, set him looking at yonder crescent with the +hoop, as at the shape of a white cat climbing a wheel. Men of the +northern blood will sometimes lend their assent to poetical images, even +to those that do not stun the mind lie bludgeons and imperatively, by +much repetition, command their assent; and it is for a solid exchange +and interest in usury with soft poetical creatures when they are so +condescending; but they are seized by the grotesque. In spite of efforts +to efface or supplant it, he saw the white cat, nothing else, even to +thinking that she had jumped cleverly to catch the wheel. He was a true +descendant of practical hard-grained fighting Northerners, of gnarled +dwarf imaginations, chivalrous though they were, and heroes to have +serviceable and valiant gentlemen for issue. Without at all tracing back +to its origin his detestable image of the white cat on the dead circle, +he kicked at the links between his uncle and Diana Warwick, whatever +they had been; particularly at the present revival of them. Old Lady +Dacier's blunt speech, and his father's fixed opinion, hissed in his +head. + +They were ignorant of his autumnal visit to the Italian Lakes, after +the winter's Nile-boat expedition; and also of the degree of his recent +intimacy with Mrs. Warwick; or else, as he knew, he would have heard +more hissing things. Her patronage of Miss Paynham exposed her to +attacks where she was deemed vulnerable; Lady Dacier muttered old +saws as to the flocking of birds; he did not accurately understand it, +thought it indiscreet, at best. But in regard to his experience, he +could tell himself that a woman more guileless of luring never drew +breath. On the contrary, candour said it had always been he who had +schemed and pressed for the meeting. He was at liberty to do it, not +being bound in honour elsewhere. Besides, despite his acknowledgement +of her beauty, Mrs. Warwick was not quite his ideal of the perfectly +beautiful woman. + +Constance Asper came nearer to it. He had the English taste for red and +white, and for cold outlines: he secretly admired a statuesque demeanour +with a statue's eyes. The national approbation of a reserved haughtiness +in woman, a tempered disdain in her slightly lifted small upperlip and +drooped eyelids, was shared by him; and Constance Asper, if not exactly +aristocratic by birth, stood well for that aristocratic insular type, +which seems to promise the husband of it a casket of all the trusty +virtues, as well as the security of frigidity in the casket. Such was +Dacier's native taste; consequently the attractions of Diana Warwick for +him were, he thought, chiefly mental, those of a Lady Egeria. She might +or might not be good, in the vulgar sense. She was an agreeable woman, +an amusing companion, very suggestive, inciting, animating; and her past +history must be left as her own. Did it matter to him? What he saw was +bright, a silver crescent on the side of the shadowy ring. Were it +a question of marrying her!--That was out of the possibilities. He +remembered, moreover, having heard from a man, who professed to know, +that Mrs. Warwick had started in married life by treating her husband +cavalierly to an intolerable degree: 'Such as no Englishman could +stand,' the portly old informant thundered, describing it and her in +racy vernacular. She might be a devil of a wife. She was a pleasant +friend; just the soft bit sweeter than male friends which gave the +flavour of sex without the artful seductions. He required them strong to +move him. + +He looked at last on the green walls of the Priory, scarcely supposing a +fair watcher to be within; for the contrasting pale colours of dawn had +ceased to quicken the brilliancy of the crescent, and summer daylight +drowned it to fainter than a silver coin in water. It lay dispieced like +a pulled rag. Eastward, over Surrey, stood the full rose of morning. The +Priory clock struck four. When the summons of the bell had gained him +admittance, and he heard that Mrs. Warwick had come in the night, he +looked back through the doorway at the rosy colour, and congratulated +himself to think that her hour of watching was at an end. A sleepy +footman was his informant. Women were in my lord's dressing-room, he +said. Upstairs, at the death-chamber, Dacier paused. No sound came to +him. He hurried to his own room, paced about, and returned. Expecting to +see no one but the dead, he turned the handle, and the two circles of a +shaded lamp, on ceiling and on table, met his gaze. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. DIANA A NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH + +He stepped into the room, and thrilled to hear the quiet voice beside +the bed: 'Who is it?' + +Apologies and excuses were on his tongue. The vibration of those grave +tones checked them. + +'It is you,' she said. + +She sat in shadow, her hands joined on her lap. An unopened book was +under the lamp. + +He spoke in an underbreath: 'I have just come. I was not sure I should +find you here. Pardon.' + +'There is a chair.' + +He murmured thanks and entered into the stillness, observing her. + +'You have been watching.... You must be tired.' + +'No.' + +'An hour was asked, only one.' + +'I could not leave him.' + +'Watchers are at hand to relieve you' + +'It is better for him to have me.' + +The chord of her voice told him of the gulf she had sunk in during the +night. The thought of her endurance became a burden. + +He let fall his breath for patience, and tapped the floor with his foot. + +He feared to discompose her by speaking. The silence grew more fearful, +as the very speech of Death between them. + +'You came. I thought it right to let you know instantly. I hoped you +would come to-morrow.' + +'I could not delay.' + +'You have been sitting alone here since eleven!' + +'I have not found it long.' + +'You must want some refreshment... tea?' + +'I need nothing.' + +'It can be made ready in a few minutes.' + +'I could not eat or drink.' + +He tried to brush away the impression of the tomb in the +heavily-curtained chamber by thinking of the summer-morn outside; +he spoke of it, the rosy sky, the dewy grass, the piping birds. She +listened, as one hearing of a quitted sphere. + +Their breathing in common was just heard if either drew a deeper breath. +At moments his eyes wandered and shut. Alternately in his mind Death +had vaster meanings and doubtfuller; Life cowered under the shadow +or outshone it. He glanced from her to the figure in the bed, and she +seemed swallowed. + +He said: 'It is time for you to have rest. You know your room. I will +stay till the servants are up.' + +She replied: 'No, let this night with him be mine.' + +'I am not intruding...?' + +'If you wish to remain...' + +No traces of weeping were on her face. The lampshade revealed it +colourless, and lustreless her eyes. She was robed in black. She held +her hands clasped. + +'You have not suffered?' + +'Oh, no.' + +She said it without sighing: nor was her speech mournful, only brief. + +'You have seen death before?' + +'I sat by my father four nights. I was a girl then. I cried till I had +no more tears.' + +He felt a burning pressure behind his eyeballs. + +'Death is natural,' he said. + +'It is natural to the aged. When they die honoured...' + +She looked where the dead man lay. 'To sit beside the young, cut off +from their dear opening life...!' A little shudder swept over her. 'Oh! +that!' + +'You were very good to come. We must all thank you for fulfilling his +wish.' + +'He knew it would be my wish.' + +Her hands pressed together. + +'He lies peacefully!' + +'I have raised the lamp on him, and wondered each time. So changeless he +lies. But so like a sleep that will wake. We never see peace but in the +features of the dead. Will you look? They are beautiful. They have a +heavenly sweetness.' + +The desire to look was evidently recurrent with her. Dacier rose. + +Their eyes fell together on the dead man, as thoughtfully as Death +allows to the creatures of sensation. + +'And after?' he said in low tones. + +'I trust to my Maker,' she replied. 'Do you see a change since he +breathed his last?' + +'Not any.' + +'You were with him?' + +'Not in the room. Two minutes later.' + +'Who...?' + +'My father. His niece, Lady Cathairn.' + +'If our lives are lengthened we outlive most of those we would have to +close our eyes. He had a dear sister.' + +'She died some years back.' + +'I helped to comfort him for that loss.' + +'He told me you did.' + +The lamp was replaced on the table. + +'For a moment, when I withdraw the light from him, I feel sadness. As if +the light we lend to anything were of value to him now!' + +She bowed her head deeply. Dacier left her meditation undisturbed. The +birds on the walls outside were audible, tweeting, chirping. + +He went to the window-curtains and tried the shutter-bars. It seemed +to him that daylight would be cheerfuller for her. He had a thirst to +behold her standing bathed in daylight. + +'Shall I open them?' he asked her. + +'I would rather the lamp,' she said. + +They sat silently until she drew her watch from her girdle. 'My train +starts at half-past six. It is a walk of thirty-five minutes to the +station. I did it last night in that time.' + +'You walked here in the dark alone?' + +'There was no fly to be had. The station-master sent one of his porters +with me. We had a talk on the road. I like those men.' + +Dacier read the hour by the mantelpiece clock. 'If you must really go by +the early train, I will drive you.' + +'No, I will walk; I prefer it.' + +'I will order your breakfast at once.' + +He turned on his heel. She stopped him. 'No, I have no taste for eating +or drinking.' + +'Pray...' said he, in visible distress. + +She shook her head. 'I could not. I have twenty minutes longer. I can +find my way to the station; it is almost a straight road out of the +park-gates.' + +His heart swelled with anger at the household for they treatment she +had been subjected to, judging by her resolve not to break bread in the +house. + +They resumed their silent sitting. The intervals for a word to pass +between them were long, and the ticking of the time-piece fronting the +death-bed ruled the chamber, scarcely varied. + +The lamp was raised for the final look, the leave-taking. + +Dacier buried his face, thinking many things--the common multitude in +insurrection. + +'A servant should be told to come now,' she said. 'I have only to put on +my bonnet and I am ready.' + +'You will take no...?' + +'Nothing.' + +'It is not too late for a carriage to be ordered.' + +'No--the walk!' + +They separated. + +He roused the two women in the dressing-room, asleep with heads against +the wall. Thence he sped to his own room for hat and overcoat, and a +sprinkle of cold water. Descending the stairs, he beheld his companion +issuing from the chamber of death. Her lips were shut, her eyelids +nervously tremulous. + +They were soon in the warm sweet open air, and they walked without an +interchange of a syllable through the park into the white hawthorn lane, +glad to breathe. Her nostrils took long draughts of air, but of the +change of, scene she appeared scarcely sensible. + +At the park-gates, she said: 'There is no necessity four your coming.' + +His answer was: 'I think of myself. I gain something every step I walk +with you.' + +'To-day is Thursday,' said she. 'The funeral is...?' + +'Monday has been fixed. According to his directions, he will lie in the +churchyard of his village--not in the family vault.' + +'I know,' she said hastily. 'They are privileged who follow him and see +the coffin lowered. He spoke of this quiet little resting-place.' + +'Yes, it's a good end. I do not wonder at his wish for the honour you +have done him. I could wish it too. But more living than dead--that is a +natural wish.' + +'It is not to be called an honour.' + +'I should feel it so-an honour to me.' + +'It is a friend's duty. The word is too harsh; it was his friend's +desire. He did not ask it so much as he sanctioned it. For to him what +has my sitting beside him been!' + +'He had the prospective happiness.' + +'He knew well that my soul would be with him--as it was last night. But +he knew it would be my poor human happiness to see him with my eyes, +touch him with my hand, before he passed from our sight.' + +Dacier exclaimed: 'How you can love!' + +'Is the village church to be seen?' she asked. + +'To the right of those elms; that is the spire. The black spot below is +a yew. You love with the whole heart when you love.' + +'I love my friends,' she replied. + +'You tempt me to envy those who are numbered among them.' + +'They are not many.' + +'They should be grateful!' + +'You have some acquaintance with them all.' + +'And an enemy? Had you ever one? Do you know of one?' + +'Direct and personal designedly? I think not. We give that title to +those who are disinclined to us and add a dash of darker colour to our +errors. Foxes have enemies in the dogs; heroines of melodramas have +their persecuting villains. I suppose that conditions of life exist +where one meets the original complexities. The bad are in every rank. +The inveterately malignant I have not found. Circumstances may combine +to make a whisper as deadly as a blow, though not of such evil design. +Perhaps if we lived at a Court of a magnificent despot we should learn +that we are less highly civilized than we imagine ourselves; but that +is a fire to the passions, and the extreme is not the perfect test. Our +civilization counts positive gains--unless you take the melodrama +for the truer picture of us. It is always the most popular with the +English.--And look, what a month June is! Yesterday morning I was with +Lady Dunstane on her heights, and I feel double the age. He was fond of +this wild country. We think it a desert, a blank, whither he has gone, +because we will strain to see in the utter dark, and nothing can come of +that but the bursting of the eyeballs.' + +Dacier assented: 'There's no use in peering beyond the limits.' + +'No,' said she; 'the effect is like the explaining of things to a dull +head--the finishing stroke to the understanding! Better continue to +brood. We get to some unravelment if we are left to our own efforts. +I quarrel with no priest of any denomination. That they should quarrel +among themselves is comprehensible in their wisdom, for each has the +specific. But they show us their way of solving the great problem, and +we ought to thank them, though one or the other abominate us. You are +advised to talk with Lady Dunstane on these themes. + +She is perpetually in the antechamber of death, and her soul is +perennially sunshine.--See the pretty cottage under the laburnum curls! +Who lives there?' + +'His gamekeeper, Simon Rofe.' + +'And what a playground for the children, that bit of common by their +garden-palings! and the pond, and the blue hills over the furzes. I hope +those people will not be turned out.' + +Dacier could not tell. He promised to do his best for them. + +'But,' said she, 'you are the lord here now.' + +'Not likely to be the tenant. Incomes are wanted to support even small +estates.' + +'The reason is good for courting the income.' + +He disliked the remark; and when she said presently: + +'Those windmills make the landscape homely,' he rejoined: 'They remind +one of our wheeling London gamins round the cab from the station.' + +'They remind you,' said she, and smiled at the chance discordant trick +he had, remembering occasions when it had crossed her. + +'This is homelier than Rovio,' she said; 'quite as nice in its way.' + +'You do not gather flowers here.' + +'Because my friend has these at her feet.' + +'May one petition without a rival, then, for a souvenir?' + +'Certainly, if you care to have a common buttercup.' + +They reached the station, five minutes in advance of the train. His +coming manoeuvre was early detected, and she drew from her pocket the +little book he had seen lying unopened on the table, and said: 'I shall +have two good hours for reading.' + +'You will not object?... I must accompany you to town. Permit it, I beg. +You shall not be worried to talk.' + +'No; I came alone and return alone.' + +'Fasting and unprotected! Are you determined to take away the worst +impression of us? Do not refuse me this favour.' + +'As to fasting, I could not eat: and unprotected no woman is in England, +if she is a third-class traveller. That is my experience of the class; +and I shall return among my natural protectors--the most unselfishly +chivalrous to women in the whole world.' + +He had set his heart on going with her, and he attempted eloquence in +pleading, but that exposed him to her humour; he was tripped. + +'It is not denied that you belong to the knightly class,' she said; 'and +it is not necessary that you should wear armour and plumes to proclaim +it; and your appearance would be ample protection from the drunken +sailors travelling, you say, on this line; and I may be deplorably +mistaken in imagining that I could tame them. But your knightliness is +due elsewhere; and I commit myself to the fortune of war. It is a battle +for women everywhere; under the most favourable conditions among my dear +common English. I have not my maid with me, or else I should not dare.' + +She paid for a third-class ticket, amused by Dacier's look of entreaty +and trouble. + +'Of course I obey,' he murmured. + +'I have the habit of exacting it in matters concerning my independence,' +she said; and it arrested some rumbling notions in his head as to a +piece of audacity on the starting of the train. They walked up and down +the platform till the bell rang and the train came rounding beneath an +arch. + +'Oh, by the way, may I ask?'--he said: 'was it your article in +Whitmonby's journal on a speech of mine last week?' + +'The guilty writer is confessed.' + +'Let me thank you.' + +'Don't. But try to believe it written on public grounds--if the task is +not too great.' + +'I may call?' + +'You will be welcome.' + +'To tell you of the funeral--the last of him.' + +'Do not fail to come.' + +She could have laughed to see him jumping on the steps of the +third-class carriages one after another to choose her company for +her. In those pre-democratic blissful days before the miry Deluge, the +opinion of the requirements of poor English travellers entertained by +the Seigneur Directors of the class above them, was that they differed +from cattle in stipulating for seats. With the exception of that +provision to suit their weakness, the accommodation extended to them +resembled pens, and the seats were emphatically seats of penitence, +intended to grind the sitter for his mean pittance payment and absence +of aspiration to a higher state. Hard angular wood, a low roof, a shabby +square of window aloof, demanding of him to quit the seat he insisted on +having, if he would indulge in views of the passing scenery,--such was +the furniture of dens where a refinement of castigation was practised on +villain poverty by denying leathers to the windows, or else buttons +to the leathers, so that the windows had either to be up or down, but +refused to shelter and freshen simultaneously. + +Dacier selected a compartment occupied by two old women, a mother and +babe and little maid, and a labouring man. There he installed her, with +an eager look that she would not notice. + +'You will want the window down,' he said. + +She applied to her fellow-travellers for the permission; and struggling +to get the window down, he was irritated to animadvert on 'these +carriages' of the benevolent railway Company. + +'Do not forget that the wealthy are well treated, or you may be unjust,' +said she, to pacify him. + +His mouth sharpened its line while he tried arts and energies on the +refractory window. She told him to leave it. 'You can't breathe this +atmosphere!' he cried, and called to a porter, who did the work, +remarking that it was rather stiff. + +The door was banged and fastened. Dacier had to hang on the step to see +her in the farewell. From the platform he saw the top of her bonnet; +and why she should have been guilty of this freak of riding in an +unwholesome carriage, tasked his power of guessing. He was too English +even to have taken the explanation, for he detested the distinguishing +of the races in his country, and could not therefore have comprehended +her peculiar tenacity of the sense of injury as long as enthusiasm did +not arise to obliterate it. He required a course of lessons in Irish. + +Sauntering down the lane, he called at Simon Rofe's cottage, and spoke +very kindly to the gamekeeper's wife. That might please Diana. It was +all he could do at present. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. 'THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE' + +Descriptions in the newspapers of the rural funeral of Lord Dannisburgh +had the effect of rousing flights of tattlers with a twittering of the +disused name of Warwick; our social Gods renewed their combat, and the +verdict of the jury was again overhauled, to be attacked and maintained, +the carpers replying to the champions that they held to their view of +it: as heads of bull-dogs are expected to do when they have got a grip +of one. It is a point of muscular honour with them never to relax their +hold. They will tell you why:--they formed that opinion from the +first. And but for the swearing of a particular witness, upon whom +the plaintiff had been taught to rely, the verdict would have been +different--to prove their soundness of judgement. They could speak from +private positive information of certain damnatory circumstances, derived +from authentic sources. Visits of a gentleman to the house of a married +lady in the absence of the husband? Oh!--The British Lucretia was very +properly not legally at home to the masculine world of that day. She +plied her distaff in pure seclusion, meditating on her absent lord; or +else a fair proportion of the masculine world, which had not yet, has +not yet, 'doubled Cape Turk,' approved her condemnation to the sack. + +There was talk in the feminine world, at Lady Wathin's assemblies. The +elevation of her husband had extended and deepened her influence on the +levels where it reigned before, but without, strange as we may think it +now, assisting to her own elevation, much aspired for, to the smooth and +lively upper pavement of Society, above its tumbled strata. She was near +that distinguished surface, not on it. Her circle was practically the +same as it was previous to the coveted nominal rank enabling her to +trample on those beneath it. And women like that Mrs. Warwick, a woman +of no birth, no money, not even honest character, enjoyed the entry +undisputed, circulated among the highest:--because people took her +rattle for wit!--and because also our nobility, Lady Wathin feared, +had no due regard for morality. Our aristocracy, brilliant and ancient +though it was, merited rebuke. She grew severe upon aristocratic +scandals, whereof were plenty among the frolicsome host just overhead, +as vexatious as the drawing-room party to the lodger in the floor below, +who has not received an invitation to partake of the festivities and is +required to digest the noise. But if ambition is oversensitive, moral +indignation is ever consolatory, for it plants us on the Judgement Seat. +There indeed we may, sitting with the very Highest, forget our personal +disappointments in dispensing reprobation for misconduct, however +eminent the offenders. + +She was Lady Wathin, and once on an afternoon's call to see poor Lady +Dunstane at her town-house, she had been introduced to Lady Pennon, a +patroness of Mrs. Warwick, and had met a snub--an icy check-bow of the +aristocratic head from the top of the spinal column, and not a word, not +a look; the half-turn of a head devoid of mouth and eyes! She practised +that forbidding checkbow herself to perfection, so the endurance of +it was horrible. A noli me tangere, her husband termed it, in his +ridiculous equanimity; and he might term it what he pleased--it was +insulting. The solace she had was in hearing that hideous Radical +Revolutionary things were openly spoken at Mrs. Warwick's evenings +with her friends:--impudently named 'the elect of London.' Pleasing to +reflect upon Mrs. Warwick as undermining her supporters, to bring +them some day down with a crash! Her 'elect of London' were a queer +gathering, by report of them! And Mr. Whitmonby too, no doubt a +celebrity, was the right-hand man at these dinner-parties of Mrs. +Warwick. Where will not men go to be flattered by a pretty woman! He had +declined repeated, successive invitations to Lady Wathin's table. +But there of course he would not have had 'the freedom': that is, she +rejoiced in thinking defensively and offensively, a moral wall enclosed +her topics. The Hon. Percy Dacier had been brought to her Thursday +afternoon by. Mr. Quintin Manx, and he had one day dined with her; and +he knew Mrs. Warwick--a little, he said. The opportunity was not lost to +convey to him, entirely in the interest of sweet Constance Asper, that +the moral world entertained a settled view of the very clever woman Mrs. +Warwick certainly was. He had asked Diana, on their morning walk to the +station, whether she had an enemy: so prone are men, educated by the +Drama and Fiction in the belief that the garden of civilized life must +be at the mercy of the old wild devourers, to fancy 'villain whispers' +an indication of direct animosity. Lady Wathin had no sentiment of the +kind. + +But she had become acquainted with the other side of the famous +Dannisburgh case--the unfortunate plaintiff; and compassion as well as +morality moved her to put on a speaking air when Mr. Warwick's name was +mentioned. She pictured him to the ladies of her circle as 'one of our +true gentlemen in his deportment and his feelings.' He was, she would +venture to say, her ideal of an English gentleman. 'But now,' she added +commiseratingly, 'ruined; ruined in his health and in his prospects.' +A lady inquired if it was the verdict that had thus affected him. Lady +Wathin's answer was reported over moral, or substratum, London: 'He +is the victim of a fatal passion for his wife; and would take her back +to-morrow were she to solicit his forgiveness.' Morality had something +to say against this active marital charity, attributable, it was to be +feared, to weakness of character on the part of the husband. Still Mrs. +Warwick undoubtedly was one of those women (of Satanic construction) who +have the art of enslaving the men unhappy enough to cross their path. +The nature of the art was hinted, with the delicacy of dainty feet which +have to tread in mire to get to safety. Men, alas! are snared in this +way. Instances too numerous for the good repute of the swinish sex, +were cited, and the question of how Morality was defensible from their +grossness passed without a tactical reply. There is no defence: Those +women come like the Cholera Morbus--and owing to similar causes. They +will prevail until the ideas of men regarding women are purified. +Nevertheless the husband who could forgive, even propose to forgive, was +deemed by consent generous, however weak. Though she might not have been +wholly guilty, she had bitterly offended. And he despatched an emissary +to her?--The theme, one may, in their language, 'fear,' was relished +as a sugared acid. It was renewed in the late Autumn of the year, when +ANTONIA published her new book, entitled THE YOUNG MINISTER of STATE. +The signature of the authoress was now known; and from this resurgence +of her name in public, suddenly a radiation of tongues from the circle +of Lady Wathin declared that the repentant Mrs. Warwick had gone back +to her husband's bosom and forgiveness! The rumour spread in spite of +sturdy denials at odd corners, counting the red-hot proposal of Mr. +Sullivan Smith to eat his head and boots for breakfast if it was proved +correct. It filled a yawn of the Clubs for the afternoon. Soon this +wanton rumour was met and stifled by another of more morbific density, +heavily charged as that which led the sad Eliza to her pyre. + +ANTONIA's hero was easily identified. THE YOUNG MINISTER of STATE could +be he only who was now at all her parties, always meeting her; had been +spied walking with her daily in the park near her house, on his march +down to Westminster during the session; and who positively went to +concerts and sat under fiddlers to be near her. It accounted moreover +for his treatment of Constance Asper. What effrontery of the authoress, +to placard herself with him in a book! The likeness of the hero to Percy +Dacier once established became striking to glaringness--a proof of +her ability, and more of her audacity; still more of her intention to +flatter him up to his perdition. By the things written of him, one would +imagine the conversations going on behind the scenes. She had the wiles +of a Cleopatra, not without some of the Nilene's experiences. A youthful +Antony Dacier would be little likely to escape her toils. And so +promising a young man! The sigh, the tear for weeping over his +destruction, almost fell, such vivid realizing of the prophesy appeared +in its pathetic pronouncement. + +This low rumour, or malaria, began blowing in the winter, and did not +travel fast; for strangely, there was hardly a breath of it in the +atmosphere of Dacier, none in Diana's. It rose from groups not so +rapidly and largely mixing, and less quick to kindle; whose crazy +sincereness battened on the smallest morsel of fact and collected the +fictitious by slow absorption. But as guardians of morality, often +doing good duty in their office, they are persistent. When Parliament +assembled, Mr. Quintin Manx, a punctual member of the House, if nothing +else, arrived in town. He was invited to dine with Lady Wathin. After +dinner she spoke to him of the absent Constance, and heard of her being +well, and expressed a great rejoicing at that. Whereupon the burly old +shipowner frowned and puffed. Constance, he said, had plunged into these +new spangle, candle and high singing services; was all for symbols, +harps, effigies, what not. Lady Wathin's countenance froze in hearing of +it. She led Mr. Quintin to a wall-sofa, and said: 'Surely the dear child +must have had a disappointment, for her to have taken to those foolish +displays of religion! It is generally a sign.' + +'Well, ma'am-my lady--I let girls go their ways in such things. I don't +interfere. But it's that fellow, or nobody, with her. She has fixed her +girl's mind on him, and if she can't columbine as a bride, she will as a +nun. Young people must be at some harlequinade.' + +'But it is very shocking. And he?' + +'He plays last and loose, warm and cold. I'm ready to settle twenty +times a nobleman's dowry on my niece and she's a fine girl, a handsome +girl, educated up to the brim, fit to queen it in any drawing-room. +He holds her by some arts that don't hold him, it seems. He's all for +politics.' + +'Constance can scarcely be his dupe so far, I should think.' + +'How do you mean?' + +'Everything points to one secret of his conduct.' + +'A woman?' + +Lady Wathin's head shook for her sex's pained affirmative. + +Mr. Quintin in the same fashion signified the downright negative. 'The +fellow's as cold as a fish.' + +'Flattery will do anything. There is, I fear, one.' + +'Widow? wife? maid?' + +'Married, I regret to say.' + +'Well, if he'd get over with it,' said Quintin, in whose notions the +seductiveness of a married woman could be only temporary, for all the +reasons pertaining to her state. At the same time his view of Percy +Dacier was changed in thinking it possible that a woman could divert him +from his political and social interests. He looked incredulous. + +'You have heard of a Mrs. Warwick?' said Lady Wathin. + +'Warwick! I have. I've never seen her. At my broker's in the City +yesterday I saw the name on a Memorandum of purchase of Shares in a +concern promising ten per cent., and not likely to carry the per +annum into the plural. He told me she was a grand kind of woman, past +advising.' + +'For what amount' + +'Some thousands, I think it was.' + +'She has no money': Lady Wathin corrected her emphasis: 'or ought to +have none.' + +'She can't have got it from him.' + +'Did you notice her Christian name?' + +'I don't recollect it, if I did. I thought the woman a donkey.' + +'Would you consider me a busybody were I to try to mitigate this woman's +evil influence? I love dear Constance, and should be happy to serve +her.' + +'I want my girl married,' said old Quintin. 'He's one of my +Parliamentary chiefs, with first-rate prospects; good family, good +sober fellow--at least I thought so; by nature, I mean; barring your +incantations. He suits me, she liking him.' + +'She admires him, I am sure.' + +'She's dead on end for the fellow!' + +Lady Wathin felt herself empowered by Quintin Manx to undertake +the release of sweet Constance Asper's knight from the toils of his +enchantress. For this purpose she had first an interview with Mr. +Warwick, and next she hurried to Lady Dunstane at Copsley. There, after +jumbling Mr. Warwick's connubial dispositions and Mrs. Warwick's last +book, and Mr. Percy Dacier's engagement to the great heiress in a +gossipy hotch-potch, she contrived to gather a few items of fact, as +that THE YOUNG MINISTER was probably modelled upon Mr. Percy Dacier. +Lady Dunstane made no concealment of it as soon as she grew sensible of +the angling. But she refused her help to any reconciliation between Mr. +and Mrs. Warwick. She declined to listen to Lady Wathin's entreaties. +She declined to give her reasons.--These bookworm women, whose pride it +is to fancy that they can think for themselves, have a great deal of +the heathen in them, as morality discovers when it wears the enlistment +ribands and applies yo them to win recruits for a service under the +direct blessing of Providence. + +Lady Wathin left some darts behind her, in the form of moral +exclamations; and really intended morally. For though she did not like +Mrs. Warwick, she had no wish to wound, other than by stopping her +further studies of the Young Minister, and conducting him to the young +lady loving him, besides restoring a bereft husband to his own. How +sadly pale and worn poor Mr. Warwick appeared? The portrayal of his +withered visage to Lady Dunstane had quite failed to gain a show of +sympathy. And so it is ever with your book-worm women pretending to +be philosophical! You sound them vainly for a manifestation of the +commonest human sensibilities, They turn over the leaves of a Latin book +on their laps while you are supplicating them to assist in a work of +charity! + +Lady Wathin's interjectory notes haunted Emma's ear. Yet she had seen +nothing in Tony to let her suppose that there was trouble of her heart +below the surface; and her Tony when she came to Copsley shone in the +mood of the day of Lord Dannisburgh's drive down from London with her. +She was running on a fresh work; talked of composition as a trifle. + +'I suppose the YOUNG MINISTER is Mr. Percy Dacier?' said Emma. + +'Between ourselves he is,' Diana replied, smiling at a secret guessed. +'You know my model and can judge of the likeness.' + +'You write admiringly of him, Tony.' + +'And I do admire him. So would you, Emmy, if you knew him as well as I +do now. He pairs with Mr. Redworth; he also is the friend of women. But +he lifts us to rather a higher level of intellectual friendship. When +the ice has melted--and it is thick at first--he pours forth all his +ideas without reserve; and they are deep and noble. Ever since Lord +Dannisburgh's death and our sitting together, we have been warm +friends--intimate, I would say, if it could be said of one so +self-contained. In that respect, no young man was ever comparable with +him. And I am encouraged to flatter myself that he unbends to me more +than to others.' + +'He is engaged, or partly, I hear; why does he not marry?' + +'I wish he would!' Diana said, with a most brilliant candour of aspect. + +Emma read in it, that it would complete her happiness, possibly by +fortifying her sense of security; and that seemed right. Her own +meditations, illumined by the beautiful face in her presence, referred +to the security of Mr. Dacier. + +'So, then, life is going smoothly,' said Emma. + +'Yes, at a good pace and smoothly: not a torrent--Thames-like, "without +o'erflowing full." It is not Lugano and the Salvatore. Perhaps it is +better: as action is better than musing.' + +'No troubles whatever?' + +'None. Well, except an "adorer" at times. I have to take him as my +portion. An impassioned Caledonian has a little bothered me. I met him +at Lady Pennon's, and have been meeting him, as soon as I put foot out +of my house, ever since. If I could impress and impound him to marry +Mary Paynham, I should be glad. By the way, I have consented to let her +try at a portrait of me. No, I have no troubles. I have friends, the +choicest of the nation; I have health, a field for labour, fairish +success with it; a mind alive, such as it is. I feel like that midsummer +morning of our last drive out together, the sun high, clearish, clouded +enough to be cool. And still I envy Emmy on her sofa, mastering Latin, +biting at Greek. What a wise recommendation that was of Mr. Redworth's! +He works well in the House. He spoke excellently the other night.' + +'He runs over to Ireland this Easter.' + +'He sees for himself, and speaks with authority. He sees and feels. +Englishmen mean well, but they require an extremity of misery to waken +their feelings.' + +'It is coming, he says; and absit omen!' + +'Mr. Dacier says he is the one Englishman who may always be sure of an +Irish hearing; and he does not cajole them, you know. But the English +defect is really not want of feeling so much as want of foresight. They +will not look ahead. A famine ceasing, a rebellion crushed, they jog +on as before, with their Dobbin trot and blinker confidence in "Saxon +energy." They should study the Irish: I think it was Mr. Redworth who +compared the governing of the Irish to the management of a horse: the +rider should not grow restive when the steed begins to kick: calmer; +firm, calm, persuasive.' + +'Does Mr. Dacier agree?' + +'Not always. He has the inveterate national belief that Celtic blood +is childish, and the consequently illogical disregard of its hold of +impressions. The Irish--for I have them in my heart, though I have not +been among them for long at a time--must love you to serve you, and +will hate you if you have done them injury and they have not wiped it +out--they with a treble revenge, or you with cordial benefits. I have +told him so again and again: ventured to suggest measures.' + +'He listens to you, Tony?' + +'He says I have brains. It ends in a compliment.' + +'You have inspired Mr. Redworth.' + +'If I have, I have lived for some good.' + +Altogether her Tony's conversation proved to Emma that her perusal of +the model of THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE was an artist's, free, open, +and not discoloured by the personal tincture. Her heart plainly was +free and undisturbed. She had the same girl's love of her walks where +wildflowers grew; if possible, a keener pleasure. She hummed of her +happiness in being at Copsley, singing her Planxty Kelly and The +Puritani by turns. She stood on land: she was not on the seas. Emma +thought so with good reason. + +She stood on land, it was true, but she stood on a cliff of the land, +the seas below and about her; and she was enabled to hoodwink her friend +because the assured sensation of her firm footing deceived her own soul, +even while it took short flights to the troubled waters. Of her firm +footing she was exultingly proud. She stood high, close to danger, +without giddiness. If at intervals her soul flew out like lightning +from the rift (a mere shot of involuntary fancy, it seemed to her), the +suspicion of instability made her draw on her treasury of impressions +of the mornings at Lugano--her loftiest, purest, dearest; and these +reinforced her. She did not ask herself why she should have to seek them +for aid. In other respects her mind was alert and held no sly covers, +as the fiction of a perfect ignorant innocence combined with common +intelligence would have us to suppose that the minds of women can do. +She was honest as long as she was not directly questioned, pierced to +the innermost and sanctum of the bosom. She could honestly summon bright +light to her eyes in wishing the man were married. She did not ask +herself why she called it up. The remorseless progressive interrogations +of a Jesuit Father in pursuit of the bosom's verity might have +transfixed it and shown her to herself even then a tossing vessel as to +the spirit, far away from that firm land she trod so bravely. + +Descending from the woody heights upon London, Diana would have said +that her only anxiety concerned young Mr. Arthur Rhodes, whose position +she considered precarious, and who had recently taken a drubbing for +venturing to show a peep of his head, like an early crocus, in the +literary market. Her ANTONIA'S last book had been reviewed obediently +to smart taps from the then commanding baton of Mr. Tonans, and Mr. +Whitmonby's choice picking of specimens down three columns of his paper. +A Literary Review (Charles Rainer's property) had suggested that perhaps +'the talented authoress might be writing too rapidly'; and another, +actuated by the public taste of the period for our 'vigorous homely +Saxon' in one and two syllable words, had complained of a 'tendency to +polysyllabic phraseology.' The remainder, a full majority, had sounded +eulogy with all their band-instruments, drum, trumpet, fife, trombone. +Her foregoing work had raised her to Fame, which is the Court of a +Queen when the lady has beauty and social influence, and critics are +her dedicated courtiers, gaping for the royal mouth to be opened, and +reserving the kicks of their independent manhood for infamous outsiders, +whom they hoist in the style and particular service of pitchforks. They +had fallen upon a little volume of verse, 'like a body of barn-door hens +on a stranger chick,' Diana complained; and she chid herself angrily +for letting it escape her forethought to propitiate them on the author's +behalf. Young Rhodes was left with scarce a feather; and what remained +to him appeared a preposterous ornament for the decoration of a +shivering and welted poet. He laughed, or tried the mouth of laughter. +ANTONIA's literary conscience was vexed at the different treatment she +had met and so imperatively needed that the reverse of it would have +threatened the smooth sailing of her costly household. A merry-go-round +of creditors required a corresponding whirligig of receipts. + +She felt mercenary, debased by comparison with the well-scourged +verse-mason, Orpheus of the untenanted city, who had done his publishing +ingenuously for glory: a good instance of the comic-pathetic. She wrote +to Emma, begging her to take him in at Copsley for a few days: 'I told +you I had no troubles. I am really troubled about this poor boy. He has +very little money and has embarked on literature. I cannot induce any of +my friends to lend him a hand. Mr. Redworth gruffly insists on his going +back to his law-clerk's office and stool, and Mr. Dacier says that no +place is vacant. The reality of Lord Dannisburgh's death is brought +before me by my helplessness. He would have made him an assistant +private Secretary, pending a Government appointment, rather than let me +plead in vain.' + +Mr. Rhodes with his travelling bag was packed off to Copsley, to enjoy +a change of scene after his run of the gauntlet. He was very heartily +welcomed by Lady Dunstane, both for her Tony's sake and his own modest +worship of that luminary, which could permit of being transparent; but +chiefly she welcomed him as the living proof of Tony's disengagement +from anxiety, since he was her one spot of trouble, and could easily be +comforted by reading with her, and wandering through the Spring woods +along the heights. He had a happy time, midway in air between his +accomplished hostess and his protecting Goddess. His bruises were soon +healed. Each day was radiant to him, whether it rained or shone; and by +his looks and what he said of himself Lady Dunstane understood that +he was in the highest temper of the human creature tuned to thrilling +accord with nature. It was her generous Tony's work. She blessed it, and +liked the youth the better. + +During the stay of Mr. Arthur Rhodes at Copsley, Sir Lukin came on a +visit to his wife. He mentioned reports in the scandal-papers: one, that +Mr. P. D. would shortly lead to the altar the lovely heiress Miss A., +Percy Dacier and Constance Asper:--another, that a reconciliation was +to be expected between the beautiful authoress Mrs. W. and her husband. +'Perhaps it's the best thing she can do,' Sir Lukin added. + +Lady Dunstane pronounced a woman's unforgiving: 'Never.' The revolt of +her own sensations assured her of Tony's unconquerable repugnance. In +conversation subsequently with Arthur Rhodes, she heard that he knew the +son of Mr. Warwick's attorney, a Mr. Fern; and he had gathered from +him some information of Mr. Warwick's condition of health. It had been +alarming; young Fern said it was confirmed heart-disease. His father +frequently saw Mr. Warwick, and said he was fretting himself to death. + +It seemed just a possibility that Tony's natural compassionateness had +wrought on her to immolate herself and nurse to his end the man who had +wrecked her life. Lady Dunstane waited for the news. At last she wrote, +touching the report incidentally. There was no reply. The silence +ensuing after such a question responded forcibly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER: THE WIND EAST OVER BLEAK LAND + +On the third day of the Easter recess Percy Dacier landed from the Havre +steamer at Caen and drove straightway for the sandy coast, past fields +of colza to brine-blown meadows of coarse grass, and then to the low +dunes and long stretching sands of the ebb in semicircle: a desolate +place at that season; with a dwarf fishing-village by the shore; an East +wind driving landward in streamers every object that had a scrap to fly. +He made head to the inn, where the first person he encountered in +the passage was Diana's maid Danvers, who relaxed from the dramatic +exaggeration of her surprise at the sight of a real English gentleman in +these woebegone regions, to inform him that her mistress might be found +walking somewhere along the sea-shore, and had her dog to protect her. +They were to stay here a whole week, Danvers added, for a conveyance +of her private sentiments. Second thoughts however whispered to her +shrewdness that his arrival could only be by appointment. She had been +anticipating something of the sort for some time. + +Dacier butted against the stringing wind, that kept him at a rocking +incline to his left for a mile. He then discerned in what had seemed a +dredger's dot on the sands, a lady's figure, unmistakably she, without +the corroborating testimony of Leander paw-deep in the low-tide water. +She was out at a distance on the ebb-sands, hurtled, gyred, beaten to +all shapes, in rolls, twists, volumes, like a blown banner-flag, by the +pressing wind. A kerchief tied her bonnet under her chin. Bonnet and +breast-ribands rattled rapidly as drummer-sticks. She stood near the +little running ripple of the flat sea-water, as it hurried from a long +streaked back to a tiny imitation of spray. When she turned to the shore +she saw him advancing, but did not recognize; when they met she merely +looked with wide parted lips. This was no appointment. + +'I had to see you,' Dacier said. + +She coloured to a deeper red than the rose-conjuring wind had whipped +in her cheeks. Her quick intuition of the reason of his coming barred a +mental evasion, and she had no thought of asking either him or herself +what special urgency had brought him. + +'I have been here four days.' + +'Lady Esquart spoke of the place.' + +'Lady Esquart should not have betrayed me.' + +'She did it inadvertently, without an idea of my profiting by it.' + +Diana indicated the scene in a glance. 'Dreary country, do you think?' + +'Anywhere!'--said he. + +They walked up the sand-heap. The roaring Easter with its shrieks and +whistles at her ribands was not favourable to speech. His 'Anywhere!' +had a penetrating significance, the fuller for the break that left it +vague. + +Speech between them was commanded; he could not be suffered to remain. +She descended upon a sheltered pathway running along a ditch, the border +of pastures where cattle cropped, raised heads, and resumed their one +comforting occupation. + +Diana gazed on them, smarting from the buffets of the wind she had met. + +'No play of their tails to-day'; she said, as she slackened her steps. +'You left Lady Esquart well?' + +'Lady Esquart... I think was well. I had to see you. I thought you would +be with her in Berkshire. She told me of a little sea-side place close +to Caen.' + +'You had to see me?' + +'I miss you now if it's a day!' + +'I heard a story in London...' + +'In London there are many stories. I heard one. Is there a foundation +for it?' + +'No.' + +He breathed relieved. 'I wanted to see you once before... if it was +true. It would have made a change in my life-a gap.' + +'You do me the honour to like my Sunday evenings?' + +'Beyond everything London can offer.' + +'A letter would have reached me.' + +'I should have had to wait for the answer. There is no truth in it?' + +Her choice was to treat the direct assailant frankly or imperil her +defence by the ordinary feminine evolutions, which might be taken for +inviting: poor pranks always. + +'There have been overtures,' she said. + +'Forgive me; I have scarcely the right to ask... speak of it!' + +'My friends may use their right to take an interest in my fortunes.' + +'I thought I might, on my way to Paris, turn aside... coming by this +route.' + +'If you determined not to lose much of your time.' + +The coolness of her fencing disconcerted a gentleman conscious of his +madness. She took instant advantage of any circuitous move; she gave him +no practicable point. He was little skilled in the arts of attack, and +felt that she checked his impetuousness; respected her for it, chafed +at it, writhed with the fervours precipitating him here, and relapsed on +his pleasure in seeing her face, hearing her voice. + +'Your happiness, I hope, is the chief thought in such a case,' he said. + +'I am sure you would consider it.' + +'I can't quite forget my own.' + +'You compliment an ambitious hostess.' + +Dacier glanced across the pastures, 'What was it that tempted you to +this place?' + +'A poet would say it looks like a figure in the shroud. It has no +features; it has a sort of grandeur belonging to death. I heard of it as +the place where I might be certain of not meeting an acquaintance.' + +'And I am the intruder.' + +'An hour or two will not give you that title.' + +'Am I to count the minutes by my watch?' + +'By the sun. We will supply you an omelette and piquette, and send you +back sobered and friarly--to Caen for Paris at sunset.' + +'Let the fare be Spartan. I could take my black broth with philosophy +every day of the year under your auspices. What I should miss...' + +'You bring no news of the world or the House?' + +'None. You know as much as I know. The Irish agitation is chronic. The +Corn-law threatens to be the same.' + +'And your Chief--in personal colloquy?' + +'He keeps a calm front. I may tell you: there is nothing I would not +confide to you: he has let fall some dubious words in private. I don't +know what to think of them.' + +'But if he should waver?' + +'It's not wavering. It's the openness of his mind.' + +'Ah! the mind. We imagine it free. The House and the country are the +sentient frame governing the mind of the politician more than his ideas. +He cannot think independently of them:--nor I of my natural anatomy. You +will test the truth of that after your omelette and piquette, and marvel +at the quitting of your line of route for Paris. As soon as the mind +attempts to think independently, it is like a kite with the cord cut, +and performs a series of darts and frisks, that have the look of wildest +liberty till you see it fall flat to earth. The openness of his mind is +most honourable to him.' + +'Ominous for his party.' + +'Likely to be good for his country.' + +'That is the question.' + +'Prepare to encounter it. In politics I am with the active minority on +behalf of the inert but suffering majority. That is my rule. It leads, +unless you have a despotism, to the conquering side. It is always the +noblest. I won't say, listen to me; only do believe my words have some +weight. This is a question of bread.' + +'It involves many other questions.' + +'And how clearly those leaders put their case! They are admirable +debaters. If I were asked to write against them, I should have but to +quote them to confound my argument. I tried it once, and wasted a couple +of my precious hours.' + +'They are cogent debaters,' Dacier assented. 'They make me wince now +and then, without convincing me: I own it to you. The confession is not +agreeable, though it's a small matter.' + +'One's pride may feel a touch with the foils as keenly as the point of a +rapier,' said Diana. + +The remark drew a sharp look of pleasure from him. + +'Does the Princess Egeria propose to dismiss the individual she +inspires, when he is growing most sensible of her wisdom?' + +'A young Minister of State should be gleaning at large when holiday is +granted him.' + +Dacier coloured. 'May I presume on what is currently reported?' + +'Parts, parts; a bit here, a bit there,' she rejoined. 'Authors find +their models where they can, and generally hit on the nearest.' + +'Happy the nearest!' + +'If you run to interjections I shall cite you a sentence, from your +latest speech in the House.' + +He asked for it, and to school him she consented to flatter with her +recollection of his commonest words: + +'"Dealing with subjects of this nature emotionally does, not advance us +a calculable inch."' + +'I must have said that in relation to hard matter of business.' + +'It applies. There is my hostelry, and the spectral form of Danvers, +utterly depaysee. Have you spoken to the poor soul? I can never discover +the links of her attachment to my service.' + +'She knows a good mistress.--I have but a few minutes, if you are +relentless. May I..., shall I ever be privileged to speak your Christian +name?' + +'My Christian name! It is Pagan. In one sphere I am Hecate. Remember +that.' + +'I am not among the people who so regard you.' + +'The time may come.' + +'Diana!' + +'Constance!' + +'I break no tie. I owe no allegiance whatever to the name.' + +'Keep to the formal title with me. We are Mrs. Warwick and Mr. Dacier. +I think I am two years younger than you; socially therefore ten in +seniority; and I know how this flower of friendship is nourished and may +be withered. You see already what you have done? You have cast me on the +discretion of my maid. I suppose her trusty, but I am at her mercy, and +a breath from her to the people beholding me as Hecate queen of Witches! +... I have a sensation of the scirocco it would blow.' + +'In that event, the least I can offer is my whole life.' + +'We will not conjecture the event.' + +'The best I could hope for!' + +'I see I shall have to revise the next edition of THE YOUNG MINISTER, +and make an emotional curate of him. Observe Danvers. The woman is +wretched; and now she sees me coming she pretends to be using her wits +in studying the things about her, as I have directed. She is a riddle. I +have the idea that any morning she may explode; and yet I trust her and +sleep soundly. I must be free, though I vex the world's watchdogs.--So, +Danvers, you are noticing how thoroughly Frenchwomen do their work.' + +Danvers replied with a slight mincing: 'They may, ma'am; but they +chatter chatter so.' + +'The result proves that it is not a waste of energy. They manage their +fowls too.' + +'They've no such thing as mutton, ma'am.' + +Dacier patriotically laughed. + +'She strikes the apology for wealthy and leisurely landlords,' Diana +said. + +Danvers remarked that the poor fed meagrely in France. She was not +convinced of its being good for them by hearing that they could work on +it sixteen hours out of the four and twenty. + +Mr. Percy Dacier's repast was furnished to him half an hour later. At +sunset Diana, taking Danvers beside her, walked with him to the line of +the country road bearing on Caen. The wind had sunk. A large brown disk +paused rayless on the western hills. + +'A Dacier ought to feel at home in Normandy; and you may have sprung +from this neighbourhood,' said she, simply to chat. 'Here the land is +poorish, and a mile inland rich enough to bear repeated crops of colza, +which tries the soil, I hear. As for beauty, those blue hills you see, +enfold charming valleys. I meditate an expedition to Harcourt before I +return. An English professor of his native tongue at the Lycee at Caen +told me on my way here that for twenty shillings a week you may live +in royal ease round about Harcourt. So we have our bed and board in +prospect if fortune fails us, Danvers! + +'I would rather die in England, ma'am,' was the maid's reply. + +Dacier set foot on his carriage-step. He drew a long breath to say a +short farewell, and he and Diana parted. + +They parted as the plainest of sincere good friends, each at heart +respecting the other for the repression of that which their hearts +craved; any word of which might have carried them headlong, bound +together on a Mazeppa-race, with scandal for the hounding wolves, and +social ruin for the rocks and torrents. + +Dacier was the thankfuller, the most admiring of the two; at the +same time the least satisfied. He saw the abyss she had aided him in +escaping; and it was refreshful to look abroad after his desperate +impulse. Prominent as he stood before the world, he could not think +without a shudder of behaving like a young frenetic of the passion. +Those whose aim is at the leadership of the English people know, that +however truly based the charges of hypocrisy, soundness of moral fibre +runs throughout the country and is the national integrity, which may +condone old sins for present service; but will not have present sins to +flout it. He was in tune with the English character. The passion was in +him nevertheless, and the stronger for a slow growth that confirmed its +union of the mind and heart. Her counsel fortified him, her suggestions +opened springs; her phrases were golden-lettered in his memory; and +more, she had worked an extraordinary change in his views of life and +aptitude for social converse: he acknowledged it with genial candour. +Through her he was encouraged, led, excited to sparkle with the witty, +feel new gifts, or a greater breadth of nature; and thanking her, he +became thirstily susceptible to her dark beauty; he claimed to have +found the key of her, and he prized it. She was not passionless: the +blood flowed warm. Proud, chaste, she was nobly spirited; having an +intellectual refuge from the besiegings of the blood; a rockfortress. +The 'wife no wife' appeared to him, striking the higher elements of +the man, the commonly masculine also.--Would he espouse her, had he +the chance?--to-morrow! this instant! With her to back him, he would be +doubled in manhood, doubled in brain and heart-energy. To call her wife, +spring from her and return, a man might accept his fate to fight Trojan +or Greek, sure of his mark on the enemy. + +But if, after all, this imputed Helen of a decayed Paris passed, +submissive to the legitimate solicitor, back to her husband? + +The thought shot Dacier on his legs for a look at the blank behind him. +He vowed she had promised it should not be. Could it ever be, after +the ruin the meanly suspicious fellow had brought upon her?--Diana +voluntarily reunited to the treacherous cur? + +He sat, resolving sombrely that if the debate arose he would try what +force he had to save her from such an ignominy, and dedicate his life to +her, let the world wag its tongue. So the knot would be cut. + +Men unaccustomed to a knot in their system find the prospect of cutting +it an extreme relief, even when they know that the cut has an edge to +wound mortally as well as pacify. The wound was not heavy payment for +the rapture of having so incomparable a woman his own. He reflected +wonderingly on the husband, as he had previously done, and came again to +the conclusion that it was a poor creature, abjectly jealous of a +wife, he could neither master, nor equal, nor attract. And thinking +of jealousy, Dacier felt none; none of individuals, only of facts: her +marriage, her bondage. Her condemnation to perpetual widowhood angered +him, as at an unrighteous decree. The sharp sweet bloom of her beauty, +fresh in swarthiness, under the whipping Easter, cried out against that +loathed inhumanity. Or he made it cry. + +Being a stranger to the jealousy of men, he took the soft assurance that +he was preferred above them all. Competitors were numerous: not any won +her eyes as he did. She revealed nothing of the same pleasures in +the shining of the others touched by her magical wand. Would she have +pardoned one of them the 'Diana!' bursting from his mouth? + +She was not a woman for trifling, still less for secresy. He was as +little the kind of lover. Both would be ready to take up their burden, +if the burden was laid on them. Diana had thus far impressed him. + +Meanwhile he faced the cathedral towers of the ancient Norman city, +standing up in the smoky hues of the West; and a sentence out of her +book seemed fitting to the scene and what he felt. He rolled it over +luxuriously as the next of delights to having her beside him.--She wrote +of; 'Thoughts that are bare dark outlines, coloured by some odd passion +of the soul, like towers of a distant city seen in the funeral waste of +day.'--His bluff English anti-poetic training would have caused him to +shrug at the stuff coming from another pen: he might condescendingly +have criticized it, with a sneer embalmed in humour. The words were +hers; she had written them; almost by a sort of anticipation, he +imagined; for he at once fell into the mood they suggested, and had +a full crop of the 'bare dark outlines' of thoughts coloured by his +particular form of passion. + +Diana had impressed him powerfully when she set him swallowing and +assimilating a sentence ethereally thin in substance of mere sentimental +significance, that he would antecedently have read aloud in a +drawing-room, picking up the book by hazard, as your modern specimen of +romantic vapouring. Mr. Dacier however was at the time in observation of +the towers of Caen, fresh from her presence, animated to some conception +of her spirit. He drove into the streets, desiring, half determining, to +risk a drive back on the morrow. + +The cold light of the morrow combined with his fear of distressing her +to restrain him. Perhaps he thought it well not to risk his gains. He +was a northerner in blood. He may have thought it well not further to +run the personal risk immediately. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S GOOD +WOMEN + +Pure disengagement of contemplativeness had selected. Percy Dacier as +the model of her YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE, Diana supposed. Could she +otherwise have dared to sketch him? She certainly would not have done it +now. + +That was a reflection similar to what is entertained by one who has +dropped from a precipice to the midway ledge over the abyss, +where caution of the whole sensitive being is required for simple +self-preservation. How could she have been induced to study and portray +him! It seemed a form of dementia. + +She thought this while imagining the world to be interrogating her. +When she interrogated herself, she flew to Lugano and her celestial +Salvatore, that she might be defended from a charge of the dreadful +weakness of her sex. Surely she there had proof of her capacity for pure +disengagement. Even in recollection the springs of spiritual happiness +renewed the bubbling crystal play. She believed that a divineness had +wakened in her there, to strengthen her to the end, ward her from any +complicity in her sex's culprit blushing. + +Dacier's cry of her name was the cause, she chose to think, of the +excessive circumspection she must henceforth practise; precariously +footing, embracing hardest earth, the plainest rules, to get back +to safety. Not that she was personally endangered, or at least not +spiritually; she could always fly in soul to her heights. But she had +now to be on guard, constantly in the fencing attitude. And watchful of +herself as well. That was admitted with a ready frankness, to save +it from being a necessitated and painful confession: for the +voluntary-acquiescence, if it involved her in her sex, claimed an +individual exemption. 'Women are women, and I am a woman but I am I, +and unlike them: I see we are weak, and weakness tempts: in owning the +prudence of guarded steps, I am armed. It is by dissembling, feigning +immunity, that we are imperilled.' She would have phrased it so, with +some anger at her feminine nature as well as at the subjection forced on +her by circumstances. + +Besides, her position and Percy Dacier's threw the fancied danger into +remoteness. The world was her stepmother, vigilant to become her judge; +and the world was his taskmaster, hopeful of him, yet able to strike him +down for an offence. She saw their situation as he did. The course of +folly must be bravely taken, if taken at all: Disguise degraded her to +the reptiles. + +This was faced. Consequently there was no fear of it. + +She had very easily proved that she had skill and self-possession to +keep him rational, and therefore they could continue to meet. A little +outburst of frenzy to a reputably handsome woman could be treated as the +froth of a passing wave. Men have the trick, infants their fevers. + +Diana's days were spent in reasoning. Her nights were not so tuneable +to the superior mind. When asleep she was the sport of elves that danced +her into tangles too deliciously unravelled, and left new problems for +the wise-eyed and anxious morning. She solved them with the thought +that in sleep it was the mere ordinary woman who fell a prey to her +tormentors; awake, she dispersed the swarm, her sky was clear. Gradually +the persecution ceased, thanks to her active pen. + +A letter from her legal adviser, old Mr. Braddock, informed her that no +grounds existed for apprehending marital annoyance, and late in May her +household had resumed its customary round. + +She examined her accounts. The Debit and Credit sides presented much +of the appearance of male and female in our jog-trot civilization. They +matched middling well; with rather too marked a tendency to strain the +leash and run frolic on the part of friend Debit (the wanton male), +which deepened the blush of the comparison. Her father had noticed the +same funny thing in his effort to balance his tugging accounts: 'Now +then for a look at Man and Wife': except that he made Debit stand for +the portly frisky female, Credit the decorous and contracted other half, +a prim gentleman of a constitutionally lean habit of body, remonstrating +with her. 'You seem to forget that we are married, my dear, and must +walk in step or bundle into the Bench,' Dan Merion used to say. + +Diana had not so much to rebuke in Mr. Debit; or not at the first +reckoning. But his ways were curious. She grew distrustful of him, +after dismissing him with a quiet admonition and discovering a series +of ambush bills, which he must have been aware of when he was allowed to +pass as an honourable citizen. His answer to her reproaches pleaded the +necessitousness of his purchases and expenditure: a capital plea; and +Mrs. Credit was requested by him, in a courteous manner, to drive +her pen the faster, so that she might wax to a corresponding size and +satisfy the world's idea of fitness in couples. She would have costly +furniture, because it pleased her taste; and a French cook, for a like +reason, in justice to her guests; and trained servants; and her tribe of +pensioners; flowers she would have profuse and fresh at her windows +and over the rooms; and the pictures and engravings on the walls were +(always for the good reason mentioned) choice ones; and she had a love +of old lace, she loved colours as she loved cheerfulness, and silks, +and satin hangings, Indian ivory carvings, countless mirrors, Oriental +woods, chairs and desks with some feature or a flourish in them, +delicate tables with antelope legs, of approved workmanship in the +chronology of European upholstery, and marble clocks of cunning device +to symbol Time, mantelpiece decorations, illustrated editions of her +favourite authors; her bed-chambers, too, gave the nest for sleep a +dainty cosiness in aerial draperies. Hence, more or less directly, the +peccant bills. Credit was reduced to reckon to a nicety the amount she +could rely on positively: her fixed income from her investments and the +letting of The Crossways: the days of half-yearly payments that would +magnify her to some proportions beside the alarming growth of her +partner, who was proud of it, and referred her to the treasures +she could summon with her pen, at a murmur of dissatisfaction. His +compliments were sincere; they were seductive. He assured her that she +had struck a rich vein in an inexhaustible mine; by writing only a +very little faster she could double her income; counting a broader +popularity, treble it; and so on a tide of success down the widening +river to a sea sheer golden. Behold how it sparkles! Are we then to +stint our winged hours of youth for want of courage to realize the +riches we can command? Debit was eloquent, he was unanswerable. + +Another calculator, an accustomed and lamentably-scrupulous +arithmetician, had been at work for some time upon a speculative summing +of the outlay of Diana's establishment, as to its chances of swamping +the income. Redworth could guess pretty closely the cost of a house +hold, if his care for the holder set him venturing on aver ages. He knew +nothing of her ten per cent. investment and considered her fixed income +a beggarly regiment to marshal against the invader. He fancied however, +in his ignorance of literary profits, that a popular writer, selling +several editions, had come to an El Dorado. There was the mine. It +required a diligent worker. Diana was often struck by hearing Redworth +ask her when her next book might be expected. He appeared to have an +eagerness in hurrying her to produce, and she had to say that she was +not a nimble writer. His flattering impatience was vexatious. He admired +her work, yet he did his utmost to render it little admirable. His +literary taste was not that of young Arthur Rhodes, to whom she could +read her chapters, appearing to take counsel upon them while drinking +the eulogies: she suspected him of prosaic ally wishing her to make +money, and though her exchequer was beginning to know the need of +it, the author's lofty mind disdained such sordidness: to be excused, +possibly, for a failing productive energy. She encountered obstacles to +imaginative composition. With the pen in her hand, she would fall into +heavy musings; break a sentence to muse, and not on the subject. She +slept unevenly at night, was drowsy by day, unless the open air was +about her, or animating friends. Redworth's urgency to get her to +publish was particularly annoying when she felt how greatly THE YOUNG +MINISTER OF STATE would have been improved had she retained the work +to brood over it, polish, re-write passages, perfect it. Her musings +embraced long dialogues of that work, never printed; they sprang up, +they passed from memory; leaving a distaste for her present work: THE +CANTATRICE: far more poetical than the preceding, in the opinion of +Arthur Rhodes; and the story was more romantic; modelled on a Prima +Donna she had met at the musical parties of Henry Wilmers, after hearing +Redworth tell of Charles Rainer's quaint passion for the woman, or the +idea of the woman. Diana had courted her, studied and liked her. The +picture she was drawing of the amiable and gifted Italian, of her +villain Roumanian husband, and of the eccentric, high-minded, devoted +Englishman, was good in a fashion; but considering the theme, she had +reasonable apprehension that her CANTATRICE would not repay her for the +time and labour bestowed on it. No clever transcripts of the dialogue +of the day occurred; no hair-breadth 'scapes, perils by sea and land, +heroisms of the hero, fine shrieks of the heroine; no set scenes +of catching pathos and humour; no distinguishable points of social +satire--equivalent to a smacking of the public on the chaps, which +excites it to grin with keen discernment of the author's intention. She +did not appeal to the senses nor to a superficial discernment. So she +had the anticipatory sense of its failure; and she wrote her best, +in perverseness; of course she wrote slowly; she wrote more and more +realistically of the characters and the downright human emotions, less +of the wooden supernumeraries of her story, labelled for broad guffaw +or deluge tears--the grappling natural links between our public and an +author. Her feelings were aloof. They flowed at a hint of a scene of THE +YOUNG MINISTER. She could not put them into THE CANTATRICE. And Arthur +Rhodes pronounced this work poetical beyond its predecessors, for the +reason that the chief characters were alive and the reader felt their +pulses. He meant to say, they were poetical inasmuch as they were +creations. + +The slow progress of a work not driven by the author's feelings +necessitated frequent consultations between Debit and Credit, resulting +in altercations, recriminations, discord of the yoked and divergent +couple. To restore them to their proper trot in harness, Diana +reluctantly went to her publisher for an advance item of the sum she was +to receive, and the act increased her distaste. An idea came that she +would soon cease to be able to write at all. What then? Perhaps by +selling her invested money, and ultimately The Crossways, she would have +enough for her term upon earth. Necessarily she had to think that +short, in order to reckon it as nearly enough. 'I am sure,' she said to +herself, 'I shall not trouble the world very long.' A strange languor +beset her; scarcely melancholy, for she conceived the cheerfulness of +life and added to it in company; but a nervelessness, as though she had +been left by the stream on the banks, and saw beauty and pleasure sweep +along and away, while the sun that primed them dried her veins. At this +time she was gaining her widest reputation for brilliancy of wit. Only +to welcome guests were her evenings ever spent at home. She had no +intimate understanding of the deadly wrestle of the conventional woman +with her nature which she was undergoing below the surface. Perplexities +she acknowledged, and the prudence of guardedness. 'But as I am sure not +to live very long, we may as well meet.' Her meetings with Percy Dacier +were therefore hardly shunned; and his behaviour did not warn her to +discountenance them. It would have been cruel to exclude him from her +select little dinners of eight. Whitmonby, Westlake, Henry Wilmers and +the rest, she perhaps aiding, schooled him in the conversational +art. She heard it said of him, that the courted discarder of the sex, +hitherto a mere politician, was wonderfully humanized. Lady Pennon fell +to talking of him hopefully. She declared him to be one of the men who +unfold tardily, and only await the mastering passion. If the passion had +come, it was controlled. His command of himself melted Diana. How could +she forbid his entry to the houses she frequented? She was glad to see +him. He showed his pleasure in seeing her. Remembering his tentative +indiscretion on those foreign sands, she reflected that he had been +easily checked: and the like was not to be said of some others. +Beautiful women in her position provoke an intemperateness that +contrasts touchingly with the self-restraint of a particular admirer. +Her 'impassioned Caledonian' was one of a host, to speak of whom and +their fits of lunacy even to her friend Emma, was repulsive. She bore +with them, foiled them, passed them, and recovered her equanimity; but +the contrast called to her to dwell on it, the self-restraint whispered +of a depth of passion.... + +She was shocked at herself for a singular tremble 'she experienced, +without any beating of the heart, on hearing one day that the marriage +of Percy Dacier and Miss Asper was at last definitely fixed. Mary +Paynham brought her the news. She had it from a lady who had come across +Miss Asper at Lady Wathin's assemblies, and considered the great heiress +extraordinarily handsome. + +'A golden miracle,' Diana gave her words to say. 'Good looks and gold +together are rather superhuman. The report may be this time true.' Next +afternoon the card of Lady Wathin requested Mrs. Warwick to grant her a +private interview. + +Lady Wathin, as one of the order of women who can do anything in a holy +cause, advanced toward Mrs. Warwick, unabashed by the burden of her +mission, and spinally prepared, behind benevolent smilings, to repay +dignity of mien with a similar erectness of dignity. They touched +fingers and sat. The preliminaries to the matter of the interview were +brief between ladies physically sensible of antagonism and mutually too +scornful of subterfuges in one another's presence to beat the bush. + +Lady Wathin began. 'I am, you are aware, Mrs. Warwick, a cousin of your +friend Lady Dunstane.' + +'You come to me on business?' Diana said. + +'It may be so termed. I have no personal interest in it. I come to lay +certain facts before you which I think you should know. We think it +better that an acquaintance, and one of your sex, should state the case +to you, instead of having recourse to formal intermediaries, lawyers--' + +'Lawyers?' + +'Well, my husband is a lawyer, it is true. In the course of his +professional vocations he became acquainted with Mr. Warwick. We have +latterly seen a good deal of him. He is, I regret to say, seriously +unwell.' + +'I have heard of it.' + +'He has no female relations, it appears. He needs more care than he can +receive from hirelings.' + +'Are you empowered by him, Lady Wathin?' + +'I am, Mrs. Warwick. We will not waste time in apologies. He is most +anxious for a reconciliation. It seems to Sir Cramborne and to me the +most desireable thing for all parties concerned, if you can be induced +to regard it in that light. Mr. Warwick may or may not live; but the +estrangement is quite undoubtedly the cause of his illness. I touch +on nothing connected with it. I simply wish that you should not be in +ignorance of his proposal and his condition.' + +Diana bowed calmly. 'I grieve at his condition. His proposal has already +been made and replied to.' + +'Oh, but, Mrs. Warwick, an immediate and decisive refusal of a proposal +so fraught with consequences...!' + +'Ah, but, Lady Wathin, you are now outstepping the limits prescribed by +the office you have undertaken.' + +'You will not lend ear to an intercession?' + +'I will not.' + +'Of course, Mrs. Warwick, it is not for me to hint at things that +lawyers could say on the subject.' + +'Your forbearance is creditable, Lady Wathin.' + +'Believe me, Mrs. Warwick, the step is--I speak in my husband's name as +well as my own--strongly to be advised.' + +'If I hear one word more of it, I leave the country.' + +'I should be sorry indeed at any piece of rashness depriving your +numerous friends of your society. We have recently become acquainted +with Mr. Redworth, and I know the loss you would be to them. I have not +attempted an appeal to your feelings, Mrs. Warwick.' + +'I thank you warmly, Lady Wathin, for what you have not done.' + +The aristocratic airs of Mrs. Warwick were annoying to Lady Wathin when +she considered that they were borrowed, and that a pattern morality +could regard the woman as ostracized: nor was it agreeable to be looked +at through eyelashes under partially lifted brows. She had come to +appeal to the feelings of the wife; at any rate, to discover if she had +some and was better than a wild adventuress. + +'Our life below is short!' she said. To which Diana tacitly assented. + +'We have our little term, Mrs. Warwick. It is soon over.' + +'On the other hand, the platitudes concerning it are eternal.' + +Lady Wathin closed her eyes, that the like effect might be produced on +her ears. 'Ah! they are the truths. But it is not my business to preach. +Permit me to say that I feel deeply for your husband.' + +'I am glad of Mr. Warwick's having friends; and they are many, I hope.' + +'They cannot behold him perishing, without an effort on his behalf.' + +A chasm of silence intervened. Wifely pity was not sounded in it. + +'He will question me, Mrs. Warwick.' + +'You can report to him the heads of our conversation, Lady Wathin.' + +'Would you--it is your husband's most earnest wish; and our house is +open to his wife and to him for the purpose; and it seems to us +that... indeed it might avert a catastrophe you would necessarily +deplore:--would you consent to meet him at my house?' + +'It has already been asked, Lady Wathin, and refused.' + +'But at my house-under our auspices!' + +Diana glanced at the clock. 'Nowhere.' + +'Is it not--pardon me--a wife's duty, Mrs. Warwick, at least to listen?' + +'Lady Wathin, I have listened to you.' + +'In the case of his extreme generosity so putting it, for the present, +Mrs. Warwick, that he asks only to be heard personally by his wife! It +may preclude so much.' + +Diana felt a hot wind across her skin. + +She smiled and said: 'Let me thank you for bringing to an end a mission +that must have been unpleasant to you.' + +'But you will meditate on it, Mrs. Warwick, will you not? Give me that +assurance!' + +'I shall not forget it,' said Diana. + +Again the ladies touched fingers, with an interchange of the social +grimace of cordiality. A few words of compassion for poor Lady +Dunstane's invalided state covered Lady Wathin's retreat. + +She left, it struck her ruffled sentiments, an icy libertine, whom any +husband caring for his dignity and comfort was well rid of; and if only +she could have contrived allusively to bring in the name of Mr. Percy +Dacier, just to show these arrant coquettes, or worse, that they were +not quite so privileged to pursue their intrigues obscurely as they +imagined, it would have soothed her exasperation. + +She left a woman the prey of panic. + +Diana thought of Emma and Redworth, and of their foolish interposition +to save her character and keep her bound. She might now have been free! +The struggle with her manacles reduced her to a state of rebelliousness, +from which issued vivid illuminations of the one means of certain +escape; an abhorrent hissing cavern, that led to a place named Liberty, +her refuge, but a hectic place. + +Unable to write, hating the house which held her a fixed mark for these +attacks, she had an idea of flying straight to her beloved Lugano lake, +and there hiding, abandoning her friends, casting off the slave's name +she bore, and living free in spirit. She went so far as to reckon the +cost of a small household there, and justify the violent step by an +exposition of retrenchment upon her large London expenditure. She had +but to say farewell to Emma, no other tie to cut! One morning on +the Salvatore heights would wash her clear of the webs defacing and +entangling her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION + +The month was August, four days before the closing of Parliament, and +Diana fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes to run down with her to Copsley. +He came to her invitation joyfully, reminding her of Lady Dunstane's +wish to hear some chapters of THE CANTATRICE, and the MS. was packed. +They started, taking rail and fly, and winding up the distance on foot. +August is the month of sober maturity and majestic foliage, songless, +but a crowned and royal-robed queenly month; and the youngster's +appreciation of the homely scenery refreshed Diana; his delight in being +with her was also pleasant. She had no wish to exchange him for another; +and that was a strengthening thought. + +At Copsley the arrival of their luggage had prepared the welcome. Warm +though it was, Diana perceived a change in Emma, an unwonted reserve, a +doubtfulness of her eyes, in spite of tenderness; and thus thrown back +on herself, thinking that if she had followed her own counsel (as she +called her impulse) in old days, there would have been no such present +misery, she at once, and unconsciously, assumed a guarded look. Based on +her knowledge of her honest footing, it was a little defiant. Secretly +in her bosom it was sharpened to a slight hostility by the knowledge +that her mind had been straying. The guilt and the innocence combined to +clothe her in mail, the innocence being positive, the guilt so vapoury. +But she was armed only if necessary, and there was no requirement for +armour. Emma did not question at all. She saw the alteration in her +Tony: she was too full of the tragic apprehensiveness, overmastering her +to speak of trifles. She had never confided to Tony the exact nature and +the growth of her malady, thinking it mortal, and fearing to alarm her +dearest. + +A portion of the manuscript was read out by Arthur Rhodes in the +evening; the remainder next morning. Redworth perceptibly was the model +of the English hero; and as to his person, no friend could complain of +the sketch; his clear-eyed heartiness, manliness, wholesomeness--a word +of Lady Dunstane's regarding him,--and his handsome braced figure, were +well painted. Emma forgave the insistance on a certain bluntness of the +nose, in consideration of the fond limning of his honest and expressive +eyes, and the 'light on his temples,' which they had noticed together. +She could not so easily forgive the realistic picture of the man: an +exaggeration, she thought, of small foibles, that even if they existed, +should not have been stressed. The turn for 'calculating' was shown up +ridiculously; Mr. Cuthbert Dering was calculating in his impassioned +moods as well as in his cold. His head was a long division of ciphers. +He had statistics for spectacles, and beheld the world through them, and +the mistress he worshipped. + +'I see,' said Emma, during a pause; 'he is a Saxon. You still affect to +have the race en grippe, Tony.' + +'I give him every credit for what he is,' Diana replied. 'I admire the +finer qualities of the race as much as any one. You want to have them +presented to you in enamel, Emmy.' + +But the worst was an indication that the mania for calculating in +and out of season would lead to the catastrophe destructive of his +happiness. Emma could not bear that. Without asking herself whether it +could be possible that Tony knew the secret, or whether she would have +laid it bare, her sympathy for Redworth revolted at the exposure. She +was chilled. She let it pass; she merely said: 'I like the writing.' + +Diana understood that her story was condemned. + +She put on her robes of philosophy to cloak discouragement. 'I am glad +the writing pleases you.' + +'The characters are as true as life!' cried Arthur Rhodes. 'The +Cantatrice drinking porter from the pewter at the slips after harrowing +the hearts of her audience, is dearer to me than if she had tottered to +a sofa declining sustenance; and because her creatrix has infused such +blood of life into her that you accept naturally whatever she does. +She was exhausted, and required the porter, like a labourer in the +cornfield.' + +Emma looked at him, and perceived the poet swamped by the admirer. Taken +in conjunction with Mr. Cuthbert Dering's frenzy for calculating, she +disliked the incident of the porter and the pewter. + +'While the Cantatrice swallowed her draught, I suppose Mr. Dering +counted the cost?' she said. + +'It really might be hinted,' said Diana. + +The discussion closed with the accustomed pro and con upon the wart of +Cromwell's nose, Realism rejoicing in it, Idealism objecting. + +Arthur Rhodes was bidden to stretch his legs on a walk along the heights +in the afternoon, and Emma was further vexed by hearing Tony complain of +Redworth's treatment of the lad, whom he would not assist to any of the +snug little posts he was notoriously able to dispense. + +'He has talked of Mr. Rhodes to me,' said Emma. 'He thinks the +profession of literature a delusion, and doubts the wisdom of having +poets for clerks.' + +'John-Bullish!' Diana exclaimed. 'He speaks contemptuously of the poor +boy.' + +'Only inasmuch as the foolishness of the young man in throwing up the +Law provokes his practical mind to speak.' + +'He might take my word for the "young man's" ability. I want him to have +the means of living, that he may write. He has genius.' + +'He may have it. I like him, and have said so. If he were to go back to +his law-stool, I have no doubt that Redworth would manage to help him.' + +'And make a worthy ancient Braddock of a youth of splendid promise! Have +I sketched him too Saxon?' + +'It is the lens, and hot the tribe, Tony.' + +THE CANTATRICE was not alluded to any more; but Emma's disapproval +blocked the current of composition, already subject to chokings in the +brain of the author. Diana stayed three days at Copsley, one longer than +she had intended, so that Arthur Rhodes might have his fill of country +air. + +'I would keep him, but I should be no companion for him,' Emma said. + +'I suspect the gallant squire is only to be satisfied by landing me +safely,' said Diana, and that small remark grated, though Emma saw the +simple meaning. When they parted, she kissed her Tony many times. Tears +were in her eyes. It seemed to Diana that she was anxious to make amends +for the fit of alienation, and she was kissed in return warmly, quite +forgiven, notwithstanding the deadly blank she had caused in the +imagination of the writer for pay, distracted by the squabbles of Debit +and Credit. + +Diana chatted spiritedly to young Rhodes on their drive to the train. +She was profoundly discouraged by Emma's disapproval of her work. It +wanted but that one drop to make a recurrence to the work impossible. +There it must lie! And what of the aspects of her household?--Perhaps, +after all, the Redworths of the world are right, and Literature as +a profession is a delusive pursuit. She did not assent to it without +hostility to the world's Redworths.--'They have no sensitiveness, we +have too much. We are made of bubbles that a wind will burst, and as the +wind is always blowing, your practical Redworths have their crow of us.' + +She suggested advice to Arthur Rhodes upon the prudence of his resuming +the yoke of the Law. + +He laughed at such a notion, saying that he had some expectations of +money to come. + +'But I fear,' said he, 'that Lady Dunstane is very very ill. She begged +me to keep her informed of your address.' + +Diana told him he was one of those who should know it whithersoever +she went. She spoke impulsively, her sentiments of friendliness for the +youth being temporarily brightened by the strangeness of Emma's conduct +in deputing it to him to fulfil a duty she had never omitted. 'What can +she think I am going to do!' + +On her table at home lay, a letter from Mr. Warwick. She read it hastily +in the presence of Arthur Rhodes, having at a glance at the handwriting +anticipated the proposal it contained and the official phrasing. + +Her gallant squire was invited to dine with her that evening, costume +excused. + +They conversed of Literature as a profession, of poets dead and living, +of politics, which he abhorred and shied at, and of his prospects. He +wrote many rejected pages, enjoyed an income of eighty pounds per annum, +and eked out a subsistence upon the modest sum his pen procured him; a +sum extremely insignificant; but great Nature was his own, the world was +tributary to him, the future his bejewelled and expectant bride. Diana +envied his youthfulness. Nothing is more enviable, nothing richer to +the mind, than the aspect of a cheerful poverty. How much nobler it was, +contrasted with Redworth's amassing of wealth! + +When alone, she went to her bedroom and tried to write, tried to sleep. +Mr. Warwick's letter was looked at. It seemed to indicate a threat; but +for the moment it did not disturb her so much as the review of her moral +prostration. She wrote some lines to her lawyers, quoting one of +Mr. Warwick's sentences. That done, his letter was dismissed. Her +intolerable languor became alternately a defeating drowsiness and a +fever. She succeeded in the effort to smother the absolute cause: it +was not suffered to show a front; at the cost of her knowledge of a +practised self-deception. 'I wonder whether the world is as bad as a +certain class of writers tell us!' she sighed in weariness, and mused on +their soundings and probings of poor humanity, which the world accepts +for the very bottom truth if their dredge brings up sheer refuse of the +abominable. The world imagines those to be at our nature's depths who +are impudent enough to expose its muddy shallows. She was in the mood +for such a kind of writing: she could have started on it at once but +that the theme was wanting; and it may count on popularity, a great +repute for penetration. It is true of its kind, though the dredging of +nature is the miry form of art. When it flourishes we may be assured we +have been overenamelling the higher forms. She felt, and shuddered to +feel, that she could draw from dark stores. Hitherto in her works it +had been a triumph of the good. They revealed a gaping deficiency of the +subtle insight she now possessed. 'Exhibit humanity as it is, wallowing, +sensual, wicked, behind the mask,' a voice called to her; she was +allured by the contemplation of the wide-mouthed old dragon Ego, whose +portrait, decently painted, establishes an instant touch of exchange +between author and public, the latter detected and confessing. Next +to the pantomime of Humour and Pathos, a cynical surgical knife at the +human bosom seems the surest talisman for this agreeable exchange; +and she could cut. She gave herself a taste of her powers. She cut at +herself mercilessly, and had to bandage the wound in a hurry to keep in +life. + +Metaphors were her refuge. Metaphorically she could allow her mind +to distinguish the struggle she was undergoing, sinking under it. The +banished of Eden had to put on metaphors, and the common use of them has +helped largely to civilize us. The sluggish in intellect detest them, +but our civilization is not much indebted to that major faction. +Especially are they needed by the pedestalled woman in her conflict with +the natural. Diana saw herself through the haze she conjured up. 'Am +I worse than other women?' was a piercing twithought. Worse, would be +hideous isolation. The not worse, abased her sex. She could afford to +say that the world was bad: not that women were. + +Sinking deeper, an anguish of humiliation smote her to a sense of +drowning. For what of the poetic ecstasy on her Salvatore heights had +not been of origin divine? had sprung from other than spiritual founts? +had sprung from the reddened sources she was compelled to conceal? Could +it be? She would not believe it. But there was matter to clip her wings, +quench her light, in the doubt. + +She fell asleep like the wrecked flung ashore. + +Danvers entered her room at an early hour for London to inform her that +Mr. Percy Dacier was below, and begged permission to wait. + +Diana gave orders for breakfast to be proposed to him. She lay staring +at the wall until it became too visibly a reflection of her mind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS + +The suspicion of his having come to impart the news of his proximate +marriage ultimately endowed her with sovereign calmness. She had need +to think it, and she did. Tea was brought to her while she dressed; she +descended the stairs revolving phrases of happy congratulation and the +world's ordinary epigrams upon the marriage-tie, neatly mixed. + +They read in one another's faces a different meaning from the empty +words of excuse and welcome. Dacier's expressed the buckling of a strong +set purpose; but, grieved by the look of her eyes, he wasted a moment to +say: 'You have not slept. You have heard...?' + +'What?' said she, trying to speculate; and that was a sufficient answer. + +'I hadn't the courage to call last night; I passed the windows. Give me +your hand, I beg.' + +She gave her hand in wonderment, and more wonderingly felt it squeezed. +Her heart began the hammerthump. She spoke an unintelligible something; +saw herself melting away to utter weakness-pride, reserve, simple +prudence, all going; crumbled ruins where had stood a fortress imposing +to men. Was it love? Her heart thumped shiveringly. + +He kept her hand, indifferent to the gentle tension. + +'This is the point: I cannot live without you: I have gone on... Who was +here last night? Forgive me.' + +'You know Arthur Rhodes.' + +'I saw him leave the door at eleven. Why do you torture me? There's +no time to lose now. You will be claimed. Come, and let us two cut +the knot. It is the best thing in the world for me--the only thing. Be +brave! I have your hand. Give it for good, and for heaven's sake don't +play the sex. Be yourself. Dear soul of a woman! I never saw the soul in +one but in you. I have waited: nothing but the dread of losing you sets +me speaking now. And for you to be sacrificed a second time to that--! +Oh, no! You know you can trust me. On my honour, I take breath from you. +You are my better in everything--guide, goddess, dearest heart! Trust +me; make me master of your fate.' + +'But my friend!' the murmur hung in her throat. He was marvellously +transformed; he allowed no space for the arts of defence and evasion. + +'I wish I had the trick of courting. There's not time; and I 'm a +simpleton at the game. We can start this evening. Once away, we leave +it to them to settle the matter, and then you are free, and mine to the +death.' + +'But speak, speak! What is it?' Diana said. + +'That if we delay, I 'm in danger of losing you altogether.' + +Her eyes lightened: 'You mean that you have heard he has determined--?' + +'There's a process of the law. But stop it. Just this one step, and +it ends. Whether intended or not, it hangs over you, and you will be +perpetually tormented. Why waste your whole youth?--and mine as well! +For I am bound to you as much as if we had stood at the altar--where we +will stand together the instant you are free.' + +'But where have you heard...?' + +'From an intimate friend. I will tell you--sufficiently intimate--from +Lady Wathin. Nothing of a friend, but I see this woman at times. +She chose to speak of it to me it doesn't matter why. She is in his +confidence, and pitched me a whimpering tale. Let those people chatter. +But it 's exactly for those people that you are hanging in chains, all +your youth shrivelling. Let them shout their worst! It's the bark of +a day; and you won't hear it; half a year, and it will be over, and I +shall bring you back--the husband of the noblest bride in Christendom! +You don't mistrust me?' + +'It is not that,' said she. 'But now drop my hand. I am imprisoned.' + +'It's asking too much. I've lost you--too many times. I have the hand +and I keep it. I take nothing but the hand. It's the hand I want. I give +you mine. I love you. Now I know what love is!--and the word carries +nothing of its weight. Tell me you do not doubt my honour.' + +'Not at all. But be rational. I must think, and I cannot while you keep +my hand.' + +He kissed it. 'I keep my own against the world.' + +A cry of rebuke swelled to her lips at his conqueror's tone. It was not +uttered, for directness was in his character and his wooing loyal--save +for bitter circumstances, delicious to hear; and so narrow was the ring +he had wound about her senses, that her loathing of the circumstances +pushed her to acknowledge within her bell of a heart her love for him. + +He was luckless enough to say: 'Diana!' + +It rang horridly of her husband. She drew her hand to loosen it, with +repulsing brows. 'Not that name!' + +Dacier was too full of his honest advocacy of the passionate lover to +take a rebuff. There lay his unconscious mastery, where the common arts +of attack would have tripped him with a quick-witted woman, and where +a man of passion, not allowing her to succumb in dignity, would have +alarmed her to the breaking loose from him. + +'Lady Dunstane calls you Tony.' + +'She is my dearest and oldest friend.' + +'You and I don't count by years. You are the dearest to me on earth, +Tony!' + +She debated as to forbidding that name. + +The moment's pause wrapped her in a mental hurricane, out of which she +came with a heart stopped, her olive cheeks ashen-hued. She had seen +that the step was possible. + +'Oh! Percy, Percy, are we mad?' + +'Not mad. We take what is ours. Tell me, have I ever, ever disrespected +you? You were sacred to me; and you are, though now the change has come. +Look back on it--it is time lost, years that are dust. But look forward, +and you cannot imagine our separation. What I propose is plain sense +for us two. Since Rovio, I have been at your feet. Have I not some just +claim for recompense? Tell me! Tony!' + +The sweetness of the secret name, the privileged name, in his mouth +stole through her blood, melting resistance. + +She had consented. The swarthy flaming of her face avowed it even more +than the surrender of her hand. He gained much by claiming little: he +respected her, gave her no touches of fright and shame; and it was her +glory to fall with pride. An attempt at a caress would have awakened +her view of the whitherward: but she was treated as a sovereign lady +rationally advised. + +'Is it since Rovio, Percy?' + +'Since the morning when you refused me one little flower.' + +'If I had given it, you might have been saved!' + +'I fancy I was doomed from the beginning.' + +'I was worth a thought?' + +'Worth a life! worth ten thousand!' + +'You have reckoned it all like a sane man:--family, position, the world, +the scandal?' + +'All. I have long known that you were the mate for me. You have to +weather a gale, Tony. It won't last. My dearest! it won't last many +months. I regret the trial for you, but I shall be with you, burning for +the day to reinstate you and show you the queen you are.' + +'Yes, we two can have no covert dealings, Percy,' said Diana. They would +be hateful--baseness! Rejecting any baseness, it seemed to her that she +stood in some brightness. The light was of a lurid sort. She called +on her heart to glory in it as the light of tried love, the love that +defied the world. Her heart rose. She and he would at a single step +give proof of their love for one another--and this kingdom of love--how +different from her recent craven languors!--this kingdom awaited her, +was hers for one word; and beset with the oceans of enemies, it was +unassailable. If only they were true to the love they vowed, no human +force could subvert it: and she doubted him as little as of herself. +This new kingdom of love, never entered by her, acclaiming her, was +well-nigh unimaginable, in spite of the many hooded messengers it had +despatched to her of late. She could hardly believe that it had come. + +'But see me as I am,' she said; she faltered it through her direct gaze +on him. + +'With chains to strike off? Certainly; it is done,' he replied. + +'Rather heavier than those of the slave-market! I am the deadest of +burdens. It means that your enemies, personal--if you have any, and +political--you have numbers; will raise a cry.... Realize it. You may +still be my friend. I forgive the bit of wildness.' + +She provoked a renewed kissing of her hand; for magnammity in love is +an overflowing danger; and when he said: 'The burden you have to bear +outweighs mine out of all comparison. What is it to a man--a public man +or not! The woman is always the victim. That's why I have held myself in +so long:--her strung frame softened. She half yielded to the tug on her +arm. + +'Is there no talking for us without foolishness?' she murmured. The +foolishness had wafted her to sea, far from sight of land. 'Now sit, +and speak soberly. Discuss the matter.--Yes, my hand, but I must have my +wits. Leave me free to use them till we choose our path. Let it be +the brains between us, as far as it can. You ask me to join my fate to +yours. It signifies a sharp battle for you, dear friend; perhaps the +blighting of the most promising life in England. One question is, can I +countervail the burden I shall be, by such help to you as I can afford? +Burden, is no word--I rake up a buried fever. I have partially lived it +down, and instantly I am covered with spots. The old false charges and +this plain offence make a monster of me.' + +'And meanwhile you are at the disposal of the man who falsely charged +you and armed the world against you,' said Dacier. + +'I can fly. The world is wide.' + +'Time slips. Your youth is wasted. If you escape the man, he will have +triumphed in keeping you from me. And I thirst for you; I look to you +for aid and counsel; I want my mate. You have not to be told how you +inspire me? I am really less than half myself without you. If I am to +do anything in the world, it must be with your aid, you beside me. Our +hands are joined: one leap! Do you not see that after... well, it cannot +be friendship. It imposes rather more on me than I can bear. You are not +the woman to trifle; nor I; Tony, the man for it with a woman like you. +You are my spring of wisdom. You interdict me altogether--can you?--or +we unite our fates, like these hands now. Try to get yours away!' + +Her effort ended in a pressure. Resistance, nay, to hesitate at +the joining of her life with his after her submission to what was a +scorching fire in memory, though it was less than an embrace, accused +her of worse than foolishness. + +'Well, then,' said she, 'wait three days. Deliberate. Oh! try to know +yourself, for your clear reason to guide you. Let us be something better +than the crowd abusing us, not simple creatures of impulse--as we choose +to call the animal. What if we had to confess that we took to our heels +the moment the idea struck us! Three days. We may then pretend to a +philosophical resolve. Then come to me: or write to me.' + +'How long is it since the old Rovio morning, Tony?' + +'An age.' + +'Date my deliberations from that day.' + +The thought of hers having to be dated possibly from an earlier day, +robbed her of her summit of feminine isolation, and she trembled, +chilled and flushed; she lost all anchorage. + +'So it must be to-morrow,' said he, reading her closely, 'not later. +Better at once. But women are not to be hurried.' + +'Oh! don't class me, Percy, pray! I think of you, not of myself.' + +'You suppose that in a day or two I might vary?' + +She fixed her eyes on him, expressing certainty of his unalterable +stedfastness. The look allured. It changed: her head shook. She held +away and said: 'No, leave me; leave me, dear, dear friend. Percy, my +dearest! I will not "play the sex." I am yours if... if it is your wish. +It may as well be to-morrow. Here I am useless; I cannot write, not +screw a thought from my head. I dread that "process of the Law" a second +time. To-morrow, if it must be. But no impulses. Fortune is blind; she +may be kind to us. The blindness of Fortune is her one merit, and fools +accuse her of it, and they profit by it! I fear we all of us have our +turn of folly: we throw the stake for good luck. I hope my sin is not +very great. I know my position is desperate. I feel a culprit. But I +am sure I have courage, perhaps brains to help. At any rate, I may say +this: I bring no burden to my lover that he does not know of.' + +Dacier pressed her hand. 'Money we shall have enough. My uncle has left +me fairly supplied.' + +'What would he think?' said Diana, half in a glimpse of meditation. + +'Think me the luckiest of the breeched. I fancy I hear him thanking you +for "making a man" of me.' + +She blushed. Some such phrase might have been spoken by Lord +Dannisburgh. + +'I have but a poor sum of money,' she said. 'I may be able to write +abroad. Here I cannot--if I am to be persecuted.' + +'You shall write, with a new pen!' said Dacier. 'You shall live, my +darling Tony. You have been held too long in this miserable suspension, +neither maid nor wife, neither woman nor stockfish. Ah! shameful. But +we 'll right it. The step, for us, is the most reasonable that could +be considered. You shake your head. But the circumstances make it so. +Courage, and we come to happiness! And that, for you and me, means work. +Look at the case of Lord and Lady Dulac. It's identical, except that she +is no match beside you: and I do not compare her antecedents with yours. +But she braved the leap, and forced the world to swallow it, and now, +you see, she's perfectly honoured. I know a place on a peak of the +Maritime Alps, exquisite in summer, cool, perfectly solitary, no +English, snow round us, pastures at our feet, and the Mediterranean +below. There! my Tony. To-morrow night we start. You will meet me-shall +I call here?--well, then at the railway station, the South-Eastern, for +Paris: say, twenty minutes to eight. I have your pledge? You will come?' + +She sighed it, then said it firmly, to be worthy of him. Kind Fortune, +peeping under the edge of her bandaged eyes, appeared willing to bestow +the beginning of happiness upon one who thought she had a claim to a +small taste of it before she died. It seemed distinguishingly done, to +give a bite of happiness to the starving! + +'I fancied when you were announced that you came for congratulations +upon your approaching marriage, Percy.' + +'I shall expect to hear them from you to-morrow evening at the station, +dear Tony,' said he. + +The time was again stated, the pledge repeated. He forbore entreaties +for privileges, and won her gratitude. + +They named once more the place of meeting and the hour: more significant +to them than phrases of intensest love and passion. Pressing hands +sharply for pledge of good faith, they sundered. + +She still had him in her eyes when he had gone. Her old world lay +shattered; her new world was up without a dawn, with but one figure, the +sun of it, to light the swinging strangeness. + +Was ever man more marvellously transformed? or woman more wildly swept +from earth into the clouds? So she mused in the hum of her tempest of +heart and brain, forgetful of the years and the conditions preparing +both of them for this explosion. + +She had much to do: the arrangements to dismiss her servants, write +to house-agents and her lawyer, and write fully to Emma, write the +enigmatic farewell to the Esquarts and Lady Pennon, Mary Paynham, +Arthur Rhodes, Whitmonby (stanch in friendship, but requiring friendly +touches), Henry Wilmers, and Redworth. He was reserved to the last, for +very enigmatical adieux: he would hear the whole story from Emma; must +be left to think as he liked. + +The vague letters were excellently well composed: she was going abroad, +and knew not when she would return; bade her friends think the best they +could of her in the meantime. Whitmonby was favoured with an anecdote, +to be read as an apologue by the light of subsequent events. But the +letter to Emma tasked Diana. Intending to write fully, her pen committed +the briefest sentences: the tenderness she felt for Emma wakening her +heart to sing that she was loved, loved, and knew love at last; and +Emma's foreseen antagonism to the love and the step it involved rendered +her pleadings in exculpation a stammered confession of guiltiness, +ignominious, unworthy of the pride she felt in her lover. 'I am like +a cartridge rammed into a gun, to be discharged at a certain hour +tomorrow,' she wrote; and she sealed a letter so frigid that she could +not decide to post it. All day she imagined hearing a distant cannonade. +The light of the day following was not like earthly light. Danvers +assured her there was no fog in London. + +'London is insupportable; I am going to Paris, and shall send for you in +a week or two,' said Diana. + +'Allow me to say, ma'am, that you had better take me with you,' said +Danvers. + +'Are you afraid of travelling by yourself, you foolish creature?' + +'No, ma'am, but I don't like any hands to undress and dress my mistress +but my own.' + +'I have not lost the art,' said Diana, chafing for a magic spell to +extinguish the woman, to whom, immediately pitying her, she said: 'You +are a good faithful soul. I think you have never kissed me. Kiss me on +the forehead.' + +Danvers put her lips to her mistress's forehead, and was asked: 'You +still consider yourself attached to my fortunes?' + +'I do, ma'am, at home or abroad; and if you will take me with you...' + +'Not for a week or so.' + +'I shall not be in the way, ma'am.' + +They played at shutting eyes. The petition of Danvers was declined; +which taught her the more; and she was emboldened to say: 'Wherever my +mistress goes, she ought to have her attendant with her.' There was no +answer to it but the refusal. + +The hours crumbled slowly, each with a blow at the passages of retreat. +Diana thought of herself as another person, whom she observed, not +counselling her, because it was a creature visibly pushed by the Fates. +In her own mind she could not perceive a stone of solidity anywhere, nor +a face that had the appearance of our common life. She heard the cannon +at intervals. The things she said set Danvers laughing, and she wondered +at the woman's mingled mirth and stiffness. Five o'clock struck. Her +letters were sent to the post. Her boxes were piled from stairs to door. +She read the labels, for her good-bye to the hated name of Warwick:--why +ever adopted! Emma might well have questioned why! Women are guilty of +such unreasoning acts! But this was the close to that chapter. The hour +of six went by. Between six and seven came a sound of knocker and bell +at the street-door. Danvers rushed into the sitting-room to announce +that it was Mr. Redworth. Before a word could be mustered, Redworth was +in the room. He said: 'You must come with me at once!' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTITUDE OF +LESSONS + +Dacier welted at the station, a good figure of a sentinel over his +luggage and a spy for one among the inpouring passengers. Tickets had +been confidently taken, the private division of the carriages happily +secured. On board the boat she would be veiled. Landed on French soil, +they threw off disguises, breasted the facts. And those? They lightened. +He smarted with his eagerness. + +He had come well in advance of the appointed time, for he would not have +had her hang about there one minute alone. + +Strange as this adventure was to a man of prominent station before the +world, and electrical as the turning-point of a destiny that he was +given to weigh deliberately and far-sightedly, Diana's image strung him +to the pitch of it. He looked nowhere but ahead, like an archer putting +hand for his arrow. + +Presently he compared his watch and the terminus clock. She should +now be arriving. He went out to meet her and do service. Many cabs and +carriages were peered into, couples inspected, ladies and their maids, +wives and their husbands--an August exodus to the Continent. Nowhere the +starry she. But he had a fund of patience. She was now in some block of +the streets. He was sure of her, sure of her courage. Tony and recreancy +could not go together. Now that he called her Tony, she was his close +comrade, known; the name was a caress and a promise, breathing of her, +as the rose of sweetest earth. He counted it to be a month ere his +family would have wind of the altered position of his affairs, possibly +a year to the day of his making the dear woman his own in the eyes of +the world. She was dear past computation, womanly, yet quite unlike the +womanish woman, unlike the semi-males courteously called dashing, unlike +the sentimental. His present passion for her lineaments, declared her +surpassingly beautiful, though his critical taste was rather for the +white statue that gave no warmth. She had brains and ardour, she had +grace and sweetness, a playful petulancy enlivening our atmosphere, and +withal a refinement, a distinction, not to be classed; and justly might +she dislike the being classed. Her humour was a perennial refreshment, a +running well, that caught all the colours of light; her wit studded the +heavens of the recollection of her. In his heart he felt that it was +a stepping down for the brilliant woman to give him her hand; a +condescension and an act of valour. She who always led or prompted when +they conversed, had now in her generosity abandoned the lead and herself +to him, and she deserved his utmost honouring. + +But where was she? He looked at his watch, looked at the clock. They +said the same: ten minutes to the moment of the train's departure. + +A man may still afford to dwell on the charms and merits of his heart's +mistress while he has ten minutes to spare. The dropping minutes, +however, detract one by one from her individuality and threaten to sink +her in her sex entirely. It is the inexorable clock that says she is as +other women. Dacier began to chafe. He was unaccustomed to the part +he was performing:--and if she failed him? She would not. She would be +late, though. No, she was in time! His long legs crossed the platform to +overtake a tall lady veiled and dressed in black. He lifted his hat; he +heard an alarmed little cry and retired. The clock said, Five minutes: +a secret chiromancy in addition indicating on its face the word Fool. +An odd word to be cast at him! It rocked the icy pillar of pride in the +background of his nature. Certainly standing solos at the hour of eight +P.M., he would stand for a fool. Hitherto he had never allowed a woman +to chance to posture him in that character. He strode out, returned, +scanned every lady's shape, and for a distraction watched the veiled +lady whom he had accosted. Her figure suggested pleasant features. +Either she was disappointed or she was an adept. At the shutting of the +gates she glided through, not without a fearful look around and at +him. She disappeared. Dacier shrugged. His novel assimilation to +the rat-rabble of amatory intriguers tapped him on the shoulder +unpleasantly. A luckless member of the fraternity too! The bell, the +clock and the train gave him his title. 'And I was ready to fling down +everything for the woman!' The trial of a superb London gentleman's +resources in the love-passion could not have been much keener. No sign +of her. + +He who stands ready to defy the world, and is baffled by the absence of +his fair assistant, is the fool doubled, so completely the fool that +he heads the universal shout; he does not spare himself. The sole +consolation he has is to revile the sex. Women! women! Whom have they +not made a fool of! His uncle as much as any--and professing to know +them. Him also! the man proud of escaping their wiles. 'For this +woman...!' he went on saying after he had lost sight of her in her sex's +trickeries. The nearest he could get to her was to conceive that the +arrant coquette was now laughing at her utter subjugation and befooling +of the man popularly supposed invincible. If it were known of him! The +idea of his being a puppet fixed for derision was madly distempering. He +had only to ask the affirmative of Constance Asper to-morrow! A vision +of his determination to do it, somewhat comforted him. + +Dacier walked up and down the platform, passing his pile of luggage, +solitary and eloquent on the barrow. Never in his life having been made +to look a fool, he felt the red heat of the thing, as a man who has +not blessedly become acquainted with the swish in boyhood finds his +untempered blood turn to poison at a blow; he cannot healthily take +a licking. But then it had been so splendid an insanity when he urged +Diana to fly with him. Any one but a woman would have appreciated the +sacrifice. + +His luggage had to be removed. He dropped his porter a lordly fee and +drove home. From that astonished solitude he strolled to his Club. +Curiosity mastering the wrath it was mixed with, he left his Club and +crossed the park southward in the direction of Diana's house, abusing +her for her inveterate attachment to the regions of Westminster. There +she used to receive Lord Dannisburgh; innocently, no doubt-assuredly +quite innocently; and her husband had quitted the district. Still it +was rather childish for a woman to-be always haunting the seats of +Parliament. Her disposition to imagine that she was able to inspire +statesmen came in for a share of ridicule; for when we know ourselves to +be ridiculous, a retort in kind, unjust upon consideration, is balm. The +woman dragged him down to the level of common men; that was the peculiar +injury, and it swept her undistinguished into the stream of women. +In appearance, as he had proved to the fellows at his Club, he was +perfectly self-possessed, mentally distracted and bitter, hating himself +for it, snapping at the cause of it. She had not merely disappointed, +she had slashed his high conceit of himself, curbed him at the first +animal dash forward, and he champed the bit with the fury of a thwarted +racer. + +Twice he passed her house. Of course no light was shown at her windows. +They were scanned malignly. + +He held it due to her to call and inquire whether there was any truth +in the report of Mrs. Warwick's illness. Mrs. Warwick! She meant to keep +the name. + +A maid-servant came to the door with a candle in her hand revealing red +eyelids. She was not aware that her mistress was unwell. Her mistress +had left home some time after six o'clock with a gentleman. She was +unable to tell him the gentleman's name. William, the footman, had +opened the door to him. Her mistress's maid Mrs. Danvers had gone to +the Play--with William. She thought that Mrs. Danvers might know who the +gentleman was. The girl's eyelids blinked, and she turned aside. Dacier +consoled her with a piece of gold, saying he would come and see Mrs. +Danvers in the morning. + +His wrath was partially quieted by the new speculations offered up to +it. He could not conjure a suspicion of treachery in Diana Warwick; and +a treachery so foully cynical! She had gone with a gentleman. He guessed +on all sides; he struck at walls, as in complete obscurity. + +The mystery of her conduct troubling his wits for the many hours was +explained by Danvers. With a sympathy that she was at pains to show, she +informed him that her mistress was not at all unwell, and related of +how Mr. Redworth had arrived just when her mistress was on the point +of starting for Paris and the Continent; because poor Lady Dunstane was +this very day to undergo an operation under the surgeons at Copsley, and +she did not wish her mistress to be present, but Mr. Redworth thought +her mistress ought to be there, and he had gone down thinking she was +there, and then came back in hot haste to fetch her, and was just in +time, as it happened, by two or three minutes. + +Dacier rewarded the sympathetic woman for her intelligence, which +appeared to him to have shot so far as to require a bribe. Gratitude to +the person soothing his unwontedly ruffled temper was the cause of the +indiscretion in the amount he gave. + +It appeared to him that he ought to proceed to Copsley for tidings of +Lady Dunstane. Thither he sped by the handy railway and a timely train. +He reached the parkgates at three in the afternoon, telling his flyman +to wait. As he advanced by short cuts over the grass, he studied the +look of the rows of windows. She was within, and strangely to his +clouded senses she was no longer Tony, no longer the deceptive woman he +could in justice abuse. He and she, so close to union, were divided. +A hand resembling the palpable interposition of Fate had swept them +asunder. Having the poorest right--not any--to reproach her, he was +disarmed, he felt himself a miserable intruder; he summoned his +passion to excuse him, and gained some unsatisfied repose of mind by +contemplating its devoted sincerity; which roused an effort to feel for +the sufferer--Diana Warwick's friend. With the pair of surgeons named, +the most eminent of their day, in attendance, the case must be serious. +To vindicate the breaker of her pledge, his present plight likewise +assured him of that, and nearing the house he adopted instinctively +the funeral step and mood, just sensible of a novel smallness. For the +fortifying testimony of his passion had to be put aside, he was obliged +to disavow it for a simpler motive if he applied at the door. He +stressed the motive, produced the sentiment, and passed thus naturally +into hypocrisy, as lovers precipitated by their blood among the crises +of human conditions are often forced to do. He had come to inquire +after Lady Dunstane. He remembered that it had struck him as a duty, on +hearing of her dangerous illness. + +The door opened before he touched the bell. Sir Lukin knocked against +him and stared. + +'Ah!--who--?--you?' he said, and took him by the arm and pressed him on +along the gravel. 'Dacier, are you? Redworth's in there. Come on a step, +come! It's the time for us to pray. Good God! There's mercy for sinners. +If ever there was a man!... But, oh, good God! she's in their hands this +minute. My saint is under the knife.' + +Dacier was hurried forward by a powerful hand. 'They say it lasts about +five minutes, four and a half--or more! My God! When they turned me out +of her room, she smiled to keep me calm. She said: "Dear husband": the +veriest wretch and brutallest husband ever poor woman... and a saint! a +saint on earth! Emmy!' Tears burst from him. + +He pulled forth his watch and asked Dacier for the time. + +'A minute's gone in a minute. It's three minutes and a half. Come +faster. They're at their work! It's life or death. I've had death about +me. But for a woman! and your wife! and that brave soul! She bears it +so. Women are the bravest creatures afloat. If they make her shriek, +it'll be only if she thinks I 'm out of hearing. No: I see her. She +bears it!--They mayn't have begun yet. It may all be over! Come into the +wood. I must pray. I must go on my knees.' + +Two or three steps in the wood, at the mossed roots of a beech, he fell +kneeling, muttering, exclaiming. + +The tempest of penitence closed with a blind look at his watch, which he +left dangling. He had to talk to drug his thoughts. + +'And mind you,' said he, when he had rejoined Dacier and was pushing his +arm again, rounding beneath the trees to a view of the house, 'for a man +steeped in damnable iniquity! She bears it all for me, because I begged +her, for the chance of her living. It's my doing--this knife! Macpherson +swears there is a chance. Thomson backs him. But they're at her, +cutting! ... The pain must be awful--the mere pain! The gentlest +creature ever drew breath! And women fear blood--and her own! And a +head! She ought to have married the best man alive, not a--! I can't +remember her once complaining of me--not once. A common donkey compared +to her! All I can do is to pray. And she knows the beast I am, and has +forgiven me. There isn't a blessed text of Scripture that doesn't cry +out in praise of her. And they cut and hack...!' He dropped his head. +The vehement big man heaved, shuddering. His lips worked fast. + +'She is not alone with them, unsupported?' said Dacier. + +Sir Lukin moaned for relief. He caught his watch swinging and stared at +it. 'What a good fellow you were to come! Now 's the time to know your +friends. There's Diana Warwick, true as steel. Redworth came on her +tiptoe for the Continent; he had only to mention... Emmy wanted to spare +her. She would not have sent--wanted to spare her the sight. I offered +to stand by... Chased me out. Diana Warwick's there:--worth fifty of +me! Dacier, I've had my sword-blade tried by Indian horsemen, and I know +what true as steel means. She's there. And I know she shrinks from the +sight of blood. My oath on it, she won't quiver a muscle! Next to my +wife, you may take my word for it, Dacier, Diana Warwick is the pick of +living women. I could prove it. They go together. I could prove it over +and over. She 's the loyallest woman anywhere. Her one error was that +marriage of hers, and how she ever pitched herself into it, none of us +can guess.' After a while, he said: 'Look at your watch.' + +'Nearly twenty minutes gone.' + +'Are they afraid to send out word? It's that window!' He covered his +eyes, and muttered, sighed. He became abruptly composed in appearance. +'The worst of a black sheep like me is, I'm such an infernal sinner, +that Providence!... But both surgeons gave me their word of honour that +there was a chance. A chance! But it's the end of me if Emmy.... Good +God! no! the knife's enough; don't let her be killed! It would be +murder. Here am I talking! I ought to be praying. I should have sent +for the parson to help me; I can't get the proper words--bellow like +a rascal trooper strung up for the cat. It must be twenty-five minutes +now. Who's alive now!' + +Dacier thought of the Persian Queen crying for news of the slaughtered, +with her mind on her lord and husband: 'Who is not dead?' Diana exalted +poets, and here was an example of the truth of one to nature, and of the +poor husband's depth of feeling. They said not the same thing, but it +was the same cry de profundis. + +He saw Redworth coming at a quick pace. + +Redworth raised his hand. Sir Lukin stopped. 'He's waving!' + +'It's good,' said Dacier. + +'Speak! are you sure?' + +'I judge by the look.' + +Redworth stepped unfalteringly. + +'It's over, all well,' he said. He brushed his forehead and looked +sharply cheerful. + +'My dear fellow! my dear fellow!' Sir Lukin grasped his hand. 'It's more +than I deserve. Over? She has borne it! She would have gone to heaven +and left me! + +Is she safe?' + +'Doing well.' + +'Have you seen the surgeons?' + +'Mrs. Warwick.' + +'What did she say?' + +'A nod of the head.' + +'You saw her?' + +'She came to the stairs.' + +'Diana Warwick never lies. She wouldn't lie, not with a nod! They've +saved Emmy--do you think?' + +'It looks well.' + +My girl has passed the worst of it?' + +'That's over.' + +Sir Lukin gazed glassily. The necessity of his agony was to lean to the +belief, at a beckoning, that Providence pardoned him, in tenderness for +what would have been his loss. He realized it, and experienced a sudden +calm: testifying to the positive pardon. + +'Now, look here, you two fellows, listen half a moment,' he addressed +Redworth and Dacier; 'I've been the biggest scoundrel of a husband +unhung, and married to a saint; and if she's only saved to me; I'll +swear to serve her faithfully, or may a thunderbolt knock me to +perdition! and thank God for his justice! Prayers are answered, mind +you, though a fellow may be as black as a sweep. Take a warning from me. +I've had my lesson.' + +Dacier soon after talked of going. The hope of seeing Diana had +abandoned him, the desire was almost extinct. + +Sir Lukin could not let him go. He yearned to preach to him or any one +from his personal text of the sinner honourably remorseful on account +of and notwithstanding the forgiveness of Providence, and he implored +Dacier and Redworth by turns to be careful when they married of how +they behaved to--the sainted women their wives; never to lend ear to the +devil, nor to believe, as he had done, that there is no such thing as +a devil, for he had been the victim of him, and he knew. The devil, he +loudly proclaimed, has a multiplicity of lures, and none more deadly +than when he baits with a petticoat. He had been hooked, and had found +the devil in person. He begged them urgently to keep his example in +memory. By following this and that wildfire he had stuck himself in a +bog--a common result with those who would not see the devil at work upon +them; and it required his dear suffering saint to be at death's doors, +cut to pieces and gasping, to open his eyes. But, thank heaven, they +were opened at last! Now he saw the beast he was: a filthy beast! +unworthy of tying his wife's shoestring. No confessions could expose to +them the beast he was. But let them not fancy there was no such thing as +an active DEVIL about the world. + +Redworth divined that the simply sensational man abased himself before +Providence and heaped his gratitude on the awful Power in order to +render it difficult for the promise of the safety of his wife to be +withdrawn. + +He said: 'There is good hope'; and drew an admonition upon himself. + +'Ah! my dear good Redworth,' Sir Lukin sighed from his elevation of +outspoken penitence: 'you will see as I do some day. It is the devil, +think as you like of it. When you have pulled down all the Institutions +of the Country, what do you expect but ruins? That Radicalism of yours +has its day. You have to go through a wrestle like mine to understand +it. You say, the day is fine, let's have our game. Old England pays +for it! Then you'll find how you love the old land of your birth--the +noblest ever called a nation!--with your Corn Law Repeals!--eh, +Dacier?--You 'll own it was the devil tempted you. I hear you +apologizing. Pray God, it mayn't be too late!' + +He looked up at the windows. 'She may be sinking!' + +'Have no fears,' Redworth said; 'Mrs. Warwick would send for you.' + +'She would. Diana Warwick would be sure to send. Next to my wife, Diana +Warwick's... she'd send, never fear. I dread that room. I'd rather go +through a regiment of sabres--though it 's over now. And Diana Warwick +stood it. The worst is over, you told me. By heaven! women are wonderful +creatures. But she hasn't a peer for courage. I could trust her--most +extraordinary thing; that marriage of hers!--not a soul has ever been +able to explain it:--trust her to the death.' + +Redworth left them, and Sir Lukin ejaculated on the merits of Diana +Warwick to Dacier. He laughed scornfully: 'And that's the woman the +world attacks for want of virtue! Why, a fellow hasn't a chance with +her, not a chance. She comes out in blazing armour if you unmask a +battery. I don't know how it might be if she were in love with a fellow. +I doubt her thinking men worth the trouble. I never met the man. But +if she were to take fire, Troy 'd be nothing to it. I wonder whether we +might go in: I dread the house.' + +Dacier spoke of departing. + +'No, no, wait,' Sir Lukin begged him. 'I was talking about women. They +are the devil--or he makes most use of them: and you must learn to +see the cloven foot under their petticoats, if you're to escape them. +There's no protection in being in love with your wife; I married for +love; I am, I always have been, in love with her; and I went to the +deuce. The music struck up and away I waltzed. A woman like Diana +Warwick might keep a fellow straight, because she,'s all round you; +she's man and woman in brains; and legged like a deer, and breasted like +a swan, and a regular sheaf of arrows--in her eyes. Dark women--ah! But +she has a contempt for us, you know. That's the secret of her.--Redworth +'s at the door. Bad? Is it bad? I never was particularly fond of that +house--hated it. I love it now for Emmy's sake. I couldn't live +in another--though I should be haunted. Rather her ghost than +nothing--though I'm an infernal coward about the next world. But if +you're right with religion you needn't fear. What I can't comprehend in +Redworth is his Radicalism, and getting richer and richer.' + +'It's not a vow of poverty,' said Dacier. + +'He'll find they don't coalesce, or his children will. Once the masses +are uppermost! It's a bad day, Dacier, when we 've no more gentlemen in +the land. Emmy backs him, so I hold my tongue. To-morrow's a Sunday. I +wish you were staying here; I 'd take you to church with me-we shirk +it when we haven't a care. It couldn't do you harm. I've heard capital +sermons. I've always had the good habit of going to church, Dacier. Now +'s the time for remembering them. Ah, my dear fellow, I 'm not a parson. +It would have been better for me if I had been.' + +And for you too! his look added plainly. He longed to preach; he was +impelled to chatter. + +Redworth reported the patient perfectly quiet, breathing calmly. + +'Laudanum?' asked Sir Lukin. 'Now there's a poison we've got to bless! +And we set up in our wisdom for knowing what is good for us!' + +He had talked his hearers into a stupefied assent to anything he +uttered. + +'Mrs. Warwick would like to see you in two or three minutes; she will +come down,' Redworth said to Dacier. + +'That looks well, eh? That looks bravely,' Sir Lukin cried. 'Diana, +Warwick wouldn't leave the room without a certainty. I dread the look of +those men; I shall have to shake their hands! And so I do, with all +my heart: only--But God bless them! But we must go in, if she's coming +down.' + +They entered the house, and sat in the drawing-room, where Sir Lukin +took up from the table one of his wife's Latin books, a Persius, bearing +her marginal notes. He dropped his head on it, with sobs. + +The voice of Diana recalled him to the present. She counselled him +to control himself; in that case he might for one moment go to the +chamber-door and assure himself by the silence that his wife was +resting. She brought permission from the surgeons and doctor, on his +promise to be still. + +Redworth supported Sir Lukin tottering out. + +Dacier had risen. He was petrified by Diana's face, and thought of her +as whirled from him in a storm, bearing the marks of it. Her underlip +hung for short breaths; the big drops of her recent anguish still +gathered on her brows; her eyes were tearless, lustreless; she looked +ancient in youth, and distant by a century, like a tall woman of the +vaults, issuing white-ringed, not of our light. + +She shut her mouth for strength to speak to him. + +He said: 'You are not ill? You are strong?' + +'I? Oh, strong. I will sit. I cannot be absent longer than two minutes. +The trial of her strength is to come. If it were courage, we might be +sure. The day is fine?' + +'A perfect August day.' + +'I held her through it. I am thankful to heaven it was no other hand +than mine. She wished to spare me. She was glad of her Tony when the +time came. I thought I was a coward--I could have changed with her to +save her; I am a strong woman, fit to submit to that work. I should +not have borne it as she did. She expected to sink under it. All her +dispositions were made for death-bequests to servants and to... to +friends: every secret liking they had, thought of!' + +Diana clenched her hands. + +'I hope!' Dacier said. + +'You shall hear regularly. Call at Sir William's house to-morrow. He +sleeps here to-night. The suspense must last for days. It is a question +of vital power to bear the shock. She has a mind so like a flying spirit +that, just before the moment, she made Mr. Lanyan Thomson smile by +quoting some saying of her Tony's.' + +'Try by-and-by to recollect it,' said Dacier. + +'And you were with that poor man! How did he pass the terrible time? I +pitied him.' + +'He suffered; he prayed.' + +'It was the best he could do. Mr. Redworth was as he always is at the +trial, a pillar. Happy the friend who knows him for one! He never thinks +of himself in a crisis. He is sheer strength to comfort and aid. They +will drive you to the station with Mr. Thomson. He returns to relieve +Sir William to-morrow. I have learnt to admire the men of the knife! +No profession equals theirs in self-command and beneficence. Dr. +Bridgenorth is permanent here.' + +'I have a fly, and go back immediately,' said Dacier. + +'She shall hear of your coming. Adieu.' + +Diana gave him her hand. It was gently pressed. + +A wonderment at the utter change of circumstances took Dacier passingly +at the sight of her vanishing figure. + +He left the house, feeling he dared have no personal wishes. It had +ceased to be the lover's hypocrisy with him. + +The crisis of mortal peril in that house enveloped its inmates, and so +wrought in him as to enshroud the stripped outcrying husband, of whom +he had no clear recollection, save of the man's agony. The two women, +striving against death, devoted in friendship, were the sole living +images he brought away; they were a new vision of the world and our +life. + +He hoped with Diana, bled with her. She rose above him high, beyond his +transient human claims. He envied Redworth the common friendly right to +be near her. In reflection, long after, her simplicity of speech, washed +pure of the blood-emotions, for token of her great nature, during those +two minutes of their sitting together, was, dearer, sweeter to the lover +than if she had shown by touch or word that a faint allusion to their +severance was in her mind; and this despite a certain vacancy it +created. + +He received formal information of Lady Dunstane's progress to +convalescence. By degrees the simply official tone of Diana's letters +combined with the ceasing of them and the absence of her personal charm +to make a gentleman not remarkable for violence in the passion so calmly +reasonable as to think the dangerous presence best avoided for a time. +Subject to fits of the passion, he certainly was, but his position in +the world was a counselling spouse, jealous of his good name. He did not +regret his proposal to take the leap; he would not have regretted it if +taken. On the safe side of the abyss, however, it wore a gruesome look +to his cool blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. CONTAINS MATTER FOR SUBSEQUENT EXPLOSION + +Among the various letters inundating Sir Lukin Dunstane upon the report +of the triumph of surgical skill achieved by Sir William Macpherson and +Mr. Lanyan Thomson, was one from Lady Wathin, dated Adlands, an estate +of Mr. Quintin Manx's in Warwickshire, petitioning for the shortest line +of reassurance as to the condition of her dear cousin, and an intimation +of the period when it might be deemed possible for a relative to call +and offer her sincere congratulations: a letter deserving a personal +reply, one would suppose. She received the following, in a succinct +female hand corresponding to its terseness; every 't' righteously +crossed, every 'i' punctiliously dotted, as she remarked to Constance +Asper, to whom the communication was transferred for perusal: + + 'DEAR LADY WATHIN,--Lady Dunstane is gaining strength. The measure + of her pulse indicates favourably. She shall be informed in good + time of your solicitude for her recovery. The day cannot yet be + named for visits of any kind. You will receive information as soon + as the house is open. + + 'I have undertaken the task of correspondence, and beg you to + believe me, + + 'Very truly yours, + 'D. A. WARWICK.' + +Miss Asper speculated on the handwriting of her rival. She obtained +permission to keep the letter, with the intention of transmitting it per +post to an advertising interpreter of character in caligraphy. + +Such was the character of the fair young heiress, exhibited by her +performances much more patently than the run of a quill would reveal it. + +She said, 'It is rather a pretty hand, I think.' + +'Mrs. Warwick is a practised writer,' said Lady Wathin. 'Writing is her +profession, if she has any. She goes to nurse my cousin. Her husband +says she is an excellent nurse. He says what he can for her. But you +must be in the last extremity, or she is ice. His appeal to her has been +totally disregarded. Until he drops down in the street, as his doctor +expects him to do some day, she will continue her course; and even +then...' An adventuress desiring her freedom! Lady Wathin looked. She +was too devout a woman to say what she thought. But she knew the world +to be very wicked. Of Mrs. Warwick, her opinion was formed. She would +not have charged the individual creature with a criminal design; all she +did was to stuff the person her virtue abhorred with the wickedness of +the world, and that is a common process in antipathy. + +She sympathized, moreover, with the beautiful devotedness of the wealthy +heiress to her ideal of man. It had led her to make the acquaintance of +old Lady Dacier, at the house in town, where Constance Asper had +first met Percy; Mrs. Grafton Winstanley's house, representing neutral +territory or debateable land for the occasional intercourse of the upper +class and the climbing in the professions or in commerce; Mrs. Grafton +Winstanley being on the edge of aristocracy by birth, her husband, +like Mr. Quintin Manx, a lord of fleets. Old Lady Dacier's bluntness in +speaking of her grandson would have shocked Lady Wathin as much as it +astonished, had she been less of an ardent absorber of aristocratic +manners. Percy was plainly called a donkey, for hanging off and on with +a handsome girl of such expectations as Miss Asper. 'But what you can't +do with a horse, you can't hope to do with a donkey.' She added that +she had come for the purpose of seeing the heiress, of whose points +of person she delivered a judgement critically appreciative as a +horsefancier's on the racing turf. 'If a girl like that holds to it, +she's pretty sure to get him at last. It 's no use to pull his neck down +to the water.' + +Lady Wathin delicately alluded to rumours of an entanglement, an +admiration he had, ahem. + +'A married woman,' the veteran nodded. 'I thought that was off? She must +be a clever intriguer to keep him so long.' + +'She is undoubtedly clever,' said Lady Wathin, and it was mumbled in her +hearing: 'The woman seems to have a taste for our family.' + +They agreed that they could see nothing to be done. The young lady must +wither, Mrs. Warwick have her day. The veteran confided her experienced +why to Lady Wathin: 'All the tales you tell of a woman of that sort are +sharp sauce to the palates of men.' + +They might be, to the men of the dreadful gilded idle class! + +Mrs. Warwick's day appeared indefinitely prolonged, judging by Percy +Dacier's behaviour to Miss Asper. Lady Wathin watched them narrowly when +she had the chance, a little ashamed of her sex, or indignant rather +at his display of courtliness in exchange for her open betrayal of her +preference. It was almost to be wished that she would punish him by +sacrificing herself to one of her many brilliant proposals of marriage. +But such are women!--precisely because of his holding back he tightened +the cord attaching him to her tenacious heart. This was the truth. For +the rest, he was gracefully courteous; an observer could perceive the +charm he exercised. He talked with a ready affability, latterly with +greater social ease; evidently not acting the indifferent conqueror, or +so consummately acting it as to mask the air. And yet he was ambitious, +and he was not rich. Notoriously was he ambitious, and with wealth to +back him, a great entertaining house, troops of adherents, he would +gather influence, be propelled to leadership. The vexation of a constant +itch to speak to him on the subject, and the recognition, that he knew +it all as well as she, tormented Lady Wathin. He gave her comforting +news of her dear cousin in the Winter. + +'You have heard from Mrs. Warwick?' she said. + +He replied, 'I had the latest from Mr. Redworth.' + +'Mrs. Warwick has relinquished her post?' + +'When she does, you may be sure that Lady Dunstane is, perfectly +reestablished.' + +'She is an excellent nurse.' + +'The best, I believe.' + +'It is a good quality in sickness.' + +'Proof of good all through.' + +'Her husband might have the advantage of it. His state is really +pathetic. If she has feeling, and could only be made aware, she might +perhaps be persuaded to pass from the friendly to the wifely duty.' + +Mr. Dacier bent his head to listen, and he bowed. + +He was fast in the toils; and though we have assurance that evil cannot +triumph in perpetuity, the aspect of it throning provokes a kind of +despair. How strange if ultimately the lawyers once busy about the uncle +were to take up the case of the nephew, and this time reverse the issue, +by proving it! For poor Mr. Warwick was emphatic on the question of his +honour. It excited him dangerously. He was long-suffering, but with the +slightest clue terrible. The unknotting of the entanglement might thus +happen--and Constance Asper would welcome her hero still. + +Meanwhile there was actually nothing to be done: a deplorable absence of +motive villainy; apparently an absence of the beneficent Power directing +events to their proper termination. Lady Wathin heard of her cousin's +having been removed to Cowes in May, for light Solent and Channel +voyages on board Lord Esquart's yacht. She heard also of heavy failures +and convulsions in the City of London, quite unconscious that the Fates, +or agents of the Providence she invoked to precipitate the catastrophe, +were then beginning cavernously their performance of the part of villain +in Diana's history. + +Diana and Emma enjoyed happy quiet sailings under May breezes on the +many-coloured South-western waters, heart in heart again; the physical +weakness of the one, the moral weakness of the other, creating that +mutual dependency which makes friendship a pulsating tie. Diana's +confession had come of her letter to Emma. When the latter was able to +examine her correspondence, Diana brought her the heap for perusal, her +own sealed scribble, throbbing with all the fatal might-have-been, under +her eyes. She could have concealed and destroyed it. She sat beside her +friend, awaiting her turn, hearing her say at the superscription: 'Your +writing, Tony?' and she nodded. She was asked: 'Shall I read it?' She +answered: 'Read.' They were soon locked in an embrace. Emma had no +perception of coldness through those brief dry lines; her thought was of +the matter. + +'The danger is over now?' she said. + +'Yes, that danger is over now.' + +'You have weathered it?' + +'I love him.' + +Emma dropped a heavy sigh in pity of her, remotely in compassion for +Redworth, the loving and unbeloved. She was too humane and wise of our +nature to chide her Tony for having her sex's heart. She had charity to +bestow on women; in defence of them against men and the world, it was a +charity armed with the weapons of battle. The wife madly stripped before +the world by a jealous husband, and left chained to the rock, her youth +wasting, her blood arrested, her sensibilities chilled and assailing +her under their multitudinous disguises, and for whom the world is +merciless, called forth Emma's tenderest commiseration; and that wife +being Tony, and stricken with the curse of love, in other circumstances +the blessing, Emma bled for her. + +'But nothing desperate?' she said. + +'No; you have saved me.' + +'I would knock at death's doors again, and pass them, to be sure of +that.' + +'Kiss me; you may be sure. I would not put my lips to your cheek if +there were danger of my faltering.' + +'But you love him.' + +'I do: and because I love him I will not let him be fettered to me.' + +'You will see him.' + +'Do not imagine that his persuasions undermined your Tony. I am subject +to panics.' + +'Was it your husband?' + +'I had a visit from Lady Wathin. She knows him. She came as peacemaker. +She managed to hint at his authority. Then came a letter from him--of +supplication, interpenetrated with the hint: a suffused atmosphere. Upon +that; unexpected by me, my--let me call him so once, forgive me!--lover +came. Oh! he loves me, or did then. Percy! He had been told that I +should be claimed. I felt myself the creature I am--a wreck of marriage. +But I fancied I could serve him:--I saw golden. My vanity was the chief +traitor. Cowardice of course played a part. In few things that we +do, where self is concerned, will cowardice not be found. And the +hallucination colours it to seem a lovely heroism. That was the second +time Mr. Redworth arrived. I am always at crossways, and he rescues me; +on this occasion unknowingly.' + +'There's a divinity...' said Emma. 'When I think of it I perceive that +Patience is our beneficent fairy godmother, who brings us our harvest in +the long result.' + +'My dear, does she bring us our labourers' rations, to sustain us for +the day?' said Diana.' + +'Poor fare, but enough.' + +'I fear I was born godmotherless.' + +'You have stores of patience, Tony; only now and then fits of +desperation.' + +'My nature's frailty, the gap in it: we will give it no fine +names--they cover our pitfalls. I am open to be carried on a tide of +unreasonableness when the coward cries out. But I can say, dear, that +after one rescue, a similar temptation is unlikely to master me. I do +not subscribe to the world's decrees for love of the monster, though +I am beginning to understand the dues of allegiance. We have ceased to +write letters. You may have faith in me.' + +'I have, with my whole soul,' said Emma. + +So the confession closed; and in the present instance there were not any +forgotten chambers to be unlocked and ransacked for addenda confessions. + +The subjects discoursed of by the two endeared the hours to them. They +were aware that the English of the period would have laughed a couple of +women to scorn for venturing on them, and they were not a little hostile +in consequence, and shot their epigrams profusely, applauding the keener +that appeared to score the giant bulk of their intolerant enemy, who +holds the day, but not the morrow. Us too he holds for the day, to +punish us if we have temporal cravings. He scatters his gifts to the +abject; tossing to us rebels bare dog-biscuit. But the life of the +spirit is beyond his region; we have our morrow in his day when we crave +nought of him. Diana and Emma delighted to discover that they were each +the rebel of their earlier and less experienced years; each a member of +the malcontent minor faction, the salt of earth, to whom their salt must +serve for nourishment, as they admitted, relishing it determinedly, not +without gratification. + +Sir Lukin was busy upon his estate in Scotland. They summoned young +Arthur Rhodes to the island, that he might have a taste of the new +scenes. Diana was always wishing for his instruction and refreshment; +and Redworth came to spend a Saturday and Sunday with them, and showed +his disgust of the idle boy, as usual, at the same time consulting them +on the topic of furniture for the Berkshire mansion he had recently +bought, rather vaunting the Spanish pictures his commissioner in Madrid +was transmitting. The pair of rebels, vexed by his treatment of the +respectful junior, took him for an incarnation of their enemy, and +pecked and worried the man astonishingly. He submitted to it like the +placable giant. Yes, he was a Liberal, and furnishing and decorating the +house in the stability of which he trusted. Why not? We must accept the +world as it is, try to improve it by degrees.--Not so: humanity will +not wait for you, the victims are shrieking beneath the bricks of your +enormous edifice, behind the canvas of your pictures. 'But you may +really say that luxurious yachting is an odd kind of insurgency,' avowed +Diana. 'It's the tangle we are in.' + +'It's the coat we have to wear; and why fret at it for being +comfortable?' + +'I don't half enough, when I think of my shivering neighbours.' + +'Money is of course a rough test of virtue,' said Redworth. 'We have no +other general test.' + +Money! The ladies proclaimed it a mere material test; Diana, gazing on +sunny sea, with an especial disdain. And name us your sort of virtue. +There is more virtue in poverty, He denied that. Inflexibly British, +he declared money, and also the art of getting money, to be hereditary +virtues, deserving of their reward. The reward a superior wealth and its +fruits? Yes, the power to enjoy and spread enjoyment: and let idleness +envy both! He abused idleness, and by implication the dilettante +insurgency fostering it. However, he was compensatingly heterodox in his +view of the Law's persecution of women; their pertinacious harpings on +the theme had brought him to that; and in consideration of the fact, +as they looked from yacht to shore, of their being rebels participating +largely in the pleasures of the tyrant's court, they allowed him to +silence them, and forgave him. + +Thoughts upon money and idleness were in confusion with Diana. She had +a household to support in London, and she was not working; she could +not touch THE CANTATRICE while Emma was near. Possibly, she again +ejaculated, the Redworths of the world were right: the fruitful labours +were with the mattock and hoe, or the mind directing them. It was a +crushing invasion of materialism, so she proposed a sail to the coast +of France, and thither they flew, touching Cherbourg, Alderney, Sark, +Guernsey, and sighting the low Brittany rocks. Memorable days to Arthur +Rhodes. He saw perpetually the one golden centre in new scenes. He heard +her voice, he treasured her sayings; her gestures, her play of lip and +eyelid, her lift of head, lightest movements, were imprinted on him, +surely as the heavens are mirrored in the quiet seas, firmly and richly +as earth answers to the sprinkled grain. For he was blissfully athirst, +untroubled by a hope. She gave him more than she knew of: a present that +kept its beating heart into the future; a height of sky, a belief in +nobility, permanent through manhood down to age. She was his foam-born +Goddess of those leaping waters; differently hued, crescented, a +different influence. He had a happy week, and it charmed Diana to +hear him tell her so. In spite of Redworth, she had faith in the +fruit-bearing powers of a time of simple happiness, and shared the +youth's in reflecting it. Only the happiness must be simple, that of the +glass to the lovely face: no straining of arms to retain, no heaving of +the bosom in vacancy. + +His poverty and capacity for pure enjoyment led her to think of him +almost clingingly when hard news reached her from the quaint old City of +London, which despises poverty and authorcraft and all mean adventurers, +and bows to the lordly merchant, the mighty financier, Redworth's +incarnation of the virtues. Happy days on board the yacht Clarissa! +Diana had to recall them with effort. They who sow their money for a +promising high percentage have built their habitations on the sides +of the most eruptive mountain in Europe. AEtna supplies more certain +harvests, wrecks fewer vineyards and peaceful dwellings. The greed of +gain is our volcano. Her wonder leapt up at the slight inducement she +had received to embark her money in this Company: a South-American mine, +collapsed almost within hearing of the trumpets of prospectus, after two +punctual payments of the half-yearly interest. A Mrs. Ferdinand Cherson, +an elder sister of the pretty Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett, had talked to her of +the cost of things one afternoon at Lady Singleby's garden-party, and +spoken of the City as the place to help to swell an income, if only you +have an acquaintance with some of the chief City men. The great mine was +named, and the rush for allotments. She knew a couple of the Directors. +They vowed to her that ten per cent. was a trifle; the fortune to be +expected out of the mine was already clearly estimable at forties and +fifties. For their part they anticipated cent. per cent. Mrs. Cherson +said she wanted money, and had therefore invested in the mine. It seemed +so consequent, the cost of things being enormous! She and her sister +Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett owned husbands who did their bidding, because of +their having the brains, it might be understood. Thus five thousand +pounds invested would speedily bring five thousand pounds per annum. +Diana had often dreamed of the City of London as the seat of magic; and +taking the City's contempt for authorcraft and the intangible as, from +its point of view, justly founded, she had mixed her dream strangely +with an ancient notion of the City's probity. Her broker's shaking head +did not damp her ardour for shares to the full amount of her ability to +purchase. She remembered her satisfaction at the allotment; the golden +castle shot up from this fountain mine. She had a frenzy for mines and +fished in some English with smaller sums. 'I am now a miner,' she had +exclaimed, between dismay at her audacity and the pride of it. Why +had she not consulted Redworth? He would peremptorily have stopped the +frenzy in its first intoxicating effervescence. She, like Mrs. Cherson, +like all women who have plunged upon the cost of things, wanted money. +She naturally went to the mine. Address him for counsel in the person +of dupe, she could not; shame was a barrier. Could she tell him that the +prattle of a woman, spendthrift as Mrs. Cherson, had induced her to risk +her money? Latterly the reports of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett were not of the +flavour to make association of their names agreeable to his hearing. + +She had to sit down in the buzz of her self-reproaches and amazement at +the behaviour of that reputable City, shrug, and recommence the labour +of her pen. Material misfortune had this one advantage; it kept her from +speculative thoughts of her lover, and the meaning of his absence and, +silence. + +Diana's perusal of the incomplete CANTATRICE was done with the cold +critical eye interpreting for the public. She was forced to write +on nevertheless, and exactly in the ruts of the foregoing matter. It +propelled her. No longer perversely, of necessity she wrote her best, +convinced that the work was doomed to unpopularity, resolved that it +should be at least a victory in style. A fit of angry cynicism now +and then set her composing phrases as baits for the critics to quote, +condemnatory of the attractiveness of the work. Her mood was bad. In +addition, she found Whitmonby cool; he complained of the coolness of her +letter of adieu; complained of her leaving London so long. How could +she expect to be his Queen of the London Salon if she lost touch of the +topics? He made no other allusion. They were soon on amicable terms, at +the expense of flattering arts that she had not hitherto practised. But +Westlake revealed unimagined marvels of the odd corners of the masculine +bosom. He was the man of her circle the neatest in epigram, the widest +of survey, an Oriental traveller, a distinguished writer, and if not +personally bewitching, remarkably a gentleman of the world. He was +wounded; he said as much. It came to this: admitting that he had +no claims, he declared it to be unbearable for him to see another +preferred. The happier was unmentioned, and Diana scraped his wound by +rallying him. He repeated that he asked only to stand on equal terms +with the others; her preference of one was past his tolerance. She +told him that since leaving Lady Dunstane she had seen but Whitmonby, +Wilmers, and him. He smiled sarcastically, saying he had never had a +letter from her, except the formal one of invitation. + +'Powers of blarney, have you forsaken a daughter of Erin?' cried Diana. +'Here is a friend who has a craving for you, and I talk sense to him. I +have written to none of my set since I last left London.' + +She pacified him by doses of cajolery new to her tongue. She liked +him, abhorred the thought of losing any of her friends, so the cajoling +sentences ran until Westlake betrayed an inflammable composition, and +had to be put out, and smoked sullenly. Her resources were tried in +restoring him to reason. The months of absence from London appeared +to have transformed her world. Tonans was moderate. The great editor +rebuked her for her prolonged absence from London, not so much because +it discrowned her as Queen of the Salon, but candidly for its rendering +her service less to him. Everything she knew of men and affairs was to +him stale. + +'How do you get to the secrets?' she asked. + +'By sticking to the centre of them,' he said. + +'But how do you manage to be in advance and act the prophet?' + +'Because I will have them at any price, and that is known.' + +She hinted at the peccant City Company. + +'I think I have checked the mining mania, as I did the railway,' +said he; 'and so far it was a public service. There's no checking of +maniacs.' + +She took her whipping within and without. 'On another occasion I shall +apply to you, Mr. Tonans.' + +'Ah, there was a time when you could have been a treasure to me,' he +rejoined; alluding of course to the Dannisburgh days. + +In dejection, as she mused on those days, and on her foolish ambition +to have a London house where her light might burn, she advised herself, +with Redworth's voice, to quit the house, arrest expenditure, and try +for happiness by burning and shining in the spirit: devoting herself, as +Arthur Rhodes did, purely to literature. It became almost a decision. + +Percy she had still neither written to nor heard from, and she dared not +hope to meet him. She fancied a wish to have tidings of his marriage: it +would be peace; if in desolation. Now that she had confessed and given +her pledge to Emma, she had so far broken with him as to render the +holding him chained a cruelty, and his reserve whispered of a rational +acceptance of the end between them. She thanked him for it; an act +whereby she was: instantly melted to such softness that a dread of him +haunted her. Coward, take up your burden for armour! she called to her +poor dungeoned self wailing to have common nourishment. She knew how +prodigiously it waxed on crumbs; nay, on the imagination of small +morsels. By way of chastizing it, she reviewed her life, her behaviour +to her husband, until she sank backward to a depth deprived of air and +light. That life with her husband was a dungeon to her nature deeper +than any imposed by present conditions. She was then a revolutionary to +reach to the breath of day. She had now to be, only not a coward, and +she could breathe as others did. 'Women who sap the moral laws pull down +the pillars of the temple on their sex,' Emma had said. Diana perceived +something of her personal debt to civilization. Her struggles passed +into the doomed CANTATRICE occupying days and nights under pressure for +immediate payment; the silencing of friend Debit, ridiculously calling +himself Credit, in contempt of sex and conduct, on the ground, that +he was he solely by virtue of being she. He had got a trick of singing +operatic solos in the form and style of the delightful tenor Tellio, +and they were touching in absurdity, most real in unreality. Exquisitely +trilled, after Tellio's manner, + + 'The tradesmen all beseech ye, + The landlord, cook and maid, + Complete THE CANTATRICE, + That they may soon be paid.' + +provoked her to laughter in pathos. He approached, posturing himself +operatically, with perpetual new verses, rhymes to Danvers, rhymes to +Madame Sybille, the cook. Seeing Tellio at one of Henry Wilmers' private +concerts, Diana's lips twitched to dimples at the likeness her familiar +had assumed. She had to compose her countenance to talk to him; but +the moment of song was the trial. Lady Singleby sat beside her, and +remarked: + +'You have always fun going on in you!' She partook of the general +impression that Diana Warwick was too humorous to nurse a downright +passion. + +Before leaving, she engaged Diana to her annual garden-party of +the closing season, and there the meeting with Percy occurred, not +unobserved. Had they been overheard, very little to implicate them would +have been gathered. He walked in full view across the lawn to her, and +they presented mask to mask. + +'The beauty of the day tempts you at last, Mrs. Warwick.' + +'I have been finishing a piece of work.' + +Lovely weather, beautiful dresses: agreed. Diana wore a yellow robe with +a black bonnet, and he commented on the becoming hues; for the first +time, he noticed her dress! Lovely women? Dacier hesitated. One he saw. +But surely he must admire Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett? And who steps beside her, +transparently fascinated, with visage at three-quarters to the rays +within her bonnet? Can it be Sir Lukin Dunstane? and beholding none but +his charmer! + +Dacier withdrew his eyes thoughtfully from the spectacle, and moved to +woo Diana to a stroll. She could not restrain her feet; she was out of +the ring of her courtiers for the moment. He had seized his opportunity. + +'It is nearly a year!' he said. + +'I have been nursing nearly all the time, doing the work I do best.' + +'Unaltered?' + +'A year must leave its marks.' + +'Tony!' + +'You speak of a madwoman, a good eleven months dead. Let her rest. Those +are the conditions.' + +'Accepted, if I may see her.' + +'Honestly accepted?' + +'Imposed fatally, I have to own. I have felt with you: you are the +wiser. But, admitting that, surely we can meet. I may see you?' + +'My house has not been shut.' + +'I respected the house. I distrusted myself.' + +'What restores your confidence?' + +'The strength I draw from you.' + +One of the Beauties at a garden-party is lucky to get as many minutes +as had passed in quietness. Diana was met and captured. But those last +words of Percy's renewed her pride in him by suddenly building a firm +faith in herself. Noblest of lovers! she thought, and brooded on the +little that had been spoken, the much conveyed, for a proof of perfect +truthfulness. + +The world had watched them. It pronounced them discreet if culpable; +probably cold to the passion both. Of Dacier's coldness it had no doubt, +and Diana's was presumed from her comical flights of speech. She was +given to him because of the known failure of her other adorers. He +in the front rank of politicians attracted her with the lustre of his +ambition; she him with her mingling of talent and beauty. An astute +world; right in the main, owing to perceptions based upon brute nature; +utterly astray in particulars, for the reason that it takes no count +of the soul of man or woman. Hence its glee at a catastrophe; its poor +stock of mercy. And when no catastrophe follows, the prophet, for the +honour of the profession, must decry her as cunning beyond aught yet +revealed of a serpent sex. + +Save for a word or two, the watchman might have overheard and trumpeted +his report of their interview at Diana's house. After the first pained +breathing, when they found themselves alone in that room where they +had plighted their fortunes, they talked allusively to define the terms +imposed on them by Reason. The thwarted step was unmentioned; it was a +past madness. But Wisdom being recognized, they could meet. It would +be hard if that were denied! They talked very little of their position; +both understood the mutual acceptance of it; and now that he had seen +her and was again under the spell, Dacier's rational mind, together +with his delight in her presence, compelled him honourably to bow to the +terms. Only, as these were severe upon lovers, the innocence of their +meetings demanded indemnification in frequency. + +'Come whenever you think I can be useful,' said Diana. + +They pressed hands at parting, firmly and briefly, not for the ordinary +dactylology of lovers, but in sign of the treaty of amity. + +She soon learnt that she had tied herself to her costly household. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. DIALOGUE ROUND THE SUBJECT OF A PORTRAIT, WITH SOME +INDICATIONS OF THE TASK FOR DIANA + +An enamoured Egeria who is not a princess in her worldly state nor +a goddess by origin has to play one of those parts which strain the +woman's faculties past naturalness. She must never expose her feelings +to her lover; she must make her counsel weighty--otherwise she is little +his nymph of the pure wells, and what she soon may be, the world will +say. She has also, most imperatively, to dazzle him without the betrayal +of artifice, where simple spontaneousness is beyond conjuring. But +feelings that are constrained becloud the judgement besides arresting +the fine jet of delivery wherewith the mastered lover is taught through +his ears to think himself prompted, and submit to be controlled, by +a creature super-feminine. She must make her counsel so weighty in +poignant praises as to repress impulses that would rouse her own; and +her betraying impulsiveness was a subject of reflection to Diana after +she had given Percy Dacier, metaphorically, the key of her house. Only +as true Egeria could she receive him. She was therefore grateful, she +thanked and venerated this noblest of lovers for his not pressing to the +word of love, and so strengthening her to point his mind, freshen +his moral energies and inspirit him. His chivalrous acceptance of the +conditions of their renewed intimacy was a radiant knightliness to +Diana, elevating her with a living image for worship:--he so near once +to being the absolute lord of her destinies! How to reward him, was her +sole dangerous thought. She prayed and strove that she might give him +of her best, to practically help him; and she had reason to suppose she +could do it, from the visible effect of her phrases. He glistened in +repeating them; he had fallen into the habit; before witnesses too; +in the presence of Miss Paynham, who had taken earnestly to the art of +painting, and obtained her dear Mrs. Warwick's promise of a few sittings +for the sketch of a portrait, near the close of the season. 'A very +daring thing to attempt,' Miss Paynham said, when he was comparing her +first outlines and the beautiful breathing features. 'Even if one gets +the face, the lips will seem speechless, to those who know her.' + +'If they have no recollection,' said Dacier. + +'I mean, the endeavour should be to represent them at the moment of +speaking.' + +'Put it into the eyes.' He looked at the eyes. + +She looked at the mouth. 'But it is the mouth, more than the eyes.' + +He looked at the face. 'Where there is character, you have only to study +it to be sure of a likeness.' + +'That is the task, with one who utters jewels, Mr. Dacier.' + +'Bright wit, I fear, is above the powers of your art.' + +'Still I feel it could be done. See--now--that!' + +Diana's lips had opened to say: 'Confess me a model model: I am +dissected while I sit for portrayal. I must be for a moment like the +frog of the two countrymen who were disputing as to the manner of his +death, when he stretched to yawn, upon which they agreed that he had +defeated the truth for both of them. I am not quite inanimate.' + +'Irish countrymen,' said Dacier. + +'The story adds, that blows were arrested; so confer the nationality as +you please.' + +Diana had often to divert him from a too intent perusal of her features +with sparkles and stories current or invented to serve the immediate +purpose. + +Miss Paynham was Mrs. Warwick's guest for a fortnight, and observed them +together. She sometimes charitably laid down her pencil and left them, +having forgotten this or that. They were conversing of general matters +with their usual crisp precision on her return, and she was rather like +the two countrymen, in debating whether it was excess of coolness +or discreetness; though she was convinced of their inclinations, and +expected love some day to be leaping up. Diana noticed that she had no +reminder for leaving the room when it was Mr. Redworth present. These +two had become very friendly, according to her hopes; and Miss Paynham +was extremely solicitous to draw suggestions from Mr. Redworth and win +his approval. + +'Do I appear likely to catch the mouth now, do you think, Mr. Redworth?' + +He remarked, smiling at Diana's expressive dimple, that the mouth was +difficult to catch. He did not gaze intently. Mr. Redworth was the +genius of friendship, 'the friend of women,' Mrs. Warwick had said of +him. Miss Paynham discovered it, as regarded herself. The portrait was +his commission to her, kindly proposed, secretly of course, to give her +occupation and the chance of winning a vogue with the face of a famous +Beauty. So many, however, were Mrs. Warwick's visitors, and so lively +the chatter she directed, that accurate sketching was difficult to an +amateurish hand. Whitmonby, Sullivan Smith, Westlake, Henry Wilmers, +Arthur Rhodes, and other gentlemen, literary and military, were almost +daily visitors when it became known that the tedium of the beautiful +sitter required beguiling and there was a certainty of finding her at +home. On Mrs. Warwick's Wednesday numerous ladies decorated the group. +Then was heard such a rillet of dialogue without scandal or politics, +as nowhere else in Britain; all vowed it subsequently; for to the +remembrance it seemed magical. Not a breath of scandal, and yet the +liveliest flow. Lady Pennon came attended by a Mr. Alexander Hepburn, a +handsome Scot, at whom Dacier shot one of his instinctive keen glances, +before seeing that the hostess had mounted a transient colour. Mr. +Hepburn, in settling himself on his chair rather too briskly, contrived +the next minute to break a precious bit of China standing by his elbow; +and Lady Pennon cried out, with sympathetic anguish: 'Oh, my dear, what +a trial for you!' + +'Brittle is foredoomed,' said Diana, unruffled. + +She deserved compliments, and would have had them if she had not wounded +the most jealous and petulant of her courtiers. + +'Then the Turk is a sapient custodian!' said Westlake, vexed with her +flush at the entrance of the Scot. + +Diana sedately took his challenge. 'We, Mr. Westlake, have the +philosophy of ownership.' + +Mr. Hepburn penitentially knelt to pick up the fragments, and Westlake +murmured over his head: 'As long as it is we who are the cracked.' + +'Did we not start from China?' + +'We were consequently precipitated to Stamboul.' + +'You try to elude the lesson.' + +'I remember my first paedagogue telling me so when he rapped the book on +my cranium.' + +'The mark of the book is not a disfigurement.' + +It was gently worded, and the shrewder for it. The mark of the book, +if not a disfigurement, was a characteristic of Westlake's fashion of +speech. Whitmonby nodded twice, for signification of a palpable hit +in that bout; and he noted within him the foolishness of obtruding the +remotest allusion to our personality when crossing the foils with a +woman. She is down on it like the lightning, quick as she is in her +contracted circle, politeness guarding her from a riposte. + +Mr. Hepburn apologized very humbly, after regaining his chair. Diana +smiled and said: 'Incidents in a drawing-room are prize-shots at +Dulness.' + +'And in a dining-room too,' added Sullivan Smith. 'I was one day at a +dinner-party, apparently of undertakers hired to mourn over the joints +and the birds in the dishes, when the ceiling came down, and we all +sprang up merry as crickets. It led to a pretty encounter and a real +prize-shot.' + +'Does that signify a duel?' asked Lady Pennon. + +''Twould be the vulgar title, to bring it into discredit with the +populace, my lady.' + +'Rank me one of the populace then! I hate duelling and rejoice that it +is discountenanced.' + +'The citizens, and not the populace, I think Mr. Sullivan Smith means,' +Diana said. 'The citizen is generally right in morals. My father also +was against the practice, when it raged at its "prettiest." I have heard +him relate a story of a poor friend of his, who had to march out for a +trifle, and said, as he accepted the invitation, "It's all nonsense!" +and walking to the measured length, "It's all nonsense, you know!" +and when lying on the ground, at his last gasp, "I told you it was all +nonsense!"' + +Sullivan Smith leaned over to Whitmonby and Dacier amid the +ejaculations, and whispered: 'A lady's way of telling the story!--and +excuseable to her:--she had to Jonah the adjective. What the poor fellow +said was--' He murmured the sixty-pounder adjective, as in the belly of +the whale, to rightly emphasize his noun. + +Whitmonby nodded to the superior relish imparted by the vigour +of masculine veracity in narration. 'A story for its native sauce +piquante,' he said. + +'Nothing without it!' + +They had each a dissolving grain of contempt for women compelled by +their delicacy to spoil that kind of story which demands the piquant +accompaniment to flavour it racily and make it passable. For to see +insipid mildness complacently swallowed as an excellent thing, knowing +the rich smack of savour proper to the story, is your anecdotal +gentleman's annoyance. But if the anecdote had supported him, Sullivan +Smith would have let the expletive rest. + +Major Carew Mahoney capped Mrs. Warwick's tale of the unfortunate +duellist with another, that confessed the practice absurd, though he +approved of it; and he cited Lord Larrian's opinion: 'It keeps men +braced to civil conduct.' + +'I would not differ with the dear old lord; but no! the pistol is the +sceptre of the bully,' said Diana. + +Mr. Hepburn, with the widest of eyes on her in perpetuity, warmly +agreed; and the man was notorious among men for his contrary action. + +'Most righteously our Princess Egeria distinguishes her reign by +prohibiting it,' said Lady Singleby. + +'And how,' Sullivan Smith sighed heavily, 'how, I'd ask, are ladies to +be protected from the bully?' + +He was beset: 'So it was all for us? all in consideration for our +benefit?' + +He mournfully exclaimed: 'Why, surely!' + +'That is the funeral apology of the Rod, at the close of every barbarous +chapter,' said Diana. + +'Too fine in mind, too fat in body; that is a consequence with men, +dear madam. The conqueror stands to his weapons, or he loses his +possessions.' + +'Mr. Sullivan Smith jumps at his pleasure from the special to the +general, and will be back, if we follow him, Lady Pennon. It is the +trick men charge to women, showing that they can resemble us.' + +Lady Pennon thumped her knee. 'Not a bit. There's no resemblance, and +they know nothing of us.' + +'Women are a blank to them, I believe,' said Whitmonby, treacherously +bowing;--and Westlake said: + +'Traces of a singular scrawl have been observed when they were held in +close proximity to the fire.' + +'Once, on the top of a coach,' Whitmonby resumed, 'I heard a comely dame +of the period when summers are ceasing threatened by her husband with +a divorce, for omitting to put sandwiches in their luncheon-basket. +She made him the inscrutable answer: "Ah, poor man! you will go down +ignorant to your grave!" We laughed, and to this day I cannot tell you +why.' + +'That laugh was from a basket lacking provision; and I think we could +trace our separation to it,' Diana said to Lady Pennon, who replied: +'They expose themselves; they get no nearer to the riddle.' + +Miss Courtney, a rising young actress, encouraged by a smile from Mrs. +Warwick, remarked: 'On the stage, we have each our parts equally.' + +'And speaking parts; not personae mutae.' + +'The stage has advanced in verisimilitude,' Henry Wilmers added slyly; +and Diana rejoined: 'You recognize a verisimilitude of the mirror when +it is in advance of reality. Flatter the sketch, Miss Paynham, for a +likeness to be seen. Probably there are still Old Conservatives who +would prefer the personation of us by boys.' + +'I don't know,' Westlake affected dubiousness. 'I have heard that a step +to the riddle is gained by a serious contemplation of boys.' + +'Serious?' + +'That is the doubt.' + +'The doubt throws its light on the step!' + +'I advise them not to take any leap from their step,' said Lady Pennon. + +'It would be a way of learning that we are no wiser than our sires; but +perhaps too painful a way,' Whitmonby observed. 'Poor Mountford Wilts +boasted of knowing women; and--he married. To jump into the mouth of the +enigma, is not to read it.' + +'You are figures of conceit when you speculate on us, Mr. Whitmonby.' + +'An occupation of our leisure, my lady, for your amusement.' + +'The leisure of the humming-top, a thousand to the minute, with the +pretence that it sleeps!' Diana said. + +'The sacrilegious hand to strip you of your mystery is withered as it +stretches,' exclaimed Westlake. 'The sage and the devout are in accord +for once.' + +'And whichever of the two I may be, I'm one of them, happy to do my +homage blindfold!' Sullivan Smith waved the sign of it. + +Diana sent her eyes over him and Mr. Hepburn, seeing Dacier. 'That rosy +mediaevalism seems the utmost we can expect.' An instant she saddened, +foreboding her words to be ominous, because of suddenly thirsting for +a modern cry from him, the silent. She quitted her woman's fit of +earnestness, and took to the humour that pleased him. 'Aslauga's knight, +at his blind man's buff of devotion, catches the hem of the tapestry and +is found by his lady kissing it in a trance of homage five hours +long! Sir Hilary of Agincourt, returned from the wars to his castle at +midnight, hears that the chitellaine is away dancing, and remains with +all his men mounted in the courtyard till the grey morn brings her back! +Adorable! We had a flag flying in those days. Since men began to fret +the riddle, they have hauled it down half-mast. Soon we shall behold a +bare pole and hats on around it. That is their solution.' + +A smile circled at the hearing of Lady Singleby say: 'Well, I am all for +our own times, however literal the men.' + +'We are two different species!' thumped Lady Pennon, swimming on the +theme. 'I am sure, I read what they write of women! And their heroines!' + +Lady Esquart acquiesced: 'We are utter fools or horrid knaves.' + +'Nature's original hieroglyphs--which have that appearance to the +peruser,' Westlake assented. + +'And when they would decipher us, and they hit on one of our "arts," the +literary pirouette they perform is memorable.' Diana looked invitingly +at Dacier. 'But I for one discern a possible relationship and a +likeness.' + +'I think it exists--behind a curtain,' Dacier replied. + +'Before the era of the Nursery. Liberty to grow; independence is the key +of the secret.' + +'And what comes after the independence?' he inquired. + +Whitmonby, musing that some distraction of an earnest incentive spoilt +Mrs. Warwick's wit, informed him: 'The two different species then break +their shallow armistice and join the shock of battle for possession of +the earth, and we are outnumbered and exterminated, to a certainty. So I +am against independence.' + +'Socially a Mussulman, subject to explosions!' Diana said. 'So the +eternal duel between us is maintained, and men will protest that they +are for civilization. Dear me, I should like to write a sketch of the +women of the future--don't be afraid!--the far future. What a different +earth you will see!' + +And very different creatures! the gentlemen unanimously surmised. +Westlake described the fairer portion, no longer the weaker; frightful +hosts. + +Diana promised him a sweeter picture, if ever she brought her hand to +paint it. + +'You would be offered up to the English national hangman, Jehoiachim +Sneer,' interposed Arthur Rhodes, evidently firing a gun too big for +him, of premeditated charging, as his patroness perceived; but she knew +him to be smarting under recent applications of the swish of Mr. Sneer, +and that he rushed to support her. She covered him by saying: 'If he has +to be encountered, he kills none but the cripple,' wherewith the dead +pause ensuing from a dose of outlandish speech in good company +was bridged, though the youth heard Westlake mutter unpleasantly: +'Jehoiachim,' and had to endure a stare of Dacier's, who did not conceal +his want of comprehension of the place he occupied in Mrs. Warwick's +gatherings. + +'They know nothing of us whatever!' Lady Pennon harped on her dictum. + +'They put us in a case and profoundly study the captive creature,' said +Diana: 'but would any man understand this...?' She dropped her voice and +drew in the heads of Lady Pennon, Lady Singleby, Lady Esquart and Miss +Courtney: 'Real woman's nature speaks. A maid of mine had a "follower." +She was a good girl; I was anxious about her and asked her if she could +trust him. "Oh, yes, ma'am," she replied, "I can; he's quite like a +female." I longed to see the young man, to tell him he had received the +highest of eulogies.' + +The ladies appreciatingly declared that such a tale was beyond the +understandings of men. Miss Paynham primmed her mouth, admitting to +herself her inability to repeat such a tale; an act that she deemed not +'quite like a lady.' She had previously come to the conclusion that +Mrs. Warwick, with all her generous qualities, was deficient in delicate +sentiment--owing perhaps to her coldness of temperament. Like Dacier +also, she failed to comprehend the patronage of Mr. Rhodes: it led to +suppositions; indefinite truly, and not calumnious at all; but a young +poet, rather good-looking and well built, is not the same kind of +wing-chick as a young actress, like Miss Courtney--Mrs. Warwick's latest +shieldling: he is hardly enrolled for the reason that was assumed to +sanction Mrs. Warwick's maid in the encouragement of her follower. +Miss Paynham sketched on, with her thoughts in her bosom: a damsel +castigatingly pursued by the idea of sex as the direct motive of every +act of every person surrounding, her; deductively therefore that a +certain form of the impelling passion, mild or terrible, or capricious, +or it might be less pardonable, was unceasingly at work among the human +couples up to decrepitude. And she too frequently hit the fact to doubt +her gift of reading into them. Mr. Dacier was plain, and the state of +young Mr. Rhodes; and the Scottish gentleman was at least a vehement +admirer. But she penetrated the breast of Mr. Thomas Redworth as well, +mentally tore his mask of friendship to shreds. He was kind indeed in +commissioning her to do the portrait. His desire for it, and his urgency +to have the features exactly given, besides the infrequency of his +visits of late, when a favoured gentleman was present, were the +betraying signs. Deductively, moreover, the lady who inspired the +passion in numbers of gentlemen and set herself to win their admiration +with her lively play of dialogue, must be coquettish; she could hold +them only by coldness. Anecdotes, epigrams, drolleries, do not bubble to +the lips of a woman who is under an emotional spell: rather they prove +that she has the spell for casting. It suited Mr. Dacier, Miss Paynham +thought: it was cruel to Mr. Redworth; at whom, of all her circle, the +beautiful woman looked, when speaking to him, sometimes tenderly. + +'Beware the silent one of an assembly!' Diana had written. She did not +think of her words while Miss Paynham continued mutely sketching. The +silent ones, with much conversation around them, have their heads at +work, critically perforce; the faster if their hands are occupied; and +the point they lean to do is the pivot of their thoughts. Miss Paynham +felt for Mr. Redworth. + +Diana was unaware of any other critic present than him she sought to +enliven, not unsuccessfully, notwithstanding his English objection to +the pitch of the converse she led, and a suspicion of effort to support +it:--just a doubt, with all her easy voluble run, of the possibility of +naturalness in a continuous cleverness. But he signified pleasure, and +in pleasing him she was happy: in the knowledge that she dazzled, was +her sense of safety. Percy hated scandal; he heard none. He wanted +stirring, cheering; in her house he had it. He came daily, and as it was +her wish that new themes, new flights of converse, should delight him +and show her exhaustless, to preserve her ascendancy, she welcomed +him without consulting the world. He was witness of Mr. Hepburn's +presentation of a costly China vase, to repair the breach in her array +of ornaments, and excuse a visit. Judging by the absence of any blow +within, he saw not a sign of coquettry. Some such visit had been +anticipated by the prescient woman, so there was no reddening. She +brought about an exchange of sentences between him and her furious +admirer, sparing either of them a glimpse of which was the sacrifice to +the other, amusing them both. Dacier could allow Mr. Hepburn to outsit +him; and he left them, proud of his absolute confidence in her. + +She was mistaken in imagining that her social vivacity, mixed with +comradeship of the active intellect, was the charm which kept Mr. Percy +Dacier temperate when he well knew her to distinguish him above her +courtiers. Her powers of dazzling kept him tame; they did not stamp her +mark on him. He was one of the order of highly polished men, ignorant of +women, who are impressed for long terms by temporary flashes, that hold +them bound until a fresh impression comes, to confirm or obliterate the +preceding. Affairs of the world he could treat competently; he had a +head for high politics and the management of men; the feminine half +of the world was a confusion and a vexation to his intelligence, +characterless; and one woman at last appearing decipherable, he fancied +it must be owing to her possession of character, a thing prized the more +in women because of his latent doubt of its existence. Character, that +was the mark he aimed at; that moved him to homage as neither sparkling +wit nor incomparable beauty, nor the unusual combination, did. To be +distinguished by a woman of character (beauty and wit for jewellery), +was his minor ambition in life, and if Fortune now gratified it, he +owned to the flattery. It really seemed by every test that she had the +quality. Since the day when he beheld her by the bedside of his dead +uncle, and that one on the French sea-sands, and again at Copsley, +ghostly white out of her wrestle with death, bleeding holy sweat of brow +for her friend, the print of her features had been on him as an index +of depth of character, imposing respect and admiration--a sentiment +imperilled by her consent to fly with him. Her subsequent reserve until +they met--by an accident that the lady at any rate was not responsible +for, proved the quality positively. And the nature of her character, +at first suspected, vanquished him more, by comparison, than her vivid +intellect, which he originally, and still lingeringly, appreciated in +condescension, as a singular accomplishment, thrilling at times, now +and then assailably feminine. But, after her consent to a proposal that +caused him retrospective worldly shudders, and her composed recognition +of the madness, a character capable of holding him in some awe was real +majesty, and it rose to the clear heights, with her mental attributes +for satellites. His tendency to despise women was wholesomely checked by +the experience to justify him in saying, Here is a worthy one! She +was health to him, as well as trusty counsel. Furthermore, where he +respected, he was a governed man, free of the common masculine craze +to scale fortresses for the sake of lowering flags. Whilst under his +impression of her character, he submitted honourably to the ascendancy +of a lady whose conduct suited him and whose preference flattered; +whose presence was very refreshing; whose letters were a stimulant. Her +letters were really running well-waters, not a lover's delusion of the +luminous mind of his lady. They sparkled in review and preserved their +integrity under critical analysis. The reading of them hurried him in +pursuit of her from house to house during the autumn; and as she did +not hint at the shadow his coming cast on her, his conscience was easy. +Regarding their future, his political anxieties were a mountainous +defile, curtaining the outlook. They met at Lockton, where he arrived +after a recent consultation with his Chief, of whom, and the murmurs of +the Cabinet, he spoke to Diana openly, in some dejection. + +'They might see he has been breaking with his party for the last four +years,' she said. 'The plunge to be taken is tremendous.' + +'But will he? He appears too despondent for a header.' + +'We cannot dance on a quaking floor.' + +'No; it 's exactly that quake of the floor which gives "much qualms," to +me as well,' said Dacier. + +'A treble Neptune's power!' she rejoined, for his particular +delectation. 'Enough if he hesitates. I forgive him his nausea. He +awaits the impetus, and it will reach him, and soon. He will not wait +for the mob at his heels, I am certain. A Minister who does that, is +a post, and goes down with the first bursting of the dam. He has tried +compromise and discovered that it does not appease the Fates; is not +even a makeshift-mending at this hour. He is a man of nerves, very +sensitively built; as quick--quicker than a woman, I could almost say, +to feel the tremble of the air-forerunner of imperative changes.' + +Dacier brightened fondly. 'You positively describe him; paint him to the +life, without knowing him!' + +'I have seen him; and if I paint, whose are the colours?' + +'Sometimes I repeat you to him, and I get all the credit,' said Dacier. + +'I glow with pride to think of speaking anything that you repeat,' said +Diana, and her eyes were proudly lustreful. + +Their love was nourished on these mutual flatteries. Thin food +for passion! The innocence of it sanctioned the meetings and the +appointments to meet. When separated they were interchanging letters, +formally worded in the apostrophe and the termination, but throbbingly +full: or Diana thought so of Percy's letters, with grateful justice; for +his manner of opening his heart in amatory correspondence was to confide +important, secret matters, up to which mark she sprang to reply in +counsel. He proved his affection by trusting her; his respect by his +tempered style: 'A Greenland style of writing,' she had said of an +unhappy gentleman's epistolary compositions resembling it; and now the +same official baldness was to her mind Italianly rich; it called forth +such volumes. + +Flatteries that were thin food for passion appeared the simplest +exchanges of courtesy, and her meetings with her lover, judging by +the nature of the discourse they held, so, consequent to their joint +interest in the great crisis anticipated, as to rouse her indignant +surprise and a turn for downright rebellion when the Argus world +signified the fact of its having one eye, or more, wide open. + +Debit and Credit, too, her buzzing familiars, insisted on an audience at +each ear, and at the house-door, on her return to London. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. SHOWS THE APPROACHES OF THE POLITICAL AND THE DOMESTIC +CRISIS IN COMPANY + +There was not much talk of Diana between Lady Dunstane and her customary +visitor Tom Redworth now. She was shy in speaking of the love-stricken +woman, and more was in his mind for thought than for speech. She some +times wondered how much he might know, ending with the reflection +that little passing around was unknown to him. He had to shut his mind +against thought, against all meditation upon Mrs. Warwick; it was +based scientifically when speculating and calculating, on the material +element--a talisman. Men and women crossing the high seas of life he had +found most readable under that illuminating inquiry, as to their means. +An inspector of sea worthy ships proceeds in like manner. Whence would +the money come? He could not help the bent of his mind; but he could +avoid subjecting her to the talismanic touch. The girl at the Dublin +Ball, the woman at the fire-grate of The Crossways, both in one were his +Diana. Now and then, hearing an ugly whisper, his manful sympathy with +the mere woman in her imprisoned liberty, defended her desperately +from charges not distinctly formulated within him:--'She's not made of +stone.' That was a height of self-abnegation to shake the poor fellow +to his roots; but, then, he had no hopes of his own; and he stuck to it. +Her choice of a man like Dacier, too, of whom Redworth judged highly, +showed nobility. She irradiated the man; but no baseness could be in +such an alliance. If allied, they were bound together for good. The +tie--supposing a villain world not wrong--was only not the sacred tie +because of impediments. The tie!--he deliberated, and said stoutly--No. +Men of Redworth's nature go through sharp contests, though the duration +of them is short, and the tussle of his worship of this woman with the +materialistic turn of his mind was closed by the complete shutting up +of the latter under lock and bar; so that a man, very little of an +idealist, was able to sustain her in the pure imagination--where she did +almost belong to him. She was his, in a sense, because she might have +been his--but for an incredible extreme of folly. The dark ring of the +eclipse cast by some amazing foolishness round the shining crescent +perpetually in secret claimed the whole sphere of her, by what might +have been, while admitting her lost to him in fact. To Thomas Redworth's +mind the lack of perfect sanity in his conduct at any period of manhood, +was so entirely past belief that he flew at the circumstances confirming +the charge, and had wrestles with the angel of reality, who did but set +him dreaming backward, after flinging him. + +He heard at Lady Wathin's that Mrs. Warwick was in town for the winter. +'Mr. Dacier is also in town,' Lady Wathin said, with an acid indication +of the needless mention of it. 'We have not seen him.' She invited +Redworth to meet a few friends at dinner. 'I think you admire Miss +Asper: in my idea a very saint among young women;--and you know what the +young women of our day are. She will be present. She is, you are aware, +England's greatest heiress. Only yesterday, hearing of that poor man +Mr. Warwick's desperate attack of illness--heart!--and of his having +no relative or friend to soothe his pillow,--he is lying in absolute +loneliness,--she offered to go and nurse him! Of course it could not +be done. It is not her place. The beauty of the character of a dear +innocent young girl, with every gratification at command, who could make +the offer, strikes me as unparalleled. She was perfectly sincere--she +is sincerity. She asked at once, Where is he? She wished me to accompany +her on a first visit. I saw a tear.' + +Redworth had called at Lady Wathin's for information of the state of +Mr. Warwick, concerning which a rumour was abroad. No stranger to +the vagrant compassionateness of sentimentalists;--rich, idle, +conscience-pricked or praise-catching;--he was unmoved by the tale that +Miss Asper had proposed to go to Mr. Warwick's sick-bed in the uniform +of a Sister of Charity.--'Speaking French!' Lady Wathin exclaimed; and +his head rocked, as he said: + +'An Englishman would not be likely to know better.' + +'She speaks exquisite French--all European languages, Mr. Redworth. She +does not pretend to wit. To my thinking, depth of sentiment is a far +more feminine accomplishment. It assuredly will be found a greater +treasure.' + +The modest man (modest in such matters) was led by degrees to fancy +himself sounded regarding Miss Asper: a piece of sculpture glacially +decorative of the domestic mansion in person, to his thinking; and as to +the nature of it--not a Diana, with all her faults! + +If Diana had any faults, in a world and a position so heavily against +her! He laughed to himself, when alone, at the neatly implied bitter +reproach cast on the wife by the forsaken young lady, who proposed to +nurse the abandoned husband of the woman bereaving her of the man she +loved. Sentimentalists enjoy these tricks, the conceiving or the doing +of them--the former mainly, which are cheaper, and equally effective. +Miss Asper might be deficient in wit; this was a form of practical wit, +occasionally exhibited by creatures acting on their instincts. Warwick +he pitied, and he put compulsion on himself to go and see the poor +fellow, the subject of so sublime a generosity. Mr. Warwick sat in an +arm-chair, his legs out straight on the heels, his jaw dragging hollow +cheeks, his hands loosely joined; improving in health, he said. A demure +woman of middle age was in attendance. He did not speak of his wife. +Three times he said disconnectedly, 'I hear reports,' and his eyelids +worked. Redworth talked of general affairs, without those consolatory +efforts, useless between men, which are neither medicine nor good honest +water:--he judged by personal feelings. In consequence, he left an +invalid the sourer for his visit. + +Next day he received a briefly-worded summons from Mrs. Warwick. + +Crossing the park on the line to Diana's house, he met Miss Paynham, who +grieved to say that Mrs. Warwick could not give her a sitting; and in a +still mournfuller tone, imagined he would find her at home, and alone by +this time. 'I left no one but Mr. Dacier there,' she observed. + +'Mrs. Warwick will be disengaged to-morrow, no doubt,' he said +consolingly. + +Her head performed the negative. 'They talk politics, and she becomes +animated, loses her pose. I will persevere, though I fear I have +undertaken a task too much for me.' + +'I am deeply indebted to you for the attempt.' Redworth bowed to her and +set his face to the Abbey-towers, which wore a different aspect in the +smoked grey light since his two minutes of colloquy. He had previously +noticed that meetings with Miss Paynham produced a similar effect on +him, a not so very impressionable man. And how was it done? She told him +nothing he did not know or guess. + +Diana was alone. Her manner, after the greeting, seemed feverish. She +had not to excuse herself for abruptness when he heard the nature of the +subject. Her counsellor and friend was informed, in feminine style, that +she had, requested him to call, for the purpose of consulting him with +regard to a matter she had decided upon; and it was, the sale of The +Crossways. She said that it would have gone to her heart once; she +supposed she had lost her affection for the place, or had got the better +of her superstitions. She spoke lamely as well as bluntly. The place +was hers, she said; her own property. Her husband could not interdict a +sale. + +Redworth addressed himself to her smothered antagonism. 'Even if he had +rights, as they are termed... I think you might count on their not being +pressed.' + +'I have been told of illness.' She tapped her foot on the floor. + +'His present state of health is unequal to his ordinary duties.' + +'Emma Dunstane is fully supplied with the latest intelligence, Mr. +Redworth. You know the source.' + +'I mention it simply...' + +'Yes, yes. What I have to protest is, that in this respect I am free. +The Law has me fast, but leaves me its legal view of my small property. +I have no authority over me. I can do as I please, in this, without +a collision, or the dread of one. It is the married woman's perpetual +dread when she ventures a step. Your Law originally presumed her a +China-footed animal. And more, I have a claim for maintenance.' + +She crimsoned angrily. + +Redworth showed a look of pleasure, hard to understand. 'The application +would be sufficient, I fancy,' he said. + +'It should have been offered.' + +'Did you not decline it?' + +'I declined to apply for it. I thought--But, Mr. Redworth, another +thing, concerning us all: I want very much to hear your ideas of the +prospects of the League; because I know you have ideas. The leaders are +terrible men; they fascinate me. They appear to move with an army of +facts. They are certainly carrying the country. I am obliged to think +them sincere. Common agitators would not hold together, as they do. They +gather strength each year. If their statistics are not illusory--an army +of phantoms instead of one of facts; and they knock at my head without +admission, I have to confess; they must win.' + +'Ultimately, it is quite calculable that they will win,' said Redworth; +and he was led to discourse of rates and duties and prohibitive tariffs +to a woman surprisingly athirst, curious for every scrap of intelligence +relating to the power, organization, and schemes of the League. 'Common +sense is the secret of every successful civil agitation,' he said. +'Rap it unremittingly on crowds of the thickest of human heads, and the +response comes at last to sweep all before it. You may reckon that the +country will beat the landlords--for that is our question. Is it one of +your political themes?' + +'I am not presumptuous to such a degree:--a poor scholar,' Diana +replied. 'Women striving to lift their heads among men deserve the +sarcasm.' + +He denied that any sarcasm was intended, and the lesson continued. When +she had shaped in her mind some portion of his knowledge of the subject, +she reverted casually to her practical business. Would he undertake to +try to obtain a purchaser of The Crossways, at the price he might deem +reasonable? She left the price entirely to his judgement. And now she +had determined to part with the old place, the sooner the better! She +said that smiling; and Redworth smiled, outwardly and inwardly. Her talk +of her affairs was clearer to him than her curiosity for the mysteries +of the League. He gained kind looks besides warm thanks by the promise +to seek a purchaser; especially by his avoidance of prying queries. She +wanted just this excellent automaton fac-totum; and she referred him +to Mr. Braddock for the title-deeds, et caetera--the chirping phrase of +ladies happily washing their hands of the mean details of business. + +'How of your last work?' he asked her. + +Serenest equanimity rejoined: 'As I anticipated, it is not popular. +The critics are of one mind with the public. You may have noticed, they +rarely flower above that rocky surface. THE CANTATRICE sings them a +false note. My next will probably please them less.' + +Her mobile lips and brows shot the faint upper-wreath of a smile +hovering. It was designed to display her philosophy. + +'And what is the name of your next?' said he. + +'I name it THE MAN OF TWO MINDS, if you can allow that to be in nature.' + +'Contra-distinguished from the woman?' + +'Oh! you must first believe the woman to have one.' + +'You are working on it?' + +'By fits. And I forgot, Mr. Redworth: I have mislaid my receipts, and +must ask you for the address of your wine-merchant;--or, will you? +Several dozen of the same wines. I can trust him to be in awe of you, +and the good repute of my table depends on his honesty.' + +Redworth took the definite order for a large supply of wine. + +She gave him her hand: a lost hand, dear to hold, needing to be guided, +he feared. For him, it was merely a hand, cut off from the wrist; and he +had performed that executive part! A wiser man would now have been the +lord of it.... So he felt, with his burning wish to protect and cherish +the beloved woman, while saying: 'If we find a speedy bidder for The +Crossways, you will have to thank our railways.' + +'You!' said Diana, confident in his ability to do every-thing of the +practical kind. + +Her ingenuousness tickled him. He missed her comic touches upon men and +things, but the fever shown by her manner accounted for it. + +As soon as he left her, she was writing to the lover who had an hour +previously been hearing her voice; the note of her theme being Party; +and how to serve it, when to sacrifice it to the Country. She wrote, +carolling bars of the Puritani marches; and such will passion do, +that her choice of music was quite in harmony with her theme. The +martially-amorous melodies of Italian Opera in those days fostered a +passion challenged to intrepidity from the heart of softness; gliding +at the same time, and putting warm blood even into dull arithmetical +figures which might be important to her lover, her hero fronting battle. +She condensed Redworth's information skilfully, heartily giving it and +whatever she had imbibed, as her own, down to the remark: 'Common sense +in questions of justice, is a weapon that makes way into human heads and +wins the certain majority, if we strike with it incessantly.' Whether +anything she wrote was her own, mattered little: the savour of Percy's +praise, which none could share with her, made it instantly all her own. +Besides she wrote to strengthen him; she naturally laid her friends and +the world under contribution; and no other sort of writing was possible. +Percy had not a common interest in fiction; still less for high comedy. +He liked the broad laugh when he deigned to open books of that sort; +puns and strong flavours and harlequin surprises; and her work would not +admit of them, however great her willingness to force her hand for his +amusement: consequently her inventiveness deadened. She had to cease +whipping it. 'My poor old London cabhorse of a pen shall go to grass!' +she sighed, looking to the sale of The Crossways for money; looking no +farther. + +Those marshalled battalions of Debit and Credit were in hostile order, +the weaker simply devoted to fighting for delay, when a winged +messenger bearing the form of old Mr. Braddock descended to her with +the reconciling news that a hermit bachelor, an acquaintance of Mr. +Redworth's--both of whom wore a gloomy hue in her mind immediately--had +offered a sum for the purchase of The Crossways. Considering the +out-of-the-way district, Mr. Braddock thought it an excellent price to +get. She thought the reverse, but confessed that double the sum would +not have altered her opinion. Double the sum scarcely counted for the +service she required of it for much more than a year. The money was +paid shortly after into her Bank, and then she enjoyed the contemptuous +felicity of tossing meat to her lions, tigers, wolves, and jackals, +who, but for the fortunate intervention, would have been feeding on +her. These menagerie beasts of prey were the lady's tradesmen, Debit's +hungry-brood. She had a rapid glimpse of a false position in regarding +that legitimate band so scornfully: another glimpse likewise of a day to +come when they might not be stopped at the door. She was running a race +with something; with what? It was unnamed; it ran in a shroud. + +At times she surprised her heart violently beating when there had not +been a thought to set it in motion. She traced it once to the words, +'next year,' incidentally mentioned. 'Free,' was a word that checked her +throbs, as at a question of life or death. Her solitude, excepting +the hours of sleep, if then, was a time of irregular breathing. The +something unnamed, running beside her, became a dreadful familiar; the +race between them past contemplation for ghastliness. 'But this is your +Law!' she cried to the world, while blinding her eyes against a peep of +the shrouded features. + +Singularly, she had but to abandon hope, and the shadowy figure +vanished, the tragic race was ended. How to live and think, and not to +hope: the slave of passion had this problem before her. + +Other tasks were supportable, though one seemed hard at moments and +was not passive; it attacked her. The men and women of her circle +derisively, unanimously, disbelieved in an innocence that forfeited +reputation. Women were complimentarily assumed to be not such gaping +idiots. And as the weeks advanced, a change came over Percy. The +gentleman had grown restless at covert congratulations, hollow to his +knowledge, however much caressing vanity, and therefore secretly a wound +to it. One day, after sitting silent, he bluntly proposed to break 'this +foolish trifling'; just in his old manner, though not so honourably; not +very definitely either. Her hand was taken. + +'I feared that dumbness!' Diana said, letting her hand go, but keeping +her composure. 'My friend Percy, I am not a lion-tamer, and if you are +of those animals, we break the chapter. Plainly you think that where +there appears to be a choice of fools, the woman is distinctly designed +for the person. Drop my hand, or I shall repeat the fable of the Goose +with the Golden Eggs.' + +'Fables are applicable only in the school-room,' said he; and he +ventured on 'Tony!' + +'I vowed an oath to my dear Emma--as good as to the heavens! and that +of itself would stay me from being insane again.' She released herself. +'Signor Percy, you teach me to suspect you of having an idle wish +to pluck your plaything to pieces:--to boast of it? Ah! my friend, I +fancied I was of more value to you. You must come less often; even to +not at all, if you are one of those idols with feet of clay which +leave the print of their steps in a room; or fall and crush the silly +idolizer.' + +'But surely you know...' said he. 'We can't have to wait long.' He +looked full of hopeful meanings. + +'A reason...!' She kept down her breath. A longdrawn sigh followed, +through parted lips. She had a sensation of horror. 'And I cannot +propose to nurse him--Emma will not hear of it,' she said. 'I dare not. +Hypocrite to that extreme? Oh, no! But I must hear nothing. As it is, +I am haunted. Now let this pass. Tony me no Tonies; I am stony to such +whimpering business now we are in the van of the struggle. All round us +it sounds like war. Last night I had Mr. Tonans dining here;--he wished +to meet you; and you must have a private meeting with Mr. Whitmonby: he +will be useful; others as well. You are wrong in affecting contempt of +the Press. It perches you on a rock; but the swimmer in politics knows +what draws the tides. Your own people, your set, your class, are a drag +to you, like inherited superstitions to the wakening brain. The greater +the glory! For you see the lead you take? You are saving your class. +They should lead, and will, if they prove worthy in the crisis. Their +curious error is to believe in the stability of a monumental position.' + +'Perfectly true!' cried Dacier; and the next minute, heated by +approbation, was begging for her hand earnestly. She refused it. + +'But you say things that catch me!' he pleaded. 'Remember, it was nearly +mine. It soon will be mine. I heard yesterday from Lady Wathin... well, +if it pains you!' + +'Speak on,' said Diana, resigned to her thirsty ears. + +'He is not expected to last through the autumn.' + +'The calculation is hers?' + +'Not exactly:--judging from the symptoms.' + +Diana flashed a fiery eye into Dacier's, and rose. She was past danger +of melting, with her imagination darkened by the funeral image; but she +craved solitude, and had to act the callous, to dismiss him. + +'Good. Enough for the day. Now leave me, if you please. When we meet +again, stifle that raven's croak. I am not a "Sister of Charity," but +neither am I a vulture hovering for the horse in the desert to die. A +poor simile!--when it is my own and not another's breath that I want. +Nothing in nature, only gruesome German stories will fetch comparisons +for the yoke of this Law of yours. It seems the nightmare dream +following an ogre's supper.' + +She was not acting the shiver of her frame. + +To-morrow was open to him, and prospect of better fortune, so he +departed, after squeezing the hand she ceremoniously extended. + +But her woman's intuition warned her that she had not maintained the +sovereign impression which was her security. And hope had become a flame +in her bosom that would no longer take the common extinguisher. The race +she ran was with a shrouded figure no more, but with the figure of the +shroud; she had to summon paroxysms of a pity hard to feel, images +of sickness, helplessness, the vaults, the last human silence for the +stilling of her passionate heart. And when this was partly effected, the +question, Am I going to live? renewed her tragical struggle. Who was +it under the vaults, in the shroud, between the planks? and with human +sensibility to swell the horror! Passion whispered of a vaster sorrow +needed for herself; and the hope conjuring those frightful complexities +was needed to soothe her. She pitied the man, but she was an enamoured +woman. Often of late she had been sharply stung, relaxed as well, by the +observations of Danvers assisting at her toilette. Had she beauty +and charm, beauty and rich health in the young summer blooming of +her days?--and all doomed to waste? No insurgency of words arose in +denunciation of the wrong done to her nature. An undefined heavy feeling +of wrong there was, just perceptive enough to let her know, without +gravely shaming, that one or another must be slain for peace to come; +for it is the case in which the world of the Laws overloading her is +pitiless to women, deaf past ear-trumpets, past intercession; detesting +and reviling them for a feeble human cry, and for one apparent step of +revolt piling the pelted stones on them. It will not discriminate +shades of hue, it massacres all the shadowed. They are honoured, after +a fashion, at a certain elevation. Descending from it, and purely to +breathe common air (thus in her mind), they are scourged and outcast. +And alas! the very pleading for them excites a sort of ridicule in +their advocate. How? She was utterly, even desperately, nay personally, +earnest, and her humour closed her lips; though comical views of the +scourged and outcast coming from the opposite party--the huge bully +world--she would not have tolerated. Diana raged at a prevailing +strength on the part of that huge bully world, which seemed really to +embrace the atmosphere. Emma had said: 'The rules of Christian Society +are a blessed Government for us women. We owe it so much that there is +not a brick of the fabric we should not prop.' Emma's talk of obedience +to the Laws, being Laws, was repeated by the rebel, with an involuntary +unphrased comparison of the vessel in dock and the vessel at sea. + +When Dacier next called to see Mrs. Warwick, he heard that she had gone +to Copsley for a couple of weeks. The lesson was emphasized by her not +writing:--and was it the tricky sex, or the splendid character of the +woman, which dealt him this punishment? Knowing how much Diana forfeited +for him, he was moved to some enthusiasm, despite his inclination to be +hurt. + +She, on her return to London, gained a considerable increase of +knowledge as to her position in the eye of the world; and unlike the +result of her meditations derived from the clamouring tradesmen, whom +she could excuse, she was neither illuminated nor cautioned by that +dubious look; she conscientiously revolted. Lady Pennon hinted a word +for her Government. 'A good deal of what you so capitally call "Green +tea talk" is going on, my dear.' Diana replied, without pretending to +misunderstand. + +'Gossip is a beast of prey that does not wait for the death of the +creature it devours. They are welcome to my shadow, if the liberty I +claim casts one, and it feeds them.' To which the old lady rejoined: +'Oh! I am with you through thick and thin. I presented you at Court, and +I stand by you. Only, walk carefully. Women have to walk with a train. +You are too famous not to have your troops of watchers.' + +'But I mean to prove,' said Diana, 'that a woman can walk with her train +independent of the common reserves and artifices.' + +'Not on highways, my dear!' + +Diana, praising the speaker, referred the whole truth in that to the +material element of her metaphor. + +She was more astonished by Whitmonby's candid chiding; but with him she +could fence, and men are easily diverted. She had sent for him, to bring +him and Percy Dacier together to a conference. Unaware of the project, +he took the opportunity of their privacy to speak of the great station +open to her in London being imperilled; and he spoke of 'tongues,' and +ahem! A very little would have induced him to fill that empty vocable +with a name. + +She had to pardon the critic in him for an unpleasant review of her +hapless CANTATRICE; and as a means of evasion, she mentioned the poor +book and her slaughter of the heroine, that he had complained of. + +'I killed her; I could not let her live. You were unjust in accusing the +authoress of heartlessness.' + +'If I did, I retract,' said he. 'She steers too evidently from the +centre of the vessel. She has the organ in excess.' + +'Proof that it is not squandered.' + +'The point concerns direction.' + +'Have I made so bad a choice of my friends?' + +'It is the common error of the sprightly to suppose that in parrying a +thrust they blind our eyes.' + +'The world sees always what it desires to see, Mr. Whitmonby.' + +'The world, my dear Mrs. Warwick, is a blundering machine upon its own +affairs, but a cruel sleuth-hound to rouse in pursuit.' + +'So now you have me chased by sight and scent. And if I take wing?' + +'Shots! volleys!--You are lawful game. The choice you have made of your +friends, should oblige you to think of them.' + +'I imagine I do. Have I offended any, or one?' + +'I will not say that. You know the commotion in a French kitchen when +the guests of the house declined a particular dish furnished them by +command. The cook and his crew were loyal to their master, but, for +the love of their Art, they sent him notice. It is ill serving a mad +sovereign.' + +Diana bowed to the compact little apologue. + +'I will tell you another story, traditional in our family from my +great-grandmother, a Spanish woman,' she said. 'A cavalier serenaded +his mistress, and rascal mercenaries fell upon him before he could draw +sword. He battered his guitar on their pates till the lattice opened +with a cry, and startled them to flight. "Thrice blessed and beloved!" +he called to her above, in reference to the noise, "it was merely +a diversion of the accompaniment." Now there was loyal service to a +sovereign!' + +'You are certainly an angel!' exclaimed Whitmonby. 'I swallow the story, +and leave it to digestion to discover the appositeness. Whatever tuneful +instrument one of your friends possesses shall solace your slumbers or +batter the pate of your enemy. But discourage the habitual serenader.' + +'The musician you must mean is due here now, by appointment to meet +you,' said Diana, and set him momentarily agape with the name of Mr. +Percy Dacier. + +That was the origin of the alliance between the young statesman and +a newspaper editor. Whitmonby, accepting proposals which suited him, +quitted the house, after an hour of political talk, no longer inclined +to hint at the 'habitual serenader,' but very ready to fall foul of +those who did, as he proved when the numbers buzzed openly. Times were +masculine; the excitement on the eve of so great a crisis, and Diana's +comprehension of it and fine heading cry, put that weak matter aside. +Moreover, he was taught to suppose himself as welcome a guest as Dacier; +and the cook could stand criticism; the wines--wonderful to say of a +lady's table--were trusty; the talk, on the political evenings and the +social and anecdotal supper-nights, ran always in perfect accord with +his ideal of the conversational orchestra: an improvized harmony, +unmatched elsewhere. She did not, he considered, so perfectly assort her +dinner-guests; that was her one fault. She had therefore to strain her +adroitness to cover their deficiencies and fuse them. But what other +woman could have done it! She led superbly. If an Irishman was present, +she kept him from overflooding, managed to extract just the flavour +of him, the smack of salt. She did even, at Whitmonby's table, on a +red-letter Sunday evening, in concert with him and the Dean, bring down +that cataract, the Bodleian, to the levels of interchanging dialogue +by seasonable touches, inimitably done, and never done before. Sullivan +Smith, unbridled in the middle of dinner, was docile to her. 'Irishmen;' +she said, pleading on their behalf to Whitmonby, who pronounced the race +too raw for an Olympian feast, 'are invaluable if you hang them up to +smoke and cure'; and the master of social converse could not deny that +they were responsive to her magic. The supper-nights were mainly devoted +to Percy's friends. He brought as many as he pleased, and as often as it +pleased him; and it was her pride to provide Cleopatra banquets for the +lover whose anxieties were soothed by them, and to whom she sacrificed +her name willingly in return for a generosity that certain chance +whispers of her heart elevated to the pitch of measureless. + +So they wore through the Session and the Autumn, clouds heavier, the +League drumming, the cry of Ireland 'ominously Banshee,' as she wrote to +Emma. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. IN WHICH THERE IS A TASTE OF A LITTLE DINNER AND AN +AFTERTASTE + +'But Tony lives!' Emma Dunstane cried, on her solitary height, with the +full accent of envy marking the verb; and when she wrote enviously to +her friend of the life among bright intelligences, and of talk worth +hearing, it was a happy signification that health, frail though it might +be, had grown importunate for some of the play of life. Diana sent +her word to name her day, and she would have her choicest to meet her +dearest. They were in the early days of December, not the best of times +for improvized gatherings. Emma wanted, however, to taste them as they +cropped; she was also, owing to her long isolation, timid at a notion of +encountering the pick of the London world, prepared by Tony to behold 'a +wonder more than worthy of them,' as her friend unadvisedly wrote. That +was why she came unexpectedly, and for a mixture of reasons, went to an +hotel. Fatality designed it so. She was reproached, but she said: 'You +have to write or you entertain at night; I should be a clog and fret +you. My hotel is Maitland's; excellent; I believe I am to lie on the +pillow where a crowned head reposed! You will perceive that I am proud +as well as comfortable. And I would rather meet your usual set of +guests.' + +'The reason why I have been entertaining at night is, that Percy is +harassed and requires enlivening,' said Diana. 'He brings his friends. +My house is open to them, if it amuses him. What the world says, is past +a thought. I owe him too much.' + +Emma murmured that the world would soon be pacified. + +Diana shook her head. 'The poor man is better; able to go about his +affairs; and I am honestly relieved. It lays a spectre. As for me, I +do not look ahead. I serve as a kind of secretary to Percy. I labour +at making abstracts by day, and at night preside at my suppertable. You +would think it monotonous; no incident varies the course we run. I have +no time to ask whether it is happiness. It seems to bear a resemblance.' + +Emma replied: 'He may be everything you tell me. He should not have +chosen the last night of the Opera to go to your box and sit beside +you till the fall of the curtain. The presence at the Opera of a man +notoriously indifferent to music was enough in itself.' + +Diana smiled with languor. 'You heard of that? But the Opera was The +Puritani, my favourite. And he saw me sitting in Lady Pennon's box +alone. We were compromised neck-deep already. I can kiss you, my own +Emmy, till I die; 'but what the world says, is what the wind says. +Besides he has his hopes.... If I am blackened ever so thickly, he can +make me white. Dear me! if the world knew that he comes here almost +nightly! It will; and does it matter? I am his in soul; the rest is +waste-paper--a half-printed sheet.' + +'Provided he is worthy of such devotion!' + +'He is absolute worthiness. He is the prince of men: I dread to say, +mine! for fear. But Emmy will not judge him to-morrow by contrast with +more voluble talkers.--I can do anything but read poetry now. That kills +me!--See him through me. In nature, character, intellect, he has no +rival. Whenever I despond--and it comes now and then--I rebuke myself +with this one admonition. + +Simply to have known him! Admit that for a woman to find one who is +worthy among the opposite creatures, is a happy termination of her +quest, and in some sort dismisses her to the Shades, an uncomplaining +ferry-bird. If my end were at hand I should have no cause to lament it. +We women miss life only when we have to confess we have never met the +man to reverence.' + +Emma had to hear a very great deal of Mr. Percy. Diana's comparison of +herself to 'the busy bee at a window-pane,' was more in her old manner; +and her friend would have hearkened to the marvels of the gentle man +less unrefreshed, had it not appeared to her that her Tony gave in +excess for what was given in return. She hinted her view... + +'It is expected of our sex,' Diana said. + +The work of busy bee at a window-pane had at any rate not spoilt her +beauty, though she had voluntarily, profitlessly, become this man's +drudge, and her sprightly fancy, her ready humour and darting look all +round in discussion, were rather deadened. + +But the loss was not perceptible in the circle of her guests. Present at +a dinner little indicating the last, were Whitmonby, in lively trim +for shuffling, dealing, cutting, trumping or drawing trumps; Westlake, +polishing epigrams under his eyelids; Henry Wilmers, who timed an +anecdote to strike as the passing hour without freezing the current; +Sullivan Smith, smoked, cured and ready to flavour; Percy Dacier, +pleasant listener, measured speaker; and young Arthur Rhodes, the +neophyte of the hostess's training; of whom she had said to Emma, 'The +dear boy very kindly serves to frank an unlicenced widow'; and whom she +prompted and made her utmost of, with her natural tact. These she mixed +and leavened. The talk was on high levels and low; an enchantment +to Emma Dunstane: now a story; a question opening new routes, sharp +sketches of known personages; a paradox shot by laughter as soon as +uttered; and all so smoothly; not a shadow of the dominant holder-forth +or a momentary prospect of dead flats; the mellow ring of appositeness +being the concordant note of deliveries running linked as they flashed, +and a tolerant philosophy of the sage in the world recurrently the +keynote. + +Once only had Diana to protect her nurseling. He cited a funny line +from a recent popular volume of verse, in perfect A propos, looking at +Sullivan Smith; who replied, that the poets had become too many for +him, and he read none now. Diana said: 'There are many Alexanders, but +Alexander of Macedon is not dwarfed by the number.' She gave him an +opening for a smarter reply, but he lost it in a comment--against +Whitmonby's cardinal rule: 'The neatest turn of the wrist that ever +swung a hero to crack a crown!' and he bowed to young Rhodes: 'I 'll +read your versicler to-morrow morning early.' The latter expressed a +fear that the hour was too critical for poetry. + +'I have taken the dose at a very early hour,' said Whitmonby, to bring +conversation to the flow again, 'and it effaced the critical mind +completely.' + +'But did not silence the critical nose,' observed Westlake. + +Wilmers named the owner of the longest nose in Europe. + +'Potentially, indeed a critic!' said Diana. + +'Nights beside it must be fearful, and good matter for a divorce, if +the poor dear lady could hale it to the doors of the Vatican!' Sullivan +Smith exclaimed. 'But there's character in noses.' + +'Calculable by inches?' Dacier asked. + +'More than in any other feature,' said Lady Dunstane. 'The Riffords are +all prodigiously gifted and amusing: suspendens omnia naso. It should be +prayed for in families.' + +'Totum ut to faciant, Fabulle, nasum,' rejoined Whitmonby. 'Lady +Isabella was reading the tale of the German princess, who had a sentinel +stationed some hundred yards away to whisk off the flies, and she owned +to me that her hand instinctively travelled upward.' + +'Candour is the best concealment, when one has to carry a saddle of +absurdity,' said Diana. 'Touchstone's "poor thing, but mine own," is +godlike in its enveloping fold.' + +'The most comforting sermon ever delivered on property in poverty,' said +Arthur Rhodes. + +Westlake assented. 'His choice of Audrey strikes me as an exhibition of +the sure instinct for pasture of the philosophical jester in a forest.' + +'With nature's woman, if he can find her, the urban seems equally at +home,' said Lady Dunstane. + +'Baron Pawle is an example,' added Whitmonby. 'His cook is a pattern +wife to him. I heard him say at table that she was responsible for all +except the wines. "I wouldn't have them on my conscience, with a Judge!" +my lady retorted.' + +'When poor Madame de Jacquieres was dying,' said Wilmers, 'her confessor +sat by her bedside, prepared for his ministrations. "Pour commencer, mon +ami, jamais je n'ai fait rien hors nature."' + +Lord Wadaster had uttered something tolerably similar: 'I am a sinner, +and in good society.' Sir Abraham Hartiston, a minor satellite of the +Regent, diversified this: 'I am a sinner, and go to good society.' +Madame la Comtesse de la Roche-Aigle, the cause of many deaths, declared +it unwomanly to fear anything save 'les revenants.' Yet the countess +could say the pretty thing: 'Foot on a flower, then think of me!' + +'Sentimentality puts up infant hands for absolution,' said Diana. + +'But tell me,' Lady Dunstane inquired generally, 'why men are so much +happier than women in laughing at their spouses?' + +They are humaner, was one dictum; they are more frivolous, ironically +another. + +'It warrants them for blowing the bugle-horn of masculine superiority +night and morning from the castle-walls,' Diana said. + +'I should imagine it is for joy of heart that they still have cause to +laugh!' said Westlake. + +On the other hand, are women really pained by having to laugh at their +lords? Curious little speeches flying about the great world, affirmed +the contrary. But the fair speakers were chartered libertines, and their +laugh admittedly had a biting acid. The parasite is concerned in the +majesty of the tree. + +'We have entered Botany Bay,' Diana said to Emma; who answered: 'A +metaphor is the Deus ex machine, of an argument'; and Whitmonby, to +lighten a shadow of heaviness, related allusively an anecdote of the Law +Courts. Sullivan Smith begged permission to 'black cap' it with Judge +FitzGerald's sentence upon a convicted criminal: 'Your plot was perfect +but for One above.' Dacier cited an execrable impromptu line of the +Chief of the Opposition in Parliament. The Premier, it was remarked, +played him like an angler his fish on the hook; or say, Mr. Serjeant +Rufus his witness in the box. + +'Or a French journalist an English missionary,' said Westlake; and as +the instance was recent it was relished. + +The talk of Premiers offered Whitmonby occasion for a flight to the +Court of Vienna and Kaunitz. Wilmers told a droll story of Lord Busby's +missing the Embassy there. Westlake furnished a sample of the tranquil +sententiousness of Busby's brother Robert during a stormy debate in the +House of Commons. + +'I remember,' Dacier was reminded, 'hearing him say, when the House +resembled a Chartist riot, "Let us stand aside and meditate on Life. If +Youth could know, in the season of its reaping of the Pleasures, that it +is but sowing Doctor's bills!"' + +Latterly a malady had supervened, and Bob Busby had retired from the +universal to the special;--his mysterious case. + +'Assure him, that is endemic. He may be cured of his desire for the +exposition of it,' said Lady Dunstane. + +Westlake chimed with her: 'Yes, the charm in discoursing of one's case +is over when the individual appears no longer at odds with Providence.' + +'But then we lose our Tragedy,' said Whitmonby. + +'Our Comedy too,' added Diana. 'We must consent to be Busbied for the +sake of the instructive recreations.' + +'A curious idea, though,' said Sullivan Smith, 'that some of the grand +instructive figures were in their day colossal bores!' + +'So you see the marvel of the poet's craft at last?' Diana smiled on +him, and he vowed: 'I'll read nothing else for a month!' Young Rhodes +bade him beware of a deluge in proclaiming it. + +They rose from table at ten, with the satisfaction of knowing that +they had not argued, had not wrangled, had never stagnated, and were +digestingly refreshed; as it should be among grown members of the +civilized world, who mean to practise philosophy, making the hour of the +feast a balanced recreation and a regeneration of body and mind. + +'Evenings like these are worth a pilgrimage,' Emma said, embracing Tony +outside the drawing-room door. 'I am so glad I came: and if I am strong +enough, invite me again in the Spring. To-morrow early I start for +Copsley, to escape this London air. I shall hope to have you there +soon.' + +She was pleased by hearing Tony ask her whether she did not think that +Arthur Rhodes had borne himself well; for it breathed of her simply +friendly soul. + +The gentlemen followed Lady Dunstane in a troop, Dacier yielding +perforce the last adieu to young Rhodes. + +Five minutes later Diana was in her dressing-room, where she wrote at +night, on the rare occasions now when she was left free for composition. +Beginning to dwell on THE MAN OF TWO MINDS, she glanced at the woman +likewise divided, if not similarly; and she sat brooding. She did not +accuse her marriage of being the first fatal step: her error was the +step into Society without the wherewithal to support her position there. +Girls of her kind, airing their wings above the sphere of their birth, +are cryingly adventuresses. As adventuresses they are treated. + +Vain to be shrewish with the world! Rather let us turn and scold our +nature for irreflectively rushing to the cream and honey! Had she +subsisted on her small income in a country cottage, this task of writing +would have been holiday. Or better, if, as she preached to Mary Paynham, +she had apprenticed herself to some productive craft. The simplicity +of the life of labour looked beautiful. What will not look beautiful +contrasted with the fly in the web? She had chosen to be one of the +flies of life. + +Instead of running to composition, her mind was eloquent with a sermon +to Arthur Rhodes, in Redworth's vein; more sympathetically, of course. +'For I am not one of the lecturing Mammonites!' she could say. + +She was far from that. Penitentially, in the thick of her disdain of the +arrogant money-Betters, she pulled out a drawer where her bank-book lay, +and observed it contemplatively; jotting down a reflection before the +dread book of facts was opened: 'Gaze on the moral path you should have +taken, you are asked for courage to commit a sanctioned suicide, by +walking back to it stripped--a skeleton self.' She sighed forth: 'But +I have no courage: I never had!' The book revealed its tale in a small +pencilled computation of the bank-clerk's; on the peccant side. Credit +presented many pages blanks. She seemed to have withdrawn from the +struggle with such a partner. + +It signified an immediate appeal to the usurers, unless the publisher +could be persuaded, with three parts of the book in his hands, to come +to the rescue. Work! roared old Debit, the sinner turned slavedriver. + +Diana smoothed her wrists, compressing her lips not to laugh at the +simulation of an attitude of combat. She took up her pen. + +And strange to think, she could have flowed away at once on the stuff +that Danvers delighted to read!--wicked princes, rogue noblemen, titled +wantons, daisy and lily innocents, traitorous marriages, murders, a +gallows dangling a corpse dotted by a moon, and a woman bowed beneath. +She could have written, with the certainty that in the upper and the +middle as well as in the lower classes of the country, there would be +a multitude to read that stuff, so cordially, despite the gaps between +them, are they one in their literary tastes. And why should they not +read it? Her present mood was a craving for excitement; for incident, +wild action, the primitive machinery of our species; any amount of +theatrical heroics, pathos, and clown-gabble. A panorama of scenes came +sweeping round her. + +She was, however, harnessed to a different kind of vehicle, and had to +drag it. The sound of the house-door shutting, imagined perhaps, was a +fugitive distraction. Now to animate The Man of Two Minds! + +He is courting, but he is burdened with the task of tasks. He has an +ideal of womanhood and of the union of couples: a delicacy extreme as +his attachment: and he must induce the lady to school herself to his +ideal, not allowing her to suspect him less devoted to her person; while +she, an exacting idol, will drink any quantity of idealization as long +as he starts it from a full acceptance of her acknowledged qualities. +Diana could once have tripped the scene along airily. She stared at +the opening sentence, a heavy bit of moralized manufacture, fit to yoke +beside that on her view of her bank-book. + +'It has come to this--I have no head,' she cried. + +And is our public likely to muster the slightest taste for comic +analysis that does not tumble to farce? The doubt reduced her whole MS. +to a leaden weight, composed for sinking. Percy's addiction to burlesque +was a further hindrance, for she did not perceive how her comedy could +be strained to gratify it. + +There was a knock, and Danvers entered. 'You have apparently a liking +for late hours,' observed her mistress. 'I told you to go to bed.' 'It +is Mr. Dacier,' said Danvers. 'He wishes to see me?' 'Yes, ma'am. He +apologized for disturbing you.' 'He must have some good reason.' What +could it be! Diana's glass approved her appearance. She pressed the +black swell of hair above her temples, rather amazed, curious, inclined +to a beating of the heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. A CHAPTER CONTAINING GREAT POLITICAL NEWS AND THEREWITH AN +INTRUSION OF THE LOVE-GOD + +Dacier was pacing about the drawing-room, as in a place too narrow for +him. + +Diana stood at the door. 'Have you forgotten to tell me anything I ought +to know?' + +He came up to her and shut the door softly behind her, holding her hand. +'You are near it. I returned.. But tell me first:--You were slightly +under a shadow this evening, dejected.' + +'Did I show it?' + +She was growing a little suspicious, but this cunning touch of +lover-like interest dispersed the shade. + +'To me you did.' + +'It was unpardonable to let it be seen.' + +'No one else could have observed it.' + +Her woman's heart was thrilled; for she had concealed the dejection from +Emma. + +'It was nothing,' she said; 'a knot in the book I am writing. We poor +authors are worried now and then. But you?' + +His face rippled by degrees brightly, to excite a reflection in hers. + +'Shall I tune you with good news? I think it will excuse me for coming +back.' + +'Very good news?' + +'Brave news, as far as it goes.' + +'Then it concerns you!' + +'Me, you, the country.' + +'Oh! do I guess?' cried Diana. 'But speak, pray; I burn.' + +'What am I to have for telling it?' + +'Put no price. You know my heart. I guess--or fancy. It relates to your +Chief?' + +Dacier smiled in a way to show the lock without the key; and she was +insensibly drawn nearer to him, speculating on the smile. + +'Try again,' said he, keenly appreciating the blindness to his motive of +her studious dark eyes, and her open-lipped breathing. + +'Percy! I must be right.' + +'Well, you are. He has decided!' + +'Oh! that is the bravest possible. When did you hear?' + +'He informed me of his final decision this afternoon.' + +'And you were charged with the secret all the evening, and betrayed +not a sign! I compliment the diplomatic statesman. But when will it be +public?' + +'He calls Parliament together the first week of next month.' + +'The proposal is--? No more compromises!' + +'Total!' + +Diana clapped hands; and her aspect of enthusiasm was intoxicating. +'He is a wise man and a gallant Minister! And while you were reading me +through, I was blind to you,' she added meltingly. + +'I have not made too much of it?' said he. + +'Indeed you have not.' + +She was radiant with her dark lightnings, yet visibly subject to him +under the spell of the news he had artfully lengthened out to excite and +overbalance her:--and her enthusiasm was all pointed to his share in the +altered situation, as he well knew and was flattered in knowing. + +'So Tony is no longer dejected? I thought I could freshen you and get my +excuse.' + +'Oh! a high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. I soar. Now I do +feel proud. I have longed for it--to have you leading the country: not +tugged at like a waggon with a treble team uphill. We two are a month +in advance of all England. You stand by him?--only to hear it, for I am +sure of it!' + +'We stand or fall together.' + +Her glowing look doated on the faithful lieutenant. + +'And if the henchman is my hero, I am but a waiting-woman. But I must +admire his leader.' + +'Tony!' + +'Ah! no,' she joined her hands, wondering whither her armed majesty had +fled; 'no softness! no payments! Flatter me by letting me think you came +to a head not a silly woman's heart, with one name on it, as it has not +to betray. I have been frank; you need no proofs...' The supplicating +hands left her figure an easy prey to the storm, and were crushed in +a knot on her bosom. She could only shrink. 'Ah! Percy.. you undo my +praise of you--my pride in receiving you.' + +They were speechless perforce. + +'You see, Tony, my dearest, I am flesh and blood after all.' + +'You drive me to be ice and door-bolts!' + +Her eyes broke over him reproachfully. + +'It is not so much to grant,' he murmured. + +'It changes everything between us.' + +'Not me. It binds me the faster.' + +'It makes me a loathsome hypocrite.' + +'But, Tony! is it so much?' + +'Not if you value it low.' + +'But how long do you keep me in this rag-puppet's state of suspension?' + +'Patience.' + +'Dangling and swinging day and night!' + +'The rag-puppet shall be animated and repaid if I have life. I wish +to respect my hero. Have a little mercy. Our day will come: perhaps as +wonderfully as this wonderful news. My friend, drop your hands. Have you +forgotten who I am? I want to think, Percy!' + +'But you are mine.' + +'You are abasing your own.' + +'No, by heaven!' + +'Worse, dear friend; you are lowering yourself to the woman who loves +you.' + +'You must imagine me superhuman.' + +'I worship you--or did.' + +'Be reasonable, Tony. What harm! Surely a trifle of recompense? Just to +let me feel I live! You own you love me. Then I am your lover.' + +'My dear friend Percy, when I have consented to be your paramour, this +kind of treatment of me will not want apologies.' + +The plain speaking from the wound he dealt her was effective with a +gentleman who would never have enjoyed his privileges had he been of a +nature unsusceptible to her distinct wish and meaning. + +He sighed. 'You know how my family bother me. The woman I want, the only +woman I could marry, I can't have.' + +'You have her in soul.' + +'Body and soul, it must be! I believe you were made without fire.' + +'Perhaps. The element is omitted with some of us happily, some think. +Now we can converse. There seems to be a measurement of distances +required before men and women have a chance with their brains:--or +before a man will understand that he can be advised and seconded. When +will the Cabinet be consulted?' + +'Oh, a few days. Promise me...' + +'Any honourable promise!' + +'You will not keep me waiting longer than the end of the Session?' + +'Probably there will be an appeal to the country.' + +'In any case, promise me: have some compassion.' + +'Ah, the compassion! You do not choose your words, Percy, or forget who +is the speaker.' + +'It is Tony who forgets the time she has kept her lover dangling. +Promise, and I will wait.' + +'You hurt my hand, sir.' + +'I could crack the knuckles. Promise!' + +'Come to me to-morrow.' + +'To-morrow you are in your armour-triple brass! All creation cries out +for now. We are mounted on barbs and you talk of ambling.' + +'Arthur Rhodes might have spoken that.' + +'Rhodes!' he shook off the name in disgust. 'Pet him as much as you +like; don't...' he was unable to phrase his objection. + +She cooled him further with eulogies of the chevaleresque manner of +speaking which young Mr. Rhodes could assume; till for very wrath of +blood--not jealousy: he had none of any man, with her; and not passion; +the little he had was a fitful gust--he punished her coldness by taking +what hastily could be gathered. + +Her shape was a pained submission; and she thought: Where is the woman +who ever knows a man!--as women do think when one of their artifices of +evasion with a lover, or the trick of imposingness, has apparently been +subduing him. But the pain was less than previously, for she was now +mistress of herself, fearing no abysses. + +Dacier released her quickly, saying: 'If I come tomorrow, shall I have +the promise?' + +She answered: 'Be sure I shall not lie.' + +'Why not let me have it before I go?' + +'My friend, to tell you the truth, you have utterly distracted me.' + +'Forgive me if I did hurt your hand.' + +'The hand? You might strike it off.' + +'I can't be other than a mortal lover, Tony. There's the fact.' + +'No; the fault is mine when I am degraded. I trust you: there's the +error.' + +The trial for Dacier was the sight of her quick-lifting; bosom under the +mask of cold language: an attraction and repulsion in union; a delirium +to any lover impelled to trample on weak defences. But the evident pain +he inflicted moved his pity, which helped to restore his conception of +the beauty of her character. She stood so nobly meek. And she was never +prudish, only self-respecting. Although the great news he imparted had +roused an ardent thirst for holiday and a dash out of harness, and he +could hardly check it, he yielded her the lead. + +'Trust me you may,' he said. 'But you know--we are one. The world has +given you to me, me to you. Why should we be asunder? There's no reason +in it.' + +She replied: 'But still I wish to burn a little incense in honour of +myself, or else I cannot live. It is the truth. You make Death my truer +friend, and at this moment I would willingly go out. You would respect +me more dead than alive. I could better pardon you too.' + +He pleaded for the red mouth's pardon, remotely irritated by the +suspicion that she swayed him overmuch: and he had deserved the small +benevolences and donations of love, crumbs and heavenly dews! + +'Not a word of pardon,' said Diana. 'I shall never count an iota against +you "in the dark backward and abysm of Time." This news is great, and +I have sunk beneath it. Come tomorrow. Then we will speak upon whatever +you can prove rational. The hour is getting late.' + +Dacier took a draught of her dark beauty with the crimson he had kindled +over the cheeks. Her lips were firmly closed, her eyes grave; dry, but +seeming to waver tearfully in their heavy fulness. He could not doubt +her love of him; and although chafing at the idea that she swayed him +absurdly--beyond the credible in his world of wag-tongues--he resumed +his natural soberness, as a garment, not very uneasily fitting: whence +it ensued--for so are we influenced by the garb we put on us--that +his manly sentiment of revolt in being condemned to play second, was +repressed by the refreshment breathed on him from her lofty character, +the pure jewel proffered to his, inward ownership. + +'Adieu for the night,' he said, and she smiled. He pressed for a +pressure of her hand. She brightened her smile instead, and said only: +'Good night, Percy.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD A GIDDY TURN AT THE SPECTRAL CROSSWAYS + +Danvers accompanied Mr. Dacier to the house-door. Climbing the stairs, +she found her mistress in the drawing-room still. + +'You must be cold, ma'am,' she said, glancing at the fire-grate. + +'Is it a frost?' said Diana. + +'It's midnight and midwinter, ma'am.' + +'Has it struck midnight?' + +The mantel-piece clock said five minutes past. + +'You had better go to bed, Danvers, or you will lose your bloom. Stop; +you are a faithful soul. Great things are happening and I am agitated. +Mr. Dacier has told me news. He came back purposely.' + +'Yes, ma'am,' said Danvers. 'He had a great deal to tell?' + +'Well, he had.' Diana coloured at the first tentative impertinence +she had heard from her maid. 'What is the secret of you, Danvers? What +attaches you to me?' + +'I'm sure I don't know, ma'am. I'm romantic.' + +'And you think me a romantic object?' + +'I'm sure I can't say, ma'am. I'd rather serve you than any other lady; +and I wish you was happy.' + +'Do you suppose I am unhappy?' + +'I'm sure--but if I may speak, ma'am: so handsome and clever a lady! and +young! I can't bear to see it.' + +'Tush, you silly woman. You read your melting tales, and imagine. I must +go and write for money: it is my profession. And I haven't an idea in +my head. This news disturbs me. Ruin if I don't write; so I must.--I +can't!' + +Diana beheld the ruin. She clasped the great news for succour. Great +indeed: and known but to her of all the outer world. She was ahead of +all--ahead of Mr. Tonans! + +The visionary figure of Mr. Tonans petrified by the great news, drinking +it, and confessing her ahead of him in the race for secrets, arose +toweringly. She had not ever seen the Editor in his den at midnight. +With the rumble of his machinery about him, and fresh matter arriving +and flying into the printing-press, it must be like being in the very +furnace-hissing of Events: an Olympian Council held in Vulcan's smithy. +Consider the bringing to the Jove there news of such magnitude as to +stupefy him! He, too, who had admonished her rather sneeringly for +staleness in her information. But this news, great though it was, and +throbbing like a heart plucked out of a breathing body, throbbed but for +a brief term, a day or two; after which, great though it was, immense, +it relapsed into a common organ, a possession of the multitude, merely +historically curious. + +'You are not afraid of the streets at night?' Diana said to her maid, as +they were going upstairs. + +'Not when we're driving, ma'am,' was the answer. + +THE MAN OF TWO MINDS faced his creatrix in the dressing-room, still +delivering that most ponderous of sentences--a smothering pillow! + +I have mistaken my vocation, thought Diana: I am certainly the flattest +proser who ever penned a line. + +She sent Dangers into the bedroom on a trifling errand, unable to bear +the woman's proximity, and oddly unwilling to dismiss her. + +She pressed her hands on her eyelids. Would Percy have humiliated her +so if he had respected her? He took advantage of the sudden loss of her +habitual queenly initiative at the wonderful news to debase and stain +their intimacy. The lover's behaviour was judged by her sensations: she +felt humiliated, plucked violently from the throne where she had long +been sitting securely, very proudly. That was at an end. If she was +to be better than the loathsomest of hypocrites, she must deny him his +admission to the house. And then what was her life! + +Something that was pressing her low, she knew not how, and left it +unquestioned, incited her to exaggerate the indignity her pride had +suffered. She was a dethroned woman. Deeper within, an unmasked actress, +she said. Oh, she forgave him! But clearly he took her for the same as +other women consenting to receive a privileged visitor. And sounding +herself to the soul, was she so magnificently better? Her face flamed. +She hugged her arms at her breast to quiet the beating, and dropped +them when she surprised herself embracing the memory. He had brought +political news, and treated her as--name the thing! Not designedly, it +might be: her position invited it. 'The world had given her to him.' +The world is always a prophet of the mire; but the world is no longer an +utterly mistaken world. She shook before it. + +She asked herself why Percy or the world should think highly of an +adventuress, who was a denounced wife, a wretched author, and on the +verge of bankruptcy. She was an adventuress. When she held The Crossways +she had at least a bit of solid footing: now gone. An adventuress +without an idea in her head: witness her dullard, The Man of Two Minds, +at his work of sermonizing his mistress. + +The tremendous pressure upon our consciousness of the material cause, +when we find ourselves cast among the breakers of moral difficulties +and endeavour to elude that mudvisaged monster, chiefly by feigning +unconsciousness, was an experience of Diana's, in the crisis to which +she was wrought. Her wits were too acute, her nature too direct, to +permit of a lengthened confusion. She laid the scourge on her flesh +smartly.--I gave him these privileges because I am weak as the weakest, +base as my enemies proclaim me. I covered my woman's vile weakness with +an air of intellectual serenity that he, choosing his moment, tore away, +exposing me to myself, as well as to him, the most ordinary of reptiles. +I kept up a costly household for the sole purpose of seeing him and +having him near me. Hence this bitter need of money!--Either it must be +money or disgrace. Money would assist her quietly to amend and complete +her work. Yes, and this want of money, in a review of the last two +years, was the material cause of her recklessness. It was, her revived +and uprising pudency declared, the principal; the only cause. Mere want +of money. + +And she had a secret worth thousands! The secret of a day, no more: +anybody's secret after some four and twenty hours. + +She smiled at the fancied elongation and stare of the features of Mr. +Tonans in his editorial midnight den. + +What if he knew it and could cap it with something novel and stranger? +Hardly. But it was an inciting suggestion. + +She began to tremble as a lightning-flash made visible her fortunes +recovered, disgrace averted, hours of peace for composition stretching +before her: a summer afternoon's vista. + +It seemed a duel between herself and Mr. Tonans, and she sure of her +triumph--Diana victrix! + +'Danvers!' she called. + +'Is it to undress, ma'am?' said the maid, entering to her. + +'You are not afraid of the streets, you tell me. I have to go down to +the City, I think. It is urgent. Yes, I must go. If I were to impart the +news to you, your head would be a tolling bell for a month.' + +'You will take a cab, ma'am.' + +'We must walk out to find one. I must go, though I should have to go on +foot. Quick with bonnet and shawl; muffle up warmly. We have never been +out so late: but does it matter? You're a brave soul, I'm sure, and you +shall have your fee.' + +'I don't care for money, ma'am.' + +'When we get home you shall kiss me.' + +Danvers clothed her mistress in furs and rich wrappings: Not paid for! +was Diana's desperate thought, and a wrong one; but she had to seem the +precipitated bankrupt and succeeded. She was near being it. The boiling +of her secret carried her through the streets rapidly and unobservantly +except of such small things as the glow of the lights on the pavements +and the hushed cognizance of the houses, in silence to a thoroughfare +where a willing cabman was met. The destination named, he nodded alertly +he had driven gentlemen there at night from the House of Commons, he +said. + +'Our Parliament is now sitting, and you drive ladies,' Diana replied. + +'I hope I know one, never mind the hour,' said he of the capes. + +He was bidden to drive rapidly. + +'Complexion a tulip: you do not often see a pale cabman,' she remarked +to Danvers, who began laughing, as she always expected to do on an +excursion with her mistress. + +'Do you remember, ma'am, the cabman taking us to the coach, when you +thought of going to the continent?' + +'And I went to The Crossways? I have forgotten him.' + +'He declared you was so beautiful a lady he would drive you to the end +of England for nothing.' + +'It must have been when I was paying him. Put it out of your mind, +Danvers, that there are individual cabmen. They are the painted flowers +of our metropolitan thoroughfares, and we gather them in rows.' + +'They have their feelings, ma'am.' + +'Brandied feelings are not pathetic to me.' + +'I like to think kindly of them,' Danvers remarked, in reproof of her +inhumanity; adding: 'They may overturn us!' at which Diana laughed. Her +eyes were drawn to a brawl of women and men in the street. 'Ah! that +miserable sight!' she cried. 'It is the everlasting nightmare of +London.' + +Danvers humped, femininely injured by the notice of it. She wondered her +mistress should deign to. + +Rolling on between the blind and darkened houses, Diana transferred her +sensations to them, and in a fit of the nerves imagined them beholding a +funeral convoy without followers. + +They came in view of the domed cathedral, hearing, in a pause of the +wheels, the bell of the hour. 'Faster--faster! my dear man,' Diana +murmured, and they entered a small still square of many lighted windows. + +'This must be where the morrow is manufactured,' she said. 'Tell the +man to wait.--Or rather it's the mirror of yesterday: we have to look +backward to see forward in life.' + +She talked her cool philosophy to mask her excitement from herself. Her +card, marked: 'Imperative-two minutes,' was taken up to Mr. Tonans. They +ascended to the editorial ante-room. Doors opened and shut, hasty feet +traversed the corridors, a dull hum in dumbness told of mighty +business at work. Diana received the summons to the mighty head of the +establishment. Danvers was left to speculate. She heard the voice of Mr. +Tonans: 'Not more than two!' This was not a place for compliments. Men +passed her, hither and yonder, cursorily noticing the presence of a +woman. She lost, very strangely to her, the sense of her sex and became +an object--a disregarded object. Things of more importance were about. +Her feminine self-esteem was troubled; all idea of attractiveness +expired. Here was manifestly a spot where women had dropped from the +secondary to the cancelled stage of their extraordinary career in a +world either blowing them aloft like soap-bubbles or quietly shelving +them as supernumeraries. A gentleman--sweet vision!--shot by to the +editor's door, without even looking cursorily. He knocked. Mr. Tonans +appeared and took him by the arm, dictating at a great rate; perceived +Danvers, frowned at the female, and requested him to wait in the room, +which the gentleman did, not once casting eye upon a woman. At last +her mistress returned to her, escorted so far by Mr. Tonans, and +he refreshingly bent his back to bow over her hand: so we have the +satisfaction of knowing that we are not such poor creatures after all! +Suffering in person, Danvers was revived by the little show of homage to +her sex. + +They descended the stairs. + +'You are not an Editor of a paper, but you may boast that you have been +near the nest of one,' Diana said, when they resumed their seats in the +cab. She breathed deeply from time to time, as if under a weight, or +relieved of it, but she seemed animated, and she dropped now and again +a funny observation of the kind that tickled Danvers and caused the maid +to boast of her everywhere as better than a Play. + +At home, Danvers busied her hands to supply her mistress a cup of +refreshing tea and a plate of biscuits. + +Diana had stunned herself with the strange weight of the expedition, +and had not a thought. In spite of tea at that hour, she slept soundly +through the remainder of the night, dreamlessly till late into the +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. EXHIBITS THE SPRINGING OF A MINE IN A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE + +The powers of harmony would seem to be tried to their shrewdest pitch +when Politics and Love are planted together in a human breast. This +apparently opposite couple can nevertheless chant a very sweet accord, +as was shown by Dacier on his homeward walk from Diana's house. Let Love +lead, the God will make music of any chamber-comrade. He was able to +think of affairs of State while feeling the satisfied thirst of the +lover whose pride, irritated by confidential wild eulogies of the +beautiful woman, had recently clamoured for proofs of his commandership. +The impression she stamped on him at Copsley remained, but it could not +occupy the foreground for ever. He did not object to play second to her +sprightly wits in converse, if he had some warm testimony to his mastery +over her blood. For the world had given her to him, enthusiastic friends +had congratulated him: she had exalted him for true knightliness; and +he considered the proofs well earned, though he did not value them low. +They were little by comparison. They lighted, instead of staining, her +unparalleled high character. + +She loved him. Full surely did she love him, or such a woman would never +have consented to brave the world; once in their project of flight, and +next, even more endearingly when contemplated, in the sacrifice of her +good name; not omitting that fervent memory of her pained submission, +but a palpitating submission, to his caress. She was in his arms again +at the thought of it. He had melted her, and won the confession of +her senses by a surprise, and he owned that never had woman been so +vigilantly self-guarded or so watchful to keep her lover amused and +aloof. Such a woman deserved long service. But then the long service +deserved its time of harvest. Her surging look of reproach in submission +pointed to the golden time, and as he was a man of honour, pledged to +her for life, he had no remorse, and no scruple in determining to exact +her dated promise, on this occasion deliberately. She was the woman to +be his wife; she was his mind's mate: they had hung apart in deference +to mere scruples too long. During the fierce battle of the Session she +would be his help, his fountain of counsel; and she would be the rosy +gauze-veiled more than cold helper and adviser, the being which +would spur her womanly intelligence to acknowledge, on this occasion +deliberately, the wisdom of the step. They had been so close to it! +She might call it madness then: now it was wisdom. Each had complete +experience of the other, and each vowed the step must be taken. As to +the secret communicated, he exulted in the pardonable cunning of the +impulse turning him back to her house after the guests had gone, and the +dexterous play of his bait on the line, tempting her to guess and quit +her queenly guard. Though it had not been distinctly schemed, the review +of it in that light added to the enjoyment. It had been dimly and richly +conjectured as a hoped result. Small favours from her were really worth, +thrice worth, the utmost from other women. They tasted the sweeter +for the winning of them artfully--an honourable thing in love. Nature, +rewarding the lover's ingenuity and enterprise, inspires him with old +Greek notions of right and wrong: and love is indeed a fluid mercurial +realm, continually shifting the principles of rectitude and larceny. +As long as he means nobly, what is there to condemn him? Not she in her +heart. She was the presiding divinity. + +And she, his Tony, that splendid Diana, was the woman the world abused! +Whom will it not abuse? + +The slough she would have to plunge in before he could make her his own +with the world's consent, was already up to her throat. She must, and +without further hesitation, be steeped, that he might drag her out, +washed of the imputed defilement, and radiant, as she was in character. +Reflection now said this; not impulse. Her words rang through him. At +every meeting she said things to confound his estimate of the wits of +women, or be remembered for some spirited ring they had: A high wind +will make a dead leaf fly like a bird. He murmured it and flew with +her. She quickened a vein of imagination that gave him entrance to a +strangely brilliant sphere, above his own, where, she sustaining, he too +could soar; and he did, scarce conscious of walking home, undressing, +falling asleep. + +The act of waking was an instantaneous recovery of his emotional rapture +of the overnight; nor was it a bar to graver considerations. His Chief +had gone down to a house in the country; his personal business was to +see and sound the followers of their party--after another sight of his +Tony. She would be sure to counsel sagaciously; she always did. She had +a marvellous intuition of the natures of the men he worked with, solely +from his chance descriptions of them; it was as though he started the +bird and she transfixed it. And she should not have matter to rule her +smooth brows: that he swore to. She should sway him as she pleased, +be respected after her prescribed manner. The promise must be exacted; +nothing besides, promise.--You see, Tony, you cannot be less than Tony +to me now, he addressed the gentle phantom of her. Let me have your +word, and I am your servant till the Session ends.--Tony blushes her +swarthy crimson: Diana, fluttering, rebukes her; but Diana is the +appeasable Goddess; Tony is the woman, and she loves him. The glorious +Goddess need not cut them adrift; they can show her a book of honest +pages. + +Dacier could truthfully say he had worshipped, done knightly service to +the beloved woman, homage to the aureole encircling her. Those friends +of his, covertly congratulating him on her preference, doubtless thought +him more privileged than he was; but they did not know Diana; and they +were welcome, if they would only believe, to the knowledge that he was +at the feet of this most sovereign woman. He despised the particular +Satyr-world which, whatever the nature or station of the woman, crowns +the desecrator, and bestows the title of Fool on the worshipper. He +could have answered veraciously that she had kept him from folly. + +Nevertheless the term to service must come. In the assurance of the +approaching term he stood braced against a blowing world; happy as men +are when their muscles are strung for a prize they pluck with the energy +and aim of their whole force. + +Letters and morning papers were laid for him to peruse in his +dressing-room. He read his letters before the bath. Not much public news +was expected at the present season. While dressing, he turned over the +sheets of Whitmonby's journal. Dull comments on stale things. Foreign +news. Home news, with the leaders on them, identically dull. Behold the +effect of Journalism: a witty man, sparkling overnight, gets into his +pulpit and proses; because he must say something, and he really knows +nothing. + +Journalists have an excessive overestimate of their influence. They +cannot, as Diana said, comparing them with men on the Parliamentary +platform, cannot feel they are aboard the big vessel; they can only +strive to raise a breeze, or find one to swell; and they cannot measure +the stoutness or the greatness of the good ship England. Dacier's +personal ambition was inferior to his desire to extend and strengthen +his England. Parliament was the field, Government the office. How many +conversations had passed between him and Diana on that patriotic dream! +She had often filled his drooping sails; he owned it proudly:--and while +the world, both the hoofed and the rectilinear portions, were biting at +her character! Had he fretted her self-respect? He blamed himself, but a +devoted service must have its term. + +The paper of Mr. Tonans was reserved for perusal at breakfast. He +reserved it because Tonans was an opponent, tricksy and surprising now +and then, amusing too; unlikely to afford him serious reflections. +The recent endeavours of his journal to whip the Government-team to a +right-about-face were annoying, preposterous. Dacier had admitted +to Diana that Tonans merited the thanks of the country during 'the +discreditable Railway mania, when his articles had a fine exhortative +and prophetic twang, and had done marked good. Otherwise, as regarded +the Ministry, the veering gusts of Tonans were objectionable: he 'raised +the breeze' wantonly as well as disagreeably. Any one can whip up the +populace if he has the instruments; and Tonans frequently intruded on +the Ministry's prerogative to govern. The journalist was bidding against +the statesman. But such is the condition of a rapidly Radicalizing +country! We must take it as it is. + +With a complacent, What now, Dacier fixed his indifferent eyes on the +first column of the leaders. He read, and his eyes grew horny. He jerked +back at each sentence, electrified, staring. The article was shorter +than usual. Total Repeal was named; the precise date when the Minister +intended calling Parliament together to propose it. The 'Total Repeal' +might be guess-work--an Editor's bold stroke; but the details, the date, +were significant of positive information. The Minister's definite and +immediate instructions were exactly stated. + +Where could the fellow have got hold of that? Dacier asked the blank +ceiling. + +He frowned at vacant corners of the room in an effort to conjure some +speculation indicative of the source. + +Had his Chief confided the secret to another and a traitor? Had they +been overheard in his library when the project determined on was put in +plain speech? + +The answer was no, impossible, to each question. + +He glanced at Diana. She? But it was past midnight when he left her. And +she would never have betrayed him, never, never. To imagine it a moment +was an injury to her. + +Where else could he look? It had been specially mentioned in the +communication as a secret by his Chief, who trusted him and no others. +Up to the consultation with the Cabinet, it was a thing to be guarded +like life itself. Not to a soul except Diana would Dacier have breathed +syllable of any secret--and one of this weight! + +He ran down the article again. There were the facts; undeniable facts; +and they detonated with audible roaring and rounding echoes of them over +England. How did they come there? As well inquire how man came on the +face of the earth. + +He had to wipe his forehead perpetually. Think as he would in exaltation +of Diana to shelter himself, he was the accused. He might not be the +guilty, but he had opened his mouth; and though it was to her only, +and she, as Dunstane had sworn, true as steel, he could not escape +condemnation. He had virtually betrayed his master. Diana would never +betray her lover, but the thing was in the air as soon as uttered: and +off to the printing-press! Dacier's grotesque fancy under annoyance +pictured a stream of small printer's devils in flight from his babbling +lips. + +He consumed bits of breakfast, with a sour confession that a +newspaper-article had hit him at last, and stunningly. + +Hat and coat were called for. The state of aimlessness in hot perplexity +demands a show of action. Whither to go first was as obscure as what to +do. Diana said of the Englishman's hat and coat, that she supposed +they were to make him a walking presentment of the house he had shut up +behind him. A shot of the eye at the glass confirmed the likeness, but +with a ruefully wry-faced repudiation of it internally:--Not so shut up! +the reverse of that-a common babbler. + +However, there was no doubt of Diana. First he would call on her. The +pleasantest dose in perturbations of the kind is instinctively taken +first. She would console, perhaps direct him to guess how the secret had +leaked. But so suddenly, immediately! It was inexplicable. + +Sudden and immediate consequences were experienced. On the steps of his +house his way was blocked by the arrival of Mr. Quintin Manx, who jumped +out of a cab, bellowing interjections and interrogations in a breath. +Was there anything in that article? He had read it at breakfast, and it +had choked him. Dacier was due at a house and could not wait: he said, +rather sharply, he was not responsible for newspaper articles. Quintin +Manx, a senior gentleman and junior landowner, vowed that no Minister +intending to sell the country should treat him as a sheep. The shepherd +might go; he would not carry his flock with him. But was there a twinkle +of probability in the story?... that article! Dacier was unable to +inform him; he was very hurried, had to keep an appointment. + +'If I let you go, will you come and lunch with me at two?' said Quintin. + +To get rid of him, Dacier nodded and agreed. + +'Two o'clock, mind!' was bawled at his heels as he walked off with his +long stride, unceremoniously leaving the pursy gentleman of sixty to +settle with his cabman far to the rear. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. IN WHICH IT IS DARKLY SEEN HOW THE CRIMINAL'S JUDGE MAY +BE LOVE'S CRIMINAL. When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not +think much of the thing we have clutched for support. Our balance is +restored and we have not fallen; that is the comfortable reflection: we +stand as others do, and we will for the future be warned to avoid the +dizzy stations which cry for resources beyond a common equilibrium, and +where a slip precipitates us to ruin. + +When, further, it is a woman planted in a burning blush, having to +idealize her feminine weakness, that she may not rebuke herself for +grovelling, the mean material acts by which she sustains a tottering +position are speedily swallowed in the one pervading flame. She sees but +an ashen curl of the path she has traversed to safety, if anything. + +Knowing her lover was to come in the morning, Diana's thoughts dwelt +wholly upon the way to tell him, as tenderly as possible without danger +to herself, that her time for entertaining was over until she had +finished her book; indefinitely, therefore. The apprehension of his +complaining pricked the memory that she had something to forgive. He +had sunk her in her own esteem by compelling her to see her woman's +softness. But how high above all other men her experience of him could +place him notwithstanding! He had bowed to the figure of herself, dearer +than herself, that she set before him: and it was a true figure to the +world; a too fictitious to any but the most knightly of lovers. She +forgave; and a shudder seized her.--Snake! she rebuked the delicious +run of fire through her veins; for she was not like the idol women of +imperishable type, who are never for a twinkle the prey of the blood: +statues created by man's common desire to impress upon the sex his +possessing pattern of them as domestic decorations. + +When she entered the room to Dacier and they touched hands, she rejoiced +in her coolness, without any other feeling or perception active. Not to +be unkind, not too kind: this was her task. She waited for the passage +of commonplaces. + +'You slept well, Percy?' + +'Yes; and you?' + +'I don't think I even dreamed.' + +They sat. She noticed the cloud on him and waited for his allusion to +it, anxious concerning him simply. + +Dacier flung the hair off his temples. Words of Titanic formation were +hurling in his head at journals and journalists. He muttered his disgust +of them. + +'Is there anything to annoy you in the papers to-day?' she asked, and +thought how handsome his face was in anger. + +The paper of Mr. Tonans was named by him. 'You have not seen it? + +'I have not opened it yet.' + +He sprang up. 'The truth is, those fellows can now afford to buy right +and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must have been a spy at the +keyhole. I'm pretty certain--I could swear it was not breathed to any +ear but mine; and there it is this morning in black and white.' + +'What is?' cried Diana, turning to him on her chair. + +'The thing I told you last night.' + +Her lips worked, as if to spell the thing. 'Printed, do you say?' she +rose. + +'Printed. In a leading article, loud as a trumpet; a hue and cry +running from end to end of the country. And my Chief has already had the +satisfaction of seeing the secret he confided to me yesterday roared in +all the thoroughfares this morning. They've got the facts: his decision +to propose it, and the date--the whole of it! But who could have +betrayed it?' + +For the first time since her midnight expedition she felt a sensation of +the full weight of the deed. She heard thunder. + +She tried to disperse the growing burden by an inward summons to +contempt of the journalistic profession, but nothing would come. She +tried to minimize it, and her brain succumbed. Her views of the deed +last night and now throttled reason in two contending clutches. The +enormity swelled its dimensions, taking shape, and pointing magnetically +at her. She stood absolutely, amazedly, bare before it. + +'Is it of such very great importance?' she said, like one supplicating +him to lessen it. + +'A secret of State? If you ask whether it is of great importance to me, +relatively it is of course. Nothing greater. Personally my conscience is +clear. I never mentioned it--couldn't have mentioned it--to any one but +you. I'm not the man to blab secrets. He spoke to me because he knew +he could trust me. To tell you the truth, I'm brought to a dead stop. I +can't make a guess. + +I'm certain, from what he said, that he trusted me only with it: +perfectly certain. I know him well. He was in his library, speaking in +his usual conversational tone, deliberately, nor overloud. He stated +that it was a secret between us.' + +'Will it affect him?' + +'This article? Why, naturally it will. You ask strange questions. A +Minister coming to a determination like that! It affects him vitally. +The members of the Cabinet are not so devoted.... It affects us all--the +whole Party; may split it to pieces! There's no reckoning the upset +right and left. If it were false, it could be refuted; we could despise +it as a trick of journalism. It's true. There's the mischief. Tonans did +not happen to call here last night?--absurd! I left later than twelve.' + +'No, but let me hear,' Diana said hurriedly, for the sake of uttering +the veracious negative and to slur it over. 'Let me hear...' She could +not muster an idea. + +Her delicious thrilling voice was a comfort to him. He lifted his breast +high and thumped it, trying to smile. 'After all, it's pleasant being +with you, Tony. Give me your hand--you may: I 'm bothered--confounded +by this morning surprise. It was like walking against the muzzle of a +loaded cannon suddenly unmasked. One can't fathom the mischief it +will do. And I shall be suspected, and can't quite protest myself the +spotless innocent. Not even to my heart's mistress! to the wife of the +bosom! I suppose I'm no Roman. You won't give me your hand? Tony, you +might, seeing I am rather...' + +A rush of scalding tears flooded her eyes. + +'Don't touch me,' she said, and forced her sight to look straight at him +through the fiery shower. 'I have done positive mischief?' + +'You, my dear Tony?' He doated on her face. 'I don't blame you, I blame +myself. These things should never be breathed. Once in the air, the +devil has hold of them. Don't take it so much to heart. The thing's +bad enough to bear as it is. Tears! Let me have the hand. I came, on my +honour, with the most honest intention to submit to your orders: but if +I see you weeping in sympathy!' + +'Oh! for heaven's sake,' she caught her hands away from him, 'don't be +generous. Whip me with scorpions. And don't touch me,' cried Diana. 'Do +you understand? You did not name it as a secret. I did not imagine it to +be a secret of immense, immediate importance.' + +'But--what?' shouted Dacier, stiffening. + +He wanted her positive meaning, as she perceived, having hoped that it +was generally taken and current, and the shock to him over. + +'I had... I had not a suspicion of doing harm, Percy.' + +'But what harm have you done? No riddles!' + +His features gave sign of the break in their common ground, the widening +gulf. + +'I went... it was a curious giddiness: I can't account for it. I +thought...' + +'Went? You went where?' + +'Last night. I would speak intelligibly: my mind has gone. Ah! you look. +It is not so bad as my feeling.' + +'But where did you go last night? What!--to Tonans?' + +She drooped her head: she saw the track of her route cleaving the +darkness in a demoniacal zig-zag and herself in demon's grip. + +'Yes,' she confronted him. 'I went to Mr. Tonans.' + +'Why?' + +'I went to him--' + +'You went alone?' + +'I took my maid.' + +'Well?' + +'It was late when you left me...' + +'Speak plainly!' + +'I am trying: I will tell you all.' + +'At once, if you please.' + +'I went to him--why? There is no accounting for it. He sneered +constantly at my stale information.' + +'You gave him constant information?' + +'No: in our ordinary talk. He railed at me for being "out of it." I must +be childish: I went to show him--oh! my vanity! I think I must have been +possessed.' + +She watched the hardening of her lover's eyes. They penetrated, and +through them she read herself insufferably. + +But it was with hesitation still that he said: 'Then you betrayed me?' + +'Percy! I had not a suspicion of mischief.' + +'You went straight to this man?' + +'Not thinking...' + +'You sold me to a journalist!' + +'I thought it was a secret of a day. I don't think you--no, you did not +tell me to keep it secret. A word from you would have been enough. I was +in extremity.' + +Dacier threw his hands up and broke away. He had an impulse to dash +from the room, to get a breath of different air. He stood at the window, +observing tradesmen's carts, housemaids, blank doors, dogs, a beggar +fifer. Her last words recurred to him. He turned: 'You were in +extremity, you said. What is the meaning of that? What extremity?' + +Her large dark eyes flashed powerlessly; her shape appeared to have +narrowed; her tongue, too, was a feeble penitent. + +'You ask a creature to recall her acts of insanity.' + +'There must be some signification in your words, I suppose.' + +'I will tell you as clearly as I can. You have the right to be my judge. +I was in extremity--that is, I saw no means... I could not write: it was +ruin coming.' + +'Ah?--you took payment for playing spy?' + +'I fancied I could retrieve... Now I see the folly, the baseness. I was +blind.' + +'Then you sold me to a journalist for money?' + +The intolerable scourge fetched a stifled scream from her and drove her +pacing, but there was no escape; she returned to meet it. + +The room was a cage to both of them, and every word of either was a +sting. + +'Percy, I did not imagine he would use it--make use of it as he has +done.' + +'Not? And when he paid for it?' + +'I fancied it would be merely of general service--if any.' + +'Distributed; I see: not leading to the exposure of the communicant!' + +'You are harsh; but I would not have you milder.' + +The meekness of such a mischief-doer was revolting and called for the +lash. + +'Do me the favour to name the sum. I am curious to learn what my +imbecility was counted worth.' + +'No sum was named.' + +'Have I been bought for a song?' + +'It was a suggestion--no definite... nothing stipulated.' + +'You were to receive money!' + +'Leave me a bit of veiling! No, you shall behold me the thing I am. +Listen... I was poor...' + +'You might have applied to me.' + +'For money! That I could not do: + +'Better than betraying me, believe me.' + +'I had no thought of betraying. I hope I could have died rather than +consciously betray.' + +'Money! My whole fortune was at your, disposal.' + +'I was beset with debts, unable to write, and, last night when you left +me, abject. It seemed to me that you disrespected me...' + +'Last night!' Dacier cried with lashing emphasis. + +'It is evident to me that I have the reptile in me, Percy. Or else I +am subject to lose my reason. I went... I went like a bullet: I cannot +describe it; I was mad. I need a strong arm, I want help. I am given +to think that I do my best and can be independent; I break down. I went +blindly--now I see it--for the chance of recovering my position, as +the gambler casts; and he wins or loses. With me it is the soul that is +lost. No exact sum was named; thousands were hinted.' + +'You are hardly practical on points of business.' + +'I was insane.' + +'I think you said you slept well after it,' Dacier remarked. + +'I had so little the idea of having done evilly, that I slept without a +dream.' + +He shrugged:--the consciences of women are such smooth deeps, or running +shallows. + +'I have often wondered how your newspaper men got their information,' he +said, and muttered: 'Money-women!' adding: 'Idiots to prime them! And I +one of the leaky vessels! Well, we learn. I have been rather astonished +at times of late at the scraps of secret knowledge displayed by Tonans. +If he flourishes his thousands! The wonder is, he doesn't corrupt the +Ministers' wives. Perhaps he does. Marriage will become a danger-sign +to Parliamentary members. Foreign women do these tricks... women of a +well-known stamp. It is now a full year, I think, since I began to speak +to you of secret matters--and congratulated myself, I recollect, on your +thirst for them.' + +'Percy, if you suspect that I have uttered one word before last night, +you are wrong. I cannot paint my temptation or my loss of sense last +night. Previously I was blameless. I thirsted, yes; but in the hope of +helping you.' + +He looked at her. She perceived how glitteringly loveless his eyes had +grown. It was her punishment; and though the enamoured woman's heart +protested it excessive, she accepted it. + +'I can never trust you again,' he said. + +'I fear you will not,' she replied. + +His coming back to her after the departure of the guests last night +shone on him in splendid colours of single-minded loverlike devotion. +'I came to speak to my own heart. I thought it would give you pleasure; +thought I could trust you utterly. I had not the slightest conception I +was imperilling my honour...!' + +He stopped. Her bloodless fixed features revealed an intensity of +anguish that checked him. Only her mouth, a little open for the sharp +breath, appeared dumbly beseeching. Her large eyes met his like steel to +steel, as of one who would die fronting the weapon. + +He strangled a loathsome inclination to admire. + +'So good bye,' he said. + +She moved her lips. + +He said no more. In half a minute he was gone. + +To her it was the plucking of life out of her breast. + +She pressed her hands where heart had been. The pallor and cold of death +took her body. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. REVEALS HOW THE TRUE HEROINE OF ROMANCE COMES FINALLY TO +HER, TIME OF TRIUMPH + +The shutting of her house-door closed for Dacier that woman's history in +connection with himself. He set his mind on the consequences of the act +of folly--the trusting a secret to a woman. All were possibly not so +bad: none should be trusted. + +The air of the street fanned him agreeably as he revolved the horrible +project of confession to the man who had put faith in him. Particulars +might be asked. She would be unnamed, but an imagination of the effect +of naming her placarded a notorious woman in fresh paint: two members of +the same family her victims! + +And last night, no later than last night, he had swung round at +this very corner of the street to give her the fullest proof of his +affection. He beheld a dupe trotting into a carefully-laid pitfall. +She had him by the generosity of his confidence in her. Moreover, the +recollection of her recent feeble phrasing, when she stood convicted +of the treachery, when a really clever woman would have developed her +resources, led him to doubt her being so finely gifted. She was just +clever enough to hoodwink. He attributed the dupery to a trick of +imposing the idea of her virtue upon men. Attracted by her good looks +and sparkle, they entered the circle of her charm, became delightfully +intimate, suffered a rebuff, and were from that time prepared to serve +her purpose. How many other wretched dupes had she dangling? He spied at +Westlake, spied at Redworth, at old Lord Larrian, at Lord Dannisburgh, +at Arthur Rhodes, dozens. Old and young were alike to her if she saw +an end to be gained by keeping them hooked. Tonans too, and Whitmonby. +Newspaper editors were especially serviceable. Perhaps 'a young Minister +of State' held the foremost rank in that respect: if completely duped +and squeezeable, he produced more substantial stuff. + +The background of ice in Dacier's composition was brought to the front +by his righteous contempt of her treachery. No explanation of it would +have appeased him. She was guilty, and he condemned her. She stood +condemned by all the evil likely to ensue from her misdeed. Scarcely had +he left her house last night when she was away to betray him!--He +shook her from him without a pang. Crediting her with the one merit she +had--that of not imploring for mercy--he the more easily shook her off. +Treacherous, she had not proved theatrical. So there was no fuss in +putting out her light, and it was done. He was justified by the brute +facts. Honourable, courteous, kindly gentleman, highly civilized, +an excellent citizen and a patriot, he was icy at an outrage to his +principles, and in the dominion of Love a sultan of the bow-string +and chopper period, sovereignly endowed to stretch a finger for the +scimitared Mesrour to make the erring woman head and trunk with one +blow: and away with those remnants! This internally he did. Enough that +the brute facts justified him. + +St. James's park was crossed, and the grass of the Green park, to avoid +inquisitive friends. He was obliged to walk; exercise, action of any +sort, was imperative, and but for some engagement he would have gone +to his fencing-rooms for a bout with the master. He remembered his +engagement and grew doubly embittered. He had absurdly pledged himself +to lunch with Quintin Manx; that was, to pretend to eat while submitting +to be questioned by a political dullard strong on his present right to +overhaul and rail at his superiors. The house was one of a block along +the North-Western line of Hyde park. He kicked at the subjection to go +there, but a promise was binding, though he gave it when stunned. He +could have silenced Mr. Manx with the posing interrogation: Why have +I so long consented to put myself at the mercy of a bore? For him, he +could not answer it, though Manx, as leader of the Shipping interest, +was influential. The man had to be endured, like other doses in +politics. + +Dacier did not once think of the great ship-owner's niece till Miss +Constance Asper stepped into her drawing-room to welcome him. She was an +image of repose to his mind. The calm pure outline of her white features +refreshed him as the Alps the Londoner newly alighted at Berne; smoke, +wrangle, the wrestling city's wickedness, behind him. + +'My uncle is very disturbed,' she said. 'Is the news--if I am not very +indiscreet in inquiring?' + +'I have a practice of never paying attention to newspaper articles,' +Dacier replied. + +'I am only affected by living with one who does,' Miss Asper observed, +and the lofty isolation of her head above politics gave her a moral +attractiveness in addition to physical beauty. Her water-colour sketches +were on her uncle's walls: the beautiful in nature claimed and absorbed +her. She dressed with a pretty rigour, a lovely simplicity, picturesque +of the nunnery. She looked indeed a high-born young lady-abbess. + +'It's a dusty game for ladies,' Dacier said, abhorring the women defiled +by it. + +And when one thinks of the desire of men to worship women, there is a +pathos in a man's discovery of the fair young creature undefiled by any +interest in public affairs, virginal amid her bower's environments. + +The angelical beauty of a virgin mind and person captivated him, by +contrast. His natural taste was to admire it, shunning the lures and +tangles of the women on high seas, notably the married: who, by the way, +contrive to ensnare us through wonderment at a cleverness caught from +their traffic with the masculine world: often--if we did but know!--a +parrot-repetition of the last male visitor's remarks. But that which the +fair maiden speaks, though it may be simple, is her own. + +She too is her own: or vowed but to one. She is on all sides impressive +in purity. The world worships her as its perfect pearl: and we are +brought refreshfully to acknowledge that the world is right. + +By contrast, the white radiation of Innocence distinguished Constance +Asper celestially. As he was well aware, she had long preferred him--the +reserved among many pleading pressing suitors. Her steady faithfulness +had fed on the poorest crumbs. + +He ventured to express the hope that she was well. + +'Yes,' she answered, with eyelids lifted softly to thank him for his +concern in so humble a person. + +'You look a little pale,' he said. + +She coloured like a sea-water shell. 'I am inclined to paleness by +nature.' + +Her uncle disturbed them. Lunch was ready. He apologized for the absence +of Mrs. Markland, a maternal aunt of Constance, who kept house for them. +Quintin Manx fell upon the meats, and then upon the Minister. Dacier +found himself happily surprised by the accession of an appetite. He +mentioned it, to escape from the worrying of his host, as unusual with +him at midday: and Miss Asper, supporting him in that effort, said +benevolently: 'Gentlemen should eat; they have so many fatigues and +troubles.' She herself did not like to be seen eating in public. Her +lips opened to the morsels, as with a bird's bill, though with none of +the pecking eagerness we complacently observe in poultry. + +'But now, I say, positively, how about that article?' said Quintin. + +Dacier visibly winced, and Constance immediately said 'Oh! spare us +politics, dear uncle.' + +Her intercession was without avail, but by contrast with the woman +implicated in the horrible article, it was a carol of the seraphs. + +'Come, you can say whether there's anything in it,' Dacier's host pushed +him. + +'I should not say it if I could,' he replied. + +The mild sweetness of Miss Asper's look encouraged him. + +He was touched to the quick by hearing her say: 'You ask for Cabinet +secrets, uncle. All secrets are holy, but secrets of State are under a +seal next to divine.' + +Next to divine! She was the mouthpiece of his ruling principle. + +'I 'm not, prying into secrets,' Quintin persisted; 'all I want to +know is, whether there 's any foundation for that article--all London's +boiling about it, I can tell you--or it's only newspaper's humbug.' + +'Clearly the oracle for you is the Editor's office,' rejoined Dacier. + +'A pretty sort of answer I should get.' + +'It would at least be complimentary.' + +'How do you mean?' + +'The net was cast for you--and the sight of a fish in it!' + +Miss Asper almost laughed. 'Have you heard the choir at St. +Catherine's?' she asked. + +Dacier had not. He repented of his worldliness, and drinking persuasive +claret, said he would go to hear it next Sunday. + +'Do,' she murmured. + +'Well, you seem to be a pair against me,' her uncle grumbled. 'Anyhow +I think it's important. People have been talking for some time, and I +don't want to be taken unawares; I won't be a yoked ox, mind you.' + +'Have you been sketching lately?' Dacier asked Miss Asper. + +She generally filled a book in the autumn, she said. + +'May I see it?' + +'If you wish.' + +They had a short tussle with her uncle and escaped. He was conducted +to a room midway upstairs: an heiress's conception of a saintly little +room; and more impresive in purity, indeed it was, than a saint's, with +the many crucifixes, gold and silver emblems, velvet prie-Dieu chairs, +jewel-clasped sacred volumes: every invitation to meditate in luxury on +an ascetic religiousness. + +She depreciated her sketching powers. 'I am impatient with my +imperfections. I am therefore doomed not to advance.' + +'On the contrary, that is the state guaranteeing ultimate excellence,' +he said, much disposed to drone about it. + +She sighed: 'I fear not.' + +He turned the leaves, comparing her modesty with the performance. +The third of the leaves was a subject instantly recognized by him. It +represented the place he had inherited from Lord Dannisburgh. + +He named it. + +She smiled: 'You are good enough to see a likeness? My aunt and I were +passing it last October, and I waited for a day, to sketch.' + +'You have taken it from my favourite point of view.' + +'I am glad.' + +'How much I should like a copy!' + +'If you will accept that?' + +'I could not rob you.' + +'I can make a duplicate.' + +'The look of the place pleases you?' + +'Oh! yes; the pines behind it; the sweet little village church; even +the appearance of the rustics;--it is all impressively old English. I +suppose you are very seldom there?' + +'Does it look like a home to you?' + +'No place more!' + +'I feel the loneliness.' + +'Where I live I feel no loneliness!' + +'You have heavenly messengers near you.' + +'They do not always come.' + +'Would you consent to make the place less lonely to me?' + +Her bosom rose. In deference to her maidenly understanding, she gazed +inquiringly. + +'If you love it!' said he. + +'The place?' she said, looking soft at the possessor. + +'Constance!' + +'Is it true?' + +'As you yourself. Could it be other than true? This hand is mine?' + +'Oh! Percy.' + +Borrowing the world's poetry to describe them, the long prayed-for +Summer enveloped the melting snows. + +So the recollection of Diana's watch beside his uncle's death-bed was +wiped out. Ay, and the hissing of her treachery silenced. This maidenly +hand put him at peace with the world, instead of his defying it for a +worthless woman--who could not do better than accept the shelter of her +husband's house, as she ought to be told, if her friends wished her to +save her reputation. + +Dacier made his way downstairs to Quintin Manx, by whom he was hotly +congratulated and informed of the extent of the young lady's fortune: +on the strength of which it was expected that he would certainly speak a +private word in elucidation of that newspaper article. + +'I know nothing of it,' said Dacier, but promised to come and dine. +Alone in her happiness Constance Asper despatched various brief notes +under her gold-symbolled crest to sisterly friends; one to Lady Wathin, +containing the single line: + +'Your prophesy is confirmed.' + +Dacier was comfortably able to face his Club after the excitement of +a proposal, with a bride on his hands. He was assaulted concerning the +article, and he parried capitally. Say that her lips were rather cold: +at any rate, they invigorated him. Her character was guaranteed--not the +hazy idea of a dupe. And her fortune would be enormous: a speculation +merely due to worldly prudence and prospective ambition. + +At the dinner-table of four, in the evening, conversation would have +seemed dull to him, by contrast, had it not, been for the presiding +grace of his bride, whose habitually eminent feminine air of superiority +to the repast was throned by her appreciative receptiveness of his looks +and utterances. Before leaving her, he won her consent to a very early +marriage; on the plea of a possibly approaching Session, and also +that they had waited long. The consent, notwithstanding the hurry of +preparations, it involved, besides the annihilation of her desire +to meditate on so solemn a change in her life and savour the +congratulations of her friends and have the choir of St. Catherine's +rigorously drilled in her favourite anthems was beautifully yielded to +the pressure of circumstances. + +There lay on his table at night a letter; a bulky letter. No need to +tear it open for sight of the signature: the superscription was redolent +of that betraying woman. He tossed it unopened into the fire. + +As it was thick, it burned sullenly, discolouring his name on the +address, as she had done, and still offering him a last chance of +viewing the contents. She fought on the consuming fire to have her +exculpation heard. + +But was she not a shameless traitor? She had caught him by his love of +his country and hope to serve it. She had wound into his heart to bleed +him of all he knew and sell the secrets for money. A wonderful sort of +eloquence lay there, on those coals, no doubt. He felt a slight movement +of curiosity to glance at two or three random sentences: very slight. +And why read them now? They were valueless to him, mere outcries. He +judged her by the brute facts. She and her slowly-consuming letter were +of a common blackness. Moreover, to read them when he was plighted to +another woman would be senseless. In the discovery of her baseness, she +had made a poor figure. Doubtless during the afternoon she had trimmed +her intuitive Belial art of making 'the worse appear the better cause': +queer to peruse, and instructive in an unprofitable department of +knowledge-the tricks of the sex. + +He said to himself, with little intuition of the popular taste: She +wouldn't be a bad heroine of Romance! He said it derisively of the +Romantic. But the right worshipful heroine of Romance was the front-face +female picture he had won for his walls. Poor Diana was the flecked +heroine of Reality: not always the same; not impeccable; not an +ignorant-innocent, nor a guileless: good under good leading; devoted to +the death in a grave crisis; often wrestling with her terrestrial nature +nobly; and a growing soul; but not one whose purity was carved in marble +for the assurance to an Englishman that his possession of the changeless +thing defies time and his fellows, is the pillar of his home and +universally enviable. Your fair one of Romance cannot suffer a mishap +without a plotting villain, perchance many of them; to wreak the dread +iniquity: she cannot move without him; she is the marble block, and if +she is to have a feature, he is the sculptor; she depends on him for +life, and her human history at least is married to him far more than +to the rescuing lover. No wonder, then, that men should find her thrice +cherishable featureless, or with the most moderate possible indication +of a countenance. Thousands of the excellent simple creatures do; and +every reader of her tale. On the contrary, the heroine of Reality is +that woman whom you have met or heard of once in your course of years, +and very probably despised for bearing in her composition the motive +principle; at best, you say, a singular mixture of good and bad; +anything but the feminine ideal of man. Feature to some excess, you +think, distinguishes her. Yet she furnishes not any of the sweet sensual +excitement pertaining to her spotless rival pursued by villany. She +knocks at the doors of the mind, and the mind must open to be interested +in her. Mind and heart must be wide open to excuse her sheer descent +from the pure ideal of man. + +Dacier's wandering reflections all came back in crowds to the judicial +Bench of the Black Cap. He felt finely, apart from the treason, that her +want of money degraded her: him too, by contact. Money she might have +had to any extent: upon application for it, of course. How was he to +imagine that she wanted money! Smilingly as she welcomed him and his +friends, entertaining them royally, he was bound to think she had means. +A decent propriety bound him not to think of the matter at all. +He naturally supposed she was capable of conducting her affairs. +And--money! It soiled his memory: though the hour at Rovio was rather +pretty, and the scene at Copsley touching: other times also, short +glimpses of the woman, were taking. The flood of her treachery effaced +them. And why reflect? Constance called to him to look her way. + +Diana's letter died hard. The corners were burnt to black tissue, with +an edge or two of discoloured paper. A small frayed central heap still +resisted, and in kindness to the necessity for privacy, he impressed the +fire-tongs to complete the execution. After which he went to his desk +and worked, under the presidency of Constance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH +BRAINS + +Hymenaeal rumours are those which might be backed to run a victorious +race with the tale of evil fortune; and clearly for the reason that +man's livelier half is ever alert to speed them. They travel with +an astonishing celerity over the land, like flames of the dry +beacon-faggots of old time in announcement of the invader or a conquest, +gathering as they go: wherein, to say nothing of their vastly wider +range, they surpass the electric wires. Man's nuptial half is kindlingly +concerned in the launch of a new couple; it is the business of the fair +sex: and man himself (very strangely, but nature quickens him still) +lends a not unfavouring eye to the preparations of the matrimonial +vessel for its oily descent into the tides, where billows will soon be +rising, captain and mate soon discussing the fateful question of who is +commander. We consent, it appears, to hope again for mankind; here is +another chance! Or else, assuming the happiness of the pair, that pomp +of ceremonial, contrasted with the little wind-blown candle they carry +between them, catches at our weaker fibres. + +After so many ships have foundered, some keel up, like poisoned fish, +at the first drink of water, it is a gallant spectacle, let us avow; and +either the world perpetuating it is heroical or nature incorrigible in +the species. Marriages are unceasing. Friends do it, and enemies; +the unknown contractors of this engagement, or armistice, inspire an +interest. It certainly is both exciting and comforting to hear that man +and woman are ready to join in a mutual affirmative, say Yes together +again. It sounds like the end of the war. + +The proclamation of the proximate marriage of a young Minister of State +and the greatest heiress of her day; notoriously 'The young Minister of +State' of a famous book written by the beautiful, now writhing, woman +madly enamoured of him--and the heiress whose dowry could purchase a +Duchy; this was a note to make the gossips of England leap from their +beds at the midnight hour and wag tongues in the market-place. It did +away with the political hubbub over the Tonans article, and let it noise +abroad like nonsense. The Hon. Percy Dacier espouses Miss Asper; and +she rescues him from the snares of a siren, he her from the toils of the +Papists. She would have gone over to them, she was going when, luckily +for the Protestant Faith, Percy Dacier intervened with his proposal. +Town and country buzzed the news; and while that dreary League trumpeted +about the business of the nation, a people suddenly become Oriental +chattered of nothing but the blissful union to be celebrated in princely +state, with every musical accessory, short of Operatic. + +Lady Wathin was an active agent in this excitement. The excellent woman +enjoyed marriages of High Life: which, as there is presumably wealth +to support them, are manifestly under sanction: and a marriage that she +could consider one of her own contrivance, had a delicate flavour of a +marriage in the family; not quite equal to the seeing a dear daughter +of her numerous progeny conducted to the altar, but excelling it in the +pomp that bids the heavens open. She and no other spread the tidings of +Miss Asper's debating upon the step to Rome at the very instant of Percy +Dacier's declaration of his love; and it was a beautiful struggle, that +of the half-dedicated nun and her deep-rooted earthly passion, love +prevailing! She sent word to Lady Dunstane: 'You know the interest I +have always taken in dear Constance Aspen' etc.; inviting her to come on +a visit a week before the end of the month, that she might join in the +ceremony of a wedding 'likely to be the grandest of our time.' Pitiful +though it was, to think of the bridal pair having but eight or ten days +at the outside, for a honeymoon, the beauty of their 'mutual devotion to +duty' was urged by Lady Wathin upon all hearers. + +Lady Dunstane declined the invitation. She waited to hear from her +friend, and the days went by; she could only sorrow for her poor Tony, +divining her state. However little of wrong in the circumstances, +they imposed a silence on her decent mind, and no conceivable shape of +writing would transmit condolences. She waited, with a dull heartache: +by no means grieving at Dacier's engagement to the heiress; until +Redworth animated her, as the bearer of rather startling intelligence, +indirectly relating to the soul she loved. An accident in the street had +befallen Mr. Warwick. Redworth wanted to know whether Diana should be +told of it, though he had no particulars to give; and somewhat to +his disappointment, Lady Dunstane said she would write. She delayed, +thinking the accident might not be serious; and the information of it to +Diana surely would be so. Next day at noon her visitor was Lady Wathin, +evidently perturbed and anxious to say more than she dared: but she +received no assistance. After beating the air in every direction, +especially dwelling on the fond reciprocal affection of the two devoted +lovers, to be united within three days' time, Lady Wathin said at last: +'And is it not shocking! I talk of a marriage and am appalled by a +death. That poor man died last night in the hospital. I mean poor Mr. +Warwick. He was recovering, getting strong and well, and he was knocked +down at a street-crossing and died last night. It is a warning to us!' + +'Mr. Redworth happened to hear of it at his Club, near which the +accident occurred, and he called at the hospital. Mr. Warwick was then +alive,' said Lady Dunstane; adding: 'Well, if prevention is better than +cure, as we hear! Accidents are the specific for averting the maladies +of age, which are a certain crop!' + +Lady Wathin's eyelids worked and her lips shut fast at the cold-hearted +remark void of meaning. + +She sighed. 'So ends a life of misery, my dear!' + +'You are compassionate.' + +'I hope so. But... Indeed I must speak, if you will let me. I think of +the living.' + +Lady Dunstane widened her eyes. 'Of Mrs. Warwick?' + +'She has now the freedom she desired. I think of others. Forgive me, but +Constance Asper is to me as a daughter. I have perhaps no grounds +for any apprehension. Love so ardent, so sincere, was never shown by +bridegroom elect: and it is not extraordinary to those acquainted +with dear Constance. But--one may be a worshipped saint and experience +defection. The terrible stories one hears of a power of fascination +almost...!' Lady Wathin hung for the word. + +'Infernal,' said Lady Dunstane, whose brows had been bent inquiringly. +'Have no fear. The freedom you allude to will not be used to interfere +with any entertainment in prospect. It was freedom my friend desired. +Now that her jewel is restored to her, she is not the person to throw it +away, be sure. And pray, drop the subject.' + +'One may rely... you think?' + +'Oh! Oh!' + +'This release coming just before the wedding...!' + +'I should hardly suppose the man to be the puppet you depict, or +indicate.' + +'It is because men--so many--are not puppets that one is conscious of +alarm.' + +'Your previous remark,' said Lady Dunstane, 'sounded superstitious. Your +present one has an antipodal basis. But, as for your alarm, check it: +and spare me further. My friend has acknowledged powers. Considering +that, she does not use them, you should learn to respect her.' + +Lady Wathin bowed stiffly. She refused to partake of lunch, having, she +said, satisfied her conscience by the performance of a duty and arranged +with her flyman to catch a train. Her cousin Lady Dunstane smiled +loftily at everything she uttered, and she felt that if a woman like +this Mrs. Warwick could put division between blood-relatives, she could +do worse, and was to be dreaded up to the hour of the nuptials. + +'I meant no harm in coming,' she said, at the shaking of hands. + +'No, no; I understand,' said her hostess: 'you are hen-hearted over +your adopted brood. The situation is perceptible and your intention +creditable.' + +As one of the good women of the world, Lady Wathin in departing was +indignant at the tone and dialect of a younger woman not modestly +concealing her possession of the larger brain. Brains in women she +both dreaded and detested; she believed them to be devilish. Here were +instances:--they had driven poor Sir Lukin to evil courses, and that +poor Mr. Warwick straight under the wheels of a cab. Sir Lukin's name +was trotting in public with a naughty Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett's: Mrs. Warwick +might still trim her arts to baffle the marriage. Women with brains, +moreover, are all heartless: they have no pity for distress, no horror +of catastrophes, no joy in the happiness of the deserving. Brains in men +advance a household to station; but brains in women divide it and are +the wrecking of society. Fortunately Lady Wathin knew she could rally +a powerful moral contingent, the aptitude of which for a one-minded +cohesion enabled it to crush those fractional daughters of mischief. She +was a really good woman of the world, heading a multitude; the same +whom you are accustomed to hear exalted; lucky in having had a guided +girlhood, a thick-curtained prudence; and in having stock in the moral +funds, shares in the sentimental tramways. Wherever the world laid +its hoards or ran its lines, she was found, and forcible enough to be +eminent; though at fixed hours of the day, even as she washed her hands, +she abjured worldliness: a performance that cleansed her. If she did +not make morality appear loveable to the objects of her dislike, it was +owing to her want of brains to see the origin, nature and right ends +of morality. But a world yet more deficient than she, esteemed her +cordially for being a bulwark of the present edifice; which looks a +solid structure when the microscope is not applied to its components. + +Supposing Percy Dacier a dishonourable tattler as well as an icy lover, +and that Lady Wathin, through his bride, had become privy to the secret +between him and Diana? There is reason to think that she would have held +it in terror over the baneful woman, but not have persecuted her: for +she was by no means the active malignant of theatrical plots. No, she +would have charged it upon the possession of brains by women, and have +had a further motive for inciting the potent dignitary her husband +to employ his authority to repress the sex's exercise of those fell +weapons, hurtful alike to them and all coming near them. + +So extreme was her dread of Mrs. Warwick, that she drove from the +London railway station to see Constance and be reassured by her tranquil +aspect. + +Sweet Constance and her betrothed Percy were together, examining a +missal. + +Lady Dunstane despatched a few words of the facts to Diana. She hoped to +hear from her; rather hoped, for the moment, not to see her. No answer +came. The great day of the nuptials came and passed. She counted on +her husband's appearance the next morning, as the good gentleman made a +point of visiting her, to entertain the wife he adored, whenever he had +a wallet of gossip that would overlay the blank of his absence. He had +been to the church of the wedding--he did not say with whom: all the +world was there; and he rapturously described the ceremony, stating that +it set women weeping and caused him to behave like a fool. + +'You are impressionable,' said his wife. + +He murmured something in praise of the institution of marriage--when +celebrated impressively, it seemed. + +'Tony calls the social world "the theatre of appetites," as we have it +at present,' she said; 'and the world at a wedding is, one may reckon, +in the second act of the hungry tragicomedy.' + +'Yes, there's the breakfast,' Sir Lukin assented. Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett was +much more intelligible to him: in fact, quite so, as to her speech. + +Emma's heart now yearned to her Tony: Consulting her strength, she +thought she might journey to London, and on the third morning after the +Dacier-Asper marriage, she started. + +Diana's door was open to Arthur Rhodes when Emma reached it. + +'Have you seen her?' she asked him. + +His head shook dolefully. 'Mrs. Warwick is unwell; she has been working +too hard.' + +'You also, I'm afraid.' + +'No.' He could deny that, whatever the look of him. + +'Come to me at Copsley soon,' said she, entering to Danvers in the +passage. + +'My mistress is upstairs, my lady,' said Danvers. 'She is lying on her +bed.' + +'She is ill?' + +'She has been lying on her bed ever since.' + +'Since what?' Lady Dunstane spoke sharply. + +Danvers retrieved her indiscretion. 'Since she heard of the accident, my +lady.' + +'Take my name to her. Or no: I can venture.' + +'I am not allowed to go in and speak to her. You will find the room +quite dark, my lady, and very cold. It is her command. My mistress will +not let me light the fire; and she has not eaten or drunk of anything +since... She will die, if you do not persuade her to take nourishment: a +little, for a beginning. It wants the beginning.' + +Emma went upstairs, thinking of the enigmatical maid, that she must be a +good soul after all. Diana's bedroom door was opened slowly. + +'You will not be able to see at first, my lady,' Danvers whispered. 'The +bed is to the left, and a chair. I would bring in a candle, but it hurts +her eyes. She forbids it.' + +Emma stepped in. The chill thick air of the unlighted London room was +cavernous. She almost forgot the beloved of her heart in the thought +that a living woman had been lying here more than two days and nights, +fasting. The proof of an uttermost misery revived the circumstances +within her to render her friend's presence in this desert of darkness +credible. She found the bed by touch, silently, and distinguished a dark +heap on the bed; she heard no breathing. She sat and listened; then she +stretched out her hand and met her Tony's. It lay open. It was the hand +of a drowned woman. + +Shutters and curtains and the fireless grate gave the room an appalling +likeness to the vaults. + +So like to the home of death it seemed, that in a few minutes the +watcher had lost count of time and kept but a wormy memory of the +daylight. She dared not speak, for some fear of startling; for the worse +fear of never getting answer. Tony's hand was lifeless. Her clasp of it +struck no warmth. + +She stung herself with bitter reproaches for having let common mundane +sentiments, worthy of a Lady Wathin, bar her instant offer of her bosom +to the beloved who suffered in this depth of mortal agony. Tony's love +of a man, as she should have known, would be wrought of the elements of +our being: when other women named Happiness, she said Life; in division, +Death. Her body lying still upon the bed here was a soul borne onward by +the river of Death. + +The darkness gave sight after a while, like a curtain lifting on a +veil: the dead light of the underworld. Tony lay with her face up, her +underlip dropped; straight from head to feet. The outline of her face, +without hue of it, could be seen: sign of the hapless women that have +souls in love. Hateful love of men! Emma thought, and was; moved to feel +at the wrist for her darling's pulse. He has, killed her! the thought +flashed, as, with pangs chilling her frame, the pressure at the wrist +continued insensible of the faintest beat. She clasped it, trembling, in +pain to stop an outcry. + +'It is Emmy,' said the voice. + +Emma's heart sprang to heaven on a rush of thanks. + +'My Tony,' she breathed softly. + +She hung for a further proof of life in the motionless body. 'Tony!' she +said. + +The answer was at her hand, a thread-like return of her clasp. + +'It is Emmy come to stay with you, never to leave you.' + +The thin still answer was at her hand a moment; the fingers fell away. A +deep breath was taken twice to say: + +'Don't talk to me.' + +Emma retained the hand. She was warned not to press it by the deadness +following its effort to reply. + +But Tony lived; she had given proof of life. Over this little wavering +taper in the vaults Emma cowered, cherishing the hand, silently hoping +for the voice. + +It came: 'Winter.' + +'It is a cold winter, Tony.' + +'My dear will be cold.' + +'I will light the fire.' + +Emma lost no time in deciding to seek the match-box. The fire was lit +and it flamed; it seemed a revival in the room. Coming back to the +bedside, she discerned her Tony's lacklustre large dark eyes and her +hollow cheeks: her mouth open to air as to the drawing-in of a sword; +rather as to the releaser than the sustainer. Her feet were on the rug +her maid had placed to cover them. Emma leaned across the bed to put +them to her breast, beneath her fur mantle, and held them there despite +the half-animate tug of the limbs and the shaft of iciness they sent +to her very heart. When she had restored them to some warmth, she threw +aside her bonnet and lying beside Tony, took her in her arms, heaving +now and then a deep sigh. + +She kissed her cheek. + +'It is Emmy.' + +'Kiss her.' + +'I have no strength.' + +Emma laid her face on the lips. They were cold; even the breath between +them cold. + +'Has Emmy been long...?' + +'Here, dear? I think so. I am with my darling.' + +Tony moaned. The warmth and the love were bringing back her anguish. + +She said: 'I have been happy. It is not hard to go.' + +Emma strained to her. 'Tony will wait for her soul's own soul to go, the +two together.' + +There was a faint convulsion in the body. 'If I cry, I shall go in +pain.' + +'You are in Emmy's arms, my beloved.' + +Tony's eyes closed for forgetfulness under that sensation. A tear ran +down from her, but the pain was lag and neighboured sleep, like the +pleasure. + +So passed the short winter day, little spoken. + +Then Emma bethought her of a way of leading Tony to take food, and she +said: 'I shall stay with you; I shall send for clothes; I am rather +hungry. Don't stir, dear. I will be mistress of the house.' + +She went below to the kitchen, where a few words in the ear of a +Frenchwoman were sufficient to waken immediate comprehension of what +was wanted, and smart service: within ten minutes an appetizing bouillon +sent its odour over the bedroom. Tony, days back, had said her last +to the act of eating; but Emma sipping at the spoon and expressing +satisfaction, was a pleasant picture. The bouillon smelt pleasantly. + +'Your servants love you,' Emma said. + +'Ah, poor good souls.' + +'They crowded up to me to hear of you. Madame of course at the first +word was off to her pots. And we English have the habit of calling +ourselves the practical people!--This bouillon is consummate.--However, +we have the virtues of barbarians; we can love and serve for love. I +never tasted anything so good. I could become a glutton.' + +'Do,' said Tony. + +'I should be ashamed to "drain the bowl" all to myself: a solitary toper +is a horrid creature, unless he makes a song of it.' + +'Emmy makes a song of it to me.' + +'But "pledge me" is a noble saying, when you think of humanity's +original hunger for the whole. It is there that our civilizing +commenced, and I am particularly fond of hearing the call. It is grandly +historic. So pledge me, Tony. We two can feed from one spoon; it is a +closer, bond than the loving cup. I want you just to taste it and excuse +my gluttony.' + +Tony murmured, 'No.' The spoon was put to her mouth. She sighed to +resist. The stronger will compelled her to move her lips. Emma fed her +as a child, and nature sucked for life. + +The first effect was a gush of tears. + +Emma lay with her that night, when the patient was, the better sleeper. +But during the night at intervals she had the happiness of feeling +Tony's hand travelling to make sure of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY + +Close upon the hour of ten every morning the fortuitous meeting of two +gentlemen at Mrs. Warwick's housedoor was a signal for punctiliously +stately greetings, the salutation of the raised hat and a bow of the +head from a position of military erectness, followed by the remark: 'I +trust you are well, sir': to which the reply: 'I am very well, sir, and +trust you are the same,' was deemed a complimentary fulfilment of their +mutual obligation in presence. Mr. Sullivan Smith's initiative imparted +this exercise of formal manners to Mr. Arthur Rhodes, whose renewed +appearance, at the minute of his own arrival, he viewed, as he did not +conceal, with a disappointed and a reproving eye. The inquiry after the +state of Mrs. Warwick's health having received its tolerably comforting +answer from the footman, they left their cards in turn, then descended +the doorsteps, faced for the performance of the salute, and departed +their contrary ways. + +The pleasing intelligence refreshed them one morning, that they would be +welcomed by Lady Dunstane. Thereupon Mr. Sullivan Smith wheeled about to +Mr. Arthur Rhodes and observed to him: 'Sir, I might claim, by right of +seniority, to be the foremost of us two in offering my respects to the +lady, but the way is open to you.' + +'Sir,' said Mr. Arthur Rhodes, 'permit me to defer to your many superior +titles to that distinction.' + +'The honour, sir, lies rather in the bestowing than in the taking.' + +'I venture to think, sir, that though I cannot speak pure Castilian, I +require no lesson from a Grandee of Spain in acknowledging the dues of +my betters.' + +'I will avow myself conquered, sir, by your overpowering condescension;' +said Mr. Sullivan Smith; 'and I entreat you--to ascribe my acceptance of +your brief retirement to the urgent character of the business I have at +heart.' + +He laid his fingers on the panting spot, and bowed. + +Mr. Arthur Rhodes, likewise bowing, deferentially fell to rearward. + +'If I mistake not,' said the Irish gentleman, 'I am indebted to Mr. +Rhodes; and we have been joint participators in the hospitality of Mrs. +Warwick's table.' + +The English gentleman replied: 'It was there that I first had the +pleasure of an acquaintance which is graven on my memory, as the words +of the wise king on tablets of gold and silver.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith gravely smiled at the unwonted match he had found in +ceremonious humour, in Saxonland, and saying: 'I shall not long detain +you, Mr. Rhodes,' he passed through the doorway. + +Arthur waited for him, pacing up and down, for a quarter of an hour, +when a totally different man reappeared in the same person, and was the +Sullivan Smith of the rosy beaming features and princely heartiness. +He was accosted: 'Now, my dear boy, it's your turn to try if you have a +chance, and good luck go with ye. I've said what I could on your behalf, +for you're one of ten thousand in this country, you are.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith had solemnified himself to proffer a sober petition +within the walls of the newly widowed lady's house; namely, for nothing +less than that sweet lady's now unfettered hand: and it had therefore +been perfectly natural to him, until his performance ended with the +destruction of his hopes, to deliver himself in the high Castilian +manner. Quite unexpected, however, was the reciprocal loftiness of +tone spontaneously adopted by the young English squire, for whom, in +consequence, he conceived a cordial relish; and as he paced in the +footsteps of Arthur, anxious to quiet his curiosity by hearing how it +had fared with one whom he had to suppose the second applicant, he kept +ejaculating: 'Not a bit! The fellow can't be Saxon! And she had a liking +for him. She's nigh coming of the age when a woman takes to the chicks. +Better he than another, if it's to be any one. For he's got fun in him; +he carries his own condiments, instead of borrowing from the popular +castors, as is their way over here. But I might have known there 's +always sure to be salt and savour in the man she covers with her wing. +Excepting, if you please, my dear lady, a bad shot you made at a rascal +cur, no more worthy of you than Beelzebub of Paradise. No matter! The +daughters' of Erin must share the fate of their mother Isle, that +their tears may shine in the burst of sun to follow. For personal and +patriotic motives, I would have cheered her and been like a wild ass +combed and groomed and tamed by the adorable creature. But her friend +says there 's not a whisk of a chance for me, and I must roam the +desert, kicking up, and worshipping the star I hail brightest. They know +me not, who think I can't worship. Why, what were I without my star? At +best a pickled porker.' + +Sullivan Smith became aware of a ravishing melodiousness in the +soliloquy, as well as a clean resemblance in the simile. He would +certainly have proceeded to improvize impassioned verse, if he had not +seen Arthur Rhodes on the pavement. 'So, here's the boy. Query, the face +he wears.' + +'How kind of you to wait,' said Arthur. + +'We'll call it sympathy, for convenience,' rejoined Sullivan Smith. +'Well, and what next?' + +'You know as much as I do. Thank heaven, she is recovering.' + +'Is that all?' + +'Why, what more?' + +Arthur was jealously, inspected. + +'You look open-hearted, my dear boy.' Sullivan Smith blew the sound of +a reflected ahem. 'Excuse me for cornemusing in your company,' he said. +'But seriously, there was only one thing to pardon your hurrying to the +lady's door at such a season, when the wind tells tales to the world. +She's down with a cold, you know.' + +'An influenza,' said Arthur. + +The simplicity of the acquiescence was vexatious to a champion desirous +of hostilities, to vindicate the lady, in addition to his anxiety to +cloak her sad plight. + +'She caught it from contact with one of the inhabitants of this country. +'Tis the fate of us Irish, and we're condemned to it for the sin of +getting tired of our own. I begin to sneeze when I land at Holyhead. +Unbutton a waistcoat here, in the hope of meeting a heart, and you're +lucky in escaping a pulmonary attack of no common severity, while the +dog that infected you scampers off, to celebrate his honeymoon mayhap. +Ah, but call at her house in shoals, the world 'll soon be saying +it's worse than a coughing cold. If you came to lead her out of it in +triumph, the laugh 'd be with you, and the lady well covered. D' ye +understand?' + +The allusion to the dog's honeymoon had put Arthur Rhodes on the track +of the darting cracker-metaphor. + +'I think I do,' he said. 'She will soon be at Copsley--Lady Dunstane's +house, on the hills--and there we can see her.' + +'And that's next to the happiness of consoling--if only it had been +granted! She's not an ordinary widow, to be caught when the tear of +lamentation has opened a practicable path or water-way to the poor +nightcapped jewel within. So, and you're a candid admirer, Mr. Rhodes! +Well, and I'll be one with you; for there's not a star in the firmament +more deserving of homage than that lady.' + +'Let's walk in the park and talk of her,' said Arthur. 'There's no +sweeter subject to me.' + +His boyish frankness rejoiced Sullivan Smith. 'As long as you like!--nor +to me!' he exclaimed. 'And that ever since I first beheld her on the +night of a Ball in Dublin: before I had listened to a word of her +speaking: and she bore her father's Irish name:--none of your Warwicks +and your... but let the cur go barking. He can't tell what he's lost; +perhaps he doesn't care. And after inflicting his hydrophobia on her +tender fame! Pooh, sir; you call it a civilized country, where you and +I and dozens of others are ready to start up as brothers of the lady, to +defend her, and are paralyzed by the Law. 'Tis a law they've instituted +for the protection of dirty dogs--their majority!' + +'I owe more to Mrs. Warwick than to any soul I know,' said Arthur. + +'Let 's hear,' quoth Sullivan Smith; proceeding: 'She's the Arabian +Nights in person, that's sure; and Shakespeare's Plays, tragic and +comic; and the Book of Celtic History; and Erin incarnate--down with +a cold, no matter where; but we know where it was caught. So there's +a pretty library for who's to own her now she's enfranchized by +circumstances; and a poetical figure too!' + +He subsided for his companion to rhapsodize. + +Arthur was overcharged with feeling, and could say only: 'It would be +another world to me if I lost her.' + +'True; but what of the lady?' + +'No praise of mine could do her justice.' + +'That may be, but it's negative of yourself, and not a portrait of the +object. Hasn't she the brain of Socrates--or better, say Minerva, on +the bust of Venus, and the remainder of her finished off to an exact +resemblance of her patronymic Goddess of the bow and quiver?' + +'She has a wise head and is beautiful.' + +'And chaste.' + +Arthur reddened: he was prepared to maintain it, could not speak it. + +'She is to us in this London, what the run of water was to Theocritus in +Sicily: the nearest to the visibly divine,' he said, and was applauded. + +'Good, and on you go. Top me a few superlatives on that, and I 'm your +echo, my friend. Isn't the seeing and listening to her like sitting +under the silvery canopy of a fountain in high Summer?' + +'All the comparisons are yours,' Arthur said enviously. + +'Mr. Rhodes, you are a poet, I believe, and all you require to loosen +your tongue is a drop of Bacchus, so if you will do me the extreme +honour to dine with me at my Club this evening, we'll resume the toast +that should never be uttered dry. You reprove me justly, my friend.' + +Arthur laughed and accepted. The Club was named, and the hour, and some +items of the little dinner: the birds and the year of the wines. + +It surprised him to meet Mr. Redworth at the table of his host. A +greater surprise was the partial thaw in Redworth's bearing toward him. +But, as it was partial, and he a youth and poor, not even the genial +influences of Bacchus could lift him to loosen his tongue under the +repressing presence of the man he knew to be his censor, though Sullivan +Smith encouraged him with praises and opportunities. He thought of the +many occasions when Mrs. Warwick's art of management had produced a +tacit harmony between them. She had no peer. The dinner failed of the +pleasure he had expected from it. Redworth's bluntness killed the flying +metaphors, and at the end of the entertainment he and Sullivan Smith +were drumming upon politics. + +'Fancies he has the key of the Irish difficulty!' said the latter, +clapping hand on his shoulder, by way of blessing, as they parted at the +Club-steps. + +Redworth asked Arthur Rhodes the way he was going, and walked beside +him. + +'I suppose you take exercise; don't get colds and that kind of thing,' +he remarked in the old bullying fashion; and changed it abruptly. 'I am +glad to have met you this evening. I hope you'll dine with me one day +next week. Have you seen Mrs. Warwick lately?' + +'She is unwell; she has been working too hard,' said Arthur. + +'Seriously unwell, do you mean?' + +'Lady Dunstane is at her house, and speaks of her recovering.' + +'Ah. You've not seen her?' + +'Not yet.' + +'Well, good-night.' + +Redworth left him, and only when moved by gratitude to the lad for +his mention of Mrs. Warwick's 'working too hard,' as the cause of her +illness, recollected the promised dinner and the need for having his +address. + +He had met Sullivan Smith accidentally in the morning and accepted the +invitation to meet young Rhodes, because these two, of all men living, +were for the moment dearest to him, as Diana Warwick's true and simple +champions; and he had intended a perfect cordiality toward them both; +the end being a semi-wrangle with the patriot, and a patronizing +bluntness with the boy; who, by the way, would hardly think him sincere +in the offer of a seat at his table. He owned himself incomplete. He +never could do the thing he meant, in the small matters not leading to +fortune. But they led to happiness! Redworth was guilty of a sigh: for +now Diana Warwick stood free; doubly free, he was reduced to reflect in +a wavering dubiousness. Her more than inclination for Dacier, witnessed +by him, and the shot of the world, flying randomly on the subject, had +struck this cuirassier, making light of his armour, without causing any +change of his habitual fresh countenance. As for the scandal, it had +never shaken his faith in her nature. He thought of the passion. His +heart struck at Diana's, and whatever might by chance be true in the +scandal affected him little, if but her heart were at liberty. That +was the prize he coveted, having long read the nature of the woman and +wedded his spirit to it. She would complete him. + +Of course, infatuated men argue likewise, and scandal does not move +them. At a glance, the lower instincts and the higher spirit appear +equally to have the philosophy of overlooking blemishes. The difference +between appetite and love is shown when a man, after years of service, +can hear and see, and admit the possible, and still desire in worship; +knowing that we of earth are begrimed and must be cleansed for +presentation daily on our passage through the miry ways, but that our +souls, if flame of a soul shall have come of the agony of flesh, are +beyond the baser mischances: partaking of them indeed, but sublimely. +Now Redworth believed in the soul of Diana. For him it burned, and it +was a celestial radiance about her, unquenched by her shifting fortunes, +her wilfulnesses and, it might be, errors. She was a woman and weak; +that is, not trained for strength. She was a soul; therefore perpetually +pointing to growth in purification. He felt it, and even discerned it +of her, if he could not have phrased it. The something sovereignty +characteristic that aspired in Diana enchained him. With her, or rather +with his thought of her soul, he understood the right union of women +and men, from the roots to the flowering heights of that rare graft. She +gave him comprehension of the meaning of love: a word in many mouths, +not often explained. With her, wound in his idea of her, he perceived +it to signify a new start in our existence, a finer shoot of the tree +stoutly planted in good gross earth; the senses running their live sap, +and the minds companioned, and the spirits made one by the whole-natured +conjunction. In Booth, a happy prospect for the sons and daughters of +Earth, divinely indicating more than happiness: the speeding of us, +compact of what we are, between the ascetic rocks and the sensual +whirlpools, to the creation of certain nobler races, now very dimly +imagined. + +Singularly enough, the man of these feelings was far from being a social +rebel. His Diana conjured them forth in relation to her, but was not +on his bosom to enlighten him generally. His notions of citizenship +tolerated the female Pharisees, as ladies offering us an excellent +social concrete where quicksands abound, and without quite justifying +the Lady Wathins and Constance Aspers of the world, whose virtues +he could set down to accident or to acid blood, he considered +them supportable and estimable where the Mrs. Fryar-Gunnetts were +innumerable, threatening to become a majority; as they will constantly +do while the sisterhood of the chaste are wattled in formalism and +throned in sourness. + +Thoughts of Diana made phantoms of the reputable and their reverse +alike. He could not choose but think of her. She was free; and he +too; and they were as distant as the horizon sail and the aft-floating +castaway. Her passion for Dacier might have burnt out her heart. And at +present he had no claim to visit her, dared not intrude. He would have +nothing to say, if he went, save to answer questions upon points of +business: as to which, Lady Dunstane would certainly summon him when he +was wanted. + +Riding in the park on a frosty morning, he came upon Sir Lukin, who +looked gloomy and inquired for news of Diana Warwick, saying that his +wife had forbidden him to call at her house just yet. 'She's got a cold, +you know,' said Sir Lukin; adding, 'confoundedly hard on women!--eh? +Obliged to keep up a show. And I'd swear, by all that's holy, Diana +Warwick hasn't a spot, not a spot, to reproach herself with. I fancy +I ought to know women by this time. And look here, Redworth, last +night--that is, I mean yesterday evening, I broke with a woman--a lady +of my acquaintance, you know, because she would go on scandal-mongering +about Diana Warwick. I broke with her. I told her I'd have out any man +who abused Diana Warwick, and I broke with her. By Jove! Redworth, those +women can prove spitfires. They've bags of venom under their tongues, +barley-sugar though they look--and that's her colour. But I broke with +her for good. I doubt if I shall ever call on her again. And in point of +fact, I won't.' + +Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett was described in the colouring of the lady. + +Sir Lukin, after some further remarks, rode on, and Redworth mused on a +moral world that allows a woman of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett's like to hang +on to it, and to cast a stone at Diana; forgetful, in his championship, +that Diana was not disallowed a similar licence. + +When he saw Emma Dunstane, some days later, she was in her carriage +driving, as she said, to Lawyerland, for an interview with old Mr. +Braddock, on her friend's affairs. He took a seat beside her. 'No, Tony +is not well,' she replied to his question, under the veil of candour. +'She is recovering, but she--you can understand--suffered a shock. She +is not able to attend to business, and certain things have to be done.' + +'I used to be her man of business,' Redworth observed. + +'She speaks of your kind services. This is mere matter for lawyers.' + +'She is recovering?' + +'You may see her at Copsley next week. You can come down on Wednesdays +or Saturdays?' + +'Any day. Tell her I want her opinion upon the state of things.' + +'It will please her; but you will have to describe the state of things.' + +Emma feared she had said too much. She tried candour again for +concealment. 'My poor Tony has been struck down low. I suppose it is +like losing a diseased limb:--she has her freedom, at the cost of a blow +to the system.' + +'She may be trusted for having strength,' said Redworth.' + +'Yes.' Emma's mild monosyllable was presently followed by an +exclamation: 'One has to experience the irony of Fate to comprehend +how cruel it is!' Then she remembered that such language was peculiarly +abhorrent to him. + +'Irony of Fate!' he echoed her. 'I thought you were above that literary +jargon.' + +'And I thought I was: or thought it would be put in a dialect +practically explicable,' she answered, smiling at the lion roused. + +'Upon my word,' he burst out, 'I should like to write a book of Fables, +showing how donkeys get into grinding harness, and dogs lose their +bones, and fools have their sconces cracked, and all run jabbering of +the irony of Fate, to escape the annoyance of tracing the causes. And +what are they? nine times out of ten, plain want of patience, or some +debt for indulgence. There's a subject:--let some one write, Fables +in illustration of the irony of Fate: and I'll undertake to tack-on my +grandmother's maxims for a moral to teach of 'em. We prate of that irony +when we slink away from the lesson--the rod we conjure. And you to +talk of Fate! It's the seed we sow, individually or collectively. I'm +bound-up in the prosperity of the country, and if the ship is wrecked, +it ruins my fortune, but not me, unless I'm bound-up in myself. At least +I hope that's my case.' + +He apologized for intruding Mr. Thomas Redworth. + +His hearer looked at him, thinking he required a more finely pointed +gift of speech for the ironical tongue, but relishing the tonic +directness of his faculty of reason while she considered that the +application of the phrase might be brought home to him so as to render +'my Grandmother's moral' a conclusion less comfortingly, if quite +intelligibly, summary. And then she thought of Tony's piteous instance; +and thinking with her heart, the tears insisted on that bitter irony of +the heavens, which bestowed the long-withheld and coveted boon when it +was empty of value or was but as a handful of spices to a shroud. + +Perceiving the moisture in her look, Redworth understood that it was +foolish to talk rationally. But on her return to her beloved, the real +quality of the man had overcome her opposing state of sentiment, and +she spoke of him with an iteration and throb in the voice that set a +singular query whirring round Diana's ears. Her senses were too heavy +for a suspicion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT + +From an abandonment that had the last pleasure of life in a willingness +to yield it up, Diana rose with her friend's help in some state of +fortitude, resembling the effort of her feet to bear the weight of her +body. She plucked her courage out of the dust to which her heart had +been scattered, and tasked herself to walk as the world does. But she +was indisposed to compassionate herself in the manner of the burdened +world. She lashed the creature who could not raise a head like others, +and made the endurance of torture a support, such as the pride of being +is to men. She would not have seen any similarity to pride in it; would +have deemed it the reverse. It was in fact the painful gathering of +the atoms composing pride. For she had not only suffered; she had done +wrongly: and when that was acknowledged, by the light of her sufferings +the wrong-doing appeared gigantic, chorussing eulogies of the man she +had thought her lover: and who was her lover once, before the crime +against him. In the opening of her bosom to Emma, he was painted a noble +figure; one of those that Romance delights to harass for the sake of +ultimately the more exquisitely rewarding. He hated treachery: she +had been guilty of doing what he most hated. She glorified him for the +incapacity to forgive; it was to her mind godlike. And her excuses of +herself? + +At the first confession, she said she had none, and sullenly maintained +that there was none to exonerate. Little by little her story was +related--her version of the story: for not even as woman to woman, +friend to great-hearted friend, pure soul to soul, could Diana tell of +the state of shivering abjection in which Dacier had left her on the +fatal night; of the many causes conducing to it, and of the chief. +That was an unutterable secret, bound by all the laws of feminine +civilization not to be betrayed. Her excessive self-abasement and +exaltation of him who had struck her down, rendered it difficult to be +understood; and not till Emma had revolved it and let it ripen in the +mind some days could she perceive with any clearness her Tony's motives, +or mania. The very word Money thickened the riddle: for Tony knew that +her friend's purse was her own to dip in at her pleasure; yet she, to +escape so small an obligation, had committed the enormity for which she +held the man blameless in spurning her. + +'You see what I am, Emmy,' Diana said. + +'What I do not see, is that he had grounds for striking so cruelly.' + +'I proved myself unworthy of him.' + +But does a man pretending to love a woman cut at one blow, for such a +cause, the ties uniting her to him? Unworthiness of that kind, is not +commonly the capital offence in love. Tony's deep prostration and her +resplendent picture of her judge and executioner, kept Emma questioning +within herself. Gradually she became enlightened enough to distinguish +in the man a known, if not common, type of the externally soft and +polished, internally hard and relentless, who are equal to the trials of +love only as long as favouring circumstances and seemings nurse the fair +object of their courtship. + +Her thoughts recurred to the madness driving Tony to betray the +secret; and the ascent unhelped to get a survey of it and her and the +conditions, was mountainous. She toiled up but to enter the regions of +cloud; sure nevertheless that the obscurity was penetrable and excuses +to be discovered somewhere. Having never wanted money herself, she was +unable perfectly to realize the urgency of the need: she began however +to comprehend that the very eminent gentleman, before whom all human +creatures were to bow in humility, had for an extended term considerably +added to the expenses of Tony's household, by inciting her to give +those little dinners to his political supporters, and bringing comrades +perpetually to supper-parties, careless of how it might affect her +character and her purse. Surely an honourable man was bound to her +in honour? Tony's remark: 'I have the reptile in me, dear,' her +exaggeration of the act, in her resigned despair,--was surely no +justification for his breaking from her, even though he had discovered +a vestige of the common 'reptile,' to leave her with a stain on her +name?--There would not have been a question about it if Tony had not +exalted him so loftily, refusing, in visible pain, to hear him blamed. + +Danvers had dressed a bed for Lady Dunstane in her mistress's chamber, +where often during the night Emma caught a sound of stifled weeping or +the long falling breath of wakeful grief. One night she asked whether +Tony would like to have her by her side. + +'No, dear,' was the answer in the dark; 'but you know my old pensioners, +the blind fifer and his wife; I've been thinking of them.' + +'They were paid as they passed down the street yesterday, my love.' + +'Yes, dear, I hope so. But he flourishes his tune so absurdly. I've been +thinking, that is the part I have played, instead of doing the female's +duty of handing round the tin-cup for pennies. I won't cry any more.' + +She sighed and turned to sleep, leaving Emma to disburden her heart in +tears. + +For it seemed to her that Tony's intellect was weakened. She not merely +abased herself and exalted Dacier preposterously, she had sunk her +intelligence in her sensations: a state that she used to decry as the +sin of mankind, the origin of error and blood. + +Strangely too, the proposal came from her, or the suggestion of it, +notwithstanding her subjectedness to the nerves, that she should show +her face in public. She said: 'I shall have to run about, Emmy, when +I can fancy I am able to rattle up to the old mark. At present, I feel +like a wrestler who has had a fall. As soon as the stiffness is over, +it's best to make an appearance, for the sake of one's backers, though I +shall never be in the wrestling ring again.' + +'That is a good decision--when you feel quite yourself, dear Tony,' Emma +replied. + +'I dare say I have disgraced my sex, but not as they suppose. I feel my +new self already, and can make the poor brute go through fire on behalf +of the old. What is the task?--merely to drive a face!' + +'It is not known.' + +'It will be known.' + +'But this is a sealed secret.' + +'Nothing is a secret that has been spoken. It 's in the air, and I have +to breathe to live by it. And I would rather it were out. "She betrayed +him." Rather that, than have them think--anything! They will exclaim, +How could she! I have been unable to answer it to you--my own heart. +How? Oh! our weakness is the swiftest dog to hunt us; we cannot escape +it. But I have the answer for them, that I trust with my whole soul none +of them would have done the like.' + +'None, my Tony, would have taken it to the soul as you do.' + +'I talk, dear. If I took it honestly, I should be dumb, soon dust. The +moment we begin to speak, the guilty creature is running for cover. +She could not otherwise exist. I am sensible of evasion when I open my +lips.' + +'But Tony has told me all.' + +'I think I have. But if you excuse my conduct, I am certain I have not.' + +'Dear girl, accounting for it, is not the same as excusing.' + +'Who can account for it! I was caught in a whirl--Oh! nothing +supernatural: my weakness; which it pleases me to call a madness--shift +the ninety-ninth! When I drove down that night to Mr. Tonans, I am +certain I had my clear wits, but I felt like a bolt. I saw things, but +at too swift a rate for the conscience of them. Ah! let never Necessity +draw the bow of our weakness: it is the soul that is winged to its +perdition. I remember I was writing a story, named THE MAN OF TWO MINDS. +I shall sign it, By the Woman of Two Natures. If ever it is finished. +Capacity for thinking should precede the act of writing. It should; I +do not say that it does. Capacity for assimilating the public taste and +reproducing it, is the commonest. The stuff is perishable, but it pays +us for our labour, and in so doing saves us from becoming tricksters. +Now I can see that Mr. Redworth had it in that big head of his--the +authoress outliving her income!' + +'He dared not speak.' + +'Why did he not dare?' + +'Would it have checked you?' + +'I was a shot out of a gun, and I am glad he did not stand in my way. +What power charged the gun, is another question. Dada used to say, that +it is the devil's masterstroke to get us to accuse him. "So fare ye +well, old Nickie Ben." My dear, I am a black sheep; a creature with +a spotted reputation; I must wash and wash; and not with water--with +sulphur-flames.' She sighed. 'I am down there where they burn. You +should have let me lie and die. You were not kind. I was going quietly.' + +'My love!' cried Emma, overborne by a despair that she traced to the +woman's concealment of her bleeding heart, 'you live for me. Do set your +mind on that. Think of what you are bearing, as your debt to Emma. Will +you?' + +Tony bowed her head mechanically. + +'But I am in love with King Death, and must confess it,' she said. 'That +hideous eating you forced on me, snatched me from him. And I feel that +if I had gone, I should have been mercifully forgiven by everybody.' + +'Except by me,' said Emma, embracing her. 'Tony would have left her +friend for her last voyage in mourning. And my dearest will live to know +happiness.' + +'I have no more belief in it, Emmy.' + +'The mistake of the world is to think happiness possible to the senses.' + +'Yes; we distil that fine essence through the senses; and the act is +called the pain of life. It is the death of them. So much I understand +of what our existence must be. But I may grieve for having done so +little.' + +'That is the sound grief, with hope at the core--not in love with itself +and wretchedly mortal, as we find self is under every shape it takes; +especially the chief one.' + +'Name it.' + +'It is best named Amor.' + +There was a writhing in the frame of the hearer, for she did want Love +to be respected; not shadowed by her misfortune. Her still-flushed +senses protested on behalf of the eternalness of the passion, and she +was obliged to think Emma's cold condemnatory intellect came of the no +knowledge of it. + +A letter from Mr. Tonans, containing an enclosure, was a sharp trial of +Diana's endurance of the irony of Fate. She had spoken of the irony in +allusion to her freedom. Now that, according to a communication from her +lawyers, she was independent of the task of writing, the letter which +paid the price of her misery bruised her heavily. + +'Read it and tear it all to strips,' she said in an abhorrence to Emma, +who rejoined: 'Shall I go at once and see him?' + +'Can it serve any end? But throw it into the fire. Oh! no simulation of +virtue. There was not, I think, a stipulated return for what I did. +But I perceive clearly--I can read only by events--that there was an +understanding. You behold it. I went to him to sell it. He thanks me, +says I served the good cause well. I have not that consolation. If I had +thought of the cause--of anything high, it would have arrested me. On +the fire with it!' + +The letter and square slip were consumed. Diana watched the blackening +papers. + +So they cease their sinning, Emmy; and as long as I am in torment, I may +hope for grace. We talked of the irony. It means, the pain of fire.' + +'I spoke of the irony to Redworth,' said Emma; 'incidentally, of +course.' + +'And he fumed?' + +'He is really not altogether the Mr. Cuthbert Dering of your caricature. +He is never less than acceptably rational. I won't repeat his truisms; +but he said, or I deduced from what he said, that a grandmother's maxims +would expound the enigma.' + +'Probably the simple is the deep, in relation to the mysteries of life,' +said Diana, whose wits had been pricked to a momentary activity by the +letter. 'He behaves wisely; so perhaps we are bound to take his words +for wisdom. Much nonsense is talked and written, and he is one of the +world's reserves, who need no more than enrolling, to make a sturdy +phalanx of common sense. It's a pity they are not enlisted and drilled +to express themselves.' She relapsed. 'But neither he nor any of them +could understand my case.' + +'He puts the idea of an irony down to the guilt of impatience, Tony.' + +'Could there be a keener irony than that? A friend of Dada's waited +patiently for a small fortune, and when it arrived, he was a worn-out +man, just assisted to go decently to his grave.' + +'But he may have gained in spirit by his patient waiting.' + +'Oh! true. We are warmer if we travel on foot sunward, but it is a +discovery that we are colder if we take to ballooning upward. The +material good reverses its benefits the more nearly we clasp it. All +life is a lesson that we live to enjoy but in the spirit. I will brood +on your saying.' + +'It is your own saying, silly Tony, as the only things worth saying +always, are!' exclaimed Emma, as she smiled happily to see her friend's +mind reviving, though it was faintly and in the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A +SHORT EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX. A mind that after a long season of +oblivion in pain returns to wakefulness without a keen edge for the +world, is much in danger of souring permanently. Diana's love of nature +saved her from the dire mischance during a two months' residence at +Copsley, by stupefying her senses to a state like the barely conscious +breathing on the verge of sleep. February blew South-west for the +pairing of the birds. A broad warm wind rolled clouds of every ambiguity +of form in magnitude over peeping azure, or skimming upon lakes of blue +and lightest green, or piling the amphitheatre for majestic sunset. Or +sometimes those daughters of the wind flew linked and low, semi-purple, +threatening the shower they retained and teaching gloom to rouse a +songful nest in the bosom of the viewer. Sometimes they were April, +variable to soar with rain-skirts and sink with sunshafts. Or they +drenched wood and field for a day and opened on the high South-western +star. Daughters of the wind, but shifty daughters of this wind of +the dropping sun, they have to be watched to be loved in their +transformations. + +Diana had Arthur Rhodes and her faithful Leander for walking companions. +If Arthur said: 'Such a day would be considered melancholy by London +people,' she thanked him in her heart, as a benefactor who had revealed +to her things of the deepest. The simplest were her food. Thus does +Nature restore us, by drugging the brain and making her creature +confidingly animal for its new growth. She imagined herself to have +lost the power to think; certainly she had not the striving or the wish. +Exercise of her limbs to reach a point of prospect, and of her ears and +eyes to note what bird had piped, what flower was out on the banks, and +the leaf of what tree it was that lay beneath the budding, satiated her +daily desires. She gathered unknowingly a sheaf of landscapes, images, +keys of dreamed horizons, that opened a world to her at any chance +breath altering shape or hue: a different world from the one of her old +ambition. Her fall had brought her renovatingly to earth, and the +saving naturalness of the woman recreated her childlike, with shrouded +recollections of her strange taste of life behind her; with a tempered +fresh blood to enjoy aimlessly, and what would erewhile have been a +barrenness to her sensibilities. + +In time the craving was evolved for positive knowledge, and shells +and stones and weeds were deposited on the library-table at Copsley, +botanical and geological books comparingly examined, Emma Dunstane +always eager to assist; for the samples wafted her into the heart of the +woods. Poor Sir Lukin tried three days of their society, and was driven +away headlong to Club-life. He sent down Redworth, with whom the walks +of the zealous inquirers were profitable, though Diana, in acknowledging +it to herself, reserved a decided preference for her foregone ethereal +mood, larger, and untroubled by the presence of a man. The suspicion +Emma had sown was not excited to an alarming activity; but she began to +question: could the best of men be simply--a woman's friend?--was not +long service rather less than a proof of friendship? She could be blind +when her heart was on fire for another. Her passion for her liberty, +however, received no ominous warning to look to the defences. He was the +same blunt speaker, and knotted his brows as queerly as ever at Arthur, +in a transparent calculation of how this fellow meant to gain his +livelihood. She wilfully put it to the credit of Arthur's tact that his +elder was amiable, without denying her debt to the good man for leaving +her illness and her appearance unmentioned. He forbore even to scan her +features. Diana's wan contemplativeness, in which the sparkle of meaning +slowly rose to flash, as we see a bubble rising from the deeps of +crystal waters, caught at his heart while he talked his matter-of-fact. +But her instinct of a present safety was true. She and Arthur +discovered--and it set her first meditating whether she did know the man +so very accurately--that he had printed, for private circulation, when +at Harrow School, a little book, a record of his observations in nature. +Lady Dunstane was the casual betrayer. He shrugged at the nonsense of a +boy's publishing; anybody's publishing he held for a doubtful proof +of sanity. His excuse was, that he had not published opinions. Let +us observe, and assist in our small sphere; not come mouthing to the +footlights! + +'We retire,' Diana said, for herself and Arthur. + +'The wise thing, is to avoid the position that enforces publishing,' +said he, to the discomposure of his raw junior. + +In the fields he was genially helpful; commending them to the study +of the South-west wind, if they wanted to forecast the weather and +understand the climate of our country. 'We have no Seasons, or only +a shuffle of them. Old calendars give seven months of the year to the +Southwest, and that's about the average. Count on it, you may generally +reckon what to expect. When you don't have the excess for a year or two, +you are drenched the year following.' He knew every bird by its flight +and its pipe, habits, tricks, hints of sagacity homely with the original +human; and his remarks on the sensitive life of trees and herbs were +a spell to his thirsty hearers. Something of astronomy he knew; but in +relation to that science, he sank his voice, touchingly to Diana, who +felt drawn to kinship with him when he had a pupil's tone. An allusion +by Arthur to the poetical work of Aratus, led to a memorably pleasant +evening's discourse upon the long reading of the stars by these +our mortal eyes. Altogether the mind of the practical man became +distinguishable to them as that of a plain brother of the poetic. Diana +said of him to Arthur: 'He does not supply me with similes; he points to +the source of them.' Arthur, with envy of the man of positive knowledge, +disguised an unstrung heart in agreeing. + +Redworth alluded passingly to the condition of public affairs. Neither +of them replied. Diana was wondering how one who perused the eternal +of nature should lend a thought to the dusty temporary of the world. +Subsequently she reflected that she was asking him to confine his great +male appetite to the nibble of bread which nourished her immediate sense +of life. Her reflections were thin as mist, coming and going like the +mist, with no direction upon her brain, if they sprang from it. When he +had gone, welcome though Arthur had seen him to be, she rebounded to a +broader and cheerfuller liveliness. Arthur was flattered by an idea of +her casting off incubus--a most worthy gentleman, and a not perfectly +sympathetic associate. Her eyes had their lost light in them, her +step was brisker; she challenged him to former games of conversation, +excursions in blank verse here and there, as the mood dictated. They +amused themselves, and Emma too. She revelled in seeing Tony's younger +face and hearing some of her natural outbursts. That Dacier never could +have been the man for her, would have compressed and subjected her, and +inflicted a further taste of bondage in marriage, she was assured. She +hoped for the day when Tony would know it, and haply that another, whom +she little comprehended, was her rightful mate. + +March continued South-westerly and grew rainier, as Redworth had +foretold, bidding them look for gales and storm, and then the change of +wind. It came, after wettings of a couple scorning the refuge of dainty +townsfolk under umbrellas, and proud of their likeness to dripping +wayside wildflowers. Arthur stayed at Copsley for a week of the crisp +North-easter; and what was it, when he had taken his leave, that brought +Tony home from her solitary walk in dejection? It could not be her +seriously regretting the absence of the youthful companion she had +parted with gaily, appointing a time for another meeting on the heights, +and recommending him to repair idle hours with strenuous work. The fit +passed and was not explained. The winds are sharp with memory. The hard +shrill wind crowed to her senses of an hour on the bleak sands of the +French coast; the beginning of the curtained misery, inscribed as her +happiness. She was next day prepared for her term in London with Emma, +who promised her to make an expedition at the end of it by way of +holiday, to see The Crossways, which Mr. Redworth said was not tenanted. + +'You won't go through it like a captive?' said Emma. + +'I don't like it, dear,' Diana put up a comic mouth. 'The debts we owe +ourselves are the hardest to pay. That is the discovery of advancing +age: and I used to imagine it was quite the other way. But they are the +debts of honour, imperative. I shall go through it grandly, you will +see. If I am stopped at my first recreancy and turned directly the +contrary way, I think I have courage.' + +'You will not fear to meet... any one?' said Emma. + +'The world and all it contains! I am robust, eager for the fray, an +Amazon, a brazen-faced hussy. Fear and I have parted. I shall not do you +discredit. Besides you intend to have me back here with you? And besides +again, I burn to make a last brave appearance. I have not outraged the +world, dear Emmy, whatever certain creatures in it may fancy.' + +She had come out of her dejectedness with a shrewder view of Dacier; +equally painful, for it killed her romance, and changed the garden of +their companionship in imagination to a waste. Her clearing intellect +prompted it, whilst her nature protested, and reviled her to uplift him. +He had loved her. 'I shall die knowing that a man did love me once,' she +said to her widowed heart, and set herself blushing and blanching. But +the thought grew inveterate: 'He could not bear much.' And in her quick +brain it shot up a crop of similitudes for the quality of that man's +love. She shuddered, as at a swift cleaving of cold steel. He had not +given her a chance; he had not replied to her letter written with the +pen dipped in her heart's blood; he must have gone straight away to +the woman he married. This after almost justifying the scandalous +world:--after ... She realized her sensations of that night when +the house-door had closed on him; her feeling of lost sovereignty, +degradation, feminine danger, friendliness: and she was unaware, and +never knew, nor did the world ever know, what cunning had inspired the +frosty Cupid to return to her and be warmed by striking a bargain for +his weighty secret. She knew too well that she was not of the snows +which do not melt, however high her conceit of herself might place her. +Happily she now stood out of the sun, in a bracing temperature, Polar; +and her compassion for women was deeply sisterly in tenderness and +understanding. She spoke of it to Emma as her gain. + +'I have not seen that you required to suffer to be considerate,' Emma +said. + +'It is on my conscience that I neglected Mary Paynham, among others--and +because you did not take to her, Emmy.' + +'The reading of it appears to me, that she has neglected you.' + +'She was not in my confidence, and so I construe it as delicacy. One +never loses by believing the best.' + +'If one is not duped.' + +'Expectations dupe us, not trust. The light of every soul burns upward. +Of course, most of them are candles in the wind. Let us allow for +atmospheric disturbance. Now I thank you, dear, for bringing me back to +life. I see that I was really a selfish suicide, because I feel I have +power to do some good, and belong to the army. When we are beginning to +reflect, as I do now, on a recovered basis of pure health, we have the +world at the dawn and know we are young in it, with great riches, great +things gained and greater to achieve. Personally I behold a queer little +wriggling worm for myself; but as one, of the active world I stand high +and shapely; and the very thought of doing work, is like a draught of +the desert-springs to me. Instead of which, I have once more to go about +presenting my face to vindicate my character. Mr. Redworth would admit +no irony in that! At all events, it is anti-climax.' + +'I forgot to tell you, Tony, you have been proposed for,' said Emma; and +there was a rush of savage colour over Tony's cheeks. + +Her apparent apprehensions were relieved by hearing the name of Mr. +Sullivan Smith. + +'My poor dear countryman! And he thought me worthy, did he? Some day, +when we are past his repeating it, I'll thank him.' + +The fact of her smiling happily at the narration of Sullivan Smith's +absurd proposal by mediatrix, proved to Emma how much her nature +thirsted for the smallest support in her self-esteem. + +The second campaign of London was of bad augury at the commencement, +owing to the ridiculous intervention of a street-organ, that ground its +pipes in a sprawling roar of one of the Puritani marches, just as the +carriage was landing them at the door of her house. The notes were +harsh, dissonant, drunken, interlocked and horribly torn asunder, +intolerable to ears not keen to extract the tune through dreadful +memories. Diana sat startled and paralyzed. The melody crashed a revival +of her days with Dacier, as in gibes; and yet it reached to her heart. +She imagined a Providence that was trying her on the threshold, striking +at her feebleness. She had to lock herself in her room for an hour of +deadly abandonment to misery, resembling the run of poison through +her blood, before she could bear to lift eyes on her friend; to whom +subsequently she said: 'Emmy, there are wounds that cut sharp as the +enchanter's sword, and we don't know we are in halves till some rough +old intimate claps us on the back, merely to ask us how we are! I have +to join myself together again, as well as I can. It's done, dear; but +don't notice the cement.' + +'You will be brave,' Emma petitioned. + +'I long to show you I will.' + +The meeting with those who could guess a portion of her story, did not +disconcert her. To Lady Pennon and Lady Singleby, she was the brilliant +Diana of her nominal luminary issuing from cloud. Face and tongue, she +was the same; and once in the stream, she soon gathered its current +topics and scattered her arrowy phrases. Lady Pennon ran about with +them, declaring that the beautiful speaker, if ever down, was up, and +up to her finest mark. Mrs. Fryar-Gannett had then become the blazing +regnant antisocial star; a distresser of domesticity, the magnetic +attraction in the spirituous flames of that wild snapdragon bowl, +called the Upper class; and she was angelically blonde, a straw-coloured +Beauty. 'A lovely wheat sheaf, if the head were ripe,' Diana said of +her. + +'Threshed, says her fame, my dear,' Lady Pennon replied, otherwise +allusive. + +'A wheatsheaf of contention for the bread of wind,' said Diana, thinking +of foolish Sir Lukin; thoughtless of talking to a gossip. + +She would have shot a lighter dart, had she meant it to fly and fix. + +Proclaim, ye classics, what minor Goddess, or primal, Iris or Ate, sped +straight away on wing to the empty wheatsheaf-ears of the golden-visaged +Amabel Fryar-Gunnett, daughter of Demeter in the field to behold, of +Aphrodite in her rosy incendiarism for the many of men; filling that +pearly concave with a perversion of the uttered speech, such as never +lady could have repeated, nor man, if less than a reaping harvester: +which verily for women to hear, is to stamp a substantial damnatory +verification upon the delivery of the saying:-- + +'Mrs. Warwick says of you, that you're a bundle of straws for everybody +and bread for nobody.' + +Or, stranger speculation, through what, and what number of conduits, +curious, and variously colouring, did it reach the fair Amabel of the +infant-in-cradle smile, in that deformation of the original utterance! +To pursue the thing, would be to enter the subter-sensual perfumed +caverns of a Romance of Fashionable Life, with no hope of coming back to +light, other than by tail of lynx, like the great Arabian seaman, at +the last page of the final chapter. A prospectively popular narrative +indeed! and coin to reward it, and applause. But I am reminded that a +story properly closed on the marriage of the heroine Constance and her +young Minister of State, has no time for conjuring chemists' bouquet +of aristocracy to lure the native taste. When we have satisfied English +sentiment, our task is done, in every branch of art, I hear: and it +will account to posterity for the condition of the branches. Those yet +wakeful eccentrics interested in such a person as Diana, to the extent +of remaining attentive till the curtain falls, demand of me to gather-up +the threads concerning her: which my gardener sweeping his pile of dead +leaves before the storm and night, advises me to do speedily. But it +happens that her resemblance to her sex and species of a civilized +period plants the main threads in her bosom. Rogues and a policeman, or +a hurried change of front of all the actors, are not a part of our slow +machinery. + +Nor is she to show herself to advantage. Only those who read her woman's +blood and character with the head, will care for Diana of the Crossways +now that the knot of her history has been unravelled. Some little love +they must have for her likewise: and how it can be quickened on behalf +of a woman who never sentimentalizes publicly, and has no dolly-dolly +compliance, and muses on actual life, and fatigues with the exercise of +brains, and is in sooth an alien: a princess of her kind and time, but +a foreign one, speaking a language distinct from the mercantile, +trafficking in ideas:--this is the problem. For to be true to her, one +cannot attempt at propitiation. She said worse things of the world +than that which was conveyed to the boxed ears of Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett. +Accepting the war declared against her a second time, she performed +the common mental trick in adversity of setting her personally known +innocence to lessen her generally unknown error--but anticipating that +this might become known, and the other not; and feeling that the motives +of the acknowledged error had served to guard her from being the +culprit of the charge she writhed under, she rushed out of a meditation +compounded of mind and nerves, with derision of the world's notion of +innocence and estimate of error. It was a mood lasting through her stay +in London, and longer, to the discomfort of one among her friends; and +it was worthy of The Anti-climax Expedition, as she called it. + +For the rest, her demeanour to the old monster world exacting the +servility of her, in repayment for its tolerating countenance, was +faultless. Emma beheld the introduction to Mrs. Warwick of his bride, +by Mr. Percy Dacier. She had watched their approach up the Ball-room, +thinking, how differently would Redworth and Tony have looked. +Differently, had it been Tony and Dacier: but Emma could not persuade +herself of a possible harmony between them, save at the cost of Tony's +expiation of the sin of the greater heart in a performance equivalent +to Suttee. Perfectly an English gentleman of the higher order, he seemed +the effigy of a tombstone one, fixed upright, and civilly proud of his +effigy bride. So far, Emma considered them fitted. She perceived his +quick eye on her corner of the room; necessarily, for a man of his +breeding, without a change of expression. An emblem pertaining to her +creed was on the heroine's neck; also dependant at her waist. She was +white from head to foot; a symbol of purity. Her frail smile appeared +deeply studied in purity. Judging from her look and her reputation, +Emma divined that the man was justly mated with a devious filmy +sentimentalist, likely to 'fiddle harmonics on the sensual strings' +for him at a mad rate in the years to come. Such fiddling is indeed the +peculiar diversion of the opulent of a fatly prosperous people; who take +it, one may concede to them, for an inspired elimination of the higher +notes of life: the very highest. That saying of Tony's ripened with full +significance to Emma now. Not sensualism, but sham spiritualism, was the +meaning; and however fine the notes, they come skilfully evoked of the +under-brute in us. Reasoning it so, she thought it a saying for the +penetration of the most polished and deceptive of the later human masks. +She had besides, be it owned, a triumph in conjuring a sentence of her +friend's, like a sword's edge, to meet them; for she was boiling angrily +at the ironical destiny which had given to those Two a beclouding of her +beloved, whom she could have rebuked in turn for her insane caprice of +passion. + +But when her beloved stood-up to greet Mrs. Percy Dacier, all idea save +tremulous admiration of the valiant woman, who had been wounded nigh +to death, passed from Emma's mind. Diana tempered her queenliness to +address the favoured lady with smiles and phrases of gentle warmth, of +goodness of nature; and it became a halo rather than a personal eclipse +that she cast. + +Emma looked at Dacier. He wore the prescribed conventional air, subject +in half a minute to a rapid blinking of the eyelids. His wife could have +been inimically imagined fascinated and dwindling. A spot of colour came +to her cheeks. She likewise began to blink. + +The happy couple bowed, proceeding; and Emma had Dacier's back for a +study. We score on that flat slate of man, unattractive as it is +to hostile observations, and unprotected, the device we choose. Her +harshest, was the positive thought that he had taken the woman best +suited to him. Doubtless, he was a man to prize the altar-candle +above the lamp of day. She fancied the back-view of him shrunken and +straitened: perhaps a mere hostile fancy: though it was conceivable that +he should desire as little of these meetings as possible. Eclipses are +not courted. + +The specially womanly exultation of Emma Dunstane in her friend's +noble attitude, seeing how their sex had been struck to the dust for +a trifling error, easily to be overlooked by a manful lover, and had +asserted its dignity in physical and moral splendour, in self-mastery +and benignness, was unshared by Diana. As soon as the business of the +expedition was over, her orders were issued for the sale of the lease +of her house and all it contained. 'I would sell Danvers too,' she said, +'but the creature declines to be treated as merchandize. It seems I have +a faithful servant; very much like my life, not quite to my taste; the +one thing out of the wreck!--with my dog!' + +Before quitting her house for the return to Copsley, she had to +grant Mr. Alexander Hepburn, post-haste from his Caledonia, a private +interview. She came out of it noticeably shattered. Nothing was related +to Emma, beyond the remark: 'I never knew till this morning the force +of No in earnest.' The weighty little word--woman's native watchdog and +guardian, if she calls it to her aid in earnest--had encountered +and withstood a fiery ancient host, astonished at its novel power of +resistance. + +Emma contented herself with the result. 'Were you much supplicated?' + +'An Operatic Fourth-Act,' said Diana, by no means; feeling so flippantly +as she spoke. + +She received, while under the impression of this man's, honest, if +primitive, ardour of courtship, or effort to capture, a characteristic +letter from Westlake, choicely phrased, containing presumeably an +application for her hand, in the generous offer of his own. Her reply +to a pursuer of that sort was easy. Comedy, after the barbaric attack, +refreshed her wits and reliance on her natural fencing weapons. To +Westlake, the unwritten No was conveyed in a series of kindly ironic +subterfuges, that, played it like an impish flea across the pages, just +giving the bloom of the word; and rich smiles come to Emma's life in +reading the dexterous composition: which, however, proved so thoroughly +to Westlake's taste, that a second and a third exercise in the comedy of +the negative had to be despatched to him from Copsley. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND +A THRICE WHIMSICAL. On their way from London, after leaving the station, +the drive through the valley led them past a field, where cricketers +were at work bowling and batting under a vertical sun: not a very +comprehensible sight to ladies, whose practical tendencies, as +observers of the other sex, incline them to question the gain of such an +expenditure of energy. The dispersal of the alphabet over a printed +page is not less perplexing to the illiterate. As soon as Emma Dunstane +discovered the Copsley head-gamekeeper at one wicket, and, actually, +Thomas Redworth facing him, bat in hand, she sat up, greatly interested. +Sir Lukin stopped the carriage at the gate, and reminded his wife that +it was the day of the year for the men of his estate to encounter a +valley Eleven. Redworth, like the good fellow he was, had come down by +appointment in the morning out of London, to fill the number required, +Copsley being weak this year. Eight of their wickets had fallen for a +lament able figure of twenty-nine runs; himself clean-bowled the first +ball. But Tom Redworth had got fast hold of his wicket, and already +scored fifty to his bat. 'There! grand hit!' Sir Lukin cried, the ball +flying hard at the rails. 'Once a cricketer, always a cricketer, +if you've legs to fetch the runs. And Pullen's not doing badly. His +business is to stick. We shall mark them a hundred yet. I do hate a +score on our side without the two 00's.' He accounted for Redworth's +mixed colours by telling the ladies he had lent him his flannel jacket; +which, against black trousers, looked odd but not ill. + +Gradually the enthusiasm of the booth and bystanders converted the +flying of a leather ball into a subject of honourable excitement. + +'And why are you doing nothing?' Sir Lukin was asked; and he explained: + +'My stumps are down: I'm married.' He took his wife's hand prettily. + +Diana had a malicious prompting. She smothered the wasp, and said: 'Oh! +look at that!' + +'Grand hit again! Oh! good! good!' cried Sir Lukin, clapping to it, +while the long-hit-off ran spinning his legs into one for an impossible +catch; and the batsmen were running and stretching bats, and the ball +flying away, flying back, and others after it, and still the batsmen +running, till it seemed that the ball had escaped control and was +leading the fielders on a coltish innings of its own, defiant of +bowlers. + +Diana said merrily: 'Bravo our side!' + +'Bravo, old Tom Redworth'; rejoined Sir Lukin. 'Four, and a three! +And capital weather, haven't we: Hope we shall have same sort day +next month--return match, my ground. I've seen Tom Redworth score--old +days--over two hundred t' his bat. And he used to bowl too. But bowling +wants practice. And, Emmy, look at the old fellows lining the booth, +pipe in mouth and cheering. They do enjoy a day like this. We'll have a +supper for fifty at Copsley's:--it's fun. By Jove! we must have reached +up to near the hundred.' + +He commissioned a neighbouring boy to hie to the booth for the latest +figures, and his emissary taught lightning a lesson. + +Diana praised the little fellow. + +'Yes, he's a real English boy,' said Emma. + +'We 've thousands of 'em, thousands, ready to your hand,' exclaimed Sir +Lukin, 'and a confounded Radicalized country...' he murmured gloomily of +'lets us be kicked!... any amount of insult, meek as gruel!... making +of the finest army the world has ever seen! You saw the papers this +morning? Good heaven! how a nation with an atom of self-respect can go +on standing that sort of bullying from foreigners! We do. We're insulted +and we're threatened, and we call for a hymn!--Now then, my man, what is +it?' + +The boy had flown back. 'Ninety-two marked, sir; ninety-nine runs; one +more for the hundred.' + +'Well reckoned; and mind you're up at Copsley for the return match.--And +Tom Redworth says, they may bite their thumbs to the bone--they don't +hurt us. I tell him, he has no sense of national pride. He says, we're +not prepared for war: We never are! And whose the fault? Says, we're a +peaceful people, but 'ware who touches us! He doesn't feel a kick.--Oh! +clever snick! Hurrah for the hundred!--Two-three. No, don't force the +running, you fools!--though they 're wild with the ball: ha!--no?--all +right!' The wicket stood. Hurrah! + +The heat of the noonday sun compelled the ladies to drive on. + +'Enthusiasm has the privilege of not knowing monotony,' said Emma. 'He +looks well in flannels.' + +'Yes, he does,' Diana replied, aware of the reddening despite her having +spoken so simply. 'I think the chief advantage men have over us is in +their amusements.' + +'Their recreations.' + +'That is the better word.' Diana fanned her cheeks and said she was +warm. 'I mean, the permanent advantage. For you see that age does not +affect them.' + +'Tom Redworth is not a patriarch, my dear.' + +'Well, he is what would be called mature.' + +'He can't be more than thirty-two or three; and that, for a man of his +constitution, means youth.' + +'Well, I can imagine him a patriarch playing cricket.' + +'I should imagine you imagine the possible chances. He is the father who +would play with his boys.' + +'And lock up his girls in the nursery.' Diana murmured of the +extraordinary heat. + +Emma begged her to remember her heterodox views of the education for +girls. + +'He bats admirably,' said Diana. 'I wish I could bat half as well.' + +'Your batting is with the tongue.' + +'Not so good. And a solid bat, or bludgeon, to defend the poor stumps, +is surer. But there is the difference of cricket:--when your stumps are +down, you are idle, at leisure; not a miserable prisoner.' + +'Supposing all marriages miserable.' + +'To the mind of me,' said Diana, and observed Emma's rather saddened +eyelids for a proof that schemes to rob her of dear liberty were +certainly planned. + +They conversed of expeditions to Redworth's Berkshire mansion, and to +The Crossways, untenanted at the moment, as he had informed Emma, who +fancied it would please Tony to pass a night in the house she loved; but +as he was to be of the party she coldly acquiesced. + +The woman of flesh refuses pliancy when we want it of her, and will +not, until it is her good pleasure, be bent to the development called +a climax, as the puppet-woman, mother of Fiction and darling of the +multitude! ever amiably does, at a hint of the Nuptial Chapter. Diana in +addition sustained the weight of brains. Neither with waxen optics nor +with subservient jointings did she go through her pathways of the world. +Her direct individuality rejected the performance of simpleton, and her +lively blood, the warmer for its containment quickened her to penetrate +things and natures; and if as yet, in justness to the loyal male friend, +she forbore to name him conspirator, she read both him and Emma, whose +inner bosom was revealed to her, without an effort to see. But her +characteristic chasteness of mind, not coldness of the 'blood,--which +had supported an arduous conflict, past all existing rights closely to +depict, and which barbed her to pierce to the wishes threatening her +freedom, deceived her now to think her flaming blushes came of her +relentless divination on behalf of her recovered treasure: whereby the +clear reading of others distracted the view of herself. For one may be +the cleverest alive, and still hoodwinked while blood is young and warm. + +The perpetuity of the contrast presented to her reflections, of +Redworth's healthy, open, practical, cheering life, and her own +freakishly interwinding, darkly penetrative, simulacrum of a life, +cheerless as well as useless, forced her humiliated consciousness by +degrees, in spite of pride, to the knowledge that she was engaged in +a struggle with him; and that he was the stronger;--it might be, the +worthier: she thought him the handsomer. He throve to the light of +day, and she spun a silly web that meshed her in her intricacies. Her +intuition of Emma's wishes led to this; he was constantly before +her. She tried to laugh at the image of the concrete cricketer, +half-flannelled, and red of face: the 'lucky calculator,' as she named +him to Emma, who shook her head, and sighed. The abstract, healthful and +powerful man, able to play besides profitably working, defied those poor +efforts. Consequently, at once she sent up a bubble to the skies, where +it became a spheral realm, of far too fine an atmosphere for men to +breathe in it; and thither she transported herself at will, whenever +the contrast, with its accompanying menace of a tyrannic subjugation, +overshadowed her. In the above, the kingdom composed of her shattered +romance of life and her present aspirings, she was free and safe. +Nothing touched her there--nothing that Redworth did. She could not have +admitted there her ideal of a hero. It was the sublimation of a virgin's +conception of life, better fortified against the enemy. She peopled it +with souls of the great and pure, gave it illimitable horizons, dreamy +nooks, ravishing landscapes, melodies of the poets of music. Higher and +more-celestial than the Salvatore, it was likewise, now she could assure +herself serenely, independent of the horrid blood-emotions. Living up +there, she had not a feeling. + +The natural result of this habit of ascending to a superlunary home, +was the loss of an exact sense of how she was behaving below. At the +Berkshire mansion, she wore a supercilious air, almost as icy as she +accused the place of being. Emma knew she must have seen in the library +a row of her literary ventures, exquisitely bound; but there was no +allusion to the books. Mary Paynham's portrait of Mrs. Warwick hung +staring over the fireplace, and was criticized, as though its occupancy +of that position had no significance. + +'He thinks she has a streak of genius,' Diana said to Emma. + +'It may be shown in time,' Emma replied, for a comment on the work. 'He +should know, for the Spanish pictures are noble acquisitions.' + +'They are, doubtless, good investments.' + +He had been foolish enough to say, in Diana's hearing, that he +considered the purchase of the Berkshire estate a good investment. It +had not yet a name. She suggested various titles for Emma to propose: +'The Funds'; or 'Capital Towers'; or 'Dividend Manor'; or 'Railholm'; +blind to the evidence of inflicting pain. Emma, from what she had guess +concerning the purchaser of The Crossways, apprehended a discovery +there which might make Tony's treatment of him unkinder, seeing that she +appeared actuated contrariously; and only her invalid's new happiness +in the small excursions she was capable of taking to a definite spot, of +some homely attractiveness, moved her to follow her own proposal for +the journey. Diana pleaded urgently, childishly in tone, to have Arthur +Rhodes with them, 'so as to be sure of a sympathetic companion for a +walk on the Downs.' At The Crossways, they were soon aware that Mr. +Redworth's domestics were in attendance to serve them. Manifestly the +house was his property, and not much of an investment! The principal +bed-room, her father's once, and her own, devoted now to Emma's use, +appalled her with a resemblance to her London room. She had noticed some +of her furniture at 'Dividend Manor,' and chosen to consider it in the +light of a bargain from a purchase at the sale of her goods. Here was +her bed, her writing-table, her chair of authorship, desks, books, +ornaments, water-colour sketches. And the drawing-room was fitted with +her brackets and etageres, holding every knickknack she had possessed +and scattered, small bronzes, antiques, ivory junks, quaint ivory +figures Chinese and Japanese, bits of porcelain, silver incense-urns, +dozens of dainty sundries. She had a shamed curiosity to spy for an +omission of one of them; all were there. The Crossways had been turned +into a trap. + +Her reply to this blunt wooing, conspired, she felt justifled in +thinking, between him and Emma, was emphatic in muteness. She treated it +as if unobserved. At night, in bed, the scene of his mission from Emma +to her under this roof, barred her customary ascent to her planetary +kingdom. Next day she took Arthur after breakfast for a walk on the +Downs and remained absent till ten minutes before the hour of dinner. +As to that young gentleman, he was near to being caressed in public. +Arthur's opinions, his good sayings, were quoted; his excellent +companionship on really poetical walks, and perfect sympathy, praised to +his face. Challenged by her initiative to a kind of language that threw +Redworth out, he declaimed: 'We pace with some who make young morning +stale.' + +'Oh! stale as peel of fruit long since consumed,' she chimed. + +And go they proceeded; and they laughed, Emma smiled a little, Redworth +did the same beneath one of his questioning frowns--a sort of fatherly +grimace. + +A suspicion that this man, when infatuated, was able to practise the +absurdest benevolence, the burlesque of chivalry, as a man-admiring sex +esteems it, stirred very naughty depths of the woman in Diana, labouring +under her perverted mood. She put him to proof, for the chance of arming +her wickedest to despise him. Arthur was petted, consulted, cited, +flattered all round; all but caressed. She played, with a reserve, the +maturish young woman smitten by an adorable youth; and enjoyed doing it +because she hoped for a visible effect--more paternal benevolence--and +could do it so dispassionately. Coquettry, Emma thought, was most +unworthily shown; and it was of the worst description. Innocent of +conspiracy, she had seen the array of Tony's lost household treasures +she wondered at a heartlessness that would not even utter common thanks +to the friendly man for the compliment of prizing her portrait and the +things she had owned; and there seemed an effort to wound him. + +The invalided woman, charitable with allowances for her erratic husband, +could offer none for the woman of a long widowhood, that had become +a trebly sensitive maidenhood; abashed by her knowledge of the world, +animated by her abounding blood; cherishing her new freedom, dreading +the menacer; feeling that though she held the citadel, she was daily +less sure of its foundations, and that her hope of some last romance in +life was going; for in him shone not a glimpse. He appeared to Diana as +a fatal power, attracting her without sympathy, benevolently overcoming: +one of those good men, strong men, who subdue and do not kindle. The +enthralment revolted a nature capable of accepting subjection only by +burning. In return for his moral excellence, she gave him the moral +sentiments: esteem, gratitude, abstract admiration, perfect faith. But +the man? She could not now say she had never been loved; and a flood +of tenderness rose in her bosom, swelling from springs that she had +previously reproved with a desperate severity: the unhappy, unsatisfied +yearning to be more than loved, to love. It was alive, out of the wreck +of its first trial. This, the secret of her natural frailty, was bitter +to her pride: chastely-minded as she was, it whelmed her. And then her +comic imagination pictured Redworth dramatically making love. And to a +widow! It proved him to be senseless of romance. Poetic men take aim +at maidens. His devotedness to a widow was charged against him by the +widow's shudder at antecedents distasteful to her soul, a discolouration +of her life. She wished to look entirely forward, as upon a world washed +clear of night, not to be cast back on her antecedents by practical +wooings or words of love; to live spiritually; free of the shower at her +eyelids attendant on any idea of her loving. The woman who talked of +the sentimentalist's 'fiddling harmonics,' herself stressed the material +chords, in her attempt to escape out of herself and away from her +pursuer. + +Meanwhile she was as little conscious of what she was doing as of +how she appeared. Arthur went about with the moony air of surcharged +sweetness, and a speculation on it, alternately tiptoe and prostrate. +More of her intoxicating wine was administered to him, in utter +thoughtlessness of consequences to one who was but a boy and a friend, +almost of her own rearing. She told Emma, when leaving The Crossways, +that she had no desire to look on the place again: she wondered at Mr. +Redworth's liking such a solitude. In truth, the look back on it let her +perceive that her husband haunted it, and disfigured the man, of real +generosity, as her heart confessed, but whom she accused of a lack of +prescient delicacy, for not knowing she would and must be haunted +there. Blaming him, her fountain of colour shot up, at a murmur of her +unjustness and the poor man's hopes. + +A week later, the youth she publicly named 'her Arthur' came down to +Copsley with news of his having been recommended by Mr. Redworth for the +post of secretary to an old Whig nobleman famous for his patronage of +men of letters. And besides, he expected to inherit, he said, and gazed +in a way to sharpen her instincts. The wine he had drunk of late from +her flowing vintage was in his eyes. They were on their usual rambles +out along the heights. 'Accept, by all means, and thank Mr. Redworth,' +said she, speeding her tongue to intercept him. 'Literature is a good +stick and a bad horse. Indeed, I ought to know. You can always write; I +hope you will.' + +She stepped fast, hearing: 'Mrs. Warwick--Diana! May I take your hand?' + +This was her pretty piece of work! 'Why should you? If you speak my +Christian name, no: you forfeit any pretext. And pray, don't loiter. +We are going at the pace of the firm of Potter and Dawdle, and you +know they never got their shutters down till it was time to put them up +again.' + +Nimble-footed as she was, she pressed ahead too fleetly for amorous +eloquence to have a chance. She heard 'Diana!' twice, through the +rattling of her discourse and flapping of her dress. + +'Christian names are coin that seem to have an indifferent valuation of +the property they claim,' she said in the Copsley garden; 'and as for +hands, at meeting and parting, here is the friendliest you could have. +Only don't look rueful. My dear Arthur, spare me that, or I shall blame +myself horribly.' + +His chance had gone, and he composed his face. No hope in speaking had +nerved him; merely the passion to speak. Diana understood the state, +and pitied the naturally modest young fellow, and chafed at herself as +a senseless incendiary, who did mischief right and left, from seeking +to shun the apparently inevitable. A sidethought intruded, that he would +have done his wooing poetically--not in the burly storm, or bull-Saxon, +she apprehended. Supposing it imperative with her to choose? She looked +up, and the bird of broader wing darkened the whole sky, bidding her +know that she had no choice. + +Emma was requested to make Mr. Redworth acquainted with her story, +all of it:--'So that this exalted friendship of his may be shaken to a +common level. He has an unbearably high estimate of me, and it hurts me. +Tell him all; and more than even you have known:--but for his coming to +me, on the eve of your passing under the surgeon's hands, I should have +gone--flung the world my glove! A matter of minutes. Ten minutes later! +The train was to start for France at eight, and I was awaited. I have +to thank heaven that the man was one of those who can strike icily. Tell +Mr. Redworth what I say. You two converse upon every subject. One may +be too loftily respected--in my case. By and by--for he is a tolerant +reader of life and women, I think--we shall be humdrum friends of the +lasting order.' + +Emma's cheeks were as red as Diana's. 'I fancy Tom Redworth has not much +to learn concerning any person he cares for,' she said. 'You like him? I +have lost touch of you, my dear, and ask.' + +'I like him: that I can say. He is everything I am not. But now I am +free, the sense of being undeservedly over-esteemed imposes fetters, and +I don't like them. I have been called a Beauty. Rightly or other, I have +had a Beauty's career; and a curious caged beast's life I have found +it. Will you promise me to speak to him? And also, thank him for helping +Arthur Rhodes to a situation.' + +At this, the tears fell from her. And so enigmatical had she grown to +Emma, that her bosom friend took them for a confessed attachment to the +youth. + +Diana's wretched emotion shamed her from putting any inquiries whether +Redworth had been told. He came repeatedly, and showed no change of +face, always continuing in the form of huge hovering griffin; until an +idea, instead of the monster bird, struck her. Might she not, after +all, be cowering under imagination? The very maidenly idea wakened +her womanliness--to reproach her remainder of pride, not to see more +accurately. It was the reason why she resolved, against Emma's extreme +entreaties, to take lodgings in the South valley below the heights, +where she could be independent of fancies and perpetual visitors, +but near her beloved at any summons of urgency; which Emma would not +habitually send because of the coming of a particular gentleman. Dresses +were left at Copsley for dining and sleeping there upon occasion, and +poor Danvers, despairing over the riddle of her mistress, was condemned +to the melancholy descent. + +'It's my belief,' she confided to Lady Dunstane's maid Bartlett, 'she'll +hate men all her life after that Mr. Dacier.' + +If women were deceived, and the riddle deceived herself, there is excuse +for a plain man like Redworth in not having the slightest clue to the +daily shifting feminine maze he beheld. The strange thing was, that +during her maiden time she had never been shifty or flighty, invariably +limpid and direct. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA + +An afternoon of high summer blazed over London through the City's +awning of smoke, and the three classes of the population, relaxed by +the weariful engagement with what to them was a fruitless heat, were +severally bathing their ideas in dreams of the contrast possible to +embrace: breezy seas or moors, aerial Alps, cool beer. The latter, if +confessedly the lower comfort, is the readier at command; and Thomas +Redworth, whose perspiring frame was directing his inward vision to +fly for solace to a trim new yacht, built on his lines, beckoning from +Southampton Water, had some of the amusement proper to things plucked +off the levels, in the conversation of a couple of journeymen close +ahead of him, as he made his way from a quiet street of brokers' offices +to a City Bank. One asked the other if he had ever tried any of that +cold stuff they were now selling out of barrows, with cream. His +companion answered, that he had not got much opinion of stuff of the +sort; and what was it like? + +'Well, it's cheap, it ain't bad; it's cooling. But it ain't refreshing.' + +'Just what I reckoned all that newfangle rubbish.' + +Without a consultation, the conservatives in beverage filed with a smart +turn about, worthy of veterans at parade on the drill-ground, into a +public-house; and a dialogue chiefly remarkable for absence of point, +furnished matter to the politician's head of the hearer. Provided that +their beer was unadulterated! Beer they would have; and why not, in +weather like this? But how to make the publican honest! And he was +not the only trickster preying on the multitudinous poor copper crowd, +rightly to be protected by the silver and the golden. Revelations of the +arts practised to plump them with raw-earth and minerals in the guise of +nourishment, had recently knocked at the door of the general conscience +and obtained a civil reply from the footman. Repulsive as the thought +was to one still holding to Whiggish Liberalism, though flying various +Radical kites, he was caught by the decisive ultratorrent, and whirled +to amid the necessity for the interference of the State, to stop +the poisoning of the poor. Upper classes have never legislated +systematically in their interests; and quid... rabidae tradis ovile +lupae? says one of the multitude. We may be seeing fangs of wolves where +fleeces waxed. The State that makes it a vital principle to concern +itself with the helpless poor, meets instead of waiting for Democracy; +which is a perilous flood but when it is dammed. Or else, in course +of time, luxurious yachting, my friend, will encounter other reefs and +breakers than briny ocean's! Capital, whereat Diana Warwick aimed her +superbest sneer, has its instant duties. She theorized on the side of +poverty, and might do so: he had no right to be theorizing on the side +of riches. Across St. George's Channel, the cry for humanity in Capital +was an agony. He ought to be there, doing, not cogitating. The post of +Irish Secretary must be won by real service founded on absolute local +knowledge. Yes, and sympathy, if you like; but sympathy is for proving, +not prating.... + +These were the meditations of a man in love; veins, arteries, headpiece +in love, and constantly brooding at a solitary height over the beautiful +coveted object; only too bewildered by her multifarious evanescent +feminine evasions, as of colours on a ruffle water, to think of pouncing +for he could do nothing to soften, nothing that seemed to please her: +and all the while, the motive of her mind impelled him in reflection +beyond practicable limits: even pointing him to apt quotations! Either +he thought within her thoughts, or his own were at her disposal. Nor was +it sufficient for him to be sensible of her influence, to restrain the +impetus he took from her. He had already wedded her morally, and much +that he did, as well as whatever he debated, came of Diana; more than +if they had been coupled, when his downright practical good sense could +have spoken. She held him suspended, swaying him in that posture; and he +was not a whit ashamed of it. The beloved woman was throned on the very +highest of the man. + +Furthermore, not being encouraged, he had his peculiar reason for +delay, though now he could offer her wealth. She had once in his hearing +derided the unpleasant hiss of the ungainly English matron's title of +Mrs. There was no harm in the accustomed title, to his taste; but she +disliking it, he did the same, on her special behalf; and the prospect, +funereally draped, of a title sweeter-sounding to her ears, was +above his horizon. Bear in mind, that he underwent the reverse of +encouragement. Any small thing to please her was magnified, and the +anticipation of it nerved the modest hopes of one who deemed himself and +any man alive deeply her inferior. + +Such was the mood of the lover condemned to hear another malignant +scandal defiling the name of the woman he worshipped. Sir Lukin +Dunstane, extremely hurried, bumped him on the lower step of the busy +Bank, and said: + +'Pardon!' and 'Ha! Redwarth! making money?' + +'Why, what are you up to down here?' he was asked, and he answered: +'Down to the Tower, to an officer quartered there. Not bad quarters, but +an infernal distance. Business.' + +Having cloaked his expedition to the distance with the comprehensive +word, he repeated it; by which he feared he had rendered it too +significant, and he said: 'No, no; nothing particular'; and that caused +the secret he contained to swell in his breast rebelliously, informing +the candid creature of the fact of his hating to lie: whereupon thus +he poured himself out, in the quieter bustle of an alley, off the main +thoroughfare. 'You're a friend of hers. I 'm sure you care for her +reputation; you 're an old friend of hers, and she's my wife's dearest +friend; and I'm fond of her too; and I ought to be, and ought to +know, and do know:--pure? Strike off my fist if there's a spot on her +character! And a scoundrel like that fellow Wroxeter! Damnedest rage +I ever was in!--Swears... down at Lockton... when she was a girl. Why, +Redworth, I can tell you, when Diana Warwick was a girl!' + +Redworth stopped him. 'Did he say it in your presence?' + +Sir Lukin was drawn-up by the harsh question. 'Well, no; not exactly.' +He tried to hesitate, but he was in the hot vein of a confidence and +he wanted advice. 'The cur said it to a woman--hang the woman! And she +hates Diana Warwick: I can't tell why--a regular snake's hate. By Jove! +how women carp hate!' + +'Who is the woman?' said Redworth. + +Sir Lukin complained of the mob at his elbows. 'I don't like mentioning +names here.' + +A convenient open door of offices invited him to drag his receptacle, +and possible counsellor, into the passage, where immediately he +bethought him of a postponement of the distinct communication; but the +vein was too hot. 'I say, Redworth, I wish you'd dine with me. Let's +drive up to my Club.--Very well, two words. And I warn you, I shall +call him out, and make it appear it 's about another woman, who'll like +nothing so much, if I know the Jezebel. Some women are hussies, let 'em +be handsome as houris. And she's a fire-ship; by heaven, she is! Come, +you're a friend of my wife's, but you're a man of the world and my +friend, and you know how fellows are tempted, Tom Redworth.--Cur though +he is, he's likely to step out and receive a lesson.--Well, he's the +favoured cavalier for the present... h'm... Fryar-Gannett. Swears he +told her, circumstantially; and it was down at Lockton, when Diana +Warwick was a girl. Swears she'll spit her venom at her, so that Diana +Warwick shan't hold her head up in London Society, what with that cur +Wroxeter, Old Dannisburgh, and Dacier. And it does count a list, doesn't +it? confound the handsome hag! She's jealous of a dark rival. I've been +down to Colonel Hartswood at the Tower, and he thinks Wroxeter deserves +horsewhipping, and we may manage it. I know you 're dead against +duelling; and so am I, on my honour. But you see there are cases where +a lady must be protected; and anything new, left to circulate against a +lady who has been talked of twice--Oh, by Jove! it must be stopped. If +she has a male friend on earth, it must be stopped on the spot.' + +Redworth eyed Sir Lukin curiously through his wrath. + +'We'll drive up to your Club,' he said. + +'Hartswood dines with me this evening, to confer,' rejoined Sir Lukin. +'Will you meet him?' + +'I can't,' said Redworth, 'I have to see a lady, whose affairs I have +been attending to in the City; and I 'm engaged for the evening. You +perceive, my good fellow,' he resumed, as they rolled along, 'this is a +delicate business. You have to consider your wife. Mrs. Warwick's, name +won't come up, but another woman's will.' + +'I meet Wroxeter at a gambling-house he frequents, and publicly call him +cheat--slap his face, if need be.' + +'Sure to!' repeated Redworth. 'No stupid pretext will quash the woman's +name. Now, such a thing as a duel would give pain enough.' + +'Of course; I understand,' Sir Lukin nodded his clear comprehension. +'But what is it you advise, to trounce the scoundrel, and silence him?' + +'Leave it to me for a day. Let me have your word that you won't take +a step: positively--neither you nor Colonel Hartswood. I'll see you by +appointment at your Club.' Redworth looked up over the chimneys. 'We 're +going to have a storm and a gale, I can tell you.' + +'Gale and storm!' cried Sir Lukin; 'what has that got to do with it?' + +'Think of something else for, a time.' + +'And that brute of a woman--deuced handsome she is!--if you care for +fair women, Redworth:--she's a Venus, jumped slap out of the waves, +and the Devil for sire--that you learn: running about, sowing her lies. +She's a yellow witch. Oh! but she's a shameless minx. And a black-leg +cur like Wroxeter! Any woman intimate with a fellow like that, stamps +herself. I loathe her. Sort of woman who swears in the morning you're +the only man on earth; and next day--that evening-engaged!--fee to +Polly Hopkins--and it's a gentleman, a nobleman, my lord!--been going on +behind your back half the season!--and she isn't hissed when she +abuses a lady, a saint in comparison! You know the world, old +fellow:--Brighton, Richmond, visits to a friend as deep in the bog. +How Fryar-Gunnett--a man, after all--can stand it! And drives of an +afternoon for an airing-by heaven! You're out of that mess, Redworth: +not much taste for the sex; and you're right, you're lucky. Upon my +word, the corruption of society in the present day is awful; it's +appalling.--I rattled at her: and oh! dear me, perks on her hind heels +and defies me to prove: and she's no pretender, but hopes she's as good +as any of my "chaste Dianas." My dear old friend, it's when you come +upon women of that kind you have a sickener. And I'm bound by the best +there is in a man-honour, gratitude, all the' list--to defend Diana +Warwick.' + +'So, you see, for your wife's sake, your name can't be hung on a woman +of that kind,' said Redworth. 'I'll call here the day after to-morrow at +three P.M.' + +Sir Lukin descended and vainly pressed Redworth to run up into his Club +for refreshment. Said he roguishly: + +'Who 's the lady?' + +The tone threw Redworth on his frankness. + +'The lady I 've been doing business for in the City, is Miss Paynham.' + +'I saw her once at Copsley; good-looking. Cleverish?' + +'She has ability.' + +Entering his Club, Sir Lukin was accosted in the reading-room by a +cavalry officer, a Colonel Launay, an old Harrovian, who stood at +the window and asked him whether it was not Tom Redworth in the cab. +Another, of the same School, standing squared before a sheet of one of +the evening newspapers, heard the name and joined them, saying: 'Tom +Redworth is going to be married, some fellow told me.' + +'He'll make a deuced good husband to any woman--if it's true,' said Sir +Lukin, with Miss Paynham ringing in his head. 'He's a cold-blooded old +boy, and likes women for their intellects.' + +Colonel Launay hummed in meditative emphasis. He stared at vacancy with +a tranced eye, and turning a similar gaze on Sir Lukin, as if through +him, burst out: 'Oh, by George, I say, what a hugging that woman 'll +get!' + +The cocking of ears and queries of Sir Lukin put him to the test of +his right to the remark; for it sounded of occult acquaintance with +interesting subterranean facts; and there was a communication, in brief +syllables and the dot language, crudely masculine. Immensely surprised, +Sir Lukin exclaimed: 'Of course! when fellows live quietly and are +careful of themselves. Ah! you may think you know a man for years, +and you don't: you don't know more than an inch or two of him. Why, of +course, Tom Redworth would be uxorious--the very man! And tell us what +has become of the Firefly now? One never sees her. Didn't complain?' + +'Very much the contrary.' + +Both gentlemen were grave, believing their knowledge in the subterranean +world of a wealthy city to give them a positive cognizance of female +humanity; and the substance of Colonel Launay's communication had its +impressiveness for them. + +'Well, it's a turn right-about-face for me,' said Sir Lukin. 'What a +world we live in! I fancy I've hit on the woman he means to marry;--had +an idea of another woman once; but he's one of your friendly fellows +with women. That's how it was I took him for a fish. Great mistake, I +admit. But Tom Redworth 's a man of morals after all; and when those men +do break loose for a plunge--ha! Have you ever boxed with him? Well, he +keeps himself in training, I can tell you.' + +Sir Lukin's round of visits drew him at night to Lady Singleby's, where +he sighted the identical young lady of his thoughts, Miss Paynham, +temporarily a guest of the house; and he talked to her of Redworth, +and had the satisfaction to spy a blush, a rageing blush: which avowal +presented her to his view as an exceedingly good-looking girl; so that +he began mentally to praise Redworth for a manly superiority to small +trifles and the world's tattle. + +'You saw him to-day,' he said. + +She answered: 'Yes. He goes down to Copsley tomorrow.' + +'I think not,' said Sir Lukin.' + +'I have it from him.' She closed her eyelids in speaking. + +'He and I have some rather serious business in town.' + +'Serious?' + +'Don't be alarmed: not concerning him.' + +'Whom, then? You have told me so much--I have a right to know.' + +'Not an atom of danger, I assure you?' + +'It concerns Mrs. Warwick!' said she. + +Sir Lukin thought the guess extraordinary. He preserved an impenetrable +air. But he had spoken enough to set that giddy head spinning. + +Nowhere during the night was Mrs. Fryar-Gannett visible. Earlier +than usual, she was riding next day in the Row, alone for perhaps two +minutes, and Sir Lukin passed her, formally saluting. He could not help +the look behind him, she sat so bewitchingly on horseback! He looked, +and behold, her riding-whip was raised erect from the elbow. It was his +horse that wheeled; compulsorily he was borne at a short canter to her +side. + +'Your commands?' + +The handsome Amabel threw him a sombre glance from the corners of her +uplifted eyelids; and snakish he felt it; but her colour and the line +of her face went well with sullenness; and, her arts of fascination +cast aside, she fascinated him more in seeming homelier, girlish. If the +trial of her beauty of a woman in a temper can bear the strain, she has +attractive lures indeed; irresistible to the amorous idler: and when, +in addition, being the guilty person, she plays the injured, her show +of temper on the taking face pitches him into perplexity with his own +emotions, creating a desire to strike and be stricken, howl and set +howling, which is of the happiest augury for tender reconcilement, on +the terms of the gentleman on his kneecap. + +'You've been doing a pretty thing!' she said, and briefly she named +her house and half an hour, and flew. Sir Lukin was left to admire the +figure of the horsewoman. Really, her figure had an air of vindicating +her successfully, except for the poison she spat at Diana Warwick. And +what pretty thing had he been doing? He reviewed dozens of speculations +until the impossibility of seizing one determined him to go to Mrs. +Fryar-Gunnett at the end of the half-hour--'Just to see what these women +have to say for themselves.' + +Some big advance drops of Redworth's thunderstorm drawing gloomily +overhead, warned him to be quick and get his horse into stables. +Dismounted, the sensational man was irresolute, suspecting a female +trap. But curiosity, combined with the instinctive turning of his +nose in the direction of the lady's house, led him thither, to an +accompaniment of celestial growls, which impressed him, judging by that +naughty-girl face of hers and the woman's tongue she had, as a likely +prelude to the scene to come below. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. THE PENULTIMATE: SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND +RUN INTO HARNESS + +The prophet of the storm had forgotten his prediction; which, however, +was of small concern to him, apart from the ducking he received midway +between the valley and the heights of Copsley; whither he was bound, on +a mission so serious that, according to his custom in such instances, he +chose to take counsel of his active legs: an adviseable course when the +brain wants clearing and the heart fortifying. Diana's face was clearly +before him through the deluge; now in ogle features, the dimple running +from her mouth, the dark bright eyes and cut of eyelids, and nostrils +alive under their lightning; now inkier whole radiant smile, or +musefully listening, nursing a thought. Or she was obscured, and he +felt the face. The individuality of it had him by the heart, beyond his +powers of visioning. On his arrival, he stood in the hall, adrip like +one of the trees of the lawn, laughing at Lady Dunstane's anxious +exclamations. His portmanteau had come and he was expected; she hurried +out at the first ringing of the bell, to greet and reproach him for +walking in such weather. + +'Diana has left me,' she said, when he reappeared in dry clothing. 'We +are neighbours; she has taken cottage-lodgings at Selshall, about +an hour's walk:--one of her wild dreams of independence. Are you +disappointed?' + +'I am,' Redworth confessed. + +Emma coloured. 'She requires an immense deal of humouring at present. +The fit will wear off; only we must wait for it. Any menace to her +precious liberty makes her prickly. She is passing the day with the +Pettigrews, who have taken a place near her village for a month. She +promised to dine and sleep here, if she returned in time. What is your +news?' + +'Nothing; the world wags on.' + +'You have nothing special to tell her?' + +'Nothing'; he hummed; 'nothing, I fancy, that she does not know.' + +'You said you were disappointed.' + +'It's always a pleasure to see her.' + +'Even in her worst moods, I find it so.' + +'Oh! moods!' quoth Redworth. + +'My friend, they are to be reckoned, with women.' + +'Certainly; what I meant was, that I don't count them against women.' + +'Good: but my meaning was... I think I remember your once comparing +them and the weather; and you spoke of the "one point more variable +in women." You may forestall your storms. There is no calculating the +effect of a few little words at a wrong season.' + +'With women! I suppose not. I have no pretension to a knowledge of the +sex.' + +Emma imagined she had spoken plainly enough, if he had immediate +designs; and she was not sure of that, and wished rather to shun his +confidences while Tony was in her young widowhood, revelling in her joy +of liberty. By and by, was her thought: perhaps next year. She dreaded +Tony's refusal of the yoke, and her iron-hardness to the dearest of men +proposing it; and moreover, her further to be apprehended holding to the +refusal, for the sake of consistency, if it was once uttered. For her +own sake, she shrank from hearing intentions, that distressing the +good man, she would have to discountenance. His candour in confessing +disappointment, and his open face, his excellent sense too, gave her +some assurance of his not being foolishly impetuous. After he had read +to her for an hour, as his habit was on evenings and wet days, their +discussion of this and that in the book lulled any doubts she had of his +prudence, enough to render it even a dubious point whether she might be +speculating upon a wealthy bachelor in the old-fashioned ultra-feminine +manner; the which she so abhorred that she rejected the idea. +Consequently, Redworth's proposal to walk down to the valley for Diana, +and bring her back, struck her as natural when a shaft of western +sunshine from a whitened edge of raincloud struck her windows. She +let him go without an intimated monition or a thought of one; thinking +simply that her Tony would be more likely to come, having him for +escort. Those are silly women who are always imagining designs and +intrigues and future palpitations in the commonest actions of either +sex. Emma Dunstane leaned to the contrast between herself and them. + +Danvers was at the house about sunset, reporting her mistress to be on +her way, with Mr. Redworth. The maid's tale of the dreadful state of the +lanes, accounted for their tardiness; and besides the sunset had been +magnificent. Diana knocked at Emma's bedroom door, to say, outside, +hurriedly in passing, how splendid the sunset had been, and beg for an +extra five minutes. Taking full fifteen, she swam into the drawing-room, +lively with kisses on Emma's cheeks, and excuses, referring her +misconduct in being late to the seductions of 'Sol' in his glory. +Redworth said he had rarely seen so wonderful a sunset. The result of +their unanimity stirred Emma's bosom to match-making regrets; and the +walk of the pair together, alone under the propitious laming heavens, +appeared to her now as an opportunity lost. From sisterly sympathy, she +fancied she could understand Tony's liberty-loving reluctance: she had +no comprehension of the backwardness of the man beholding the dear woman +handsomer than in her maiden or her married time: and sprightlier as +well. She chatted deliciously, and drew Redworth to talk his best on his +choicer subjects, playing over them like a fide-wisp, determined at once +to flounder him and to make him shine. Her tender esteem for the man +was transparent through it all; and Emma, whose evening had gone happily +between them, said to her, in their privacy, before parting: 'You seemed +to have been inspired by "Sol," my dear. You do like him, don't you?' + +Diana vowed she adored him; and with a face of laughter in rosy +suffusion, put Sol for Redworth, Redworth for Sol; but, watchful of +Emma's visage, said finally: 'If you mean the mortal man, I think him up +to almost all your hyperboles--as far as men go; and he departed to his +night's rest, which I hope will be good, like a king. Not to admire him, +would argue me senseless, heartless. I do; I have reason to.' + +'And you make him the butt of your ridicule, Tony.' + +'No; I said "like a king"; and he is one. He has, to me, morally the +grandeur of your Sol sinking, Caesar stabbed, Cato on the sword-point. +He is Roman, Spartan, Imperial; English, if you like, the pick, of the +land. It is an honour to call him friend, and I do trust he will choose +the pick among us, to make her a happy woman--if she's for running in +harness. There, I can't say more.' + +Emma had to be satisfied with it, for the present. + +They were astonished at breakfast by seeing Sir Lukin ride past the +windows. He entered with the veritable appetite of a cavalier who had +ridden from London fasting; and why he had come at that early hour, he +was too hungry to explain. The ladies retired to read their letters by +the morning's post; whereupon Sir Lukin called to Redworth; 'I met that +woman in the park yesterday, and had to stand a volley. I went beating +about London for you all the afternoon and evening. She swears you rated +her like a scullery wench, and threatened to ruin Wroxeter. Did you see +him? She says, the story's true in one particular, that he did snatch +a kiss, and got mauled. Not so much to pay for it! But what a +ruffian--eh?' + +'I saw him,' said Redworth. 'He 's one of the new set of noblemen who +take bribes to serve as baits for transactions in the City. They help to +the ruin of their order, or are signs of its decay. We won't judge it by +him. He favoured me with his "word of honour" that the thing you heard +was entirely a misstatement, and so forth:--apologized, I suppose. He +mumbled something.' + +'A thorough cur!' + +'He professed his readiness to fight, if either of us was not +contented.' + +'He spoke to the wrong man. I've half a mind to ride back and have him +out for that rascal "osculation" and the lady unwilling!--and she a +young one, a girl, under the protection of the house! By Jove! Redworth, +when you come to consider the scoundrels men can be, it stirs a fellow's +bile. There's a deal of that sort of villany going--and succeeding +sometimes! He deserves the whip or a bullet.' + +'A sermon from Lukin Dunstane might punish him.' + +'Oh! I'm a sinner, I know. But, go and tell one woman of another woman, +and that a lie! That's beyond me.' + +'The gradations of the deeps are perhaps measurable to those who are in +them.' + +'The sermon's at me--pop!' said Sir Lukin. 'By the way, I'm coming +round to think Diana Warwick was right when she used to jibe at me for +throwing up my commission. Idleness is the devil--or mother of him. I +manage my estates; but the truth is, it doesn't occupy my mind.' + +'Your time.' + +'My mind, I say.' + +'Whichever you please.' + +'You're crusty to-day, Redworth. Let me tell you, I think--and hard too, +when the fit's on me. However, you did right in stopping--I'll own--a +piece of folly, and shutting the mouths of those two; though it caused +me to come in for a regular drencher. But a pretty woman in a right-down +termagant passion is good theatre; because it can't last, at that pace; +and you're sure of your agreeable tableau. Not that I trust her ten +minutes out of sight--or any woman, except one or two; my wife and Diana +Warwick. Trust those you've tried, old boy. Diana Warwick ought to be +taught to thank you; though I don't know how it's to be done.' + +'The fact of it is,' Redworth frowned and rose, 'I've done mischief. I +had no right to mix myself in it. I'm seldom caught off my feet by an +impulse; but I was. I took the fever from you.' + +He squared his figure at the window, and looked up on a driving sky. + +'Come, let's play open cards, Tom Redworth,' said Sir Lukin, leaving the +table and joining his friend by the window. 'You moral men are doomed +to be marrying men, always; and quite right. Not that one doesn't hear a +roundabout thing or two about you: no harm. Very much the contrary:--as +the world goes. But you're the man to marry a wife; and if I guess the +lady, she's a sensible girl and won't be jealous. I 'd swear she only +waits for asking.' + +'Then you don't guess the lady,' said Redworth. + +'Mary Paynham?' + +The desperate half-laugh greeting the name convinced more than a dozen +denials. + +Sir Lukin kept edging round for a full view of the friend who shunned +inspection. 'But is it?... can it be? it must be, after all!... why, of +course it is! But the thing staring us in the face is just what we never +see. Just the husband for her!--and she's the wife! Why, Diana Warwick +'s the very woman, of course! I remember I used to think so before she +was free to wed.' + +'She is not of that opinion.' Redworth blew a heavy breath; and it +should be chronicled as a sigh; but it was hugely masculine. + +'Because you didn't attack, the moment she was free; that 's what upset +my calculations,' the sagacious gentleman continued, for a vindication +of his acuteness: then seizing the reply: 'Refuses? you don't mean to +say you're the man to take a refusal? and from a green widow in the +blush? Did you see her cheeks when she was peeping at the letter in her +hand? She colours at half a word--takes the lift of a finger for Hymen +coming. And lots of fellows are after her; I know it from Emmy. But +you're not the man to be refused. You're her friend--her champion. +That woman Fryar-Gunnett would have it you were the favoured lover, and +sneered at my talk of old friendship. Women are always down dead on the +facts; can't put them off a scent!' + +'There's the mischief!' Redworth blew again. 'I had no right to be +championing Mrs. Warwick's name. Or the world won't give it, at all +events. I'm a blundering donkey. Yes, she wishes to keep her liberty. +And, upon my soul, I'm in love with everything she wishes! I've got the +habit.' + +'Habit be hanged!' cried Sir Lukin. 'You're in love with the woman. I +know a little more of you now, Mr. Tom. You're a fellow in earnest about +what you do. You're feeling it now, on the rack, by heaven! though you +keep a bold face. Did she speak positively?--sort of feminine of +"you're the monster, not the man"? or measured little doctor's dose of +pity?--worse sign.' You 're not going?' + +'If you'll drive me down in half an hour,' said Redworth. + +'Give me an hour,' Sir Lukin replied, and went straight to his wife's +blue-room. + +Diana was roused from a meditation on a letter she held, by the entrance +of Emma in her bed-chamber, to whom she said: 'I have here the very +craziest bit of writing!--but what is disturbing you, dear?' + +Emma sat beside her, panting and composing her lips to speak. 'Do you, +love me? I throw policy to the winds, if only, I can batter at you for +your heart and find it! Tony, do you love me? But don't answer: give me +your hand. You have rejected him!' + +'He has told you?' + +'No. He is not the man to cry out for a wound. He heard in London--Lukin +has had the courage to tell me, after his fashion:--Tom Redworth heard +an old story, coming from one of the baser kind of women: grossly false, +he knew. I mention only Lord Wroxeter and Lockton. He went to man and +woman both, and had it refuted, and stopped their tongues, on peril; as +he of all men is able to do when he wills it.' + +Observing the quick change in Tony's eyes, Emma exclaimed: 'How you +looked disdain when you asked whether he had told me! But why are you +the handsome tigress to him, of all men living! The dear fellow, dear +to me at least! since the day he first saw you, has worshipped you and +striven to serve you:--and harder than any Scriptural service to have +the beloved woman to wife. I know nothing to compare with it, for he is +a man of warmth. He is one of those rare men of honour who can command +their passion; who venerate when they love: and those are the men that +women select for punishment! Yes, you! It is to the woman he loves that +he cannot show himself as he is, because he is at her feet. You have +managed to stamp your spirit on him; and as a consequence, he defends +you now, for flinging him off. And now his chief regret is, that he has +caused his name to be coupled with yours. I suppose he had some poor +hope, seeing you free. Or else the impulse to protect the woman of his +heart and soul was too strong. I have seen what he suffered, years back, +at the news of your engagement.' + +'Oh, for God's sake, don't,' cried Tony, tears running over, and her +dream of freedom, her visions of romance, drowning. + +'It was like the snapping of the branch of an oak, when the trunk stands +firm,' Emma resumed, in her desire to scourge as well as to soften. 'But +similes applied to him will strike you as incongruous.' Tony swayed her +body, for a negative, very girlishly and consciously. 'He probably did +not woo you in a poetic style, or the courtly by prescription.' Again +Tony swayed; she had to hug herself under the stripes, and felt as if +alone at sea, with her dear heavens pelting. 'You have sneered at him +for his calculating--to his face: and it was when he was comparatively +poor that he calculated--to his cost! that he dared not ask you to marry +a man who could not offer you a tithe of what he considered fit for the +peerless woman. Peerless, I admit. There he was not wrong. But if he had +valued you half a grain less, he might have won you. You talk much +of chivalry; you conceive a superhuman ideal, to which you fit a very +indifferent wooden model, while the man of all the world the most +chivalrous!... He is a man quite other from what you think him: +anything but a "Cuthbert Dering" or a "Man of Two Minds." He was in the +drawing-room below, on the day I received your last maiden letter from +The Crossways--now his property, in the hope of making it yours.' + +'I behaved abominably there!' interposed Tony, with a gasp. + +'Let it pass. At any rate, that was the prick of a needle, not the blow +of a sword.' + +'But marriage, dear Emmy! marriage! Is marriage to be the end of me?' + +'What amazing apotheosis have you in prospect? And are you steering so +particularly well by yourself?' + +'Miserably! But I can dream. And the thought of a husband cuts me from +any dreaming. It's all dead flat earth at once!' + +'Would, you lave rejected him when you were a girl?' + +'I think so.' + +'The superior merits of another...?' + +'Oh, no, no, no, no! I might have accepted him: and I might not have +made him happy. I wanted a hero, and the jewelled garb and the feather +did not suit him.' + +'No; he is not that description of lay-figure. You have dressed it, and +gemmed it, and--made your discovery. Here is a true man; and if you can +find me any of your heroes to match him, I will thank you. He came on +the day I speak of, to consult me as to whether, with the income he +then had ... Well, I had to tell him you were engaged. The man has +never wavered in his love of you since that day. He has had to bear +something.' + +This was an electrical bolt into Tony's bosom, shaking her from +self-pity and shame to remorseful pity of the suffering lover; and the +tears ran in streams, as she said: + +'He bore it, Emmy, he bore it.' She sobbed out: 'And he went on building +a fortune and batting! Whatever he undertakes he does perfectly-approve +of the pattern or not. Oh! I have no doubt he had his nest of wish +piping to him all the while: only it seems quaint, dear, quaint, and +against everything we've been reading of lovers! Love was his bread and +butter!' Her dark eyes showered. 'And to tell you what you do not know +of him, his way of making love is really,' she sobbed, 'pretty. It... it +took me by surprise; I was expecting a bellow and an assault of horns; +and if, dear:--you will say, what boarding-school girl have you got with +you! and I feel myself getting childish:--if Sol in his glory had not +been so m ... majestically m... magnificent, nor seemed to show me the +king ... kingdom of my dreams, I might have stammered the opposite word +to the one he heard. Last night, when he took my hand kindly before +going to bed I had a fit for dropping on my knees to him. I saw him +bleed, and he held himself right royally. I told you he did;--Sol in his +moral grandeur! How infinitely above the physical monarch--is he not, +Emmy? What one dislikes, is the devotion of all that grandeur to win a +widow. It should be a maiden princess. You feel it so, I am sure. +And here am I, as if a maiden princess were I, demanding romantic +accessories of rubious vapour in the man condescending to implore +the widow to wed him. But, tell me, does he know everything of his +widow--everything? I shall not have to go through the frightful +chapter?' + +'He is a man with his eyes awake; he knows as much as any husband could +require to know,' said Emma; adding: 'My darling! he trusts you. It is +the soul of the man that loves you, as it is mine. You will not tease +him? Promise me. Give yourself frankly. You see it clearly before you.' + +'I see compulsion, my dear. What I see, is a regiment of Proverbs, +bearing placards instead of guns, and each one a taunt at women, +especially at widows. They march; they form square; they enclose me in +the middle, and I have their inscriptions to digest. Read that crazy +letter from Mary Paynham while I am putting on my bonnet. I perceive I +have been crying like a raw creature in her teens. I don't know myself. +An advantage of the darker complexions is our speedier concealment of +the traces.' + +Emma read Miss Paynham's letter, and returned it with the comment: +'Utterly crazy.' Tony said: 'Is it not? I am to "Pause before I trifle +with a noble heart too long." She is to "have her happiness in +the constant prayer for ours"; and she is "warned by one of those +intimations never failing her, that he runs a serious danger." It reads +like a Wizard's Almanack. And here "Homogeneity of sentiment the most +perfect, is unable to contend with the fatal charm, which exercised by +an indifferent person, must be ascribed to original predestination." She +should be under the wing of Lady Wathin. There is the mother for such +chicks! But I'll own to you, Emmy, that after the perusal, I did ask +myself a question as to my likeness of late to the writer. I have +drivelled... I was shuddering over it when you came in. I have +sentimentalized up to thin smoke. And she tells a truth when she says I +am not to "count social cleverness"--she means volubility--"as a warrant +for domineering a capacious intelligence": because of the gentleman's +modesty. Agreed: I have done it; I am contrite. I am going into slavery +to make amends for presumption. Banality, thy name is marriage!' + +'Your business is to accept life as we have it,' said Emma; and Tony +shrugged. She was precipitate in going forth to her commonplace fate, +and scarcely looked at the man requested by Emma to escort her to her +cottage. After their departure, Emma fell into laughter at the last +words with the kiss of her cheeks: 'Here goes old Ireland!' But, from +her look and from what she had said upstairs, Emma could believe that +the singular sprite of girlishness invading and governing her latterly, +had yielded place to the woman she loved. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. NUPTIAL CHAPTER; AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS +LED TO BLOOM WITH THE NUPTIAL SENTIMENT + +Emma watched them on their way through the park, till they rounded the +beechwood, talking, it could be surmised, of ordinary matters; the face +of the gentleman turning at times to his companion's, which steadily +fronted the gale. She left the ensuing to a prayer for their good +direction, with a chuckle at Tony's evident feeling of a ludicrous +posture, and the desperate rush of her agile limbs to have it over. But +her prayer throbbed almost to a supplication that the wrong done to her +beloved by Dacier--the wound to her own sisterly pride rankling as an +injury to her sex, might be cancelled through the union of the woman +noble in the sight of God with a more manlike man. + +Meanwhile the feet of the couple were going faster than their heads +to the end of the journey. Diana knew she would have to hoist the +signal-and how? The prospect was dumb-foundering. She had to think of +appeasing her Emma. Redworth, for his part; actually supposed she had +accepted his escorting in proof of the plain friendship offered him +overnight. + +'What do your "birds" do in weather like this?' she said. + +'Cling to their perches and wait patiently. It's the bad time with them +when you don't hear them chirp.' + +'Of course you foretold the gale.' + +'Oh, well, it did not require a shepherd or a skipper for that.' + +'Your grand gift will be useful to a yachtsman.' + +'You like yachting. When I have tried my new schooner in the Channel, +she is at your command for as long as you and Lady Dunstane please.' + +'So you acknowledge that birds--things of nature--have their bad time?' + +'They profit ultimately by the deluge and the wreck. Nothing on earth is +"tucked-up" in perpetuity.' + +'Except the dead. But why should the schooner be at our command?' + +'I shall be in Ireland.' + +He could not have said sweeter to her ears or more touching. + +'We shall hardly feel safe without the weatherwise on board.' + +'You may count on my man Barnes; I have proved him. He is up to his +work even when he's bilious: only, in that case, occurring about once a +fortnight, you must leave him to fight it out with the elements.' + +'I rather like men of action to have a temper.' + +'I can't say much for a bilious temper.' + +The weather to-day really seemed of that kind, she remarked. He +assented, in the shrug manner--not to dissent: she might say what she +would. He helped nowhere to a lead; and so quick are the changes of mood +at such moments that she was now far from him under the failure of an +effort to come near. But thoughts of Emma pressed. + +'The name of the new schooner? Her name is her picture to me.' + +'I wanted you to christen her.' + +'Launched without a name?' + +'I took a liberty.' + +Needless to ask, but she did. 'With whom?' + +'I named her Diana.' + +'May the Goddess of the silver bow and crescent protect her! To me the +name is ominous of mischance.' + +'I would commit my fortunes and life...!' He checked his tongue, +ejaculating: 'Omens!' + +She had veered straight away from her romantic aspirations to the +blunt extreme of thinking that a widow should be wooed in unornamented +matter-of-fact, as she is wedded, with a 'wilt thou,' and 'I will,' and +no decorative illusions. Downright, for the unpoetic creature, if you +please! So she rejected the accompaniment of the silver Goddess and high +seas for an introduction of the crisis. + +'This would be a thunderer on our coasts. I had a trial of my sailing +powers in the Mediterranean.' + +As she said it, her musings on him then, with the contract of her +position toward him now, fierily brushed her cheeks; and she wished +him the man to make one snatch at her poor lost small butterfly bit of +freedom, so that she might suddenly feel in haven, at peace with her +expectant Emma. He could have seen the inviting consciousness, but he +was absurdly watchful lest the flying sprays of border trees should +strike her. He mentioned his fear, and it became an excuse for her +seeking protection of her veil. 'It is our natural guardian,' she said. + +'Not much against timber,' said he. + +The worthy creature's anxiety was of the pattern of cavaliers escorting +dames--an exaggeration of honest zeal; a present example of clownish +goodness, it might seem; until entering the larch and firwood along the +beaten heights, there was a rocking and straining of the shallow-rooted +trees in a tremendous gust that quite pardoned him for curving his arm +in a hoop about her and holding a shoulder in front. The veil did her +positive service. + +He was honourably scrupulous not to presume. A right good unimpulsive +gentleman: the same that she had always taken him for and liked. + +'These firs are not taproots,' he observed, by way of apology. + +Her dress volumed and her ribands rattled and chirruped on the verge of +the slope. 'I will take your arm here,' she said. + +Redworth received the little hand, saying: 'Lean to me.' + +They descended upon great surges of wind piping and driving every light +surface-atom as foam; and they blinked and shook; even the man was +shaken. But their arms were interlinked and they grappled; the battering +enemy made them one. It might mean nothing, or everything: to him it +meant the sheer blissful instant. + +At the foot of the hill, he said: 'It's harder to keep to, the terms of +yesterday.' + +'What were they?' said she, and took his breath more than the fury of +the storm had done. + +'Raise the veil, I beg.' + +'Widows do not wear it.' + +The look revealed to him was a fugitive of the wilds, no longer the +glittering shooter of arrows. + +'Have you...?' changed to me, was the signification understood. 'Can +you?--for life'. Do you think you can?' + +His poverty in the pleading language melted her. + +'What I cannot do, my best of friends, is to submit to be seated on a +throne, with you petitioning. Yes, as far as concerns this hand of mine, +if you hold it worthy of you. We will speak of that. Now tell me the +name of the weed trailing along the hedge there! + +He knew it well; a common hedgerow weed; but the placid diversion +baffled him. It was clematis, he said. + +'It drags in the dust when it has no firm arm to cling to. I passed +it beside you yesterday with a flaunting mind and not a suspicion of a +likeness. How foolish I was! I could volubly sermonize; only it should +be a young maid to listen. Forgive me the yesterday.' + +'You have never to ask. You withdraw your hand--was I rough?' + +'No,' she smiled demurely; 'it must get used to the shackles: but my +cottage is in sight. I have a growing love for the place. We will enter +it like plain people--if you think of coming in.' + +As she said it she had a slight shock of cowering under eyes tolerably +hawkish in their male glitter; but her coolness was not disturbed; and +without any apprehensions she reflected on what has been written of the +silly division and war of the sexes:--which two might surely enter on an +engagement to live together amiably, unvexed by that barbarous old fowl +and falcon interlude. Cool herself, she imagined the same of him, having +good grounds for the delusion; so they passed through the cottage-garden +and beneath the low porchway, into her little sitting-room, where she +was proceeding to speak composedly of her preference for cottages, +while untying her bonnet-strings:--'If I had begun my life in a +cottage!'--when really a big storm-wave caught her from shore and +whirled her to mid-sea, out of every sensibility but the swimming one of +her loss of self in the man. + +'You would not have been here!' was all he said. She was up at his +heart, fast-locked, undergoing a change greater than the sea works; +her thoughts one blush, her brain a fire-fount. This was not like being +seated on a throne. + +'There,' said he, loosening his hug, 'now you belong to me! I know you +from head to foot. After that, my darling, I could leave you for years, +and call you wife, and be sure of you. I could swear it for you--my +life on it! That 's what I think of you. Don't wonder that I took my +chance--the first:--I have waited!' + +Truer word was never uttered, she owned, coming into some harmony with +man's kiss on her mouth: the man violently metamorphozed to a stranger, +acting on rights she had given him. And who was she to dream of denying +them? Not an idea in her head! Bound verily to be thankful for such +love, on hearing that it dated from the night in Ireland.... 'So in love +with you that, on my soul, your happiness was my marrow--whatever you +wished; anything you chose. It's reckoned a fool's part. No, it's love: +the love of a woman--the one woman! I was like the hand of a clock to +the springs. I taught this old watch-dog of a heart to keep guard and +bury the bones you tossed him.' + +'Ignorantly, admit,' said she, and could have bitten her tongue for +the empty words that provoked: 'Would you have flung him nothing?' and +caused a lowering of her eyelids and shamed glimpses of recollections. +'I hear you have again been defending me. I told you, I think, I +wished I had begun my girl's life in a cottage. All that I have had to +endure!.. or so it seems to me: it may be my way of excusing myself:--I +know my cunning in that peculiar art. I would take my chance of mixing +among the highest and the brightest.' + +'Naturally.' + +'Culpably.' + +'It brings you to me.' + +'Through a muddy channel.' + +'Your husband has full faith in you, my own.' + +'The faith has to be summoned and is buffeted, as we were just now on +the hill. I wish he had taken me from a cottage.' + +'You pushed for the best society, like a fish to its native sea.' + +'Pray say, a salmon to the riverheads.' + +'Better,' Redworth laughed joyfully, between admiration of the tongue +that always outflew him, and of the face he reddened. + +By degrees her apter and neater terms of speech helped her to a notion +of regaining some steps of her sunken ascendancy, under the weight of +the novel masculine pressure on her throbbing blood; and when he bent to +her to take her lord's farewell of her, after agreeing to go and delight +Emma with a message, her submission and her personal pride were not so +much at variance: perhaps because her buzzing head had no ideas. 'Tell +Emma you have undertaken to wash the blackamoor as white as she can be,' +she said perversely, in her spite at herself for not coming, as it were, +out of the dawn to the man she could consent to wed: and he replied: 'I +shall tell her my dark girl pleads for a fortnight's grace before she +and I set sail for the West coast of Ireland': conjuring a picture +that checked any protest against the shortness of time:--and Emma would +surely be his ally. + +They talked of the Dublin Ball: painfully to some of her thoughts. +But Redworth kissed that distant brilliant night as freshly as if no +belabouring years rolled in the chasm: which led her to conceive partly, +and wonderingly, the nature of a strong man's passion; and it subjugated +the woman knowing of a contrast. The smart of the blow dealt her by him +who had fired the passion in her became a burning regret for the loss +of that fair fame she had sacrificed to him, and could not bring to her +truer lover: though it was but the outer view of herself--the world's +view; only she was generous and of honest conscience, and but for the +sake of her truer lover, she would mentally have allowed the world +to lash and abuse her, without a plea of material purity. Could it be +named? The naming of it in her clear mind lessened it to accidental:--By +good fortune, she was no worse!--She said to Redworth, when finally +dismissing him; 'I bring no real disgrace to you, my friend.'--To have +had this sharp spiritual battle at such a time, was proof of honest +conscience, rarer among women, as the world has fashioned them yet, than +the purity demanded of them.--His answer: 'You are my wife!' rang in her +hearing. + +When she sat alone at last, she was incapable, despite her nature's +imaginative leap to brightness, of choosing any single period, +auspicious or luminous or flattering, since the hour of her first +meeting this man, rather than the grey light he cast on her, promising +helpfulness, and inspiring a belief in her capacity to help. Not the +Salvatore high raptures nor the nights of social applause could appear +preferable: she strained her shattered wits to try them. As for +her superlunary sphere, it was in fragments; and she mused on the +singularity, considering that she was not deeply enamoured. Was she +so at all? The question drove her to embrace the dignity of being +reasonable--under Emmy's guidance. For she did not stand firmly alone; +her story confessed it. Marriage might be the archway to the road of +good service, even as our passage through the flesh may lead to +the better state. She had thoughts of the kind, and had them while +encouraging herself to deplore the adieu to her little musk-scented +sitting-room, where a modest freedom breathed, and her individuality had +seemed pointing to a straighter growth. + +She nodded subsequently to the truth of her happy Emma's remark: 'You +were created for the world, Tony.' A woman of blood and imagination in +the warring world, without a mate whom she can revere, subscribes to +a likeness with those independent minor realms between greedy mighty +neighbours, which conspire and undermine when they do not openly +threaten to devour. So, then, this union, the return to the wedding +yoke, received sanction of grey-toned reason. She was not enamoured she +could say it to herself. She had, however, been surprised, both by the +man and her unprotesting submission; surprised and warmed, unaccountably +warmed. Clearness of mind in the woman chaste by nature, however little +ignorant it allowed her to be in the general review of herself, could +not compass the immediately personal, with its acknowledgement of her +subserviency to touch and pressure--and more, stranger, her readiness to +kindle. She left it unexplained. Unconsciously the image of Dacier was +effaced. Looking backward, her heart was moved to her long-constant +lover with most pitying tender wonderment--stormy man, as her threatened +senses told her that he was. Looking at him, she had to mask her being +abashed and mastered. And looking forward, her soul fell in prayer for +this true man's never repenting of his choice. Sure of her now, Mr. +Thomas Redworth had returned to the station of the courtier, and her +feminine sovereignty was not ruffled to make her feel too feminine. +Another revelation was his playful talk when they were more closely +intimate. He had his humour as well as his hearty relish of hers. + +'If all Englishmen were like him!' she chimed with Emma Dunstane's +eulogies, under the influence. + +'My dear,' the latter replied, 'we should simply march over the Four +Quarters and be blessed by the nations! Only, avoid your trick of +dashing headlong to the other extreme. He has his faults.' + +'Tell me of them,' Diana cooed for an answer. 'Do. I want the flavour. +A girl would be satisfied with superhuman excellence. A widow asks for +feature.' + +'To my thinking, the case is, that if it is a widow who sees the +superhuman excellence in a man, she may be very well contented to cross +the bridge with him,' rejoined Emma.... + +'Suppose the bridge to break, and for her to fall into the water, he +rescuing her--then perhaps!' + +'But it has been happening!' + +'But piecemeal, in extension, so slowly. I go to him a derelict, bearing +a story of the sea; empty of ideas. I remember sailing out of harbour +passably well freighted for commerce.' + +'When Tom Redworth has had command of the "derelict" a week, I should +like to see her!' + +The mention of that positive captaincy drowned Diana in morning colours. +She was dominated, physically and morally, submissively too. What she +craved, in the absence of the public whiteness which could have caused +her to rejoice in herself as a noble gift, was the spring of enthusiasm. +Emma touched a quivering chord of pride with her hint at the good +augury, and foreshadowing of the larger Union, in the Irishwoman's +bestowal of her hand on the open-minded Englishman she had learned to +trust. The aureole glimmered transiently: she could neither think +highly of the woman about to be wedded, nor poetically of the man; nor, +therefore, rosily of the ceremony, nor other than vacuously of life. +And yet, as she avowed to Emma, she had gathered the three rarest good +things of life: a faithful friend, a faithful lover, a faithful servant: +the two latter exposing an unimagined quality of emotion. Danvers, +on the night of the great day for Redworth, had undressed her with +trembling fingers, and her mistress was led to the knowledge that the +maid had always been all eye; and on reflection to admit that it came of +a sympathy she did not share. + +But when Celtic brains are reflective on their emotional vessel they +shoot direct as the arrow of logic. Diana's glance at the years behind +lighted every moving figure to a shrewd transparency, herself among +them. She was driven to the conclusion that the granting of any of her +heart's wild wishes in those days would have lowered her--or frozen. +Dacier was a coldly luminous image; still a tolling name; no longer +conceivably her mate. Recollection rocked, not she. The politician and +citizen was admired: she read the man;--more to her own discredit than +to his, but she read him, and if that is done by the one of two lovers +who was true to love, it is the God of the passion pronouncing a final +release from the shadow of his chains. + +Three days antecedent to her marriage, she went down the hill over her +cottage chimneys with Redworth, after hearing him praise and cite to +Emma Dunstane sentences of a morning's report of a speech delivered by +Dacier to his constituents. She alluded to it, that she might air her +power of speaking of the man coolly to him, or else for the sake of +stirring afresh some sentiment he had roused; and he repeated his high +opinion of the orator's political wisdom: whereby was revived in +her memory a certain reprehensible view, belonging to her period of +mock-girlish naughtiness--too vile!--as to his paternal benevolence, now +to clear vision the loftiest manliness. What did she do? She was Irish; +therefore intuitively decorous in amatory challenges and interchanges. +But she was an impulsive woman, and foliage was thick around, only a few +small birds and heaven seeing; and penitence and admiration sprang the +impulse. It had to be this or a burst of weeping:--she put a kiss upon +his arm. + +She had omitted to think that she was dealing with a lover a man of +smothered fire, who would be electrically alive to the act through a +coat-sleeve. Redworth had his impulse. He kept it under,--she felt the +big breath he drew in. Imagination began busily building a nest for him, +and enthusiasm was not sluggish to make a home of it. The impulse of +each had wedded; in expression and repression; her sensibility told her +of the stronger. + +She rose on the morning of her marriage day with his favourite Planxty +Kelly at her lips, a natural bubble of the notes. Emma drove down to the +cottage to breakfast and superintend her bride's adornment, as to +which, Diana had spoken slightingly; as well as of the ceremony, and +the institution, and this life itself:--she would be married out of her +cottage, a widow, a cottager, a woman under a cloud; yes, a sober person +taking at last a right practical step, to please her two best friends. +The change was marked. She wished to hide it, wished to confide it. Emma +was asked: 'How is he this morning?' and at the answer, describing his +fresh and spirited looks, and his kind ways with Arthur Rhodes, and +his fun with Sullivan Smith, and the satisfaction with the bridegroom +declared by Lord Larrian (invalided from his Rock and unexpectingly +informed of the wedding), Diana forgot that she had kissed her, and this +time pressed her lips, in a manner to convey the secret bridally. + +'He has a lovely day.' + +'And bride,' said Emma. + +'If you two think so! I should like to agree with my dear old lord and +bless him for the prize he takes, though it feels itself at present +rather like a Christmas bon-bon--a piece of sugar in the wrap of a +rhymed motto. He is kind to Arthur, you say?' + +'Like a cordial elder brother.' + +'Dear love, I have it at heart that I was harsh upon Mary Paynham for +her letter. She meant well--and I fear she suffers. And it may have been +a bit my fault. Blind that I was! When you say "cordial elder brother," +you make him appear beautiful to me. The worst of that is, one becomes +aware of the inability to match him.' + +'Read with his eyes when you meet him this morning, my Tony.' + +The secret was being clearly perceived by Emma, whose pride in assisting +to dress the beautiful creature for her marriage--with the man of men +had a tinge from the hymenaeal brand, exulting over Dacier, and in the +compensation coming to her beloved for her first luckless footing on +this road. + +'How does he go down to the church?' said Diana. + +'He walks down. Lukin and his Chief drive. He walks, with your Arthur +and Mr. Sullivan Smith. He is on his way now.' + +Diana looked through the window in the direction of the hill. 'That is +so like him, to walk to his wedding!' + +Emma took the place of Danvers in the office of the robing, for the +maid, as her mistress managed to hint, was too steeped 'in the colour of +the occasion' to be exactly tasteful, and had the art, no doubt +through sympathy, of charging permissible common words with explosive +meanings:--she was in an amorous palpitation, of the reflected state. +After several knockings and enterings of the bedchamber-door, she came +hurriedly to say: 'And your pillow, ma'am? I had almost forgotten it!' +A question that caused her mistress to drop the gaze of a moan on Emma, +with patience trembling. Diana preferred a hard pillow, and usually +carried her own about. 'Take it,' she had to reply. + +The friends embraced before descending to step into the fateful +carriage. 'And tell me,' Emma said, 'are not your views of life brighter +to-day?' + +'Too dazzled to know! It may be a lamp close to the eyes or a radiance +of sun. I hope they are.' + +'You are beginning to think hopefully again?' + +'Who can really think, and not think hopefully? You were in my mind last +night, and you brought a little boat to sail me past despondency of life +and the fear of extinction. When we despair or discolour things, it +is our senses in revolt, and they have made the sovereign brain their +drudge. I heard you whisper; with your very breath in my ear: "There +is nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by." That is +Emma's history. With that I sail into the dark; it is my promise of the +immortal: teaches me to see immortality for us. It comes from you, my +Emmy.' + +If not a great saying, it was in the heart of deep thoughts: proof +to Emma that her Tony's mind had resumed its old clear high-aiming +activity; therefore that her nature was working sanely, and that she +accepted her happiness, and bore love for a dower to her husband. No +blushing confession of the woman's love of the man would have told her +so much as the return to mental harmony with the laws of life shown in +her darling's pellucid little sentence. + +She revolved it long after the day of the wedding. To Emma, constantly +on the dark decline of the unillumined verge, between the two worlds, +those words were a radiance and a nourishment. Had they waned she would +have trimmed them to feed her during her soul-sister's absence. They +shone to her of their vitality. She was lying along her sofa, facing +her South-western window, one afternoon of late November, expecting Tony +from her lengthened honeymoon trip, while a sunset in the van of frost, +not without celestial musical reminders of Tony's husband, began to +deepen; and as her friend was coming, she mused on the scenes of her +friend's departure, and how Tony, issuing from her cottage porch had +betrayed her feelings in the language of her sex by stooping to lift +above her head and kiss the smallest of her landlady's children +ranged up the garden-path to bid her farewell over their strewing of +flowers;--and of her murmur to Tony, entering the churchyard, among the +grave-mounds: 'Old Ireland won't repent it!' and Tony's rejoinder, +at the sight of the bridegroom advancing, beaming: 'A singular +transformation of Old England!'--and how, having numberless ready +sources of laughter and tears down the run of their heart-in-heart +intimacy, all spouting up for a word in the happy tremour of the +moment, they had both bitten their lips and blinked on a moisture of +the eyelids. Now the dear woman was really wedded, wedded and mated. Her +letters breathed, in their own lively or thoughtful flow, of the perfect +mating. Emma gazed into the depths of the waves of crimson, where +brilliancy of colour came out of central heaven preternaturally near on +earth, till one shade less brilliant seemed an ebbing away to boundless +remoteness. Angelical and mortal mixed, making the glory overhead a +sign of the close union of our human conditions with the ethereal and +psychically divined. Thence it grew that one thought in her breast +became a desire for such extension of days as would give her the +blessedness to clasp in her lap--if those kind heavens would grant +it!--a child of the marriage of the two noblest of human souls, one the +dearest; and so have proof at heart that her country and our earth are +fruitful in the good, for a glowing future. She was deeply a woman, +dumbly a poet. True poets and true women have the native sense of the +divineness of what the world deems gross material substance. Emma's +exaltation in fervour had not subsided when she held her beloved in her +arms under the dusk of the withdrawing redness. They sat embraced, with +hands locked, in the unlighted room, and Tony spoke of the splendid sky. +'You watched it knowing I was on my way to you?' + +'Praying, dear.' + +'For me?' + +'That I might live long enough to be a godmother.' + +There was no reply: there was an involuntary little twitch of Tony's +fingers. + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS + + A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power + A high wind will make a dead leaf fly like a bird + A kindly sense of superiority + Accidents are the specific for averting the maladies of age + Accounting for it, is not the same as excusing + Assist in our small sphere; not come mouthing to the footlights + At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we can have + Avoid the position that enforces publishing + Beautiful women in her position provoke an intemperateness + Beauty is rare; luckily is it rare + Between love grown old and indifference ageing to love + Beware the silent one of an assembly! + Brittle is foredoomed + But they were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly + By resisting, I made him a tyrant + Capacity for thinking should precede the act of writing + Capricious potentate whom they worship + Carry explosives and must particularly guard against sparks + Charitable mercifulness; better than sentimental ointment + Chaste are wattled in formalism and throned in sourness + Circumstances may combine to make a whisper as deadly as a blow + Common sense is the secret of every successful civil agitation + Compared the governing of the Irish to the management of a horse + Could have designed this gabbler for the mate + Could the best of men be simply--a woman's friend? + Debit was eloquent, he was unanswerable + Dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle + Depending for dialogue upon perpetual fresh supplies of scandal + Dose he had taken was not of the sweetest + Dreaded as a scourge, hailed as a refreshment (Scandalsheet) + Elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors + Enthusiasm has the privilege of not knowing monotony + Envy of the man of positive knowledge + Expectations dupe us, not trust + Explaining of things to a dull head + Externally soft and polished, internally hard and relentless + Favour can't help coming by rotation + Fiddle harmonics on the sensual strings + Flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner + For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too + Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two + Get back what we give + Goodish sort of fellow; good horseman, good shot, good character + Grossly unlike in likeness (portraits) + Happy in privation and suffering if simply we can accept beauty + He was not a weaver of phrases in distress + He had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration + He gained much by claiming little + He, by insisting, made me a rebel + He had neat phrases, opinions in packets + He was the maddest of tyrants--a weak one + He's good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow (a hog) + Heart to keep guard and bury the bones you tossed him + Her peculiar tenacity of the sense of injury + Her feelings--trustier guides than her judgement in this crisis + Her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty + Herself, content to be dull if he might shine + His gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given + His ridiculous equanimity + Holding to the refusal, for the sake of consistency + How immensely nature seems to prefer men to women! + Human nature to feel an interest in the dog that has bitten you + I wanted a hero + I do not see it, because I will not see it + I never knew till this morning the force of No in earnest + I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet + I don't count them against women (moods) + I'm in love with everything she wishes! I've got the habit + Idea is the only vital breath + If I'm struck, I strike back + If he had valued you half a grain less, he might have won you + Inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she sought + Inducement to act the hypocrite before the hypocrite world + Infatuated men argue likewise, and scandal does not move them + Insistency upon there being two sides to a case--to every case + Intrusion of the spontaneous on the stereotyped would clash + Irony that seemed to spring from aversion + It is the best of signs when women take to her + It is the devil's masterstroke to get us to accuse him + Its glee at a catastrophe; its poor stock of mercy + Keep passion sober, a trotter in harness + Lengthened term of peace bred maggots in the heads of the people + Let never Necessity draw the bow of our weakness + Literature is a good stick and a bad horse + Loathing for speculation + Mare would do, and better than a dozen horses + Material good reverses its benefits the more nearly we clasp it + Matter that is not nourishing to brains + Mistake of the world is to think happiness possible to the sense + Mistaking of her desires for her reasons + Money is of course a rough test of virtue + Moral indignation is ever consolatory + Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers + Mutual deference + Needed support of facts, and feared them + Never fell far short of outstripping the sturdy pedestrian Time + Nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by + Nothing is a secret that has been spoken + Now far from him under the failure of an effort to come near + O self! self! self! + Observation is the most, enduring of the pleasures of life + Omnipotence, which is in the image of themselves + One might build up a respectable figure in negatives + Openly treated; all had an air of being on the surface + Or where you will, so that's in Ireland + Our weakness is the swiftest dog to hunt us + Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to run + Owner of such a woman, and to lose her! + Paint themselves pure white, to the obliteration of minor spots + Perused it, and did not recognize herself in her language + Pride in being always myself + Procrastination and excessive scrupulousness + Question the gain of such an expenditure of energy + Quixottry is agreeable reading, a silly performance + Rare men of honour who can command their passion + Read with his eyes when you meet him this morning + Read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies + Real happiness is a state of dulness + Reluctant to take the life of flowers for a whim + Rewards, together with the expectations, of the virtuous + Salt of earth, to whom their salt must serve for nourishment + Sentimentality puts up infant hands for absolution + Service of watering the dry and drying the damp (Whiskey) + Sham spiritualism + She had sunk her intelligence in her sensations + She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling + She herself did not like to be seen eating in public + She had a fatal attraction for antiques + Sleepless night + Slightest taste for comic analysis that does not tumble to farce + Smart remarks have their measured distances + Smoky receptacle cherishing millions + Something of the hare in us when the hounds are full cry + Strain to see in the utter dark, and nothing can come of that + Swell and illuminate citizen prose to a princely poetic + Sympathy is for proving, not prating + Tendency to polysyllabic phraseology + Terrible decree, that all must act who would prevail + That is life--when we dare death to live! + That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial + The man had to be endured, like other doses in politics + The burlesque Irishman can't be caricatured + The greed of gain is our volcano + The debts we owe ourselves are the hardest to pay + The well of true wit is truth itself + The blindness of Fortune is her one merit + They have no sensitiveness, we have too much + They create by stoppage a volcano + This love they rattle about and rave about + Tooth that received a stone when it expected candy + Top and bottom sin is cowardice + Touch him with my hand, before he passed from our sight + Trial of her beauty of a woman in a temper + Vagrant compassionateness of sentimentalists + Vowed never more to repeat that offence to his patience + Was not one of the order whose Muse is the Public Taste + We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited + We never see peace but in the features of the dead + We must fawn in society + We don't know we are in halves + We're a peaceful people, but 'ware who touches us + Weather and women have some resemblance they say + Weighty little word--woman's native watchdog and guardian (No!) + What might have been + What the world says, is what the wind says + What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature + When we despair or discolour things, it is our senses in revolt + Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank + Who can really think, and not think hopefully? + Who venerate when they love + Wife and no wife, a prisoner in liberty + With that I sail into the dark + Without those consolatory efforts, useless between men + Women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator + Women with brains, moreover, are all heartless + World is ruthless, dear friends, because the world is hypocrite + World prefers decorum to honesty + Yawns coming alarmingly fast, in the place of ideas + You beat me with the fists, but my spirit is towering + You are entreated to repress alarm + You are entreated to repress alarm + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Diana of the Crossways, Complete +by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4470.txt or 4470.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/7/4470/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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