The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 29

She released herself--rosy--and still thinking of Mrs. Fotheringham.

"Oliver!"--she laid her hand shyly on his--"neither she nor you will want me to stifle what I think--to deny what I do really believe? I dare say a woman's politics aren't worth much"--she laughed and sighed.

"I say!--don't take that line with Isabel!"

"Well, mine probably aren't worth much--but they are mine--and papa taught them me--and I can't give them up."

"What'll you do, darling?--canva.s.s against me?" He kissed her hand again.

"No--but I _can't_ agree with you!"

"Of course you can't. Which of us, _I_ wonder, will shake the other? How do you know that I'm not in a blue fright for my principles?"

"You'll explain to me?--you'll not despise me?" she said, softly, bending toward him; "I'll always, always try and understand."

Who could resist an att.i.tude so feminine, yet so loyal, at once so old and new? Marsham felt himself already attacked by the poison of Toryism, and Diana, with a happy start, envisaged horizons that her father never knew, and questions where she had everything to learn.

Hand in hand, trembling still under the thrill of the moment which had fused their lives, they fell into happy discursive talk: of the Tallyn visit--of her thoughts and his--of what Lady Lucy and Mr. Ferrier had said, or would say. In the midst of it the fall of temperature, which came with the sunset, touched them, and Marsham sprang up with the peremptoriness of a new relations.h.i.+p, insisting that he must take her home out of the chilly dusk. As they stood lingering in the hollow, unwilling to leave the gnarled thorns, the heather-carpet, and the glow of western light--symbols to them henceforth that they too, in their turn, amid the endless generations, had drunk the mystic cup, and shared the sacred feast--Diana perceived some movement far below, on the open s.p.a.ce in front of Beechcote. A little peering through the twilight showed them two horses with their riders leaving the Beechcote door.

"Oh! your cousin--and Sir James!" cried Diana, in distress, "and I haven't said good-bye--"

"You will see them soon again. And I shall carry them the news to-night."

"Will you? Shall I allow it?"

Marsham laughed; he caught her hand again, slipped it possessively within his left arm, and held it there as they went slowly down the path. Diana could not think with any zest of Alicia and her reception of the news. A succession of trifles had shown her quite clearly that Alicia was not her friend; why, she did not know. She remembered many small advances on her own part.

But at the mention of Sir James Chide, her face lit up.

"He has been so kind to me!" she said, looking up into Marsham's face--"so very kind!"

Her eyes showed a touch of pa.s.sion; the pa.s.sion that some natures can throw into grat.i.tude; whether for little or much. Marsham smiled.

"He fell in love with you! Yes--he is a dear old boy. One can well imagine that he has had a romance!"

"Has he?"

"It is always said that he was in love with a woman whom he defended on a charge of murder."

Diana exclaimed.

"He had met her when they were both very young, and lost his heart to her. Then she married and he lost sight of her. He accepted a brief in this murder case, ten years later, not knowing her ident.i.ty, and they met for the first time when he went to see her with her solicitor in prison."

Diana breathlessly asked for the rest of the story.

"He defended her magnificently. It was a shocking case. The sentence was commuted, but she died almost immediately. They say Sir James has never got over it."

Diana pondered; her eyes dim.

"How one would like to do something for him!--to give him pleasure!"

Marsham caressed her hand.

"So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best friends. But he mustn't make Ferrier jealous."

Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the new ties of kindred or friends.h.i.+p that Marsham was to bring her--modestly indeed, yet in the temper of one who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving.

"I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright look. "I'm glad you have so many!"

"Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely sometimes? Poor darling!"

he said, tenderly, "it must have been solitary often at Portofino."

"Oh no--I had papa." Then her truthfulness overcame her. "I don't mean to say I didn't often want friends of my own age--girl friends especially."

"You can't have them now!"--he said, pa.s.sionately, as they paused at a wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. "I want you all--all--to myself." And in the shadow of the yew he put his arms round her again, and their hearts beat together.

But our nature moves within its own inexorable limits. In Diana, Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace awakened that strange mingled happiness, that happiness reared and based on tragedy, which the pure and sensitive feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured by its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes through the experience which means the life of the race. As her lips felt Marsham's kiss, she knew, as generations of women have known before her, that life could give her no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and parting that made it so intolerably sweet.

"Till death us do part," she said to herself. And in the intensity of her submission to the common lot she saw down the years the end of what had now begun--herself lying quiet and blessed, in the last sleep, her dead hand in Marsham's.

"Why must we go home?" he said, discontentedly, as he released her. "One turn more!--up the avenue! There is light enough yet!"

She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience by the half-penitent remark that Mrs. Colwood would have said good-bye to her guests, and that--she--she supposed they would soon have to know.

"Well, as I want you to marry me in six weeks," said Marsham, joyously, "I suppose they will."

"Six weeks!" She gasped. "Oh, how unreasonable!"

"Dearest!--A fortnight would do for frocks. And whom have we to consult but ourselves? I know you have no near relations. As for cousins, it doesn't take long to write them a few notes, and ask them to the wedding."

Diana sighed.

"My only cousins are the Mertons. They are all in Barbadoes but f.a.n.n.y."

Her tone changed a little. In her thoughts, she added, hurriedly: "I sha'n't have any bridesmaids!"

Marsham, discreetly, made no reply. Personally, he hoped that Miss Merton's engagements might take her safely back to Barbadoes before the wedding-day. But if not, he and his would no doubt know how to deal with her--civilly and firmly--as people must learn to deal with their distasteful relations.

Meanwhile on Diana's mind there had descended a sudden cloud of thought, dimming the ecstasy of her joy. The February day was dying in a yellowish dusk, full of beauty. They were walking along a narrow avenue of tall limes which skirted the Beechcote lands, and took them past the house. Above their heads the trees met in a brown-and-purple tracery of boughs, and on their right, through the branches, they saw a pale full moon, throning it in a silver sky. The mild air, the movements of the birds, the scents from the earth and bushes spoke of spring; and suddenly Diana perceived the gate leading to the wood where that very morning the subtle message of the changing year had come upon her, rending and probing. A longing to tell Marsham all her vague troubles rose in her, held back by a natural shrinking. But the longing prevailed, quickened by the loyal sense that she must quickly tell him all she knew about herself and her history, since there was n.o.body else to tell him.

"Oliver!"--she began, hurriedly--"I ought to tell you--I don't think you know. My name wasn't Mallory to begin with--my father took that name."

Marsham gave a little start.

"Dear--how surprising!--and how interesting! Tell me all you can--from the year One."

He smiled upon her, with a sparkling look that asked for all her history. But secretly he had been conscious of a shock. Lately he had made a few inquiries about the Welsh Mallorys. And the answers had been agreeable; though the old central stock of the name, to which he presumed Diana belonged, was said to be extinct. No doubt--so he had reflected--it had come to an end in her father.