The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 44

When she had read Marsham's it dropped from her hand. The color flooded her cheeks--as though the heart leaped beneath a fresh blow which it could not realize or measure. Was it so she would have written to Oliver if--

She was sitting at her writing-table in the drawing-room. Her eyes wandered through the mullioned window beside her to the hill-side and the woods. This was Wednesday. Four days since, among those trees, Oliver had spoken to her. During those four days it seemed to her that, in the old Hebrew phrase, she had gone down into the pit. All the nameless dreads and terrors of her youth, all the intensified fears of the last few weeks, had in a few minutes become real and verified--only in a shape infinitely more terrible than any fear among them all had ever dared to prophesy. The story of her mother--the more she knew of it, the more she realized it, the more sharply it bit into the tissues of life; the more it seemed to set Juliet Sparling and Juliet Sparling's child alone by themselves--in a dark world. Diana had never yet had the courage to venture out-of-doors since the news came to her; she feared to see even her old friends the Roughsedges, and had been invisible to them since the Sat.u.r.day; she feared even the faces of the village children.

All through she seemed to have been clinging to Marsham's supporting hand as to the clew which might--when nature had had its way--lead her back out of this labyrinth of pain. But surely he would let her sorrow awhile!--would sorrow with her. Under the strange coldness and brevity of his letter, she felt like the children in the market-place of old--"We have mourned unto you, and ye have not wept."

Yet if her story was not to be a source of sorrow--of divine pity--it could only be a source of disgrace and shame. Tears might wash it out!

But to hate and resent it--so it seemed to her--must be--in a world, where every detail of such a thing was or would be known--to go through life branded and crushed by it. If the man who was to be her husband could only face it thus (by a stern ostracism of the dead, by silencing all mention of them between himself and her), her cheeks could never cease to burn, her heart to shrink.

Now at last she felt herself weighed indeed to the earth, because Marsham, in that measured letter, had made her realize the load on him.

All that huge wealth he was to give up for her? His mother had actually the power to strip him of his inheritance?--and would certainly exercise it to punish him for marrying her--Diana?

Humiliation came upon her like a flood, and a bitter insight followed.

Between the lines of the letter she read the reluctance, the regrets of the man who had written it. She saw that he would be faithful to her if he could, but that in her own concentration of love she had accepted what Oliver had not in truth the strength to give her. The Marsham she loved had suddenly disappeared, and in his place was a Marsham whom she might--at a personal cost he would never forget, and might never forgive--persuade or compel to marry her.

She sprang up. For the first time since the blow had fallen, vigor had returned to her movements and life to her eyes.

"Ah, no!" she said to herself, panting a little. "_No!_"

A letter fell to the ground--the letter in the unknown handwriting. Some premonition made her open it and prepared her for the signature.

"MY DEAR MISS MALLORY,--I heard of the sad discovery which had taken place, from my cousin, Miss Drake, on Sunday morning, and came up at once from the country to be with my mother; for I know well with what sympathy she had been following Oliver's wishes and desires. It is a very painful business. I do most truly regret the perplexing situation in which you find yourself, and I am sure you will not resent it if, as Oliver's sister, I write you my views on the matter.

"I am afraid it is useless to expect that my mother should give way. And, then, the question is, What is the right course for you and Oliver to pursue? I understand that he proposed to you, and you accepted him, in ignorance of the melancholy truth. And, like a man of honor, he proposes to stand by his engagement--unless, of course, you release him.

"Now, if I were in your place, I should expect to consider such a matter not as affecting myself only, but in its relation to society--and the community. Our first duty is to Society. We owe it everything, and we must not act selfishly toward it. Consider Oliver's position. He has his foot on the political ladder. Every session his influence in Parliament increases. His speech to-night was--as I hear from a man who has just come from the debate--the most brilliant he has yet made. It is extremely likely that when our party comes in again he will have office, and in ten or fifteen years' time what is there to prevent his being even Prime Minister?--with all the mighty influence over millions of human beings which that means?

"But to give him every chance in his career money is, unfortunately, indispensable. Every English Prime Minister has been a rich man. It may be a blot on our English life. I think it is. But, then, I have been all my life on the side of the poor. You, who are a Tory and an Imperialist, who sympathize with militarism and with war, will agree that it is important our politicians should be among the 'Haves,'

that a man's possessions _do_ matter to his party and his cause.

"They matter especially--at the present moment--to _our_ party and _our_ cause. We are the poor party, and our rich men are few and far between.

"You may say that you would help him, and that your own money would be at his disposal. But could a man live upon his wife, in such circ.u.mstances, with any self-respect? Of course, I know that you are very young, and I trust that your views on many subjects, social and political, will change, and change materially, before long. It is a serious thing for women nowadays to throw themselves across the path of progress. At the same time I see that you have a strong--if I may say so--a vehement character. It may not be easy for you to cast off at once what, I understand, has been your father's influence. And meanwhile Oliver would be fighting all your father's and your ideas--largely on your money; for he has only a thousand a year of his own.

"Please let me a.s.sure you that I am not influenced by my mother's views. She attaches importance--an exaggerated--if she were not my mother, I should say an absurd--importance, to the family. Whereas, ideas--the great possibilities of the future--when free men and women shall lead a free and n.o.ble life--these are what influence _me_--these are what I live for.

"It will cause you both pain to separate. I know that. But summon a rational will to your aid, and you will soon see that pa.s.sion is a poor thing compared to impersonal and unselfish aims. The cause of women--their political and social enfranchis.e.m.e.nt--the freeing of men from the curse of militarism--of both men and women from the patriotic lies which make us bullies and cowards--it is to these I would invite you--when you have overcome a mere personal grief.

"I fear I shall seem to you a voice crying in the wilderness; but I write in Oliver's interest--and your own.

"Yours sincerely,

"ISABEL FOTHERINGHAM.

"P.S. Our secretary, Mrs. Derrick Smith, at the Mary Wollstonecraft Club, will always be glad to send you any literature you might require."

Diana read to the end. She put it down with something like a smile. As she paced the room, her head thrown back, her hands behind her, the weight had been lifted from her; she breathed from a freer breast.

Very soon she went back to her desk and began to write.

"My dear Oliver,--I did not realize how things were when you came yesterday. Now I see. You must not marry me. I could not bear to bring poverty upon you, and--to-day--I do not feel that I have the strength to meet your mother's and your sister's opposition.

"Will you please tell Lady Lucy and Mrs. Fotheringham that I have received their letters? It will not be necessary to answer them. You will tell them that I have broken off the engagement.

"You were very good to me yesterday. I thank you with all my heart. But it is not in my power--yet--to forget it all. My mother was so young--and it seems but the other day.

"I would not injure your career for the world. I hope that all good will come to you--always.

"Probably Mrs. Colwood and I shall go abroad for a little while. I want to be alone--and it will be easiest so. Indeed, if possible, we shall leave London to-morrow night. Good-bye.

"DIANA."

She rose, and stood looking down upon the letter. A thought struck her.

Would he take the sentence giving the probable time of her departure as an invitation to him to come and meet her at the station?--as showing a hope that he might yet persist--and prevail?

She stooped impetuously to rewrite the letter. Instead, her tears fell on it. Sobbing, she put it up--she pressed it to her lips. If he did come--might they not press hands?--look into each other's eyes?--just once, once more?

An hour later the home was in a bustle of packing and housekeeping arrangements. Muriel Colwood, with a small set face and lips, and eyes that would this time have scorned to cry, was writing notes and giving directions. Meanwhile, Diana had written to Mrs. Roughsedge, and, instead of answering the letter, the recipient appeared in person, breathless with the haste she had made, the gray curls displaced.

Diana told her story, her slender fingers quivering in the large motherly hand whose grasp soothed her, her eyes avoiding the tender dismay and pity writ large on the old face beside her; and at the end she said, with an effort:

"Perhaps you have all expected me to be engaged to Mr. Marsham. He did propose to me--but--I have refused him."

She faltered a little as she told her first falsehood, but she told it.

"My dear!" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, "he can't--he won't--accept that! If he ever cared for you, he will care for you tenfold more now!"

"It was I," said Diana, hurriedly--"I have done it. And, please, I would rather it were now all forgotten. n.o.body else need know, need they, that he proposed?"

She stroked her friend's hand piteously. Mrs. Roughsedge, foreseeing the storm of gossip that would be sweeping in a day or two through the village and the neighborhood, could not command herself to speak. Her questions--her indignation--choked her. At the end of the conversation, when Diana had described such plans as she had, and the elder lady rose to go, she said, faltering:

"May Hugh come and say good-bye?"

Diana shrank a moment, and then a.s.sented. Mrs. Roughsedge folded the girl to her heart, and fairly broke down. Diana comforted her; but it seemed as if her own tears were now dry. When they were parting, she called her friend back a moment.

"I think," she said, steadily, "it would be best now that everybody here should know what my name was, and who I am. Will you tell the Vicar, and anybody else you think of? I shall come back to live here. I know everybody will be kind--" Her voice died away.

The March sun had set and the lamps were lit when Hugh Roughsedge entered the drawing-room where Diana sat writing letters, paying bills, absorbing herself in all the details of departure. The meeting between them was short. Diana was embarra.s.sed, above all, by the tumult of suppressed feeling she divined in Roughsedge. For the first time she must perforce recognize what hitherto she had preferred not to see: what now she was determined not to know. The young soldier, on his side, was stifled by his own emotions--wrath--contempt--pity; and by a maddening desire to wrap this pale stricken creature in his arms, and so protect her from an abominable world. But something told him--to his despair--that she had been in Marsham's arms; had given her heart irrevocably; and that, Marsham's wife or no, all was done and over for him, Hugh Roughsedge.

Yet surely in time--in time! That was the inner clamor of the mind, as he bid her good-bye, after twenty minutes' disjointed talk, in which, finally, neither dared to go beyond commonplace. Only at the last, as he held her hand, he asked her:

"I may write to you from Nigeria?"

Rather shyly, she a.s.sented; adding, with a smile:

"But I am a bad letter-writer!"