The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 32

"Nothing. But she is already in some trouble and misgiving about the past. She is in the mood to inquire; she has been, I think, for some time. And, naturally, she wishes to hide nothing from me."

"She will write to Riley & Bonner," said Sir James, quietly. "She will probably write to-night. They may take steps to acquaint her with her history--or they may not. It depends. Meanwhile, who else is likely to know anything about the engagement?"

"Diana was to tell Mrs. Colwood--her companion; no one else."

"Nice little woman!--all right there! But"--Sir James gave a slight start--"what about the cousin?"

"Miss Merton? Oh no! There is clearly no sympathy between her and Diana.

How could there be?"

"Yes--but my dear fellow!--that girl knows--must know--everything there is to know! And she dislikes Diana; she is jealous of her; that I saw quite plainly this afternoon. And, moreover, she is probably quite well informed about you and your intentions. She gossiped half through lunch with that ill-bred fellow Birch. I heard your name once or twice.

Oh!--and by-the-way!"--Sir James turned sharply on his heel--"what was she confabulating about with Miss Drake all that time in the garden? Did they know each other before?"

Marsham replied in the negative. But he, too, was disagreeably arrested by the recollection of the two girls walking together, and of the intimacy and animation of their talk. And he could recall what Sir James had not seen--the strangeness of Alicia's manner, and the peremptoriness with which she had endeavored to carry him home with her. Had she--after hearing the story--tried to interrupt or postpone the crucial scene with Diana? That seemed to him the probable explanation, and the idea roused in him a hot and impotent anger. What business was it of hers?

"H'm!" said Sir James. "You may be sure that Miss Drake is now in the secret. She was very discreet on the way home. But she will take sides; and not, I think, with us. She seems to have a good deal of influence with your mother."

Marsham reluctantly admitted it.

"My sister, too, will be hostile. Don't let's forget that."

Sir James shrugged his shoulders, with the smile of one who is determined to keep his spirits up.

"Well, my dear Marsham, you have your battle cut out for you! Don't delay it. Where is Lady Lucy?"

"In town."

"Can't you devise some excuse that will take you back to her early to-morrow morning?"

Marsham thought over it. Easy enough, if only the engagement were announced! But both agreed that silence was imperative. Whatever chance there might be with Lady Lucy would be entirely destroyed were the matter made public before her son had consulted her.

"Everybody here is on the tiptoe of expectation," said Sir James. "But that you know; you must face it somehow. Invent a letter from Ferrier--some party _contretemps_--anything!--I'll help you through. And if you see your mother in the morning, I will turn up in the afternoon."

The two men paused. They were standing together--in conference; but each was conscious of a background of hurrying thoughts that had so far been hardly expressed at all.

Marsham suddenly broke out:

"Sir James!--I know you thought there were excuses--almost justification--for what that poor creature did. I was a boy of fifteen at the time you made your famous speech, and I only know it by report.

You spoke, of course, as an advocate--but I have heard it said--that you expressed your own personal belief. Wherever the case is discussed, there are still--as you know--two opinions--one more merciful than the other. If the line you took was not merely professional; if you personally believed your own case; can you give me some of the arguments--you were probably unable to state them all in court--that convinced you? Let me have something wherewith to meet my mother. She won't look at this altogether from the worldly point of view. She will have a standard of her own. Merely to belittle the thing, as long past and forgotten, won't help me. But if I _could_ awaken her pity!--if you could give me the wherewithal--"

Sir James turned away. He walked to the window and stood there a minute, his face invisible. When he returned, his pallor betrayed what his steady and dignified composure would otherwise have concealed.

"I can tell you what Mrs. Sparling told me--in prison--with the accents of a dying woman--what I believed then--what I believe now.--Moreover, I have some comparatively recent confirmation of this belief.--But this is too public!"--he looked round the library--"we might be disturbed. Come to my room to-night. I shall go up early, on the plea of letters. I always carry with me--certain doc.u.ments. For her child's sake, I will show them to you."

At the last words the voice of the speaker, rich in every tender and tragic note, no less than in those of irony or invective, wavered for the first time. He stooped abruptly, took up the book he had been reading, and left the room.

Marsham, too, went up-stairs. As he pa.s.sed along the main corridor to his room, lost in perplexity and foreboding, he heard the sound of a woman's dress, and, looking up, saw Alicia Drake coming toward him.

She started at sight of him, and under the bright electric light of the pa.s.sage he saw her redden.

"Well, Oliver!--you stayed a good while."

"Not so very long. I have been home nearly an hour. I hope the horses went well!"

"Excellently. Do you know where Sir James is?"

It seemed to him the question was significantly asked. He gave it a cold answer.

"Not at this moment. He was in the smoking-room a little while ago."

He pa.s.sed her abruptly. Alicia Drake pursued her way to the hall. She was carrying some letters to the post-box near the front door. When she arrived there she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other a moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed to "Mrs.

Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds."

Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.

When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on the whitened gra.s.s; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and pa.s.sionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a moment, her hands clasped on her breast, recalling Marsham's words of love and comfort, resting on him, reaching out through him to the Power behind the world, which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, this joy in the soul!

And yet, her mood, her outlook--like Marsham's--was no longer what it had been on the hill-side. No ugly light of revelation had broken upon her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them--she hardly knew how or why--from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said--except to Muriel--till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face.

The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver; rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear whatever there might be to bear.

She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the drawing-room--with intervals between the strummings--as though the player stopped to listen for something or some one. Diana shrank into herself. She ran up-stairs noiselessly to her sitting-room, and opened the door as quietly as possible.

"Muriel!"

The voice was almost a whisper. Mrs. Colwood did not hear it. She was bending over the fire, with her back to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. Mrs. Colwood started.

She hastily rose, turning her face from Diana.

"Is that you? I thought you were still out."

Diana crossed the floor, and put her arm round the little gentle woman, whose breath was still shaken by the quiet sobs she was trying desperately to repress.

"Muriel, dear!--what is it?"

Mrs. Colwood found her voice, and her composure.

"Nothing! I was foolish--it doesn't matter."

Diana was sure she understood. She was suddenly ashamed to bring her own happiness into this desolate and widowed presence, and the kisses with which, mutely, she tried to comfort her friend, were almost a plea to be forgiven.

But Muriel drew herself away. She looked searchingly, with recovered self-command, into Diana's face.

"Has Mr. Marsham gone?"

"Yes," said Diana, looking at her.

Then the smile within broke out, flooding eyes and lips. Under the influence of it, Mrs. Colwood's small tear-stained face pa.s.sed through a quick instinctive change. She, too, smiled as though she could not help it; then she bent forward and kissed Diana.