The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 34

Mrs. Colwood dared not follow her any farther. Diana went quickly up and along the gallery; she knocked at f.a.n.n.y's door. After a moment Mrs.

Colwood heard it opened, and a parley of voices--f.a.n.n.y's short and sullen, Diana's very low. Then the door closed, and Mrs. Colwood knew that the cousins were together.

How the next twenty minutes pa.s.sed, Mrs. Colwood could never remember.

At the end of them she heard steps slowly coming down the stairs, and a cry--her own name--not in Diana's voice. She ran out into the hall.

At the top of the stairs, stood f.a.n.n.y Merton, not daring to move farther. Her eyes were starting out of her head, her face flushed and distorted.

"You go to her!" She stooped, panting, over the bal.u.s.ters, addressing Mrs. Colwood. "She won't let me touch her."

Diana descended, groping. At the foot of the stairs she caught at Mrs.

Colwood's hand, went swaying across the hall and into the drawing-room.

There she closed the door, and looked into Mrs. Colwood's eyes. Muriel saw a face in which bloom and first youth were forever dead, though in its delicate features horror was still beautiful. She threw her arms round the girl, weeping. But Diana put her aside. She walked to a chair, and sat down. "My mother--" she said, looking up.

Her voice dropped. She moistened her dry lips, and began once more: "My mother--"

But the brain could maintain its flickering strength no longer. There was a low cry of "Oliver!" that stabbed the heart; then, suddenly, her limbs were loosened, and she sank back, unconscious, out of her friend's grasp and ken.

CHAPTER XI

"Her ladyship will be here directly, sir." Lady Lucy's immaculate butler opened the door of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir James Chide, noiselessly crossed the room to see to the fire, and then as noiselessly withdrew.

"Impossible that any one should be as respectable as that man looks!"

thought Sir James, impatiently. He walked forward to the fire, warmed hands and feet chilled by a nipping east wind, and then, with his back to the warmth, he examined the room.

It was very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn Henry Marsham had worked his will; here, in this house taken since his death, it was the will and taste of his widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a small gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a Brussels carpet, dark and un.o.btrusive, and chintz curtains; on the walls, drawings by David c.o.x, Copley Fielding, and De Wint; a few books with Mudie labels; costly photographs of friends and relations, especially of the relations' babies; on one table, and under a gla.s.s case, a model in pith of Lincoln Cathedral, made by Lady Lucy's uncle, who had been a Canon of Lincoln; on another, a set of fine carved chessmen; such was the furniture of the room. It expressed--and with emphasis--the tastes and likings of that section of English society in which, firmly based as it is upon an ample supply of all material goods, a seemly and intelligent interest in things ideal and spiritual is also to be found.

Everything in the room was in its place, and had been in its place for years. Sir James got no help from the contemplation of it.

The door opened, and Lady Lucy came quietly in. Sir James looked at her sharply as they shook hands. She had more color than usual; but the result was to make the face look older, and certain lines in it disagreeably prominent. Very likely she had been crying. He hoped she had.

"Oliver told you to expect me?"

She a.s.sented. Then, still standing, she looked at him steadily.

"This is a very terrible affair, Sir James."

"Yes. It must have been a great shock to you."

"Oh! that does not matter," she said, impatiently. "I must not think of myself. I must think of Oliver. Will you sit down?"

She motioned him, in her stately way, to a seat. He realized, as he faced her, that he beheld her in a new aspect. She was no longer the gracious and smiling hostess, as her familiar friends knew her, both at Tallyn and in London. Her manner threw a sudden light on certain features in her history: Marsham's continued dependence on his mother and inadequate allowance, the autocratic ability shown in the management of the Tallyn household and estates, management in which Marsham was allowed practically no share at all, and other traits and facts long known to him. The gentle, scrupulous, composed woman of every day had vanished in something far more vigorously drawn; he felt himself confronted by a personality as strong as, and probably more stubborn than his own.

Lady Lucy seated herself. She quietly arranged the folds of her black satin dress; she drew forward a stool, and rested her feet upon it. Sir James watched her, uncertain how to begin. But she saved him the decision.

"I have had a painful interview with my son" she said, quietly. "It could not be otherwise, and I can only hope that in a little while he will do me justice. Oliver will join us presently. And now--first, Sir James, let me ask you--you really believe that Miss Mallory has been till now in ignorance of her mother's history?"

Sir James started.

"Good Heavens, Lady Lucy! Can you--do you--suppose anything else?"

Lady Lucy paused before replying.

"I cannot suppose it--since both you and my son--and Mr. Ferrier--have so high an opinion of her. But it is a strange and mysterious thing that she should have remained in this complete ignorance all these years--and a cruel thing, of course--to everybody concerned."

Sir James nodded.

"I agree. It was a cruel thing, though it was done, no doubt, from the tenderest motives. The suffering was bound to be not less but more, sooner or later."

"Miss Mallory is very greatly to be pitied. But it is, of course, clear that my son proposed to her, not knowing what it was essential that he should know."

Sir James paused.

"We are old friends, Lady Lucy--you and I," he said at last, with deliberation; and as he spoke he bent forward and took her hand. "I am sure you will let me ask you a few questions."

Lady Lucy made no reply. Her hand--without any movement of withdrawal or rebuff--gently dropped from his.

"You have been, I think, much attracted by Miss Mallory herself?"

"Very much attracted. Up to this morning I thought that she would make an excellent wife for Oliver. But I have been acting, of course, throughout under a false impression."

"Is it your feeling that to marry her would injure Oliver's career?"

"Certainly. But that is not what weighs with me most heavily."

"I did not for a moment believe that it would. However, let us take the career first. This is how I look at it. If the marriage went forward, there would no doubt be some scandal and excitement at first, when the truth was known. But Oliver's personality and the girl's charm would soon live it down. In this strange world I am not at all sure it might not in the end help their future. Oliver would be thought to have done a generous and romantic thing, and his wife's goodness and beauty would be all the more appreciated for the background of tragedy."

Lady Lucy moved impatiently.

"Sir James--I am a plain person, with plain ideas. The case would present itself to me very differently; and I believe that my view would be that of the ordinary man and woman. However, I repeat, that is not what I think of first--by any means."

"You think of the criminal taint?--the risk to Oliver--and to Oliver's children?"

She made a sign of a.s.sent.

"Character--and the protection of character--is not that what we have to think of--above all--in this world of temptation? We can none of us afford to throw away the ordinary helps and safeguards. How can I possibly aid and abet Oliver's marriage with the daughter of a woman who first robbed her own young sister, in a peculiarly mean and cruel way, and then committed a deliberate and treacherous murder?"

"Wait a moment!" exclaimed Sir James, holding up his hand. "Those adjectives, believe me, are unjust."

"I know that you think so," was the animated reply. "But I remember the case; I have my own opinion."

"They are unjust," repeated Sir James, with emphasis. "Then it is really the horror of the thing itself--not so much its possible effect on social position and opinion, which decides you?"

"I ask myself--I must ask myself," said his companion, with equal emphasis, forcing the words: "can I help Oliver to marry the daughter--of a convicted murderess--and adulteress?"

"No!" said Sir James, holding up his hand again--"_No!"_