The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 42

Nothing was said of his own relation to her mother's case; but he saw that she understood it, and their hearts moved together. When he rose to take his leave she held his hand in hers with such a look in her eyes as a daughter might have worn; and he, with an emotion to which he gave little outward expression, vowed to himself that henceforward she should lack no fatherly help or counsel that he could give her.

He gathered, with relief, that the engagement persisted, and the perception led him to praise Marsham in a warm Irish way. But he could not find anything hopeful to say of Lady Lucy. "If you only hold to each other, my dear young lady, things will come right!" Diana flushed and shrank a little, and he felt--helplessly--that the battle was for their fighting, and not his.

Meanwhile, as he had seen Mr. Riley, he did his best to prepare her for the letters and enclosures, which had been for twenty years in the custody of the firm, and would reach her on the morrow.

But what he did not prepare her for was the letter from Lady Lucy Marsham which reached Beechcote by the evening post, after Sir James had left.

The letter lay awhile on Diana's knee, unopened. Muriel Colwood, glancing at her, went away with the tears in her eyes, and at last the stumbling fingers broke the seal.

"MY DEAR MISS MALLORY,--I want you to understand why it is that I must oppose your marriage with my son. You know well, I think, how gladly I should have welcomed you as a daughter but for this terrible revelation. As it is, I cannot consent to the engagement, and if it is carried out Oliver must renounce the inheritance of his father's fortune. I do not say this as any vulgar threat. It is simply that I cannot allow my husband's wealth to be used in furthering what he would never have permitted. He had--and so have I--the strongest feeling as to the sacredness of the family and its traditions. He held, as I do, that it ought to be founded in mutual respect and honor, and that children should have round about them the help that comes from the memory of unstained and G.o.d-fearing ancestors. Do you not also feel this? Is it not a great principle, to which personal happiness and gratification may justly be sacrificed? And would not such a sacrifice bring with it the highest happiness of all?

"Do not think that I am cruel or hard-hearted. I grieve for you with all my soul, and I have prayed for you earnestly, though, perhaps, you will consider this mere hypocrisy. But I must first think of my son--and of my husband. Very possibly you and Oliver may disregard what I say. But if so, I warn you that Oliver is not indifferent to money, simply because the full development of his career depends on it. He will regret what he has done, and your mutual happiness will be endangered. Moreover, he shrinks from all painful thoughts and a.s.sociations; he seems to have no power to bear them; yet how can you protect him from them?

"I beg you to be counselled in time, to think of him rather than yourself--if, indeed, you care for him. And should you decide rightly, an old woman's love and grat.i.tude will be yours as long as she lives.

"Believe me, dear Miss Mallory, very sincerely yours,

"LUCY MARSHAM."

Diana dragged herself up-stairs and locked her door. At ten o'clock Mrs.

Colwood knocked, and heard a low voice asking to be left alone. She went away wondering, in her astonishment and terror, what new blow had fallen. No sound reached her during the night--except the bl.u.s.ter of a north wind rushing in great gusts upon the hill-side and the woods.

CHAPTER XIV

Late on Monday afternoon Lady Niton paid a call in Eaton Square. She and Lady Lucy were very old friends, and rarely pa.s.sed a week when they were both in town without seeing each other.

Mr. Ferrier lunched with her on Monday, and casually remarked that Lady Lucy was not as well as usual. Lady Niton replied that she would look her up that afternoon; and she added: "And what about that procrastinating fellow Oliver? Is he engaged yet?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Mr. Ferrier, after a pause.

"Then he ought to be! What on earth is he shilly-shallying for? In my days young men had proper blood in their veins."

Ferrier did not pursue the subject, and Lady Niton at once jumped to the conclusion that something had happened. By five o'clock she was in Eaton Square.

Only Alicia Drake was in the drawing-room when she was announced.

"I hear Lucy's seedy," said the old lady, abruptly, after vouchsafing a couple of fingers to Miss Drake. "I suppose she's been starving herself, as usual?"

Oliver's mother enjoyed an appet.i.te as fastidious as her judgments on men and morals, and Lady Niton had a running quarrel with her on the subject.

Alicia replied that it had been, indeed, unusually difficult of late to persuade Lady Lucy to eat.

"The less you eat the less you may eat," said Lady Niton, with vigor.

"The stomach contracts unless you give it something to do. That's what's the matter with Lucy, my dear--though, of course, I never dare name the organ. But I suppose she's been worrying herself about something?"

"I am afraid she has."

"Is Oliver engaged?" asked Lady Niton, suddenly, observing the young lady.

Alicia replied demurely that that question had perhaps better be addressed to Lady Lucy.

"What's the matter? Can't the young people make up their minds? Do they want Lucy to make them up for them?"

Alicia looked at her companion a little under her brows, and did not reply. Lady Niton was so piqued by the girl's expression that she immediately threw herself on the mystery she divined--tearing and scratching at it, like a dog in a rabbit-hole. And very soon she had dragged it to the light. Miss Drake merely remarked that it was very sad, but it appeared that Miss Mallory was not really a Mallory at all, but the daughter of a certain Mrs. Sparling--Juliet Sparling, who--"

"Juliet Sparling!" cried Lady Niton, her queer small eyes starting in their sockets. "My dear, you must be mad!"

Alicia smiled, though gravely. She was afraid Lady Niton would find that what she said was true.

A cross-examination followed, after which Lady Niton sat speechless for a while. She took a fan out of her large reticule and fanned herself, a proceeding by which she often protested against the temperature at which Lady Lucy kept her drawing-room. She then asked for a window to be opened, and when she had been sufficiently oxygenated she delivered herself:

"Well, and why not? We really didn't have the picking and choosing of our mothers or fathers, though Lucy always behaves as though we had--to the fourth generation. Besides, I always took the side of that poor creature, and Lucy believed the worst--as usual. Well, and so she's going to make Oliver back out of it?"

At this point the door opened, and Lady Lucy glided in, clad in a frail majesty which would have overawed any one but Elizabeth Niton. Alicia discreetly disappeared, and Lady Niton, after an inquiry as to her friend's health--delivered, as it were, at the point of the bayonet, and followed by a flying remark on the absurdity of treating your body as if it were only given you to be harried--plunged headlong into the great topic. What an amazing business! Now at last one would see what Oliver was made of!

Lady Lucy summoned all her dignity, expounded her view, and entirely declined to be laughed or rated out of it. For Elizabeth Niton, her wig much awry, her old eyes and cheeks blazing, took up the cause of Diana with alternate sarcasm and eloquence. As for the social disrepute--stuff! All that was wanting to such a beautiful creature as Diana Mallory was a story and a scandal. Positively she would be the rage, and Oliver's fortune was made.

Lady Lucy sat in pale endurance, throwing in an occasional protest, not budging by one inch--and no doubt reminding herself from time to time, in the intervals of her old friend's attacks, of the letter she had just despatched to Beechcote--until, at last, Lady Niton, having worked herself up into a fine frenzy to no purpose at all, thought it was time to depart.

"Well, my dear," she said, leaning on her stick, the queerest rag-bag of a figure--crooked wig, rusty black dress, and an unspeakable bonnet--"you are a saint, of course, and I am a quarrelsome old sinner; I like society, and you, I believe, regard it as a grove of barren fig-trees. I don't care a rap for my neighbor if he doesn't amuse me, and you live in a puddle of good works. But, upon my word, I wouldn't be you when it comes to the sheep and the goats business! Here is a young girl, sweet and good and beautifully brought up--money and manners and everything handsome about her--she is in love with Oliver, and he with her--and just because you happen to find out that she is the daughter of a poor creature who made a tragic mess of her life, and suffered for it infinitely more than you and I are ever likely to suffer for our intolerably respectable peccadilloes--you will break her heart and his--if he's the good-luck to have one!--and there you sit, looking like a suffering angel, and expecting all your old friends, I suppose, to pity and admire you. Well, I won't, Lucy!--I won't! That's flat. There's my hand. Good-bye!"

Lady Lucy took it patiently, though from no other person in the world save Elizabeth Niton would she have so taken it.

"I thought, Elizabeth, you would have tried to understand me."

Elizabeth Niton shook her head.

"There's only your Maker could do that, Lucy. And He must be pretty puzzled to account for you sometimes. Good-bye. I thought Alicia looked uncommonly cheerful!"

This last remark was delivered as a parting shot as Lady Niton hobbled to the door. She could not, however, resist pausing to see its effect.

Lady Lucy turned indignantly.

"I don't know what you mean by that remark. Alicia has behaved with great kindness and tact!"

"I dare say! We're all darlings when we get our way. What does Ferrier say?"

Lady Lucy hesitated.

"If my old friends cannot see it as I do--if they blame me--I am very sorry. But it is my responsibility."

"A precious good thing, my dear, for everybody else! But as far as I can make out, they _are_ engaged?"

"Nothing is settled," said Lady Lucy, hastily; "and I need not say, Elizabeth, that if you have any affection for us--or any consideration for Miss Mallory--you will not breathe a word of this most sad business to anybody."

"Well, for Oliver's sake, if he doesn't intend to behave like a man, I do certainly hope it may be kept dark!" cried Lady Niton. "For if he does desert her, under such circ.u.mstances, I suppose you know that a great many people will be inclined to cut him? I shall hold my tongue.