The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 50

He turned a quiet gaze upon her.

"Darwin? At least I throw it out."

"Darwin!" Her voice showed doubt--the natural demur of her young ignorance and idealism.

"Why not? What faith was to the thirteenth century knowledge is to us.

St. Francis rekindled the heart of Europe, Darwin has transformed the main conception of the human mind."

In the dark she caught the cheerful patience of the small penetrating eyes as they turned upon her. And at the same time--strangely--she became aware of a sudden and painful impression; as though, through and behind the patience, she perceived an immense fatigue and discouragement--an ebbing power of life--in the man beside her.

"Hullo!" said Bobbie Forbes, turning back toward them, "I thought there was no one else here."

For suddenly they had become aware of a tapping sound on the marble floor, and from the shadows of the eastern end there emerged two figures: a woman in front, lame and walking with a stick, and a man behind. The cold reflected light which filled the western half of the church shone full on both faces. Bobbie Forbes and Diana exclaimed, simultaneously. Then Diana sped along the pavement.

"Who?" said Chide, rejoining the other two.

"Frobisher--and Miss Vincent," said Forbes, studying the new-comers.

"Miss Vincent!" Chide's voice showed his astonishment. "I thought she had been very ill."

"So she has," said Ferrier--"very ill. It is amazing to see her here."

"And Frobisher?"

Ferrier made no reply. Chide's expression showed perplexity, perhaps a shade of coldness. In him a warm Irish heart was joined with great strictness, even prudishness of manners, the result of an Irish Catholic education of the old type. Young women, in his opinion, could hardly be too careful, in a calumnious world. The modern flouting of old decorums--small or great--found no supporter in the man who had pa.s.sionately defended and absolved Juliet Sparling.

But he followed the rest to the greeting of the new-comers. Diana's hand was in Miss Vincent's, and the girl's face was full of joy; Marion Vincent, deathly white, her eyes, more amazing, more alive than ever, amid the emaciation that surrounded them, greeted the party with smiling composure--neither embarra.s.sed, nor apologetic--appealing to Frobisher now and then as to her travelling companion--speaking of "our week at Orvieto"--making, in fact, no secret of an arrangement which presently every member of the group about her--even Sir James Chide--accepted as simply as it was offered to them.

As to Frobisher, he was rather silent, but no more embarra.s.sed than she.

It was evident that he kept an anxious watch lest her stick should slip upon the marble floor, and presently he insisted in a low voice that she should go home and rest.

"Come back after dinner," she said to him, in the same tone as they emerged on the piazza. He nodded, and hurried off by himself.

"You are at the Subasio?" The speaker turned to Diana. "So am I. I don't dine--but shall we meet afterward?"

"And Mr. Frobisher?" said Diana, timidly.

"He is staying at the Leone. But I told him to come back."

After dinner the whole party met in Diana's little sitting-room, of which one window looked to the convent, while the other commanded the plain. And from the second, the tenant of the room had access to a small terrace, public, indeed, to the rest of the hotel, but as there were no other guests the English party took possession.

Bobbie stood beside the terrace window with Diana, gossiping, while Chide and Ferrier paced the terrace with their cigars. Neither Miss Vincent nor Frobisher had yet appeared, and Muriel Colwood was making tea. Bobbie was playing his usual part of the chatterbox, while at the same time he was inwardly applying much native shrewdness and a boundless curiosity to Diana and her affairs.

Did she know--had she any idea--that in London at that moment she was one of the main topics of conversation?--in fact, the best talked-about young woman of the day?--that if she were to spend June in town--which of course she would not do--she would find herself a _succes fou_--people tumbling over one another to invite her, and make a show of her? Everybody of his acquaintance was now engaged in retrying the Wing murder, since that statement of Chide's in the _Times_. No one talked of anything else, and the new story that was now tacked on to the old had given yet another spin to the ball of gossip.

How had the story got out? Bobbie believed that it had been mainly the doing of Lady Niton. At any rate, the world understood perfectly that Juliet Sparling's innocent and unfortunate daughter had been harshly treated by Lady Lucy--and deserted by Lady Lucy's son.

Queer fellow, Marsham!--rather a fool, too. Why the deuce didn't he stick to it? Lady Lucy would have come round; he would have gained enormous _kudos_, and lost nothing. Bobbie looked admiringly at his companion, vowing to himself that she was worth fighting for. But his own heart was proof. For three months he had been engaged, _sub rosa_, to a penniless cousin. No one knew, least of all Lady Niton, who, in spite of her championship of Diana, would probably be furious when she did know. He found himself pining to tell Diana; he would tell her as soon as ever he got an opportunity. Odd!--that the effect of having gone through a lot yourself should be that other people were strongly drawn to unload their troubles upon you. Bobbie felt himself a selfish beast; but all the same his "Ettie" and his debts; the pros and cons of the various schemes for his future, in which he had hitherto allowed Lady Niton to play so queer and tyrannical a part--all these burned on his tongue till he could confide them to Diana.

Meanwhile the talk strayed to Ferrier and politics--dangerous ground!

Yet some secret impulse in Diana drew her toward it, and Bobbie's curiosity played up. Diana spoke with concern of the great man's pallor and fatigue. "Not to be wondered at," said Forbes, "considering the tight place he was in, or would soon be in." Diana asked for explanations, acting a part a little; for since her acquaintance with Oliver Marsham she had become a diligent reader of newspapers. Bobbie, divining her, gave her the latest and most authentic gossip of the clubs; as to the various incidents and gradations of the now open revolt of the Left Wing; the current estimates of Ferrier's strength in the country; and the prospects of the coming election.

Presently he even ventured on Marsham's name, feeling instinctively that she waited for it. If there was any change in the face beside him the May darkness concealed it, and Bobbie chattered on. There was no doubt that Marsham was in a difficulty. All his sympathies at least were with the rebels, and their victory would be his profit.

"Yet as every one knows that Marsham is under great obligations to Ferrier, for him to join the conspiracy these fellows are hatching doesn't look pretty."

"He won't join it!" said Diana, sharply.

"Well, a good many people think he's in it already. Oh, I dare say it's all rot!" the speaker added, hastily; "and, besides, it's not at all certain that Marsham himself will get in next time."

"Get in!" It was a cry of astonishment--pa.s.sing on into constraint. "I thought Mr. Marsham's seat was absolutely safe."

"Not it." Bobbie began to flounder. "The fact is it's not safe at all; it's uncommonly shaky. He'll have a squeak for it. They're not so sweet on him down there as they used to be."

Gracious!--if she were to ask why! The young man was about hastily to change the subject when Sir James and his companion came toward them.

"Can't we tempt you out, Miss Mallory?" said Ferrier. "There is a marvellous change!" He pointed to the plain over which the night was falling. "When we met you in the church it was still winter, or wintry spring. Now--in two hours--the summer's come!"

And on Diana's face, as she stepped out to join him, struck a buffet of warm air; a heavy scent of narcissus rose from the flower-boxes on the terrace; and from a garden far below came the sharp thin prelude of a nightingale.

For about half an hour the young girl and the veteran of politics walked up and down--sounding each other--heart reaching out to heart--dumbly--behind the veil of words. There was a secret link between them. The politician was bruised and weary--well aware that just as Fortune seemed to have brought one of her topmost prizes within his grasp, forces and events were gathering in silence to contest it with him. Ferrier had been twenty-seven years in the House of Commons; his chief life was there, had always been there; outside that maimed and customary pleasure he found, besides, a woman now white-haired. To rule--to lead that House had been the ambition of his life. He had earned it; had scorned delights for it; and his powers were at their ripest.

Yet the intrigue, as he knew, was already launched that might, at the last moment, sweep him from his goal. Most of the men concerned in it he either held for honest fanatics or despised as flatterers of the mob--ign.o.bly pliant. He could and would fight them all with good courage and fair hope of victory.

But Lucy Marsham's son!--that defection, realized or threatened, was beginning now to hit him hard. Amid all their disagreements of the past year his pride had always refused to believe that Marsham could ultimately make common cause with the party dissenters. Ferrier had hardly been able to bring himself, indeed, to take the disagreements seriously. There was a secret impatience, perhaps even a secret arrogance, in his feeling. A young man whom he had watched from his babyhood, had put into Parliament, and led and trained there!--that he should take this hostile and hara.s.sing line, with threat of worse, was a matter too sore and intimate to be talked about. He did not mean to talk about it. To Lady Lucy he never spoke of Oliver's opinions, except in a half-jesting way; to other people he did not speak of them at all.

Ferrier's affections were deep and silent. He had not found it possible to love the mother without loving the son--had played, indeed, a father's part to him since Henry Marsham's death. He knew the brilliant, flawed, unstable, attractive fellow through and through. But his knowledge left him still vulnerable. He thought little of Oliver's political capacity; and, for all his affection, had no great admiration for his character. Yet Oliver had power to cause him pain of a kind that no other of his Parliamentary a.s.sociates possessed.

The letters of that morning had brought him news of an important meeting in Marsham's const.i.tuency, in which his leadership had been for the first time openly and vehemently attacked. Marsham had not been present at the meeting, and Lady Lucy had written, eagerly declaring that he could not have prevented it and had no responsibility. But could the thing have been done within his own borders without, at least, a tacit connivance on his part?

The incident had awakened a peculiarly strong feeling in the elder man, because during the early days of the recess he had written a series of letters to Marsham on the disputed matters that were dividing the party; letters intended not only to recall Marsham's own allegiance, but--through him--to reach two of the leading dissidents--Lankester and Barton--in particular, for whom he felt a strong personal respect and regard.

These letters were now a cause of anxiety to him. His procedure in writing them had been, of course, entirely correct. It is the business of a party leader to persuade. But he had warned Oliver from the beginning that only portions of them could or should be used in the informal negotiations they were meant to help. Ferrier had always been incorrigibly frank in his talk or correspondence with Marsham, ever since the days when as an Oxford undergraduate, bent on shining at the Union, Oliver had first shown an interest in politics, and had found in Ferrier, already in the front rank, the most stimulating of teachers.

These remarkable letters accordingly contained a good deal of the caustic or humorous discussion of Parliamentary personalities, in which Ferrier--Ferrier at his ease--excelled; and many pa.s.sages, besides, in connection with the measures desired by the Left Wing of the party, steeped in the political pessimism, whimsical or serious, in which Ferrier showed perhaps his most characteristic side at moments of leisure or intimacy; while the moods expressed in outbreaks of the kind had little or no effect on his pugnacity as a debater or his skill as a party strategist, in face of the enemy.

But, by George! if they were indiscreetly shown, or repeated, some of those things might blow up the party! Ferrier uncomfortably remembered one or two instances during the preceding year, in which it had occurred to him--as the merest fleeting impression--that Oliver had repeated a saying or had twisted an opinion of his unfairly--puzzling instances, in which, had it been any one else, Ferrier would have seen the desire to s.n.a.t.c.h a personal advantage at his, Ferrier's, expense. But how entertain such a notion in the case of Oliver! Ridiculous!

He would write no more letters, however. With the news of the Duns...o...b.. meeting the relations between himself and Oliver entered upon a new phase. Toward Lucy's son he must bear himself--politically--henceforward, not as the intimate confiding friend or foster-father, but as the statesman with greater interests than his own to protect. This seemed to him clear; yet the effort to adjust his mind to the new conditions gave him deep and positive pain.

But what, after all, were his grievances compared with those of this soft-eyed girl? It p.r.i.c.ked his conscience to remember how feebly he had fought her battle. She must know that he had done little or nothing for her; yet there was something peculiarly gentle, one might have thought pitiful, in her manner toward him. His pride winced under it.

Sir James, too, must have his private talk with Diana--when he took her to the farther extremity of the little terrace, and told her of the results and echoes which had followed the publication, in the _Times_, of Wing's dying statement.

Diana had given her sanction to the publication with trembling and a torn mind. Justice to her mother required it. There she had no doubt; and her will, therefore, hardened to the act, and to the publicity which it involved. But Sir Francis Wing's son was still living, and what for her was piety must be for him stain and dishonor. She did not shrink; but the compunctions she could not show she felt; and, through Sir James Chide, she had written a little letter which had done something to soften the blow, as it affected a dull yet not inequitable mind.

"Does he forgive us?" she asked, in a low voice, turning her face toward the Umbrian plain, with its twinkling lights below, its stars above.