The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 51

"He knows he must have done the same in our place," said Sir James.

After a minute he looked at her closely under the electric light which dominated the terrace.

"I am afraid you have been going through a great deal," he said, bending over her. "Put it from you when you can. You don't know how people feel for you"

She looked up with her quick smile.

"I don't always think of it--and oh! I am so thankful to _know_! I dream of them often--my father and mother--but not unhappily. They are _mine_--much, much more than they ever were."

She clasped her hands, and he felt rather than saw the exaltation, the tender fire in her look.

All very well! But this stage would pa.s.s--must pa.s.s. She had her own life to live. And if one man had behaved like a selfish coward, all the more reason to invoke, to hurry on the worthy and the perfect lover.

Presently Marion Vincent appeared, and with her Frobisher, and an unknown man with a magnificent brow, dark eyes of a remarkable vivacity, and a Southern eloquence both of speech and gesture. He proved to be a famous Italian, a poet well known to European fame, who, having married an English wife, had settled himself at a.s.sisi for the study of St.

Francis and the Franciscan literature. He became at once the centre of a circle which grouped itself on the terrace, while he pointed to spot after spot, dimly white on the shadows of the moon-lit plain, linking each with the Franciscan legend and the pa.s.sion of Franciscan poetry.

The slopes of San Damiano, the sites of Spello, Bevagna, Cannara; Rivo Torto, the hovering dome of the Portiuncula, the desolate uplands that lead to the Carceri; one after another, the scenes and images--grotesque or lovely--simple or profound--of the vast Franciscan story rose into life under his touch, till they generated in those listening the answer of the soul of to-day to the soul of the Poverello. Poverty, misery, and crime--still they haunt the Umbrian villages and the a.s.sisan streets; the shadows of them, as the north knows them, lay deep and terrible in Marion Vincent's eyes. But as the poet spoke the eternal protest and battle-cry of Humanity swelled up against them--overflowed, engulfed them. The hearts of some of his listeners burned within them.

And finally he brought them back to the famous legend of the hidden church: deep, deep in the rock--below the two churches that we see to-day; where St. Francis waits--standing, with his arms raised to heaven, on fire with an eternal hope, an eternal ecstasy.

"Waits for what?" said Ferrier, under his breath, forgetting his audience a moment. "The death of Catholicism?"

Sir James Chide gave an uneasy cough. Ferrier, startled, looked round, threw his old friend a gesture of apology which Sir James mutely accepted. Then Sir James got up and strolled away, his hands in his pockets, toward the farther end of the terrace.

The poet meanwhile, ignorant of this little incident, and a.s.suming the sympathy of his audience, raised his eyebrows, smiling, as he repeated Ferrier's words:

"The death of Catholicism! No, Signor!--its second birth." And with a Southern play of hand and feature--the n.o.bility of brow and aspect turned now on this listener, now on that--he began to describe the revival of faith in Italy.

"Ten years ago there was not faith enough in this country to make a heresy! On the one side, a moribund organization, poisoned by a dead philosophy; on the other, negation, license, weariness--a dumb thirst for men knew not what. And now!--if St. Francis were here--in every olive garden--in each hill town--on the roads and the by-ways--on the mountains--in the plains--his heart would greet the swelling of a new tide drawing inward to this land--the breath of a new spring kindling the buds of life. He would hear preached again, in the language of a new day, his own religion of love, humility, and poverty. The new faith springs from the very heart of Catholicism, banned and persecuted as new faiths have always been; but every day it lives, it spreads! Knowledge and science walk hand in hand with it; the future is before it. It spreads in tales and poems, like the Franciscan message; it penetrates the priesthood; it pa.s.ses like the risen body of the Lord through the walls of seminaries and episcopal palaces; through the bulwarks that surround the Vatican itself. Tenderly, yet with an absolute courage, it puts aside old abuses, old ignorances!--like St. Francis, it holds out its hand to a spiritual bride--and the name of that bride is Truth! And in his grave within the rock--on tiptoe--the Poverello listens--the Poverello smiles!"

The poet raised his hand and pointed to the convent pile, towering under the moonlight. Diana's eyes filled with tears. Sir James had come back to the group, his face, with its dignified and strenuous lines, bent--half perplexed, half frowning--on the speaker. And the magic of the Umbrian night stole upon each quickened pulse.

But presently, when the group had broken up and Ferrier was once more strolling beside Diana, he said to her:

"A fine prophecy! But I had a letter this morning from another Italian writer. It contains the following pa.s.sage: 'The soul of this nation is dead. The old enthusiasms are gone. We have the most selfish, the most cynical _bourgeoisie_ in Europe. Happy the men of 1860! They had some illusions left--religion, monarchy, country. We too have men who _would give themselves_--if they could. But to what? No one wants them any more--_nessuno li vuole piu_!' Well, there are the two. Which will you believe?"

"The poet!" said Diana, in a low faltering voice. But it was no cry of triumphant faith. It was the typical cry of our generation before the closed door that openeth not.

"That was good," said Marion Vincent, as the last of the party disappeared through the terrace window, and she and Diana were left alone--"but this is better."

She drew Diana toward her, kissed her, and smiled at her. But the smile wrung Diana's heart.

"Why have you been so ill?--and I never knew!" She wrapped a shawl round her friend, and, holding her hands, gazed into her face.

"It was all so hurried--there was so little time to think or remember.

But now there is time."

"Now you are going to rest?--and get well?"

Marion smiled again.

"I shall have holiday for a few months--then rest."

"You won't live any more in the East End? You'll come to me--in the country?" said Diana, eagerly.

"Perhaps! But I want to see all I can in my holiday--before I rest! All my life I have lived in London. There has been nothing to see--but squalor. Do you know that I have lived next door to a fried-fish shop for twelve years? But now--think!--I am in Italy--and we are going to the Alps--and we shall stay on Lake Como--and--and there is no end to our plans--if only my holiday is long enough."

What a ghost face!--and what shining eyes!

"Oh, but make it long enough!" pleaded Diana, laying one of the emaciated hands against her cheek, and smitten by a vague terror.

"That does not depend on me," said Marion, slowly.

"Marion," cried Diana, "tell me what you mean!"

Marion hesitated a moment, then said, quietly:

"Promise, dear, to take it quite simply--just as I tell it. I am so happy. There was an operation--six weeks ago. It was quite successful--I have no pain. The doctors give me seven or eight months. Then my enemy will come back--and my rest with him."

A cry escaped Diana as she buried her face in her friend's lap. Marion kissed and comforted her.

"If you only knew how happy I am!" she said, in a low voice. "Ever since I was a child I seem to have fought--fought hard for every step--every breath. I fought for bread first--and self-respect--for myself--then for others. One seemed to be hammering at shut gates or climbing precipices with loads that dragged one down. Such trouble always!" she murmured, with closed eyes--"such toil and anguish of body and brain! And now it is all over!"--she raised herself joyously--"I am already on the farther side. I am like St. Francis--waiting. And meanwhile I have a dear friend--who loves me. I can't let him marry me. Pain and disease and mutilation--of all those horrors, as far as I can, he shall know nothing. He shall not nurse me; he shall only love and lead me. But I have been thirsting for beautiful things all my life--and he is giving them to me. I have dreamed of Italy since I was a baby, and here I am! I have seen Rome and Florence. We go on to Venice. And next week there will be mountains--and snow-peaks--rivers--forests--flowers--"

Her voice sank and died away. Diana clung to her, weeping, in a speechless grief and reverence. At the same time her own murdered love cried out within her, and in the hot despair of youth she told herself that life was as much finished for her as for this tired saint--this woman of forty--who had borne since her babyhood the burdens of the poor.

CHAPTER XVII

The Whitsuntide recess pa.s.sed--for the wanderers in Italy--in a glorious prodigality of sun, a rushing of bud and leaf to "feed in air," a twittering of birds, a splendor of warm nights, which for once indorsed the traditional rhapsodies of the poets. The little party of friends which had met at a.s.sisi moved on together to Siena and Perugia, except for Marion Vincent and Frobisher. They quietly bade farewell, and went their way.

When Marion kissed Diana at parting, she said, with emphasis:

"Now, remember!--you are not to come to London! You are not to go to work in the East End. I forbid it! You are to go home--and look lovely--and be happy!"

Diana's eyes gazed wistfully into hers.

"I am afraid--I hadn't thought lately of coming to London," she murmured. "I suppose--I'm a coward. And just now I should be no good to anybody."

"All right. I don't care for your reasons--so long as you go home--and don't uproot."

Marion held her close. She had heard all the girl's story, had shown her the most tender sympathy. And on this strange wedding journey of hers she knew that she carried with her Diana's awed love and yearning remembrance.