Chapter XII: Diana's Story

The days go swiftly by: every morning I say to myself, "I am a day nearer to papa and Gay and the animals;" and yet, it is no unfaith or treachery to them, there is something so fascinating and desirable in this unaccustomed life that I cannot think of leaving it without a pang. After the luxury, the flattery and laughter, the old home will seem quiet and dull and sombre; but it is not that,--oh, not that! I do not think I should ever be one of those who think meanly of a friend because he wears a shabby coat. It is not the dullness or the poverty of home that frightens me: it is the thought that I shall lose the sight of one face, the sound of one voice, that my poor foolish eyes and ears have grown to feast on. A cold chill strikes my heart every time I remember that a few days, such a few days hence, he will have gone forever out of my life. And I am nothing to him! he will go on with his gay pleasant life, which no faintest recollection of the little country-bred girl will cross.

One evening again I sing: he does not come near me, nor thank me, as the others do. But later he comes and whispers to me,--

"I want you to do me a great favor. Will you?"

My eyes glisten. What would I not do to favor him?

"I have a passion for singing,--some singing,--like yours. The Opera, as a rule, bores me to death, except a few of those lovely, plaintive solos. After all, I would rather hear Patti sing 'Home, Sweet Home,' than all the operas in creation. I'm awfully fond of hymn-tunes, those lovely ones they sing at Wells Street (ah! I forget you don't know London). I go there nearly every Sunday afternoon. But best of all I love to sit in an arm-chair and listen to those dear old-fashioned ballads sung by a voice like yours. Not that I often get the chance: I have not heard many such. The only time I ever feel as if I had a soul is when I listen to sweet singing. I think" (smiling) "you might quite convert me with your voice: you know Orpheus charmed the wild beasts with his lyre, and I don't suppose you think me far removed from them."

I laugh from sheer happiness at his praise.

"But the favor!" I say, interrogatively.

"I want" (bending still nearer)--"I want you to sing to me alone."

"Alone?" I repeat; "but how can I? Do you mean to ask all the other people to go out of the room?"

"I want you to make a rendezvous with me for to-morrow. Every one goes out in the afternoon. Say you have a headache and stop at home."

"But I never had a headache in my life."

"No? I thought ladies always had headaches as often as they liked. What is your particular complaint when you want an excuse?"

"I never do want one. I have only to say to papa 'I wish to go out;' or, 'I wish to stay at home,' and he never questions it."

"I wish my papa was like that!" laughs Captain Montagu. "Unfortunately, he is the exact opposite of yours. But come" (persuasively), "do manage it for me somehow, and I shall be ever so grateful to you."

I should dearly like to do what he asks me,--there could be no harm in singing to him; but to scheme to be alone with him, even for so innocent a purpose! No: impossible.

"I would sing to you for hours, and welcome," I say, "but we must take our chance of there being some one else present who might object."

"I tell you how we'll manage it: we'll start for a walk with Miss Gore and Irvine: they always walk,--I suppose" (laughing) "because it's the only chance they have of getting away from their kind here. They are sure to lose us, or we them, and then we will come back and have it all to ourselves. Shall we?"

A guilty joy steals across me as I smile consent, and then he leaves me, and his brother, who has been scowling at us from the other side of the room, takes his place.

"What has my brother been imparting to you that makes you look so happy?" he asks, in his cold voice.

"If I look happy," I retort, rather indignantly, "it is because I reflect the faces of the people I talk to. Your brother smiles and looks pleasant, so I do the same."

"And you are reflecting my face now, I suppose," he says, with slight sarcasm. "Your expression is quite different from what it was a moment ago."

"Probably," I reply, for I am considerably nettled by his constant personalities.

He gnaws his lip for a moment, and then says, much more softly,--

"I wish I had the knack of pleasing you! Do you know I long sometimes to play eavesdropper and hear what these fellows say who make you smile and look so bright?"

"You would not hear much wit or wisdom," I respond, relaxing into a smile: "the subject of our mirth would probably cause you to embrace us all in one supreme and infinite contempt."

"Why will you persist in thinking me such a prig?" he says, impatiently. "Do you think _I_ cannot laugh and be gay and amused too?"

I look askance at him, and answer, doubtfully, "I don't know: I dare say."

He laughs in spite of himself.

"I suppose you think I never was a boy and trundled a hoop or played marbles."

For once he succeeds in making me laugh, as my vivid imagination pictures the grave and dignified individual before me occupied with such youthful pastimes.

"You see," I say, when I recover myself, "what a small thing it takes to amuse me."

"Anyhow, I am fortunate to have done so once," he observes, quite good-temperedly; and, having so far broken the ice, we continue quite friendly for the short time that remains before the party breaks up for the night.

I go to my room exuberantly happy at the thought of to-morrow's programme, but trembling, too, for fear something may interfere with it. But it comes to pass as he has decreed. Most of the gentlemen are shooting,---all, indeed, except Captain Montagu, Miss Gore's lover, and Lord Rexborough, who has gone hunting with Lady Gwyneth. We start for our walk, and in due course lose our companions; and little more than half an hour later we are back in Mrs. Warrington's boudoir, I at the piano, Captain Montagu a little distance off, buried in the easiest chair in the room. His eyes are shut, and his face slightly averted from me.

"I am not asleep," he says, "but I cannot use my eyes and ears both; and the prettiest woman in the world looks less pretty with her mouth open, singing. I shall not say, 'Thank you;' and please not to stop for a long time."

So I sing on and on, more anxious to give him pleasure than I could feel to win the approbation of a thousand other folk. Once now and then I let my eyes steal over his face with secret delight, and still I sing on.

It begins to grow dusk,--the days are at their shortest. I look at the clock: it is a whole hour since I sat down. I close the piano softly, not altogether sure that my voice has not had the soothing though unflattering effect of sending him to sleep; but no sooner have I done so than he opens his eyes, and, rising, comes towards me.

"Do you know," he says, softly, bending down to me, "do you know that you have given me more pleasure than I have felt for years? I can't tell you how I have enjoyed this afternoon. You are not tired, are you?" (tenderly). "I am such a selfish brute,--I am afraid I never think of any one but myself."

"I am glad if I have pleased you," I say, looking at him, but turning my eyes as quickly away again, feeling, I know not why, unable to meet his gaze. There is a moment's pause, and then he stretches out his hand and takes one of mine which lies on the closed piano. His touch thrills me like an electric flame,--I scarce know if it be pain or pleasure At this moment I hear two laughs, one loud, one shrill. Burning with shame, I essay to tear my hand away, but Captain Montagu holds it tightly. He is not one whit embarrassed.

"I am giving Miss Carew a lesson in palmistry," he says, coolly. "Do you understand the science, Lady Gwyneth?"

"I think I do, as practiced by you," she answers, with a burst of merriment, in which Lord Rexborough's voice joins.

Captain Montagu opens my reluctant palm with gentle force.

"She has a very long line of life," he remarks, imperturbably gazing into it.

"How about the line of the heart, eh, Charlie?" roars my lord, approaching: "let's have a look."

As he approaches, I tear my hand away and put both behind my back.

"What a timid little dove it is!" he cries. "Lady Gwyneth, now is it that I scare Miss Carew so horribly?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," she returns, in the same tone. "I should not have given Miss Carew credit for being shy. Evidently Captain Montagu does not inspire her with similar terror."

"You're such a great hulking fellow, you know, Jack," laughs Captain Montagu, putting his hand on the other's shoulder; "and you look so frightfully fierce; and then, with your reputation as a lion-slayer and your sojourn in wild parts, I shouldn't wonder if Miss Carew thinks you eat human flesh, and is rather in terror of her life when you come too near."

"Of the two I don't suppose I'm as dangerous to the young lady as you are," replies my lord. "Come, Miss Carew, won't you give us another of those sweet songs you were favoring this lucky fellow with just now."

"Do," says Lady Gwyn, imperiously. "Sing 'Auld Robin Gray.'"

But my voice feels choked; I could not sing now to please any one: so I rise and walk away from the piano, saying, "I am afraid I have no voice left."

"What a charming, good-natured girl!" says Lady Gwyn, _sotto voce_, to her companion, but loud enough for me to hear; and, vexed and indignant, I leave the boudoir and seek my own room. There is always a reverse to every picture. Still, I have pleased him, and that is fifty thousand times more to me than the displeasure of all the lords and ladies in creation.

During the last few days I have seen a great deal of Claire Fane, and every day I like her better. She is so thoroughly kind and good, so pleasant to every one, and somehow seems to have a way of drawing together the most uncongenial materials and of making the best of them. Lord Rexborough seems less loud and coarse in her society, Lady Gwyneth less fast, Mrs. Huntingdon less ill-tempered, Hector Montagu less stiff and formal.

I have an idea,--it may be groundless,--but I fancy she has a great regard for Mr. Montagu: a faint blush comes to her kind pretty face when he addresses her sometimes, she is a little embarrassed now and then in his presence, and she never finds fault with what he says, even when he is most cynical and uncharitable. She rather apologizes to him for what he condemns than blames him as I think she might do for his fault-finding. But is it possible that she can care for him? Indeed I cannot understand his attracting any one,--far less so sweet and amiable a creature as Claire. I hope I shall see more of her when I leave here. I love her already; and I know papa would too if he could only see her; and I think he and Colonel Fane would get on famously.

The last day of our stay has come: to-morrow we are going home. I long to see them all again, but, oh, I wish these few little golden hours that are left would not speed on so swiftly. On this last evening, Captain Montagu takes me in to dinner for the first time. It is only seven nights removed from the dinner that I found so grievously long, but to-night I am inclined to quarrel with the great gold hands that run so swiftly round the clock, and the pendulum that swings to and fro with such ill-natured haste. I feel in boundless spirits: I know that my lips are curved in smiles, that my eyes are eager; I read it in the half-regretful, half-amused expression on Colonel Fane's face, in the angry looks of Mr. Montagu, in the scorn of Mrs. Huntingdon's handsome, discontented face, and the kind smile on Claire's. Our stream of talk ripples on: it is neither wise nor witty, but sweeter to me than any pearls of eloquence that could flow from the lips of any other man. The words that make such music in my ears are commonplace enough, and, were they uttered by another voice, would hold none of their present charm.

"I am so awfully sorry you are going to-morrow," say the mouth and eyes I find so handsome. "I can't forgive myself for having wasted so many hours when I first came. But then you know" (smiling) "I never expected to find an unmarried lady so charming."

I laugh gleefully.

"What shall I do for pretty speeches when I get back to my rustic life?" I ask. "To-morrow" (with a shade of sadness) "I shall have dropped out of fairy-land and be a little Cinderella again."

"I wish I could be your fairy godmother," he says. "I should like to take you to London and show you a little of life: I wouldn't even mind turning into a plumed and turbaned chaperon for one season to attend you everywhere. How tremendously indulgent and long-suffering I should be, and how confoundedly jealous of all your admirers!"

I laugh outright.

"What! if you were a plumed and turbaned dowager!"

"Ah, I am afraid I was mixing up identities," he laughs. "Never mind: to-night, thank Heaven, I am admirer only; and I have persuaded Mrs. Warrington to let us have a dance, and you" (whispering) "are going to waltz with me twice, if Hector shoots me for it to-morrow."

"Never mind your brother!" I exclaim, impatiently.

"I'm afraid your education has been sadly neglected on some important points," says Captain Montagu, with an amused smile. "You don't seem to understand the difference between a _parti_ and a _detrimental_."

"What is a detrimental?" I ask, curiously.

"A man who cannot marry you himself, and who keeps other men off. I am a detrimental."

My cheeks are aflame in an instant. Fortunately, Mrs. Warrington is just rising to go. Oh, I wish he had not said that! Surely he does not think for one moment that I am so conceited and silly as to need a caution from him that he is only beguiling an idle hour in my society. Why did he poison the cup that was so sweet a moment ago, by giving me foretaste of the dregs?

We are in the hall, and Claire passes her arm through mine.

"I am glad your last evening is such a pleasant one!" she says, kindly; and I answer, "Yes, it is, very,--thanks;" but my tone is not so hearty as it would have been a minute since.

"Rochester is going to drive me over to see you soon," she says. "And I hope we are going to be real neighbors, and to see a great deal of each other."

"Oh, I shall be so glad!" I exclaim, heartily; "we are so very dull and quiet at home, and I dare say I shall feel it more now that I have had all this gayety. It will be delightful having something to look forward to. Only," I continue, reddening a little, yet feeling constrained to tell her, "we live in a very small, quiet way, you know, because----"

"My dear," she says, interrupting me, and giving my hand a kind little squeeze, "I am coming to see you, and the dogs and the kittens and all your other pets."