Chapter XVIII: Diana's Story

I have been three days at Alford Court. I love Lady Montagu; and no one could be kinder than her son. I can hardly realize that he is the same man who used to frighten and bore me at Warrington. After breakfast we always go out together, sometimes riding, sometimes walking. He occupies himself a great deal about the property, and always has some business on hand.

One thing I remark which surprises me not a little: it is his pleasant manner with his inferiors. As we pass the cottages he always has a kind word for the women and children: he seems quite unostentatiously to know about, and take an interest in, their personal affairs. I notice, too, that they all brighten up and look very pleased and cheerful when he speaks to them. His manner to servants and laborers is just my idea of what a gentleman's manner should be,--oh, such a contrast from Sir Hector's! it is kind and dignified, it commands respect, and, I can see, affection as well. I have never once heard him speak harshly to or of any one, excepting perhaps his father; and I really cannot wonder at that. One morning he has to go to Willington on business, and I occupy my leisure in visiting some of his mother's poor. My first visit is made to one of her special _protégées_, a woman dying of consumption.

I find the poor patient by the fire, though it is a warm May morning, in a room beautifully clean and neat, and with many comforts which I am surprised to see, but which she explains to me presently by pointing them out as gifts from my lady or Mr. Montagu. She is propped on soft pillows in an easy-chair, but she looks terribly haggard and worn: there is a bright spot on either cheek; her voice is faint and low, and seems to come with an effort. She is immensely interested in hearing about Lady Montagu, and, when I have told her all I know, she goes on to tell me, in her feeble voice, of my lady's goodness to her.

"We should all ha' been in the House, or starving, if it hadn't ha' been for her. Sir Hector's a hard man, miss: he don't seem to think us poor folks is made of the same flesh and blood as him. I don't say as we are, miss, altogether like" (in an apologetic tone which makes me smile): "still, we are flesh and blood, an' we hev our feelings, an' when the gentry is good to us, like my lady and Mr. Montagu, we're ready to fall down an' worship 'em. I've heard tell as poor people's so ongrateful, but I never see it so, nor I don't believe it. I know there's hardly one in this village as wouldn't lay down their lives for my lady if so be as they was called upon to do it. And I'm sure I wouldn't wish harm to no one, standing as you may say with one foot in the grave myself, but it'll be a blessed day for Alford when Mr. Montagu steps into Sir Hector's shoes. He's all for doin' everything for the poor, an' buildin' new cottages, an' raisin' wages, an' encouragin' poor folks to take a pride in themselves; an' I have heard tell that he an' Sir Hector do quarrel dreadful at times about it. I know he does a deal out of his own pocket, for Sir Hector is one of those as 'ud skin a flint, as the sayin' is, although he keeps up such a deal o' grandeur at the Court."

I have more talk with her, and then I go on to pay a few more visits in the parish. All the cottages I go into are very clean. Most of them boast some present from my lady or Mr. Montagu, which is shown me with great pride.

I come away from my round of visits with a greatly heightened opinion of Hector and a certain sense of shame at having so misjudged him. Of his sweet kind mother I had been prepared to hear only praise.

"Where have you been?" cries the object of my thoughts, reining up beside me, and looking, I think (feeling as I do excellently disposed towards him), stalwart and handsome on his fine gray horse.

"I have been making calls," I reply, laughing.

"Calls?" he echoes, surprised. "Alone? Oh, at the rectory, I suppose."

"No; guess again."

"But there is no one else to guess."

"I have been to see Mrs. Seward, and poor old Brown, and Mrs. Banks, and Janet Hill,--quite a round of morning calls."

"Have you really?" he says, eagerly.

"Yes, and I heard a great deal of news," I continue, nodding my head wisely,--"about you too."

"What did you hear?"

"Never mind: I am not going to make you conceited."

He laughs lightly.

"That's the worst of poor people," he says: "they do chatter so dreadfully. Of course they would be sure to say everything that was civil about us, as you come from the Court."

"Ah," I remark, mysteriously, "but they did not say everything that was civil about _everybody_. And" (laughing) "they did not say, as I did, that you were 'so like your father.'"

"Thank God for that!" he says, laughing too. "What are we going to do this afternoon? Does my mother think of driving?"

"No, the wind is easterly, although it is so fine, and she is afraid."

"I wonder----" begins Hector, musingly, and then pauses.

"What do you wonder?"

"I wonder if I put the horses in the mail-phaeton if you would let me drive you out?"

"Oh, I _should_ like it," I cry, eagerly. The proprieties have never been impressed upon my young mind, probably because I have never had the least chance of infringing them.

"I must not be selfish," he says. "I would not for the world let you do anything that is not quite _en règle_. Tell me" (hesitating), "do you think Mr. Carew would object in any way?"

"Object!" I exclaim, wonderingly: "why should he? You can drive, can't you?"

He looks amused.

"My misgivings are not on that head. Let us go in and ask my mother."

We have reached the stables: the groom takes his horse, and we saunter towards the house.

Lady Montagu, when appealed to, does not see any objection, thinks it will be a nice change for me, will not find it dull alone, has a most interesting book she is anxious to finish.

Very blithe and glad I feel that afternoon when Hector, having helped me in, jumps up beside me. It is a heavenly afternoon: the sun is hot and bright, the sweet spring scents come balmily across us from the hedgerows, and the keen cool wind plays in our face as we cleave it swiftly. Perched high up behind a dashing pair of horses with proud tossed heads and foam-flecked bits, sitting beside a man who is pleasant company and who cares to please me, I feel life such a good thing: a delicious exhilaration floats through every sense. I feel happy; I look happy; glad laughter bubbles from my lips. It is contagious: he sees it, he laughs too. There is not one unkind or sneering curve about his lips to-day. He looks at me ever so kindly.

"Are you pleased?" he asks me. "I think you are. As for me, I feel like a school-boy out for a holiday after the long term. And to think I was so near not going to Warrington! If I had not, you would not be here now; I might never have known you."

"What a loss!" I laugh.

"It would have been a loss," he says, gravely; "perhaps, though" (with a sigh), "it might have been better for me."

"It would not have better for me," I answer, feeling too happy and _insouciante_ to weigh my words.

He turns towards me, as if to say something; then, checking himself abruptly, he points with his whip to the hedge.

"Is not that hawthorn delicious?" he says.

"Yes," I answer; "but that is not what you were going to say."

I feel a delicious little sense of coquetry: something in the sunshine, the keen air, the May odors, inspires me: I long to hear soft and pleasant words; if I knew what the sensation was, I could almost fancy I feel inclined to flirt with my companion. He looks at me with a grave smile that seems to penetrate my sensuous enjoyment of the moment.

"You are right," he says: "I was going to say something else; but I will not say it now. You are full of impulse; you are a child; but I am a man, and I ought to be superior to the temptations of sudden emotion."

"Now," said I, pettishly, "you remind me of what you were at Warrington. In another moment I shall be afraid of you again----"

"Do not," he says, quickly. "Why, child" (with a pleasant smile), "how could you fear me? Have you not learned yet that you are everything I most admire and reverence,--young, pure, sweet, unselfish, modest, charitable?" He speaks in a whisper, but there is a ring of subdued feeling in it. "When I was at Warrington you saw me stern and cold, because one or other of those women (you know whom I mean) chafed and angered me every moment: I could not even bear you to come in contact with them. I felt half disposed to quarrel with Mrs. Warrington, for the first time in my life, because she had asked an innocent child like you to meet them. And then, too" (sinking his voice still lower), "though I hate confessing it, I did feel a little jealous when I saw you so gay and merry with others, and I seemed only to have a sort of wet-blanket effect upon you."

"Well, you have not that effect now," I laugh. "I shall always like you and feel at home with you in future."

"How can you tell?" he says, rather grimly. "I have no one to stand in my way; there is no other man here except my father" (laughing), "and I do not think he is dangerous. Suppose, now" (his face darkening suddenly)----

"Do not let us suppose anything," I interrupt quickly, with an uneasy intuition of his thought. "Let us enjoy this lovely afternoon and be happy."

"Let us!" he echoes, brightening up. "You are quite right. Sufficient for the day let the good thereof be, and don't let us spoil it by anticipating evil for to-morrow. I think if the text had been worded in that way it would have been even more applicable than it is."

So we drive along the smooth white roads, up hills where we get lovely little glimpses of green valleys and winding shimmering waters, and down again into sweet-smelling, hedge-bound lanes, past cottages, with thin blue streaks of smoke curling from their chimneys, and trim gardens sown with red and white daisies, with wallflowers, and hedges of sweet-brier, scenting the air around, past farms with their neat rows of golden stacks, past green meadows ablaze with buttercups, where the sleek cattle stand almost knee-deep, past village churches with their quaint old towers, their grass-grown mounds and moss-covered tombstones. It seems sad to think of the dead this fair spring day, when only to live is so glad a thing. A little shudder creeps through me at the bare thought that I too some day shall be with those that sleep.

"Of lips full of love and laughter,
Fair brows and radiant eyes,
There is left but a grinning skull,
And perhaps a headstone that lies."

We have passed. The thought is gone again. We are looking in at the village blacksmith's, where the great fire roars and blazes up, while the smith stands in the ruddy light, beating a thousand sparks from his anvil, and the big patient horses wait until their turn comes. We pass some tumbledown-looking cottages, and our talk falls on our poorer neighbors.

"Ah," I say, with some enthusiasm, "I know that when Alford is yours, you will be a model landlord: you will try to make your people better off; you will encourage them to respect themselves, and that they cannot do until they are put in the way of it by having tidy, clean, convenient homes."

"It does not do to count upon dead men's shoes, you know," he answers, with a grave smile; "and property is, after all, a very serious responsibility, if one looks upon it as one ought to do, not as a vehicle for selfish indulgence, but as a means to benefit those about one. Then it is so difficult to know how really to do good to one's fellow-creatures: it isn't enough to have the will, or even the means, but one must have a practical head and a certain familiarity with the working of their minds. You have only to take up the newspapers every day to see how the most benevolent intentions come to grief, and how hundreds of thousands of pounds are subscribed yearly that hardly do one iota of good. It won't do to insist upon benefiting people in your own particular way: you have to find out what their way is, and then set to work. And you want," he goes on, his voice deepening and his eyes flashing, "help and sympathy more than anything in this world; because there is nothing so heart-wearing, so bitterly disappointing, as having a keen desire to help your brother-man, and finding all your strivings, as they are half the time, dead failures. Look at my mother, what a sweet, kind, sympathetic, loving nature she has,--what a helpmate would she have been for a man in my father's position if he had ever tried to do any good, or thought of anything or any one but himself,--and see how he has crushed everything out of her but her sweet goodness of heart and pity, which nothing could destroy. Can you wonder" (with suppressed passion) "that I hate and despise him, as, God forgive me, I do sometimes? I dare say, though" (changing his voice), "if ever I do come into Alford I shall not do a quarter that I think and believe I should now: 'a liberal-minded heir often makes a stingy lord,' they say. But I should love to think," he whispers, "that, if ever I am master here, I shall have a loving, tender-hearted woman for my wife, who would help and influence me to do what was right."

He fixes his dark eyes upon my face. His words seem to thrill through me: the quick crimson dyes my face. What does he mean? At this moment we drive under the splendid gateway of Alford, and a minute later stop at the house door.