Chapter II: Diana's Story

The house of Carew is not in a flourishing state at the present time; far from it. Gay has wild legends about the days of the old squire, when the Carews were great people in the county, of the grand doings, the entertainments, the carriages and horses, the powdered footmen, and all the _apanages_ of wealth and distinction. She has told us a score of times, as we have sat round the nursery fire, of the ox roasted whole, the barrels of beer, the dancing and feasting that took place when our father came of age, and the gay doings five years later, when he brought our mother home, and the people took the horses out of the carriage and dragged the bride and bridegroom home.

That is only twenty years ago. Whence, then, this sudden and rapid decline in the fortunes of our house? Alas! I scarcely know. My father has never entered into any explanation of the causes of our poverty, though he occasionally recurs, with mingled sorrow and bitterness, to the fact. As for Gay, she cannot give us absolute information, but thinks that at our grandfather's death his affairs were found in an unsatisfactory state, and that papa, in the hope of setting matters straight, speculated, and thereby brought the ruin to a climax. Well, it cannot be helped. One thing I am _quite_ satisfied of,--whatever papa did, he did for the best, and the very cleverest people may be misled sometimes. I know this, that his life has been one long self-abnegation for Curly's sake, that somewhere in the future he may be able to hold up his head and take his own place in the county. We have often talked the dear fellow's prospects over, papa and I, and we are both agreed that at any rate every sacrifice must be made for him. What does it matter about a girl? but a boy, the heir to a good property, the head of an old house, how he is brought up is everything! He must go to Eton, if papa and I live on rabbits and pork all the year round, and have new clothes once in three years.

And how we sit in the twilight, the dear Dad and I, talking over our darling's future, and of his sayings and doings when he was last at home! Sometimes papa says, stroking my hair as I sit at his feet,--

"Di, my dear, I don't think it's quite fair on you: you ought to go to school, or have masters at home, or do something for your education."

"Oh, papa," I answer, deprecatingly, "I am sure I know as much as most girls of my age. I have kept up everything I used to learn with Miss Carter, except" (sighing) "geography and arithmetic. I always did hate those. I speak pretty good grammar, don't I, dear? I write a decent hand. I know enough French to get on abroad, if I ever went there,--which I don't suppose I shall. I can play pretty well on the piano, and I think" (a smile of conscious vanity parting my lips)--"I think I can sing a little."

"Ay," says papa, smiling, "you can that; and" (patting me on the shoulder) "I don't think all the Italian masters in the world could make my little nightingale's voice sweeter."

I blush with pleasure: no praise comes so sweet to me as my father's. My voice is my one little possession, my ewe-lamb, the great delight of my life. For hours I am wont to sit at our old-fashioned piano, that has been a good one once, and, like all good things, bears to the end the trace of its better days. I sit and sing the daylight into twilight, the twilight into evening,--sometimes jocund melodies, but oftener plaintive ones, until I am carried out of myself into sweet dreams and happy trances and shadowy griefs, that have as yet no form, but only guess at sorrow. For I have never been unhappy in my life.

My mother died when I was too young to remember her; and papa and Curly and I have always been so happy together, Of course I have had my troubles; for instance, when Curly first went to school, and once when Gay was ill; and when my pet cat was shot by the keeper, I thought my heart was broken. Our poverty has never made me unhappy. Sometimes I have longed very much for things,--most of all for a horse to ride; but I always consoled myself by thinking that it was no good wishing for what one could not have, so my desires melted back into contentment with my lot. I have papa and Curly and Gay,--the three very dearest creatures in the world; I have the handsomest and faithfulest pug ever known; and a tabby cat lined with apricot, as Curly describes its tawny bosom, that I would not change for any other living cat.

_Que voulez-vous_? One cannot have everything. I am poor. I have no fine clothes to wear, no horses to ride, no lovers to flatter me, but I am happy, and Lady Gwyneth, who has all that money can buy, is, by her own confession, I have heard, the most miserable woman alive.

_Apropos_ of lovers, I am ashamed almost to say it, but I _should_, oh, I _should_ like to have a lover; only I have done so long without that I am afraid I shall never get one to please me now. Literally and truthfully, I don't think I have spoken to a man except the clergyman and the doctor since I was grown up,--not even a boy, one of Curly's school-fellows, for naturally enough he does not care to ask them home; and I am sure it would put us all out very much to entertain them.

Our home is a fine handsome old place, but more than two-thirds of it is shut up, and we only live in the smaller rooms, with the exception of the dining-room, full of splendid old carved oak, and family portraits, where we always take our meals. It is a fine room. We have a great screen put halfway across, to make it less cold and vast in the winter. But there are curious contrasts in it. There is the grand carved chimney-piece that reaches the ceiling, and the old brass dogs on the hearth; there are the numerous portraits of former Carews; there is the splendid old sideboard and bookcase, and the fine pair of bronzes which have always filled my youthful soul with admiration. But in contrast there is the poor threadbare old Turkey carpet, that Gay has so often repaired on her knees with colored worsteds, until she has declared her back was fain to break; there are the old curtains, which tradition says were once magnificent crimson velvet, but which have now assumed the yellowish-brown hue one sees sometimes in the hangings of a very old pulpit in a very old church; the gilding of most of the frames is very dingy, and the ceiling, and what little is visible of the walls, sadly requires paint and whitewash. The leather on the handsome old chairs is in a melancholy condition: age and the vagaries of numerous kittens have done their fell work upon them, and now nothing but the backs of them are really respectable. The room is certainly a wreck, if you come to think of it; but we are all so used to it, I don't believe we ever _do_ think of it. And then we don't sit there, but in a much snugger room that used to be the morning-room, and where, though the furniture and the carpet and the curtains are old too, they look more comfortable and homely. I think papa would have let the house long ago,--the rent of it would have made us comparatively rich,--only there is a clause somewhere forbidding it; and I do verily believe we would all rather be poor and live there ourselves than feel it was in the hands of strangers.

We have the greatest veneration for the family heirlooms, the old oak and pictures, and plate and china, of which there is great store, and which once now and again Gay allows us to feast our eyes upon. I suppose papa does feel being poor dreadfully. Gay thinks he does: she was under-nurse to him when he was a baby, and has lived in the family ever since. But he nearly always seems cheerful, and goes about with his gun, or works in the garden, where we both help him, or sits in his study, reading and writing. He hardly ever alludes to our poverty: when he does, it is with such bitter sadness, it makes my heart bleed for him. Dear, darling father! I do believe he blames himself, and thinks that we are suffering from his fault; and I long sometimes to throw my arms round his neck and tell him how satisfied we are, Curly and I; that all he has done was for the very best, only I would not have him think there had ever been even question of it in our minds. Why should he feel so dreadfully for us, when I am sure we do not for ourselves? Curly is as happy as the day is long; what boy is not at Eton?--and he is always thoroughly delighted to come home,--poor though home may be. He knows there are no hearts elsewhere that beat so lovingly and tenderly for him. As for me, I am never idle a moment, so I cannot be unhappy; what with my household cares,--and really a good deal of contriving is required to make ends meet, to provide not only for our own small household, but for the sick and poor who often stand in need of our help, and rather than send whom empty away, papa would go dinnerless himself.

Then there are all my pets to be looked after,--my cat and kittens, the two retrievers, my pug, Curly's ferrets to be taken for their daily airing. They are as friendly and affectionate as the kittens, and I might like them better if their coats did not exhale such a very pungent odor. Then there is my old pony Tommy, whom I ride and drive, and make a general convenience of, and my devotion to whom is not one whit lessened by my contempt for his powers and appearance. Poor old fellow! he is twenty-one,--just of age, we laugh and say, and he is more often turned out than not. What can you expect? Our establishment consists of Gay, the cook, and a very young housemaid and parlor-maid combined, who is a thorn in Gay's side, and more plague to her, as she is wont irritably to aver, than if she had to do the whole of the work herself. It is a come-down for the Carews, I suppose; but I do not remember anything different: so it troubles me but very little. I have my ideas of love, riches, and grandeur, but they are mostly derived from historical novels and Gay's old stories, certainly not from any experience I have had of any one of them.

I am not going to pretend for an instant that I never think about my personal appearance, nor speculate upon my looks, nor what effect they are likely to produce upon the other sex, when they are blessed with a sight of me. I do not believe there is a girl living who is utterly devoid of the instinct of vanity. Often and often I have sat before the glass and arranged my hair in different fashions, and tried on the old brocaded gowns of my grandmother, which I have coaxed Gay to lend me for an afternoon; and once I was so well satisfied with my appearance that I could not resist the impulse of running down to show myself to papa, though I fully expected to be called a vain puss for my pains. There is a portrait in the dining-room of one Diana Carew (I know not exactly what ancestress of mine), gorgeously attired in blue and white brocade, with pearls twisted in her dark hair.

It was one wet autumn afternoon, and I was sitting at Gay's feet as she darned the eternal stockings, and she was regaling me with stories of our departed glories.

"I've got the very gownd put away up-stairs as Miss Diana, that was your great--no, it must have been great-great--well, I'm not certain, so I'll say your great-grand-aunt--was painted in."

"What!" I cry, rising excitedly to my feet. "You wicked, unkind, good-for-nothing old creature!--and you have never shown it to me all this time! I have a great mind to shake you" (standing threateningly over her).

"Well" (with a benevolent smile, and no appearance of fear on her kind old face), "I always thought I would keep it as a treat; so now, if you like" (taking her hand out of the foot of the stocking), "I'll get my keys, and you shall have the treat, my dear."

So, preceded by my impatient footsteps, with the pug following excitedly at my heels, she ascends the broad staircase, traverses the long gallery, and unlocks the door of one of the principal bedrooms.

"Faugh!" I say, holding my nose, "how fusty it smells!"

"Ah!" responds Gay, who always has a reminiscence for every disparaging remark of mine, "it wasn't fusty when the Duke and Duchess of Blankshire slept here the night of your papa's coming of age. Well I mind saying, as I went in to look at it before their Graces arrived, I'd be bound they didn't sleep in a handsomer room at home."

"Hm!" I say, with a doubtful glance around me, as she undoes a shutter and lets in the daylight.

It is a vast and lofty room. An enormous oak bedstead, with lions couchant at the foot, stands in the centre; a gigantic wardrobe lines nearly one side; all the furniture gives one an idea of having been made for a larger race of men. There is no carpet OH the polished floor, the old, heavy-framed mirrors are dim and lustreless, and altogether the room, in spite of its gloomy grandeur, has a wreck-like appearance. My voice sounds preternaturally loud and hollow as I make unflattering comments upon the furniture generally and particularly.

I wait with breathless eagerness as Gay unlocks the wide door of the wardrobe, pulls out the heavy drawers, and proceeds to unfold from its numerous wrappings the treasure my eyes desire to behold.

"There," she says, triumphantly, as, having taken off the last fold of silver paper, she holds it before my longing eyes.

"It's very scanty," I remark, disparagingly.

"Well, my dear" (tartly), "when gownds was made of such splendid material, they didn't want to cover them all over with flounces and furbelows. It'll stand by itself, this will."

"Nearly," I assent. "It is handsome, certainly" (regarding the stiff brocade with my head on one side). "Nurse, I shall try it on."

But Gay regards my proposition almost in the light of sacrilege. However, after infinite coaxing, I get not only her permission but her help. Rapture! It fits me as if it had been made for me. I rush off to my own room, Gay loudly expostulating at my heels. There I build my hair up on high after the manner of Miss Diana below-stairs, twist a string of mock pearls I possess among other treasures through it, and, this done, survey myself with extreme content in the long glass which hangs on the wall of my room.

"Well, to be sure!" says Gay, in a voice wherein surprise and admiration contend for mastery. "Any one might think you'd just stepped out of the picture!"

"Would not they?" I exclaim, in great glee, parading up and down in my creamy train and sky-blue bunched-up tunic, not at all so unlike the fashion of to-day. "I shall go and show myself to papa."

"No, don't you, now, Miss Di! don't you!" entreats Gay. "Your papa might be displeased with me."

"Did you ever know him displeased in your life, you old goose?" I cry, gayly, eluding her grasp, and rushing off as well as my train will permit, the pug in full pursuit.

"You'll sile the bottom on those stairs!" cries Gay after me, in an agonized tone. "That Sally never half does them down."

But I am already outside the study door. It is getting dusk, twilight is creeping on at least half an hour before its time this dull afternoon, and I quietly open the door, and with a low step, and somewhat beating heart, advance to my father. He looks up with a bewildered glance; then a curious look comes into his face, a proud, fond, tender kind of smile, then he puts his hand before his eyes, and, rising abruptly, turns to the window.

I grow red and pale by turns. What have I done? Why is he so moved? A thousand thoughts flash through my mind in an instant. Have I reminded him of my mother? But no; Curly is like her. I take after him.

"Oh, papa," I cry, running towards him, "I am so sorry! Have I vexed you?"

"Vexed me!" he answers, turning and stretching out his arms, to which I fly. "No, indeed, child. But when I see" (his voice trembling) "how well fine clothes become my little girl, it makes me grieve to think that but for my folly she would have had them to wear always."

"Oh, papa, why do you say such things? I hate fine clothes!" I cry, passionately. "Horrid, uncomfortable, stiff, ugly things! I should be very sorry to wear them often. I will run and get out of them as quickly as I can."

As I go crestfallenly up-stairs, I hate myself for my stupid, unseemly joke; my vanity has melted into shame and regret. Probably my feelings are depicted on my face, for, as I enter my bedroom, Gay, who is awaiting me, says, reproachfully,--

"There, now, Miss Di! I told you your papa wouldn't like it."

I tear off my finery in a rage, and fling it on the bed, where Gay pats and pulls it out apologetically. Then I bury my face in my pillow and cry bitterly.