Chapter XXXIII: Diana's Story

Curly keeps steadfastly to his resolve,--resists all temptation, and drinks only with the greatest moderation; so I have no more uneasiness on that score. The greater part of the first day I spend alone; the other ladies all go with the shooting-party, and I am left to my own devices. They invite me, as a matter of course, to join them, and I would gladly go for the sake of the walk, but I cannot bear to see the birds shot.

"My boudoir is at your disposal," says Lady Gwyneth, as, booted and gaitered, she is starting on the morning of the 1st. "You will like it. It is one mass of velvet, looking-glass, and gimcracks. I never use it myself; it is kept expressly for the lady-like young ladies who come here. The room I live in I call my den; but it is not at all in your style, I am sure. You'll find lots of books in the boudoir. If you care for French novels,--but I suppose you don't,--all the newest ones are in my den. Order the carriage at any time you like. I hope you'll be amused."

When they have started, I betake myself, with some heaviness of heart, to a peregrination round the house. I, who am naturally bright and joyous and glad to join in any pleasure and laughter, feel as though the unenviable _rôle_ of wet blanket had been thrust upon me; I am the obnoxious goody young woman who is shocked at everybody else, and whom the rest of the company studiously avoid. I knew I should hate this visit, and I do,--bitterly, unspeakably. Six more days, long, dragging, weary days, in the forced company of the man whom I cannot look at without pain and grief, whom, however small it makes me to confess it, I shall always care for more than any other man. I have _carte blanche_ to wander where I choose, and I begin with the old part of the house. The old tapestry, many of the family portraits, the ancient furniture, is left as in the days of the former owner. Nothing can be more stately, more dignified, in more refined taste. All these rooms are uninhabited now, but Lady Gwyneth has sufficiently good taste to leave them unaltered. The change to the brand-new decorations, the garish colors, the acres of plate-glass and looking-glass, the fantastic and staring monograms wherever they can be crowded in, the rich, bright-colored carpets, the cart-loads of ormolu. Presently I find myself in Lady Gwyneth's "den." It is much more like a man's room than a woman's; there are certainly none of the elegancies that you expect to see in the living-room of a woman of birth and unbounded riches. A plain, small-patterned paper, chintz curtains and coverings to three or four easy-chairs, a fine array of whips, driving and riding, a trophy of foxes' brushes, gloves, cigar-cases, periodicals, a dozen or so French novels in paper covers littered on the table, an album of photographs, which I close as soon as I have opened it. On the wall, pictures of many Derby winners, and several hunting sketches; on the chimney-piece, photographs in stands of a few men and many dogs. Lord Rexborough appears twice among the former. There is no piano, no work-basket, not a single vase for flowers,--indeed, not one object that would reveal the sex of the usual occupier. There is nothing to tempt me to linger, for the view from the window is, very characteristically into the stable-yard.

I feel a slight curiosity to see the despised boudoir, and turn my steps in that direction. I open the door and pause upon the threshold. Certainly it is a triumph of upholstery, but it looks cold and formal, as a room does that is never lived in. The walls are of faint, creamy pink, the cornice picked out with silver; the furniture is all ebony and silver, the curtains and couches of blue velvet and satin, the oval mirrors framed in silver, and there is a profusion of Sèvres and Dresden china, of brackets and lace, statuettes, exquisitely-painted china plaques, and every kind of "gimcrack," as Lady Gwyneth expresses it. I draw aside the filmy lace curtains, fine as a spider's web, and look out over the blazing parterres down the green slopes to the cool, still water and the dark background of trees beyond. It would be a charming room if it were only lived in, but now everything is stiff and formal, arranged in the house-maid's taste, each chair equidistant from the other, so that one cannot even sit down without feeling guilty of having disturbed the methodical precision of the place.

Thence I wander into the gardens, which are most lovely, and somehow manage to crawl through the dull morning. It is nearly lunch-time, and I am thinking with unspeakable horror that I shall have to sit down alone to lunch under the Argus eyes of the solemn butler and his gorgeous satellites, when, to my intense relief, appears the heiress, hot, tired, discontented. I greet her with a more hearty welcome than I could have imagined possible.

"What! back already?" I say, with lively interest. "Are you tired?"

"Yes," she answers, in not the most amiable tone. "And so would you be, if you had had three hours of trudging through stubble-fields and turnips, to say nothing of having been dreadfully bitten."

"Bitten!" I echo, in horror, only thinking of the dogs.

"I can never go into a corn-field this time of year without being worried to death," she returns, crossly; and then I realize the nature of the casualties. "Those two," she proceeds, "are more like men than women: nothing ever tires them. It is very unladylike, I think, to be always running everywhere after the men."

Poor heiress! she forgets that her aspirations were the same, though her powers inferior.

"They won't get me out again!" she continues, still a victim to irritation. "I should not have gone this morning, only" (stammering a little over the fiction) "Colonel Montagu over-persuaded me."

The over-persuasion was couched in these terms: "You don't mean to say you have an adventurous spirit too? I'm afraid you'll very soon knock up if you are not used to it."

Lunch revives her spirits, and she becomes quite garrulous.

"What shall we do all the afternoon?" she says. "We must drive, I think. My cousin has lots of horses and carriages in the stable doing nothing: we may as well have one out." And I concur.

"Let's go into the garden," she suggests next, and leads the way to a seat sheltered from the sun's rays by the branches of an elm.

"Have you ever met Colonel Montagu before?" she inquires of me, when we are seated.

"Yes," I answer, briefly.

"Is he not handsome?" she proceeds, with enthusiasm.

"Yes."

"But wonderfully, out of the way handsome!" she persists. "Have you ever seen a handsomer man?"

"No."

"But you don't say it as if you meant it: indeed, I think you only say it to please me,--I mean" (reddening consciously) "for the sake of agreeing with me."

"Not at all," I answer, quietly. "I think Colonel Montagu quite the handsomest man I ever saw. But why should I say so to please you?" (looking at her coldly, and feeling my voice harden in involuntary contempt). "Is he anything particular to you? Are you going to marry him?"

"Well, no," she stammers, with bashful confusion; "not exactly that. What a downright point-blank question! Why" (eagerly), "have you heard anything about it? Has he mentioned me to you at all?"

"I think he told me that you were staying here," I answer.

"He was asked here to meet me," she says, looking pleased (I don't quite knew at what). "I met him two or three times in town last winter, and he said he hoped to meet me again, so my cousin asked him here. He is so delightful, so amusing, has such a perfect way of saying pretty things to one: has he not?"

"Very," I make answer, a grim sense of the humor of the thing stealing over me.

"I may be wrong," remarks Miss Puggins, regarding me curiously, "but I have a sort of idea that there is not a great deal of love lost between you two."

"Yes?" I say, biting my lips. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, you know" (with charming frankness), "last night after you left the room, we had a long talk on the sofa together. Lord Rexborough and Gwyneth were playing _écarté_, and I tried to draw him out about you, and he answered just in the same short sort of way that you did about him just now.

"Ah!" I say, unable to be anything more than monosyllabic.

"You are neighbors, too, are you not?" she continues. "Is not Alford a lovely place? I am dying to see it. And his old mother, too, is so nice, I hear. What is Sir Hector like? Very cold and reserved, is he not? So different from his brother, I am told."

I want to be good-natured, but her vulgarity and curiosity seem to shut up my conversational powers completely. She does not appear to observe how small a part I play in the dialogue, but rattles on.

"How do you like Lord Rexborough? He is handsome, is he not? But I think the way Gwyneth goes on with him is too bad: don't you? If I were Harold I should not like it at all. I believe they were in love with each other before she married, but he was only Colonel Blount then, and never expected to be Lord Rexborough; but his uncle and cousin were drowned out yachting the very day of her wedding. Wasn't it funny? I rather wonder Harold cares to have him here; but he doesn't seem to mind,--he is so dreadfully fond of a lord. My papa is always laughing at him. He hasn't any ridiculous ideas like poor uncle; and they quite quarreled at one time because papa wouldn't change his name to Desborough. I wish he had, you know" (frankly), "because Puggins is such a horrid name: isn't it? Only that, being a woman, of course" (looking conscious) "I can change it. The worst of it is, I have such a horrid Christian name,--Sarah; and papa makes me so wild,--he will call me Sally."

Here her confidences are postponed pro tem. by the announcement that the carriage is at the door.

On our return we find the shooting-party have come in before us.

"Such a day we've had!" Curly tells me. "Bagged fifty brace. Charlie Montagu shot twenty out of them. I always thought those languid airs of his were put on: he walked and shot better than any of us. Rexborough got fifteen brace. I got eight; but then I lent my gun part of the time to Lady Audrey: she and Lady Gwyn shot seven brace between them, and Desborough one. I never saw a fellow muff it so. He missed forty birds if he did one. The heiress very soon sloped, and jolly glad we all were when she did, she would keep chattering so. Isn't she sweet on Charlie? He's only got to ask and have there, it's very plain. Now we are going out riding, we four. Charlie is going to stop at home to spoon the heiress; and you, poor Di! I don't know what you're going to do. Why didn't you bring a habit?"

"You know I haven't a decent one," I answer, regretfully.

"What a bore! Well, good-by! I wish you were coming."

"Do pray be careful!" I cry after him, and, not content with my caution, I follow to see him mount.

The riding-party are out on the steps, and the non-riding party are seeing them off. Certainly the saddle is the most advantageous position for Lady Gwyneth and her sister: both have perfect figures, perfectly habited, graceful seats, and unbounded confidence. Lady Gwyneth is going to ride the chestnut, which objects violently to being mounted, and indulges in a series of buck-jumps and capers after she is on his back that send my heart into my mouth. She only laughs and seems to enjoy it.

"Your turn to-morrow, Curly," she cries, laughing, and I vow to myself that, if I can prevent it, he shall not ride the brute. All the horses seem mettlesome, and it is with anything but a comfortable sensation that I watch them prancing and clattering down the drive.

"Have you seen my hothouses?" Mr. Desborough asks me, as we are left standing together in the doorway. "Perhaps you would like to look round." And I assent, and walk away with him.

"Won't you come too, Colonel Montagu?" asks the heiress, and he complies languidly.

Mr. Desborough hurries me on until we are well in advance of the other couple.

"We mustn't spoil sport, you know," he says, in a meaning way that does not tend to increase my love for him.

"Certainly not," I assent, wondering if the scorn I feel is curling my lip.

"He'll be a lucky fellow if he gets her" (with a backward glance). As I am unable to make a civil answer, I make none, but fall to admiring the orchids. When we have gone the round of the houses, whose contents I am able to praise and admire with great sincerity, we come upon the other pair sitting together under a tree.

"I thought they would not follow us far," says my host, with a knowing smile.

If anything, the time goes more slowly here than at home. People say time is so short; and yet there are sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, twelve hours in a day,--or rather fifteen from rising to going to bed. And, if one's heart is aching all the while, heaven knows that tittle of time, a day, seems long enough.

The same party at dinner, arranged in the same manner; but to-night I have no cause for anxiety on Curly's account. He is merry, but not loud, and drinks most sparingly. I listen to my host's platitudes, I contemplate the heiress's charms, or want of them, I steal furtive glances at Colonel Montagu. They need not be furtive: he is not likely to intercept one of them, for all dinner-time he never once looks in my direction. He is more cheerful to-night, and talks to every one except me. My heart throbs indignantly; my thoughts go back to that night, barely four little months ago, when in the wood at Alford he professed himself ready and willing to sacrifice the future for love of me.

Dinner comes to an end; again I follow the other trains to the drawing-room, again I have a request, almost a prayer, to make to my hostess. This time it is that she will not let Curly ride the chestnut.

"I know he rides very well," I say, eagerly; "he has great pluck and a very good seat; but, after all, he has not had much practice, and if anything were to happen to him I----" I stop short, unable to dwell upon such a horrible possibility. Lady Gwyneth laughs me to scorn. I might have guessed as much. "Poor fellow!" she utters, contemptuously: "it is a wonder he has a bit of nerve at all, if he is always being watched and warned and cautioned. Something will happen to him, probably, one of these days; it always does to people who are coddled up and taken such extra care of."

I choke down my anger as best I may, but my dislike of Lady Gwyneth is growing deeply and rapidly. No power on earth shall ever induce me to come under her roof again.

When the rest of the party join us, Lord Rexborough draws a low chair and sits down deliberately beside me.

"All right to-night, you see," he whispers, with a jerk of his head in the direction of Curly. "What a lucky fellow he is to have such a good little sister to keep him straight!"

I dislike this man intensely, and I am in a bitter humor. I would rather offend him than not: little care have I of displeasing my hostess, as I had at Warrington.

"It is very kind and considerate of you to allude to what must naturally be such a pleasant subject," I say, fiercely.

"Oh, hang it! I did not mean to annoy you: you need not take one up so very short. No one thinks an iota worse of a boy for taking a little too much once in a way."

"Some people think all the better of him, I dare say," I retort, scornfully,--"would, perhaps, aid and abet him,--would be rather glad to help him sink down to their own level."

My adversary only looks amused.

"By Jove!" he says, with a laugh, "that was a nasty one for me!--of course you meant it for me."

I am silent.

"Charlie is making the running with the heiress, eh?" he goes on, after a slight pause. "You know I used to think you were rather sweet there last winter, and I'm very glad to see it hasn't cone to anything. Serious intentions don't do for people who are both in the same boat,--'face is their fortune.'--eh?"

If it did not happen that at this juncture Lady Gwyneth summons us to a round game, I should certainly rush away and leave him master of the field, so utterly am I repelled and disgusted by his coarseness. Lady Gwyneth evidently does not share my feeling for him. I might not have noticed any thing, perhaps, had Miss Puggins not suggested it; but now, having the cue, it is not very difficult to see that her manner to him is different from what it is to any one else.

"I don't want to play to-night," he answers her. "I am going to have a chat with Miss Carew: we are old friends, you know" (laughing).

"Come," she says, persuasively, in a tone so far softer than her usual one that I look involuntarily to see if Mr. Desborough is near; "do come: we are all going to play to-night. Miss Carew, you must join us, and it shall be all for love."

"I could not afford to lose any more of Miss Carew's love than I have done already," he answers, with a laugh, and then he rises and gives himself a shake like a great black bear and proceeds to the table. We all play, and the game is harmonious enough, excepting for a passage of arms between Lady Gwyneth and her lord. Although we are not playing for money, she is betting what seems to me very heavily on the game.

"Like my luck!" she says, crossly, at last, to Colonel Montagu: "that's fifty I owe you with last night. I ought to have paid up this morning, but I could not get the money out of my generous proprietor."

"I have told you over and over again, Lady Gwyneth," responds Mr. Desborough, with angry pompousness, "that I will not pay your gambling-debts. No fortune could stand against it."

"Won't you?" she says, scornfully. "Then" (turning to Lord Rexborough) "I shall have to come to you, Jack. You would have paid them all without a murmur, would you not, if your uncle and cousin had only gone to the bottom one little day sooner?"

I feel literally petrified by this daring speech. I look up, half expecting some dreadful finale, but, beyond a scowl and a dark ugly flush, the husband takes no notice. Lord Rexborough is deep in the study of his cards. Colonel Montagu, with quick tact, makes a diversion, and we all go on playing as if nothing had happened.

This, I reflect to myself, is one of the fruits of marriage without love.