Chapter XXXIV: Diana's Story

There is no shooting the next day. We all go for a picnic to a ruined abbey ten miles distant. The day gives me nothing to chronicle,--only more dull heart-weariness,--and I am glad, ay, very glad, when it is gathered to all the days that have gone before it. Colonel Montagu and the heiress are left together in a marked manner; they are glanced at laughingly and spoken of aside as "a case." Curly, poor boy, little dreaming all the stabs he is inflicting upon me, takes especial delight in chronicling its progress and speculating upon how soon it will come to a crisis. I am not jealous of her,--that would be impossible; but no woman who loves a man can see his attentions given to another, however grudgingly or with however mercenary intent, and not suffer bitter pain. He rides the chestnut to the picnic. Lady Gwyneth laughingly dares him to it, and he accepts the challenge without hesitation.

"After all," she says to him, as we are picnicking among the ruins, "you are no _roi fainéant_, as your devoted admirer, Mrs. Huntingdon, pretended. You shot splendidly yesterday, and I could not have managed the chestnut better myself than you did this morning."

A flush of pleasure creeps over me at her praise. I love to think he is less indolent and languid than he tries to appear. At this moment my eyes fall on the heiress, who is gazing at him with a proud expression of proprietorship, and a feeling of sickening disgust comes over me.

The next day they shoot again. Mr. Desborough does not go with the rest of the party, but volunteers to drive me out, and I accept. I may as well do that as anything else. That evening Lady Gwyneth asks me, for the first time, to sing. I open the piano, and am half-way through the second song, when the door opens, and Colonel Montagu comes in, followed by the others. He does not seat himself beside the heiress, although she moves her dress invitingly, but walks to the embrasured window and stands in the shadow of the curtain. His face is turned towards me, but I cannot tell if he is looking at me. I know not what impulse seizes me, but I leave the song I am singing unfinished, and break into one that must surely stab him to the heart, if he has one. Ay, if he has! My whole soul goes out into the last verse; there are tears in my voice, in my eyes, in my heart, as I sing it:

"Ah, but the days brought changes after,
Clouds in the happy skies,
Care on the lips that curved with laughter,
Tears in the radiant eyes.
Parted asunder, worn with grieving,
Wearily each one prays,
Ah for the days beyond retrieving,
Ah for the golden days!"

And when I have sung the last note, lest I should betray myself, I rise, and, before any one has time to speak, am out through the conservatory, rushing with swift feet down the green slopes to the water. It is a glorious night, just such a night as that one the memory of which brought all my heart into my voice. The deep-colored moon is coming up over the stately trees.

"A sudden splendor from behind
Flushed all the leaves with rich gold green,
And, flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond plots
Of dark and bright."

I stand and look down into the shimmering water, bitter and miserable at heart, half wishing I could fling myself down into its deeps and let the smooth water flow together again over me. A footfall sounds behind me, and the swift blood rushes to my brow and neck. He has come after me: perhaps he still cares for me; perhaps----

I do not move or turn until a hand is laid upon my arm, and then I look up, and with a sudden horrible revulsion of feeling meet the eyes of Lord Rexborough.

"So," he says, looking at me intently, "it is not all over between you and Charlie?"

For answer I turn to fly from him; but he catches me by the arm and detains me.

"Stop," he says; "don't be in such a hurry."

"How dare you?" I cry, passionately, struggling in his grasp as a mouse might struggle in a cat's mouth. "Let me go!"

"Don't hurt yourself," he says, looking amused; "I am awfully strong, you know, and I don't intend to let you go until I have had a little talk with you; unless you scream, of course, and make a scene,--which you won't, unless I am very much mistaken in you."

"It is a fine use to make of your strength, is it not," I cry, tauntingly, "to detain a woman against her will by brute force?"

"Come quietly, then," he says. "There!" pointing to a seat close by; "I don't want you to go any further than that. I am not going to use my brute force" (laughing) "to carry you off. I am only going to ask you a question."

His hateful grasp is still upon my arm: it is undignified as well as useless to struggle with him, and he is right in supposing that I am not likely to cry out or make a scene.

"Leave go my arm, then," I say, with suppressed anger.

He obeys.

I walk to the seat under the trees and sit down.

"Now," I inquire, in the most aggressively uninviting tone I can command, "what do you want?"

He kneels with one knee on the seat, not so close as is his disgusting wont, but at a respectful distance.

"I want to know," he says, speaking in rather a less familiar and offensive way than usual, "why you hate me so. I believe you look upon me as only one remove from the devil."

"You _are_ rather like the picture of Apollyon in my old Pilgrim's Progress at home," I answer, without hesitation. I detest him. I would say anything to rid myself forever of his hateful importunities, and, though I think him quite capable of strangling me and throwing me into the lake, I am so sick and weary and disgusted with everything I have no room for bodily fear.

"It's not because I'm like the devil that you hate me," he says, thoughtfully: "that's never any great drawback to a man in a woman's eye,--particularly a good woman. Besides, you don't know whether I am good or bad: how should you? As far as that goes, Charlie's quite as loose a fish as I am, and you don't hate him. Then, of course, I haven't his soft, spoony ways: that takes all you women so tremendously. I've led a roughish life: it's always been more in my line to court hardship and danger than to loiter away my time in women's boudoirs. But you haven't told me yet why you hate me."

"Why?" I reply, with vindictive coolness. "I hardly know. It does not seem worth while thinking about, but all the same I do hate you, and, as you seem to know it, I think it would be more gentlemanlike of you to leave me, and not to annoy me with your company."

"By Jove! you're a cool hand!" he says, looking at me with quite an admiring expression. "Are you not afraid of saying such things to me? You don't seem to reflect that I could drop you into the water and drown you in half a minute."

"Oh, yes," I return coolly, "I have thought of that, and it struck me as very probable you might; but I do not mind: you are very welcome; I have had about as much of life as I care for."

"Poor little girl!" he utters, in a pitying tone, that jars horribly upon me. "And so," he continues, after a somewhat long pause, "you really hate me? Well, things don't often conquer me, and I have made up my mind that you shall like me before you have done."

"Have you?" I say, scornfully. "I dare say you are quite equal to any of Hercules' tasks, but I think you will find that a little beyond you."

"You are very truthful and outspoken, at all events," he answers. "Yes, and you are very pretty and very plucky too, and, although you do snub me so smartly, I like you all the same. If you were only civil to me" (laughing), "I believe I should like you a devilish deal too well for my own peace of mind. I don't believe very much in women as a rule, but I do in you. Perhaps it's because you are the first woman who has snubbed me--since I came into my title. I dare say you think it's swagger, but I give you my word there are precious few women who wouldn't run into my arms if I opened them,--and asked them to be Lady Rexborough," he adds, with a grim smile. "I don't suppose you would" (sitting down beside me, but still at a respectful distance, and eying me curiously).

"That I would not!" I answer, heartily. "Not if you were ten times Lord Rexborough and had a million a year."

"You are a strange little girl," he says. "I don't suppose you would. Certainly, if you could refuse Seldon, who will be a duke, and is a nice, good-looking young fellow into the bargain, I don't suppose I should stand much chance."

The moon is mounting higher in the heavens.

"Dark blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,
Grew darker from that underflame."

There is no great inducement to me to stay out with this man, whose presence is odious to me, except that the night is so exceeding fair, and that I shrink from returning to the drawing-room after my sudden flight.

"Have you done with me now?" I say, making as if to rise.

"Do not go," he entreats. "Stop with me a few minutes longer, of your own free will, won't you? I will not force you this time."

His tone is so much softer than usual that I comply.

"I don't wonder at your thinking me a rough brute," he says, in a low voice. "I am quite conscious of it myself; but women never seem to take offense: I should think a great deal better of them if they did. I've not had much of a chance," he continues, looking away from me, "though, heaven knows, I have often wished to be better. You see, if a man is dragged up anyhow, without the influence even of any passably good woman, he gets rather rough notions about the sex; and if, as was my case, he has a mother who is ten times worse than none" (his voice getting low and husky), "it's no very great wonder if he goes rather to the bad."

For the first time in my life, a kinder feeling for my companion comes over me.

"I never was fond of but one woman," he goes on, presently, with a gesture of his hand towards the house. "I dare say you've heard the story: they wouldn't let her have me because I was poor, and God knows, poor little girl, hers isn't much of a life! If I had known a girl like you, say ten years ago, it would have been the salvation of me; but I don't suppose I shall ever do much good now. There's no chance for a man in this world or the next, I believe, unless he's fond of a good woman. What can he think of the sex when he sees them selling themselves day after day to any wretch who has only money enough to buy them? Just look at the contemptible hound who is master of this place; and yet she was a high-spirited girl, and had a heart, or I used to fancy she had."

"Is it only women who sell themselves?" I ask, bitterly, thinking of another case in point.

"Upon my soul I don't understand it," he answers, turning to look at me, and evidently reading my thoughts. "Charlie is a very sensitive, soft-hearted fellow, really: he would be utterly miserable with that creature. He never can marry her, though it seems as if he was trying to screw himself up to it just now. A better fellow never breathed than Charlie, and, though you hate me" (smiling), "there is nothing I should like better than to see you two come together. With money, mind; not without."

"I don't hate you quite as much as I did," I say, softly, stretching out a hand to him.

He takes it and puts it to his lips, and, for the first time, I do not shrink from his touch.

"Let us make a compact!" he exclaims, eagerly: "try to think more kindly of me, and I will try to be less of a brute when I am with you."

Strange and most unlooked-for result of this forced interview: as we walk gently up the green moonlit slopes towards the house, I feel no repugnance to being out alone with him in the quiet night. Before joining the lest of the party, I go to my own room to smooth my hair: it is in the same corridor as the morning-room, and as I pass the latter to go down-stairs the door stands open and a flood of moonlight streams across the floor. I cannot resist looking out of window on a bright night, and I pause and go in. The window is embrasured, and the curtains are half drawn some two feet from the glass itself. Two chairs stand between, and having gazed out once, I find the prospect so fair that I drop into one and continue my star-gazing. I may have been there perhaps five minutes, and am thinking reluctantly of leaving again, when a sound of footsteps comes along the corridor,--a light woman's step and a man's heavy one. The door is pushed open, and the pair, whoever they may be, come in. I, being hidden behind the curtains, am about to come forth, having no desire to play eavesdropper, when I am deterred by the sound of a woman's sobs. I pause, irresolute: it is Lady Gwyneth. Then comes Lord Rexborough's deep voice.

"For God's sake, don't cry! What can I do for you? My poor little darling!"

His voice is hoarse, as if with some deep feeling.

"I cannot bear it!" she sobs; "my life is torture. I hate him worse and worse. His meanness and vulgarity are more sickening every day; and, after what I said last night, he taunted me about you, and asked me why I didn't go off with you."

"D--n him!" muttered Lord Rexborough, hoarsely. "My poor little girl, you'd better have taken me and poverty after all. Heaven knows, if it were not for your own sake--my life's of precious little value to me now--I'd take you away from him this moment. But you'd repent it,--a woman is bound to, sooner or later; and I care too much for you----"

No, I _will not_ hear more! I have been standing in an agony so far, not knowing how on earth to get away; but now I make a sudden rush, and am out of the room, down-stairs, and in the drawing-room, before you could count ten.

"What on earth is the matter?" exclaims Colonel Montagu, who is standing near the door. "How white you are! Have you seen a ghost?"

"Yes--no," I stammer, dropping into a chair.

"Tell me," he whispers, bending over me with bent brows. "I saw Rexborough go after you: he has not dared----" (angrily).

"No, no!" I cry, recovering myself. "Lord Rexborough and I are quite good friends now, and we--we have been admiring this lovely night together."

"Oh!" (looking dubiously at me). "I don't know that Lord Rexborough is the best companion in the world for moonlight walks," he adds, in a tone that I might fancy jealous, if I did not know how utterly indifferent he is to me.

Lady Gwyneth does not appear again. Her sister goes, after awhile, to find her, and, coming back, reports that she is tired and has gone to bed. Lord Rexborough comes in presently, looking perfectly innocent and unconcerned.

"You did not show me that flower in the conservatory, after all," he says, coming straight up to me, "and I want to see it."

I obey his summons: something in his eyes compels me whether I will or no.

"It was you in the morning-room," he says, in a low, hurried voice, as soon as we are out of sight of the others. "You need not say a word" (as I am about to protest): "I know it was pure accident. Very few women would have been as honest as to go when you did. I need not ask you" (looking keenly at me) "if our secret is safe with you. I know it is."

At this moment, as he is bending eagerly over me, Colonel Montagu strolls in.

What is to be the next phase in my life? I think, horror-stricken, as I brush out my hair that night. What would not I have given to avoid being the unwilling sharer of this hateful secret! And yet, feeling as I do in the innocence and integrity of my youth the fearful shame and wickedness attached to unlawful love, in my heart of hearts I cannot but be sorry for them both. And, though until now I have never had any love for either of them, I pray for them on my knees to-night as I might have done if she had been my sister or he my brother.