Chapter XXXVI: Diana's Story

Wit the morning the great physician is here. Before his coming we had looked forward to it with an intense eagerness: we had fancied he would make some speedy change; in our hearts we had thought slightingly of the country doctor's skill. But when he arrived he could do no more: he could bring no color to the white face, no animation to the rigid form. Only one thing he could do to give us comfort, and that he did. He told us of other cases he had known where life had almost seemed extinct, where the patient had lain for four-and-twenty hours without sign or movement and had yet recovered and been none the worse for the accident.

"And sometimes," says papa, in a husky voice, looking searchingly in the great autocrat's face, "more often still, I suppose it terminates--fatally." He can hardly bring himself to the utterance of that dire word.

"We must hope for the best," is the answer. Even when the great oracle uncloses its lips at such a time, its utterance can but be trite and commonplace.

And then he consults and agrees courteously with his country colleague as to what is to be done under various contingencies, takes us by the hand with grave and kindly sympathy, bids us be of good heart, and goes; and with him goes all of hope and courage which that fearful night's vigil had left us.

But, after all, our boy is spared to us. He comes back slowly from those dark portals on whose dread threshold he had set foot, whose gates had so wellnigh closed behind him. When I first look at myself in the glass after that awful time. I expect to see my hair white. I am astonished to find it still its own natural dark brown. When our dear invalid is able to be moved, with what utter and intense joy do I leave behind me the house where I have spent the most grievous days of my life! Lady Gwyneth has redeemed herself very much in my eyes by her untiring care of and solicitude for Curly: she has shared our night-watches and been more tender and womanly than I could have believed possible. As for Lord Rexborough, my dislike of him has merged into warm friendship; and for Colonel Montagu,--ah, I cannot speak of him!--only I think, proudly and gladly, though he may never more be aught to me, that the idol I set up to worship was not unworthy.

In what strange ironies fate delights. Whilst Curly lay between life and death, a letter came to papa announcing that our mother's only brother had died abroad, leaving to Curly and me each three hundred a year, to be at our own absolute disposal from the time of his death, not waiting for our coming of age. When our darling lay so near the land of shadows, this news, that at any other time would have seemed so unutterably good and joyful, struck on us like some cruel mockery; but now that he is growing strong again, and we have the promise that he will in all probability be none the worse for his accident, our new riches are a delightful theme, Curly and I never weary of talking about our great possessions and laying them out in imagination. The presents we will buy for papa, the benefits that he shall derive from the newly-acquired wealth that seems so enormous in our eyes,--these are subjects of which we never weary, which serve to beguile most delightfully the tedious period of convalescence.

September has gone, October is here, and there is talk of Curly going back to Eton. Papa and he have gone for a drive in the old pony-carriage, and I am dawdling away the last bright hours of the short afternoon in our old-fashioned garden. The last few days have been so bright and hot, they might almost cheat us into the belief that summer was yet tarrying with us, but for the unmistakable signs around of the year's decay. It is not very long after five o'clock, but Ph[oe]bus is driving his golden chariot apace down the sky towards the long belt of firs yonder. Here is, not actually but very nearly, the last rose of summer left blooming alone before my eyes, and the fair summer blossoms have given way to the great, scentless, ugly autumn flowers,--coarse dahlias, flaming nasturtiums, gaudy zinnias, gorgeous gladioli, and last, but not least, big staring sunflowers. It is a conceit more pretty than truthful, I fancy, that

"The sunflower turns to her god when he sets,
The same look that she turned when he rose."

In the present instance, at all events, the sun god is hurrying fast to his setting, and his great ugly satellites are turning their broad backs upon him in the most unblushing manner. I am sitting on the grass, book in hand, gazing meditatively up the long green vista that divides the flower-rows and the two lines of crooked, prolific apple-trees. They are weighed down with much store of fruit, crimson, gold, green, and russet, and on them and through their narrow leaves to their twisted trunks the red rays play warmly. My book does not occupy a great deal of my attention: it is a very old one, and I have read it many a time before. Its quaint old-fashioned language amuses me. I cannot help thinking Sir Charles Grandison a bit of a prig, for all he is a very fine and noble-hearted gentleman, and Harriet Byron's _naïve_ vanity in the repetition of the extravagant praises of her lovers makes me smile. After all, it must be superhumanly difficult to write one's own story without appearing either utterly uninteresting or disgustingly conceited. I open the book at random, and read,--

"I twitched the string just in time; the coach stopt. 'Mr. Orme,' said I. 'How do you? Well, I hope? How does Miss Orme?'

"I had my hand on the coach door. He snatched it. It was not an unwilling hand. He pressed it with his lips. 'God be praised,' said he (with a countenance--oh, how altered for the better!) 'for permitting me once again to behold that face,--that _angelic_ face,' he said.

"'God bless you, Mr. Orme,' said I; 'I am glad to see you. Adieu.'

"The coach drove on. 'Poor Mr. Orme,' said my aunt.

"'Mr. Orme, Lucy,' said I, 'don't look so ill as you wrote he was.'

"'His joy to see you,' returned she. 'But Mr. Orme is in a declining way.'"

My reading is here interrupted by the vision of a white figure flitting to and fro among the shrubs, evidently on its way to me. I discern it to be Sally in her light cotton gown.

"What is it?" I say, as soon as she comes within hail.

"If you please, miss," she responds, at the top of her voice, "It's Sir 'Ector Montagu."

For a moment my mind conjures up a vision of the dead old tyrant. I could hardly be much more disconcerted by a visit from him than from his successor.

"I will come," I say, picking myself up slowly from the grass with a fluttering heart, and walking housewards with most reluctant and unwilling steps. His back is turned towards me as I enter the room. When he faces me, I can see that he is altered, and that he looks darker, thinner, more haggard than he used. His greeting is a strange one: he does not give me the usual commonplace salutation, but takes me by the hand (unlike Miss Byron's, it is an unwilling one), and says,--

"You once offered me your friendship, and I refused it.--rather ungraciously, I fear. I have come to-day to ask you for it."

And then he goes on abruptly to speak of Curly's accident.

"I did not hear of it until some time after it happened," he says.

Then I ask him about his mother.

"It is on her account I am here to-day," he answers. "Without such an excuse I should have been diffident of coming. My poor mother is so low-spirited and dejected,--she cannot at all get over my father's death. Is it not wonderful," he breaks out, "how these good women will deceive themselves into thinking when a man is dead that he possessed every virtue under heaven! Far be it from me," he adds, hastily, "to breathe one unkind word of those that are gone: death makes all sacred; but it does seem strange."

"Lady Montagu was always devoted to Sir Hector," I answer. "I felt sure she would take his death dreadfully to heart."

"She is always reproaching herself with not having done enough for him or made greater efforts to please him. She is quite morbid on the subject. I think she remembers every time she was a minute late for dinner, and is inconsolable because, since her illness, she did not come down to make his breakfast. The doctors recommend change; but no inducement will get her to leave the place. She fancies that if you would only come over and spend a little while with her it would cheer her up and make her a different person. Cannot you come?" he adds, eagerly; then, as he sees how I shrink from the thought, "You need have no fear about me" (in a pained voice): "you will be sacred from any annoyance from me. Indeed, if it would make you happier, I will go away altogether."

"There is no need for that," I say, reluctantly, "and I should be glad, most glad, to go to Lady Montagu, if I could really be of any use to her; but----"

"But what?"

"Curly is still here," I say. "I could not possibly leave home until he is gone, and then I shall hardly like to leave papa, he will feel his loss so dreadfully."

But when papa returns, a few minutes later, he warmly seconds Hector's request, and utterly pooh-poohs all idea of not being able to spare me. And so, most reluctantly on my part, it is settled that Sir Hector (how strange his new title sounds!) shall send the carriage for me the week but one following. Papa invites him to stay and dine. He accepts, apparently nothing loath. His face seems to grow less haggard, the unfrequent smile comes to his lips, and he becomes quite cheerful. For one moment before he leaves we are alone together.

"Do not be afraid to come," he whispers, hurriedly. "I swear not to vex you by any allusion to the past. We will be friends, nothing more" (with a sigh). And then papa returns, and he bids me good-by.

So it happens that once again I go to Alford,--to the house where, in one little day, all my future was spoiled and marred. Lady Montagu is sadly altered: the delicate color in her cheeks has faded to a waxen hue, her eyes are dim with much weeping. She greets me with all her old kindness, but the very sight of me affects her and brings tears to her eyes.

"Do not mind me, my dear," she says, tremulously "Everything now brings back my dreadful loss."

How many a devoted husband, I wonder, has been mourned far less than the cruel, selfish old tyrant of Alford! She talks much of him: indeed, it seems the only theme on which she cares to speak. I listen, with scant patience, inwardly, to her self-reproaches, knowing how utterly unmerited they are; but it is useless to try to persuade her that she has not failed in wifely duty and consideration to her lamented lord. There is a great alteration in the manners and customs of the house,--far less state and a great deal more comfort. We dine, not in the great cold banqueting-hall, but in a cosy little dining-room, furnished simply, but in the most perfect taste, from the many oaken treasures of the hall. There is no unnecessary parade of gold and silver plate, and we are waited upon by Simkins and one footman, who retire when they have served us, and are summoned by a hand-bell. Hector's manner to his mother almost makes me love him: it is a mixture of the most tender kindness and respect. She may transgress as much as she chooses--and I am bound to say she does--the rule of punctuality, without a look or a hint from him. If his soup is cold through waiting for her, he makes no remark. What a blessed change his rule must be for the servants! But, though he is so considerate, he lacks no dignity, and they run with far more alacrity for love of him than they did for fear of his father. His considerate thoughtfulness for his mother can be illustrated by one example. He has given the servants strict orders not to address him as Sir Hector before his mother: in her presence he is always plain sir, as of old. For my own part I am glad, for I can never hear the name and title without an unpleasant reminiscence of its former owner.

The morning after my arrival, Hector takes me to the stables and shows me a pretty pair of ponies.

"These are for you to drive," he says. "I am in hopes you will be able to entice my mother out. It will seem different from taking a formal drive in a large carriage."

He has them put to, and makes me drive him round the park, and I enjoy it most thoroughly. I cannot help fancying (perhaps with the vanity I deprecated in Miss Byron) that the ponies are here more on my account than his mother's. How good and thoughtful he is! why cannot I care for him? True to his word, he never makes the slightest allusion to the past; but for an occasional look in his dark eyes, I might think he had quite got over caring for me. We have an unceasing subject of conversation in the improvements he proposes making. Every evening we pore together over plans of cottages and schools. We make delightful little pictures of clean, comfortable houses, with trim gardens, and places where the cottager may keep his pig without annoyance to himself or his neighbors; where he may have his potatoes and cabbages and fruit-trees; where he may keep bees, if he has a taste that way, and even fowls; a little drying-ground, where the good wife can hang out her clothes, instead of employing the surrounding bushes and hedges: in short, a habitation so pleasant and inviting that it would be a real pleasure to live in it, even though one had a higher social status than that of a farm-laborer.

Meantime, Lady Montagu dozes away comfortably in her arm-chair by the fire, secure from any interruption of her pleasant slumbers. The days pass on neither very slowly nor very swiftly, as is usually the case when one leads a comfortable, uneventful life. She is decidedly far more cheerful than when I came: her eyes are brighter, her cheeks less waxen, she smiles not unfrequently, and without that dreary effort which was so painful to see at first. She has driven several times with me in the pony-carriage, and enjoys it. The weather is clear and bright, and she has no symptoms of her old enemy bronchitis.

Neither she nor Hector ever allude to Colonel Montagu: once or twice when the post-bag comes in I recognize his handwriting, but she reads her letter without a word of comment. I long to know if he is going to marry the heiress, but dare not ask. It is evident enough, by their own silence, that they do not wish me to refer to him.

After a fortnight at Alford, I begin to talk of going home, although they both use every argument in their power to dissuade me. I am happy enough: it is from no wish to leave either of them. I love Lady Montagu dearly, and for her son I feel the very warmest regard: every day makes me like him more, for every day brings fresh instances of his real unobtrusive goodness. I cross-question myself severely on the subject of my inability to love him, but my rebellious heart flings to the wind any notion that he can ever be more to me than a friend. No! _Loyal je serai durant ma vie_. I have never loved, shall never love, but one man.

It is, however, on papa's account that I want to go home, for I know quite well, in spite of ten thousand protestations to the contrary, that he does miss his little girl sadly. I have elicited so much from severe cross-questioning of Gay.

"Well, my dear," she says, after great pressure, "it's no use my goin' against the truth, nor it wouldn't be right to do so, though your pa would be very angry with me for letting of it out, but he does seem quite moped and lost like when you're away. Even that Sally, whose head is as thick as a deal board, she can't help noticin' of it,--how he scarcely eats anything, and always reads a book all meal-times. And the fuss he makes of that dog" (meaning the pug), "you wouldn't believe it; and when you are coming back he always brings the letter to me, and his eyes brighten up, and he says, 'Well, Gay, your young lady's coming home to-morrow, or next week,' as it may be, and then I promise you, my dear, we all go about with twice as much life in us as before."

So I know that I am missed, and that makes me resolute in refusing to be away for very long at a time. But, as Hector entreats me so earnestly and genuinely for his mother's sake, I yield, and stay on another week. But all the entreaties in the world are powerless to keep me a day longer. I promise to come over frequently for a day or two at a time.

So I take my leave, and go back to papa and Gay and the pug. I have heard people assert that pugs are stupid. I should like to show them mine. Of all the devoted, faithful, intelligent friends in the canine world, commend me to a pug! I could write chapters upon chapters about dogs, and, though I have not had experiences among my own kind bitter enough to make me appreciate it thoroughly, I can still recognize the fine satire in the speech of the man who said, "_Plus je connait les hommes, plus j' admire les chiens_."