Chapter IX: Diana's Story

We are seated at lunch,--we four ladies, and as many men as the little summer-house can accommodate, partaking of the fare which Captain Montagu so contemptuously predicted; only it is not lukewarm, but very hot and good. It is by no means despised, if we may judge by the zest with which the party fall to, Captain Montagu included. He throws me a little comic smile across the table.

"_L'appétit vient en mangeant_," he says.

"Mine came before," I answer, in the same tone.

"What is the joke?" asks the elder brother, who is leaning against the doorpost, eating his lunch under difficulties.

"My dear fellow, don't be inquisitive. Let Miss Carew and I have our little secrets."

"By all means," returns Mr. Montagu, coldly, looking anything but pleased.

For my part, he may frown as much as he likes, as long as his brother smiles upon me.

I am delighted to notice that Captain Montagu has left Mrs. Huntingdon, even though he is devoting himself to Lady Gwyneth, whom of the two perhaps I dislike the more.

"Have you heard of my prowess?" she asks him, with great glee. "Two brace and a half of pheasants, and all rocketers!"

"Delightful!" he utters, in his lazy, pleasant voice. "How charming to have a wife who does all the hard work! I hope Desborough appreciates it."

"If I were only a man, I wouldn't mind any amount of hard work," she rejoins. "I should be no carpet-knight, I promise you."

"Like me, for instance!" (smiling).

"Yes, like you. You would make a lovely woman, and could dawdle about all day choicely appareled. While I--if I were you--would catch big salmon, hunt six days a week in the season, shoot when there was a frost, and--and--I'd go to Mexico and shoot a grizzly. Oh to have had the immeasurable privilege of being born a man and to abuse it so shamefully!"

"You might retaliate, I think, Charlie," interposes Mrs. Huntingdon, maliciously. She calls him Charlie before her husband, and no one looks surprised. Perhaps, though, they are very old friends.

"I never argue with a lady," he answers, with lazy good nature. "With my deplorable want of energy, I should be sure to get the worst of it."

At this moment I happen to glance at Hector Montagu, and see him cast a look of supreme scorn upon his handsome brother. Yes, I positively dislike him. Lady Gwyneth takes no notice of Mrs. Huntingdon's remark, but continues, petulantly:

"Men have everything, we have nothing."

"I think we have a great many privileges," drawls Mrs. Huntingdon.

"What may they be?" flashes out Lady Gwyneth.

"We always have everything done for us. We don't have to interview bailiffs, or pay bills, or buy horses, or look after any horrid details. We have the best places everywhere. We sit comfortably at the opera, whilst unhappy men have to stand behind us on one leg."

"Pshaw!" utters Lady Gwyneth, contemptuously. "I always interview the bailiff and pay the bills; and as to letting Harold buy a horse, I should as soon think of flinging the money out of window at once. And as for having the best seats everywhere, I'd rather stand than sit, any day,--yes, and stand on one leg all my life, for the inestimable privilege of being a man. Men can always do something, always go somewhere, when they are bored; while we have to sit at home and curse our fate."

"Lady Gwyneth," interposes Captain Montagu, laughing, "you are astonishing Miss Carew. See how shocked she looks."

Oh, how could he be so unkind? If I am silly and ignorant enough to show what I think in my unmanageable face, surely he need not be the one to call down retribution upon me.

"Girls should be kept in the school-room till they know how to behave in society," says Lady Gwyneth, with aggressive rudeness.

I feel so angry,--I never knew until this moment that I had so hot a temper. Reply is on my lips, but ere I have time to unclose them a champion is at hand.

"I quite agree with you, Lady Gwyneth," utters Colonel Fane's quiet voice. "I do not think innocent minds are likely to derive much benefit from listening to the conversation of men and women of the world."

"Hear! hear!" says Mr. Montagu.

It is Lady Gwyneth's turn to redden with anger. Mrs. Huntingdon knits her dark brows closer together, but, before either has time to say anything, Mr. Warrington's jolly face appears in the doorway, and he calls out,--

"Come, it's time to be off again!"

But some of the sportsmen show signs of defection. Sir George has made up his mind to go back with Mrs. Huntingdon; Miss Gore has evidently tampered with her soldier; and Mr. Montagu says in an undertone to me,--

"I would much rather walk with you. I've had quite shooting enough for to-day."

But I answer, quickly, "I think Mr. Warrington will not like to have his party broken up;" and he says no more.

Keepers and dogs are waiting at a respectful distance; the men who mean shooting are shouldering their guns; I am reflecting that I shall be left to the pleasure of my own company,--when Captain Montagu turns towards me and says,--

"Miss Carew, shall we console each other?--we seem to stand a fair chance of being deserted by our cruel friends, like the babes in the wood."

Probably the pleasure I feel at this proposal shines from my eyes. Hector Montagu looks sharply at me, and turns to go.

"Take my gun, Charlie!" cries Sir George over his shoulder (with questionable taste, _I_ think); "exchange is no robbery."

"Thank you," says Mrs. Huntingdon, haughtily.

"Something better than his gun, a little dearer than his dog,"

laughs Captain Montagu, maliciously, paraphrasing the poet-laureate.

I suppose poor little Sir George meant to be funny, and, like many other people, did not know until he was told that he had been rude. At all events, I see him doing his best to make the _amende_ as they stroll down the glade together. I wonder at, though I bless, the taste that has made Mrs. Huntingdon give up one escort for the other.

"Is not this the way home?" I say, as Captain Montagu turns his steps in the opposite direction from that by which we came.

"You are not thinking of going home, surely," he answers. "Why" (yawning), "what on earth will you do with yourself all the afternoon?--it is an eternity to dinner-time. Let's do the 'truly rural,' and get rid of the odious souvenir of Irish stew. Faugh! it's a barbarous dish, though it seemed pleasant for the moment."

Taking him at his word, I start at a good round pace for a constitutional.

"My dear Miss Carew," he cries, plaintively, in about a minute, "have you borrowed the seven-league boots? Have mercy on a miserable victim to patent leather and corns!"

"Corns!" I repeat (desperately discomfited by the thought of a hero with corns). "Corns!" (looking down involuntarily at his shapely feet); then, with the triumph of faith and sight too, "I don't believe you!"

"Well," he rejoins, laughing, "it isn't my fault if I haven't, but please consider that I have, and suit your pace to the idea."

So we saunter on, side by side, in the pleasant afternoon sun, across the crackling leaves, out into the open. He talks away in a merry half-ironic vein, and if my sense does not approve of all he says, woman-like, since the speaker pleases me, my heart finds no fault. I do not--I will not--believe that he is as selfish as he seems to take pleasure in painting himself: surely nature would not delight to cheat one by making such beautiful windows as his eyes to a soul, to find when one looked through them only something worse than nothingness. Even irrational, inconsequent mortals do not put stained-glass windows into a barn; and should the fair goddess, who does all things well, be more foolish and capricious than they?

We have arrived at a stile; he, petitioning me to rest, leans against a post beside it, whilst I, sitting perched upon it, hearken unto his discourse.

"Your charming sex," he is saying, "always get cherished and taken care of, but what's to become of poor fellows like me if we don't look after ourselves? And you have no idea what selfish, crotchety old brutes fathers are. Now, don't look indignant. I know you adore yours. I mean men's fathers. Sometimes I make a feeble attempt to get mine to see reason, but he won't. I know lots of fellows who've got the same sort of fathers. I begin by saying to him, suavely, 'Pray, sir, did I come into the world for my pleasure or yours?' To which he replies, with asperity, 'Not for mine, begad, or I'd have had something better than a confounded puppy like you!'"

I laugh, not, I think, because his story is very amusing, but because, standing there, the winter sun shining warmly on his face, as though it loved him, his eyes shine, his lips curve in smiles, and he looks so radiantly full of spirits I cannot help but smile too for sympathy. I am sure there was never a more sincere adorer of good looks than I. Be it man, woman, child, dog, horse, picture, scene, statue, if it is beautiful my heart goes out to it for its mere beauty's sake. It is an instinct implanted in me by nature. I cannot alter it; I would not if I could.

"To which I reply," he proceeds, laughing, "that granted we are neither of us responsible for my existence, still, as I am, in the world, I require to be clothed, fed, and lodged like my fellow-men, and that, as he has the onus of being my progenitor, he is bound to provide me with the means."

"I would work for my living," I say, energetically, with a forlorn hope of stimulating him to independence.

"Work! my dear Miss Carew, work! but I positively slave! You little dream of the frightful fatigue and exposure I incur in the service of an ungrateful country. Could you but conceive the toil of field-days in the Park in a July sun, of going the rounds on winter nights, of marches, reviews, guards of honor, above all barrack duty. Fancy being dragged out of bed at half-past seven in the morning to go and inspect slaughtered carcases, followed by a minute examination of the men's rooms, to see if they've hidden their boots in their beds, spilt grease on the table or floors, or committed any other atrocity; from there into the kitchen, to be poisoned by the smell of onions--faugh! that reminds me of that horrible Irish stew we had for lunch."

"No?" I say, inquisitively; "do you really have to do such things? I thought the Guards had nothing to do but to wear fine clothes, look magnificent, and allow themselves to be admired."

He laughs.

"That is the popular superstition. There is no class of men so fatally misunderstood as we poor Guardsmen. We ought to have a chapter devoted to us in that book called 'Things not generally known.' Why, there are lots of people, in spite of that sweet thing in memorials in Waterloo Place, who firmly believe we never go to war."

"Well," I say, pleased to find he does not live altogether the self-indulgent and sybaritic life I had imagined, "I had no idea, really, that you had to work so hard."

"Oh, I haven't half finished yet. After the onions I go to the tailor's and shoemaker's shops, where the bouquet of leather is most refreshing; then I go round the messes to see if the men have any complaints to make about their dinner, then, for a little agreeable diversion, to the hospital,--after which it is quite on the cards that I may have the delightful amusement of drilling defaulters for an hour in a blazing sun. Now, then" (looking at me with a triumphant smile), "have I vindicated my character, and do you still wonder that _I_ take every opportunity of recruiting my shattered forces?"

"And does your father know all this?" I ask.

"Oh, yes. I constantly remind him of it, and he says, pish! and pshaw! and pooh! By the way, Miss Carew, you are the latest from school,--what part of speech are pish and pshaw and pooh?'

"Interjections?" I hazard, timidly, not being great in the rules of grammar.

"Interjections," he repeats, with more assurance. "Yes, I've no doubt that's it. My father's tremendously fond of interjections. Now, to let you into more family secrets, that unreasonable old gentleman is always making a deuce of a row because I spend double what he allows me, sometimes more. Now, I put it to you, do you think a father has any right to send you into an expensive regiment, where most of the fellows are or will be well off, and not allow you enough to live decently and comfortably on?"

"No," I respond, warmly, "I don't. I think it is very unfair."

"Of course it is, my dear Miss Carew! I knew you would say so. I saw from the first that you were _sympathique_. As a rule, you can't conceive how frightened I am of--of unmarried ladies."

"Frightened?" (with an incredulous laugh).

"Yes, frightened, positively. But, as I was telling you, my father has twelve thousand a year, and no expenses but keeping up the place. Hector is not extravagant, and there are no girls, thank Heaven, to want dowries, and yet he has the indecency, I can call it nothing less, to think I can live on six hundred a year."

"Six hundred a year!" I echo. "Why, papa and I and Curly have not more than that to live upon."

"Wonderful!" he says, not really looking surprised, for I suppose he as well as everybody else knows how poor we are. "It is extraordinary how some people can do everything upon nothing, and do it better, too, very often, than their richer neighbors."

"But," I say, looking at him very doubtfully, "do you really mean to say that you don't think six hundred a year enough to live upon?"

"Not half!" shaking his head; "honestly and truly, not half."

Seeing that I am still incredulous, still unconvinced, he says, laughing,--

"Ah, it is very evident you don't know much about the great Babylon, nor the wants of the dwellers therein. But, take my word for it, six hundred a year is only a drop in the ocean, even if one were not a careless felloe like me, with refined, not to say expensive, tastes. Don't look so horrified! I don't cheat anybody. My father is the only sufferer, and it is a capital thing for his liver to have a little genuine excitement now and then. I'm so desperately unlucky, too, in my attempts to turn an honest penny: if I back a horse it is certain to go wrong, and at cards I hardly ever know the sensation of holding a trump."

I cannot help sighing,--it seems so sad to think of him frittering away his life on such vanity and frivolity, when he looks like a hero, and ought to "ride abroad, redressing human wrongs." I have no right to preach to him: it is impertinent, presumptuous. What do I know of life, that I should advise or warn? And yet I feel such an intense admiration for him, I want him to be good and noble inwardly as he is outwardly.

"Don't you think," I say, coloring deeply, but putting all the earnestness I feel into my voice,--"don't you think there's something better and nobler in the world than just merely to live for one's own pleasure and gratification? Oh, if you saw, like I do, people so poor, so hungry, so wanting every bare necessary, I know you would not feel happy to think of squandering away money on things you don't want and that can't give you any real pleasure."

Thinking over it afterwards, I could not in the least realize how I found boldness to say such things to him, a stranger, a man of fashion, one of the world's spoiled darlings. I wonder if any other girl or woman ever ventured to speak such truths to him. Ah, I think they would have done so if they had desired his good as earnestly as I did.

When I have finished my sentence, I feel abashed, and quite expect him to resent my rudeness; but he does not. He looks a little surprised, a pleasant smile curves his handsome mouth, and he says,--

"What a charming little priest it is! I shouldn't wonder if I became quite a converted and respectable character if I had you to talk to me often. You would soon be able to show me about in a caravan, as a tamed heathen."

I cannot help smiling as I remember the conversation be tween Lady Gwyneth and Mrs. Huntingdon.

"I am not such a very wicked fellow, after all," he goes on, plaintively. "Now, if you want a sinner it would be a real credit to convert, you'll have a chance to-night. Rexborough is coming. Do you know him? You must have heard of him."

"I dare say not to know him argues myself unknown," I make answer, "but I have never even heard his name. Who is he?"

"He is Lord Rexborough, a wicked nobleman, like the heroes of some fashionable novels, with a cruel jaw and a columnar throat, deep-chested and thin-flanked, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"Why does Mrs. Warrington invite him?" I ask, innocently.

"Oh" (laughing), "he is not so wicked as to be out of the pale of good society, and he is very popular. He isn't a carpet-knight like me: he hunts lions and tigers and bears, and Heaven knows what! I dare say you will be enormously taken with him,--won't look at me afterwards, I shouldn't wonder."

I laugh a low small laugh to myself. Then I say, descending from my perch before he has time to proffer assistance.--

"We must be going home."