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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4465-0.txt b/4465-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c035c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/4465-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3448 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4465 *** + +DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK 1. +I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE +II. AN IRISH BALL +III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN + SMITH +IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO +V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE . +VI. THE COUPLE +VII. THE CRISIS +VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN + LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + +BOOK 2. +IX. SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN WAS + MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER. +X. THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT +XI. RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF + DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL INCIDENT ON THE ROAD +XII. BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA +XIII. TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION +XIV. GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD AND + OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP +XV. INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER +XVI. TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL, AND OF A SCENE OF EARLY MORNING +XVII. THE PRINCESS EGERIA + +BOOK 3. +XVIII. THE AUTHORESS +XIX. A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT +XX. DIANA'S NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH +XXI. THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE +XXII. BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER : THE WIND EAST OVER BLEAK LAND +XXIII. RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S GOOD WOMEN +XXIV. INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION +XXV. ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS +XXVI. IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTITUDE OF LESSONS + + +BOOK 5. +XXXVI. IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS +XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY +XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT +XXXIX. OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A SHORT + EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX +XL. IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND A + THRICE WHIMSICAL +XLI. CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA +XLII. THE PENULTIMATE : SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND RUN + INTO HARNESS +XLIII. NUPTIAL CHAPTER: AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS LED TO + BLOOM WITH NUPTIAL SENTIMENT + + + + + + A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty, + the daughter of an illustrious Irish House, + came under the shadow of a calumny. It has + latterly been examined and exposed as baseless. + The story of Diana of the Crossways is to be read + as fiction. + + + + +DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + +BOOK 1. + +I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE +II. AN IRISH BALL +III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN + SMITH +IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO +V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE +VI. THE COUPLE +VII. THE CRISIS +VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN + LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + + + +CHAPTER I + +OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE + +Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there +is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her +wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables of one of the +writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of +her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may +deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the stone of an +urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must look some day +to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and indeed full surely +will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper season; be heard +complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he +knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly marked to get back +what we give, even from the thing named inanimate nature. + +The 'LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS' are studded with examples of +the dinner-table wit of the time, not always worth quotation twice; for +smart remarks have their measured distances, many requiring to be a brule +pourpoint, or within throw of the pistol, to make it hit; in other words, +the majority of them are addressed directly to our muscular system, and +they have no effect when we stand beyond the range. On the contrary, +they reflect sombrely on the springs of hilarity in the generation +preceding us; with due reserve of credit, of course, to an animal +vivaciousness that seems to have wanted so small an incitement. Our old +yeomanry farmers--returning to their beds over ferny commons under bright +moonlight from a neighbour's harvest-home, eased their bubbling breasts +with a ready roar not unakin to it. Still the promptness to laugh is an +excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people; and +undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to +the spouting of laughter. This should comfort us while we skim the +sparkling passages of the 'Leaves.' When a nation has acknowledged that +it is as yet but in the fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our +purest sense to golden sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended +to the gift: which is to strike not the dazzled eyes, the unanticipating +nose, the ribs, the sides, and stun us, twirl us, hoodwink, mystify, +tickle and twitch, by dexterities of lingual sparring and shuffling, but +to strike roots in the mind, the Hesperides of good things. We shall +then set a price on the 'unusual combination.' A witty woman is a +treasure; a witty Beauty is a power. Has she actual beauty, actual wit? +--not simply a tidal material beauty that passes current any pretty +flippancy or staggering pretentiousness? Grant. the combination, she +will appear a veritable queen of her period, fit for homage; at least +meriting a disposition to believe the best of her, in the teeth of foul +rumour; because the well of true wit is truth itself, the gathering of +the precious drops of right reason, wisdom's lightning; and no soul +possessing and dispensing it can justly be a target for the world, +however well armed the world confronting her. Our temporary world, that +Old Credulity and stone-hurling urchin in one, supposes it possible for a +woman to be mentally active up to the point of spiritual clarity and also +fleshly vile; a guide to life and a biter at the fruits of death; both +open mind and hypocrite. It has not yet been taught to appreciate a +quality certifying to sound citizenship as authoritatively as acres of +land in fee simple, or coffers of bonds, shares and stocks, and a more +imperishable guarantee. The multitudes of evil reports which it takes +for proof, are marshalled against her without question of the nature of +the victim, her temptress beauty being a sufficiently presumptive +delinquent. It does not pretend to know the whole, or naked body of the +facts; it knows enough for its furry dubiousness; and excepting the +sentimental of men, a rocket-headed horde, ever at the heels of fair +faces for ignition, and up starring away at a hint of tearfulness; +excepting further by chance a solid champion man, or some generous woman +capable of faith in the pelted solitary of her sex, our temporary world +blows direct East on her shivering person. The scandal is warrant for +that; the circumstances of the scandal emphasize the warrant. And how +clever she is! Cleverness is an attribute of the selecter missionary +lieutenants of Satan. We pray to be defended from her cleverness: she +flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner. The +wary stuff their ears, the stolid bid her best sayings rebound on her +reputation. Nevertheless the world, as Christian, remembers its +professions, and a portion of it joins the burly in morals by extending +to her a rough old charitable mercifulness; better than sentimental +ointment, but the heaviest blow she has to bear, to a character swimming +for life. + +That the lady in question was much quoted, the Diaries and Memoirs +testify. Hearsay as well as hearing was at work to produce the +abundance; and it was a novelty in England, where (in company) the men +are the pointed talkers, and the women conversationally fair Circassians. +They are, or they know that they should be; it comes to the same. +Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil to them. The mutes +have here and there a sketch or label attached to their names: they are +'strikingly handsome'; they are 'very good-looking'; occasionally they +are noted as 'extremely entertaining': in what manner, is inquired by a +curious posterity, that in so many matters is left unendingly to jump the +empty and gaping figure of interrogation over its own full stop. Great +ladies must they be, at the web of politics, for us to hear them cited +discoursing. Henry Wilmers is not content to quote the beautiful Mrs. +Warwick, he attempts a portrait. Mrs. Warwick is 'quite Grecian.' She +might 'pose for a statue.' He presents her in carpenter's lines, with a +dab of school-box colours, effective to those whom the Keepsake fashion +can stir. She has a straight nose, red lips, raven hair, black eyes, +rich complexion, a remarkably fine bust, and she walks well, and has an +agreeable voice; likewise 'delicate extremities.' The writer was created +for popularity, had he chosen to bring his art into our literary market. + +Perry Wilkinson is not so elaborate: he describes her in his +'Recollections' as a splendid brune, eclipsing all the blondes coming +near her: and 'what is more, the beautiful creature can talk.' He +wondered, for she was young, new to society. Subsequently he is rather +ashamed of his wonderment, and accounts for it by 'not having known she +was Irish.' She 'turns out to be Dan Merion's daughter.' + +We may assume that he would have heard if she had any whiff of a brogue. +Her sounding of the letter R a trifle scrupulously is noticed by Lady +Pennon: 'And last, not least, the lovely Mrs. Warwick, twenty minutes +behind the dinner-hour, and r-r-really fearing she was late.' + +After alluding to the soft influence of her beauty and ingenuousness on +the vexed hostess, the kindly old marchioness adds, that it was no wonder +she was late, 'for just before starting from home she had broken loose +from her husband for good, and she entered the room absolutely +houseless!' She was not the less 'astonishingly brilliant.' Her +observations were often 'so unexpectedly droll I laughed till I cried.' +Lady Pennon became in consequence one of the stanch supporters of Mrs. +Warwick. + +Others were not so easily won. Perry Wilkinson holds a balance when it +goes beyond a question of her wit and beauty. Henry Wilmers puts the +case aside, and takes her as he finds her. His cousin, the clever and +cynical Dorset Wilmers, whose method of conveying his opinions without +stating them was famous, repeats on two occasions when her name appears +in his pages, 'handsome, lively, witty'; and the stressed repetition of +calculated brevity while a fiery scandal was abroad concerning the lady, +implies weighty substance--the reservation of a constable's truncheon, +that could legally have knocked her character down to the pavement. We +have not to ask what he judged. But Dorset Wilmers was a political +opponent of the eminent Peer who yields the second name to the scandal, +and politics in his day flushed the conceptions of men. His short +references to 'that Warwick-Dannisburgh affair' are not verbally +malicious. He gets wind of the terms of Lord Dannisburgh's will and +testament, noting them without comment. The oddness of the instrument +in one respect may have served his turn; we have no grounds for thinking +him malignant. The death of his enemy closes his allusions to Mrs. +Warwick. He was growing ancient, and gout narrowed the circle he whirled +in. Had he known this 'handsome, lively, witty' apparition as a woman +having political and social views of her own, he would not, one fancies, +have been so stingless. Our England exposes a sorry figure in his +Reminiscences. He struck heavily, round and about him, wherever he +moved; he had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration. His +unadorned harsh substantive statements, excluding the adjectives, give +his Memoirs the appearance of a body of facts, attractive to the historic +Muse, which has learnt to esteem those brawny sturdy giants marching club +on shoulder, independent of henchman, in preference to your panoplied +knights with their puffy squires, once her favourites, and wind-filling +to her columns, ultimately found indigestible. + +His exhibition of his enemy Lord Dannisburgh, is of the class of noble +portraits we see swinging over inn-portals, grossly unlike in likeness. +The possibility of the man's doing or saying this and that adumbrates the +improbability: he had something of the character capable of it, too much +good sense for the performance. We would think so, and still the shadow +is round our thoughts. Lord Dannisburgh was a man of ministerial tact, +official ability, Pagan morality; an excellent general manager, if no +genius in statecraft. But he was careless of social opinion, unbuttoned, +and a laugher. We know that he could be chivalrous toward women, +notwithstanding the perplexities he brought on them, and this the Dorset- +Diary does not show. + +His chronicle is less mischievous as regards Mrs. Warwick than the +paragraphs of Perry Wilkinson, a gossip presenting an image of perpetual +chatter, like the waxen-faced street advertizements of light and easy +dentistry. He has no belief, no disbelief; names the pro-party and the +con; recites the case, and discreetly, over-discreetly; and pictures the +trial, tells the list of witnesses, records the verdict: so the case +went, and some thought one thing, some another thing: only it is reported +for positive that a miniature of the incriminated lady was cleverly +smuggled over to the jury, and juries sitting upon these eases, ever +since their bedazzlement by Phryne, as you know . . . . And then he +relates an anecdote of the husband, said to have been not a bad fellow +before he married his Diana; and the naming of the Goddess reminds him +that the second person in the indictment is now everywhere called 'The +elderly shepherd';--but immediately after the bridal bells this husband +became sour and insupportable, and either she had the trick of putting +him publicly in the wrong, or he lost all shame in playing the churlish +domestic tyrant. The instances are incredible of a gentleman. Perry +Wilkinson gives us two or three; one on the authority of a personal +friend who witnessed the scene; at the Warwick whist-table, where the +fair Diana would let loose her silvery laugh in the intervals. She was +hardly out of her teens, and should have been dancing instead of fastened +to a table. A difference of fifteen years in the ages of the wedded pair +accounts poorly for the husband's conduct, however solemn a business the +game of whist. We read that he burst out at last, with bitter mimicry, +'yang--yang--yang!' and killed the bright laugh, shot it dead. She had +outraged the decorum of the square-table only while the cards were +making. Perhaps her too-dead ensuing silence, as of one striving to +bring back the throbs to a slain bird in her bosom, allowed the gap +between the wedded pair to be visible, for it was dated back to prophecy +as soon as the trumpet proclaimed it. + +But a multiplication of similar instances, which can serve no other +purpose than that of an apology, is a miserable vindication of innocence. +The more we have of them the darker the inference. In delicate +situations the chatterer is noxious. Mrs. Warwick had numerous +apologists. Those trusting to her perfect rectitude were rarer. The +liberty she allowed herself in speech and action must have been trying to +her defenders in a land like ours; for here, and able to throw its shadow +on our giddy upper-circle, the rigour of the game of life, relaxed though +it may sometimes appear, would satisfy the staidest whist-player. She +did not wish it the reverse, even when claiming a space for laughter: +'the breath of her soul,' as she called it, and as it may be felt in the +early youth of a lively nature. She, especially, with her multitude of +quick perceptions and imaginative avenues, her rapid summaries, her sense +of the comic, demanded this aerial freedom. + +We have it from Perry Wilkinson that the union of the divergent couple +was likened to another union always in a Court of Law. There was a +distinction; most analogies will furnish one; and here we see England and +Ireland changeing their parts, until later, after the breach, when the +Englishman and Irishwoman resumed a certain resemblance to the yoked +Islands. + +Henry Wilmers, I have said, deals exclusively with the wit and charm of +the woman. He treats the scandal as we might do in like manner if her +story had not to be told. But these are not reporting columns; very +little of it shall trouble them. The position is faced, and that is all. +The position is one of the battles incident to women, their hardest. It +asks for more than justice from men, for generosity, our civilization not +being yet of the purest. That cry of hounds at her disrobing by Law is +instinctive. She runs, and they give tongue; she is a creature of the +chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did +once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her +cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such +positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of +woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork +never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of +holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It is a test of the +civilized to see and hear, and add no yapping to the spectacle. + +Thousands have reflected on a Diarist's power to cancel our Burial +Service. Not alone the cleric's good work is upset by him; but the +sexton's as well. He howks the grave, and transforms the quiet worms, +busy on a single poor peaceable body, into winged serpents that disorder +sky and earth with a deadly flight of zig-zags, like military rockets, +among the living. And if these are given to cry too much, to have their +tender sentiments considered, it cannot be said that History requires the +flaying of them. A gouty Diarist, a sheer gossip Diarist, may thus, +in the bequest of a trail of reminiscences, explode our temples (for our +very temples have powder in store), our treasuries, our homesteads, alive +with dynamitic stuff; nay, disconcert our inherited veneration, dislocate +the intimate connexion between the tugged flaxen forelock and a title. + +No similar blame is incurred by Henry Wilmers. No blame whatever, +one would say, if he had been less, copious, or not so subservient, +in recording the lady's utterances; for though the wit of a woman may be +terse, quite spontaneous, as this lady's assuredly was here and there, +she is apt to spin it out of a museful mind, at her toilette, or by the +lonely fire, and sometimes it is imitative; admirers should beware of +holding it up to the withering glare of print: she herself, quoting an +obscure maximmonger, says of these lapidary sentences, that they have +merely 'the value of chalk-eggs, which lure the thinker to sit,' and +tempt the vacuous to strain for the like, one might add; besides +flattering the world to imagine itself richer than it is in eggs that are +golden. Henry Wilmers notes a multitude of them. 'The talk fell upon +our being creatures of habit, and how far it was good: She said:-- +It is there that we see ourselves crutched between love grown old +and indifference ageing to love.' Critic ears not present at the +conversation catch an echo of maxims and aphorisms overchannel, +notwithstanding a feminine thrill in the irony of 'ageing to love.' +The quotation ranks rather among the testimonies to her charm. + +She is fresher when speaking of the war of the sexes. For one sentence +out of many, though we find it to be but the clever literary clothing of +a common accusation: 'Men may have rounded Seraglio Point: they have not +yet doubled Cape Turk.' + +It is war, and on the male side, Ottoman war: her experience reduced her +to think so positively. Her main personal experience was in the social +class which is primitively venatorial still, canine under its polish. + +She held a brief for her beloved Ireland. She closes a discussion upon +Irish agitation by saying rather neatly: 'You have taught them it is +English as well as common human nature to feel an interest in the dog +that has bitten you.' + +The dog periodically puts on madness to win attention; we gather then +that England, in an angry tremour, tries him with water-gruel to prove +him sane. + +Of the Irish priest (and she was not of his retinue), when he was deemed +a revolutionary, Henry Wilmers notes her saying: 'Be in tune with him; +he is in the key-note for harmony. He is shepherd, doctor, nurse, +comforter, anecdotist and fun-maker to his poor flock; and you wonder +they see the burning gateway of their heaven in him? Conciliate the +priest.' + +It has been partly done, done late, when the poor flock have found their +doctoring and shepherding at other hands: their 'bulb-food and fiddle,' +that she petitioned for, to keep them from a complete shaving off their +patch of bog and scrub soil, without any perception of the tremulous +transatlantic magnification of the fiddle, and the splitting discord of +its latest inspiriting jig. + +And she will not have the consequences of the 'weariful old Irish duel +between Honour and Hunger judged by bread and butter juries.' + +She had need to be beautiful to be tolerable in days when Englishmen +stood more openly for the strong arm to maintain the Union. Her troop +of enemies was of her summoning. + +Ordinarily her topics were of wider range, and those of a woman who mixed +hearing with reading, and observation with her musings. She has no +doleful ejaculatory notes, of the kind peculiar to women at war, +containing one-third of speculative substance to two of sentimental-- +a feminine plea for comprehension and a squire; and it was probably the +reason (as there is no reason to suppose an emotional cause) why she +exercised her evident sway over the mind of so plain and straightforward +an Englishman as Henry Wilmers. She told him that she read rapidly, 'a +great deal at one gulp,' and thought in flashes--a way with the makers of +phrases. She wrote, she confessed, laboriously. The desire to prune, +compress, overcharge, was a torment to the nervous woman writing under a +sharp necessity for payment. Her songs were shot off on the impulsion; +prose was the heavy task. 'To be pointedly rational,' she said, 'is a +greater difficulty for me than a fine delirium.' She did not talk as if +it would have been so, he remarks. One is not astonished at her +appearing an 'actress' to the flat-minded. But the basis of her woman's +nature was pointed flame: In the fulness of her history we perceive +nothing histrionic. Capricious or enthusiastic in her youth, she never +trifled with feeling; and if she did so with some showy phrases and +occasionally proffered commonplaces in gilt, as she was much excited to +do, her moods of reflection were direct, always large and honest, +universal as well as feminine. + +Her saying that 'A woman in the pillory restores the original bark of +brotherhood to mankind,' is no more than a cry of personal anguish. She +has golden apples in her apron. She says of life: 'When I fail to +cherish it in every fibre the fires within are waning,' and that drives +like rain to the roots. She says of the world, generously, if with +tapering idea: 'From the point of vision of the angels, this ugly +monster, only half out of slime, must appear our one constant hero.' +It can be read maliciously, but abstain. + +She says of Romance: 'The young who avoid that region escape the title of +Fool at the cost of a celestial crown.' Of Poetry: 'Those that have +souls meet their fellows there.' + +But she would have us away with sentimentalism. Sentimental people, in +her phrase, 'fiddle harmonics on the strings of sensualism,' to the +delight of a world gaping for marvels of musical execution rather than +for music. For our world is all but a sensational world at present, in +maternal travail of a soberer, a braver, a brighter-eyed. Her +reflections are thus to be interpreted, it seems to me. She says, +'The vices of the world's nobler half in this day are feminine.' We have +to guard against 'half-conceptions of wisdom, hysterical goodness, an +impatient charity'--against the elementary state of the altruistic +virtues, distinguishable as the sickness and writhings of our egoism to +cast its first slough. Idea is there. The funny part of it is our +finding it in books of fiction composed for payment. Manifestly this +lady did not 'chameleon' her pen from the colour of her audience: she was +not of the uniformed rank and file marching to drum and fife as gallant +interpreters of popular appetite, and going or gone to soundlessness and +the icy shades. + +Touches inward are not absent: 'To have the sense of the eternal in life +is a short flight for the soul. To have had it, is the soul's vitality.' +And also: 'Palliation of a sin is the hunted creature's refuge and final +temptation. Our battle is ever between spirit and flesh. Spirit must +brand the flesh, that it may live.' + +You are entreated to repress alarm. She was by preference light-handed; +and her saying of oratory, that 'It is always the more impressive for the +spice of temper which renders it untrustworthy,' is light enough. +On Politics she is rhetorical and swings: she wrote to spur a junior +politician: 'It is the first business of men, the school to mediocrity, +to the covetously ambitious a sty, to the dullard his amphitheatre, arms +of Titans to the desperately enterprising, Olympus to the genius.' +What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature. She saw their +existing posture clearly, yet believed, as men disincline to do, that +they grow. She says, that 'In their judgements upon women men are +females, voices of the present (sexual) dilemma.' They desire to have +'a still woman; who can make a constant society of her pins and needles.' +They create by stoppage a volcano, and are amazed at its eruptiveness. +'We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited.' Love is +presumably the visitor. Of the greater loneliness of women, she says: +'It is due to the prescribed circumscription of their minds, of which +they become aware in agitation. Were the walls about them beaten down, +they would understand that solitariness is a common human fate and the +one chance of growth, like space for timber.' As to the sensations of +women after the beating down of the walls, she owns that the multitude of +the timorous would yearn in shivering affright for the old prison-nest, +according to the sage prognostic of men; but the flying of a valiant few +would form a vanguard. And we are informed that the beginning of a +motive life with women must be in the head, equally with men (by no means +a truism when she wrote). Also that 'men do not so much fear to lose the +hearts of thoughtful women as their strict attention to their graces.' +The present market is what men are for preserving: an observation of +still reverberating force. Generally in her character of the feminine +combatant there is a turn of phrase, like a dimple near the lips showing +her knowledge that she was uttering but a tart measure of the truth. She +had always too much lambent humour to be the dupe of the passion +wherewith, as she says, 'we lash ourselves into the persuasive speech +distinguishing us from the animals.' + +The instances of her drollery are rather hinted by the Diarists for the +benefit of those who had met her and could inhale the atmosphere at a +word. Drolleries, humours, reputed witticisms, are like odours of roast +meats, past with the picking of the joint. Idea is the only vital +breath. They have it rarely, or it eludes the chronicler. To say of the +great erratic and forsaken Lady A****, after she had accepted the +consolations of Bacchus, that her name was properly signified in +asterisks 'as she was now nightly an Ariadne in heaven through her God,' +sounds to us a roundabout, with wit somewhere and fun nowhere. Sitting +at the roast we might have thought differently. Perry Wilkinson is not +happier in citing her reply to his compliment on the reviewers' unanimous +eulogy of her humour and pathos:--the 'merry clown and poor pantaloon +demanded of us in every work of fiction,' she says, lamenting the +writer's compulsion to go on producing them for applause until it is +extremest age that knocks their knees. We are informed by Lady Pennon of +'the most amusing description of the first impressions of a pretty +English simpleton in Paris'; and here is an opportunity for ludicrous +contrast of the French and English styles of pushing flatteries--'piping +to the charmed animal,' as Mrs. Warwick terms it in another place: but +Lady Pennon was acquainted with the silly woman of the piece, and found +her amusement in the 'wonderful truth' of that representation. + +Diarists of amusing passages are under an obligation to paint us a +realistic revival of the time, or we miss the relish. The odour of the +roast, and more, a slice of it is required, unless the humorous thing be +preternaturally spirited to walk the earth as one immortal among a number +less numerous than the mythic Gods. 'He gives good dinners,' a candid +old critic said, when asked how it was that he could praise a certain +poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebris imbribus ac +nebulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the +stirring of the gastric juices. And such a revival by any of us would be +impolitic, were it a possible attempt, before our systems shall have been +fortified by philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply to +relate, and we can copy from him. + +Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's Art, now neither blushless +infant nor executive man, have attained its majority. We can then be +veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. Rose-pink and dirty drab +will alike have passed away. Philosophy is the foe of both, and their +silly cancelling contest, perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes, +as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, will no longer baffle +the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no longer the soul issuing +out of our incessant strife. Philosophy bids us to see that we are not +so pretty as rose-pink, not so repulsive as dirty drab; and that instead +of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects, the sight of ourselves is +wholesome, bearable, fructifying, finally a delight. Do but perceive +that we are coming to philosophy, the stride toward it will be a giant's +--a century a day. And imagine the celestial refreshment of having a +pure decency in the place of sham; real flesh; a soul born active, wind- +beaten, but ascending. Honourable will fiction then appear; honourable, +a fount of life, an aid to life, quick with our blood. Why, when you +behold it you love it--and you will not encourage it?--or only when +presented by dead hands? Worse than that alternative dirty drab, your +recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous revelations of the filthy foul; +for nature will force her way, and if you try to stifle her by drowning, +she comes up, not the fairest part of her uppermost! Peruse your +Realists--really your castigators for not having yet embraced Philosophy. +As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, nature is +unimpeachable, flower-eke, yet not too decoratively a flower; you must +have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the fat bedding of +roses. In this fashion she grew, says historical fiction; thus does she +flourish now, would say the modern transcript, reading the inner as well +as exhibiting the outer. + +And how may you know that you have reached to Philosophy? You touch her +skirts when you share her hatred of the sham decent, her derision of +sentimentalism. You are one with her when--but I would not have you a +thousand years older! Get to her, if in no other way, by the sentimental +route:--that very winding path, which again and again brings you round to +the point of original impetus, where you have to be unwound for another +whirl; your point of original impetus being the grossly material, not at +all the spiritual. It is most true that sentimentalism springs from the +former, merely and badly aping the latter,--fine flower, or pinnacle +flame-spire, of sensualism that it is, could it do other? and +accompanying the former it traverses tracts of desert here and there +couching in a garden, catching with one hand at fruits, with another at +colours; imagining a secret ahead, and goaded by an appetite, sustained +by sheer gratifications. Fiddle in harmonics as it may, it will have +these gratifications at all costs. Should none be discoverable, at once +you are at the Cave of Despair, beneath the funereal orb of Glaucoma, in +the thick midst of poniarded, slit-throat, rope-dependant figures, +placarded across the bosom Disillusioned, Infidel, Agnostic, Miserrimus. +That is the sentimental route to advancement. Spirituality does not +light it; evanescent dreams: are its oil-lamps, often with wick askant in +the socket. + +A thousand years! You may count full many a thousand by this route +before you are one with divine Philosophy. Whereas a single flight of +brains will reach and embrace her; give you the savour of Truth, the +right use of the senses, Reality's infinite sweetness; for these things +are in philosophy; and the fiction which is the summary of actual Life, +the within and without of us, is, prose or verse, plodding or soaring, +philosophy's elect handmaiden. To such an end let us bend our aim to +work, knowing that every form of labour, even this flimsiest, as you +esteem it, should minister to growth. If in any branch of us we fail in +growth, there is, you are aware, an unfailing aboriginal democratic old +monster that waits to pull us down; certainly the branch, possibly the +tree; and for the welfare of Life we fall. You are acutely conscious of +yonder old monster when he is mouthing at you in politics. Be wary of +him in the heart; especially be wary of the disrelish of brainstuff. You +must feed on something. Matter that is not nourishing to brains can help +to constitute nothing but the bodies which are pitched on rubbish heaps. +Brainstuff is not lean stuff;--the brainstuff of fiction is internal +history, and to suppose it dull is the profoundest of errors; how deep, +you will understand when I tell you that it is the very football of the +holiday-afternoon imps below. They kick it for pastime; they are +intelligences perverted. The comic of it, the adventurous, the tragic, +they make devilish, to kindle their Ogygian hilarity. But--sharply +comic, adventurous, instructively tragic, it is in the interwinding with +human affairs, to give a flavour of the modern day reviving that of our +Poet, between whom and us yawn Time's most hollow jaws. Surely we owe a +little to Time, to cheer his progress; a little to posterity, and to our +country. Dozens of writers will be in at yonder yawning breach, if only +perusers will rally to the philosophic standard. They are sick of the +woodeny puppetry they dispense, as on a race-course to the roaring +frivolous. Well, if not dozens, half-dozens; gallant pens are alive; +one can speak of them in the plural. I venture to say that they would +be satisfied with a dozen for audience, for a commencement. They would +perish of inanition, unfed, unapplauded, amenable to the laws perchance +for an assault on their last remaining pair of ears or heels, to hold +them fast. But the example is the thing; sacrifices must be expected. +The example might, one hopes, create a taste. A great modern writer, of +clearest eye and head, now departed, capable in activity of presenting +thoughtful women, thinking men, groaned over his puppetry, that he dared +not animate them, flesh though they were, with the fires of positive +brainstuff. He could have done it, and he is of the departed! Had he +dared, he would (for he was Titan enough) have raised the Art in dignity +on a level with History; to an interest surpassing the narrative of +public deeds as vividly as man's heart and brain in their union excel his +plain lines of action to eruption. The everlasting pantomime, suggested +by Mrs. Warwick in her exclamation to Perry Wilkinson, is derided, not +unrighteously, by our graver seniors. They name this Art the pasture of +idiots, a method for idiotizing the entire population which has taken to +reading; and which soon discovers that it can write likewise, that sort +of stuff at least. The forecast may be hazarded, that if we do not +speedily embrace Philosophy in fiction, the Art is doomed to extinction, +under the shining multitude of its professors. They are fast capping the +candle. Instead, therefore, of objurgating the timid intrusions of +Philosophy, invoke her presence, I pray you. History without her is the +skeleton map of events: Fiction a picture of figures modelled on no +skeleton-anatomy. But each, with Philosophy in aid, blooms, and is +humanly shapely. To demand of us truth to nature, excluding Philosophy, +is really to bid a pumpkin caper. As much as legs are wanted for the +dance, Philosophy is required to make our human nature credible and +acceptable. Fiction implores you to heave a bigger breast and take her +in with this heavenly preservative helpmate, her inspiration and her +essence. You have to teach your imagination of the feminine image you +have set up to bend your civilized knees to, that it must temper its +fastidiousness, shun the grossness of the over-dainty. Or, to speak in +the philosophic tongue, you must turn on yourself, resolutely track and +seize that burrower, and scrub and cleanse him; by which process, during +the course of it, you will arrive at the conception of the right heroical +woman for you to worship: and if you prove to be of some spiritual +stature, you may reach to an ideal of the heroical feminine type for the +worship of mankind, an image as yet in poetic outline only, on our upper +skies. + +'So well do we know ourselves, that we one and all determine to know a +purer,' says the heroine of my columns. Philosophy in fiction tells, +among various other matters, of the perils of this intimate acquaintance +with a flattering familiar in the 'purer'--a person who more than ceases +to be of else to us after his ideal shall have led up men from their +flint and arrowhead caverns to intercommunicative daylight. For when the +fictitious creature has performed that service of helping to civilize the +world, it becomes the most dangerous of delusions, causing first the +individual to despise the mass, and then to join the mass in crushing the +individual. Wherewith let us to our story, the froth being out of the +bottle. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN IRISH BALL + +In the Assembly Rooms of the capital city of the Sister Island there was +a public Ball, to celebrate the return to Erin of a British hero of Irish +blood, after his victorious Indian campaign; a mighty struggle splendidly +ended; and truly could it be said that all Erin danced to meet him; but +this was the pick of the dancing, past dispute the pick of the supping. +Outside those halls the supping was done in Lazarus fashion, mainly +through an excessive straining of the organs of hearing and vision, which +imparted the readiness for more, declared by physicians to be the state +inducing to sound digestion. Some one spied the figure of the hero at +the window and was fed; some only to hear the tale chewed the cud of it; +some told of having seen him mount the steps; and sure it was that at an +hour of the night, no matter when, and never mind a drop or two of cloud, +he would come down them again, and have an Irish cheer to freshen his +pillow. For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too. +Farther away, over field and bogland, the whiskies did their excellent +ancient service of watering the dry and drying the damp, to the toast of +'Lord Larrian, God bless him! he's an honour to the old country!' and a +bit of a sigh to follow, hints of a story, and loud laughter, a drink, a +deeper sigh, settling into conversation upon the brave Lord Larrian's +deeds, and an Irish regiment he favoured--had no taste for the enemy +without the backing of his 'boys.' Not he. Why, he'd never march to +battle and they not handy; because when he struck he struck hard, he +said. And he has a wound on the right hip and two fingers off his left +hand; has bled for England, to show her what Irishmen are when they're +well treated. + +The fine old warrior standing at the upper end of the long saloon, tall, +straight, grey-haired, martial in his aspect and decorations, was worthy +to be the flag-pole for enthusiasm. His large grey eyes lightened from +time to time as he ranged them over the floating couples, and dropped a +word of inquiry to his aide, Captain Sir Lukin Dunstane, a good model of +a cavalry officer, though somewhat a giant, equally happy with his chief +in passing the troops of animated ladies under review. He named as many +as were known to him. Reviewing women exquisitely attired for +inspection, all variously and charmingly smiling, is a relief after the +monotonous regiments of men. Ireland had done her best to present the +hero of her blood an agreeable change; and he too expressed a patriotic +satisfaction on hearing that the faces most admired by him were of the +native isle. He looked upon one that came whirling up to him on a young +officer's arm and swept off into the crowd of tops, for a considerable +while before he put his customary question. She was returning on the +spin when he said, + +'Who is she?' + +Sir Lukin did not know. 'She 's a new bird; she nodded to my wife; +I'll ask.' + +He manoeuvred a few steps cleverly to where his wife reposed. The +information he gathered for the behoof of his chief was, that the +handsome creature answered to the name of Miss Merion; Irish; aged +somewhere between eighteen and nineteen; a dear friend of his wife's, +and he ought to have remembered her; but she was a child when he saw +her last. + +'Dan Merion died, I remember, about the day of my sailing for India,' +said the General. 'She may be his daughter.' + +The bright cynosure rounded up to him in the web of the waltz, with her +dark eyes for Lady Dunstane, and vanished again among the twisting +columns. + +He made his way, handsomely bumped by an apologetic pair, to Lady +Dunstane, beside whom a seat was vacated for him; and he trusted she had +not over-fatigued herself. + +'Confess,' she replied, 'you are perishing to know more than Lukin has +been able to tell you. Let me hear that you admire her: it pleases me; +and you shall hear what will please you as much, I promise you, General.' + +'I do. Who wouldn't?' said he frankly. + +'She crossed the Channel expressly to dance here tonight at the public +Ball in honour of you.' + +'Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank, and accepts it +humbly.' + +'That is grandly spoken.' + +'She makes everything in the room dust round a blazing jewel.' + +'She makes a poet of a soldier. Well, that you may understand how +pleased I am, she is my dearest friend, though she is younger than I, +as may be seen; she is the only friend I have. I nursed her when she was +an infant; my father and Mr. Dan Merion were chums. We were parted by my +marriage and the voyage to India. We have not yet exchanged a syllable: +she was snapped up, of course, the moment she entered the room. I knew +she would be a taking girl: how lovely, I did not guess. You are right, +she extinguishes the others. She used to be the sprightliest of living +creatures, and to judge by her letters, that has not faded. She 's in +the market, General.' + +Lord Larrian nodded to everything he heard, concluding with a mock +doleful shake of the head. 'My poorest subaltern!' he sighed, in the +theatrical but cordially melancholy style of green age viewing Cytherea's +market. + +His poorest subaltern was richer than he in the wherewithal to bid for +such prizes. + +'What is her name in addition to Merion?' + +'Diana Antonia Merion. Tony to me, Diana to the world.' + +'She lives over there?' + +'In England, or anywhere; wherever she is taken in. She will live, +I hope, chiefly with me.' + +'And honest Irish?' + +'Oh, she's Irish.' + +'Ah!' the General was Irish to the heels that night. + +Before further could be said the fair object of the dialogue came darting +on a trip of little runs, both hands out, all her face one tender sparkle +of a smile; and her cry proved the quality of her blood: 'Emmy! Emmy! +my heart!' + +'My dear Tony! + +I should not have come but for the hope of seeing you here.' + +Lord Larrian rose and received a hurried acknowledgement of his courtesy +from the usurper of his place. + +'Emmy! we might kiss and hug; we're in Ireland. I burn to! But you're +not still ill, dear? Say no! That Indian fever must have gone. You do +look a dash pale, my own; you're tired.' + +'One dance has tired me. Why were you so late?' + +'To give the others a chance? To produce a greater impression by +suspense? No and no. I wrote you I was with the Pettigrews. We caught +the coach, we caught the boat, we were only two hours late for the Ball; +so we did wonders. And good Mrs. Pettigrew is, pining somewhere to +complete her adornment. I was in the crush, spying for Emmy, when Mr. +Mayor informed me it was the duty of every Irishwoman to dance her toes +off, if she 'd be known for what she is. And twirl! a man had me by the +waist, and I dying to find you.' + +'Who was the man?' + +'Not to save these limbs from the lighted stake could I tell you!' + +'You are to perform a ceremonious bow to Lord Larrian.' + +'Chatter first! a little!' + +The plea for chatter was disregarded. It was visible that the hero of +the night hung listening and in expectation. He and the Beauty were +named to one another, and they chatted through a quadrille. Sir Lukin +introduced a fellow-Harrovian of old days, Mr. Thomas Redworth, to his +wife. + +'Our weather-prophet, meteorologist,' he remarked, to set them going; +'you remember, in India, my pointing to you his name in a newspaper-- +letter on the subject. He was generally safe for the cricketing days.' + +Lady Dunstane kindly appeared to call it to mind, and she led upon the +them-queried at times by an abrupt 'Eh?' and 'I beg pardon,' for +manifestly his gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given to +the young lady discoursing with Lord Larrian. Beauty is rare; luckily is +it rare, or, judging from its effect on men, and the very stoutest of +them, our world would be internally more distracted planet than we see, +to the perversion of business, courtesy, rights of property, and the +rest. She perceived an incipient victim, of the hundreds she +anticipated, and she very tolerantly talked on: 'The weather and women +have some resemblance they say. Is it true that he who reads the one can +read the other?' + +Lord Larrian here burst into a brave old laugh, exclaiming, 'Oh! good!' + +Mr. Redworth knitted his thick brows. 'I beg pardon? Ah! women! +Weather and women? No; the one point more variable in women makes all +the difference.' + +'Can you tell me what the General laughed at?' + +The honest Englishman entered the trap with promptitude. 'She said:--who +is she, may I ask you?' + +Lady Dunstane mentioned her name. + +Daughter of the famous Dan Merion? The young lady merited examination +for her father's sake. But when reminded of her laughter-moving speech, +Mr. Redworth bungled it; he owned he spoilt it, and candidly stated his +inability to see the fun. 'She said, St. George's Channel in a gale +ought to be called St. Patrick's--something--I missed some point. That +quadrille-tune, the Pastourelle, or something . . .' + +'She had experience of the Channel last night,' Lady Dunstane pursued, +and they both, while in seeming converse, caught snatches from their +neighbours, during a pause of the dance. + +The sparkling Diana said to Lord Larrian, 'You really decline to make any +of us proud women by dancing to-night?' + +The General answered: 'I might do it on two stilts; I can't on one.' He +touched his veteran leg. + +'But surely,' said she, 'there's always an inspiration coming to it from +its partner in motion, if one of them takes the step.' + +He signified a woeful negative. 'My dear young lady, you say dark things +to grey hairs!' + +She rejoined: 'If we were over in England, and you fixed on me the stigma +of saying dark things, I should never speak without being thought +obscure.' + +'It's because you flash too brightly for them.' + +'I think it is rather the reminiscence of the tooth that received a stone +when it expected candy.' + +Again the General laughed; he looked pleased and warmed. 'Yes, that 's +their way, that 's their way!' and he repeated her words to himself, +diminishing their importance as he stamped them on his memory, but so +heartily admiring the lovely speaker, that he considered her wit an +honour to the old country, and told her so. Irish prevailed up to +boiling-point. + +Lady Dunstane, not less gratified, glanced up at Mr. Redworth, whose +brows bore the knot of perplexity over a strong stare. He, too, stamped +the words on his memory, to see subsequently whether they had a vestige +of meaning. Terrifically precocious, he thought her. Lady Dunstane, in +her quick sympathy with her friend, read the adverse mind in his face. +And her reading of the mind was right, wrong altogether her deduction of +the corresponding sentiment. + +Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers. + +They beheld a quaint spectacle: a gentleman, obviously an Englishman, +approached, with the evident intention of reminding the Beauty of the +night of her engagement to him, and claiming her, as it were, in the +lion's jaws. He advanced a foot, withdrew it, advanced, withdrew; eager +for his prize, not over-enterprising; in awe of the illustrious General +she entertained--presumeably quite unaware of the pretender's presence; +whereupon a voice was heard: 'Oh! if it was minuetting you meant before +the lady, I'd never have disputed your right to perform, sir.' For it +seemed that there were two claimants in the field, an Irishman and an +Englishman; and the former, having a livelier sense of the situation, +hung aloof in waiting for her eye; the latter directed himself to strike +bluntly at his prey; and he continued minuetting, now rapidly blinking, +flushed, angry, conscious of awkwardness and a tangle, incapable of +extrication. He began to blink horribly under the raillery of his rival. +The General observed him, but as an object remote and minute, a fly or +gnat. The face of the brilliant Diana was entirely devoted to him she +amused. + +Lady Dunstane had the faint lines of a decorous laugh on her lips, as she +said: 'How odd it is that our men show to such disadvantage in a Ball- +room. I have seen them in danger, and there they shine first of any, and +one is proud of them. They should always be facing the elements or in +action.' She glanced at the minuet, which had become a petrified figure, +still palpitating, bent forward, an interrogative reminder. + +Mr. Redworth reserved his assent to the proclamation of any English +disadvantage. A whiff of Celtic hostility in the atmosphere put him on +his mettle. 'Wherever the man is tried,' he said. + +'My lady!' the Irish gentleman bowed to Lady Dunstane. 'I had the honour +. . . Sullivan Smith . . . at the castle . . .' + +She responded to the salute, and Mr. Sullivan Smith proceeded to tell +her, half in speech, half in dots most luminous, of a civil contention +between the English gentleman and himself, as to the possession of the +loveliest of partners for this particular ensuing dance, and that they +had simultaneously made a rush from the Lower Courts, namely, their +cards, to the Upper, being the lady; and Mr. Sullivan Smith partly +founded his preferable claim on her Irish descent, and on his +acquaintance with her eminent defunct father--one of the ever-radiating +stars of his quenchless country. + +Lady Dunstane sympathized with him for his not intruding his claim when +the young lady stood pre-engaged, as well as in humorous appreciation of +his imaginative logic. + +'There will be dancing enough after supper,' she said. + +'If I could score one dance with her, I'd go home supperless and +feasted,' said he. 'And that's not saying much among the hordes of +hungry troopers tip-toe for the signal to the buffet. See, my lady, the +gentleman, as we call him; there he is working his gamut perpetually up +to da capo. Oh! but it's a sheep trying to be wolf; he 's sheep-eyed and +he 's wolf-fanged, pathetic and larcenous! Oh, now! who'd believe it!-- +the man has dared . . . I'd as soon think of committing sacrilege in a +cathedral!' + +The man was actually; to quote his indignant rival, 'breaching the +fortress,' and pointing out to Diana Merion 'her name on his dirty scrap +of paper': a shocking sight when the lady's recollection was the sole +point to be aimed at, and the only umpire. 'As if all of us couldn't +have written that, and hadn't done it!' Mr. Sullivan Smith groaned +disgusted. He hated bad manners, particularly in cases involving ladies; +and the bad manners of a Saxon fired his antagonism to the race; +individual members of which he boasted of forgiving and embracing, +honouring. So the man blackened the race for him, and the race was +excused in the man. But his hatred of bad manners was vehement, and +would have extended to a fellow-countryman. His own were of the +antecedent century, therefore venerable. + +Diana turned from her pursuer with a comic woeful lifting of the brows at +her friend. Lady Dunstane motioned her fan, and Diana came, bending +head. + +'Are you bound in honour?' + +'I don't think I am. And I do want to go on talking with the General. +He is so delightful and modest--my dream of a true soldier!--telling me +of his last big battle, bit by bit, to my fishing.' + +'Put off this person for a square dance down the list, and take out Mr. +Redworth--Miss Diana Merlon, Mr. Redworth: he will bring you back to the +General, who must not totally absorb you, or he will forfeit his +popularity.' + +Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advocate of his +claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. Sullivan Smith remarked: +'Oh! sir, the law of it, where a lady's concerned! You're one for +evictions, I should guess, and the anti-human process. It's that letter +of the law that stands between you and me and mine and yours. But you've +got your congee, and my blessing on ye!' + +'It was a positive engagement,' said the enemy. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him. 'And a pretty partner you've pickled for +yourself when she keeps her positive engagement!' + +He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn. She pleaded +weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and divert her. She smiled, +but warned him that she was English in every vein. He interjected: +'Irish men and English women! though it's putting the cart before the +horse--the copper pennies where the gold guineas should be. So here's +the gentleman who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the fable. +English is he? But we read, the last shall be first. And English women +and Irish men make the finest coupling in the universe.' + +'Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man,' +said Lady Dunstane, at the same time informing the obedient Diana, then +bestowing her hand on Mr. Redworth to please her friend, that he was a +schoolfellow of her husband's. + +'Favour can't help coming by rotation, except in very extraordinary +circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, and takes my due, and +'twould be hard on me if I weren't thoroughly indemnified.' Mr. Sullivan +Smith bowed. 'You gave them just the start over the frozen minute for +conversation; they were total strangers, and he doesn't appear a bad sort +of fellow for a temporary mate, though he's not perfectly sure of his +legs. And that we'll excuse to any man leading out such a fresh young +beauty of a Bright Eyes--like the stars of a winter's night in the frosty +season over Columkill, or where you will, so that's in Ireland, to be +sure of the likeness to her.' + +'Her mother was half English.' + +'Of course she was. And what was my observation about the coupling? +Dan Merion would make her Irish all over. And she has a vein of Spanish +blood in her; for he had; and she's got the colour.--But you spoke of +their coupling--or I did. Oh, a man can hold his own with an English +roly-poly mate: he's not stifled! But a woman hasn't his power of +resistance to dead weight. She's volatile, she's frivolous, a rattler +and gabbler--haven't I heard what they say of Irish girls over there? +She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling. She must choose at home +for a perfect harmonious partner.' + +Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple danced excellently +together. + +'It'd be a bitter thing to see, if the fellow couldn't dance, after +leading her out!' sighed Mr. Sullivan Smith. 'I heard of her over there. +They, call her the Black Pearl, and the Irish Lily--because she's dark. +They rack their poor brains to get the laugh of us.' + +'And I listen to you,' said Lady Dunstane. + +'Ah! if all England, half, a quarter, the smallest piece of the land +were like you, my lady, I'd be loyal to the finger-nails. Now, is she +engaged?--when I get a word with her?' + +'She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good years of +freedom, I think.' + +'And five good years of serfdom I'd serve to win her!' + +A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would be +small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith; after a life of bondage, if she knew +her Diana, in spite of his tongue, his tact, his lively features, and +breadth of shoulders. + +Up he sprang. Diana was on Mr. Redworth's arm. 'No refreshments,' she +said; and 'this is my refreshment,' taking the seat of Mr. Sullivan +Smith, who ejaculated, + +'I must go and have that gentleman's name.' He wanted a foe. + +'You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment, +Tony,' said her friend. + +'Yes, with the General!' + +'He is a noble old man.' + +'Superb. And don't say "old man." With his uniform and his height and +his grey head, he is like a glorious October day just before the brown +leaves fall.' + +Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the favourite of her +childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remembered, they smiled together at the +scenes and times it recalled. + +'Do you still write verses, Tony?' + +'I could about him. At one part of the fight he thought he would be +beaten. He was overmatched in artillery, and it was a cavalry charge he +thundered on them, riding across the field to give the word of command to +the couple of regiments, riddled to threads, that gained the day. That +is life--when we dare death to live! I wonder at men, who are men, being +anything but soldiers! I told you, madre, my own Emmy, I forgave you for +marrying, because it was a soldier.' + +'Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man. But you have not told me a +word of yourself. What has been done with the old Crossways?' + +'The house, you know, is mine. And it's all I have: ten acres and the +house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year. Oh! how I +long to evict the tenants! They can't have my feeling for the place +where I was born. They're people of tolerably good connections, middling +wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can +understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, +who likes to ride on them. I've a half engagement, barely legible, to +visit them on an indefinite day, and can't bear the idea of strangers +masters in the old house. I must be driven there for shelter, for a +roof, some month. And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to +doat on the outside of it. That's your Tony.' + +'She's my darling.' + +'I hear myself speak! But your voice or mine, madre, it's one soul. Be +sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you, dear +and dearest! No secrets, never a shadow of a deception, or else I shall +feel I am not fit to live. Was I a bad correspondent when you were in +India?' + +'Pretty well. Copious letters when you did write.' + +'I was shy. I knew I should be writing, to Emmy and another, and only +when I came to the flow could I forget him. He is very finely built; and +I dare say he has a head. I read of his deeds in India and quivered. +But he was just a bit in the way. Men are the barriers to perfect +naturalness, at least, with girls, I think. You wrote to me in the same +tone as ever, and at first I had a struggle to reply. And I, who have +such pride in being always myself!' + +Two staring semi-circles had formed, one to front the Hero; the other the +Beauty. These half moons imperceptibly dissolved to replenish, and +became a fixed obstruction. + +'Yes, they look,' Diana made answer to Lady Dunstane's comment on the +curious impertinence. She was getting used to it, and her friend had a +gratification in seeing how little this affected her perfect naturalness. + +'You are often in the world--dinners, dances?' she said. + +'People are kind.' + +'Any proposals?' + +'Nibbles.' + +'Quite heart-free?' + +'Absolutely.' + +Diana's unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an eclipse. + +The block of sturdy gazers began to melt. The General had dispersed his +group of satellites by a movement with the Mayoress on his arm, construed +as the signal for procession to the supper-table. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH, AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH + +'It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will escape the crush +for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana. 'I don't sup. Yes! go! You +must eat, and he is handiest to conduct you.' + +Diana thought of her chaperon and the lateness of the hour. She +murmured, to soften her conscience, 'Poor Mrs. Pettigrew!' + +And once more Mr. Redworth, outwardly imperturbable, was in the maelstrom +of a happiness resembling tempest. He talked, and knew not what he +uttered. To give this matchless girl the best to eat and drink was his +business, and he performed it. Oddly, for a man who had no loaded +design, marshalling the troops in his active and capacious cranium, he +fell upon calculations of his income, present and prospective, while she +sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others were wrangling for +places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, champagne: she had them; the +lady under his charge to a certainty would have them; so far good; and he +had seven hundred pounds per annum--seven hundred and fifty, in a +favourable aspect, at a stretch . . . . + +'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera of +Carini's,' she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for +tenor, certainly.' + +--A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred personal income, and a +prospect of higher dividends to increase it; three hundred odd from his +office, and no immediate prospects of an increase there; no one died +there, no elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be +persuaded to die; they were too tough to think of retiring. Say, seven +hundred and fifty . . . . eight hundred, if the commerce of the +country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in; or eight-fifty +or nine ten. . . . + +'I could call him my poet also,' Mr. Redworth agreed with her taste in +poets. 'His letters are among the best ever written--or ever published: +the raciest English I know. Frank, straight out: capital descriptions. +The best English letter-writers are as good as the French-- + +You don't think so?--in their way, of course. I dare' say we don't +sufficiently cultivate the art. We require the supple tongue a closer +intercourse of society gives.' + +--Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable enough for a man in chambers. To +dream of entering as a householder on that sum, in these days, would be +stark nonsense: and a man two removes from a baronetcy has no right to +set his reckoning on deaths:--if he does, he becomes a sort of meditative +assassin. But what were the Fates about when they planted a man of the +ability of Tom Redworth in a Government office! Clearly they intended +him to remain a bachelor for life. And they sent him over to Ireland on +inspection duty for a month to have sight of an Irish Beauty . . . . + +'Think war the finest subject for poets?' he exclaimed. 'Flatly no: I +don't think it. I think exactly the reverse. It brings out the noblest +traits in human character? I won't own that even. It brings out some +but under excitement, when you have not always the real man.--Pray don't +sneer at domestic life. Well, there was a suspicion of disdain.--Yes, I +can respect the hero, military or civil; with this distinction, that the +military hero aims at personal reward--' + +'He braves wounds and death,' interposed Diana. + +'Whereas the civilian hero--' + +'Pardon me, let me deny that the soldier-hero aims at a personal reward,' +she again interposed. + +'He gets it.' + +'If he is not beaten.' + +'And then he is no longer a hero.' + +'He is to me.' + +She had a woman's inveterate admiration of the profession of aims. +Mr. Redworth endeavoured to render practicable an opening in her mind to +reason. He admitted the grandeur of the poetry of Homer. We are a few +centuries in advance of Homer. We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice +to propitiate celestial wrath; nor do we revel in details of slaughter. +He reasoned with her; he repeated stories known to him of civilian +heroes, and won her assent to the heroical title for their deeds, but it +was languid, or not so bright as the deeds deserved--or as the young lady +could look; and he insisted on the civilian hero, impelled by some +unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought, also the thing +he was--his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught a +glimpse of that. After a turn of fencing, in which he was impressed by +the vibration of her tones when speaking of military heroes, she quitted +the table, saying: 'An argument between one at supper and another handing +plates, is rather unequal if eloquence is needed. As Pat said to the +constable, when his hands were tied, You beat me with the fists, but my +spirit is towering and kicks freely.' + +--Eight hundred? a thousand a year, two thousand, are as nothing in the +calculation of a householder who means that the mistress of the house +shall have the choicest of the fruits and flowers of the Four Quarters; +and Thomas Redworth had vowed at his first outlook on the world of women, +that never should one of the sisterhood coming under his charge complain +of not having them in profusion. Consequently he was a settled bachelor. +In the character of disengaged and unaspiring philosophical bachelor, he +reviewed the revelations of her character betrayed by the beautiful +virgin devoted to the sanguine coat. The thrill of her voice in speaking +of soldier-heroes shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing +why, for he had no scheme, desperate or other, in his head, the least +affrighted of men was frightened by her tastes, and by her aplomb, her +inoffensiveness in freedom of manner and self-sufficiency--sign of purest +breeding: and by her easy, peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from +the blood of Dan Merion--a wildish blood. The candour of the look of her +eyes in speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and looking the +thing she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the significant repose +of her lips in silence, her weighing of the words he uttered, for a +moment before the prompt apposite reply, down to her simple quotation of +Pat, alarmed him; he did not ask himself why. His manly self was not +intruded on his cogitations. A mere eight hundred or thousand per annum +had no place in that midst. He beheld her quietly selecting the position +of dignity to suit her: an eminent military man, or statesman, or wealthy +nobleman: she had but to choose. A war would offer her the decorated +soldier she wanted. A war! Such are women of this kind! The thought +revolted him, and pricked his appetite for supper. He did service by +Mrs. Pettigrew, to which lady Miss Merion, as she said, promoted him, at +the table, and then began to refresh in person, standing. + +'Malkin! that's the fellow's name' he heard close at his ear. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was +priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick +stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, +or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of the Malkin +breed.' + +He explained to Mr. Redworth that he had summoned Mr. Malkin to answer to +him as a gentleman for calling Miss Merion a jilt. 'The man, sir, said +in my hearing, she jilted him, and that's to call the lady a jilt. +There's not a point of difference, not a shade. I overheard him. I +happened by the blessing of Providence to be by when he named her +publicly jilt. And it's enough that she's a lady to have me for her +champion. The same if she had been an Esquimaux squaw. I'll never live +to hear a lady insulted.' + +'You don't mean to say you're the donkey to provoke a duel!' +Mr. Redworth burst out gruffly, through turkey and stuffing. + +'And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!' Mr. Sullivan Smith was +flowing on. He became frigid, he politely bowed: 'Two, sir, if you +haven't the grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and +can't be obliterated.' + +'Fiddle! and go to the deuce!' Mr. Redworth cried. + +'Would a soft slap o' the cheek persuade you, sir?' + +'Try it outside, and don't bother me with nonsense of that sort at my +supper. If I'm struck, I strike back. I keep my pistols for bandits and +law-breakers. Here,' said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of +treating an ultra of the isle; 'touch glasses: you're a gentleman, and +won't disturb good company. By-and-by.' + +The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sullivan Smith his +composure. They touched the foaming glasses: upon which, in a friendly +manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as soon +as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper: for the reason +that the term 'donkey' affixed to him was like a minster cap of +schooldays, ringing bells on his topknot, and also that it stuck in his +gizzard. + +Mr. Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical. 'If you fight, +you're a donkey for doing it. But you won't fight.' + +'But I will fight.' + +'He won't fight.' + +'Then for the honour of your country you must. But I'd rather have him +first, for I haven't drunk with him, and it should be a case of necessity +to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man you've +drunk with. And what's in your favour, she danced with ye. She seemed +to take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting for is +sacred if he's not sweet to me. If he retracts!' + +'Hypothetically, No.' + +'But supposititiously?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Then we grasp hands on it. It's Malkin or nothing!' said Mr. Sullivan +Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe. How one +sane man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent +young lady's reputation, passed his rational conception. + +Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays and +fellows. + +'I'll tell you what,' said the civilian, 'There are Irishmen and +Irishmen. I've met cool heads and long heads among them, and you and I +knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things. But the burlesque Irishman +can't be caricatured. Nature strained herself in a 'fit of absurdity to +produce him, and all that Art can do is to copy.' + +This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a +specimen, he rejoiced to have met. + +'There's a chance of mischief,' said Sir Lukin. 'I know nothing of the +man he calls Malkin. I'll inquire presently.' + +He talked of his prospects, and of the women. Fair ones, in his opinion, +besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched two or three of his +partners with a broad brush of epithets. + +'It won't do for Miss Merion's name to be mixed up in a duel,' said +Redworth. + +'Not if she's to make her fortune in England,' said Sir Lukin. 'It's +probably all smoke.' + +The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of metaphorical smoke, +and fire, and no mean report, startled the company of supping gentlemen. +At the pitch of his voice, Mr. Sullivan Smith denounced Mr. Malkin in +presence for a cur masquerading as a cat. + +'And that is not the scoundrel's prime offence. For what d' ye think? +He trumps up an engagement to dance with a beautiful lady, and because +she can't remember, binds her to an oath for a dance to come, and then, +holding her prisoner to 'm, he sulks, the dirty dogcat goes and sulks, +and he won't dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that +he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentlemen heard the word. And +I demand an apology of Misterr Malkin--or . . ! And none of your +guerrier nodding and bravado, Mister Malkin, at me, if you please. The +case is for settlement between gentlemen.' + +The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin, driven to extremity by the +worrying, stood in braced preparation for the English attitude of +defence. His tormentor drew closer to him. + +'Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I'll knock you +down,' said he. + +Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry. 'For a +specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen . . . I +ask ye!' he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely +in the wrong before provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending +gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger +to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying: 'I +'m your man: me first: you're due to me.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces. +Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds. He threatened Saxondom. +Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, +wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers +shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Redworth, in the struggle to +haul him away, received a blow from him. 'And you've got it! you would +have it!' roared the Celt. + +'Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,' Redworth said; +and he observed generally: 'No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in good +company.' + +'But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses--if you'll come along with +me and a couple of friends. The thing has been done before by +torchlight--and neatly.' + +'Come along, and come alone,' said Redworth. + +A way was cleared for them. Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth, who had no +doubt of his ability to manage Mr. Sullivan Smith. + +He managed that fine-hearted but purely sensational fellow so well that +Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub +below, beheld them entering the long saloon amicably, with the nods and +looks of gentlemen quietly accordant. + +A little later, Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and he smoothed her +apprehensions, delivering himself, much to her comfort, thus: 'In no case +would any lady's name have been raised. The whole affair was +nonsensical. He's a capital fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like a +man of the world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like +lots of his countrymen, a raw wound--something that itches to be grazed. +Champagne on that! . . . Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, +are, like horses, bundles of nerves; and you must manage them, as you do +with all nervous creatures, with firmness, but good temper. You must +never get into a fury of the nerves yourself with them. Spur and whip +they don't want; they'll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it. + +They want the bridle-rein. That seems to me the secret of Irish +character. We English are not bad horsemen. It's a wonder we blunder so +in our management of such a people.' + +'I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof,' said +she. + +He shrugged. 'There's little chance of it !' + +To reward him for his practical discretion, she contrived that Diana +should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly +responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, sensible in her look and +speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer the mere +spinning stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly understood +that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his brain. +A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: on less: on +much less:--sometimes on nothing but resolution to make a fitting income, +carving out a fortune. Eight hundred may stand as a superior basis. +That sum is a distinct point of vantage. If it does not mean a carriage +and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the stars of society, it +means at any rate security; and then, the heart of the man being strong +and sound . . . + +'Yes,' he replied to her, 'I like my experience of Ireland and the Irish; +and better than I thought I should. St. George's Channel ought to be +crossed oftener by both of us.' + +'I'm always glad of the signal,' said Diana. + +He had implied the people of the two islands. He allowed her +interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creeping +deliciousness that it carried through his blood. + +'Shall you soon be returning to England?' he ventured to ask. + +'I am Lady Dunstane's guest for some months.' + +'Then you will. Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey. He talks of quitting +the Service.' + +'I can't believe it!' + +His thrilled blood was chilled. She entertained a sentiment amounting to +adoration for the profession of arms! + +Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night, that +the festivity might not be dashed by his departure; perhaps, to a certain +degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene. At last Sir +Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife. Diana slipped across +the floor to her accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of another +five minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded to walk +in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped down + +a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees +under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a turban +was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the self- +constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth. At the portico rang a +wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were +formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, +boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty, +with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose magnificently, and +multiplied itself, touching at the same moment the heavens and Diana's +heart-at least, drawing them together; for she felt exalted, enraptured, +as proud of her countrymen as of their hero. + +'That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial !' she heard Mr. +Redworth say, behind her. + +She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying over him, in +gratitude for a timely word well said. And she never forgot the remark, +nor he the look. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO + +A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes +had crossed the Channel back to England, and old Ireland was left to her +rains from above and her undrained bogs below; her physical and her +mental vapours; her ailments and her bog-bred doctors; as to whom the +governing country trusted they would be silent or discourse humorously. + +The residence of Sir Lukin Dunstane, in the county of Surrey, inherited +by him during his recent term of Indian services, was on the hills, where +a day of Italian sky, or better, a day of our breezy South-west, washed +from the showery night, gives distantly a tower to view, and a murky web, +not without colour: the ever-flying banner of the metropolis, the smoke +of the city's chimneys, if you prefer plain language. At a first +inspection of the house, Lady Dunstane did not like it, and it was +advertized to be let, and the auctioneer proclaimed it in his dialect. +Her taste was delicate; she had the sensitiveness of an invalid: twice +she read the stalking advertizement of the attractions of Copsley, and +hearing Diana call it 'the plush of speech,' she shuddered; she decided +that a place where her husband's family had lived ought not to stand +forth meretriciously spangled and daubed, like a show-booth at a fair, +for a bait; though the grandiloquent man of advertizing letters assured +Sir Lukin that a public agape for the big and gaudy mouthful is in no +milder way to be caught; as it is apparently the case. She withdrew the +trumpeting placard. Retract we likewise 'banner of the metropolis.' +That plush of speech haunts all efforts to swell and illuminate citizen +prose to a princely poetic. + +Yet Lady Dunstane herself could name the bank of smoke, when looking +North-eastward from her summerhouse, the flag of London: and she was a +person of the critical mind, well able to distinguish between the simple +metaphor and the superobese. A year of habitation induced her to conceal +her dislike of the place in love: cat's love, she owned. Here, she +confessed to Diana, she would wish to live to her end. It seemed remote, +where an invigorating upper air gave new bloom to her cheeks; but she +kept one secret from her friend. + +Copsley was an estate of nearly twelve hundred acres, extending across +the ridge of the hills to the slopes North and South. Seven counties +rolled their backs under this commanding height, and it would have tasked +a pigeon to fly within an hour the stretch of country visible at the +Copsley windows. Sunrise to right, sunset leftward, the borders of the +grounds held both flaming horizons. So much of the heavens and of earth +is rarely granted to a dwelling. The drawback was the structure, which +had no charm, scarce a face. 'It is written that I should live in +barracks,' Lady Dunstane said. The colour of it taught white to impose a +sense of gloom. Her cat's love of the familiar inside corners was never +able to embrace the outer walls. Her sensitiveness, too, was racked by +the presentation of so pitiably ugly a figure to the landscape. She +likened it to a coarse-featured country wench, whose cleaning and +decorating of her countenance makes complexion grin and ruggedness yawn. +Dirty, dilapidated, hung with weeds and parasites, it would have been +more tolerable. She tried the effect of various creepers, and they were +as a staring paint. What it was like then, she had no heart to say. + +One may, however, fall on a pleasurable resignation in accepting great +indemnities, as Diana bade her believe, when the first disgust began to +ebb. 'A good hundred over there would think it a Paradise for an +asylum': she signified London. Her friend bore such reminders meekly. +They were readers of books of all sorts, political, philosophical, +economical, romantic; and they mixed the diverse readings in thought, +after the fashion of the ardently youthful. Romance affected politics, +transformed economy, irradiated philosophy. They discussed the knotty +question, Why things were not done, the things being confessedly to do; +and they cut the knot: Men, men calling themselves statesmen, declined to +perform that operation, because, forsooth, other men objected to have it +performed on them. And common humanity declared it to be for the common +weal! If so, then it is clearly indicated as a course of action: we shut +our eyes against logic and the vaunted laws of economy. They are the +knot we cut; or would cut, had we the sword. Diana did it to the tune of +Garryowen or Planxty Kelly. O for a despot! The cry was for a +beneficent despot, naturally: a large-minded benevolent despot. In +short, a despot to obey their bidding. Thoughtful young people who think +through the heart soon come to this conclusion. The heart is the +beneficent despot they would be. He cures those miseries; he creates the +novel harmony. He sees all difficulties through his own sanguine hues. +He is the musical poet of the problem, demanding merely to have it solved +that he may sing: clear proof of the necessity for solving it +immediately. + +Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation, to +make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardour and resonance, and more +than the convincing ring of her voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity in +rushing through any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating down +obstacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, constituted +her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in questions that +clamoured for instant solution. By dint of reading solid writers, using +the brains they possessed, it was revealed to them gradually that their +particular impatience came perhaps of the most earnest desire to get to +a comfortable termination of the inquiry: the heart aching for mankind +sought a nest for itself. At this point Lady Dunstane took the lead. +Diana had to be tugged to follow. She could not accept a 'perhaps' that +cast dubiousness on her disinterested championship. She protested a +perfect certainty of the single aim of her heart outward. But she +reflected. She discovered that her friend had gone ahead of her. + +The discovery was reached, and even acknowledged, before she could +persuade herself to swallow the repulsive truth. O self! self! self! +are we eternally masking in a domino that reveals your hideous old face +when we could be most positive we had escaped you? Eternally! the +desolating answer knelled. Nevertheless the poor, the starving, the +overtaxed in labour, they have a right to the cry of Now! now! They +have; and if a cry could conduct us to the secret of aiding, healing, +feeding, elevating them, we might swell the cry. As it is, we must lay +it on our wits patiently to track and find the secret; and meantime do +what the individual with his poor pittance can. A miserable +contribution! sighed the girl. Old Self was perceived in the sigh. She +was haunted. + +After all, one must live one's life. Placing her on a lower pedestal in +her self-esteem, the philosophy of youth revived her; and if the +abatement of her personal pride was dispiriting, she began to see an +advantage in getting inward eyes. + +'It's infinitely better I should know it, Emmy--I'm a reptile! Pleasure +here, pleasure there, I'm always thinking of pleasure. I shall give up +thinking and take to drifting. Neither of us can do more than open +purses; and mine's lean. If the old Crossways had no tenant, it would be +a purse all mouth. And charity is haunted, like everything we do. Only +I say with my whole strength yes, I am sure, in spite of the men +professing that they are practical, the rich will not move without a +goad. I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet, until you are strong +enough to force my hand:--that 's the speech of the wealthy. And they +are Christians. In name. Well, I thank heaven I'm at war, with myself.' + +'You always manage to strike out a sentence worth remembering, Tony,' +said Lady Dunstane. 'At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we +can have.' + +It suited her, frail as her health was, and her wisdom striving to the +spiritual of happiness. War with herself was far from happiness in the +bosom of Diana. She wanted external life, action, fields for energies, +to vary the struggle. It fretted and rendered her ill at ease. In her +solitary rides with Sir Lukin through a long winter season, she appalled +that excellent but conventionally-minded gentleman by starting, nay +supporting, theories next to profane in the consideration of a land- +owner. She spoke of Reform: of the Repeal of the Corn Laws as the simple +beginning of the grants due to the people. She had her ideas, of course, +from that fellow Redworth, an occasional visitor at Copsley; and a man +might be a donkey and think what he pleased, since he had a vocabulary +to back his opinions. A woman, Sir Lukin held, was by nature a mute in +politics. Of the thing called a Radical woman, he could not believe that +she was less than monstrous: 'with a nose,' he said; and doubtless, horse +teeth, hatchet jaws, slatternly in the gown, slipshod, awful. As for a +girl, an unmarried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, her +interjections, echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little annoying +now and them, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her vocabulary in +irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her immensely; +complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics. He pardoned her on +the score of the petty difference rankling between them in reference to +his abandonment of his Profession, for here she was patriotically wrong- +headed. Everybody knew that he had sold out in order to look after his +estates of Copsley and Dunena, secondly: and in the first place, to nurse +and be a companion to his wife. He had left her but four times in five +months; he had spent just three weeks of that time away from her in +London. No one could doubt of his having kept his pledge, although his +wife occupied herself with books and notions and subjects foreign to his +taste--his understanding, too, he owned. And Redworth had approved of +his retirement, had a contempt for soldiering. 'Quite as great as yours +for civilians, I can tell you,' Sir Lukin said, dashing out of politics +to the vexatious personal subject. Her unexpressed disdain was ruffling. + +'Mr. Redworth recommends work: he respects the working soldier,' said +Diana. + +Sir Lukin exclaimed that he had been a working soldier; he was ready to +serve if his country wanted him. He directed her to anathematize Peace, +instead of scorning a fellow for doing the duties next about him: and the +mention of Peace fetched him at a bound back to politics. He quoted a +distinguished Tory orator, to the effect, that any lengthened term of +peace bred maggots in the heads of the people. + +'Mr. Redworth spoke of it: he translated something from Aristophanes for +a retort,' said Diana. + +'Well, we're friends, eh?' Sir Lukin put forth a hand. + +She looked at him surprised at the unnecessary call for a show, of +friendship; she touched his hand with two tips of her fingers, remarking, +'I should think so, indeed.' + +He deemed it prudent to hint to his wife that Diana Merion appeared to be +meditating upon Mr. Redworth. + +'That is a serious misfortune, if true,' said Lady Dunstane. She thought +so for two reasons: Mr. Redworth generally disagreed in opinion with +Diana, and contradicted her so flatly as to produce the impression of his +not even sharing the popular admiration of her beauty; and, further, she +hoped for Diana to make a splendid marriage. The nibbles threatened to +be snaps and bites. There had been a proposal, in an epistle, a quaint +effusion, from a gentleman avowing that he had seen her, and had not +danced with her on the night of the Irish ball. He was rejected, but +Diana groaned over the task of replying to the unfortunate applicant, so +as not to wound him. 'Shall I have to do this often, I wonder?' she +said. + +'Unless you capitulate,' said her friend. + +Diana's exclamation: 'May I be heart-free for another ten years!' +encouraged Lady Dunstane to suppose her husband quite mistaken. + +In the Spring Diana, went on a first pilgrimage to her old home, The +Crossways, and was kindly entertained by the uncle and aunt of a +treasured nephew, Mr. Augustus Warwick. She rode with him on the Downs. +A visit of a week humanized her view of the intruders. She wrote almost +tenderly of her host and hostess to Lady Dunstane; they had but 'the one +fault--of spoiling their nephew.' Him she described as a 'gentlemanly +official,' a picture of him. His age was thirty-four. He seemed 'fond +of her scenery.' Then her pen swept over the Downs like a flying horse. +Lady Dunstane thought no more of the gentlemanly official. He was a +barrister who did not practise: in nothing the man for Diana. Letters +came from the house of the Pettigrews in Kent; from London; from Halford +Manor in Hertfordshire; from Lockton Grange in Lincolnshire: after which +they ceased to be the thrice weekly; and reading the latest of them, Lady +Dunstane imagined a flustered quill. The letter succeeding the omission +contained no excuse, and it was brief. There was a strange interjection, +as to the wearifulness of constantly wandering, like a leaf off the tree. +Diana spoke of looking for a return of the dear winter days at Copsley. +That was her station. Either she must have had some disturbing +experience, or Copsley was dear for a Redworth reason, thought the +anxious peruser; musing, dreaming, putting together divers shreds of +correspondence and testing them with her intimate knowledge of Diana's +character, Lady Dunstane conceived that the unprotected beautiful girl +had suffered a persecution, it might be an insult. She spelt over the +names of the guests at the houses. Lord Wroxeter was of evil report: +Captain Rampan, a Turf captain, had the like notoriety. And it is +impossible in a great house for the hostess to spread her aegis to cover +every dame and damsel present. She has to depend on the women being +discreet, the men civilized. + +'How brutal men can be!' was one of Diana's incidental remarks, in a +subsequent letter, relating simply to masculine habits. In those days +the famous ancestral plea of 'the passion for his charmer' had not been +altogether socially quashed down among the provinces, where the bottle +maintained a sort of sway, and the beauty which inflamed the sons of men +was held to be in coy expectation of violent effects upon their boiling +blood. There were, one hears that there still are, remnants of the +pristine male, who, if resisted in their suing, conclude that they are +scorned, and it infuriates them: some also whose 'passion for the +charmer' is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex, by a bully +imposition of sheer physical ascendancy, whenever they see it flying with +an air of gallant independence: and some who dedicate their lives to a +study of the arts of the Lord Of Reptiles, until they have worked the +crisis for a display of him in person. Assault or siege, they have +achieved their triumphs; they have dominated a frailer system of nerves, +and a young woman without father, or brother, or husband, to defend her, +is cryingly a weak one, therefore inviting to such an order of heroes. +Lady Dunstane was quick-witted and had a talkative husband; she knew a +little of the upper social world of her time. She was heartily glad to +have Diana by her side again. + +Not a word of any serious experience was uttered. Only on one occasion +while they conversed, something being mentioned of her tolerance, a flush +of swarthy crimson shot over Diana, and she frowned, with the outcry 'Oh! +I have discovered that I can be a tigress!' + +Her friend pressed her hand, saying, 'The cause a good one!' + +'Women have to fight.' + +Diana said no more. There had been a bad experience of her isolated +position in the world. + +Lady Dunstane now indulged a partial hope that Mr. Redworth might see in +this unprotected beautiful girl a person worthy of his esteem. He had +his opportunities, and evidently he liked her. She appeared to take more +cordially to him. She valued the sterling nature of the man. But they +were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly. Both ladies noticed in +him an abstractedness of look, often when conversing, as of a man in +calculation; they put it down to an ambitious mind. Yet Diana said then, +and said always, that it was he who had first taught her the art of +observing. On the whole, the brilliant marriage seemed a fairer prospect +for her; how reasonable to anticipate, Lady Dunstane often thought when +admiring the advance of Diana's beauty in queenliness, for never did +woman carry her head more grandly, more thrillingly make her presence +felt; and if only she had been an actress showing herself nightly on a +London stage, she would before now have met the superb appreciation, +melancholy to reflect upon! + +Diana regained her happy composure at Copsley. She had, as she imagined, +no ambition. The dulness of the place conveyed a charm to a nature +recovering from disturbance to its clear smooth flow. Air, light, books, +and her friend, these good things she had; they were all she wanted. She +rode, she walked, with Sir Lukin or Mr. Redworth, for companion; or with +Saturday and Sunday guests, Lord Larrian, her declared admirer, among +them. 'Twenty years younger!' he said to her, shrugging, with a merry +smile drawn a little at the corners to sober sourness; and she vowed to +her friend that she would not have had the heart to refuse him. +'Though,' said she, 'speaking generally, I cannot tell you what a foreign +animal a husband would appear in my kingdom.' Her experience had wakened +a sexual aversion, of some slight kind, enough to make her feminine pride +stipulate for perfect independence, that she might have the calm out of +which imagination spreads wing. Imagination had become her broader life, +and on such an earth, under such skies, a husband who is not the fountain +of it, certainly is a foreign animal: he is a discordant note. He +contracts the ethereal world, deadens radiancy. He is gross fact, a +leash, a muzzle, harness, a hood; whatever is detestable to the free +limbs and senses. It amused Lady Dunstane to hear Diana say, one evening +when their conversation fell by hazard on her future, that the idea of a +convent was more welcome to her than the most splendid marriage. 'For,' +she added, 'as I am sure I shall never know anything of this love they +rattle about and rave about, I shall do well to keep to my good single +path; and I have a warning within me that a step out of it will be a +wrong one--for me, dearest!' + +She wished her view of the yoke to be considered purely personal, drawn +from no examples and comparisons. The excellent Sir Lukin was passing a +great deal of his time in London. His wife had not a word of blame for +him; he was a respectful husband, and attentive when present; but so +uncertain, owing to the sudden pressure of engagements, that Diana, bound +on a second visit to The Crossways, doubted whether she would be able to +quit her friend, whose condition did not allow of her being left solitary +at Copsley. He came nevertheless a day before Diana's appointed +departure on her round of visits. She was pleased with him, and let him +see it, for the encouragement of a husband in the observance of his +duties. One of the horses had fallen lame, so they went out for a walk, +at Lady Dunstane's request. It was a delicious afternoon of Spring, +with the full red disk of sun dropping behind the brown beech-twigs. +She remembered long afterward the sweet simpleness of her feelings as she +took in the scent of wild flowers along the lanes and entered the woods +jaws of another monstrous and blackening experience. He fell into the +sentimental vein, and a man coming from that heated London life to these +glorified woods, might be excused for doing so, though it sounded to her +just a little ludicrous in him. She played tolerantly second to it; she +quoted a snatch of poetry, and his whole face was bent to her, with the +petition that she would repeat the verse. Much struck was this giant ex- +dragoon. Ah! how fine! grand! He would rather hear that than any opera: +it was diviner! 'Yes, the best poetry is,' she assented. 'On your +lips,' he said. She laughed. 'I am not a particularly melodious +reciter.' He vowed he could listen to her eternally, eternally. His +face, on a screw of the neck and shoulders, was now perpetually three- +quarters fronting. Ah! she was going to leave. 'Yes, and you will find +my return quite early enough,' said Diana, stepping a trifle more +briskly. His fist was raised on the length of the arm, as if in +invocation. 'Not in the whole of London is there a woman worthy to +fasten your shoe-buckles! My oath on it! I look; I can't spy one.' +Such was his flattering eloquence. + +She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compliments. 'And +here, of all places!' They were in the heart of the woods. She found +her hand seized--her waist. Even then, so impossible is it to conceive +the unimaginable even when the apparition of it smites us, she expected +some protesting absurdity, or that he had seen something in her path.-- +What did she hear? And from her friend's husband! + +If stricken idiotic, he was a gentleman; the tigress she had detected in +her composition did not require to be called forth; half-a-dozen words, +direct, sharp as fangs and teeth, with the eyes burning over them, +sufficed for the work of defence. 'The man who swore loyalty to Emma!' +Her reproachful repulsion of eyes was unmistakeable, withering; as +masterful as a superior force on his muscles.--What thing had he been +taking her for?--She asked it within: and he of himself, in a reflective +gasp. Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud, with the wrath above: +she had: the look of a Goddess in anger. He stammered, pleaded across +her flying shoulder--Oh! horrible, loathsome, pitiable to hear! . . . +'A momentary aberration . . . her beauty . . . he deserved to be +shot! . . . could not help admiring . . . quite lost his head . . +on his honour! never again !' + +Once in the roadway, and Copsley visible, she checked her arrowy pace for +breath, and almost commiserated the dejected wretch in her thankfulness +to him for silence. Nothing exonerated him, but at least he had the +grace not to beg secresy. That would have been an intolerable whine of a +poltroon, adding to her humiliation. He abstained; he stood at her mercy +without appealing. + +She was not the woman to take poor vengeance. But, Oh! she was +profoundly humiliated, shamed through and through. The question, was I +guilty of any lightness--anything to bring this on me? would not be laid. +And how she pitied her friend! This house, her heart's home, was now a +wreck to her: nay, worse, a hostile citadel. The burden of the task of +meeting Emma with an open face, crushed her like very guilt. Yet she +succeeded. After an hour in her bedchamber she managed to lock up her +heart and summon the sprite of acting to her tongue and features: which +ready attendant on the suffering female host performed his liveliest +throughout the evening, to Emma's amusement, and to the culprit ex- +dragoon's astonishment; in whom, to tell the truth of him, her sparkle +and fun kindled the sense of his being less criminal than he had +supposed, with a dim vision of himself as the real proven donkey for not +having been a harmless dash more so. But, to be just as well as +penetrating, this was only the effect of her personal charm on his +nature. So it spurred him a moment, when it struck this doleful man that +to have secured one kiss of those fresh and witty sparkling lips he would +endure forfeits, pangs, anything save the hanging of his culprit's head +before his Emma. Reflection washed him clean. Secresy is not a medical +restorative, by no means a good thing for the baffled amorously- +adventurous cavalier, unless the lady's character shall have been firmly +established in or over his hazy wagging noddle. Reflection informed him +that the honourable, generous, proud girl spared him for the sake of the +house she loved. After a night of tossing, he rose right heartily +repentant. He showed it in the best manner, not dramatically. On her +accepting his offer to drive her down to the valley to meet the coach, +a genuine illumination of pure gratitude made a better man of him, both +to look at and in feeling. She did not hesitate to consent; and he had +half expected a refusal. She talked on the way quite as usual, +cheerfully, if not altogether so spiritedly. A flash of her matchless +wit now and then reduced him to that abject state of man beside the fair +person he has treated high cavalierly, which one craves permission to +describe as pulp. He was utterly beaten. + +The sight of Redworth on the valley road was a relief to them both. He +had slept in one of the houses of the valley, and spoke of having had the +intention to mount to Copsley. Sir Lukin proposed to drive him back. +He glanced at Diana, still with that calculating abstract air of his; and +he was rallied. He confessed to being absorbed in railways, the new +lines of railways projected to thread the land and fast mapping it. + +'You 've not embarked money in them?' said Sir Lukin. + +The answer was: 'I have; all I possess.' And Redworth for a sharp +instant set his eyes on Diana, indifferent to Sir Lukin's bellow of +stupefaction at such gambling on the part of a prudent fellow. + +He asked her where she was to be met, where written to, during the +Summer, in case of his wishing to send her news. + +She replied: 'Copsley will be the surest. I am always in communication +with Lady Dunstane.' She coloured deeply. The recollection of the +change of her feeling for Copsley suffused her maiden mind. + +The strange blush prompted an impulse in Redworth to speak to her at once +of his venture in railways. But what would she understand of them, as +connected with the mighty stake he was playing for? He delayed. The +coach came at a trot of the horses, admired by Sir Lukin, round a corner. +She entered it, her maid followed, the door banged, the horses trotted. +She was off. + +Her destiny of the Crossways tied a knot, barred a gate, and pointed to a +new direction of the road on that fine spring morning, when beech-buds +were near the burst, cowslips yellowed the meadow-flats, and skylarks +quivered upward. + +For many long years Redworth had in his memory, for a comment on +procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in his calculating faculty, +the blue back of a coach. + +He declined the vacated place beside Sir Lukin, promising to come and +spend a couple of days at Copsley in a fortnight--Saturday week. He +wanted, he said, to have a talk with Lady Dunstane. Evidently he had +railways on the brain, and Sir Lukin warned his wife to be guarded +against the speculative mania, and advise the man, if she could. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE + +On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley, with a +shade deeper of the calculating look under his thick brows, habitual to +him latterly. He found Lady Dunstane at her desk, pen in hand, the paper +untouched; and there was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat +resembling his own, as he would have observed, had he been open-minded +enough to notice anything, except that she was writing a letter. He +begged her to continue it; he proposed to read a book till she was at +leisure. + +'I have to write, and scarcely know how,' said she, clearing her face to +make the guest at home, and taking a chair by the fire, 'I would rather +chat for half an hour.' + +She spoke of the weather, frosty, but tonic; bad for the last days of +hunting, good for the farmer and the country, let us hope. + +Redworth nodded assent. It might be surmised that he was brooding over +those railways, in which he had embarked his fortune. Ah! those +railways! She was not long coming to the wailful exclamation upon them, +both to express her personal sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear +England, and lead to a little, modest, offering of a woman's counsel to +the rash adventurer; for thus could she serviceably put aside her +perplexity awhile. Those railways! When would there be peace in the +land? Where one single nook of shelter and escape from them! And the +English, blunt as their senses are to noise and hubbub, would be +revelling in hisses, shrieks, puffings and screeches, so that travelling +would become an intolerable affliction. 'I speak rather as an invalid,' +she admitted; 'I conjure up all sorts of horrors, the whistle in the +night beneath one's windows, and the smoke of trains defacing the +landscape; hideous accidents too. They will be wholesale and past help. +Imagine a collision! I have borne many changes with equanimity, I +pretend to a certain degree of philosophy, but this mania for cutting up +the land does really cause me to pity those who are to follow us. They +will not see the England we have seen. It will be patched and scored, +disfigured . . . a sort of barbarous Maori visage--England in a New +Zealand mask. You may call it the sentimental view. In this case, I am +decidedly sentimental: I love my country. I do love quiet, rural +England. Well, and I love beauty, I love simplicity. All that will be +destroyed by the refuse of the towns flooding the land--barring +accidents, as Lukin says. There seems nothing else to save us.' + +Redworth acquiesced. 'Nothing.' + +'And you do not regret it?' he was asked. + +'Not a bit. We have already exchanged opinions on the subject. +Simplicity must go, and the townsman meet his equal in the countryman. +As for beauty, I would sacrifice that to circulate gumption. A bushelful +of nonsense is talked pro and con: it always is at an innovation. What +we are now doing, is to take a longer and a quicker stride, that is all.' + +'And establishing a new field for the speculator.' + +'Yes, and I am one, and this is the matter I wanted to discuss with you, +Lady Dunstane,' said Redworth, bending forward, the whole man devoted to +the point of business. + +She declared she was complimented; she felt the compliment, and trusted +her advice might be useful, faintly remarking that she had a woman's +head: and 'not less' was implied as much as 'not more,' in order to give +strength to her prospective opposition. + +All his money, she heard, was down on the railway table. He might within +a year have a tolerable fortune: and, of course, he might be ruined. He +did not expect it; still he fronted the risks. 'And now,' said he, +'I come to you for counsel. I am not held among my acquaintances to be +a marrying man, as it's called.' + +He paused. Lady Dunstane thought it an occasion to praise him for his +considerateness. + +'You involve no one but yourself, you mean?' Her eyes shed approval. +'Still the day may come . . . I say only that it may: and the wish +to marry is a rosy colouring . . . equal to a flying chariot in +conducting us across difficulties and obstructions to the deed. +And then one may have to regret a previous rashness.' + +These practical men are sometimes obtuse: she dwelt on that vision +of the future. + +He listened, and resumed: 'My view of marriage is, that no man should +ask a woman to be his wife unless he is well able to support her in the +comforts, not to say luxuries, she is accustomed to.' His gaze had +wandered to the desk; it fixed there. 'That is Miss Merion's writing,' +he said. + +'The letter?' said Lady Dunstane, and she stretched out her hand to press +down a leaf of it. 'Yes; it is from her.' + +'Is she quite well?' + +'I suppose she is. She does not speak of her health.' + +He looked pertinaciously in the direction of the letter, and it was not +rightly mannered. That letter, of all others, was covert and sacred to +the friend. It contained the weightiest of secrets. + +'I have not written to her,' said Redworth. + +He was astonishing: 'To whom? To Diana? You could very well have done +so, only I fancy she knows nothing, has never given a thought to railway +stocks and shares; she has a loathing for speculation.' + +'And speculators too, I dare say!' + +'It is extremely probable.' Lady Dunstane spoke with an emphasis, for +the man liked Diana, and would be moved by the idea of forfeiting her +esteem. + +'She might blame me if I did anything dishonourable!' + +'She certainly would.' + +'She will have no cause.' + +Lady Dunstane began to look, as at a cloud charged with remote +explosions: and still for the moment she was unsuspecting. But it was +a flitting moment. When he went on, and very singularly droning to her +ear: 'The more a man loves a woman, the more he should be positive, +before asking her, that she will not have to consent to a loss of +position, and I would rather lose her than fail to give her all--not be +sure, as far as a man can be sure, of giving her all I think she's worthy +of': then the cloud shot a lightning flash, and the doors of her +understanding swung wide to the entry of a great wonderment. A shock of +pain succeeded it. Her sympathy was roused so acutely that she slipped +over the reflective rebuke she would have addressed to her silly delusion +concerning his purpose in speaking of his affairs to a woman. Though he +did not mention Diana by name, Diana was clearly the person. And why had +he delayed to speak to her?--Because of this venture of his money to make +him a fortune, for the assurance of her future comfort! Here was the +best of men for the girl, not displeasing to her; a good, strong, +trustworthy man, pleasant to hear and to see, only erring in being a +trifle too scrupulous in love: and a fortnight back she would have +imagined he had no chance; and now she knew that the chance was excellent +in those days, with this revelation in Diana's letter, which said that +all chance was over. + +'The courtship of a woman,' he droned away, 'is in my mind not fair to +her until a man has to the full enough to sanction his asking her to +marry him. And if he throws all he possesses on a stake . . . to win +her--give her what she has a right to claim, he ought . . . . Only at +present the prospect seems good . . . . He ought of course to wait. +Well, the value of the stock I hold has doubled, and it increases. I am +a careful watcher of the market. I have friends--brokers and railway +Directors. I can rely on them.' + +'Pray,' interposed Lady Dunstane, 'specify--I am rather in a mist--the +exact point upon which you do me the honour to consult me.' She +ridiculed herself for having imagined that such a man would come to +consult her upon a point of business. + +'It is,' he replied, 'this: whether, as affairs now stand with me--I have +an income from my office, and personal property . . . say between +thirteen and fourteen hundred a year to start with--whether you think me +justified in asking a lady to share my lot?' + +'Why not? But will you name the lady?' + +'Then I may write at once? In your judgement. . . . Yes, the lady. +I have not named her. I had no right. Besides, the general question +first, in fairness to the petitioner. You might reasonably stipulate for +more for a friend. She could make a match, as you have said . . .' he +muttered of 'brilliant,' and 'the highest'; and his humbleness of the +honest man enamoured touched Lady Dunstane. She saw him now as the man +of strength that she would have selected from a thousand suitors to guide +her dear friend. + +She caught at a straw: 'Tell me, it is not Diana?' + +'Diana Merion!' + +As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew himself tight +for the stroke. 'She's in love with some one?' + +'She is engaged.' + +He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that excruciating +twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their +course to grind the contrary to that of the heart, was revealed in one +short lift and gasp, a compression of the tremendous change he underwent. + +'Why did you not speak before?' said Lady Dunstane. Her words were +tremulous. + +'I should have had no justification!' + +'You might have won her!' She could have wept; her sympathy and her +self-condolence under disappointment at Diana's conduct joined to swell +the feminine flood. + +The poor fellow's quick breathing and blinking reminded her of cruelty in +a retrospect. She generalized, to ease her spirit of regret, by hinting +it without hurting: 'Women really are not puppets. They are not so +excessively luxurious. It is good for young women in the early days of +marriage to rough it a little.' She found herself droning, as he had +done. + +He had ears for nothing but the fact. + +'Then I am too late!' + +'I have heard it to-day.' + +'She is engaged! Positively?' + +Lady Dunstane glanced backward at the letter on her desk. She had to +answer the strangest of letters that had ever come to her, and it was +from her dear Tony, the baldest intimation of the weightiest piece of +intelligence which a woman can communicate to her heart's friend. The +task of answering it was now doubled. 'I fear so, I fancy so,' she said, +and she longed to cast eye over the letter again, to see if there might +possibly be a loophole behind the lines. + +'Then I must make my mind up to it,' said Redworth. 'I think I'll take a +walk.' + +She smiled kindly. 'It will be our secret.' + +'I thank you with all my heart, Lady Dunstane.' + +He was not a weaver of phrases in distress. His blunt reserve was +eloquent of it to her, and she liked him the better; could have thanked +him, too, for leaving her promptly. + +When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter at a hasty +glimpse. It was of one paragraph, and fired its shot like a cannon with +the muzzle at her breast:-- + + 'MY OWN EMMY,--I have been asked in marriage by Mr. Warwick, and + have accepted him. Signify your approval, for I have decided that + it is the wisest thing a waif can do. We are to live at The + Crossways for four months of the year, so I shall have Dada in his + best days and all my youngest dreams, my sunrise and morning dew, + surrounding me; my old home for my new one. I write in haste, to + you first, burning to hear from you. Send your blessing to yours in + life and death, through all transformations, + 'TONY.' + +That was all. Not a word of the lover about to be decorated with the +title of husband. No confession of love, nor a single supplicating word +to her friend, in excuse for the abrupt decision to so grave a step. +Her previous description of, him, as a 'gentlemanly official' in his +appearance, conjured him up most distastefully. True, she might have +made a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scandals; +but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler mould, he failed to +harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like Tony. Perhaps +Mr. Redworth also failed in something. Where was the man fitly to mate +her! Mr. Redworth, however, was manly and trustworthy, of the finest +Saxon type in build and in character. He had great qualities, and his +excess of scrupulousness was most pitiable. + +She read: 'The wisest thing a waif can do.' It bore a sound of +desperation. Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love. +Or was she masking the passion? No: had it been a case of love, she +would have written very differently to her friend. + +Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Diana's +novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness, +and despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line: 'Wonders +are always happening.' She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise; +naturally betraying it. 'I must hope and pray that you have not been +precipitate.' Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, the most +genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly. + +When she had finished the composition she perused it, and did not +recognize herself in her language, though she had been so guarded to +cover the wound her Tony dealt their friendship--in some degree injuring +their sex. For it might now, after such an example, verily seem that +women are incapable of a translucent perfect confidence: their impulses, +caprices, desperations, tricks of concealment, trip a heart-whole +friendship. Well, to-morrow, if not to-day, the tripping may be +expected! Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly to a lowered view of +her Tony's character. This was her unconscious act of reprisal. +Her brilliant beloved Tony, dazzling but in beauty and the gifted mind, +stood as one essentially with the common order of women. She wished to +be settled, Mr. Warwick proposed, and for the sake of living at The +Crossways she accepted him--she, the lofty scorner of loveless marriages! +who had said--how many times! that nothing save love excused it! She +degraded their mutual high standard of womankind. Diana was in eclipse, +full three parts. The bulk of the gentlemanly official she had chosen +obscured her. But I have written very carefully, thought Lady Dunstane, +dropping her answer into the post-bag. She had, indeed, been so care +ful, that to cloak her feelings, she had written as another person. +Women with otiose husbands have a task to preserve friendship. + +Redworth carried his burden through the frosty air at a pace to melt +icicles in Greenland. He walked unthinkingly, right ahead, to the red +West, as he discovered when pausing to consult his watch. Time was left +to return at the same pace and dress for dinner; he swung round and +picked up remembrances of sensations he had strewn by the way. She knew +these woods; he was walking in her footprints; she was engaged to be +married. Yes, his principle, never to ask a woman to marry him, never to +court her, without bank-book assurance of his ability to support her in +cordial comfort, was right. He maintained it, and owned himself a donkey +for having stuck to it. Between him and his excellent principle there +was war, without the slightest division. Warned of the danger of losing +her, he would have done the same again, confessing himself donkey for his +pains. The principle was right, because it was due to the woman. His +rigid adherence to the principle set him belabouring his donkey-ribs, as +the proper due to himself. For he might have had a chance, all through +two Winters. The opportunities had been numberless. Here, in this beech +wood; near that thornbush; on the juniper slope; from the corner of chalk +and sand in junction, to the corner of clay and chalk; all the length of +the wooded ridge he had reminders of her presence and his priceless +chances: and still the standard of his conduct said No, while his heart +bled. + +He felt that a chance had been. More sagacious than Lady Dunstane, +from his not nursing a wound, he divined in the abruptness of Diana's +resolution to accept a suitor, a sober reason, and a fitting one, for +the wish that she might be settled. And had he spoken!--If he had spoken +to her, she might have given her hand to him, to a dishonourable brute! +A blissful brute. But a worse than donkey. Yes, his principle was +right, and he lashed with it, and prodded with it, drove himself out into +the sour wilds where bachelordom crops noxious weeds without a hallowing +luminary, and clung to it, bruised and bleeding though he was. + +The gentleness of Lady Dunstane soothed him during the term of a visit +that was rather like purgatory sweetened by angelical tears. He was glad +to go, wretched in having gone. She diverted the incessant conflict +between his insubordinate self and his castigating, but avowedly +sovereign, principle. Away from her, he was the victim of a flagellation +so dire that it almost drove him to revolt against the lord he served, +and somehow the many memories at Copsley kept him away. Sir Lukin, when +speaking of Diana's 'engagement to that fellow Warwick,' exalted her with +an extraordinary enthusiasm, exceedingly hard for the silly beast who had +lost her to bear. For the present the place dearest to Redworth of all +places on earth was unendurable. + +Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the market, fast as +asparagus-heads for cutting: a circumstance that added stings to +reflection. Had he been only a little bolder, a little less the +fanatical devotee of his rule of masculine honour, less the slave to the +letter of success . . . . But why reflect at all? Here was a goodly +income approaching, perhaps a seat in Parliament; a station for the +airing of his opinions--and a social status for the wife now denied to +him. The wife was denied to him; he could conceive of no other. The +tyrant-ridden, reticent, tenacious creature had thoroughly wedded her +in mind; her view of things had a throne beside his own, even in their +differences. He perceived, agreeing or disagreeing, the motions of her +brain, as he did with none other of women; and this it is which stamps +character on her, divides her from them, upraises and enspheres. He +declined to live with any other of the sex. + +Before he could hear of the sort of man Mr. Warwick was--a perpetual +object of his quest--the bridal bells had rung, and Diana Antonia Merion +lost her maiden name. She became the Mrs. Warwick of our footballing +world. + +Why she married, she never told. Possibly, in amazement at herself +subsequently, she forgot the specific reason. That which weighs heavily +in youth, and commits us to desperate action, will be a trifle under +older eyes, to blunter senses, a more enlightened understanding. Her +friend Emma probed for the reason vainly. It was partly revealed to +Redworth, by guess-work and a putting together of pieces, yet quite +luminously, as it were by touch of tentacle-feelers--one evening that he +passed with Sir Lukin Dunstane, when the lachrymose ex-dragoon and son of +Idlesse, had rather more than dined. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE COUPLE + +Six months a married woman, Diana came to Copsley to introduce her +husband. They had run over Italy: 'the Italian Peninsula,' she quoted +him in a letter to Lady Dunstane: and were furnishing their London house. +Her first letters from Italy appeared to have a little bloom of +sentiment. Augustus was mentioned as liking this and that in the land +of beauty. He patronized Art, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak +upon pictures and sculptures; he knew a great deal about them. 'He is +an authority.' Her humour soon began to play round the fortunate man, +who did not seem, to the reader's mind, to bear so well a sentimental +clothing. His pride was in being very English on the Continent, and +Diana's instances of his lofty appreciations of the garden of Art and +Nature, and statuesque walk through it, would have been more amusing if +her friend could have harmonized her idea of the couple. A description +of 'a bit of a wrangle between us' at Lucca, where an Italian post-master +on a journey of inspection, claimed a share of their carriage and +audaciously attempted entry, was laughable, but jarred. Would she some +day lose her relish for ridicule, and see him at a distance? He was +generous, Diana, said she saw fine qualities in him. It might be that he +was lavish on his bridal tour. She said he was unselfish, kind, affable +with his equals; he was cordial to the acquaintances he met. Perhaps his +worst fault was an affected superciliousness before the foreigner, not +uncommon in those days. 'You are to know, dear Emmy, that we English are +the aristocracy of Europeans.' Lady Dunstane inclined to think we were; +nevertheless, in the mouth of a 'gentlemanly official' the frigid +arrogance added a stroke of caricature to his deportment. On the other +hand, the reports of him gleaned by Sir Lukin sounded favourable. He was +not taken to be preternaturally stiff, nor bright, but a goodish sort of +fellow; good horseman, good shot, good character. In short, the average +Englishman, excelling as a cavalier, a slayer, and an orderly subject. +That was a somewhat elevated standard to the patriotic Emma. Only she +would never have stipulated for an average to espouse Diana. Would he +understand her, and value the best in her? Another and unanswered +question was, how could she have condescended to wed with an average? +There was transparently some secret not confided to her friend. + +He appeared. Lady Dunstane's first impression of him recurred on his +departure. Her unanswered question drummed at her ears, though she +remembered that Tony's art in leading him out had moderated her rigidly +judicial summary of the union during a greater part of the visit. But +his requiring to be led out, was against him. Considering the subjects, +his talk was passable. The subjects treated of politics, pictures, +Continental travel, our manufactures, our wealth and the reasons for it +--excellent reasons well-weighed. He was handsome, as men go; rather +tall, not too stout, precise in the modern fashion of his dress, and the +pair of whiskers encasing a colourless depression up to a long, thin, +straight nose, and closed lips indicating an aperture. The contraction +of his mouth expressed an intelligence in the attitude of the firmly +negative. + +The lips opened to smile, the teeth were faultless; an effect was +produced, if a cold one--the colder for the unparticipating northern +eyes; eyes of that half cloud and blue, which make a kind of hueless +grey, and are chiefly striking in an authoritative stage. Without +contradicting, for he was exactly polite, his look signified a person +conscious of being born to command: in fine, an aristocrat among the +'aristocracy of Europeans.' His differences of opinion were prefaced by +a 'Pardon me,' and pausing smile of the teeth; then a succinctly worded +sentence or two, a perfect settlement of the dispute. He disliked +argumentation. He said so, and Diana remarked it of him, speaking as, +a wife who merely noted a characteristic. Inside his boundary, he had +neat phrases, opinions in packets. Beyond it, apparently the world was +void of any particular interest. Sir Lukin, whose boundary would have +shown a narrower limitation had it been defined, stood no chance with +him. Tory versus Whig, he tried a wrestle, and was thrown. They agreed +on the topic of Wine. Mr. Warwick had a fine taste in wine. Their +after-dinner sittings were devoted to this and the alliterative cognate +theme, equally dear to the gallant ex-dragoon, from which it resulted +that Lady Dunstane received satisfactory information in a man's judgement +of him. 'Warwick is a clever fellow, and a thorough man of the world, I +can tell you, Emmy.' Sir Lukin further observed that he was a +gentlemanly fellow. 'A gentlemanly official!' Diana's primary dash of +portraiture stuck to him, so true it was! As for her, she seemed to have +forgotten it. Not only did she strive to show him to advantage by +leading him out; she played second to him; subserviently, fondly; she +quite submerged herself, content to be dull if he might shine; and her +talk of her husband in her friend's blue-chamber boudoir of the golden +stars, where they had discussed the world and taken counsel in her maiden +days, implied admiration of his merits. He rode superbly: he knew Law: +he was prepared for any position: he could speak really eloquently; she +had heard him at a local meeting. And he loved the old Crossways almost +as much as she did. 'He has promised me he will never ask me to sell +it,' she said, with a simpleness that could hardly have been acted. + +When she was gone, Lady Dunstane thought she had worn a mask, in the +natural manner of women trying to make the best of their choice; and she +excused her poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own cost. +But she could not excuse her for having married the man. Her first and +her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty: a London +house conventionally furnished and decorated by the upholsterer, and +empty of inhabitants. How a brilliant and beautiful girl could have +committed this rashness, was the perplexing riddle: the knottier because +the man was idle: and Diana had ambition; she despised and dreaded +idleness in men. Empty of inhabitants even to the ghost! Both human and +spiritual were wanting. The mind contemplating him became reflectively +stagnant. + +I must not be unjust! Lady Dunstane hastened to exclaim, at a whisper +that he had at least proved his appreciation of Tony; whom he preferred +to call Diana, as she gladly remembered: and the two were bound together +for a moment warmly by her recollection of her beloved Tony's touching +little petition: 'You will invite us again?' and then there had flashed +in Tony's dear dark eyes the look of their old love drowning. They were +not to be thought of separately. She admitted that the introduction to +a woman of her friend's husband is crucially trying to him: he may well +show worse than he is. Yet his appreciation of Tony in espousing her, +was rather marred by Sir Lukin's report of him as a desperate admirer of +beautiful woman. It might be for her beauty only, not for her spiritual +qualities! At present he did not seem aware of their existence. But, to +be entirely just, she had hardly exhibited them or a sign of them during +the first interview: and sitting with his hostess alone, he had seized +the occasion to say, that he was the happiest of men. He said it with +the nearest approach to fervour she had noticed. Perhaps the very fact +of his not producing a highly favourable impression, should be set to +plead on his behalf. Such as he was, he was himself, no simulator. She +longed for Mr. Redworth's report of him. + +Her compassion for Redworth's feelings when beholding the woman he loved +another man's wife, did not soften the urgency of her injunction that he +should go speedily, and see as much of them as he could. 'Because,' she +gave her reason, 'I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend +through her marriage, and is only one the richer.' + +Redworth buckled himself to the task. He belonged to the class of his +countrymen who have a dungeon-vault for feelings that should not be +suffered to cry abroad, and into this oubliette he cast them, letting +them feed as they might, or perish. It was his heart down below, and in +no voluntary musings did he listen to it, to sustain the thing. Grimly +lord of himself, he stood emotionless before the world. Some worthy +fellows resemble him, and they are called deep-hearted. He was dungeon- +deep. The prisoner underneath might clamour and leap; none heard him +or knew of him; nor did he ever view the day. Diana's frank: 'Ah, Mr. +Redworth, how glad I am to see you!' was met by the calmest formalism +of the wish for her happiness. He became a guest at her London house, +and his report of the domesticity there, and notably of the lord of the +house, pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husband's. He saw the kind +of man accurately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and she +could say assentingly, without anxiety: 'Yes, yes,' to his remarks upon +Mr. Warwick, indicative of a man of capable head in worldly affairs, +commonplace beside his wife. The noble gentleman for Diana was yet +unborn, they tacitly agreed. Meantime one must not put a mortal husband +to the fiery ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise. +'You may be sure she is a constant friend,' Lady Dunstane said for +his comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of +disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: 'I could calculate on it.' +For though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit, she wished +to see that he held an image of Diana:--surely a woman to kindle poets +and heroes, the princes of the race; and it was a curious perversity that +the two men she had moved were merely excellent, emotionless, ordinary +men, with heads for business. Elsewhere, out of England, Diana would +have been a woman for a place in song, exalted to the skies. Here she +had the destiny to inflame Mr. Redworth and Mr. Warwick, two railway +Directors, bent upon scoring the country to the likeness of a child's +lines of hop-scotch in a gravel-yard. + +As with all invalids, the pleasure of living backward was haunted by the +tortures it evoked, and two years later she recalled this outcry against +the Fates. She would then have prayed for Diana to inflame none but such +men as those two. The original error was; of course, that rash and most +inexplicable marriage, a step never alluded to by the driven victim of +it. Lady Dunstane heard rumours of dissensions. Diana did not mention +them. She spoke of her husband as unlucky in railway ventures, and of +a household necessity for money, nothing further. One day she wrote of +a Government appointment her husband had received, ending the letter: +'So there is the end of our troubles.' Her friend rejoiced, and +afterward looking back at her satisfaction, saw the dire beginning of +them. + +Lord Dannisburgh's name, as one of the admirers of Mrs. Warwick, was +dropped once or twice by Sir Lukin. He had dined with the Warwicks, and +met the eminent member of the Cabinet at their table. There is no harm +in admiration, especially on the part of one of a crowd observing a star. +No harm can be imputed when the husband of a beautiful woman accepts an +appointment from the potent Minister admiring her. So Lady Dunstane +thought, for she was sure of Diana to her inmost soul. But she soon +perceived in Sir Lukin that the old Dog-world was preparing to yelp on a +scent. He of his nature belonged to the hunting pack, and with a cordial +feeling for the quarry, he was quite with his world in expecting to see +her run, and readiness to join the chase. No great scandal had occurred +for several months. The world was in want of it; and he, too, with a +very cordial feeling for the quarry, piously hoping she would escape, +already had his nose to ground, collecting testimony in the track of her. +He said little to his wife, but his world was getting so noisy that he +could not help half pursing his lips, as with the soft whistle of an +innuendo at the heels of it. Redworth was in America, engaged in carving +up that hemisphere. She had no source of information but her husband's +chance gossip; and London was death to her; and Diana, writing faithfully +twice a week, kept silence as to Lord Dannisburgh, except in naming him +among her guests. She wrote this, which might have a secret personal +signification: 'We women are the verbs passive of the alliance; we have +to learn, and if we take to activity, with the best intentions, we +conjugate a frightful disturbance. We are to run on lines, like the +steam-trains, or we come to no station, dash to fragments. I have the +misfortune to know I was born an active. I take my chance.' + +Once she coupled the names of Lord Larrian and Lord Dannisburgh, +remarking that she had a fatal attraction for antiques. + +The death of her husband's uncle and illness of his aunt withdrew her +to The Crossways, where she remained nursing for several months, reading +diligently, as her letters showed, and watching the approaches of the +destroyer. She wrote like her former self, subdued by meditation in the +presence of that inevitable. The world ceased barking. Lady Dunstane +could suppose Mr. Warwick to have now a reconciling experience of his +wife's noble qualities. He probably did value them more. He spoke of +her to Sir Lukin in London with commendation. 'She is an attentive +nurse.' He inherited a considerable increase of income when he and his +wife were the sole tenants of The Crossways, but disliking the house, +for reasons hard to explain by a man previously professing to share her +attachment to it, he wished to sell or let the place, and his wife would +do neither. She proposed to continue living in their small London house +rather than be cut off from The Crossways, which, he said, was ludicrous: +people should live up to their position; and he sneered at the place, and +slightly wounded her, for she was open to a wound when the cold fire of a +renewed attempt at warmth between them was crackling and showing bits of +flame, after she had given proof of her power to serve. Service to +himself and his relatives affected him. He deferred to her craze for The +Crossways, and they lived in a larger London house, 'up to their +position,' which means ever a trifle beyond it, and gave choice dinner- +parties to the most eminent. His jealousy slumbered. Having ideas of a +seat in Parliament at this period, and preferment superior to the post he +held, Mr. Warwick deemed it sagacious to court the potent patron Lord +Dannisburgh could be; and his wife had his interests at heart, the fork- +tongued world said. The cry revived. Stories of Lord D. and Mrs. W. +whipped the hot pursuit. The moral repute of the great Whig lord and the +beauty of the lady composed inflammable material. + +'Are you altogether cautious?' Lady Dunstane wrote to Diana; and her +friend sent a copious reply: 'You have the fullest right to ask your Tony +anything, and I will answer as at the Judgement bar. You allude to Lord +Dannisburgh. He is near what Dada's age would have been, and is, I think +I can affirm, next to my dead father and my Emmy, my dearest friend. +I love him. I could say it in the streets without shame; and you do not +imagine me shameless. Whatever his character in his younger days, he can +be honestly a woman's friend, believe me. I see straight to his heart; +he has no disguise; and unless I am to suppose that marriage is the end +of me, I must keep him among my treasures. I see him almost daily; it is +not possible to think I can be deceived; and as long as he does me the +honour to esteem my poor portion of brains by coming to me for what he is +good enough to call my counsel, I shall let the world wag its tongue. +Between ourselves, I trust to be doing some good. I know I am of use in +various ways. No doubt there is a danger of a woman's head being turned, +when she reflects that a powerful Minister governing a kingdom has not +considered her too insignificant to advise him; and I am sensible of it. +I am, I assure you, dearest, on my guard against it. That would not +attach me to him, as his homely friendliness does. He is the most +amiable, cheerful, benignant of men; he has no feeling of an enemy, +though naturally his enemies are numerous and venomous. He is full of +observation and humour. How he would amuse you! In many respects accord +with you. And I should not have a spark of jealousy. Some day I shall +beg permission to bring him to Copsley. At present, during the Session, +he is too busy, as you know. Me--his "crystal spring of wisdom"--he can +favour with no more than an hour in the afternoon, or a few minutes at +night. Or I get a pencilled note from the benches of the House, with an +anecdote, or news of a Division. I am sure to be enlivened. + +'So I have written to you fully, simply, frankly. Have perfect faith in +your Tony, who would, she vows to heaven; die rather than disturb it and +her heart's beloved.' + +The letter terminated with one of Lord Dannisburgh's anecdotes, exciting +to merriment in the season of its freshness;--and a postscript of +information: 'Augustus expects a mission--about a month; uncertain +whether I accompany him.' + +Mr. Warwick departed on his mission. Diana remained in London. Lady +Dunstane wrote entreating her to pass the month--her favourite time of +the violet yielding to the cowslip--at Copsley. The invitation could not +be accepted, but the next day Diana sent word that she had a surprise for +the following Sunday, and would bring a friend to lunch, if Sir Lukin +would meet them at the corner of the road in the valley leading up to the +heights, at a stated hour. + +Lady Dunstane gave the listless baronet his directions, observing: 'It's +odd, she never will come alone since her marriage.' + +'Queer,' said he of the serenest absence of conscience; and that there +must be something not, entirely right going on, he strongly inclined to +think. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CRISIS + +It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box +of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana beside him, cockaded lackeys in +plain livery and the lady's maid to the rear. But Lord Dannisburgh's +visit was a compliment, and the freak of his driving down under the beams +of Aurora on a sober Sunday morning capital fun; so with a gaiety that +was kept alive for the invalid Emma to partake of it, they rattled away +to the heights, and climbed them, and Diana rushed to the arms of her +friend, whispering and cooing for pardon if she startled her, guilty +of a little whiff of blarney:--Lord Dannisburgh wanted so much to be +introduced to her, and she so much wanted her to know him, and she hoped +to be graciously excused for thus bringing them together, 'that she might +be chorus to them!' Chorus was a pretty fiction on the part of the +thrilling and topping voice. She was the very radiant Diana of her +earliest opening day, both in look and speech, a queenly comrade, and a +spirit leaping and shining like a mountain water. She did not seduce, +she ravished. The judgement was taken captive and flowed with her. +As to the prank of the visit, Emma heartily enjoyed it and hugged it +for a holiday of her own, and doating on the beautiful, darkeyed, fresh +creature, who bore the name of the divine Huntress, she thought her a +true Dian in stature, step, and attributes, the genius of laughter +superadded. None else on earth so sweetly laughed, none so +spontaneously, victoriously provoked the healthful openness. +Her delicious chatter, and her museful sparkle in listening, equally +quickened every sense of life. Adorable as she was to her friend Emma +at all times, she that day struck a new fountain in memory. And it was +pleasant to see the great lord's admiration of this wonder. One could +firmly believe in their friendship, and his winning ideas from the +abounding bubbling well. A recurrent smile beamed on his face when +hearing and observing her. Certain dishes provided at the table were +Diana's favourites, and he relished them, asking for a second help, +and remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things. They +lunched, eating like boys. They walked over the grounds of Copsley, and +into the lanes and across the meadows of the cowslip, rattling, chatting, +enlivening the frosty air, happy as children biting to the juices of ripe +apples off the tree. But Tony was the tree, the dispenser of the rosy +gifts. She had a moment of reflection, only a moment, and Emma felt the +pause as though a cloud had shadowed them and a spirit had been shut +away. Both spoke of their happiness at the kiss of parting. That +melancholy note at the top of the wave to human hearts conscious of its +enforced decline was repeated by them, and Diana's eyelids blinked to +dismiss a tear. + +'You have no troubles?' Emma said. + +'Only the pain of the good-bye to my beloved,' said Diana. 'I have +never been happier--never shall be! Now you know him you think with me? +I knew you would. You have seen him as he always is--except when he is +armed for battle. He is the kindest of souls. And soul I say. He is +the one man among men who gives me notions of a soul in men.' + +The eulogy was exalted. Lady Dunstane made a little mouth for Oh, in +correction of the transcendental touch, though she remembered their +foregone conversations upon men--strange beings that they are!--and +understood Diana's meaning. + +'Really! really! honour !' Diana emphasized her extravagant praise, to +print it fast. 'Hear him speak of Ireland.' + +'Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the Irishwoman?' + +'He is past thoughts of catching, dearest. At that age men are pools of +fish, or what you will: they are not anglers. Next year, if you invite +us, we will come again.' + +'But you will come to stay in the Winter?' + +'Certainly. But I am speaking of one of my holidays.' + +They kissed fervently. The lady mounted; the grey and portly lord +followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and Emma was left to brood +over her friend's last words: 'One of my holidays.' Not a hint to the +detriment of her husband had passed. The stray beam balefully +illuminating her marriage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was +troublesome with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating on +the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; upon which he +thought a great deal depended. They had driven out of town early, and +if they drove back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were +sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs. +'I couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand. +But they say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it +doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two . . . . Oh! it'll +be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. And the cat's away.' + +'It's more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could have married +that man,' said his wife. + +'I've long since given it up,' said he. + +Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome, telling of her drive +home to smoke and solitude, with a new host of romantic sensations to +keep her company. She wrote thrice in the week, and the same addition of +one to the ordinary number next week. Then for three weeks not a line. +Sir Lukin brought news from London that Warwick had returned, nothing to +explain the silence. A letter addressed to The Crossways was likewise +unnoticed. The supposition that they must be visiting on a round, +appeared rational; but many weeks elapsed, until Sir Lukin received a +printed sheet in the superscription of a former military comrade, who had +marked a paragraph. It was one of those journals, now barely credible, +dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials raised +sewer-lamps, and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering hideously. Thousands +detested it, and fattened their crops on it. Domesticated beasts of +superior habits to the common will indulge themselves with a luxurious +roll in carrion, for a revival of their original instincts. Society was +largely a purchaser. The ghastly thing was dreaded as a scourge, hailed +as a refreshment, nourished as a parasite. It professed undaunted +honesty, and operated in the fashion of the worms bred of decay. Success +was its boasted justification. The animal world, when not rigorously +watched, will always crown with success the machine supplying its +appetites. The old dog-world took signal from it. The one-legged devil- +god waved his wooden hoof, and the creatures in view, the hunt was +uproarious. Why should we seem better than we are? down with hypocrisy, +cried the censor morum, spicing the lamentable derelictions of this and +that great person, male and female. The plea of corruption of blood in +the world, to excuse the public chafing of a grievous itch, is not less +old than sin; and it offers a merry day of frisky truant running to the +animal made unashamed by another and another stripped, branded, and +stretched flat. Sir Lukin read of Mr. and Mrs. W. and a distinguished +Peer of the realm. The paragraph was brief; it had a flavour. Promise +of more to come, pricked curiosity. He read it enraged, feeling for his +wife; and again indignant, feeling for Diana. His third reading found +him out: he felt for both, but as a member of the whispering world, much +behind the scenes, he had a longing for the promised insinuations, just +to know what they could say, or dared say. The paper was not shown to +Lady Dunstane. A run to London put him in the tide of the broken dam of +gossip. The names were openly spoken and swept from mouth to mouth of +the scandalmongers, gathering matter as they flew. He knocked at Diana's +door, where he was informed that the mistress of the house was absent. +More than official gravity accompanied the announcement. Her address was +unknown. Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his wife. He began with +a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind for bad news. +She divined immediately that it concerned Diana, and forcing him to speak +to the point, she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence. It +stopped her heart. + +The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion to +recollection. Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and +asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say. Under +compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come +because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he +thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity. +But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at +the bright star and drowned it. + +The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in Emma's belief as the +cause of Mr. Warwick's unpardonable suspicions and cruelty. Arguing from +her own sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet health +to her frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish innocence +in Diana's conduct, and she recalled her looks, her words, every fleeting +gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the noble statesman's admiration of +her, for the confusion of her unmanly and unworthy husband. And Emma was +nevertheless a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her +thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on erratic +tracks. All night her heart went at fever pace. She brought the +repentant husband to his knees, and then doubted, strongly doubted, +whether she would, whether in consideration for her friend she could, +intercede with Diana to forgive him. In the morning she slept heavily. +Sir Lukin had gone to London early for further tidings. She awoke about +midday, and found a letter on her pillow. It was Diana's. Then while +her fingers eagerly tore it open, her heart, the champion rider over- +night, sank. It needed support of facts, and feared them: not in +distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but because the very bravest of +hearts is of its nature a shivering defender, sensitive in the presence +of any hostile array, much craving for material support, until the mind +and spirit displace it, depute it to second them instead of leading. + +She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the dreadful and the +comforting, and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment, hugged it, though +conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console. + +The close of the letter struck the blow. After bluntly stating that Mr. +Warwick had served her with a process, and that he had no case without +suborning witnesses, Diana said: 'But I leave the case, and him, to the +world. Ireland, or else America, it is a guiltless kind of suicide to +bury myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can own to +you; and ask you to kiss me--and kiss me when you have heard all the +evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me. You know me too well to +think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips. But I cannot face the +world. In the dock, yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle, +on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I cannot +do that. I see myself wearing a false grin--your Tony! No, I do well to +go. This is my resolution; and in consequence,--my beloved! my only +truly loved on earth! I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely +should. Nor would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best +of reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma. +I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there +I do no harm. I know I am right. I have questioned myself--it is not +cowardice. I do not quail. I abhor the part of actress. I should do it +well--too well; destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good name +before such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and self- +quenching;--cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. But that would be +sleep, and I feel the powers of life. Never have I felt them so +mightily. If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would +stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them. I have my +natural weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have also more +knowledge of men and the secret contempt--it must be--the best of them +entertain for us. Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them. But they have +been at a wicked school. + +'I will write. From whatever place, you shall have letters, and +constant. I write no more now. In my present mood I find no alternative +between rageing and drivelling. I am henceforth dead to the world. +Never dead to Emma till my breath is gone--poor flame! I blow at a bed- +room candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I am-- +though not even serving to write such a tangled scrawl as this. I am of +no mortal service. In two days I shall be out of England. Within a week +you shall hear where. I long for your heart on mine, your dear eyes. +You have faith in me, and I fly from you!--I must be mad. Yet I feel +calmly reasonable. I know that this is the thing to do. Some years +hence a grey woman may return, to hear of a butterfly Diana, that had her +day and disappeared. Better than a mewing and courtseying simulacrum of +the woman--I drivel again. Adieu. I suppose I am not liable to capture +and imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to appear. I have +left London. This letter and I quit the scene by different routes--I +would they were one. My beloved! I have an ache--I think I am wronging +you. I am not mistress of myself, and do as something within me, wiser, +than I, dictates.--You will write kindly. Write your whole heart. It is +not compassion I want, I want you. I can bear stripes from you. Let me +hear Emma's voice--the true voice. This running away merits your +reproaches. It will look like--. I have more to confess: the tigress in +me wishes it were! I should then have a reckless passion to fold me +about, and the glory infernal, if you name it so, and so it would be-- +of suffering for and with some one else. As it is, I am utterly +solitary, sustained neither from above nor below, except within myself, +and that is all fire and smoke, like their new engines.--I kiss this +miserable sheet of paper. Yes, I judge that I have run off a line--and +what a line! which hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow +until they feel the transgression in wreck. How immensely nature seems +to prefer men to women!--But this paper is happier than the writer. + + 'Your TONY.' + +That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had often talked of the +possibility of a classic friendship between women, the alliance of a +mutual devotedness men choose to doubt of. She caught herself accusing +Tony of the lapse from friendship. Hither should the true friend have +flown unerringly. + +The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. She reperused it, +perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. Warwick! She heard that cry- +fatal! But she had no means of putting a hand on her. 'Your Tony.' The +coldness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not coming to +her friend for counsel and love was a positive weight in the indifferent +scale. She read the letter backwards, and by snatches here and there; +many perusals and hours passed before the scattered creature exhibited in +its pages came to her out of the flying threads of the web as her living +Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to defend gainst the world. +By that time the fog had lifted; she saw the sky on the borders of milky +cloudfolds. Her invalid's chill sensitiveness conceived a sympathy in +the baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the drawing-room she gained +strength of meditative vision, weak though she was to help, through +ceasing to brood on her wound and herself. She cast herself into her +dear Tony's feelings; and thus it came, that she imagined Tony would +visit The Crossways, where she kept souvenirs of her father, his cane, +and his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him hanging above it, +before leaving England forever. The fancy sprang to certainty; every +speculation confirmed it. + +Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The Crossways +at once. The West wind blew, and gave her a view of the Downs beyond the +Weald from her southern window. She thought it even possible to drive +there and reach the place, on the chance of her vivid suggestion, some +time after nightfall; but a walk across the room to try her forces was +too convincing of her inability. She walked with an ebony silver-mounted +stick, a present from Mr. Redworth. She was leaning on it when the card +of Thomas Redworth was handed to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN LEARN TO +RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + +'You see, you are my crutch,' Lady Dunstane said to him,--raising the +stick in reminder of the present. + +He offered his arm and hurriedly informed her, to dispose of dull +personal matter, that he had just landed. She looked at the clock. +'Lukin is in town. You know the song: "Alas, I scarce can go or creep +While Lukin is away." I do not doubt you have succeeded in your business +over there. Ah! Now I suppose you have confidence in your success. +I should have predicted it, had you come to me.' She stood, either +musing or in weakness, and said abruptly: 'Will you object to lunching at +one o'clock?' + +'The sooner the better,' said Redworth. She had sighed: her voice +betrayed some agitation, strange in so serenely-minded a person. + +His partial acquaintance with the Herculean Sir Lukin's reputation in +town inspired a fear of his being about to receive admission to the +distressful confidences of the wife, and he asked if Mrs. Warwick was +well. The answer sounded ominous, with its accompaniment of evident +pain: 'I think her health is good.' + +Had they quarrelled? He said he had not heard a word of Mrs. Warwick for +several months. + +'I--heard from her this morning,' said Lady Dunstane, and motioned him to +a chair beside the sofa, where she half reclined, closing her eyes. The +sight of tears on the eyelashes frightened him. She roused herself to +look at the clock. 'Providence or accident, you are here,' she said. +'I could not have prayed for the coming of a truer' man. Mrs. Warwick is +in great danger . . . . You know our love. She is the best of me, +heart and soul. Her husband has chosen to act on vile suspicions-- +baseless, I could hold my hand in the fire and swear. She has enemies, +or the jealous fury is on the man--I know little of him. He has +commenced an action against her. He will rue it. But she . . . you +understand this of women at least;--they are not cowards in all things! +--but the horror of facing a public scandal: my poor girl writes of the +hatefulness of having to act the complacent--put on her accustomed self! +She would have to go about, a mark for the talkers, and behave as if +nothing were in the air-full of darts! Oh, that general whisper!--it +makes a coup de massue--a gale to sink the bravest vessel: and a woman +must preserve her smoothest front; chat, smile--or else!--Well, she +shrinks from it. I should too. She is leaving the country.' + +'Wrong!' cried Redworth. + +'Wrong indeed. She writes, that in two days she will be out of it. +Judge her as I do, though you are a man, I pray. You have seen the +hunted hare. It is our education--we have something of the hare in us +when the hounds are full cry. Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to +run. "By this, poor Wat far off upon a hill." Shakespeare would have +the divine comprehension. I have thought all round it and come back to +him. She is one of Shakespeare's women: another character, but one of +his own:--another Hermione! I dream of him--seeing her with that eye of +steady flame. The bravest and best of us at bay in the world need an eye +like his, to read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies.' + +Insensibly Redworth blinked. His consciousness of an exalted compassion +for the lady was heated by these flights of advocacy to feel that he was +almost seated beside the sovereign poet thus eulogized, and he was of a +modest nature. + +'But you are practical,' pursued Lady Dunstane, observing signs that she +took for impatience. 'You are thinking of what can be done. If Lukin +were here I would send him to The Crossways without a moment's delay, on +the chance, the mere chance:--it shines to me! If I were only a little +stronger! I fear I might break down, and it would be unfair to my +husband. He has trouble enough with my premature infirmities already. +I am certain she will go to The Crossways. Tony is one of the women who +burn to give last kisses to things they love. And she has her little +treasures hoarded there. She was born there. Her father died there. +She is three parts Irish--superstitious in affection. I know her so +well. At this moment I see her there. If not, she has grown unlike +herself.' + +'Have you a stout horse in the stables?' Redworth asked. + +'You remember the mare Bertha; you have ridden her.' + +'The mare would do, and better than a dozen horses.' He consulted his +watch. 'Let me mount Bertha, I engage to deliver a letter at The +Crossways to-night.' + +Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she +sought, but said: 'Will you find your way?' + +He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise. 'She has often +pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies, about three +miles from the Downs, near a village named Storling, on the road to +Brasted. + +The house has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of river-- +rare for Sussex--to the right. An old straggling red brick house at +Crossways, a stone's throw from a fingerpost on a square of green: roads +to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddlehurst. I shall find it. Write what +you have to say, my lady, and confide it to me. She shall have it to- +night, if she's where you suppose. I 'll go, with your permission, and +take a look at the mare. Sussex roads are heavy in this damp weather, +and the frost coming on won't improve them for a tired beast. We haven't +our rails laid down there yet.' + +'You make me admit some virtues in the practical,' said Lady Dunstane; +and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of +his passion for Diana, it would have touched her far less than his exact +memory of Diana's description of her loved birthplace. + +She wrote: + + 'I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you. I see my ship + making for the rocks. You break your Emma's heart. It will be the + second wrong step. I shall not survive it. The threat has made me + incapable of rushing to you, as I might have had strength to do + yesterday. I am shattered, and I wait panting for Mr. Redworth's + return with you. He has called, by accident, as we say. Trust to + him. If ever heaven was active to avert a fatal mischance it is to- + day. You will not stand against my supplication. It is my life I + cry for. I have no more time. He starts. He leaves me to pray-- + like the mother seeing her child on the edge of the cliff. Come. + This is your breast, my Tony? And your soul warns you it is right + to come. Do rightly. Scorn other counsel--the coward's. Come with + our friend--the one man known to me who can be a friend of women. + + 'Your EMMA.' + +Redworth was in the room. 'The mare 'll do it well,' he said. 'She has +had her feed, and in five minutes will be saddled at the door.' + +'But you must eat, dear friend,' said the hostess. + +'I'll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way. There seems a chance, +and the time for lunching may miss it.' + +'You understand . . . ?' + +'Everything, I fancy.' + +'If she is there!' + +'One break in the run will turn her back.' + +The sensitive invalid felt a blow in his following up the simile of the +hunted hare for her friend, but it had a promise of hopefulness. And +this was all that could be done by earthly agents, under direction of +spiritual, as her imagination encouraged her to believe. + +She saw him start, after fortifying him with a tumbler of choice +Bordeaux, thinking how Tony would have said she was like a lady arming +her knight for battle. On the back of the mare he passed her window, +after lifting his hat, and he thumped at his breast-pocket, to show her +where the letter housed safely. The packet of provision bulged on his +hip, absurdly and blessedly to her sight, not unlike the man, in his +combination of robust serviceable qualities, as she reflected during the +later hours, until the sun fell on smouldering November woods, and +sensations of the frost he foretold bade her remember that he had gone +forth riding like a huntsman. His great-coat lay on a chair in the hall, +and his travelling-bag was beside it. He had carried it up from the +valley, expecting hospitality, and she had sent him forth half naked to +weather a frosty November night! She called in the groom, whose derision +of a great-coat for any gentleman upon Bertha, meaning work for the mare, +appeased her remorsefulness. Brisby, the groom, reckoned how long the +mare would take to do the distance to Storling, with a rider like Mr. +Redworth on her back. By seven, Brisby calculated, Mr. Redworth would be +knocking at the door of the Three Ravens Inn, at Storling, when the mare +would have a decent grooming, and Mr. Redworth was not the gentleman to +let her be fed out of his eye. More than that, Brisby had some +acquaintance with the people of the inn. He begged to inform her +ladyship that he was half a Sussex man, though not exactly born in the +county; his parents had removed to Sussex after the great event; and the +Downs were his first field of horse-exercise, and no place in the world +was like them, fair weather or foul, Summer or Winter, and snow ten feet +deep in the gullies. The grandest air in England, he had heard say. + +His mistress kept him to the discourse, for the comfort of hearing hard +bald matter-of-fact; and she was amused and rebuked by his assumption +that she must be entertaining an anxiety about master's favourite mare. +But, ah! that Diana had delayed in choosing a mate; had avoided her +disastrous union with perhaps a more imposing man, to see the true beauty +of masculine character in Mr. Redworth, as he showed himself to-day. How +could he have doubted succeeding? One grain more of faith in his energy, +and Diana might have been mated to the right husband for her--an open- +minded clear-faced English gentleman. Her speculative ethereal mind +clung to bald matter-of-fact to-day. She would have vowed that it was +the sole potentially heroical. Even Brisby partook of the reflected +rays, and he was very benevolently considered by her. She dismissed him +only when his recounting of the stages of Bertha's journey began to +fatigue her and deaden the medical efficacy of him and his like. +Stretched on the sofa, she watched the early sinking sun in South-western +cloud, and the changes from saffron to intensest crimson, the crown of a +November evening, and one of frost. + + +Redworth struck on a southward line from chalk-ridge to sand, where he +had a pleasant footing in familiar country, under beeches that browned +the ways, along beside a meadowbrook fed by the heights, through pines +and across deep sand-ruts to full view of weald and Downs. Diana had +been with him here in her maiden days. The coloured back of a coach put +an end to that dream. He lightened his pocket, surveying the land as he +munched. A favourable land for rails: and she had looked over it: and he +was now becoming a wealthy man: and she was a married woman straining the +leash. His errand would not bear examination, it seemed such a desperate +long shot. He shut his inner vision on it, and pricked forward. When +the burning sunset shot waves above the juniper and yews behind him, he +was far on the weald, trotting down an interminable road. That the +people opposing railways were not people of business, was his reflection, +and it returned persistently: for practical men, even the most devoted +among them, will think for themselves; their army, which is the rational, +calls them to its banners, in opposition to the sentimental; and Redworth +joined it in the abstract, summoning the horrible state of the roads to +testify against an enemy wanting almost in common humaneness. A slip of +his excellent stepper in one of the half-frozen pits of the highway was +the principal cause of his confusion of logic; she was half on her knees. +Beyond the market town the roads were so bad that he quitted them, and +with the indifference of an engineer, struck a line of his own +Southeastward over fields and ditches, favoured by a round horizon moon +on his left. So for a couple of hours he went ahead over rolling fallow +land to the meadow-flats and a pale shining of freshets; then hit on a +lane skirting the water, and reached an amphibious village; five miles +from Storling, he was informed, and a clear traverse of lanes, not to be +mistaken, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' The sharpness of his eyes was +divided between the sword-belt of the starry Hunter and the shifting +lanes that zig-tagged his course below. The Downs were softly illumined; +still it amazed him to think of a woman like Diana Warwick having an +attachment to this district, so hard of yield, mucky, featureless, fit +but for the rails she sided with her friend in detesting. Reasonable +women, too! The moon, stood high on her march as he entered Storling. +He led his good beast to the stables of The Three Ravens, thanking her +and caressing her. The ostler conjectured from the look of the mare that +he had been out with the hounds and lost his way. It appeared to +Redworth singularly, that near the ending of a wild goose chase, his +plight was pretty well described by the fellow. However, he had to knock +at the door of The Crossways now, in the silent night time, a certainly +empty house, to his fancy. He fed on a snack of cold meat and tea, +standing, and set forth, clearly directed, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' +Hitherto he had proved his capacity, and he rather smiled at the +repetition of the formula to him, of all men. A turning to the right +was taken, one to the left, and through the churchyard, out of the gate, +round to the right, and on. By this route, after an hour, he found +himself passing beneath the bare chestnuts of the churchyard wall of +Storling, and the sparkle of the edges of the dead chestnut-leaves at +his feet reminded him of the very ideas he had entertained when treading +them. The loss of an hour strung him to pursue the chase in earnest, +and he had a beating of the heart as he thought that it might be serious. +He recollected thinking it so at Copsley. The long ride, and nightfall, +with nothing in view, had obscured his mind to the possible behind the +thick obstruction of the probable; again the possible waved its marsh- +light. To help in saving her from a fatal step, supposing a dozen +combinations of the conditional mood, became his fixed object, since here +he was--of that there was no doubt; and he was not here to play the fool, +though the errand were foolish. He entered the churchyard, crossed the +shadow of the tower, and hastened along the path, fancying he beheld a +couple of figures vanishing before him. He shouted; he hoped to obtain +directions from these natives: the moon was bright, the gravestones +legible; but no answer came back, and the place appeared to belong +entirely to the dead. 'I've frightened them,' he thought. They left a +queerish sensation in his frame. A ride down to Sussex to see ghosts +would be an odd experience; but an undigested dinner of tea is the very +grandmother of ghosts; and he accused it of confusing him, sight and +mind. Out of the gate, now for the turning to the right, and on. He +turned. He must have previously turned wrongly somewhere--and where? +A light in a cottage invited him to apply for the needed directions. +The door was opened by a woman, who had never heard tell of The +Crossways, nor had her husband, nor any of the children crowding round +them. A voice within ejaculated: 'Crassways!' and soon upon the grating +of a chair, an old man, whom the woman named her lodger, by way of +introduction, presented himself with his hat on, saying: 'I knows the +spot they calls Crassways,' and he led. Redworth understood the +intention that a job was to be made of it, and submitting, said: 'To the +right, I think.' He was bidden to come along, if he wanted 'they +Crassways,' and from the right they turned to the left, and further sharp +round, and on to a turn, where the old man, otherwise incommunicative, +said: 'There, down thik theer road, and a post in the middle.' + +'I want a house, not a post!' roared Redworth, spying a bare space. + +The old man despatched a finger travelling to his nob. 'Naw, there's +ne'er a house. But that's crassways for four roads, if it 's crassways, +you wants.' + +They journeyed backward. They were in such a maze of lanes that the old +man was master, and Redworth vowed to be rid of him at the first cottage. +This, however, they were long in reaching, and the old man was promptly +through the garden-gate, hailing the people and securing 'information, +before Redworth could well hear. He smiled at the dogged astuteness of a +dense-headed old creature determined to establish a claim to his fee. +They struck a lane sharp to the left. + +'You're Sussex?' Redworth asked him, and was answered: 'Naw; the Sheers.' + +Emerging from deliberation, the old man said: 'Ah'm a Hampshireman.' + +'A capital county!' + +'Heigh!' The old man heaved his chest. 'Once!' + +'Why, what has happened to it?' + +'Once it were a capital county, I say. Hah! you asks me what have +happened to it. You take and go and look at it now. And down heer'll be +no better soon, I tells 'em. When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was a +proud country, wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and Harvest +Homes, and Christmas merryings.--Cutting up the land! There's no pride +in livin' theer, nor anywhere, as I sees, now.' + +'You mean the railways.' + +'It's the Devil come up and abroad ower all England!' exclaimed the +melancholy ancient patriot. + +A little cheering was tried on him, but vainly. He saw with unerring +distinctness the triumph of the Foul Potentate, nay his personal +appearance 'in they theer puffin' engines.' The country which had +produced Andrew Hedger, as he stated his name to be, would never show the +same old cricketing commons it did when he was a boy. Old England, he +declared, was done for. + +When Redworth applied to his watch under the brilliant moonbeams, +he discovered that he had been listening to this natural outcry of a +decaying and shunted class full three-quarters of an hour, and The +Crossways was not in sight. He remonstrated. The old man plodded along. +'We must do as we're directed,' he said. + +Further walking brought them to a turn. Any turn seemed hopeful. +Another turn offered the welcome sight of a blazing doorway on a rise of +ground off the road. Approaching it, the old man requested him to 'bide +a bit,' and stalked the ascent at long strides. A vigorous old fellow. +Redworth waited below, observing how he joined the group at the lighted +door, and, as it was apparent, put his question of the whereabout of The +Crossways. Finally, in extreme impatience, he walked up to the group of +spectators. They were all, and Andrew Hedger among them, the most +entranced and profoundly reverent, observing the dissection of a pig. + +Unable to awaken his hearing, Redworth jogged his arm, and the shake was +ineffective until it grew in force. + +'I've no time to lose; have they told you the way?' + +Andrew Hedger yielded his arm. He slowly withdrew his intent fond gaze +from the fair outstretched white carcase, and with drooping eyelids, he +said: 'Ah could eat hog a solid hower!' + +He had forgotten to ask the way, intoxicated by the aspect of the pig; +and when he did ask it, he was hard of understanding, given wholly to his +last glimpses. + +Redworth got the directions. He would have dismissed Mr. Andrew Hedger, +but there was no doing so. 'I'll show ye on to The Crossways House,' the +latter said, implying that he had already earned something by showing him +The Crossways post. + +'Hog's my feed,' said Andrew Hedger. The gastric springs of eloquence +moved him to discourse, and he unburdened himself between succulent +pauses. 'They've killed him early. He 's fat; and he might ha' been +fatter. But he's fat. They've got their Christmas ready, that they +have. Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and--the sausages hung up +to and along the beams. That's a crown for any dwellin'! They runs 'em +round the top of the room--it's like a May-day wreath in old times. +Home-fed hog! They've a treat in store, they have. And snap your +fingers at the world for many a long day. And the hams! They cure their +own hams at that house. Old style! That's what I say of a hog. He's +good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow. Everybody knows it +and owns it.' + +Redworth was getting tired. In sympathy with current conversation, he +said a word for the railways: they would certainly make the flesh of +swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams into the market. But Andrew Hedger +remarked with contempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams: +nobody, knew what they fed on. Hog, he said, would feed on anything, +where there was no choice they had wonderful stomachs for food. Only, +when they had a choice, they left the worst for last, and home-fed filled +them with stuff to make good meat and fat 'what we calls prime bacon.' +As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let him dilate +on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour, which +roused some distant classic recollection:--an odd jumble. + +They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream. + +'Now ye have it,' said the hog-worshipper; 'that may be the house, I +reckon.' + +A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining in spires +through a mound of firs, met Redworth's gaze. The windows all were +blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys. He noted the dusky square of +green, and the finger-post signalling the centre of the four roads. +Andrew Hedger repeated that it was The Crossways house, ne'er a doubt. +Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, shouldering off, +wished him a hearty good night, and forthwith departed at high pedestrian +pace, manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved anatomy. + +There stood the house. Absolutely empty! thought Redworth. The sound +of the gate-bell he rang was like an echo to him. The gate was unlocked. +He felt a return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the +garden-path, in the shadow of the house. Here she was born: here her +father died: and this was the station of her dreams, as a girl at school +near London and in Paris. Her heart was here. He looked at the windows +facing the Downs with dead eyes. The vivid idea of her was a phantom +presence, and cold, assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent. Had +Lady Dunstane guessed rightly, he might perhaps have been of service! + +Anticipating the blank silence, he rang the house-bell. It seemed to set +wagging a weariful tongue in a corpse. The bell did its duty to the last +note, and one thin revival stroke, for a finish, as in days when it +responded livingly to the guest. He pulled, and had the reply, just +the same, with the faint terminal touch, resembling exactly a 'There!' +at the close of a voluble delivery in the negative. Absolutely empty. +He pulled and pulled. The bell wagged, wagged. This had been a house of +a witty host, a merry girl, junketting guests; a house of hilarious +thunders, lightnings of fun and fancy. Death never seemed more voiceful +than in that wagging of the bell. + +For conscience' sake, as became a trusty emissary, he walked round to the +back of the house, to verify the total emptiness. His apprehensive +despondency had said that it was absolutely empty, but upon consideration +he supposed the house must have some guardian: likely enough, an old +gardener and his wife, lost in deafness double-shotted by sleep! There +was no sign of them. The night air waxed sensibly crisper. He thumped +the backdoors. Blank hollowness retorted on the blow. He banged and +kicked. The violent altercation with wood and wall lasted several +minutes, ending as it had begun. + +Flesh may worry, but is sure to be worsted in such an argument. + +'Well, my dear lady !'--Redworth addressed Lady Dunstane aloud, while +driving his hands into his pockets for warmth--'we've done what we could. +The next best thing is to go to bed and see what morning brings us.' + +The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamy-witted women +from the point of view of the practical man, was aided by the intense +frigidity of the atmosphere in leading him to criticize a sex not much +used to the exercise of brains. 'And they hate railways!' He associated +them, in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and Company. +They sank to the level of the temperature in his esteem--as regarded +their intellects. He approved their warmth of heart. The nipping of +the victim's toes and finger-tips testified powerfully to that. + +Round to the front of the house at a trot, he stood in moonlight. Then, +for involuntarily he now did everything running, with a dash up the steps +he seized the sullen pendant bell-handle, and worked it pumpwise, till he +perceived a smaller bell-knob beside the door, at which he worked piston- +wise. Pump and piston, the hurly-burly and the tinkler created an alarm +to scare cat and mouse and Cardinal spider, all that run or weave in +desolate houses, with the good result of a certain degree of heat to his +frame. He ceased, panting. No stir within, nor light. That white stare +of windows at the moon was undisturbed. + +The Downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy grey silk. No wonder that she +had loved to look on them! + +And it was no wonder that Andrew Hedger enjoyed prime bacon. Bacon +frizzling, fat rashers of real homefed on the fire-none of your foreign- +suggested a genial refreshment and resistance to antagonistic elements. +Nor was it, granting health, granting a sharp night--the temperature at +least fifteen below zero--an excessive boast for a man to say he could go +on eating for a solid hour. + +These were notions darting through a half nourished gentleman nipped +in the frame by a severely frosty night. Truly a most beautiful night! +She would have delighted to see it here. The Downs were like floating +islands, like fairy-laden vapours; solid, as Andrew Hedger's hour of +eating; visionary, as too often his desire! + +Redworth muttered to himself, after taking the picture of the house and +surrounding country from the sward, that he thought it about the sharpest +night he had ever encountered in England. He was cold, hungry, +dispirited, and astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any +of his thoughts from old Andrew Hedger. Nature was at her pranks upon +him. + +He left the garden briskly, as to the legs, and reluctantly. He would +have liked to know whether Diana had recently visited the house, or was +expected. It could be learnt in the morning; but his mission was urgent +and he on the wings of it. He was vexed and saddened. + +Scarcely had he closed the garden-gate when the noise of an opening +window arrested him, and he called. The answer was in a feminine voice, +youngish, not disagreeable, though not Diana's. + +He heard none of the words, but rejoined in a bawl: 'Mrs. Warwick!--Mr. +Redworth!' + +That was loud enough for the deaf or the dead. + +The window closed. He went to the door and waited. It swung wide to +him; and O marvel of a woman's divination of a woman! there stood Diana. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power +At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we can have +Beauty is rare; luckily is it rare +Between love grown old and indifference ageing to love +But they were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly +Charitable mercifulness; better than sentimental ointment +Dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle +Dreaded as a scourge, hailed as a refreshment (Scandalsheet) +Elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors +Favour can't help coming by rotation +Flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner +For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too +Get back what we give +Goodish sort of fellow; good horseman, good shot, good character +Grossly unlike in likeness (portraits) +He had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration +He had neat phrases, opinions in packets +He was not a weaver of phrases in distress +He's good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow (a hog) +Her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty +Herself, content to be dull if he might shine +His gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given +How immensely nature seems to prefer men to women! +Human nature to feel an interest in the dog that has bitten you +I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet +Idea is the only vital breath +If I'm struck, I strike back +Inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she sought +Lengthened term of peace bred maggots in the heads of the people +Loathing for speculation +Mare would do, and better than a dozen horses +Matter that is not nourishing to brains +Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers +Needed support of facts, and feared them +O self! self! self! +Or where you will, so that's in Ireland +Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to run +Perused it, and did not recognize herself in her language +Pride in being always myself +Procrastination and excessive scrupulousness +Read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies +Service of watering the dry and drying the damp (Whiskey) +She had a fatal attraction for antiques +She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling +Smart remarks have their measured distances +Something of the hare in us when the hounds are full cry +Swell and illuminate citizen prose to a princely poetic +That is life--when we dare death to live! +That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial +The burlesque Irishman can't be caricatured +The well of true wit is truth itself +They create by stoppage a volcano +This love they rattle about and rave about +Tooth that received a stone when it expected candy +We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited +Weather and women have some resemblance they say +What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature +Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank +You are entreated to repress alarm +You beat me with the fists, but my spirit is towering + + + + +[The End] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4465 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: Diana of the Crossways, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4465] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Diana of the Crossways, v1, by Meredith +*********This file should be named 4465.txt or 4465.zip********* + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK 1. +I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE +II. AN IRISH BALL +III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN + SMITH +IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO +V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE . +VI. THE COUPLE +VII. THE CRISIS +VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN + LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + +BOOK 2. +IX. SHOWS HOW A POSITION OF DELICACY FOR A LADY AND GENTLEMAN WAS + MET IN SIMPLE FASHION WITHOUT HURT TO EITHER. +X. THE CONFLICT OF THE NIGHT +XI. RECOUNTS THE JOURNEY IN A CHARIOT, WITH A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF + DIALOGUE, AND A SMALL INCIDENT ON THE ROAD +XII. BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA +XIII. TOUCHING THE FIRST DAYS OF HER PROBATION +XIV. GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD AND + OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP +XV. INTRODUCES THE HON. PERCY DACIER +XVI. TREATS OF A MIDNIGHT BELL, AND OF A SCENE OF EARLY MORNING +XVII. THE PRINCESS EGERIA + +BOOK 3. +XVIII. THE AUTHORESS +XIX. A DRIVE IN SUNLIGHT AND A DRIVE IN MOONLIGHT +XX. DIANA'S NIGHT-WATCH IN THE CHAMBER OF DEATH +XXI. THE YOUNG MINISTER OF STATE +XXII. BETWEEN DIANA AND DACIER : THE WIND EAST OVER BLEAK LAND +XXIII. RECORDS A VISIT TO DIANA FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S GOOD WOMEN +XXIV. INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION +XXV. ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS +XXVI. IN WHICH A DISAPPOINTED LOVER RECEIVES A MULTITUDE OF LESSONS + + +BOOK 5. +XXXVI. IS CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE HEARTLESSNESS OF WOMEN WITH BRAINS +XXXVII. AN EXHIBITION OF SOME CHAMPIONS OF THE STRICKEN LADY +XXXVIII. CONVALESCENCE OF A HEALTHY MIND DISTRAUGHT +XXXIX. OF NATURE WITH ONE OF HER CULTIVATED DAUGHTERS AND A SHORT + EXCURSION IN ANTI-CLIMAX +XL. IN WHICH WE SEE NATURE MAKING OF A WOMAN A MAID AGAIN, AND A + THRICE WHIMSICAL +XLI. CONTAINS A REVELATION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TIGRESS IN DIANA +XLII. THE PENULTIMATE : SHOWING A FINAL STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY AND RUN + INTO HARNESS +XLIII. NUPTIAL CHAPTER: AND OF HOW A BARELY WILLING WOMAN WAS LED TO + BLOOM WITH NUPTIAL SENTIMENT + + + + + + A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty, + the daughter of an illustrious Irish House, + came under the shadow of a calumny. It has + latterly been examined and exposed as baseless. + The story of Diana of the Crossways is to be read + as fiction. + + + + +DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + +BOOK 1. + +I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE +II. AN IRISH BALL +III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN + SMITH +IV. CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO +V. CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE +VI. THE COUPLE +VII. THE CRISIS +VIII. IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN + LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + + + +CHAPTER I + +OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE + +Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century, there +is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her beauty and her +wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables of one of the +writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony when speaking of +her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may +deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the stone of an +urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must look some day +to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and indeed full surely +will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper season; be heard +complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he +knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly marked to get back +what we give, even from the thing named inanimate nature. + +The 'LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS' are studded with examples of +the dinner-table wit of the time, not always worth quotation twice; for +smart remarks have their measured distances, many requiring to be a brule +pourpoint, or within throw of the pistol, to make it hit; in other words, +the majority of them are addressed directly to our muscular system, and +they have no effect when we stand beyond the range. On the contrary, +they reflect sombrely on the springs of hilarity in the generation +preceding us; with due reserve of credit, of course, to an animal +vivaciousness that seems to have wanted so small an incitement. Our old +yeomanry farmers--returning to their beds over ferny commons under bright +moonlight from a neighbour's harvest-home, eased their bubbling breasts +with a ready roar not unakin to it. Still the promptness to laugh is an +excellent progenitorial foundation for the wit to come in a people; and +undoubtedly the diarial record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to +the spouting of laughter. This should comfort us while we skim the +sparkling passages of the 'Leaves.' When a nation has acknowledged that +it is as yet but in the fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our +purest sense to golden sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended +to the gift: which is to strike not the dazzled eyes, the unanticipating +nose, the ribs, the sides, and stun us, twirl us, hoodwink, mystify, +tickle and twitch, by dexterities of lingual sparring and shuffling, but +to strike roots in the mind, the Hesperides of good things. We shall +then set a price on the 'unusual combination.' A witty woman is a +treasure; a witty Beauty is a power. Has she actual beauty, actual wit? +--not simply a tidal material beauty that passes current any pretty +flippancy or staggering pretentiousness? Grant. the combination, she +will appear a veritable queen of her period, fit for homage; at least +meriting a disposition to believe the best of her, in the teeth of foul +rumour; because the well of true wit is truth itself, the gathering of +the precious drops of right reason, wisdom's lightning; and no soul +possessing and dispensing it can justly be a target for the world, +however well armed the world confronting her. Our temporary world, that +Old Credulity and stone-hurling urchin in one, supposes it possible for a +woman to be mentally active up to the point of spiritual clarity and also +fleshly vile; a guide to life and a biter at the fruits of death; both +open mind and hypocrite. It has not yet been taught to appreciate a +quality certifying to sound citizenship as authoritatively as acres of +land in fee simple, or coffers of bonds, shares and stocks, and a more +imperishable guarantee. The multitudes of evil reports which it takes +for proof, are marshalled against her without question of the nature of +the victim, her temptress beauty being a sufficiently presumptive +delinquent. It does not pretend to know the whole, or naked body of the +facts; it knows enough for its furry dubiousness; and excepting the +sentimental of men, a rocket-headed horde, ever at the heels of fair +faces for ignition, and up starring away at a hint of tearfulness; +excepting further by chance a solid champion man, or some generous woman +capable of faith in the pelted solitary of her sex, our temporary world +blows direct East on her shivering person. The scandal is warrant for +that; the circumstances of the scandal emphasize the warrant. And how +clever she is! Cleverness is an attribute of the selecter missionary +lieutenants of Satan. We pray to be defended from her cleverness: she +flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner. The +wary stuff their ears, the stolid bid her best sayings rebound on her +reputation. Nevertheless the world, as Christian, remembers its +professions, and a portion of it joins the burly in morals by extending +to her a rough old charitable mercifulness; better than sentimental +ointment, but the heaviest blow she has to bear, to a character swimming +for life. + +That the lady in question was much quoted, the Diaries and Memoirs +testify. Hearsay as well as hearing was at work to produce the +abundance; and it was a novelty in England, where (in company) the men +are the pointed talkers, and the women conversationally fair Circassians. +They are, or they know that they should be; it comes to the same. +Happily our civilization has not prescribed the veil to them. The mutes +have here and there a sketch or label attached to their names: they are +'strikingly handsome'; they are 'very good-looking'; occasionally they +are noted as 'extremely entertaining': in what manner, is inquired by a +curious posterity, that in so many matters is left unendingly to jump the +empty and gaping figure of interrogation over its own full stop. Great +ladies must they be, at the web of politics, for us to hear them cited +discoursing. Henry Wilmers is not content to quote the beautiful Mrs. +Warwick, he attempts a portrait. Mrs. Warwick is 'quite Grecian.' She +might 'pose for a statue.' He presents her in carpenter's lines, with a +dab of school-box colours, effective to those whom the Keepsake fashion +can stir. She has a straight nose, red lips, raven hair, black eyes, +rich complexion, a remarkably fine bust, and she walks well, and has an +agreeable voice; likewise 'delicate extremities.' The writer was created +for popularity, had he chosen to bring his art into our literary market. + +Perry Wilkinson is not so elaborate: he describes her in his +'Recollections' as a splendid brune, eclipsing all the blondes coming +near her: and 'what is more, the beautiful creature can talk.' He +wondered, for she was young, new to society. Subsequently he is rather +ashamed of his wonderment, and accounts for it by 'not having known she +was Irish.' She 'turns out to be Dan Merion's daughter.' + +We may assume that he would have heard if she had any whiff of a brogue. +Her sounding of the letter R a trifle scrupulously is noticed by Lady +Pennon: 'And last, not least, the lovely Mrs. Warwick, twenty minutes +behind the dinner-hour, and r-r-really fearing she was late.' + +After alluding to the soft influence of her beauty and ingenuousness on +the vexed hostess, the kindly old marchioness adds, that it was no wonder +she was late, 'for just before starting from home she had broken loose +from her husband for good, and she entered the room absolutely +houseless!' She was not the less 'astonishingly brilliant.' Her +observations were often 'so unexpectedly droll I laughed till I cried.' +Lady Pennon became in consequence one of the stanch supporters of Mrs. +Warwick. + +Others were not so easily won. Perry Wilkinson holds a balance when it +goes beyond a question of her wit and beauty. Henry Wilmers puts the +case aside, and takes her as he finds her. His cousin, the clever and +cynical Dorset Wilmers, whose method of conveying his opinions without +stating them was famous, repeats on two occasions when her name appears +in his pages, 'handsome, lively, witty'; and the stressed repetition of +calculated brevity while a fiery scandal was abroad concerning the lady, +implies weighty substance--the reservation of a constable's truncheon, +that could legally have knocked her character down to the pavement. We +have not to ask what he judged. But Dorset Wilmers was a political +opponent of the eminent Peer who yields the second name to the scandal, +and politics in his day flushed the conceptions of men. His short +references to 'that Warwick-Dannisburgh affair' are not verbally +malicious. He gets wind of the terms of Lord Dannisburgh's will and +testament, noting them without comment. The oddness of the instrument +in one respect may have served his turn; we have no grounds for thinking +him malignant. The death of his enemy closes his allusions to Mrs. +Warwick. He was growing ancient, and gout narrowed the circle he whirled +in. Had he known this 'handsome, lively, witty' apparition as a woman +having political and social views of her own, he would not, one fancies, +have been so stingless. Our England exposes a sorry figure in his +Reminiscences. He struck heavily, round and about him, wherever he +moved; he had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration. His +unadorned harsh substantive statements, excluding the adjectives, give +his Memoirs the appearance of a body of facts, attractive to the historic +Muse, which has learnt to esteem those brawny sturdy giants marching club +on shoulder, independent of henchman, in preference to your panoplied +knights with their puffy squires, once her favourites, and wind-filling +to her columns, ultimately found indigestible. + +His exhibition of his enemy Lord Dannisburgh, is of the class of noble +portraits we see swinging over inn-portals, grossly unlike in likeness. +The possibility of the man's doing or saying this and that adumbrates the +improbability: he had something of the character capable of it, too much +good sense for the performance. We would think so, and still the shadow +is round our thoughts. Lord Dannisburgh was a man of ministerial tact, +official ability, Pagan morality; an excellent general manager, if no +genius in statecraft. But he was careless of social opinion, unbuttoned, +and a laugher. We know that he could be chivalrous toward women, +notwithstanding the perplexities he brought on them, and this the Dorset- +Diary does not show. + +His chronicle is less mischievous as regards Mrs. Warwick than the +paragraphs of Perry Wilkinson, a gossip presenting an image of perpetual +chatter, like the waxen-faced street advertizements of light and easy +dentistry. He has no belief, no disbelief; names the pro-party and the +con; recites the case, and discreetly, over-discreetly; and pictures the +trial, tells the list of witnesses, records the verdict: so the case +went, and some thought one thing, some another thing: only it is reported +for positive that a miniature of the incriminated lady was cleverly +smuggled over to the jury, and juries sitting upon these eases, ever +since their bedazzlement by Phryne, as you know . . . . And then he +relates an anecdote of the husband, said to have been not a bad fellow +before he married his Diana; and the naming of the Goddess reminds him +that the second person in the indictment is now everywhere called 'The +elderly shepherd';--but immediately after the bridal bells this husband +became sour and insupportable, and either she had the trick of putting +him publicly in the wrong, or he lost all shame in playing the churlish +domestic tyrant. The instances are incredible of a gentleman. Perry +Wilkinson gives us two or three; one on the authority of a personal +friend who witnessed the scene; at the Warwick whist-table, where the +fair Diana would let loose her silvery laugh in the intervals. She was +hardly out of her teens, and should have been dancing instead of fastened +to a table. A difference of fifteen years in the ages of the wedded pair +accounts poorly for the husband's conduct, however solemn a business the +game of whist. We read that he burst out at last, with bitter mimicry, +'yang--yang--yang!' and killed the bright laugh, shot it dead. She had +outraged the decorum of the square-table only while the cards were +making. Perhaps her too-dead ensuing silence, as of one striving to +bring back the throbs to a slain bird in her bosom, allowed the gap +between the wedded pair to be visible, for it was dated back to prophecy +as soon as the trumpet proclaimed it. + +But a multiplication of similar instances, which can serve no other +purpose than that of an apology, is a miserable vindication of innocence. +The more we have of them the darker the inference. In delicate +situations the chatterer is noxious. Mrs. Warwick had numerous +apologists. Those trusting to her perfect rectitude were rarer. The +liberty she allowed herself in speech and action must have been trying to +her defenders in a land like ours; for here, and able to throw its shadow +on our giddy upper-circle, the rigour of the game of life, relaxed though +it may sometimes appear, would satisfy the staidest whist-player. She +did not wish it the reverse, even when claiming a space for laughter: +'the breath of her soul,' as she called it, and as it may be felt in the +early youth of a lively nature. She, especially, with her multitude of +quick perceptions and imaginative avenues, her rapid summaries, her sense +of the comic, demanded this aerial freedom. + +We have it from Perry Wilkinson that the union of the divergent couple +was likened to another union always in a Court of Law. There was a +distinction; most analogies will furnish one; and here we see England and +Ireland changeing their parts, until later, after the breach, when the +Englishman and Irishwoman resumed a certain resemblance to the yoked +Islands. + +Henry Wilmers, I have said, deals exclusively with the wit and charm of +the woman. He treats the scandal as we might do in like manner if her +story had not to be told. But these are not reporting columns; very +little of it shall trouble them. The position is faced, and that is all. +The position is one of the battles incident to women, their hardest. It +asks for more than justice from men, for generosity, our civilization not +being yet of the purest. That cry of hounds at her disrobing by Law is +instinctive. She runs, and they give tongue; she is a creature of the +chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did +once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her +cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such +positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of +woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork +never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of +holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It is a test of the +civilized to see and hear, and add no yapping to the spectacle. + +Thousands have reflected on a Diarist's power to cancel our Burial +Service. Not alone the cleric's good work is upset by him; but the +sexton's as well. He howks the grave, and transforms the quiet worms, +busy on a single poor peaceable body, into winged serpents that disorder +sky and earth with a deadly flight of zig-zags, like military rockets, +among the living. And if these are given to cry too much, to have their +tender sentiments considered, it cannot be said that History requires the +flaying of them. A gouty Diarist, a sheer gossip Diarist, may thus, +in the bequest of a trail of reminiscences, explode our temples (for our +very temples have powder in store), our treasuries, our homesteads, alive +with dynamitic stuff; nay, disconcert our inherited veneration, dislocate +the intimate connexion between the tugged flaxen forelock and a title. + +No similar blame is incurred by Henry Wilmers. No blame whatever, +one would say, if he had been less, copious, or not so subservient, +in recording the lady's utterances; for though the wit of a woman may be +terse, quite spontaneous, as this lady's assuredly was here and there, +she is apt to spin it out of a museful mind, at her toilette, or by the +lonely fire, and sometimes it is imitative; admirers should beware of +holding it up to the withering glare of print: she herself, quoting an +obscure maximmonger, says of these lapidary sentences, that they have +merely 'the value of chalk-eggs, which lure the thinker to sit,' and +tempt the vacuous to strain for the like, one might add; besides +flattering the world to imagine itself richer than it is in eggs that are +golden. Henry Wilmers notes a multitude of them. 'The talk fell upon +our being creatures of habit, and how far it was good: She said:-- +It is there that we see ourselves crutched between love grown old +and indifference ageing to love.' Critic ears not present at the +conversation catch an echo of maxims and aphorisms overchannel, +notwithstanding a feminine thrill in the irony of 'ageing to love.' +The quotation ranks rather among the testimonies to her charm. + +She is fresher when speaking of the war of the sexes. For one sentence +out of many, though we find it to be but the clever literary clothing of +a common accusation: 'Men may have rounded Seraglio Point: they have not +yet doubled Cape Turk.' + +It is war, and on the male side, Ottoman war: her experience reduced her +to think so positively. Her main personal experience was in the social +class which is primitively venatorial still, canine under its polish. + +She held a brief for her beloved Ireland. She closes a discussion upon +Irish agitation by saying rather neatly: 'You have taught them it is +English as well as common human nature to feel an interest in the dog +that has bitten you.' + +The dog periodically puts on madness to win attention; we gather then +that England, in an angry tremour, tries him with water-gruel to prove +him sane. + +Of the Irish priest (and she was not of his retinue), when he was deemed +a revolutionary, Henry Wilmers notes her saying: 'Be in tune with him; +he is in the key-note for harmony. He is shepherd, doctor, nurse, +comforter, anecdotist and fun-maker to his poor flock; and you wonder +they see the burning gateway of their heaven in him? Conciliate the +priest.' + +It has been partly done, done late, when the poor flock have found their +doctoring and shepherding at other hands: their 'bulb-food and fiddle,' +that she petitioned for, to keep them from a complete shaving off their +patch of bog and scrub soil, without any perception of the tremulous +transatlantic magnification of the fiddle, and the splitting discord of +its latest inspiriting jig. + +And she will not have the consequences of the 'weariful old Irish duel +between Honour and Hunger judged by bread and butter juries.' + +She had need to be beautiful to be tolerable in days when Englishmen +stood more openly for the strong arm to maintain the Union. Her troop +of enemies was of her summoning. + +Ordinarily her topics were of wider range, and those of a woman who mixed +hearing with reading, and observation with her musings. She has no +doleful ejaculatory notes, of the kind peculiar to women at war, +containing one-third of speculative substance to two of sentimental-- +a feminine plea for comprehension and a squire; and it was probably the +reason (as there is no reason to suppose an emotional cause) why she +exercised her evident sway over the mind of so plain and straightforward +an Englishman as Henry Wilmers. She told him that she read rapidly, 'a +great deal at one gulp,' and thought in flashes--a way with the makers of +phrases. She wrote, she confessed, laboriously. The desire to prune, +compress, overcharge, was a torment to the nervous woman writing under a +sharp necessity for payment. Her songs were shot off on the impulsion; +prose was the heavy task. 'To be pointedly rational,' she said, 'is a +greater difficulty for me than a fine delirium.' She did not talk as if +it would have been so, he remarks. One is not astonished at her +appearing an 'actress' to the flat-minded. But the basis of her woman's +nature was pointed flame: In the fulness of her history we perceive +nothing histrionic. Capricious or enthusiastic in her youth, she never +trifled with feeling; and if she did so with some showy phrases and +occasionally proffered commonplaces in gilt, as she was much excited to +do, her moods of reflection were direct, always large and honest, +universal as well as feminine. + +Her saying that 'A woman in the pillory restores the original bark of +brotherhood to mankind,' is no more than a cry of personal anguish. She +has golden apples in her apron. She says of life: 'When I fail to +cherish it in every fibre the fires within are waning,' and that drives +like rain to the roots. She says of the world, generously, if with +tapering idea: 'From the point of vision of the angels, this ugly +monster, only half out of slime, must appear our one constant hero.' +It can be read maliciously, but abstain. + +She says of Romance: 'The young who avoid that region escape the title of +Fool at the cost of a celestial crown.' Of Poetry: 'Those that have +souls meet their fellows there.' + +But she would have us away with sentimentalism. Sentimental people, in +her phrase, 'fiddle harmonics on the strings of sensualism,' to the +delight of a world gaping for marvels of musical execution rather than +for music. For our world is all but a sensational world at present, in +maternal travail of a soberer, a braver, a brighter-eyed. Her +reflections are thus to be interpreted, it seems to me. She says, +'The vices of the world's nobler half in this day are feminine.' We have +to guard against 'half-conceptions of wisdom, hysterical goodness, an +impatient charity'--against the elementary state of the altruistic +virtues, distinguishable as the sickness and writhings of our egoism to +cast its first slough. Idea is there. The funny part of it is our +finding it in books of fiction composed for payment. Manifestly this +lady did not 'chameleon' her pen from the colour of her audience: she was +not of the uniformed rank and file marching to drum and fife as gallant +interpreters of popular appetite, and going or gone to soundlessness and +the icy shades. + +Touches inward are not absent: 'To have the sense of the eternal in life +is a short flight for the soul. To have had it, is the soul's vitality.' +And also: 'Palliation of a sin is the hunted creature's refuge and final +temptation. Our battle is ever between spirit and flesh. Spirit must +brand the flesh, that it may live.' + +You are entreated to repress alarm. She was by preference light-handed; +and her saying of oratory, that 'It is always the more impressive for the +spice of temper which renders it untrustworthy,' is light enough. +On Politics she is rhetorical and swings: she wrote to spur a junior +politician: 'It is the first business of men, the school to mediocrity, +to the covetously ambitious a sty, to the dullard his amphitheatre, arms +of Titans to the desperately enterprising, Olympus to the genius.' +What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature. She saw their +existing posture clearly, yet believed, as men disincline to do, that +they grow. She says, that 'In their judgements upon women men are +females, voices of the present (sexual) dilemma.' They desire to have +'a still woman; who can make a constant society of her pins and needles.' +They create by stoppage a volcano, and are amazed at its eruptiveness. +'We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited.' Love is +presumably the visitor. Of the greater loneliness of women, she says: +'It is due to the prescribed circumscription of their minds, of which +they become aware in agitation. Were the walls about them beaten down, +they would understand that solitariness is a common human fate and the +one chance of growth, like space for timber.' As to the sensations of +women after the beating down of the walls, she owns that the multitude of +the timorous would yearn in shivering affright for the old prison-nest, +according to the sage prognostic of men; but the flying of a valiant few +would form a vanguard. And we are informed that the beginning of a +motive life with women must be in the head, equally with men (by no means +a truism when she wrote). Also that 'men do not so much fear to lose the +hearts of thoughtful women as their strict attention to their graces.' +The present market is what men are for preserving: an observation of +still reverberating force. Generally in her character of the feminine +combatant there is a turn of phrase, like a dimple near the lips showing +her knowledge that she was uttering but a tart measure of the truth. She +had always too much lambent humour to be the dupe of the passion +wherewith, as she says, 'we lash ourselves into the persuasive speech +distinguishing us from the animals.' + +The instances of her drollery are rather hinted by the Diarists for the +benefit of those who had met her and could inhale the atmosphere at a +word. Drolleries, humours, reputed witticisms, are like odours of roast +meats, past with the picking of the joint. Idea is the only vital +breath. They have it rarely, or it eludes the chronicler. To say of the +great erratic and forsaken Lady A****, after she had accepted the +consolations of Bacchus, that her name was properly signified in +asterisks 'as she was now nightly an Ariadne in heaven through her God,' +sounds to us a roundabout, with wit somewhere and fun nowhere. Sitting +at the roast we might have thought differently. Perry Wilkinson is not +happier in citing her reply to his compliment on the reviewers' unanimous +eulogy of her humour and pathos:--the 'merry clown and poor pantaloon +demanded of us in every work of fiction,' she says, lamenting the +writer's compulsion to go on producing them for applause until it is +extremest age that knocks their knees. We are informed by Lady Pennon of +'the most amusing description of the first impressions of a pretty +English simpleton in Paris'; and here is an opportunity for ludicrous +contrast of the French and English styles of pushing flatteries--'piping +to the charmed animal,' as Mrs. Warwick terms it in another place: but +Lady Pennon was acquainted with the silly woman of the piece, and found +her amusement in the 'wonderful truth' of that representation. + +Diarists of amusing passages are under an obligation to paint us a +realistic revival of the time, or we miss the relish. The odour of the +roast, and more, a slice of it is required, unless the humorous thing be +preternaturally spirited to walk the earth as one immortal among a number +less numerous than the mythic Gods. 'He gives good dinners,' a candid +old critic said, when asked how it was that he could praise a certain +poet. In an island of chills and fogs, coelum crebris imbribus ac +nebulis foedum, the comic and other perceptions are dependent on the +stirring of the gastric juices. And such a revival by any of us would be +impolitic, were it a possible attempt, before our systems shall have been +fortified by philosophy. Then may it be allowed to the Diarist simply to +relate, and we can copy from him. + +Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's Art, now neither blushless +infant nor executive man, have attained its majority. We can then be +veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. Rose-pink and dirty drab +will alike have passed away. Philosophy is the foe of both, and their +silly cancelling contest, perpetually renewed in a shuffle of extremes, +as it always is where a phantasm falseness reigns, will no longer baffle +the contemplation of natural flesh, smother no longer the soul issuing +out of our incessant strife. Philosophy bids us to see that we are not +so pretty as rose-pink, not so repulsive as dirty drab; and that instead +of everlastingly shifting those barren aspects, the sight of ourselves is +wholesome, bearable, fructifying, finally a delight. Do but perceive +that we are coming to philosophy, the stride toward it will be a giant's +--a century a day. And imagine the celestial refreshment of having a +pure decency in the place of sham; real flesh; a soul born active, wind- +beaten, but ascending. Honourable will fiction then appear; honourable, +a fount of life, an aid to life, quick with our blood. Why, when you +behold it you love it--and you will not encourage it?--or only when +presented by dead hands? Worse than that alternative dirty drab, your +recurring rose-pink is rebuked by hideous revelations of the filthy foul; +for nature will force her way, and if you try to stifle her by drowning, +she comes up, not the fairest part of her uppermost! Peruse your +Realists--really your castigators for not having yet embraced Philosophy. +As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, nature is +unimpeachable, flower-eke, yet not too decoratively a flower; you must +have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the fat bedding of +roses. In this fashion she grew, says historical fiction; thus does she +flourish now, would say the modern transcript, reading the inner as well +as exhibiting the outer. + +And how may you know that you have reached to Philosophy? You touch her +skirts when you share her hatred of the sham decent, her derision of +sentimentalism. You are one with her when--but I would not have you a +thousand years older! Get to her, if in no other way, by the sentimental +route:--that very winding path, which again and again brings you round to +the point of original impetus, where you have to be unwound for another +whirl; your point of original impetus being the grossly material, not at +all the spiritual. It is most true that sentimentalism springs from the +former, merely and badly aping the latter,--fine flower, or pinnacle +flame-spire, of sensualism that it is, could it do other? and +accompanying the former it traverses tracts of desert here and there +couching in a garden, catching with one hand at fruits, with another at +colours; imagining a secret ahead, and goaded by an appetite, sustained +by sheer gratifications. Fiddle in harmonics as it may, it will have +these gratifications at all costs. Should none be discoverable, at once +you are at the Cave of Despair, beneath the funereal orb of Glaucoma, in +the thick midst of poniarded, slit-throat, rope-dependant figures, +placarded across the bosom Disillusioned, Infidel, Agnostic, Miserrimus. +That is the sentimental route to advancement. Spirituality does not +light it; evanescent dreams: are its oil-lamps, often with wick askant in +the socket. + +A thousand years! You may count full many a thousand by this route +before you are one with divine Philosophy. Whereas a single flight of +brains will reach and embrace her; give you the savour of Truth, the +right use of the senses, Reality's infinite sweetness; for these things +are in philosophy; and the fiction which is the summary of actual Life, +the within and without of us, is, prose or verse, plodding or soaring, +philosophy's elect handmaiden. To such an end let us bend our aim to +work, knowing that every form of labour, even this flimsiest, as you +esteem it, should minister to growth. If in any branch of us we fail in +growth, there is, you are aware, an unfailing aboriginal democratic old +monster that waits to pull us down; certainly the branch, possibly the +tree; and for the welfare of Life we fall. You are acutely conscious of +yonder old monster when he is mouthing at you in politics. Be wary of +him in the heart; especially be wary of the disrelish of brainstuff. You +must feed on something. Matter that is not nourishing to brains can help +to constitute nothing but the bodies which are pitched on rubbish heaps. +Brainstuff is not lean stuff;--the brainstuff of fiction is internal +history, and to suppose it dull is the profoundest of errors; how deep, +you will understand when I tell you that it is the very football of the +holiday-afternoon imps below. They kick it for pastime; they are +intelligences perverted. The comic of it, the adventurous, the tragic, +they make devilish, to kindle their Ogygian hilarity. But--sharply +comic, adventurous, instructively tragic, it is in the interwinding with +human affairs, to give a flavour of the modern day reviving that of our +Poet, between whom and us yawn Time's most hollow jaws. Surely we owe a +little to Time, to cheer his progress; a little to posterity, and to our +country. Dozens of writers will be in at yonder yawning breach, if only +perusers will rally to the philosophic standard. They are sick of the +woodeny puppetry they dispense, as on a race-course to the roaring +frivolous. Well, if not dozens, half-dozens; gallant pens are alive; +one can speak of them in the plural. I venture to say that they would +be satisfied with a dozen for audience, for a commencement. They would +perish of inanition, unfed, unapplauded, amenable to the laws perchance +for an assault on their last remaining pair of ears or heels, to hold +them fast. But the example is the thing; sacrifices must be expected. +The example might, one hopes, create a taste. A great modern writer, of +clearest eye and head, now departed, capable in activity of presenting +thoughtful women, thinking men, groaned over his puppetry, that he dared +not animate them, flesh though they were, with the fires of positive +brainstuff. He could have done it, and he is of the departed! Had he +dared, he would (for he was Titan enough) have raised the Art in dignity +on a level with History; to an interest surpassing the narrative of +public deeds as vividly as man's heart and brain in their union excel his +plain lines of action to eruption. The everlasting pantomime, suggested +by Mrs. Warwick in her exclamation to Perry Wilkinson, is derided, not +unrighteously, by our graver seniors. They name this Art the pasture of +idiots, a method for idiotizing the entire population which has taken to +reading; and which soon discovers that it can write likewise, that sort +of stuff at least. The forecast may be hazarded, that if we do not +speedily embrace Philosophy in fiction, the Art is doomed to extinction, +under the shining multitude of its professors. They are fast capping the +candle. Instead, therefore, of objurgating the timid intrusions of +Philosophy, invoke her presence, I pray you. History without her is the +skeleton map of events: Fiction a picture of figures modelled on no +skeleton-anatomy. But each, with Philosophy in aid, blooms, and is +humanly shapely. To demand of us truth to nature, excluding Philosophy, +is really to bid a pumpkin caper. As much as legs are wanted for the +dance, Philosophy is required to make our human nature credible and +acceptable. Fiction implores you to heave a bigger breast and take her +in with this heavenly preservative helpmate, her inspiration and her +essence. You have to teach your imagination of the feminine image you +have set up to bend your civilized knees to, that it must temper its +fastidiousness, shun the grossness of the over-dainty. Or, to speak in +the philosophic tongue, you must turn on yourself, resolutely track and +seize that burrower, and scrub and cleanse him; by which process, during +the course of it, you will arrive at the conception of the right heroical +woman for you to worship: and if you prove to be of some spiritual +stature, you may reach to an ideal of the heroical feminine type for the +worship of mankind, an image as yet in poetic outline only, on our upper +skies. + +'So well do we know ourselves, that we one and all determine to know a +purer,' says the heroine of my columns. Philosophy in fiction tells, +among various other matters, of the perils of this intimate acquaintance +with a flattering familiar in the 'purer'--a person who more than ceases +to be of else to us after his ideal shall have led up men from their +flint and arrowhead caverns to intercommunicative daylight. For when the +fictitious creature has performed that service of helping to civilize the +world, it becomes the most dangerous of delusions, causing first the +individual to despise the mass, and then to join the mass in crushing the +individual. Wherewith let us to our story, the froth being out of the +bottle. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN IRISH BALL + +In the Assembly Rooms of the capital city of the Sister Island there was +a public Ball, to celebrate the return to Erin of a British hero of Irish +blood, after his victorious Indian campaign; a mighty struggle splendidly +ended; and truly could it be said that all Erin danced to meet him; but +this was the pick of the dancing, past dispute the pick of the supping. +Outside those halls the supping was done in Lazarus fashion, mainly +through an excessive straining of the organs of hearing and vision, which +imparted the readiness for more, declared by physicians to be the state +inducing to sound digestion. Some one spied the figure of the hero at +the window and was fed; some only to hear the tale chewed the cud of it; +some told of having seen him mount the steps; and sure it was that at an +hour of the night, no matter when, and never mind a drop or two of cloud, +he would come down them again, and have an Irish cheer to freshen his +pillow. For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too. +Farther away, over field and bogland, the whiskies did their excellent +ancient service of watering the dry and drying the damp, to the toast of +'Lord Larrian, God bless him! he's an honour to the old country!' and a +bit of a sigh to follow, hints of a story, and loud laughter, a drink, a +deeper sigh, settling into conversation upon the brave Lord Larrian's +deeds, and an Irish regiment he favoured--had no taste for the enemy +without the backing of his 'boys.' Not he. Why, he'd never march to +battle and they not handy; because when he struck he struck hard, he +said. And he has a wound on the right hip and two fingers off his left +hand; has bled for England, to show her what Irishmen are when they're +well treated. + +The fine old warrior standing at the upper end of the long saloon, tall, +straight, grey-haired, martial in his aspect and decorations, was worthy +to be the flag-pole for enthusiasm. His large grey eyes lightened from +time to time as he ranged them over the floating couples, and dropped a +word of inquiry to his aide, Captain Sir Lukin Dunstane, a good model of +a cavalry officer, though somewhat a giant, equally happy with his chief +in passing the troops of animated ladies under review. He named as many +as were known to him. Reviewing women exquisitely attired for +inspection, all variously and charmingly smiling, is a relief after the +monotonous regiments of men. Ireland had done her best to present the +hero of her blood an agreeable change; and he too expressed a patriotic +satisfaction on hearing that the faces most admired by him were of the +native isle. He looked upon one that came whirling up to him on a young +officer's arm and swept off into the crowd of tops, for a considerable +while before he put his customary question. She was returning on the +spin when he said, + +'Who is she?' + +Sir Lukin did not know. 'She 's a new bird; she nodded to my wife; +I'll ask.' + +He manoeuvred a few steps cleverly to where his wife reposed. The +information he gathered for the behoof of his chief was, that the +handsome creature answered to the name of Miss Merion; Irish; aged +somewhere between eighteen and nineteen; a dear friend of his wife's, +and he ought to have remembered her; but she was a child when he saw +her last. + +'Dan Merion died, I remember, about the day of my sailing for India,' +said the General. 'She may be his daughter.' + +The bright cynosure rounded up to him in the web of the waltz, with her +dark eyes for Lady Dunstane, and vanished again among the twisting +columns. + +He made his way, handsomely bumped by an apologetic pair, to Lady +Dunstane, beside whom a seat was vacated for him; and he trusted she had +not over-fatigued herself. + +'Confess,' she replied, 'you are perishing to know more than Lukin has +been able to tell you. Let me hear that you admire her: it pleases me; +and you shall hear what will please you as much, I promise you, General.' + +'I do. Who wouldn't?' said he frankly. + +'She crossed the Channel expressly to dance here tonight at the public +Ball in honour of you.' + +'Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank, and accepts it +humbly.' + +'That is grandly spoken.' + +'She makes everything in the room dust round a blazing jewel.' + +'She makes a poet of a soldier. Well, that you may understand how +pleased I am, she is my dearest friend, though she is younger than I, +as may be seen; she is the only friend I have. I nursed her when she was +an infant; my father and Mr. Dan Merion were chums. We were parted by my +marriage and the voyage to India. We have not yet exchanged a syllable: +she was snapped up, of course, the moment she entered the room. I knew +she would be a taking girl: how lovely, I did not guess. You are right, +she extinguishes the others. She used to be the sprightliest of living +creatures, and to judge by her letters, that has not faded. She 's in +the market, General.' + +Lord Larrian nodded to everything he heard, concluding with a mock +doleful shake of the head. 'My poorest subaltern!' he sighed, in the +theatrical but cordially melancholy style of green age viewing Cytherea's +market. + +His poorest subaltern was richer than he in the wherewithal to bid for +such prizes. + +'What is her name in addition to Merion?' + +'Diana Antonia Merion. Tony to me, Diana to the world.' + +'She lives over there?' + +'In England, or anywhere; wherever she is taken in. She will live, +I hope, chiefly with me.' + +'And honest Irish?' + +'Oh, she's Irish.' + +'Ah!' the General was Irish to the heels that night. + +Before further could be said the fair object of the dialogue came darting +on a trip of little runs, both hands out, all her face one tender sparkle +of a smile; and her cry proved the quality of her blood: 'Emmy! Emmy! +my heart!' + +'My dear Tony! + +I should not have come but for the hope of seeing you here.' + +Lord Larrian rose and received a hurried acknowledgement of his courtesy +from the usurper of his place. + +'Emmy! we might kiss and hug; we're in Ireland. I burn to! But you're +not still ill, dear? Say no! That Indian fever must have gone. You do +look a dash pale, my own; you're tired.' + +'One dance has tired me. Why were you so late?' + +'To give the others a chance? To produce a greater impression by +suspense? No and no. I wrote you I was with the Pettigrews. We caught +the coach, we caught the boat, we were only two hours late for the Ball; +so we did wonders. And good Mrs. Pettigrew is, pining somewhere to +complete her adornment. I was in the crush, spying for Emmy, when Mr. +Mayor informed me it was the duty of every Irishwoman to dance her toes +off, if she 'd be known for what she is. And twirl! a man had me by the +waist, and I dying to find you.' + +'Who was the man?' + +'Not to save these limbs from the lighted stake could I tell you!' + +'You are to perform a ceremonious bow to Lord Larrian.' + +'Chatter first! a little!' + +The plea for chatter was disregarded. It was visible that the hero of +the night hung listening and in expectation. He and the Beauty were +named to one another, and they chatted through a quadrille. Sir Lukin +introduced a fellow-Harrovian of old days, Mr. Thomas Redworth, to his +wife. + +'Our weather-prophet, meteorologist,' he remarked, to set them going; +'you remember, in India, my pointing to you his name in a newspaper-- +letter on the subject. He was generally safe for the cricketing days.' + +Lady Dunstane kindly appeared to call it to mind, and she led upon the +them-queried at times by an abrupt 'Eh?' and 'I beg pardon,' for +manifestly his gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given to +the young lady discoursing with Lord Larrian. Beauty is rare; luckily is +it rare, or, judging from its effect on men, and the very stoutest of +them, our world would be internally more distracted planet than we see, +to the perversion of business, courtesy, rights of property, and the +rest. She perceived an incipient victim, of the hundreds she +anticipated, and she very tolerantly talked on: 'The weather and women +have some resemblance they say. Is it true that he who reads the one can +read the other?' + +Lord Larrian here burst into a brave old laugh, exclaiming, 'Oh! good!' + +Mr. Redworth knitted his thick brows. 'I beg pardon? Ah! women! +Weather and women? No; the one point more variable in women makes all +the difference.' + +'Can you tell me what the General laughed at?' + +The honest Englishman entered the trap with promptitude. 'She said:--who +is she, may I ask you?' + +Lady Dunstane mentioned her name. + +Daughter of the famous Dan Merion? The young lady merited examination +for her father's sake. But when reminded of her laughter-moving speech, +Mr. Redworth bungled it; he owned he spoilt it, and candidly stated his +inability to see the fun. 'She said, St. George's Channel in a gale +ought to be called St. Patrick's--something--I missed some point. That +quadrille-tune, the Pastourelle, or something . . .' + +'She had experience of the Channel last night,' Lady Dunstane pursued, +and they both, while in seeming converse, caught snatches from their +neighbours, during a pause of the dance. + +The sparkling Diana said to Lord Larrian, 'You really decline to make any +of us proud women by dancing to-night?' + +The General answered: 'I might do it on two stilts; I can't on one.' He +touched his veteran leg. + +'But surely,' said she, 'there's always an inspiration coming to it from +its partner in motion, if one of them takes the step.' + +He signified a woeful negative. 'My dear young lady, you say dark things +to grey hairs!' + +She rejoined: 'If we were over in England, and you fixed on me the stigma +of saying dark things, I should never speak without being thought +obscure.' + +'It's because you flash too brightly for them.' + +'I think it is rather the reminiscence of the tooth that received a stone +when it expected candy.' + +Again the General laughed; he looked pleased and warmed. 'Yes, that 's +their way, that 's their way!' and he repeated her words to himself, +diminishing their importance as he stamped them on his memory, but so +heartily admiring the lovely speaker, that he considered her wit an +honour to the old country, and told her so. Irish prevailed up to +boiling-point. + +Lady Dunstane, not less gratified, glanced up at Mr. Redworth, whose +brows bore the knot of perplexity over a strong stare. He, too, stamped +the words on his memory, to see subsequently whether they had a vestige +of meaning. Terrifically precocious, he thought her. Lady Dunstane, in +her quick sympathy with her friend, read the adverse mind in his face. +And her reading of the mind was right, wrong altogether her deduction of +the corresponding sentiment. + +Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers. + +They beheld a quaint spectacle: a gentleman, obviously an Englishman, +approached, with the evident intention of reminding the Beauty of the +night of her engagement to him, and claiming her, as it were, in the +lion's jaws. He advanced a foot, withdrew it, advanced, withdrew; eager +for his prize, not over-enterprising; in awe of the illustrious General +she entertained--presumeably quite unaware of the pretender's presence; +whereupon a voice was heard: 'Oh! if it was minuetting you meant before +the lady, I'd never have disputed your right to perform, sir.' For it +seemed that there were two claimants in the field, an Irishman and an +Englishman; and the former, having a livelier sense of the situation, +hung aloof in waiting for her eye; the latter directed himself to strike +bluntly at his prey; and he continued minuetting, now rapidly blinking, +flushed, angry, conscious of awkwardness and a tangle, incapable of +extrication. He began to blink horribly under the raillery of his rival. +The General observed him, but as an object remote and minute, a fly or +gnat. The face of the brilliant Diana was entirely devoted to him she +amused. + +Lady Dunstane had the faint lines of a decorous laugh on her lips, as she +said: 'How odd it is that our men show to such disadvantage in a Ball- +room. I have seen them in danger, and there they shine first of any, and +one is proud of them. They should always be facing the elements or in +action.' She glanced at the minuet, which had become a petrified figure, +still palpitating, bent forward, an interrogative reminder. + +Mr. Redworth reserved his assent to the proclamation of any English +disadvantage. A whiff of Celtic hostility in the atmosphere put him on +his mettle. 'Wherever the man is tried,' he said. + +'My lady!' the Irish gentleman bowed to Lady Dunstane. 'I had the honour +. . . Sullivan Smith . . . at the castle . . .' + +She responded to the salute, and Mr. Sullivan Smith proceeded to tell +her, half in speech, half in dots most luminous, of a civil contention +between the English gentleman and himself, as to the possession of the +loveliest of partners for this particular ensuing dance, and that they +had simultaneously made a rush from the Lower Courts, namely, their +cards, to the Upper, being the lady; and Mr. Sullivan Smith partly +founded his preferable claim on her Irish descent, and on his +acquaintance with her eminent defunct father--one of the ever-radiating +stars of his quenchless country. + +Lady Dunstane sympathized with him for his not intruding his claim when +the young lady stood pre-engaged, as well as in humorous appreciation of +his imaginative logic. + +'There will be dancing enough after supper,' she said. + +'If I could score one dance with her, I'd go home supperless and +feasted,' said he. 'And that's not saying much among the hordes of +hungry troopers tip-toe for the signal to the buffet. See, my lady, the +gentleman, as we call him; there he is working his gamut perpetually up +to da capo. Oh! but it's a sheep trying to be wolf; he 's sheep-eyed and +he 's wolf-fanged, pathetic and larcenous! Oh, now! who'd believe it!-- +the man has dared . . . I'd as soon think of committing sacrilege in a +cathedral!' + +The man was actually; to quote his indignant rival, 'breaching the +fortress,' and pointing out to Diana Merion 'her name on his dirty scrap +of paper': a shocking sight when the lady's recollection was the sole +point to be aimed at, and the only umpire. 'As if all of us couldn't +have written that, and hadn't done it!' Mr. Sullivan Smith groaned +disgusted. He hated bad manners, particularly in cases involving ladies; +and the bad manners of a Saxon fired his antagonism to the race; +individual members of which he boasted of forgiving and embracing, +honouring. So the man blackened the race for him, and the race was +excused in the man. But his hatred of bad manners was vehement, and +would have extended to a fellow-countryman. His own were of the +antecedent century, therefore venerable. + +Diana turned from her pursuer with a comic woeful lifting of the brows at +her friend. Lady Dunstane motioned her fan, and Diana came, bending +head. + +'Are you bound in honour?' + +'I don't think I am. And I do want to go on talking with the General. +He is so delightful and modest--my dream of a true soldier!--telling me +of his last big battle, bit by bit, to my fishing.' + +'Put off this person for a square dance down the list, and take out Mr. +Redworth--Miss Diana Merlon, Mr. Redworth: he will bring you back to the +General, who must not totally absorb you, or he will forfeit his +popularity.' + +Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advocate of his +claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. Sullivan Smith remarked: +'Oh! sir, the law of it, where a lady's concerned! You're one for +evictions, I should guess, and the anti-human process. It's that letter +of the law that stands between you and me and mine and yours. But you've +got your congee, and my blessing on ye!' + +'It was a positive engagement,' said the enemy. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him. 'And a pretty partner you've pickled for +yourself when she keeps her positive engagement!' + +He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn. She pleaded +weariness. He proposed to sit beside her and divert her. She smiled, +but warned him that she was English in every vein. He interjected: +'Irish men and English women! though it's putting the cart before the +horse--the copper pennies where the gold guineas should be. So here's +the gentleman who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the fable. +English is he? But we read, the last shall be first. And English women +and Irish men make the finest coupling in the universe.' + +'Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man,' +said Lady Dunstane, at the same time informing the obedient Diana, then +bestowing her hand on Mr. Redworth to please her friend, that he was a +schoolfellow of her husband's. + +'Favour can't help coming by rotation, except in very extraordinary +circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, and takes my due, and +'twould be hard on me if I weren't thoroughly indemnified.' Mr. Sullivan +Smith bowed. 'You gave them just the start over the frozen minute for +conversation; they were total strangers, and he doesn't appear a bad sort +of fellow for a temporary mate, though he's not perfectly sure of his +legs. And that we'll excuse to any man leading out such a fresh young +beauty of a Bright Eyes--like the stars of a winter's night in the frosty +season over Columkill, or where you will, so that's in Ireland, to be +sure of the likeness to her.' + +'Her mother was half English.' + +'Of course she was. And what was my observation about the coupling? +Dan Merion would make her Irish all over. And she has a vein of Spanish +blood in her; for he had; and she's got the colour.--But you spoke of +their coupling--or I did. Oh, a man can hold his own with an English +roly-poly mate: he's not stifled! But a woman hasn't his power of +resistance to dead weight. She's volatile, she's frivolous, a rattler +and gabbler--haven't I heard what they say of Irish girls over there? +She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling. She must choose at home +for a perfect harmonious partner.' + +Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple danced excellently +together. + +'It'd be a bitter thing to see, if the fellow couldn't dance, after +leading her out!' sighed Mr. Sullivan Smith. 'I heard of her over there. +They, call her the Black Pearl, and the Irish Lily--because she's dark. +They rack their poor brains to get the laugh of us.' + +'And I listen to you,' said Lady Dunstane. + +'Ah! if all England, half, a quarter, the smallest piece of the land +were like you, my lady, I'd be loyal to the finger-nails. Now, is she +engaged?--when I get a word with her?' + +'She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good years of +freedom, I think.' + +'And five good years of serfdom I'd serve to win her!' + +A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would be +small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith; after a life of bondage, if she knew +her Diana, in spite of his tongue, his tact, his lively features, and +breadth of shoulders. + +Up he sprang. Diana was on Mr. Redworth's arm. 'No refreshments,' she +said; and 'this is my refreshment,' taking the seat of Mr. Sullivan +Smith, who ejaculated, + +'I must go and have that gentleman's name.' He wanted a foe. + +'You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment, +Tony,' said her friend. + +'Yes, with the General!' + +'He is a noble old man.' + +'Superb. And don't say "old man." With his uniform and his height and +his grey head, he is like a glorious October day just before the brown +leaves fall.' + +Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the favourite of her +childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remembered, they smiled together at the +scenes and times it recalled. + +'Do you still write verses, Tony?' + +'I could about him. At one part of the fight he thought he would be +beaten. He was overmatched in artillery, and it was a cavalry charge he +thundered on them, riding across the field to give the word of command to +the couple of regiments, riddled to threads, that gained the day. That +is life--when we dare death to live! I wonder at men, who are men, being +anything but soldiers! I told you, madre, my own Emmy, I forgave you for +marrying, because it was a soldier.' + +'Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man. But you have not told me a +word of yourself. What has been done with the old Crossways?' + +'The house, you know, is mine. And it's all I have: ten acres and the +house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year. Oh! how I +long to evict the tenants! They can't have my feeling for the place +where I was born. They're people of tolerably good connections, middling +wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can +understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, +who likes to ride on them. I've a half engagement, barely legible, to +visit them on an indefinite day, and can't bear the idea of strangers +masters in the old house. I must be driven there for shelter, for a +roof, some month. And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to +doat on the outside of it. That's your Tony.' + +'She's my darling.' + +'I hear myself speak! But your voice or mine, madre, it's one soul. Be +sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you, dear +and dearest! No secrets, never a shadow of a deception, or else I shall +feel I am not fit to live. Was I a bad correspondent when you were in +India?' + +'Pretty well. Copious letters when you did write.' + +'I was shy. I knew I should be writing, to Emmy and another, and only +when I came to the flow could I forget him. He is very finely built; and +I dare say he has a head. I read of his deeds in India and quivered. +But he was just a bit in the way. Men are the barriers to perfect +naturalness, at least, with girls, I think. You wrote to me in the same +tone as ever, and at first I had a struggle to reply. And I, who have +such pride in being always myself!' + +Two staring semi-circles had formed, one to front the Hero; the other the +Beauty. These half moons imperceptibly dissolved to replenish, and +became a fixed obstruction. + +'Yes, they look,' Diana made answer to Lady Dunstane's comment on the +curious impertinence. She was getting used to it, and her friend had a +gratification in seeing how little this affected her perfect naturalness. + +'You are often in the world--dinners, dances?' she said. + +'People are kind.' + +'Any proposals?' + +'Nibbles.' + +'Quite heart-free?' + +'Absolutely.' + +Diana's unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an eclipse. + +The block of sturdy gazers began to melt. The General had dispersed his +group of satellites by a movement with the Mayoress on his arm, construed +as the signal for procession to the supper-table. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH, AND THE EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH + +'It may be as well to take Mr. Redworth's arm; you will escape the crush +for you,' said Lady Dunstane to Diana. 'I don't sup. Yes! go! You +must eat, and he is handiest to conduct you.' + +Diana thought of her chaperon and the lateness of the hour. She +murmured, to soften her conscience, 'Poor Mrs. Pettigrew!' + +And once more Mr. Redworth, outwardly imperturbable, was in the maelstrom +of a happiness resembling tempest. He talked, and knew not what he +uttered. To give this matchless girl the best to eat and drink was his +business, and he performed it. Oddly, for a man who had no loaded +design, marshalling the troops in his active and capacious cranium, he +fell upon calculations of his income, present and prospective, while she +sat at the table and he stood behind her. Others were wrangling for +places, chairs, plates, glasses, game-pie, champagne: she had them; the +lady under his charge to a certainty would have them; so far good; and he +had seven hundred pounds per annum--seven hundred and fifty, in a +favourable aspect, at a stretch . . . . + +'Yes, the pleasantest thing to me after working all day is an opera of +Carini's,' she said, in full accord with her taste, 'and Tellio for +tenor, certainly.' + +--A fair enough sum for a bachelor: four hundred personal income, and a +prospect of higher dividends to increase it; three hundred odd from his +office, and no immediate prospects of an increase there; no one died +there, no elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors could be +persuaded to die; they were too tough to think of retiring. Say, seven +hundred and fifty . . . . eight hundred, if the commerce of the +country fortified the Bank his property was embarked in; or eight-fifty +or nine ten. . . . + +'I could call him my poet also,' Mr. Redworth agreed with her taste in +poets. 'His letters are among the best ever written--or ever published: +the raciest English I know. Frank, straight out: capital descriptions. +The best English letter-writers are as good as the French-- + +You don't think so?--in their way, of course. I dare' say we don't +sufficiently cultivate the art. We require the supple tongue a closer +intercourse of society gives.' + +--Eight or ten hundred. Comfortable enough for a man in chambers. To +dream of entering as a householder on that sum, in these days, would be +stark nonsense: and a man two removes from a baronetcy has no right to +set his reckoning on deaths:--if he does, he becomes a sort of meditative +assassin. But what were the Fates about when they planted a man of the +ability of Tom Redworth in a Government office! Clearly they intended +him to remain a bachelor for life. And they sent him over to Ireland on +inspection duty for a month to have sight of an Irish Beauty . . . . + +'Think war the finest subject for poets?' he exclaimed. 'Flatly no: I +don't think it. I think exactly the reverse. It brings out the noblest +traits in human character? I won't own that even. It brings out some +but under excitement, when you have not always the real man.--Pray don't +sneer at domestic life. Well, there was a suspicion of disdain.--Yes, I +can respect the hero, military or civil; with this distinction, that the +military hero aims at personal reward--' + +'He braves wounds and death,' interposed Diana. + +'Whereas the civilian hero--' + +'Pardon me, let me deny that the soldier-hero aims at a personal reward,' +she again interposed. + +'He gets it.' + +'If he is not beaten.' + +'And then he is no longer a hero.' + +'He is to me.' + +She had a woman's inveterate admiration of the profession of aims. +Mr. Redworth endeavoured to render practicable an opening in her mind to +reason. He admitted the grandeur of the poetry of Homer. We are a few +centuries in advance of Homer. We do not slay damsels for a sacrifice +to propitiate celestial wrath; nor do we revel in details of slaughter. +He reasoned with her; he repeated stories known to him of civilian +heroes, and won her assent to the heroical title for their deeds, but it +was languid, or not so bright as the deeds deserved--or as the young lady +could look; and he insisted on the civilian hero, impelled by some +unconscious motive to make her see the thing he thought, also the thing +he was--his plain mind and matter-of-fact nature. Possibly she caught a +glimpse of that. After a turn of fencing, in which he was impressed by +the vibration of her tones when speaking of military heroes, she quitted +the table, saying: 'An argument between one at supper and another handing +plates, is rather unequal if eloquence is needed. As Pat said to the +constable, when his hands were tied, You beat me with the fists, but my +spirit is towering and kicks freely.' + +--Eight hundred? a thousand a year, two thousand, are as nothing in the +calculation of a householder who means that the mistress of the house +shall have the choicest of the fruits and flowers of the Four Quarters; +and Thomas Redworth had vowed at his first outlook on the world of women, +that never should one of the sisterhood coming under his charge complain +of not having them in profusion. Consequently he was a settled bachelor. +In the character of disengaged and unaspiring philosophical bachelor, he +reviewed the revelations of her character betrayed by the beautiful +virgin devoted to the sanguine coat. The thrill of her voice in speaking +of soldier-heroes shot him to the yonder side of a gulf. Not knowing +why, for he had no scheme, desperate or other, in his head, the least +affrighted of men was frightened by her tastes, and by her aplomb, her +inoffensiveness in freedom of manner and self-sufficiency--sign of purest +breeding: and by her easy, peerless vivacity, her proofs of descent from +the blood of Dan Merion--a wildish blood. The candour of the look of her +eyes in speaking, her power of looking forthright at men, and looking the +thing she spoke, and the play of her voluble lips, the significant repose +of her lips in silence, her weighing of the words he uttered, for a +moment before the prompt apposite reply, down to her simple quotation of +Pat, alarmed him; he did not ask himself why. His manly self was not +intruded on his cogitations. A mere eight hundred or thousand per annum +had no place in that midst. He beheld her quietly selecting the position +of dignity to suit her: an eminent military man, or statesman, or wealthy +nobleman: she had but to choose. A war would offer her the decorated +soldier she wanted. A war! Such are women of this kind! The thought +revolted him, and pricked his appetite for supper. He did service by +Mrs. Pettigrew, to which lady Miss Merion, as she said, promoted him, at +the table, and then began to refresh in person, standing. + +'Malkin! that's the fellow's name' he heard close at his ear. + +Mr. Sullivan Smith had drained a champagne-glass, bottle in hand, and was +priming the successor to it. He cocked his eye at Mr. Redworth's quick +stare. 'Malkin!' And now we'll see whether the interior of him is grey, +or black, or tabby, or tortoise-shell, or any other colour of the Malkin +breed.' + +He explained to Mr. Redworth that he had summoned Mr. Malkin to answer to +him as a gentleman for calling Miss Merion a jilt. 'The man, sir, said +in my hearing, she jilted him, and that's to call the lady a jilt. +There's not a point of difference, not a shade. I overheard him. I +happened by the blessing of Providence to be by when he named her +publicly jilt. And it's enough that she's a lady to have me for her +champion. The same if she had been an Esquimaux squaw. I'll never live +to hear a lady insulted.' + +'You don't mean to say you're the donkey to provoke a duel!' +Mr. Redworth burst out gruffly, through turkey and stuffing. + +'And an Irish lady, the young Beauty of Erin!' Mr. Sullivan Smith was +flowing on. He became frigid, he politely bowed: 'Two, sir, if you +haven't the grace to withdraw the offensive term before it cools and +can't be obliterated.' + +'Fiddle! and go to the deuce!' Mr. Redworth cried. + +'Would a soft slap o' the cheek persuade you, sir?' + +'Try it outside, and don't bother me with nonsense of that sort at my +supper. If I'm struck, I strike back. I keep my pistols for bandits and +law-breakers. Here,' said Mr. Redworth, better inspired as to the way of +treating an ultra of the isle; 'touch glasses: you're a gentleman, and +won't disturb good company. By-and-by.' + +The pleasing prospect of by-and-by renewed in Mr. Sullivan Smith his +composure. They touched the foaming glasses: upon which, in a friendly +manner, Mr. Sullivan Smith proposed that they should go outside as soon +as Mr. Redworth had finished supper-quite finished supper: for the reason +that the term 'donkey' affixed to him was like a minster cap of +schooldays, ringing bells on his topknot, and also that it stuck in his +gizzard. + +Mr. Redworth declared the term to be simply hypothetical. 'If you fight, +you're a donkey for doing it. But you won't fight.' + +'But I will fight.' + +'He won't fight.' + +'Then for the honour of your country you must. But I'd rather have him +first, for I haven't drunk with him, and it should be a case of necessity +to put a bullet or a couple of inches of steel through the man you've +drunk with. And what's in your favour, she danced with ye. She seemed +to take to ye, and the man she has the smallest sugar-melting for is +sacred if he's not sweet to me. If he retracts!' + +'Hypothetically, No.' + +'But supposititiously?' + +'Certainly.' + +'Then we grasp hands on it. It's Malkin or nothing!' said Mr. Sullivan +Smith, swinging his heel moodily to wander in search of the foe. How one +sane man could name another a donkey for fighting to clear an innocent +young lady's reputation, passed his rational conception. + +Sir Lukin hastened to Mr. Redworth to have a talk over old schooldays and +fellows. + +'I'll tell you what,' said the civilian, 'There are Irishmen and +Irishmen. I've met cool heads and long heads among them, and you and I +knew Jack Derry, who was good at most things. But the burlesque Irishman +can't be caricatured. Nature strained herself in a 'fit of absurdity to +produce him, and all that Art can do is to copy.' + +This was his prelude to an account of Mr. Sullivan Smith, whom, as a +specimen, he rejoiced to have met. + +'There's a chance of mischief,' said Sir Lukin. 'I know nothing of the +man he calls Malkin. I'll inquire presently.' + +He talked of his prospects, and of the women. Fair ones, in his opinion, +besides Miss Merion were parading; he sketched two or three of his +partners with a broad brush of epithets. + +'It won't do for Miss Merion's name to be mixed up in a duel,' said +Redworth. + +'Not if she's to make her fortune in England,' said Sir Lukin. 'It's +probably all smoke.' + +The remark had hardly escaped him when a wreath of metaphorical smoke, +and fire, and no mean report, startled the company of supping gentlemen. +At the pitch of his voice, Mr. Sullivan Smith denounced Mr. Malkin in +presence for a cur masquerading as a cat. + +'And that is not the scoundrel's prime offence. For what d' ye think? +He trumps up an engagement to dance with a beautiful lady, and because +she can't remember, binds her to an oath for a dance to come, and then, +holding her prisoner to 'm, he sulks, the dirty dogcat goes and sulks, +and he won't dance and won't do anything but screech up in corners that +he's jilted. He said the word. Dozens of gentlemen heard the word. And +I demand an apology of Misterr Malkin--or . . ! And none of your +guerrier nodding and bravado, Mister Malkin, at me, if you please. The +case is for settlement between gentlemen.' + +The harassed gentleman of the name of Malkin, driven to extremity by the +worrying, stood in braced preparation for the English attitude of +defence. His tormentor drew closer to him. + +'Mind, I give you warning, if you lay a finger on me I'll knock you +down,' said he. + +Most joyfully Mr. Sullivan Smith uttered a low melodious cry. 'For a +specimen of manners, in an assembly of ladies and gentlemen . . . I +ask ye!' he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely +in the wrong before provoking the act of war. And then, as one intending +gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger +to the shoulder of Mr. Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying: 'I +'m your man: me first: you're due to me.' + +Mr. Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces. +Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds. He threatened Saxondom. +Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, +wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers +shivered at the notion of powder and ball. Redworth, in the struggle to +haul him away, received a blow from him. 'And you've got it! you would +have it!' roared the Celt. + +'Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,' Redworth said; +and he observed generally: 'No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in good +company.' + +'But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses--if you'll come along with +me and a couple of friends. The thing has been done before by +torchlight--and neatly.' + +'Come along, and come alone,' said Redworth. + +A way was cleared for them. Sir Lukin hurried up to Redworth, who had no +doubt of his ability to manage Mr. Sullivan Smith. + +He managed that fine-hearted but purely sensational fellow so well that +Lady Dunstane and Diana, after hearing in some anxiety of the hubbub +below, beheld them entering the long saloon amicably, with the nods and +looks of gentlemen quietly accordant. + +A little later, Lady Dunstane questioned Redworth, and he smoothed her +apprehensions, delivering himself, much to her comfort, thus: 'In no case +would any lady's name have been raised. The whole affair was +nonsensical. He's a capital fellow of a kind, capable of behaving like a +man of the world and a gentleman. Only he has, or thinks he has, like +lots of his countrymen, a raw wound--something that itches to be grazed. +Champagne on that! . . . Irishmen, as far as I have seen of them, +are, like horses, bundles of nerves; and you must manage them, as you do +with all nervous creatures, with firmness, but good temper. You must +never get into a fury of the nerves yourself with them. Spur and whip +they don't want; they'll be off with you in a jiffy if you try it. + +They want the bridle-rein. That seems to me the secret of Irish +character. We English are not bad horsemen. It's a wonder we blunder so +in our management of such a people.' + +'I wish you were in a position to put your method to the proof,' said +she. + +He shrugged. 'There's little chance of it !' + +To reward him for his practical discretion, she contrived that Diana +should give him a final dance; and the beautiful gill smiled quickly +responsive to his appeal. He was, moreover, sensible in her look and +speech that he had advanced in her consideration to be no longer the mere +spinning stick, a young lady's partner. By which he humbly understood +that her friend approved him. A gentle delirium enfolded his brain. +A householder's life is often begun on eight hundred a year: on less: on +much less:--sometimes on nothing but resolution to make a fitting income, +carving out a fortune. Eight hundred may stand as a superior basis. +That sum is a distinct point of vantage. If it does not mean a carriage +and Parisian millinery and a station for one of the stars of society, it +means at any rate security; and then, the heart of the man being strong +and sound . . . + +'Yes,' he replied to her, 'I like my experience of Ireland and the Irish; +and better than I thought I should. St. George's Channel ought to be +crossed oftener by both of us.' + +'I'm always glad of the signal,' said Diana. + +He had implied the people of the two islands. He allowed her +interpretation to remain personal, for the sake of a creeping +deliciousness that it carried through his blood. + +'Shall you soon be returning to England?' he ventured to ask. + +'I am Lady Dunstane's guest for some months.' + +'Then you will. Sir Lukin has an estate in Surrey. He talks of quitting +the Service.' + +'I can't believe it!' + +His thrilled blood was chilled. She entertained a sentiment amounting to +adoration for the profession of arms! + +Gallantly had the veteran General and Hero held on into the night, that +the festivity might not be dashed by his departure; perhaps, to a certain +degree, to prolong his enjoyment of a flattering scene. At last Sir +Lukin had the word from him, and came to his wife. Diana slipped across +the floor to her accommodating chaperon, whom, for the sake of another +five minutes with her beloved Emma, she very agreeably persuaded to walk +in the train of Lord Larrian, and forth they trooped down + +a pathway of nodding heads and curtsies, resembling oak and birch-trees +under a tempered gale, even to the shedding of leaves, for here a turban +was picked up by Sir Lukin, there a jewelled ear-ring by the self- +constituted attendant, Mr. Thomas Redworth. At the portico rang a +wakening cheer, really worth hearing. The rain it rained, and hats were +formless,' as in the first conception of the edifice, backs were damp, +boots liquidly musical, the pipe of consolation smoked with difficulty, +with much pulling at the stem, but the cheer arose magnificently, and +multiplied itself, touching at the same moment the heavens and Diana's +heart-at least, drawing them together; for she felt exalted, enraptured, +as proud of her countrymen as of their hero. + +'That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial !' she heard Mr. +Redworth say, behind her. + +She turned and sent one of her brilliant glances flying over him, in +gratitude for a timely word well said. And she never forgot the remark, +nor he the look. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +CONTAINING HINTS OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO + +A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes +had crossed the Channel back to England, and old Ireland was left to her +rains from above and her undrained bogs below; her physical and her +mental vapours; her ailments and her bog-bred doctors; as to whom the +governing country trusted they would be silent or discourse humorously. + +The residence of Sir Lukin Dunstane, in the county of Surrey, inherited +by him during his recent term of Indian services, was on the hills, where +a day of Italian sky, or better, a day of our breezy South-west, washed +from the showery night, gives distantly a tower to view, and a murky web, +not without colour: the ever-flying banner of the metropolis, the smoke +of the city's chimneys, if you prefer plain language. At a first +inspection of the house, Lady Dunstane did not like it, and it was +advertized to be let, and the auctioneer proclaimed it in his dialect. +Her taste was delicate; she had the sensitiveness of an invalid: twice +she read the stalking advertizement of the attractions of Copsley, and +hearing Diana call it 'the plush of speech,' she shuddered; she decided +that a place where her husband's family had lived ought not to stand +forth meretriciously spangled and daubed, like a show-booth at a fair, +for a bait; though the grandiloquent man of advertizing letters assured +Sir Lukin that a public agape for the big and gaudy mouthful is in no +milder way to be caught; as it is apparently the case. She withdrew the +trumpeting placard. Retract we likewise 'banner of the metropolis.' +That plush of speech haunts all efforts to swell and illuminate citizen +prose to a princely poetic. + +Yet Lady Dunstane herself could name the bank of smoke, when looking +North-eastward from her summerhouse, the flag of London: and she was a +person of the critical mind, well able to distinguish between the simple +metaphor and the superobese. A year of habitation induced her to conceal +her dislike of the place in love: cat's love, she owned. Here, she +confessed to Diana, she would wish to live to her end. It seemed remote, +where an invigorating upper air gave new bloom to her cheeks; but she +kept one secret from her friend. + +Copsley was an estate of nearly twelve hundred acres, extending across +the ridge of the hills to the slopes North and South. Seven counties +rolled their backs under this commanding height, and it would have tasked +a pigeon to fly within an hour the stretch of country visible at the +Copsley windows. Sunrise to right, sunset leftward, the borders of the +grounds held both flaming horizons. So much of the heavens and of earth +is rarely granted to a dwelling. The drawback was the structure, which +had no charm, scarce a face. 'It is written that I should live in +barracks,' Lady Dunstane said. The colour of it taught white to impose a +sense of gloom. Her cat's love of the familiar inside corners was never +able to embrace the outer walls. Her sensitiveness, too, was racked by +the presentation of so pitiably ugly a figure to the landscape. She +likened it to a coarse-featured country wench, whose cleaning and +decorating of her countenance makes complexion grin and ruggedness yawn. +Dirty, dilapidated, hung with weeds and parasites, it would have been +more tolerable. She tried the effect of various creepers, and they were +as a staring paint. What it was like then, she had no heart to say. + +One may, however, fall on a pleasurable resignation in accepting great +indemnities, as Diana bade her believe, when the first disgust began to +ebb. 'A good hundred over there would think it a Paradise for an +asylum': she signified London. Her friend bore such reminders meekly. +They were readers of books of all sorts, political, philosophical, +economical, romantic; and they mixed the diverse readings in thought, +after the fashion of the ardently youthful. Romance affected politics, +transformed economy, irradiated philosophy. They discussed the knotty +question, Why things were not done, the things being confessedly to do; +and they cut the knot: Men, men calling themselves statesmen, declined to +perform that operation, because, forsooth, other men objected to have it +performed on them. And common humanity declared it to be for the common +weal! If so, then it is clearly indicated as a course of action: we shut +our eyes against logic and the vaunted laws of economy. They are the +knot we cut; or would cut, had we the sword. Diana did it to the tune of +Garryowen or Planxty Kelly. O for a despot! The cry was for a +beneficent despot, naturally: a large-minded benevolent despot. In +short, a despot to obey their bidding. Thoughtful young people who think +through the heart soon come to this conclusion. The heart is the +beneficent despot they would be. He cures those miseries; he creates the +novel harmony. He sees all difficulties through his own sanguine hues. +He is the musical poet of the problem, demanding merely to have it solved +that he may sing: clear proof of the necessity for solving it +immediately. + +Thus far in their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation, to +make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardour and resonance, and more +than the convincing ring of her voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity in +rushing through any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating down +obstacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, constituted +her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in questions that +clamoured for instant solution. By dint of reading solid writers, using +the brains they possessed, it was revealed to them gradually that their +particular impatience came perhaps of the most earnest desire to get to +a comfortable termination of the inquiry: the heart aching for mankind +sought a nest for itself. At this point Lady Dunstane took the lead. +Diana had to be tugged to follow. She could not accept a 'perhaps' that +cast dubiousness on her disinterested championship. She protested a +perfect certainty of the single aim of her heart outward. But she +reflected. She discovered that her friend had gone ahead of her. + +The discovery was reached, and even acknowledged, before she could +persuade herself to swallow the repulsive truth. O self! self! self! +are we eternally masking in a domino that reveals your hideous old face +when we could be most positive we had escaped you? Eternally! the +desolating answer knelled. Nevertheless the poor, the starving, the +overtaxed in labour, they have a right to the cry of Now! now! They +have; and if a cry could conduct us to the secret of aiding, healing, +feeding, elevating them, we might swell the cry. As it is, we must lay +it on our wits patiently to track and find the secret; and meantime do +what the individual with his poor pittance can. A miserable +contribution! sighed the girl. Old Self was perceived in the sigh. She +was haunted. + +After all, one must live one's life. Placing her on a lower pedestal in +her self-esteem, the philosophy of youth revived her; and if the +abatement of her personal pride was dispiriting, she began to see an +advantage in getting inward eyes. + +'It's infinitely better I should know it, Emmy--I'm a reptile! Pleasure +here, pleasure there, I'm always thinking of pleasure. I shall give up +thinking and take to drifting. Neither of us can do more than open +purses; and mine's lean. If the old Crossways had no tenant, it would be +a purse all mouth. And charity is haunted, like everything we do. Only +I say with my whole strength yes, I am sure, in spite of the men +professing that they are practical, the rich will not move without a +goad. I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet, until you are strong +enough to force my hand:--that 's the speech of the wealthy. And they +are Christians. In name. Well, I thank heaven I'm at war, with myself.' + +'You always manage to strike out a sentence worth remembering, Tony,' +said Lady Dunstane. 'At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we +can have.' + +It suited her, frail as her health was, and her wisdom striving to the +spiritual of happiness. War with herself was far from happiness in the +bosom of Diana. She wanted external life, action, fields for energies, +to vary the struggle. It fretted and rendered her ill at ease. In her +solitary rides with Sir Lukin through a long winter season, she appalled +that excellent but conventionally-minded gentleman by starting, nay +supporting, theories next to profane in the consideration of a land- +owner. She spoke of Reform: of the Repeal of the Corn Laws as the simple +beginning of the grants due to the people. She had her ideas, of course, +from that fellow Redworth, an occasional visitor at Copsley; and a man +might be a donkey and think what he pleased, since he had a vocabulary +to back his opinions. A woman, Sir Lukin held, was by nature a mute in +politics. Of the thing called a Radical woman, he could not believe that +she was less than monstrous: 'with a nose,' he said; and doubtless, horse +teeth, hatchet jaws, slatternly in the gown, slipshod, awful. As for a +girl, an unmarried, handsome girl, admittedly beautiful, her +interjections, echoing a man, were ridiculous, and not a little annoying +now and them, for she could be piercingly sarcastic. Her vocabulary in +irony was a quiverful. He admired her and liked her immensely; +complaining only of her turn for unfeminine topics. He pardoned her on +the score of the petty difference rankling between them in reference to +his abandonment of his Profession, for here she was patriotically wrong- +headed. Everybody knew that he had sold out in order to look after his +estates of Copsley and Dunena, secondly: and in the first place, to nurse +and be a companion to his wife. He had left her but four times in five +months; he had spent just three weeks of that time away from her in +London. No one could doubt of his having kept his pledge, although his +wife occupied herself with books and notions and subjects foreign to his +taste--his understanding, too, he owned. And Redworth had approved of +his retirement, had a contempt for soldiering. 'Quite as great as yours +for civilians, I can tell you,' Sir Lukin said, dashing out of politics +to the vexatious personal subject. Her unexpressed disdain was ruffling. + +'Mr. Redworth recommends work: he respects the working soldier,' said +Diana. + +Sir Lukin exclaimed that he had been a working soldier; he was ready to +serve if his country wanted him. He directed her to anathematize Peace, +instead of scorning a fellow for doing the duties next about him: and the +mention of Peace fetched him at a bound back to politics. He quoted a +distinguished Tory orator, to the effect, that any lengthened term of +peace bred maggots in the heads of the people. + +'Mr. Redworth spoke of it: he translated something from Aristophanes for +a retort,' said Diana. + +'Well, we're friends, eh?' Sir Lukin put forth a hand. + +She looked at him surprised at the unnecessary call for a show, of +friendship; she touched his hand with two tips of her fingers, remarking, +'I should think so, indeed.' + +He deemed it prudent to hint to his wife that Diana Merion appeared to be +meditating upon Mr. Redworth. + +'That is a serious misfortune, if true,' said Lady Dunstane. She thought +so for two reasons: Mr. Redworth generally disagreed in opinion with +Diana, and contradicted her so flatly as to produce the impression of his +not even sharing the popular admiration of her beauty; and, further, she +hoped for Diana to make a splendid marriage. The nibbles threatened to +be snaps and bites. There had been a proposal, in an epistle, a quaint +effusion, from a gentleman avowing that he had seen her, and had not +danced with her on the night of the Irish ball. He was rejected, but +Diana groaned over the task of replying to the unfortunate applicant, so +as not to wound him. 'Shall I have to do this often, I wonder?' she +said. + +'Unless you capitulate,' said her friend. + +Diana's exclamation: 'May I be heart-free for another ten years!' +encouraged Lady Dunstane to suppose her husband quite mistaken. + +In the Spring Diana, went on a first pilgrimage to her old home, The +Crossways, and was kindly entertained by the uncle and aunt of a +treasured nephew, Mr. Augustus Warwick. She rode with him on the Downs. +A visit of a week humanized her view of the intruders. She wrote almost +tenderly of her host and hostess to Lady Dunstane; they had but 'the one +fault--of spoiling their nephew.' Him she described as a 'gentlemanly +official,' a picture of him. His age was thirty-four. He seemed 'fond +of her scenery.' Then her pen swept over the Downs like a flying horse. +Lady Dunstane thought no more of the gentlemanly official. He was a +barrister who did not practise: in nothing the man for Diana. Letters +came from the house of the Pettigrews in Kent; from London; from Halford +Manor in Hertfordshire; from Lockton Grange in Lincolnshire: after which +they ceased to be the thrice weekly; and reading the latest of them, Lady +Dunstane imagined a flustered quill. The letter succeeding the omission +contained no excuse, and it was brief. There was a strange interjection, +as to the wearifulness of constantly wandering, like a leaf off the tree. +Diana spoke of looking for a return of the dear winter days at Copsley. +That was her station. Either she must have had some disturbing +experience, or Copsley was dear for a Redworth reason, thought the +anxious peruser; musing, dreaming, putting together divers shreds of +correspondence and testing them with her intimate knowledge of Diana's +character, Lady Dunstane conceived that the unprotected beautiful girl +had suffered a persecution, it might be an insult. She spelt over the +names of the guests at the houses. Lord Wroxeter was of evil report: +Captain Rampan, a Turf captain, had the like notoriety. And it is +impossible in a great house for the hostess to spread her aegis to cover +every dame and damsel present. She has to depend on the women being +discreet, the men civilized. + +'How brutal men can be!' was one of Diana's incidental remarks, in a +subsequent letter, relating simply to masculine habits. In those days +the famous ancestral plea of 'the passion for his charmer' had not been +altogether socially quashed down among the provinces, where the bottle +maintained a sort of sway, and the beauty which inflamed the sons of men +was held to be in coy expectation of violent effects upon their boiling +blood. There were, one hears that there still are, remnants of the +pristine male, who, if resisted in their suing, conclude that they are +scorned, and it infuriates them: some also whose 'passion for the +charmer' is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex, by a bully +imposition of sheer physical ascendancy, whenever they see it flying with +an air of gallant independence: and some who dedicate their lives to a +study of the arts of the Lord Of Reptiles, until they have worked the +crisis for a display of him in person. Assault or siege, they have +achieved their triumphs; they have dominated a frailer system of nerves, +and a young woman without father, or brother, or husband, to defend her, +is cryingly a weak one, therefore inviting to such an order of heroes. +Lady Dunstane was quick-witted and had a talkative husband; she knew a +little of the upper social world of her time. She was heartily glad to +have Diana by her side again. + +Not a word of any serious experience was uttered. Only on one occasion +while they conversed, something being mentioned of her tolerance, a flush +of swarthy crimson shot over Diana, and she frowned, with the outcry 'Oh! +I have discovered that I can be a tigress!' + +Her friend pressed her hand, saying, 'The cause a good one!' + +'Women have to fight.' + +Diana said no more. There had been a bad experience of her isolated +position in the world. + +Lady Dunstane now indulged a partial hope that Mr. Redworth might see in +this unprotected beautiful girl a person worthy of his esteem. He had +his opportunities, and evidently he liked her. She appeared to take more +cordially to him. She valued the sterling nature of the man. But they +were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly. Both ladies noticed in +him an abstractedness of look, often when conversing, as of a man in +calculation; they put it down to an ambitious mind. Yet Diana said then, +and said always, that it was he who had first taught her the art of +observing. On the whole, the brilliant marriage seemed a fairer prospect +for her; how reasonable to anticipate, Lady Dunstane often thought when +admiring the advance of Diana's beauty in queenliness, for never did +woman carry her head more grandly, more thrillingly make her presence +felt; and if only she had been an actress showing herself nightly on a +London stage, she would before now have met the superb appreciation, +melancholy to reflect upon! + +Diana regained her happy composure at Copsley. She had, as she imagined, +no ambition. The dulness of the place conveyed a charm to a nature +recovering from disturbance to its clear smooth flow. Air, light, books, +and her friend, these good things she had; they were all she wanted. She +rode, she walked, with Sir Lukin or Mr. Redworth, for companion; or with +Saturday and Sunday guests, Lord Larrian, her declared admirer, among +them. 'Twenty years younger!' he said to her, shrugging, with a merry +smile drawn a little at the corners to sober sourness; and she vowed to +her friend that she would not have had the heart to refuse him. +'Though,' said she, 'speaking generally, I cannot tell you what a foreign +animal a husband would appear in my kingdom.' Her experience had wakened +a sexual aversion, of some slight kind, enough to make her feminine pride +stipulate for perfect independence, that she might have the calm out of +which imagination spreads wing. Imagination had become her broader life, +and on such an earth, under such skies, a husband who is not the fountain +of it, certainly is a foreign animal: he is a discordant note. He +contracts the ethereal world, deadens radiancy. He is gross fact, a +leash, a muzzle, harness, a hood; whatever is detestable to the free +limbs and senses. It amused Lady Dunstane to hear Diana say, one evening +when their conversation fell by hazard on her future, that the idea of a +convent was more welcome to her than the most splendid marriage. 'For,' +she added, 'as I am sure I shall never know anything of this love they +rattle about and rave about, I shall do well to keep to my good single +path; and I have a warning within me that a step out of it will be a +wrong one--for me, dearest!' + +She wished her view of the yoke to be considered purely personal, drawn +from no examples and comparisons. The excellent Sir Lukin was passing a +great deal of his time in London. His wife had not a word of blame for +him; he was a respectful husband, and attentive when present; but so +uncertain, owing to the sudden pressure of engagements, that Diana, bound +on a second visit to The Crossways, doubted whether she would be able to +quit her friend, whose condition did not allow of her being left solitary +at Copsley. He came nevertheless a day before Diana's appointed +departure on her round of visits. She was pleased with him, and let him +see it, for the encouragement of a husband in the observance of his +duties. One of the horses had fallen lame, so they went out for a walk, +at Lady Dunstane's request. It was a delicious afternoon of Spring, +with the full red disk of sun dropping behind the brown beech-twigs. +She remembered long afterward the sweet simpleness of her feelings as she +took in the scent of wild flowers along the lanes and entered the woods +jaws of another monstrous and blackening experience. He fell into the +sentimental vein, and a man coming from that heated London life to these +glorified woods, might be excused for doing so, though it sounded to her +just a little ludicrous in him. She played tolerantly second to it; she +quoted a snatch of poetry, and his whole face was bent to her, with the +petition that she would repeat the verse. Much struck was this giant ex- +dragoon. Ah! how fine! grand! He would rather hear that than any opera: +it was diviner! 'Yes, the best poetry is,' she assented. 'On your +lips,' he said. She laughed. 'I am not a particularly melodious +reciter.' He vowed he could listen to her eternally, eternally. His +face, on a screw of the neck and shoulders, was now perpetually three- +quarters fronting. Ah! she was going to leave. 'Yes, and you will find +my return quite early enough,' said Diana, stepping a trifle more +briskly. His fist was raised on the length of the arm, as if in +invocation. 'Not in the whole of London is there a woman worthy to +fasten your shoe-buckles! My oath on it! I look; I can't spy one.' +Such was his flattering eloquence. + +She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compliments. 'And +here, of all places!' They were in the heart of the woods. She found +her hand seized--her waist. Even then, so impossible is it to conceive +the unimaginable even when the apparition of it smites us, she expected +some protesting absurdity, or that he had seen something in her path.-- +What did she hear? And from her friend's husband! + +If stricken idiotic, he was a gentleman; the tigress she had detected in +her composition did not require to be called forth; half-a-dozen words, +direct, sharp as fangs and teeth, with the eyes burning over them, +sufficed for the work of defence. 'The man who swore loyalty to Emma!' +Her reproachful repulsion of eyes was unmistakeable, withering; as +masterful as a superior force on his muscles.--What thing had he been +taking her for?--She asked it within: and he of himself, in a reflective +gasp. Those eyes of hers appeared as in a cloud, with the wrath above: +she had: the look of a Goddess in anger. He stammered, pleaded across +her flying shoulder--Oh! horrible, loathsome, pitiable to hear! . . . +'A momentary aberration . . . her beauty . . . he deserved to be +shot! . . . could not help admiring . . . quite lost his head . . +on his honour! never again !' + +Once in the roadway, and Copsley visible, she checked her arrowy pace for +breath, and almost commiserated the dejected wretch in her thankfulness +to him for silence. Nothing exonerated him, but at least he had the +grace not to beg secresy. That would have been an intolerable whine of a +poltroon, adding to her humiliation. He abstained; he stood at her mercy +without appealing. + +She was not the woman to take poor vengeance. But, Oh! she was +profoundly humiliated, shamed through and through. The question, was I +guilty of any lightness--anything to bring this on me? would not be laid. +And how she pitied her friend! This house, her heart's home, was now a +wreck to her: nay, worse, a hostile citadel. The burden of the task of +meeting Emma with an open face, crushed her like very guilt. Yet she +succeeded. After an hour in her bedchamber she managed to lock up her +heart and summon the sprite of acting to her tongue and features: which +ready attendant on the suffering female host performed his liveliest +throughout the evening, to Emma's amusement, and to the culprit ex- +dragoon's astonishment; in whom, to tell the truth of him, her sparkle +and fun kindled the sense of his being less criminal than he had +supposed, with a dim vision of himself as the real proven donkey for not +having been a harmless dash more so. But, to be just as well as +penetrating, this was only the effect of her personal charm on his +nature. So it spurred him a moment, when it struck this doleful man that +to have secured one kiss of those fresh and witty sparkling lips he would +endure forfeits, pangs, anything save the hanging of his culprit's head +before his Emma. Reflection washed him clean. Secresy is not a medical +restorative, by no means a good thing for the baffled amorously- +adventurous cavalier, unless the lady's character shall have been firmly +established in or over his hazy wagging noddle. Reflection informed him +that the honourable, generous, proud girl spared him for the sake of the +house she loved. After a night of tossing, he rose right heartily +repentant. He showed it in the best manner, not dramatically. On her +accepting his offer to drive her down to the valley to meet the coach, +a genuine illumination of pure gratitude made a better man of him, both +to look at and in feeling. She did not hesitate to consent; and he had +half expected a refusal. She talked on the way quite as usual, +cheerfully, if not altogether so spiritedly. A flash of her matchless +wit now and then reduced him to that abject state of man beside the fair +person he has treated high cavalierly, which one craves permission to +describe as pulp. He was utterly beaten. + +The sight of Redworth on the valley road was a relief to them both. He +had slept in one of the houses of the valley, and spoke of having had the +intention to mount to Copsley. Sir Lukin proposed to drive him back. +He glanced at Diana, still with that calculating abstract air of his; and +he was rallied. He confessed to being absorbed in railways, the new +lines of railways projected to thread the land and fast mapping it. + +'You 've not embarked money in them?' said Sir Lukin. + +The answer was: 'I have; all I possess.' And Redworth for a sharp +instant set his eyes on Diana, indifferent to Sir Lukin's bellow of +stupefaction at such gambling on the part of a prudent fellow. + +He asked her where she was to be met, where written to, during the +Summer, in case of his wishing to send her news. + +She replied: 'Copsley will be the surest. I am always in communication +with Lady Dunstane.' She coloured deeply. The recollection of the +change of her feeling for Copsley suffused her maiden mind. + +The strange blush prompted an impulse in Redworth to speak to her at once +of his venture in railways. But what would she understand of them, as +connected with the mighty stake he was playing for? He delayed. The +coach came at a trot of the horses, admired by Sir Lukin, round a corner. +She entered it, her maid followed, the door banged, the horses trotted. +She was off. + +Her destiny of the Crossways tied a knot, barred a gate, and pointed to a +new direction of the road on that fine spring morning, when beech-buds +were near the burst, cowslips yellowed the meadow-flats, and skylarks +quivered upward. + +For many long years Redworth had in his memory, for a comment on +procrastination and excessive scrupulousness in his calculating faculty, +the blue back of a coach. + +He declined the vacated place beside Sir Lukin, promising to come and +spend a couple of days at Copsley in a fortnight--Saturday week. He +wanted, he said, to have a talk with Lady Dunstane. Evidently he had +railways on the brain, and Sir Lukin warned his wife to be guarded +against the speculative mania, and advise the man, if she could. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME TOO LATE + +On the Saturday of his appointment Redworth arrived at Copsley, with a +shade deeper of the calculating look under his thick brows, habitual to +him latterly. He found Lady Dunstane at her desk, pen in hand, the paper +untouched; and there was an appearance of trouble about her somewhat +resembling his own, as he would have observed, had he been open-minded +enough to notice anything, except that she was writing a letter. He +begged her to continue it; he proposed to read a book till she was at +leisure. + +'I have to write, and scarcely know how,' said she, clearing her face to +make the guest at home, and taking a chair by the fire, 'I would rather +chat for half an hour.' + +She spoke of the weather, frosty, but tonic; bad for the last days of +hunting, good for the farmer and the country, let us hope. + +Redworth nodded assent. It might be surmised that he was brooding over +those railways, in which he had embarked his fortune. Ah! those +railways! She was not long coming to the wailful exclamation upon them, +both to express her personal sorrow at the disfigurement of our dear +England, and lead to a little, modest, offering of a woman's counsel to +the rash adventurer; for thus could she serviceably put aside her +perplexity awhile. Those railways! When would there be peace in the +land? Where one single nook of shelter and escape from them! And the +English, blunt as their senses are to noise and hubbub, would be +revelling in hisses, shrieks, puffings and screeches, so that travelling +would become an intolerable affliction. 'I speak rather as an invalid,' +she admitted; 'I conjure up all sorts of horrors, the whistle in the +night beneath one's windows, and the smoke of trains defacing the +landscape; hideous accidents too. They will be wholesale and past help. +Imagine a collision! I have borne many changes with equanimity, I +pretend to a certain degree of philosophy, but this mania for cutting up +the land does really cause me to pity those who are to follow us. They +will not see the England we have seen. It will be patched and scored, +disfigured . . . a sort of barbarous Maori visage--England in a New +Zealand mask. You may call it the sentimental view. In this case, I am +decidedly sentimental: I love my country. I do love quiet, rural +England. Well, and I love beauty, I love simplicity. All that will be +destroyed by the refuse of the towns flooding the land--barring +accidents, as Lukin says. There seems nothing else to save us.' + +Redworth acquiesced. 'Nothing.' + +'And you do not regret it?' he was asked. + +'Not a bit. We have already exchanged opinions on the subject. +Simplicity must go, and the townsman meet his equal in the countryman. +As for beauty, I would sacrifice that to circulate gumption. A bushelful +of nonsense is talked pro and con: it always is at an innovation. What +we are now doing, is to take a longer and a quicker stride, that is all.' + +'And establishing a new field for the speculator.' + +'Yes, and I am one, and this is the matter I wanted to discuss with you, +Lady Dunstane,' said Redworth, bending forward, the whole man devoted to +the point of business. + +She declared she was complimented; she felt the compliment, and trusted +her advice might be useful, faintly remarking that she had a woman's +head: and 'not less' was implied as much as 'not more,' in order to give +strength to her prospective opposition. + +All his money, she heard, was down on the railway table. He might within +a year have a tolerable fortune: and, of course, he might be ruined. He +did not expect it; still he fronted the risks. 'And now,' said he, +'I come to you for counsel. I am not held among my acquaintances to be +a marrying man, as it's called.' + +He paused. Lady Dunstane thought it an occasion to praise him for his +considerateness. + +'You involve no one but yourself, you mean?' Her eyes shed approval. +'Still the day may come . . . I say only that it may: and the wish +to marry is a rosy colouring . . . equal to a flying chariot in +conducting us across difficulties and obstructions to the deed. +And then one may have to regret a previous rashness.' + +These practical men are sometimes obtuse: she dwelt on that vision +of the future. + +He listened, and resumed: 'My view of marriage is, that no man should +ask a woman to be his wife unless he is well able to support her in the +comforts, not to say luxuries, she is accustomed to.' His gaze had +wandered to the desk; it fixed there. 'That is Miss Merion's writing,' +he said. + +'The letter?' said Lady Dunstane, and she stretched out her hand to press +down a leaf of it. 'Yes; it is from her.' + +'Is she quite well?' + +'I suppose she is. She does not speak of her health.' + +He looked pertinaciously in the direction of the letter, and it was not +rightly mannered. That letter, of all others, was covert and sacred to +the friend. It contained the weightiest of secrets. + +'I have not written to her,' said Redworth. + +He was astonishing: 'To whom? To Diana? You could very well have done +so, only I fancy she knows nothing, has never given a thought to railway +stocks and shares; she has a loathing for speculation.' + +'And speculators too, I dare say!' + +'It is extremely probable.' Lady Dunstane spoke with an emphasis, for +the man liked Diana, and would be moved by the idea of forfeiting her +esteem. + +'She might blame me if I did anything dishonourable!' + +'She certainly would.' + +'She will have no cause.' + +Lady Dunstane began to look, as at a cloud charged with remote +explosions: and still for the moment she was unsuspecting. But it was +a flitting moment. When he went on, and very singularly droning to her +ear: 'The more a man loves a woman, the more he should be positive, +before asking her, that she will not have to consent to a loss of +position, and I would rather lose her than fail to give her all--not be +sure, as far as a man can be sure, of giving her all I think she's worthy +of': then the cloud shot a lightning flash, and the doors of her +understanding swung wide to the entry of a great wonderment. A shock of +pain succeeded it. Her sympathy was roused so acutely that she slipped +over the reflective rebuke she would have addressed to her silly delusion +concerning his purpose in speaking of his affairs to a woman. Though he +did not mention Diana by name, Diana was clearly the person. And why had +he delayed to speak to her?--Because of this venture of his money to make +him a fortune, for the assurance of her future comfort! Here was the +best of men for the girl, not displeasing to her; a good, strong, +trustworthy man, pleasant to hear and to see, only erring in being a +trifle too scrupulous in love: and a fortnight back she would have +imagined he had no chance; and now she knew that the chance was excellent +in those days, with this revelation in Diana's letter, which said that +all chance was over. + +'The courtship of a woman,' he droned away, 'is in my mind not fair to +her until a man has to the full enough to sanction his asking her to +marry him. And if he throws all he possesses on a stake . . . to win +her--give her what she has a right to claim, he ought . . . . Only at +present the prospect seems good . . . . He ought of course to wait. +Well, the value of the stock I hold has doubled, and it increases. I am +a careful watcher of the market. I have friends--brokers and railway +Directors. I can rely on them.' + +'Pray,' interposed Lady Dunstane, 'specify--I am rather in a mist--the +exact point upon which you do me the honour to consult me.' She +ridiculed herself for having imagined that such a man would come to +consult her upon a point of business. + +'It is,' he replied, 'this: whether, as affairs now stand with me--I have +an income from my office, and personal property . . . say between +thirteen and fourteen hundred a year to start with--whether you think me +justified in asking a lady to share my lot?' + +'Why not? But will you name the lady?' + +'Then I may write at once? In your judgement. . . . Yes, the lady. +I have not named her. I had no right. Besides, the general question +first, in fairness to the petitioner. You might reasonably stipulate for +more for a friend. She could make a match, as you have said . . .' he +muttered of 'brilliant,' and 'the highest'; and his humbleness of the +honest man enamoured touched Lady Dunstane. She saw him now as the man +of strength that she would have selected from a thousand suitors to guide +her dear friend. + +She caught at a straw: 'Tell me, it is not Diana?' + +'Diana Merion!' + +As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew himself tight +for the stroke. 'She's in love with some one?' + +'She is engaged.' + +He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that excruciating +twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their +course to grind the contrary to that of the heart, was revealed in one +short lift and gasp, a compression of the tremendous change he underwent. + +'Why did you not speak before?' said Lady Dunstane. Her words were +tremulous. + +'I should have had no justification!' + +'You might have won her!' She could have wept; her sympathy and her +self-condolence under disappointment at Diana's conduct joined to swell +the feminine flood. + +The poor fellow's quick breathing and blinking reminded her of cruelty in +a retrospect. She generalized, to ease her spirit of regret, by hinting +it without hurting: 'Women really are not puppets. They are not so +excessively luxurious. It is good for young women in the early days of +marriage to rough it a little.' She found herself droning, as he had +done. + +He had ears for nothing but the fact. + +'Then I am too late!' + +'I have heard it to-day.' + +'She is engaged! Positively?' + +Lady Dunstane glanced backward at the letter on her desk. She had to +answer the strangest of letters that had ever come to her, and it was +from her dear Tony, the baldest intimation of the weightiest piece of +intelligence which a woman can communicate to her heart's friend. The +task of answering it was now doubled. 'I fear so, I fancy so,' she said, +and she longed to cast eye over the letter again, to see if there might +possibly be a loophole behind the lines. + +'Then I must make my mind up to it,' said Redworth. 'I think I'll take a +walk.' + +She smiled kindly. 'It will be our secret.' + +'I thank you with all my heart, Lady Dunstane.' + +He was not a weaver of phrases in distress. His blunt reserve was +eloquent of it to her, and she liked him the better; could have thanked +him, too, for leaving her promptly. + +When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter at a hasty +glimpse. It was of one paragraph, and fired its shot like a cannon with +the muzzle at her breast:-- + + 'MY OWN EMMY,--I have been asked in marriage by Mr. Warwick, and + have accepted him. Signify your approval, for I have decided that + it is the wisest thing a waif can do. We are to live at The + Crossways for four months of the year, so I shall have Dada in his + best days and all my youngest dreams, my sunrise and morning dew, + surrounding me; my old home for my new one. I write in haste, to + you first, burning to hear from you. Send your blessing to yours in + life and death, through all transformations, + 'TONY.' + +That was all. Not a word of the lover about to be decorated with the +title of husband. No confession of love, nor a single supplicating word +to her friend, in excuse for the abrupt decision to so grave a step. +Her previous description of, him, as a 'gentlemanly official' in his +appearance, conjured him up most distastefully. True, she might have +made a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scandals; +but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler mould, he failed to +harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like Tony. Perhaps +Mr. Redworth also failed in something. Where was the man fitly to mate +her! Mr. Redworth, however, was manly and trustworthy, of the finest +Saxon type in build and in character. He had great qualities, and his +excess of scrupulousness was most pitiable. + +She read: 'The wisest thing a waif can do.' It bore a sound of +desperation. Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love. +Or was she masking the passion? No: had it been a case of love, she +would have written very differently to her friend. + +Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Diana's +novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness, +and despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line: 'Wonders +are always happening.' She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise; +naturally betraying it. 'I must hope and pray that you have not been +precipitate.' Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, the most +genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly. + +When she had finished the composition she perused it, and did not +recognize herself in her language, though she had been so guarded to +cover the wound her Tony dealt their friendship--in some degree injuring +their sex. For it might now, after such an example, verily seem that +women are incapable of a translucent perfect confidence: their impulses, +caprices, desperations, tricks of concealment, trip a heart-whole +friendship. Well, to-morrow, if not to-day, the tripping may be +expected! Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly to a lowered view of +her Tony's character. This was her unconscious act of reprisal. +Her brilliant beloved Tony, dazzling but in beauty and the gifted mind, +stood as one essentially with the common order of women. She wished to +be settled, Mr. Warwick proposed, and for the sake of living at The +Crossways she accepted him--she, the lofty scorner of loveless marriages! +who had said--how many times! that nothing save love excused it! She +degraded their mutual high standard of womankind. Diana was in eclipse, +full three parts. The bulk of the gentlemanly official she had chosen +obscured her. But I have written very carefully, thought Lady Dunstane, +dropping her answer into the post-bag. She had, indeed, been so care +ful, that to cloak her feelings, she had written as another person. +Women with otiose husbands have a task to preserve friendship. + +Redworth carried his burden through the frosty air at a pace to melt +icicles in Greenland. He walked unthinkingly, right ahead, to the red +West, as he discovered when pausing to consult his watch. Time was left +to return at the same pace and dress for dinner; he swung round and +picked up remembrances of sensations he had strewn by the way. She knew +these woods; he was walking in her footprints; she was engaged to be +married. Yes, his principle, never to ask a woman to marry him, never to +court her, without bank-book assurance of his ability to support her in +cordial comfort, was right. He maintained it, and owned himself a donkey +for having stuck to it. Between him and his excellent principle there +was war, without the slightest division. Warned of the danger of losing +her, he would have done the same again, confessing himself donkey for his +pains. The principle was right, because it was due to the woman. His +rigid adherence to the principle set him belabouring his donkey-ribs, as +the proper due to himself. For he might have had a chance, all through +two Winters. The opportunities had been numberless. Here, in this beech +wood; near that thornbush; on the juniper slope; from the corner of chalk +and sand in junction, to the corner of clay and chalk; all the length of +the wooded ridge he had reminders of her presence and his priceless +chances: and still the standard of his conduct said No, while his heart +bled. + +He felt that a chance had been. More sagacious than Lady Dunstane, +from his not nursing a wound, he divined in the abruptness of Diana's +resolution to accept a suitor, a sober reason, and a fitting one, for +the wish that she might be settled. And had he spoken!--If he had spoken +to her, she might have given her hand to him, to a dishonourable brute! +A blissful brute. But a worse than donkey. Yes, his principle was +right, and he lashed with it, and prodded with it, drove himself out into +the sour wilds where bachelordom crops noxious weeds without a hallowing +luminary, and clung to it, bruised and bleeding though he was. + +The gentleness of Lady Dunstane soothed him during the term of a visit +that was rather like purgatory sweetened by angelical tears. He was glad +to go, wretched in having gone. She diverted the incessant conflict +between his insubordinate self and his castigating, but avowedly +sovereign, principle. Away from her, he was the victim of a flagellation +so dire that it almost drove him to revolt against the lord he served, +and somehow the many memories at Copsley kept him away. Sir Lukin, when +speaking of Diana's 'engagement to that fellow Warwick,' exalted her with +an extraordinary enthusiasm, exceedingly hard for the silly beast who had +lost her to bear. For the present the place dearest to Redworth of all +places on earth was unendurable. + +Meanwhile the value of railway investments rose in the market, fast as +asparagus-heads for cutting: a circumstance that added stings to +reflection. Had he been only a little bolder, a little less the +fanatical devotee of his rule of masculine honour, less the slave to the +letter of success . . . . But why reflect at all? Here was a goodly +income approaching, perhaps a seat in Parliament; a station for the +airing of his opinions--and a social status for the wife now denied to +him. The wife was denied to him; he could conceive of no other. The +tyrant-ridden, reticent, tenacious creature had thoroughly wedded her +in mind; her view of things had a throne beside his own, even in their +differences. He perceived, agreeing or disagreeing, the motions of her +brain, as he did with none other of women; and this it is which stamps +character on her, divides her from them, upraises and enspheres. He +declined to live with any other of the sex. + +Before he could hear of the sort of man Mr. Warwick was--a perpetual +object of his quest--the bridal bells had rung, and Diana Antonia Merion +lost her maiden name. She became the Mrs. Warwick of our footballing +world. + +Why she married, she never told. Possibly, in amazement at herself +subsequently, she forgot the specific reason. That which weighs heavily +in youth, and commits us to desperate action, will be a trifle under +older eyes, to blunter senses, a more enlightened understanding. Her +friend Emma probed for the reason vainly. It was partly revealed to +Redworth, by guess-work and a putting together of pieces, yet quite +luminously, as it were by touch of tentacle-feelers--one evening that he +passed with Sir Lukin Dunstane, when the lachrymose ex-dragoon and son of +Idlesse, had rather more than dined. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE COUPLE + +Six months a married woman, Diana came to Copsley to introduce her +husband. They had run over Italy: 'the Italian Peninsula,' she quoted +him in a letter to Lady Dunstane: and were furnishing their London house. +Her first letters from Italy appeared to have a little bloom of +sentiment. Augustus was mentioned as liking this and that in the land +of beauty. He patronized Art, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak +upon pictures and sculptures; he knew a great deal about them. 'He is +an authority.' Her humour soon began to play round the fortunate man, +who did not seem, to the reader's mind, to bear so well a sentimental +clothing. His pride was in being very English on the Continent, and +Diana's instances of his lofty appreciations of the garden of Art and +Nature, and statuesque walk through it, would have been more amusing if +her friend could have harmonized her idea of the couple. A description +of 'a bit of a wrangle between us' at Lucca, where an Italian post-master +on a journey of inspection, claimed a share of their carriage and +audaciously attempted entry, was laughable, but jarred. Would she some +day lose her relish for ridicule, and see him at a distance? He was +generous, Diana, said she saw fine qualities in him. It might be that he +was lavish on his bridal tour. She said he was unselfish, kind, affable +with his equals; he was cordial to the acquaintances he met. Perhaps his +worst fault was an affected superciliousness before the foreigner, not +uncommon in those days. 'You are to know, dear Emmy, that we English are +the aristocracy of Europeans.' Lady Dunstane inclined to think we were; +nevertheless, in the mouth of a 'gentlemanly official' the frigid +arrogance added a stroke of caricature to his deportment. On the other +hand, the reports of him gleaned by Sir Lukin sounded favourable. He was +not taken to be preternaturally stiff, nor bright, but a goodish sort of +fellow; good horseman, good shot, good character. In short, the average +Englishman, excelling as a cavalier, a slayer, and an orderly subject. +That was a somewhat elevated standard to the patriotic Emma. Only she +would never have stipulated for an average to espouse Diana. Would he +understand her, and value the best in her? Another and unanswered +question was, how could she have condescended to wed with an average? +There was transparently some secret not confided to her friend. + +He appeared. Lady Dunstane's first impression of him recurred on his +departure. Her unanswered question drummed at her ears, though she +remembered that Tony's art in leading him out had moderated her rigidly +judicial summary of the union during a greater part of the visit. But +his requiring to be led out, was against him. Considering the subjects, +his talk was passable. The subjects treated of politics, pictures, +Continental travel, our manufactures, our wealth and the reasons for it +--excellent reasons well-weighed. He was handsome, as men go; rather +tall, not too stout, precise in the modern fashion of his dress, and the +pair of whiskers encasing a colourless depression up to a long, thin, +straight nose, and closed lips indicating an aperture. The contraction +of his mouth expressed an intelligence in the attitude of the firmly +negative. + +The lips opened to smile, the teeth were faultless; an effect was +produced, if a cold one--the colder for the unparticipating northern +eyes; eyes of that half cloud and blue, which make a kind of hueless +grey, and are chiefly striking in an authoritative stage. Without +contradicting, for he was exactly polite, his look signified a person +conscious of being born to command: in fine, an aristocrat among the +'aristocracy of Europeans.' His differences of opinion were prefaced by +a 'Pardon me,' and pausing smile of the teeth; then a succinctly worded +sentence or two, a perfect settlement of the dispute. He disliked +argumentation. He said so, and Diana remarked it of him, speaking as, +a wife who merely noted a characteristic. Inside his boundary, he had +neat phrases, opinions in packets. Beyond it, apparently the world was +void of any particular interest. Sir Lukin, whose boundary would have +shown a narrower limitation had it been defined, stood no chance with +him. Tory versus Whig, he tried a wrestle, and was thrown. They agreed +on the topic of Wine. Mr. Warwick had a fine taste in wine. Their +after-dinner sittings were devoted to this and the alliterative cognate +theme, equally dear to the gallant ex-dragoon, from which it resulted +that Lady Dunstane received satisfactory information in a man's judgement +of him. 'Warwick is a clever fellow, and a thorough man of the world, I +can tell you, Emmy.' Sir Lukin further observed that he was a +gentlemanly fellow. 'A gentlemanly official!' Diana's primary dash of +portraiture stuck to him, so true it was! As for her, she seemed to have +forgotten it. Not only did she strive to show him to advantage by +leading him out; she played second to him; subserviently, fondly; she +quite submerged herself, content to be dull if he might shine; and her +talk of her husband in her friend's blue-chamber boudoir of the golden +stars, where they had discussed the world and taken counsel in her maiden +days, implied admiration of his merits. He rode superbly: he knew Law: +he was prepared for any position: he could speak really eloquently; she +had heard him at a local meeting. And he loved the old Crossways almost +as much as she did. 'He has promised me he will never ask me to sell +it,' she said, with a simpleness that could hardly have been acted. + +When she was gone, Lady Dunstane thought she had worn a mask, in the +natural manner of women trying to make the best of their choice; and she +excused her poor Tony for the artful presentation of him at her own cost. +But she could not excuse her for having married the man. Her first and +her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty: a London +house conventionally furnished and decorated by the upholsterer, and +empty of inhabitants. How a brilliant and beautiful girl could have +committed this rashness, was the perplexing riddle: the knottier because +the man was idle: and Diana had ambition; she despised and dreaded +idleness in men. Empty of inhabitants even to the ghost! Both human and +spiritual were wanting. The mind contemplating him became reflectively +stagnant. + +I must not be unjust! Lady Dunstane hastened to exclaim, at a whisper +that he had at least proved his appreciation of Tony; whom he preferred +to call Diana, as she gladly remembered: and the two were bound together +for a moment warmly by her recollection of her beloved Tony's touching +little petition: 'You will invite us again?' and then there had flashed +in Tony's dear dark eyes the look of their old love drowning. They were +not to be thought of separately. She admitted that the introduction to +a woman of her friend's husband is crucially trying to him: he may well +show worse than he is. Yet his appreciation of Tony in espousing her, +was rather marred by Sir Lukin's report of him as a desperate admirer of +beautiful woman. It might be for her beauty only, not for her spiritual +qualities! At present he did not seem aware of their existence. But, to +be entirely just, she had hardly exhibited them or a sign of them during +the first interview: and sitting with his hostess alone, he had seized +the occasion to say, that he was the happiest of men. He said it with +the nearest approach to fervour she had noticed. Perhaps the very fact +of his not producing a highly favourable impression, should be set to +plead on his behalf. Such as he was, he was himself, no simulator. She +longed for Mr. Redworth's report of him. + +Her compassion for Redworth's feelings when beholding the woman he loved +another man's wife, did not soften the urgency of her injunction that he +should go speedily, and see as much of them as he could. 'Because,' she +gave her reason, 'I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend +through her marriage, and is only one the richer.' + +Redworth buckled himself to the task. He belonged to the class of his +countrymen who have a dungeon-vault for feelings that should not be +suffered to cry abroad, and into this oubliette he cast them, letting +them feed as they might, or perish. It was his heart down below, and in +no voluntary musings did he listen to it, to sustain the thing. Grimly +lord of himself, he stood emotionless before the world. Some worthy +fellows resemble him, and they are called deep-hearted. He was dungeon- +deep. The prisoner underneath might clamour and leap; none heard him +or knew of him; nor did he ever view the day. Diana's frank: 'Ah, Mr. +Redworth, how glad I am to see you!' was met by the calmest formalism +of the wish for her happiness. He became a guest at her London house, +and his report of the domesticity there, and notably of the lord of the +house, pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husband's. He saw the kind +of man accurately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and she +could say assentingly, without anxiety: 'Yes, yes,' to his remarks upon +Mr. Warwick, indicative of a man of capable head in worldly affairs, +commonplace beside his wife. The noble gentleman for Diana was yet +unborn, they tacitly agreed. Meantime one must not put a mortal husband +to the fiery ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise. +'You may be sure she is a constant friend,' Lady Dunstane said for +his comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of +disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: 'I could calculate on it.' +For though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit, she wished +to see that he held an image of Diana:--surely a woman to kindle poets +and heroes, the princes of the race; and it was a curious perversity that +the two men she had moved were merely excellent, emotionless, ordinary +men, with heads for business. Elsewhere, out of England, Diana would +have been a woman for a place in song, exalted to the skies. Here she +had the destiny to inflame Mr. Redworth and Mr. Warwick, two railway +Directors, bent upon scoring the country to the likeness of a child's +lines of hop-scotch in a gravel-yard. + +As with all invalids, the pleasure of living backward was haunted by the +tortures it evoked, and two years later she recalled this outcry against +the Fates. She would then have prayed for Diana to inflame none but such +men as those two. The original error was; of course, that rash and most +inexplicable marriage, a step never alluded to by the driven victim of +it. Lady Dunstane heard rumours of dissensions. Diana did not mention +them. She spoke of her husband as unlucky in railway ventures, and of +a household necessity for money, nothing further. One day she wrote of +a Government appointment her husband had received, ending the letter: +'So there is the end of our troubles.' Her friend rejoiced, and +afterward looking back at her satisfaction, saw the dire beginning of +them. + +Lord Dannisburgh's name, as one of the admirers of Mrs. Warwick, was +dropped once or twice by Sir Lukin. He had dined with the Warwicks, and +met the eminent member of the Cabinet at their table. There is no harm +in admiration, especially on the part of one of a crowd observing a star. +No harm can be imputed when the husband of a beautiful woman accepts an +appointment from the potent Minister admiring her. So Lady Dunstane +thought, for she was sure of Diana to her inmost soul. But she soon +perceived in Sir Lukin that the old Dog-world was preparing to yelp on a +scent. He of his nature belonged to the hunting pack, and with a cordial +feeling for the quarry, he was quite with his world in expecting to see +her run, and readiness to join the chase. No great scandal had occurred +for several months. The world was in want of it; and he, too, with a +very cordial feeling for the quarry, piously hoping she would escape, +already had his nose to ground, collecting testimony in the track of her. +He said little to his wife, but his world was getting so noisy that he +could not help half pursing his lips, as with the soft whistle of an +innuendo at the heels of it. Redworth was in America, engaged in carving +up that hemisphere. She had no source of information but her husband's +chance gossip; and London was death to her; and Diana, writing faithfully +twice a week, kept silence as to Lord Dannisburgh, except in naming him +among her guests. She wrote this, which might have a secret personal +signification: 'We women are the verbs passive of the alliance; we have +to learn, and if we take to activity, with the best intentions, we +conjugate a frightful disturbance. We are to run on lines, like the +steam-trains, or we come to no station, dash to fragments. I have the +misfortune to know I was born an active. I take my chance.' + +Once she coupled the names of Lord Larrian and Lord Dannisburgh, +remarking that she had a fatal attraction for antiques. + +The death of her husband's uncle and illness of his aunt withdrew her +to The Crossways, where she remained nursing for several months, reading +diligently, as her letters showed, and watching the approaches of the +destroyer. She wrote like her former self, subdued by meditation in the +presence of that inevitable. The world ceased barking. Lady Dunstane +could suppose Mr. Warwick to have now a reconciling experience of his +wife's noble qualities. He probably did value them more. He spoke of +her to Sir Lukin in London with commendation. 'She is an attentive +nurse.' He inherited a considerable increase of income when he and his +wife were the sole tenants of The Crossways, but disliking the house, +for reasons hard to explain by a man previously professing to share her +attachment to it, he wished to sell or let the place, and his wife would +do neither. She proposed to continue living in their small London house +rather than be cut off from The Crossways, which, he said, was ludicrous: +people should live up to their position; and he sneered at the place, and +slightly wounded her, for she was open to a wound when the cold fire of a +renewed attempt at warmth between them was crackling and showing bits of +flame, after she had given proof of her power to serve. Service to +himself and his relatives affected him. He deferred to her craze for The +Crossways, and they lived in a larger London house, 'up to their +position,' which means ever a trifle beyond it, and gave choice dinner- +parties to the most eminent. His jealousy slumbered. Having ideas of a +seat in Parliament at this period, and preferment superior to the post he +held, Mr. Warwick deemed it sagacious to court the potent patron Lord +Dannisburgh could be; and his wife had his interests at heart, the fork- +tongued world said. The cry revived. Stories of Lord D. and Mrs. W. +whipped the hot pursuit. The moral repute of the great Whig lord and the +beauty of the lady composed inflammable material. + +'Are you altogether cautious?' Lady Dunstane wrote to Diana; and her +friend sent a copious reply: 'You have the fullest right to ask your Tony +anything, and I will answer as at the Judgement bar. You allude to Lord +Dannisburgh. He is near what Dada's age would have been, and is, I think +I can affirm, next to my dead father and my Emmy, my dearest friend. +I love him. I could say it in the streets without shame; and you do not +imagine me shameless. Whatever his character in his younger days, he can +be honestly a woman's friend, believe me. I see straight to his heart; +he has no disguise; and unless I am to suppose that marriage is the end +of me, I must keep him among my treasures. I see him almost daily; it is +not possible to think I can be deceived; and as long as he does me the +honour to esteem my poor portion of brains by coming to me for what he is +good enough to call my counsel, I shall let the world wag its tongue. +Between ourselves, I trust to be doing some good. I know I am of use in +various ways. No doubt there is a danger of a woman's head being turned, +when she reflects that a powerful Minister governing a kingdom has not +considered her too insignificant to advise him; and I am sensible of it. +I am, I assure you, dearest, on my guard against it. That would not +attach me to him, as his homely friendliness does. He is the most +amiable, cheerful, benignant of men; he has no feeling of an enemy, +though naturally his enemies are numerous and venomous. He is full of +observation and humour. How he would amuse you! In many respects accord +with you. And I should not have a spark of jealousy. Some day I shall +beg permission to bring him to Copsley. At present, during the Session, +he is too busy, as you know. Me--his "crystal spring of wisdom"--he can +favour with no more than an hour in the afternoon, or a few minutes at +night. Or I get a pencilled note from the benches of the House, with an +anecdote, or news of a Division. I am sure to be enlivened. + +'So I have written to you fully, simply, frankly. Have perfect faith in +your Tony, who would, she vows to heaven; die rather than disturb it and +her heart's beloved.' + +The letter terminated with one of Lord Dannisburgh's anecdotes, exciting +to merriment in the season of its freshness;--and a postscript of +information: 'Augustus expects a mission--about a month; uncertain +whether I accompany him.' + +Mr. Warwick departed on his mission. Diana remained in London. Lady +Dunstane wrote entreating her to pass the month--her favourite time of +the violet yielding to the cowslip--at Copsley. The invitation could not +be accepted, but the next day Diana sent word that she had a surprise for +the following Sunday, and would bring a friend to lunch, if Sir Lukin +would meet them at the corner of the road in the valley leading up to the +heights, at a stated hour. + +Lady Dunstane gave the listless baronet his directions, observing: 'It's +odd, she never will come alone since her marriage.' + +'Queer,' said he of the serenest absence of conscience; and that there +must be something not, entirely right going on, he strongly inclined to +think. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CRISIS + +It was a confirmed suspicion when he beheld Lord Dannisburgh on the box +of a four-in-hand, and the peerless Diana beside him, cockaded lackeys in +plain livery and the lady's maid to the rear. But Lord Dannisburgh's +visit was a compliment, and the freak of his driving down under the beams +of Aurora on a sober Sunday morning capital fun; so with a gaiety that +was kept alive for the invalid Emma to partake of it, they rattled away +to the heights, and climbed them, and Diana rushed to the arms of her +friend, whispering and cooing for pardon if she startled her, guilty +of a little whiff of blarney:--Lord Dannisburgh wanted so much to be +introduced to her, and she so much wanted her to know him, and she hoped +to be graciously excused for thus bringing them together, 'that she might +be chorus to them!' Chorus was a pretty fiction on the part of the +thrilling and topping voice. She was the very radiant Diana of her +earliest opening day, both in look and speech, a queenly comrade, and a +spirit leaping and shining like a mountain water. She did not seduce, +she ravished. The judgement was taken captive and flowed with her. +As to the prank of the visit, Emma heartily enjoyed it and hugged it +for a holiday of her own, and doating on the beautiful, darkeyed, fresh +creature, who bore the name of the divine Huntress, she thought her a +true Dian in stature, step, and attributes, the genius of laughter +superadded. None else on earth so sweetly laughed, none so +spontaneously, victoriously provoked the healthful openness. +Her delicious chatter, and her museful sparkle in listening, equally +quickened every sense of life. Adorable as she was to her friend Emma +at all times, she that day struck a new fountain in memory. And it was +pleasant to see the great lord's admiration of this wonder. One could +firmly believe in their friendship, and his winning ideas from the +abounding bubbling well. A recurrent smile beamed on his face when +hearing and observing her. Certain dishes provided at the table were +Diana's favourites, and he relished them, asking for a second help, +and remarking that her taste was good in that as in all things. They +lunched, eating like boys. They walked over the grounds of Copsley, and +into the lanes and across the meadows of the cowslip, rattling, chatting, +enlivening the frosty air, happy as children biting to the juices of ripe +apples off the tree. But Tony was the tree, the dispenser of the rosy +gifts. She had a moment of reflection, only a moment, and Emma felt the +pause as though a cloud had shadowed them and a spirit had been shut +away. Both spoke of their happiness at the kiss of parting. That +melancholy note at the top of the wave to human hearts conscious of its +enforced decline was repeated by them, and Diana's eyelids blinked to +dismiss a tear. + +'You have no troubles?' Emma said. + +'Only the pain of the good-bye to my beloved,' said Diana. 'I have +never been happier--never shall be! Now you know him you think with me? +I knew you would. You have seen him as he always is--except when he is +armed for battle. He is the kindest of souls. And soul I say. He is +the one man among men who gives me notions of a soul in men.' + +The eulogy was exalted. Lady Dunstane made a little mouth for Oh, in +correction of the transcendental touch, though she remembered their +foregone conversations upon men--strange beings that they are!--and +understood Diana's meaning. + +'Really! really! honour !' Diana emphasized her extravagant praise, to +print it fast. 'Hear him speak of Ireland.' + +'Would he not speak of Ireland in a tone to catch the Irishwoman?' + +'He is past thoughts of catching, dearest. At that age men are pools of +fish, or what you will: they are not anglers. Next year, if you invite +us, we will come again.' + +'But you will come to stay in the Winter?' + +'Certainly. But I am speaking of one of my holidays.' + +They kissed fervently. The lady mounted; the grey and portly lord +followed her; Sir Lukin flourished his whip, and Emma was left to brood +over her friend's last words: 'One of my holidays.' Not a hint to the +detriment of her husband had passed. The stray beam balefully +illuminating her marriage slipped from her involuntarily. Sir Lukin was +troublesome with his ejaculations that evening, and kept speculating on +the time of the arrival of the four-in-hand in London; upon which he +thought a great deal depended. They had driven out of town early, and +if they drove back late they would not be seen, as all the cacklers were +sure then to be dressing for dinner, and he would not pass the Clubs. +'I couldn't suggest it,' he said. 'But Dannisburgh's an old hand. +But they say he snaps his fingers at tattle, and laughs. Well, it +doesn't matter for him, perhaps, but a game of two . . . . Oh! it'll +be all right. They can't reach London before dusk. And the cat's away.' + +'It's more than ever incomprehensible to me how she could have married +that man,' said his wife. + +'I've long since given it up,' said he. + +Diana wrote her thanks for the delightful welcome, telling of her drive +home to smoke and solitude, with a new host of romantic sensations to +keep her company. She wrote thrice in the week, and the same addition of +one to the ordinary number next week. Then for three weeks not a line. +Sir Lukin brought news from London that Warwick had returned, nothing to +explain the silence. A letter addressed to The Crossways was likewise +unnoticed. The supposition that they must be visiting on a round, +appeared rational; but many weeks elapsed, until Sir Lukin received a +printed sheet in the superscription of a former military comrade, who had +marked a paragraph. It was one of those journals, now barely credible, +dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle, wherein initials raised +sewer-lamps, and Asmodeus lifted a roof, leering hideously. Thousands +detested it, and fattened their crops on it. Domesticated beasts of +superior habits to the common will indulge themselves with a luxurious +roll in carrion, for a revival of their original instincts. Society was +largely a purchaser. The ghastly thing was dreaded as a scourge, hailed +as a refreshment, nourished as a parasite. It professed undaunted +honesty, and operated in the fashion of the worms bred of decay. Success +was its boasted justification. The animal world, when not rigorously +watched, will always crown with success the machine supplying its +appetites. The old dog-world took signal from it. The one-legged devil- +god waved his wooden hoof, and the creatures in view, the hunt was +uproarious. Why should we seem better than we are? down with hypocrisy, +cried the censor morum, spicing the lamentable derelictions of this and +that great person, male and female. The plea of corruption of blood in +the world, to excuse the public chafing of a grievous itch, is not less +old than sin; and it offers a merry day of frisky truant running to the +animal made unashamed by another and another stripped, branded, and +stretched flat. Sir Lukin read of Mr. and Mrs. W. and a distinguished +Peer of the realm. The paragraph was brief; it had a flavour. Promise +of more to come, pricked curiosity. He read it enraged, feeling for his +wife; and again indignant, feeling for Diana. His third reading found +him out: he felt for both, but as a member of the whispering world, much +behind the scenes, he had a longing for the promised insinuations, just +to know what they could say, or dared say. The paper was not shown to +Lady Dunstane. A run to London put him in the tide of the broken dam of +gossip. The names were openly spoken and swept from mouth to mouth of +the scandalmongers, gathering matter as they flew. He knocked at Diana's +door, where he was informed that the mistress of the house was absent. +More than official gravity accompanied the announcement. Her address was +unknown. Sir Lukin thought it now time to tell his wife. He began with +a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind for bad news. +She divined immediately that it concerned Diana, and forcing him to speak +to the point, she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence. It +stopped her heart. + +The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion to +recollection. Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and +asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say. Under +compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come +because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he +thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity. +But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at +the bright star and drowned it. + +The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in Emma's belief as the +cause of Mr. Warwick's unpardonable suspicions and cruelty. Arguing from +her own sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet health +to her frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish innocence +in Diana's conduct, and she recalled her looks, her words, every fleeting +gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the noble statesman's admiration of +her, for the confusion of her unmanly and unworthy husband. And Emma was +nevertheless a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her +thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on erratic +tracks. All night her heart went at fever pace. She brought the +repentant husband to his knees, and then doubted, strongly doubted, +whether she would, whether in consideration for her friend she could, +intercede with Diana to forgive him. In the morning she slept heavily. +Sir Lukin had gone to London early for further tidings. She awoke about +midday, and found a letter on her pillow. It was Diana's. Then while +her fingers eagerly tore it open, her heart, the champion rider over- +night, sank. It needed support of facts, and feared them: not in +distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but because the very bravest of +hearts is of its nature a shivering defender, sensitive in the presence +of any hostile array, much craving for material support, until the mind +and spirit displace it, depute it to second them instead of leading. + +She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the dreadful and the +comforting, and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment, hugged it, though +conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console. + +The close of the letter struck the blow. After bluntly stating that Mr. +Warwick had served her with a process, and that he had no case without +suborning witnesses, Diana said: 'But I leave the case, and him, to the +world. Ireland, or else America, it is a guiltless kind of suicide to +bury myself abroad. He has my letters. They are such as I can own to +you; and ask you to kiss me--and kiss me when you have heard all the +evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me. You know me too well to +think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips. But I cannot face the +world. In the dock, yes. Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle, +on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression. I cannot +do that. I see myself wearing a false grin--your Tony! No, I do well to +go. This is my resolution; and in consequence,--my beloved! my only +truly loved on earth! I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely +should. Nor would it soothe me, dearest. This will be to you the best +of reasons. It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma. +I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there +I do no harm. I know I am right. I have questioned myself--it is not +cowardice. I do not quail. I abhor the part of actress. I should do it +well--too well; destroy my soul in the performance. Is a good name +before such a world as this worth that sacrifice? A convent and self- +quenching;--cloisters would seem to me like holy dew. But that would be +sleep, and I feel the powers of life. Never have I felt them so +mightily. If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would +stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them. I have my +natural weapons and my cause. It must be confessed that I have also more +knowledge of men and the secret contempt--it must be--the best of them +entertain for us. Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them. But they have +been at a wicked school. + +'I will write. From whatever place, you shall have letters, and +constant. I write no more now. In my present mood I find no alternative +between rageing and drivelling. I am henceforth dead to the world. +Never dead to Emma till my breath is gone--poor flame! I blow at a bed- +room candle, by which I write in a brown fog, and behold what I am-- +though not even serving to write such a tangled scrawl as this. I am of +no mortal service. In two days I shall be out of England. Within a week +you shall hear where. I long for your heart on mine, your dear eyes. +You have faith in me, and I fly from you!--I must be mad. Yet I feel +calmly reasonable. I know that this is the thing to do. Some years +hence a grey woman may return, to hear of a butterfly Diana, that had her +day and disappeared. Better than a mewing and courtseying simulacrum of +the woman--I drivel again. Adieu. I suppose I am not liable to capture +and imprisonment until the day when my name is cited to appear. I have +left London. This letter and I quit the scene by different routes--I +would they were one. My beloved! I have an ache--I think I am wronging +you. I am not mistress of myself, and do as something within me, wiser, +than I, dictates.--You will write kindly. Write your whole heart. It is +not compassion I want, I want you. I can bear stripes from you. Let me +hear Emma's voice--the true voice. This running away merits your +reproaches. It will look like--. I have more to confess: the tigress in +me wishes it were! I should then have a reckless passion to fold me +about, and the glory infernal, if you name it so, and so it would be-- +of suffering for and with some one else. As it is, I am utterly +solitary, sustained neither from above nor below, except within myself, +and that is all fire and smoke, like their new engines.--I kiss this +miserable sheet of paper. Yes, I judge that I have run off a line--and +what a line! which hardly shows a trace for breathing things to follow +until they feel the transgression in wreck. How immensely nature seems +to prefer men to women!--But this paper is happier than the writer. + + 'Your TONY.' + +That was the end. Emma kissed it in tears. They had often talked of the +possibility of a classic friendship between women, the alliance of a +mutual devotedness men choose to doubt of. She caught herself accusing +Tony of the lapse from friendship. Hither should the true friend have +flown unerringly. + +The blunt ending of the letter likewise dealt a wound. She reperused it, +perused and meditated. The flight of Mrs. Warwick! She heard that cry- +fatal! But she had no means of putting a hand on her. 'Your Tony.' The +coldness might be set down to exhaustion: it might, yet her not coming to +her friend for counsel and love was a positive weight in the indifferent +scale. She read the letter backwards, and by snatches here and there; +many perusals and hours passed before the scattered creature exhibited in +its pages came to her out of the flying threads of the web as her living +Tony, whom she loved and prized and was ready to defend gainst the world. +By that time the fog had lifted; she saw the sky on the borders of milky +cloudfolds. Her invalid's chill sensitiveness conceived a sympathy in +the baring heavens, and lying on her sofa in the drawing-room she gained +strength of meditative vision, weak though she was to help, through +ceasing to brood on her wound and herself. She cast herself into her +dear Tony's feelings; and thus it came, that she imagined Tony would +visit The Crossways, where she kept souvenirs of her father, his cane, +and his writing-desk, and a precious miniature of him hanging above it, +before leaving England forever. The fancy sprang to certainty; every +speculation confirmed it. + +Had Sir Lukin been at home she would have despatched him to The Crossways +at once. The West wind blew, and gave her a view of the Downs beyond the +Weald from her southern window. She thought it even possible to drive +there and reach the place, on the chance of her vivid suggestion, some +time after nightfall; but a walk across the room to try her forces was +too convincing of her inability. She walked with an ebony silver-mounted +stick, a present from Mr. Redworth. She was leaning on it when the card +of Thomas Redworth was handed to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH IS EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING WOMAN LEARN TO +RESPECT ONE ANOTHER + +'You see, you are my crutch,' Lady Dunstane said to him,--raising the +stick in reminder of the present. + +He offered his arm and hurriedly informed her, to dispose of dull +personal matter, that he had just landed. She looked at the clock. +'Lukin is in town. You know the song: "Alas, I scarce can go or creep +While Lukin is away." I do not doubt you have succeeded in your business +over there. Ah! Now I suppose you have confidence in your success. +I should have predicted it, had you come to me.' She stood, either +musing or in weakness, and said abruptly: 'Will you object to lunching at +one o'clock?' + +'The sooner the better,' said Redworth. She had sighed: her voice +betrayed some agitation, strange in so serenely-minded a person. + +His partial acquaintance with the Herculean Sir Lukin's reputation in +town inspired a fear of his being about to receive admission to the +distressful confidences of the wife, and he asked if Mrs. Warwick was +well. The answer sounded ominous, with its accompaniment of evident +pain: 'I think her health is good.' + +Had they quarrelled? He said he had not heard a word of Mrs. Warwick for +several months. + +'I--heard from her this morning,' said Lady Dunstane, and motioned him to +a chair beside the sofa, where she half reclined, closing her eyes. The +sight of tears on the eyelashes frightened him. She roused herself to +look at the clock. 'Providence or accident, you are here,' she said. +'I could not have prayed for the coming of a truer' man. Mrs. Warwick is +in great danger . . . . You know our love. She is the best of me, +heart and soul. Her husband has chosen to act on vile suspicions-- +baseless, I could hold my hand in the fire and swear. She has enemies, +or the jealous fury is on the man--I know little of him. He has +commenced an action against her. He will rue it. But she . . . you +understand this of women at least;--they are not cowards in all things! +--but the horror of facing a public scandal: my poor girl writes of the +hatefulness of having to act the complacent--put on her accustomed self! +She would have to go about, a mark for the talkers, and behave as if +nothing were in the air-full of darts! Oh, that general whisper!--it +makes a coup de massue--a gale to sink the bravest vessel: and a woman +must preserve her smoothest front; chat, smile--or else!--Well, she +shrinks from it. I should too. She is leaving the country.' + +'Wrong!' cried Redworth. + +'Wrong indeed. She writes, that in two days she will be out of it. +Judge her as I do, though you are a man, I pray. You have seen the +hunted hare. It is our education--we have something of the hare in us +when the hounds are full cry. Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to +run. "By this, poor Wat far off upon a hill." Shakespeare would have +the divine comprehension. I have thought all round it and come back to +him. She is one of Shakespeare's women: another character, but one of +his own:--another Hermione! I dream of him--seeing her with that eye of +steady flame. The bravest and best of us at bay in the world need an eye +like his, to read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies.' + +Insensibly Redworth blinked. His consciousness of an exalted compassion +for the lady was heated by these flights of advocacy to feel that he was +almost seated beside the sovereign poet thus eulogized, and he was of a +modest nature. + +'But you are practical,' pursued Lady Dunstane, observing signs that she +took for impatience. 'You are thinking of what can be done. If Lukin +were here I would send him to The Crossways without a moment's delay, on +the chance, the mere chance:--it shines to me! If I were only a little +stronger! I fear I might break down, and it would be unfair to my +husband. He has trouble enough with my premature infirmities already. +I am certain she will go to The Crossways. Tony is one of the women who +burn to give last kisses to things they love. And she has her little +treasures hoarded there. She was born there. Her father died there. +She is three parts Irish--superstitious in affection. I know her so +well. At this moment I see her there. If not, she has grown unlike +herself.' + +'Have you a stout horse in the stables?' Redworth asked. + +'You remember the mare Bertha; you have ridden her.' + +'The mare would do, and better than a dozen horses.' He consulted his +watch. 'Let me mount Bertha, I engage to deliver a letter at The +Crossways to-night.' + +Lady Dunstane half inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she +sought, but said: 'Will you find your way?' + +He spoke of three hours of daylight and a moon to rise. 'She has often +pointed out to me from your ridges where The Crossways lies, about three +miles from the Downs, near a village named Storling, on the road to +Brasted. + +The house has a small plantation of firs behind it, and a bit of river-- +rare for Sussex--to the right. An old straggling red brick house at +Crossways, a stone's throw from a fingerpost on a square of green: roads +to Brasted, London, Wickford, Riddlehurst. I shall find it. Write what +you have to say, my lady, and confide it to me. She shall have it to- +night, if she's where you suppose. I 'll go, with your permission, and +take a look at the mare. Sussex roads are heavy in this damp weather, +and the frost coming on won't improve them for a tired beast. We haven't +our rails laid down there yet.' + +'You make me admit some virtues in the practical,' said Lady Dunstane; +and had the poor fellow vollied forth a tale of the everlastingness of +his passion for Diana, it would have touched her far less than his exact +memory of Diana's description of her loved birthplace. + +She wrote: + + 'I trust my messenger to tell you how I hang on you. I see my ship + making for the rocks. You break your Emma's heart. It will be the + second wrong step. I shall not survive it. The threat has made me + incapable of rushing to you, as I might have had strength to do + yesterday. I am shattered, and I wait panting for Mr. Redworth's + return with you. He has called, by accident, as we say. Trust to + him. If ever heaven was active to avert a fatal mischance it is to- + day. You will not stand against my supplication. It is my life I + cry for. I have no more time. He starts. He leaves me to pray-- + like the mother seeing her child on the edge of the cliff. Come. + This is your breast, my Tony? And your soul warns you it is right + to come. Do rightly. Scorn other counsel--the coward's. Come with + our friend--the one man known to me who can be a friend of women. + + 'Your EMMA.' + +Redworth was in the room. 'The mare 'll do it well,' he said. 'She has +had her feed, and in five minutes will be saddled at the door.' + +'But you must eat, dear friend,' said the hostess. + +'I'll munch at a packet of sandwiches on the way. There seems a chance, +and the time for lunching may miss it.' + +'You understand . . . ?' + +'Everything, I fancy.' + +'If she is there!' + +'One break in the run will turn her back.' + +The sensitive invalid felt a blow in his following up the simile of the +hunted hare for her friend, but it had a promise of hopefulness. And +this was all that could be done by earthly agents, under direction of +spiritual, as her imagination encouraged her to believe. + +She saw him start, after fortifying him with a tumbler of choice +Bordeaux, thinking how Tony would have said she was like a lady arming +her knight for battle. On the back of the mare he passed her window, +after lifting his hat, and he thumped at his breast-pocket, to show her +where the letter housed safely. The packet of provision bulged on his +hip, absurdly and blessedly to her sight, not unlike the man, in his +combination of robust serviceable qualities, as she reflected during the +later hours, until the sun fell on smouldering November woods, and +sensations of the frost he foretold bade her remember that he had gone +forth riding like a huntsman. His great-coat lay on a chair in the hall, +and his travelling-bag was beside it. He had carried it up from the +valley, expecting hospitality, and she had sent him forth half naked to +weather a frosty November night! She called in the groom, whose derision +of a great-coat for any gentleman upon Bertha, meaning work for the mare, +appeased her remorsefulness. Brisby, the groom, reckoned how long the +mare would take to do the distance to Storling, with a rider like Mr. +Redworth on her back. By seven, Brisby calculated, Mr. Redworth would be +knocking at the door of the Three Ravens Inn, at Storling, when the mare +would have a decent grooming, and Mr. Redworth was not the gentleman to +let her be fed out of his eye. More than that, Brisby had some +acquaintance with the people of the inn. He begged to inform her +ladyship that he was half a Sussex man, though not exactly born in the +county; his parents had removed to Sussex after the great event; and the +Downs were his first field of horse-exercise, and no place in the world +was like them, fair weather or foul, Summer or Winter, and snow ten feet +deep in the gullies. The grandest air in England, he had heard say. + +His mistress kept him to the discourse, for the comfort of hearing hard +bald matter-of-fact; and she was amused and rebuked by his assumption +that she must be entertaining an anxiety about master's favourite mare. +But, ah! that Diana had delayed in choosing a mate; had avoided her +disastrous union with perhaps a more imposing man, to see the true beauty +of masculine character in Mr. Redworth, as he showed himself to-day. How +could he have doubted succeeding? One grain more of faith in his energy, +and Diana might have been mated to the right husband for her--an open- +minded clear-faced English gentleman. Her speculative ethereal mind +clung to bald matter-of-fact to-day. She would have vowed that it was +the sole potentially heroical. Even Brisby partook of the reflected +rays, and he was very benevolently considered by her. She dismissed him +only when his recounting of the stages of Bertha's journey began to +fatigue her and deaden the medical efficacy of him and his like. +Stretched on the sofa, she watched the early sinking sun in South-western +cloud, and the changes from saffron to intensest crimson, the crown of a +November evening, and one of frost. + + +Redworth struck on a southward line from chalk-ridge to sand, where he +had a pleasant footing in familiar country, under beeches that browned +the ways, along beside a meadowbrook fed by the heights, through pines +and across deep sand-ruts to full view of weald and Downs. Diana had +been with him here in her maiden days. The coloured back of a coach put +an end to that dream. He lightened his pocket, surveying the land as he +munched. A favourable land for rails: and she had looked over it: and he +was now becoming a wealthy man: and she was a married woman straining the +leash. His errand would not bear examination, it seemed such a desperate +long shot. He shut his inner vision on it, and pricked forward. When +the burning sunset shot waves above the juniper and yews behind him, he +was far on the weald, trotting down an interminable road. That the +people opposing railways were not people of business, was his reflection, +and it returned persistently: for practical men, even the most devoted +among them, will think for themselves; their army, which is the rational, +calls them to its banners, in opposition to the sentimental; and Redworth +joined it in the abstract, summoning the horrible state of the roads to +testify against an enemy wanting almost in common humaneness. A slip of +his excellent stepper in one of the half-frozen pits of the highway was +the principal cause of his confusion of logic; she was half on her knees. +Beyond the market town the roads were so bad that he quitted them, and +with the indifference of an engineer, struck a line of his own +Southeastward over fields and ditches, favoured by a round horizon moon +on his left. So for a couple of hours he went ahead over rolling fallow +land to the meadow-flats and a pale shining of freshets; then hit on a +lane skirting the water, and reached an amphibious village; five miles +from Storling, he was informed, and a clear traverse of lanes, not to be +mistaken, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' The sharpness of his eyes was +divided between the sword-belt of the starry Hunter and the shifting +lanes that zig-tagged his course below. The Downs were softly illumined; +still it amazed him to think of a woman like Diana Warwick having an +attachment to this district, so hard of yield, mucky, featureless, fit +but for the rails she sided with her friend in detesting. Reasonable +women, too! The moon, stood high on her march as he entered Storling. +He led his good beast to the stables of The Three Ravens, thanking her +and caressing her. The ostler conjectured from the look of the mare that +he had been out with the hounds and lost his way. It appeared to +Redworth singularly, that near the ending of a wild goose chase, his +plight was pretty well described by the fellow. However, he had to knock +at the door of The Crossways now, in the silent night time, a certainly +empty house, to his fancy. He fed on a snack of cold meat and tea, +standing, and set forth, clearly directed, 'if he kept a sharp eye open.' +Hitherto he had proved his capacity, and he rather smiled at the +repetition of the formula to him, of all men. A turning to the right +was taken, one to the left, and through the churchyard, out of the gate, +round to the right, and on. By this route, after an hour, he found +himself passing beneath the bare chestnuts of the churchyard wall of +Storling, and the sparkle of the edges of the dead chestnut-leaves at +his feet reminded him of the very ideas he had entertained when treading +them. The loss of an hour strung him to pursue the chase in earnest, +and he had a beating of the heart as he thought that it might be serious. +He recollected thinking it so at Copsley. The long ride, and nightfall, +with nothing in view, had obscured his mind to the possible behind the +thick obstruction of the probable; again the possible waved its marsh- +light. To help in saving her from a fatal step, supposing a dozen +combinations of the conditional mood, became his fixed object, since here +he was--of that there was no doubt; and he was not here to play the fool, +though the errand were foolish. He entered the churchyard, crossed the +shadow of the tower, and hastened along the path, fancying he beheld a +couple of figures vanishing before him. He shouted; he hoped to obtain +directions from these natives: the moon was bright, the gravestones +legible; but no answer came back, and the place appeared to belong +entirely to the dead. 'I've frightened them,' he thought. They left a +queerish sensation in his frame. A ride down to Sussex to see ghosts +would be an odd experience; but an undigested dinner of tea is the very +grandmother of ghosts; and he accused it of confusing him, sight and +mind. Out of the gate, now for the turning to the right, and on. He +turned. He must have previously turned wrongly somewhere--and where? +A light in a cottage invited him to apply for the needed directions. +The door was opened by a woman, who had never heard tell of The +Crossways, nor had her husband, nor any of the children crowding round +them. A voice within ejaculated: 'Crassways!' and soon upon the grating +of a chair, an old man, whom the woman named her lodger, by way of +introduction, presented himself with his hat on, saying: 'I knows the +spot they calls Crassways,' and he led. Redworth understood the +intention that a job was to be made of it, and submitting, said: 'To the +right, I think.' He was bidden to come along, if he wanted 'they +Crassways,' and from the right they turned to the left, and further sharp +round, and on to a turn, where the old man, otherwise incommunicative, +said: 'There, down thik theer road, and a post in the middle.' + +'I want a house, not a post!' roared Redworth, spying a bare space. + +The old man despatched a finger travelling to his nob. 'Naw, there's +ne'er a house. But that's crassways for four roads, if it 's crassways, +you wants.' + +They journeyed backward. They were in such a maze of lanes that the old +man was master, and Redworth vowed to be rid of him at the first cottage. +This, however, they were long in reaching, and the old man was promptly +through the garden-gate, hailing the people and securing 'information, +before Redworth could well hear. He smiled at the dogged astuteness of a +dense-headed old creature determined to establish a claim to his fee. +They struck a lane sharp to the left. + +'You're Sussex?' Redworth asked him, and was answered: 'Naw; the Sheers.' + +Emerging from deliberation, the old man said: 'Ah'm a Hampshireman.' + +'A capital county!' + +'Heigh!' The old man heaved his chest. 'Once!' + +'Why, what has happened to it?' + +'Once it were a capital county, I say. Hah! you asks me what have +happened to it. You take and go and look at it now. And down heer'll be +no better soon, I tells 'em. When ah was a boy, old Hampshire was a +proud country, wi' the old coaches and the old squires, and Harvest +Homes, and Christmas merryings.--Cutting up the land! There's no pride +in livin' theer, nor anywhere, as I sees, now.' + +'You mean the railways.' + +'It's the Devil come up and abroad ower all England!' exclaimed the +melancholy ancient patriot. + +A little cheering was tried on him, but vainly. He saw with unerring +distinctness the triumph of the Foul Potentate, nay his personal +appearance 'in they theer puffin' engines.' The country which had +produced Andrew Hedger, as he stated his name to be, would never show the +same old cricketing commons it did when he was a boy. Old England, he +declared, was done for. + +When Redworth applied to his watch under the brilliant moonbeams, +he discovered that he had been listening to this natural outcry of a +decaying and shunted class full three-quarters of an hour, and The +Crossways was not in sight. He remonstrated. The old man plodded along. +'We must do as we're directed,' he said. + +Further walking brought them to a turn. Any turn seemed hopeful. +Another turn offered the welcome sight of a blazing doorway on a rise of +ground off the road. Approaching it, the old man requested him to 'bide +a bit,' and stalked the ascent at long strides. A vigorous old fellow. +Redworth waited below, observing how he joined the group at the lighted +door, and, as it was apparent, put his question of the whereabout of The +Crossways. Finally, in extreme impatience, he walked up to the group of +spectators. They were all, and Andrew Hedger among them, the most +entranced and profoundly reverent, observing the dissection of a pig. + +Unable to awaken his hearing, Redworth jogged his arm, and the shake was +ineffective until it grew in force. + +'I've no time to lose; have they told you the way?' + +Andrew Hedger yielded his arm. He slowly withdrew his intent fond gaze +from the fair outstretched white carcase, and with drooping eyelids, he +said: 'Ah could eat hog a solid hower!' + +He had forgotten to ask the way, intoxicated by the aspect of the pig; +and when he did ask it, he was hard of understanding, given wholly to his +last glimpses. + +Redworth got the directions. He would have dismissed Mr. Andrew Hedger, +but there was no doing so. 'I'll show ye on to The Crossways House,' the +latter said, implying that he had already earned something by showing him +The Crossways post. + +'Hog's my feed,' said Andrew Hedger. The gastric springs of eloquence +moved him to discourse, and he unburdened himself between succulent +pauses. 'They've killed him early. He 's fat; and he might ha' been +fatter. But he's fat. They've got their Christmas ready, that they +have. Lord! you should see the chitterlings, and--the sausages hung up +to and along the beams. That's a crown for any dwellin'! They runs 'em +round the top of the room--it's like a May-day wreath in old times. +Home-fed hog! They've a treat in store, they have. And snap your +fingers at the world for many a long day. And the hams! They cure their +own hams at that house. Old style! That's what I say of a hog. He's +good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow. Everybody knows it +and owns it.' + +Redworth was getting tired. In sympathy with current conversation, he +said a word for the railways: they would certainly make the flesh of +swine cheaper, bring a heap of hams into the market. But Andrew Hedger +remarked with contempt that he had not much opinion of foreign hams: +nobody, knew what they fed on. Hog, he said, would feed on anything, +where there was no choice they had wonderful stomachs for food. Only, +when they had a choice, they left the worst for last, and home-fed filled +them with stuff to make good meat and fat 'what we calls prime bacon.' +As it is not right to damp a native enthusiasm, Redworth let him dilate +on his theme, and mused on his boast to eat hog a solid hour, which +roused some distant classic recollection:--an odd jumble. + +They crossed the wooden bridge of a flooded stream. + +'Now ye have it,' said the hog-worshipper; 'that may be the house, I +reckon.' + +A dark mass of building, with the moon behind it, shining in spires +through a mound of firs, met Redworth's gaze. The windows all were +blind, no smoke rose from the chimneys. He noted the dusky square of +green, and the finger-post signalling the centre of the four roads. +Andrew Hedger repeated that it was The Crossways house, ne'er a doubt. +Redworth paid him his expected fee, whereupon Andrew, shouldering off, +wished him a hearty good night, and forthwith departed at high pedestrian +pace, manifestly to have a concluding look at the beloved anatomy. + +There stood the house. Absolutely empty! thought Redworth. The sound +of the gate-bell he rang was like an echo to him. The gate was unlocked. +He felt a return of his queer churchyard sensation when walking up the +garden-path, in the shadow of the house. Here she was born: here her +father died: and this was the station of her dreams, as a girl at school +near London and in Paris. Her heart was here. He looked at the windows +facing the Downs with dead eyes. The vivid idea of her was a phantom +presence, and cold, assuring him that the bodily Diana was absent. Had +Lady Dunstane guessed rightly, he might perhaps have been of service! + +Anticipating the blank silence, he rang the house-bell. It seemed to set +wagging a weariful tongue in a corpse. The bell did its duty to the last +note, and one thin revival stroke, for a finish, as in days when it +responded livingly to the guest. He pulled, and had the reply, just +the same, with the faint terminal touch, resembling exactly a 'There!' +at the close of a voluble delivery in the negative. Absolutely empty. +He pulled and pulled. The bell wagged, wagged. This had been a house of +a witty host, a merry girl, junketting guests; a house of hilarious +thunders, lightnings of fun and fancy. Death never seemed more voiceful +than in that wagging of the bell. + +For conscience' sake, as became a trusty emissary, he walked round to the +back of the house, to verify the total emptiness. His apprehensive +despondency had said that it was absolutely empty, but upon consideration +he supposed the house must have some guardian: likely enough, an old +gardener and his wife, lost in deafness double-shotted by sleep! There +was no sign of them. The night air waxed sensibly crisper. He thumped +the backdoors. Blank hollowness retorted on the blow. He banged and +kicked. The violent altercation with wood and wall lasted several +minutes, ending as it had begun. + +Flesh may worry, but is sure to be worsted in such an argument. + +'Well, my dear lady !'--Redworth addressed Lady Dunstane aloud, while +driving his hands into his pockets for warmth--'we've done what we could. +The next best thing is to go to bed and see what morning brings us.' + +The temptation to glance at the wild divinings of dreamy-witted women +from the point of view of the practical man, was aided by the intense +frigidity of the atmosphere in leading him to criticize a sex not much +used to the exercise of brains. 'And they hate railways!' He associated +them, in the matter of intelligence, with Andrew Hedger and Company. +They sank to the level of the temperature in his esteem--as regarded +their intellects. He approved their warmth of heart. The nipping of +the victim's toes and finger-tips testified powerfully to that. + +Round to the front of the house at a trot, he stood in moonlight. Then, +for involuntarily he now did everything running, with a dash up the steps +he seized the sullen pendant bell-handle, and worked it pumpwise, till he +perceived a smaller bell-knob beside the door, at which he worked piston- +wise. Pump and piston, the hurly-burly and the tinkler created an alarm +to scare cat and mouse and Cardinal spider, all that run or weave in +desolate houses, with the good result of a certain degree of heat to his +frame. He ceased, panting. No stir within, nor light. That white stare +of windows at the moon was undisturbed. + +The Downs were like a wavy robe of shadowy grey silk. No wonder that she +had loved to look on them! + +And it was no wonder that Andrew Hedger enjoyed prime bacon. Bacon +frizzling, fat rashers of real homefed on the fire-none of your foreign- +suggested a genial refreshment and resistance to antagonistic elements. +Nor was it, granting health, granting a sharp night--the temperature at +least fifteen below zero--an excessive boast for a man to say he could go +on eating for a solid hour. + +These were notions darting through a half nourished gentleman nipped +in the frame by a severely frosty night. Truly a most beautiful night! +She would have delighted to see it here. The Downs were like floating +islands, like fairy-laden vapours; solid, as Andrew Hedger's hour of +eating; visionary, as too often his desire! + +Redworth muttered to himself, after taking the picture of the house and +surrounding country from the sward, that he thought it about the sharpest +night he had ever encountered in England. He was cold, hungry, +dispirited, and astoundingly stricken with an incapacity to separate any +of his thoughts from old Andrew Hedger. Nature was at her pranks upon +him. + +He left the garden briskly, as to the legs, and reluctantly. He would +have liked to know whether Diana had recently visited the house, or was +expected. It could be learnt in the morning; but his mission was urgent +and he on the wings of it. He was vexed and saddened. + +Scarcely had he closed the garden-gate when the noise of an opening +window arrested him, and he called. The answer was in a feminine voice, +youngish, not disagreeable, though not Diana's. + +He heard none of the words, but rejoined in a bawl: 'Mrs. Warwick!--Mr. +Redworth!' + +That was loud enough for the deaf or the dead. + +The window closed. He went to the door and waited. It swung wide to +him; and O marvel of a woman's divination of a woman! there stood Diana. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a power +At war with ourselves, means the best happiness we can have +Beauty is rare; luckily is it rare +Between love grown old and indifference ageing to love +But they were a hopeless couple, they were so friendly +Charitable mercifulness; better than sentimental ointment +Dedicated to the putrid of the upper circle +Dreaded as a scourge, hailed as a refreshment (Scandalsheet) +Elderly martyr for the advancement of his juniors +Favour can't help coming by rotation +Flashes bits of speech that catch men in their unguarded corner +For 'tis Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too +Get back what we give +Goodish sort of fellow; good horseman, good shot, good character +Grossly unlike in likeness (portraits) +He had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration +He had neat phrases, opinions in packets +He was not a weaver of phrases in distress +He's good from end to end, and beats a Christian hollow (a hog) +Her final impression likened him to a house locked up and empty +Herself, content to be dull if he might shine +His gaze and one of his ears, if not the pair, were given +How immensely nature seems to prefer men to women! +Human nature to feel an interest in the dog that has bitten you +I have and hold--you shall hunger and covet +Idea is the only vital breath +If I'm struck, I strike back +Inclined to act hesitation in accepting the aid she sought +Lengthened term of peace bred maggots in the heads of the people +Loathing for speculation +Mare would do, and better than a dozen horses +Matter that is not nourishing to brains +Music was resumed to confuse the hearing of the eavesdroppers +Needed support of facts, and feared them +O self! self! self! +Or where you will, so that's in Ireland +Our bravest, our best, have an impulse to run +Perused it, and did not recognize herself in her language +Pride in being always myself +Procrastination and excessive scrupulousness +Read deep and not be baffled by inconsistencies +Service of watering the dry and drying the damp (Whiskey) +She had a fatal attraction for antiques +She marries, and it's the end of her sparkling +Smart remarks have their measured distances +Something of the hare in us when the hounds are full cry +Swell and illuminate citizen prose to a princely poetic +That is life--when we dare death to live! +That's the natural shamrock, after the artificial +The burlesque Irishman can't be caricatured +The well of true wit is truth itself +They create by stoppage a volcano +This love they rattle about and rave about +Tooth that received a stone when it expected candy +We live alone, and do not much feel it till we are visited +Weather and women have some resemblance they say +What a woman thinks of women, is the test of her nature +Where she appears, the first person falls to second rank +You are entreated to repress alarm +You beat me with the fists, but my spirit is towering + + + + +[The End] + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Diana of the Crossways, v1, by Meredith +********This file should be named gm71v10.txt or gm71v10.zip******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm71v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm71v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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