The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3), by Mary Cholmondeley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Diana Tempest, Volume III (of 3) Author: Mary Cholmondeley Release Date: November 11, 2011 [eBook #37975] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIANA TEMPEST, VOLUME III (OF 3)*** E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this work. See Volume I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37973 Volume II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37974 Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/dianatempest03chol DIANA TEMPEST. Diana Tempest. By Mary Cholmondeley, Author of "The Danvers Jewels," "Sir Charles Danvers," etc. In Three Volumes. Vol. III. London: Richard Bentley & Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1893. (All rights reserved.) B Contents CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION. POSTSCRIPT. DIANA TEMPEST. CHAPTER I. "Time and chance are but a tide." Burns. ETWEEN aspiration and achievement there is no great gulf fixed. God does not mock His children by putting a lying spirit in the mouth of their prophetic instincts. Only the faith of concentrated endeavour, only the stern years which must hold fast the burden of a great hope, only the patience strong and meek which is content to bow beneath "the fatigue of a long and distant purpose;" only these stepping-stones, and no gulf impassable by human feet, divide aspiration from achievement. To aspire is to listen to the word of command. To achieve is to obey, and to continue to obey, that voice. It is given to all to aspire. Few allow themselves to achieve. John had begun to see that. If he meant to achieve anything, it was time he put his hand to the plough. He had listened and learned long enough. "My time has come," he said to himself, as he sat alone in the library at Overleigh on the first day of the new year. "I am twenty-eight. I have been 'promising' long enough. The time of promise is past. I must perform, or the time of performance will pass me by." He knit his heavy brows. "I must act," he said to himself, "and I cannot act. I must work, and I cannot work." [1] [2] [3] John was conscious of having had—he still had—high ambitions, deep enthusiasms. Yet lo! all his life seemed to hinge on the question whether Di would become his wife. Who has not experienced, almost with a sense of traitorship to his own nature, how the noblest influences at work upon it may be caught up into the loom of an all-absorbing personal passion, adding a new beauty and dignity to the fabric, but nevertheless changing for the time the pattern of the life? John's whole heart was set on one object. There is a Rubicon in the feelings to pass which is to cut off retreat. John had long passed it. "I cannot do two things at the same time," he said. "I will ask Mrs. Courtenay and Di here for the hunt ball, and settle matters one way or the other with Di. After that, whether I succeed or fail, I will throw myself heart and soul into the career Lord —— prophesies for me. The general election comes on in the spring. I will stand then." John wrote a letter to the minister who had such a high opinion of him—or perhaps of his position—preserved a copy, pigeon-holed it, and put it from his mind. His thoughts reverted to Di as a matter of course. He had seen her several times since the fancy ball. Each particular of those meetings was noted down in the unwritten diary which contains all that is of interest in our lives, which no friend need be entreated to burn at our departure. He was aware that a subtle change had come about between him and Di; that they had touched new ground. If he had been in love before—which, of course, he ought to have been—he would have understood what that change meant. As it was, he did not. No doubt he would be wiser next time. Yet even John, creeping mole-like through self-made labyrinths of conjecture one inch below the surface, asked himself whether it was credible that Di was actually beginning to care for him. When he knew for certain she did not, there seemed no reason that she should not; now that he was insane enough to imagine she might, he was aware of a thousand deficiencies in himself which made it impossible. And yet—— So he wrote another letter, this time to Mrs. Courtenay, inviting her and Di to the hunt ball in his neighbourhood, at the end of January. And his invitation was accepted. And one if not two persons, perhaps even a third old enough to know better, began the unprofitable task of counting days. It was an iron winter. It affected Fritz's health deleteriously. His short legs raised him but little above the surface of the earth, and he was subject to chills and cramps owing to the constant contact of the under portion of his long ginger person with the snow. Not that there was much snow. One steel and iron frost succeeded another. Lindo, on the contrary, found the cold slight compared with the two winters which he had passed in Russia with John. His wool had been allowed to grow, to the great relief of Mitty, who could not "abide" the "bare-backed state" which the exigencies of fashion required of him during the summer. It was a winter not to be forgotten, a winter such as the oldest people at Overleigh could hardly recall. As the days in the new year lengthened, the frost strengthened, as the saying goes. The village beck at Overleigh froze. By-and-by the great rivers froze. Carts went over the Thames. Some one, fonder of driving than of horses, drove a four-in-hand on the ice at Oxford. The long lake below Overleigh Castle, which had formerly supplied the moat, was frozen feet thick. The little islands and the boathouse were lapped in ice. It became barely possible, as the days went on, to keep one end open for the swans and ducks. The herons came to divide the open space with them. The great frost of 18— was not one that would be quickly forgotten. John kept open house, for the ice at Overleigh was the best in the neighbourhood, and all the neighbours within distance thronged to it. Mothers drove over with their daughters; for skating is a healthy pursuit, and those that can't skate can learn. The most inaccessible hunting men, rendered desperate like the herons by the frost, turned up regularly at Overleigh to play hockey, or emulate John's figure-skating, which by reason of long practice in Russia was "bad to beat." John was a conspicuous figure on the ice, in his furred Russian coat lined with sable paws, in which he had skated at the ice carnivals at St. Petersburg. Mitty, with bright winter-apple cheeks and a splendid new beaver muff, would come down to watch her darling wheel and sweep. "If the frost holds I will have an ice carnival when Di is here," John said to himself; and after that he watched the glass carefully. The day of Di's arrival drew near, came, and actually Di with it. She was positively in the house. Archie came the same day, but not with her. Archie had invariably shown such a marked propensity for travelling by any train except that previously agreed upon, when he was depended on to escort his sister, that after a long course of irritation Mrs. Courtenay had ceased to allow him to chaperon Di, to the disgust of that gentleman, who was very proud of his ornamental sister when she was not in the way, and who complained bitterly at not being considered good enough to [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] take her out. So Mrs. Courtenay, who had accepted for the sake of appearances, but who had never had the faintest intention of leaving her own fireside in such inhuman weather, discovered a tendency to bronchitis, and failed at the last moment, confiding Di to the charge of Miss Fane, who good-naturedly came down from London to assist John in entertaining his guests. And still the following day the frost held. The hunt ball had dwindled to nothing in comparison with the ice carnival at Overleigh the night following the ball. The whole neighbourhood was ringing with it. Such a thing had never taken place within the memory of man at Overleigh. The neighbours, the tenantry, cottagers and all, were invited. The hockey- players rejoiced in the rumour that there would be hockey by torchlight, with goals lit up by flambeaux and a phosphorescent bung. Would the frost hold? That was the burning topic of the day. There was a large house-party at Overleigh, a throng of people who in Di's imagination existed only during certain hours of the day, and melted into the walls at other times. They came and went, and skated and laughed, and wore beautiful furs, especially Lady Alice Fane, but they had no independent existence of their own. The only real people among the crowd of dancing skating shadows were herself and John, with whom all that first day she had hardly exchanged a word —to her relief, was it, or her disappointment? After tea she went up with Miss Fane to the low entresol room which had been set apart for that lady's use, to help her to rearrange the men's button-holes, which John had pronounced to be too large. As soon as Di took them in hand, Miss Fane of course discovered, as was the case, that she was doing them far better than she could herself, and presently trotted off on the pretext of seeing to some older lady who did not want seeing to, and did not return. Di was not sorry. She rearranged the bunches of lilies of the valley at leisure, glad of the quiet interval after a long and unprofitable day. Presently the person of whom she happened to be thinking happened to come in. He would have been an idiot if he had not, though I regret to be obliged to chronicle that he had had doubts on the subject. "I thought I should find Aunt Loo here," he said, rather guiltily, for falsehood sat ungracefully upon him. And he looked round the apartment as if she might be concealed in a corner. "She was here a moment ago," said Di, and she began to sort the flowers all over again. "The frost shows no signs of giving." "I am glad." After the frost John found nothing further of equal originality to say, and presently he sat down, neither near to her nor very far away, with his chin in his hands, watching her wire her flowers. The shaded light dealt gently with the folds of Di's amber tea-gown, and touched the lowest ripple of her yellow hair. She dropped a single lily, and he picked it up for her, and laid it on her knee. It was a day of little things; the little things Love glorifies. He did not know that his attitude was that of a lover—did not realize the inference he would assuredly have drawn if he had seen another man sit as he was sitting then. He had forgotten all about that. He thought of nothing; neither thought of anything in the blind unspeakable happiness and comfort of being near each other, and at peace with each other. Afterwards, long afterwards, John remembered that hour with the feeling as of a Paradise lost, that had been only half realized at the time. He wondered how he had borne such happiness so easily; why no voice from heaven had warned him to speak then, or hereafter for ever hold his peace. And yet at the time it had seemed only the dawning of a coming day, the herald of a more sure and perfect joy to be. The prophetic conviction had been at the moment too deep for doubt that there would be many times like that. "Many times," each thought, lying awake through the short winter night after the ball. John had discovered that to be alternately absolutely certain of two opposite conclusions, without being able to remain in either, is to be in a state of doubt. He found he could bear that blister as ill as most men. "I will speak to her the morning after the carnival," he said, "when all this tribe of people have gone. What is the day going to be like?" He got up and unbarred his shutter, and looked out. The late grey morning was shivering up the sky. The stars were white with cold. The frost had wrought an ice fairyland on the lattice. While that fragile web held against the pane, the frost that wrapped the whole country would hold also. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] T CHAPTER II. "A funeral morn is lit in heaven's hollow, And pale the star-lights follow." Christina Rossetti. OWARDS nine o'clock in the evening carriage after carriage began to drive up to Overleigh in the moonlight. When Di came down, the white stone hall and the music-room were already crowded with guests, among whom she recognized Lord Hemsworth, Mr. Lumley, and Miss Crupps, who had been staying at houses in the neighbourhood for the hunt ball the night before, and had come on with their respective parties, to the not unmixed gratification of John. "Here we are again," said Mr. Lumley, flying up to her. "No favouritism, I beg, Miss Tempest. Tempest shall carry one skate, and I will take the other. Hemsworth must make himself happy with the button-hook. Great heavens! Tempest, whose funeral have you been ordering?" For at that moment the alarm-bell of the Castle began to toll. "It is unnecessary to hide in the curtains," said John. "That bell is only rung in case of fire. It is the signal for lighting up." And, headed by a band of torches, the whole party went streaming out of the wide archway, a gay crowd of laughing expectant people, into the gardens, where vari-coloured lines of lights gleamed terrace below terrace along the stone balustrades, and Neptune reined in his dolphins in the midst of his fountain, in a shower of golden spray. The path down to the lake through the wood was lit by strings of Chinese lanterns in the branches. The little bridge over the frozen brook was outlined with miniature rose-coloured lights, in which the miracles wrought by the hoar-frost on each transfigured reed and twig glowed flame-colour to their inmost tracery against the darkness of the overhanging trees. Di walked with John in fairyland. "Beauty and the beast," said some one, probably Mr. Lumley. But only the "beast" heard, and he did not care. There was a chorus of exclamations as they all emerged from the wood into the open. The moon was shining in a clear sky, but its light was lost in the glare of the bonfires, leaping red and blue and intensest green on the further bank of the lake, round which a vast crowd was already assembled. The islands shone, complete circles of coloured light like jewels in a silver shield. The whole lake of glass blazed. The bonfires flung great staggering shadows across the hanging woods. John and Di looked back. High overhead Overleigh hung in mid air in a thin veil of mist, a castle built in light. Every window and archer's loophole, from battlement to basement, the long lines of mullioned lattice of the picture-gallery and the garret gallery above, throbbed with light. The dining-hall gleamed through its double glass. The rose window of the chapel was a rose of fire. "They have forgotten my window," said John; and Di saw that the lowest portion of the western tower was dark. Her own oriel window, and Archie's next it, shone bravely. Mitty was watching from the nursery window. In the fierce wavering light she could see John, conspicuous in his Russian coat and peaked Russian cap, advance across the ice, escorted by torches, to the ever-increasing multitude upon the further bank. The enthusiastic cheering of the crowd when it caught sight of him came up to her, as she sat with a cheek pressed against the lattice, and she wept for joy. Di's heart quickened as she heard it. Her pride, which had at first steeled her against John, had deserted to his side. It centred in him now. She was proud of him. Lord Hemsworth, on his knees before her, fastening her skates, asked her some question relating to a strap, and, looking up as she did not answer, marvelled at the splendid colour in her cheek, and the flash in the eyes looking beyond him over his head. At a signal from John the band began to play, and some few among the crowd to dance on the sanded portion of the ice set apart for them; but far the greater number gathered in [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] dense masses to watch the "musical ride" on skates which the house-party at Overleigh had been practising the previous day, which John led with Lady Alice, circling in and out round groups of torches, and ending with a grand chain, in which Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps collapsed together, to the delight of the spectators and of Mr. Lumley himself, who said he should tell his mamma. And still the crowd increased. As John was watching the hockey-players contorted like prawns, wheeling fast and furious between their flaming goals, which dripped liquid fire on to the ice, the local policeman came up to him. "There's over two thousand people here to-night, sir," he said. "The more the better," said John. "Yes, sir, and I've been about among 'em, me and Jones, and there's a sight of people here, sir, as are no tenants of yours, and roughish characters some of 'em." "Sure to be," said John. "If there is any horseplay, treat it short and sharp. I'll back you up. I've a dozen men down here from the house to help to keep order. But there will be no need. Trust Yorkshiremen to keep amused and in a good temper." And, in truth, the great concourse of John's guests was enjoying itself to the utmost, dancing, sliding, clutching, falling one on the top of the other, with perfect good humour, shouting with laughter, men, women, and children all together. As the night advanced an ox was roasted whole on the ice, and a cauldron of beer was boiled. There was a tent on the bank in which a colossal supper had been prepared for all. Behind it great brick fire-places had been built, round which the people sat in hundreds, drinking, singing, heating beer and soup. They were tactful, these rough Yorkshiremen; not one came across to the further bank set apart for "t' quality," where another supper, not half so decorously conducted, was in full swing by the boathouse. John skated down there after presiding at the tent. Perhaps negus and mutton-broth were never handed about under such dangerous circumstances. The best Consommé à la Royale watered the earth. The men tottered on their skates over the frozen ground, bearing soup to the coveys of girls sitting on the bank in nests of fur rugs. Mr. Lumley and Miss Crupps had supper together in one of the boats, Mr. Lumley continually vociferating, "Not at home," when called upon, and retaliating with Genoese pastry, until he was dislodged with oars, when he emerged wielding the drumstick of a chicken, and a free fight ensued between him and little Mr. Dawnay, armed with a soup- ladle, which ended in Mr. Lumley's being forced on to his knees among the mince-pies, and disarmed. John looked round for Di, but she was the centre of a group of girls, and he felt aggrieved that she had not kept a vacant seat for him beside her, which of course she could easily have done. Presently, when the fireworks began, every one made a move towards the lower part of the lake in twos and threes, and then his opportunity came. He held out his hand to help her to her feet, and they skated down the ice together. Every one was skating hand in hand, but surely no two hands trembled one in the other as theirs did. The evening was growing late. A low mist was creeping vague and billowy across the land, making the tops of the trees look like islands in a ghostly sea. The bonfires, burning down red and redder into throbbing hearts of fire, gleamed blurred and weird. The rockets rushed into the air and dropped in coloured flame, flushing the haze. The moon peered in and out. And to John and Di it seemed as if they two were sweeping on winged feet among a thousand phantasmagoria, in the midst of which they were the only realities. In other words, they were in love. "Come down to the other end of the lake, and let us look at the fireworks from there," said John; and they wheeled away from the crowd and the music and the noise, past all the people and the lighted islands and the boathouse, and the swinging lamps along the banks, away to the deserted end of the lake. A great stillness seemed to have retreated there under shadow of the overhanging trees. The little island left in darkness for the waterfowl, with its laurels bending frozen into the ice, had no part or lot in the distant jargon of sound, and the medley of rising, falling, skimming lights. There was no sound save the ringing of their skates, and a little crackling of the ice among the grass at the edge. They skated round the island, and then slackened and stood still to look at the scene in the distance. One of the bonfires just replenished leapt one instant lurid high, only to fall the next in a whirlwind of sparks, and cover the lake with a rush of smoke. Figures dashed in and out, one moment in the full glare of light, the next flying like shadows through the smoke. "It is like a dream," said Di. "If it is one, I hope I shan't wake up just yet." To John it was not so wild and incredible a dream as that her hand was still in his. She had not withdrawn it. No, his senses did not deceive him. He looked at it, gloved in his bare one. He held it still. He could not wait another moment. He must have it to keep always. Surely, surely fate had not thrown them together for nothing, beneath this veiled moon, among the silver trees! [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] "Di," he said below his breath. "There is some one on the bank watching us," said Di, suddenly. John turned, and in the uncertain light saw a man's figure come deliberately out of the shadow of the trees to the bank above the ice. John gave a sharp exclamation. "What has he got in his hand?" said Di. He did not answer. He dropped her hand and moved suddenly away from her. The figure slowly raised one arm. There was a click and a snap. "Missed fire," said John, making a rush for the edge. But he turned immediately. He remembered his skates. Di screamed piercingly. In the distance came the crackling of fireworks, and the murmur of the delighted crowd. Would no one hear? The figure on the bank did not stir; only a little steel edge of light rose slowly again. There was a sharp report, a momentary puff of light in smoke, and John staggered, and began scratching and scraping the ice with his skates. Di raised shrieks that shook the stars, and rushed towards him. And the cruel moon came creeping out, making all things visible. "Go back," he gasped hoarsely. "Keep away from me. He will fire again." And he did so; for as she rushed up to John, and in spite of the strength with which he pushed her from him, caught him in her arms and held him tightly to her, there was a second report, and the muff hopped and ripped in her hand. She screamed again. Surely some one would come! She could hear the ringing of skates and voices. Torches were wheeling towards her. Lanterns were running along the edge. Good God! how slow they were! "Go back—go back!" gasped John, and his head fell forward on her breast. He seemed slipping out of her arms, but she upheld him clasped convulsively to her with the strength of despair. "Where?" shouted voices, half-way up the lake. She tried to shriek again, but only a harsh guttural sound escaped her lips. The man had not gone away. She had her back to him, but she heard him run a few steps along the frost-bitten bank, and she knew it was to make his work sure. John became a dead weight upon her. She struggled fiercely with him, but he dragged her heavily to her knees, and fell from her grasp, exposing himself to full view. There was a click. With a wild cry she flung herself down upon his body, covering him with her own, her face pressed against his. "We will die together! We will die together!" she gasped. She heard a low curse from the bank. And suddenly there was a turmoil of voices, and a rushing and flaring of lights all round her, and then a sharp cry like the fire-engines clearing the London streets. "I must get him to the side," she said to herself, and she beat her hands feebly on the ice. Away in the distance, in some other world, the band struck up, "He's a fine old English gentleman." Her hands touched something wet and warm. "The thaw has come at last," she thought, and consciousness and feeling ebbed away together. [27] [28] [29] [30] W CHAPTER III. "And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear, Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds." Swinburne. HEN Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps' shoulder. Some one, bending over her—could it be Lord Hemsworth with that blanched face and bare head?—was wiping her face with the gentleness of a woman. "Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it was—Miss Crupps who fell." "Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy, Lumley." Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something wrong. "I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord Hemsworth. "Drink this," he said quickly, pressing the tumbler against her lip. Her teeth chattered against the rim. Miss Crupps was weeping silently. Di pushed away the glass and stared wildly about her. What was this great crowd of eyes kept back by a chain of men? What was that man in a red uniform with a trumpet, craning forward to see? There was a sound of women crying. How dark it was! Where was the moon gone to? "What is it?" she whispered hoarsely, stretching out her hands to Lord Hemsworth, and looking at him with an agony of [31] [32] [33] appeal. "What has happened?" But he only took her hands and held them hard in his. If he could have died to spare her that next moment he would have done it. "When I say three," said a distinct voice near at hand. "Gently, men. One, two, three. That's it." Di turned sharply in the direction of the voice. There was a knot of people on the ice at a little distance. One was kneeling down. Another knelt too, holding a lantern ringed with mist. As she looked, the others raised something between them in a fur rug, something heavy, and began to move slowly to the bank. Her face took a rigid look. She remembered. She rose suddenly to her feet with a voiceless cry, and would have fallen forward on her face had not Lord Hemsworth caught her in his arms. He held her closely to him, and put his shaking blood-stained hand over her eyes. Miss Crupps sobbed aloud. Mr. Lumley sat down by her, telling her not to cry, and assuring her that it would all be all right; but when he was not comic he was not up to much. There was no need to keep the crowd off any longer. Their whole interest centred in John, and they broke away in murmuring masses along the bank, and down the ice, in the wake of the little band with the lantern. Now that the lantern had gone, the place was wrapped in a white darkness. The other lights had apparently gone out, except the red end of a torch on the bank. The mist was covering the valley. "Is he dead? Is he dead?" gasped Di, clinging convulsively to the friend who had loved her so long and so faithfully. "No, Di, no," said Lord Hemsworth, speaking as if to a child; "not dead, only hurt. And the doctor is there. He was on the ice when it happened. He was with you both almost as soon as I was. I am going to take off your skates. Can you walk a little with my help? Yes? It will be better to be going gently home. Put your hands in your muff. Here it is. You must put in the other hand as well. The bank is steep here. Lean on me." And Lord Hemsworth helped her up the bank, and guided her stumbling feet towards the dwindling constellation of lights at the further end of the lake. A party of men passed them in the drifting mist. One of them turned back. It was Archie, his face streaming with perspiration. "Did you get him?" asked Lord Hemsworth. "Get him? Not a chance," said Archie. "He stood on the bank till Dawnay and I were within ten yards of him, and then laughed and ran quietly away. He knew we could not follow on our skates, though we made a rush for him, and by the time we had got them off he was out of sight, of course. I expect he has doubled back, and is watching among the crowd now." "Would you know him again?" "No; he was masked. He would never have let me come so close to him if he had not been. I say, how is John?" Lord Hemsworth glared at Archie, but the latter was of the species that never takes a hint, like his father before him, who was always deeply affronted if people resented his want of tact. He called it "touchiness" on their part. The "touchiness" of the world in general affords tactless persons a perennial source of offended astonishment. "What are you frowning at me about?" said Archie, in an injured voice. "What has become of John? Hullo! what's that? Why, it's the omnibus. They have been uncommonly quick about getting it down. My word, the horses are giving trouble! They can't get them past the bonfires." "Go on and say Miss Tempest and Miss Crupps are coming," said Lord Hemsworth, "and keep places for them." He knew the omnibus had not been sent for for them, but he did not want Di to realize for whom it was required. Archie hurried on. Miss Crupps and Mr. Lumley passed at a little distance. "You are deceiving me," gasped Di. "You mean it kindly, but you are deceiving me. He is dead. Did not Archie say he was dead? It is no good keeping it from me." Lord Hemsworth tried to soothe her in vain. "The man on the bank shot twice," she went on incoherently. "I tried to get between, but it was no good; and I screamed, but you were all so long in coming. I never knew people so slow. You were too late, too late, too late!" Lord Hemsworth was experiencing that unbearable wrench at the heart which goes by the easy name of emotion. He was reading his death-warrant in every random word Di said. It appeared to him that he had always known that John loved Di; and yet until this evening he had never thought of it, and certainly never dreamed for a moment that she cared for him. He had not imagined that Di could care for any one. The ease with which any man can marry any woman nowadays, the readiness of women to give their affection to any one, irrespective of age, character, and antecedents, has awakened in men's minds a profound and too well grounded disbelief in women's love. The average woman of the present day is, as men are well aware, in love with marriage, and in order to attain to that state a preference for one person rather than another is quickly seen to be prejudicial; for though love conduces to happy marriages, love [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] conduces also to the catastrophe of single life, and is but a blind leader of the blind at best. Lord Hemsworth loved Di, but that was different. The fact that she, being human, might be equally attached to himself or to some other man had never struck him. It struck him now, and for a few minutes he was speechless. It was only a very great compassion and tenderness that was able to wrestle with and vanquish the intolerable pain of the moment. "See, Di," he said gently, through his white lips. "Look at that great tear and hole through your muff. I saw it directly I picked it up. A bullet did that; do you understand?—a bullet that perhaps would have hit Tempest but for you. But you saved him from it. Perhaps he is better now, and afraid you are hurt. There is the carriage coming to us; let us go on to meet it." And in truth the great Overleigh omnibus, with men at the horses' heads, was lurching across the uneven turf to meet them. "Where is John?" asked Di of Archie, peering at the empty carriage. "The doctor would not have him lifted in, after all," said Archie. "They went on on foot. We may as well go up in it;" and he helped in Lady Alice Fane and Miss Crupps, who came up at the moment. Lord Hemsworth followed Di and sat down by her. He was determined she should be spared all questioning. Mr. Lumley and Mr. Dawnay got in too, and sat silently staring straight in front of them. No one spoke. Archie stood on the step; and the long lumbering vehicle turned and got slowly under way—the same in which such a merry party had driven to the ball the night before. As they reached the courtyard a confused mass of people became visible within it—the guests of the evening; the girls standing about in silent groups, muffled to the eyes, for the cold had become intense; the men hurrying to and fro, getting out their own horses and helping the coachmen to harness them. Through the darkness came the uplifted voices of Lindo and Fritz in hysterics at being debarred from taking part in the festivities. Carriages were beginning to drive off. There was no leave-taking. "There is our omnibus," said Mr. Lumley to Miss Crupps. "That is Montagu lighting the lamps. They will be looking for us." And they got out and rejoined their party, nodding silently to the others, who drove on to the hall door, Lord Hemsworth with them: he seemed quite oblivious of the fact that he was not staying at Overleigh. The hall was brilliantly lighted. Every carved lion and griffin on the grand staircase held its lamp. The house-party was standing about in the hall. They looked at the remainder as they came in, but no one spoke. Miss Fane was blinking in their midst. The other elder ladies who had stayed up at the Castle whispered with their daughters. A blaze of light and silver came through the opened folding doors of the dining-hall, where supper for a large number had been prepared. "Any news?" asked Lord Hemsworth, as he guided Di to an armchair. Miss Fane shook her head. "They won't let me in," she said. "They have taken him to his room, and they won't let any one in." "Who is with him?" said Di, in a loud hoarse voice that made every one look at her. She did not see what every one else did, namely, that the neck and breast of her grey coat was drenched with blood— not hers. "The doctor and his sister are with him. They were both on the ice at the time. I think Lord Elver is there too, and his valet." Lord Hemsworth went into the dining-hall and came back with a glass of champagne and a roll. "Bring things out to the people," he said to the bewildered servants; "they won't come in here for them." And they followed with trays of wine and soup. Without making her conspicuous, he was thus able to force Di to drink and eat. She remembered afterwards his wearying pertinacity till she had finished what he brought her. The men, most of whom were exhausted by the pursuit of the assassin, or by carrying John up the steep ascent, drank large quantities of spirits. Archie, quite worn out, fell heavily asleep in an oak chair. The women were beginning to disappear in two and threes. Every one was dead beat. It was Lord Hemsworth who took the onus of giving directions, who told the servants to put out the lights from all the windows. Miss Fane was of no more use than a sheep waked at midnight for an opinion on New Zealand lamb would have been. She stood about and ate sandwiches because they were handed to her, although she and the other chaperons had just partaken of roast turkey; went at intervals into the picture-gallery, at the end of which John's room was, and came back shaking her head. It was Lord Hemsworth who helped Di to her room, while Miss Fane accompanied them upstairs. Di's room was still brilliantly lighted. Lord Hemsworth lingered on the threshold. [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] "You will promise me to take off that damp gown at once," he said. Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar in the authoritative attitude which he had assumed towards Di. She and Miss Fane took it as a matter of course. "Yes, change all her things," said Miss Fane. "Quite right—quite right." "Where is your maid? Can you get her?" asked Lord Hemsworth, uneasily. "I have no maid," said Di, trying and failing to unfasten her grey furred coat. He winced as he saw her touch it, and then, an idea seeming to strike him, closed the door and went downstairs again. The servants had put out the lamps in the windows of the picture-gallery, leaving, with unusual forethought, one or two burning in the long expanse in case of need. In the shadow at the further end, near John's room, a bent figure was sitting, silently rocking itself to and fro. It had been there whenever he had ventured into the gallery. It was there still. It was Mitty—Mitty in her best violet silk that would stand of itself, and her black satin apron, and her gold brooch with the mosaic of the Coliseum that John had brought her from Rome. She raised her wet face out of her apron as the young man touched her gently on the shoulder. "They won't let me in to him, sir," said Mitty, the round tears running down her cheeks, and hopping on to her violet silk. "Me that nursed him since he was a baby. He was put into my arms, sir, when he was born. I took him from the month, and they won't let me in." "They will presently," said Lord Hemsworth. "He will be asking for you, you'll see; and then how vexed he will be if he sees you have been crying!" "And the warming-pan, sir," gasped Mitty, shaken with silent sobs, pointing to that article laid on the settee. "I got it ready myself. I was as quick as quick. And a bit of brown sugar in it to keep off the pain. And they said they did not want it—as if I didn't know what he'd like! He'll want his old Mitty, and he won't know they are keeping me away from him." "Some one wants you very much," said Lord Hemsworth. "Poor Miss Tempest. And she has no maid with her. She is not fit to be left to herself. Won't you go and see to her, Mitty?" But Mitty shook her head. "He may ask for me," she said. "I will stay here and come for you the first minute he asks," said Lord Hemsworth, moving the rejected warming-pan, and sitting down beside her on the hot settee. "Poor Miss Tempest! And she tried so hard to save him. Won't you go to her? She has only Miss Fane with her." "Miss Fane!" said Mitty, evidently with the recollection of a long-standing feud. "Much good she'd do a body; doesn't know chalk from cheese. She didn't even know when Master John had got the measles, though the spots was out all over him. 'It's only nettle-rash, nurse,' she says to me. And the same when he had them little ulsters in his throat. Miss Fane indeed!" And after a little more persuasion Mitty consented to go if he promised to come for her if John asked for her. Lord Hemsworth gave a sigh of relief as Mitty went reluctantly away. He was in mortal anxiety about Di. He had a nervous misgiving, increased by his feeling of masculine helplessness to do anything further for her, lest she should fall ill or faint alone in that gaily lighted room; for, of course, Miss Fane would not have remained. As, indeed, was the case. She was yawning herself out of the room when Mitty appeared. "That's it—that's it," she said, evidently relieved. "Get to bed, Di. No use sitting up. We shall hear in the morning;" and she departed to her own room. Di turned her white exhausted face slowly towards the old woman, and vainly tried to frame a question. Mitty's maternal instinct was aroused by the sight of her lamb's "Miss Dinah" sitting in her mist-damped clothes, which steamed where the warmth of the fire reached them. She had made no effort to take off her walking things, but she was passive under Mitty's hands, as the latter unfastened them and wrapped her in her warm dressing-gown. "I can't go to bed, Mitty," said Di, hoarsely, holding her gown. "Don't make me. Let me come and sit in the nursery with you. We shall be nearer there, and then I shall hear. There is no one to come and tell me here." The girl clung convulsively to the old woman, and the two went together to the nursery, and Mitty, after putting her guest into the rocking-chair by the fire, went down once more to ask for news. But there was no news. John was still unconscious, and the doctor would say nothing. Presently Mitty came tearfully back, and sat down on the other side of the fire. Lord Hemsworth, who was sitting up with Archie, had promised to come to the nursery the moment there was any change. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] The nursery still bore traces of the little party that had broken up so disastrously, for Mitty had invited the élite of the village ladies to view the carnival from the nursery windows. The "rock" buns for which Mitty was celebrated, and one of Mrs. Alcock's best cakes, were still on the table, and Mitty's fluted silver teapot with a little nest of clean cups round it. Presently she got up, and, opening the corner cupboard, began to put them away; but the impulse of tidying was forgotten as she caught sight of John's robin mug on the top shelf. She took it down, and stood holding it in her old withered hands. "I give it him myself," she said, "on his birthday when he was five years old; twenty-four years ago come June. I thought some of his mother's family would have remembered his birthday if his father didn't. I thought something would have come by post. But there wasn't so much as a letter. And Mrs. Alcock give him the tin plate with the soldier on it, but I never let him eat off it. And we had Barker's little nephew to tea as he was learning to shoemaykle, but nobody took no notice of his birthday except me and Mrs. Alcock. And when he went to school I kep' his mug and his toys. He never had a many toys, but what there was I have 'em. And his clothes, my dear, everything since he was born, from his little cambric shirts, I have 'em all, put away; with a bit of camphor to his velvet suit as I took him to York to be measured for, on purpose to make him look pretty to his papa when he come home from abroad. But he never took a bit of notice of him—never." Mitty sat down by the fire, still holding the mug. "And a lace collar he had with it—real lace, the best as money could buy. I might spend what I liked on him; but no one ever took no notice of him, not even in his first sailor's; and he with his pretty ways and his grave talk! Mrs. Alcock and me has often cried over the things he'd say. There's his crib still in the night-nursery by my bed. I could not sleep without it was there; and the little blankets and sheets and piller-slips as belong, all put away, and not a iron mould upon 'em. Eh, dear miss, many's the time I've got 'em out and aired 'em, thinking maybe the day 'ud come when he would have a babby of his own, and I should hold it in my old arms before I died. And even if I was gone they'd be all ready, and the bassinet only wanting muslin to it. And now—oh, my lamb, my lamb! And they won't let his old Mitty go to him." And Mitty's grief broke into a paroxysm of sobbing. Di looked at the old woman rocking herself backwards and forwards, and, rising unsteadily, she went and knelt down by her, putting her arms round her in silence. She had no comfort to give in words. It seemed as if her strong young heart were breaking; but she realized that Mitty's anguish for a love knit up into so many faithful years was greater than hers. As she knelt, a step came along the creaking garret gallery with its uneven flooring. It was Lord Hemsworth. He stood in the doorway with the wan light of the morning behind him. His face looked pinched and aged. "He is better," he said. "He has recovered consciousness, and has spoken. The other doctor has arrived, and they think all will go well." And the two women who loved John clung and sobbed together. Lord Hemsworth looked fixedly at Di and went out. [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] P CHAPTER IV. "Toute passion nuisible attire, comme le gouffre, par le vertige. La faiblesse de volonté amène la faiblesse de tête, et l'abîme, malgré son horreur, fascine alors comme un asile."—Amiel. EOPLE said that John had a charmed life. The divergence of an eighth of an inch, of a hundredth part of an inch, of a hair's-breadth and the little bead that passed right through his neck would have pierced the jugular artery, and John would have added one more to the long list of names in Overleigh Church. As it was, when once the direction of the bullet had been ascertained, he was pronounced to be in little danger. He rallied steadily, and without relapse. People said that he bore a charmed life, and they began to say something more, namely, that it was an object to somebody that it should be wiped out. Men are not shot at for nothing. John was not an Irish landlord. Some one evidently bore him a grudge. Society instantly formed several more or less descreditable reasons to account for John's being the object of some one's revenge. Half-forgotten rumours of Archie's doings were revived with John's name affixed to them. Decidedly there had been some "entanglement," and John had brought his fate upon himself. Colonel Tempest, just returned from foreign travel, heard the matter discussed at his club. His opinion was asked as to the truth of the reports, but he only shrugged his shoulders, and it was supposed that he could not deny them. Di's, Lady Alice Fane's, and Miss Crupps' names were all equally associated with John's in the different versions of the accident. Colonel Tempest did not go to see his daughter. She had been telegraphed for the morning after the ice carnival by Mrs. Courtenay, who had actually developed with the thaw the bronchitis which she had dreaded throughout the frost. Di and Archie, whose leave was up, returned to town together for once. Archie had experienced a distinct though shamed pang of disappointment when John's state was pronounced to be favourable. All night long, as he had sat waking and dozing beside the gallery fire opposite Lord Hemsworth's motionless, wakeful figure, visions of wealth passed in spite of himself before his mind; visions of four-in-hands, and screaming champagne suppers, and smashing things he could afford to pay for, and running his own horses on the turf. He did not want John to die. He had been dreadfully shocked when he had first caught sight of the stony upturned face almost beneath his feet, and had strained every nerve in his body to overtake the murderer. He did not want John to go where he, Archie, would have been terrified to go himself. But—he wanted the things John had, which his father had often told him should by rights have been his, and they could not both have them at one and the same time. He could not understand his father's fervent "Thank God!" when he assured him that John was out of danger. "A miss is as good as a mile," said Archie, with his smallest grin. He was desperately short of money again by this time, and he had no one to apply to. He knew enough of John to be aware that nothing was to be expected from that quarter. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought—how could he help it?—that perhaps there would be no further trouble on that irksome, wearisome subject; for lack of money, and the annoyance entailed by procuring it, was the thorn in Archie's flesh. But now the annoyance was still there, beginning as it were all over again, owing to—John. Madeleine would lend him money, he knew, but he would be a cad to take it. He could not think of such a thing, he said to himself, as he turned it over in his mind. The ice carnival and John's escape were a nine days' wonder. In ten days it was forgotten for a cause célèbre by every one except Colonel Tempest. Colonel Tempest had had a fairly pleasant time abroad. While his small stock of ready money lasted, the remainder of the five hundred subtracted from the sum he had returned to John after his interview with Larkin, he had really almost enjoyed himself. He had picked up a few old companions of the hanger-on species at Baden and Homburg, and had given them dinners—he was always open-handed. He had the natural predilection for the society of his social inferiors which generally accompanies a predilection for being deferred to, and regarded as a person of importance. He was under the impression that he was the most liberal-minded of men in the choice of his companions, and without the social prejudices of his class. He had won a little at "baccarat." His health also had improved. On his return in December to the lodgings which he had left in such a panic in July, he told himself that he had been in a morbid state of health, that he [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] had taken things too much to heart, that he had been over-sensitive; that there was no need to be afraid. Five months had elapsed. It would be all right. And it had been all right for about a month, and then—— If the distressing theory that virtue is...