"Oh, it"s all very well!--but we can"t all be such saints as you. It"d be all right if he married me directly--_directly_," she repeated, hurriedly.
Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that agonized shock and recoil with which the young and pure, the tenderly cherished and guarded, receive the first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them the more brutal facts of life. But, as she knelt there, gazing at f.a.n.n.y, another expression stole upon and effaced the first. Taking shape and body, as it were, from the experience of the moment, there rose into sight the new soul developed in her by this tragic year. Not for her--not for Juliet Sparling"s daughter--the plea of cloistered innocence! By a sharp transition her youth had pa.s.sed from the Chamber of Maiden Thought into the darkened Chamber of Experience. She had steeped her heart in the waters of sin and suffering; she put from her in an instant the mere maiden panic which had drawn her to her knees.
"f.a.n.n.y, I"ll help you!" she said, in a low voice, putting her arms round her cousin. "Don"t cry--I"ll help you."
f.a.n.n.y raised her head. In Diana"s face there was something which, for the first time, roused in the other a nascent sense of shame. The color came rushing into her cheeks; her eyes wavered painfully.
"You must come and stay here," said Diana, almost in a whisper. "And where is Mr. Birch? I must see him."
She rose as she spoke; her voice had a decision, a sternness, that f.a.n.n.y for once did not resent. But she shook her head despairingly.
"I can"t get at him. He sends my letters back. He"ll not marry me unless he"s paid to."
"When did you see him last?"
Gradually the whole story emerged. The man had behaved as the coa.r.s.e and natural man face to face with temptation and opportunity is likely to behave. The girl had been the victim first and foremost of her own incredible folly. And Diana could not escape the idea that on Birch"s side there had not been wanting from the first an element of sinister calculation. If her relations objected to the situation, it could, of course, be made worth his while to change it. All his recent sayings and doings, as f.a.n.n.y reported them, clearly bore this interpretation.
As Diana sat, dismally pondering, an idea flashed upon her. Sir James Chide was to dine at Beechcote that night. He was expected early, would take in Beechcote, indeed, on his way from the train to Lytchett. Who else should advise her if not he? In a hundred ways, practical and tender, he had made her understand that, for her mother"s sake and her own, she was to him as a daughter.
She mentioned him to f.a.n.n.y.
"Of course"--she hurried over the words--"we need only say that you have been engaged. We must consult him, I suppose, about--about breach of promise of marriage."
The odious, hearsay phrase came out with difficulty. But f.a.n.n.y"s eyes glistened at the name of the great lawyer.
Her feelings toward the man who had betrayed her were clearly a medley of pa.s.sion and of hatred. She loved him as she was able to love; and she wished, at the same time, to coerce and be revenged on him. The momentary sense of shame had altogether pa.s.sed. It was Diana who, with burning cheeks, stipulated that while f.a.n.n.y must not return to town, but must stay at Beechcote till matters were arranged, she should not appear during Sir James"s visit; and it was f.a.n.n.y who said, with vindictive triumph, as Diana left her in her room; "Sir James"ll know well enough what sort of damages I could get!"
After dinner Diana and Sir James walked up and down the lime-walk in the August moonlight. His affection, as soon as he saw her, had been conscious of yet another strain upon her, but till she began to talk to him _tete-a-tete_ he got no clew to it; and even then what he guessed had very little to do with what she said. She told her cousin"s story so far as she meant to tell it with complete self-possession. Her cousin was in love with this wretched man, and had got herself terribly talked about. She could not be persuaded to give him up, while he could only be induced to marry her by the prospect of money. Could Sir James see him and find out how much would content him, and whether any decent employment could be found for him?
Sir James held his peace, except for the "Yeses" and "Noes" that Diana"s conversation demanded. He would certainly interview the young man; he was very sorry for her anxieties; he would see what could be done.
Meanwhile, he never communicated to her that he had travelled down to Beechcote in the same carriage with Lady Felton, the county gossip, and that in addition to other matters--of which more anon--the refreshment-room story had been discussed between them, with additions and ramifications leading to very definite conclusions in any rational mind as to the nature of the bond between Diana"s cousin and the young Duns...o...b.. solicitor. Lady Felton had expressed her concern for Miss Mallory. "Poor thing!--do you think she knows? Why on earth did she ever ask him to Beechcote! Alicia Drake told me she saw him there."
These things Sir James did not disclose. He played Diana"s game with perfect discretion. He guessed, even that f.a.n.n.y was in the house, but he said not a word. No need at all to question the young woman. If in such a case he could not get round a rascally solicitor, what could he do?--and what was the good of being the leader of the criminal Bar?
Only when Diana, at the end of their walk, shyly remarked that money was not to stand in the way; that she had plenty; that Beechcote was no doubt too expensive for her, but that the tenancy was only a yearly one, and she had but to give notice at Michaelmas, which she thought of doing--only then did Sir James allow himself a laugh.
"You think I am going to let this business turn you out of Beechcote--eh?--you preposterous little angel!"
"Not this business," stammered Diana; "but I am really living at too great a rate."
Sir James grinned, patted her ironically on the shoulder, told her to be a good girl, and departed.
f.a.n.n.y stayed for a week at Beechcote, and at the end of that time Diana and Mrs. Colwood accompanied her on a Sat.u.r.day to town, and she was married, to a sheepish and sulky bridegroom, by special license, at a Marylebone church--Sir James Chide, in the background, looking on. They departed for a three days" holiday to Brighton, and on the fourth day they were due to sail by a West Indian steamer for Barbadoes, where Sir James had procured for Mr. Frederick Birch a post in the office of a large sugar estate, in which an old friend of Chide"s had an interest.
f.a.n.n.y showed no rapture in the prospect of thus returning to the bosom of her family. But there was no help for it.
By what means the transformation scene had been effected it would be waste of time to inquire. Much to Diana"s chagrin, Sir James entirely declined to allow her to aid in it financially, except so far as equipping her cousin with clothes went, and providing her with a small sum for her wedding journey. Personally, he considered that the week during which f.a.n.n.y stayed at Beechcote was as much as Diana could be expected to contribute, and that she had indeed paid the lion"s share.
Yet that week--if he had known--was full of strange comfort to Diana.
Often Muriel, watching her, would escape to her own room to hide her tears. f.a.n.n.y"s second visit was not as her first. The first had seen the outraging and repelling of the n.o.bler nature by the ign.o.ble. Diana had frankly not been able to endure her cousin. There was not a trace of that now. Her father"s papers had told her abundantly how flimsy, how nearly fraudulent, was the financial claim which f.a.n.n.y and her belongings had set up. The thousand pounds had been got practically on false pretences, and Diana knew it now, in every detail. Yet neither toward that, nor toward f.a.n.n.y"s other and worse lapses, did she show any bitterness, any spirit of mere disgust and reprobation. The last vestige of that just, instinctive pharisaism which clothes an unstained youth had dropped from her. As the heir of her mother"s fate, she had gone down into the dark sea of human wrong and misery, and she had emerged transformed, more akin by far to the wretched and the unhappy than to the prosperous and the untempted, so that, through all repulsion and shock, she took f.a.n.n.y now as she found her--bearing with her--accepting her--loving her, as far as she could. At the last even that stubborn nature was touched. When Diana kissed her after the wedding, with a few tremulous good wishes, f.a.n.n.y"s gulp was not all excitement. Yet it must still be recorded that on the wedding-day f.a.n.n.y was in the highest spirits, only marred by some annoyance that she had let Diana persuade her out of a white satin wedding-dress.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "SIR JAMES PLAYED DIANA"S GAME WITH PERFECT DISCRETION"]
Diana"s preoccupation with this matter carried her through the first week of Marsham"s second campaign, and deadened so far the painful effect of the contest now once more thundering through the division. For it was even a more odious battle than the first had been. In the first place, the moderate Liberals held a meeting very early in the struggle, with Sir William Felton in the chair, to protest against the lukewarm support which Marsham had given to the late leader of the Opposition, to express their lamentation for Ferrier, and their distrust of Lord Philip; and to decide upon a policy.
At the meeting a heated speech was made by a gray-haired squire, an old friend and Oxford contemporary of John Ferrier"s, who declared that he had it on excellent authority that the communicated article in the _Herald_, which had appeared on the morning of Ferrier"s sudden death, had been written by Oliver Marsham.
This statement was reported in the newspapers of the following morning, and was at once denied by Marsham himself, in a brief letter to the _Times_.
It was this letter which Lady Felton discussed hotly with Sir James Chide on the day when f.a.n.n.y Merton"s misdemeanors also came up for judgment.
"He says he didn"t write it. Sir William declares--a mere quibble! He has it from several people that Barrington was at Tallyn two days before the article appeared, and that he spoke to one or two friends next day of an "important" conversation with Marsham, and of the first-hand information he had got from it. n.o.body was so likely as Oliver to have that intimate knowledge of poor Mr. Ferrier"s intentions and views.
William believes that he gave Barrington all the information in the article, and wrote nothing himself, in order that he might be able to deny it."
Sir James met these remarks with an impenetrable face. He neither defended Marsham, nor did he join in Lady Felton"s denunciations. But that good lady, who though voluble was shrewd, told her husband afterward that she was certain Sir James believed Marsham to be responsible for the _Herald_ article.
A week later the subject was renewed at a very heated and disorderly meeting at Duns...o...b... A bookseller"s a.s.sistant, well known as one of the leading Socialists of the division, got up and in a suave mincing voice accused Marsham of having--not written, but--"communicated" the _Herald_ article, and so dealt a treacherous blow at his old friend and Parliamentary leader--a blow which had no doubt contributed to the situation culminating in Mr. Ferrier"s tragic death.
Marsham, very pale, sprang up at once, denied the charge, and fiercely attacked the man who had made it. But there was something so venomous in the manner of his denial, so undignified in the personalities with which it was accompanied, that the meeting suddenly took offence. The attack, instead of dying down, was renewed. Speaker after speaker got up and heckled the candidate. Was Mr. Marsham aware that the editor of the _Herald_ had been staying at Tallyn two days before the article appeared? Was he also aware that his name had been freely mentioned, in the _Herald_ office, in connection with the article?
Marsham in vain endeavored to regain sang-froid and composure under these attacks. He haughtily repeated his denial, and refused to answer any more questions on the subject.
The local Tory paper rushed into the fray, and had presently collected a good deal of what it was pleased to call evidence on the matter, mainly gathered from London reporters. The matter began to look serious.
Marsham appealed to Barrington to contradict the rumor publicly, as "absurd and untrue." But, unfortunately, Barrington, who was a man of quick and gusty temper, had been nettled by an incautious expression of Marsham"s with regard to the famous article in his Duns...o...b.. speech--"if I had had any intention whatever of dealing a dishonorable blow at my old friend and leader, I could have done it a good deal more effectively, I can a.s.sure you; I should not have put what I had to say in a form so confused and contradictory."
This--together with the general denial--happened to reach Barrington, and it rankled. When, therefore, Marsham appealed to him, he brusquely replied:
"DEAR MR. MARSHAM,--You know best what share you had in the _Herald_ article. You certainly did not write it. But to my mind it very faithfully reproduced the gist of our conversation on a memorable evening. And, moreover, I believe and still believe that you intended the reproduction. Believe me, Yours faithfully, ERNEST BARRINGTON."
To this Marsham returned a stiff answer, giving his own account of what had taken place, and regretting that even a keen journalist should have thought it consistent with his honor to make such injurious and unfair use of "my honest attempt to play the peacemaker" between the different factions of the party.
To this letter Barrington made no reply. Marsham, sore and weary, yet strung by now to an obstinacy and a fighting pa.s.sion which gave a new and remarkable energy to his personality, threw himself fresh into a hopeless battle. For a time, indeed, the tide appeared to turn. He had been through two Parliaments a popular and successful member; less popular, no doubt, in the second than in the first, as the selfish and bitter strains in his character became more apparent. Still he had always commanded a strong personal following, especially among the younger men of the towns and villages, who admired his lithe and handsome presence, and appreciated his reputation as a sportsman and volunteer. Lady Lucy"s subscriptions, too, were an element in the matter not to be despised.
A rally began in the Liberal host, which had felt itself already beaten.
Marsham"s meetings improved, the _Herald_ article was apparently forgotten.
The anxiety now lay chiefly in the mining villages, where nothing seemed to affect the hostile att.i.tude of the inhabitants. A long series of causes had led up to it, to be summed up perhaps in one--the harsh and domineering temper of the man who had for years managed the three Tallyn collieries, and who held Lady Lucy and her co-shareholders in the hollow of his hand. Lady Lucy, whose curious obstinacy had been roused, would not dismiss him, and nothing less than his summary dismissal would have appeased the dull hatred of six hundred miners.
Marsham had indeed attempted to put through a number of minor reforms, but the effect on the temper of the district had been, in the end, little or nothing. The colliers, who had once fervently supported him, thought of him now, either as a fine gentleman profiting pecuniarily by the ill deeds of a tyrant, or as sheltering behind his mother"s skirts; the Socialist Vicar of Beechcote thundered against him; and for some time every meeting of his in the colliery villages was broken up. But in the more hopeful days of the last week, when the canva.s.sing returns, together with Marsham"s astonishing energy and brilliant speaking, had revived the failing heart of the party, it was resolved to hold a final meeting, on the night before the poll, at Hartingfield-on-the-Wold, the largest of the mining villages.