"I am sure that people take less care in their invitations," she said, with soft obstinacy. "I have often heard my mother speak of society in her young days,--how the dear Queen"s example purified it--and how much less people bowed down to money then than now."
"Ah, that was before the Americans and the Jews," said Sir James Chide.
"People forget their responsibility," said Lady Lucy, turning to Diana, and speaking so as not to be heard by the whole table. "In old days it was birth; but now--now when we are all democratic--it should be _character_.--Don"t you agree with me?"
"Other people"s character?" asked Diana.
"Oh, we mustn"t be unkind, of course. But when a thing is notorious.
Take this young Brenner. His father"s frauds ruined hundreds of poor people. How can I receive him here, as if nothing had happened? It ought not to be forgotten. He himself ought to _wish_ to live quietly!"
Diana gave a hesitating a.s.sent, adding: "But I"m sorry for Mr. Brenner!"
Mr. Ferrier, as she spoke, leaned slightly across the tea-table as though to listen to what she said. Lady Lucy moved away, and Mr.
Ferrier, after spending a moment of quiet scrutiny on the young mistress of Beechcote, came to sit beside her.
Mrs. Fotheringham threw herself back in her chair with a little yawn.
"Mamma is more difficult than the Almighty!" she said, in a loud aside to Sir James Chide. "One sin--or even somebody else"s sin--and you are done for."
Sir James, who was a Catholic, and scrupulous in speech, pursed his lips slightly, drummed on the table with his fingers, and finally rose without reply, and betook himself to the _Times_. Miss Drake meanwhile had been carried off to play billiards at the farther end of the hall by the young men of the party. It might have been noticed that, before she went, she had spent a few minutes of close though masked observation of her cousin Oliver"s new friend. Also, that she tried to carry Oliver Marsham with her, but unsuccessfully. He had returned to Diana"s neighborhood, and stood leaning over a chair beside her, listening to her conversation with Mr. Ferrier.
His sister, Mrs. Fotheringham, was not content to listen. Diana"s impressions of the country-side, which presently caught her ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl"s rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the "locals," according to her, were stupid or sn.o.bbish--bores, in fact, of the first water. And to Diana"s discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed himself possessed of a sharper and more caustic tongue than Diana had yet suspected. His sister"s sallies only amused him, and sometimes he improved on them, with epithets or comments, shrewder than hers indeed, but quite as biting.
"His neighbors and const.i.tuents!" thought Diana, in a young astonishment. "The people who send him to Parliament!"
Mr. Ferrier seemed to become aware of her surprise and disapproval, for he once or twice threw in a satirical word or two, at the expense, not of the criticised, but of the critics. The well-known Leader of the Opposition was a stout man of middle height, with a round head and face, at first sight wholly undistinguished, an ample figure, and smooth, straight hair. But there was so much honesty and acuteness in the eyes, so much humor in the mouth, and so much kindness in the general aspect, that Diana felt herself at once attracted; and when the master of the house was summoned by his head gamekeeper to give directions for the shooting-party of the following day, and Mrs. Fotheringham had gone off to attend what seemed to be a vast correspondence, the politician and the young girl fell into a conversation which soon became agreeable and even absorbing to both. Mrs. Colwood, sitting on the other side of the hall, timidly discussing fancy work with the Miss Varleys, Lady Lucy"s young nieces, saw that Diana was making a conquest; and it seemed to her, moreover, that Mr. Ferrier"s scrutiny of his companion was somewhat more attentive and more close than was quite explained by the mere casual encounter of a man of middle-age with a young and charming girl.
Was he--like herself--aware that matters of moment might be here at their beginning?
Meanwhile, if Mr. Ferrier was making discoveries, so was Diana. A man, it appeared, could be not only one of the busiest and most powerful politicians in England, but also a philosopher, and a reader, one whose secret tastes were as unworldly and romantic as her own. Books, music, art--he could handle these subjects no less skilfully than others political or personal. And, throughout, his deference to a young and pretty woman was never at fault. Diana was encouraged to talk, and then, without a word of flattery, given to understand that her talk pleased.
Under this stimulus, her soft dark beauty was soon glowing at its best; innocence, intelligence, and youth, spread as it were their tendrils to the sun.
Meanwhile, Sir James Chide, a few yards off, was apparently absorbed partly in the _Times_, partly in the endeavor to make Lady Lucy"s fox terrier go through its tricks.
Once Mr. Ferrier drew Diana"s attention to her neighbor.
"You know him?"
"I never saw him before."
"You know who he is?"
"Ought I?--I am so sorry!"
"He is perhaps the greatest criminal advocate we have. And a very distinguished politician too.--Whenever our party comes in, he will be in the Cabinet.--You must make him talk this evening."
"I?" said Diana, laughing and blushing.
"You can!" smiled Mr. Ferrier. "Witness how you have been making me chatter! But I think I read you right? You do not mind if one chatters?--if one gives you information?"
"Mind!--How could I be anything but grateful? It puzzles me so--this--"
she hesitated.
"This English life?--especially the political life? Well!--let me be your guide. I have been in it for a long while."
Diana thanked him, and rose.
"You want your room?" he asked her, kindly.--"Mrs. Fotheringham, I think, is in the drawing-room. Let me take you to her. But, first, look at two or three of these pictures as you go."
"These--pictures?" faltered Diana, looking round her, her tone changing.
"Oh, not those horrible frescos! Those were perpetrated by Marsham"s father. They represent, as you see, the different processes of the Iron Trade. Old Henry Marsham liked them, because, as he said, they explained him, and the house. Oliver would like to whitewash them--but for filial piety. People might suppose him ashamed of his origin. No, no!--I mean those two or three old pictures at the end of the room. Come and look at them--they are on our way."
He led her to inspect them. They proved to be two Gainsboroughs and a Raeburn, representing ancestors on Lady Lucy"s side. Mr. Ferrier"s talk of them showed his intimate knowledge both of Varleys and Marshams, the knowledge rather of a kinsman than a friend. Diana perceived, indeed, how great must be the affection, the intimacy, between him and them.
Meanwhile, as the man of fifty and the slender girl in black pa.s.sed before him, on their way to examine the pictures, Sir James Chide, casually looking up, was apparently struck by some rapid and powerful impression. It arrested the hand playing with the dog; it held and transformed the whole man. His eyes, open as though in astonishment or pain, followed every movement of Diana, scrutinized every look and gesture. His face had flushed slightly--his lips were parted. He had the aspect of one trying eagerly, pa.s.sionately, to follow up some clew that would not unwind itself; and every now and then he bent forward--listening--trying to catch her voice.
Presently the inspection was over. Diana turned and beckoned to Mrs.
Colwood. The two ladies went toward the drawing-room, Mr. Ferrier showing the way.
When he returned to the hall, Sir James Chide, its sole occupant, was walking up and down.
"Who was that young lady?" said Sir James, turning abruptly.
"Isn"t she charming? Her name is Mallory--and she has just settled at Beechcote, near here. That small fair lady was her companion. Oliver tells me she is an orphan--well off--with no kith or kin. She has just come to England, it seems, for the first time. Her father brought her up abroad away from everybody. She will have a success! But of all the little Jingoes!"
Mr. Ferrier"s face expressed an amused recollection of some of Diana"s speeches.
"Mallory?" said Sir James, under his breath--"_Mallory?_" He walked to the window, and stood looking out, his hands in his pockets.
Mr. Ferrier went up-stairs to write letters. In a few minutes the man at the window came slowly back toward the fire, staring at the ground.
"The look in the eyes!" he said to himself--"the mouth!--the voice!"
He stood by the vast and pompous fireplace--hanging over the blaze--the prey of some profound agitation, some flooding onset of memory. Servants pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed through the hall; sounds loud and merry came from the drawing-room. Sir James neither saw nor heard.
CHAPTER III
Alicia Drake--a vision of pale pink--had just appeared in the long gallery at Tallyn, on her way to dinner. Her dress, her jewels, and all her minor appointments were of that quality and perfection to which only much thought and plentiful money can attain. She had not, in fact, been romancing in that account of her afternoon which has been already quoted. Dress was her weapon and her stock in trade; it was, she said, necessary to her "career." And on this plea she steadily exacted in its support a proportion of the family income which left but small pickings for the schooling of her younger brothers and the allowances of her two younger sisters. But so great were the indulgence and the pride of her parents--small Devonshire land-owners living on an impoverished estate--that Alicia"s demands were conceded without a murmur. They themselves were insignificant folk, who had, in their own opinion, failed in life; and most of their children seemed to them to possess the same ineffective qualities--or the same absence of qualities--as themselves. But Alicia represented their one chance of something brilliant and interesting, something to lift them above their neighbors and break up the monotony of their later lives. Their devotion was a strange mixture of love and selfishness; at any rate, Alicia could always feel, and did always feel, that she was playing her family"s game as well as her own.
Her own game, of course, came first. She was not a beauty, in the sense in which Diana Mallory was a beauty; and of that fact she had been perfectly aware after her first apparently careless glance at the new-comer of the afternoon. But she had points that never failed to attract notice: a free and rather insolent carriage, audaciously beautiful eyes, a general roundness and softness, and a grace--unfailing, deliberate, and provocative, even in actions, morally, the most graceless--that would have alone secured her the "career" on which she was bent.
Of her mental qualities, one of the most profitable was a very shrewd power of observation. As she swept slowly along the corridor, which overlooked the hall at Tallyn, none of the details of the house were lost upon her. Tallyn was vast, ugly--above all, rich. Henry Marsham, the deceased husband of Lady Lucy and father of Oliver and Mrs.
Fotheringham, had made an enormous fortune in the Iron Trade of the north, retiring at sixty that he might enjoy some of those pleasures of life for which business had left him too little time. One of these pleasures was building. Henry Marsham had spent ten years in building Tallyn, and at the end of that time, feeling it impossible to live in the huge incoherent place he had created, he hired a small villa at Nice and went to die there in privacy and peace. Nevertheless, his will laid strict injunctions upon his widow to inhabit and keep up Tallyn; injunctions backed by considerable sanctions of a financial kind. His will, indeed, had been altogether a doc.u.ment of some eccentricity; though as eight years had now elapsed since his death, the knowledge of its provisions possessed by outsiders had had time to grow vague. Still, there were strong general impressions abroad, and as Alicia Drake surveyed the house which the old man had built to be the incubus of his descendants, some of them teased her mind. It was said, for instance, that Oliver Marsham and his sister only possessed pittances of about a thousand a year apiece, while Tallyn, together with the vast bulk of Henry Marsham"s fortune, had been willed to Lady Lucy, and lay, moreover, at her absolute disposal. Was this so, or no? Miss Drake"s curiosity, for some time past, would have been glad to be informed.
Meanwhile, here was the house--about which there was no mystery--least of all, as to its cost. Interminable broad corridors, carpeted with ugly Brussels and suggesting a railway hotel, branched out before Miss Drake"s eyes in various directions; upon them opened not bedrooms but "suites," as Mr. Marsham pere had loved to call them, of which the number was legion, while the bachelors" wing alone would have lodged a regiment. Every bedroom was like every other, except for such variations as Tottenham Court Road, rioting at will, could suggest. Copies in marble or bronze of well-known statues ranged along the corridors--a forlorn troupe of nude and shivering divinities. The immense hall below, with its violent frescos and its brand-new Turkey carpets, was panelled in oak, from which some device of stain or varnish had managed to abstract every particle of charm. A whole oak wood, indeed, had been lavished on the swathing and sheathing of the house, With the only result that the spectator beheld it steeped in a repellent yellow-brown from top to toe, against which no ornament, no piece of china, no picture, even did they possess some individual beauty, could possibly make it prevail.