The Testing of Diana Mallory by Mrs. Humphry Ward (dark books to read txt) 📕

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 passed and repassed 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 document 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.

And the drawing-room! As Alicia Drake advanced alone into its empty and blazing magnificence she could only laugh in its face--so eager and restless was the effort which it made, and so hopeless the defeat. Enormous mirrors, spread on white and gold walls; large copies from Italian pictures, collected by Henry Marsham in Rome; more facile statues holding innumerable lights; great pieces of modern china painted with realistic roses and poppies; crimson carpets, gilt furniture, and flaring cabinets--Miss Drake frowned as she looked at it. "What _could_ be done with it?" she said to herself, walking slowly up and down, and glancing from side to side--"What _could_ be done with it?"

A rustle in the hall announced another guest. Mrs. Fotheringham entered. Marsham's sister dressed with severity; and as she approached her cousin she put up her eye-glass for what was evidently a hostile inspection of the dazzling effect presented by the young lady. But Alicia was not afraid of Mrs. Fotheringham.

"How early we are!" she said, still quietly looking at the reflection of herself in the mirror over the mantel-piece and warming a slender foot at the fire. "Haven't some more people arrived, Cousin Isabel? I thought I heard a carriage while I was dressing."

"Yes; Miss Vincent and three men came by the late train."

"All Labor members?" asked Alicia, with a laugh.

Mrs. Fotheringham explained, with some tartness, that only one of the three was a Labor member--Mr. Barton. Of the other two, one was Edgar Frobisher, the other Mr. McEwart, a Liberal M.P., who had just won a hotly contested bye-election. At the name of Edgar Frobisher, Miss Drake's countenance showed some animation. She inquired if he had been doing anything madder than usual. Mrs. Fotheringham replied, without enthusiasm, that she knew nothing about his recent doings--nor about Mr. McEwart, who was said, however, to be of the right stuff. Mr. Barton, on the other hand, "is a _great_ friend of mine--and a most remarkable man. Oliver has been very lucky to get him."

Alicia inquired whether he was likely to appear in dress clothes.

"Certainly not. He never does anything out of keeping with his class--and he knows that we lay no stress on that kind of thing." This, with another glance at the elegant Paris frock which adorned the person of Alicia--a frock, in Mrs. Fotheringham's opinion, far too expensive for the girl's circumstances. Alicia received the glance without flinching. It was one of her good points that she was never meek with the people who disliked her. She merely threw out another inquiry as to "Miss Vincent."

"One of mamma's acquaintances. She was a private secretary to some one mamma knows, and she is going to do some work for Oliver when the session begins.

"Didn't Oliver tell me she is a Socialist?"

Mrs. Fotheringham believed it might be said.

"How Miss Mallory will enjoy herself!" said Alicia, with a little laugh.

"Have you been talking to Oliver about her?" Mrs. Fotheringham stared rather hard at her cousin.

"Of course. Oliver likes her."

"Oliver likes a good many people."

"Oh no, Cousin Isabel! Oliver likes very few people--very, very few," said Miss Drake, decidedly, looking down into the fire.

"I don't know why you give Oliver such an unamiable character! In my opinion, he is often not so much on his guard as I should like to see him."

"Oh, well, we can't all be as critical as you, dear Cousin Isabel! But, anyway, Oliver admires Miss Mallory extremely. We can all see that."

The girl turned a steady face on her companion. Mrs. Fotheringham was conscious of a certain secret admiration. But her own point of view had nothing to do with Miss Drake's.

"It amuses him to talk to her," she said, sharply; "I am sure I hope it won't come to anything more. It would be very unsuitable."

"Why? Politics? Oh! that doesn't matter a bit."

"I beg your pardon. Oliver is becoming an important man, and it will never do for him to hamper himself with a wife who cannot sympathize with any of his enthusiasms and ideals."

Miss Drake shrugged her shoulders.

"He would convert her--and he likes triumphing. Oh! Cousin Isabel!--look at that lamp!"

An oil lamp in an inner drawing-room, placed to illuminate an easel portrait of Lady Lucy, was smoking atrociously. The two ladies' flew toward it, and were soon lost to sight and hearing amid a labyrinth of furniture and palms.

The place they left vacant was almost immediately filled by Oliver Marsham himself, who came in studying a pencilled paper, containing the names of the guests. He and his mother had not found the dinner very easy to arrange. Upon his heels followed Mr. Ferrier, who hurried to the fire, rubbing his hands and complaining of the cold.

"I never felt this house cold before. Has anything happened to your _calorifere_? These rooms are too big! By-the-way, Oliver"--Mr. Ferrier turned his back to the blaze, and looked round him--"when are you going to reform this one?"

Oliver surveyed it.

"Of course I should like nothing better than to make a bonfire of it all! But mother--"

"Of course--of course! Ah, well, perhaps when you marry, my dear boy! Another reason for making haste!"

The older man turned