Diana Tempest Volume Ii Part 7

"Lord Hemsworth?"

"No, of course not. When does he ever do such things? The Infant."

"Oh dear!"

The Infant was Lord Hemsworth's younger brother.

"And it is becoming so expensive, granny. I keep on losing things. His complaint is complicated by kleptomania. He has got my two best evening handkerchiefs and my white fan already; and I can't find one of the gloves I wore at the picnic to-day. I dare not leave anything downstairs now. It is really very inconvenient."

"Poor boy!" said Mrs. Courtenay, reflectively. "How old _is_ he?"

"Oh, he is quite sixteen, I believe. What with this anxiety, and the suspense as to how my primrose cotton will wash, which I am counting on to impress John with, I find life very wearing. Oh, granny, we ought not to have come here at all, according to my ideas; but if we ever do again, I do beg and pray it may not be in the holidays. I wish I had not been so kind to him when we first arrived. I only wanted to show Lord Hemsworth he need not be so unnecessarily elated at our coming here. I wish I had not spent so many hours in the workshop with the boy and the white rats. The white rats did it, granny. Interests in common are the really dangerous things, as you have often observed. Love me, love my rats."

"Poor boy!" said Mrs. Courtenay again. "Make it as easy as you can for him, Di. Don't wound his pride. We leave to-morrow, and the Verelsts are coming to-day. That will create a diversion. I have never known Madeleine allow any man, or boy, or creeping child attend to any one but herself if she is present. She will do her best to relieve you of him.

How she will patronize you, Di, if she is anything like what she used to be!"

And in truth when Madeleine drove up to the house half an hour later it was soon apparent that she was unaltered in essentials. Although she had been married several months she was still the bride; the bride in every fold of her pretty travelling gown, in her demure dignity and enjoyment of the situation.

It was her first visit to her cousin Lady Hemsworth since her marriage, and her eyes brightened with real pleasure when that lady mentioned that Di was in the house, whom she had not seen since her wedding day. She was conscious that she had some of her best gowns with her.

"I have always been so fond of Di," she said to Di's would-be mother-in-law. "She was one of my bridesmaids. You remember Di, Henry?"

turning with a model gesture to her husband.

Sir Henry sucked his tea noisily off his moustache, and said he remembered Miss Tempest.

"Now do tell me," said Madeleine, as she unfastened her hat in her room, whither she had insisted on Di's accompanying her, "is there a large party in the house? I always hate a large party to meet a bride."

"There is really hardly any one," said Di. "I don't think you need be alarmed. The Forresters left yesterday. There are Mr. Rivers and a Captain Vivian, friends of Lord Hemsworth's, and Lord Hemsworth himself, and a Mrs. Clifford, a widow. That is all. Oh, I had forgotten Mr.

Lumley, the comic man--he is here. You may remember him. He always comes into a room either polkaing or walking lame, and beats himself all over with a tambourine after dinner."

"How droll!" said Madeleine. "Henry would like that. I must have him to stay with us some time. One is so glad of really amusing people; they make a party go off so much better. He does not black himself, does he?

That nice Mr. Carnegie, who imitated the pig being killed, always did. I am glad it is a small party," she continued, reverting to the previous topic, with a very moderate appearance of satisfaction. "It is very thoughtful of Lady Hemsworth not to have a crowd to meet me. I dislike so being stared at when I am sent out first; so embarra.s.sing, every eye upon one. And I always flush up so. And now tell me, you dear thing, all about yourself. Fancy my not having seen you since my wedding. I don't know how we missed each other in London in June. I know I called twice, but Kensington is such miles away; and--and I have often longed to ask you how you thought the wedding went off."

"Perfectly."

"And you thought I looked well--well for me, I mean?"

"You looked particularly well."

"I thought it so unkind of mother to cry. I would not let her come into my room when I was dressing, or indeed all that morning, for fear of her breaking down; but I had to go with her in the carriage, and she held my hand and cried all the way. Poor mother always is so thoughtless. I did not cry myself, but I quite feared at one time I should flush. I was not flushed when I came in, was I?"

"Not in the least. You looked your best."

"Several of the papers said so," said Madeleine. "Remarks on personal appearance are so vulgar, I think. 'The lovely bride,' one paper called me. I dare say other girls don't mind that sort of thing being said, but it is just the kind of thing I dislike. And there was a drawing of me, in my wedding gown, in the _Lady's Pictorial_. They simply would have it. I had to stand, ready dressed, the day before, while they did it. And then my photograph was in one of the other papers. Did you see it? I don't think it is _quite_ a nice idea, do you?--so public; but they wrote so urgently. They said a photograph would oblige, and I had to send one in the end. I sometimes think," she continued reflectively, "that I did not choose part of my trousseau altogether wisely. I _think_, with the summer before me, I might have ventured on rather lighter colours. But, you see, I had to decide on everything in Lent, when one's mind is turned to other things. I never wear any colour but violet in Lent. I never have since I was confirmed, and it puts one out for brighter colours. Things that look quite suitable after Easter seem so gaudy before. I am not sure what I shall wear to-night."

"Wear that mauve and silver," said Di, suddenly, and their eyes met.

Madeleine looked away again instantly, and broke into a little laugh.

"You dear thing," she said; "I wish I had your memory for clothes. I remember now, though I had almost forgotten it, that the mauve brocade was brought in the morning you came to hear about my engagement. And do you remember, you quixotic old darling, how you wanted me to break it off. You were quite excited about it."

"I had not seen the diamonds then," interposed Di, with a faint blush at the remembrance of her own useless emotion. "I am sure I never said anything about breaking it off after I had seen the two tiaras, or even hinted at throwing over that riviere."

Madeleine looked puzzled. Whenever she did not quite understand what Di meant, she a.s.sumed the tone of gentle authority, which persons, conscious of a reserved front seat or possibly a leading part in the orchestra in the next world, naturally do a.s.sume in conversation with those whose future is less a.s.sured.

"I think marriage is too solemn a thing to make a joke of," she said softly. "And talking of marriage"--in a lowered tone--"you would hardly believe, Di, the difference it makes, the way it widens one's influence.

With men now, such a responsibility. I always think a married woman can help young men so much. I find it so much easier now than before I was married to give conversation a graver turn, even at a ball. I feel I know what people really are almost at once. I have had such earnest talks in ball-rooms, Di, and at dinner parties. Haven't you?"

"No," said Di. "I distrust a man who talks seriously over a pink ice the first time I meet him. If he is genuine he is probably shallow, and the odds are he is not genuine, or he would not do it. I don't like religious flirtations, though I know they are the last new thing."

"You always take a low view, Di," said Madeleine, regretfully. "You always have, and I suppose you always will. It does not make me less fond of you; but I am often sorry, when we talk together, to notice how unrefined your ideas are. Your mind seems to run on flirtations. I see things very differently. You wanted me to throw over Henry, though I had given my solemn promise----"

"And it had been in the papers," interposed Di; "don't forget that.

But"--she added, rising--"I _was_ wrong. I ought never to have said a word on the subject; and there is the dressing-bell, so I will leave you to prepare for victory. I warn you, Mrs. Clifford has one gown, a Cresser, which is bad to beat--a lemon satin, with an emerald velvet train; but she may not put it on."

"I never vie with others in dress," said Madeleine. "I think it shows such a want of good taste. Did she wear it last night?"

"She did."

"Oh! Then she won't wear it again."

But Di had departed.

"In change unchanged," Di said to herself, as she uncoiled her hair in her own room. "I don't know what I expected of Madeleine, yet I thought that somehow she would be different. But she isn't. How is it that some people can do things that one would be ashamed one's self even to think of, and yet keep a good opinion of themselves afterwards, and _feel_ superior to others? It is the feeling superior that I envy. It must make the world such an easy place to live in. People with a good opinion of themselves have such an immense pull in being able to do the most peculiar things without a qualm. It must be very pleasant to truly and honestly consider one's self better than others, and to believe that young men in white waistcoats hang upon one's words. Yes, Madeleine is not changed, and I shall be late for dinner if I moralize any longer,"

and Di brushed back her yellow hair, which was obliging enough to arrange itself in the most interesting little waves and ripples of its own accord, without any trouble on her part. Di's hair was perhaps the thing of all others that womankind envied her most. It had the brightness of colouring and easy fascination of a child's. Even the most wily and painstaking curling-tongs could only produce on other less-favoured heads a laboured imitation which was seen to be an imitation. Madeleine, as she sailed into the drawing-room in mauve and silver half an hour later, felt that her own rather colourless, elaborate fringe was not redeemed from mediocrity even by the diamonds mounting guard over it. The Infant would willingly have bartered his immortal soul for one lock off Di's s.h.i.+ning head. The hope that one small lock might be conceded to a last wild appeal, possibly upon his knees, sustained him throughout the evening, and he needed support. He had a rooted conviction that if only his mother had allowed him a new evening coat this half, if he had only been more obviously in tails, Di might have smiled upon his devotion. He had been moderately fond of his elder brother till now, but Lord Hemsworth's cable-patterned shooting stockings and fair, well-defined moustache were in themselves enough to rouse the hatred of one whose own upper lip had only reached the stage when it suggested nothing so much as a reminiscence of treacle, and whose only pair of heather stockings tarried long at the wash. But the Infant had other grounds for nursing Cain-like sentiments towards his rival. Had not Lord Hemsworth repeatedly called him in the actual presence of the adored one by the nickname of "Trousers"! The Infant's sobriquet among those of his contemporaries who valued him was "Bags,"

but in ladies' society Lord Hemsworth was wont to soften the unrefinement of the name by modifying it to Trousers. The Infant writhed under the absolutely groundless suspicion that his brother already had or might at any moment confide the original to Di. And even if he did not, even if the horrible appellation never did transpire, Lord Hemsworth's society term was almost as opprobrious. The name of Trousers was a death-blow to young romance. Sentiment withered in its presence.

Years of devotion could not wipe out that odious word from her memory.

He could see that it had set her against him. The mere sight of him was obviously painful to her sense of delicacy. She avoided him. She would marry Lord Hemsworth. In short, she would be the bride of another.

Perhaps there was not within a radius of ten miles a more miserable creature than the Infant, as he stood that evening before dinner, with folded arms, alone, aloof, by a pillar, looking daggers at any one who spoke to Di.

After dinner things did not go much better. There were round games, in which he joined with Byronic gloom in order to sit near Di. But Mr.

Lumley, the licensed buffoon of the party, dropped into his chair when he left it for a moment to get Di a footstool, and, when sternly requested to vacate it, only replied in fluent falsetto in the French tongue, "Je voudrais si je coudrais, mais je ne cannais pas."

The Infant controlled himself. He was outwardly calm, but there was murder in his eye.

Lord Hemsworth, sitting opposite shuffling the cards, looked up, and seeing the boy's white face, said, good-naturedly--

"Come, Lumley, move up one. That is Trousers' place."

"Oh, if Trousers wants it to press his suit," said Mr. Lumley, vaulting into the next place. "Anything to oblige a fellow-sufferer."

And Sir Henry neighed suddenly as his manner was when amused, and the Infant, clenching his hands under the table, felt that there was nothing left to live for in this world or the next save only revenge.

As the last evening came to an end even Lord Hemsworth's cheerful spirits flagged a little. He let the Infant press forward to light Di's candle, and hardly touched her hand after the Infant had released his spasmodic clutch upon it. His clear honest eyes met hers with the wistful _chien soumis_ look in them which she had learned to dread. She knew well enough, though she would _not_ have known it had she cared for him, that he had only remained silent during the last few days because he saw it was no good to speak. He had enough perception not to strike at cold or lukewarm iron.

"Why can't I like him?" she said to herself as she sat alone in her own room. "I would rather like him than any one else. I do like him better, much better than any one I know, and yet I don't care a bit about him.

When he is not there I always think I am going to care next time I see him. I wonder if I should mind if he fell in love with some one else? I dare say I should. I wish I could feel a little jealous. I tried to when he talked the whole of one afternoon to that lovely Lady Kitty;--what a little treasure that girl is! I would marry her if I were a man. But it was no good. I knew he only did it because he was vexed with me about--I forget what.