Diana Tempest Volume Iii Part 3

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 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 compa.s.sion 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 m.u.f.f. 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 ma.s.s of people became visible within it--the guests of the evening; the girls standing about in silent groups, m.u.f.fled 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sin, or by carrying John up the steep ascent, drank large quant.i.ties 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.

"You will promise me to take off that damp gown at once," he said.

Somehow there seemed nothing peculiar in the authoritative att.i.tude which he had a.s.sumed 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 ap.r.o.n 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 pa.s.sive 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, hoa.r.s.ely, 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."