The Testing of Diana Mallory

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Nevertheless, he faced the facts. He remembered the look with which Diana had returned to the Beechcote drawing-room, where Marsham awaited her, the day before--and told himself not to be a fool.

Meanwhile he had found an opportunity in which to tell her, unheard by his parents, that he was practically certain of his Nigerian appointment, and must that night break it to his father and mother. And Diana had listened like a sister, all sympathy and kind looks, promising in the young man's ear, as he said good-bye at the garden gate, that she would come again next day to cheer his mother up.

He stood looking after her as she walked away; his hands in his pockets, a flush on his handsome face. How her coming had glorified and transformed the place! No womanish nonsense, too, about this going of his!--though she knew well that it meant fighting. Only a kindling of the eyes--a few questions as practical as they were eager--and then that fluttering of the soft breath which he had noticed as she bent over his mother.

But she was not for him! Thus it is that women--the noblest and the dearest--throw themselves away. She, with all the right and proper feelings of an Englishwoman, to mate with this plausible Radical and Little Englander! Hugh kicked the stones of the gravel savagely to right and left as he walked back to the house--in a black temper with his poverty and Diana's foolishness.

But was she really in love? "Why then so pale, fond lover?" He found a kind of angry comfort in the remembrance of her drooping looks. They were no credit to Marsham, anyway.

Meanwhile Diana walked home, lingering by the way in two or three cottages. She was shyly beginning to make friends with the people. An old road-mender kept her listening while he told her how a Tallyn keeper had peppered him in the eye, ten years before, as he was crossing Barrow Common at dusk. One eye had been taken out, and the other was almost useless; there he sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale--"Muster Marsham--Muster Henry Marsham--had been verra kind--ten shillin' a week, and an odd job now and then. I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times--but ther's noa good in grumblin'--is there?"

Next door, in a straggling line of cottages, she found a gentle, chattering widow whose husband had been drowned in the brew-house at Beechcote twenty years before, drowned in the big vat!--before any one had heard a cry or a sound. The widow was proud of so exceptional a tragedy; eager to tell the tale. How had she lived since? Oh, a bit here and a bit there. And, of late, half a crown from the parish.

Last of all, in a cottage midway between the village and Beechcote, she paused to see a jolly middle-aged woman, with a humorous eye and a stream of conversation--held prisoner by an incurable disease. She was absolutely alone in the world. Nobody knew what she had to live on. But she could always find a crust for some one more destitute than herself, and she ranked high among the wits of the village. To Diana she talked of her predecessors--the Vavasours--whose feudal presence seemed to be still brooding over the village. With little chuckles of laughter, she gave instance after instance of the tyranny with which they had lorded it over the country-side in early Victorian days: how the "Madam Vavasour" of those days had pulled the feathers from the village-girls' hats, and turned a family who had offended her, with all their belongings, out into the village street. But when Diana rejoiced that such days were done, the old woman gave a tolerant: "Noa--noa! They were none so bad--were t' Vavasours. Only they war no good at heirin."

"Airing?" said Diana, mystified.

"Heirin," repeated Betty Dyson, emphatically. "Theer was old Squire Henry--wi' noabody to follow 'im--an' Mr. Edward noa better--and now thissun, wi nobbut lasses. Noa--they war noa good at heirin--moor's t' pity." Then she looked slyly at her companion: "An' yo', miss? yo'll be gettin' married one o' these days, I'll uphowd yer."