The Squaw Man. Faversham Julie Opp
Diana, "we are going to ask you for our tea at once if you will take pity on us. Such an afternoon! We were obliged to turn back from Ranelagh because of the storm. Fortunately we had a closed carriage, but Mabel and I were so anxious to know whether you and Henry had started before the shower sprang up" – with a quick look of surprise about the room, she exclaimed, "Why, where is Henry?"
Diana rang the bell for tea.
"I had a note from Henry, dear Lady Elizabeth, saying he was detained by some unexpected business."
Sir Charles noticed with great satisfaction Diana's superb control. Her rebellious mood, as he surmised, had been a mere whim.
For a moment a half-frightened look came into Lady Elizabeth's eyes. She was never quite sure of Henry, but even to herself she never admitted it. She had cast him for a role that he neither suggested nor attempted to play, but she never flinched before the duty of wilfully blinding herself to these truths. Her love and her belief would win, and out of it all would be created the son she so desired Henry to be – that was her unconscious prayer. She threw off the moment's anxiety.
"No doubt it is a busy week for Henry," she said. She crossed to a chair near the fire, and with the announcement of tea began to gossip with Sir Charles. Mabel moved close to Diana's side at the tea-table. She had grown into a fairy-like creature, with exquisite, youthful coloring. Very shy and utterly subordinate to her mother and brother, she lavished upon Diana a great affection in return for her sympathy. She stole shy glances at Diana's unusual color, as the latter poured the tea mechanically, but joined little in the conversation. Diana caught Mabel's eyes wonderingly fastened upon her. She could no longer endure the close room.
"I must get a breath of air. Can Mabel go with me?" she said, as she rose from her untouched tea.
Sir Charles was explaining to Lady Elizabeth some details of the previous night's rowdy conduct at the House. They both paused for a moment.
"Do take a turn with Mabel in the park," said Sir Charles. "It will refresh you."
"Remember we are due at the opera to-night," Lady Elizabeth said, as she rose. Sir Charles protested. "But it's just why I'm going myself," Lady Elizabeth confessed. "I'll send the carriage back for Mabel."
A few minutes later Diana and Mabel entered the park. The pungent smell of the damp earth filled the air. Great crimson and yellow pools of color dotted the ground; they were the battered-down blossoms of the afternoon. Some stronger plants than the others were lifting their swaying stems. The paths were covered with bruised leaves, and from the branches came the drip-drip of the gleaming rain-drops. At times under interlaced branches it seemed as though the storm still continued, so heavy was the splashing of the drenched trees. The usually crowded meeting-ground of fashion was practically deserted; even the guards had not left their corners of refuge. Here and there a stray gardener in a by-path was pityingly regarding his damaged beds.
The fresh, wet air blew against Diana's face and calmed her troubled spirit. Mabel linked her arm through Diana's: neither spoke. On and on they walked, in and out of deserted side-paths, until a turn in the road brought them opposite to the Serpentine Bridge, and they faced the public driveway of the park. A gust of wind blew across the ground a deluge of broken boughs; it caused them to hesitate on the edge of the crossing. Mabel started forward as a cab dashed towards them at a tremendous speed.
"Why, Di, there's Henry in that hansom," Mabel gasped, as she blew a tangle of loosened hair out of her eyes.
But Diana could only see the occupant nearest to her in the cab – it was a woman with a strangely interesting foreign face.
"Nonsense," she answered, as she held firm the wind-blown hat. "Henry is in the city. You are mistaken, dear."
As she spoke the storm began afresh. The wind blew the sodden blossom leaves and broken branches into a hurricane cloud around them. Grasping Mabel by the hand, Diana made her way against the violence of the wind and finally reached the entrance to the park. In the rush of keen air and the fight against it, everything else was forgotten. They quickly reached the house, and Diana saw Mabel drive away in the shelter of the waiting carriage. A few minutes later she was in her own room.
She loosened her long, brown hair, and kneeling before the glowing fire held the wet coils to its warmth. On her bed lay a gown to be worn that night, and the light from the fire cast a delicate sheen over its folds. It flickered and blazed with merry bursts of flame, lighting up the old-fashioned chintz draperies of the quaintly furnished room. Through the closed window she could hear the faint splutter of the rain on the casement. As she leaned against the tall chair close to the fireplace, a soft, warm languor stole over her and the tension of her mind relaxed. The beauty of her present life stretched out innumerable magic wands that lulled into insensibility the frightened thoughts of the afternoon. Soothed by the warmth and comfort of the room after the fatigue of her walk against the gale in the park, she abandoned herself to pleasant, intangible dreams. A knock at the door aroused her.
It was her aunt's maid, who carried a large box of flowers. Diana opened them; they were from Henry. Again they reiterated his apologies for the afternoon's disappointment. The perfume of the gardenias filled the room as she sank into a chair before her dressing-table and buried her face in the masses of delicate blossoms. The quiet servant gathered up the tangled hair.
"Her ladyship would like you to come to her room before you leave for the opera," she said, as she drew the brush across the soft brown locks.
Diana did not reply.
Yes, she was admitting to herself she had been unreasonable, as her father said. Life was beautiful and wonderful, and she meant to gather all its sweetness and bloom.
CHAPTER III
The rain that battered down the glory of color into the soaked earth of the park had slashed and beaten black, struggling lines against the gray stone-wall of the buildings in Lincoln's Inn. The radiance of the sun never wholly penetrated the court, but to-day the old place seemed like a tomb. In one of the forbidding-looking dwellings, in his solicitor's chambers, sat Lord Kerhill. He glanced around the silent room, and aimlessly took in the array of large tin boxes, with their painted family names, piled high on the shelves encircling the walls. Conspicuous among them was his own. With the exception of a few unattractive pieces of solid mahogany and some large leather chairs, the room was almost empty. Its ugliness jarred him. As he sat there, his face in repose showed that the years had given an added touch of bitterness to his expression. He still retained his well-cut features, and their beauty of line was only a little marred by a certain heaviness that had recently developed. His dark mustache hid the weak mouth with its suggestion of sensuality; indeed, the whole man showed a strong tendency towards grossness as yet only noticeable to the careful observer.
He still had the ineffable quality of charm, when he willed to exert it, which made his selfishness seem to many only the outcome of impulsive youthfulness. In a shamefaced way he admitted to himself now that he was in the wrong and that he had stupidly involved his affairs, but he comforted himself in the same moment, with the fatuousness of self-indulgence, that everything would work out all right. To tide over this difficulty or adjust and evade for a time the demand of the hour had been his policy for so long that he could not realize that an end was possible to the long tether he so often abused.
He had come in response to an urgent summons. Opposite him, deeply absorbed in some papers, sat Johnston Petrie, the trusted solicitor of the Kerhill family since Henry's father came into the title. He was a large, powerfully built man of fifty-five, with a massive head, piercing black eyes under shaggy eyebrows, and close-cropped iron-gray curls above the shrewd face. Henry rose impatiently to go.
As he did so, Petrie lifted his glasses on their black ribbon to his eyes, and said, "I'm exceedingly sorry, your Lordship, but you must give me time to look more closely into that affair before I can venture a final opinion as to the condition of the estate. Besides, I have several other matters of the gravest importance to question you about; they pertain to some business transactions you made recently without my knowledge, while you were abroad."
He motioned his lordship to a chair as though to pursue deeper the conversation, and drew several documents from a drawer. Henry Kerhill fidgeted.
"It's