She threw him such a smile, and such a glance of arrowy brilliancy that his head whirled.
“Poor child, poor child l” he mumbled, taking her daintily-gloved hand and patting it. “Far gone! — far gone, indeed! And so beautiful, too! — so very-y beautiful!” Here he kissed the hand he had grasped. “There, there! You are almost normal! Be quite good! Here we are at the door — now, are you sure you have a car? Shall I come with you?”
Diana drew her hand away from her father’s hold, and her laugh, silvery sweet, rang out in a little peal of mirth, “No, Pa! Fond as you ‘are of the ladies, you cannot make love to your own daughter! The Prayer Book forbids! Besides, a mad girl is not fit for your little gallantries! You poor dear! One year has aged you rather badly! Aren’t you a Ieetle old for Miss Preston?”
A quick flush overspread James Polydore’s already rubicund countenance, and he blinked his eyes in a special “manner” which he was accustomed to use when feigning great moral rectitude. More than ever convinced that his visitor was insane, he continued to talk on in blandly soothing accents:
“Ah, I see your car? And no one with you? Dear, dear! I wish I could escort you to — to wherever you are going—”
“No, you don’t — not just now!” said Diana, laughing. “You’re too scared! But perhaps another time—”
She swung lightly away from him, and moved with her floating grace of step along the drive to the carriage gate, where the car waited. The driver jumped down and opened the door for her. She sprang in, while James Polydore, panting after her, caught the chauffeur by the coat-sleeve.
“I don’t think this young lady knows where she is going,” he said, confidentially. “Where did you find her?”
The chauffeur stared. —
“She’s at our hotel,” he answered—” And I’m driving her back there.”
Here Diana put her head out of the window, — her fair face radiant with smiles.
“You see, it’s all right!” she said—” Don’t bother about me! You know the — Hotel looking over the Park? — Well, I’m there just now, but not for long.”
“No, I’m sure not for long!” thought the bewildered James Polydore. “You’ll be put in a ‘home’ for mental cases if you haven’t run away from one already!” And it was with a great sense of relief that he watched the chauffeur “winding up” and preparing to move off — the lunatic would have no chance to “bite” him, as his wife had suggested! But how beautiful she was! For the life of him he could’ not forbear treating her to one of his “conquering” smiles.
“Good-bye, dear child!” he said. “Take care of yourself! Be quite good! I — I will come and see you at your — your hotel.”
Diana laughed again.
“I’m sure you will! Why, Pa dear, you won’t be able to keep away! The antique Mrs. Ross-Percival, whom you so much admire, is not ‘the’ only beautiful woman in London! Do remember that! Ta-ta!”
The car moved rapidly off, leaving James Polydore in a chaotic condition of mind. He was, of course, absolutely convinced that the girl who called herself his daughter Diana was the victim of a craze, but how or when she became thus obsessed was a mystery to him. He reentered his house to struggle with the wordy reproaches of his better-half, and to talk the matter over privately with the “companion secretary,” Lucy, Preston, whose attention he thought more safely assured by a tête-à-tête, which apparently obliged him to put his arm round her waist and indulge in sundry other agreeable endearments. But the exquisite beauty of the “escaped lunatic” haunted him, and he made up his mind to see her again at all costs, mad or sane, and make searching inquiries concerning her.
Diana herself, speeding back to her hotel, realized afresh the immensity of the solitude into which her new existence plunged her. Her own father and mother did not recognize her, — her most trusted friend, Sophy Lansing, refused to acknowledge her identity — well! — she was indeed “born again” — born of strange elements in which things human played no part, and she must needs accept the position. The saving grace of it all was that she felt no emotion, — neither sadness nor joy — neither fear nor shame; — she was, or she felt herself to be a strange personality apart from what is understood as human life, yet conscious of a life superior to that of humanity. If a ray of light hovering above a world of shadows could be imagined as an entity, a being, such would most accurately have described her curious individuality.
That same evening her banker called upon her, bringing with him a pleasant motherly-looking lady whom he introduced as Mrs. Beresford, a widow, whose straitened circumstances made her very anxious to obtain some position of trust, with an adequate salary. Her agreeable and kindly manners, gentle voice, and undeniable good breeding impressed Diana at once in her favour, — and then and there a settlement between them was effected, much to the relief and satisfaction of the worthy banker, who, without any hesitation, said that he “could not rest till he felt sure Miss May was under good protection and care” — at which she laughed a little, but expressed her gratitude as prettily as any “girl” might be expected to do. She invited him and her newly-engaged chaperon to dine with her, and they all three went down to the hotel dining-room together, where, of course, Diana’s amazing beauty made her the observed of all observers. Especially did Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, seated at a table with an alarmingly stout wife and two equally alarmingly plain daughters, stare openly and admiringly at the fair enchantress with the wonderful sea-blue eyes and dazzling complexion, and deeply did he ruminate in his mind as to how he could best approach her, and ask whether she happened to be any relative to the “Diana May” he had once known. He made an opportunity after dinner, when she passed through the lounge hall with her companions, and paused for a moment to look at the “Programme of Entertainments in London” displayed for the information of visitors.
“Pray excuse me!” he said—” I chanced to hear your name — may I ask—”
“Anything!” Diana answered, smiling, while Mrs. Beresford, already alert, came closer.
“I used to know,” went on the Captain, becoming rather confused and hesitating—” a Miss Diana May — I wondered if you were any relative — ?”
“Yes, indeed!” said Diana, cheerfully—” I am! — quite a near relative! Do come and see me to-morrow, will you? I have often heard of Captain Cleeve! — and his dear wife! — and his sweet girls! Yes! — do come! Mrs. Beresford and I will be so pleased!”
Here she took her new chaperon’s arm and gave it a little suggestive squeeze, by way of assuring her that all was as it should be, — and with another bewildering smile, and a reiterated “Do come!” she passed on, with her banker (who had become a little stiff and standoffish at the approach of Captain Cleeve) and Mrs. Beresford, and so disappeared.
Cleeve tugged vexedly at his moustache.
“A ‘near relative,’ is she? Then she knows! Or — perhaps not! She’s too young — not more than eighteen at most. And the old Diana must be quite forty-five! Hang it all! — this girl might be her daughter — but old Diana never married — just like some old maids ‘faithful to a memory!’” He laughed. “By Jove! I remember now i She got drowned last year — old Diana did! — drowned somewhere in Devonshire. I read about it in the papers and thought what a jolly good thing S Poor old Diana! And this little beauty is a ‘near relative,’ is she? Well — well! — we’ll see! To-morrow!”
But when to-morrow came, it brought him no elucidation of the mystery. Diana had left the hotel. The manageress explained that through Mrs. Beresford she had heard of a very charming furnished flat which she thought would suit her, and which she had suddenly decided to take, and she had gone to make the final arrangements.
“She left this note for you,” said the manageress, handing Cleeve a letter. “She remembered she had asked you to call on her this afternoon.”
He took the letter with a sudden qualm of “nerves.” It was simple enough.
“DEAR CAPTAIN CLEEVE” (i
t ran), “So sorry to put you off, but Mrs. Beresford and I axe taking a flat and we shall be rather busy for the next few days, putting things in order. After that will you come and see me at the above address?
“Yours sincerely, “DIANA MAY.”
That was all, — but while reading it, Captain the Honourable’s head swam round and round as if he were revolving in a wheel. For though the letter purported to come from a “young” Diana, the handwriting — the painfully familiar handwriting — was that of the “old” Diana!
CHAPTER XXIV
GENIUS takes a century or more to become recognized, — but Beauty illumines this mortal scene as swiftly as a flash-light. Brief it may be, but none the less brilliant and blinding; and men who are for the most part themselves unintelligent and care next to nothing for intellectuality, go down like beaten curs under the spell of physical loveliness, when it is united to a dominating consciousness of charm. Consciousness of charm is a powerful magnet. A woman may be beautiful, but if she is of a nervous or retiring disposition and sits awkwardly in the background twiddling her thumbs she is never a success. She must know her own power, and, knowing it, must exercise it. “Old” Diana May had failed to learn this lesson in the days of her girlhood, — she had believed, with quite a touching filial faith, in the pious and excessively hypocritical twaddle her father talked, about the fascination of “modest, pretty girls, who were unconscious of their beauty” — with the result that she had seen him, with other men, avoid such “modest, pretty girls” altogether, and pay devoted court to immodest, “loud” and impertinent women, who asserted their “made-up” good looks with a frank boldness which “drew” the men on like a shoal of herrings in a net, and left the “modest, pretty girls” out in the cold. “Old” Diana had, by devotion to duty and constancy in love, missed all her chances, — but the “young” Diana, albeit “of mature years,” knew better now than to “miss” anything. She was mistress of her own situation, so completely that the hackneyed expression of “all London s± her feet” for once proclaimed a literal truth. London is, on the whole, very ready to have something to worship, — it is easily led into a “craze.”
It is a sort of Caliban among cities; — a monster that capers in drink and curses in pain, having, as Shakespeare says of his uncouth creation: “a forward voice to speak well of his friend,” and a “backward voice to utter foul speeches and detract.” But for once London was unanimous in giving its verdict for Diana May as the most beautiful creature it had ever seen. Photographers, cinema-producers, dressmakers, tailors, jewellers besieged her; she was like the lady of the Breton legend, who lived at the top of a brazen tower, too smooth and polished for anyone to climb it, or for any ladder to be supported against it, and whose face at the window drove all beholders mad with longing for the unattainable. One society versifier made a spurt of fame for himself by describing her as “a maiden: goddess moulded from a dream,” whereat other society versifiers were jealous, and made a little commotion in the press by way of advertisement. But Diana herself, the centre of all the stir, showed no sign of either knowing or appreciating the social excitement concerning her, and her complete indifference only made her more desirable in the eyes of her ever-increasing crowd of admirers.
Once established in her flat with her chaperon, Mrs. Beresford, she lived the most curiously removed life from all the humanity that surged and seethed around her. The few appearances she made at operas, theatres, restaurants and the like were sufficient to lift her into the sphere of the recognized and triumphant “beauty” of the day. Coarse and vulgar seemed all the “faked” portraits of the half-nude sirens of stage and music-hall in the pictorial press, compared with the rare glimpses of the ethereal, almost divine loveliness which was never permitted to be copied by any painter or photographer. Once only did an eager camera-man press the button of his “snapshot” machine face to face with Diana as she came out of a flower-show, — she smiled kindly as she passed him and he thought himself in heaven. But when he came to develop his negative it was “fogged,” as though it had had the light in front of it instead of behind it, as photography demands. This accident was a complete mystification, as he had been more than usually careful to take up a correct position. However, other photographers were just as unfortunate, and none were able to obtain so much as a faint impression of the fair features which dazzled every male beholder who gazed upon them. Artists, even the most renowned R.A.’s, were equally disappointed, — she, the unapproachable, the cold, yet enchanting “maiden goddess moulded from a dream” would not “sit” to any one of them, — would not have anything to do with them at all, in fact — and fled from them as though she were a Daphne pursued by many Apollos. A very short time sufficed to surround her with a crowd of adorers and would-be lovers, chief and most persistent among them being Captain the Honourable Reginald Cleeve, and — that antique Adonis, her father, James’ Polydore May. The worthy James had all his life been in the habit of forming opinions which were diametrically opposed to the opinion? of everyone else, — and pursuing this course always to his own satisfaction, he had come to the conclusion that this “Diana May” who declared herself to be his daughter, was an artful demi-mondaine and adventuress with a “craze.” He had frequently heard of people who imagined themselves to be the reincarnated embodiments of the dead. “Why, God bless my soul, I should think so!” he said to a man at the Club who rallied him about his openly expressed admiration for the “new beauty” who bore the same name as that of his “drowned” daughter—” I met a woman once who told me she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra! Now this girl, just because she happens to have my name, sticks to her idea, that she is my Diana—”
“You’d like her to be, wouldn’t you?” chuckled his friend. “But if she takes you for her father—”
“She does — poor child, she does!” and James Polydore May sighed. “You would hardly believe it—”
“Why not?” — and the friend chuckled again—” You’re quite old enough!”
With this unkind shot from a bent bow of malice he went off, leaving James Polydore in an angry fume. For he — James — was not “old” — he assured himself — he was not old, — he would not be old! His wife was “old” — women age so quickly! — but he why he was “in the prime of life;” all men over sixty axe — in their own opinion. The beautiful Diana had ensnared him, — and his sensual soul being of gross quality, was sufficiently stimulated by her physical charm to make him eager to know all he could of her. She herself had not been in the least surprised when he found out her address and came to visit her. The presence of Mrs. Beresford rather disconcerted him, — that lady’s quiet good sense, elegant manners and evident affection for the lovely “girl” she chaperoned, were a little astonishing to him. Such a woman could not be the keeper of a lunatic? Diana never entered into the matter of her relationship with James Polydore to Mrs. Beresford, — it entertained her more or less ironical humour to see her own father playing the ardent admirer, and whenever Mr. May called, as he often did, she always had some laughing remark to make about her “old relative,” who was, she declared, “rather a bore.” Mrs. Beresford was discreet enough to ask no questions, and so James Polydore came and went, getting no “forrader” with the fair one, notwithstanding all his efforts to make himself agreeable, and to dislodge from her mind the strange obsession which possessed it.
One day he went to see Sophy Lansing — never a favourite of his — and tried to find out what she thought of the “Diana May” whose name was now almost one to conjure with. But Sophy had little patience to bestow on him.
“An adventuress, of course!” she declared. “I am surprised you don’t take the trouble to prosecute her for presuming to pass herself off as your daughter! And I’ll tell you this much — Diana — your Diana — never was drowned!”
James Polydore’s mouth opened, — he stared, wondering if he had heard aright.
“Never was drowned?” he echoed, feebly.
“
No! Never was drowned!” repeated Sophy, firmly. “She ran away from you — and no wonder! You were always a bore, — and she was always being reproached as an ‘old maid’ and ‘in the way.’ She slaved for you and her mother from morning till night and never had a kind word or a thank-you. I advised her to break away from the humdrum life you made her lead, and on that morning when you thought her drowned, she came to me! Ah, you may stare! ‘She did! She saw an, advertisement in a French paper of a scientist in Geneva wanting a lady assistant to help him in his work, and she went there to try for the situation and got it. I rigged her out and lent her some money. She’s paid it all back, and for all I know she’s in Geneva still, though she’s under an agreement not to write to anyone or give her address. She’s been gone a year now.” —
Mr. May’s dumpy form stiffened visibly.
“May I ask,” he said, pompously—” May I ask, Miss Lansing, why you have not thought proper to communicate these —— these strange circumstances to me before?”
Sophy laughed.
“Because I promised Diana I wouldn’t,” she answered. “She knew and I knew that you and Mrs. May would be perfectly happy without her. She has taken her freedom, and I hope she’ll keep it.”
“Then — my daughter is — presumably — still alive?” he said. “And instead of dying, she has — well! — deserted us?”
“Exactly!” replied Sophy. “I would give you the name of the scientist for whom she is or was working, only I suppose you’d write and make trouble. When I had, as I thought, a letter from her the other day, saying she was returning to London, I got everything ready here to receive her — but when this artful girl turned up—”.
“Oh, the girl came to see you, did she?” Mr. May mumbled. “The — the adventuress — ?”
“Of course she did! — and actually, brought me my watch-bracelet — one I had lent to Diana — as a sort of proof of identity. But of course nothing can, make a woman of forty a girl of eighteen l.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 863
