Diana laughed.
“Pa’s a very susceptible little man!” she said tolerantly.” He has often amused me very much with his ‘amourettes.’ Sometimes it’s Mrs. Ross-Percival, — then he becomes suddenly violently juvenile and pays his devoirs to a girl of seventeen; I think he’d die straight off if he couldn’t believe himself still capable of conquering all hearts! And he’ll be able to get on in that line much better now that I’m drowned. I was ‘in the way.’”
“Silly old noodle!” said Sophy. “He’d better not come near me! — I should tell him a few plain truths of himself which he would not like!”
“Oh, he wouldn’t mind!” Diana assured her. “To, begin with, he wouldn’t listen, and if he did, he would grin that funny little grin of his and say you were ‘overwrought,’ That’s his great word! You can make no impression on Pa if he doesn’t want to be impressed. He has absolutely no feelings — I mean real feelings, — he has only just ‘impulses,’ of anger or pleasure, such as an animal has — and he doesn’t attempt to control either.” They had by this time left the drawing-room, and were standing together in a charming little bedroom, furnished all in white and rose-colour, “This is my ‘visitor’s room,’” said Sophy. “And you can occupy it as long as you like. And I’ll bring you one of my Paris tea-gowns to slip on for dinner, — it’s lovely and you’ll look sweet!”
Diana smiled.
“I! Dear Sophy, you expect miracles!”
But Sophy was not so far wrong. That evening, Diana, arrayed in a gracefully flowing garment of cunningly interwoven soft shades, varying from the hue of Neapolitan violets to palest turquoise, and wearing her really beautiful bright hair artistically coiled on the top of her well-shaped head, was a very different looking Diana to the weary, worn and angular woman in severely cut navy serge who had presented the appearance of an out-of-place governess but a few hours before. If she could not be called young or beautiful she was distinctly attractive, and Sophy Lansing was delighted.
“My dear, you pay for dressing!” she said, enthusiastically. “And — you mark my words! — you don’t look ‘mature’ enough for that Dr. Dimitrius!”
CHAPTER VI
THERE are certain people who take a bland and solemn pleasure in the details of death and disaster, — who are glad to assume an air of what they call “Christian resignation,” and who delight in funerals and black-edged note-paper. Regular church-goers are very frequently most particular about this last outward sign and token of the heart’s incurable sorrow; some choose a narrow black edge as being less obtrusive but more subtle, — others a broad, as emblematic of utter hopelessness. The present writer once happened on a cynical stationer, who had his own fixed ideas on this particular department of mourning which was so closely connected with his trade.
“The broader the edge, the less the grief,” he assured me. “Just as I say of widows, the longer the veil, the sooner the second wedding, — and the more wreaths there are on a hearse, the fewer the friends of the deceased. That’s my experience.”
But no one should accept these remarks as anything but the cynical view of a small tradesman whose opinion of his clients was somewhat embittered.
A letter with a black border which was neither broad nor narrow, but discreetly medium, appeared among Sophy Lansing’s daily pile of correspondence the morning after Diana’s arrival at her flat, and, recognizing the handwriting on the envelope, she at once selected it from the rest, and ran into her friend’s-room, waving it aloft triumphantly.
“Look!” she exclaimed. “From your poor, afflicted Pa! To announce the sad news Diana, fresh from her bath, her hair hanging about her and the faint pink of her cheeks contrasting becomingly with the pale blue of her dressing-gown, looked up rather wistfully.
“Do open it!” she said. “I’m sure it will be a beautiful letter! Pa can express himself quite eloquently when he thinks it worth while. I remember he wrote a most charming ‘gush’ of sympathy to a woman who had lost her husband suddenly, — she was a titled person, and Pa worships titles, — and when he had posted it he said: ‘Thank God that’s done with! It’s bad enough to write a letter of condolence at all, but when you have to express sorrow for the death of an old fool who is better out of the world than in it, it’s a positive curse!’”
She laughed, adding: “I know he isn’t really sorry for my supposed ‘death;’ if the real, bare, brutal truth were told, he’s glad!”
Sophy Lansing paused in the ad of opening the letter.
“Diana!” she exclaimed in a tone of thrilling indignation. “If he’s such an old brute as that—”
“Oh, no, he isn’t really an old brute!” Diana averred, gently. “He’s just a very ordinary sort of man. Lots of people pretend to be sorry for the deaths of their friends and relatives when they’re not; and half the mourning in the world is sheer hypocrisy! Pa’s a bit of a coward, too — he hates the very thought of death, and when some person he has known commits this last indiscretion of dying, he forgets it as quickly as possible. I don’t blame him, I’m sure. Everyone can’t feel deeply — some people can’t feel at all.”
Here Sophy opened the letter and glanced at it. Presently she looked up.
“Shall I read it to you?” she asked.
Diana nodded. With a small, preparatory cough, which sounded rather like a suppressed giggle, Sophy thereupon read the following effusion:
“DEAR MISS LANSING, “I hardly know how to break to you the news of the sudden and awful tragedy which has wrecked the happiness of our lives! Our beloved only child, our darling daughter Diana is no more! I am aware what a shock this will be to your feelings, for you loved her as a friend, and I wish any words of mine could soften the blow. But I am too stunned myself with grief and horror to write more than just suffices to tell you of the fatal calamity. The poor child was overtaken by a high tide while bathing this morning, and was evidently carried out of her depth. For some hours I have waited and hoped against hope that perhaps, as she was a good swimmer, she might have reached some other part of the shore, but alas! I hear from persons familiar with this coast that the swirl of water in a high tide is so strong and often so erratic that it is doubtful whether even her poor body will ever be found! A sailor has just called here with a melancholy relic — her poor little bathing shoes! He picked up one this morning, soon after the accident, he says, and the other has lately been washed ashore. I cannot go on writing, — my heart is too full! My poor wife is quite beside herself with sorrow. We can only place our trust in God that He will, with time, help us to find consolation for our irreparable loss. We shall not forget your affection for our darling, and shall hope to send you her little wristlet watch as a souvenir.
“Yours, in the deepest affliction, “JAMES POLYDORE- MAY.”
Diana had listened with close and almost fascinated attention.
“Of course it isn’t true,” she said, when the reading was finished.” It can’t be true.”
“What can’t be true?” queried Sophy, puckering her well-arched eyebrows.
“All that!” and Diana waved her hand expressively. “Pa’s not a bit ‘stunned with grief and horror!’ You couldn’t fancy him in such a condition if you tried! And mother is not in the least ‘beside herself.’ She’s probably ordering her mourning. Why, they are already parcelling out my trinkets, and before I’ve been ‘drowned’ twenty-four hours they’re thinking of sending you my wristlet watch by way of an ‘In Memoriam.’ I hope they will, — I should love you to have it! But people who are ‘stunned with grief and horror’ and ‘beside themselves’ are not able to make all these little arrangements so quickly!
Ah, Sophy! An hour ago I was actually fancying that perhaps I had behaved cruelly, — there was a stupid, lingering sentiment in my mind that suggested the possible suffering and despair of my father and mother at having lost me! — but after that letter I am reassured! I know I have done the right thing.”
Sophy looked at her with a smile.
&n
bsp; “You are a curious creature!” she said. “Surely Pa expresses himself very touchingly?”
“Too touchingly by half!” answered Diana. “Had he really felt the grief he professes to feel, he could not have written to you or to any other friend for several days about it—”
“Perhaps,” interrupted Sophy, “he thought it would be in the papers, and that unless he wrote it might be taken for someone else—”
“He knew it would be in the papers,” said Diana, “and naturally wished to let his acquaintances know that he, and no other man of the name of May, is the bereaved father of the domestic melodrama. Well!” — and she shook back her hair over her shoulders—” it’s finished!
I am dead! — and ‘born again,’ as the Scripture saith, — at rather a mature age! — but I may yet turn out worth regenerating l — who knows?”
She laughed, and turned to the dressing-table to complete her toilette. Sophy put affectionate arms about her.
“You are a dear, strange, clever, lovable thing, anyway!” she said. “But really, I’ve had quite a sleepless night thinking about that Dr. Dimitrius! He may be a secret investigator or a spy, and if you go to him he may want you to do all sorts of dreadful, even criminal things!—”
“But I shouldn’t do them!” laughed Diana. “Sophy, have you no confidence in my mental balance?”
“I have, but some people wouldn’t,” Sophy replied.
“They would say that a woman of your age ought to know better than to leave a comfortable home where you had only the housekeeping to do, and give up the chance of an ample income at your parents’ death, just to go away on a wild-goose chase after new adventures, and all because you imagined you weren’t loved! Oh, dear! Love is only ‘a springe to catch woodcocks!’ as the venerable Polonius so wisely remarks in Hamlet. I know a sneering cynic who says that women are always ‘asking for love!’”
Diana paused in the act of brushing out a long bright ripple of hair. Her eyes grew sombre — almost tragic.
“So they are!” she said. “They ask for it because they know God meant them to have it! They know they were created for lover-love, wife-love mother-love — just think what life means to them when cheated out of all three through the selfishness and treachery of man! Their blood gets poisoned — their thoughts share the bitterness of their blood — they are no longer real women; they become abnormal and of no sex, — they shriek with the Suffragettes, and put on trousers to go ‘on the land’ with, the men — they do anything and everything to force men’s attention — forgetting that efforts made on the masculine line completely fail in attraction for the male sex. It is the sensual and physical side of a woman that subjugates a man, — therefore when she is past her youth she has little or no ‘chance,’ as they call it.’ If she happens to be brainless, she turns into a sour, grizzling, tea-drinking nonentity and talks nothing but scandal and diseases, — if she is intellectually brilliant, well! — sometimes she ‘rounds’ on the dogs that have bayed her into solitude, and, like a wounded animal, springs to her revenge!”
The words came impetuously from her lips, uttered in that thrillingly sweet voice which was her special gift and charm.
Sophy’s bright eyes opened in sheer astonishment.
“Why, Diana!” she exclaimed. “You talk like a tragedy queen!”
Diana shrugged her shoulders lightly.
“Do I?” and she slowly resumed the brushing of her hair. “There’s nothing in what I say but the distinctly obvious. Love is the necessity of life to a woman, and when that fails—”
“Diana, Diana! “interrupted Sophy, shaking a warning finger at her—” you talk of love as if it really were the ‘ideal’ thing described by poets and romancists, when it’s only the sugar-paper to attract and kill the flies! We women begin life by believing in it; but every married friend of mine tells me that all the ‘honey’ of the ‘moon is finished in a couple of months, never again to be fount in the pot-au-feu of matrimony! Out of a thousand men taken at random perhaps one will really love, in the beg: and finest sense; the rest are only swayed by anima passion such as is felt by the wolf, the bear, or even the rabbit! — I really think the rabbit is the most exact prototype! How many wives one knows whose husbands no only neglect them, but are downright rude to them! — Why, my dear, your notion of ‘love’ is a dream, beyond al realization!”
“Possibly!” and Diana went on with her hair-brushing. “But whatever it is, or whatever I imagined it to be, I don’t want it now. I want — revenge!”
“Revenge?” Sophy gave a little start of surprise You? You, always gentle, patient and adaptable You want? revenge?’ On whom? On what?”
“On all and everything that has set me apart and alone as I am!” Diana answered. “Perhaps science can show me a way to it! If so, I shall not have lived in vain!”
“Diana!” exclaimed her friend, “One would think you were going to bring microbes in a bottle, or something awful of that sort, and kill people!”
“Not I!” and Diana laughed quite merrily. “Killing is a common thing — and vulgar. But — I have strange dreams!” She twisted up her hair dexterously and coiled it prettily round her small, compact head. “Yes! — I have strange dreams!” she went on. “In these times we are apt to forget the conquests possible to the brain, — we let fools over-ride us when we could far more easily over-ride them. In my ‘salad days,’ which lasted far too long, I ‘asked for love’ — now I ask for vengeance! I gave all my heart and soul to a man whose only god was Self, — and I got nothing back for my faith and truth. So I have a long score to settle! — and I shall try to have some of my spent joys returned to me — with heavy interest!”
“But how?” inquired Sophy, perplexed, “You don’t expect to get any ‘spent joys’ out of this Dr. Dimitries do you?”
Diana smiled. “No!”
“And if he proves to be a charlatan, as he probably will, you say you’ll go as companion or governess or housekeeper to somebody out in Geneva — well, where are you going to find any joy in such a life as that?”
Diana looked at her, still smiling.
“My dear, I don’t expect anything! Who was it that said: ‘Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed ‘? The chief point I have now to dwell upon is, that I am to all intents and purposes Dead! and, being dead, I’m free! — almost as free as if my spirit had really escaped from its mortal prison. Really, there’s something quite vitalizing in the situation! — just now I feel ready for anything. I shouldn’t mind trying an airship voyage to the moon!”
“With Dr. Dimitrius?” suggested Sophy, laughing.
“Well, I don’t know anything about Dr. Dimitrius yet,” answered Diana. “Judging from his advertisement I imagine he is some wealthy ‘crank’ who fancies himself a scientist. There are any amount of them wandering about the world at the present time. I shall soon be able to tell whether he’s a humbug or an honest man, — whether he’s mad or sane — meanwhile, dear little Sophy, let’s have breakfast and then go shopping. We’ve done with Pa and Ma — at any rate I have, bless their dear old hearts! — we know they’re ‘stunned with grief and horror’ and ‘beside themselves’ and as happy in their ‘misery’ as they ever were in their lives. I can see my mother getting fitted for her mourning, and f Pa’ arguing with the hatter as to the proper width of his hat-band, and all the neighbours calling, and proffering ‘sympathy’ when they don’t care a scrap! It’s a curious little humbug of a world, Sophy! — but for the remainder of my time I’ll try to make it of use to me. Only you’ll have to lend me some money to begin upon!” —
“Any amount you want!” said Sophy, enthusiastically—” You must have proper clothes to travel in!”
“I must,” agreed Diana, with humorously dramatic emphasis. “I haven’t had any since I was ‘withdrawn’ from the matrimonial market for lack of bidders. Mother used to spend hundreds on me so long as there was any hope — I had the prettiest frocks, the daintiest hats, �
�� and in these I ‘radiated’ at all the various shows, — Ranelagh, Hurlingham, Henley, Ascot, Goodwood, — how sick I used to be of it! But when these little crow’s-feet round my eyes began to come” — and she touched her temples expressively— “then poor, disappointed Ma drew in the purse-strings. She found that very ‘young’ hats didn’t suit me — delicate sky-pinks and blues made me look sallow, — so she and Pa decided on giving me an ‘allowance’ — too meagre to stand the cost of anything but the plainest garments — and — so, here I am! Pa says ‘only very young people should wear white’ — but the vain old boy got himself up in white flannels the other day to play tennis and thought he looked splendid! But what’s the odds, so long as he’s happy!”
She laughed and turned to the mirror to complete her toilette, and in less than an hour’s time she and Sophy Lansing had finished their breakfast and were out together in Bond Street, exploring the mysteries of the newest Aladdin’s palace of elegant garments, where the perfect taste and deft fingers of practised Parisian fitters soon supplied all that was needed to suit Diana’s immediate requirements. At one very noted establishment, she slipped into a ‘model’ gown of the finest navy serge, of a design and cut so admirable that the couturier could hardly be said to flatter when he declared that “Madame looked a princess in it.”
“Do princesses always look well?” she asked, with a quaint little uplifting of her eyebrows.
The great French tailor waved his hands expressively.
“Ah, Madame! It is a figure of speech!”
Diana laughed, — but she purchased the costume, Sophy whispering mysteriously in her ear: “Let us take it with us in the automobile! One never knows! — they might change it! And you’ll never get anything to suit you more perfectly.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 840
