DIANA’S PERPLEXITIES INCREASE

The two days after Diana came home early from her dinner-party were chiefly noticeable for the fact that for the first time since the engagement van Hert remained away from Hill Court. No one knew why, and the excuse he sent was of the vaguest. Diana asked her own heart and was troubled. When he came on the third day, he walked into the drawing-room to look for Meryl, and found Diana reading in the window alone. They discovered each other suddenly, and it was almost as if he gave a guilty start; and he looked unusually pale, with haggard eyes, as if he had slept badly of late. Diana saw it all, but gave no sign.

“You are something of a stranger, Meinheer van Hert,” she said lightly. “My sword had almost time to rust.”

“It would never do that. The best of swords is none the worse for an occasional rest; unless” with a somewhat tired gleam of humour “you have been keeping it bright at the expense of poor Aunt Emily.”

“No, it has had a real rest. I am saving it again for the best swordsman worthy of it.”

His eyes came suddenly to her face, and she realised at once that until that moment he had scarcely looked at her; and in that second’s flash she saw something in them that hurt: a swift, deep trouble that he was struggling to hide. He looked away again quickly, noting the lovely shades of the room, the masses of violets, the general airiness and elegance.

“Is Meryl at home?”

“Yes. I will go and tell her you are here.”

Diana went upstairs very slowly, lost in thought. And when she had told Meryl, she stood a long time at the window, thinking still. Presently Meryl came back. “William came to ask me to definitely fix the date of the wedding. We decided on the fifth; that will give us just a week before he must go to Cape Town.” Then, as if she did not expect Diana to make any comment, she added, “The invitations must go out to-night.”

That evening van Hert came as usual, but, simply because he was gayer than usual, Diana perceived that his gaiety was forced; and she saw also that he shunned meeting her eyes, looking anywhere, nowhere, rather than into her face.

The next day she rode in a direction where she and Meryl often met and joined him for a gallop. Meryl had suggested coming as usual, but Diana had contrived to put her off. She wanted if possible, without quite knowing why, to see van Hert alone; and as it happened, Fortune favoured her, for he appeared up a side road suddenly, and had no time to escape her, even had he wished. So they rode together, and he tried to talk to her as usual. When they came to a spot where they often dismounted, and sat to enjoy the lovely view of distant hills, Diana prepared to get off her horse. She saw him hesitate, and then he muttered something about an important engagement.

“O, nonsense!...” with a gay, airy smile. “If I’m not in a hurry, you can’t be. I only want to sit for about fifteen minutes.”

So they gave their horses’ reins to the smart black groom, who always rode with the girls, and sat on the rustic bench where the three had several times sat together.

And suddenly, Diana, giving rein to her impulsive temperament, said, “What is your opinion of a man who marries one woman and loves another?”

She saw him start and stiffen, but he tried to parry the thrust. “What a question to ask a fiance of a few weeks, on the eve of becoming a bridegroom!...”

“Well, that’s why! I thought you would have formed many opinions on the subject of love and marriage.”

“And why do you want to know?”

“O, just a fancy! I know men sometimes do that kind of thing. Personally I think it is rather cowardly.”

“Why cowardly?...”

“Because it shows a man hasn’t the pluck to own he has made a mistake. He would rather go on with it, and pretend everything is all right.”

She saw him bite his lip, and felt more thoroughly that he would not meet her eyes.

“It is hard on the other woman, the one he does love, too. It might make her very happy to be told. One joy is better than two miseries any day, even if his lordship did have to own to a mistake and look rather silly!...” with a little laugh.

“Perhaps I shall know more about it when I am married,” trying to speak carelessly. “You must ask me later.”

“Probably I shall not want to know then; my fancies are always varying. What should you do, for instance, if you suddenly found you cared for someone else more than Meryl?”

She was watching him closely, and she saw the swift, tell-tale blood rush to his face.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” he answered, with a forced, unnatural laugh. “It is rather a remote probability now.”

“O, one never knows!...” Diana spoke with assumed lightness, and looked away to the hills, feeling a little unnerved by the sudden, swift palpitating in her blood. “Shall we go on now?” rising and turning her back to him. “I mustn’t keep you any longer from that important engagement.”

She might have added that she had learnt what she came out to learn; but instead she put her horse to a smart gallop, and rode back without scarcely speaking, flinging him a gay good-bye over her shoulder when their roads separated.

When she reached home she found Meryl surrounded by dressmakers, and trying hard to assume an interest in the proceedings; but Diana’s clear eyes saw the effort as plainly as if it had been written across her forehead. She saw that she looked ill, too; ill and worn and joyless, as if something had damped for ever her natural fount of gaiety. And withal she was so sweet-tempered and considerate, studying everybody else’s feelings in this wedding of hers; everyone’s apparently except her own. Diana wanted to shake her one moment, and howl round her neck the next. Instead of doing either she was a little more snappy than usual.

“Will you have your dress fitted now?” Meryl asked her. “Madame has it all ready.”

“No,” shortly. “I haven’t time this morning; and besides, one can’t be fitted just after a ride. I’m going to have a hot bath and a cigarette,” and she flung out of the room, leaving Meryl a little perplexed and Madame considerably perturbed.

In her own apartment she tossed things about, and was very irritable with her maid. Later, she went out into the garden to a shady nook where she was not likely to be disturbed, because she wanted to think. But thinking was no easy matter. On every side were perplexities.

“It’s just the devil’s own mess,” she summed up at last, unable to think of any other sufficiently strong description. “Meryl doesn’t want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn’t want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I’ve no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they’d a little more sound common sense, and a little less of the noble and lofty soul spirit, they would perceive they will only do more harm than good by going against nature and trying to force inclinations. But the absurd thing is, that neither has yet had the perspicacity to perceive the other’s unwilling frame of mind. That exactly bears out my point. These heroic attitudes do not suit the exigencies of everyday life. If they weren’t both so bent on doing the noble thing, they would perceive they are merely making fools of themselves, and incidentally straining my powers of resource beyond all reason. Of course it can’t go on; but what in the name of all that’s wonderful can I do to stop it?... Send for The Bear, and compel him to make the best of the awful fact that Meryl possesses a fortune, and console dear Dutch Willie myself, I suppose!...” And she smiled grimly. Then her face softened, and tears unexpectedly gleamed in her eyes. She brushed them away, apostrophising herself impatiently. Then she swallowed down a sob, murmuring, “I can’t bear the thought of Meryl, standing with that smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. No wonder uncle shuts himself in his study so much nowadays. He must be just as hard put to it as I am to know what to do.” A step disturbed her cogitations at that moment, and Aunt Emily came into view.

“Ah, my dear, I thought I saw you come down the garden. There is a letter for you with a Rhodesian stamp. I thought you might like to have it.” And she handed it to her, at the same time sitting down on the garden-seat beside her.

“Have you seen Meryl’s dress,” she enquired, with an expression that had suddenly grown sentimental. “The dear child. To think of her in her wedding-dress, so soon to be a bride!”

“Well, that’s a commonplace enough event! Girls like Meryl usually do become brides, and later on they wear shrouds, and have a nice little coffin all to themselves. There really isn’t very much difference!...”

“O, my dear!... What a dreadful remark to make! I am sure it is unlucky to speak like that.”

“Then I hope it will be unlucky enough to postpone the wedding indefinitely.”

Aunt Emily turned and looked at her niece as if she thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that was not by any means a new expression upon the face of Henry Pym’s sister confronting Henry Pym’s niece.

“Really, Diana!...” she expostulated. “I think it is hardly a subject for jesting. Marriage is a very serious thing. I hope God will bless dear Meryl with great happiness. I confess, at first, I was disappointed that she chose a Dutch husband; but Mr. van Hert has very good Huguenot blood in his veins, and he is undoubtedly a very charming man; and then, of course, her children will only be half Dutch.”

“Her children ought to be bear cubs!” snapped Diana, wishing her aunt would go away and leave her to read her letter in peace.

For a moment Aunt Emily was too horrified to reply, and then Diana added, “Don’t trouble to expostulate any more. I’m not really mad, only eccentric. I never could see why people make such a silly fuss about weddings; anyhow, they are all the same and all commonplace. When I marry, I shall give all my friends the shock of their lives, something to talk about for a year, and then for once in my life I shall be a public benefactor. I see Helen looking about on the terrace as if she wanted you. Shall I ask her?...”

“No, I will go in to her”; and she got up and walked towards the house, still wearing a shocked expression.

“I wonder if Helen will have the sense to manufacture some request?” thought Diana, glancing after her. “As if I could see the terrace from here!...”

Then she opened her letter.

When she had read it through once, she turned back to the beginning and read it through again. And all the time she was so rigidly still, that a little bird hopped close up to her foot to investigate.

Then she laid the letter down and looked out across the garden. Five minutes later she got to her feet.

In a moment of crisis Diana was the type who courageously follows an inspiration, without overmuch weighing and sifting. She had faith in her own keen woman’s instinct and she knew there were times when sharp, decisive action is better than lengthy, minute attention to all the laws of war, and far-reaching considerations of what might or might not result.

A gate at the far end of the garden led out to the main road, and not very far down was a post office. Diana went straight to it, and sent a wire, with prepaid reply, directed to Major Carew, which ran:

“Can you come at once? Urgently wanted. Go to Carlton and send message on arrival to me.

“DIANA PYM.”