THERE were very great people in the county, whom I will not venture to describe here,—a duke, with his duchess, and all the fine things that naturally belong to dukes: and two barons, and Sir Johns without number: for the county was large and important. Miss Trelawny, I believe, had she acted with ordinary prudence, might have had the Marquis, and been Duchess in her day. He was some years younger than she was; but, as everybody said, if his family did not object to that difference of age on the wrong side, why should she? and the young man was fathoms deep in love, and did not get over his disappointment for three months at least; and nothing could have made a finer match than the Trelawny estate with the Duke’s lands. However, I am not qualified to enter upon any discussion of the motives of such sublime personages. The neighbours who specially belonged to Diana, and who were most interested in the episode of her life which it is my business to relate, were the Hunstantons, who lived in the nearest “place” to Trelawny, and were deeply attached to its mistress; and another small and insignificant household, which, except in consequence of its connection with Diana, would scarcely have been of sufficient importance to be mentioned at all. This latter family was composed of two ladies, an aunt and a niece—the one a clergyman’s widow, the other a clergyman’s orphan-child; peevish, humble-minded, weakly little gentlewomen, with nothing remarkable about them except the simple prettiness of the girl, Sophy, who was a soft, smiling golden-haired creature, unobtrusive and gentle as a little bird. Mrs. Norton was disposed to be mysterious about the connection of herself and her niece with Diana, fearing, as she said, to “compromise” a lady in her position; but this connection was of the very simplest kind. Sophy had been at Mrs. Seymour’s school—a piece of extravagance which had cost her kind aunt a great deal more than she could afford—but the girl had been delicate, and sea-air had been prescribed for her, and good little Mrs. Norton was willing to “live anyhow” in order to secure advantages for the child to whom she had performed all a mother’s duties. Diana was one of the women to whom a dependent of some kind is an invariable appendage, gathered to her by sheer attraction of nature: and Sophy Norton took the place of the necessary burden to be carried about on the other’s strong shoulders. The child was delicate, the governess was kind. She nursed her, she petted her, she became to her a sort of amateur mother. Mrs. Norton lived in cheap little lodgings at Brighton to be near her little girl, and when she asked the governess to come to tea with Sophy, she too felt that in her way she was exercising kindness and patronage, and that Miss Trelawny’s care of Sophy was compensated by the notice which she, a lady of private means, not requiring to work for her living, took of the governess—so that on this foundation of mutual kindness they got on in a very pleasant way.
I will not say that Diana herself felt Mrs. Norton’s notice to be of the elevating character which the excellent little woman herself supposed: but she was lonely, and very grateful for kindness of any description simply offered. She liked the prattle of the two innocent creatures, the aunt not much wiser than the niece; and she liked the spectacle of their love, which brought sometimes a wistful look to her own face, and sometimes lit her up with smiles, for it had its amusing as well as its tender aspects. When Diana came to her kingdom, it is not to be described what awe, and wonder, and pride, took possession of Mrs. Norton’s soul. To think that the governess to whom she had condescended should have risen to be such a great lady! but yet, at the same time, to think that she had always appreciated Miss Trelawny,—always done her best, though that was but little, to show her appreciation! When old Lady Trelawny died, Mrs. Norton wrote, with much timidity, to offer, if Diana would like it, a visit of sympathy for one day only—for she had her pride, and meant nothing but kindness, if not perhaps a tremulous expedient of love to recall little Sophy to the mind of one who now might be as good a friend to the little girl “as I tried to be to her, my dear, in her days of poverty.” Diana accepted this not entirely unalloyed kindness. She understood the alloy and forgave it; nay, perhaps liked the little bit of gold there was all the better for that heavenly kind of dross mixed with it—the anxious love of Sophy which prompted her aunt to seek her interest in any practicable way. They came to the Chase for two days, and stayed two months, amusing and refreshing their hostess in her loneliness with their pretty foolish ways. They were like two kittens to Diana; their harmless gambols gave her pleasure such as sensible persons did not always understand. When she had kept them with her all that time, it seemed hard to send the two little things away again into the seaside lodgings or small suburban house which they contemplated. Diana offered them a cottage in her park which had been built by some other kind Trelawny for a poor relation,—a little red house, overgrown with climbing roses and honey-suckle, set in a little clearing of green lawns in the heart of the trees. No words could tell Sophy’s delight with this pretty nest; but Mrs. Norton did all she could to maintain her dignity, and to seem to doubt and hesitate a little—firstly, as to whether she ought to accept such a favour from a friend who was not a relation, as she said; and secondly, as to whether in the midst of the trees it might be damp. But in a very short time both these fears were put to flight, and no children were ever more happy over the fitting up of a doll’s house than those two little ladies were over their furnishing. And, again, to the wonder of her sensible friends, so was Diana too. Is not a grown-up sister, a young mother, sometimes excited about the doll’s house as well as its lawful possessor? Miss Trelawny bought little bits of furniture, sought out scraps of china, had little brackets fitted in the little corners, and stands of flowers set out in the tiny hall. It was a toy mansion for her pets, upon which she expended more trouble than on her own stately dwelling-place; though what she could see in those two silly little women! as Mrs. Hunstanton constantly said.
The Hunstantons were of a totally different class. They were landed gentry as good as the Trelawnys themselves, if not quite so rich. They had a house in a great grove of trees which, except in the heat of summer, was not very cheerful, and which was supposed not to be wholesome for the delicate boy who was their eldest hope and the heir. He was a pale melancholy individual, like neither father nor mother, and it was on his account that they constantly spent their winters abroad. Mr. Hunstanton was an unsteady man with nerves, who had attacks of neuralgia and notions, and was fond of meddling, people said, with things that did not concern him much. He was thin to the utmost possible of thinness, running about in jerks and thinking in jumps, a hasty man, not wise but yet lovable, and ready to undertake anything for anybody. His wife was as unlike him in person as in character. She was sensible, cool, and indisposed to “mix herself up” with other people’s affairs—still handsome though nearly fifty, calm in disposition, and somewhat disposed to criticism, for which she had ample ground in her husband’s doings and sayings. They had married late, and had some children still in the nursery, and the weakly boy of sixteen already mentioned, whom it was the chief object of their lives to tide over the difficult period of youth. For him they were always ready to move at a moment’s notice, to fly from the east winds or from the damp, or from the too great heats of summer. Climate was one of the few things which both of them believed in, and their house was full of books on the subject, and every new place was eagerly caught at and inquired about. All along the Riviera they had wandered, over Italy with all its islands, into Spain, to Gibraltar, to Algiers, up the Nile—almost as many places as there had been winters in the delicate boy’s life. Curiosities from all of these spots which possessed any curiosities filled their rooms, and the acquaintances which an active-minded man like Mr. Hunstanton made in these prolonged periods of leisure were beyond counting. He had something to do with private histories all over the world, and had thrust his nervous head into more tangled webs than could be reckoned. His wife, who at first had tried to restrain him, had long ago given up the attempt as impracticable, and only looked on and wondered and criticised.
Such were Diana’s nearest neighbours. The Nortons were in the park, to be got at at a moment’s notice—convenient people who could be sent for, who were always ready to fill up a corner, to do anything that might be agreeable. Sophy sung a little pleasantly and prettily, as she did everything. Her aunt was ready to play quadrilles and waltzes, or the simpler kind of accompaniments, till midnight at any time. They were liked by all the much greater people into whose society they had been transplanted bodily, and whom they delighted in, in return, with enthusiasm. The Duchess, on the one occasion when she had spent three days at the Chase, at the time when Diana had been thought possible for her most noble son, paid special attention to Mrs. Norton, taking her for the resident clergywoman of the place: and the distinction was one which had never been forgotten. It must be added that, by some special dispensation of Providence, the clergy of the parish were an uncle and nephew—one rector, the other curate; two black-browed, silent men, whose chief use in nature seemed to be (besides their duties in the parish) to balance these two little ladies at Diana’s dinner-table. They were both unmarried, and Nature seemed to intend that if not two couplings at least one should result from this singularly appropriate balance of forces. Everybody, however, saw this except the parties concerned, as so often happens. They did not see it at all. The elder Mr. Snodgrass unjustly stigmatised poor little Mrs. Norton as a gossip; and the younger one had lost his head, not to speak of his heart, in a vain adoration of Diana, who was about as far removed from him as her namesake in the skies. And this taciturn young man was the favourite butt for Sophy’s simple little wit, which was not of a brilliant character indeed, but now and then could be sharp on a personal peculiarity. Thus perverse human nature balked Providence, as seems not unusual on the surface in mortal affairs.
Diana had been reigning for full two years when this story begins, and for more than one the pair of little ladies had been settled in the Red House. They had not complained of the damp during the first winter; but now that another was about to begin, there was a little flutter of talk about Sophy’s cough, which had not been lost upon Diana. Sophy, there was no doubt, had a cough. She had not got rid of it last year until the end of May, and though it did not seem to hurt her, it was enough to disturb Mrs. Norton, and even to attract Diana’s attention whatever she was doing, stopping her in the midst of the most interesting conversation. Was it the humid atmosphere under the trees? was it the green, too luxuriant growth about the Red House? Diana set out walking one October morning, after many thoughts, to satisfy herself on this point. She was fond of the girl in her own person, and she was moved by a still deeper sympathetic sense of the love of the aunt to whom Sophy was everything. What would the economy matter, the pretty house which they had rent free, or even the fine company which Diana felt was still more dear to Mrs. Norton—in comparison with her child’s health? Diana went across the park, the short cut, not afraid of the moisture which shone on the grass, in her strong boots and serge dress. She was tall and fully developed, in the long lines and noble curves that became her age: no longer a slim girl, but mature, in the pride and height of life: her step firm and commanding, though light and swift; her fine head held high, not a stoop nor a droop had she; light and strong and beautiful, like a tall lily among the fragile undergrowth of blooms. Sophy was sitting by the window, looking out upon the park, with a basket of flowers before her, and all the flower-vases of the house ranged round her; the air sweet with mignonette; the sunshine coming in over her head, and catching the ruddy glimmer in her hair. “Here is Diana, auntie,” she said, getting up to run to the door and welcome her friend. Mrs. Norton was sitting with her needlework by the table. There was a pucker in her gentle little brow, for Sophy had coughed three times since breakfast. Something would have to be done. “I will take my courage in both hands, and I will speak to Diana,” she said to herself, then looked round the pretty room and sighed.
It was a very pretty room. Diana had almost furnished it, as well as given the house. Opposite the window was an old-fashioned convex mirror, making the prettiest sparkling picture of the park with its trees; a little old cabinet underneath had Mrs. Norton’s pet china arranged upon it, catching the sunshine: the sofa by the fireside was as softly luxurious, though it was so small, as anything in the Chase. “What have we done that she should have been so good to us? and she will think it ungrateful,” Mrs. Norton said to herself, drying her eyes; but nothing could be ungrateful which was done with such reluctant sorrow. She heard the sound of the voices outside, and got up from her work tearfully, thinking how rash Sophy was with her cough to run to the door. “I shall never get her to take care—here,” she thought. “How nice of you to come!” Sophy was saying. “Oh, I was just sitting at the window, wishing and wishing for you—yes, isn’t the mignonette sweet?—it is almost the last thing now—the flowers are going. Oh, but come in, come in—you must not stand in the hall; and your boots are wet, Diana. You have come across the grass.”
“Which is not a thing for little girls to do,” said Diana, letting the long serge skirt drop which she had been carrying looped over her arm. She was fond of long dresses, though they were inconvenient, and had to be looped up. “I have come to speak to your aunt about business, and you may run away for a little. Go and see if your ribbons are all right for this evening: for you are coming up to dinner to meet the Hunstantons and the clergy; and you know in that case you are always to look your best.”
“As if I cared how I look, for them!” said Sophy. “But are we really, really coming up to-night? My white is not quite fresh enough if Mrs. Hunstanton is coming—she is so particular; and my blue is rather shabby; and you don’t like my green. What am I to wear? There is the grey Japanese silk you gave me; or shall I put on my pink spotted?”
“Here is the auntie,” said Diana. “Send her away, Mrs. Norton, for I have something to consult you about.”
“Your grey, my love,” said Mrs. Norton, “with the blue ribbons. That is pretty for this season, and not so thin. Oh, Diana! I ought to have gone to you. I, too, want to tell you of something. If you should think me ungrateful, or that I don’t feel all your kindness to the bottom of my heart——”
“We mean the same thing, poor little auntie. That cough of Sophy’s——”
“Then you have noticed it,” cried Mrs. Norton, turning very pale. “You think it very serious—as I do! like her mother’s! O Diana, my child! Perhaps the doctor has said something to you. What shall I do? what shall I do?”
“It is not the least serious,” said Diana. “I spoke to the doctor, and he laughed.”
“He laughed!” Mrs. Norton wavered between relief and offence. Then she shook her head. “I have no confidence in country doctors. He would not have laughed if—if he had any real experience—if—if he knew——”
“Do not cry,” said Diana. “Pray, pray do not cry. I have come to propose something to you. I want you to go to Italy with the Hunstantons.”
Mrs. Norton gave a little shriek. “To Italy! Oh, Diana!” Then she stopped in the first impulse of joy. “You are deceiving me,” she said, trembling. “You think it a great deal more serious than you say.”
“I think you are the silliest little woman! and if you make me out to have a hundred meanings I never thought of, I will not speak to you any more. Ask the doctor. Ask a dozen doctors if you please. But look here—if you are proud and hoity-toity, why, then, there must be a general dissolution and breaking up of friendship; and you know, Mrs. Norton, it is a dreadful thing to break off with and alienate a true friend.”
“I do, I do! Oh, how could you ever think it of me, Diana? and why do you speak to me so formally? If we were to go away to-morrow and never to come back again, do you think that would make me less grateful to you? And me hoity-toity! was I ever?—could I ever be?—does any one think it possible?”
“Do you know what that is?” said Diana. “I found it in my desk to-day.”
Mrs. Norton looked at the paper through her tears. She knew very well what it was. Though she was not rich, she prided herself on having travelled abroad in her time, and knowing all about such matters. It was a banker’s letter recommending herself to the correspondents of the firm—one of those documents which make the traveller’s path easy, and are of more use than any passport—as long as they hold out.
“Now,” said Diana, with a threatening aspect, “if you make any objections or say anything disagreeable, I am your landlady, and I shall evict you. If you refuse to go I shall take your roof off. I shall turn out all your furniture; and anybody who pleases may take your china. There! the power of threatening can no further go. And now I must hurry home, for I have a great deal to do to-day. Give me some of Sophy’s mignonette. Tell her she is a little goose, and that young Mr. Snodgrass prefers pink to blue; and if you were not very inexorable and unkind, his poor uncle—but of course if you will not listen to him, what does it matter what I say? Sophy, good-bye—I have no time to stay.”
“But, Diana, Diana!” said Mrs. Norton, breathless, with the letter in her hand, rushing to the door after the hasty visitor.
“I have not another moment—there are people waiting: good-bye till the evening,” cried Diana, half-way across the lawn, with her blue gown over her arm.
“She will wet her feet, she will catch cold, she will get rheumatism. Oh, if she knew what it was to have neuralgia like me! But Italy!” said Mrs. Norton to herself. She went back to her little drawing-room in a flutter of excitement. Italy! It had been the pride of her life to have been at Geneva once in her early days, and in this one expedition she had found a parallel to all she had heard of wonderful and stupendous since then. “I can understand it,” she had said, “because, when I was at Geneva——” With this the greatest traveller, and even Mr. Hunstanton himself, had been quelled. But now Italy! It took away the little lady’s breath. She went in and looked at the banker’s letter. Surely it would turn into a bit of rag again in her hands. It could not be real. Italy—and a hundred pounds! Mrs. Norton was dumb. She gasped for breath: she had not composure enough to call down Sophy, blissfully occupied in looking up her ribbons, and unaware that there was anything to hear.
Diana went back with a smile on her face. The power of doing such things as this is most likely sweeter when it is newly acquired than when people have possessed it all their life. She liked the indulgence. To be very rich, is it not to be in some sort a god upon earth, putting right the wrongs of fortune, and remedying its injustice? It was not so always: had she herself been ill in the old days, she must have borne it, and died in patience without hope of relief; and now to be able to forestall the first possibility of danger to another seemed very sweet to her. Yet she was not unaware, and the recollection made her smile again, that there was something absurd in the choice of Sophy Norton as the recipient of her bounty. There was many a consumptive girl in the county to whom the help would have been invaluable—but Sophy was not consumptive or unhealthy. She had a cough which was no more dangerous than a toothache, and which had only attracted the notice of her friend from the fact of the supposed dampness of the little Red House in the park. What a curious commentary it was on the inequalities of fortune, and the duty of the rich to bear the burdens of the poor! Mrs. Norton was not exactly poor: she had enough to keep a house comfortably enough, therefore it was to her that the rent-free cottage naturally fell; and Sophy had no more need of transportation to a warm climate than one of the elm-trees had, therefore of course it was Sophy who had the means thrust into her hand. What a curious travesty of need and of duty! and what could the great lady say for herself who was so glad to offer this pleasure and favour to her semi-dependants? She did nothing but smile, with an acute sense of those difficulties of life which no one can explain and scarcely any one overcome. Had Diana known the people to whom this favour would have been most a favour—to whom it might have been life and death—probably they would have been proud persons who would have rebelled at even the most delicate help. No man can save his brother. Those who want help most are those who will not accept, who cannot get it, whose wants are as far removed from the ken of the helpful by natural independence or by ignorance as if there were no help-givers in the world. Her own feelings even were to herself the strangest commentary upon her sincere desire to be of use to her fellow-creatures. This was a joke, a piece of self-indulgence, not noble neighbourliness, such as it was in Diana to do if need were. She laughed at herself and her banker’s letter, and the little show of violence with which she had insisted on its acceptance. Who could tell how near at hand and in what imminent need might be the other whom to save Diana would have strained every nerve? And how blind and poor and miserable is human nature, which cannot clear up even these initial difficulties! She went on sighing before the smile had died off her face, feeling amid all her power and capabilities how limited and how poor!