The Testing of Diana Mallory | Page 3

anew
in the romantic light, when her maid knocked at the door, and
distraction entered with letters, and a cup of tea.
* * * * *
An hour later Miss Mallory left her room behind her, and went tripping
down the broad oak staircase of Beechcote Manor.
By this time romance was uppermost again, and self-congratulation.
She was young--just twenty-two; she was--she knew it--agreeable to
look upon; she had as much money as any reasonable woman need
want; she had already seen a great deal of the world outside England;
and she had fallen headlong in love with this charming old house, and
had now, in spite of various difficulties, managed to possess herself of
it, and plant her life in it. Full of ghosts it might be; but she was its
living mistress henceforth; nor was it either ridiculous or snobbish that
she should love it and exult in it--quite the contrary. And she paused on
the slippery stairs, to admire the old panelled hall below, the play of
wintry sunlight on the oaken surfaces she herself had rescued from
desecrating paint, and the effect of some old Persian rugs, which had
only arrived from London the night before, on the dark polished boards.
For Diana, there were two joys connected with the old house: the joy of

entering in, a stranger and conqueror, on its guarded and matured
beauty, and the joy of adding to that beauty by a deft modernness. Very
deft, and tender, and skilful it must be. But no one could say that
time-worn Persian rugs, with their iridescent blue and greens and rose
reds--or old Italian damask and cut-velvet from Genoa, or Florence, or
Venice--were out of harmony with the charming Jacobean rooms. It
was the horrible furniture of the Vavasours, the ancestral possessors of
the place, which had been an offence and a disfigurement. In moving it
out and replacing it, Diana felt that she had become the spiritual child
of the old house, in spite of her alien blood. There is a kinship not of
the flesh; and it thrilled all through her.
But just as her pause of daily homage to the place in which she found
herself was over, and she was about to run down the remaining stairs to
the dining-room, a new thought delayed her for a moment by the
staircase window--the thought of a lady who would no doubt be
waiting for her at the breakfast-table.
Mrs. Colwood, Miss Mallory's new chaperon and companion, had
arrived the night before, on Christmas Eve. She had appeared just in
time for dinner, and the two ladies had spent the evening together.
Diana's first impressions had been pleasant--yes, certainly, pleasant;
though Mrs. Colwood had been shy, and Diana still more so. There
could be no question but that Mrs. Colwood was refined, intelligent,
and attractive. Her gentle, almost childish looks appealed for her. So
did her deep black, and the story which explained it. Diana had heard of
her from a friend in Rome, where Mrs. Colwood's husband, a young
Indian Civil servant, had died of fever and lung mischief, on his way to
England for a long sick leave and where the little widow had touched
the hearts of all who came in contact with her.
Diana thought, with one of her ready compunctions, that she had not
been expansive enough the night before. She ran down-stairs,
determined to make Mrs. Colwood feel at home at once.
When she entered the dining-room the new companion was standing
beside the window looking out upon the formal garden and the lawn
beyond it. Her attitude was a little drooping, and as she turned to greet

her hostess and employer, Diana's quick eyes seemed to perceive a
trace of recent tears on the small face. The girl was deeply touched,
though she made no sign. Poor little thing! A widow, and childless, in a
strange place.
Mrs. Colwood, however, showed no further melancholy. She was full
of admiration for the beauty of the frosty morning, the trees touched
with rime, the browns and purples of the distant woods. She spoke
shyly, but winningly, of the comfort of her room, and the
thoughtfulness with which Miss Mallory had arranged it; she could not
say enough of the picturesqueness of the house. Yet there was nothing
fulsome in her praise. She had the gift which makes the saying of sweet
and flattering things appear the merest simplicity. They escaped her
whether she would or no--that at least was the impression; and Diana
found it agreeable. So agreeable that before they had been ten minutes
at table Miss Mallory, in response, was conscious on her own part of an
unusually strong wish to please her new companion--to make a good
effect. Diana, indeed, was naturally governed