The Testing of Diana Mallory | Page 9

there were moments when she walked visibly
transfigured in the glow of it. Her mind was rich, moreover, in the
delicate, inchoate lovers, the half-poetic, half-intellectual passions, the
mystical yearnings and aspirations, which haunt a pure expanding
youth. Such human beings, Mrs. Colwood reflected, are not generally
made for happiness. But there were also in Diana signs both of practical
ability and of a rare common-sense. Would this last avail to protect her
from her enthusiasms? Mrs. Colwood remembered a famous
Frenchwoman of whom it was said: "Her judgment is infallible--her
conduct one long mistake!" The little companion was already
sufficiently attached to Miss Mallory to hope that in this case a natural
tact and balance might not be thrown away.
As to suitors and falling in love, the natural accompaniments of such a
charming youth, Mrs. Colwood came across no traces of anything of
the sort. During her journey with her father to India, Japan, and
America, Miss Mallory had indeed for the first time seen something of
society. But in the villa beside the Mediterranean it was evident that her
life with her father had been one of complete seclusion. She and he had
lived for each other. Books, sketching, long walks, a friendly interest in
their peasant neighbors--these had filled their time.
It took, indeed, but a short time to discover in Miss Mallory a hunger
for society which seemed to be the natural result of long starvation.
With her neighbors the Roughsedges she was already on the friendliest
terms. To Dr. Roughsedge, who was infirm, and often a prisoner to his
library, she paid many small attentions which soon won the heart of an
old student. She was in love with Mrs. Roughsedge's gray curls and
motherly ways; and would consult her about servants and tradesmen
with an eager humility. She liked the son, it seemed, for the parents'
sake, nor was it long before he was allowed--at his own pressing
request--to help in hanging pictures and arranging books at Beechcote.
A girl's manner with young men is always a matter of interest to older
women. Mrs. Colwood thought that Diana's manner to the young
soldier could not have been easily bettered. It was frank and gay--with
just that tinge of old-fashioned reserve which might be thought natural
in a girl of gentle breeding, brought up alone by a fastidious father.

With all her impetuosity, indeed, there was about her something
markedly virginal and remote, which is commoner, perhaps, in Irish
than English women. Mrs. Colwood watched the effect of it on Captain
Roughsedge. After her third day of acquaintance with him, she said to
herself: "He will fall in love with her!" But she said it with compassion,
and without troubling to speculate on the lady. Whereas, with regard to
the Marsham visit, she already--she could hardly have told why--found
herself full of curiosity.
Meanwhile, in the few days which elapsed before that visit was due,
Diana was much called on by the country-side. The girl restrained her
restlessness, and sat at home, receiving everybody with a friendliness
which might have been insipid but for its grace and spontaneity. She
disliked no one, was bored by no one. The joy of her home-coming
seemed to halo them all. Even the sour Miss Bertrams could not annoy
her; she thought them sensible and clever; even the tiresome Mrs.
Minchin of Minchin Hall, the "gusher" of the county, who "adored" all
mankind and ill-treated her step-daughter, even she was dubbed "very
kind," till Mrs. Roughsedge, next day, kindled a passion in the girl's
eyes by some tales of the step-daughter. Mrs. Colwood wondered
whether, indeed, she could be bored, as Mrs. Minchin had not achieved
it. Those who talk easily and well, like Diana, are less keenly aware,
she thought, of the platitudes of their neighbors. They are not
defenceless, like the shy and the silent.
Nevertheless, it was clear that if Diana welcomed the neighbors with
pleasure she often saw them go with relief. As soon as the house was
clear of them, she would stand pensively by the fire, looking down into
the blaze like one on whom a dream suddenly descends--then would
often call her dog, and go out alone, into the winter twilight. From
these rambles she would return grave--sometimes with reddened eyes.
But at all times, as Mrs. Colwood soon began to realize, there was but a
thin line of division between her gayety and some inexplicable sadness,
some unspoken grief, which seemed to rise upon her and overshadow
her, like a cloud tangled in the woods of spring. Mrs. Colwood could
only suppose that these times of silence and eclipse were connected in
some way with her father and her loss of him. But whenever they

occurred, Mrs. Colwood found her own mind