Chapter 36
CHAPTER IX Et souvent au moment où l'on croyait tenir une espérance, on voit que c'est un souvenir. Victor Huguenot When Colonel Tempest lay in a precarious condition owing to the unexpected explosion of a revolver which he was taking to his gunmaker and which he believed to be unloaded,
When this fatality occurred, Mrs. Courtney somewhat relaxed the usual stringency of her usual demeanour to him, and allowed his daughter to be with him constantly in the hospital to which he was first conveyed, and afterwards in his rooms in Brook Street, when he was sufficiently convalescent to be conveyed thither. Colonel Tempest was a trying patient. In one sense he was not a patient at all, melting into querulous tears when denied a sardine on toast for which
his soul thirsted, the application of which would infallibly have separated his soul from his body, and, bemoaning continually, when consciousness was vouchsafed to him the neglect of his children and the callousness of his friends, Di bore it with equanimity. It is only true accusations which one feels obliged to contradict. She did not love her father, and his continual appeals to her pity and filial devotion touched her but little.
"'Colonel Tempest confided to his nurse in the night-watches "'that he was the parent of heartless children, "'and when Di took her place in the daytime, "'reviled the nurse's greed, who, whether he was suffering or not, "'could eat a large meal in the middle of the night.
"'I hate nurses,' he would say. "'Your poor mother is such a horrid nurse when Archie was born. "'I could not bear her, always making difficulties and restrictions "'and locking the door, and then complaining to the doctor "'because I rattled the lock.
I urged your mother to part with her whenever she was not in the room. But she only cried and said she could not do without her, and that she was kind to her. That was your mother all over. She always sided against me. I must say she knew the value of tears, did your poor mother.
She cried herself into hysterics when I rang the front doorbell at four in the morning, because I had gone out without a latch-key. I suppose she expected me to sit all night on the step. And first the nurse and then the doctor spoke to me about agitating her, and said it was doing her harm.
"'So I just walked straight out of the house "'and never set foot in it again for a month "'till they both cleared out. "'They overreached themselves that time.' "'Archie, who looked in once a day
"'for the space of ten seconds, "'came in for the largest share "'of Colonel Tempest's reproaches. "'I don't like sick people,' "'that young gentleman was wonted to remark.
"'Don't understand them. No use. "'Nursing's not in my line. Better out of the way.' "'So, with the consideration of his kind, "'he was so good as to keep out of it, "'while Colonel Tempest wept salt tears
it was already too salt-beef tea—it was always too salt or not salt enough—and remarked with bitterness that he could have fancied a sardine, and that other people's sons nursed their parents when they were at death's door. Young Grancourt had never left his father's bedside for three weeks when he had pneumonia, but Archie, it seemed, was different. "'My children are not much comfort to me,' he told the doctor, as regularly as he put
out his tongue. "'John might have come,' he said one day to Di. "'He got out of it by sending a cheque, but I think he might have taken the trouble just to come and see whether I was alive or dead.' "'John is ill himself,' said Di.
"'John is always ill,' said Colonel Tempest fretfully, with the half-memory of convalescence, always ailing and coddling himself. And yet he has twice my physique. John grows coarse-looking, very coarse. "'I fancy he's a large eater.
I remember he was ill in the summer. I went to see him. "'I was always sitting with him, and there did not seem to be much the matter with him. "'I think he gives way.' "'Perhaps it is a family failing,' said Di.
"'And she and Mrs. Courtney sat indoors all that afternoon, "'though there had been lent a carriage. "'And they waited to make tea till after the time. "'And whenever the doorbell rang, Mrs. Courtney's hands shook quite as much as Di's. "'An aimless, foolish person's calls.
"'But John did not call. "'He's ill,' said Mrs. Courtney in the dusk. or he has been prevented coming there is some reason he will write yes said i he will come when he can but nevertheless a little shiver of doubt crept into her heart for the first time if i had been in his place she said to herself i should have come ill or well and i should not have been prevented she put the thought aside instantly as unreasonable but the shy dread she had previously felt of meeting him changed to a restless longing just to see him just to be reassured to be loved by one we love is after all so incredible a revelation that it is not wonderful that human nature seeks after a sign only a great self-esteem finds love easy to believe in
The days passed, and linked themselves to weeks. Was it fancy, or did Mrs. Courtney become graver day by day? And I remembered with misgiving a certain note which she had written to John the morning she left overly. The little cloud grew. One afternoon Day Eye came in rather later than usual,
and after a glance round the room, which had become habitual to her, sat down by her grandmother and poured out tea. Any callers, Granny? One. Archie. Di sighed.
Coming home had always the possibility in it of finding someone sitting in the drawing-room or a note on the hall table. Yet neither possibility happened. Archie came to say that the doctor thinks your father does not gain ground, and that he might be moved to the seaside with advantage. He wanted to know whether you could go with him.
He can't get leave himself for more than a couple of days. I said I would allow you to do so if you took your father down himself and got him settled. He can do that in two days, and he ought to take his share. "'He's left everything to you so far.' "'He mentioned,' continued Mrs. Courtney with an effort,
"'that he had met John at the Carlton yesterday, "'and that he was all right and able to go about again as usual. "'He went back to Overly today.' "'There was a long silence.' "'What do you think, Granny?' said Di at last.
"'How long is it since you were at Overly?' "'Two months. "'When you were there, did you allow John to see that you'd changed your mind, "'or were you friendly with him as you used to be? Nothing discourages men so much as that.
No, I tried to be, but I could not. I don't know what I was except very uncomfortable. Had he any real opportunity of speaking to you without interruption? I remembered the half hour in the entresol sitting-room. It had never occurred to her till that moment that certainly,
if he wished to do so, he could have spoken to her then. Yes, she said, he had. And, she added, I am sure he knew I liked him. If he did not know it then, I am quite sure he knows it now. I wrote a note.
What kind of note? Oh, Granny, that is just it. I don't know what kind it was. It seemed natural at the time. I can't remember exactly what I said.
I have tried to, often. It was written in such a hurry. For you telegraphed for me, and I had been up all night waiting to hear whether he was to live or die, and it was so dreadful to have to go away without a word.
Mrs. Cawley leaned back in her chair. She seemed tired. Tell me what you think. said Di again. "'I think,' said Mrs. Courtney,
"'that if John had been seriously attached to you, "'he would either have come "'or have answered your letter by this time. "'I am afraid we have made a mistake.' "'Di did not answer.
"'The world was crumbling down around her. "'I may be making one now,' said Mrs. Courtney, "'but it appears to me he has had every opportunity given him, "'and he has made no use of them. "'Men worth their salt make their opportunities,
but if they don't even take them when they are ready-made to their hand, they cannot be in earnest. Women don't realize what a hateful position a man is in who is deeply in love and who has no knowledge of whether it is returned or not. He won't remain in it any longer than he can help.
John is not in that position, said Di, colouring painfully. Granny, why don't you reproach me for writing that letter? Because, my dear, though I regret it more than I can say, I should have done the same in your place. And what would you do now in my place?
This, said Mrs. Courtney. You cannot dismiss the subject from your mind, but whenever it comes into your thoughts, hold steadily before you the one fact that he is certainly aware you are attached to him,
and he has not acted on that knowledge. They say men don't care for anything when once they know they can't have it, said I hoarsely, pride wringing the words out of her. Perhaps John is like that.
"'He knows I am only waiting to be asked.' "'Fools say many things,' returned Mrs. Courtney. "'That is about as true as that women don't care for their children when they get them. "'A few unnatural ones don't. The others do. "'I have seen much trouble caused by love affairs.
"'After a bit of life most people decry them, "'especially those who have had superficial ones themselves. "'For there is seldom any love at all in the mutual attraction of two young people, and the elders know very well that if it is judiciously checked, it can also be judiciously replaced by something else.
But a real love which comes to nothing is more like the death of an only child than anything else. It is a death. The great thing is to regard it so. I have known women go on year after year waiting,
as we have been doing during the last two months, refusing to believe in its death, believing instead in some misunderstanding, building up theories to account for alienation. clinging to the idea that things might have turned out differently if only so-and-so had been more tactful if they had not refused a certain invitation if something they had said which might yet be explained had not been misconstrued
And all the time there is no misunderstanding, no need of explanation. The position is simple enough. No man is daunted by such things except in women's imaginations. What men want they will try to obtain, unless there is some positive bar, such as poverty. And if they don't try, remember the inference is sure, that they don't really want it.
Di did not answer. Her face had taken a set look, which for the first time reminded Mrs. Courtney of her mother. She had often seen the other Diana look like that. My child, she said, stretching out her soft old hand, and laying it on the cold clenched one,
a death even of what is dearest to us, and a funeral and a headstone to mark the place, hard as it is, is as nothing compared to the death in life of an existence which is always dragging about a corpse. I have seen that not once nor twice.
I wanted to save you from that. Di laid her face for a moment on the kind hand I will bury my dead she said End of Volume 3
Chapter 9
