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Roughsedge, who had been Diana's first protector, saw herself supplanted not without a little natural chagrin. The controversy of the moment was submitted to Marsham, who decided hotly against the Vicar, and implored Diana to stand firm. But somehow his intervention only hastened the compunction that had already begun to work in her. She followed the Roughsedges to the door when they departed.
Diana treated him with great self-possession, asking after Mr. Ferrier, who had just returned to Tallyn for the last fortnight before the opening of Parliament, and betraying to the Roughsedges that she was already on intimate terms with Lady Lucy, who was lending her patterns for her embroidery, driving over once or twice a week, and advising her about various household affairs. Mrs.
Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton. The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana's secret return, her long talk with Mrs.
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.
As she passed through the village she fell in with the Roughsedges: the doctor, with his wide-awake on the back of his head, a book and a bulging umbrella under his arm; Mrs. Roughsedge, in a new shawl, and new bonnet-strings, with a prodigal flutter of side curls beside her ample countenance. Hugh, it appeared, was expected by an evening train.
Fanny would not like them, nor they her. The luncheon-party had been arranged for Mr. Birch, Fanny's train acquaintance. Diana had asked the Roughsedges, explaining the matter, with a half-deprecating, half-humorous face, to the comfortable ear of Mrs. Roughsedge.
Diana had never yet had the courage to venture out-of-doors since the news came to her; she feared to see even her old friends the Roughsedges, and had been invisible to them since the Saturday; she feared even the faces of the village children.
All that was picturesque and important, of course, in the lower classes; labor men, Socialists, and the like. But not vulgar half-baked fellows, who meant nothing politically, and must yet be treated like gentlemen. Ah! There were the Roughsedges the Captain not gone yet? Sir James and Mrs. Colwood nice little creature, that companion they would find some use for her in the future.
Ostrich-like, she persuaded herself that not many people could have known anything about her five days' engagement. Dear kind folk like the Roughsedges would not talk of it, nor Lady Lucy surely. And Oliver himself never!
"If they are nice, let them stand on their own merits. If not, they are disagreeable people who know a deal too much about you. Miss Diana should have consulted me!" The Roughsedges arrived early, and found Diana alone in the drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh.
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