Contains a Revelation of the Origin of the Tigress in Diana
An afternoon of high summer blazed over London through the City’s awning of smoke, and the three classes of the population, relaxed by the weariful engagement with what to them was a fruitless heat, were severally bathing their ideas in dreams of the contrast possible to embrace: breezy seas or moors, aerial Alps, cool beer. The latter, if confessedly the lower comfort, is the readier at command; and Thomas Redworth, whose perspiring frame was directing his inward vision to fly for solace to a trim new yacht, built on his lines, beckoning from Southampton Water, had some of the amusement proper to things plucked off the levels, in the conversation of a couple of journeymen close ahead of him, as he made his way from a quiet street of brokers’ offices to a City Bank. One asked the other if he had ever tried any of that cold stuff they were now selling out of barrows, with cream. His companion answered, that he had not got much opinion of stuff of the sort; and what was it like?
‘Well, it’s cheap, it ain’t bad; it’s cooling. But it ain’t refreshing.’
‘Just what I reckoned all that newfangle rubbish.’
Without a consultation, the conservatives in beverage filed with a smart turn about, worthy of veterans at parade on the drill-ground, into a public-house; and a dialogue chiefly remarkable for absence of point, furnished matter to the politician’s head of the hearer. Provided that their beer was unadulterated! Beer they would have; and why not, in weather like this? But how to make the publican honest! And he was not the only trickster preying on the multitudinous poor copper crowd, rightly to be protected by the silver and the golden. Revelations of the arts practised to plump them with raw-earth and minerals in the guise of nourishment, had recently knocked at the door of the general conscience and obtained a civil reply from the footman. Repulsive as the thought was to one still holding to Whiggish Liberalism, though flying various Radical kites, he was caught by the decisive ultratorrent, and whirled to amid the necessity for the interference of the State, to stop the poisoning of the poor. Upper classes have never legislated systematically in their interests; and quid... rabidae tradis ovile lupae? says one of the multitude. We may be seeing fangs of wolves where fleeces waxed. The State that makes it a vital principle to concern itself with the helpless poor, meets instead of waiting for Democracy; which is a perilous flood but when it is dammed. Or else, in course of time, luxurious yachting, my friend, will encounter other reefs and breakers than briny ocean’s! Capital, whereat Diana Warwick aimed her superbest sneer, has its instant duties. She theorized on the side of poverty, and might do so: he had no right to be theorizing on the side of riches. Across St. George’s Channel, the cry for humanity in Capital was an agony. He ought to be there, doing, not cogitating. The post of Irish Secretary must be won by real service founded on absolute local knowledge. Yes, and sympathy, if you like; but sympathy is for proving, not prating....
These were the meditations of a man in love; veins, arteries, headpiece in love, and constantly brooding at a solitary height over the beautiful coveted object; only too bewildered by her multifarious evanescent feminine evasions, as of colours on a ruffle water, to think of pouncing for he could do nothing to soften, nothing that seemed to please her: and all the while, the motive of her mind impelled him in reflection beyond practicable limits: even pointing him to apt quotations! Either he thought within her thoughts, or his own were at her disposal. Nor was it sufficient for him to be sensible of her influence, to restrain the impetus he took from her. He had already wedded her morally, and much that he did, as well as whatever he debated, came of Diana; more than if they had been coupled, when his downright practical good sense could have spoken. She held him suspended, swaying him in that posture; and he was not a whit ashamed of it. The beloved woman was throned on the very highest of the man.
Furthermore, not being encouraged, he had his peculiar reason for delay, though now he could offer her wealth. She had once in his hearing derided the unpleasant hiss of the ungainly English matron’s title of Mrs. There was no harm in the accustomed title, to his taste; but she disliking it, he did the same, on her special behalf; and the prospect, funereally draped, of a title sweeter-sounding to her ears, was above his horizon. Bear in mind, that he underwent the reverse of encouragement. Any small thing to please her was magnified, and the anticipation of it nerved the modest hopes of one who deemed himself and any man alive deeply her inferior.
Such was the mood of the lover condemned to hear another malignant scandal defiling the name of the woman he worshipped. Sir Lukin Dunstane, extremely hurried, bumped him on the lower step of the busy Bank, and said:
‘Pardon!’ and ‘Ha! Redwarth! making money?’
‘Why, what are you up to down here?’ he was asked, and he answered: ‘Down to the Tower, to an officer quartered there. Not bad quarters, but an infernal distance. Business.’
Having cloaked his expedition to the distance with the comprehensive word, he repeated it; by which he feared he had rendered it too significant, and he said: ‘No, no; nothing particular’; and that caused the secret he contained to swell in his breast rebelliously, informing the candid creature of the fact of his hating to lie: whereupon thus he poured himself out, in the quieter bustle of an alley, off the main thoroughfare. ‘You’re a friend of hers. I ‘m sure you care for her reputation; you’re an old friend of hers, and she’s my wife’s dearest friend; and I’m fond of her too; and I ought to be, and ought to know, and do know:—pure? Strike off my fist if there’s a spot on her character! And a scoundrel like that fellow Wroxeter! Damnedest rage I ever was in!—Swears... down at Lockton... when she was a girl. Why, Redworth, I can tell you, when Diana Warwick was a girl!’
Redworth stopped him. ‘Did he say it in your presence?’
Sir Lukin was drawn-up by the harsh question. ‘Well, no; not exactly.’ He tried to hesitate, but he was in the hot vein of a confidence and he wanted advice. ‘The cur said it to a woman—hang the woman! And she hates Diana Warwick: I can’t tell why—a regular snake’s hate. By Jove! how women carp hate!’
‘Who is the woman?’ said Redworth.
Sir Lukin complained of the mob at his elbows. ‘I don’t like mentioning names here.’
A convenient open door of offices invited him to drag his receptacle, and possible counsellor, into the passage, where immediately he bethought him of a postponement of the distinct communication; but the vein was too hot. ‘I say, Redworth, I wish you’d dine with me. Let’s drive up to my Club.—Very well, two words. And I warn you, I shall call him out, and make it appear it ‘s about another woman, who’ll like nothing so much, if I know the Jezebel. Some women are hussies, let ’em be handsome as houris. And she’s a fire-ship; by heaven, she is! Come, you’re a friend of my wife’s, but you’re a man of the world and my friend, and you know how fellows are tempted, Tom Redworth.—Cur though he is, he’s likely to step out and receive a lesson.—Well, he’s the favoured cavalier for the present... h’m... Fryar–Gannett. Swears he told her, circumstantially; and it was down at Lockton, when Diana Warwick was a girl. Swears she’ll spit her venom at her, so that Diana Warwick shan’t hold her head up in London Society, what with that cur Wroxeter, Old Dannisburgh, and Dacier. And it does count a list, doesn’t it? confound the handsome hag! She’s jealous of a dark rival. I’ve been down to Colonel Hartswood at the Tower, and he thinks Wroxeter deserves horsewhipping, and we may manage it. I know you’re dead against duelling; and so am I, on my honour. But you see there are cases where a lady must be protected; and anything new, left to circulate against a lady who has been talked of twice—Oh, by Jove! it must be stopped. If she has a male friend on earth, it must be stopped on the spot.’
Redworth eyed Sir Lukin curiously through his wrath.
‘We’ll drive up to your Club,’ he said.
‘Hartswood dines with me this evening, to confer,’ rejoined Sir Lukin. ‘Will you meet him?’
‘I can’t,’ said Redworth, ‘I have to see a lady, whose affairs I have been attending to in the City; and I ‘m engaged for the evening. You perceive, my good fellow,’ he resumed, as they rolled along, ‘this is............