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The man shook his head. “Passed away late yesterday, miss. And I’m that sorry to tell you. I reckon Mrs. Samuels meant to do it face to face.”
“But how?” Diana was dazed by this new disaster.
“Carried off by an apoplexy, they say. A rare temper, Mr. Gresham had…er, that is, I’ve heard folk say so.”
He had died of rage at her flight, thought Diana. Not only had she ruined herself, she had killed her father. With a small moan, she sank to the earth in a heap.
The furor that followed did not reach her. Diana was bundled into a gig like a parcel and escorted home by a chambermaid and an ostler. Delivered to Mrs. Samuels and somewhat revived with hot tea, Diana merely stared.
Finally Mrs. Samuels said, “I told them you had gone to visit friends.”
Diana choked, then replied, “But you knew… I left the note.”
“I burned it.”
“Why?”
“It was none of their affair, prying busybodies.”
The girl gazed at the spare, austere figure of the only mother she had ever known. Her own mother had died when Diana was two, but she had never felt that Mrs. Samuels cared for her. She did not even know her first name. “You lied to protect me?”
The housekeeper’s face did not soften, and she continued to stare straight ahead. “’Twas none of their affair,” she repeated. “I don’t hold with gossip.”
“So no one knows where I went?”
Mrs. Samuels shook her head. “No one asked, save the doctor. The neighbors haven’t taken the trouble to call.”
And why should they? Diana’s father had had nothing but harsh words for them during his life. Part of the burden lifted from her soul. She still felt ashamed, but at least her shame was private.
“Are you home to stay?” asked Mrs. Samuels, her expression stony.
“I…yes.”
“And will you be wanting me to remain?”
Diana stared at her, mystified. The woman had saved her, yet she seemed as devoid of warmth and emotion as ever. If she felt nothing, why had she bothered? What was she thinking? “Of course.”
Mrs. Samuels nodded and turned away. “Mr. Gresham is in the front parlor. The funeral is at eleven tomorrow.” She left the room with Diana’s valise.
Diana hesitated, biting her lower lip. She walked slowly to the closed door of the front parlor, stepped back, then forward. She could not imagine her father dead; his presence had always pervaded this house. Her whole life had been turned upside down in a matter of days, and she was far from assimilating the change. She could not even imagine what it would be like now. Slowly her hand reached out and grasped the doorknob. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
Two
On the day after her twenty-fifth birthday, Diana Gresham followed a second coffin to the churchyard. Mrs. Samuels had been ill all that winter, and late in February she died, leaving Diana wholly alone. Diana had nursed the old housekeeper faithfully, and she tried to feel some sadness as she stood beside her grave and listened to the rector intone the ritual words, but she could not muster much emotion. She and Mrs. Samuels had never been true companions. The closeness that Diana had imagined might come from their shared adversity had never emerged. Indeed, the older woman had merely become more dour and reclusive as the years passed, and Diana had felt increasingly isolated.
When the rector and the few mourners were ready to depart after the brief service, Diana resisted their urgings to come away and wrapped her black cloak more closely around her shoulders as the sexton and his helpers began to fill in the grave. It was a dreary morning, with low gray clouds and a damp bitter chill. Warm weather earlier in the week had turned the winter earth to mud, but there was as yet no hint of green to reconcile one to the dirt. The moors rolling away beyond the stone church were bleak. Yet Diana did not move even when the wind made her cloak billow out around her, bringing the cold to her skin. She did not want to return to her family house, whose cramped rooms were unchanged since her father’s death.
For some time, Diana had been feeling restless and dissatisfied. The shocked immobility that had followed her disastrous rebellion seven years before had modulated through remorse and self-loathing into withdrawal, contemplation, and finally, understanding. She had forgiven her younger self a long while ago. Her faults had been great, but they sprang from warmth of feeling and lack of family love rather than weakness. Her mistakes had been almost inevitable, given her naiveté and susceptibility.
But with greater wisdom had also come a loss of the eager openness that younger Diana had possessed. The habit of solitude had become strong; Diana seldom exchanged more than a few sentences with her scattered neighbors. I am like Mrs. Samuels myself now, she thought, gazing over the moors. I have no friends.
Her restlessness reached a kind of irritated crescendo, and she felt she must do something dramatic, or else she would scream. But she did not know what to do. Some change was inevitable. Even had she not been inexpressibly weary of living alone, she could not remain completely solitary. Yet she had no family to take her in. Mr. Merton, the banker, had called yesterday to congratulate her and solemnly explain that she was now in full possession of her fortune. She was a wealthy woman. But she felt resourceless. Money was useless, she realized, if one did not know what to do with it.
Shivering as the wind whipped her cloak again, Diana felt she must come to some conclusion before she returned to the house. If she did not, some part of her suggested, she would slip back into her routine of isolation and never break free. She would indeed become a Mrs. Samuels, reluctant to venture beyond her own front door.
I must leave here, she thought, looking from the small churchyard to the narrow village street with its facing rows of stone cottages. All was brown and gray and black; there was no color anywhere. She had never learned to love the harsh landscapes of Yorkshire, a failing, no doubt. But where could she go?
Diana felt a sudden sharp longing for laughter and the sounds of a room full of people. Wistfully she remembered her short time at school. Her father had kept her there less than a year, concluding that she was being corrupted by association with fifty empty-headed girls. Diana recalled their chatter and jokes as part of the happiest time in her life. If only she could return to that time! But her new financial independence would not give her this, however pleasant it might be.
