A SNOWSTORM.
As the weeks of September rolled away, they brought by the necessary
force of associations a sharp waking up to Diana's torpor. These, last
year, had been the weeks of her happiness; happiness had come to her
dressed in these robes of autumn light and colour; and now every breath
of the soft atmosphere, every gleam from the changing foliage, the
light's peculiar tone, and the soft indolence of the hazy days, stole
into the recesses of Diana's heart, and smote on the nerves that
answered every touch with vibrations of pain. The AEolian harp that had
sounded such soft harmonies a year ago, when the notes rose and fell in
breathings of joy, clanged now with sharp and keen discords that Diana
could scarcely bear. The time of blackberries passed without her
joining the yearly party which went as usual; she escaped that; but
there was no escaping September. And when in due course the time for
the equinoctial storms came, and the storms did not fail, though coming
this year somewhat later than the last, Diana felt like a person
wakened up to life to die the second time. Her mood all changed. From a
dull, miserable apathy, which yet had somewhat of the numbness of death
in it, she woke up to the intense life of pain, and to a corresponding,
but in her most unwonted, irritability of feeling. All of a sudden, as
it were, she grew sensitive to whatever in her life and surroundings
was untoward or trying. She read through Will Flandin's devotion; she
saw what her mother was "driving at," as she would have expressed it.
And the whole reality of her relations to Evan and his relations to her
stood in colours as distinct as those of the red and green maple
leaves, and unsoftened by the least haze of self-delusion. In the dash
of the rain and the roar of the wind, in the familiar swirl of the elm
branches, she read as it were her sentence of death. Before this she
had not been dead, only stunned; now she was wakened up to die. Nature
herself, which had been so kind a year ago, brought her now the
irrevocable message. A whole year had gone by, a year of silence; it
was merely impossible that Evan could be true to her. If he had been
true, he would have overleaped all barriers, rather than let this
silence last; but indeed he had no barriers to overleap; he had only to
write; and he had plenty of time for it. _She_ might have overleaped
barriers, earlier in the year, if she could have known the case was so
desperate; and yet, Diana reflected, she could not and would not, even
so. It was well she had not tried. For if Evan needed to be held, she
would not put out a finger to hold him.
Of this change in Diana's mood it is safe to say that nothing was
visible. Feeling as if every nerve and sense were become an avenue of
living pain, dying mentally a slow death, she showed nothing of it to
others. Mind and body were so sound and strong, and the poise of her
nature was matched with such a sweet dignity, that she was able to go
through her usual round of duties in quite her usual way; "die and make
no sign." Nothing was neglected in any wise, nothing was slurred or
hurried over; thoroughly, diligently, punctually, she did the work from
which all heart was gone out, and even Mrs. Starling, keen enough to
see anything if only she had a clue to it, watched and saw nothing. For
Diana's cheek had been pale for a good while now, and she had never
been a talkative person, lately less than ever; so the fact that in
these days she never talked at all did not strike her mother. But such
power of self-containing is a dangerous gift for a woman.
No doubt the extreme bustle and variety of the autumn and early winter
work helped Mrs. Starling to shut her eyes to what she did not want to
see; helped Diana too. Fall ploughing and sowing were to be attended
to; laying down the winter's butter, storing the vegetables, disposing
of the grain, fatting cattle, wood cutting and hauling, and repairing
of fences, which Mrs. Starling always had done punctually in the fall
as soon as the ploughs were put up. For nothing under Mrs. Starling's
care was ever left at loose ends; there was not a better farmer in
Pleasant Valley than she. Then the winter closed in, early in those
rather high latitudes; and pork-killing time came, when for some time
nothing was even thought of in the house but pork in its various
forms,--lard, sausage, bacon, and hams, with extras of souse and
headcheese. Snow had fallen already; and winter was setting in betimes,
the knowing ones said.
So came one Sunday a little before Christmas. It brought a lull in the
midst of the pork business. Hands were washed finally for the whole
day, and the kitchen "redd up." The weariness of Diana's nerves
welcomed the respite; for business, which oftimes is a help to bearing
pain, in some moods aggravates it at every touch; and Diana was glad to
think that she might go into her own room and lock the door and be
alone with her misery. The day was cloudy and threatening, and Mrs.
Starling had avowed her purpose not to go to church. She was "tuckered
out," she said. "And I am sure the Sabbath was given us for rest."
Diana made no answer; she was washing up the breakfast things.
"I guess we ain't early, neither," Mrs. Starling went on. "Well--one
day in seven, folks must sleep; and I didn't get that headcheese out of
my hands till 'most eleven o'clock. I guess it's first-rate, Diana;
we'll try a bit this noon. Who's that stoppin'?--Will Flandin, if I see
straight; that's thoughtful of him; now he'll take you to church, Di."
Will he? thought Diana. Flandin came in. Dressed in his Sunday best he
always seemed to Diana specially lumbering and awkward; and to-day his
hair was massed into smoothness by means of I know not what bountiful
lubrication, which looked very greasy and smelt very strong of cloves.
His necktie was blue with yellow spots; about the right thing, Will
thought; it was strange what a disgust it gave Diana. What's in a
necktie?
"Goin' to snow, Will?" asked Mrs. Starling.
"Wall--guess likely. Not jes' yet, though."
"Your mother got through with her pork?"
"Wall--I guess not. Seems to me, ef she was through, there wouldn't be
so many pickle tubs round."
"Good weight?"
"Wall--fair."
"Our'n's better than that. Tell you what, Will, your pigs don't get the
sunshine enough."
"Don't reckon they know the difference," said Will, smiling and
glancing over towards Diana; but Diana was gone. "Were you calculatin'
to go to meetin' to-day, Mis' Starling?"
"Guess not to-day, Will. I'm gettin' too old to work seven days in a
week--in pork-killin' time, anyhow. I'm calculatin' to stay home.
Diana's always for goin', though; she's gone to get ready, I guess. She
ain't tired."
Silence. Diana's room was too far off for them to hear her moving
about, and Mrs. Starling sat down and stretched out her feet towards
the fire. Both parties meditating.
"You and she hain't come to any understanding yet?" the lady began.
Will shifted his position uneasily and spoke not.
"I wouldn't wait _too_ long, if I was you. She might take a notion to
somebody else, you know, and then you and me'd be nowhere."
"Has she, Mis' Starling?" Will asked, terrified.
"She hain't told _me_ nothing of it, if she has; and I hain't seen her
look sweet on anybody; but she might, you know, Will, if anybody came
along that she fancied. I always like to get the halter over my horse's
head, and then I know I've got him."
The image suggested nothing but difficulty to Will's imagination. A
halter over Diana's stately neck!
"I allays catch a horse by cornerin' him," he said sheepishly, and
again moving restlessly in his chair.
"That won't answer in this chase," said Mrs. Starling. "Diana'll walk
up to you of her own accord, if she comes at all; but you must hold out
your hand, Will."
"Ain't I a-doin' that all the while, Mis' Starling?" said Will, whom
every one of his friend's utterances seemed to put farther and farther
away from his goal.
"I reckon she'll come, all right," said Mrs. Starling reassuringly;
"but, you know, girls ain't obliged to see anybody's hand till they
have to. You all like 'em better for bein' skittish. I don't. She ain't
skittish with me, neither; and she won't be with you, when you've
caught her once. Take your time, only I wouldn't be _too_ long about
it, as I said."
Poor Will! The sweat stood upon his brow with the prospect of what was
before him, perhaps that very day; for what time could be better for
"holding out his hand" to Diana than a solitary sleigh ride? Then, if
he held out his hand and she wouldn't see it!
Meanwhile.--Diana had, as stated, left the kitchen, and mounted the
stairs with a peculiarly quick, light tread which meant business; for
the fact was that she did discern the holding out of Will's hand, and
was taking a sudden sheer. Nothing but the sheer was quite distinct to
her mind as she set her foot upon the stair; but before she reached the
top landing-place, she knew what she would do. Her mother was not going
to church; Will Flandin was; and the plan, she saw, was fixed, that he
should drive herself. Her mother would oblige her to go; or else, if
she made a determined stand, Will on the other hand would not go; and
she would have to endure him, platitudes, blue necktie, cloves, and
all, for the remainder of the morning. Only one escape was left her.
With the swiftness and accuracy of movement which is possible in a
moment of excitement to senses and faculties habitually deft and true,
Diana changed her dress, put on the grey, thick, coarse wrappings which
were very necessary for any one going sleigh-riding in Pleasant Valley,
took her hood in her hand, and slipped down the stairs as noiselessly
as she had gone up. It was not needful that she should go through the
kitchen, where her mother and her visitor were; there was a side door,
happily; and without being seen or heard, Diana reached the barn.
The rest was easy. Prince was fast by his halter, instead of wandering
at will over the sunny meadow; and without any delay or difficulty,
Diana got his harness on and hitched him to the small cutter which was
wont to convey herself and her mother to church and wherever else they
wanted to go in winter time. Only Diana carefully took the precaution
to remove the sleigh bells from the rest of Prince's harness; then she
led him out of the barn where she had harnessed him, closed the barn
doors securely, remembering how they had been left on another occasion,
mounted, and drove slowly away. It had been a dreamy piece of work to
her; for it had so fallen out that she had never once harnessed Prince
again since that June day, when she, indeed, did not harness him, but
had been about it, when somebody else had taken the work out of her
hand. It was very bitter to Diana to handle the bridle and the traces
that _he_ had handled that day; she did it with fingers that seemed to
sting with pain at every touch; her brain got into a whirl; and when
she finally drove off, it was rather instinctively that she went slowly
and made no sound, for Will and his hopes and his wooing and his
presence had faded out of her imagination. She went slowly, until she,
also instinctively, knew that she was safe, and then still she went
slowly. Prince chose his own gait. Diana, with the reins slack in her
hand, sat still and thought. There was no need for hurry; it was not
near church time, not yet even church-going time; Will would be quiet
for a while yet, before it would be necessary to make any hue-and-cry
after the runaway; and she and Prince would be far beyond ken by that
time. And meanwhile there was something soothing in the mere being
alone under the wide grey sky. Nobody to watch her, nothing to exert
herself about; for a few moments in her life, Diana could be still and
drift.
Whither? She was beginning to feel that the chafing of home, her
mother's driving and Will's courting, were becoming intolerable. Heart
and brain were strained and sore; if she could be still till she died,
Diana felt it to be the utmost limit of desirableness. She knew she was
not likely to die soon; brain and nerve might be strained, but they
were sound and whole; the full capacity for suffering, the unimpaired
energy for doing, were hers yet. And stillness was not likely to be
granted her. It was inexpressibly suitable to Diana's mood to sit quiet
in the sleigh and let Prince walk, and feel alone, and know that no one
could disturb her. A few small flakes of snow were beginning to flit
aimlessly about; their soft, wavering motion suggested nothing ruder
than that same purposeless drift towards which Diana's whole soul was
going out in yearning. If she had been in a German fairy tale, the
snow-flakes would have seemed to her spirits of peace. She welcomed
them. She put out her hand and caught two or three, and then brought
them close to look at them. The little fair crystals lay still on her
glove; it was too cold for them to melt. O to be like that!--thought
Diana,--cold and alone! But she was in no wise like that, but a living
human creature, warm at heart and quick in brain; in the midst of
humanity, obliged to fight out or watch through the life-battle, and
take blows and wounds as they came. Ah, she would not have minded the
blows or the wounds; she would have girded herself joyfully for the
struggle, were it twice as long or hard; but now,--there was nothing
left to fight for. The fight looked dreary. She longed to creep into a
corner, under some cover, and get rid of it all. No cover was in sight.
Diana knew, with the subtle instinct of power, that she was one of
those who must stand in the front ranks and take the responsibility of
her own and probably of others' destinies. She could not creep into a
corner and be still; there was work to do. And Diana never shirked
work. Vaguely, even now, as Prince walked along and she was revelling,
so to speak, in the loveliness and the peace of momentary immunity, she
began to look at the question, how and where her stand must be and her
work be done. Not as Will Flandin's wife, she thought! No, she could
never be that. But her mother would urge and press it; how much worry
of that sort could she stand, when she was longing for rest? Would her
mother's persistence conquer in the end, just because her own spirit
was gone for contending? No; never! Not Will Flandin, if she died for
it. Anything else.
The truth was, the girl's life-hope was so dead within her, that for
the time she looked upon all things in the universe through a veil of
unreality. What did it matter, one thing or the other? what did it
signify any longer which way she took through the wilderness of this
world? Diana's senses were benumbed; she no longer recognised the forms
of things, nor their possible hard edges, nor the perspectives of time.
Life seemed unending, long, it is true, to look forward to; but she saw
it, not in perspective, but as if in a nightmare it were all in mass
pressing upon her and taking away her breath. So what did points here
and there amount to? What did it matter? any more than this snow which
was beginning to come down so fast.
Fast and thick; the aimless scattering crystals, which had come
fluttering about as if uncertain about reaching earth at all, had given
place to a dense, swift, driving storm. Without much wind perceptible
yet, the snowfall came with a steady straight drift which spoke of an
impelling force somewhere, might it be only the weight of the cloud
reservoirs from which it came. It came in a way that could no longer be
ignored. The crystals struck Diana's face and hands with the force of
small missiles. But just now she had been going through a grey and
brown lonely landscape; it was covered up, and nothing to see but this
white downfall. Even the nearest outlines were hidden; she could barely
distinguish the fences on either hand of her road; nothing further;
trees and hills were all swallowed up, and the road itself was not
discernible at a very few paces' distance. Indeed, it was not too easy
to keep her eyes open to see anything, so beat the crystals, sharp and
fast, into her face. Diana smiled to herself, to think that she was
safe now from even distant pursuit; no fear that Flandin would by and
by come up with her, or even make his appearance at the church at all
that day; the storm was violent enough to keep any one from venturing
out of doors, or to make any one turn back to his house who had already
left it. Diana had no thought of turning back; the more impossible the
storm made other people's travelling, the better it was for hers.
Prince knew the way well enough, and could go to church like a
Christian; she left the way to him, and enjoyed the strange joy of
being alone, beyond vision or pursuit, set aside as it were from her
life and life surroundings for a time. What did she care how hard the
storm beat? To the rough treatment of life this was as the touch of a
soft feather. Diana welcomed it; loved the storm; bent her head to
shield her from the blast of it, and went on. The wind began to make
itself known as one of the forces abroad, but she did not mind that
either. Gusts came by turns, sweeping the snow in what seemed a solid
mass upon her shoulder and side face; and then, in a little time more,
there was no question of gusts, but a steady wild fury which knew no
intermission. The storm grew tremendous, and everybody in Pleasant
Valley was well aware that such storms in those regions did not go as
soon as they came. Diana herself began to feel glad that she must be
near her stopping-place. No landmarks whatever were visible, but she
thought she had been travelling long enough, even at Prince's slow
rate, to put most of the three miles behind her; and she grew a little
afraid lest in the white darkness she might miss the little church;
once past it, though never so little, and looking back would be in
vain. It was a question if she would not pass it even with her best
endeavour. In her preoccupation it had never once occurred to Diana to
speculate on what she would find at the church, if she reached it; and
now she had but one thought, not to miss reaching it. She had some
anxious minutes of watching, for her rate of travelling had been slower
than she knew, and there was a good piece of a mile still between her
and the place when she began to look for it. Now she eyed with greatest
care the road and the fences, when she could see the latter, and indeed
it is poetical to speak of her seeing the road, for the tracks were all
covered up. But at last Diana recognised a break in the fence at her
left; checked Prince, turned his head carefully in that direction,
found he seemed to think it all right, and presently saw just before
her the long low shed in which the country people were wont to tie
their horses for the time of divine service. Prince went straight to
his accustomed place.
Diana got out. There was no need to tie Prince to-day. The usual equine
sense of expediency would be quite sufficient to keep any horse under
cover. She left the sleigh, and groped her way--truly it was not easy
to keep on her feet, the wind blew so--till she saw the little white
church just before her. There was not a foot-track on the snow which
covered the steps leading to the door. But the wind and the snow would
cover up or blow away any such tracks in very short time, she
reflected;--yet,--what if the door were locked and nobody there! One
moment her heart stood still. No; things were better than that; the
door yielded to her hand. Diana went in, welcomed by the warm
atmosphere, which contrasted so pleasantly with the wind and the
snow-flakes, shut the door, shook herself, and opened one of the inner
doors which led into the audience room of the building.