UNSETTLED.
So things were settled, and Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle
them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest
which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly;
it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at herself, but it
was contrary to all Mrs. Starling's principles to admit that, and she
never admitted it. Her farm servant, Josh, described her as being
always now in an "aggravated" state; and Diana found her society very
uncomfortable. There was never a word spoken pleasantly, by any chance,
about anything; good was not commended, and ill was not deplored; but
both, good and ill, were taken up in the same sharp, acrid, cynical
tone, or treated with the like restless mockery. Mrs. Starling found no
fault with Diana, other than by this bitter manner of handling every
subject that came up; at the same time she made the little house where
they lived together a place of thunderous atmosphere, where it was
impossible to draw breath freely and peacefully. They were very much
shut up to one another, too. That Sunday storm in December had been
followed by successive falls of snow, so deep that the ways were
encumbered, and travelling more difficult than usual in Pleasant Valley
even in winter. There was very little getting about between the
neighbours' houses; and the people let their social qualities wait for
spring and summer to develope themselves. Diana and her mother scarcely
saw anybody. Nick Boddington at rare intervals looked in. Joe Bartlett
once or twice came with a message from his mother; once Diana had gone
down to see her. Even Mr. Masters made his appearance at the little
brown farm-house less frequently than might have been supposed; for, in
truth, Mrs. Starling's presence made his visits rather unsatisfactory;
and besides the two kitchen fires, there was none other in the house to
which Diana and he could withdraw and see each other alone. So he came
only now and then, and generally did not stay very long.
To Diana, all this while, the coming or the going, the solitude or the
company, even the good or ill humours of her mother, seemed to be of
little importance. She lived her own shut-up, deadened, secret life
through it all, and had no nerves of sensation near enough to the
surface to be affected much by what went on outside of her. What though
her mother was all the while in a rasped sort of state? it could not
rasp Diana; she seemed to wear a coat of mail. Neighbours? no
neighbours were anything to her one way or another; if she could be
said to like anything, it was to be quite alone and see and hear
nobody. Her marriage she looked at in the same dull way; with a
thought, so far as she gave it a thought, that in the minister's house
her life would be more quiet, and peace and good-will would replace the
eager disquiet around her which, without minding it, Diana yet
perceived. More quiet and better, she hoped her life would be; her life
and herself; she thought the minister was getting a bad bargain of it,
but since it was his pleasure, she thought it was a good thing for her;
every time she met the gentle kind eyes and felt the warm clasp of his
hand, Diana repeated the assurance to herself. The girl had sunk again
into mental torpor; she did not see nor hear nor feel; she lived along
a mechanical sort of life, having relapsed into her former stunned
condition. Not crushed--there was too much of Diana's nature for one
blow or perhaps many blows to effect that; not beaten down, like some
other characters; she went on her way upright, alert, and strong, doing
and expecting to do the work of life to its utmost measure; all the
same, walking as a ghost might walk through the scenes of his former
existence; with no longer any natural conditions to put her at one with
them, and only conscious of her dead heart. This state of things had
given way in the fall to a few months of incessant and very live pain;
with her betrothal to the minister Diana had sunk again into the
dulness of apathy. But with a constitution mental and physical like
hers, so full of sound life-blood, so true and strong, in the nature of
things this state of apathetic sleep could not last for ever. And the
time of final waking came.
The winter had dragged its length away. Spring had come, with its
renewal of all the farm and household activities. Diana stood up to her
work and did it, day by day, with faultless accuracy, with blameless
diligence. She was too useful a helper not to be missed unwillingly
from any household that had once known her; and Mrs. Starling's temper
did not improve. It had been arranged that Diana's marriage should take
place about the first of June. Spring work over, and summer going on
its orderly way, she could be easiest spared then, she thought; and
Mrs. Starling, seeing it must be, made no particular objection. Beyond
the time, nothing had been talked of yet concerning the occasion. So it
was a hitherto untouched question, when Mrs. Starling asked her
daughter one day,--"What sort of a wedding are you calculatin' to have?"
"What sort of a wedding? I don't know," said Diana. "What do you mean
by a wedding?"
"The thing is, what _you_ mean by it. Don't be a baby, Diana Starling!
Do you mean to ask your friends to see you married?"
"I don't want anybody, I am sure," said Diana. "And I am sure Mr.
Masters does not care."
"Are you going to be married in a black gown?"
"Black! No; but I do not care what kind of a gown it is, further than
that."
"I don't think you care much about the whole thing," said Mrs.
Starling, looking at her. "If I was you, I wouldn't be married just to
please somebody else, without it pleased myself too. That's what _I_
think."
Poor Diana thought of Mr. Masters' face as she had seen it the last
time; and it seemed to her good to give somebody else pleasure, even if
pleasure were gone and out of the question for her. This view of the
question, naturally, she did not make public.
"What _are_ you going to marry this man for?" said Mrs. Starling,
standing straight up (she had been bending over some work) and looking
hard at her daughter.
"I hope he'll make a good woman of me," Diana said soberly.
"If you had a little more spunk, you might make a good man of him; but
you aren't the woman to do it. He wants his pride taken down a bit."
"But what about the day, mother?" said Diana, who preferred not to
discuss this subject.
"Well, if you haven't thought of it, I have; and I'm going to ask all
the folks there are; and we've got to make a spread for 'em, Diana
Starling, so we may as well be about it."
"Already!" said Diana. "It's weeks yet."
"They'll run away, you'll find; and the cake'll be better for keepin'.
You may go about stonin' the fruit as soon as you're a mind to."
Diana said no more, but stoned her raisins and picked over her currants
and sliced her citron, with the same apathetic want of realization
which lately she had brought to everything. It might have been cake for
anybody else's wedding that she was getting ready, so little did her
fingers recognise the relation of the things with herself. The cake was
made and baked and iced and ornamented. And then Mrs. Starling's
activities went on to other items of preparation. Seeing Diana would be
married, she meant it should be done in a way the country-side would
not forget; neither should Mrs. Flandin make mental comparisons,
pityingly, of the wedding that was, with the wedding that would have
been with her son for the bridegroom. Baking and boiling and roasting
and jellying went on in quantity, for Mrs. Starling was a great cook,
and could do things in style when she chose. The house was put in
order; fresh curtains hung up, and the handsomest linen laid out, and
greens and flowers employed to cover and deck the severely plain walls
and furniture. One thing more Mrs. Starling wished for which she was
not likely to have, the presence of one of the Elmfield family on the
occasion. She would have liked some one of them to be there, in order
that sure news of the whole might go to Evan and beyond possibility of
doubt; for a lurking fear of his sudden appearing some time had long
hidden in Mrs. Starling's mind. I do not know what she feared in such a
case. Of the two, Evan was hardly more distasteful to her as a
son-in-law than the minister was; though it is true that her action in
the matter of burning the letters had made her hate the man she had
injured. This feeling was counterbalanced, I confess, by another
feeling of the delight it would be to see Mr. Masters nonplussed; but
on the whole, she preferred that Evan should keep at a distance.
All the work and confusion of these last few weeks claimed Diana's full
time and strength, as well as her mother's; she had scarcely a minute
to think; and that was one reason, no doubt, why she went through them
with such unchanged composure. They were all behind her at last.
Everything was in order and readiness, down to the smallest particular;
and it was with a dull sense of this that Diana went up to her room the
last night before her wedding day. It was all done, and the time was
all gone.
She went in slowly, went to the window, opened it and sat down before
it. June had come again; one day of June was passed, and to-morrow
would be the second. Through the bustle of May, Diana had hardly given
a look to the weather or a thought to the time of year; it greeted her
now at her window like a dear old friend that she had been forgetting.
The moon, about an hour high, gave a gentle illumination through the
dewy air, revealing plainly enough the level meadows, and the hills
which made their distant bordering. The scent of roses and honeysuckles
was abroad; just under Diana's window there was a honeysuckle vine in
full blossom, and the rich, peculiar fragrance came in heavily-laden
puffs of air; the softest of breezes brought them, stirring the little
leaves lazily, and just touched Diana's face, sweet and tender,
reminding, caressing. Reminding of what? For it began to stir vaguely
and uneasily in Diana's heart. Things not thought of before put in a
claim to be looked at. This her home and sanctuary for so many years,
it was to be hers no longer. This was the last night at her window, by
her honeysuckle vine. She would not have another evening the enjoyment
of her wonted favourite view over the fields and hills; she had done
with all that. Other scenes, another home, would claim her; and then
slowly rose the thought that her freedom was gone; this was the last
time she would belong to herself. Oddly enough, nothing of all this had
come under consideration before. Diana had been stunned; she had
believed for a long time that she was dead, mentally; she had been, as
it were, in a slumber, partly of hopelessness, partly of preoccupation;
now the time of waking had come; and the hidden life in her stirred and
rose and shivered with the consciousness that it _was_ alive and in its
full strength, and what it meant for it to be alive now. As I said,
Diana's nature was too sound and well-balanced and strong for anything
to crush it, or even any part of it; and now she knew that the nerves
of feeling she thought Evan had killed for ever, were all astir and
quivering, and would never be fooled into slumbering again. I cannot
tell how all this dawned and broke to her consciousness. She had sat
down at her window a calm, weary-hearted girl, placid, and with even a
dull sort of content upon her; so she had sat and dreamed awhile; and
then June and moonlight, and her honeysuckle, and the roses, and the
memory of her free childish days, and the image of her lost lover, and
the thought of where she was standing, by degrees--how gently they did
it, too--roused her and pricked her up to the consciousness of what she
going to do. What was she going to do? Marry a man who had no real
place in her heart. She had thought it did not matter; she had thought
she was dead; now all at once she knew that she was alive in every
fibre, and that it mattered fearfully. The idea of Mr. Masters stung
her, not as novel-writers say "almost to madness,"--for there was no
such irregularity in Diana's round, sound, healthy nature,--but to pain
that seemed unbearable. No confusion in her brain, and no dulness now;
on the contrary, an intense consciousness of all that her position
involved. She had made a mistake, like many another; unlike many, she
had found it out early. She was going to marry a man to whom she had no
love to give; and she knew now that the life she must thenceforth lead
would be daily torture. Almost the worse because she had for Mr.
Masters so deep a respect and so true an appreciation. And he loved
her; of that there was no question; the whole affection of the best man
she had ever known was bestowed upon her, and in his hopes he saw
doubtless a future when she would have learnt to return his love. "And
I never shall," thought Diana. "Never, as long as I live. I wonder if I
shall get to hate him because I am obliged to live with him? All the
heart I have is Evan's, and will be Evan's; it don't make any
difference that he was not worthy of me, as I suppose he wasn't; I have
given, and I cannot take back. And now I must live with this other
man!"--Diana shuddered already.
She shed no tears. Happy are they whose grief can flow; part of the
oppression, at least, flows off with tears, if not part of the pain.
Eyes wide open, staring out into the moonlight; a rigid face, from
which the colour gradually ebbed and ebbed away, more and more; so
Diana kept the watch of her bridal eve. As the moon got higher, and the
world lay clearer revealed under its light, shadows grew more defined,
and objects more recognisable, it seemed as if in due proportion the
life before Diana's mental vision opened and displayed itself, plainer
and clearer; as she saw one, she saw the other. If Diana had been a
woman of the world, her strength of character would have availed to do
what many a woman of the world has not the force for; she would have
drawn back at the last minute and declined to fulfil her engagement.
But in the sphere of Diana's experience, such a thing was unheard of.
All the proprieties, all the conditions of the social life that was
known to her, forbade even the thought; and the thought never came to
her. She felt just as much bound, that is, as irrecoverably, as she
would be twenty-four hours later. But she was like a caged wild animal.
The view of the sweet moonlit country became unbearable at last, and
she walked up and down her floor; she had a vague idea of tiring
herself so that she could sleep. She did get tired of walking, but no
sleep came; and at last she sat down again before her window to watch
another change that was coming over the landscape. The moon was down,
and a cool grey light, very unlike her soft glamour, was stealing into
the sky and upon the world. Yes, the day was coming; the clear light of
a matter-of-fact, work-a-day creation. It was coming, and she must meet
it, and march on in the procession of life, which would leave no one
out. If she could go alone! But she must walk by another's side now.
And to that other, the light of this grey dawn, if he saw it, brought
only thoughts of joy. Could she help his being disappointed? Would she
be able to help his finding out what a dreadful mistake he had made,
and she? "I _must_," thought Diana, and set her teeth mentally; "he
must not know how I feel; he does not deserve that. He deserves nothing
but good, of me or of anybody. I will give him all I can, and he shall
not know how I do it."
With a recoil in every fibre of her nature, Diana turned to take up her
life burden. She felt as if she had had none till now.