EVAN'S SISTER.
Slowly from this time Diana regained strength, and by degrees took
again her former place in the household. To Miss Collins' vision she
was "the same as ever." Basil felt she was not.
Yet Diana did every duty of her station with all the care and diligence
she had ever given to it. She neglected nothing. Basil's wardrobe was
kept in perfect order; his linen was exquisitely got up; his meals were
looked after, and served with all the nice attention that was possible.
Diana did not in the least lose her head, or sit brooding when there
was something to do. She did not sit brooding at any time, unless at
rare intervals. Yet her husband's heart was very heavy with the weight
which rested on hers, and truly with his own share as well. There was a
line in the corners of Diana's sweet mouth which told him, nobody else,
that she was turning to stone; and the light of her eye was, as it
were, turned inward upon itself. Without stopping to brood over things,
which she did not, her mind was constantly abiding in a different
sphere away from him, dwelling afar off, or apart in a region by
itself; he had her physical presence, but not her spiritual; and who
cares for a body without a soul? All this time there was no confidence
between them. Basil knew, indeed, the whole facts of the case, but
Diana did not know he knew. He wished she would speak, but believed now
she never would; and he could not ask her. Truly he had his own part to
bear; and withal his sorrow and yearning tenderness for her. Sometimes
his heart was nigh to break. But Diana's heart was broken.
Was it comfort, or was it not comfort, when near the end of spring a
little daughter was born to them? Diana in any circumstances was too
true a woman not to enter upon a mother's riches and responsibilities
with a full heart, not to enter thoroughly into a mother's joy and
dignity; it was a beautiful something that had come into her life, so
far as itself was concerned; and no young mother's hands ever touched
more tenderly the little pink bundle committed to them, nor ever any
mother's eyes hung more intently over her wonderful new possession. But
lift the burden from Diana's heart her baby did not. There was
something awful about it, too, for it was another bond that bound her
to a man she did not love. When Diana was strong enough, she sometimes
shed floods of tears over the little unconscious face, the only human
confident she dared trust with her secret. Before this time her tears
had been few; something in the baby took the hardness from her, or else
gave one of those inexplicable touches to the spring of tears which we
can neither resist nor account for. But the baby's father was as fond
of her as her mother, and had a right to be, Diana knew; and that tried
her. She grudged Basil the right. On the whole, I think, however, the
baby did Diana good As for Basil, it did him good. He thanked God, and
took courage.
The summer had begun when Diana was able to come down-stairs again. One
afternoon she was there, in her little parlour, come down for a change.
The windows were open, and she sat thinking of many things. Her
easy-chair had been moved down to this room; and Diana, in white, as
Basil liked to see her, was lying back in it, close beside the window.
June was on the hills and in the air, and in the garden; for a bunch of
red roses stood in a glass on the table, and one was fastened at
Diana's belt and another stuck in her beautiful hair. Not by her own
hands, truly; Basil had brought in the roses a little while ago and
held them to her nose, and then put one in her hair and one in her
belt. Diana suffered it, all careless and unknowing of the exquisite
effect, which her husband smiled at, and then went off; for his work
called him. She had heard his horse's hoof-beats, going away at a
gallop; and the sound carried her thoughts back, away, as a little
thing will, to a time when Mr. Masters used to come to her old home to
visit her mother and her, and then ride off so. Yes, and in those clays
another came too; and June days were sweet then as now; and roses
bloomed; and the robins were whistling then also, she remembered; did
_their_ fates and life courses never change? was it all June to them,
every year? How the robins whistled their answer!--"all June to them,
every year!" And the smell of roses did not change, nor the colour of
the light; and the fresh green of the young foliage was deep and bright
and glittering to-day as ever it was. Just the same! and a human life
could have all sweet scents and bright tints and glad sounds fall out
of it, and not to come back! There is nothing but duty left, thought
Diana; and duty with all the sap gone out of it. Duty was left a dry
tree; and more, a tree so full of thorns that she could not touch it
without being stung and pierced. Yet even so; to this stake of duty she
was bound.
Diana sat cheerlessly gazing out into the June sunlight, which laughed
at her with no power to gain a smile in return; when a step came along
the narrow entry, and the doorway was filled with Mrs. Starling's
presence. Mother and daughter looked at each other in a peculiar way
they had now; Diana's face cold, Mrs. Starling's face hard.
"Well!" said the latter,--"how are you getting along?"
"You see, I am down-stairs."
"I see you're doing nothing."
"Mr. Masters wont let me."
"Humph! When _I_ had a baby four weeks old, I had my own way. And so
would you, if you wanted to have it."
"My husband will not let me have it."
"That's fool's nonsense, Diana. If you are the girl I take you for, you
can do whatever you like with your husband. No man that ever lived
would make _me_ sit with my hands before me. Who's got the baby?"
"Jemima."
"How's Jemima to do her work and your work too? She can't do it."
"No, but Mr. Masters is going to get another person to help take care
of baby."
"A nurse!" cried Mrs. Starling aghast.
"No, not exactly; but somebody to help me."
"Are you turned weak and sickly, Diana?"
"No, mother."
"Then you don't want another girl, any more than a frog wants an
umbrella. Put your baby in the crib and teach her to lie there, when
you are busy. That's the way you were brought up."
"You must talk to Mr. Masters, mother."
"I don't want to talk to Mr. Masters--I've got something else to do.
But you can talk to him, Diana, and he'll do what you say."
"It's the other way, mother. I must do what he says." Diana's tone was
peculiar.
"Then you're turned soft."
"I think I am turned hard."
"Your husband is easy to manage--for you."
"Is he?" said Diana. "I am glad it isn't true. I despise men that are
easy to manage. I am glad I can respect him, at any rate."
Mrs. Starling looked at her daughter with an odd expression. It was
curious and uncertain; but she asked no question. She seemed to change
the subject; though perhaps the connection was close.
"Did you hear the family are coming to Elmfield again this summer?"
Diana's lips formed the word "no;" the breath of it hardly got out.
"Yes, they're coming, sure enough. Phemie will be here next week; and
her sister, what's her name?--Mrs. Reverdy--is here now."
Silence.
"I suppose they'll fill the house with company, as they did last time,
and cut up their shines as usual. Well! they don't come in my way. But
you'll have to see 'em, I guess."
"Why?"
"You know they make a great to do about your husband in that family.
And Genevieve Reverdy seems uncommonly fond of you. She asked me no end
of questions about you on Sabbath."
There flushed a hot colour into Diana's cheeks, which faded away and
left them very pale.
"She hasn't grown old a bit," Mrs. Starling went on, talking rather
uneasily; "nor she hain't grown wise, neither. She can't ask you how
you do without a giggle. And she had dressed herself to come to church
as if the church was a fair and she was something for sale. Flowers,
and feathers, and laces, and ribbons, a little there and a little here;
bows on her gloves, and bows on her shoes, and bows on her gown. I
believed she would have tucked some into the corners of her mouth, if
they would have stayed."
Diana made no reply. She was looking out into the sunlit hillside in
view from her window, and had grown visibly whiter since her mother
came in. Mrs. Starling reviewed her for that instant with a keen,
anxious, searching gaze, which changed before Diana turned her head.
"I can't make out, for my part, what such folks are in the world for,"
she went on. "They don't do no good, to themselves nor to nobody else.
And fools mostly contrive to do harm. Well--she's coming to see
you;--she'll be along one of these days."
"To see me!" Diana echoed.
"So she says. Maybe it's all flummery. I daresay it is; but she talked
a lot of it. You'd ha' thought there warn't any one else in the world
she cared about seeing."
Mrs. Starling went up-stairs at this point to see the baby, and Diana
sat looking out of the window with her thoughts in a wild confusion of
pain. Pain and fright, I might say. And yet her senses took the most
delicate notice of all there was in the world outside to attract them.
Could it be June, once so fair and laughing, that smote her now with
such blows of memory's hammer? or was it Memory using June? She saw the
bright glisten of the leaves upon the hillside, the rich growth of the
grass, the fair beams of the summer sun; she noticed minutely the stage
of development which the chestnut blossoms had reached; one or two
dandelion heads; a robin redbreast that was making himself exceedingly
at home on the little spread of greensward behind the house. I don't
know if Diana's senses were trying to cheat her heart; but from one
item to another her eye went and her mind followed, in a maze of pain
that was not cheated at all, till she heard her mother's steps forsake
the house. Then Diana's head sank. And then, even at the moment, as if
the robin's whistle had brought them, the words came to her--"Call upon
me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
me." An absolute promise of the Lord to his people. Could it be true,
when trouble was beyond deliverance? And then came Basil's faith to her
help; she knew how he believed every word, no matter how difficult or
impossible; and Diana fell on her knees and hid her face, and fled to
the one only last refuge of earth's despairing children. How even God
could deliver her, Diana did not see, for the ground seemed giving away
beneath her feet; but it is the man who cannot swim who clutches the
rope for life and death; and it is when we are hopeless of our own
strength that we throw ourselves utterly upon the one hand that is
strong. Diana was conscious of little else but of doing that; to form a
connected prayer was beyond her; she rather held up the promise, as it
were with both hands, and pleaded it mutely and with the intensity of
one hovering between life and death. The house was still, she feared no
disturbance; and she remained motionless, without change of posture
either of mind or body, for some length of time. Gradually the "I will
deliver thee"--"I will deliver thee"--began to emphasize itself to her
consciousness, like a whisper in the storm, and Diana burst into a
terrible flood of tears. That touch of divine sympathy broke her heart.
She sobbed for minutes, only keeping her sobs too noiseless to reach
and alarm Miss Collins' ears; till her agony was softened and changed
at last into something more like a child's exhausted and humble tears,
while her breast rose and fell so, pitifully. With that came also a
vague floating thought or two. "My duty--I'll do my duty--I'll do my
duty."
It was over, and she had risen and was resting in her chair, feeling
weaker and yet much stronger than before; waiting till she could dare
show her face to Miss Collins; when a little low tap was heard at the
front door. Company? But Diana had noticed no step and heard no wheels.
However, there was no escape for her if it were company. She waited,
and the tap was repeated. I don't know what about it this second time
sent a thrill all down Diana's nerves. The doors were open, and seeing
that Miss Collins did not stir, Diana uttered a soft "Come!" She was
hardly surprised at what followed; she seemed to know by instinct what
it would be.
"Where shall I come?" asked a voice, and a pair of brisk high-heeled
shoes tripped into the house, and a little trilling laugh, equally
light and meaningless, followed the words. "Where shall I come? It's an
enchanted castle--I see nobody."
But the next instant she could not say that, for Diana showed herself
at the door of her room, and Mrs. Reverdy hastened forward. Diana was
calm now, with a possession of herself which she marvelled at even
then. Bringing her visitor into the little parlour, she placed herself
again in her chair, with her face turned from the light.
"And here I find you! O you beautiful creature!" Mrs. Reverdy burst
out. "I declare, I don't wonder at--anything!" and she laughed. The
laugh grated terribly on Diana. "I wonder if you know what a beauty you
are?" she went on;--"I declare!--I didn't know you were half so
handsome. Have you changed, since three years ago?"
"I think I must," Diana said quietly.
"But where have you been? Living here in Pleasant Valley?" was the next
not very polite question.
"People do live in Pleasant Valley. Did you think not?" Diana answered.
"O yes. No. Not what we call life, you know. And you were always
handsome; but three years ago you were just Diana Starling, and
now--you might be anybody!"
"I am Mr. Masters' wife," said Diana, setting her teeth as it were upon
the words.
"Yes, I heard. How happened it? Do you know, I am afraid you have done
a great deal of mischief? O, you handsome women!--you have a great deal
to account for. Did you never think you had another admirer?--in those
days long ago, you know?"
"What if I had?" Diana said almost fiercely.
"O, of course," said Mrs. Reverdy with her laugh again,--"of course it
is nothing to you now; girls are hard-hearted towards their old lovers,
I know that. But weren't you a little tender towards him once? He
hasn't forgotten his part, I can tell you. You mustn't be _too_
hard-hearted, Diana."
If the woman could have spoken without laughing! That little
meaningless trill at the end of everything made Diana nearly wild. She
could find no answer to the last speech, and so remained silent.
"Now I have seen you again, I declare I don't wonder at anything. I was
inclined to quarrel with him, you know, thinking it was just a boyish
foolish fancy that he ought to get over; I was a little out of patience
with him; but now I see you, I take it all back. I declare, you're a
woman the men might rave about. You mustn't mind if they do."
"There is another question, whether my husband will mind." She said the
words with a hard, relentless force upon herself.
"Is he jealous?" laughing.
"He has no reason."
"Reason! O, people are jealous without reason; they don't wait for
that. Better without than with. How is Mr. Masters? is he one of that
kind? And how came he to marry you?"
"You ought not to wonder at it, with the opinion you have expressed of
me."
"O no, I don't wonder at all! But somebody else wanted to marry you
too; and somebody else thought he had the best right. I am afraid you
flirted with him. Or was it with Mr. Masters you flirted? I didn't
think you were a girl to flirt; but I see! You would keep just quietly
still, and they would flutter round you, like moths round a candle, and
it would be their own fault if they both got burned. Has Mr. Masters
got burned? My poor moth has singed his wings badly, I can tell you. I
am very sorry for him."
"So am I," Diana said gravely.
"Are you? Are you really? Are you sorry for him? May I tell him you are
sorry?"
"You have not said whom you are talking about," Diana answered, with a
coldness which she wondered at when she said it.
"O, but you know! There is only one person I could be talking about.
There is only one I could care enough about to be talking for him. You
cannot help but know. May I tell him you say you are sorry for him? It
would be a sort of comfort, and he wants it."
"You must ask Mr. Masters."
"What?"
"That."
"Whether I may tell Evan you are sorry for him?"
"Whether you may tell that to anybody."
"I don't want to tell it to but one," said Mrs. Reverdy, laughing.
"What has Mr. Masters to do with it?"
"He is my husband." And calmly as Diana said it, she felt as if she
would like to shriek out the words to the birds on the hillside--to the
angels, if there were angels in the air. Yet she said it calmly.
"But do you ask your husband about everything you do or say?"
"If I think he would not like it."
"But that is giving him a great deal of power,--too much. Husband's are
fallible, as well as wives," said Mrs. Reverdy, laughing.
"Mr. Masters is not fallible. At least, I never saw him fail in
anything. If he ever made a mistake, it was when he married me."
"And you?" said Mrs. Reverdy. "Didn't you make a mistake too?"
"In marrying somebody so much too good for me--yes," Diana answered.
The little woman was a good deal baffled.
"Then have you really no kind word for Evan? must I tell him so?"
Diana felt as if her brain would have reeled in another minute. Before
she could answer, came the sound of a little wailing cry from the room
up-stairs, and she started up. That movement was sudden, but the next
were collected and slow. "You will excuse me," she said,--"I hear
baby,"--and she passed from the room like a princess. If her manner had
been less discouraging, I think Mrs. Reverdy would have still pursued
her point, and asked leave to follow her and see the baby; but Diana's
slow, languid dignity and gracious composure imposed upon the little
woman, and she gave up the game; at least for the present. When Miss
Collins, set free, hurried down, Mrs. Reverdy was gone.