Diana

"What is the name of the place?" Diana asked.

"I declare I've forgotten. Fort – ,I can't think of any name but

Vancouver, and it isn't that. Gertrude, what is the name of that place? Do you know, I can't tell whether it is in Arizona or

Wisconsin!" And Mrs. Reverdy laughed at her geographical innocence.

Gertrude "didn't remember."

"He is not so far off as Vancouver, I think," said Mr. Masters.

"No, – O no, not so far as that; but he might just as well. When you get to a certain distance, it don't signify whether it is more or less; you can't get at people, and they can't get at you. You have seemed to be at that distance lately, Basil. What a dreadful name! How came you to be called such a name?"

"Be thankful it is no worse," said the minister gravely. "I might have been called Lactantius."

"Lactantius! Impossible. Was there ever a man named Lactantius?"

"Certainly."

"'Tain't any worse than Ichabod," remarked Mrs. Starling.

"Nothing can be worse than Ichabod," said Mr. Masters in the same dry way. "It means, 'The glory is departed.'"

"The Ichabods I knew, never had any glory to begin with," said Mrs.

Starling.

But the minister laughed at this, and so gaily that it was infectious. Mrs. Starling joined in, without well knowing why; the lady visitors seemed to be very much amused. Diana tried to laugh, with lips that felt rigid as steel. The minister's eye came to hers too, she knew, to see how the fun went with her. And then the ladies rose, took a very flattering leave, and departed, carrying Mr. Masters off with them.

"I am coming to look at those books of yours soon," he said, as he shook hands with Diana. "May I?"

Diana made her answer as civil as she could, with those stiff lips; how she bade good-bye to the others she never knew. As her mother attended them to the garden gate, she went up the stairs to her room, feeling now it was the first time that the pain could not be borne. Seeing these people had brought Evan so near, and hearing them talk had put him at such an impossible distance. Diana pressed both hands on her heart, and stood looking out of her window at the departing carriage. What could she do? Nothing that she could think of, and to do nothing was the intolerable part of it. Any, the most tedious and lingering action, yes, even the least hopeful, anything that would have been action, would have made the pain supportable; she could have drawn breath then, enough for life's purposes; now she was stifling. There was some mystery; there was something wrong; some mistake, or misapprehension, or malpractice; something, which if she could put her hand on, all would be right. And it was hidden from her; dark; it might be near or far, she could not touch it, for she could not find it. There was even no place for suspicion to take hold, unless the curiosity of the post office, or of some prying neighbour; she did not suspect Evan; and yet there was a great throb at her heart with the thought that in Evan's place she would never have let things rest. Nothing should have kept the silence so long unbroken; if the first letter got no answer, she would have written another. So would Diana have done now, without being in Evan's place, if only she had had his address. And that cruel woman to-day! did she know, or did she guess, anything? or was it another of the untoward circumstances attending the whole matter?

It came to her now, a thought of regret that she had not ventured the disagreeableness and told her mother long ago of her interest in Evan. Mrs. Starling could take measures that her daughter could not take. If she pleased, that is; and the doubt also recurred, whether she would please. It was by no means certain; and at any rate now, in her mortification and pain, Diana could not invite her mother into her counsels. She felt that as from her window she watched the receding waggon, and saw Mrs. Starling turn from the gate and walk in. Uncompromising, unsympathizing, even her gait and the set of her head and shoulders proclaimed her to be. Diana was alone with her trouble.

An hour afterwards she came down as usual, strained the milk, skimmed her cream, went through the whole little routine of the household evening; her hands were steady, her eye was true, her memory lost nothing. But she did not speak one word, unless, which was seldom, a word was spoken to her. So went on the next day, and the next. November's days were trailing along, December's would follow; there was no change from one to another; no variety. Less than ever before; for, with morbid sensitiveness, Diana shrank from visitors and visiting. Every contact gave her pain.

Meanwhile, where was Evan's second letter? On its way, and in the post office.

It was late in November; Diana was sitting at the door of the lean-to, where she had been sitting on that June day when our story began. She was alone this time, and her look and attitude were sadly at variance with that former time. The November day was not without a charm of its own which might even challenge comparison with the June glory; for it was Indian summer time, and the wonder of soft spiritual beauty which had settled down upon the landscape, brown and bare though that was, left no room to regret the full verdure and radiant sunlight of high summer. The indescribable loveliness of the haze and hush, the winning tender colouring that was through the air and wrapped round everything, softening, mellowing, harmonizing somehow even the most unsightly; hiding where it could not beautify, and beautifying where it could not hide, like Christian charity; gave a most exquisite lesson to the world, of how much more mighty is spirit than matter. Diana did not see it, as she had seen the June day; her arms were folded, lying one upon another in idle fashion; her face was grave and fixed, the eyes aimless and visionless, looking at nothing and seeing nothing; cheeks pale, and the mouth parted with pain and questioning, its delicious childlike curves just now all gone. So sitting, and so abstracted in her own thoughts, she never knew that anybody was near till the little gate opened, and then with a start she saw Mr. Masters coming up the walk. Diana rose and stood in the doorway; all traces of country-girl manners, if she had ever had any, had disappeared before the dignity of a great and engrossing trouble.

"Good evening!" she said quietly, as they shook hands. "Mother's gone out."

"Gone out, is she?" said Mr. Masters, but not with a tone of particular disappointment.

"Yes. I believe she has gone to the Corner – to the post office."

"The Corner is a good way off. And how do you do?"

Diana thought he looked at her a little meaningly. She answered in the customary form, that she was well.

"That says a great deal – or nothing at all," the minister remarked.

"What?" said Diana, not comprehending him.

"That form of words, – 'I am well'."

"It is very apt to mean nothing at all," said Diana, "for people say it without thinking."

"As you did just now?"

"Perhaps – but I am well."

"Altogether?" said the minister. "Soul and mind and body?"

The word read dry enough; his manner, his tone, half gentle, half bold, with a curious inoffensive kind of boldness, took from them their dryness and gave them a certain sweet acceptableness that most persons knew who knew Mr. Masters. Diana never dreamed that he was intrusive, even though she recognised the fact that he was about his work. Nevertheless she waived the question.

"Can anybody say that he is well so?" she asked.

"I hope he can. Do you know the old lady who is called Mother Bartlett?"

"O yes."

"Do you think she would hesitate about answering that question? or be mistaken in the answer?"

"But what do you mean by it exactly?" said Diana.

"Don't you know?"

"I suppose I do. I know what it means to be well in body. I have been well all my life."

"How would you characterize that happy condition?"

"Why," said Diana, unused to definitions of abstractions, but following Mr. Masters' lead as people always did, gentle or simple, – "I mean, or it means, sound, and comfortable, and fit for what one has to do."

"Excellent," said the minister. "I see you understand the subject.

Cannot those things be true of soul and mind, as well as of body?"

"What is the difference between soul and mind?" said Diana.

"A clear departure!" said the minister, laughing; then gravely, "Do you read philosophy?"

"I don't know" – said Diana. "I read, or I used to read, a good many sorts of books. I haven't read much lately."

The minister gave her another keen look while she was attending to something else, and when he spoke again it was with a change of tone.

"I had a promise once that I should see those books."

"Any time," said Diana eagerly; "any time!" For it would be an easy way of entertaining him, or of getting rid of him. Either would do.

"I think I proposed a plan of exchange, which might be to the advantage of us both."

"To mine, I am sure," said Diana. "I don't know whether there can be anything you would care for among the books up-stairs; but if there should be – Would you like to go up and look at them?"

"I should, – if it would not give you too much trouble."

It would be no trouble just to run up-stairs and show him where they were; and this Diana did, leaving him to overhaul the stock at his leisure. She came down and went on with her work.

Diana's heart was too sound and her head too clear to allow her to be more than to a certain degree distressed at not hearing from Evan. She did not doubt him more than she doubted herself; and not doubting him, things must come out all right by and by. She was restive under the present pain; at times wild with the desire to find and remove the something, whatever it was, which had come between Evan and her; for this girl's was no calm, easy-going nature, but one with depths of passionate reserve and terrible possibilities of suffering or enjoying. She had been calm all her life until now, because these powers and susceptibilities had been in an absolute poise; an equilibrium that nothing had shaken. Now the depths were stirred, and at times she was in a storm of impatient pain; but there came revulsions of hope and quiet lulls, when the sun almost shone again under the clearance made by faith and hope. One of these revulsions came now, after she had set the minister to work upon her books. Perhaps it was simple reaction; perhaps it was something caught from the quiet sunshiny manner and spirit of her visitor; but at her work in the kitchen Diana grew quite calm-hearted. She fancied she had discerned somewhat of more than usual earnestness in the minister's observation of her, and she began to question whether her looks or behaviour had furnished occasion. Perhaps she had not been ready enough to talk; poor Diana knew it was often the case now; she resolved she would try to mend that when he came down. And there was, besides, a certain lurking impatience of the bearing of his words; they had probed a little too deep, and after the manner of some morbid conditions, the probing irritated her. So by and by, when Mr. Masters came down with a brown volume in his hand, and offered to borrow it if she would let him lend her another of different colour, Diana met him and answered quite like herself, and went on —

"Mr. Masters, how can people be always well in body, mind, and spirit, as you say? I am sure people's bodies get sick without any fault of their own; and there are accidents; and just so there are troubles. People can't help troubles, and they can't be 'well' in mind, I suppose, when they are in pain?"

"Are you sure of that?" the minister answered quietly, while he turned to the window to look at something in the volume he had brought down with him.

"Why, yes; and so are you, Mr. Masters; are you not?"

"You need to know a great deal to be sure of anything," he answered in the same tone.

"But you are certain of this, Mr. Masters?"

"I shouldn't like to expose myself to your criticism. Let us look at facts. It seems to me that David was 'well' when he could say, 'Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.' Also the man described in another place – 'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.'"

There came a slight quiver across Diana's face, but her words were moved by another feeling.

"Those were people of the old times; I don't know anything about them.

I mean people of to-day."

"I think Paul was 'well' when he could say, 'I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.'"

"O, but that is nonsense, Mr. Masters!"

"It was Paul's experience."

"Yes, but it cannot be the experience of other people. Paul was inspired."

"To write what was true, – not what was false," said the minister, looking at her. "You don't think peace and content come by inspiration, do you?"

"I did not think about it," said Diana. "But I am sure it is impossible to be as he said."

"I never heard Paul's truth questioned before," said the minister, with a dry sort of comicality.

"No, but, Mr. Masters," said Diana, half by way of apology, "I spoke from my own experience."

"And he spoke from his."

"But, sir, – Mr. Masters, – seriously, do you think it is possible to be contented when one is in trouble?"

"Miss Diana, One greater than David or Paul said this, 'If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him; and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' Where there is that indwelling, believe me, there is no trouble that can overthrow content."

"Content and pain together?" said Diana.

"Sometimes pain and very great joy."

"You are speaking of what I do not understand in the least," said Diana. And her face looked half incredulous, half sad.

"I wish you did know it," he said. No more; only those few words had a simplicity, a truth, an accent of sympathy and affection, that reached the very depth of the heart he was speaking to; as the same things from his lips had often reached other hearts. He promised to take care of the book in his hand, and presently went away, with one of the warm, frank, lingering grasps of the hand, that were also a characteristic of Basil Masters. Diana stood at the door watching him ride away. It cannot be said she was soothed by his words, and perhaps he did not mean she should be. She stood with a weary feeling of want in her heart; but she thought only of the want of Evan.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE USE OF LIVING

It was quite according to Diana's nature, that as the winter went on, though still without news of Evan, her tumult and agony of mind quieted down into a calm and steadfast waiting. Her spirit was too healthy for suspicion, too true for doubt; and put away doubt and suspicion, what was left but the assurance that there had been some accident or mistake; from the consequences of which she was suffering, no doubt, but which would all be made right, and come out clear so soon as there could be an opportunity for explanation. For that there was nothing to do but to wait a little; with the returning mild weather, Evan would be able to procure a furlough, he would be at her side, and then – nothing then but union and joy. She could wait; and even in the waiting, her healthy spirit as it were sloughed off care, and came back again to its usual placid, strong, bright condition.

So the winter went; a winter which was ever after a blank in Diana's remembrance; and the cold weather broke up into the frosts and thaws that sugar-makers love; and in such a March day it was, the word came to Mrs. Starling's house that old Squire Bowdoin was dead. The like weather never failed in after years to bring back to Diana that one day and its tidings and the strange shock they gave her.

"'Twas kind o' sudden," said the news-bringer, who was Joe Bartlett; "he was took all to once and jes' dropped – like a ripe chestnut."

"Why, like a ripe chestnut?" said Mrs. Starling sharply.

"Wall, I had to say suthin', and that come first. The Scripter doos speak of a shock o' corn in his season, don't it, Mis' Starling?"

"What's the likeness between a shock o' corn and a chestnut, Joe? I can't abide to hear folks talk nonsense. Who's at Elmfield?"

"Ain't nary one there that had ought to be there; nary one but the help."

"But they're comin'?" said Mrs. Starling, lifting up her head for the answer.

"Wall, I can't say. Evan, he's too fur; and I guess men in his place hain't their ch'ice. And his folks is flourishy kind o' bodies; I don't set no count on 'em, for my part."

"Well, everybody else'll be there, and shame 'em if they ain't," said

Mrs. Starling. "How's your mother, Joe?"

"Wall, I guess she's ripe," said Joe with a slow intonation, loving and reverent; "but she's goin' to hold on to this state o' things yet awhile. Good day t'ye!"

Diana went to the old man's funeral with her mother; in a sort of tremble of spirits, looking forward to what she might possibly see or hear. But no one was there; no one in whom she had any interest; none of Mr. Bowdoin's grandchildren could make it convenient to come to his funeral. The large gathering of friends and neighbours and distant relations were but an unmeaning crowd to Diana's perceptions.

What difference would this change at Elmfield make in her own prospects? Would Mrs. Reverdy and her set come to Elmfield as usual, and so draw Evan as a matter of course? They might not, perhaps. But what difference could it be to Diana? Evan would come, at all events, and under any circumstances; even if his coming let the secret out; he would come, and nothing would keep him from it; the necessity of seeing her would be above all other except military necessities. Diana thought she wished the old gentlemen had not died. But it could make no difference. As soon as he could, Evan would be there.

She returned to her quiet waiting. But now nature began to be noisy about her. It seemed that everything had a voice. Spring winds said, "He is coming;" the perfume of opening buds was sweet with his far-off presence; the very gales that chased the clouds, to her fancy chased the minutes as well; the waking up of the household and farm activities, said that now Diana's inner life would come back to its wonted course and arrangements.

The spring winds blew themselves out; spring buds opened into full leafage; spring activities gradually merged into the steady routine of summer; and still Diana saw nothing, and still she heard nothing of Evan.

She was patient now by force of will; doggedly trusting. She would not doubt. None of the family came to Elmfield; so there was no news by the way that could reach her. Mrs. Starling watched the success of her experiment, and was satisfied. Will began to come about the house more and more.

It was near the end of summer, more than a year since her first introduction to Evan, that Diana found herself again one day at Mother Bartlett's cottage. She always made visits there from time to time; to-day she had come for no special reason, but a restlessness which possessed her at home. The old lady was in her usual chimney corner, knitting, as a year ago; and Diana, having prepared the mid-day repast and cleared away after it, was sitting on the doorstep at the open door; whence her eye went out to the hillside pasture and followed the two cows which were slowly moving about there. It was as quiet a bit of nature as could be found anywhere; and Diana was very quiet looking at it. But Mrs. Bartlett's eye was upon her much more than upon her work; which, indeed, could go on quite well without such supervision. She broke silence at last, speaking with an imperceptible little sigh.

"And so, dear, the minister preached his sermon about the fashions last

Sabbath?"

"About fashion," said Diana. "He had promised it long ago."

"And what did he say, dear?"

"He said, 'The fashion of this world passeth away.'"

"But he said something more, I suppose? I could have said that."

"He said a great deal more," replied Diana. "It was a very curious sermon."

"As I hain't heard it, and you hev', perhaps you'll oblige me with some more of it."

"It was a very curious sermon," Diana repeated. "Not in the least like what you would have expected. There wasn't much about fashion in it; and yet, somehow it seemed to be all that."

"What was his text?"

"I can't tell; something about 'the grace of the fashion of it.' I don't remember how the words went."

"I know, I guess," said the old lady. "'Twas in James, warn't it?

Something like this – 'The sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat.'"

"Yes, yes, that was it."

"' – but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth.'"

"That was it," assented Diana.

"So he preached about the shortness of life?"

"No, not at all. He began with those words, and just a sentence or two – and it was beautiful, too, mother – explaining them; and then he said the Bible hadn't much in it directly speaking of our fashions; he would give us what there was, and let us make what we could of it; so he did."

"You can make a good deal of it if you try," said Mrs. Bartlett. "And then, dear?"

"Then he went off, you'd never think where – to the last chapter of Proverbs; and he described the woman described there; and he made her out so beautiful and good and clever and wise, that somehow, without saying a word about fashion, he made us feel how she would never have had any concern about it; how she was above it, and five times more beautiful without, than she would have been with, the foolish ways of people now-a-days. But he didn't say that; you only felt it. I don't much believe there are any such women, mother."

"I hope and believe you'll make just such a one, Diana."

"I?" said the girl, with a curious intonation; then subsiding again immediately, she sat as she had sat at her own door a year ago, with arms folded, gazing out upon the summery hill pasture where the cows were leisurely feeding. But now her eyes had a steady, hard look, not busy with the sunshiny turf or the deep blue sky against which the line of the hill cut so soft and clear. Then the vision had been all outward.

"And that was his sermon?" said the old lady with a dash of disappointment.

"No! O no," said Diana, rousing herself. "He went on then – how shall I tell you? Do you remember a verse in the Revelation about the Church coming down as a bride adorned for her husband?"

"Ay!" said the old lady with a gratified change of voice. "Well?"

"He went on to describe that adornment. I can't tell you how he did it; I can't repeat what he said; but it was inner adornment, you know; 'all glorious within,' I remember he said; and without a word more about what he started with, he made one feel that there is no real adornment but that kind, nor any other worth a thought. I heard Kate Boddington telling mother, as we came out of church, that she felt as cheap as dirt, with all her silk dress and new bonnet; and Mrs. Carpenter, who was close by, said she felt there wasn't a bit of her that would bear looking at."

"What did your mother say?"

"Nothing. She didn't understand it, she said."

"And, Di, how did you feel?"

"I don't think I felt anything, mother."

"How come that about?"

"I don't know. I believe it seems to me as if the fashion of this world never passed away; it's the same thing, year in and year out."

"What ails you, Diana?" her old friend asked after a pause.

"Nothing. I'm sort o' tired. I don't see how folks stand it, to live a long life."

"But life has not been very hard to you, honey."

"It needn't be hard for that," Diana answered, with a kind of choke in her voice. "Perhaps the hardest of all would be to go on an unvarying jog-trot, and to know it would always be so all one's life."

"What makes life all of a sudden so tiresome to you, Di?"

"Something I haven't got, I suppose," said the girl drearily. "I have enough to eat and drink."

"You ain't as bright as you used to be a year ago."

"I have grown older, and have got more experience."