Diana Part 64

"Mr. Masters likes me to wear bright dresses."

"Then do it, child. It's considerable of a pleasure to have his eyes pleased. Do you know what a husband you've got, Diana?"

"Yes."

"He's 'most like one o' them flowers himself. He's so full o' the sweetness the Lord has put into him, and he's jest as unconscious that he's spreadin' it wherever he goes."

Diana was silent. She would have liked again to burst into tears; she controlled herself as before.

"That ain't the way with those Knowlton girls; nor it ain't the way they wear their fine colours, neither. Can't you get a little sense into their heads, Diana?"

"I? They think nothing of me, Mother Bartlett."

"Maybe not, two years ago, but they will now. You're the minister's wife, Diana. They allays sot a great deal by him."

Diana was chewing the cud of this, when Mrs. Bartlett asked again,

"Who's sick in the place?"

"Quite a number. There's Mrs. Wilson at the tavern; she's sinking at last; my husband sees her every day. Then old Josh Lightfoot--he's down with I don't know what; very sick. Mrs. Saddler has a child that has been hurt; he was pitched off a load of hay and fell upon a fork; his mother is distracted about him, and it is all Mr. Masters can do to quiet her. And Lizzie Satterthwaite is going slowly, you know, in consumption, and _she_ expects to see him every day. And that isn't all; for over in the village of Bromble there is sickness--I suppose there always is in that miserable place."

"And the minister goes there too, I'll be bound?"

"O yes. He goes everywhere, if people want him. It takes twenty miles of riding a day, he told me, just to visit all these people that he must see."

"Ay, ay," said the old woman contentedly; "enjoyment ain't the end of life, but to do the will of G.o.d; and he's doin' it. And enjoyment comes that way, too; ay, ay! 'an hundred-fold now, in this world, and in the world to come eternal life.' I hain't ever been able to do much, Diana; but it has been sweet--his service--all along the way; and now I'm goin' where it'll be nothin' but sweetness for ever."

A little tired, perhaps, with talking, for she had talked with a good deal of energy, the old lady dozed off into a nap; and Diana sat alone with the summer stillness, and thought over and over some of the words that had been said. It was the hush of the summer stillness, and also the full pulse of the summer life that she felt as she sat there; not soothing to inaction, but stirring up the loving doing. A warm breath of vital energy, an odorous witness-bearing of life fruitfulness, a hum and a murmur of harmonious forces in action, a depth of colour in the light and in the shadow, which told of the richness and fullness of the natural world. Nothing idle, nothing unfruitful, nothing out of harmony, nothing in vain. How about Diana Masters, and her work and her part in the great plan? Again the gentle summer air which stole in, laden with such scents and sweets, rich and bountiful out of the infinite treasury, spoke of love at the heart of creation. But there were cold winds, too, sometimes; icy storms; desolations of tempests; they had been here not long ago. True, but yet it was not those, but _this_ which carried on the life of the world; this was the "Yes," and those others the "No," of creation; and an affirmative is stronger than a negative any day, by universal acknowledgment. Moreover, that "No"

was in order to this "Yes;" gave way before it, yielded to it; and life reigned in spite of death. Vaguely Diana's mind felt and carried on the a.n.a.logy, and the reasoning from a.n.a.logy, and drew a chill, far-off hope from it. For it was the time of storm and desolation with her now, and the summer sun had not come yet. She sat musing while the old lady slumbered.

"Hullo, Diany! here you be!" exclaimed the voice of Joe Bartlett, suddenly breaking in. "Here's your good man outside, waitin' for you, I guess; his horse is a leetle skittish. What ails your mother?"

"My mother?"

"Yes. Josh says--you see, I've bin down to mill to git some rye ground, and he was there; and what's more, he had the start of me, and I had to wait for him, or I wouldn't ha' stood there chatterin' while the sun was shinin' like it is to-day; that ain't my way. But Josh says she's goin' round groanin' at sun'thin'--and that ain't _her_ way, nother.

Mind you, it ain't when anybody's by; I warrant you, she don't give no sign _then_ that anythin's botherin' her; Josh says it's when she's alone. I didn't ask him how he come to know so much, and so little; but I wisht I had," Joe finished his speech laughing.

Diana took her hat, kissed the old woman, and went out to her husband, who was waiting for her. And some miles of the drive were made in silence. Then as the old brown house came in sight, with the weeping elms over the gate, Diana asked her husband to stop for a minute or two. He reined up under the elm trees and helped Diana out, letting her, however, go in alone.

Diana was not often here, naturally; between her and her mother, who never in the best of times had stood near together or shared each other's deeper sympathies, a gulf had opened. Besides, the place was painful to Diana on other accounts. It was full of memories and a.s.sociations; she always seemed to herself when there as a dead person might on revisiting the place where once he had lived; she felt dead to all but pain, and the impression came back with sharp torture that once she used to be alive. So as the shadow of the elm branches fell over her now, it hurt her inexpressibly. She was alive when she had dwelt under them; yes, she and Evan too. She hurried her steps and went in at the lean-to door.

It was now long past mid-day. The noon meal was over, apparently, and every sign of it cleared away. The kitchen was in spotless order; but beside the table sat Mrs. Starling, doing nothing; an unheard-of state of affairs. Diana came farther in.

"Mother"--

"Well, Diana,"--said Mrs. Starling, looking up. "What's brought you now?"

"I've been down to see Mrs. Bartlett--she sent for me--and I thought I would stop in as I went by. Mr. Masters is outside."

"Well, I've no objection," said Mrs. Starling ambiguously.

"How do you do?"

"Middling."

"Is all getting on well with the farm and the dairy?"

"I don't let it be no other way."

Diana saw that something was wrong, but knew also that if she were to find it out it would be by indirect ways.

"May I go into the pantry and get some milk? I've been a good while from home, and I'm hungry."

"Go along," said her mother ungraciously. "I should think likely, if _you_ are hungry, your baby is too. That's a new way of doing things.

'Twarn't ever my way. A woman that's got a baby ought to attend to it.

An' if she don't, her husband ought to make her."

"I've not been gone so long as all that comes to," said Diana; and she went into the pantry, her old domain. The pans of milk looked friendly at her; the sweet clean smell of cream carried her back--it seemed ages--to a time when she was as sweet and clean. "Yet it is not my fault,"--she said to herself,--"it is _her's_--all her's." She s.n.a.t.c.hed a piece of bread and a gla.s.s of milk, and swallowed it hastily. Then, as she came out, she saw that one of her mother's hands lay bandaged up in her lap under the table.

"Mother, what's the matter with your hand?"

"O, not much."

"But what? It's all tied up. Have you burned it?"

"No."

"What then? Cut yourself?"

"I should like to know how I should go to work to cut my right hand!

Don't make a fuss about nothing, Diana. It's only scalded."

"Scalded! How?"

"I shall never be able to tell that, to the end of my days," said Mrs.

Starling. "If pots and kettles and that could be possessed, I should know what to think. I was makin' strawberry preserve--and the kettle was a'most full, and it was first rate preserve, and boiling, and almost done, and I had just set it down on the hearth; and then, I don't know how to this day, I stumbled--I don't know over what--and my arm soused right in."

"Boiling sweetmeat!" cried Diana. "Mother, let me see. It must be dreadfully burned."

"It's all done up," said Mrs. Starling coldly. "I was real put out about my preserves."

"Have you had dinner?"

"I never found I could live 'thout eating."

"Who got dinner for you, and cleared away?"

"n.o.body. I did it myself."