Diana Part 23

"Is that all?"

"Can you go with me?" he whispered, bending forward to pick up a few of her berries, for the taste of which he certainly did not care at that moment.

And she whispered, "No."

"Can't you?"

"You know it's impossible, Evan."

"Then I must go by myself," he said, in the same half breath, stooping his head still so near that a half breath could be heard; and his hair, quite emanc.i.p.ated from the regulation cut, touched Diana's cheek. "I don't know how I can! But, Di--if I can get a furlough at Christmas and come for you--will you be ready then?"

She whispered, "Yes."

"That is, supposing I am in any place that I can take you to," he went on, after a hearty endors.e.m.e.nt of the contract just made. "It is quite possible I may not be! But I won't borrow trouble. This is the first trouble I ever had in my life, Di, leaving you."

"They say prosperity makes people proud," she said, with an arch glance at him.

"'Proud?" echoed Knowlton. "Yes, I _am_ proud. I have a right to be proud. I do not think, Diana, there is such a pearl in all the waters of Arabia as I shall wear on my hand. I do not believe there is a rose to equal you in all the gardens of the world. Look up, my beauty, and let me see you. I sha'n't have the chance pretty soon."

And yielding to the light touch of his fingers under her chin, caressing and persuading, Diana's face was lifted to view. It was like a pearl, for the childlike purity of all its lines; it was like enough a rose, too; like an opening rose, for the matter of that. Her thoughts went back to the elegance of Mrs. Reverdy and Gertrude Masters, and she wondered in herself at Mr. Knowlton's judgment of her; but there was too much of Diana ever to depreciate herself unworthily. She said nothing.

"I wonder what will become you best?" said Evan in a very satisfied tone.

"Become me?" said Diana lifting her eyes.

"Yes. What's your colour?"

"I am sure I don't know," said Diana, laughing. "No one in particular, I guess."

"Wear everything, can you? I shouldn't wonder! But I think I should like you in white. That's cold for winter--in some regions. I think I should like you in--let me see--show me your eyes again, Diana. If you wear so much rose in your cheeks, my darling," said he, kissing first one and then the other, "I should be safe to get you green. You will be lovely in blue. But of all, _except_ white, I think I should like you, Diana, in royal red."

"I thought purple was the colour of kings and queens," Diana remarked, trying to get back to her berries.

"Purple is poetical. I am certain a dark, rich red would be magnificent on you; for it is you who will beautify the colour, not the colour you.

I shall get you the first stuff of that colour I see that is of the right hue."

"Pray don't, Evan. Wait," said Diana, flus.h.i.+ng more and more.

"Wait? I'll not wait a minute longer than till I see it. My beauty!

what a delight to get things for you--and with you! Officers' quarters are sorry places sometimes, Diana; but won't it be fun for you and me to work transformations, and make our own world; that is our own home?

What does Mrs. Starling think of me?"

"I have told her nothing, Evan, yet. She was so busy this morning, I had not a good chance."

"I'll confront her when she comes home this evening."

"O no, Evan; leave it to me; I want to take a _good_ time. She will not like it much anyhow."

"I don't see really how she should. I have sympathy--no, I haven't! I haven't a bit. I am so full of my own side of the question, it is sheer hypocrisy to pretend I have any feeling for anybody else. When will you come down to Elmfield?"

"To Elmfield?" said Diana.

"To begin to learn to know them all. I want them to know you."

"You have not spoken to them about me?"

"No," said he, laughing; "but I mean to."

"Evan, don't say anything to anybody till mother has been told. Promise me! That would not do."

"All's safe yet, Di. But make haste with your revelations; for I shall be here to-morrow night and every night now, and astonish her; and it isn't healthy for some people to be astonished. Besides, Di, my orders will be here in a week or two; and then I must go."

"Do you like being under orders?" said Diana innocently.

Knowlton's grave face changed again; and laughing, he asked if _she_ did not like it? and how she would do when she would be a soldier's wife, and so under _double_ orders? And he got into such a game of merriment, at her and with her, that Diana did not know what to do with herself or her berries either. How the berries got attended to is a mystery; but it shows that the action of the mind can grow mechanical where it has been very much exercised. It can scarce be said that Diana thought of the blackberries; and yet, the jam was made and the wine prepared for in a most regular and faultless manner; the jars were filled duly, and nothing was burned, and all was done and cleared away before Mrs. Starling came home. Literally; for Mr. Knowlton had been sent away, and Diana had gone up to the sanctuary of her own room. She did not wish to encounter her mother that night. While the dew was not yet off her flowers, she would smell their sweetness alone.

CHAPTER XI.

A STORM IN SEPTEMBER.

Diana was not put to the trial next day of venturing her precious things to harsh handling. A very uncommon thing happened. Mrs. Starling was not well, and kept her bed.

She had caught cold, she confessed, by some imprudence the day before; and symptoms of pleurisy made it impossible that she should fight sickness as she liked to fight it, on foot. The doctor was not to be thought of; Mrs. Starling gave her best and only confidence to her own skill; but even that bade her lie by and "give up."

Diana had the whole house on her hands, as well as the nursing. Truth to tell, this last was not much. Mrs. Starling would have very little of her daughter's presence; still less of her ministrations. To be "let alone" was her princ.i.p.al demand, and that Diana should "keep things straight below." Diana did that. The house went on as well as ever; and even the farm affairs received the needful supervision. Josiah Davis was duly ordered, fed, and dismissed; and when evening came, Diana was dressed in order, bright, and ready for company. Company it pleased her to receive in the lean-to kitchen; the sound of voices and laughter beneath her would have roused Mrs. Starling to a degree of excitement from which it would have been impossible to keep back anything; and probably to a degree of consequent indignation which would have been capable of very informal measures of ejectment regarding the intruder.

No; Diana could not risk that. She must wait till her mother's nerves and temper were at least in their ordinary state of wholesome calm, before she would shock them by the disclosures she had to make. And almost by their preciousness to herself, Diana gauged their unwelcomeness to her mother. It was always so. The two natures were so unlike, that not even the long habit of years could draw them into sympathy. They thought alike about nothing except the housewifely matters of practical life. So these evenings when Mrs. Starling was ill, Diana had her lamp and her fire in the lean-to kitchen; and there were held the long talks with Mr. Knowlton which made all the days of September so golden,--days when Diana's hands were too busy to let her see him, and he was told he must not come except at night; but through all the business streamed the radiant glow of the last night's talk, like the September sunlight through the misty air.

So the days went by; and Mrs. Starling was kept a prisoner; pain and weakness warning her she must not dare try anything else. And in their engrossment the two young people hardly noticed how the time flew.

People in Pleasant Valley were not in the habit of paying visits to one another in the evenings, unless specially invited; so n.o.body discovered that Evan came nightly to Mrs. Starling's house; and if his own people wondered at his absence from home, they could do no more. Suspicion had no ground to go upon in any particular direction.

The month had been glorious with golden leaves and golden suns.h.i.+ne, until the middle was more than past. Then came a September storm; an equinoctial, the people said; as furious as the preceding days had been gentle. Whirlwinds of tempest, and floods of rain; legions of clouds, rank after rank, bringing the winds in their folds; or did the winds bring them? All one day and night and all the next day, the storm continued; and night darkened early upon Pleasant Valley with no prospect of a change. Diana had watched for it a little eagerly; Evan's visit was lost the night before, of course; it was much to lose, when September days were growing few; and now another night he could not come. Diana stood at the lean-to door after supper, looking and making her conclusions sorrowfully. It was darkening fast; very dark it would be, for there was no moon. The rain came down in streams, thick and grey. The branches of the elm trees swung and swayed pitilessly in the wind, beating against each other; while the wind whistled and shouted its intention of keeping on so all night. "He can't come," sighed Diana for the fifth or sixth time to herself; and she shut the door. It could be borne, however, to lose two evenings, when they had enjoyed so many together, and had so many more to look forward to; and with that mixture in her heart of content and longing, which everybody knows, Diana trimmed her lamp and sat down to sew. How the wind roared! She must trim her fire too, or the room would be full of smoke. She made the fire up; and then the snare of its leaping flames and glowing coal bed drew her from her work; she sat looking and thinking, in a fulness of happiness to which all the roar of the storm only served for a foil.

She heard the drip, drip of the rain; the fast-running stream from the overcharged eaves trough; then the thunder of the wind sweeping over the house in a great gust; and the whistle of the elm branches as they swung through the air like tremendous lithe switches, beating and writhing and straining in the fury of the blast. Looking into the clear, glowing flames, Diana heard it all, with a certain sense of enjoyment; when in the midst of it she heard another sound, a little thing, but distinguishable from all the rest; the sound of a foot upon the little stone before the door. Only one foot it could be in the world; Diana started up, and was standing with lips apart, facing the door, when it opened, and a man came in enveloped in a huge cloak, dripping at every point.

"Evan!" Diana's exclamation was, with an utterance between joy and dread.

"Yes," said he as he came forward into the room,--"I've got orders."

Without another word she helped relieve him of his cloak and went with it to the outer kitchen, where she hung it carefully to dry. As she came back, Evan was standing in front of the fire, looking gravely into it. The light danced and gleamed upon the gold b.u.t.tons on his breast, and touched the gold bands on his shoulders; it was a very stately and graceful figure to Diana's eyes. He turned a little, took her into his arms, and then they both stood silent and still.

"I've got my orders," Knowlton repeated in a low tone.

"To go soon, Evan?"