Diana Part 25

"Early," said Diana, not showing the heart-thrust the question had given her. "Not till it is light, though."

"It will be desirable that I should get off before light, then. It is not best to astonish him on this occasion."

"It is not near light yet, Evan?"

He laughed, and looked at her. "Do you know, I don't know when that moment comes? I have not seen it once since I have been at Elmfield. It shows how little truth there is in the theories of education."

Diana did not ask what he meant. She went to the door and looked out.

It was profoundly dark yet. It was also still. The rain was not falling; the wind had ceased; hush and darkness were abroad. She came back to the fire and asked what o'clock it was. Evan looked. They had an hour yet; but it was an hour they could make little use of. The night was gone. They stood side by side on the hearth, Evan's arm round her; now and then repeating something which had been already spoken of; really endeavouring to make the most of the mere fact of being together. But the minutes went too fast. Again and again Diana went to the window; the second time saw, with that nameless pang at her heart, that the eastern horizon was taking the grey, grave light of coming dawn. Mr. Knowlton went out then presently, saddled his horse, and brought him out to the fence, all ready. For a few minutes they waited yet, and watched the grey light creeping up; then, before anything was clearly discernible through the dusky gloom, the last farewell was taken; Evan mounted and walked his horse softly away from the door.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ASHES OF THE FIRE.

Diana sat down with her face in her hands, and was still. She felt like a person stunned. It was very still all around her. The fire gently breathed and snapped; the living presence that had been there was gone.

A great feeling of loneliness smote her. But there was leisure for few tears just then; and too high-wrought a state of the nerves to seek much indulgence in them. A little while, and Josiah would be there with his pails of milk; there was something to be done first.

And quick, as another look from the window a.s.sured her. Things were becoming visible out of doors. Diana roused herself, though every movement had to be with pain, and went about her work. It was hard to move the chair in which Evan had been sitting; it was hard to move the table around which they had been so happy; even that little trace of last night could not be kept. Evan's cup, Evan's plate, the bit of bread he had left on it, Diana's fingers were dilatory and unwilling in dealing with them. But then she roused herself and dallied no longer.

Table and cups and eatables were safely removed; the kitchen brushed up, and the table set for breakfast: the fire made in the outer stove, and the kettle put on; though the touch of the kettle hurt her fingers, remembering when she had touched it last. Every tell-tale circ.u.mstance was put out of the way, and the night of watching locked up among the most precious stores of Diana's memory. She opened the lean-to door then.

The morning was rising fair. Clouds and wind had wearied themselves out, as it might be; and nature was in a great hush. Racks of vapour were scattered overhead, slowly moving away in some current of air that carried them; but below there was not a breath stirring. A little drip, drip from the leaves only told how heavily they had been surcharged; the long pendent branches of the elm hung moveless, as if they were resting after last night's thras.h.i.+ng about. And as Diana looked, the touches of gold began to come upon the hills and then on the tree-tops.

It was lovely and fair as ever; but to Diana it was a changed world.

She was not the same, and nothing would ever be just the same as yesterday it had been. She felt that, as she looked. She had lost and she had gained. Just now the loss came keenest. The world seemed singularly empty. The noise of entering feet behind her brought her back to common life. It was Josiah and the milk pails.

"Hain't set up all night, hev' ye?" was Josiah's startling remark. "I vow! you get the start of the old lady herself. I b'ain't ready for breakfast yet, if you be."

"It will be ready soon, Josiah."

"Mornin's is gettin' short," Josiah went on. "One o' them pesky barn doors got loose in the night, and it's beat itself 'most off the hinges, I guess. I must see and get it fixed afore Mis' Starlin's round, or she'll be hoppin'. The wind was enough to take the ruff off, but how it could lift that 'ere heavy latch, I don't see."

Diana went to the dairy without any discussion of the subject. Coming back to the kitchen, she was equally startled and dismayed to see her mother entering by the inner door. If there was one thing Diana longed for this morning, it was, to be alone. Josiah and the farm boys were hardly a hindrance. She had thought her mother could not be.

"Are you fit to be down-stairs, mother?" she exclaimed.

"Might as well be down as up," said Mrs. Starling. "Can't get well lying in bed. I'm tired to death with it all these days; and last night I couldn't sleep half the night; seemed to me I heard all sorts of noises. If I'd had a light I'd ha' got up then. I thought the house was coming down about my ears; and if it was, I'd rather be up to see."

"The wind blew so."

"You heard it too, did you? When did you come down, Diana? I hain't heard the first sound of your door. 'Twarn't light, was it?"

"I have been up a good while. But you are not fit to do the least thing, mother. I was going to bring you your breakfast."

"If there's a thing I hate, it's to have my meals in bed. I don't want anything, to begin with; and I can take it better here. What have you got, Diana? You may make me a cup of tea. I don't feel as though I could touch coffee. What's the use o' _your_ gettin' up so early?"

"I've all to do, you know, mother."

"No use in burning wood and lights half the night, though. The day's long enough. When did you bake?"

Diana answered this and several other similar household questions, and got her mother a cup of tea. But though it was accompanied with a nice bit of toast, Mrs. Starling looked with a dissatisfied air at the more substantial breakfast her daughter was setting on the table.

"I never could eat slops. Diana, you may give me some o' that pork. And a potato."

"Mother, I do not believe it is good for you."

"Good for me? And I have eat it all my life."

"But when you were well."

"I'm well enough. Put some of the gravy on, Diana. I'll never get my strength back on toasted chips."

The men came in, and Mrs. Starling held an animated dialogue with her factotum about farm affairs; while Diana sat behind her big coffee-pot--not the one she had used last night, and wondered if that was all a dream; more sadly, if she should ever dream again. And why her mother could not have staid in her room one day more. One day more!--

"He hain't begun to get his ploughing ahead," said Mrs. Starling, as the door closed on the delinquent.

"What, mother?" Diana asked, starting.

"Ploughing. You haven't kept things a-going, as I see," returned her mother. "Josiah's all behind, as usual. If I could be a man half the time, I could get on. He ought to have had the whole west field ploughed, while I've been sick."

"I don't know so much about it as you do, mother."

"I know you don't. You have too much readin' to do. There's a pane of gla.s.s broken in that window, Diana."

"Yes, mother. I know it."

"How did it come?"

"I don't know."

"You'll never get along, Diana, till you know everything that happens in your house. You aren't fit anyhow to be a poor woman. If you're rich, why you can get a new pane of gla.s.s, and there's the end of it.

I'm not so rich as all that comes to."

"Getting a pane of gla.s.s, mother?"

"Without knowing what for."

"But how does it help the matter to know what for? The gla.s.s must be got anyway."

"If you know what for, it won't be to do another time. You'll find a way to stop it. I'll warrant, now, Diana, you haven't had the ashes cleared out of that stove for a week."

"Why, mother?"

"It smokes. It always does smoke when it gets full of ashes; and it never smokes when it ain't."