Diana Part 56

"Warn't I?" said Miss Collins. "Don't you mind better'n that, Mis'

Starling? I mind you comin', and I mind givin' you your letters too; I mind some 'ticlar big ones, that had stamps enough on to set up a shop.

La, 'tain't no harm. Miss Gunn, she used to feel a sort o' sameness about allays takin' in and givin' out, and then she'd come into the kitchen and make cake mebbe, and send me to 'tend the letters and the folks. And then it was as good as a play to me. Don't you never git tired o' trottin' a mile in a bushel, Mis' Starlin'? So I was jest a tellin' Diany"--

"Where's the minister?"

"Most likely he's where she is--up-stairs. He won't let n.o.body else do a hand's turn for her. He takes up every cup of tea, and he spreads every bit of bread and b.u.t.ter; and he tastes the broths; you'd think he was anythin' in the world but a minister; he tastes the broth, and he calls for the salt and pepper, and he stirs and he tastes; and then--you never see a man make such a fuss, leastways _I_ never did--he'll have a white napkin and spread over a tray, and the cup on it, and saucer too, for he won't have the cup 'thout the saucer, and then carry it off.--Was your husband like that, Mis' Starling? He was a minister, I've heerd tell."

Mrs. Starling turned short about without answering and went up-stairs.

She found the minister there, as Miss Collins had opined she would; but she paid little attention to him. He was just drawing the curtains over a window where the sunlight came in too glaringly. As he had done this, and turned, he was a spectator of the meeting between mother and child.

It was peculiar. Mrs. Starling advanced to the foot of the bed, came no nearer, but stood there looking down at her daughter. And Diana's eyes fastened on hers with a look of calm, cold intelligence. It was intense enough, yet there was no pa.s.sion in it; I suppose there was too much despair; however, it was, as I said, keen and intent, and it held Mrs.

Starling's eye, like a vice. Those Mr. Masters could not see; the lady's back was towards him; but he saw how Diana's eyes pinioned her, and how strangely still Mrs. Starling stood.

"What's the matter with you?" she said harshly at last.

"You ought to know,"--said Diana, not moving her eyes.

"I ain't a conjuror," Mrs. Starling returned with a sort of snort.

"What makes you look at me like that?"

Diana gave a short, sharp laugh. "How can you look at me?" she said. "I know all about it, mother."

Mrs. Starling with a sudden determination went round to the head of the bed and put out her hand to feel Diana's pulse. Diana shrank away from her.

"Keep off!" she cried. "Basil, Basil, don't let her touch me."

"She is out of her head," said Mrs. Starling, turning to her son-in-law, and speaking half loud. "I had better stay and sit up with her."

"No," cried Diana. "I don't want you. Basil, don't let her stay. Basil, Basil!"--

The cry was urgent and pitiful. Her husband came near, arranged the pillows, for she had started half up; and putting her gently back upon them, said in his calm tones,--"Be quiet, Di; you command here. Mrs.

Starling, shall we go down-stairs?"

Mrs. Starling this time complied without making any objection; but as she reached the bottom she gave vent to her opinion.

"You are spoiling her!"

"Really--I should like to have the chance."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just the words. I should like to spoil Di. She has never had much of that sort of bad influence."

"That sounds very weak, to me," said Mrs. Starling.

"To whom should a man show himself weak, if not toward his wife?" said Basil carelessly.

"Your wife will not thank you for it."

"I will endeavour to retain her respect," said Basil in the same way; which aggravated Mrs. Starling, beyond bounds. Something about him always did try her temper, she said to herself.

"Diana is going to have a fever," she spoke abruptly.

"I am afraid of it."

"What's brought it on?"

"I came home two evenings ago and found her on the bed."

"You don't want me, you say. Who do you expect is going to sit up with her and take care of her?"

"I will try what I can do, for the present."

"You can't manage that and your out-door work too."

"I will manage _that_"--said Basil significantly.

"And let your parish work go? Well, I always thought a minister was bound to attend to his people."

"Yes. Isn't my wife more one of my people than anybody else? Will you stay and take a cup of tea, Mrs. Starling?"

"No; if you don't want me, I am going. What will you do if Diana gets delirious? I think she's out of her head now."

"I'll attend to her," said Basil composedly.

Half suspecting a double meaning in his words, Mrs. Starling took short leave, and drove off. Not quite easy in her mind, if the truth be told, and glad to be out of all patience with the minister. Yes, if she had known how things would turn--if she had known--perhaps, she would not have thrown that first letter into the fire; which had drawn her on to throw the second in, and the third. Could any son-in-law, could Evan Knowlton, at least, have been more untoward for her wishes than the one she had got? More unmanageable he could not have been; nor more likely to be spooney about Diana. And now what if Diana really should have a fever? People talk out in delirium. Well--the minister would keep his own counsel; she did not care, she said. But all the same, she did care; and she would fain have been the only one to receive Diana's revelations, if she could have managed it. And by what devil's conjuration had the truth come to be revealed, when only the fire and she knew anything about it. Mrs. Starling chewed the cud of no sweet fancy on her road home.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BONDS

Diana did become ill. A few days of such brain work as she had endured that first twenty-four hours were too much even for her perfect organization. She fell into a low fever, which at times threatened to become violent, yet never did. She was delirious often; and Basil heard quite enough of her unconscious revelations to put him in full possession of the situation. In different portions, Diana went over the whole ground. He knew sometimes that she was walking with Evan, taking leave of him; perhaps taking counsel with him, and forming plans for life; then wondering at his silence, speculating about ways and distances, tracing his letters out of the post office into the wrong hand. And when she was upon that strain, Diana would break out into a cry of "O, mother, mother, mother!"--repeating the word with an accent of such plaintive despair that it tore the heart of the one who heard it.

There was only one. As long as this state of things lasted, Basil gave himself up to the single task of watching and nursing his wife. And amid the many varieties of heart-suffering which people know in this world, that which he tasted these weeks was one of refined bitterness.

He came to know just how things were, and just how they had been all along. He knew what Diana's patient or reticent calm covered. He heard sometimes her fond moanings over another name; sometimes her pa.s.sionate outcries the owner of that name to come and deliver her; sometimes--she revealed that too--even the repulsion with which she regarded himself.

"O, not this man!" she said one night, when he had been sitting by her and hoping that she was more quiet. "O, not this man! It was a mistake.

It was all a mistake. People ought to take better care at the post office. Tell Evan I didn't know; but I'll come to him now just as soon as I can."

Another time she burst out more violently. "Don't kiss me!" she exclaimed. "Don't touch me. I won't bear it. Never again. I belong to somebody else, don't you know? You have no business to be here." Basil was not near her, indeed she would not have recognised him if he had been; he was sitting by the fire at a distance; but he knew whom she was addressing in her mournful ravings, and his heart and courage almost gave way. It was very bitter; and many an hour of those nights the minister spent on his knees at the bed's foot, seeking for strength and wisdom, seeking to keep his heart from being quite broken, striving to know what to do. Should he do as she said, and never kiss her again?

Should he behave to her in the future as a mere stranger? What was best for him and for her? Basil would have done that unflinchingly, though it had led him to the stake, if he could know what the best was. But he did not quite give up all hope, desperate as the case looked; his own strong cheerful nature and his faith in G.o.d kept him up. And he resolutely concluded that it would not be the best way nor the hopefulest, for him and Diana, bound to each other as they were, to try to live as strangers. The bond could not be broken; it had better be acknowledged by them both. But if Basil could have broken it and set her free, he would have done it at any cost to himself. So, week after week, he kept his post as nurse at Diana's side. He was a capital nurse. Untireable as a man, and tender as a woman; quick as a woman, too, to read signs and answer unspoken wishes; thoughtful as many women are not; patient with an unending patience. Diana was herself at times, and recognised all this. And by degrees, as the slow days wore away, her disorder wore away too, or wore itself out, and she came back to her normal condition in all except strength. That was very failing, even after the fever was gone. And still Basil kept his post. He began now, it is true, to attend to some pressing outside duties, for which in the weeks just past he had provided a subst.i.tute; but morning, noon, and night he was at Diana's side. No hand but his own might ever carry to her the meals which his own hand had no inconsiderable share in preparing. He knew how to serve an invalid's breakfast with a refinement of care which Diana herself before that would not have known how to give another, though she appreciated it and took her lesson.

Then n.o.body could so nicely and deftly prop up pillows and cus.h.i.+ons so as to make her rest comfortably for the taking of the meal; no one had such skilful strength to enable a weak person to change his position.

For all other things, Diana saw no difference in him; nothing told her that she had betrayed herself, and she betrayed herself no more. Dull and listless she might be; that was natural enough in her weak state of convalescence; and Diana had never been demonstrative towards her husband; it was no new thing that she was not demonstrative now.