Chapter 27

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 passionate 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 God 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 substitute; 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 nobody could so nicely and deftly prop up pillows and cushions 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. Neither did he betray that he knew all she was trying, poor child, to hide from him. He was just as usual. Only, in Diana's present helpless condition, he had opportunity to show tenderness and care in a thousand services which in her well days she would have dispensed with. And he did it, as I said, with the strength of a man and the delicacy of a woman. He let nobody else do anything for her.

Did he guess how gladly she would have escaped from all his ministrations? did he knew what they were to Diana? Probably not; for with all his fineness of perception he was yet a man; and I suppose, reverse the conditions, there never was a man yet who would object to have one woman wait upon him because he loved another. Yet Basil did know partly and partly guess; and he went patiently on in the way he had marked out for himself, upheld by principle and by a great tenacity of purpose which was part of his character. Nevertheless, those were days of pain, great and terrible even for him; what they were to Diana he could but partially divine. As health slowly came back, and she looked at herself and her life again with eyes unveiled by disease, with the pitiless clearness of sound reason, Diana wished she could die. She knew she could not; she could come no nearer to it than a passing thought; her pulses were retaking their sweet regularity; her nerves were strung again, fine and true; only muscular strength seemed to tarry. Lying there on her bed and looking out over the snow-covered fields, for it was mid-winter by this time, Diana sometimes felt a terrible impulse to fly to Evan; as if she could wait only till she had the power to move The feeling was wild, impetuous; it came like a hurricane wind, sweeping everything before it. And then Diana would feel her chains, and writhe, knowing that she could not and would not break them. But how ever was life to be endured? life with this other man? And how dreadful it was that he was so good, and so good to her! Yes, it would be easier if he did not care for her so well, far easier; easier even if he were not himself so good. The power of his goodness fettered Diana; it was a spell upon her. Yes, and she wanted to be good too; she would not forfeit heaven because she had lost earth; no, and not to gain earth back again. But how was she to live? And what if she should be unable always to hide her feeling, and Basil should come to know it? how would _he_ live? What if she had said strange things in her days and nights of illness? They were all like a confused misty landscape to her; nothing taking shape; she could not tell how it might have been. Restless and weary, she was going over all these and a thousand other things one day, as she did every day, when Basil came in. He brought a tray in his hand. He set it down, and came to the bedside.

"Is it supper-time already?" she asked.

"Are you hungry?"

"I ought not to be hungry. I don't think I am."

"Why ought you not to be hungry?"

"I am doing nothing, lying here."

"I find that is what the people say who are doing too much. Extremes meet,--as usual."

He lifted Diana up, and piled pillows and cushions at her back till she was well supported. Nobody could do this so well as Basil. Then he brought the tray and arranged it before her. There was a bit of cold partridge, and toast; and Basil filled Diana's cup from a little teapot he had set by the fire. The last degree of nicety was observable in all these preparations. Diana ate her supper. She must live, and she must eat, and she could not help being hungry; though she wondered at herself that she could be so unnatural.

"Where could you get this bird?" she asked at length, to break the silence which grew painful.

"I caught it."

"Caught it? _You!_ Shot it, do you mean?"

"No. I had not time to go after it with a gun. But I set snares."

"I never knew partridges were so good," said Diana, though something in her tone said, unconsciously to her, that she cared not what was good or bad.

"You did not use your advantages. That often happens."

"I had not the advantage of being able to get partridges," said Diana languidly.

"The woods are full of them."

"Don't you think it is a pity to catch them?"

"For you?" said Basil. He was removing her empty plate, and putting before her another with an orange upon it, so accurately prepared that it stirred her admiration.

"Oranges!" cried Diana. "How did you learn to do everything, Basil?"

"Don't be too curious," said he. As he spoke, he softly put back off her ear a stray lock of the beautiful brown hair, which fell behind her like a cloud of wavy brightness. Even from that touch she inwardly shrank; outwardly she was impassive enough.

"Basil," said Diana suddenly, "didn't I talk foolishly sometimes?--when I was sick, I mean."

"Don't you ever do it when you are well?"

"Do I?"

"What do you think?" said he, laughing, albeit his heart was not merry at the moment; but Diana's question was naive.

"I did not think I was in the habit of talking foolishly."

"Your thoughts are true and just, as usual. It is so far from being in your habit, that it is hardly in your power," he said tenderly.

Diana ate her orange, for she was very fond of the fruit, and it gave occupation to hands and eyes while Basil was standing by. She did not like his evasion of her question, and pondered how she could bring it up again, between wish and fear. Before she was ready to speak the chance was gone. As Basil took away her plate, he remarked that he had to go down to see old Mrs. Barstow; and arranging her pillows anew, he stooped down and kissed her.

Left alone, Diana sat still propped up in bed and stared into the fire, which grew brighter as the light without waned. How she rebelled against that kiss! "No, he has no right to me!" she cried in her passionate thoughts; "he has no right to me! I am Evan's; every bit of me is Evan's, and nobody's else. O, how came I to marry this man? and what shall I do? I wonder if I shall go mad?--for I am not going to die. But how is it possible that I can live _so?_"

She was slow in regaining strength. Yet little by little it came back, like a monarch entering a country that has rebelled against him. By and by she was able to sit up. Her husband had a luxurious easy-chair sent from Boston for her and placed in her room; and one evening, it was in February now, Diana got up and put herself in it. She had never known such a luxurious piece of furniture in her life; she was dressed in a warm wrapper also provided by her husband, and which seemed to her of extravagant daintiness; and she sank into the depths of the one and the folds of the other with a helpless feeling of Basil's power over her, symbolized and emphasized by these things. Presently came Basil himself, again bringing her supper. He placed a small table by her side and set the tray there; put the teapot down by the fire; and taking a view of his wife, gave a slight smile at the picture. He might well, having so good a conscience as this man had. Diana was one of those magnificent women who look well always and anywhere; with a kitchen apron on and hands in flour, or in the dishabille of careless undress; but as her husband saw her then, she was lovely in an exquisite degree. She was wrapped in a quilted dressing-gown of soft grey stuff, with a warm shawl about her shoulders; her beautiful abundant hair, which she had been too weak of hand, and of heart too, to dress elaborately, lay piled about her head in loose, bright, wavy masses, much more picturesque than Diana would have known how to make them by design. I think there is apt, too, to be about such women a natural grace of motion or of repose; it was her case. To think of herself or the appearance she might at any time be making, was foreign to Diana; the noble grace of unconsciousness, united to her perfectness of build, made her always faultless in action or attitude. If she moved or if she sat, it might have been a duchess, for the beautiful unconscious ease with which she did it. Nature's high breeding; there is such a thing, and there is such an effect of it when the constitution of mind and body are alike noble.

Basil poured out her cup of tea, and divided her quail, and then sat down. It was hard for her to bear.

"You are too good to me," said Diana humbly.

"I should like to see you prove that."

"I am not sure but you are too good to everybody."

"Why? how can one be too good?"

"You won't get paid for it."

"I think I shall," said Basil, in a quiet confident way he had, which was provoking if you were arguing with him. But Diana was not arguing with him.

"Basil, _I_ can never pay you," she said, with a voice that faltered a little.

"You are sure of that in your own mind?"

"Very sure!"

"I am a man of a hopeful turn of nature. Shall I divide that joint for you?"

"My hands cannot manage a quail!" said Diana, yielding her knife and fork to him. "What can make me so weak?"

"You have had fever."

"But I have no fever now, and I do not seem to get my strength back."

"After the unnatural tension, Nature takes her revenge."

"It is very hard on you!"

"What?"

Diana did not answer. She had spoken that last word with almost a break in her voice; she gave her attention now diligently to picking the quail bones. But when her supper was done, and the tray delivered over to Miss Collins, Basil did not, as sometimes he did, go away and leave her, but sat down again and trimmed the fire. Diana lay back in her chair, looking at him.

"Basil," she said at last after a long silence,--"do you think mistakes, I mean life-mistakes, can ever be mended in this world?"

"You must define what you mean by mistakes," he said without looking at her. "There are no _mistakes_, love, but those which we make by our own fault."

"O but yes there are, Basil!"

"Not what _I_ mean by mistakes."

"Then what do you call them? When people's lives are all spoiled by something they have had nothing to do with--by death, or sickness, or accident, or misfortune."

"I call it," said Basil slowly, and still without looking at her,--"I call it, when it touches me or you, or other of the Lord's children,--God's good hand."

"O no, Basil! people's wickedness cannot be his hand."

"People's wickedness is their own. And other evil I believe is wrought by the prince of this world. But God will use people's wickedness, and even Satan's mischief, to his children's best good; and so it becomes, in so far, his blessed hand. Don't you know he has promised, 'There shall no evil happen to the just'? And that 'all things shall work together for good to them that love God?' His promise does not fail, my child."

"But, Basil,--loads of things do happen to them which _cannot_ work for their good."

"Then what becomes of the Lord's promise?"

"He cannot have made it, I think."

"He has made it, and you and I believe it."

"But, Basil, it is impossible. I do not see how some things can ever turn to people's good."

"If any of the Lord's children were in doubt upon that point, I should recommend him to ask the Lord to enlighten him. For the heavens may fall, Diana, but 'the word of our God shall stand for ever.'"

Diana felt her lips quivering, and drew back into the shadow to hide them.

"But there can be no kindness in some of these things that I am thinking about," she said as soon as she could control her voice; and it sounded harsh even then.

"There is nothing but kindness. When I would not give you strong coffee a while ago, in your fever, do you think I was influenced by cruel motives?"

"I could never believe anything but good of you, Basil."

"Thank you. Do you mean, that of Christ you _could?_"

"No--" said Diana, hesitating; "but I thought, perhaps, he might not care."

"He had need to be long-suffering!" said Basil; "for we do try his patience, the best of us. 'He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows,' Diana; down into humiliation and death; that he might so earn the right to lift them off our shoulders and hearts; and one of his children doubts if he cares!"

"But he does not lift them off, Basil," said Diana; and her voice trembled with the unshed tears.

"He will"--said her husband.

"When?"

"As soon as we let him."

"What must I do to let him?"

"Trust him wholly. And follow him like a child."

The tears came, Diana could not hinder them; she laid her face against the side of her chair where Basil could not see it.