Chapter 34

DAIRY AND PARISH WORK.

According to her custom, Diana was up early the next morning, and down in her dairy while yet the sun was only just getting above the horizon. The dairy window stood open night and day; and the cool dewy freshness which was upon the roses and lilies outside was in there too among the pans of cream; the fragrance of those mingled with the different but very pure sweetness of these. Diana was skimming pan after pan; the thick yellow cream wrinkled up in rich folds under her skimmer; the skimming-shelf was just before the window, and outside of the window were the roses and honeysuckles. Diana's sleeves were rolled up above her elbows; her hands were disposing of their business with quick skill; yet now and then, even with a pan under her hand, she paused, leaned on the window sill, and looked out into the garden. She felt glad about something, and yet an unsatisfied query was in her heart; she was glad that she had at last told her husband how the spell was broken that had bound her to Evan and kept her apart from himself. "But he did not seem so glad as I expected!" Then she recalled the deep tone of his thanksgiving for her, and Diana's eyes took a yearning look which certainly saw no roses. "It was all for me; it was not for his own share; he did not think he had any share in it. He has a notion that I hate him; and I do not; I never did." It occurred to her here dimly that she had once felt a horror of him; and who would not rather have hatred than horror? She went on skimming her cream. What should she do? "I cannot speak about it again," she said to herself; "I cannot say any more to him. I cannot say--I don't know what I ought to say! but I wish he knew that I do not dislike him. He is keen enough; surely he will find it out."

Pan after pan was set aside; the churn was filled; and Diana began to churn. Presently in came Mrs. Starling.

"Hain't Josh brought the milk yet?"

"Not yet."

"It's time he did. That fellow's got a lazy streak in him somewhere."

"It's only just half-past five, mother."

"The butter ought to be come by now, I should think."--Mrs. Starling was passing in and out, setting the table in the lean-to kitchen. She would have no "help" in her dominions, so it was only in Diana's part of the house that the little servant officiated, whom Basil insisted upon keeping for his wife's ease and comfort and leisure. Diana herself attended as of old to her particular sphere, the dairy. "How do you know it's just half-past five?" her mother went on presently.

"I looked."

"Watches!" exclaimed Mrs. Starling with much disgust. "Your husband is ridiculous about you."

But Diana could bear that.

"In your dairy is a queer place to wear a watch."

"Why, mother, it's for use, not for show."

"Make me believe that! There's a good deal of show about it, anyhow, with such a chain hanging to it."

"My husband gave it to me, you know, chain and all; I must wear it," Diana said with a face as sweet as the roses.

"Oh yes! your husband!" Mrs. Starling answered insultingly. "That will do to say to other people. Much you care what your husband does!"

Diana got up here, left her churn, came up to her mother, and put a hand upon her arm. The action and air of the woman were so commanding, that even Mrs. Starling stood still with a certain involuntary deference. Diana's face and voice, however, were as clear and calm as they were commanding.

"Mother,"--she said,--"you are mistaken. I care with all there is of me; heart and soul and life."

Mrs. Starling's eye shrank away. "Since when?" she asked incredulously.

"It does not matter since when. Whatever I have ever felt for other people, there is only one person in the world that I care for now; and that is, my husband."

"You'd better tell him so," sneered Mrs. Starling. "When do you expect your butter is going to come, if you stand there?"

"The butter is come," said Diana gently. She knew the sneer was meant to cover uneasy feeling; and if it had not, still she would not have resented it. She never resented anything now that was done to herself. In came Josh with the foaming pails. Diana's hands were in the butter, and her mother came to strain the milk.

"There had ought to be three quarts more, that ain't here," she grumbled.

"They ain't nowheres else, then," answered her factotum.

"Josh, you don't strip the cows clean."

"Who doos, then?" said Josh, grinning. "If 'tain't me, I don' know who 'tis. That 'ere red heifer is losin' on her milk, though, Mis' Starlin'. She had ought to be fed sun'thin'."

"Well, feed her, then," cried the mistress. "You know enough for that. You must keep up the milk this month, Josh; the grass is first-rate."

Diana escaped away.

A while later the family was assembled at breakfast.

"Where's the child?" inquired Mrs. Starling.

"I believe she is out in the garden, mother."

"She oughtn't to be out before she has had her breakfast. 'Tain't good for her."

"O, she has had her breakfast," said Diana. This was nothing new. Diana as well as her husband was glad to keep the little one from Mrs. Starling's table, where, unless they wanted her to be fed on pork and pickles and the like, it was difficult to have a harmonious meal. It was often difficult at any rate!

"Who's with her?" Mrs. Starling went on.

"Her father was with her. Now Prudence is looking after her."

"Prudence! You want to keep a girl about as much as I want to keep a boat. You have no use for her."

"She is useful just now," put in the Dominie.

"Why can't Diana take care of her own child, and feed her when she takes her own meals?--as I used to do, and as everybody else does."

"You think that is a convenient arrangement for all parties?" said the minister.

"I hate to have danglers about!" said Mrs. Starling. "If there's anything I abominate, it's shiftlessness. I always found my ten fingers was servants enough for me; and what they couldn't do I could go without. And I don't like to see a daughter o' mine sit with her hands before her and livin' off other people's strength!"

Diana laughed, a low, sweet laugh, that was enough to smooth away the wrinkles out of anybody's mood.

"She has to do as she's told," said the minister sententiously.

"That's because she's a fool."

"Do you think so?" Basil answered with unchanged good humour.

"_I_ never took my lessons from anybody."

"Perhaps it would have been better if you had."

"And you are spoiling her," Mrs. Starling added inconsistently.

"I wonder you haven't."

Mrs. Starling paused to consider what the minister meant. Before she came to speech again, he rose from the table.

"Will you come to my study, Diana, after breakfast?"

"Who's goin' to make my cake, then?" cried the mistress of the house. "Society's to meet here again this afternoon."

"I'll make it, mother--a mountain cake, if you like," said Diana, also rising. "Basil won't want me all the morning." But she was eager to hear what he had to say to her, and hurried after him. He had seemed to her more than usually preoccupied.

"I do think," she remarked as she reached the study, "the Society eat more cake than--their work is worth."

"Heresy," said Basil, smiling.

"They don't do much sewing, Basil."

"They do something else. Never mind; let them come and have a good time. It won't hurt anybody much."

Diana looked at him and smiled, and then waited anxiously. She longed for some words from Basil different from those he had spoken last night. Could he not see, that if her passion for Evan was broken, there was nothing left for him to look grave about? And ought he not to be jubilant over the confession she had just made to her mother? Diana was jubilant over it herself; she had set that matter clear at last. It is true, Basil had not heard the confession, but ought he not to divine it, when it was the truth? "If I do not just _love_ him," said Diana to herself, "at least he is the only one I care for in all the world. That would have made him glad once. And he don't look glad. Does he expect me to speak out and tell him all that?"

Basil did not look as if he expected her to do any such thing. He was rather graver than usual, and did not at once say anything. Through the open window came the air, still damp with dew, laden with the scent of honeysuckle and roses, jocund with the shouts of birds; and for one instant Diana's thoughts swept back away to years ago, with a wondering recognition of the change in herself since _those_ June days. Then her husband began to speak.

"I have had a call, Diana."

"A call? You have a good many of them always, Basil. What was this?"

"Of a different sort. A call for me--not a call upon me."

"Well, there have always been calls _for_ you too, in plenty, ever since I have known you. What do you mean?"

"This is a call to me to leave Pleasant Valley," said Basil, watching her, yet without seeming to do so. Diana looked bewildered.

"To leave Pleasant Valley? Why? And where would you go, Basil?"

"I am called, because the people want somebody and have pitched upon me. The place is a manufacturing town, not very far from Boston."

"Are you going?"

"That is the point upon which I desire to have your opinion."

"But, Basil, the people here want you too."

"Grant that."

"Then what does it signify, whether other people want you?"

"Insomuch as the 'other people' are more in numbers and far more needy in condition."

"Want you more"--said Diana wistfully.

"That is the plain English of it."

"And will you go?"

"What do you counsel?"

"I do not know the people"--said Diana, breathless.

"Nor I, as yet. The church that calls me is itself a rich little church, which has been accustomed, I am afraid, for some time, to a dead level in religion."

"They must want you then, badly," said Diana. "That was how Pleasant Valley was five years ago."

"But round the church lies on every hand the mill population, for whom hardly any one cares. They need not one man, but many. Nothing is done for them. They are almost heathen, in the midst of a land called Christian."

"Then you will go?" said Diana, looking at Mr. Masters, and wishing that he would speak to her with a different expression of face. It was calm, sweet, and high, as always; but she knew he thought his wife was lost to him for ever. "And yet, I told him, last night!" she said to herself. Really, she was thinking more of that than of this other subject Basil had unfolded to her.

"I do not know," he answered. "How would you like to run over there with me and take a look at the place? I have a very friendly invitation to come and bring you,--for the very purpose."

"Run over? Why, it must be more than one day's journey?"

"One runs by railway," said Basil simply. "What do you think? Will you go?"

"O yes, indeed! if you will let me. And Rosy?"

"We will go nowhere without Rosy."

Diana made her cake like one in a dream.