Chapter 9

MRS. STARLING'S OPINIONS.

It was well dusk when Prince stopped under the elm tree. The sun had gone down behind the low distant hills, leaving a white glory in all that region of the heavens; and shadows were settling upon the valleys. All household wants and proprieties were disarranged; the thing to do was to bring up arrears as speedily as possible. To this Mrs. Starling and her daughter addressed themselves. The blackberries were put carefully away; the table set, supper cooked, for the men must have a warm supper; and after supper and clearing up there came a lull.

"If it warn't so late," said Mrs. Starling,--"but it _is_ too late,--I'd go at those berries."

"Mother! Not to-night."

"Well, no; it's 'most too late, as I said; and I _am_ tired. I want to know if this is what folks call work or play? 'cause if it's play, I'd rather work, for my part. I believe I'd sooner stand at the wash-tub."

"Than pick blackberries, mother?"

"Well, yes," said Mrs. Starling; "'cause _then_ I'd know when my work was done. If the sun hadn't gone down, we'd all be pickin' yet."

"I am sure, you could stop when you were tired, mother; couldn't you?"

"I never am tired, child, while I see my work before me; don't you know that? And it's a sin to let the ripe fruit go unpicked. I wonder what it grows in such a place for! Who were you with all day?"

"Different people."

"Did Will Flandin find you?"

"Yes."

"He was in a takin' to know where you were. So I just gave him a bit of a notion."

"I don't see how _you_ could know, mother; I had been going so roundabout among the bushes. I don't know where I was, myself."

"When ever you don't know that, Diana, stop and find out."

Mrs. Starling was sitting before the stove in a resting attitude, with her feet stretched out towards it. Diana was busy with some odds and ends, but her mother's tone--or was it her own consciousness?--made her suddenly stop and look towards her. Mrs. Starling did not see this, Diana being behind her.

"Did it ever strike you that Will was sweet on you?" she went on.

"Will Flandin, mother?"

An inarticulate note of assent.

Diana did not answer, and instead went on with what she had been doing.

"Hey?" said Mrs. Starling.

"I hope he'll get cured of it, mother, if he is."

"Why?"

"I don't know why," said Diana, half laughing, "except that he had better be sweet on some one else."

"He's a nice fellow."

"Yes, I think he is; as they go."

"And he'll be very well off, Diana."

"He's no match for me, then, mother; for I am well off now."

"No, you ain't, child," said Mrs. Starling. "We have enough to live on, but that's all."

"What more does anybody want?"

"You don't mean what you say, Diana!" cried her mother, turning upon her. "Don't you want to have pretty things, and a nice house, and furniture to suit you, and maybe servants to do your work? I wonder who's particular, if you ain't! Wouldn't you like a nice carriage?"

"I like all these things well enough, mother; but they are not the first thing."

"What is the first thing?" said Mrs. Starling shortly.

"I should say,--how I get them."

"Oh!--I thought you were going to say the man was the first thing. That's the usual lingo."

Diana was silent again.

"Now you can have Will," her mother went on; "and he would be my very choice for you, Diana."

Diana made no response.

"He is smart; and he is good-lookin'; and he'll have a beautiful farm and a good deal of money ready laid up to begin with; and he's the sort to make it more and not make it less. And his mother is a first-rate woman. It's one of the best families in all Pleasant Valley."

"I would rather not marry either of 'em," said Diana, with a little half laugh again. "You know, mother, there are a great many nice people in the world. I can't have all of 'em."

"Who were you with all the forenoon?" Mrs. Starling asked suddenly.

"You went off and left me with the people from Elmfield. I was taking care of them."

"I saw you come out of the field with them. What a popinjay that Masters girl is, to be sure! and Mrs.--what's her name?--the other, is not much better. Soft as oil, and as slippery. How on earth did _they_ come to Bear Hill?"

"I suppose they thought it would be fun," Diana said with constrained voice.

"Don't let anybody get sweet on you there, Diana Starling; not if you know what is good for you."

"Where, mother?"

"_There_. At Elmfield. Among the Knowlton folks."

"What's the matter with them?" Diana asked; but not without a touch of amusement in her voice, which perhaps turned the edge of her mother's suspicion. She went on, however, energetically.

"Poor and proud!" she said. "Poor and proud. And that's about the meanest kind of a mixture there is. I don't mind if folks has something to go on--why, airs come nat'ral to human nature; I can forgive 'em anyhow, for I'm as proud as they be. But when they _hain't_ anything--and when they pile up their pretensions so high they can't carry 'em steady--for my part I'd rather keep out o' their way. They're no pleasure to me; and if they think they're an honour, it's an opinion I don't share. Gertrude Masters ain't no better than a balloon; full of gas; she hain't weight enough to keep her on her feet; and Mrs.--what's her name?--Genevy--she's as smooth as an eel. And Evan is a monkey."

"Mother! what makes you say so?"

"Why don't he shave himself then, like other folks?"

"Why, mother, it is just the fashion in the army to wear a moustache."

"What business has he to be in the army? He ought to be here helping his grandfather. I have no sort o' patience with him."

"Mother, you know they sent him to the Military Academy; of course he could not help being in the army. It is no fault of his."

"He could quit it, I suppose, if he wanted to. But he ain't that sort. He just likes to wear gold on his shoulders, and a stripe down his leg, and fancy buttons, and go with his coat flying all open to show his white shirt. I think, when folks have a pair of such broad shoulders, they're meant to do some work; but he'll never do none. He'll please himself, and hold himself up high over them that _does_ work. And he'll live to die poor. I. won't have you take after such a fellow, Diana; mind, I won't. I won't have _you_ settin' yourself up above your mother and despisin' the ways you was brought up to. And I want you to be mistress o' Will Flandin's house and lands and money; and you can, if you're a mind to."

Diana was a little uncertain between laughing and crying, and thought best not to trust her voice. So they went up to their rooms and separated for the night. But all inclination to tears was shut out with the shutting of her door. Was not the moonlight streaming full and broad over all the fields, filling the whole world with quiet radiance? So came down the clear, quiet illumination of her happiness upon all Diana's soul. There was no disturbance; there was no shadow; there was no wavering of that full flood of still ecstasy. All things not in harmony with it were hidden by it. That's the way with moonlight.

And the daylight was sweeter. Early, Diana always saw it; in those prime hours of day when strength, and freshness, and promise, and bright hope are the speech and the eye-glance of nature. How much help the people lose who lose all that! When the sun's first look at the mountains breaks into a smile; when morning softly draws off the veil from the work there is to do; when the stir of the breeze speaks courage or breathes kisses of sympathy; and the clear blue sky seems waiting for the rounded and perfected day to finish its hours, now just beginning. Diana often saw it so; she did not often stop so long at her window to look and listen as she did this morning. It was a clear, calm, crisp morning, without a touch of frost, promising one of those mellow, golden, delicious days of September that are the very ripeness of the year; just yet six o'clock held only the promise of it. Like her life! But the daylight brought all the vigour of reality; and last night was moonshine. Diana sat at her window a few minutes drinking it all in, and then went to her dairy.

Alas! one's head may be in rare ether, and one's feet find bad walking spots at the same time. It was Diana's experience at breakfast.

"How are those pigs getting along, Josiah?" Mrs. Starling demanded.

"Wall, I don' know," was the somewhat unsatisfactory response. "Guess likely the little one's gettin' ahead lately."

"He hadn't ought to!" said Mrs. Starling. "What's the reason the others ain't gettin' ahead as fast as him?"

"He's a different critter--that's all," said Josiah stolidly. "He'll be the biggest."

"They're all fed alike?"

"Fur's my part goes," said Josiah; "but when it comes to the eatin'--tell you! that little feller'll put away consid'able more'n his share. That's how he's growd so."

"They are not any of 'em the size they ought to be, Josiah."

"We ain't feedin' 'em corn yet."

"But they are not as big as they were last year this time."

"Don't see how you'll help it," said Josiah. "I ain't done nothin' to 'em."

With which conclusion Mrs. Starling's 'help' finished his breakfast and went off.

"There ain't the hay there had ought to be in the mows, neither," Mrs. Starling went on to her daughter. "I know there ain't; not by tons. And there's no sort o' a crop o' rye. I wish to mercy, Diana, you'd do somethin'."

"Do what, mother?" Diana said gaily. "You mean, you wish Josiah would do something."

"I know what I mean," said Mrs. Starling, "and I commonly say it. That is, when I say anything. I _don't_ wish anything about Josiah. I've given up wishin'. He's an unaccountable boy. There's no dependin' on him. And the thing is, he don't care. All he thinks on is his own victuals; and so long's he has 'em, he don't care whether the rest of the world turns round or no."

"I suppose it's the way with most people, mother; to care most for their own."

"But if I had hired myself to take care of other folks' things, I'd _do_ it," said Mrs. Starling. "That ain't my way. Just see what I haven't done this morning already! and he's made out to eat his breakfast and fodder his cattle. I've been out to the barn and had a good look at the hay mow and calculated the grain in the bins; and seen to the pigs; and that was after I'd made my fire and ground my coffee and set the potatoes on to boil and got the table ready and the rooms swept out. Is that cream going to get churned to-day, Diana?"

"No, mother."

"It's old enough."

"It is not ready, though."

"It ought to be. I tell you what, Diana, you must set your cream pot in here o' nights; the dairy's too cold."

"Warm enough yet, mother. Makes better butter."

"You don't get nigh so much, though. That last buttermilk was all thick with floatin' bits of butter; and that's what I call wasteful."

"I call it good, though."

"There's where you make a mistake, Diana Starling; and if you ever want to be anything but a poor woman, you've got to mend. It's just those little holes in your pocket that let out the money; a penny at a time, to be sure; but by and by when you come to look for the dollars, you won't find 'em; and you'll not know where they're gone. And you'll want 'em."

"Mother," said Diana, laughing, "I can't feel afraid. We have never wanted 'em yet."

"You've been young, child. You will want 'em as you grow older. Marry Will Flandin, and you'll have 'em; and you may churn your cream how you like. I tell you what, Diana; when your arm ain't as strong as it used to be, and your back gets to aching, and you feel as if you'd like to sit down and be quiet instead of delvin' and delvin', _then_ you'll feel as if 't would be handy to put your hand in your pocket and find cash somewhere. My! I wish I had all the money your father spent for books. Books just makes some folks crazy. Do you know it's the afternoon for Society meeting, Diana?"

"I had forgotten it. I shall not go."

"One of us must," said Mrs. Starling. "I don't see how in the world I can; but I suppose I'll have to. You'll have to make the bread then, Diana. Yesterday's put me all out. And what are you going to do with all those blackberries? They're too ripe to keep."

"I'll do them up this afternoon, mother. I'll take care of them."

The morning went in this way, with little intermission. Mrs. Starling was perhaps uneasy from an undefined fear that something was going not right with Diana's affairs. She could lay hold on no clue, but perhaps the secret fear or doubt was the reason why she brought up, as if by sheer force of affinity, every small and great source of annoyance that she knew of. All the morning Diana had to hear and answer a string of suggestions and complainings like the foregoing. She was not unaccustomed to this sort of thing, perhaps; and doubtless she had her own hidden antidote to annoyance: yet it belonged still more to the large sweet nature of the girl, that though annoyed she was never irritated. Wrinkles never lined themselves on the fair smooth brow; proper token of the depth and calm of the character within.