Diana Barry

“ Barry’s field Willowmere. I got that name out of the book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla. The heroine had five lovers. I’d be satisfied with one, wouldn’t you? She was very handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as easy as anything. I’d love to be able to faint, wouldn’t you, Marilla? It’s so romantic. But I’m really very healthy for all I’m so thin. I believe I’m getting fatter, though. Don’t you think I am? I look at my elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming. Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. ”

“ Flandin," said Diana. "He speaks plain enough, too."
"I do love to hear him!" said Miss Barry. "There, his words seem to go all through me, and clear up my want of understandin'; for I never was smart, you know; but seems to me I see things as well agin when he's been talkin' to me. I say, it was a good day when he come to Pleasant Valley."
"He ain't what you call an eloquent man," said Miss Babbage, the schoolmaster's sister.
"What is an 'eloquent man,' Lottie Babbage?" Mrs. Boddington asked. "It's a word, I know ”

“ Gifford never let anyone off in the middle of the week to stay a night. You're only served the same as everybody else. Why can't you take it sporting?"
"You don't understand!" wailed Diana, mopping her moist cheeks.
"Do get up from the floor, at any rate. It looks so weak to be huddled up like a bundle of rags. You haven't brushed your hair yet. Don't be a slacker, Diana!"
Thus morally prodded, Diana rose dejectedly, put on her bedroom slippers, and took the hair-brush [83] which her room-mate handed. She did not like to be called a slacker, particularly by Loveday. ”

“ Miss Vincent surveyed her gayly.
"Well, I come here," (she looked significantly round the luxurious room) , "and I am very good friends with the Marshams. Oliver Marsham is one of the persons from whom I hope most."
"Not in pulling down wealth--and property!" cried Diana.
"Why not? Every revolution has its Philippe Égalité Oh, it will come slowly--it will come slowly," said the other, quietly. "And of course there will be tragedy--there always is--in everything. But not, I hope, for you--never for you!" And once more her hand dropped softly on Diana's. ”

“ Not a house; not another wreath of smoke; not a cornfield; hollows of beauty with nothing but their own green growth and the sunshine in them; hill-tops fair and lovely, but without a fence that told of human ownership or a road that spoke of human sympathy. Was life like that, Diana wondered? Yet surely that landscape had never looked dreary to her before.
"Mrs. Starling will have another cup of coffee, Miss Diana."
Diana started. What should bring Mr. Knowlton to wait upon her mother's cups of coffee? ”

“ It doesn't suit your style of beauty. Yes, put my collars away, too, or I shall only crush them. There! Very well done! First prize for order! I think you're absolutely topping, if you ask me!"
All that evening, and all the next morning, Diana's spirits continued to fizz. She might possibly have worked them off out-of-doors, but the British climate was against her; once more the fells were swathed in their familiar garments of mist, and the rain came pitter-pattering down on the roof of Pendlemere Abbey, and falling from the eaves in a monotonous drip, drip, drip. ”

“ She stood in quiet dignity, indeed; but the stains of crimson on cheek and brow flushed and paled like the lights of a sunset. All at the bottom of her deep sun-bonnet; was Mr. Knowlton to blame if he gently pushed it back and insinuated it off, till he had a full view?
"You know what is my 'best' now," he said. "Can I have it, Diana?"
She tried to break away from him, and on her lip there broke that beautiful smile of hers; withal a little tremulous just then. It is rare on a grown woman's lip, a smile so very guileless and free; mostly it belongs to children. ”

“ They had come back from a glorious ramble over the nearest mountain, and were sitting after supper in front of the small farm-house where they had found lodging, looking out upon the view. Twilight was settling down upon the green hills. Diana started and repeated his word.
"Home?"
"Yes. I mean Pleasant Valley," said the minister, smiling. "Not the house where I first saw you. There are one or two sick people, from whom I do not feel that I can be long away."
"You always think of other people first!" said Diana, almost with a sigh. ”

“ Knowlton expressively, as he stirred it, "I have appreciation for better things than coffee. I always want the best, in every kind; and I know the thing when I see it."
"I make no doubt you can have it," said Diana coolly, turning away.
"Hullo, Diany!" said Mr. Carpenter on the other side,—"you're coming it strong to-day. Got no one to help ye? Sha'n't I fetch 'Lizy? she's big enough to do som'thin'. I vow I want another cup. You see, it's hard work, is picking blackberries. I ain't master here; and my wife, she keeps me hard at it. Can't dewolve the duty on no one, neither ”

“ I will give you the money;—you can go—I will drive you—down to Gunn's, and you can get there whatever you think would be suitable, and we will have the fun to ourselves."
The colour flushed into Diana's face; it was the first flush of pleasure that had come there in a long while.
"You are very good, Basil!" she said. "Don't you think I could drive
Saladin?"
"Where?"
"Anywhere. I mean, that I could go to places then without troubling you to drive me."
"I can stand so much trouble. It is not good for a man to live too easy." ”

“ He looked very small, and thin, and miserable, huddled up on the vestry stool. His threadbare clerical jacket seemed several sizes too large for him. "Diana Rivers, of Riverscourt!" Oh, where was his dear Lady of Mystery?
If Diana wanted to shake him, she kept the desire well in hand. Her voice grew even deeper; more full of music, more softly gentle.
"Well, cousin or no cousin," she said, "I want your advice, and I can't do without your help. Where do you take your Christmas dinner, David Rivers?" ”

“ The laugh grated terribly on Diana. "I wonder if you know what a beauty you are?" she went on;—"I declare!—I didn't know you were half so handsome. Have you changed, since three years ago?"
"I think I must," Diana said quietly.
"But where have you been? Living here in Pleasant Valley?" was the next not very polite question.
"People do live in Pleasant Valley. Did you think not?" Diana answered.
"O yes. No. Not what we call life, you know. And you were always handsome; but three years ago you were just Diana Starling, and now—you might be anybody!" ”

“ It struck Diana now with the kind of a shiver which a person in a fever feels at the touch of fresh air. Yet she recognised the beauty of it, and it fortified her in her resolve. She would be true to this man, though she died for it! There was nothing but truth in him.
She got through the meal-time as she could; swallowed tea, and even ate bread, without knowing how it tasted, and heard Basil talk without knowing what he said. As soon as she could she went up-stairs to the baby, and waited till her husband should come too. ”

“ As she was not likely to meet any of the Dolman family on the road, Diana did not wear her sun-bonnet, but kept it hanging on her arm. "It is nice to be out," she said, as she tripped along. "I love hot sun; I love twees; I love blue sky; I love dust."
"I don't," replied Orion; "this road is horrid dusty, and it gets into my shoes. I have only my house shoes on, you know, Diana."
"Oh, never mind!" answered Diana. "If you is a giant, you isn't going to g'umble. What is the use of g'umbling? You be all wight soon. ”

“ Starling, leaving her bowl of dough, with flowery hands, to peer out of a window. "You may make your mind easy, Di; he won't come in again. I declare! he's got his coat off and he's gone at it himself; ain't that him?"
Diana looked and allowed that it was. Mr. Knowlton had got a rake in hand, his coat hung on the fence, and he was raking hay as busily as the best of them. Diana gave a little sigh, and turned to her pan of berries. ”

“ When I see anything pretty, I always want some one to point it out to, or I can't half enjoy it."
"I think it would be the other way," said Diana. "I should be the one to show the brook to you."
"You see if I don't make you find more pretty things than you ever knew were there. Come! is it a bargain? I'll take my line and bring Mrs. Starling some trout."
"When?" said Diana.
"Seems to me," said Mrs. Starling, "I could keep along a brook if I could once get hold of it."
"Ah," said Mr. Knowlton, laughing, "you are a great deal cleverer than I am. You have no idea how fast I can lose myself. ”

“ Diana made up her mind that it was impossible.
The rambling path through the woods brought the party out at last upon a wild barren hill-side, where stones and a rank growth of blackberry bushes were all that was to be seen. Only far off might be had the glimpse of other hills and of patches of cultivation on them; the near landscape was all barrenness and blackberries.
"But where are the rest of the people?" said Mrs. Reverdy with her faint laugh. "Are we alone? I don't see anybody."
"They are gone on—they are picking," Diana explained. ”

“ But I will speak with his Grace of Bolton. One man may say to another what a woman cannot. It shall not slip my memory.”
“Was that the tall gentleman with a grave countenance whom I saw last evening?”
“The same. Now depart to your work, for much hangs on Polly. Be a good girl and rest assured of my protection. ’Tis safer than others more gaudy.”
’Twas the signal for dismissal, and Diana rose and ventured to kiss the hand which lay like a snowflake on the damask negligée. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Magsie, to her eternal credit, was the first to remember her manners, and offer some sort of a greeting to the extraordinary strangers.
"Er—good afternoon!" she stammered. "I'm afraid Diana isn't here. Shall—shall I go and fetch her?"
"Well, now, I'd call that real elegant of you," returned the stout lady heartily. "We can't stay long, and we don't want to waste time."
"Cora, I guess we'd best introduce ourselves," observed the gentleman, gently disengaging her from his arm. "We're Mr. and Mrs. Elihu Burritt of Petteridge Court. I reckon you're Diana's schoolfellows? ”

“ It was something lovelier than either; so lovely that Basil wondered, and Mrs. Starling sometimes stared, and every lip "in town" came to have nothing but utterances of respect, more often utterances of devotion, for the minister's wife,—I am afraid I cannot give you a just impression of it. For Diana's face had come curiously near the expression on the face of her own little child. Innocent, tender, pure,—something like that. Grave, but with no clouds at all; strong and purposeful, yet with an utter absence of self-will or self-consciousness. ”

“ Happily for her, Basil was not a particularly demonstrative man; for every caress from him was "as vinegar upon nitre;" she did not show repulsion, that was all.
"I guess I kin do that, Mis' Masters," said her handmaid, who always preferred to keep the kitchen for her own domain. Diana made no answer. She was slowly and delicately peeling her eggs, and probably did not notice the remark. Miss Collins, however, resented the neglect.
"Mr. Masters is gone a great deal. It's sort o' lonesome up here on the hill. Dreadfully quiet, don't you think it is?"
"I like quiet," Diana answered absently. ”

“ Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.
When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on the whitened grass; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and passionate heart. ”

“ Indeed the girl found that success has its sting as well as its honey, and though Mr. Walker did his clumsy best to protect her on the stage, what is a man against a woman’s petty malice?
Diana therefore had much between her and sleep as she lay in the great red velvet bed. ’Twas a difficult case to mingle the two parts of Polly and Diana. For Polly must be all bewitching arts and graces, every movement of her arms an embrace to the public, every glance a ravishment and a veiled invitation. And indeed she was perfect in her part. Mr. Gay and Mr. Rich owned it daily. ”

“ You're the minister's wife, Diana. They allays sot a great deal by him."
Diana was chewing the cud of this, when Mrs. Bartlett asked again,
"Who's sick in the place?"
"Quite a number. There's Mrs. Wilson at the tavern; she's sinking at last; my husband sees her every day. Then old Josh Lightfoot—he's down with I don't know what; very sick. Mrs. Saddler has a child that has been hurt; he was pitched off a load of hay and fell upon a fork; his mother is distracted about him, and it is all Mr. Masters can do to quiet her. ”