That day, the day when she got to this point, was one of those which even in summer one may know on the sea-shore. It was grey and cool, and a violent easterly wind was driving the waters in from the Narrows. The moment Diana got a sight of those battle forces opposed to each other in her spiritual nature, she threw on bonnet and shawl and went out. Baby was sleeping, and she left her safely in charge of a good-tempered servant who asked no better.
She went along the shore in the face of the wind, meeting, breasting, overcoming it, though with the exertion of determined strength and energy. The gale was rather fierce. It was a sight to see, the rush of that tide of waters, mighty, sweeping, rolling and tumbling in from the great sea, restless, endless. Diana did not stop to draw comparisons, yet I think she felt them even then; the wild accord of the unchained forces without and the unchained forces within. Who could stay them, the one or the other? "That is Nature," said Diana to herself; "and this is Nature; 'the troubled sea that cannot rest.' But that is spoken of the wicked; am I wicked because I cannot help what I cannot help? As well put out my tiny hand and sweep back that stormy flood of water to the ocean where it comes from! – as hopefully, as practicably. What am I, I– but a chip or a shingle tossed and chased along on the power of the waves? The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest; that is it, it cannot rest. Look at it, and think of bidding it rest!"
She had walked a long way in the teeth of the storm, and yet, unwilling even to turn her face homewards with her mind still at war, she had crouched down to rest under the lee of an old shed which stood near the edge of the water. Diana drew her shawl closer round her and watched the wild play of the waves, which grew wilder every moment; taking a sort of gloomy comfort in the thought that they were not more irresistible or unopposable than the tempest in her own heart. Then came in the thought – it stole in – "There was One who could bid it be still – and the sea heard him and was quiet. If he could do that, could he not still this other storm? A worse storm, yes; but could not the hand that did one thing do the other?" Diana knew on the instant that it could; but with that came another consciousness – that she wished it could not. She did not want the storm laid. Better the raging forces than the calm that would follow the death of her love for Evan Knowlton. "But it could never die!" was the impatient objection of her heart; and then came the whisper of conscience, "It ought; you know it ought; and the Lord never bade you do a thing he would not help you to do, or do for you if you are willing." And she remembered: "If ye shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed." – Could she be willing? that was all. Would she say it?
The Lord said, there are some sorts of devils that are only cast out by prayer and fasting; and I suppose that means, by very great and determinate laying hold of the offered strength and fullest surrender to all its dispositions.
This was a battle before which Waterloo sinks to a play of fire-crackers and Gravelotte to a great wrestling match. There was struggle on those fields, and bitter determination, and death faced and death met; and yet the combatants there never went to the front with the agony which Diana's fight cost her. And if anybody thinks I am extravagant, I will remind him on what authority we have it, that "he that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." Let no one suppose the battle in Diana's instance was soon fought and over. It was death to give up Evan; not the death of the body, which lived on and was strong though she grew visibly thin, but the death of the will; and that is a death harder by far than the other. Diana was in the struggle of that fight for many a day, and, as I said, growing thin under it. She was not willing; if she could be delivered from this passion which was like her life, she was not willing to be delivered. Yet duty was plain; conscience was inexorable. Diana struggled and fought till she could fight no longer, and then she dragged herself as it were to the feet of the Stiller of the waves, with the cry of the Syro-Phenician woman on her lips and in her heart: "Lord, help me!" But the help, Diana knew by this time, meant that he should do all the work himself, not come in aid of her efforts, which were like ropes of straw in a flame. Let no one think, either, that the first struggle to have faith was faith itself, or that the first endeavour to submit was surrender. There is a wide difference, and often a wide distance. But there came a time – it was slow in coming, but it came – when like a wearied child Diana ceased from her own efforts, and like a helpless child threw herself upon strength that she knew. And then the work was done.
Let no one say, either, that what I have described is an impossibility. "If ye have faith," – the Master said, – "nothing shall be impossible to you." And nothing is. "He is a Rock; his work is perfect." And he who overcame all our enemies for us can overcome them in us. They are conquered foes. Only, the Lord will not do the work for those who are trusting in themselves.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
BUDS AND BLOSSOMS
It was the end of September. Nearing a time of storms again in the air and on the sea; but an absolute calm had settled down upon Diana. Not at all the calm of death; for after death, in this warfare, comes not only victory, but new life. It was very strange, even to herself. She had ceased to think of Captain Knowlton; if she thought of him, it was with the recognition that his power over her was gone. She felt like a person delivered from helpless bondage. There was some lameness, there were some bruises yet from the fight gone by; but Diana was every day recovering from these, and elasticity and warmth were coming back to the members that had been but lately rigid and cold. The sun shone again for her, and the sky was blue, and the arch of it grew every day loftier and brighter to her sense. At first coming to Clifton, Diana had perceived the beauties and novelties of her new surroundings; now she began to enjoy them. The salt air was delicious; the light morning mist over the bay, as she saw it when she went to take her morning bath, held a whole day of sunlit promise within its mysterious folds; the soft low hum of the distant city, which she could hear when the waves were still, made the solitude and the freshness and the purity of the island seem doubly rare and sweet. And her baby began to be now to Diana the most wonderful of delights; more than ever it had been at any previous time.
All this while she had had letters from Basil; not very long letters, such as a man can write to a woman whose whole sympathy he knows he has; but good letters, such as a man can write to a woman to whom his own heart and soul have given all they have. Not that he ever spoke of that fact, or alluded to it. Basil was no maudlin, and no fool to ask for a gift which cannot be yielded by an effort of will; and besides, he had never entirely lost hope; so that, though things were dark enough for him certainly, he could write manly, strong, sensible letters, which, in their very lack of all allusion to his own feelings, spoke whole volumes to the woman who knew him and could interpret them. The thought of him grieved her; it was getting to be now the only grief she had. Her own letters to him were brief and rare. Diana had a nervous fear of letting the Clifton postmark be seen on a letter of hers at home, knowing what sort of play sometimes went on in the Pleasant Valley post office; so she never sent a letter except when she had a chance to despatch it from New York. These epistles were very abstract; they spoke of the baby, told of Mrs. Sutphen, gave details of things seen and experienced; but of Diana's inner life, the fight and the victory, not a whit. She could not write about them to Basil; for, glad as he would be of what she could tell him, she could not say enough. In getting deliverance from a love it was wrong to indulge, in becoming able to forget Evan, she had not thereby come nearer to her husband, or in the least fonder of thinking of him; and so Diana shrank from the whole subject when she found herself with pen in hand and paper before her.
When September was gone and October had begun its course, a letter came from Basil in which he desired to know about Diana's plans. There were no hindrances any longer in the way of her coming home, he told her. Diana had known that such a notification would come, must come, and yet it gave her an unwelcome start. Mrs. Sutphen had handed it to her as they came in from their morning dip in the salt water; the coachman had brought it late last evening from the post office, she said. Diana had dressed before reading it; and when she had read it, she sat down upon the threshold of her glass door to think and examine herself.
It was October, yet still and mild as June. Haze lay lingering about the horizon, softened the shore of Long Island, hid with a thick curtain the place of the busy city, the roar of which Diana could plainly enough hear in the stillness, a strange, indistinct, mysterious, significant murmur of distant unrest. All before and around her was rest; the flowing waters were too quiet to-day to suggest anything disquieting; only life, without which rest is nought. The air was inexpressibly sweet and fresh; the young light of the day dancing as it were upon every cloud edge and sail edge, in jocund triumph beginning the work which the day would see done. Diana sat down and looked out into it all, and tried to hold communion with herself. She was sorry to leave this place. Yes, why not? She was sorry to exchange her present life for the old one. Quiet and solitary it had been, this life at Clifton, for Mrs. Sutphen scarcely made her feel less alone with her than without her; and she had held herself back from society. Quiet and solitary, and lately healing; and Pleasant Valley was full of painful memories and associations, her mother, and – her husband. Diana felt as if she could have welcomed everything else, if only Basil had not been there. The sight of the lovely bay with its misty shores and its springing light hurt her at last, because she must leave it; she sank her face in her hands and began to call herself to account. Duty was waiting before her; was she not willing to take it up? She had surrendered her will utterly to God in the matter of her love to Evan, and she had been delivered from the torture and the bondage of it; quite delivered; she could bear to live without Evan now, she could bear to live without thinking of him; he would always be in a certain sense dear, but the spell of passion was broken for ever. That did not make her love her husband. No; but would not the same strength that had freed her from temptation on the one hand, help her to go forward and do her duty on the other? And in love and gratitude for the deliverance vouchsafed her, should she not do it? "I will do it, if I die!" was her inward conclusion. "And I shall not die, but by the Lord's help I shall do it."
So she wrote to her husband that she was ready, and he came to fetch her.
The Pleasant Valley maples were flaunting in orange and crimson when the home journey was made. The fairest month of the year was in the prime of its beauty; the air had that wonderful clearness and calm which bids the spirit of the beholder be still and be glad, saying that there is peace and victory somewhere, and rest, when the harvest of life is gathered. Diana felt the speech, but thought nevertheless that for her, peace and victory were a good way off. She believed they would come, when life was done; the present thing was to live, and carry the burden and do the work. The great elms hung still green and sheltering over the lean-to door. The house was enlarged and improved; and greatly beautified with a coat of paint. Diana saw it all; and she saw the marvellous beauty of the meadows and their bordering hills; she felt as if she were coming to her prison and place of hard labour.
"How do you like the looks of things?" her husband asked.
"Nice as can be."
"You like it?"
"Very much. I am glad you did not make the house white."
"I remembered you said it ought to be brown."
"But would you have liked it white?"
"I would have liked it no way but your way," he said with a slight smile and look at her, which Diana could not answer, and which cut her sharply. She had noticed, she thought, that Basil was more sober than he used to be. She thought she knew why; and she wanted to tell him part of what had gone on in her mind of late, and how free she was of the feelings he supposed were troubling her; but a great shyness of the subject had seized Diana. She was afraid to broach it at all, lest going on from one thing to another, Basil might ask a question she could not answer. She was very sorry for him, so much that she almost forgot to be sorry for herself, as she went into the house.
Mrs. Flandin was sitting with Mrs. Starling in the lean-to kitchen.
"So you made up your mind to come home," was her mother's greeting. "I almost wonder you did."
"If you knew how good the salt water was to me, you might wonder,"
Diana answered cheerfully.
"Well, I never could see what there was in salt water!" said Mrs. Flandin, "that folks should be so crazy to go into it! If I was drownin', 'seems to me I'd rather have my mouth full o' sun'thin' sweet."
"But I was not drowning," said Diana.
"Well, I want to know what you've got by stayin' away from your place all summer" – her mother went on.
"Her place was there," said the minister, who followed Diana in.
"Now, dominie," said Mrs. Flandin, "you say that jes' 'cause she's your wife. Hain't her place been empty all these months? Where is a wife's place? I should like to hear you say."
"Don't you think it is where her husband wants her to be?"
"And you wanted her to be away from you down there? Do you mean that?"
"If he had not, I should not have gone, Mrs. Flandin," Diana said, and with a smile.
"Well now, du tell! what good did salt water do ye? The minister said you was gone to salt water somewheres."
"It did me more good than I could ever make you understand."
"I don't believe it!" said Mrs. Starling harshly. "You mean, it was a clever thing to play lady and sit with your hands before you all summer. It was good there was somebody at home to do the work."
"Not your work, Di," said her husband good humouredly; "nor my work. I did that. Come along and see what I have done."
He drew her off, into the little front hall or entry; from there, through a side door into the new part of the building. There was a roomy, cool, bright room, lined with the minister's books; curtained and furnished, not expensively, indeed, yet with a thorough air of comfort. Taking the baby from her arms, Basil led the way from this room, up a short stairway, to chambers above which were charmingly neat, light, and cheerful, all in order; everything was done, everything was there that ought to be there. He laid the sleeping child down in its crib, and turned to his wife with a serious face.
"How will you stand it, Diana?"
"Basil, I was just thinking, how will you?"
"We can do what ought to be done," said he, looking into her face.
"I know you can. I think I can too – in this. And I think it is right to take care of mother. I am sure it is."
"Diana, by the Lord's help we can do right in everything."
"Yes, Basil; I know it!" she said, meeting his eyes with a steady look.
He turned away, very grave, but with a deep ejaculation of thankfulness. Diana's eyes filled; but she, too, turned away. She could add no more. It was not words, but living, that must speak for her now.
And it did – even that same evening. Mrs. Flandin would not go away; it was too good an opportunity of gathering information about various points on which the "town" had been curious and divided. She kept her place till after supper. But all she could see was a fair, quiet demeanour; an unruffled, beautiful face; and an unconscious dignity of carriage which was somewhat provokingly imposing. She saw that Diana was at home, and likely to be mistress in her own sphere; held in too much honour by her husband, and holding him in too much honour, for that a pin's point of malicious curiosity might find an entering place between them. She reported afterwards that the minister was a fool and his wife another, and so they fitted. Mrs. Starling was inclined to be of the same opinion.
The two most nearly concerned knew better. Fit they did not, though they were the only ones of all the world that knew it. While Diana had been away at Clifton, the minister had managed to make one of the company at Elmfield rather often, moved by various reasons. One effect, however, of this plan of action had been unfavourable to his own peace of mind. He saw Evan and came to know him; he would know him, though the young man would much rather have kept aloof from contact with Diana's husband. Basil's simplicity of manner and straightforwardness were too much for him. And while an unwilling and enormous respect for the minister grew up in Captain Knowlton's mind, the minister on his part saw and felt, and perhaps exaggerated, the attractiveness of the young army officer. Basil was not at all given to self-depreciation; in fact, he did not think of himself enough for such a mischievous mental transaction; however, he perceived the grace of figure and bearing, the air of command and the beauty of feature, which he thought might well take a woman's eye. "My poor Diana!" he said to himself; "her fancy has caught the stamp of all this – and will hold it. Naturally. She is not a woman to like and unlike. What chance for me!"
Which meditations, unwholesome as they were, did not prevent Basil's attaching himself to Captain Knowlton's society, and making a friend of him, in spite of both their selves, as it were. The captain's mental nature, he suspected and found, was by no means in order to correspond with his physical; and if a friend could help him, he would be that friend. And Basil did not see that the young officer's evident respect for himself, and succumbing to his friendly advances, were a very significant tribute to his own personal and other qualities. It was a little matter to him, indeed, such tribute, if he could not have it from his wife.
He had everything else in her that a man's heart could desire! He saw that, soon after her return from Clifton. Diana's demeanour had been gracious and sweet before, always, although with a shadow upon it. Now the shadow was gone, or changed; he could not tell which. She was not gay-spirited, as he had once known her; but she went about her house with a gentle grace which never failed. Mrs. Starling was at times exceedingly trying and irritating. Diana met and received it all as blandly as she would give her face to the west wind; at the same time, no rough wind could move her from the way of her duty. Mrs. Starling was able neither to provoke her nor prevail with her. She was the sweetest of ruling spirits within her house; without it, she was the most indefatigable and tender of fellow-workers to her husband. Tender, not to him, that is, but to all those for whom he and she ministered. A nurse to the sick, a provider to the very poor, a counsellor to the vexed, – for such would come to her, especially among the younger women, – a comforter to those in trouble. Such a comforter! "Lips of healing," her husband said of her once; "wise, rare; sweet as honey, but with the savour of the wind blowing over wild thyme." If a little of that sweetness could have come to him! But while her life was full of observance for him, gentle and submissive as a child to every expressed wish of his, and watchful to meet his unexpressed wish, it was the grief of Diana's life that she did not love this man. In the reserve of her New England nature, I think what she felt for him was hidden even from herself.
That is, I mean, as days and months went on. At Diana's first coming home from Clifton, no doubt her opinion of her own feelings, and Basil's opinion of them, was correct. If a change came, it came so imperceptibly that nobody knew it.
Diana's beauty at this time had taken a new phasis. It had lost the marble rigidity and calm impassiveness which had characterized it during all the time of her married life hitherto; and it had not regained the careless lightness of the days before she knew Evan. 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. It had always been, to a certain degree, innocent and pure, but that was negative; and this was positive, – the refined gold that had been through the fire. And no baby's face is sweeter than Diana's was now, all blossoming as it were with love and humility. If her husband had loved her before, the feeling of longing and despair that came over him when he looked at this rarefied beauty would be hard to tell. He had ruined her life, he reproached himself; and she was lost to him for ever. Yet, as I said, though Diana's face was grave, it was a gravity wholly without clouds; the gravity of the summer dawn, when the stars are shining and the light in the East tells of the coming day.
But mental changes work slowly and insensibly ofttimes; and day after day and week after week went by, each with its fulness of business and cares; and no one in the little family knew exactly what forces were silently busy. So a year rolled round, and another year began its course, and ran it; and June came for the second time since Diana had returned from the seaside. Elmfield in all this time had not been revisited by its owners.
June had come again. Windows were open, and the breath of roses filled the minister's study; for Diana had developed lately a passion for flowers and for gardening, and her husband had given her with full hands all she wanted, and much more. Mrs. Starling had grumbled and been very sarcastic about it. However, Basil had ordered in plants and seeds and tools and books of instruction; he had become instructor himself; and the result was, the parsonage, as people began to call it, was encompassed with a little wilderness of floral beauty which was growing to be the wonder of Pleasant Valley. "It will do them good!" the minister said, when Diana called his attention to the fact that the country farmers passing by were falling into the habit of reining in their horses and stopping for a good long look. For instead of the patch of marigolds and hollyhocks in front of the house, all the wing inhabited by the minister and his family was surrounded with flowers. Roses bloomed in the beds and out of the grass, and climbed up on the walls of the house; white Annunciation lilies shone like stars here and there; whole beds of heliotrope were preparing their perfume; geraniums held up their elegant heads of every colour; verbenas and mignonette and honeysuckle and red lilies and yellow lilies and hardy gladiolus were either just beginning or in full beauty; with many more, too many to tell; and the old-fashioned guelder rose had shaken out its white balls of snow, and one or two laburnums were hung thick with their clusters of "dropping gold." The garden was growing large, and, as I said, become a wilderness of beauty. Nevertheless the roses kept their own, and this afternoon the breath of them, rising above all the other sweet breaths that were abroad, came in and filled the minister's study. Diana was there alone sitting by one of the open windows, busy with some work; not so busy but that she smelt the roses, and felt the glory of light and colour that was outside, and heard the hum of bees and the twitter of birds and the soft indistinguishable chirrup of insects, which filled the air. Diana sewed on, till another slight sound mingled with those – the tread of a foot on the gravel walk down below; then she lifted her head suddenly, and with that her hands and her work fell into her lap. It was long past mid-afternoon, and the lovely slant light striking over the roses and coming through the crown of a young elm, fell upon Basil, who was slowly sauntering along the garden walk with his little girl in his arms. Very slowly, and often standing still to exchange love passages and indulge mutual admiration with her. They were partly talking of the flowers, Diana could see; but her own eyes had no vision but for those two, the baby and the baby's father. One little fair fat arm was round Basil's neck, the other tiny hand was sometimes stretched out towards the lilies or the laburnums in critical or delighted notice-taking, the word accompaniment to which Diana could not hear but could well guess; at other times it was brought round ecstatically to join its companion round her father's neck, or lifted to his face with fingers of caressing, or thrust in among the locks of his hair, which last seemed to be a favourite pleasure. Basil would stand still at such times and talk to her, or wait, Diana knew with just what a smile in his eyes, to take the soft touches and return them. Diana's work was forgotten, and her eyes were riveted; why did the scene in the garden give her such pain? She would have said, if she had been asked, that it was self-reproach and sorrow for the inevitable. How came it that she held not as near a place to Basil as her child did? She ought, but it was not so. She thought, she wished she loved him! She ought to be as free to put her hand on the soft curls of Basil's hair as her baby was, but they stood too far apart from each other, and she would as soon have dared anything. And Basil never looked at her so now-a-days; he had found out how she felt, and knew she did not care for his looks; and kind, and gentle, and unselfish as he was, yes, and strong in self-command and self renunciation, he had resigned his life-hope and left her to her life-sorrow. Yet Diana knew, with every smile and kiss to the little one, what a cry of Basil's heart went out towards the child's mother. Only, he would never give that cry utterance again. "What can I do?" thought Diana. "I cannot bear it. And he thinks I am a great deal more unhappy than I am. Unhappy? – I am not unhappy – if only he were not unhappy."
She could not explain her feelings to herself, she had no notion that she was jealous of her own child; but the pain bit her, and she could not endure to sit up there at the window and look on. Rising hastily, she dropped her work out of her hand, and was about to go down into the garden to join them, when another glance showed her that Basil had turned and was coming back into the house. Diana listened to them as they mounted the stairs, Basil's feet and the baby's voice sounding together, with a curious unrest at her heart, and her eyes met the pair eagerly as they entered the room. From what impulse she could not have told, she advanced to meet them, and stretched out her hands to take the child, which, however, with a little confident cry of delight, turned from her and clasped both little arms again round her father's neck. Basil smiled; Diana tried to follow suit.
"She would rather be with you than with me," she remarked, however.
"I wonder at her bad taste!" said Basil. But he turned his face to the baby, and laid it gently against her soft cheek.
"It is because you are stronger," Diana went in.
"Is it?"
"That is one thing. You may notice children always like strong arms."
"Her mother's arms are not weak."
"No – but I am not so strong as you, Basil, bodily or mentally. And I think that is more yet – mental strength, I mean. Children recognise that, and love to rest on it."
"You do not think such discrimination is confined to children?" said Basil, with a dry, quiet humourousness at which Diana could not help smiling, though she felt quite as much like a very different demonstration. She watched the two, as Basil walked on to his study-table and sat down, with the child on his knee; she saw the upturned eye of love with which the little one regarded him as he did this, and then how, with a long breath of satisfaction, she settled herself in her place, smoothed down her frock, and laid the little hands contentedly together in her lap. Basil drew his portfolio towards him and began to write a letter. Diana went to her work again in the window, feeling restless. She felt she must say something more, and in a different key, and as she worked she watched the two at the table. This was not the way things ought to be. Her husband must be told at least something of the change that had taken place in her; he ought to know that she was no longer miserable; he would be glad to know that. Diana thought he might have seen it without her telling; but if he did not, then she must speak. He had a right to so much comfort as she could give him, and he ought to be told that she was not now wishing to be in another presence and society than his. If she could tell him without his thinking too much – she watched till the letter was written and he was folding it up. And then Diana's tongue hesitated unaccountably.
"Basil," she began, obliging herself to speak, – "I can smell the roses again."
He looked up instantly with keen eyes.
"You know – there was a long while – a long while – in which I could not feel that anything was sweet."
"And now?" —