Diana. Warner Susan
did like him, and it was quite her way to say what she thought; yet she did not say it. She had an undefined, shadowy impression that the hearing would not be grateful to her companion. Her reply was a very inconclusive remark, that she had not seen much of Mr. Masters; and an inquiry where Mr. Knowlton meant to fish next.
So the brook had them without interruption the rest of the time. They crept up the ravine, under the hemlock branches and oak boughs; picking their way along the rocky banks; catching one or two more trout, and finding an unending supply of things to talk about; while the air grew more delicious as the day dipped towards evening, and the light flashed from the upper tree-tops more clear and sparkling as the rays came more slant; and the brook's running commentary on what was going on, like so many other commentaries, was heard and not heeded; until the shadows deepening in the dell warned them it was time to seek the lower grounds and open fields again. Which they did, much more swiftly than the ascent of the brook had been made; in great spirits on both sides, though with a thought on Diana's part how her mother would receive the fish and the young officer's proposition. Mrs. Starling was standing at the back door of the kitchen as they came up to it.
"I should think, Diana, you knew enough to remember that we don't take visitors in at this end of the house," was her opening remark.
"How about fish?" inquired Mr. Knowlton, bringing forward his basket.
"What are you going to do with 'em?" asked Mrs. Starling, standing in the door as if she meant he should not come in.
"We are going to eat them – with your leave ma'am, and by your help; – and first we are going to cook them."
"Who?"
"Miss Starling and myself. I have promised to show her a thing. May I ask for the loan of a match?"
"A match!" echoed Mrs. Starling.
"Or two," added Mr. Knowlton, with an indescribable twinkle in his eye; indescribable because there was nothing contrary to good breeding in it. All the more, Diana felt the sense of fun it expressed, and hastened to change the scene and put an end to the colloquy. She threw down her bonnet and went for a handful of sticks. Mr. Knowlton had got his match by this time. Mrs. Starling stood astonished and scornful.
"Will this be wood enough?" Diana asked.
Mr. Knowlton replied by taking the sticks out of her hand, and led the way into the meadow. Diana followed, very quiet and flushed. He had not said a word; yet the manner of that little action had a whole small volume in it. "Nobody else ever cared whether I had sticks in my hands or not," thought Diana; and she flushed more and more. She turned her face away from the bright west, which threw too much illumination on it; and looked down into the brook. The brook's song sounded now unheard.
It was on the border of the brook that Lieut. Knowlton made his fire. He was in a very jubilant sort of mood. The fire was made, and the fish were washed; and Diana stood by the column of smoke in the meadow and looked on, as still as a mouse. And Mrs. Starling stood in the door of the lean-to and looked on too, from a distance; and if she was still, it was because she had no one near just then to whom it was safe to open her mind. The beauty of the picture was all lost upon her: the shorn meadow, the soft column of ascending smoke coloured in dainty hues from the glowing western sky, the two figures moving about it.
"Now, Miss Diana," said the young officer. "If we had a little salt, and a dish – I am afraid to go and ask Mrs. Starling for them!"
Perhaps so was she; but Diana went, and got them without asking. She smiled at the dishing of the trout, it was so cleverly done; then she was requested to sprinkle salt on them herself; and then with a satisfied air, which somehow called up a flush in Diana's cheeks again, Mr. Knowlton marched off to the house with the dish in his hands. Mrs. Starling had given her farm labourers their supper, and was clearing away relics from the board. She made no move of welcome or hospitable invitation; but Diana hastened to remove the traces of disorder, and set clean plates and cups, and bring fresh butter, and bread, and make fresh tea. How very pleasant, and how extremely unpleasant, it was altogether!
"Mother," she said, when all was ready, "won't you come and taste Mr.
Knowlton's fish?"
"I guess I know how fish taste. I haven't eaten the trout of that brook all my life, without."
"But you don't know my cookery," said Mr. Knowlton; "that's something new."
"I don't see the sense of doing things in an outlandish way, when you have no need to. Nor I don't see why men should cook, as long as there's women about."
"What is outlandish?" inquired Mr. Knowlton.
"What you've been doing, I should say."
"Come and try my cookery, Mrs. Starling; you will never say anything against men in that capacity again."
"I never say anything against men anyhow; only against men cooking; and that ain't natural."
"It comes quite natural to me," said the young officer. "Only taste my trout, Mrs. Starling, and you will be quite reconciled to me again."
"I ain't quarrelling with nobody – fur's I know," said Mrs. Starling; "but I've had my supper."
"Well, we haven't had ours," said the young man; and he set himself not only to supply that deficiency in his own case, but to secure that Diana should enjoy and eat hers in spite of all hindrances. He saw that she was wofully annoyed by her mother's manner; it brought out his own more in contrast than perhaps otherwise would have been. He helped her, he coaxed her, he praised the trout, and the tea, and the bread, and the butter; he peppered and salted anew, when he thought it necessary, on her own plate; and he talked and told stories, and laughed and made her laugh, till even Mrs. Starling, moving about in the pantry, moved softly and set down the dishes carefully, that she too might hear. Diana sometimes knew that she did so; at other times was fain to forget everything but the glamour of the moment. Trout were disposed of at last, however, and the remainder was cold; bread and butter had done its duty; and Mr. Knowlton rose from table. His adieux were gay – quite unaffected by Mrs. Starling's determined holding aloof; and involuntarily Diana stood by the table where she could look out of the window, till she had seen him mount into his waggon and go off.
"Have you got through?" said Mrs. Starling.
"Supper?" said Diana, starting. "Yes, mother."
"Then perhaps I can have a chance now. Do you think there is anything in the world to do? or is it all done up, in the world you have got into?"
Diana began clearing away the relics of the trout supper, in silence and with all haste.
"That ain't all," said Mrs. Starling. "The house don't stand still for nobody, nor the world, nor things generally. The sponge has got to be set for the bread; and there's the beans, Diana; to-morrow's the day for the beans; and they ain't looked over yet, nor put in soak. And you'd better get out some codfish and put that on the stove. I don't know what to have for breakfast if I don't have that. You'd best go and get off your dress, first thing; that's my counsel to ye; and save washing that to-morrow."
Diana went into no reasoning, on that subject or any other; but she managed to do all that was demanded of her without changing her dress, and yet without damaging its fresh neatness. In silence, and in an uncomfortable mute antagonism which each one felt in every movement of the other. Odd it is, that when words for any reason are restrained, the feeling supposed to be kept back manifests itself in the turn of the shoulders and the set of the head, in the putting down of the foot or the raising of the hand, nay, in the harmless movements of pans and kettles. The work was done, however, punctually, as always in that house; though Diana's feeling of mingled resentment and shame grew as the evening wore on. She was glad when the last pan was lifted for the last time, the key turned in the lock of the door of the lean-to, and she and her mother moved into the other part of the house, preparatory to seeking their several rooms. But Mrs. Starling had not done her work yet.
"When's that young man comin' again?" she asked abruptly at the foot of the stairs, stopping to trim the wick of her candle, and looking into the light without winking.
"I don't know – " Diana