CHAPTER XXVIII.
EVAN'S SISTER.
Slowly from this time Diana regained strength, and by degrees took again her former place in the household. To Miss Collins' vision she was "the same as ever." Basil felt she was not.
Yet Diana did every duty of her station with all the care and diligence she had ever given to it. She neglected nothing. Basil's wardrobe was kept in perfect order; his linen was exquisitely got up; his meals were looked after, and served with all the nice attention that was possible. Diana did not in the least lose her head, or sit brooding when there was something to do. She did not sit brooding at any time, unless at rare intervals. Yet her husband's heart was very heavy with the weight which rested on hers, and truly with his own share as well. There was a line in the corners of Diana's sweet mouth which told him, nobody else, that she was turning to stone; and the light of her eye was, as it were, turned inward upon itself. Without stopping to brood over things, which she did not, her mind was constantly abiding in a different sphere away from him, dwelling afar off, or apart in a region by itself; he had her physical presence, but not her spiritual; and who cares for a body without a soul? All this time there was no confidence between them. Basil knew, indeed, the whole facts of the case, but Diana did not know he knew. He wished she would speak, but believed now she never would; and he could not ask her. Truly he had his own part to bear; and withal his sorrow and yearning tenderness for her. Sometimes his heart was nigh to break. But Diana's heart was broken.
Was it comfort, or was it not comfort, when near the end of spring a little daughter was born to them? Diana in any circumstances was too true a woman not to enter upon a mother's riches and responsibilities with a full heart, not to enter thoroughly into a mother's joy and dignity; it was a beautiful something that had come into her life, so far as itself was concerned; and no young mother's hands ever touched more tenderly the little pink bundle committed to them, nor ever any mother's eyes hung more intently over her wonderful new possession. But lift the burden from Diana's heart her baby did not. There was something awful about it, too, for it was another bond that bound her to a man she did not love. When Diana was strong enough, she sometimes shed floods of tears over the little unconscious face, the only human confident she dared trust with her secret. Before this time her tears had been few; something in the baby took the hardness from her, or else gave one of those inexplicable touches to the spring of tears which we can neither resist nor account for. But the baby's father was as fond of her as her mother, and had a right to be, Diana knew; and that tried her. She grudged Basil the right. On the whole, I think, however, the baby did Diana good As for Basil, it did him good. He thanked God, and took courage.
The summer had begun when Diana was able to come down-stairs again. One afternoon she was there, in her little parlour, come down for a change. The windows were open, and she sat thinking of many things. Her easy-chair had been moved down to this room; and Diana, in white, as Basil liked to see her, was lying back in it, close beside the window. June was on the hills and in the air, and in the garden; for a bunch of red roses stood in a glass on the table, and one was fastened at Diana's belt and another stuck in her beautiful hair. Not by her own hands, truly; Basil had brought in the roses a little while ago and held them to her nose, and then put one in her hair and one in her belt. Diana suffered it, all careless and unknowing of the exquisite effect, which her husband smiled at, and then went off; for his work called him. She had heard his horse's hoof-beats, going away at a gallop; and the sound carried her thoughts back, away, as a little thing will, to a time when Mr. Masters used to come to her old home to visit her mother and her, and then ride off so. Yes, and in those clays another came too; and June days were sweet then as now; and roses bloomed; and the robins were whistling then also, she remembered; did their fates and life courses never change? was it all June to them, every year? How the robins whistled their answer!—"all June to them, every year!" And the smell of roses did not change, nor the colour of the light; and the fresh green of the young foliage was deep and bright and glittering to-day as ever it was. Just the same! and a human life could have all sweet scents and bright tints and glad sounds fall out of it, and not to come back! There is nothing but duty left, thought Diana; and duty with all the sap gone out of it. Duty was left a dry tree; and more, a tree so full of thorns that she could not touch it without being stung and pierced. Yet even so; to this stake of duty she was bound.
Diana sat cheerlessly gazing out into the June sunlight, which laughed at her with no power to gain a smile in return; when a step came along the narrow entry, and the doorway was filled with Mrs. Starling's presence. Mother and daughter looked at each other in a peculiar way they had now; Diana's face cold, Mrs. Starling's face hard.
"Well!" said the latter,—"how are you getting along?"
"You see, I am down-stairs."
"I see you're doing nothing."