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Diana

<h3 id="id00711" style="margin-top: 3em">CHAPTER VII.</h3> <h3 id="id00712" style="margin-top: 3em">BELLES AND BLACKBERRIES.</h3> In the first flush of Diana's distress that night, it had seemed to her that the sight of Lieut. Knowlton in all time to come could but give her additional distress. How could she look at him? But the clear morning light found her nerves quiet again, and her cheeks cool; and a certain sweet self-respect, in which she held herself always, forbade any such flutter of vanity or stir even of fancy as could in any wise ruffle the simple dignity of this country girl's manner. She had no careful mother's training, or father's watch and safeguard; the artificial rules of propriety were still less known to her; but innate purity and modesty, and, as I said, the poise of a true New England self-respect, stood her in better stead. When Diana saw Mr. Knowlton the next time, she was conscious of no discomposure; and he was struck with the placid elegance of manner, formed in no school, which was the very outgrowth of the truth within her. His own manner grew unconsciously deferential. It is the most flattering homage a man can render a woman. Mrs. Starling had delivered her mind, and thereafter she was content to be very civil to him. Further than that a true record cannot go. The young officer tried to negotiate himself into her good graces; he was attentive and respectful, and made himself entertaining. And Mrs. Starling was entertained, and entertained him also on her part; and Diana watched for a word of favourable comment or better judgment of him when he was gone. None ever came; and Diana sometimes sighed when she and her mother had shut the doors, as that night, upon each other. For to her mind the favourable comments rose unasked for. He came very often, on one pretext or another. He began to be very much at home. His eye used to meet her's, as something he had been looking for and had just found; and the lingering clasp of his hand said the touch was pleasant. Generally their interviews were in the parlour of Diana's home; sometimes he contrived an occasion to get her to drive with him, or to walk; and Diana never found that she could refuse herself the pleasure, or need refuse it to him. The country was so thinly settled, and their excursions had as yet been in such lonely places, that no village eyes or tongues had been aroused. So the depth of August came. The two were standing one moonlight night at the little front gate, lingering in the moonlight. Mr. Knowlton was going, and could not go. "Have you heard anything about the Bear Hill party?" he asked suddenly. "O yes; Miss Delamater came here a week ago to speak about it." "Are you going?" "Mother said she would. So I suppose I shall." "Where is it? and what is it?" "The place? Bear Hill is a very wild, stony, bare hill—at least one side of it is bare; the other side is covered with trees. And the bare side is covered with blackberry bushes, the largest you ever saw; and the berries are the largest. We always go there every summer, a number of us out of Pleasant Valley, to get blackberries." "How far is it?" "Fifteen miles." "That's a good way to go a-blackberrying," said the young man, smiling. "People hereabouts must be very fond of that fruit." "We want them for a great many uses, you know; it isn't just to eat them. Mother makes jam and wine for the whole year, besides what we eat at once. And we go for the fun too, as well as for the berries." "So it is fun, is it?" "I think so. We make a day of it; and everybody carries provisions; and we build a fire, and it is very pleasant." "I'll go," said Mr. Knowlton. "I have heard something about it at home. They wanted me to drive them, but I wanted to know what I was engaging myself to. Well, I'll be there, and I'll take care our waggon carries its stock of supplies too. Thursday, is it?" "I believe so." "What time shall you go?" "About eight o'clock—or half-past." "Eight!" said the young officer. "I shall have to revive Academy habits. I am grown lazy." "The days are so warm, you know," Diana explained; "and we have to come home early. We always have dinner between twelve and one." "I see!" said the young man. "I see the necessity, and feel the difficulty. Well, I'll be there." He grasped her hand again; they had shaken hands before he left the house, Diana remembered; and this time he held her fingers in a light clasp for some seconds after it was time to let them go. Then he turned and sprang upon his horse and went off at a gallop. Diana stood still at the gate where he had left her, looking down the road and listening to the diminishing sound of his horse's hoofs. The moonlight streamed tenderly down upon her and the elm trees; it filled the empty space where Knowlton's figure had been; it flickered where the elm branches stirred lightly and cast broken shadows upon the ground; it poured its floods of effulgence over the meadows and distant hills, in still, moveless peace and power of everlasting calm. It was one of the minutes of Diana's life that she never forgot afterwards; a point where her life had stood still—still as the moonlight, and almost as sweet in its broad restfulness. She lingered at the gate, and came slowly back again into the house. "What are you going to take to Bear Hill, mother?" inquired Diana the next day. "I don't know! I declare, I'm 'most tired of picnics; they cost more than they come to. If we could tackle up, now, and go off by ourselves, early some morning, and get what we want—there'd be some fun in that." "It's a very lonely place, mother." "That's what I say. I'm tired o' livin' for ever in a crowd." "But you said you'd go?" "Well, I'm goin'!" "Then we must take something." "Well; I'm goin' to. I calculated to take something." "What?" "Somethin' 'nother nobody else'll take—if I could contrive what that'd be." "Well, mother, I can tell you. Somebody'll be sure to carry cake, and pies, and cold ham and cheese, and bread and butter, and cold chicken. All that's sure." "Exactly. I could have told you as much myself, Diana. What I want to know is, somethin' nobody'll take." "Green corn to boil, mother?" "Well!" said Mrs. Starling, musing, "that is an idea. How'd you boil it?" "Must take a pot—or borrow one." "Borrow! Not I, from any o' the Bear Hill folks. I couldn't eat corn out o' their kettles. It's a sight o' trouble anyhow, Diana." "Then, mother, suppose I make a chicken pie?" "Do what you've a mind to, child. And there must be a lot o' coffee roasted. I declare, if I wasn't clean out o' blackberry wine, I'd cut the whole concern. There'll be churning just ready Thursday; and Josiah had ought to be sent off to mill, we're 'most out o' flour, and he can't go to-morrow, for he's got to see to the fence round the fresh pasture lot. And I want to clean the kitchen this week. There's no sittin' still in this world, I do declare! I haven't set a stitch in those gowns o' mine since last Friday, neither; and Society comes here next week. And if I don't catch Josiah before he goes out to work in the morning and get the stove cleaned out—the flues are all choked up—it'll drive me out o' the house or out o' my mind, with the smoke; and Bear Hill won't come off then." Bear Hill did "come off," however. Early on the morning of Thursday, Josiah might be seen loading up the little green waggon with tin kettles and baskets, both empty and full. Ears of corn went in too, for the "idee" had struck Mrs. Starling favourably, and an iron pot found its way into one corner. Breakfast was despatched in haste; the house locked up and the key put under the door-stone for Josiah to find at noon; and the two ladies mounted and drove away while the morning light was yet fresh and cool, and the shadows of the trees lay long in the meadow. August mornings and evenings were seldom hotter than was agreeable in Pleasant Valley. For some miles the road lay through the region so denominated. Then it entered the hills, and soon the way led over them, up and down steep ascents and pitches, with a green woodland on each side, and often a look-out over some little meadow valley of level fields and cultivation bordered and encircled by more hills. The drive was a silent one; Mrs. Starling held the reins, and perhaps they gave her thoughts employment enough; Diana was musing about another waggonful, and wondering whereabouts it was. Till at a turn of the road she discerned behind them, at some distance, a vehicle coming along, and knew, with a jump of her heart, the colour of the horse and the figure of the driver. Even so far off she was sure of them, and turned her sun-bonnet to look straight forward again, hoping that her mother might not by any chance give a look back. She did not herself again; but Diana's ears were watching all the while after that for the sound of hoofs or wheels coming near; and her eyes served her to see nothing but what was out of her field of vision. The scenery grew by degrees rough and wild; cultivation and civilisation seemed as they went on to fall into the rear. A village, or hamlet, of miserable, dirty, uncomely houses and people, was passed by; and at last, just as the morning was wakening up into fervour, Mrs. Starling drew rein in a desolate rough spot at the edge of a woodland. The regular road had been left some time before, since when only an uncertain wheel track had marked the way. Two or three farm waggons already stood at the place of meeting; nobody was in them; the last comer was just hitching his horse to a tree. "Here's Mis' Starling," he called out. "Good day! good-day to 'ye. Hold on, Mis' Starling—I'll fetch him up. Goin' to conquer all Bear Hill, ain't ye, with all them pails and kettles? Wall—blackberries ain't ripe but once in the year. I've left all my business to attend upon the women folks. What's blackberries good for, now, when you've got 'em?" "Don't you like a blackberry pie, Mr. Selden?" "Bless you!" said the farmer, "I kin live without it; but my folks can't live 'thout comin' once a year to Bear Hill. It is a wonder to me why things warn't so ordered as that folks could get along 'thout eatin'. It'd save a sight o' trouble. Why, Mis' Starlin', we're workin' all the time to fill our stomachs; come to think of it, that's pretty much what life is fur. Now I'll warrant you, they'll have a spread by and by, that'll be worth all they'll get here to-day." "Who's come, Mr. Selden?" "Wall, they ain't all here yet, I guess; my folks is up in the lot, hard to work, I s'pose. Mis' Seelye's gals is here; and Bill Howe and his wife; and the Delamaters; that's all, I guess. He's safe now, Mis' Starlin'." This last remark had reference to the horse, which farmer Selden had been taking out of the shafts and tethering, after helping the ladies down. Mrs. Starling got out her pails and baskets destined for the berry-picking, and gave some of them to her daughter. "They'll be all flocking together, up in the thickest part of the lot," she whispered. "Now, Diana, if you'll sheer off a little, kind o', and keep out o' sight, you'll have a ventur'; and we can stand a chance to get home early after dinner. I'll go along ahead and keep 'em from comin' where you are—if I can." Diana heard with tingling ears, for she heard at the same time the sound of the approaching waggon behind her. She did not look; she caught up her pail and basket and plunged into the wood path after her mother and Mr. Selden; but she had not gone three yards when she heard her name called. "You are not going to desert us?" cried young Knowlton, coming up with her. "We don't know a step of the way, nor where to find blackberries or anything. I have been piloting myself all the way by your waggon. Come back and let me make you friends with my sister." Blushing and hesitating, Diana had yet no choice. She followed Mr. Knowlton back to the clearing, and looked on, feeling partly pleased and partly uncomfortable, while he helped from their waggon the ladies he had driven to the picnic. The first one dismounted was a beautiful vision to Diana's eyes. A trim little figure, robed in a dress almost white, with small crimson clusters sprinkled over it, coral buckle and earrings, a wide Leghorn hat with red ribbons, and curly, luxuriant, long, floating waves of hair. She was so pretty, and her attire was so graceful, and had so jaunty a style about it, that Diana was struck somehow with a fresh though very undefined feeling of uneasiness. She turned to the other lady. Very pretty she was too; smaller even than the first one, with delicate, piquant features and a ready smile. Daintily she also was dressed in some stuff of deep green colour, which set her off as its encompassing foliage does a bunch of cherries. Her face looked out almost like one, it was so blooming, from the shadow of a green silk sun-bonnet; and her hands were cased in green kid gloves. Her eyes sought Diana. "My sister, Mrs. Reverdy," said young Knowlton eagerly, leading her forward. "Miss Starling, Genevieve; you know who Miss Starling is." The little lady's answer was most gracious; she smiled winningly and grasped Diana's hand, and was delighted to know her. "And we are so glad to meet you; for we are strangers here, you know. I never was at Bear Hill in my life, but they told us of wonderful blackberries here, and such multitudes of them; and we persuaded Evan to drive us—you know we don't often have him to do anything for us; so we came, but I don't know what we should have done if we had not met you. Gertrude and I thought we would come and see what a picnic on Bear Hill meant." And she laughed again; smiles came very easily to her pretty little face. And then she introduced Miss Masters. Knowlton stood by, looking on at them all. "These elegant women!" thought Diana; "what must I seem to him?" And truly her print gown was of homely quality and country wear; she did not take into the account a fine figure, which health and exercise had made free and supple in all its movements, and which the quiet poise of her character made graceful, whether in motion or rest. For grace is no gift of a dancing-master or result of the schools. It is the growth of the mind, more than of the body; the natural and almost necessary symbolization in outward lines of what is noble, simple, and free from self; and not almost but quite necessary, if the further conditions of a well-made and well-jointed figure and a free and unconstrained habit of life are not wanting. The conditions all met in Diana; the harmony of development was, as it always is, lovely to see. But a shadow fell on her heart as she turned to lead the way through the wood to the blackberry field. For in the artistic elegance of the ladies beside her, she thought she recognised somewhat that belonged to Mr. Knowlton's sphere and not to her own—something that removed her from him and drew them near; she thought he could not fail to find it so. What then? She did not ask herself what then. Indeed, she had no leisure for difficult analysis of her thoughts. "Dear me, how rough!" Mrs. Reverdy exclaimed. "Really, Evan, I did not know what you were bringing us to. Is it much farther we have to go?" "It is all rough," said Diana. "You ought to have thick shoes." "O, I have! I put on horridly thick ones,—look! Isn't that thick enough? But I never felt anything like these stones. Is the blackberry field full of them too? Really, Evan, I think I cannot get along if you don't give me your arm." "You have two arms, Mr. Knowlton—can't I have the other one?" cried Miss Masters dolefully. "I have got trees on my other arm, Gatty—I don't see where I should put you. Can't you help Miss Starling along, till we get out of the woods?" "Isn't it very impertinent of him to call me Gatty?" said the little beauty, tossing her long locks and speaking in a half aside to Diana. "Now he would like that I should return the compliment and call him Evan; but I won't. What do you do, when men call you by your Christian name?" She was trying to read Diana as she spoke, eyeing her with sidelong glances, and as they went, laying her daintily gloved hand on Diana's arm to help herself along. Diana was astounded both at her confidence and at her request for counsel; but as to meet the request would be to return the confidence, she was silent. She was thinking, too, of the elegant little boot Mrs. Reverdy had displayed, and contrasting it with her own coarse shoes. And how very familiar these two were, that he should speak to her by her first name so! "Miss Starling!" cried the other lady behind her,—"do you know we have been following your lead all the way we were coming this morning?" "Mr. Knowlton said so," Diana replied, half turning. "Aren't you very much flattered?" This time Diana turned quite, and faced the two. "My mother was driving, Mrs. Reverdy." "Ah?" said the other with a very amused laugh. "But you could have done it just as well, I suppose." What does she mean? thought Diana. "Can you do anything?" inquired the gay lady on her arm. "I am a useless creature; I can only fire a pistol, and leap a fence on horseback, and dance a polka. What can you do? I dare say you are worth a great deal more than me. Can you make butter and bread and pudding and pies and sweetmeats and pickles, and all that sort of thing? I dare say you can." "I can do that." "And all I am good for is to eat them! I can do that. Do you make cheeses too?" "I can. My mother generally makes the cheese." "O, but I mean you. What do people do on a farm? women, I mean. I know what the men do. You know all about it. Do you have to milk the cows and feed everything?—chickens and pigs, you know, and all that?" "The men milk," said Diana. "And you have to do those other things? Isn't it horrid?" "It is not horrid to feed the chickens. I never had anything to do with the pigs." "O, but Evan says you know how to harness horses." Does he? thought Diana. "And you can cut wood?" "Cut wood!" Diana repeated. "Did anybody say I could do that?" "I don't know—Yes, I think so. I forget. But you can, can't you?" "I never tried, Miss Masters." "Do you know my cousin, Mr. Masters?—the minister, you know?" "Yes, I know him a little." "Do you like him?" "I like him,—yes, I don't know anything against him," said Diana in great bewilderment. "O, but I do. Don't you know he says it is wicked to do a great many things that we do? he thinks everybody is wicked who don't do just as he does. Now I don't think everybody is bound to be a minister. He thinks it is wicked to dance; and I don't care to live if I can't dance." "That is being very fond of it," said Diana. "Do you dance her, in the country?" "Sometimes; not very often." "Isn't it very dull here in the winter, when you can't go after blackberries?" Diana smiled. "I never found it dull," she said. Nevertheless, the contrast smote her more and more, between what Mr. Knowlton was accustomed to in his world, and the very plain, humdrum, uneventful, unadorned life she led in hers. And this elegant creature, whose very dress was a sort of revelation to Diana in its perfection of beauty, she seemed to the poor country girl to put at an immense distance from Mr. Knowlton those who could not be charming and refined and exquisite in the like manner. Her gloves,—one hand rested on Diana's arm, and pulled a little too;—what gloves they were, for colour and fit and make! Her foot was a study. Her hat might have been a fairy queen's hat. And the face under it, pretty and gay and wilful and sweet, how could any man help being fascinated by it? 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. "Hid in this scrubby forest of bushes," said her brother. "Have we got to go into that forest too?" "If you want to pick berries." "I think we'll sit here and let the rest do the picking," said Mrs. Reverdy, looking with charming merriment at Gertrude. But Gertrude was not so minded. "No, I'm going after berries," she said. "Only, I don't see where they are. I see bushes, and that is all." "Just here they have been picked," said Diana. "Farther on there are plenty." "Well, you lead and we'll follow," said Mr. Knowlton. "You lead, Miss Starling, and we will keep close to you." Diana plunged into the blackberry bushes, and striking off from the route she guessed the other pickers had taken, sought a part of the wilderness lower down on the hill. There was no lack of blackberries very soon. Every bush hung black with them; great, fat, juicy beauties, just ready to fall with ripeness. Blackberry stains spotted the whole party after they had gone a few yards, merely by the unavoidable crushing up against the bushes. Diana went to work upon this rich harvest, and occupied herself entirely with it; but berry-picking never was so dreary to her. The very sound of the berries falling into her tin pail smote her with a sense of pain; she thought of the day's work before her with revulsion. However, it was before her, and her fingers flew among the bushes, from berry to berry, gathering them with a deft skilfulness her companions could not emulate. Diana knew how they were getting on, without using her eyes to find out; for all their experience was proclaimed aloud. How the ground was rough and the bushes thorny, how the berries blacked their lips and the prickles lacerated their fingers, and the stains of blackberry juice were spoiling gloves and dresses and all they had on. "I never imagined," said Mrs. Reverdy with a gay laugh, "that picking blackberries was such a serious business. O dear! and it's only just eleven o'clock now. And I am so hungry!" "Eat blackberries," said Gertrude, who was doing it diligently. "But I want to carry some home." "You can buy 'em. We came for fun," was the cool answer. "Fun?" said Mrs. Reverdy with another echoing, softly echoing, laugh; "it's the fun of being torn and stained and scratched, and having one's hat pulled off one's hair, and the hair off one's head." Diana heard it all, they were not far from her; and she heard, too, Mr. Knowlton's little remarks, half gallant, half mocking, but very familiar, she thought. No doubt, to his sister; but how to Miss Masters too? Yet they were; and also, she noticed, he kept in close attendance upon the latter young lady; picking into her basket, getting her out of her numerous entanglements with the blackberry branches, flattering and laughing at her; Gertrude was having what she would call a good time; why not? "And why should I?" thought Diana to herself as she filled her pail. "It is not in my line. What a goose I was, to fancy that this young man could take pleasure in being with me. He did; but then he was just amusing himself; it was not I; it was the country and the fishing, and so on. What a goose I have been!" As fast as the blackberries dropped into the pail, so fell these reflections into Diana's heart; and when the one was full, so was the other. And as she set down her pail and began upon a fresh empty one, so she did with her thoughts; they began all over again too. "Miss Starling, it is twelve o'clock," cried Mrs. Reverdy; "where are all the rest of the people? Do you work all day without dinner? I expected to see a great picnic out under the trees here." "This is not the picnic place," said Diana. "We will go to it." She went back first to the waggons; put her berries in safe keeping, and got out some of the lunch supplies. Mr. Knowlton loaded himself with a basket out of his waggon; and the procession formed again in Indian file, everybody carrying something, and the two ladies grumbling and laughing in concert. Diana headed the line, feeling very much alone, and wishing sadly it were all over and she at home. How was she to play her part in the preparations at hand, where she had always been so welcome and so efficient? All spring and life seemed to be taken out of her, for everything but the dull mechanical picking of berries. However, strength comes with necessity, she found. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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