Читать книгу Diana - Warner Susan - Страница 5

June had changed for July; but no heats ever withered the green of the Pleasant Valley hills, nor browned its pastures; and no droughts ever stopped the tinkling of its rills and brooks, which rolled down, every one of them, over gravelly pebbly beds to lose themselves in lake or river. Sun enough to cure the hay and ripen the grain, they had; and July was sweet with the perfume of hayfield, and lovely with brown hayricks, and musical with the whetting of scythes. Mrs. Starling's little farm had a good deal of grass land; and the haying was proportionally a busy season. For haymakers, according to the general tradition of the country, in common with reapers, are expected to eat more than ordinary men, or men in ordinary employments; and to furnish the meals for the day kept both Mrs. Starling and her daughter busy.

It was mid-afternoon, sunny, perfumed, still; the afternoon luncheon had gone out to the men, who were cutting then in the meadow which surrounded the house. Diana found her hands free; and had gone up to her room, not to rest, for she was not tired, but to get out of the atmosphere of the kitchen and breathe a few minutes without thinking of cheese and gingerbread. She had begun to change her dress; but leisure wooed her, and she took up a book and presently forgot even that care in the delight of getting into a region of thought. For Diana's book was not a novel; few such found their way to Pleasant Valley, and seldom one to Mrs. Starling's house. Her father's library was quite unexhausted still, its volumes took so long to read and needed so much thinking over; and now she was deep in a treatise more solid and less attractive than most young women are willing to read. It carried her out of the round of daily duties and took her away from Pleasant Valley altogether, and so was a great refreshment. Besides, Diana liked thinking.

Once or twice a creak of a farm waggon was heard along the road; it was too well known a sound to awake her attention; then came a sound far less common – the sharp trot of a horse moving without wheels behind him. Diana started instantly and went to a window that commanded the road. The sound ceased, but she saw why; the rider had reined in his steed and was walking slowly past; the same rider she had expected to see, with the dark uniform and the soldier's cap. He looked hard at the place; could he be stopping? The next moment Diana had flown back to her own room, had dropped the dress which was half off, and was arraying herself in a fresh print; and she was down-stairs almost as soon as the visitor knocked. Diana opened the door. She knew Mrs. Starling was deep in supper preparations, mingled with provisions for the next day's lunches.

Uniforms have a great effect, to eyes unaccustomed to them. How Lieut. Knowlton came to be wearing his uniform in the country, so far away from any post, I don't know; perhaps he did. He said, that he had nothing else he liked for riding in. But a blue frock, with gold bars across the shoulders and military buttons, is more graceful than a frieze coat. And it was a gracious, graceful head that was bared at the sight of the door-opener.

"You see," he said with a smile, "I couldn't go by! The other day I was your pensioner, in kindness. Now I want to come in my own character, if you'll let me."

"Is it different from the character I saw the other day?" said Diana, as she led the way into the parlour.

"You did not see my character the other day, did you?"

"I saw what you showed me!"

He laughed, and then laughed again; looking a little surprised, a good deal amused.

"I would give a great deal to know what you thought of me."

"Why would you?" Diana said, quite quietly.

"That I might correct your mistakes, of course."

"Suppose I made any mistakes," said Diana, "you could only tell me that you thought differently. I don't see that I should be much wiser."

"I find I made a mistake about you!" he said, laughing again, but shaking his head. "But every person is like a new language to those that see him for the first time; don't you think so? One has to learn the signs of the language by degrees, before one can read it off like a book."

"I never thought about that," said Diana. "No; I think that is true of some people; not everybody. All the Pleasant Valley people seem to me to belong to one language. All except one, perhaps."

"Who is the exception?" Mr. Knowlton asked quickly.

"I don't know whether you know him."

"O, I know everybody here – or I used to."

"I was thinking of somebody who didn't use to be here. He has only just come. I mean Mr. Masters."

"The parson?"

"Yes."

"I don't know him much. I suppose he belongs to the parson language, to carry on our figure. They all do."

"He don't," said Diana. "That is what struck me in him. What are the signs of the 'parson' language?"

"A black coat and a white neckcloth, to begin with."

"He dresses in grey," said Diana laughing, "or in white; and wears any sort of a cravat."

"To go on, – Generally a grave face and a manner of great propriety; with a square way of arranging words."

"Mr. Masters has no manner at all; and he is one of the most entertaining people I ever knew."

"Jolly sort, eh?"

"No, I think not," said Diana; "I don't know exactly what you mean by jolly; he is never silly, and he does not laugh much particularly; but he can make other people laugh."

"Well, another sign is, they put a religious varnish over common things. Do you recognise that?"

"I recognise that, for I have seen it; but it isn't true of Mr.

Masters."

"I give him up," said young Knowlton. "I am sure I shouldn't like him."

"Why, do you like these common signs of the 'parson language,' as you call it, that you have been reckoning?"

The answer was a decided negative accompanied with a laugh again; and then Diana's visitor turned the conversation to the country, and the place, and the elm trees; looked out of the window and observed that the haymakers were at work near the house, and finally said he must go out to look at them nearer – he had not made hay since he was a boy.

He went out, and Diana went back to her mother in the lean-to.

"Mother, young Mr. Knowlton is here."

"Well, keep him out o' my way; that's all I ask."

"Haven't you got through yet?"

"Through! There was but one single pan of ginger-bread left this noon; and there ain't more'n three loaves o' bread in the pantry. What's that among a tribe o' such grampuses? I've got to make biscuits for tea, Di; and I may as well get the pie-crust off my hands at the same time; it'll be so much done for to-morrow. I wish you'd pick over the berries. And then I'll find you something else to do. If I had six hands and two heads, I guess I could about get along."

"But, mother, it won't do for nobody to be in the parlour."

"I thought he was gone?"

"Only gone out into the field to see the haymakers."

"Queer company!" said Mrs. 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. This young officer was a new language to her, and she would have liked, she thought, to spell out a little more of its graceful peculiarities. The berries took a good while. Meantime Mrs. Starling's biscuit went into the oven, and a sweet smell began to come thereout. Mrs. Starling bustled about setting the table; with cold pork and pickles, and cheese and berry pie, and piles of bread brown and white. Clearly the haymakers were expected to supper.

"Mother," said Diana doubtfully, when she had washed her hands from the berry stains, "will you bring Mr. Knowlton out here to tea, if he should possibly stay?"

"He's gone, child, this age."

"No, he isn't."

"He ain't out yonder any more."

"But his horse stands by the fence under the elm."

"I wish he was farther, then! Yes, of course he'll come here, if he takes supper with me to-night. I don't think he will. I don't know him, and I don't know as I want to."

But this vaguely expressed hope was disappointed. The young officer came in, a little while before supper; laughingly asked Diana for some water to wash his hands; and followed her out to the lean-to. There he was introduced to Mrs. Starling, and informed her he had been doing her work, begging to know if that did not entitle him to some supper. I think Mrs. Starling was a little sorry then that she had not made preparations to receive him more elegantly; but it was too late now; she only rushed a little nervously to fetch him a finer white towel than those which usually did kitchen duty for herself and Diana; and then the biscuits were baked, and the farm hands came streaming in.

There were several of them, now in haying time, headed by Josiah Davis, Mrs. Starling's ordinary stand-by. Heavy and clumsy, warm from the hay-field, a little awkward at sight of the company, they filed in and dropped into their several seats round one end of the table; and Mrs. Starling could only play all her hospitable arts around her guest, to make him forget if possible his unwonted companions. She served him assiduously with the best she had on the table; she would not bring on any dainties extra; and the young officer took kindly even to the pork and pickles, and declared the brown bread was worth working for; and when Mrs. Starling let fall a word of regretful apology, assured her that in the times when he was a cadet he would have risked getting a good many marks for the sake of such a meal.

"What are the marks for?" inquired Mrs. Starling curiously.

"Bad boys," he told her; and then went off to a discussion of her hay crop, and a dissertation on the delights of making hay and the pleasure he had had from it that afternoon; "something he did not very often enjoy."

"Can't you make hay anywheres?" Mrs. Starling asked a little dryly.

He gravely assured her it would not be considered military.

"I don't know what military means," said Mrs. Starling. "You are military, ain't you?"

"Mean to be," he answered seriously.

"Well, you are. Then, I should think, whatever you do would be military."

But at this giving of judgment, after a minute of, perhaps, endeavour for self-control, Mr. Knowlton broke down and laughed furiously. Mrs. Starling looked stern. Diana was in a state of indecision, whether to laugh with her friend or frown with her mother; but the infection of fun was too much for her – the pretty lips gave way. Maybe that was encouragement for the offender; for he did not show any embarrassment or express any contrition.

"You do me too much honour," he said as soon as he could make his voice steady; "you do me too much honour, Mrs. Starling. I assure you, I have been most unmilitary this afternoon; but really I am no better than a boy when the temptation takes me; and the temptation of your meadow and those long windrows was too much for me. I enjoyed it hugely. I am coming again, may I?"

"You'll have to be quick about it, then," said Mrs Starling, not much mollified; "there ain't much more haying to do on the home lot, I guess. Ain't you 'most done, Josiah?"

"How?" said that worthy from the other end of the table. Mrs. Starling had raised her voice, but Josiah's wits always wanted a knock at the door before they would come forth to action.

"Hain't you 'most got through haying?"

"Not nigh."

"Why, what's to do?" inquired the mistress, with a new interest.

"There's all this here lot to finish, and all of Savin hill."

"Savin hill ain't but half in grass."

"Jes' so. There ain't a lock of it cut, though."

"If I was a man," said Mrs. Starling, "I believe I could get the better o' twenty acres o' hay in less time than you take for it. However, I ain't. Mr. Knowlton, do take one o' those cucumbers. I think there ain't a green pickle equal to a cucumber – when it's tender and sharp, as it had ought to be."

"I am sure everything under your hands is as it ought to be," said the young officer, taking the cucumber. "I know these are. Your haymakers have a good time," he added as the men rose, and there was a heavy clangour of boots and grating chairs at the lower end of the table.

"They calculate to have it," said Mrs. Starling. "And all through Pleasant Valley they do have it. There are no poor folks in the place; and there ain't many that calls themselves rich; they all expect to be comfortable; and I guess most of 'em be."

"Just the state of society in which – There's a sweet little stream running through your meadow, Miss Diana," said the young officer with a sudden change of subject. "Where does it go to?"

"It makes a great many turns, through different farms, and then joins your river – the Yellow River – that runs round Elmfield."

"That's a river; this brook is just what I like. I got tired with my labours this afternoon, and then I threw myself down by the side of the water to look at it. I lay there till I had almost forgotten what I was about."

"Not in your shirt sleeves, just as you was?" inquired Mrs. Starling. The inquiry drew another laugh from her guest; and he then asked Diana where the brook came from. If it was pretty, followed up?

"Very pretty!" Diana said. "As soon as you get among the hills and in the woods with it, it is as pretty as it can be; not a bit like what it is here; full of rocks and pools and waterfalls; lovely!"

"Any fish?"

"Beautiful trout."

"Miss Diana, can you fish?"

"No. I never tried."

"Well, trout fishing is not exactly a thing that comes by nature. I must go up that brook. I wish you would go and show me the way. 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. Miss Diana, the sooner the better, while this lovely weather lasts. Shall we say to-morrow?"

"I'll be ready," said Diana.

"This weather ain't goin' to change in a hurry," remarked Mrs. Starling.

But the remark did not seem to be to the purpose. The appointment was made for the following day at three o'clock; and Mr. Knowlton's visit having come to an end, he mounted and galloped away.

"Three o'clock!" said Mrs. Starling. "Just the heat o' the day. And trout, indeed! Don't you be a silly fish yourself, Diana."

"Mother!" said Diana. "I couldn't help going, when he asked me."

"You could ha' helped it if you'd wanted to, I s'pose."

Which was no doubt true, and Diana made no response; for she wanted to go. She watched the golden promise of dawn the next morning; she watched the cloudless vault of the sky, and secretly rejoiced within herself that she would be ready.