Part 34 (1/2)

Diana Susan Warner 38500K 2022-07-22

”An hour or two!” Mrs. Reverdy uttered a little scream.

”Not at this time of year, mother,” interposed Diana.

”Do you get up at these fearful times?” inquired Miss Masters languidly, turning her eyes full upon the latter speaker.

Diana scarce answered. Would all the minutes of their visit pa.s.s in these plat.i.tudes? could nothing else be talked of? The next instant she blessed Mr. Masters.

”Have you heard from the soldier lately?” he asked.

”O yes! we hear frequently,” Mrs. Reverdy said.

”He likes his post?”

”I really don't know,” said her sister, laughing; ”a soldier can't choose, you know; I fancy they have some rough times out there; but they manage to get a good deal of fun too. Evan's last letter told of buffalo hunting, and said they had some very good society too. You wouldn't expect it, on the outskirts of everything; but the officers'

families are very pleasant. There are young ladies, sometimes; and every one is made a great deal of.”

”Where is Mr. Knowlton?” Diana asked. She had been working up her courage to dare the question; it was hazardous; she was afraid to trust her voice; but the daring of desperation was on her, and the words came out with sufficiently cool utterance. A keen observer might note a change in Mrs. Reverdy's look and tone.

”O, he's in one of those dreadful posts out on the frontier; too near the Indians; but I suppose if there weren't Indians there wouldn't be forts, and they wouldn't want officers or soldiers to be in them,” she added, looking at Mr. Masters, as if she had found a happy final cause for the existence of the aborigines of the country.

”What is the name of the place?” Diana asked.

”I declare I've forgotten. Fort----,I can't think of any name but Vancouver, and it isn't that. Gertrude, what _is_ the name of that place? Do you know, I can't tell whether it is in Arizona or Wisconsin!” And Mrs. Reverdy laughed at her geographical innocence.

Gertrude ”didn't remember.”

”He is not so far off as Vancouver, I think,” said Mr. Masters.

”No,--O no, not so far as that; but he might just as well. When you get to a certain distance, it don't signify whether it is more or less; you can't get at people, and they can't get at you. _You_ have seemed to be at that distance lately, Basil. What a dreadful name! How came you to be called such a name?”

”Be thankful it is no worse,” said the minister gravely. ”I might have been called Lactantius.”

”Lactantius! Impossible. Was there ever a man named Lactantius?”

”Certainly.”

”'Tain't any worse than Ichabod,” remarked Mrs. Starling.

”Nothing can be worse than Ichabod,” said Mr. Masters in the same dry way. ”It means, 'The glory is departed.'”

”The Ichabods I knew, never had any glory to begin with,” said Mrs.

Starling.

But the minister laughed at this, and so gaily that it was infectious.

Mrs. Starling joined in, without well knowing why; the lady visitors seemed to be very much amused. Diana tried to laugh, with lips that felt rigid as steel. The minister's eye came to hers too, she knew, to see how the fun went with her. And then the ladies rose, took a very flattering leave, and departed, carrying Mr. Masters off with them.

”I am coming to look at those books of yours soon,” he said, as he shook hands with Diana. ”May I?”

Diana made her answer as civil as she could, with those stiff lips; how she bade good-bye to the others she never knew. As her mother attended them to the garden gate, she went up the stairs to her room, feeling now it was the first time that the pain _could not be borne_. Seeing these people had brought Evan so near, and hearing them talk had put him at such an impossible distance. Diana pressed both hands on her heart, and stood looking out of her window at the departing carriage.

What could she do? Nothing that she could think of, and to do nothing was the intolerable part of it. Any, the most tedious and lingering action, yes, even the least hopeful, anything that would have been action, would have made the pain supportable; she could have drawn breath then, enough for life's purposes; now she was stifling. There was some mystery; there was something wrong; some mistake, or misapprehension, or malpractice; _something_, which if she could put her hand on, all would be right. And it was hidden from her; dark; it might be near or far, she could not touch it, for she could not find it. There was even no place for suspicion to take hold, unless the curiosity of the post office, or of some prying neighbour; she did not suspect Evan; and yet there was a great throb at her heart with the thought that in Evan's place _she_ would never have let things rest.