Daisy in the Field Part 53

"Nothing to avoid the rocks. The helm is not in your hand."

"But I know in whose hand it is."

"And are willing to have it there?"

"More than willing," I said, meeting his eye.

"Then the boat will go right," he said, with a sort of accent of relief. "It is the cross pulls with the oar, striving to undo the work of the rudder, that draw the vessel out of her course. The Pilot knows, - if you can only leave it to the Pilot."

There was a pause again.

"But He sometimes takes the boat into the breakers," Mr.

Dinwiddie said.

"Yes," I said. "I know it."

"What then, Daisy, my friend?"

"What then, Mr. Dinwiddie?" I said, looking up at him. "Then she must be broken to pieces."

"And what then? Can you trust the Pilot still?"

His great eyes were flashing and glittering as he looked at me. No careless nor aimless thought had caused such an interrogatory, I knew. I met the eyes which seemed to be blazing and melting at once, but I answered only by the look.

"You may," he went on, without taking his eyes from mine. "You may trust safely. Even if the vessel is shaken and broken, trust even then, when all seems gone. There shall be smooth waters yet; and a better voyage than if you had gone a less wearisome way."

"Why do you say all this to me, Mr. Dinwiddie?"

"Not because I am a prophet," he said, looking away now, - "for I am none. And if I saw such trials ahead for you, I should have hardly courage to utter them. I asked, to comfort myself; that I might know of a certainty that you are safe, whatever comes."

"Thank you," I said, rather faintly.

"I shall stay here," he went on presently, "in the land of my work; and you will be gone to-morrow for other scenes. It isn't likely you will ever see me again. But if ever you need a friend, on the other side of the globe, if you call me, I will come. It is folly to say that, though," he said plucking hastily at a spear of gra.s.s; - "you will not need nor think of me. But I suppose you know, Daisy, by this time, that all those who come near you, love you. I am no exception. You must have charity for me."

"Dear Mr. Dinwiddie," I said reaching out my hand, - "if I were in trouble and wanted a friend, there is no one in the world that I would sooner, or - rather, or as soon or as lief, ask to help me. Except -" I added, and could not finish my sentence. For I had remembered there was an exception which ought to be implied somewhere.

"I know," he said, wringing my hand. "I wish I could heap blessings on the head of the exception. Now let us go in."

The next day we rode down to Beyrout, and took the steamer that same evening.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A MASKED BATTERY

My Palestine holiday lasted, in some measure, all the way of our journey home; and left me at the very moment when we entered our Parisian hotel and met mamma. It left me then. All the air of the place, much more all the style of mamma's dress and manner, said at once that we had come into another world.

She was exquisitely dressed; that was usual; it could not have been only that, nor the dainty appointments around her; - it was something in her bearing, an indescribable something even as she greeted us, which said, You have played your play - now you will play mine. And it said, I cannot tell how, The cards are in my hands.

Company engaged her that evening. I saw little of her till the next day. At our late breakfast then we discussed many things.

Not much of Palestine; mamma did not want to hear much of that. She had had it in our letters, she said. American affairs were gone into largely; with great eagerness and bitterness by both mamma and Aunt Gary; with triumphs over the disasters of the Union army before Richmond, and other lesser affairs in which the North had gained no advantage; invectives against the President's July proclamation, his impudence and his cowardice; and prophecies of ruin to him and his cause.

Papa listened and said little. I heard and was silent; with throbbing forebodings of trouble.

"Daisy is handsomer than ever," my aunt remarked, when even politics had exhausted themselves. But I wondered what she was thinking of when she said it. Mamma lifted her eyes and glanced me over.

"Daisy has a rival, newly appeared," she said. "She must do her best."

"There cannot be rivalry, mamma, where there is no compet.i.tion," I said.

"Cannot there?" said mamma. "You never told us, Daisy, of _your_ successes in the North."

I do not think I flushed at all in answer to this remark; the blood seemed to me to go all to my heart.

"Who has been Daisy's trumpeter?" papa asked.

"There is a friend of hers here," mamma said, slowly sipping her coffee. I do not know how I sat at the table; things seemed to swim in a maze before my eyes; then mamma went on, - "What have you done with your victim, Daisy?"

"Mamma," I said, "I do not at all know of whom you are speaking."

"Left him for dead, I suppose," she said. "He has met with a good Samaritan, I understand, who carried oil and wine."

Papa's eye met mine for a moment.

"Felicia," he said, "you are speaking very unintelligibly. I beg you will use clearer language, for all our sakes."

"Daisy understands," she said.

"Indeed I do not, mamma."

"Not the good Samaritan's part, of course. That has come since you were away. But you knew once that a Northern Blue-coat had been pierced by the fire of your eyes?"

"Mamma," I said, - "if you put it so, I have known it of more than one."

"Imagine it!" said mamma, with an indescribable gesture of lip, which yet was gracefully slight.

"Imagine what?" said papa.

"One of those canaille venturing to look at Daisy!"

"My dear," said papa, "pray do not fail to remember, that we have pa.s.sed a large portion of our life among those whom you denominate canaille, and who always were permitted the privilege of looking at us all. I do not recollect that we felt it any derogation from anything that belonged to us."

"Did you let him look at you, Daisy?" mamma said, lifting her own eyes up to me. "It was cruel of you."

"Your friend Miss St. Clair, is here, Daisy," my aunt Gary said.

"My friend!" I repeated.

"She is your friend," said mamma. "She has bound up the wounds you have made, Daisy, and saved you from being in the full sense a destroyer of human life."

"When did Faustina come here?" I asked.