Daisy in the Field Part 59

That was all I could get from mamma that evening. She lay down on a sofa and buried her face in pillows. I sat in the darkening room and mused. The windows were open; a soft warm air blew the curtains gently in and out; from the street below came the murmur of business and voices and clatter of feet and sound of wheels; not with the earnestness of alarm or the droop of depression, but ringing, sharp, clear, cheery. The city did not feel badly. New York had not suffered in its fortunes or prosperity. There was many a battlefield at the South where the ravages of war had swept all traces and hopes of good fortunes away; never one at the North where the corn had been blasted, or the fruits of the earth untimely ravaged, or the heart of the husbandman disappointed in his ground.

Mamma's conclusions seemed to me without premise. What of my own fortunes? I thought the wind of the desert, had blown upon them and they were dead. I remember, in the trembling of my heart as I sat and listened and mused, and thoughts trooped in and out of my head with little order or volition on my part, one word was a sort of rallying point on which they gathered and fell back from time to time, though they started out again on fresh roamings - "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations"! - I remember, - it seems to me now as if it had been some time before I was born, - how the muslin curtains floated in on the evening wind, and the hum and stir of the street came up to my ear; the bustle and activity, though it was evening; and how the distant battlefields of Virginia looked in forlorn contrast in the far distance. Yet this was really the desert and that the populous place; for there, somewhere, my world was. I grew very desolate as I thought, or mused, by the window. If it had not been for those words of the refuge, my heart would have failed me utterly.

After a long while mamma roused up and we had tea brought.

"Has Dr. Sandford gone?" she asked.

"He bid us good bye, mamma, you know. I suppose he took the evening train, as he said."

"Then we shall have no more meddling."

"He means us only kindness, I am sure, mamma."

"I do not like kindness. I do not know what right Dr. Sandford has to offer me kindness. I gave him none."

"Mamma, it seems to me that we are in a condition to receive kindness, - and be very glad of it."

"You are poor-spirited, Daisy; you always were. You never had any right pride of blood or of place. I think it makes no difference to you who people are. If you had done your duty to me, we should have been in no condition now to 'receive kindness,' as you express it. I may thank you."

"What do you mean to do, mamma?"

"Nothing."

"Stay here, in this hotel?"

"Yes."

"It will be very expensive, mamma."

"I will meet the expense."

"But, mamma, - without funds?"

"I have a diamond necklace yet, Daisy."

"But, mamma, when that is gone? -"

"Do you think," she broke out with violence, "that this war is going to last for ever? It _cannot_ last. The Yankees will find out what they have undertaken. Lee will drive them back. You do not suppose _he_ can be overcome?"

"Mamma - if the others have more men and more means -"

"They are only Yankees," - mamma said quietly, but with a concentration of scorn impossible to give in words.

"They know how to fight," - I could not help saying.

"Yes, but _we_ do not know how to be overcome! Do you think it, Daisy?"

"Mamma - there was New Orleans - and Vicksburg - and Gettysburg; - and now in Virginia -"

"Yes, now; these battles; you will see how they will turn. Do you suppose this Yankee Grant is a match for Robert E. Lee?"

It was best to drop the discussion, and I dropped it; but it had gone too far to be forgotten. Every bit of news from that time was a point of irritation; if good for the South, mamma a.s.serted that I did not sympathise with it; if good for the North, she found that I was glad, though I tried not to show that I was. She was irritated, and anxious, and unhappy. What I was, I kept to myself.

CHAPTER XX.

THE WOUNDED

One desire possessed me, pressing before every other; it was to see Miss Cardigan. I thought I should accomplish this very soon after my landing. I found that I must wait for days.

It was very hard to wait. Yet mamma needed me; she was nervous and low-spirited and unwell and lonely; she could not endure to have me long out of her sight. She never looked with favour upon any proposal of mine to go out, even for a walk; and I could hardly get permission. I fancied that some - latent - suspicion lay beneath all this unwillingness, which did not make it more easy to bear. But I got leave at last, one afternoon early in June; and took my way up the gay thoroughfares of Broadway and the Avenue.

It was June, June all over. Just like the June of four years ago, when Dr. Sandford took me away from school to go to West Point; like the June of three years ago, when I had been finishing my school work, before I went to Washington. I was a mere girl then; now, I seemed to myself at least twenty years older. June sweetness was in all the air; June sunlight through all the streets; roses blossomed in courtyards and looked out of windows; gra.s.s was lush and green; people were in summer dresses. I hurried along, my breath growing shorter as I went. The well-known corner of Mme. Ricard's establishment came into view, and bright school-days with it.

Miss Cardigan's house opposite looked just as I had left it; and as I drew near I saw that this was literally so. The flowers were blossoming in the garden plots and putting their faces out of window, exactly as if I had left them but a day ago. My knees trembled under me then, as I went up the steps and rang the bell. A strange servant opened to me. I went in, to her astonishment I suppose, without asking any questions; which indeed I could not. What if a second time I should find Mr. Thorold here? Such a thought crossed me as I trod the familiar marble floor, after the wild fashion in which our wishes mock our reason; then it left me the next instant, in my gladness to see through the opening door the figure of my dear old friend. Just as I had left her also. Something, in the wreck of my world, had stood still and suffered no change.

I went in and stood before her. She pulled off her spectacles, looked at me, changed colour and started up. I can hardly tell what she said. I think I was in too great a confusion for my senses to do their office perfectly. But her warm arms were about me, and my head found a hiding-place on her shoulder.

"Sit down, my lamb, my lamb!" were the first words I remember.

"Janet, shut the door, and tell anybody I am busy. Sit you down here and rest. My lamb, ye're all shaken. Daisy, my pet, where have you been?"

I sat down, and she did, but I leaned over to the arms that still enfolded me and laid my head on her bosom. She was silent now for a while. And I wished she would speak, but I could not. Her arms pressed me close in the embrace that had so comforted my childhood. She had taken off my bonnet and kissed me and smoothed my hair; and that was all, for what seemed a long while.

"What is it?" she said at last. "I know you're left, my darling. I heard of your loss, while you were so far away from home. One is gone from your world."

"He was happy - he is happy," I whispered.

"Let us praise the Lord for that!" she said in her broadest Scotch accent, which only came out in moments of feeling.

"But he was nearly all my world, Miss Cardigan."

"Ay," she said. "We have but one father. And yet, no, my bairn.

Ye're not left desolate."

"I have been very near it."

"I am glad ye are come home."

"But I feel as if I had no home anywhere," I said with a burst of tears which were a great mercy to me at the time. The stricture upon my heart had like to have taken away my breath.

Miss Cardigan let me weep, saying sympathy with the tender touch of her soft hand; no otherwise. And then I could lift myself up and face life again.

"You have not forgotten your Lord, Daisy?" she said at length, when she saw me quiet. I looked at her and smiled my answer, though it must have been a sober smile.

"I see," she said; "you have not. But how was it, so far away, my bairn? Weren't you tempted?"

"No, dear Miss Cardigan. What could tempt me?"

"The world, child. Its baits of pleasure and pride and power.

Did they never take hold on ye, Daisy?"

"My pleasure I had left at home," I said. "No, that is not quite true. I had the pleasure of being with papa and mamma; and of seeing a great deal of beauty, too. And I had pleasure in Palestine, Miss Cardigan; but it was not the sort to tempt me to forget anything good."