Daisy in the Field Part 6

I was to learn now, how difficult it sometimes is in new forms of trial, to be quiet and submissive and trust. I used to be able to trust myself and my wants with G.o.d; I found at this time that the human cry of longing, and of fear, was very hard to still. I was ready to trust, if I might only see Mr.

Thorold. I was willing to wait, if only we might not be separated at last. But _now_ to trust and to wait, when all was in doubt for me; when, if I missed this sight of my friend, I might never have another; when all the future was a cloudy sea and a rocky sh.o.r.e; I felt that I _must_ have this one moment of peace. Yet I prayed for it submissively; but I am afraid my heart made its own cry unsubmissively.

I was restless. The days that followed the President's levee were one after the other filled up with engagements and amus.e.m.e.nts, - if I can give that term to what had such deep and thrilling interest for me; but I grew only more secretly restless with every one. My companions seemed to find it all amus.e.m.e.nt, the rides and parades and receptions that were constantly going on; I only saw everywhere the preparation for a desperate game soon to be played. The Secessionists threatened Washington; and said "only wait till the Fourth."

The people in Washington laughed at this; yet now and then I saw one who did not laugh; and such were often some of those who should know best and judge most wisely. Troops were gathered under Beauregard's command not very far from the capital. I knew the dash and fire and uncompromising temper of the people I was born among; I could not despise their threats nor hold light their power. My anxiety grew to see Mr.

Thorold; but I could not. I watched and watched; nothing like him crossed my vision. Once, riding home late at night from a gay visit to one of the neighbouring camps, we had drawn bridle in pa.s.sing the grounds of the Treasury Building, where the Eleventh Ma.s.sachusetts regiment was encamped; and slowly walking by, were endeavouring to distinguish forms and sounds through the dim night air - forms and sounds so novel in Washington and so suggestive of interests at stake and dangers at hand; when the distinct clatter of a horse's hoofs in full gallop came down the street and pa.s.sed closed by me. The light of a pa.s.sing lamp just brushed the flying horseman; not enough to discover him, but enough to lift my heart into my mouth. I could not tell whether it were Mr. Thorold; I cannot tell what I saw; only my nerves were unstrung in a moment, and for the rest of that night I tossed with impatient pain. The idea of being so near Mr. Thorold, was more than I could bear. One other time, in a crowd, I heard a bit of a laugh which thrilled me. My efforts to see the person from whom it came were good for nothing; n.o.body like my friend was in sight, or near me; yet that laugh haunted me for two days.

"I do not think Washington agrees with Daisy," Mrs. Sandford said one morning at breakfast.

"She never looked better," said the doctor.

"No. Oh, I don't mean that; she looks all herself; yes, she is in great beauty; but she is uncommonly abstracted and uninterested."

"Not being in general a sensitive person," observed Dr.

Sandford.

I explained that I had never been more interested in my life; but that these things made me sober.

"My dear Daisy!" Mrs. Sandford laughed. "You were never anything but sober yet, in all your little life. I should like to see you intoxicated."

I felt on dangerous ground and was silent. The doctor asked why? - to Mrs. Sandford's last speech.

"No matter!" said the lady. "The first man she loves will know why."

"The first," said Dr. Sandford dryly. "I hope she will not love more than one."

"She will be an uncommonly happy woman then," said Mrs.

Sandford. "Nonsense, Grant! every woman loves two or three before she has done. Your first liking will come to nothing, - Daisy, my dear, I forewarn you; - and most probably the second too; but no one will be the wiser but yourself. Why don't you blush, child? On my word, I believe you are growing pale!

Never mind, child; I am not a prophet."

I believe the blushes came then, and they all laughed at me; but Dr. Sandford asked me very kindly if I was too tired to see the review that day? I was not tired; and if I had been, nothing would have tempted me to be absent from the review. I went everywhere, as far as I could; and Dr. Sandford was always with us, indulging every fancy I expressed or did not express, it seemed to me. He had to work very hard at other times to make up for it; and I thought Washington did not agree with _him_. He looked pale and jaded this day.

I thought so after the morning's work was done; at the time I had no leisure for such thoughts. The morning's work was a review of many thousand troops, by the President. Dr. Sandford and our friends had secured an excellent place for us, from which we could well see all we wished to see; and I wished to see everything. For various reasons. The platform where Mr.

Lincoln stood had its own peculiar attractions and interests.

It held himself, first of all, standing in front, in plain view much of the time. It held besides a group of men that one liked to look at just then. General Scott was there, and I know not how many other generals; the members of the Cabinet, and inferior military officers; and each colonel of the regiments that pa.s.sed in review, after pa.s.sing, dismounted and joined the group on the platform. I looked at these officers with particular interest, for they and their command were going straight across into Virginia expecting active service soon. So I looked at their men. While each regiment marched by, the band belonging to it halted and played. They were going to the war. In good earnest they were going now. This was no show of pleasure; it was work; and my heart, it seemed to me, alternately beat and stood still. Sometimes the oppression of feeling grew very painful, obliged as I was to hide carefully the greater part of what I felt. A little additional stir was almost more than I could bear. One regiment - the Garibaldis, I think, had bouquets of flowers and greens in their hats. I did not indeed notice this, until the foremost came just in front of the platform and the President. Then the bouquets were taken out from the hats, and were tossed, in military order, rank by rank, as the files pa.s.sed by, to Mr. Lincoln's feet. It was a little thing; but how it shook me! I was glad of the rush which followed the pa.s.sing of the regiment; the rush of people eager to secure these bunches of flowers and evergreens for memorials; the diversion of interest for a moment gave me chance to fight down my heart-swelling.

"Daisy! you are - what is the matter? You are not well - you are tired," - my guardian exclaimed anxiously, as he came back to my side with one of the Garibaldi flower bunches.

"I am well - you are mistaken, Dr. Sandford," I made myself say quietly.

"For which side are you so anxious?" he inquired. "You are paler than you ought to be, at this moment, with a smile on your lips. I got this for you - will you scorn it, or value it?"

"You would not waste it upon me, if you thought I would scorn it?" I said.

"I don't know. I am not infatuated about anybody. You may have the bouquet, Daisy. Will you have it?"

I did not want to have it! I was not amusing myself, as many and as Mrs. Sandford were doing; this was not an interesting little bit of greens to me, but a handful of pain. I held it, as one holds such handfuls; till the regiment, which had halted a little while at Willard's, was ordered forward and took the turning from Pennsylvania Avenue into the road leading to Virginia. With that, the whole regiment burst into song; I do not know what; a deep-voiced grave melody from a thousand throats, cheering their advance into the quarter of the enemy and of actual warfare. I forgot Dr. Sandford then, whose watchful eyes I generally remembered; I ceased to see the houses or the people before me; for my eyes grew dim with tears it was impossible to keep back; and I listened to nothing but that mellow, ominous, sweet, bitter, strain, till the sound faded away in the distance. Then I found that my cheeks were wet, and that Mrs. Sandford was wondering.

"This is what it is to have an ear for music!" she said.

"There is positively no possession which does not bring some inconvenience on the possessor. My dear Daisy, you are in pain; those were not tears of joy; what did that chant say to your sensibilities? To mine it only sounded strength, and victory. If the arms of those - _what_ are they? - that regiment, - if their arms are only const.i.tuted proportionately to their throats, they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bl.u.s.ter."

"I do not think you had better try to go to the Capitol," the doctor put in.

"What, to see the meeting of Congress? Oh, yes, we will. I am not going to miss it."

"Daisy will not?" he asked.

But Daisy would. I would try every chance. I did not at the moment care for Congress; my wish was to find Mr. Thorold. At the review I knew I had little reason to hope for what I wanted; at the Capitol - after all, what chance there? when Mr. Thorold was drilling troops from morning till night; unless he had been already sent out of Washington. But I would go. If I had dared, I would have expressed a desire to see some troops drilled. I did not dare.

I remember nothing of the scene at the Capitol, except the sea of heads, the crowd, and the heat; my intense scrutiny of the crowd, and the weariness that grew on me. Mrs. Sandford had friends to talk to; I only wished I need not speak to anybody.

It was a weary day; for I could not see Mr. Thorold, and I could not hear the President's Message. I was so placed or so surrounded that it came to me only in bits. Wearily we went home.

At least, Dr. Sandford and I. Mrs. Sandford tried in vain to rally us.

"There is to be a marriage in camp," she said. "What do you think of that, Daisy? We can have invitations, we like. Shall we like? Wouldn't it be a curious scene? Daisy is interested, I see. Grant, no. What is the matter, Grant?"

"I hope, nothing," said the doctor.

"Will you go, if I get you an invitation?"

"Who is to be married?"

"La fille du regiment."

"It takes two," said the doctor.

"Oh! The other is a sergeant, I believe; some sergeant of the same regiment. They are to be married to-morrow evening; and it is to be by moonlight and torchlight, and everything odd; up on that beautiful hill where we were the other day, where the trees and the tents make such a pretty mingling with red caps and everything else."

"I hope the ceremony will be performed by comet light, too,"

said Dr. Sandford. "It ought, to be in character."

"You do not feel well to-night, Grant?"

"Tired. So is Daisy. Are you tired of Washington, Daisy?"

"Oh - no!" I said eagerly. "Not at all. I like very much to be here."

"Then we will go and see the sergeant's wedding," said he.

But we did not; for the next day it was found to be only too true that Dr. Sandford was unwell. Perhaps he had been working too hard; at any rate, he was obliged to confess to being ill; and a day or two more settled the question of the amount of his indisposition. He had a low fever, and was obliged to give up to it.

CHAPTER IV.

ON FOOT

Mrs Sandford devoted herself to the doctor. Of course, a sudden stop was put to our gay amus.e.m.e.nts. I could not ride or drive out any more; nor would I go to entertainments anywhere.

The stir and the rush of the world had quietly dropped me out of it.