Daisy in the Field Part 74

I was silent, while mamma wept.

"I wish you would keep Dr. Sandford from coming here!" she said suddenly.

"I see his curricle at the gate now, mamma."

"Then I'll go. I don't want to see him. Do give him a dismissal, Daisy!"

Our only faithful kind friend; how could I? It was not possible that I should do such a thing.

"How is all here?" said the doctor, coming in.

I told him, as well as usual - or not quite. Mamma had not got accustomed to the change yet.

"And Daisy?"

"I like it."

The doctor took an ungratified survey of my countenance.

"Don't you want to see some of your old friends?"

"Friends? - _here?_ Who, Dr. Sandford?"

"Old Juanita would like to see you."

"Juanita!" said I. "Is she alive?"

"You do not seem very glad of it?"

I was not glad of anything. But I did not say so.

"She would like to see you."

"I suppose she would."

"Do you not incline to gratify her?"

"Did you tell her of - my being here, Dr. Sandford?"

"It was a very natural thing to do. If I had not, somebody else would."

"I will go over to see her some time," I said. "I suppose it is not too far for me to walk."

"It is not too far for you to ride," said the doctor. "I am going that way now. Put on your hat and come. The air will be good for you."

It was not pleasant to go. Nevertheless I yielded and went. I knew how it would be. Every foot of the way pain. The doctor let me alone. I was thankful for that. And he left me alone at Juanita's cottage. He drove on, and I walked up the little path where I had first gone for a drink of water almost eleven years ago. Yet eleven years, from ten to twenty-one, is not so much, in most cases, I thought. In mine, it was a whole life- time, and the end of a life-time. So it seemed.

The interview with my old nurse was not satisfactory. Not to me, and I think not to her. I did not seem to her quite the same Daisy Randolph she had known; indeed I was not the same.

Juanita had a little awe of me; and I could not be unreserved and remove the awe. I could not tell her my heart's history; and without telling it, in part, I could not but keep at a distance from my old friend. Time might bring something out of our intercourse; but I felt that this first sight of her had done me no good. So Dr. Sandford found that I felt; for he took pains to know.

Juanita was but little changed. The eleven years had just touched her. She was more wrinkled, hardly so firm in her bearing, not quite so upright, as her beautiful presence used to be. There was no deeper change. The brow was as peaceful and as n.o.ble as ever. I thought, speculating upon it, that she must have seen storms, too, in her life-time. The clouds were all cleared away, long since. Perhaps it will be so with me, I thought, some day; by and by.

I thought Dr. Sandford would be discouraged in trying to do me good; however, a day or two after this drive, I saw his horses stopping again at our gate. My mother uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"Does that man come to see you or me, Daisy?" she asked.

"Mamma, I think he is a kind friend to both of us," I said.

"I suppose every woman has a tenderness for a man that is enamoured of her, if he is ever so great a fool," she remarked.

"Mamma! - n.o.body ever accused Dr. Sandford before of being a fool."

"He is a fool to look at you. Do get a little wisdom into his head, Daisy!" And she left the room again as the doctor entered the house.

I knew he and I understood each other; and though he might be a fool after mamma's reckoning, I had a great kindness for him. So I met him with frank kindness now. The doctor walked about the room a while, talking of indifferent things; and then said suddenly, -

"Do you remember old Molly Skelton?"

"Certainly. What of her?"

"She is dying, poor creature."

"Does _she_ know I am here?" I asked.

"I have not told her."

"Would she like to see me, do you think?" I said, with an uneasy consciousness that I must go, whatever the answer were.

"If she can recognise you-I presume there is n.o.body else she would so like to see. As in reason there ought not."

"Can you take me there, Dr. Sandford?"

"Not at this hour; I am going another way. This afternoon I will take you, if you will go. Will you go?"

"If you will be so good as to take me."

"I will come for you then at four o'clock."

That ride I have reason to remember. It was a fair June afternoon, though the month was almost out now; the peculiar brilliance which distinguishes June shone through the air and sparkled on the hills. With clear bright outlines the Catskill range stretched away right and left before us, whenever our road brought us in view of it; fulness of light on the sunny slopes, soft depth of shadow on the others, proclaiming the clear purity of the atmosphere. The blue of the sky, the fresh sweetness of the air, the life of colour in the fields and trees, all I suppose made their appeal at the doors of my heart; for I felt the pressure. It is the life in this June weather, I think, that reproaches what in us is not life; and my spirit was dead. Not really, but practically; and the June beauty gave me pain. I was out of harmony with it. And I heard nature's soft whisper of reproof. Justly given; for when one is out of harmony with nature, there is sure to be some want of harmony with the Author of nature. The doctor drove me silently, letting nature and me have it out together; till we came to the old cottage of Molly Skelton, and he handed me from the curricle. Still the doctor was silent.

He stopped, purposely I think, to speak to his groom; and I went in first. The rows of flowers by the side of the walk were tangled and overgrown and a thicket of weeds; no care had visited them for many a day; but they were there yet. Molly had not forgotten her old tastes. I went on, wondering at myself, and entered the cottage. The sick woman lay on the bed there, alone and seemingly asleep; I turned from her to look at the room. The same old room; little different from what it used to be; even two pots with geraniums in them stood on the window-sill, drooping their heads for want of water. n.o.body had watered them for so long. Clearly Molly had not changed.

Was it only I? I looked and wondered, as I saw myself again at ten years old in that very room. Here had been those first cups of tea; those first lessons in A B C; and other lessons in the beginnings of a higher knowledge. What had they all come to? Was Molly the better in anything beyond her flowers?

What had eleven years wrought for her?

I turned again from the past, as the doctor came in, to look at the poor creature herself. She did not answer the words he addressed to her; I doubted if she heard them; she was evidently oppressed with disease, which was fast making an end of her. Experience had taught me now to judge somewhat of the looks and condition of sick people. Molly, I saw, was very sick; and I knew soon that it was with a combination of evils, which had taken hold of her, and made her poor existence a wearisome thing. It was near an end now.

"Speak to her," - said the doctor.