Melbourne House Part 44

The moonlight shone in peacefully, and Daisy, lying there and growing gradually calmer, began to wonder in herself that there should be so much difficulty made about anybody's doing right. If she had been set on some wrong thing, it would have made but a very little disturbance ? if any; but now, when she was only trying to do right, the whole house was roused to prevent her. Was it so in those strange old times that the eleventh chapter of Hebrews told of? ? when men, and women, were stoned, and sawn asunder, and slain with the sword, and wandered like wild animals in sheepskins and goatskins and in dens and caves of the earth? all for the name of Jesus. But if they suffered once, they were happy now. Better anything, at all events, than to deny that name!

The evening seemed excessively long to Daisy, lying there on her bed awake, and listening with strained ears for any sound near her room. She heard none; the hours pa.s.sed, though so very slowly, as they do when all the minutes are watched; and Daisy heard nothing but dim distant noises, and grew pretty quiet. She had heard nothing else, when, turning her head from the moonlight window, she caught the sight of a white figure at her bedside; and by the n.o.ble form and stately proportions Daisy knew instantly whose figure it was. Those soft flowing draperies had been before her eyes all day. A pang shot through the child, that seemed to go from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.

"Are you awake, Daisy?"

"Yes, mamma," she said, feebly.

"Get up. I want to speak to you."

Daisy got off the bed, and the white figure, in the little night dress, stood opposite the other white figure, robed in muslin and laces that fell around it like a cloud.

"Why did you come to bed?"

"Papa ? papa ordered me."

"It's all the same. If you had not come to bed, Daisy ? if you had been well, ? would you have sung when I ordered you to- night?"

Daisy hesitated, and then said in a whisper ?

"No, mamma ? not that."

"Think before you answer me, for I shall not ask twice. Will you promise to sing the gypsy-song, because I command you, next Sunday in the evening? Answer, Daisy."

Very low it was, for Daisy trembled so that she did not know how she could speak at all, but the answer came, "I can't, mamma."

Mrs. Randolph stepped to the bell, and rang it. Almost at the same instant June entered, bearing a cup in her hand.

"What is that?" said Mrs. Randolph.

"Master sent Miss Daisy some medicine."

"Set it down. I have got some here better for her. June, take Daisy's hands."

"Oh, mamma, no!" exclaimed Daisy. "Oh, please send June away!"

The slight gesture of command to June which answered this, was as imperious as it was slight. It was characteristically like Mrs. Randolph; graceful and absolute. June obeyed it, as old instinct told her to do; though sorely against her will. She had held hands before, though not Daisy's; and she knew very well the look of the little whip with which her mistress stepped back into the room, having gone to her own for it. In a Southern home that whip had been wont to live in Mrs.

Randolph's pocket. June's heart groaned within her.

The whip was small, but it had been made for use, not for play; and there was no play in Mrs. Randolph's use of it. This was not like her father's ferule, which Daisy could bear in silence, if tears would come; her mother's handling forced cries from her; though smothered and kept under in a way that showed the child's self-command.

"What have you to say to me?" Mrs. Randolph responded, without waiting for the answer. But Daisy had none to give. At length her mother paused.

"Will you do what I bid you?"

Daisy was unable to speak for tears ? and perhaps for fear.

The wrinkles on June's brow were strangely folded together with agitation; but n.o.body saw them.

"Will you sing for me next Sunday?" repeated Mrs. Randolph.

There was a struggle in the child's heart, as great almost as a child's heart can bear. The answer came, when it came, tremblingly: "I can't, mamma."

"You cannot?" said Mrs. Randolph.

"I can't, mamma."

The chastis.e.m.e.nt which followed was so severe, that June was moved out of all the habits of her life, to interfere in another's cause. The white-skinned race were no mark for trouble in June's mind; least of them all, her little charge.

And if white skin was no more delicate in reality than dark skin, it answered to the lash much more speakingly.

"Missus, you'll kill her!" June said, using in her agitation a carefully disused form of speech; for June was a freed-woman.

A slight turn of the whip brought the lash sharply across her wrist, with the equally sharp words, "Mind your own business!"

A thrill went through the woman, like an electric spark, firing a whole life-train of feeling and memory; but the lines of her face never moved, and not the stirring of a muscle told what the touch had reached, besides a few nerves. She had done her charge no good by her officiousness, as June presently saw with grief. It was not till Mrs. Randolph had thoroughly satisfied her displeasure at being thwarted, and not until Daisy was utterly exhausted, that Mrs. Randolph stayed her hand.

"I will see what you will say to me next Sunday!" she remarked, calmly. And she left the room.

It was not that Mrs. Randolph did not love her daughter, in her way; for in her way she was fond of Daisy; but the habit of bearing no opposition to her authority was life-strong, and probably intensified in the present instance by perceiving that her husband was disposed to shield the offender. The only person in whose favour the rule ever relaxed, was Ransom. June was left with a divided mind, between the dumb indignation which had never known speech, and an almost equally speechless concern.

Daisy, as soon as she was free, had made her way to the window; there the child was, on her knees, her head on her window sill, and weeping as if her very heart were melting and flowing away drop by drop. And June stood like a dark statue, looking at her; the wrinkles in her forehead scarce testifying to the work going on under it. She wanted first of all to see Daisy in bed; but it seemed hopeless to speak to her; and there the little round head lay on the window-sill, and the moonbeams poured in lovingly over it. June stood still and never stirred.

It was a long while before Daisy's sobs began to grow fainter, and June ventured to put in her word, and got Daisy to lay herself on the bed again. Then June went off after another sort of medicine of her own devising, despising the drops which Mr. Randolph had given her. Without making a confidant of the housekeeper, she contrived to get from her the materials to make Daisy a cup of arrowroot, with wine and spices. June knew well how to be a cook when she pleased; and what she brought to Daisy was, she knew, as good as a cook could make it.

She found the child lying white and still on the bed, and not asleep, nor dead, which June had almost feared at first sight of her. She didn't want the arrowroot, she said.

"Miss Daisy, s'pose you take it?" said June. "It won't do you no hurt ? maybe it'll put you to sleep."

Daisy was perhaps too weak to resist. She rose half up and eat the arrowroot, slowly, and without a word. It did put a little strength into her, as June had said. But when she gave back the cup, and let herself fall again upon her pillow, Daisy said, "June, I'd like to die."

"Oh, why, Miss Daisy?" said June.

"Jesus knows that I love Him now; and I'd like ?" said the child, steadying her voice ? "I'd like ? to be in heaven!"

"Oh, no, Miss Daisy ? not yet; you've got a great deal to do in the world first."

"Jesus knows I love Him ?" repeated the child.

"Miss Daisy, He knowed it before ? He's the Lord."

"Yes, but ? He wants people to _show_ they love Him, June."

"Do, don't! Miss Daisy," said June, half crying. "Can't ye go to sleep? Do, now!"

It was but three minutes more, and Daisy had complied with her request. June watched, and saw that the sleep was real; went about the room on her noiseless feet; came back to Daisy's bed, and finally went off for her own pillow, with which she lay down on the matting at the foot of the bed, and there pa.s.sed the remainder of the night.

CHAPTER XV.

SCHROEDER'S MOUNTAIN.