Daisy in the Field Part 19

Dr. Sandford's blue eye went as deep into mine, and into me, I think, as it could; and he did not look satisfied.

The preparations for our journey were pressed with a diligence that admitted of no delay, all that day and the next. I was quietly busy too, thinking that it did not matter; that the time must come, and as well then as ever.

I had miscalculated my strength, or my weakness. Or perhaps the emotional part of our nature is never to be depended on.

That dim morning of our early departure is fixed in my memory as one of the most heart-sinking times my heart ever knew. My companions were brisk and bright, in travelling mood, taking cars and porters and ticket offices and crowds, as pleasant concomitants of a pleasant affair. Glad to get away from Was.h.i.+ngton, both of them. And I, alone in my heart, knew what a thread was breaking for me; knew that Thorold's path and mine were starting from that point upon divergent lines, which would grow but further and further apart every day. Until that moment I had not realised what it would be, to leave the neighbourhood of his work and his danger, and cut off all but the most distant and precarious communication between him and me; what it would be, too, to him, to know that I was gone. It did seem then for a minute as if I could not go; as if I must, as necessity, remain within hailing distance of him, and at the headquarters of information. But there was another "must,"

stronger than mine; I was seated in the car, the whistle blew its mockery of me; and the slow movement which immediately followed was the snapping of the thread, - the parting of the lines. It was something that no human action could stay or avert now; and the gentle motion soon grew to a whirl of speed which bore me relentlessly away. The slow pang of that first stir of the cars, I can feel yet.

It was a dumb pain at my heart all day. I could not understand myself. For several days I had been quiet and prepared, I thought, and submissive; now to-day all was disorder; no preparedness; no quiet. Instead were heartaches and regrets and wild wishes; sometimes in dull and steady force, like a still rain storm; and sometimes sweeping over me with the fury of a tempestuous blast. I had not strength to resist; my utmost was to keep a calm front before my friends. I did that, I think. But what torture is it not, to be obliged to hear and answer all manner of trifling words, to enter into every trivial thought, of people at ease around one, when the heart is bending and bowing under its life burden; to be obliged to count the pebbles in the way, when one is staggering to keep one's footing at all. Yes, and one must answer with a disengaged face, and one must smile with ready lips, and attention must not wander, and self-absorption for a minute cannot be allowed. Perhaps it was good for me.

My companions attended to me well, so that I got no respite all day. Not till night, when I reached my room; and when I had respite, I found no rest. It was great relief to put my head down without fear lest somebody should ask me if it ached; but all night long I struggled with the pain that had fought me all day. The next morning I went to find Miss Cardigan. To my great disappointment she was not at home; and would not be at home, I was told, under a week.

I pa.s.sed slowly in, over the familiar stones of the marble floor, in through the empty rooms, to the innermost one which opened upon the little conservatory. That too was stripped of its beauties; most of the plants were set out in the open ground, and the scaffolding steps were bare. I turned my back upon the gla.s.s door, which had been for me the door to so much sweetness, and sat down to think. Not only sweetness. How strange it was! From Miss Cardigan's flowers, the connecting links led on straight to all my sorrow and heartache of the present and perhaps of many future days. They had led me here; and here Mr. Thorold had said words to me that had bound him and me together for the rest of our lives, and made his welfare my welfare. And now, he was in the shock of battlefields; and I - afar off - must watch and listen. And I could not be near and watch. I must be where even good news would be no news, except of the past; where n.o.body would speak to me of Mr. Thorold, and where I could not speak of him to anybody. I was sure, the more I thought of it, that the only possible chance for a good issue to our engagement, would be to wait until the war should be over; and if he persisted in his determination of speaking to my father and mother before such a favourable conjuncture, the end would be only disaster.

I somewhat hoped, that the pressure of active duty on his part, or some happy negligence of post-office officials, or other contingency, might hinder such a letter as he had threatened from coming to my father's hands at present.

Meanwhile, in Miss Cardigan's little room, I struggled for a right mind. If I was sorrowful, I told myself, I was also glad. If I pitied myself a little for all that had happened, it was also true that I would not have undone it - that is, my part in it, - for the world. I would rather belong to Mr.

Thorold, even through all this pain, than be nothing to him and have him nothing to me. Yes, even going away on my distant journey to Europe, the knowledge of his love was a richer jewel in my heart than any other of earth's jewels that I carried. So what was I crying about?

I washed away some of the soreness of the days past in those tears. And then I came quietly back to my position; willing that G.o.d should dispose of me and do with me what He pleased; send me away or bring me home; give or take from me. At least so far I was willing, that I gave up all care-taking and ceased to struggle. My mood grew even suns.h.i.+ny as I walked back to the hotel where we were all stationed. Hope began to execute little dances before me.

The doctor was busy now, I understood, with trying to find some party with whom I might make the journey to Switzerland.

Mrs. Sandford was eager to get back to Melbourne, or its neighbourhood; I always called the whole region by that name.

How I wished I could be allowed to go with her, and wait there till an opportunity offered for my further journey! But such were not the views of my guardian.

"Here's devotion!" exclaimed Mrs. Sandford as I came in to tea one evening. "My dear, he says he will go with you himself."

"Where? - who?" I asked.

"Why, Grant, to be sure. He says he will go with you, himself, and then his mind will be easy."

"How can he?" I said. "An army surgeon, - how can he get away?"

"Yes, and in war-time," said Mrs. Sandford. "But the truth is, that he needs to get away, he says; he is not fit for duty; and the voyage over and back will just set him up. I think it is a capital plan, for my part. He won't be gone any length of time, you know; and indeed he must not; he will just run across and put you in the hands of your friends; and so your pa.s.sage is engaged, Daisy, in the _Persia_. I only wish I was going along, but I can't. I advise you never to marry Grant.

It ties one up terribly."

"It does not tie _you_ very close," the doctor answered.

"When does the _Persia_ go?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed; that _is_ a question," said Mrs. Sandford. "Just think - she sails Sat.u.r.day, and this is Thursday. Only one single day for you, Daisy; but after all, it is best so. You can be ready just as well, and the sooner you are off now the better. I shall miss you dreadfully, though."

I felt my cheeks turn cold, and I busied myself with my cup of tea.

"You are not so eager to be off, Miss Randolph, as my good sister is to have you," I heard the doctor say.

"No, not quite. I would like better to go if all this trouble in the country were ended."

"That would be to wait some time, I am afraid, said the doctor, helping himself to a piece of toast. And I do not know what in his motion and his manner of speech conveyed to me the notion that he was glad I could not wait. And, my mother's child though I was, I could not thwart him this time.

"It is a good time to be away, _I_ think," said Mrs. Sandford.

"I'd keep the news from her, Grant, if I were you. She sits and studies the papers as if her life were in them."

"There will be no news on board the steamer," said the doctor.

Yes, I knew that. The very beginning of my journey was to cut me off from tidings. How should I get them in Switzerland? And I must go too without seeing Miss Cardigan. Well, I thought, nothing can take my best Friend from me.

CHAPTER VIII.

DAISY'S POST

Dr. Sandford and I stood together on the deck of the steamer, looking at the lessening sh.o.r.e. I was afraid the doctor should see how I looked, yet I could not turn my eyes from it. I had given up the care of myself; I could bear to see America fading out of my sight; yet it seemed to me as if I left Daisy and her life there, and as if I must be like a wandering spirit from another world till I should come back to those sh.o.r.es again. I would minister to my father and mother, but n.o.body would minister to me. And I thought it was very likely very good for me. Maybe I was in danger of growing selfish and of forgetting my work and all happiness except my own and Thorold's. I could do nothing for either of those now; nothing actively. But I called myself up as soon as that thought pa.s.sed through me. I could always pray; and I could be quiet and trust; and I could be full of faith, hope and love; and anybody with those is not unhappy. And G.o.d is with his people; and he can feed them in a desert. And with that, I went down to my stateroom, to sob my heart out. Not altogether in sorrow, or I think I should not have shed a tear; but with that sense of joy and riches in the midst of trial; the feeling of care that was over my helplessness, and hope that could never die nor be disappointed sin spite of the many hopes that fail.

After that, my voyage was pleasant, as every voyage or journey is when one goes in the Lord's hand and with Him for a companion. I had no news, as the doctor had said, and I laid down all the matter of the war; though I was obliged to hear it talked of very much and in a way that was often extremely hard to bear. The English people on board seemed to think that Americans had no feeling on the subject of their country, or no country to feel about. Certainly they showed no respect for mine; and though Dr. Sandford and one or two other gentlemen could and did answer their words well and cogently, and there was satisfaction in that; yet it was a warfare I did not choose to enter into unless good breeding could be a defence on both sides. They abused Mr. Lincoln; how they abused him!

they have learned better since. They abused republics in general, rejoicing openly in the ruin they affected to see before ours. Yes, the United States of America and their boasted Const.i.tution were a vast bubble - no solidity - rather a collection of bubbles, which would go to pieces by their own contact. Specially the weight of dislike and maligning fell on the Northern portion of the country; sympathy was with the South. These natives of the free British Isles were unmistakably disposed to cheer and help on a nation of oppressors, and wished them success. It was some time before I could understand such an anomaly; at last I saw that the instinct of self-preservation was at work, and I forgave as natural, what I could not admire as n.o.ble.

This element in our little society troubled somewhat my enjoyment of the voyage. I _had_ some patriotic nerves, if I was an American; and every one of them was often tingling with disagreeable irritation. Besides, ill-breeding is of itself always disagreeable enough; and here was ill-breeding in well- bred people, - worst of all. And I had my own private reasons for annoyance. A favourite theme with the company was the want of soldiers or generals at the North, and the impossibility that a set of mechanics and tradesmen, who knew only how to make money and keep it, should be able in chivalrous and gentlemanly exercises to cope with the Southern cavaliers, who were accustomed to sword and pistol and the use of them from their youth up. Bull Run, they said, showed what the consequence must always be, of a conflict between soldiers with the martial spirit and soldiers without it. It would be much better and cheaper for the North to succ.u.mb at once. I had Southern prejudice enough to believe there might be a good deal of truth in this, but I could not bear to hear it or to think it; for besides the question of country and right, the ruin of the North would be disaster to Mr. Thorold and me. I shunned at last all conversation with our English companions, as far as I could, and bent my thoughts forward to the joyful meeting which lay before me with father and mother and brother. Brighter and brighter the prospect grew, as each day brought it nearer; and I sat sometimes by the hour looking over the waters and resting my heart in the hope of that meeting.

"Almost in, Miss Randolph," said the doctor, coming to my side one of those times.

I brought my eyes from the dancing sea, and answered "You are glad."

"Very glad."

"What route will you take, when we get to land?"

"The shortest."

"You do not wish to see anything by the way?"

"I can see enough, after I get to them," I answered.

"You are at a happy time of life!" the doctor said after a pause.

"Are you past it, Dr. Sandford?" I asked, replying, I think, to something in the tones of his voice.

"I do not know. I think, yes. Cologne cathedral will never be to me what it will be to you."

"What will it be to me?"

"I wish you would tell me, when you see it."

"Does it lie in our route?" I asked somewhat eagerly.

"It can - if you choose."

"But I should not want to stop to look at it," I said; "and I could not see it without stopping, I suppose."

"I suppose not. Well, we will push forward as fast as possible. To Lausanne, is it?"