Daisy in the Field.

by Elizabeth Wetherell.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST SMOKE OF THE BATTLEFIELD.

While Miss Cardigan went with her nephew to the door, I remained standing by the fire, which could have witnessed to so much done around it that night. I felt strong, but I remember my cheeks had an odd sensation as if the blood had left them. I did not know Miss Cardigan had come back, till I saw her standing beside me and looking at me anxiously.

"Will you go and lie down now, my lamb?"

"Oh, no!" I said. "Oh, no - I do not want to lie down. I have not done my studying yet, that I came to do."

"Studying!" said Miss Cardigan.

"Yes. I want something out of some of your books. I have not done it. I will sit down and do it now."

"You're much more fit to lie down and go to sleep," said she, sorrowfully. "Let be the study, Daisy; and take some rest, while ye can."

"I shall have plenty of time," I said. "I do not want any rest, more than I shall get so."

Miss Cardigan sighed - I had heard more sighs from her that night than in all my knowledge of her before; and I sat down on the floor again, to pull out again the volumes I had put up, and begin my school work anew. As I touched them, I felt how much had come into my hands, and fallen out of my hands, since I took them up before, just a few hours ago. It would not do to think of that. I resolutely put it back, and set myself about getting out of the books the facts I wanted for my work. Miss Cardigan left the room; and for a time I turned over leaves vigorously. But the images of modern warfare began to mix themselves inconveniently with the struggles of long ago. Visions of a grey uniform came blending in dissolving views with the visions of monarchs in their robes of state and soldiers in heavy armour; it meant much, that grey uniform; and a sense of loss and want and desolation by degrees crept over me, which had nothing to do with the ruin of kingdoms.

The books grew heavy; my hands trembled; yet still I tried to make good work, and bade myself deal with the present and let the past and the future alone. The "present" being represented by my school day and my studies. Could I do it? The past and the future rushed in at last, from opposite sides as it were, and my "present" was overthrown. I dropped my books and myself too, as nearly as possible; my heart gave way in a deep pa.s.sion of tears.

Now I tried to reason myself out of this. What had I lost? I asked myself. What were these tears for? What had I lost, that I had not been without until only twelve hours before? Indeed rather, what had I not gained? But my reasonings were of no use. Against them all, some vision of Thorold's face, some sparkle of his eyes, some touch of his hand, would come back to me, and break down my power and unlock fresh fountains of tears. This pa.s.sion of self-indulgence was not like me, and surprised myself. I suppose the reason was, I had been so long alone; I had been working my way and waiting, in exile from home as it were, so many days and years; n.o.body that loved me better than I loved myself had been near me for so very long; that the sweetness so suddenly given and so suddenly taken away left me a little unsteady. Was it wonderful? The joy and the grief were both new; I was not braced for either; the one seemed to add poignancy to the other; and between the two facts, that Thorold loved me, and that he was gone from me into what might be a duty of danger, - that he was gone into danger and that he loved me, - for a little while my soul was tossed back and forth like a ship on a stormy sea, unable to make any headway at all. And so Miss Cardigan found me. She half lifted half drew me up, I remember; made me lie down again on the sofa, gave me some hot tea to drink; and when she had made me drink it, she sat still looking at me, silent, and I thought a good deal disturbed. It would be difficult to tell why I thought so. Perhaps it was because she said nothing. I lay quiet with my face hid in my hands.

"What do you think to do with yourself to-day, now?" - was at last her practical question.

"What o'clock is it?" I whispered.

"It's just on the stroke of six, Daisy."

"I'll get up and go on with my work," I said; and I raised myself to a sitting posture accordingly.

"Work!" echoed Miss Cardigan. "You look like much of that!

Your cheeks" (and she touched them) "they are the colour of my magnolia there that has just opened. A night's work Christian has made of it! I suppose he is travelling off as content as if he had something to praise himself for. The pride of these men! -"

I could not help laughing, and laughing made me cry. Miss Cardigan promptly put me back on the cushions and bade me lie still; and she sat in front of me there like a good s.h.a.ggy human watch dog. I should not say _s.h.a.ggy_, for she was entirely neat and trim; but there was something of st.u.r.dy and uncompromising about her which suggested the idea. I lay still, and by and by went off into a sleep. That restored me.

I woke up a couple of hours later all right and quite myself again. I was able to rush through the bit of study I had wanted; and went over to Mme. Ricard's just a minute before school opened.

I had expected some uncomfortable questioning about my staying out all night; but things do not happen as one expects. I got no questioning, except from one or two of the girls. Mme.

Ricard was ill, that was the news in school; the other teachers had their hands full, and did not give themselves any extra trouble about the doings of so regular and trusted an inmate as myself. The business of the day rolled on and rolled off, as if last night had never been; only that I walked in a dream; and when night came I was free to go to bed early and open my budget of thoughts and look at them. From without, all was safe.

All day my thoughts had been rushing off, away from the schoolroom and from studies and masters, to look at a receding railway train, and follow a grey coat in among the crowd of its fellows, where its wearer mingled in all the business and avocations of his interrupted course of life. Interrupted!

yes, what a change had come to his and to mine; and yet all was exactly the same outwardly. But the difference was, that I was thinking of Thorold, and Thorold was thinking of me. How strange it was! and what a great treasure of joy it was. I felt rich; with the most abounding, satisfying, inexhaustible treasure of riches. All day I had known I was rich; now I took out my gold and counted it, and could not count it, and gave full-hearted thanks over it.

If the brightness wanted a foil, it was there; the gold glittered upon a cloudy background. My treasure was not exactly in my hand to enjoy. There might be many days before Thorold and I saw each other's faces again. Dangers lay threatening him, that I could not bear to think of; although I knew they were there. And even were this cloud all cleared away, I saw the edges of another rising up along the horizon.

My father and my mother. My mother especially; what would she say to Daisy loving an officer in the Northern army? That cloud was as yet afar off; but I knew it was likely to rise thick and black; it might shut out the sun. Even so I my treasure was my treasure still, through all this. Thorold loved me and belonged to me; nothing could change that.

Dangers, and even death, would not touch it. My mother's command could not alter it. She might forbid his marrying me; I must obey her; but the fact that we loved each other was a fact beyond her reach and out of her, power, as out of mine.

Thorold belonged to me, in this higher and indestructible sense, and also I belonged to him. And in this joy I rejoiced, and counted my treasure with an inexpressible triumph of joy that it was uncountable.

I wondered too, very much. I had had no idea that I loved Thorold; no dream that he liked me had ever entered my head. I thought we were friends, and that was all. Indeed I had not known there was anything in the world more, until one night ago.

But I winced a little, privately, in the very bottom of my heart, that I had let Thorold have so much liberty; that I had let him know so easily what he was to me. I seemed unlike the Daisy Randolph of my former acquaintance. She was never so free. But it was done; and I had been taken unawares and at disadvantage, with the thought of coming danger and separation checking every reserve I would have shown. I had to be content with myself at all events; Thorold knew my weakness and would never forget it another time.

I thought a great many other thoughts that night; some of them were grave enough. My sleep however, when I went to sleep, was as light as the fall of the dew. I could not be careful. Just seventeen, and just come into life's great inheritance, my spirit was strong, as such spirits are, to throw off every burden.

For several days it happened that I was too busy to see Miss Cardigan. I used to look over to her house, those days, as the place where I had begun to live. Meanwhile I was bending my energies to work, with a serious consciousness of woman's life and responsibility before me. In one way I think I felt ten years older, when next I crossed the avenue and went into the familiar marble-paved hall and opened Miss Cardigan's door.

That Thorold was not there, was the first thought with me.

Certainly the world had made a revolution; but all things else looked as usual; and Miss Cardigan gave me a welcome just as if the world had not turned round. She was busy with the affairs of some poor people, and plunged me into them as her custom was. But I fancied a somewhat more than usual of sober gravity in her manner. I fancied, and then was sure of it; though for a long time nothing was said which touched Thorold or me. I had forgotten that it was to come; and then it came.

"And what have ye been doing, my bonnie lady, since ye went away at eight o'clock o' the morn?"

I started, and found that I had lost myself in a reverie. I said, I had been studying.

"You and me have need to study some new things," Miss Cardigan said, soberly.

"Yes ma'am," I said. But then - "What, Miss Cardigan?"

"There's our duty" - she said, with a pause at that part of her sentence; - "and then, how to do it. Yes, Daisy, you need not look at me, nor call the bloom up into your cheeks, that Christian says are such an odd colour. Don't you think you have duties, la.s.sie? and more to-day than a fortnight syne?"

"But - Miss Cardigan," I answered, - "yes, I have duties; but - I thought I knew them."

"It will do no harm to look at them, Daisy. It is good to see all round our duties, and it's hard too. Are you in a hurry to go back to school?"

"No, ma'am - I can have the evening."

Miss Cardigan pushed her work-baskets and table away, and drew her chair up beside mine, before the fire; and made it blaze, and sat and looked into the blaze, till I wondered what was coming.

"I suppose this is all a fixed thing between Christian and you," she began at last.

I hardly knew what she meant. I said, that I could not unfix it.

"And he will not, no fear! So it is fixed, as we may say; fixed as two hearts can make it. But it's very sudden, Daisy; and you are a young thing, my dear."

"I know it is sudden," I said, meekly. "It is sudden to me.

But he will not like me less for my being so young."

Miss Cardigan laughed a short laugh.

"Troth, he's no right, being young himself, we may say. You are safe for his liking, my bonnie Daisy. But - your father and mother, my dear?"

"Yes, Miss Cardigan."

"What will their word be?"

"I do not know, ma'am."