I awoke the next morning with a severe headache; I rose and came down as
usual, thinking to hide it; scarcely, however, had I entered the front
parlour, when Cornelius asked what ailed me. "Only a headache," I
replied, carelessly; but he seemed filled with concern. He made me return
to my room where I slept for a few hours, but without feeling any better;
I then again went down to the parlour and lay on the sofa. Cornelius, who
according to his sister had gone up to listen at my door every ten
minutes--sat by me holding my hand.
"How feverish she is!" he said to Kate.
"There is twice as much fever in your blood as in that of Daisy,"
decisively replied Miss O'Reilly.
"Don't be alarmed, Cornelius," I said quietly, "I do not feel as if I
should realize the prediction of Dr. Mixton just yet."
"Don't talk of that madman," exclaimed Cornelius, with a troubled face,
"he was mad; only fit for Bedlam."
"It came into my head by chance, and, as one thought leads to another, I
thought, if I were going to die, I should ask two things of Cornelius.
That if he married and had daughters, he should call one of them Daisy.
Thus there would ever be something in his home to remind him of me; also
to bury me here at Leigh--"
"Daisy, Daisy!" almost angrily interrupted Cornelius, "what do you mean?
I am not going to marry and have daughters; and to think of you as pale
and inanimate with the cold earth above you, is a sickening thought."
He looked quite pale. I saw there was a deep and secret fear at his
heart, and indeed he showed it sufficiently; for as the day advanced and
my headache still continued to trouble me, he insisted, spite of my
entreaties and those of Kate, on going himself for a physician who
resided several miles off. I was touched to the heart by this proof of a
love so vigilant.
"How kind he is," I said to Kate.
"Kind! why surely child, you can see that he doats on you! Is he not
making a fool of himself, just because your head aches? Would he not go
distracted if anything were to happen to you? Oh, Midge! Midge!" she
added, with a half-stifled sigh, "don't you see you are the apple of his
eye?"
As the heat of the day subsided, I felt suddenly better. The fresh sea-
breeze could only do me good, so I went and sat on the bench at the end
of the garden, there to watch for the return of Cornelius whose road home
lay along the wide sweep of beach beneath me. For a long time I watched
in vain; at length I perceived a man's form slowly descending the cliffs;
I hastened in for my bonnet and scarf, and merely saying to Kate:
"I see him coming," as I passed the parlour door, I was gone before she
could open her lips to object. When I reached the sands, I looked in vain
for Cornelius. I walked on, thinking he had seen me coming and stood
concealed in a cleft of the rocks, but my look searched every one of
their dark recesses, and nowhere could discover a token of his presence.
It was late, though the singular clearness of the air which prevails by
the sea-side, gave more light than belonged to the hour. I resolved to go
no further, but to give one more look and return. I climbed up a heap of
fallen rocks, and slowly began to scan the whole coast; it looked silent
and lonely in the pale light of a rising moon. I was preparing to descend
from my post of observation, when I started to perceive a shadow near
mine. I looked up and saw William Murray.
"William!" I exclaimed, delighted, "William Murray! Oh, how glad I am to
see you again."
He did not speak, but he took and held both my hands in his, and pressed
them warmly, looking down at me with a happy, smiling face.
"God bless you!" he said, "God bless you, Daisy! I thought I should never
see you again."
"Why so, William?" I asked, sitting down on a rock and making him sit
down by me.
He hesitated as he replied:
"Don't you know?"
"O, William, what is it? You make my heart beat."
"Why we have been wrecked in the Mediterranean. I am sorry to tell you so
abruptly; I thought you knew."
He was safe before me; but we feel even the past perils of those we love.
I felt myself turning faint and pale. William seemed much moved; he
assured me that the danger had not been so very great, though in the hour
of peril he had indeed thought of me as of one he should see no more.
"Oh, William!" I said, looking up, and allowing him again to take my
hands in his, "will you not leave that perilous life, and that dangerous
sea?"
"I cannot, Daisy; why I am only here for two days; I shall not see much
of you before I am off again."
"For long?"
"A year," he replied, sighing.
"How long have you been back?"
"Two hours."
"Why did you not come to me at once?"
"Why did I wander up and down here, but to get a sight of you?"
"Then it was you I took for Cornelius. You know he is come back. Oh,
William! you must call on us and see him. How much you will like him!"
"And how fond you are of him, Daisy, said William, in a low tone.
"Why, of course, I am; and he deserves it."
"Ay, that he does," he warmly replied. "You know, Daisy, I always said he
was a good man."
"He is a good man, for he does good actions, and never seems to know it.
He is a great man--for he has genius, which is a great gift; and," I
added, with a smile, "he is a handsome man, too, William."
"There are some very fine men amongst those Irish," gravely replied
William; "and they wear well too. There's our captain--Captain MacMahon--
who is upwards of fifty, but the most splendid fellow I ever saw--six
foot six: then such shoulders and such lungs. He does not roar like
Johnstone, or scream like Philipps; but he just opens his mouth, and lets
his voice out as it were. Then his fists--you should see his fists,
Daisy!"
I was much amused, and replied:
"I fear Cornelius is not quite equal to Captain MacMahon, yet I think you
will like him, William."
"This is the second time you say so."
"Because I know it--just as I know that he will be delighted with you."
William gave me a look, half shy, half pleased, and muttered something
that sounded very like:
"Did _I_ care for him?"
"No," I replied, amused at the question, "not at all. How can I care for
a friend who leaves me to go and get wrecked?"
"Not at all, Daisy," he echoed; "not at all."
He stooped, and looked very eagerly into my face. I drew back with a
laugh that was checked by a voice observing behind me:
"Daisy, what are you doing here at this hour?"
I turned round--it was Cornelius. The moonlight fell full on his pale and
angry face. I rose, without answering; 1 felt--and, no doubt, I looked--
like a culprit. He gave me a glance in which sadness and severity
blended: then, as it taking pity on my confusion, he silently held out
his arm to me. As I took it, I attempted a justification, and said:
"I took William for you, Cornelius, and came out to meet you. He is Miss
Murray's nephew, you know, and I had not seen him for months. Did you
come for me from home? I am sorry--very sorry, Cornelius."
I sought his look, but vainly; it was fastened on William, who had risen,
and now stood before us. Cornelius eyed him from head to foot, with a
keen and scrutinising gaze, which the young man returned. Neither spoke--
there was an evident want of cordiality in the silent glances they
exchanged. I began to feel uncomfortable; my sense of uneasiness
increased when Cornelius turned towards me, and said coldly:
"I am sorry to hurry you away, Daisy, but Kate is very anxious."
And without taking the least notice of William, or seeming to think that
I could have another word to say to him, he made me turn homewards. I
felt so disconcerted at his displeasure, that I neither opened my lips,
nor attempted to resist; but, when we had walked on together for a few
minute, I gathered courage to say:
"I must go back to bid him good evening, Cornelius."
I disengaged my arm from his, and lightly ran back to the spot where we
had left William, and where he still stood looking after us with folded
arms.
"Good night, William," I said, holding out my hand.
He did not take it, but replied in a tone overflowing with reproach:
"Why did you deceive me, Daisy?"
"Deceive you, William!"
"Why did you pretend to care for me when you are so wrapped up in
another, that, from the moment he comes up, you have neither speech nor
look for me?"
"I have left him to come and bid you good night, and by way of thanks,
you accuse me of deceiving you. How, and about what?"
"What do you call speaking of him as if he were your grandfather, when I
don't believe he is a bit older than I am?"
"He is twenty-seven. But what about his age?"
"I don't care about his age, nor about his looks either," replied
William, with a scornful laugh. "You may think him handsome if you like--
I do not."
I felt offended, and replied, shortly:
"I never told you Cornelius was old. It was you chose to compare an
elegant young man, of twenty-seven, to a coarse sea-captain of fifty, not
I. I might add that your remarks are very childish, but I do not want to
speak unkindly. Good night, William. I trust that when I come here to-
morrow morning, I shall find you in a better temper."
I turned away; he followed me.
"Will you really come?" he asked, submissively.
I replied,
"Yes," and hastened away to join Cornelius, who was coming to meet me
with a face so overcast, that I saw I was again at fault.
"I am so sorry to have brought you back!" I said, forestalling
accusation. "I thought you would go on."
Cornelius stopped short--we were once more walking homewards--to give me
an amazed look, and say in a half indignant tone:
"Go on, and leave you alone at this hour with a strange young man!"
"He is not strange," I replied, feeling the blush he could not see; "I
have known him since we were both children; and Kate can tell you he is
only a boy."
"A boy scarcely younger than I am," pointedly replied Cornelius.
I thought it odd that both he and William should come to conclusions so
similar with regard to their respective ages, but I did not venture to
reply. Not another word was spoken until we reached the foot of the cliff
on which rose our home; then, from the garden above was heard the anxious
voice of Kate, exclaiming:
"Have you found her, Cornelius?"
"Yes," he replied, "she is quite safe."
I was dismayed at this proof of the uneasiness I had made them feel. Kate
received me very sharply. "I am astonished at you," she said, "to choose
the very moment when you are troubled with a headache, and Cornelius is
gone for the physician, to run down to the sands!"
"You know, Kate, I was better; besides I thought I saw him coming, and
went to meet him; but it proved to be William Murray."
"The young bear--what brought him back?"
"He has been wrecked."
"Nonsense! wrecked! he has been spinning a yarn to you, Daisy."
"I never yet knew William to tell an untruth," I replied, a little
indignantly.
"Truth or not, were you to make us anxious just to listen to the stories
of that boy. Cornelius has come back from Italy with banditti notions;
and he would have it that some ill-looking fellows, whom he met as he was
going, had lingered on the beach until dusk to waylay you. So off he ran
like a madman. Look at him. See how pale he is still!"
Cornelius, who had lingered behind, entered the parlour as his sister
spoke; my heart smote me to see that he was deadly pale. He sat down by
the table, leaned his elbow upon it, and rested his brow on the palm of
his hand, so that his face was shaded from the light.
"Cornelius, what ails you?" asked Kate.
"I am tired," he answered, without looking up.
"Dr. Reeves was out, so I went for Dr. Simpson."
"Why that is three miles further off."
"Just so, that is what tired me. He too was out."
Kate gave me a reproachful look; but indeed there was no need; my
conscience troubled me sorely for the heedlessness which had added
unnecessary fatigue and alarm to that his ardent affection had already
caused him to undergo for my sake. I longed to make some atonement; to
offer some explanation; but he gave me no opportunity; he left early, and
it was only by his not coming down again, that we knew he had left us for
the evening.
In appointing to meet William on the sands the following morning, I had
not reflected how difficult it would be for me to do so. I turned the
subject over and over, and at length resolved to speak to Cornelius. He
behaved to me at breakfast as if nothing had occurred; and when we both
entered the little studio as usual, his face, though more serious than in
the presence of Kate, expressed nothing like displeasure. In whose
kindness and indulgence could I confide, if not in his? I hoped he would
open the conversation, but, as he did not, I resolved to speak. I went up
to his chair, and leaning upon it, said in a low tone:
"Cornelius."
"Well, Daisy," he replied, looking round.
"May I say something to you? But pray," I quickly added, "pray, do not be
vexed; promise that you will not."
"Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius, giving me a troubled look.
"Well, then, promise nothing. I will trust to your indulgence. I can bear
that you should reprove me, but I could not bear to deceive you."
He took my hand in his, and, bending on me a look so keen that I began to
feel disconcerted, he said slowly:
"What do you mean?"
I did not answer.
"What do you mean?" he said, his voice rising.
"Well then!" I exclaimed a little desperately, "I mean that I have made
an appointment with William, and that I want your permission to keep it."
Cornelius dropped my hand, and looked petrified.
"You have made an appointment with that young man!" he said at length.
"Yes, Cornelius."
"And you come and tell it to me."
"Oh, Cornelius, would you have me keep it a secret?"
"But to tell it to _me_."
"To whom else should I tell it?"
"But to ask _me_ to let you keep it."
"Of whom else should I ask it?"
He seemed unable to reply. He looked at me; but no words passed his
trembling lips. I began to feel hurt and dismayed at the manner in which
he received my confidence. At length, he said, with forced calmness:--
"This is some mistake of mine; I have misunderstood you, Daisy. You
cannot have meant to say that you had appointed a meeting with the young
man I saw with you last night."
"That was my meaning, Cornelius," I replied, firmly.
"You confirm it," he replied, turning pale; "and I, who, after a night of
tormenting thought, came down this morning, not knowing how to question
you. Oh, Daisy!"
There was agitation in his look and in his voice.
"Cornelius," I said, with some emotion, "if I have made an appointment
with William, where is the harm? It is not the first time I have done
so."
"Not the first time!"
"No, nor the second, nor the third. We have been attached since Kate
brought me to Leigh; and before William went to sea, there scarcely
passed a day but we met somewhere."
"And I have been away two years!" said Cornelius, in a low tone. "Not a
day but you met somewhere!"
"Yes, on the downs, or on the beach, where you found me last night, and
where I had promised to meet him this morning."
Cornelius turned on me with flashing eyes.
"Unhappy child!" he exclaimed, "what do you mean by telling me all this?
What have you been doing in my absence? What sort of a watch has Kate
kept over the young girl I left to her care? What sense of honour has he
who took so shameless an advantage of your ignorance, but who shall
account to me for it yet?"
He rose; his brow was stern; his face was pale. Half wild with terror, I
threw my arms around his neck, and detained him.
"It was my fault!" I exclaimed, eagerly; "all my fault--resent it upon
me."
"And what can I do to you?" answered Cornelius, looking down at me with
strange anger and tenderness in his gaze; "what can I do to you?"
"Hear me," I entreated, weeping.
He sat down again, subdued at once by the sight of my tears, and said he
would listen patiently.
"William," I began.
"Why speak of him?" he interrupted, with a clouded brow.
"You have accused him; I must justify him, or bear my share of the
blame."
"Blame!" sorrowfully echoed Cornelius; "why should I blame you? I was
away, and Kate was negligent, and another was there; it was natural, very
natural."
Encouraged by the gentleness of his tone, I stooped, and pressing my lips
to his cheek, I said, in my most persuasive accents:--
"May I keep my appointment, Cornelius?"
He turned upon me a flushed and troubled face.
"I have heard of strange, tormenting things," he said, between his set
teeth; "but I vow I never heard of anything to equal this. My God!" he
added, pressing me to him with strange and sudden passion, "what can you
want with that young man?"
His look felt like fire; I bowed my face before its wrath. When I spoke,
it was to say, in a faltering tone:--
"Cornelius, you are angry again; yet all I want is not to make William
wait."
"But what do you want with him?--What can you want with him?" desperately
asked Cornelius.
"He was so unreasonable; he said I did not care for him; and indeed,
Cornelius, that was a great mistake of his. All I want is to speak to him
a few minutes, and make him hear sense."
"Oh, Daisy!" exclaimed Cornelius, with ill repressed anger, "is it
possible you do not understand that it is not becoming for a young girl
to go and meet a young man in a lonely place?"
"Then forbid me to go!" I exclaimed, eagerly; "forbid me, that I may
assure William if I broke my word to him, it was to obey you."
Cornelius turned very pale; he rose, and said, in a moved and broken
tone:--
"I am no tyrant. I do not forbid you to go. I claim no control over your
feelings or actions. Go, and stay at your pleasure."
Without giving me another look, he turned to his easel. I sat down in the
attitude of the young girl reading; but, though every now and then I
stole up a look from the open book on mv lap, I never could catch his
eye. I felt this keenly; for if there was a thing which Cornelius had of
late done more than another, it was to look into my face; and, oh! how
kindly he ever looked! At length, I could bear it no longer. I rose, and
went up to where he stood painting. He never even glanced around. The
calm expostulation with which I had thought to address him, faded from my
memory. With involuntary emotion, I sank down at his feet, and, seizing
his hand, I exclaimed, with something like passion:--
"Blame me! but look at me, Cornelius; say what you will, but look at me."
"Are you mad?" he cried reddening indignantly and forcibly raising me
from the ground. "What do you, what can you mean by kneeling to me? Oh,
Daisy!" he added with keen reproach, "I would rather you had struck me
than you had done that."
I stood by him silent and ashamed.
"To kneel to me!" he resumed, as if he could not get over it. "For man to
kneel to woman may be folly, but at least it is the voluntary submission
of strength; but for woman to kneel to man--what is it--save the painful
submission of weakness. If you have any regard for me, if you care for
me, never do that again."
I promised I would not, then added:
"Have you forgiven me, Cornelius?"
"What have I to forgive?"
"You know--I do not."
He looked around as I still stood by him in the attitude of an unforgiven
child, and he sighed.
"You wish for an explanation," he said in a troubled tone, "so do I, and
yet I dread it."
"Cornelius, I will do all I can not to annoy you. Question me and I will
answer you in all the sincerity of my heart. If I have done wrong, it is
by mistake, and indeed William too. We are both very young and ignorant,
Cornelius?"
"Both! What is that young man to you that his name cannot be severed from
yours?"
"He is my friend, Cornelius."
"Why did you never mention his name since my return?"
"It must have been because I was so much more absorbed in thinking of
what concerned you, than of what concerned myself. I could not otherwise
have failed mentioning the name of William, the only companion and friend
I have had during your absence."
"The only one, Daisy?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
"I suppose you were a good deal together?"
"Yes, a great deal."
"Here or at Miss Murray's?"
"Neither at one nor at the other," I answered smiling. "We seldom went to
Miss Murray's, and as Kate did not like William, nor he her, he never
came here. I met him on the sands."
"How did you spend your time?"
"We played together."
"Played!"
"Yes, you know we were both quite young then; but as we grew older we
left off playing."
"And what did you do then?" he asked uneasily.
"We walked on the beach, climbed up the cliffs, ran down again, sat when
we felt tired and talked."
"Of what?"
"Of the sea; of anything."
There was a pause, then Cornelius said:
"He is your friend, you say."
"Yes, Cornelius; and though often rude to others, he is ever kind and
gentle to me; he likes me, you know."
"Do you like him?"
"Very much."
He laid his hand on my head, and bent down on me a glance that seemed as
if it longed to read my very heart.
"You like him?" he said in a low tone.
"Yes, Cornelius, I like him."
More he did not ask; more I did not dare to say, much as I longed to
tell; I only ventured to observe:
"Do you not want to ask me anything else, Cornelius?"
"Nothing else," he replied with a sharp glance that made mine sink down
abashed; "but I have a piece of advice to give you: appoint no more
meetings with your friend. I do not mean that there was harm in those
accidental interviews, in which of course there never passed anything but
what you have told."
"Oh no, never."
"But discretion is needed by a young girl."
"Have I been indiscreet?"
"A little; but do not think I make much of it. It is a mere childish
matter."
"You do not think anything else?"
"Nothing else," he said, with a look that again disconcerted me, "I have
indeed advised--"
"Oh! speak not of advice," I interrupted eagerly. "You know that my
pleasure is to please you, that I do my own will when I do yours,
Cornelius."
"You believe that," he replied, "but can I, Daisy?"
"Put me to the test then!"
We stood side by side. He passed his arm around me, and drew me towards
him.
"You bid me put you to the test," he said.
"Yes," I replied, but my heart beat fast.
"There was a time," he resumed with a look of jealous reproach, "when I
was, I will not say the only friend you had, but the only friend you
thought of or cared for."
I felt a sharp and sudden pang of pain, but I said nothing.
"Well!" he impatiently exclaimed.
"May I not write to him?" I replied, feeling that my colour came and went
beneath his gaze.
He did not reply. It was plain he would have an entire sacrifice or none.
He clasped me so close, that I was obliged to rest my head on his
shoulder. As he bent over me, my look met his, and from the gaze I seemed
to drink in all the strange and dangerous sweetness of sacrifice.
"Well!" he said again.
"Yes," I answered, "all--anything you like, Cornelius."
I trembled--for my blood rushed to my heart with something like pain and
gladness blending in its rapid flow; but he only saw the tears which
covered my face, and he exclaimed, with reproachful tenderness:
"You weep because I ask you to give up a childish past, which, childish
as it is, I would give anything to annihilate. Oh! Daisy, Daisy!"
At once I checked my tears. He saw the effort, and, stooping, he pressed
a long and lingering kiss on my brow.
"Oh! my darling!" he said, ardently, "do not regret it so much. If I will
share your friendship with none, is it not because I mean to take on
myself the exclusive care of your happiness? Trust in me--in that feeling
be a child again. Alas! I sometimes fear that the calmness and serenity
of childhood are not merely in your years, but also in your nature. Oh!
if, without adding one day to your existence--one dark page to your
experience--I could change this!"
I tried to smile, but I could not--I felt languid and wretched. My heart
ached at what I had done--at William, given up so utterly, with scarcely
a cause assigned. I wondered if Cornelius, knowing all, would have
exacted the same sacrifice. Once or twice I tried to bring the discourse
round to the point I wished; but he shunned this so carefully, that at
length my eyes opened: Cornelius wished to know nothing. From that moment
I was silent and resigned.
If endearing language, and every proof of an ardent affection, could have
consoled me, I need not have grieved: but even sitting by Cornelius---
even listening to him--I was haunted by the image of William vainly
waiting for me at the old meeting-place. I heard his voice reproachfully
exclaiming--now, alas! with how much truth--"You have deceived me!"
In the course of the day, we received an invitation to take tea with Miss
Murray, in honour of her nephew's return. I said I could not go, and
Kate, with a smile, replied she would sacrifice herself, and allow
Cornelius to remain and keep me company. We spent a quiet evening
together. My head again ached slightly; I was glad of the pretence to lie
on the sofa with closed eyes. Cornelius sat by me, holding my hand in
his, and thus his sister found us on her return. She looked at us with a
pleased face, and said it was well to be a spoiled child like me.
"By the bye," she carelessly added, "William Murray is as great a bear as
ever. He had been out all day, and looked, when he came in, as if he
longed to knock me down."
I think I replied, "Indeed." I know that soon after this I went up to my
room, there to learn what new pangs can give to grief, and what new
bitterness to tears--the sense of an affection betrayed.