DAISY'S LETTER
It was dated at Rouen, France, and it ran as follows:
"MAY 15, 18--.
"DEAR, DEAR GUY:--I am all alone here in Rouen; not a person
near me who speaks English or knows a thing of Daisy Thornton as she
was, or as she is now, for I am Daisy Thornton here. I have taken the
old name again, and am an English governess in a wealthy French family;
and this is how it came about: I have left Berlin and the party there
and am earning my own living for three reasons, two of which concern
cousin Tom and one of which has to do with you and that miserable
settlement which has troubled me so much. I thought when I brought it
back and tore it up that was the last of it, and did not know that by no
act of mine could I give it to you until I was of age. Father missed it,
of course, and I told him just the truth, and that I could never touch a
penny of your money and I not your wife. He did not say a word, and I
supposed it was all right, and never dreamed that I was actually clothed
and fed on the interest of that ten thousand dollars. Father would not
tell me and you did not write. Why didn't you, Guy? I expected a letter
so long, and went to the office so many times and cried a little to
myself, and said Guy has forgotten me.
"Then we went to South Africa--father, mother, and I--went to live with
Tom. He wanted me before you did, you know, but I could not marry Tom.
He is very rich now, and we lived with him; and then we all came to
Europe and have traveled everywhere, and I have had teachers in
everything, and people say I am a fine scholar and praise me much; and,
Guy, I have tried to improve just to please you; believe me, Guy, just
to please you. Tom was as a brother--a dear, good big bear of a brother
whom I loved as such, but nothing more. Even were you dead, I could not
marry Tom after knowing you; and I told him so when in Berlin he asked
me for the sixth time to be his wife. I had to tell him something hard
to make him understand, and when I saw how what I said hurt him cruelly
and made him cry--because he was such a great, big, awkward, dear old
fellow, I put my arms around his neck and cried with him, and tried to
explain, and that made him ten times worse. Oh, if folks only would not
love me so it would save me so much sorrow.
"You see, I tell you this because I want you to know exactly what I have
been doing these five years, and that I have never thought of marrying
Tom or anybody. I did not think I could. I felt that if I belonged to
anybody it was you, and I cannot have Tom; and father was very angry and
taunted me with living on Tom's money, which I did not know before, and
he accidentally let out about the marriage settlement, and that hurt me
worse than the other.
"Oh, Guy, how can I give it up? Surely there must be a way, now I am of
age. I was so humiliated about it, and after all that passed between
father and Tom and me I could not stay in Berlin and never be sure whose
money was paying for my bread, and when I heard that Madame Lafarcade, a
French lady, who had spent the winter in Berlin, was wanting an English
governess for her children, I went to her, and, as the result, am here
at this beautiful country-seat, just out of the city, earning my own
living and feeling so proud to do it; only, Guy, there is an ache in my
heart, a heavy, throbbing pain which will not leave me day or night, and
this is how it came there.
"Mother wrote that you were about to marry Miss Hamilton. Letters from
home brought her the news, which she thinks is true. Oh, Guy, it is not,
it cannot be true! You must not go quite away from me now just as I am
coming back to you. For, Guy, I am--or rather, I have come, and a great
love, such as I never felt before, fills me full almost to bursting. I
always liked you, Guy; but when we were married I did not know what it
was to love--to feel my pulses quicken as they do just now at thought of
you. If I had, how happy I could have made you, but I was a silly little
girl, and married life was distasteful to me, and I was willing to be
free, though always, way down in my heart, was something which protested
against it, and if you knew just how I was influenced and led on
insensibly to assent, you would not blame me so much. The word divorce
had an ugly sound to me, and I did not like it, and I have always felt
as if bound to you just the same. It would not be right for me to marry
Tom, even if I wanted to, which I do not. I am yours, Guy--only yours,
and all these years I have studied and improved for your sake, without
any fixed idea, perhaps, as to what I expected or hoped. But when Tom
spoke the last time it came to me suddenly what I was keeping myself
for, and, just as a great body of water, when freed from its prison
walls, rolls rapidly down a green meadow, so did a mighty love for you
take possession of me and permeate my whole being until every nerve
quivered for joy, and when Tom was gone I went away alone and cried more
for my new happiness, I am afraid, than for him, poor fellow. And yet I
pitied him, too; as I could not stay in Berlin after that I came away to
earn money enough to take me back to you. For I am coming, or I was
before I heard that dreadful news which I cannot believe.
"Is it true, Guy? Write and tell me it is not, and that you love me
still and want me back, or, if it in part is true, and you are engaged
to Julia, show her this letter and ask her to give you up, even if it is
the very day before the wedding--for you are mine, and, sometimes, when
the children are troublesome, and I am so tired and sorry and homesick,
I have such a longing for a sight of your dear face, and think if I
could only lay my aching head in your lap once more I should never know
pain or weariness again.
"Try me, Guy. I will be so good and loving and make you so happy--and
your sister, too--I was a bother to her once. I'll be a comfort now.
Tell her so, please; tell her to bid me come. Say the word yourself,
and, almost before you know it, I'll be there.
"Truly, lovingly, waitingly, your wife,
DAISY.
"P.S.--To make sure of this letter's safety I shall send it to New York
by a friend, who will mail it to you.
"Again, lovingly.
DAISY THORNTON."
This was Daisy's letter which Guy read with such a pang in his heart as
he had never known before, even when he was smarting the worst from
wounded love and disappointed hopes. Then he had said to himself, "I can
never suffer again as I am suffering now," and now, alas, he felt how
little he knew of that pain which rends the heart and takes the breath
away.
"God help her!" he moaned, his first thought, his first prayer, for
Daisy, the girl who called herself his wife, when just across the hall,
only a few rods away, was the bride of a few hours--another woman who
bore his name and called him her husband.
With a face as pale as ashes and hands which shook like palsied hands,
he read again that pathetic cry from her whom he now felt he had never
ceased to love; aye, whom he loved still, and whom, if he could, he
would have taken to his arms so gladly and loved and cherished as the
priceless thing he had once thought her to be. The first moments of
agony which followed the reading of the letter were Daisy's wholly, and
in bitterness of soul the man she had cast off and thought to take again
cried out, as he stretched his arms toward an invisible form: "Too late,
darling--too late. But had it come two months, one month, or even one
week ago, I would--would--have gone to you over land and sea, but
now--another is in your place, another is my wife; Julia--poor, innocent
Julia. God help me to keep my vow; God help me in my need!"
He was praying now; Julia was the burden of his prayer. And as he prayed
there came into his heart an unutterable tenderness and pity for her. He
had thought he loved her an hour ago! he believed he loved her now, or,
if he did not, he would be to her the kindest, most thoughtful of
husbands, and never let her know, by word or sign, of the terrible pain
he should always carry in his heart. "Darling Daisy; poor Julia!" was
what to himself he designated the two women who were both so much to
him. To the first his love, to the other his tender care, for she was
worthy of it. She was noble, and good, and womanly; he said it many
times, and tried to stop the rapid heart throbs and quiet himself down
to meet her when she should come to him with her frank, open face and
smile, in which there was no shadow of guile. She was coming now; he
heard her voice in the hall speaking to her friend, and, thrusting the
fatal letter in his pocket, he rose to his feet, and steadying himself
upon the table stood waiting for her, as, flushed and eager, she came
in.
"Guy--Guy--what is it? Are you sick?" she asked, alarmed at the pallor
on his face and the strange expression of his eyes.
He was glad she had thus construed his agitation, and he answered that
he was faint and a little sick.
"It came on suddenly, while I was sitting here. It will pass off as
suddenly," he said, trying to smile, and holding out his hand, which she
took at once in hers.
"Is it your heart, Guy? Do you think it is your heart?" she continued,
as she rubbed and caressed his cold, clammy hand.
A shadow of pain or remorse flitted across Guy's face as he replied:
"I think it is my heart, but I assure you there is no danger--the worst
is over. I am a great deal better."
And he was better with that fair girl beside him, her face glowing with
excitement and her soft hands pressing his. Perfectly healthy herself,
she must have imparted some life and vigor to him, for he felt his pulse
grow steadier beneath her touch, and the blood flow more easily through
his veins.
If only he could forget that crumpled letter which lay in his vest
pocket and seemed to burn into his flesh; forget that and the young girl
across the sea, watching for an answer and the one word "Come!" he might
be happy yet, for Julia was one whom any man could love and be proud to
call his wife. And Guy said to himself that he did love her, though not
as he once loved Daisy, or as he could love her again were he free to do
so, and because of that full love withheld he made a mental vow that his
whole life should be given to her happiness, so that she might never
know any care or sorrow from which he could shield her.
"And Daisy?" something whispered in his ear.
"I must and will forget her," he sternly answered, and the arm he had
thrown around Julia, who was sitting with him upon the sofa, tightened
its grasp until she winced and moved a little from him.
He was very talkative that evening, and asked his wife many questions
about her friends and the shopping she wished to do, and the places they
were to visit; and Julia, who had hitherto regarded him as a great,
silent man, given to few words, wondered at the change, and watched the
bright red spots on his cheeks, and thought how she would manage to have
medical advice for that dreadful heart disease which had come like a
nightmare to haunt her bridal days.
Next morning there came a Boston paper containing a notice of the
marriage, and this Guy sent to Daisy, with only the faint tracing of a
pencil to indicate the paragraph. "Better so than to write," he thought;
though he longed to add the words, "Forgive me, Daisy; your letter came
too late."
And so the paper was sent, and after a week or two Guy went back to his
home in Cuylerville, and the blue rooms which Julia had fitted up for
Daisy five years before became her own by right. And Fanny Thornton
welcomed her warmly to the house, and by many little acts of
thoughtfulness showed how glad she was to have her there. And Julia was
very happy save when she remembered the heart disease, which she was
sure Guy had, and for which he would not seek advice. "There was nothing
the matter with his heart unless it were too full of love," he told her
laughingly, and wondered to himself if in saying this to her he was
guilty of a lie, inasmuch as his words misled her so completely.
After a time, however, there came a change, and thoughts of Daisy ceased
to disturb him as they once had done. No one ever mentioned her to him,
and since the receipt of her letter he had heard no tidings of her until
six months after his marriage, when there came to him the ten thousand
dollars, with all the interest which had accrued since the settlement
first was made. There was no word from Daisy herself, but a letter from
a lawyer in Berlin, who said all there was to say with regard to the
business, but did not tell where Miss McDonald, as he called her, was.
Then Guy wrote to Daisy a letter of thanks, to which there came no
reply, and as time went on the old wound began to heal, the grave to
close again; and when, at last, one year after his marriage, they
brought him a beautiful little baby girl and laid it in his arms, and
then a few moments later let him into the room where the pale mother
lay, he stooped over her and, kissing her fondly, said:
"I never loved you half as well as I do now."
It was a pretty child, with dark blue eyes, and hair in which there was
a gleam of gold, and Guy, when asked what he would call her, said:
"Would you object to Margaret?"
Julia knew what he meant, and, like the true, noble woman she was,
offered no objection to Guy's choice, knowing well who Margaret had
been; and herself first gave the pet name of Daisy to her child, on whom
Guy settled the ten thousand dollars sent to him by the Daisy over the
sea.