"The world, child. Its baits of pleasure and pride and power.
Did they never take hold on ye, Daisy?"
"My pleasure I had left at home," I said. "No, that is not
quite true. I had the pleasure of being with papa and mamma;
and of seeing a great deal of beauty, too. And I had pleasure
in Palestine, Miss Cardigan; but it was not the sort to tempt
me to forget anything good."
"And pride?" said the old lady.
"Why do you ask me?"
"You're so bonny, my darling. You ken you are; and other folks
know it."
"Pride? Yes, it tempted me a little," I said; "but it could
not for long, Miss Cardigan, when I remembered."
"Remembered? What was it you remembered?" she said very
tenderly; for I believe my eyes had filled again.
"When I remembered what I was heir to."
"And ye didn't have your inheritance all in the future, I
trust?" said my old friend. "There's crumbs to be gotten even
now from that feast; ye didn't go starving, my bairn?"
"I hadn't much to help me, Miss Cardigan, except the Lord's
wonderful world which He has made. That helped me."
"And ye had a crumb of joy now and then?"
"I had more than crumbs sometimes," I said, with a sober
looking back over the years.
"And it is my own living Daisy and not an image of her? You
are not spoiled a bit, my bairn?"
"Maybe I am," I said, smiling at her. "How do I know?"
"There's a look in your eyes which says you are not," she said
with a sort of long breath; "and I know not how you have
escaped it. Child! the forces which have assailed you have
beaten down many a one. It's only to be strong in the Lord, to
be sure; but we are lured away from our strength, sometimes,
and then we fall; and we are lured easily."
"Perhaps not when the battle is so very hard to fight, dear
Miss Cardigan."
"Maybe no," she said. "But had ye never a minister to counsel
ye or to help ye, in those parts?"
"Only when I was in Palestine; nowhere else."
"You must have wanted it sorely."
"Yes, but, Miss Cardigan, I had better teaching all the time.
The mountains and the sun and the sky and the beauty, all
seemed to repeat the Bible to me, all the time. I never saw
the top of Mont Blanc rosy in the sunset, nor the other
mountains, without thinking of those words, 'Be ye perfect,
even as your Father in heaven is perfect;' - and, 'They shall
walk with me in white.' -"
Miss Cardigan wiped away a tear or two.
"But you are looking very sober, my love," she said presently,
examining me.
"I have reason," I said. And I went on to give her in detail
the account of the past year's doings in my family, and of our
present position and prospects. She listened with the greatest
sympathy and the most absorbed attention. The story had taken
a good while; it was growing late, and I rose to go. Not till
then was her nephew alluded to.
"I'm thinking," then said Miss Cardigan slowly, "there's one
person you have not asked after, who would ill like to be left
out of our mouths."
I stood still and hesitated and I felt my face grow warm.
"I have not heard from him, Miss Cardigan, since -"
And I did not say since when.
"And what of it?" she asked.
"Nothing -" I said, stammering a little, "but I wait."
"He's waiting, poor lad," she said. "Have ye not had letters
from him?"
"Never; not since that one I sent him through you."
"He got it, however," said Miss Cardigan; "for there was no
reason whatever why he should not. Did you think, Daisy, he
had forgotten you?"
"No, Miss Cardigan; but it was told of him that - he had
forgotten me."
"How was that done? I thought no one knew about your loving
each other, you two children."
"So I thought; but - why, Miss Cardigan, it was confidently
told in Paris to my mother that he was engaged to a schoolmate
of mine."
"Did you believe it?"
"No. But I never heard from him again, and of course papa did
believe it. How could I tell, Miss Cardigan?"
"By your faith, child. I wouldn't have Christian think you
didn't believe him, not for all the world holds."
"I did believe him," I said, feeling a rill of joy flowing
into some dry places in my heart and changing the wilderness
there. "But he was silent, and I waited."
"He was not silent, I'll answer for it," said his aunt; "but
the letters might have gone wrong, you know. That is what they
have done, somehow."
"What could have been the foundation of that story?" I
questioned.
"I just counsel ye to ask Christian, when ye see him - if
these weary wars ever let us see him. I think he'll answer
ye."
And his aunt's manner rather intimated that my answer would be
decisive. I bade her good bye, and returned along the
shadowing streets with such a play of life and hope in my
heart, as for the time changed it into a very garden of
delight. I was not the same person that had walked those ways
a few hours ago.
This jubilation, however, could not quite last. I had no
sooner got home, than mamma began to cast in doubts and fears
and frettings, till the play of the fountain was well nigh
covered over with rubbish. Yet I could feel the waters of joy
stirring underneath it all; and she said, rather in a
displeased manner, that my walk seemed to have done me a great
deal of good! and inquired where I had been. I told her, of
course; and then had to explain how I became acquainted with
Miss Cardigan; a detail which mamma heard with small
edification. Her only remark, however, made at the end, was,
"I beseech you, Daisy, do not cultivate such associations!"
"She was very good to me, mamma, when I was a schoolgirl."
"Very well, you are not a schoolgirl now."
It followed very easily, that I could see little of my dear
old friend. Mamma was suspicious of me and rarely allowed me
to go I out of her sight. We abode still at the hotel, where
we had luxurious quarters; how paid for, mamma's jewel-box
knew. It made me very uneasy to live so; for jewels, even be
they diamonds, cannot last very long after they are once
turned into gold pieces; and I knew ours went fast; but
nothing could move my mother out of her pleasure. In vain Dr.
Sandford wrote and remonstrated; and in vain I sometimes
pleaded. "The war is not going to last for ever," she would
coldly reply; "you and Dr. Sandford are two fools. The South
_cannot_ be conquered, Daisy."
But I, with trembling hope, was beginning to think otherwise.
So the days passed on, and the weeks. Mamma spent half her
time over the newspapers. I consulted them, I could not help
it, in my old fashion; and it made them gruesome things to me.
But it was a necessity for me, to quiet my nerves with the
certainty that no name I loved was to be found there in those
lists of sorrow.
And one day that certainty failed. Among the new arrivals of
wounded men just come into Washington from Virginia, I saw the
name of Captain Preston Gary.
It was late in the summer, or early in September; I forget
which. We were as we had been; nothing in our position
changed. Mamma at the moment was busy over other prints,
having thrown this down; and feeling my cheeks grow white as I
sat there, I held the paper to shield my face and pondered
what I should do. The instant thought had been, "I must go to
him." The second brought difficulties. How to meet the
difficulties, I sat thinking; that I must go to Preston I
never doubted for a moment. I sat in a maze; till an
exclamation from my mother brought my paper shield down.
"Here's a letter from the doctor, Daisy; he says your cousin
is in the hospital."
"_His_ hospital?" I asked.
"I suppose so; he does not say that. But he says he is badly
wounded. I wonder how he comes to be in Washington?"
"Taken prisoner, mamma."
"Yes, - wounded," mamma said bitterly. "That's the only way he
could. Dr. Sandford bids me let his mother know. She can't go
to him; even if my letter could reach her in time and she
could get to Washington, which I don't believe she could; she
is too ill herself. I shall not write to her."
"Let us go, mamma; you and I."
"I?" said mamma. "_I_ go to that den of thieves? No; I shall not
go to Washington, unless I am dragged there."
"But Preston, mamma; think!"
"I am tired of thinking, Daisy. There is no good in thinking.
This is the work of your favourite Northern swords and guns; I
hope you enjoy it."
"I Would like to remedy it, mamma; to do something at least.
Mamma, do let us go to Preston!"
I spoke very earnestly, and I believe with tears. Mamma looked
at me.
"Why, do you care for him?" she asked.
"Very much!" I said weeping.
"I did not know you had any affection for anything South,
except the coloured people."
"Mamma, let us go to Preston. He must want us so much!"
"I cannot go to Washington, Daisy."
"Can you spare me, mamma? I will go."
"Do you love Preston Gary?" said mamma, sitting up-right to
look at me.
"Mamma, I always loved him. You know I did."
"Why did you not say so before?"
"I did say so, mamma, whenever I was asked. Will you let me
go? O mamma, let me go!"
"What could you do, child? he is in the hospital."
"Mamma, he may want so many things; I know he must want some
things."
"It is vain talking. You cannot go alone, Daisy."
"No, ma'am; but if I could get a good safe friend to go with
me?"
"I do not know such a person in this place."
"I do, mamma, - just the person."
"Not a fit person for you to travel with."
"Yes, mamma, just the one; safe and wise to take care of me.
And if I were once there, Dr. Sandford would do anything for
me."
Mamma pondered my words, but would not yield to them. I wept
half the evening, I think, with a strange strain on my heart
that said I must go to Preston. Childish memories came thick
about me, and later memories; and I could not bear the idea of
his dying, perhaps, alone in a hospital, without one near to
say a word of truth or help him in any wish or want that went
beyond the wants of the body. Would even those be met? My
nerves were unstrung.
"Do stop your tears, Daisy!" mamma said at length. "I can't
bear them. I never saw you do so before."
"Mamma, I must go to Preston."
"If you could go there properly, child, and had any one to
take care of you; as it is, it is impossible."
I half thought it was; I could not bend mamma. But while we
sat there under the light of the lamp, and I was trying to do
some work, which was every now and then wetted by a drop that
would fall, a servant brought in a note to me. It was from
Mrs. Sandford, in New York, on her way to Washington to look
after a friend of her own; and asking if in any matter she
could be of service to me or to mamma. I had got my
opportunity now, and I managed to get mamma's consent. I
answered Mrs. Sandford's note; packed up my things; and by the
early train next morning started with her for Washington.
Mrs. Sandford was very kind, very glad to have me with her,
very full of questions, of sympathy, of condolence, and of
care; I remember all that, and how I took it at the time,
feeling that Daisy and Daisy's life had changed since last I
was under that same gentle and feeble guidance. And I remember
what an undertone of music ran through my heart in the thought
that I might perhaps hear of, or see, Mr. Thorold. Our journey
was prosperous; and the next person we saw after arriving at
our rooms was Dr. Sandford. He shook hands with his sister;
and then, his eye lightened and his countenance altered as he
turned to the other figure in the room and saw who it was.
"Daisy!" he exclaimed, warmly grasping my hand, - "Miss
Randolph! where is Mrs. Randolph, and what brings you here?"
"Why, the train, to be sure, Grant," answered his sister-in-
law. "What a man you are - for business! Do let Daisy rest and
breathe and have something to eat, before she is obliged to
give an account of herself. See, we are tired to death."
Perhaps she was, but I was not. However, the doctor and I both
yielded. Mrs. Sandford and I withdrew to change our dresses,
and then we had supper; but after supper, when she was again
out of the room, Dr. Sandford turned to me and took my hand.
"I must go presently," he said. "Now, Miss Randolph, what is
it?"
I sat down and he sat down beside me, still holding my hand,
on a sofa in the room.
"Dr. Sandford, my cousin Gary is a prisoner and in the
hospital. You wrote to mamma."
"Yes. I thought his mother might like to know."
"She is ill herself, in Georgia, and cannot come to
Washington. Dr. Sandford, I want to go in and take care of
him."
"You!" said the doctor. But whatever he thought, his
countenance was impenetrable.
"You can manage that for me."
"Can I?" said he. "But, Daisy, you do not come under the
regulations."
"That is no matter, Dr. Sandford."
"How is it no matter?"
"Because, I know you can do what you like. You always could
manage things for me."
He smiled a little, but went on in an unchanged tone.
"You are too young; and - excuse me - you have another
disqualification."
"I will do just as you tell me," I said.
"If I let you in."
"You will let me in."
"I do not see that I ought. I think I ought not."
"But you _will_, Dr. Sandford. My cousin was very dear to me
when I was a child at Melbourne - I love him yet very much -
no one would take so good care of him as I would; and it would
be a comfort to me for ever. Do let me go in! I have come for
that."
"You might get sick yourself," he said. "You do not know what
you would be obliged to hear and see. You do not know, Daisy."
"I am not a child now," - I replied.
There was more in my answer than mere words; there was more, I
know, in my feeling; and the doctor took the force of it. He
looked very sober, though, upon my plan, which it was evident
he did not like.
"Does Mrs. Randolph give her consent to this proceeding?" he
asked.
"She knows I came that I might look after Preston. I did not
tell her my plan any further."
"She would not like it."
"Mamma and I do not see things with the - same eyes, some
things, Dr. Sandford. I think I _ought_ to do it."
"I think she is right," he said. "You are not fit for it. You
have no idea what you would be obliged to encounter."
"Try me," I said.
"I believe you are fit for anything," he broke out in answer
to this last appeal; "and I owned myself conquered by you,
Daisy, long ago. I find I have not recovered my independence.
Well - you will go in. But you cannot be dressed - _so_."
"No, I will change my dress. I will do it immediately."
"No, not to-night!" exclaimed the doctor. "Not to-night. It is
bad enough to-morrow; but I shall not take you in to-night.
Rest, and sleep and be refreshed; I need not say, be strong;
for that you are always. No, I will not take you with me to-
night. You must wait."
And I could do no more with him for the time. I improved the
interval, however. I sent out and got some yards of check to
make aprons; and at my aprons I sat sewing all the evening, to
Mrs. Sandford's disgust.
"My dear child, what do you want of those things?" she said,
looking at them and me with an inexpressible disdain of the
check.
"I think they will be useful, ma'am."
"But you are not going into the hospital?"
"Yes; to-morrow morning."
"As a visitor. But not to stay."
"I am going to stay if I am wanted," I said, displaying the
dimensions of my apron for my own satisfaction.
"My dear, if you stay, you will be obliged to see all manner
of horrible things."
"They must be worse to bear than to see, Mrs. Sandford."
"But you cannot endure to see them, Daisy; you never can.
Grant will never allow it."
I sewed in silence, thinking that Dr. Sandford would conform
his will to mine in the matter.
"I will never forgive him if he does!" said the lady. But that
also I thought would have to be borne. My heart was firm for
whatever lay before me. In the hospital, by Preston's side, I
was sure my work lay; and to be there, I must have a place at
other bedsides as well as his. In the morning Mrs. Sandford
renewed her objections and remonstrances as soon as she saw
her brother-in-law; and to do him justice, he looked as ill
pleased as she did.
"Daisy wants to go into the hospital as a regular nurse," she
said.
"It is a weakness of large-hearted women now-a-days."
"Large-hearted! Grant, you are not going to permit such a
thing?"
"I am no better than other men," said the doctor; "and have no
more defences."
"But it is Daisy that wants the defences," Mrs. Sandford
cried; "it is she that is running into danger."
"She shall want no defences while she is in my hospital."
"It is very well to say; but if you let her in there, you
cannot help it. She must be in danger, of all sorts of harm."
"If you will prevent it, Mrs. Sandford, you will lay me under
obligations," said the doctor, sitting down and looking up at
his sister-in-law somewhat comically. "I am helpless, for I
have passed my word. Daisy has the command."
"But just look at the figure she is, in that dress! Fancy it!
That is Miss Randolph."
The doctor glanced up and down, over my dress, and his eye
turned to Mrs. Sandford with provoking unconcern.
"But you will not let her stay there, Grant?"
The doctor looked up at me now, and I saw an answer ready on
his lips. There was but one way left for me, I thought; I do
not know how I came to do it, but I was not Daisy that
morning; or else my energies were all strung up to a state of
tension that made Daisy a different person from her wont. I
laid my hand lightly over the doctor's mouth before he could
speak. It silenced him, as I hoped. He rose up with a look
that showed me I had conquered, and asked if I were ready. He
must go, he said.
I did not keep him waiting. And once out in the street, with
my hand on his arm, I was quite Daisy again; as humble and
quiet as ever in my life. I went like a child now, in my
guardian's hand; through the little crowds of men collected
here and there, past the sentinels at the hospital door, in
through the wide, clean, quiet halls and rooms, where Dr.
Sandford's authority and system made everything work, I
afterwards found, as by the perfection of machinery. Through
one ward and another at last, where the rows of beds, each
containing its special sufferer, the rows of faces, of various
expression, that watched us from the beds, the attendants and
nurses and the work that was going on by their hands, caused
me to draw a little closer to the arm on which I leaned and to
feel yet more like a weak child. Yet even then, even at that
moment, the woman within me began to rise and put down the
feeling of childish weakness. I began to be strong.
Out of the wards, into his own particular room and office,
comfortable enough, Dr. Sandford brought me then. He gave me a
chair, and poured me out a glass of wine.
"No, thank you," said I, smiling. "I do not need it."
"You are pale."
"That is womanish; but I am not weak or faint, though."
"Do you maintain your purpose?"
"Yes, certainly."
"You had better take off your bonnet and shawl then. You would
find them in the way."
I obeyed, and went on to envelope myself in my apron. Dr.
Sandford looked on grimly. Very ill pleased he was, I could
see. But then I laid my hand on his arm and looked at him.
"I am so much obliged to you for this," I said earnestly. And
his face softened.
"I am afraid it is wrong in me," he remarked.
"If you thought it was, you would not do it," I answered; "and
I hope I should not ask it. I am ready now. But Dr. Sandford,
I want teaching, as to what I ought to do. Who will teach me?"
"I will teach you. But you know how to give a sick man tea or
soup, I fancy, without much teaching."
"There are other things, Dr. Sandford."
"It will not be necessary. There are others to do the other
things. Captain Gary has only some simple wounds to be
dressed."
"But there are others, Dr. Sandford? And I must know how to do
all that the nurses do. I am not here to be in the way. I am
not going to take care of my cousin only."
"There is enough to do," said the doctor; "but, you will not
like it, Daisy."
Something in his wistful look at me, something in the contrast
between merely seeing what he was afraid I should see, and the
suffering itself which by the sufferers had to be borne,
touched me keenly. My eyes filled as I looked at the doctor,
but I think the purpose in my heart perhaps came out in my
face; for his own suddenly changed, and with a "Come, then!" -
he gave me his arm and led the way upstairs and into another
succession of rooms, to the ward and the room where my cousin
Preston lay.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HOSPITAL
A clean, quiet, airy room, like all the rest; like all the
rest filled with rows of beds, the occupants of which had come
from the stir of the fight and the bustle of the march, to lie
here and be still; from doing to suffering. How much the
harder work, I thought; and if it be well done, how much the
nobler. And all who know the way in which our boys did it,
will bear witness to their great nobleness. Patient, and
strong, and brave, where there was no excitement to cheer, nor
spectators to applaud; their fortitude and their patience and
their generous self-devotion never failed nor faltered, when
all adventitious or real helps and stimulants were withdrawn,
and patriotism and bravery stood alone.
From the turn of Dr. Sandford's head, I knew on which side I
might look to see Preston; and as we slowly passed up the long
line of beds, I scanned breathlessly each face. Old and young,
grim and fair, gentle and rough; it was a variety. And then I
saw, I should hardly have known it, a pale face with a dark
moustache and a thick head of dark, glossy hair, which was
luxuriant yet, although it had been cropped. His eyes were
closed as we came up; opened as we paused by his bed-side, and
opened very wide indeed as he looked from the doctor to me.
"How do you do, this morning, Gary?" said my conductor.
"Confoundedly -" was the somewhat careless answer, made while
examining my face.
"You see who has come to look after you?"
"It isn't Daisy!" he cried.
"How do you do, Preston?" I said, taking hold of the hand
which lay upon the coverlid. He drew the hand hastily away,
half raising himself on his elbow.
"What have you come here for?" he asked.
"I have come to take care of you."
"_You_," said Preston. "In this place! Where is mamma?"
"Aunt Gary is far away from here. She could not get to you."
"But you, you were in Switzerland."
"Not since last May."
"Lie down, Gary, and take it quietly," said Dr. Sandford,
putting his hand on his shoulder. Preston scowled and
submitted, without taking his eyes from my face.
"You are not glad to see me?" I asked, feeling his manner a
little awkward.
"Of course not. You ought not to be in this place. What have
you got on that rig for?"
"What rig?"
"That! I suppose you don't dress so at home, do you? You
didn't use it. Hey? what is it for?"
"It is that I may be properly dressed. Home things would be
out of place here."
"Yes; so I think," said Preston; "and you most of all. Where
is Aunt Randolph?"
"You do not seem very grateful, Gary," said the doctor, who
all this while stood by with an impenetrable countenance.
"Grateful - for what?"
"For your cousin's affection and kindness, which has come here
to look after you."
"I am not grateful," said Preston. "I shall not have her
stay."
"What has brought _you_ here, Preston?" I asked by way of
diversion.
"Me? Powder. It's an infernal invention. If one could fight
with steel, there would be some fun in it. But powder has no
respect of persons."
"How has it hurt you?" I asked. I had somehow never chosen to
put the question to Dr. Sandford; I can hardly tell why. Now
it was time to know. Preston's eye fell on me with sudden
gentleness.
"Daisy, go away," he said. "You have no business here. It is
of all places no place for you. Go away, and don't come
again."
"Dr. Sandford," said I, "will you take me with you and give me
my lesson? That is the first thing. I must earn my right to
the place, it seems."
The doctor looked at me in his turn; I avoided the eye of
Preston. He looked at me in a way not hard to read; quite
agreeing with Preston in wishing me away, but, I saw also,
respecting my qualifications for the work I had come to do. I
saw that he gave me a great reverence on account of it; but
then, Dr. Sandford always gave me more reverence than belonged
to me. I made use of this, and held my advantage. And the
doctor seeing that I was calmly in earnest, even took me at my
word.
We began a progress through the ward; during which every man's
condition was inquired into; wounds examined and dressed; and
course of treatment prescribed. I looked on at first as a mere
spectator; bearing the revelation of pain and suffering with
all the fortitude I could muster; but I found in a little
while that it would overmaster me if I continued an idle
looker-on; and putting aside the attendant nurse at last with
a whisper to which she yielded, I offered myself quietly in
her place to do her work. Dr. Sandford glanced at me then, but
made no remark whatever; suffering me to do my pleasure, and
employing me as if I had been there for a month. He began to
give me directions too. It seemed a long age of feeling and
experience, the time while we were passing through the ward;
yet Dr. Sandford was extremely quick and quiet in his work,
and lost no seconds by unnecessary delay. Even I could see
that. He was kind, too; never harsh, though very firm in his
authority and thorough in his business. I could not help an
unconscious admiration for him growing as we went on. That
steady, strong blue eye; what a thing it was for doubt and
fear to rest on. I saw how doubt and fear rested. I thought I
did; though the bearing of all the sufferers there was calm
and self-contained to an admirable degree. It was so, I heard,
with all our soldiers everywhere.
We came round, last of all, to Preston's couch again; and the
doctor paused. He glanced at me again for the first time in a
long while. I do not know how I trembled inwardly; outwardly,
I am sure, I did not flinch. His eye went to Preston.
"Do you see, you are to have a better nurse than you deserve?"
he said.
"It is disgusting!" Preston muttered.
"Some things are," answered the doctor; "not a brave woman, or
a gentle man."
"Send Daisy away from this place. You know she ought not to be
here; and you can forbid it."
"You overstate my power, my friend," said the doctor. "Shall
we see how you are getting along to-day."
Preston's eye came to me again, silently, with reluctance and
regret in it. I was touched more than I chose to show, and
more than it was safe to think about."
"Does she know?" he asked.
"She does not know. Your cousin, Miss Randolph, has given one
of his arms for his cherished cause."
"And one of my legs too," said Preston. "If it would do the
cause any good, I would not care; but what good does it do?
That's what I don't like about powder."
I had much ado to stand this communication. The work of
examining and dressing Preston's wounds, however, immediately
began; and in the effort to do my part, as usual, I found the
best relief for overstrained nerves. I think some tears fell
upon the bandages; but no word of remark was made by either
physician or patient, till the whole business was concluded.
Dr. Sandford then carried me off to a nice, warm, comfortable
apartment, which he told me I might always hold as my own
whenever I had time to be there; he seated me in a chair, and
a second time poured me out a glass of wine, which he took
from a cupboard.
"I do not drink it," I said, shaking my head.
"Yes, you do, - to-day."
"I never drink it," I said. "I cannot touch it, Dr. Sandford."
"You must take something. What is the matter with the wine? Is
it disagreeable to you?"
"I will not help anybody else drink it," I said, looking at
him and forcing a smile; for I was tired and very sick at
heart.
"Nobody will know you take it."
"Not if I do not take it. They will if I do."
"Are you going upon that old childish plan of yours?" said the
doctor, sitting down beside me and looking with a wistful kind
of tenderness into my face. "Are you bent still upon living
for other people, Daisy?"
"You know, the Master I follow did so; and His servants must
be like him," I said, and I felt my smile was stronger and
brighter this time. Dr. Sandford arose, summoned an attendant
and sent him off for a cup of tea for me; then saw me take it.
"Now," said he, "are you fixed in the plan of devoting
yourself to the care of this ungracious cousin?"
"Of him, and of others," I said.
"He does not deserve it."
"Suppose we waited to give people their deserts, Dr.
Sandford?"
"Some people deserve to be allowed to take care of you," said
the doctor, getting up and beginning to pace up and down the
floor. "They deserve it; and find it hard work; or denied them
altogether."
"You do take care of me," I said gratefully. "You always did,
Dr. Sandford. You are doing it now; and I am thanking you all
the time in my heart."
"Well," said he abruptly, standing still before me, - "you are
one of those who are born to command; and in your case I
always find I have to obey. This room you will use as you
please; no one will share it with you; and you need a
retiring-place for a breath of rest when you can get it. I
shall see you constantly, as I am going out and in; and
anything you want you will tell me. But you will not like it,
Daisy. You can stand the sight of blood, like other women,
whose tenderness makes them strong; but you will not like some
other things. You will not like the way you will have to take
your meals in this place."
I had finished my cup of tea, and now stood up to let the
doctor take me back to my place beside Preston; which he did
without any more words. And there he left me; and I sat down
to consider my work and my surroundings. My cousin had
forgotten his impatience in sleep; and there was a sort of
lull in the business of the ward at that hour.
I found in a few minutes that it was a great comfort to me to
be there. Not since papa's death, had so peaceful a sense of
full hands and earnest living crept into my heart. My thoughts
flew once or twice to Mr. Thorold, but I called them back as
soon; I could not bear that; while at the same time I felt I
was nearer to him here than anywhere else. And my thoughts
were very soon called effectually home from my own special
concerns, by seeing that the tenant of one of the neighbouring
beds was restless and suffering from fever. A strong, fine-
looking man, flushed and nervous on a fever bed, in helpless
inactivity, with the contrast of life energies all at work and
effectively used only a little while ago, in the camp and the
battlefield. Now lying here. His fever proceeded from his
wounds, I knew, for I had seen them dressed. I went to him and
laid my hand on his forehead. I wonder what and how much there
can be in the touch of a hand. It quieted him, like a charm;
and after a while, a fan and a word or two now and then were
enough for his comfort. I did not seem to be Daisy Randolph; I
was just - the hospital nurse; and my use was to minister; and
the joy of ministering was very great.
From my fever patient I was called to others, who wanted many
various things; it was a good while before I got round to
Preston again. Meanwhile, I was secretly glad to find out that
I was gaining fast ground in the heart of the other nurse of
the ward, who had at first looked upon me with great doubt and
mistrust on account of my age and appearance. She was a
clever, energetic New England woman; efficient and helpful as
it was possible to be; thin and wiry, but quiet, and full of
sense and kindliness. With a consciousness of her growing
favour upon me, I came at last to Preston's bedside again. He
looked anything but amicable.
"Where is Aunt Randolph?" were his first words, uttered with
very much the manner of a growl. I replied that I had left her
in New York.
"I shall write to her," said Preston. "How came she to do
such an absurd thing as to let you come here? and whom did you
come with? Did you come alone?"
"Not at all. I came with proper company."
"Proper company wouldn't have brought you," Preston growled.
"I think you want something to eat, Preston," I said. "You
will feel better when you have had some refreshment."
It was just the time for a meal and I saw the supplies coming
in. And Preston's refreshment, as well as that of some others,
I attended to myself. I think he found it pleasant; for
although some growls waited upon me even in the course of my
ministering to him, I heard from that time no more
remonstrances; and I am sure Preston never wrote his letter. A
testimonial of a different sort was conveyed in his whispered
request to me, not to let that horrid Yankee spinster come
near him again.
But Miss Yates was a good friend to me.
"You are looking a little pale," she said to me at evening.
"Go and lie down a spell. All's done up; you ain't wanted now,
and you may be, for anything anybody can tell, before an hour
is gone. Just you go away and get some rest. It's been your
first day. And the first day's rather tough."
I told her I did not feel tired. But she insisted; and I
yielded so far as to go and lie down for a while in the room
which Dr. Sandford had given to me. When I came back, I met
Miss Yates near the door of the room. I asked her if there
were any serious cases in the ward just then.
"La! half of 'em's serious," said she; "if you mean by that
they might take a wrong turn and go off. You never can tell."
"But are there any in immediate danger, do you think?"
She searched my face before she answered.
"How come you to be so strong, and so young, and so - well, so
unlike all this sort of thing? - Have you ever, no you never
have, seen much of sickness and death, and that?"
"No; not much."
"But you look as calm as a field of white clover. I beg your
pardon, my dear; it's like you. And you ain't one of the India
rubber sort, neither. I am glad you ain't, too; I don't think
that sort is fit to be nurses or anything else."
She looked at me inquiringly.
"Miss Yates," I said, "I love Jesus. I am a servant of Christ.
I like to do whatever my Lord gives me to do."
"Oh!" said she. "Well I ain't. I sometimes wish I was. But it
comes handy now, for there's a man down there - he ain't a
going to live, and he knows it, and he's kind o' worried about
it; and I can't say nothing to him. Maybe you can. I've
written his letters for him, and all that; but he's just
uneasy."
I asked, and she told me, which bed held this sick man, who
would soon be a dying one. I walked slowly down the ward,
thinking of this new burden of life-work that was laid upon me
and how to meet it. My very heart sank. I was so helpless. And
rose too; for I remembered that our Redeemer is strong. What
could I do?
I stood by the man's side. He was thirsty and I gave him
lemonade. His eye met mine as his lips left the cup; an eye of
unrest.
"Are you comfortable?" I asked.
"As much as I can be." - It was a restless answer.
"Can't you think of Jesus, and rest?" I asked, bending over
him. His eye darted to mine with a strange expression of
inquiry and pain; but it was all the answer he made.
"There is rest at His feet for all who trust in Him; - rest in
His arms for all who love Him."
"I am not the one or the other," he said shortly.
"But you may be."
"I reckon not, - at this time of day," he said.
"Any time of day will do," I said tenderly.
"I guess not," said he. "One cannot do anything lying here -
and I sha'n't lie here much longer, either. There's no time
now to do anything."
"There is nothing to do, dear friend, but to give your heart
and trust to the Lord who died for you - who loves you - who
invites you - who will wash away your sins for His own sake,
in His own blood, which He shed for you. Jesus has died for
you; you shall not die, if you will put your trust in Him."
He looked at me, turned his head away restlessly, turned it
back again, and said, -
"That won't do."
"Why?"
"I don't believe in wicked people going to heaven."
"Jesus came to save wicked people; just them."
"They've got to be good, though, before they" - he paused, -
"go - to His place."
"Jesus will make you good, if you will let him."
"What chance is there, lying here; and only a few minutes at
that?"
He spoke almost bitterly, but I saw the drops of sweat
standing on his brow, brought there by the intensity of
feeling. I felt as if my heart would have broken.
"As much chance here as anywhere," I answered calmly. "The
heart is the place for reform; outward work, without the
heart, signifies nothing at all; and if the heart of love and
obedience is in any man, God knows that the life would follow,
if there were opportunity."
"Yes. I haven't it," he said, looking at me.
"You may have it."
"I tell you, you are talking - you don't know of what," he
said vehemently.
"I know all about it," I answered softly.
"There is no love nor obedience in me," he repeated, searching
my eyes, as if to see whether there were anything to be said
to that.
"No; you are sick at heart, and dying, unless you can be
cured. Can you trust Jesus to cure you? They that be whole
need not a physician, He says, but those that are sick."
He was silent, gazing at me.
"Can you lay your heart, just as it is, at Jesus' feet, and
ask him to take it and make it right? He says, Come."
"What must _I_ do?"
"Trust Him."
"But you are mistaken," he said. "I am not good."
"No," said I; and then I know I could not keep back the tears
from springing; - "Jesus did not come to save the good. He
came to save you. He bids you trust Him, and your sins shall
be forgiven, for He gave His life for yours; and He bids you
come to Him, and He will take all that is wrong away, and make
you clean."
"Come?" - the sick man repeated.
"With your heart - to his feet. Give yourself to Him. He is
here, though you do not see Him."
The man shut his eyes, with a weary sort of expression
overspreading his features; and remained silent. After a
little while he said slowly -
"I think - I have heard - such things - once. It is a great
while ago. I don't think I know - what it means."
Yet the face looked weary and worn; and for me, I stood beside
him and my tears dripped like a summer shower. Like the first
of the shower, as somebody says; the pressure at my heart was
too great to let them flow. O life, and death! O message of
mercy, and deaf ears! O open door of salvation, and feet that
stumble at the threshold! After a time his eyes opened.
"What are you doing there?" he said vaguely.
"I am praying for you, dear friend."
"Praying?" said he. "Pray so that I can hear you."
I was well startled at this. I had prayed with papa; with no
other, and before no other, in all my life. And here were rows
of beds on all sides of me, wide-awake careless eyes in some
of their occupants; nurses and attendants moving about; no
privacy; no absolute stillness. I thought I could not; then I
knew I must; and then all other things faded into
insignificance before the work Jesus came to do and had given
me to help. I knelt down, not without hands and face growing
cold in the effort; but as soon as I was once fairly speaking
to my Lord, I ceased to think or care who else was listening
to me. There was a deep stillness around; I knew that; the
attendants paused in their movements, and words and work I
think were suspended during the few minutes when I was on my
knees. When I got up, the sick man's eyes were closed. I sat
down with my face in my hands, feeling as if I had received a
great wrench; but presently Miss Yates came with a whispered
request that I would do something that was required just then
for somebody. Work set me all right very soon. But when after
a while I came round to Preston again, I found him in a rage.
"What _has_ come over you?" he said, looking at me with a
complication of frowns. I was at a loss for the reason, and
requested him to explain himself.
"You are not Daisy!" he said. "I do not know you any more.
What has happened to you?"
"What do you mean, Preston?"
"Mean!" said he with a fling. "What do _you_ mean? I don't know
you."
I thought this paroxysm might as well pass off by itself, like
another; and I kept quiet.
"What were you doing just now," said he savagely, "by that
soldier's bedside?"
"That soldier? He is a dying man, Preston."
"Let him die!" he cried. "What is that to you? You are Daisy
Randolph. Do you remember whose daughter you are? _You_ making a
spectacle of yourself, for a hundred to look at!"
But this shot quite overreached its mark. Preston saw it had
not touched me.
"You did not use to be so bold," he began again. "You were
delicate to an exquisite fault. I would never have believed
that _you_ would have done anything unwomanly. What has taken
possession of you?"
"I should like to take possession of you just now, Preston,
and keep you quiet," I said. "Look here, - your tea is coming.
Suppose you wait till you understand things a little better;
and now - let me give you this. I am sure Dr. Sandford would
bid you be quiet; and in his name, I do."
Preston fumed; but I managed to stop his mouth; and then I
left him, to attend to other people. But when all was done,
and the ward was quiet, I stood at the foot of the dying man's
bed, thinking, what could I do more for him? His face looked
weary and anxious; his eye rested, I saw, on me, but without
comfort in it. What could I say, that I had not said? or how
could I reach him? Then, I do not know how the thought struck
me, but I knew what to do.
"My dear," said Miss Yates, touching my shoulder, "hadn't you
better give up for to-night? You are a young hand; you ain't
seasoned to it yet; you'll give out if you don't look sharp.
Suppose you quit for to- night."
"O no!" I said hastily - "Oh no, I cannot. I cannot."
"Well, sit down, any way, before you can't stand. It is just
as cheap sittin' as standin'."
I sat down; she passed on her way; the place was quiet; only
there were uneasy breaths that came and went near me. Then I
opened my mouth and sang -
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
"Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
"And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
"Lose all their guilty stains."
"The dying thief rejoiced to see
"That fountain in his day;
"And there may I, as vile as he,
"Wash all my sins away."
I sang it to a sweet simple air, in which the last lines are
repeated and repeated and drawn out in all their sweetness.
The ward was as still as death. I never felt such joy that I
could sing; for I knew the words went to the furthest corner
and distinctly, though I was not raising my voice beyond a
very soft pitch. The stillness lasted after I stopped; then
some one near spoke out -
"Oh, go on!"
And I thought the silence asked me. But what to sing? that was
the difficulty. It had need be something so very simple in the
wording, so very comprehensive in the sense; something to tell
the truth, and to tell it quick, and the whole truth; what
should it be? Hymns came up to me, loved and sweet, but too
partial in their application, or presupposing too much
knowledge of religious things. My mind wandered; and then of a
sudden floated to me the refrain that I had heard and learned
when a child, long ago, from the lips of Mr. Dinwiddie, in the
little chapel at Melbourne; and with all the tenderness of the
old time and the new it sprung from my heart and lips now -
"In evil long I took delight,
"Unawed by shame or fear;
"Till a new object struck my sight,
"And stopped my wild career."
"O the Lamb - the loving Lamb!
"The Lamb on Calvary
"The Lamb that was slain, but lives again,
"To intercede for me."
How grand it was! But for the grandeur and the sweetness of
the message I was bringing, I should have broken down a score
of times.
As it was, I poured my tears into my song, and wept them into
the melody. But other tears, I knew, were not so contained; in
intervals I heard low sobbing in more than one part of the
room. I had no time to sing another hymn before Dr. Sandford
came in. I was very glad he had not been five minutes earlier.
I followed him round the ward, seeking to acquaint myself as
fast as possible with whatever might help to make me useful
there. Dr. Sandford attended only to business and not to me,
till the whole round was gone through. Then he said, -
"You will let me take you home now, I hope."
"I am at home," I answered.
"Even so," said he smiling. "You will let me take you _from_
home then, to the place my sister dwells in."
"No, Dr. Sandford; and you do not expect it."
"I have some reason to know what to expect, by this time. Will
you not do it at my earnest request? not for your sake, but
for mine? There is presumption for you!"
"No, Dr. Sandford; it is not presumption, and I thank you; but
I cannot. I cannot, Dr. Sandford. I am wanted here."
"Yes, so you will be to-morrow."
"I will be here to-morrow."
"But, Daisy, this is unaccustomed work; and you cannot bear
it, no one can, without intermission. Let me take you to the
hotel to-night. You shall come again in the morning."
"I cannot. There is some one here who wants me."
"Your cousin, do you mean?"
"Oh no. Not he at all. There is one who is, I am afraid,
dying."
"Morton," said the doctor. "Yes. You can do nothing for him."
But I thought of my hymn, and the tears rose to my eyes.
"I will do what I can, Dr. Sandford. I cannot leave him."
"There is a night nurse who will take charge. You must not
watch. You must not do that, Daisy. I command here."
"All but me," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "Trust me. I
will try to do just the right thing."
There must have been more persuasion in my look than I knew;
for Dr. Sandford quitted me without another word, and left me
to my own will. I went softly down the room to the poor friend
I was watching over. I found his eyes watching me; but for
talk there was no time just then; some services were called
for in another part of the ward that drew me away from him;
and when I came back he seemed to be asleep. I sat down at the
bed foot and thought my hymn all over, then the war, my own
life, and lastly the world. Miss Yates came to me and bent
down.
"Are you tired out, dear?"
"Not at all," I said. "Not at all - tired."
"They'd give their eyes if you'd sing again. It's better than
doctors and anodynes; and it's the first bit of anything
unearthly we've had in this place. Will you try?"
I was only too glad. I sang, "Jesus, lover of my soul" - "Rock
of Ages" - and then, -
"Just as I am, without one plea,
"But that Thy blood was shed for me,
"And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
"O Lamb of God, I come."
And stillness, deep and peaceful seeming, brooded over all the
place in the pauses between the singing. There were restless
and weary and suffering people around me; patient indeed too,
and uncomplaining, in the worst of times; but now even sighs
seemed to be hushed. I looked at the man who was said to be
dying. His wide open eyes were intently fixed upon me; very
intently; and I thought, less ruefully than a while ago. Then
I sang, -
"Come to Jesus just now -"
As I sang, a voice from the further end of the room took it
up, and bore me company in a somewhat rough but true and manly
chorus, to the end of the singing. It rang sweet round the
room; it fell sweet on many ears, I know. And so I gave my
Lord's message.
I sang no more that night. The poor man for whose sake I had
begun the singing, rapidly grew worse. I could not leave him;
for ever and again, in the pauses of suffering, his eyes
sought mine. I answered the mute appeal as I best could, with
a word now and a word then. Towards morning the struggle
ceased. He spoke no more to me; but the last look was to my
eyes, and in his, it seemed to me, the shadow had cleared
away. That was all I could know.
CHAPTER XXII.
ORDERS
I slept longer than I had meant to do, the next morning; but I
rose with a happy feeling of being in my place; where I wanted
to be. That is, to be sure, not always the criterion by which
to know the place where one ought to be; yet where it is a
qualification it is also in some sense a token. The ministry
of the hours preceding swept over me while I was dressing,
with something of the grand swell and cadence of the notes of
a great organ; grand and solemn and sweet. I entered the ward,
ready for the day's work, with a glad readiness.
So I felt, as I stepped in and went down the space between the
rows of beds. Miss Yates nodded to me.
"Here you are!" she said. "Fresh as the morning. Well I don't
know why we shouldn't have pleasant things in such a place as
this, if we can get them; there's enough that ain't pleasant,
and folks forget there is anything else in the world. Now
you'll be better than breakfast, to some of them; and here's
breakfast, my dear. You know how to manage that."
I knew very well how to manage that; and I knew too, as I went
on with my ministrations, that Miss Yates was not altogether
wrong. My ministry did give pleasure; and I could not help
enjoying the knowledge. This was not the enjoyment of
flattering crowds, waiting round me with homage in their eyes
and on their tongues. I had known that too, and felt the
foolish flutter of gratified vanity for a moment, to be
ashamed of it the next. This was the brightening eye, the
relaxing lip, the tone of gratification, from those whose days
and hours were a weary struggle with pain and disease; to
bring a moment's refreshment to them was a great joy, which
gives me no shame now in the remembrance. Even if it was only
the refreshment of memory and fancy, that was something; and I
gave thanks in my heart, as I went from one sufferer to
another, that I had been made pleasant to look at. Preston
himself smiled at me this morning, which I thought a great
gain.
"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was
giving him his tea and toast.
"I am glad you think so."
"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless
gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if
you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything
from Norma, or II Trovatore?"
"They would be rather out of place here."
"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is
vile tea."
"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else
here."
"I know no such thing. There is nothing good in this place, -
except you, - and I suppose that is the reason you have chosen
it for your abode. I can't imagine how Aunt Randolph came to
let you, though."
"She let me come to take care of you."
"_I_'m not worth it. What's a man good for, when there is only
half of him left? I should like just to get into one other
field, and let powder take the other half."
"Hush, Preston! hush; you must not talk so. There's your
mother."
"My mother won't think much of me now, I don't know why she
should. You never did, even when I was myself."
"I think just as much of you now as ever, Preston. You might
be much more than your old self, if you would."
Preston frowned and rolled his head over on the pillow.
"Confounded!" he muttered. "To be in such a den of Yankees!"
"You are ungrateful."
"I am not. I owe it to Yankee powder."
What, perhaps, had Southern powder done? I shivered inwardly,
and for a moment forgot Preston.
"What is the matter?" said he. "You look queer; and it is very
queer of you to spill my tea."
"Drink it then," I said, "and don't talk in such a way. I will
not have you do it, Preston, to me."
He glanced at me, a little wickedly; but he had finished his
breakfast and I turned from him. As I turned, I saw that the
bed opposite, where Morton had died a few hours before, had
already received another occupant. It startled me a little;
this quick transition; this sudden total passing away; then,
as I cast another glance at the newly come, my breath stood
still. I saw eyes watching me, - I had never but once known
such eyes; I saw an embrowned but very familiar face; as I
looked, I saw a flash of light come into the eyes, quick and
brilliant as I had seen such flashes come and go a hundred
times. I knew what I saw.
It seems to me now in the retrospect, it seemed to me then, as
if my life - that which makes life - were that moment suddenly
gathered up, held before me, and then dashed under my feet;
thrown down to the ground and trampled on. For a moment the
sight of my eyes failed me. I think nobody noticed it. I think
nothing was to be seen, except that I stood still for that
minute. It passed, and my sight returned; and as one whose
life is under foot and who knows it will never rise again, I
crossed the floor to Thorold. We were not alone. Eyes and ears
were all around us. Remembering this, I put my hand in his and
said a simple -
"How do you do?"
But his look at me was so infinitely glad and sweet, that my
senses failed me again. I did not sink down; but I stood
without sight or hearing. The clasp of his hand recalled me.
"It is Daisy!" he said smiling. "Daisy, and not a vision. My
Daisy! How is it?"
"What can I do for you?" I said hastily.
"Nothing. Stand there. I have been looking at you; and thought
it was long till you would look at me."
"I was busy."
"Yes, I know, love. How is it, Daisy? When did you come back
from Switzerland?"
"Months ago."
"I did not know of it."
"Letters failed, I suppose."
"Then you wrote?"
"I wrote, - with papa's letter."
"When?"
"Oh, long ago - long ago; - I don't know, - a year or two."
"It never reached me," he said, a shadow crossing his bright
brow.
"I sent it to your aunt, for her to send it to you; and she
sent it; I asked her."
"Failed," he said. "What was it, Daisy?"
The question was put eagerly.
"Papa was very good," I said; - "and you were very right,
Christian, and I was wrong. He liked your letter."
"And I should have liked his?" he said, with one of those
brilliant illuminations of eye and face.
"I think you would."
"Then I have got all I can ask for," he said. "You are mine;
and while we live in this world we belong to each other. Is it
not so?"
There was mamma. But I could not speak of her. Even she could
not prevent the truth of what Christian said; in one way it
must be true. I gave no denial. Thorold clasped my hand very
fast, and I stood breathless. Then suddenly I asked if he had
had his breakfast? He laughed and said yes, and still clasped
my hand in a grasp that said it was better than food and drink
to him. I stood like one from under whose feet the ground is
slipping away. I longed to know, but dared not ask, what had
brought him there; whether he was suffering; the words would
not come to my lips. I knew Dr. Sandford would be here by and
by; how should I bear it? But I, and nobody but me, must do
all that was done for this sufferer at least.
I left Mr. Thorold, to attend to duties that called me on all
hands. I did them like one in a dream. Yet my ordinary manner
was quiet, and I suppose nobody saw any difference; only I
felt it. I was looking all the time for the moment of Dr.
Sandford's appearance, and praying for strength. It came, his
visit, as everything does come, when its time was; and I
followed him in his round; waiting and helping as there was
want of me. I did it coolly, I know, with faculties sharpened
by an intense motive and feelings engrossed with one thought.
I proved myself a good assistant; I knew Dr. Sandford approved
of me; I triumphed, so far, in the consciousness that I had
made good my claim to my position, and was in no danger of
being shoved away on the score of incompetency.
"Doctor," said Preston when we came round to him, "won't you
send away Miss Randolph out of a place that she is not fit
for?"
"I will," said Dr. Sandford grimly, "when I find such a
place."
"Out of _this_ place, then, where she ought not to be; and you
know it."
"It would be your loss, my friend. You are exercising great
self-denial, or else you speak in ignorance."
"She might as well go on the stage at once!" said Preston
bitterly. "Singing half the night to sixty soldiers, - and
won't give one a thing from Norma, then!"
The doctor gave one quick glance of his blue eye at me; it was
a glance inquiring, recognising, touched, sympathising, all in
an instant; it surprised me. Then it went coolly back to his
work.
"What does she sing?"
"Psalms" - said Preston.
"Feverish tendency?" said the doctor.
Preston flung himself to one side, with a violent word, almost
an oath, that shocked me. We left him and went on.
Or rather, went over; for at the instant Dr. Sandford's eye
caught the new occupant of the opposite bed. I was glad to
find that he did not recognise him.
The examination of Mr. Thorold's wounds followed. They were
internal, and had been neglected. I do not know how I went
through it; seeing how he went through it partly helped me,
for I thought he did not seem to suffer greatly. His face was
entirely calm, and his eye clear whenever it could catch mine.
But the operation was long; and I felt when it was over as if
I had been through a battle myself. I was forced to leave him
and go on with my attentions to the other sufferers in the
ward; and I could not get back to Mr. Thorold till the dinner
hour. I managed to be at his side to serve him then. But he
had the use of his arms and hands and did not need feeding,
like some of the others.
"It is worth being here, Daisy," said Mr. Thorold, when I came
with his dinner; which was, however, a light one.
"No," said I. Speaking in low tones, which I was accustomed to
use to all there, we were in little danger of being overheard.
"Not to you," said he with a laughing flash of his eye; "I
only spoke of my own sense of things. That is as I tell you."
"How do you do now?" I asked tremblingly.
His eye changed, softened, lifted itself to mine with a
beautiful glow in it. I half knew what was coming before he
spoke.
"We know in whose hands I am," he said. "I have earned the
'right to my name,' Daisy."
Ah, that was hard to bear! harder than the surgeon's probe
which had gone before. It was hard at the same time not to
fall on my knees to give thanks; or to break out into a shout
of glad praise. I suppose I showed nothing of it, only stood
still - and pale by the side of the bed; till Mr. Thorold
asked me for something, and I knew that I had been neglecting
his dinner. And then I knew that I was neglecting others; and
flew across to Preston, who needed my services.
"Who's that over yonder," he grumbled.
"One newly come in - wounded," I replied.
"Isn't it somebody you know?"
"It is one I used to know."
"Then you know him yet, I suppose. It is that fellow Thorold,
isn't it?"
"Yes."
"What has brought him here?"
"He is wounded," I whispered.
"I am glad of it!" said Preston, savagely. "Why shouldn't he
be wounded, when his betters are? Is he badly off?"
I simply could not answer at the minute.
"How's he wounded?"
"I do not know."
"You don't know! when you were attending to him. Then he
hasn't lost a leg or an arm, I suppose? You would know that."
"No."
"D-n him!" said Preston. "That _he_ should be whole and sound
and only half of me left!"
I was dumb, for want of the power to speak. I think such a
passion of indignation and displeasure never found place in my
heart, before or since. But I did not wish to say anything
angrily, and yet my heart was full of violent feeling that
could find but violent words. I fed Preston in silence till
his dinner was done, and left him. Then as I passed near him
again soon after, I stopped.
"You are so far from sound, Preston," I said, "that I shall
keep out of the way of your words. You must excuse me - but I
cannot hear or allow them; and as you have no control over
yourself, my only resource is to keep at a distance."
I waited for no answer but moved away; and busied myself with
all the ward rather than him. It was a hard, hard, afternoon's
work; my heart divided between the temptation to violent anger
and violent tears. I kept away from Mr. Thorold too, partly
from policy, and partly because I could not command myself, I
was afraid, in his presence. But towards evening I found
myself by his side, and in the dusk our hands met; while I
used a fan with the other hand, by way of seeming to do
something for him.
"What is the matter?" he whispered.
"Matter?" I repeated.
"Yes."
"There is enough the matter here always, Christian."
"Yes. And what more than usual this afternoon?"
"What makes you ask?"
"I have been looking at you."
"And what did you see?"
"I saw that you were hiding something, from everybody but me.
Tell it now."
"Christian, it was not anything good."
"Confess your faults one to another, then," said he. "What is
the use of having friends?"
"You would not be pleased to hear of my faults."
I could see, even in the dim light, the flash of his eye as it
looked into mine.
"How many, Daisy?"
"Anger," I said; - "and resentment; and - self-will."
"What raised the anger?" said he; a different tone coming into
his own voice.
"Preston. His way of talking."
"About me?"
"Yes. I cannot get over it."
And I thought I should have broken down at that minute. My
fan-play ceased. Christian held my hand very fast, and after a
few minutes began again -
"Does he know you are angry, Daisy?"
"Yes, he does; for I told him as much."
"Did you tell him sharply?"
"No. I told him coldly."
"Go over and say that you have forgiven him."
"But I have not forgiven him."
"You know you must."
"I cannot, just yet, Christian. To-morrow, perhaps I can."
"You must do it to-night, Daisy. You do not know what else you
may have to do before to-morrow, that you will want the spirit
of love for."
I was silent a little, for I knew that was true.
"Well? -" said he.
"What can I do?" I said. "I suppose it will wear out; but just
now I have great displeasure against Preston. I cannot tell
him I forgive him. I have not forgiven him."
"And do not want to forgive him?"
I was again silent, for the answer would have had to be an
affirmative.
"If I could reach you, I would kiss that away," said Thorold.
"Daisy, must _I_ tell _you_, that there is One who can look it
away? You need not wait."
I knew he spoke truth again; and I had forgotten it. Truth
that once by experience I so well knew. I stood silent and
self-condemned.
"Christian, I do not very often get angry; but when I do, I am
afraid the feeling is very obstinate."
"The case isn't desperate - unless you are obstinate too," he
said, with a look which conquered me. I fanned him a little
while longer; not long. For I was able very soon to go across
to Preston.
"Are you going to desert me for that fellow?" he growled.
"I must desert you, for whoever wants me more than you do; and
you must be willing that I should."
"If it wasn't for confounded Yankees!" he said.
"Yankees are pretty good to you, Preston, I think, just now.
What if they were to desert you? Where is your generosity?"
"Shot away. Come, Daisy, I had no business to speak as I did.
I'll confess it. Forgive me, won't you?"
"Entirely," I said. "But you gave me great pain, Preston."
"You are like the thinnest description of glass manufacture,"
said Preston. "What wouldn't scratch something else, makes a
confounded fracture in your feelings. I'll try and remember
what brittle ware I am dealing with."
So that was over, and I gave him his tea; and then went round
to do the same by others. I had to take them in turn; and when
I got to Mr. Thorold at last, there was no more time then for
talking, which I longed for. After the surgeon's round, when
all was quiet again in the room, I sat at the foot of Mr.
Thorold's bed with a kind of cry in my heart, to which I could
give no expression. I could not kneel there, to pray; I could
not leave my post; I could not speak nor listen where I wanted
a full interchange of heart with heart; the oppression almost
choked me. Then I remembered I could sing. And I sang that
hour, if I never did before. My sorrow, and my joy, and my cry
of heart, I put them all into the notes and poured them forth
in my song. I was never so glad I could sing as these days. I
knew, all the time, it was medicine and anodynes and strength
- and maybe teaching - to many that heard; for me, it was the
cry of prayer, and the pleading of faith, and the confession
of utmost need. How strong "Rock of Ages" seemed to me again
that night; the hymn, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,"
was to me a very schedule of treasure; my soul mounted on the
words, like the angels on Jacob's ladder; the top of the
ladder was in heaven, if the foot of it was on a very rough
spot of earth. That night I sang hymns, in the high-wrought
state of my feelings, which the next day I could not have
sung. I remember that one of them was "What are these in
bright array," with the chorus, "They have clean robes, white
robes." "When I can read my title clear," was another.
Sometimes a hymn starts up to me now, with a thrill of
knowledge that I sang it that night, which yet at other times
I cannot recall. I sang till the hour, and past it, when I
must go to my room and give place to the night watchers. I
longed to stay, but it was impossible; so I went and bade
Preston good-night, who said to me never a word this time;
spoke to one or two others; and then went to Mr. Thorold. I
laid my hand on his. He grasped it immediately and looked up
at me with a clear, sweet, bright look, which did me untold
good; pulling me gently down. I bent over him, thinking he
wished to speak; then I knew what he wished, and obeying the
impulse and the request, our lips met. I don't know if anybody
saw it; and I did not care. That kiss sent me to sleep.
The next day I was myself again. Not relieved from the
impression which had seized me when I first saw Mr. Thorold;
but quietly able to bear it; in a sort raised above it. To do
the moment's duty; to gather, and to give, every stray crumb
of relief or pleasure that might be possible for either of us;
better than that, to do the Lord's will and to bear it, were
all I sought for. All at least, of which I was fairly
conscious that I sought it; the heart has a way of carrying on
underground trains of feeling and action of its own, and so
did mine now. As I found afterwards. But I was perfectly able
for all my work. When next I had an opportunity for private
talk with Mr. Thorold, he asked me with a smile, if the
resentment was all gone? I told him, "Oh, yes."
"What was the 'self-will' about, Daisy?"
"You remember too well," I said.
"What?"
"Me and my words."
"Why?"
"It is not easy to say why, just in this instance."
"No. Well, Daisy, say the other thing. About the self-will."
I hesitated.
"Are you apt to be self-willed?" he asked, tenderly.
"I do not know. I believe I did not use to think so. I am
afraid it is very difficult to know oneself, Christian."
"_I_ think you are self-willed," he said, smiling.
"Did you use to see it in me?"
"I think so. What is the present matter in hand, Daisy?"
I did not want to tell him. But I could not run away. And
those bright eyes were going over my face and reading in it, I
knew. I did not know what they read. I feared. He waited,
smiling a little as he looked.
"I ought not to be self-willed, - about anything," - I said at
last.
"No, I suppose not. What has got a grip of your heart then,
Daisy?"
"I am unwilling to see you lying here," I said. It was said
with great force upon myself, under the stress of necessity.
"And unwilling that I should get any but one sort of
discharge," - he added.
"You do not fear it," I said, hastily.
"I fear nothing. But a soldier, Daisy, - a soldier ought to be
ready for orders; and he must not choose. He does not know
where the service will call for him. He knows his Captain does
know."
I stood still, slowly fanning Mr. Thorold; my self-control
could go no further than to keep, me outwardly quiet.
"_You_ used to be a soldier," he said gently, after a pause.
"You are yet. Not ready for orders, Daisy?"
"Christian - you know, -" I stammered forth.
"I know, my beloved. And there is another that knows. He knows
all. Can't you leave the matter to him?"
"I must."
"Must is a hard word. Let Jesus appoint, and let you and me
obey; because we love Him, and are His."
He was silent, and so was I then; the words trooping in a sort
of grand procession through some distant part of my brain -
"All things are yours; whether life, or death, or the world,
or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye
are Christ's; and Christ is God's." I knew they swept by
there, in their sweetness and their majesty; I could not lay
hold of them to make them dwell with me then.
A few days went past, filled with duty as usual; more filled
with a consuming desire which had taken possession of me, to
know really how Mr. Thorold was and what were the prospects of
his recovery. His face always looked clear and well; I thought
his wounds were not specially painful; I never saw any sign
that they were; the dressing of them was always borne very
quietly. _That_ was not uncommon, but involuntary tokens of pain
were sometimes wrung from the sufferers; a sigh, or a knit
brow, or a pale cheek, or a clinched hand, gave one sorrowful
knowledge often that the heroism of patient courage was more
severely tested in the hospital than on the field. I never saw
any of these signs in Mr. Thorold. In spite of myself, a hope
began to spring and grow in my heart, which at the first
seeing of him in that place I had thought dead altogether. And
then I could not rest short of certainty. But how to get any
light at all on the subject was a question. The other nurse
could not tell me, for she knew no more than myself; not so
much, for she rarely nursed Mr. Thorold. Dr. Sandford never
told how his patients were doing or likely to do; if he were
asked, he evaded the answer. What we were to do, he told
explicitly, carefully; the issue of our cares he left it to
time and fact to show. So what was I to do? Moreover, I did
not wish to let him see that I had any, the least, solicitude
for one case more than the rest. And another thing, I dreaded
unspeakably to make the appeal and have my doubts solved. With
the one difficulty and the other before me, I let day after
day go by; day after day; during which I saw as much of Mr.
Thorold as I could, and watched him with intense eyes. But I
was able to resolve nothing; only I thought his appetite grew
poorer than it had been, while that of many others was
improving. We had some chance for talk during those days; by
snatches, I told him a good deal of the history of my European
life; and he gave me details of his life in camp and field. We
lived very close to each other all that time, though outward
communication was so restricted. Hearts have their own way of
communicating, - and spirits are not wholly shut in by flesh
and blood. But as the days went by, my anxiety and suspense
began to glow unendurable.
So I followed Dr. Sandford one morning to his den, as he
called it.
"Are you getting tired of hospital life?" he asked me? with a
smile. "I see you want to speak to me."
"You know I am not tired."
"I know you are not. There is something in a woman that likes
suffering, I think, if only she can lay her hand on it and
relieve it."
"That is making it a very selfish business, Dr. Sandford."
"We are all selfish," said the doctor. "The difference is,
that some are selfish for themselves, and some for other
people."
"Now you are cynical."
"I am nothing of the kind. What do you want with me?"
"Preston is doing very well, is he not, Dr. Sandford."
"Perfectly well. He will be out just as soon as in the nature
of things it is possible. I suppose, or am I not to suppose,
that then you will consider your work done?"
"I do not think he wants me a quarter as much as other people,
now."
"He does not want you at all, in the sense of needing. In the
other sense, I presume different people might put in a claim
to be attended to."
"But, Dr. Sandford, I wish I knew who of all these people in
the ward need me most."
"You are doing all you can for all of them."
"If I had that knowledge, though, I might serve them better -
or with more judicious service."
"No you could not," said the doctor. "You are twice as
judicious as Miss Yates now; though she is twice as old as
you. You do the right thing in the right place always."
"I wish you would do this thing for me, nevertheless, Dr.
Sandford. I wish it very much."
"What thing?"
"Let me know the various states of the patients, and their
prospect of recovery."
"Most of them have a very fair prospect of recovery," said the
doctor.
"Will you do it for me, Dr. Sandford? - I ask it as a great
favour."
"Gary's all right," he said, with a full look at me.
"Yes, I know; but I would like to know how it is with the
others. I could better tell how to minister to them, and what
to do."
"The thing to be done would not vary at all with your
increased knowledge, Daisy."
"Not the things in your line, I know; but the things in mine."
"You would know better how to sing, to wit?" said the doctor.
"And to pray -" I said half under my breath.
"Daisy, I haven't a schedule of the cases here; and if I told
you, you might forget, among so many, which was which. Anyhow,
I have not the schedule."
"No, but you could do this for me. To-night, Dr. Sandford,
when you go round, you could indicate to me what I want to
know, and nobody else be the wiser. When we come to any case
that is serious, but with hope, take hold of your chin, so; if
any is serious without hope, just pass your hand through your
hair. You do that often."
"Not when I am going my rounds, Daisy," said the doctor,
looking amused.
"Only this time, for me," I pleaded.
"You would not sing as well."
"I should - or I might - know better how to sing."
"Or you might not be able to sing at all. Though your nerves
are good," the doctor admitted. "Women's nerves are made of a
material altogether differently selected, or tempered, from
that of masculine nerves; pure metal, of some ethereal sort."
"Are there such things as masculine nerves?" I asked.
"Do you doubt it?" said the doctor, turning a half reproachful
look upon me.
"Dr. Sandford, I do not doubt it. And so, you will, for once,
and as an extraordinary kindness, do this thing for me that I
have asked you."
"The use of it is hidden from me," said the doctor; "but to
admit my ignorance is a thing I have often done before, where
you are concerned."
"Then I will take care to be with you as soon as you come in
this evening," I said, "so as to get all you will tell me."
"If I do not forget it," said the doctor.
But I knew there was no danger of his forgetting. There was no
taking Dr. Sandford off his guard. In all matters that
concerned his professional duties, he was like steel; for
strength and truth and temper. Nothing that Dr. Sandford did
not see; nothing that he did not remember; nothing that was
too much for his skill and energies and executive faculty.
Nobody disobeyed Dr. Sandford - unless it were I, now and
then.
I walked through the rest of that day in a smothered fever.
How I had found courage to make my proposition to the doctor,
I do not know; it was the courage of desperate suspense which
could bear itself no longer. After the promise had been
obtained that I sought, my courage failed. My joints trembled
under me, as I went about the ward; my very hands trembled as
I ministered to the men. The certainty that I had coveted, I
dreaded now. Yet Mr. Thorold looked so well and seemed to
suffer so little, I could not but quarrel with myself for
folly, in being so fearful. Also I was ready to question
myself, whether I had done right in seeking more knowledge of
the future than might come to me day by day in the slow course
of events. But I had done it; and Dr. Sandford was coming in
the evening.
"What is the matter with you, Daisy?" Mr. Thorold said.
"Is anything the matter?" I replied.
"Yes. What is it?"
"How can you see it, Christian?"
"I?" - said he. "I see right through your eyes, back into the
thought that looks out of them."
"Yet you ask me for the thought?"
"The root of it. Yes. I see that you are preoccupied, and
troubled; - and trembling. _You_, my Daisy?
"Can I quite help it, Christian?"
"Can you quite trust the Lord?"
"But, - not that He will always save me from what I fear."
"No; not that. Let Him save you from the _fear_."
"How have you learned so much about it, so much more than I?"
- and my lips were trembling then, I know.
"I have had time," he said gently. "All those months and
months, when you were at an unimaginable distance from me,
actually and morally, - and prospectively, - do you think I
had no chance to exercise myself in the lesson of submission?
I fought out that problem, Daisy."
"Were you in Washington the winter of '61?" I asked, changing
the subject; for I could not bear it.
"Part of that winter," he said, with a somewhat surprised look
at me.
"Did you meet in society here that winter a Miss St. Clair,
who used to be once a schoolmate of mine? - very handsome."
"I think I remember her. I knew nothing about her having been
at school with you, or I think I should have sought her
acquaintance."
"She was said to have yours."
"A passing, society acquaintance, she had."
"Nothing more?"
"More?" said he. "No. Nothing more."
"How came the report that you were her dearest friend?"
"From the father of lies," said Mr. Thorold; "if there ever
was such a report; which I should doubt."
"It came to me in Paris."
"Did you believe it?"
"I could not; but papa did. It came from Miss St. Clair's own
particular friend, and she told mamma, I think, that you were
engaged to her."
"I think particular friends are a nuisance!" said Mr. Thorold.
"Why, she was said _here_, to be engaged to somebody, - Major -
Major Somebody, - I forget. Major Fairbairn."
"Major Fairbairn!"
"Yes. Why?"
"That explains it," I exclaimed.
"Explains what?" said Mr. Thorold. And such a shower of fire
as came from his eyes then, fun and intelligence and
affection, never came from anybody's eyes beside. I had to
tell him all I was thinking about; and then hurry away to my
duties.
But at tea time I could touch nothing. The trembling had
reached my very heart.
"Why, you ain't going to give out, are you?" said Miss Yates
in a concerned voice. "You've gone a little beyond your
tether."
"Not at all," said I; "not at all. I am only not hungry. I
will go back, if you please, to something I _can_ do."
I busied myself restlessly about the ward, till one of the
men, I forget who, asked me to sing to them. It had become a
standing ordinance of the place; and people said, a very
beneficial one. But to-night I had not thought I could sing.
Yet when he asked me, the power came. I did not sit down 'as
usual;' standing at the foot of Mr. Thorold's bed I sang,
leaning hard against strength and love out of sight; and my
voice was as clear as ever.
The ward was so very still that I should have thought nothing
could come in or go out without my being conscious of a stir.
However, the absolute hush continued, until it occurred to me
that I must have been singing a great while, and I half turned
and glanced down the room. My singing was done; for there
stood Dr. Sandford, as still as I had been, with folded arms
near the door. I went towards him immediately.
"Do you have this sort of concert most evenings?" he inquired,
as he took my hand.
"Always, Dr. Sandford."
"I never heard you sing so well anywhere else," he remarked.
"I never had such an audience. But now, you remember my
request this morning, Dr. Sandford?"
"I never forget your requests," he said, gravely. And we went
to business.
From one to another, from one to another. Generally with no
more but a pleasant or a kind word from the doctor to the
patient; but two or three times the doctor's hand came to his
chin for a moment, before such a word was spoken. - It did not
in those cases tell me much. I had known, or guessed, the
truth of them before. I suppose every good nurse must get a
power or faculty of reading symptoms and seeing the state of
the patient, both actual and probable. I was not shocked nor
startled. But the shock and the start were all the greater,
when pausing before the one cot which held what I cared for in
this world, the doctor's fingers were thrust suddenly through
his thick auburn hair. He went on immediately with the due
attention to Mr. Thorold's wounds; and I waited and stood by,
with no outward sign, I think, of the death at my heart. Even
through all the round, I kept my place by Dr. Sandford's side,
doing whatever was wanted of me, attending, at least in
outward guise, to what was going on. So one can do, while the
whole soul and life are concentrated on some point unconnected
with it all, outside of it all, in the distance. Towards that
point I slowly made my way, as the doctor went through his
rounds; and came up with it at last in the little retiring
room which he called his own and where our conversation of the
morning had been held.
"I see how little I know, Dr. Sandford," I remarked.
"Ay?" said he. "I had been thinking rather the other way."
"You surprised me very much - with the one touch of your
hair."
The doctor was silent.
"I should have thought - in my ignorance - several others more
likely to have called for it."
"Thorold is the only one," said the doctor.
"How is it?"
"The injuries are internal and complicated; and beyond reach."
The doctor had been washing his hands, and I was now washing
mine; and with my face so turned away from him, I went on.
"He does not seem to suffer much."
"Doesn't he?" said the doctor.
"Should he?"
"He should, if he has not good power of self-control. No man
in the ward suffers as he does. I have noticed, he hides it
well."
I was washing my hands. I remember my wringing the water from
them; then I remember no more. When I knew anything again, I
was lying on an old sofa that stood in the doctor's room, and
he was putting water or brandy - I hardly know what - on my
face. With a face of his own that was pale, I saw even then,
without seeing it, as it bent over me. He was speaking my
name. I struggled for breath and tried to raise myself. He
gently put me back.
"Lie still," he said. "Are you better?"
"I am quite well," I answered.
He gave me a few drops of something to swallow. It revived me.
I sat up presently on the sofa, pushed back the hair from my
face, and thought I would get up and be as though nothing had
been. Dr. Sandford's hand followed my hasty fingers and put
gently away from my brow the hair I had failed to stroke into
order. It was an unlucky touch, for it reached more than my
hair and my brow. I turned deadly sick again, and fell back
into unconsciousness.
When a second time I recovered sense, I kept still and waited
and let Dr. Sandford minister to me as he thought best, with
strong waters and sweet waters and ice water; until he saw
that I was really restored, and I saw that great concern was
sitting upon his features.
"You have overtasked yourself at last," he said.
"Not at all," I answered, quietly.
"You must do no more, Daisy."
"I must do all my work," I said. And I sat up now and put my
feet to the floor, and put up my fallen-down hair, taking out
my comb and twisting up the hair in some semblance of its
wont.
"Your work here is done," said the doctor.
I finished doing up my hair and took a towel and wiped the
drops of water and brandy from my face.
"Daisy, I know your face," said the doctor, anxiously; "and it
has just the determined gentleness I used to see at ten years
old. But you would yield to authority then, and you must now.
And you will."
"When it is properly exerted," I said. "But it is not now, Dr.
Sandford, and it will not be. I am perfectly well; and I am
going to do my work."
"You fainted just now from very exhaustion."
"I am not exhausted at all. Nor even tired. I am perfectly
well."
"I never knew you faint before."
"No," I said. "It is very disagreeable."
"Disagreeable!" said the doctor, half laughing, though
thoroughly disturbed. "What made you do it, then?"
I could not answer. I stood still, with cheeks I suppose again
growing so white, that the doctor hastily approached me with
hartshorn. But I put it away and shook my head.
"I am not going to faint again, thank you."
"Daisy, Daisy!" said the doctor, "don't you know that your
welfare is very dear to me?"
"I know it," I said. "I know you are like a good brother to
me, Dr. Sandford."
"I am not like a brother at all!" said he. "Cannot you see
that?"
"I do not want to see it," I answered sadly. "If I have not a
brother in you, I have nothing."
"Why?" he asked shortly.
But I made no answer, and he asked no more. He looked at me,
made a step towards the door, turned back, and came close to
me, speaking in a husky changed tone, -
"You shall command me, Daisy, as you have long done. Let me
know what to do to please you."
He went away then and left me. And I gathered my strength
together and went back to Mr. Thorold.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"HERE!"
From that time we all were, to all seeming, just as we had
been before that day. Dr. Sandford went his rounds, with no
change perceptible in his manner towards any- body, or towards
me. I think I was not different in the ward from what I had
been, except to one pair of eyes: The duties of every day
rolled on as they had been accustomed to do; the singing of
every night was just as usual. One thing was a little changed.
I sought no longer to hide that Mr. Thorold was something to
me. The time for that was past. Of the few broken minutes that
remained to us, he should lose none, nor I, by unnecessary
difficulty. I was by his side now, all I could without
neglecting those who also needed me. And we talked, all we
could, with his strength and my time. I cared not now, that
all the ward should see and know what we were to each other.
Mr. Thorold saw a change in me, and asked the reason. And I
gave it. And then we talked no more of our own losses.
"I am quite ready to go, Daisy," he had said to me, with a
look both bright and sweet which it breaks my heart, while it
gladdens me, to remember. "You will come by and by, and I
shall be looking for you; and I am ready now, love."
After that, we spoke no more of our parting. We talked a very
great deal of other things, past and future; talks, that it
seems to me - now were scarce earthly, for their pure high
beauty, and truth, and joy. The strength of them will go with
me all my life. Dr. Sandford let us alone; ministered, to Mr.
Thorold and me, all he could; and interfered with me no more.
Preston took an opportunity to grumble; but that was soon
silenced, for I showed him that I would not bear it.
And the days in the hospital sped away. I do not know how; I
did not know at the time. Only as one lives and works and
breathes and sleeps in the presence of a single thought,
enveloping and enfolding everything else. The life was hardly
my own life; it was the life of another; or rather the two
lives were for the time so joined that they were almost one.
In a sort happy, as long as it was so.
But I knew it could not last; and the utter uncertainty when
it would end, oppressed me fearfully. Nothing in Mr. Thorold's
looks or manner gave me any help to judge about it. His face
was like itself always; his eye yet sometimes flashed and
sparkled after its own brilliant fashion, as gayly and freely
as ever. It always gave me untold pain; it brought life and
death into such close neighbourhood, and seemed to mock at the
necessity which hung over us. And then, if Mr. Thorold saw a
shadow come over my brow, he would give me such words and
looks of comfort and help, that again death was half swallowed
up of a better life, before the time. So the days went; and
Mr. Thorold said I grew thin; and the nurses and attendants
were almost reverentially careful of me; and Dr. Sandford was
a silent servant of mine and of Mr. Thorold's too, doing all
that was possible for us both. And Preston was fearfully
jealous and irritable; and wrote, I knew long afterwards, to
my mother; and my mother sent me orders to return home to her
at once and leave everything; and Dr. Sandford never gave me
the letters. I missed nothing; knew nothing; asked nothing;
until the day came that I was looking for.
It came, and left me. I had done all I had to do; all I wanted
to do; I had been able to do it all. Through the hours of the
last struggle, no hand but mine had touched him. It was borne,
as everything else had been borne, with a clear, brave
uncomplainingness; his eye was still bright and quiet when it
met mine, and the smile sweet and ready. We did not talk much;
we had done that in the days past; our thoughts were known to
each other; we were both looking now to the time of next
meeting. But his head lay on my shoulder at the very last, and
his hand was in mine. I don't think I knew when the moment
was; until somebody drew him out of my hands and placed him
back on the pillow. It was I then closed the eyes; and then I
laid my brow for a few minutes on the one that was growing
cold, for the last leave-taking. Nobody meddled with me; I saw
and heard nothing; and indeed when I stood up I was blind; I
was not faint, but I could see nothing. Some one took my hand,
I felt, and drew my arm through his and led me away. I knew,
as soon as my hand touched his arm, that it was Dr. Sandford.
I did not go back to the ward that day, and I never went back.
I charged Dr. Sandford with all my remaining care, and he
accepted the charge. No illness seized me, but my heart
failed. That was worse. Better have been sick. Bodily illness
is easier to get at.
And there was nobody to minister to mine. Dr. Sandford's
presence worried me, somehow. It ought not, but it did. Mrs.
Sandford was kind, and of course helpless to do me good. I
think the doctor saw I was not doing well, nor likely to be
better, and he brought me on to New York, to my mother.
Mamma understood nothing of what had passed, except what
Preston's letter had told her. I do not know how much, or
what, it was; and I did not care. Mamma, however, was wrought
up to a point of discomfort quite beyond the usual chronic
unrest of the year past. She exclaimed at my appearance;
complained of my change of manner; inveighed against
hospitals, lady nurses, Dr. Sandford, the war, Yankees and
Washington air; and declaimed against the religion which did
not make daughters dutiful and attentive to their mothers. It
was true, some of it; but my heart was dead, for the time, and
powerless to heed. - I heard, and did not feel. I could not
minister to my mother's happiness now, for I had no spring of
strength in my own; and ministry that was not bright and
winsome did, not content her. Such as I had I gave; I knew it
was poor, and she said so.
As the spring drew on, and days grew gentle, and soft weather
replaced the strong brace of the winter frost, my condition of
health became more and more unsatisfactory. My mother grew
seriously uneasy at length and consulted Dr. Sandford. And the
next thing was Dr. Sandford's appearance at our hotel.
"What is the matter with you, Daisy?" he asked, very
professionally. Mamma was out when he came.
"Nothing -" I answered; "except what will take its own time."
"Not like you, that answer," he said.
"It is like me now," I replied.
"We must get back to a better condition. It is not I good for
you to be in this place. Would you like to go into quarters
near Melbourne, for the summer?"
"Better than anything! - if you could manage it. Mamma would
not like it."
"I think I can convince her."
Dr. Sandford I knew had powers of convincing, and I judge they
were helped on this occasion by facts in the pecuniary state
of our affairs, to which my mother could no longer quite shut
her eyes. She had not money to remain where she was. I think
she had not been able, properly, to be there, for a good while
past; though the bills were paid somehow. But now her
resources failed; the war was evidently ending disastrously
for the South; her hopes gave way; and she agreed to let Dr.
Sandford make arrangements for our going into the country. It
was very bitter to her, the whole draught she had to swallow;
and the very fact of being under necessity. Dr. Sandford had a
deal of trouble, I fancy, to find any house or arrangement
that would content her. No board was procurable that could be
endured even for a day. The doctor found at last, and hired,
and put in order for us, a small cottage on the way between
Melbourne and Crum Elbow; and there, early in June, mamma and
I found ourselves established; "Buried," she said;
"sheltered," I thought.
"I wish I was dead," mamma said next morning.
"Mamma - why do you speak so? just now."
"There is no sort of view here - nothing in the world but
those grass fields."
"We have this fine elm tree over the house, mamma, to shade
us. That is worth a great deal."
"If the windows had Italian shades, they would be better. What
windows! Who do you suppose lived here before us?"
"Mamma, I do think it is very comfortable."
"I hope you will show that you think so, then. I have had no
comfort in you for a long time past."
I thought, _I_ should never have comfort in anybody any more.
"What has changed you so?"
"Changes come to everybody, I suppose, mamma, now and then."
"Is that all your boasted religion is good for?"
I could not answer. Was it? What is the boat which can only
sail in smooth water? But though feeling reproached, and
justly, I was as far from help as ever. Mamma went on -
"You used to be always bright - with your sort of brightness;
there was not much brilliance to it; but you had a kind of
steady cheerfulness of your own, from a child. What has become
of it?"
"Mamma, I am sorry it is gone. Perhaps it will wake up one of
these days."
"I shall die of heartache first. It would be the easiest thing
I could do. To live here, is to die a long death. I feel as if
I could not get a free breath now."
"I think, mamma, when we get accustomed to the place, we shall
find pleasantness in it. It is a world pleasanter than New
York."
"No, it is not," said mamma vehemently; "and it never will be.
In a city, you can cover yourself up, as it were, and half
hide yourself from even yourself; in such a place as this,
there is not a line in your lot but you have; leisure to trace
it all out; and there is not a rough place in your life but
you have time to put your foot on every separate inch of it.
Life is bare, Daisy; in a city one lives faster, and one is in
a crowd, and things are covered up or one passes them over
somehow. I shall die here!"
"Next spring you can have Melbourne again, mamma, you know."
But mamma burst into tears. I knew not how to comfort.
"Would'st thou go forth to bless? be sure of thine own ground;
"Fix well thy centre first; then draw thy circle round."
I was silent, while mamma wept.
"I wish you would keep Dr. Sandford from coming here!" she
said suddenly.
"I see his curricle at the gate now, mamma."
"Then I'll go. I don't want to see him. Do give him a
dismissal, Daisy!"
Our only faithful kind friend; how could I? It was not
possible that I should do such a thing.
"How is all here?" said the doctor, coming in.
I told him, as well as usual - or not quite. Mamma had not got
accustomed to the change yet.
"And Daisy?"
"I like it."
The doctor took an ungratified survey of my countenance.
"Don't you want to see some of your old friends?"
"Friends? - _here?_ Who, Dr. Sandford?"
"Old Juanita would like to see you."
"Juanita!" said I. "Is she alive?"
"You do not seem very glad of it?"
I was not glad of anything. But I did not say so.
"She would like to see you."
"I suppose she would."
"Do you not incline to gratify her?"
"Did you tell her of - my being here, Dr. Sandford?"
"It was a very natural thing to do. If I had not, somebody
else would."
"I will go over to see her some time," I said. "I suppose it
is not too far for me to walk."
"It is not too far for you to ride," said the doctor. "I am
going that way now. Put on your hat and come. The air will be
good for you."
It was not pleasant to go. Nevertheless I yielded and went. I
knew how it would be. Every foot of the way pain. The doctor
let me alone. I was thankful for that. And he left me alone at
Juanita's cottage. He drove on, and I walked up the little
path where I had first gone for a drink of water almost eleven
years ago. Yet eleven years, from ten to twenty-one, is not so
much, in most cases, I thought. In mine, it was a whole life-
time, and the end of a life-time. So it seemed.
The interview with my old nurse was not satisfactory. Not to
me, and I think not to her. I did not seem to her quite the
same Daisy Randolph she had known; indeed I was not the same.
Juanita had a little awe of me; and I could not be unreserved
and remove the awe. I could not tell her my heart's history;
and without telling it, in part, I could not but keep at a
distance from my old friend. Time might bring something out of
our intercourse; but I felt that this first sight of her had
done me no good. So Dr. Sandford found that I felt; for he
took pains to know.
Juanita was but little changed. The eleven years had just
touched her. She was more wrinkled, hardly so firm in her
bearing, not quite so upright, as her beautiful presence used
to be. There was no deeper change. The brow was as peaceful
and as noble as ever. I thought, speculating upon it, that she
must have seen storms, too, in her life-time. The clouds were
all cleared away, long since. Perhaps it will be so with me, I
thought, some day; by and by.
I thought Dr. Sandford would be discouraged in trying to do me
good; however, a day or two after this drive, I saw his horses
stopping again at our gate. My mother uttered an exclamation
of impatience.
"Does that man come to see you or me, Daisy?" she asked.
"Mamma, I think he is a kind friend to both of us," I said.
"I suppose every woman has a tenderness for a man that is
enamoured of her, if he is ever so great a fool," she
remarked.
"Mamma! - nobody ever accused Dr. Sandford before of being a
fool."
"He is a fool to look at you. Do get a little wisdom into his
head, Daisy!" And she left the room again as the doctor
entered the house.
I knew he and I understood each other; and though he might be
a fool after mamma's reckoning, I had a great kindness for
him. So I met him with frank kindness now. The doctor walked
about the room a while, talking of indifferent things; and
then said suddenly, -
"Do you remember old Molly Skelton?"
"Certainly. What of her?"
"She is dying, poor creature."
"Does _she_ know I am here?" I asked.
"I have not told her."
"Would she like to see me, do you think?" I said, with an
uneasy consciousness that I must go, whatever the answer were.
"If she can recognise you-I presume there is nobody else she
would so like to see. As in reason there ought not."
"Can you take me there, Dr. Sandford?"
"Not at this hour; I am going another way. This afternoon I
will take you, if you will go. Will you go?"
"If you will be so good as to take me."
"I will come for you then at four o'clock."
That ride I have reason to remember. It was a fair June
afternoon, though the month was almost out now; the peculiar
brilliance which distinguishes June shone through the air and
sparkled on the hills. With clear bright outlines the Catskill
range stretched away right and left before us, whenever our
road brought us in view of it; fulness of light on the sunny
slopes, soft depth of shadow on the others, proclaiming the
clear purity of the atmosphere. The blue of the sky, the fresh
sweetness of the air, the life of colour in the fields and
trees, all I suppose made their appeal at the doors of my
heart; for I felt the pressure. It is the life in this June
weather, I think, that reproaches what in us is not life; and
my spirit was dead. Not really, but practically; and the June
beauty gave me pain. I was out of harmony with it. And I heard
nature's soft whisper of reproof. Justly given; for when one
is out of harmony with nature, there is sure to be some want
of harmony with the Author of nature. The doctor drove me
silently, letting nature and me have it out together; till we
came to the old cottage of Molly Skelton, and he handed me
from the curricle. Still the doctor was silent.
He stopped, purposely I think, to speak to his groom; and I
went in first. The rows of flowers by the side of the walk
were tangled and overgrown and a thicket of weeds; no care had
visited them for many a day; but they were there yet. Molly
had not forgotten her old tastes. I went on, wondering at
myself, and entered the cottage. The sick woman lay on the bed
there, alone and seemingly asleep; I turned from her to look
at the room. The same old room; little different from what it
used to be; even two pots with geraniums in them stood on the
window-sill, drooping their heads for want of water. Nobody
had watered them for so long. Clearly Molly had not changed.
Was it only I? I looked and wondered, as I saw myself again at
ten years old in that very room. Here had been those first
cups of tea; those first lessons in A B C; and other lessons
in the beginnings of a higher knowledge. What had they all
come to? Was Molly the better in anything beyond her flowers?
What had eleven years wrought for her?
I turned again from the past, as the doctor came in, to look
at the poor creature herself. She did not answer the words he
addressed to her; I doubted if she heard them; she was
evidently oppressed with disease, which was fast making an end
of her. Experience had taught me now to judge somewhat of the
looks and condition of sick people. Molly, I saw, was very
sick; and I knew soon that it was with a combination of evils,
which had taken hold of her, and made her poor existence a
wearisome thing. It was near an end now.
"Speak to her," - said the doctor.
And I did, and he did; but we got no response. None in words;
I fancied that the look of the face bore witness to some
aroused attention; might it be more? One hand of Molly's lay
stretched out upon the coverlid. She was a mass of disease; I
should not have thought once that I could touch that hand; but
I had had training since then. I put my hand upon that poor
hand and clasped it. I fancied, I cannot tell why, that Molly
was sensible of my action and that she liked it; yet she did
not speak. - We sat so, my hand in hers, or hers in mine, and
Dr. Sandford watching us. Time went by. I hardly knew how it
went.
"How long will you stay?" he asked at length.
"I cannot leave her so, Dr. Sandford."
"You cannot stay here!"
"Why not?"
"It would be a peculiar proceeding. You would not do it?"
"I cannot do otherwise, Dr. Sandford. I cannot leave her alone
in this condition."
"I cannot leave _you_," he said.
"There is nothing to be afraid of," I returned, looking at
him. "And something may need to be done."
The doctor's look in answer was unguarded; it expressed so
much that he did not generally allow himself to express; it
was full of tenderness, of reverence, of affection. Full it
was of sorrow too. It was not a look I could meet. I turned
from it hastily; the former question was let drop; and we were
again still and silent. I had enough to keep me silent, and
Dr. Sandford was as mute. All three of us only breathed in
company, for a long while more; though I suppose some of Dr.
Sandford's meditations and mine came near together. I do not
know how time went; but then, the one to break silence was the
one I had thought might never speak again. Suddenly she began
in a low sort of crooning voice, saying over and over the same
words -
"I am in the valley - in the valley - in the valley -"
Maybe half a dozen times she repeated these words; and
forlornly true as they seemed of her, I was in doubt whether
she knew of what she was speaking. Could intelligence be
awake, in that oppressed condition of the bodily powers? Her
speech was a sort of mumbling repetition. But then, with a
change of tone, clean and round the words came out -
"But there's light in the valley! -"
My heart sprang with such an impulse of joy as quite
overleaped all my own sorrows and took me out of them. Then
Molly had not forgotten; then the seed sown long ago had not
perished in the ground or been caught away; it had been
growing and springing all these years; life had sprung up in
the ungenial soil, even everlasting life; and what were
earth's troubles to that? One vision of unseen things, rushing
in, made small all the things that are seen. The poor old
cripple, deformed and diseased, whose days must have been long
a burden to her, was going even now to drop the slough of her
mortality and to take on her the robes of light and the life
that is all glory. What if my own life were barren for a
while; then comes the end! What if I must be alone in my
journey; I may do the Master's work all the way. And _this_ is
His work; to set the captive free; light to the blind; the
opening of the prison doors to them that are bound; riches to
the poor; yes, life to the dead. If I may do this work, shall
I complain, because I have not the helper I wanted; when God
is my helper?
I waited but till Dr. Sandford was gone, for I made him go;
and then I knelt down by Molly's bedside, very, very humbled,
to weep out my confession and prayer.
Molly slumbered on, wanting nothing, when I rose to my feet;
and I went to the cottage door and sat down on the step. The
sun was going to set in glory beyond the blue misty line of
the mountains; the June evening light was falling, in
freshness and sweetness, on every leaf and blade of grass; and
the harmony I had wanted I had got again.
Molly's words had made the first rift in my cloud; the first
sunshine had reached me that I had seen for many a long day. I
saw it at last, as I sat in the cottage door and looked at the
glory of the evening. I saw, that although my life might be in
shadow for most of its way, yet the sunshine was on the other
side of the cloud, unchanged, and I should come out into it in
due time. And others were in its full rays already; - and my
poor Molly was just going to find its brightness. Could I not
wait a while? - just for myself? - and meanwhile do my blessed
work?
And now, in the hush of my spirit, nature came home to me with
her messages. The sunbeams laid their promise at my feet, of
everlasting joy; the hills told me of unchangeableness and
strength, and reminded me of what Mont Pilatte used to say.
The air breathed balm, comfort, the earnest of gracious
supply; the beauty around me said that God would not withhold
anything that was good for me. I could trust Him; and I
thanked Him for the messages of His creatures; and I prayed
that I, an intelligent living creature of higher order, might
live to carry higher messages, for Him, to all within my
reach. I gave myself to do His will. And as for the comfort of
my life, God would take care of that, and be Himself my
portion and my exceeding great reward.
The sun went down behind the Catskill leaving the mountains in
a bath of glorified mist; and I, strengthened and comforted,
left my door-step and went back to Molly. She lay as she had
lain, in what I might have supposed stupor; and perhaps it
was; but she had said there was light in the valley she was
going through. That was enough. She might speak no more; and
in effect she never did intelligibly; it did not matter. My
heart was full of songs of gladness for her; yes, for a moment
I almost stood up yonder, among the harpers harping with their
harps. Meanwhile I put the little room to rights; even as I
had tried to do when I was a little child. I succeeded better
now; and then I sat down to wait; there seemed nothing more to
be done. The evening shades closed in; I wondered if I were to
spend the night alone with the dying woman; but I was not
afraid. I think I have done with fear in this world. Even as
the thought passed me, Dr. Sandford came in.
He had not been able to get any help, and he came to take my
place, that I might go home. It ended in our watching the
night through together; for of course I would not leave the
cottage. It was a night of strange and new peace to me; peace
that I had not known for many months. Molly was slowly passing
away; not seeming to suffer much, needing little care; she was
past it; and Dr. Sandford bestowed his attention upon me. He
sent for refreshments; had a fire built, for the June night
was chill; and watched me and waited upon me. And I let him,
for I knew it gave him pleasure.
"How do you do?" he said to me one time when the night was far
spent.
"Why do you ask that, Dr. Sandford?"
"Must you know, before you tell me?"
"No, not at all; I was only curious, because I know you always
have a reason for your questions."
"Most people have, I believe."
"Yes, curiosity; but it is knowledge, not ignorance, that
prompts your inquiries, Dr. Sandford."
He smiled at that; one of the pleasant smiles I used to know
so well. I saw them rarely now. It made me a little sad, for I
knew Dr. Sandford's life had suffered an eclipse, as well as
mine.
"I have not so much knowledge that I do not desire more," he
said.
"Yes, I know. I am very well, thank you."
"You were not very well when I brought you here."
"No. I was well in body."
"You are better?"
"Yes."
"If it were not impertinent, I would like to ask more."
"It is not impertinent. You may ask."
"In pursuit of my old psychological study, you know. What has
happened in this poor little place, by this poor creature's
bedside, to do any good to Daisy Randolph?"
Now it was not according to my nature to like to tell him. But
what had I just been asking, but that I might carry messages?
So I spoke, slowly.
"This poor creature is just going to step out of this poor
place, into glory. The light of that glory is shining around
her now, for she said so. You heard her."
"Yes," said the doctor. "Well?"
"Well, Dr. Sandford, it reminded me how near the glory is, and
how little this world's things are in face of it. I have
remembered that I am a servant of the King of that land, and
an heir of the glory; and that He loves me now, and has given
me work to do for Him, and when the work is done will take me
home. And I am content."
"What 'work' are you going to do?" the doctor asked, rather
growlingly.
"I do not know. What He gives me."
And even as I spoke, there was a rush of tears to my eyes,
with the thought that I must do my work alone; but I was
content, nevertheless. Dr. Sandford was not. His fingers
worked restlessly among the thick locks of his hair; as if he
were busy with a thicket of thoughts as well; but he said
nothing more.
Towards morning Molly passed away from the scene of her very
lonely and loveless life journey. I went to the door again, in
time to see the rays of the morning brightening the blue ridge
which lay clear and cool over against me.
What light for Molly now! And what new light for me.
I drove home through that new light, outward and inward. I
could and did give mamma some pleasure at breakfast; and then
slept a quiet, dreamless sleep, to make up for my loss of the
night before.
I have got through my story now, I think. In Molly's cottage,
life started anew for me, on a new basis. Not my own special
gratification, but my Lord's will. And I seeking that, He
takes care of the other. I find it so. And He has promised
that everybody shall find it so. My only care is to do exactly
the work He means I shall do. It is not so easy always to find
out and make sure of that. I would like, if I followed my
liking, I would like to go South and teach in the Freedmen's
schools somewhere. But that is not my work now, for mamma
claims me here.
We are at Melbourne again. As soon as the last tenant's term
of possession was expired, Dr. Sandford had the house put in
order for us, and mamma and I moved in. There is a sort of
pleasure, in being here, in the old place; but it is a mingled
pleasure. I think all places are pleasant to me now. Mamma
reigns here queen, as of old; - for Ransom will not come
North, and leaves all in her hand. All the enjoyment, that is.
Dr. Sandford manages the business. I do not know how long this
will last; for Ransom may marry, and in that case he may wish
to live in the place himself, and mamma and I would have to
go; but that day is not yet; and the blue mountains across the
river, and the slopes of green turf, and the clumps and groves
of trees which stand about the house and adorn the grounds,
are all in even greater beauty than when I was ten years old;
and I enjoy them even more.
Dr. Sandford takes care of everything that mamma cannot
manage. I know why he does it; and I am sorry. He is like a
good brother to me, and I am very fond of him; he is coming
and going in our house continually; he furthers my plans, and
ministers to all my pleasure, and looks after my well-being,
somewhat as he did when I was ten years old; only with much
more of freedom and acknowledged affection and authority. I
think he fancies that time will befriend him and bring me to
look upon him in a light more kindly for his wishes. He is
mistaken. People may love truly and love again, I suppose; I
have no doubt men may; but I think not women. Not true women,
when they have once thoroughly given their hearts. I do not
think they can take them back to give again. And mine is Mr.
Thorold's.
My writing all this has been a great comfort to me and done me
good. Have I accomplished what I said at the beginning I would
try to do, - follow out the present truth of my life to the
possible glory? Surely I have found it. Through sorrow and
joy, through gain and loss, yes, and I suppose by means of
these, I have come to know that all joy, even fulness of joy,
is summed up in being wholly the Lord's child. To do His will,
and to be filled with the happiness that He can give and He
alone, that is enough for anybody. It is enough for me.
THE END.
Note by the transcriber :
DAISY IN THE FIELD is the continuation of MELBOURNE HOUSE
and DAISY.