Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), _Daisy Burns_ (1853), volume 1, Tauchnitz
edition
Produced by Daniel FROMONT
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS.
VOL. CCLXIII.
DAISY BURNS BY JULIA KAVANAGH.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
TAUCHNITZ EDITION
By the same Author,
NATHALIE 2 vols.
GRACE LEE 2 vols.
RACHEL GRAY 1 vol.
ADELE 2 vols.
A SUMMER AND WINTER IN THE TWO SICILES 2 vols.
SEVEN YEARS AND OTHER TALES 2 vols.
FRENCH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.
ENGLISH WOMEN OF LETTERS 1 vol.
QUEEN MAB 2 vols.
BEATRICE 2 vols.
SYBIL'S SECOND LOVE
DORA 2 vols.
SILVIA 2 vols.
BESSIE 2 vols.
JOHN DORRIEN 2 vols.
DAISY BURNS;
A TALE
BY
JULIA KAVANAGH,
AUTHOR OF "NATHALIE."
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARDT TAUCHNITZ
1853.
JULIA KAVANAGH
DAISY BURNS.
CHAPTER I.
As I sat alone this evening beneath the porch, the autumn wind rose and
passed amongst the garden trees, then died away in the distance with a
low murmuring. A strange thrill ran through me; the present with its
aspects vanished; I saw no more the narrow though dearly loved limits
which bound my home; the little garden, so calm and grey in the dewy
twilight, was a wide and heaving sea; the low rustling of the leaves
seemed the sound of the receding tide; the dim horizon became a circular
line of light dividing wastes of waters from the solemn depths of vast
skies, and I, no longer a woman sitting in my home within reach of a
great city, but an idle, dreaming child, lay in the grassy nook at the
end of our garden, whence I watched the ships on their distant path, or
sent a wandering glance along the winding beach of sand and rock below.
A moment effaced years, and my childhood, with its home, its joys, and
its sorrows, passed before me like a thing of yesterday.
Rock Cottage, as my father had called it, rose on a lonely cliff that
looked forth to the sea. It was but a plain abode, with whitewashed
walls, green shutters, and low roof, standing in the centre of a wild and
neglected garden, overlooked by no other dwelling, and apparently far
removed from every habitation. In front, a road, coming down from the low
hills of Ryde, wound away to Leigh; behind, at the foot of a cliff,
stretched the sea. The people of Leigh wondered "how Doctor Burns could
live in a place so bleak and so lonely," and they knew not that to him
its charms lay in that very solitude with its boundless horizon; in the
murmurs of the wind that ever swept around his dwelling; in the aspect of
that sublime sea which daily spread beneath his view, serene or terrible,
but ever beautiful.
This was not however the sole recommendation of Rock Cottage; it stood
conveniently between the two villages of Ryde and Leigh, of which my
father was the only physician. There was indeed a surgeon at Ryde, but he
never passed the threshold of the aristocratic mansions to which Doctor
Burns was frequently summoned, and whence he derived the larger portion
of his income. That income, never very considerable, proved however
sufficient to the few wants of the lonely home where my father, a
widower, lived with me, his only child.
Of my mother I had no remembrance; my father seldom mentioned her name;
but there was a small miniature of her over our parlour mantle-piece, and
often in the evening, sitting by our quiet fireside, he would look long
and earnestly on the mild and somewhat mournful face before him, then
give me a silent caress, as I sat on my stool at his knee, watching him
with the ever-attentive look of childhood.
I was sickly and delicate, and he indulged me to excess. "Study," he
said, "would only injure me, for I was a great deal too clever and
precocious for a child;" so he taught me himself the little I knew, and
put off from month to month his long contemplated and still cherished
project of sending me to some first-rate school. I believe that in his
heart he felt loath to part from me, and was secretly glad to find some
excuse that should keep me at home. He never left me in the morning
without a caress, and often, when he returned late from visiting some
distant patient, his first impulse, as well as his first act, was to
enter my room and kiss me softly as I slept. I loved him passionately and
exclusively, and years have not effaced either his memory or his aspect
from my heart. I remember him still, a man of thirty-five or so, tall,
pale, and gentlemanly, with wavy hair of a deep golden brown, and dark
grey eyes of singular light and beauty. How he seemed to others I know
not: to me he was all that was good and great.
I felt happy to live thus alone with him; I never wished for the
companionship of other children; I asked not to move beyond the limits of
our home. Silence, repose, and solitude, things so antipathetic to
childhood, were the chief pleasures of mine; partly on account of my bad
health, and partly, too, because I had inherited from my father a jealous
sort of exclusiveness and reserve, by no means held to be the general
characteristic of his countrymen.
My happiest moments were those spent in that grassy nook at the end of
our garden, to which I have already alluded. A group of dark pine-trees,
growing on the very edge of the cliff, sheltered it from the strength of
the breeze; close by began a steep path, winding away to the shore, and
to which a wooden gate, never locked, gave access. But more blest than
ever was Eve in her garden,--for in mine grew no forbidden fruit,--I
could spend there an entire day, and forget that only this easy barrier
stood between me and liberty. My father, seeing how much I liked this
spot, had caused a low wooden bench to be placed for me beneath the pine-
trees. In the fine weather my delight was to lie there, and to read and
dream away whole hours, or to gaze on the clear prospect of the beach
below, and, beyond it, on that solemn vastness of sea and sky which, in
its sublimity and infinitude, so far surpasses the sights of earth.
It was thus, I remember, that I spent one mild and hazy autumn afternoon,
reading, for the twentieth time, the touching story of Pracovia
Loupouloff--not the Elizabeth of Madame Cottin, but the real and far more
pathetic heroine,--and for the twentieth time, too, thinking with a sort
of jealousy and regret, that I was sure I could do quite as much for my
father if he were only an exile, when he came and sat down by me. He was
going out, and, as usual, would not leave home without giving me a kiss.
As he took me on his knee, he saw the book lying open on the bench; he
looked at me wistfully, and said with a sigh--
"I wish you would not read so much, my darling. You are always at the
books. I have just found my History of Medicine open: what could you want
with that?"
"I was reading about the circulation of the blood."
"Well, who discovered it?"
"William Harvey--I wish he had not."
"Why so?" asked my father, looking surprised.
"Because _you_ would," I replied, passing my arms around his neck, and
laying my cheek close to his.
He smiled, kissed my forehead, rose to go, took a few steps, came back,
and, stooping over me as I lay on the bench, he pressed his lips to mine
with lingering tenderness, then left me. I saw him enter the house. I
heard him depart, and I even caught a glimpse of him and his grey mare as
he rode up the steep path leading to Ryde. I looked and listened long
after he had vanished and the tramp of the horse had ceased. Then turning
once more towards the sea, I idly watched a fisherman's boat slowly
fading away in the grey horizon, and thought all the time what a great
man my father might hare been, if William Harvey had not unfortunately
discovered the circulation of the blood two hundred years before. I lay
there, dreaming the whole noon away, until Sarah came down the garden
path in quest of me, and, in her mournful voice, observed--
"Miss Margaret, _will_ you come in to tea?"
"No," I said coolly, "I won't yet."
Sarah turned up her eyes. I certainly was a spoiled child, and I dare say
not over-civil; but I did not quite make a martyr of her, as she chose to
imagine and liked to say.
"God forgive you and change your heart!" she said piously.
I did not answer. Most children are aristocratic, and I had a certain
intuitive scorn of servants; besides, Sarah had only been a few days with
us.
"Will you come in to tea?" she again asked. I took up my book, as if she
had not spoken. "Miss," she said solemnly, "there'll be a judgment on you
yet."
With this warning she left me. I went in when it pleased me to do so. On
entering the parlour, I perceived two cups on the tea-tray. "Is Papa come
back?" I asked, without looking at Sarah.
"Miss," she said indignantly, "servants aint dogs, nor cats either. I am
ashamed of you, Miss."
"Is Papa come back?" I asked again, with all the insolence of conscious
security.
If Sarah had dared, I should then have got a sound slap or box on the
ear, but I knew well enough she would not dare: her predecessor had been
dismissed for presuming to threaten me with personal chastisement, so she
swallowed down her resentment to reply, rather sharply, "No, Miss, the
Doctor is not come back, Miss."
I looked at the two tea-cups, and said haughtily, "I'll have my tea
alone."
Sarah became as crimson as the ribbons in her cap, gave me a spiteful
look, laughed shortly, and vindictively replied. "No, Miss, you'll not
have tea alone, Miss. Mr. O'Reilly is come, and as he is not an
unfort'nate servant, perhaps you won't mind taking tea with him, Miss."
I sulked on hearing the news.
Cornelius O'Reilly was the friend and countryman of my father, who had
known him from his boyhood, and helped to rear and educate him. He came
down every autumn to spend ten days or a fortnight at Rock Cottage. He
never failed to bring me a present; but this did not render his visits
more welcome to me. Whilst he was in the house, I was less petted, less
indulged, and, above all, less noticed by my father. It was this I could
not forgive the young man.
On noticing the unamiable look with which I heard the news of his
arrival, Sarah indignantly exclaimed, "You ought to blush, Miss, you
ought, for being so jealous of your poor Pa! Do you think he is to look
at nobody but you? Suppose he were to marry again?"
"He won't, you know he won't," I interrupted, almost passionately; "and
you know he said you were not to say it."
This was true; for Sarah, once feeling more than usually "aggravated"
with me, had chosen to inform me "that if my Pa went every day to see
Miss Murray, it was not all because she was poorly, but because he was
going to marry that lady; and that I and her nephew William were to be
got rid of by being sent to school as soon as the wedding was over."
She spoke positively. I believed her, and took the matter so much to
heart that my father perceived it, learned the cause, and, after
relieving me with the assurance that he was quite determined never to
marry a second time, and that I was to be his only pet and darling,
called in Sarah, and in my presence administered to her a short and
severe reprimand, which she resentfully remembered as one of my many
offences. Being now beaten on this point, she sharply observed, "Well,
Miss, is it a reason, because our Pa won't marry again, that we are to be
rude to our Pa's friend?"
I did not answer.
"I am sure he is kind," she continued, "it's in his face."
No reply.
"I never saw a better-tempered looking gentleman."
I was obstinately silent.
"Nor a handsomer one," persisted Sarah, on whom the young Irishman's
appearance seemed to have produced a strong impression; "there is not one
like him from Ryde to Leigh."
She spoke pointedly. I felt myself redden.
"He is not half so handsome as Papa," I replied indignantly.
"Right, Margaret," observed a good-humoured voice behind us; and
Cornelius O'Reilly, who had overheard the latter part of our discourse,
entered the parlour as he spoke.
Sarah uttered a little scream, then hung down her head in maidenly
distress; to recover from her confusion, and perhaps to linger in the
room, she began to shift and rattle the tea-things, whilst Cornelius,
sitting down by the table, signed me to approach. I did do so,--not very
graciously, I am afraid. He took both my hands in one of his, and resting
the other on my head, looked down at me with a smile. I had often seen
him before, yet when I look back into the past, I find that from this
autumn noon, as I stood before him with my hands in his, dates my first
clear and distinct recollection of Cornelius O'Reilly.
He was then about twenty, tall, decided in manner and bearing, and
strikingly handsome, with heavy masses of dark wavy hair, which he often
shook back by a hasty and impatient motion. His face was characteristic,
frank, and proud, with a broad brow, ardent hazel eyes, full and
brilliant as those of the hawk, and arched features, which, though
neither Greek nor Roman, impressed themselves on the memory as vividly as
any ancient type. His look was both kind and keen; his smile pleasant and
perplexing. Every one liked it, but few understood it rightly: it was so
ready for raillery, so indulgent, and withal so provokingly careless.
Like the face, it expressed a mobile temper, ingenuous in its very
changes; a mind that yielded to every impression, and was mastered by
none.
Such was then Cornelius O'Reilly; not that he seemed so to me, but the
gaze of childhood is as observant as it is unreflecting, and I
unconsciously noted signs of which I knew not how to read the meaning.
"Well, Margaret, how are you?" asked Cornelius, after a sufficiently long
silence.
"Very well, thank you," I replied in a low tone, and making a useless
effort to disengage my hands from his grasp. Without seeming to notice
this, he continued, nodding at a brown-paper parcel on the table--
"There is a cake, which my sister Kate sends you, with her very kind
love."
I saw Sarah turning up her eyes in admiration, and this induced me to
make a reply which I am ashamed to record, it was so ungracious:
"I never eat cake," I said.
"Miss!" began Sarah.
"And I have brought you this," interrupted the young man, drawing forth a
book from his pocket. He held it before my eyes; it had a bright cover,
with a gilt title; the temptation was strong, but not stronger than my
stubborn pride.
"Papa gives me books," I replied.
"Oh! very well," smilingly answered Cornelius; "I shall give him this to
give to you."
His good-humoured forbearance began to make me feel penitent, when again
Sarah interfered with an unlucky "For shame, Miss!"
"She is only shy," kindly said Cornelius.
"Oh! Sir, it is sly we are," replied Sarah with a prim smile; "if we
durst, we'd scamper away through that open door; ay, that we would!" she
added, emphatically nodding her head at me. "We are very unkind, Sir."
"Not at all," observed Cornelius, taking my part; "Margaret is very fond
of me, only she does not like to say so. Are you not, my dear?" he added
with provoking confidence.
"No," was my reply, more frank than civil.
"Indeed you are, and the proof of it is that of your own accord you are
going to give me a kiss."
I was astounded at the audacious idea. I never kissed any one but my
father. Alas! I fear I thought myself and my childish caresses very
precious things indeed. Cornelius laughed, and stooped; but as he gently
released my hands at the same time, I eluded the caress, and darted
through the open door up the dark staircase. Sarah wanted to rush after
me. Cornelius interfered, and again said I was shy.
"Shy, Sir! shy!" echoed Sarah with a short, indignant laugh, "bless you,
Sir, it is pride: she is as proud as Lucifer, and as obstinate, too. I
could beat that child to death, Sir, and not make her kiss me. No one
knows how she has tried my feelings. I am naturally fond of children, and
I have been in families where young ladies used to doat on me, and
scarcely care for their Mas, much less for their Pas; but with Miss
Margaret it is just the reverse. You may wait on her, scold, praise,
coax; it is all one: she cares for no one but for her Pa--of whom she is
as jealous as can be, Sir; and if she doesn't like you, Sir, why she
won't like you, and there's an end of it."
He laughed, as she paused, out of breath at the volubility with which she
had spoken. I waited not to hear more, but softly stole up to my room. I
feared neither darkness nor solitude; besides the moon had risen, and her
pale, mild light fell on the floor. So I sat down by my bed, laid my head
on the pillow, and, as I thus faced the window, I looked at the open sky
beyond it, and watched a whole flock of soft white clouds slowly
journeying towards the west. I thought to remain thus until I should hear
the well-known tramp of my father's horse coming down the stony road, but
unconsciously my eyes closed and I fell fast asleep.
How long I slept I cannot tell. I know that I had a fearful dream, which
I have never been able to remember, and that I woke with the cold dews on
my brow and an awful dread at my heart. I looked up trembling with
terror; a large dark cloud was passing over the moon; in my room there
was the gloom of midnight, but not its silence. Unusual tumult filled our
quiet home; I listened and heard the voices of strange men, and above
them that of Sarah, rising loud in lamentation, and exclaiming, "Oh! my
poor master!"
My next remembrance is, that standing on the steps of the staircase, I
looked down at something passing below; that a sharp current of cold air
came from the open front door, beyond which I caught sight of a starry
sky; that on the threshold of the parlour stood, with their backs to me,
three men in coarse jackets; and that, looking beyond them in the room, I
saw Sarah weeping bitterly, and holding a flickering light, whilst
Cornelius O'Reilly bent over my father, who sat in his chair motionless
and deadly pale. He said something; Cornelius looked at Sarah; she laid
down the light, came out, shut the door, and all vanished like a vision
lost in sudden obscurity. And a vision I might have thought it, but for
the subdued speech that followed. Sarah was sobbing in the dark passage.
"Come, girl, don't take on so," said a man's voice, speaking low,
"where's the use? Any one can see it is all over with the poor doctor."
"Oh! don't," incoherently exclaimed Sarah, "don't."
"He said so himself, and he ought to know. 'It is all over with me,
Dick,' says he, when we picked him up from where that cursed horse had
thrown him; 'take me home to die,' says he, 'take me home to die.'"
Sarah moaned; the other two men said nothing; had they but uttered a
word, I should have remembered it, for I still seem to hear distinctly,
as if but just fallen from the lips of the speaker, not merely the words,
but the very intonations of that voice to which, standing on the dark
staircase, I then listened in all the stupor of grief. Scarcely had it
ceased, when the parlour door opened; Cornelius, looking very sad and
pale, appeared on the threshold, and, raising his voice, called out,
"Margaret!"
I sprang down at once; in a second I was by my father, with my arms round
his neck, my cheek to his. He bore no sign of external injury; but his
brow was ashy pale; his look was dim; his lips were white. He recognized
me, for he looked from me to Cornelius, with a glance that lit suddenly.
The young man laid his hand on my shoulder; tears ran down his face, and
his lips trembled as he said, "May God forsake me when I forsake your
child!"
My father made an effort; he raised himself on one elbow.
"Tell Kate--" he began; but the words that should have followed died away
in a mere incoherent murmur: he sank back; there was a sound of heavy
breathing; then followed a deep stillness. I felt the hand of Cornelius
leaning more heavily upon my shoulder. "Sarah!" he said, looking towards
the door, and speaking in a whisper.
She came forward, took my hand, and led me away. She wept bitterly; I
looked at her, and shed not one tear. I know not what I felt then; it was
dread, it was agony, stupor, and grief.
Alas! I learned in that hour how bitter a chalice even a poor little
child may be called upon to drink; how early all may learn to feel the
weight of that hand which, heavy as it seems, chastens not in its wrath,
but in its tenderness.