Daisy
"How much?" I asked.
"How much does it cost? Why it is the countryman's question over
again, Daisy. Lace is all sorts of prices. But the lace you wear is, I
judge, somewhere about three and five, and one of your dresses ten,
dollars a yard. That is pretty rich lace for a young lady of your
years to wear."
I never wore it, I must explain, unless in small quantity, except on
state occasions when my mother dressed me as part of herself.
"No, I am wrong," my aunt added, presently; "that dress I am thinking
of is richer than that; the lace on that robe was never bought for ten
dollars, or fifteen either. What do you want to know about it for,
Daisy?"
I mused a great deal. Three and five, and ten, and fifteen dollars a
yard, on lace trimmings for me--and no tea, no cups and saucers, no
soft bed, no gardens and flowers, for many who were near me. I began
to fill the meshes of my lace with responsibilities too heavy for the
delicate fabric to bear. Nobody liked the looks of it better than I
did. I always had a fancy for lace, though not for feathers; its rich,
delicate, soft falls, to my notion, suited my mother's form and style
better than anything else, and suited me. My taste found no fault. But
now that so much good was wrought into its slight web, and so much
silver lay hidden in every embroidered flower, the thing was changed.
Graceful, and becoming, and elegant, more than any other adornment;
what then? My mother and father had a great deal of money, too, to
spare; enough, I thought, for lace and for the above tea and sugar,
too; what then? And what if not enough? I pondered till my Aunt Gary
broke out upon me, that I would grow a wizened old woman if I sat
musing at that rate, and sent me to bed. It stopped my pondering for
that night; but not for all the years since that night.
My preparations were quite made before my aunt got her feathers
adjusted to her satisfaction; and in the bright days of autumn we went
back again to Magnolia. This was a joyful journey and a glad arriving,
compared to last year; and the welcome I got was something which
puzzled my heart between joy and sorrow many times during the first
few days.
And now Miss Pinshon's reign fairly began. I was stronger in health,
accustomed to my circumstances; there was no longer any reason that
the multiplication table and I should be parted. My governess was
determined to make up for lost time; and the days of that winter were
spent by me between the study table and fire. That is, when I think of
that winter my memory finds me there. Multiplication and its
correlatives were the staple of existence; and the old book room of my
grandfather was the place where my harvests of learning were sown and
reaped.
Somehow, I do not think the crops were heavy. I tried my best, and
Miss Pinshon certainly tried her best. I went through and over immense
fields of figures; but I fancy the soil did not suit the growth. I
know the fruits were not satisfactory to myself, and, indeed, were not
fruits at all, to my sense of them; but rather dry husks and hard nut
shells, with the most tasteless of small kernels inside. Yet Miss
Pinshon did not seem unsatisfied; and, indeed, occasionally remarked
that she believed I meant to be a good child. Perhaps that was
something out of my governess's former experience; for it was the only
style of commendation I ever knew her indulge in, and I always took it
as a compliment.
It would not do to tell all my childish life that winter. I should
never get through. For a child has as many experiences in her little
world as people of fifty years old have in theirs; and to her they are
not little experiences. It was not a small trial of mind and body to
spend the long mornings in the study over the curious matters Miss
Pinshon found for my attention; and after the long morning the shorter
afternoon session was un-mixed weariness. Yet I suffered most in the
morning; because then there was some life and energy within me which
rebelled against confinement, and panted to be free and in the open
air, looking after the very different work I could find or make for
myself. My feet longed for the turf; my fingers wanted to throw down
the slate pencil and gather up the reins. I had a good fire and a
pleasant room; but I wanted to be abroad in the open sunshine, to feel
the sweet breath of the air in my face, and see the grey moss wave in
the wind. That was what I had been used to all my life; a sweet wild
roaming about, to pick up whatever pleasure presented itself. I
suppose Miss Pinshon herself had never been used to it nor known it;
for she did not seem to guess at what was in my mind. But it made my
mornings hard to get through. By the afternoon the spirit was so
utterly gone out of me and everything, that I took it all in a
mechanical stupid way; and only my back's aching made me impatient for
the time to end.
I think I was fond of knowledge and fond of learning. I am sure of it,
for I love it dearly still. But there was no joy about it at
Magnolia. History, as I found it with my governess, was not in the
least like the history I had planned on my tray of sand, and pointed
out with red and black headed pins. There was life and stir in that,
and progress. Now there was nothing but a string of names and dates to
say to Miss Pinshon. And dates were hard to remember, and did not seem
to mean anything. But Miss Pinshon's favourite idea was mathematics.
It was not my favourite idea; so every day I wandered through a
wilderness of figures and signs which were a weariness to my mind and
furnished no food for it. Nothing was pleasant to me in my schoolroom,
excepting my writing lessons. They were welcomed as a relief from
other things.
When the studies for the day were done, the next thing was to prepare
for a walk. A walk with Miss Pinshon alone, for my aunt never joined
us. Indeed, this winter my aunt was not unfrequently away from
Magnolia altogether; finding Baytown more diverting. It made a little
difference to me; for when she was not at home, the whole day,
morning, afternoon and evening, meal times and all times, seemed under
a leaden grey sky. Miss Pinshon discussed natural history to me when
we were walking--not the thing, but the science; she asked me
questions in geography when we were eating breakfast, and talked over
some puzzle in arithmetic when we were at dinner. I think it was
refreshing to her; she liked it; but to me, the sky closed over me in
lead colour, one unbroken vault, as I said, when my aunt was away.
With her at home, all this could not be; and any changes of colour
were refreshing.
All this was not very good for me. My rides with Darry would have been
a great help; but now I only got a chance at them now and then. I grew
spiritless and weary. Sundays I would have begged to be allowed to
stay at home all day and rest; but I knew if I pleaded fatigue my
evenings with the people in the kitchen would be immediately cut off;
not my drives to church. Miss Pinshon always drove the six miles to
Bolingbroke every Sunday morning, and took me with her. Oh how long
the miles were! how weary I was, with my back aching and trying to
find a comfortable corner in the carriage; how I wanted to lie down on
the soft cushions in the pew and go to sleep during the service. And
when the miles home were finished, it seemed to me that so was I. Then
I used to pray to have strength in the evening to read with the
people. And I always had it; or at least I always did it. I never
failed; though the rest of the Sunday hours were often spent on the
bed. But, indeed, that Sunday evening reading was the one thing that
saved my life from growing, or settling, into a petrifaction. Those
hours gave me cheer, and some spirit to begin again on Monday morning.
However, I was not thriving. I know I was losing colour, and sinking
in strength, day by day; yet very gradually; so that my governess
never noticed it. My aunt sometimes, on her return from an absence
that had been longer than common, looked at me uneasily.
"Miss Pinshon, what ails that child?" she would ask.
My governess said, "Nothing." Miss Pinshon was the most immovable
person, I think, I have ever known. At least, so far as one could
judge from the outside.
"She looks to me," my aunt went on, "exactly like a cabbage, or
something else, that has been blanched under a barrel. A kind of
unhealthy colour. She is not strong."
"She has more strength than she shows," my governess answered. "Daisy
has a good deal of strength."
"Do you think so?" said my aunt, looking doubtfully at me. But she was
comforted. And neither of them asked me about it.
One thing in the early half of the winter was a great help; and for a
while stayed my flitting spirits and strength. My father wrote an
order, that Daisy should make arrangements for giving all the people
on the plantation a great entertainment at Christmas. I was to do what
I liked and have whatever I chose to desire; no one altering or
interfering with my word. I shall never forget the overflowing of
largest joy, with which my heart swelled as I ran in to tell this news
to Aunt Gary. But first I had to kneel down and give thanks for it.
I never saw my aunt more displeased about anything. Miss Pinshon only
lifted up her black eyes and looked me over. They did not express
curiosity or anything else; only observation. My aunt spoke out.
"I think there must be some mistake, Daisy."
"No, Aunt Gary; papa says just that."
"You mean the house servants, child."
"No, ma'am; papa says every one; all the people on the place."
"He means the white people, you foolish child; everybody's head is not
full of the servants, as yours is."
"He says the coloured people, Aunt Gary; all of them. It is _only_ the
coloured people."
"Hear her!" said my aunt. "Now she would rather entertain them, I
don't doubt, than the best company that could be gathered of her own
sort."
I certainly would. Did I not think with joy at that very minute of the
words, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of _these_, ye
have done it unto me?" I knew what guest would be among my poor
despised company. But I said not a word.
"Daisy," said my aunt, "you _must_ be under a mistake; you must let me
see what your father says. Why, to give all these hundreds an
entertainment, it would cost--have you any idea what it would cost?"
I had not indeed. But my father's letter had mentioned a sum which was
to be the limit of my expenditure; within which I was to be unlimited.
It was a large sum, amounting to several hundreds, and amply
sufficient for all I could wish to do. I told my aunt.
"Well!" she said, twisting herself round to the fire, "if your father
has money to fling about like that, I have of course no more to say."
Miss Pinshon looked up again at me. Those black eyes were always the
same; the eyelids never drooped over them. "What are you going to do,
Daisy?" she asked.
Truly I did not know, yet. I gave my aunt a note to the overseer from
my father, which I begged her to forward; and ran away to take sweet
counsel with myself.
I had had some little experience of such an entertainment in the
strawberry festival at Melbourne. I remembered that good things to eat
and drink were sure to be enjoyed, and not these only, but also a
pretty and festive air thrown about these things. And much more would
this be true among the beauty-loving, and luxurious-natured children
of the tropics, than with the comparatively barbarous Celtic blood.
But between entertaining thirty and seven hundred there was a
difference. And between the season of roses and fruits, and the time
of mid-winter, even though in a southern clime, there was another
wide difference. I had need of a great deal of counsel-taking with