Daisy
Koh-i-noor diamond, or anything of that sort.
"Where did you come from?" was his first question.
"I have been in the house a little while," I said. "I thought at first
Miss Cardigan had somebody with her on business, so I would not come
in."
"It is quite true, Daisy," said Miss Cardigan; "it is somebody on
business."
"Nothing private about it, though," said Thorold, smiling at me. "But
where in the world did you and Aunt Catherine come together?"
"And what call have ye to search into it?" said Miss Cardigan's
good-humoured voice. "I know a great many bodies, callant, that you
know not."
"I know this one, though," said Thorold. "Miss Randolph--won't you
speak? for Aunt Catherine is in no mood to tell me--have you two known
each other long?"
"It seems long," I said. "It is not very long."
"Since last summer?"
"Certainly!"
"If that's the date of _your_ acquaintanceship," said Miss Cardigan,
"we're auld friends to that. Is all well, Daisy?"
"All quite well, ma'am. I came to do a bit of study I wanted in your
books, and to have a nice time with you, besides."
"And here is this fellow in the way. But we cannot turn him out,
Daisy; he is going fast enough; on what errand, do you think, is he
bent?"
_I_ had not thought about it till that minute. Something, some thread
of the serious, in Miss Cardigan's voice, made me look suddenly at
Thorold. He had turned his eyes from me and had bent them upon the
fire, all merriment gone out of his face, too. It was thoroughly
grave.
"What are you going to do, Mr. Thorold?" I asked.
"Do you remember a talk we had down on Flirtation Walk one day last
summer, when you asked me about possible political movements at the
South, and I asked you what you would do?"
"Yes," I said, my heart sinking.
"The time has come," he said, facing round upon me.
"And you--?"
"I shall be on my way to Washington in a few days. Men are wanted
now--all the men that have any knowledge to be useful. I may not be
very useful. But I am going to try."
"I thought"--it was not quite easy to speak, for I was struggling with
something which threatened to roughen my voice--"I thought you did not
graduate till June?"
"Not regularly; not usually; but things are extraordinary this year.
We graduate and go on to Washington at once."
I believe we were all silent a few minutes.
"Daisy," said Miss Cardigan, "you have nobody that is dear to _you_
likely to be engaged in the fray--if there is one?"
"I don't know--" I said, rather faintly. I remember I said it; I
cannot tell why, for I _did_ know. I knew that Preston and Ransom were
both likely to be in the struggle, even if Ransom had been at the
moment at the opposite side of the world. But then Thorold roused up
and began to talk. He talked to divert us, I think. He told us of
things that concerned himself and his class personally, giving details
to which we listened eagerly; and he went on from them to things and
people in the public line, of which and of whom neither Miss Cardigan
nor I had known the thousandth part so much before. We sat and
listened, Miss Cardigan often putting in a question, while the warm
still glow of the firelight shed over us and all the room its
assurance of peace and quiet, woven and compounded of life-long
associations. Thorold sat before us and talked, and we looked at him
and listened in the fire-shine; and my thoughts made swift sideway
flights every now and then from this peace and glow of comfort, and
from Thorold's talk, to the changes of the camp and the possible
coming strife; spectres of war, guns and swords, exposure and
wounds--and sickness--and the battlefield--what could I tell? and Miss
Cardigan's servant put another lump of coal on the fire, and Thorold
presently broke it, and the jet of illumination sprang forth, mocking
and yet revealing in its sweet home glow my visions of terror. They
were but momentary visions; I could not bear, of course, to look
steadily at them; they were spectres that came and went with a wave of
a hand, in a jet of flame, or the shadow of an opening door; but they
went and came; and I saw many things in Thorold's face that night
besides the manly lines of determination and spirit, the look of
thought and power, and the hover of light in his eye when it turned to
me. I don't know what Miss Cardigan saw; but several times in the
evening I heard her sigh; a thing very unusual and notable with her.
Again and again I heard it, a soft long breath.
I gave it no heed at the time. My eyes and thoughts were fixed on the
other member of the party; and I was like one in a dream. I walked in
a dream; till we went into the other room to tea, and I heard Miss
Cardigan say, addressing her nephew--
"Sit there, Christian."
I was like one in a dream, or I should have known what this meant. I
did know two minutes afterwards. But at the moment, falling in with
some of my thoughts, the word made me start and look at Thorold. I
cannot tell what was in my look; I know what was in my heart; the
surprised inquiry and the yearning wish. Thorold's face flushed. He
met my eyes with an intense recognition and inquiry in his own, and
then, I am almost sure, his were dim. He set my chair for me at the
table, and took hold of me and put me in it with a very gentle touch
that seemed to thank me.
"That is my name, Miss Randolph," he said, "the name given me by my
parents."
"You'll earn it yet, boy," said Miss Cardigan. "But the sooner the
better."
There was after that a very deep gravity upon us all for the first
minutes at the table. I wondered to myself, how people can go on drinking
tea and eating bread and butter through everything; yet they must, and
even I was doing it at the moment, and not willing to forego the
occupation. By degrees the wonted course of things relieved our minds,
which were upon too high a strain. It appeared that Thorold was very
hungry, having missed his dinner somehow; and his aunt ordered up
everything in the house for his comfort, in which I suppose she found her
own. And then Thorold made me eat with him. I was sure I did not want it,
but that made no difference. Things were prepared for me and put upon my
plate, and a soft little command laid on me to do with them what I was
expected to do. It was not like the way Dr. Sandford used to order me,
nor in the least like Preston's imperiousness, which I could withstand
well enough; there was something in it which nullified all my power and
even will to resist, and I was as submissive as possible. Thorold grew
very bright again as the meal went on, and began to talk in a somewhat
livelier strain than he had been in before tea; and I believe he did wile
both his aunt and me out of the sad or grave thoughts we had been
indulging. I know that I was obliged to laugh, as I was obliged to eat.
Thorold had his own way, and seemed to like it. Even his aunt was amused
and interested, and grew lively, like herself. With all that, through the
whole supper-time I had an odd feeling of her being on one side; it
seemed to be only Thorold and I really there; and in all Thorold was
doing and through all he was talking, I had a curious sense that he was
occupied only with me. It was not that he said so much directly to me or
looked so much at me; I do not know how I got the feeling. There was Miss
Cardigan at the head of the table busy and talking as usual, clever and
kind; yet the air seemed to be breathed only by Thorold and me.
"And how soon, lad," Miss Cardigan broke out suddenly, when a moment's
lull in the talk had given her a chance, "how soon will ye be off to
that region of disturbance whither ye are going?"
"Washington?" said Thorold. "Just as soon as our examination can be
pushed through; in a very few days now."
"You'll come to me by the way, for another look at you, in your
officer's uniform?"
"Uniform? nobody will have any uniform, I fancy," said Thorold;
"nobody has any time to think of that. No, Aunt Catherine, and I shall
not see you, either. I expect we shall rush through without the loss
of a train. I can't stop. I don't care what clothes I wear to get
there."
"How came you to be here now, if you are in such a hurry?"
"Nothing on earth would have brought me, but the thing that did bring
me," said Thorold. "I was subpoenaed down, to give my evidence in a
trial. I must get back again without loss of a minute; should have
gone to-night, if there had been a train that stopped. I am very glad
there was no train that stopped!"
We were all silent for a minute; till the door-bell rang, and the
servant came, announcing Mr. Bunsen, to see Miss Cardigan about the
tenant houses. Miss Cardigan went off through the open doors that led
to the front parlour; and standing by the fire, I watched her figure
diminishing in the long distance till it passed into Mr. Bunsen's
presence and disappeared. Mr. Thorold and I stood silently on either
side of the hearth, looking into the fire, while the servant was
clearing the table. The cheerful, hospitable little table, round which
we had been so cheerful at least for the moment, was dismantled
already, and the wonted cold gleam of the mahogany seemed to tell me
that cheer was all over. The talk of the uniform had overset me. All
sorts of visions of what it signified, what it portended, where it
would go, what it would be doing, were knocking at the door of my
heart, and putting their heads in. Before tea these visions had come
and vanished; often enough, to be sure; now they came and stayed. I
was very quiet, I am certain of that; I was as certainly very sober,
with a great and growing sadness at my heart. I think Thorold was
grave, too, though I hardly looked at him. We did not speak to each
other all the time the servant was busy in the room. We stood silent
before the fire. The study I had come to do had all passed away out of
my mind, though the books were within three feet of me. I was growing
sadder and sadder every minute.
"Things have changed, since we talked so lightly last summer of what
might be," Thorold said at last. And he said it in a meditative way,
as if he were pondering something.
"Yes," I assented.
"The North does not wish for war. The South have brought it upon
themselves."
"Yes," I said again, wondering a little what was coming.
"However disagreeable my duty may be, it is my duty; and there is no
shirking it."
"No," I said. "Of course."
"And if your friends are on one side and I on the other,--it is not my
fault, Miss Randolph."
"No," I said; "not at all."
"Then you do not blame me for taking the part I _must_ take?"
"No," I said. "You must take it."
"Are you sorry I take it?" said Thorold with a change of tone, and
coming a step nearer.
"Sorry?" I said, and I looked up for an instant. "No; how could I be
sorry? it is your duty. It is right." But as I looked down again I had
the greatest difficulty not to burst into tears. I felt as though my
heart would break in two with its burden of pain. It cost a great
effort to stand still and quiet, without showing anything.
"What is it, then?" said Thorold; and with the next words I knew he
had come close to my side and was stooping his head down to my face,
while his voice dropped. "What is it, Daisy?--Is it--O Daisy, I love
you better than anything else in the world, except my duty! Daisy, do
you love me?"
Nothing could have been more impossible to me, I think, than to answer
a word; but, indeed, Thorold did not seem to want it. As he questioned
me, he had put his arm round me and drawn me nearer and nearer,
stooping his face to me, till his lips took their own answer at mine;
indeed, took answer after answer, and then, in a sort of passion of
mute joy, kissed my face all over. I could not forbid him; between