Read the book: «Daisy», page 22

CHAPTER XIX.
ENTERED FOR THE WAR

ONE evening, I think before the end of April, I asked permission to spend the evening at Miss Cardigan's. I had on hand a piece of study for which I wanted to consult certain books which I knew were in her library. Mlle. Géneviève gave me leave gladly.

"You do study too persevering, m'amie," she said. "Go, and stop to study for a little while. You are pale. I am afraid your doctor – ce bon Monsieur le docteur – will scold us all by and by. Go, and do not study."

But I determined to have my play and my study too.

As I passed through Miss Cardigan's hall, the parlour door, standing half open let me see that a gentleman was with her. Not wishing to interrupt any business that might be going on, and not caring also to be bored with it myself, I passed by and went into the inner room where the books were. I would study now, I thought, and take my pleasure with my dear old friend by and by, when she was at leisure. I had found my books, and had thrown myself down on the floor with one, when a laugh that came from the front room laid a spell upon my powers of study. The book fell from my hands; I sat bolt upright, every sense resolved into that of hearing. What, and who had that been? I listened. Another sound of a word spoken, another slight inarticulate suggestion of laughter; and I knew with an assured knowledge that my friend Cadet Thorold, and no other, was the gentleman in Miss Cardigan's parlour with whom she had business. I sat up and forgot my books. The first impulse was to go in immediately and show myself. I can hardly tell what restrained me. I remembered that Miss Cardigan must have business with him, and I had better not interrupt it. But those sounds of laughter had not been very business-like, either. Nor were they business words which came through the open door. I never thought or knew I was listening. I only thought it was Thorold, and held my breath to hear, or rather to feel. My ears seemed sharpened beyond all their usual faculty.

"And you haven't gone and fallen in love, callant, meanwhile, just to complicate affairs?" said the voice of Miss Cardigan.

"I shall never fall in love," said Thorold, with (I suppose) mock gravity. His voice sounded so.

"Why not?"

"I require too much."

"It's like your conceit!" said Miss Cardigan. "Now, what is it that you require? I would like to know; that is, if you know yourself. It appears that you have thought about it."

"I have thought, till I have got it all by heart," said Thorold. "The worst is, I shall never find it in this world."

"That's likely. Come, lad, paint your picture, and I'll tell you if I know where to look," said Miss Cardigan.

"And then you'll search for me?"

"I dinna ken if you deserve it," said Miss Cardigan.

"I don't deserve it, of course," said Thorold. "Well – I have painted the likeness a good many times. The first thing is a pair of eyes as deep and grey as our mountain lakes."

"I never heard that your Vermont lakes were grey," said Miss Cardigan.

"Oh, but they are! when the shadow of the mountains closes them in. It is not cold grey, but purple and brown, the shadow of light, as it were; the lake is in shadow. Only, if a bit of blue does show itself there, it is the very heaven."

"I hope that it is not going to be in poetry?" said Miss Cardigan's voice, sounding dry and amused. "What is the next thing? It is a very good picture of eyes."

"The next thing is a mouth that makes you think of nothing but kissing it; the lines are so sweet, and so mobile, and at the same time so curiously subdued. A mouth that has learned to smile when things don't go right; and that has learned the lesson so well, you cannot help thinking it must have often known things go wrong; to get the habit so well, you know."

"Eh? – Why, boy!" – cried Miss Cardigan.

"Do you know anybody like it?" said Thorold, laughing. "If you do, you are bound to let me know where, you understand."

"What lies between the eyes and mouth?" said Miss Cardigan. "There goes more to a picture."

"Between the eyes and mouth," said Thorold, "there is sense and dignity, and delicacy, and refinement to a fastidious point; and a world of strength of character in the little delicate chin."

"Character —that shows in the mouth," said Miss Cardigan, slowly.

"I told you so," said Thorold. "That is what I told you. Truth, and love, and gentleness, all sit within those little red lips; and a great strength of will, which you cannot help thinking has borne something to try it. The brow is like one of our snowy mountain tops with the sun shining on it."

"And the lady's figure is like a pine-tree, isn't it? It sounds gay, as if you'd fallen in love with Nature, and so personified and imaged her in human likeness. Is it real humanity?"

Thorold laughed his gay laugh. "The pine-tree will do excellently, Aunt Catherine," he said. "No better embodiment of stately grace could be found."

My ears tingled. "Aunt Catherine?" Aunt! Then Thorold must be her relation, her nephew; then he was not come on business; then he would stay to tea. I might as well show myself. But, I thought, if Thorold had some other lady so much in his mind (for I was sure his picture must be in a portrait), he would not care so very much about seeing me, as I had at first fancied he would. However, I could not go away; so I might as well go in; it would not do to wait longer. The evening had quite fallen now. It was April, as I said, but a cold, raw spring day, and had been like that for several days. Houses were chill; and in Miss Cardigan's grate a fine fire of Kennal coals were blazing, making its red illumination all over the room and the two figures who sat in front of it. She had had a grate put in this winter. There was no other light, only that soft red glow and gloom, under favour of which I went in and stood almost beside them before they perceived me. I did not speak to Miss Cardigan. I remember my words were, "How do you do, Mr. Thorold?" – in a very quiet kind of a voice; for I did not now expect him to be very glad. But I was sur prised at the change my words made. He sprang up, his eyes flashing a sort of shower of sparks over me, gladness in every line of his face, and surprise, and a kind of inexpressible deference in his manner.

"Daisy!" he exclaimed. "Miss Randolph!"

"Daisy!" echoed Miss Cardigan. "My dear – do you two know each other? Where did you come from?"

I think I did not answer. I am sure Thorold did not. He was caring for me, placing his chair nearer his aunt, and putting me into it, before he let go the hand he had taken. Then, drawing up another chair on the other side of me, he sat down, looking at me (I thought afterwards, I only felt at the moment), as if I had been some precious wonder; the 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 subpœnaed 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 excitement and sorrow and happiness and shame, I could do nothing. The best I could do was to hide my face; but the breast of that grey coat was a strange hiding-place for it. With that inconsistent mingling of small things with great in one's perceptions, which everybody knows, I remember the soft feel of the fine grey cloth along with the clasp of Thorold's arms and the touch of his cheek resting upon my hair. And we stood so, quite still, for what seemed both a long and a short time, in which I think happiness got the upper hand with me, and pain for the moment was bid into the background. At last Thorold raised his head and bade me lift up mine.

"Look up, darling," he said; "look up, Daisy! let me see your face. Look up, Daisy – we have only a minute, and everything in the world to say to each other. Daisy – I want to see you."

I think it was one of the most difficult little things I ever had in my life to do, to raise my face and let him look at it; but I knew it must be done, and I did it. One glance at his I ventured. He was smiling at me; there was a flush upon his cheek; his eye had a light in it, and with that a glow of tenderness which was different from anything I had ever seen; and it was glittering, too, I think, with another sort of suffusion. His hand came smoothing down my hair and then touching my cheek while he looked at me.

"What are you going to do with yourself now?" he said softly.

"I am going on with my studies for another month or two."

"And you belong to me, Daisy?"

"Yes."

He bent his head and kissed my brow. There is an odd difference of effect between a kiss on the lips and on the forehead, or else it was a difference in the manner. This seemed a sort of taking possession or setting a seal; and it gave me a new feeling of something almost like awe, which I had never associated with the grey coat or with its wearer before. Along with that came another impression that I suppose most women know, and know how sweet it is; the sense of an enveloping protection. Not that I had not been protected all my life; but my mother's had been the protection of authority; my father's also, in some measure; Dr. Sandford's was emphatically that of a guardian; he guarded me a little too well. But this new thing that was stealing into my heart, with its subtle delight, was the protection of a champion; of one who set me and mine above all other interests or claims in the world, and who would guard me as if he were a part of myself, only stronger. Alto gether Thorold seemed to me different from what he had been the last summer; there was a gravity now in his face and air at times that was new and even stern; the gravity of a man taking stern life work upon him. I felt all this in a minute, while Thorold was smiling down into my face.

"And you will write to me?" he said.

"Yes."

"And I will write to you. And I belong to you, Daisy, and to no other. All I have is yours, and all that I am is yours – after my duty; you may dispose of me, pretty one, just as you like. You would not have that put second, Daisy."

A great yearning came over me, so great and strong that it almost took away my breath. I fancy it spoke in my eyes, for Thorold's face grew very grave, I remember, as he looked at me. But I must speak it more plainly than so, at any costs, breath or no breath, and I must not wait.

"Christian," I whispered, "won't you earn your right to your name?"

He pressed his lips upon mine by way of answer first, and then gave me a quick and firm "Yes." I certainly thought he had found a mouth he was talking of a little while ago. But at that instant the sound of the distant house door closing, and then of steps coming out from the parlour, made me know that Miss Cardigan's business was over, and that she was returning to us. I wanted to free myself from Thorold's arm, but he would not let me; on the contrary, held me closer, and half turned to meet Miss Cardigan as she came in. Certainly men are very different from women. There we stood, awaiting her; and I felt very much ashamed.

"Come on, Aunt Catherine," Thorold said, as she paused at the door, – "come in, come in, and kiss her – this little darling is mine."

Miss Cardigan came in slowly. I could not look up.

"Kiss her, Aunt Catherine," he repeated; "she is mine."

And to my great dismay he set her the example; but I think it was partly to reassure me, and cover my confusion, which he saw.

"I have kissed Daisy very often before now," said Miss Cardigan. I thought I discerned some concern in her voice.

"Then come, do it again," said Thorold, laughing. "You never kissed her as anything belonging to me, Aunt Catherine."

And he fairly laid me in Miss Cardigan's arms, till we kissed each other as he desired. But Miss Cardigan's gravity roused me out of my confusion. I was not ashamed before her; only before him.

"Now, Aunt Catherine," he said, pulling up a comfortable arm chair to the corner of the hearth, "sit there. And Daisy – come here!"

He put me into the fellow chair; and then built up the wood in the fireplace till we had a regular illumination. Then drew himself up before the fire, and looked at his aunt.

"It's like you!" broke out Miss Cardigan. "Ever since you were born, I think, you did what you liked, and had what you liked; and threw over everything to get at the best."

"On the contrary," said Thorold, "I was always of a very contented disposition."

"Contented with your own will, then," said his aunt. "And now, do you mean to tell me that you have got this prize – this prize – it's a first class, Christian – for good and for certain to yourself?"

I lifted my eyes one instant, to see the sparkles in Thorold's eyes; they were worth seeing.

"You don't think you deserve it?" Miss Cardigan went on.

"I do not think I deserve it," said Thorold. "But I think I will."

"I know what that means," said his aunt. "You will get worldly glory – just a bit or two more of gold on your coat – to match you with one of the Lord's jewels, that are to be 'all glorious within'; and you think that will fit you to own her."

"Aunt Catherine," said Thorold, "I do not precisely think that gold lace is glory. But I mean that I will do my duty. A man can do no more."

"Some would have said 'a man can do no less,'" said Miss Cardigan, turning to me. "But you are right, lad; more than our duty we can none of us do; where all is owing, less will not be overpay. But whatever do you think her father will say to you?"

"I will ask him when the time comes," said Thorold, contentedly. His tone was perfect, both modest and manly. Truth to say, I could not quite share his content in looking forward to the time he spoke of; but that was far ahead, and it was impossible not to share his confidence. My father and my mother had been practically not my guardians during six and a half long years; I had got out of the habit of looking first to them.

"And what are you going to do now in Washington?" said his aunt. "You may as well sit down and tell us."

"I don't know. Probably I shall be put to drill new recruits. All these seventy-five thousand men that the President has called for, won't know how to handle a gun or do anything else."

"And what is he going to do with these seventy-five thousand men, Christian?"

"Put down treason, if he can. Don't you realize yet that we have a civil war on our hands, Aunt Catherine? The Southern States are mustering and sending their forces; we must meet them, or give up the whole question; that is, give up the country."

"And what is it that they will try to do?" said Miss Cardigan. "It is a mystery to me what they want; but I suppose I know; only bad men are a mystery to me always."

"They will try to defy the laws," said Thorold. "We will try to see them executed."

"They seem very fierce," said Miss Cardigan; "to judge by what they say."

"And do," added Thorold. "I think there is a sort of madness in Southern blood."

He spoke with a manner of disgustful emphasis. I looked up at him to see an expression quite in keeping with his words. Miss Cardigan cried out —

"Hey, lad! ye're confident, surely, to venture your opinions so plainly and so soon!"

His face changed, as if sunlight had been suddenly poured over it. He came kneeling on one knee before me, taking my hand and kissing it, and laughing.

"And I see ye're not confident without reason!" added Miss Cardigan. "Daisy'll just let ye say your mind, and no punish you for it."

"But it is true, Miss Cardigan," I said, turning to her. I wished I had held my tongue the next minute, for the words were taken off my lips, as it were. It is something quite different from eating your own words, which I have heard of as not being pleasant; mine seemed to be devoured by somebody else.

"But is it true they are coming to attack Washington?" Miss Cardigan went on, when we had all done laughing. "I read it in the prints; and it seems to me I read every other thing there."

"I am afraid you read too many prints," said Thorold. "You are thinking of 'hear both sides,' Aunt Catherine? You must know there is but one side to this matter. There never are two sides to treason."

"That's true," said Miss Cardigan. "But about Washington, lad? I saw an extract from a letter written from that city, by a lady, and she said the place was in a terror; she said the President sleeps with a hundred men, armed, in the east room, to protect him from the Southern army; and keeps a sentinel before his bedroom door; and often goes clean out of the White House and sleeps somewhere else, in his fear."

I had never seen Thorold laugh as he did then. And he asked his aunt "where she had seen that extract?"

"It was in one of the papers – it was in an extract itself, I'm thinking."

"From a Southern paper," said Thorold.

"Well, I believe it was."

"I have seen extracts, too," said Thorold. "They say, Alexander H. Stephens is counselling the rebels to lay hold on Washington."

"Well, sit down and tell us what you do know, and how to understand things," said Miss Cardigan. "I don't talk to anybody, much, about politics."

So Thorold did as he was asked. He sat down on the other side of me, and with my hand in his, talked to us both. We went over the whole ground of the few months past, of the work then doing and preparing, of what might reasonably be looked for in both the South and the North. He said he was not very wise in the matter; but he was infinitely more informed than we; and we listened as to the most absorbing of all tales, till the night was far worn. A sense of the gravity and importance of the crisis; a consciousness that we were embarked in a contest of the most stubborn character, the end of which no man might foretell, pressed itself more and more on my mind as the night and the talk grew deeper. If I may judge from the changes in Miss Cardigan's face, it was the same with her. The conclusion was, the North was gathering and concentrating all her forces to meet the trial that was coming; and the young officers of the graduating class at the Military Academy had been ordered to the seat of war a little before their time of study was out, their help being urgently needed.

"And where is Preston?" said I, speaking for the first time in a long while.

"Preston?" echoed Thorold.

"My Cousin Preston – Gary; your classmate Gary."

"Gary! Oh, he is going to Washington, like the rest of us."

"Which side will he take?"

"You should know, perhaps, better than I," said Thorold. "He always has taken the Southern side, and very exclusively."

"Has taken?" said I. "Do you mean that among the cadets there has been a South and a North – until now, lately?"