CHAPTER VII
FIVE YEARS LATER
"Married, this morning, at St. Paul's Church, by the Rev. Dr. ——, assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq., of Cuylerville, to Miss Julia Hamilton, of this city."
Such was the notice which appeared in a daily Boston paper one lovely morning in September five years after the last entry in Miss Thornton's journal. Guy had reached the point at last when he could put Daisy from his heart and take another in her place. He had never seen her or heard directly from her since the night she brought him the marriage settlement and tore it in pieces, thinking thus to give it to him beyond a doubt. That this did not change the matter one whit he knew just as he knew she could not give him the ten thousand dollars settled upon her until she was of age. She was of age now, and had been for a year or more, and, to say the truth, he had expected to hear from her when she was twenty-one. To himself he had reasoned in this wise: Her father told her that the tearing up that paper made no difference, that she was powerless of herself to act until she was of age, so she will wait quietly till then before making another effort. And in his heart Guy thought how he would not take a penny from her, but would insist upon her keeping it. Still he should respect her all the more for her sense of justice and generosity, he thought, and when her twenty-first birthday came and passed, and week after week went by, and brought no sign from Daisy, there was a pang in his heart and a look of disappointment on his face which did not pass away until October hung her gorgeous colors upon the hills of Cuylerville, and Julia Hamilton came to the Brown Cottage to spend a few weeks with his sister.
From an independent, self-reliant, energetic girl of twenty-two Julia had ripened into a noble and dignified woman of twenty-seven, with a quiet repose of manner which seemed to rest and quiet one, and which told insensibly on Guy, until at last he found himself dreading to have her go and wishing to keep her with him always. The visit was lengthened into a month; and when in November he went with her to Boston he had asked her to take Daisy's place, and she had said she would. Very freely they had talked of the little golden-haired girl, and Julia told him what she had heard of her through a mutual acquaintance who had been on the same vessel with the McDonalds when they returned from South America. Cousin Tom was with them, a rich man then and a richer now, for his gold mine and his railroad had made him almost a millionaire, and it was currently reported and believed that Mr. McDonald designed him for his daughter. They were abroad now, the McDonalds and Tom, who bore the expenses of the party. Daisy, it was said, was even more beautiful than in her early girlhood, and to her loveliness were added cultivation and refinement of manner. She had had the best of teachers while in South America, and was now continuing her studies abroad with a view to further improvement. All this Julia Hamilton told Guy, and then bade him think again ere deciding to join her life with his.
And Guy did think again, and his thoughts went across the sea after the beautiful Daisy, and he tried to picture to himself what she must be, now that education and culture had set their seal upon her. But always in the picture there was a dark background, where cousin Tom stood sentinel with his bags of gold, and so, with a half-unconscious sigh for what "might have been," Guy dug still deeper the grave where years before he had buried his love for Daisy, and to make the burial sure this time, so that there should be no future resurrection, he put over the grave a head-stone on which were written a new hope and a new love, both of which centered in Julia Hamilton. And so they were engaged, and after that there was no wavering on his part—no looking back to a past which seemed like a happy dream from which there had been a horrible awaking.
He loved Julia at first quietly and sensibly, and loved her more and more as the winter and spring went by and brought the day when he stood again at the altar and for the second time took upon him the marriage vow. It was a very quiet wedding, with only a few friends present, and Miss Frances was the bridesmaid, in a gown of silver gray; but Julia's face was bright with the certainty of a happiness long desired; and if in Guy's heart there lingered the odor of other bridal flowers, withered now and dead, and the memory of other marriage bells than those which sent their music on the air that summer morning, and if a pair of sunny blue eyes looked into his instead of Julia's darker ones, he made no sign, and his face wore an expression of perfect content as he took his second bride for better or worse, just as he once had taken little Daisy. In her case it had proved all for the worse, but now there was a suitableness in the union which boded future happiness, and many a hearty wish for good was sent after the newly married pair, whose destination was New York.
It was nearly dark when they reached the hotel and quite dark before dinner was over. Then Julia suddenly remembered that an old friend of hers was boarding in the house, and suggested going to her room.
"I'd send my card," she said blushingly, "only she would not know me by the new name, so if you do not mind my leaving you a moment I'll go and find her myself."
Guy did not mind, and Julia went out and left him alone. Scarcely was she gone when he called to mind a letter which had been forwarded to him from Cuylerville, and which he had found awaiting him on his return from the church. Not thinking it of much consequence he had thrust it in his pocket and in the excitement forgotten it till now. He had dressed for dinner and worn his wedding coat, and he took the letter out and looked at it a moment, and wondered whom it was from, as people ofttimes do wait and wonder, when breaking the seal would settle the wonder so soon. It was postmarked in New York, and felt heavy in his hand, and he opened it at last and found that the outer envelope inclosed another one on which his name and address were written in a handwriting once so familiar to him, and the sight of which made him start and breathe heavily for a moment as if the air had suddenly grown thick and burdensome.
Daisy's handwriting! which he had never thought to see again; for after his engagement with Julia he had burned every vestige of a correspondence it was sorrow now to remember. One by one, and with a steady hand, he had dropped Daisy's letters into the fire and watched them turning into ashes, and thought how like his love for her they were when nothing remained of them but the thin gray tissue his breath could blow away. The four scraps of the marriage settlement which Daisy had brought him on that night of storm he kept, because they seemed to embody something good and noble in the girl; but the letters she had written him were gone past recall, and he had thought himself cut loose from her forever—when, lo! there had come to him an awakening to the bitterness of the past in a letter from the once-loved wife, whose delicate handwriting made him grow faint and sick for a moment as he held the letter in his hand and read thereon:
"Guy Thornton, Esq.,
Brown Cottage,
Cuylerville, Mass.
Politeness of Mr. Wilkes."
Why had she written, and what had she to say to him, he wondered, and for a moment he felt tempted to tear the letter up and never know what it contained.
Better, perhaps, had he done so—better for him, and better for the fond new wife whose happiness was so perfect, and whose trust in his love so strong.
But he did not tear it up. He opened it and read—another chapter will tell us what he read.
CHAPTER VIII
DAISY'S LETTER
It was dated at Rouen, France, and it ran as follows:
"May 15, 18—.
"Dear, Dear Guy:—I am all alone here in Rouen; not a person near me who speaks English or knows a thing of Daisy Thornton as she was, or as she is now, for I am Daisy Thornton here. I have taken the old name again, and am an English governess in a wealthy French family; and this is how it came about: I have left Berlin and the party there and am earning my own living for three reasons, two of which concern cousin Tom and one of which has to do with you and that miserable settlement which has troubled me so much. I thought when I brought it back and tore it up that was the last of it, and did not know that by no act of mine could I give it to you until I was of age. Father missed it, of course, and I told him just the truth, and that I could never touch a penny of your money and I not your wife. He did not say a word, and I supposed it was all right, and never dreamed that I was actually clothed and fed on the interest of that ten thousand dollars. Father would not tell me and you did not write. Why didn't you, Guy? I expected a letter so long, and went to the office so many times and cried a little to myself, and said Guy has forgotten me.
"Then we went to South Africa—father, mother, and I—went to live with Tom. He wanted me before you did, you know, but I could not marry Tom. He is very rich now, and we lived with him; and then we all came to Europe and have traveled everywhere, and I have had teachers in everything, and people say I am a fine scholar and praise me much; and, Guy, I have tried to improve just to please you; believe me, Guy, just to please you. Tom was as a brother—a dear, good big bear of a brother whom I loved as such, but nothing more. Even were you dead, I could not marry Tom after knowing you; and I told him so when in Berlin he asked me for the sixth time to be his wife. I had to tell him something hard to make him understand, and when I saw how what I said hurt him cruelly and made him cry—because he was such a great, big, awkward, dear old fellow, I put my arms around his neck and cried with him, and tried to explain, and that made him ten times worse. Oh, if folks only would not love me so it would save me so much sorrow.
"You see, I tell you this because I want you to know exactly what I have been doing these five years, and that I have never thought of marrying Tom or anybody. I did not think I could. I felt that if I belonged to anybody it was you, and I cannot have Tom; and father was very angry and taunted me with living on Tom's money, which I did not know before, and he accidentally let out about the marriage settlement, and that hurt me worse than the other.
"Oh, Guy, how can I give it up? Surely there must be a way, now I am of age. I was so humiliated about it, and after all that passed between father and Tom and me I could not stay in Berlin and never be sure whose money was paying for my bread, and when I heard that Madame Lafarcade, a French lady, who had spent the winter in Berlin, was wanting an English governess for her children, I went to her, and, as the result, am here at this beautiful country-seat, just out of the city, earning my own living and feeling so proud to do it; only, Guy, there is an ache in my heart, a heavy, throbbing pain which will not leave me day or night, and this is how it came there.
"Mother wrote that you were about to marry Miss Hamilton. Letters from home brought her the news, which she thinks is true. Oh, Guy, it is not, it cannot be true! You must not go quite away from me now just as I am coming back to you. For, Guy, I am—or rather, I have come, and a great love, such as I never felt before, fills me full almost to bursting. I always liked you, Guy; but when we were married I did not know what it was to love—to feel my pulses quicken as they do just now at thought of you. If I had, how happy I could have made you, but I was a silly little girl, and married life was distasteful to me, and I was willing to be free, though always, way down in my heart, was something which protested against it, and if you knew just how I was influenced and led on insensibly to assent, you would not blame me so much. The word divorce had an ugly sound to me, and I did not like it, and I have always felt as if bound to you just the same. It would not be right for me to marry Tom, even if I wanted to, which I do not. I am yours, Guy—only yours, and all these years I have studied and improved for your sake, without any fixed idea, perhaps, as to what I expected or hoped. But when Tom spoke the last time it came to me suddenly what I was keeping myself for, and, just as a great body of water, when freed from its prison walls, rolls rapidly down a green meadow, so did a mighty love for you take possession of me and permeate my whole being until every nerve quivered for joy, and when Tom was gone I went away alone and cried more for my new happiness, I am afraid, than for him, poor fellow. And yet I pitied him, too; as I could not stay in Berlin after that I came away to earn money enough to take me back to you. For I am coming, or I was before I heard that dreadful news which I cannot believe.
"Is it true, Guy? Write and tell me it is not, and that you love me still and want me back, or, if it in part is true, and you are engaged to Julia, show her this letter and ask her to give you up, even if it is the very day before the wedding—for you are mine, and, sometimes, when the children are troublesome, and I am so tired and sorry and homesick, I have such a longing for a sight of your dear face, and think if I could only lay my aching head in your lap once more I should never know pain or weariness again.
"Try me, Guy. I will be so good and loving and make you so happy—and your sister, too—I was a bother to her once. I'll be a comfort now. Tell her so, please; tell her to bid me come. Say the word yourself, and, almost before you know it, I'll be there.
"Truly, lovingly, waitingly, your wife,
Daisy.
"P.S.—To make sure of this letter's safety I shall send it to New York by a friend, who will mail it to you.
"Again, lovingly.
Daisy Thornton."
This was Daisy's letter which Guy read with such a pang in his heart as he had never known before, even when he was smarting the worst from wounded love and disappointed hopes. Then he had said to himself, "I can never suffer again as I am suffering now," and now, alas, he felt how little he knew of that pain which rends the heart and takes the breath away.
"God help her!" he moaned, his first thought, his first prayer, for Daisy, the girl who called herself his wife, when just across the hall, only a few rods away, was the bride of a few hours—another woman who bore his name and called him her husband.
With a face as pale as ashes and hands which shook like palsied hands, he read again that pathetic cry from her whom he now felt he had never ceased to love; aye, whom he loved still, and whom, if he could, he would have taken to his arms so gladly and loved and cherished as the priceless thing he had once thought her to be. The first moments of agony which followed the reading of the letter were Daisy's wholly, and in bitterness of soul the man she had cast off and thought to take again cried out, as he stretched his arms toward an invisible form: "Too late, darling—too late. But had it come two months, one month, or even one week ago, I would—would—have gone to you over land and sea, but now—another is in your place, another is my wife; Julia—poor, innocent Julia. God help me to keep my vow; God help me in my need!"
He was praying now; Julia was the burden of his prayer. And as he prayed there came into his heart an unutterable tenderness and pity for her. He had thought he loved her an hour ago! he believed he loved her now, or, if he did not, he would be to her the kindest, most thoughtful of husbands, and never let her know, by word or sign, of the terrible pain he should always carry in his heart. "Darling Daisy; poor Julia!" was what to himself he designated the two women who were both so much to him. To the first his love, to the other his tender care, for she was worthy of it. She was noble, and good, and womanly; he said it many times, and tried to stop the rapid heart throbs and quiet himself down to meet her when she should come to him with her frank, open face and smile, in which there was no shadow of guile. She was coming now; he heard her voice in the hall speaking to her friend, and, thrusting the fatal letter in his pocket, he rose to his feet, and steadying himself upon the table stood waiting for her, as, flushed and eager, she came in.
"Guy—Guy—what is it? Are you sick?" she asked, alarmed at the pallor on his face and the strange expression of his eyes.
He was glad she had thus construed his agitation, and he answered that he was faint and a little sick.
"It came on suddenly, while I was sitting here. It will pass off as suddenly," he said, trying to smile, and holding out his hand, which she took at once in hers.
"Is it your heart, Guy? Do you think it is your heart?" she continued, as she rubbed and caressed his cold, clammy hand.
A shadow of pain or remorse flitted across Guy's face as he replied:
"I think it is my heart, but I assure you there is no danger—the worst is over. I am a great deal better."
And he was better with that fair girl beside him, her face glowing with excitement and her soft hands pressing his. Perfectly healthy herself, she must have imparted some life and vigor to him, for he felt his pulse grow steadier beneath her touch, and the blood flow more easily through his veins.
If only he could forget that crumpled letter which lay in his vest pocket and seemed to burn into his flesh; forget that and the young girl across the sea, watching for an answer and the one word "Come!" he might be happy yet, for Julia was one whom any man could love and be proud to call his wife. And Guy said to himself that he did love her, though not as he once loved Daisy, or as he could love her again were he free to do so, and because of that full love withheld he made a mental vow that his whole life should be given to her happiness, so that she might never know any care or sorrow from which he could shield her.
"And Daisy?" something whispered in his ear.
"I must and will forget her," he sternly answered, and the arm he had thrown around Julia, who was sitting with him upon the sofa, tightened its grasp until she winced and moved a little from him.
He was very talkative that evening, and asked his wife many questions about her friends and the shopping she wished to do, and the places they were to visit; and Julia, who had hitherto regarded him as a great, silent man, given to few words, wondered at the change, and watched the bright red spots on his cheeks, and thought how she would manage to have medical advice for that dreadful heart disease which had come like a nightmare to haunt her bridal days.
Next morning there came a Boston paper containing a notice of the marriage, and this Guy sent to Daisy, with only the faint tracing of a pencil to indicate the paragraph. "Better so than to write," he thought; though he longed to add the words, "Forgive me, Daisy; your letter came too late."
And so the paper was sent, and after a week or two Guy went back to his home in Cuylerville, and the blue rooms which Julia had fitted up for Daisy five years before became her own by right. And Fanny Thornton welcomed her warmly to the house, and by many little acts of thoughtfulness showed how glad she was to have her there. And Julia was very happy save when she remembered the heart disease, which she was sure Guy had, and for which he would not seek advice. "There was nothing the matter with his heart unless it were too full of love," he told her laughingly, and wondered to himself if in saying this to her he was guilty of a lie, inasmuch as his words misled her so completely.
After a time, however, there came a change, and thoughts of Daisy ceased to disturb him as they once had done. No one ever mentioned her to him, and since the receipt of her letter he had heard no tidings of her until six months after his marriage, when there came to him the ten thousand dollars, with all the interest which had accrued since the settlement first was made. There was no word from Daisy herself, but a letter from a lawyer in Berlin, who said all there was to say with regard to the business, but did not tell where Miss McDonald, as he called her, was.
Then Guy wrote to Daisy a letter of thanks, to which there came no reply, and as time went on the old wound began to heal, the grave to close again; and when, at last, one year after his marriage, they brought him a beautiful little baby girl and laid it in his arms, and then a few moments later let him into the room where the pale mother lay, he stooped over her and, kissing her fondly, said:
"I never loved you half as well as I do now."
It was a pretty child, with dark blue eyes, and hair in which there was a gleam of gold, and Guy, when asked what he would call her, said:
"Would you object to Margaret?"
Julia knew what he meant, and, like the true, noble woman she was, offered no objection to Guy's choice, knowing well who Margaret had been; and herself first gave the pet name of Daisy to her child, on whom Guy settled the ten thousand dollars sent to him by the Daisy over the sea.
CHAPTER IX
DAISY, TOM, AND THAT OTHER ONE
Watching, waiting, hoping, saying to herself in the morning, "It will come before night," and saying to herself at night, "It will be here to-morrow morning." Such was Daisy's life, even before she had a right to expect an answer to her letter.
Of the nature of Guy's reply she had no doubt. He had loved her once, he loved her still, and he would take her back of course. There was no truth in that rumor of another marriage. Possibly her father, whom she understood now better than she once had, had gotten the story up for the sake of inducing her through pique to marry Tom; but if so his plan would fail. Guy would write to her, "Come!" and she would go, and more than once she counted the contents of her purse and added to it the sum due her from Madame Lafarcade, and wondered if she would dare venture on the journey with so small a sum.
"You so happy and white, too, ce matin," her little pupil, Pauline, said to her one day, when they sat together in the garden, and Daisy was indulging in a fanciful picture of her meeting with Guy.
"Yes, I am happy," Daisy said, rousing from her reverie; "but I did not know I was pale—or white, as you term it—though, now I think of it, I do feel sick and faint. It's the heat, I guess. Oh! there is Max with the mail! He is coming this way! He has—he certainly has something for me!"
Daisy's cheeks were scarlet now, and her eyes were bright as stars as she went forward to meet the man who brought the letters to the house.
"Only a paper!—is there nothing more?" she asked in an unsteady voice, as she took the paper in her hand, and, recognizing Guy's handwriting, knew almost to a certainty what was before her.
"Oh, mon Dieu! vous êtes malade! J'apporterai un verre d'eau!" Pauline exclaimed, forgetting her English and adopting her mother tongue in her alarm at Daisy's white face and the peculiar tone of her voice.
"No, Pauline, stay; open the paper for me," Daisy said, feeling that it would be easier so than to read it herself, for she knew it was there, else he would never have sent her a paper and nothing more.
Delighted to be of some use, and a little gratified to open a foreign paper, Pauline tore off the wrapper, starting a little at Daisy's quick, sharp cry as she made a rent across the handwriting.
"Look, you are tearing into my name, which he wrote," Daisy said, and then remembering herself, she sank back into her seat in the garden chair, while Pauline wondered what harm there was in tearing an old soiled wrapper, and why her governess should take it so carefully in her hand and roll it up as if it had been a living thing.
There were notices of new books, and a runaway match in high life, and a suicide on Summer Street, and a golden wedding in Roxbury, and the latest fashions from Paris, into which Pauline plunged with avidity while Daisy listened like one in a dream, asking when the fashions were exhausted: "Is that all? Are there no deaths or marriages?"
Pauline had not thought of that—she would see, and she hunted through the columns till she found Guy's pencil mark, and read:
"Married, this morning, at St. Paul's Church, by the Rev. Dr. ——, assisted by the rector, Guy Thornton, Esq., of Cuylerville, to Miss Julia Hamilton, of this city."
"Yes, yes; it's very hot here, isn't it? I think I will go in," Daisy said, her fingers working nervously with the bit of paper she held.
But Pauline was too intent on the name of Thornton to hear what Daisy said, and she asked: "Is Mr. Thornton your friend?"
It was a natural enough question, and Daisy roused herself to answer it, and said quickly: "He is the son of my husband's father."
"Oh, oui," Pauline rejoined, a little mystified as to the exact relationship existing between Guy Thornton and her teacher's husband, whom she supposed was dead, as Daisy had only confided to madame the fact of a divorce.
"What date is the paper?" Daisy asked, and on being told she said softly to herself: "I see, it was too late."
There was in her mind no doubt as to what the result would have been had her letter been in time; no doubt of Guy's preference for her; no regret that she had written to him, except that the knowledge that she loved him at last might make him wretched with thinking "what might have been," and with the bitter pain which cut her heart like a knife there was mingled a pity for Guy, who would perhaps suffer more than she did, if that were possible. She never once thought of retribution, or of murmuring against her fate, but accepted it meekly, albeit she staggered under the load and grew faint as she thought of the lonely life before her, and she so young.
Slowly she went back to her room, while Pauline walked up and down the garden trying to make out the relationship between the newly married Thornton and her teacher.
"The son of her husband's father?" she repeated, until at last a meaning dawned upon her, and she said: "Then he must be her brother-in-law; but why didn't she say so? Maybe, though, that is the English way of putting it," and, having thus settled the matter, Pauline joined her mother, who was asking for Mrs. Thornton.
"Gone to her room, and her brother-in-law is married. It was marked in a paper and I read it to her, and she's sick," Pauline said, without, however, in the least connecting the sickness with the marriage.
Daisy did not come down to dinner that night, and the maid who called her the next morning reported her as ill and acting very strangely. Through the summer a malarial fever had prevailed to some extent in and about Rouen, and the physician whom Madame Lafarcade summoned to the sick girl expressed a fear that she was coming down with it, and ordered her kept as quiet as possible.
"She seems to have something weighing on her mind. Has she heard any bad news from home?" he asked, as in reply to his question where her pain was the worst Daisy always answered:
"It reached him too late—too late, and I am so sorry."
Madame knew of no bad news, she said, and then as she saw the foreign paper lying on the table, she took it up, and, guided by the pencil marks, read the notice of Guy Thornton's marriage, and that gave her the key at once to Daisy's mental agitation. Daisy had been frank with her and told her as much of her story as was necessary, and she knew that the Guy Thornton married to Julia Hamilton had once called Daisy his wife.
"Excuse me, she is, or she has something on her mind, I suspect," she said to the physician, who was still holding Daisy's hand and looking anxiously at her flushed cheeks and bright, restless eyes.
"I thought so," he rejoined, "and it aggravates all the symptoms of her fever. I shall call again to-night."
He did call and found his patient worse, and the next day he asked Madame Lafarcade:
"Has she friends in this country? If so, they ought to know."
A few hours later, and in his lodgings at Berlin, Tom read the following dispatch:
"Mrs. Thornton is dangerously ill. Come at once."
It was directed to Mr. McDonald, who with his wife had been on a trip to Russia, and was expected daily. Feeling intuitively that it concerned Daisy, Tom had opened it, and without a moment's hesitation packed his valise, and, leaving a note for the McDonalds when they should return, started for Rouen. Daisy did not know him, and in her delirium she said things to him and of him which hurt him cruelly. Guy was her theme, and the letter which went "too late, too late." Then she would beg of Tom to go for Guy, to bring him to her and tell him how much she loved him and how good she would be if he would take her back.
"Father wants me to marry Tom," she said in a whisper, and Tom's heart almost stood still as he listened; "and Tom wanted me, too, but I couldn't, you know, even if he were worth his weight in gold. I could not love him. Why, he's got red hair, and such great freckles on his face, and big feet and hands with freckles on them. Do you know Tom?"
"Yes, I know him," Tom answered sadly, forcing down a choking sob, while the "big hand with the great freckles on it" smoothed the golden hair tenderly and pushed it back from the burning brow.
"Don't talk any more, Daisy; it tires you so," he said, as he saw her about to speak again.
But Daisy was not to be stopped, and she went on:
"Tom is good, though; so good, but awkward, and I like him ever so much, but I can't be his wife. I cannot. I cannot."
"He doesn't expect it now, or want it," came huskily from Tom, while Daisy quickly asked:
"Doesn't he?"
"No, never any more; so, put it from your mind and try to sleep," Tom said, and again the freckled hands smoothed the tumbled pillows and wiped the sweat drops from Daisy's face, while all the time the great kind heart was breaking, and the hot tears were rolling down the sun-burned face Daisy thought was so ugly.
Tom had heard from Madame Lafarcade of Guy's marriage, and, like her, understood why Daisy's fever ran so high and her mind was in such a turmoil. But for himself he knew there was no hope, and with a feeling of death in his heart he watched by her day and night, yielding his place to no one, and saying to madame when she remonstrated with him and bade him care for his own health:
"It does not matter to me. I would rather die than not."
Daisy was better when her mother came—saved, the doctor said, more by Tom's care and nursing than by his own skill, and then Tom gave up his post and never went near her unless she asked for him. His "red hair and freckled face" were constantly in his mind, making him loathe the very sight of himself.
"She cannot bear my looks, and I will not force myself upon her," he said; and so he stayed away, but surrounded her with every luxury money could buy, and, as soon as she was able, had her removed to a pretty little cottage which he rented and fitted up for her, and where she would be more at home and quieter than at Madame Lafarcade's.
And there, one morning when he called to inquire for her, he, too, was smitten down with the fever which he had taken with Daisy's breath the many nights and days he watched her without rest or sufficient food. There was a faint, followed by a long interval of unconsciousness, and when he came to himself he was in Daisy's own room, lying on Daisy's little bed, and Daisy herself was bending anxiously over him with a flush on her white cheeks and a soft, pitiful look in her blue eyes.
"What is it? Where am I?" he asked, and Daisy replied:
"You are here in my room—on my bed; and you've got the fever, and I'm going to take care of you, and I'm so glad. Not glad you have the fever," she added, as she met his look of wonder, "but glad I can repay in part all you did for me, you dear, noble Tom! And you are not to talk," and she laid her small hand on his mouth as she saw him about to speak. "I am strong enough; the doctor says so, and I'd do it if he didn't, for you are the best, the truest friend I have."
She was rubbing his hot, feverish hands, and though the touch of her cool, soft fingers was so delicious, poor Tom thought of the big freckles so obnoxious to the little lady, and, drawing his hands from her grasp, hid them beneath the clothes. Gladly, too, would he have covered his face and hair from her sight, but this he could not do and breathe, but he begged her to leave him and send someone in her place. But Daisy would not listen to him.
He had nursed her day and night, she said, and she should stay with him, and she did, through three weeks, when Tom's fever ran higher than hers had done, because there was more for it to feed upon, and when Tom in his ravings talked of things which made her heart ache with a new and different pain from that already there.
At first there were low whisperings and incoherent mutterings, and when Daisy asked him to whom he was talking he answered her:
"To that other one over in the corner. Don't you see him? He is waiting for me till the fever eats me up. There's a lot of me to eat, I'm so big and awkward, overgrown—that's what Daisy said. You know Daisy, don't you? a dainty little creature, with such delicacy of sight and touch! She doesn't like red hair; she said so when we thought the man in the corner was waiting for her, and she doesn't like my freckled face and hands—big hands, she said they were, and yet how they have worked like horses for her! Oh, Daisy! Daisy! I have loved her ever since she was a child, and I drew her to school on my sled and cut her doll's head off to tease her. Take me quick, please, out of her sight, where my freckled face won't offend her."
He was talking now to that other one, the man in the corner, who, like some grim sentinel, stood there day and night, while Daisy kept her tireless watch and Tom talked on and on—never to her—but always to the other one, the man in the corner, whom he begged to take him away.
"Bring out your boat," he would say. "It's time we were off, for the tide is at its height, and the river is running so fast. I thought once it would take Daisy, but it left her, and I am glad. When I am fairly over and there's nothing but my big, freckled hulk left, cover my face and don't let her look at me, though I'll be white then, not red. Oh, Daisy, Daisy, my darling, you hurt me so cruelly!"
Those were terrible days for Daisy, but she never flinched from her post, and stood resolutely between the sick man and that other one in the corner until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow was not so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom. His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, but weak as a child, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands which lay outside the counterpane and seemed to trouble him, for there was a wistful, pleading look in his gray eyes as they went from the hands to Daisy, while his lips whispered faintly, "Cover."
She understood him, and with a rain of tears spread the sheet over them, and then on her knees beside him, said to him amid her sobs:
"Forgive me, Tom, for what I did when I was crazy. You are not repulsive to me. You are the truest, best, and dearest friend I ever had, and I—I—oh, Tom, I wish I had never been born."
Daisy did not stay by Tom that night. There was no necessity for it, and she was so worn and weary with watching that the physician declared she must have absolute rest or be sick again herself. So she remained away, and in a little room by herself fought the fiercest battle she had ever fought, and on her knees, with tears and bitter cries, asked for help to do right. Not for help to know what was right. She felt sure that she did know that, only the flesh was weak, and there were chords of love still clinging to a past she scarcely dared think of now lest her courage should fail her. Guy was lost to her forever; it was a sin even to think of him as she must think if she thought at all, and so she strove to put him from her—to tear his image from her heart and put another in its place, even Tom, whom she pitied so much, and whom she could make so happy.
"No matter for myself," she said. "No matter what I feel, or how sharp the pain in my heart, if I only keep it there and never let Tom know. I can make him happy, and I will."
There was no wavering after that decision—no regret for the "might have been," but her face was white as snow, and about the pretty mouth there was a quivering of the muscles as if the words were hard to utter when next day she went to Tom, and, sitting down beside him, asked how he was feeling. His eyes brightened a little when he saw her, but there was a look on his face which made Daisy's pulse quicken with a nameless fear, and his voice was very weak as he replied:
"They say I am better; but, Daisy, I know the time is near for me to go. I shall never get well, nor do I wish to, though life is not a gift to be thrown away easily, and on some accounts mine has been a happy one, but the life beyond is better, and I feel sure I am going to it."
"Oh, Tom, Tom, don't talk so! You must not leave me now!" Daisy cried, all her composure giving way as she fell on her knees beside him, and, taking both his hands in hers, wet them with her tears. "Tom," she began, when she could speak. "I have been bad to you so often, and worried and wounded you so much; but I am sorry, so sorry, and I've thought it all over and made up my mind, and I want you to get well and ask me that—that—question again—you have asked so many times—and—and—Tom—I will say—yes—to it now, and try so hard to make you happy."
Her face was crimson as if with shame, and she dared not look at Tom until his silence startled her. Then she stole a glance at his face and met an expression which prompted her to go on recklessly:
"Don't look so incredulous, Tom. I am in earnest. I mean what I say, though it may be unmaidenly to say it. Try me, Tom; I will make you happy, and, though at first I cannot love you as I did Guy when I sent him that letter, the love will come, born of your great goodness and kindness of heart. Try me, Tom, won't you?"
She kissed his thin, white hands where the freckles shone more plainly than ever, and which Tom tried to free from her; she held them fast and looked steadily into the face, which shone for a moment with a joy so great that it was almost handsome, and when she said again, "Will you, Tom?" the pale lips parted with an effort to speak, but no sound was audible, only the chin quivered, and the tears stood in his gray eyes as he battled with the great temptation. Should he accept the sacrifice? Ought he to join her life with his? Could she ever learn to love him? No, she could not, and he must put her from him, even though she came asking him to take her. Thus Tom decided, and, turning his face to the wall, he said, with a choking sob:
"No, Daisy—no. It cannot be. Such happiness is not for me now. I must not think of it. Thank you, darling, just the same. It was kind in you and well meant, but it cannot be. I could not make you happy. I am not like Guy; never can be like him, and you would hate me after a while, and the chain would hurt you cruelly. No, Daisy, I love you too well—and yet, Daisy—Daisy—why do you tempt me so—if it could have been!"
He turned suddenly toward her, and, winding both his arms around her, drew her to him in a quick, passionate embrace, crying piteously over her, and saying:
"My darling, my darling, if it could have been, but it's too late now—God is good and will take me to himself. I thought of it before I was sick, and believe I am a better man, and Jesus is my friend, and I am going to him. I'm glad you told me what you have. It will make my last days happier, and when I am gone you will find that I did well with you."
He put her from him then, for faintness and great exhaustion were stealing over him, and that was the last that ever passed between him and Daisy on the subject which all his life had occupied so much of his thoughts. The fever had left him, it is true, but he seemed to have no vital force or rallying power, and after a few days it was clear even to Daisy that Tom's life was drawing to a close. "The man in the corner" was there again waiting for his prey, and would not leave this time until he bore with him an immortal soul. And Tom was very happy. He had thought much of death and what lay beyond during those days when Daisy's life hung in the balance, and the result of the much thinking had been a full surrender of himself to God, who did not forsake him when the dark, cold river was closing over him.
Calm and peaceful as the setting of the summer sun was the close of his life, and up to the last he retained his consciousness, with the exception of a few hours, when his mind wandered a little, and he talked to "that other one," whom no one could see but whose presence all felt so vividly.
"It would have been pleasant, and for a minute I was tempted to take her at her word," he said; "but when I remembered my hair and face and hands, and how she liked nothing which was not comely, I would not run the chance of being hated for my repulsive looks. Poor little Daisy! she meant it all right, and I bless her for it, and am glad she said it, but she must not look at me when I'm dead. The freckles she dislikes so much will show plainer then. Don't let her come near, or, if she must, cover me up—cover me up—cover me from her sight."
Thus he talked, and Daisy, who knew what he meant, wept silently by his side, and kept the sheet closely drawn over the hands he was so anxious to have hidden from her view. He knew her at last, and bade her a long farewell, and told her she had been to him the dearest thing in life, and Daisy's arm was round him, supporting him upon the pillow, and Daisy's hand wiped the death moisture from his brow, and Daisy's lips were pressed to his dying face, and her ear caught his last faint whisper:
"God bless you, darling! I am going home! Good-by!"
"The man in the corner—that other one"—had claimed him, and Daisy put gently from her only the lifeless form which had once been Tom.
They buried him there in France on a sunny slope, where the grass was green and the flowers blossomed in the early spring, and when Mr. McDonald examined his papers he found to his surprise that, with the exception of an annuity to himself and several legacies to different charitable institutions, Tom had left to Daisy his entire fortune, stipulating only that one-tenth of all her income should be yearly given back to God, who had a right to it.
CHAPTER X
She took that name again, and with it, also, Margaret, feeling that Daisy was far too girlish an appellation for one who clad herself almost in widow's weeds, and felt, when she stood at poor Tom's grave, more wretched and desolate than many a wife has felt when her husband was put from her sight.
Tom had meant to make her parents independent of her so that she need not have them with her unless she chose to do so, for, knowing Mr. McDonald as he did, he thought she would be happier alone, but God so ordered it that within three months after poor Tom's death they made another grave beside his, and Daisy and her mother were alone.
It was spring-time now, and the two desolate women bade adieu to their dead, and made their way to England, and from there to Scotland, where among the heather hills they passed the summer in the utmost seclusion.
Here Daisy had ample time for thought, which dwelt mostly upon the past and the happiness she cast away when she consented to the sundering of the tie which had bound her to Guy Thornton.
"Oh, how could I have been so foolish and so weak," she said, as, with intense contempt for herself, she read over the journal she had kept at Elmwood during the first weeks of her married life.
Guy had said it would be pleasant for her to refer to its pages in after years, little dreaming with what sore anguish of heart poor Daisy would one day weep over the senseless things recorded there.
"Can it be I was ever that silly little fool?" she said bitterly, as she finished her journal. "And how could Guy love me as I know he did. Oh, if I but had the chance again, I would make him so happy! Oh, Guy, Guy—my husband still—mine more than Julia's, if you could know how much I love you now; nor can I feel it wrong to do so, even though I never hope to see your face again. Guy, Guy, the world is so desolate, and I am young, only twenty-three, and life is so long and dreary with nothing to live for or to do. I wish almost that I were dead like Tom, only I dare not think I should go to heaven where he has gone."
In her sorrow and loneliness Daisy was fast sinking into an unhealthy, morbid state of mind from which nothing seemed to arouse her.
"Nothing to live for—nothing to do," was her lament until one golden September day, when there came a turning point in her life, and she found there was something to do.
There was no regular service that Sunday in the church where she usually attended, and as the day was fine and she was far too restless to remain at home, she proposed to her mother that they walk to a little chapel about a mile away, where a young Presbyterian clergyman was to preach.
She had heard much of his eloquence, and as his name was McDonald, he might possibly be some distant relative. Inasmuch as her father was of Scotch descent she felt a double interest in him, and with her mother was among the first who entered the little, humble building and took a seat upon one of the hard, uncomfortable benches near the pulpit.
The speaker was young—about Tom's age—and with a look on his florid face and a sound in his voice so like that of the dead man that Daisy half started to her feet when he first took his stand in front of her and announced the opening hymn. His text was: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" and so well did he handle it, and so forcible were his gestures and eloquent his style of delivery, that Daisy listened to him spellbound, her eyes fixed intently upon his glowing face and her ears drinking in every word he uttered.
After dwelling for a time upon the loiterers in God's vineyard, the idlers from choice, who worked not for lack of an inclination to do so, he spoke next of the class whose whole life was a weariness for want of something to do, and to these he said: "Have you never read how, when the disciples rebuked the grateful woman for wasting upon her Master's head what might have been sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor, Jesus said unto them, 'The poor ye have with you always,' and is it not so, my hearers? Are there no poor at your door to be fed, no hungry little ones to be cared for out of the abundance which God has only loaned you for this purpose? Are there no wretched homes which you can make happier, no aching hearts which a kind word would cheer? Remember there is a blessing pronounced for even the cup of cold water, and how much greater shall be the reward of those who, forgetting themselves, seek the good of others and turn not away from the needy and the desolate. See to it, then, you to whom God has given much. See to it that you sit not down in idle ease, wasting upon yourself alone the goods designed for others, for to whom much is given of him much shall be required."
Attracted, perhaps, by the deep black of Daisy's attire, or the something about her which marked her as different from the mass of his hearers, the speaker had seemed to address the last of his remarks directly to her, and had the dead Tom risen from his grave and spoken with her face to face, she could hardly have been more affected than she was. The resemblance was so striking and the voice so like her cousin's that she felt as if she had received a message direct from him; or, if not from him, she surely had from God, whose almoner she henceforth would be.
That day was the beginning of a new life to her. Thenceforth there must be no more repining; no more idle, listless days, no more wishing for something to do. There was work all around her, and she found it and did it with a will—first, from a sense of duty, and at last for the real pleasure it afforded her to carry joy and gladness to the homes where want and sorrow had sat so long.
Hearing that there were sickness and destitution among the miners in Peru, where her possessions were, she went early in November, and many a wretched heart rejoiced because of her, and many a lip blessed the beautiful lady whose coming among them was productive of so much good. Better dwellings, better wages, a church, a schoolhouse followed in her footsteps, and then, when everything there seemed in good working order, there came over her a longing for her native country, and the next autumn found her in New York, where in a short space of time everybody knew of the beautiful Miss McDonald, who was a millionaire and who owned the fine house and grounds in the upper part of the city not far from the Park.
Here society claimed her again, and Daisy, who had no morbid fancies now, yielded in part to its claims and became, if not a belle, a favorite, whose praises were in every mouth. But chiefly was she known and loved by the poor and the despised whom she daily visited, and to whom her presence was like the presence of an angel.
"You do look lovely and sing so sweet; I know there's nothing nicer in heaven," said a little piece of deformity to her one day as it lay dying in her arms. "I'se goin' to heaven, which I shouldn't have done if you'se hadn't gin me the nice bun and told me of Jesus. I loves him now, and I'll tell him how you bringed me to him."
Such was the testimony of one dying child, and it was dearer to Daisy than all the words of flattery ever poured into her ear. As she had brought that little child to God, so she would bring others, and she made her work among the children especially, finding there her best encouragement and greatest success.
Once when Guy Thornton chanced to be in the city and driving in the Park, he saw a singular sight—a pair of splendid bays arching their graceful necks proudly, their silver-tipped harness flashing in the sunlight, and their beautiful mistress radiant with happiness as she sat in her large open carriage, not in the midst of gayly dressed friends, but amid a group of poorly clad, pale-faced little ones, to whom the Park was a paradise, and she was the presiding angel.
"Look—that's Miss McDonald," Guy's friend said to him, "the greatest heiress in New York, and I reckon the one who does the most good. Why, she supports more old people and children and runs more ragged schools than any half-dozen men in the city, and I don't suppose there's a den in New York where she has not been, and never once, I'm told, was she insulted, for the vilest of them stand between her and harm. Once a miscreant on Avenue A knocked a boy down for accidentally stepping in a pool of water and sprinkling her white dress in passing. Friday nights she has a reception for these people, and you ought to see how well they behave. At first they were noisy and rough, and she had to have the police, but now they are quiet and orderly as you please. Perhaps you'd like to go to one. I know Miss McDonald, and will take you with me."
Guy said he should not be in town on Friday, as he must return to Cuylerville the next day, and with a feeling he could not quite analyze, he turned to look at the turnout which always excited so much attention. But it was not so much at the handsome bays and the bevy of queer-looking children he gazed as at the little lady in their midst, clad in velvet and ermine, with a long white feather falling among the curls of her bright hair. When Daisy first entered upon her new life she had affected a nun-like garb as one most appropriate, but after a little child said to her once, "I'se don't like your black gown all the time. I likes sumptin' bright and pretty," she changed her mind and gave freer scope to her natural good taste and love of what was becoming. And the result showed the wisdom of the change, for the children and inmates of the dens she visited, accustomed only to the squalor and ugliness of their surroundings, hailed her more rapturously than they had done before, and were never weary of talking of the beautiful woman who was not afraid to wear her pretty clothes into their wretched houses, which, lest she should soil and defile them, gradually grew more clean and tidy for her sake.
"It wasn't for the likes of them gownds to trail through sich truck," Bridget O'Donohue said, and so, on the days when Daisy was expected, she scrubbed the floor, which, until Daisy's advent had not known water for years, and rubbed and polished the one wooden chair kept sacred for the lady's use.
Other women, too, caught Biddy's spirit and scrubbed their floors and their children's faces on the day when Miss McDonald was expected to call, and when she came her silk dress and pretty shawl were watched narrowly lest by some chance a speck of dirt should fasten on them, and her becoming dress and handsome face were commented on and remembered as some fine show which had been seen for nothing. Especially did the children like her in her bright dress, and the velvet and ermine in which she was clad when Guy met her in the Park were worn more for their sakes than for the gaze of those to whom such things were no novelties. To Guy she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her before, and there was in his heart a smothered feeling as of a want of something lost, as her carriage disappeared from view and he lost sight of the fair face and form which had once been his own.
The world was going well with Guy, for though Dick Trevylian had paid no part of the hundred thousand dollars, and he still lived in the brown cottage on the hill, he was steadily working his way to competency, if not to wealth. His profession as a lawyer, which he had resumed, yielded him a remunerative income, while his contributions to different magazines were much sought after, so that to all human appearance he was prosperous and happy. Prosperous in his business, and happy in his wife and little ones, for there was now a second child, a baby Guy of six weeks old, and when on his return from New York the father bent over the cradle of his boy and kissed his baby face, that image seen in the Park seemed to fade away, and the caresses he gave to Julia had in them no faithlessness or insincerity. She was a noble woman, and had made him a good wife, and he loved her truly, though with a different, less absorbing, less ecstatic love than he had given to Daisy. But he did not tell her of Miss McDonald. Indeed, that name was never spoken now, nor was any reference ever made to her except when little Daisy asked where was the lady for whom she was named, and why she did not send her a doll.
"I hardly think she knows there is such a chit as you," Guy said to her once, when sorely pressed on the subject, and then the child wondered how that could be, and wished she was big enough to write her a letter and ask her to come and see her.
Every day after that little Daisy played "make b'lieve Miss McDolly" was there, said McDolly being represented by a bundle of shawls tied up to look like a figure and seated in a chair. At last there came to the cottage a friend of Julia's, a young lady from New York, who knew Daisy, and who, while visiting in Cuylerville, accidentally learned that she was the divorced wife of whose existence she knew, but of whom she had never spoken to Mrs. Thornton. Hearing the little one talking one day to Miss McDolly and asking her why she never wrote nor sent a "sing" to her sake-name, the young lady said:
"Why don't you send Miss McDonald a letter? You tell me what to say and I'll write it down for you, but don't let mamma know till you see if you get anything."
The little girl's fancy was caught at once with the idea, and the following letter was the result:
"Brown Cottage, 'Most Tissmas time.
"Dear Miss McDolly:—I'se an 'ittle dirl named for you, I is, Daisy Thornton, an' my papa is Mr. Guy, an' mam-ma is Julia, and 'ittle brother is Guy, too—only he's a baby, and vomits up his dinner and ties awfully sometimes; an' I knows anoder 'ittle girl named for somebody who dives her 'sings,' a whole lot, an' why doesn't youse dive me some, when I'se your sake-name, an' loves you ever so much, and why'se you never turn here to see me. I wish you would. I ask papa is you pretty, an' he tell me yes, bootiful, an' every night I p'ays for you and say God bress papa an' mam-ma, an' auntie, and Miss McDolly, and 'ittle brodder, an' make Daisy a dood dirl, and have Miss McDolly send her sumptin' for Tissmas, for Christ's sake. An' I wants a turly headed doll that ties and suts her eyes when she does to seep, and wears a shash and a pairesol, and anodder bigger dolly to be her mam-ma and pank her when she's naughty, an' I wants an 'ittle fat-iron, an' a cookstove, an' wash-board. I'se dot a tub. An' I wants some dishes an' a stenshun table, an' 'ittle bedstead, an' yuffled seets, an' pillars, an' blue silk kilt, an' ever so many sings which papa cannot buy, 'cause he hasn't dot the money. Vill you send them, Miss McDolly, pese, an' your likeness, too. I wants to see how you looks. My mam-ma is pretty, with black hair an' eyes, but she's awful old—I dess. How old is you? Papa's hair is some dray, an' his viskers, too. My eyes is bue.
"Yours respectfully,
Daisy Thornton."
Miss McDonald had been shopping since ten in the morning, and her carriage had stood before the dry-goods stores, and toy-shops, and candy stores, while bundle after bundle had been deposited on the cushions, and others ordered to be sent. But she was nearly through now, and just as it was beginning to grow dark in the streets she bade her coachman drive home, where dinner was waiting for her in the dining room, and her mother was waiting in the parlor. Mrs. McDonald was not very well, and had kept her room all day, but she was better that night, and came down to dine with her daughter. The December wind was cold and raw, and a few snowflakes fell on Daisy's hat and cloak as she ran up the steps and entered the warm, bright room, which seemed so pleasant when contrasted with the dreariness without.
"Oh, how nice this is, and how tired and cold I am!" she said, as she bent over the blazing fire.
"Are you through with your shopping?" Mrs. McDonald asked, in a half-querulous tone, as if she did not altogether approve of her daughter's acts.
"Yes, all through, except a shawl for old Sarah Mackie and a few more toys for Biddy Warren's blind boy," Daisy said, and her mother replied: "Well, I'm sure I shall be glad for your sake when it is over. You'll make yourself sick, and you are nearly worn out now, remembering everybody in New York."
"Not quite everybody, mother," Daisy rejoined cheerfully; "only those whom everybody forgets—the poor, whom we have with us always. Don't you remember the text and the little kirk where we heard it preached from? But come—dinner is ready, and I am hungry, I assure you."
She led the way to the handsome dining room, and took her seat at the table, looking, in her dark street dress, as her mother had said, pale and worn, as if the shopping had been very hard upon her. And yet it was not so much the fatigue of the day which affected her as the remembrance of a past she did not often dare to recall.
It was at Christmas time years ago that she first met with Guy, and all the day long, as she turned over piles of shawls and delaines and flannels, or ordered packages of candy and bonbons and dollies by the dozen, her thoughts had been with Guy and the time she met him at Leiter and Field's and he walked home with her. It seemed to her years and years ago, and the idea of having lived so long made her feel old, and tired, and worn. But the nice dinner and the cheer of the room revived her, and her face looked brighter and more rested when she returned to the parlor and began to show her mother her purchases.
Daisy did not receive many letters except on business, and as these usually came in the morning she did not think to ask if the postman had left her anything; and so it was not until her mother had retired and she was about going to her own room that she saw a letter lying on the hall-stand. Miss Barker, who had instigated the letter, had never written to her more than once or twice, and then only short notes, and she did not recognize the handwriting at once. But she saw it was postmarked Cuylerville, and a sick, faint sensation crept over her as she wondered who had sent it, and if it contained news of Guy. It was long since she had heard of him—not, in fact, since poor Tom's death, and she knew nothing of the little girl called for herself, and thus had no suspicion of the terrible shock awaiting her, when at last she broke the seal. Miss Barker had written a few explanatory lines, which were as follows:
"Cuylerville, Dec., 18—.
"Dear Miss McDonald—Since saying good-by to you last June, and going off to the mountains and seaside, while you like a good Samaritan stayed in the hot city to look after 'your people,' I have flitted hither and thither until at last I floated out to Cuylerville to visit Mrs. Guy Thornton, who is a friend and former schoolmate of mine. Here—not in the house, but in town—I have heard a story which surprised me not a little, and I now better understand that sad look I have so often seen on your sweet face without at all suspecting the cause.
"Dear friend, pardon me, won't you, for the liberty I have taken since knowing your secret? You would, I am sure, if you only knew what a dear, darling little creature Mr. Thornton's eldest child is. Did you know he had called her Daisy for you? He has, and with her blue eyes and bright auburn hair, she might pass for your very own, with the exception of her nose, which is decidedly retroussé. She is three years old, and the most precocious little witch you ever saw. What think you of her making up a bundle of shawls and aprons and christening it Miss McDolly, her name for you, and talking to it as if it were really the famous and beautiful woman she fancies it to be? She is your 'sake-name,' she says, and before I knew the facts of the case, I was greatly amused by her talk to the bundle of shawls which she reproached for never having sent her anything. When I asked Julia (that's Mrs. Thornton) who Miss McDolly was, she merely answered, 'The lady for whom Daisy was named,' and that was all I knew until the gossips enlightened me, when, without a word to anyone, I resolved upon a liberty which I thought I could venture to take with you. I suggested the letter which I inclose and which I wrote exactly as the words came from the little lady's lips. Neither Mr. Thornton nor his wife know aught of the letter, nor will they unless you respond, for the child will keep her own counsel, I am well assured.
"Again forgive me if I have done wrong, and believe me, as ever,
"Yours, sincerely,
Ella Barker."
Daisy's face was as pale as ashes as she read Miss Barker's letter, and then snatching up the other, devoured its contents almost at a glance, while her breath came in panting gasps and her heart seemed trying to burst through her throat. She could neither move nor cry out for a moment, but she sat like one turned into stone with that sense of suffocation oppressing her, and that horrible pain in her heart. She had thought the grave was closed, the old wound healed by time and silence; and now a little child had torn it open, and it was bleeding and throbbing again with a pang such as she had never felt before, while there crept over her such a feeling of desolation and loneliness, a want of something unpossessed, as few have ever experienced.
But for her own foolishness that sweet little child might have been hers, she thought, as her heart went after the little one with an indescribable yearning which made her stretch out her arms as if to take the baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy had called it for her, and that touched her more than anything else. He had not forgotten her then. She had never supposed he had, but to be thus assured of it was very sweet, and as she thought of it and read again little Daisy's letter, the tightness about her heart and the choking sensation in her throat began to give way, and one after another the great tears rolled down her cheeks, slowly at first, but gradually faster and faster, until they fell in torrents and a tempest of sobs shook her slight frame as with her head bowed upon her dressing-table she gave vent to her grief. It seemed to her she never could stop crying or grow calm again, for as often as she thought of the touching words, "I p'ays for you," there came a fresh burst of sobs and tears, until at last nature was exhausted, and with a low moan Daisy sank upon her knees and tried to pray, the words which first sprang to her lips framing themselves into thanks that somewhere in the world there was one who prayed for her and loved her, too, even though the love might have for its object merely dolls and candies and toys. And these the child should have in such abundance, and Miss McDonald found herself longing for the morrow in which to begin again the shopping she had thought was nearly ended.
It was in vain next day that her mother remonstrated against her going out, pleading her white, haggard face and the rawness of the day. Daisy was not to be detained at home, and before ten o'clock she was down on Broadway, and the dolly with the "shash" and "pairesol" which she had seen the day before under its glass case was hers for twenty-five dollars, and the plainer bit of china, who was to be dollie's mother and perform the parental duty of "panking her when she was naughty," was also purchased, and the dishes and the table and stove and bedstead, with ruffled sheets and pillow-cases and blue satin spread and the washboard and clothes bars and tiny wringer, with divers others toys, were bought with a disregard of expense which made Miss McDonald a wonder to those who waited on her. Such a Christmas box was seldom sent to a child as that which Daisy packed in her room that night, with her mother looking on and wondering what Sunday-school was to be the recipient of all those costly presents and suggesting that cheaper articles would have answered just as well.
Everything the child had asked for was there except the picture. That Daisy dared not send, lest it should look too much like thrusting herself upon Guy's notice and wound Julia, his wife.
Daisy was strangely pitiful in her thoughts of Julia, who would in her turn have pitied her for her delusion could she have known how sure she was that but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have chosen his first love in preference to any other.
And it was well that each believed herself first in the affection of the man to whom Daisy wanted so much to send something as a proof of her unalterable love. They were living still in the brown cottage; they were not able to buy Elmwood back. Oh, if she only dared to do it, and could do it, how gladly her Christmas gift should be the handsome place which they had been so proud of! But that would hardly do; Guy might not like to be so much indebted to her; he was proud and sensitive in many points, and so she abandoned the plan for the present, thinking that by and by she would purchase and hold it as a gift to her namesake on her bridal day. That will be better, she said, as she put the last article in the box and saw it leave the door, directed to Guy Thornton's care.
Great was the surprise at the brown cottage, when, on the very night before Christmas, the box arrived and was deposited in the dining room, where Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy gathered eagerly around it, the latter exclaiming:
"I knows where it tum from, I do. My sake-name, Miss McDolly, send it, see did. I writ and ask her would see an' she hab."
"What!" Guy said, as, man-like, he began deliberately to untie every knot in the string which his wife in her impatience would have cut at once. "What does the child mean? Do you know, Julia?"
"I do. I'll explain," Miss Barker said, and in as few words as possible she told what she had done, while Julia listened with a very grave face, and Guy was pale even to his lips as he went on untying the string and opening the box.
There was a letter lying on the top which he handed to Julia, who steadied her voice to read aloud:
"Darling little sake-name Daisy: Your letter made Miss McDolly very happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a shash, and the other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit you. God bless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of
"Miss McDonald."
After that the grave look left Julia's face, and Guy was not quite so pale, as he took out one after another the articles which little Daisy hailed with rapturous shouts and exclamations of delight.
"Oh, isn't she dood, and don't you love her, papa?" she said, while Guy replied:
"Yes, it was certainly very kind in her, and generous. No other little girl in town will have such a box as this."
He was very pale, and there was a strange look in his eyes, but his voice was perfectly natural as he spoke, and one who knew nothing of his former relations to Miss McDonald would never have suspected how his whole soul was moved by this gift to his little daughter.
"You must write and thank her," he said to Julia, who, knowing that this was proper, assented without a word, and when on the morning after Christmas Miss McDonald opened with trembling hands the envelope bearing the Cuylerville postmark, she felt a keen pang of disappointment in finding only a few lines from Julia expressive of her own and little Daisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, "which made our little girl so happy."
Not Julia, but Mrs. Guy, and that hurt Daisy more than anything else.
"Mrs. Guy Thornton! Why need she thrust upon me the name I used to bear?" she whispered, and her lip quivered a little, and the tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered all that lay between the present and the time when she had been Mrs. Guy Thornton.
She was Miss McDonald now, and Guy was another woman's husband, and with a bitter pain in her heart, she put away Julia's letter, saying as she did so, "And that's the end of that."
The box business had not resulted just as she hoped it would. She had thought Guy would write himself, and by some word or allusion assure her of his remembrance, but instead there had come to her a few perfectly polite and well-expressed lines from Julia, who had the impertinence to sign herself Mrs. Guy Thornton! It was rather hard and sorely disappointing, and for many days Miss McDonald's face was very white and sad, and both the old and young whom she visited as usual wondered what had come over the beautiful lady to make her "so pale and sorry."