CHAPTER XI
There were no more letters from Mrs. Guy Thornton until the next Christmas time, when another box went to little Daisy, and was acknowledged as before. Then another year glided by, with a third box to Daisy, and then one summer afternoon in August there came to Saratoga a gay party from New York, and the clerk at Congress Hall registered, with other names, that of Miss McDonald. Indeed, it seemed to be her party, or at least she was its center, and the one to whom the others deferred as to their head. Daisy was in perfect health that summer, and in unusually good spirits, and when in the evening, yielding to the entreaties of her friends, she entered the ball-room, clad in flowing, gauzy robes of blue and white, with costly jewels on her neck and arms, she took all hearts by storm, and was acknowledged at once as the star and belle of the evening. She did not dance—she rarely did that now—but after a short promenade through the room she took a seat near the door, and was watching the gay dancers when she felt her arm softly touched, and, turning, saw her maid standing by her with an anxious, frightened look upon her face.
"Come, please, come quick," she said in a whisper, and, following her out, Miss McDonald asked what was the matter.
"This—you must go away at once. I'll pack your things. I promised not to tell, but I must. I can't see your pretty face all spoiled and ugly."
"What do you mean?" the lady asked, and after a little she made out from the girl's statement that in strolling on the back piazza she had stumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts she had known nothing for a long time.
The girl, Mary, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga a week or ten days before, with her master's family, consisting of his wife and two children. As the hotel was crowded they were assigned rooms for the night in a distant part of the house, with a promise of something much better on the morrow. In the morning, however, the lady, who had not been well for some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the doctor who was called in to see her, pronounced the disease—here Sarah stopped and gasped for breath and looked behind her and all ways, and finally whispered a word which made even Miss McDonald start a little and wince with fear.
"He do call it the very-o-lord," Sarah said, "but Mary says it's the very old devil himself. She knows, she has had it, and you can't put down a pin where the cratur didn't have his claws. They told the landlord, who was fur puttin' 'em straight outdoors, but the doctor said the lady must not be moved—it was sure death to do it. It was better to keep quiet, and not make a panic. Nobody need to know it in the house, and their rooms are so far from everybody that nobody would catch it. So he let 'em stay, and the gentleman takes care of her, and Mary keeps the children in the next room, and carries and brings the things, and keeps away from everybody. Two of the servants know it, and they've had it, and don't tell, and she said I mustn't, nor come that side of the house, but I must tell you so that you can leave to-morrow. The lady is very bad, and nobody takes care of her but Mr. Thornton. Mary takes things to the door, and leaves them outside where he can get them."
"What did you call the gentleman?" Miss McDonald asked, her voice faltering and her cheek blanching a little.
"Mr. Thornton, from Cuylerville, a place far in the country," was the girl's reply, and then, without waiting to hear more, Miss McDonald darted away, and, going to the office, turned the leaves of the register to the date of ten or eleven days ago, and read with a beating heart and quick coming breath:
"Guy Thornton, lady, two children, and servant. Nos. —— and ——."
Yes, it was Guy; there could be no mistake, and in an instant her resolution was taken. Calling to her maid, she sent for her shawl and hat, and then bidding her follow, walked away in the moonlight. The previous summer when at Saratoga she had received medical treatment from Dr. Schwartz, whom she knew well and to whose office she directed her steps. He seemed surprised to see her at that hour, but greeted her cordially and asked when she came to town and what he could do for her.
"Tell me if this is still a safeguard," she said, baring her beautiful white arm and showing a large round scar. "Will this insure me against disease?"
The doctor's face flushed, and he looked uneasily at her as he took her arm in his hand, and, examining the scar closely, said:
"The points are still distinct. I should say the vaccination was thorough."
"But another will be safer. Have you fresh vaccine?" Daisy asked; and he replied:
"Yes, some just from a young, healthy heifer. I never use the adulterated stuff which has been humanized. How do I know what humors may be lurking in the blood? Why, some of the fairest, sweetest babies are full of scrofula!"
He was going on further with his discussion, when Daisy, who knew his peculiarities, interrupted him:
"Never mind the lecture now. Vaccinate me quick and let me go."
It was soon done, the doctor saying as he put away his vial:
"You were safe without it, I think, and with it you may have no fears whatever."
He looked at her curiously again as if asking what she knew or feared, and, observing the look, Daisy said to him:
"Do you attend the lady at the hotel?"
He bowed affirmatively and glanced uneasily at Sarah, who was looking on in surprise.
"Is she very sick?" was the next inquiry.
"Yes, very sick."
"And does no one care for her but her husband?"
"Has she suffered for care—a woman's care, I mean?"
"Well, not exactly, and yet she might be more comfortable with a woman about her. Women are naturally better nurses than men, and Mr. Thornton is quite worn out, but it does not make much difference now; the lady—"
Daisy did not hear the last part of the sentence, and, bidding him good-night, she went back to the hotel as swiftly as she had left it, while the doctor stood watching the flutter of her white dress, wondering how she found it out, and if she would "tell and raise thunder generally."
"Of course not. I know her better than that," he said to himself. "Poor woman [referring then to Julia], nothing, I fear, can help her now."
Meanwhile Daisy reached the hotel, and without going to her own room, bade Sarah tell her the way to No. ——.
"What! Oh, Miss McDonald! You surely are not—" Sarah gasped, clutching at the dress, which her mistress took from her grasp, saying:
"Yes, I am going to see that lady. I know her, or of her, and I'm not afraid. Must we let her die alone?"
"But your face—your beautiful face," Sarah said, and then Daisy did hesitate a moment, and, glancing into a hall mirror, wondered how the face she saw there, and which she knew was beautiful, would look scarred and disfigured as she had seen faces in New York.
There was a momentary conflict, and then, with an inward prayer that Heaven would protect her, she passed on down the narrow hall and knocked softly at No. ——, while Sarah stood wringing her hands in genuine distress, and feeling as if her young mistress had gone to certain ruin.
CHAPTER XII
Julia had the smallpox, not varioloid, but the veritable thing itself, in its most aggravated form. Where she took it, or when, she did not know, nor did it matter. She had it, and for ten days she had seen no one but her husband and physician, and had no care but such as Guy could give her. He had been unremitting in his attention. Tender and gentle as a woman, he had nursed her night and day, with no thought for himself and the risk he ran. It was a bad disease at the best, and now in its worst type it was horrible, but Julia bore up bravely, thinking always more of others than of herself, and feeling so glad that Providence had sent them to those out-of-the-way rooms, where she had at first thought she could not pass a night comfortably. Her children were in the room adjoining, and she could hear their little voices as they played together, or asked for their mamma and why they must not see her. Alas! they would never see her again; she knew it now, and Guy knew it, too. The doctor had told them so when he left them that night, and between the husband and wife words had been spoken such as are only said when hearts which have been one are about to be severed forever.
To Julia there was no terror in death, save as it took her from those she loved, her husband and her little ones, and these she had given into God's keeping, knowing his promises are sure. To Guy she had said:
"You have made me so happy. I want you to remember that when I am gone; I would not have one look or act of yours changed if I could, and yet, forgive me, Guy, for saying it, but I know you must often have thought of that other one whom, you loved first, and it may be best."
Guy could not say no to that, but he smoothed her hair tenderly, and his tears dropped upon the scarred, swollen face he could not kiss, as Julia went on.
"But if you did you never showed it in the least, and I bless you for it. Take good care of my children; teach them to remember their mother, and if in time there comes another in my place, and other little ones than mine call you father, don't forget me quite, because I love you so much. Oh, Guy, my darling, it is hard to say good-by and know that after a little this world will go on the same as if I had never been. Don't think I am afraid. I am not, for Jesus is with me, and I know I am safe, but still there's a clinging to life, which has been so pleasant to me. Tell your sister how I loved her. I know she will miss me and be good to my children, and if you ever meet that other one tell her—tell her—I——"
The faint voice faltered here, and when it spoke again, it said:
"Lift me up, Guy, so I can breathe better while I tell you."
He lifted her up and held her in his arms, while through the open window the summer air and the silver moonlight streamed, and in the distance was heard the sound of music as the dance went merrily on. And just then, when she was in the minds of both, Daisy came, and her gentle knock broke the silence of the room and startled both Guy and Julia.
Who was it that sought entrance to that death-laden and disease-poisoned room? Not the doctor, surely, for he always entered unannounced, and who else dared to come there? Thus Guy questioned, hesitating to answer the knock, when to his utter surprise the door opened and a little figure, clad in airy robes of white, with its bright hair wreathed with flowers and gems, came floating in, the blue eyes shining like stars and the full red lips parted with the smile, half pleased, half shy, which Guy remembered so well.
"Daisy, Daisy!" he cried, and his voice rang like a bell through the room, as, laying Julia's head back upon the pillow, he sprang to Daisy's side, and, taking her by the shoulder, pushed her gently toward the door, saying:
"Why have you come here? Leave us at once; don't you see? don't you know?" and he pointed toward Julia, whose face showed so plainly in the gaslight.
"Yes, I know, and I came to help you take care of her. I am not afraid," Daisy said, and, freeing herself from his grasp, she walked straight up to Julia and laid her soft, white hand upon her head. "I am Daisy," she said, "and I've come to take care of you. I just heard you were here; how hot your poor head is! let me bathe it; shall I?"
She went to the bowl, and wringing a cloth in ice water, bathed and rubbed the sick woman's head, and held the cool cloth to the face and wiped the parched lips, and rubbed the feverish hands, while Guy stood, looking on, bewildered and confounded, and utterly unable to say a word or utter a protest to this angel, as it seemed to him, who had come unbidden to his aid, forgetful of the risk she ran and the danger she incurred. Once as she turned her beautiful face to him and he saw how wondrously fair and lovely it was, lovely with a different expression from any he had ever seen there, it came over him with a thrill of horror that that face must not be marred and disfigured with the terrible pestilence, and he made another effort to send her away. But Daisy would not go.
"I am not afraid," she said. "I have just been vaccinated, and there was already a good scar on my arm; look!" and she pushed back her sleeve and showed her round, white arm with the mark upon it.
Guy did not oppose her after that, but let her do what she liked, and when, an hour later, the doctor came he found his recent visitor sitting on Julia's bed, with Julia's head lying against her bosom and Julia herself asleep. Some word which sounded very much like "thunderation" escaped his lips, but he said no more, for he saw in the sleeping woman's face a look he never mistook. It was death, and ten minutes after he entered the room Julia Thornton lay dead in Daisy's arms.
There was a moment or so of half-consciousness, during which they caught the words. "So kind in you; it makes me easier; be good to the children; one is called for you, but Guy loved me, too. Good-by. I am going to Jesus."
That was the last she ever spoke, and a moment after she was gone. In his fear lest the facts should be known to his guests, the host insisted that the body should be removed under cover of the night, and as Guy knew the railway officials would object to taking it on any train, there was no alternative except to bury it in town, and so before the morning broke there was brought up to the room a closely sealed coffin and box, and Daisy helped lay Julia in her last bed, and put a white flower in her hair and folded her hands upon her bosom, and then watched from the window the little procession which followed the body out to the cemetery, where, in the stillness of the coming day, they buried it, together with everything which had been used about the bed, Daisy's party dress included; and when at last the full morning broke, with stir and life in the hotel, all was empty and still in the fumigated chamber of death, and in the adjoining room, clad in a simple white wrapper, with a blue ribbon in her hair, Daisy sat with Guy's little boy on her lap and her namesake at her side, amusing them as best she could and telling them their mamma had gone to live with Jesus.
"Who'll be our mamma now? We must have one. Will oo?" little Daisy asked, as she hung about the neck of her new friend.
She knew it was Miss McDolly, her "sake-name," and in her delight at seeing her and her admiration of her great beauty, she forgot in part the dead mamma on whose grave the summer sun was shining.
The Thorntons left the hotel that day and went back to the house in Cuylerville, which had been closed for a few weeks, Miss Frances being away with some friends in Connecticut. But she returned at once when she heard the dreadful news, and was there to receive her brother and his motherless little ones. He told her of Daisy when he could trust himself to talk at all, of Julia's sickness and death, and Miss Frances felt her heart go out as it had never gone before toward the woman about whom little Daisy talked constantly.
"Most bootiful lady," she said, "an' looked des like an 'ittle dirl, see was so short, an' her eyes were so hue an' her hair so turly."
Miss McDonald had won Daisy's heart, and, knowing that made her own happier and lighter than it had been since the day when the paper came to her with the marked paragraph which crushed her so completely. There had been but a few words spoken between herself and Guy, and these in the presence of others, but at their parting he had taken her soft little hand in his and held it a moment, while he said, with a choking voice: "God bless you, Daisy. I shall not forget your kindness to my poor Julia, and if you should need—but no, that is too horrible to think of; may God spare you that. Good-by."
And that was all that passed between him and Daisy with regard to the haunting dread which sent her in a few days to her own house in New York, where, if the thing she feared came upon her, she would at least be at home and know she was not endangering the lives of others. But God was good to her, and though there was a slight fever, with darting pains in her back and a film before her eyes, it amounted to nothing worse, and might have been the result of fatigue and over-excitement; and when at Christmas time, yielding to the importunities of her little namesake, there was a picture of herself in the box sent to Cuylerville, the face which Guy scanned even more eagerly than his daughter, was as smooth and fair and beautiful as when he saw it at Saratoga, bending over his dying wife.
CHAPTER XIII
New York, June 14, 18—.
To-morrow I am to take my old name of Thornton again, and be Guy's wife once more. Nor does it seem strange at all that I should do so, for I have never thought of myself as not belonging to him, even when I knew he was another's. And yet when in that dreadful night at Saratoga I went to Julia's room, there was in my heart no thought of this which has come to me. I only wished to care for her and to be a help to Guy. I did not think of her dying, and after she was dead there was not a thought of the future in my mind until little Daisy put it there by asking if I would be her mamma. Then I seemed to see it all, and expected it up to the very day, six weeks ago, when Guy wrote to me: "Daisy, I want you. Will you come to me again as my wife?"
I was not surprised. I knew he would say it some time, and I replied at once, "Yes, Guy, I will."
He has been here since, and we have talked it over; all the past when I made him so unhappy, and when I, too, was so wretched, though I did not say much about that, or tell him of the dull, heavy, gnawing pain which, sleeping or waking, I carried with me so long, and only lost when I began to live for others. I did speak of the letter, and said I had loved him ever since I wrote it, and that his marrying Julia made no difference; and when I told him of poor Tom, and what I said to him, not from love, but from a sense of duty, and when I told him how Tom would not take me at my word, he held me close to him and said: "I am glad he did not, my darling, for then you would never have been mine."
I think we both wept over those two graves, one far off in sunny France, the other in Saratoga, and both felt how sad it was that they must be made in order to bring us together. Poor Julia! She was a noble woman, and Guy did love her. He told me so, and I am glad he did. I mean to try to be like her in those parts wherein she excelled me.
We are going straight to Cuylerville to the house where I never was but once, and that on the night when Guy was sick and Miss Frances made me go back in the thunder and rain. She is sorry for that, for she told me so in the long, kind letter she wrote, calling me her little sister and telling me how glad she is to have me back once more. Accidentally I heard Elmwood was for sale, and without letting Guy know I bought it, and sent him the deed, and we are going to make it the most attractive place in the country.
It will be our summer home, but in the winter my place is here in New York with my people, who would starve and freeze without me. Guy has agreed to that and will be a great help to me. He need never work any more unless he chooses to do so, for my agent, says I am a millionaire, thanks to poor Tom, who gave me his gold mine and his interest in that railroad. And for Guy's sake I am glad, and for his children, the precious darlings; how much I love them already, and how kind I mean to be to them both for Julia's sake and Guy's! Hush! That's his ring, and there's his voice in the hall asking for Miss McDonald, and so for the last time I write that name, and sign myself,
Margaret McDonald.
Extracts from Miss Frances Thornton's Diary.
Elmwood, June 15, ——.
I have been looking over an old journal, finished and laid away long ago, and accidentally I stumbled upon a date eleven years back. It was Guy's wedding day then; it is his anniversary now, and as on that June day of years ago I worked among my flowers, so I have been with them this morning, and as then, people from the town came into our beautiful grounds, so they came to-day and praised our lovely place and said there was no place like it in all the country round. But Julia was not with them. She will never come to us again. Julia is dead, and her grave is off in Saratoga, for Guy dare not have her moved, but he has erected a costly monument to her memory, and the mound above her is like some bright flower bed all the summer long, for he hires a man to tend it, and goes twice each season to see that it is kept as he wishes to have it. Julia is in Heaven and Daisy is here again at Elmwood, which she purchased with her own money and fitted up with every possible convenience and luxury.
Guy is ten years younger than he used to be, and we are all so happy with this little fairy, who has expanded into a noble woman, and whom I love as I never loved a living being before, Guy excepted, of course. I never dreamed when I turned her out into the rain that I should love her as I do, or that she was capable of being what she is. I would not have her changed in any one particular, and neither, I am sure, would Guy, while the little ones fairly worship her, and must sometimes be troublesome with their love and their caresses.
It is just a year since she came back to us again. We were in the old house then, but somehow Daisy's very presence seemed to brighten and beautify it, until I was almost sorry to leave it last April for this grander place with all its splendor.
There was no wedding at all; that is, there were no invited guests, but sure, never had bride greater honor at her bridal than our Daisy had, for the church where the ceremony was performed, at a very early hour in the morning, was literally crowded with the halt, the lame, the maimed, and the blind; the slums of New York, gathered from every back street and by-lane and gutter; Daisy's "people," as she calls them, who came to see her married, and who, strangest of all, brought with them a present for the bride, a beautiful family Bible, golden-clasped and bound, and costing fifty dollars. Sandy McGraw presented it, and had written upon the fly leaf: "To the dearest friend we ever had we give this book as a slight token of how much we love her." Then followed upon a sheet of paper the names of the donors and how much each gave. Oh, how Daisy cried when she saw the ten cents and the five cents and the three cents and the one cent, and knew how it had all been earned and saved at some sacrifice for her. I do believe she would have kissed every one of them if Guy had permitted it. She did kiss the children and shook every hard, soiled hand there, and then Guy took her away and brought her to our home, where she has been ever since, the sweetest, merriest, happiest little creature that ever a man called wife, or a woman sister. She does leave her things round a little, to be sure, and she is not always ready for breakfast. I guess she never will wholly overcome those habits, but I can put up with them now better than I used to. Love makes a vast difference in our estimate of others, and she could scarcely ruffle me now, even if she kept breakfast waiting every morning, and left her clothes lying three garments deep upon the floor. As for Guy—but his happiness is something I cannot describe. Nothing can disturb his peace, which is as firm as the everlasting hills. He does not caress her as much as he did once, but his thoughtful care of her is wonderful, and she is never long from his sight without his going to seek her.
God bless them both and keep them ever as they are now, at peace with Him and all in all to each other.
THE END
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