Daisy

"But are they compromised?" he asked. "That is the thing. You see, I want you back at the hop."

"I would like to come," said I; "but I must not."

"On the ground – ?"

"I told you, Mr. Thorold. I do not find that my orders allow me to go. I must do nothing that I cannot do in my King's name."

"That is – "

"As His servant – on His errands – following where He leads me."

"I never heard it put so before," said Thorold. "It bears the stamp of perfection – only an impossible perfection."

"No – " said I.

"To ordinary mortals," he rejoined, with one of his quick, brilliant flashes of the eye. Then, as it softened and changed again —

"Miss Randolph, permit me to ask one question – Are you happy?"

And with the inquiry came the investigating look, keen as a razor or a rifle ball. I could meet it, though; and I told him it was this made me happy. For the first time his face was troubled. He turned it from me and dropped the conversation. I let it drop, too; and we walked side by side and silently the remainder of the steep way; neither of us, I believe, paying much attention to what there was to be seen below or around us. At the top, however, this changed. We found a good place to rest, and sat there a long time looking at the view; Thorold pointing out its different features, and telling me about them in detail; his visits to them, and exploration of the region generally. And we planned imaginary excursions together, one especially to the top of the Crow's Nest, with an imaginary party, to see the sun rise. We would have to go up, of course, overnight; we must carry a tent along for shelter, and camp-beds, and cooking utensils, at least a pot to boil coffee; and plenty of warm wraps and plenty of provisions, for people always eat terribly in cold regions, Thorold said. And although the top of the Crow's Nest is not Arctic by any means, still, it is cool enough even in a warm day, and would be certainly cool at night. Also the members of our party we debated; they must be people of good tempers and travelling habits, not to be put out for a little; people with large tastes for enjoyment, to whom the glory of the morning would make amends for all the toil of the night; and good talkers, to keep up the tone of the whole thing. Meanwhile, Thorold and I heartily enjoyed Number Four; as also I did his explanations of fortifications, which I drew from him and made him apply to all the fortifications in sight or which I knew. And when the sun's westing told us it was time to go home, we went down all the way talking. I have but little remembrance of the path. I remember the cool, bright freshness of the light, and its brilliant gleam in the distance after it had left the hillside. I have an impression of the calm clear beauty that was underfoot and overhead that afternoon; but I saw it only as I could see it while giving my thought to something else. Sometimes, holding hands, we took runs down the mountain side; then walked demurely again when we got to easier going. We had come to the lower region at last, and were not far from the gate, talking earnestly and walking close together, when I saw Thorold touch his cap.

"Was that anybody I knew?" I asked.

"I believe it was your friend Dr. Sandford," he said, smiling into my face with a smile of peculiar expression and peculiar beauty. I saw something had pleased him, pleased him very much. It could not have been Dr. Sandford. I cannot say I was pleased, as I had an intuitive assurance the doctor was not. But Thorold's smile almost made amends.

That evening the doctor informed us he had got intelligence which obliged him to leave the Point immediately; and as he could go with us part of the way to Niagara, we had better all set off together. I had lost all my wish to go to Niagara; but I said nothing. Mrs. Sandford said there was nothing to be gained by staying at the Point any longer, as I would not go to the hops. So Monday morning we went away.

CHAPTER XVIII.

SOUTH AND NORTH

WE made a round of pleasure after leaving West Point. That is, it was a round of pleasure to the rest of the party. I had left my best pleasure behind me. Certainly, I enjoyed Catskill, and Trenton Falls, and Niagara, after some sort; but there was nothing in them all like my walk to "Number Four." West Point had enough natural beauty to satisfy any one, I thought, even for all summer; and there I had besides what I had not elsewhere and never had before, a companion. All my earlier friends were far older than I, or beneath me in station. Preston was the single exception; and Preston and I were now widely apart in our sympathies; indeed, always had been. Mr. Thorold and I talked to each other on a level; we understood each other and suited each other. I could let out my thoughts to him with a freedom I never could use with anybody else.

It grieved me a little that I had been forced to come away so abruptly that I had no chance of letting him know. Courtesy, I thought, demanded of me that I should have done this; and I could not do it; and this was a constant subject of regret to me.

At the end of our journey I came back to school. Letters from my father and mother desired that I would do so, and appointed that I was to join them abroad next year. My mother had decided that it was best not to interfere with the regular course of my education; and my father renewed his promise that I should have any reward I chose to claim, to comfort me for the delay. So I bent myself to study with new energies and new hope.

I studied more things than school books that winter. The bits of political matter I had heard talked over at West Point were by no means forgotten; and once in a while, when I had time and a chance, I seized one of the papers from Mme. Ricard's library table and examined it. And every time I did so, something urged me to do it again. I was very ignorant. I had no clue to a great deal that was talked of in these prints: but I could perceive the low threatening growl of coming ill weather, which seemed to rise on the ear every time I listened. And a little anxiety began to grow up in my mind. Mme. Ricard, of course, never spoke on these subjects, and probably did not care about them. Dr. Sandford was safe in Washington. I once asked Miss Cardigan what she thought. "There are evil men abroad, dear," she said. "I don't know what they will be permitted to do."

"Who do you hope will be elected?" I asked.

"I don't vote myself," said Miss Cardigan; "so I do not fash myself much with what I can't help; but I hope the man will be elected that will do the right thing."

"And who is that?" I asked. "You do not want slavery to be allowed in the territories?"

"I? Not I!" said Miss Cardigan. "And if the people want to keep it out of them, I suppose they will elect Abraham Lincoln. I don't know if he is the right man or no; but he is on the right side. 'Break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free.' That is my maxim, Daisy."

I pondered this matter by turns more and more. By and by there began to be audible mutterings of a storm in the air around me. The first I heard was when we were all together in the evening with our work, the half hour before tea.

"Lincoln is elected," whispered one of the girls to another.

"Who cares?" the other said aloud.

"What if he is?" asked a third.

"Then," said a gentle, graceful-looking girl, spreading her embroidery out on her lap with her slim white fingers – "then there'll be fighting."

It was given, this announcement, with the coolest matter-of-fact assurance.

"Who is going to fight?" was the next question.

The former speaker gave a glance up to see if her audience was safe, and then replied, as coolly as before, —

"My brother, for one."

"What for, Sally?"

"Do you think we are going to have these vulgar Northerners rule over us? My cousin Marshall is coming back from Europe on purpose that he may be here and be ready. I know my aunt wrote him word that she would disinherit him if he did not."

"Daisy Randolph – you are a Southerner," said one of the girls.

"Of course, she is a Southerner," said Sally, going on with her embroidery. "She is safe."

But if I was safe, I was very uncomfortable. I hardly knew why I was so uncomfortable. Only, I wished ardently that troubles might not break out between the two quarters of the country. I had a sense that the storm would come near home. I could not recollect my mother and my father, without a dread that there would be opposing electricities between them and me.

I began to study the daily news more constantly and carefully. I had still the liberty of Madame's library, and the papers were always there. I could give to them only a few minutes now and then; but I felt that the growl of the storm was coming nearer and growing more threatening. Extracts from Southern papers seemed to my mind very violent and very wrong-headed; at the same time, I knew that my mother would endorse and Preston echo them. Then South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession. Six days after, Major Anderson took possession of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour, and immediately the fort he had left and Castle Pinckney were garrisoned by the South Carolinians in opposition. I could not tell how much all this signified; but my heart began to give a premonitory beat sometimes. Mississippi followed South Carolina; then United States' forts and arsenals were seized in North Carolina and Georgia and Alabama, one after the other. The tone of the press was very threatening, at least of the Southern press. And not less significant, to my ear, was the whisper I occasionally heard among a portion of our own little community. A secret whisper, intense in its sympathy with the seceding half of the nation, contemptuously hostile to the other part, among whom they were at that very moment receiving Northern education and Northern kindness. The girls even listened and gathered scraps of conversa tion that passed in their hearing, to retail them in letters sent home; "they did not know," they said, "what might be of use." Later, some of these letters were intercepted by the General Government, and sent back from Washington to Madame Ricard. All this told me much of the depth and breadth of feeling among the community of which these girls formed a part; and my knowledge of my father and mother, Aunt Gary and Preston, and others, told me more. I began to pray that God would not let war come upon the land.

Then there was a day, in January, I think, when a bit of public news was read out in presence of the whole family; a thing that rarely happened. It was evening, and we were all in the parlour with our work. I forget who was the reader, but I remember the words: "'The steamer, Star of the West with two hundred and fifty United States troops on board for Fort Sumter, was fired into' (I forget the day) 'by the batteries near Charleston.' Young ladies, do you hear that? The steamer was fired into. That is the beginning."

We looked at each other, we girls; startled, sorry, awed, with a strange glance of defiance from some eyes, while some flowed over with tears, and some were eager with a feeling that was not displeasure. All were silent at first. Then whispers began.

"I told you so," said Sally.

"Well, they have begun it," said Macy, who was a native of New York.

"Of course. What business had the Star of the West to be carrying those troops there? South Carolina can take care of her own forts."

"Daisy Randolph, you look as solemn as a preacher," said another. "Which side are you on?"

"She is on the right side," said another.

"Of course," said Sally. "She is the daughter of a Southern gentleman."

"I am not on the side of those who fire the first shot," I said.

"There is no other way," said Sally, coolly. "If a rat comes in your way you must shoot him. I knew it had got to come. I have heard my uncle talk enough about that."

"But what will be the end of it?" said another.