THE afternoon was very sultry; however, Mr. Thorold came, and we went for our walk. It was so sultry we went very leisurely and also met few people; and instead of looking very carefully at the beauties of nature and art we had come to see, we got into a great talk as we strolled along; indeed, sometimes we stopped and sat down to talk. Mr. Thorold told me about himself, or rather, about his home in Vermont and his old life there. He had no mother, and no brothers nor sisters; only his father. And he described to me the hills of his native country, and the farm his father cultivated, and the people, and the life on the mountains. Strong and free and fresh and independent and intelligent—that was the impression his talk made upon me, of the country and people and life alike. Sometimes my thoughts took a private turn of their own, branching off.
"Mr. Thorold," said I, "do you know Mr. Davis of Mississippi?"
"Davis? No, I don't know him," he said shortly.
"You have seen him?"
"Yes, I have seen him often enough; and his wife, too."
"Do you like his looks?"
"I do not."
"He looks to me like a bad man—" I said slowly. I said it to Mr. Thorold; I would hardly have made the remark to another at West Point.
"He is about bad business—" was my companion's answer. "And yet I do not know what he is about; but I distrust the man."
"Mr. Thorold," said I, beginning cautiously, "do you want to have slavery go into the territories?"
"No!" said he. "Do you?"
"No. What do you think would happen if a Northern President should be elected in the fall?"
"Then slavery wouldnotgo into the territories," he said, looking a little surprised at me. "The question would be settled."
"But do you know some people say—some people at the South say—that if a Northern President is elected, the Southern States will not submit to him?"
"Some people talk a great deal of nonsense," said Mr. Thorold. "How could they help submitting?"
"They say—it is said—that they would break off from the North and set up for themselves. It is not foolish people that say it, Mr. Thorold."
"Will you pardon me, Miss Randolph, but I think they would be very foolish people that would do it."
"Oh, I think so too," I said. "I mean, that some people who are not foolish believe that it might happen."
"Perhaps," said Mr. Thorold. "I never heard anything ofit before. You are from the South yourself, Miss Randolph?" he added, looking at me.
"I was born there," I said. And a little silence fell between us. I was thinking. Some impression, got I suppose from my remembrance of father and mother, Preston, and others whom I had known, forbade me to dismiss quite so lightly, as too absurd to be true, the rumour I had heard. Moreover, I trusted Dr. Sandford's sources of information, living as he did in habits of close social intercourse with men of influence and position at Washington, both Southern and Northern.
"Mr. Thorold,"—I broke the silence,—"if the South should do such a thing, what would happen?"
"There would be trouble," he said.
"What sort of trouble?"
"Might be all sorts," said Mr. Thorold, laughing; "it would depend on how far people's folly would carry them."
"But suppose the Southern States should just do that;—say they would break off and govern themselves?"
"They would be like a bad boy that has to be made to take medicine."
"How could youmakethem?" I asked, feeling unreasonably grave about the question.
"You can see, Miss Randolph, that such a thing could not be permitted. A government that would let any part of its subjects break away at their pleasure from its rule, would deserve to go to pieces. If one part might go, another part might go. There would be no nation left."
"But how could youhelpit?" I asked.
"I don't know whether we could help it," he said; "but we would try."
"You do not mean that it would come tofighting?"
"I do not think they would be such fools. I hope we are supposing a very unlikely thing, Miss Randolph."
I hoped so. But that impression of Southern character troubled me yet. Fighting! I looked at the peaceful hills, feeling as if indeed "all the foundations of the earth" would be "out of course."
"What wouldyoudo in case it came to fighting?" said my neighbour. The words startled me out of my meditations.
"I could not do anything."
"I beg your pardon. Your favour—your countenance, would do much; on one side or the other. You would fight—in effect—as surely as I should."
I looked up. "Not against you," I said; for I could not bear to be misunderstood.
There was a strange sparkle in Mr. Thorold's eye; but those flashes of light came and went so like flashes, that I could not always tell what they meant. The tone of his voice, however, I knew expressed pleasure.
"How comes that?" he said. "YouareSouthern?"
"Do I look it?" I asked.
"Pardon me—yes."
"How, Mr. Thorold?"
"You must excuse me. I cannot tell you. But youareSouth?"
"Yes," I said. "At least, all my friends are Southern. I was born there."
"You haveoneNorthern friend," said Mr. Thorold, as we rose up to go on. He said it with meaning. I looked up and smiled. There was a smile in his eyes, mixed with somethingmore. I think our compact of friendship was made and settled then and at once.
He stretched out his hand, as if for a further ratification. I put mine in it, while he went on,—"How comes it, then, that you take such a view of such a question?"
There had sprung up a new tone in our intercourse, of more familiarity, and more intimate trust. It gave infinite content to me; and I went on to answer, telling him about my Northern life. Drawn on, from question to question, I detailed at length my Southern experience also, and put my new friend in possession not only of my opinions, but of the training under which they had been formed. My hand, I remember, remained in his while I talked, as if he had been my brother; till he suddenly put it down and plunged into the bushes for a bunch of wild roses. A party of walkers came round an angle a moment after; and waking up to a consciousness of our surroundings, we found, orIdid, that we were just at the end of the rocky walk, where we must mount up and take to the plain.
The evening was falling very fair over plain and hill when we got to the upper level. Mr. Thorold proposed that I should go and see the camp, which I liked very much to do. So he took me all through it, and showed and explained all sorts of things about the tents and the manner of life they lived in them. He said he should like it very much, if he only had more room; but three or four in one little tent nine feet by nine, gave hardly, as he said, "a chance to a fellow." The tents and the camp alleys were full of cadets, loitering about, or talking, or busy with their accoutrements; here and there I saw an officer. Captain Percival bowed, Captain Lascelles spoke. I looked for Preston, but I could see him nowhere. Then Mr. Thorold brought meinto his own tent, introduced one or two cadets who were loitering there, and who immediately took themselves away; and made me sit down on what he called a "locker." The tent curtains were rolled tight up, as far as they would go, and so were the curtains of every other tent; most beautiful order prevailed everywhere and over every trifling detail.
"Well," said Mr. Thorold, sitting down opposite me on a candle-box—"how do you think you would like camp life?"
"The tents are too close together," I said.
He laughed, with a good deal of amusement.
"That will do!" he said. "You begin by knocking the camp to pieces."
"But it is beautiful," I went on.
"And not comfortable. Well, it is pretty comfortable," he said.
"How do you do when it storms very hard—at night?"
"Sleep."
"Don't you ever get wet?"
"Thatmakes no difference."
"Sleep in the rain!" said I. And he laughed again at me. It was not banter. The whole look and air of the man testified to a thorough soldierly, manly contempt of little things—of all things that might come in the way of order and his duty. An intrinsic independence and withal control of circumstances, in so far as the mind can control them. I read the power to do it. But I wondered to myself if he never got homesick in that little tent and full camp. It would not do to touch the question.
"Do you know Preston Gary?" I asked. "He is a cadet."
"I know him."
I thought the tone of the words, careless as they were, signified little value for the knowledge.
"I have not seen him anywhere," I remarked.
"Do you want to see him? He has seen you."
"No, he cannot," I said, "or he would have come to speak to me."
"He would if he could," replied Mr. Thorold—"no doubt; but the liberty is wanting. He is on guard. We crossed his path as we came into the camp."
"On guard!" I said. "Is he? Why, he was on guard only a day or two ago. Does it come so often?"
"It comes pretty often in Gary's case," said my companion.
"Does it?" I said. "He does not like it."
"No," said Mr. Thorold, merrily. "It is not a favourite amusement in most cases."
"Then why does he have so much of it?"
"Gary is not fond of discipline."
I guessed this might be true. I knew enough of Preston for that. But it startled me.
"Does he not obey the regulations?" I asked presently, in a lowered tone.
Mr. Thorold smiled. "He is a friend of yours, Miss Randolph?"
"Yes," I said; "he is my mother's nephew."
"Then he is your cousin?" said my companion. Another of those penetrative glances fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford had agood eye for reading people, but it never flashed, unless under strong excitement. Mr. Thorold's were dancing and flashing and sparkling with fifty things by turns; their fund of amusement and power of observation were the first things that struck me, and they attracted me too.
"Then he is your cousin?"
"Of course, he is my cousin."
I thought Mr. Thorold seemed a little bit grave and silent for a moment; then he rose up, with that benign look of his eyes glowing all over me, and told me there was the drum for parade. "Only the first drum," he added; so I need not be in a hurry. Would I go home before parade?
I thought I would. If Preston was pacing up and down the side of the camp ground, I thought I did not want to see him nor to have him see me, as he was there for what I called disgrace. Moreover, I had a secret presentiment of a breezy discussion with him the next time there was a chance.
And I was not disappointed. The next day in the afternoon he came to see us. Mrs. Sandford and I were sitting on the piazza, where the heat of an excessive sultry day was now relieved a little by a slender breeze coming out of the north-west. It was very hot still. Preston sat down and made conversation in an abstracted way for a little while.
"We did not see you at the hop the other night, Mr. Gary," Mrs. Sandford remarked.
"No. Were you there?" said Preston.
"Everybody was there—except you."
"And Daisy? Wereyouthere, Daisy?"
"Certainly," Mrs. Sandford responded. "Everybody else could have been better missed."
"I did not know you went there," said Preston, in something so like a growl that Mrs. Sandford lifted her eyes to look at him.
"I do not wonder you are jealous," she said composedly.
"Jealous!" said Preston, with growl the second.
"You had more reason than you knew."
Preston grumbled something about the hops being "stupid places." I kept carefully still.
"Daisy, didyougo?"
I looked up and said yes.
"Whom did you dance with?"
"With everybody," said Mrs. Sandford. "That is, so far as the length of the evening made it possible. Blue and grey, and all colours."
"I don't want you to dance with everybody," said Preston, in a more undertone growl.
"There is no way to prevent it," said Mrs. Sandford, "but to be there and ask her yourself."
I did not thank Mrs. Sandford privately for this suggestion; which Preston immediately followed up by inquiring "if we were going to the hop to-night?"
"Certainly," Mrs. Sandford said.
"It's too confounded hot!"
"Not for us who are accustomed to the climate," Mrs. Sandford said, with spirit.
"It's a bore altogether," muttered Preston. "Daisy, are you going to-night?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, if you must go, you may as well dance with me as with anybody. So tell anybody else that you are engaged. I will take care of you."
"Don't you wish to dance with anybody except me?"
"I do not," said Preston, slowly. "As I said, it is too hot. I consider the whole thing a bore."
"You shall not be bored for me," I said. "I refuse to dance with you. I hope I shall not see you there at all."
"Daisy!"
"Well?"
"Come down and take a little walk with me."
"You said it is too hot."
"But you will dance?"
"You will not dance."
"I want to speak to you, Daisy."
"You may speak," I said. I did not want to hear him, for there were no indications of anything agreeable in Preston's manner.
"Daisy!" he said, "I do not know you."
"You used to know her," said Mrs. Sandford; "that is all."
"Will you come and walk with me?" said Preston, almost angrily.
"I do not think it would be pleasant," I said.
"You were walking yesterday afternoon."
"Yes."
"Come and walk up and down the piazza, anyhow. You can do that."
I could, and did not refuse. He chose the sunny western side, because no one was there. However, the sun's rays were obscured under a thick haze and had been all day.
"Whom were you with?" Preston inquired, as soon as we were out of earshot.
"Do you mean yesterday?"
"Of course I mean yesterday! I saw you cross into the camp With whom were you going there?"
"Why did you not come to speak to me?" I said.
"I was on duty. I could not."
"I did not see you anywhere."
"I was on guard. You crossed my path not ten feet off."
"Then you must know whom I was with, Preston," I said, looking at him.
"Youdon't know—that is the thing. It was that fellow Thorold."
"How came you to be on guard again so soon? You were on guard just a day or two before."
"That is all right enough. It is about military things that you do not understand. It is all right enough, except these confounded Yankees. And Thorold is another."
"Who isone!" I said, laughing. "You say he isanother."
"Blunt is one."
"I like Major Blunt."
"Daisy," said Preston, stopping short, "you ought to be with your mother. There is nobody to take care of you here. How came you to know that Thorold?"
"He was introduced to me. What is the matter with him?"
"You ought not to be going about with him. He is a regular Yankee, I tell you."
"What does that mean?" I said. "You speak it as if you meant something very objectionable."
"I do. They are a cowardly set of tailors. They have no idea what a gentleman means, not one of them, unless they have caught the idea from a Southerner. I don't want you to have anything to do with them, Daisy. Youmustnot dance withthem, and you must not be seen with this Thorold. Promise me you will not."
"Dr. Sandford is another," I said.
"I can't help Dr. Sandford. He is your guardian. You must not go again with Thorold!"
"Did you ever knowhimcowardly?" I asked.
I was sure that Preston coloured; whether with any feeling beside anger I could not make out; but the anger was certain.
"What do you know about it?" he asked.
"What do you?" I rejoined. But Preston changed more and more.
"Daisy, promise me you will not have anything to do with these fellows. You are too good to dance with them. There are plenty of Southern people here now, and lots of Southern cadets."
"Mr. Caxton is one," I said. "I don't like him."
"He is of an excellent Georgia family," said Preston.
"I cannot help that. He is neither gentlemanly in his habits nor true in his speech."
Preston hereupon broke out into an untempered abuse of Northern things in general, and Northern cadets in particular, mingled with a repetition of his demands upon me. At length I turned from him.
"This is very tiresome, Preston," I said; "and this side of the house is very warm. Of course, I must dance with whoever asks me."
"Well, I have asked you for this evening," he said, following me.
"You are not to go," I said. "I shall not dance with you once," and I took my former place by Mrs. Sandford. Preston fumed; declared that I was just like a piece of marble; and went away. I did not feel quite so impassive as he said I looked.
"What are you going to wear to-night, Daisy?" Mrs. Sandford asked presently.
"I do not know, ma'am."
"But you must know soon, my dear. Have you agreed to give your cousin half the evening?"
"No, ma'am—I could not; I am engaged for every dance, and more."
"More!" said Mrs. Sandford.
"Yes, ma'am—for the next time."
"Preston has reason!" she said, laughing. "But I think, Daisy, Grant will be the most jealous of all. Do him good. What will become of his sciences and his microscope now?"
"Why, I shall be just as ready for them," I said.
Mrs. Sandford shook her head. "You will find the hops will take more than that," she said. "But now, Daisy, think what you will wear; for we must go soon and get ready."
I did not want to think about it. I expected, of course, to put on the same dress I had worn the last time. But Mrs. Sandford objected very strongly.
"You must not wear the same thing twice running," she said, "not if you can help it."
I could not imagine why not.
"It is quite nice enough," I urged. "It is scarcely the least tumbled in the world."
"People will think you have not another, my dear."
"What matter would that be?" I said, wholly puzzled.
"Now, my dear Daisy!" said Mrs. Sandford, half laughing—"you are the veriest Daisy in the world, and do not understand the world that you grow in. No matter; just oblige me, and put on something else to-night. What have you got?"
I had other dresses like the rejected one. I had another still, white like them, but the make and quality were different. I hardly knew what it was, for I had never worn it; to please Mrs. Sandford I took it out now. She was pleased. It was like the rest, out of the store my mother had sent me; a soft India muslin, of beautiful texture, made and trimmed as my mother and a Parisian artist could manage between them. But no Parisian artist could know better than my mother how a thing should be.
"That will do!" said Mrs. Sandford approvingly. "Dear me, what lace you Southern ladies do wear, to be sure! A blue sash, now, Daisy?"
"No, ma'am, I think not."
"Rose? It must be blue or rose."
But I thought differently, and kept it white.
"Nocolour?" said Mrs. Sandford. "None at all. Then let me just put this little bit of green in your hair."
As I stood before the glass and she tried various positions for some geranium leaves, I felt that would not do either. Any dressing of my head would commonize the whole thing. I watched her fingers and the geranium leaves going from one side of my head to the other, watched how every touch changed the tone of my costume, and felt that I could not suffer it; and then it suddenly occurred to me that I, who a little while before had not cared about my dress for the evening, now did care and that determinedly. I knew I would wear no geranium leaves, not even to please Mrs. Sandford. And for the first time a question stole into my mind, what was I, Daisy, doing? But then I said to myself, that the dress without this head adorning was perfect in its elegance; it suited me; and it was not wrong to like beauty, nor to dislike things in bad taste. Perhaps I was toohandsomely dressed, but I could not change that now. Another time I would go back to my embroidered muslins, and stay there.
"I like it better without anything, Mrs. Sandford," I said, removing her green decorations and turning away from the glass. Mrs. Sandford sighed, but said "it would do without them," and then we started.
I can see it all again; I can almost feel the omnibus roll with me over the plain, that still sultry night. All those nights were sultry. Then, as we came near the Academic Building, I could see the lights in the upper windows; here and there an officer sitting in a window-sill, and the figures of cadets passing back and forth. Then we mounted to the hall above, filled with cadets in a little crowd, and words of recognition came, and Preston, meeting us almost before we got out of the dressing-room.
"Daisy, you dance with me?"
"I am engaged, Preston, for the first dance."
"Already! The second, then, and all the others?"
"I am engaged," I repeated, and left him, for Mr. Thorold was at my side.
I forgot Preston the next minute. It was easy to forget him, for all the first half of the evening I was honestly happy in dancing. In talking, too, whenever Thorold was my partner; other people's talk was very tiresome. They went over the platitudes of the day; or they started subjects of interest that were not interesting to me. Bits of gossip—discussions of fashionable amusements with which I could have nothing to do; frivolous badinage, which was of all things most distasteful to me. Yet, amid it, I believe there was a subtle incense of admiration whichby degrees and insensibly found its way to my senses. But I had two dances with Thorold, and at those times I was myself and enjoyed unalloyed pleasure. And so I thought did he.
I saw Preston, when now and then I caught a glimpse of him, looking excessively glum. Midway in the evening it happened that I was standing beside him for a few moments, waiting for my next partner.
"You are dancing with nobody but that man whom I hate!" he grumbled. "Who is it now?"
"Captain Vaux."
"Will you dance with me after that?"
"I cannot, Preston. I must dance with Major Banks."
"You seem to like it pretty well," he growled.
"No wonder," said Mrs. Sandford. "You were quite right about the geranium leaves, Daisy; you do not want them. You do not want anything, my dear," she whispered.
At this instant a fresh party entered the room, just as my partner came up to claim me.
"There are some handsome girls," said the captain. "Two of them, really!"
"People from Cozzens's," said Mrs. Sandford, "who think the cadets keep New York hours."
It was Faustina St. Clair and Mary Lansing, with their friends and guardians, I don't know whom. And as I moved to take my place in the dance, I was presently confronted by my school adversary and the partner she had immediately found. The greeting was very slight and cool on her side.
"Excessively handsome," whispered the captain. "A friend of yours?"
"A schoolfellow," I said.
"Must be a pleasant thing, I declare, to have such handsome schoolfellows," said the captain. "Beauty is a great thing, isn't it? I wonder, sometimes, how the ladies can make up their minds to take up with such great rough ugly fellows as we are, for a set. How do you think it is?"
I thought it was wonderful, too, when they were like him. But I said nothing.
"Dress, too," said the captain. "Now look at our dress! Straight and square and stiff, and no variety in it. While our eyes are delighted, on the other side, with soft draperies and fine colours, and combinations of grace and elegance that are fit to put a man in Elysium!"
"Did you notice the colour of the haze in the west, this evening, at sunset?" I asked.
"Haze? No, really. I didn't know there was any haze, really, except in my head. I get hazy amidst these combinations. Seriously, Miss Randolph, what do you think of a soldier's life?"
"It depends on who the soldier is," I said.
"Cool, really!" said the captain. "Cool! Ha! ha!—"
And he laughed, till I wondered what I could have said to amuse him so much.
"Then you have learned to individualize soldiers already?" was his next question, put with a look which seemed to me inquisitive and impertinent. I did not know how to answer it, and left it unanswered; and the captain and I had the rest of our dance out in silence. Meanwhile, I could not help watching Faustina. She was so very handsome, with a marked, dashing sort of beauty that I saw was prodigiously admired. She took no notice of me, and barely touched the tips of my fingers with her glove as we passed in the dance.
As he was leading me back to Mrs. Sandford, the captain stooped his head to mine. "Forgive me," he whispered. "So much gentleness cannot bear revenge. I am only a soldier."
"Forgive you what, sir?" I asked. And he drew up his head again, half laughed, muttered that I was worse than grape or round shot, and handed me over to my guardian.
"My dear Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford, "If you were not so sweet as you are, you would be a queen. There, now, do not lift up your grey eyes at me like that, or I shall make you a reverence the first thing I do, and fancy that I am one of yourdames d'honneur. Who is next? Major Banks? Take care, Daisy, or you'll do some mischief."
I had not time to think about her words; the dances went forward, and I took my part in them with great pleasure until the tattoo summons broke us up. Indeed, my pleasure lasted until we got home to the hotel, and I heard Mrs. Sandford saying, in an aside to her husband, amid some rejoicing over me—"I was dreadfully afraid she wouldn't go." The words, or something in them, gave me a check. However, I had too many exciting things to think of to take it up just then, and my brain was in a whirl of pleasure till I went to sleep.
AS I shared Mrs. Sandford's room, of course I had very scant opportunities of being by myself. In the delightful early mornings I was accustomed to take my book, therefore, and go down where I had gone the first morning, to the rocks by the river's side. Nobody came by that way at so early an hour; I had been seen by nobody except that one time, when Thorold and his companion passed me; and I felt quite safe. It was pleasanter down there than can be told. However sultry the air on the heights above, so near the water there was always a savour of freshness; or else I fancied it, in the hearing of the soft liquid murmur of the little wavelets against the shore. But sometimes it was so still I could hear nothing of that; then birds and insects, or the faint notes of a bugle call, were the only things to break the absolute hush; and the light was my refreshment, on river and tree and rock and hill; one day sharp and clear, another day fairylandlike and dreamy through golden mist.
It was a good retiring place in any case, so early in the day.I could read and pray there better than in a room, I thought. The next morning after my second dancing party, I was there as usual. It was a sultry July morning, the yellow light in the haze on the hills threatening a very hot day. I was very happy, as usual; but somehow my thoughts went roaming off into the yellow haze, as if the landscape had been my life, and I were trying to pick out points of light here and there, and sporting on the gay surface. I danced my dances over again in the flow of the river; heard soft words of kindness or admiration in the song of the birds; wandered away in mazes of speculative fancy among the thickets of tree stems and underbrush. The sweet wonderful note of a wood-thrush, somewhere far out of sight, assured me, what everything conspired to assure me, that I was certainly in fairyland, not on the common earth. But I could not get on with my Bible at all. Again and again I began to read; then a bird or a bough or a ripple would catch my attention, and straightway I was off on a flight of fancy or memory, dancing over again my dances with Mr. Thorold, dwelling upon the impression of his figure and dress, and the fascination of his brilliant, changing hazel eyes; or recalling Captain Vaux's or somebody else's insipid words and looks, or Faustina St. Clair's manner of ill-will; or on the other hand giving a passing thought to the question how I should dress the next hop night. After a long wandering, I would come back and begin at my Bible again, but only for a little; my fancy could not be held to it; and a few scarcely read verses and a few half-uttered petitions were all I had accomplished before the clangour of the hotel gong, sounding down even to me, warned me that my time was gone. And the note of the wood-thrush, as I slowly mounted the path, struck reproachfully and rebukingly upon the ear of my conscience.
How had this come about? I mused as I went up the hill. What was the matter? What had bewitched me? No pleasure in my Bible; no time for prayer; and only the motion of feet moving to music, only the flutter of lace and muslin, and the flashing of hazel eyes, filling my brain. What was wrong? Nay, something. And why had Mrs. Sandford "feared" I would not go to the hops? Were they not places for Christians to go to? What earthly harm? Only pleasure. But what if pleasure that marred better pleasure—that interrupted duty? And why was I ruminating on styles and colours, and proposing to put on another dress that should be more becoming the next time? and thinking that it would be well it should be a contrast to Faustina St. Clair? What! entering the lists with her, on her own field? No, no; I could not think of it. But what then? And what was this little flutter at my heart about gentlemen's words and looks of homage and liking? What could it be to me, that such people as Captain Vaux or Captain Lascelles liked me? Captain Lascelles, who when he was not dancing or flirting was pleased to curl himself up on one of the window seats like a monkey, and take a grinning survey of what went on. Was I flattered by such admiration as his?—oranyadmiration? I liked to have Mr. Thorold like me; yes, I was not wrong to be pleased with that; besides, that wasliking; not empty compliments. But for my lace and my India muslin and my "Southern elegance"—I knew Colonel Walrus meant me when he talked about that—was I thinking of admiration for such things as these, and thinking so much that my Bible reading had lost its charm? What was in fault? Not the hops? They were too pleasant. It could not be the hops.
I mounted the hill slowly and in a great maze, getting moreand more troubled. I entering the lists with Faustina St. Clair, going in her ways? I knew these were her ways. I had heard scraps enough of conversation among the girls about these things, which I then did not understand. And another word came therewith into my mind, powerful once before, and powerful now to disentangle the false from the true. "The world knoweth us not." Did it not know me, last night? Would it not, if I went there again? But the hops were so pleasant!
It almost excites a smile in me now to think how pleasant they were. I was only sixteen. I had seen no dancing parties other than the little school assemblages at Mme. Ricard's; and I was fond of the amusement even there. Here, it seemed to me, then, as if all prettiness and pleasantness that could come together in such a gathering met in the dancing room of the cadets. I think not very differently now, as to that point. The pretty accompaniments of uniform; the simple style and hours; the hearty enjoyment of the occasion; were all a little unlike what is found at other places. And to me, and to increase my difficulty, came a crowning pleasure; I met Thorold there. To have a good dance and talk with him was worth certainly all the rest. Must I give it up?
I could not bear to think so, but the difficulty helped to prick my conscience. There had been only two hops, and I was so enthralled already. How would it be if I had been to a dozen; and where might it end? And the word stands,—"The world knoweth usnot."
It must not know me, Daisy Randolph, as in any sort belonging to it or mixed up with it; and therefore—Daisy Randolph must go to the hop no more. I felt the certainty of the decision growing over me, even while I was appalled by it. I staved off consideration all that day.
In the afternoon Mr. Thorold came and took me to see the laboratory, and explained for me a number of curious things. I should have had great enjoyment, if Preston had not taken it into his head, unasked, to go along; being unluckily with me when Thorold came. He was a thorough marplot; saying nothing of consequence himself, and only keeping a grim watch—I could take it as nothing else—of everything we said and did. Consequently, Mr. Thorold's lecture was very proper and grave, instead of being full of fun and amusement, as well as instruction. I took Preston to task about it when we got home.
"You hinder pleasure when you go in that mood," I told him.
"What mood?"
"You know. You never are pleasant when Mr. Thorold is present or when he is mentioned."
"He is a cowardly Yankee!" was Preston's rejoinder.
"Cowardly, Gary?"—said somebody near; and I saw a cadet whom I did not know, who came from behind us and passed by on the piazza. He did not look at us, and stayed not for any more words; but turning to Preston, I was surprised to see his face violently flushed.
"Who was that?"
"No matter—impertinence!" he muttered.
"But whatisthe matter? and what did he mean?"
"He is one of Thorold's set," said Preston; "and I tell you Daisy, you shall not have anything to do with them. Aunt Felicia would never allow it. She would not look at them herself. You shall not have anything more to do with them."
How could I, if I was going no more to the hops? How could I see Thorold, or anybody? The thought struck to my heart,and I made no answer. Company, however, kept me from considering the matter all the evening.
But the next day, early, I was in my usual place: near the river side, among the rocks, with my Bible; and I resolved to settle the question there as it ought to be settled. I was resolved; but to do what I had resolved was difficult. For I wanted to go to the hop that evening very much. Visions of it floated before me; snatches of music and gleams of light; figures moving in harmony; words and looks; and—my own white little person. All these made a kind of quaint mosaic with flashes of light on the river, and broad warm bands of sunshine on the hills, and the foliage of trees and bushes, and the grey lichened rocks at my foot. It was confusing; but I turned over the leaves of my Bible to see if I could find some undoubted direction as to what I ought to do, or perhaps rather some clear permission for what I wished to do. I could not remember that the Bible said anything about dancing,proorcon; dancing, I thought, could not be wrong; but this confusion in my mind was not right. I fluttered over my leaves a good while with no help; then I thought I might as well take a chapter somewhere and study it through. The whole chapter, it was the third of Colossians, did not seem to me to go favourably for my pleasure; but the seventeenth verse brought me to a point,—"Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
There was no loophole here for excuses or getting off, "Whatsoever ye do." Did I wish it otherwise? No, I did not. I was content with the terms of service; but now about dancing, or rather, the dancing party? "In the name of the Lord Jesus." Could I go there in that name? as the servant of my Master, busy about His work, or taking pleasure that He had given me totake? That was the question. And all my visions of gay words and gay scenes, all the flutter of pleased vanity and the hope of it, rose up and answered me. By that thought of the pretty dress I would wear, I knew I should not wear it "in the name of the Lord Jesus;" for my thought was of honour to myself, not to Him. By the fear which darted into my head, that Mr. Thorold might dance with Faustina if I were not there, I knew I should not go "in the name of the Lord," if I went; but to gratify my own selfish pride and emulation. By the confusion which had reigned in my brain these two days, by the tastelessness of my Bible, by the unaptness for prayer, I knew I could not go in the name of my Lord, for it would be to unfit myself for His work.
The matter was settled in one way; but the pain of it took longer to come to an end. It is sorrowful to me to remember now how hard it was to get over. My vanity I was heartily ashamed of, and bade that show its head no more; my emulation of Faustina St. Clair gave me some horror; but the pleasure—the real honest pleasure, of the scene, and the music and the excitement and the dancing and the seeing people—all that I did not let go for ever without a hard time of sorrow and some tears. It was not astruggle, for I gave that up at once; only I had to fight pain. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. And the worst of all and the most incurable was, I should miss seeing Mr. Thorold. One or two more walks, possibly, I might have with him; but those long, short evenings of seeing and talking and dancing!
Mrs. Sandford argued, coaxed, and rallied me; and then said, if I would not go, she should not; and she did not. That evening we spent at home together, and alone; for everybodyelse had drifted over to the hop. I suppose Mrs. Sandford found it dull; for the next hop night she changed her mind and left me. I had rather a sorrowful evening. Dr. Sandford had not come back from the mountains; indeed, I did not wish for him; and Thorold had not been near us for several days. My fairyland was getting disenchanted a little bit. But I was quite sure I had done right.
The next morning, I had hardly been three minutes on my rock by the river, when Mr. Thorold came round the turn of the walk and took a seat beside me.
"How do you do?" said he, stretching out his hand. I put mine in it.
"What has become of my friend, this seven years?"
"I am here—" I said.
"I see you. But why have Inotseen you, all this while?"
"I suppose you have been busy," I answered.
"Busy! Of course I have, or I should have been here asking questions. I was not too busy to dance with you: and I was promised—how many dances? Where have you been?"
"I have been at home."
"Why?"
Would Mr. Thorold understand me? Mrs. Sandford did not. My own mother never did. I hesitated, and he repeated his question, and those hazel eyes were sparkling all sorts of queries around me.
"I have given up going to the hops," I said.
"Given up? Do you mean, youdon'tmean, that you are never coming any more?"
"I am not coming any more."
"Don't you sometimes change your decisions?"
"I suppose I do," I answered; "but not this one."
"I am in a great puzzle," he said. "And very sorry. Aren't you going to be so good as to give me some clue to this mystery? Did you find the hops so dull?"
And he looked very serious indeed.
"Oh no!" I said. "I liked them very much—I enjoyed them very much. I am sorry to stay away."
"Then you will not stay away very long."
"Yes—I shall."
"Why?" he asked again, with a little sort of imperative curiosity which was somehow very pleasant to me.
"I do not think it is right for me to go," I said. Then, seeing grave astonishment and great mystification in his face, I added, "I am a Christian, Mr. Thorold."
"A Christian!" he cried, with flashes of light and shadow crossing his brow. "Isthatit?"
"That is it," I assented.
"But my dear Miss Randolph—you know we are friends?"
"Yes," I said, smiling, and glad that he had not forgotten it.
"Then we may talk about what we like. Christians go to hops."
I looked at him without answering.
"Don't you know they do?"
"I suppose they may—" I answered, slowly.
"But theydo. There was our former colonel's wife—Mrs. Holt; she was a regular church-goer, and a member of the church; she was always at the hop, and her sister; they are both church members. Mrs. Lambkin, General Lambkin's wife, she is another. Major Banks' sisters—those pretty girls—they are always there; and it is the same with visitors. Everybody comes; their being Christians does not make any difference."
"Captain Thorold," said I—"I mean Mr. Thorold, don't you obey your orders?"
"Yes—general," he said. And he laughed.
"So must I."
"You are not a soldier."
"Yes—I am."
"Have you got orders not to come to our hop?"
"I think I have. You will not understand me, but this is what I mean, Mr. Thorold. Iama soldier, of another sort from you; and I have orders not to go anywhere that my Captain does not send me, or where I cannot be serving Him."
"I wish you would show those orders to me."
I gave him the open page which I had been studying, that same chapter of Colossians, and pointed out the words. He looked at them, and turned over the page, and turned it back.
"I don't see the orders," he said.
I was silent. I had not expected he would.
"And I was going to say, I never saw any Christians that were soldiers; but I have, one. And so you are another?" And he bent upon me a look so curiously considering, tender, and wondering, at once, that I could not help smiling.
"A soldier!" said he, again. "You? Have you ever been under fire?"
I smiled again, and then, I don't know what it was. I cannot tell what, in the question and in the look, touched some weak spot. The question called up such sharp answers; the look spoke so much sympathy. It was very odd for me to do, but I was taken unawares; my eyes fell and filled, and before I could help it were more than full. I do not know, to this day, how I came to cry before Thorold. It was very soon over, my weakness, whatever it was. It seemed to touch him amazingly. He got hold of my hand, put it to his lips, and kissed it over and over, outside and inside.
"I can see it all in your face," he said, tenderly: "the strength and the truth to do anything, and bear—whatever is necessary. But I am not so good as you. I cannot bear anything unless itisnecessary; and this isn't."
"Oh no, nor I!" I said; "but this is necessary, Mr. Thorold."
"Prove it—come."
"You do not see the orders," I said; "but there they are. 'Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.' I cannot go to that place 'in His name.'"
"I do not think I understand what you mean," he said, gently. "A soldier, the best that ever lived, is his own man when he is off duty. We go to the hop to play—not to work."
"Ah, but a soldier of Christ is never 'off duty,'" I said. "See, Mr. Thorold—'whatsoeverye do'—'whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do.' That covers all; don't you see?"
"That would make it a very heavy thing to be a Christian," he said; "there would be no liberty at all."
"Oh, but it is all liberty!" I said,—"When you love Jesus."
He looked at me so inquiringly, so inquisitively, that I went on.
"You do not think it hard to do things for anybody you love?"
"No," said he. "I would like to do things for you."
I remember I smiled at that, for it seemed to me very pleasant to hear him say it; but I went on.
"Then you understand it, Mr. Thorold."
"No," said he, "I do not understand it; for there is this difficulty. I do not see what in the world such an innocent amusement as that we are talking of can have to do with Christian duty, one way or another. Every Christian woman that I know comes to it,—that is young enough; and some that aren't."
It was very hard to explain.
"Suppose they disobey orders," I said slowly;—"that would be another reason why I should obey them."
"Of course. But do they?"
"I should," I said. "I am not serving Christ when I am there. I am not doing the work He has given me to do. I cannot go."
"I came down here on purpose to persuade you," he said.
It was not necessary to answer that, otherwise than by a look.
"And you are unpersuadable," he said; "unmanageable, of course, by me; strong as a giant, and gentle as a snowflake. But the snowflake melts; and you—you will go up to the hotel as good a crystal as when you came down."
This made me laugh, and we had a good laugh together, holding each other's hand.
"Do you know," said he, "I must go? There is a roll of a summons that reaches my ear, and I must be at the top of the bank in one minute and a quarter. I had no leave to be here."
"Hadn't you?" I said. "Oh, then, go, go directly, Mr. Thorold!"
But I could not immediately release my hand, and holding it and looking at me, Thorold laughed again; his hazel eyes sparkling and dancing and varying with what feelings I could not tell. They looked very steadily, too, till I remember mine went down, and then, lifting his cap, he turned suddenly and sprang away. I sat down to get breath and think.
I had come to my place rather sober and sorrowful; and whata pleasant morning I had had! I did not mind at all, now, my not going to the dances. I had explained myself to Mr. Thorold, and we were not any further apart for it, and I had had a chance to speak to him about other things too. And though he did not understand me, perhaps he would some day. The warning gong sounded before I had well got to my Bible reading. My Bible reading was very pleasant this morning, and I could not be baulked of it; so I spent over it near the whole half hour that remained, and rushed up to the hotel in the last five minutes. Of course, I was rather late and quite out of breath; and having no voice and being a little excited, I suppose was the reason that I curtseyed to Dr. Sandford, whom I met at the head of the piazza steps. He looked at me like a man taken aback.
"Daisy!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Where have you come from?"
"From my study," I said. "I have a nice place down by the river which is my study."
"Rather a public situation for a private withdrawing place," said the doctor.
"Oh no!" said I. "At this hour—" But there I stopped and began again. "It is really very private. And it is the pleasantest study place I think I ever had."
"To study what?"
I held up my book.
"It agrees with you," said the doctor.
"What?" said I, laughing.
"Daisy!" said Dr. Sandford—"I left a quiet bud of a flower a few days ago—a little demure bit of a schoolgirl, learninggeology; and I have got a young princess here, a full rose, prickles and all, I don't doubt. What has Mrs. Sandford done with you?"
"I do not know," said I, thinking I had better be demure again. "She took me to the hop."
"The hop?—how did you like that?"
"I liked it very much."
"You did? You liked it? I did not know that you would go, with your peculiar notions."
"I went," I said; "I did not know what it was. How could I help liking it? But I am not going again."
"Why not, if you like it?"
"I am not going again," I repeated. "Shall we have a walk to the hills to-day, Dr. Sandford?"
"Grant!" said his sister-in-law's voice, "don't you mean the child shall have any breakfast? What made you so late, Daisy? Come in, and talk afterwards. Grant is uneasy if he can't see at least your shadow all the while."
We went in to breakfast, and I took a delightful walk with Dr. Sandford afterward, back in the ravines of the hills; but I had got an odd little impression of two things. First, that he, like Preston, was glad to have me give up going to the hops. I was sure of it from his air and tone of voice, and it puzzled me; for he could not possibly have Preston's dislike of Northerners, nor be unwilling that I should know them. The other thing was, that he would not like my seeing Mr. Thorold. I don't know how I knew it, but I knew it. I thought—it was very odd—but I thought he wasjealous; or rather, I felt he would be if he had any knowledge of our friendship for each other. So I resolved he should have no such knowledge.
Our life went on now as it had done at our first coming.Every day Dr. Sandford and I went to the woods and hills, on a regular naturalist's expedition; and nothing is so pleasant as such expeditions. At home, we were busy with microscopic examinations, preparations, and studies; delightful studies, and beautiful lessons, in which the doctor was the finest of instructors, as I have said, and I was at least the happiest of scholars. Mrs. Sandford fumed a little, and Mr. Sandford laughed; but that did no harm. Everybody went to the hops, except the doctor and me; and every morning and evening, at guardmounting and parade, I was on the ground behind the guard tents to watch the things done and listen to the music and enjoy all the various beauty. Sometimes I had a glimpse of Thorold; for many both of cadets and officers used to come and speak to me and rally me on my seclusion, and endeavour to tempt me out of it. Thorold did not that; he only looked at me, as if I were something to be a little wondered at but wholly approved of. It was not a disagreeable look to meet.
"I must have it out with you," he said one evening, when he had just a minute to speak to me. "There is a whole world of things I don't understand, and want to talk about. Let us go Saturday afternoon and take a long walk up to 'Number Four'—do you like hills?"
"Yes."
"Then let us go up there Saturday—will you?"
And when Saturday came, we went. Preston luckily was not there; and Dr. Sandford, also luckily, was gone to dine at the General's with his brother. There were no more shadows on earth than there were clouds in the sky, as we took our way across the plain and along the bank in front of the officers' quarters looking north, and went out at the gate. Then we left civilization and the world behind us, and plunged into a wildmountain region; going up, by a track which few feet ever used, the rough slope to "Number Four." Yet that a few feet used it was plain.
"Do people come here to walk much?" I asked, as we slowly made our way up.
"Nobody comes here—for anything."
"Somebodygoeshere," I said. "This is a beaten path."
"Oh, there is a poor woodcutter's family at the top; they do travel up and down occasionally."
"It is pretty," I said.
"It is pretty at the top; but we are a long way from that. Is it too rough for you?"
"Not at all," I said. "I like it."
"You are a good walker for a Southern girl."
"Oh, but I have lived at the North; I am only Southern born."
Soon, however, he made me stop to rest. There was a good grey rock under the shadow of the trees; Thorold placed me on that and threw himself on the moss at my feet. We were up so high in the world that the hills on the other side of the river rose beautifully before us through the trees, and a sunny bit of the lower ground of the plain looked like a bit of another world that we were leaving. It was a sunny afternoon and a little hazy; every line softened, every colour made richer, under the mellowing atmosphere.
"Now you can explain it all to me," said Thorold, as he threw himself down. "You have walked too fast. You are warm."
"And you do not look as if it was warm at all."
"I! This is nothing to me," he said. "But perhaps it will warm me and cool you if we get into a talk. I want explanations."
"About what, Mr. Thorold?"
"Well—if you will excuse me—about you," he said, with a very pleasant look, frank and soft at once.
"I am quite ready to explain myself. But I am afraid, when I have done it, that you will not understand me, Mr. Thorold."
"Think I cannot?" said he.
"I am afraid not—without knowing what I know."
"Let us see," said Thorold. "I want to know why you judge so differently from other people about the right and the wrong of hops and such things. Somebody is mistaken—that is clear."
"But the difficulty is, I cannot give you my point of view."
"Please try," said Thorold, contentedly.
"Mr. Thorold, I told you, I am a soldier."
"Yes," he said, looking up at me, and little sparkles of light seeming to come out of his hazel eyes.
"I showed you my orders."
"But I did not understand them to be what you said."
"Suppose you were in an enemy's country," I said; "a rebel country; and your orders were, to do nothing which could be construed into encouraging the rebels, or which could help them to think that your king would hold friendship with them, or that there was not a perfect gulf of division between you and them."
"But this is not such a case?" said Thorold.
"That is only part," I said. "Suppose your orders were to keep constant watch and hold yourself at every minute ready for duty, and to go nowhere and do nothing that would unfit you for instant service, or put you off your watch?"
"But, Miss Randolph!" said Thorold, a little impatiently, "do these little dances unfit you for duty?"
"Yes," I said. "And put me off my watch."
"Your watch against what? Oh, pardon me, andpleaseenlighten me. I do not mean to be impertinent."
"I mean my watch for orders—my watch against evil."
"Won't you explain?" said Thorold, gently and impatiently at once. "What sort of evil canyoupossibly fear, in connection with such an innocent recreation? What 'orders' are you expecting?"
I hesitated. Should I tell him; would he believe; was it best to unveil the working of my own heart to that degree? And how could I evade or shirk the question?
"I should not like to tell you," I said at length, "the thoughts and feelings I found stirring in myself, after the last time I went to the dance. I dare say they are something that belongs especially to a woman, and that a man would not know them."
Thorold turned on me again a wonderfully gentle look, for a gay, fiery young Vermonter, as I knew him to be.
"It wanted only that!" he said. "And the orders, Miss Randolph—what 'orders' are you expecting? You said orders."
"Orders may be given by a sign," I said. "They need not be in words."
He smiled. "I see, you have studied the subject."
"I mean, only, that whenever a duty is plainly put before me—something given me to do—I know I have 'orders' to do it. And then, Mr. Thorold, as the orders are not spoken, nor brought to me by a messenger, only made known to me by a sign of some sort—If I did not keep a good watch, I should be sure to miss the sign sometimes, don't you see?"
"This is soldiership!" said Thorold. And getting up, he stood before me in attitude like a soldier as he was, erect, still with arms folded, only not up to his chin, like Capt. Percival, butfolded manfully. He had been watching me very intently; now he stood as intently looking off over the farther landscape. Methought I had a sort of pride in his fine appearance; and yet he did in no wise belong to me. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to see the firm, still attitude, the fine proportions, the military nicety of all his dress, which I had before noticed on the parade ground. For as there is a difference between one walk and another, though all trained, so there is a difference between one neatness and another, though all according to regulation: and Preston never looked like this.
He turned round at last, and smiled down at me.
"Are you rested?"
"O yes!" I said, rising. "I was not fatigued."
"Are you tired talking?"
"No, not at all. Have I talked so very much?"
He laughed at that, but went on.
"Will you be out of patience with my stupidity?"
I said no.
"Because I am not fully enlightened yet. I want to ask further questions; and asking questions is very impertinent."
"Not if you have leave," I said. "Ask what you like."
"I am afraid, nevertheless. But I can never know, if I do not ask. How is it—this is what puzzles me—that other people who call themselves Christians do not think as you do about this matter?"
"Soldiership?" I asked.
"Well, yes. It comes to that, I suppose."
"You know what soldiership ought to be," I said.
"But one little soldier cannot be all the rank and file of this army?" he said, looking down at me.
"O no!" I said, laughing—"there are a great many more—there are a great many more—only you do not happen to see them."
"And these others, that I do see, are not soldiers, then?"
"I do not know," I said, feeling sadly what a stumbling-block it was. "Perhaps they are. But you know yourself, Mr. Thorold, there is a difference between soldiers and soldiers."
He was silent a while, as we mounted the hill; then he continued—
"But it makes religion a slavery—a bondage—to beallthe while under arms, on guard, watching orders.Alwayson the watch and expecting to be under fire—it is too much; it would make a gloomy, ugly life of it."
"But suppose youareunder fire?" I said.
"What?" said he, looking and laughing again.
"If you are a good soldier in an enemy's country, always with work to do; will you wish to be off your guard, or off duty?"
"But what a life!" said Thorold.
"If you love your Captain?" said I.
He stopped and looked at me with one of the keenest looks of scrutiny I ever met. It seemed to scrutinize not me only, but the truth. I thought he was satisfied; for he turned away without adding anything more at that time. His mind was at work, however; for he broke down a small branch in his way and busied himself with it in sweeping the trunks of the trees as we went by; varying the occupation with a careful clearing away of all stones and sticks that would make my path rougher than it need be. Finally, giving me his hand to help me spring over a little rivulet that crossed our way.
"Here is an incongruity, now I think of it," said he, smiling. "How is it that you be on such good terms with a rebel? Ought you to have anything to do with me?"
"I may be friends with anybody in his private capacity," I answered in the same tone. "That does not compromise anything. It is only when—You know what I mean."
"When they are assembled for doubtful purposes."
"Or gathered in a place where the wrong colours are displayed," I added. "I must not go there."
"There was no false banner hung out on the Academic Building the other night," he said humorously.
But I knew my King's banner was not either. I knew people did not think of Him there, nor work for Him, and would have been very much surprised to hear any one speak of Him. Say it was innocent amusement; people did not want Him with them there; and where He was not, I did not wish to be. But I could not tell all this to Mr. Thorold. He was not contented, however, without an answer.
"How was it?" he asked.
"You cannot understand me and you may laugh at me," I said.
"Why may I not understand you?" he asked deferentially.
"I suppose, because you do not understand something else," I said; "and you cannot, Mr. Thorold, until you know what the love of Jesus is, and what it is to care for His honour and His service more than for anything else in the world."