Chapter 5

ON FOOT

Mrs Sandford devoted herself to the doctor. Of course, a sudden stop was put to our gay amusements. I could not ride or drive out any more; nor would I go to entertainments anywhere. The stir and the rush of the world had quietly dropped me out of it.

Yet I was more than ever eager to be in it and know what was doing; and above all, what one was doing. I studied the newspapers, more assiduously than I had hitherto had time for. They excited me almost unbearably with the desire to know more than they told, and with unnumbered fears and anxieties. I took to walking, to wear away part of the restless uneasiness which had settled upon me. I walked in the morning; I walked at evening, when the sun's light was off the avenue and the air a little cooler; and kept myself out of the house as much as I could.

It was so that I came upon my object, when I was not seeking it. One evening I was walking up Pennsylvania avenue; slowly, for the evening was warm, although the sun had gone down. Slowly and disconsolately. My heart began to fail me. I pondered writing a word to Mr. Thorold, now that I was completely at liberty; and I wished I had done it at once upon Dr. Sandford's becoming ill. Two or three days' time had been lost. I should have to take the note to the post-office myself; but that would not be impossible now, as it had been until now. While I was thinking these things, I saw a horseman riding down the avenue; a single horseman, coming at a fast gallop. I had never seen Mr. Thorold on horseback; yet from almost the first sight of this mounted figure my heart said with a bound who it was. I stood still by the curbstone, looking breathlessly. I felt more and more sure as he drew nearer, if that can be when I had been sure all along; but, would he know me? Would he even see me, in the first place? So many ladies walk on Pennsylvania avenue; why should his eye pick me out? and he was riding so fast too, there would be but one instant to see or miss me. I would not like to go again through the suspense of that minute, though it was almost too intense to be conscious pain. I stood, all eyes, while that figure came on, steady, swift, and moveless, but for the quick action of the horse's muscles. I dared not make a sign, although I felt morally sure who it was, until he was quite close to me; then, I do not know whether I made it or not. I think not; but the horse wheeled, just as he was past me; I did not know a horse could wheel so short; and the rider had dismounted at the same instant it seemed, for he was there, at my side, and my hand in his. I certainly forgot at that minute all I had stored up to say to Mr. Thorold, in the one great throb of joy. He did not promise to be easily managed, either.

"Daisy!" was his first question - "Daisy, where have you been?"

"I have been here - a while."

"I heard it from Aunt Catherine yesterday - I should have found you before another day went over - Daisy, how long?"

I hardly liked to tell him, he looked so eager and so imperative, and so much as if he had a right to know, and to have known. But he did not wait for the answer; and instead, drawing my arm within his own, bent down to me with looks and words so glad, so tender, so bright, that I trembled with a new feeling, and all the blood in my heart came surging up to my face and away again. The bridle was over his other arm, and the horse with drooped head walked on the other side of him, while Mr. Thorold led me on in this fashion. I do not know how far. I do not know what he said or what I answered, except in bits. I know that he made me answer him. I was not capable of the least self-assertion. What startled me at last out of this abstraction, was the sudden fear that we might be observed. I looked up and said something about it. Only to my confusion; for Thorold laughed at me, softly, but how he laughed - at me. I tried a diversion.

"Have you been drilling troops to-day?"

"All day; or I should have come to find and scold you. By the way, how long _have_ you been in Washington, Daisy?"

"I should not have thought you would ride such a pace at the end of a day's work - you did not ride like a tired man."

"I am not a tired man. Didn't I tell you, I had a letter from Aunt Catherine yesterday. I have felt no fatigue since. When did you come here, Daisy?"

"Christian, I could not let you know, for I was with my guardian - he is a sort of guardian for the time - and -"

"Well? I know your guardian. Dr. Sandford, isn't he"

"Yes, but he would not like to see you."

"I don't care whether he likes it or not, Daisy."

"Yes, but, you see, Christian, it would be not pleasant if he were to carry me off away from Washington; as he took me from West Point last year."

"To get you away from me?"

"He would, if he suspected anything."

"Daisy, I do not like suspicions. The best way is to let him know the truth."

"Oh, no, Christian!"

"Why not, little one?"

"I would rather my father and mother heard it first from you in person," I answered, stumbling in my speech.

"So would I, Daisy; but the times are against us. A letter must be my messenger; and Dr. Sandford has nothing to do with the matter."

"He would think he had," I answered, feeling the difficulties in my way.

"Aren't you my Daisy?" he said, looking down into my face with his flashing eyes, all alight with fire and pleasure.

"But that -" I began.

"No evasions, Daisy. Answer. Aren't you mine?"

I said "yes" meekly. But what other words I had purposed to add were simply taken off my lips. I looked round, in scared fashion, to see who was near; but Thorold laughed softly again.

"It is too dark for people to make minute investigations, Daisy."

"Dark!" said I. "Oh, Christian, I must go home. I shall be missed, and Mrs. Sandford will be frightened."

"Will the doctor come after you?"

"Oh, no, he is sick; but Christian, I must go home."

He turned and went with me, changing his tone, and making a variety of tender inquiries about my situation and my doings. They were something new; they were so tender of me, so thoughtful of my welfare, so protecting in their inquisitive care; and moreover they were the inquiries of one who had a right to know all about me. Something entirely new to my experience; my mother's care was never so sympathetic; my father's never so fond; even my guardian's was never so strict. Dr. Sandford to be sure had no right to make his care like this. I did not know that Mr. Thorold had; but I found it was indisputable. And in proportion it was delightful. We had a slow, very busy walk and talk until within a few doors of my Washington home; there we parted, with a long hand clasp, and the promise on my part that Mr. Thorold should find me at the same hour and place as to-day on the next evening.

Nobody was looking for me, and I gained my room in safety. I was very happy, yet not all happy; for the first use I made of my solitude, after getting rid of my bonnet and mantilla, was to sit down and cry. I asked myself the reason, for I did not like to be in the dark about my own feelings; this time they were in a good deal of confusion.

As I look back, I think the uppermost thing was my happiness; this new, delicate, strange joy which had come into my life and which I had never tasted so fully or known the flavour of it so intimately as this evening. Looks and tones, and little nameless things of manner telling almost more yet, came back to me in a small crowd and overwhelmed me with their testimony. Affection, and tenderness, and pleasure; and something apart from these, an inexplicable assuming of me and delight in me as so assumed; they found me or made me very weak to-night. What was the matter? I believe it was, first, this happiness; and next, the doubt that rested over it and the certainty that I must leave it. Certainly my weeping was hearty enough to answer to all three causes. It was a very unaccustomed indulgence to me; or not an indulgence at all, for I was not fond of tears; but it did act as a relief. I washed away some of my trouble in my tears; the happiness sprung to the surface; and then I could almost weep for joy and thankfulness that I was so happy. Even if the grounds of my happiness were precarious, I had trusted God all my life with all I cared for; could I not trust Him still? My tears stopped; and I believe one or two smiles could not be checked as I remembered some look or word of Mr. Thorold's.

I was to see him the next evening; and it would behove me to lose no time in telling him all the various matters I had wished him to understand. It seemed to me there was something to reconsider in my proposed communications. I had to tell him that our correspondence must be stopped. Would he agree to that? I had thought he would agree, and must, to anything I desired. To-night assured me that he had a will in the matter too, and that his will was strong. Further, it assured me that he had a right; and knew it. Yet it was impossible that we should write to each other without my parents' leave; and impossible that we should gain the leave. Mr. Thorold would have to see the matter as I looked at it; but a doubt came over me that to make him do so might prove difficult. That was one thing. Then about my not being an heiress. I suddenly found a great dislike in myself to speak to him on the subject. There was no doubt that it would be right to tell him what I had thought to tell him; wrong not to do it; the right and the wrong were settled; my willingness was not. A little inner consciousness that Mr. Thorold would relish any handling of the matter that savoured of the practical, and would improve it for his own ends, made my cheek hot. Yet I must tell him. The thing stood, with only an addition of disagreeableness. And what chance should I have, in the street?

I meditated a good while, before there suddenly started into my mind a third subject upon which I had meant to take action with Mr. Thorold. I had thought to qualify a little the liberty he had assumed upon our first betrothal; to keep at a somewhat more reserved distance, and make him. Could I? Was Mr. Thorold under my management? He seemed to take me under his. I pondered, but between laughing and rebellion I could make nothing of the subject. Only, I resolved, if circumstances gave me any chance, to act on my proposed system.

The next day was swallowed up in like thoughts. I tried to arrange my subjects and fix upon one to begin with; but it was a vain effort. I knew that as soon as I began to get ready for my walk. Things must come as they would. And my cross tides of purpose resolved themselves into one long swell of joy, when I discerned the figure I was looking for, waiting for me on Pennsylvania avenue; too soon, for it was near the place where we parted the night before.

"This is very dangerous -" I said, as we began to stroll up the avenue.

"What?" said Mr. Thorold, looking down at me with his eyes as full of mischief as ever.

"It is so light yet, and you come so near the house."

"You walk with other people, don't you?"

"I am not afraid of the other people."

"Are you afraid of me?" said he smiling; and then growing grave, "We may have only a few times, Daisy; let us make the most of them."

How could I start anything after that. I was mute; and Mr. Thorold began upon a new theme.

"Daisy, how long have you been in Washington?"

"Christian, I _could_ not let you know. I was always hoping to see you somewhere."

"Sounds as if you felt guilty," he said. "Confess, Daisy; you look as if you were afraid I would be angry. I will not be very hard with you."

I was afraid; and he was angry, when I told him. His face flushed and his eye changed, and turned away from me.

"Christian," I said, "I was very unwilling that Dr. Sandford should know anything about it; that was my reason. If I had written to you, you know you would have come straight to where I was; and the risk was too great."

"What risk?" he said. "I might have been ordered away from Washington; and then we might never have met."

"Are you vexed?" I said gently.

"You have wronged me, Daisy."

It gave me, I do not know whether more pain or pleasure, the serious grave displeasure his manner testified. Neither pain nor pleasure was very easy to express; but pain pressed the hardest.

"I have been looking for the chance of seeing you; looking the whole time," I said. "Everywhere, it was the one thing I was intent upon."

"Daisy, it might have been lost altogether. And how many days have been lost!"

I was silent now; and we walked some steps together without anything more. But the next words were with a return to his usual clear voice.

"Daisy, you must not be afraid of anything."

"How can I help it?" I asked.

"Help it? - but have _I_ brought those tears into your eyes?"

It was almost worth while to have offended him, to hear the tone of those words. I could not speak.

"I see you are not very angry with me," he said; "but I am with myself. Daisy, my Daisy, you must not be so fearful of unknown dangers."

"I think I have been fearful of them all my life," I answered. "Perhaps it is my fault."

And with unspeakable joy I recognised the truth, that at last my life was anchored to one from whom I need neither fear nor disguise anything.

"To fear them is often to bring them." he added.

"I do not think it will, in my case," I said. "But, if Dr. Sandford had known you were coming to see me, he might have carried me off from Washington, just as he did from West Point last year."

"From West Point?" said Mr. Thorold, his eyes making a brilliant commentary on my words; - "Did he carry you away from West Point for any such reason? Is he afraid of me?"

"He would be afraid of anybody," I said in some confusion, for Mr. Thorold's eyes were dancing with mischief and pleasure; - "I do not know - of course I do not know what he was afraid of; but I know how it _would_ be."

Mr. Thorold's answer was to take my hand and softly draw it through his own arm. I did not like it; I was fearful of being seen to walk so; yet the assuming of me was done in a manner that I could not resist nor contravene. I knew how Christian's eyes fell upon me; I dared not meet them.

"Is the doctor jealous of you, Daisy?" he whispered laughing. I did not find an answer immediately.

"Does he _dare?_" Mr. Thorold said in a different tone.

"No, no. Christian, how imperious you are!"

"Yes," he said; "I will be so where you are concerned. What do you mean, Daisy? or what does he mean?"

"He is my guardian, you know," I said; "and he has sharp eyes; and he is careful of me."

"_Very_ careful?" said Mr. Thorold, laughing and pressing my arm. "Daisy, _I_ am your guardian while you are in Washington. I wish I had a right to say that you shall have nothing more to do with Dr. Sandford. But for the present I must mind my duty."

"And I mine," - I added, with my heart beating. Now it seemed a good opening for some of the things I had to say; yet my heart beat and I was silent.

"Yours, Daisy?" he said very tenderly. "What is yours? What present pressure of conscience is giving you something hard to do? I know it will be done! What work is this little soldier on?"

I could not tell him. I could not. My answer diverged.

"What are _you_ on, Christian?"

"The same thing. Rather preparing for work - preparing others. I am at that all day."

"And do you expect there will be real work, as you call it? Will it come to that?"

"Looks like it. What do you think of Fairfax Court-house? - and Great Bethel? - and Falling Waters, and so on?"

"That was bad, at Great Bethel," I said.

"Mismanagement -" said Mr. Thorold calmly.

"And at Vienna."

"No, the troops behaved well. They behaved well, Daisy. I am content with that."

"Do you think - don't be angry, Christian! - do you think the people of the North generally will make as fiery fighting men as the people of the South, who are used to fighting, and commanding, and the practice of arms?"

"When you get a quiet man angry, Daisy, he is the very worst man to deal with that you ever saw."

"But the people of the North are all accustomed to peaceful employments?"

Mr. Thorold laughed, looking down at me with infinite amusement and tenderness mixed.

"I see what your training has been," he said. "What will you do when you have one of those quiet people for your husband?"

"Quiet!" said I. "When your eyes are showering sparks of fire all over me!"

"Daisy," he said, "those rose leaves in your cheeks are the very prettiest bits of colour I ever saw in my life."

"But we are wandering from the subject," I said.

"No, we are not," he said decidedly. "You are my one subject at all times."

"Not when you are training soldiers?" I said half laughing. But he gave me a look which silenced me. And it nearly took away all the courage I had, for everything I wanted to say to him and had found it so difficult to say.

"Christian," I began again after an interval, "were the troops that were sent over into Virginia just now, sent, do you suppose, to meet Beauregard?"

"I suppose so."

"You are not going?" - I asked, because the question was torturing me.

He looked down at me again, a steady, fixed, inquiring look, that grew very full of affection before he answered,

"I hope so, Daisy."

"You are not ordered!"

"No; not yet."

"But if you were to go, would you not know it by this time?"

"Not certainly. Some troops will be left here of course, to guard Washington."

I walked with my heart in my mouth. I knew, what he did not say, that orders might be issued suddenly and as suddenly obeyed; with no beforehand warning or after delay. How could I speak anything of what had been in my mind to be said? Yet the very circumstances which made it more difficult made it also imperative, to speak them. I fought myself, while Mr. Thorold sometimes watched me and constantly took care of me, with a thoughtful care in little things which was eloquent.

"Christian" - I began, feeling my voice changed.

"That is to tell me we must turn homeward?" he said gayly.

"No; I want to speak to you. But we must turn homeward too."

"To speak to me? In that voice? Look at me, Daisy. - No, I won't hear it now, and not here. We must have something better. Daisy, go and ride with me to- morrow evening!"

"Oh, I cannot."

"Yes, Daisy. I ask it of you. Dr. Sandford is in bed. He cannot go along. Then you can tell me all that is on your mind about Northern soldiers."

"Oh, I only thought Christian - You know, I know the temper of the Southern people."

"You will know the temper of the other section of the country some day," he said, with a smile at me which was half serious and half personal in its bearing. But he made me promise to go and ride with him if I could; and so left me.

I met Mrs. Sandford as I went into the house. She said she was glad I kept up my walks; she was sorry I had such a terribly dull time; it was a pity I came to Washington. Dr. Sandford was no better, and much worried about me, that I should be so cut off from amusement.

"Tell him I am doing very well, and having time to read the papers," I said.

"Those horrid papers!" said Mrs. Sandford. "They make my hair stand on end. I wouldn't read them; Daisy."

"But you do."

"Well, I cannot keep my hands off them when I see them; but I wish I was where I could never see them. Ever since I read General Beauregard's proclamation, I have been in a fury with everything South; and it is uncomfortable to be in a fury. O dear! I wish Grant would get well and take us away. Come in and let us have a cup of tea, dear. Isn't it hot?"

I took the tea and bore the talk, till both were done and I could shut myself into the seclusion of my own room. And tears did not come to-night, but dry heart- aching pain instead; with which I struggled till the night had worn far on. Struggled, trying to reason it away and to calm it down by faith and prayer. Ah me! how little reason could do, or faith either. For reason only affirmed and enlarged my fears; and faith had no power to say; they might not come true. The promise, "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings," belongs to those who have their will so merged in God's will as not to be careful what that will may be. I had not got so far. A new lesson was set me in my experience book; even to lay my will down; and nobody who has not learned or tried to learn that lesson knows how mortal hard it is. It seemed to me my heart was breaking the whole livelong night.