Daisy in the Field Part 67

"Come to Jesus just now -"

As I sang, a voice from the further end of the room took it up, and bore me company in a somewhat rough but true and manly chorus, to the end of the singing. It rang sweet round the room; it fell sweet on many ears, I know. And so I gave my Lord's message.

I sang no more that night. The poor man for whose sake I had begun the singing, rapidly grew worse. I could not leave him; for ever and again, in the pauses of suffering, his eyes sought mine. I answered the mute appeal as I best could, with a word now and a word then. Towards morning the struggle ceased. He spoke no more to me; but the last look was to my eyes, and in his, it seemed to me, the shadow had cleared away. That was all I could know.

CHAPTER XXII.

ORDERS

I slept longer than I had meant to do, the next morning; but I rose with a happy feeling of being in my place; where I wanted to be. That is, to be sure, not always the criterion by which to know the place where one ought to be; yet where it is a qualification it is also in some sense a token. The ministry of the hours preceding swept over me while I was dressing, with something of the grand swell and cadence of the notes of a great organ; grand and solemn and sweet. I entered the ward, ready for the day's work, with a glad readiness.

So I felt, as I stepped in and went down the s.p.a.ce between the rows of beds. Miss Yates nodded to me.

"Here you are!" she said. "Fresh as the morning. Well I don't know why we shouldn't have pleasant things in such a place as this, if we can get them; there's enough that ain't pleasant, and folks forget there is anything else in the world. Now you'll be better than breakfast, to some of them; and here's breakfast, my dear. You know how to manage that."

I knew very well how to manage that; and I knew too, as I went on with my ministrations, that Miss Yates was not altogether wrong. My ministry did give pleasure; and I could not help enjoying the knowledge. This was not the enjoyment of flattering crowds, waiting round me with homage in their eyes and on their tongues. I had known that too, and felt the foolish flutter of gratified vanity for a moment, to be ashamed of it the next. This was the brightening eye, the relaxing lip, the tone of gratification, from those whose days and hours were a weary struggle with pain and disease; to bring a moment's refreshment to them was a great joy, which gives me no shame now in the remembrance. Even if it was only the refreshment of memory and fancy, that was something; and I gave thanks in my heart, as I went from one sufferer to another, that I had been made pleasant to look at. Preston himself smiled at me this morning, which I thought a great gain.

"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was giving him his tea and toast.

"I am glad you think so."

"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything from Norma, or II Trovatore?"

"They would be rather out of place here."

"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is vile tea."

"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else here."

"I know no such thing. There is nothing good in this place, - except you, - and I suppose that is the reason you have chosen it for your abode. I can't imagine how Aunt Randolph came to let you, though."

"She let me come to take care of you."

"_I_'m not worth it. What's a man good for, when there is only half of him left? I should like just to get into one other field, and let powder take the other half."

"Hush, Preston! hush; you must not talk so. There's your mother."

"My mother won't think much of me now, I don't know why she should. You never did, even when I was myself."

"I think just as much of you now as ever, Preston. You might be much more than your old self, if you would."

Preston frowned and rolled his head over on the pillow.

"Confounded!" he muttered. "To be in such a den of Yankees!"

"You are ungrateful."

"I am not. I owe it to Yankee powder."

What, perhaps, had Southern powder done? I s.h.i.+vered inwardly, and for a moment forgot Preston.

"What is the matter?" said he. "You look queer; and it is very queer of you to spill my tea."

"Drink it then," I said, "and don't talk in such a way. I will not have you do it, Preston, to me."

He glanced at me, a little wickedly; but he had finished his breakfast and I turned from him. As I turned, I saw that the bed opposite, where Morton had died a few hours before, had already received another occupant. It startled me a little; this quick transition; this sudden total pa.s.sing away; then, as I cast another glance at the newly come, my breath stood still. I saw eyes watching me, - I had never but once known such eyes; I saw an embrowned but very familiar face; as I looked, I saw a flash of light come into the eyes, quick and brilliant as I had seen such flashes come and go a hundred times. I knew what I saw.

It seems to me now in the retrospect, it seemed to me then, as if my life - that which makes life - were that moment suddenly gathered up, held before me, and then dashed under my feet; thrown down to the ground and trampled on. For a moment the sight of my eyes failed me. I think n.o.body noticed it. I think nothing was to be seen, except that I stood still for that minute. It pa.s.sed, and my sight returned; and as one whose life is under foot and who knows it will never rise again, I crossed the floor to Thorold. We were not alone. Eyes and ears were all around us. Remembering this, I put my hand in his and said a simple -

"How do you do?"

But his look at me was so infinitely glad and sweet, that my senses failed me again. I did not sink down; but I stood without sight or hearing. The clasp of his hand recalled me.

"It is Daisy!" he said smiling. "Daisy, and not a vision. My Daisy! How is it?"

"What can I do for you?" I said hastily.

"Nothing. Stand there. I have been looking at you; and thought it was long till you would look at me."

"I was busy."

"Yes, I know, love. How is it, Daisy? When did you come back from Switzerland?"

"Months ago."

"I did not know of it."

"Letters failed, I suppose."

"Then you wrote?"

"I wrote, - with papa's letter."

"When?"

"Oh, long ago - long ago; - I don't know, - a year or two."

"It never reached me," he said, a shadow crossing his bright brow.

"I sent it to your aunt, for her to send it to you; and she sent it; I asked her."

"Failed," he said. "What was it, Daisy?"

The question was put eagerly.

"Papa was very good," I said; - "and you were very right, Christian, and I was wrong. He liked your letter."