Miss McDonald Part 8

"Dear friend, pardon me, won't you, for the liberty I have taken since knowing your secret? You would, I am sure, if you only knew what a dear, darling little creature Mr. Thornton's eldest child is. Did you know he had called her Daisy for you? He has, and with her blue eyes and bright auburn hair, she might pa.s.s for your very own, with the exception of her nose, which is decidedly retrousse. She is three years old, and the most precocious little witch you ever saw. What think you of her making up a bundle of shawls and ap.r.o.ns and christening it Miss McDolly, her name for you, and talking to it as if it were really the famous and beautiful woman she fancies it to be? She is your 'sake-name,' she says, and before I knew the facts of the case, I was greatly amused by her talk to the bundle of shawls which she reproached for never having sent her anything. When I asked Julia (that's Mrs. Thornton) who Miss McDolly was, she merely answered, 'The lady for whom Daisy was named,' and that was all I knew until the gossips enlightened me, when, without a word to anyone, I resolved upon a liberty which I thought I could venture to take with you. I suggested the letter which I inclose and which I wrote exactly as the words came from the little lady's lips. Neither Mr.

Thornton nor his wife know aught of the letter, nor will they unless you respond, for the child will keep her own counsel, I am well a.s.sured.

"Again forgive me if I have done wrong, and believe me, as ever,

"Yours, sincerely, "ELLA BARKER."

Daisy's face was as pale as ashes as she read Miss Barker's letter, and then s.n.a.t.c.hing up the other, devoured its contents almost at a glance, while her breath came in panting gasps and her heart seemed trying to burst through her throat. She could neither move nor cry out for a moment, but she sat like one turned into stone with that sense of suffocation oppressing her, and that horrible pain in her heart. She had thought the grave was closed, the old wound healed by time and silence; and now a little child had torn it open, and it was bleeding and throbbing again with a pang such as she had never felt before, while there crept over her such a feeling of desolation and loneliness, a want of something unpossessed, as few have ever experienced.

But for her own foolishness that sweet little child might have been hers, she thought, as her heart went after the little one with an indescribable yearning which made her stretch out her arms as if to take the baby to her bosom and hold it there forever. Guy had called it for her, and that touched her more than anything else. He had not forgotten her then. She had never supposed he had, but to be thus a.s.sured of it was very sweet, and as she thought of it and read again little Daisy's letter, the tightness about her heart and the choking sensation in her throat began to give way, and one after another the great tears rolled down her cheeks, slowly at first, but gradually faster and faster, until they fell in torrents and a tempest of sobs shook her slight frame as with her head bowed upon her dressing-table she gave vent to her grief.

It seemed to her she never could stop crying or grow calm again, for as often as she thought of the touching words, "I p'ays for you," there came a fresh burst of sobs and tears, until at last nature was exhausted, and with a low moan Daisy sank upon her knees and tried to pray, the words which first sprang to her lips framing themselves into thanks that somewhere in the world there was one who prayed for her and loved her, too, even though the love might have for its object merely dolls and candies and toys. And these the child should have in such abundance, and Miss McDonald found herself longing for the morrow in which to begin again the shopping she had thought was nearly ended.

It was in vain next day that her mother remonstrated against her going out, pleading her white, haggard face and the rawness of the day. Daisy was not to be detained at home, and before ten o'clock she was down on Broadway, and the dolly with the "shash" and "pairesol" which she had seen the day before under its gla.s.s case was hers for twenty-five dollars, and the plainer bit of china, who was to be dollie's mother and perform the parental duty of "panking her when she was naughty," was also purchased, and the dishes and the table and stove and bedstead, with ruffled sheets and pillow-cases and blue satin spread and the washboard and clothes bars and tiny wringer, with divers others toys, were bought with a disregard of expense which made Miss McDonald a wonder to those who waited on her. Such a Christmas box was seldom sent to a child as that which Daisy packed in her room that night, with her mother looking on and wondering what Sunday-school was to be the recipient of all those costly presents and suggesting that cheaper articles would have answered just as well.

Everything the child had asked for was there except the picture. That Daisy dared not send, lest it should look too much like thrusting herself upon Guy's notice and wound Julia, his wife.

Daisy was strangely pitiful in her thoughts of Julia, who would in her turn have pitied her for her delusion could she have known how sure she was that but for the tardiness of that letter Guy would have chosen his first love in preference to any other.

And it was well that each believed herself first in the affection of the man to whom Daisy wanted so much to send something as a proof of her unalterable love. They were living still in the brown cottage; they were not able to buy Elmwood back. Oh, if she only dared to do it, and could do it, how gladly her Christmas gift should be the handsome place which they had been so proud of! But that would hardly do; Guy might not like to be so much indebted to her; he was proud and sensitive in many points, and so she abandoned the plan for the present, thinking that by and by she would purchase and hold it as a gift to her namesake on her bridal day. That will be better, she said, as she put the last article in the box and saw it leave the door, directed to Guy Thornton's care.

Great was the surprise at the brown cottage, when, on the very night before Christmas, the box arrived and was deposited in the dining room, where Guy and Julia, Miss Barker and Daisy gathered eagerly around it, the latter exclaiming:

"I knows where it tum from, I do. My sake-name, Miss McDolly, send it, see did. I writ and ask her would see an' she hab."

"What!" Guy said, as, man-like, he began deliberately to untie every knot in the string which his wife in her impatience would have cut at once. "What does the child mean? Do you know, Julia?"

"I do. I'll explain," Miss Barker said, and in as few words as possible she told what she had done, while Julia listened with a very grave face, and Guy was pale even to his lips as he went on untying the string and opening the box.

There was a letter lying on the top which he handed to Julia, who steadied her voice to read aloud:

"NEW YORK, December 22, 18--.

"DARLING LITTLE SAKE-NAME DAISY: Your letter made Miss McDolly very happy, and she is so glad to send you the doll with a shash, and the other toys. Write to me again and tell me if they suit you. G.o.d bless you, sweet little one, is the prayer of

"MISS MCDONALD."

After that the grave look left Julia's face, and Guy was not quite so pale, as he took out one after another the articles which little Daisy hailed with rapturous shouts and exclamations of delight.

"Oh, isn't she dood, and don't you love her, papa?" she said, while Guy replied:

"Yes, it was certainly very kind in her, and generous. No other little girl in town will have such a box as this."

He was very pale, and there was a strange look in his eyes, but his voice was perfectly natural as he spoke, and one who knew nothing of his former relations to Miss McDonald would never have suspected how his whole soul was moved by this gift to his little daughter.

"You must write and thank her," he said to Julia, who, knowing that this was proper, a.s.sented without a word, and when on the morning after Christmas Miss McDonald opened with trembling hands the envelope bearing the Cuylerville postmark, she felt a keen pang of disappointment in finding only a few lines from Julia expressive of her own and little Daisy's thanks for the beautiful Christmas box, "which made our little girl so happy."

Not Julia, but Mrs. Guy, and that hurt Daisy more than anything else.

"Mrs. Guy Thornton! Why need she thrust upon me the name I used to bear?" she whispered, and her lip quivered a little, and the tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered all that lay between the present and the time when she had been Mrs. Guy Thornton.

She was Miss McDonald now, and Guy was another woman's husband, and with a bitter pain in her heart, she put away Julia's letter, saying as she did so, "And that's the end of that."

The box business had not resulted just as she hoped it would. She had thought Guy would write himself, and by some word or allusion a.s.sure her of his remembrance, but instead there had come to her a few perfectly polite and well-expressed lines from Julia, who had the impertinence to sign herself Mrs. Guy Thornton! It was rather hard and sorely disappointing, and for many days Miss McDonald's face was very white and sad, and both the old and young whom she visited as usual wondered what had come over the beautiful lady to make her "so pale and sorry."

CHAPTER XI

AT SARATOGA

There were no more letters from Mrs. Guy Thornton until the next Christmas time, when another box went to little Daisy, and was acknowledged as before. Then another year glided by, with a third box to Daisy, and then one summer afternoon in August there came to Saratoga a gay party from New York, and the clerk at Congress Hall registered, with other names, that of Miss McDonald. Indeed, it seemed to be her party, or at least she was its center, and the one to whom the others deferred as to their head. Daisy was in perfect health that summer, and in unusually good spirits, and when in the evening, yielding to the entreaties of her friends, she entered the ball-room, clad in flowing, gauzy robes of blue and white, with costly jewels on her neck and arms, she took all hearts by storm, and was acknowledged at once as the star and belle of the evening. She did not dance--she rarely did that now--but after a short promenade through the room she took a seat near the door, and was watching the gay dancers when she felt her arm softly touched, and, turning, saw her maid standing by her with an anxious, frightened look upon her face.

"Come, please, come quick," she said in a whisper, and, following her out, Miss McDonald asked what was the matter.

"This--you must go away at once. I'll pack your things. I promised not to tell, but I must. I can't see your pretty face all spoiled and ugly."

"What do you mean?" the lady asked, and after a little she made out from the girl's statement that in strolling on the back piazza she had stumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts she had known nothing for a long time.

The girl, Mary, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga a week or ten days before, with her master's family, consisting of his wife and two children. As the hotel was crowded they were a.s.signed rooms for the night in a distant part of the house, with a promise of something much better on the morrow. In the morning, however, the lady, who had not been well for some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the doctor who was called in to see her, p.r.o.nounced the disease--here Sarah stopped and gasped for breath and looked behind her and all ways, and finally whispered a word which made even Miss McDonald start a little and wince with fear.

"He do call it the very-o-lord," Sarah said, "but Mary says it's the very old devil himself. She knows, she has had it, and you can't put down a pin where the cratur didn't have his claws. They told the landlord, who was fur puttin' 'em straight outdoors, but the doctor said the lady must not be moved--it was sure death to do it. It was better to keep quiet, and not make a panic. n.o.body need to know it in the house, and their rooms are so far from everybody that n.o.body would catch it. So he let 'em stay, and the gentleman takes care of her, and Mary keeps the children in the next room, and carries and brings the things, and keeps away from everybody. Two of the servants know it, and they've had it, and don't tell, and she said I mustn't, nor come that side of the house, but I must tell you so that you can leave to-morrow. The lady is very bad, and n.o.body takes care of her but Mr. Thornton. Mary takes things to the door, and leaves them outside where he can get them."

"What did you call the gentleman?" Miss McDonald asked, her voice faltering and her cheek blanching a little.

"Mr. Thornton, from Cuylerville, a place far in the country," was the girl's reply, and then, without waiting to hear more, Miss McDonald darted away, and, going to the office, turned the leaves of the register to the date of ten or eleven days ago, and read with a beating heart and quick coming breath:

"Guy Thornton, lady, two children, and servant. Nos. ---- and ----."

Yes, it was Guy; there could be no mistake, and in an instant her resolution was taken. Calling to her maid, she sent for her shawl and hat, and then bidding her follow, walked away in the moonlight. The previous summer when at Saratoga she had received medical treatment from Dr. Schwartz, whom she knew well and to whose office she directed her steps. He seemed surprised to see her at that hour, but greeted her cordially and asked when she came to town and what he could do for her.

"Tell me if this is still a safeguard," she said, baring her beautiful white arm and showing a large round scar. "Will this insure me against disease?"

The doctor's face flushed, and he looked uneasily at her as he took her arm in his hand, and, examining the scar closely, said:

"The points are still distinct. I should say the vaccination was thorough."

"But another will be safer. Have you fresh vaccine?" Daisy asked; and he replied:

"Yes, some just from a young, healthy heifer. I never use the adulterated stuff which has been humanized. How do I know what humors may be lurking in the blood? Why, some of the fairest, sweetest babies are full of scrofula!"

He was going on further with his discussion, when Daisy, who knew his peculiarities, interrupted him: