Daisy

The words came about me, binding up my doubts, making sound my heart, laying a soft touch upon every rough spot in my thoughts. True, honest, just, lovely, and of good report, – yes, I would think on these things, and I would not be turned aside from them. And if I suffered as a Christian, I determined that I would not be ashamed; I prayed that I might never; I would take as no dishonour the laughter or the contempt of those who did not see the two sides of the question; but as a thief I would not suffer. I earnestly prayed that I might not. No beauty of dresses or stylishness of coats or bonnets should adorn me, the price of which God saw belonged and was due to the sufferings of others; more especially to the wants of those whose wants made my supply. That my father and mother, with the usage of old habit, and the influence of universal custom, should be blind to what I saw so clearly, made no difference in my duty. I had the light of the Bible rule, which was not yet, I knew, the lamp to their feet. I must walk by it, all the same. And my thought went back now with great tenderness to Mammy Theresa's rheumatism, which wanted flannel; to Maria's hyacinths, which were her great earthly interest, out of the things of religion; to Darry's lonely cottage, where he had no lamp to read the Bible o' nights, and no oil to burn in it. To Pete's solitary hut, too, where he was struggling to learn to read well, and where a hymn-book would be the greatest comfort to him. To the old people, whose one solace of a cup of tea would be gone unless I gave it them; to the boys who were learning to read, who wanted testaments; to the bed-ridden and sick, who wanted blankets; to the young and well, who wanted gowns (not indeed for decency, but for the natural pleasure of looking neat and smart) – and to Margaret, first and last, who was nearest to me, and who, I began to think, might want some other trifles besides a cloak. The girl come in at the minute.

"Margaret," I said, "I have got you a warm gown and a good thick warm cloak, to-day."

"A cloak! Miss Daisy – " Margaret's lips just parted and showed the white teeth between them.

"Yes. I saw you were not warm in that thin shawl."

"It's mighty cold up these ways! – " the girls shoulders drew together with involuntary expression.

"And now, Margaret, what other things do you want, to be nice and comfortable? You must tell me now, because after I go to school I cannot see you often, you know."

"Reckon I find something to do at the school, Miss Daisy. Ain't there servants?"

"Yes, but I am afraid there may not be another wanted. What else ought you to have, Margaret?"

"Miss Daisy knows, I'll hire myself out, and reckon I'll get a right smart chance of wages; and then, if Miss Daisy let me take some change, I'd like to get some things – "

"You may keep all your wages, Margaret," I said hastily; "you need not bring them to me; but I want to know if you have all you need now, to be nice and warm?"

"'Spect I'd be better for some underclothes – " Margaret said, half under her breath.

Of course! I knew it the moment she said it. I knew the scanty coarse supply which was furnished to the girls and women at Magnolia; I knew that more was needed for neatness as well as for comfort, and something different, now that she was where no evil distinction would arise from her having it. I said I would get what she wanted; and went back again to the parlour. I mused as I went. If I let Margaret keep her wages – and I was very certain I could not receive them from her – I must be prepared to answer it to my father. Perhaps, – yes, I felt sure as I thought about it – I must contrive to save the amount of her wages out of what was given to myself; or else my grant might be reversed and my action disallowed, or at least greatly disapproved. And my father had given me no right to dispose of Margaret's wages, or of herself.

So I came into the parlour. Dr. Sandford alone was there, lying on the sofa. He jumped up immediately; pulled a great arm chair near to the fire, and taking hold of me, put me into it. My purchases were lying on the table, where they had been disapproved, but I knew what to think of them now. I could look at them very contentedly.

"How do they seem, Daisy?" said the doctor, stretching himself on the cushions again, after asking my permission and pardon.

"Very well," – I said, smiling.

"You are satisfied?"

I said yes.

"Daisy," said he, "you have conquered me to-day – I have yielded – I owned myself conquered; but won't you enlighten me? As a matter of favour?"

"About what, Dr. Sandford?"

"I don't understand you."

I remember looking at him and smiling. It was so curious a thing, both that he should, in his philosophy, be puzzled by a child like me, and that he should care about undoing the puzzle.

"There!" said he, – "that is my old little Daisy of ten years old. Daisy, I used to think she was an extremely dainty and particular little person."

"Yes – " said I.

"Was that correct?"

"I don't know," said I. "I think it was."

"Then Daisy, honestly – I am asking as a philosopher, and that means a lover of knowledge, you know, – did you choose those articles to-day to please yourself?"

"In one way, I did," I answered.

"Did they appear to you as they did to Mrs. Sandford, – at the time?"

"Yes, Dr. Sandford."

"So I thought. Then, Daisy, will you make me understand it? For I am puzzled."

I was sorry that he cared about the puzzle, for I did not want to go into it. I was almost sure he would not make it out if I did.

However, he lay there looking at me and waiting.

"Those other things cost too much, Dr. Sandford – that was all."

"There is the puzzle!" said the doctor. "You had the money in your bank for them, and money for Margaret's things too, and more if you wanted it; and no bottom to the bank at all, so far as I could see. And you like pretty things, Daisy, and you did not choose them?"

"No, sir."

I hesitated, and he waited. How was I to tell him? He would simply find it ridiculous. And then I thought – "If any of you suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed."

"I thought I should be comfortable in these things, Dr. Sandford," I then said, glancing at the little chinchilla cap which lay on the table; – "and respectable. And there were other people who needed all the money the other things would have cost."

"What other people?" said the doctor. "As I am your guardian, Daisy, it is proper for me to ask, and not impertinent."

I hesitated again. "I was thinking," I said, "of some of the people I left at Magnolia."

"Do you mean the servants?"

"Yes, sir."

"Daisy, they are cared for."

I was silent.

"What do you think they want?"

"Some that are sick want comfort," I said, "and others who are not sick want help; and others, I think, want a little pleasure." I would fain not have spoken, but how could I help it? The doctor took his feet off the sofa and sat up and confronted me.

"In the meantime," he said, "you are to be 'comfortable and respectable.' But, Daisy, do you think your father and mother would be satisfied with such a statement of your condition?"

"I suppose not," I was obliged to say.

"Then do you think it proper for me to allow such to be the fact?"

I looked at him. What there was in my look it is impossible for me to say; but he laughed a little.

"Yes," he said, – "I know – you have conquered me to-day. I own myself conquered – but the question I ask you is whether I am justifiable."

"I think that depends," I answered, "on whether I am justifiable."

"Can you justify yourself, Daisy?" he said, bringing his hand down gently over my smooth hair and touching my cheek. It would have vexed me from anybody else; it did not vex me from him. "Can you justify yourself?" he repeated.

"Yes, sir," I said; but I felt troubled.

"Then do it."

"Dr. Sandford, the Bible says, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'"

"Well," said he, refusing to draw any conclusions for me.

"I have more than I want, and they have not enough. I don't think I ought to keep more than I want."

"But then arises the question," said he, "how much do you want? Where is the line, beyond which you, or I, for instance, have too much?"

"I was not speaking of anybody but myself," I said.

"But a rule of action which is the right one for you, would be right for everybody."

"Yes, but everybody must apply it for himself," I said. "I was only applying it for myself."

"And applying it for yourself, Daisy, is it to cut off for the future – or ought it – all elegance and beauty? Must you restrict yourself to mere 'comfort and respectability'? Are furs and feathers, for instance, wicked things?"

He did not speak it mockingly; Dr. Sandford never could do an ungentlemanly thing; he spoke kindly and with a little rallying smile on his face. But I knew what he thought.

"Dr. Sandford," said I, "suppose I was a fairy, and that I stripped the gown off a poor woman's back to change it into a feather, and stole away her blankets to make them into fur; what would you think of fur and feathers then?"

There came a curious lightning through the doctor's blue eyes. I did not know in the least what it meant.

"Do you mean to say, Daisy, that the poor people down yonder at Magnolia want such things as gowns and blankets?"

"Some do," I said. "You know, nobody is there, Dr. Sandford, to look after them; and the overseer does not care. It would be different if papa was at home."

"I will never interfere with you any more, Daisy," said the doctor, – "any further than by a little very judicious interference; and you shall find in me the best helper I can be to all your plans. You may use me – you have conquered me," – said he, smiling, and laying himself back on his cushions again. I was very glad it had ended so, for I could hardly have withstood Dr. Sandford if he had taken a different view of the matter. And his help, I knew, might be very good in getting things sent to Magnolia.

CHAPTER X.

SCHOOL

I HAD another time the next day between Mrs. Sandford and the mantua-maker. The mantua-maker came to take orders about making my school dress.

"How will you have it trimmed?" she asked. "This sort of stuff will make no sort of an appearance unless it is well trimmed. It wants that. You might have a border of dark green leaves – dark green, like the colour of this stripe – going round the skirt; that would have a good effect; the leaves set in and edged with a very small red cord, or green if you like it better. We trimmed a dress so last week, and it made a very good appearance."

"What do you say, Daisy?"

"How much will it cost?" I asked.

"Oh, the cost is not very much," said the milliner. "I suppose we would do it for you, Mrs. Sandford, for twenty-five dollars."

"That is too much," I said.

"You wouldn't say so, if you knew the work it is to set those leaves round," said the mantua-maker. "It takes hours and hours; and the cording and all. And the silk you know, Mrs. Sandford, that costs nowadays. It takes a full yard of the silk, and no washy lining silk, but good stiff dress silk. Some has 'em made of velvet, but to be sure, that would not be suitable for a common stuff like this. It will be very common, Mrs. Sandford, without you have it handsomely trimmed."

"Couldn't you put some other sort of trimming?"

"Well, there's no other way that looks distingué on this sort of stuff; that's the most stylish. We could put a band of rows of black velvet – an inch wide, or half an inch; if you have it narrower you must put more of them; and then the sleeves and body to match; but I don't think you would like it so well as the green leaves. A great many people has 'em trimmed so; you like it a little out of the common, Mrs. Sandford. Or, you could have a green ribbon."

"How much would that be?" said Mrs. Sandford.

"Oh really, I don't just know," the woman answered; "depends on the ribbon; it don't make much difference to you, Mrs. Sandford; it would be – let me see, Oh, I suppose we could do it with velvet for you for fifteen or twenty dollars. You see there must be buttons or rosettes at the joinings of the velvets; and those come very expensive."

"How much would it be to make the dress plain?" I asked.

"That would be plain," the mantua-maker answered quickly. "The style is, to trim everything very much. Oh, that would be quite plain with the velvet."

"But without any trimming at all?" I asked. "How much would that be?" I felt an odd sort of shame at pressing the question: yet I knew I must.

"Without trimming!" said the woman. "Oh, you could not have it without trimming; there is nothing made without trimming; it would have no appearance at all. People would think you had come out of the country. No young ladies have their dresses made without trimming this winter."

"Mrs. Sandford," said I, "I should like to know what the dress would be without trimming."

"What would it be, Melinda?" The woman was only a forewoman at her establishment.

"Oh, well, Mrs. Sandford, the naked dress I have no doubt could be made for you for five dollars."

"You would not have it so, Daisy, my dear?" said Mrs. Sandford.

But I said I would have it so. It cost me a little difficulty, and a little shrinking, I remember, to choose this and to hold to it in the face of the other two. It was the last battle of that campaign. I had my way; but I wondered privately to myself whether I was going to look very unlike the children of other ladies in my mother's position: and whether such severity over myself was really needed. I turned the question over again in my own room, and tried to find out why it troubled me. I could not quite tell. Yet I thought, as I was doing what I knew to be duty, I had no right to feel this trouble about it. The trouble wore off before a little thought of my poor friends at Magnolia. But the question came up again at dinner.

"Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford, "did you ever have anything to do with the Methodists?"

"No, ma'am," I said, wondering. "What are the Methodists?"

"I don't know, I am sure," she said, laughing, "only they are people who sing hymns a great deal, and teach that nobody ought to wear gay dresses."

"Why?" I asked.

"I can't say. I believe they hold that the Bible forbids ornamenting ourselves."

I wondered if it did; and determined I would look. And I thought the Methodists must be nice people.

"What is on the carpet now?" said the doctor. "Singing or dressing? You are attacking Daisy, I see, on some score."

"She won't have her dress trimmed," said Mrs. Sandford.

The doctor turned round to me, with a wonderful genial pleasant expression of his fine face; and his blue eye, that I always liked to meet full, going through me with a sort of soft power. He was not smiling, yet his look made me smile.

"Daisy," said he, "are you going to make yourself unlike other people?"

"Only my dress, Dr. Sandford," I said.

"L'habit, c'est l'homme! – " he answered gravely, shaking his head.

I remembered his question and words many times in the course of the next six months.

In a day or two more my dress was done, and Dr. Sandford went with me to introduce me at the school. He had already made the necessary arrangements. It was a large establishment, reckoned the most fashionable, and at the same time one of the most thorough, in the city; the house, or houses, standing in one of the broad clear Avenues, where the streams of human life that went up and down were all of the sort that wore trimmed dresses and rolled about in handsome carriages. Just in the centre and height of the thoroughfare Mme. Ricard's establishment looked over it. We went in at a stately doorway, and were shown into a very elegant parlour; where at a grand piano a young lady was taking a music lesson. The noise was very disagreeable; but that was the only disagreeable thing in the place. Pictures were on the walls, a soft carpet on the floor; the colours of carpet and furniture were dark and rich; books and trinkets and engravings in profusion gave the look of cultivated life and the ease of plenty. It was not what I had expected; nor was Mme. Ricard, who came in noiselessly and stood before us while I was considering the wonderful moustache of the music teacher. I saw a rather short, grave person, very plainly dressed – but indeed I never thought of the dress she wore. The quiet composure of the figure was what attracted me, and the peculiar expression of the face. It was sad, almost severe; so I thought it at first; till a smile once for an instant broke upon the lips, like a flitting sunbeam out of a cloudy sky; then I saw that kindliness was quite at home there, and sympathy and a sense of merriment were not wanting; but the clouds closed again, and the look of care, of sorrow, I could not quite tell what it was, only that it was unrest, retook its place on brow and lip. The eye, I think, never lost it. Yet it was a searching and commanding eye; I was sure it knew how to rule.

The introduction was soon made, and Dr. Sandford bid me good-bye. I felt as if my best friend was leaving me; the only one I had trusted in since my father and mother had gone away. I said nothing, but perhaps my face showed my thought, for he stooped and kissed me.

"Good-bye, Daisy. Remember, I shall expect a letter every fortnight."

He had ordered me before to write to him as often as that, and give him a minute account of myself; how many studies I was pursuing, how many hours I gave to them each day, what exercise I took, and what amusement; and how I throve withal. Mme. Ricard had offered to show me my room, and we were mounting the long stairs while I thought this over.

"Is Dr. Sandford your cousin, Miss Randolph?" was the question which came in upon my thoughts.

"No, ma'am," I answered in extreme surprise.

"Is he any relation to you?"

"He is my guardian."

"I think Dr. Sandford told me that your father and mother are abroad?"

"Yes, ma'am; and Dr. Sandford is my guardian."

We had climbed two flights of stairs, and I was panting. As we went up, I had noticed a little unusual murmur of noises, which told me I was in a new world. Little indistinguishable noises, the stir and hum of the busy hive into which I had entered. Now and then a door had opened, and a head or a figure came out; but as instantly went back again on seeing Madame, and the door was softly closed. We reached the third floor. There a young lady appeared at the further end of the gallery, and curtseyed to my conductress.

"Miss Bentley," said Madame, "this is your new companion, Miss Randolph. Will you be so good as to show Miss Randolph her room?"

Madame turned and left us, and the young lady led me into the room she had just quitted. A large room, light and bright, and pleasantly furnished; but the one thing that struck my unaccustomed eyes was the evidence of fulness of occupation. One bed stood opposite the fireplace; another across the head of that, between it and one of the windows; a third was between the doors on the inner side of the room. Moreover, the first and the last of these were furnished with two pillows each. I did not in the moment use my arithmetic; but the feeling which instantly pressed upon me was that of want of breath.

"This is the bed prepared for you, I believe," said my companion civilly, pointing to the third one before the window. "There isn't room for anybody to turn round here now."

I began mechanically to take off my cap and gloves, looking hard at the little bed, and wondering what other rights of possession were to be given me in this place. I saw a washstand in one window and a large mahogany wardrobe on one side of the fireplace; a dressing table or chest of drawers between the windows. Everything was handsome and nice; everything was in the neatest order; but – where were my clothes to go? Before I had made up my mind to ask, there came a rush into the room; I supposed, of the other inmates. One was a very large, fat, dull-faced girl; I should have thought her a young woman, only that she was here in a school. Another, bright and pretty, and very good-humoured if there was any truth in her smiling black eyes, was much slighter and somewhat younger; a year or two in advance of myself. The third was a girl about my own age, shorter and smaller than I, with also a pretty face, but an eye that I was not so sure of. She was the last one to come in, and she immediately stopped and looked at me; I thought, with no pleasure.

"This is Miss Randolph, girls," said Miss Bentley. "Miss Randolph, Miss Macy."

I curtseyed to the fat girl, who gave me a little nod.

"I am glad she isn't as big as I am," was her comment on the introduction. I was glad, too.

"Miss Lansing – "

This was bright-eyes, who bowed and smiled – she always smiled – and said, "How do you do?" Then rushed off to a drawer in search of something.

"Miss St. Clair, will you come and be introduced to Miss Randolph?"

The St. Clair walked up demurely and took my hand. Her words were in abrupt contrast. "Where are her things going, Miss Bentley?" I wondered that pretty lips could be so ungracious. It was not temper which appeared on them, but cool rudeness.

"Madame said we must make some room for her," Miss Bentley answered.

"I don't know where," remarked Miss Macy. "I have not two inches."

"She can't have a peg nor a drawer of mine," said the St. Clair. "Don't you put her there, Bentley." And the young lady left us with that.

"We must manage it somehow," said Miss Bentley. "Lansing, look here, can't you take your things out of this drawer? Miss Randolph has no place to lay anything. She must have a little place, you know."

Lansing looked up with a perplexed face, and Miss Macy remarked that nobody had a bit of room to lay anything.

"I am very sorry," I said.

"It is no use being sorry, child," said Miss Macy; "we have got to fix it, somehow. I know who ought to be sorry. Here – I can take this pile of things out of this drawer; that is all I can do. Can't she manage with this half?"

But Miss Lansing came and made her arrangements, and then it was found that the smallest of the four drawers was cleared and ready for my occupation.

"But if we give you a whole drawer," said Miss Macy, "you must be content with one peg in the wardrobe – will you?"

"Oh, and she can have one or two hooks in the closet," said bright-eyes. "Come here, Miss Randolph, I will show you."

And there in the closet I found was another place for washing, with cocks for hot and cold water; and a press and plenty of iron hooks; with dresses and hats hanging on them. Miss Lansing moved and changed several of these, till she had cleared a space for me.

"There," she said, "now you'll do, won't you? I don't believe you can get a scrape of a corner in the wardrobe; Macy and Bentley and St. Clair take it up so. I haven't but one dress hanging there, but you've got a whole drawer in the bureau."

I was not very awkward and clumsy in my belongings, but an elephant could scarcely have been more bewildered if he had been requested to lay his proboscis up in a glove box. "I cannot put a dress in the drawer," I remarked.

"Oh, you can hang one up here under your cap; and that is all any of us do. Our things, all except our everyday things, go down stairs in our trunks. Have you many trunks?"

I told her no, only one. I did not know why it was a little disagreeable to me to say that. The feeling came and passed. I hung up my coat and cap, and brushed my hair; my new companion looking on. Without any remark, however, she presently rushed off, and I was left alone. I began to appreciate that. I sat down on the side of my little bed; to my fancy the very chairs were appropriated; and looked at my new place in the world.

Five of us in that room! I had always had the comfort of great space and ample conveniences about me; was it a luxury I had enjoyed? It had seemed nothing more than a necessity. And now must I dress and undress myself before so many spectators? could I not lock up anything that belonged to me? were all my nice and particular habits to be crushed into one drawer and smothered on one or two clothes-pins? Must everything I did be seen? And, above all, where could I pray? I looked round in a sort of fright. There was but one closet in the room, and that was a washing closet, and held besides a great quantity of other people's belongings. I could not, even for a moment, shut it against them. In a kind of terror, I looked to make sure that I was alone, and fell on my knees. It seemed to me that all I could do was to pray every minute that I should have to myself. They would surely be none too many. Then, hearing a footstep somewhere, I rose again and took from my bag my dear little book. It was so small I could carry it where I had not room for my Bible. I looked for the page of the day, I remember now, with my eyes full of tears.