Daisy

"Be watchful," were the first words that met me. Aye, I was sure I would need it; but how was a watch to be kept up, if I could never be alone to take counsel with myself? I did not see it; this was another matter from Miss Pinshon's unlocked door. After all, that unlocked door had not greatly troubled me; my room had not been of late often invaded. Now I had no room. What more would my dear little book say to me?

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

Was the battle to go so hard against me? and what should I do without that old and well-tried weapon of "all-prayer?" Nothing; I should be conquered. I must have and keep that, I resolved; if I lay awake and got up at night to use it. Dr. Sandford would not like such a proceeding; but there were worse dangers than the danger of lessened health. I would pray; but what next?

"Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently." – "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

I stood by the side of my bed, dashing the tears from my eyes. Then I heard, as I thought, some one coming, and in haste looked to see what else might be on the page: what further message or warning. And something like a sunbeam of healing flashed into my heart with the next words.

"Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

"I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand."

I was healed. I put up my little book in my bag again, feeling whole and sound. It did not matter that I was crowded and hindered and watched; for it was written also, "He preserveth the way of his saints;" and I was safe.

I sat a little while longer alone. Then came a rush and rustle of many feet upon the stairs, many dresses moving, many voices blending in a soft little roar; as ominous as the roar of the sea which one hears in a shell. My four room-mates poured into the room, accompanied by two others; very busy and eager about their affairs that they were discussing. Meanwhile they all began to put themselves in order.

"The bell will ring for tea directly," said Miss Macy, addressing herself to me; "are you ready?"

"'Tisn't much trouble to fix her hair," said my friend with the black eyes.

Six pair of eyes for a moment were turned upon me.

"You are too old to have your hair so," remarked Miss Bentley. "You ought to let it grow."

"Why don't you?" said Miss Lansing.

"She is a Roundhead," said the St. Clair, brushing her own curls; which were beautiful and crinkled all over her head, while my hair was straight. "I don't suppose she ever saw a Cavalier before."

"St. Clair, you are too bad!" said Miss Macy. "Miss Randolph is a stranger."

St. Clair made no answer, but finished her hair and ran off; and presently the others filed off after her; and a loud clanging bell giving the signal, I thought best to go too. Every room was pouring forth its inmates; the halls and passages were all alive and astir. In the train of the moving crowd, I had no difficulty to find my way to the place of gathering.

This was the school parlour; not the one where I had seen Mme. Ricard. Parlours, rather; there was a suite of them, three deep; for this part of the house had a building added in the rear. The rooms were large and handsome; not like school rooms, I thought; and yet very different from my home; for they were bare. Carpets and curtains, sofas and chairs and tables were in them, to be sure; and even pictures; yet they were bare; for books and matters of art and little social luxuries were wanting, such as I had all my life been accustomed to, and such as filled Mme. Ricard's own rooms. However, this first evening I could hardly see how the rooms looked, for the lining of humanity which ran round all the walls. There was a shimmer as of every colour in the rainbow; and a buzz that could only come from a hive full. I, who had lived all my life where people spoke softly, and where many never spoke together, was bewildered.

The buzz hushed suddenly, and I saw Mme. Ricard's figure going slowly down the rooms. She was in the uttermost contrast to all her household. Ladylike always, and always dignified, her style was her own, and I am sure that nobody ever felt that she had not enough. Yet Mme. Ricard had nothing about her that was conformed to the fashions of the day. Her dress was of a soft kind of serge, which fell around her or swept across the rooms in noiseless yielding folds. Hoops were the fashion of the day; but Mme. Ricard wore no hoops; she went with ease and silence where others went with a rustle and a warning to clear the way. The back of her head was covered with a little cap as plain as a nun's cap; and I never saw an ornament about her. Yet criticism never touched Mme. Ricard. Not even the criticism of a set of school-girls; and I had soon to learn that there is none more relentless.

The tea-table was set in the further room of the three. Mme. Ricard passed down to that. Presently I heard her low voice saying, "Miss Randolph." Low as it always was, it was always heard. I made my way down through the rooms to her presence; and there I was introduced to the various teachers. Mademoiselle Géneviève, Miss Babbitt, Mme. Jupon, and Miss Dumps. I could not examine them just then. I felt I was on exhibition myself.

"Is Miss Randolph to come to me, Madame?" the first of these ladies asked. She was young, bright, black-eyed, and full of energy; I saw so much.

"I fancy she will come to all of you," said Madame. "Except Miss Babbitt. You can write and read, I dare say, Miss Randolph?" she went on with a smile. I answered of course.

"What have been your principal studies for the past year?"

I said mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy and history.

"Then she is mine!" exclaimed Mlle. Géneviève.

"She is older than she looks," said Miss Babbitt.

"Her hair is young, but her eyes are not," said the former speaker, who was a lively lady.

"French have you studied?" Madame went on.

"Not so much," I said.

"Mme. Jupon will want you."

"I am sure she is a good child," said Mme. Jupon, who was a good-natured, plain-looking Frenchwoman, without a particle of a Frenchwoman's grace or address. "I will be charmed to have her."

"You may go back to your place, Miss Randolph," said my mistress. "We will arrange all the rest to-morrow."

"Shall I go back with you?" asked Mlle. Géneviève. "Do you mind going alone?"

She spoke very kindly, but I was at a loss for her meaning. I saw the kindness; why it showed itself in such an offer I could not imagine.

"I am very much obliged to you, ma'am," I began, when a little burst of laughter stopped me. It came from all the teachers; even Mme. Ricard was smiling.

"You are out for once, Géneviève," she said.

"La charmante!" said Mme. Jupon. "Voyez l'a plomb!"

"No, you don't want me," said Mlle. Géneviève, nodding. "Go – you'll do."

I went back to the upper room and presently tea was served. I sat alone; there was nobody near me who knew me; I had nothing to do while munching my bread and butter but to examine the new scene. There was a great deal to move my curiosity. In the first place, I was surprised to see the rooms gay with fine dresses. I had come from the quiet of Magnolia, and accustomed to the simplicity of my mother's taste; which if it sometimes adorned me, did it always in subdued fashion, and never flaunted either its wealth or beauty. But on every side of me I beheld startling costumes; dresses that explained my mantua-maker's eagerness about velvet and green leaves. I saw that she was right; her trimmings would have been "quiet" here. Opposite me was a brown merino, bordered with blocks of blue silk running round the skirt. Near it was a dress of brilliant red picked out with black cord and heavy with large black buttons. Then a black dress caught my eye which had an embattled trimming of black and gold, continued round the waist and completed with a large gold buckle. Then there was a grey cashmere with red stars; and a bronze-coloured silk with black velvet a quarter of a yard wide let into the skirt; the body all of black velvet. I could go on if my memory would serve me. The rooms were full of this sort of thing. Yet more than the dresses the heads surprised me. Just at that time the style of hair dressing was one of those styles which are endurable, and perhaps even very beautiful, in the hands of a first-rate artist and on the heads of those very few women who dress well; but which are more and more hideous the farther you get from that distant pinnacle of the mode, and the lower down they spread among the ranks of society. I thought, as I looked from one to another, I had never seen anything so ill in taste, so outraged in style, so unspeakable in ugliness as well as in pretension. I supposed then it was the fashion principally which was to blame. Since then, I have seen the same fashion on one of those heads that never wear anything but in good style. It gathered a great wealth of rich hair into a mass at the back of the head, yet leaving the top and front of the hair in soft waves; and the bound up mass behind was loose and soft and flowed naturally from the head, it had no hard outline nor regular shape; it was nature's luxuriance just held in there from bursting down over neck and shoulders; and hardly that, for some locks were almost escaping. The whole was to the utmost simple, natural, graceful, rich. But these caricatures! All that they knew was to mass the hair at the back of the head; and that fact was attained. But some looked as if they had a hard round cannon-ball fastened there; others suggested a stuffed pincushion, ready for pins; others had a mortar-shell in place of a cannon-ball, the size was so enormous; in nearly all, the hair was strained tight over or under something; in not one was there an effect which the originator of the fashion would not have abhorred. Girlish grace was nowhere to be seen, either in heads or persons; girlish simplicity had no place. It was a school: but the company looked fitter for the stiff assemblages of ceremony that should be twenty years later in their lives.

My heart grew very blank. I felt unspeakably alone; not merely because there was nobody there whom I knew, but because there was nobody whom it seemed to me I ever should know. I took my tea and bits of bread and butter, feeling forlorn. A year in that place seemed to me longer than I could bear. I had exchanged my King Log for King Stork.

It was some relief when after tea we were separated into other rooms and sat down to study. But I dreamed over my book. I wondered how heads could study that had so much trouble on the outside. I wandered over the seas to that spot somewhere that was marked by the ship that carried my father and mother. Only now going out towards China; and how long months might pass before China would be done with and the ship be bearing them back again. The lesson given me that night was not difficult enough to bind my attention; and my heart grew very heavy. So heavy, that I felt I must find help somewhere. And when one's need is so shut in, then it looks in the right quarter – the only one left open.

My little book was upstairs in my bag: but my thoughts flew to my page of that day and the "Fear thou not, for I am with thee." Nobody knows, who has not wanted them, how good those words are. Nobody else can understand how sweet they were to me. I lost for a little all sight of the study table and the faces round it. I just remembered who was WITH ME; in the freedom and joy of that presence both fears and loneliness seemed to fade away. "I, the Lord, will hold thy right hand." Yes, and I, a weak little child, put my hand in the hand of my great Leader, and felt safe and strong.

I found very soon I had enemies to meet that I had not yet reckoned with. The night passed peacefully enough; and the next day I was put in the schoolroom and found my place in the various classes. The schoolrooms were large and pleasant; large they had need to be, for the number of day scholars who attended in them was very great. They were many as well as spacious; different ages being parted off from each other. Besides the schoolrooms proper, there were rooms for recitation, where the classes met their teachers; so we had the change and variety of moving from one part of the house to another. We met Mlle. Géneviève in one room, for mathematics and Italian; Mme. Jupon in another, for French. Miss Dumps seized us in another, for writing and geography, and made the most of us; she was a severe little person in her teaching and in her discipline; but she was good. We called her Miss Maria, in general. Miss Babbitt had the history; and she did nothing to make it intelligible or interesting. My best historical times thus far, by much, had been over my clay map and my red and black headed pins, studying the changes of England and her people. But Mlle. Géneviève put a new life into mathematics. I could never love the study; but she made it a great deal better than Miss Pinshon made it. Indeed, I believe that to learn anything under Mlle. Géneviève would have been pleasant. She had so much fire and energy; she taught with such a will; her black eyes were so keen both for her pupils and her subject. One never thought of the discipline in Mlle. Géneviève's room, but only of the study. I was young to be there, in the class where she put me; but my training had fitted me for it. With Mme. Jupon also I had an easy time. She was good-nature itself, and from the first showed a particular favour and liking for me. And as I had no sort of wish to break rules, with Miss Maria too I got on well. It was out of school and out of study hours that my difficulties came upon me.

For a day or two I did not meet them. I was busy with the school routine, and beginning already to take pleasure in it. Knowledge was to be had here; lay waiting to be gathered up; and that gathering I always enjoyed. Miss Pinshon had kept me on short allowance. It was the third or fourth day after my arrival, that going up after dinner to get ready for a walk I missed my chinchilla cap from its peg. I sought for it in vain.

"Come, Daisy," said Miss Lansing, "make haste. Babbitt will be after you directly if you aren't ready. Put on your cap."

"I can't find it," I said. "I left it here, in its place, but I can't find it."

There was a burst of laughter from three of my room-mates, as Miss St. Clair danced out from the closet with the cap on her own brows; and then with a caper of agility, taking it off, flung it up to the chandelier, where it hung on one of the burners.

"For shame, Faustina, that's too bad. How can she get it?" said Miss Bentley.

"I don't want her to get it," said the St. Clair coolly.

"Then how can she go to walk?"

"I don't want her to go to walk."

"Faustina, that isn't right. Miss Randolph is a stranger; you shouldn't play tricks on her."

"Roundheads were always revolutionists," said the girl recklessly. "A la lanterne! Heads or hats – it don't signify which. That is an example of what our Madame calls 'symbolism.'"

"Hush – sh! Madame would call it something else. Now how are we going to get the cap down?"

For the lamp hung high, having been pushed up out of reach for the day. The St. Clair ran off, and Miss Macy followed; but the two others consulted, and Lansing ran down to waylay the chambermaid and beg a broom. By the help of the broom handle my cap was at length dislodged from its perch, and restored to me. But I was angry. I felt the fiery current running through my veins; and the unspeakable saucy glance of St. Clair's eye, as I passed her to take my place in the procession, threw fuel on the fire. I think for years I had not been angry in such a fashion. The indignation I had at different times felt against the overseer at Magnolia was a justifiable thing. Now I was angry and piqued. The feeling was new to me. I had been without it very long. I swallowed the ground with my feet during my walk; but before the walk came to an end the question began to come up in my mind, what was the matter? and whether I did well? These sprinklings of water on the flame I think made it leap into new life at first; but as they came and came again, I had more to think about than St. Clair when I got back to the house. Yes, and as we were all taking off our things together I was conscious that I shunned her; that the sight of her was disagreeable; and that I would have liked to visit some gentle punishment upon her careless head. The bustle of business swallowed up the feeling for the rest of the time till we went to bed.

But then it rose very fresh, and I began to question myself about it in the silence and darkness. Finding myself inclined to justify myself, I bethought me to try this new feeling by some of the words I had been studying in my little book for a few days past. "The entrance of thy words giveth light" – was the leading text for the day that had just gone; now I thought I would try it in my difficulty. The very next words on the page I remembered were these – "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

It came into my mind as soon, that this feeling of anger and resentment which troubled me had to do with darkness, not with the light. In vain I reasoned to prove the contrary; I felt dark. I could not look up to that clear white light where God dwells, and feel at all that I was "walking in the light as he is in the light." Clearly Daisy Randolph was out of the way. And I went on with bitterness of heart to the next words – "Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light."

And what then? was I to pass by quietly the insolence of St. Clair? was I to take it quite quietly, and give no sign even of annoyance? take no means of showing my displeasure, or of putting a stop to the naughtiness that called it forth? My mind put these questions impatiently, and still, as it did so, an answer came from somewhere, – "Walk as children of light." I knew that children of light would reprove darkness only with light; and a struggle began. Other words came into my head then, which made the matter only clearer. "If any man smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other." "Love your enemies." Ah, but how could I? with what should I put out this fire kindled in my heart, which seemed only to burn the fiercer whatever I threw upon it? And then other words came still sweeping upon me with their sweetness, and I remembered who had said, "I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee." I softly got out of bed, wrapped the coverlid round me, and knelt down to pray. For I had no time to lose. To-morrow I must meet my little companion, and to-morrow I must be ready to walk as a child of light, and to-night the fires of darkness were burning in my heart. I was long on my knees. I remember, in a kind of despair at last I flung myself on the word of Jesus, and cried to Him as Peter did when he saw the wind boisterous. I remember how the fire died out in my heart, till the very coals were dead; and how the day and the sunlight came stealing in, till it was all sunshine. I gave my thanks, and got into bed, and slept without a break the rest of the night.

CHAPTER XI.

A PLACE IN THE WORLD

I WAS an humbler child when I got out of bed the next morning, I think, than ever I had been in my life before. But I had another lesson to learn.

I was not angry any more at Miss St. Clair. That was gone. Even when she did one or two other mischievous things to me, the rising feeling of offence was quickly got under; and I lived in great charity with her. My new lesson was of another sort.

Two or three days passed, and then came Sunday. It was never a comfortable day at Mme. Ricard's. We all went to church of course, under the care of one or other of the teachers; and we had our choice where to go. Miss Babbitt went to a Presbyterian church. Miss Maria to a high Episcopal. Mme. Jupon attended a little French Protestant chapel; and Mlle. Géneviève and Mme. Ricard went to the Catholic church. The first Sunday I had gone with them, not knowing at all whither. I found that would not do; and since then I had tried the other parties. But I was in a strait; for Miss Maria's church seemed to me a faded image of Mlle. Géneviève's; the Presbyterian church which Miss Babbitt went to was stiff and dull; I was not at home in either of them, and could not understand or enjoy what was spoken. The very music had an air of incipient petrification, if I can speak so about sounds. At the little French chapel I could as little comprehend the words that were uttered. But in the pulpit there was a man with a shining face; a face full of love and truth and earnestness. He spoke out of his heart, and no set words; and the singing was simple and sweet and the hymns beautiful. I could understand them, for I had the hymn-book in my hands. Also I had the French Bible, and Mme. Jupon, delighted to have me with her, assured me that if I listened I would very soon begin to understand the minister's preaching just as well as if it were English. So I went with Mme. Jupon, and thereby lost some part of Mlle. Géneviève's favour; but that I did not understand till afterwards.

We had all been to church as usual, this Sunday, and we were taking off our hats and things upstairs, after the second service. My simple toilet was soon made; and I sat upon the side of my little bed, watching those of my companions. They were a contrast to mine. The utmost that money could do, to bring girls into the fashion, was done for these girls; for the patrons of Mme. Ricard's establishment were nearly all rich.

Costly coats and cloaks, heavily trimmed, were surmounted with every variety of showy head-gear, in every variety of unsuitableness. To study bad taste, one would want no better field than the heads of Mme. Ricard's seventy boarders dressed for church. Not that the articles which were worn on the heads were always bad; some of them came from irreproachable workshops; but there was everywhere the bad taste of overdressing, and no where the tact of appropriation. The hats were all on the wrong heads. Everybody was a testimony of what money can do without art. I sat on my little bed, vaguely speculating on all this as I watched my companions disrobing; at intervals humming the sweet French melody to which the last hymn had been sung; when St. Clair paused in her talk and threw a glance in my direction. It lighted on my plain plaid frock and undressed hair.

"Don't you come from the country, Miss Randolph?" she said, insolently enough.

I answered yes. And I remembered what my mantua-maker had said.

"Did you have that dress made there?"

"For shame, St. Clair!" said Miss Bentley; "let Miss Randolph alone. I am sure her dress is very neat."

"I wonder if women don't wear long hair where she came from?" said the girl, turning away from me again. The others laughed.

I was as little pleased at that moment with the defence as with the attack. The instant thought in my mind was, that Miss Bentley knew no more how to conduct the one than Miss St. Clair to make the other; if the latter had no civility, the first had no style. Now the St. Clair was one of the best dressed girls in school and came from one of the most important families. I thought, if she knew where I came from, and who my mother was, she would change her tone. Nevertheless, I wished mamma would order me to let my hair grow, and I began to think whether I might not do it without order. And I thought also that the spring was advancing, and warm weather would soon be upon us; and that these girls would change their talk and their opinion about me when they saw my summer frocks. There was nothing like them in all the school. I ran over in my mind their various elegance, of texture and lace, and fine embroidery, and graceful, simple drapery. And also I thought, if these girls could see Magnolia, its magnificent oaks, and its acres of timber, and its sweeps of rich fields, and its troops of servants, their minds would be enlightened as to me and my belongings.

These meditations were a mixture of comfort and discomfort to me; but on the whole I was not comfortable. This process of comparing myself with my neighbours, I was not accustomed to; and even though its results were so favourable, I did not like it. Neither did I quite relish living under a cloud; and my eyes being a little sharpened now, I could see that not by my young companions alone, but by every one of the four teachers, I was looked upon as a harmless little girl whose mother knew nothing about the fashionable world. I do not think that anything in my manner showed either my pique or my disdain; I believe I went out of doors just as usual; but these things were often in my thoughts, and taking by degrees more room in them.