CHAPTER XI.
THE WOUNDED HAND.
Daisy kept herself quite still while her father and June were present. When Mr. Randolph had gone downstairs, and June, seeing her charge better, ventured to leave her to get some brandy and water, then Daisy seized that minute of being alone to allow herself a few secret tears. Once opened, the fountain of tears gushed out a river; and when June came back Daisy was in an agony which prevented her knowing that anybody was with her. In amaze, June set down the brandy and water, and looked on. She had never in her life seen Daisy so. It distressed her; but though June might be called dull, her poor wits were quick to read some signs; and troubled as she was, she called neither Daisy's father nor her mother. The child's state would have warranted such an appeal. She never heard June's tremulous "Don't, Miss Daisy!" She was shaken with the sense of the terrible contest she had brought on herself; and grieved to the very depths of her tender little heart that she must bear the displeasure of her father and her mother. She struggled with tears and agitation until she was exhausted, and then lay quiet, panting and pale, because she had no strength to weep longer.
"Miss Daisy," said June, "drink this."
"What is it?"
"It is brandy and water. It is good for you."
"I am not faint. I don't like it."
"Miss Daisy, please! You want something. It will make you feel better and put you to sleep."
Disregarding the tumbler which June offered, Daisy slowly crawled off the bed, and went and kneeled down before her open window, crossing her arms on the sill. June followed her, with a sort of submissive pertinacity.
"Miss Daisy, you want to take some of this, and lie down and go to sleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep."
"Miss Daisy, you're weak won't you take a little of this, to strengthen you a bit?"
"I don't want it, June."
"You'll be sick to-morrow."
"June," said Daisy, "I wish a chariot of fire would come for me!"
"Why, Miss Daisy?"
"To take me right up. But I shall not be sick. You needn't be afraid. You needn't stay."
June was too much awed to speak, and dared not disobey. She withdrew; and in her own premises stood as Daisy was doing, looking at the moonlight; much wondering that storms should pass over her little white mistress such as had often shaken her own black breast. It was mysterious.
Daisy did not wish to go to sleep; and it was for fear she should, that she had crawled off the bed, trembling in every limb. For the same reason she would not touch the brandy and water. Once asleep, the next thing would be morning and waking up; she was not ready for that. So she knelt by the window, and felt the calm glitter of the moonlight, and tried to pray. It was long, long since Daisy had withstood her father or mother in anything. She remembered the last time; she knew now they would have her submit to them, and now she thought she must not. Daisy dared not face the coming day. She would have liked to sit up all night; but her power of keeping even upon her knees was giving way when June stole in behind her, too uneasy to wait for Daisy's ring.
"Miss Daisy, you'll be surely sick to-morrow, and Mis'
Randolph will think I ought to be killed."
"June, didn't the minister say this morning "
"What minister?"
"Oh, it wasn't you, it was Joanna. Where is Joanna? I want to see her."
"Most likely she's going to bed, Miss Daisy."
"No matter I want to see her. Go and tell her, June no matter if she is in her night-gown, tell her I want to speak to her one minute."
June went, and Daisy once more burst into tears. But she brushed them aside when Joanna came back with June a few minutes after.
"Joanna didn't the minister say this morning, that when we are doing what Jesus tells us, He will help us through?"
"It's true," said Joanna, looking startled and troubled at the pale little tear-stained face lifted to her; "but I don't just know as that minister said it this morning."
"Didn't he?"
"Why, it's true, Miss Daisy; for I've heard other ministers say it; but that one this morning was preaching about something else don't you know?"
"Was he? Didn't he say that?"
"Why, no, Miss Daisy; he was preaching about how rich "
"Oh, I know!" said Daisy "I remember; yes, it wasn't then it was afterwards. Yes, he said it I knew it but it wasn't in his sermon. Thank you, Joanna that's all; I don't want you any more."
"What ails her?" whispered Joanna, when June followed her out with a light.
But June knew her business better than to tell her little mistress's secrets; and her face showed no more of them than it showed of her own. When she returned, Daisy was on her knees, with her face hidden in her hands, at the foot of the bed.
June stopped; and the little white figure there looked so slight, the attitude of the bended head was so childlike and pitiful, that the mulatto woman's face twinkled and twitched in a way most unwonted to its usual stony lines. She never stirred till Daisy rose up and submissively allowed herself to be put to bed; and then waited on her with most reverent gentleness.
So she did next morning. But Daisy was very pale, and trembled frequently, June noticed; and, when she was dressed, sat down patiently by the window. She was not going down to breakfast, she told June; and June went away to her own breakfast, very ill satisfied.
Breakfast was brought up to Daisy, as she expected; and then she waited for her summons. She could not eat much. The tears were very ready to start, but Daisy kept them back. It did not suit her to go weeping into her father and mother's presence, and she had self-command enough to prevent it. She could not read; yet she turned over the pages of her Bible to find some comfort. She did not know or could not remember just where to look for it; and at last turned to the eleventh of Hebrews, and with her eye running over the record there of what had been done and borne for Christ's sake, felt her own little heart beating hard in its own trial.
June came at length to call her to her mother's room.
Mrs. Randolph was half lying on a couch, a favourite position; and her eye was full on Daisy as she came in. Daisy stopped at a little distance; and June took care to leave the door ajar.
"Daisy," said Mrs. Randolph, "I want in the first place an explanation of last night's behaviour."
"Mamma, I am very sorry to have offended you!" said Daisy, pressing both hands together upon her breast to keep herself quiet.
"Looks like it," said Mrs. Randolph; and yet she did see and feel the effect of the night's work upon the child. "Go on; tell me why you disobeyed me last night."
"It was Sunday " said Daisy, softly.
"Sunday! well, what of that? what of Sunday?"
"That song wasn't a Sunday song."
"What do you mean by a Sunday song?"
"I mean" Daisy was on dangerous ground, and she knew it, "I mean, one of those songs that God likes to hear people sing on His day."
"Who is to be judge?" said Mrs. Randolph, "you or I?"
"Mamma," said Daisy, "I will do everything else in the world you tell me!"
"You will have to do everything else and this too. Isn't there a commandment about children obeying their mothers."
"Yes, ma'am."
"That is the very first commandment I mean you shall obey," said Mrs. Randolph, rousing herself enough to bring one foot to the floor. "You have no business to think whether a thing is right or wrong, that I order you to do; if I order it, that makes it right; and anybody but a fool would tell you so. You will sing that song from the 'Camp in Silesia' for me next Sunday evening, or I will whip you, Daisy you may depend upon it. I have done it before, and I will again; and you know I do not make believe. Now go to your father."
"Where is he, mamma?" said Daisy, with a perceptible added paleness in her cheek.
"I don't know. In the library, I suppose."
To the library Daisy went, with trembling steps, in great uncertainty what she was to expect from her father. It was likely enough that he would say the same as her mother, and insist on the act of submission to be gone through next Sunday; but Daisy had an inward consciousness that her father was likely to come to a point with her sooner than that. It came even sooner than she expected.
Mr. Randolph was pacing up and down the library when Daisy slowly opened the door. No one else was there. He stopped when she came in, and stood looking at her as she advanced towards him.
"Daisy, you disobeyed me last night."
"Yes, papa, but "
"I have but one answer for that sort of thing," said Mr.
Randolph, taking a narrow ruler from the library table.
"Give me your hand!"
Daisy gave it, with a very vague apprehension of what he was about to do. The sharp, stinging stroke of the ruler the next moment upon her open palm, made her understand very thoroughly. It drew from her one cry of mixed pain and terror; but after that first forced exclamation Daisy covered her face with her other hand, and did not speak again. Tears, that she could not help, came plentifully; for the punishment was sufficiently severe, and it broke her heart that her father should inflict it; but she stood perfectly still, only for the involuntary wincing that was beyond her control, till her hand was released and the ruler was thrown down. Heart and head bowed together then, and Daisy crouched down on the floor where she stood, unable either to stand or to move a step away.
"There! that account's settled!" said Mr. Randolph, as he flung down his ruler. And the next moment his hands came softly about Daisy, and lifted her from the floor and placed her on his knee; and his arms were wrapped tenderly round her. Daisy almost wished he had let her alone; it seemed to her that her sorrow was more than she could bear.
"Is your heart almost broken?" said Mr. Randolph, softly, as he felt rather than heard the heavy sobs so close to him. But to speak was an impossibility, and so he knew, and did not repeat his question; only he held Daisy fast, and it was in his arms that she wept out the first overcharged fulness of her heart.
It was a long time before she could quiet those heavy sobs; and Mr. Randolph sat quite still holding her.
"Is your heart quite broken?" he whispered again, when he judged that she could speak. Daisy did not speak, however. She turned, and rising upon her knees, threw her arms round her father's neck, and hid her soft little head there. If tears came Mr. Randolph could not tell; he thought his neck was wet with them. He let her alone for a little while.
"Daisy "
"Papa."
"Can you talk to me?"
Daisy sank back into her former position. Her father put his lips down to hers for a long kiss.
"That account is settled," said he; "do you understand? Now
Daisy, tell me what was the matter last night."
"Papa, it was Sunday night."
"Yes. Well?"
"And that song that mamma wanted me to sing" Daisy spoke very low, "was out of an opera; and it was good for any other day, but not for Sunday."
"Why not?"
Daisy hesitated, and at last said, "It had nothing to do with
Sunday, papa."
"But obedience is not out of place on Sunday, is it?"
"No, papa, except "
"Well, except what?"
"Papa, if God tells me to do one thing, and you tell me another, what shall I do?" Daisy had hid her face in her father's breast.
"What counter command have you to plead in this case?"
"Papa, may I show it to you?"
"Certainly."
She got down off his lap, twinkling away a tear hastily, and went to the bookcase for the big Bible aforesaid. Mr. Randolph seeing what she was after, and that she could not lift it, went to her help, and brought it to the library table. Daisy turned over the leaves with fingers that trembled yet, hastily, flurriedly; and paused and pointed to the words that her father read, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day."
Mr. Randolph read them, and the words following, and the words that went before; then he turned from them, and drew Daisy to her place in his arms again.
"Daisy, there is another commandment there, 'Honour thy father and thy mother.' Is there not ?"
"Yes, papa."
"Is not one command as good as the other?"
"Papa, I think not," said Daisy. "One command tells me to obey you, the other tells me to obey God."
Childish as the answer was, there was truth in it; and Mr.
Randolph shifted his ground.
"Your mother will not be satisfied without your obeying the lesser command nor shall I!"
Silence.
"She will expect you to do next Sunday evening what you refused to do last evening."
Still silence, but a shiver ran over Daisy's frame.
"Do you know it?" said Mr. Randolph, noticing also that
Daisy's cheek had grown a shade paler than it was.
"Papa I wish I could die!" was the answer of the child's agony.
"Do you mean that you will not obey her, Daisy?"
"How can I, papa? how can I!" exclaimed Daisy.
"Do you think that song is so very bad, Daisy?"
"No, papa, it is very good for other days; but it is not holy." Her accent struck strangely upon Mr. Randolph's ear; and sudden contrasts rushed together oddly in his mind.
"Daisy, do you know that you are making yourself a judge of right and wrong? over your mother and over me?"
Daisy hid her face again in his breast; what could she answer? Mr. Randolph unfolded the little palm, swollen and blistered from the marks of his ruler.
"Why did you offend me, Daisy?" he said, gravely.
"Oh, papa!" said Daisy, beside herself, "I didn't I couldn't I wouldn't, for anything in the world! but I couldn't offend the Lord Jesus!"
She was weeping again bitterly.
"That will not do," said Mr. Randolph. "You must find a way to reconcile both duties. I shall not take an alternative." But after that he said no more, and only applied himself to soothing Daisy; till she sat drooping in his arms, but still and calm. She started when the sound of steps and voices came upon the verandah.
"Papa, may I go?"
He let her go, and watched her measured steps through the long room to the door, and heard the bound they made as soon as she was outside of it. He rang the bell and ordered June to be called. She came.
"June," said Mr. Randolph, "I think Daisy wants to be taken care of to-day I wish you would not lose sight of her."
June courtesied her obedience.
A few minutes afterwards her noiseless steps entered Daisy's room. June's footfall was never heard about the house. As noiseless as a shadow she came into a room; as stealthily as a dark shadow she went out. Her movements were always slow; and whether from policy or caution originally, her tread would not waken a sleeping mouse. So she came into her little mistress's chamber now. Daisy was there, at her bureau, before an open drawer; as June advanced, she saw that a great stock of little pairs of gloves was displayed there, of all sorts, new and old; and Daisy was trying to find among them one that would do for her purpose. One after another was tried on the fingers of her right hand, and thrown aside; and tears were running over the child's cheeks and dropping into the drawer all the time. June came near, with a sort of anxious look on her yellow face. It was strangely full of wrinkles and lines, that generally never stirred to express or reveal anything. Suddenly she exclaimed, but June's very exclamations were in a smothered tone
"Oh, Miss Daisy! what have you done to your hand?"
"I haven't done anything to it," said Daisy, trying furtively to get rid of her tears, "but I want a glove to put on, June, and they are all too small. Is Cecilia at work here to- day?"
"Yes, Miss Daisy; but let me look at your hand! let me put some liniment on."
"No, I don't want it," said Daisy; and June saw the suppressed sob that was not allowed to come out into open hearing; "but June, just rip that glove, will you, here in the side seam; and then ask Cecilia to make a strip of lace-work there so that I can get it on." Daisy drew a fur glove over the wounded hand as she spoke it was the only one large enough and put on her flat hat.
"Miss Daisy, Mr. Randolph said I was to go with you anywhere you went to take care of you."
"Then come down to the beach, June; I'll be there."
Daisy stole down stairs and slipped out of the first door she came to. What she wanted was to get away from seeing anybody; she did not wish to see her mother, or Preston, or Captain Drummond, or Ransom; and she meant even if possible to wander off and not be at home for dinner. She could not bear the thought of the dinner-table, with all the faces round it. She stole out under the shrubbery, which soon hid her from view of the house.
It was a very warm day, the sun beating hot wherever it could touch at all. Daisy went languidly along under cover of the trees, wishing to go faster, but not able, till she reached the bank. There she waited for June to join her, and together they went down to the river shore. Safe there from pursuit, on such a day, Daisy curled herself down in the shade with her back against a stone, and then began to think. She felt very miserable; not merely for what had passed, but for a long stretch of trouble that she saw lying before her. Indeed where or how it was to end, Daisy had no idea. Her father indeed, she felt pretty sure would not willingly allow his orders to come in conflict with what she thought her duty; though if he happened to do it unconsciously, Daisy would not follow that train of thought. But here she was now, at this moment, engaged in a trial of strength with her mother; very unequal, for Daisy felt no power at all for the struggle, and yet she could not yield!
Where was it to end? and how many other like occasions of difference might arise, even after this one should somehow have been settled? Had the joy of being a servant of Jesus so soon brought trouble with it? Daisy had put the trunk of a large tree between her and June; but the mulatto woman, where she sat, heard the stifled sobs of the child. June's items of intelligence, picked up by eye and ear, had given her by this time an almost reverent feeling towards Daisy; she regarded her as hardly earthly; nevertheless, this sort of distress must not be suffered to go on, and she was appointed to prevent it.
"Miss Daisy it is luncheon time," she said, without moving. Daisy gave no response. June waited, and then came before her and repeated her words.
"I am not going in."
"But you want your dinner, Miss Daisy."
"No, I don't, June. I don't want to go in."
June looked at her a minute. "I'll get you your luncheon out here, Miss Daisy. You'll be faint for want of something to eat. Will you have it out here?"
"You needn't say where I am, June."
June went off, and Daisy was left alone. Very weary and exhausted, she sat leaning her head against the stone at her side, in a sort of despairing quiet. The little ripple of the water on the pebbly shore struck her ear; it was the first thing eye or ear had perceived to be pleasant that day. Daisy's thoughts went to the hand that had made the glittering river, with all its beauties and wonders; then they went to what Mr. Dinwiddie had said, that God will help His people when they are trying to do any difficult work for Him; He will take care of them; He will not forsake them. Suddenly it filled Daisy's soul like a flood, the thought that Jesus loves His people; that she was His little child and that He loved her; and all His wisdom and power and tenderness were round her and would keep her. Her trouble seemed to be gone, or it was like a cloud with sunlight shining all over it. The very air was full of music, to Daisy's feeling, not her sense. There never was such sunlight, or such music either, as this feeling of the love of Jesus. Daisy kneeled down by the rock, and rested her forehead against it, to pray for joy.
She was there still, when June came back, and stopped and looked at her, a vague expression of care sitting in her black eyes, into which now an unwonted moisture stole. June had a basket, and as soon as Daisy sat down again, she came up and began to take things out of it. She had brought everything for Daisy's dinner. There was a nice piece of beefsteak, just off the gridiron; and rice and potatoes; and a fine bowl of strawberries for dessert. June had left nothing; there was the roll and the salt, and a tumbler and a carafe of water. She set the other things about Daisy, on the ground and on the rock, and gave the plate of beefsteak into her hand.
"Miss Daisy, what will you do for a table?"
"It's nicer here than a table. How good you are, June. I didn't know I wanted it."
"I know you do, Miss Daisy."
And she went to her sewing, and sewed perseveringly, while
Daisy eat her dinner.
"June, what o'clock is it."
"It's after one, ma'am."
"You haven't had your own dinner?"
June mumbled something, of which nothing could be understood except that it was a general abnegation of all desire or necessity for dinner on her own part.
"But you have not had it?" said Daisy.
"No, ma'am. They've done dinner by this time."
"June, I have eaten up all the beefsteak there is nothing left but some potato, and rice, and strawberries; but you shall have some strawberries."
June in vain protested. Daisy divided the strawberries into two parts, sugared them both, broke the remaining roll in two, and obliged June to take her share. When this was over, Daisy seated herself near June, and laid her head against her knee. She could hardly hold it up.
"June," she said presently, "I think those people in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews you know."
"Yes, Miss Daisy."
"I think they were very happy, because they knew that Jesus loved them."
June made no audible answer; she mumbled something; and Daisy sat still. Presently her soft breathing made June look over at her; Daisy was asleep. In her hand, in her lap, lay a book. June looked yet further, to see what book it was. It was Mr. Dinwiddie's Bible.
June sat up and went on with her work, but her face twitched.