The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

by Charlotte M. Yonge

It was so, when he came to her bedside; that fixed stony look of despair was gone; the source of tears, so long dried up, had opened again; and there she lay, weeping quietly indeed, but profusely, and with deep heaving sobs. To speak, or to leave her alone, seemed equally perilous, but he chose the first—he kissed and blessed her, and gave her joy. She looked up at him as if his blessing once more brought peace, and said faintly, “Now it is pardon—now I can die!”

“The cloud is gone! Thanks for that above all!” said Dr. May fervently. “Now, my dear, rest in thankful gladness—you are too weak to talk or think.”

“I am weak—I am tired of it all,” said Flora. “I am glad to be going while I am so happy—there are Margaret—my own darling—rest—peace—”

“You are not going, dearest,” said her father; “at least, I trust not, if you will not give way; here is a darling given to you, instead of the first, who needs you more.”

He would have taken the infant from the nurse and held her to her mother, but, recollecting how little Leonora had drawn her last breath in his arms, he feared the association, and signed to Mrs. Arnott to show her the child; but she seemed as yet only able to feel that it was not Leonora, and the long sealed-up grief would have its way. The tears burst out again. “Tell Ethel she will be the best mother to her. Name her Margaret—make her a Daisy of your own—don’t call her after me,” she said, with such passionate caresses, that Mrs. Arnott was glad to take the babe away.

Dr. May’s next expedient was to speak to her of her husband, who needed her more than all, and to call him in. There seemed to be something tranquillising in his wistful manner of repeating, “Don’t cry, Flora;” and she was at last reduced, by her extreme exhaustion, to stillness; but there were still many fears for her.

Dr. May’s prediction was accomplished—that she would suffer for having over-exerted herself. Her constitution had been severely tried by the grief and despondency that she had so long endured in silence, and the fresh sorrow for her favourite sister coming at such a crisis. There was a weariness of life, and an unwillingness to resume her ordinary routine, that made her almost welcome her weakness and sinking; and now that the black terror had cleared away from the future, she seemed to long to follow Margaret at once, and to yearn after her lost child; while appeals to the affection that surrounded her often seemed to oppress her, as if there were nothing but weariness and toil in store.

The state of her mind made her father very anxious, though it was but too well accounted for. Poor Flora had voluntarily assumed the trammels that galled her; worldly motives had prompted her marriage, and though she faithfully loved her husband, he was a heavy weight on her hands, and she had made it more onerous by thrusting him into a position for which he was not calculated, and inspiring him with a self-consequence that would not recede from it. The shock of her child’s death had taken away the zest and energy which had rejoiced in her chosen way of life, and opened her eyes to see what Master she had been serving; and the perception of the hollowness of all that had been apparently good in her, had filled her with remorse and despair. Her sufferings had been the more bitter because she had not parted with her proud reserve. She had refused council, and denied her confidence to those who could have guided her repentance. Her natural good sense, and the sound principle in which she had been brought up, had taught her to distrust her gloomy feelings as possibly morbid; and she had prayed, keeping her hold of faith in the Infinite Mercy, though she could not feel her own part in it; and thus that faith was beginning at last to clear her path.

It was the harder to deal with her, because her hysterical agitation was so easily excited, that her father hardly dared to let a word be spoken to her; and she was allowed to see no one else except her aunt and the dear old nurse, whose tears for her child Margaret had been checked by the urgent requirements of another of her nurslings; and whom George Rivers would have paid with her weight in gold, for taking care of his new daughter, regarding her as the only woman in the world that could be trusted.

Those were heavy days with every one, though each brought some shade of improvement. They were harder to bear than the peaceful days that had immediately followed the loss of Margaret; and Ethel was especially unhappy and forlorn under the new anxiety, where she could be of no service; and with her precious occupation gone; her father absent, instead of resting upon her; and her room deserted. She was grieved with herself, because her feelings were unable to soar at the Christmas Feast, as erst on St. Andrew’s Day; and she was bewildered and distressed by the fear that she had then been only uplifted by vanity and elation.