Daisy In The Field

It was a dumb pain at my heart all day. I could not understand

myself. For several days I had been quiet and prepared, I

thought, and submissive; now to-day all was disorder; no

preparedness; no quiet. Instead were heartaches and regrets

and wild wishes; sometimes in dull and steady force, like a

still rain storm; and sometimes sweeping over me with the fury

of a tempestuous blast. I had not strength to resist; my

utmost was to keep a calm front before my friends. I did that,

I think. But what torture is it not, to be obliged to hear and

answer all manner of trifling words, to enter into every

trivial thought, of people at ease around one, when the heart

is bending and bowing under its life burden; to be obliged to

count the pebbles in the way, when one is staggering to keep

one's footing at all. Yes, and one must answer with a

disengaged face, and one must smile with ready lips, and

attention must not wander, and self-absorption for a minute

cannot be allowed. Perhaps it was good for me.

My companions attended to me well, so that I got no respite

all day. Not till night, when I reached my room; and when I

had respite, I found no rest. It was great relief to put my

head down without fear lest somebody should ask me if it

ached; but all night long I struggled with the pain that had

fought me all day. The next morning I went to find Miss

Cardigan. To my great disappointment she was not at home; and

would not be at home, I was told, under a week.

I passed slowly in, over the familiar stones of the marble

floor, in through the empty rooms, to the innermost one which

opened upon the little conservatory. That too was stripped of

its beauties; most of the plants were set out in the open

ground, and the scaffolding steps were bare. I turned my back

upon the glass door, which had been for me the door to so much

sweetness, and sat down to think. Not only sweetness. How

strange it was! From Miss Cardigan's flowers, the connecting

links led on straight to all my sorrow and heartache of the

present and perhaps of many future days. They had led me here;

and here Mr. Thorold had said words to me that had bound him

and me together for the rest of our lives, and made his

welfare my welfare. And now, he was in the shock of

battlefields; and I - afar off - must watch and listen. And I

could not be near and watch. I must be where even good news

would be no news, except of the past; where nobody would speak

to me of Mr. Thorold, and where I could not speak of him to

anybody. I was sure, the more I thought of it, that the only

possible chance for a good issue to our engagement, would be

to wait until the war should be over; and if he persisted in

his determination of speaking to my father and mother before

such a favourable conjuncture, the end would be only disaster.

I somewhat hoped, that the pressure of active duty on his

part, or some happy negligence of post-office officials, or

other contingency, might hinder such a letter as he had

threatened from coming to my father's hands at present.