The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

It now appeared that he had thought himself coming home ever since. He had gone to recruit in the Himalayas, and had become engrossed in scientific observations on their altitudes, as well as investigations in natural history. Going to Calcutta, he had fallen in with a party about to explore the Asiatic islands and he had accompanied them, as well as going on an expedition into the interior of Australia. He had been employed in various sanitary arrangements there and in India, and had finally worked his way slowly home, overland, visiting Egypt and Palestine, and refreshing his memory with every Italian, German, or French Cathedral, or work of art, that had delighted him in early days.

He was a slight small man, much sunburned, nearly bald, and his hair snowy, but his eyes were beautiful, very dark, soft, and smiling, and yet their gaze peculiarly keen and steady, as if ready for any emergency, and his whole frame was full of alertness and vigour. His voice was clear and sweet, and his manner most refined and polished, indeed, his courtesy to Ethel, whenever there was a change of carriage, was so exemplary, that she understood it as the effect on a chivalrous mind, of living where a lady was a rare and precious article. It frightened Ethel a little at first, but, before the end of the journey, she had already begun to feel towards him like an old friend—one of those inheritances who are so much valued and loved, like a sort of uncles-in-friendship. She had an especial grateful honour for the delicate tact which asked no questions, as she saw his eye often falling anxiously on her father’s left hand, where the wedding ring shone upon the little finger.

There was talk enough upon his travels, on public changes, and on old friends; but, after those first few words, home had never been mentioned.

When, at five o’clock, the engine blew its whistle, at the old familiar station, Dr. May had scarcely put his head out before Adams hastened up to him with a note.

“All well at home?”

“Yes, sir, Miss Margaret sent up the gig.”

“I must go at once,” said Dr May hastily—“the Larkins’ child is worse. Ethel, take care of him, and introduce him. Love to Margaret. I’ll be at home before tea.”

He was driven off at speed, and Ethel proposed to walk home. Dr Spencer gave her his arm, and was silent, but presently said, in a low, anxious voice, “My dear, you must forgive me, I have heard nothing for many years. Your mother—”

“It was an accident,” said Ethel looking straight before her. “It was when papa’s arm was hurt. The carriage was over-turned.”

“And—” repeated Dr Spencer earnestly

“She was killed on the spot,” said Ethel, speaking shortly, and abruptly. If she was to say it at all, she could not do so otherwise.

He was dreadfully shocked—she knew it by the shudder of his arm, and a tight suppressed groan. He did not speak, and Ethel, as if a relief from the silence must be made, said what was not very consoling, and equally blunt. “Margaret had some harm done to her spine—she cannot walk.”

He did not seem to hear, but walked on, as in a dream, where Ethel guided him, and she would not interrupt him again.

They had just passed Mr Bramshaw’s office, when a voice was heard behind, calling, “Miss Ethel! Miss Ethel!” and Edward Anderson, now articled to Mr. Bramshaw, burst out, pen in hand, and looking shabby and inky.

“Miss Ethel!” he said breathlessly, “I beg your pardon, but have you heard from Harry?”

“No!” said Ethel. “Have they had that paper at home?”

“Not that I know of,” said Edward. “My mother wanted to send it, but I would not take it—not while Dr. May was away.”

“Thank you—that was very kind of you.”

“And oh! Miss Ethel, do you think it is true?”

“We hope not,” said Ethel kindly—“we saw a Captain at Oxford who thought it not at all to be depended on.”

“I am so glad,” said Edward; and, shaking hands, he went back to his high stool, Ethel feeling that he deserved the pains that Norman had taken to spare and befriend him. She spoke to her companion in explanation. “We are very anxious for news of my next brother’s ship, Alcestis, in the Pacific—”

“More!” exclaimed poor Dr. Spencer, almost overpowered; “Good Heavens! I thought May, at least, was happy!”

“He is not unhappy,” said Ethel, not sorry that they had arrived at the back entrance of the shrubbery.

“How long ago was this?” said he, standing still, as soon as they had passed into the garden.

“Four years, next October. I assure you, his spirits are almost always good.”

“When I was at Adelaide, little thinking!” he sighed, then recollecting himself. “Forgive me, I have given you pain.”

“No,” she said, “or rather, I gave you more.”

“I knew her—” and there he broke off, paused for a minute, then collecting himself, seemed resolutely to turn away from the subject, and said, walking on, “This garden is not much altered.”

At that moment, a little shrill voice broke out in remonstrance among the laurels—“But you know, Daisy, you are the captain of the forty thieves!”

“A startling announcement!” said Dr. Spencer, looking at Ethel, and the next two steps brought them in view of the play-place in the laurels, where Aubrey lay on the ground, feigning sleep, but keeping a watchful eye over Blanche, who was dropping something into the holes of inverted flower-pots, Gertrude dancing about in a way that seemed to have called for the reproof of the more earnest actors.

“Ethel! Ethel!” screamed the children, with one voice, and, while the two girls stood in shyness at her companion, Aubrey had made a dart at her neck, and hung upon her, arms, legs, body, and all, like a wild cat.

“That will do! that will do, old man—let go! Speak to Dr. Spencer, my dear.”

Blanche did so demurely, and asked where was papa?

“Coming, as soon as he has been to Mrs. Larkins’s poor baby.”

“George Larkins has been here,” said Aubrey. “And I have finished ‘Vipera et lima’, Ethel, but Margaret makes such false quantities!”

“What is your name, youngster?” said Dr. Spencer, laying his hand on Aubrey’s head.

“Aubrey Spencer May,” was the answer.

“Hey day! where did you steal my name?” exclaimed Dr. Spencer, while Aubrey stood abashed at so mysterious an accusation.

“Oh!” exclaimed Blanche, seizing on Ethel, and whispering, “is it really the boy that climbed the market cross?”

“You see your fame lives here,” said Ethel, smiling, as Dr. Spencer evidently heard.

“He was a little boy!” said Aubrey indignantly, looking at the gray-haired man.

“There!” said Ethel to Dr. Spencer.

“The tables turned!” he said, laughing heartily. “But do not let me keep you. You would wish to prepare your sister for a stranger, and I shall improve my acquaintance here. Where are the forty thieves?”

“I am all of them,” said the innocent, daisy-faced Gertrude; and Ethel hastened towards the house, glad of the permission granted by his true good-breeding.

There was a shriek of welcome from Mary, who sat working beside Margaret. Ethel was certain that no evil tidings had come to her eldest sister, so joyous was her exclamation of wonder and rebuke to her home-sick Ethel. “Naughty girl! running home at once! I did think you would have been happy there!”

“So I was,” said Ethel hastily; “but who do you think I have brought home?” Margaret flushed with such a pink, that Ethel resolved never to set her guessing again, and hurried to explain; and having heard that all was well, and taken her housekeeping measures, she proceeded to fetch the guest; but Mary, who had been unusually silent all this time, ran after her, and checked her.

“Ethel, have you heard?” she said.

“Have you?” said Ethel.

“George Larkins rode in this morning to see when papa would come home, and he told me. He said I had better not tell Margaret, for he did not believe it.”

“And you have not! That is very good of you, Mary.”

“Oh! I am glad you are come! I could not have helped telling, if you had been away a whole week! But, Ethel, does papa believe it?” Poor Mary’s full lip swelled, and her eyes swam, ready to laugh or weep, in full faith in her sister’s answer.

Ethel told of Meta’s captain, and the smile predominated, and settled down into Mary’s usual broad beamy look, like a benignant rising sun on the sign of an inn, as Ethel praised her warmly for a fortitude and consideration of which she had not thought her capable.

Dr. Spencer was discovered full in the midst of the comedy of the forty thieves, alternating, as required, between the robber-captain and the ass, and the children in perfect ecstasies with him.

They all followed in his train to the drawing-room, and were so clamorous, that he could have no conversation with Margaret. He certainly made them so, but Ethel, remembering what a blow her disclosures had been, thought it would be only a kindness to send Aubrey to show him to his room, where he might have some peace.

She was not sorry to be very busy, so as to have little time to reply to the questions on the doings at Oxford, and the cause of her sudden return; and yet it would have been a comfort to be able to sit down to understand herself, and recall her confused thoughts. But solitary reflection was a thing only to be hoped for in that house in bed, and Ethel was obliged to run up and down, and attend to everybody, under an undefined sense that she had come home to a dull, anxious world of turmoil.

Margaret seemed to guess nothing, that was one comfort; she evidently thought that her return was fully accounted for by the fascination of her papa’s presence in a strange place. She gave Ethel no credit for the sacrifice, naturally supposing that she could not enjoy herself away from home. Ethel did not know whether to be glad or not; she was relieved, but it was flat. As to Norman Ogilvie, one or two inquiries whether she liked him, and if Norman were going to Scotland with him, were all that passed, and it was very provoking to be made so hot and conscious by them.

She could not begin to dress till late, and while she was unpacking, she heard her father come home, among the children’s loud welcomes, and go to the drawing-room. He presently knocked at the door between their rooms.

“So Margaret does not know?” he said.

“No, Mary has been so very good;” and she told what had passed.

“Well done, Mary, I must tell her so. She is a good girl on a pinch, you see!”

“And we don’t speak of it now? Or will it hurt Margaret more to think we keep things from her?”

“That is the worst risk of the two. I have seen great harm done in that way. Mention it, but without seeming to make too much of it.”

“Won’t you, papa?”

“You had better—it will seem of less importance. I think nothing of it myself.”

Nevertheless, Ethel saw that he could not trust himself to broach the subject to Margaret.

“How was the Larkins’ baby?”

“Doing better. What have you done with Spencer?”

“I put him into Richard’s room. The children were eating him up! He is so kind to them.”

“Ay! I say, Ethel, that was a happy consequence of your coming home with me.”

“What a delightful person he is!”

“Is he not? A true knight errant, as he always was! I could not tell you what I owed to him as a boy—all my life, I may say. Ethel,” he added suddenly: “we must do our best to make him happy here. I know it now—I never guessed it then, but one is very hard and selfish when one is happy—”

“What do you mean, papa?”

“I see it now,” continued Dr. May incoherently; “the cause of his wandering life—advantages thrown aside. He! the most worthy. Things I little heeded at the time have come back on me! I understand why he banished himself!”

“Why?” asked Ethel bewildered.

“She never had an idea of it; but I might have guessed from what fell from him unconsciously, for not a word would he have said—nor did he say, to show how he sacrificed himself!”

“Who was it? Aunt Flora?” said Ethel, beginning to collect his meaning.

“No, Ethel, it was your own dear mother! You will think this another romantic fancy of mine, but I am sure of it.”

“So am I,” said Ethel.

“How—what? Ah! I remembered after we parted that he might know nothing—”

“He asked me,” said Ethel.

“And how did he bear it?”

Ethel told, and the tears filled her father’s eyes.

“It was wrong and cruel in me to bring him home unprepared! and then to leave it to you. I always forget other people’s feelings. Poor Spencer! And now, Ethel, you see what manner of man we have here, and how we ought to treat him.”

“Indeed I do!”

“The most unselfish—the most self-sacrificing—” continued Dr. May. “And to see what it all turned on! I happened to have this place open to me—the very cause, perhaps, of my having taken things easy—and so the old Professor threw opportunities in my way; while Aubrey Spencer, with every recommendation that man could have, was set aside, and exiled himself, leaving the station, and all he might so easily have gained. Ah, Ethel, Sir Matthew Fleet never came near him in ability. But not one word to interfere with me would he say, and—how I have longed to meet him again, after parting in my selfish, unfeeling gladness; and now I have nothing to do for him, but show him how little I was to be trusted with her.”

Ethel never knew how to deal with these occasional bursts of grief, but she said that she thought Dr. Spencer was very much pleased to have met with him, and delighted with the children.

“Ah! well, you are her children,” said Dr. May, with his hand on Ethel’s shoulder.

So they went downstairs, and found Mary making tea; and Margaret, fearing Dr. Spencer was overwhelmed with his young admirers—for Aubrey and Gertrude were one on each knee, and Blanche standing beside him, inflicting on him a catalogue of the names and ages of all the eleven.

“Ethel has introduced you, I see,” said Dr. May.

“Ay, I assure you, it was an alarming introduction. No sooner do I enter your garden, than I hear that I am in the midst of the Forty Thieves. I find a young lady putting the world to death, after the fashion of Hamlet—and, looking about to find what I have lost, I find this urchin has robbed me of my name—a property I supposed was always left to unfortunate travellers, however small they might be chopped themselves.”

“Well, Aubrey boy, will you make restitution?”

“It is my name,” said Aubrey positively; for, as his father added, “He is not without dread of the threat being fulfilled, and himself left to be that Anon who, Blanche says, writes so much poetry.”

Aubrey privately went to Ethel, to ask her if this were possible; and she had to reassure him, by telling him that they were “only in fun.”

It was fun with a much deeper current though; for Dr. Spencer was saying, with a smile, between gratification and sadness, “I did not think my name would have been remembered here so long.”

“We had used up mine, and the grandfathers’, and the uncles’, and began to think we might look a little further a-field,” said Dr. May. “If I had only known where you were, I would have asked you to be the varlet’s godfather; but I was much afraid you were nowhere in the land of the living.”

“I have but one godson, and he is coffee-coloured! I ought to have written; but, you see, for seven years I thought I was coming home.”

Aubrey had recovered sufficiently to observe to Blanche, “That was almost as bad as Ulysses,” which, being overheard and repeated, led to the information that he was Ethel’s pupil, whereupon Dr. Spencer began to inquire after the school, and to exclaim at his friend for having deserted it in the person of Tom. Dr. May looked convicted, but said it was all Norman’s fault; and Dr. Spencer, shaking his head at Blanche, opined that the young gentleman was a great innovater, and that he was sure he was at the bottom of the pulling down the Market Cross, and the stopping up Randall’s Alley—iniquities of the “nasty people,” of which she already had made him aware.

“Poor Norman, he suffered enough anent Randall’s Alley,” said Dr. May; “but as to the Market Cross, that came down a year before he was born.”

“It was the Town Council!” said Ethel.

“One of the ordinary stultifications of Town Councils?”

“Take care, Spencer,” said Dr. May. “I am a Town Council man my-self—”

“You, Dick!” and he turned with a start of astonishment, and went into a fit of laughing, re-echoed by all the young ones, who were especially tickled by hearing, from another, the abbreviation that had, hitherto, only lived in the favourite expletive, “As sure as my name is Dick May.”

“Of course,” said Dr. May. “‘Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? One that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him!’”

His friend laughed the more, and they betook themselves to the College stories, of which the quotation from Dogberry seemed to have reminded them.

There was something curious and affecting in their manner to each other. Often it was the easy bantering familiarity of the two youths they had once been together, with somewhat of elder brotherhood on Dr. Spencer’s side—and of looking up on Dr. May’s—and just as they had recurred to these terms, some allusion would bring back to Dr. Spencer, that the heedless, high-spirited “Dick,” whom he had always had much ado to keep out of scrapes, was a householder, a man of weight and influence; a light which would at first strike him as most ludicrous, and then mirth would end in a sigh, for there was yet another aspect! After having thought of him so long as the happy husband of Margaret Mackenzie, he found her place vacant, and the trace of deep grief apparent on the countenance, once so gay—the oppression of anxiety marked on the brow, formerly so joyous, the merriment almost more touching than gravity would have been, for the former nature seemed rather shattered than altered. In merging towards this side, there was a tender respect in Dr. Spencer’s manner that was most beautiful, though this evening such subjects were scrupulously kept at the utmost distance, by the constant interchange of new and old jokes and stories.

Only when bed-time had come, and Margaret had been carried off—did a silence fall on the two friends, unbroken till Dr. May rose and proposed going upstairs. When he gave his hand to wish good-night, Dr. Spencer held it this time most carefully, and said, “Oh, May! I did not expect this!”

“I should have prepared you,” said his host, “but I never recollected that you knew nothing—”

“I had dwelt on your happiness!”

“There never were two happier creatures for twenty-two years,” said Dr. May, his voice low with emotion. “Sorrow spared her! Yes, think of her always in undimmed brightness—always smiling as you remember her. She was happy. She is,” he concluded. His friend had turned aside and hidden his face with his hands, then looked up for a moment, “And you, Dick,” he said briefly.

“Sorrow spared her,” was Dr. May’s first answer. “And hers are very good children!”

There was a silence again, ending in Dr. May’s saying, “What do you think of my poor girl?”

They discussed the nature of the injury: Dr. Spencer could not feel otherwise than that it was a very hopeless matter. Her father owned that he had thought so from the first, and had wondered at Sir Matthew Fleet’s opinion. His subdued tone of patience and resignation, struck his guest above all, as changed from what he had once been.

“You have been sorely tried,” he said, when they parted at his room door.

“I have received much good!” simply answered Dr. May. “Goodnight! I am glad to have you here—if you can bear it.”

“Bear it? Dick! how like that girl is to you! She is yourself!”

“Such a self as I never was! Good-night.”

Ethel overcame the difficulty of giving the account of the newspaper alarm with tolerable success, by putting the story of Meta’s conversation foremost. Margaret did not take it to heart as much as she had feared, nor did she appear to dwell on it afterwards. The truth was perhaps that Dr. Spencer’s visit was to every one more of an excitement and amusement than it was to Ethel. Not that she did not like him extremely, but after such a week as she had been spending, the home-world seemed rather stale and unprofitable.

Miss Bracy relapsed into a state of “feelings,” imagining that Ethel had distrusted her capabilities, and therefore returned; or as Ethel herself sometimes feared, there might be irritability in her own manner that gave cause of annoyance. The children were inclined to be riotous with their new friend, who made much of them continually, and especially patronised Aubrey; Mary was proud of showing how much she had learned to do for Margaret in her sister’s absence; Dr. May was so much taken up with his friend, that Ethel saw less of him than usual, and she began to believe that it had been all a mistake that every one was so dependent on her, for, in fact, they did much better without her.

Meantime, she heard of the gaieties which the others were enjoying, and she could not feel heroic when they regretted her. At the end of a week, Meta Rivers was escorted home from Warwick by two servants, and came to Stoneborough, giving a lively description of all the concluding pleasures, but declaring that Ethel’s departure had taken away the zest of the whole, and Mr. Ogilvie had been very disconsolate. Margaret had not been prepared to hear that Mr. Ogilvie had been so constant a companion, and was struck by finding that Ethel had passed over one who had evidently been so great an ingredient in the delights of the expedition. Meta had, however observed nothing—she was a great deal too simple and too much engrossed for such notions to have crossed her mind; but Margaret inferred something, and hoped to learn more when she should see Flora. This would not be immediately. George and his wife were gone to London, and thence intended to pay a round of visits; and Norman had accompanied his namesake to Glenbracken.

Ethel fought hard with her own petulance and sense of tedium at home, which was, as she felt, particularly uncalled for at present; when Dr. Spencer was enlivening them so much. He was never in the way, he was always either busy in the dining-room in the morning with books and papers, or wandering about his old school-boy haunts in the town, or taking Adam’s place, and driving out Dr. May, or sometimes joining the children in a walk, to their supreme delight. His sketches, for he drew most beautifully, were an endless pleasure to Margaret, with his explanations of them—she even tried to sit up to copy them, and he began to teach Blanche to draw. The evenings, when there was certain to be some entertaining talk going on between the two doctors, were very charming, and Margaret seemed quite revived by seeing her father so happy with his friend. Ethel knew she ought to be happy also, and if attention could make her so, she had it, for kind and courteous as Dr. Spencer was to all, she seemed to have a double charm for him. It was as if he found united in her the quaint brusquerie, that he had loved in her father, with somewhat of her mother; for though Ethel had less personal resemblance to Mrs. May than any other of the family, Dr. Spencer transferred to her much of the chivalrous distant devotion, with which he had regarded her mother. Ethel was very little conscious of it, but he was certainly her sworn knight, and there was an eagerness in his manner of performing every little service for her, a deference in his way of listening to her, over and above his ordinary polish of manner.

Ethel lighted up, and enjoyed herself when talking was going on—her periods of ennui were when she had to set about any home employment—when Aubrey’s lessons did not go well—when she wanted to speak to her father, and could not catch him; and even when she had to go to Cocksmoor.

She did not seem to make any progress there—the room was very full, and very close, the children were dull, and she began to believe she was doing no good—it was all a weariness. But she was so heartily ashamed of her feelings, that she worked the more vehemently for them, and the utmost show that they outwardly made was, that Margaret thought her less vivacious than her wont, and she was a little too peremptory at times with Mary and Blanche. She had so much disliked the display that Flora had made about Cocksmoor, that she had imposed total silence on it upon her younger sisters, and Dr. Spencer had spent a fortnight at Stoneborough without being aware of their occupation; when there occurred such an extremely sultry day, that Margaret remonstrated with Ethel on her intention of broiling herself and Mary by walking to Cocksmoor, when the quicksilver stood at 80° in the shade.