CHAPTER IV
Life’s Benediction
IF we poor, short-sighted mortals had the planning of our lives, how strangely would they be laid out! I had imagined that the child was going to die, in order that her influence over the life that had become so strangely mixed up with hers might live. It had not occurred to me that the lad, thrown into a state of desperation and feeling himself branded as her murderer, might be tempted to some rash act. Thank heaven, he was not put to it. The child did not die, but lived to be a further blessing to him.
When he waked from his swoon, we were able to whisper in his ear that she had fallen into a quiet sleep—that possibly there had been a mistake made. He staggered to his feet, and sat by the sleeping child for a while, with a look of one who has received a reprieve from death, then went to his room and shut himself in. From that hour he was a different creature. The heavy stamp of affliction had been laid upon him. He was a man now, in the best sense of the word.
Day by day, Daisy steadily improved; Robertson was constantly with her, and until she was able to run about on her own small feet, he carried her everywhere in his strong arms. Sometimes he would walk up and down the halls for hours at a time, listening to her childish confidences and telling her stories with the utmost patience and gentleness. And his devotion did not cease when her strength returned. Her solitary life was at an end. Half his leisure time he spent with her. This had the inevitable effect of lessening his intercourse with his former boon companions. They had claimed a monopoly of his time. Now he got in with another set—these jolly, good fellows, who kept him out in the daytime, playing out-door games, and sending him home so exhausted that he wanted no further excitement for the night, but a book, a comfortable seat, and Daisy’s good-night kiss.
The child was proving a guardian angel to him, and not only to him, but to all the house. An astonishing change had come over her since her illness. She was always gentle now, never sullen, and cheerful sometimes to gayety. The boarders had all taken to petting her—she was a link to bind them together and make them less selfish—and she seemed to appreciate their attentions, though her preference for Robertson was decidedly marked. Even Mrs. Drummond was changing. She often took Daisy on her lap now, and I had seen her brush away a tear when the child tried to smooth out her wrinkles with her tiny hand.
It was late in the summer when Daisy recovered from the fever. All through the autumn, Robertson gave her walks and drives, bought her picture-books and toys to amuse herself with during his absence, and with a sense of gratitude far beyond her years, her little heart seemed running over with love toward him.
Before the autumn closed my business connections took me away, and for several years I was a stranger to Fairfax. One winter day, when the air was thick with snowflakes, I came back. My first thoughts were of the Drummonds and Roland Robertson. Strange to say, he was one of the first men I met. He knew me at once, gave me a hearty greeting, and insisted upon my going along with him to his house.
There was no need to ask him how he was getting on. His surroundings showed worldly prosperity, his face, the happy, upright man. He looked grave when I spoke of the Drummonds. “Poor Mrs. Drummond—she has been dead for two years. She was utterly worn out.”
“And Daisy?”
He stroked a heavy moustache. His object, I think, was to conceal a smile. “She is in England at school. Her holidays she spends with my people.”
“And do they like her?”
“Immensely. She has grown to be a very beautiful girl, both in disposition and looks.” Then opening his coat, he drew from an inner pocket a picture—the head of a lovely young girl.
I scarcely recognized the delicate child of old. “And does she keep up her devotion to you?”
“She does.” He gave me a decidedly amused glance; carefully replaced next the photograph two or three pressed white field daisies that had fallen out, and put it back in his pocket.
“And what is to become of her?” I went on curiously.
He looked about his handsome, but solitary drawing room. “I am going to England in the spring, to get her,” he said with a laugh. “I have tried living without her, and I can endure it no longer.”
The End.
