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The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

C >> Charlotte Yonge >> The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations



The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

by Charlotte Yonge




PREFACE.




No one can be more sensible than is the Author that the present is an
overgrown book of a nondescript class, neither the "tale" for the
young, nor the novel for their elders, but a mixture of both.

Begun as a series of conversational sketches, the story outran both
the original intention and the limits of the periodical in which it
was commenced; and, such as it has become, it is here presented to
those who have already made acquaintance with the May family, and may
be willing to see more of them. It would beg to be considered merely
as what it calls itself, a Family Chronicle--a domestic record of
home events, large and small, during those years of early life when
the character is chiefly formed, and as an endeavour to trace the
effects of those aspirations which are a part of every youthful
nature. That the young should take one hint, to think whether their
hopes and upward-breathings are truly upwards, and founded in
lowliness, may be called the moral of the tale.

For those who may deem the story too long, and the characters too
numerous, the Author can only beg their pardon for any tedium that
they may have undergone before giving it up. Feb. 22nd, 1856.





PART 1.





THE DAISY CHAIN





CHAPTER I.



Si douce est la Marguerite.--CHAUCER.



"Miss Winter, are you busy? Do you want this afternoon? Can you
take a good long walk?"

"Ethel, my dear, how often have I told you of your impetuosity--you
have forgotten."

"Very well"--with an impatient twist--"I beg your pardon. Good-
morning, Miss Winter," said a thin, lank, angular, sallow girl, just
fifteen, trembling from head to foot with restrained eagerness, as
she tried to curb her tone into the requisite civility.

"Good-morning, Ethel, good-morning, Flora," said the prim, middle-
aged daily governess, taking off her bonnet, and arranging the stiff
little rolls of curl at the long, narrow looking-glass, the border of
which distorted the countenance.

"Good-morning," properly responded Flora, a pretty, fair girl, nearly
two years older than her sister.

"Will you--" began to burst from Etheldred's lips again, but was
stifled by Miss Winter's inquiry, "Is your mamma pretty well to-day?"

"Oh! very well," said both at once; "she is coming to the reading."
And Flora added, "Papa is going to drive her out to-day."

"I am very glad. And the baby?"

"I do believe she does it on purpose!" whispered Ethel to herself,
wriggling fearfully on the wide window-seat on which she had
precipitated herself, and kicking at the bar of the table, by which
manifestation she of course succeeded in deferring her hopes, by a
reproof which caused her to draw herself into a rigid, melancholy
attitude, a sort of penance of decorum, but a rapid motion of the
eyelids, a tendency to crack the joints of the fingers, and an
unquietness at the ends of her shoes, betraying the restlessness of
the digits therein contained.

It was such a room as is often to be found in old country town
houses, the two large windows looking out on a broad old-fashioned
street, through heavy framework, and panes of glass scratched with
various names and initials. The walls were painted blue, the
skirting almost a third of the height, and so wide at the top as to
form a narrow shelf. The fireplace, constructed in the days when
fires were made to give as little heat as possible, was ornamented
with blue and white Dutch tiles bearing marvellous representations of
Scripture history, and was protected by a very tall green guard; the
chairs were much of the same date, solid and heavy, the seats in
faded carpet-work, but there was a sprinkling of lesser ones and of
stools; a piano; a globe; a large table in the middle of the room,
with three desks on it; a small one, and a light cane chair by each
window; and loaded book-cases. Flora began, "If you don't want this
afternoon to yourself--"

Ethel was on her feet, and open-mouthed. "Oh, Miss Winter, if you
would be so kind as to walk to Cocksmoor with us!"

"To Cocksmoor, my dear!" exclaimed the governess in dismay.

"Yes, yes, but hear," cried Ethel. "It is not for nothing.
Yesterday--"

"No, the day before," interposed Flora.

"There was a poor man brought into the hospital. He had been
terribly hurt in the quarry, and papa says he'll die. He was in
great distress, for his wife has just got twins, and there were lots
of children before. They want everything--food and clothes--and we
want to walk and take it."

"We had a collection of clothes ready, luckily," said Flora; "and we
have a blanket, and some tea and some arrowroot, and a bit of bacon,
and mamma says she does not think it too far for us to walk, if you
will be so kind as to go with us."

Miss Winter looked perplexed. "How could you carry the blanket, my
dear?"

"Oh, we have settled that," said Ethel, "we mean to make the donkey a
sumpter-mule, so, if you are tired, you may ride home on her."

"But, my dear, has your mamma considered? They are such a set of
wild people at Cocksmoor; I don't think we could walk there alone."

"It is Saturday," said Ethel, "we can get the boys."

"If you would reflect a little! They would be no protection. Harry
would be getting into scrapes, and you and Mary running wild."

"I wish Richard was at home! " said Flora.

"I know!" cried Ethel. "Mr. Ernescliffe will come. I am sure he can
walk so far now. I'll ask him."

Ethel had clapped after her the heavy door with its shining brass
lock, before Miss Winter well knew what she was about, and the
governess seemed annoyed. "Ethel does not consider," said she.
"I don't think your mamma will be pleased."

"Why not?" said Flora.

"My dear--a gentleman walking with you, especially if Margaret is
going!"

"I don't think he is strong enough," said Flora; "but I can't think
why there should be any harm. Papa took us all out walking with him
yesterday--little Aubrey and all, and Mr. Ernescliffe went."

"But, my dear--"

She was interrupted by the entrance of a fine tall blooming girl of
eighteen, holding in her hand a pretty little maid of five. "Good-
morning. Miss Winter. I suppose Flora has told you the request we
have to make to you?"

"Yes, my dear Margaret, but did your mamma consider what a lawless
place Cocksmoor is?"

"That was the doubt," said Margaret, "but papa said he would answer
for it nothing would happen to us, and mamma said if you would be so
kind."

"It is unlucky," began the governess, but stopped at the incursion of
some new-comers, nearly tumbling over each other, Ethel at the head
of them. "Oh, Harry!" as the gathers of her frock gave way in the
rude grasp of a twelve-year-old boy. "Miss Winter, 'tis all right--
Mr. Ernescliffe says he is quite up to the walk, and will like it
very much, and he will undertake to defend you from the quarrymen."

"Is Miss Winter afraid of the quarrymen?" hallooed Harry. "Shall I
take a club?"

"I'll take my gun and shoot them," valiantly exclaimed Tom; and while
threats were passing among the boys, Margaret asked, in a low voice,
"Did you ask him to come with us?"

"Yes, he said he should like it of all things. Papa was there, and
said it was not too far for him--besides, there's the donkey. Papa
says it, so we must go, Miss Winter."

Miss Winter glanced unutterable things at Margaret, and Ethel began
to perceive she had done something wrong. Flora was going to speak,
when Margaret, trying to appear unconscious of a certain deepening
colour in her own cheeks, pressed a hand on her shoulder, and
whispering, "I'll see about it. Don't say any more, please," glided
out of the room.

"What's in the wind?" said Harry. "Are many of your reefs out there,
Ethel?"

"Harry can talk nothing but sailors' language," said Flora, "and I am
sure he did not learn that of Mr. Ernescliffe. You never hear slang
from him."

"But aren't we going to Cocksmoor?" asked Mary, a blunt downright
girl of ten.

"We shall know soon," said Ethel. "I suppose I had better wait till
after the reading to mend that horrid frock?"

"I think so, since we are so nearly collected," said Miss Winter; and
Ethel, seating herself on the corner of the window-seat, with one leg
doubled under her, took up a Shakespeare, holding it close to her
eyes, and her brother Norman, who, in age, came between her and
Flora, kneeling on one knee on the window-seat, and supporting
himself with one arm against the shutter, leaned over her, reading it
too, disregarding a tumultuous skirmish going on in that division of
the family collectively termed "the boys," namely, Harry, Mary, and
Tom, until Tom was suddenly pushed down, and tumbled over into
Ethel's lap, thereby upsetting her and Norman together, and there was
a general downfall, and a loud scream, "The sphynx!"

"You've crushed it," cried Harry, dealing out thumps
indiscriminately.

"No, here 'tis," said Mary, rushing among them, and bringing out a
green sphynx caterpillar on her finger--"'tis not hurt."

"Pax! Pax!" cried Norman, over all, with the voice of an authority,
as he leaped up lightly and set Tom on his legs again. "Harry! you
had better do that again," he added warningly. "Be off, out of this
window, and let Ethel and me read in peace."

"Here's the place," said Ethel-- "Crispin, Crispian's day. How I do
like Henry V."

"It is no use to try to keep those boys in order!" sighed Miss
Winter.

"Saturnalia, as papa calls Saturday," replied Flora.

"Is not your eldest brother coming home to-day?" said Miss Winter in
a low voice to Flora, who shook her head, and said confidentially,
"He is not coming till he has passed that examination. He thinks it
better not."

Here entered, with a baby in her arms, a lady with a beautiful
countenance of calm sweetness, looking almost too young to be the
mother of the tall Margaret, who followed her. There was a general
hush as she greeted Miss Winter, the girls crowding round to look at
their little sister, not quite six weeks old.

"Now, Margaret, will you take her up to the nursery?" said the
mother, while the impatient speech was repeated, "Mamma, can we go to
Cocksmoor?"

"You don't think it will be too far for you?" said the mother to Miss
Winter as Margaret departed.

"Oh, no, not at all, thank you, that was not-- But Margaret has
explained."

"Yes, poor Margaret," said Mrs. May, smiling. "She has settled it by
choosing to stay at home with me. It is no matter for the others,
and he is going on Monday, so that it will not happen again."

"Margaret has behaved very well," said Miss Winter.

"She has indeed," said her mother, smiling. "Well, Harry, how is the
caterpillar?"

"They've just capsized it, mamma," answered Harry, "and Mary is
making all taut."

Mrs. May laughed, and proceeded to advise Ethel and Norman to put
away Henry V., and find the places in their Bibles, "or you will have
the things mixed together in your heads," said she.

In the meantime Margaret, with the little babe, to-morrow to be her
godchild, lying gently in her arms, came out into the matted hall,
and began to mount the broad shallow-stepped staircase, protected by
low stout balusters, with a very thick, flat, and solid mahogany
hand-rail, polished by the boys' constant riding up and down upon it.
She was only on the first step, when the dining-room door opened, and
there came out a young man, slight, and delicate-looking, with bright
blue eyes, and thickly-curling light hair. "Acting nurse?" he said,
smiling. "What an odd little face it is! I didn't think little
white babies were so pretty! Well, I shall always consider myself as
the real godfather--the other is all a sham."

"I think so," said Margaret; "but I must not stand with her in a
draught," and on she went, while he called after her. "So we are to
have an expedition to-day."

She did not gainsay it, but there was a little sigh of disappoint-
ment, and when she was out of hearing, she whispered, "Oh! lucky
baby, to have so many years to come before you are plagued with
troublesome propriety!"

Then depositing her little charge with the nurse, and trying to cheer
up a solemn-looking boy of three, who evidently considered his
deposition from babyhood as a great injury, she tripped lightly down
again, to take part in the Saturday's reading and catechising.

It was pleasant to see that large family in the hush and reverence of
such teaching, the mother's gentle power preventing the outbreaks of
restlessness to which even at such times the wild young spirits were
liable. Margaret and Miss Winter especially rejoiced in it on this
occasion, the first since the birth of the baby, that she had been
able to preside. Under her, though seemingly without her taking any
trouble, there was none of the smothered laughing at the little
mistakes, the fidgeting of the boys, or Harry's audacious
impertinence to Miss Winter; and no less glad was Harry to have his
mother there, and be guarded from himself.

The Catechism was repeated, and a comment on the Sunday Services read
aloud. The Gospel was that on the taking the lowest place, and when
they had finished, Ethel said, "I like the verse which explains that:


"They who now sit lowest here,
When their Master shall appear,
He shall bid them higher rise,
And be highest in the skies."


"I did not think of that being the meaning of 'when He that bade thee
cometh,'" said Norman thoughtfully.

"It seemed to be only our worldly advantage that was meant before,"
said Ethel.

"Well, it means that too," said Flora.

"I suppose it does," said Mrs. May; "but the higher sense is the one
chiefly to be dwelt on. It is a lesson how those least known and
regarded here, and humblest in their own eyes, shall be the highest
hereafter."

And Margaret looked earnestly at her mother, but did not speak.

"May we go, mamma?" said Mary.

"Yes, you three--all of you, indeed, unless you wish to say any
more."

The "boys" availed themselves of the permission. Norman tarried to
put his books into a neat leather case, and Ethel stood thinking.
"It means altogether--it is a lesson against ambition," said she.

"True," said her mother, "the love of eminence for its own sake."

"And in so many different ways!" said Margaret.

"Ay, worldly greatness, riches, rank, beauty," said Flora.

"All sorts of false flash and nonsense, and liking to be higher than
one ought to be," said Norman. "I am sure there is nothing lower, or
more mean and shabby, than getting places and praise a fellow does
not deserve."

"Oh, yes!" cried Ethel, "but no one fit to speak to would do that!"

"Plenty of people do, I can tell you," said Norman.

"Then I hope I shall never know who they are!" exclaimed Ethel. "But
I'll tell you what I was thinking of, mamma. Caring to be clever,
and get on, only for the sake of beating people."

"I think that might be better expressed."

"I know," said Ethel, bending her brow, with the fullness of her
thought--"I mean caring to do a thing only because nobody else can do
it--wanting to be first more than wanting to do one's best."

"You are quite right, my dear Ethel," said her mother; "and I am glad
you have found in the Gospel a practical lesson, that should be
useful to you both. I had rather you did so than that you read it in
Greek, though that is very nice too," she added, smiling, as she put
her hand on a little Greek Testament, in which Ethel had been reading
it, within her English Bible. "Now, go and mend that deplorable
frock, and if you don't dream over it, you won't waste too much of
your holiday."

"I'll get it done in no time!" cried Ethel, rushing headlong
upstairs, twice tripping in it before she reached the attic, where
she slept, as well as Flora and Mary--a large room in the roof, the
windows gay with bird-cages and flowers, a canary singing loud enough
to deafen any one but girls to whom headaches were unknown, plenty of
books and treasures, and a very fine view, from the dormer window, of
the town sloping downwards, and the river winding away, with some
heathy hills in the distance. Poking and peering about with her
short-sighted eyes, Ethel lighted on a work-basket in rare disorder,
pulled off her frock, threw on a shawl, and sat down cross-legged on
her bed, stitching vigorously, while meantime she spouted with great
emphasis an ode of Horace, which Norman having learned by heart, she
had followed his example; it being her great desire to be even with
him in all his studies, and though eleven months younger, she had
never yet fallen behind him. On Saturday, he showed her what were
his tasks for the week, and as soon as her rent was repaired, she
swung herself downstairs in search of him for this purpose. She
found him in the drawing-room, a pretty, pleasant room--its only
fault that it was rather too low. It had windows opening down to the
lawn, and was full of pretty things, works and knick-knacks. Ethel
found the state of affairs unfavourable to her. Norman was intent on
a book on the sofa, and at the table sat Mr. Ernescliffe, hard at
work with calculations and mathematical instruments. Ethel would not
for the world that any one should guess at her classical studies--she
scarcely liked to believe that even her father knew of them, and to
mention them before Mr. Ernescliffe would have been dreadful. So she
only shoved Norman, and asked him to come.

"Presently," he said.

"What have you here?" said she, poking her head into the book. "Oh!
no wonder you can't leave off. I've been wanting you to read it all
the week."

She read over him a few minutes, then recoiled: "I forgot, mamma told
me not to read those stories in the morning. Only five minutes,
Norman."

"Wait a bit, I'll come."

She fidgeted, till Mr. Ernescliffe asked Norman if there was a table
of logarithms in the house.

"Oh, yes," she answered; "don't you know, Norman? In a brown book on
the upper shelf in the dining-room. Don't you remember papa's
telling us the meaning of them, when we had the grand book-dusting?"

He was conscious of nothing but his book; however, she found the
logarithms, and brought them to Mr. Ernescliffe, staying to look at
his drawing, and asking what he was making out. He replied, smiling
at the impossibility of her understanding, but she wrinkled her brown
forehead, hooked her long nose, and spent the next hour in amateur
navigation.

Market Stoneborough was a fine old town. The Minster, grand with the
architecture of the time of Henry III., stood beside a broad river,
and round it were the buildings of a convent, made by a certain good
Bishop Whichcote, the nucleus of a grammar school, which had survived
the Reformation, and trained up many good scholars; among them, one
of England's princely merchants, Nicholas Randall, whose effigy knelt
in a niche in the chancel wall, scarlet-cloaked, white-ruffed, and
black doubletted, a desk bearing an open Bible before him, and a
twisted pillar of Derbyshire spar on each side. He was the founder
of thirteen almshouses, and had endowed two scholarships at Oxford,
the object of ambition of the Stoneborough boys, every eighteen
months.

There were about sixty or seventy boarders, and the town boys slept
at home, and spent their weekly holiday there on Saturday--the
happiest day in the week to the May family, when alone, they had the
company at dinner of Norman and Harry, otherwise known by their
school names of June and July, given them because their elder brother
had begun the series of months as May.

Some two hundred years back, a Dr. Thomas May had been headmaster,
but ever since that time there had always been an M. D., not a D. D.,
in the family, owning a comfortable demesne of spacious garden, and
field enough for two cows, still green and intact, among modern
buildings and improvements.

The present Dr. May stood very high in his profession, and might soon
have made a large fortune in London, had he not held fast to his home
attachments. He was extremely skilful and clever, with a boyish
character that seemed as if it could never grow older; ardent,
sensitive, and heedless, with a quickness of sympathy and tenderness
of heart that was increased, rather than blunted, by exercise in
scenes of suffering.

At the end of the previous summer holidays, Dr. May had been called
one morning to attend a gentleman who had been taken very ill, at the
Swan Inn.

He was received by a little boy of ten years old, in much grief,
explaining that his brother had come two days ago from London, to
bring him to school here; he had seemed unwell ever since they met,
and last night had become much worse. And extremely ill the doctor
found him; a youth of two or three and twenty, suffering under a
severe attack of fever, oppressed, and scarcely conscious, so as
quite to justify his little brother's apprehensions. He advised the
boy to write to his family, but was answered by a look that went to
his heart--"Alan" was all he had in the world--father and mother were
dead, and their relations lived in Scotland, and were hardly known to
them.

"Where have you been living, then?"

"Alan sent me to school at Miss Lawler's when my mother died, and
there I have been ever since, while he has been these three years and
a half on the African station."

"What, is he in the navy?"

"Yes," said the boy proudly, "Lieutenant Ernescliffe. He got his
promotion last week. My father was in the battle of Trafalgar; and
Alan has been three years in the West Indies, and then he was in the
Mediterranean, and now on the coast of Africa, in the Atalantis. You
must have heard about him, for it was in the newspaper, how, when he
was mate, he had the command of the Santa Isabel, the slaver they
captured."

The boy would have gone on for ever, if Dr. May had not recalled him
to his brother's present condition, and proceeded to take every
measure for the welfare and comfort of the forlorn pair. He learned
from other sources that the Ernescliffes were well connected. The
father had been a distinguished officer, but had been ill able to
provide for his sons; indeed, he died, without ever having seen
little Hector, who was born during his absence on a voyage--his last,
and Alan's first. Alan, the elder by thirteen years, had been like a
father to the little boy, showing judgment and self-denial that
marked him of a high cast of character. He had distinguished himself
in encounters with slave ships, and in command of a prize that he had
had to conduct to Sierra Leone, he had shown great coolness and
seamanship, in several perilous conjunctures, such as a sudden storm,
and an encounter with another slaver, when his Portuguese prisoners
became mutinous, and nothing but his steadiness and intrepidity had
saved the lives of himself and his few English companions. He was,
in fact, as Dr. May reported, pretty much of a hero. He had not, at
the time, felt the effects of the climate, but, owing to sickness and
death among the other officers, he had suffered much fatigue and
pressure of mind and body. Immediately on his return, had followed
his examination, and though he had passed with great credit, and it
had been at once followed by well-earned promotion, his nervous
excitable frame had been overtasked, and the consequence was a long
and severe illness.

The Swan Inn was not forty yards from Dr. May's back gate, and, at
every spare moment, he was doing the part of nurse as well as doctor,
professionally obliged to Alan Ernescliffe for bringing him a curious
exotic specimen of fever, and requiting him by the utmost care and
attention, while, for their own sakes, he delighted in the two boys
with all the enthusiasm of his warm heart. Before the first week was
at an end, they had learned to look on the doctor as one of the
kindest friends it had been their lot to meet with, and Alan knew
that if he died, he should leave his little brother in the hands of
one who would comfort him as a father.

No sooner was young Ernescliffe able to sit up, than Dr. May insisted
on conveying him to his own house, as his recovery was likely to be
tedious in solitude at the Swan. It was not till he had been drawn
in a chair along the sloping garden, and placed on the sofa to rest,
that he discovered that the time the good doctor had chosen for
bringing a helpless convalescent to his house, was two days after an
eleventh child had been added to his family.

Mrs. May was too sorry for the solitary youth, and too sympathising
with her husband, to make any objection, though she was not fond of
strangers, and had some anxieties. She had the utmost dependence on
Margaret's discretion, but there was a chance of awkward situations,
which papa was not likely to see or guard against. However, all
seemed to do very well, and no one ever came into her room without
some degree of rapture about Mr. Ernescliffe. The doctor reiterated
praises of his excellence, his principle, his ability and talent, his
amusing talk; the girls were always bringing reports of his
perfections; Norman retracted his grumbling at having his evenings
spoiled; and "the boys" were bursting with the secret that he was
teaching them to rig a little ship that was to astonish mamma on her
first coming downstairs, and to be named after the baby; while
Blanche did all the coquetry with him, from which Margaret abstained.
The universal desire was for mamma to see him, and when the time
came, she owned that papa's swan had not turned out a goose.

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