Daddy's Girl Part 16

"I'll see you again very, very soon, father?"

"Very soon," answered the man. He jumped into the carriage, the train puffed out of the station. A porter came up to Sibyl and spoke to her.

"Anybody come to meet you, Miss?"

"No, thank you," she answered with dignity; "I was seeing my father off to town; there's my twap waiting outside."

The man smiled, and the little girl went gravely out of the station.

Sibyl went back to Lord Grayleigh's feeling perplexed. There was an expression about her father's face which puzzled her.

"He ought to have me at home with him," she thought. "I have seen him like this now and then, and he's mostly not well. He's beautiful when he talks as he did to-day, but he's mostly not well when he does it. I 'spect he's nearer Lord Jesus when he's not well, that must be it. My most perfect father wants me to be good; I don't want to be good a bit, but I must, to please him."

Just then a somewhat shrill and petulant voice called the child.

"My dear Sibyl, where _have_ you been? What are you doing on the dog-cart? How unladylike. Jump down this minute."

The man pulled up the mare, and Sibyl jumped to the ground. She met her mother's angry face with a smile which she tried hard to make sweet.

"I didn't do anything naughty, really, Mummy," she said. "Father took me to the station to say good-by. He's off back to town, and he took me with him, and I came back on the twap."

"Don't say twap, sound your 'r'--trap."

"Tw-rap," struggled Sibyl over the difficult word.

"And now you are to go into the house and ask Nurse to put on your best dress. I am going to take you to a garden party, immediately after lunch. Mr. Rochester and Lady Helen Douglas are coming with us.

Be quick."

"Oh, 'licious," said Sibyl. She rushed into the house, and up to the nursery. Nurse was there waiting to deck her in silk and lace and feathers. The little girl submitted to her toilet, and now took a vast interest in it.

"You must make me quite my prettiest self," she said to the nurse; "you must do your very best, 'cos mother----"

"What about your mother now, missy?"

"'Cos mother's just a little----Oh, nothing," said Sibyl, pulling herself up short.

"She likes me best when I'm pretty," continued the child; "but father likes me always. Nursie, do you know that my ownest father came down here to-day, and that I dwove to the station to see him off? Did you know it?"

"No, Miss Sibyl, I can't say I did."

"He talked to me in a most pwivate way," continued Sibyl. "He told me most 'portant things, and I promised him, Nursie--I promised him that I'd----Oh, no! I won't tell you. Perhaps I won't be able to keep my promise, and then you'd----Nothing, Nursie, nothing; don't be 'quisitive. I can see in your face that you are all bursting with 'quisitiveness; but you aren't to know. I am going to a party with my own mother after lunch, and Lady Helen is coming, and Mr. Rochester. I like them both very much indeed. Lady Helen told me stories last night. She put her arm round my waist, and she talked to me; and I told her some things, too, and she laughed."

"What did you tell her, Miss Sibyl?"

"About my father and mother. She laughed quite funnily. I wish people wouldn't; it shows how little they know. It's 'cos they are so far from being perfect that they don't understand perfect people. But there's the lunch gong. Yes, I do look very nice. Good-by, Nursie."

Sibyl ran downstairs. The children always appeared at this meal, and she took her accustomed place at the table. Very soon afterwards, she, her mother, Lady Helen, and Mr. Rochester, started for a place about ten miles off, where an afternoon reception was being given.

Sibyl felt inclined to be talkative, and Mrs. Ogilvie, partly because she had a sore feeling in her heart with regard to her husband's departure, although she would not acknowledge it, was inclined to be snappish. She pulled the little girl up several times, and at last Sibyl subsided in her seat, and looked out straight before her. It was then that Lady Helen once more put her arm round her waist.

"Presently," said Lady Helen, "when the guests are all engaged, you and I will slip out by ourselves, and I will show you one of the most beautiful views in all England. We climb a winding path, and we suddenly come out quite above all the trees, and we look around us; and when we get there, you'll be able to see the blue sea in the distance, and the ships, one of which is going to take your----"

But just then Mrs. Ogilvie gave Helen Douglas so severe a push with her foot, that she stopped, and got very red.

"What ship do you mean?" said Sibyl, surprised at the sudden break in the conversation, and now intensely interested, "the ship that is going to take my--my what?"

"Did you never hear the old saying, that you must wait until your ship comes home?" interrupted Mr. Rochester, smiling at the child, and looking at Lady Helen, who had not got over her start and confusion.

"But this ship was going out," said Sibyl. "Never mind, I 'spect it's a secret; there's lots of 'em floating round to-day. I've got some 'portant ones of my own. Never mind, Lady Helen, don't blush no more."

She patted Lady Helen in a patronizing way on her hand, and the whole party laughed; the tension was, for the time, removed.

CHAPTER VIII

Ogilvie made a will leaving the ten thousand pounds which Lord Grayleigh had given him absolutely to Sibyl for her sole use and benefit. He also made all other preparations for his absence from home, and started for Queensland on Sat.u.r.day. He wrote to his wife on the night before he left England, repeating his injunction that on no account was Sibyl to be yet told of his departure.

"When she absolutely must learn it, break it to her in the tenderest way possible," he said; "but as Grayleigh has kindly invited you both to stay on at Grayleigh Manor for another week, you may as well do so, and while there I want the child to be happy. The country air and the companionship of other children are doing her a great deal of good. I never saw her look better than I did the other day. I should also be extremely glad, Mildred, if on your return to town you would arrange to send Sibyl to a nice day-school, where she could have companions. I have nothing to say against Miss Winstead, but I think the child would be better, less old-fashioned, and might place us more on the pedestal which we really ought to occupy, if she had other children to talk to and exchange thoughts with. Try to act, my dear wife, as I would like in this particular, I beg of you. Also when you have to let my darling know that I am away, you will find a letter for her in my left-hand top drawer in my study table. Give it to her, and do not ask to see it. It is just a little private communication from her father, and for her eyes alone. Be sure, also, you tell her that, all being well, I hope to be back in England by the end of the summer."

Ogilvie added some more words to his letter, and Mrs. Ogilvie received it on Sat.u.r.day morning. She read it over carelessly, and then turned to Jim Rochester who stood near. During her visit to Grayleigh Manor she had got to know this young man very well, and to like him extremely. He was good-looking, pleasant to talk to, well informed, and with genial, hearty views of life. He had been well brought up, and his principles were firm and unshaken. His notion of living was to do right on every possible occasion, to turn from the wrong with horror, to have faith in G.o.d, to keep religion well in view, and as far as in him lay to love his neighbor better than himself.

Rochester, it may be frankly stated, had some time ago lost his heart to Lady Helen Douglas, who, on her part, to all appearance returned his affection. Nothing had yet, however, been said between the pair, although Rochester's eyes proclaimed his secret whenever they rested on Lady Helen's fair face.

He watched Mrs. Ogilvie now with a sudden interest as she folded up her husband's letter.

"Well," she said, turning to him and uttering a quick sigh; "he is off, it is a _fait accompli_. Do you know, I am relieved."

"Are you?" he answered. He looked at her almost wistfully. He himself was sorry for Ogilvie, he did not know why. He was, of course, aware that he was going to Queensland to a.s.say the Lombard Deeps, for the talk of the great new gold mine had already reached his ears. He knew that Ogilvie, moreover, looked pale, ill at ease, and worried. He supposed that this uneasiness and want of alacrity in carrying a very pleasurable business to a successful issue was caused by the man's great attachment to his wife and child. Mrs. Ogilvie must also be sorry when she remembered that it would be many months before she saw him again. But there was no sorrow now in the soft eyes which met his, nothing but a look of distinct annoyance.

"Really," she said with an impatient movement, "I must confide in some one, and why not in you, Mr. Rochester, as well as another? I have already told you that my husband is absolutely silly about that child. From her birth he has done all that man could do to spoil her."

"But without succeeding," interrupted Jim Rochester. "I am quite friendly with your little Sibyl now," he added, "and I never saw a nicer little girl."

"Oh, that is what strangers always say," replied Mrs. Ogilvie, shrugging her shoulders, "and the child is nice, I am not denying it for a moment, but she would be nicer if she were not simply ruined. He wants her to live in an impossible world, without any contradictions or even the smallest pain. You will scarcely believe it, but he would not allow me, the other day, to tell her such a very simple, ordinary thing as that he was going to Queensland on business, and now, in his letter, he still begs of me to keep it a secret from her. She is not to know anything about his absence until she returns to London, because, forsooth, the extra week she is to spend in the country would not do her so much good if she were fretting. Why should Sibyl fret?

Surely it is not worse for her than for me; not nearly as bad, for that matter."

"I am glad you feel it," said Rochester.

"Feel it? What a strange remark! Did you think I was heartless? Of course I feel it, but I am not going to be silly or sentimental over the matter. Philip is a very lucky man to have this business to do. I would not be so foolish as to keep him at home; but he is ruining that child, ruining her. She gets more spoilt and intolerable every day."

"Forgive me, Mrs. Ogilvie," said Lady Helen, who came upon the scene at that moment, "I heard you talking of your little daughter. I don't think I ever met a sweeter child."

Mrs. Ogilvie threw up her hands in protest.

"There you go," she said. "Mr. Rochester has been saying almost the very same words, Lady Helen. Now let me tell you that Sibyl is not your child; no one can be more charming to strangers."

As Mrs. Ogilvie spoke she walked a few steps away; then she turned and resumed her conversation.