Elsie at Nantucket Part 17

There was unusual gravity, amounting almost to sternness, in his face, and Lulu's wore a more subdued expression than she had ever seen upon it, while traces of tears were evident upon her cheeks,

"He has been talking very seriously to her in regard to the ill-temper she has shown during the past few days," Violet said to herself. "Poor wayward child! I hope she will take the lesson to heart, and give him less trouble and anxiety in future."

He kept Lulu close at his side all the evening, and she seemed well content to stay there, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist, while she listened silently to the talk going on around her or to the booming of the waves upon the beach not many yards away.

When it was time for the children to retire, he took her and Grace to the house. At the door he bent down and kissed Grace good-night, saying, "I shall not wait to see you in your bed, but shall come in to look at you before I go to mine."

"May I have a kiss too, papa?" Lulu asked in a wishful, half-tremulous voice, as though a trifle uncertain whether her request would be granted.

"Yes, my dear little daughter, as many as you wish," he replied, taking her in his arms and bestowing them with hearty good-will and affection.

"I'm sorry--oh, very sorry for all my naughtiness, papa," she whispered in his ear while clinging about his neck.

"It is all forgiven now," he said, "and I trust will never be repeated."

Lulu was very good, submissive, and obedient during the remainder of her father's stay among them.

She was greatly distressed when, two weeks later, orders came for him to join his ship the following day. She clung to him with devoted, remorseful affection and distress in prospect of the impending separation, while he treated her with even more than his wonted kindness, drawing her often caressingly to his knee, and his voice taking on a very tender tone whenever he spoke to her.

It was in the evening he left them, for he was to drive over to Nantucket Town and pa.s.s the night there in order to take the early boat leaving for the mainland the next morning.

Mr. Dinsmore went with him, intending to go to Boston for a few days, perhaps on to New York also, then return to Siasconset.

Harold, Herbert, Bob, and Max set out that same evening for their camping ground; so that Mr. Edward Travilla was the only man of the party left to take care of the women and children.

However, they would all have felt safe enough in that very quiet spot, or anywhere on the island, without any such protection.

Lulu went to bed that night full of remorseful regret that through her own wilfulness she had lost many hours of her father's prized society, besides grieving and displeasing him.

Oh, if she could but go back and live the last few weeks over, how differently she would behave! She would not give him the least cause to be displeased with or troubled about her.

As often before, she felt a great disgust at herself, and a longing desire to be good and gentle like Gracie, who never seemed to have the slightest inclination to be quick-tempered or rebellious.

"She's so sweet and dear!" murmured Lulu half aloud, and reaching out a hand to softly touch the little sister sleeping quietly by her side; "I should think papa would love her ten times better than me; but he says he doesn't, and he always tells the truth. I wish I'd been made like Gracie; but I'm ever so glad he can love me in spite of all my badness.

Oh, I am determined to be good the next time he's at home, so that he will enjoy his visit more. It was a burning shame in me to spoil this one so; I'd like to beat you for it, Lulu Raymond, and I'm glad he didn't let you escape."

Violet and her mother were pa.s.sing the night together, and lying side by side talked to each other in loving confidence of such things as lay nearest their hearts. Naturally Vi's thoughts were full of the husband from whom she had just parted--for how long?--it might be months or years.

"Mamma," she said, "the more I am with him and study his character, the more I honor and trust and love him. It is the one trial of my otherwise exceptionally happy life, that we must pa.s.s so much of our time apart, and that he has such a child as Lulu to mar his enjoyment of--"

"Oh, dear daughter," interrupted Elsie, "do not allow yourself to feel otherwise than very kindly toward your husband's child; Lulu has some very n.o.ble traits, and I trust you will try to think of them rather than of her faults, serious as they may seem to you."

"Yes, mamma, there are some things about her that are very lovable, and I really have a strong affection for her, even aside from the fact that she is his child; yet when she behaves in a way that distresses him I can hardly help wishing that she belonged to some one else.

"You surely must have noticed how badly she behaved for two or three days. He never spoke to me about it, tried not to let me see that it interfered with his enjoyment (for he knew that that would spoil mine), but for all that I knew his heart was often heavy over her misconduct.

"Yet she certainly does love her father. How she clung to him after she had heard that he must leave us so soon, with a remorseful affection, it seemed to me."

"Yes, and though she shed but few tears in parting from him, I could see that she was almost heart-broken. She is a strange child, but if she takes the right turn, will a.s.suredly make a n.o.ble, useful woman."

"I hope so, mamma; and that will, I know, repay him for all his care and anxiety on her account. No father could be fonder of his children or more willing to do or endure anything for their sake. Of course I do not mean anything wrong; he would not do wrong himself or suffer wrong-doing in them; for his greatest desire is to see them truly good, real Christians. I hope my darling, as she grows older, will be altogether a comfort and blessing to him."

"As her mother has been to me, and always was to her father," Elsie responded in loving tones.

"Thank you, mamma," Violet said with emotion; "oh, if I had been an undutiful daughter and given pain and anxiety to my best of fathers, how my heart would ache at the remembrance, now that he is gone. And I feel deep pity for Lulu when I think what sorrow she is preparing for herself in case she outlives her father, as in the course of nature she is likely to do."

"Yes, poor child!" sighed Elsie; "and doubtless she is even now enduring the reproaches of conscience aggravated by the fear that she may not see her father very soon again.

"She and Gracie, to say nothing of my dear Vi, will be feeling lonely to-morrow, and Edward, Zoe, and I have planned various little excursions, by land and water, to give occupation to your thoughts and pleasantly while away the time."

"You are always so kind, dearest mamma," said Violet; "always thinking of others and planning for their enjoyment."

"Oh, how lonely it does seem without papa! our dear, dear papa!" was Gracie's waking exclamation. "I wish he could live at home all the time like other children's fathers do! When will he come again, Lulu?"

"I don't know, Gracie; I don't believe anybody knows," returned Lulu sorrowfully. "But you have no occasion to feel half as badly about it as I."

"Why not?" cried Grace, a little indignantly, even her gentle nature aroused at the apparent insinuation that he was more to Lulu than to herself; "you don't love him a bit better than I do."

"Maybe not; but Mamma Vi is more to you than she is to me; though that wasn't what I was thinking of. I was only thinking that you had been a good child to him all the time he has been at home, while I was so very, very naughty that--"

Lulu broke off suddenly and went on with, her dressing in silence.

"That what?" asked Grace.

"That I grieved him very much and spoiled half his pleasure," Lulu said in a choking voice. Then turning suddenly toward her sister, her face flushing hotly, her eyes full of tears, bitterly ashamed of what she was moved to tell, yet with a heart aching so for sympathy that she hardly knew how to keep it back, "Gracie, if I tell you something will you never, _never, never_ breathe a single word of it to a living soul?"

Grace, who was seated on the floor putting on her shoes and stockings, looked up at her sister in silent astonishment.

"Come, answer," exclaimed Lulu impetuously; "do you promise? I know if you make a promise you'll keep it. But I won't tell you without, for I wouldn't have Mamma Vi, or Max, or anybody else but you know, for all the world."

"Not papa?"

"Oh, Gracie, papa knows; it's a secret between him and me--only--only I have a right to tell you if I choose."

"I'm glad he knows, because I couldn't promise not to tell him if he asked me and said I must. Yes, I promise, Lulu. What is it?"

Lulu had finished her dressing, and dropping down on the carpet beside Grace she began, half averting her face and speaking in low, hurried tones. "You remember that morning we were all going to the 'squantum' I changed my dress and put on a white one, and because of that, and something I said to Max that papa overheard, he said I must stay at home; and he ordered me to take off that dress immediately. Well, I disobeyed him; I walked round the town in the dress before I took it off, and instead of staying at home I went in to bathe, and took a walk in the afternoon with Betty Johnson to Sankaty Lighthouse, and went up in the tower and outside too."

"Oh, Lulu!" cried Grace, "how could you dare to do so?"

"I did, anyway," said Lulu; "and you know I was very ill-tempered for two days afterward; so when papa knew it all he thought he ought to punish me, and he did."

"How?"

"Oh, Grace! don't you know? can't you guess? It was when he and I stayed back while all the rest went to the beach, that evening after Betty's friend told of seeing me at Sankaty."

Grace drew a long breath. "Oh, Lu," she said pityingly, putting her arms lovingly about her sister, "I'm so sorry for you! How could you bear it?

Did he hurt you very much?"