Elsie at Nantucket Part 21

"Oh, yes; all right except for a wetting, which probably did her no harm. But now maybe I'm telling tales out of school," he added, with a laugh. "I shouldn't like to get the little girl into trouble, so I hope you'll not be too hard on her, capt'n. I dare say the fright has been punishment enough to keep her from doing the like again."

"I wish it may have been," was all the captain said.

Then he fell into a revery so deep that he scarcely caught a word of a brisk conversation, in regard to some of the points of interest on the island, carried on between Mr. Dinsmore and the hackman.

Lulu was having an uncomfortable day. When she met the family at the breakfast-table Grandma Rose seemed to regard her with cold displeasure; "Mamma Vi" spoke gently and kindly; hoping she felt no injury from last night's exposure, but looked wretchedly ill; and in answer to her mother's inquiries admitted that she had been kept awake most of the night by a violent headache, to which Rosie added, in an indignant tone, and with an angry glance at Lulu:

"Brought on by anxiety in regard to a certain young miss who is always misbehaving and causing a world of trouble to her best friends."

"Rose, Rose," Elsie said, reprovingly; "let me hear no more such remarks, or I shall send you from the table."

Lulu had appeared in their midst, feeling humble and contrite, and had been conscience-smitten at sight of her mamma's pale face; but the sneer on Betty's face, the cold, averted looks of Edward and Zoe, and then Rosie's taunt roused her quick temper to almost a white heat.

She rose, and pushing back her chair with some noise, turned to leave the table at which she had but just seated herself.

"What is it, Lulu?" asked Grandma Elsie, in a tone of gentle kindliness.

"Sit still, my child, and ask for what you want."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Lulu. "I do not want anything but to go away.

I'd rather do without my breakfast than stay here to be insulted."

"Sit down, my child," repeated Elsie, as gently and kindly as before; "Rosie will make no more unkind remarks; and we will all try to treat you as we would wish to be treated were we in your place."

No one else spoke. Lulu resumed her seat and ate her breakfast, but with little appet.i.te or enjoyment; and on leaving the table tried to avoid contact with any of those who had caused her offence.

"May I go down to the beach, Grandma Elsie?" she asked, in low, constrained tones, and with her eyes upon the floor.

"If you will go directly there, to the seats under the awning which we usually occupy, and not wander from them farther than they are from the cliff," Elsie answered. "Promise me that you will keep within those bounds, and I shall know I may trust you; for you are an honest child."

The cloud lifted slightly from Lulu's brow at those kindly words. She gave the promise, and walked slowly away.

As she descended the stairway that led down the face of the cliff, she saw that Edward and Zoe were sitting side by side on one of the benches under the awning.

She did not fancy their company just now, and knew hers would not be acceptable to them. She thought she would pa.s.s them and seat herself in the sand a little farther on.

Edward was speaking as she came up behind them, and she heard him say, "It was the most uncomfortable meal ever eaten in our family; and all because of that ungovernable child."

Lulu flushed hotly, and stepping past turned and confronted him with flashing eyes.

"I heard you, Uncle Edward," she said, "though I had no intention of listening; and I say it is very unjust to blame me so when it was Rosie's insulting tongue and other people's cold, contemptuous looks that almost drove me wild."

"You are much too easily driven wild," he said. "It is high time you learned to have some control over your temper. If I were your father I'd teach it you, even if I must try the virtue of a rod again and again; also you should learn proper submission to authority, if it had to be taught in the same manner."

Lulu was too angry to speak for a moment; she stood silent, trembling with pa.s.sion, but at length burst out: "It's none of your business how papa manages me, Mr. Travilla; and I'm very glad he's my father instead of you!"

"You are a very saucy girl, Lulu Raymond," said Zoe, reddening with anger on her husband's account, "and shamefully ungrateful for all Mr.

Travilla's kind exertions on your behalf last night."

"Hush, hush, Zoe; do not remind her of it," Edward said. "'A benefit upbraided forfeits thanks.' I should have done quite the same for any one supposed to be in danger and distress."

"What was it?" asked Lulu; "n.o.body told me he had done anything."

"He was out for hours in all that storm, hunting you," replied Zoe, with a proudly admiring glance at her husband.

"I'm very much obliged," said Lulu, her voice softening. "And sorry you suffered on my account," she added.

"I did not suffer anything worth mentioning," he responded; "but your mamma was sorely distressed--thinking you might be in the sea--and, in consequence, had a dreadful headache all night. And since such dire consequences may follow upon your disregard for rules and lawful authority, Lulu, I insist that you shall be more amenable to them.

"I believe you think that when your father and grandpa are both away you can do pretty much as you please; but you shall not while I am about. I won't have my mother's authority set at defiance by you or any one else."

"Who wants to set it at defiance?" demanded Lulu, wrathfully. "Not I, I am sure. But I won't be ruled by you, for papa never said I should."

"I think I shall take down this conversation and report it to him,"

Edward said, only half in earnest.

Lulu turned quickly away, greatly disturbed by the threat, but resolved that her alarm should not be perceived by either him or Zoe. Walking a few yards from them, she sat down upon the sand and amused herself digging in it, but with thoughts busied with the problem, "What will papa say and do if that conversation is reported to him?"

A very little consideration of the question convinced her that if present her father would say she had been extremely impertinent, punish her for it, and make her apologize.

Presently a glance toward the cottages on the bluff showed her Violet and Grace descending the stairway. She rose and hurried to meet them.

"Mamma Vi," she said, as soon as within hearing, "I am ever so sorry to have frightened you so last night and given you a headache. But you oughtn't to care whether such a naughty girl as I am is drowned or not."

"How can you talk so, Lulu dear?" Violet answered, putting an arm round the child's waist and giving her a gentle kiss. "Do you think your Mamma Vi has no real love for you? If so, you are much mistaken. I love you, Lulu, for yourself, and dearly for your father's sake. Oh, I wish you loved him well enough to try harder to be good in order to add to his happiness; it would add to it more than anything else that I know of.

Your naughtiness does not deprive you of his fatherly affection, but it does rob him of much enjoyment which he would otherwise have."

Lulu hung her head in silence, turned, and walked away full of self-accusing and penitent thoughts. She was not crying; tears did not come so readily to her eyes as to those of many children of her age, but her heart was aching with remorseful love for her absent father.

"To think that I spoiled his visit home," she sighed to herself. "Oh, I wish he could come back to have it over again, and I would try to be good and not spoil his enjoyment in the very least!"

"Come back now?" something seemed to reply; "suppose he should; wouldn't he punish you for your behavior since he left, only two days ago?"

"Yes," she sighed; "I haven't the least doubt that if he were here and knew all he would punish me severely again; and I suppose he wouldn't be long in the house before he would hear it all; yet for all that I should be--oh, so glad if he could come back to stay a good while."

Last night's storm had spent itself in a few hours, and the morning was bright and clear; yet a long drive planned for that day by our friends was unanimously postponed, as several of them had lost sleep, and wanted to make it up with a nap.

Violet sought her couch immediately after dinner, slept off the last remains of her headache, and about the middle of the afternoon was preparing to go down to the beach, where all the others were, except Grace, who was seldom far from mamma's side, when the outer door opened, and a step and voice were heard which she had not hoped to hear again for months or years.

The next moment she was in her husband's arms, her head pillowed on his breast, while his lips were pressed again and again to brow and cheek and lips, and Grace's glad shout arose, in sweet, silvery tones, "Papa has come back! Papa has come back! My dear, dear papa!"

"Can it be possible, my dear, dear husband?" cried Violet, lifting to his a face radiant with happiness. "It seems too good to be true."

"Not quite so good as that," he said, with a joyous laugh, "But it is quite a satisfaction to find that you are not sorry to see me."

"Of which you were terribly afraid, of course," she returned, gayly. "Do tell me at once how long our powers of endurance of such uncongenial society are to be taxed?"

"Ah, that is beyond my ability."

"Then we may hope for weeks or months?" she said, rapturously.