Wild Heather Part 12

"Never mind Aunt Penelope just for the present," I said. "I have so much to say to you, and this is the very last evening."

"Not a bit of it; there are hundreds of other evenings to follow."

"Oh, no," I said; "this is the very last between you and me, quite to ourselves, Daddy."

"I like to hear you say 'Daddy'--you have such a quaint little voice. Do you know, Heather, that when I was--when I was--"

"When you were what, Daddy?"

"Never mind; I was forgetting myself. I have lived through a great deal since you last saw me, child, since that time when you were so ill at Penelope Despard's."

"Weren't you enjoying yourself during those long years in India, Daddy?"

"Enjoying myself? Bless you, the discipline was too severe." Here my father burst out laughing, and then he unfastened my arms from his neck and put me gently down on the sofa and began to pace the room.

"As a wild beast enjoys himself in a cage, so did I, little Heather; but it's over, thank Heaven, it's over; and--oh, dash it!--I can't speak of it! Heather, how do you like your new clothes?"

"I haven't any new clothes," I answered demurely, "except the little black frock you gave me the night I came to you at the Westminster hotel. I put that on every evening because Lady Carrington wears something pretty at dinner-time."

"But what have you done with all your other clothes?"

"I told you, Daddy, I wouldn't wear them. _She_ gave them to me."

"Now, look here, Heather, once and for all you must stop this folly. I presume you don't want me to cease to love you. Well, you've got to be good to your stepmother, and you have got to accept the clothes she gives you. She and I are taking a beautiful house in a fashionable part of London and you are to live with us, and she will be nice to you if you will be nice to her--not otherwise, you understand--by no means otherwise. And if I see you nasty to her, or putting on airs, why, I'll give you up. You'll have to take her if you want to keep me, and that's the long and short of it."

I trembled all over; my hero of heroes--was he tumbling from his place in my gallery?

"Promise, child, promise," said my father, brusquely.

"Will it make you happy if I do?" I said.

"Yes. I'll call you my little duck of all girls--I'll love you like anything, but we three must be harmonious. You will stay here until we come back, and on the day we come back you are to be in the new house to meet us, and you are to wear one of your pretty frocks, and you are to do just what _she_ says. It's your own fault, Heather, that I have to bring in her name so often. Bless her, though, the jewel she is! My little love, we'll be as happy as the day is long. It's terribly old-fashioned, it's low down, to abuse stepmothers now--don't you understand that, Heather?"

"I don't," I answered. "I suppose I must do what you wish, for I cannot live without you, but if--if--I find it _quite_ past bearing--may I go back to Aunt Penelope?"

"Bless me, you won't find it past bearing! We need not contemplate such an emergency."

"But, promise me, Daddy darling--if I do find it past bearing, may I go back to Aunt Penelope?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes--anything to quiet you, child. You are just the most fractious and selfish creature I ever came across. You don't seem to realise for a single minute what anybody else is feeling."

"It's settled, and I will try to be happy," I said.

"That's right. Now, let's talk of all sorts of funny things. I haven't half heard about your different Jonases, nor about the parrot, who would only say, 'Stop knocking at the door!'"

"Daddy," I said, with great earnestness, "may I have Anastasia back? It would give me great, great help if she came back."

"Bless me!" said my father, rubbing his red face, "I must ask her ladyship. I'll see about it; I'll see about it, little woman. Now, then, stand up and let me look at you."

I stood up. I was wearing my snuff-coloured dress, and the electric light and the firelight mingled, fell over a desolate, forlorn, little figure.

"Run upstairs this minute, Heather, and put on one of your pretty frocks. I know for a certainty they haven't gone back, because I told Lady Carrington she was to keep them. Find a servant who can tell you where they are, and put one on, and come down and let me see you in it."

He smiled at me. Surely there never was anyone with such a bewitching smile. You felt that you would cut your heart out to help him when he gave you that smile, that you would lie down at his feet to be trampled on when he looked at you with that expression in his bright blue eyes.

I went upstairs very slowly. Lady Carrington's maid happened to be in, and I said to her, in a forlorn voice:

"I want one of my pretty new frocks. May I have it?"

The woman gave me a lightning glance of approval, and presently I was dressed in softest, palest, shimmering grey, which fell in long folds around my young person. I held it up daintily, and ran downstairs.

"There's my rose in June!" said father, and he came and took me in his arms. He chatted in his old fashion after that, but he went away before Lady Carrington returned from church. She came back, accompanied by Captain Carbury. I was in the drawing-room then, and there was plenty of colour in my cheeks, for father's visit had excited me a great deal.

Captain Carbury gave me a wistful glance and drew a chair near mine.

"Do you know what I was thinking of?" he said, suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"That it would be very nice after the wedding to-morrow----"

I shivered, and clutched my chair to keep myself from falling. I felt his dark eyes fixed on my face.

"After the ceremony to-morrow," he continued, "if you and Lady Carrington and I went to Hampton Court to spend the day. We will go down in my motor-car, come back afterwards and dine in town, and then go to the theatre. What do you think? I know Lady Carrington is quite agreeable."

"Do you want me to go, Captain Carbury?"

"Yes, I want you very much."

"Well, I will do it, if it pleases you," I said.

He looked steadily at me, then he bent forward--he dropped his voice.

"I, too, have a gallery," he said, "in which I place, not my famous heroes, but my famous heroines, and just at this moment, when you gave up your real will to mine and--forgot yourself--I put you in."

"Oh, thank you," I said, and my eyes brimmed with tears.

Captain Carbury went away early, and after he had gone Lady Carrington sat down by my side and began to talk to me.

"You and he are famous friends," she said, "and I am so glad. Perhaps I ought to tell you, however, that Vernon is engaged to a most charming girl. I know he will want you to meet her--they are to be married next summer."

"Oh, I hope she is good enough for him."

"I hope so also. Her name is Lady Dorothy Vinguard. She is beautiful and--and rich--and her people live in a lovely place in Surrey."

Suddenly a memory flashed through my mind.

I asked a question:

"Why did father say he would not meet Captain Carbury to-night at supper?" I said.