Wild Heather Part 14

I took some keys out of a little bag I wore at my side.

"Do as you please," I said.

I sat on a low chair and watched her. Then I said, suddenly:

"I am horribly sick of dress!"

"Oh, miss!" remarked Morris, raising her placid face to mine, for she was on her knees by this time, unfastening my largest trunk, "I did think that young ladies lived for their dress."

"Well, I am not one of those young ladies," was my reply. "I never thought of dress until a few weeks ago. I used to put on the dress I was to wear when I first got up in the morning, and I never thought of it again until I took it off to go to bed."

"You must have lived in a very quiet way, miss."

"I lived in a sensible way," I replied.

"I should not like it for myself, miss."

"Perhaps not, perhaps you are vain--I can't bear vain people."

The girl coloured, and bent again over the trunk. I rested my elbows on my knees, pressed my hands against my cheeks, and stared at her.

"I don't wish to offend you, Morris," I said; "I want us two to be friends."

"Thank you, miss."

"But I do wish to say," I continued, "that I consider it awfully frivolous to have to put on a special dress for morning, and another dress for afternoon, and yet another dress, just when tea comes in, and another dress for dinner. Privately, I think it quite wicked, and I am sure you must agree with me."

"It is what's done in society, miss," answered the girl. "They all do like that, those who move in the best society."

She began to unpack rapidly, and I watched her. I reflected within myself that I had left Hill View with no clothes except the ones I was wearing, and what were contained in my tiny trunks. Now I had several big trunks, and they were crammed, pressed full, with the newest and most wonderful dresses; and besides the dresses there were mantles, and coats, and opera cloaks, and all sorts of the most exquisite, the most perfect underclothing in the world. Morris was a quick lady's maid; she evidently understood her duties thoroughly well. She had soon unpacked my trunks, and then she suggested that I should wear a dress of the palest, most heavenly blue, in order to greet her ladyship and Major Grayson. I said, "Is it necessary?" and she replied, "Certainly it is,"

and after that I submitted to her manipulations. She helped me into my dress, arranged my hair in a simple and very becoming manner, and then she looked at me critically.

"Am I all right now?" I asked.

"Yes, miss, I think you will do beautifully."

I thanked her, and ran downstairs. There were three, or even four drawing-rooms to the house, each one opening into the other. I chose the smallest drawing-room, ensconced myself in an easy-chair, and tried to imagine that I was about to enjoy everything; but my heart was beating horribly, and I came to the conclusion that every one of the four drawing-rooms was hideous. They were not the least like the reception rooms at Lady Carrington's. There the furniture was rich, and yet simple; there was no sense of overcrowding, the tables were not laden with knick-knacks, and there were comparatively few chairs and lounges, only just enough for people to use. The walls were undecorated, except by one or two pictures, the works of masters. There were not more than two pictures in each room, for Lady Carrington had a.s.sured me that pictures were the richest ornaments of all, and I fully agreed with her.

Now these rooms were totally different--the chairs, the tables, the sofas, the lounges, the grand piano, the little piano, the harpsichord, the spinning-wheel, the pianola, gave one a sense of downright oppression. The walls were laden with pictures of every sort and description--some of them I did not admire in the very least; and there was old china and old gla.s.s, very beautiful, I had little doubt, but to me extremely inharmonious. I discovered soon that what these rooms needed was a sense of rest. There was not a single spot where the eye could remain quiet; wherever one looked one felt inclined to start and exclaim, and jump up and examine. I came to the conclusion that I preferred Aunt Penelope's very plain little drawing-room at home to this.

By and by an exceedingly tall young man in smart blue livery threw open the folding doors, and another equally tall young man in the same livery entered with a silver tray. The man who first came into the room pulled out a table and placed the tray on it, and presently a third man appeared with quant.i.ties of food. The first man poked up the fire, the second acquainted me with the fact that tea was quite ready, and afterwards the three left the room, closing the door softly behind them.

Their velvet tread oppressed me; I wanted the door to bang; I wanted to hear a good, loud, wholesome noise.

Yes, I was at home in my father's house, but truth to tell, I had never felt less home-like in the whole course of my life. I poured myself out a cup of tea, and ate a morsel of bread and b.u.t.ter. Suddenly, before I had finished my first cup of tea, I heard quick sounds in the hall; there were footsteps, and several voices speaking together; people seemed to be rushing hither and thither, and I heard a staccato voice mingling with the tones of a deep one, a deep one that I knew and loved.

Then the voices and the footsteps came nearer, until a big man and a lady entered the outer drawing-room and came straight into the little room where I was sitting. The man smiled all over his face, said, "Hallo, little woman!" caught me up in his arms and kissed me; the lady said coldly, "How do you do, child? Pour me out a cup of tea, and be quick; I am fainting with exhaustion. Gordon, will you go upstairs and take your great-coat off, and then come down and have tea like a Christian?"

"Oh, but he must stay," I answered, for I was feeling his face and kissing him over and over, and rubbing my cheek against his.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Oh, but he must stay,' I answered".]

"Gordon, please go at once," said his wife.

My hands were released, the blue eyes of Major Grayson looked full into mine. Certainly father's eyes were the most wonderful in all the world.

They seemed to me to hold within their depths a mixture of every sort of emotion, of fun, of reluctant, half ashamed, half pleased, half boyish penitence, of sorrow, of a pathos which was always there and always half hidden, and also of a queer and indescribable n.o.bility, which, notwithstanding the fact that I had not seen him for years, and notwithstanding the other fact that he had married a worldly woman when he might have made me so happy, seemed to have grown and strengthened on his face. He kissed one of his hands to me, raised Lady Helen's jewelled hand to his lips, bowed to her, smiled, and departed.

"He has charming manners," she said, and then she turned to me.

"Bring me food, child," she said; "I want you to wait on me to-day; I am tired; we had a very rough crossing. To-morrow I shall take you in hand, but you are tremendously improved already. Yes, your father has delightful manners--we shall win through yet; but it will be a battle."

"What do you mean by 'winning through'?" I asked.

"Nothing that you need interfere about," she answered, a little sharply; "only listen to me once for all. I am not Lady Helen Dalrymple for nothing, and when I stoop to conquer I do conquer. Now then, fetch me the cake basket; I am ravenously hungry and have a pa.s.sion for chocolate."

I gave her what she required, and she ate without looking at me, her sharp eyes wandering round and round the room.

"Why, how hideous!" she suddenly exclaimed. "How more than wrong of Clarkson! I gave orders that the curtains in this room were to be rose-pink; those dull blue abominations must come down; we won't have them--they'd try anyone's complexion. Child, for goodness' sake don't stare! And yet, come and let me look at you. That blue dress suits you; but then you are young, and you have a complexion for blue."

She patted my hand for a minute, then she yawned profoundly.

"I am glad to be home," she said. "A honeymoon when you are no longer young is fatiguing, to say the least of it, and I am sick of hotel life. I have already sent out my 'At Home' invitations, and for the next few days the house will be crammed every afternoon. You will have to be present--why, of course, you will--don't knit your brows together like that. I mean to be a good stepmother to you, Heather. Ah, here comes Gordon. Gordon, you look very presentable now. Sit close to me on this sofa, and let Heather give you some tea. It's nice to have one's own girl to wait on one, isn't it?"

"Profoundly nice," said the Major; "exquisitely nice. To think that we have a child of our very own, Helen!"

"I don't think about it," replied Lady Helen. "It isn't my custom to wear myself out going into raptures, but, Gordon, I am very seriously displeased about those curtains."

"Curtains, dear--what ails them? I see nothing wrong in them."

"But I do. I told Clarkson's people rose-colour, soft rose-colour, and they sent blue--I will never get anything at Clarkson's again."

"They must be changed, sweetest one," replied my father.

I was giving him a cup of tea just then, and my hand shook. My stepmother noticed this; she said, in a sharp voice:

"Heather, get me a fan; that fire will spoil my complexion."

I fetched her one. She held it between herself and the fire.

"By the way, Gordon," she said suddenly, "we had better tell the child now."

"Oh, what?" I asked in some astonishment and also alarm.

"Really, Heather, you need not give way to such undue excitement. A year of my training will completely change you. I only wished to mention the fact that your name is no longer Grayson; in future you are Heather Dalrymple. Your father and I have agreed that you both take my name; that is a thing often done when there is a question of money. I hold the purse strings. I am a very generous person as regards money; Major, dear, you can testify to that."

"I can, Helen. There never was your like, you are wonderful."

"You therefore are little Heather Dalrymple in future," continued my stepmother, "and your father and I are Major and Lady Helen Dalrymple.

It's done, child, it's settled; the lawyers have arranged it all.

Grayson is a frightful name; you ought to be truly thankful that it is in my power to change it for you. You need not even wait for your marriage; the change takes place at once."