Wild Heather

Father bustled into the house, and I heard his cheerful voice in the hall.

"Hallo!" he said. "And how is the little woman?"

Lady Carrington dropped her voice to a whisper, and father began to talk in low tones. Then they both approached the room where I was lying on a sofa by the fire. I was feeling cold and chilled, and the little colour I had ever boasted of in my face had completely left me. Now, as I heard steps coming nearer and nearer, my heart beat in a most tumultuous fashion. Then father and Lady Carrington entered the room.

"Heather, here's your father," said my kindest friend. "Sir John and I are going to church, so you will have him quite to yourself. Now, cheer up, dear. By the way, Major Grayson, won't you stay and have supper with us afterwards?"

"Will Carbury be here?" asked my father suddenly.

"Yes, I think so. We asked him to come."

"Then I'd better not – better not, you know." He exchanged glances with Lady Carrington, and I noticed a delicate wave of colour filling her smooth and still girlish cheeks. She went away the next moment, and left father and me alone.

"Well, pussy cat," he said, looking down at me, "what is the meaning of all this rebellion? I didn't know you were such a queer little girl."

"Oh, father!" I said.

"Well, here is father. What does the little one want him to do?"

"Pet me, pet me, pet me," I said, and I gave a great sob between each word.

"Why, Heather, you are as great a baby as ever! Lady Helen says you are the most babyish creature she has ever come across in her life. My word, Heather, if you but knew it, you are in luck to have such a stepmother. I tell you, my child, you are in wonderful luck, for she is downright splendid!"

"Please – please – may I say something?" My voice shook violently.

"Of course you may, little mite."

"Don't let us talk of her to-night. I'll try very hard to be good to-morrow, if you will promise not to speak of her once to-night."

"It's hard on me, for my thoughts are full of her, but I'll endeavour to obey your small Majesty."

Then I sprang into his arms, and cuddled him round the neck, and kissed his cheek over and over again.

"Oh, I am so hungry for your love!" I said.

"Poor mite! You will have two people to love instead – oh! I forgot – 'mum's' the word. Now then, Heather, let's look at you. Why, you're a washed-out little ghost of a girl! Even Aunt Penelope would be shocked if she saw you now."

"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.