Wild Heather

When Aunt Penelope had finished her long speech I looked at her and then said quietly:

"I know you have been good to me, and I have been many times a naughty girl to you, but, you see, father comes first, and if he wants me I am going to him."

"I thought you would say so. Your ingratitude is past bearing."

"Fathers always do come before aunts, don't they?" I asked.

"Oh, please don't become childish again, Heather. Go out and get the tea. I am tired of the want of proper feeling of the present day. Do you know that this morning Jonas broke that valuable Dresden cup and saucer that I have always set such store by? It has spoiled my set."

"What a shame," I answered. And I went into the kitchen to prepare the tea.

The Jonas of that day was a small boy of thirteen. He wore the very antiquated suit of Buttons which the first Jonas had appeared in ten years ago. He had very fat, red cheeks, and small, puffy eyes, and a little button of a mouth, and he was always asleep except when Aunt Penelope was about, when he ran and raced and pretended to do a lot, and broke more things than can be imagined. He awoke now when I entered the kitchen.

"Jonas, you are a bad boy," I said; "the kettle isn't boiling, and the fire is nearly out."

"I'll pour some paraffin on the fire and it will blaze up in a minute," said Jonas.

"You won't do anything of the kind; it is most dangerous – and Jonas, what a shame that you should have broken that Dresden cup and saucer!"

"Lor', miss, it was very old," said Jonas. "We wears out ourselves, so does the chaney."

"Now don't talk nonsense," said I, half laughing. "Cut some bread and I'll toast it. Jonas, I am a very happy girl to-day; my dear father is coming back to-morrow."

"Lor'," said Jonas, "I wouldn't be glad if my gov'nor wor coming back. He's sarvin' his time, miss, but don't let on that you know."

"Serving his time?" I answered. "What is that?"

"Lor', miss, he's kept by the Government. They has all the expense of him, and a powerful eater he ever do be!"

I did not inquire any further, but went on preparing the tea. When it was ready I brought it to Aunt Penelope.

"Do you know," I said, as I poured her out a cup, "that Jonas says his father is 'serving his time'? What does that mean?"

Aunt Penelope turned red and then white. Then she said, in a curious, restrained sort of voice:

"I wouldn't use that expression if I were you, Heather. It applies to people who are detained in prison."

"Oh!" I answered. Then I said, in a low tone, "I am very sorry for Jonas."

The next day father came back. Ten years is a very long time to have done without seeing your only living parent, and if father had been red and grizzled when last I beheld him, his hair was white now. Notwithstanding this fact, his eyes were as blue as ever, and he had the same jovial manner. He hugged and hugged me, and pushed me away from him and looked at me again, and then he hugged me once more, and said to Aunt Penelope:

"She does you credit, Penelope. She does, really and truly. When we have smartened her up a bit, and – oh! you know all about it, Penelope – she'll be as fine a girl as I ever saw."

"I have taught Heather to regard her clothes in the light in which the sacred Isaac Watts spoke of them," replied Aunt Penelope:

"Why should our garments, made to hide
Our parents' shame, provoke our pride?
Let me be dressed fine as I will,
Flies, flowers, and moths, exceed me still."

"That's a very ugly verse, if you will permit me to say so, Penelope," remarked my father, and then he dragged me down to sit on his knee.

He was wonderfully like his old self, and yet there was an extraordinary change in him. He used to be – at least the dream-father I had thought of all these years used to be – a very calm, self-contained man, never put out nor wanting in self-possession. But now he started at intervals and had an anxious, almost nervous manner. Aunt Penelope would not allow me to sit long on my father's knee.

"You forget, Heather, that you are not a child," she said. "Jump up and attend to the Major's comforts. I do not forget, Major, how particular you used to be about your toast. You were an awful fidget when you were a young man."

"Ha! ha!" said my father. "Ha! ha! And I am an awful fidget still, Pen, an awful fidget. But Heather makes good toast; she's a fine girl – that is, she will be, when I have togged her up a bit."

Here he winked at me, and Aunt Penelope turned aside as though she could scarcely bear the sight. After tea, to my infinite disgust, I was requested to leave the room. I went up to my tiny room, and, to judge from the rise and fall of two voices, an animated discussion was going on downstairs. At the end of half an hour Aunt Penelope called to me to come down. As I entered the room the parrot said, "Stop knocking at the door!" and my father remarked:

"I wonder, Penelope, you don't choke that bird!" Aunt Penelope turned to me with tears in her eyes.

"Heather, your father wishes you to join him in London at once. He has arranged, however, that you shall spend a certain portion of each year with me."

"Yes," remarked my father, "the dull time in the autumn. You shall always have her back then – that is, until she marries a duke or someone worthy of her."

"Am I really to go with you, Daddy?" I asked. "Really and truly?"

"Not to come with me to-night, pretty pet," he answered, pinching my cheek as he spoke. "I must find a habitation worthy of my little girl. But early next week your aunt – your kind aunt – will see you into the train and I will meet you at the terminus, and then, heigho! for a new life!"

I could not help laughing with glee, and then I was sorry, for Aunt Penelope had been as kind as kind could be after her fashion, and I did wrong not to feel some regret at leaving her. But when a girl has only her father, and that father has been away for ten long years, surely she is to be excused for wishing to be with him again.

Aunt Penelope hardly spoke at all after my father left. What her thoughts were I could not define; I am afraid, too, I did not try to guess them. But early next morning she began to make preparations for my departure. The little trunks which had accompanied me to Hill View were placed in the centre of my room, and Aunt Penelope put my very modest wardrobe into them. She laid between my nice, clean, fresh linen some bunches of home-grown lavender.

"You will think of me when you smell this fragrant perfume, Heather," she said; and I thought I saw something of a suspicion of tears in her eyes. I sprang to her then, and flung my arms round her neck, and said:

"Oh, I do want to go, and yet I also want to stay. Can't you understand, Aunt Penelope?"

"No, I cannot," she replied, pulling my hands away almost roughly; "and, what is more, I dislike silly, nonsensical speeches. No one can wish to do two things directly opposite at the same time. Now, count out your handkerchiefs. I bought you six new ones for your last birthday, and you had before then, how many?"

I am afraid I forgot. I am afraid I tried Aunt Penelope very much; but, after all, her time of suffering was to be short, for that very evening there came a telegram from father, desiring Aunt Penelope to send me up to London by the twelve o'clock train the following day.

"I will meet Heather at Victoria," he said.

So the next day I left Hill View, and kissed Aunt Penelope when I went, and very nearly kissed the parrot, and shook hands quite warmly with the reigning Jonas, and Aunt Penelope saw me off at the station, and I was as glad to go as I had been sorry to come. Thus I shut away the old life, and turned to face the new.

I had not been half an hour in the carriage before, looking up, I saw the kind eyes of a very beautiful lady fixed on mine. I had been so absorbed with different things that I had not noticed her until that moment. She bent towards me, and said:

"I think I cannot be mistaken, surely your name is Heather Grayson?"

"Yes," I answered.

"And you are going to meet your father, Major Grayson?"

"How do you know?" I said.

"Well, it so happens that I am going up to town to meet both him and my husband. It is long years since I have seen you; but you are not greatly altered. Do you remember the day when you went to the railway station at Cherton, and asked for a person called Anastasia, and my husband and I spoke to you?"