Part 12 (1/2)
”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 fas.h.i.+onable 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-fas.h.i.+oned, 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 ladys.h.i.+p. 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.