Chapter 8 Daddy's Girl by L. T. Meade
Ogilvie made a will leaving the ten thousand pounds which Lord Grayleigh had given him absolutely to Sibyl for her sole use and benefit. He also made all other preparations for his absence from home, and started for Queensland on Saturday. He wrote to his wife on the night before he left England, repeating his injunction that on no account was Sibyl to be yet told of his departure.
“When she absolutely must learn it, break it to her in the tenderest way possible,” he said; “but as Grayleigh has kindly invited you both to stay on at Grayleigh Manor for another week, you may as well do so, and while there I want the child to be happy. The country air and the companionship of other children are doing her a great deal of good. I never saw her look better than I did the other day. I should also be extremely glad, Mildred, if on your return to town you would arrange to send Sibyl to a nice day-school, where she could have companions. I have nothing to say against Miss Winstead, but I think the child would be better, less old-fashioned, and might place us more on the pedestal which we really ought to occupy, if she had other children to talk to and exchange thoughts with. Try to act, my dear wife, as I would like in this particular, I beg of you. Also when you have to let my darling know that I am away, you will find a letter for her in my left-hand top drawer in my study table. Give it to her, and do not ask to see it. It is just a little private communication from her father, and for her eyes alone. Be sure, also, you tell her that, all being well, I hope to be back in England by the end of the summer.”
Ogilvie added some more words to his letter, and Mrs. Ogilvie received it on Saturday morning. She read it over carelessly, and then turned to Jim Rochester who stood near. During her visit to Grayleigh Manor she had got to know this young man very well, and to like him extremely. He was good-looking, pleasant to talk to, well informed, and with genial, hearty views of life. He had been well brought up, and his principles were firm and unshaken. His notion of living was to do right on every possible occasion, to turn from the wrong with horror, to have faith in God, to keep religion well in view, and as far as in him lay to love his neighbor better than himself.
Rochester, it may be frankly stated, had some time ago lost his heart to Lady Helen Douglas, who, on her part, to all appearance returned his affection. Nothing had yet, however, been said between the pair, although Rochester’s eyes proclaimed his secret whenever they rested on Lady Helen’s fair face.
He watched Mrs. Ogilvie now with a sudden interest as she folded up her husband’s letter.
“Well,” she said, turning to him and uttering a quick sigh; “he is off, it is a fait accompli. Do you know, I am relieved.”
“Are you?” he answered. He looked at her almost wistfully. He himself was sorry for Ogilvie, he did not know why. He was, of course, aware that he was going to Queensland to assay the Lombard Deeps, for the talk of the great new gold mine had already reached his ears. He knew that Ogilvie, moreover, looked pale, ill at ease, and worried. He supposed that this uneasiness and want of alacrity in carrying a very pleasurable business to a successful issue was caused by the man’s great attachment to his wife and child. Mrs. Ogilvie must also be sorry when she remembered that it would be many months before she saw him again. But there was no sorrow now in the soft eyes which met his, nothing but a look of distinct annoyance.
“Really,” she said with an impatient movement, “I must confide in some one, and why not in you, Mr. Rochester, as well as another? I have already told you that my husband is absolutely silly about that child. From her birth he has done all that man could do to spoil her.”
“But without succeeding,” interrupted Jim Rochester. “I am quite friendly with your little Sibyl now,” he added, “and I never saw a nicer little girl.”
“Oh, that is what strangers always say,” replied Mrs. Ogilvie, shrugging her shoulders, “and the child is nice, I am not denying it for a moment, but she would be nicer if she were not simply ruined. He wants her to live in an impossible world, without any contradictions or even the smallest pain. You will scarcely believe it, but he would not allow me, the other day, to tell her such a very simple, ordinary thing as that he was going to Queensland on business, and now, in his letter, he still begs of me to keep it a secret from her. She is not to know anything about his absence until she returns to London, because, forsooth, the extra week she is to spend in the country would not do her so much good if she were fretting. Why should Sibyl fret? Surely it is not worse for her than for me; not nearly as bad, for that matter.”
“I am glad you feel it,” said Rochester.
“Feel it? What a strange remark! Did you think I was heartless? Of course I feel it, but I am not going to be silly or sentimental over the matter. Philip is a very lucky man to have this business to do. I would not be so foolish as to keep him at home; but he is ruining that child, ruining her. She gets more spoilt and intolerable every day.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Ogilvie,” said Lady Helen, who came upon the scene at that moment, “I heard you talking of your little daughter. I don’t think I ever met a sweeter child.”
Mrs. Ogilvie threw up her hands in protest.
“There you go,” she said. “Mr. Rochester has been saying almost the very same words, Lady Helen. Now let me tell you that Sibyl is not your child; no one can be more charming to strangers.”
As Mrs. Ogilvie spoke she walked a few steps away; then she turned and resumed her conversation.
“The annoying part of this letter,” she said, “is that Philip has written a private communication to Sibyl, and when she hears of his absence she is to be given this letter, and I am not even to see it. I don’t think I shall give it to her; I really must now take the management of the child into my own hands. Her father will be absent – Oh, there you are, Sibyl. What are you doing, loitering about near windows? Why don’t you play with your companions?” For Sibyl had burst in by the open window, looking breathless.
“I thought – I thought,” she began; “I thought, mother, that I heard you – ” her face was strangely white, and her wide-open eyes looked almost wild in expression.
“It’s not true, of course; but I thought I heard you say something about father, and a – a letter I was to have in his absence. Did you say it, mother?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” replied Mrs. Ogilvie, flushing red, and almost pushing Sibyl from the room, “nothing of the sort; go and play.”
Sibyl gave her an earnest and very penetrating look. She did not glance either at Mr. Rochester or Lady Helen.
“It’s wicked for good people to tell lies, isn’t it?” she said then, slowly.
“Wicked,” cried her mother; “it’s shamefully wicked.”
“And you are good, mother, you don’t ever tell lies; I believe you, mother, of course.” She turned and went out of the room. As she went slowly in the direction of the field where the other children were taking turns to ride bareback one of the horses, her thoughts were very puzzled.
“I wish things would be ’splained to me,” she said, half aloud, and she pushed back her curls from her forehead. “There are more and more things every day want ’splaining. I certainly did hear her say it. I heard them all talking, and Lady Helen said something, and Mr. Rochester said something, and mother said that father wished me not to know, and I was to have a letter, and then mother said ‘in his absence.’ Oh, what can it mean?”
The other children shouted to her from the field, but she was in no mood to join them, and just then Lord Grayleigh, who was pacing up and down his favorite walk, called her to his side.
“What a puzzled expression you are wearing, my little girl,” he said. “Is anything the matter?”
Sibyl skipped up to him. Some of the cloud left her face. Perhaps he could put things straight for her.
“I want to ask you a question,” she said.
“You are always asking questions. Now ask me something really nice; but first, I have something to say. I am in a very giving mood this morning. Sometimes I am in a saving mood, and would not give so much as a brass farthing to anybody, but I am in the other sort of mood to-day. I am in the mood to give a little golden-haired girl called – ”
“Sibyl,” said the child, beginning to laugh; “if she is golden-haired it must be me. What is it you want to give me?”
Her attention was immediately arrested; her eyes shone and her lips smiled.
“What would you like best in the world?”
“Oh, best in the whole world? But I cannot have that, not for a week – we are going home this day week.”
“And what will you have when you go home?”
“Father’s kiss every night. He always comes up, Lord Grayleigh, and tucks me in bed, and he kisses me, and we have a cozy talk. He never misses, never, when he is at home. I am lonesome here, Lord Grayleigh, because mother does not think it good for me that she should come; she would if she thought it good for me.”
“Well,” said Lord Grayleigh, who for some reason did not feel quite comfortable as Sibyl talked of her father’s kisses, “we must find something for you, not quite the best thing of all. What would be the next best?”
“I know,” said Sibyl, laughing, “a Shetland pony; oh, I do want one so badly. Mother sometimes rides in the Park, and I do so long to go with her, but she said we couldn’t afford it. Oh, I do want a pony.”
“You shall have one,” said Lord Grayleigh; “it shall be my present to a very good, charming little girl.”
“Do you really think I am good?”
“Good? Excellent; you are a pattern to us all.”
“Wouldn’t father like to hear you. It’s wonderful how he talked to me about being good. I am not really good, you know; but I mean to try. If you were to look into my heart, you would see – oh, but you shan’t look.” She started back, clasped her hands, and laughed. “But when father looks next, he shall see, oh, a white heart with all the naughtiness gone.”
“Tell me exactly what sort of pony you would like,” said Lord Grayleigh, who thought it desirable to turn the conversation.
“It must have a long mane, and not too short a tail,” said Sibyl; “and be sure you give me the very nicest, newest sort of side-saddle, same as mother has herself, for mother’s side-saddle is very comfy. Oh, and I’d like a riding habit like mother’s, too. Mother will be sure to say she can’t ’ford one for me, but you’ll give me one if you give me the pony and the side-saddle, won’t you?”
“I’ll give you the pony and the side-saddle, and the habit,” said Lord Grayleigh. “I’ll choose the pony to-morrow, and bring him back with me. I am going to Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, where they are going to have a big horse fair. You will not mind having a New Forest pony instead of a Shetland?”
“I don’t mind what sort my darling pony is,” answered the child. “I only want to have it. Oh, you are nice. I began by not liking you, but I like you awfully now. You are very nice, indeed.”
“And so are you. It seems to me we suit each other admirably.”
“There are lots of nice people in the world,” said Sibyl. “It’s a very pleasant place. There are two quite perfect, and there are others very nice; you and Mr. Rochester and Lady Helen. But, oh, Lord Grayleigh, I know now what I wanted to say. A perfect person couldn’t never tell a lie, could she?”
“Oh, it’s the feminine gender,” said Lord Grayleigh softly, under his breath.
“It’s a she,” said Sibyl; “could she; could she?”
“A perfect person could not, little girl.”
“Now you have made me so happy that I am going to kiss you,” said Sibyl. She made a spring forward, flung her arms round his neck, and kissed him twice on his rough cheek. The next instant she had vanished out of sight and joined her companions.
“It’s all right,” she said to Gus, who looked at her in some amazement. “It’s all right; I got a fright, but there wasn’t a word of it true. Come, let’s play. Oh, do you know your father is going to give me a pony? I am so happy.”
In a week’s time Mrs. Ogilvie and Sibyl returned to town. Sibyl was intensely joyful on this occasion, and confided in everyone what a happy night she would have.
“You don’t know what father is,” she said, looking full up into Rochester’s eyes. He was standing on the terrace, and the little girl went and stood by his side. Sibyl was in her most confiding mood. She considered Lord Grayleigh, Mr. Rochester, Lady Helen, and the children were all her special friends. It was impossible to doubt their entire sympathy and absolute ability to rejoice in her joy.
“I have had a good time here,” she said, “very good. Lord Grayleigh has been nice; I began by not liking him, but I like him now, and I like you awfully, but after all there’s no place for me like my own, own home. It’s ’cos of father.”
“Yes,” said Rochester. He looked anxiously, as Sibyl spoke, towards the house. Everyone at Grayleigh Manor now knew that Sibyl was not to be told of her father’s absence during her visit. No one approved of this course, although no one felt quite towards it with the same sense of irritation that Mrs. Ogilvie herself did. Rochester wished at this instant that Lord Grayleigh or someone else would appear. He wanted anything to cause a diversion, but Sibyl, in happy ignorance of his sentiments, talked on.
“It is at night that my father is the most perfect of all,” she said. “I wish you could see him when he comes into my room. I am in bed, you know, lying down flat on my back, and mostly thinking about the angels. I do that a lot at night, I have no time in the day; I think of the angels, and Lord Jesus Christ, and heaven, and then father comes in. He opens the door soft, and he treads on tiptoe for fear I’m asleep, as if I could be! And then he kisses me, and I think in the whole of heaven there can never be an angel so good and beautiful as he is, and he says something to me which keeps me strong until the next night, when he says something else.”
“But your mother?” stammered Rochester. He was about to add, “She would go to your room, would she not?” when he remembered that she herself had told him that nothing would induce her to adopt so pernicious a course.
“Oh, you’re thinking about my perfect mother, too,” said Sibyl. “Yes, she is perfect, but there are different sorts in the world. My own mother thinks it is not good for me to lie awake at night and think of the angels and wait for father. She thinks that I ought to bear the yoke in my youth. Solomon, the wise King Solomon – you have heard of him, haven’t you?”
Rochester nodded.
“He wrote that verse about bearing the yoke when you are young. I learnt it a week ago, and I felt it just ’splained about my mother. It’s really very brave of mother; but, you see, father thinks different, and, of course, I nat’rally like father’s way best. Mother’s way is the goodest for me, p’waps. Don’t you think mother’s way is the goodest for me, Mr. Rochester?”
“I dare say it is good for you, Sibyl. Now, shall we go and find Lady Helen?”
“Seems to me,” said Sibyl, “I’m always looking for Lady Helen when I’m with you. Is it ’cos you’re so desperate fond of her?”
“Don’t you like her yourself?” said the young man, reddening visibly.
“Like her? I like her just awfully. She’s the most ’licious person to tell stories I ever comed across in all my borned days. She tells every sort of story about giants and fairies and adventures, and stories of little girls just like me. Does she tell you stories about men just like you, and is that why you like to be with her?”
“Well, I can’t honestly say that she has ever yet told me a story, but I will ask her to do so.”
“Do,” said Sibyl; “ask her to tell you a story about a man like yourself. Make him rather pwoper and stiff and shy, and let him blush sometimes. You do, you know you do. Maybe it will do you good to hear about him. Now come along and let’s find her.”
So Sibyl and Rochester hunted all over the place for Lady Helen, and when they found her not, for she had gone to the nearest village on a commission with one of the children, Rochester’s face looked somewhat grave, and his answers to the child were a little distrait. Sibyl said to him in a tone of absolute sympathy and good faith —
“Cheer up, won’t you? She is quite certain to marry you in the long run.”
“Don’t talk like that,” said Rochester in a voice of pain.
“Don’t what? You do want to marry Lady Helen. I heard mother say so yesterday. I heard her say so to Hortense. Hortense was brushing her hair, and mother said, ‘It would be a good match on the whole for Lady Helen, ’cos she is as poor as a church mouse, and Jim Rochester has money.’ Is my darling Lady Helen as poor as a church mouse, and have you lots of money, Mr. Rochester?”
“I have money, but not lots. You ought not to repeat what you hear,” said the young man.
“But why? I thought everybody knew. You are always trying to make her marry you, I see it in your eyes; you don’t know how you look when you look at her, oh – ever so eager, same as I look when father’s in the room and he is not talking to me. I hope you will marry her, more especial if she’s as poor as a church mouse. I never knew why mice were poor, nor why mother said it, but she did. Oh, and there is mother, I must fly to her; good-by – good-by.”
Rochester concealed his feelings as best he could, and hurried immediately into a distant part of the grounds, where he cogitated over what Sibyl, in her childish, way, had revealed.
The pony had been purchased, and Sibyl had ridden it once. It was a bright bay with a white star on its forehead. It was a well-groomed, well-trained little animal, and Lord Grayleigh had given Sibyl her first riding lesson, and had shown her how to hold the reins, and how to sit on her saddle, and the riding habit had come from town, and the saddle was the newest and most comfortable that money could buy.
“It is my present to you,” said Lord Grayleigh, “and remember when you ride it that you are going to be a good girl.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Sibyl, “I don’t want everyone to tell me that I am to be a good girl. If it was father; but – don’t please, Lord Grayleigh; I’ll do a badness if you talk to me any more about being so good.”
“Well, I won’t,” said Lord Grayleigh, laughing.
“I ’spect father will write you a most loving letter about this,” said Sibyl. “Won’t he be ’sprised? And did you tell mother about me having a ride every morning?”
“I did.”
“And did you speak to her about the food for my pony all being paid for?”
“Yes, everything is arranged. Your pony shall be the best cared for in all London, and you shall ride him every day for half-an-hour before you go to school.”
“Oh, I never go to school,” said Sibyl in a sorrowful voice. “I have a Miss Winstead to teach me. She is the sort that – oh, well, no matter; she means all right, poor thing. She wants the money, so of course she has to stay. She doesn’t suit me a bit, but she wants the money. It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“So it seems, little girl; and now here is the carriage, and the pony has gone off to London already, and will be ready to take you on his back to-morrow morning. Be sure you think of a nice name for him.”
“Father will tell me a name. I won’t let anybody else christen my ownest pony. Good-by, Lord Grayleigh. I like you very much. Say good-by to Mr. Rochester for me – oh, and there is Lady Helen; good-by, Lady Helen – good-by.”
They all kissed Sibyl when they parted from her, and everyone was sorry at seeing the last of her bright little face, and many conjectures went forth with regard to the trouble that was before the child when she got to London. One and all thought that Ogilvie had behaved cruelly, and that his wife was somewhat silly to have yielded to him.
Sibyl went up to town in the highest spirits. She chatted so much on the road that her mother at last told her to hold her tongue.
“Sit back in your seat and don’t chatter,” she said, “you disturb other people.”
The other people in the carriage consisted of a very old gentleman and a small boy of Sibyl’s own age. The small boy smiled at Sibyl and she smiled back, and if her mother had permitted it would have chatted to him in a moment of her hopes and longings; but, when mother put on that look, Sibyl knew that she must restrain her emotions, and she sat back in her seat, and thought about the children who bore the yoke in their youth, and how good it was for them, and how rapidly she was growing into the sort of little girl her father most liked.
“Mother,” she said, as they got towards the end of the journey, “I’m ’proving, aren’t I?”
“Proving, what do you mean?”
“Improving, mother.”
“I can’t say that I see it, Sibyl; you have been very troublesome for the last few days.”
“Oh!” said the child, “oh!”
Sibyl changed seats from the one opposite, and nestled up close to her mother, she tucked her hand inside her arm, and then began to talk in a loud, buzzing whisper.
“It’s ’cos of father,” she said; “he begged me so earnest to be a good girl, and I have tried, haven’t you noticed it, mother? Won’t you tell him when we get home that I have tried?”
“Don’t worry me, Sibyl, you know my views. I want you to be just a sensible, good child, without any of those high-flown notions. When we return to town you must make up for your long holiday. You must do your lessons with extreme care, and try to please Miss Winstead.”
“And to please father and Lord Jesus.”
“Yes, yes, child.”
“And to have a ride every morning on my darling pony?”
“We will try and manage that. Lord Grayleigh has been almost silly over that pony; I doubt whether it is wise for you to have it.”
“Oh, mother, he did say he would buy everything – the pony, the saddle, the habit, and he would ’ford the food, too. You have not got to pay out any money, mother, have you?”
“Hush, don’t talk so loud.”
The old gentleman buried himself in The Times in order not to hear Sibyl’s distressed voice, and the little boy stared out of the window and got very red.
“Take up your book and stop talking,” said Mrs. Ogilvie.
Sibyl took up a book which she already knew by heart, and kept back a sorrowful sigh.
“But it don’t matter,” she said to herself; “when I see father, he’ll understand.”
They got to town, where a carriage was waiting for them. Sibyl could scarcely restrain her eagerness.
“Mother, may I ask John if father’s likely to be at home? Sometimes he comes home earlier than usual. P’waps he came home to lunch and is waiting for us. Can I call out to John through the window, mother?”
“No, sit still, you do fidget so.”
“I’ll try to be quiet, mother; it’s only ’cos I’m so incited.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Ogilvie to herself, “what an awful evening I am likely to have! When the silly child really finds out that her father has gone, she will burst into hysterics, or do something else absurd. I really wish it had been my luck to marry a husband with a grain of sense. I wonder if I had better tell her now. No, I really cannot. Miss Winstead must do it. Miss Winstead has been having a nice holiday, with no fuss or worry of any sort, and it is quite fair that she should bear the burden of this. But why it should be regarded as a burden or a trial is a puzzle. Philip goes on a sort of pleasure expedition to Queensland, and the affair is treated almost as if – as if it were a death. It is positively uncanny.”
Sibyl noticed that her mother was silent, and that she looked worried. Presently she stretched out her hand and stroked her mother’s.
“What are you doing that for?”
“’Cos I thought I’d rub you the right way,” said Sibyl. “You are like a poor cat when it is rubbed the wrong way, aren’t you, just now, mother?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous.” Mrs. Ogilvie snatched her hand away.
They soon reached the house. The footman, Watson, sprang down and lowered the steps. Sibyl bounded out and flew into the hall.
“Father, father!” she called. “I’m back. Are you in, father? Here I are – Sibyl. I’m home again, father. The Angel is home again, father.”
She did not often call herself the Angel, the name seemed to have more or less slipped out of sight, but she did on this occasion, and she threw back her pretty head and looked up the wide staircase, as if any moment she might see her father hurrying down to meet her.
Mrs. Ogilvie turned to one of the servants, who was watching the child in astonishment.
“She does not know yet,” whispered Mrs. Ogilvie. “I am going into the library; don’t tell her anything, pray, but send Miss Winstead to me immediately.”
Mrs. Ogilvie entered the library. Sibyl danced in after her.
“I can’t see father anywhere,” she said: “I ’spect he’s not back yet.”
“Of course he is not back so early. Now run upstairs and ask Nurse to make you ready for tea. Leave me, I have something to say to Miss Winstead.”
Miss Winstead appeared at that moment. She had enjoyed her holiday, and looked the better for it. Though she understood Sibyl very little, yet at this moment she gazed at the child almost with alarm, for Mrs. Ogilvie had written to her telling her that Mr. Ogilvie’s absence had not been alluded to in the child’s presence.
Sibyl rushed to her and kissed her.
“I am back, and I am going to be good,” she said. “I really, truly am; aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Yes, Sibyl.”
“Go upstairs now, Sibyl,” said her mother. Sibyl obeyed somewhat unwillingly, some of the laughter went out of her eyes, and a little of the excitement faded from her heart. She went up the wide stairs slowly, very slowly. Even now she hoped that it might be possible for her father to appear, turning the angle of the winding stairs, coming out of one of the rooms. He always had such a bright face, there was an eagerness about it. He was tall and rather slender, and that bright look in his eyes always caused the child’s heart to leap; then his mouth could wear such a beautiful smile. It did not smile for many people, but it always did for Sibyl. She wanted to see him, oh, so badly, so badly.
“Well, never mind,” she said to herself, “he can’t help it, the darling; but he’ll be back soon,” and she tripped into her nursery and sat down; but she did not ask Nurse any questions, she was too busy with her own thoughts.