Chapter 14 Daddy's Girl by L. T. Meade
She walked slowly, her eyes fixed on the ground. She was thinking harder than she had ever thought before in the whole course of her short life. When she reached the parting of the ways which led in one direction to the sunny, pretty front entrance, and in the other to the stables, she paused again to consider.
Miss Winstead was standing in the new schoolroom window. It was a lovely room, furnished with just as much taste as Sibyl’s own bedroom. Miss Winstead put her head out, and called the child.
“Tea is ready, you had better come in. What are you doing there?”
“Is your head any better?” asked Sibyl, a ghost of a hope stealing into her voice.
“No, I am sorry to say it is much worse. I am going to my room to lie down. Nurse will give you your tea.”
Sibyl did not make any answer. Miss Winstead, supposing that she was going into the house, went to her own room. She locked her door, lay down on her bed, and applied aromatic vinegar to her forehead.
Sibyl turned in the direction of the stables.
“It don’t matter about my tea,” she said to herself. “Nursie will think I am with Miss Winstead, and Miss Winstead will think I am with nurse; it’s all right. I wonder if Ben would ride mother’s horse with me; but the first thing is to get the apples.”
The thought of what she was about to do, and how she would coax Ben, the stable boy, to ride with her cheered her a little.
“It’s awful to neglect the poor,” she said to herself. “Old Scott was very solemn. He’s a good man, is Scott, he’s a very religious man, he knows his Bible beautiful. He does everything by the Psalms; it’s wonderful what he finds in them – the weather and everything else. I asked him before the storm came yesterday if we was going to have rain, and he said ‘Read your Psalms and you’ll know. Don’t the Psalms for the day say “the Lord of glory thundereth”?’ and he looked at a black cloud that was coming up in the sky, and sure enough we had a big thunderstorm. It’s wonderful what a religious man is old Scott, and what a lot he knows. He wouldn’t say a thing if it wasn’t true. I suppose God does curse those who neglect the poor. I shouldn’t like to be cursed, and I did promise, and Dan will be waiting and watching. A little girl whom Jesus loves ought to keep her promise. Well, anyhow, I’ll get the apples ready.”
Sibyl rushed into the house by a side entrance, secured a basket and entered the orchard. There she made a careful and wise selection. She filled the basket with the golden green fruit, and arranged it artistically with apple-leaves.
“This will tempt dear little Dan,” she said to herself. There were a few greengages just beginning to come to perfection on a tree near. Sibyl picked several to add to her pile of tempting fruit, and then she went in the direction of the stables. Ben was nowhere about. She called his name, he did not answer. He was generally to be found in the yard at this hour. It was more than provoking.
“Ben! Ben! Ben!” called the child. Her clear voice sounded through the empty air. There came a gentle whinny in response.
“Oh, my darling Nameless Pony!” she thought. She burst open the stable door, and the next instant stood in the loose box beside the pony. The creature knew her and loved her. He pushed out his head and begged for a caress. Sibyl selected the smallest apple from the basket and gave it to her pony. The nameless pony munched with right good will.
“I could ride him alone,” thought Sibyl; “it is only two or three miles away, and I know the road, and mother, though she may be angry when she hears, will soon forgive me. Mother never keeps angry very long – that is one of the beautiful things about her. I do really think I will go by my lone self. I made a promise. Mother made a promise too, but then she forgets. I really do think I’ll go. It’s too awful to remember your promise to the poor, and then to break it. I wonder if I could saddle pony? Pony, darling, will you stay very quiet while I try to put your saddle on? I have seen Ben do it so often, and one day I coaxed him to let me help him.”
Just then a voice at the stable door said —
“Hullo! I say!” and Sibyl, starting violently, turned her head and saw a rough-headed lad of the name of Johnson, who sometimes assisted old Scott in the garden. Sibyl was not very fond of Johnson. She took an interest in him, of course, as she did in all human beings, but he was not fascinating like little Dan Scott, and he had not a religious way with him like old Scott; nevertheless, she was glad to see him now.
“Oh, Johnson,” she said eagerly, “I want you to do something for me so badly. If you will do it I will give you an apple.”
“What is it, Miss?” asked Johnson.
“Will you saddle my pony for me? You can, can’t you?”
“I guess I can,” answered Johnson. He spoke laconically.
“Want to ride?” he said. “Who’s a-goin’ with yer?”
“No one, I am going alone.”
Johnson made no remark. He looked at the basket of apples.
“I say,” he cried, “them’s good, I like apples.”
“You shall have two, Johnson; oh, and I have a penny in my pocket as well. Now please saddle the pony very fast, for I want to be off.”
Johnson did not see anything remarkable in Sibyl’s intended ride. He knew nothing about little Missy. As far as his knowledge went it was quite the habit for little ladies to ride by themselves. Of course he would get the pony ready for her, so he lifted down the pretty new side-saddle from its place on the wall, and arranged it on the forest pony’s back. The pony turned his large gentle eyes, and looked from Johnson to the child.
“It don’t matter about putting on my habit,” said Sibyl. “It will take such a lot of time, I can go just as I am, can’t I, Johnson?”
“If you like, Miss,” answered Johnson.
“I think I will, really, Johnson,” said Sibyl in that confiding way which fascinated all mankind, and made rough-headed Johnson her slave for ever.
“I might be caught, you know, if I went back to the house.”
“Oh, is that it?” answered Johnson.
“Yes, that’s it; they don’t understand. No one understands in the house how ’portant it is for me to go. I have to take the apples to Dan Scott. I promised, you know, and it would not be right to break my promise, would it, Johnson?”
Johnson scratched his head.
“I guess not!” he said.
“If I don’t take them, he’ll fret and fret,” said Sibyl; “and he’ll never trust me again; and the curse of God is on them that neglect the poor. Isn’t it so, Johnson? You understand, don’t you?”
“A bit, perhaps, Missy.”
“Well, I am very much obliged to you,” said the little girl. “Here’s two apples, real beauties, and here’s my new penny. Now, please lead pony out, and help me to mount him.”
Johnson did so. The hoofs of the forest pony clattered loudly on the cobble stones of the yard. Johnson led the pony to the entrance of a green lane which ran at the back of Silverbel. Here the little girl mounted. She jumped lightly into her seat. She was like a feather on the back of the forest pony. Johnson arranged her skirts according to her satisfaction, and, with her long legs dangling, her head erect, and the reins in her hands, she started forward. The basket was securely fastened; and the pony, well pleased at having a little exercise, for he had been in his stable for nearly two days, started off at a gentle canter.
Sibyl soon left Silverbel behind her. She cantered down the pretty country road, enjoying herself vastly.
“I am so glad I did it,” she thought; “it was brave of me. I will tell my ownest father when he comes back. I’ll tell him there was no one to go with me, and I had to do it in order to keep my promise, and he’ll understand. I’ll have to tell darling mother, too, to-night. She’ll be angry, for mother thinks it is good for me to bear the yoke in my youth, and she’ll be vexed with me for going alone, but I know she’ll forgive me afterward. Perhaps she’ll say afterward, ‘I’m sorry I forgot, but you did right, Sibyl, you did right.’ I am doing right, aren’t I, Lord Jesus?” and again she raised her eyes, confident and happy, to the evening sky.
The heat of the day was going over; it was now long past six o’clock. Presently she reached the small cottage where the sick boy lived. She there reined in her pony, and called aloud:
“Are you in, Mrs. Scott?”
A peevish-looking old woman wearing a bedgown, and with a cap with a large frill falling round her face, appeared in the rose-covered porch of the tiny cottage.
“Ah! it’s you, Missy, at last,” she said, and she trotted down as well as her lameness would let her to the gate. “Has you brought the apples?” she cried. “You are very late, Missy. Oh, I’m obligated, of course, and I thank you heartily, Miss. Will you wait for the basket, or shall I send it by Scott to-morrow?”
“You can send it to-morrow, please,” answered Sibyl.
“And you ain’t a-coming in? The lad’s expecting you.”
“I am afraid I cannot, not to-night. Mother wasn’t able to come with me. Tell Dan that I brought him his apples, and I’ll come and see him to-morrow if I possibly can. Tell him I won’t make him an out-and-out promise, ’cos if you make a promise to the poor and don’t keep it, Lord Jesus is angry, and you get cursed. I don’t quite know what cursed means, do you, Mrs. Scott?”
“Oh, don’t I,” answered Mrs. Scott. “It’s a pity you can’t come in, Missy. There, Danny, keep quiet; the little lady ain’t no time to be a-visiting of you. That’s him calling out, Missy; you wait a minute, and I’ll find out what he wants.”
Mrs. Scott hobbled back to the house, and the pony chafed restlessly at the delay.
“Quiet, darling; quiet, pet,” said Sibyl to her favorite, patting him on his arched neck.
Presently Mrs. Scott came back.
“Dan’s obligated for the apples, Miss, but he thinks a sight more of a talk with you than of any apples that ever growed. He ’opes you’ll come another day.”
“I wish, I do wish I could come in now,” said Sibyl wistfully; “but I just daren’t. You see, I have not even my riding habit on, I was so afraid someone would stop me from coming at all. Give Danny my love. But you have not told me yet what a curse means, Mrs. Scott.”
“Oh, that,” answered Mrs. Scott, “but you ain’t no call to know.”
“But I’d like to. I hate hearing things without understanding. What is a curse, Mrs. Scott?”
“There are all sorts,” replied Mrs. Scott. “Once I knowed a man, and he had a curse on him, and he dwindled and dwindled, and got smaller and thinner and poorer, until nothing would nourish him, no food nor drink nor nothing, and he shrunk up ter’ble until he died. It’s my belief he haunts the churchyard now. No one likes to go there in the evening. The name of the man was Micah Sorrel. He was the most ter’ble example of a curse I ever comed acrost in my life.”
“Well, I really must be going now,” said Sibyl with a little shiver. “Good-by; tell Dan I’ll try hard to come and see him to-morrow.”
She turned the pony’s head and cantered down the lane. She did not consider Mrs. Scott a specially nice old woman.
“She’s a gloomy sort,” thought the child, “she takes a gloomy view. I like people who don’t take gloomy views best. Perhaps she is something like old Scott; having lived with him so long as his wife, perhaps they have got to think things the same way. Old Scott looked very solemn when he said that it was a terrible thing to have the curse of the poor. I wonder what Micah Sorrel did. I am sorry she told me about him, I don’t like the story. But there, why should I blame Mrs. Scott, for I asked her to ’splain what a curse was. I ’spect I’m a very queer girl, and I didn’t really keep my whole word. I said positive and plain that I would take a basket of apples to Dan, and go and sit with him. I did take the apples, but I didn’t go in and sit with him. Oh, dear, I’ll have to go back by the churchyard. I hope Micah Sorrel won’t be about. I shouldn’t like to see him, he must be shrunk up so awful by now. Come along, pony darling, we’ll soon be back home again.”
Sibyl lightly touched the pony’s ears with a tiny whip which Lord Grayleigh had given her. He whisked his head indignantly at the motion and broke into a trot, the trot became a canter, and the canter a gallop.
Sibyl laughed aloud in her enjoyment. They were now close to the churchyard. The sun was getting near the horizon, but still there was plenty of light.
“A little faster, as we are passing the churchyard, pony pet,” said Sybil, and she bent towards her steed and again touched him, nothing more than a feather touch, on his arched neck. But pony was spirited, and had endured too much stabling, and was panting for exercise; and, just at that moment, turning abruptly round a corner came a man waving a red flag. He was followed by a procession of school children, all shouting and racing. The churchyard was in full view.
Sibyl laughed with a sense of relief when she saw the procession. She would not be alone as she passed the churchyard, and doubtless Micah Sorrel would be all too wise to make his appearance, but the next instant she gave a cry of alarm, for the pony first swerved violently, and then rushed off at full gallop. The red flag had startled him, and the children’s shouts were the final straw.
“Not quite so fast, darling,” cried Sibyl; “a little slower, pet.”
But pet and darling was past all remonstrances on the part of his little mistress. He flew on, having clearly made up his mind to run away from the red flag and the shouting children to the other end of the earth. In vain Sibyl jerked the reins and pulled and pulled. Her small face was white as death; her little arms seemed almost wrenched from their sockets. She kept her seat bravely. Someone driving a dog-cart was coming to meet her. A voice called —
“Hullo! Stop, for goodness’ sake; don’t turn the corner. Stop! Stop!”
Sibyl heard the voice. She looked wildly ahead. She had no more power to stop the nameless pony than the earth has power to pause as it turns on its axis. The next instant the corner was reached; all seemed safe, when, with a sudden movement, the pony dashed madly forward, and Sibyl felt herself falling, she did not know where. There was an instant of intense and violent pain, stars shone before her eyes, and then everything was lost in blessed unconsciousness.