Chapter 2 The Squire's Little Girl by L. T. Meade
Phyllis came home quite late. Her habit was torn; Bob, the pony, was covered with mud; mud had also been splashed all over the little girl’s neat costume—even her face and hands were more or less disfigured by it. Her curly hair was disfigured too with the mud from the swamps and dirty roads over which she had passed, but there was a brilliant colour in her cheeks and a happy light in her eyes. She rode into the yard, and a groom came up to take her pony.
“Miss Phyllis,” he exclaimed, “you have Bob in a lather!”
“Oh, never mind,” said Phyllis; “I have had a jolly time. I have found playmates.”
The groom touched his hat respectfully. It was the custom to be very respectful to the Squire’s little daughter. She entered the house. Her governess, Miss Fleet, was waiting in the hall to receive her.
“Where have you been?” she said in a stern voice.
“Oh, Miss Fleet,” cried Phyllis, “I have had such a time!—such fun, such delight! I met a lot of children, and I went up on to the hills with them. They are quite the most splendid children I ever came across in the whole course of my life. There are four of them—two boys and two girls.”
“Don’t you even know their names?” asked Miss Fleet.
“Yes, yes, of course. One is called Ned, and one Ralph; and there is a girl Susie, and another Rosie; and they adore me, and, oh, I am so happy!”
“You are very nearly late for dinner,” said Miss Fleet, “and you are in a most disgraceful mess; it will take half-an-hour to clean you and make you respectable; and you missed your music-master. In short, you are a very naughty girl.”
“I am a very happy girl,” said Phyllis in the most contented voice in the world. “Please don’t scold me, Miss Fleet; but I may as well say at once that I don’t greatly care whether you are angry or not.”
“Oh, don’t you?” said Miss Fleet. “Do you suppose I am going to put up with such a very disobedient little girl?” Her voice was stern. She did not often scold Phyllis, for Phyllis, as a rule, was too good to be reprimanded. She followed her now to her pleasant bedroom. There Nurse was waiting to pet the little girl and make her presentable for dinner.
Miss Fleet looked into the room and said, “Here she is, Nurse, and I am extremely angry with her;” and then the governess closed the door and walked away.
Phyllis gazed at Nurse, her eyes brimful of laughter. Then she ran up to the old woman and said ecstatically—
“Oh! I am so happy, and I don’t care a bit—not a bit—for what old cross-patch says.”
“My dear Miss Phyllis,” said Nurse, “you ought not to speak like that of your governess.”
“Well,” cried Phyllis, “she is cross-patch.”
“I never heard you say that sort of thing before.”
“I learnt it from the Rectory children. Oh, they are so nice—so very nice! I was with them all the afternoon. I am going again to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and every day—every single day. Now, please, Nurse, help me to get tidy for dinner.”
Nurse, who in her heart of hearts felt that Phyllis could do no wrong, assisted with right good-will to remove the mud-bespattered habit, and to get the little girl into her evening-frock. The Squire was immensely fond and proud of his little daughter, and she always dined in the evening with Miss Fleet and her father. Miss Fleet came downstairs first to the drawing-room.
“Where is Phyllis?” said the Squire.
“I am sorry to tell you, Mr Harringay, that Phyllis has been rather naughty. She has been out without leave, and came home just now in a disgraceful mess.”
“The young monkey,” said the Squire, laughing. “I saw her; she rode past the ‘Blue Dragon,’ a herd of children following her. I never was so amazed in my life; but she did look handsome and as if she were enjoying herself. I was told that the children belonged to the Rectory.”
“I don’t care whom they belong to,” said Miss Fleet. “They are very naughty children, and badly behaved; and if Phyllis has much to do with them she will get just as rough and wild herself.”
“Bless her! she is perfect whatever happens,” said the Squire energetically.
“Mr Harringay,” said the governess, “may I ask you a question?”
“My dear Miss Fleet, certainly. You know that I have the highest opinion of you.”
“Have I the charge of Phyllis or have I not?”
“Bless me, bless me!” said the Squire, in some agitation, “of course you have the charge of her.”
“Then that is all right; and she has got to obey me, has she not?”
“Of course, my good creature, of course.” Just then Phyllis danced into the room. She looked very pretty in her evening-frock, and her happy afternoon had brought a red colour into her cheeks and a glow of happiness into her grey eyes.
The trio went into the dining-room, and Phyllis amused her father during dinner with accounts of Rosie and Susie and the two boys.
“I like the country,” she said to her father; “I am glad we have come to live at the Hall; I am glad about everything. I am very, very happy to-night.”
The Squire kissed her and petted her, and it was not until she was just going to bed that he broke a piece of news to her which she scarcely appreciated.
“My dear, it is good-bye as well as good-night.”
“Good-bye, Father? Why?” asked Phyllis.
“Because I have to go to town to-morrow early, long before you are awake, my little daughter, and I shall probably not return to the Hall for quite a fortnight. But as you are so happy and have found friends, why, it does not matter so much, does it?”
“But I shall miss you,” said Phyllis, little guessing how very, very much she was to regret the Squire’s absence.
“I will write to you, pet, almost every day if I can; and if there is anything you fancy from town, you have but to say the word.”
“I will write and tell you, Father. Are you prepared to give me quite big, big things if I want them?”
“I expect I am. You are my only child, and my pockets are pretty well lined.”
“But big, big things for other people?” repeated Phyllis in an emphatic whisper.
“Come, Phyllis, it is time for bed,” said Miss Fleet.
Phyllis gave her father another hug. Her eyes looked into his, and his eyes looked into hers, and there was no doubt that the Squire and his little daughter thoroughly understood each other. Then she danced away from him, and took her governess’s hand and left the room.
“Miss Fleet manages her well,” thought the Squire. “She is a very good woman, is very trustworthy and reliable, and the dear little thing wants a bit of discipline. Nothing will induce me to send Phyllis to school. I have the greatest confidence in Miss Fleet. I wish I hadn’t to leave the child just now, but she is all right with the governess and Nurse—oh, and yes, there are the Rectory children; they see a lot of her, and she won’t miss me, not a bit.”
So the Squire went happily to bed and slept soundly, and went off at an early hour the following morning, kissing his hand as he did so in the direction of Phyllis’s window.