Chapter 6 The Squire's Little Girl by L. T. Meade
There never was a more angry woman than Miss Fleet as she left the Rectory that afternoon.
Certainly, Mrs Hilchester had not been sympathetic. It is true she had followed her visitor into the hall, and had said by way of reassuring her:
“You need not be at all alarmed about your little girl—my children are often out hours and hours at a time, and I assure you that I never dream of fidgeting; they eventually come home, grubby perhaps, and with their clothes in disorder, but otherwise safe and sound. Naturally, in the country your little girl will do as others do. Sorry you cannot stay to help me with my cutting-out, but as you cannot, good-afternoon.”
Miss Fleet scarcely touched the hand which the Rector’s good lady vouchsafed. She got into the pony-cart and drove rapidly away.
“What next, indeed!” she said to herself; “to compare Phyllis, who has been cossetted and petted all her life, to those wild, bearish children. I am certainly extremely sorry we have come to live at the Hall. If only the Squire were at home I should give him a piece of my mind; as it is it will be my duty to punish Phyllis most severely when she does return. Poor Phyllis! I don’t wish to be hard on her, but still discipline at any cost must be sustained. Of course, she has returned long before now; but to have upset all my plans—a mere child like that!”
Miss Fleet had now returned to the Hall, and her first eager question was: “Is Miss Phyllis in? Has any one seen her, or does any one know anything about her?”
Alas! Miss Phyllis had not come back; no one had seen her—no one knew anything about her.
Miss Fleet now began to be really alarmed. She had not, as a rule, a vivid imagination, but certainly horrors now began to crowd before her mental vision. There was that deep pond just beyond the shrubbery. There were some late water-lilies still to be found on its surface. Suppose—oh! suppose Phyllis had gone to it and had tried to drag in the lilies, and had— Miss Fleet turned quite white.
Or suppose she had gone right outside the fir plantation, and had been seen and appropriated by the gipsies who were camping in the field just beyond. Altogether poor Miss Fleet had a sad afternoon, while Phyllis, the naughty and the reckless, enjoyed herself immensely. It sometimes does happen like that even in the lives of naughty children: they have their naughty time, and they thoroughly like it for the present.
Phyllis had been very angry, and had determined to take her own way; and now she was having it, and her laugh was loud and her merriment excessive. For she had not been long in the field at the back of the stables, and Ralph had not long been enjoying the sweet pleasure of her society all to himself, when three heads appeared above the hedge and three gay voices uttered a shout, and Susie, Rosie, and Ned dashed across the field.
“Oh! oh! oh!” said Susie, “now we know why he was smartening himself up.”
“Didn’t he scrub his hands just,” cried Rosie, “and didn’t we watch him through the keyhole!”
“Oh, shut up, shut up!” said Ralph. “Now that you have come I suppose you must stay; but it was to me Phyllis wrote.—Was it not to me you wrote, Phyllis?”
“Well, yes,” said Phyllis. “Yours was the first name that I thought of, but I wanted you all. It is all of you I like best. Now you have come we will have a gay time.”
“But where?” asked Rosie. “Are we to come to the house after all?”
“I wish we could,” said Phyllis. “I do earnestly wish we could. Perhaps—perhaps it would be safe.”
She stood for a minute holding her finger to her lips; then a bright light filled her grey eyes and smiles wreathed her lips.
“Could you go up one of the back ways, and take off your shoes, and slip upstairs and up and up?” she said in a tremulous whisper.
“Oh, couldn’t we just!” said Rosie, her eyes nearly dancing out of her head.
“Then I think we can manage,” said Phyllis. “All my toys are upstairs in the big, very big, big attic; and there is the baby-house that I said perhaps you could have; and there are the dolls’ cups and saucers; and if only we could smuggle something to eat!”
“Something to eat!” cried Ned. “I can run back to the Rectory and bring a lot of things—a whole basketful. No one will know; Mother is at her cutting-out for the poor, and trumpets would not turn her attention. I can get the things—I can and I will.”
“We must not let Miss Fleet know; she’ll never, never think of looking for us in the attic,” said Phyllis, “and it is so big and so very far away from all the other rooms that we won’t be found; the only danger is your being seen when you bring the basket.”
“I will go straight away this very minute,” said Ned, “and you had better wait until I return.”
“I know something still better than that,” said Phyllis. “Why go to the Rectory? Why don’t you go to the village and buy things there—nice unwholesome curranty and doughy things?”
“Oh, I say, scrumptious!” cried Rosie. “I’ll go with him. No one will see us. But, oh, I say, Phyllis, we have not got a single brass farthing amongst us!”
Ralph’s face turned very red; he felt awfully ashamed of Rosie.
“But I have,” said Phyllis; “I always carry my purse about.” She opened it. “There is a five-shilling piece,” she said.
“And may we spend it all?” said Rosie, looking with almost reverence on the solid piece of money.
“Oh, rather! only do get very unwholesome things.”
“I know the kind, trust me,” said Rosie, and she and Ned set to running as fast as they could.
While they were away Susie and Ralph and Phyllis walked up and down, and talked in quite lady-like and gentlemanlike styles, and Phyllis described how Miss Fleet had brought in the dull lesson-books, and how she had tried to crush her bit of fun; and the other two laughed, and told stories on their own account, and said how cross they had been when that horrid letter had arrived.
“Only I knew your real mind,” said Ralph, and he gave a protecting, admiring look at the little girl.
“I guessed you were very nice, Ralph,” she replied, and she laid her pretty hand on his arm.
Thus the time while Rosie and Ned were away buying the unwholesome things went quite quickly; and when they returned bearing large paper parcels and mysterious-looking bottles, they all stole softly into the house.
Phyllis knew exactly how to get in by way of the old unused part. She took the others round to the door over which ivy hung, and instructed Ralph how he was to unfasten the tiny window, and then squeeze in and unbar the door.
This he did with the despatch of quite an accomplished burglar, and when the door was opened the other four figures came solemnly in. They were quite solemn and breathless now in their excitement. When they got inside, their boots were carefully removed, and Phyllis led the way. They went up some narrow stairs. These stairs led to the old tower, and by the tower was another rambling staircase, which conducted them to the attics. So at last there they were safe and sound, as Phyllis explained.
“We must be quiet, but not too quiet,” she exclaimed, “for nobody ever comes to the tower, and nobody ever comes in by that entrance, and Miss Fleet may think for ever and ever before she can possibly imagine that I am having high tea with you four in the big back attic. Oh, perhaps we had better lock the door; but even that is scarcely necessary.”
But the door was locked, and then began a time of wild mirth. The food from the village shop was as decidedly unwholesome as the most venturesome little girl could desire. The cakes were nearly leaden in weight, were richly stored with currants, and were underdone; there were awful-looking lollipops of queer shapes and quaint designs, and there was ginger-beer of the worst quality, and lemonade which had never made acquaintance with lemons. But what mattered that? The food thus acquired was all the sweeter because of that wicked little flavour of wrong-doing about it; and Susie and Ned had also supplied great bags of nuts and some very green apples, so that these young folks thought it really was a feast worth being dreadfully naughty to obtain.
They made a table out of some old boxes, and the cakes were cut, and the lemonade went pop, and the dolls’ cups and saucers were brought into great requisition, and time went very merrily both for the naughty little girl and the Rectory children. After the meal came to an end Phyllis began to show the toys she no longer required—the rocking-horse, which her father had given her when she was four years old, and which she had ceased to ride, and the big, big, wonderful dolls’ house which Susie, aged ten, still found one of the most fascinating things in the world.
“You can have them all over at the Rectory,” said Phyllis, with the royal airs of a young queen. “You can send for them any day you like; and there is a box full of dolls over there, and a trunk of dolls’ clothes. I don’t want them—I don’t care for those sort of things without playmates. I tired of them long, long ago, but you can have them.”
“Oh, I say, Phyllis,” cried Susie, and she put both her arms round Phyllis’s neck, “can’t you come and play with all the darling, lovely toys with playmates over at the Rectory?”
“Yes, I could do that,” said Phyllis, looking wistful; “and I love you all,” she cried. “I have been an awfully happy girl to-day if it were not for Miss Fleet.”