Chapter 7 The Squire's Little Girl by L. T. Meade
When happy times are wrong and come to an end, one generally goes through some bad moments. This was the case on the special occasion which I am describing. Loud was the fun in the big attic, merry the laughter.
The rattling of dolls’ cups and saucers, the popping of lemonade bottles, and the shrieks of mirth over each volley of wit had come to their height, when there came a loud knocking at the attic door. The knocking was immediately followed by the angry turning of the handle, and then by the excited voice of Miss Fleet.
“Open the door immediately, you bad, bad children!” she exclaimed.
“Oh Phyllis, can we hide anywhere?” said Susie.
“No, no, Susie,” answered Phyllis; “we are found out, and we have got to pay for it. Well, I have enjoyed myself; haven’t you?”
“If you don’t open the door immediately,” said Miss Fleet’s voice again, “I shall have it burst open.”
“Yes, children, open the door directly,” said a sterner, older, graver tone; and then Ralph drew himself up, and Edward prepared for severe punishment, for it was the Rector’s voice which now was heard.
“Give me the key, Phyl,” said Ralph, turning to the little girl. “I will say it was almost altogether my fault.”
“You will do nothing of the kind, for it is not true,” said Phyllis.
She turned very white, and her lips trembled. She did not like the bad moment which lay before her, but on no account was she going to excuse herself. So she marched—“just as if she were a queen, the darling,” said Susie, describing it afterwards—to the door and unlocked it, and flung it open, and stood with her hair hanging about her shoulders and her frock in disorder, facing the indignant but almost speechless Miss Fleet and the tall, burly figure of the Rector.
“Well?” said Miss Fleet. “Well, and what have you to say for yourself?”
“I know I have, been very naughty,” said Phyllis; “I know it quite well, and,”—her eyes danced—“and I’m not sorry; no, I have had such a good time that I’m not sorry. As to the children of the Rectory, they are not a bit, not one scrap to blame. It was all my doing. I wrote a letter to Ralph when you forbade them all to come, for it was shabby of you; and, as you would not allow us to have tea properly downstairs, we had it here. That is all.”
The Rector pushed past Phyllis and walked into the room.
“Come, children,” he said. “Phyllis Harringay has made a very frank confession, and has tried to excuse you all; but I don’t excuse you, for you must have known that you did wrong to come here.”
“Of course we did, Father,” said Ralph; “but at the same time,” he added, “when a girl writes to you, you know, and asks you to help her out of a mess, what is a fellow to do?”
The Rector could not help smiling. “And oh, please, please, Mr Hilchester,” said Phyllis, “do ask Miss Fleet to forgive me! Do, do ask her!”
“It will be quite useless,” said Miss Fleet. “I am determined that you shall be well punished.—I am obliged to you, Mr Hilchester, for coming to help me. I was really in such despair that I had to get some assistance.—Come, my dear.”
She took Phyllis’s hand and dragged her from the room. Phyllis struggled; but Miss Fleet was a strong woman, and Phyllis had no chance. She left the four Rectory children behind her in the attic with all the delightful débris of the delightful feast, and went downstairs, down and down, into the proper part of the house, into the dull rooms and the dull routine of her life, knowing that she was naughty, and knowing that Miss Fleet had a perfect right to punish her.
Miss Fleet took her straight into the schoolroom.
“Here you stay,” she said, “for the present. I will talk to you when you are calmer. You stay here until I let you out. I am too angry to speak to you at all just now.”
Miss Fleet turned as she spoke, shut the door behind her, locked it, and went away with the key in her pocket.
“Well!” said Phyllis.
She said this word aloud. She had been angry; she had been excited; she had gone through what seemed to her every sort of emotion during the last few hours, and now things had come to this.
“If only Father were at home,” thought the Squire’s little girl, and then she sank down on an ottoman in the middle of the room and burst into tears.
Her heart was very sore. She had not been a good girl, but, oh! she had enjoyed herself.
“Why is it so nice to be naughty, and why is it that I can’t feel sorry?” she said to herself.
She nursed with all her might and main hot anger against her governess, and for a long time succeeded. But the days were short, and by-and-by the light faded away at the windows, and there was only the firelight in the room. The fire was a good one; it had a guard in front of it. Phyllis went and poked it up; it blazed, and soon cheerful flashes of light fell all over the room. There was no lamp nor any other way of making a light. Phyllis crouched down near the fire and tried hard to think.
“I wonder when I’ll begin to feel sorry,” she said to herself. “In all the story-books when the children are naughty they are desperately, madly sorry afterwards, but I’m not one bit sorry—at least not yet.”
She nestled down comfortably on the hearthrug. Presently she took a pillow from one of the sofas and put it under her head, and then blinking into the fire and shutting and opening her eyes, she dropped off to sleep. When she awoke she found that the fire was nearly out; she was stiff and cold, too, from lying on the rug. She started up, and could not make out where she was.
Presently, however, memory came back to her. How cruel of Miss Fleet to leave her like this! How wrong!—how more than wrong!
“If Father were at home I would tell him he was to send Miss Fleet away,” said the little girl to herself. “She is a horrid, horrid woman; she makes me downright miserable. Oh, how dark it is! and there is no more coal in the coal-hod, and the fire will soon be out.”
She stood up and shook herself, and then she took the poker and poked what fire was left into as good a blaze as she could manage; but it soon died away for want of new fuel, and the little girl, who was now very desolate and in very low spirits and very hungry, began thoroughly to feel her punishment.
“I won’t stand it,” she said to herself. “It is awfully unfair. She has no right to do it.”
Phyllis ran to the door, shook it, and began to cry out:
“Open the door, please. Somebody come and open the door. I am here; Phyllis is here.”
But nobody answered because nobody heard her. Suddenly she thought of the bell. She ran to it and rang it over and over again; but as Miss Fleet had given positive directions that no one was to approach poor Phyllis in her imprisonment, there was no reply. The fire was now very nearly out.
“Well,” said Phyllis to herself, “at this rate she’ll kill me. I’ll be found frozen to death in the morning; and, oh, I am so hungry!”
But just then, before her physical sufferings could get any worse, there came a slow step on the carpet outside. The door was unlocked, and Miss Fleet, bearing a lamp in her hand, entered.
She laid the lamp on the centre table; she then went over and rang the bell. Phyllis stood facing her. Her face was tear-stained and very pale; her eyes flashed an angry light.
“I can run past you,” she said, “and get out of this room.”
“You can,” said Miss Fleet, just glancing at her and then bending down to adjust the flame of the lamp, “but you won’t.”
A servant appeared at the door.
“Fill this coal-hod, Henry, and bring it up immediately; and tell Cook to send Miss Phyllis’s dinner up. Be quick, please; the room is rather cold.”
The man departed, having just dared to give a sympathetic glance at Phyllis before he left the room. He quickly returned with the coals. The fire was built up and blazed merrily. He then drew down the blinds and pulled the curtains across the windows, and a moment later reappeared again, bearing a little tray of delicious food.
“I declare,” thought the child to herself, “I never knew before how nice a thing it is to eat. I am ready for my chop and fried potatoes. Oh! and I am glad I am having roast apples.”
She sat down quite cheerfully to her meal; even Miss Fleet’s presence scarcely annoyed her, so hungry was she and so glad to eat.