Chapter 8 The Squire's Little Girl by L. T. Meade
At last the meal came to an end. While Phyllis was eating it Miss Fleet sat near the fire.
She read, or pretended to read, the evening newspaper which had just been sent to the Hall.
Presently Phyllis got up, uttering a low sigh.
“Have you said your grace?” said Miss Fleet.
“Yes,” replied Phyllis. “I said it in a whisper. What else do you want me to do?”
“I wish you to listen to me—to be attentive and no longer impertinent. I’m tired of punishing you. You have been a very naughty girl, but I am willing to forgive you and to restore you to my favour, provided you do what I wish.”
“What is that?” asked Phyllis in a guarded voice.
“Come here, Phyllis.”
Miss Fleet drew the little girl towards her. Her voice had softened; some of the severity had left it.
Phyllis was the kind of child to be easily touched by kindness—no one could drive her, but affection and love could always guide her. Miss Fleet almost caressed the small hand which Phyllis stole into hers.
“I hate not being friends with you,” she said. “You have been my constant care and my constant pleasure for the last three years. Why do you suddenly turn against me?”
“I don’t,” said Phyllis. “I have always liked you—very well, that is; but you don’t understand me.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Phyllis. You are only a little girl of twelve years old. I am three times your age.”
“Three times twelve are thirty-six,” said Phyllis under her breath. “She never let out her age to me before.”
The fact that she knew Miss Fleet’s enormously great age gave her a slight feeling of satisfaction.
“Yes,” she said aloud.
“I must be kind to the poor thing; she is so very aged,” was her inward thought.
“Yes, I quite like you when you talk softly,” she said. “Go on, please.”
“I cannot argue with you; I can but give you my opinion. You behaved badly to-day—so badly, so disgracefully that I cannot bring myself to speak of it. You did this in your father’s absence—which made it, let me tell you, ten times worse; but I will forgive you and not tell your father if you make me a promise.”
“What, Miss Fleet?”
“Wait one moment. You don’t care to be always in this room, do you?”
“I hate being in this room. I hate being punished. I hate—I hate—I hate you to be cold to me. Do be nice to me again, Fleetie, for I’m quite too awfully miserable just now;” and the little girl flung her arms round Miss Fleet’s neck and burst into bitter weeping.
After all, Josephine Fleet did love her wayward little charge. She kissed her once or twice and patted her on her arm, and then she said:
“Now for our conditions. I forgive and you promise.”
“I promise!” said Phyllis.
“Yes.”
“And if I promise, you’ll never tell Father?”
“I will never tell your father.”
“And you will let me go into all the rooms and play, and ride my pony, and do everything just as I did before—just as I did before?”
“Just as you did before.”
“Then, of course, I’ll promise, darling Fleetie. There is no doubt about it. If you’ll let me do as I did before, I’ll promise. Is it to learn a lot of history? It is to do my horrid— Is it? Is it?”
“It is none of these things, Phyllis. It is this. You must give me your solemn word, as a lady, that you will not speak or have any intercourse with the Rectory children until your father’s return.”
“What!” said Phyllis.
All the light went out of her small face and all the gladness from her eyes.
“I didn’t think you’d be so mean, Fleetie,” she said, and she went right away to the other end of the room and stood with her back to her governess.
Miss Fleet glanced with a queer sort of longing towards the little figure.
The little figure at the other end of the room looked pathetic; it looked lonely. Miss Fleet remembered certain words of the Rector’s:
“I cannot see why you should object to the children playing with each other. Squire Harringay did not object; on the contrary, he was glad.”
“Yes, yes,” thought the governess; “and I would have allowed it in moderation, and doubtless it can be arranged in moderation when the Squire comes back. But Phyllis did wrong, and she must be punished in such a way as to make her feel it. I am forced to get this promise from her. I can take nothing else.”
But all the time while Miss Fleet thought, she kept watching the little figure, and presently she saw the shoulders slightly heave, and she guessed that Phyllis was crying.
“It is very hard; I hate myself,” thought the governess. “But I must, I must make her feel it.”
It was just at that moment that Phyllis wheeled right round and came up to Miss Fleet and said quietly:
“If I cannot see them, may I write to them to say why?”
“I will write to them and give the reason,” said Miss Fleet.
“May I not write my own self to Ralph, please, or to—to Susie?”
“I will write to them,” said Miss Fleet gently.
Phyllis stood quite silent for a moment. Once again her shoulders worked suspiciously, and Miss Fleet noticed that her little chest heaved, but she kept back her tears.
“There’s Susie,” she said after a pause; “she would so like the baby-house, and the rocking-horse that I never ride on because I have no playmates, you know. May they be sent over to the Rectory? I promised that she should have them. Need I wait till Father comes back to keep my promise?”
“You had no right to make the promise.”
“But mayn’t they go? Please say yes.”
“Not until your father returns.”
Phyllis now stood, very calm and despairing, close to Miss Fleet.
“You want me to love you, but you make it very hard for me to do so,” she said gently. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll promise for two whole days. If Father isn’t back at the end of two whole days, my promise is at an end. I don’t give you my word, as a lady, after two whole days. That is all. I will not make any promise after that, not for anybody.”