"You forget, Heather, that you are not a child," she said. "Jump up and attend to the Major's comforts. I do not forget, Major, how particular you used to be about your toast. You were an awful fidget when you were a young man."
"Ha! ha!" said my father. "Ha! ha! And I am an awful fidget still, Pen, an awful fidget. But Heather makes good toast; she's a fine girl – that is, she will be, when I have togged her up a bit."
Here he winked at me, and Aunt Penelope turned aside as though she could scarcely bear the sight. After tea, to my infinite disgust, I was requested to leave the room. I went up to my tiny room, and, to judge from the rise and fall of two voices, an animated discussion was going on downstairs. At the end of half an hour Aunt Penelope called to me to come down. As I entered the room the parrot said, "Stop knocking at the door!" and my father remarked:
"I wonder, Penelope, you don't choke that bird!" Aunt Penelope turned to me with tears in her eyes.
"Heather, your father wishes you to join him in London at once. He has arranged, however, that you shall spend a certain portion of each year with me."
"Yes," remarked my father, "the dull time in the autumn. You shall always have her back then – that is, until she marries a duke or someone worthy of her."
"Am I really to go with you, Daddy?" I asked. "Really and truly?"
"Not to come with me to-night, pretty pet," he answered, pinching my cheek as he spoke. "I must find a habitation worthy of my little girl. But early next week your aunt – your kind aunt – will see you into the train and I will meet you at the terminus, and then, heigho! for a new life!"
I could not help laughing with glee, and then I was sorry, for Aunt Penelope had been as kind as kind could be after her fashion, and I did wrong not to feel some regret at leaving her. But when a girl has only her father, and that father has been away for ten long years, surely she is to be excused for wishing to be with him again.
Aunt Penelope hardly spoke at all after my father left. What her thoughts were I could not define; I am afraid, too, I did not try to guess them. But early next morning she began to make preparations for my departure. The little trunks which had accompanied me to Hill View were placed in the centre of my room, and Aunt Penelope put my very modest wardrobe into them. She laid between my nice, clean, fresh linen some bunches of home-grown lavender.
"You will think of me when you smell this fragrant perfume, Heather," she said; and I thought I saw something of a suspicion of tears in her eyes. I sprang to her then, and flung my arms round her neck, and said:
"Oh, I do want to go, and yet I also want to stay. Can't you understand, Aunt Penelope?"
"No, I cannot," she replied, pulling my hands away almost roughly; "and, what is more, I dislike silly, nonsensical speeches. No one can wish to do two things directly opposite at the same time. Now, count out your handkerchiefs. I bought you six new ones for your last birthday, and you had before then, how many?"
I am afraid I forgot. I am afraid I tried Aunt Penelope very much; but, after all, her time of suffering was to be short, for that very evening there came a telegram from father, desiring Aunt Penelope to send me up to London by the twelve o'clock train the following day.
"I will meet Heather at Victoria," he said.
So the next day I left Hill View, and kissed Aunt Penelope when I went, and very nearly kissed the parrot, and shook hands quite warmly with the reigning Jonas, and Aunt Penelope saw me off at the station, and I was as glad to go as I had been sorry to come. Thus I shut away the old life, and turned to face the new.
I had not been half an hour in the carriage before, looking up, I saw the kind eyes of a very beautiful lady fixed on mine. I had been so absorbed with different things that I had not noticed her until that moment. She bent towards me, and said:
"I think I cannot be mistaken, surely your name is Heather Grayson?"
"Yes," I answered.
"And you are going to meet your father, Major Grayson?"
"How do you know?" I said.
"Well, it so happens that I am going up to town to meet both him and my husband. It is long years since I have seen you; but you are not greatly altered. Do you remember the day when you went to the railway station at Cherton, and asked for a person called Anastasia, and my husband and I spoke to you?"
"Oh, are you indeed Lady Carrington?" I asked.
"Yes, I am; and I am going to town to meet your father and Sir John. You were a very little girl when I had the pleasure of last speaking to you; now you are a young woman."
"Yes," I replied. Then I added, looking her full in the face, "I suppose I am quite grown-up; I am eighteen."
"Do you mind telling me, Miss Grayson, if you are going to live with your father?"
"I think so," I replied.
She looked very thoughtful. After a minute she said:
"You can confide in me or not, Miss Grayson. I ask for no confidences on your part that you are not willing to give, and if you would rather not tell me, I will not press you."
"What do you want to say?" I asked.
"Have you any idea why you have been separated from your father for ten long years?"
"My father was in India," I replied, "and Aunt Penelope says that India is not thought good for little girls. I liked it immensely when I was there, but Aunt Penelope says it injures them in some sort of fashion. Of course, I cannot tell how or why."
"And that is all you really know?"
"There is nothing else to know," I replied.
She was silent, leaning back against her cushions. Just as we were reaching Victoria she bent forward again, and said:
"Heather – for I must call you by that name – I have known your father for years, and whatever the world may do, I, for one, will never forsake him, nor will my dear husband. I have also known your mother, although she died many years ago. For these reasons I want to be good to you, their only child. So, Heather, if you happen to be in trouble, will you come to me? My address is 15a, Princes Gate. I am at home most mornings, and at all times a letter written to that address will find me. Ah! here we are, and I see your father and – and my husband." She abruptly took my hand and squeezed it.
"Remember what I have said to you," was her next remark, "and keep the knowledge that I mean to be your friend to yourself."
The train drew up at the platform. Father clasped me in his arms. He introduced me to Sir John Carrington, who laughed and said: "Oh, what a changed Heather!" and then my father spoke to Lady Carrington, who began to talk to him at once in a very earnest, low voice. I heard her say:
"Where are you taking her?" but I could not hear my father's reply.
Then the Carringtons drove off in their beautiful motor-car, and father and I stepped into a brougham, a private one, very nicely appointed, my luggage – such very simple luggage – was placed on the roof, and we were away together.
"Now I want Anastasia," I said.
"We'll find her if we can," said father. "You'd like her to be your maid, wouldn't you, Heather?"
"Oh, yes," I answered. "I did miss her so awfully." And I told father how I had run to the railway station to meet the next train on that terrible day long ago and how Aunt Penelope had followed me.
He laughed, and said I was a rare plucky one, and then we drew up before a grand hotel and entered side by side. We were shown immediately into a private sitting-room, which had two bedrooms opening out of it, one for father and one for me. Father said:
"Heather, I mean to show you life as it is, and to-night we are going to the theatre. We shall meet a friend of mine there – a very charming lady, who, I know, will be interested in you, and I want you to be interested in her too, as she is a great friend