CHAPTER XXII.
Every hour of the sojourn at Nantucket had been enjoyed by the Raymonds, yet when they came in sight of Woodburn, with its lawn trees, shrubbery and woods glorious in their autumn robes of crimson, scarlet, russet and gold, every face was wreathed in smiles.
“Fleeting glories, but very beautiful while they last,” remarked the captain.
“Yes, indeed,” said Violet; “I know no more charming place than home after all!”
“Such a home as ours, Mamma Vi,” supplemented Max.
“Yes; it is just the very sweetest of homes,” cried Lulu, with enthusiasm. “And yet it is nice to go away to the sea sometimes.”
“Yes,” replied her father, “change is pleasant and beneficial to almost every one; and no doubt we shall enjoy our own home all the more for having been absent from it for a time.”
The carriage drew up at the door, and they all alighted, to receive a joyous welcome from Christine and the servants gathered about it.
A delicious supper was waiting, and was presently served up. Ample justice was done it by the hungry travellers, especially the children. Then, as there was still a good half-hour of daylight, they roamed over house and grounds, delighted to renew their acquaintance with all their old familiar haunts, and greatly pleased to find every thing in perfect order.
The weather was charming, both on that day and for several subsequent days, and the captain and Violet thought it well to take advantage of it for paying and receiving visits among the family connection, before settling down to the regular routine of home duties and occupations. The days were pretty well-filled up with walks, rides, drives, and social gatherings.
After that, while Violet busied herself with the oversight of dressmakers and seamstresses, the captain resumed his duties as owner of the estate, employer of household servants and out-of-door workmen, and tutor to his children; the latter being required to at once begin again their long-neglected studies.
Confinement to the house for several hours on the stretch, and steady application to their books, were at first irksome; but papa was lenient, and his pupils were sincerely desirous to merit his approbation. There were no reprimands or complaints; study hours were made short, and the afternoon walks and rides on theponies found all the more enjoyable for the industry that had preceded them.
But the second week of November brought with it a long, cold rain-storm that put an end, for the time, to all out-door diversions.
Both Max and Lulu had always been very fond of exercise in the open air, and now found it extremely wearisome to be shut up in the house day after day. Lulu’s trial of the confinement and sameness was rather more continuous than her brother’s, as he could occasionally venture out in weather which their father considered quite too inclement to be braved by a little girl.
She had been remarkably good, docile and obedient for months; ever since that time when she had had to do without Fairy for a week. She began to look upon herself as quite a reformed character; but her father, though greatly pleased and encouraged by the improvement in her behavior, felt quite certain that there would be times when the old tempers and habits would resume their sway for a season.
One morning when the sun had scarcely shown his face for a week, Lulu woke feeling dull and irritable; all the more out of humor on discovering that she had overslept herself, and would have scarcely time to attend properly to the duties of the toilet before the breakfast-bell would ring.
She sprang up and began dressing in feverish haste.
Punctuality was one of the minor virtues which the captain was particular in enforcing; but to appear at the table looking otherwise than neat, would be a still more serious breach of discipline than to be a trifle behind time.
“Oh, dear, why did I sleep so late?” she said, giving herself an impatient shake. “I sha’n’t have time to do every thing I ought to and get to the dining-room to sit down with the rest, and papa will be displeased; and I do so hate to have him displeased with me. There, I hear his voice in the next room! Gracie will have him all to herself, and I shall miss every bit of the nice talk before breakfast.”
The old adage, “The more haste, the less speed,” found exemplification in her experience on this occasion. In vain she tried to dress with dispatch; the comb tangled in her hair, a button came off her boot, she couldn’t pin her collar straight, and in the midst of her efforts to do so, the bell rang.
“There it goes! and I haven’t said my prayers yet; I’ll have to omit them this time. But perhaps papa will ask me about it; he sometimes does.”
She knelt for a hurried sentence or two, putting no heart into them, rose up hastily and ran down to the dining-room.
The blessing had been asked and her father was helping the plates. He gave her a grave look as she took her place at the table.
“Good-morning, daughter,” he said; “you are quite behind time; what is your excuse?”
“I overslept myself, papa; and then everything seemed to go wrong with my dressing.”
“You must try to be more punctual,” he said. “I was sorry to miss my morning kiss from my eldest daughter, and the little chat we usually have before breakfast,” he added in a kindly tone.
“Oh, mayn’t I give you the kiss after breakfast?”
“No; I will take it now, and another after breakfast,” he answered with a smile, and she sprang to his side, eager to give and receive the accustomed caress.
“Is that the punishment for being unpunctual, papa?” asked Max, facetiously.
“For the first offence,” replied his father; “and I don’t expect a repetition of it from my usually prompt eldest daughter.”
“She is that,” acknowledged Max; “I’ll be more likely to be unpunctual another time than she; and then, papa, I’ll expect the very same punishment you have given her.”
“Ah, don’t make too sure of it; circumstances alter cases, and much will depend upon the excuse you bring.”
Lulu felt grateful at the time for her father’s leniency, but her fretfulness and irritability soon returned, and all went wrong with her; her recitations were poor, and when told her lessons must be learned over, she sulked and pouted.
Her father thought it best not to seem to notice her ill-humor, but did not relax in his requirements. She must give her mind to her tasks and recite them creditably, he said, before she could be dismissed to her play. She had scarcely succeeded in that when the dinner-bell rang.
Her face did not wear its usual pleasant expression during the meal, and she had nothing to say, though all around her were chatting in their accustomed cheery fashion. Once or twice her father gave her a troubled look, but he administered no reproof.
On leaving the table he repaired to the library to attend to some correspondence. He was giving all his thoughts to that when a jesting remark in Max’s voice, speaking from the adjoining room, caught his ear.
“What a very amiable countenance, Miss Raymond! and how very agreeable you have made yourself all day!”
“Max,” returned Lulu’s voice, in angry tones, “if you don’t quit teasing me, I’ll—”
“Max! Lulu!” interrupted the captain,sternly, “come here to me; both of you.”
Max obeyed instantly, appearing before his father looking very red and ashamed; but Lulu did not move.
“Lulu, did you hear me bid you come to me?” asked her father, with added sternness in his tones.
“Yes, sir,” she answered; then immediately added, in an under-tone, “but I’ll not come a step till I get ready.”
But low as the tone was, he heard her; a deeply-pained expression swept across his features, he turned suddenly pale, but rose without a word and moved with a calm, quiet step in the direction of his rebellious child.
Lulu started to her feet as he appeared in sight. “I will, papa; I’m coming.”
“Tardy obedience following upon a most insolent refusal to obey,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the side of the chair from which he had just risen.
He resumed his seat, dropping her hand, and she stood there with burning cheeks and eyes fixed on the carpet. Her refusal to obey had been upon the impulse of the moment, and not intended for her father’s ear, but she had spoken the insolent words louder than she was aware of doing.
The captain addressed himself first to Max:“I am sorry, my son, to find that you have not sufficient regard for either your sister’s feelings or my wishes to lead you to refrain from teasing her; though you know it is an easy matter to rouse her quick temper and so get her into trouble.”
“It was very thoughtless and wrong in me, papa,” said Max, frankly. “I beg your pardon, and Lulu’s too, and will try not to do so again.”
“That is right, my boy, and I am not angry with you now; but as this is not the first time I have had to reprove you for the same fault, I think I must inflict a slight punishment to impress the lesson upon your mind. You will go to your room and stay there till the tea-bell rings.”
“Yes, sir; it is a much lighter punishment than I deserve,” Max said, moving instantly to obey.
He had gone and Lulu was left alone with her justly-displeased father. There was silence for a moment. She still stood by the side of his chair, and though her eyes were downcast, she felt that his were fixed upon her. Her countenance was sullen; he could perceive in it no sign of penitence.
“I am quite certain,” he said at length, speaking in a grave, sad tone, “that it will not be long before my little daughter will be almost overwhelmed with remorse on account of thisday’s behavior toward the father whom, I know beyond a doubt, she loves with all her heart.”
Before he had finished his sentence a change had come over her. “O papa,” she cried, suddenly moving closer to his side and throwing her arm round his neck, “I’m sorrynow; oh, so,sosorry and ashamed! Please,pleaseforgive me for saying such naughty,naughty, rebellious words to you; and please punish me for it just as hard as you can!” and dropping her head on his shoulder she ended with a storm of tears and sobs.
“I am afraid I must indeed punish you for your own sake,” he said, sighing deeply; “it would hardly do to pass lightly over so flagrant a breach of discipline, so insolent a refusal to submit to lawful authority.”
“I didn’t mean to speak so you’d hear me, papa.”
“Ah! I am not at all sure that that admission sets your conduct in a more favorable light.”
“Papa, I am sorry: oh, I didn’t think I’d ever be so bad again! But every thing goes wrong with me to-day.”
“Surely then, you did not begin the day aright? Did you ask with your heart that you might be kept from sin?”
“I did say a prayer, papa, but I was so late I had to hurry.”
“And so offered only lip service?”
She was silent.
“Ah, my child,” he said, “no wonder you were left to fall into grievous sin! Approaching the King of kings with a haste and irreverence that would be insulting to even an earthly monarch.”
“Oh, I never thought how very wicked it was!” she sobbed. “You’ll have to punish me for that, too. Please do it now, papa, so I’ll have it over.”
He did not answer her for several minutes; then he said: “I think I shall try a new plan with you. As you were pleased to refuse obedience to an order from me, I shall not give you another for some days; for the four remaining days of this week you may try self-government; regulating your conduct to suit yourself, except that you must not go out of the house while the weather is inclement, or out of sight of it at any time.
“I shall give you no command, direction, instruction or advice concerning your daily duties; nor must you feel at liberty to come to me for any, or to treat me with any greater familiarity than you would use toward a gentleman in whose house you were only a visitor; duties and privileges are not to be separated, and while released from the duties of a child, you can have no right to claim a child’s privileges.”
“But I don’t want to be released, papa,” she burst out in her vehement way; “I want you to order me, and I do mean to obey the very moment you speak; always,always!”
“So you think now,” he said, “but I am not at all sure that your good resolution would last for any length of time; you may be quite as willful and rebellious to-morrow as you have been to-day. You need, and must have the lesson I hope you will gain by being left to be, for a time, a law to yourself.
“Understand that I do not propose to subject you to any harsh treatment; on the contrary I shall be as polite and as considerate of your comfort as if you were my guest.”
“I don’t want to be company!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want you to be polite to me! I want you to punish me, and then let me be your very own child, just as I always have been! O, papa, please,pleasedo!”
“It is very far from being a pleasure to me to punish you,” he returned, again sighing deeply as he spoke, “and I have quite decided to try this other plan. I do not expect to enjoy it, either, any more than you will; it will be a sad thing to me to have to do without the loving attentions and caresses of my dear little daughter Lulu, even for four days.”
She looked up into his face in blank dismay.
“O, papa, you can’t mean that I am not to kiss you, or have you kiss me, for four whole days? I could never, never stand it!”
“I do not say that; I should not refuse a kiss to a little girl visitor, should she ask for it—and I might even offer her one—but I certainly should not expect to treat her, or be treated by her, with the same affectionate familiarity which you and I have been accustomed to use toward each other.”
“Oh, I sha’n’t know how to behave to you at all!” she cried despairingly.
“When in doubt, you will only have to consider how you would expect a little girl visitor—Eva, for instance—to act toward me. Now you may go, for I have not time to talk any more to you at present.”
“Am I to go to my own room and stay there?”
“You will go where you please, and do what you please. You are your own mistress for four days.”
Her own mistress! How often had she looked longingly forward to the time when her right to be that should be acknowledged. But now—Oh, it wasn’t felicity at all! it was misery to think that for four whole days she was to be only like a stranger guest to papa, instead of his own dearly loved and petted child.
Slowly, and feeling very much like one who had been suddenly turned out of paradise, shewent from his presence and on up the stairs to her own rooms.
Grace was in the nursery, at play with the baby-sister; she heard their voices and merry laughter as she passed the door; but she had no heart for joining them and sharing their gayety; she did not pause till she had reached the tiny room in the tower; the most private spot to which she could have access at that time.
She sat down by the window, and leaning her arms on the sill, gazed out into the grounds—looking desolate enough just now under leaden clouds and swept by wind and sleet.
“It looks exactly as I feel, out there!” she sighed to herself. “O, dear! four whole days! such a long, long while to be treated as only a visitor!”
Then she fell to considering in what respect her father’s treatment of her would differ during the four days, from what it ordinarily was, and in what she must alter her conduct toward him.
Eva would certainly never think of running to him to put her arms round his neck and gaze lovingly into his eyes, or taking a seat uninvited upon his knee; nor would he invite her to that seat, or draw her into his arms to hold her close to his heart and kiss her over and over again, as if he thought her one of the dearest and sweetest things on earth.
Oh, no; those were among the privileges and delights that had to be dispensed with along with the duties of daughterhood; and oh, what delights they seemed now that they must be resigned for a time! Ah, if papa would but relent and commute her sentence to the severest punishment he could possibly inflict, what a relief it would be!
Then recalling the insolent, rebellious words she had addressed to him, she buried her face in her hands, almost overwhelmed with shame and remorse.
What would she not give never to have spoken them! Oh, what base ingratitude to the kindest and dearest of fathers! How those dreadful words must have pained his loving heart! how had she found it in hers to hurt him so? for, oh, indeed, she did love him dearly,dearly; though she could hardly expect him to believe it any more!
What if he should decide that she didn’t love him, and so that he didn’t want to keep her for his own, and should tell her she must go away and be her own mistress always, or somebody else’s child!
Her heart almost stood still at the dreadful idea; but in a moment she remembered with relief, that he had once said he would have no right to let her go away from his care and authority—even if he wanted to be rid of her—becauseGod had given her to him to be protected and provided for and trained up for his service; so there could be no danger of that; for papa was a good Christian man who always tried to do exactly as the Bible said.
It was growing dark; the supper-bell would soon ring, and—should she go down to the table?
She dreaded meeting the family, and felt ashamed to look her father in the face; and since she was her own mistress, she could do as she pleased about it; but she would rather do as she supposed papa would wish; and besides she began to feel hungry.
The bell rang and she obeyed the summons.
As she stepped out into the upper hall she and Max met face to face.
His eyes opened wide in surprise.
“Why do you look at me so;” she asked, half angrily, and feeling her cheeks grow hot.
“Because I thought you would surely have to stay in your room for at least a week, after talking as you did to papa this afternoon. I should never dare to speak so to him, and I wouldn’t for the world hurt his feelings so. If you had seen the pained look that came over his face——”
“Oh, Max, don’t!” she cried, with a burst of tears. “I could kill myself for it! I don’t know what possessed me! I didn’t really meanto say the words, but I thought out loud before I knew it.”
There was no time for any thing more, for they had reached the door of the dining-room, and, as they passed in, Lulu hastily wiping away her tears, found themselves in the presence of their parents who had just sat down to the table.
Max and Lulu took their places in silence, the latter carefully keeping her eyes down, that she might not meet those of her father. He asked the blessing, then helped the plates, giving her, when her turn came, what he knew she liked, without question or remark. She ate in silence, the others chatting pleasantly among themselves as usual.
Presently a servant, passing a plate of waffles, handed them to Lulu.
The captain thought it not best, as a rule, for the children to eat hot bread at night, but he sometimes made exceptions.
“Papa, may I have one?” she asked.
“I have nothing to say about it,” was his reply.
Violet gave her husband a look of surprise.
Lulu’s lip quivered. “I’ll not take it,” she said in a low tone to the servant; then, a very little louder, and with a perceptible tremble in her voice, “Mamma Vi, please excuse me,” and hardly waiting for an answer, she rose and left the room.
Again Violet looked at her husband. “I fear the child is not well,” she said enquiringly.
“Possibly not,” he sighed, “though I have heard no complaint of illness.”
A light broke upon Violet, and she began talking of something else.
But the captain’s fatherly heart was stirred at the thought that perhaps his child was not quite well; that there might be found in threatened illness, some excuse for the misconduct of the day; and on leaving the table he went in search of Lulu.
She was in the little tower-room again, and hearing him call to her from the adjoining room, hastened to obey the summons.
“I am here, papa,” she said, appearing before him with drooping head and downcast eyes.
“Are you not well?” he asked, and his tone was very kind.
“Yes, sir,” she answered tremulously, and without raising her eyes.
“I want you always to tell me when you feel at all ill,” he said. “We are all expecting to spend the evening together in the usual way, and will be glad to have you with us,” he added; then turned and left the room.
“He didn’t call me daughter, or his child, or any thing, but Lulu,” she sighed to herself; “and any other time he would have taken myhand and led me with him. Oh, it isn’t nice at all to be treated like a visitor!”
She had always greatly enjoyed the evenings when they were just a family by themselves, yet she shrank from accepting her father’s invitation, feeling that she could not be one of them as heretofore.
But she found it lonely staying by herself, and at length sought the room where the others were.
Grace, seated on her father’s knee, hailed her appearance with a glad, “O Lu, so you’ve come at last! I was thinking I’d have to go and find you. You’ve missed the fun with the babies; they’ve just been carried away. Here’s a chair Max has set for you close beside papa; or perhaps you can sit on his other knee.”
“I’ll sit here,” Lulu said, taking possession of an easy chair on the opposite side of the fire.
“Why, Lu!” exclaimed Grace in astonishment, “what can be the matter with you? Always before you’ve wanted to get just as close to papa as ever you could.”
There was a moment of silence; then Lulu answered in a low, half-tremulous tone, “I have not been a good girl to-day, Gracie, and don’t deserve to sit close to papa.”
Then Max made a diversion by asking his father a question in regard to his lessons for the next day.
“Gracie, will you get papa his slippers?” the captain asked presently.
“Oh, yes! if I may, papa,” she answered brightly, but with an enquiring look at Lulu, who had always hitherto claimed that little service as belonging to her.
“Papa doesn’t want me to do it, Gracie,” she said in a low, hurt tone.
He took no notice. Grace brought the slippers and was rewarded with a smile and a kiss.
Then Violet came in with a bit of fancy work in her hand. Max brought out the book they had been enjoying together for several evenings past, and handed it to his father.
While the captain was turning over the leaves in search of the place where he had left off the night before, Lulu drew quietly near the table and took up a paper-cutter and a magazine that had come by that afternoon’s mail.
“Don’t trouble yourself to cut those leaves, Lulu,” her father said; “Max will do it for me.”
She dropped magazine and knife as though they had burned her, turned away with quivering lip and eyes full of tears, and presently stole away to her own room, went to bed and cried herself to sleep.
She knew it was not worth while to stay up for the usual good-night visit from papa, for of course he would never think of paying one to a little girl guest.
And in the morning when he came to the children’s sitting-room Grace had him to herself.
Lulu met him first at the table, when he greeted her with a pleasant “Good-morning, Lulu,” but offered no caress, and she did not ask for one, though she had never felt more hungry for it.
She went to the school-room at the appointed hour and applied herself industriously to her tasks, but he did not call her to recite; the others were heard and dismissed, but she sat unnoticed at her desk. Her father was at his, writing letters, and at length she rose and drew near him.
“May I say my lessons now, papa?”
“I do not teach visitors,” he said, in a tone of polite astonishment; “I instruct no one but my own children.”
“But Iamyour own; your very veryown! IknowI am for you have told me so many and many a time!” she cried, bursting into sobs and tears.
“Yes, you are,” he said gently, “and I purpose to claim my right in you again one of these days; for not for all the gold of California would I resign it entirely; but you must remember that for the present you are considered only a visitor and your own mistress.”
“But I don’t want to be my own mistress!I want to be taught and directed and controlled by you. O, papa, if you would only punish me and forgive me, I don’t think I’d ever want to be rebellious again!”
“You shall be restored to all a daughter’s duties and privileges when I deem that the proper time has come; but that is not yet,” he said; “I love you just as dearly as ever, but I think you need the lesson I am giving you, and that you could get it in no easier way. It grieves me more than I can tell to see my dear little daughter unhappy, but now and always I must seek her permanent good, rather than her present pleasure.”
“You’re kind to tell me that you love me yet, papa,” she said, wiping away her tears, “for I don’t deserve that you should, and I ’most thought that you had stopped. Papa, I hate myself for hurting you so yesterday.”
“I don’t doubt it, my child, and when the right time comes I will listen to all you wish to say to me about it, but now I must attend to my correspondence.”
“Then I’ll go away; but oh, mayn’t I have one kiss first? you said you’d give Eva one if she asked you for it.”
Then he drew her to him, kissed her twice with warmth of affection, and she went away feeling less unhappy than she had since her rebellious reply to the last order he had given her.
She found Grace in their sitting-room dressing a doll.
“O Lu,” she cried, glancing up at her sister as she came in, “you’ve been crying! What’s the matter? is papa angry with you?”
“He says I must be my own mistress all the rest of this week, because—because I was disobedient and rebellious yesterday.”
Grace looked puzzled. “Don’t you like it, Lu? I thought you always wished you could be.”
“I used to, but oh, it isn’t a bit nice, Gracie! I’m ever so much happier when papa tells me what to do.”
“Yes, I like that best.”
“And he won’t let me do a single thing for him,” Lulu went on, “and it’s dreadful; for I just love to wait on him and do all his little errands about the house.”
She did not attempt it again, however, until restored to a daughter’s place.