CHAPTER XXVFATHER AND DAUGHTER
“It was not until the next June, when we had been parted nearly two years, that I saw my father again.
“He came over suddenly and dropped down on us, so to speak, on the morning of the fifth of that month.
“Steward and housekeeper were both ‘taken aback’and ‘flustered,’ as they described themselves; yet they were not unprepared. The house was always as well kept as the circumstances would permit.
“Nor was Miss Murray. She also had done her duty and could present her pupil without fear of criticism.
“We were both in the schoolroom, my governess and I, when the door opened and some one entered unannounced. I looked up from my slate, to see a tall, stately man, with a pale face framed in black hair and black whiskers, standing in the doorway.
“I recognized my father and flew to his embrace, before Miss Murray could rise to receive him with deliberate decorum.
“My father kissed me with much love and received Miss Murray’s greetings with stately politeness.
“Later on, when I had recovered from my surprise and excitement at his sudden appearance, he explained that he had but lately returned to England and had taken his delicate wife and child to London, which was then, in the fine June days, at the height of the fashionable season, and had left them on a visit to his mother-in-law, the Dowager Lady Burnshot, who had a fine house near Hyde Park; and that he had seized this first opportunity to run to Ireland to see his dear little daughter.
“He further explained that he could not bring the countess and the little viscount because she could not bear the sea air yet.
“He brought me a doll and a doll’s set of furniture, all of which delighted me almost as much as his visit, for—will it be believed?—I had not possessed a doll since the death of my own mother, and I was only six years old.
“My father remained only a few days at Weirdwaste, during which he invited the vicar and the doctor to dine and talk with him over the affairs of the estate, and thecondition of my health, to thank them for their past kindness, and to ask their continued supervision of his daughter’s welfare.
“‘I cannot take her with me to London at present,’ he said, ‘for we are visiting at the house of Lady Burnshot, the mother of my wife. Besides, I think, for her own sake, little Elfrida is much better here for a few years longer.’
“The doctor and the vicar agreed with my father, that I was much better off at Weirdwaste than I could be in London. And so there was no more to be said.
“My father took a very loving leave of me at the end of the week.
“After he was gone I grieved myself sick! I loved him so dearly! I longed to go with him so ardently.
“But it was not to be.
“Why do I linger over these details? Is it because we all grow garrulous when talking or writing of our childhood? Or is it because I dread to approach the period of my life’s tragedy? Or do both these causes combine to influence me? I know not; but I know that I must hurry toward that from which I shrink.
“A few weeks after this, being in the heat of summer, my father came again to see me, bringing my stepmother and my little baby brother with him.
“He had written to apprise us of the visit, so we were all ready for him. All the animosity I had ever felt against my stepmother vanished when I saw her pale, patient face. My child heart pitied her, and from pity I loved her; and did everything in my small power to please her; except this—I would not call her mother. I said it would not be right toward my own dear mother, who was in heaven. And she kissed me, and said she only was sorry she had not been able to do a mother’s part by her motherless child, for that she, too, would soon be in heaven, where she would meet my ownmother, when she could only tell her that she loved, but had not been able to serve, her daughter.
“As for my infant brother, now a year old, I idolized him. His mother delighted in my affection for her child.
“‘I have not been able to be good to you, my poor little girl; but you will be good to him when I am gone, will you not?’ she inquired.
“‘Indeed, indeed, I will. I will love him better than myself. I will die for him,’ I said, taking the extravagant view and using the exaggerated language that was usual with me.
“The chills of autumn come very early at Weirdwaste, and so about the middle of September, when the evenings began to be cold, my father took my stepmother and my baby brother back and settled them for a few weeks at Torquay, then believed to be the best winter resort in England.
“I grieved after them for a week or more. And, oh! how I wondered why they could not take me with them!
“The reason was this, as I afterward learned: that the state of Lady Enderby’s health made it impossible for me to be with them, especially in a lodging house.
“My father did not visit Weirdwaste again for a long time. He spent the winter with his wife and infant son at Torquay, and in the early summer took them to Switzerland, and in autumn to the Grecian Archipelago. In fact, two more years passed before I saw my father again.
“Then it was June and the height of the London season, and he had brought his wife to London and left her on a visit to her mother, the Baroness Burnshot. But on this occasion he brought my little brother over to Ireland and down to Weirdwaste.
“The child was now called Viscount Glennon, and was a beautiful boy nearly three years old.
“I was at that time a little old woman of eight. All the years that I have lived and all the sorrows that I have suffered have never made me as old as I was at eight.
“But again my heart leaped to meet father and brother, and I loved and adored them. I asked why my stepmother had not come with them. My father told me that she was much too frail to bear the sea air even in summer.
“He was satisfied with my health, and with my progress in learning, and so he left us, taking the boy with him.
“I had now been more than four years at dreary Weirdwaste, and had not known any home but the old manor house, or any society than its inmates. As these first four years passed so passed the next seven.
“My father came about once a year to see me, bringing my brother with him. He always spent a week at Weirdwaste, and then returned to England, taking my brother with him.
“His time was entirely devoted to his invalid wife, whose life seemed only to be prolonged by his incessant care.
“They were always moving from place to place, as the seasons changed—in Switzerland, or in Norway, or Sweden in the summer; in the south of France, in Italy, or among the isles of the Grecian Archipelago in winter. Sometimes in the finest weather of the early summer they came to London, during which time the countess would visit her mother, and then my father would take my little brother and come on a flying visit to me.
“So the years went on until I reached my fifteenth year, when the days of my dark destiny drew near.”