L. Meade - Wild Heather

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 of mine."

"But I only want you to be great friends with me," I said.

Father laughed at this, got a little red, and turned the conversation.

"What dress have you for the theatre?" he asked.

"I don't think I have any," I said. "I don't possess any evening dress."

"But that won't do," he replied. "What is the hour? We really haven't an instant to lose."

He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.

"We can manage it," he said. He spoke down a tube, and presently was told that his carriage awaited him.

"Come, Heather, come," he said. "You must be togged up properly for to-night."

After my very quiet life at Hill View this complete change made me so excited that I scarcely knew how to contain myself.

We got into the brougham and drove to a smart shop, where fortunately a pretty dress of soft black was able to be procured. This was paid for and put into a box, and we returned to the hotel, but not before father had bought me also some lilies of the valley to wear with the dress.

I went up to our sitting-room alone, for he was busy talking to a lady who seemed to have the charge of a certain department downstairs, the result of which was that after tea a very fashionable hairdresser arrived, who arranged my thick dark hair in the latest and most becoming fashion, and who even helped me to get into my black dress. When I joined father my eyes were shining and my cheeks were bright with colour.

"Oh, what fun this is!" I said.

"Yes, isn't it?" he answered. "Where are your flowers?"

I had put them on, but he did not like the way I had arranged them, so he settled them himself in a more becoming manner, and then he slipped a single string of pearls round my white throat and showed me – lying on a chair near by – a most lovely, dainty opera cloak, all made in pink and white, which suited me just perfectly.

"Now, we'll have some dinner, and then we'll be off," he said. "Lady Helen Dalrymple will admire you to-night, Heather, and I want her to."

Who was Lady Helen Dalrymple?

It certainly was a wonderful night. Lady Helen Dalrymple had placed her box at the theatre at our disposal. She was a tall and slender woman, dressed in the extreme height of a fashion which I had never even dreamed about. Her cheeks had a wonderful colour in them, which was at once soft and vivid. Her lips were red and her eyes exceedingly dark. She greeted me with great empressement ; her voice was high-pitched, and I cannot say that it impressed me agreeably.

"Welcome, welcome, my dear Heather," she said, and then she invited me to seat myself on the front chair near her own, whereas father sat behind at the back of the box.

The play began, and to me it was a peep into fairy land. I had never seen a play before, but, of course, I had read about plays and great actors and actresses, and this one — As You Like It – took my breath away. I could scarcely restrain my rapture as the different scenes flitted before my eyes, and as the characters – all real to me – fitted their respective parts. But in the midst of my delight Lady Helen bent towards me and said:

"Don't the footlights dazzle your eyes a little, child? Would you not prefer to take this chair and let your father come to the front of the box?"

Now, my eyes were quite strong, and the footlights did not dazzle them in the very least, but I slipped back into the other seat, and, after that, if the truth must be known, I only got little glimpses of the play from time to time. Lady Helen and father, instead of being in raptures over the performance, kept up a running fire of whispered talk together, not one word of which could I catch, nor, indeed, did I want to – so absorbingly anxious was I to follow the story of Rosalind in the Forest of Arden.

When at last the performance was over, father suggested that we should all go to the Savoy Hotel for supper, where, accordingly, we went. But once again, although there was a very nice table reserved for us, father and Lady Helen did all the talking, and I was left in the cold. I looked around me, and for the first time had a distinct sense of home-sickness for the very quiet little house I had left. By this time Aunt Penelope would be sound asleep in bed, and Buttons would have gone to his rest in the attic, and the parrot would have ceased to say "Stop knocking at the door!" I was not accustomed to be up so late, and I suddenly found myself yawning.

Lady Helen fixed her bright eyes on my face.

"Tired, Heather?" she asked.

I had an instinctive sort of feeling that she ought not to call me Heather, and started back a little when she spoke.

"Oh, you need not be shocked, Heather," said my father. "Lady Helen is such a very great friend of mine that you ought to be only too proud when she addresses you by your Christian name."

"I shall have a great deal to do with you in future, my dear," said Lady Helen, and then she looked at father, and they both laughed.

"The very first thing I want you to see about, kind Lady Helen," said father, in his most chivalrous manner, "is this poor, sweet child's wardrobe. She wants simply everything. Will you take her to the shops to-morrow and order for her just what she requires?"

Lady Helen smiled and nodded.

"We shall be in time to have her presented." Lady Helen bent her face towards father's and whispered something. He turned very white.

"Never mind," he said; "I always thought that presentation business was a great waste of time, and I am quite sure that we shall do well for little Heather without it."

"I am so tired," I could not help saying.

"Then home we'll go, my girl. Lady Helen, I will call early to-morrow and bring Heather with me, if I may. Whatever happens, she must be properly dressed."

"I shall be ready to receive you, Major, at eleven o'clock," said Lady Helen, and then she touched my hand coldly and indifferently, but smiled with her brilliant eyes at my father. Her motor-car was waiting for her; she was whirled away, and we drove back in our brougham to the hotel.

"Well, Heather," said my father, "what a wonderful day this must have been for you. Tell me how you felt about everything. You used to be such an outspoken little child. Didn't you just love the play, eh?"

"I loved the beginning of it," I said.

"You naughty girl! You mean to say you didn't like the end – all that part about Rosalind when she comes on the stage as a boy?"

"I could not see it, father – I could only see the back of your head; and oh, father, your head is getting very bald, but the back of Lady Helen's head isn't bald at all – it is covered with thick, thick hair, which goes out very wide at the sides and comes down low on her neck."