Daddy's Girl Part 6

"Don't call me Mummy or Mumsy, say mother. I don't like abbreviations."

"What's that?" asked Sibyl, knitting her brows.

"Mummy or Mumsy are abbreviations of a very sacred name."

"Sacred name!" said Sibyl, in a thoughtful tone. "Oh yes, I won't call you anything but mother. Mother is most lovely."

"Well, I hope you will be a good child, and not annoy me as you have been doing."

"Oh, mother darling, I didn't mean to vex you, but it was such a temptation, you know. You were never, never tempted, were you, mother?

You are made so perfect that you cannot understand what temptation means. I did so long to climb the trees, and I knew you would not like me spoil my pretty frock, and Freda lent me the brown holland. When I saw you, Mums--I mean, mother--I forgot about everything else but just that I had climbed a tree, and that I had been brave, although for a minute I felt a sc.r.a.p giddy, and I wanted to tell you about what I had done, my ownest, most darling mother."

Mrs. Ogilvie sprang suddenly to her feet.

"Come here," she said. There was a sharpness in her tone which arrested the words on Sibyl's lips. "Look at me, take my hand, look steadily into my face. I have just five minutes to spare, and I wish to say something very grave and important, and you must listen attentively."

"Oh, yes, mother, I am listening; what is it?"

"Look at me. Are you attending?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Mother, Freda says she will give me a Persian kitten; the Persian cat has two, such beauties, snow-white. May I have one, mother?"

"Attend to me, and stop talking. You think a great deal of me, your mother, and you call me perfect. Now show that you put me in high esteem."

"That sounds very nice," thought Sibyl to herself. "Mother is just in her most beautiful humor. Of course I'll listen."

"I wish," continued the mother, and she turned slightly away from the child as she spoke, "I wish you to stop all that nonsense about your father and me. I wish you to understand that we are not perfect, either of us; we are just everyday, ordinary sort of people. As we happen to be your father and mother, you must obey us and do what we wish; but you make yourself, and us also, ridiculous when you talk as you do. I am perfectly sick of your poses, Sibyl."

"Poses!" cried Sibyl; "what's poses?"

"Oh, you are too tiresome; ask nurse to explain, or Miss Winstead, when you go home. Miss Winstead, if she is wise, will tell you that you must just turn round and go the other way. You must obey me, of course, and understand that I know the right way to train you; but you are not to talk of me as though I were an angel. I am nothing of the kind. I am an ordinary woman, with ordinary feelings and ordinary faults, and I wish you to be an ordinary little girl. I am very angry with you for your great rudeness to Lord Grayleigh. What did it mean?"

"Oh, mother! it meant----" Sibyl swallowed something in her throat.

Her mother's speech was unintelligible; it hurt her, she did not exactly know why, but this last remark was an opening.

"Mother, I am glad you spoke of it. I could not, really and truly, help it."

"Don't talk nonsense. Now go away. Hortense is coming to dress me for dinner. Go."

"But, mother! one minute first, please--please."

"Go, Sibyl, obey me."

"It was 'cos Lord Grayleigh spoke against my----"

"Go, Sibyl, I won't listen to another word. I shall punish you severely if you do not obey me this instant."

"I am going," said the child, "but I cannot be----"

"Go. You are coming down to dessert to-night, and you are to speak properly to Lord Grayleigh. Those are my orders. Now go."

Hortense came in at that moment. She entered with that slight whirl which she generally affected, and which she considered truly Parisian.

Somehow, in some fas.h.i.+on, Sibyl felt herself swept out of the room.

She stood for a moment in the pa.s.sage. There was a long gla.s.s at the further end, and it reflected a pink-robed little figure. The cheeks had lost their usual tender bloom, and the eyes had a bewildered expression. Sibyl rubbed her hands across them.

"I don't understand," she said to herself. "Perhaps I wasn't quite pretty enough, perhaps that was the reason, but I don't know. I think I'll go to my new nursery and sit down and think of father. Oh, I wish mother hadn't--of course it's all right, and I am a silly girl, and I get worser, not better, every day, and mother knows what is best for me; but she might have let me 'splain things. I wish I hadn't a pain here." Sibyl touched her breast with a pathetic gesture.

"It's 'cos of father I feel so bad, it's 'cos they told lies of father." She turned very slowly with the most mournful droop of her head in the direction of the apartment set aside for nurse and herself. She had thought much of this visit, and now this very first afternoon a blow had come. Her mother had told her to do a hard thing.

She, Sibyl, was to be polite to Lord Grayleigh; she was to be polite to that dreadful, smiling man, with the fair hair and the keen eyes, who had spoken against her father. It was unfair, it was dreadful, to expect this of her.

"And mother would not even let me 'splain," thought the child.

"Hullo!" cried a gay voice; "hullo! and what's the matter with little Miss Beauty?" And Sibyl raised her eyes, with a start, to encounter the keen, frank, admiring gaze of Gus.

"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, "aren't we fine! I say! you'll knock Freda and Mabel into next week, if you go on at this rate. But, come to the schoolroom; we want a game, and you can join."

"I can't, Gus," replied Sibyl.

"Why, what's the matter?"

"I don't feel like playing games."

"You are quite white about the gills. I say! has anybody hurt you?"

"No, not exactly, Gus; but I want to be alone. I'll come by-and-by."

"Somebody wasn't square with her," thought Gus, as Sibyl turned away.

"Queer little girl! But I like her all the same."

CHAPTER V.

Sibyl's conduct was exemplary at dessert. She was quiet, she was modest, she was extremely polite. When spoken to she answered in the most correct manner. When guests smiled at her, she gave them a set smile in return. She accepted just that portion of the dessert which her mother most wished her to eat, eschewing unwholesome sweets, and partaking mostly of grapes. Especially was she polite to Lord Grayleigh, who called her to his side, and even put his arm round her waist. He wondered afterwards why she s.h.i.+vered when he did this. But she stood upright as a dart, and looked him full in the face with those extraordinary eyes of hers.

At last the children's hour, as it was called, came to an end, and the four went round kissing and shaking hands with the different guests.

Mrs. Ogilvie put her hand for an instant on Sibyl's shoulder.

"I am pleased with you," she said; "you behaved very nicely. Go to bed now."

"Will you come and see me, Mumsy--mother, I mean--before you go to bed?"

"Oh no, child, nonsense! you must be asleep hours before then. No, this is good-night. Now go quietly."

Sibyl did go quietly. Mrs. Ogilvie turned to her neighbor.