"Oh, yes, Miss Heather. Yes, I understand; but"—he looked at me longingly—"there's the telegraphic message, miss," he said.
"Oh, you mean that my father is coming. I'll be back in time to see him. It's all right, Jonas. Don't tell Aunt Penelope that I am out. Take her this soup, when it is ready, and, for Heaven's sake! don't keep me now."
Jonas's round eyes became full of wonder, but I would not glance at them. I must get out. I must go up on the heights above the little town before my father arrived. I must be by myself, whatever happened; I must be quite alone.
It was a hot day. Summer was coming on in great strides. In Aunt Penelope's village the weather was very hot in the summer time. But the air was more or less my native air. I was glad of it. I was glad to feel its soft zephyrs blowing against my cheeks. I soon reached the high part of the town, and then I found myself on the moors. I sat down on a clump of purple heather—the flower after which I was called—and pulled a spray of the blossom and crumpled it between my fingers and watched the little delicate flowers tumbling into my lap. All my life seemed to rise up before me at that moment, and the anguish that I lived through could scarcely be surpassed. Oh, Aunt Penelope, Aunt Penelope! What a dreadful thing you did when you told me that story about my father! Why did you, who kept it to yourself all your days, tell it to me now? Oh, it was not true! I did not believe it! Long ago, on the very day when I, a little, shy, frightened girl of eight years of age, had come to live with Aunt Penelope, the then reigning Jonas—the "Buttons" in possession—had taken me to these very heights and had walked over them with me and shown me the blue of the sea and the beauty of the landscape; and I had been excited, and pleased as a child will be, particularly such a child as I was—a child with a natural and intense love of nature in her heart.
Yes, I had been happy then, up on these fragrant heights; but I had come back—oh, to such misery! For my father had gone; he had left me alone with Aunt Penelope. I sat now on the Downs, and remembered all that miserable day, my passionate, frantic pain, my mad search for my nurse, Anastasia; the woman who had taken my money and had shown me how to get to the railway station; the kind friends who had met me there and had assured me that Anastasia had not come by the next train; and then Aunt Penelope's face, which to me on that day seemed so hard and cold and cruel.
What immediately followed was a blank to me: no wonder, for I was very ill. I recalled the days, the months, the years that followed—Aunt Penelope's simple life and my gradual and yet sure enjoyment of it, the little things that pleased me, the tiny happenings that were all important, the little joys that were great joys to me; the school prizes; the breaking-up days; the rare occasions when I was given a new frock; the careful, thrifty life. And all the time, noble lessons were being poured into my soul, and I was being taught by the sturdy example of one very brave, very poor old woman to refuse the evil and choose the good. I recalled what took place a few months ago—my father's return, his dear, jolly, red, good-natured face, his kindly eyes, his pleasant smile, the way he had hugged and kissed me, the manner in which my heart had gone out to him; my raptures when he said that he had come to take me away, that in future I was to be his child, his little girl who was to live with him. Oh, I was happy! I forgot Aunt Penelope in my joy. She was in bitter grief at the thought of losing me; but I was selfish, and did not mind.
Then there came my hurried journey to London; the meeting with my father, the meeting with Lady Helen Dalrymple, and the beginning of a new life, the beginning of fresh troubles. First of all, there was my father's second marriage. I was not to have him to myself; Lady Helen was to share my felicity; and I hated Lady Helen, I recalled that time—that awful time. I thought of the great rich house in London and of what Lady Helen Dalrymple was, and of my anguish when she told me that I must change my name, and must in future be called Heather Dalrymple, and never again as long as I lived Heather Grayson. She further informed me that my father had taken her name and was Major Dalrymple, not Major Grayson. I was wild with anger, but a look on his face made me submit. Then by degrees I saw that my darling father was not at all happy. His fun had gone out of him; he no longer made a joke about everything. He sat very silent; sometimes I thought he was even a little bit afraid. Then Lord Hawtrey appeared on the scene, and then—then! my true lover, Vernon Carbury.
Oh! yes, I loved Vernon Carbury. He was all that a romantic young girl would most adore. He was so handsome and gay and chivalrous, and such a perfect gentleman; and he had such a soldierly air and such a proud, upright bearing; and he was mine. He loved me as much as I loved him. It didn't matter a bit about his being poor. Lord Hawtrey, kind old man, wanted to marry me; and his sister, Lady Mary Percy, seemed to think it a very good match. But what was that to me? I loved Vernon and would marry no one else. But—but—there was my father; my father who had—oh, it couldn't be true! God in heaven! it was not true.
I buried my face in my hands. I sobbed aloud. I was frantic with the grief of it, and the shame of it, and the torture of it. My father—my own father! If I had been told that Lady Helen had done a thing like that I should not have been surprised; but my father! It could not be; it was impossible.
Suddenly I started to my feet. I would know the worst. Aunt Penelope believed the story, but I would never believe it unless I heard it from my father's lips, and if it was true, then of course I must give Vernon up. He should not marry a girl whose father had done something to make her ashamed. Much as I loved him, I felt that he must never do that; for that very reason, he must not do it—just because I loved him too well.