Elsie's Kith and Kin Part 22

"Yes," said Zoe, "I did. Violet and I happened to be at the window of the little reception-room overlooking the veranda, and were watching the little creature as she toddled along, and"--But Zoe paused, suddenly remembering that her listener was the father of Lulu as well as of her poor little victim.

"Please go on," he said with emotion. "What was it that sent her down the steps?"

"Lulu was standing there," Zoe went on, hesitating, and coloring with embarra.s.sment, "and I saw the baby-hands clutch at her skirts"--

Again she paused.

"And Lulu, giving the tender, toddling thing a savage kick, caused the dreadful catastrophe?" he groaned, turning away his face. "You need not have feared to tell me. I had already heard it from the servants who were eye-witnesses, and I only wanted further and undoubtedly reliable testimony."

"I think," said Edward, "that Lulu really had no idea what it was she was kicking at. I happened to be out in the grounds, and coming round the corner of the house just in time to catch her look of horror and despair as she half turned her head and saw the baby fall."

"Thank you," the captain said feelingly. "It is some relief to her unhappy father to learn of the least extenuating circ.u.mstance."

CHAPTER XII.

"Anger resteth in the bosom of fools."--ECCLES. vii. 9.

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."--PROV. xxii. 15.

"He seems to feel terribly about it, poor man!" remarked Zoe with a backward glance at the retreating form of Capt. Raymond, as he left them and pursued his way to the house.

"Yes, and no wonder," said Edward. "Not for worlds would I be the father of such a child as Lulu!"

"Nor I her mother," said Zoe. "So I'm glad it was you I got for a husband instead of Capt. Raymond."

"Only for that reason?" he queried, facing round upon her in mock astonishment and wrath.

"Oh, of course!" she returned, laughing, then sobering down with a sudden recollection of the sorrow in the house. "But, O Ned! how heartless we are to be joking and laughing when poor Vi and the captain are in such distress!"

"I'm afraid you are right," he a.s.sented with a sigh. "Yet I am quite sure we both feel deeply for them, and are personally grieved for the injury to our darling little niece."

"Yes, indeed! the pretty pet that she is!" returned Zoe, wiping her eyes.

Gracie was on the veranda looking for her father, and, catching sight of him in the avenue, ran to meet him.

"How is baby now? Can you tell me?" he asked, taking her hand, and stooping to give her a kiss.

"Just the same, I suppose, papa," she said. "Oh, it's very hard to see it suffer so! isn't it, papa?"

He nodded a silent a.s.sent.

"Papa," she asked, lifting her tearful eyes to his face with a pleading look, "have you seen Lulu yet?"

"No."

"O papa! do go now! It must be so hard for her to wait so long to see you, when you've just come home."

"I doubt if she wants to see me," he said, with some sternness of look and tone.

"O dear papa! don't punish her very hard. She didn't hurt the baby on purpose."

"I shall try to do what is best for her, my little girl, though I very much doubt if that is exemption from punishment," he said with an involuntary sigh. "But if she is in haste to see me," he added, "there is nothing, so far as I am aware, to prevent her from coming to me."

"But she's afraid, papa, because she has been so very, very naughty."

"In that case, is it not kinder for me to keep away from her?"

"O papa! you know she always wants things--bad things--over."

"The bad thing she has brought upon the poor baby will not be over very soon," he said sternly. "I must go now to it and your mamma."

He did so; and sharing Violet's deep grief and anxiety, and perceiving that his very presence was a comfort and support to her, he remained at her side for hours.

Hours, that to Lulu seemed like weeks or months. Alone in her room, in an agony of remorse and fear, she waited and watched and listened for her father's coming, longing for, and yet dreading it, more than words could express.

"What would his anger be like?" she asked herself. "What terrible punishment would he inflict? Would he ever love her again, especially if the baby should die?

"Perhaps he would send her away to some very far-off place, and never, never come near her any more."

Naturally of a very impatient temperament, suspense and pa.s.sive waiting were well-nigh intolerable to her. By turns she walked the floor, fell on her knees by the bedside, and buried her face in a pillow, or threw herself into a chair by table or window, and hid it on her folded arms.

"Oh! would this long day, this dreadful, _dreadful_ waiting for--_what_?

ever come to an end?" she asked herself over and over again.

Yet, when at last the expected step drew near, she shuddered, trembled, and turned pale with affright, and, starting to her feet, looked this way and that with a wild impulse to flee: then, as the door opened, she dropped into her chair again, and covered her face with her shaking hands.

She heard the door close: the step drew nearer, nearer, and stopped close at her side. She dared not look up, but felt her father's eyes gazing sternly upon her.

"Miserable child!" he said at length, "do you know what your terrible temper has wrought?--that in your mad pa.s.sion you have nearly or quite killed your little sister? that, even should she live, she may be a life-long sufferer, in consequence of your fiendish act?"

"O papa, don't!" she pleaded in broken accents, cowering and shrinking as if he had struck her a deadly blow.

"You deserve it," he said: "indeed, I could not possibly inflict a worse punishment than your conduct merits. But what is the use of punis.h.i.+ng you? nothing reforms you! I am in despair of you! You seem determined to make yourself a curse to me instead of the blessing I once esteemed you.

What am I to do with you? Will you compel me to cage or chain you up like a wild beast, lest you do some one a fatal injury?"

A cry of pain was her only answer, and he turned and left the room.

"Oh!" she moaned, "it's worse than if he had beaten me half to death! he thinks I'm too bad, even to be punished; because nothing will make me good: he says I'm a curse to him, so he must hate me; though he used to love me dearly, and I loved him so too! I suppose everybody hates me now, and always will. I wish I was dead and out of their way. But, oh!

no, I don't; for I'm not fit to die. Oh! what shall I do? I wish it was I that was hurt instead of the baby. I'd like to go away and hide from everybody that knows me; then I shouldn't be a curse and trouble to papa or any of them."

She lifted her head, and looked about her. It was growing dusk. Quick as a flash came the thought that now was her time; now, while almost everybody was so taken up with the critical condition of the injured little one; now, before the servants had lighted the lamps in rooms and halls.

She would slip down a back stairway, out into the grounds, and away, she cared not whither.