Elsie at Nantucket Part 23

"And, tell me honestly, are you not, as I strongly suspect, less careful to obey your father's orders when he is away, so that you feel yourself in a measure out of his reach, than when he is close at hand?"

"Papa, you ask such hard questions," she said.

"Hard to my little daughter only because of her own wrong-doing. But hard or easy, they must be answered. Tell me the truth, would you not have been more careful to keep within prescribed bounds last night if I had been at home, or you had known that you would see me here to-day?"

"Yes, papa," she answered, in a low, unwilling tone. "I don't think anybody else can have quite so much authority over me as you, and--and so I do, I suppose, act a little more as if I could do as I please when you are away."

"And that after I have explained to you again and again that in my absence you are quite as much under the authority of the kind friends with whom I have placed you as under mine when I am with you. I see there is no effectual way to teach you the lesson but by punis.h.i.+ng you for disregarding it."

Then he made her give him a detailed account of her ramble of the night before and its consequences.

When she had gone as far in the narrative as her safe arrival among the alarmed household, he asked whether her Grandma Elsie inflicted any punishment upon her.

"No, sir," answered Lulu, hanging her head and speaking in a sullen tone. "I told her I didn't feel as if anybody had any right to punish me but you."

"Lulu I did you dare to talk in that way to her?" exclaimed the captain.

"I hope she punished you for your impertinence; for if she did not I certainly must."

"She lectured me then, and this morning told me my punishment was a prohibition against wandering away from the rest more than just a few yards.

"But, papa, they were all so unkind to me at breakfast--I mean all but Grandma Elsie and Mamma Vi and Gracie. Betty looked sneering, and the others so cold and distant, and Rosie said something very insulting about my being a bad, troublesome child and frightening Mamma Vi into a headache."

"Certainly no more than you deserved," her father said. "Did you bear it with patience and humility, as you ought?"

"Do you mean that I must answer you, papa?"

"Most a.s.suredly I do; tell me at once exactly what you did and said."

"I don't want to, papa," she said, half angrily.

"You are never to say that when I give you an order," he returned, in a tone of severity; "never venture to do it again. Tell me, word for word, as nearly as you can remember it, what reply you made to Rosie's taunt."

"Papa, I didn't say anything to her; I just got up and pushed back my chair, and turned to leave the table. Then Grandma Elsie asked me what I wanted, and I said I didn't want anything, but would rather go without my breakfast than stay there to be insulted. Then she told me to sit down and eat, and Rosie wouldn't make any more unkind speeches."

"Were they all pleasant to you after that?" he asked.

"No, papa; they haven't been pleasant to me at all to-day; and Uncle Edward has said hateful things about me, and to me," she went on, her cheek flus.h.i.+ng and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng with anger, half forgetting, in the excitement of pa.s.sion, to whom she was telling her story, and showing her want of self-control.

"And I very much fear," he said, gravely, "that you were both pa.s.sionate and impertinent. Tell me just what pa.s.sed."

"If I do you'll punish me, I know you will," she burst out. "Papa, don't you think it's a little mean to make me tell on myself and then punish me for what you find out in that way?"

"If my object was merely to give you pain, I think it would be mean enough," he said, not at all unkindly; "but as I am seeking your best interests--your truest happiness--in trying to gain full insight into your character and conduct, meaning to discipline you only for your highest good, I think it is not mean or unkind. From your unwillingness to confess to me, I fear you must have been in a great pa.s.sion and very impertinent. Is it not so?"

"Papa, I didn't begin it; if I'd been let alone I shouldn't have got in a pa.s.sion or said anything saucy."

"Possibly not; but what is that virtue worth which cannot stand the least trial? You must learn to rule your own spirit, not only when everything goes smoothly with you, but under provocation; and in order to help you to learn that lesson--or rather as a means toward teaching it to you--I shall invariably punish any and every outbreak of temper and every impertinence of yours that come under my notice when I am at home. Now, tell me exactly what pa.s.sed between your Uncle Edward and yourself."

Seeing there was no escape for her, Lulu complied, faithfully repeating every word of the short colloquy at the beach when she went down there directly after breakfast.

Her father listened in astonishment, his face growing sterner every moment.

"Lucilla," he said, "you are certainly the most impertinent, insolent child I ever saw! I don't wonder you were afraid to let me know the whole truth in regard to this affair. I am ashamed of your conduct toward both your Grandma Elsie and your Uncle Edward. You must apologize to both of them, acknowledging that you have been extremely impertinent, and asking forgiveness for it."

Lulu made no reply; her eyes were downcast, her face was flushed with pa.s.sion, and wore a stubborn look.

"I won't;" the words were on the tip of her tongue; she had almost spoken them, but restrained herself just in time; her father's authority was not to be defied, as she had learned to her cost a year ago.

He saw the struggle that was going on in her breast. "You must do it,"

he said; "you may write your apologies, though, if you prefer that to speaking them."

He opened a writing-desk that stood on a table close at hand, and seated her before it with paper, pen, and ink, and bade her write, at his dictation.

She did not dare refuse, and had really no very strong disinclination to do so in regard to the first, which was addressed to Grandma Elsie--a lady so gentle and kind that even proud Lulu was willing to humble herself to her.

But when it came to Edward's turn her whole soul rose up in rebellion against it. Yet she dared not say either "I won't" or "I don't want to."

But pausing, with the pen in her fingers:

"Papa," she began timidly, "please don't make me apologize to him; he had no right to talk to me the way he did."

"I am not so sure of that," the captain said. "I don't blame him for trying to uphold his mother's authority; and now I think of it, you are to consider yourself under his control in the absence of your mamma and the older persons to whom I have given authority over you. Begin at once and write what I have told you to."

When the notes were written, signed, and folded he put them in his pocket, turned and paced the floor.

Lulu, glancing timidly into his face, saw that it was pale and full of pain, but very stern and determined.

"Papa, are you--are you going to punish me?" she asked, tremulously. "I mean as you did the other day?"

"I think I must," he said, pausing beside her, "though it grieves me to the very heart to do it; but you have been disobedient, pa.s.sionate, and very impertinent; it is quite impossible for me to let you slip. But you may take your choice between that and being locked up in the bedroom there for twenty-four hours, on bread and water. Which shall it be?"

"I'd rather take the first, papa," said Lulu, promptly, "because it will be over in a few minutes, and n.o.body but ourselves need know anything about it."

"I made sure you would choose the other," he said, in some surprise; "yet I think your choice is wise. Come!"

"Oh, papa, I'm so frightened," she said, putting her trembling hand in his; "you did hurt me so dreadfully the other time; must you be as severe to-day?"

"My poor child, I am afraid I must," he said; "a slight punishment seems to avail nothing in your case, and I must do all in my power to make you a good, gentle, obedient child."

A few minutes later Captain Raymond joined the others on the beach, but Lulu was not with him. She had been left behind in the bedroom, where she must stay, he told her, until his return.

Everybody seemed glad to see him; but after greeting them all in turn, he drew Violet to a seat a little apart from the others.

Grace followed, of course, keeping close to her father's side. "Where is Lulu, papa?" she asked with a look of concern,

"Up at the house."

"Won't you let her come down here, papa? She loves so to be close down by the waves."

"She may come after a little," he said, "but not just now." Then taking two tiny notes from his pocket: "Here, Gracie," he said, "take this to your Grandma Elsie and this to your Uncle Edward."