A Very Naughty Girl

“This brings back old times,” he said to himself, “and old times create old feelings. I never knew then that she would be cursed by the demon of extravagance, and that her child – her only child – would inherit her failing. Well, it is my bounden duty to nip it in the bud, or Sylvia will end her days in the workhouse. I thought I had sold most of the clothes, but doubtless she found some materials to make up that unsuitable costume.”

He dragged the trunks forward. They were unlocked, being supposed to contain nothing of value. He pulled them open and went on his knees to examine them. Most of them were empty; some contained old bundles of letters; there was one in the corner which still had a couple of muslin dresses and an old-fashioned black lace mantilla. Mr. Leeson remembered the mantilla and the day when he bought it, and how pretty his handsome wife had looked in it. He flung it from him now as if it distressed him.

“Faugh!” he said. “I remember I gave ten guineas for it. Think of any man being such a fool!”

He was about to leave the attic, more mystified than ever, when his eyes suddenly fell upon the two trunks which contained that portion of Evelyn Wynford’s wardrobe which Lady Frances had discarded. The trunks were comparatively new. They were handsome and good, being made of crushed cane. They bore the initials E. W. in large white letters on their arched roofs.

“But who in the name of fortune is E. W.?” thought Mr. Leeson; and now his heart beat in ungovernable excitement. “E. W.! What can those initials stand for?”

He came close to the trunks as though they fascinated him. They were unlocked, and he pulled them open. Soon Evelyn’s gay and useless wardrobe was lying helter-skelter on the attic floor – silk dresses, evening dresses, morning dresses, afternoon dresses, furs, hats, cloaks, costumes. He kicked them about in his rage; his anger reached white-heat. What was the meaning of this?

E. W. and E. W.’s clothes took such an effect on his brain that he could scarcely speak or think. He left the attic with all the things scattered about, and stumbled rather than walked down-stairs. He had nearly got to his own part of the house when he remembered something. He went back, turned the key in the attic door, and put it in his pocket. He then breathed a sigh of relief, and went back to his sitting-room. The fire was nearly out; the day was colder than ever – a keen north wind was blowing. It came in at the badly fitting windows and shook the old panes of glass. The attic in which Mr. Leeson had stood so long had also been icy-cold. He shivered and crept close to the remains of the fire. Then a thought came to him, and he deliberately took up the poker and poked out the remaining embers. They flamed up feebly on the hearth and died out.

“No more fires for me,” he said to himself; “I cannot afford it. She is ruining – ruining me. Who is E. W.? Where did she get all those clothes? Oh, I shall go mad!”

He stood shivering and frowning and muttering. Then a change came over him.

“There is a secret, and I mean to discover it,” he said to himself; “and until I do I shall say nothing. I shall find out who E. W. is, where those trunks came from, what money Sylvia stole to purchase those awful and ridiculous and terrible garments. I shall find out before I act. Sylvia thinks that she can make a fool of her old father; she will discover her mistake.”

The postman’s ring was heard at the gate. The postman was never allowed to go up the avenue. Mr. Leeson kept a box locked in the gate, with a little slit for the postman to drop in the letters. He allowed no one to open this box but himself. Without even putting on his greatcoat, he went down the snowy path now, unlocked the box, and took out a letter. He returned with it to the house; it was addressed to himself, and was from his broker in London. The letter contained news which affected him pretty considerably. The gold mine in which he had invested nearly the whole of his available capital was discovered to be by no means so rich in ore as was at first anticipated. Prices were going down steadily, and the shares which Mr. Leeson had bought were now worth only half their value.

“I’ll sell out – I’ll sell out this minute,” thought the wretched man; “if I don’t I shall lose all.”

But then he paused, for there was a postscript to the letter.

“It would be madness to sell now,” wrote the broker. “Doubtless the present scare is a passing one; the moment the shares are likely to go up then sell.”

Mr. Leeson flung the letter from him and tore his gray hair. He paced up and down the room.

“Disaster after disaster,” he murmured. “I am like Job; all these things are against me. But nothing cuts me like Sylvia. To buy those things – two trunks full of useless finery! Oh yes, I have money on the premises – money which I saved and never invested; I wonder if that is safe. For all I can tell – But, oh, no, no, no! I will not think that. That way madness lies. I will bury the canvas bag to-night; I have delayed too long. No one can discover that hiding-place. I will bury the canvas bag, come what may, to-night.”

Mr. Leeson wrote to his broker, telling him to seize the first propitious moment to sell out from the gold-mine, and then sat moodily, getting colder and colder, in front of the empty grate.

Sylvia came in presently.

“Dinner is ready, father,” she said.

“I don’t want dinner,” he muttered.

She went up to him and laid her hand on his arm.

“Why are you like ice?” she said.

He pushed her away.

“The fire is out,” she continued; “let me light it.”

“No!” he thundered. “Leave it alone; I wish for no fire. I tell you I am a beggar, and worse; and I wish for no fire!”

“Oh father – father darling!” said the girl.

“Don’t ‘darling’ me; don’t come near me. I am displeased with you. You have cut me to the quick. I am angry with you. Leave me.”

“You may be angry,” she answered, “but I will not leave you; and if you are cold – cold to death – and cannot afford a fire, you will warm yourself with me. Let me put my arms round you; let me lay my cheek against yours. Feel how my cheek glows. There, is not that better?”

He struggled, but she insisted. She sat on his knee now and put the cloak she was wearing, thin and poor enough in itself, round his neck. Inside the cloak she circled him with her arms. Her dark luxuriant hair fell against his white and scanty locks; she pressed her face close to his.

“You may hate me, but I am going to stay with you,” she said. “How cold you are!”

Just for a minute or two Mr. Leeson bore the loving caress and the endearing words. She was very sweet, and she was his – his only child – bone of his bone. Yes, it was nicer to be warm than cold, nicer to be loved than to be hated, nicer to – But was he loved? Those trunks up-stairs; that costly, useless finery; those initials which were not Sylvia’s!

“Oh that I could tell her!” he said to himself. “She pretends; she is untrue – untrue as our first mother. What woman was ever yet to be trusted?”

“Go, Sylvia,” he replied vehemently; and he started up and shook her off cruelly, so that she fell and hurt herself.

She rose, pushed her hair back from her forehead and gazed at him in bewilderment. Was he going mad?

“Come and eat your dinner before it gets cold,” she said. “It is extravagant to waste good food; come and eat it.”

“Made from some of those old fowls?” he queried; and a scornful smile curled his lips.

“Come and eat it; it costs you practically nothing,” she added. “Come, it is extravagant to waste it.”

He pondered in his own mind; there were still about three fowls left. He would not take her hand but he followed her into the dining-room. He sat down before the dainty dish, helped her to a small portion, and ate the rest.

“Now you are better,” she said cheerfully.

He gave her a glance which seemed to her to be one of almost venom.

“I am going into my sitting-room,” he said; “do not disturb me again to-day.”

“But you must have a fire!”

“I decline to have a fire.”

“You will die of cold.”

“Much you care.”

“Father!”

“Yes, Sylvia, much you care; you are like the one who gave you being. I will not say any more.”

She started away at this; he knew she would. She was patient with him almost beyond the limits of human patience, but she could not stand having her mother abused.

He went down the passage, and locked himself in his sitting-room.

“Now I can think,” he thought; “and to-night when Sylvia is in bed I will bury the last canvas bag.”

When Sylvia went into the kitchen Jasper asked her at once what was the matter. She stood for a moment without speaking; then she said in a low, broken-hearted voice:

“Father sometimes gets these moods, but I never saw him as bad before. He refuses to have a fire in the parlor; he will die of this cold.”

“Let him,” muttered Jasper under her breath. She did not say these words aloud; she knew Sylvia too well by this time.

“What has put him into this state of mind?” she asked as she dished up a hot dinner for Sylvia and herself.

“It was my dress, Jasper; I ought not to have allowed you to make it for me. I ran in to put it on to go to church on Sunday; and he saw me and drew his own conclusions, as he said. He asked me where I got it, and I refused to tell him.”

“Now, if I were you, dear,” said Jasper, “I would just up and tell him the whole story. I would tell him that I am here, and that I mean to stay, and that he has been living on me for some time now. I would tell him everything. He would rage and fume, but not more than he has raged and fumed. Things are past bearing, darling. Why, your pretty, young, and brave heart will be broken. I would not bear it. It is best for him too, dear; he must learn to know you, and if necessary to fear you. He cannot go on killing himself and every one else with impunity. It is past bearing, Sylvia, my love – past bearing.”

“I know, Jasper – I know – but I dare not tell him. You cannot imagine what he is when he is really roused. He would turn you out.”

“Well, darling, and you would come with me. Why should we not go out?”

“In the first place, Jasper, you have no money to support us both. Why, poor, dear old thing, you are using up all your little savings to keep me going! And in the next place, even if you could afford it, I promised mother that I would never leave him. I could not break my word to her. Oh! it hurt much; but the pain is over. I will never leave him while he lives, Jasper.”

“Dear, dear!” said Jasper, “what a power of love is wasted on worthless people! It is the most extraordinary fact on earth.”

Sylvia half-smiled. She thought of Evelyn, who was also in her opinion more or less worthless, and how Jasper was wasting both substance and heart on her.

“Well,” she said, “I can eat if I can do nothing else; but the thought of father dying of cold does come between me and all peace.”

She finished her dinner, and then went and stood by the window.

“It is a perfect miracle he has not found me out before,” said Jasper; “and, by the same token,” she added, “I heard footsteps in the attic up-stairs while I was preparing his fowl for dinner. My heart stood still. It must have been he; and I thought he would see the smoke curling up through that stack of chimneys just alongside of the attics. What was he doing up stairs?”

“Oh, I know – I know!” said Sylvia; and her face turned very white, and her eyes seemed to start from her head. “He went to look in mother’s trunks; he thought that I had got my brown dress from there.”

“And he will discover Evelyn’s trunks as sure as fate,” said Jasper; “and what a state he will be in! That accounts for it, Sylvia. Well, darling, discovery is imminent now; and for my part the sooner it is over the better.”

“I wonder if he did discover! Something has put him into a terrible rage,” thought the girl.

She went out of the kitchen, and stole softly up-stairs to the attic where the trunks were kept. It was locked. Doubt was now, of course, at an end. Sylvia went back and told her discovery to Jasper.

CHAPTER XXV. – UNCLE EDWARD

According to her promise, Jasper went that evening to meet Evelyn at the stile. Evelyn was there, and the news she had for her faithful nurse was the reverse of soothing.

“You cannot stand it,” said Jasper; “you cannot demean yourself. I don’t know that I’d have done it – yes, perhaps I would – but having done it, you must stick to your guns.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn in a mournful tone; “I must run away. I have quite, quite, absolutely made up my mind.”

“And when, darling?” said Jasper, trembling a good deal.

“The night before the week is up. I will come to you here, Jasper, and you must take me.”

“Of course, love; you will come back with me to The Priory. I can hide you there as well as anywhere on earth – yes, love, as well as anywhere on earth.”

“Oh, I’d be so frightened! It would be so close to them all!”

“The closer the better, dear. If you went into any village or any town near you would be discovered; but they’d never think of looking for you at The Priory. Why, darling, I have lived there unsuspected for some time now – weeks, I might say. Sylvia will not tell. You shall sleep in my bed, and I will keep you safe. Only you must bring some money, Evelyn, for mine is getting sadly short.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn. “I will ask Uncle Edward; he will not refuse me. He is very kind to me, and I love him better than any one on earth – better even than Jasper, because he is father’s very own brother, and because I am his heiress. He likes to talk to me about the place and what I am to do when it belongs to me. He is not angry with me when I am quite alone with him and I talk of these things; only he has taught me to say nothing about it in public. If I could be sorry for having got into this scrape it would be on his account; but there, I was not brought up with his thoughts, and I cannot think things wrong that he thinks wrong. Can you, Jasper?”

“No, my little wild honey-bird – not I. Well, dearie, I will meet you again to-morrow night; and now I must be going back.”

Evelyn returned to the house. She went up to her room, changed her shoes, tidied her hair, and came down to the drawing-room. Lady Frances was leaning back in a chair, turning over the pages of a new magazine. She called Evelyn to her side.

“How do you like school?” she said. Her tones were abrupt; the eyes she fixed on the child were hard.

Evelyn’s worst feelings were always awakened by Lady Frances’s manner to her.

“I do not like it at all,” she said. “I wish to leave.”

“Your wishes, I am afraid, are not to be considered; all the same, you may have to leave.”

“Why?” asked Evelyn, turning white. She wondered if Lady Frances knew.

Her aunt’s eyes were fixed, as though they were gimlets, on her face.

“Sit down,” said Lady Frances, “and tell me how you spend your day. What class are you in? What lessons are you learning?”

“I am in a very low class indeed?” said Evelyn. “Mothery always said I was clever.”

“I do not suppose your mother knew.”

“Why should she not know, she who was so very clever herself? She taught me all sorts of things, and so did poor Jasper.”

“Ah! I am glad at least that I have removed that dreadful woman out of your path,” said Lady Frances.

Evelyn smiled and lowered her eyes. Her manner irritated her aunt extremely.

“Well,” she said, “go on; we will not discuss the fact of the form you ought to be in. What lessons do you do?”

“Oh, history, grammar; I suppose, the usual English subjects.”

“Yes, yes; but history – that is interesting. English history?”

“Yes, Aunt Frances.”

“What part of the history?”

“We are doing the reigns of the Edwards now.”

“Ah! can you tell me anything with regard to the reign of Edward I.?”

Evelyn colored. Lady Frances watched her.

“I am certain she knows,” thought the little girl. “But, oh, this is terrible! Has that awful Miss Henderson told her? What shall I do? I do not think I will wait until the week is up; I think I will run away at once.”

“Answer my question, Evelyn,” said her aunt.

Evelyn did mutter a tiny piece of information with regard to the said reign.

“I shall question you on your history from time to time,” said Lady Frances. “I take an interest in this school experiment. Whether it will last or not I cannot say; but I may as well say one thing – if for any reason your presence is not found suitable in the school where I have now sent you, you will go to a very different order of establishment and to a much stricter régime elsewhere.”

“What is a régime?” asked Evelyn.

“I am too tired to answer your silly questions. Now go and read your book in that corner. Do not make a noise; I have a headache.”

Evelyn slouched away, looking as cross and ill-tempered as a little girl could look.

“Audrey darling,” called her mother in a totally different tone of voice, “play me that pretty thing of Chopin’s which you know I am so fond of.”

Audrey approached the piano and began to play.

Evelyn read her book for a time without attending much to the meaning of the words. Then she observed that her uncle, who had been asleep behind his newspaper, had risen and left the room. Here was the very opportunity that she sought. If she could only get her Uncle Edward quite by himself, and when he was in the best of good humors, he might give her some money. She could not run away without money to go with. Jasper, she knew, had not a large supply. Evelyn, with all her ignorance of many things, had early in her life come into contact with the want of money. Her mother had often and often been short of funds. When Mrs. Wynford was short, the ranch did without even, at times, the necessaries of life. Evelyn had a painful remembrance of butterless breakfasts and meatless dinners; of shoes which were patched so often that they would scarcely keep out the winter snows; of little garments turned and turned again. Then money had come back, and life became smooth and pleasant; there was an abundance of good food for the various meals, and Evelyn had shoes to her heart’s content, and the sort of gay-colored garments which her mother delighted in. Yes, she understood Jasper’s appeal for money, and determined on no account to go to that good woman’s protection without a sufficient sum in hand.

Therefore, as Audrey was playing some of the most seductive music of that past master of the art, Chopin, and Lady Frances lay back in her chair with closed eyes and listened, Evelyn left the room. She knew where to find her uncle, and going down a corridor, opened the door of his smoking-room without knocking. He was seated by the fire smoking. A newspaper lay by his side; a pile of letters which had come by the evening post were waiting to be opened. When Evelyn quietly opened the door he looked round and said:

“Ah, it is you, Eve. Do you want anything, my dear?”

“May I speak to you for a minute or two, Uncle Edward?”

“Certainly, my dear Evelyn; come in. What is the matter, dear?”

“Oh, nothing much.”

Evelyn went and leant up against her uncle. She had never a scrap of fear of him, which was one reason why he liked her, and thought her far more tolerable than did his wife or Audrey. Even Audrey, who was his own child, held him in a certain awe; but Evelyn leant comfortably now against his side, and presently she took his arm of her own accord and passed it securely round her waist.

“Now, that is nice,” she said; “when I lean up against you I always remember that you are father’s brother.”

“I am glad that you should remember that fact, Evelyn.”

“You are pleased with me on the whole, aren’t you, Uncle Edward?” asked the little girl. Evelyn backed her head against his shoulder as she spoke, and looked into his face with her big and curious eyes.

“On the whole, yes.”

“But Aunt Frances does not like me.”

“You must try to win her affection, Evelyn; it will all come in good time.”

“It is not pleasant to be in the house with a person who does not like you, is it, Uncle Edward?”

“I can understand you, Evelyn; it is not pleasant.”

“And Audrey only half-likes me.”

“My dear little girl,” said her uncle, rousing himself to talk in a more serious strain, “would it not be wisest for you to give over thinking of who likes you and who does not, and to devote all your time to doing what is right?”

Evelyn made a wry face.

“I don’t care about doing what is right,” she said; “I don’t like it.”

Her uncle smiled.

“You are a strange girl; but I believe you have improved,” he said.

“You would be sorry if I did anything very, very naughty, Uncle Edward?”

“I certainly should.”

Evelyn lowered her eyes.

“He must not know. I must keep him from knowing somehow, but I wonder how I shall,” she thought.

“And perhaps you would be sorry,” she continued, “if I were not here – if your naughty, naughty Eve was no longer in the house?”

“I should. I often think of you. I – ”

“What, Uncle Edward?”

“Love you, little girl.”

“Love me! Do you?” she asked in a tone of affection. “Do you really? Please say that again.”

“I love you, Evelyn.”

“Uncle Edward, may I give you just the tiniest kiss?”

“Yes, dear.”

Evelyn raised her soft face and pressed a light kiss on her uncle’s cheek. She was quite silent then for a minute; truth to tell, her heart was expanding and opening out and softening, and great thrills of pure love were filling it, so that soon, soon that heart might have melted utterly and been no longer a hard heart of stone. But, alas! as these good thoughts visited her, there came also the remembrance of the sin she had committed, and of the desperate measures she was about to take to save herself – for she had by no means come to the stage of confessing that sin, and by so doing getting rid of her naughtiness.

“Uncle Edward,” she said abruptly, “I want you to give me a little money. I have come here to ask you. I want it all for my very own self. I want some money which no one else need know anything about.”

“Of course, dear, you shall have money. How much do you want?”

“Well, a good bit. I want to give Jasper a present.”

“Your old nurse?”

“Yes. You know it was unkind of Aunt Frances to send her away; mothery wished her to stay with me.”

“I know that, Evelyn, and as far as I personally am concerned, I am sorry; but your aunt knows very much more about little girls than I do.”

“She does not know half so much about this girl.”

“Well, anyhow, dear, it was her wish, and you and I must submit.”

“But you are sorry?”

“For some reasons, yes.”

“And you would like me to help Jasper?”

“Certainly. Do you know where your nurse is now, Evelyn?”

“I do.”

“Where?”

“I would rather not say; only, may I send her some money?”

“That seems reasonable enough,” thought the Squire.

“How much do you want?” he asked.

“Would twenty pounds be too much?”

“I think not. It is a good deal, but she was a faithful servant. I will give you twenty pounds for her now.”

The Squire rose and took out his check-book.

“Oh, please,” said Evelyn, “I want it in gold.”

“But how will you send it to her?”

“Never, never mind; I must have it in gold.”

“Poor child! She is in earnest,” thought the Squire. “Perhaps the woman will come to meet her somewhere. I really cannot see why she should be tabooed from having a short interview with her old nurse. Frances and I differ on this head. Yes, I will let her have the money; the child has a good deal of heart when all is said and done.”

So the Squire put two little rolls, neatly made up in brown paper, into Evelyn’s hands.

“There,” he said; “it is a great deal of money to trust a little girl with, but you shall have it; only you must not ask me for any more.”

“Oh, what a darling you are, Uncle Edward! I feel as if I must kiss you again. There! those kisses are full of love. Now I must go. But, oh, I say, what a funny parcel!”

“What parcel, dear?”

“That long parcel on that table.”

“It is a gun-case which I have not yet unpacked. Now run away.”

“But that reminds me. You said I might go out some day to shoot with you.”

“On some future day. I do not much care for girls using firearms; and you are so busy now with your school.”