Eve

Barbara was dissatisfied. She thought Jasper was encouraging Eve in her frivolity, was diverting her from the practical aims of life. She was angry with Jasper, and misinterpreted his motives. The friendship subsisting between her sister and the young steward was too warm. How far would it go? How was it to be arrested? Eve was inexperienced and wilful. Before she knew where she was, Jasper would have gained her young heart. She was so headstrong that Barbara doubted whether a word of caution would avail anything. Nevertheless, convinced that it was her duty to interfere, she did speak, and, of course, gained nothing by so doing. Barbara lacked tact. She spoke to Eve plainly, but guardedly.

‘Why, Bab! what are you thinking of? Why should I not be with Mr. Jasper?’ answered Eve to her sister’s expostulation. ‘I like him vastly; he talks delightfully, he knows so much about music, he plays and sings the tears into my eyes, and sets my feet tingling to dance. Papa does not object. When we are practising I leave the parlour door open for papa to hear. He says he enjoys listening. Oh, Barbie! I wish you loved music as I do. But as you don’t, let me go my way with the music, and you go your way with the groceries.’

‘My dearest sister,’ said Barbara, ‘I do not think it looks well to see you running after Mr. Jasper.’

‘Looks well!’ repeated Eve. ‘Who is to see me? Morwell is quite out of the world. Besides,’ she screwed up her pretty mouth to a pout, ‘I don’t run after him, he runs after me, of course.’

‘My dear, dear Eve,’ said Barbara earnestly, ‘you must not suffer him to do so.’

‘Why not?’ asked Eve frankly. ‘You like Ponto and puss to run after you, and the little black calf, and the pony in the paddock. What is the difference? You care for one sort of animals, and I for another. I detest dogs and cats and bullocks.’

‘Eve, sweetheart’ – poor Barbara felt her powerlessness to carry her point, even to make an impression, but in her conscientiousness believed herself bound to go on – ’your conduct is indiscreet. We must never part with our self-respect. That is the guardian angel given to girls by God.’

‘Oh, Bab!’ Eve burst out laughing. ‘What a dear, grave old Mother Hubbard you are! I am always doing, and always will do, exactly opposite to what you intend and expect. I know why you are lecturing me now. I will tell Mr. Jasper how jealous you have become.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Barbara, springing to her feet – she had been sitting beside Eve – ’do nothing of the sort. Do not mention my name to him. I am not jealous. It is an insult to me to make such a suggestion. Do I ever seek his company? Do I not shun it? No, Eve, I am moved only by uneasiness for you. You are thoughtless, and are playing a dangerous game with that man. When he sees how you seek his society, it flatters him, and his vanity will lead him to think of you with more warmth than is well. Understand this, Eve – there is a bar between him and you which should make the man keep his distance, and he shows a wicked want of consideration when he draws near you, relying on your ignorance.’

‘What are you hinting at?’

‘I cannot speak out as I wish, but I assure you of this, Eve, unless you are more careful of your conduct, I shall be forced to take steps to get Jasper Babb dismissed.’

Eve laughed, clapped her hands on her sister’s cheeks, kissed her lips and said, ‘You dear old Mother Hubbard, you can’t do it. Papa would not listen to you if I told him that I wanted Jasper to stay.’

Barbara was hurt. This was true, but it was unkind of Eve to say it. The young girl was herself aware that she had spoken unfeelingly, was sorry, and tried to make amends by coaxing her sister.

‘I want you to tell me,’ said Barbara, very gravely, ‘for you have not told me yet, who gave you the ring?’

‘I did not tell you because you said you knew. No one carries water to the sea or coals to Newcastle.’

‘Be candid with me, Eve.’

‘Am not I open as the day? Why should you complain?’

‘Eve, be serious. Was it Mr. Jasper who gave you the turquoise ring?’

‘Jasper!’ Eve held out her skirts daintily, and danced and made curtsies round her sister, in the prettiest, most coquettish, laughing way. ‘You dearest, you best, you most jealous of sisters; we will not quarrel over poor good Jasper. I don’t mind how much you pet the black calf. How absurd you are! You make me laugh sometimes at your density. There, do not cry. I would tell you all if I dared.’ Then warbling a strain, and still holding her skirts out, she danced as in a minuet, slowly out of the room, looking back over her shoulder at her distressed sister.

That was all Barbara had got by speaking – nothing, absolutely nothing. She knew that Eve would not be one wit more guarded in her conduct for what had been said to her. Barbara revolved in her mind the threat she had rashly made of driving Jasper away. That would necessitate the betrayal of his secret. Could she bring herself to this? Hardly. No, the utmost she could do was to threaten him that, unless he voluntarily departed, she would reveal the secret to her father.

A day or two after this scene, Barbara was again put to great distress by Eve’s conduct.

She knew well enough that she and her sister were invited to the Cloberrys to an afternoon party and dance. Eve had written and accepted before the accident to Mr. Jordan. Barbara had let her write, because she was herself that day much engaged and could not spare time. The groom had ridden over from Bradstone manor, and was waiting for an answer, just whilst Barbara was weighing out sago and tapioca. When Mr. Jordan was hurt, Barbara had wished to send a boy to Bradstone with a letter declining the party, but Mr. Coyshe had said that her father was not in danger, had insisted on Eve promising him a couple of dances, and had so strictly combated her desire to withdraw that she had given way.

In the afternoon, when the girls were ready to go, they came downstairs to kiss their father, and let him see them in their pretty dresses. The little carriage was at the door.

In the hall they met Jasper Babb, also dressed for the party. He held in his hands two lovely bouquets, one of yellow tea-scented roses, which he handed to Barbara, the other of Malmaison, delicate white, with a soft inner blush, which he offered to Eve. Whence had he procured them? No doubt he had been for them to a nursery at Tavistock.

Eve was in raptures over her Malmaison; it was a new rose, quite recently introduced, and she had never seen it before. She looked at it, uttered exclamations of delight, smelt at the flowers, then ran off to her father that she might show him her treasures.

Barbara thanked Jasper somewhat stiffly; she was puzzled. Why was he dressed?

‘Are you going to ride, or to drive us?’ asked Eve, skipping into the hall again. She had put her bunch in her girdle. She was charmingly dressed, with rose satin ribands in her hair, about her throat, round her waist. Her face was, in colour, itself like a souvenir de la Malmaison rose.

‘Whom are you addressing?’ asked Barbara seriously.

‘I am speaking to Jasper,’ answered Eve.

‘Mr. Jasper,’ said Barbara, ‘was not invited to Bradstone.’

‘Oh, that does not matter!’ said the ready Eve. ‘I accepted for him. You know, dear Bab – I mean Barbie – that I had to write, as you were up to your neck in tapioca. Well, at these parties there are so many girls and so few gentlemen, that I thought I would give the Cloberry girls and Mr. Jasper a pleasure at once, so I wrote to say that you and I accepted and would bring with us a young gentleman, a friend of papa, who was staying in the house. Mr. Jasper ought to know the neighbours, and get some pleasure.’

Barbara was aghast.

‘I think, Miss Eve, you have been playing tricks with me,’ said Jasper. ‘Surely I understood you that I had been specially invited, and that you had accordingly accepted for me.’

‘Did I?’ asked Eve carelessly; ‘it is all the same. The Cloberry girls will be delighted to see you. Last time I was there they said they hoped to have an afternoon dance, but were troubled how to find gentlemen as partners for all the pretty Misses.’

‘That being so,’ said Barbara sternly, turning as she spoke to Jasper, ‘of course you do not go?’

‘Not go!’ exclaimed Eve; ‘to be sure he goes. We are engaged to each other for a score of dances.’ Then, seeing the gloom gathering on her sister’s brow, she explained, ‘It is a plan between us so as to get free from Doctor Squash. When Squash asks my hand, I can say I am engaged. I have been booked by him for two dances, and he shall have no more.’

‘You have been inconsiderate,’ said Barbara. ‘Unfortunately Mr. Babb cannot leave Morwell, as my father is in his bed – it is not possible.’

‘I have no desire to go,’ said Jasper.

‘I do not suppose you have,’ said Barbara haughtily, turning to him. ‘You are judge of what is right and fitting – in every way.’

Then Eve’s temper broke out. Her cheeks flushed, her lips quivered, and the tears started into her eyes. ‘I will not allow Mr. Jasper to be thus treated,’ she exclaimed. ‘I cannot understand you, Barbie; how can you, who are usually so considerate, grudge Mr. Jasper a little pleasure? He has been working hard for papa, and he has been kind to me, and he has made your garden pretty, and now you are mean and ungrateful, and send him back to his room when he is dressed for the party. I’ll go and ask papa to interfere.’

Then she ran off to her father’s room.

The moment Eve was out of hearing, Barbara’s anger blazed forth. ‘You are not acting right. You forget your position; you forget who you are. How dare you allow my sister – ? If you had a spark of honour, a grain of good feeling in your heart, you would keep her at arm’s length. She is a child, inconsiderate and confiding; you are a man with such a foul stain on your name, that you must not come near those who are clean, lest you smirch them. Keep to yourself, sir! Away!’

‘Miss Jordan,’ he answered, with a troubled expression on his face and a quiver in his voice, ‘you are hard on me. I had no desire whatever to go to this dance, but Miss Eve told me it was arranged that I was to go, and I am obedient in this house. Of course, now I withdraw.’

‘Of course you do. Good heavens! In a few days some chance might bring all to light, and then it would be the scandal of the neighbourhood that we had introduced – that Eve had danced with – an escaped jail-bird – a vulgar thief.’

She walked out through the door, and threw the bunch of yellow roses upon the plot of grass in the quadrangle.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WHERE THEY WITHERED

Barbara did not enjoy the party at the Cloberrys. She was dull and abstracted. It was otherwise with Eve. During the drive she had sulked; she was in a pet with Barbara, who was a stupid, tiresome marplot. But when she arrived at Bradstone and was surrounded by admirers, when she had difficulty, not in getting partners, but in selecting among those who pressed themselves on her, Eve’s spirits were elated. She forgot about Jasper, Barbara, her father, about everything but present delight. With sparkling eyes, heightened colour, and dimples that came and went in her smiling face, she sailed past Barbara without observing her, engrossed in the pleasure of the dance, and in playing with her partner.

Barbara was content to be unnoticed. She sat by herself in a corner, scarce noticing what went on, so wrapped up was she in her thoughts. Her mood was observed by her hostess, and attributed to anxiety for her father. Mrs. Cloberry went to her, seated herself at her side, and talked to her kindly about Mr. Jordan and his accident.

‘You have a friend staying with you. We rather expected him,’ said Mrs. Cloberry.

‘Oh!’ Barbara answered, ‘that was dear Eve’s nonsense. She is a child, and does not think. My father has engaged a steward; of course he could not come.’

‘How lovely Eve is!’ said Mrs. Cloberry. ‘I think I never saw so exquisite a creature.’

‘And she is as good and sweet as she is lovely,’ answered Barbara, always eager to sing her sister’s praises.

Eve’s roses were greatly admired. She had her posy out of her waistband showing the roses, and many a compliment was occasioned by them. ‘Barbara had a beautifull bouquet also,’ she said, and looked round. ‘Oh, Bab! where are your yellow roses?’

‘I have dropped them,’ answered Barbara.

Besides dancing there was singing. Eve required little pressing.

‘My dear Miss Jordan,’ said Mrs. Cloberry, ‘how your sister has improved in style. Who has been giving her lessons?’

The party was a pleasant one; it broke up early. It began at four o’clock and was over when the sun set. As the sisters drove home, Eve prattled as a brook over stones. She had perfectly enjoyed herself. She had outshone every girl present, had been much courted and greatly flattered. Eve was not a vain girl; she knew she was pretty, and accepted homage as her right. Her father and sister had ever been her slaves; and she expected to find everyone wear chains before her. But there was no vulgar conceit about her. A queen born to wear the crown grows up to expect reverence and devotion. It is her due. So with Eve; she had been a queen in Morwell since infancy.

Barbara listened to her talk and answered her in monosyllables, but her mind was not with the subject of Eve’s conversation. She was thinking then, and she had been thinking at Bradstone, whilst the floor throbbed with dancing feet, whilst singers were performing, of that bouquet of yellow roses which she had flung away. Was it still lying on the grass in the quadrangle? Had Jane, the housemaid, seen it, picked it up, and taken it to adorn the kitchen table?

She knew that Jasper must have taken a long walk to procure those two bunches of roses. She knew that he could ill afford the expense. When he was ill, she had put aside his little purse containing his private money, and had counted it, to make sure that none was lost or taken. She knew that he was poor. Out of the small sum he owned he must have paid a good deal for these roses.

She had thrown her bunch away in angry scorn, under his eyes. She had been greatly provoked; but – had she behaved in a ladylike and Christian spirit? She might have left her roses in a tumbler in the parlour or the hall. That would have been a courteous rebuff – but to fling them away!

There are as many conflicting currents in the human soul as in the ocean; some run from east to west, and some from north to south, some are sweet and some bitter, some hot and others cold. Only in the Sargasso Sea are there no currents – and that is a sea of weeds. What we believe to-day we reject to-morrow; we are resentful at one moment over a wrong inflicted, and are repentant the next for having been ourselves the wrong-doer. Barbara had been in fiery indignation at three o’clock against Jasper; by five she was cooler, and by six reproached herself.

As the sisters drove into the little quadrangle, Barbara turned her head aside, and whilst she made as though she were unwinding the knitted shawl that was wrapt about her head, she looked across the turf, and saw lying, where she had cast it, the bunch of roses.

The stable-boy came with his lantern to take the horse and carriage, and the sisters dismounted. Jane appeared at the hall door to divest them of their wraps.

‘How is papa?’ asked Eve; then, without waiting for an answer, she ran into her father’s room to kiss him and tell him of the party, and show herself again in her pretty dress, and again receive his words of praise and love.

But Barbara remained at the door, leisurely folding her cloak. Then she put both her own and her sister’s parasols together in the stand. Then she stood brushing her soles on the mat – quite unnecessarily, as they were not dirty.

‘You may go away, Jane,’ said Barbara to the maid, who lingered at the door.

‘Please, Miss, I’m waiting for you to come in, that I may lock up.’

Then Barbara was obliged to enter.

‘Has Mr. Babb been with my father?’ she asked.

‘No, Miss. I haven’t seen him since you left.’

‘You may go to bed, Jane. It is washing-day to-morrow, and you will have to be up at four. Has not Mr. Babb had his supper?’

‘No, Miss. He has not been here at all.’

‘That will do.’ She signed the maid to leave.

She stood in the hall, hesitating. Should she unbar the door and go out and recover the roses? Eve would leave her father’s room in a moment, and ask questions which it would be inconvenient to answer. Let them lie. She went upstairs with her sister, after having wished her father good-night.

‘Barbie, dear!’ said Eve, ‘did you observe Mr. Squash?’

‘Do not, Eve. That is not his name.’

‘I think he looked a little disconcerted. I repudiated.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I refused to be bound by the engagements we had made for a quadrille and a waltz. I did not want to dance with him, and I did not.’

‘Run back into your room, darling, and go to bed.’

When Barbara was alone she went to her window and opened it. The window looked into the court. If she leaned her head out far, she could see where the bunch of roses ought to be. But she could not see them, though she looked, for the grass lay dusk in the shadows. The moon was rising, and shone on the long roof like steel, and the light was creeping down the wall. That long roof was over the washhouse, and next morning at early dawn the maids would cross the quadrangle with the linen and carry fuel, and would either trample on or pick up and appropriate the bunch of yellow roses.

Barbara remembered every word that she had said to Jasper. She could not forget – and now could not forgive herself. Her words had been cruel; how they must have wounded him! He had not been seen since. Perhaps he was gone and would not return again. They and she would see him no more. That would be well in one way, it would relieve her of anxiety about Eve; but, on the other hand, Jasper had proved himself most useful, and, above all – he was repentant. Her treatment of him might make him desperate, and cause him to abandon his resolutions to amend. Barbara knelt at the window, and prayed.

The white owls were flying about the old house. They had their nests in the great barn. The bats were squeaking as they whisked across the quadrangle, hunting gnats.

When Barbara rose from her knees her eyes were moist. She stood on tiptoe and looked forth from the casement again. The moonlight had reached the sward, drawing a sharp line of light across it, broken by one brighter speck – the bunch of roses.

Then Barbara, without her shoes, stole downstairs. There was sufficient light in the hall for her to find her way across it to the main door. She very softly unbarred it, and still in her stockings, unshod, went out on the doorstep, over the gravel, the dewy grass, and picked up the cold wet bunch.

Then she slipped in again, refastened the door, and with beating heart regained her room.

Now that she had the roses, what should she do with them? She stood in the middle of her room near the candle, looking at them. They were not much faded. The sun had not reached them, and the cool grass had kept them fresh. They were very delicately formed, lovely roses, and freshly sweet. What should she do with them? If they were put in a tumbler they would flourish for a few days, and then the leaves would fall off, and leave a dead cluster of seedless rose-hearts.

Barbara had a desk that had belonged to her mother, and this desk had in it a secret drawer. In this drawer Barbara preserved a few special treasures; a miniature of her mother, a silver cold-cream capsule with the head of Queen Anne on it, that had belonged to her grandmother, the ring of brilliants and sapphire that had come to her from her aunt, and a lock of Eve’s hair when she was a baby. Barbara folded the roses in a sheet of white paper, wrote in pencil on it the date, and placed them in the secret drawer, there to wither along with the greatest treasures she possessed.

Barbara’s heart was no Sargasso Sea. In it ran currents strong and contrary. What she cast away with scorn in the afternoon, she sought and hid as a treasure in the night.

CHAPTER XXV.

LEAH AND RACHEL

Sunday was a quiet day at Morwell. As the Jordans were Catholics they did not attend their parish church, which was Tavistock, some four miles distant. The servants went, or pretended to go. Morwell was quiet on all days, it was most quiet of all on a bright Sunday, for then there were fewest people about the old house.

Jasper Babb had not run away, offended at Barbara’s rudeness. He went about his work as usual, was as little seen of the sisters as might be, and silent when in their company.

On Sunday evening Barbara and Eve strolled out together; it was their wont to do so on that day, when the weather permitted. Jane, the housemaid, was at home with their father.

They directed their steps as usual to the Raven Rock, which commanded so splendid a view to the west, was so airy, and so sunny a spot that they liked to sit there and talk. It was not often that Barbara had the leisure for such a ramble; on Sundays she made a point of it. As the two girls emerged from the wood, and came out on the platform of rock, they were surprised to see Jasper seated there with a book on his knee. He rose at once on hearing their voices and seeing them. If he had wished to escape, escape was impossible, for the rock descends on all sides sheer to great depths, except where the path leads to it.

‘Do not let us disturb you,’ said Barbara; ‘we will withdraw if we interrupt your studies.’

‘What is the book?’ asked Eve. ‘If it be poetry, read us something from it.’

He hesitated a moment, then with a smile said, ‘It contains the noblest poetry – it is my Bible.’

‘The Bible!’ exclaimed Barbara. She was pleased. He certainly was sincere in his repentance. He would not have gone away to a private spot to read the sacred volume unless he were in earnest.

‘Let us sit down, Barbie!’ said Eve. ‘Don’t run away, Mr. Jasper.’

‘As Mr. Jasper was reading, and you asked him to give you something from the book, I will join in the request.’

‘I thought it was perhaps – Byron,’ said Eve.

‘As it is not Byron, but something better, we shall be all the better satisfied to have it read to us,’ said Barbara.

‘Well, then, some of the story part, please,’ asked Eve, screwing up her mouth, ‘and not much of it.’

‘I should prefer a Psalm,’ said Barbara; ‘or a chapter from one of the Epistles.’

‘I do not know what to read,’ Jasper said smiling, ‘as each of you asks for something different.’

‘I have an idea,’ exclaimed Eve. ‘He shall hold the book shut. I will close my eyes and open the volume at hap-hazard, and point with my finger. He shall read that, and we can conjure from it, or guess our characters, or read our fate. Then you shall do the same. Will that please you?’

‘I do not know about guessing characters and reading our fate; our characters we know by introspection, and the future is hidden from our eyes by the same Hand that sent the book. But if you wish Mr. Jasper to be guided by this method what to read, I do not object.’

‘Very well,’ said Eve, in glee; ‘that will be fun! You will promise, Barbie, to shut your eyes when you open and put your finger on a page? And, Mr. Jasper, you promise to read exactly what my sister and I select?’

‘Yes,’ answered both to whom she appealed.

‘But mind this,’ pursued the lively girl; ‘you must stop as soon as I am tired.’

Then first, eager in all she did that promised entertainment or diversion, she took the Bible from Mr. Babb’s hands, and closed her eyes; a pretty smile played about her flexible lips as she sat groping with her finger among the pages. Then she opened the book and her blue orbs together.

‘There!’ she exclaimed, ‘I have made my choice; yet – wait! I will mark my place, and then pass the book to Bab – I mean, Barbie.’ She had a wild summer rose in her bosom. She pulled off a petal, touched it with her tongue, and put the leaf at the spot she had selected.

Then she shut the Bible with a snap, laughed, and handed it to her sister.

‘I need not shut my eyes,’ said Barbara; ‘I will look you full in the face, Eve.’ Then she took the book and felt for the end pages that she might light on an Epistle; just as she saw that Eve had groped for an early part of the book that she might have a story from the times of the patriarchs. She did not know that Eve in handing her the book had not turned it; consequently she held the Bible reversed. Barbara held a buttercup in her hand. She was so accustomed to use her fingers, that it was strange to her to have nothing to employ them. As they came through the meadows she had picked a few flowers, broken the stalks and thrown them away. There remained in her hand but one buttercup.