Chapter 18 A Very Naughty Girl by L. T. Meade
A RED GIPSY CLOAK
Mr. Leeson looked quite well the next morning, and Sylvia ate her scanty breakfast with a happy heart; she no longer felt any qualms at leaving her father for the day. Jasper assured Sylvia over and over again that all would be well; that without in the least betraying the secret of her residence in the house, she would see to Mr. Leeson’s comforts. The difficulty now was for Sylvia to dress in her smart clothes and slip away without her father seeing her. She did not want to get to Castle Wynford much before one o’clock, but she would leave The Priory long before that hour and wander about in her usual fashion. No outdoor exercise tired this energetic girl. She looked forward to a whole long day of unalloyed bliss, to the society of other girls, to congenial warmth and comfort and luxury. She even looked forward with a pleasure, that her father would put down to distinct greediness, to nice, temptingly served meals. Oh yes, she meant to enjoy everything. She meant to drink this cup of bliss to the bottom, not to leave one drop untasted. Jasper seemed to share her pleasure. Jasper burdened her with many messages to Evelyn; she got Sylvia to promise that she would contrive a meeting between Evelyn and her old maid on the following day. Jasper selected the rendezvous, and told Sylvia exactly what she was to say to Evelyn.
“Whatever happens, I must see her,” said the woman. “Tell her there are many reasons; and tell her too that I am hungry for a sight of her – hungry, hungry.”
“Because you love her so much,” said Sylvia, a soft light in her eyes.
“Yes, my darling, that is it – I love her.”
“And she must love you very much,” said Sylvia.
Jasper uttered a quick sigh.
“It is not Evelyn’s way to love to extremities,” she said slowly. “You must not blame her, my dear; we are all made according to the will of the Almighty; and Evelyn – oh yes, she is as the apple of the eye to me, but I am nothing of that sort to her. You see, dear, her head is a bit turned with the lofty future that lies before her. In some ways it does not suit her; it would suit you, Miss Sylvia, or it would suit Miss Audrey, but it does not suit little Eve. It is too much for my little Eve; she would do better in a less exalted sphere.”
“Well, I do hope and trust she will be glad to see you and glad to hear about you,” said Sylvia. “I will be sure to tell her what a dear old thing you are. But, oh, Jasper, do you think she will notice the smart dress made out of her dress?”
“You can give her this note, dear; I am sending her a word of warning not to draw attention to your dress. And now, don’t you think you had better get into it, and let me see you out by the back premises?”
“I must go and see father just for a minute first,” said Sylvia.
She ran off, saw her father, as usual busily writing letters, and bent down to kiss him.
“Don’t disturb me,” he said in a querulous tone. “I am particularly busy. The post this morning has brought me some gratifying news. A little investment I made a short time ago in great fear and trembling has turned up trumps. I mean to put a trifle more money – oh, my dear! I only possess a trifle – into the same admirable undertaking (gold-mines, my dear), and if all that the prospectus says is true I shall be in very truth a rich man. Not yet, Sylvia – don’t you think it – but some day.”
“Oh father! and if you are – ”
“Why, you may spend a little more then, dear – a little more; but it is wrong to squander gold. Gold is a beautiful and precious thing, my dear; very beautiful, very precious, very hard to get.”
“Yes, father; and I hope you will have a great deal of it, and I hope you will put plenty – plenty of money into the – into the – ”
“Investment,” said Mr. Leeson. “The investment that sounds so promising. Don’t keep me now, love.”
“I am going out for a long walk, father; it is such a bright, sunshiny day. Good-by for the present.”
Mr. Leeson did not hear; he again bent over the letter which he was writing. Sylvia ran back to Jasper.
“He seems quite well,” she said, “and very much interested in what the post brought him this morning. I think I can leave him quite safely. You will be sure to see that he has his food.”
“Bless you, child! – yes.”
“And you will on no account betray that you live here?”
“Bless you, child! again – not I.”
“Well then, I will get into my finery. How grand and important I shall feel!”
So Sylvia was dressed in the brown costume and the pretty brown velvet hat, and she wore a little sable collar and a sable muff; and then she kissed Jasper, and telling her she would remember all the messages, started on her day of pleasure. Jasper saw her out by the back entrance. This entrance had been securely closed before Jasper’s advent, but between them the woman and the girl had managed to open the rusty gate, although Mr. Leeson was unaware that it had moved on its hinges for many a long day. It opened now to admit of Sylvia’s exit, and Jasper went slowly back to the house, meditating as she did so. Whatever her meditations were, they roused her to action. She engaged herself busily in her bedroom and kitchen. She opened her trunk and took out a small bag which contained her money. She had plenty of money, still, but it would not last always. Without Sylvia’s knowing it, she had often spent more than a pound a week on this establishment. It had been absolutely necessary for her to provide herself with warm bedclothes, and to add to the store of coals by purchasing anthracite coal, which is almost smokeless. In one way or another her hoard was diminished by twenty pounds; she had therefore only forty more. When this sum was spent she would be penniless.
“Not that I am afraid,” thought Jasper, “for Evelyn will have to give me more money – she must. I could not leave my dear little Sylvia now that I find the dreadful plight she is in; and I cannot stay far from my dear Evelyn, for although she does not love me as I love her, still, I should suffer great pain if I could not be, so to speak, within call. I wonder if my plan will succeed. I must have a try.”
Jasper, having fulfilled her small duties, sat for a time gazing straight before her. The hours went on. The little carriage clock which she kept in her bedroom struck eleven, then twelve.
“Time for him to have something,” thought Jasper. “Now, can I possibly manage? Yes, I think so.”
She took a saucepan, which held something mysterious, out into the open air. It was an old, shabby saucepan. She hid it in the shrubbery. She then went back to her room and changed her dress. She was some little time over her toilet, and when she once more emerged into view, the old Jasper, to all appearance, had vanished.
A dark, somewhat handsome woman, in a faded red gipsy cloak, now stood before the looking-glass. Jasper slipped out the back way, pushed aside the rusty gate, said a friendly word to Pilot, who wagged his tail with approbation, and carrying a basket on her arm, walked slowly down the road. She met one or two people, and accosted them in the true Romany style.
“May I tell your fortune, my pretty miss? May I cross your hand with silver and tell you of the fine gentleman who is going to ride by presently? Let me, my dear – let me.”
And when the young girl she addressed ran away giggling, little suspecting that Jasper was not a real gipsy, Jasper knew that her scheme had succeeded. She even induced a village boy to submit to her fortune-telling, and half-turned his head by telling him of a treasure to be found, and a wife in an upper class who would raise him once for all to a position of luxury. She presently pounded loudly on The Priory gates. Mr. Leeson had an acute ear; he always sat within view of these gates. His one desire was to keep all strangers from the premises; he had trained Pilot for the purpose. Accordingly Jasper’s knocks were not heeded. Sylvia was always desired to go to the village to get the necessary food; trades-people were not allowed on the premises. His letter occupied him intently; he was busy, too, looking over files of accounts and different prospectuses; he was engaged over that most fascinating pastime, counting up his riches. But, ah! ah! how poor he was! Oh, what a poverty-stricken man! He sighed and grumbled as he thought over these things. Jasper gave another furious knock, and finding that no attention was paid to her imperious summons, she pushed open the gate. Pilot immediately, as his custom was, appeared on guard. He stood in front of Jasper and just for a moment barked at her, but she gave him a mysterious sign, and he wagged his tail gently, went up to her, and let her pat him on the head. The next instant, to Mr. Leeson’s disgust, the gipsy and the dog were walking side by side up to the door. He sprang to his feet, and in a moment was standing on the steps.
“Go away, my good woman; go away at once. I cannot have you on the premises. I will set the dog on you if you don’t go away.”
“One minute, kind sir,” whined Jasper. “I have come to know if you have any fowls to sell. I want some fowls; old hens and cocks – not young pullets or anything of that sort. I want to buy them, sir, and I am prepared to give a good price.”
These extraordinary remarks aroused Mr. Leeson’s thoughtful attention. He had long been annoyed by the barn-door fowls, and they were decidedly old. He had often wished to dispose of them; they were too tough to eat, and they no longer laid eggs.
“If you will promise to take the fowls right away with you now, I do not mind selling them for a good price,” he said. “Are you prepared to give a good price? I wonder where my daughter is; she would know better than I what they are worth. Stand where you are, my good woman; do not attempt to move or the dog Pilot will fly at your throat. I will call my daughter.”
Mr. Leeson went into the house and shouted for Sylvia. Of course there was no answer.
“I forgot,” muttered Mr. Leeson. “Sylvia is out. Really that child over-exercises; such devotion to the open air must provoke unnecessary appetite. I wish that horrid gipsy would go away! How extraordinary that Pilot did not fly at her! But they say gipsies have great power over men and animals. Well, if she does give a fair price for the birds I may as well be quit of them; they annoy me a good deal, and some time, in consequence of them, some one may discover my treasure. Good heavens, how awful! The thought almost unmans me.”
Mr. Leeson therefore came out and spoke in quite a civil tone for him.
“If you will accompany me to the fowl-house I will show you the birds, but I may as well say at once that I won’t give them for a mere nothing, old as they are – and I should be the last to deceive you as to their age. They are of a rare kind, and interesting from a scientific point of view.”
“I do not know about scientific fowls,” replied the gipsy, “but I want to buy a few old hens to put into my pot.”
“Eh?” cried Mr. Leeson in a tone of interrogation. “Have you a recipe for boiling down old fowls?”
“Have not I, your honor! And soon they are done, too – in a jiffy, so to speak. But let me look at them, your honor, and I will pay you far more than any one else would give for them.”
“You won’t get them unless you give a very good sum. You gipsies, if the truth were known, are all enormously rich.”
He walked round to the hen-house, accompanied by the supposed gipsy and Pilot. The fowls, about a dozen in number, were strutting up and down their run. They were hungry, poor creatures, for they had had but a slight meal that morning. The gipsy pretended to bargain for them, keeping a sharp eye all the time on Mr. Leeson.
“This one,” she said, catching the most disreputable-looking of the birds, “is the one I want for the gipsies’ stew. There, I will give you ninepence for this bird.”
“Ninepence!” cried Mr. Leeson, almost shrieking out the word. “Do you think I would sell a valuable hen like that for ninepence? And you say it can be boiled down to eat tender!”
“Boiled down to eat tender!” said the supposed gipsy. “Why, it can be made delicious. There is broth in it, soup in it, and meat in it. There is dinner for four, and supper for four, and soup for four in this old hen!”
“And you offer me ninepence for such a valuable bird! I tell you what: I wish you would show me that recipe. I will give you sixpence for it. I do not know how to make an old hen tender.”
“Give me a quarter of an hour, your honor, and you will not know that you are not eating the youngest chicken in the land.”
“But how are you to cook it?”
“I will make a bit of fire in the shrubbery, and do it by a recipe of my own.”
“You are sure you will not go near the house?”
“No, your honor.”
“But how can a fowl that is now alive be fit to eat in a quarter of an hour?”
“It is a recipe of my grandmother’s, your honor, and I am not going to give it until you taste what the bird is like. Now, if you will go away I will get it ready for you.”
Mr. Leeson really felt interested.
“What a sensible woman!” he said to himself. “I shall try and get that recipe out of her for threepence; it will be valuable for my little book of cheap recipes; it would probably sell the book. How to make four dinners, four lunches, and four plates of soup out of an old hen. A most taking recipe – most taking!”
He walked up and down while the pretended gipsy heated up the stew she had already made out of a really tender chicken. The poor old hen was tied up so that she could not cackle or make any sound, and put into the bottom of the supposed gipsy’s basket; and presently Jasper appeared carrying the stew in a cracked basin.
“Here, your honor, eat it up before me, and tell me afterwards if a better or a more tender fowl ever existed.”
It was in this way that Mr. Leeson made an excellent repast. He was highly pleased, for decidedly the boniest and most scraggy of the fowls had been selected, and nothing could be more delicious than this stew. He fetched a plate and knife and fork from his sitting-room, where he always kept a certain amount of useful kitchen utensils, ate his dinner, pronounced it to be the best of the best, and desired the gipsy to leave the balance in the porch.
“Thank you,” he said; “it is admirable. And so you really made that out of my old hen in a few minutes? I will give you threepence if you will give me the recipe.”
“I could not sell it for threepence, sir – no, not for sixpence; no, not for a shilling. But I should like to make a bargain for the rest of the fowls.”
“How much will you give for each?”
“Taking them all in a heap, I will give sixpence apiece,” replied the gipsy.
Mr. Leeson uttered a scream.
“You have outdone yourself, my good woman,” he said. “Do you think I am going to give fowls that will make such delicious and nourishing food away for that trivial sum? My little daughter is a very clever cook, and I shall instruct her with regard to the serving up of the remainder of my poultry. If you will not give me the recipe I must ask you to go.”
The gipsy pretended to be extremely angry.
“I won’t go,” she said, “unless you allow me to tell you your fortune; I won’t stir, and that’s flat.”
“I do not believe in gipsy fortune-tellers. I shall have to call the police if you do not leave my establishment immediately.”
“And how will you manage when you don’t ever leave your own grounds? I am thinking it may be you are a bit afraid. People who stick so close to home often have a reason.”
This remark frightened Mr. Leeson very much. He was always in terror lest some one would guess that he kept his treasure on the premises.
“Look here,” he said, raising his voice. “You see before you the poorest man for my position in the whole of England; it is with the utmost difficulty that I can keep soul and body together. Observe the place; observe the house. Do you think I should care for a recipe to make old fowls tender if I were not in very truth a most poverty-stricken person?”
“I will tell you if you show me your palm,” said the gipsy.
Now, Mr. Leeson was superstitious. It was the last thing he credited himself with, but nevertheless he was. The gipsy, with her dancing black eyes, looked full at him. He had a shadowy, almost a fearful idea that he had seen that face before – he could not make out when. Then it occurred to him that this was the very face that had bent over him for an instant the night before when he was coming back from his fit of unconsciousness. Oh, it was impossible that the gipsy could have been here then! Had he seen her in a sort of vision? He felt startled and alarmed. The gipsy kept watching him; she seemed to be reading him through and through.
“I saw you in a dream,” she said. “And I know you will show your hand; and I know I have things to tell you, both good and bad.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Leeson, “here is sixpence. Tell me your gibberish, and then go.”
The gipsy looked twice at the coin.
“It is a poor one,” she said. “But them who is rich always give the smallest.”
“I am not rich, I tell you.”
“They who are rich find it hardest to part with their pelf. But I will take it.”
“I will give you a shilling if you’ll go. But it is hard for a very poor man to part with it.”
“Sixpence will do,” said the gipsy, with a laugh. “Give it me. Now show me your palm.”
She pretended to look steadily into the wrinkled palm of the miser’s hand, and then spoke.
“I see here,” she said, “much wealth. Yes, just where this cross lies is gold. I also see poverty. I also see a very great loss and a judgment.”
“Go!” screamed the angry man. “Do not tell me another word.”
He dashed into the house in absolute terror, and banged the hall door after him.
“I said I would give him a fright,” said Jasper to herself. “Well, if he don’t touch another morsel till Miss Sylvia comes home late to-night, he won’t die after my dinner. Ah, the poor old hen! I must get her out of the basket now or she will be suffocated.”
The gipsy walked slowly down the path, let herself out by the front entrance, walked round to the back, got in once more, and handed the old hen to a boy who was standing by the hedge.
“There,” she said. “There’s a present for you. Take it at once and go.”
“What do I want with it?” he asked in astonishment. “Why, it belongs to old Mr. Leeson, the miser!”
“Go – go!” she said. “You can sell it for sixpence, or a shilling, or whatever it will fetch, only take it away.”
The boy ran off laughing, the hen tucked under his arm.