Chapter 24 A Very Naughty Girl by L. T. Meade
“WHO IS E. W.?”
The one person who might have helped Evelyn was too busy with her own troubles just then to think a great deal about her. Poor Sylvia was visited with a very great dread. Her father’s manner was strange; she began to fear that he suspected Jasper’s presence in the house. If Jasper left, Sylvia felt that things must come to a crisis; she could not stand the life she had lived before the comfortable advent of this kindly but ill-informed woman. Sylvia was really very much attached to Jasper, and although she argued much over Evelyn, and disagreed strongly with her with regard to the best way to treat this unruly little member of society, Sylvia’s very life depended on Jasper’s purse and Jasper’s tact.
One by one the fowls disappeared, the same boy receiving them over the hedge day by day from Jasper. The boy sold each of the old hens for sixpence, and reaped quite a harvest in consequence. He was all too willing to keep Jasper’s secret. Jasper bought tender young cockerels from a neighbor in the village, conveyed them home under her arm, killed them, and dressed them in various and dainty manners for Mr. Leeson’s meals. He was loud in his praise of Sylvia, and told her that if the worst came to the worst she could go out as a lady cook.
“Nothing could give me such horror, my dear child,” he said, “as to think that a Leeson, and a member of one of the proudest families in the kingdom, should ever demean herself to earn money; but, my dear girl, in these days of chance and change one must be prepared for the worst – there never is any telling. Sylvia, I go through anxious moments – very, very anxious moments.”
“You do, father,” answered the girl. “You watch the post too much. I cannot imagine,” she continued, “why you are so fretted and so miserable, for surely we must spend very, very little indeed.”
“We spend more than we ought, Sylvia – far more. But there, dear, I am not complaining; I suppose a young girl must have dainties and fine dress.”
“Fine dress!” said Sylvia. She looked down at her shabby garment and colored painfully.
Mr. Leeson faced her with his bright and sunken dark eyes.
“Come here,” he said.
She went up to him, trembling and her head hanging.
“I saw you two days ago; it was Sunday, and you went to church. I was standing in the shrubbery. I was lost – yes, lost – in painful thoughts. Those recipes which I was about to give to the world were occupying my mind, and other things as well. You rushed by in your shabby dress; you went into the house by the back entrance. Sylvia dear, I sometimes think it would be wise to lock that door. With you and me alone in the house it might be safest to have only one mode of ingress.”
“But I always lock it when I go out,” said Sylvia; “and it saves so much time to be able to use the back entrance.”
“It is just like you, Sylvia; you argue about every thing I say. However, to proceed. You went in; I wondered at your speed. You came out again in a quarter of an hour transformed. Where did you get that dress?”
“What dress, father?”
“Do not prevaricate. Look me straight in the face and tell me. You were dressed in brown of rich shade and good material. You had a stylish and fanciful and hideous hat upon your head; it had feathers. My very breath was arrested when I saw the merry-andrew you made of yourself. You had furs, too – doubtless imitations, but still, to all appearance, rich furs – round neck and wrist. Sylvia, have you during these months and years been secretly saving money?”
“No, father.”
“You say ‘No, father,’ in a very strange tone. If you had no money to buy the dress, how did you get it?”
“It was – given to me.”
“By whom?”
“I would rather not say.”
“But you must say.”
Here Mr. Leeson took Sylvia by both her wrists; he held them tightly in his bony hands. He was seated, and he pulled her down towards him.
“Tell me at once. I insist upon knowing.”
“I cannot – there! I will not.”
“You defy me?”
“If that is defying you, father, yes. The dress was given to me.”
“You refuse to say by whom?”
“Yes, father.”
“Then leave my presence. I am angry, hurt. Sylvia, you must return it.”
“Again, no, father.”
“Sylvia, have you ever heard of the Fifth Commandment?”
“I have, father; but I will break it rather than return the dress. I have been a good daughter to you, but there are limits. You have no right to interfere. The dress was given to me; I did not steal it.”
“Now you are intolerable. I will not be agitated by you; I have enough to bear. Leave me this minute.”
Sylvia left the room. She did not go to Jasper; she felt that she could not expose her father in the eyes of this woman. She ran up to her own bedroom, locked the door, and flung herself on her bed. Of late she had not done this quite so often. Circumstances had been happier for her of late: her father had been strange, but at the same time affectionate; she had been fed, too, and warmed; and, oh! the pretty dress – the pretty dress – she had liked it. She was determined that she would not give it up; she would not submit to what she deemed tyranny. She wept for a little; then she got up, dried her tears, put on her cloak (sadly thin from wear), and went out. Pilot came, looked into her face, and begged for her company. She shook her head.
“No, darling; stay at home – guard him,” she whispered.
Pilot understood, and turned away. Sylvia found herself on the high-road. As she approached the gate, and as she spoke to Pilot, eager eyes watched her over the wire screen which protected the lower part of Mr. Leeson’s sitting-room.
“What can all this mean?” he said to himself. “There is a mystery about Sylvia. Sometimes I feel that there is a mystery about this house. Sylvia used to be a shocking cook; now the most dainty chef who has ever condescended to cook meals for my pampered palate can scarcely excel her. She confessed that she did not get the recipe from the gipsy; the gipsies had left the common, so she could not get what I gave her a shilling to obtain. Or, did I give her the shilling? I think not – I hope not. Oh, good gracious! if I did, and she lost it! I did not; I must have it here.”
He fumbled anxiously in his waistcoat pocket.
“Yes, yes,” he said, with a sigh of relief. “I put it here for her, but she did not need it. Thank goodness, it is safe!”
He looked at it affectionately, replaced it in its harbor of refuge, and thought on.
“Now, who gave her those rich and extravagant clothes? Can she possibly have been ransacking her mother’s trunks? I was under the impression that I had sold all my poor wife’s things, but it is possible I may have overlooked something. I will go and have a look now in the attics. I had her trunks conveyed there. I will go and have a look.”
When Mr. Leeson was engaged in what he was pleased to call a voyage of discovery, he, as a rule, stepped on tiptoe. As he wore, for purposes of economy, felt slippers when in the house, his steps made no noise. Now, it so happened that when Jasper arrived at The Priory she brought not only her own luggage, which was pretty considerable, but two or three boxes of Evelyn’s finery. These trunks having filled up Jasper’s bedroom and the kitchens to an unnecessary extent, she and Sylvia had contrived to drag them up to the attics in a distant part of the house without Mr. Leeson hearing. The trunks, therefore, mostly empty, which had contained the late Mrs. Leeson’s wardrobe and Evelyn’s trunks were now all together, in what was known as the back attic – that attic which stood, with Sylvia’s room between, exactly over the kitchen.
Mr. Leeson knew, as he imagined, every corner of the house. He was well aware of the room where his wife’s trunks were kept, and he went there now, determined, as he expressed it, to ferret out the mystery which was unsettling his life.
He reached the attic in question, and stared about him. There were the trunks which he remembered so well. Many marks of travel were on them – names of foreign hotels, names of distant places. Here was a trophy of a good time at Florence; here a remembrance of a delightful fortnight at Rome; here, again, of a week in Cairo; here, yet more, of a never-to-be-forgotten visit to Constantinople. He stared at the hall-marks of his past life as he gazed at his wife’s trunks, and for a time memory overpowered the lonely man, and he stood with his hands clasped and his head slightly bent, thinking – thinking of the days that were no more. No remorse, it is true, seized his conscience. He did not recognize how, step by step, the demon of his life had gained more and more power over him; how the trunks became too shabby for use, but the desire for money prevented his buying new ones. Those labels were old, and the places he and his wife had visited were much changed, and the hotels where they had stayed had many of them ceased to exist, but the labels put on by the hall porters remained on the trunks and bore witness against Mr. Leeson. He turned quickly from the sight.
“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.