Chapter 25 A Very Naughty Girl by L. T. Meade
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.”
“You think, perhaps, that I cannot fire a gun, but I can aim well; I can kill a bird on the wing as neatly as any one. I told Audrey, and she would not believe me. Please – please show me your new gun.
“Not now; I have not looked at it myself yet.”
“But you do believe that I can shoot?”
“Oh yes, dear – yes, I suppose so. All the same, I should be sorry to trust you; I do not approve of women carrying firearms. Now leave me, Evelyn; I have a good deal to attend to.”
Evelyn went to bed to think over her uncle’s words; her disgrace at school; the terrible dénouement which lay before her; the money, which seemed to her to be the only way out, and which would insure her comfort with Jasper wherever Jasper might like to take her; and finally, and by no means least, she meditated over the subject of her uncle’s new gun. On the ranch she had often carried a gun of her own; from her earliest days she had been accustomed to regard the women of her family as first-class shots. Her mother had herself taught her how to aim, how to fire, how to make allowance in order to bring her bird down on the wing, and Evelyn had followed out her instructions many times. She felt now that her uncle did not believe her, and the fear that this was the case irritated her beyond words.
“I do not pretend to be learned,” thought Evelyn, “and I do not pretend to be good, but there is one thing that I am, and that is a first-rate shot. Uncle Edward might show me his new gun. How little he guesses that I can manage it quite as well as he can himself!”
Two or three days passed without anything special occurring. Evelyn was fairly good at school; it was not, she considered, worth her while any longer to shirk her lessons. She began in spite of herself, and quite against her declared inclination, to have a sort of liking for her books. History was the only lesson which she thoroughly detested. She could not be civil to Miss Thompson, whom she considered her enemy; but to her other teachers she was fairly agreeable, and had already to a certain extent won the hearts of more than one of the girls in her form. She was bright and cheerful, and could say funny things; and as also she brought an unlimited supply of chocolates and other sweetmeats to school, these facts alone insured her being more or less of a favorite. At home she avoided her aunt and Audrey, and evening after evening she went to the stile to have a chat with Jasper.
Jasper never failed to meet her little girl, as she called Evelyn, at their arranged rendezvous. Evelyn managed to slip out without, as she thought, any one noticing her; and the days went by until there was only one day left before Miss Henderson would proclaim to the entire school that Evelyn Wynford was the guilty person who had torn the precious volume of Ruskin.
“When you come for me to-morrow night, Jasper,” said Evelyn, “I will go away with you. Are you quite sure that it is safe to take me back to The Priory?”
“Quite, quite safe, darling; hardly a soul knows that I am at The Priory, and certainly no one will suspect that you are there. Besides, the place is all undermined with cellars, and at the worst you and I could hide there together while the house was searched.”
“What fun!” cried Evelyn, clapping her hands. “I declare, Jasper, it is almost as good as a fairy story.”
“Quite as good, my little love.”
“And you will be sure to have a very, very nice supper ready for me to-morrow night?”
“Oh yes, dear; just the supper you like best – chocolate and sweet cakes.”
“And you will tuck me up in bed as you used to?”
“Darling, I have put a little white bed close to my own, where you shall sleep.”
“Oh Jasper, it will be nice to be with you again! And you are positive Sylvia will not tell?”
“She is sad about you, Evelyn, but she will not tell. I have arranged that.”
“And that terrible old man, her father, will he find out?”
“I think not, dear; he has not yet found out about me at any rate.”
“Perhaps, Jasper, I had better go back now; it is later than usual.”
“Be sure you bring the twenty pounds when you come to-morrow night,” said Jasper; “for my funds, what with one thing and another, are getting low.”
“Yes, I will bring the money,” replied Evelyn.
She returned to the house. No one saw her as she slipped in by the back entrance. She ran up to her room, smoothed her hair, and went down to the drawing-room. Lady Frances and Audrey were alone in the big room. They had been talking together, but instantly became silent when Evelyn entered.
“They have been abusing me, of course,” thought the little girl; and she flashed an angry glance first at one and then at the other.
“Evelyn,” said her aunt, “have you finished learning your lessons? You know how extremely particular Miss Henderson is that school tasks should be perfectly prepared.”
“My lessons are all right, thank you,” replied Evelyn in her brusquest voice. She flung herself into a chair and crossed her legs.
“Uncross your legs, my dear; that is a very unlady-like thing to do.”
Evelyn muttered something, but did what her aunt told her.
“Do not lean back so much, Evelyn; it is not good style. Do not poke out your chin, either; observe how Audrey sits.”
“I don’t want to observe how Audrey sits,” said Evelyn.
Lady Frances colored. She was about to speak, but a glance from her daughter restrained her. Just then Read came into the room. Between Read and Evelyn there was already a silent feud. Read now glanced at the young lady, tossed her head a trifle, and went up to Lady Frances.
“I am very sorry to trouble you, madam,” she said, “but if I may see you quite by yourself for a few moments I shall be very much obliged.”
“Certainly, Read; go into my boudoir and I will join you there,” said her mistress. “I know,” added Lady Frances graciously, “that you would not disturb me if you had not something important to say.”
“No, madam; I should be very sorry to do so.”
Lady Frances and Read now left the room, and Audrey and Evelyn were alone. Audrey uttered a sigh.
“What is the matter, Audrey?” asked her cousin.
“I am thinking of the day after to-morrow,” answered Audrey. “The unhappy girl who has kept her secret all this time will be openly denounced. It will be terribly exciting.”
“You do not pretend that you pity her!” said Evelyn in a voice of scorn.
“Indeed I do pity her.”
“What nonsense! That is not at all your way.”
“Why should you say that? It is my way. I pity all people who have done wrong most terribly.”
“Then have you ever pitied me since I came to England?”
“Oh yes, Evelyn – oh, indeed I have!”
“Please keep your pity to yourself; I don’t want it.”
Audrey relapsed into silence.
By and by Lady Frances came back; she was still accompanied by Read.
“What does a servant want in this room?” said Evelyn in her most disagreeable voice.
“Evelyn, come here,” said her aunt; “I have something to say to you.”
Evelyn went very unwillingly. Read stood a little in the background.
“Evelyn,” said Lady Frances, “I have just heard something that surprises me extremely, that pains me inexpressibly; it is true, so there is no use in your denying it, but I must tell you what Read has discovered.”
“Read!” cried Evelyn, her voice choking with passion and her face white. “Who believes what a tell-tale-tit of that sort says?”
“You must not be impertinent, my dear. I wish to tell you that Read has found you out. Your maid Jasper has not left this neighborhood, and you, Evelyn – you are naughty enough and daring enough to meet her every night by the stile that leads into the seven-acre meadow. Read observed your absence one night, and followed you herself to-night, and she discovered everything.”
“Did you hear what I was saying to Jasper?” asked Evelyn, turning her white face now and looking full at Read.
“No, Miss Evelyn,” replied the maid; “I would not demean myself to listen.”
“You would demean yourself to follow,” said Evelyn.
“Confess your sin, Evelyn, and do not scold Read,” interrupted Lady Frances.
“I have nothing to confess, Aunt Frances.”
“But you did it?”
“Certainly I did it.”
“You dared to go to meet a woman privately, clandestinely, whom I, your aunt, prohibited the house?”
“I dared to go to meet the woman my mother loved,” replied Evelyn, “and I am not a bit ashamed of it; and if I had the chance I would do it again.”
“You are a very, very naughty girl. I am more than angry with you. I am pained beyond words. What is to become of you I know not. You are a bad girl; I cannot bear to think that you should be in the same house with Audrey.”
“Loving the woman whom my mother loved does not make me a bad girl,” replied Evelyn. “But as you do not like to have me in the room, Aunt Frances, I will go away – I will go up-stairs. I think you are very, very unkind to me; I think you have been so from the first.”
“Do not dare to say another word to me, miss; go away immediately.”
Evelyn left the room. She was half-way up-stairs when she paused.
“What is the use of being good?” she said to herself. “What is the use of ever trying to please anybody? I really did not mean to be naughty when first I came, and if Aunt Frances had been different I might have been different too. What right had she to deprive me of Jasper when mothery said that Jasper was to stay with me? It is Aunt Frances’s fault that I am such a bad girl now. Well, thank goodness! I shall not be here much longer; I shall be away this time to-morrow night. The only person I shall be sorry to leave is Uncle Edward. Audrey and I will be going to school early in the morning, and then there will be the fuss and bustle and the getting away before Read sees me. Oh, that dreadful old Read! what can I do to blind her eyes to-morrow night? Throw dust into them in some fashion I must. I will just go and have one word of good-by with Uncle Edward now.”
Evelyn ran down the corridor which led to her uncle’s room. She tapped at the door. There was no answer. She opened the door softly and peeped in. The room was empty. She was just about to go away again, considerably crestfallen and disappointed, when her eyes fell upon the gun-case. Instantly a sparkle came into her eyes; she went up to the case, and removing the gun, proceeded to examine it. It was made on the newest pattern, and was light and easily carried. It held six chambers, all of which could be most simply and conveniently loaded.
Evelyn knew well how to load a gun, and finding the proper cartridges, now proceeded to enjoy herself by making the gun ready for use. Having loaded it, she returned it to its case.
“I know what I’ll do,” she thought. “Uncle Edward thinks that I cannot shoot; he thinks that I am not good at any one single thing. But I will show him. I’ll go out and shoot two birds on the wing before breakfast to-morrow; whether they are crows or whether they are doves or whether they are game, it does not matter in the least; I’ll bring them in and lay them at his feet, and say:
“Here is what your wild niece Evelyn can do; and now you will believe that she has one accomplishment which is not vouchsafed to other girls.”
So, having completed her task of putting the gun in absolute readiness for its first essay in the field, she returned the case to its corner and went up-stairs to bed.