A Very Naughty Girl Part 55

"Who are you, woman?" he said. "How dare you come into my house? What are you doing in my daughter's room?"

"Ah, Mr. Leeson," said Jasper quietly, "discovered at last. Well, sir, and I am not sorry."

"But who are you? What are you? What are you doing in my daughter's room?"

"Will you come down to the parlor with me, Mr. Leeson, or shall I explain here?"

"You do not stir a step from this place until you tell me."

"Then I will, sir-I will. I have been living in this house for the last six weeks. During that time I have paid Miss Sylvia, and she has had money enough to keep the breath of life within her. Be thankful that I came, Mr. Leeson, for you owe me much, and I owe you nothing. Ah! do you recognize me now? The gipsy-forsooth!-the gipsy who gave you a recipe for making the old hen tender! Ha, ha! I laugh as I thought never to laugh again when I recall that day."

Mr. Leeson stood cold and white, looking full at Jasper. Suddenly a great dizziness took possession of him; he stretched out his hand wildly.

"There is something wrong with me," he said. "I don't think I am well."

"Poor old gentleman!" said Jasper-"no wonder!" and her voice became mild. "The shock of it all, and the confusion! Sakes alive! I am not going to take you into that icy bedroom of yours. Lean on me. There now, sir. You have not lost a penny by me; you have saved, on the contrary, and I have kept your daughter alive, and I have given you the best food, made out of the tenderest chickens, out of my own money, mark you-out of my own money-for weeks and weeks. Come down-stairs, sir; come and I will get you a bit of breakfast."

"I-cannot-see," muttered Mr. Leeson again.

"Well then, sir, I suppose you can feel. Anyhow, here is a good, strong right arm. Lean on it-all your weight if you like. Now then, we will get down-stairs."

Mr. Leeson was past resistance. Jasper pulled his shaky old hand through her arm, and half-carried, half-dragged him down to the parlor. There she put him in a big armchair near the fire, and was bustling out of the room to get breakfast when he called her back.

"So you really are the woman who had the recipe for making old hens tender?"

"Bless you, Mr. Leeson!-bless you!-yes, I am the woman."

"You will let me buy it from you?"

"Certainly-yes," replied Jasper, not quite knowing whether to laugh or to cry. "But I am going to get you some breakfast now."

"And who is the other girl?"

"Does he know about her too?" thought Jasper. "What can have happened in the night?"

"If you mean my dear little Miss Eve, why, no one has a better right to be here, for she belongs to me and I pay for her-yes, every penny; and, for the matter of that, she only came last night. But do not fash yourself now, my good sir; you are past thought, I take it, and you want a hearty meal."

Jasper bustled away; Mr. Leeson lay back in his chair. Was the world turning upside down? What had happened? Oh, if only he could feel well!

If only that giddiness would leave him! What was the matter? He had been so well and so fierce and so strong a few hours ago, and now-now even his anger was slipping away from him. He had felt quite comforted when he leaned on Jasper's strong arm; and when she pushed him into the armchair and wrapped an old blanket round him, he had enjoyed it rather than otherwise. Oh! he ought to be nearly mad with rage; and yet somehow-somehow he was not.

CHAPTER x.x.x.-THE LOADED GUN.

Now, it so happened that the fuss and confusion incident on Evelyn's departure had penetrated to every individual in the Castle with the exception of the Squire; but the Squire had been absent all day on business. He had been attending a very important meeting in a neighboring town, and, as his custom was, told his wife that he should probably not return until the early morning. When this was the case the door opening into his private apartments was left on the latch. He could himself open it with his latch-key and let himself in, go to bed in a small room prepared for the purpose, and not disturb the rest of the family. Lady Frances had many times during the previous evening lamented her husband's absence, but when twelve o'clock came and the police who had been sent to search for Evelyn could nowhere find the little girl, and when the different servants had searched the house in vain, and all that one woman could think of had been done, Lady Frances, feeling uncomfortable, but also convinced in her own mind that Evelyn and Jasper were quite safe and snug somewhere, resolved to go to bed.

"It is no use, Audrey," she said to her daughter; "you have cried yourself out of recognition. My dear child, you must go to bed now, and to sleep. That naughty, naughty girl is not worth our all being ill."

"But, oh, mother! what has happened to her?"

"She is with Jasper, of course."

"But suppose she is not, mother?"

"I do not suppose what is not the case, Audrey. She is beyond doubt with that pernicious woman, and as far as I am concerned I wash my hands of her."

"And-the disgrace to-morrow?" said poor Audrey.

"My darling, you at least shall not be subjected to it. If I could find Evelyn I would take her myself to the school, and make her stand up before the scholars and tell them all that she had done; or if she refused I would tell for her. But as she is not here you are not going to be disgraced, my precious. I shall write a line to Miss Henderson telling her that the guilty party has flown, and that you are far too distressed to go to school; and I shall beg her to take any steps she thinks best. Really and truly that girl has made the place too hot to live in; I shall ask your father to take us abroad for the winter."

"But surely, mother, you will not allow poor little Evelyn to get quite lost; you will try to find her?"

"Oh, my dear! have I not been trying? Do not say any more to me about her to-night. I am really so irritated that I may say something I shall be sorry for afterwards."

So Audrey went to bed, and being young, she soon dropped asleep. Lady Frances, being dead tired, also slept; and the Squire, who knew nothing of all the fuss and trouble, came in at an early hour in the morning.

He lay down to sleep, and awoke after a short slumber. He then got up, dressed, and went into his grounds.

Lady Frances and Audrey were at breakfast-Lady Frances very pale, and Audrey with traces of her violent weeping the night before still on her face-when a servant burst in great terror and excitement into the room.

"Oh, your ladyship," he exclaimed, "the Squire is lying in the copse badly shot with his own gun! One of the grooms is with him, and Jones has gone for the doctor, and I came at once to tell your ladyship."

Poor Lady Frances in her agony scarcely knew what she was doing. Audrey asked a frenzied question, and soon the two were bending over the stricken man. The Squire was shot badly in the side. A new fowling-piece lay a yard or two away.

"How did it happen?" said Lady Frances. "What can it mean?"

Audrey knelt by her father, took his icy-cold hand in hers, and held it to her lips. Was he dead?

As he lay there the young girl for the first time in all her life learned how pa.s.sionately, how dearly she loved him. What would life be without him? In some ways she was nearer to her mother than to her father, but just now, as he lay looking like death itself, he was all in all to her.

"Oh, when will the doctor come?" said Lady Frances, raising her haggard face. "Oh, he is bleeding to death-he is bleeding to death!"

With all her knowledge-and it was considerable-with all her common-sense, on which she prided herself, Lady Frances knew very little about illness and still less about wounds. She did not know how to stop the bleeding, and it was well the doctor, a bright-faced young man from the neighboring village, was soon on the spot. He examined the wounds, looked at the gun, did what was necessary to stop the immediate bleeding, and soon the Squire was carried on a hastily improvised litter back to his stately home.

An hour ago in the prime of life, in the prime of strength; now, for all his terrified wife and daughter could know, he was already in the shadow of death.

"Will he die, doctor?" asked Audrey.

The young doctor looked at her pitifully.

"I cannot tell," he replied; "it depends upon how far the bullet has penetrated. It is unfortunate that he should have been shot in such a dangerous part of the body. How did it happen?"

A groom now came up and told a hasty tale.

"The Squire called me this morning," he said, "and told me to go into his study and bring him out his new fowling-piece, which had been sent from London a few days ago. I brought it just as it was. He took it without noticing it much. I was about to turn round and say to him, 'It is at full c.o.c.k-perhaps you don't know, sir,' but I thought, of course, he had loaded it and prepared it himself; and the next minute he was climbing a hedge. I heard a report, and he was lying just where you found him."

The question which immediately followed this recital was, "Who had loaded the gun?"