A Very Naughty Girl Part 43

"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. Circ.u.mstances 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 s.h.i.+lling to obtain. Or, did I give her the s.h.i.+lling? 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 gla.s.s. The attic in which Mr. Leeson had stood so long had also been icy-cold. He s.h.i.+vered 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!"