DISCOVERIES.
A BEAUTIFUL summer evening. Eve from her window saw Jasper in the
garden; he was trimming the flower-beds which had been neglected since
Christopher Davy had been ill. The men were busy on the farm, too busy
to be taken off for flower gardening. Barbara had said one day that
it was a pity the beds were not put to rights; and now Jasper was
attending to her wishes during her absence. Mr. Jordan was out. He had
gone forth with his hammer, and there was no telling when he would
return. Eve disliked being alone. She must talk to someone. She brushed
her beautiful hair, looked in the glass, adjusted a scarf round her
shoulders, and in a coquettish way tripped into the garden and began to
pick the flowers, peeping at Jasper out of the corners of her eyes, to
see if he were observing her. He, however, paid no attention to what
she was doing. In a fit of impatience, she flung the auriculas and
polyanthus she had picked on the path, and threw herself pouting into
the nearest garden seat.
‘Mr. Jasper!’ she called; ‘are you so mightily busy that you cannot
afford me a word?’
‘I am always and altogether at your service, dear Miss Eve.’
‘Why have you taken to gardening? Are you fond of flowers?’
‘I am devoted to flowers.’
‘So am I. I pick them.’
‘And throw them away,’ said Jasper, stooping and collecting those she
had strewn on the path.
‘Well—I have not the patience to garden. I leave all that to Barbara
and old Christopher. I wish things generally, gardens included, would
go along without giving trouble. I wish my sister were home.’
‘To relieve you of all responsibility and trouble.’
‘I hate trouble,’ said Eve frankly, ‘and responsibility is like a burr
in one’s clothes—detestable. There! you are laughing at me, Mr. Jasper.’
‘I am not laughing, I am sighing.’
‘Oh, you are always sad.’
‘I do not like to hear you talk in this manner. You cannot expect to
have your sister at your elbow throughout life, to fan off all the
flies that tease you.’
‘If I have not Bab, I shall have someone else.’
‘Miss Barbara might marry—and then——’
‘Barbara marry!’ exclaimed Eve, and clapped her hands. ‘The idea is too
absurd. Who would marry her? She is a dear, darling girl, but——’
‘But what, missie?’
‘I dare say I shall marry.’
‘Miss Eve! listen to me. It is most likely that you will be married
some day, but what then? You will have a thousand more cares on your
shoulders than you have now, duties you will be forced to bear,
troubles which will encompass you on all sides.’
‘Do you know,’ said Eve, with a twinkling face, and a sly look in her
eyes, ‘do you know, Mr. Jasper, I don’t think I shall marry for ever so
long. But I have a glorious scheme in my head. As my money is gone, if
anything should happen to us, I should dearly like to go on the stage.
That would be simply splendid!’
‘The young crows,’ said Jasper gravely, ‘live on the dew of heaven,
and then they are covered with a soft shining down. After a while the
old birds bring them carrion, and when they have tasted flesh, they no
longer have any liking for dew. Then the black feathers sprout, then
only.’ He raised his dark eyes to those of Eve, and said in a deep,
vibrating voice, ‘I would have this sweet fledgling sit still in her
beautiful Morwell nest, and drink only the sparkling drops that fall
into her mouth from the finger of God. I cannot bear to think of her
growing black feathers, and hopping about—a carrion crow.’
Eve fidgeted on her seat. She had thrust her pretty feet before her,
clad in white stockings and blue leather slippers, one on the other;
she crossed and recrossed them impatiently.
‘I do not like you to talk to me like this. I am tired of living in the
wilds where one sees nobody, and where I can never go to theatre or
concert or ball. I should—oh, I should like to live in a town.’
‘You are a child, Miss Eve, and think and talk like a child. But the
time is coming when you must put away childish things, and face life
seriously.’
‘It is not wicked to want to go to a town. There is no harm in dreaming
that I am an actress. Oh!’ she exclaimed, held up her hands, and
laughed, ‘that would be too delightful!’
‘What has put this mad fancy into your head?’
‘Two or three things. I will confide in you, dear Mr. Jasper, if you
can spare the time to listen. This morning as I had nothing to do,
and no one to talk to, I thought I would search the garrets here. I
have never been over them, and they are extensive. Barbara has always
dissuaded me from going up there because they are so dusty and hung
with cobwebs. There is such a lot of rubbish heaped up and packed away
in the attics. I don’t believe that Barbara knows what is there. I
don’t fancy papa does. Well! I went up to-day and found treasures.’
‘Pray, what treasures?’
‘Barbara is away, and there is no one to scold. There are boxes there,
and old chairs, all kinds of things, some are so heavy I could hardly
move them. I could not get them back into their places again, if I were
to try.’
‘So you threw the entire garret into disorder?’
‘Pretty well, but I will send up one of the men or maids to tidy it
before Barbara comes home. Behind an old broken winnowing machine—fancy
a winnowing machine up there!—and under a pile of old pans and
bottomless crocks is a chest, to which I got with infinite trouble, and
not till I was very hot and dirty. I found it was locked, but the rust
had eaten through the hinges, or the nails fastening them; and after
working the lid about awhile I was able to lift it. What do you suppose
I found inside?’
‘I cannot guess.’
‘No, I am sure you cannot. Wait—go on with your gardening. I will bring
you one of my treasures.’
She darted into the house, and after a few minutes, Jasper heard a
tinkling as of brass. Then Eve danced out to him, laughing and shaking
a tambourine.
‘I suppose it belonged to you or Miss Jordan when you were children,
and was stowed away under the mistaken impression that you had outgrown
toys.’
‘No, Mr. Jasper, it never belonged to either Barbara or me. I never
had one. Barbara gave me everything of her own I wanted. I could not
have forgotten this. I would have played with it till I had broken the
parchment, and shaken out all the little bells.’
‘Give it to me. I will tighten the parchment, and then you can drum on
it with your fingers.’ He took the instrument from her, and strained
the cover. ‘Do you know, Miss Eve, how to use a tambourine?’
‘No. I shake it, and then all the little bells tingle.’
‘Yes, but you also tap the drum. You want music as an accompaniment,
and to that you dance with this toy.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I will show you how I have seen it played by Italian and gipsy
girls.’ He took the tambourine, and singing a lively dance air, struck
the drum and clinked the brasses. He danced before Eve gravely, with
graceful movements.
‘That is it!’ cried Eve, with eyes that flashed with delight, and
with feet that itched to dance. ‘Oh, give it me back. I understand
thoroughly now, thank you, thank you so heartily, dear Mr. Jasper. And
now—I have not done. Come up into the garret when I call.’
‘What for? To help you to make more rummage, and find more toys?’
‘No! I want you to push the winnowing machine back, and to make order
in the litter I have created.’
Jasper nodded good-humouredly.
Then Eve, rattling her tambourine over her head, ran in; and Jasper
resumed his work at the flower-beds. Barbara’s heliotrope, from which
she so often wore a fragrant flower, had not been planted many weeks.
It was straggling, and needed pinning down. Her seedling asters had not
been pricked out in a bed, and they were crowding each other in their
box. He took them out and divided their interlaced roots.
‘Mr. Jasper!’ A little face was peeping out of the small window in the
gable that lighted the attic. He looked up, waved his hand, and laid
down the young asters with a sigh, but covered their roots with earth
before leaving them.
Then he washed his hands at the Abbot’s Well, and slowly ascended the
stair to the attic. It was a newel stone flight, very narrow, in the
thickness of the wall.
When he reached the top he threw up a trap in the floor, and pushed his
head through.
Then, indeed, he was surprised. The inconsiderate Eve had taken some
candle ends and stuck them on the binding beam of the roof, and lighted
them. They cast a yellow radiance through the vast space, without
illumining its recesses. All was indistinct save within the radius of a
few feet around the candles. In the far-off blackness was one silvery
grey square of light—the little gable window. On the floor the rafter
cast its shadow as a bar of ink.
Jasper was not surprised at the illumination, though vexed at the
careless manner in which Eve had created it. What surprised him was the
appearance of the young girl. She was transfigured. She was dressed
in a saffron-yellow skirt with a crimson lattice of ribbon over it,
fastened with bows, and covered with spangles. She wore a crimson
velvet bodice, glittering with gold lace and bullion thread embroidery.
But her eyes sparkled brighter than the tarnished spangles.
The moment Jasper’s head appeared through the trap in the floor, she
struck the timbrel, and clattered the jingles, and danced and laughed.
Then seeing how amazed he was she skipped coquettishly towards him,
rattled her drum in his ear, and danced back again under her row of
candles. She had caught the very air he had sung recently, when showing
her how to manage the instrument. She had heard it that once, but she
had seized the melody, and she sang it, and varied it after her own
caprice, but without losing the leading thread, and always coming back
to the burden with a similar set gesture of arms and feet, and stroke
of drum and clash of bells. Then, all at once, one of the candles fell
over on the rafter and dropped to the floor. Eve brought her tambourine
down with a crash and jangle; Jasper sprang forward, and extinguished
the candle with his foot.
‘There! Is not this witchcraft?’ exclaimed Eve. ‘Go down through the
trap again, Mr. Jasper, and I will rejoin you. Not a word to papa, or
to Barbie when she returns.’
‘I will not go till the candles are put out and the risk of a fire is
past. You can see by the window to take off this trumpery.’
‘Trumpery! Oh, Mr. Jasper! Trumpery!’ she exclaimed in an injured,
disappointed tone.
‘Call it what you will. Where did you find it?’
‘In yonder box. There is more in it. Do go now, Mr. Jasper; I will put
out the candles, I will, honour bright.’
The bailiff descended, and resumed his work with the asters. He
smiled and yet was vexed at Eve’s giddiness. It was impossible to be
angry with her, she was but a child. It was hard not to look with
apprehension to her future.
Suddenly he stood up, and listened. He heard the clatter of horse’s
hoofs in the lane. Who could be coming? The evening had closed in.
The sun was set. It was not dark so near midsummer, but dusk. He went
hastily from the garden into the lane, and saw the young groom urging
on his fagged horse, and leading another by the bridle, with a lady’s
saddle on it.
‘Where is your mistress? Is anything the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ answered the lad. ‘She is behind. In taking off her glove
she lost her ring, and now I must get a lantern to look for it.’
‘Nelly,’ that was the horse, ‘is tired. I will get a light and run
back. Whereabouts is she?’
‘Oh, not a thousand yards from the edge of the moor. The doctor rode
with us part of the way from Tavistock. After he left, Miss Barbara
took off her glove and lost her ring. She won’t leave the spot till it
be found.’
‘Go in. I will take the light to her. Tell the cook to prepare supper.
Miss Jordan must be tired and hungry.’