Part 21 (1/2)
”It may be useful,” she repeated.
”You have not come now with a message from Evelyn?” said Sylvia, a pathetic tone in her voice.
”No, miss, I have not; but do you know, miss-do you know what has happened to me?”
”How should I?” replied Sylvia.
”I am turned out, miss-turned out by her ladys.h.i.+p-I who had a letter from Mrs. Wynford in Tasmania asking her ladys.h.i.+p to keep me always as my little Evelyn's friend and nurse and guardian. Yes, Miss Sylvia, I am turned away as though I were dirt. I am turned away, miss, although it was only yesterday that her ladys.h.i.+p got the letter which the dying mother wrote. It is hard, is it not, Miss Leeson? It is cruel, is it not?”
”Hard and cruel!” echoed Sylvia. ”It is worse. It is a horrible sin. I wonder you stand it!”
”Now, miss, for such a pretty young lady I wonder you have not more sense. Do you think I'd go if I could help it?”
”What does Evelyn say?” asked Sylvia, intensely excited.
”What does she say? Nothing. She is stunned, I take it; but she will wake up and know what it means. No chocolate, and no one to sleep in the little white bed by her side.”
”Oh, how she must enjoy her chocolate!” said poor Sylvia, a sigh of longing in her voice.
”I am grand at making it,” said Jasper. ”I have spent my life in many out-of-the-way places. It was in Madrid I learnt to make chocolate; no one can excel me with it. I'd like well to make a cup for you.”
”And I'd like to drink it,” said Sylvia.
”As well as I can see you in this light,” continued Jasper, ”you look as if a cup of my chocolate would do you good. Chocolate made all of milk, with plenty of bread and b.u.t.ter, is a meal which no one need despise. I say, miss, shall we go back to the ”Green Man,” and shall you and me have a bit of supper together? You would not be too proud to take it with me although I am only my young lady's maid?”
”I wish I could,” said Sylvia. There was a wild desire in her heart, a sort of pa.s.sion of hunger. ”But,” she continued, ”I cannot; I must go home now.”
”Is your home near, miss?”
”Oh yes; it is just at the other side of that wall. But please do not talk of it-father hates people knowing. He likes us to live quite solitary.”
”And it is a big house. Yes, I can see that,” continued Jasper, peering through the trees.
Just then a young crescent moon showed its face, a bank of clouds swept away to the left, and Jasper could distinctly see the square outline of an ugly house. She saw something else also-the very white face of the hungry Sylvia, the look which was almost starvation in her eyes. Jasper was clever; she might not be highly educated in the ordinary sense, but she had been taught to use her brains, and she had excellent brains to use. Now, as she looked at the girl, an idea flashed through her mind.
”For some extraordinary reason that child is downright hungry,” she said to herself. ”Now, nothing would suit my purpose better.”
She came close to Sylvia and laid her hand on her arm.
”I have taken a great fancy to you, miss,” she said.
”Have you?” answered Sylvia.
”Yes, miss; and I am very lonely, and I don't mean to stay far away from my dear young lady.”
”Are you going to live in the village?” asked Sylvia.
”I have a room now at the 'Green Man,' Miss Leeson, but I don't mean to stay there; I don't care for the landlady. And I don't want to be, so to speak, under her ladys.h.i.+p's nose. Her ladys.h.i.+p has took a mortal hatred to me, and as the village, so to speak, belongs to the Castle, if the Castle was to inform the 'Green Man' that my absence was more to be desired than my company, why, out I'd have to go. You can understand that, can you not, miss?”
”Yes-of course.”