Читать книгу Jessica Trent's Inheritance онлайн

46 страница из 51

“Oh! She didn’t send Ephraim. He—he just came because he loved me so and wouldn’t stay behind. He— Why dear old ‘Forty-niner’ actually ran away! Fancy! Just as the little boys so love to do.”

“Humph! A strange life, a strange bringing up you seem to have had. Tipkins, send Barnes to attend Miss Jessica.”

“Yes, Madam, I’ll—try,” replied the old servant, bowing and withdrawing upon the errand. Both he and his mistress well knew that Barnes, my lady’s-maid, was rarely “sent” upon any errand her own will did not dictate, and that she had more than once declared, since the coming of Jessica had been decided upon, that “the Madam needn’t go for to expect me to ’tend upon no brats at my time of life, nor she needn’t ask it. If she does I’ll give notice and that’ll settle her.”

However, curiosity often accomplishes what authority cannot; and because Tipkins had reported below stairs that “our Miss Gabriella’s little daughter looks like a hangel out of Heaven,” and the sharpshooter had treated her maidship with such profound reverence, upon being presented as “Miss Jessica’s man”—the arbitrary Barnes condescended to obey the present summons.