Jess was a child of nature—she would have known little enough of books, and cared still less, had not the servants taken pity on her and taught her to read and write, which was quite as much as they knew themselves.
The master of Blackheath Hall never wrote again to ask about the little waif. Except for the brief mention he had made that she was to find shelter beneath his roof, he seemed to forget her entirely.
Therefore the shock of the lawyer’s coming, with the sad notice of Mr. George Dinsmore’s death, and the will—which was very much stranger still—giving his nephew his entire fortune if he took with it Little Jess—cutting him off entirely if he failed to do so, and cutting the girl off, as well, if she failed to secure his nephew, John Dinsmore, for her husband—was the most mystifying surprise they had ever had.
“It is useless to hope that a fastidious gentleman who has traveled half over the world—as has Mr. John Dinsmore—would take to a wild, half-tamed creature like Jess,” Mrs. Bryson said, despairingly, and her heart misgave her that she had not troubled herself to look after the girl better during the years which had come and gone so swiftly. If her late master’s plans miscarried, she felt in a vague way that the fault would lie at her door for not looking after the girl better, and making her more of a lady, instead of a lovely little hoydenish savage who would have her own way and knew no will save her own.
For days at a time Jess had been in the habit of wandering about where fancy willed, and no one took the pains to inquire into her coming or going—whether she was in the house or out of it; if she fell asleep from fatigue amid the long grass under the trees when night overtook her, or if she were in her own little room in the servants’ quarters under the eaves.
The mistake of years could not be rectified in a day. Mrs. Bryson realized that, and felt, in consequence, deep concern.
For the first time in her life, after the lawyer’s visit, she searched for Jess. Through the house and over all the grounds she went, but there were no signs of her.
Jess was like a wild bird ever on the wing; no one knew where she was likely to alight.
Mrs. Bryson was most anxious to have a long and earnest talk with the girl. It never occurred to her for a moment that the girl was evading her for that very reason—that she had heard her tell the lawyer that she meant to have a long and serious talk at once with Jess—but from that hour Jess was nowhere to be found.
It never occurred to the good woman to look up into the magnolia trees which she passed a score of times in her vain search for the girl.