“I wonder this nice room has been neglected so long. Has no one ever used it, Sarah?”
“Mr. Rayner used to use it for a study,” said she shortly. “I don’t know why he gave it up; I suppose it was too high up. That was six months ago, before you came.”
“It is a long way from anybody else’s room, Sarah, isn’t it?”
“Mine is the nearest, and I have ears like needles; so you needn’t be frightened,” said she, in a tone which really sounded more menacing than consoling.
“It will be rather lonely on a stormy night; the wind will howl so up here,” I said, my spirits beginning to sink under her sharp speeches.
“Oh, you won’t want for company, I dare say!” she said, with a harsh grating laugh.
“Why, all the company I am likely to get up here is burglars,” I answered lugubriously, with my chin between my hands.
The start she gave startled me in my turn.
“Burglars! What burglars? What are you talking about?”
I looked up amazed at the effect of my words on Sarah, whom, of all people in the world, I should have considered strong-minded. It was promotion for me to be soothing Sarah.
“Why, I have more courage than you!” I said, laughing lightly. “I’m not afraid of them. If they came, they would soon go down again when they found there was nothing to take. Would you be afraid to sleep up here alone, Sarah?”
But she hardly took the trouble to answer me except by a nod; her black eyes were fixed upon me as I spoke, as if she would, and almost as if she could, penetrate to my inmost soul. Then, as if satisfied with the result of her scrutiny, she relapsed into her usual hard, cold manner, and, answering my good-night shortly, left me alone.
Then I made up my mind definitely on a point that had often occupied me vaguely, and decided that Mrs. Rayner and Sarah were, in different ways, without exception, the two most unpleasant and disagreeable women I had ever met. And after that I went to bed and dreamt, not of a burglar, but of quite a different person.
The next day was Sunday, and there were two strangers in church who attracted the attention of all the congregation. They were two fair-complexioned, light-haired girls who sat in the Reades’ pew, and who had evidently spared no expense on rather tasteless and unbecoming toilettes. I caught myself feeling not sorry that they were ill-dressed, and glad that one was plain and that the one who was pretty was dreadfully freckled; and I wondered how it was that I had grown so ill-natured. Mr. Laurence Reade sat between them, and he shared his hymn-book with the pretty one; and I did so wish it had been with the plain one! And when we came out of church, and he and his sisters and the two girls trooped out together, the breaking up of the group left him to pair off again with the pretty one.
I remember noticing, as Haidee and I walked home together, that the midges teased me more than they had ever done that summer, that the sun was more scorching, and that it was just as dusty as if we had not had any rain at all. It was a horrid day.
Mr. Rayner asked us, at dinner, if we had noticed the two girls with the pretty hair in Mr. Reade’s pew, and said that he had heard that the one with the blue eyes was the future Mrs. Laurence Reade, and that it would be an excellent match for both of them.
“I noticed that he paid her a great deal of attention at church, and afterwards they paired off together quite naturally,” said he.
And that afternoon the heat and the midges and the dust were worse than ever.
Mr. Rayner complained on the day after this that I was looking paler than before, and threatened to have me sent back to my old room if I did not look brighter in two days from that date. Luckily for me, within those two days my spirits improved a little. The next day Haidee and I passed by Geldham Park in our walk, and saw over the fence Mr. Reade, his sisters, and the two strangers playing lawn-tennis. None of them noticed us that time; but, as we were returning, I observed that Mr. Reade jumped up from the grass where he was lounging in the midst of the adoring girls, as I thought contemptuously, and shook out of his hat the leaves and grasses with which his companions had filled it; as for them, they were too much occupied with him to see anything outside the park.
Haidee and I had to go to the village shop with a list of articles which I felt sure we should not get there. But it was one of Mr. Rayner’s principles to encourage local trade, so we had to go once a week and tease the crusty and ungrateful old man who was the sole representative of it by demands for such outlandish things as wax-candles, bloater-paste, andfiloselle. I had been tapping vainly for some minutes on the little counter, on which lay four tallow “dips,” a box of rusty crochet-hooks, and a most uninviting piece of bacon, when Mr. Reade dashed into the shop and greeted me with much surprise. When he had asked after Mr. and Mrs. Rayner, and heard that they were quite well, there was a pause, and he seemed to look to me to continue the conversation; but I could think of nothing to say. So he roamed about, digging his cane into the cheese and knocking down a jar of snuff, which he carefully scraped together with his foot and shovelled back, dust and all, into the jar, while I still tapped and still nobody came.
“He must be at dinner,” said I resignedly. “In that case we shall have to wait.”
For I knew Mr. Bowles. So Mr. Reade seated himself on the counter and harpooned the bacon with one of the rusty crochet-hooks.
“Convenient place these village-shops are,” said he, not thinking of what he was saying, I was sure.
“Yes, if you don’t care what you get, nor how stale it is,” said I, sharply.
He laughed; but I did not intend to be funny at all.
“I came in only for some”—here he looked round the shop, and his eyes rested on a pile of dusty toys—“for some marbles. I thought they would do for the school-treat, you know.”
I thought it was a pity he did not return to his lawn-tennis and hisfiancée, if that was the errand he came on, and I was determined not to be drawn into anothertête-à-têtewith him, so I turned to leave the shop. But he stopped me.
“Old Bowles can’t be much longer over his bacon, I’m sure,” said he, rather pleadingly. “I—I wanted to ask you if you were any better. I thought last Sunday you were looking awfully ill.”
“Last Sunday?”—and I thought of those girls. “I was never better in my life, thank you. And I am quite well. Mr. and Mrs. Rayner have put me into the turret to keep me out of the damp. It was very, very kind of him to think about it. It is the best room in all the house.”
“Best room in the house? Then Mr. Rayner doesn’t sleep in the house at all,” said he, in a low voice, but with much decision.
I got up from the one chair and turned to my pupil, who was deep in an old story-book that she had found.
“Come, Haidee!”
“No, no; that is revenge—it is unworthy of you,” said he in a lower voice still. “Don’t let us quarrel again. Mr. Rayner is an angel. No, no, not that!”—for I was turning away again. “He has his faults; but he is as near perfection as a man can be. Then you are very happy at the Alders now?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“And you have no great troubles?”
“Yes. I have—Sarah.”
“Sarah? That is one of the servants, isn’t it? A gaunt, shrewd-looking person? I’ve often met her on the road to and from Beaconsburgh.”
“Yes. She goes out when she likes, I think. She is a very important person in the household, much more so than Mrs. Rayner.”
“Oh! And she is a trouble to you?”
“Yes; I’m afraid of her. She doesn’t like me. And whenever I used to give her letters to post I never got any answers to them.”
“Does Mr. Rayner like her?”
“Like her? I don’t think any one could like Sarah, except, of course, her ‘young man.’ That doesn’t count. But Mr. Rayner thinks a great deal of her.”
“So a young man’s liking doesn’t count?”
“Of course Tom Parkes is prejudiced in her favor,” said I, preferring that the talk should remain personal.
“Surely it is a compliment to a woman that a young man should be prejudiced in her favor?” said he, preferring that the talk should become abstract.
“He must have finished by this time!” I cried; and a vigorous thump on the counter did at last bring in Mr. Bowles, who declared it was the first sound he had heard.
I was sorry to find that he had several of the things I wanted, as everything he sold was of the worst possible quality; and, while he was doing them up, Mr. Reade found an opportunity to whisper—
“You got my flowers?”
“Yes, thank you; it was very kind of you to send them.”
“Bring them,” corrected he. “What did you do with them?”
I remembered the fair-haired girl and my resolve to be discreet.
“I put them in water, and when they were dead I threw them away.”
“Threw them away?”
“Yes, of course; one doesn’t keep dead flowers,” said I calmly; but it hurt me to say it, for the words seemed to hurt him. It is very hard to be discreet.
He said no more, but took his parcel and left the shop, saluting me very coldly. I had taken up my parcel, and was going out too, when Haidee’s soft voice broke in.
“You’ve got Mr. Reade’s marbles, and he has gone off with mamma’s wool and the curtain-hooks, Miss Christie!”
I had not noticed this.
“How stupid of him!” I exclaimed.
He had marched off so fast that I had to run down the lane after him before he heard me call “Mr. Reade!” We laughed a little at the embarrassment he would have felt if he had produced a ball of wool and curtain-hooks as the result of his morning’s shopping, and I if I had gravely presented Mrs. Rayner with a bag of marbles. And then, remorseful and blushing, I said hurriedly—
“I did keep one of the roses, Mr. Reade—the one with the note on it;” and then I ran back to Haidee, without looking up. Whether he was engaged or not, I could not be ungracious about those lovely flowers.
Then Haidee and I went home to dinner. I had met Mr. Reade quite by accident, and I had done nothing wrong, nothing but what civility demanded, in exchanging a few words with him; but I was glad Haidee was not one of those foolish prattling little girls who insist upon chattering at meal-times about all the small events of the morning’s walk.
Mr. Reade’scruel and prejudiced accusations against Mr. Rayner had not in the least shaken my faith in the kindness and goodness of the master of the Alders; but I felt anxious to prove to myself that the charges he brought against him were groundless. Mr. Reade’s suggestion that he let his family sleep in the damp house while he passed his nights elsewhere, for instance, was absurd in the extreme. Where else could he sleep without any one’s knowing anything about it? I often heard his voice and step about the house until quite late; he was always one of the first in the dining-room to our eight-o’clock breakfast, and even on the wettest mornings he never looked as if he had been out in the rain.
It often seems to me that, when I have been puzzling myself fruitlessly for a long time over any matter, I find out quite simply by accident what I want to know. Thus, only the day after my talk with Mr. Reade in the shop, I was nursing Haidee, who did not feel inclined to play after lesson-time, when she said—
“Do you ever have horrid dreams, Miss Christie, that frighten you, and then come true?”
“No, darling; dreams are only fancies, you know, and never come true, except just by accident.”
I said this because everybody considers it the right answer to give to a child; but I do believe just a little in dreams myself.
She went on gravely—
“But mine do. I’ll tell you about one I had two nights ago, if you’ll bend your head and let me whisper. I mustn’t tell mamma, because she always stops me and says I mustn’t speak of what I see; but I can say it to you; you won’t tell, will you?”
“No, darling, I won’t tell,” said I, thinking it kindest to let the child speak out about her fancies, instead of brooding over them, as the shy little thing was too prone to do.
She put her little hand up to my cheek, and, drawing down my face to hers, breathed into my ear, in the very faintest, softest whisper I have ever heard—
“You know that day when we took you up to your new room in the turret?”
“Yes, dear,” said I.
“Hush! Whisper,” cooed she. “Well, that night Jane put me to bed, just as she always does, in my little room, and then I went to sleep just like I always do. And then I dreamt that I heard mamma screaming and crying, and papa speaking—oh, so differently from the way he generally does; it made me frightened in my dream! I thought it was all real, and I tried to get out of bed; but I was too much asleep; and then I didn’t dream any more, only when I woke up I remembered it. I didn’t tell anybody; and the next night I wondered if I should have the dream again, and I didn’t want Jane to go away; and, when I said it was because I’d had a dream, she said dreams were stuff and nonsense, and she wanted to go and dream at having supper. And then she went away, and I went to sleep. And then I woke up because mamma was crying, and I thought at first it was my dream again; but I knocked my head against the rail of my bed, and then I knew I must be awake. And I got out of bed, and I went quite softly to the door and looked through the keyhole, for there was a light in her room. When she has a light, I can see in quite plainly through the keyhole, and I can see the bed and her lying in it. But she wasn’t alone like she generally is—I could see papa’s hand holding the candle, and he was talking to her in such a low voice; but she was crying and talking quite wildly and strangely, so that she frightened me. When she talks like that, I feel afraid—it doesn’t seem as if she were mamma. And then I saw papa put something on her face, and mamma said, ‘Don’t—don’t! Not that!’ and then she only moaned, and then she was quite still, and I heard him go out of the room. And presently I called ‘Mamma, mamma!’ but she didn’t answer; and I was so frightened, I thought she was dead. But then I heard her sigh like she always does in her sleep, and I got into bed again.”
“Were you afraid to go in, darling?”
“I couldn’t go in, because the door was locked. It always is, you know. I never go into mamma’s room; I did only once, and she said—she said”—and the child’s soft whisper grew softer still, and she held her tiny lips closer to my ear—“she said I was never to say anything about it—and I promised; so I mustn’t, even to you, Miss Christie dear. You don’t mind, do you, because I promised?”
“No, darling, I don’t. Of course you must not tell if you promised,” said I.
But I would have given the world to know what the child had seen in that mysterious room.
Haidee’s strange story had roused again in me all the old feeling of a shadow of some kind hanging over the house on the marsh which had long since worn away in the quiet routine of my daily life there. The locking of the mother’s door against her own child, her wild talk and crying, the “something on the face” that her husband had had to administer to calm her, and the discovery that he himself did not sleep in the same room, all united to call up in my mind the remembrance of that long talk I had had with Mr. Rayner in the schoolroom soon after my arrival, the story he had told me of her boy’s death, and the change it had made in her, and his allusion to “those outbreaks which sometimes cause me the gravest—the very gravest anxiety.”
I had understood then that he feared for his wife’s reason, but, never having witnessed any great change in her cold listless manner myself, and having seen on the whole very little of her except at meals, all fear and almost all remembrance of her possible insanity had faded from my mind, in which she remained a background figure. But now Haidee’s story caused me to wonder whether there was not an undercurrent in the affairs of the household of which I knew little or nothing. What if Mr. Rayner, bright, cheerful, and good-tempered as he always seemed, were really suffering under the burden of a wife whose sullen silence might at any moment break into wild insanity—if he had to wrestle in secret, as, from the child’s story, seemed to have been the case quite recently on two successive nights, with moods of wild wailing and weeping which he at first tried to deal with by gentle remonstrance (Haidee said that on the second night, when she was fully awake, his voice was very low and soft), and at last had to subdue by sedatives!
And then a suggestion occurred to me which would at least explain Sarah’s important position in the household. Was she perhaps in truth a responsible guardian of Mrs. Rayner, such as, if the latter’s reason were really feeble, it would be necessary for her to have in her husband’s absences? I already knew that the relations between mistress and servant were not very amicable. Though she treated her with all outward signs of respect, it was not difficult to see that Sarah despised her mistress, while I had sometimes surprised in the wide gray eyes of the other a side-glance of dislike and fear which made me wonder how she could tolerate in her household a woman from whom she had so strong an aversion. That Mr. Rayner was anxious to keep the scandal of having a mad wife a secret from the world was clear from the fact that not even Mr. Laurence Reade, who seemed to take a particular interest in the affairs of the household at the Alders, had ever shown the least suspicion that this was the case. So the secluded life Mrs. Rayner led came to be ascribed to the caprice—if the village gossips did not use a harsher word—of her husband, while that unfortunate man was really not her tyrant, but her victim.
The only other possible explanation of what Haidee had seen was that Mr. Rayner, kind and sweet-tempered to every one as he always was, and outwardly gentle and thoughtful to a touching degree towards his cold wife, was really the most designing of hypocrites, and was putting upon his wife, under the semblance of devoted affection, a partial restraint which was as purposeless as it was easy for her to break through. This idea was absurd.
The other supposition, dreadful as it was, was far more probable. I was too much accustomed by this time to Mrs. Rayner’s listless moods and the faint far-off looks of fear, or anger, or suspicion that I sometimes saw in her eyes, to be alarmed even by the possibility of a change for the worse in her—the thought that she was perhaps scarcely responsible for her words and actions reconciled me somewhat to her cold manner towards myself and to her jealousy of the hold I was surely getting upon Haidee’s affection. But my strongest feeling was not for the half-witted wife nor for the unfortunate husband, but for the child herself, the unsuspected witness of her mother’s outbreaks of incoherent words and cries. It was strange that these attacks should occur only at night, I thought at first; but then I remembered that day when I had readAdam Bedealoud to her in the drawing-room, the tearful excitement into which, apparently without any cause, she had fallen, which her husband’s entrance had as suddenly subdued—at least for the time; for how could I tell what had followed when he had led her away into that bedroom of hers which was beginning to have for me the fascination of a haunted chamber?
The immediate result of the child’s confidences to me was a great increase of my love for and interest in herself. We became almost inseparable in and out of school-hours; I encouraged her to talk; and she soon fell into the habit of telling me, whether I was listening or not, those long rambling stories which have no beginning, no sequence, and no end, which are the solace of children who have no companions of their own age. When my attention was wandering from these incoherent tales, I sometimes had it abruptly brought back by some flight of her childish fancy, which set me wondering if it had been suggested by some half-forgotten experience. Thus one day, when I was working, and she was sitting on a footstool by my side, with two or three twigs bearing oak-apples which represented, as far as I could judge from her severity to some and her tenderness to the others, the personages of her story, my attention was arrested by the words—
“And so the Prince said to Princess Christie”—the heroine of the story, so named in honor of me—“ ‘I’ve brought you some jewels much finer than yours.’ But Princess Christie cried and said, ‘I don’t want them. Where did you get them? I know where you got them. You are a naughty bad Prince, and I won’t wear any jewels any more.’ ”
And I thought of what Mr. Rayner had told me of his wife’s hearing, on her return home from a ball, of her baby-boy’s death and of her saying she would never wear jewels again. But Haidee had been but a baby-girl at the time; her words must be a mere coincidence. But some of the coincidences of her narrative were less difficult of explanation, for she went on—
“And so Prince Caramel said, ‘Very well; I’ll send you some more roses if you won’t throw them away, and some marbles. But you mustn’t cry, you know. I won’t have a Princess that cries. I sha’n’t look at you in church if you cry. If you don’t cry, I’ll let you have some jam too as well as butter, and you shall have a ride on the butcher’s horse up and down the back-yard. And then I’ll put you in a fairy-boat, and we’ll fly away—fly away right over the trees and over the marsh, and past Mr. Boggett’s and up into the clouds, and live in a swallow’s nest, and never do any lessons.”
And so on, going off in a wild and unexpected way into all sorts of extravagances, while I thought, with burning cheeks, that my demure little maiden had heard and seen more than I had suspected, and marvelled at the tangle of fancy and reality that grew up from it in her innocent mind. And sometimes she would say, “Let us sing, Miss Christie;” and I would sing some ballad, while she would coo an irregular but not inharmonious accompaniment. And we were occupied in this fashion, sitting by the open window one afternoon, when Mr. Rayner appeared in the garden.
“Go on, go on; I have been listening to the concert for ever so long. It is as pretty as birds.”
But of course we could not go on in face of such a critical auditor; so Mr. Rayner, after complaining that he had taken a ticket for the series, and was not going to be defrauded like that, told me more seriously that I had a very pretty voice, and asked why I did not take pity on their dulness and come into the drawing-room after tea sometimes and sing to them.
“And you have never tried secular music with the violin, Miss Christie. I believe you’re afraid. Sacred music is slow, and you can’t read fast; is that it?”
He was trying to pique me; but I only laughed and pointed out to him that he had had a visitor on the evening when he was to have tried my skill, but that I was quite ready to stumble through any music he liked whenever he pleased, if it were not too difficult.
“I know it is too bad of us to want to trespass upon your time after tea, which we promised you should have to yourself. But it would indeed be a charitable action if you would come and let us bore you by our fiddling and our dull chat sometimes, instead of slipping up to your turret-chamber, to be no more seen for the remainder of the evening. What do you do there, if I may ask? Do you take observations of the moon and stars? I should think you must be too close to them up there to get a comprehensive view. Or do you peep into the birds’ nests upon the highest branches and converse with the owners?”
“I do nothing half so fantastic, Mr. Rayner. I do my tasks and read something improving, and then I sit in one of my arm-chairs and just think and enjoy myself.”
“Well, we are not going to let you enjoy yourself up there while we are moped to death downstairs; so to-night you may just come and share our dulness in the drawing-room.”
So after tea Mr. Rayner got out his violin, and I sat down to the piano; and we played first some German popular songs and then a long succession of the airs, now lively, now pathetic, now dramatic and passionate, out of the old operas that have delighted Europe for years, such asThe Huguenots,La Traviata,Rigoletto, and Balfe’s gracefulRose of CastileandThe Bohemian Girl. Mr. Rayner played with the fire of an enthusiast, and again I caught the spirit of his playing, and accompanied him, he said, while his face shone with the ecstasy of the musician, as no one had ever accompanied him before.
Doctor Maitland, an old gentleman who, Mr. Rayner privately told me, was now resting from his labors with the proud consciousness that he had seldom failed in “killing his man,” came in while we were playing.
He was our nearest neighbor, and he often came in the evening to play chess with Mr. Rayner, who always beat him. He listened to the music with great astonishment and some pleasure for a long time, until he learnt that I was reading at sight, and that I had accompanied Mr. Rayner only once before. Then he almost gasped.
“Good gracious! I should never have believed it. You seem to have the same soul!” he cried, awe-struck.
And after that his astonishment evidently outweighed the pleasure he took in our performance. Mr. Rayner gave me a strange smile as the Doctor uttered his quaint speech, and I laughed back, much amused at the effect of our efforts on a musically ignorant listener. When we had finished, and Mr. Rayner was putting his violin into its case, he suddenly discovered that a corner of the latter was damp.
“This will never do,” he exclaimed, with as much affectionate concern as if a friend’s well-being had been threatened. “I might as well keep it in the garden as in this den,” he went on, quite irritably for him—music always wrought him to a high pitch of excitement. “Here, Sarah,” he added, turning towards the table where she had just placed the candles. “Take this to my room—mind, very carefully.”
So his room could not be damp, I thought, or he would not allow his precious violin to be taken there. I had said good-night, and was in the hall, just in time to see Sarah, carrying the violin, disappear down the passage, on the right-hand side of the staircase, which led to the study. Now the wing where Mrs. Rayner’s room was was on the left-hand side of the staircase. Did Mr. Rayner sleep in the study? I could not let my curiosity lead me to follow her, much as I should have liked to solve this little mystery. I knew all the rooms on the upper story, and, except the nursery where Mona and Jane slept, the cook’s room, Sarah’s, and the one I had left, they all bore distinctly the impress of having been long unused. So I was obliged reluctantly to go upstairs. When I got to the foot of my turret staircase, however, which was only a few steps from the head of the back-staircase that the servants used, I heard Sarah’s quick tread in the passage below, and, putting down my candle on the ground, I went softly to the top of the stairs—there was a door here also, but it was generally open and fastened back—and looked down. I saw Sarah, much to my amusement, give a vicious shake to the violin-case, as if it were a thing she hated; and then I saw her take a key from her pocket and unlock a door near the foot of the stairs. That, then, was Mr. Rayner’s room. But, as the door went back on its hinges and Sarah took out the key, went through, and locked it behind her, I saw that it led, not into a room at all, but into the garden.
So far, then, Mr. Reade’s guess was right. But there still remained the question—Where did Mr. Rayner sleep?
Itwas the elfish baby-girl Mona who first put me on the track of the solution of the mystery about Mr. Rayner’s room. This ill-cared-for little creature, instead of resenting the neglect she suffered, prized the liberties she enjoyed of roaming about withersoever she pleased, and sitting in the flower-beds, and in the mud at the edge of the pond, and making herself altogether the very dirtiest little girl I had ever seen, and objected vehemently to the least attempt at judicious restraint. The little notice she got was neither consistent nor kind. Sarah or Jane would snatch her up, regardless of her shrieks, to shut her up in an empty bedroom, if she showed her grimy little face and tattered pinafore anywhere near the house in the afternoon, when callers might come. But, if they did not see her, they forgot her, and left her to talk and croon to herself, and to collect piles of snails, and to such other simple occupations in her favorite haunts until tea-time, when she generally grew hungry of her own accord, and, returning to the house, made an entrance where she could.
The day after the violin-playing was very wet, and, looking out of the window during lessons with Haidee, I caught sight of her small sister trotting along composedly without a hat in the fast-falling rain. I jumped up and called to her; but she took no notice; so I ran to fetch my umbrella and set off in pursuit. After a little search, I saw her steadily toddling up a side-path among the trees which led to the stables; and I followed softly without calling her again, as, if irritated by pursuit, she might, I knew, plunge among the trees and surrender only when we were both wet through.
The stables were built much higher up than the house, close to the road, but surrounded by trees. I had never been near them before; but now I followed Mona close underneath the walls, where she began dancing about by herself, making hideous grimaces at two windows on the upper story, and throwing up at them little stones and bits of stick that she picked up, all wet and muddy, from the moist earth. I seized and caught her up in my arms so suddenly that for the first few moments she was too much surprised to howl; but I had scarcely turned to take her back to the house when she recovered her powers completely, and made the plantation ring with a most elfish yell. I spoke to her and tried to reason with her, and told her it was all for her good, when one of the upper windows I have mentioned was thrown open, and Mr. Rayner appeared at it.
“Hallo, what is the matter? Kidnapping, Miss Christie?”
“Oh, Mr. Rayner, she will sit in the mud and open her mouth to catch the rain without a hat, and it can’t be good for her!” I said piteously.
“Never mind. It doesn’t seem to hurt her. I believe she is half a frog,” said her father, with less tenderness than he might have shown, I thought.
For the child was not old enough to know that it was wrong to dislike her father, while he was quite old enough to know that it was wrong not to be fonder of his child.
“But you will get your own feet wet, my dear child,” said he, in quite a different tone. “Come up here and sit by the fire, while I fetch your goloshes. You have never seen my studio. I pass half my time painting and smoking here when it is wet and I can’t get out.” He had a palette on his thumb and a pipe in his mouth while he spoke. “You don’t mind the smell of turpentine or tobacco, do you?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Rayner! But I won’t come in, thank you. I am at lessons with Haidee,” said I.
“Happy Haidee! I wish I were young enough to take lessons; and yet, if I were, I shouldn’t be old enough to make the best use of my time,” said he, in a low voice, with mock-modesty that made me laugh.
He was leaning a long way out of window in the rain, and I had work to do indoors; so, without saying anything more, I returned to the house with my prize.
It was to his studio then that Sarah had taken his violin. I had never heard of this studio before; but I knew that Mr. Rayner was very careful about the condition of the stables, and I could imagine that this two-windowed upper room, with its fire, must be a very nice place to paint in—dry, warm, and light. Could this be where Mr. Rayner slept? No; for in that case he would hardly have asked me to come up and look at his painting. And I should not like to think that he had made for himself a snug warm little home here while his family slept in the damp vapors of the marsh at the bottom of the hill. But that would not be like Mr. Rayner, I thought, remembering the pains he had taken to provide a nice dry room just for me, the governess. Yet I should have liked, in the face of Mr. Reade’s tiresome suspicions, to be sure.
That night I was so anxious to find out whether Mr. Rayner did really sleep out of the house, as he had been accused of doing, that I had the meanness to leave my own bedroom door wide open, as well as that at the bottom of the turret staircase, and listen for footsteps on the ground-floor, and the sound of a key in the garden door through which Sarah had taken the violin. But I heard nothing, though I was awake until long after the rest of the household must have gone to bed. And I felt almost as much relieved as if it had been my own father proved innocent of a mean action imputed to him.
On the following night there was a high wind, which shook and swayed the trees and whistled round my turret, and made the door which stood always fastened back at the top of the kitchen-stairs rattle and creak on its hinges. At last I could bear this last sound no longer. I had been sitting up late over a book, and I knew that the household must be asleep, so I slipped downstairs as softly as I could. I had got to the top of the back-staircase, and had my hand on the door, when I saw a faint glimmer of light coming along the passage below. I heard no sound. I drew back quickly, so quickly that my candle went out; and then I waited, with my heart beating fast, not so much to see who it was, as because I did not dare to move. The faint light came along swiftly, and, when close to the foot of the stairs below me, I could see that it was a shaded lantern, and could just distinguish the form of a man carrying it. Was he coming upstairs? For the next few moments I scarcely dared to breathe, and I could almost have given a cry of joy when, by some movement of the head, I recognized Mr. Rayner. He did not see me; he put the key in the lock, turned it, took the key out, went through and locked it after him so quickly and so entirely without noise that a moment afterwards I could almost have thought that I had imagined the dim scene. It had been so utterly without sound that, if my eyes had been closed, I should have known nothing about it. I made the door secure with trembling fingers, and went back to my room again, not only profoundly sorry that Mr. Reade’s surmise was correct—for I could no longer doubt that Mr. Rayner did sleep over the stables—but impressed with an eerie dread of the man who could move about in the night as noiselessly and swiftly as a spirit.
When I awoke however in the fresh morning, with the wind gone down, and the sun shining in through my east window, all unpleasant impressions of the night before had faded away; and, when Mr. Rayner brought into the drawing-room after dinner a portfolio full of his sketches and panels, and was delighted with my appreciation of them—I knew something about pictures, for my father had been a painter—I felt that it was not for me to judge his actions, and that there must be some good motive that I did not know for his sleeping far out of the damp, as for everything else that he did. He proposed to paint me, and I gave him a sitting that very afternoon in the dining-room, which had a north light, though there was not much of it; and he said that he must finish it next day in his studio, and, when I objected to neglect my lessons again, he said the whole family should emigrate thither for the morning, and then perhaps I should be satisfied.
So the next day, at eleven o’clock, he came into the schoolroom with Mrs. Rayner, who wore her usual air of being drawn into this against what will she had, and we all four crossed the garden to the stables, and went up through the harness-room to the big room over the coach-house, which looked even more comfortable than I had expected.
For the floor was polished, and there were two beautiful rugs, a handsome tiger-skin, and a still handsomer lion-skin with the head attached, which Haidee crept up to, drew upon her lap, and nursed all the time we were there. At one end of the room was a partition, and behind this partition I guessed that Mr. Rayner slept. There was a bright fire burning in the tiled fireplace, and there were soft easy-chairs, rather worn by constant use, but very comfortable, and there were pictures on the walls, and there was a dark carved-oak cabinet full of curious and beautiful things, and a writing-table; and lastly there were the easel and a great confusion of portfolios and half-finished sketches and studies. Altogether the room contrasted very favorably with the mouldy-looking drawing-room. Perhaps Mrs. Rayner thought so as she sat down, with one eager intent look round the room, as if she had never seen it before; and then, without any remark, she took out her knitting and worked silently, while I posed again as I had done on the previous day, with my head on one side, and my hands, as Mr. Rayner had placed them, clasped under my chin, while he painted and talked.
“You like those sketches I took in Spain, Miss Christie?”
“Yes—only there are too many nasty black priests prowling about in them.”
“Oh, you little bigot! Those black figures are just what the hot, rather glaring Spanish scenes want, to relieve the monotony of bright colors and sunshine. You must tolerate them from a picturesque point of view.”
“Very well, but from no other. They remind me of the Inquisition. They all look like Jesuits.”
“And where is the harm of looking like a Jesuit? I have a partiality for Jesuits myself.”
“Oh, not really?”
“Really. Why not?”
“They are such sneaking, cowardly creatures, always working by indirect, underhand means, and leaving their poor tools to bear the storms they themselves have excited.”
“But the poor tools are fit for nothing else. It is the daring, clever brain of the Jesuit that weaves the plot; it is on him that the chief responsibility lies; and that his part of the work has its dangers is proved by the persecutions and martyrdom that many of his order have suffered. You cannot conquer everything in this world by the fists alone; every clever man who has ever made his way—‘got on,’ as the phrase is—is a potential Jesuit.”
“Well, then, I like the poor fellows who don’t get on, and who have only their fists, better,” said I decisively.
Mr. Rayner looked at me with a half smile.
“Most women begin like that,” said he dryly.
Of course I felt rather indignant, as every girl does, at being classed with “most women;” so I said no more, but only pursed up my lips; and I saw in the white face of Mrs. Rayner, who had been listening intently to this dialogue, a faint look of amazement at my presumption.
After two hours’ work, Mr. Rayner called us to look at his sketch, which represented a very lovely girl with dark gray eyes a little larger than mine, a red-lipped mouth a little smaller, teeth a little whiter, and a complexion a little creamier in the white parts and a little rosier in the red; and the brown hair coiled on the top was just a little glossier and smoother than mine ever was. It was just a little like me all the same; and I was rather hurt when Mrs. Rayner summoned spirit enough to say that he had flattered me, although I knew it quite well. But Mr. Rayner said gravely that it was impossible for a portrait to flatter a handsome woman, and Mrs. Rayner raised her thin shoulders in a slight shrug and turned to leave the room. Haidee rose to follow her, but paused on the threshold to give a last fond gaze at the lion and to look round for me.
“You are an excellent model, you sit so still. It is a pleasure to paint you for that and—for other reasons,” said he slowly and deliberately, as, without looking up, he went on putting finishing touches to the head. “What shall I give you as a reward for remaining so long without blinking or yawning as all professional models do?”
“Nothing, Mr. Rayner; I like having it done. It flatters one’s vanity to be painted; and flattery is always reward enough for a woman, they say,” said I, laughing and following Haidee to the door.
“I shall find something more substantial than that,” said Mr. Rayner, in a low voice, as if half to himself, looking up with a very kind smile as I left the room.
That afternoon Haidee had just run out of the schoolroom at the conclusion of her lessons, when Mr. Rayner came in. He held in his hand an old and shabby little case.
“The poor painter has not forgotten his promise, if he dares to call it a promise,” said he, with mock humility. “Now see what you have earned by sitting still.”
He drew me to the window and opened the case, keeping his eyes fixed upon my face as he did so. The case was lined with old and worn red velvet, and had evidently not been made for the ornament it contained. This was a large pendant in the form of a heart, which was a blaze of what seemed to me the most magnificent diamonds I had ever seen. The sight of them inspired me not with pleasure, but terror. I drew a long breath of surprise and admiration.
“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” said I at last, not quite able to take in yet the fact that it was meant for me, and hoping against hope that it was not.
“You like diamonds?” said he, in a low voice.
“They are lovely—the most beautiful of all jewels, I think,” said I, with a break in my voice.
“Would you like to have your hair and neck and arms covered with diamonds, like a duchess at Court?” asked he, still very quietly, but so that I did not know whether he was speaking seriously or in jest.
I looked up and laughed with rather an effort.
“I? Oh, no! I shouldn’t care for diamonds for myself; I should look absurd in them. Diamonds are for great ladies, not for governesses.”
“Governesses become great ladies sometimes, don’t they?” said he, returning to his usual light tone.
“I think most of them don’t,” said I, in the same manner.
“Well, without being a great lady, a governess may wear an ornament she has fairly earned, may she not?”
“Yes, if it has been fairly earned,” said I, trying to keep up a light tone of talk, though my heart was beating fast.
“And so you can accept this pretty little thing as the reward of your services to a grateful painter and asouvenirof our pleasant morning all together in the studio.”
“Oh, no—oh, no—I can’t indeed!” said I earnestly, pushing from me gently the case he was trying to put into my hand. “Don’t be offended—don’t be angry with me, Mr. Rayner; but the very thought of possessing anything so valuable would be a burden to me night and day.”
Mr. Rayner burst into a long laugh.
“Oh, you simple little creature! I did not think a London lady would be so unsophisticated as to mistake very ordinary paste for diamonds,” said he, with much enjoyment. “This pendant, the enormous value of which frightens you so much, is worth about fifteen shillings. It wasn’t even worth having a case made for it; see, I have had to put it into an old case which once contained a brooch. No, no, my dear child, you need not be alarmed at the mere money-value of the thing, which is very little. It has a value in my eyes, but for a different reason. Look here.”
He turned it over, and I saw on the back a monogram, and the date 1792.
“What are the letters of the monogram?”
I read—“R. G. D.”
“ ‘G. D. R.,’ ” corrected he—“Gervas D. Rayner—my own initials and those of my father and grandfather before me. That this belonged to my grandmother makes its only value. But I have plenty of relics of her; my wife has jewels enough at the bank which she never wears; so you are robbing nobody and pleasing one old friend—I may call myself an old friend already, may I not?—very much by accepting this. In full family conclave at tea, you shall hear me announce the presentation, and then you will be satisfied, won’t you, you modest little girl?”
“But I can never wear such a thing as this, if it is only what you call paste,” I objected.
“Wear it under your dress, and then the blaze of it will dazzle nobody,” said Mr. Rayner, bending over me and laughing kindly at my reluctance.
So I took it with most ungracious feelings, which I tried to hide, and thanked him as well as I could. True to his promise, Mr. Rayner said to his wife at tea-time—
“I have with the greatest difficulty prevailed upon this proud Miss Christie of ours to accept as a reward of her services as model a twopenny-halfpenny trinket, which she almost told me was not fit to wear.”
“Oh, Mr. Rayner!”
He was putting such a different color upon my reluctance, as if I had not thought it good enough. And there is a great deal of difference between fifteen shillings and twopence-halfpenny. I saw Sarah, who was in the room, look at me very sharply, as if she thought governesses had no business to wear trinkets at all; and Mrs. Rayner did not look pleased.
Altogether the beautiful ornament that I had admired so much, but certainly not coveted, had brought me more annoyance than pleasure. It procured me one more little trial that very evening. When I got upstairs, I sat down in the arm-chair which had its back to the door, took the case out of my pocket, and looked at the ornament. It certainly was very splendid, and I thought, as I looked at it and made it flash in the setting sun, that, if this were paste and worth only fifteen shillings, it was great waste of money to buy real diamonds, which cost so much more and looked no better. And, as I was holding it up to the light and feeling at last a thrill of pleasure in its possession, I heard a voice behind me say—
“So that’s the twopenny-halfpenny trinket, is it?”
Of course it was Sarah. She had come up to bring me some water, and I had plenty in the jug. Her ironical tone and the hard little sneering laugh with which she finished her speech were too much for my temper. I shut up the case, and said coldly—
“Of course Mr. Rayner would not give any one a thing which really cost only twopence-halfpenny, Sarah.”
“No, miss, not for such services as yours.”
And she said it in such a nasty tone that, when she had left the room, I threw the case down upon the table and burst into tears.
WhenI had dried my tears and sat down in my favorite arm-chair to consider my grievances against Sarah, I wondered what had made her take such a strong dislike to me as she seemed to feel. It was true that her manners were not very pleasant or amiable to anybody; but there was a malignity in the way she looked at me, and a spiteful coldness in her tone if she only asked me if I would have any more coals, as if she thought it was a great deal more than I deserved to have a fire at all. But she had never been so rude and harsh before as she was on this night, and I began to think that the reason for all her unkindness was her annoyance at the great consideration shown to me, for I was, after all, only a new-comer, while she, who had been in the family for years, was left in her room on the upper story and was not asked to sit for her portrait. It seemed a very silly feeling in a woman so old and sensible as Sarah was supposed to be, and who was certainly very well off for a servant, to show such a mean jealousy of a governess, who is always supposed to be a lady, even in those cases when everybody knows that she is not one. That is only fair, as her work is generally so much harder and so much more unpleasant than that of a servant. Then I thought of the experiences of the other governesses I had known, and I came to the conclusion that Sarah must have lived in families where the governess was snubbed and neglected as some of my friends had been by their pupils’ parents, and so she thought it a shame that I should be so much better treated than most of my sisterhood.
“She is only a crumpled rose-leaf, after all,” I thought to myself. “I am getting spoilt, and it is as well that there is some one to let me know that I am no more deserving than other people—only more fortunate. I suppose I ought to be thankful for Sarah!”
Then I thought of what Mr. Rayner had said about wearing the dazzling heart under my dress; and it was really so beautiful, and I was so grateful to him for his kindness—for it was not his fault that the gift had already brought down so much discomfort upon me—that I should have liked to do so; but two reasons prevented me. The one was that, if I had fastened it round my neck by a bit of ribbon and it had accidentally been seen by some one—Mrs. Rayner for instance, not to mention Sarah—I should have felt rather guilty and uncomfortable, as if I had done something to be ashamed of, that wanted excuses and explanations; and that feeling is, I think, a pretty sure sign that one is doing what is not quite right. The other reason was that I already wore asouvenirround my neck under my dress, fastened to a watch-guard; it was a little case that I had made out of the back of an old purse, and it contained the bit of paper with Mr. Reade’s apology which I had pulled off the rose that evening when I had found the basket of flowers in my “nest.”
Now, if I went on stringing around my neck all the letters and gifts I received, I should some day have as many trophies about my person as a wild Indian—only I should not take the pride in displaying them that he did. So I decided to lock up my pretty sparkling heart in my desk, and to be content with the less showy pendant I already wore. Sarah had seen it, of course—at least she had seen the cover, one evening when I had a cold, and she had brought me a cup of arrowroot, by Mr. Rayner’s orders, while I was undressing. I had seen, by the eager way in which she fixed her great black eyes upon it, that she was dying to know what it contained, and I was mischievously glad that she could not.
Mr. Rayner had given me the pendant on Saturday. The next day, when service was over, and we were standing about in the churchyard as usual, before Mr. and Mrs. Rayner’s departure gave Haidee and me the signal to go home, Mr. Laurence Reade left his party and stood looking at the gravestones, until the gradual moving on of the stream of people who were slowly coming out of the porch brought us past him. Then, as Mr. and Mrs. Rayner stopped to speak to some one, Mr. Reade said—
“Haidee, I’ll give you a penny if you can read that epitaph”—pointing to one in worn old-English characters. “Miss Christie, I believe it is as much as you can do; it is more than I can.”
And we stepped on to the grass, and Haidee knelt down and slowly spelt it out aloud. Mr. Reade kept his eyes fixed on the inscription as he bent over one side of the tombstone, while I looked at it from the other; but what he said was—
“It seems such a long time since Tuesday.”
Tuesday was the day on which he had bought the marbles. I could not laugh over a tombstone before all those people; so I said gravely—
“It is just five days.”
“Yes, but they have been such long days,” said he, in a low voice.
“Not really,” I answered. “The days are getting shorter and shorter now.”
“Don’t you know how long a day seems when you want to see a—a person, and you can’t? But perhaps you see the persons you like best to see every day?”
“I like to see my mother best, and she is a long way off,” said I gravely.
“Ah, yes, of course! But I wasn’t thinking of one’s family.”
“Perhaps you were thinking of the pretty girls who were in your pew last Sunday?”
“The Finches—Ethel and Katie? Oh, no, I wasn’t! I see quite enough of them. They’re coming again, too, to the school-treat. Don’t see why they can’t be contented with their own tea-fights. No; I was thinking of somebody quite different. Can’t you guess who?”
He was looking at me now, and not at the inscription at all. And in the pause which followed his words I distinctly heard Mr. Rayner’s bright voice saying archly—
“Laurence seems to have a great admiration for our pretty little Miss Christie; doesn’t he, Mrs. Reade?”
I did not hear her answer; but it was given in a displeased tone; and a minute afterwards she called her son sharply and said that they were waiting for him. But they all stayed in the churchyard for some minutes after that, and then I noticed that Mr. Rayner was still talking to Mrs. Reade, and that she seemed very much pleased and interested by what he was saying. I just heard her mention “the Bramleys” and “our branch” in her answers; so I guessed that they were what Mr. Rayner called “up the genealogical tree” together.
This was to be a busy week in the parish. The school-treat, which had been put off this year, first on account of sickness in the village and then because of the wet weather, was now fixed to take place on Saturday; and the following day was to be the harvest festival. This was not a very great occasion with us, being signalized only by a special sermon, the harvest thanksgiving hymns—which would be rather inappropriate this year, as the farmers were grumbling more than usual at the damage done by the late heavy rains—and bunches of corn, which those same “thankful people” rather grudged us, in the church-windows and round the pulpit. The Misses Reade had undertaken most of the decoration of the church, as the Vicar’s wife had enough to do in preparing for the school-feast and accompanying sale.
The next day Haidee and I took a longer walk than usual; and, when we returned, Jane met me with a mysterious air in the hall.
“Oh, Miss Christie, young Mr. Reade called while you was out, and asked to see you! He said he had a message for you. And, when I said you was out and offered to give it you, he said he had better write it, as it was important. So he wrote a note for you; and please it wasn’t my fault, but Sarah got hold of it, and she took it to Mr. Rayner. I told her it was directed to you; but she wouldn’t take no notice.”
I went upstairs very much annoyed by this fresh indignity offered me by that hateful Sarah, and hurt and sorry beside, for I was longing to know what the note said. As soon as I got into the dining-room, however, Mr. Rayner came up to me smiling, and put it into my hands.
“Here is abillet-douxwhich has been left for you, Miss Christie. Now whom do you expect one from?”
“From nobody, Mr. Rayner,” said I, blushing very much.
This was not a story, because I knew the letter could not be at all the sort of communication he implied, but would contain, probably, some formal message from Mrs. Maitland.
I opened it at once to show that I did not think it of any consequence. It only said—
“Dear Miss Christie,—My sisters find there is so much to be done for the church that they are afraid they won’t be able to do it all. Would you be so very kind as to undertake part? If you would not mind, I will ride over with the work to-morrow after luncheon, about a quarter-past two. Yours sincerely,Laurence Reade.”
“Dear Miss Christie,—My sisters find there is so much to be done for the church that they are afraid they won’t be able to do it all. Would you be so very kind as to undertake part? If you would not mind, I will ride over with the work to-morrow after luncheon, about a quarter-past two. Yours sincerely,Laurence Reade.”
I think I was a little disappointed in the note; but it was all the better, as I could repeat in quite a careless way what it said; and then, just as I was wondering whether I should tear it up to show that I did not care, I saw that there was something written on the inside leaf, and I put it back into the envelope as if I did not notice what I was doing, and slipped it into my pocket.
Dinner was long that day; when it was over, I went into the schoolroom and drew out my letter again. The words on the inside leaf were—
“Why were you so unkind on Sunday?”
I had no way of sending back an answer; I could only wait till next day at a quarter-past two. But I think I could have sung through the lessons like the heroine of an opera that afternoon.
I had not thought it necessary to mention to Mr. Rayner the time at which Mr. Reade had said he should bring the work; at a quarter-past two we were always in the drawing-room all together. But the next day, the day of all others when it was important that I should stay and hear the explanations about the work I had to do, Mrs. Rayner asked me, directly after dinner, if I would mind writing some letters for her, to go by that afternoon’s post. I should have sat down to write them in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Rayner said—
“You would like to be undisturbed, I know. Shall I send your coffee to your room or to the schoolroom?”
I said, “To my room, if you please,” and went upstairs trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
It was silly of me; but I liked that half-hour in the drawing-room after dinner, and reading the papers over my coffee, and Mr. Rayner’s amusing comments on the news—it was such a pleasant rest.
I had got through one stupid letter—they were not at all important—when there was a knock at the door, and Jane came in, giggling and excited.
“Oh, miss, I’ve brought you a parcel, and I have made Sarah so wild!”—and she laughed delightedly. “I answered the bell, and there was Mr. Reade on his horse with this; and he said, ‘Take it to the schoolroom, please; it’s for Miss Christie;’ and then he got off, and I showed him into the drawing-room. And I saw you wasn’t in there, nor yet in the schoolroom. So when I got into the hall, thinks I, ‘I’ll be beforehand with old Sally this time!’ when out she comes and says, ‘Give that to me. I’ll give it to Miss Christie.’ ‘Never mind,’ says I, half-way up the stairs—‘don’t you trouble.’ And she made a grab at me, but I was too quick for her, and up I run; and here it is, miss.”
And she slapped the parcel down upon the table triumphantly.
“Thank you, Jane,” I said quietly. “It is only some work for the church from Miss Reade.”
Jane’s face fell a little; and then, as if struck by a fresh thought, she giggled again. I cut the string and opened the parcel to prove the truth of my words, and showed her the red flannel and the wheat-ears, which were to be sown on in letters to form a text. But in the middle was another note, and a box wrapped up in paper, both directed to “Miss Christie;” and at sight of these little Jane’s delight grew irrepressible again.
“I knew it!” she began, but stopped herself and said, “I beg your pardon, miss,” and left the room very demurely.
But I heard another burst of merriment as she ran downstairs. Then I opened the note; it only said—
“Dear Miss Christie,—I take the liberty of sending you a few late roses from a tree in a sheltered corner where the rain cannot spoil them. I hope they won’t smell of cigars; I could not find a better box. I will call to fetch the text, if you will let me know when I can see you. Yours sincerely,Laurence Reade.”
“Dear Miss Christie,—I take the liberty of sending you a few late roses from a tree in a sheltered corner where the rain cannot spoil them. I hope they won’t smell of cigars; I could not find a better box. I will call to fetch the text, if you will let me know when I can see you. Yours sincerely,Laurence Reade.”
The roses were in a cigar-box, and as long as they lasted they never smelt of anything but tobacco; but I began to think that perfume nicer than their own.
I was so happy that evening that I was glad when Mr. Rayner asked me to accompany his violin, and I was glad that he chose operatic selections again, for in the passionate and sweet music ofDon GiovanniandIl TrovatoreI could give vent to my feelings. I felt that I had never appreciated the beautiful melodies so well, nor helped so efficiently to do justice to them as I did in accompanying Mr. Rayner that night. He was so pleased with my help that he begged me to go on, with “Just one more” and “Just one more,” until long after Mrs. Rayner had gone to her room. I was nothing loath; I could have played till midnight. I did not say much in comment between the pieces, when Mr. Rayner asked, “How do you like that?” But I suppose it was easy to see by my face that I was enjoying the music intensely, for he just nodded and smiled and seemed quite satisfied.
The clock had struck the half-hour after ten, which was quite late for the household at the Alders, when he finished playing “Voi che sapete.”
“And how do you like that?” asked Mr. Rayner as usual, only that this time he put down his violin, and, drawing a chair close to my music-stool, ran his fingers over the keys of the piano, repeating the melody.
“Do you know the words? ‘Voi che sapete che cos’ è amore,’ ” he sang softly. “Do you know what that means?”
“Oh, yes!” said I, rather proud of showing off my small knowledge of Italian. “ ‘You who know what love is.’ ”
I drew my music-stool a little back, and listened while he sang it softly through. I had never known a love-song touch me like that before. I could almost have cried out in answer, as I sat with my head turned away, listening, almost holding my breath lest I should lose a sound. When he had finished, he turned round; I did not move or speak, and he jumped up, walked to the shutters, unbarred them, and threw open the window.
“I am suffocating. Oh for a Venetian balcony!” said he. “Come here, little woman.”
I rose and obeyed. He threw a woollen antimacassar round my head and shoulders, and drew me to the window.
“Look up there, child, at the moon through the tree-tops. Wouldn’t you like to be in Venice, listening by moonlight to those sweet songs in the very native land of the love they sing about?”
“I don’t want to be anywhere but here, Mr. Rayner,” said I, smiling up at the moon very happily.
“Why?”
But I could not tell Mr. Rayner why.
“I would give the whole world to be there at this moment with the woman I love. I could make her understand there!”
I was struck by the passionate tenderness in his voice, and suddenly made up my mind to be very bold.
“Then why don’t you take her there, Mr. Rayner?” I said earnestly.
As I spoke, smiling at him and speaking as gently as I could, though I felt terribly frightened at my own boldness, his eyes seemed to grow darker, and his whole face lighted up in an extraordinary way. I saw my words had made an impression, so I went on eagerly, pressing nervously the hand with which he was holding mine, for I was still afraid lest my audacity should offend him.
“Mr. Rayner, forgive me for speaking about this; but you spoke first, didn’t you? I have so often wondered why you didn’t take her away. It seems so hard that you, who want sympathy so much—you know you have often told me so—should have to live, as you say, a shut-up life, on account of the apathy of the woman to whom you are bound.”
He seemed to drink in my words as if they contained an elixir; I could feel by his hand that he was actually trembling; and I grew more assured myself.
“Now, if you were to take her away, although you might have a difficulty at first in persuading her to go, and force her, with the kind force you know how to use, to go among fresh faces and see fresh people, I believe she would come back to life again, and see how much better you are than other husbands, and love you just as much as ever. Oh, she couldn’t help it; you are so kind and so good!”
Then my heart sank, for I saw I had gone too far. As I spoke, from passionately eager, he looked surprised, puzzled, and then his face clouded over with a cold frown that chilled me with fear and shame. I drew my hand out of his quickly, and stepped back into the room. He followed and took my hand again, and, when I looked up, murmuring clumsy and incoherent apologies, his face was as composed and kind as usual; but I thought he looked rather sad.
“Never mind, little one; you have not offended me by speaking your mind out; don’t be afraid. But you don’t know, you cannot guess—how should a child like you guess?—how many or how deep a man’s cares may be while he is obliged to bear a brave front to the world. I think you would be sorry for me if you knew them.”
“I am sorry even without knowing them,” I said softly.
He bent down over me and looked into my eyes for a few moments. Then he raised his head, and laughed lightly.
“You are a fraud. Great gray eyes ought to be passionate, and yours are as cold as a lake on a still day. I believe you are an Undine! You have no soul.”
“Oh, Mr. Rayner!” I said mournfully, and I turned slowly to the piano to put away the music.
“Never mind; I will do that,” said he, in his usual tone. “I have kept you up long enough. Good-night, Undine.”
I was almost afraid he would again want to kiss me, and, after offending him once, I should not have dared to refuse. So I shook hands as hastily as I could, took my candle, and ran upstairs. I was very angry with myself for having been cold and unsympathetic—I had not meant to be so at all.
But the fact was I had been thinking the whole evening of Mr. Laurence Reade.