“Now let us slip out, and we can talk.”
So we tucked my basket under one of the stalls, and went out of the tent and away into a lane near the field; and Laurence’s face grew very anxious and unhappy as I asked him what was the matter.
“I shall have to go away, Violet,” said he, looking at me very intently.
“Go away! Why—why?” said I, the tears rushing to my eyes. I had not expected anything so dreadful as that.
“My mother has decided—has been persuaded—that she must go away to the Riviera to escape the wet season we are threatened with, and I shall have to go with her.”
“But you will come back? You will soon come back, won’t you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what may happen while I am away. I don’t know what the plots and plans may be of the person who has caused me to be sent away.”
“What do you mean? What person, Laurence? Your mother—your sister?”
Laurence looked at me without answering, in the same searching intent way as before, for a minute or two; then he said—
“Listen, Violet. You are such an innocent little thing that I don’t know how to tell you what I must.”
I could not help looking rather frightened at this opening; and he stopped a little while to comfort me before he went on—
“Last night, when I had left you and got home, I found Mr. Rayner just leaving the Hall.”
Mr. Rayner! Then he must have gone on there from the Vicarage, and he must have come straight from the Hall when he passed me to go to his room, as I crouched in the shrubbery. Laurence continued—
“I went straight into the study to speak to my father. You know there is more sympathy between him and me than there is between any of the rest of us, so I went straight ahead and told him all about you, and what a sweet little thing you were; and I asked him to find me some occupation in an office, or on a farm or something, at once, for I must have a home to take you to before the year was out. And the dear old dad said you had a good sweet face, and he should like to have such a daughter; but what would thematersay? You know my mother rules him with a pretty tight hand; and he may say ‘Yes’ to anything when her back is turned, but he daren’t say ‘No’ to her to her face. And my mother has strong prejudices, and wants me to marry some one with money, ‘to improve our position in the county.’ And I told him I was twenty-four, and old enough to know my own mind, and I didn’t care what she wanted. But he begged me not to offend her, and then said, ‘She has just been in to tell me something that may have a bearing on the matter. It seems she has set her heart on going to the Riviera, and insists on your going with her. Now supposing I stock a farm for you while you are away, you can step into it directly you come back—I suppose she won’t want to be gone more than a couple of months—and you can try your hand at farming for a year or two, and keep it warm for Jack, who wants to take to it, he says. When you are living away from us, you will be more your own master, and your mother will have to submit to your marrying whom you like. So don’t say a word to her or to your sisters—you know they always side with her—till you come back.’ I didn’t much like this; but I could not say ‘No’ to my father—he has been so good to me—and I couldn’t refuse to go with my mother; nevertheless I was half mad all the same, for I know who has persuaded her to this.”
“Do you? Who?”
“Mr. Rayner. Haven’t you noticed how he has been steadily getting round my mother for the last few weeks, till he rules her as surely as she rules my father? I’ve watched him, and tried to put her on her guard; but I am no match for him. I wondered what he was doing it for; now I see.”
“But I don’t, Laurence. Why are you so prejudiced against Mr. Rayner—when he has been so kind to me too? What should he persuade her to go away for?”
Laurence looked at me earnestly.
“To get me away.”
“To get you away? Why should he do that?”
Laurence began to speak, but got very red, and stopped.
“He doesn’t like me, Violet, and he doesn’t want me to have you.”
“Oh, indeed you are mistaken, Laurence! He has often praised you.”
“Yes; that is his cunning. But I tell you he would stick at nothing to prevent my marrying you; and as long you are under his roof I shall never know a moment’s peace,” said he excitedly. “He is a bad man—”
“Oh, Laurence, you shouldn’t say that! I know him better than you do, and I know that he is goodness and kindness itself.”
“Violet, you are no wiser than a child. How can you see the way he treats his wife, and yet call him good?”
“His wife! Ah, I know all about that, but—I must not tell you. Indeed he is not cruel to her, as you think, Laurence. I know all about it; I do indeed.”
“Well, then, since I must say it, what do you think of the way he treats you? Doesn’t he show he cares for you more than for her? Can’t you see that he is making love to you?”
“Laurence!” cried I, aghast. “How dare you say such a thing? What have I done that you should think so ill of me as to think I would let a man who is married make love to me? How could you tell me you loved me, thinking that? I will never speak to you again.”
I turned sharply from him, and was back in the field among the people before he could stop me. Tea was being given to the children, and I went to help; but the enjoyment of the day was gone. In a dazed state I was still handing about cake, too miserable and excited to know quite what I was doing, when Lady Mills and Mr. and Mrs. Rayner came up to me. This lady, who had charmed me so much, had in return taken a fancy to me, and had begged Mr. and Mrs. Rayner to let me go home with her to stay until Monday; and they had consented. At another time this invitation would have made me half mad with delight, but now it seemed only to overwhelm me with terror at the thought of going among so many strangers. However, they sent me home to prepare what things I wanted, and told me to make haste.
As I was packing a muslin frock I had never yet worn, and wishing I had something handsomer for the occasion, I suddenly thought of the paste pendant Mr. Rayner had given me. That would look quite dazzling peeping out of the muslin and lace round my throat. So I packed that and a piece of black velvet to wear it on; and I was scarcely ready before Jane came up to say that Lady Mills’s carriage was at the gate waiting for me.
But just outside the hall door I met Laurence, with a rose in his hand.
“Violet, Violet, don’t go without a word to me! Here—throw away that rose and wear mine.”
“I will wear yours,” said I; “but I can’t throw away this one till it is dead. That would be ungrateful.”
“Did Mr. Rayner give it you?”
“Yes.”
He snatched out of my hand the rose I had just taken from him, and flung it away.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Christie, for my presumption in thinking you would accept mine after his. Good-evening.”
He strode off towards the plantation path, and he would not turn round when I called “Laurence, Laurence!” I could not stay to run after him, even if I had been able to overtake him; so, with tears in my eyes, I plunged into the flower-bed where his rose had fallen and picked it up, and put Mr. Rayner’s gently on the ground instead. It was an ungrateful thing to do; but I must do what Laurence wished, even if he did not know it.
And so with a very heavy heart I ran up the path to the carriage, and started on a visit which was to be strangely eventful to me.
Therewere four ladies already in the carriage which was waiting for me at the gate—Lady Mills herself, with another more matronly-looking lady by her side, whose name, I already knew, was Mrs. Cunningham; and on the opposite seat were a younger lady with a rather sharp expression, named Mrs. Clowes, who was considered very clever, and an unmarried one some years older than I. I made the third on that seat; but there was plenty of room for us all. We drove back first to the High Field, that Lady Mills might tell the rest of the party to make haste, or they would be late for dinner. There were some ladies on the drag waiting for the gentlemen, who were now amusing themselves by selling off by auction some of the things remaining on the stalls, while the grooms were busy packing into the inside of the drag the curious collection of purchases made by the whole party. There was a dog-cart waiting, with a gentleman in it smoking; and standing by the horse’s head, also with a cigar in his mouth, was the tall fair gentleman whose face I now seemed to know the best of all. As soon as we drove up, he came to the side of the carriage.
“You are horribly crowded in there; let me take Miss—Miss Christie in the dog-cart.”
“And what will you do with Charlie, Tom?”
“I’ll put Charlie behind.”
“Charlie is getting used to being put behind,” said the eldest lady of all, looking at Mrs. Clowes, and laughing.
“Proper place for a husband, Mrs. Cunningham,” said the fair gentleman.
I afterwards found that the gentleman they called “Charlie” was Captain Clowes.
“Well, will you come, Miss Christie?”
“No, Tom; Miss Christie is better where she is.”
“She couldn’t be better off than with me,” said he, in a gravely innocent tone.
Everybody laughed.
“Take my part, Mrs. Clowes. Don’t all jump upon me at once when I want to make an impression. Could Miss Christie be safer than with me?”
Everybody glanced rather mischievously at Mrs. Clowes; and I saw a faint color rise in her cheeks.
“Not with Charlie behind,” said she; and everybody laughed more than ever.
I was glad Lady Mills would not let me go, though, for I did not care much about the gentleman they called “Tom,” and Laurence did not like him either. It was about seven miles from Geldham to Denham Court. The drive seemed to me beautiful, though the country was flat; the rains had kept everything very green, and the sinking sun warmed the landscape with a golden tint. I looked about me and listened to the ladies’ talk, but did not say much. Some one said I was silent, and some one else said “Tom” would make me talk; but indeed their conversation was so different from any I had ever heard that I could not have joined in it very well, even if I had known them better. Some of them said things which would have sounded quite wicked if they had said them seriously; but they were all in fun, and they seemed to laugh at everything. They laughed a great deal at Sir Jonas, who was Lady Mills’s husband, and she herself imitated the way he would rub his hands and stare up at the ceiling, and say in little jerks he “hoped they had—enjoyed themselves—fine day. Stupid things, bazaars—but bring young people together.”
“And keep the old ones away,” said Mrs. Clowes, in her sharp tones. And everybody laughed very much.
Denham Court was a pretty place built on the side of a slight hill, with the river Doveney running not far from the foot of it. I was shown up into a room that looked out upon greenhouses and cucumber-frames, and from which I had a view of the river, just at a point where it widened out into a broad expanse like a lake. Just then I had not much time to grieve about my quarrel with Laurence and his cruel conduct about the rose; but I did shed a few tears, and wondered whether he would write and ask me to make it up, and thought that I should not be able to enjoy myself at all in this pretty place without him. Then I shook out my muslin frock and put it on, and, when I fastened the black velvet round my throat, with the beautiful flashing pendant on it, and pinned on one side of the lace edging, a little lower down, the red rose Laurence had flung away and I had meekly picked up again, I looked so much nicer than I had thought it possible for me to look that I could not help feeling that life was not quite a blank, and wishing that Laurence could see me.
I had left my room, and was going along the corridor, when I met a man the sight of whom made me start and turn quite cold. For he looked so much like the mysterious visitor at the Alders whom Mr. Rayner had described as “a gentleman,” and whom I had seen two nights before going into the stable with Tom Parkes and Sarah, that I thought it must be he. But this man stood aside for me with the stolidly respectful manner, not of a gentleman, but of a servant; and I hurried past him, feeling quite shocked by the strength of the resemblance; for of course a friend of Mr. Rayner’s, however familiarly he might choose to speak to Tom Parkes and Sarah, would not be a man-servant at Denham Court.
In the hall I met a maid who showed me into the drawing-room, which was empty; so I walked to one of the windows which led into a conservatory, and peeped in. The flowers were so beautiful, the scents so intoxicating, that I crept in step by step with my hands clasped, as if drawn by enchantment; and I had my face close to a large plant covered with white blossoms like lilies, when I saw peeping through the big fan-shaped leaves of a plant behind it the fair mustache and eye-glass of the gentleman they called “Tom.” He was looking intently, not at me, but at the ornament sparkling at my throat. He looked up when I did, and came round to me.
“Nicely-kept place, isn’t it? Sir Jonas is proud of his flowers.”
“I never saw any like them. Look at these. Are they lilies?”
“I believe this is called ‘Eucharistis Amazonia;’ if not, it is something like that. Shall I cut you some?”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! It would be such a pity!”
“I suppose you wouldn’t condescend to wear them?”
“I shouldn’t dare to do so. What would Sir Jonas say if you spoilt his beautiful plants?”
“Sir Jonas wouldn’t say anything; he never does. Even the gardener, a much more important person, wouldn’t say anything to me. I’m a spoilt child here, Miss Christie; so you had better make friends with me, and I’ll get you everything you want.”
“Make friends! Why, I am not your enemy, am I?” said I, laughing.
“Not at present; but you must be careful. Now I will tell you who is my enemy”—and he stooped and looked at the flower at my throat—“the man who gave you that rose.”
I started, and his mouth twitched a little, as if he wanted to smile.
“How do you know it was a man?” I asked, blushing.
“Never mind how I know. I am a magician, and I am not going to give you lessons in the black art for nothing. But look here! I’ll tell you how I know, if you will give it to me in exchange for any flower you like to choose in this place.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t want to exchange it; and I don’t care to have lessons in your black art, thank you.”
“Now that is your nasty pride, Miss Christie. But I suppose one must not expect humility from a lady who wears such diamonds;” and he glanced again at my pendant, as he had done several times while we talked.
“They are not real diamonds,” said I, laughing, and rather pleased for the moment at his mistake. “They are only paste.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Then allow me to congratulate you, Miss Christie, on possessing the very best imitation of the real thing that I have ever seen. I know something of diamonds, and I never was deceived before.”
I was looking at him curiously, for he seemed to speak as if he did not quite believe me.
“Look! I will go to the door,” said I, for the light was fading, “and then, as you are such a good judge, you will be able to tell.”
I walked to the door, and he bent his face down close to mine and examined my pendant carefully. Presently he gave a slight start.
“Am I taking too great a liberty in asking if there are initials on the other side of that?”
“Yes, there are,” said I, surprised.
“And will you tell me what they are?”
I hesitated. If this gentleman persisted in thinking the ornament was made of diamonds, he would think it a very strange thing if he found out that it was Mr. Rayner who had given such a costly present to his child’s governess; so I said quietly—
“I would rather not tell you.”
“I beg your pardon. Will you forgive my curiosity? I have seen only one ornament set exactly like that before; but it was in real diamonds”—and again he looked at me. “I was wondering if it had been exactly imitated in paste by the jeweller who set it, and if the sham twin-brother had, by some curious coincidence, come into your possession.”
“How lovely the real one must be!”
“No lovelier than yours, I assure you.”
“Then doesn’t it seem a pity to spend so much money on real ones?” said I. “What do you think the real one was worth?”
“About fifteen hundred pounds, I believe.”
“And you thought I had on an ornament worth fifteen hundred pounds!” said I, laughing heartily. “Oh, if the person who gave it me could know, how he would laugh!”
He caught at my words.
“He would laugh, would he?”
I was annoyed with myself, for I had not meant to let out even the sex of the giver of my pendant. He continued—
“He would be pleased, I should think, to have his paste taken for diamonds.”
I did not answer, but only laughed again.
“Have any of the ladies seen it yet, Miss Christie?”
“No; and, for fear they should make the same mistake that you have made, I shall not let them,” said I.
And I had raised my hands to take it off when Mrs. Cunningham and another lady came into the conservatory. The elder lady’s eyes fell upon the unlucky trinket at once.
“What are you taking that off for, my dear? It is just what you want round the throat.”
“Because I have been teased about wearing diamonds, and they are only sham ones; and I don’t want to be teased any more,” said I rather tremulously.
“Never mind Tom, my dear. Don’t take off your pretty pendant for him. They are certainly very like, though,” said she, looking first at them and then into my face. “Here, put them on again and snap your fingers at Tom.”
I raised the velvet obediently, and the gentleman called Tom came softly behind me and took the ends from my trembling fingers, and fastened them himself round my throat again. He first pretended that he had not got them straight, though, and held the velvet a little way from me to try to look at the back of the pendant. But I was prepared for that; and I put my hand round it, as if fearing it might fall, and would not let him see the initials.
After this first experience of the sensation caused by my one ornament, I watched rather curiously its effect upon the rest of the party, as some of them strolled into the conservatory, and when I met the others in the drawing-room and in the general gathering at dinner. Every one looked at me, the one stranger, a good deal, of course; but I noticed that, while my pendant attracted the attention of the ladies, the gentlemen looked more at me myself, and were not scandalized by my unlucky ornament. Sir Jonas, who was a kind, gray-haired gentleman, and looked nearly old enough to be Lady Mills’s father, took me in to dinner; and, although he did not talk much, he encouraged me to chatter to him, and to tell him all about the school-treat, and tried to make me drink a great deal more wine than I wanted.
After dinner, when I was in the drawing-room with the ladies, some of them drew me on to a sofa and pulled me about and petted me just as if I had been a child, and asked me a number of questions about my life at the Alders and “that handsome Mr. Rayner.”
“And is it true that he is such a dreadfully wicked man, Miss Christie?” said one.
“Yes, it is; she is blushing,” said another.
But I was not blushing at all; there was nothing to blush about. I said, laughing—
“No, he is not wicked. The village-people think he is, because he plays the violin and goes to races. He is very kind.”
“Oh, we don’t doubt that, my dear!” said Mrs. Clowes, in a demure tone.
“You think I like him only just because he is kind to me,” said I boldly. “But I shouldn’t like him if he were wicked, however kind he might be.”
“And Mrs. Rayner—is she kind and good too?”
“Oh, yes, she is just as kind!” said I.
This was not quite true; but I knew already enough of these people to be sure they would laugh if I said “No;” and it was not poor Mrs. Rayner’s fault that she was not as nice as her husband. Presently Mrs. Cunningham took me to the other end of the room to look at a portrait of Lady Mills.
“It is no business of mine who gave you that pendant, my dear; but have you any more ornaments of the kind, and, if so, where do you keep them?” she said gravely.
“Oh, I have no more!” I answered, a little surprised at her manner. “And I keep this in an old case in the corner of my desk.”
“Ah, I thought so, from the careless way in which you were going to slip it into your pocket when we caught you in the conservatory. Why, my dear child, I have a set that I value very much—no finer than yours, though—diamonds and cat’s-eyes—and I sleep with them under my pillow, and even my maid doesn’t know where they are.”
I showed my astonishment.
“Believe me, when you travel about on a series of visits, as I am doing now, and are obliged to entrust your dressing-case to a careless maid, it is no unnecessary precaution.”
“But I shouldn’t take so much trouble with my paste pendant,” said I.
She shook her head at me, with a laugh, and said dryly—
“I should with such paste as yours.”
And then the gentlemen came in. One of them had brought from town that day a parcel of new waltzes, but the ladies all declined to play them until they had tried them over privately; and the gentlemen seemed so much disappointed that, having turned over the pages and seen that they were perfectly easy, I timidly offered my services. They were really pretty, and, after the difficult music I had had to read with Mr. Rayner, they were like child’s-play to me. When I had got to the end of the first, I received an ovation. The owner of the music was in ecstasies, and those who had begun to dance stopped and joined the rest in a chorus of admiration that made me quite ashamed of myself.
“Didn’t you know that I am a governess?” said I to one gentleman, laughing and blushing.
“Yes; but we thought you were only for show,” said Mrs. Clowes.
And I played the rest of the waltzes, and thought how much nicer it was to play for these people than for those I had met at Mrs. Manners’s tea-party. Then the gentleman they called Tom, whose name I had now found out to be Mr. Carruthers, led me away from the piano, saying I was not to be made a victim all the evening for other people’s amusement; and, telling a gentleman who was talking to me that he and I were going to have a serious conversation and were not to be disturbed, he took me to a deep window where there were seats, and gave me one, while he threw himself into another beside me.
“How beautifully you play!” said he, leaning over my chair and looking at me. “I never knew such a pretty girl as you take the trouble to learn anything properly before.”
I had been so much spoilt that day by flattery that I only answered calmly—
“Why shouldn’t pretty people learn things as well as ugly people, Mr. Carruthers?”
“Don’t call me ‘Mr. Carruthers’; nobody calls me ‘Mr. Carruthers’—at least, nobody nice. If you don’t yet feel equal to saying ‘Tom,’ let the matter remain in abeyance for the present. Now, to continue from the point where I lost my temper, ugly people have to be accomplished and good and all sorts of things, to get a little of the attention that a pretty person can get without any trouble at all.”
“Ah, but it is different if you have to earn your own living! If you are a governess, for instance, people don’t care about what you look like, but about what you know.”
He stroked his mustache meditatively, looked at me, and said—
“Of course; I forgot that. I suppose you have to know a lot to teach. I am sure you know more than any woman in this room.”
“Oh, no, indeed I don’t! They are all a great, great deal cleverer than I am. I couldn’t talk as they do.”
“Heaven forbid!” muttered he, as if to himself. “They know how to chaff—that’s all. Did you ever meet any of them before?”
“Never before to-day.”
“I wonder if you know any of the people I know? Do you know the Temples of Crawley Hall?”
“No.”
“Have you ever been farther west than this—Staffordshire—Derbyshire?”
“No, never.”
He was looking on the ground; he raised and fixed his eyes suddenly on my face as he said—
“Do you know the Dalstons?”
“N-o,” said I, rather hesitatingly.
“Not Lord Dalston, with his different crazes? You speak as if you were not sure.”
“I am sure I don’t know him,” said I. “But I was trying to remember what I have heard about him, for I seem to know the name quite well.”
In the most gravely persistent manner Mr. Carruthers went on probing my memory about Lord Dalston; but I could not even remember where I had heard the name mentioned before. He had to give it up at last; I believe however that he thought it was obstinacy that prevented my telling him.
When, at last, long past the hour when the household at the Alders retired to rest, we dispersed to our rooms, I made a mistake in my corridor, and found myself in one which led to the servants’ wing; and I heard a man’s voice that I knew saying persuasively—
“Don’t be in such a hurry! She won’t be up for half an hour yet, nor my man either. I never get a word with you now.”
Suddenly it flashed upon me whose the voice was. It was the voice I had heard talking to Sarah in the plantation, the voice of Mr. Rayner’s mysterious friend. And the person he was talking to, and with whom he proceeded to exchange a kiss, was Lady Mills’s maid! It was a strange thing, but one about which I could no longer have a doubt. The respectful man-servant I had met before dinner in the corridor and the visitor who was shown into the study at the Alders as a gentleman, and who was yet on familiar terms with Tom Parkes and Sarah, were one and the same person!
I was very sleepy and very much preoccupied with this curious discovery when I got to my room; but, before I went to bed, I put, as I thought, my beautiful but unfortunate pendant safely inside my desk, resolved not to wear it again.
I gotup next morning directly I was called, and was downstairs long before anybody else—but I was glad of that, for I wanted to explore the garden. It was a beautiful, warm, bright morning, and I rejoiced, for it would bring the people to Geldham Church for the harvest-thanksgiving. I went over the lawn, and down the alleys, and round and round the flower-beds, and peeped into the greenhouses, and tried to see through the steaming glass of the hot-houses, which were locked, when, suddenly, turning round one of them, I came face to face with Tom Parkes in his Sunday clothes, with a key in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other. He was evidently disconcerted, and tried by turning to the door of the hot-house to avoid me. But I accosted him at once.
“Tom—Tom Parkes, don’t you know me—Miss Christie?” I said.
“Lor’, yes, miss, to be sure, so it is! Who’d ’a’ thought o’ seeing you here?” said he, touching his hat with rather awkward surprise.
“Why, you must have known me, Tom! You looked as if you had seen a ghost!”
“Well, the truth is, miss, asking your pardon,” said Tom sheepishly, “that I didn’t want you to see me. You see, I’ve been took on here as extry under-gardener and help, and the head-gardener he don’t like Londoners, and I don’t want him to know as I’m a London chap. So, if you would be ser good, miss, as not to mention as you’ve seen me before, I should take it kind.”
“Very well, Tom, I won’t betray you,” I replied, laughing.
And he said, “Thank you, miss,” and touched his hat again, and went off with his eggs. I was very much amused by this encounter and the important secret I had to keep. As if my mentioning that I had seen Tom at the Alders would necessarily entail the awful discovery that he was a Londoner!
By this time I thought I had better go in and see if any of the other people had come down to breakfast; and I was sauntering along, when, as I got near the house, I heard two men’s voices.
“Bella is getting jealous, Tom.”
A grunt in the other voice.
“I say, ain’t it rough on the little one?”
Then I heard Lady Mills’s voice, and when I got to the door there were eight or ten people already assembled. But the two nearest the door, whom I had overheard, were a gentleman named Cole and Mr. Carruthers. It was Mr. Carruthers who had grunted. Who was “Bella”? And who was “the little one”? And what did “rough on” mean?
The bells of Denham Church, which was close by, had begun to ring before breakfast was over, and Lady Mills wanted to know who was going.
“I am going, for one,” said Mrs. Clowes, and she looked across at Mr. Carruthers, who was helping himself to a great deal of marmalade.
“Do try to make up a respectable number,” said Lady Mills. “You can do just what you like, you know, as soon as it is over; and people in the country think so much of it. We scandalize the neighborhood quite enough, as it is, by not going to bed at ten o’clock, and other wicked practices. And last week we were only three at church out of a party of seventeen.”
“Are you going, Miss Christie? Yes, of course you are. I’ll go, if you will find all the places for me,” said Mr. Carruthers.
And when we got to church—we mustered eight altogether—he sat by me, and picked out from among the books the biggest church-service he could find, which he put in front of me when the collect was given out, whispering—
“Find it for me, please.”
At first I would not take any notice, for it was just like playing in church; but he began making such a disturbance, rustling the leaves of his book, looking over those of his neighbors, and dropping with a crash all those within reach on the ledge before him, that I was obliged to find it for him, and all the other places too during the service, just as if he had been a little boy. But I was very angry all the time, and when we came out I would not speak to him. He came however and walked by my side while I talked to somebody else, and at last he said meekly—
“Have I offended you?”
“Yes,” I said; “I think you are very irreverent.”
“I didn’t mean to be irreverent,” he said, in a still meeker tone. “But it is so dull to sit in church and not be able to follow the service, and it looks so bad to be fumbling in one’s book all the time and find the place only when the parson is a long way ahead. And you can always find it in a minute.”
“You should go to church oftener, and then you could find the places as well as I,” rejoined I severely.
“Yes, but I always have such a lot to do on Sunday mornings in town,” said he mournfully—“pipes to smoke, and—and other things. But I’ll try to go oftener; I dare say it will do me good.”
“I don’t believe going to church does people like you any good at all,” remarked I gravely.
And Mr. Carruthers burst out laughing, and said it was very wrong of me to discourage him just when he wanted to try to be good.
At luncheon I sat between him and clever Mrs. Clowes, who described the sermon in a way that made everybody laugh, and said a lot of amusing and sometimes unkind things, as she always did. Presently, in a rather low voice, she addressed Mr. Carruthers across me.
“Shall I pass you the sherry; or is it true that you have taken to milk and water?” she asked meaningly.
“Quite true,” said he. “And you can’t think how nice it is—not half so insipid as you would expect, and a pleasant change after too many stimulants. Let me give you some grapes, Miss Christie.”
And Mrs. Clowes turned away her head, as if there had been something that hurt her in his answer.
Most of the people spent Sunday afternoon just as if it had not been Sunday at all, except that nobody rode or drove. But some went on the river, and some played lawn-tennis, and some lounged about and read novels; and others, of whom I was one, sat under the trees on the lawn and drank iced champagne, which is quite the nicest thing I ever tasted. I heard the mysterious man-servant give an order to Tom Parkes, calling him, “Here, you, gardener, what’s your name?” as if he had never seen him before, and walked up and down Mr. Rayner’s garden, and gone into Mr. Rayner’s stable with him only two nights before. What a silly fellow Tom was with his little mystery! I pointed out the other man to Mr. Carruthers, and asked if he knew whose servant he was.
“He is mine, and the best I ever had. I’ve had him six months now, and of late I’ve given up thinking altogether; he does it for me so much better.”
I began to wonder whether this mysterious man-servant was some poor relation of Mr. Rayner’s, who had taken to this way of earning his living, but was ashamed of it, and who came privately to see his richer connections, to spare them the talk of the neighbors about what people like the Reades, for instance, would certainly consider a great disgrace. So I said nothing more about him to Mr. Carruthers, who was sitting near me, smoking, and teasing me to read a Sunday newspaper, which I did not think right. So at last he began reading it aloud to me, and then I got up and ran away with Mr. Cole to the fruit-garden, where he gathered plums for me; and we looked at the chickens, and watched the fish in the pond, and threw crumbs to them, which they would not take any notice of, until dinner-time.
Mr. Cole had cut me some beautiful flowers to wear in the front of my frock, for I had resolved not to wear my pendant again; but my muslin gown did not look nearly so well without it, and I thought I would just take it out and see the effect of it at my throat close to the flowers, and then put it away again. But, when I unlocked my desk and opened the shabby case in which Mr. Rayner had given it to me, the pendant was gone. Nothing else had been disturbed; the sovereign my uncle had given me lay untouched in its little leather bag close by; the notes I had had from Laurence, tied up with pink ribbon, were just as I had left them. I searched my desk, my pockets, every corner of the room, though I knew it would be of no use. For I remembered quite well, sleepy as I had been the night before, that I had shut it up in the case carefully, turning it about for a few moments in my hand to watch it flashing in the candle-light.
It had been stolen—by whom I could not guess. I sat down after my fruitless search, trembling and too much frightened to cry. For there is something alarming in a mysterious loss like that, an uncomfortable sense of being at the mercy of some unknown power, apart from the certainty that one of the people about you is a thief. At first I thought I would go to Lady Mills and tell her privately all about it; but my courage failed me; for if my loss got known there would be an unpleasant scene for all the servants and a sense of discomfort in the entire household; besides, several of the servants in the house were those of the guests, and not under Lady Mills’s authority. It was just as likely that my pendant had been taken by one of them; and everybody would be indignant at the idea of his or her servant being suspected of the theft. So I resolved to say nothing about it, but to bear my loss, which I felt more than I should have thought possible, in silence. After all, if I could never wear it without exciting more attention than I cared for, and surprising people by my possession of an ornament which they persisted in thinking extremely valuable, it was better that it should have disappeared. I began to think it had already had an unwholesome effect upon me, by my secret wish to wear it again.
So I went downstairs to dinner with a piece of plain black velvet round my throat, told Mrs. Cunningham, who asked why I did not wear my pendant, that I had come to the conclusion that it was too handsome an ornament for a girl in my position, and heard Mr. Carruthers say that the same remark would apply to my eyes.
It was a fine night, not cold, though there was a light breeze; and after dinner some of us went into the garden, and I among them, for I was afraid they would make me play the waltzes again, although it was Sunday. One of the gentlemen did say—
“Let us ask Miss Christie to play for us.”
But the lady he spoke to replied, in a rather offended tone—
“We need not always trouble Miss Christie; and I am sure she would rather not be disturbed. I just tried the waltzes over this morning, and they are quite easy.”
“Just tried ’em over!” muttered Mr. Cole, who was standing by me in the conservatory. “She was hard at it hammering at the piano all church-time.”
It was late in the evening when Mr. Carruthers, who had been in the billiard-room with some of the others, came out and sauntered, with a cigar in his mouth, up to the grape-house, where I was standing with Sir Jonas, who had taken a fancy to me and insisted on cutting me some grapes straight from the vine.
“Lady Mills wishes me to say that Miss Christie will get her death of cold if she comes out of the hot-house into the cold air with nothing round her shoulders,” said Mr. Carruthers, when we were at the door.
“Bless me—so she will! Fetch her a shawl, Tom.”
“I have anticipated the lady’s wants; I always do,” said Mr. Carruthers; and he wrapped round my head and shoulders a beautiful Indian shawl belonging to Lady Mills.
“Take her in quickly, Tom. I should never forgive myself if she caught cold,” said kind old Sir Jonas anxiously, standing at the door of the grape-house with his knife still in his hand.
“Nor should I,” muttered Mr. Carruthers. “Now run, Miss Christie.”
I was not a bit cold, and I told him so; but he said, “Never mind—won’t do to run risks,” and put his arm in mine, and made me run as fast as I could until we were round the corner of a wall, out of Sir Jonas’s sight.
“And now,” said he, “we’ll run another way.”
And he took me down a long path between apple and pear trees until we got to a side-gate that I had not seen before.
“I am going to take you for a walk,” said he.
“But it is so late, and I am dressed so queerly.”
“Never mind. You are not sleepy, are you?”—and he looked down into my face. “No, your eyes are quite bright and—wide awake. And nobody goes to bed here till they are sleepy, which is a very good plan. As for your dress, I think it very becoming—very becoming—quite Oriental. And, as it is too late for anybody else to be about, and too dark for them to see you if they were, I am the only person you need consult.”
So we went through the gate and by a narrow foot-path over the grass down to the river. We stopped when we got there, by the boat-house, and Mr. Carruthers said it would be a lovely night for a sail.
“Just down there to the broad,” said me, “and along that path of moonlight, up to those trees and back again. Wouldn’t it be jolly?”
“Yes, if it were not Sunday,” I said timidly.
No other objection occurred to me. He looked down at me, as if hesitating about something, and then said—
“You are right. You see I respect your scruples, if I do not share them;” and he took out his watch. “It is just a quarter to twelve. By the time I have got the boat ready it will be Monday morning, and then there will be nothing against it.”
He had one foot in the boat before I could do more than say—
“But, Mr. Carruthers, it is so late. What would Lady Mills say?”
“I’ll make it all right with Lady Mills; and you are such a good little girl that nobody will think anything of what you do.”
I did not understand this speech so well then as I did later; but it gave me a sense of uneasiness, which however was but momentary, for he talked and made me laugh until he had the boat ready, and we heard the big church-clock strike out twelve.
“Now, unless that clock is fast, our consciences are free. Give me your hand. Step carefully. There you are.”
I was in the boat, smiling with pleasure, yet ready to cry out at every movement, for I had never been on the water before.
“There isn’t much wind; but I think there is enough to bring us back, so I’ll just scull down stream to the broad. Take the lines—so—and pull whichever one I tell you.”
I disengaged my hands from the shawl I was shrouded in, and, overwhelmed by a sense of my new responsibility, did as I was told without a word. And, as there was not much steering required, I fell to thinking of Laurence. I had had to talk a great deal during the last two days; but whenever I was not talking my thoughts flew back at once to him, as they did now.
“You are not thinking of me,” said Mr. Carruthers quietly.
I started, blushed, and pulled the wrong line at once.
“Never mind,” said he meekly—“only it’s ungrateful. He isn’t half so much absorbed in you as I am.”
“Absorbed in me! I was thinking of—of Mrs. Manners.”
“Happy Mrs. Manners, to be able to call up such a smile of beatitude on the face of a beautiful girl!”
“Who did you think it was, Mr. Carruthers?”
“If I tell you, you will upset me, or command me to land you at once.”
“No, I won’t. And you wouldn’t pay any attention if I did.”
“Let me come and sit by you, and I’ll tell you. We can drift.”
So he came and sat by my side, and directed our course by splashing in one of the sculls, first on one side and then on the other, as we went on talking.
“Why is it,” he asked suddenly, “that a woman never cares for the man who loves her best?”
The question, which was quite new to me, startled me.
“Doesn’t she—ever?” I asked anxiously.
“I—I am afraid not,” said he, in a very low voice, bending his face to mine with a sad look in his eyes that troubled me.
“But how is she to tell?” I asked tremulously.
“I think she can tell best by the look in his eyes when they are bent on her,” he whispered, with a long steady gaze which disconcerted me.
I turned away my head.
“If,” he went on, still in the same soft voice quite close to my ear, “she raises her lips to his and then tries to read in his eyes the emotion he feels for her—”
“But I did,” said I quickly, turning to him with my heart beating fast at the remembrance of Laurence’s first kiss.
Mr. Carruthers drew back, stroked his mustache, and looked at me in quite a different manner.
“You have not lived all your life in the country, Miss Christie, I think,” said he dryly.
And I saw in a moment, by the change in his look and voice, what I had done. He had been making love to me, while I was thinking of nothing but Laurence. I put out my hand to his very gently, and said—
“Don’t be offended with me, Mr. Carruthers. I dare say all you say is true; but I am so fond of him that I cannot help thinking he does love me best.”
I said this just to comfort him, for I could not really have doubted Laurence for the world. He took my hand and kissed it, but not, I thought, as if he cared about it very much, and then he said we had better think about getting back; so he turned the boat round and put up the sail, and, the wind having freshened a little, we got back in a very short time, not talking much; but we were quite good friends again, for my mingled delight and fear amused Mr. Carruthers.
When we landed at the boat-house, the church clock was just chiming the half-hour past one. The lateness of the hour shocked me.
“Never mind,” said he. “They are sure not to have all gone to bed yet. I’ll take you in by a side-door I know, and you shall slip into the library and open a big book before you. And I’ll bring in Cole and one or two others, and say we didn’t know what had become of you; and you can pretend to have fallen asleep over a book.”
“But why should I do all that?” said I. “I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. You said Lady Mills would not mind.”
“No, of course not, my dear child; I’ll tell Lady Mills all about it. Don’t trouble your head about that. She won’t say a word to you, and you need not say a word to her. But none of the other ladies could have done a thing so unusual as you have in your innocence—and—and Sir Jonas would scold you for your rashness, and say you might have taken cold.”
“But it wouldn’t look innocent to pretend I had never been out at all, Mr. Carruthers. And I wasn’t alone; I was with you—so I was all right. I dare say Lady Mills has not gone to bed yet. I’ll go and see.”
And I ran away before he could prevent me, and found Lady Mills and Mrs. Clowes in the drawing-room, the former looking anxious and grave, the latter hard and angry.
“My dear child, where have you been? We thought you were lost!” Her voice trembled.
“Oh, Lady Mills, I am so sorry! I went on the water with Mr. Carruthers. He said you would not mind; but I ought to have known better when it was so late.”
“The later the better, my dear, I should say,” said Mrs. Clowes, in her most cutting tone.
But Lady Mills’s face was lightening as she looked at me.
“Don’t you know, my dear, that Mr. Carruthers is one of the most dangerous men—”
Then she stopped, for Mr. Carruthers had come into the room; and, turning from me to him, she said, in such a stern voice that it made me tremble—
“Tom, aren’t you just a little ashamed of yourself?”
And he answered very gravely—
“Perhaps; but that doesn’t matter. This inquisition is out of place, Stephana, for it is easy to see that to that child night and day are all the same; and, if I had been my respected father in iniquity himself, she would have been none the worse for my society. It was very sensible of you to come to Lady Mills, child,” said he to me kindly.
And he shook hands with me, and Lady Mills kissed me, and Mrs. Clowes gave me a cold little bow; and they sent me off to bed without knowing even then the enormity of the breach of propriety I had committed.
Sir Jonas, who was going up to town the next morning, was to drive me to the Alders, and then go on to Beaconsburgh station. Every one—nearly every one, for Mrs. Clowes never came near me at all—bade me a very kind good-by; and, just as I was sitting in the phaeton, waiting for Sir Jonas to take his place beside me, Gordon, Mr. Carruthers’s mysterious servant, came up to me in his stolidly respectful manner, and said—
“I think this is something of yours, ma’am. You must have dropped it, for I found it on the stairs, and I am afraid it has been slightly injured.” And he put my pendant into my hands.
I was so much astonished that he was gone before I could even thank him; and then, turning it over in my hands, I found that the little shield on which the initials were engraved had been wrenched off.
Was Gordon himself the thief, and had he repented? Or had the person who took it been ashamed to restore it in person? Or had I really dropped it, and only dreamt that I put it away?
WhenSir Jonas left me at the gate of the Alders that morning, a sense of desolation crept over me as I walked down the drive, followed by the gaunt Sarah carrying my little trunk—like a jailer rejoicing over a recaptured prisoner, I thought ungratefully to myself as I came in sight of the dark red ivy-covered walls of this house on the marsh, which, though I had lived in it two months, still had mysteries for me.
All the questions which had puzzled me about this household came into my mind again with new force after my short absence, which seemed, with its fresh experiences, to have lasted so long, together with others which had arisen while I listened to the talk of my new friends. Was Mrs. Rayner really mad? If so, how was it that no suspicion of the fact had reached that gossip-loving company I had just left, who had tales to tell of almost every family in the neighborhood? Why had the ladies called kind Mr. Rayner, who always went to church and led the simplest of lives, “dreadfully wicked”? They did not think it wrong to play the violin or to go to races. And why, if they thought him “dreadfully wicked,” did they all say they would give the world to know him? What was the relation between Mr. Rayner and Gordon, Mr. Carruthers’s servant? Then was Sarah really Mrs. Rayner’s guardian; and was she not herself a little mad too? What had become of the wild jealousy of Jane which she had expressed to the stranger in the plantation? And why did she hate me so? Had she stifled her hatred once and for all, or would she—Oh, what would she not do, if her wicked, senseless dislike of me should get the better of her again?
It was better to talk to her than to think of her, and I turned and asked after Mr. and Mrs. Rayner and Haidee. My pupil was not well, and had not got up that day; but Sarah would ask if I could go and see her.
“She caught cold, miss, wandering round the pond late Saturday night, because she said she could talk to you there. Such nonsense! But you know she is full of her fancies.”
I was touched by this proof of little Haidee’s affection for me, and I wanted to go to her at once; but Sarah said Mrs. Rayner was with her and did not wish to be disturbed. So I went upstairs, having asked, in as careless a manner as I could, if there were any letters for me, and having been told that there were not. Laurence might have sent me just a little note; I had been so longing for one. He had not been nearly so nice since I told him I loved him, I thought to myself mournfully; and I sat with my head on my arms and cried. But I had not much time to indulge my grief, for it was nearly dinner-time, and I did not want Mr. and Mrs. Rayner to see my eyes red and swollen, and to think that my holiday had made me discontented. But I think that Mr. Rayner saw that something was wrong, for he looked at me very closely, and said that I did not look any the better for the change, and that it was plain dissipation did not agree with me. And, as I was still rather pensive and my voice a little tremulous, he asked me only a few questions about my visit and then left me to myself, for which I was very grateful.
In the afternoon I was allowed to go into Haidee’s room. It was a cold day, and the room itself and the long corridor which led to it struck me as feeling damp and chilly. It was the first time I had been in the left wing. Haidee’s chamber was a little dressing-room without a fireplace, and I wondered why they did not move the child, who was really ill, into another room. She jumped up in bed and clasped her hot little hands round my neck as soon as I came in, and then drew my head down on to the pillow beside her and told me to tell her everything I had done from the first moment I went away. So I made a little story of it all, leaving out the parts it would have been improper for her to hear, such as the behavior of Mr. Carruthers in church, and laying particular stress upon such points of interest as my feeding the chickens and cutting the grapes and the flowers. Mr. Rayner peeped in once, and, after listening to part of my narrative, said—
“I shall want to hear about all that too by and by, Miss Christie; but I shall want another edition, one not revised for the use of infants.”
I felt a little disconcerted, for he said this rather mischievously; and I began to wonder whether he would approve of the governess having enjoyed herself quite so much, for I had forgotten to be dignified and prim altogether while I was at Denham Court.
Haidee begged me so hard to have tea with her that I was obliged to consent, the more willingly that Mrs. Rayner, who had never once come in to see her child while I was in the room, had seemed, by the way she greeted me on my return, to have exchanged her attitude of apathy towards me for one of dislike. While we were alone together over our tea, Haidee said very softly—
“Miss Christie, will you please go to the door and see if anybody’s listening?”
I went to the door to content her, opened it, and saw that there was no one.
“And now will you listen at the other door—mamma’s door?”
This was locked; but I put my head against it, listened, and assured her there was no one there. Then she beckoned me back to her and put up her head to whisper.
“Last night that hateful Sarah made mamma cry. I heard her through the door. Mamma’s frightened of Sarah—and so am I. Hush! Somebody is always listening.”
But no listener could have heard her soft whisper; even I, with my ear close to her lips, could scarcely catch the faint sounds. I comforted her, told her Sarah would not hurt her or “mamma” either—though I felt by no means so sure of her good-will as I pretended to be—and stayed with her until she went to sleep.
Then I wrapped myself up in a shawl and went into the plantation to look at my “nest.” And there, leaning with his back against the tree which formed my seat, was Laurence. I gave a cry of delight and ran forward; but he only raised his hat and said—
“Good-evening, Miss Christie.”
I stopped short, overwhelmed with dismay. Then I said, in quite a low husky voice, for I could scarcely get the words out—
“Laurence, why do you speak like that? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Why should I be glad to see you, Miss Christie? I can’t hope to show to advantage in your eyes after the more amusing society you have just left.”
“What do you mean? What society do I like better than yours?”
“Oh, you are very kind; and I dare say I do very well as a makeshift when there is no more exciting amusement to be had!”
“Oh, Laurence, how can you say such cruel things? Are you angry because I went to Denham Court, and because I enjoyed myself? I couldn’t help it, everybody was so kind. But I thought of you all the time, and I wished with all my heart that you had been there.”
“Did you think of me while you were letting Mr. Carruthers whisper to you in the conservatory? Ah, I don’t wonder you start! And did you think of me when you were sitting in the window-seat with Mr. Carruthers leaning over your chair, and when you were using the same book in church with Mr. Carruthers, and letting Mr. Carruthers gather fruit and flowers for you, and feeding the fish with him in, oh, such an idyllic manner, and playing his accompaniments, and talking about poetry, and—”
“Stop, Laurence—it isn’t true, it isn’t true! It was Mr. Cole who gathered flowers and fruit for me, and who looked at the fish with me—not Mr. Carruthers at all. And it was Mr. Standing whose accompaniments I played and who talked about poetry with me, not—”
“Mr. Standing? He’s another beauty! You choose your friends well, Miss Christie. I feel I am not worthy to be admitted among the number. I am too dull.”
“You are too rude,” said I, my spirit rising. “I don’t know what you mean by calling them ‘beauties;’ but none of the gentlemen you sneer at would have thought of insulting me and trying to make me unhappy, just because I sometimes talked to other people.”
“No, you tried to be impartial, I see,” he sneered again. “But I don’t think you succeeded. You were not on the river between twelve and two o’clock in the morning with all the men-visitors at Denham Court, were you?”
“No,” said I; then, stung to the quick by his sneers—“I wasn’t at Denham Court long enough.”
“Oh!” said Laurence, more angrily than ever. He was so angry that he began to speak again two or three times, but only stammered and broke off. At last he said, “You—you were not there long; but you—you made good use of your time; for by this morning the fame of your exploits had spread all over the neighborhood.”
“My exploits!”
“Yes. This morning, before you arrived, Mr. Rayner had heard of them.”
“Mr. Rayner! Oh, that is not surprising!”
Laurence turned upon me sharply.
“Mr. Rayner has a friend staying there,” said I, with sudden caution. I must not let out things concerning the people I was living with which they did not wish to have known.
“Oh, more mysteries! So Mr. Rayner set a spy upon you; I can quite believe it of him.”
“I did not mean that. Of course he would not think of such a thing. And there is no need of a spy to watch my actions, for I don’t do anything to be ashamed of. And Mr. Rayner knows that, for he has said nothing to me about my conduct, which you seem to think so disgraceful.”
“Mr. Rayner! No, of course he would not mind. It is nothing to him whether you endanger your reputation by going out alone late at night with one of the most notorious fast men about town.”
“But how could I tell he was notorious, Laurence?” said I—I couldn’t be spirited any longer; I wanted to cry. “Lady Mills said afterwards that he was dangerous; but how could I tell before? Nobody ran away from him, and all the ladies seemed fond of him, and rather jealous because he talked to me. And he didn’t say wicked things—not half so wicked as the things they said. Oh, Laurence, don’t be harsh to me! How could I tell?”
He was touched at last; the hand with which he had been angrily pulling at his mustache dropped, and he was turning slowly towards me, when the church clock and the far-off Beaconsburgh town-hall clock began to strike seven together.
“Oh!” said I, half turning instinctively towards the house.
“What is it?” asked Laurence, suddenly stiffening again.
“Mr. Rayner. I promised to be in the drawing-room to accompany his violin at a quarter to seven.”
“Pray don’t let me detain you,” said he between his teeth. “I am sorry I came at all to disturb you in your meditations upon your late enjoyment. But, as I shall leave Geldham for the Riviera in two days, and shall not have another opportunity of seeing you before I go, I took the liberty of coming round this way to-night to congratulate you on having become an accomplished coquette. Good-night and good-by, Miss Christie. I wish you another pleasant evening with Mr. Rayner.”
He shook hands with me, trembling all over with passion, and dashed away through the plantation before I could find voice to call him back. I was too utterly miserable to cry; I sank upon my seat, with a confused sense that all joy and brightness and hope had gone out of my life, since Laurence had left me angry and unforgiving; but I could not think. I sat there staring at the pond until Mr. Rayner himself came out in search of me; and, seeing how unhappy I looked, he very kindly told me that I was tired and should not play that night; but I said I would rather; so we went in, and I sat down to the piano, and he took out his violin.
But the spirit was not in me on this night, and I played the notes loudly or softly as was marked, without a spark of the fire which is the soul of music. At last Mrs. Rayner went out of the room. It was to go and see Haidee; but in my despondent state it flashed through my mind that it was because my heartless playing was spoiling the music, and a tear rolled at last down my cheek on to one of my hands. Mr. Rayner stopped, put down his violin, and said, oh, so kindly—
“What is it, my poor child? I did not mean to make a martyr of you. But I saw you were in a sad mood, and I thought the music might divert your thoughts.”
“Oh, it is nothing, Mr. Rayner! Let me go on, please.”
“No, child, I am not so selfish as that. It would hurt me more than you. Come and sit by the fire, and I’ll bring you Nap to play with.”
Nap was his big retriever. Mr. Rayner drew my arm in his, seated me by the fire, and left the room; and I dried my eyes, feeling heartily ashamed of myself. What would he think of a governess who went away on a short visit, did things that shocked people, and came back and cried, and could not play, and made herself a burden to everybody? He came back with Nap at his heels, and a glass and decanter in his hand; then, sitting down by me, he poured me out some wine and told me to drink it.
I began apologetically—
“Oh, Mr. Rayner, I am so—”
“Yes, I know. You are so very sorry that you can’t help thinking Denham Court a livelier place than the Alders, and so very sorry that you were obliged to leave a lot of nice, bright, amusing people there to come back to a couple of very worthy, but prosy people who—”
“Oh, no, no, no, Mr. Rayner, not that at all!” said I, alarmed.
“Wasn’t that what you were going to say? No, my child, you were going to say something far more civil, but not half so true. We may be worthy, but we are prosy; and why should we not own it? And why should you not own that you enjoyed yourself more at Denham Court than you can possibly do here? Why, that is the very thing you went there for!”
“I ought never to have gone at all.”
“Now that is a mistake, my dear child. If you were to remain always boxed up in this dreary old vault, you would soon take to spectacles and a crutch. Take all the amusement that comes in your way, little woman, and, after the first natural reaction, you will work all the better for it. And now tell me all about Denham Court; I’ve been saving myself up for your description as a little treat, though I’ve heard something of your doings, Miss Prim, from another quarter.”
And this was what Laurence, in his passion, called “spying upon me,” when Mr. Rayner owned that he heard what went on at Denham Court!
“I heard, for one thing, that you wore the pendant I gave you.”
He seemed pleased at this, I thought.
“Yes, it looked so beautiful with my muslin frock. And, oh, do you know, some of the people thought it was made of real diamonds!”
“Did they really?”
“Yes; I knew you would laugh when I told you that. But now you see it wasn’t so silly of me not to know the difference when you first showed them to me, when those people who have worn diamonds and beautiful jewels all their lives were taken in by them. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Carruthers, said he once saw a pendant just like it in real ones, and it was worth fifteen hundred pounds. Do you think it is true?”
“I dare say it is. Stones of that size would be very valuable. To whom did it belong?”
“He didn’t say. And it had initials behind it too just like mine.”
“How very curious! The same initials?”
“Oh, I don’t know! I shouldn’t think they were the same.”
“I thought he said they were the same.”
“Oh, no! He wanted to see the back of the pendant; but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Rayner, I—I thought, if he still went on thinking they were real, as I believe he did, and he were to find out by the initials who gave it me, why—why, he would think you must be mad, Mr. Rayner, to give diamonds to a governess!” said I, laughing. “Fifteen hundred pounds! Why, it would be about thirty-eight years’ salary!”
Mr. Rayner laughed too.
“That was very sharp of you,” he said. “If he had been as sharp as you, he would have got at it, and found out the initials, if he really wanted to know them.”
“But I didn’t wear my pendant again.”
“Why not?”
“Because people noticed it too much, and—and, Mr. Rayner, it is really too handsome for me.”
“Nonsense! Nothing is too handsome for you, child; haven’t your new admirers told you that?”
I laughed and blushed.
“But, Mr. Rayner,” I went on gravely and rather timidly, “then such a strange thing happened that I must tell you about it. I put my pendant into my desk—at least, I am almost sure I did—on Saturday night, and next day it was gone.”
“Well, we must find you another.”
“Oh, no! But this is the strangest part. Just before I left this morning, Mr. Carruthers’s servant put it into my hand, saying he had picked it up on the stairs. And the little shield with the initials was broken off and lost. Isn’t it strange?”
“Well, not considering that they were paste. If they had been diamonds, I should say it was very strange that he gave it back again. You careless little puss, you don’t deserve to have any finery at all! What will you do when you have real jewels, if you are not more careful with mock ones?”
“Oh, Mr. Rayner, I hope I never shall!”
“Do you mean that?”
I hesitated.
“I mean they seem to be such a heavy responsibility to the ladies who have them.”
“I suppose there were some ladies there with jewelry that made your eyes water.”
“They didn’t wear much; but I believe some of them had a great deal. One lady—she was the wife of a very rich merchant who wasn’t there—had dazzling diamonds, they said.”