“You are getting pale again, my dear child,” said Mr. Rayner to me
the very next morning--he met me, at the foot of the stairs, dressed
for my walk with Haidee. “We must find some means of bringing those
most becoming roses back to your cheeks again. You work too hard at
those self-imposed evening tasks, I am afraid.”
“Oh, no, indeed I don’t, Mr. Rayner! I am getting very lazy; I haven’t
done anything for two or three nights.”
The fact was that I had felt too languid even to sit down and write,
and had wasted the last two evenings listlessly turning over the pages
of a book I did not read.
“Ah, then you want change of air! Now how to give it you without
letting you go away--for we can’t spare you even for a week! You will
think me a magician if I procure you change of air without leaving
this house, won’t you, Miss Christie? Yet I think I can manage it. You
must give me a few days to look about for my wand, and then, hey,
presto, the thing will be done!”
I laughed at these promises, looking upon them as the lightest of
jests; but the very next day I met a workman upon the staircase, and
Mr. Rayner asked me mysteriously at dinner whether I had seen his
familiar spirit about, adding that the spirit wore a paper cap and a
dirty artisan’s suit, and smelt of beer. That spirit pervaded the
house for two days. I met him in the garden holding very unspiritual
converse with Jane; I met him in my room taking the measure of my
bedstead; I met him in the passage carrying what looked like thin
sheets of tin and rolls of wall-paper, and I heard sounds of heavy
boots in the turret above my room. Then I saw no more of him; but
still there were unaccustomed sounds over my head, sounds of footsteps
and knocking, and I met sometimes Jane and sometimes Sarah coming out
of a door which I had never known unlocked before, but which I now
discovered led to a narrow staircase that I guessed was the way to the
turret.
On the fourth day, when I went to my room to dress for tea, I found it
all dismantled, the bed and most of the furniture gone, and little
Jane pulling down my books from their shelf and enjoying my
discomfiture with delighted giggles, not at all disconcerted at being
caught taking an unheard-of liberty.
“What does this mean, Jane? I can’t sleep on the floor; and what are
you doing with my books?” I cried in one breath.
“I don’t know nothing about it, miss; it’s Mr. Rayner’s orders,” said
she, with another irrepressible snigger at my bewildered face.
I was turning to the door to wander forth, I did not know exactly
whither, to try to find an explanation of this most extraordinary
state of things, when Sarah came in, her dark frowning face offering a
strong contrast to that of the laughing Jane.
“Sarah, can you tell me what this means?” said I.
“Mr. Rayner has ordered the room in the turret to be prepared for
you,” said she shortly. “Perhaps you will be kind enough to manage
down here till after tea, as it’s his orders that you shouldn’t be
shown up till the room is quite ready.”
I answered that I could manage very well, and they left the room. I
said nothing at tea about my adventure, reflecting that perhaps some
surprise for me was intended, which would be sprung upon me at a
fitting time. And so it proved. While I was quietly writing in the
schoolroom, after tea, Mr. and Mrs. Rayner and Haidee, who had not yet
gone to bed, came in and conducted me in a formal procession upstairs,
up the narrow winding turret-staircase that I had so often wanted to
explore, and, opening the door of the one room the turret contained,
Mr. Rayner, in a short but elaborate speech, begged to install me
without further ceremony as the “imprisoned princess of the enchanted
tower.”
I gave a cry of delight. It was an octagonal room, the four sides
which overlooked the marsh containing each a window, while in one of
the other sides was a small fireplace with a bright fire burning. The
carpet was new, the wall-paper was new; there were two easy-chairs,
one on each side of the fire, a writing-table and a Japanese screen,
besides the furniture of my old room. It looked so bright and so
pretty that my eyes danced with pleasure at the sight, and I could not
speak while Mr. Rayner explained that now I should be high and dry out
of the damp, and he expected me to become red-faced and
healthy-looking immediately--that he had had tinfoil put behind the
paper in one of the cupboards which was considered damp, that the
picturesque ivy had been torn down--all but a little bit to hide the
unsightly chimney--and that I was to have a fire whenever I liked now,
and one every day when it began to grow colder.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to thank you,” said I,
almost pained by the extent of the kindness showered upon me.
I tried to include Mrs. Rayner in my thanks; but she hung back almost
ungraciously, and seemed to have been drawn into this demonstration
against her will. She was the last of my three visitors to leave the
room, and in the moment that we were alone together, before she
followed her husband and child downstairs, she said, seeming to be
moved out of her reserve by the unaccustomed little excitement, and
casting upon me a keen look from her great eyes--
“Are you not afraid of sleeping so far from every one? Or do you
prefer it?”
I am not at all nervous; but I was enough impressed by her almost
eager manner to answer rather shyly--
“No, I don’t prefer it. But there is nothing to be afraid of, is
there?”
She glanced towards the door, and, saying hurriedly, “Oh, no, of
course not! I hope you will be comfortable, Miss Christie,” she left
the room.
Afraid! No, of course I was not afraid; I never had minded sleeping
away from everybody else; and, if burglars were to break into the
Alders, they certainly would not expect to find anything worth
stealing in the turret. I wished Mrs. Rayner had not put the idea into
my head, though. I was not so strong-minded as to be proof against
fear even at second-hand, and ever since the sensation caused by that
great jewel-robbery in Derbyshire I had been very careful to hide away
my watch, my one bracelet, and my two brooches under my pillow at
night. But I was too happy in my new abode to trouble myself long with
idle fears. I found that, by opening out my screen in a particular
position, I could completely hide the bed and wash-hand-stand, and
make myself a real sitting-room; then I sat down by the fire in one of
the arm-chairs and gave myself up to the enjoyment of this new piece
of good fortune; and I was still gazing into the fire, with my feet
cosily warming--the nights were already cold enough for that to be a
luxury--on a hassock close to the fender, when I heard Sarah coming up
the stairs. I knew her footstep, and I would rather not have heard
what I considered her ill-omened tread on this first evening in my new
room. For I knew that Sarah disliked me, and even the fact that she
had brought me up some coals to replenish my fire, which was getting
low, did not reconcile me to her presence; I could not help thinking
of the cold, grudging manner in which before tea she had announced to
me my change of residence. I tried to be friendly, however, and, when
I had thanked her for her trouble, I said--
“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, and _filoselle_. 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 his
_fiancée_, if that was the errand he came on, and I was determined
not to be drawn into another _tête-à-tête_ with 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.