I slackened my pace when I got to the top of the first flight of
stairs, and walked softly through the corridor where the nursery was,
for fear of waking Mona; and, as I went slowly along the passage
leading to the turret stairs, I began to think of what Mr. Rayner had
called me, and wondered what he meant by saying I had no soul.
“It wasn’t because I am not sorry for him, for he must have seen that
I am,” thought I. “I suppose I don’t show my sympathy in the right
way; but I could not very well say more about it without being
disrespectful. And I must not forget that Mr. Rayner is not only much
older than I, but also my employer.”
And so I crept up the turret stairs with my candle, and opened the
door of my room.
It was quite a calm night, and I walked in very slowly, yet, as I
entered, my candle went out suddenly, as if blown by a gust of wind;
and I fancied I heard a slight sound as of a human breath blowing it.
I stepped forward quickly, a little startled, and tried to peer into
the darkness. But it was impossible to see, for my fire had gone out,
the blinds were down and the curtains drawn, and not a ray of
moonlight could get in. I stood for a few moments, still frightened,
in the middle of the room, and then cautiously made my way in the
direction of the mantelpiece, where I kept my match-box. I made a
slight noise as I passed my fingers over the different articles there,
and, just at the moment that I knocked over a china ornament which
fell into the fireplace, above the noise it made as it broke to pieces
in the grate I heard a sound behind the screen which stood between the
bed and the door, and, turning quickly, I was in time to see a figure
come swiftly round it and disappear through the still open door. I
could distinguish nothing; nevertheless, suppressing my inclination to
scream, I rushed to the door and caught in the air at the figure I
could no longer see; but I felt nothing.
Then I crept back into my room, shaking from head to foot, and hardly
daring to move in this direction or that, for fear of encountering
another dim figure. I closed the door behind me, sick with fear lest I
should be shutting myself in with more unwelcome visitors; and,
starting at the slight creaking that a board made here and there under
my own feet, I again searched the mantelpiece for the match-box. My
hands trembled so that it was a long time before I could be sure that
it was not there; and then I turned and felt my way to the table; and,
after moving most of the things on it, I at last satisfied myself that
it was not there either. Then I groped my way to one of the windows--I
had not thought of that before--drew the curtains and pulled up the
blind. The moon gave only a fitful light, being obscured every other
minute by thin driving clouds, and it only served to make shadows in
the room which were more fearful to me, in my nervous state, than
darkness itself. I had one more search for the matches, but could not
find them even now.
It was out of the question to undress by such weird moonlight,
fancying dim shapes in every corner and noises behind me whichever way
I turned; so I determined to conquer my fears and go downstairs with
my candle and get a light below. There were sure to be some matches in
the kitchen, and I reflected that enough moonlight would come in over
or through the shutters to let me see my way without making a noise.
So I groped my way down the back-staircase, which I had never used
before, got safely to the bottom, turned to my left, and felt for a
door. The first opened into a big black cupboard where I felt brooms,
which I shut again quickly; the second was locked, but the key was in
the door, and I softly turned it. This was indeed the kitchen; but the
moment I found this out, and gave a sigh of relief, I heard on the
floor a sound which I knew too well to be the rush of myriads of
blackbeetles; and, as I would rather have faced a dozen dim human
figures than have felt under my foot the “scrunch” of one blackbeetle,
I had to shut that door too as quickly as I had shut the other.
The only thing left for me was to feel my way back to the staircase,
go down the passage at the other side of it, which led past Mr.
Rayner’s study, and so into the hall, where I knew the exact position
of the match-box which stood on the hall table.
My only fear now was that I might meet Mr. Rayner, in the event of his
not having left the house yet to go to his room. If I met him, I
should have to account for my presence wandering about the house at
this time of night, and I felt that I was still too much discomposed
by the fright I had received for his sharp eyes not to notice my
pallor and my quaking hands; and then I should have to tell him what I
had seen, and there would be a search and an explanation, and I should
get some one into trouble. For my fears had not gone beyond thinking
that it was Sarah or one of the other servants who--perhaps wishing to
give me a fright, perhaps only all but caught in the untimely
enjoyment of one of my easy-chairs--anxious to escape detection, had
blown out my candle, hoping to slip out in the dark unheard.
However, I got back safely to the bottom of the staircase without
seeing or hearing anything, and I was creeping along the passage when
I caught the first faint sound of voices. I stopped, then went on
again softly, while the sounds became plainer, and I found that they
proceeded from Mr. Rayner’s study, the door of which I had to pass. I
discovered by the thin thread of light it let out upon the passage
that this door was ajar, at the same moment that I recognized Sarah’s
voice. She was speaking in a low sullen tone, and, as I drew nearer, I
was arrested half against my will by words which seemed to apply to
myself--“Against the stupid baby-face of a chit hardly out of the
nursery herself. Governess indeed!”
“Is that all you have to say?” said Mr. Rayner very low, but in his
coldest, most cutting tone.
“That’s--that’s all I have to say,” said Sarah, with a choking sound
in her voice.
The woman was evidently unhappy; I almost pitied her.
“Then the matter is easily settled. You can go.”
“I can go! I go! Do you know what you’re saying? Do you think you
could replace me as easily as you can such as her?” said she,
forgetting all respect due to her master, as her voice, still low,
trembled with rage.
“That is my affair. You wished me to choose between the services of an
underpaid governess and those of an overpaid servant. I have chosen.”
“Overpaid! My services overpaid! My services can’t be overpaid!” she
hissed out.
“As long as you joined discretion to your other undoubted good
qualities, I paid you according to that estimate. Now that you let
yourself be swayed beyond all bounds of prudence by trifling feelings
of jealousy and spite, like a foolish girl, your value runs down to
that level. You are no longer a girl, Sarah, and your position is
changed in many ways since then, in most for the better. If you cannot
accept the changes quietly, you had better go.”
“And you would let me go--for a new-comer?” said the woman
passionately.
“I cannot think of sending away any member of my household for the
caprice of any other member of it, however valuable a servant she may
have been--”
“May have been--may have been! My work is not over yet, and, if I
don’t work for you, I’ll work against you,” she broke out in a fury.
“I’ll--”
“Not so fast, not so fast,” said he slowly. “You will find that
up-hill work when you have to deal with me, Sarah Gooch.”
He spoke in the hard tone I had heard him use once or twice before--a
tone which always made me shudder. Then his voice changed suddenly to
a genial, almost caressing tone.
“Now do you think you will be able to get on without me as well as I
can without you?”
There was a pause. Then I heard Sarah burst into sobs and low
passionate cries for pity, for forgiveness.
“Why are you so hard? How can you have the heart to talk like that
about my services, as if I was too old for anything but
money-bargains? That chit, that Christie girl, that you put before me,
will never serve you like I’ve done.”
“The services of a governess are not the same as those of a servant.
That is enough about Miss Christie, Sarah.”
“Enough and welcome about the little flirt--a creature that keeps
diamonds from one man in her desk, and wears round her neck a letter
from another which she kisses on the sly! Oh, I’ve seen her, the
little--”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Rayner sharply. “And what if she does? It is no
business of mine.”
I heard him rise hastily from his chair and walk across the room; and
I fled past like a hare. Trembling and panting, I found my way to the
hall table, took out of the box there half a dozen matches, and crept
guiltily, miserably upstairs. I had listened, as if chained to the
spot, to their talk, and it was only now that I had fled for fear of
discovery that I reflected on what a dishonorable thing I had done.
If he had come to the door, thrown it open, and seen me cowering with
parted lips against the wall within a few feet of it, how Sarah would
have triumphed in the justice of her hatred of a girl who could be
guilty of such meanness! And how Mr. Rayner’s own opinion of me would
have sunk! He would have seen how wrong he was in considering the
eavesdropping governess the superior of the devoted servant.
I cried with shame and remorse as I stumbled up the turret stairs,
shut myself in my room, and lighted my candle. I did not feel a bit
frightened now; I forgot even to turn the key in the lock; this last
adventure had swept away all remembrance of the previous one. When at
last I began to think collectedly of what I had heard, I felt no
longer any doubt, from what Sarah had said about the nature and extent
of her services, that she was in reality the responsible guardian of
Mrs. Rayner, and that, when she spoke of working against her master if
he sent her away, she meant to publish far and wide what he had so
long and so carefully kept secret--the fact that he had a wife
tottering on the verge of insanity. I did not wonder now so much as I
had before at the depth of her jealousy of me. I saw how strong the
woman’s passions were and how deep was her devotion to her master, and
I began to understand that it was hard for her to see so many little
acts of consideration showered on a new-comer which she, although her
service had been so much longer and more painful, could not from her
position expect. And I got up from the chair I had sat down on, trying
to forgive her, yet hoping she would go away all the same.
As I rose, I caught sight of my desk, which I suddenly saw had been
moved. I might have done that myself in my search for the matches; but
it flashed through my mind that Sarah had told Mr. Rayner that I kept
diamonds in my desk. But it was locked, and the keys were always in my
pocket. However, I opened it and looked into the top compartment,
where I kept Mr. Rayner’s present. There it was in its case, looking
just as usual. Then I opened the lower compartment, with the intention
of reading through just once more, before I went to bed, those two
notes that I had had from Mr. Reade, one on that day and one on the
day before, about the church-work. And the last one, the one that had
come with the cigar-box on that day, was not there! A suspicion
flashed through my mind which made my breath come fast--Sarah had
taken it!
It was Sarah then whom I had surprised in my room that evening! She
had managed by some means to open my desk, seen the pendant, and,
having made a grievance against me of the fact that I received letters
from a gentleman, had taken the letter out and probably shown it to
Mr. Rayner on some pretence of having “picked it up,” to prove to him
by the direction in a handwriting which he knew that I was carrying on
a clandestine correspondence with Mr. Laurence Reade. And I remembered
that she had already taken the first note to Mr. Rayner. Well, if she
had read both the notes--for they were lying together in my desk--she
must have seen that they were of a very innocent kind; but how was Mr.
Rayner, who had not read them, to know this? I was annoyed and
disgusted beyond measure; I could have forgiven her anything, even her
meanness in playing spy while I looked at the note which I wore round
my neck, but stealing my precious letter. I shed some more tears at
the loss of it, wondering whether she would ever take the trouble to
restore it, polluted as it would be by having been read by her unkind
eyes.
Then I went to bed, very tired and very unhappy; and at last I fell
asleep, with my hands clasping the note that Sarah could not get at,
which I wore in the case round my neck.
Perhaps the excitement and agitation of the evening had caused my
sleep to be lighter than usual. At any rate, I was awakened by a very
slight noise indeed, so slight that I thought it must have been the
work of my nervous fancy; and my sleepy eyes were closing again, when
I suddenly became conscious that there was a light in the room not
that of the rising sun.
Fully awake now, and cold all over with this new fright, I saw by the
flickering on the ceiling that the light must come from a candle
behind the screen; I saw that it was being carried forward into the
room, and then I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. My fingers
were still clinging to the little case; but they were wet and clammy
with horror. Was it Sarah? What was she going to do now? To put back
my letter? I did not dare to look.
I lay there listening so intently that I could hear, or fancy I heard,
each soft step taken by the intruder. Then they stopped; and from the
effect of the flickering light through my closed eyelids I guessed
that the candle was being raised to throw its light on my face. Still
I had self-command enough to lie quite still and to imitate the
long-drawn breathing of a sleeping person. But then my heart seemed to
stand still, for I felt the light coming nearer, and I heard the faint
sound of a moving figure growing plainer, until the light was flashed
within a foot of my face. I could not have moved then. I was half
paralyzed. Then I noticed a faint sickly smell that I did not know,
and a hand was laid very softly upon the bed-clothes.
Still I did not move. I had formed a sort of plan in those deadly two
minutes, which seemed like two hours, when the light was coming nearer
and nearer to my face. The hand crept softly up, and slipped under the
bed-clothes close to my chin, till it touched my fingers clutching the
little leathern case. It tried to disengage them; but my clasp of my
treasure was like grim death. Then the hand was softly withdrawn. I
heard the drawing of a cork, I smelt the faint smell more strongly,
and a handkerchief wet with some sickening, suffocating stuff was
thrown lightly over my face.
Then I started up with a shriek as loud and piercing as my lungs could
give, tore the handkerchief from my face, and confronted Sarah, who
drew back, her dark face livid with anger, but without uttering a
sound. In her hand she held a little bottle. I tried with a spring to
dash it from her grasp; but she was too quick for me, and, with a step
back against the screen, she held it out of my reach. Then the screen
fell down with a loud crash. My attention was distracted from the
woman to it for one moment, and in that moment she made another spring
at my neck. But then there was a sound outside which had as many
terrors for her as her own hard voice had for me. It was Mr. Rayner,
calling sharply and sternly--
“Sarah, come out here!”
She started; then her face grew sullen and defiant, and she stood like
a rock before me. Again Mr. Rayner called.
“Sarah, do you hear me? Come here!”
And, as if a spell had been cast upon her which it was vain for her to
fight against, she went slowly out of the room, and I was left alone.
I sprang from the bed, locked the door, and fell down against it in
the dark and cold in a passion of hysterical sobs that I could not
restrain. Then they died away, and I felt my limbs grow numb and
stiff; but I had not power to move, and I thought I must be dying.
Then I heard a fall at the bottom of the stairs and a woman’s cry, and
immediately after a voice outside roused me.