The house on the marsh

by Florence Warden

CHAPTER III.

The shock given me by those few overheard words—“You should not have spoken to her. Don’t you know she comes from the house on the marsh?”—was so great that I lay awake half the night, at first trying to reconcile Mr. Rayner’s pathetic story with the horror of everything connected with the Alders expressed by the girl to her companion, and then asking myself whether it would be wise to stay in a house to which it was plain that a mystery of some sort was clinging. At last, when my nerves were calmed somewhat and I began to feel sleepy, I made up my mind to set down those unlucky words as the prejudiced utterance of some narrow-minded country-girl, to whom the least touch of unconventionality seemed a dreadful thing. However, I could not dismiss the incident at once from my mind, and the remembrance of it sharpened my attention to the manner of the salutations that Mr. Rayner exchanged with his neighbors the next day.

Although Geldham church was only a short distance from the Alders, Mrs. Rayner was not strong enough to walk; so she and her husband drove there in the brougham, while Haidee and I went on foot. We started before them, and Mr. Rayner was carefully helping his wife out of the carriage as we got to the gate. There was nothing noticeable in the way in which they bowed to one person, shook hands with another, exchanged a few words with a third; then we all went into the little church, which had been erected but a few years, and of which one aisle was still unbuilt.

There was a square family-pew just in front of ours, which was empty when we took our seats; but, when I rose from my knees, I found fixed upon me, with a straightforward and not very friendly stare, the round gray eyes of a girl two or three years older than myself, whom I recognized as the owner of the voice which had said of me, “Don’t you know she comes from the house on the marsh?” By her side, therefore also facing me, was the younger sister, with whom I had talked; she avoided meeting my eyes, and looked rather uncomfortable. As for me, I felt that I hated them both, and was glad when the gentleman who was evidently their father changed his position so that he almost hid them from my sight. Next to him sat a stout lady, who wore a black silk mantle covered with lace and beads and a white bonnet trimmed with yellow bows and unlikely clusters of roses. My heart sank curiously when I caught sight of the third person in the row, at the farther end of the pew. It was Mr. Laurence Reade, my friend of the dog-cart; and I felt as if a trusted ally had suddenly proved to be an officer in the enemy’s camp. Having found myself in an uncongenial household, I had unconsciously looked forward to seeing again, at some time or other, the only person I had met since I came to Norfolk to whom no associations of mystery or melancholy were attached. And now to meet him with those horrid girls! He was their brother evidently, for the elder harpooned him sharply with her sunshade several times for dozing during the service; but, when the sermon began and he had settled himself sideways in the corner with the plain intention of sleeping through the entire discourse, and the devout girl made a desperate lunge at him to rouse him once for all, he quietly took the weapon from her and kicked it under the seat. I rejoiced at this, and so missed the text, which was given out during the struggle. And then I missed a great deal of the sermon, for I was growing unhappy in my new home, and, as the preaching of one clergyman, especially if you are not listening particularly, sounds much like the preaching of another, it was easy to shut my eyes and fancy myself sitting with my mother in church at home in London. Presently, happening to glance round me, I caught sight of Mr. Laurence Reade in the corner of the next pew, with his arms folded, his legs crossed, and his head thrown back; and, if it had not been so very unlikely, I should have thought that he was not really asleep, but that through his half-shut eyelids he was looking at me.

When the sermon was over, and we filed out of church, I noticed that old Mr. Reade exchanged a few words with Mr. Rayner rather stiffly, while the two girls deliberately turned their heads away from us. But Mr. Laurence Reade hung back behind the rest of his family, and stooped to speak to Haidee, who was holding my hand. He asked her to give him a kiss, and she refused—and I was very glad. Of course it was my duty to rebuke her for rudeness, and to tell her to accept the attention with gratitude; but, instead, I looked carefully the other way and pretended not to be aware of the little comedy.

“Oh, Haidee, you shouldn’t turn away from your friends!” said he, in his musical voice, with rather more of grave reproach than the occasion required—to a child.

Mr. Rayner was on the churchyard path a little way in front of us, talking to the schoolmaster, the clergyman, and two or three of the gentlemen of the parish. He was trying to persuade them to start a penny bank, and was pointing out to them the encouragement it would give to habits of thrift, and offering to take most of the trouble of starting it into his own hands.

The spirit of inactivity ruled at Geldham; there was no energetic curate to scandalize people by insisting that to doze through one sermon a week was but a negligent way of caring for their souls; the last vestry-meeting had dwindled into a spelling-bee, at which the doctor had been ruled out for putting only one “t” in “committee,” and gone home vehemently affirming that his was the right way, and that of the schoolmaster, his colleagues, and the dictionary, the wrong.

It was curious to note now how they all listened coldly at first, with an aversion to the proposal, strengthened by their dislike to the man who proposed it, and how, overcome by an irresistible charm in his manner of arguing as much as by the arguments themselves, they one by one from listless became interested, and not only agreed to the scheme being started, but to taking each some small share in setting it on foot. Then, parting cordially from the man they had greeted so coldly, they all dispersed; and Mr. Rayner, handsome, bright, pleased with his little triumph, turned to his wife and led her to the carriage, while Haidee and I returned as we came—on foot.

He was very severe indeed upon rustic wits and rustic governors during dinner, calling them sheep and donkeys and other things. Then he grew merry and made jokes about them, and I laughed; and, finding in me an appreciative listener, his spirits rose still higher, and I thought before dinner was over that I had never heard any one talk more amusingly. I think Mrs. Rayner made only one remark, and that was when I was furtively wiping some tears of laughter from my eyes; she asked me—

“Do you care to go to church this afternoon, Miss Christie?”

I suppose I looked rather snubbed, for Mr. Rayner broke in—

“Poor girl, how frightened you look at the thought! Know then, Miss Christie, that it is not one of the conditions of residence under this moist but hospitable roof that you should trudge backwards and forwards to church all Sunday, with intervals of pious meditation. We never go ourselves more than once. Our last governess did, because she liked it, not because she was ‘druv to it,’ I assure you; and I don’t suppose, I don’t even hope, that the excellent Miss Parker’s mantle has fallen on your quarter-of-a-century younger shoulders.”

But I had quickly made up my mind that I had better go. Indeed I liked going to church; and, even if I had not acquired the taste already, the dulness of the Sunday before—which I had spent in the drawing-room with Mrs. Rayner and Haidee, hearing my pupil repeat one of the Thirty-nine Articles, which I was sure she did not understand, and which I myself did not understand well enough to explain to her, and stifling my yawns for the rest of the time behind Goulburn’s Personal Religion—would have made me love it. So I said I should like to go, and they said that there was no afternoon service at Geldham; but Mr. Rayner told me the way to the church at Gullingborough, the next parish, which was not far off.

It was a sultry summer afternoon, with a heavy clouded sky; but it was pleasant to be out of doors, and it was pleasant to be alone; for I found the society of little Haidee, whose shyness and reserve with me had not worn off yet, rather depressing sometimes—I had even cried a little at night over the difficulty I had in making the child fond of me. So that to be quite alone and out of the sombre atmosphere of the Alders was a relief. I passed the gates of a park, among the trees of which I saw a big square white house surrounded by a flower-garden; and a little farther on I saw an American chair on the grass under the park trees, and a young man in a light suit, with his cravat hanging loose and his hat off, lying at full length in it. He had a cigar in his mouth and a gaudy-covered book in his hand, and on a rustic table beside him was a half-empty glass containing some liquid; and I could see that there was ice in it. Of course I only glanced that way, but I recognized the gentleman as Mr. Laurence Reade; and I could not help smiling to myself as I went on. He saw me, I think, for he started up and coughed; but I was looking the other way, and I thought it best not to hear him. As I turned the angle of the park, I glanced again at the white house, and I saw, with a little surprise, Mr. Reade running towards it.

I got to church in very good time, and, being given a seat in the chancel, I could watch the country-people as they filed in; and, just as the last wheezy sound from the organ was dying away before service began, Mr. Laurence Reade, having exchanged his light suit for church-going attire, strode up the middle aisle and banged the door of his pew upon himself. And, remembering how nice the iced drink looked and how cosey the arm-chair appeared, I thought it did him great credit to come to church the second time.

The sky had grown very dark by the time service was over, and the occasional rolling of distant thunder threatened a storm. A few heavy drops fell as I stepped out of the church door, and my heart sank at the thought of the ruin a good shower would work upon my best gown, a light gray merino. It was nearly half an hour’s walk to the Alders; my way lay along lanes and across fields where there was little or no shelter, and my umbrella was a small one. However, there was nothing to be done but to start, hoping that the storm might not break with any violence before I got home. I had left all chance of shelter well behind me, when the rain came pouring down like sheets of water, with a sharp hissing sound which made my heart sink within me. I stopped, gathered up my skirt round me, gave a glance round to see that no one was in sight, being aware that my appearance would be neither graceful nor decorous, and then ran for my life. Before I had gone many yards, I heard some one running after me, and then Mr. Reade’s voice calling, “Miss Christie!” I ran on without heeding him, ashamed of my plight; but he would not take the rebuff, and in a few more steps he had caught me up, and, taking away my small umbrella, was holding his large one over me. He opened a gate to the right that led into a field with a rough cart-track alongside the hedge.

“But this is the wrong way. I have to turn to the left, I know,” said I.

“There is a shed for carts here where we shall get shelter,” said he.

And in a few minutes we reached it, and I found myself sitting under a low roof on the red shaft of a cart, watching the downpour outside, while Mr. Reade shook the rain from our umbrellas. A few days before I might have found something to enjoy in this curious encounter with my friend of the dog-cart; but the rudeness and suspicion of his sisters had made me shy with him. So I merely sat there and looked straight in front of me, while he, infected by my reserve, leant against the side of the shed and looked at me. I could see—as one sees so many things, without looking—the rain-drops falling one by one from the low roof on to his hat; but I would not tell him of it.

Things went on like this for some minutes, until a bright flash of lightning dazzled me and made me cry “Oh!”

“You are frightened. Let me stand in front of you,” said my companion, starting forward.

“Oh, no, thank you—I am not nervous!” I replied contemptuously, when a loud peal of thunder startled me so much that I nearly fell off my seat.

He said nothing, did not even smile at my crestfallen look; but he took up his stand in front of me, giving me a fine view of his profile against the dark sky. Every minute of this awkward silence was making it more difficult to me to think of something to say.

“I wish it would leave off,” I remarked stupidly, at length.

“Are you in such a hurry to get back to the Alders? It is no drier there than it is here.”

“But at least one can change one’s boots.”

“Have you got your feet wet? Why, you have on little toy town-boots, not fit to walk down a country-lane in! You will be laid up with rheumatic fever, or something of the kind,” said he anxiously, looking vaguely about him for dry boots.

“Oh, no, no—they are much thicker than they look!” said I. “It isn’t that. But Mr. Rayner will be anxious.”

“Mr. Rayner; and Mrs. Rayner, won’t she be anxious too?”

“Oh, Mrs. Rayner is never anything! At least—I mean,” said I, annoyed at having spoken without thinking, “she is so reserved that—”

“That you like Mr. Rayner best?”

“Oh, yes!”

He drew himself up rather coldly.

“So do most ladies, I believe.”

“One can’t help liking a person who talks and laughs, and is bright and kind, better than one who never speaks, and glides about like a ghost, and looks coldly at you if you speak to her,” I burst out, apologetically at first, but warming into vehemence towards the close of my speech.

“Perhaps she means to be kind,” said he gently.

“Then she ought to make her meaning plainer. She can’t think it is kind to fix her eyes upon me as if I were something not human, if I laugh; to give me her hand so coldly and unresponsively that it seems like a dead hand in mine, and at other times to take no more notice of me than if I were not there. Besides, she knows that it is the first time I have ever left home, and she must see sometimes that I am not happy.”

Mr. Reade suddenly stooped towards me, and then straightened himself again just as suddenly, without any remark; but he cleared his throat. I remembered that I had no right to make this confession to a comparative stranger, and I added quickly—

“I ought not to talk as if I were ill-treated. I am not at all. If she would only not be quite so cold!”

“Perhaps her own troubles are very heavy and hard to bear.”

“Oh, no, they are not!” I replied confidently. “At least, she has a kind husband and a pretty home, and everything she can wish for. And I think it is very selfish of her to give herself up to brooding over the memory of her dead child, instead of trying to please her living husband.”

“Her dead child?”

“Yes. She had a boy who died some years ago, and she has never got over it. That is why she is so reserved.”

“Oh! How long ago did this boy die?” asked he, in a curiously incredulous tone.

“About five years ago, I think Mr. Rayner said.”

“Oh, then it was Mr. Rayner who told you?”

“Yes.”

“And Mrs. Rayner has never got over it?”

“No. It seems difficult to believe, doesn’t it, that a brilliant woman who wrote books and was much admired should fade like that into a kind of shadow? I wonder she doesn’t write more books to divert her thoughts from brooding over the past.”

“Oh, she wrote books! Did she tell you so herself?”

“No—Mr. Rayner.”

“Oh! Did Mr. Rayner tell you any more?”

The irony in his tone was now so unmistakable that I hesitated and looked up at him inquiringly.

“I am sure he must have told you that he is a very ill-used man and a very long-suffering husband, and asked you to pity him. Didn’t he, Miss Christie? Ah, I see he did!” he cried.

I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks; but I was indignant at having to submit to this catechism.

“Mr. Rayner never asks impertinent questions,” I said severely.

The young man drew back, muttered “I beg your pardon,” and, turning to watch the rain, began to hum something without any tune to cover his discomfiture. I was sorry directly; but my dignity forbade my calling him back to retract the snub. Yet I was dying to know the reason of his violent prejudice against Mr. Rayner. To my relief, in a few minutes he came back to me of his own accord.

“Miss Christie,” he began nervously, “I am afraid I have offended you. Won’t you forgive me for being carried a little too far by my interest in a lady who herself confessed that she is away from her friends for the first time and not—very happy?”

I could not resist such an appeal as that; I looked up smiling, with tears in my eyes.

“Oh, I am not at all offended! But I should like to know what reason you have for thinking so ill, as you seem to do, of Mr. Rayner.”

“Perhaps I am wrong. I really have no proof that he is anything but what he wishes every one to think him—a light-hearted accomplished man, of idle life and pleasant temper. It is not his fault that, with all his cleverness, his ease of manner is not quite the ease of a gentleman.”

I was scarcely experienced enough to have found that out for myself. I considered for a moment, and then said rather timidly—

“Won’t you tell me anything more? You can if you will, I think, and, alone in the world as I am, I want all the knowledge I can get of the people I live among, to guide me in my conduct.”

He seemed to debate with himself for a moment; then he sat down beside me on the other shaft of the cart, and said very earnestly—

“Seriously, then, Miss Christie, I would advise you to leave the Alders as soon as you possibly can, even before you have got another engagement. You are in the midst of more dangers than you can possibly know of, more probably than I know of myself, more certainly than I can warn you against.”

His voice was very low as he finished, and, while we both sat silent, he with his eyes intently fixed on my face, mine staring out fearfully at the sky, a dark figure suddenly appeared before us, blocking out the light. It was Mr. Rayner. Mr. Reade and I started guiltily. The new-comer had approached so quietly that we had not heard him; had he heard us?