CHAPTER XII.
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.