CHAPTER XX.
During the whole of the drive back to Geldham it was old Mr. Reade who talked to me, and not Laurence, who drove along, silent and grave, pulling my cloak affectionately up to my throat every now and then, and watching me as I talked to his father, but scarcely speaking himself at all. When we got to the gate of the Alders, he jumped out, carefully lifted me down, and, telling his father to drive on home, as he should walk the rest of the way, he came inside the gate with me.
“Violet,” he said very gravely, “I am afraid I have been foolish in agreeing to my father’s wishes, and I am more anxious about you than I can tell. The Alders is no fit place for you. I can see quite well now what I could not when I was blinded by my passion last night, that you are so good and innocent that evil seems to have no power over you; but yet— And—and it is just that which makes you so sweet; and I don’t want to spoil it, open your eyes, and all that.” He was playing nervously with my hand, holding it against his breast, and looking into my eyes so miserably, poor fellow! “Look here, Violet!” said he suddenly, as if struck by a happy thought. “If any man, while I am away, tells you you are nice, and tries to make you think he is very fond of you—no matter who it is—Mr. Rayner or—or my father, or any man—don’t take any notice, and don’t believe them.”
But poor Laurence was more innocent than I if he thought I did not know what he meant. He was jealous of Mr. Rayner, and I could not persuade him how absurd it was.
I said, “Very well, Laurence;” but he was not satisfied. He went on trying to justify himself—not to me—he wanted no justification in my eyes—but to himself.
“What could I do, when my old dad offered to do so much for me, but let him have his way? But it was wrong, I know. Our engagement ought to have been open from the first; and his weakness in not daring to face my mother was no worse than mine in giving way to him. And now I am tortured lest my weakness should be visited on you, child; for I cannot even write to you openly, and, if I enclose letters to you to my dear old blundering dad, you will certainly never get them.”
“Why not send them to Mrs. Manners, Laurence? Then they would be quite safe. And you don’t mind her knowing, do you? I think she guesses something already,” said I, smiling, remembering how she sent me to the gate to meet him on the previous Friday evening, the very night when he first told me he loved me.
He caught at the suggestion eagerly.
“That is a capital idea, my darling! I’ll go to her before breakfast to-morrow morning and ask her to look after you as much as she can while I am away. I don’t think she is very fond of my sisters—I wish they were nicer for your sake, my darling, especially Maud. I wish some one would marry her; but no one is such a fool.”
“Oh, Laurence, she is your sister!”
“I can’t help that; I wish I could. Alice, the little one, isn’t half so bad; it is only being with Maud that spoils her. If ever you get Alice alone, you will find she is quite nice.”
I had already had proof of that, and I told him so.
“But one can’t confide in her, because she would tell everything to Maud, and Maud to my mother. You have no idea what the tyranny of those two women is like; my father dreads and I avoid them. My mother thinks she holds my destiny in her hand; but she is mistaken; and within the next six weeks she must find it out; for, if she wishes to stay abroad longer, she will have to stay alone. By the third week in November I shall be back in England, and before the month is out you must be my wife, my darling.”
“Oh, Laurence, so soon!”
“So soon? Why, it is a century off! I shall be gray-headed if we wait another week. I am not sure where we shall stay; but to-morrow night I will bring you an address that you can always write to. It is that of a friend of mine—I forget the number of the street, but you shall have it; and I shall be sure to get your letters. Now, if anything happens to alarm you, or you are ill, or anything, you are to write at once, and I will return to Geldham without delay. And, my darling—”
We were interrupted by the sound of a carriage coming up the drive; it was Doctor Lowe’s brougham returning from the house. I went to the carriage-window, and he told me that Haidee was suffering at present only from a bad feverish cold, but that we must be careful with her, for it might turn to something worse, and he should call again to see her in the morning. He said that the child’s chest was weak, that the damp place was the worst thing for her, and that he should like to see her parents to advise them to take her away to some drier climate, as soon as she was well enough to be moved.
“Mind, she mustn’t be moved yet,” said he. “She is very well where she is—nice warm room, high out of the damp. But the lower part of the house strikes like a vault.”
“What would he say if he could go into the left wing?” I thought to myself.
“There was only a silly little servant up there with the child. She says that is your room.”
“Yes, Doctor Lowe.”
“And is it true that Mrs. Rayner sleeps on the ground-floor?”
“Yes, quite true.”
“Well, then, you may think yourself lucky, young lady. For, if I lived in that house, I should let the people I wanted to get rid of sleep at the bottom, and keep the top for myself.”
“Mrs. Rayner will have the ground-floor of the left wing to herself.”
“Ah, well, there is no accounting for tastes; and, if Mrs. Rayner has a fancy for building her own sepulchre, why, there is nobody very eager to prevent her, I dare say!” said he dryly.
The Doctor was an old bachelor, famed for his rudeness as much as for his skill. Mr. Rayner did not like him, I knew; and on that account I had had at first some doubts about sending for him; but, as he was well known to be by far the best doctor in Beaconsburgh, I had resolved to risk it. Now I began to repent having done so.
“Is that young Reade? Is that you, Laurence?” said the Doctor, peering out of the carriage-window into the deep shadow of the trees behind me.
Laurence came forward.
“Yes, Doctor Lowe.”
“Oh, ah! Come to inquire about the sick child, I suppose?”
“No, Doctor Lowe. I drove back from Beaconsburgh with my father and this lady, after calling upon you, and I am saying good-by to her, as I am going abroad and shall not see her again until a few days before she becomes my wife,” said he, in a low voice, but very proudly, with his hand on my shoulder.
“Wife, eh?”—incredulously.
“But it is a secret.”
“Oh, ah, of course!”—knowingly. “So this is the Miss Christie I’ve heard so much about!” And he deliberately put on his spectacles and stared at me in the faint moonlight. “Well, she wouldn’t have turned the heads of the men when I was young.”
We both laughed at the old man’s rudeness.
“I have no doubt heads were harder to turn then, Doctor Lowe,” said Laurence dryly.
“Well, take care some one else doesn’t turn hers while you are away!” said the Doctor, glaring at him ferociously; and he told the coachman to drive on, and drew up the window sharply.
This last hit struck poor Laurence as an evil omen; and, when I told him that I must go in now, and that I should see him again on the morrow, he flung his arms around me in such distress that I did not know what to say to comfort him.
“See what clever Doctor Lowe thinks of your Mr. Rayner, Violet,” said he, looking anxiously into my eyes. “Now listen, my darling. Don’t trust him, don’t trust anybody while I am away, and don’t believe what anybody may tell you about me. What would you do if they showed you the certificate of my marriage to another woman, Violet?”
“Oh, Laurence, you are not going away to be married, are you?”
“No, child, no; and, if any one tells you so, you will know it is a lie. And, if you get no letters, and they tell you I am dead—”
“Oh, Laurence, don’t!”
“Why, that will be a lie too! I shall be alive and single all the next six weeks, and at the end of that time I shall come back and marry you; and, if you want me, I shall come back before, my own darling! Good-by, good-by!”
He kissed me again and again, then tore himself from my arms, and dashed away without daring even to look at me again; and, tearful and trembling, I turned to go back to the house. But Laurence’s terrible excitement had communicated itself to me, and I staggered down the drive, hardly able to see where I was going; and, when I had got to the bottom, with only the lawn at the side and the gravel-space in front between me and the house, I stopped for a moment, and clung to a birch-tree for support while I dried my eyes before presenting myself at the front door. I had told Jane to come down and open it for me when she heard my ring; and I hoped with all my heart that it would be she, and that that horrid Sarah would not have taken it into her head to sit up, for I did not want her to see my tear-stained face.
But, just as I was going to leave the shelter of the trees and cross the gravel-space to the portico, I stopped, for I saw in the gloom a figure making its way across the lawn towards the back of the house. It was coming from the path among the trees which led to the stables. I strained my eyes, but there was a cloud passing before the moon, and I could only see that it was a man, and that he was carrying what looked like a small trunk; and it seemed heavy.
Who could it be at this time of night? For it was between eleven and twelve o’clock. Was it Tom Parkes paying a late visit to Sarah, knowing the master was away? Or was it the mysterious servant Gordon, thinking Mr. Rayner was at home? Or was it a burglar? But then a burglar, I argued to myself, would hardly be likely to carry things to the house he was going to rob, but rather to take things away; and the trunk he was carrying seemed to be heavy already. He had disappeared behind the back of the house by this time, and, as I was curious to know what would happen next, I waited, trembling, creeping in among the trees, and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of seeing him reappear, followed by Sarah. And, the cloud having passed over the face of the moon, I saw that it was indeed Tom Parkes; and then I would have given the world to know what he had brought her.
The impression which Sarah’s talk with the stranger in the plantation had given me of Tom’s desperate wickedness had faded a good deal from my mind by this time; but this strange sight revived it. What if Tom—placid, stolid-looking, honest-faced Tom, as I had once thought him—were in reality a thief? And what if Sarah, in her master’s absence, had been persuaded by him to take care of stolen property? There had been something stealthy in his manner of sneaking across the lawn in the shadow with his burden which had suggested this thought; but, on the other hand, was it not much more probable that he had been turned off at Denham Court, and had brought some of his own personal property, intending to take up his abode at the Alders for a few days, in the master’s absence? The all-powerful Sarah might even dare that, relying upon her power of making herself unpleasant for the rest of the household to keep her secret.
They disappeared up the stable path, and I took the opportunity to dart across the gravel-space to the front door and ring as gently as I could. Jane came down in a few minutes, very sleepy, and let me in.
“Sarah’s been asking where you were, miss, and, as I let the Doctor in, I told her you came back with him. I guessed as you’d come back safe, miss, when the Doctor said as how a young gentleman was with you,” said Jane, with elaborate archness.
I told her to go to bed as fast as she could; and, when I had followed her upstairs and seen her into the nursery, I went softly to the head of the kitchen stairs, and, as I heard no sound and saw no light, I slipped down with my candle. The side-door by which Sarah and Mr. Rayner used to go to and from the stables was ajar, and just inside was a small old brown portmanteau. I did not dare to go all the way down to inspect it closely, as I own I should have liked to do; but in the view I got of it, as I held my candle over my head and peered at it curiously, it struck me that I had seen it before somewhere. Then I turned and fled guiltily upstairs to my room. Haidee was sleeping, and looked less feverish than when I went away. Jane had built up the fire carefully, so that it might keep in all night, and placed the drink the Doctor had ordered on a little table beside the child. Her bed had been placed at the right-hand side of the fireplace, facing the door, and my screen had been put round the back to shut out all draught from the windows. I was very tired, and the moment I laid my head on my pillow I fell soundly asleep, and did not wake until the morning.
Haidee was already awake, and undoubtedly better.
“How did you sleep, darling?” said I, sitting on the bed and kissing her.
“Oh, beautifully, Miss Christie! I hardly ever woke up once, and when I did I watched the beautiful fire; I could just see it when I lay with my head so. It is so nice and warm up here. I wish mamma was up here; I should like to be up here always. I think I should have nice dreams up here, not like the ones I have downstairs.”
And she closed her eyes, as if to shut out the thought of something.
“You shall stay up here till you are quite well again, darling,” said I, inwardly resolving to beg that she might sleep in my room permanently.
“Miss Christie, you know you dream sometimes with your eyes wide open, just as if you were awake? I dreamt a dream like that last night.”
“That was because you were ill, darling. When people are ill, they dream like that.”
“Do they—quite plain, like as if it was all quite real?”
“Yes; sometimes they think they see people and talk to people.”
“That was like my dream. I dreamt it was while I was looking at the fire that the door there opened quite gently and softly, just as if it moved quite of itself, and then I saw papa’s face, and he had in his hand something red and sparkling; and, just when the door came quite wide open, I thought I sat up in bed, and he looked at me. And then the door seemed to shut quite softly again, and I didn’t hear anything—and that was all.”
“That wasn’t really a dream, darling. It was just a fancy because you were ill.”
“Not a dream! Papa didn’t really come, did he?”
“Oh, no, darling! Papa is away in London. See, the door is locked.”
And I got up off the bed and went to the door, and showed her that it was so. Haidee leant back thoughtfully.
“Dreams are very strange things, I think. And to dream of nice things is just as good as if they really happened. And to dream of horrid things—cries and moans and things—is dreadful!”—and she shuddered.
“You sha’n’t dream of anything dreadful while you are up here with me, darling,” said I, soothing the little delicate fanciful creature, and wondering whether some of the cries she spoke of had not been real, and not only dreams.
For I was beginning since last night, when I had witnessed her real feeling about her child, to be very sorry for Mrs. Rayner, and to wonder whether I could not draw nearer to her in some way through Haidee, and, through understanding her better, learn to sympathize with her still more. Her misery had seemed so real, and, on the other hand, I had never seen her so utterly broken down and helpless. When once the mask of cold self-control which she usually wore had disappeared, she seemed such a weak thing that it appeared scarcely possible that she could have such a force of obstinacy in her as Mr. Rayner had described her to possess. Mad or sane, I should never be afraid of her again. I only felt utterly sorry for her, and anxious to let her know how much I longed in some way to cheer her dull life. Why was she so reticent to her husband? What if I, being a woman, and having now established, through my care of her child, some claim on her gratitude, could win my way to her heart altogether, persuade her to leave Geldham for a time, and meet Mr. Rayner on his return with the triumphant news that at last his wife was ready to break through her apathy and come back into the world of men again? The thought made my heart beat faster, and I longed to begin my delicate work at once.
But I was disappointed. I had all my meals by myself that day, except tea, which I had upstairs with Haidee, for Sarah said Mrs. Rayner was too unwell to leave her room. When we had finished tea, I still sat upstairs by my pupil’s bedside, and my high spirits at the thought of Laurence’s expected visit infected her, and she laughed and chattered to me in a fashion very unusual with her. At last I heard the front-door bell ring, and my heart seemed to stand still with joyful anticipation. But no one came upstairs to fetch me, and, after a few minutes’ breathless waiting, I ran downstairs, unable to bear the suspense any longer. I met Sarah in the hall.
“Who was that, Sarah?” asked I, too much excited to think of a decent subterfuge.
“Only one of Gregson’s boys asking for Mr. Rayner, miss.”
Strange that Gregson’s boy should come to the front door, I thought. I could not go upstairs again. It was half-past six; and at half-past seven I was to be at my “nest,” if Laurence had not come before. I thought that hour would never end. It seemed to me to be getting very dark too. When the hands of the schoolroom clock pointed to twenty minutes past, I put on my shawl, and had opened the window to go out, when Sarah came in.
“If you please, miss, would you mind helping me with the store-list? Mrs. Rayner is too ill to do it, and it has to be posted to-morrow morning.”
“Oh, Sarah, won’t it do in—in half an hour?” said I breathlessly.
“Mrs. Rayner will want me then, miss. It won’t take you more than five minutes.”
I followed her out of the room, suppressing my impatience as well as I could. But the task really did not seem to take long. In what appeared to be about a quarter of an hour I was free, and I dashed into the garden, through the plantation, towards my “nest.”
I had not looked at the clock again, but surely it was very dark for half-past seven! Yet Laurence was not there! And, as I stood wondering whether something was wrong, I heard the church-clock strike eight. What awful mistake had I made? Was he gone? Should I really not see him again? A bit of paper half hidden in the grass, not on my seat, but under it, caught my eye. It was a leaf torn from a pocket-book. On it was scrawled in pencil, in Laurence’s handwriting—
“Good-by, my darling! Remember what I prophesied last night, and, if no other warning will serve you, take this one. I called at the Alders at seven, and was told by Sarah that you were tired out with watching by Haidee, and were asleep. I come here to-night, and you are not here. I know it is a trick, and I know who is at the bottom of it. When I left you last night, there were two men in a cart outside the stable-gate of the Alders. If anything happens, write. Write to me at the following address.” Then followed the address, and the scrawl ended with—“I have spoken to Mrs. Manners. Good-by, my darling! Take care of yourself for the next six weeks, and you shall never need to take care of yourself again.
“Your devotedly loving Laurence.”
I kissed the note, thrust it into the front of my frock, and fled into the house and into the schoolroom. Sarah was just turning away from the mantelpiece; and by the clock it was just four minutes past eight.
How the time had flown between my leaving the schoolroom with Sarah and my going into the garden!