CHAPTER XXII.
In his astonishment at Mrs. Rayner’s ghostlike entrance and appearance, Mr. Carruthers had not paid much attention to the end of my question, and I determined to try to get another opportunity of putting it to him. He expressed his sorrow to Mrs. Rayner at having caused her the trouble of receiving him when she was evidently suffering, and said that he had ventured to call to tell Miss Christie about a great robbery which had taken place in the house she had so recently visited, Denham Court. Nothing but physical suffering could have explained the impassive stolidity with which she listened, her great gray eyes staring straight in front of her, to the account of the robbery. She made no comment until it was over; then she turned to him and asked, with a faint expression of relief—
“Then nobody was hurt?”
“Oh, no, there was no collision at all! They vanished like spirits, leaving no trace.”
“I am very sorry they were not caught. My husband has been in town since Tuesday morning, and I am nervous while he is away,” said she, like one repeating a lesson.
All this time Sarah stood by her, smelling-bottle in hand, as if prepared for her mistress to faint. Yet to my eyes Mrs. Rayner did not look worse than usual.
When he rose to go, I accompanied Mr. Carruthers to the door, where a dog-cart was waiting for him; but Sarah, whose duty by her mistress’s side was suddenly over, followed close behind, and I had no chance of suggesting to him my own suspicions about the burglary. When he had gone, I reflected that it was better for me not to have said anything to a comparative stranger to implicate one of the servants in the house where I was living until I had consulted Mr. Rayner.
To give vent to my excitement over the important secret I fancied myself on the track of, I wrote to Laurence. With Sarah about, a letter was a thing requiring caution, as the event proved. I was so sensible of this that I contented myself with giving an account of Mr. Carruthers’s visit and of the robbery at Denham Court, only saying, in conclusion, that it might have some connection with what he had seen, and that I had something to add to that. I said that I would write more fully as soon as I had an opportunity of going to Beaconsburgh to post my letter myself; and then I said a great deal more concerning different things which were perhaps really less important, but which were much pleasanter to write about.
The postman called for the letter-bag at six every evening; so I waited at the schoolroom window until I saw him come up to the house and heard Sarah give him the bag; then I ran out into the hall, as if I had only just finished my letter, and put it into the bag which he held. Sarah could not even see the direction as I put it in, and I congratulated myself upon my artful strategy; but I might have known that she was not to be baffled so. I had stood at the door and watched him turn into the drive, and returned to the schoolroom in a flutter of excitement at my own audacity, when from the window I saw Sarah flit after him. I dashed out on to the lawn, and got into the drive just in time to see the postman fasten up the bag and go on again, while Sarah, saying something about “a misdirection,” put a letter into her pocket; and I knew that it was mine. With my heart beating fast, I walked up boldly to her.
“What did you take my letter out of the bag for, Sarah?” said I, half choking with anger.
“It’s not your letter, miss. What should I want with any letter of yours?” said she, looking down at me insolently. “It’s a letter to my sister that I’ve forgotten to put the number of the street on.”
I knew quite well that this was a falsehood, but I could not prove it; for I had indeed been too far off to recognize my letter when she put it into her pocket, and my moral certainty counted for nothing. She knew this, and stalked off defiantly to the house with my letter, while I crept back to the schoolroom, and sobbed bitterly at the tyranny I was suffering from this hateful woman.
Well, it would soon be over now—that was a comfort. I would tell Mr. Rayner all I had seen on Tuesday night, and about the cart Laurence had met outside—perhaps I would not mention it was Laurence who saw it—and about Parkes’s wishing to avoid me at Denham Court. I should not dare to suggest to Mr. Rayner any doubt about Gordon, who seemed to be in some way a personal friend of his. But now, with all my thoughts turned to jewels and jewel-robberies, I could not help thinking again about that strange disappearance of my own pendant while I was staying at Denham Court, and its restoration by this man. Then his treating Tom Parkes as a stranger at Denham Court, when I had seen them together one night at the Alders, seemed to me now a rather suspicious circumstance. I congratulated myself on having been so cautious in my letter to Laurence that Sarah would not learn much by reading it, and wondered when I could make an excuse to go to Beaconsburgh, to post one to him with my own hands. It seemed very hard to be cut off in this way from the relief of opening my heart to him; but it would be all right on the morrow, when Mr. Rayner came back—she would not dare to annoy me then.
But the next morning, to my great disappointment, I got another letter, saying he should not be back until Monday afternoon. I had written to him on Wednesday, and he had got my note. He said, as I mentioned that the weather was bad and the fogs had begun to be thick, it would be better for Mrs. Rayner to leave the ground-floor and sleep upstairs.
“I expect you will have difficulty in persuading her to leave her own room,” the letter went on; “but I am so anxious about her, for it seems to me she has looked paler than ever lately, and I feel so sure she would be better on a higher floor that I beg you, dear Miss Christie, to use all your powers of persuasion to induce her to move. Tell her that it is only for a time, that she shall go back to her old room as soon as the weather is warmer again; tell her I wish it, tell her anything you think likely to affect her. I have great trust in your diplomatic powers, little madam, and I anticipate the happiest results from them in this instance. I have given Sarah orders by letter to prepare the big front spare-room.”
I was delighted with this letter; it made me for the moment angry with Mrs. Rayner for her persistent ignoring of his kind feeling towards her. But, when I remembered her agony over her child on the night of Haidee’s illness, and the settled melancholy I now knew how to detect under her cold demeanor, pity got the better of me again, and I was glad to have an opportunity at last of doing her some good. She was always supposed to be attached to her room on the ground-floor, and Mr. Rayner wrote as if it would be difficult to persuade her to move. But I had two powerful weapons in her husband’s loving letter and her affection for Haidee, and I resolved to use them well.
As I was dining alone, I was just wondering how I could get at her, when the opportunity presented itself, as if at my wish.
“Mrs. Rayner feels well enough to have tea in here with you, miss, this afternoon,” said Sarah.
That then would be my chance. But I reflected that I could not be very persuasive at tea-time, subject to the chance of our common tyrant, Sarah, pouncing down upon us. I went out after dinner and sat, in spite of the damp, on the seat at my “nest” for a little while, trying to invent subtle plans for inveigling Mrs. Rayner into the drawing-room or the schoolroom for an uninterrupted tête-à-tête. As I sat there, I heard some one coming along the path from the house. The trees between were not yet bare enough for me to see through; but, when the steps had gone by, I crept through the branches, peeped out, and saw Sarah getting over the stile into the path which led to the high-road. I ran indoors, asked Jane where Sarah was, and learnt that she had gone to Beaconsburgh to get some groceries; I had noticed a black bag in her hand.
I seemed to breathe more freely at once. Now was my time for seeing Mrs. Rayner. I was a little shy about going into the left wing without an invitation; she might be asleep, or she might not wish to be disturbed. I thought I would reconnoitre first. So I went into the garden with my knife and basket, as if to cut flowers, gathered a few China asters, and ventured round, past the drawing-room window, through the wet rank grass and the swampy earth, to the left wing. I had put on my goloshes, but they were not of much use, for I sank into pools that came over my shoes.
Still I went on, through an unwholesome mass of fallen and decaying leaves, to the dark yews and laurels that grew round Mrs. Rayner’s window. I had never ventured here since the evening of my arrival, when I had strayed this way in my explorations, and been startled by my first dim view of Mrs. Rayner’s pale face at the window of what must be her room. Again I pushed aside the branches of the now almost leafless barberry-tree and looked for the second time at the gloomy window, overhung by an ivy-bush which now seemed to fall lower than ever. There was no face looking out this time; a broken gutter-pipe had caused the rain-water to form a sort of slough under the window, so that I could not go close to it; but I went as near as I could, singing, and cutting off little branches of yew, as if not knowing where I had strayed. My ruse succeeded. Just as one of the branches I had pulled down towards me swung back into its place, Mrs. Rayner’s white face, looking astonished and alarmed, appeared at the window. I smiled good-morning to her, and made a show of offering her my flowers. I wanted her to open the window. This she seemed reluctant to do. But I stood my ground until at last she put a hesitating hand upon the fastening. When the window was just a few inches up, I said, opening upon a point where I knew we had sympathy—
“Sarah has gone to Beaconsburgh. I saw her off. I hope she will be a very long time.”
I was right. She opened the window, which was a little above the level of my head, more confidently; and I saw that it was barred inside.
“Haidee is so much better to-day, Mrs. Rayner, I think she might come downstairs for a little while to-morrow into the dining-room, if we make a good fire there. She was asking to-day why you did not come up and see her, and I told her you were not well enough. She is very anxious about you.”
“Give her my love,” said Mrs. Rayner, with a faint smile. “I could not do her so much good as you have done.” There was a plaintive expression of helplessness in these words which touched me. “Thank you, Miss Christie.”
“I am so glad she is better,” remarked I, venturing impulsively into the slough that I might stretch my hand up to the window-ledge. “I think it did do her good to go upstairs. The lower part of this house is damp, you know; Doctor Lowe said so.”
She seemed to shrink back into herself a little at these words; however, she said—
“You have been very good to the child. It was best for her to go.”
“Yes, I think it was. Don’t you find that the mist from the marsh makes your room very cold this weather, Mrs. Rayner?”
She looked at me in a frightened irresolute way, and then she formed with her lips rather than spoke the words—
“Yes—rather cold—now.”
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in one of the rooms upstairs while the fogs last?” I insinuated shyly.
But I saw that her breath was beginning to come fast, and the faint pink to tinge her cheek as it did when she was excited.
“Did any one tell you to say that to me?” she asked, in a whisper.
“I told Mr. Rayner, when I wrote, that we had a slight fog here on Tuesday night, and this morning I had a letter saying that he thought it was bad for you to sleep on the ground-floor when the mists had begun to rise high, and that he had told Sarah to prepare the large front spare-room for you.”
Instead of looking grateful for this proof of her husband’s thoughtfulness, she became agitated, and at last her agitation grew almost uncontrollable; she trembled and clung to the bars inside the window, and I saw that her forehead was wet with the effect of some strong emotion—it looked like fear.
“At last—at last! I have been here too long,” she gasped.
I thought that the effect on her nervous temperament of making her leave the room against her will would outweigh any physical good the change might do her. The wild look was coming into her eyes which I had seen there twice before, and I was afraid of her being seized with a paroxysm while I stood there on the other side of the barred window, powerless to help her; so I said gently—
“Of course Mr. Rayner would not wish you to go if you did not wish it.”
But she shook her head, and, putting her face between the bars to be closer to me, she said, in a low broken voice—
“Do you know what his wishes mean when Sarah carries them out?”
I stood looking up at her, appalled. Her terror was so real that it infected me, and for the moment I almost shared the poor lady’s mad belief that there was a conspiracy against her. But her next words restored me to my senses.
“Are you against me too?” she asked piteously. “I always thought you were; but then you were kind to my child—and I don’t know, I don’t know whom to trust!”
“You may trust me, dear Mrs. Rayner, indeed,” said I earnestly. “I would not have suggested your leaving your room if I had thought it would cause you so much pain. Indeed, I did not know you were so much attached to it.”
She shuddered. There was a pause, during which she stared at me steadily and searchingly. But I had no cause to fear her poor mad eyes, so I returned her gaze, and she grew gradually calmer.
“Miss Christie,” said she at last, in a whisper, “you have influence in this house. That night when Haidee was ill you made Sarah obey you. If I may trust you, give me this proof—get me one day’s respite. Let me stay in my own room till—to-morrow.”
Her voice sank till I could scarcely catch the last words.
“I will try,” said I softly. “And, oh, Mrs. Rayner, shall I tell Sam to take the dead leaves away in a wheelbarrow? I am sure it can’t be wholesome to have them so close to your window.”
“No, no, leave them—never mind,” said she hurriedly. “You must be in the water. You will catch cold. Go—Heaven bless you!”
She shut down the window in a frightened way, and disappeared into the room. I could not see in, for the window-sill was some eight or ten inches above my head. I turned and splashed my way back, with my teeth chattering, to the house, and changed my wet shoes and stockings, half crying for pity for the poor, helpless, forlorn lady for whom I could do so little.
At tea-time she came into the dining room, and, as Sarah was there, I practised the innocent deception of pretending not to have seen her before that day. I thought it better that the lynx-eyed guardian should not discover that I had found a way of communicating privately with her unlucky charge. So I said again at tea-time that I had had a letter from Mr. Rayner, and that he thought that on Saturday she had better move into the spare-room.
“Saturday!” interrupted Sarah sharply.
“Yes,” said I, rather frightened at telling such a story. “Do you think you would like to go to-morrow, or would you rather go to-night, Mrs. Rayner?” I asked gently.
“To-morrow,” said she, with a steady look which I took as an acknowledgment; and I turned to Sarah.
“I will answer for it to Mr. Rayner, if there has been any mistake,” I said, as modestly as I could, for it was an awkward thing to have to give orders before the mistress of the house, however tottering her reason might be.
“Very well, miss,” said Sarah, to my surprise.
For the second time my use of Mr. Rayner’s name had acted like a charm; and I wondered how this woman, who had dared so much to cut me off from communication with Laurence, could calmly submit to receive orders from me.
After tea, Mrs. Rayner in her turn surprised me by a warning which seemed to show keen observation. She came and stood by me at the fireplace while Sarah was clearing the table, and once, while the latter was for a moment out of the room, breathed softly into my ear, without turning her head—
“Take care—she hates you, and she is dangerous.”
I glanced up quickly; but Sarah was already back in the room, and Mrs. Rayner’s face was as impassive as ever.
I was so much used to living in fear of Sarah that the warning did not make any particular impression upon me, and I went to bed neither more nor less afraid of her machinations than usual.
I woke up in the night without being conscious of any cause for doing so. I had started at once into full wakefulness, and I saw that Haidee was sleeping quietly, and that the fire was still alight, but had burnt low; and I thought I would replenish it.
Then, as I raised myself on my elbow, I thought I heard a sound, too faint to be called a noise, outside the door. So I kept quite still and listened intently. I heard nothing for some time, then again a muffled noise as of something being shuffled softly from one stair to another, then again no sound. The turret staircase was uncarpeted; it had once been polished, but the beeswax had worn off long since and had not been renewed. I got out of bed softly, lighted my candle by putting a match to the dying fire to avoid the noise of striking it, crept to the door, and literally put my ear to the keyhole. And, after a few moments, I heard the same soft shuffling again. It might be Nap, Mr. Rayner’s retriever, trying to find a stair softer than the rest to lie upon; yet they were surely too narrow for him to make the attempt.
Whoever or whatever it was seemed to be making its way down by very slow degrees, until it seemed that it must be about six or seven stairs from the top. I screwed up my courage and resolved to give the intruder, human or otherwise, a fright. All the locks were kept in good condition at the Alders, and there was not such a thing as a creaking door in the place. I turned the key without the least noise, then the handle, and flung open the door, stamping my foot and brandishing the candle. I heard Haidee scream; I had forgotten her.
My plan succeeded only too well. A figure which had been crouching on the stairs sprang up. It was Sarah.
Before I had time to do more than recognize the savage frightened face, her foot slipped, and, with a piercing cry, she fell backward down the stairs. The staircase had one turn. I, trembling at the door, saw her long thin hands clutching and struggling to save herself at the corner; but she failed, and I heard a heavy thud, and then a groan. She had fallen headlong to the bottom.
For one second I leaned against the wall unable to move; then, trembling so that I could scarcely find the top stair, I stepped forward to go down. But on the second stair my foot suddenly slipped, and, if I had not been going very slowly because of my agitation, I must have fallen. On the next stair I slipped again; on the next to that, putting out my foot very cautiously, I found a string fastened across.
With a sudden suspicion, I sat down without advancing farther, and slid my hand along the stair. It was slippery; so were the others. The turret staircase was dark even by day; if I had been running downstairs at my usual pace, nothing could have saved me. It was a trap set by Sarah, if not for getting rid of me altogether, at least for seriously injuring me. She was greasing the stairs one by one when I had heard her; in her alarm at my sudden appearance she had sprung up, her foot had slipped on the greasy plate below which she had been using, and she had fallen herself a victim to the trap she had laid for me. And, as the horrible truth broke upon me, I heard another groan and a murmur I could not distinguish.
Sick at heart, and for the moment almost as helpless as she, I crawled down the stairs, wondering and fearing what spectacle would meet my eyes at the bottom.