“That was good of you!—that was noble of you!” she cried, in a trembling voice.
“Not at all. It is just the sort of thing a woman likes to do. A little cheap quixotism—that is all; and I secured myself a home for life, you see. I was no young girl that I should be afraid of him.”
It was impossible to tell whether it was the cynicism or the kindliness which predominated in Mrs. Warmington’s motives, or whether they were there in equal proportions. As Olivia stared wonderingly into the withered and somewhat inexpressive face, the housekeeper rose somewhat abruptly from her seat.
“That is Mr. Brander’s step!” she exclaimed as she turned to the door. “If you stay here, you will be able to slip out presently without his seeing you.”
With these words, leaving Olivia no time to protest, or even answer her, the housekeeper left the room, closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER XV.
Olivia’s first thought, as the door closed on Mrs. Warmington, was to follow her out and make a dash for freedom. But as she started up with this impulse, a sliding movement on the part of the garments she wore reminded her that she was not in walking trim; and a glance at the gilt-framed but mildewy glass which adorned the housekeeper’s mantelpiece showed her such a comical figure that the instincts of maidenly coquetry would never have allowed her to risk a meeting with Vernon Brander in that odd disguise.
Mrs. Warmington’s figure was of the straight-up-and-down sort—long in the body and short in the limbs. Being a lady of frugal bent and careful habits, she wore her dresses for so long a time that they acquired enough of the shape and character of the owner to impart the same characteristics to any subsequent wearer. Therefore, Olivia’s glance in the mirror showed her a woman in dark-brown stuff of slipshod fit, with a substantial square waist, and baggy sleeves too short in the wrist. After one despairing look out of the window at the rain, which went on falling in torrents, she sat down again disconsolately to listen and wait for her hostess’ return.
Mrs. Warmington had not met her master on her way upstairs, for Olivia had heard him go into the front room before the housekeeper left her; that she might be equally lucky on her way down was the girl’s inward prayer. For there were ominous sounds in the house suggesting that Mr. Brander was not minded to sit down quietly to the writing of a sermon or the reading of a good book, as one had a clear right to expect of a clergyman. Poor Olivia, sitting upright as a ramrod, with a scared expression of face, heard him come out of the dining-room into the hall. By the noise he made at the hat and coat stand, she guessed that he was changing his wet coat for a dry one. That business over, he ought plainly to have returned to his room; so it seemed to Olivia. But instead of that, he remained fumbling at the stand until the listening girl remembered, with a spasm of terror, that she had left there to dry, by the housekeeper’s directions, her little hand bag. Perhaps Mr. Brander would pass it over, taking it for granted that the flimsy little feminine thing belonged to Mrs. Warmington. No woman would have thought so; but, of course, men are not observant. Her worst fear was that he would remain there, not making enough noise to put the housekeeper on her guard, until that lady should come sailing down the stairs laden with a hat and cloak which evidently did not belong to her. The girl scarcely dared to draw breath in her intense anxiety. To be caught sneaking into a gentleman’s house in his absence, warming yourself at his fire, and even—as she discovered to her dismay on examining her feet—making free with his slippers, is an awkward situation at any time. But when you have just been told the secret of his life, and when your whole soul is warring about him, mercy struggling with horror, and conviction with doubt, the dilemma becomes well-nigh tragic.
Presently Olivia heard him drop some object, and the little crash it made caused her to shiver and almost to cry out. Then he began to cross the uncarpeted hall with very slow steps. Olivia strained her ears and held her breath. He was coming towards the room she was in. Had he guessed the presence of an intruder, or was he only coming with the prosaic intention of ordering something to eat? The girl remembered with remorse how he had been cheated out of his luncheon. But what should she do? Already she heard him calling, in a low and, as she fancied, tired voice, “Mrs. Warmington!” There was no time to escape by way of the kitchen—no corner of the room where she could hide herself. As she stood up to give one last hopeless look round, she again caught sight of her disguised figure in the glass. Seized by a happy thought, she snatched up from the top of one of the side cupboards, that filled the space between the fireplace and the walls, a small woollen shawl of rusty black, which Mrs. Warmington used to wrap round her head when she indulged in an afternoon doze. Olivia now blessed her fervently for this information. She had just time to wrap it round her head, to throw herself back in the rocking chair with her head turned away from the door, to cross her legs as Mrs. Warmington did, to fold her arms, and hide her hands in the folds of the baggy sleeves, when the door opened softly, and Mr. Brander put his head inside.