“If anything should happen while I am away—if Haidee should get worse, or Mrs. Rayner frighten you, or anything—telegraph to me at once at the Charing Cross Hotel. I don’t know whether I shall stay there; but if you send it there it will reach me. You will find some forms in my study, and you will just write it without saying a word to anybody, and take it straight to Sam, and tell him to go to Beaconsburgh with it at once. Mind—to Sam; don’t trust any of the women-servants.”
I wondered he did not entrust this duty to the all-important Sarah; but I accepted the charge without comment.
“What shall I bring you this time?” said he, just before the train came up. “Roses are out of season. Some more paste to match your pendant?”
“Oh, no, no!” answered I. “You know I can’t wear it, Mr. Rayner; and it only makes me vain and makes me wish for more.”
“Ah, I though so!” said he, half to himself, maliciously. “Well, wishes always come true if one wishes them hard enough. I shall bring you some garnets. That is a most inexpensive red stone, and very pretty.”
“Oh, I think I would rather not! I really don’t want any jewelry, Mr. Rayner,” declared I.
But the train had come up. He said good-by affectionately to his wife and kindly to me; and we saw him off, and then made our purchases and drove back to Geldham. It was rather an uncomfortable drive, for the only remark Mrs. Rayner made was, when I said it was cold—
“Then you had better order them to light the fire in your room early, Miss Christie. Mr. Rayner will upset the whole household if you take cold while he is away.”
Then she shut her eyes and went, or pretended to go, to sleep, and I looked at her and thought what an unpleasant person she was, until the hollows in her face and the suffering expression about her mouth touched me. Why did she shut herself up and persist in being miserable, instead of returning her husband’s love and changing the melancholy Alders into the cheerful, bright place it might be?
I spent a dull day; for, when I went to see Haidee, Mrs. Rayner instantly left the room, and I could not help seeing that it was to avoid me; so I was obliged to resist the sick child’s entreaties for me to stay, and to go back and wander by myself about the house and garden, too miserable in my thoughts about Laurence and his cruel desertion of me to be able to read or work.