Mr. Rayner took my hand very kindly.
“It will come, child, it will come,” he said gravely and quite paternally. “Go on quietly doing your duty as you do, and the blessing will come in due time.”
He said it so simply, without any attempt at preaching, that I felt I looked up to him more naturally than even to a clergyman, being quite sure now that he acquitted me of any intention to be hypocritical. And when, after tea, he asked me to accompany his violin on the piano while he played Mozart’s Twelfth Mass, the fervor which he put into the beautiful music inspired me with a corresponding exaltation of feeling, such as no sacred music had ever woke in me before. At the end of the evening Mrs. Rayner wished me good-night and glided softly from the room before I had finished putting the music in order, as Mr. Rayner had asked me to do. When I rose from bending over the canterbury, still flushed with the excitement caused by the music, Mr. Rayner held out his hand with a grave smile.
“You are the best accompanist I have ever met; you catch the spirit of this sacred music perfectly. To-morrow night I shall prove whether you are so accomplished a reader of secular music. Good night, my dear child.”
And he bent down to kiss me. But I shrank back slightly, and so evaded him, trying at the same time to make my movement seem unconscious; and, with a smiling “Good-night,” I left the room.
As soon as I had done so, my heart sank within me. What had I done? Probably offended Mr. Rayner beyond recall by what must seem to him an absurdly strained piece of prudery. It looked as if I thought myself a person of such attractions that he wanted to kiss me to please himself, instead of an insignificant little girl whom he was going to kiss good-naturedly, as he might have done if he had been her father. But then he was not my father, and not nearly old enough to be so, however paternal and kind his manner might be; if he had been forty or fifty, I should have submitted without a moment’s hesitation. But, if Sarah or Mrs. Rayner, neither of whom seemed to like me very much, had suddenly come in and found Mr. Rayner kissing me, she might have mistaken, in a way which would have been very unpleasant for me, the feeling which prompted him to do so. So I comforted myself as well as I could with the thought that, after all, I had done only what was right and prudent; and, if he was offended, well, there was no help for it.
The next morning, to my great relief, his manner was just the same as usual; of course what had caused so much thought and anxiety to the girl of eighteen had seemed but a trifle to the man of three-and-thirty. I wondered whether I should be summoned to the drawing-room to accompany him on the violin, as he had spoken on the previous night of wishing me to do. But at tea he was much preoccupied, and told Sarah that a gentleman would be coming to see him presently, who was to be shown into the study.
As he turned to say this, I noticed a sudden flash of horror pass over Mrs. Rayner’s pale features and disappear in a moment, before her husband could see her face again; and I thought I saw on Sarah’s dark face a look of intelligence when the order was given her, as if she too knew something about the expected visitor. I hope I am not very inquisitive; but, in a quiet country-house to which, rightly or wrongly, some suspicion of mystery is attached, one cannot help noticing even trifles connected with unaccustomed events, and wondering whether there is some meaning in them.
I tried not to think any more about it, as it certainly did not concern me; but I did not succeed very well in banishing it from my mind until I sat down in the empty schoolroom to my evening task, set by myself, of translating a page of Markham’s English History into German. I was very anxious to improve myself, so that by and by I might be an accomplished woman and able to take an engagement as finishing governess, which at that time seemed to me quite a lofty ambition. When the translation was finished, I had still to read a chapter of Guizot’s French History; but that was pleasant, easy work, and might be enjoyed in the garden. I had seen the stranger as I was crossing the hall after tea. He was a small slight man, with a fair mustache, who might be old or young; and, although he wore only a gray travelling-suit, he gave one the impression of being very well dressed indeed. I had forgotten all about him long before I made my way, with a heavy volume of history in my arms, to the pond, near the prettiest, reediest corner of which I had made myself a nice little nest. There was here a willow-tree which had been forced by an aggressive oak to grow in a slanting position, and one of its lowest branches hung parallel to the ground. This made my seat, and a piece of cord fastened from branch to branch a foot and a half above made a rest for my back; so, with a couple of old bricks to raise my feet out of the damp grass, I could injudiciously sit there and enjoy the summer evening till quite late. I read my Guizot, conscientiously hunting out in the dictionary all the words I did not know, until the light began to fade, and I was thinking it was time to go in, when I heard voices that seemed to be coming towards me from the house.
I have mentioned a path which led, by a short cut through the plantation, from the house to the high-road to Beaconsburgh. The speakers, a man and a woman, as I could already make out, seemed to be coming along the path. Whoever they might be, I would wait until they had gone by before I went in. I could not see them, nor could they see me, I knew. When they came a little nearer, I recognized Sarah’s voice; the other was that of a man of a class much higher than her own. Could it be the stranger? He was talking familiarly and seriously with her; I could tell that before I heard any words. Sarah was speaking in a tone of bitter complaint, and the first words I heard were hers.