“In any difficulty I should have to think and act for myself, Mrs. Manners, because writing to mamma about it would only make her cry. But I have met with no great difficulties in my life so far.”
She looked at me again, as if a little puzzled, and then said—
“I hope you will not think I am catechising you rudely; but Mr. Manners and I take a great interest in you, knowing how young and inexperienced you are to have to go out into the world alone. And he thinks I have neglected you a little. But, you see, Mrs. Rayner is so very—reserved, and lives such a secluded life, that it is not easy to form an intimacy. But I want you to feel sure, my dear Miss Christie, that, if you should want a friend’s advice at any time, you need not fear to confide in me; and Mr. Manners, being a man and your parish clergyman, could help you in cases where my woman’s judgment might be at fault.”
I thanked her with tears in my eyes; for, although there was a shade of reserve in her manner, and although I did not think it likely that I should ever experience at the Alders any trial that she could help me in—for I could not confide a family secret, like Mrs. Rayner’s suspected insanity, to anybody—yet her manner was so sincere and so earnest that I was touched by it and grateful for it.
Then we went downstairs and finished up the evening with music. The two little middle-aged ladies sang, in thin cracked voices, some duets in Italian—passionate love-songs, the words of which they did not seem to understand. The elder Miss Reade played a movement of Mozart’s “Fantasia in C minor”—but I did not recognize it until near the end—and the younger a “Galop de Salon,” with the loud pedal down all the time. Miss Lane, the attorney’s daughter, sang “Little Maid of Arcadee,” which Mrs. Manners said she should have liked if the words had not been so silly. Then I was asked to play, and I chose Schumann’s “Arabesque,” and they seemed astonished and a little scandalized because I played it by heart. I heard Miss Reade whisper—
“I don’t like her style. That great difference between forte and piano seems to me an affectation.”
While I was playing, Mr. Laurence Reade came in to take his sisters home. When I had finished, everybody looked at us as he shook hands with me in a rather distant manner; but he managed to press my hand before he let it go; so I did not mind. And everybody listened, as he said—
“We heard up at the Hall dreadful reports that you were ill, Miss Christie, and wouldn’t be able to come to the school-treat.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t ill! One of the servants gave me a fright in the night,” said I. “I woke up and found her in my room amusing herself by ransacking my things. Then I screamed with all my might, and Mr. Rayner came up and called her out and scolded her.”
This explanation was listened to with profound attention by everybody in the room; and I was glad I had an opportunity of giving it, as I felt sure that some rumors must have got about; and it was better they should hear my version of the story. Then Mrs. Manners said she hoped Mr. Reade would not desert them at the last; and he promised to come and help, but said she must not expect him to sell pen-wipers.