She only told herself, and with gratitude, that people were kind to her, that all went well with her, and that in no other position would she have been better placed or more happy. If she looked more often than was necessary in the tarnished mirror and tried more than one way of dressing her hair or setting her cap — well, she was a girl and young, and what was more natural?
And then, on the day before that on which Captain Dunstan was expected, she met with a shock that in a single moment of time enlightened her. The matter was itself the merest trifle; it was the effect which it had on her that drove the truth home. She was looking from her bedroom window, and she saw a thing that she had seen before. Down one of the avenues, walking slowly towards the house with the sunset behind them and the evening peace about them, came two persons; my lady, slow, stately, languid, her companion graceful, animated, bending towards her in intimate talk, and now and again enforcing his words with a gesture. Rachel had seen the same thing more than once and without a thought or suspicion. Now it caused her a pang as swift, as sharp, as arresting, as if an arrow had pierced her breast — a pang that drove her from the window, to stand breathless in the middle of the floor, battling with a pain as new as was the knowledge it taught her.
She tried to reason, she tried to reassure herself.
But it was useless. She stood, breathing quickly, shaken to the depths of her being. She knew! She knew at last, and she covered her conscious face with her hands. She knew the secret of her content, of the warmth that had lapped her, of the spell that had transfigured alike the woodland path and the daily toil.
The suspicion went for nothing. It fell harmless from the shield of her innocence — the conjuncture of the two meant nothing. But the veil that had masked her feelings from herself was rent, and rent beyond mending. She saw where she stood and what had happened to her during those weeks. Because he had been kind, because he had been of service to her, because he had thrown her a few kind words and teased her and drolled with her, because he had laughing eyes and curly hair and a slender shape —
She buried her hot face in her hands. She in her position! And oh, the folly of it, the shameful weakness of it, when he had never said a word, never looked a look — so she told herself — to encourage her. The fault lay all with her, and the weakness. And now — now all that remained to her was to conquer it; to free her heart from this foolishness that had coiled itself about it, to shut her ears to the siren and her eyes to the sweet charm that had painted all things in colours so entrancing. She must be strong, and, above all things, pride and self-respect required that she must be secret. She must bury her silliness as she might, hiding her weakness from every eye, and especially from his.
Above all, she must show the same face to him that she had ever shown. She must harden herself and accustom herself. But this was not so easy to do as to plan, and she was aware of that; so that it was an absent and taciturn Rachel who played her part next day, who saw Ann’s mistakes one moment and forgot to correct them the next, who for minutes lost herself in a reverie, and once, to the child’s angry surprise, rapped her sharply over the knuckles. A Rachel who, when Ann had left her, moved uneasily and restlessly about the room, unable to settle to anything.
And then the moment that she dreaded came.
She heard the baize door shriek, she heard his step in the passage and she took herself sternly in hand — was it not for this that she had been steeling herself all the morning? He came in, smiling, debonair, flourishing an open pen-knife, in his gayest, maddest mood.
“Pens! Pens! Bring out your pens!” he cried. “Pens to mend!” Then seeing that she was stooping over the table, apparently intent on putting things straight after the morning’s work, he struck an attitude. “Now, there’s the woman to the life! All disorder she can mend! And to her duties nice attend! But when it comes unto a knife — then the man comes in!”
“But really I am well supplied, Mr. Girardot,” she said soberly. She was still busying herself about the table.
“Nonsense, ma’am, nonsense! With such an imp to spoil them? Impossible! You cannot be!”
“Oh, she is growing better. Better than she was, I mean.” She ventured to look up and smile.
“But, dear lady, this will never do! If there are no pens to mend, I shall be tempted to sever one of those little ringlets! Those boucles folátres, that have caught even the stubborn Ann in their meshes! Come, come, the knife cuts empty air! Which shall it be?”
Twenty-four hours before Rachel would have accepted his badinage with a blush and a smile as merely Mr. Girardot’s nonsense; nor asked herself how far his laughing eyes and jesting words were winding themselves about her heart. To-day she was wiser, with a sad wisdom! But she dared not check him too suddenly, or he might — oh, stinging thought — suspect. And as playfully as she could, “Well, I am afraid you must drop the aspirate,” she said — cleverly as she thought—” and save the steel, Mr. Girardot.”
But she was not clever enough. He caught the new note in her voice. “And save the steel?” he repeated slowly. “I see. But — is something the matter, ma’am?”
She looked at him, innocently enough. “The matter? No, Mr. Girardot. Why?”
“Well, methinks,” he answered with a whimsical look, “there is a little too much of ‘Mr. Girardot’ this morning! Too much of formality. Have we offended? Have we trespassed? Or has Ann been troublesome? Or is it,” he continued with a droll look, “that the virtue of the pens that I am not permitted to mend — is wearing out?”
“I know how good you have been,” she said. But she could not put heart into her words, or speak as she would have spoken the day before.
And he saw it, of course. “Have been?” He raised his eyebrows. “And why not, ma’am, ‘how good you are’? Is that too because the virtue of the pens is wearing out? And we are no longer on probation, but are established, settled, able to stand on our own little feet? And need no further help, eh? I see,” he added slowly, “I see.”
That hurt Rachel and she coloured. “But you don’t see,” she said warmly. “It is not that.”
“But I fear it is that. Poor little knife!” he continued, addressing it. “You are no longer of use, no longer wanted! There are no more knots to cut! No more tangles to sever! Henceforth you are of use only to — cut our friends.”
Oh, he was too much for her! She turned to the bookshelf to hide the tears that welled up in her eyes. “Please don’t say that,” she begged, and, alas, the traitorous tears were in her voice also. “You know it is not that.”
He seized on the admission. “Then what is it?”
The imminence of the danger restored her self-control. She had hoped that without betraying herself she might place their relations on a new footing, and by a reserve too measured to be noticed set him at a distance. But he had in a moment pierced her defences; in another moment he might force her to avow that they were too — too intimate; and she would rather die than betray herself in that way. In such a strait women can compass much, and, desperate, Rachel turned to him, she even smiled at him. “Well, if you must know,” she confessed, “Ann has been troublesome this morning, and I lost my temper. And I slapped her. And I am vexed with myself.”
“And how,” he inquired, and with genuine curiosity, “did my Lady Ann take it? She did not slap you back?”
“No. Astonishingly well. And made me the more ashamed of myself.”
It was surprising how singularly the brightness of her eyes, which were still moist, and a kind of shyness that he had not seen in her of late, became her. “Poor little girl!” he said, and he drew a step nearer. “You are upset, I see. Shall I feel your pulse — and prescribe for you?”
But Rachel knew that if he touched her she would burst into tears, and she drew back. “Thank you, I have my own prescription,” she said.
“And that is?”
If only he would take his eyes, his keen, humorous, dominating eyes off her!— “Solitude and sewing,” she repl
ied, as lightly as she could. “They are to a woman what wine, I suppose, is to a man.”
“But we only prescribe wine in serious cases,” he answered, considering her. “And solitude? By that I suppose you wish me gone?”
“I have had Ann all the morning.” She let her weariness appear.
“Poor girl! Poor little thing! Well, I obey. But — if you shut yourself up whenever Ann is naughty, heaven help your friends! I take it,” with a searching glance, “that I still am — that I count as a friend?”
“Of course!” she said. But the question pressed her home and the tell-tale blood rose to her cheeks.
He nodded. “Ah!” He said no more. He went out slowly, and she was left to doubt, and, alas, gravely to doubt, if she had deceived him. But to think, even to suspect that she had not, and that he had seen through her coldness and understood its motive, was terrible. She told herself that she was very unhappy — and a week, only a week before, how happy she had been, how blest in her ignorance!
Saturday, the last day of November, fell two days later, and was warm for the season. But, mild as it was, an alfresco tea was out of the question, and Rachel was thankful for this. She was spared his company in circumstances that would have awakened every fond recollection and every moving sentiment. But although there could be no tea, Ann was bent on going to Stag’s Hole, and Rachel was forced to accompany her, though the sunshine, that pierced the half-leafless trees and shot the mossy banks with jewels, no longer held any brightness for her, nor the long vistas of gleaming beech-trunks any loveliness. Still she was free to think her own thoughts and feed her melancholy; and, arriving at the spot, while Ann strayed here and there about her ploys, Rachel, seated on a fallen trunk, gave way to dreams, so immersed in the internal battle that she was fighting, that the squirrel cracking beech-mast in the branches behind her, sat and watched her with fearless eyes. H only she might never see him again! That was beginning to be her cry. If by one sharp wrench, one savage operation, she might free herself from the cruel noose that was winding itself about her heart and slowly compressing it. Yet, if she did not see him again! If all the world turned colourless and cold, and only east winds blew and clouds hung ever grey between her and the sun! Poor girl, it was a long and sad road that her thoughts travelled that afternoon; a road harder than she had thought to travel. But all things end and at length with a jerk she came back to the present — the present that chimed in strangely with her sad fancies. For the sky had grown overcast, the wind cold, the outlook grey. The sun had set. It was late, far later in the day than she had supposed.
Alarmed, she looked about her for Ann. Where was she? “Lady Ann!” she cried anxiously. “Ann! Where are you?”
Ann was not far off, and, of course, was in mischief. She had doffed her shoes and stockings and was paddling in the brook, November though it was. Her hardy little legs showed raw-red through the clear water, and well aware that she had stolen a march on her companion, she was wantonly set on pushing her advantage to the utmost. Instead of coming out when bidden, she moved over to the other side of the brook. “No hurry!” she said, perfunctorily and without looking up. “I’ll come out in a minute!”
“You should never have gone in!” Rachel replied angrily, aware that she was herself in fault.
But Ann was equally aware of that, and rejoiced in an iniquity which her governess shared. “Well, you never told me not to!” she retorted.
“And here is your bracelet on the bank!”
“I put it there. It is quite safe.”
“Now come out at once! Ann, I insist on it.” Rachel stormed. “Do you hear?” And, after a little parley, Ann consented to come out, probably because the water was cold — and she alone could have borne it so long. But her feet, numb and stone-cold, had to be rubbed and dried, and her stockings and shoes to be put on, and, to Rachel’s dismay, her petticoats were wet. Then to everything that had to be done, the child opposed a passive resistance, so that more than twenty minutes elapsed before they were ready to start.
Rachel knew herself to blame, and that she should not have suffered the child to paddle at this season — and once they were on the homeward path she resolutely pressed the pace, so that when they emerged from the forest and sighted the house, some margin of daylight still remained. But then a dreadful thing happened. “I’ll have my bracelet now,” Ann said.
“Your bracelet?”
“You took it from the bank, you know. I saw you.”
“Oh!” Rachel exclaimed, and stood, horror-stricken. “I left it on the tree where we were sitting.”
“Well,” Ann cried in triumph, “You’ve done it now! It’s your forget. And we’ll have to go back. And it will be dark, black dark, before we get home. Hurrah!”
Rachel was appalled. The bracelet was a gift of Captain Dunstan’s, and, being set with amethysts, was of value. According to Ann’s version, it had been presented to him by a French lady in acknowledgment of his generous treatment of the passengers on a French packet that he had taken in the Indian seas. My lord, on the other hand, maintained that it had been loot, bought for half a guinea from a fo’c’sle hand. But whichever story was true, its loss would be no small thing, and Ann knew this and made the most of it. “Hurrah!” she cried. “It’s almost dark now, and we must go back!”
“You will do nothing of the kind,” Rachel answered with temper. “You will go straight to the house. It’s not two hundred yards, and no harm can come to you. It is still light. I will go back for it.”
“But it is mine and!”
“You will go straight home!” Rachel insisted, firm for once.
“Well,” rebelliously, “I shall tell mother whose fault it was!”
But Rachel was angry and a little frightened. “You will do as you are told!” she said.
For once Ann gave way. “Well, all right,” she said sulkily. “You need not get into a pucker about it. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t lose it.”
“And you will change your petticoats the moment you reach the house.”
She stood and watched the child until she was within a hundred yards of the entrance-gates. Then, satisfied that no harm could come to her charge, Rachel turned, and as fast as she could she retraced her steps, little thinking that with every yard she was spinning a new colour into the thread of her life. She knew that dusk would be upon her before she could reach the brook, and that much of her return journey must be made in the dark, and under such conditions she had no taste for the loneliness of the forest. Still, if anything happened to the bracelet she would be responsible, and she hardened her heart and put her best foot foremost. But she had already walked some miles, and her strength was flagging when at last she saw below her, dim and shadowy now, the open space beside the brook.
She saw it with relief, for it would be something at least to turn her face towards home and to have the terrors of the forest at her back, and she dropped quickly down to it. But when she was within twenty yards of the spot, which a zigzag in the path had hidden for a moment, she perceived with alarm that it was tenanted. Two men were there, one seated on the fallen tree on which she had sat, the other standing with a foot on it. They had not heard her approach, for, with their heads close together, they were examining by the dim light something which the seated man held in his hand.
The bracelet. It must be that.
Then for a moment she breathed more freely. No doubt the men were two of the forest rangers, and with that happy thought in her mind she approached them boldly, too anxious about the bracelet to count chances.
But when she was within five paces of the men they heard her and turned, and the one who was seated sprang to his feet. And now — when it was too late to avoid them — she took in their aspect, and it was with a shock of fear that she saw that they were not keepers. One wore an old uniform-coat and a soldier’s broken hat, and both were filthy and ragged, with vagrant written plain upon their squalid persons. Rachel hesitated, alarm driving the colour from her face. She w
as alone, the dusky woodland rose high on each side, walling her in, and they held the bracelet. To them it was a monstrous prize, and help in that solitary place and at that hour was out of the question.
CHAPTER IX
A BRUTE!
BUT the blood of the sturdy old divine, who was Mrs. South’s pride, ran in the girl’s veins. She owned the spirit that in a desperate strait rises to meet the emergency, and, with courage, wit also came at her call. She turned and deliberately beckoned with her hand as if to someone above her. “Stay there!” she cried. “I’ve found it!” Her voice rang unnaturally shrill, but it was only the clearer for that. Then she turned and with coolness, forced indeed, but the men could not know that, “You’ve found my bracelet!” she said. “I am much obliged to you. I shall be glad to—” for a moment her voice weakened, for the ruffians’ greedy eyes and lowering faces appalled her—” to reward you with a shilling for finding it.”
Her appearance had startled the men almost as much as their presence had startled her, for they too had their grounds for fear. They stared at her, doubtful and suspicious — stared at her and stared also with keen eyes up the path by which she had descended. There might be others with her — more likely than not, at that hour; and it was well to be on the safe side. So, after a pause of suspense during which Rachel could almost hear her heart beat, one of the two answered her. “God bless your feeling heart, ma’am,” he said in a whining tone. “We’re poor men, ma’am, and hungry. If you have a shilling we’ll thank you kindly.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 716