The house on the marsh — Themes and Context

her preoccupied; and I was listening to his bright small-talk with the polite stranger’s smile, when I discovered, without having heard any sound, that Mrs. Rayner was in the room. She had glided in like a ghost, and, without more interest in the life around her than a ghost might show, she was standing at the table, waiting. I was thankful to see that there was no trace in her eyes now of the steadfast eager gaze which had disconcerted me on the night before, nothing but the limpest indifference to me in the way in which she held out her hand when her husband introduced me.

“She must have been pretty ten years ago,” I thought, as I looked at her thin face, with the fair faded complexion and dull gray eyes. There was a gentleness about her which would have been grace still, if she had taken any pains to set off by a little womanly coquetry her slim girl-like figure, small thin hands, and the masses of long brown hair which were carelessly and unbecomingly dragged away from her forehead and twisted up on her head.

Then the door opened, and the servants came in to prayers, with the elfish baby and a pretty delicate-looking child, blue-eyed and fair-haired, who was presented to me before breakfast as Haidee, my pupil.

Nobody talked during the meal but Mr. Rayner, and the only other noticeable thing was the improper behavior of the baby, who kept throwing bits of bread at her father when he was not looking, and aimed a blow with a spoon at him when he passed her chair to cut himself some cold meat. He saw it and laughed at her.

“It is a most extraordinary thing, Miss Christie,” said he; “but that child hates me.”

I thought he spoke in fun; but, before I had been long at the Alders, I found that it was true that this most unpleasant baby’s strongest feeling was dislike of her father, though there seemed to be no reason for it, since he never did anything harsher than laugh at her. She would not even take sweets from his hand.

“You do not yet know what primitive people you have come among, Miss Christie,” said Mr. Rayner during breakfast. “We dine here at half-past one. If we were to suggest late dinner, we should have to prepare our own food, like excommunicated persons. It is hard as it is to keep our modest staff of three servants. They say the place is damp, which, being interpreted, means that it is too far for their ‘young men’ in the town to come and see them. Were you not surprised at the wording of my advertisement?”

“My wife was afraid that it would frighten off many desirable young ladies by its ogreish abruptness. The fact is, the lady who has just left us, quite a typical instructress of forty, with prominent teeth and glasses, nearly frightened our lives out. She wouldn’t talk, and my wife wants a cheerful companion; and she said she was dying of rheumatism, and threatened to prosecute me for decoying her to such a damp place. So we registered a solemn vow that we would have nothing to do with hoar antiquity again.”

“How could she say anything against such a lovely place?” said I.

“Well, now, Miss Christie, I grant she had a show of reason on her side. I have sometimes thought the place damp myself; but my wife has got attached to it; haven’t you, Lola?”

“Yes,” said she, without a sign of feeling or interest.

“And so we remain,” he went on. “A lady’s wishes must be considered; and there are special reasons why they should be in this case. You must know, Miss Christie, that I am a penniless wretch, dependent on my wife; am I not, Lola?” He turned playfully to her.

“Not quite that,” said she gently, but with no more warmth than before.

“Practically I am,” he persisted. “She was an heiress, I a ruined spendthrift, when she married me. Yet she trusted me; and the only condition she would allow her friends to make was that I should settle in the country--out of the reach of temptation, you see, Miss Christie.”

He spoke with some feeling, and looked affectionately at his wife at the end of this unexpectedly frank confession; but she remained as impassive as ever.