I SAY NO
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Wilkie Collins >> I SAY NO
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27 [Italics are indicatedby underscores
James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]
[Etext version by James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net. Italics are
indicated by underscores.]
"I SAY NO."
by WILKIE COLLINS
BOOK THE FIRST--AT SCHOOL.
CHAPTER I.
THE SMUGGLED SUPPER.
Outside the bedroom the night was black and still.
The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a
leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the
cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a
sound was stirring.
Inside the bedroom the night was black and still.
Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow
night-lights; and Miss Ladd's young ladies were supposed to be
fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house. Only at
intervals the silence was faintly disturbed, when the restless
turning of one of the girls in her bed betrayed itself by a
gentle rustling between the sheets. In the long intervals of
stillness, not even the softly audible breathing of young
creatures asleep was to be heard.
The first sound that told of life and movement revealed the
mechanical movement of the clock. Speaking from the lower
regions, the tongue of Father Time told the hour before midnight.
A soft voice rose wearily near the door of the room. It counted
the strokes of the clock--and reminded one of the girls of the
lapse of time.
"Emily! eleven o'clock."
There was no reply. After an interval the weary voice tried
again, in louder tones:
"Emily!"
A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under
the heavy heat of the night--and said, in peremptory tones, "Is
that Cecilia?"
"Yes."
"What do you want?"
"I'm getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?"
The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, "No, she isn't."
Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise
virgins of Miss Ladd's first class had waited an hour, in wakeful
anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger--and it had
ended in this way! A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The
new girl, mortified and offended, entered her protest in plain
words.
"You are treating me shamefully! You all distrust me, because I
am a stranger."
"Say we don't understand you," Emily answered, speaking for her
schoolfellows; "and you will be nearer the truth."
"Who expected you to understand me, when I only came here to-day?
I have told you already my name is Francine de Sor. If want to
know more, I'm nineteen years old, and I come from the West
Indies."
Emily still took the lead. "Why do you come _here?_" she asked.
"Who ever heard of a girl joining a new school just before the
holidays? You are nineteen years old, are you? I'm a year younger
than you--and I have finished my education. The next big girl in
the room is a year younger than me--and she has finished her
education. What can you possibly have left to learn at your age?"
"Everything!" cried the stranger from the West Indies, with an
outburst of tears. "I'm a poor ignorant creature. Your education
ought to have taught you to pity me instead of making fun of me.
I hate you all. For shame, for shame!"
Some of the girls laughed. One of them--the hungry girl who had
counted the strokes of the clock--took Francine's part.
"Never mind their laughing, Miss de Sor. You are quite right, you
have good reason to complain of us."
Miss de Sor dried her eyes. "Thank you--whoever you are," she
answered briskly.
"My name is Cecilia Wyvil," the other proceeded. "It was not,
perhaps, quite nice of you to say you hated us all. At the same
time we have forgotten our good breeding--and the least we can do
is to beg your pardon."
This expression of generous sentiment appeared to have an
irritating effect on the peremptory young person who took the
lead in the room. Perhaps she disapproved of free trade in
generous sentiment.
"I can tell you one thing, Cecilia," she said; "you shan't beat
ME in generosity. Strike a light, one of you, and lay the blame
on me if Miss Ladd finds us out. I mean to shake hands with the
new girl--and how can I do it in the dark? Miss de Sor, my name's
Brown, and I'm queen of the bedroom. I--not Cecilia--offer our
apologies if we have offended you. Cecilia is my dearest friend,
but I don't allow her to take the lead in the room. Oh, what a
lovely nightgown!"
The sudden flow of candle-light had revealed Francine, sitting up
in her bed, and displaying such treasures of real lace over her
bosom that the queen lost all sense of royal dignity in
irrepressible admiration. "Seven and sixpence," Emily remarked,
looking at her own night-gown and despising it. One after
another, the girls yielded to the attraction of the wonderful
lace. Slim and plump, fair and dark, they circled round the new
pupil in their flowing white robes, and arrived by common consent
at one and the same conclusion: "How rich her father must be!"
Favored by fortune in the matter of money, was this enviable
person possessed of beauty as well?
In the disposition of the beds, Miss de Sor was placed between
Cecilia on the right hand, and Emily on the left. If, by some
fantastic turn of events, a man--say in the interests of
propriety, a married doctor, with Miss Ladd to look after
him--had been permitted to enter the room, and had been asked
what he thought of the girls when he came out, he would not even
have mentioned Francine. Blind to the beauties of the expensive
night-gown, he would have noticed her long upper lip, her
obstinate chin, her sallow complexion, her eyes placed too close
together--and would have turned his attention to her nearest
neighbors. On one side his languid interest would have been
instantly roused by Cecilia's glowing auburn hair, her
exquisitely pure skin, and her tender blue eyes. On the other, he
would have discovered a bright little creature, who would have
fascinated and perplexed him at one and the same time. If he had
been questioned about her by a stranger, he would have been at a
loss to say positively whether she was dark or light: he would
have remembered how her eyes had held him, but he would not have
known of what color they were. And yet, she would have remained a
vivid picture in his memory when other impressions, derived at
the same time, had vanished. "There was one little witch among
them, who was worth all the rest put together; and I can't tell
you why. They called her Emily. If I wasn't a married man--"
There he would have thought of his wife, and would have sighed
and said no more.
While the girls were still admiring Francine, the clock struck
the half-hour past eleven.
Cecilia stole on tiptoe to the door--looked out, and
listened--closed the door again--and addressed the meeting with
the irresistible charm of her sweet voice and her persuasive
smile.
"Are none of you hungry yet?" she inquired. "The teachers are
safe in their rooms; we have set ourselves right with Francine.
Why keep the supper waiting under Emily's bed?"
Such reasoning as this, with such personal attractions to
recommend it, admitted of but one reply. The queen waved her hand
graciously, and said, "Pull it out."
Is a lovely girl--whose face possesses the crowning charm of
expression, whose slightest movement reveals the supple symmetry
of her figure--less lovely because she is blessed with a good
appetite, and is not ashamed to acknowledge it? With a grace all
her own, Cecilia dived under the bed, and produced a basket of
jam tarts, a basket of fruit and sweetmeats, a basket of
sparkling lemonade, and a superb cake--all paid for by general
subscriptions, and smuggled into the room by kind connivance of
the servants. On this occasion, the feast was especially
plentiful and expensive, in commemoration not only of the arrival
of the Midsummer holidays, but of the coming freedom of Miss
Ladd's two leading young ladies. With widely different destinies
before them, Emily and Cecilia had completed their school life,
and were now to go out into the world.
The contrast in the characters of the two girls showed itself,
even in such a trifle as the preparations for supper.
Gentle Cecilia, sitting on the floor surrounded by good things,
left it to the ingenuity of others to decide whether the baskets
should be all emptied at once, or handed round
from bed to bed, one at a time. In the meanwhile, her lovely
blue eyes rested tenderly on the tarts.
Emily's commanding spirit seized on the reins of government, and
employed each of her schoolfellows in the occupation which she
was fittest to undertake. "Miss de Sor, let me look at your hand.
Ah! I thought so. You have got the thickest wrist among us; you
shall draw the corks. If you let the lemonade pop, not a drop of
it goes down your throat. Effie, Annis, Priscilla, you are three
notoriously lazy girls; it's doing you a true kindness to set you
to work. Effie, clear the toilet-table for supper; away with the
combs, the brushes, and the looking-glass. Annis, tear the leaves
out of your book of exercises, and set them out for plates. No!
I'll unpack; nobody touches the baskets but me. Priscilla, you
have the prettiest ears in the room. You shall act as sentinel,
my dear, and listen at the door. Cecilia, when you have done
devouring those tarts with your eyes, take that pair of scissors
(Miss de Sor, allow me to apologize for the mean manner in which
this school is carried on; the knives and forks are counted and
locked up every night)--I say take that pair of scissors,
Cecilia, and carve the cake, and don't keep the largest bit for
yourself. Are we all ready? Very well. Now take example by me.
Talk as much as you like, so long as you don't talk too loud.
There is one other thing before we begin. The men always propose
toasts on these occasions; let's be like the men. Can any of you
make a speech? Ah, it falls on me as usual. I propose the first
toast. Down with all schools and teachers--especially the new
teacher, who came this half year. Oh, mercy, how it stings!" The
fixed gas in the lemonade took the orator, at that moment, by the
throat, and effectually checked the flow of her eloquence. It
made no difference to the girls. Excepting the ease of feeble
stomachs, who cares for eloquence in the presence of a
supper-table? There were no feeble stomachs in that bedroom. With
what inexhaustible energy Miss Ladd's young ladies ate and drank!
How merrily they enjoyed the delightful privilege of talking
nonsense! And--alas! alas!--how vainly they tried, in after life,
to renew the once unalloyed enjoyment of tarts and lemonade!
In the unintelligible scheme of creation, there appears to be no
human happiness--not even the happiness of schoolgirls--which is
ever complete. Just as it was drawing to a close, the enjoyment
of the feast was interrupted by an alarm from the sentinel at the
door.
Put out the candle!" Priscilla whispered "Somebody on the
stairs."
CHAPTER II.
BIOGRAPHY IN THE BEDROOM.
The candle was instantly extinguished. In discreet silence the
girls stole back to their beds, and listened.
As an aid to the vigilance of the sentinel, the door had been
left ajar. Through the narrow opening, a creaking of the broad
wooden stairs of the old house became audible. In another moment
there was silence. An interval passed, and the creaking was heard
again. This time, the sound was distant and diminishing. On a
sudden it stopped. The midnight silence was disturbed no more.
What did this mean?
Had one among the many persons in authority under Miss Ladd's
roof heard the girls talking, and ascended the stairs to surprise
them in the act of violating one of the rules of the house? So
far, such a proceeding was by no means uncommon. But was it
within the limits of probability that a teacher should alter her
opinion of her own duty half-way up the stairs, and deliberately
go back to her own room again? The bare idea of such a thing was
absurd on the face of it. What more rational explanation could
ingenuity discover on the spur of the moment?
Francine was the first to offer a suggestion. She shook and
shivered in her bed, and said, "For heaven's sake, light the
candle again! It's a Ghost."
"Clear away the supper, you fools, before the ghost can report us
to Miss Ladd."
With this excellent advice Emily checked the rising panic. The
door was closed, the candle was lit; all traces of the supper
disappeared. For five minutes more they listened again. No sound
came from the stairs; no teacher, or ghost of a teacher, appeared
at the door.
Having eaten her supper, Cecilia's immediate anxieties were at an
end; she was at leisure to exert her intelligence for the benefit
of her schoolfellows. In her gentle ingratiating way, she offered
a composing suggestion. "When we heard the creaking, I don't
believe there was anybody on the stairs. In these old houses
there are always strange noises at night--and they say the stairs
here were made more than two hundred years since."
The girls looked at each other with a sense of relief--but they
waited to hear the opinion of the queen. Emily, as usual,
justified the confidence placed in her. She discovered an
ingenious method of putting Cecilia's suggestion to the test.
"Let's go on talking," she said. "If Cecilia is right, the
teachers are all asleep, and we have nothing to fear from them.
If she's wrong, we shall sooner or later see one of them at the
door. Don't be alarmed, Miss de Sor. Catching us talking at
night, in this school, only means a reprimand. Catching us with a
light, ends in punishment. Blow out the candle."
Francine's belief in the ghost was too sincerely superstitious to
be shaken: she started up in bed. "Oh, don't leave me in the
dark! I'll take the punishment, if we are found out."
"On your sacred word of honor?" Emily stipulated.
"Yes--yes."
The queen's sense of humor was tickled.
"There's something funny," she remarked, addressing her subjects,
"in a big girl like this coming to a new school and beginning
with a punishment. May I ask if you are a foreigner, Miss de
Sor?"
"My papa is a Spanish gentleman," Francine answered, with
dignity.
"And your mamma?"
"My mamma is English."
"And you have always lived in the West Indies?"
"I have always lived in the Island of St. Domingo."
Emily checked off on her fingers the different points thus far
discovered in the character of Mr. de Sor's daughter. "She's
ignorant, and superstitious, and foreign, and rich. My dear
(forgive the familiarity), you are an interesting girl--and we
must really know more of you. Entertain the bedroom. What have
you been about all your life? And what in the name of wonder,
brings you here? Before you begin I insist on one condition, in
the name of all the young ladies in the room. No useful
information about the West Indies!"
Francine disappointed her audience.
She was ready enough to make herself an object of interest to her
companions; but she was not possessed of the capacity to arrange
events in their proper order, necessary to the recital of the
simplest narrative. Emily was obliged to help her, by means of
questions. In one respect, the result justified the trouble taken
to obtain it. A sufficient reason was discovered for the
extraordinary appearance of a new pupil, on the day before the
school closed for the holidays.
Mr. de Sor's elder brother had left him an estate in St. Domingo,
and a fortune in money as well; on the one easy condition that he
continued to reside in the island. The question of expense being
now beneath the notice of the family, Francine had been sent to
England, especially recommended to Miss Ladd as a young lady with
grand prospects, sorely in need of a fashionable education. The
voyage had been so timed, by the advice of the schoolmistress, as
to make the holidays a means of obtaining this object privately.
Francine was to be taken to Brighton, where excellent masters
could be obtained to assist Miss Ladd. With six weeks before her,
she might in some degree make up for lost time; and, when the
school opened again, she would avoid the mortification of being
put down in the lowest class, along with the children.
The examination of Miss de Sor having produced these results was
pursued no further. Her character now appeared in a new, and not
very attractive, light. She audaciously took to herself the whole
credit of telling her story:
"I think it's my turn now," she said, "to be interested and
amused. May I ask you to begin, Miss Emily? All I know of you at
present is, t hat your family name is Brown."
Emily held up her hand for silence.
Was the mysterious creaking on the stairs making itself heard
once more? No. The sound that had caught Emily's quick ear came
from the beds, on the opposite side of the room, occupied by the
three lazy girls. With no new alarm to disturb them, Effie,
Annis, and Priscilla had yielded to the composing influences of a
good supper and a warm night. They were fast asleep--and the
stoutest of the three (softly, as became a young lady) was
snoring!
The unblemished reputation of the bedroom was dear to Emily, in
her capacity of queen. She felt herself humiliated in the
presence of the new pupil.
"If that fat girl ever gets a lover," she said indignantly, "I
shall consider it my duty to warn the poor man before he marries
her. Her ridiculous name is Euphemia. I have christened her (far
more appropriately) Boiled Veal. No color in her hair, no color
in her eyes, no color in her complexion. In short, no flavor in
Euphemia. You naturally object to snoring. Pardon me if I turn my
back on you--I am going to throw my slipper at her."
The soft voice of Cecilia--suspiciously drowsy in
tone--interposed in the interests of mercy.
"She can't help it, poor thing; and she really isn't loud enough
to disturb us."
"She won't disturb _you_, at any rate! Rouse yourself, Cecilia.
We are wide awake on this side of the room--and Francine says
it's our turn to amuse her."
A low murmur, dying away gently in a sigh, was the only answer.
Sweet Cecilia had yielded to the somnolent influences of the
supper and the night. The soft infection of repose seemed to be
in some danger of communicating itself to Francine. Her large
mouth opened luxuriously in a long-continued yawn.
"Good-night!" said Emily.
Miss de Sor became wide awake in an instant.
"No," she said positively; "you are quite mistaken if you think I
am going to sleep. Please exert yourself, Miss Emily--I am
waiting to be interested."
Emily appeared to be unwilling to exert herself. She preferred
talking of the weather.
"Isn't the wind rising?" she said.
There could be no doubt of it. The leaves in the garden were
beginning to rustle, and the pattering of the rain sounded on the
windows.
Francine (as her straight chin proclaimed to all students of
physiognomy) was an obstinate girl. Determined to carry her point
she tried Emily's own system on Emily herself--she put questions.
"Have you been long at this school?"
"More than three years."
"Have you got any brothers and sisters?"
"I am the only child."
"Are your father and mother alive?"
Emily suddenly raised herself in bed.
"Wait a minute," she said; "I think I hear it again."
"The creaking on the stairs?"
"Yes."
Either she was mistaken, or the change for the worse in the
weather made it not easy to hear slight noises in the house. The
wind was still rising. The passage of it through the great trees
in the garden began to sound like the fall of waves on a distant
beach. It drove the rain--a heavy downpour by this time--rattling
against the windows.
"Almost a storm, isn't it?" Emily said
Francine's last question had not been answered yet. She took the
earliest opportunity of repeating it:
"Never mind the weather," she said. "Tell me about your father
and mother. Are they both alive?"
Emily's reply only related to one of her parents.
"My mother died before I was old enough to feel my loss."
"And your father?"
Emily referred to another relative--her father's sister. "Since I
have grown up," she proceeded, "my good aunt has been a second
mother to me. My story is, in one respect, the reverse of yours.
You are unexpectedly rich; and I am unexpectedly poor. My aunt's
fortune was to have been my fortune, if I outlived her. She has
been ruined by the failure of a bank. In her old age, she must
live on an income of two hundred a year--and I must get my own
living when I leave school."
"Surely your father can help you?" Francine persisted.
"His property is landed property." Her voice faltered, as she
referred to him, even in that indirect manner. "It is entailed;
his nearest male relative inherits it."
The delicacy which is easily discouraged was not one of the
weaknesses in the nature of Francine.
"Do I understand that your father is dead?" she asked.
Our thick-skinned fellow-creatures have the rest of us at their
mercy: only give them time, and they carry their point in the
end. In sad subdued tones--telling of deeply-rooted reserves of
feeling, seldom revealed to strangers--Emily yielded at last.
"Yes," she said, "my father is dead."
"Long ago?"
"Some people might think it long ago. I was very fond of my
father. It's nearly four years since he died, and my heart still
aches when I think of him. I'm not easily depressed by troubles,
Miss de Sor. But his death was sudden--he was in his grave when I
first heard of it--and-- Oh, he was so good to me; he was so good
to me!"
The gay high-spirited little creature who took the lead among
them all--who was the life and soul of the school--hid her face
in her hands, and burst out crying.
Startled and--to do her justice--ashamed, Francine attempted to
make excuses. Emily's generous nature passed over the cruel
persistency that had tortured her. "No no; I have nothing to
forgive. It isn't your fault. Other girls have not mothers and
brothers and sisters--and get reconciled to such a loss as mine.
Don't make excuses."
"Yes, but I want you to know that I feel for you," Francine
insisted, without the slightest approach to sympathy in face,
voice, or manner. "When my uncle died, and left us all the money,
papa was much shocked. He trusted to time to help him."
"Time has been long about it with me, Francine. I am afraid there
is something perverse in my nature; the hope of meeting again in
a better world seems so faint and so far away. No more of it now!
Let us talk of that good creature who is asleep on the other side
of you. Did I tell you that I must earn my own bread when I leave
school? Well, Cecilia has written home and found an employment
for me. Not a situation as governess--something quite out of the
common way. You shall hear all about it."
In the brief interval that had passed, the weather had begun to
change again. The wind was as high as ever; but to judge by the
lessening patter on the windows the rain was passing away.
Emily began.
She was too grateful to her friend and school-fellow, and too
deeply interested in her story, to notice the air of indifference
with which Francine settled herself on her pillow to hear the
praises of Cecilia. The most beautiful girl in the school was not
an object of interest to a young lady with an obstinate chin and
unfortunately-placed eyes. Pouring warm from the speaker's heart
the story ran smoothly on, to the monotonous accompaniment of the
moaning wind. By fine degrees Francine's eyes closed, opened and
closed again. Toward the latter part of the narrative Emily's
memory became, for the moment only, confused between two events.
She stopped to consider--noticed Francine's silence, in an
interval when she might have said a word of encouragement--and
looked closer at her. Miss de Sor was asleep.
"She might have told me she was tired," Emily said to herself
quietly. "Well! the best thing I can do is to put out the light
and follow her example."
As she took up the extinguisher, the bedroom door was suddenly
opened from the outer side. A tall woman, robed in a black
dressing-gown, stood on the threshold, looking at Emily.
CHAPTER III.
THE LATE MR. BROWN.
The woman's lean, long-fingered hand pointed to the candle.
"Don't put it out." Saying those words, she looked round the
room, and satisfied herself that the other girls were asleep.
Emily laid down the extinguisher. "You mean to report us, of
course," she said. "I am the only one awake, Miss Jethro; lay the
blame on me."
"I have no intention of reporting you. But I have something to
say."
She paused, and pushed her thick black hair (already streaked
with gray) back from her temples. Her eyes, large and dark and
dim, rested on Emily with a sorrowful interest. "When your young
friends wake to-morrow morning," she went on, "you can tell them
that the new teacher, whom nobody likes, has left the school."
For once, even quick-witted Emily was bewildered. "Going away,"
she said, "when you have only been here since Easter!"
Miss Jethro advanced, not noticing Emily's expression of
surprise. "I am not very strong at the best of times," she
continued, "may I sit down on your bed?" Remarkable on other
occasions for her cold composure, her voice trembled as she made
that request--a strange request surely, when there were chairs at
her disposal.
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