I SAY NO

W >> Wilkie Collins >> I SAY NO

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

The doctor withdrew.

"Unexpectedly obliged to leave London," he repeated, as he got
into the cab again. "Her flight condemns her: not a doubt of it
now. As fast as you can!" he shouted to the man; directing him to
drive to Emily's cottage.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MISS LADD.

Arriving at the cottage, Doctor Allday discovered a gentleman,
who was just closing the garden gate behind him.

"Has Miss Emily had a visitor?" he inquired, when the servant
admitted him.

"The gentleman left a letter for Miss Emily, sir."

"Did he ask to see her?"

"He asked after Miss Letitia's health. When he heard that she was
dead, he seemed to be startled, and went away immediately."

"Did he give his name?"

"No, sir."

The doctor found Emily absorbed over her letter. His anxiety to
forestall any possible discovery of the deception which had
concealed the terrible story of her father's death, kept Doctor
Allday's vigilance on the watch. He doubted the gentleman who had
abstained from giving his name; he even distrusted the other
unknown person who had written to Emily.

She looked up. Her face relieved him of his misgivings, before
she could speak.

"At last, I have heard from my dearest friend," she said. "You
remember what I told you about Cecilia? Here is a letter--a long
delightful letter--from the Engadine, left at the door by some
gentleman unknown. I was questioning the servant when you rang
the bell."

"You may question me, if you prefer it. I arrived just as the
gentleman was shutting your garden gate."

"Oh, tell me! what was he like?"

"Tall, and thin, and dark. Wore a vile republican-looking felt
hat. Had nasty ill-tempered wrinkles between his eyebrows. The
sort of man I distrust by instinct."

"Why?"

"Because he doesn't shave."

"Do you mean that he wore a beard?"

"Yes; a curly black beard."

Emily clasped her hands in amazement. "Can it be Alban Morris?"
she exclaimed.

The doctor looked at her with a sardonic smile; he thought it
likely that he had discovered her sweetheart.

"Who is Mr. Alban Morris?" he asked.

"The drawing-master at Miss Ladd's school."

Doctor Allday dropped the subject: masters at ladies' schools
were not persons who interested him. He returned to the purpose
which had brought him to the cottage--and produced the Handbill
that had been sent to him in Emily's letter.

"I suppose you want to have it back again?' he said.

She took it from him, and looked at it with interest.

"Isn't it strange," she suggested, "that the murderer should have
escaped, with such a careful description of him as this
circulated all over England?"

She read the description to the doctor.

"'Name not known. Supposed age, between twenty-five and thirty
years. A well-made man, of small stature. Fair complexion,
delicate features, clear blue eyes. Hair light, and cut rather
short. Clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers.
Small, white, well-shaped hands. Wore valuable rings on the two
last fingers of the left hand. Dressed neatly--'"

"That part of the description is useless," the doctor remarked;
"he would change his clothes."

"But could he change his voice?" Emily objected. "Listen to this:
'Remarkably good voice, smooth, full, and persuasive.' And here
again! 'Ingratiating manners.' Perhaps you will say he could put
on an appearance of rudeness?"

"I will say this, my dear. He would be able to disguise himself
so effectually that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would
fail to identify him, either by his voice or his manner."

"How?"

"Look back at the description: 'Hair cut rather short, clean
shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers.' The wretch
was safe from pursuit; he had ample time at his disposal--don't
you see how he could completely alter the appearance of his head
and face? No more, my dear, of this disagreeable subject! Let us
get to something interesting. Have you found anything else among
your aunt's papers?"

"I have met with a great disappointment," Emily replied. "Did I
tell you how I discovered the Handbill?"

"No."

"I found it, with the scrap-book and the newspaper cuttings,
under a collection of empty boxes and bottles, in a drawer of the
washhand-stand. And I naturally expected to make far more
interesting discoveries in this room. My search was over in five
minutes. Nothing in the cabinet there, in the corner, but a few
books and some china. Nothing in the writing-desk, on that
side-table, but a packet of note-paper and some sealing-wax.
Nothing here, in the drawers, but tradesmen's receipts, materials
for knitting, and old photographs. She must have destroyed all
her papers, poor dear, before her last illness; and the Handbill
and the other things can only have escaped, because they were
left in a place which she never thought of examining. Isn't it
provoking?"

With a mind inexpressibly relieved, good Doctor Allday asked
permission to return to his patients: leaving Emily to devote
herself to her friend's letter.

On his way out, he noticed that the door of the bed-chamber on
the opposite side of the passage stood open. Since Miss Letitia's
death the room had not been used. Well within view stood the
washhand-stand to which Emily had alluded. The doctor advanced to
the house door--reflected--hesitated--and looked toward the empty
room.

It had struck him that there might be a second drawer which Emily
had overlooked. Would he be justified in setting this doubt at
rest? If he passed over ordinary scruples it would not be without
excuse. Miss Letitia had spoken to him of her affairs, and had
asked him to act (in Emily's interest) as co-executor with her
lawyer. The rapid progress of the illness had made it impossible
for her to execute the necessary codicil. But the doctor had been
morally (if not legally) taken into her confidence--and, for that
reason, he decided that he had a right in this serious matter to
satisfy his own mind.

A glance was enough to show him that no second drawer had been
overlooked.

There was no other discovery to detain the doctor. The wardrobe
only contained the poor old lady's clothes; the one cupboard was
open and empty. On the point of leaving the room, he went back to
the washhand-stand. While he had the opportunity, it might not be
amiss to make sure that Emily had thoroughly examined those old
boxes and bottles, which she had alluded to with some little
contempt.

The drawer was of considerable length. When he tried to pull it
completely out from the grooves in which it ran, it resisted him.
In his present frame of mind, this was a suspicious circumstance
in itself. He cleared away the litter so as to make room for the
introduction of his hand and arm into the drawer. In another
moment his fingers touched a piece of paper, jammed between the
inner end of the drawer and the bottom of the flat surface of the
washhand-stand. With a little care, he succeeded in extricating
the paper. Only pausing to satisfy himself that there was nothing
else to be found, and to close the drawer after replacing its
contents, he left the cottage.

The cab was waiting for him. On the drive back to his own house,
he opened the crumpled paper. It proved to be a letter addressed
to Miss Letitia; and it was signed by no less a person than
Emily's schoolmistress. Looking back from the end to the
beginning, Doctor Allday discovered, in the first sentence, the
name of--Miss Jethro.

But for the interview of that morning with his patient he might
have doubted the propriety of making himself further acquainted
with the letter. As things were, he read it without hesitation.

"DEAR MADAM--I cannot but regard it as providential circumstance
that your niece, in writing to you from my house, should have
mentioned, among other events of her school life, the arrival of
my new teacher, Miss Jethro.

"To say that I was surprised is to express very inadequately what
I felt when I read your letter, informing me confidentially that
I had employed a woman who was unworthy to associate with the
young persons placed under my care. It is impossible for me to
suppose that a lady in your position, and possessed of your high
principles, would make such a serious accusation as this, without
unanswerable reasons for doing so. At the same time I cannot,
consistently with my duty as a Christian, suffer my opinion of
Miss Jethro to be in any way modified, until proofs are laid
before me which it is impossible to dispute.

"Placing the same confidence in your discretion, which you have
placed in mine, I now inclose the references and testimonials
which Miss Jethro submitted to me, when she presented herself to
fill the vacant situation in my school.

"I earnestly request you to lose no time in instituting the
confidential inquiries which you have volunteered to make.
Whatever the result may be, pray return to me the inclosures
which I have trusted to your care, and believe me, dear madam, in
much suspense and anxiety, sincerely yours,

AMELIA LADD."

It is needless to describe, at any length, the impression which
these lines produced on the doctor.

If he had heard what Emily had heard at the time of her aunt's
last illness, he would have called to mind Miss Letitia's
betrayal of her interest in some man unknown, whom she believed
to have been beguiled by Miss Jethro--and he would have perceived
that the vindictive hatred, thus produced, must have inspired the
letter of denunciation which the schoolmistress had acknowledged.
He would also have inferred that Miss Letitia's inquiries had
proved her accusation to be well founded--if he had known of the
new teacher's sudden dismissal from the school. As things were,
he was merely confirmed in his bad opinion of Miss Jethro; and he
was induced, on reflection, to keep his discovery to himself.

"If poor Miss Emily saw the old lady exhibited in the character
of an informer," he thought, "what a blow would be struck at her
innocent respect for the memory of her aunt!"

CHAPTER XIX.

SIR JERVIS REDWOOD.

In the meantime, Emily, left by herself, had her own
correspondence to occupy her attention. Besides the letter from
Cecilia (directed to the care of Sir Jervis Redwood), she had
received some lines addressed to her by Sir Jervis himself. The
two inclosures had been secured in a sealed envelope, directed to
the cottage.

If Alban Morris had been indeed the person trusted as messenger
by Sir Jervis, the conclusion that followed filled Emily with
overpowering emotions of curiosity and surprise.

Having no longer the motive of serving and protecting her, Alban
must, nevertheless, have taken the journey to Northumberland. He
must have gained Sir Jervis Redwood's favor and confidence--and
he might even have been a guest at the baronet's country
seat--when Cecilia's letter arrived. What did it mean?

Emily looked back at her experience of her last day at school,
and recalled her consultation with Alban on the subject of Mrs.
Rook. Was he still bent on clearing up his suspicions of Sir
Jervis's housekeeper? And, with that end in view, had he followed
the woman, on her return to her master's place of abode?

Suddenly, almost irritably, Emily snatched up Sir Jervis's
letter. Before the doctor had come in, she had glanced at it, and
had thrown it aside in her impatience to read what Cecilia had
written. In her present altered frame of mind, she was inclined
to think that Sir Jervis might be the more interesting
correspondent of the two.

On
returning to his letter, she was disappointed at the outset.

In the first place, his handwriting was so abominably bad that
she was obliged to guess at his meaning. In the second place, he
never hinted at the circumstances under which Cecilia's letter
had been confided to the gentleman who had left it at her door.

She would once more have treated the baronet's communication with
contempt--but for the discovery that it contained an offer of
employment in London, addressed to herself.

Sir Jervis had necessarily been obliged to engage another
secretary in Emily's absence. But he was still in want of a
person to serve his literary interests in London. He had reason
to believe that discoveries made by modern travelers in Central
America had been reported from time to time by the English press;
and he wished copies to be taken of any notices of this sort
which might be found, on referring to the files of newspapers
kept in the reading-room of the British Museum. If Emily
considered herself capable of contributing in this way to the
completeness of his great work on "the ruined cities," she had
only to apply to his bookseller in London, who would pay her the
customary remuneration and give her every assistance of which she
might stand in need. The bookseller's name and address followed
(with nothing legible but the two words "Bond Street"), and there
was an end of Sir Jervis's proposal.

Emily laid it aside, deferring her answer until she had read
Cecilia's letter.

CHAPTER XX.

THE REVEREND MILES MIRABEL.

"I am making a little excursion from the Engadine, my dearest of
all dear friends. Two charming fellow-travelers take care of me;
and we may perhaps get as far as the Lake of Como.

"My sister (already much improved in health) remains at St.
Moritz with the old governess. The moment I know what exact
course we are going to take, I shall write to Julia to forward
any letters which arrive in my absence. My life, in this earthly
paradise, will be only complete when I hear from my darling
Emily.

"In the meantime, we are staying for the night at some
interesting place, the name of which I have unaccountably
forgotten; and here I am in my room, writing to you at
last--dying to know if Sir Jervis has yet thrown himself at your
feet, and offered to make you Lady Redwood with magnificent
settlements.

"But you are waiting to hear who my new friends are. My dear, one
of them is, next to yourself, the most delightful creature in
existence. Society knows her as Lady Janeaway. I love her
already, by her Christian name; she is my friend Doris. And she
reciprocates my sentiments.

"You will now understand that union of sympathies made us
acquainted with each other.

"If there is anything in me to be proud of, I think it must be my
admirable appetite. And, if I have a passion, the name of it is
Pastry. Here again, Lady Doris reciprocates my sentiments. We sit
next to each other at the _table d'hote_.

"Good heavens, I have forgotten her husband! They have been
married rather more than a month. Did I tell you that she is just
two years older than I am?

"I declare I am forgetting him again! He is Lord Janeaway. Such a
quiet modest man, and so easily amused. He carries with him
everywhere a dirty little tin case, with air holes in the cover.
He goes softly poking about among bushes and brambles, and under
rocks, and behind old wooden houses. When he has caught some
hideous insect that makes one shudder, he blushes with pleasure,
and looks at his wife and me, and says, with the prettiest lisp:
'This is what I call enjoying the day.' To see the manner in
which he obeys Her is, between ourselves, to feel proud of being
a woman.

"Where was I? Oh, at the _table d'hote_.

"Never, Emily--I say it with a solemn sense of the claims of
truth--never have I eaten such an infamous, abominable,
maddeningly bad dinner, as the dinner they gave us on our first
day at the hotel. I ask you if I am not patient; I appeal to your
own recollection of occasions when I have exhibited extraordinary
self-control. My dear, I held out until they brought the pastry
round. I took one bite, and committed the most shocking offense
against good manners at table that you can imagine. My
handkerchief, my poor innocent handkerchief, received the
horrid--please suppose the rest. My hair stands on end, when I
think of it. Our neighbors at the table saw me. The coarse men
laughed. The sweet young bride, sincerely feeling for me, said,
'Will you allow me to shake hands? I did exactly what you have
done the day before yesterday.' Such was the beginning of my
friendship with Lady Doris Janeaway.

"We are two resolute women--I mean that _she_ is resolute, and
that I follow her--and we have asserted our right of dining to
our own satisfaction, by means of an interview with the chief
cook.

"This interesting person is an ex-Zouave in the French army.
Instead of making excuses, he confessed that the barbarous tastes
of the English and American visitors had so discouraged him, that
he had lost all pride and pleasure in the exercise of his art. As
an example of what he meant, he mentioned his experience of two
young Englishmen who could speak no foreign language. The waiters
reported that they objected to their breakfasts, and especially
to the eggs. Thereupon (to translate the Frenchman's own way of
putting it) he exhausted himself in exquisite preparations of
eggs. _Eggs a la tripe, au gratin, a l'Aurore, a la Dauphine, a
la Poulette, a la Tartare, a la Venitienne, a la Bordelaise_, and
so on, and so on. Still the two young gentlemen were not
satisfied. The ex-Zouave, infuriated; wounded in his honor,
disgraced as a professor, insisted on an explanation. What, in
heaven's name, _did_ they want for breakfast? They wanted boiled
eggs; and a fish which they called a _Bloaterre_. It was
impossible, he said, to express his contempt for the English idea
of a breakfast, in the presence of ladies. You know how a cat
expresses herself in the presence of a dog--and you will
understand the allusion. Oh, Emily, what dinners we have had, in
our own room, since we spoke to that noble cook!

"Have I any more news to send you? Are you interested, my dear,
in eloquent young clergymen?

"On our first appearance at the public table we noticed a
remarkable air of depression among the ladies. Had some
adventurous gentleman tried to climb a mountain, and failed? Had
disastrous political news arrived from England; a defeat of the
Conservatives, for instance? Had a revolution in the fashions
broken out in Paris, and had all our best dresses become of no
earthly value to us? I applied for information to the only lady
present who shone on the company with a cheerful face--my friend
Doris, of course. "'What day was yesterday?' she asked.

"'Sunday,' I answered.

"'Of all melancholy Sundays,' she continued, the most melancholy
in the calendar. Mr. Miles Mirabel preached his farewell sermon,
in our temporary chapel upstairs.'

"'And you have not recovered it yet?'

"'We are all heart-broken, Miss Wyvil.'

"This naturally interested me. I asked what sort of sermons Mr.
Mirabel preached. Lady Janeaway said: 'Come up to our room after
dinner. The subject is too distressing to be discussed in
public.'

"She began by making me personally acquainted with the reverend
gentleman--that is to say, she showed me the photographic
portraits of him. They were two in number. One only presented his
face. The other exhibited him at full length, adorned in his
surplice. Every lady in the congregation had received the two
photographs as a farewell present. 'My portraits,' Lady Doris
remarked, 'are the only complete specimens. The others have been
irretrievably ruined by tears.'

"You will now expect a personal description of this fascinating
man. What the photographs failed to tell me, my friend was so
kind as to complete from the resources of her own experience.
Here is the result presented to the best of my ability.

"He is young--not yet thirty years of age. His complexion is
fair; his features are delicate, his eyes are clear blue. He has
pretty hands, and rings prettier still. And such a voice, and
such manners! You will say there are plen ty of pet parsons who
answer to this description. Wait a little--I have kept his chief
distinction till the last. His beautiful light hair flows in
profusion over his shoulders; and his glossy beard waves, at
apostolic length, down to the lower buttons of his waistcoat.

"What do you think of the Reverend Miles Mirabel now?

"The life and adventures of our charming young clergyman, bear
eloquent testimony to the saintly patience of his disposition,
under trials which would have overwhelmed an ordinary man. (Lady
Doris, please notice, quotes in this place the language of his
admirers; and I report Lady Doris.)

"He has been clerk in a lawyer's office--unjustly dismissed. He
has given readings from Shakespeare--infamously neglected . He
has been secretary to a promenade concert company--deceived by a
penniless manager. He has been employed in negotiations for
making foreign railways--repudiated by an unprincipled
Government. He has been translator to a publishing
house--declared incapable by envious newspapers and reviews. He
has taken refuge in dramatic criticism--dismissed by a corrupt
editor. Through all these means of purification for the priestly
career, he passed at last into the one sphere that was worthy of
him: he entered the Church, under the protection of influential
friends. Oh, happy change! From that moment his labors have been
blessed. Twice already he has been presented with silver tea-pots
filled with sovereigns. Go where he may, precious sympathies
environ him; and domestic affection places his knife and fork at
innumerable family tables. After a continental career, which will
leave undying recollections, he is now recalled to England--at
the suggestion of a person of distinction in the Church, who
prefers a mild climate. It will now be his valued privilege to
represent an absent rector in a country living; remote from
cities, secluded in pastoral solitude, among simple breeders of
sheep. May the shepherd prove worthy of the flock!

"Here again, my dear, I must give the merit where the merit is
due. This memoir of Mr. Mirabel is not of my writing. It formed
part of his farewell sermon, preserved in the memory of Lady
Doris--and it shows (once more in the language of his admirers)
that the truest humility may be found in the character of the
most gifted man.

"Let me only add, that you will have opportunities of seeing and
hearing this popular preacher, when circumstances permit him to
address congregations in the large towns. I am at the end of my
news; and I begin to feel--after this long, long letter--that it
is time to go to bed. Need I say that I have often spoken of you
to Doris, and that she entreats you to be her friend as well as
mine, when we meet again in England?

"Good-by, darling, for the present. With fondest love,
Your CECILIA."

"P.S.--I have formed a new habit. In case of feeling hungry in
the night, I keep a box of chocolate under the pillow. You have
no idea what a comfort it is. If I ever meet with the man who
fulfills my ideal, I shall make it a condition of the marriage
settlement, that I am to have chocolate under the pillow."

CHAPTER XXI

POLLY AND SALLY.

Without a care to trouble her; abroad or at home, finding
inexhaustible varieties of amusement; seeing new places, making
new acquaintances--what a disheartening contrast did Cecilia's
happy life present to the life of her friend! Who, in Emily's
position, could have read that joyously-written letter from
Switzerland, and not have lost heart and faith, for the moment at
least, as the inevitable result?

A buoyant temperament is of all moral qualities the most
precious, in this respect; it is the one force in us--when
virtuous resolution proves insufficient--which resists by
instinct the stealthy approaches of despair. "I shall only cry,"
Emily thought, "if I stay at home; better go out."

Observant persons, accustomed to frequent the London parks, can
hardly have failed to notice the number of solitary strangers
sadly endeavoring to vary their lives by taking a walk. They
linger about the flower-beds; they sit for hours on the benches;
they look with patient curiosity at other people who have
companions; they notice ladies on horseback and children at play,
with submissive interest; some of the men find company in a pipe,
without appearing to enjoy it; some of the women find a
substitute for dinner, in little dry biscuits wrapped in crumpled
scraps of paper; they are not sociable; they are hardly ever seen
to make acquaintance with each other; perhaps they are
shame-faced, or proud, or sullen; perhaps they despair of others,
being accustomed to despair of themselves; perhaps they have
their reasons for never venturing to encounter curiosity, or
their vices which dread detection, or their virtues which suffer
hardship with the resignation that is sufficient for itself. The
one thing certain is, that these unfortunate people resist
discovery. We know that they are strangers in London--and we know
no more.

And Emily was one of them.

Among the other forlorn wanderers in the Parks, there appeared
latterly a trim little figure in black (with the face protected
from notice behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be
familiar, day after day, to nursemaids and children, and to rouse
curiosity among harmless solitaries meditating on benches, and
idle vagabonds strolling over the grass. The woman-servant, whom
the considerate doctor had provided, was the one person in
Emily's absence left to take care of the house. There was no
other creature who could be a companion to the friendless girl.
Mrs. Ellmother had never shown herself again since the funeral.
Mrs. Mosey could not forget that she had been (no matter how
politely) requested to withdraw. To whom could Emily say, "Let us
go out for a walk?" She had communicated the news of her aunt's
death to Miss Ladd, at Brighton; and had heard from Francine. The
worthy schoolmistress had written to her with the truest
kindness. "Choose your own time, my poor child, and come and stay
with me at Brighton; the sooner the better." Emily shrank--not
from accepting the invitation--but from encountering Francine.
The hard West Indian heiress looked harder than ever with a pen
in her hand. Her letter announced that she was "getting on
wretchedly with her studies (which she hated); she found the
masters appointed to instruct her ugly and disagreeable (and
loathed the sight of them); she had taken a dislike to Miss Ladd
(and time only confirmed that unfavorable impression); Brighton
was always the same; the sea was always the same; the drives were
always the same. Francine felt a presentiment that she should do
something desperate, unless Emily joined her, and made Brighton
endurable behind the horrid schoolmistress's back." Solitude in
London was a privilege and a pleasure, viewed as the alternative
to such companionship as this.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27