I Say No, Wilkie Collins [top 10 books of all time TXT] 📗

one but her mistress she was known as Mrs. Ellmother.

“How is my aunt?” Emily asked.

“Bad.”

“Why have I not heard of her illness before?”

“Because she’s too fond of you to let you be distressed about her. ‘Don’t tell Emily’; those were her orders, as long as she kept her senses.”

“Kept her senses? Good heavens! what do you mean?”

“Fever—that’s what I mean.”

“I must see her directly; I am not afraid of infection.”

“There’s no infection to be afraid of. But you mustn’t see her, for all that.”

“I insist on seeing her.”

“Miss Emily, I am disappointing you for your own good. Don’t you know me well enough to trust me by this time?”

“I do trust you.”

“Then leave my mistress to me—and go and make yourself comfortable in your own room.”

Emily’s answer was a positive refusal. Mrs. Ellmother, driven to her last resources, raised a new obstacle.

“It’s not to be done, I tell you! How can you see Miss Letitia when she can’t bear the light in her room? Do you know what color her eyes are? Red, poor soul—red as a boiled lobster.”

With every word the woman uttered, Emily’s perplexity and distress increased.

“You told me my aunt’s illness was fever,” she said—“and now you speak of some complaint in her eyes. Stand out of the way, if you please, and let me go to her.”

Mrs. Ellmother, still keeping her place, looked through the open door.

“Here’s the doctor,” she announced. “It seems I can’t satisfy you; ask him what’s the matter. Come in, doctor.” She threw open the door of the parlor, and introduced Emily. “This is the mistress’s niece, sir. Please try if you can keep her quiet. I can’t.” She placed chairs with the hospitable politeness of the old school—and returned to her post at Miss Letitia’s bedside.

Doctor Allday was an elderly man, with a cool manner and a ruddy complexion—thoroughly acclimatized to the atmosphere of pain and grief in which it was his destiny to live. He spoke to Emily (without any undue familiarity) as if he had been accustomed to see her for the greater part of her life.

“That’s a curious woman,” he said, when Mrs. Ellmother closed the door; “the most headstrong person, I think, I ever met with. But devoted to her mistress, and, making allowance for her awkwardness, not a bad nurse. I am afraid I can’t give you an encouraging report of your aunt. The rheumatic fever (aggravated by the situation of this house—built on clay, you know, and close to stagnant water) has been latterly complicated by delirium.”

“Is that a bad sign, sir?”

“The worst possible sign; it shows that the disease has affected the heart. Yes: she is suffering from inflammation of the eyes, but that is an unimportant symptom. We can keep the pain under by means of cooling lotions and a dark room. I’ve often heard her speak of you—especially since the illness assumed a serious character. What did you say? Will she know you, when you go into her room? This is about the time when the delirium usually sets in. I’ll see if there’s a quiet interval.’

He opened the door—and came back again.

“By the way,” he resumed, “I ought perhaps to explain how it was that I took the liberty of sending you that telegram. Mrs. Ellmother refused to inform you of her mistress’s serious illness. That circumstance, according to my view of it, laid the responsibility on the doctor’s shoulders. The form taken by your aunt’s delirium—I mean the apparent tendency of the words that escape her in that state—seems to excite some incomprehensible feeling in the mind of her crabbed servant. She wouldn’t even let me go into the bedroom, if she could possibly help it. Did Mrs. Ellmother give you a warm welcome when you came here?”

“Far from it. My arrival seemed to annoy her.”

“Ah—just what I expected. These faithful old servants always end by presuming on their fidelity. Did you ever hear what a witty poet—I forget his name: he lived to be ninety—said of the man who had been his valet for more than half a century? ‘For thirty years he was the best of servants; and for thirty years he has been the hardest of masters.’ Quite true—I might say the same of my housekeeper. Rather a good story, isn’t it?”

The story was completely thrown away on Emily; but one subject interested her now. “My poor aunt has always been fond of me,” she said. “Perhaps she might know me, when she recognizes nobody else.”

“Not very likely,” the doctor answered. “But there’s no laying down any rule in cases of this kind. I have sometimes observed that circumstances which have produced a strong impression on patients, when they are in a state of health, give a certain direction to the wandering of their minds, when they are in a state of fever. You will say, ‘I am not a circumstance; I don’t see how this encourages me to hope’—and you will be quite right. Instead of talking of my medical experience, I shall do better to look at Miss Letitia, and let you know the result. You have got other relations, I suppose? No? Very distressing—very distressing.”

Who has not suffered as Emily suffered, when she was left alone? Are there not moments—if we dare to confess the truth—when poor humanity loses its hold on the consolations of religion and the hope of immortality, and feels the cruelty of creation that bids us live, on the condition that we die, and leads the first warm beginnings of love, with merciless certainty, to the cold conclusion of the grave?

“She’s quiet, for the time being,” Dr. Allday announced, on his return. “Remember, please, that she can’t see you in the inflamed state of her eyes, and don’t disturb the bed-curtains. The sooner you go to her the better, perhaps—if you have anything to say which depends on her recognizing your voice. I’ll call tomorrow morning. Very distressing,” he repeated, taking his hat and making his bow—“Very distressing.”

Emily crossed the narrow little passage which separated the two rooms, and opened the bedchamber door. Mrs. Ellmother met her on the threshold. “No,” said the obstinate old servant, “you can’t come in.”

The faint voice of Miss Letitia made itself heard, calling Mrs. Ellmother by her familiar nickname.

“Bony, who is it?”

“Never mind.”

“Who is it?”

“Miss Emily, if you must know.”

“Oh! poor dear, why does she come here? Who told her I was ill?”

“The doctor told her.”

“Don’t come in, Emily. It will only distress you—and it will do me no good. God bles s you, my love. Don’t come in.”

“There!” said Mrs. Ellmother. “Do you hear that? Go back to the sitting-room.”

Thus far, the hard necessity of controlling herself had kept Emily silent. She was now able to speak without tears. “Remember the old times, aunt,” she pleaded, gently. “Don’t keep me out of your room, when I have come here to nurse you!”

“I’m her nurse. Go back to the sitting-room,” Mrs. Ellmother repeated.

True love lasts while life lasts. The dying woman relented.

“Bony! Bony! I can’t be unkind to Emily. Let her in.”

Mrs. Ellmother still insisted on having her way.

“You’re contradicting your own orders,” she said to her mistress. “You don’t know how soon you may begin wandering in your mind again. Think, Miss Letitia—think.”

This remonstrance was received in silence. Mrs. Ellmother’s great gaunt figure still blocked up the doorway.

“If you force me to it,” Emily said, quietly, “I must go to the doctor, and ask him to interfere.”

“Do you mean that?” Mrs. Ellmother said, quietly, on her side.

“I do mean it,” was the answer.

The old servant suddenly submitted—with a look which took Emily by surprise. She had expected to see anger; the face that now confronted her was a face subdued by sorrow and fear.

“I wash my hands of it,” Mrs. Ellmother said. “Go in—and take the consequences.”

 

CHAPTER XIII.

MISS LETITIA.

Emily entered the room. The door was immediately closed on her from the outer side. Mrs. Ellmother’s heavy steps were heard retreating along the passage. Then the banging of the door that led into the kitchen shook the flimsily-built cottage. Then, there was silence.

The dim light of a lamp hidden away in a corner and screened by a dingy green shade, just revealed the closely-curtained bed, and the table near it bearing medicine-bottles and glasses. The only objects on the chimney-piece were a clock that had been stopped in mercy to the sufferer’s irritable nerves, and an open case containing a machine for pouring drops into the eyes. The smell of fumigating pastilles hung heavily on the air. To Emily’s excited imagination, the silence was like the silence of death. She approached the bed trembling. “Won’t you speak to me, aunt?”

“Is that you, Emily? Who let you come in?”

“You said I might come in, dear. Are you thirsty? I see some lemonade on the table. Shall I give it to you?”

“No! If you open the bed-curtains, you let in the light. My poor eyes! Why are you here, my dear? Why are you not at the school?”

“It’s holiday-time, aunt. Besides, I have left school for good.”

“Left school?” Miss Letitia’s memory made an effort, as she repeated those words. “You were going somewhere when you left school,” she said, “and Cecilia Wyvil had something to do with it. Oh, my love, how cruel of you to go away to a stranger, when you might live here with me!” She paused—her sense of what she had herself just said began to grow confused. “What stranger?” she asked abruptly. “Was it a man? What name? Oh, my mind! Has death got hold of my mind before my body?”

“Hush! hush! I’ll tell you the name. Sir Jervis Redwood.”

“I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him. Do you think he means to send for you. Perhaps he has sent for you. I won’t allow it! You shan’t go!”

“Don’t excite yourself, dear! I have refused to go; I mean to stay here with you.”

The fevered brain held to its last idea. “Has he sent for you?” she said again, louder than before.

Emily replied once more, in terms carefully chosen with the one purpose of pacifying her. The attempt proved to be useless, and worse—it seemed to make her suspicious. “I won’t be deceived!” she said; “I mean to know all about it. He did send for you. Whom did he send?”

“His housekeeper.”

“What name?” The tone in which she put the question told of excitement that was rising to its climax. “Don’t you know that I’m curious about names?” she burst out. “Why do you provoke me? Who is it?”

“Nobody you know, or need care about, dear aunt. Mrs. Rook.”

Instantly on the utterance of that name, there followed an unexpected result. Silence ensued.

Emily waited—hesitated—advanced, to part the curtains, and look in at her aunt. She was stopped by a dreadful sound of laughter—the cheerless laughter that is heard among the mad. It suddenly ended in a dreary sigh.

Afraid to look in, she spoke, hardly knowing what she said. “Is there anything you wish for? Shall I call—?”

Miss Letitia’s voice interrupted her. Dull, low, rapidly muttering, it was unlike, shockingly unlike, the familiar voice of her aunt. It said strange words.

“Mrs. Rook? What does Mrs. Rook matter? Or her husband either? Bony, Bony, you’re frightened about nothing. Where’s the danger of those two people turning up? Do you know how many miles away the village is? Oh, you fool—a hundred miles and more. Never mind the coroner, the coroner must keep in his own district—and the jury too. A risky deception? I