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

The mental effort that she had made had left its result in an aching head, and in an overpowering sense of depression. “A mouthful of fresh air will revive me,” she thought.

The front garden and back garden at the cottage communicated with each other. Walking slowly round and round, Mrs. Ellmother heard footsteps on the road outside, which stopped at the gate. She looked through the grating, and discovered Alban Morris.

“Come in, sir!” she said, rejoiced to see him. He obeyed in silence. The full view of his face shocked Mrs. Ellmother. Never in her experience of the friend who had been so kind to her at Netherwoods, had he looked so old and so haggard as he looked now. “Oh, Mr. Alban, I see how she has distressed you! Don’t take her at her word. Keep a good heart, sir—young girls are never long together of the same mind.”

Alban gave her his hand. “I mustn’t speak about it,” he said. “Silence helps me to bear my misfortune as becomes a man. I have had some hard blows in my time: they don’t seem to have blunted my sense of feeling as I thought they had. Thank God, she doesn’t know how she has made me suffer! I want to ask her pardon for having forgotten myself yesterday. I spoke roughly to her, at one time. No: I won’t intrude on her; I have said I am sorry, in writing. Do you mind giving it to her? Good-by—and thank you. I mustn’t stay longer; Miss Ladd expects me at Netherwoods.”

“Miss Ladd is in the house, sir, at this moment.”

“Here, in London!”

“Upstairs, with Miss Emily.”

“Upstairs? Is Emily ill?”

“She is getting better, sir. Would you like to see Miss Ladd?”

“I should indeed! I have something to say to her—and time is of importance to me. May I wait in the garden?”

“Why not in the parlor, sir?”

“The parlor reminds me of happier days. In time, I may have courage enough to look at the room again. Not now.”

“If she doesn’t make it up with that good man,” Mrs. Ellmother thought, on her way back to the house, “my nurse-child is what I have never believed her to be yet—she’s a fool.”

In half an hour more, Miss Ladd joined Alban on the little plot of grass behind the cottage. “I bring Emily’s reply to your letter,” she said. “Read it, before you speak to me.”

Alban read it: “Don’t suppose you have offended me—and be assured that I feel gratefully the tone in which your note is written. I try to write forbearingly on my side; I wish I could write acceptably as well. It is not to be done. I am as unable as ever to enter into your motives. You are not my relation; you were under no obligation of secrecy: you heard me speak ignorantly of the murder of my father, as if it had been the murder of a stranger; and yet you kept me—deliberately, cruelly kept me—deceived! The remembrance of it burns me like fire. I cannot—oh, Alban, I cannot restore you to the place in my estimation which you have lost! If you wish to help me to bear my trouble, I entreat you not to write to me again.”

Alban offered the letter silently to Miss Ladd. She signed to him to keep it.

“I know what Emily has written,” she said; “and I have told her, what I now tell you—she is wrong; in every way, wrong. It is the misfortune of her impetuous nature that she rushes to conclusions—and those conclusions once formed, she holds to them with all the strength of her character. In this matter, she has looked at her side of the question exclusively; she is blind to your side.”

“Not willfully!” Alban interposed.

Miss Ladd looked at him with admiration. “You defend Emily?” she said.

“I love her,” Alban answered.

Miss Ladd felt for him, as Mrs. Ellmother had felt for him. “Trust to time, Mr. Morris,” she resumed. “The danger to be afraid of is—the danger of some headlong action, on her part, in the interval. Who can say what the end may be, if she persists in her present way of thinking? There is something monstrous, in a young girl declaring that it is her duty to pursue a murderer, and to bring him to justice! Don’t you see it yourself?”

A lban still defended Emily. “It seems to me to be a natural impulse,” he said—“natural, and noble.”

“Noble!” Miss Ladd exclaimed.

“Yes—for it grows out of the love which has not died with her father’s death.”

“Then you encourage her?”

“With my whole heart—if she would give me the opportunity!”

“We won’t pursue the subject, Mr. Morris. I am told by Mrs. Ellmother that you have something to say to me. What is it?”

“I have to ask you,” Alban replied, “to let me resign my situation at Netherwoods.”

Miss Ladd was not only surprised; she was also—a very rare thing with her—inclined to be suspicious. After what he had said to Emily, it occurred to her that Alban might be meditating some desperate project, with the hope of recovering his lost place in her favor.

“Have you heard of some better employment?” she asked.

“I have heard of no employment. My mind is not in a state to give the necessary attention to my pupils.”

“Is that your only reason for wishing to leave me?”

“It is one of my reasons.”

“The only one which you think it necessary to mention?”

“Yes.”

“I shall be sorry to lose you, Mr. Morris.”

“Believe me, Miss Ladd, I am not ungrateful for your kindness.”

“Will you let me, in all kindness, say something more?” Miss Ladd answered. “I don’t intrude on your secrets—I only hope that you have no rash project in view.”

“I don’t understand you, Miss Ladd.”

“Yes, Mr. Morris—you do.”

She shook hands with him—and went back to Emily.

 

CHAPTER LI.

THE DOCTOR SEES.

Alban returned to Netherwoods—to continue his services, until another master could be found to take his place.

By a later train Miss Ladd followed him. Emily was too well aware of the importance of the mistress’s presence to the well-being of the school, to permit her to remain at the cottage. It was understood that they were to correspond, and that Emily’s room was waiting for her at Netherwoods, whenever she felt inclined to occupy it

Mrs. Ellmother made the tea, that evening, earlier than usual. Being alone again with Emily, it struck her that she might take advantage of her position to say a word in Alban’s favor. She had chosen her time unfortunately. The moment she pronounced the name, Emily checked her by a look, and spoke of another person—that person being Miss Jethro.

Mrs. Ellmother at once entered her protest, in her own downright way. “Whatever you do,” she said, “don’t go back to that! What does Miss Jethro matter to you?”

“I am more interested in her than you suppose—I happen to know why she left the school.”

“Begging your pardon, miss, that’s quite impossible!”

“She left the school,” Emily persisted, “for a serious reason. Miss Ladd discovered that she had used false references.”

“Good Lord! who told you that?”

“You see I know it. I asked Miss Ladd how she got her information. She was bound by a promise never to mention the person’s name. I didn’t say it to her—but I may say it to you. I am afraid I have an idea of who the person was.”

“No,” Mrs. Ellmother obstinately asserted, “you can’t possibly know who it was! How should you know?”

“Do you wish me to repeat what I heard in that room opposite, when my aunt was dying?”

“Drop it, Miss Emily! For God’s sake, drop it!”

“I can’t drop it. It’s dreadful to me to have suspicions of my aunt—and no better reason for them than what she said in a state of delirium. Tell me, if you love me, was it her wandering fancy? or was it the truth?”

“As I hope to be saved, Miss Emily, I can only guess as you do—I don’t rightly know. My mistress trusted me half way, as it were. I’m afraid I have a rough tongue of my own sometimes. I offended her—and from that time she kept her own counsel. What she did, she did in the dark, so far as I was concerned.”

“How did you offend her?”

“I shall be obliged to speak of your father if I tell you how?”

“Speak of him.”

“He was not to blame—mind that!” Mrs. Ellmother said earnestly. “If I wasn’t certain of what I say now you wouldn’t get a word out of me. Good harmless man—there’s no denying it—he was in love with Miss Jethro! What’s the matter?”

Emily was thinking of her memorable conversation with the disgraced teacher on her last night at school. “Nothing” she answered. “Go on.”

“If he had not tried to keep it secret from us, “Mrs. Ellmother resumed, “your aunt might never have taken it into her head that he was entangled in a love affair of the shameful sort. I don’t deny that I helped her in her inquiries; but it was only because I felt sure from the first that the more she discovered the more certainly my master’s innocence would show itself. He used to go away and visit Miss Jethro privately. In the time when your aunt trusted me, we never could find out where. She made that discovery afterward for herself (I can’t tell you how long afterward); and she spent money in employing mean wretches to pry into Miss Jethro’s past life. She had (if you will excuse me for saying it) an old maid’s hatred of the handsome young woman, who lured your father away from home, and set up a secret (in a manner of speaking) between her brother and herself. I won’t tell you how we looked at letters and other things which he forgot to leave under lock and key. I will only say there was one bit, in a journal he kept, which made me ashamed of myself. I read it out to Miss Letitia; and I told her in so many words, not to count any more on me. No; I haven’t got a copy of the words—I can remember them without a copy. ‘Even if my religion did not forbid me to peril my soul by leading a life of sin with this woman whom I love’—that was how it began—‘the thought of my daughter would keep me pure. No conduct of mine shall ever make me unworthy of my child’s affection and respect.’ There! I’m making you cry; I won’t stay here any longer. All that I had to say has been said. Nobody but Miss Ladd knows for certain whether your aunt was innocent or guilty in the matter of Miss Jethro’s disgrace. Please to excuse me; my work’s waiting downstairs.”

 

From time to time, as she pursued her domestic labors, Mrs. Ellmother thought of Mirabel. Hours on hours had passed—and the doctor had not appeared. Was he too busy to spare even a few minutes of his time? Or had the handsome little gentleman, after promising so fairly, failed to perform his errand? This last doubt wronged Mirabel. He had engaged to return to the doctor’s house; and he kept his word.

Doctor Allday was at home again, and was seeing patients. Introduced in his turn, Mirabel had no reason to complain of his reception. At the same time, after he had stated the object of his visit, something odd began to show itself in the doctor’s manner.

He looked at Mirabel with an appearance of uneasy curiosity; and he contrived an excuse for altering the visitor’s position in the room,