Read Complete Works of Wilkie Collins Online
Authors: Wilkie Collins
“And still less,” Francine proceeded, without noticing the interruption — ”still less through any disagreeable remembrances of Miss Emily’s aunt.”
Mrs. Ellmother saw the trap that had been set for her. “It won’t do, miss,” she said.
“What won’t do?”
“Trying to pump me.”
Francine burst out laughing. Emily noticed an artificial ring in her gayety which suggested that she was exasperated, rather than amused, by the repulse which had baffled her curiosity once more.
Mrs. Ellmother reminded the merry young lady that the proposed arrangement between them had not been concluded yet. “Am I to understand, miss, that you will keep a place open for me in your service?”
“You are to understand,” Francine replied sharply, “that I must have Miss Ladd’s approval before I can engage you. Suppose you come to Brighton? I will pay your fare, of course.”
“Never mind my fare, miss. Will you give up pumping?”
“Make your mind easy. It’s quite useless to attempt pumping
you
. When will you come?”
Mrs. Ellmother pleaded for a little delay. “I’m altering my gowns,” she said. “I get thinner and thinner — don’t I, Miss Emily? My work won’t be done before Thursday.”
“Let us say Friday, then,” Francine proposed.
“Friday!” Mrs. Ellmother exclaimed. “You forget that Friday is an unlucky day.”
“I forgot that, certainly! How can you be so absurdly superstitious.”
“You may call it what you like, miss. I have good reason to think as I do. I was married on a Friday — and a bitter bad marriage it turned out to be. Superstitious, indeed! You don’t know what my experience has been. My only sister was one of a party of thirteen at dinner; and she died within the year. If we are to get on together nicely, I’ll take that journey on Saturday, if you please.”
“Anything to satisfy you,” Francine agreed; “there is the address. Come in the middle of the day, and we will give you your dinner. No fear of our being thirteen in number. What will you do, if you have the misfortune to spill the salt?”
“Take a pinch between my finger and thumb, and throw it over my left shoulder,” Mrs. Ellmother answered gravely. “Good-day, miss.”
“Good-day.”
Emily followed the departing visitor out to the hall. She had seen and heard enough to decide her on trying to break off the proposed negotiation — with the one kind purpose of protecting Mrs. Ellmother against the pitiless curiosity of Francine.
“Do you think you and that young lady are likely to get on well together?” she asked.
“I have told you already, Miss Emily, I want to get away from my own home and my own thoughts; I don’t care where I go, so long as I do that.” Having answered in those words, Mrs. Ellmother opened the door, and waited a while, thinking. “I wonder whether the dead know what is going on in the world they have left?” she said, looking at Emily. “If they do, there’s one among them knows my thoughts, and feels for me. Good-by, miss — and don’t think worse of me than I deserve.”
Emily went back to the parlor. The only resource left was to plead with Francine for mercy to Mrs. Ellmother.
“Do you really mean to give it up?” she asked.
“To give up — what? ‘Pumping,’ as that obstinate old creature calls it?”
Emily persisted. “Don’t worry the poor old soul! However strangely she may have left my aunt and me her motives are kind and good — I am sure of that. Will you let her keep her harmless little secret?”
“Oh, of course!”
“I don’t believe you, Francine!”
“Don’t you? I am like Cecilia — I am getting hungry. Shall we have some lunch?”
“You hard-hearted creature!”
“Does that mean — no luncheon until I have owned the truth? Suppose
you
own the truth? I won’t tell Mrs. Ellmother that you have betrayed her.”
“For the last time, Francine — I know no more of it than you do. If you persist in taking your own view, you as good as tell me I lie; and you will oblige me to leave the room.”
Even Francine’s obstinacy was compelled to give way, so far as appearances went. Still possessed by the delusion that Emily was deceiving her, she was now animated by a stronger motive than mere curiosity. Her sense of her own importance imperatively urged her to prove that she was not a person who could be deceived with impunity.
“I beg your pardon,” she said with humility. “But I must positively have it out with Mrs. Ellmother. She has been more than a match for me — my turn next. I mean to get the better of her; and I shall succeed.”
“I have already told you, Francine — you will fail.”
“My dear, I am a dunce, and I don’t deny it. But let me tell you one thing. I haven’t lived all my life in the West Indies, among black servants, without learning something.”
“What do you mean?”
“More, my clever friend, than you are likely to guess. In the meantime, don’t forget the duties of hospitality. Ring the bell for luncheon.”
The arrival of Miss Ladd, some time before she had been expected, interrupted the two girls at a critical moment. She had hurried over her business in London, eager to pass the rest of the day with her favorite pupil. Emily’s affectionate welcome was, in some degree at least, inspired by a sensation of relief. To feel herself in the embrace of the warm-hearted schoolmistress was like finding a refuge from Francine.
When the hour of departure arrived, Miss Ladd invited Emily to Brighton for the second time. “On the last occasion, my dear, you wrote me an excuse; I won’t be treated in that way again. If you can’t return with us now, come to-morrow.” She added in a whisper, “Otherwise, I shall think you include
me
in your dislike of Francine.”
There was no resisting this. It was arranged that Emily should go to Brighton on the next day.
Left by herself, her thoughts might have reverted to Mrs. Ellmother’s doubtful prospects, and to Francine’s strange allusion to her life in the West Indies, but for the arrival of two letters by the afternoon post. The handwriting on one of them was unknown to her. She opened that one first. It was an answer to the letter of apology which she had persisted in writing to Mrs. Rook. Happily for herself, Alban’s influence had not been without its effect, after his departure. She had written kindly — but she had written briefly at the same time.
Mrs. Rook’s reply presented a nicely compounded mixture of gratitude and grief. The gratitude was addressed to Emily as a matter of course. The grief related to her “excellent master.” Sir Jervis’s strength had suddenly failed. His medical attendant, being summoned, had expressed no surprise. “My patient is over seventy years of age,” the doctor remarked. “He will sit up late at night, writing his book; and he refuses to take exercise, till headache and giddiness force him to try the fresh air. As the necessary result, he has broken down at last. It may end in paralysis, or it may end in death.” Reporting this expression of medical opinion, Mrs. Rook’s letter glided imperceptibly from respectful sympathy to modest regard for her own interests in the future. It might be the sad fate of her husband and herself to be thrown on the world again. If necessity brought them to London, would “kind Miss Emily grant her the honour of an interview, and favor a poor unlucky woman with a word of advice?”
“She may pervert your letter to some use of her own, which you may have reason to regret.” Did Emily remember Alban’s warning words? No: she accepted Mrs. Rook’s reply as a gratifying tribute to the justice of her own opinions.
Having proposed to write to Alban, feeling penitently that she had been in the wrong, she was now readier than ever to send him a letter, feeling compassionately that she had been in the right. Besides, it was due to the faithful friend, who was still working for her in the reading room, that he should be informed of Sir Jervis’s illness. Whether the old man lived or whether he died, his literary labours were fatally interrupted in either case; and one of the consequences would be the termination of her employment at the Museum. Although the second of the two letters which she had received was addressed to her in Cecilia’s handwriting, Emily waited to read it until she had first written to Alban. “He will come to-morrow,” she thought; “and we shall both make apologies. I shall regret that I was angry with him and he will regret that he was mistaken in his judgment of Mrs. Rook. We shall be as good friends again as ever.”
In this happy frame of mind she opened Cecilia’s letter. It was full of good news from first to last.
The invalid sister had made such rapid progress toward recovery that the travelers had arranged to set forth on their journey back to England in a fortnight. “My one regret,” Cecilia added, “is the parting with Lady Doris. She and her husband are going to Genoa, where they will embark in Lord Janeaway’s yacht for a cruise in the Mediterranean. When we have said that miserable word good-by — oh, Emily, what a hurry I shall be in to get back to you! Those allusions to your lonely life are so dreadful, my dear, that I have destroyed your letter; it is enough to break one’s heart only to look at it. When once I get to London, there shall be no more solitude for my poor afflicted friend. Papa will be free from his parliamentary duties in August — and he has promised to have the house full of delightful people to meet you. Who do you think will be one of our guests? He is illustrious; he is fascinating; he deserves a line all to himself, thus:
“The Reverend Miles Mirabel!
“Lady Doris has discovered that the country parsonage, in which this brilliant clergyman submits to exile, is only twelve miles away from our house. She has written to Mr. Mirabel to introduce me, and to mention the date of my return. We will have some fun with the popular preacher — we will both fall in love with him together.
“Is there anybody to whom you would like me to send an invitation? Shall we have Mr. Alban Morris? Now I know how kindly he took care of you at the railway station, your good opinion of him is my opinion. Your letter also mentions a doctor. Is he nice? and do you think he will let me eat pastry, if we have him too? I am so overflowing with hospitality (all for your sake) that I am ready to invite anybody, and everybody, to cheer you and make you happy. Would you like to meet Miss Ladd and the whole school?
“As to our amusements, make your mind easy.
“I have come to a distinct understanding with Papa that we are to have dances every evening — except when we try a little concert as a change. Private theatricals are to follow, when we want another change after the dancing and the music. No early rising; no fixed hour for breakfast; everything that is most exquisitely delicious at dinner — and, to crown all, your room next to mine, for delightful midnight gossipings, when we ought to be in bed. What do you say, darling, to the programme?
“A last piece of news — and I have done.
“I have actually had a proposal of marriage, from a young gentleman who sits opposite me at the table d’hote! When I tell you that he has white eyelashes, and red hands, and such enormous front teeth that he can’t shut his mouth, you will not need to be told that I refused him. This vindictive person has abused me ever since, in the most shameful manner. I heard him last night, under my window, trying to set one of his friends against me. ‘Keep clear of her, my dear fellow; she’s the most heartless creature living.’ The friend took my part; he said, ‘I don’t agree with you; the young lady is a person of great sensibility.’ ‘Nonsense!’ says my amiable lover; ‘she eats too much — her sensibility is all stomach.’ There’s a wretch for you. What a shameful advantage to take of sitting opposite to me at dinner! Good-by, my love, till we meet soon, and are as happy together as the day is long.”
Emily kissed the signature. At that moment of all others, Cecilia was such a refreshing contrast to Francine!
Before putting the letter away, she looked again at that part of it which mentioned Lady Doris’s introduction of Cecilia to Mr. Mirabel. “I don’t feel the slightest interest in Mr. Mirabel,” she thought, smiling as the idea occurred to her; “and I need never have known him, but for Lady Doris — who is a perfect stranger to me.”