The house inhabited by Miss Ladd and her pupils had been built, in the early part of the present century, by a wealthy merchant—proud of his money, and eager to distinguish himself as the owner of the largest country seat in the neighborhood.
After his death, Miss Ladd had taken Netherwoods (as the place was called), finding her own house insufficient for the accommodation of the increasing number of her pupils. A lease was granted to her on moderate terms. Netherwoods failed to attract persons of distinction in search of a country residence. The grounds were beautiful; but no landed property—not even a park—was attached to the house. Excepting the few acres on which the building stood, the surrounding land belonged to a retired naval officer of old family, who resented the attempt of a merchant of low birth to assume the position of a gentleman. No matter what proposals might be made to the admiral, he refused them all. The privilege of shooting was not one of the attractions offered to tenants; the country presented no facilities for hunting; and the only stream in the neighborhood was not preserved. In consequence of these drawbacks, the merchant’s representatives had to choose between a proposal to use Netherwoods as a lunatic asylum, or to accept as tenant the respectable mistress of a fashionable and prosperous school. They decided in favor of Miss Ladd.
The contemplated change in Francine’s position was accomplished, in that vast house, without inconvenience. There were rooms unoccupied, even when the limit assigned to the number of pupils had been reached. On the re-opening of the school, Francine was offered her choice between two rooms on one of the upper stories, and two rooms on the ground floor. She chose these last.
Her sitting-room and bedroom, situated at the back of the house, communicated with each other. The sitting-room, ornamented with a pretty paper of delicate gray, and furnished with curtains of the same color, had been accordingly named, “The Gray Room.” It had a French window, which opened on the terrace overlooking the garden and the grounds. Some fine old engravings from the grand landscapes of Claude (part of a collection of prints possessed by Miss Ladd’s father) hung on the walls. The carpet was in harmony with the curtains; and the furniture was of light-colored wood, which helped the general effect of subdued brightness that made the charm of the room. “If you are not happy here,” Miss Ladd said, “I despair of you.” And Francine answered, “Yes, it’s very pretty, but I wish it was not so small.”
On the twelfth of August the regular routine of the school was resumed. Alban Morris found two strangers in his class, to fill the vacancies left by Emily and Cecilia. Mrs. Ellmother was duly established in her new place. She produced an unfavorable impression in the servants’ hall—not (as the handsome chief housemaid explained) because she was ugly and old, but because she was “a person who didn’t talk.” The prejudice against habitual silence, among the lower order of the people, is almost as inveterate as the prejudice against red hair.
In the evening, on that first day of renewed studies—while the girls were in the grounds, after tea—Francine had at last completed the arrangement of her rooms, and had dismissed Mrs. Ellmother (kept hard at work since the morning) to take a little rest. Standing alone at her window, the West Indian heiress wondered what she had better do next. She glanced at the girls on the lawn, and decided that they were unworthy of serious notice, on the part of a person so specially favored as herself. She turned sidewise, and looked along the length of the terrace. At the far end a tall man was slowly pacing to and fro, with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Francine recognized the rude drawing-master, who had torn up his view of the village, after she had saved it from being blown into the pond.
She stepped out on the terrace, and called to him. He stopped, and looked up.
“Do you want me?” he called back.
“Of course I do!”
She advanced a little to meet him, and offered encouragement under the form of a hard smile. Although his manners might be unpleasant, he had claims on the indulgence of a young lady, who was at a loss how to employ her idle time. In the first place, he was a man. In the second place, he was not as old as the music-master, or as ugly as the dancing-master. In the third place, he was an admirer of Emily; and the opportunity of trying to shake his allegiance by means of a flirtation, in Emily’s absence, was too good an opportunity to be lost.
“Do you remember how rude you were to me, on the day when you were sketching in the summer-house?” Francine asked with snappish playfulness. “I expect you to make yourself agreeable this time—I am going to pay you a compliment.”
He waited, with exasperating composure, to hear what the proposed compliment might be. The furrow between his eyebrows looked deeper than ever. There were signs of secret trouble in that dark face, so grimly and so resolutely composed. The school, without Emily, presented the severest trial of endurance that he had encountered, since the day when he had been deserted and disgraced by his affianced wife.
“You are an artist,” Francine proceeded, “and therefore a person of taste. I want to have your opinion of my sitting-room. Criticism is invited; pray come in.”
He seemed to be unwilling to accept the invitation—then altered his mind, and followed Francine. She had visited Emily; she was perhaps in a fair way to become Emily’s friend. He remembered that he had already lost an opportunity of studying her character, and—if he saw the necessity—of warning Emily not to encourage the advances of Miss de Sor.
“Very pretty,” he remarked, looking round the room—without appearing to care for anything in it, except the prints.
Francine was bent on fascinating him. She raised her eyebrows and lifted her hands, in playful remonstrance. “Do remember it’smyroom,” she said, “and take some little interest in it, formysake!”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked.
“Come and sit down by me.” She made room for him on the sofa. Her one favorite aspiration—the longing to excite envy in others—expressed itself in her next words. “Say something pretty,” she answered; “say you would like to have such a room as this.”
“I should like to have your prints,” he remarked. “Will that do?”
“It wouldn’t do—from anybody else. Ah, Mr. Morris, I know why you are not as nice as you might be! You are not happy. The school has lost its one attraction, in losing our dear Emily. You feel it—I know you feel it.” She assisted this expression of sympathy to produce the right effect by a sigh. “What would I not give to inspire such devotion as yours! I don’t envy Emily; I only wish—” She paused in confusion, and opened her fan. “Isn’t it pretty?” she said, with an ostentatious appearance of changing the subject. Alban behaved like a monster; he began to talk of the weather.
“I think this is the hottest day we have had,” he said; “no wonder you want your fan. Netherwoods is an airless place at this season of the year.”
She controlled her temper. “I do indeed feel the heat,” she admitted, with a resignation which gently reproved him; “it is so heavy and oppressive here after Brighton. Perhaps my sad life, far away from home and friends, makes me sensitive to trifles. Do you think so, Mr. Morris?”
The merciless man said he thought it was the situation of the house.
“Miss Ladd took the place in the spring,” he continued; “and only discovered the one objection to it some months afterward. We are in the highest part of the valley here—but, you see, it’s a valley surrounded by hills; and on three sides the hills are near us. All very well in winter; but in summer I have heard of girls in this school so out of health in the relaxing atmosphere that they have been sent home again.”
Francine suddenly showed an interest in what he was saying. If he had cared to observe her closely, he might have noticed it.
“Do you mean that the girls were really ill?” she asked.
“No. They slept badly—lost appetite—started at trifling noises. In short, their nerves were out of order.”
“Did they get well again at home, in another air?”
“Not a doubt of it,” he answered, beginning to get weary of the subject. “May I look at your books?”
Francine’s interest in the influence of different atmospheres on health was not exhausted yet. “Do you know where the girls lived when they were at home?” she inquired.
“I know where one of them lived. She was the best pupil I ever had—and I remember she lived in Yorkshire.” He was so weary of the idle curiosity—as it appeared to him—which persisted in asking trifling questions, that he left his seat, and crossed the room. “May I look at your books?” he repeated.
“Oh, yes!”
The conversation was suspended for a while. The lady thought, “I should like to box his ears!” The gentleman thought, “She’s only an inquisitive fool after all!” His examination of her books confirmed him in the delusion that there was really nothing in Francine’s character which rendered it necessary to caution Emily against the advances of her new friend. Turning away from the book-case, he made the first excuse that occurred to him for putting an end to the interview.
“I must beg you to let me return to my duties, Miss de Sor. I have to correct the young ladies’ drawings, before they begin again to-morrow.”
Francine’s wounded vanity made a last expiring attempt to steal the heart of Emily’s lover.
“You remind me that I have a favor to ask,” she said. “I don’t attend the other classes—but I should so like to joinyourclass! May I?” She looked up at him with a languishing appearance of entreaty which sorely tried Alban’s capacity to keep his face in serious order. He acknowledged the compliment paid to him in studiously commonplace terms, and got a little nearer to the open window. Francine’s obstinacy was not conquered yet.
“My education has been sadly neglected,” she continued; “but I have had some little instruction in drawing. You will not find me so ignorant as some of the other girls.” She waited a little, anticipating a few complimentary words. Alban waited also—in silence. “I shall look forward with pleasure to my lessons under such an artist as yourself,” she went on, and waited again, and was disappointed again. “Perhaps,” she resumed, “I may become your favorite pupil—Who knows?”
“Who indeed!”
It was not much to say, when he spoke at last—but it was enough to encourage Francine. She called him “dear Mr. Morris”; she pleaded for permission to take her first lesson immediately; she clasped her hands—“Please say Yes!”
“I can’t say Yes, till you have complied with the rules.”
“Are theyyourrules?”
Her eyes expressed the readiest submission—in that case. He entirely failed to see it: he said they were Miss Ladd’s rules—and wished her good-evening.
She watched him, walking away down the terrace. How was he paid? Did he receive a yearly salary, or did he get a little extra money for each new pupil who took drawing lessons? In this last case, Francine saw her opportunity of being even with him “You brute! Catch me attending your class!”
The night was oppressively hot. Finding it impossible to sleep, Francine lay quietly in her bed, thinking. The subject of her reflections was a person who occupied the humble position of her new servant.
Mrs. Ellmother looked wretchedly ill. Mrs. Ellmother had told Emily that her object, in returning to domestic service, was to try if change would relieve her from the oppression of her own thoughts. Mrs. Ellmother believed in vulgar superstitions which declared Friday to be an unlucky day; and which recommended throwing a pinch over your left shoulder, if you happened to spill the salt.
In themselves, these were trifling recollections. But they assumed a certain importance, derived from the associations which they called forth.
They reminded Francine, by some mental process which she was at a loss to trace, of Sappho the slave, and of her life at St. Domingo.
She struck a light, and unlocked her writing desk. From one of the drawers she took out an old household account-book.
The first page contained some entries, relating to domestic expenses, in her own handwriting. They recalled one of her efforts to occupy her idle time, by relieving her mother of the cares of housekeeping. For a day or two, she had persevered—and then she had ceased to feel any interest in her new employment. The remainder of the book was completely filled up, in a beautifully clear handwriting, beginning on the second page. A title had been found for the manuscript by Francine. She had written at the top of the page:Sappho’s Nonsense.
After reading the first few sentences she rapidly turned over the leaves, and stopped at a blank space near the end of the book. Here again she had added a title. This time it implied a compliment to the writer: the page was headed:Sappho’s Sense.
She read this latter part of the manuscript with the closest attention.
“I entreat my kind and dear young mistress not to suppose that I believe in witchcraft—after such an education as I have received. When I wrote down, at your biding, all that I had told you by word of mouth, I cannot imagine what delusion possessed me. You say I have a negro side to my character, which I inherit from my mother. Did you mean this, dear mistress, as a joke? I am almost afraid it is sometimes not far off from the truth.
“Let me be careful, however, to avoid leading you into a mistake. It is really true that the man-slave I spoke of did pine and die, after the spell had been cast on him by my witch-mother’s image of wax. But I ought also to have told you that circumstances favored the working of the spell: the fatal end was not brought about by supernatural means.
“The poor wretch was not in good health at the time; and our owner had occasion to employ him in the valley of the island far inland. I have been told, and can well believe, that the climate there is different from the climate on the coast—in which the unfortunate slave had been accustomed to live. The overseer wouldn’t believe him when he said the valley air would be his death—and the negroes, who might otherwise have helped him, all avoided a man whom they knew to be under a spell.
“This, you see, accounts for what might appear incredible to civilized persons. If you will do me a favor, you will burn this little book, as soon as you have read what I have written here. If my request is not granted, I can only implore you to let no eyes but your own see these pages. My life might be in danger if the blacks knew what I have now told you, in the interests of truth.”
Francine closed the book, and locked it up again in her desk. “Now I know,” she said to herself, “what reminded me of St. Domingo.”
When Francine rang her bell the next morning, so long a time elapsed without producing an answer that she began to think of sending one of the house-servants to make inquiries. Before she could decide, Mrs. Ellmother presented herself, and offered her apologies.
“It’s the first time I have overslept myself, miss, since I was a girl. Please to excuse me, it shan’t happen again.”
“Do you find that the air here makes you drowsy?” Francine asked.
Mrs. Ellmother shook her head. “I didn’t get to sleep,” she said, “till morning, and so I was too heavy to be up in time. But air has got nothing to do with it. Gentlefolks may have their whims and fancies. All air is the same to people like me.”
“You enjoy good health, Mrs. Ellmother?”
“Why not, miss? I have never had a doctor.”
“Oh! That’s your opinion of doctors, is it?”
“I won’t have anything to do with them—if that’s what you mean by my opinion,” Mrs. Ellmother answered doggedly. “How will you have your hair done?”
“The same as yesterday. Have you seen anything of Miss Emily? She went back to London the day after you left us.”
“I haven’t been in London. I’m thankful to say my lodgings are let to a good tenant.”
“Then where have you lived, while you were waiting to come here?”
“I had only one place to go to, miss; I went to the village where I was born. A friend found a corner for me. Ah, dear heart, it’s a pleasant place, there!”
“A place like this?”
“Lord help you! As little like this as chalk is to cheese. A fine big moor, miss, in Cumberland, without a tree in sight—look where you may. Something like a wind, I can tell you, when it takes to blowing there.”
“Have you never been in this part of the country?”
“Not I! When I left the North, my new mistress took me to Canada. Talk about air! If there was anything in it, the people inthatair ought to live to be a hundred. I liked Canada.”
“And who was your next mistress?”
Thus far, Mrs. Ellmother had been ready enough to talk. Had she failed to hear what Francine had just said to her? or had she some reason for feeling reluctant to answer? In any case, a spirit of taciturnity took sudden possession of her—she was silent.
Francine (as usual) persisted. “Was your next place in service with Miss Emily’s aunt?”
“Yes.”
“Did the old lady always live in London?”
“No.”
“What part of the country did she live in?”
“Kent.”
“Among the hop gardens?”
“No.”
“In what other part, then?”
“Isle of Thanet.”
“Near the sea coast?”
“Yes.”
Even Francine could insist no longer: Mrs. Ellmother’s reserve had beaten her—for that day at least. “Go into the hall,” she said, “and see if there are any letters for me in the rack.”
There was a letter bearing the Swiss postmark. Simple Cecilia was flattered and delighted by the charming manner in which Francine had written to her. She looked forward with impatience to the time when their present acquaintance might ripen into friendship. Would “Dear Miss de Sor” waive all ceremony, and consent to be a guest (later in the autumn) at her father’s house? Circumstances connected with her sister’s health would delay their return to England for a little while. By the end of the month she hoped to be at home again, and to hear if Francine was disengaged. Her address, in England, was Monksmoor Park, Hants.
Having read the letter, Francine drew a moral from it: “There is great use in a fool, when one knows how to manage her.”
Having little appetite for her breakfast, she tried the experiment of a walk on the terrace. Alban Morris was right; the air at Netherwoods, in the summer time,wasrelaxing. The morning mist still hung over the lowest part of the valley, between the village and the hills beyond. A little exercise produced a feeling of fatigue. Francine returned to her room, and trifled with her tea and toast.
Her next proceeding was to open her writing-desk, and look into the old account-book once more. While it lay open on her lap, she recalled what had passed that morning, between Mrs. Ellmother and herself.
The old woman had been born and bred in the North, on an open moor. She had been removed to the keen air of Canada when she left her birthplace. She had been in service after that, on the breezy eastward coast of Kent. Would the change to the climate of Netherwoods produce any effect on Mrs. Ellmother? At her age, and with her seasoned constitution, would she feel it as those school-girls had felt it—especially that one among them, who lived in the bracing air of the North, the air of Yorkshire?
Weary of solitary thinking on one subject, Francine returned to the terrace with a vague idea of finding something to amuse her—that is to say, something she could turn into ridicule—if she joined the girls.
The next morning, Mrs. Ellmother answered her mistress’s bell without delay. “You have slept better, this time?” Francine said.
“No, miss. When I did get to sleep I was troubled by dreams. Another bad night—and no mistake!”
“I suspect your mind is not quite at ease,” Francine suggested.
“Why do you suspect that, if you please?”
“You talked, when I met you at Miss Emily’s, of wanting to get away from your own thoughts. Has the change to this place helped you?”
“It hasn’t helped me as I expected. Some people’s thoughts stick fast.”
“Remorseful thoughts?” Francine inquired.
Mrs. Ellmother held up her forefinger, and shook it with a gesture of reproof. “I thought we agreed, miss, that there was to be no pumping.”
The business of the toilet proceeded in silence.
A week passed. During an interval in the labors of the school, Miss Ladd knocked at the door of Francine’s room.
“I want to speak to you, my dear, about Mrs. Ellmother. Have you noticed that she doesn’t seem to be in good health?”
“She looks rather pale, Miss Ladd.”
“It’s more serious than that, Francine. The servants tell me that she has hardly any appetite. She herself acknowledges that she sleeps badly. I noticed her yesterday evening in the garden, under the schoolroom window. One of the girls dropped a dictionary. She started at that slight noise, as if it terrified her. Her nerves are seriously out of order. Can you prevail upon her to see the doctor?”
Francine hesitated—and made an excuse. “I think she would be much more likely, Miss Ladd, to listen to you. Do you mind speaking to her?”
“Certainly not!”
Mrs. Ellmother was immediately sent for. “What is your pleasure, miss?” she said to Francine.
Miss Ladd interposed. “It is I who wish to speak to you, Mrs. Ellmother. For some days past, I have been sorry to see you looking ill.”
“I never was ill in my life, ma’am.”
Miss Ladd gently persisted. “I hear that you have lost your appetite.”
“I never was a great eater, ma’am.”
It was evidently useless to risk any further allusion to Mrs. Ellmother’s symptoms. Miss Ladd tried another method of persuasion. “I daresay I may be mistaken,” she said; “but I do really feel anxious about you. To set my mind at rest, will you see the doctor?”
“The doctor! Do you think I’m going to begin taking physic, at my time of life? Lord, ma’am! you amuse me—you do indeed!” She burst into a sudden fit of laughter; the hysterical laughter which is on the verge of tears. With a desperate effort, she controlled herself. “Please, don’t make a fool of me again,” she said—and left the room.
“What do you think now?” Miss Ladd asked.
Francine appeared to be still on her guard.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said evasively.
Miss Ladd looked at her in silent surprise, and withdrew.
Left by herself, Francine sat with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, absorbed in thought. After a long interval, she opened her desk—and hesitated. She took a sheet of note-paper—and paused, as if still in doubt. She snatched up her pen, with a sudden recovery of resolution—and addressed these lines to the wife of her father’s agent in London:
“When I was placed under your care, on the night of my arrival from the West Indies, you kindly said I might ask you for any little service which might be within your power. I shall be greatly obliged if you can obtain for me, and send to this place, a supply of artists’ modeling wax—sufficient for the production of a small image.”
A week later, Alban Morris happened to be in Miss Ladd’s study, with a report to make on the subject of his drawing-class. Mrs. Ellmother interrupted them for a moment. She entered the room to return a book which Francine had borrowed that morning.
“Has Miss de Sor done with it already?” Miss Ladd asked.
“She won’t read it, ma’am. She says the leaves smell of tobacco-smoke.”
Miss Ladd turned to Alban, and shook her head with an air of good-humored reproof. “I know who has been reading that book last!” she said.
Alban pleaded guilty, by a look. He was the only master in the school who smoked. As Mrs. Ellmother passed him, on her way out, he noticed the signs of suffering in her wasted face.
“That woman is surely in a bad state of health,” he said. “Has she seen the doctor?”
“She flatly refuses to consult the doctor,” Miss Ladd replied. “If she was a stranger, I should meet the difficulty by telling Miss de Sor (whose servant she is) that Mrs. Ellmother must be sent home. But I cannot act in that peremptory manner toward a person in whom Emily is interested.”
From that moment Mrs. Ellmother became a person in whom Alban was interested. Later in the day, he met her in one of the lower corridors of the house, and spoke to her. “I am afraid the air of this place doesn’t agree with you,” he said.
Mrs. Ellmother’s irritable objection to being told (even indirectly) that she looked ill, expressed itself roughly in reply. “I daresay you mean well, sir—but I don’t see how it matters to you whether the place agrees with me or not.”
“Wait a minute,” Alban answered good-humoredly. “I am not quite a stranger to you.”
“How do you make that out, if you please?”
“I know a young lady who has a sincere regard for you.”
“You don’t mean Miss Emily?”
“Yes, I do. I respect and admire Miss Emily; and I have tried, in my poor way, to be of some little service to her.”
Mrs. Ellmother’s haggard face instantly softened. “Please to forgive me, sir, for forgetting my manners,” she said simply. “I have had my health since the day I was born—and I don’t like to be told, in my old age, that a new place doesn’t agree with me.”
Alban accepted this apology in a manner which at once won the heart of the North-countrywoman. He shook hands with her. “You’re one of the right sort,” she said; “there are not many of them in this house.”
Was she alluding to Francine? Alban tried to make the discovery. Polite circumlocution would be evidently thrown away on Mrs. Ellmother. “Is your new mistress one of the right sort?” he asked bluntly.
The old servant’s answer was expressed by a frowning look, followed by a plain question.
“Do you say that, sir, because you like my new mistress?”
“No.”
“Please to shake hands again!” She said it—took his hand with a sudden grip that spoke for itself—and walked away.
Here was an exhibition of character which Alban was just the man to appreciate. “If I had been an old woman,” he thought in his dryly humorous way, “I believe I should have been like Mrs. Ellmother. We might have talked of Emily, if she had not left me in such a hurry. When shall I see her again?”
He was destined to see her again, that night—under circumstances which he remembered to the end of his life.
The rules of Netherwoods, in summer time, recalled the young ladies from their evening’s recreation in the grounds at nine o’clock. After that hour, Alban was free to smoke his pipe, and to linger among trees and flower-beds before he returned to his hot little rooms in the village. As a relief to the drudgery of teaching the young ladies, he had been using his pencil, when the day’s lessons were over, for his own amusement. It was past ten o’clock before he lighted his pipe, and began walking slowly to and fro on the path which led to the summer-house, at the southern limit of the grounds.
In the perfect stillness of the night, the clock of the village church was distinctly audible, striking the hours and the quarters. The moon had not risen; but the mysterious glimmer of starlight trembled on the large open space between the trees and the house.
Alban paused, admiring with an artist’s eye the effect of light, so faintly and delicately beautiful, on the broad expanse of the lawn. “Does the man live who could paint that?” he asked himself. His memory recalled the works of the greatest of all landscape painters—the English artists of fifty years since. While recollections of many a noble picture were still passing through his mind, he was startled by the sudden appearance of a bareheaded woman on the terrace steps.
She hurried down to the lawn, staggering as she ran—stopped, and looked back at the house—hastened onward toward the trees—stopped again, looking backward and forward, uncertain which way to turn next—and then advanced once more. He could now hear her heavily gasping for breath. As she came nearer, the starlight showed a panic-stricken face—the face of Mrs. Ellmother.
Alban ran to meet her. She dropped on the grass before he could cross the short distance which separated them. As he raised her in his arms she looked at him wildly, and murmured and muttered in the vain attempt to speak. “Look at me again,” he said. “Don’t you remember the man who had some talk with you to-day?” She still stared at him vacantly: he tried again. “Don’t you remember Miss Emily’s friend?”
As the name passed his lips, her mind in some degree recovered its balance. “Yes,” she said; “Emily’s friend; I’m glad I have met with Emily’s friend.” She caught at Alban’s arm—starting as if her own words had alarmed her. “What am I talking about? Did I say ‘Emily’? A servant ought to say ‘Miss Emily.’ My head swims. Am I going mad?”
Alban led her to one of the garden chairs. “You’re only a little frightened,” he said. “Rest, and compose yourself.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the house. “Not here! I’ve run away from a she-devil; I want to be out of sight. Further away, Mister—I don’t know your name. Tell me your name; I won’t trust you, unless you tell me your name!”
“Hush! hush! Call me Alban.”
“I never heard of such a name; I won’t trust you.”
“You won’t trust your friend, and Emily’s friend? You don’t mean that, I’m sure. Call me by my other name—call me ‘Morris.’”
“Morris?” she repeated. “Ah, I’ve heard of people called ‘Morris.’ Look back! Your eyes are young—do you see her on the terrace?”
“There isn’t a living soul to be seen anywhere.”
With one hand he raised her as he spoke—and with the other he took up the chair. In a minute more, they were out of sight of the house. He seated her so that she could rest her head against the trunk of a tree.
“What a good fellow!” the poor old creature said, admiring him; “he knows how my head pains me. Don’t stand up! You’re a tall man. She might see you.”
“She can see nothing. Look at the trees behind us. Even the starlight doesn’t get through them.”
Mrs. Ellmother was not satisfied yet. “You take it coolly,” she said. “Do you know who saw us together in the passage to-day? You good Morris,shesaw us—she did. Wretch! Cruel, cunning, shameless wretch.”
In the shadows that were round them, Alban could just see that she was shaking her clinched fists in the air. He made another attempt to control her. “Don’t excite yourself! If she comes into the garden, she might hear you.”
The appeal to her fears had its effect.
“That’s true,” she said, in lowered tones. A sudden distrust of him seized her the next moment. “Who told me I was excited?” she burst out. “It’s you who are excited. Deny it if you dare; I begin to suspect you, Mr. Morris; I don’t like your conduct. What has become of your pipe? I saw you put your pipe in your coat pocket. You did it when you set me down among the trees whereshecould see me! You are in league with her—she is coming to meet you here—you know she does not like tobacco-smoke. Are you two going to put me in the madhouse?”
She started to her feet. It occurred to Alban that the speediest way of pacifying her might be by means of the pipe. Mere words would exercise no persuasive influence over that bewildered mind. Instant action, of some kind, would be far more likely to have the right effect. He put his pipe and his tobacco pouch into her hands, and so mastered her attention before he spoke.
“Do you know how to fill a man’s pipe for him?” he asked.
“Haven’t I filled my husband’s pipe hundreds of times?” she answered sharply.
“Very well. Now do it for me.”
She took her chair again instantly, and filled the pipe. He lighted it, and seated himself on the grass, quietly smoking. “Do you think I’m in league with her now?” he asked, purposely adopting the rough tone of a man in her own rank of life.
She answered him as she might have answered her husband, in the days of her unhappy marriage.
“Oh, don’t gird at me, there’s a good man! If I’ve been off my head for a minute or two, please not to notice me. It’s cool and quiet here,” the poor woman said gratefully. “Bless God for the darkness; there’s something comforting in the darkness—along with a good man like you. Give me a word of advice. You are my friend in need. What am I to do? I daren’t go back to the house!”
She was quiet enough now, to suggest the hope that she might be able to give Alban some information “Were you with Miss de Sor,” he asked, “before you came out here? What did she do to frighten you?”
There was no answer; Mrs. Ellmother had abruptly risen once more. “Hush!” she whispered. “Don’t I hear somebody near us?”
Alban at once went back, along the winding path which they had followed. No creature was visible in the gardens or on the terrace. On returning, he found it impossible to use his eyes to any good purpose in the obscurity among the trees. He waited a while, listening intently. No sound was audible: there was not even air enough to stir the leaves.
As he returned to the place that he had left, the silence was broken by the chimes of the distant church clock, striking the three-quarters past ten.
Even that familiar sound jarred on Mrs. Ellmother’s shattered nerves. In her state of mind and body, she was evidently at the mercy of any false alarm which might be raised by her own fears. Relieved of the feeling of distrust which had thus far troubled him, Alban sat down by her again—opened his match-box to relight his pipe—and changed his mind. Mrs. Ellmother had unconsciously warned him to be cautious.
For the first time, he thought it likely that the heat in the house might induce some of the inmates to try the cooler atmosphere in the grounds. If this happened, and if he continued to smoke, curiosity might tempt them to follow the scent of tobacco hanging on the stagnant air.
“Is there nobody near us?” Mrs. Ellmother asked. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. Now tell me, did you really mean it, when you said just now that you wanted my advice?”
“Need you ask that, sir? Who else have I got to help me?”
“I am ready and willing to help you—but I can’t do it unless I know first what has passed between you and Miss de Sor. Will you trust me?”
“I will!”
“May I depend on you?”
“Try me!”
Alban took Mrs. Ellmother at her word. “I am going to venture on a guess,” he said. “You have been with Miss de Sor to-night.”
“Quite true, Mr. Morris.”
“I am going to guess again. Did Miss de Sor ask you to stay with her, when you went into her room?”
“That’s it! She rang for me, to see how I was getting on with my needlework—and she was what I call hearty, for the first time since I have been in her service. I didn’t think badly of her when she first talked of engaging me; and I’ve had reason to repent of my opinion ever since. Oh, she showed the cloven foot to-night! ‘Sit down,’ she says; ‘I’ve nothing to read, and I hate work; let’s have a little chat.’ She’s got a glib tongue of her own. All I could do was to say a word now and then to keep her going. She talked and talked till it was time to light the lamp. She was particular in telling me to put the shade over it. We were half in the dark, and half in the light. She trapped me (Lord knows how!) into talking about foreign parts; I mean the place she lived in before they sent her to England. Have you heard that she comes from the West Indies?”
“Yes; I have heard that. Go on.”
“Wait a bit, sir. There’s something, by your leave, that I want to know. Do you believe in Witchcraft?”
“I know nothing about it. Did Miss de Sor put that question to you?”
“She did.”
“And how did you answer?”
“Neither in one way nor the other. I’m in two minds about that matter of Witchcraft. When I was a girl, there was an old woman in our village, who was a sort of show. People came to see her from all the country round—gentlefolks among them. It was her great age that made her famous. More than a hundred years old, sir! One of our neighbors didn’t believe in her age, and she heard of it. She cast a spell on his flock. I tell you, she sent a plague on his sheep, the plague of the Bots. The whole flock died; I remember it well. Some said the sheep would have had the Bots anyhow. Some said it was the spell. Which of them was right? How am I to settle it?”
“Did you mention this to Miss de Sor?”
“I was obliged to mention it. Didn’t I tell you, just now, that I can’t make up my mind about Witchcraft? ‘You don’t seem to know whether you believe or disbelieve,’ she says. It made me look like a fool. I told her I had my reasons, and then I was obliged to give them.”
“And what did she do then?”
“She said, ‘I’ve got a better story of Witchcraft than yours.’ And she opened a little book, with a lot of writing in it, and began to read. Her story made my flesh creep. It turns me cold, sir, when I think of it now.”
He heard her moaning and shuddering. Strongly as his interest was excited, there was a compassionate reluctance in him to ask her to go on. His merciful scruples proved to be needless. The fascination of beauty it is possible to resist. The fascination of horror fastens its fearful hold on us, struggle against it as we may. Mrs. Ellmother repeated what she had heard, in spite of herself.
“It happened in the West Indies,” she said; “and the writing of a woman slave was the writing in the little book. The slave wrote about her mother. Her mother was a black—a Witch in her own country. There was a forest in her own country. The devil taught her Witchcraft in the forest. The serpents and the wild beasts were afraid to touch her. She lived without eating. She was sold for a slave, and sent to the island—an island in the West Indies. An old man lived there; the wickedest man of them all. He filled the black Witch with devilish knowledge. She learned to make the image of wax. The image of wax casts spells. You put pins in the image of wax. At every pin you put, the person under the spell gets nearer and nearer to death. There was a poor black in the island. He offended the Witch. She made his image in wax; she cast spells on him. He couldn’t sleep; he couldn’t eat; he was such a coward that common noises frightened him. Like Me! Oh, God, like me!”
“Wait a little,” Alban interposed. “You are exciting yourself again—wait.”
“You’re wrong, sir! You think it ended when she finished her story, and shut up her book; there’s worse to come than anything you’ve heard yet. I don’t know what I did to offend her. She looked at me and spoke to me, as if I was the dirt under her feet. ‘If you’re too stupid to understand what I have been reading,’ she says, ‘get up and go to the glass. Look at yourself, and remember what happened to the slave who was under the spell. You’re getting paler and paler, and thinner and thinner; you’re pining away just as he did. Shall I tell you why?’ She snatched off the shade from the lamp, and put her hand under the table, and brought out an image of wax.Myimage! She pointed to three pins in it. ‘One,’ she says, ‘for no sleep. One for no appetite. One for broken nerves.’ I asked her what I had done to make such a bitter enemy of her. She says, ‘Remember what I asked of you when we talked of your being my servant. Choose which you will do? Die by inches’ (I swear she said it as I hope to be saved); ‘die by inches, or tell me—’”
There—in the full frenzy of the agitation that possessed her—there, Mrs. Ellmother suddenly stopped.
Alban’s first impression was that she might have fainted. He looked closer, and could just see her shadowy figure still seated in the chair. He asked if she was ill. No.
“Then why don’t you go on?”
“I have done,” she answered.
“Do you think you can put me off,” he rejoined sternly, “with such an excuse as that? What did Miss de Sor ask you to tell her? You promised to trust me. Be as good as your word.”
In the days of her health and strength, she would have set him at defiance. All she could do now was to appeal to his mercy.
“Make some allowance for me,” she said. “I have been terribly upset. What has become of my courage? What has broken me down in this way? Spare me, sir.”
He refused to listen. “This vile attempt to practice on your fears may be repeated,” he reminded her. “More cruel advantage may be taken of the nervous derangement from which you are suffering in the climate of this place. You little know me, if you think I will allow that to go on.”
She made a last effort to plead with him. “Oh sir, is this behaving like the good kind man I thought you were? You say you are Miss Emily’s friend? Don’t press me—for Miss Emily’s sake!”
“Emily!” Alban exclaimed. “Issheconcerned in this?”
There was a change to tenderness in his voice, which persuaded Mrs. Ellmother that she had found her way to the weak side of him. Her one effort now was to strengthen the impression which she believed herself to have produced. “Miss Emilyisconcerned in it,” she confessed.
“In what way?”
“Never mind in what way.”
“But I do mind.”
“I tell you, sir, Miss Emily must never know it to her dying day!”
The first suspicion of the truth crossed Alban’s mind.
“I understand you at last,” he said. “What Miss Emily must never know—is what Miss de Sor wanted you to tell her. Oh, it’s useless to contradict me! Her motive in trying to frighten you is as plain to me now as if she had confessed it. Are you sure you didn’t betray yourself, when she showed the image of wax?”
“I should have died first!” The reply had hardly escaped her before she regretted it. “What makes you want to be so sure about it?” she said. “It looks as if you knew—”
“I do know.”
“What!”
The kindest thing that he could do now was to speak out. “Your secret is no secret tome,” he said.
Rage and fear shook her together. For the moment she was like the Mrs. Ellmother of former days. “You lie!” she cried.
“I speak the truth.”
“I won’t believe you! I daren’t believe you!”
“Listen to me. In Emily’s interests, listen to me. I have read of the murder at Zeeland—”
“That’s nothing! The man was a namesake of her father.”
“The man was her father himself. Keep your seat! There is nothing to be alarmed about. I know that Emily is ignorant of the horrid death that her father died. I know that you and your late mistress have kept the discovery from her to this day. I know the love and pity which plead your excuse for deceiving her, and the circumstances that favored the deception. My good creature, Emily’s peace of mind is as sacred to me as it is to you! I love her as I love my own life—and better. Are you calmer, now?”
He heard her crying: it was the best relief that could come to her. After waiting a while to let the tears have their way, he helped her to rise. There was no more to be said now. The one thing to do was to take her back to the house.
“I can give you a word of advice,” he said, “before we part for the night. You must leave Miss de Sor’s service at once. Your health will be a sufficient excuse. Give her warning immediately.”
Mrs. Ellmother hung back, when he offered her his arm. The bare prospect of seeing Francine again was revolting to her. On Alban’s assurance that the notice to leave could be given in writing, she made no further resistance. The village clock struck eleven as they ascended the terrace steps.
A minute later, another person left the grounds by the path which led to the house. Alban’s precaution had been taken too late. The smell of tobacco-smoke had guided Francine, when she was at a loss which way to turn next in search of Mrs. Ellmother. For the last quarter of an hour she had been listening, hidden among the trees.