In a moment more, the doctor came in—a brisk, smiling, self-sufficient man—smartly dressed, with a flower in his button-hole. A stifling odor of musk filled the room, as he drew out his handkerchief with a flourish, and wiped his forehead.
“Plenty of hard work in my line, just now,” he said. “Hullo, Mrs. Rook! somebody has been allowing you to excite yourself. I heard you, before I opened the door. Have you been encouraging her to talk?” he asked, turning to Emily, and shaking his finger at her with an air of facetious remonstrance.
Incapable of answering him; forgetful of the ordinary restraints of social intercourse—with the one doubt that preserved her belief in Mirabel, eager for confirmation—Emily signed to this stranger to follow her into a corner of the room, out of hearing. She made no excuses: she took no notice of his look of surprise. One hope was all she could feel, one word was all she could say, after that second assertion of Mirabel’s guilt. Indicating Mrs. Rook by a glance at the bed, she whispered the word:
“Mad?”
Flippant and familiar, the doctor imitated her; he too looked at the bed.
“No more mad than you are, miss. As I said just now, my patient has been exciting herself; I daresay she has talked a little wildly in consequence.Hersisn’t a brain to give way, I can tell you. But there’s somebody else—”
Emily had fled from the room. He had destroyed her last fragment of belief in Mirabel’s innocence. She was on the landing trying to console herself, when the doctor joined her.
“Are you acquainted with the gentleman downstairs?” he asked.
“What gentleman?”
“I haven’t heard his name; he looks like a clergyman. If you know him—”
“I do know him. I can’t answer questions! My mind—”
“Steady your mind, miss! and take your friend home as soon as you can.Hehasn’t got Mrs. Rook’s hard brain; he’s in a state of nervous prostration, which may end badly. Do you know where he lives?”
“He is staying with his sister—Mrs. Delvin.”
“Mrs. Delvin! she’s a friend and patient of mine. Say I’ll look in to-morrow morning, and see what I can do for her brother. In the meantime, get him to bed, and to rest; and don’t be afraid of giving him brandy.”
The doctor returned to the bedroom. Emily heard Mrs. Ellmother’s voice below.
“Are you up there, miss?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Ellmother ascended the stairs. “It was an evil hour,” she said, “that you insisted on going to this place. Mr. Mirabel—” The sight of Emily’s face suspended the next words on her lips. She took the poor young mistress in her motherly arms. “Oh, my child! what has happened to you?”
“Don’t ask me now. Give me your arm—let us go downstairs.”
“You won’t be startled when you see Mr. Mirabel—will you, my dear? I wouldn’t let them disturb you; I said nobody should speak to you but myself. The truth is, Mr. Mirabel has had a dreadful fright. What are you looking for?”
“Is there a garden here? Any place where we can breathe the fresh air?”
There was a courtyard at the back of the house. They found their way to it. A bench was placed against one of the walls. They sat down.
“Shall I wait till you’re better before I say any more?” Mrs. Ellmother asked. “No? You want to hear about Mr. Mirabel? My dear, he came into the parlor where I was; and Mr. Rook came in too—-and waited, looking at him. Mr. Mirabel sat down in a corner, in a dazed state as I thought. It wasn’t for long. He jumped up, and clapped his hand on his heart as if his heart hurt him. ‘I must and will know what’s going on upstairs,’ he says. Mr. Rook pulled him back, and told him to wait till the young lady came down. Mr. Mirabel wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Your wife’s frightening her,’ he says; ‘your wife’s telling her horrible things about me.’ He was taken on a sudden with a shivering fit; his eyes rolled, and his teeth chattered. Mr. Rook made matters worse; he lost his temper. ‘I’m damned,’ he says, ‘if I don’t begin to think youarethe man, after all; I’ve half a mind to send for the police.’ Mr. Mirabel dropped into his chair. His eyes stared, his mouth fell open. I took hold of his hand. Cold—cold as ice. What it all meant I can’t say. Oh, miss,youknow! Let me tell you the rest of it some other time.”
Emily insisted on hearing more. “The end!” she cried. “How did it end?”
“I don’t know how it might have ended, if the doctor hadn’t come in—to pay his visit, you know, upstairs. He said some learned words. When he came to plain English, he asked if anybody had frightened the gentleman. I said Mr. Rook had frightened him. The doctor says to Mr. Rook, ‘Mind what you are about. If you frighten him again, you may have his death to answer for.’ That cowed Mr. Rook. He asked what he had better do. ‘Give me some brandy for him first,’ says the doctor; ‘and then get him home at once.’ I found the brandy, and went away to the inn to order the carriage. Your ears are quicker than mine, miss—do I hear it now?”
They rose, and went to the house door. The carriage was there.
Still cowed by what the doctor had said, Mr. Rook appeared, carefully leading Mirabel out. He had revived under the action of the stimulant. Passing Emily he raised his eyes to her—trembled—and looked down again. When Mr. Rook opened the door of the carriage he paused, with one of his feet on the step. A momentary impulse inspired him with a false courage, and brought a flush into his ghastly face. He turned to Emily.
“May I speak to you?” he asked.
She started back from him. He looked at Mrs. Ellmother. “Tell her I am innocent,” he said. The trembling seized on him again. Mr. Rook was obliged to lift him into the carriage.
Emily caught at Mrs. Ellmother’s arm. “You go with him,” she said. “I can’t.”
“How are you to get back, miss?”
She turned away and spoke to the coachman. “I am not very well. I want the fresh air—I’ll sit by you.”
Mrs. Ellmother remonstrated and protested, in vain. As Emily had determined it should be, so it was.
“Has he said anything?” she asked, when they had arrived at their journey’s end.
“He has been like a man frozen up; he hasn’t said a word; he hasn’t even moved.”
“Take him to his sister; and tell her all that you know. Be careful to repeat what the doctor said. I can’t face Mrs. Delvin. Be patient, my good old friend; I have no secrets from you. Only wait till to-morrow; and leave me by myself to-night.”
Alone in her room, Emily opened her writing-case. Searching among the letters in it, she drew out a printed paper. It was the Handbill describing the man who had escaped from the inn, and offering a reward for the discovery of him.
At the first line of the personal description of the fugitive, the paper dropped from her hand. Burning tears forced their way into her eyes. Feeling for her handkerchief, she touched the pocketbook which she had received from Mrs. Rook. After a little hesitation she took it out. She looked at it. She opened it.
The sight of the bank-notes repelled her; she hid them in one of the pockets of the book. There was a second pocket which she had not yet examined. She pat her hand into it, and, touching something, drew out a letter.
The envelope (already open) was addressed to “James Brown, Esq., Post Office, Zeeland.” Would it be inconsistent with her respect for her father’s memory to examine the letter? No; a glance would decide whether she ought to read it or not.
It was without date or address; a startling letter to look at—for it only contained three words:
“I say No.”
The words were signed in initials:
“S. J.”
In the instant when she read the initials, the name occurred to her.
Sara Jethro.
The discovery of the letter gave a new direction to Emily’s thoughts—and so, for the time at least, relieved her mind from the burden that weighed on it. To what question, on her father’s part, had “I say No” been Miss Jethro’s brief and stern reply? Neither letter nor envelope offered the slightest hint that might assist inquiry; even the postmark had been so carelessly impressed that it was illegible.
Emily was still pondering over the three mysterious words, when she was interrupted by Mrs. Ellmother’s voice at the door.
“I must ask you to let me come in, miss; though I know you wished to be left by yourself till to-morrow. Mrs. Delvin says she must positively see you to-night. It’s my belief that she will send for the servants, and have herself carried in here, if you refuse to do what she asks. You needn’t be afraid of seeing Mr. Mirabel.”
“Where is he?”
“His sister has given up her bedroom to him,” Mrs. Ellmother answered. “She thought of your feelings before she sent me here—and had the curtains closed between the sitting-room and the bedroom. I suspect my nasty temper misled me, when I took a dislike to Mrs. Delvin. She’s a good creature; I’m sorry you didn’t go to her as soon as we got back.”
“Did she seem to be angry, when she sent you here?”
“Angry! She was crying when I left her.”
Emily hesitated no longer.
She noticed a remarkable change in the invalid’s sitting-room—so brilliantly lighted on other occasions—the moment she entered it. The lamps were shaded, and the candles were all extinguished. “My eyes don’t bear the light so well as usual,” Mrs. Delvin said. “Come and sit near me, Emily; I hope to quiet your mind. I should be grieved if you left my house with a wrong impression of me.”
Knowing what she knew, suffering as she must have suffered, the quiet kindness of her tone implied an exercise of self-restraint which appealed irresistibly to Emily’s sympathies. “Forgive me,” she said, “for having done you an injustice. I am ashamed to think that I shrank from seeing you when I returned from Belford.”
“I will endeavor to be worthy of your better opinion of me,” Mrs. Delvin replied. “In one respect at least, I may claim to have had your best interests at heart—while we were still personally strangers. I tried to prevail on my poor brother to own the truth, when he discovered the terrible position in which he was placed toward you. He was too conscious of the absence of any proof which might induce you to believe him, if he attempted to defend himself—in one word, he was too timid—to take my advice. He has paid the penalty, and I have paid the penalty, of deceiving you.”
Emily started. “In what way have you deceived me?” she asked.
“In the way that was forced on us by our own conduct,” Mrs. Delvin said. “We have appeared to help you, without really doing so; we calculated on inducing you to marry my brother, and then (when he could speak with the authority of a husband) on prevailing on you to give up all further inquiries. When you insisted on seeing Mrs. Rook, Miles had the money in his hand to bribe her and her husband to leave England.”
“Oh, Mrs. Delvin!”
“I don’t attempt to excuse myself. I don’t expect you to consider how sorely I was tempted to secure the happiness of my brother’s life, by marriage with such a woman as yourself. I don’t remind you that I knew—when I put obstacles in your way—that you were blindly devoting yourself to the discovery of an innocent man.”
Emily heard her with angry surprise. “Innocent?” she repeated. “Mrs. Rook recognized his voice the instant she heard him speak.”
Impenetrable to interruption, Mrs. Delvin went on. “But what I do ask,” she persisted, “even after our short acquaintance, is this. Do you suspect me of deliberately scheming to make you the wife of a murderer?”
Emily had never viewed the serious question between them in this light. Warmly, generously, she answered the appeal that had been made to her. “Oh, don’t think that of me! I know I spoke thoughtlessly and cruelly to you, just now—”
“You spoke impulsively,” Mrs. Delvin interposed; “that was all. My one desire before we part—how can I expect you to remain here, after what has happened?—is to tell you the truth. I have no interested object in view; for all hope of your marriage with my brother is now at an end. May I ask if you have heard that he and your father were strangers, when they met at the inn?”
“Yes; I know that.”
“If there had been any conversation between them, when they retired to rest, they might have mentioned their names. But your father was preoccupied; and my brother, after a long day’s walk, was so tired that he fell asleep as soon as his head was on the pillow. He only woke when the morning dawned. What he saw when he looked toward the opposite bed might have struck with terror the boldest man that ever lived. His first impulse was naturally to alarm the house. When he got on his feet, he saw his own razor—a blood-stained razor on the bed by the side of the corpse. At that discovery, he lost all control over himself. In a panic of terror, he snatched up his knapsack, unfastened the yard door, and fled from the house. Knowing him, as you and I know him, can we wonder at it? Many a man has been hanged for murder, on circumstantial evidence less direct than the evidence against poor Miles. His horror of his own recollections was so overpowering that he forbade me even to mention the inn at Zeeland in my letters, while he was abroad. ‘Never tell me (he wrote) who that wretched murdered stranger was, if I only heard of his name, I believe it would haunt me to my dying day. I ought not to trouble you with these details—and yet, I am surely not without excuse. In the absence of any proof, I cannot expect you to believe as I do in my brother’s innocence. But I may at least hope to show you that there is some reason for doubt. Will you give him the benefit of that doubt?”
“Willingly!” Emily replied. “Am I right in supposing that you don’t despair of proving his innocence, even yet’?”
“I don’t quite despair. But my hopes have grown fainter and fainter, as the years have gone on. There is a person associated with his escape from Zeeland; a person named Jethro—”
“You mean Miss Jethro!”
“Yes. Do you know her?”
“I know her—and my father knew her. I have found a letter, addressed to him, which I have no doubt was written by Miss Jethro. It is barely possible that you may understand what it means. Pray look at it.”
“I am quite unable to help you,” Mrs. Delvin answered, after reading the letter. “All I know of Miss Jethro is that, but for her interposition, my brother might have fallen into the hands of the police. She saved him.”
“Knowing him, of course?”
“That is the remarkable part of it: they were perfect strangers to each other.”
“But she must have had some motive.”
“Thereis the foundation of my hope for Miles. Miss Jethro declared, when I wrote and put the question to her, that the one motive by which she was actuated was the motive of mercy. I don’t believe her. To my mind, it is in the last degree improbable that she would consent to protect a stranger from discovery, who owned to her (as my brother did) that he was a fugitive suspected of murder. She knows something, I am firmly convinced, of that dreadful event at Zeeland—and she has some reason for keeping it secret. Have you any influence over her?”
“Tell me where I can find her.”
“I can’t tell you. She has removed from the address at which my brother saw her last. He has made every possible inquiry—without result.”
As she replied in those discouraging terms, the curtains which divided Mrs. Delvin’s bedroom from her sitting-room were drawn aside. An elderly woman-servant approached her mistress’s couch.
“Mr. Mirabel is awake, ma’am. He is very low; I can hardly feel his pulse. Shall I give him some more brandy?”
Mrs. Delvin held out her hand to Emily. “Come to me to-morrow morning,” she said—and signed to the servant to wheel her couch into the next room. As the curtain closed over them, Emily heard Mirabel’s voice. “Where am I?” he said faintly. “Is it all a dream?”
The prospect of his recovery the next morning was gloomy indeed. He had sunk into a state of deplorable weakness, in mind as well as in body. The little memory of events that he still preserved was regarded by him as the memory of a dream. He alluded to Emily, and to his meeting with her unexpectedly. But from that point his recollection failed him. They had talked of something interesting, he said—but he was unable to remember what it was. And they had waited together at a railway station—but for what purpose he could not tell. He sighed and wondered when Emily would marry him—and so fell asleep again, weaker than ever.
Not having any confidence in the doctor at Belford, Mrs. Delvin had sent an urgent message to a physician at Edinburgh, famous for his skill in treating diseases of the nervous system. “I cannot expect him to reach this remote place, without some delay,” she said; “I must bear my suspense as well as I can.”
“You shall not bear it alone,” Emily answered. “I will wait with you till the doctor comes.”
Mrs. Delvin lifted her frail wasted hands to Emily’s face, drew it a little nearer—and kissed her.
The parting words had been spoken. Emily and her companion were on their way to London.
For some little time, they traveled in silence—alone in the railway carriage. After submitting as long as she could to lay an embargo on the use of her tongue, Mrs. Ellmother started the conversation by means of a question: “Do you think Mr. Mirabel will get over it, miss?”
“It’s useless to ask me,” Emily said. “Even the great man from Edinburgh is not able to decide yet, whether he will recover or not.”
“You have taken me into your confidence, Miss Emily, as you promised—and I have got something in my mind in consequence. May I mention it without giving offense?”
“What is it?”
“I wish you had never taken up with Mr. Mirabel.”
Emily was silent. Mrs. Ellmother, having a design of her own to accomplish, ventured to speak more plainly. “I often think of Mr. Alban Morris,” she proceeded. “I always did like him, and I always shall.”
Emily suddenly pulled down her veil. “Don’t speak of him!” she said.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You don’t offend me. You distress me. Oh, how often I have wished—!” She threw herself back in a corner of the carriage and said no more.
Although not remarkable for the possession of delicate tact, Mrs. Ellmother discovered that the best course she could now follow was a course of silence.
Even at the time when she had most implicitly trusted Mirabel, the fear that she might have acted hastily and harshly toward Alban had occasionally troubled Emily’s mind. The impression produced by later events had not only intensified this feeling, but had presented the motives of that true friend under an entirely new point of view. If she had been left in ignorance of the manner of her father’s death—as Alban had designed to leave her; as she would have been left, but for the treachery of Francine—how happily free she would have been from thoughts which it was now a terror to her to recall. She would have parted from Mirabel, when the visit to the pleasant country house had come to an end, remembering him as an amusing acquaintance and nothing more. He would have been spared, and she would have been spared, the shock that had so cruelly assailed them both. What had she gained by Mrs. Rook’s detestable confession? The result had been perpetual disturbance of mind provoked by self-torturing speculations on the subject of the murder. If Mirabel was innocent, who was guilty? The false wife, without pity and without shame—or the brutal husband, who looked capable of any enormity? What was her future to be? How was it all to end? In the despair of that bitter moment—seeing her devoted old servant looking at her with kind compassionate eyes—Emily’s troubled spirit sought refuge in impetuous self-betrayal; the very betrayal which she had resolved should not escape her, hardly a minute since!
She bent forward out of her corner, and suddenly drew up her veil. “Do you expect to see Mr. Alban Morris, when we get back?” she asked.
“I should like to see him, miss—if you have no objection.”
“Tell him I am ashamed of myself! and say I ask his pardon with all my heart!”
“The Lord be praised!” Mrs. Ellmother burst out—and then, when it was too late, remembered the conventional restraints appropriate to the occasion. “Gracious, what a fool I am!” she said to herself. “Beautiful weather, Miss Emily, isn’t it?” she continued, in a desperate hurry to change the subject.
Emily reclined again in her corner of the carriage. She smiled, for the first time since she had become Mrs. Delvin’s guest at the tower.
Reaching the cottage at night, Emily found the card of a visitor who had called during the day. It bore the name of “Miss Wyvil,” and had a message written on it which strongly excited Emily’s curiosity.
“I have seen the telegram which tells your servant that you return to-night. Expect me early to-morrow morning—with news that will deeply interest you.”
To what news did Cecilia allude? Emily questioned the woman who had been left in charge of the cottage, and found that she had next to nothing to tell. Miss Wyvil had flushed up, and had looked excited, when she read the telegraphic message—that was all. Emily’s impatience was, as usual, not to be concealed. Expert Mrs. Ellmother treated the case in the right way—first with supper, and then with an adjournment to bed. The clock struck twelve, when she put out the young mistress’s candle. “Ten hours to pass before Cecilia comes here!” Emily exclaimed. “Not ten minutes,” Mrs. Ellmother reminded her, “if you will only go to sleep.”
Cecilia arrived before the breakfast-table was cleared; as lovely, as gentle, as affectionate as ever—but looking unusually serious and subdued.
“Out with it at once!” Emily cried. “What have you got to tell me?’
“Perhaps, I had better tell you first,” Cecilia said, “that I know what you kept from me when I came here, after you left us at Monksmoor. Don’t think, my dear, that I say this by way of complaint. Mr. Alban Morris says you had good reasons for keeping your secret.”
“Mr. Alban Morris! Did you get your information fromhim?”
“Yes. Do I surprise you?”
“More than words can tell!”
“Can you bear another surprise? Mr. Morris has seen Miss Jethro, and has discovered that Mr. Mirabel has been wrongly suspected of a dreadful crime. Our amiable little clergyman is guilty of being a coward—and guilty of nothing else. Are you really quiet enough to read about it?”
She produced some leaves of paper filled with writing. “There,” she explained, “is Mr. Morris’s own account of all that passed between Miss Jethro and himself.”
“But how doyoucome by it?”
“Mr. Morris gave it to me. He said, ‘Show it to Emily as soon as possible; and take care to be with her while she reads it.’ There is a reason for this—” Cecilia’s voice faltered. On the brink of some explanation, she seemed to recoil from it. “I will tell you by-and-by what the reason is,” she said.
Emily looked nervously at the manuscript. “Why doesn’t he tell me himself what he has discovered? Is he—” The leaves began to flutter in her trembling fingers—“is he angry with me?”
“Oh, Emily, angry with You! Read what he has written and you shall know why he keeps away.”
Emily opened the manuscript.
“The information which I have obtained from Miss Jethro has been communicated to me, on the condition that I shall not disclose the place of her residence. ‘Let me pass out of notice (she said) as completely as if I had passed out of life; I wish to be forgotten by some, and to be unknown by others.’” With this one stipulation, she left me free to write the present narrative of what passed at the interview between us. I feel that the discoveries which I have made are too important to the persons interested to be trusted to memory.
1.She Receives Me.
“Finding Miss Jethro’s place of abode, with far less difficulty than I had anticipated (thanks to favoring circumstances), I stated plainly the object of my visit. She declined to enter into conversation with me on the subject of the murder at Zeeland.
“I was prepared to meet with this rebuke, and to take the necessary measures for obtaining a more satisfactory reception. ‘A person is suspected of having committed the murder,’ I said; ‘and there is reason to believe that you are in a position to say whether the suspicion is justified or not. Do you refuse to answer me, if I put the question?’
“Miss Jethro asked who the person was.
“I mentioned the name—Mr. Miles Mirabel.
“It is not necessary, and it would certainly be not agreeable to me, to describe the effect which this reply produced on Miss Jethro. After giving her time to compose herself, I entered into certain explanations, in order to convince her at the outset of my good faith. The result justified my anticipations. I was at once admitted to her confidence.
“She said, ‘I must not hesitate to do an act of justice to an innocent man. But, in such a serious matter as this, you have a right to judge for yourself whether the person who is now speaking to you is a person whom you can trust. You may believe that I tell the truth about others, if I begin—whatever it may cost me—by telling the truth about myself.’”
2.She Speaks of Herself.
“I shall not attempt to place on record the confession of a most unhappy woman. It was the common story of sin bitterly repented, and of vain effort to recover the lost place in social esteem. Too well known a story, surely, to be told again.
“But I may with perfect propriety repeat what Miss Jethro said to me, in allusion to later events in her life which are connected with my own personal experience. She recalled to my memory a visit which she had paid to me at Netherwoods, and a letter addressed to her by Doctor Allday, which I had read at her express request.
“She said, ‘You may remember that the letter contained some severe reflections on my conduct. Among other things, the doctor mentions that he called at the lodging I occupied during my visit to London, and found I had taken to flight: also that he had reason to believe I had entered Miss Ladd’s service, under false pretenses.’
“I asked if the doctor had wronged her.
“She answered ‘No: in one case, he is ignorant; in the other, he is right. On leaving his house, I found myself followed in the street by the man to whom I owe the shame and misery of my past life. My horror of him is not to be described in words. The one way of escaping was offered by an empty cab that passed me. I reached the railway station safely, and went back to my home in the country. Do you blame me?’
“It was impossible to blame her—and I said so.
“She then confessed the deception which she had practiced on Miss Ladd. ‘I have a cousin,’ she said, ‘who was a Miss Jethro like me. Before her marriage she had been employed as a governess. She pitied me; she sympathized with my longing to recover the character that I had lost. With her permission, I made use of the testimonials which she had earned as a teacher—I was betrayed (to this day I don’t know by whom)—and I was dismissed from Netherwoods. Now you know that I deceived Miss Ladd, you may reasonably conclude that I am likely to deceive You.’
“I assured her, with perfect sincerity, that I had drawn no such conclusion. Encouraged by my reply, Miss Jethro proceeded as follows.”
3.She Speaks of Mirabel.
“‘Four years ago, I was living near Cowes, in the Isle of Wight—in a cottage which had been taken for me by a gentleman who was the owner of a yacht. We had just returned from a short cruise, and the vessel was under orders to sail for Cherbourg with the next tide.
“‘While I was walking in my garden, I was startled by the sudden appearance of a man (evidently a gentleman) who was a perfect stranger to me. He was in a pitiable state of terror, and he implored my protection. In reply to my first inquiries, he mentioned the inn at Zeeland, and the dreadful death of a person unknown to him; whom I recognized (partly by the description given, and partly by comparison of dates) as Mr. James Brown. I shall say nothing of the shock inflicted on me: you don’t want to know what I felt. What I did (having literally only a minute left for decision) was to hide the fugitive from discovery, and to exert my influence in his favor with the owner of the yacht. I saw nothing more of him. He was put on board, as soon as the police were out of sight, and was safely landed at Cherbourg.’
“I asked what induced her to run the risk of protecting a stranger, who was under suspicion of having committed a murder.
“She said, ‘You shall hear my explanation directly. Let us have done with Mr. Mirabel first. We occasionally corresponded, during the long absence on the continent; never alluding, at his express request, to the horrible event at the inn. His last letter reached me, after he had established himself at Vale Regis. Writing of the society in the neighborhood, he informed me of his introduction to Miss Wyvil, and of the invitation that he had received to meet her friend and schoolfellow at Monksmoor. I knew that Miss Emily possessed a Handbill describing personal peculiarities in Mr. Mirabel, not hidden under the changed appearance of his head and face. If she remembered or happened to refer to that description, while she was living in the same house with him, there was a possibility at least of her suspicion being excited. The fear of this took me to you. It was a morbid fear, and, as events turned out, an unfounded fear: but I was unable to control it. Failing to produce any effect on you, I went to Vale Regis, and tried (vainly again) to induce Mr. Mirabel to send an excuse to Monksmoor. He, like you, wanted to know what my motive was. When I tell you that I acted solely in Miss Emily’s interests, and that I knew how she had been deceived about her father’s death, need I say why I was afraid to acknowledge my motive?’
“I understood that Miss Jethro might well be afraid of the consequences, if she risked any allusion to Mr. Brown’s horrible death, and if it afterward chanced to reach his daughter’s ears. But this state of feeling implied an extraordinary interest in the preservation of Emily’s peace of mind. I asked Miss Jethro how that interest had been excited?
“She answered, ‘I can only satisfy you in one way. I must speak of her father now.’”
Emily looked up from the manuscript. She felt Cecilia’s arm tenderly caressing her. She heard Cecilia say, “My poor dear, there is one last trial of your courage still to come. I am afraid of what you are going to read, when you turn to the next page. And yet—”
“And yet,” Emily replied gently, “it must be done. I have learned my hard lesson of endurance, Cecilia, don’t be afraid.”
Emily turned to the next page.
4.She Speaks of the Dead.
“For the first time, Miss Jethro appeared to be at a loss how to proceed. I could see that she was suffering. She rose, and opening a drawer in her writing table, took a letter from it.
“She said, ‘Will you read this? It was written by Miss Emily’s father. Perhaps it may say more for me than I can say for myself?’
“I copy the letter. It was thus expressed:
“‘You have declared that our farewell to-day is our farewell forever. For the second time, you have refused to be my wife; and you have done this, to use your own words, in mercy to Me.
“‘In mercy to Me, I implore you to reconsider your decision.
“‘If you condemn me to live without you—I feel it, I know it—you condemn me to despair which I have not fortitude enough to endure. Look at the passages which I have marked for you in the New Testament. Again and again, I say it; your true repentance has made you worthy of the pardon of God. Are you not worthy of the love, admiration, and respect of man? Think! oh, Sara, think of what our lives might be, and let them be united for time and for eternity.
“‘I can write no more. A deadly faintness oppresses me. My mind is in a state unknown to me in past years. I am in such confusion that I sometimes think I hate you. And then I recover from my delusion, and know that man never loved woman as I love you.
“‘You will have time to write to me by this evening’s post. I shall stop at Zeeland to-morrow, on my way back, and ask for a letter at the post office. I forbid explanations and excuses. I forbid heartless allusions to your duty. Let me have an answer which does not keep me for a moment in suspense.
“‘For the last time, I ask you: Do you consent to be my wife? Say, Yes—or say, No.’
“I gave her back the letter—with the one comment on it, which the circumstances permitted me to make:
“‘You said No?’
“She bent her head in silence.
“I went on—not willingly, for I would have spared her if it had been possible. I said, ‘He died, despairing, by his own hand—and you knew it?’
“She looked up. ‘No! To say that I knew it is too much. To say that I feared it is the truth.’
“‘Did you love him?’
“She eyed me in stern surprise. ‘HaveIany right to love? Could I disgrace an honorable man by allowing him to marry me? You look as if you held me responsible for his death.’
“‘Innocently responsible,’ I said.
“She still followed her own train of thought. ‘Do you suppose I could for a moment anticipate that he would destroy himself, when I wrote my reply? He was a truly religious man. If he had been in his right mind, he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide as from the idea of a crime.’
“On reflection, I was inclined to agree with her. In his terrible position, it was at least possible that the sight of the razor (placed ready, with the other appliances of the toilet, for his fellow-traveler’s use) might have fatally tempted a man whose last hope was crushed, whose mind was tortured by despair. I should have been merciless indeed, if I had held Miss Jethro accountable thus far. But I found it hard to sympathize with the course which she had pursued, in permitting Mr. Brown’s death to be attributed to murder without a word of protest. ‘Why were you silent?’ I said.
“She smiled bitterly.
“‘A woman would have known why, without asking,’ she replied. ‘A woman would have understood that I shrank from a public confession of my shameful past life. A woman would have remembered what reasons I had for pitying the man who loved me, and for accepting any responsibility rather than associate his memory, before the world, with an unworthy passion for a degraded creature, ending in an act of suicide. Even if I had made that cruel sacrifice, would public opinion have believed such a person as I am—against the evidence of a medical man, and the verdict of a jury? No, Mr. Morris! I said nothing, and I was resolved to say nothing, so long as the choice of alternatives was left to me. On the day when Mr. Mirabel implored me to save him, that choice was no longer mine—and you know what I did. And now again when suspicion (after all the long interval that had passed) has followed and found that innocent man, you know what I have done. What more do you ask of me?’
“‘Your pardon,’ I said, ‘for not having understood you—and a last favor. May I repeat what I have heard to the one person of all others who ought to know, and who must know, what you have told me?’
“It was needless to hint more plainly that I was speaking of Emily. Miss Jethro granted my request.
“‘It shall be as you please,’ she answered. ‘Say for me tohisdaughter, that the grateful remembrance of her is my one refuge from the thoughts that tortured me, when we spoke together on her last night at school. She has made this dead heart of mine feel a reviving breath of life, when I think of her. Never, in our earthly pilgrimage, shall we meet again—I implore her to pity and forget me. Farewell, Mr. Morris; farewell forever.’
“I confess that the tears came into my eyes. When I could see clearly again, I was alone in the room.”
Emily closed the pages which told her that her father had died by his own hand.
Cecilia still held her tenderly embraced. By slow degrees, her head dropped until it rested on her friend’s bosom. Silently she suffered. Silently Cecilia bent forward, and kissed her forehead. The sounds that penetrated to the room were not out of harmony with the time. From a distant house the voices of children were just audible, singing the plaintive melody of a hymn; and, now and then, the breeze blew the first faded leaves of autumn against the window. Neither of the girls knew how long the minutes followed each other uneventfully, before there was a change. Emily raised her head, and looked at Cecilia.
“I have one friend left,” she said.
“Not only me, love—oh, I hope not only me!”
“Yes. Only you.”
“I want to say something, Emily; but I am afraid of hurting you.”
“My dear, do you remember what we once read in a book of history at school? It told of the death of a tortured man, in the old time, who was broken on the wheel. He lived through it long enough to say that the agony, after the first stroke of the club, dulled his capacity for feeling pain when the next blows fell. I fancy pain of the mind must follow the same rule. Nothing you can say will hurt me now.”
“I only wanted to ask, Emily, if you were engaged—at one time—to marry Mr. Mirabel. Is it true?”
“False! He pressed me to consent to an engagement—and I said he must not hurry me.”
“What made you say that?”
“I thought of Alban Morris.”
Vainly Cecilia tried to restrain herself. A cry of joy escaped her.
“Are you glad?” Emily asked. “Why?”
Cecilia made no direct reply. “May I tell you what you wanted to know, a little while since?” she said. “You asked why Mr. Morris left it all to me, instead of speaking to you himself. When I put the same question to him, he told me to read what he had written. ‘Not a shadow of suspicion rests on Mr. Mirabel,’ he said. ‘Emily is free to marry him—and free through Me. CanItell her that? For her sake, and for mine, it must not be. All that I can do is to leave old remembrances to plead for me. If they fail, I shall know that she will be happier with Mr. Mirabel than with me.’ ‘And you will submit?’ I asked. ‘Because I love her,’ he answered, ‘I must submit.’ Oh, how pale you are! Have I distressed you?”
“You have done me good.”
“Will you see him?”
Emily pointed to the manuscript. “At such a time as this?” she said.
Cecilia still held to her resolution. “Such a time as this is the right time,” she answered. “It is now, when you most want to be comforted, that you ought to see him. Who can quiet your poor aching heart ashecan quiet it?” She impulsively snatched at the manuscript and threw it out of sight. “I can’t bear to look at it,” she said. “Emily! if I have done wrong, will you forgive me? I saw him this morning before I came here. I was afraid of what might happen—I refused to break the dreadful news to you, unless he was somewhere near us. Your good old servant knows where to go. Let me send her—”
Mrs. Ellmother herself opened the door, and stood doubtful on the threshold, hysterically sobbing and laughing at the same time. “I’m everything that’s bad!” the good old creature burst out. “I’ve been listening—I’ve been lying—I said you wanted him. Turn me out of my situation, if you like. I’ve got him! Here he is!”
In another moment, Emily was in his arms—and they were alone. On his faithful breast the blessed relief of tears came to her at last: she burst out crying.
“Oh, Alban, can you forgive me?”
He gently raised her head, so that he could see her face.
“My love, let me look at you,” he said. “I want to think again of the day when we parted in the garden at school. Do you remember the one conviction that sustained me? I told you, Emily, there was a time of fulfillment to come in our two lives; and I have never wholly lost the dear belief. My own darling, the time has come!”
POSTSCRIPT. GOSSIP IN THE STUDIO.
The winter time had arrived. Alban was clearing his palette, after a hard day’s work at the cottage. The servant announced that tea was ready, and that Miss Ladd was waiting to see him in the next room.
Alban ran in, and received the visitor cordially with both hands. “Welcome back to England! I needn’t ask if the sea-voyage has done you good. You are looking ten years younger than when you went away.”
Miss Ladd smiled. “I shall soon be ten years older again, if I go back to Netherwoods,” she replied. “I didn’t believe it at the time; but I know better now. Our friend Doctor Allday was right, when he said that my working days were over. I must give up the school to a younger and stronger successor, and make the best I can in retirement of what is left of my life. You and Emily may expect to have me as a near neighbor. Where is Emily?”
“Far away in the North.”
“In the North! You don’t mean that she has gone back to Mrs. Delvin?”
“She has gone back—with Mrs. Ellmother to take care of her—at my express request. You know what Emily is, when there is an act of mercy to be done. That unhappy man has been sinking (with intervals of partial recovery) for months past. Mrs. Delvin sent word to us that the end was near, and that the one last wish her brother was able to express was the wish to see Emily. He had been for some hours unable to speak when my wife arrived. But he knew her, and smiled faintly. He was just able to lift his hand. She took it, and waited by him, and spoke words of consolation and kindness from time to time. As the night advanced, he sank into sleep, still holding her hand. They only knew that he had passed from sleep to death—passed without a movement or a sigh—when his hand turned cold. Emily remained for a day at the tower to comfort poor Mrs. Delvin—and she comes home, thank God, this evening!”
“I needn’t ask if you are happy?” Miss Ladd said.
“Happy? I sing, when I have my bath in the morning. If that isn’t happiness (in a man of my age) I don’t know what is!”
“And how are you getting on?”
“Famously! I have turned portrait painter, since you were sent away for your health. A portrait of Mr. Wyvil is to decorate the town hall in the place that he represents; and our dear kind-hearted Cecilia has induced a fascinated mayor and corporation to confide the work to my hands.”
“Is there no hope yet of that sweet girl being married?” Miss Ladd asked. “We old maids all believe in marriage, Mr. Morris—though some of us don’t own it.”
“There seems to be a chance,” Alban answered. “A young lord has turned up at Monksmoor; a handsome pleasant fellow, and a rising man in politics. He happened to be in the house a few days before Cecilia’s birthday; and he asked my advice about the right present to give her. I said, ‘Try something new in Tarts.’ When he found I was in earnest, what do you think he did? Sent his steam yacht to Rouen for some of the famous pastry! You should have seen Cecilia, when the young lord offered his delicious gift. If I could paint that smile and those eyes, I should be the greatest artist living. I believe she will marry him. Need I say how rich they will be? We shall not envy them—we are rich too. Everything is comparative. The portrait of Mr. Wyvil will put three hundred pounds in my pocket. I have earned a hundred and twenty more by illustrations, since we have been married. And my wife’s income (I like to be particular) is only five shillings and tenpence short of two hundred a year. Moral! we are rich as well as happy.”
“Without a thought of the future?” Miss Ladd asked slyly.
“Oh, Doctor Allday has taken the future in hand! He revels in the old-fashioned jokes, which used to be addressed to newly-married people, in his time. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said the other day, ‘you may possibly be under a joyful necessity of sending for the doctor, before we are all a year older. In that case, let it be understood that I am Honorary Physician to the family.’ The warm-hearted old man talks of getting me another portrait to do. ‘The greatest ass in the medical profession (he informed me) has just been made a baronet; and his admiring friends have decided that he is to be painted at full length, with his bandy legs hidden under a gown, and his great globular eyes staring at the spectator—I’ll get you the job.’ Shall I tell you what he says of Mrs. Rook’s recovery?”
Miss Ladd held up her hands in amazement. “Recovery!” she exclaimed.
“And a most remarkable recovery too,” Alban informed her. “It is the first case on record of any person getting over such an injury as she has received. Doctor Allday looked grave when he heard of it. ‘I begin to believe in the devil,’ he said; ‘nobody else could have saved Mrs. Rook.’ Other people don’t take that view. She has been celebrated in all the medical newspapers—and she has been admitted to some excellent almshouse, to live in comfortable idleness to a green old age. The best of it is that she shakes her head, when her wonderful recovery is mentioned. ‘It seems such a pity,’ she says; ‘I was so fit for heaven.’ Mr. Rook having got rid of his wife, is in excellent spirits. He is occupied in looking after an imbecile old gentleman; and, when he is asked if he likes the employment, he winks mysteriously and slaps his pocket. Now, Miss Ladd, I think it’s my turn to hear some news. What have you got to tell me?”
“I believe I can match your account of Mrs. Rook,” Miss Ladd said. “Do you care to hear what has become of Francine?”
Alban, rattling on hitherto in boyish high spirits, suddenly became serious. “I have no doubt Miss de Sor is doing well,” he said sternly. “She is too heartless and wicked not to prosper.”
“You are getting like your old cynical self again, Mr. Morris—and you are wrong. I called this morning on the agent who had the care of Francine, when I left England. When I mentioned her name, he showed me a telegram, sent to him by her father. ‘There’s my authority,’ he said, ‘for letting her leave my house.’ The message was short enough to be easily remembered: ‘Anything my daughter likes as long as she doesn’t come back to us.’ In those cruel terms Mr. de Sor wrote of his own child. The agent was just as unfeeling, in his way. He called her the victim of slighted love and clever proselytizing. ‘In plain words,’ he said, ‘the priest of the Catholic chapel close by has converted her; and she is now a novice in a convent of Carmelite nuns in the West of England. Who could have expected it? Who knows how it may end?”
As Miss Ladd spoke, the bell rang at the cottage gate. “Here she is!” Alban cried, leading the way into the hall. “Emily has come home.”