“May I say a word?” Mrs. Mosey inquired. She entered the room—pale and trembling. Seeing that ominous change, Emily dropped back into her chair.
“Dead?” she said faintly.
Mrs. Mosey looked at her in vacant surprise.
“I wish to say, miss, that your aunt has frightened me.”
Even that vague allusion was enough for Emily.
“You need say no more,” she replied. “I know but too well how my aunt’s mind is affected by the fever.”
Confused and frightened as she was, Mrs. Mosey still found relief in her customary flow of words.
“Many and many a person have I nursed in fever,” she announced. “Many and many a person have I heard say strange things. Never yet, miss, in all my experience—!”
“Don’t tell me of it!” Emily interposed.
“Oh, but Imusttell you! In your own interests, Miss Emily—in your own interests. I won’t be inhuman enough to leave you alone in the house to-night; but if this delirium goes on, I must ask you to get another nurse. Shocking suspicions are lying in wait for me in that bedroom, as it were. I can’t resist them as I ought, if I go back again, and hear your aunt saying what she has been saying for the last half hour and more. Mrs. Ellmother has expected impossibilities of me; and Mrs. Ellmother must take the consequences. I don’t say she didn’t warn me—speaking, you will please to understand, in the strictest confidence. ‘Elizabeth,’ she says, ‘you know how wildly people talk in Miss Letitia’s present condition. Pay no heed to it,’ she says. ‘Let it go in at one ear and out at the other,’ she says. ‘If Miss Emily asks questions—you know nothing about it. If she’s frightened—you know nothing about it. If she bursts into fits of crying that are dreadful to see, pity her, poor thing, but take no notice.’ All very well, and sounds like speaking out, doesn’t it? Nothing of the sort! Mrs. Ellmother warns me to expect this, that, and the other. But there is one horrid thing (which I heard, mind, over and over again at your aunt’s bedside) that she doesnotprepare me for; and that horrid thing is—Murder!”
At that last word, Mrs. Mosey dropped her voice to a whisper—and waited to see what effect she had produced.
Sorely tried already by the cruel perplexities of her position, Emily’s courage failed to resist the first sensation of horror, aroused in her by the climax of the nurse’s hysterical narrative. Encouraged by her silence, Mrs. Mosey went on. She lifted one hand with theatrical solemnity—and luxuriously terrified herself with her own horrors.
“An inn, Miss Emily; a lonely inn, somewhere in the country; and a comfortless room at the inn, with a makeshift bed at one end of it, and a makeshift bed at the other—I give you my word of honor, that was how your aunt put it. She spoke of two men next; two men asleep (you understand) in the two beds. I think she called them ‘gentlemen’; but I can’t be sure, and I wouldn’t deceive you—you know I wouldn’t deceive you, for the world. Miss Letitia muttered and mumbled, poor soul. I own I was getting tired of listening—when she burst out plain again, in that one horrid word—Oh, miss, don’t be impatient! don’t interrupt me!”
Emily did interrupt, nevertheless. In some degree at least she had recovered herself. “No more of it!” she said—“I won’t hear a word more.”
But Mrs. Mosey was too resolutely bent on asserting her own importance, by making the most of the alarm that she had suffered, to be repressed by any ordinary method of remonstrance. Without paying the slightest attention to what Emily had said, she went on again more loudly and more excitably than ever.
“Listen, miss—listen! The dreadful part of it is to come; you haven’t heard about the two gentlemen yet. One of them was murdered—what do you think of that!—and the other (I heard your aunt say it, in so many words) committed the crime. Did Miss Letitia fancy she was addressing a lot of people whenyouwere nursing her? She called out, like a person making public proclamation, when I was in her room. ‘Whoever you are, good people’ (she says), ‘a hundred pounds reward, if you find the runaway murderer. Search everywhere for a poor weak womanish creature, with rings on his little white hands. There’s nothing about him like a man, except his voice—a fine round voice. You’ll know him, my friends—the wretch, the monster—you’ll know him by his voice.’ That was how she put it; I tell you again, that was how she put it. Did you hear her scream? Ah, my dear young lady, so much the better for you! ‘O the horrid murder’ (she says)—‘hush it up!’ I’ll take my Bible oath before the magistrate,” cried Mrs. Mosey, starting out of her chair, “your aunt said, ‘Hush it up!’”
Emily crossed the room. The energy of her character was roused at last. She seized the foolish woman by the shoulders, forced her back in the chair, and looked her straight in the face without uttering a word.
For the moment, Mrs. Mosey was petrified. She had fully expected—having reached the end of her terrible story—to find Emily at her feet, entreating her not to carry out her intention of leaving the cottage the next morning; and she had determined, after her sense of her own importance had been sufficiently flattered, to grant the prayer of the helpless young lady. Those were her anticipations—and how had they been fulfilled? She had been treated like a mad woman in a state of revolt!
“How dare you assault me?” she asked piteously. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. God knows I meant well.”
“You are not the first person,” Emily answered, quietly releasing her, “who has done wrong with the best intentions.”
“I did my duty, miss, when I told you what your aunt said.”
“You forgot your duty when you listened to what my aunt said.”
“Allow me to explain myself.”
“No: not a word more onthatsubject shall pass between us. Remain here, if you please; I have something to suggest in your own interests. Wait, and compose yourself.”
The purpose which had taken a foremost place in Emily’s mind rested on the firm foundation of her love and pity for her aunt.
Now that she had regained the power to think, she felt a hateful doubt pressed on her by Mrs. Mosey’s disclosures. Having taken for granted that there was a foundation in truth for what she herself had heard in her aunt’s room, could she reasonably resist the conclusion that there must be a foundation in truth for what Mrs. Mosey had heard, under similar circumstances?
There was but one way of escaping from this dilemma—and Emily deliberately took it. She turned her back on her own convictions; and persuaded herself that she had been in the wrong, when she had attached importance to anything that her aunt had said, under the influence of delirium. Having adopted this conclusion, she resolved to face the prospect of a night’s solitude by the death-bed—rather than permit Mrs. Mosey to have a second opportunity of drawing her own inferences from what she might hear in Miss Letitia’s room.
“Do you mean to keep me waiting much longer, miss?”
“Not a moment longer, now you are composed again,” Emily answered. “I have been thinking of what has happened; and I fail to see any necessity for putting off your departure until the doctor comes to-morrow morning. There is really no objection to your leaving me to-night.”
“I beg your pardon, miss; thereisan objection. I have already told you I can’t reconcile it to my conscience to leave you here by yourself. I am not an inhuman woman,” said Mrs. Mosey, putting her handkerchief to her eyes—smitten with pity for herself.
Emily tried the effect of a conciliatory reply. “I am grateful for your kindness in offering to stay with me,” she said.
“Very good of you, I’m sure,” Mrs. Mosey answered ironically. “But for all that, you persist in sending me away.”
“I persist in thinking that there is no necessity for my keeping you here until to-morrow.”
“Oh, have it your own way! I am not reduced to forcing my company on anybody.”
Mrs. Mosey put her handkerchief in her pocket, and asserted her dignity. With head erect and slowly-marching steps she walked out of the room. Emily was left in the cottage, alone with her dying aunt.
A fortnight after the disappearance of Mrs. Ellmother, and the dismissal of Mrs. Mosey, Doctor Allday entered his consulting-room, punctual to the hour at which he was accustomed to receive patients.
An occasional wrinkling of his eyebrows, accompanied by an intermittent restlessness in his movements, appeared to indicate some disturbance of this worthy man’s professional composure. His mind was indeed not at ease. Even the inexcitable old doctor had felt the attraction which had already conquered three such dissimilar people as Alban Morris, Cecilia Wyvil, and Francine de Sor. He was thinking of Emily.
A ring at the door-bell announced the arrival of the first patient.
The servant introduced a tall lady, dressed simply and elegantly in dark apparel. Noticeable features, of a Jewish cast—worn and haggard, but still preserving their grandeur of form—were visible through her veil. She moved with grace and dignity; and she stated her object in consulting Doctor Allday with the ease of a well-bred woman.
“I come to ask your opinion, sir, on the state of my heart,” she said; “and I am recommended by a patient, who has consulted you with advantage to herself.” She placed a card on the doctor’s writing-desk, and added: “I have become acquainted with the lady, by being one of the lodgers in her house.”
The doctor recognized the name—and the usual proceedings ensued. After careful examination, he arrived at a favorable conclusion. “I may tell you at once,” he said—“there is no reason to be alarmed about the state of your heart.”
“I have never felt any alarm about myself,” she answered quietly. “A sudden death is an easy death. If one’s affairs are settled, it seems, on that account, to be the death to prefer. My object was to settlemyaffairs—such as they are—if you had considered my life to be in danger. Is there nothing the matter with me?”
“I don’t say that,” the doctor replied. “The action of your heart is very feeble. Take the medicine that I shall prescribe; pay a little more attention to eating and drinking than ladies usually do; don’t run upstairs, and don’t fatigue yourself by violent exercise—and I see no reason why you shouldn’t live to be an old woman.”
“God forbid!” the lady said to herself. She turned away, and looked out of the window with a bitter smile.
Doctor Allday wrote his prescription. “Are you likely to make a long stay in London?” he asked.
“I am here for a little while only. Do you wish to see me again?”
“I should like to see you once more, before you go away—if you can make it convenient. What name shall I put on the prescription?”
“Miss Jethro.”
“A remarkable name,” the doctor said, in his matter-of-fact way.
Miss Jethro’s bitter smile showed itself again.
Without otherwise noticing what Doctor Allday had said, she laid the consultation fee on the table. At the same moment, the footman appeared with a letter. “From Miss Emily Brown,” he said. “No answer required.”
He held the door open as he delivered the message, seeing that Miss Jethro was about to leave the room. She dismissed him by a gesture; and, returning to the table, pointed to the letter.
“Was your correspondent lately a pupil at Miss Ladd’s school?” she inquired.
“My correspondent has just left Miss Ladd,” the doctor answered. “Are you a friend of hers?”
“I am acquainted with her.”
“You would be doing the poor child a kindness, if you would go and see her. She has no friends in London.”
“Pardon me—she has an aunt.”
“Her aunt died a week since.”
“Are there no other relations?”
“None. A melancholy state of things, isn’t it? She would have been absolutely alone in the house, if I had not sent one of my women servants to stay with her for the present. Did you know her father?”
Miss Jethro passed over the question, as if she had not heard it. “Has the young lady dismissed her aunt’s servants?” she asked.
“Her aunt kept but one servant, ma’am. The woman has spared Miss Emily the trouble of dismissing her.” He briefly alluded to Mrs. Ellmother’s desertion of her mistress. “I can’t explain it,” he said when he had done. “Canyou?”
“What makes you think, sir, that I can help you? I have never even heard of the servant—and the mistress was a stranger to me.”
At Doctor Allday’s age a man is not easily discouraged by reproof, even when it is administered by a handsome woman. “I thought you might have known Miss Emily’s father,” he persisted.
Miss Jethro rose, and wished him good-morning. “I must not occupy any more of your valuable time,” she said.
“Suppose you wait a minute?” the doctor suggested.
Impenetrable as ever, he rang the bell. “Any patients in the waiting-room?” he inquired. “You see I have time to spare,” he resumed, when the man had replied in the negative. “I take an interest in this poor girl; and I thought—”
“If you think that I take an interest in her, too,” Miss Jethro interposed, “you are perfectly right—I knew her father,” she added abruptly; the allusion to Emily having apparently reminded her of the question which she had hitherto declined to notice.
“In that case,” Doctor Allday proceeded, “I want a word of advice. Won’t you sit down?”
She took a chair in silence. An irregular movement in the lower part of her veil seemed to indicate that she was breathing with difficulty. The doctor observed her with close attention. “Let me see my prescription again,” he said. Having added an ingredient, he handed it back with a word of explanation. “Your nerves are more out of order than I supposed. The hardest disease to cure that I know of is—worry.”
The hint could hardly have been plainer; but it was lost on Miss Jethro. Whatever her troubles might be, her medical adviser was not made acquainted with them. Quietly folding up the prescription, she reminded him that he had proposed to ask her advice.
“In what way can I be of service to you?” she inquired.
“I am afraid I must try your patience,” the doctor acknowledged, “if I am to answer that question plainly.”
With these prefatory words, he described the events that had followed Mrs. Mosey’s appearance at the cottage. “I am only doing justice to this foolish woman,” he continued, “when I tell you that she came here, after she had left Miss Emily, and did her best to set matters right. I went to the poor girl directly—and I felt it my duty, after looking at her aunt, not to leave her alone for that night. When I got home the next morning, whom do you think I found waiting for me? Mrs. Ellmother!”
He stopped—in the expectation that Miss Jethro would express some surprise. Not a word passed her lips.
“Mrs. Ellmother’s object was to ask how her mistress was going on,” the doctor proceeded. “Every day while Miss Letitia still lived, she came here to make the same inquiry—without a word of explanation. On the day of the funeral, there she was at the church, dressed in deep mourning; and, as I can personally testify, crying bitterly. When the ceremony was over—can you believe it?—she slipped away before Miss Emily or I could speak to her. We have seen nothing more of her, and heard nothing more, from that time to this.”
He stopped again, the silent lady still listening without making any remark.
“Have you no opinion to express?” the doctor asked bluntly.
“I am waiting,” Miss Jethro answered.
“Waiting—for what?”
“I haven’t heard yet, why you want my advice.”
Doctor Allday’s observation of humanity had hitherto reckoned want of caution among the deficient moral qualities in the natures of women. He set down Miss Jethro as a remarkable exception to a general rule.
“I want you to advise me as to the right course to take with Miss Emily,” he said. “She has assured me she attaches no serious importance to her aunt’s wanderings, when the poor old lady’s fever was at its worst. I don’t doubt that she speaks the truth—but I have my own reasons for being afraid that she is deceiving herself. Will you bear this in mind?”
“Yes—if it’s necessary.”
“In plain words, Miss Jethro, you think I am still wandering from the point. I have got to the point. Yesterday, Miss Emily told me that she hoped to be soon composed enough to examine the papers left by her aunt.”
Miss Jethro suddenly turned in her chair, and looked at Doctor Allday.
“Are you beginning to feel interested?” the doctor asked mischievously.
She neither acknowledged nor denied it. “Go on”—was all she said.
“I don’t know howyoufeel,” he proceeded; “Iam afraid of the discoveries which she may make; and I am strongly tempted to advise her to leave the proposed examination to her aunt’s lawyer. Is there anything in your knowledge of Miss Emily’s late father, which tells you that I am right?”
“Before I reply,” said Miss Jethro, “it may not be amiss to let the young lady speak for herself.”
“How is she to do that?” the doctor asked.
Miss Jethro pointed to the writing table. “Look there,” she said. “You have not yet opened Miss Emily’s letter.”
Absorbed in the effort to overcome his patient’s reserve, the doctor had forgotten Emily’s letter. He opened it immediately.
After reading the first sentence, he looked up with an expression of annoyance. “She has begun the examination of the papers already,” he said.
“Then I can be of no further use to you,” Miss Jethro rejoined. She made a second attempt to leave the room.
Doctor Allday turned to the next page of the letter. “Stop!” he cried. “She has found something—and here it is.”
He held up a small printed Handbill, which had been placed between the first and second pages. “Suppose you look at it?” he said.
“Whether I am interested in it or not?” Miss Jethro asked.
“You may be interested in what Miss Emily says about it in her letter.”
“Do you propose to show me her letter?”
“I propose to read it to you.”
Miss Jethro took the Handbill without further objection. It was expressed in these words:
“MURDER. 100 POUNDS REWARD.—Whereas a murder was committed on the thirtieth September, 1877, at the Hand-in-Hand Inn, in the village of Zeeland, Hampshire, the above reward will be paid to any person or persons whose exertions shall lead to the arrest and conviction of the suspected murderer. Name not known. Supposed age, between twenty and thirty years. A well-made man, of small stature. Fair complexion, delicate features, clear blue eyes. Hair light, and cut rather short. Clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers. Small, white, well-shaped hands. Wore valuable rings on the two last fingers of the left hand. Dressed neatly in a dark-gray tourist-suit. Carried a knapsack, as if on a pedestrian excursion. Remarkably good voice, smooth, full, and persuasive. Ingratiating manners. Apply to the Chief Inspector, Metropolitan Police Office, London.”
Miss Jethro laid aside the Handbill without any visible appearance of agitation. The doctor took up Emily’s letter, and read as follows:
“You will be as much relieved as I was, my kind friend, when you look at the paper inclosed. I found it loose in a blank book, with cuttings from newspapers, and odd announcements of lost property and other curious things (all huddled together between the leaves), which my aunt no doubt intended to set in order and fix in their proper places. She must have been thinking of her book, poor soul, in her last illness. Here is the origin of those ‘terrible words’ which frightened stupid Mrs. Mosey! Is it not encouraging to have discovered such a confirmation of my opinion as this? I feel a new interest in looking over the papers that still remain to be examined—”
Before he could get to the end of the sentence Miss Jethro’s agitation broke through her reserve.
“Do what you proposed to do!” she burst out vehemently. “Stop her at once from carrying her examination any further! If she hesitates, insist on it!”
At last Doctor Allday had triumphed! “It has been a long time coming,” he remarked, in his cool way; “and it’s all the more welcome on that account. You dread the discoveries she may make, Miss Jethro, as I do. Andyouknow what those discoveries may be.”
“What I do know, or don’t know, is of no importance.” she answered sharply.
“Excuse me, it is of very serious importance. I have no authority over this poor girl—I am not even an old friend. You tell me to insist. Help me to declare honestly that I know of circumstances which justify me; and I may insist to some purpose.”
Miss Jethro lifted her veil for the first time, and eyed him searchingly.
“I believe I can trust you,” she said. “Now listen! The one consideration on which I consent to open my lips, is consideration for Miss Emily’s tranquillity. Promise me absolute secrecy, on your word of honor.”
He gave the promise.
“I want to know one thing, first,” Miss Jethro proceeded. “Did she tell you—as she once told me—that her father had died of heart-complaint?”
“Yes.”
“Did you put any questions to her?”
“I asked how long ago it was.”
“And she told you?”
“She told me.”
“You wish to know, Doctor Allday, what discoveries Miss Emily may yet make, among her aunt’s papers. Judge for yourself, when I tell you that she has been deceived about her father’s death.”
“Do you mean that he is still living?”
“I mean that she has been deceived—purposely deceived—about themannerof his death.”
“Who was the wretch who did it?”
“You are wronging the dead, sir! The truth can only have been concealed out of the purest motives of love and pity. I don’t desire to disguise the conclusion at which I have arrived after what I have heard from yourself. The person responsible must be Miss Emily’s aunt—and the old servant must have been in her confidence. Remember! You are bound in honor not to repeat to any living creature what I have just said.”
The doctor followed Miss Jethro to the door. “You have not yet told me,” he said, “howher father died.”
“I have no more to tell you.”
With those words she left him.
He rang for his servant. To wait until the hour at which he was accustomed to go out, might be to leave Emily’s peace of mind at the mercy of an accident. “I am going to the cottage,” he said. “If anybody wants me, I shall be back in a quarter of an hour.”
On the point of leaving the house, he remembered that Emily would probably expect him to return the Handbill. As he took it up, the first lines caught his eye: he read the date at which the murder had been committed, for the second time. On a sudden the ruddy color left his face.
“Good God!” he cried, “her father was murdered—and that woman was concerned in it.”
Following the impulse that urged him, he secured the Handbill in his pocketbook—snatched up the card which his patient had presented as her introduction—and instantly left the house. He called the first cab that passed him, and drove to Miss Jethro’s lodgings.
“Gone”—was the servant’s answer when he inquired for her. He insisted on speaking to the landlady. “Hardly ten minutes have passed,” he said, “since she left my house.”
“Hardly ten minutes have passed,” the landlady replied, “since that message was brought here by a boy.”
The message had been evidently written in great haste: “I am unexpectedly obliged to leave London. A bank note is inclosed in payment of my debt to you. I will send for my luggage.”
The doctor withdrew.
“Unexpectedly obliged to leave London,” he repeated, as he got into the cab again. “Her flight condemns her: not a doubt of it now. As fast as you can!” he shouted to the man; directing him to drive to Emily’s cottage.
Arriving at the cottage, Doctor Allday discovered a gentleman, who was just closing the garden gate behind him.
“Has Miss Emily had a visitor?” he inquired, when the servant admitted him.
“The gentleman left a letter for Miss Emily, sir.”
“Did he ask to see her?”
“He asked after Miss Letitia’s health. When he heard that she was dead, he seemed to be startled, and went away immediately.”
“Did he give his name?”
“No, sir.”
The doctor found Emily absorbed over her letter. His anxiety to forestall any possible discovery of the deception which had concealed the terrible story of her father’s death, kept Doctor Allday’s vigilance on the watch. He doubted the gentleman who had abstained from giving his name; he even distrusted the other unknown person who had written to Emily.
She looked up. Her face relieved him of his misgivings, before she could speak.
“At last, I have heard from my dearest friend,” she said. “You remember what I told you about Cecilia? Here is a letter—a long delightful letter—from the Engadine, left at the door by some gentleman unknown. I was questioning the servant when you rang the bell.”
“You may question me, if you prefer it. I arrived just as the gentleman was shutting your garden gate.”
“Oh, tell me! what was he like?”
“Tall, and thin, and dark. Wore a vile republican-looking felt hat. Had nasty ill-tempered wrinkles between his eyebrows. The sort of man I distrust by instinct.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t shave.”
“Do you mean that he wore a beard?”
“Yes; a curly black beard.”
Emily clasped her hands in amazement. “Can it be Alban Morris?” she exclaimed.
The doctor looked at her with a sardonic smile; he thought it likely that he had discovered her sweetheart.
“Who is Mr. Alban Morris?” he asked.
“The drawing-master at Miss Ladd’s school.”
Doctor Allday dropped the subject: masters at ladies’ schools were not persons who interested him. He returned to the purpose which had brought him to the cottage—and produced the Handbill that had been sent to him in Emily’s letter.
“I suppose you want to have it back again?” he said.
She took it from him, and looked at it with interest.
“Isn’t it strange,” she suggested, “that the murderer should have escaped, with such a careful description of him as this circulated all over England?”
She read the description to the doctor.
“‘Name not known. Supposed age, between twenty-five and thirty years. A well-made man, of small stature. Fair complexion, delicate features, clear blue eyes. Hair light, and cut rather short. Clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers. Small, white, well-shaped hands. Wore valuable rings on the two last fingers of the left hand. Dressed neatly—’”
“That part of the description is useless,” the doctor remarked; “he would change his clothes.”
“But could he change his voice?” Emily objected. “Listen to this: ‘Remarkably good voice, smooth, full, and persuasive.’ And here again! ‘Ingratiating manners.’ Perhaps you will say he could put on an appearance of rudeness?”
“I will say this, my dear. He would be able to disguise himself so effectually that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would fail to identify him, either by his voice or his manner.”
“How?”
“Look back at the description: ‘Hair cut rather short, clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers.’ The wretch was safe from pursuit; he had ample time at his disposal—don’t you see how he could completely alter the appearance of his head and face? No more, my dear, of this disagreeable subject! Let us get to something interesting. Have you found anything else among your aunt’s papers?”
“I have met with a great disappointment,” Emily replied. “Did I tell you how I discovered the Handbill?”
“No.”
“I found it, with the scrap-book and the newspaper cuttings, under a collection of empty boxes and bottles, in a drawer of the washhand-stand. And I naturally expected to make far more interesting discoveries in this room. My search was over in five minutes. Nothing in the cabinet there, in the corner, but a few books and some china. Nothing in the writing-desk, on that side-table, but a packet of note-paper and some sealing-wax. Nothing here, in the drawers, but tradesmen’s receipts, materials for knitting, and old photographs. She must have destroyed all her papers, poor dear, before her last illness; and the Handbill and the other things can only have escaped, because they were left in a place which she never thought of examining. Isn’t it provoking?”
With a mind inexpressibly relieved, good Doctor Allday asked permission to return to his patients: leaving Emily to devote herself to her friend’s letter.
On his way out, he noticed that the door of the bed-chamber on the opposite side of the passage stood open. Since Miss Letitia’s death the room had not been used. Well within view stood the washhand-stand to which Emily had alluded. The doctor advanced to the house door—reflected—hesitated—and looked toward the empty room.
It had struck him that there might be a second drawer which Emily had overlooked. Would he be justified in setting this doubt at rest? If he passed over ordinary scruples it would not be without excuse. Miss Letitia had spoken to him of her affairs, and had asked him to act (in Emily’s interest) as co-executor with her lawyer. The rapid progress of the illness had made it impossible for her to execute the necessary codicil. But the doctor had been morally (if not legally) taken into her confidence—and, for that reason, he decided that he had a right in this serious matter to satisfy his own mind.
A glance was enough to show him that no second drawer had been overlooked.
There was no other discovery to detain the doctor. The wardrobe only contained the poor old lady’s clothes; the one cupboard was open and empty. On the point of leaving the room, he went back to the washhand-stand. While he had the opportunity, it might not be amiss to make sure that Emily had thoroughly examined those old boxes and bottles, which she had alluded to with some little contempt.
The drawer was of considerable length. When he tried to pull it completely out from the grooves in which it ran, it resisted him. In his present frame of mind, this was a suspicious circumstance in itself. He cleared away the litter so as to make room for the introduction of his hand and arm into the drawer. In another moment his fingers touched a piece of paper, jammed between the inner end of the drawer and the bottom of the flat surface of the washhand-stand. With a little care, he succeeded in extricating the paper. Only pausing to satisfy himself that there was nothing else to be found, and to close the drawer after replacing its contents, he left the cottage.
The cab was waiting for him. On the drive back to his own house, he opened the crumpled paper. It proved to be a letter addressed to Miss Letitia; and it was signed by no less a person than Emily’s schoolmistress. Looking back from the end to the beginning, Doctor Allday discovered, in the first sentence, the name of—Miss Jethro.
But for the interview of that morning with his patient he might have doubted the propriety of making himself further acquainted with the letter. As things were, he read it without hesitation.
“DEAR MADAM—I cannot but regard it as providential circumstance that your niece, in writing to you from my house, should have mentioned, among other events of her school life, the arrival of my new teacher, Miss Jethro.
“To say that I was surprised is to express very inadequately what I felt when I read your letter, informing me confidentially that I had employed a woman who was unworthy to associate with the young persons placed under my care. It is impossible for me to suppose that a lady in your position, and possessed of your high principles, would make such a serious accusation as this, without unanswerable reasons for doing so. At the same time I cannot, consistently with my duty as a Christian, suffer my opinion of Miss Jethro to be in any way modified, until proofs are laid before me which it is impossible to dispute.
“Placing the same confidence in your discretion, which you have placed in mine, I now inclose the references and testimonials which Miss Jethro submitted to me, when she presented herself to fill the vacant situation in my school.
“I earnestly request you to lose no time in instituting the confidential inquiries which you have volunteered to make. Whatever the result may be, pray return to me the inclosures which I have trusted to your care, and believe me, dear madam, in much suspense and anxiety, sincerely yours,
“AMELIA LADD.”
It is needless to describe, at any length, the impression which these lines produced on the doctor.
If he had heard what Emily had heard at the time of her aunt’s last illness, he would have called to mind Miss Letitia’s betrayal of her interest in some man unknown, whom she believed to have been beguiled by Miss Jethro—and he would have perceived that the vindictive hatred, thus produced, must have inspired the letter of denunciation which the schoolmistress had acknowledged. He would also have inferred that Miss Letitia’s inquiries had proved her accusation to be well founded—if he had known of the new teacher’s sudden dismissal from the school. As things were, he was merely confirmed in his bad opinion of Miss Jethro; and he was induced, on reflection, to keep his discovery to himself.
“If poor Miss Emily saw the old lady exhibited in the character of an informer,” he thought, “what a blow would be struck at her innocent respect for the memory of her aunt!”
In the meantime, Emily, left by herself, had her own correspondence to occupy her attention. Besides the letter from Cecilia (directed to the care of Sir Jervis Redwood), she had received some lines addressed to her by Sir Jervis himself. The two inclosures had been secured in a sealed envelope, directed to the cottage.
If Alban Morris had been indeed the person trusted as messenger by Sir Jervis, the conclusion that followed filled Emily with overpowering emotions of curiosity and surprise.
Having no longer the motive of serving and protecting her, Alban must, nevertheless, have taken the journey to Northumberland. He must have gained Sir Jervis Redwood’s favor and confidence—and he might even have been a guest at the baronet’s country seat—when Cecilia’s letter arrived. What did it mean?
Emily looked back at her experience of her last day at school, and recalled her consultation with Alban on the subject of Mrs. Rook. Was he still bent on clearing up his suspicions of Sir Jervis’s housekeeper? And, with that end in view, had he followed the woman, on her return to her master’s place of abode?
Suddenly, almost irritably, Emily snatched up Sir Jervis’s letter. Before the doctor had come in, she had glanced at it, and had thrown it aside in her impatience to read what Cecilia had written. In her present altered frame of mind, she was inclined to think that Sir Jervis might be the more interesting correspondent of the two.
On returning to his letter, she was disappointed at the outset.
In the first place, his handwriting was so abominably bad that she was obliged to guess at his meaning. In the second place, he never hinted at the circumstances under which Cecilia’s letter had been confided to the gentleman who had left it at her door.
She would once more have treated the baronet’s communication with contempt—but for the discovery that it contained an offer of employment in London, addressed to herself.
Sir Jervis had necessarily been obliged to engage another secretary in Emily’s absence. But he was still in want of a person to serve his literary interests in London. He had reason to believe that discoveries made by modern travelers in Central America had been reported from time to time by the English press; and he wished copies to be taken of any notices of this sort which might be found, on referring to the files of newspapers kept in the reading-room of the British Museum. If Emily considered herself capable of contributing in this way to the completeness of his great work on “the ruined cities,” she had only to apply to his bookseller in London, who would pay her the customary remuneration and give her every assistance of which she might stand in need. The bookseller’s name and address followed (with nothing legible but the two words “Bond Street”), and there was an end of Sir Jervis’s proposal.
Emily laid it aside, deferring her answer until she had read Cecilia’s letter.