I Say No. Wilkie Collins
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you go to her the better, perhaps—if you have anything to say which depends on her recognizing your voice. I’ll call to-morrow morning. Very distressing,” he repeated, taking his hat and making his bow—“Very distressing.”
Emily crossed the narrow little passage which separated the two rooms, and opened the bed-chamber door. Mrs. Ellmother met her on the threshold. “No,” said the obstinate old servant, “you can’t come in.”
The faint voice of Miss Letitia made itself heard, calling Mrs. Ellmother by her familiar nick-name.
“Bony, who is it?”
“Never mind.”
“Who is it?”
“Miss Emily, if you must know.”
“Oh! poor dear, why does she come here? Who told her I was ill?”
“The doctor told her.”
“Don’t come in, Emily. It will only distress you—and it will do me no good. God bless you, my love. Don’t come in.”
“There!” said Mrs. Ellmother. “Do you hear that? Go back to the sitting-room.”
Thus far, the hard necessity of controlling herself had kept Emily silent. She was now able to speak without tears. “Remember the old times, aunt,” she pleaded, gently. “Don’t keep me out of your room, when I have come here to nurse you!”
“I’m her nurse. Go back to the sitting-room,” Mrs. Ellmother repeated.
True love lasts while life lasts. The dying woman relented.
“Bony! Bony! I can’t be unkind to Emily. Let her in.”
Mrs. Ellmother still insisted on having her way.
“You’re contradicting your own orders,” she said to her mistress. “You don’t know how soon you may begin wandering in your mind again. Think, Miss Letitia—think.”
This remonstrance was received in silence. Mrs. Ellmother’s great gaunt figure still blocked up the doorway.
“If you force me to it,” Emily said, quietly, “I must go to the doctor, and ask him to interfere.”
“Do you mean that?” Mrs. Ellmother said, quietly, on her side.
“I do mean it,” was the answer.
The old servant suddenly submitted—with a look which took Emily by surprise. She had expected to see anger; the face that now confronted her was a face subdued by sorrow and fear.
“I wash my hands of it,” Mrs. Ellmother said. “Go in—and take the consequences.”
CHAPTER XIII. MISS LETITIA.
Emily entered the room. The door was immediately closed on her from the outer side. Mrs. Ellmother’s heavy steps were heard retreating along the passage. Then the banging of the door that led into the kitchen shook the flimsily-built cottage. Then, there was silence.
The dim light of a lamp hidden away in a corner and screened by a dingy green shade, just revealed the closely-curtained bed, and the table near it bearing medicine-bottles and glasses. The only objects on the chimney-piece were a clock that had been stopped in mercy to the sufferer’s irritable nerves, and an open case containing a machine for pouring drops into the eyes. The smell of fumigating pastilles hung heavily on the air. To Emily’s excited imagination, the silence was like the silence of death. She approached the bed trembling. “Won’t you speak to me, aunt?”
“Is that you, Emily? Who let you come in?”
“You said I might come in, dear. Are you thirsty? I see some lemonade on the table. Shall I give it to you?”
“No! If you open the bed-curtains, you let in the light. My poor eyes! Why are you here, my dear? Why are you not at the school?”
“It’s holiday-time, aunt. Besides, I have left school for good.”
“Left school?” Miss Letitia’s memory made an effort, as she repeated those words. “You were going somewhere when you left school,” she said, “and Cecilia Wyvil had something to do with it. Oh, my love, how cruel of you to go away to a stranger, when you might live here with me!” She paused—her sense of what she had herself just said began to grow confused. “What stranger?” she asked abruptly. “Was it a man? What name? Oh, my mind! Has death got hold of my mind before my body?”
“Hush! hush! I’ll tell you the name. Sir Jervis Redwood.”
“I don’t know him. I don’t want to know him. Do you think he means to send for you. Perhaps he has sent for you. I won’t allow it! You shan’t go!”
“Don’t excite yourself, dear! I have refused to go; I mean to stay here with you.”
The fevered brain held to its last idea. “Has he sent for you?” she said again, louder than before.
Emily replied once more, in terms carefully chosen with the one purpose of pacifying her. The attempt proved to be useless, and worse—it seemed to make her suspicious. “I won’t be deceived!” she said; “I mean to know all about it. He did send for you. Whom did he send?”
“His housekeeper.”
“What name?” The tone in which she put the question told of excitement that was rising to its climax. “Don’t you know that I’m curious about names?” she burst out. “Why do you provoke me? Who is it?”
“Nobody you know, or need care about, dear aunt. Mrs. Rook.”
Instantly on the utterance of that name, there followed an unexpected result. Silence ensued.
Emily waited—hesitated—advanced, to part the curtains, and look in at her aunt. She was stopped by a dreadful sound of laughter—the cheerless laughter that is heard among the mad. It suddenly ended in a dreary sigh.
Afraid to look in, she spoke, hardly knowing what she said. “Is there anything you wish for? Shall I call—?”
Miss Letitia’s voice interrupted her. Dull, low, rapidly muttering, it was unlike, shockingly unlike, the familiar voice of her aunt. It said strange words.
“Mrs. Rook? What does Mrs. Rook matter? Or her husband either? Bony, Bony, you’re frightened about nothing. Where’s the danger of those two people turning up? Do you know how many miles away the village is? Oh, you fool—a hundred miles and more. Never mind the coroner, the coroner must keep in his own district—and the jury too. A risky deception? I call it a pious fraud. And I have a tender conscience, and a cultivated mind. The newspaper? How is our newspaper to find its way to her, I should like to know? You poor old Bony! Upon my word you do me good—you make me laugh.”
The cheerless laughter broke out again—and died away again drearily in a sigh.
Accustomed to decide rapidly in the ordinary emergencies of her life, Emily felt herself painfully embarrassed by the position in which she was now placed.
After what she had already heard, could she reconcile it to her sense of duty to her aunt to remain any longer in the room?
In the hopeless self-betrayal of delirium, Miss Letitia had revealed some act of concealment, committed in her past life, and confided to her faithful old servant. Under these circumstances, had Emily made any discoveries which convicted her of taking a base advantage of her position at the bedside? Most assuredly not! The nature of the act of concealment; the causes that had led to it; the person (or persons) affected by it—these were mysteries which left her entirely in the dark. She had found out that her aunt was acquainted with Mrs. Rook, and that was literally all she knew.
Blameless, so far, in the line of conduct that she had pursued, might she still remain in the bed-chamber—on