Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1235 page)

She waited eagerly to hear more. There was nothing to be heard. At this most interesting moment, the silence remained undisturbed.

In the fervor of her anxiety to set her doubts at rest, Emily’s faith in her own good resolutions began to waver. The temptation to say something which might set her aunt talking again was too strong to be resisted — if she remained at the bedside. Despairing of herself she rose and turned to the door. In the moment that passed while she crossed the room the very words occurred to her that would suit her purpose. Her cheeks were hot with shame — she hesitated — she looked back at the bed — the words passed her lips.

“Sara is only one of the woman’s names,” she said. “Do you like her other name?”

The rapidly-muttering tones broke out again instantly — but not in answer to Emily. The sound of a voice had encouraged Miss Letitia to pursue her own confused train of thought, and had stimulated the fast-failing capacity of speech to exert itself once more.

“No! no! He’s too cunning for you, and too cunning for me. He doesn’t leave letters about; he destroys them all. Did I say he was too cunning for us? It’s false. We are too cunning for him. Who found the morsels of his letter in the basket? Who stuck them together? Ah,
we
know! Don’t read it, Bony. ‘Dear Miss Jethro’ — don’t read it again. ‘Miss Jethro’ in his letter; and ‘Sara,’ when he talks to himself in the garden. Oh, who would have believed it of him, if we hadn’t seen and heard it ourselves!”

There was no more doubt now.

But who was the man, so bitterly and so regretfully alluded to?

No: this time Emily held firmly by the resolution which bound her to respect the helpless position of her aunt. The speediest way of summoning Mrs. Ellmother would be to ring the bell. As she touched the handle a faint cry of suffering from the bed called her back.

“Oh, so thirsty!” murmured the failing voice — ”so thirsty!”

She parted the curtains. The shrouded lamplight just showed her the green shade over Miss Letitia’s eyes — the hollow cheeks below it — the arms laid helplessly on the bed-clothes. “Oh, aunt, don’t you know my voice? Don’t you know Emily? Let me kiss you, dear!” Useless to plead with her; useless to kiss her; she only reiterated the words, “So thirsty! so thirsty!” Emily raised the poor tortured body with a patient caution which spared it pain, and put the glass to her aunt’s lips. She drank the lemonade to the last drop. Refreshed for the moment, she spoke again — spoke to the visionary servant of her delirious fancy, while she rested in Emily’s arms.

“For God’s sake, take care how you answer if she questions you. If
she
knew what
we
know! Are men ever ashamed? Ha! the vile woman! the vile woman!”

Her voice, sinking gradually, dropped to a whisper. The next few words that escaped her were muttered inarticulately. Little by little, the false energy of fever was wearing itself out. She lay silent and still. To look at her now was to look at the image of death. Once more, Emily kissed her — closed the curtains — and rang the bell. Mrs. Ellmother failed to appear. Emily left the room to call her.

Arrived at the top of the kitchen stairs, she noted a slight change. The door below, which she had heard banged on first entering her aunt’s room, now stood open. She called to Mrs. Ellmother. A strange voice answered her. Its accent was soft and courteous; presenting the strongest imaginable contrast to the harsh tones of Miss Letitia’s crabbed old maid.

“Is there anything I can do for you, miss?”

The person making this polite inquiry appeared at the foot of the stairs — a plump and comely woman of middle age. She looked up at the young lady with a pleasant smile.

“I beg your pardon,” Emily said; “I had no intention of disturbing you. I called to Mrs. Ellmother.”

The stranger advanced a little way up the stairs, and answered, “Mrs. Ellmother is not here.”

“Do you expect her back soon?”

“Excuse me, miss — I don’t expect her back at all.”

“Do you mean to say that she has left the house?”

“Yes, miss. She has left the house.”

CHAPTER XIV. MRS. MOSEY.

Emily’s first act — after the discovery of Mrs. Ellmother’s incomprehensible disappearance — was to invite the new servant to follow her into the sitting-room.

“Can you explain this?” she began.

“No, miss.”

“May I ask if you have come here by Mrs. Ellmother’s invitation?”

“By Mrs. Ellmother’s
request
, miss.”

“Can you tell me how she came to make the request?”

“With pleasure, miss. Perhaps — as you find me here, a stranger to yourself, in place of the customary servant — I ought to begin by giving you a reference.”

“And, perhaps (if you will be so kind), by mentioning your name,” Emily added.

“Thank you for reminding me, miss. My name is Elizabeth Mosey. I am well known to the gentleman who attends Miss Letitia. Dr. Allday will speak to my character and also to my experience as a nurse. If it would be in any way satisfactory to give you a second reference — ”

“Quite needless, Mrs. Mosey.”

“Permit me to thank you again, miss. I was at home this evening, when Mrs. Ellmother called at my lodgings. Says she, ‘I have come here, Elizabeth, to ask a favor of you for old friendship’s sake.’ Says I, ‘My dear, pray command me, whatever it may be.’ If this seems rather a hasty answer to make, before I knew what the favor was, might I ask you to bear in mind that Mrs. Ellmother put it to me ‘for old friendship’s sake’ — alluding to my late husband, and to the business which we carried on at that time? Through no fault of ours, we got into difficulties. Persons whom we had trusted proved unworthy. Not to trouble you further, I may say at once, we should have been ruined, if our old friend Mrs. Ellmother had not come forward, and trusted us with the savings of her lifetime. The money was all paid back again, before my husband’s death. But I don’t consider — and, I think you won’t consider — that the obligation was paid back too. Prudent or not prudent, there is nothing Mrs. Ellmother can ask of me that I am not willing to do. If I have put myself in an awkward situation (and I don’t deny that it looks so) this is the only excuse, miss, that I can make for my conduct.”

Mrs. Mosey was too fluent, and too fond of hearing the sound of her own eminently persuasive voice. Making allowance for these little drawbacks, the impression that she produced was decidedly favorable; and, however rashly she might have acted, her motive was beyond reproach. Having said some kind words to this effect, Emily led her back to the main interest of her narrative.

“Did Mrs. Ellmother give no reason for leaving my aunt, at such a time as this?” she asked.

“The very words I said to her, miss.”

“And what did she say, by way of reply?”

“She burst out crying — a thing I have never known her to do before, in an experience of twenty years.”

“And she really asked you to take her place here, at a moment’s notice?”

“That was just what she did,” Mrs. Mosey answered. “I had no need to tell her I was astonished; my lips spoke for me, no doubt. She’s a hard woman in speech and manner, I admit. But there’s more feeling in her than you would suppose. ‘If you are the good friend I take you for,’ she says, ‘don’t ask me for reasons; I am doing what is forced on me, and doing it with a heavy heart.’ In my place, miss, would you have insisted on her explaining herself, after that? The one thing I naturally wanted to know was, if I could speak to some lady, in the position of mistress here, before I ventured to intrude. Mrs. Ellmother understood that it was her duty to help me in this particular. Your poor aunt being out of the question she mentioned you.”

“How did she speak of me? In an angry way?”

“No, indeed — quite the contrary. She says, ‘You will find Miss Emily at the cottage. She is Miss Letitia’s niece. Everybody likes her — and everybody is right.’“

“She really said that?”

“Those were her words. And, what is more, she gave me a message for you at parting. ‘If Miss Emily is surprised’ (that was how she put it) ‘give her my duty and good wishes; and tell her to remember what I said, when she took my place at her aunt’s bedside.’ I don’t presume to inquire what this means,” said Mrs. Mosey respectfully, ready to hear what it meant, if Emily would only be so good as to tell her. “I deliver the message, miss, as it was delivered to me. After which, Mrs. Ellmother went her way, and I went mine.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“No, miss.”

“Have you nothing more to tell me?”

“Nothing more; except that she gave me my directions, of course, about the nursing. I took them down in writing — and you will find them in their proper place, with the prescriptions and the medicines.”

Acting at once on this hint, Emily led the way to her aunt’s room.

Miss Letitia was silent, when the new nurse softly parted the curtains — looked in — and drew them together again. Consulting her watch, Mrs. Mosey compared her written directions with the medicine-bottles on the table, and set one apart to be used at the appointed time. “Nothing, so far, to alarm us,” she whispered. “You look sadly pale and tired, miss. Might I advise you to rest a little?”

“If there is any change, Mrs. Mosey — either for the better or the worse — of course you will let me know?”

“Certainly, miss.”

Emily returned to the sitting-room: not to rest (after all that she had heard), but to think.

Amid much that was unintelligible, certain plain conclusions presented themselves to her mind.

After what the doctor had already said to Emily, on the subject of delirium generally, Mrs. Ellmother’s proceedings became intelligible: they proved that she knew by experience the perilous course taken by her mistress’s wandering thoughts, when they expressed themselves in words. This explained the concealment of Miss Letitia’s illness from her niece, as well as the reiterated efforts of the old servant to prevent Emily from entering the bedroom.

But the event which had just happened — that is to say, Mrs. Ellmother’s sudden departure from the cottage — was not only of serious importance in itself, but pointed to a startling conclusion.

The faithful maid had left the mistress, whom she had loved and served, sinking under a fatal illness — and had put another woman in her place, careless of what that woman might discover by listening at the bedside — rather than confront Emily after she had been within hearing of her aunt while the brain of the suffering woman was deranged by fever. There was the state of the case, in plain words.

In what frame of mind had Mrs. Ellmother adopted this desperate course of action?

To use her own expression, she had deserted Miss Letitia “with a heavy heart.” To judge by her own language addressed to Mrs. Mosey, she had left Emily to the mercy of a stranger — animated, nevertheless, by sincere feelings of attachment and respect. That her fears had taken for granted suspicion which Emily had not felt, and discoveries which Emily had (as yet) not made, in no way modified the serious nature of the inference which her conduct justified. The disclosure which this woman dreaded — who could doubt it now? — directly threatened Emily’s peace of mind. There was no disguising it: the innocent niece was associated with an act of deception, which had been, until that day, the undetected secret of the aunt and the aunt’s maid.

In this conclusion, and in this only, was to be found the rational explanation of Mrs. Ellmother’s choice — placed between the alternatives of submitting to discovery by Emily, or of leaving the house.

Poor Miss Letitia’s writing-table stood near the window of the sitting-room. Shrinking from the further pursuit of thoughts which might end in disposing her mind to distrust of her dying aunt, Emily looked round in search of some employment sufficiently interesting to absorb her attention. The writing-table reminded her that she owed a letter to Cecilia. That helpful friend had surely the first claim to know why she had failed to keep her engagement with Sir Jervis Redwood.