Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1250 page)

Having seen her own bed-chamber, Emily was next introduced to the room occupied by Francine.

One object that she noticed in it caused her some little surprise — not unmingled with disgust. She discovered on the toilet-table a coarsely caricatured portrait of Mrs. Ellmother. It was a sketch in pencil — wretchedly drawn; but spitefully successful as a likeness. “I didn’t know you were an artist,” Emily remarked, with an ironical emphasis on the last word. Francine laughed scornfully — crumpled the drawing up in her hand — and threw it into the waste-paper basket.

“You satirical creature!” she burst out gayly. “If you had lived a dull life at St. Domingo, you would have taken to spoiling paper too. I might really have turned out an artist, if I had been clever and industrious like you. As it was, I learned a little drawing — and got tired of it. I tried modeling in wax — and got tired of it. Who do you think was my teacher? One of our slaves.”

“A slave!” Emily exclaimed.

“Yes — a mulatto, if you wish me to be particular; the daughter of an English father and a negro mother. In her young time (at least she said so herself) she was quite a beauty, in her particular style. Her master’s favorite; he educated her himself. Besides drawing and painting, and modeling in wax, she could sing and play — all the accomplishments thrown away on a slave! When her owner died, my uncle bought her at the sale of the property.”

A word of natural compassion escaped Emily — to Francine’s surprise.

“Oh, my dear, you needn’t pity her! Sappho (that was her name) fetched a high price, even when she was no longer young. She came to us, by inheritance, with the estates and the rest of it; and took a fancy to me, when she found out I didn’t get on well with my father and mother. ‘I owe it to
my
father and mother,’ she used to say, ‘that I am a slave. When I see affectionate daughters, it wrings my heart.’ Sappho was a strange compound. A woman with a white side to her character, and a black side. For weeks together, she would be a civilized being. Then she used to relapse, and become as complete a negress as her mother. At the risk of her life she stole away, on those occasions, into the interior of the island, and looked on, in hiding, at the horrid witchcrafts and idolatries of the blacks; they would have murdered a half-blood, prying into their ceremonies, if they had discovered her. I followed her once, so far as I dared. The frightful yellings and drummings in the darkness of the forests frightened me. The blacks suspected her, and it came to my ears. I gave her the warning that saved her life (I don’t know what I should have done without Sappho to amuse me!); and, from that time, I do believe the curious creature loved me. You see I can speak generously even of a slave!”

“I wonder you didn’t bring her with you to England,” Emily said.

“In the first place,” Francine answered, “she was my father’s property, not mine. In the second place, she’s dead. Poisoned, as the other half-bloods supposed, by some enemy among the blacks. She said herself, she was under a spell!”

“What did she mean?”

Francine was not interested enough in the subject to explain. “Stupid superstition, my dear. The negro side of Sappho was uppermost when she was dying — there is the explanation. Be off with you! I hear the old woman on the stairs. Meet her before she can come in here. My bedroom is my only refuge from Miss Ladd.”

On the morning of the last day in the week, Emily had a little talk in private with her old schoolmistress. Miss Ladd listened to what she had to say of Mrs. Ellmother, and did her best to relieve Emily’s anxieties. “I think you are mistaken, my child, in supposing that Francine is in earnest. It is her great fault that she is hardly ever in earnest. You can trust to my discretion; leave the rest to your aunt’s old servant and to me.”

Mrs. Ellmother arrived, punctual to the appointed time. She was shown into Miss Ladd’s own room. Francine — ostentatiously resolved to take no personal part in the affair — went for a walk. Emily waited to hear the result.

After a long interval, Miss Ladd returned to the drawing-room, and announced that she had sanctioned the engagement of Mrs. Ellmother.

“I have considered your wishes, in this respect,” she said. “It is arranged that a week’s notice, on either side, shall end the term of service, after the first month. I cannot feel justified in doing more than that. Mrs. Ellmother is such a respectable woman; she is so well known to you, and she was so long in your aunt’s service, that I am bound to consider the importance of securing a person who is exactly fitted to attend on such a girl as Francine. In one word, I can trust Mrs. Ellmother.”

“When does she enter on her service?” Emily inquired.

“On the day after we return to the school,” Miss Ladd replied. “You will be glad to see her, I am sure. I will send her here.”

“One word more before you go,” Emily said.

“Did you ask her why she left my aunt?”

“My dear child, a woman who has been five-and-twenty years in one place is entitled to keep her own secrets. I understand that she had her reasons, and that she doesn’t think it necessary to mention them to anybody. Never trust people by halves — especially when they are people like Mrs. Ellmother.”

It was too late now to raise any objections. Emily felt relieved, rather than disappointed, on discovering that Mrs. Ellmother was in a hurry to get back to London by the next train. Sh e had found an opportunity of letting her lodgings; and she was eager to conclude the bargain. “You see I couldn’t say Yes,” she explained, “till I knew whether I was to get this new place or not — and the person wants to go in tonight.”

Emily stopped her at the door. “Promise to write and tell me how you get on with Miss de Sor.”

“You say that, miss, as if you didn’t feel hopeful about me.”

“I say it, because I feel interested about you. Promise to write.”

Mrs. Ellmother promised, and hastened away. Emily looked after her from the window, as long as she was in view. “I wish I could feel sure of Francine!” she said to herself.

“In what way?” asked the hard voice of Francine, speaking at the door.

It was not in Emily’s nature to shrink from a plain reply. She completed her half-formed thought without a moment’s hesitation.

“I wish I could feel sure,” she answered, “that you will be kind to Mrs. Ellmother.”

“Are you afraid I shall make her life one scene of torment?” Francine inquired. “How can I answer for myself? I can’t look into the future.”

“For once in your life, can you be in earnest?” Emily said.

“For once in your life, can you take a joke?” Francine replied.

Emily said no more. She privately resolved to shorten her visit to Brighton.

BOOK THE THIRD — NETHERWOODS.

CHAPTER XXXII. IN THE GRAY ROOM.

The house inhabited by Miss Ladd and her pupils had been built, in the early part of the present century, by a wealthy merchant — proud of his money, and eager to distinguish himself as the owner of the largest country seat in the neighbourhood.

After his death, Miss Ladd had taken Netherwoods (as the place was called), finding her own house insufficient for the accommodation of the increasing number of her pupils. A lease was granted to her on moderate terms. Netherwoods failed to attract persons of distinction in search of a country residence. The grounds were beautiful; but no landed property — not even a park — was attached to the house. Excepting the few acres on which the building stood, the surrounding land belonged to a retired naval officer of old family, who resented the attempt of a merchant of low birth to assume the position of a gentleman. No matter what proposals might be made to the admiral, he refused them all. The privilege of shooting was not one of the attractions offered to tenants; the country presented no facilities for hunting; and the only stream in the neighbourhood was not preserved. In consequence of these drawbacks, the merchant’s representatives had to choose between a proposal to use Netherwoods as a lunatic asylum, or to accept as tenant the respectable mistress of a fashionable and prosperous school. They decided in favor of Miss Ladd.

The contemplated change in Francine’s position was accomplished, in that vast house, without inconvenience. There were rooms unoccupied, even when the limit assigned to the number of pupils had been reached. On the re-opening of the school, Francine was offered her choice between two rooms on one of the upper stories, and two rooms on the ground floor. She chose these last.

Her sitting-room and bedroom, situated at the back of the house, communicated with each other. The sitting-room, ornamented with a pretty paper of delicate gray, and furnished with curtains of the same colour, had been accordingly named, “The Gray Room.” It had a French window, which opened on the terrace overlooking the garden and the grounds. Some fine old engravings from the grand landscapes of Claude (part of a collection of prints possessed by Miss Ladd’s father) hung on the walls. The carpet was in harmony with the curtains; and the furniture was of light-coloured wood, which helped the general effect of subdued brightness that made the charm of the room. “If you are not happy here,” Miss Ladd said, “I despair of you.” And Francine answered, “Yes, it’s very pretty, but I wish it was not so small.”

On the twelfth of August the regular routine of the school was resumed. Alban Morris found two strangers in his class, to fill the vacancies left by Emily and Cecilia. Mrs. Ellmother was duly established in her new place. She produced an unfavorable impression in the servants’ hall — not (as the handsome chief housemaid explained) because she was ugly and old, but because she was “a person who didn’t talk.” The prejudice against habitual silence, among the lower order of the people, is almost as inveterate as the prejudice against red hair.

In the evening, on that first day of renewed studies — while the girls were in the grounds, after tea — Francine had at last completed the arrangement of her rooms, and had dismissed Mrs. Ellmother (kept hard at work since the morning) to take a little rest. Standing alone at her window, the West Indian heiress wondered what she had better do next. She glanced at the girls on the lawn, and decided that they were unworthy of serious notice, on the part of a person so specially favored as herself. She turned sidewise, and looked along the length of the terrace. At the far end a tall man was slowly pacing to and fro, with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Francine recognised the rude drawing-master, who had torn up his view of the village, after she had saved it from being blown into the pond.

She stepped out on the terrace, and called to him. He stopped, and looked up.

“Do you want me?” he called back.

“Of course I do!”

She advanced a little to meet him, and offered encouragement under the form of a hard smile. Although his manners might be unpleasant, he had claims on the indulgence of a young lady, who was at a loss how to employ her idle time. In the first place, he was a man. In the second place, he was not as old as the music-master, or as ugly as the dancing-master. In the third place, he was an admirer of Emily; and the opportunity of trying to shake his allegiance by means of a flirtation, in Emily’s absence, was too good an opportunity to be lost.

“Do you remember how rude you were to me, on the day when you were sketching in the summer-house?” Francine asked with snappish playfulness. “I expect you to make yourself agreeable this time — I am going to pay you a compliment.”

He waited, with exasperating composure, to hear what the proposed compliment might be. The furrow between his eyebrows looked deeper than ever. There were signs of secret trouble in that dark face, so grimly and so resolutely composed. The school, without Emily, presented the severest trial of endurance that he had encountered, since the day when he had been deserted and disgraced by his affianced wife.

“You are an artist,” Francine proceeded, “and therefore a person of taste. I want to have your opinion of my sitting-room. Criticism is invited; pray come in.”

He seemed to be unwilling to accept the invitation — then altered his mind, and followed Francine. She had visited Emily; she was perhaps in a fair way to become Emily’s friend. He remembered that he had already lost an opportunity of studying her character, and — if he saw the necessity — of warning Emily not to encourage the advances of Miss de Sor.