Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1252 page)

“Kent.”

“Among the hop gardens?”

“No.”

“In what other part, then?”

“Isle of Thanet.”

“Near the sea coast?”

“Yes.”

Even Francine could insist no longer: Mrs. Ellmother’s reserve had beaten her — for that day at least. “Go into the hall,” she said, “and see if there are any letters for me in the rack.”

There was a letter bearing the Swiss postmark. Simple Cecilia was flattered and delighted by the charming manner in which Francine had written to her. She looked forward with impatience to the time when their present acquaintance might ripen into friendship. Would “Dear Miss de Sor” waive all ceremony, and consent to be a guest (later in the autumn) at her father’s house? Circumstances connected with her sister’s health would delay their return to England for a little while. By the end of the month she hoped to be at home again, and to hear if Francine was disengaged. Her address, in England, was Monksmoor Park, Hants.

Having read the letter, Francine drew a moral from it: “There is great use in a fool, when one knows how to manage her.”

Having little appetite for her breakfast, she tried the experiment of a walk on the terrace. Alban Morris was right; the air at Netherwoods, in the summer time,
was
relaxing. The morning mist still hung over the lowest part of the valley, between the village and the hills beyond. A little exercise produced a feeling of fatigue. Francine returned to her room, and trifled with her tea and toast.

Her next proceeding was to open her writing-desk, and look into the old account-book once more. While it lay open on her lap, she recalled what had passed that morning, between Mrs. Ellmother and herself.

The old woman had been born and bred in the North, on an open moor. She had been removed to the keen air of Canada when she left her birthplace. She had been in service after that, on the breezy eastward coast of Kent. Would the change to the climate of Netherwoods produce any effect on Mrs. Ellmother? At her age, and with her seasoned constitution, would she feel it as those school-girls had felt it — especially that one among them, who lived in the bracing air of the North, the air of Yorkshire?

Weary of solitary thinking on one subject, Francine returned to the terrace with a vague idea of finding something to amuse her — that is to say, something she could turn into ridicule — if she joined the girls.

The next morning, Mrs. Ellmother answered her mistress’s bell without delay. “You have slept better, this time?” Francine said.

“No, miss. When I did get to sleep I was troubled by dreams. Another bad night — and no mistake!”

“I suspect your mind is not quite at ease,” Francine suggested.

“Why do you suspect that, if you please?”

“You talked, when I met you at Miss Emily’s, of wanting to get away from your own thoughts. Has the change to this place helped you?”

“It hasn’t helped me as I expected. Some people’s thoughts stick fast.”

“Remorseful thoughts?” Francine inquired.

Mrs. Ellmother held up her forefinger, and shook it with a gesture of reproof. “I thought we agreed, miss, that there was to be no pumping.”

The business of the toilet proceeded in silence.

A week passed. During an interval in the labours of the school, Miss Ladd knocked at the door of Francine’s room.

“I want to speak to you, my dear, about Mrs. Ellmother. Have you noticed that she doesn’t seem to be in good health?”

“She looks rather pale, Miss Ladd.”

“It’s more serious than that, Francine. The servants tell me that she has hardly any appetite. She herself acknowledges that she sleeps badly. I noticed her yesterday evening in the garden, under the schoolroom window. One of the girls dropped a dictionary. She started at that slight noise, as if it terrified her. Her nerves are seriously out of order. Can you prevail upon her to see the doctor?”

Francine hesitated — and made an excuse. “I think she would be much more likely, Miss Ladd, to listen to you. Do you mind speaking to her?”

“Certainly not!”

Mrs. Ellmother was immediately sent for. “What is your pleasure, miss?” she said to Francine.

Miss Ladd interposed. “It is I who wish to speak to you, Mrs. Ellmother. For some days past, I have been sorry to see you looking ill.”

“I never was ill in my life, ma’am.”

Miss Ladd gently persisted. “I hear that you have lost your appetite.”

“I never was a great eater, ma’am.”

It was evidently useless to risk any further allusion to Mrs. Ellmother’s symptoms. Miss Ladd tried another method of persuasion. “I daresay I may be mistaken,” she said; “but I do really feel anxious about you. To set my mind at rest, will you see the doctor?”

“The doctor! Do you think I’m going to begin taking physic, at my time of life? Lord, ma’am! you amuse me — you do indeed!” She burst into a sudden fit of laughter; the hysterical laughter which is on the verge of tears. With a desperate effort, she controlled herself. “Please, don’t make a fool of me again,” she said — and left the room.

“What do you think now?” Miss Ladd asked.

Francine appeared to be still on her guard.

“I don’t know what to think,” she said evasively.

Miss Ladd looked at her in silent surprise, and withdrew.

Left by herself, Francine sat with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, absorbed in thought. After a long interval, she opened her desk — and hesitated. She took a sheet of note-paper — and paused, as if still in doubt. She snatched up her pen, with a sudden recovery of resolution — and addressed these lines to the wife of her father’s agent in London:

“When I was placed under your care, on the night of my arrival from the West Indies, you kindly said I might ask you for any little service which might be within your power. I shall be greatly obliged if you can obtain for me, and send to this place, a supply of artists’ modeling wax — sufficient for the product ion of a small image.”

CHAPTER XXXIV. IN THE DARK.

A week later, Alban Morris happened to be in Miss Ladd’s study, with a report to make on the subject of his drawing-class. Mrs. Ellmother interrupted them for a moment. She entered the room to return a book which Francine had borrowed that morning.

“Has Miss de Sor done with it already?” Miss Ladd asked.

“She won’t read it, ma’am. She says the leaves smell of tobacco-smoke.”

Miss Ladd turned to Alban, and shook her head with an air of good-humored reproof. “I know who has been reading that book last!” she said.

Alban pleaded guilty, by a look. He was the only master in the school who smoked. As Mrs. Ellmother passed him, on her way out, he noticed the signs of suffering in her wasted face.

“That woman is surely in a bad state of health,” he said. “Has she seen the doctor?”

“She flatly refuses to consult the doctor,” Miss Ladd replied. “If she was a stranger, I should meet the difficulty by telling Miss de Sor (whose servant she is) that Mrs. Ellmother must be sent home. But I cannot act in that peremptory manner toward a person in whom Emily is interested.”

From that moment Mrs. Ellmother became a person in whom Alban was interested. Later in the day, he met her in one of the lower corridors of the house, and spoke to her. “I am afraid the air of this place doesn’t agree with you,” he said.

Mrs. Ellmother’s irritable objection to being told (even indirectly) that she looked ill, expressed itself roughly in reply. “I daresay you mean well, sir — but I don’t see how it matters to you whether the place agrees with me or not.”

“Wait a minute,” Alban answered good-humoredly. “I am not quite a stranger to you.”

“How do you make that out, if you please?”

“I know a young lady who has a sincere regard for you.”

“You don’t mean Miss Emily?”

“Yes, I do. I respect and admire Miss Emily; and I have tried, in my poor way, to be of some little service to her.”

Mrs. Ellmother’s haggard face instantly softened. “Please to forgive me, sir, for forgetting my manners,” she said simply. “I have had my health since the day I was born — and I don’t like to be told, in my old age, that a new place doesn’t agree with me.”

Alban accepted this apology in a manner which at once won the heart of the North-countrywoman. He shook hands with her. “You’re one of the right sort,” she said; “there are not many of them in this house.”

Was she alluding to Francine? Alban tried to make the discovery. Polite circumlocution would be evidently thrown away on Mrs. Ellmother. “Is your new mistress one of the right sort?” he asked bluntly.

The old servant’s answer was expressed by a frowning look, followed by a plain question.

“Do you say that, sir, because you like my new mistress?”

“No.”

“Please to shake hands again!” She said it — took his hand with a sudden grip that spoke for itself — and walked away.

Here was an exhibition of character which Alban was just the man to appreciate. “If I had been an old woman,” he thought in his dryly humorous way, “I believe I should have been like Mrs. Ellmother. We might have talked of Emily, if she had not left me in such a hurry. When shall I see her again?”

He was destined to see her again, that night — under circumstances which he remembered to the end of his life.

The rules of Netherwoods, in summer time, recalled the young ladies from their evening’s recreation in the grounds at nine o’clock. After that hour, Alban was free to smoke his pipe, and to linger among trees and flower-beds before he returned to his hot little rooms in the village. As a relief to the drudgery of teaching the young ladies, he had been using his pencil, when the day’s lessons were over, for his own amusement. It was past ten o’clock before he lighted his pipe, and began walking slowly to and fro on the path which led to the summer-house, at the southern limit of the grounds.

In the perfect stillness of the night, the clock of the village church was distinctly audible, striking the hours and the quarters. The moon had not risen; but the mysterious glimmer of starlight trembled on the large open space between the trees and the house.

Alban paused, admiring with an artist’s eye the effect of light, so faintly and delicately beautiful, on the broad expanse of the lawn. “Does the man live who could paint that?” he asked himself. His memory recalled the works of the greatest of all landscape painters — the English artists of fifty years since. While recollections of many a noble picture were still passing through his mind, he was startled by the sudden appearance of a bareheaded woman on the terrace steps.

She hurried down to the lawn, staggering as she ran — stopped, and looked back at the house — hastened onward toward the trees — stopped again, looking backward and forward, uncertain which way to turn next — and then advanced once more. He could now hear her heavily gasping for breath. As she came nearer, the starlight showed a panic-stricken face — the face of Mrs. Ellmother.

Alban ran to meet her. She dropped on the grass before he could cross the short distance which separated them. As he raised her in his arms she looked at him wildly, and murmured and muttered in the vain attempt to speak. “Look at me again,” he said. “Don’t you remember the man who had some talk with you to-day?” She still stared at him vacantly: he tried again. “Don’t you remember Miss Emily’s friend?”

As the name passed his lips, her mind in some degree recovered its balance. “Yes,” she said; “Emily’s friend; I’m glad I have met with Emily’s friend.” She caught at Alban’s arm — starting as if her own words had alarmed her. “What am I talking about? Did I say ‘Emily’? A servant ought to say ‘Miss Emily.’ My head swims. Am I going mad?”