The woman’s lean, long-fingered hand pointed to the candle.
“Don’t put it out.” Saying those words, she looked round the room, and
satisfied herself that the other girls were asleep.
Emily laid down the extinguisher. “You mean to report us, of course,”
she said. “I am the only one awake, Miss Jethro; lay the blame on me.”
“I have no intention of reporting you. But I have something to say.”
She paused, and pushed her thick black hair (already streaked with gray)
back from her temples. Her eyes, large and dark and dim, rested on
Emily with a sorrowful interest. “When your young friends wake to-morrow
morning,” she went on, “you can tell them that the new teacher, whom
nobody likes, has left the school.”
For once, even quick-witted Emily was bewildered. “Going away,” she
said, “when you have only been here since Easter!”
Miss Jethro advanced, not noticing Emily’s expression of surprise. “I am
not very strong at the best of times,” she continued, “may I sit down
on your bed?” Remarkable on other occasions for her cold composure, her
voice trembled as she made that request--a strange request surely, when
there were chairs at her disposal.
Emily made room for her with the dazed look of a girl in a dream. “I
beg your pardon, Miss Jethro, one of the things I can’t endure is being
puzzled. If you don’t mean to report us, why did you come in and catch
me with the light?”
Miss Jethro’s explanation was far from relieving the perplexity which
her conduct had caused.
“I have been mean enough,” she answered, “to listen at the door, and I
heard you talking of your father. I want to hear more about him. That is
why I came in.”
“You knew my father!” Emily exclaimed.
“I believe I knew him. But his name is so common--there are so many
thousands of ‘James Browns’ in England--that I am in fear of making a
mistake. I heard you say that he died nearly four years since. Can you
mention any particulars which might help to enlighten me? If you think I
am taking a liberty--”
Emily stopped her. “I would help you if I could,” she said. “But I was
in poor health at the time; and I was staying with friends far away in
Scotland, to try change of air. The news of my father’s death brought on
a relapse. Weeks passed before I was strong enough to travel--weeks and
weeks before I saw his grave! I can only tell you what I know from my
aunt. He died of heart-complaint.”
Miss Jethro started.
Emily looked at her for the first time, with eyes that betrayed a
feeling of distrust. “What have I said to startle you?” she asked.
“Nothing! I am nervous in stormy weather--don’t notice me.” She went on
abruptly with her inquiries. “Will you tell me the date of your father’s
death?”
“The date was the thirtieth of September, nearly four years since.”
She waited, after that reply.
Miss Jethro was silent.
“And this,” Emily continued, “is the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred
and eighty-one. You can now judge for yourself. Did you know my father?”
Miss Jethro answered mechanically, using the same words.
“I did know your father.”
Emily’s feeling of distrust was not set at rest. “I never heard him
speak of you,” she said.
In her younger days the teacher must have been a handsome woman.
Her grandly-formed features still suggested the idea of imperial
beauty--perhaps Jewish in its origin. When Emily said, “I never heard
him speak of you,” the color flew into her pallid cheeks: her dim eyes
became alive again with a momentary light. She left her seat on the bed,
and, turning away, mastered the emotion that shook her.
“How hot the night is!” she said: and sighed, and resumed the subject
with a steady countenance. “I am not surprised that your father never
mentioned me--to _you_.” She spoke quietly, but her face was paler than
ever. She sat down again on the bed. “Is there anything I can do for
you,” she asked, “before I go away? Oh, I only mean some trifling
service that would lay you under no obligation, and would not oblige you
to keep up your acquaintance with me.”
Her eyes--the dim black eyes that must once have been irresistibly
beautiful--looked at Emily so sadly that the generous girl reproached
herself for having doubted her father’s friend. “Are you thinking of
_him_,” she said gently, “when you ask if you can be of service to me?”
Miss Jethro made no direct reply. “You were fond of your father?” she
added, in a whisper. “You told your schoolfellow that your heart still
aches when you speak of him.”
“I only told her the truth,” Emily answered simply.
Miss Jethro shuddered--on that hot night!--shuddered as if a chill had
struck her.
Emily held out her hand; the kind feeling that had been roused in
her glittered prettily in her eyes. “I am afraid I have not done you
justice,” she said. “Will you forgive me and shake hands?”
Miss Jethro rose, and drew back. “Look at the light!” she exclaimed.
The candle was all burned out. Emily still offered her hand--and still
Miss Jethro refused to see it.
“There is just light enough left,” she said, “to show me my way to the
door. Good-night--and good-by.”
Emily caught at her dress, and stopped her. “Why won’t you shake hands
with me?” she asked.
The wick of the candle fell over in the socket, and left them in the
dark. Emily resolutely held the teacher’s dress. With or without light,
she was still bent on making Miss Jethro explain herself.
They had throughout spoken in guarded tones, fearing to disturb the
sleeping girls. The sudden darkness had its inevitable effect. Their
voices sank to whispers now. “My father’s friend,” Emily pleaded, “is
surely my friend?”
“Drop the subject.”
“Why?”
“You can never be _my_ friend.”
“Why not?”
“Let me go!”
Emily’s sense of self-respect forbade her to persist any longer. “I beg
your pardon for having kept you here against your will,” she said--and
dropped her hold on the dress.
Miss Jethro instantly yielded on her side. “I am sorry to have been
obstinate,” she answered. “If you do despise me, it is after all no more
than I have deserved.” Her hot breath beat on Emily’s face: the unhappy
woman must have bent over the bed as she made her confession. “I am not
a fit person for you to associate with.”
“I don’t believe it!”
Miss Jethro sighed bitterly. “Young and warm hearted--I was once like
you!” She controlled that outburst of despair. Her next words were
spoken in steadier tones. “You _will_ have it--you _shall_ have it!”
she said. “Some one (in this house or out of it; I don’t know which)
has betrayed me to the mistress of the school. A wretch in my situation
suspects everybody, and worse still, does it without reason or excuse.
I heard you girls talking when you ought to have been asleep. You all
dislike me. How did I know it mightn’t be one of you? Absurd, to a
person with a well-balanced mind! I went halfway up the stairs, and felt
ashamed of myself, and went back to my room. If I could only have got
some rest! Ah, well, it was not to be done. My own vile suspicions kept
me awake; I left my bed again. You know what I heard on the other side
of that door, and why I was interested in hearing it. Your father never
told me he had a daughter. ‘Miss Brown,’ at this school, was any ‘Miss
Brown,’ to me. I had no idea of who you really were until to-night.
I’m wandering. What does all this matter to you? Miss Ladd has been
merciful; she lets me go without exposing me. You can guess what has
happened. No? Not even yet? Is it innocence or kindness that makes
you so slow to understand? My dear, I have obtained admission to
this respectable house by means of false references, and I have been
discovered. _Now_ you know why you must not be the friend of such a
woman as I am! Once more, good-night--and good-by.”
Emily shrank from that miserable farewell.
“Bid me good-night,” she said, “but don’t bid me good-by. Let me see you
again.”
“Never!”
The sound of the softly-closed door was just audible in the darkness.
She had spoken--she had gone--never to be seen by Emily again.
Miserable, interesting, unfathomable creature--the problem that night of
Emily’s waking thoughts: the phantom of her dreams. “Bad? or good?” she
asked herself. “False; for she listened at the door. True; for she told
me the tale of her own disgrace. A friend of my father; and she never
knew that he had a daughter. Refined, accomplished, lady-like; and she
stoops to use a false reference. Who is to reconcile such contradictions
as these?”
Dawn looked in at the window--dawn of the memorable day which was, for
Emily, the beginning of a new life. The years were before her; and the
years in their course reveal baffling mysteries of life and death.