Without a care to trouble her; abroad or at home, finding
inexhaustible varieties of amusement; seeing new places, making new
acquaintances--what a disheartening contrast did Cecilia’s happy life
present to the life of her friend! Who, in Emily’s position, could have
read that joyously-written letter from Switzerland, and not have lost
heart and faith, for the moment at least, as the inevitable result?
A buoyant temperament is of all moral qualities the most precious, in
this respect; it is the one force in us--when virtuous resolution proves
insufficient--which resists by instinct the stealthy approaches of
despair. “I shall only cry,” Emily thought, “if I stay at home; better
go out.”
Observant persons, accustomed to frequent the London parks, can hardly
have failed to notice the number of solitary strangers sadly endeavoring
to vary their lives by taking a walk. They linger about the flower-beds;
they sit for hours on the benches; they look with patient curiosity at
other people who have companions; they notice ladies on horseback and
children at play, with submissive interest; some of the men find company
in a pipe, without appearing to enjoy it; some of the women find a
substitute for dinner, in little dry biscuits wrapped in crumpled scraps
of paper; they are not sociable; they are hardly ever seen to make
acquaintance with each other; perhaps they are shame-faced, or proud, or
sullen; perhaps they despair of others, being accustomed to despair
of themselves; perhaps they have their reasons for never venturing to
encounter curiosity, or their vices which dread detection, or their
virtues which suffer hardship with the resignation that is sufficient
for itself. The one thing certain is, that these unfortunate people
resist discovery. We know that they are strangers in London--and we know
no more.
And Emily was one of them.
Among the other forlorn wanderers in the Parks, there appeared latterly
a trim little figure in black (with the face protected from notice
behind a crape veil), which was beginning to be familiar, day after
day, to nursemaids and children, and to rouse curiosity among harmless
solitaries meditating on benches, and idle vagabonds strolling over the
grass. The woman-servant, whom the considerate doctor had provided, was
the one person in Emily’s absence left to take care of the house. There
was no other creature who could be a companion to the friendless girl.
Mrs. Ellmother had never shown herself again since the funeral. Mrs.
Mosey could not forget that she had been (no matter how politely)
requested to withdraw. To whom could Emily say, “Let us go out for a
walk?” She had communicated the news of her aunt’s death to Miss Ladd,
at Brighton; and had heard from Francine. The worthy schoolmistress had
written to her with the truest kindness. “Choose your own time, my poor
child, and come and stay with me at Brighton; the sooner the better.”
Emily shrank--not from accepting the invitation--but from encountering
Francine. The hard West Indian heiress looked harder than ever with
a pen in her hand. Her letter announced that she was “getting on
wretchedly with her studies (which she hated); she found the masters
appointed to instruct her ugly and disagreeable (and loathed the sight
of them); she had taken a dislike to Miss Ladd (and time only confirmed
that unfavorable impression); Brighton was always the same; the sea
was always the same; the drives were always the same. Francine felt a
presentiment that she should do something desperate, unless Emily joined
her, and made Brighton endurable behind the horrid schoolmistress’s
back.” Solitude in London was a privilege and a pleasure, viewed as the
alternative to such companionship as this.
Emily wrote gratefully to Miss Ladd, and asked to be excused.
Other days had passed drearily since that time; but the one day that had
brought with it Cecilia’s letter set past happiness and present sorrow
together so vividly and so cruelly that Emily’s courage sank. She had
forced back the tears, in her lonely home; she had gone out to seek
consolation and encouragement under the sunny sky--to find comfort for
her sore heart in the radiant summer beauty of flowers and grass, in
the sweet breathing of the air, in the happy heavenward soaring of the
birds. No! Mother Nature is stepmother to the sick at heart. Soon,
too soon, she could hardly see where she went. Again and again she
resolutely cleared her eyes, under the shelter of her veil, when passing
strangers noticed her; and again and again the tears found their way
back. Oh, if the girls at the school were to see her now--the girls
who used to say in their moments of sadness, “Let us go to Emily and be
cheered”--would they know her again? She sat down to rest and recover
herself on the nearest bench. It was unoccupied. No passing footsteps
were audible on the remote path to which she had strayed. Solitude at
home! Solitude in the Park! Where was Cecilia at that moment? In
Italy, among the lakes and mountains, happy in the company of her
light-hearted friend.
The lonely interval passed, and persons came near. Two sisters, girls
like herself, stopped to rest on the bench.
They were full of their own interests; they hardly looked at the
stranger in mourning garments. The younger sister was to be married, and
the elder was to be bridesmaid. They talked of their dresses and their
presents; they compared the dashing bridegroom of one with the timid
lover of the other; they laughed over their own small sallies of wit,
over their joyous dreams of the future, over their opinions of the
guests invited to the wedding. Too joyfully restless to remain inactive
any longer, they jumped up again from the seat. One of them said,
“Polly, I’m too happy!” and danced as she walked away. The other
cried, “Sally, for shame!” and laughed, as if she had hit on the most
irresistible joke that ever was made.
Emily rose and went home.
By some mysterious influence which she was unable to trace, the
boisterous merriment of the two girls had roused in her a sense of
revolt against the life that she was leading. Change, speedy change, to
some occupation that would force her to exert herself, presented the
one promise of brighter days that she could see. To feel this was to be
inevitably reminded of Sir Jervis Redwood. Here was a man, who had never
seen her, transformed by the incomprehensible operation of Chance into
the friend of whom she stood in need--the friend who pointed the way to
a new world of action, the busy world of readers in the library of the
Museum.
Early in the new week, Emily had accepted Sir Jervis’s proposal, and
had so interested the bookseller to whom she had been directed to apply,
that he took it on himself to modify the arbitrary instructions of his
employer.
“The old gentleman has no mercy on himself, and no mercy on others,”
he explained, “where his literary labors are concerned. You must spare
yourself, Miss Emily. It is not only absurd, it’s cruel, to expect you
to ransack old newspapers for discoveries in Yucatan, from the time when
Stephens published his ‘Travels in Central America’--nearly forty years
since! Begin with back numbers published within a few years--say five
years from the present date--and let us see what your search over that
interval will bring forth.”
Accepting this friendly advice, Emily began with the newspaper-volume
dating from New Year’s Day, 1876.
The first hour of her search strengthened the sincere sense of gratitude
with which she remembered the bookseller’s kindness. To keep her
attention steadily fixed on the one subject that interested her
employer, and to resist the temptation to read those miscellaneous items
of news which especially interest women, put her patience and resolution
to a merciless test. Happily for herself, her neighbors on either side
were no idlers. To see them so absorbed over their work that they never
once looked at her, after the first moment when she took her place
between them, was to find exactly the example of which she stood most in
need. As the hours wore on, she pursued her weary way, down one column
and up another, resigned at least (if not quite reconciled yet) to her
task. Her labors ended, for the day, with such encouragement as she
might derive from the conviction of having, thus far, honestly pursued a
useless search.
News was waiting for her when she reached home, which raised her sinking
spirits.
On leaving the cottage that morning she had given certain instructions,
relating to the modest stranger who had taken charge of her
correspondence--in case of his paying a second visit, during her absence
at the Museum. The first words spoken by the servant, on opening the
door, informed her that the unknown gentleman had called again. This
time he had boldly left his card. There was the welcome name that she
had expected to see--Alban Morris.