The arrival of Miss Ladd, some time before she had been expected,
interrupted the two girls at a critical moment. She had hurried over her
business in London, eager to pass the rest of the day with her favorite
pupil. Emily’s affectionate welcome was, in some degree at least,
inspired by a sensation of relief. To feel herself in the embrace of the
warm-hearted schoolmistress was like finding a refuge from Francine.
When the hour of departure arrived, Miss Ladd invited Emily to Brighton
for the second time. “On the last occasion, my dear, you wrote me an
excuse; I won’t be treated in that way again. If you can’t return with
us now, come to-morrow.” She added in a whisper, “Otherwise, I shall
think you include _me_ in your dislike of Francine.”
There was no resisting this. It was arranged that Emily should go to
Brighton on the next day.
Left by herself, her thoughts might have reverted to Mrs. Ellmother’s
doubtful prospects, and to Francine’s strange allusion to her life in
the West Indies, but for the arrival of two letters by the afternoon
post. The handwriting on one of them was unknown to her. She opened
that one first. It was an answer to the letter of apology which she
had persisted in writing to Mrs. Rook. Happily for herself, Alban’s
influence had not been without its effect, after his departure. She had
written kindly--but she had written briefly at the same time.
Mrs. Rook’s reply presented a nicely compounded mixture of gratitude and
grief. The gratitude was addressed to Emily as a matter of course.
The grief related to her “excellent master.” Sir Jervis’s strength had
suddenly failed. His medical attendant, being summoned, had expressed
no surprise. “My patient is over seventy years of age,” the doctor
remarked. “He will sit up late at night, writing his book; and he
refuses to take exercise, till headache and giddiness force him to try
the fresh air. As the necessary result, he has broken down at last. It
may end in paralysis, or it may end in death.” Reporting this expression
of medical opinion, Mrs. Rook’s letter glided imperceptibly from
respectful sympathy to modest regard for her own interests in the
future. It might be the sad fate of her husband and herself to be thrown
on the world again. If necessity brought them to London, would “kind
Miss Emily grant her the honor of an interview, and favor a poor unlucky
woman with a word of advice?”
“She may pervert your letter to some use of her own, which you may have
reason to regret.” Did Emily remember Alban’s warning words? No: she
accepted Mrs. Rook’s reply as a gratifying tribute to the justice of her
own opinions.
Having proposed to write to Alban, feeling penitently that she had
been in the wrong, she was now readier than ever to send him a letter,
feeling compassionately that she had been in the right. Besides, it was
due to the faithful friend, who was still working for her in the reading
room, that he should be informed of Sir Jervis’s illness. Whether the
old man lived or whether he died, his literary labors were fatally
interrupted in either case; and one of the consequences would be the
termination of her employment at the Museum. Although the second of the
two letters which she had received was addressed to her in Cecilia’s
handwriting, Emily waited to read it until she had first written to
Alban. “He will come to-morrow,” she thought; “and we shall both make
apologies. I shall regret that I was angry with him and he will regret
that he was mistaken in his judgment of Mrs. Rook. We shall be as good
friends again as ever.”
In this happy frame of mind she opened Cecilia’s letter. It was full of
good news from first to last.
The invalid sister had made such rapid progress toward recovery that the
travelers had arranged to set forth on their journey back to England in
a fortnight. “My one regret,” Cecilia added, “is the parting with Lady
Doris. She and her husband are going to Genoa, where they will embark
in Lord Janeaway’s yacht for a cruise in the Mediterranean. When we have
said that miserable word good-by--oh, Emily, what a hurry I shall be in
to get back to you! Those allusions to your lonely life are so dreadful,
my dear, that I have destroyed your letter; it is enough to break one’s
heart only to look at it. When once I get to London, there shall be no
more solitude for my poor afflicted friend. Papa will be free from his
parliamentary duties in August--and he has promised to have the house
full of delightful people to meet you. Who do you think will be one of
our guests? He is illustrious; he is fascinating; he deserves a line all
to himself, thus:
“The Reverend Miles Mirabel!
“Lady Doris has discovered that the country parsonage, in which this
brilliant clergyman submits to exile, is only twelve miles away from our
house. She has written to Mr. Mirabel to introduce me, and to
mention the date of my return. We will have some fun with the popular
preacher--we will both fall in love with him together.
“Is there anybody to whom you would like me to send an invitation? Shall
we have Mr. Alban Morris? Now I know how kindly he took care of you at
the railway station, your good opinion of him is my opinion. Your letter
also mentions a doctor. Is he nice? and do you think he will let me eat
pastry, if we have him too? I am so overflowing with hospitality (all
for your sake) that I am ready to invite anybody, and everybody, to
cheer you and make you happy. Would you like to meet Miss Ladd and the
whole school?
“As to our amusements, make your mind easy.
“I have come to a distinct understanding with Papa that we are to have
dances every evening--except when we try a little concert as a change.
Private theatricals are to follow, when we want another change after
the dancing and the music. No early rising; no fixed hour for breakfast;
everything that is most exquisitely delicious at dinner--and, to crown
all, your room next to mine, for delightful midnight gossipings, when we
ought to be in bed. What do you say, darling, to the programme?
“A last piece of news--and I have done.
“I have actually had a proposal of marriage, from a young gentleman who
sits opposite me at the table d’hote! When I tell you that he has white
eyelashes, and red hands, and such enormous front teeth that he can’t
shut his mouth, you will not need to be told that I refused him. This
vindictive person has abused me ever since, in the most shameful manner.
I heard him last night, under my window, trying to set one of his
friends against me. ‘Keep clear of her, my dear fellow; she’s the most
heartless creature living.’ The friend took my part; he said, ‘I don’t
agree with you; the young lady is a person of great sensibility.’
‘Nonsense!’ says my amiable lover; ‘she eats too much--her sensibility
is all stomach.’ There’s a wretch for you. What a shameful advantage to
take of sitting opposite to me at dinner! Good-by, my love, till we meet
soon, and are as happy together as the day is long.”
Emily kissed the signature. At that moment of all others, Cecilia was
such a refreshing contrast to Francine!
Before putting the letter away, she looked again at that part of it
which mentioned Lady Doris’s introduction of Cecilia to Mr. Mirabel. “I
don’t feel the slightest interest in Mr. Mirabel,” she thought, smiling
as the idea occurred to her; “and I need never have known him, but for
Lady Doris--who is a perfect stranger to me.”
She had just placed the letter in her desk, when a visitor was
announced. Doctor Allday presented himself (in a hurry as usual).
“Another patient waiting?” Emily asked mischievously. “No time to spare,
again?”
“Not a moment,” the old gentleman answered. “Have you heard from Mrs.
Ellmother?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t mean to say you have answered her?”
“I have done better than that, doctor--I have seen her this morning.”
“And consented to be her reference, of course?”
“How well you know me!”
Doctor Allday was a philosopher: he kept his temper. “Just what I might
have expected,” he said. “Eve and the apple! Only forbid a woman to do
anything, and she does it directly--be cause you have forbidden her.
I’ll try the other way with you now, Miss Emily. There was something
else that I meant to have forbidden.”
“What was it?”
“May I make a special request?”
“Certainly.”
“Oh, my dear, write to Mrs. Rook! I beg and entreat of you, write to
Mrs. Rook!”
Emily’s playful manner suddenly disappeared.
Ignoring the doctor’s little outbreak of humor, she waited in grave
surprise, until it was his pleasure to explain himself.
Doctor Allday, on his side, ignored the ominous change in Emily; he went
on as pleasantly as ever. “Mr. Morris and I have had a long talk about
you, my dear. Mr. Morris is a capital fellow; I recommend him as a
sweetheart. I also back him in the matter of Mrs. Rook.--What’s the
matter now? You’re as red as a rose. Temper again, eh?”
“Hatred of meanness!” Emily answered indignantly. “I despise a man who
plots, behind my back, to get another man to help him. Oh, how I have
been mistaken in Alban Morris!”
“Oh, how little you know of the best friend you have!” cried the doctor,
imitating her. “Girls are all alike; the only man they can understand,
is the man who flatters them. _Will_ you oblige me by writing to Mrs.
Rook?”
Emily made an attempt to match the doctor, with his own weapons. “Your
little joke comes too late,” she said satirically. “There is Mrs. Rook’s
answer. Read it, and--” she checked herself, even in her anger she was
incapable of speaking ungenerously to the old man who had so warmly
befriended her. “I won’t say to _you_,” she resumed, “what I might have
said to another person.”
“Shall I say it for you?” asked the incorrigible doctor. “‘Read it, and
be ashamed of yourself’--That was what you had in your mind, isn’t it?
Anything to please you, my dear.” He put on his spectacles, read the
letter, and handed it back to Emily with an impenetrable countenance.
“What do you think of my new spectacles?” he asked, as he took the
glasses off his nose. “In the experience of thirty years, I have had
three grateful patients.” He put the spectacles back in the case. “This
comes from the third. Very gratifying--very gratifying.”
Emily’s sense of humor was not the uppermost sense in her at that
moment. She pointed with a peremptory forefinger to Mrs. Rook’s letter.
“Have you nothing to say about this?”
The doctor had so little to say about it that he was able to express
himself in one word:
“Humbug!”
He took his hat--nodded kindly to Emily--and hurried away to feverish
pulses waiting to be felt, and to furred tongues that were ashamed to
show themselves.