In the meanwhile Emily had been true to her promise to relieve Mirabel’s
anxieties, on the subject of Miss Jethro. Entering the drawing-room in
search of Alban, she found him talking with Cecilia, and heard her own
name mentioned as she opened the door.
“Here she is at last!” Cecilia exclaimed. “What in the world has kept
you all this time in the rose garden?”
“Has Mr. Mirabel been more interesting than usual?” Alban asked gayly.
Whatever sense of annoyance he might have felt in Emily’s absence, was
forgotten the moment she appeared; all traces of trouble in his face
vanished when they looked at each other.
“You shall judge for yourself,” Emily replied with a smile. “Mr. Mirabel
has been speaking to me of a relative who is very dear to him--his
sister.”
Cecilia was surprised. “Why has he never spoken to _us_ of his sister?”
she asked.
“It’s a sad subject to speak of, my dear. His sister lives a life of
suffering--she has been for years a prisoner in her room. He writes to
her constantly. His letters from Monksmoor have interested her, poor
soul. It seems he said something about me--and she has sent a kind
message, inviting me to visit her one of these days. Do you understand
it now, Cecilia?”
“Of course I do! Tell me--is Mr. Mirabel’s sister older or younger than
he is?”
“Older.”
“Is she married?”
“She is a widow.”
“Does she live with her brother?” Alban asked.
“Oh, no! She has her own house--far away in Northumberland.”
“Is she near Sir Jervis Redwood?”
“I fancy not. Her house is on the coast.”
“Any children?” Cecilia inquired.
“No; she is quite alone. Now, Cecilia, I have told you all I know--and
I have something to say to Mr. Morris. No, you needn’t leave us; it’s a
subject in which you are interested. A subject,” she repeated, turning
to Alban, “which you may have noticed is not very agreeable to me.”
“Miss Jethro?” Alban guessed.
“Yes; Miss Jethro.”
Cecilia’s curiosity instantly asserted itself.
“_We_ have tried to get Mr. Mirabel to enlighten us, and tried in vain,”
she said. “You are a favorite. Have you succeeded?”
“I have made no attempt to succeed,” Emily replied. “My only object is
to relieve Mr. Mirabel’s anxiety, if I can--with your help, Mr. Morris.”
“In what way can I help you?”
“You mustn’t be angry.”
“Do I look angry?”
“You look serious. It is a very simple thing. Mr. Mirabel is afraid that
Miss Jethro may have said something disagreeable about him, which
you might hesitate to repeat. Is he making himself uneasy without any
reason?”
“Without the slightest reason. I have concealed nothing from Mr.
Mirabel.”
“Thank you for the explanation.” She turned to Cecilia. “May I send
one of the servants with a message? I may as well put an end to Mr.
Mirabel’s suspense.”
The man was summoned, and was dispatched with the message. Emily would
have done well, after this, if she had abstained from speaking further
of Miss Jethro. But Mirabel’s doubts had, unhappily, inspired a
similar feeling of uncertainty in her own mind. She was now disposed to
attribute the tone of mystery in Alban’s unlucky letter to some possible
concealment suggested by regard for herself. “I wonder whether _I_ have
any reason to feel uneasy?” she said--half in jest, half in earnest.
“Uneasy about what?” Alban inquired.
“About Miss Jethro, of course! Has she said anything of me which your
kindness has concealed?”
Alban seemed to be a little hurt by the doubt which her question
implied. “Was that your motive,” he asked, “for answering my letter as
cautiously as if you had been writing to a stranger?”
“Indeed you are quite wrong!” Emily earnestly assured him. “I was
perplexed and startled--and I took Mr. Wyvil’s advice, before I wrote to
you. Shall we drop the subject?”
Alban would have willingly dropped the subject--but for that unfortunate
allusion to Mr. Wyvil. Emily had unconsciously touched him on a sore
place. He had already heard from Cecilia of the consultation over his
letter, and had disapproved of it. “I think you were wrong to trouble
Mr. Wyvil,” he said.
The altered tone of his voice suggested to Emily that he would have
spoken more severely, if Cecilia had not been in the room. She thought
him needlessly ready to complain of a harmless proceeding--and she too
returned to the subject, after having proposed to drop it not a minute
since!
“You didn’t tell me I was to keep your letter a secret,” she replied.
Cecilia made matters worse--with the best intentions. “I’m sure, Mr.
Morris, my father was only too glad to give Emily his advice.”
Alban remained silent--ungraciously silent as Emily thought, after Mr.
Wyvil’s kindness to him.
“The thing to regret,” she remarked, “is that Mr. Morris allowed Miss
Jethro to leave him without explaining herself. In his place, I should
have insisted on knowing why she wanted to prevent me from meeting Mr.
Mirabel in this house.”
Cecilia made another unlucky attempt at judicious interference. This
time, she tried a gentle remonstrance.
“Remember, Emily, how Mr. Morris was situated. He could hardly be rude
to a lady. And I daresay Miss Jethro had good reasons for not wishing to
explain herself.”
Francine opened the drawing-room door and heard Cecilia’s last words.
“Miss Jethro again!” she exclaimed.
“Where is Mr. Mirabel?” Emily asked. “I sent him a message.”
“He regrets to say he is otherwise engaged for the present,” Francine
replied with spiteful politeness. “Don’t let me interrupt the
conversation. Who is this Miss Jethro, whose name is on everybody’s
lips?”
Alban could keep silent no longer. “We have done with the subject,” he
said sharply.
“Because I am here?”
“Because we have said more than enough about Miss Jethro already.”
“Speak for yourself, Mr. Morris,” Emily answered, resenting the
masterful tone which Alban’s interference had assumed. “I have not done
with Miss Jethro yet, I can assure you.”
“My dear, you don’t know where she lives,” Cecilia reminded her.
“Leave me to discover it!” Emily answered hotly. “Perhaps Mr. Mirabel
knows. I shall ask Mr. Mirabel.”
“I thought you would find a reason for returning to Mr. Mirabel,”
Francine remarked.
Before Emily could reply, one of the maids entered the room with a
wreath of roses in her hand.
“Mr. Mirabel sends you these flowers, miss,” the woman said, addressing
Emily. “The boy told me they were to be taken to your room. I thought it
was a mistake, and I have brought them to you here.”
Francine, who happened to be nearest to the door, took the roses from
the girl on pretense of handing them to Emily. Her jealous vigilance
detected the one visible morsel of Mirabel’s letter, twisted up with the
flowers. Had Emily entrapped him into a secret correspondence with her?
“A scrap of waste paper among your roses,” she said, crumpling it up in
her hand as if she meant to throw it away.
But Emily was too quick for her. She caught Francine by the wrist.
“Waste paper or not,” she said; “it was among my flowers and it belongs
to me.”
Francine gave up the letter, with a look which might have startled Emily
if she had noticed it. She handed the roses to Cecilia. “I was making
a wreath for you to wear this evening, my dear--and I left it in the
garden. It’s not quite finished yet.”
Cecilia was delighted. “How lovely it is!” she exclaimed. “And how
very kind of you! I’ll finish it myself.” She turned away to the
conservatory.
“I had no idea I was interfering with a letter,” said Francine; watching
Emily with fiercely-attentive eyes, while she smoothed out the crumpled
paper.
Having read what Mirabel had written to her, Emily looked up, and saw
that Alban was on the point of following Cecilia into the conservatory.
He had noticed something in Francine’s face which he was at a loss to
understand, but which made her presence in the room absolutely hateful
to him. Emily followed and spoke to him.
“I am going back to the rose garden,” she said.
“For any particular purpose?” Alban inquired
“For a purpose which, I am afraid, you won’t approve of. I mean to ask
Mr. Mirabel if he knows Miss Jethro’s address.”
“I hope he is as ignorant of it as I am,” Alban answered gravely.
“Are we going to quarrel over Miss Jethro, as we once quarreled over
Mrs. Rook?” Emily asked--with the readiest recovery of her good humor.
“Come! come! I am sure you are as anxious, in your own private mind, to
have this matter cleared up as I am.”
“With one difference--that I think of consequences, and you don’t.”
He said it, in his gentlest and kindest manner, and stepped into the
conservatory.
“Never mind the consequences,” she called after him, “if we can only get
at the truth. I hate being deceived!”
“There is no person living who has better reason than you have to say
that.”
Emily looked round with a start. Alban was out of hearing. It was
Francine who had answered her.
“What do you mean?” she said.
Francine hesitated. A ghastly paleness overspread her face.
“Are you ill?” Emily asked.
“No--I am thinking.”
After waiting for a moment in silence, Emily moved away toward the door
of the drawing-room. Francine suddenly held up her hand.
“Stop!” she cried.
Emily stood still.
“My mind is made up,” Francine said.
“Made up--to what?”
“You asked what I meant, just now.”
“I did.”
“Well, my mind is made up to answer you. Miss Emily Brown, you are
leading a sadly frivolous life in this house. I am going to give you
something more serious to think about than your flirtation with Mr.
Mirabel. Oh, don’t be impatient! I am coming to the point. Without
knowing it yourself, you have been the victim of deception for years
past--cruel deception--wicked deception that puts on the mask of mercy.”
“Are you alluding to Miss Jethro?” Emily asked, in astonishment. “I
thought you were strangers to each other. Just now, you wanted to know
who she was.”
“I know nothing about her. I care nothing about her. I am not thinking
of Miss Jethro.”
“Who are you thinking of?”
“I am thinking,” Francine answered, “of your dead father.”