“We were interrupted in our talk yesterday,” said Aunt Milly, “but I
have not forgotten what you said about your little maid. My dear, I
don’t think it is worth your while to warn her against talking about
such matters. When they think a thing’s important, they are all the more
likely to talk.”
“But you don’t know Lizzie,” said I.
“No,” said Aunt Milly, doubtfully. “I always have heard the Scotch were
faithful servants; but it’s undeniable that they _do_ love to talk.
Besides, she’s only a child. My dear, has she any particular claim upon
you?”
“Only that she is an orphan,” said I, “like Harry and me.”
“Ah, dear child! there’s two of you; it does not matter to you,” cried
Aunt Milly; then she continued, rather anxiously, “I’d like to know,
however, what she can tell about this, Milly. Ellis told me a confused
story about a foreign man coming with a letter, and that he insisted on
seeing the lady--the lady! and couldn’t talk no more sense, Ellis says.
I understood by the description, it must be that man. There couldn’t be
two fat foreign serving-men in a quiet county like this; and Carson, ‘as
happened to be in the hall at the moment,’ Ellis tells me, spoke to him,
‘and they arguifyed for long in a queer language,’ and then he went
away. I don’t know any more of it, my dear. This Lizzie of yours, if she
can understand that man, and he told her of it, I wonder does _she_ know
any more?”
Then I told her of the further particulars which had come under Lizzie’s
observation, the letter returned and destroyed. Aunt Milly once more
grew a good deal excited. She walked about the room with a troubled
face, and many exclamations; but on the whole it gave her comfort. “My
dear, she can’t be afraid of him now,” said Aunt Milly; and with this
piece of consolation she went away strengthened to her many businesses,
for everything evidently is in her hands. That eldest sister of hers,
whom I cannot call by any name of love, takes no share in anything.
When she does talk, she talks as if she were the sole mistress and ruler
of the house; but Aunt Milly, though I understand they are quite equal
in their rights, has all the trouble. It is very strange, but I could
not feel so comfortable about her sending back that letter as Aunt Milly
did. To tell the plain truth, a very distinct suspicion had entered into
my mind about her. It flashed upon me when Mr. Luigi was speaking of
her, and it grew stronger and stronger every hour I spent in the same
room, though how it could be, was more than by any amount of thinking I
could divine. I will not say what my fancy was; I was always too
imaginative. I don’t want to commit myself till I see whether anything
will occur to bear me out.
The next day was wet, and I had abundant means of seeing Miss Mortimer.
I think my foolish faint that first day had quite settled me in her
opinion. She saw I was a nobody from that moment. Accordingly all that
rainy afternoon I sat by her in the strangest unsocial way. The fire was
still kept up, though the weather was warm; and Aunt Milly had stationed
me in her own easy chair, opposite her sister, and commanding the entire
length of the room so that I could see who entered at the door, though
Miss Mortimer could neither see or be seen by any one coming in. The
five great windows were all very naked and bare, the curtains drawn
back, and the blinds drawn up, according to Miss Mortimer’s fancy; she
had always an amount of twilight at her command by movement of her
screen. These five long lines of cold broad light, the cloudy sky
looking full down upon us, and the blasts of rain driving against the
cold transparent fence of glass which separated us from that outdoor
world, where the early flowers hung their heads in the rain, and the
shrubs cowered and drew together in the fitful gusts of wind, gave an
extraordinary atmosphere to the picture. Then that long great mirror at
the end of the room repeated the five windows in strange perspective,
and reflected all the maze of space and crowd of furniture in bars of
light and shadow; while here, in the centre, played the uncertain glow
of the fire, much too warm, and making the air feel unnatural; and close
before me sat Miss Mortimer with the screen carefully drawn round her
chair. She had on her usual dress--her muslin scarf or shawl, I forget
which, lined with pale blue silk, and ribbons of the same colour in her
cap, and black lace mits upon her thin hands, which, when she happened
to stop for a moment, she rubbed slowly before the fire. She did not
talk to me. I understand it was very rarely she talked to any one.
Silently, as if it were some weird work she was about, she knitted on;
but sometimes, as I was conscious, lifted her eyes from her knitting,
and continuing her work all the time, surveyed me as I sat helpless
before her. Every time the door of the room happened to open she
repeated this. I felt her stare at me, as she might have stared at a
mirror, to see who had entered the room; and it is impossible to
describe how I felt under that look. I durst not answer it by turning my
eyes upon her; but looking past her at the door, as one naturally does
when the door of the room opens--and knowing her gaze to be fixed on me,
I faltered, I trembled, my face burned in spite of myself. This went on
till, in desperation, I fairly answered her look; then my feelings
changed. Those blue eyes, which must have paled and chilled with age,
were gazing with a watchful dread in my face. It was not me she was
looking at. Her hands went on, in their dreadful inhuman occupation,
while she found in my face a reflection of who it was that went in, or
out, by that door behind her. It might be a habit she had got into; but
I could read in her eyes that she sat there in full expectation of
somebody or something arriving suddenly, which might startle and
distress everybody else, but which _she_ knew. Again, I saw the same
contrast which I had seen between Aunt Milly and Mr. Luigi. This woman,
like the Italian, was in no perplexity. She was not confused with a
mystery she could not comprehend, as Aunt Milly was. She knew something
was coming, and what was coming, and was prepared to defend herself, and
hide her shame to the death.
Hide her shame! oh, how do I dare say it; how could I venture to say
that she had disgraced herself, or even to think so? There she sat,
clothed in a double respect, even by reason of all that made her so
unlovely and distasteful to me, the real great lady of the house, served
by everybody, imagining herself quite supreme; the head of the house,
though she transferred all the trouble of it to other shoulders; Miss
Mortimer, of the Park, a spotless maiden lady, who might have been, as
the common story went, had she chosen to marry, almost of any rank she
pleased. All that I knew; but as I gazed at her, the wild sudden fancy
that had seized me before, grew stronger and stronger. A kind of
loathing took possession of me. Shame may be dreadful, must be dreadful;
but to deserve it, and yet to escape it--to know one’s self guilty, and
fight all one’s life against the penalty--to shut one’s self up, heart
and voice, like that in a corner, waiting for the discovery and
exposure which has become inevitable--and resolute by every lie and
expedient of falsehood to resist and baffle it--the sight was hideous to
me. I turned away from her with a feeling of sickness--then in the
impulse of the moment I spoke.
“Should not you like to take this seat, Miss Mortimer, if you wish to
see who comes in at the door?”
“How do you know,” she cried, in her strangled voice, “that I wish to
see who comes in at the door?”
“I can see it in your eyes,” said I. I could not help a little shudder
as I spoke. Her only answer was to draw a little further back into the
twilight of her screen. I don’t think she looked at me again; but she
did something else when Ellis came in the next time, which was quite as
characteristic. She listened visibly, with an extraordinary intentness;
her knitting stopped, though her eyes were bent on it. I could fancy she
must have heard the very vibration of the man’s foot upon the floor, and
satisfied herself by its sound what it was.
“Miss Milly’s compliments, ma’am, and will you please step into the
library a moment,” said Ellis to me.
“Who’s in the library, eh?” interrupted Miss Mortimer, before I could
speak.
Ellis faced round upon her slowly, with evident surprise: “I don’t know
as it’s nobody, ma’am,” said the man; “Miss Milly has something to show
the young lady.”
“Who’s in the house? why don’t you answer me? You are making up a
story,” cried Miss Mortimer, almost with a shriek.
“Nobody, as I know on, but the Captain, as is in the stables, ma’am,
looking at the colt,” said Ellis, doggedly, “and Miss Milly, as is
waiting in the library for the young lady, with some pictures to show to
her, as it looked to me; nor likely to come neither on such a day.”
Instead of resenting this speech as I supposed, Miss Mortimer smiled to
herself with a nod. She gave a glance out from her screen at the blank
of cloudy sky and the falling rain. It seemed to soothe her somehow. She
relapsed back again, and resumed her knitting, without looking at or
speaking to me. Did it relieve her to be told that nobody was likely to
come on such a day? Could she imagine a spring shower was motive enough
to keep the avenging truth away? I cannot tell. Who could tell? I might
be wronging her cruelly to think of any avenger on his way. But I left
the room, leaving her there with the blank clouds and rain, with the
solitary gleam of the decaying fire, in the heavy silence and broad
light of the vast room. She was standing at bay, grim and desperate; but
she could actually imagine that the fate which pursued her would be kept
away by the April shower! I cannot express all the wonder, pity, and
horror that come over my heart--such strange, strange, inconsequent
blendings of the dreadful and the foolish were not in any philosophy of
mine.