Read Complete Works of Wilkie Collins Online
Authors: Wilkie Collins
“P.S. — I have formed a new habit. In case of feeling hungry in the night, I keep a box of chocolate under the pillow. You have no idea what a comfort it is. If I ever meet with the man who fulfills my ideal, I shall make it a condition of the marriage settlement, that I am to have chocolate under the pillow.”
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 lake s 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 labours 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 neighbours 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 labours 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.
Having looked at the card, Emily put her first question to the servant.
“Did you tell Mr. Morris what your orders were?” she asked.
“Yes, miss; I said I was to have shown him in, if you had been at home. Perhaps I did wrong; I told him what you told me when you went out this morning — I said you had gone to read at the Museum.”
“What makes you think you did wrong?”
“Well, miss, he didn’t say anything, but he looked upset.”
“Do you mean that he looked angry?”
The servant shook her head. “Not exactly angry — puzzled and put out.”
“Did he leave any message?”
“He said he would call later, if you would be so good as to receive him.”
In half an hour more, Alban and Emily were together again. The light fell full on her face as she rose to receive him.
“Oh, how you have suffered!”
The words escaped him before he could restrain himself. He looked at her with the tender sympathy, so precious to women, which she had not seen in the face of any human creature since the loss of her aunt. Even the good doctor’s efforts to console her had been efforts of professional routine — the inevitable result of his life-long familiarity with sorrow and death. While Alban’s eyes rested on her, Emily felt her tears rising. In the fear that he might misinterpret her reception of him, she made an effort to speak with some appearance of composure.
“I lead a lonely life,” she said; “and I can well understand that my face shows it. You are one of my very few friends, Mr. Morris” — the tears rose again; it discouraged her to see him standing irresolute, with his hat in his hand, fearful of intruding on her. “Indeed, indeed, you are welcome,” she said, very earnestly.
In those sad days her heart was easily touched. She gave him her hand for the second time. He held it gently for a moment. Every day since they had parted she had been in his thoughts; she had become dearer to him than ever. He was too deeply affected to trust himself to answer. That silence pleaded for him as nothing had pleaded for him yet. In her secret self she remembered with wonder how she had received his confession in the school garden. It was a little hard on him, surely, to have forbidden him even to hope.
Conscious of her own weakness — even while giving way to it — she felt the necessity of turning his attention from herself. In some confusion, she pointed to a chair at her side, and spoke of his first visit, when he had left her letters at the door. Having confided to him all that she had discovered, and all that she had guessed, on that occasion, it was by an easy transition that she alluded next to the motive for his journey to the North.
“I thought it might be suspicion of Mrs. Rook,” she said. “Was I mistaken?”
“No; you were right.”
“They were serious suspicions, I suppose?”
“Certainly! I should not otherwise have devoted my holiday-time to clearing them up.”
“May I know what they were?”
“I am sorry to disappoint you,” he began.
“But you would rather not answer my question,” she interposed.
“I would rather hear you tell me if you have made any other guess.”
“One more, Mr. Morris. I guessed that you had become acquainted with Sir Jervis Redwood.”
“For the second time, Miss Emily, you have arrived at a sound conclusion. My one hope of finding opportunities for observing Sir Jervis’s housekeeper depended on my chance of gaining admission to Sir Jervis’s house.”
“How did you succeed? Perhaps you provided yourself with a letter of introduction?”