Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1258 page)

Emily related what she knew; without revealing the true reason for Miss Jethro’s departure from Netherwoods. In after years, it was one of her most treasured remembrances, that she had kept secret the melancholy confession which had startled her, on the last night of her life at school.

Mr. Wyvil looked at Alban’s letter again. “Do you know how Miss Jethro became acquainted with Mr. Mirabel?” he asked.

“I didn’t even know that they were acquainted.”

“Do you think it likely — if Mr. Morris had been talking to you instead of writing to you — that he might have said more than he has said in his letter?”

Cecilia had hitherto remained a model of discretion. Seeing Emily hesitate, temptation overcame her. “Not a doubt of it, papa!” she declared confidently.

“Is Cecilia right?” Mr. Wyvil inquired.

Reminded in this way of her influence over Alban, Emily could only make one honest reply. She admitted that Cecilia was right.

Mr. Wyvil thereupon advised her not to express any opinion, until she was in a better position to judge for herself. “When you write to Mr. Morris,” he continued, “say that you will wait to tell him what you think of Miss Jethro, until you see him again.”

“I have no prospect at present of seeing him again,” Emily said.

“You can see Mr. Morris whenever it suits him to come here,” Mr. Wyvil replied. “I will write and ask him to visit us, and you can inclose the invitation in your letter.”

“Oh, Mr. Wyvil, how good of you!”

“Oh, papa, the very thing I was going to ask you to do!”

The excellent master of Monksmoor looked unaffectedly surprised. “What are you two young ladies making a fuss about?” he said. “Mr. Morris is a gentleman by profession; and — may I venture to say it, Miss Emily? — a valued friend of yours as well. Who has a better claim to be one of my guests?”

Cecilia stopped her father as he was about to leave the room. “I suppose we mustn’t ask Mr. Mirabel what he knows of Miss Jethro?” she said.

“My dear, what can you be thinking of? What right have we to question Mr. Mirabel about Miss Jethro?”

“It’s so very unsatisfactory, papa. There must be some reason why Emily and Mr. Mirabel ought not to meet — or why should Miss Jethro have been so very earnest about it?”

“Miss Jethro doesn’t intend us to know why, Cecilia. It will perhaps come out in time. Wait for time.”

Left together, the girls discussed the course which Alban would probably take, on receiving Mr. Wyvil’s invitation.

“He will only be too glad,” Cecilia asserted, “to have the opportunity of seeing you again.”

“I doubt whether he will care about seeing me again, among strangers,” Emily replied. “And you forget that there are obstacles in his way. How is he to leave his class?”

“Quite easily! His class doesn’t meet on the Saturday half-holiday. He can be here, if he starts early, in time for luncheon; and he can stay till Monday or Tuesday.”

“Who is to take his place at the school?”

“Miss Ladd, to be sure — if
you
make a point of it. Write to her, as well as to Mr. Morris.”

The letters being written — and the order having been given to prepare a room for the expected guest — Emily and Cecilia returned to the drawing-room. They found the elders of the party variously engaged — the men with newspapers, and the ladies with work. Entering the conservatory next, they discovered Cecilia’s sister languishing among the flowers in an easy chair. Constitutional laziness, in some young ladies, assumes an invalid character, and presents the interesting spectacle of perpetual convalescence. The doctor declared that the baths at St. Moritz had cured Miss Julia. Miss Julia declined to agree with the doctor.

“Come into the garden with Emily and me,” Cecilia said.

“Emily and you don’t know what it is to be ill,” Julia answered.

The two girls left her, and joined the young people who were amusing themselves in the garden. Francine had taken possession of Mirabel, and had condemned him to hard labour in swinging her. He made an attempt to get away when Emily and Cecilia approached, and was peremptorily recalled to his duty. “Higher!” cried Miss de Sor, in her hardest tones of authority. “I want to swing higher than anybody else!” Mirabel submitted with gentleman-like resignation, and was rewarded by tender encouragement expressed in a look.

“Do you see that?” Cecilia whispered. “He knows how rich she is — I wonder whether he will marry her.”

Emily smiled. “I doubt it, while he is in this house,” she said. “You are as rich as Francine — and don’t forget that you have other attractions as well.”

Cecilia shook her head. “Mr. Mirabel is very nice,” she admitted; “but I wouldn’t marry him. Would you?”

Emily secretly compared Alban with Mirabel. “Not for the world!” she answered.

The next day was the day of Mirabel’s departure. His admirers among the ladies followed him out to the door, at which Mr. Wyvil’s carriage was waiting. Francine threw a nosegay after the departing guest as he got in. “Mind you come back to us on Monday!” she said. Mirabel bowed and thanked her; but his last look was for Emily, standing apart from the others at the top of the steps. Francine said nothing; her lips closed convulsively — she turned suddenly pale.

CHAPTER XLI. SPEECHIFYING.

On the Monday, a plowboy from Vale Regis arrived at Monksmoor.

In respect of himself, he was a person beneath notice. In respect of his errand, he was sufficiently important to cast a gloom over the household. The faithless Mirabel had broken his engagement, and the plowboy was the herald of misfortune who brought his apology. To his great disappointment (he wrote) he was detained by the affairs of his parish. He could only trust to Mr. Wyvil’s indulgence to excuse him, and to communicate his sincere sense of regret (on scented note paper) to the ladies.

Everybody believed in the affairs of the parish — with the exception of Francine. “Mr. Mirabel has made the best excuse he could think of for shortening his visit; and I don’t wonder at it,” she said, looking significantly at Emily.

Emily was playing with one of the dogs; exercising him in the tricks which he had learned. She balanced a morsel of sugar on his nose — and had no attention to spare for Francine.

Cecilia, as the mistress of the house, felt it her duty to interfere. “That is a strange remark to make,” she answered. “Do you mean to say that we have driven Mr. Mirabel away from us?”

“I accuse nobody,” Francine began with spiteful candor.

“Now she’s going to accuse everybody!” Emily interposed, addressing herself facetiously to the dog.

“But when girls are bent on fascinating men, whether they like it or not,” Francine proceeded, “men have only one alternative — they must keep out of the way.” She looked again at Emily, more pointedly than ever.

Even gentle Cecilia resented this. “Whom do you refer to?” she said sharply.

“My dear!” Emily remonstrated, “need you ask?” She glanced at Francine as she spoke, and then gave the dog his signal. He tossed up the sugar, and caught it in his mouth. His audience applauded him — and so, for that time, the skirmish ended.

Among the letters of the next morning’s delivery, arrived Alban’s reply. Emily’s anticipations proved to be correct. The drawing-master’s du ties would not permit him to leave Netherwoods; and he, like Mirabel, sent his apologies. His short letter to Emily contained no further allusion to Miss Jethro; it began and ended on the first page.

Had he been disappointed by the tone of reserve in which Emily had written to him, under Mr. Wyvil’s advice? Or (as Cecilia suggested) had his detention at the school so bitterly disappointed him that he was too disheartened to write at any length? Emily made no attempt to arrive at a conclusion, either one way or the other. She seemed to be in depressed spirits; and she spoke superstitiously, for the first time in Cecilia’s experience of her.

“I don’t like this reappearance of Miss Jethro,” she said. “If the mystery about that woman is ever cleared up, it will bring trouble and sorrow to me — and I believe, in his own secret heart, Alban Morris thinks so too.”

“Write, and ask him,” Cecilia suggested.

“He is so kind and so unwilling to distress me,” Emily answered, “that he wouldn’t acknowledge it, even if I am right.”

In the middle of the week, the course of private life at Monksmoor suffered an interruption — due to the parliamentary position of the master of the house.

The insatiable appetite for making and hearing speeches, which represents one of the marked peculiarities of the English race (including their cousins in the United States), had seized on Mr. Wyvil’s constituents. There was to be a political meeting at the market hall, in the neighbouring town; and the member was expected to make an oration, passing in review contemporary events at home and abroad. “Pray don’t think of accompanying me,” the good man said to his guests. “The hall is badly ventilated, and the speeches, including my own, will not be worth hearing.”

This humane warning was ungratefully disregarded. The gentlemen were all interested in “the objects of the meeting”; and the ladies were firm in the resolution not to be left at home by themselves. They dressed with a view to the large assembly of spectators before whom they were about to appear; and they outtalked the men on political subjects, all the way to the town.

The most delightful of surprises was in store for them, when they reached the market hall. Among the crowd of ordinary gentlemen, waiting under the portico until the proceedings began, appeared one person of distinction, whose title was “Reverend,” and whose name was Mirabel.

Francine was the first to discover him. She darted up the steps and held out her hand.

“This
is
a pleasure!” she cried. “Have you come here to see — ” she was about to say Me, but, observing the strangers round her, altered the word to Us. “Please give me your arm,” she whispered, before her young friends had arrived within hearing. “I am so frightened in a crowd!”

She held fast by Mirabel, and kept a jealous watch on him. Was it only her fancy? or did she detect a new charm in his smile when he spoke to Emily?

Before it was possible to decide, the time for the meeting had arrived. Mr. Wyvil’s friends were of course accommodated with seats on the platform. Francine, still insisting on her claim to Mirabel’s arm, got a chair next to him. As she seated herself, she left him free for a moment. In that moment, the infatuated man took an empty chair on the other side of him, and placed it for Emily. He communicated to that hated rival the information which he ought to have reserved for Francine. “The committee insist,” he said, “on my proposing one of the Resolutions. I promise not to bore you; mine shall be the shortest speech delivered at the meeting.”

The proceedings began.

Among the earlier speakers not one was inspired by a feeling of mercy for the audience. The chairman reveled in words. The mover and seconder of the first Resolution (not having so much as the ghost of an idea to trouble either of them), poured out language in flowing and overflowing streams, like water from a perpetual spring. The heat exhaled by the crowded audience was already becoming insufferable. Cries of “Sit down!” assailed the orator of the moment. The chairman was obliged to interfere. A man at the back of the hall roared out, “Ventilation!” and broke a window with his stick. He was rewarded with three rounds of cheers; and was ironically invited to mount the platform and take the chair.

Under these embarrassing circumstances, Mirabel rose to speak.

He secured silence, at the outset, by a humorous allusion to the prolix speaker who had preceded him. “Look at the clock, gentlemen,” he said; “and limit my speech to an interval of ten minutes.” The applause which followed was heard, through the broken window, in the street. The boys among the mob outside intercepted the flow of air by climbing on each other’s shoulders and looking in at the meeting, through the gaps left by the shattered glass. Having proposed his Resolution with discreet brevity of speech, Mirabel courted popularity on the plan adopted by the late Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons — he told stories, and made jokes, adapted to the intelligence of the dullest people who were listening to him. The charm of his voice and manner completed his success. Punctually at the tenth minute, he sat down amid cries of “Go on.” Francine was the first to take his hand, and to express admiration mutely by pressing it. He returned the pressure — but he looked at the wrong lady — the lady on the other side.