I Say No. Wilkie Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ to feel the dominant influence that Emily exercised over the weaker natures that came in contact with her. To find herself irresistibly attracted by a stranger at a new school—an unfortunate little creature, whose destiny was to earn her own living—filled the narrow mind of Miss de Sor with perplexity. Having waited in vain for a reply, Emily turned away, and resumed the train of thought which her schoolfellow had interrupted.

      By an association of ideas, of which she was not herself aware, she now passed from thinking of her aunt to thinking of Miss Jethro. The interview of the previous night had dwelt on her mind at intervals, in the hours of the new day.

      Acting on instinct rather than on reason, she had kept that remarkable incident in her school life a secret from every one. No discoveries had been made by other persons. In speaking to her staff of teachers, Miss Ladd had alluded to the affair in the most cautious terms. “Circumstances of a private nature have obliged the lady to retire from my school. When we meet after the holidays, another teacher will be in her place.” There, Miss Ladd’s explanation had begun and ended. Inquiries addressed to the servants had led to no result. Miss Jethro’s luggage was to be forwarded to the London terminus of the railway—and Miss Jethro herself had baffled investigation by leaving the school on foot. Emily’s interest in the lost teacher was not the transitory interest of curiosity; her father’s mysterious friend was a person whom she honestly desired to see again. Perplexed by the difficulty of finding a means of tracing Miss Jethro, she reached the shady limit of the trees, and turned to walk back again. Approaching the place at which she and Francine had met, an idea occurred to her. It was just possible that Miss Jethro might not be unknown to her aunt.

      Still meditating on the cold reception that she had encountered, and still feeling the influence which mastered her in spite of herself, Francine interpreted Emily’s return as an implied expression of regret. She advanced with a constrained smile, and spoke first.

      “How are the young ladies getting on in the schoolroom?” she asked, by way of renewing the conversation.

      Emily’s face assumed a look of surprise which said plainly, Can’t you take a hint and leave me to myself?

      Francine was constitutionally impenetrable to reproof of this sort; her thick skin was not even tickled. “Why are you not helping them,” she went on; “you who have the clearest head among us and take the lead in everything?”

      It may be a humiliating confession to make, yet it is surely true that we are all accessible to flattery. Different tastes appreciate different methods of burning incense—but the perfume is more or less agreeable to all varieties of noses. Francine’s method had its tranquilizing effect on Emily. She answered indulgently, “Miss de Sor, I have nothing to do with it.”

      “Nothing to do with it? No prizes to win before you leave school?”

      “I won all the prizes years ago.”

      “But there are recitations. Surely you recite?”

      Harmless words in themselves, pursuing the same smooth course of flattery as before—but with what a different result! Emily’s face reddened with anger the moment they were spoken. Having already irritated Alban Morris, unlucky Francine, by a second mischievous interposition of accident, had succeeded in making Emily smart next. “Who has told you,” she burst out; “I insist on knowing!”

      “Nobody has told me anything!” Francine declared piteously.

      “Nobody has told you how I have been insulted?”

      “No, indeed! Oh, Miss Brown, who could insult you?”

      In a man, the sense of injury does sometimes submit to the discipline of silence. In a woman—never. Suddenly reminded of her past wrongs (by the pardonable error of a polite schoolfellow), Emily committed the startling inconsistency of appealing to the sympathies of Francine!

      “Would you believe it? I have been forbidden to recite—I, the head girl of the school. Oh, not to-day! It happened a month ago—when we were all in consultation, making our arrangements. Miss Ladd asked me if I had decided on a piece to recite. I said, ‘I have not only decided, I have learned the piece.’ ‘And what may it be?’ ‘The dagger-scene in Macbeth.’ There was a howl—I can call it by no other name—a howl of indignation. A man’s soliloquy, and, worse still, a murdering man’s soliloquy, recited by one of Miss Ladd’s young ladies, before an audience of parents and guardians! That was the tone they took with me. I was as firm as a rock. The dagger-scene or nothing. The result is—nothing! An insult to Shakespeare, and an insult to Me. I felt it—I feel it still. I was prepared for any sacrifice in the cause of the drama. If Miss Ladd had met me in a proper spirit, do you know what I would have done? I would have played Macbeth in costume. Just hear me, and judge for yourself. I begin with a dreadful vacancy in my eyes, and a hollow moaning in my voice: ‘Is this a dagger that I see before me—?’”

      Reciting with her face toward the trees, Emily started, dropped the character of Macbeth, and instantly became herself again: herself, with a rising color and an angry brightening of the eyes. “Excuse me, I can’t trust my memory: I must get the play.” With that abrupt apology, she walked away rapidly in the direction of the house.

      In some surprise, Francine turned, and looked at the trees. She discovered—in full retreat, on his side—the eccentric drawing-master, Alban Morris.

      Did he, too, admire the dagger-scene? And was he modestly desirous of hearing it recited, without showing himself? In that case, why should Emily (whose besetting weakness was certainly not want of confidence in her own resources) leave the garden the moment she caught sight of him? Francine consulted her instincts. She had just arrived at a conclusion which expressed itself outwardly by a malicious smile, when gentle Cecilia appeared on the lawn—a lovable object in a broad straw hat and a white dress, with a nosegay in her bosom—smiling, and fanning herself.

      “It’s so hot in the schoolroom,” she said, “and some of the girls, poor things, are so ill-tempered at rehearsal—I have made my escape. I hope you got your breakfast, Miss de Sor. What have you been doing here, all by yourself?”

      “I have been making an interesting discovery,” Francine replied.

      “An interesting discovery in our garden? What can it be?”

      “The drawing-master, my dear, is in love with Emily. Perhaps she doesn’t care about him. Or, perhaps, I have been an innocent obstacle in the way of an appointment between them.”

      Cecilia had breakfasted to her heart’s content on her favorite dish—buttered eggs. She was in such good spirits that she was inclined to be coquettish, even when there was no man present to fascinate. “We are not allowed to talk about love in this school,” she said—and hid her face behind her fan. “Besides, if it came to Miss Ladd’s ears, poor Mr. Morris might lose his situation.”

      “But isn’t it true?” asked Francine.

      “It may be true, my dear; but nobody knows. Emily hasn’t breathed a word about it to any of us. And Mr. Morris keeps his own secret. Now and then we catch him looking at her—and we draw our own conclusions.”

      “Did you meet Emily on your way here?”

      “Yes, and she passed without speaking to me.”

      “Thinking perhaps of Mr. Morris.”

      Cecilia shook her head. “Thinking, Francine, of the new life before her—and СКАЧАТЬ