Уилки Коллинз - I Say No

Doctor Allday’s first greeting was strictly professional. “My dear child, I never expected this,” he began. “You are looking wretchedly ill.” He attempted to feel her pulse. She drew her hand away from him.

“It’s my mind that’s ill,” she answered. “Feeling my pulse won’t cure me of anxiety and distress. I want advice; I want help. Dear old doctor, you have always been a good friend to me—be a better friend than ever now.”

“What can I do?”

“Promise you will keep secret what I am going to say to you—and listen, pray listen patiently, till I have done.”

Doctor Allday promised, and listened. He had been, in some degree at least, prepared for a surprise—but the disclosure which now burst on him was more than his equanimity could sustain. He looked at Emily in silent dismay. She had surprised and shocked him, not only by what she said, but by what she unconsciously suggested. Was it possible that Mirabel’s personal appearance had produced on her the same impression which was present in his own mind? His first impulse, when he was composed enough to speak, urged him to put the question cautiously.

“If you happened to meet with the suspected man,” he said, “have you any means of identifying him?”

“None whatever, doctor. If you would only think it over—”

He stopped her there; convinced of the danger of encouraging her, and resolved to act on his conviction.

“I have enough to occupy me in my profession,” he said. “Ask your other friend to think it over.”

“What other friend?”

“Mr. Alban Morris.”

The moment he pronounced the name, he saw that he had touched on some painful association. “Has Mr. Morris refused to help you?” he inquired.

“I have not asked him to help me.”

“Why?”

There was no choice (with such a man as Doctor Allday) between offending him or answering him. Emily adopted the last alternative. On this occasion she had no reason to complain of his silence.

“Your view of Mr. Morris’s conduct surprises me,” he replied—“surprises me more than I can say,” he added; remembering that he too was guilty of having kept her in ignorance of the truth, out of regard—mistaken regard, as it now seemed to be—for her peace of mind.

“Be good to me, and pass it over if I am wrong,” Emily said: “I can’t dispute with you; I can only tell you what I feel. You have always been so kind to me—may I count on your kindness still?”

Doctor Allday relapsed into silence.

“May I at least ask,” she went on, “if you know anything of persons—” She paused, discouraged by the cold expression of inquiry in the old man’s eyes as he looked at her.

“What persons?” he said.

“Persons whom I suspect.”

“Name them.”

Emily named the landlady of the inn at Zeeland: she could now place the right interpretation on Mrs. Rook’s conduct, when the locket had been put into her hand at Netherwoods. Doctor Allday answered shortly and stiffly: he had never even seen Mrs. Rook. Emily mentioned Miss Jethro next—and saw at once that she had interested him.

“What do you suspect Miss Jethro of doing?” he asked.

“I suspect her of knowing more of my father’s death than she is willing to acknowledge,” Emily replied.

The doctor’s manner altered for the better. “I agree with you,” he said frankly. “But I have some knowledge of that lady. I warn you not to waste time and trouble in trying to discover the weak side of Miss Jethro.”

“That was not my experience of her at school,” Emily rejoined. “At the same time I don’t know what may have happened since those days. I may perhaps have lost the place I once held in her regard.”

“How?”

“Through my aunt.”

“Through your aunt?”

“I hope and trust I am wrong,” Emily continued; “but I fear my aunt had something to do with Miss Jethro’s dismissal from the school—and in that case Miss Jethro may have found it out.” Her eyes, resting on the doctor, suddenly brightened. “You know something about it!” she exclaimed.

He considered a little—whether he should or should not tell her of the letter addressed by Miss Ladd to Miss Letitia, which he had found at the cottage.

“If I could satisfy you that your fears are well founded,” he asked, “would the discovery keep you away from Miss Jethro?”

“I should be ashamed to speak to her—even if we met.”

“Very well. I can tell you positively, that your aunt was the person who turned Miss Jethro out of the school. When I get home, I will send you a letter that proves it.”

Emily’s head sank on her breast. “Why do I only hear of this now?” she said.

“Because I had no reason for letting you know of it, before to-day. If I have done nothing else, I have at least succeeded in keeping you and Miss Jethro apart.”

Emily looked at him in alarm. He went on without appearing to notice that he had startled her. “I wish to God I could as easily put a stop to the mad project which you are contemplating.”

“The mad project?” Emily repeated. “Oh, Doctor Allday. Do you cruelly leave me to myself, at the time of all others, when I am most in need of your sympathy?”

That appeal moved him. He spoke more gently; he pitied, while he condemned her.

“My poor dear child, I should be cruel indeed, if I encouraged you. You are giving yourself up to an enterprise, so shockingly unsuited to a young girl like you, that I declare I contemplate it with horror. Think, I entreat you, think; and let me hear that you have yielded—not to my poor entreaties—but to your own better sense!” His voice faltered; his eyes moistened. “I shall make a fool of myself,” he burst out furiously, “if I stay here any longer. Good-by.”

He left her.

She walked to the window, and looked out at the fair morning. No one to feel for her—no one to understand her—nothing nearer that could speak to poor mortality of hope and encouragement than the bright heaven, so far away! She turned from the window. “The sun shines on the murderer,” she thought, “as it shines on me.”

She sat down at the table, and tried to quiet her mind; to think steadily to some good purpose. Of the few friends that she possessed, every one had declared that she was in the wrong. Had they lost the one loved being of all beings on earth, and lost him by the hand of a homicide—and that homicide free? All that was faithful, all that was devoted in the girl’s nature, held her to her desperate resolution as with a hand of iron. If she shrank at that miserable moment, it was not from her design—it was from the sense of her own helplessness. “Oh, if I had been a man!” she said to herself. “Oh, if I could find a friend!”

Mrs. Ellmother looked into the parlor. “I told you Mr. Mirabel would call again,” she announced. “Here he is.”

“Has he asked to see me?”

“He leaves it entirely to you.”

For a moment, and a moment only, Emily was undecided. “Show him in,” she said.

Mirabel’s embarrassment was visible the moment he entered the room. For the first time in his life—in the presence of a woman—the popular preacher was shy. He who had taken hundreds of fair hands with sympathetic pressure—he who had offered fluent consolation, abroad and at home, to beauty in distress—was conscious of a rising color, and was absolutely at a loss for words when Emily received him. And yet, though he appeared at disadvantage—and, worse still, though he was aware of it himself—there was nothing contemptible in his look and manner. His silence and confusion revealed a change in him which inspired respect. Love had developed this spoiled darling of foolish congregations, this effeminate pet of drawing-rooms and boudoirs, into the likeness of a Man—and no woman, in Emily’s position, could have failed to see that it was love which she herself had inspired.