Part 16 (2/2)

”No! I must not forget that I have another friend--I must find some comfort in thinking of _you_.

”I do so long in my solitude for a letter from my dear Cecilia. n.o.body comes to see me, when I most want sympathy; I am a stranger in this vast city. The members of my mother's family are settled in Australia: they have not even written to me, in all the long years that have pa.s.sed since her death. You remember how cheerfully I used to look forward to my new life, on leaving school? Good-by, my darling. While I can see your sweet face, in my thoughts, I don't despair--dark as it looks now--of the future that is before me.”

Emily had closed and addressed her letter, and was just rising from her chair, when she heard the voice of the new nurse at the door.

CHAPTER XV. EMILY.

”May I say a word?” Mrs. Mosey inquired. She entered the room--pale and trembling. Seeing that ominous change, Emily dropped back into her chair.

”Dead?” she said faintly.

Mrs. Mosey looked at her in vacant surprise.

”I wish to say, miss, that your aunt has frightened me.”

Even that vague allusion was enough for Emily.

”You need say no more,” she replied. ”I know but too well how my aunt's mind is affected by the fever.”

Confused and frightened as she was, Mrs. Mosey still found relief in her customary flow of words.

”Many and many a person have I nursed in fever,” she announced. ”Many and many a person have I heard say strange things. Never yet, miss, in all my experience--!”

”Don't tell me of it!” Emily interposed.

”Oh, but I _must_ tell you! In your own interests, Miss Emily--in your own interests. I won't be inhuman enough to leave you alone in the house to-night; but if this delirium goes on, I must ask you to get another nurse. Shocking suspicions are lying in wait for me in that bedroom, as it were. I can't resist them as I ought, if I go back again, and hear your aunt saying what she has been saying for the last half hour and more. Mrs. Ellmother has expected impossibilities of me; and Mrs.

Ellmother must take the consequences. I don't say she didn't warn me--speaking, you will please to understand, in the strictest confidence. 'Elizabeth,' she says, 'you know how wildly people talk in Miss Let.i.tia's present condition. Pay no heed to it,' she says. 'Let it go in at one ear and out at the other,' she says. 'If Miss Emily asks questions--you know nothing about it. If she's frightened--you know nothing about it. If she bursts into fits of crying that are dreadful to see, pity her, poor thing, but take no notice.' All very well, and sounds like speaking out, doesn't it? Nothing of the sort! Mrs.

Ellmother warns me to expect this, that, and the other. But there is one horrid thing (which I heard, mind, over and over again at your aunt's bedside) that she does _not_ prepare me for; and that horrid thing is--Murder!”

At that last word, Mrs. Mosey dropped her voice to a whisper--and waited to see what effect she had produced.

Sorely tried already by the cruel perplexities of her position, Emily's courage failed to resist the first sensation of horror, aroused in her by the climax of the nurse's hysterical narrative. Encouraged by her silence, Mrs. Mosey went on. She lifted one hand with theatrical solemnity--and luxuriously terrified herself with her own horrors.

”An inn, Miss Emily; a lonely inn, somewhere in the country; and a comfortless room at the inn, with a makes.h.i.+ft bed at one end of it, and a makes.h.i.+ft bed at the other--I give you my word of honor, that was how your aunt put it. She spoke of two men next; two men asleep (you understand) in the two beds. I think she called them 'gentlemen'; but I can't be sure, and I wouldn't deceive you--you know I wouldn't deceive you, for the world. Miss Let.i.tia muttered and mumbled, poor soul. I own I was getting tired of listening--when she burst out plain again, in that one horrid word--Oh, miss, don't be impatient! don't interrupt me!”

Emily did interrupt, nevertheless. In some degree at least she had recovered herself. ”No more of it!” she said--”I won't hear a word more.”

But Mrs. Mosey was too resolutely bent on a.s.serting her own importance, by making the most of the alarm that she had suffered, to be repressed by any ordinary method of remonstrance. Without paying the slightest attention to what Emily had said, she went on again more loudly and more excitably than ever.

”Listen, miss--listen! The dreadful part of it is to come; you haven't heard about the two gentlemen yet. One of them was murdered--what do you think of that!--and the other (I heard your aunt say it, in so many words) committed the crime. Did Miss Let.i.tia fancy she was addressing a lot of people when _you_ were nursing her? She called out, like a person making public proclamation, when I was in her room. 'Whoever you are, good people' (she says), 'a hundred pounds reward, if you find the runaway murderer. Search everywhere for a poor weak womanish creature, with rings on his little white hands. There's nothing about him like a man, except his voice--a fine round voice. You'll know him, my friends--the wretch, the monster--you'll know him by his voice.' That was how she put it; I tell you again, that was how she put it. Did you hear her scream? Ah, my dear young lady, so much the better for you!

'O the horrid murder' (she says)--'hush it up!' I'll take my Bible oath before the magistrate,” cried Mrs. Mosey, starting out of her chair, ”your aunt said, 'Hush it up!'”

Emily crossed the room. The energy of her character was roused at last.

She seized the foolish woman by the shoulders, forced her back in the chair, and looked her straight in the face without uttering a word.

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