A week later,Alban Morris happened to be in Miss Ladd's study,with a report to make on the subject of his drawing-class.Mrs.
Ellmother interrupted them for a moment.She entered the room to return a book which Francine had borrowed that morning.
"Has Miss de Sor done with it already?"Miss Ladd asked.
"She won't read it,ma'am.She says the leaves smell of tobacco-smoke."Miss Ladd turned to Alban,and shook her head with an air of good-humored reproof."I know who has been reading that book last!"she said.
Alban pleaded guilty,by a look.He was the only master in the school who smoked.As Mrs.Ellmother passed him,on her way out,he noticed the signs of suffering in her wasted face.
"That woman is surely in a bad state of health,"he said."Has she seen the doctor?""She flatly refuses to consult the doctor,"Miss Ladd replied.
"If she was a stranger,I should meet the difficulty by telling Miss de Sor (whose servant she is)that Mrs.Ellmother must be sent home.But I cannot act in that peremptory manner toward a person in whom Emily is interested."From that moment Mrs.Ellmother became a person in whom Alban was interested.Later in the day,he met her in one of the lower corridors of the house,and spoke to her."I am afraid the air of this place doesn't agree with you,"he said.
Mrs.Ellmother's irritable objection to being told (even indirectly)that she looked ill,expressed itself roughly in reply."I daresay you mean well,sir--but I don't see how it matters to you whether the place agrees with me or not.""Wait a minute,"Alban answered good-humoredly."I am not quite a stranger to you.""How do you make that out,if you please?"
"I know a young lady who has a sincere regard for you.""You don't mean Miss Emily?"
"Yes,I do.I respect and admire Miss Emily;and I have tried,in my poor way,to be of some little service to her."Mrs.Ellmother's haggard face instantly softened."Please to forgive me,sir,for forgetting my manners,"she said simply."Ihave had my health since the day I was born--and I don't like to be told,in my old age,that a new place doesn't agree with me."Alban accepted this apology in a manner which at once won the heart of the North-countrywoman.He shook hands with her."You're one of the right sort,"she said;"there are not many of them in this house."Was she alluding to Francine?Alban tried to make the discovery.
Polite circumlocution would be evidently thrown away on Mrs.
Ellmother."Is your new mistress one of the right sort?"he asked bluntly.
The old servant's answer was expressed by a frowning look,followed by a plain question.
"Do you say that,sir,because you like my new mistress?""No."
"Please to shake hands again!"She said it--took his hand with a sudden grip that spoke for itself--and walked away.
Here was an exhibition of character which Alban was just the man to appreciate."If I had been an old woman,"he thought in his dryly humorous way,"I believe I should have been like Mrs.
Ellmother.We might have talked of Emily,if she had not left me in such a hurry.When shall I see her again?"He was destined to see her again,that night--under circumstances which he remembered to the end of his life.
The rules of Netherwoods,in summer time,recalled the young ladies from their evening's recreation in the grounds at nine o'clock.After that hour,Alban was free to smoke his pipe,and to linger among trees and flower-beds before he returned to his hot little rooms in the village.As a relief to the drudgery of teaching the young ladies,he had been using his pencil,when the day's lessons were over,for his own amusement.It was past ten o'clock before he lighted his pipe,and began walking slowly to and fro on the path which led to the summer-house,at the southern limit of the grounds.
In the perfect stillness of the night,the clock of the village church was distinctly audible,striking the hours and the quarters.The moon had not risen;but the mysterious glimmer of starlight trembled on the large open space between the trees and the house.
Alban paused,admiring with an artist's eye the effect of light,so faintly and delicately beautiful,on the broad expanse of the lawn."Does the man live who could paint that?"he asked himself.
His memory recalled the works of the greatest of all landscape painters--the English artists of fifty years since.While recollections of many a noble picture were still passing through his mind,he was startled by the sudden appearance of a bareheaded woman on the terrace steps.
She hurried down to the lawn,staggering as she ran--stopped,and looked back at the house--hastened onward toward the trees--stopped again,looking backward and forward,uncertain which way to turn next--and then advanced once more.He could now hear her heavily gasping for breath.As she came nearer,the starlight showed a panic-stricken face--the face of Mrs.
Ellmother.