Emily clasped her hands in amazement. "Can it be Alban Morris?" she exclaimed.
The doctor looked at her with a sardonic smile; he thought it likely that he had discovered her sweetheart.
"Who is Mr. Alban Morris?" he asked.
"The drawing-master at Miss Ladd"s school."
Doctor Allday dropped the subject: masters at ladies" schools were not persons who interested him. He returned to the purpose which had brought him to the cottage--and produced the Handbill that had been sent to him in Emily"s letter.
"I suppose you want to have it back again?" he said.
She took it from him, and looked at it with interest.
"Isn"t it strange," she suggested, "that the murderer should have escaped, with such a careful description of him as this circulated all over England?"
She read the description to the doctor.
""Name not known. Supposed age, between twenty-five and thirty years.
A well-made man, of small stature. Fair complexion, delicate features, clear blue eyes. Hair light, and cut rather short. Clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers. Small, white, well-shaped hands.
Wore valuable rings on the two last fingers of the left hand. Dressed neatly--""
"That part of the description is useless," the doctor remarked; "he would change his clothes."
"But could he change his voice?" Emily objected. "Listen to this: "Remarkably good voice, smooth, full, and persuasive." And here again! "Ingratiating manners." Perhaps you will say he could put on an appearance of rudeness?"
"I will say this, my dear. He would be able to disguise himself so effectually that ninety-nine people out of a hundred would fail to identify him, either by his voice or his manner."
"How?"
"Look back at the description: "Hair cut rather short, clean shaven, with the exception of narrow half-whiskers." The wretch was safe from pursuit; he had ample time at his disposal--don"t you see how he could completely alter the appearance of his head and face? No more, my dear, of this disagreeable subject! Let us get to something interesting. Have you found anything else among your aunt"s papers?"
"I have met with a great disappointment," Emily replied. "Did I tell you how I discovered the Handbill?"
"No."
"I found it, with the sc.r.a.p-book and the newspaper cuttings, under a collection of empty boxes and bottles, in a drawer of the washhand-stand. And I naturally expected to make far more interesting discoveries in this room. My search was over in five minutes. Nothing in the cabinet there, in the corner, but a few books and some china.
Nothing in the writing-desk, on that side-table, but a packet of note-paper and some sealing-wax. Nothing here, in the drawers, but tradesmen"s receipts, materials for knitting, and old photographs. She must have destroyed all her papers, poor dear, before her last illness; and the Handbill and the other things can only have escaped, because they were left in a place which she never thought of examining. Isn"t it provoking?"
With a mind inexpressibly relieved, good Doctor Allday asked permission to return to his patients: leaving Emily to devote herself to her friend"s letter.
On his way out, he noticed that the door of the bed-chamber on the opposite side of the pa.s.sage stood open. Since Miss Let.i.tia"s death the room had not been used. Well within view stood the washhand-stand to which Emily had alluded. The doctor advanced to the house door--reflected--hesitated--and looked toward the empty room.
It had struck him that there might be a second drawer which Emily had overlooked. Would he be justified in setting this doubt at rest? If he pa.s.sed over ordinary scruples it would not be without excuse. Miss Let.i.tia had spoken to him of her affairs, and had asked him to act (in Emily"s interest) as co-executor with her lawyer. The rapid progress of the illness had made it impossible for her to execute the necessary codicil. But the doctor had been morally (if not legally) taken into her confidence--and, for that reason, he decided that he had a right in this serious matter to satisfy his own mind.
A glance was enough to show him that no second drawer had been overlooked.
There was no other discovery to detain the doctor. The wardrobe only contained the poor old lady"s clothes; the one cupboard was open and empty. On the point of leaving the room, he went back to the washhand-stand. While he had the opportunity, it might not be amiss to make sure that Emily had thoroughly examined those old boxes and bottles, which she had alluded to with some little contempt.
The drawer was of considerable length. When he tried to pull it completely out from the grooves in which it ran, it resisted him. In his present frame of mind, this was a suspicious circ.u.mstance in itself. He cleared away the litter so as to make room for the introduction of his hand and arm into the drawer. In another moment his fingers touched a piece of paper, jammed between the inner end of the drawer and the bottom of the flat surface of the washhand-stand. With a little care, he succeeded in extricating the paper. Only pausing to satisfy himself that there was nothing else to be found, and to close the drawer after replacing its contents, he left the cottage.
The cab was waiting for him. On the drive back to his own house, he opened the crumpled paper. It proved to be a letter addressed to Miss Let.i.tia; and it was signed by no less a person than Emily"s schoolmistress. Looking back from the end to the beginning, Doctor Allday discovered, in the first sentence, the name of--Miss Jethro.
But for the interview of that morning with his patient he might have doubted the propriety of making himself further acquainted with the letter. As things were, he read it without hesitation.
"DEAR MADAM--I cannot but regard it as providential circ.u.mstance that your niece, in writing to you from my house, should have mentioned, among other events of her school life, the arrival of my new teacher, Miss Jethro.
"To say that I was surprised is to express very inadequately what I felt when I read your letter, informing me confidentially that I had employed a woman who was unworthy to a.s.sociate with the young persons placed under my care. It is impossible for me to suppose that a lady in your position, and possessed of your high principles, would make such a serious accusation as this, without unanswerable reasons for doing so.
At the same time I cannot, consistently with my duty as a Christian, suffer my opinion of Miss Jethro to be in any way modified, until proofs are laid before me which it is impossible to dispute.
"Placing the same confidence in your discretion, which you have placed in mine, I now inclose the references and testimonials which Miss Jethro submitted to me, when she presented herself to fill the vacant situation in my school.
"I earnestly request you to lose no time in inst.i.tuting the confidential inquiries which you have volunteered to make. Whatever the result may be, pray return to me the inclosures which I have trusted to your care, and believe me, dear madam, in much suspense and anxiety, sincerely yours,
"AMELIA LADD."
It is needless to describe, at any length, the impression which these lines produced on the doctor.
If he had heard what Emily had heard at the time of her aunt"s last illness, he would have called to mind Miss Let.i.tia"s betrayal of her interest in some man unknown, whom she believed to have been beguiled by Miss Jethro--and he would have perceived that the vindictive hatred, thus produced, must have inspired the letter of denunciation which the schoolmistress had acknowledged. He would also have inferred that Miss Let.i.tia"s inquiries had proved her accusation to be well founded--if he had known of the new teacher"s sudden dismissal from the school. As things were, he was merely confirmed in his bad opinion of Miss Jethro; and he was induced, on reflection, to keep his discovery to himself.
"If poor Miss Emily saw the old lady exhibited in the character of an informer," he thought, "what a blow would be struck at her innocent respect for the memory of her aunt!"
CHAPTER XIX. SIR JERVIS REDWOOD.
In the meantime, Emily, left by herself, had her own correspondence to occupy her attention. Besides the letter from Cecilia (directed to the care of Sir Jervis Redwood), she had received some lines addressed to her by Sir Jervis himself. The two inclosures had been secured in a sealed envelope, directed to the cottage.
If Alban Morris had been indeed the person trusted as messenger by Sir Jervis, the conclusion that followed filled Emily with overpowering emotions of curiosity and surprise.
Having no longer the motive of serving and protecting her, Alban must, nevertheless, have taken the journey to Northumberland. He must have gained Sir Jervis Redwood"s favor and confidence--and he might even have been a guest at the baronet"s country seat--when Cecilia"s letter arrived. What did it mean?
Emily looked back at her experience of her last day at school, and recalled her consultation with Alban on the subject of Mrs. Rook. Was he still bent on clearing up his suspicions of Sir Jervis"s housekeeper?
And, with that end in view, had he followed the woman, on her return to her master"s place of abode?
Suddenly, almost irritably, Emily s.n.a.t.c.hed up Sir Jervis"s letter.
Before the doctor had come in, she had glanced at it, and had thrown it aside in her impatience to read what Cecilia had written. In her present altered frame of mind, she was inclined to think that Sir Jervis might be the more interesting correspondent of the two.
On returning to his letter, she was disappointed at the outset.
In the first place, his handwriting was so abominably bad that she was obliged to guess at his meaning. In the second place, he never hinted at the circ.u.mstances under which Cecilia"s letter had been confided to the gentleman who had left it at her door.
She would once more have treated the baronet"s communication with contempt--but for the discovery that it contained an offer of employment in London, addressed to herself.
Sir Jervis had necessarily been obliged to engage another secretary in Emily"s absence. But he was still in want of a person to serve his literary interests in London. He had reason to believe that discoveries made by modern travelers in Central America had been reported from time to time by the English press; and he wished copies to be taken of any notices of this sort which might be found, on referring to the files of newspapers kept in the reading-room of the British Museum. If Emily considered herself capable of contributing in this way to the completeness of his great work on "the ruined cities," she had only to apply to his bookseller in London, who would pay her the customary remuneration and give her every a.s.sistance of which she might stand in need. The bookseller"s name and address followed (with nothing legible but the two words "Bond Street"), and there was an end of Sir Jervis"s proposal.
Emily laid it aside, deferring her answer until she had read Cecilia"s letter.