I Say No

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER LII. "IF I COULD FIND A FRIEND!"

  Shortly after Miss Ladd had taken her departure, a parcel arrived forEmily, bearing the name of a bookseller printed on the label. It waslarge, and it was heavy. "Reading enough, I should think, to last for alifetime," Mrs. Ellmother remarked, after carrying the parcel upstairs.

  Emily called her back as she was leaving the room. "I want to cautionyou," she said, "before Miss Wyvil comes. Don't tell her--don't tellanybody--how my father met his death. If other persons are taken intoour confidence, they will talk of it. We don't know how near to us themurderer may be. The slightest hint may put him on his guard."

  "Oh, miss, are you still thinking of that!"

  "I think of nothing else."

  "Bad for your mind, Miss Emily--and bad for your body, as your looksshow. I wish you would take counsel with some discreet person, beforeyou move in this matter by yourself."

  Emily sighed wearily. "In my situation, where is the person whom I cantrust?"

  "You can trust the good doctor."

  "Can I? Perhaps I was wrong when I told you I wouldn't see him. He mightbe of some use to me."

  Mrs. Ellmother made the most of this concession, in the fear that Emilymight change her mind. "Doctor Allday may call on you tomorrow," shesaid.

  "Do you mean that you have sent for him?"

  "Don't be angry! I did it for the best--and Mr. Mirabel agreed with me."

  "Mr. Mirabel! What have you told Mr. Mirabel?"

  "Nothing, except that you are ill. When he heard that, he proposed to gofor the doctor. He will be here again to-morrow, to ask for news of yourhealth. Will you see him?"

  "I don't know yet--I have other things to think of. Bring Miss Wyvil uphere when she comes."

  "Am I to get the spare room ready for her?"

  "No. She is staying with her father at the London house."

  Emily made that reply almost with an air of relief. When Ceciliaarrived, it was only by an effort that she could show gratefulappreciation of the sympathy of her dearest friend. When the visit cameto an end, she felt an ungrateful sense of freedom: the restraint wasoff her mind; she could think again of the one terrible subject that hadany interest for her now. Over love, over friendship, over the naturalenjoyment of her young life, predominated the blighting resolution whichbound her to avenge her father's death. Her dearest remembrances ofhim--tender remembrances once--now burned in her (to use her own words)like fire. It was no ordinary love that had bound parent and childtogether in the bygone time. Emily had grown from infancy to girlhood,owing all the brightness of her life--a life without a mother, withoutbrothers, without sisters--to her father alone. To submit to lose thisbeloved, this only companion, by the cruel stroke of disease was of alltrials of resignation the hardest to bear. But to be severed from him bythe murderous hand of a man, was more than Emily's fervent nature couldpassively endure. Before the garden gate had closed on her friendshe had returned to her one thought, she was breathing again her oneaspiration. The books that she had ordered, with her own purpose inview--books that might supply her want of experience, and might revealthe perils which beset the course that lay before her--were unpacked andspread out on the table. Hour after hour, when the old servant believedthat her mistress was in bed, she was absorbed over biographies inEnglish and French, which related the stratagems by means of whichfamous policemen had captured the worst criminals of their time. Fromthese, she turned to works of fiction, which found their chief topic ofinterest in dwelling on the discovery of hidden crime. The night passed,and dawn glimmered through the window--and still she opened bookafter book with sinking courage--and still she gained nothing but thedisheartening conviction of her inability to carry out her own plans.Almost every page that she turned over revealed the immovable obstaclesset in her way by her sex and her age. Could _she_ mix with the people,or visit the scenes, familiar to the experience of men (in fact andin fiction), who had traced the homicide to his hiding-place, and hadmarked him among his harmless fellow-creatures with the brand of Cain?No! A young girl following, or attempting to follow, that career, mustreckon with insult and outrage--paying their abominable tribute to heryouth and her beauty, at every turn. What proportion would the menwho might respect her bear to the men who might make her the object ofadvances, which it was hardly possible to imagine without shuddering.She crept exhausted to her bed, the most helpless, hopeless creature onthe wide surface of the earth--a girl self-devoted to the task of a man.