



Produced by James Rusk





"I SAY NO"

By Wilkie Collins




BOOK THE FIRST--AT SCHOOL.



CHAPTER I. THE SMUGGLED SUPPER.

Outside the bedroom the night was black and still.

The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf
stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were
indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a sound was stirring.

Inside the bedroom the night was black and still.

Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow
night-lights; and Miss Ladd's young ladies were supposed to be fast
asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house. Only at intervals the
silence was faintly disturbed, when the restless turning of one of
the girls in her bed betrayed itself by a gentle rustling between the
sheets. In the long intervals of stillness, not even the softly audible
breathing of young creatures asleep was to be heard.

The first sound that told of life and movement revealed the mechanical
movement of the clock. Speaking from the lower regions, the tongue of
Father Time told the hour before midnight.

A soft voice rose wearily near the door of the room. It counted the
strokes of the clock--and reminded one of the girls of the lapse of
time.

"Emily! eleven o'clock."

There was no reply. After an interval the weary voice tried again, in
louder tones:

"Emily!"

A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under
the heavy heat of the night--and said, in peremptory tones, "Is that
Cecilia?"

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"I'm getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?"

The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, "No, she isn't."

Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of
Miss Ladd's first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation
of the falling asleep of the stranger--and it had ended in this way!
A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The new girl, mortified and
offended, entered her protest in plain words.

"You are treating me shamefully! You all distrust me, because I am a
stranger."

"Say we don't understand you," Emily answered, speaking for her
schoolfellows; "and you will be nearer the truth."

"Who expected you to understand me, when I only came here to-day? I have
told you already my name is Francine de Sor. If want to know more, I'm
nineteen years old, and I come from the West Indies."

Emily still took the lead. "Why do you come _here?_" she asked. "Who
ever heard of a girl joining a new school just before the holidays? You
are nineteen years old, are you? I'm a year younger than you--and I have
finished my education. The next big girl in the room is a year younger
than me--and she has finished her education. What can you possibly have
left to learn at your age?"

"Everything!" cried the stranger from the West Indies, with an outburst
of tears. "I'm a poor ignorant creature. Your education ought to have
taught you to pity me instead of making fun of me. I hate you all. For
shame, for shame!"

Some of the girls laughed. One of them--the hungry girl who had counted
the strokes of the clock--took Francine's part.

"Never mind their laughing, Miss de Sor. You are quite right, you have
good reason to complain of us."

Miss de Sor dried her eyes. "Thank you--whoever you are," she answered
briskly.

"My name is Cecilia Wyvil," the other proceeded. "It was not, perhaps,
quite nice of you to say you hated us all. At the same time we have
forgotten our good breeding--and the least we can do is to beg your
pardon."

This expression of generous sentiment appeared to have an irritating
effect on the peremptory young person who took the lead in the room.
Perhaps she disapproved of free trade in generous sentiment.

"I can tell you one thing, Cecilia," she said; "you shan't beat ME in
generosity. Strike a light, one of you, and lay the blame on me if Miss
Ladd finds us out. I mean to shake hands with the new girl--and how can
I do it in the dark? Miss de Sor, my name's Brown, and I'm queen of the
bedroom. I--not Cecilia--offer our apologies if we have offended you.
Cecilia is my dearest friend, but I don't allow her to take the lead in
the room. Oh, what a lovely nightgown!"

The sudden flow of candle-light had revealed Francine, sitting up in her
bed, and displaying such treasures of real lace over her bosom that
the queen lost all sense of royal dignity in irrepressible admiration.
"Seven and sixpence," Emily remarked, looking at her own night-gown and
despising it. One after another, the girls yielded to the attraction of
the wonderful lace. Slim and plump, fair and dark, they circled round
the new pupil in their flowing white robes, and arrived by common
consent at one and the same conclusion: "How rich her father must be!"

Favored by fortune in the matter of money, was this enviable person
possessed of beauty as well?

In the disposition of the beds, Miss de Sor was placed between Cecilia
on the right hand, and Emily on the left. If, by some fantastic turn of
events, a man--say in the interests of propriety, a married doctor, with
Miss Ladd to look after him--had been permitted to enter the room, and
had been asked what he thought of the girls when he came out, he would
not even have mentioned Francine. Blind to the beauties of the expensive
night-gown, he would have noticed her long upper lip, her obstinate
chin, her sallow complexion, her eyes placed too close together--and
would have turned his attention to her nearest neighbors. On one side
his languid interest would have been instantly roused by Cecilia's
glowing auburn hair, her exquisitely pure skin, and her tender blue
eyes. On the other, he would have discovered a bright little creature,
who would have fascinated and perplexed him at one and the same time. If
he had been questioned about her by a stranger, he would have been at
a loss to say positively whether she was dark or light: he would have
remembered how her eyes had held him, but he would not have known of
what color they were. And yet, she would have remained a vivid picture
in his memory when other impressions, derived at the same time, had
vanished. "There was one little witch among them, who was worth all the
rest put together; and I can't tell you why. They called her Emily. If
I wasn't a married man--" There he would have thought of his wife, and
would have sighed and said no more.

While the girls were still admiring Francine, the clock struck the
half-hour past eleven.

Cecilia stole on tiptoe to the door--looked out, and listened--closed
the door again--and addressed the meeting with the irresistible charm of
her sweet voice and her persuasive smile.

"Are none of you hungry yet?" she inquired. "The teachers are safe in
their rooms; we have set ourselves right with Francine. Why keep the
supper waiting under Emily's bed?"

Such reasoning as this, with such personal attractions to recommend
it, admitted of but one reply. The queen waved her hand graciously, and
said, "Pull it out."

Is a lovely girl--whose face possesses the crowning charm of expression,
whose slightest movement reveals the supple symmetry of her figure--less
lovely because she is blessed with a good appetite, and is not ashamed
to acknowledge it? With a grace all her own, Cecilia dived under
the bed, and produced a basket of jam tarts, a basket of fruit and
sweetmeats, a basket of sparkling lemonade, and a superb cake--all
paid for by general subscriptions, and smuggled into the room by kind
connivance of the servants. On this occasion, the feast was especially
plentiful and expensive, in commemoration not only of the arrival of the
Midsummer holidays, but of the coming freedom of Miss Ladd's two leading
young ladies. With widely different destinies before them, Emily and
Cecilia had completed their school life, and were now to go out into the
world.

The contrast in the characters of the two girls showed itself, even in
such a trifle as the preparations for supper.

Gentle Cecilia, sitting on the floor surrounded by good things, left it
to the ingenuity of others to decide whether the baskets should be all
emptied at once, or handed round from bed to bed, one at a time. In the
meanwhile, her lovely blue eyes rested tenderly on the tarts.

Emily's commanding spirit seized on the reins of government, and
employed each of her schoolfellows in the occupation which she was
fittest to undertake. "Miss de Sor, let me look at your hand. Ah! I
thought so. You have got the thickest wrist among us; you shall draw
the corks. If you let the lemonade pop, not a drop of it goes down your
throat. Effie, Annis, Priscilla, you are three notoriously lazy girls;
it's doing you a true kindness to set you to work. Effie, clear the
toilet-table for supper; away with the combs, the brushes, and the
looking-glass. Annis, tear the leaves out of your book of exercises, and
set them out for plates. No! I'll unpack; nobody touches the baskets but
me. Priscilla, you have the prettiest ears in the room. You shall act as
sentinel, my dear, and listen at the door. Cecilia, when you have done
devouring those tarts with your eyes, take that pair of scissors (Miss
de Sor, allow me to apologize for the mean manner in which this school
is carried on; the knives and forks are counted and locked up every
night)--I say take that pair of scissors, Cecilia, and carve the cake,
and don't keep the largest bit for yourself. Are we all ready? Very
well. Now take example by me. Talk as much as you like, so long as you
don't talk too loud. There is one other thing before we begin. The men
always propose toasts on these occasions; let's be like the men. Can any
of you make a speech? Ah, it falls on me as usual. I propose the first
toast. Down with all schools and teachers--especially the new teacher,
who came this half year. Oh, mercy, how it stings!" The fixed gas in the
lemonade took the orator, at that moment, by the throat, and effectually
checked the flow of her eloquence. It made no difference to the girls.
Excepting the ease of feeble stomachs, who cares for eloquence in
the presence of a supper-table? There were no feeble stomachs in that
bedroom. With what inexhaustible energy Miss Ladd's young ladies ate
and drank! How merrily they enjoyed the delightful privilege of talking
nonsense! And--alas! alas!--how vainly they tried, in after life, to
renew the once unalloyed enjoyment of tarts and lemonade!

In the unintelligible scheme of creation, there appears to be no
human happiness--not even the happiness of schoolgirls--which is ever
complete. Just as it was drawing to a close, the enjoyment of the feast
was interrupted by an alarm from the sentinel at the door.

"Put out the candle!" Priscilla whispered "Somebody on the stairs."



CHAPTER II. BIOGRAPHY IN THE BEDROOM.

The candle was instantly extinguished. In discreet silence the girls
stole back to their beds, and listened.

As an aid to the vigilance of the sentinel, the door had been left ajar.
Through the narrow opening, a creaking of the broad wooden stairs of
the old house became audible. In another moment there was silence. An
interval passed, and the creaking was heard again. This time, the
sound was distant and diminishing. On a sudden it stopped. The midnight
silence was disturbed no more.

What did this mean?

Had one among the many persons in authority under Miss Ladd's roof heard
the girls talking, and ascended the stairs to surprise them in the act
of violating one of the rules of the house? So far, such a proceeding
was by no means uncommon. But was it within the limits of probability
that a teacher should alter her opinion of her own duty half-way up the
stairs, and deliberately go back to her own room again? The bare idea
of such a thing was absurd on the face of it. What more rational
explanation could ingenuity discover on the spur of the moment?

Francine was the first to offer a suggestion. She shook and shivered in
her bed, and said, "For heaven's sake, light the candle again! It's a
Ghost."

"Clear away the supper, you fools, before the ghost can report us to
Miss Ladd."

With this excellent advice Emily checked the rising panic. The door was
closed, the candle was lit; all traces of the supper disappeared. For
five minutes more they listened again. No sound came from the stairs; no
teacher, or ghost of a teacher, appeared at the door.

Having eaten her supper, Cecilia's immediate anxieties were at an end;
she was at leisure to exert her intelligence for the benefit of her
schoolfellows. In her gentle ingratiating way, she offered a composing
suggestion. "When we heard the creaking, I don't believe there was
anybody on the stairs. In these old houses there are always strange
noises at night--and they say the stairs here were made more than two
hundred years since."

The girls looked at each other with a sense of relief--but they waited
to hear the opinion of the queen. Emily, as usual, justified the
confidence placed in her. She discovered an ingenious method of putting
Cecilia's suggestion to the test.

"Let's go on talking," she said. "If Cecilia is right, the teachers are
all asleep, and we have nothing to fear from them. If she's wrong, we
shall sooner or later see one of them at the door. Don't be alarmed,
Miss de Sor. Catching us talking at night, in this school, only means
a reprimand. Catching us with a light, ends in punishment. Blow out the
candle."

Francine's belief in the ghost was too sincerely superstitious to be
shaken: she started up in bed. "Oh, don't leave me in the dark! I'll
take the punishment, if we are found out."

"On your sacred word of honor?" Emily stipulated.

"Yes--yes."

The queen's sense of humor was tickled.

"There's something funny," she remarked, addressing her subjects, "in
a big girl like this coming to a new school and beginning with a
punishment. May I ask if you are a foreigner, Miss de Sor?"

"My papa is a Spanish gentleman," Francine answered, with dignity.

"And your mamma?"

"My mamma is English."

"And you have always lived in the West Indies?"

"I have always lived in the Island of St. Domingo."

Emily checked off on her fingers the different points thus far
discovered in the character of Mr. de Sor's daughter. "She's ignorant,
and superstitious, and foreign, and rich. My dear (forgive the
familiarity), you are an interesting girl--and we must really know more
of you. Entertain the bedroom. What have you been about all your life?
And what in the name of wonder, brings you here? Before you begin I
insist on one condition, in the name of all the young ladies in the
room. No useful information about the West Indies!"

Francine disappointed her audience.

She was ready enough to make herself an object of interest to her
companions; but she was not possessed of the capacity to arrange
events in their proper order, necessary to the recital of the simplest
narrative. Emily was obliged to help her, by means of questions. In
one respect, the result justified the trouble taken to obtain it. A
sufficient reason was discovered for the extraordinary appearance of a
new pupil, on the day before the school closed for the holidays.

Mr. de Sor's elder brother had left him an estate in St. Domingo, and a
fortune in money as well; on the one easy condition that he continued
to reside in the island. The question of expense being now beneath the
notice of the family, Francine had been sent to England, especially
recommended to Miss Ladd as a young lady with grand prospects, sorely
in need of a fashionable education. The voyage had been so timed, by
the advice of the schoolmistress, as to make the holidays a means of
obtaining this object privately. Francine was to be taken to Brighton,
where excellent masters could be obtained to assist Miss Ladd. With six
weeks before her, she might in some degree make up for lost time; and,
when the school opened again, she would avoid the mortification of being
put down in the lowest class, along with the children.

The examination of Miss de Sor having produced these results was
pursued no further. Her character now appeared in a new, and not very
attractive, light. She audaciously took to herself the whole credit of
telling her story:

"I think it's my turn now," she said, "to be interested and amused. May
I ask you to begin, Miss Emily? All I know of you at present is, that
your family name is Brown."

Emily held up her hand for silence.

Was the mysterious creaking on the stairs making itself heard once more?
No. The sound that had caught Emily's quick ear came from the beds, on
the opposite side of the room, occupied by the three lazy girls. With
no new alarm to disturb them, Effie, Annis, and Priscilla had yielded
to the composing influences of a good supper and a warm night. They were
fast asleep--and the stoutest of the three (softly, as became a young
lady) was snoring!

The unblemished reputation of the bedroom was dear to Emily, in her
capacity of queen. She felt herself humiliated in the presence of the
new pupil.

"If that fat girl ever gets a lover," she said indignantly, "I shall
consider it my duty to warn the poor man before he marries her.
Her ridiculous name is Euphemia. I have christened her (far more
appropriately) Boiled Veal. No color in her hair, no color in her
eyes, no color in her complexion. In short, no flavor in Euphemia. You
naturally object to snoring. Pardon me if I turn my back on you--I am
going to throw my slipper at her."

The soft voice of Cecilia--suspiciously drowsy in tone--interposed in
the interests of mercy.

"She can't help it, poor thing; and she really isn't loud enough to
disturb us."

"She won't disturb _you_, at any rate! Rouse yourself, Cecilia. We are
wide awake on this side of the room--and Francine says it's our turn to
amuse her."

A low murmur, dying away gently in a sigh, was the only answer. Sweet
Cecilia had yielded to the somnolent influences of the supper and the
night. The soft infection of repose seemed to be in some danger of
communicating itself to Francine. Her large mouth opened luxuriously in
a long-continued yawn.

"Good-night!" said Emily.

Miss de Sor became wide awake in an instant.

"No," she said positively; "you are quite mistaken if you think I am
going to sleep. Please exert yourself, Miss Emily--I am waiting to be
interested."

Emily appeared to be unwilling to exert herself. She preferred talking
of the weather.

"Isn't the wind rising?" she said.

There could be no doubt of it. The leaves in the garden were beginning
to rustle, and the pattering of the rain sounded on the windows.

Francine (as her straight chin proclaimed to all students of
physiognomy) was an obstinate girl. Determined to carry her point she
tried Emily's own system on Emily herself--she put questions.

"Have you been long at this school?"

"More than three years."

"Have you got any brothers and sisters?"

"I am the only child."

"Are your father and mother alive?"

Emily suddenly raised herself in bed.

"Wait a minute," she said; "I think I hear it again."

"The creaking on the stairs?"

"Yes."

Either she was mistaken, or the change for the worse in the weather
made it not easy to hear slight noises in the house. The wind was still
rising. The passage of it through the great trees in the garden began
to sound like the fall of waves on a distant beach. It drove the rain--a
heavy downpour by this time--rattling against the windows.

"Almost a storm, isn't it?" Emily said

Francine's last question had not been answered yet. She took the
earliest opportunity of repeating it:

"Never mind the weather," she said. "Tell me about your father and
mother. Are they both alive?"

Emily's reply only related to one of her parents.

"My mother died before I was old enough to feel my loss."

"And your father?"

Emily referred to another relative--her father's sister. "Since I have
grown up," she proceeded, "my good aunt has been a second mother to me.
My story is, in one respect, the reverse of yours. You are unexpectedly
rich; and I am unexpectedly poor. My aunt's fortune was to have been
my fortune, if I outlived her. She has been ruined by the failure of
a bank. In her old age, she must live on an income of two hundred a
year--and I must get my own living when I leave school."

"Surely your father can help you?" Francine persisted.

"His property is landed property." Her voice faltered, as she referred
to him, even in that indirect manner. "It is entailed; his nearest male
relative inherits it."

The delicacy which is easily discouraged was not one of the weaknesses
in the nature of Francine.

"Do I understand that your father is dead?" she asked.

Our thick-skinned fellow-creatures have the rest of us at their mercy:
only give them time, and they carry their point in the end. In sad
subdued tones--telling of deeply-rooted reserves of feeling, seldom
revealed to strangers--Emily yielded at last.

"Yes," she said, "my father is dead."

"Long ago?"

"Some people might think it long ago. I was very fond of my father. It's
nearly four years since he died, and my heart still aches when I think
of him. I'm not easily depressed by troubles, Miss de Sor. But his death
was sudden--he was in his grave when I first heard of it--and--Oh, he
was so good to me; he was so good to me!"

The gay high-spirited little creature who took the lead among them
all--who was the life and soul of the school--hid her face in her hands,
and burst out crying.

Startled and--to do her justice--ashamed, Francine attempted to make
excuses. Emily's generous nature passed over the cruel persistency
that had tortured her. "No no; I have nothing to forgive. It isn't your
fault. Other girls have not mothers and brothers and sisters--and get
reconciled to such a loss as mine. Don't make excuses."

"Yes, but I want you to know that I feel for you," Francine insisted,
without the slightest approach to sympathy in face, voice, or manner.
"When my uncle died, and left us all the money, papa was much shocked.
He trusted to time to help him."

"Time has been long about it with me, Francine. I am afraid there is
something perverse in my nature; the hope of meeting again in a better
world seems so faint and so far away. No more of it now! Let us talk of
that good creature who is asleep on the other side of you. Did I tell
you that I must earn my own bread when I leave school? Well, Cecilia
has written home and found an employment for me. Not a situation as
governess--something quite out of the common way. You shall hear all
about it."

In the brief interval that had passed, the weather had begun to change
again. The wind was as high as ever; but to judge by the lessening
patter on the windows the rain was passing away.

Emily began.

She was too grateful to her friend and school-fellow, and too deeply
interested in her story, to notice the air of indifference with which
Francine settled herself on her pillow to hear the praises of Cecilia.
The most beautiful girl in the school was not an object of interest to a
young lady with an obstinate chin and unfortunately-placed eyes.
Pouring warm from the speaker's heart the story ran smoothly on, to the
monotonous accompaniment of the moaning wind. By fine degrees Francine's
eyes closed, opened and closed again. Toward the latter part of the
narrative Emily's memory became, for the moment only, confused between
two events. She stopped to consider--noticed Francine's silence, in an
interval when she might have said a word of encouragement--and looked
closer at her. Miss de Sor was asleep.

"She might have told me she was tired," Emily said to herself quietly.
"Well! the best thing I can do is to put out the light and follow her
example."

As she took up the extinguisher, the bedroom door was suddenly opened
from the outer side. A tall woman, robed in a black dressing-gown, stood
on the threshold, looking at Emily.




CHAPTER III. THE LATE MR. BROWN.

The woman's lean, long-fingered hand pointed to the candle.

"Don't put it out." Saying those words, she looked round the room, and
satisfied herself that the other girls were asleep.

Emily laid down the extinguisher. "You mean to report us, of course,"
she said. "I am the only one awake, Miss Jethro; lay the blame on me."

"I have no intention of reporting you. But I have something to say."

She paused, and pushed her thick black hair (already streaked with gray)
back from her temples. Her eyes, large and dark and dim, rested on
Emily with a sorrowful interest. "When your young friends wake to-morrow
morning," she went on, "you can tell them that the new teacher, whom
nobody likes, has left the school."

For once, even quick-witted Emily was bewildered. "Going away," she
said, "when you have only been here since Easter!"

Miss Jethro advanced, not noticing Emily's expression of surprise. "I am
not very strong at the best of times," she continued, "may I sit down
on your bed?" Remarkable on other occasions for her cold composure, her
voice trembled as she made that request--a strange request surely, when
there were chairs at her disposal.

Emily made room for her with the dazed look of a girl in a dream. "I
beg your pardon, Miss