I Say No

Now I'll take it off. Ha! the air feels refreshing; I know what I am about. Good heavens, I have forgotten something! I have forgotten him. And after such a fright as he gave me! Did you see him on the landing?'

'Who are you talking of?' Emily asked.

Mrs. Rook's failing voice sank lower still.

'Come closer,' she said, 'this must be whispered. Who am I talking of?' she repeated. 'I am talking of the man who slept in the other bed at the inn; the man who did the deed with his own razor. He was gone when I looked into the outhouse in the gray of the morning. Oh, I have done my duty! I have told Mr. Rook to keep an eye on him downstairs. You haven't an idea how obstinate and stupid my husband is. He says I couldn't know the man, because I didn't see him. Ha! there's such a thing as hearing, when you don't see. I heard—and I knew it again.'

Emily turned cold from head to foot.

'What did you know again?' she said.

'His voice,' Mrs. Rook answered. 'I'll swear to his voice before all the judges in England.'

Emily rushed to the bed. She looked at the woman who had said those dreadful words, speechless with horror.

'You're breaking your promise!' cried Mrs. Rook. 'You false girl, you're breaking your promise!'

She snatched at the veil, and put it on again. The sight of her face, momentary as it had been, reassured Emily. Her wild eyes, made wilder still by the blurred stains of rouge below them, half washed away—her disheveled hair, with streaks of gray showing through the dye—presented a spectacle which would have been grotesque under other circumstances, but which now reminded Emily of Mr. Rook's last words; warning her not to believe what his wife said, and even declaring his conviction that her intellect was deranged. Emily drew back from the bed, conscious of an overpowering sense of self-reproach. Although it was only for a moment, she had allowed her faith in Mirabel to be shaken by a woman who was out of her mind.

'Try to forgive me,' she said. 'I didn't willfully break my promise; you frightened me.'

Mrs. Rook began to cry. 'I was a handsome woman in my time,' she murmured. 'You would say I was handsome still, if the clumsy fools about me had not spoiled my appearance. Oh, I do feel so weak! Where's my medicine?'

The bottle was on the table. Emily gave her the prescribed dose, and revived her failing strength.

'I am an extraordinary person,' she resumed. 'My resolution has always been the admiration of every one who knew me. But my mind feels—how shall I express it?—a little vacant. Have mercy on my poor wicked soul! Help me.'

'How can I help you?'

'I want to recollect. Something happened in the summer time, when we were talking at Netherwoods. I mean when that impudent master at the school showed his suspicions of me. (Lord! how he frightened me, when he turned up afterward at Sir Jervis's house.) You must have seen yourself he suspected me. How did he show it?'

'He showed you my locket,' Emily answered.

'Oh, the horrid reminder of the murder!' Mrs. Rook exclaimed. 'I didn't mention it: don't blame Me. You poor innocent, I have something dreadful to tell you.'

Emily's horror of the woman forced her to speak. 'Don't tell me!' she cried. 'I know more than you suppose; I know what I was ignorant of when you saw the locket.'

Mrs. Rook took offense at the interruption.

'Clever as you are, there's one thing you don't know,' she said. 'You asked me, just now, who the pocketbook belonged to. It belonged to your father. What's the matter? Are you crying?'

Emily was thinking of her father. The pocketbook was the last present she had given to him—a present on his birthday. 'Is it lost?' she asked sadly.

'No; it's not lost. You will hear more of it directly. Dry your eyes, and expect something interesting—I'm going to talk about love. Love, my dear, means myself. Why shouldn't it? I'm not the only nice-looking woman, married to an old man, who has had a lover.'

'Wretch! what has that got to do with it?'

'Everything, you rude girl! My lover was like the rest of them; he would bet on race-horses, and he lost. He owned it to me, on the day when your father came to our inn. He said, 'I must find the money—or be off to America, and say good-by forever.' I was fool enough to be fond of him. It broke my heart to hear him talk in that way. I said, 'If I find the money, and more than the money, will you take me with you wherever you go?' Of course, he said Yes. I suppose you have heard of the inquest held at our old place by the coroner and jury? Oh, what idiots! They believed I was asleep on the night of the murder. I never closed my eyes—I was so miserable, I was so tempted.'

'Tempted? What tempted you?'

'Do you think I had any money to spare? Your father's pocketbook tempted me. I had seen him open it, to pay his bill over-night. It was full of bank-notes. Oh, what an overpowering thing love is! Perhaps you have known it yourself.'

Emily's indignation once more got the better of her prudence. 'Have you no feeling of decency on your death- bed!' she said.

Mrs. Rook forgot her piety; she was ready with an impudent rejoinder. 'You hot-headed little woman, your time will come,' she answered. 'But you're right—I am wandering from the point; I am not sufficiently sensible of this solemn occasion. By-the-by, do you notice my language? I inherit correct English from my mother—a cultivated person, who married beneath her. My paternal grandfather was a gentleman. Did I tell you that there came a time, on that dreadful night, when I could stay in bed no longer? The pocketbook—I did nothing but think of that devilish pocketbook, full of bank-notes. My husband was fast asleep all the time. I got a chair and stood on it. I looked into the place where the two men were sleeping, through the glass in the top of the door. Your father was awake; he