The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [1433]
"How did she speak of me? In an angry way?"
"No, indeed--quite the contrary. She says, 'You will find Miss Emily at the cottage. She is Miss Letitia's niece. Everybody likes her--and everybody is right.'"
"She really said that?"
"Those were her words. And, what is more, she gave me a message for you at parting. 'If Miss Emily is surprised' (that was how she put it) 'give her my duty and good wishes; and tell her to remember what I said, when she took my place at her aunt's bedside.' I don't presume to inquire what this means," said Mrs. Mosey respectfully, ready to hear what it meant, if Emily would only be so good as to tell her. "I deliver the message, miss, as it was delivered to me. After which, Mrs. Ellmother went her way, and I went mine."
"Do you know where she wen t?"
"No, miss."
"Have you nothing more to tell me?"
"Nothing more; except that she gave me my directions, of course, about the nursing. I took them down in writing--and you will find them in their proper place, with the prescriptions and the medicines."
Acting at once on this hint, Emily led the way to her aunt's room.
Miss Letitia was silent, when the new nurse softly parted the curtains--looked in--and drew them together again. Consulting her watch, Mrs. Mosey compared her written directions with the medicine-bottles on the table, and set one apart to be used at the appointed time. "Nothing, so far, to alarm us," she whispered. "You look sadly pale and tired, miss. Might I advise you to rest a little?"
"If there is any change, Mrs. Mosey--either for the better or the worse--of course you will let me know?"
"Certainly, miss."
Emily returned to the sitting-room: not to rest (after all that she had heard), but to think.
Amid much that was unintelligible, certain plain conclusions presented themselves to her mind.
After what the doctor had already said to Emily, on the subject of delirium generally, Mrs. Ellmother's proceedings became intelligible: they proved that she knew by experience the perilous course taken by her mistress's wandering thoughts, when they expressed themselves in words. This explained the concealment of Miss Letitia's illness from her niece, as well as the reiterated efforts of the old servant to prevent Emily from entering the bedroom.
But the event which had just happened--that is to say, Mrs. Ellmother's sudden departure from the cottage--was not only of serious importance in itself, but pointed to a startling conclusion.
The faithful maid had left the mistress, whom she had loved and served, sinking under a fatal illness--and had put another woman in her place, careless of what that woman might discover by listening at the bedside--rather than confront Emily after she had been within hearing of her aunt while the brain of the suffering woman was deranged by fever. There was the state of the case, in plain words.
In what frame of mind had Mrs. Ellmother adopted this desperate course of action?
To use her own expression, she had deserted Miss Letitia "with a heavy heart." To judge by her own language addressed to Mrs. Mosey, she had left Emily to the mercy of a stranger--animated, nevertheless, by sincere feelings of attachment and respect. That her fears had taken for granted suspicion which Emily had not felt, and discoveries which Emily had (as yet) not made, in no way modified the serious nature of the inference which her conduct justified. The disclosure which this woman dreaded--who could doubt it