I had turned aside, with the words stopped on my very lips, to listen. So had Aunt Milly, looking aghast, and with every tinge of colour blanched from her face. Miss Mortimer did not observe me; but she noticed her sister, and stared at her with actually a little pause and smile of malice, to direct everybody’s attention to her startled face, before she spoke.
“I can’t speak even my own language now,” was all Miss Mortimer said; and all the time looked at Aunt Milly with that derisive look, as if to show that whoever was agitated by this reference it was not herself. I was so wicked as to think she meant to turn over the scandal, if any should rise, upon her sister; and it made my blood boil; but, to be sure, I was quite in error there.
“Oh, I am sure after to-night—!” cried Miss Kate; “Indeed, my dear Miss Mortimer, I must congratulate you. I hope it is the beginning of a new life. If you would but take a little interest in the parish, with your improved health, I am sure it would do so much good; and if you should happen to meet that unfortunate young man, and would be induced to explain the truth to him a little in his own language——”
Here Miss Mortimer gave an extraordinary kind of gasp, without, however, uttering any sound. Nobody observed it but me, as my eyes were fixed on her. Then she spoke as if she could not help herself, drawing back into the shadow.
“He speaks English!” she said, with an extraordinary tone of being compelled to say something—as if some influence within her had constrained the words from her unwilling tongue.
“But, ah, it is the servant I speak of,” cried Miss Kate; “one soul is just as precious as another; it is he, poor unfortunate man! If you should meet him in any of your drives,—he is very stout, and has a large beard, and is so completely the foreigner that you can’t mistake him,—if you would only stop the carriage and say a word in season.”
There was another wonderful contraction of all the muscles of Miss Mortimer’s face, and this time a kind of hysterical sound came with it.
“If I meet him,” she said, slowly, “I’ll give him a word in season—don’t be afraid,” and she laughed.
It made me shiver and tremble all over. I was thankful that Ellis came that moment with tea, and I could get up and go into another corner of the room to recover myself. I don’t know how Aunt Milly bore it. She had not a particle of colour in her face the whole evening after. But Miss Mortimer went upstairs steadily when all the guests were gone. I do not know what befell when she got into her own room. I do not think they had much rest there that night. If she had fallen down in a fit, or expired at the head of the table that evening, it would not have surprised me. She had lived through it; but I am sure neither she nor her poor faithful maid closed their eyes that night.