“I may perhaps offer you the employment you want,” she said to Mrs. Ellmother. “I am staying at Brighton, for the present, with the lady who was Miss Emily’s schoolmistress, and I am in need of a maid. Would you be willing to consider it, if I proposed to engage you?”
“Yes, miss.”
“In that case, you can hardly object to the customary inquiry. Why did you leave your last place?”
Mrs. Ellmother appealed to Emily. “Did you tell this young lady how long I remained in my last place?”
Melancholy remembrances had been revived in Emily by the turn which the talk had now taken. Francine’s cat-like patience, stealthily feeling its way to its end, jarred on her nerves. “Yes,” she said; “in justice to you, I have mentioned your long term of service.”
Mrs. Ellmother addressed Francine. “You know, miss, that I served my late mistress for over twenty-five years. Will you please remember that—and let it be a reason for not asking me why I left my place.”
Francine smiled compassionately. “My good creature, you have mentioned the very reason why I should ask. You live five-and-twenty years with your mistress—and then suddenly leave her—and you expect me to pass over this extraordinary proceeding without inquiry. Take a little time to think.”
“I want no time to think. What I had in my mind, when I left Miss Letitia, is something which I refuse to explain, miss, to you, or to anybody.”
She recovered some of her old firmness, when she made that reply. Francine saw the necessity of yielding—for the time at least, Emily remained silent, oppressed by remembrance of the doubts and fears which had darkened the last miserable days of her aunt’s illness. She began already to regret having made Francine and Mrs. Ellmother known to each other.
“I won’t dwell on what appears to be a painful subject,” Francine graciously resumed. “I meant no offense. You are not angry, I hope?”