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 now?—directly threatened Emily’s peace of mind. There was no disguising it: the innocent niece was associated with an act of deception, which had been, until that day, the undetected secret of the aunt and the aunt’s maid.
In this conclusion, and in this only, was to be found the rational explanation of Mrs. Ellmother’s choice—placed between the alternatives of submitting to discovery by Emily, or of leaving the house.
Poor Miss Letitia’s writing-table stood near the window of the sitting-room. Shrinking from the further pursuit of thoughts which might end in disposing her mind to distrust of her dying aunt, Emily looked round in search of some employment sufficiently interesting to absorb her attention. The writing-table reminded her that she owed a letter to Cecilia. That helpful friend had surely the first claim to know why she had failed to keep her engagement with Sir Jervis Redwood.
After mentioning the telegram which had followed Mrs. Rook’s arrival at the school, Emily’s letter proceeded in these terms: