"Wilkie Collins - I Say No" - читать интересную книгу автора (Collins Wilkie)

"You knew my father!" Emily exclaimed.
"I believe I knew him. But his name is so common--there are so many thousands of
'James Browns' in England--that I am in fear of making a mistake. I heard you
say that he died nearly four years since. Can you mention any particulars which
might help to enlighten me? If you think I am taking a liberty--"
Emily stopped her. "I would help you if I could," she said. "But I was in poor
health at the time; and I was staying with friends far away in Scotland, to try
change of air. The news of my father's death brought on a relapse. Weeks passed
before I was strong enough to travel--weeks and weeks before I saw his grave! I
can only tell you what I know from my aunt. He died of heart-complaint."
Miss Jethro started.
Emily looked at her for the first time, with eyes that betrayed a feeling of
distrust. "What have I said to startle you?" she asked.
"Nothing! I am nervous in stormy weather--don't notice me." She went on abruptly
with her inquiries. "Will you tell me the date of your father's death?"
"The date was the thirtieth of September, nearly four years since."
She waited, after that reply.
Miss Jethro was silent.
"And this," Emily continued, "is the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and
eighty-one. You can now judge for yourself. Did you know my father?"
Miss Jethro answered mechanically, using the same words.
"I did know your father."
Emily's feeling of distrust was not set at rest. "I never heard him speak of
you," she said.
In her younger days the teacher must have been a handsome woman. Her
grandly-formed features still suggested the idea of imperial beauty--perhaps
Jewish in its origin. When Emily said, "I never heard him speak of you," the
color flew into her pallid cheeks: her dim eyes became alive again with a
momentary light. She left her seat on the bed, and, turning away, mastered the
emotion that shook her.
"How hot the night is!" she said: and sighed, and resumed the subject with a
steady countenance. "I am not surprised that your father never mentioned me--to
you." She spoke quietly, but her face was paler than ever. She sat down again on
the bed. "Is there anything I can do for you," she asked, "before I go away? Oh,
I only mean some trifling service that would lay you under no obligation, and
would not oblige you to keep up your acquaintance with me."
Her eyes--the dim black eyes that must once have been irresistibly
beautiful--looked at Emily so sadly that the generous girl reproached herself
for having doubted her father's friend. "Are you thinking of him," she said
gently, "when you ask if you can be of service to me?"
Miss Jethro made no direct reply. "You were fond of your father?" she added, in
a whisper. "You told your schoolfellow that your heart still aches when you
speak of him."
"I only told her the truth," Emily answered simply.
Miss Jethro shuddered--on that hot night!--shuddered as if a chill had struck
her.
Emily held out her hand; the kind feeling that had been roused in her glittered
prettily in her eyes. "I am afraid I have not done you justice," she said. "Will
you forgive me and shake hands?"
Miss Jethro rose, and drew back. "Look at the light!" she exclaimed.