Wilkie Collins

I Say No

Warsaw 2022

Contents

Book the First. At School

The Smuggled Supper

Biography in the Bedroom

The Late Mr. Brown

Miss Ladd's Drawing-Master

Discoveries in the Garden

On the Way to the Village

'Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before.'

Master and Pupil

Mrs. Rook and the Locket

Guesses at the Truth

The Drawing-Master's Confession

Book the Second. In London

Mrs. Ellmother

Miss Letitia

Mrs. Mosey

Emily

Miss Jethro

Doctor Allday

Miss Ladd

Sir Jervis Redwood

The Reverend Miles Mirabel

Polly and Sally

Alban Morris

Miss Redwood

Mr. Rook

'J. B.'

Mother Eve

Mentor and Telemachus

Francine

'Bony.'

Lady Doris

Moira

Book the Third. Netherwoods

In the Gray Room

Recollections of St. Domingo

In the Dark

The Treachery of the Pipe

Change of Air

'The Lady Wants You, Sir.'

Book the Fourth. The Country House

Dancing

Feigning

Consulting

Speechifying

Cooking

Sounding

Competing

Mischief ' Making

Pretending

Debating

Investigating

Book the Fifth. The Cottage

Emily Suffers

Miss Ladd Advises

The Doctor Sees

'If i Could Find a Friend!'

The Friend is Found

The End of the Fainting Fit

Book the Sixth. Here and There

Mirabel Sees His Way

Alban Sees His Way

Approaching the End

Book the Seventh. The Clink

A Council of Two

The Accident at Belford

Outside the Room

Inside the Room

Downstairs

The Defense of Mirabel

On the Way to London

Book the Last. At Home Again

Cecilia in a New Character

Alban's Narrative

The True Consolation

Postscript

Book the First

At School.

Chapter i

The Smuggled Supper.

Outside the bedroom the night was black and still.

The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a sound was stirring.

Inside the bedroom the night was black and still.

Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow night-lights; and Miss Ladd’s young ladies were supposed to be fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house. Only at intervals the silence was faintly disturbed, when the restless turning of one of the girls in her bed betrayed itself by a gentle rustling between the sheets. In the long intervals of stillness, not even the softly audible breathing of young creatures asleep was to be heard.

The first sound that told of life and movement revealed the mechanical movement of the clock. Speaking from the lower regions, the tongue of Father Time told the hour before midnight.

A soft voice rose wearily near the door of the room. It counted the strokes of the clock–and reminded one of the girls of the lapse of time.

“Emily! eleven o’clock.”

There was no reply. After an interval the weary voice tried again, in louder tones:

“Emily!”

A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under the heavy heat of the night–and said, in peremptory tones, “Is that Cecilia?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“I’m getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?”

The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, “No, she isn’t.”

Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of Miss Ladd’s first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger–and it had ended in this way! A ripple of laughter ran round the room. The new girl, mortified and offended, entered her protest in plain words.

“You are treating me shamefully! You all distrust me, because I am a stranger.”

“Say we don’t understand you,” Emily answered, speaking for her schoolfellows; “and you will be nearer the truth.”

“Who expected you to understand me, when I only came here to-day? I have told you already my name is Francine de Sor. If want to know more, I’m nineteen years old, and I come from the West Indies.”

Emily still took the lead. “Why do you come here?” she asked. “Who ever heard of a girl joining a new school just before the holidays? You are nineteen years old, are you? I’m a year younger than you–and I have finished my education. The next big girl in the room is a year younger than me–and she has finished her education. What can you possibly have left to learn at your age?”

“Everything!” cried the stranger from the West Indies, with an outburst of tears. “I’m a poor ignorant creature. Your education ought to have taught you to pity me instead of making fun of me. I hate you all. For shame, for shame!”

Some of the girls laughed. One of them–the hungry girl who had counted the strokes of the clock–took Francine’s part.

“Never mind their laughing, Miss de Sor. You are quite right, you have good reason to complain of us.”

Miss de Sor dried her eyes. “Thank you–whoever you are,” she answered briskly.

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