I Say No

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER IV. MISS LADD'S DRAWING-MASTER.

  Francine was awakened the next morning by one of the housemaids,bringing up her breakfast on a tray. Astonished at this concession tolaziness, in an institution devoted to the practice of all virtues, shelooked round. The bedroom was deserted.

  "The other young ladies are as busy as bees, miss," the housemaidexplained. "They were up and dressed two hours ago: and the breakfasthas been cleared away long since. It's Miss Emily's fault. She wouldn'tallow them to wake you; she said you could be of no possible usedownstairs, and you had better be treated like a visitor. Miss Ceciliawas so distressed at your missing your breakfast that she spoke to thehousekeeper, and I was sent up to you. Please to excuse it if the tea'scold. This is Grand Day, and we are all topsy-turvy in consequence."

  Inquiring what "Grand Day" meant, and why it produced this extraordinaryresult in a ladies' school, Francine discovered that the first day ofthe vacation was devoted to the distribution of prizes, in thepresence of parents, guardians and friends. An Entertainment was added,comprising those merciless tests of human endurance called Recitations;light refreshments and musical performances being distributed atintervals, to encourage the exhausted audience. The local newspaper senta reporter to describe the proceedings, and some of Miss Ladd's youngladies enjoyed the intoxicating luxury of seeing their names in print.

  "It begins at three o'clock," the housemaid went on, "and, what withpracticing and rehearsing, and ornamenting the schoolroom, there's ahubbub fit to make a person's head spin. Besides which," said the girl,lowering her voice, and approaching a little nearer to Francine, "wehave all been taken by surprise. The first thing in the morning MissJethro left us, without saying good-by to anybody."

  "Who is Miss Jethro?"

  "The new teacher, miss. We none of us liked her, and we all suspectthere's something wrong. Miss Ladd and the clergyman had a long talktogether yesterday (in private, you know), and they sent for MissJethro--which looks bad, doesn't it? Is there anything more I can do foryou, miss? It's a beautiful day after the rain. If I was you, I shouldgo and enjoy myself in the garden."

  Having finished her breakfast, Francine decided on profiting by thissensible suggestion.

  The servant who showed her the way to the garden was not favorablyimpressed by the new pupil: Francine's temper asserted itself a littletoo plainly in her face. To a girl possessing a high opinion of her ownimportance it was not very agreeable to feel herself excluded, asan illiterate stranger, from the one absorbing interest of herschoolfellows. "Will the time ever come," she wondered bitterly, "whenI shall win a prize, and sing and play before all the company? How Ishould enjoy making the girls envy me!"

  A broad lawn, overshadowed at one end by fine old trees--flower beds andshrubberies, and winding paths prettily and invitingly laid out--madethe garden a welcome refuge on that fine summer morning. The noveltyof the scene, after her experience in the West Indies, the deliciousbreezes cooled by the rain of the night, exerted their cheeringinfluence even on the sullen disposition of Francine. She smiled, inspite of herself, as she followed the pleasant paths, and heard thebirds singing their summer songs over her head.

  Wandering among the trees, which occupied a considerable extent ofground, she passed into an open space beyond, and discovered an oldfish-pond, overgrown by aquatic plants. Driblets of water trickled froma dilapidated fountain in the middle. On the further side of the pondthe ground sloped downward toward the south, and revealed, over a lowpaling, a pretty view of a village and its church, backed by fir woodsmounting the heathy sides of a range of hills beyond. A fanciful littlewooden building, imitating the form of a Swiss cottage, was placed so asto command the prospect. Near it, in the shadow of the building, stood arustic chair and table--with a color-box on one, and a portfolio on theother. Fluttering over the grass, at the mercy of the capricious breeze,was a neglected sheet of drawing-paper. Francine ran round the pond, andpicked up the paper just as it was on the point of being tilted intothe water. It contained a sketch in water colors of the village and thewoods, and Francine had looked at the view itself with indifference--thepicture of the view interested her. Ordinary visitors to Galleries ofArt, which admit students, show the same strange perversity. The work ofthe copyist commands their whole attention; they take no interest in theoriginal picture.

  Looking up from the sketch, Francine was startled. She discovered a man,at the window of the Swiss summer-house, watching her.

  "When you have done with that drawing," he said quietly, "please let mehave it back again."

  He was tall and thin and dark. His finely-shaped intelligentface--hidden, as to the lower part of it, by a curly black beard--wouldhave been absolutely handsome, even in the eyes of a schoolgirl, but forthe deep furrows that marked it prematurely between the eyebrows, and atthe sides of the mouth. In the same way, an underlying mockery impairedthe attraction of his otherwise refined and gentle manner. Amonghis fellow-creatures, children and dogs were the only critics whoappreciated his merits without discovering the defects which lessenedthe favorable appreciation of him by men and women. He dressed neatly,but his morning coat was badly made, and his picturesque felt hat wastoo old. In short, there seemed to be no good quality about him whichwas not perversely associated with a drawback of some kind. He was oneof those harmless and luckless men, possessed of excellent qualities,who fail nevertheless to achieve popularity in their social sphere.

  Francine handed his sketch to him, through the window; doubtful whetherthe words that he had addressed to her were spoken in jest or inearnest.

  "I only presumed to touch your drawing," she said, "because it was indanger."

  "What danger?" he inquired.

  Francine pointed to the pond. "If I had not been in time to pick it up,it would have been blown into the water."

  "Do you think it was worth picking up?"

  Putting that question, he looked first at the sketch--then at the viewwhich it represented--then back again at the sketch. The corners of hismouth turned upward with a humorous expression of scorn. "Madam Nature,"he said, "I beg your pardon." With those words, he composedly tore hiswork of art into small pieces, and scattered them out of the window.

  "What a pity!" said Francine.

  He joined her on the ground outside the cottage. "Why is it a pity?" heasked.

  "Such a nice drawing."

  "It isn't a nice drawing."

  "You're not very polite, sir."

  He looked at her--and sighed as if he pitied so young a woman for havinga temper so ready to take offense. In his flattest contradictions healways preserved the character of a politely-positive man.

  "Put it in plain words, miss," he replied. "I have offended thepredominant sense in your nature--your sense of self-esteem. You don'tlike to be told, even indirectly, that you know nothing of Art. In thesedays, everybody knows everything--and thinks nothing worth knowing afterall. But beware how you presume on an appearance of indifference, whichis nothing but conceit in disguise. The ruling passion of civilizedhumanity is, Conceit. You may try the regard of your dearest friendin any other way, and be forgiven. Ruffle the smooth surface of yourfriend's self-esteem--and there will be an acknowledged coolness betweenyou which will last for life. Excuse me for giving you the benefit ofmy trumpery experience. This sort of smart talk is _my_ form of conceit.Can I be of use to you in some better way? Are you looking for one ofour young ladies?"

  Francine began to feel a certain reluctant interest in him when he spokeof "our young ladies." She asked if he belonged to the school.

  The corners of his mouth turned up again. "I'm one of the masters," hesaid. "Are _you_ going to belong to the school, too?"

  Francine bent her head, with a gravity and condescension intendedto keep him at his proper distance. Far from being discouraged, hepermitted his curiosity to take additional liberties. "Are you to havethe misfortune of being one of my pupils?" he asked.

  "I don't know who you are."

  "You won't be much wi
ser when you do know. My name is Alban Morris."

  Francine corrected herself. "I mean, I don't know what you teach."

  Alban Morris pointed to the fragments of his sketch from Nature. "I am abad artist," he said. "Some bad artists become Royal Academicians. Sometake to drink. Some get a pension. And some--I am one of them--findrefuge in schools. Drawing is an 'Extra' at this school. Will you takemy advice? Spare your good father's pocket; say you don't want to learnto draw."

  He was so gravely in earnest that Francine burst out laughing. "You area strange man," she said.

  "Wrong again, miss. I am only an unhappy man."

  The furrows in his face deepened, the latent humor died out of his eyes.He turned to the summer-house window, and took up a pipe and tobaccopouch, left on the ledge.

  "I lost my only friend last year," he said. "Since the death of my dog,my pipe is the one companion I have left. Naturally I am not allowed toenjoy the honest fellow's society in the presence of ladies. They havetheir own taste in perfumes. Their clothes and their letters reek withthe foetid secretion of the musk deer. The clean vegetable smell oftobacco is unendurable to them. Allow me to retire--and let me thank youfor the trouble you took to save my drawing."

  The tone of indifference in which he expressed his gratitude piquedFrancine. She resented it by drawing her own conclusion from what hehad said of the ladies and the musk deer. "I was wrong in admiring yourdrawing," she remarked; "and wrong again in thinking you a strange man.Am I wrong, for the third time, in believing that you dislike women?"

  "I am sorry to say you are right," Alban Morris answered gravely.

  "Is there not even one exception?"

  The instant the words passed her lips, she saw that there was somesecretly sensitive feeling in him which she had hurt. His black browsgathered into a frown, his piercing eyes looked at her with angrysurprise. It was over in a moment. He raised his shabby hat, and madeher a bow.

  "There is a sore place still left in me," he said; "and you haveinnocently hit it. Good-morning."

  Before she could speak again, he had turned the corner of thesummer-house, and was lost to view in a shrubbery on the westward sideof the grounds.