The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

in until the appropriate time came for bringing them out, Miss Sturch always asked questions and made remarks the moment they occurred to her, without waiting for the beginning, middle, or end of any conversations that might be proceeding in her presence. She invariably looked the part of a listener to perfection, but she never acted it except in the case of talk that was aimed point-blank at her own ears.

“Oh, give her a second helping, by all means!” said the vicar, carelessly; “if she must overeat herself, she may as well do it on bread and marmalade as on anything else.”

“My dear, good soul,” exclaimed Mr. Phippen, “look what a wreck I am, and don’t talk in that shockingly thoughtless way of letting our sweet Amelia overeat herself. Load the stomach in youth, and what becomes of the digestion in age? The thing which vulgar people call the inside⁠—I appeal to Miss Sturch’s interest in her charming pupil as an excuse for going into physiological particulars⁠—is, in point of fact, an Apparatus. Digestively considered, Miss Sturch, even the fairest and youngest of us is an Apparatus. Oil our wheels, if you like; but clog them at your peril. Farinaceous puddings and mutton-chops; mutton-chops and farinaceous puddings⁠—those should be the parents’ watchwords, if I had my way, from one end of England to the other. Look here, my sweet child⁠—look at me. There is no fun, dear, about these little scales, but dreadful earnest. See! I put in the balance on one side dry bread (stale, dry bread, Amelia!), and on the other some ounce weights. ‘Mr. Phippen, eat by weight. Mr. Phippen! eat the same quantity, day by day, to a hair’s-breadth. Mr. Phippen! exceed your allowance (though it is only stale, dry bread) if you dare!’ Amelia, love, this is not fun⁠—this is what the doctors tell me⁠—the doctors, my child, who have been searching my Apparatus through and through for thirty years past with little pills, and have not found out where my wheels are clogged yet. Think of that, Amelia⁠—think of Mr. Phippen’s clogged Apparatus⁠—and say ‘No, thank you,’ next time. Miss Sturch, I beg a thousand pardons for intruding on your province; but my interest in that sweet child⁠—Chennery, you dear, good soul, what were we talking about? Ah! the bride⁠—the interesting bride! And so she is one of the Cornish Trevertons? I knew something of Andrew years ago. He was a bachelor, like myself, Miss Sturch. His Apparatus was out of order, like mine, dear Amelia. Not at all like his brother, the Captain, I should suppose? And so she is married? A charming girl, I have no doubt. A charming girl!”

“No better, truer, prettier girl in the world,” said the vicar.

“A very lively, energetic person,” remarked Miss Sturch.

“How I shall miss her!” cried Miss Louisa. “Nobody else amused me as Rosamond did, when I was laid up with that last bad cold of mine.”

“She used to give us such nice little early supper-parties,” said Miss Amelia.

“She was the only girl I ever saw who was fit to play with boys,” said Master Robert. “She could catch a ball, Mr. Phippen, Sir, with one hand, and go down a slide with both her legs together.”

“Bless me!” said Mr. Phippen. “What an extraordinary wife for a blind man! You said he was blind from his birth, my dear doctor, did you not? Let me see, what was his name? You will not bear too hardly on my loss of memory, Miss Sturch? When indigestion has done with the body, it begins to prey on the mind. Mr. Frank Something, was it not?”

“No, no⁠—Frankland,” answered the vicar, “Leonard Frankland. And not blind from his birth by any means. It is not much more than a year ago since he could see almost as well as any of us.”

“An accident, I suppose!” said Mr. Phippen. “You will excuse me if I take the armchair?⁠—a partially reclining posture is of great assistance to me after meals. So an accident happened to his eyes? Ah, what a delightfully easy chair to sit in!”

“Scarcely an accident,” said Doctor Chennery. “Leonard Frankland was a difficult child to bring up: great constitutional weakness, you know, at first. He seemed to get over that with time, and grew into a quiet, sedate, orderly sort of boy⁠—as unlike my son there as possible⁠—very amiable, and what you call easy to deal with. Well, he had a turn for mechanics (I am telling you all this to make you understand about his blindness), and, after veering from one occupation of that sort to another, he took at last to watch-making. Curious amusement for a boy; but anything that required delicacy of touch, and plenty of patience and perseverance, was just the thing to amuse and occupy Leonard. I always said to his father and mother, ‘Get him off that stool, break his magnifying-glasses, send him to me, and I’ll give him a back at leapfrog, and teach him the use of a bat.’ But it was no use. His parents knew best, I suppose, and they said he must be humored. Well, things went on smoothly enough for some time, till he got another long illness⁠—as I believe, from not taking exercise enough. As soon as he began to get round, back he went to his old watch-making occupations again. But the bad end of it all was coming. About the last work he did, poor fellow, was the repairing of my watch⁠—here it is; goes as regular as a steam-engine. I hadn’t got it back into my fob very long before I heard that he was getting a bad pain at the back of his head, and that he saw all sorts of moving spots before his eyes. ‘String him up with lots of port wine, and give him three hours a day on the back of a quiet pony’⁠—that was my advice. Instead of taking it, they sent for doctors from London, and blistered him behind the ears and between the shoulders,