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

the intricate machinery of the nervous system had gone wrong with Mrs. Jazeph. He noted the painful working of the muscles of her face, and the hectic flush that flew into her cheeks when she entered the room and found a visitor there. He observed a strangely scared look in her eyes, and remarked that it did not leave them when the rest of her face became gradually composed. “That woman has had some dreadful fright, some great grief, or some wasting complaint,” he thought to himself. “I wonder which it is?”

“This is Mr. Orridge, the medical gentleman who has lately settled at West Winston,” said Mrs. Norbury, addressing the housekeeper. “He is in attendance on a lady who was obliged to stop, on her journey westward, at our station, and who is now staying at the Tiger’s Head. You have heard something about it, have you not, Mrs. Jazeph?”

Mrs. Jazeph, standing just inside the door, looked respectfully toward the doctor, and answered in the affirmative. Although she only said the two common words, “Yes, ma’am,” in a quiet, uninterested way, Mr. Orridge was struck by the sweetness and tenderness of her voice. If he had not been looking at her, he would have supposed it to be the voice of a young woman. His eyes remained fixed on her after she had spoken, though he felt that they ought to have been looking toward her mistress. He, the most unobservant of men in such things, found himself noticing her dress, so that he remembered, long afterward, the form of the spotless muslin cap that primly covered her smooth gray hair, and the quiet brown color of the silk dress that fitted so neatly and hung around her in such spare and disciplined folds. The little confusion which she evidently felt at finding herself the object of the doctor’s attention did not betray her into the slightest awkwardness of gesture or manner. If there can be such a thing, physically speaking, as the grace of restraint, that was the grace which seemed to govern Mrs. Jazeph’s slightest movements; which led her feet smoothly over the carpet, as she advanced when her mistress next spoke to her; which governed the action of her wan right hand as it rested lightly on a table by her side, while she stopped to hear the next question that was addressed to her.

“Well,” continued Mrs. Norbury, “this poor lady was just getting on comfortably, when the nurse who was looking after her fell ill this morning; and there she is now, in a strange place, with a first child, and no proper attendance⁠—no woman of age and experience to help her as she ought to be helped. We want somebody fit to wait on a delicate woman who has seen nothing of the rough side of humanity. Mr. Orridge can find nobody at a day’s notice, and I can tell him of nobody. Can you help us, Mrs. Jazeph? Are there any women down in the village, or among Mr. Norbury’s tenants, who understand nursing, and have some tact and tenderness to recommend them into the bargain?”

Mrs. Jazeph reflected for a little while, and then said, very respectfully, but very briefly also, and still without any appearance of interest in her manner, that she knew of no one whom she could recommend.

“Don’t make too sure of that till you have thought a little longer,” said Mrs. Norbury. “I have a particular interest in serving this lady, for Mr. Orridge told me just before you came in that she is the daughter of Captain Treverton, whose shipwreck⁠—”

The instant those words were spoken, Mrs. Jazeph turned round with a start, and looked at the doctor. Apparently forgetting that her right hand was on the table, she moved it so suddenly that it struck against a bronze statuette of a dog placed on some writing materials. The statuette fell to the ground, and Mrs. Jazeph stooped to pick it up with a cry of alarm which seemed strangely exaggerated by comparison with the trifling nature of the accident.

“Bless the woman! what is she frightened about?” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. “The dog is not hurt⁠—put it back again! This is the first time, Mrs. Jazeph, that I ever knew you do an awkward thing. You may take that as a compliment, I think. Well, as I was saying, this lady is the daughter of Captain Treverton, whose dreadful shipwreck we all read about in the papers. I knew her father in my early days, and on that account I am doubly anxious to be of service to her now. Do think again. Is there nobody within reach who can be trusted to nurse her?”

The doctor, still watching Mrs. Jazeph with that secret medical interest of his in her case, had seen her turn so deadly pale when she started and looked toward him that he would not have been surprised if she had fainted on the spot. He now observed that she changed color again when her mistress left off speaking. The hectic red tinged her cheeks once more with two bright spots. Her timid eyes wandered uneasily about the room; and her fingers, as she clasped her hands together, interlaced themselves mechanically. “That would be an interesting case to treat,” thought the doctor, following every nervous movement of the housekeeper’s hands with watchful eyes.

“Do think again,” repeated Mrs. Norbury. “I am so anxious to help this poor lady through her difficulty, if I can.”

“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Jazeph, in faint, trembling tones, but still always with the same sweetness in her voice⁠—“very sorry that I can think of no one who is fit; but⁠—”

She stopped. No shy child on its first introduction to the society of strangers could have looked more disconcerted than she looked now. Her eyes were on the ground; her color was deepening; the fingers of her clasped hands were working together faster and faster every moment.

“But what?” asked Mrs. Norbury.

“I was about to say, ma’am,” answered Mrs. Jazeph, speaking with the greatest difficulty and uneasiness, and never raising her eyes to her mistress’s face, “that, rather