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

us, my dear, what led you to suspect that she was mad?” suggested Mr. Frankland.

Rosamond hesitated. “Things that are great in one’s own mind,” she said, “seem to get so little when they are put into words. I almost despair of making you understand what good reason I had to be frightened⁠—and then, I am afraid, in trying to do justice to myself, that I may not do justice to the nurse.”

“Tell your own story, my love, in your own way, and you will be sure to tell it properly,” said Mr. Frankland.

“And pray remember,” added Mr. Orridge, “that I attach no real importance to my opinion of Mrs. Jazeph. I have not had time enough to form it. Your opportunities of observing her have been far more numerous than mine.”

Thus encouraged, Rosamond plainly and simply related all that had happened in her room on the previous evening, up to the time when she had closed her eyes and had heard the nurse approaching her bedside. Before repeating the extraordinary words that Mrs. Jazeph had whispered in her ear, she made a pause, and looked earnestly in her husband’s face.

“Why do you stop?” asked Mr. Frankland.

“I feel nervous and flurried still, Lenny, when I think of the words the nurse said to me, just before I rang the bell.”

“What did she say? Was it something you would rather not repeat?”

“No! no! I am most anxious to repeat it, and to hear what you think it means. As I have just told you, Lenny, we had been talking of Porthgenna, and of my project of exploring the north rooms as soon as I got there; and she had been asking many questions about the old house; appearing, I must say, to be unaccountably interested in it, considering she was a stranger.”

“Yes?”

“Well, when she came to the bedside, she knelt down close at my ear, and whispered all on a sudden⁠—‘When you go to Porthgenna, keep out of the Myrtle Room!’ ”

Mr. Frankland started. “Is there such a room at Porthgenna?” he asked, eagerly.

“I never heard of it,” said Rosamond.

“Are you sure of that?” inquired Mr. Orridge. Up to this moment the doctor had privately suspected that Mrs. Frankland must have fallen asleep soon after he left her the evening before; and that the narrative which she was now relating, with the sincerest conviction of its reality, was actually derived from nothing but a series of vivid impressions produced by a dream.

“I am certain I never heard of such a room,” said Rosamond. “I left Porthgenna at five years old; and I had never heard of it then. My father often talked of the house in after-years; but I am certain that he never spoke of any of the rooms by any particular names; and I can say the same of your father, Lenny, whenever I was in his company after he had bought the place. Besides, don’t you remember, when the builder we sent down to survey the house wrote you that letter, he complained that there were no names of the rooms on the different keys to guide him in opening the doors, and that he could get no information from anybody at Porthgenna on the subject? How could I ever have heard of the Myrtle Room? Who was there to tell me?”

Mr. Orridge began to look perplexed; it seemed by no means so certain that Mrs. Frankland had been dreaming, after all.

“I have thought of nothing else,” said Rosamond to her husband, in low, whispering tones. “I can’t get those mysterious words off my mind. Feel my heart, Lenny⁠—it is beating quicker than usual only with saying them over to you. They are such very strange, startling words. What do you think they mean?”

“Who is the woman who spoke them?⁠—that is the most important question,” said Mr. Frankland.

“But why did she say the words to me? That is what I want to know⁠—that is what I must know, if I am ever to feel easy in my mind again!”

“Gently, Mrs. Frankland, gently!” said Mr. Orridge. “For your child’s sake, as well as for your own, pray try to be calm, and to look at this very mysterious event as composedly as you can. If any exertions of mine can throw light upon this strange woman and her still stranger conduct, I will not spare them. I am going today to her mistress’s house to see one of the children; and, depend upon it, I will manage in some way to make Mrs. Jazeph explain herself. Her mistress shall hear every word that you have told me; and I can assure you she is just the sort of downright, resolute woman who will insist on having the whole mystery instantly cleared up.”

Rosamond’s weary eyes brightened at the doctor’s proposal. “Oh, go at once, Mr. Orridge!” she exclaimed⁠—“go at once!”

“I have a great deal of medical work to do in the town first,” said the doctor, smiling at Mrs. Frankland’s impatience.

“Begin it, then, without losing another instant,” said Rosamond. “The baby is quite well, and I am quite well⁠—we need not detain you a moment. And, Mr. Orridge, pray be as gentle and considerate as possible with the poor woman; and tell her that I never should have thought of sending her away if I had not been too frightened to know what I was about. And say how sorry I am this morning, and say⁠—”

“My dear, if Mrs. Jazeph is really not in her right senses, what would be the use of overwhelming her with all these excuses?” interposed Mr. Frankland. “It will be more to the purpose if Mr. Orridge will kindly explain and apologize for us to her mistress.”

“Go! Don’t stop to talk⁠—pray go at once!” cried Rosamond, as the doctor attempted to reply to Mr. Frankland.

“Don’t be afraid; no time shall be lost,” said Mr. Orridge, opening the door. “But remember, Mrs. Frankland, I shall expect you to reward your embassador, when he returns from his mission, by showing him that you are a little more quiet and composed than I find you this morning.” With that parting hint, the doctor took