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

“ ‘When you go to Porthgenna, keep out of the Myrtle Room,’ ” repeated Mr. Frankland, thoughtfully. “Those are very strange words, Rosamond. Who can this woman really be? She is a perfect stranger to both of us; we are brought into contact with her by the merest accident; and we find that she knows something about our own house of which we were both perfectly ignorant until she chose to speak!”

“But the warning, Lenny⁠—the warning, so pointedly and mysteriously addressed to me? Oh, if I could only go to sleep at once, and not wake again till the doctor comes back!”

“My love, try not to count too certainly on our being enlightened, even then. The woman may refuse to explain herself to anybody.”

“Don’t even hint at such a disappointment as that, Lenny⁠—or I shall be wanting to get up, and go and question her myself!”

“Even if you could get up and question her, Rosamond, you might find it impossible to make her answer. She may be afraid of certain consequences which we can not foresee; and, in that case, I can only repeat that it is more than probable she will explain nothing⁠—or, perhaps, still more likely that she will coolly deny her own words altogether.”

“Then, Lenny, we will put them to the proof for ourselves.”

“And how can we do that?”

“By continuing our journey to Porthgenna the moment I am allowed to travel, and by leaving no stone unturned when we get there until we have discovered whether there is or is not any room in the old house that ever was known, at any time of its existence, by the name of the Myrtle Room.”

“And suppose it should turn out that there is such a room?” asked Mr. Frankland, beginning to feel the influence of his wife’s enthusiasm.

“If it does turn out so,” said Rosamond, her voice rising, and her face lighting up with its accustomed vivacity, “how can you doubt what will happen next? Am I not a woman? And have I not been forbidden to enter the Myrtle Room? Lenny! Lenny! Do you know so little of my half of humanity as to doubt what I should do the moment the room was discovered? My darling, as a matter of course, I should walk into it immediately.”

With all the haste he could make, it was one o’clock in the afternoon before Mr. Orridge’s professional avocations allowed him to set forth in his gig for Mrs. Norbury’s house. He drove there with such goodwill that he accomplished the half-hour’s journey in twenty minutes. The footman having heard the rapid approach of the gig, opened the hall door the instant the horse was pulled up before it, and confronted the doctor with a smile of malicious satisfaction.

“Well,” said Mr. Orridge, bustling into the hall, “you were all rather surprised last night when the housekeeper came back, I suppose?”

“Yes, Sir, we certainly were surprised when she came back last night,” answered the footman; “but we were still more surprised when she went away again this morning.”

“Went away! You don’t mean to say she is gone?”

“Yes, I do, Sir⁠—she has lost her place, and gone for good.” The footman smiled again, as he made that reply; and the housemaid, who happened to be on her way downstairs while he was speaking, and to hear what he said, smiled too. Mrs. Jazeph had evidently been no favorite in the servants’ hall.

Amazement prevented Mr. Orridge from uttering another word. Hearing no more questions asked, the footman threw open the door of the breakfast-parlor, and the doctor followed him into the room. Mrs. Norbury was sitting near the window in a rigidly upright attitude, inflexibly watching the proceedings of her invalid child over a basin of beef-tea.

“I know what you are going to talk about before you open your lips,” said the outspoken lady. “But just look to the child first, and say what you have to say on that subject, if you please, before you enter on any other.”

The child was examined, was pronounced to be improving rapidly, and was carried away by the nurse to lie down and rest a little. As soon as the door of the room had closed, Mrs. Norbury abruptly addressed the doctor, interrupting him, for the second time, just as he was about to speak.

“Now, Mr. Orridge,” she said, “I want to tell you something at the outset. I am a remarkably just woman, and I have no quarrel with you. You are the cause of my having been treated with the most audacious insolence by three people⁠—but you are the innocent cause, and, therefore, I don’t blame you.”

“I am really at a loss,” Mr. Orridge began⁠—“quite at a loss, I assure you⁠—”

“To know what I mean?” said Mrs. Norbury. “I will soon tell you. Were you not the original cause of my sending my housekeeper to nurse Mrs. Frankland?”

“Yes.” Mr. Orridge could not hesitate to acknowledge that.

“Well,” pursued Mrs. Norbury, “and the consequence of my sending her is, as I said before, that I am treated with unparalleled insolence by no less than three people. Mrs. Frankland takes an insolent whim into her head, and affects to be frightened by my housekeeper. Mr. Frankland shows an insolent readiness to humor that whim, and hands me back my housekeeper as if she was a bad shilling; and last, and worst of all, my housekeeper herself insults me to my face as soon as she comes back⁠—insults me, Mr. Orridge, to that degree that I give her twelve hours’ notice to leave the place. Don’t begin to defend yourself! I know all about it; I know you had nothing to do with sending her back; I never said you had. All the mischief you have done is innocent mischief. I don’t blame you, remember that⁠—whatever you do, Mr. Orridge, remember that!”

“I had no idea of defending myself,” said the doctor, “for I have no reason to do so. But you surprise me beyond all power of expression when you tell me that Mrs. Jazeph treated you with incivility.”

“Incivility!” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. “Don’t talk