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

your own way, if you can. I say that it is utterly incomprehensible, unless you agree with me that she was not in her right senses when she came back to this house last night.”

The doctor began to think, after what he had just heard, that Mrs. Frankland’s suspicions in relation to the new nurse were not quite so unfounded as he had been at first disposed to consider them. He wisely refrained, however, from complicating matters by giving utterance to what he thought; and, after answering Mrs. Norbury in a few vaguely polite words, endeavored to soothe her irritation against Mr. and Mrs. Frankland by assuring her that he came as the bearer of apologies from both husband and wife, for the apparent want of courtesy and consideration in their conduct which circumstances had made inevitable. The offended lady, however, absolutely refused to be propitiated. She rose up, and waved her hand with an air of great dignity.

“I can not hear a word more from you, Mr. Orridge,” she said; “I can not receive any apologies which are made indirectly. If Mr. Frankland chooses to call, and if Mrs. Frankland condescends to write to me, I am willing to think no more of the matter. Under any other circumstances, I must be allowed to keep my present opinions both of the lady and the gentleman. Don’t say another word, and be so kind as to excuse me if I leave you, and go up to the nursery to see how the child is getting on. I am delighted to hear that you think her so much better. Pray call again tomorrow or next day, if you conveniently can. Good morning!”

Half amused at Mrs. Norbury, half displeased at the curt tone she adopted toward him, Mr. Orridge remained for a minute or two alone in the breakfast-parlor, feeling rather undecided about what he should do next. He was, by this time, almost as much interested in solving the mystery of Mrs. Jazeph’s extraordinary conduct as Mrs. Frankland herself; and he felt unwilling, on all accounts, to go back to the Tiger’s Head, and merely repeat what Mrs. Norbury had told him, without being able to complete the narrative by informing Mr. and Mrs. Frankland of the direction that the housekeeper had taken on leaving her situation. After some pondering, he determined to question the footman, under the pretense of desiring to know if his gig was at the door. The man having answered the bell, and having reported the gig to be ready, Mr. Orridge, while crossing the hall, asked him carelessly if he knew at what time in the morning Mrs. Jazeph had left her place.

“About ten o’clock, Sir,” answered the footman. “When the carrier came by from the village, on his way to the station for the eleven o’clock train.”

“Oh! I suppose he took her boxes?” said Mr. Orridge.

“And he took her, too, Sir,” said the man, with a grin. “She had to ride, for once in her life, at any rate, in a carrier’s cart.”

On getting back to West Winston, the doctor stopped at the station to collect further particulars, before he returned to the Tiger’s Head. No trains, either up or down, happened to be due just at that time. The stationmaster was reading the newspaper, and the porter was gardening on the slope of the embankment.

“Is the train at eleven in the morning an up-train or a down-train?” asked Mr. Orridge, addressing the porter.

“A down-train.”

“Did many people go by it?”

The porter repeated the names of some of the inhabitants of West Winston.

“Were there no passengers but passengers from the town?” inquired the doctor.

“Yes, Sir. I think there was one stranger⁠—a lady.”

“Did the stationmaster issue the tickets for that train?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Mr. Orridge went on to the stationmaster.

“Do you remember giving a ticket this morning, by the eleven o’clock down-train, to a lady traveling alone?”

The stationmaster pondered. “I have issued tickets, up and down, to half-a-dozen ladies today,” he answered, doubtfully.

“Yes, but I am speaking only of the eleven o’clock train,” said Mr. Orridge. “Try if you can’t remember?”

“Remember? Stop! I do remember; I know who you mean. A lady who seemed rather flurried, and who put a question to me that I am not often asked at this station. She had her veil down, I recollect, and she got here for the eleven o’clock train. Crouch, the carrier, brought her trunk into the office.”

“That is the woman. Where did she take her ticket for?”

“For Exeter.”

“You said she asked you a question?”

“Yes: a question about what coaches met the rail at Exeter to take travelers into Cornwall. I told her we were rather too far off here to have the correct timetable, and recommended her to apply for information to the Devonshire people when she got to the end of her journey. She seemed a timid, helpless kind of woman to travel alone. Anything wrong in connection with her, Sir?”

“Oh, no! nothing,” said Mr. Orridge, leaving the stationmaster and hastening back to his gig again.

When he drew up, a few minutes afterward, at the door of the Tiger’s Head, he jumped out of his vehicle with the confident air of a man who has done all that could be expected of him. It was easy to face Mrs. Frankland with the unsatisfactory news of Mrs. Jazeph’s departure, now that he could add, on the best authority, the important supplementary information that she had gone to Cornwall.

Book IV I A Plot Against the Secret

Toward the close of the evening, on the day after Mr. Orridge’s interview with Mrs. Norbury, the Druid fast coach, running through Cornwall as far as Truro, set down three inside passengers at the door of the booking-office on arriving at its destination. Two of these passengers were an old gentleman and his daughter; the third was Mrs. Jazeph.

The father and daughter collected their luggage and entered the hotel; the outside passengers branched off in different directions with as little delay as possible; Mrs. Jazeph alone stood irresolute on the pavement, and seemed uncertain what she should do next. When the coachman good-naturedly