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

any kind. No ghost, or dream of a ghost, disturbed the soundness of Rosamond’s slumbers. She awoke in her usual spirits and her usual health, and was out in the west garden before breakfast.

The sky was cloudy, and the wind veered about capriciously to all the points of the compass. In the course of her walk Rosamond met with the gardener, and asked him what he thought about the weather. The man replied that it might rain again before noon, but that, unless he was very much mistaken, it was going to turn to heat in the course of the next four-and-twenty hours.

“Pray, did you ever hear of a room on the north side of our old house called the Myrtle Room?” inquired Rosamond. She had resolved, on rising that morning, not to lose a chance of making the all-important discovery for want of asking questions of everybody in the neighborhood; and she began with the gardener accordingly.

“I never heard tell of it, ma’am,” said the man. “But it’s a likely name enough, considering how the myrtles do grow in these parts.”

“Are there any myrtles growing at the north side of the house?” asked Rosamond, struck with the idea of tracing the mysterious room by searching for it outside the building instead of inside. “I mean close to the walls,” she added, seeing the man look puzzled; “under the windows, you know?”

“I never see anything under the windows in my time but weeds and rubbish,” replied the gardener.

Just then the breakfast-bell rang. Rosamond returned to the house, determined to explore the north garden, and if she found any relic of a bed of myrtles to mark the window above it, and to have the room which that window lighted opened immediately. She confided this new scheme to her husband. He complimented her on her ingenuity, but confessed that he had no great hope of any discoveries being made out of doors, after what the gardener had said about the weeds and rubbish.

As soon as breakfast was over, Rosamond rang the bell to order the gardener to be in attendance, and to say that the keys of the north rooms would be wanted. The summons was answered by Mr. Frankland’s servant, who brought up with him the morning’s supply of letters, which the postman had just delivered. Rosamond turned them over eagerly, pounced on one with an exclamation of delight, and said to her husband⁠—“The Long Beckley postmark! News from the vicar, at last!”

She opened the letter and ran her eye over it⁠—then suddenly dropped it in her lap with her face all in a glow. “Lenny!” she exclaimed, “there is news here that is positively enough to turn one’s head. I declare the vicar’s letter has quite taken away my breath!”

“Read it,” said Mr. Frankland; “pray read it at once.”

Rosamond complied with the request in a very faltering, unsteady voice. Doctor Chennery began his letter by announcing that his application to Andrew Treverton had remained unanswered; but he added that it had, nevertheless, produced results which no one could possibly have anticipated. For information on the subject of those results, he referred Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to a copy subjoined of a communication marked private, which he had received from his man of business in London.

The communication contained a detailed report of an interview which had taken place between Mr. Treverton’s servant and the messenger who had called for an answer to Doctor Chennery’s letter. Shrowl, it appeared, had opened the interview by delivering his master’s message, had then produced the vicar’s torn letter and the copy of the plan, and had announced his readiness to part with the latter for the consideration of a five-pound note. The messenger had explained that he had no power to treat for the document, and had advised Mr. Treverton’s servant to wait on Doctor Chennery’s agent. After some hesitation, Shrowl had decided to do this, on pretense of going out on an errand⁠—had seen the agent⁠—had been questioned about how he became possessed of the copy⁠—and, finding that there would be no chance of disposing of it unless he answered all inquiries, had related the circumstances under which the copy had been made. After hearing his statement, the agent had engaged to apply immediately for instructions to Doctor Chennery; and had written accordingly, mentioning in a postscript that he had seen the transcribed plan, and had ascertained that it really exhibited the positions of doors, staircases, and rooms, with the names attached to them.

Resuming his own letter, Doctor Chennery proceeded to say that he must now leave it entirely to Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to decide what course they ought to adopt. He had already compromised himself a little in his own estimation, by assuming a character which really did not belong to him, when he made his application to Andrew Treverton; and he felt he could personally venture no further in the affair, either by expressing an opinion or giving any advice, now that it had assumed such a totally new aspect. He felt quite sure that his young friends would arrive at the wise and the right decision, after they had maturely considered the matter in all its bearings. In that conviction, he had instructed his man of business not to stir in the affair until he had heard from Mr. Frankland, and to be guided entirely by any directions which that gentleman might give.

“Directions!” exclaimed Rosamond, crumpling up the letter in a high state of excitement as soon as she had read to the end of it. “All the directions we have to give may be written in a minute and read in a second! What in the world does the vicar mean by talking about mature consideration? Of course,” cried Rosamond, looking, womanlike, straight on to the purpose she had in view, without wasting a thought on the means by which it was to be achieved⁠—“Of course we give the man his five-pound note, and get the plan by return of post!”

Mr. Frankland shook his head gravely. “Quite impossible,”