Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1542 page)

Norah drew herself up. “You may ask that question, and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw. You’ll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny), he’d be just as much above doing such a thing as you yourself, Mr. Openshaw, and more so, too; for I’m not at all sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours long, if every man had his own.” She meant, of course, his wife; but he understood her to refer to his property in goods and chattels.

“Now, my good woman,” said he, “I’ll just tell you truly, I never trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, and I thought you had many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I’ll have the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if you’ll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now the best thing you can do is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man comes to my house; asks for you; you take him up-stairs, a valuable brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed you’ve told one lie already about him, saying no one was here last night. Now I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this, or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my good woman.”

“There’s never the creature born that should get it out of me,” said Norah. “Not unless I choose to tell.”

“I’ve a great mind to see,” said Mr. Openshaw, growing angry at the defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again:

“Norah, for your missus’s sake I don’t want to go to extremities. Be a sensible woman, if you can. It’s no great disgrace, after all, to have been taken in. I ask you once more — as a friend — who was this man whom you let into my house last night?”

No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no answer. Norah’s lips were set in determination not to speak.

“Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a policeman.”

“You will not,” said Norah, starting forwards. “You shall not, sir! No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know this: ever since I was four-and-twenty I have thought more of your wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl put upon in her uncle’s house, I have thought more of serving her than of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody ever cared for me. I don’t cast blame on you, sir, but I say it’s ill giving up one’s life to any one; for, at the end, they will turn round upon you, and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me? Maybe she is gone for the police? But I don’t stay here, either for police, or magistrate, or master. You’re an unlucky lot. I believe there’s a curse on you. I’ll leave you this very day. Yes! I leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good will ever come to you!”

Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for the police to this old servant of his wife’s; for he had never for a moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was, consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and had left the house.

“This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick. “It is not the way in which an honest person would have acted.”

Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw in her before.

“You don’t know Norah, uncle! She is gone because she is deeply hurt at being suspected. O, I wish I had seen her — that I had spoken to her myself. She would have told me anything.” Alice wrung her hands.

“I must confess,” continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower voice, “I can’t make you out. You used to be a word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus is a very good woman, I grant; but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I suppose. If you don’t send for the police, I shall.”

“Very well,” replied Mr. Openshaw, surlily. “I can’t clear Norah. She won’t clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash my hands of it; for I am sure the woman herself is honest, and she’s lived a long time with my wife, and I don’t like her to come to shame.”

“But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will be a good thing.”

“Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come, Alice, come up to the babies they’ll be in a sore way. I tell you, uncle!” he said, turning round once more to Mr. Chadwick, suddenly and sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice’s wan, tearful, anxious face; “I’ll have none sending for the police after all. I’ll buy my aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day; but I’ll not have Norah suspected, and my missus plagued. There’s for you.”

He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited till he was out of hearing, and then aid to his wife; “For all Tom’s heroics, I’m just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need’st know nought about it.”

He went to the police-station, and made a statement of the case. He was gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance, was her lover. When Mr. Chadwick asked how they would find her out? they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible ways and means. He returned to his nephew’s house with a very comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a penitent face:

“O master, I’ve found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I’m very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost!”

Her husband muttering something very like “Confound thee and thy brooch too! I wish I’d never given it thee,” snatched up his hat, and rushed back to the station; hoping to be in time to stop the police from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the errand.

Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done. Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie’s questions, showing that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her father. Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than crazy as she ran up-stairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl; leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She feared above everything Mr. Frank’s return to claim his wife. She could not tell what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger motive for her departure than her soreness about the suspicions directed against her; although this last had been the final goad to the course she took. She walked away almost at headlong speed; sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for her purse, as she drew near the Euston Square station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, and think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before, though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his telling her as she inquired for his address, almost as she had pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant from Euston Square. Thither she went: with what intention she hardly knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do ought else but sympathise and weep. The people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only the day before; had gone out soon after his arrival, leaving his luggage in their care; but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit down, and await the gentleman’s return. The landlady — pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against any probable injury — showed her into a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn out, and fell asleep — a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, which lasted for hours.

The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for having locked her in), he went back to the police- station to report his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object was, if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and consequently did not care to return.

Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in. Then up. Some one was at the door. It would be Mr. Frank; and she dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair, which had fallen over her eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came in Mr. Openshaw and a policeman.

“This is Norah Kennedy,” said Mr. Openshaw.

“O, sir,” said Norah, “I did not touch the brooch; indeed I did not. O, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of;” and very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr. Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay her on the sofa; and, at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, he went for some wine and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead with weariness and exhaustion.

“Norah!” said Mr. Openshaw, in his kindest voice, “the brooch is found. It was hanging to Mrs. Chadwick’s gown. I beg your pardon. Most truly I beg your pardon, for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost broken-hearted. Eat, Norah, — or, stay, first drink this glass of wine,” said he, lifting her head, pouring a little down her throat.

As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting for. She suddenly pushed Mr. Openshaw away, saying, “O, sir, you must go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back he will kill you.”

“Alas, Norah! I do not know who ‘he’ is. But some one is gone away who will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you cared for.”

“I don’t understand you, sir,” said Norah, her master’s kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, and they two were alone.

“You know what I mean, when I say some one is gone who will never come back. I mean that he is dead!”

“Who?” said Norah, trembling all over.

“A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning, drowned.”

“Did he drown himself?” asked Norah, solemnly.

“God only knows,” replied Mr. Openshaw, in the same tone. “Your name and address at our house, were found in his pocket: that, and his purse, were the only things, that were found upon him. I am sorry to say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and identify him.”

“To what?” asked Norah.

“To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be discovered for the suicide — if suicide it was. I make no doubt he was the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I know.” He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and bring back her senses; which he feared were wandering — so wild and sad was her look.

“Master Openshaw,” said she, at last, “I’ve a dreadful secret to tell you — only you must never breathe it to any one, and you and I must hide it away for ever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see I cannot. Yon poor man — yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr. Frank, my mistress’s first husband!”