Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (188 page)

Sarah lit two candles with a wavering hand — placed them hesitatingly on a table by the bedside — waited for a moment, looking all round her with suspicious timidity — then undrew the curtains.

The disease of which Mrs. Treverton was dying was one of the most terrible of all the maladies that afflict humanity, one to which women are especially subject, and one which undermines life without, in most cases, showing any remarkable traces of its corroding progress in the face. No uninstructed person, looking at Mrs. Treverton when her attendant undrew the bed-curtain, could possibly have imagined that she was past all help that mortal skill could offer to her. The slight marks of illness in her face, the inevitable changes in the grace and roundness of its outline, were rendered hardly noticeable by the marvelous preservation of her complexion in all the light and delicacy of its first girlish beauty. There lay her face on the pillow — tenderly framed in by the rich lace of her cap, softly crowned by her shining brown hair — to all outward appearance, the face of a beautiful woman recovering from a slight illness, or reposing after unusual fatigue. Even Sarah Leeson, who had watched her all through her malady, could hardly believe, as she looked at her mistress, that the Gates of Life had closed behind her, and that the beckoning hand of Death was signing to her already from the Gates of the Grave.

Some dog’s-eared books in paper covers lay on the counterpane of the bed. As soon as the curtain was drawn aside Mrs. Treverton ordered her attendant by a gesture to remove them. They were plays, underscored in certain places by ink lines, and marked with marginal annotations referring to entrances, exits, and places on the stage. The servants, talking downstairs of their mistress’s occupation before her marriage, had not been misled by false reports. Their master, after he had passed the prime of life, had, in very truth, taken his wife from the obscure stage of a country theatre, when little more than two years had elapsed since her first appearance in public. The dog’s-eared old plays had been once her treasured dramatic library; she had always retained a fondness for them from old associations; and, during the latter part of her illness, they had remained on her bed for days and days together.

Having put away the plays, Sarah went back to her mistress; and, with more of dread and bewilderment in her face than grief opened her lips to speak. Mrs. Treverton held up her hand, as a sign that she had another order to give.

“Bolt the door,” she said, in the same enfeebled voice, but with the same accent of resolution which had so strikingly marked her first request to have more light in the room. “Bolt the door. Let no one in, till I give you leave.”

“No one?” repeated Sarah, faintly. “Not the doctor? not even my master?”

“Not the doctor — not even your master,” said Mrs. Treverton, and pointed to the door. The hand was weak; but even in that momentary action of it there was no mistaking the gesture of command.

Sarah bolted the door, returned irresolutely to the bedside, fixed her large, eager, startled eyes inquiringly on her mistress’s face, and, suddenly bending over her, said in a whisper:

“Have you told my master?”

“No,” was the answer. “I sent for him, to tell him — I tried hard to speak the words — it shook me to my very soul, only to think how I should best break it to him — I am so fond of him! I love him so dearly! But I should have spoken in spite of that, if he had not talked of the child. Sarah! he did nothing but talk of the child — and that silenced me.”

Sarah, with a forgetfulness of her station which might have appeared extraordinary even in the eyes of the most lenient of mistresses, flung herself back in a chair when the first word of Mrs. Treverton’s reply was uttered, clasped her trembling hands over her face, and groaned to herself “Oh, what will happen! what will happen now!”

Mrs. Treverton’s eyes had softened and moistened when she spoke of her love for her husband. She lay silent for a few minutes; the working of some strong emotion in her being expressed by her quick, hard, laboured breathing, and by the painful contraction of her eyebrows. Ere long, she turned her head uneasily toward the chair in which her attendant was sitting, and spoke again — this time in a voice which had sunk to a whisper.

“Look for my medicine,” said she; “I want it.”

Sarah started up, and with the quick instinct of obedience brushed away the tears that were rolling fast over her cheeks.

“The doctor,” she said. “Let me call the doctor.”

“No! The medicine — look for the medicine.”

“Which bottle? The opiate — ”

“No. Not the opiate. The other.”

Sarah took a bottle from the table, and looking attentively at the written direction on the label, said that it was not yet time to take that medicine again.

“Give me the bottle.”

“Oh, pray don’t ask me. Pray wait. The doctor said it was as bad as dram-drinking, if you took too much.”

Mrs. Treverton’s clear gray eyes began to flash; the rosy flush deepened on her cheeks; the commanding hand was raised again, by an effort, from the counterpane on which it lay.

“Take the cork out of the bottle,” she said, “and give it to me. I want strength. No matter whether I die in an hour’s time or a week’s. Give me the bottle.”

“No, no — not the bottle!” said Sarah, giving it up, nevertheless, under the influence of her mistress’s look. “There are two doses left. Wait, pray wait till I get a glass.”

She turned again toward the table. At the same instant Mrs. Treverton raised the bottle to her lips, drained it of its contents, and flung it from her on the bed.

“She has killed herself!” cried Sarah, running in terror to the door.

“Stop!” said the voice from the bed, more resolute than ever, already. “Stop! Come back and prop me up higher on the pillows.”

Sarah put her hand on the bolt.

“Come back!” reiterated Mrs. Treverton. “While there is life in me, I will be obeyed. Come back!” The colour began to deepen perceptibly all over her face, and the light to grow brighter in her widely opened eyes.

Sarah came back; and with shaking hands added one more to the many pillows which supported the dying woman’s head and shoulders. While this was being done the bed-clothes became a little discomposed. Mrs. Treverton shuddered, and drew them up to their former position, close round her neck.

“Did you unbolt the door?” she asked.

“No.”

“I forbid you to go near it again. Get my writing-case, and the pen and ink, from the cabinet near the window.”

Sarah went to the cabinet and opened it; then stopped, as if some sudden suspicion had crossed her mind, and asked what the writing materials were wanted for.

“Bring them, and you will see.”

The writing-case, with a sheet of note-paper on it, was placed upon Mrs. Treverton’s knees; the pen was dipped into the ink, and given to her; she paused, closed her eyes for a minute, and sighed heavily; then began to write, saying to her waiting-maid, as the pen touched the paper — ”Look.”

Sarah peered anxiously over her shoulder, and saw the pen slowly and feebly form these three words:
To my Husband.

“Oh, no! no! For God’s sake, don’t write it!” she cried, catching at her mistress’s hand — but suddenly letting it go again the moment Mrs. Treverton looked at her.

The pen went on; and more slowly, more feebly, formed words enough to fill a line — then stopped. The letters of the last syllable were all blotted together.

“Don’t!” reiterated Sarah, dropping on her knees at the bedside. “Don’t write it to him if you can’t tell it to him. Let me go on bearing what I have borne so long already. Let the Secret die with you and die with me, and be never known in this world — never, never, never!”

“The Secret must be told,” answered Mrs. Treverton. “My husband ought to know it, and must know it. I tried to tell him, and my courage failed me. I cannot trust you to tell him, after I am gone. It must be written. Take you the pen; my sight is failing, my touch is dull. Take the pen, and write what I tell you.”

Sarah, instead of obeying, hid her face in the bed-cover, and wept bitterly.

“You have been with me ever since my marriage,” Mrs. Treverton went on. “You have been my friend more than my servant. Do you refuse my last request? You do! Fool! look up and listen to me. On your peril, refuse to take the pen. Write, or I shall not rest in my grave.
Write, or as true as there is a Heaven above us, I will come to you from the other world!”

Sarah started to her feet with a faint scream.

“You make my flesh creep!” she whispered, fixing her eyes on her mistress’s face with a stare of superstitious horror.

At the same instant, the overdose of the stimulating medicine began to affect Mrs. Treverton’s brain. She rolled her head restlessly from side to side of the pillow — repeated vacantly a few lines from one of the old play-books which had been removed from her bed — and suddenly held out the pen to the servant, with a theatrical wave of the hand, and a glance upward at an imaginary gallery of spectators.

“Write!” she cried, with an awful mimicry of her old stage voice. “Write!” And the weak hand was waved again with a forlorn, feeble imitation of the old stage gesture.

Closing her fingers mechanically on the pen that was thrust between them, Sarah, with her eyes still expressing the superstitious terror which her mistress’s words had aroused, waited for the next command. Some minutes elapsed before Mrs. Treverton spoke again. She still retained her senses sufficiently to be vaguely conscious of the effect which the medicine was producing on her, and to be desirous of combating its further progress before it succeeded in utterly confusing her ideas. She asked first for the smelling-bottle, next for some Eau de Cologne.

This last, poured onto her handkerchief and applied to her forehead, seemed to prove successful in partially clearing her faculties. Her eyes recovered their steady look of intelligence; and, when she again addressed her maid, reiterating the word “Write,” she was able to enforce the direction by beginning immediately to dictate in quiet, deliberate, determined tones. Sarah’s tears fell fast; her lips murmured fragments of sentences in which entreaties, expressions of penitence, and exclamations of fear were all strangely mingled together; but she wrote on submissively, in wavering lines, until she had nearly filled the first two sides of the note-paper. Then Mrs. Treverton paused, looked the writing over, and, taking the pen, signed her name at the end of it. With this effort, her powers of resistance to the exciting effect of the medicine seemed to fail her again. The deep flush began to tinge her cheeks once more, and she spoke hurriedly and unsteadily when she handed the pen back to her maid.

“Sign!” she cried, beating her hand feebly on the bedclothes. “Sign ‘Sarah Leeson, witness.’ No! — write ‘Accomplice.’ Take your share of it; I won’t have it shifted on me. Sign, I insist on it! Sign as I tell you.”

Sarah obeyed; and Mrs. Treverton taking the paper from her, pointed to it solemnly, with a return of the stage gesture which had escaped her a little while back.

“You will give this to your master,” she said, “when I am dead; and you will answer any questions he puts to you as truly as if you were before the judgment-seat.”

Clasping her hands fast together, Sarah regarded her mistress, for the first time, with steady eyes, and spoke to her for the first time in steady tones.

“If I only knew that I was fit to die,” she said, “oh, how gladly I would change places with you!”

“Promise me that you will give the paper to your master,” repeated Mrs. Treverton. “Promise — no! I won’t trust your promise — I’ll have your oath. Get the Bible — the Bible the clergyman used when he was here this morning. Get it, or I shall not rest in my grave. Get it,
or I will come to you from the other world.”

The mistress laughed as she reiterated that threat. The maid shuddered, as she obeyed the command which it was designed to impress on her.

“Yes, yes — the Bible the clergyman used,” continued Mrs. Treverton, vacantly, after the book had been produced. “The clergyman — a poor weak man — I frightened him, Sarah. He said, ‘Are you at peace with all the world?’ and I said, ‘All but one.’ You know who.”