Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (218 page)

“No fear, my child,” he said, soothingly; “I will keep by you. Tell me, Sarah, what has made you faint? What has frightened you so

“Oh, don’t ask me! For God’s sake, don’t ask me!”

“There, there! I shall say nothing, then. Another mouthful of water? A little mouthful more?”

“Help me up, uncle; help me to try if I can stand.”

“Not yet — not quite yet; patience for a little longer.”

“Oh, help me! help me! I want to get away from the sight of those doors. If I can only go as far as the bottom of the stairs I shall be better.”

“So, so,” said Uncle Joseph, assisting her to rise. “Wait now, and feel your feet on the ground. Lean on me, lean hard, lean heavy. Though I am only a light and a little man, I am solid as a rock. Have you been into the room?” he added, in a whisper. “Have you got the letter?”

She sighed bitterly, and laid her head on his shoulder with a weary despair.

“Why, Sarah! Sarah!” he exclaimed. “Have you been all this time away, and not got into the room yet?”

She raised her head as suddenly as she had laid it down, shuddered, and tried feebly to draw him toward the stairs. “I shall never see the Myrtle Room again — never, never, never more!” she said. “Let us go; I can walk; I am strong now. Uncle Joseph, if you love me, take me away from this house; away anywhere, so long as we are in the free air and the daylight again; anywhere, so long as we are out of sight of Porthgenna Tower.”

Elevating his eyebrows in astonishment, but considerately refraining from asking any more questions, Uncle Joseph assisted his niece to descend the stairs. She was still so weak that she was obliged to pause on gaining the bottom of them to recover her strength. Seeing this, and feeling, as he led her afterward across the hall, that she leaned more and more heavily on his arm at every fresh step, the old man, on arriving within speaking distance of Mr. Munder and Mrs. Pentreath, asked the housekeeper if she possessed any restorative drops which she would allow him to administer to his niece.

Mrs. Pentreath’s reply in the affirmative, though not very graciously spoken, was accompanied by an alacrity of action which showed that she was heartily rejoiced to take the first fair excuse for returning to the inhabited quarter of the house. Muttering something about showing the way to the place where the medicine-chest was kept, she immediately retraced her steps along the passage to her own room; while Uncle Joseph, disregarding all Sarah’s whispered assurances that she was well enough to depart without another moment of delay, followed her silently, leading his niece.

Mr. Munder, shaking his head, and looking woefully disconcerted, waited behind to lock the door of communication. When he had done this, and had given the keys to Betsey to carry back to their appointed place, he, in his turn, retired from the scene at a pace indecorously approaching to something like a run. On getting well away from the north hall, however, he regained his self-possession wonderfully. He abruptly slackened his pace, collected his scattered wits, and reflected a little, apparently with perfect satisfaction to himself; for when he entered the housekeeper’s room he had quite recovered his usual complacent solemnity of look and manner. Like the vast majority of densely stupid men, he felt intense pleasure in hearing himself talk, and he now discerned such an opportunity of indulging in that luxury, after the events that had just happened in the house, as he seldom enjoyed. There is only one kind of speaker who is quite certain never to break down under any stress of circumstances — the man whose capability of talking does not include any dangerous underlying capacity for knowing what he means. Among this favored order of natural orators, Mr. Munder occupied a prominent rank — and he was now vindictively resolved to exercise his abilities on the two strangers, under pretense of asking for an explanation of their conduct, before he could suffer them to quit the house.

On entering the room, he found Uncle Joseph seated with his niece at the lower end of it, engaged in dropping some sal volatile into a glass of water. At the upper end stood the housekeeper with an open medicine-chest on the table before her. To this part of the room Mr. Munder slowly advanced, with a portentous countenance; drew an armchair up to the table; sat himself down in it, with extreme deliberation and care in the matter of settling his coat-tails; and immediately became, to all outward appearance, the model of a Lord Chief Justice in plain clothes.

Mrs. Pentreath, conscious from these preparations that something extraordinary was about to happen, seated herself a little behind the steward. Betsey restored the keys to their place on the nail in the wall, and was about to retire modestly to her proper kitchen sphere, when she was stopped by Mr. Munder.

“Wait, if you please,” said the steward; “I shall have occasion to call on you presently, young woman, to make a plain statement.”

Obedient Betsey waited near the door, terrified by the idea that she must have done something wrong, and that the steward was armed with inscrutable legal power to try, sentence, and punish her for the offense on the spot.

“Now, Sir,” said Mr. Munder, addressing Uncle Joseph as if he was the Speaker of the House of Commons, “if you have done with that sal volatile, and if the person by your side has sufficiently recovered her senses to listen, I should wish to say a word or two to both of you.”

At this exordium, Sarah tried affrightedly to rise from her chair; but her uncle caught her by the hand, and pressed her back in it.

“Wait and rest,” he whispered. “I shall take all the scolding on my own shoulder, and do all the talking with my own tongue. As soon as you are fit to walk again, I promise you this: whether the big man has said his word or two, or has not said it, we will quietly get up and go our ways out of the house.”

“Up to the present moment,” said Mr. Munder, “I have refrained from expressing an opinion. The time has now come when, holding a position of trust as I do in this establishment, and being accountable, and indeed responsible, as I am, for what takes place in it, and feeling, as I must, that things cannot be allowed or even permitted to rest as they are — it is my duty to say that I think your conduct is very extraordinary.” Directing this forcible conclusion to his sentence straight at Sarah, Mr. Munder leaned back in his chair, quite full of words, and quite empty of meaning, to collect himself comfortably for his next effort.

“My only desire,” he resumed, with a plaintive impartiality, “is to act fairly by all parties. I don’t wish to frighten anybody, or to startle anybody, or even to terrify anybody. I wish to unravel, or, if you please, to make out, what I may term, with perfect propriety — events. And when I have done that, I should wish to put it to you, ma’am, and to you, Sir, whether — I say, I should wish to put it to you both, calmly, and impartially, and politely, and plainly, and smoothly — and when I say smoothly, I mean quietly — whether you are not both of you bound to explain yourselves.”

Mr. Munder paused, to let that last irresistible appeal work its way to the consciences of the persons whom he addressed. The housekeeper took advantage of the silence to cough, as congregations cough just before the sermon, apparently on the principle of getting rid of bodily infirmities beforehand, in order to give the mind free play for undisturbed intellectual enjoyment. Betsey, following Mrs. Pentreath’s lead, indulged in a cough on her own account — of the faint, distrustful sort. Uncle Joseph sat perfectly easy and undismayed, still holding his niece’s hand in his, and giving it a little squeeze, from time to time, when the steward’s oratory became particularly involved and impressive. Sarah never moved, never looked up, never lost the expression of terrified restraint which had taken possession of her face from the first moment when she entered the housekeeper’s room.

“Now what are the facts, and circumstances, and events?” proceeded Mr. Munder, leaning back in his chair, in calm enjoyment of the sound of his own voice. “You, ma’am, and you, Sir, ring at the bell of the door of this Mansion” (here he looked hard at Uncle Joseph, as much as to say, “I don’t give up that point about the house being a Mansion, you see, even on the judgment-seat”) — ”you are let in, or, rather, admitted. You, Sir, assert that you wish to inspect the Mansion (you say ‘see the house,’ but, being a foreigner, we are not surprised at your making a little mistake of that sort); you, ma’am, coincide, and even agree, in that request. What follows? You are shown over the Mansion. It is not usual to show strangers over it, but we happen to have certain reasons — ”

Sarah started. “What reasons?” she asked, looking up quickly.

Uncle Joseph felt her hand turn cold, and tremble in his. “Hush! hush!” he said, “leave the talking to me.”

At the same moment Mrs. Pentreath pulled Mr. Munder warily by the coat-tail, and whispered to him to be careful. “Mrs. Frankland’s letter,” she said in his ear, “tells us particularly not to let it be suspected that we are acting under orders.”

“Don’t you fancy, Mrs. Pentreath, that I forget what I ought to remember,” rejoined Mr. Munder — who had forgotten, nevertheless. “And don’t you imagine that I was going to commit myself” (the very thing which he had just been on the point of doing). “Leave this business in my hands, if you will be so good. — What reasons did you say, ma’am?” he added aloud, addressing himself to Sarah. “Never you mind about reasons; we have not got to do with them now; we have got to do with facts, and circumstances, and events. I was observing, or remarking, that you, Sir, and you, ma’am, were shown over this Mansion. You were conducted, and indeed led, up the west staircase — the spacious west staircase, Sir! You were shown with politeness and even with courtesy, through the breakfast-room, the library, and the drawing-room. In that drawing-room, you, Sir, indulge in outrageous, and, I will add, in violent language. In that drawing-room, you, ma’am, disappear, or, rather, go altogether out of sight. Such conduct as this, so highly unparalleled, so entirely unprecedented, and so very unusual, causes Mrs. Pentreath and myself to feel — ” Here Mr. Munder stopped, at a loss for a word for the first time.

“Astonished,” suggested Mrs. Pentreath after a long interval of silence.

“No, ma’am!” retorted Mr. Munder. “Nothing of the sort. We were not at all astonished; we were — surprised. And what followed and succeeded that? What did you and I hear, Sir, on the first floor?” (looking sternly at Uncle Joseph). “And what did you hear, Mrs. Pentreath, while you were searching for the missing and absent party on the second floor? What?”

Thus personally appealed to, the housekeeper answered briefly — ”A scream.”

“No! no! no!” said Mr. Munder, fretfully tapping his hand on the table. “A screech, Mrs. Pentreath — a screech. And what is the meaning, purport, and upshot of that screech? Young woman!” (here Mr. Munder turned suddenly on Betsey) “we have now traced these extraordinary facts and circumstances as far as you. Have the goodness to step forward, and tell us, in the presence of these two parties, how you came to utter, or give, what Mrs. Pentreath calls a scream, but what I call a screech. A plain statement will do, my good girl — quite a plain statement, if you please. And, young woman, one word more — speak up. You understand me? Speak up!”

Covered with confusion by the public and solemn nature of this appeal, Betsey, on starting with her statement, unconsciously followed the oratorical example of no less a person than Mr. Munder himself; that is to say, she spoke on the principle of drowning the smallest possible infusion of ideas in the largest possible dilution of words. Extricated from the mesh of verbal entanglement in which she contrived to involve it, her statement may be not unfairly represented as simply consisting of the following facts:

First, Betsey had to relate that she happened to be just taking the lid off a saucepan, on the kitchen fire, when she heard, in the neighbourhood of the housekeeper’s room, a sound of hurried footsteps (vernacularly termed by the witness a “scurrying of somebody’s feet”). Secondly, Betsey, on leaving the kitchen to ascertain what the sound meant, heard the footsteps retreating rapidly along the passage which led to the north side of the house, and, stimulated by curiosity, followed the sound of them for a certain distance. Thirdly, at a sharp turn in the passage, Betsey stopped short, despairing of overtaking the person whose footsteps she heard, and feeling also a sense of dread (termed by the witness, “creeping of the flesh”) at the idea of venturing alone, even in broad daylight, into the ghostly quarter of the house. Fourthly, while still hesitating at the turn in the passage, Betsey heard “the lock of a door go,” and, stimulated afresh by curiosity, advanced a few steps farther — then stopped again, debating within herself the difficult and dreadful question, whether it is the usual custom of ghosts, when passing from one place to another, to unlock any closed door which may happen to be in their way, or to save trouble by simply passing through it. Fitfully, after long deliberation, and many false starts — forward toward the north hall and backward toward the kitchen — Betsey decided that it was the immemorial custom of all ghosts to pass through doors, and not unlock them. Sixthly, fortified by this conviction, Betsey went on boldly close to the door, when she suddenly heard a loud report, as of some heavy body falling (graphically termed by the witness a “banging scrash”). Seventhly, the noise frightened Betsey out of her wits, brought her heart up into her mouth, and took away her breath. Eighthly, and lastly, on recovering breath enough to scream (or screech), Betsey did, with might and main, scream (or screech), running back toward the kitchen as fast as her legs would carry her, with all her hair “standing up on end,” and all her flesh “in a crawl” from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.