Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (231 page)

“Were you speaking to me, Rosamond?”

“Yes, love. I was saying — ” She paused, and, with trembling fingers, folded up the paper again, exactly in the form in which she had found it.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Your voice sounds away from me at the other end of the room again. Where are you?”

She ran to him, flushed and trembling and tearful, took him by the arm, and, without an instant of hesitation, without the faintest sign of irresolution in her face, placed the folded paper boldly in his hand. “Keep that, Lenny,” she said, turning deadly pale, but still not losing her firmness. “Keep that, and ask me to read it to you as soon as we are out of the Myrtle Room.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“The last thing I have found, love,” she replied, looking at him earnestly, with a deep sigh of relief.

“Is it of any importance?”

Instead of answering, she suddenly caught him to her bosom, clung to him with all the fervor of her impulsive nature, and breathlessly and passionately covered his face with kisses.

“Gently! gently!” said Leonard, laughing. “You take away my breath.”

She drew back, and stood looking at him in silence, with a hand laid on each of his shoulders. “Oh, my angel!” she murmured tenderly. “I would give all I have in the world, if I could only know how much you love me!”

“Surely,” he returned, still laughing — ”Surely, Rosamond you ought to know by this time!”

“I shall know soon.” She spoke those words in tones so quiet and low that they were barely audible. Interpreting the change in her voice as a fresh indication of fatigue, Leonard invited her to lead him away by holding out his hand. She took it in silence, and guided him slowly to the door.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TELLING OF THE SECRET.

ON
their way back to the inhabited side of the house, Rosamond made no further reference to the subject of the folded paper which she had placed in her husband’s hands.

All her attention, while they were returning to the west front, seemed to be absorbed in the one act of jealously watching every inch of ground that Leonard walked over, to make sure that it was safe and smooth before she suffered him to set his foot on it. Careful and considerate as she had always been, from the first day of their married life, whenever she led him from one place to another, she was now unduly, almost absurdly anxious to preserve him from the remotest possibility of an accident. Finding that he was the nearest to the outside of the open landing when they left the Myrtle Room, she insisted on changing places so that he might be nearest to the wall. While they were descending the stairs, she stopped him in the middle, to inquire if he felt any pain in the knee which he had struck against the chair. At the last step she brought him to a stand-still again, while she moved away the torn and tangled remains of an old mat, for fear one of his feet should catch in it. Walking across the north hall, she indicated that he would take her arm and lean heavily upon her, because she felt sure that his knee was not quite free from stiffness yet. Even at the short flight of stairs which connected the entrance to the hall with the passages leading to the west side of the house, she twice stopped him on the way down, to place his foot on the sound parts of the steps, which she represented as dangerously worn away in more places than one. He laughed good-humoredly at her excessive anxiety to save him from all danger of stumbling, and asked if there was any likelihood, with their numerous stoppages, of getting back to the west side of the house in time for lunch. She was not ready, as usual, with her retort; his laugh found no pleasant echo in hers; she only answered that it was impossible to be too anxious about him; and then went on in silence till they reached the door of the housekeeper’s room.

Leaving him for a moment outside, she went in to give the keys back again to Mrs. Pentreath.

“Dear me, ma’am!” exclaimed the housekeeper, “you look quite overcome by the heat of the day and the close air of those old rooms. Can I get you a glass of water, or may I give you my bottle of salts?”

Rosamond declined both offers.

“May I be allowed to ask, ma’am, if anything has been found this time in the north rooms?” inquired Mrs. Pentreath, hanging up the bunch of keys.

“Only some old papers,” replied Rosamond, turning away.

“I beg pardon again, ma’am,” presumed the housekeeper; but, in case any of the gentry of the neighbourhood should call to-day?”

“We are engaged. No matter who it may be, we are both engaged.” Answering briefly in these terms, Rosamond left Mrs. Pentreath, and rejoined her husband.

With the same excess of attention and care which she had shown on the way to the housekeeper’s room, she now led him up the west staircase. The library door happening to stand open, they passed through it on their way to the drawing-room, which was the larger and cooler apartment of the two. Having guided Leonard to a seat, Rosamond returned to the library, and took from the table a tray containing a bottle of water and a tumbler, which she had noticed when she passed through.

“I may feel faint as well as frightened,” she said quickly to herself, turning round with the tray in her hand to return to the drawing-room.

After she had put the water down on a table in a corner, she noiselessly locked the door leading into the library, then the door leading into the passage. Leonard, hearing her moving about, advised her to keep quiet on the sofa. She patted him gently on the cheek, and was about to make some suitable answer, when she accidentally beheld her face reflected in the looking-glass under which he was sitting. The sight of her own white cheeks and startled eyes suspended the words on her lips. She hastened away to the window, to catch any breath of air that might be wafted toward her from the sea.

The heat-mist still hid the horizon. Nearer, the oily, colourless surface of the water was just visible, heaving slowly, from time to time, in one vast monotonous wave that rolled itself out smoothly and endlessly till it was lost in the white obscurity of the mist. Close on the shore the noisy surf was hushed. No sound came from the beach except at long, wearily long intervals, when a quick thump, and a still splash, just audible and no more, announced the fall of one tiny, mimic wave upon the parching sand. On the terrace in front of the house, the changeless hum of summer insects was all that told of life and movement. Not a human figure was to be seen anywhere on the shore; no sign of a sail loomed shadowy through the heat at sea; no breath of air waved the light tendrils of the creepers that twined up the house-wall, or refreshed the drooping flowers ranged in the windows. Rosamond turned away from the outer prospect, after a moment’s weary contemplation of it. As she looked into the room again, her husband spoke to her.

“What precious thing lies hidden in this paper?” he asked, producing the letter, and smiling as he opened it. “Surely there must be something besides writing — some inestimable powder, or some bank-note of fabulous value — wrapped up in all these folds?”

Rosamond’s heart sank within her as he opened the letter and passed his finger over the writing inside, with a mock expression of anxiety, and a light jest about sharing all treasures discovered at Porthgenna within his wife.

“I will read it to you directly, Lenny,” she said, dropping into the nearest seat, and languidly pushing her hair back from her temples. “But put it away for a few minutes now, and let us talk of anything else you like that does not remind us of the Myrtle Room. I am very capricious, am I not, to be so suddenly weary of the very subject that I have been fondest of talking about for so many weeks past? Tell me, love,” she added, rising abruptly and going to the back of his chair; “do I get worse with my whims and fancies and faults? — or am I improved, since the time when we were first married?”

He tossed the letter aside carelessly on a table which was always placed by the arm of his chair, and shook his forefinger at her with a frown of comic reproof. “Oh, fie, Rosamond! are you trying to entrap me into paying you compliments?”

The light tone that he persisted in adopting seemed absolutely to terrify her. She shrank away from his chair, and sat down again at a little distance from him.

“I remember I used to offend you,” she continued, quickly and confusedly. “No, no, not to offend — only to vex you a little — by talking too familiarly to the servants. You might almost have fancied, at first, if you had not known me so well, that it was a habit with me because I had once been a servant myself. Suppose I had been a servant — the servant who had helped to nurse you in your illnesses, the servant who led you about in your blindness more carefully than anyone else — would you have thought much, then, of the difference between us? would you — ”

She stopped. The smile had vanished from Leonard’s face, and he had turned a little away from her. “What is the use, Rosamond, of supposing events that never could have happened?” he asked rather impatiently.

She went to the side-table, poured out some of the water she had brought from the library, and drank it eagerly; then walked to the window and plucked a few of the flowers that were placed there. She threw some of them away again the next moment; but kept the rest in her hand, thoughtfully arranging them so as to contrast their colours with the best effect. When this was done, she put them into her bosom, looked down absently at them, took them out again, and, returning to her husband, placed the little nosegay in the button-hole of his coat.

“Something to make you look gay and bright, love — as I always wish to see you,” she said, seating herself in her favorite attitude at his feet, and looking up at him sadly, with her arms resting on his knees.

“What are you thinking about, Rosamond?” he asked, after an interval of silence.

“I was wondering, Lenny, whether any woman in the world could be as fond of you as I am. I feel almost afraid that there are others who would ask nothing better than to live and die for you, as well as me. There is something in your face, in your voice, in all your ways — something besides the interest of your sad, sad affliction — that would draw any woman’s heart to you, I think. If I were to die — ”

“If you were to die!” He started as he repeated the words after her, and, leaning forward, anxiously laid his hand upon her forehead. “You are thinking and talking very strangely this morning, Rosamond! Are you not well?”

She rose on her knees and looked closer at him, her face brightening a little, and a faint smile just playing around her lips. “I wonder if you will always be as anxious about me, and as fond of me, as you are now?” she whispered, kissing his hand as she removed it from her forehead. He leaned back again in the chair, and told her jestingly not to look too far into the future. The words, lightly as they were spoken, struck deep into her heart. “There are times, Lenny,” she said, “when all one’s happiness in the present depends upon one’s certainty of the future.” She looked at the letter, which her husband had left open on a table near him, as she spoke; and, after a momentary struggle with herself, took it in her hand to read it. At the first word her voice failed her; the deadly paleness overspread her face again; she threw the letter back on the table, and walked away to the other end of the room.

“The future?” asked Leonard. “What future, Rosamond, can you possibly mean?”

“Suppose I meant our future at Porthgenna?” she said, moistening her dry lips with a few drops of water. Shall we stay here as long as we thought we should, and be as happy as we have been everywhere else? You told me on

the journey that I should find it dull, and that I should be driven to try all sorts of extraordinary occupations to amuse myself. You said you expected that I should begin with gardening and end by writing a novel. A novel!” She approached her husband again, and watched his face eagerly while she went on. “Why not? More women write novels now than men. What is to prevent me from trying? The first great requisite, I suppose, is to have an idea of a story; and that I have got.” She advanced a few steps farther, reached the table on which the letter lay, and placed her hand on it, keeping her eyes still fixed intently on Leonard’s face.

“And what is your idea, Rosamond?” he asked.

“This,” she replied. “I mean to make the main interest of the story centre on two young married people. They shall be very fond of each other — as fond as we are, Lenny — and they shall be in our rank of life. After they have been happily married some time, and when they have got one child to make them love each other more dearly than ever, a terrible discovery shall fall upon them like a thunderbolt. The husband shall have chosen for his wife a young lady bearing as ancient a family name as — ”