Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (233 page)

“If this paper should ever be found (which I pray with my whole heart it never may be), I wish to say that I have come to the resolution of hiding it, because I dare not show the writing that it contains to my master, to whom it is addressed. In doing what I now propose to do, though I am acting against my mistress’s last wishes, I am not breaking the solemn engagement which she obliged me to make before her on her death-bed. That engagement forbids me to destroy this letter, or to take it away with me if I leave the house. I shall do neither — my purpose is to conceal it in the place, of all others, where I think there is least chance of its ever being found again. Any hardship or misfortune which may follow as a consequence of this deceitful proceeding on my part, will fall on myself. Others, I believe, in my conscience, will be the happier for the hiding of the dreadful Secret which this letter contains.

“There can be no doubt, now,” said Leonard, when his wife had read to the end; “Mrs. Jazeph, Sarah Leeson, and the servant who disappeared from Porthgenna Tower, are one and the same person.”

“Poor creature!” said Rosamond, sighing as she put down the letter. “We know now why she warned me so anxiously not to go into the Myrtle Room. Who can say what she must have suffered when she came as a stranger to my bedside? Oh, what would I not give if I had been less hasty with her! It is dreadful to remember that I spoke to her as a servant whom I expected to obey me; it is worse still to feel that I cannot, even now, think of her as a child should think of a mother. How can I ever tell her that I know the Secret? how — ” She paused, with a heart-sick consciousness of the slur that was cast on her birth; she paused, shrinking as she thought of the name that her husband had given to her, and of her own parentage, which the laws of society disdained to recognise.

“Why do you stop?” asked Leonard.

“I was afraid — ” she began, and paused again.

“Afraid,” he said, finishing the sentence for her, “that words of pity for that unhappy woman might wound my sensitive pride by reminding me of the circumstances of your birth? Rosamond! I should be unworthy of your matchless truthfulness toward me, if I, on my side, did not acknowledge that this discovery has wounded me as only a proud man can be wounded. My pride has been born and bred in me. My pride, even while I am now speaking to you, takes advantage of my first moments of composure, and deludes me into doubting, in face of all probability, whether the words you have read to me can, after all, be words of truth. But, strong as that inborn and inbred feeling is — hard as it may be for me to discipline and master it as I ought, and must and will — there is another feeling in my heart that is stronger yet.” He felt for her hand, and took it in his; then added — ”From the hour when you first devoted your life to your blind husband — from the hour when you won all his gratitude, as you had already won all his love, you took a place in his heart, Rosamond, from which nothing, not even such a shock as has now assailed us, can move you! High as I have always held the worth of rank in my estimation, I have learned, even before the event of yesterday, to hold the worth of my wife, let her parentage be what it may, higher still.”

“Oh, Lenny, Lenny, I can’t hear you praise me, if you talk in the same breath as if I had made a sacrifice in marrying you! But for my blind husband I might never have deserved what you have just said of me. When I first read that fearful letter, I had one moment of vile, ungrateful doubt if your love for me would hold out against the discovery of the Secret. I had one moment of horrible temptation, that drew me away from you when I ought to have put the letter into your hand. It was the sight of you, waiting for me to speak again, so innocent of all knowledge of what had happened close by you, that brought me back to my senses, and told me what I ought to do. It was the sight of my blind husband that made me conquer the temptation to destroy that letter in the first hour of discovering it. Oh, if I had been the hardest-hearted of women, could I have ever taken your hand again — could I kiss you, could I lie down by your side, and hear you fall asleep, night after night, feeling that I had abused your blind dependence on me, to serve my own selfish interests? knowing that I had only succeeded in my deceit because your affliction made you incapable of suspecting deception? No, no; I can hardly believe that the basest of women could be guilty of such baseness as that; and I can claim nothing more for myself than the credit of having been true to my trust. You said yesterday, love, in the Myrtle Room, that the one faithful friend to you in your blindness, who never failed, was your wife. It is reward enough and consolation enough for me, now that the worst is over, to know that you can say so still.”

“Yes, Rosamond, the worst is over; but we must not forget that there may be hard trials still to meet.”

“Hard trials, love? To what trials do you refer?”

“Perhaps, Rosamond, I overrate the courage that the sacrifice demands; but, to me at least, it will be a hard sacrifice of my own feelings to make strangers partakers in the knowledge that we now possess.”

Rosamond looked at her husband in astonishment. “Why need we tell the Secret to anyone?” she asked.

“Assuming that we can satisfy ourselves of the genuineness of that letter,” he answered, “we shall have no choice but to tell it to strangers. You cannot forget the circumstances under which your father — under which Captain Treverton — ”

“Call him my father,” said Rosamond, sadly. “Remember how he loved me, and how I loved him, and say ‘my father’ still.”

“I am afraid I must say ‘Captain Treverton’ now,” returned Leonard, “or I shall hardly be able to explain simply and plainly what it is very necessary that you should know. Captain Treverton died without leaving a will. His only property was the purchase-money of this house and estate; and you inherited it, as his next of kin — ”

Rosamond started back in her chair and clasped her hands in dismay. “Oh, Lenny,” she said simply, “I have thought so much of you, since I found the letter, that I never remembered this!”

“It is time to remember it, my love. If you are not Captain Treverton’s daughter, you have no right to one farthing of the fortune that you possess; and it must be restored at once to the person who is Captain Treverton’s next of kin — or, in other words, to his brother.”

“To that man!” exclaimed Rosamond. “To that man who is a stranger to us, who holds our very name in contempt! Are we to be made poor that he may be made rich?”

“We are to do what is honourable and just, at any sacrifice of our own interests and ourselves,” said Leonard, firmly. “I believe, Rosamond, that my consent, as your husband, is necessary, according to the law, to effect this restitution. If Mr. Andrew Treverton was the bitterest enemy I had on earth, and if the restoring of this money utterly ruined us both in our worldly circumstances, I would give it back of my own accord to the last farthing — and so would you!”

The blood mantled in his cheeks as he spoke. Rosamond looked at him admiringly in silence. “Who would have him less proud,” she thought, fondly, “when his pride speaks in such words as those!”

“You understand now,” continued Leonard, “ that we have duties to perform which will oblige us to seek help from others, and which will therefore render it impossible to keep the Secret to ourselves? If we search all England for her, Sarah Leeson must be found. Our future actions depend upon her answers to our inquiries, upon her testimony to the genuineness of that letter. Although I am resolved beforehand to shield myself behind no technical quibbles and delays — although I want nothing but evidence that is morally conclusive, however legally imperfect it may be — it is still impossible to proceed without seeking advice immediately. The lawyer who always managed Captain Treverton’s affairs, and who now manages ours, is the proper person to direct us in instituting a search, and to assist us, if necessary, in the restitution.”

“How quietly and firmly you speak of it, Lenny! Will the abandoning of my fortune be a dreadful loss to us?”

“We must think of it as a gain to our consciences, Rosamond, and must alter our way of life resignedly to suit our altered means. But we need speak no more of that until we are assured of the necessity of restoring the money. My immediate anxiety, and your immediate anxiety, must turn now on the discovery of Sarah Leeson — no! on the discovery of your mother; I must learn to call her by that name, or I shall not learn to pity and forgive her.”

Rosamond nestled closer to her husband’s side. “Every word you say, love, does my heart good,” she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder. “You will help me and strengthen me, when the time comes, to meet my mother as I ought? Oh, how pale and worn and weary she was when she stood by my bedside, and looked at me and my child! Will it be long before we find her? Is she far away from us, I wonder? or nearer, much nearer than we think?”

Before Leonard could answer, he was interrupted by a knock at the door, and Rosamond was surprised by the appearance of the maid-servant. Betsey was flushed, excited, and out of breath; but she contrived to deliver intelligibly a brief message from Mr. Munder, the steward, requesting permission to speak to Mr. Frankland, or to Mrs. Frankland, on business of importance.

“What is it? What does he want?” asked Rosamond.

“I think, ma’am, he wants to know whether he had better send for the constable or not,” answered Betsey.

“Send for the constable!” repeated Rosamond. “Are there thieves in the house in broad daylight?”

“Mr. Munder says he don’t know but what it may be worse than thieves,” replied Betsey. “It’s the foreigner again, if you please, ma’am. He come up and rung at the door as bold as brass, and asked if he could see Mrs. Frankland.”

“The foreigner!” exclaimed Rosamond, laying her hand eagerly on her husband’s arm.

“Yes, ma’am” said Betsey. “Him as come here to go over the house along with the lady — ”

Rosamond, with characteristic impulsiveness started to her feet. “Let me go down!” she began.

“Wait,” interposed Leonard, catching her by the hand. “There is not the least need for you to go downstairs. Show the foreigner up here,” he continued, addressing himself to Betsey, “and tell Mr. Munder that we will take the management of this business into our own hands.”

Rosamond sat down again by her husband’s side. “This is a very strange accident,” she said, in a low, serious tone. “It must be something more than mere chance that puts the clue into our hands, at the moment when we least expected to find it.”

The door opened for the second time, and there appeared, modestly, on the threshold, a little old man, with rosy cheeks and long white hair. A small leather case was slung by a strap at his side, and the stem of a pipe peeped out of the breast pocket of his coat. He advanced one step into the room, stopped, raised both his hands, with his felt hat crumpled up in them, to his heart, and made five fantastic bows in quick succession — two to Mrs. Frankland, two to her husband, and one to Mrs. Frankland again, as an act of separate and special homage to the lady. Never had Rosamond seen a more complete embodiment in human form of perfect innocence and perfect harmlessness than the foreigner who was described in the housekeepers letter as an audacious vagabond, and who was dreaded by Mr. Munder as something worse than a thief!

“Madam and good Sir,” said the old man, advancing a little nearer at Mrs. Frankland’s invitation, “I ask your pardon for intruding myself. My name is Joseph Buschmann. I live in the town of Truro, where I work in cabinets and tea-caddies, and other shining woods. I am also, if you please, the same little foreign man who was scolded by the big major-domo when I came to see the house. All that I ask of your kindness is, that you will let me say for my errand here and for myself, and for another person who is very near to my love — one little word. I will be but few minutes, Madam and good Sir, and then I will go my ways again, with my best wishes and my best thanks.”

“Pray consider, Mr. Buschmann, that our time is your time,” said Leonard. “We have no engagement whatever which need oblige you to shorten your visit. I must tell you beforehand, in order to prevent any embarrassment on either side, that I have the misfortune to be blind. I can promise you, however, my best attention as far as listening goes. Rosamond, is Mr. Buschmann seated?”

Mr. Buschmann was still standing near the door, and was expressing sympathy by bowing to Mr. Frankland again, and crumpling his felt hat once more over his heart.

“Pray come nearer, and sit down,” said Rosamond. “And don’t imagine for one moment that any opinion of the steward’s has the least influence on us, or that we feel it at all necessary for you to apologize for what took place the last time you came to this house. We have an interest — a very great interest,” she added, with her usual hearty frankness, “in hearing anything that you have to tell us. You are the person of all others whom we are, just at this time — ” She stopped, feeling her foot touched by her husband’s, and rightly interpreting the action as a warning not to speak too unrestrainedly to the visitor before he had explained his object in coming to the house.