Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (241 page)

“Don’t speak of it now!” said Rosamond. “Don’t let us refer again to the past: I know all I ought to know, all I wish to know of it. We will talk of the future, mother, and of happier times to come. Let me tell you about my husband. If any words can praise him as he ought to be praised, and thank him as he ought to be thanked, I am sure mine ought — I am sure yours will! Let me tell you what he said and what he did when I read to him the letter that I found in the Myrtle Room. Yes, yes, do let me!”

Warned by a remembrance of the doctors last injunctions; trembling in secret, as she felt under her hand the heavy, toilsome, irregular heaving of her mother’s heart, as she saw the rapid changes of colour, from pale to red, and from red to pale again, that fluttered across her mother’s face, she resolved to let no more words pass between them which were of a nature to recall painfully the sorrows and the suffering of the years that were gone. After describing the interview between her husband and herself which ended in the disclosure of the Secret, she led her mother, with compassionate abruptness, to speak of the future, of the time when she would be able to travel again, of the happiness of returning together to Cornwall, of the little festival they might hold on arriving at Uncle Joseph’s house in Truro, and of the time after that, when they might go on still farther to Porthgenna, or perhaps to some other place where new scenes and new faces might help them to forget all sad associations which it was best to think of no more.

Rosamond was still speaking on these topics, her mother was still listening to her with growing interest in every word that she said, when Uncle Joseph returned. He brought in with him a basket of flowers and a basket of fruit, which he held up in triumph at the foot of his niece’s bed.

“I have been walking about, my child, in the fine bright sunshine,” he said, “and waiting to give your face plenty of time to look happy, so that I might see it again as I want to see it always, for the rest of my life. Aha, Sarah! it is I who have brought the right doctor to cure you!” he added gayly, looking at Rosamond. “She has made you better already. Wait but a little while longer, and she shall get you up from your bed again, with your two cheeks as red, and your heart as light, and your tongue as fast to chatter as mine. See the fine flowers and the fruit I have bought that is nice to your eyes, and nice to your nose, and nicest of all to put into your mouth! It is festival-time with us to-day, and we must make the room bright, bright, bright, all over. And then, there is your dinner to come soon; I have seen it on the dish — a cherub among chicken-fowls! And, after that, there is your fine sound sleep, with Mozart to sing the cradle song, and with me to sit for watch, and to go downstairs when you wake up again, and fetch your cup of tea. Ah, my child, my child, what a fine thing it is to have come at last to this festival-day!”

With a bright look at Rosamond, and with both his hands full of flowers, he turned away from his niece to begin decorating the room. Except when she thanked the old man for the presents he had brought, her attention had never wandered, all the while he had been speaking, from her daughters face; and her first words, when he was silent again, were addressed to Rosamond alone.

“While I am happy with my child,” she said, “I am keeping you from yours. I, of all persons, ought to be the last to part you from each other too long. Go back now, my love, to your husband and your child; and leave me to my grateful thoughts and my dreams of better times.”

“If you please, answer Yes to that, for your mother’s sake,” said Uncle Joseph, before Rosamond could reply. “The doctor says she must take her repose in the day as well as her repose in the night. And how shall I get her to close her eyes, so long as she has the temptation to keep them open upon you?”

Rosamond felt the truth of those last words, and consented to go back for a few hours to the hotel, on the understanding that she was to resume her place at the bedside in the evening. After making this arrangement, she waited long enough in the room to see the meal brought up which Uncle Joseph had announced, and to aid the old man in encouraging her mother to partake of it. When the tray had been removed, and when the pillows of the bed had been comfortably arranged by her own hands, she at last prevailed on herself to take leave.

Her mother’s arms lingered round her neck; her mothers cheek nestled fondly against hers. “Go, my dear, go now, or I shall get too selfish to part with you even for a few hours,” murmured the sweet voice, in the lowest, softest tones. “My own Rosamond! I have no words to bless you that are good enough; no words to thank you that will speak as gratefully for me as they ought! Happiness has been long in reaching me — but, oh, how mercifully it has come at last!”

Before she passed the door, Rosamond stopped and looked back into the room. The table, the mantel-piece, the little framed prints on the wall were bright with flowers; the musical box was just playing the first sweet notes of the air from Mozart; Uncle Joseph was seated already in his accustomed place by the bed, with the basket of fruit on his knees; the pale, worn face on the pillow was tenderly lighted up by a smile; peace and comfort and repose, all mingled together happily in the picture of the sick-room, all joined in leading Rosamond’s thoughts to dwell quietly on the hope of a happier time.

Three hours passed. The last glory of the sun was lighting the long summer day to its rest in the western heaven, when Rosamond returned to her mother’s bedside.

She entered the room softly. The one window in it looked toward the west, and on that side of the bed the chair was placed which Uncle Joseph had occupied when she left him, and in which she now found him still seated on her return. He raised his fingers to his lips, and looked toward the bed, as she opened the door. Her mother was asleep, with her hand resting in the hand of the old man.

As Rosamond noiselessly advanced, she saw that Uncle Joseph’s eyes looked dim and weary. The constraint of the position that he occupied, which made it impossible for him to move without the risk of awakening his niece, seemed to be beginning to fatigue him. Rosamond removed her bonnet and shawl, and made a sign to him to rise and let her take his place.

“Yes, yes!” she whispered, seeing him reply by a shake of the head. “Let me take my turn, while you go out a little and enjoy the cool evening air. There is no fear of waking her; her hand is not clasping yours, but only resting in it — let me steal mine into its place gently, and we shall not disturb her.”

She slipped her hand under her mother’s while she spoke. Uncle Joseph smiled as he rose from his chair, and resigned his place to her. “You will have your way,” he said; “you are too quick and sharp for an old man like me.”

“Has she been long asleep?” asked Rosamond.

“Nearly two hours,” answered Uncle Joseph. “But it has not been the good sleep I wanted for her — a dreaming, talking, restless sleep. It is only ten little minutes since she has been so quiet as you see her now.”

“Surely you let in too much light?” whispered Rosamond, looking round at the window, through which the glow of the evening sky poured warmly into the room.

“No, no!” he hastily rejoined. “Asleep or awake, she always wants the light. If I go away for a little while, as you tell me, and if it gets on to be dusk before I come back, light both those candles on the chimney-piece. I shall try to be here again before that; but if the time slips by too fast for me, and if it so happens that she wakes and talks strangely, and looks much away from you into that far corner of the room there, remember that the matches and the candles are together on the chimney-piece, and that the sooner you light them after the dim twilight-time, the better it will be.” With those words he stole on tiptoe to the door and went out.

His parting directions recalled Rosamond to a remembrance of what had passed between the doctor and herself that morning. She looked round again anxiously to the window.

The sun was just sinking beyond the distant house-tops; the close of day was not far off.

As she turned her head once more toward the bed, a momentary chill crept over her. She trembled a little, partly at the sensation itself, partly at the recollection it aroused of that other chill which had struck her in the solitude of the Myrtle Room.

Stirred by the mysterious sympathies of touch, her mother’s hand at the same instant moved in hers, and over the sad peacefulness of the weary face there fluttered a momentary trouble — the flying shadow of a dream. The pale, parted lips opened, closed, quivered, opened again; the toiling breath came and went quickly and more quickly; the head moved uneasily on the pillow; the eyelids half unclosed themselves; low, faint, moaning sounds poured rapidly from the lips — changed ere long to half-articulated sentences — then merged softly into intelligible speech, and uttered these words: “Swear that you will not destroy this paper! Swear that you will not take this paper away with you if you leave the house!”

The words that followed these were whispered so rapidly and so low that Rosamond’s ear failed to catch them. They were followed by a short silence. Then the dreaming voice spoke again suddenly, and spoke louder.

“Where? where? where?” it said. “In the book-case? In the table-drawer? — Stop! stop! In the picture of the ghost — ”

The last words struck cold on Rosamond’s heart. She drew back suddenly with a movement of alarm — checked herself the instant after, and bent down over the pillow again. But it was too late. Her hand had moved abruptly when she drew back, and her mother awoke with a start and a faint cry — with vacant, terror-stricken eyes, and with the perspiration standing thick on her forehead.

“Mother!” cried Rosamond, raising her on the pillow. “I have come back. Don’t you know me?”

“Mother?” she repeated, in mournful, questioning tones — ”Mother?” At the second repetition of the word a bright flush of delight and surprise broke out on her face, and she clasped both arms suddenly round her daughter’s neck. “Oh, my own Rosamond!” she said. “If I had ever been used to waking up and seeing your dear face look at me, I should have known you sooner, in spite of my dream! Did you wake me, my love? or did I wake myself?”

“I am afraid I awoke you, mother.”

“Don’t say ‘afraid.’ I would wake from the sweetest sleep that ever woman had to see your face and to hear you say ‘mother’ to me. You have delivered me, my love, from the terror of one of my dreadful dreams. Oh, Rosamond! I think I should live to be happy in your love, if I could only get Porthgenna Tower out of my mind — if I could only never remember again the bed-chamber where my mistress died, and the room where I hid the letter — ”

“We will try and forget Porthgenna Tower now,” said Rosamond. “Shall we talk about other places where I have lived, which you have never seen? Or shall I read to you, mother? Have you got any book here that you are fond of?”

She looked across the bed at the table on the other side. There was nothing on it but some bottles of medicine, a few of Uncle Joseph’s flowers in a glass of water, and a little oblong work-box. She looked round at the chest of drawers behind her — there were no books placed on the top of it. Before she turned toward the bed again, her eyes wandered aside to the window. The sun was lost beyond the distant house-tops; the close of day was near at hand.

“If I could forget! Oh, me, if I could only forget!” said her mother, sighing wearily, and beating her hand on the coverlid of the bed.

“Are you well enough, dear, to amuse yourself with work?” asked Rosamond, pointing to the little oblong box on the table, and trying to lead the conversation to a harmless, every-day topic, by asking questions about it. “What work do you do? May I look at it?”

Her face lost its weary, suffering look, and brightened once more into a smile. “There is no work there,” she said. “All the treasures I had in the world, till you came to see me, are shut up in that one little box. Open it, my love, and look inside.”

Rosamond obeyed, placing the box on the bed where her mother could see it easily. The first object that she discovered inside was a little book, in dark, worn binding. It was an old copy of Wesley’s Hymns. Some withered blades of grass lay between its pages; and on one of its blank leaves was this inscription — ”Sarah Leeson, her book. The gift of Hugh Polwheal.”

“Look at it, my dear,” said her mother. “I want you to know it again. When my time comes to leave you, Rosamond, lay it on my bosom with your own dear hands, and put a little morsel of your hair with it, and bury me in the grave in Porthgenna churchyard, where he has been waiting for me to come to him so many weary years. The other things in the box, Rosamond, belong to you; they are little stolen keepsakes that used to remind me of my child, when I was alone in the world. Perhaps, years and years hence, when your brown hair begins to grow gray like mine, you may like to show these poor trifles to your children when you talk about me. Don’t mind telling them, Rosamond, how your mother sinned and how she suffered — you can always let these little trifles speak for her at the end. The least of them will show that she always loved you.”