Читать книгу Мертвая комната. Уровень 2 / The Dead Secret - Уилки Коллинз, Elizabeth Cleghorn - Страница 7

Miss Mowlem lived humbly at St. Swithin's-on-Sea. In 1844, Miss Mowlem's widowed mother got a small legacy. The discreet old lady finally decided to buy furniture, and hang a card in the parlor window to inform the public that she had furnished apartments[14] to let. By the summer the apartments were ready. Soon a personage in black applied to look at the rooms, was satisfied, and engaged them for a newly married lady and gentleman. The personage in black was Captain Treverton's servant, and the lady and gentleman were Mr. and Mrs. Frankland.

From the moment when Mr. and Mrs. Frankland entered the house, Miss Mowlem began to study them with all the ardor of an industrious scholar.

The longer we live the more information there is to acquire. On the morning of the eighth day, Miss Mowlem was, as usual, near the key-hole of the drawing-room door. Then she descended to the kitchen, breathless with excitement, to announce a fresh discovery to her venerable mother.

“What do you think she's doing now?” cried Miss Mowlem.

“Nothing that's useful,” answered Mrs. Mowlem, with sarcastic readiness.

“She's sitting on his knee! Mother, did you ever sit on father's knee when you were married?”

“Certainly not, my dear. When me and your poor father married, we were not flighty young people.”

“She's got her head on his shoulder,” proceeded Miss Mowlem, more and more agitatedly, “and her arms round his neck – both her arms, mother!”

“I won't believe it,” exclaimed Mrs. Mowlem, indignantly. “A lady like her, with riches, and accomplishments! Don't tell me, I won't believe it!”

It was true though. Mrs. Frankland was sitting on her husband's knee. She sat for some time, then drew back a little, raised her head, and looked earnestly into the quiet, meditative face of the blind man.

“Lenny, you are very silent this morning,” she said. “What are you thinking about? If you tell me all your thoughts, I will tell you all mine.”

“Do you really want to hear all my thoughts?” asked Leonard.

“Yes; all. Tell me what you were thinking of just now! Me?”

“Not exactly of you.”

“Oh! Are you tired of me in eight days? Ah! You laugh. Oh, Lenny, I love you so; how can I think of anybody but you? No! I shan't kiss you. I want to know what you were thinking about first.”

“Of a dream, Rosamond, that I had last night.”

“What dream was it, Lenny?”

“A dream of the place where I first met you when we were both children. I saw the glen, and the blackberry bushes. I saw the mud on the walk in the middle of the glen. I saw the muddy water; and I saw you, Rosamond, a naughty girl, all covered with clay and wet. But, strangely enough, I did not see myself as the boy I then was. You were a little girl, and yet, though I was all in the past so far, I was in the present as regarded myself. Throughout the whole dream I was a grown man. And I was not blind.”

“What a memory you have, love, to be able to recall all those little circumstances after the years that have passed since that wet day in the glen! How well you recollect what I was as a child! Oh, Lenny, it almost breaks my heart to think of it! – when you saw me for the last time?”

“Do I remember, Rosamond! My last look at your face has painted your portrait in my memory in colors that can never change. I have many pictures in my mind, but your picture is the clearest and brightest of all.”

“And there is some consolation in that thought. When years have passed over us both, Lenny, you will not say to yourself, 'My Rosamond is beginning to fade.' I shall never grow old, love, for you! The bright young picture in your mind will still be my picture when my cheeks are wrinkled and my hair is gray. Suppose I ask you what I am like now, can you tell me without a mistake?”

“Try.”

“May I? Well, in the first place, how tall am I when we both stand up side by side?”

“You just reach to my ear.”

“Quite right. And the next question. What does my hair look like in your portrait?”

“It is dark brown – and it grows rather too low on your forehead.”

“Oh, Lenny, how well you remember me! And my eyes?”

“Brown eyes, large eyes, wakeful eyes, that are always looking about them. Eyes that can be very soft at one time, and very bright at another.”

“Lenny, I am so glad, so proud, so happy to find that you can keep the image of me clearly in your mind! You deserve a hundred thousand kisses – and there they are!”

Suddenly they heard the sound of a faint, small, courteously significant cough in a corner of the room. Mrs. Frankland turned round – and, to her horror and indignation, confronted Miss Mowlem, with a letter in her hand.

“You wretch! How dare you come in without knocking at the door?” cried Rosamond.

Miss Mowlem was very pale. She held out the letter apologetically, and said that she was very sorry.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Rosamond; “who cares whether you are sorry? I don't want your sorrow – I won't have it. I never was so insulted in my life – never, you mean, prying, inquisitive creature!”

“Rosamond! Rosamond!” interposed the quiet voice of Mr. Frankland.

“Lenny, dear, I can't help it![15] She has been prying after us ever since we have been here – you have, you ill-bred, indelicate woman! I suspected it before – I am certain of it now! Must we lock our doors? No. Fetch the bill! We give you warning. Mr. Frankland gives you warning – don't you, Lenny? I'll pack up all your things, dear. Go down stairs and make out your bill, and give your mother warning. Put that letter down on the table, you audacious woman, and fetch the bill, and tell your mother we are going to leave the house directly!”

At this dreadful threat, Miss Mowlem, who was soft and timid, as well as curious, wrung her hands in despair, and overflowed meekly in a shower of tears.

“Oh! Good gracious!” cried Miss Mowlem, “what will mother say! Whatever will become of me now! Oh, ma'am! I thought I knocked – I did, indeed! Oh, ma'am! I humbly beg pardon, and I'll never intrude again. Oh, ma'am! Mother's a widow, and the furniture's swallowed up all our money, and oh, ma'am! ma'am! What will we do?!”

“Rosamond!” said Mr. Frankland.

Rosamond put her lips caressingly close to his ear.

“Lenny,” she whispered, “have I made you angry with me?”

“I can't be angry with you, Rosamond,” was the quiet answer. “But please control yourself.”

“I am so sorry – so very, very sorry!” The soft lips came closer still to his ear as they whispered these penitent words. “So sorry, and so ashamed of myself! But it was enough to make almost anybody angry – wasn't it, dear? And you will forgive me – won't you, Lenny? – if I promise never to behave so badly again?” said Rosamond.

“A polite word or two – nothing more than a polite word or two,” said Mr. Frankland, rather coldly and constrainedly.

“Don't cry anymore!” said Rosamond to Miss Mowlem, and pulled the handkerchief away from her face without the ceremony. “I am very sorry I was in a passion. I never meant to distress you. I'll never say a hard word to you again, if you knock at the door. We are not going away. We don't want your mother, or the bill, or anything. Here's a present for you. Here's my neck-ribbon. I'm not angry about that. Take the ribbon. And now, shake hands and be friends, and go up stairs and see how it looks in the glass.”

With these words, Mrs. Frankland opened the door and embarrassed Miss Mowlem, closed the door again, and resumed her place on her husband's knee.

“Dear, I've sent her away with my bright green ribbon. It makes her as ugly as – ” Rosamond stopped, and looked anxiously into Mr. Frankland's face. “Lenny!” she said, sadly, “are you angry with me still?”

“My love, I was never angry with you. I never can be.”

“My dear, dear love, you said more than enough to Miss Mowlem. In your generosity and good-nature you forgot yourself with the young woman. Consider the difference between your station in society and Miss Mowlem's.”

“I will try and consider it. But I like people who are kind to me. I don't think whether they are above my rank or below it. I will try to think as you do, Lenny. But I am afraid that I am a Radical.”

“My dear Rosamond! Don't talk of yourself in that way, even in joke. Don't confuse those distinctions in rank on which the whole well-being of society depends.”

“Does it really? But we all have got the same number of arms and legs. We are all hungry and thirsty, and hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We all laugh when we are pleased, and cry when we are distressed. I won't love you better, Lenny, than I do now if I am a duchess, or less than I do now if I am a servant-girl.”

“My love, you are not a servant-girl. Your father's family, Rosamond, is one of the oldest in England. It is really almost laughably absurd to talk of yourself as a Radical.”

“I won't talk of myself so again, Lenny – only don't look so serious. I will be a Tory, dear, if you give me a kiss, and let me sit on your knee a little longer.”

“And,” Mr. Frankland said, “what about the letter on the table?”

“Ah! I forgot about the letter,” said Rosamond. “It is for you, Lenny – and here's the Porthgenna postmark on it.”

Rosamond opened the letter, drew a stool to her husband's feet, and read as follows:

“To Leonard Frankland, Esq.:

“Sir,

Agreeably to the instructions with which you favored me, I have proceeded to survey Porthgenna Tower.

A little cleaning and new pointing is all that the building wants. I can say two hundred pounds will cover the expense of all repairs. This sum will not include the restoration of the western staircase. From twenty-five to thirty pounds will suffice to set this all right.

The state of dilapidation, from top to bottom, is as bad as can be. Nobody volunteered to accompany me in my survey, and nobody told me which keys fitted which room doors in any part of the north side.

I will send you the estimate in a few days,

I remain, Sir,

Your humble servant,

Thomas Horlock.”

“A very honest, straightforward letter,” said Mr. Frankland.

“Do you mean to dispatch a friend to Porthgenna to go over the house with Mr. Horlock? If you do, I know who.”

“Who?”

“Me, if you please – under your escort, of course. I know exactly what to do.”

“Yes. I suppose I have no choice now but to give you an opportunity. And the west rooms are still habitable.”

“Oh, how kind of you! How pleased I shall be! How I shall enjoy the old place! I was only five years old, Lenny, when we left Porthgenna, and I am so anxious to see what I can remember of it, after such a long, long absence as mine. I never saw that ruinous north side of the house. I prophesy that we shall see ghosts, and find treasures, and hear mysterious noises!”

“Rosamond, let us be serious for one moment. It is clear to me that these repairs of the north rooms will cost a large sum of money. But what to do? If it procures you pleasure… I am with you heart and soul.”

He paused.

“Go on, Lenny.”

“Rosamond,” he whispered, “Your father will pass his days happily with us at Porthgenna. We may all live in the north rooms for the future. Is the loss of your mother the only sad association he has with the place?”

“Not quite. There is another association, which has never been mentioned, but which I may tell you, because there are no secrets between us. My mother had a favorite maid who lived with her from the time of her marriage. She was the only person present in her room when she died. Well, on the morning of my mother's death, she disappeared from the house. She left a mysterious letter to my father. She wrote about a Secret which she was charged to divulge to her master when her mistress was no more. And she added that she was afraid to mention this secret. Our neighbors and servants all thought that the woman was mad; but my father never agreed with them. I know that he has neither destroyed nor forgotten the letter.”

“A strange event, Rosamond.”

“Oh, Lenny, the servants and the neighbors were right – the woman was mad. Anyway, however, it was certainly a singular event in our family. All old houses have their romance – and that is the romance of our house. But years and years have passed since then. I have no fear that my dear, good father will spoil our plans. Just give him a new garden at Porthgenna, where he can walk, and give him new north rooms to live in! But all this is in the future; let us get back to the present time. When shall we go to Porthgenna, Lenny?”

“We have three weeks more to stay here, Rosamond.”

“Yes; and then we must go back to Long Beckley.”

“So, Rosamond, write to Mr. Horlock then – and appoint a meeting in two months' time at the old house.”

Rosamond sat down at the table, and dipped her pen in the ink with a little flourish of triumph.

“In two months,” she exclaimed joyfully, “I shall see the dear old place again!”