Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (211 page)

“My mistress was dying” she said, “my mistress was very near her grave, when she made me take my oath on the Bible. She made me swear never to destroy the letter; and I did not destroy it. She made me swear not to take it away with me, if I left the house; and I did not take it away. She would have made me swear, for the third time, to give it to my master, but death was too quick for her — death stopped her from fastening that third oath on my conscience. But she threatened me, uncle, with the dead dampness on her forehead, and the dead whiteness on her cheeks — she threatened to come to me from the other world if I thwarted her — and I
have
thwarted her!”

She stopped, suddenly removed her hand from the old man’s arm, and made a strange gesture with it toward the part of the room on which her eyes remained fixed. “Rest, mistress, rest,” she whispered under her breath. “Is my master alive now? Rest, till the drowned rise. Tell him the Secret when the sea gives up her dead.”

“Sarah! Sarah! you are changed — you are ill — you frighten me!” cried Uncle Joseph, starting to his feet.

She turned round slowly, and looked at him with eyes void of all expression, with eyes that seemed to be staring through him vacantly at something beyond.

“Gott im Himmel! what does she see?” He looked round as the exclamation escaped him. “Sarah! what is it! Are you faint? Are you ill? Are you dreaming with your eyes open?”

He took her by both arms and shook her. At the instant when she felt the touch of his hands, she started violently and trembled all over. Their natural expression flew back into her eyes with the rapidity of a flash of light. Without saying a word, she hastily resumed her seat and began stirring the cold tea round and round in her cup, round and round so fast that the liquid overflowed into the saucer.

“Come! she gets more like herself,” said Uncle Joseph, watching her.

“More like myself?” she repeated, vacantly.

“So! so!” said the old man, trying to soothe her. “You are ill — what the English call out of sort. They are good doctors here. Wait till to-morrow, you shall have the best.”

“I want no doctors. Don’t speak of doctors. I can’t bear them; they look at me with such curious eyes; they are always prying into me, as if they wanted to find out something. What have we been stopping for? I had so much to say; and we seem to have been stopping just when we ought to have been going on. I am in grief and terror, Uncle Joseph; in grief and terror again about the Secret — ”

“No more of that!” pleaded the old man. “No more to-night at least!”

“Why not?”

“Because you will be ill again with talking about it. You will be looking into that corner, and dreaming with your eyes open. You are too ill — yes, yes, Sarah; you are too ill.”

“I’m not ill! Oh, why does everybody keep telling me that I am ill? Let me talk about it, uncle. I have come to talk about it; I can’t rest till I have told you.”

She spoke with a changing colour and an embarrassed manner, now apparently conscious for the first time that she had allowed words and actions to escape her which it would have been more prudent to have restrained.

“Don’t notice me again,” she said, with her soft voice, and her gentle, pleading manner. “Don’t notice me if I talk or look as I ought not. I lose myself sometimes, without knowing it; and I suppose I lost myself just now. It means nothing, Uncle Joseph — nothing, indeed.”

Endeavoring thus to reassure the old man, she again altered the position of her chair, so as to place her back toward the part of the room to which her face had been hitherto turned.

“Well, well, it is good to hear that,” said Uncle Joseph; “but speak no more about the past time, for fear you should lose yourself again. Let us hear about what is now. Yes, yes, give me my way. Leave the Long Ago to me, and take you the present time. I can go back through the sixteen years as well as you. Ah! you doubt me? Hear me tell you what happened when we last met — hear me prove myself in three words: You leave your place at the old house — you run away here — you stop in hiding with me, while your master and his servants are hunting after you — you start off, when your road is clear, to work for your living, as far away from Cornwall as you can get — I beg and pray you to stop with me, but you are afraid of your master, and away you go. There! that is the whole story of your trouble the last time you came to this house. Leave it so; and tell me what is the cause of your trouble now.”

“The past cause of my trouble, Uncle Joseph, and the present cause of my trouble are the same. The Secret — ”

“What! you will go back to that!”

“I must go back to it.”

“And why?”

“Because the Secret is written in a letter — ”

“Yes; and what of that?”

“And the letter is in danger of being discovered. It is, uncle — it is! Sixteen years it has lain hidden — and now, after all that long time, the dreadful chance of its being dragged to light has come like a judgment. The one person in all the world who ought never to set eyes on that letter is the very person who is most likely to find it!”

“So! so! Are you very certain, Sarah? How do you know it?”

“I know it from her own lips. Chance brought us together — ”

“Us? us? What do you mean by us?”

“I mean — uncle, you remember that Captain Treverton was my master when I lived at Porthgenna Tower?”

“I had forgotten his name. But no matter — go on.”

“When I left my place, Miss Treverton was a little girl of five years old. She is a married woman now — so beautiful, so clever, such a sweet, youthful, happy face! And she has a child as lovely as herself. Oh, uncle, if you could see her! I would give so much if you could only see her!”

Uncle Joseph kissed his hand and shrugged his shoulders; expressing by the first action homage to the lady’s beauty, and by the second resignation under the misfortune of not being able to see her. “Well, well,” he said, philosophically, “put this shining woman by, and let us go on.”

“Her name is Frankland now,” said Sarah. “A prettier name than Treverton — a much prettier name, I think. Her husband is fond of her — I am sure he is. How can he have any heart at all, and not be fond of her?”

“So! so!” exclaimed Uncle Joseph, looking very much perplexed. “Good, if he is fond of her — very good. But what labyrinth are we getting into now? Wherefore all this about a husband and a wife? My word of honour, Sarah, but your explanation explains nothing — it only softens my brains.”

“I must speak of her and of Mr. Frankland, uncle. Porthgenna Tower belongs to her husband now, and they are both going to live there.”

“Ah! we are getting back into the straight road at last.”

“They are going to live in the very house that holds the Secret; they are going to repair that very part of it where the letter is hidden. She will go into the old rooms — I heard her say so; she will search about in them to amuse her curiosity; workmen will clear them out, and she will stand by in her idle hours, looking on.”

“But she suspects nothing of the Secret?”

“God forbid she ever should!”

“And there are many rooms in the house? And the letter in which the Secret is written is hidden in one of the many? Why should she hit on that one?”

“Because I always say the wrong thing! because I always get frightened and lose myself at the wrong time! The letter is hidden in a room called the Myrtle Room, and I was foolish enough, weak enough, crazed enough, to warn her against going into it.”

“Ah, Sarah! Sarah! that was a mistake, indeed.”

“I can’t tell what possessed me — I seemed to lose my senses when I heard her talking so innocently of amusing herself by searching through the old rooms, and when I thought of what she might find there. It was getting on toward night, too; the horrible twilight was gathering in the corners and creeping along the walls. I longed to light the candles, and yet I did not dare, for fear she should see the truth in my face. And when I did light them it was worse. Oh, I don’t know how I did it! I don’t know why I did it! I could have torn my tongue out for saying the words, and still I said them. Other people can think for the best; other people can act for the best; other people have had a heavy weight laid on their minds, and have not dropped under it as I have. Help me, uncle, for the sake of old times when we were happy — help me with a word of advice.”

“I will help you; I live to help you, Sarah! No, no, no — you must not look so forlorn; you must not look at me with those crying eyes. Come! I will advise this minute — but say in what; only say in what.”

“Have I not told you?”

“No; you have not told me a word yet.”

“I will tell you now.”

She paused, looked away distrustfully toward the door leading into the shop, listened a little, and resumed: “I am not at the end of my journey yet, Uncle Joseph — I am here on my way to Porthgenna Tower — on my way to the Myrtle Room-on my way, step by step, to the place where the letter lies hid. I dare not destroy it; I dare not remove it; but run what risk I may, I must take it out of the Myrtle Room.”

Uncle Joseph said nothing, but he shook his head despondingly.

“I must,” she repeated; “before Mrs. Frankland gets to Porthgenna, I must take that letter out of the Myrtle Room. There are places in the old house where I may hide it again — places that she would never think of — places that she would never notice. Only let me get it out of the one room that she is sure to search in, and I know where to hide it from her and from everyone forever.”

Uncle Joseph reflected, and shook his head again — then said: “One word, Sarah; does Mrs. Frankland know which is the Myrtle Room?”

“I did my best to destroy all trace of that name when I hid the letter; I hope and believe she does not. But she may find out — remember the words I was crazed enough to speak; they will set her seeking for the Myrtle Room; they are sure to do that.”

“And if she finds it? And if she finds the letter?”

“It will cause misery to innocent people; it will bring death to me. Don’t push your chair from me, uncle! It is not shameful death I speak of. The worst injury I have done is injury to myself; the worst death I have to fear is the death that releases a worn-out spirit and cures a broken heart.”

“Enough — enough so,” said the old man. “I ask for no secret, Sarah, that is not yours to give. It is all dark to me — very dark, very confused. I look away from it; I look only toward you. Not with doubt, my child, but with pity, and with sorrow, too — sorrow that ever you went near that house of Porthgenna — sorrow that you are now going to it again.”

“I have no choice, uncle, but to go. If every step on the road to Porthgenna took me nearer and nearer to my death, I must still tread it. Knowing what I know, I can’t rest, I can’t sleep — my very breath won’t come freely — till I have got that letter out of the Myrtle Room. How to do it — oh, Uncle Joseph, how to do it, without being suspected, without being discovered by anybody — that is what I would almost give my life to know! You are a man; you are older and wiser than I am; no living creature ever asked you for help in vain — help me now! my only friend in all the world, help me a little with a word of advice!”

Uncle Joseph rose from his chair, and folded his arms resolutely, and looked his niece full in the face.

“You will go?” he said. “Cost what it may, you will go? Say, for the last time, Sarah, is it yes, or no?”

“Yes! For the last time, I say, Yes.”

“Good. And you will go soon?”

“I must go to-morrow. I dare not waste a single day; hours even may be precious for anything I can tell.”

“You promise me, my child, that the hiding of this Secret does good, and that the finding of it will do harm?”

“If it was the last word I had to speak in this world, I would say, Yes!”

“You promise me, also, that you want nothing but to take the letter out of the Myrtle Room, and put it away somewhere else?”