The Dead Secret. Wilkie Collins Collins
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occurred?"
"At the end of it, to be sure," said the vicar. "The bride and bridegroom are some miles on their way by this time to spend the honey-moon at St. Swithin's-on-Sea. Captain Treverton is only left behind for a day. He received his sailing orders on Monday, and he will be off to Portsmouth to-morrow morning to take command of his ship. Though he won't admit it in plain words, I happen to know that Rosamond has persuaded him to make this his last cruise. She has a plan for getting him back to Porthgenna, to live there with her husband, which I hope and believe will succeed. The west rooms at the old house, in one of which Mrs. Treverton died, are not to be used at all by the young married couple. They have engaged a builder—a sensible, practical man, this time—to survey the neglected north rooms, with a view to their redecoration and thorough repair in every way. This part of the house can not possibly be associated with any melancholy recollections in Captain Treverton's mind, for neither he nor any one else ever entered it during the period of his residence at Porthgenna. Considering the change in the look of the place which this project of repairing the north rooms is sure to produce, and taking into account also the softening effect of time on all painful recollections, I should say there was a fair prospect of Captain Treverton's returning to pass the end of his days among his old tenantry. It will be a great chance for Leonard Frankland if he does, for he would be sure to dispose the people at Porthgenna kindly toward their new master. Introduced among his Cornish tenants under Captain Treverton's wing, Leonard is sure to get on well with them, provided he abstains from showing too much of the family pride which he has inherited from his father. He is a little given to overrate the advantages of birth and the importance of rank—but that is really the only noticeable defect in his character. In all other respects I can honestly say of him that he deserves what he has got—the best wife in the world. What a life of happiness, Phippen, seems to be awaiting these lucky young people! It is a bold thing to say of any mortal creatures, but, look as far as I may, not a cloud can I see any where on their future prospects."
"You excellent creature!" exclaimed Mr. Phippen, affectionately squeezing the vicar's hand. "How I enjoy hearing you! how I luxuriate in your bright view of life!"
"And is it not the true view—especially in the case of young Frankland and his wife?" inquired the vicar.
"If you ask me," said Mr. Phippen, with a mournful smile, and a philosophic calmness of manner, "I can only answer that the direction of a man's speculative views depends—not to mince the matter—on the state of his secretions. Your biliary secretions, dear friend, are all right, and you take bright views. My biliary secretions are all wrong, and I take dark views. You look at the future prospects of this young married couple, and say there is no cloud over them. I don't dispute the assertion, not having the pleasure of knowing either bride or bridegroom. But I look up at the sky over our heads—I remember that there was not a cloud on it when we first entered the garden—I now see, just over those two trees growing so close together, a cloud that has appeared unexpectedly from nobody knows where—and I draw my own conclusions. Such," said Mr. Phippen, ascending the garden steps on his way into the house, "is my philosophy. It may be tinged with bile, but it is philosophy for all that."
"All the philosophy in the world," said the vicar, following his guest up the steps, "will not shake my conviction that Leonard Frankland and his wife have a happy future before them."
Mr. Phippen laughed, and, waiting on the steps till his host joined him, took Doctor Chennery's arm in the friendliest manner.
"You have told a charming story, Chennery," he said, "and you have ended it with a charming sentiment. But, my dear friend, though your healthy mind (influenced by an enviably easy digestion) despises my bilious philosophy, don't quite forget the cloud over the two trees. Look up at it now—it is getting darker and bigger already."
CHAPTER III.
THE BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.
Under the roof of a widowed mother, Miss Mowlem lived humbly at St. Swithin's-on-Sea. In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and forty-four, the heart of Miss Mowlem's widowed mother was gladdened by a small legacy. Turning over in her mind the various uses to which the money might be put, the discreet old lady finally decided on investing it in furniture, on fitting up the first floor and the second floor of her house in the best taste, and on hanging a card in the parlor window to inform the public that she had furnished apartments to let. By the summer the apartments were ready, and the card was put up. It had hardly been exhibited a week before a dignified personage in black applied to look at the rooms, expressed himself as satisfied with their appearance, and engaged them for a month certain, for a newly married lady and gentleman, who might be expected to take possession in a few days. The dignified personage in black was Captain Treverton's servant, and the lady and gentleman, who arrived in due time to take possession, were Mr. and Mrs. Frankland.
The natural interest which Mrs. Mowlem felt in her youthful first lodgers was necessarily vivid in its nature; but it was apathy itself compared to the sentimental interest which her daughter took in observing the manners and customs of the lady and gentleman in their capacity of bride and bridegroom. 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 who attacks a new branch of knowledge. At every spare moment of the day, this industrious young lady occupied herself in stealing up stairs to collect observations, and in running down stairs to communicate them to her mother. By the time the married couple had been in the house a week, Miss Mowlem had made such good use of her eyes, ears, and opportunities that she could have written a seven days' diary of the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland with the truth and minuteness of Mr. Samuel Pepys himself.
But, learn as much as we may, the longer we live the more information there is to acquire. Seven days' patient accumulation of facts in connection with the honey-moon had not placed Miss Mowlem beyond the reach of further discoveries. On the morning of the eighth day, after bringing down the breakfast tray, this observant spinster stole up stairs again, according to custom, to drink at the spring of knowledge through the key-hole channel of the drawing-room door. After an absence of five minutes she descended to the kitchen, breathless with excitement, to announce a fresh discovery in connection with Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to her venerable mother.
"Whatever do you think she's doing now?" cried Miss Mowlem, with widely opened eyes and highly elevated hands.
"Nothing that's useful," answered Mrs. Mowlem, with sarcastic readiness.
"She's actually 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 neither of us flighty young people, and we knew better."
"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, as tight as can be."
"I won't believe it," exclaimed Mrs. Mowlem, indignantly. "A lady like her, with riches, and accomplishments, and all that, demean herself like a housemaid with a sweetheart. Don't tell me, I won't believe it!"
It was true though, for all that. There were plenty of chairs in Mrs. Mowlem's drawing-room; there were three beautifully bound books on Mrs. Mowlem's Pembroke table (the Antiquities of St. Swithin's, Smallridge's Sermons, and Klopstock's Messiah in English prose)—Mrs. Frankland might have sat on purple morocco leather, stuffed with the best horse-hair, might have informed and soothed her mind with archæological diversions, with orthodox native theology, and with devotional poetry of foreign origin—and yet, so frivolous is the nature of woman, she was perverse enough to prefer doing nothing, and perching herself uncomfortably on her husband's knee!
She sat for some time in the undignified position which Miss Mowlem had described with such graphic correctness to her mother—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?