The Dead Secret. Wilkie Collins Collins
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a duchess as you seem to think. Many a lady of high title can not look back on such a line of ancestors as yours. Your father's family, Rosamond, is one of the oldest in England: even my father's family hardly dates back so far; and we were landed gentry when many a name in the peerage was not heard of. It is really almost laughably absurd to hear you talking 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 will give me a kiss, and let me sit on your knee a little longer."
Mr. Frankland's gravity was not proof against his wife's change of political principles, and the conditions which she annexed to it. His face cleared up, and he laughed almost as gayly as Rosamond herself.
"By the bye," he said, after an interval of silence had given him time to collect his thoughts, "did I not hear you tell Miss Mowlem to put a letter down on the table? Is it a letter for you or for me?"
"Ah! I forgot all about the letter," said Rosamond, running to the table. "It is for you, Lenny—and, goodness me! here's the Porthgenna postmark on it."
"It must be from the builder whom I sent down to the old house about the repairs. Lend me your eyes, love, and let us hear what he says."
Rosamond opened the letter, drew a stool to her husband's feet, and, sitting down with her arms on his knees, read as follows:
"To Leonard Frankland, Esq.:
"Sir,—Agreeably to the instructions with which you favored me, I have proceeded to survey Porthgenna Tower, with a view to ascertaining what repairs the house in general, and the north side of it in particular, may stand in need of.
"As regards the outside, a little cleaning and new pointing is all that the building wants. The walls and foundations seem made to last forever. Such strong, solid work I never set eyes on before.
"Inside the house, I can not report so favorably. The rooms in the west front, having been inhabited during the period of Captain Treverton's occupation, and having been well looked after since, are in tolerably sound condition. I should say two hundred pounds would cover the expense of all repairs in my line which these rooms need. This sum would not include the restoration of the western staircase, which has given a little in some places, and the banisters of which are decidedly insecure from the first to the second landing. From twenty-five to thirty pounds would suffice to set this all right.
"In the rooms on the north front, the state of dilapidation, from top to bottom, is as bad as can be. From all that I could ascertain, nobody ever went near these rooms in Captain Treverton's time, or has ever entered them since. The people who now keep the house have a superstitious dread of opening any of the north doors, in consequence of the time that has elapsed since any living being has passed through them. Nobody would volunteer to accompany me in my survey, and nobody could tell me which keys fitted which room doors in any part of the north side. I could find no plan containing the names or numbers of the rooms; nor, to my surprise, were there any labels attached separately to the keys. They were given to me, all hanging together on a large ring, with an ivory label on it, which was only marked—Keys of the North Rooms. I take the liberty of mentioning these particulars in order to account for my having, as you might think, delayed my stay at Porthgenna Tower longer than is needful. I lost nearly a whole day in taking the keys off the ring, and fitting them at hazard to the right doors. And I occupied some hours of another day in marking each door with a number on the outside, and putting a corresponding label to each key, before I replaced it on the ring, in order to prevent the possibility of future errors and delays.
"As I hope to furnish you, in a few days, with a detailed estimate of the repairs needed in the north part of the house, from basement to roof, I need only say here that they will occupy some time, and will be of the most extensive nature. The beams of the staircase and the flooring of the first story have got the dry rot. The damp in some rooms, and the rats in others, have almost destroyed the wainscotings. Four of the mantel-pieces have given out from the walls, and all the ceilings are either stained, cracked, or peeled away in large patches. The flooring is, in general, in a better condition than I had anticipated; but the shutters and window-sashes are so warped as to be useless. It is only fair to acknowledge that the expense of setting all these things to rights—that is to say, of making the rooms safe and habitable, and of putting them in proper condition for the upholsterer—will be considerable. I would respectfully suggest, in the event of your feeling any surprise or dissatisfaction at the amount of my estimate, that you should name a friend in whom you place confidence, to go over the north rooms with me, keeping my estimate in his hand. I will undertake to prove, if needful, the necessity of each separate repair, and the justice of each separate charge for the same, to the satisfaction of any competent and impartial person whom you may please to select.
"Trusting to send you the estimate in a few days,
"I remain, Sir,
"Your humble servant,
"Thomas Horlock."
"A very honest, straightforward letter," said Mr. Frankland.
"I wish he had sent the estimate with it," said Rosamond. "Why could not the provoking man tell us at once in round numbers what the repairs will really cost?"
"I suspect, my dear, he was afraid of shocking us, if he mentioned the amount in round numbers."
"That horrid money! It is always getting in one's way, and upsetting one's plans. If we haven't got enough, let us go and borrow of somebody who has. Do you mean to dispatch a friend to Porthgenna to go over the house with Mr. Horlock? If you do, I know who I wish you would send."
"Who?"
"Me, if you please—under your escort, of course. Don't laugh, Lenny; I would be very sharp with Mr. Horlock; I would object to every one of his charges, and beat him down without mercy. I once saw a surveyor go over a house, and I know exactly what to do. You stamp on the floor, and knock at the walls, and scrape at the brick-work, and look up all the chimneys, and out of all the windows—sometimes you make notes in a little book, sometimes you measure with a foot-rule, sometimes you sit down all of a sudden, and think profoundly—and the end of it is that you say the house will do very well indeed, if the tenant will pull out his purse, and put it in proper repair."
"Well done, Rosamond! You have one more accomplishment than I knew of; and I suppose I have no choice now but to give you an opportunity of displaying it. If you don't object, my dear, to being associated with a professional assistant in the important business of checking Mr. Horlock's estimate, I don't object to paying a short visit to Porthgenna whenever you please—especially now I know that the west rooms are still habitable."
"Oh, how kind of you! how pleased I shall be! how I shall enjoy seeing the old place again before it is altered! 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. Do you know, I never saw any thing of that ruinous north side of the house?—and I do so dote on old rooms! We will go all through them, Lenny. You shall have hold of my hand, and look with my eyes, and make as many discoveries as I do. I prophesy that we shall see ghosts, and find treasures, and hear mysterious noises—and, oh heavens! what clouds of dust we shall have to go through. Pouf! the very anticipation of them chokes me already."
"Now we are on the subject of Porthgenna, 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. Now, my love, I consider no sum of money misspent, however large it may be, if it procures you pleasure. I am with you heart and soul—"
He paused. His wife's caressing arms were twining round his neck again, and her cheek was laid gently against his. "Go on, Lenny," she said, with such an accent of tenderness in the utterance of those three simple words that his speech failed him for the moment, and all his sensations seemed absorbed in the one luxury of listening. "Rosamond," he whispered, "there is no music in the world that touches me as your voice touches me now! I feel it all through me, as I used sometimes to feel the sky at night, in the time when I could see." As he spoke, the caressing arms tightened round his neck, and the fervent lips softly took the place which