Уилки Коллинз
Мертвая комната. Уровень 2 / The Dead Secret
Chapter IV
The church of Long Beckley is not very remarkable. The large open space around the church can be approached in three different directions. There is a road from the village, there is a broad gravel walk, which begins at the vicarage gates, and there is a footpath over the fields.
One day three conspirators were advancing along the footpath. The leader of this party was an elderly gentleman, with a weather-beaten[10] face and a bluff, hearty manner. His two followers were a young gentleman and a young lady. They were talking together in whispers. They were dressed in the morning costume. The faces of both were rather pale.
The young man was blind. Soon the blind man and the young lady were standing together before the altar rails. They were ready to marry.
Soon the ceremony was concluded. Doctor Chennery went to the vicarage breakfast-table. The persons assembled at the breakfast were, first, Mr. Phippen, a guest; secondly, Miss Sturch, a governess; thirdly, fourthly, and fifthly, Miss Louisa Chennery (aged eleven years), Miss Amelia Chennery (aged nine years), and Master Robert Chennery (aged eight years). There was no mother; Doctor Chennery was a widower.
The guest was an old college acquaintance of the vicar's. He was staying at Long Beckley for the benefit of his health. He was not a handsome man. His eyes were watery, large, and light gray. They were always rolling from side to side in a state of moist admiration of something or somebody. His nose was long and drooping. His lips had a lachrymose twist; his stature was small; his head large, bald, and loosely set on his shoulders. Such was Mr. Phippen, the Martyr to Dyspepsia, and the guest of the vicar of Long Beckley.
Miss Sturch, the governess, was a young lady. She was a little, plump, quiet, white-skinned, smiling, neatly dressed girl. Miss Sturch never laughed, and never cried, but she was smiling perpetually.
Miss Sturch's pupils were not remarkable at all. Miss Louisa's habitual weakness was an inveterate tendency to catch cold[11]. Miss Amelia's principal defect was a disposition to eat supplementary dinners and breakfasts. Master Robert was famous for his obtuseness in learning the Multiplication Table. The virtues of all three were of much the same nature – they were genuine children, and they loved Miss Sturch.
Let us describe the vicar himself. Doctor Chennery was the best bowler in the Long Beckley cricket-club. He was a strictly orthodox man in the matter of wine and mutton. He never started disagreeable theories about people's future destinies in the pulpit. He never quarreled with anybody out of the pulpit. In short, he was the most unclerical of clergymen.
As soon as the vicar entered the parlor, the children assailed him with a chorus of shouts.
“I'm sorry. I'm late, Miss Sturch,” said the vicar; “but I have a good excuse.”
“Pray don't mention it, Sir,” said Miss Sturch. “A beautiful morning. I fear we shall have another warm day. Robert, my love, your elbow is on the table. A beautiful morning, indeed!”
“Guess why I am late this morning,” said the vicar.
“You were lying in bed, papa,” cried the three children.
“What do you say, Miss Sturch?” asked Doctor Chennery.
Miss Sturch smiled as usual, rubbed her hands as usual, cleared her throat softly as usual, and excused.
“Phippen,” said the vicar. “Come, guess!”
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Phippen, “don't ask me to guess – I know! I saw what you were eating at dinner yesterday. I saw what you drank after dinner. Pooh! I know. You dear, good soul, you were taking medicine!”
“No!” said Doctor Chennery, with a look of devout gratitude. “No, no; you're all wrong. The fact is, I have been to church. Why? Listen, Miss Sturch – listen, girls, with all your ears. Poor blind young Frankland is a happy man at last – I have married him to our dear Rosamond Treverton this very morning!”
“Without telling us, papa!” cried the two girls together. “We wanted to see it!”
“That was the very reason why I did not tell you, my dears,” answered the vicar. “Young Frankland doesn't like it. He doesn't like to be a blind bridegroom. So we settled to have the wedding at an hour in the morning when no idlers were nearby. I was bound over to the secrecy about the day, and so was my clerk Thomas. Excepting us two, and the bride and bridegroom, and the bride's father, Captain Treverton, nobody knew – ”
“Treverton!” exclaimed Mr. Phippen. “Treverton! (No more tea, dear Miss Sturch). How remarkable! I know the name. (Fill up with water, if you please.) Tell me, my dear doctor (please no sugar), is this Miss Treverton (many thanks; no milk, either) one of the Cornish Trevertons?”
“Yes, she is!” rejoined the vicar. “Her father, Captain Treverton, is the head of the family. The Captain, and Rosamond, and that whimsical old brute of an uncle of hers, Andrew Treverton, are the last members of this rich family.”
“Ah! The bride – the interesting bride! And so she is one of the Cornish Trevertons? I knew something of Andrew years ago. He was a bachelor, like myself, Miss Sturch. Not at all like his brother, the Captain, I suppose? And so she is married? A charming girl, I have no doubt. A charming girl!”
“No better, truer, prettier girl in the world,” said the vicar.
“A very lively, energetic person,” remarked Miss Sturch.
“How I shall miss her!” cried Miss Louisa. “Nobody else amused me as Rosamond did, when I was ill.”
“She was the only girl who played with boys,” said Master Robert. “She caught a ball, Mr. Phippen, Sir, with one hand.”
“Bless me!” said Mr. Phippen. “What an extraordinary wife for a blind man! You said he was blind from his birth, my dear doctor, did you not? Let me see, what was his name? Mr. Frank Something, was it not?”
“No, no – Frankland,” answered the vicar, “Leonard Frankland. And not blind from his birth. It is not much more than a year ago since he could see almost as well as any of us.”
“An accident, I suppose!” said Mr. Phippen. “So an accident happened to his eyes?”
“Not exactly,” said Doctor Chennery. “Leonard Frankland was a difficult child: great constitutional weakness, you know, at first. Well, he liked mechanics, and soon he began to make watches. Curious amusement for a boy. His last work, poor fellow, was the repairing of my watch – here it is. He said he was getting a bad pain at the back of his head, and he saw spots before his eyes. They sent for doctors from London, and blistered him behind the ears and between the shoulders, and drenched the lad with mercury. No use. The sight got worse and worse, flickered and flickered, and went out at last like the flame of a candle. His mother died – luckily for her, poor soul – before that happened. His father took him to oculists in London and oculists in Paris. Some said it was the result of the long weaknesses. Some said it was an apoplectic effusion in his brain. So he is blind now; and blind he will remain, poor dear fellow.”
“You shock me; my dear Chennery, you shock me dreadfully,” said Mr. Phippen. “Especially when you say about weakness after illness. Why, I have had long weaknesses – I have got them now. And I see spots, black spots, dancing black bilious spots. I feel this story in every nerve of my body; I do, indeed!”
“You will hardly know that Leonard is blind,” said Miss Louisa. “Except that his eyes look quieter than other people's.”
“Poor young Frankland!” said the vicar, warmly. “That good, tender, noble creature is a consolation to him in his affliction. Rosamond Treverton is the girl to do it.”
“She has made a sacrifice,” said Mr. Phippen; “but I like her for that. I made a sacrifice, too. Did she cry much, Chennery, when you were marrying her?”
“Cry!” exclaimed the vicar, contemptuously. “Rosamond Treverton is a fine, buxom, warm-hearted, quick-tempered girl. She might marry anybody she pleased. But she married him! They were engaged long before this cruel affliction befell young Frankland – their fathers, on both sides, were neighbors. Well, when the blindness came, Leonard offered to release Rosamond from her engagement. And she wrote to him a letter. Phippen, I blubbered like a baby over it when they showed it to me. I wanted to marry them immediately. But old Frankland was a fidgety, punctilious man, and he insisted on a six months' probation. He died soon, and the marriage was put off again. But no delays altered Rosamond – six years, instead of six months, did not change her. We'll drink her health after dinner, Miss Sturch – we'll drink both their healths, Phippen!”
“But, my dear Chennery,” said Mr. Phippen, mournfully, “when you were talking of the fathers of these two interesting young people, you mentioned they were neighbors here, at Long Beckley. I thought Captain Treverton was the eldest of the two brothers, and that he always lived, when he was on shore, at the family place in Cornwall?”
“So he did,” returned the vicar, “in his wife's lifetime. But since her death, which happened – let me see-”
The vicar stopped for an instant to calculate, and looked at Miss Sturch.
“Fifteen years ago, Sir,” said Miss Sturch, with her smile.
“Of course,” continued Doctor Chennery. “Well, since Mrs. Treverton died, fifteen years ago, Captain Treverton has never been near Porthgenna Tower. And at the first opportunity he sold the place – sold it, mine, fisheries, and all – for forty thousand pounds.”
“You don't say so![12]” exclaimed Mr. Phippen. “Did he find the air unhealthy? Who bought the place?”
“Leonard Frankland's father,” said the vicar. “It is rather a long story, that sale of Porthgenna Tower, with some curious circumstances involved in it. Suppose we take a turn in the garden, Phippen? I'll tell you all about it later. Miss Sturch, I shall be on the lawn somewhere. Come, Phippen!”
“My dear fellow, I will say yes. Just lend me an umbrella, and allow me to carry my camp-stool in my hand,” said Mr. Phippen. “I am too weak to encounter the sun. And I can't go far. The moment I feel fatigued, Miss Sturch, I open my camp-stool, and sit down anywhere. I am ready, Chennery, my good friend, for the garden and the story about the sale of Porthgenna Tower. You said it was a curious story, did you not?”
“I said about some curious circumstances connected with it,” replied the vicar. “And when you hear about them, I think you will say so too. Come along! You will find your camp-stool, and a choice of all the umbrellas in the house, in the hall.”
With those words, Doctor Chennery led the way out of the breakfast-parlor.
Chapter V
“How charming! How pastoral! How exquisitely soothing!” said Mr. Phippen at the back of the vicarage-house, under the shadow of the umbrella. “Three years have passed, Chennery, since I last stood on this lawn. There is the window of your old study, where I had my attack of heart-burn[13] last time – in the strawberry season; don't you remember? Ah! And there is the school-room! Shall I ever forget dear Miss Sturch? She was coming to me out of that room – an angel with soda and ginger – so comforting, so sweetly anxious, so unaffectedly grieved that there was no medicine in the house! I enjoy these pleasant recollections, Chennery. Can you walk on the other side, my dear fellow? I like the smell, but the smoke is a little too much for me. Thank you. And now about the story? What was the name of the old place – I am so interested in it – it began with a P, surely?”
“Porthgenna Tower,” said the vicar.
“Exactly,” rejoined Mr. Phippen. “And what made Captain Treverton sell Porthgenna Tower?”
“I believe the reason was that he did not endure the place after the death of his wife,” answered Doctor Chennery. “So the Captain found a purchaser.”
“Why not his brother?” asked Mr. Phippen. “Why not our eccentric friend, Andrew Treverton?”
“Don't call him my friend,” said the vicar. “A mean, groveling, cynical, selfish old wretch! I know Andrew Treverton's history as well as you do. I know that he was treated with the basest ingratitude by a college friend, who took all, and swindled him at last in the grossest manner. I know all about that. But one instance of ingratitude does not justify him. The old brute says that the greatest benefactor to our generation will be a second Herod. Can he be the friend of any human being?”
“My friend!” said Mr. Phippen. He caught the vicar by the arm, and mysteriously lowered his voice. “My dear and reverend friend! I admire your honest indignation against the utterer of that misanthropical sentiment; but – I confide this to you, Chennery, in the strictest secrecy – there are moments when my digestion is in such a state that I have actually agreed with that person, Andrew Treverton! I wake up with my tongue like a cinder. I crawl to the glass and look at it – and I say to myself, 'Let there be an end of the human race rather than a continuance of this!'”
“Pooh!” cried the vicar and laughed. “Take a glass of cool beer next time your tongue is in that state. But let us go back to Porthgenna Tower. So Captain decided to sell the place. He could offer it to his brother, of course. Andrew was rich enough to buy it. But… It is a shocking thing to say, but the worst quarrel I ever heard of is the quarrel between those two brothers.”
“Pardon me, my dear friend,” said Mr. Phippen. He opened his camp-stool. “May I sit down? I am a little excited about this part of the story, and I dare not fatigue myself.”
“You know,” pursued the vicar, “that Captain Treverton married an actress – rather a violent temper, I believe; but a person of spotless character. According to my view of it, a very good wife for him to marry. However, the Captain's friends, of course, made the usual senseless outcry, and the Captain's brother, as the only near relation, wanted to break off the marriage. He failed in that, and left his brother's house. But he said one infamous thing about the bride, which, Phippen, I am ashamed to repeat. Whatever the words were, they were unluckily carried to Mrs. Treverton's ears. No woman forgives that. An interview followed between the two brothers – and it led, as you may easily imagine, to very unhappy results. They parted in the most deplorable manner. So they separated. Twice afterward the Captain made overtures of reconciliation. The first time when his daughter Rosamond was born; the second time when Mrs. Treverton died. On each occasion the elder brother wrote to him. No answer was received from Andrew; and the estrangement between the two brothers has continued to the present time. Well, the house, the estate, the mine, and the fisheries of Porthgenna were all for sale a few months after Mrs. Treverton's death. But the ruinous state of the house, the bad cultivation of the land, legal difficulties in connection with the mine… So Captain Treverton failed to sell the place. The death of his wife almost broke his heart. He removed, with his little girl and a relative of Mrs. Treverton, who was her governess, to our neighborhood, and rented a pretty little cottage across the church fields. The house nearest to it was inhabited at that time by Leonard Frankland's father and mother. The new neighbors soon became intimate; and thus it happened that the couple whom I have been marrying this morning, fell in love with each other. – What is it now? Do you want to get up again?”
Yes, Mr. Phippen wanted to get up again.
“I told you,” the vicar said, “that the elder Mr. Frankland and Captain Treverton were neighbors here. So old Frankland decided to buy Porthgenna Tower. But the antiquity of his family made no impression upon his neighbors. It was be an old family, but it was not a Cornish family, and, therefore, it was of no importance in their eyes. One day old Frankland, the new owner of Porthgenna, met Captain Treverton on shore. The first thing he did was to abuse Porthgenna and all the people about it a little too vehemently in the Captain's presence. This led to a coolness between the two neighbors. But the children on either side put an end to the estrangement between the fathers. Here, in my opinion, lies the most curious part of the story. The estate that was entailed on Leonard, Captain Treverton's daughter now goes back, in the capacity of mistress, to the house and lands which her father sold. Rosamond was the only child, and the purchase-money of Porthgenna, will now, when the Captain dies, be the marriage-portion of young Frankland's wife!”
Chapter VI
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!”
