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252 pages

English

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Rosamund Treverton has it all -- an affluent lifestyle, a loving mother who dotes on her, and a seemingly bright future. But a deathbed confession from her mother makes it clear that Rosamund's past hides a dark secret. This suspenseful family mystery will keep readers entranced until the very last page.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776584673
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE DEAD SECRET
A NOVEL
* * *
WILKIE COLLINS

*
The Dead Secret A Novel First published in 1874 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-467-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-468-0 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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BOOK I Chapter I - The Twenty-Third of August, 1829 Chapter II - The Child Chapter III - The Hiding of the Secret BOOK II Chapter I - Fifteen Years After Chapter II - The Sale of Porthgenna Tower Chapter III - The Bride and Bridegroom BOOK III Chapter I - Timon of London Chapter II - Will They Come? Chapter III - Mrs. Jazeph Chapter IV - The New Nurse Chapter V - A Council of Three Chapter VI - Another Surprise BOOK IV Chapter I - A Plot Against the Secret Chapter II - Outside the House Chapter III - Inside the House Chapter IV - Mr. Munder on the Seat of Judgment Chapter V - Mozart Plays Farewell BOOK V Chapter I - An Old Friend and a New Scheme Chapter II - The Beginning of the End Chapter III - Approaching the Precipice Chapter IV - Standing on the Brink Chapter V - The Myrtle Room Chapter VI - The Telling of the Secret BOOK VI Chapter I - Uncle Joseph Chapter II - Waiting and Hoping Chapter III - The Story of the Past Chapter IV - The Close of Day Chapter V - Forty Thousand Pounds Chapter VI - The Dawn of a New Life
BOOK I
*
Chapter I - The Twenty-Third of August, 1829
*
"Will she last out the night, I wonder?"
"Look at the clock, Mathew."
"Ten minutes past twelve! She HAS lasted the night out. She has lived,Robert, to see ten minutes of the new day."
These words were spoken in the kitchen of a large country-housesituated on the west coast of Cornwall. The speakers were two of themen-servants composing the establishment of Captain Treverton, anofficer in the navy, and the eldest male representative of an oldCornish family. Both the servants communicated with each otherrestrainedly, in whispers—sitting close together, and looking roundexpectantly toward the door whenever the talk flagged between them.
"It's an awful thing," said the elder of the men, "for us two to bealone here, at this dark time, counting out the minutes that ourmistress has left to live!"
"Robert," said the other, "you have been in the service here since youwere a boy—did you ever hear that our mistress was a play-actresswhen our master married her?"
"How came you to know that?" inquired the elder servant, sharply.
"Hush!" cried the other, rising quickly from his chair.
A bell rang in the passage outside.
"Is that for one of us?" asked Mathew.
"Can't you tell, by the sound, which is which of those bells yet?"exclaimed Robert, contemptuously. "That bell is for Sarah Leeson. Goout into the passage and look."
The younger servant took a candle and obeyed. When he opened thekitchen-door, a long row of bells met his eye on the wall opposite.Above each of them was painted, in neat black letters, thedistinguishing title of the servant whom it was specially intended tosummon. The row of letters began with Housekeeper and Butler, andended with Kitchen-maid and Footman's Boy.
Looking along the bells, Mathew easily discovered that one of them wasstill in motion. Above it were the words Lady's-Maid. Observing this,he passed quickly along the passage, and knocked at an old-fashionedoak door at the end of it. No answer being given, he opened the doorand looked into the room. It was dark and empty.
"Sarah is not in the housekeeper's room," said Mathew, returning tohis fellow-servant in the kitchen.
"She is gone to her own room, then," rejoined the other. "Go up andtell her that she is wanted by her mistress."
The bell rang again as Mathew went out.
"Quick!—quick!" cried Robert. "Tell her she is wanted directly.Wanted," he continued to himself in lower tones, "perhaps for the lasttime!"
Mathew ascended three flights of stairs—passed half-way down a longarched gallery—and knocked at another old-fashioned oak door. Thistime the signal was answered. A low, clear, sweet voice, inside theroom, inquired who was waiting without? In a few hasty words Mathewtold his errand. Before he had done speaking the door was quietly andquickly opened, and Sarah Leeson confronted him on the threshold, withher candle in her hand.
Not tall, not handsome, not in her first youth—shy and irresolute inmanner—simple in dress to the utmost limits of plainness—thelady's-maid, in spite of all these disadvantages, was a woman whom itwas impossible to look at without a feeling of curiosity, if not ofinterest. Few men, at first sight of her, could have resisted thedesire to find out who she was; few would have been satisfied withreceiving for answer, She is Mrs. Treverton's maid; few would haverefrained from the attempt to extract some secret information forthemselves from her face and manner; and none, not even the mostpatient and practiced of observers, could have succeeded indiscovering more than that she must have passed through the ordeal ofsome great suffering at some former period of her life. Much in hermanner, and more in her face, said plainly and sadly: I am the wreckof something that you might once have liked to see; a wreck that cannever be repaired—that must drift on through life unnoticed,unguided, unpitied—drift till the fatal shore is touched, and thewaves of Time have swallowed up these broken relics of me forever.This was the story that was told in Sarah Leeson's face—this, and nomore.
No two men interpreting that story for themselves, would probably haveagreed on the nature of the suffering which this woman had undergone.It was hard to say, at the outset, whether the past pain that had setits ineffaceable mark on her had been pain of the body or pain of themind. But whatever the nature of the affliction she had suffered, thetraces it had left were deeply and strikingly visible in every part ofher face.
Her cheeks had lost their roundness and their natural color; her lips,singularly flexible in movement and delicate in form, had faded to anunhealthy paleness; her eyes, large and black and overshadowed byunusually thick lashes, had contracted an anxious startled look, whichnever left them, and which piteously expressed the painful acutenessof her sensibility, the inherent timidity of her disposition. So far,the marks which sorrow or sickness had set on her were the markscommon to most victims of mental or physical suffering. The oneextraordinary personal deterioration which she had undergone consistedin the unnatural change that had passed over the color of her hair. Itwas as thick and soft, it grew as gracefully, as the hair of a younggirl; but it was as gray as the hair of an old woman. It seemed tocontradict, in the most startling manner, every personal assertion ofyouth that still existed in her face. With all its haggardness andpaleness, no one could have looked at it and supposed for a momentthat it was the face of an elderly woman. Wan as they might be, therewas not a wrinkle in her cheeks. Her eyes, viewed apart from theirprevailing expression of uneasiness and timidity, still preserved thatbright, clear moisture which is never seen in the eyes of the old. Theskin about her temples was as delicately smooth as the skin of achild. These and other physical signs which never mislead, showedthat she was still, as to years, in the very prime of her life. Sicklyand sorrow-stricken as she was, she looked, from the eyes downward, awoman who had barely reached thirty years of age. From the eyesupward, the effect of her abundant gray hair, seen in connection withher face, was not simply incongruous—it was absolutely startling; sostartling as to make it no paradox to say that she would have lookedmost natural, most like herself, if her hair had been dyed. In hercase, Art would have seemed to be the truth, because Nature lookedlike falsehood.
What shock had stricken her hair, in the very maturity of itsluxuriance, with the hue of an unnatural old age? Was it a seriousillness, or a dreadful grief, that had turned her gray in the prime ofher womanhood? That question had often been agitated among herfellow-servants, who were all struck by the peculiarities of herpersonal appearance, and rendered a little suspicious of her, as well,by an inveterate habit that she had of talking to herself. Inquire asthey might, however, their curiosity was always baffled. Nothing morecould be discovered than that Sarah Leeson was, in the common phrase,touchy on the subject of her gray hair and her habit of talking toherself, and that Sarah Leeson's mistress had long since forbiddenevery one, from her husband downward, to ruffle her maid'stranquillity by inquisitive questions.
She stood for an instant speechless, on that momentous morning of thetwenty-third of August, before the servant who summoned her to hermistress's death-bed—the light of the candle flaring brightly overher large, startled, black eyes, and the luxuriant, unnatural grayhair above them. She stood a moment silent—her hand trembling whileshe held the candlestick, so that the extinguisher lying loose in itrattled incessantly—then thanked the servant for calling her. Thetrouble and fear in her voice, as she spoke, seemed to add to itssweetness; the agitation of her manner took nothing away from itshabitual gentleness, its delicate, winning, feminine restraint.Mathew, who, like the other servants, secretly distrusted and dislikedher for differing from the ordinary pattern of professed lady's-maids,was, on this particular occasion, so sub