Wilkie Collins

“ She suddenly pushed Mr. Openshaw away, saying, “O, sir, you must go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back he will kill you.”
“Alas, Norah! I do not know who ‘he’ is. But some one is gone away who will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you cared for.”
“I don’t understand you, sir,” said Norah, her master’s kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, and they two were alone.
“You know what I mean, when I say some one is gone who will never come back. I mean that he is dead!” ”

“ If you will leave the house now, I will come to you to-morrow and tell you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping up-stairs. O, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet—a little weakly girl—with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We have reared her up with such care: We watched her, for we thought for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her. And now you, come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to her have been kind to her ”

“ Chadwick’s brooch, value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don’t go off! I am as sure as that my name’s Thomas Openshaw, that you knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think you’ve been imposed on, and that’s the truth. Some good-for-nothing chap has been making up to you, and you’ve been just like all other women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way down! Come, now, Norah: it’s no blame to you, only you must not be such a fool again. ”

“ I know the Medical Man. I lounge habitually at the House Agent’s. I dine with the Churchwardens. I move to the Guardians. Trottle! A person in the sphere of a domestic, and totally unknown to society!”
“Don’t be warm, Jarber. In mentioning Trottle, I have naturally relied on my Right-Hand, who would take any trouble to gratify even a whim of his old mistress’s. But, if you can find out anything to help to unravel the mystery of this House to Let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you as if there was never a Trottle in the land.” ”

“ Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me? Maybe she is gone for the police? But I don’t stay here, either for police, or magistrate, or master. You’re an unlucky lot. I believe there’s a curse on you. I’ll leave you this very day. Yes! I leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good will ever come to you!”
Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left the room. ”

“ When he first opened his eyes, there was a new look in them for a moment, which struck home to Trottle’s memory as quick and as clear as a flash of light. The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant, and blurred out all further signs and tokens of the past. But Trottle had seen enough in the moment before it came; and he troubled Benjamin’s face with no more inquiries.
“Next Monday, at dusk,” says he, cutting short some more of the old woman’s palaver about Benjamin’s indisgestion. “I’ve got no more time to spare, ma’am, to-night: please to let me out.” ”

“ Norah drew herself up. “You may ask that question, and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw. You’ll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny) , he’d be just as much above doing such a thing as you yourself, Mr. Openshaw, and more so, too; for I’m not at all sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours long, if every man had his own.” ”

“ After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender air, and asked: “How does it worry you, S-arah?”
“It is a mystery to me,” said I. “Of course every house is a mystery, more or less; but, something that I don’t care to mention” (for truly the Eye was so slight a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of it) , “has made that House so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my mind, that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have no peace, either, until Trottle comes to me, next Monday.” ”

“ But seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting) for want of proper toys and proper child’s company, to take up with the mocking of an old woman at her scouring-work, for something to stand in the place of a game, Trottle, though not a family man, nevertheless felt the sight before him to be, in its way, one of the saddest and the most pitiable that he had ever witnessed.
“Why, my man,” says he, “you’re the boldest little chap in all England. You don’t seem a bit afraid of being up here all by yourself in the dark.” ”

“ I shall send for a policeman.”
“You will not,” said Norah, starting forwards. “You shall not, sir! No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know this: ever since I was four-and-twenty I have thought more of your wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl put upon in her uncle’s house, I have thought more of serving her than of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody ever cared for me. I don’t cast blame on you, sir, but I say it’s ill giving up one’s life to any one ”

“ Frank!” said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, and find him there—unable to consider what was best to be done or said—rushing at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state: “Mr. Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said you had gone down, you and every one else. We thought you were dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child! ”

“ It gets so dark in the evenings, now, you hardly know where you are, do you, sir? And how is good Mr. Forley in his health? We trust he is better, Benjamin, don’t we? We are so sorry not to see him as usual, Benjamin, ain’t we? In half a minute, sir, if you don’t mind waiting, I’ll be back with the candle. Come along, Benjamin.”
“Come along, Benjamin,” chimes in the echo, and chuckles again as if he thought he had made another joke.
Left alone in the empty front-parlour, Trottle wondered what was coming next, as he heard the shuffling, scraping footsteps go slowly down the kitchen-stairs. ”

“ On one side of him was a battered pint saucepan without a handle, which was his make-believe pail; and on the other a morsel of slate-coloured cotton rag, which stood for his flannel to wipe up with. After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two, he took the bit of rag, and mopped up, and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pail, as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench. By the time he thought he had got the floor pretty dry, he raised himself upright on his knees, and blew out a good long breath, and set his little red arms akimbo, and nodded at Trottle.
“There!” ”

“ A fortnight before the day of her departure for London, she had formally called to take leave of all her acquaintance; saying she should need all the intermediate time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination; and, to complete the resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester, on the last market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and amethyst brooch, saying, “Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew a handsome thing when they saw it.” ”

“ Trottle (whom I always call my right hand) has been in my service two-and-thirty years. He entered my service, far away from England. He is the best of creatures, and the most respectable of men; but, opinionated.
“What you want, ma’am,” says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet and skilful way, “is Tone.”
“Lard forgive you both!” says I, bursting out a-laughing; “I see you are in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must do what you like with me, and take me to London for a change.” ”

“ You see afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out.”
“O! You are out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?”
“SOLD OUT!” says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words.
“My friend Magsman, I’ll impart to you a discovery I’ve made. It’s wallable; it’s cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life—The secret of this matter is, that it ain’t so much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person.” ”

“ A day or two before, I sent to Jarber’s lodgings to ask him to drop in to tea. His landlady sent back an apology for him that made my hair stand on end. His feet were in hot water; his head was in a flannel petticoat; a green shade was over his eyes; the rheumatism was in his legs; and a mustard-poultice was on his chest. He was also a little feverish, and rather distracted in his mind about Manchester Marriages, a Dwarf, and Three Evenings, or Evening Parties—his landlady was not sure which—in an empty House, with the Water Rate unpaid. ”

“ I have all my life, since ever I can remember, been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love for them, that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have fancied something must have gone wrong in my life—something must have been turned aside from its original intention I mean—or I should have been the proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old grandmother this day. ”

“ P’raps you’d like to see him, sir!” says she, turning on Trottle, and poking her grinning face close to him. “Only name it; only say if you’d like to see him before we do our little bit of business—and I’ll show good Forley’s friend up-stairs, just as if he was good Mr. Forley himself. My legs are all right, whatever Benjamin’s may be. I get younger and younger, and stronger and stronger, and jollier and jollier, every day—that’s what I do! Don’t mind the stairs on my account, sir, if you’d like to see him.” ”

“ And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after they had whispered a bit together.”
“Now, my little woman must be reasonable,” said Mr. Openshaw, who was always patient with Ailsie. “There was no man in the house last night at all. No man comes into the house as you know, if you think; much less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really happened.” ”

“ It is a dull object to look at. Otherwise, I was so greatly pleased with the lodging that I should have closed with the terms at once, as I had your authority to do.”
Trottle thinking so highly of the place, in my interest, I wished not to disappoint him. Consequently I said:
“The empty House may let, perhaps.”
“O, dear no, ma’am,” said Trottle, shaking his head with decision; “it won’t let. It never does let, ma’am.”
“Mercy me! Why not?”
“Nobody knows, ma’am. All I have to mention is, ma’am, that the House won’t let!” ”