ill – I'm faint – I want air,” she answered. “Open the garden door, and let me out[7].”
The man obeyed doubtfully.
“She is very strange,” he said, when he rejoined his fellow-servant. “Now our mistress is dead, she will have to find another place, I suppose.”
Chapter III
The cool, sweet air in the garden calmed the violence of Sarah's agitation. She overlooked the church of the neighboring village. The old church was clear and bright. Sarah's eyes wandered from the building itself to the cemetery by its side.
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she said.
She was pondering over the words which Captain Treverton said to the child. They seemed to connect themselves, as everything else now appeared to connect itself in her mind, with the letter. She drew it from her bosom once more, and crushed it up angrily in her fingers. She crossed the terrace, descended some wooden steps, and followed a shrubbery path to the north side of the house.
This part of the building was uninhabited. The mansion was originally built in the form of a square. Of the many defenses of the place, a heavy tower remained (from which the house derived its name of Porthgenna Tower).
The windows were broken in some places, and covered thickly with dirt and dust in others. Here, the shutters were closed – there, they were only half opened. The ivy, the vegetation, the spiders' webs, the rubbish of wood, bricks, plaster, broken glass, rags, and strips of soiled cloth lay beneath the windows.
Sarah Leeson strayed into the deserted northern garden. She stopped on an open patch of ground.
“What binds me to give the letter to my master at all?” she thought to herself. “My mistress died without my oath. Can she visit me from the other world? I can keep the promises[8] I swore to observe, and do no more.”
She paused. Her superstitious fears were influencing her. She paused, and began to recall the terms of the solemn engagement.
What did she actually bind herself to do? Not to destroy the letter, and not to take it away with her if she left the house. Beyond that, Mrs. Treverton's desire was to give the letter to her husband. But did Sarah take an oath? No.
As she arrived at that conclusion, she looked up. A faint flush of color flew into her cheeks, and she hastily advanced closer to the wall of the house.
The panes of the large window were yellow with dust and dirt. Below it was a heap of rubbish. Sarah glanced at the letter in her hand, and said to herself abruptly-
“I'll risk it!”
As the words fell from her lips, she hastened back to the inhabited part of the house. She followed the passage on the kitchen-floor which led to the housekeeper's room. She entered it, and took a bunch of keys. She read “Keys of the North Rooms.”
She placed the keys on a writing-table near her, took up a pen, and rapidly added these lines on the blank side of the letter -
“If somebody finds this paper, I wish to say that I decided to hide it, because I dare not show this to my master, to whom it is addressed. Though I am acting against my mistress's last wishes, I am not breaking the solemn engagement which she obliged me to make before her on her death-bed. That engagement forbids me to destroy this letter, or to take it away with me if I leave the house. I shall do neither – my purpose is to conceal it. Any hardship or misfortune will fall on myself. Others, I believe, will be happy not to know the dreadful Secret which this letter contains.”
She signed those lines with her name, took the note in her hand, and then left the room. She ascended a back staircase, and unlocked a door at the top of it. Then she came upon a row of doors, all leading into rooms on the first floor of the north side of the house.
She knelt down opposite the key-hole of the fourth door, peered in distrustfully for an instant, then began to try the different keys till she found one that fitted the lock. Her hands trembled. At length she opened the door. Then she entered the room.
She did not remain in it more than two or three minutes. When she came out again her face was white with fear. Her hand held nothing now but a small rusty key.
She examined the large bunch of keys. The particular key which she used had a label “The Myrtle Room.”
She took the scissors and cut the label from the key. Was it enough? She cut off the other labels, too. Then she retraced her steps to the housekeeper's room, entered it, and hung up the bunch of keys again on the nail in the wall.
After that Sarah hastened back to her bedroom. The candle was still burning feebly in the fresh daylight. She opened the window.
Whether for good or for evil, the fatal Secret was hidden now. She will think more composedly, after that, of herself, and of the uncertain future that lay before her.
The connection between herself and her mistress was severed by death. She knew that Mrs. Treverton, in the last days of her illness, earnestly recommended her maid to Captain Treverton's kindness and protection. But will she accept protection and kindness at the hand of the master whom she was deceiving? The bare idea of such baseness was so revolting, that she decided to leave the house immediately.
And how to leave it? Can she face her master again? His first inquiries will refer to her mistress. Sarah listened at her door in sudden suspicion and fear. Did she hear footsteps? Was it her master?
No; all was silent outside. A few tears rolled over her cheeks as she put on her bonnet. She must leave Porthgenna Tower, and leave it secretly.
Secretly – as a thief? Without a word to her master? Without a letter to thank him for his kindness and to ask his pardon? “Shall I write?” she asked herself, “and leave the letter here?”
Yes. She wrote a few lines addressed to Captain Treverton, in which she wrote that she was hiding a secret from his knowledge. She honestly believes no harm will come to him, or to anyone in whom he is interested. She is asking his pardon for leaving the house secretly. Then she sealed this short note, and left it on her table. She listened again at the door; and began to descend the stairs at Porthgenna Tower for the last time.
At the entrance of the nursery she stopped. The tears began to flow again. She ran to the stairs, reached the kitchen-floor in safety, and left the house.
She diverged to the church; but stopped before she came to it, at the public well. She dropped into the well the little rusty key, the key from the Myrtle Room. Then she hurried on, and entered the church-yard. She came to one of the graves, situated a little apart from the rest. On the head-stone were inscribed these words:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HUGH POLWHEAL, AGED 26 YEARS. HE MET WITH HIS DEATH THROUGH THE FALL OF A ROCK IN PORTHGENNA MINE, DECEMBER 17TH, 1823.
Sarah gathered a few leaves of grass from the grave. Then she said,
“God help and forgive me – it is all done and over now![9]”
With those words she turned her back on the old house, and followed the moorland path.
Four hours afterward Captain Treverton desired one of the servants at Porthgenna Tower to inform Sarah Leeson that he wished to hear everything about the dying moments of her mistress.
let me out – выпустите меня
keep the promises – сдержать обещания
it is all done and over now! – теперь всему конец!
