The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins (manga ereader TXT) 📕
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The Dead Secret is Wilkie Collins’ fourth novel. It first appeared in serial form in Charles Dickens’ Household Words magazine during 1856. Like many of Collins’ books, it features incidents and themes which were considered to be sensational at the time; in this case, sex before marriage, illegitimacy, and fraud.
The novel opens with a scene at Porthgenna Tower, a mansion in Cornwall, where the lady of the house, Mrs. Treverton, is dying. On her deathbed, she tries to force her maidservant, Sarah Leeson, to swear that she will give a letter Mrs. Treverton has written to her husband, Captain Treverton, once she is dead. The letter reveals an important family secret in which Sarah is deeply involved and which she consequently is desperately unwilling to pass on. Mrs. Treverton succeeds in making Sarah swear not to destroy the letter or remove it from the house, but dies before making the young woman swear to give the letter to the Captain. Sarah therefore finds a place to conceal it within the house.
The rest of the novel deals with Rosamond, the Treverton’s daughter, who grows to adulthood and marries Leonard Franklin, a young man of a well-to-do family, who is afflicted with blindness. Franklin purchases Porthgenna Tower after the Captain’s death, and the couple plan to move into the property and renovate it. Doing so, however, means that they are likely to uncover the hidden letter concealing the family secret.
While critics don’t consider The Dead Secret to be one of Collins’ best novels, it contains some of the same elements of mystery and suspense as The Woman in White and The Moonstone, and much of his characteristic wry humor.
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- Author: Wilkie Collins
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“Do tell me, my dear fellow!” was the answer that fell from Mr. Phippen’s lips.—“I wonder whether Miss Sturch keeps a bottle of camphor julep in the family medicine-chest?” was the thought that passed through Mr. Phippen’s mind.
“Tell you!” exclaimed the vicar. “Why, of course, every one of his plans turned out a complete failure. His Cornish tenantry received him as an interloper. The antiquity of his family made no impression upon them. It might be an old family, but it was not a Cornish family, and, therefore, it was of no importance in their eyes. They would have gone to the world’s end for the Trevertons; but not a man would move a step out of his way for the Franklands. As for the mine, it seemed to be inspired with the same mutinous spirit that possessed the tenantry. The wiseacres from London blasted in all directions on the profoundest scientific principles, and brought about sixpennyworth of ore to the surface for every five pounds spent in getting it up. The fisheries turned out little better. A new plan for curing pilchards, which was a marvel of economy in theory, proved to be a perfect phenomenon of extravagance in practice. The only item of luck in old Frankland’s large sum of misfortunes was produced by his quarreling in good time with the medieval architect, who was like a Popish priest in disguise. This fortunate event saved the new owner of Porthgenna all the money he might otherwise have spent in restoring and redecorating the whole suite of rooms on the north side of the house, which had been left to go to rack and ruin for more than fifty years past, and which remain in their old neglected condition to this day. To make a long story short, after uselessly spending more thousands of pounds at Porthgenna than I should like to reckon up, old Frankland gave in at last, left the place in disgust to the care of his steward, who was charged never to lay out another farthing on it, and returned to this neighborhood. Being in high dudgeon, and happening to catch Captain Treverton on shore when he got back, 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, which might have ended in the breaking off of all intercourse, but for the children on either side, who would see each other just as often as ever, and who ended, by dint of willful persistency, in putting an end to the estrangement between the fathers by making it look simply ridiculous. Here, in my opinion, lies the most curious part of the story. Important family interests depended on those two young people falling in love with each other; and, wonderful to relate, that (as you know, after my confession at breakfast-time) was exactly what they did. Here is a case of the most romantic love-match, which is also the marriage, of all others, that the parents on both sides had the strongest worldly interest in promoting. Shakespeare may say what he pleases, the course of true love does run smooth sometimes. Never was the marriage service performed to better purpose than when I read it this morning. The estate being 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 being an only child, the purchase-money of Porthgenna, which old Frankland once lamented as money thrown away, will now, when the Captain dies, be the marriage-portion of young Frankland’s wife. I don’t know what you think of the beginning and middle of my story, Phippen, but the end ought to satisfy you, at any rate. Did you ever hear of a bride and bridegroom who started with fairer prospects in life than our bride and bridegroom of today?”
Before Mr. Phippen could make any reply, Miss Sturch put her head out of the schoolroom window; and seeing the two gentlemen approaching, beamed on them with her invariable smile. Then addressing the vicar, said in her softest tones:
“I regret extremely to trouble you, Sir, but I find Robert very intractable this morning with his multiplication table.”
“Where does he stick now?” asked Doctor Chennery.
“At seven times eight, Sir,” replied Miss Sturch.
“Bob!” shouted the vicar through the window. “Seven times eight?”
“Forty-three,” answered the whimpering voice of the invisible Bob.
“You shall have one more chance before I get my cane,” said Doctor Chennery. “Now, then, look out! Seven times—”
“My dear, good friend,” interposed Mr. Phippen, “if you cane that very unhappy boy he will scream. My nerves have been tried once this morning by the campstool. I shall be totally shattered if I hear screams. Give me time to get out of the way, and allow me also to spare dear Miss Sturch the sad spectacle of correction (so shocking to sensibilities like hers) by asking her for a little camphor julep, and so giving her an excuse for getting out of the way like me. I think I could have done without the camphor julep under any other circumstances; but I ask for it unhesitatingly now, as much for Miss Sturch’s sake as for the sake of my own poor nerves.—Have you got camphor julep, Miss Sturch? Say yes, I
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