The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth - Rhonda Broughton

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth
by Rhoda Broughton, Missus de Wint to Missus Montresor, eighteen
Eccleston Square, May fifth, My dearest Cecilia, talk the friendships
of Orestes and pilades of Julie and Claire? What are they?

(00:21):
Two hours? Did pilatdes ever go vn tretire half over
London on a day more broiling than any but an
Ames d'arnay could even imagine, in order that Orestes might
be comfortably housed for the season. Did Claire ever hold
sweet converse with from fifty to one hundred house agents

(00:41):
in order that Julie might have three windows to her
drawing room and a pretty portier. You see, I am
determined not to be done out of my full need
of gratitude. Well, my friend, I had no idea till
yesterday how closely we were packed in this great smoky beehive,
as tight as herrings in a barrel. Don't be frightened, However,

(01:03):
by dint of squeezing and crowding, we have managed to
make room for two more herrings in our barrel. And
those two are yourself and your other self. I E.
Your husband. Let me begin at the beginning. After having
looked over I verily believe every undesirable residence in West London,

(01:24):
after having seen nothing intermediate between what was suited to
the means of a duke and what was suited to
the needs of a chimney sweep, After having felt bed ticking,
and explored kitchen ranges till my brain reeled under my
accumulated experience. I arrived at about half past five yesterday afternoon,

(01:44):
at thirty two Blank Street, Mayfair, Failure number two hundred
and fifty three. I don't doubt, I said to myself,
as I toiled up the steps with my soul athirst
for afternoon tea and feeling as ill tempered as you please,
so much for my spirit of prophecy. Fate, I have noticed,
is often fond of contradicting, as flat and giving the

(02:07):
lie to our little predictions. Once inside, I thought I
had got into a small compartment of heaven by mistake.
Fresh as a daisy, clean as a cherry, bright as
a seraph's face. It is all these and a hundred more,
only that my limited stock of similes is exhausted. Two
drawing rooms as pretty as ever woman crammed with people.

(02:29):
She did not care two straws about white curtains with
rose colored ones underneath, festooned in the sweetest way, marvelously
immorally becoming my dear, as I ascertained entirely for your
benefit in the mirrors of which they are about a
dozen and a half Persian mats, easy chairs, and lounges
suited to every possible physical confirmation, from the Apollo Belvedere

(02:53):
to miss Biffin, and a thousand of the important little
trivialities that make up the sum of a woman's life.
Ormolou garden gates, handleless cups, naked boys, and des coli
te shepherdesses, not to speak of a family of China
pugs with blue ribbons around their necks, which ought of
themselves to have added fifty pounds a year to the rent. Apropos,

(03:17):
I asked, in fear and trembling, what the rent might
be three hundred pounds a year. A feather would have
knocked me down. I could hardly believe my ears, and
made the woman repeat it several times, that there might
be no mistake to this hour. It is a mystery
to me. With that suspiciousness which is so characteristic of you,

(03:38):
you will immediately begin to hint that there must be
some terrible, unaccountable smell or some odious, inexplicable noise haunting
the reception rooms. Nothing of the kind, the woman assured me,
and she did not look as if she were telling stories.
You will next suggest, remembering the rose colored curtains, that
its last occupant was a member of the DEMI moaned

(04:01):
wrong again. Its last occupant was an elderly and unexceptionable
Indian officer, without a liver, and with a most lawful wife.
They did not stay long, it is true, but then,
as the housekeeper told me, he was a deplorable old
hypochondriac who never could bear to stay a fortnight in
any one place. So lay aside that skepticism, which is

(04:25):
your besetting sin, and give unfeigned thanks to Saint Brigita
or Saint Gwengulpha, or Saint Catherine of Siena, or whoever
is your tutular saint, for having provided you with a
palace at the cost of a hovel, and for having
sent you such an invaluable friend as your attached Elizabeth

(04:45):
de wint p S. I am so sorry I shall
not be in town to witness your first raptures. But
my dear Artie looks so pale and thin and tall
after the hooping cough, that I am sending him off
at once to the sea. And as I cannot bear
the child out of my sight, I am going into banishment. Likewise,

(05:06):
Missus montoriseller to Missus de Wint, thirty two Blank Street,
May Fair, May fourteenth, Dearest Bessie, why did not dear
little Artie defer his whooping cough, convalescence, et cetera till August.
It is very odd to me the perverse way in
which children always fix upon the most inconvenient times and

(05:27):
seasons for their diseases. Here we are installed in our paradise,
and have searched high and low in every hole and
corner for the serpent, without succeeding and catching a glimpse
of his spotted tail. Most things in this world are disappointing,
but thirty two Blank Street, Mayfair is not. The mystery
of the rent is still a mystery. I have been

(05:49):
from my first ride in the row this morning. My
horse was a little fidgety. I am half afraid that
my nerve is not what it was. I saw heaps
of people. I knew, do you recollect Florence Watson? What
a wealth of red hair she had last year? Well,
that same wealth is black as the ravenswings this year.

(06:10):
I wonder how people can make such walking impositions of themselves,
don't you. Adela comes to us next week. I am
so glad. It is dull, driving by oneself of an afternoon,
and I always think that one young woman alone in
a broom or with only a dog beside her, does
not look good. We sent round our cards a fortnight

(06:31):
before we came up, and have been already deluged with callers.
Considering that we have been two years exiled from civilized life,
and that London memories are not generally of the longest,
we shall do pretty well. I think Ralph Gordon came
to see me on Sunday. He is in the blank
fusars now he has grown up, such a dear fellow

(06:53):
and so good looking, just my style, large and fair
and whiskerless. Most men now days make themselves as like
monkeys or Scotch terriers as they possibly can. I intend
to be quite a mother to him. Dresses are gored
to as indecent an extent as ever. Short skirts are rampant.
I am so sorry I hate them. They make tall

(07:16):
women look lank and short ones insignificant. A knock piece
is a word that might as well be expunged from
one's London dictionary. Yours affectionately, Cecilia montresor Missus de wint
to Missus montresor the Lord Warden dover May eighteenth. Dear

(07:37):
is Cecilia, you will perceive that I am about to
devote only one small sheet of notepaper to you. This
is from no dearth of time. Heaven knows time is
a drug in the market here, but from a total
dearth of ideas. Any ideas that I ever have come
to me from without from external objects, I am not

(07:57):
clever enough to generate any. Within My life here is
not an eminently suggestive one. It is spent in digging
with a wooden spade and eating prawns. Those are my employments.
At least. My relaxation is going down to the pier
to see the Calais boat come in. When one is
miserable oneself, it is decidedly consoliatory to see some one

(08:20):
more miserable still and wretched and bored and reluctant vegetable
as I am, I am not seasick. I always feel
my spirits rise after having seen that peevish, draggle procession
of blue, green and yellow fellow Christians file past me.
There is a wind here, always in comparison of which

(08:41):
the wind that behaved so violently to the corners of
Job's house was a mere zephyr. There are heights to
climb which require more daring perseverance than ever Wolf displayed
with his poultry Heights of Abraham. There are glaring white houses,
glaring white roads, glaring white cliffs. If anyone knew how

(09:03):
unpatriotically I detest the chalk cliffs of Albion. I, having
grumbled through my two little pages, I've actually been reduced
to writing very large in order to fill even them,
I will send off my dreary little bier. Oh. I
wish I could get into the envelope myself too, and
whirl up with it to dear beautiful, filthy London. Not

(09:27):
more heavily could Madame de Stael have sighed for Paris
from among the shades of coppet. Your disconsolate bessie, missus
montresor to missus de Wint, thirty two Blank Street, Mayfair,
May twenty seventh. Oh, my dearest Bessie, how I wish
we were out of this dreadful, dreadful house. Please don't

(09:48):
think me very ungrateful for saying this, after your taking
such pains to provide us with a heaven on earth.
As you thought, what has happened could, of course have
been neither foretold nor guarded against by any human being.
About ten days ago, Benson, my maid, came to me
with a very long face and said, if you please'm

(10:11):
did you know that this house was haunted? I was
so startled. You know what a coward I am? I said, Good, heavens,
no is it? Wellum, I'm pretty nigh sure it is,
she said, and the expression of her countenance was about
as lively as an undertaker's. And then she told me
that Cook had been that morning to ordering groceries from

(10:32):
a shop in the neighborhood, and on her giving the
man the direction where to send things to, he had said,
with a very peculiar smile, no, thirty two Blank Street, Eh, hump,
I wonder how long you'll stand. At last, Laud held
out just a fortnight. He looked so odd that she
asked him what he meant, but he only said, oh, nothing,

(10:56):
Only the parties never did stay long. At thirty two,
he had known parties go in one day and out
the next, and during the last four years he had
never known any remain over the month. Feeling a good
deal alarmed by this information, she naturally inquired the reason,
but he declined to give it, saying that if she
had not found it out for herself, she had much

(11:18):
better leave it alone, as it would only frighten her
out of our wits, and on her insisting and urging him,
she could only extract from him that the house had
such a villainously bad name that the owners were glad
to let it for a mere song. You know how
firmly I believe in apparitions, and what an unutterable fear

(11:39):
I have of them, Anything material tangible that I can
lay hold of, anything of the same fiber, blood and
bone as myself, I could, I think confront bravely enough,
but the mere thought of being brought face to face
with the bodyless dead makes my brain unsteady. The moment
Henry came in, I ran to him and told him,

(12:00):
but he pooh pooed the whole story, laughed at me,
and asked whether we should turn out of the prettiest
house in London at the very height of the season,
because a grocer said it had a bad name. Most
good things that had ever been in the world had
had a bad name in their day. And moreover, the
man had probably a motive for taking away the house's character,

(12:21):
some friend for whom he coveted the charming situation and
a low rent. He derided my babyish fears, as he
called them, to such an extent that I felt half ashamed,
and yet not quite comfortable either. And then came the
usual rush of London engagements, during which one has no
time to think of anything but how to speak and

(12:43):
act and look for the moment then present. Adela was
to arrive yesterday, and in the morning our weekly hamper
of flowers, fruit and vegetables arrived from home. I always
dressed the flower of ozas myself servants are so tasteless,
and as I was arranging them, it occurred to me,
you know Adela's passion for flowers. To carry up one

(13:04):
particular cornucopia of roses and Mignonnette and set it on
her toilet table as a pleasant surprise for her. As
I came downstairs, I had seen the housemaid, a fresh,
round faced country girl, go into the room, which was
being prepared for Adela, with a pair of sheets that
she had been airing over her arm. I went upstairs

(13:27):
very slowly, as my cornucopia was full of water and
I was afraid of spilling some. I turned the handle
of the bedroom door and entered, keeping my eyes fixed
on my flowers to see how they bore the transit
and whether any of them had fallen out. Suddenly, a
sort of shiver passed over me, and, feeling frightened, I

(13:48):
did not know why, I looked up quickly. The girl
was standing by the bed, leaning forward a little, with
her hands clenched in each other, rigid, every nerve tense,
her eyes wide open starting out of her head, and
a look of unutterable stony horror in them. Her cheeks
and mouth not pale, but livid as those of one

(14:09):
that died a while ago in mortal pain. As I
looked at her, her lips moved a little, and an awful,
hoarse voice not like hers in the last, said, oh
my God, I have seen it. And then she fell
down suddenly like a log with a heavy noise. Hearing
the noise loudly audible all through the thin walls and
floors of a London house, Benson came running in and

(14:33):
between us. We managed to lift her on to the
bed and tried to bring her to herself by rubbing
her feet and hands, and holding strong salts to her nostrils,
and all the while we kept glancing over our shoulders
in a vague, cold terror of seeing some awful, shapeless apparition.
Two long hours she lay in a state of utter unconsciousness. Meanwhile, Harry,

(14:55):
who had been down to his club, returned at the
end of the two hours, we said seated in bringing
her back to sensation and life, but only to make
the awful discovery that she was raving mad. She became
so violent that it required all the combined strength of
Harry and Phillips, our butler, to hold her down in

(15:16):
the bed. Of course, we sent off instantly for a doctor, who,
on her growing a little calmer, towards evening, removed her
in a cab to his own house. He has just
been here to tell us that she is now pretty
quiet not from any return to sanity, but from sheer exhaustion.
We are, of course, utterly in the dark as to

(15:37):
what she saw, and her ravings are far too disconnected
and unintelligible to afford us the slightest clue. I feel
so completely shattered and upset by this awful occurrence that
you will excuse me, my dear. I'm sure if I
write incoherently, one thing I need hardly tell you, and
that is that no earthly consideration would induce me to

(16:00):
allow Adela to occupy that terrible room. I shudder and
run by quickly as I passed the door. Yours in
great agitation, Cecilia, missus de wint to Missus montresor the
Lord Warden, Dover, May twenty eighth. Dearest Cecilia, yours has
just come, how very dreadful. But I am still unconvinced

(16:25):
as to the house being in fault. You know, I
feel a sort of godmother to it and responsible for
its good behavior. Don't you think that what the girl
had might have been a fit? Why not? I myself
have a cousin who is subject to seizures of the kind,
and immediately on being attacked, his whole body becomes rigid,

(16:46):
his eyes glassy and staring, his complexion livid, exactly as
in the case you describe. Or if not a fit,
are you sure that she has not been subject to
fits of madness? Please be sure and ascertain whether there
is not insanity in her family. It is so common nowadays,
and so much on the increase, that nothing is more likely.

(17:10):
You know my utter disbelief in ghosts. I am convinced
that most of them, if run to earth, would turn
out about as genuine as the famed cock Lane one.
But even allowing the possibility, nay, the actual, unquestioned existence
of ghosts in the abstract, is it likely that there

(17:30):
should be anything to be seen so horribly fear inspiring
as to send a perfectly sane person in one instant
raving mad, which you, after three weeks residence in the house,
have never caught a glimpse of. According to your hypothesis,
your whole household ought by this time to be stark,

(17:50):
staring mad. Let me implore you not to give way
to a panic which may possibly probably prove utterly groundless.
Oh how I wish I were with you to make
you listen to reason. Artie ought to be the best
prop ever woman's old age was furnished with to indemnify
me for all he and his whooping cough have made

(18:13):
me suffer. Write immediately, please and tell me how the
poor patient progresses. Oh, had I the wings of a dove.
I shall be on wires till I hear again yours Bessy,
missus montresort to Missus de Wint, number five, Bolton Street, Piccadilly,
June twelfth. Dearest Bessie, you will see that we have

(18:35):
left that terrible, hateful, fatal house. How I wish we
had escaped from it sooner, Oh, my dear Bessy, I
shall never be the same woman again, if I live
to be a hundred. Let me try to be coherent
and to tell you connectedly what has happened. And first,
as to the housemaid, she has been removed to a

(18:56):
lunatic asylum, where she remains in much the same state.
She has had several lucid intervals, and during them has
been closely pressingly questioned as to what it was she saw,
But she has maintained an absolute, hopeless silence and only
shutters moans and hides her face in her hands when

(19:16):
the subject is broached. Three days ago I went to
see her, and on my return was sitting resting in
the drawing room before going to dress for dinner, talking
to Adela about my visit, when Ralph Gordon walked in.
He has always been walking in the last ten days,
and Adela has always flushed up and looked happy, poor

(19:37):
little cat. Whenever he made his appearance. He looked very handsome,
dear fellow, just come in from the park, and a
coat that fitted like a second skin, lavender gloves and
a guardina. He seemed in tremendous spirits and was as
skeptical as even you could be as to the ghostly
origin of Sarah's seizure. Let me come here to night

(19:59):
and said. In that room, do missus montresor, he said,
looking very eager and excited, with the gas lid and
a poker, I'll engage to exercise every demon that shows
his ugly nose, even if I should find seven white
ghostesses sitting on seven white postesses. You don't mean really,

(20:20):
I asked, incredulously, don't I That's all he answered emphatically,
I should like nothing better? Well, is it a bargain?
Adela turned quite pale. Oh don't, she said, hurriedly, Please don't.
Why should you run such a risk? How do you
know that you might not be sent mad too? He
laughed very heartily and colored a little with pleasure at

(20:43):
seeing the interest she took in his safety. Never fear,
he said, it would take more than a whole squadron
of departed once with the old gentleman at their head,
to send me crazy. He was so eager, so persistent,
so thoroughly in earnest, that I yielded at last, though
with a certain strong reluctance to his entreaties. Adela's blue

(21:06):
eyes filled with tears, and she walked away hastily to
the conservatory and stood, picking bits of heliotrope to hide them. Nevertheless,
Ralph got his own way. It was so difficult to
refuse him anything. We gave up all our engagements for
the evening, and he did the same with his. At
about ten o'clock he arrived, accompanied by a friend and brother,

(21:29):
officer Captain Burton, who was anxious to see the result
of the experiment. Let me go up at once, he said,
looking very happy and animated. I don't know when I
have felt in such good tune. A new sensation is
a luxury not to be had every day of one's life.
Turn the gas up as high as it will go,

(21:49):
provide a good stout poker, and leave the issue to
providence and me. We did a see bid. It's all
ready now, Henry said, coming downstairs after him having obeyed
his orders. The room is nearly as light as day. Well,
good luck to you, old fellow. Goodbye, miss Bruce, Ralph said,

(22:09):
going over to Adela and taking her hand with a
look half laughing, half sentimental, Fare thee well, and if
forever then forever, fare thee well. That is my last
dying speech and confession. Now mind. He went on, standing
by the table, addressing us all, if I ring once,

(22:29):
don't come, I may be flurried and lay hold of
the bell without thinking. If I ring twice, come then
he went, jumping up the stairs three steps at a
time and humming a tune. As for us, we sat
in different attitudes of expectation and listening about the drawing room.
At first we tried to talk a little, but it

(22:50):
would not do. Our whole soul seemed to have passed
into our ears. The clock's ticking sounded as loud as
a great church bell close to one's ear. Addie lay
on the sofa with her dear little white face hidden
in the cushions. So we sat for exactly an hour,
but it seemed like two years. And just as the

(23:10):
clock began to strike eleven, a sharp jing, ting ting
ran clear and shrill through the house. Let us go,
said Addie, starting up and running to the door. Let
us go. I cried too, following her, but Captain Burton
stood in the way and intercepted our progress. No, he said, decisively,

(23:31):
you must not go. Remember, Gordon told us distinctly, if
he rang once not to come. I know the sort
of fellow he is, and that nothing would annoy him
more than having his directions disregarded. Oh nonsense, Addie cried passionately.
He would never have run if he had not seen
something dreadful. Do do, Let us go, She ended, clasping

(23:55):
her hands. But she was overruled, and we all went
back to our seats. Ten minutes more of suspense next door,
too unendurable. I felt a lump in my throat, a
gasping for breath. Ten minutes on the clock, but a
thousand centuries on our hearts. Then again, loud, sudden, violent,
the bell rang. We made a simultaneous dash to the door.

(24:19):
I don't think we were one second flying upstairs. Addie
was first, Almost simultaneously, she and I burst into the room.
There he was standing in the middle of the floor, rich,
it petrified, with that same look, that look that has
burnt into my heart in letters of fire, of awful,
unspeakable stony fear on his brave young face. For one

(24:44):
instant he stood thus, Then, stretching out his arms stiffly
before him, he groaned in a terrible, husky voice, Oh
my God, I have seen it, and fell down dead. Yes, dead,
not in a swoon or in a fit, but dead. Vainly.

(25:06):
We tried to bring back the life in that strong
young heart. It will never come back again till that
day when the earth and the sea give up the
dead that are therein I cannot see the page for
the tears that are blind in me. It was such
a dear fellow, I cannot write any more to day,

(25:27):
your broken hearted Cecilia. This is a true story. End
of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
By Rhode of Broughton