The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

her bedside her eyes, which had been wandering incessantly round
and round the room before, settled on his face with a dreadful
stare of terror, which I shall remember to my dying day. The
Count sat down by her, felt her pulse and her temples, looked at
her very attentively, and then turned round upon the doctor with
such an expression of indignation and contempt in his face, that
the words failed on Mr. Dawson's lips, and he stood for a moment,
pale with anger and alarm--pale and perfectly speechless.
His lordship looked next at me.
"When did the change happen?" he asked.
I told him the time.
"Has Lady Glyde been in the room since?"
I replied that she had not. The doctor had absolutely forbidden
her to come into the room on the evening before, and had repeated
the order again in the morning.
"Have you and Mrs. Rubelle been made aware of the full extent of
the mischief?" was his next question.
We were aware, I answered, that the malady was considered
infectious. He stopped me before I could add anything more.
"It is typhus fever," he said.
In the minute that passed, while these questions and answers were
going on, Mr. Dawson recovered himself, and addressed the Count
with his customary firmness.
"It is NOT typhus fever," he remarked sharply. "I protest against
this intrusion, sir. No one has a right to put questions here but
me. I have done my duty to the best of my ability--"
The Count interrupted him--not by words, but only by pointing to
the bed. Mr. Dawson seemed to feel that silent contradiction to
his assertion of his own ability, and to grow only the more angry
under it.
"I say I have done my duty," he reiterated. "A physician has been
sent for from London. I will consult on the nature of the fever
with him, and with no one else. I insist on your leaving the
room."
"I entered this room, sir, in the sacred interests of humanity,"
said the Count. "And in the same interests, if the coming of the
physician is delayed, I will enter it again. I warn you once more
that the fever has turned to typhus, and that your treatment is
responsible for this lamentable change. If that unhappy lady
dies, I will give my testimony in a court of justice that your
ignorance and obstinacy have been the cause of her death."
Before Mr. Dawson could answer, before the Count could leave us,
the door was opened from the sitting-room, and we saw Lady Glyde
on the threshold.
"I MUST and WILL come in," she said, with extraordinary firmness.
Instead of stopping her, the Count moved into the sitting-room,
and made way for her to go in. On all other occasions he was the
last man in the world to forget anything, but in the surprise of
the moment he apparently forgot the danger of infection from
typhus, and the urgent necessity of forcing Lady Glyde to take
proper care of herself.
To my astonishment Mr. Dawson showed more presence of mind. He
stopped her ladyship at the first step she took towards the
bedside. "I am sincerely sorry, I am sincerely grieved," he said.
"The fever may, I fear, be infectious. Until I am certain that it
is not, I entreat you to keep out of the room."
She struggled for a moment, then suddenly dropped her arms and
sank forward. She had fainted. The Countess and I took her from
the doctor and carried her into her own room. The Count preceded
us, and waited in the passage till I came out and told him that we
had recovered her from the swoon.
I went back to the doctor to tell him, by Lady Glyde's desire,
that she insisted on speaking to him immediately. He withdrew at
once to quiet her ladyship's agitation, and to assure her of the
physician's arrival in the course of a few hours. Those hours
passed very slowly. Sir Percival and the Count were together
downstairs, and sent up from time to time to make their inquiries.
At last, between five and six o'clock, to our great relief, the
physician came.
He was a younger man than Mr. Dawson, very serious and very
decided. What he thought of the previous treatment I cannot say,
but it struck me as curious that he put many more questions to
myself and to Mrs. Rubelle than he put to the doctor, and that he
did not appear to listen with much interest to what Mr. Dawson
said, while he was examining Mr. Dawson's patient. I began to
suspect, from what I observed in this way, that the Count had been
right about the illness all the way through, and I was naturally
confirmed in that idea when Mr. Dawson, after some little delay,
asked the one important question which the London doctor had been
sent for to set at rest.
"What is your opinion of the fever?" he inquired.
"Typhus," replied the physician "Typhus fever beyond all doubt."
That quiet foreign person, Mrs. Rubelle, crossed her thin brown
hands in front of her, and looked at me with a very significant
smile. The Count himself could hardly have appeared more
gratified if he had been present in the room and had heard the
confirmation of his own opinion.
After giving us some useful directions about the management of the
patient, and mentioning that he would come again in five days'
time, the physician withdrew to consult in private with Mr.
Dawson. He would offer no opinion on Miss Halcombe's chances of
recovery--he said it was impossible at that stage of the illness
to pronounce one way or the other.
The five days passed anxiously.
Countess Fosco and myself took it by turns to relieve Mrs.
Rubelle, Miss Halcombe's condition growing worse and worse, and
requiring our utmost care and attention. It was a terribly trying
time. Lady Glyde (supported, as Mr. Dawson said, by the constant
strain of her suspense on her sister's account) rallied in the
most extraordinary manner, and showed a firmness and determination
for which I should myself never have given her credit. She
insisted on coming into the sick-room two or three times every
day, to look at Miss Halcombe with her own eyes, promising not to
go too close to the bed, if the doctor would consent to her wishes
so far. Mr. Dawson very unwillingly made the concession required
of him--I think he saw that it was hopeless to dispute with her.
She came in every day, and she self-denyingly kept her promise. I
felt it personally so distressing (as reminding me of my own
affliction during my husband's last illness) to see how she
suffered under these circumstances, that I must beg not to dwell
on this part of the subject any longer. It is more agreeable to
me to mention that no fresh disputes took place between Mr. Dawson
and the Count. His lordship made all his inquiries by deputy, and
remained continually in company with Sir Percival downstairs.
On the fifth day the physician came again and gave us a little
hope. He said the tenth day from the first appearance of the
typhus would probably decide the result of the illness, and he
arranged for his third visit to take place on that date. The
interval passed as before--except that the Count went to London
again one morning and returned at night.
On the tenth day it pleased a merciful Providence to relieve our
household from all further anxiety and alarm. The physician
positively assured us that Miss Halcombe was out of danger. "She
wants no doctor now--all she requires is careful watching and
nursing for some time to come, and that I see she has." Those
were his own words. That evening I read my husband's touching
sermon on Recovery from Sickness, with more happiness and
advantage (in a spiritual point of view) than I ever remember to
have derived from it before.
The effect of the good news on poor Lady Glyde was, I grieve to
say, quite overpowering. She was too weak to bear the violent
reaction, and in another day or two she sank into a state of
debility and depression which obliged her to keep her room. Rest
and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were the best remedies
which Mr. Dawson could suggest for her benefit. It was fortunate
that matters were no worse, for, on the very day after she took to
her room, the Count and the doctor had another disagreement--and
this time the dispute between them was of so serious a nature that
Mr. Dawson left the house.
I was not present at the time, but I understood that the subject
of dispute was the amount of nourishment which it was necessary to
give to assist Miss Halcombe's convalescence after the exhaustion
of the fever. Mr. Dawson, now that his patient was safe, was less
inclined than ever to submit to unprofessional interference, and
the Count (I cannot imagine why) lost all the self-control which
he had so judiciously preserved on former occasions, and taunted
the doctor, over and over again, with his mistake about the fever
when it changed to typhus. The unfortunate affair ended in Mr.
Dawson's appealing to Sir Percival, and threatening (now that he
could leave without absolute danger to Miss Halcombe) to withdraw
from his attendance at Blackwater Park if the Count's interference
was not peremptorily suppressed from that moment. Sir Percival's
reply (though not designedly uncivil) had only resulted in making
matters worse, and Mr. Dawson had thereupon withdrawn from the
house in a state of extreme indignation at Count Fosco's usage of
him, and had sent in his bill the next morning.
We were now, therefore, left without the attendance of a medical
man. Although there was no actual necessity for another doctor--
nursing and watching being, as the physician had observed, all
that Miss Halcombe required--I should still, if my authority had
been consulted, have obtained professional assistance from some
other quarter, for form's sake.
The matter did not seem to strike Sir Percival in that light. He
said it would be time enough to send for another doctor if Miss
Halcombe showed any signs of a relapse. In the meanwhile we had
the Count to consult in any minor difficulty, and we need not
unnecessarily disturb our patient in her present weak and nervous
condition by the presence of a stranger at her bedside. There was
much that was reasonable, no doubt, in these considerations, but
they left me a little anxious nevertheless. Nor was I quite
satisfied in my own mind of the propriety of our concealing the
doctor's absence as we did from Lady Glyde. It was a merciful
deception, I admit--for she was in no state to bear any fresh
anxieties. But still it was a deception, and, as such, to a
person of my principles, at best a doubtful proceeding.
A second perplexing circumstance which happened on the same day,
and which took me completely by surprise, added greatly to the
sense of uneasiness that was now weighing on my mind.
I was sent for to see Sir Percival in the library. The Count, who
was with him when I went in, immediately rose and left us alone
together. Sir Percival civilly asked me to take a seat, and then,
to my great astonishment, addressed me in these terms--
"I want to speak to you, Mrs. Michelson, about a matter which I
decided on some time ago, and which I should have mentioned
before, but for the sickness and trouble in the house. In plain
words, I have reasons for wishing to break up my establishment
immediately at this place--leaving you in charge, of course, as
usual. As soon as Lady Glyde and Miss Halcombe can travel they
must both have change of air. My friends, Count Fosco and the
Countess, will leave us before that time to live in the
neighbourhood of London, and I have reasons for not opening the
house to any more company, with a view to economising as carefully
as I can. I don't blame you, but my expenses here are a great
deal too heavy. In short, I shall sell the horses, and get rid of
all the servants at once. I never do things by halves, as you
know, and I mean to have the house clear of a pack of useless
people by this time to-morrow."
I listened to him, perfectly aghast with astonishment.
"Do you mean, Sir Percival, that I am to dismiss the indoor
servants under my charge without the usual month's warning?" I
asked.
"Certainly I do. We may all be out of the house before another
month, and I am not going to leave the servants here in idleness,
with no master to wait on."
"Who is to do the cooking, Sir Percival, while you are still
staying here?"
"Margaret Porcher can roast and boil--keep her. What do I want
with a cook if I don't mean to give any dinner-parties?"
"The servant you have mentioned is the most unintelligent servant
in the house, Sir Percival "
"Keep her, I tell you, and have a woman in from the village to do
the cleaning and go away again. My weekly expenses must and shall
be lowered immediately. I don't send for you to make objections,
Mrs. Michelson--I send for you to carry out my plans of economy.
Dismiss the whole lazy pack of indoor servants to-morrow, except
Porcher. She is as strong as a horse--and we'll make her work
like a horse."
"You will excuse me for reminding you, Sir Percival, that if the
servants go to-morrow they must have a month's wages in lieu of a
month's warning."
"Let them! A month's wages saves a month's waste and gluttony in
the servants' hall."
This last remark conveyed an aspersion of the most offensive kind
on my management. I had too much self-respect to defend myself
under so gross an imputation. Christian consideration for the
helpless position of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde, and for the
serious inconvenience which my sudden absence might inflict on
them, alone prevented me from resigning my situation on the spot.
I rose immediately. It would have lowered me in my own estimation
to have permitted the interview to continue a moment longer.
"After that last remark, Sir Percival, I have nothing more to say.
Your directions shall be attended to." Pronouncing those words, I
bowed my head with the most distant respect, and went out of the
room.
The next day the servants left in a body. Sir Percival himself
dismissed the grooms and stablemen, sending them, with all the
horses but one, to London. Of the whole domestic establishment,
indoors and out, there now remained only myself, Margaret Porcher,
and the gardener--this last living in his own cottage, and being
wanted to take care of the one horse that remained in the stables.
With the house left in this strange and lonely condition--with the
mistress of it ill in her room--with Miss Halcombe still as
helpless as a child--and with the doctor's attendance withdrawn
from us in enmity--it was surely not unnatural that my spirits
should sink, and my customary composure be very hard to maintain.
My mind was ill at ease. I wished the poor ladies both well
again, and I wished myself away from Blackwater Park.
II
The next event that occurred was of so singular a nature that it
might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my
mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan
weakness of that sort. The uneasy sense of something wrong in the
family which had made me wish myself away from Blackwater Park,
was actually followed, strange to say, by my departure from the
house. It is true that my absence was for a temporary period
only, but the coincidence was, in my opinion, not the less
remarkable on that account.
My departure took place under the following circumstances--
A day or two after the servants all left I was again sent for to
see Sir Percival. The undeserved slur which he had cast on my
management of the household did not, I am happy to say, prevent me
from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by
complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever.
It cost me a struggle with that fallen nature, which we all share
in common, before I could suppress my feelings. Being accustomed
to self-discipline, I accomplished the sacrifice.
I found Sir Percival and Count Fosco sitting together again. On
this occasion his lordship remained present at the interview, and
assisted in the development of Sir Percival's views.
The subject to which they now requested my attention related to
the healthy change of air by which we all hoped that Miss Halcombe
and Lady Glyde might soon be enabled to profit. Sir Percival
mentioned that both the ladies would probably pass the autumn (by
invitation of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire) at Limmeridge House,
Cumberland. But before they went there, it was his opinion,
confirmed by Count Fosco (who here took up the conversation and
continued it to the end), that they would benefit by a short
residence first in the genial climate of Torquay. The great
object, therefore, was to engage lodgings at that place, affording
all the comforts and advantages of which they stood in need, and
the great difficulty was to find an experienced person capable of
choosing the sort of residence which they wanted. In this
emergency the Count begged to inquire, on Sir Percival's behalf,
whether I would object to give the ladies the benefit of my
assistance, by proceeding myself to Torquay in their interests.
It was impossible for a person in my situation to meet any
proposal, made in these terms, with a positive objection.
I could only venture to represent the serious inconvenience of my
leaving Blackwater Park in the extraordinary absence of all the
indoor servants, with the one exception of Margaret Porcher. But
Sir Percival and his lordship declared that they were both willing
to put up with inconvenience for the sake of the invalids. I next
respectfully suggested writing to an agent at Torquay, but I was
met here by being reminded of the imprudence of taking lodgings
without first seeing them. I was also informed that the Countess
(who would otherwise have gone to Devonshire herself) could not,
in Lady Glyde's present condition, leave her niece, and that Sir
Percival and the Count had business to transact together which
would oblige them to remain at Blackwater Park. In short, it was
clearly shown me that if I did not undertake the errand, no one
else could be trusted with it. Under these circumstances, I could
only inform Sir Percival that my services were at the disposal of
Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde.
It was thereupon arranged that I should leave the next morning,
that I should occupy one or two days in examining all the most
convenient houses in Torquay, and that I should return with my
report as soon as I conveniently could. A memorandum was written
for me by his lordship, stating the requisites which the place I
was sent to take must be found to possess, and a note of the
pecuniary limit assigned to me was added by Sir Percival.
My own idea on reading over these instructions was, that no such
residence as I saw described could be found at any watering-place
in England, and that, even if it could by chance be discovered, it
would certainly not be parted with for any period on such terms as
I was permitted to offer. I hinted at these difficulties to both
the gentlemen, but Sir Percival (who undertook to answer me) did
not appear to feel them. It was not for me to dispute the
question. I said no more, but I felt a very strong conviction
that the business on which I was sent away was so beset by
difficulties that my errand was almost hopeless at starting.
Before I left I took care to satisfy myself that Miss Halcombe was
going on favourably.
There was a painful expression of anxiety in her face which made
me fear that her mind, on first recovering itself, was not at
ease. But she was certainly strengthening more rapidly than I
could have ventured to anticipate, and she was able to send kind
messages to Lady Glyde, saying that she was fast getting well, and
entreating her ladyship not to exert herself again too soon. I
left her in charge of Mrs. Rubelle, who was still as quietly
independent of every one else in the house as ever. When I
knocked at Lady Glyde's door before going away, I was told that
she was still sadly weak and depressed, my informant being the
Countess, who was then keeping her company in her room. Sir
Percival and the Count were walking on the road to the lodge as I
was driven by in the chaise. I bowed to them and quitted the
house, with not a living soul left in the servants' offices but
Margaret Porcher.
Every one must feel what I have felt myself since that time, that
these circumstances were more than unusual--they were! almost
suspicious. Let me, however, say again that it was impossible for
me, in my dependent position, to act otherwise than I did.
The result of my errand at Torquay was exactly what I had
foreseen. No such lodgings as I was instructed to take could be
found in the whole place, and the terms I was permitted to give
were much too low for the purpose, even if I had been able to
discover what I wanted. I accordingly returned to Blackwater
Park, and informed Sir Percival, who met me at the door, that my
journey had been taken in vain. He seemed too much occupied with
some other subject to care about the failure of my errand, and his
first words informed me that even in the short time of my absence
another remarkable change had taken place in the house.
The Count and Countess Fosco had left Blackwater Park for their
new residence in St. John's Wood.
I was not made aware of the motive for this sudden departure--I
was only told that the Count had been very particular in leaving
his kind compliments to me. When I ventured on asking Sir
Percival whether Lady Glyde had any one to attend to her comforts
in the absence of the Countess, he replied that she had Margaret
Porcher to wait on her, and he added that a woman from the village
had been sent for to do the work downstairs.
The answer really shocked me--there was such a glaring impropriety
in permitting an under-housemaid to fill the place of confidential
attendant on Lady Glyde. I went upstairs at once, and met
Margaret on the bedroom landing. Her services had not been
required (naturally enough), her mistress having sufficiently
recovered that morning to be able to leave her bed. I asked next
after Miss Halcombe, but I was answered in a I slouching, sulky
way, which left me no wiser than I was before.
I did not choose to repeat the question, and perhaps provoke an
impertinent reply. It was in every respect more becoming to a
person in my position to present myself immediately in Lady
Glyde's room.
I found that her ladyship had certainly gained in health during
the last few days. Although still sadly weak and nervous, she was
able to get up without assistance, and to walk slowly about her
room, feeling no worse effect from the exertion than a slight
sensation of fatigue. She had been made a little anxious that
morning about Miss Halcombe, through having received no news of
her from any one. I thought this seemed to imply a blamable want
of attention on the part of Mrs. Rubelle, but I said nothing, and
remained with Lady Glyde to assist her to dress. When she was
ready we both left the room together to go to Miss Halcombe.
We were stopped in the passage by the appearance of Sir Percival.
He looked as if he had been purposely waiting there to see us.
"Where are you going?" he said to Lady Glyde.
"To Marian's room," she answered.
"It may spare you a disappointment," remarked Sir Percival, "if I
tell you at once that you will not find her there."
"Not find her there!"
"No. She left the house yesterday morning with Fosco and his
wife."
Lady Glyde was not strong enough to bear the surprise of this
extraordinary statement. She turned fearfully pale, and leaned
back against the wall, looking at her husband in dead silence.
I was so astonished myself that I hardly knew what to say. I
asked Sir Percival if he really meant that Miss Halcombe had left
Blackwater Park.
"I certainly mean it," he answered.
"In her state, Sir Percival! Without mentioning her intentions to
Lady Glyde!"
Before he could reply her ladyship recovered herself a little and
spoke.
"Impossible!" she cried out in a loud, frightened manner, taking a
step or two forward from the wall. "Where was the doctor? where
was Mr. Dawson when Marian went away?"
"Mr. Dawson wasn't wanted, and wasn't here," said Sir Percival.
"He left of his own accord, which is enough of itself to show that
she was strong enough to travel. How you stare! If you don't
believe she has gone, look for yourself. Open her room door, and
all the other room doors if you like."
She took him at his word, and I followed her. There was no one in
Miss Halcombe's room but Margaret Porcher, who was busy setting it
to rights. There was no one in the spare rooms or the dressingrooms
when we looked into them afterwards. Sir Percival still
waited for us in the passage. As we were leaving the last room
that we had examined Lady Glyde whispered, "Don't go, Mrs.
Michelson! don't leave me, for God's sake!" Before I could say
anything in return she was out again in the passage, speaking to
her husband.
"What does it mean, Sir Percival? I insist--I beg and pray you
will tell me what it means."
"It means," he answered, "that Miss Halcombe was strong enough
yesterday morning to sit up and be dressed, and that she insisted
on taking advantage of Fosco's going to London to go there too."
"To London!"
"Yes--on her way to Limmeridge."
Lady Glyde turned and appealed to me.
"You saw Miss Halcombe last," she said. "Tell me plainly, Mrs.
Michelson, did you think she looked fit to travel?"
"Not in MY opinion, your ladyship."
Sir Percival, on his side, instantly turned and appealed to me
also.
"Before you went away," he said, "did you, or did you not, tell
the nurse that Miss Halcombe looked much stronger and better?"
"I certainly made the remark, Sir Percival."
He addressed her ladyship again the moment I offered that reply.
"Set one of Mrs. Michelson's opinions fairly against the other,"
he said, "and try to be reasonable about a perfectly plain matter.
If she had not been well enough to be moved do you think we should
any of us have risked letting her go? She has got three competent
people to look after her--Fosco and your aunt, and Mrs. Rubelle,
who went away with them expressly for that purpose. They took a
whole carriage yesterday, and made a bed for her on the seat in
case she felt tired. To-day, Fosco and Mrs. Rubelle go on with
her themselves to Cumberland "
"Why does Marian go to Limmeridge and leave me here by myself?"
said her ladyship, interrupting Sir Percival.
"Because your uncle won't receive you till he has seen your sister
first," he replied. "Have you forgotten the letter he wrote to
her at the beginning of her illness? It was shown to you, you read
it yourself, and you ought to remember it."
"I do remember it."
"If you do, why should you be surprised at her leaving you? You
want to be back at Limmeridge, and she has gone there to get your
uncle's leave for you on his own terms."
Poor Lady Glyde's eyes filled with tears.
"Marian never left me before," she said, "without bidding me goodbye."
"She would have bid you good-bye this time," returned Sir
Percival, "if she had not been afraid of herself and of you. She
knew you would try to stop her, she knew you would distress her by
crying. Do you want to make any more objections? If you do, you
must come downstairs and ask questions in the dining-room. These
worries upset me. I want a glass of wine."
He left us suddenly.
His manner all through this strange conversation had been very
unlike what it usually was. He seemed to be almost as nervous and
fluttered, every now and then, as his lady herself. I should
never have supposed that his health had been so delicate, or his
composure so easy to upset.
I tried to prevail on Lady Glyde to go back to her room, but it
was useless. She stopped in the passage, with the look of a woman
whose mind was panic-stricken.
"Something has happened to my sister!" she said.
"Remember, my lady, what surprising energy there is in Miss
Halcombe," I suggested. "She might well make an effort which
other ladies in her situation would be unfit for. I hope and
believe there is nothing wrong--I do indeed."
"I must follow Marian," said her ladyship, with the same panicstricken
look. "I must go where she has gone, I must see that she
is alive and well with my own eyes. Come! come down with me to
Sir Percival."
I hesitated, fearing that my presence might be considered an
intrusion. I attempted to represent this to her ladyship, but she
was deaf to me. She held my arm fast enough to force me to go
downstairs with her, and she still clung to me with all the little
strength she had at the moment when I opened the dining-room door.
Sir Percival was sitting at the table with a decanter of wine
before him. He raised the glass to his lips as we went in and
drained it at a draught. Seeing that he looked at me angrily when
he put it down again, I attempted to make some apology for my
accidental presence in the room.
"Do you suppose there are any secrets going on here?" he broke out
suddenly; "there are none--there is nothing underhand, nothing
kept from you or from any one." After speaking those strange words
loudly and sternly, he filled himself another glass of wine and
asked Lady Glyde what she wanted of him.
"If my sister is fit to travel I am fit to travel" said her
ladyship, with more firmness than she had yet shown. "I come to
beg you will make allowances for my anxiety about Marian, and let
me follow her at once by the afternoon train."
"You must wait till to-morrow," replied Sir Percival, "and then if
you don't hear to the contrary you can go. I don't suppose you
are at all likely to hear to the contrary, so I shall write to
Fosco by to-night's post."
He said those last words holding his glass up to the light, and
looking at the wine in it instead of at Lady Glyde. Indeed he
never once looked at her throughout the conversation. Such a
singular want of good breeding in a gentleman of his rank
impressed me, I own, very painfully.
"Why should you write to Count Fosco?" she asked, in extreme
surprise.
"To tell him to expect you by the midday train," said Sir
Percival. "He will meet you at the station when you get to
London, and take you on to sleep at your aunt's in St. John's
Wood."
Lady Glyde's hand began to tremble violently round my arm--why I
could not imagine.
"There is no necessity for Count Fosco to meet me," she said. "I
would rather not stay in London to sleep."
"You must. You can't take the whole journey to Cumberland in one
day. You must rest a night in London--and I don't choose you to
go by yourself to an hotel. Fosco made the offer to your uncle to
give you house-room on the way down, and your uncle has accepted
it. Here! here is a letter from him addressed to yourself. I
ought to have sent it up this morning, but I forgot. Read it and
see what Mr. Fairlie himself says to you."
Lady Glyde looked at the letter for a moment and then placed it in
my hands.
"Read it," she said faintly. "I don't know what is the matter
with me. I can't read it myself."
It was a note of only four lines--so short and so careless that it
quite struck me. If I remember correctly it contained no more
than these words--
"Dearest Laura, Please come whenever you like. Break the journey
by sleeping at your aunt's house. Grieved to hear of dear
Marian's illness. Affectionately yours, Frederick Fairlie."
"I would rather not go there--I would rather not stay a night in
London," said her ladyship, breaking out eagerly with those words
before I had quite done reading the note, short as it was. "Don't
write to Count Fosco! Pray, pray don't write to him!"
Sir Percival filled another glass from the decanter so awkwardly
that he upset it and spilt all the wine over the table. "My sight
seems to be failing me," he muttered to himself, in an odd,
muffled voice. He slowly set the glass up again, refilled it, and
drained it once more at a draught. I began to fear, from his look
and manner, that the wine was getting into his head.
"Pray don't write to Count Fosco," persisted Lady Glyde, more
earnestly than ever.
"Why not, I should like to know?" cried Sir Percival, with a
sudden burst of anger that startled us both. "Where can you stay
more properly in London than at the place your uncle himself
chooses for you--at your aunt's house? Ask Mrs. Michelson."
The arrangement proposed was so unquestionably the right and the
proper one, that I could make no possible objection to it. Much
as I sympathised with Lady Glyde in other respects, I could not
sympathise with her in her unjust prejudices against Count Fosco.
I never before met with any lady of her rank and station who was
so lamentably narrow-minded on the subject of foreigners. Neither
her uncle's note nor Sir Percival's increasing impatience seemed
to have the least effect on her. She still objected to staying a
night in London, she still implored her husband not to write to
the Count.
"Drop it!" said Sir Percival, rudely turning his back on us. "If
you haven't sense enough to know what is best for yourself other
people must know it foe you. The arrangement is made and there is
an end of it. You are only wanted to do what Miss Halcombe has
done for you---"
"Marian?" repeated her Ladyship, in a bewildered manner; "Marian
sleeping in Count Fosco's house!"
"Yes, in Count Fosco's house. She slept there last night to break
the journey, and you are to follow her example, and do what your
uncle tells you. You are to sleep at Fosco's to-morrow night, as
your sister did, to break the journey. Don't throw too many
obstacles in my way! don't make me repent of letting you go at
all!"
He started to his feet, and suddenly walked out into the verandah
through the open glass doors.
"Will your ladyship excuse me," I whispered, "if I suggest that we
had better not wait here till Sir Percival comes back? I am very
much afraid he is over-excited with wine."
She consented to leave the room in a weary, absent manner.
As soon as we were safe upstairs again, I did all I could to
compose her ladyship's spirits. I reminded her that Mr. Fairlie's
letters to Miss Halcombe and to herself did certainly sanction,
and even render necessary, sooner or later, the course that had
been taken. She agreed to this, and even admitted, of her own
accord, that both letters were strictly in character with her
uncle's peculiar disposition--but her fears about Miss Halcombe,
and her unaccountable dread of sleeping at the Count's house in
London, still remained unshaken in spite of every consideration
that I could urge. I thought it my duty to protest against Lady
Glyde's unfavourable opinion of his lordship, and I did so, with
becoming forbearance and respect.
"Your ladyship will pardon my freedom," I remarked, in conclusion,
"but it is said, 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' I am sure
the Count's constant kindness and constant attention, from the
very beginning of Miss Halcombe's illness, merit our best
confidence and esteem. Even his lordship's serious
misunderstanding with Mr. Dawson was entirely attributable to his
anxiety on Miss Halcombe's account."
"What misunderstanding?" inquired her ladyship, with a look of
sudden interest.
I related the unhappy circumstances under which Mr. Dawson had
withdrawn his attendance--mentioning them all the more readily
because I disapproved of Sir Percival's continuing to conceal what
had happened (as he had done in my presence) from the knowledge of
Lady Glyde.
Her ladyship started up, with every appearance of being
additionally agitated and alarmed by what I had told her.
"Worse! worse than I thought!" she said, walking about the room,
in a bewildered manner. "The Count knew Mr. Dawson would never
consent to Marian's taking a journey--he purposely insulted the
doctor to get him out of the house."
"Oh, my lady! my lady!" I remonstrated.
"Mrs. Michelson!" she went on vehemently, "no words that ever were
spoken will persuade me that my sister is in that man's power and
in that man's house with her own consent. My horror of him is
such, that nothing Sir Percival could say and no letters my uncle
could write, would induce me, if I had only my own feelings to
consult, to eat, drink, or sleep under his roof. Put my misery of
suspense about Marian gives me the courage to follow her anywhere,
to follow her even into Count Fosco's house."
I thought it right, at this point, to mention that Miss Halcombe
had already gone on to Cumberland, according to Sir Percival's
account of the matter.
"I am afraid to believe it!" answered her ladyship. "I am afraid
she is still in that man's house. If I am wrong, if she has
really gone on to Limmeridge, I am resolved I will not sleep tomorrow
night under Count Fosco's roof. My dearest friend in the
world, next to my sister, lives near London. You have heard me,
you have heard Miss Halcombe, speak of Mrs. Vesey? I mean to
write, and propose to sleep at her house. I don't know how I
shall get there--I don't know how I shall avoid the Count--but to
that refuge I will escape in some way, if my sister has gone to
Cumberland. All I ask of you to do, is to see yourself that my
letter to Mrs. Vesey goes to London to-night, as certainly as Sir
Percival's letter goes to Count Fosco. I have reasons for not
trusting the post-bag downstairs. Will you keep my secret, and
help me in this? it is the last favour, perhaps, that I shall ever
ask of you."
I hesitated, I thought it all very strange, I almost feared that
her ladyship's mind had been a little affected by recent anxiety
and suffering. At my own risk, however, I ended by giving my
consent. If the letter had been addressed to a stranger, or to
any one but a lady so well known to me by report as Mrs. Vesey, I
might have refused. I thank God--looking to what happened
afterwards--I thank God I never thwarted that wish, or any other,
which Lady Glyde expressed to me, on the last day of her residence
at Blackwater Park.
The letter was written and given into my hands. I myself put it
into the post-box in the village that evening.
We saw nothing more of Sir Percival for the rest of the day.
I slept, by Lady Glyde's own desire, in the next room to hers,
with the door open between us. There was something so strange and
dreadful in the loneliness and emptiness of the house, that I was
glad, on my side, to have a companion near me. Her ladyship sat
up late, reading letters and burning them, and emptying her
drawers and cabinets of little things she prized, as if she never
expected to return to Blackwater Park. Her sleep was sadly
disturbed when she at last went to bed--she cried out in it
several times, once so loud that she woke herself. Whatever her
dreams were, she did not think fit to communicate them to me.
Perhaps, in my situation, I had no right to expect that she should
do so. It matters little now. I was sorry for her, I was indeed
heartily sorry for her all the same.
The next day was fine and sunny. Sir Percival came up, after
breakfast, to tell us that the chaise would be at the door at a
quarter to twelve--the train to London stopping at our station at
twenty minutes after. He informed Lady Glyde that he was obliged
to go out, but added that he hoped to be back before she left. If
any unforeseen accident delayed him, I was to accompany her to the
station, and to take special care that she was in time for the
train. Sir Percival communicated these directions very hastily--
walking here and there about the room all the time. Her ladyship
looked attentively after him wherever he went. He never once
looked at her in return.
She only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he
approached the door, by holding out her hand.
"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner.
"This is our parting--our parting, it may be for ever. Will you
try to forgive me, Percival, as heartily as I forgive YOU?"
His face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of
perspiration broke out on his bald forehead. "I shall come back,"
he said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife's
farewell words had frightened him out of the room.
I had never liked Sir Percival, but the manner in which he left
Lady Glyde made me feel ashamed of having eaten his bread and
lived in his service. I thought of saying a few comforting and
Christian words to the poor lady, but there was something in her
face, as she looked after her husband when the door closed on him,
that made me alter my mind and keep silence.
At the time named the chaise drew up at the gates. Her ladyship
was right--Sir Percival never came back. I waited for him till
the last moment, and waited in vain.
No positive responsibility lay on my shoulders, and yet I did not
feel easy in my mind. "It is of your own free will," I said, as
the chaise drove through the lodge-gates, "that your ladyship goes
to London?"
"I will go anywhere," she answered, "to end the dreadful suspense
that I am suffering at this moment."
She had made me feel almost as anxious and as uncertain about Miss
Halcombe as she felt herself. I presumed to ask her to write me a
line, if all went well in London. She answered, "Most willingly,
Mrs. Michelson."
"We all have our crosses to bear, my lady," I said, seeing her
silent and thoughtful, after she had promised to write.
She made no reply--she seemed to be too much wrapped up in her own
thoughts to attend to me.
"I fear your ladyship rested badly last night," I remarked, after
waiting a little.
"Yes," she said, "I was terribly disturbed by dreams."
"Indeed, my lady?" I thought she was going to tell me her dreams,
but no, when she spoke next it was only to ask a question.
"You posted the letter to Mrs. Vesey with your own hands?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Did Sir Percival say, yesterday, that Count Fosco was to meet me
at the terminus in London?"
"He did, my lady."
She sighed heavily when I answered that last question, and said no
more.
We arrived at the station, with hardly two minutes to spare. The
gardener (who had driven us) managed about the luggage, while I
took the ticket. The whistle of the train was sounding when I
joined her ladyship on the platform. She looked very strangely,
and pressed her hand over her heart, as if some sudden pain or
fright had overcome her at that moment.
"I wish you were going with me!" she said, catching eagerly at my
arm when I gave her the ticket.
If there had been time, if I had felt the day before as I felt
then, I would have made my arrangements to accompany her, even
though the doing so had obliged me to give Sir Percival warning on
the spot. As it was, her wishes, expressed at the last moment
only, were expressed too late for me to comply with them. She
seemed to understand this herself before I could explain it, and
did not repeat her desire to have me for a travelling companion.
The train drew up at the platform. She gave the gardener a
present for his children, and took my hand, in her simple hearty
manner, before she got into the carriage.
"You have been very kind to me and to my sister," she said--"kind
when we were both friendless. I shall remember you gratefully, as
long as I live to remember any one. Good-bye--and God bless you!"
She spoke those words with a tone and a look which brought the
tears into my eyes--she spoke them as if she was bidding me
farewell for ever.
"Good-bye, my lady," I said, putting her into the carriage, and
trying to cheer her; "good-bye, for the present only; good-bye,
with my best and kindest wishes for happier times."
She shook her head, and shuddered as she settled herself in the
carriage. The guard closed the door. "Do you believe in dreams?"
she whispered to me at the window. "My dreams, last night, were
dreams I have never had before. The terror of them is hanging
over me still." The whistle sounded before I could answer, and the
train moved. Her pale quiet face looked at me for the last time--
looked sorrowfully and solemnly from the window. She waved her
hand, and I saw her no more.
Towards five o'clock on the afternoon of that same day, having a
little time to myself in the midst of the household duties which
now pressed upon me, I sat down alone in my own room, to try and
compose my mind with the volume of my husband's Sermons. For the
first time in my life I found my attention wandering over those
pious and cheering words. Concluding that Lady Glyde's departure
must have disturbed me far more seriously than I had myself
supposed, I put the book aside, and went out to take a turn in the
garden. Sir Percival had not yet returned, to my knowledge, so I
could feel no hesitation about showing myself in the grounds.
On turning the corner of the house, and gaining a view of the
garden, I was startled by seeing a stranger walking in it. The
stranger was a woman--she was lounging along the path with her
back to me, and was gathering the flowers.
As I approached she heard me, and turned round.
My blood curdled in my veins. The strange woman in the garden was
Mrs. Rubelle!
I could neither move nor speak. She came up to me, as composedly
as ever, with her flowers in her hand.
"What is the matter, ma'am?" she said quietly.
"You here!" I gasped out. "Not gone to London! Not gone to
Cumberland!"
Mrs. Rubelle smelt at her flowers with a smile of malicious pity.
"Certainly not," she said. "I have never left Blackwater Park."
I summoned breath enough and courage enough for another question.
"Where is Miss Halcombe?"
Mrs. Rubelle fairly laughed at me this time, and replied in these
words--
"Miss Halcombe, ma'am, has not left Blackwater Park either."
When I heard that astounding answer, all my thoughts were startled
back on the instant to my parting with Lady Glyde. I can hardly
say I reproached myself, but at that moment I think I would have
given many a year's hard savings to have known four hours earlier
what I knew now.
Mrs. Rubelle waited, quietly arranging her nosegay, as if she
expected me to say something.
I could say nothing. I thought of Lady Glyde's worn-out energies
and weakly health, and I trembled for the time when the shock of
the discovery that I had made would fall on her. For a minute or
more my fears for the poor ladies silenced me. At the end of that
time Mrs. Rubelle looked up sideways from her flowers, and said,
"Here is Sir Percival, ma'am, returned from his ride."
I saw him as soon as she did. He came towards us, slashing
viciously at the flowers with his riding-whip. When he was near
enough to see my face he stopped, struck at his boot with the
whip, and burst out laughing, so harshly and so violently that the
birds flew away, startled, from the tree by which he stood.
"Well, Mrs. Michelson," he said, "you have found it out at last,
have you?"
I made no reply. He turned to Mrs. Rubelle.
"When did you show yourself in the garden?"
"I showed myself about half an hour ago, sir. You said I might
take my liberty again as soon as Lady Glyde had gone away to
London."
"Quite right. I don't blame you--I only asked the question." He
waited a moment, and then addressed himself once more to me. "You
can't believe it, can you?" he said mockingly. "Here! come along
and see for yourself."
He led the way round to the front of the house. I followed him,
and Mrs. Rubelle followed me. After passing through the iron
gates he stopped, and pointed with his whip to the disused middle
wing of the building.
"There!" he said. "Look up at the first floor. You know the old
Elizabethan bedrooms? Miss Halcombe is snug and safe in one of the
best of them at this moment. Take her in, Mrs. Rubelle (you have
got your key?); take Mrs. Michelson in, and let her own eyes
satisfy her that there is no deception this time."
The tone in which he spoke to me, and the minute or two that had
passed since we left the garden, helped me to recover my spirits a
little. What I might have done at this critical moment, if all my
life had been passed in service, I cannot say. As it was,
possessing the feelings, the principles, and the bringing up of a
lady, I could not hesitate about the right course to pursue. My
duty to myself, and my duty to Lady Glyde, alike forbade me to
remain in the employment of a man who had shamefully deceived us
both by a series of atrocious falsehoods.
"I must beg permission, Sir Percival, to speak a few words to you
in private," I said. "Having done so, I shall be ready to proceed
with this person to Miss Halcombe's room."
Mrs. Rubelle, whom I had indicated by a slight turn of my head,
insolently sniffed at her nosegay and walked away, with great
deliberation, towards the house door.
"Well," said Sir Percival sharply, "what is it now?"
"I wish to mention, sir, that I am desirous of resigning the
situation I now hold at Blackwater Park." That was literally how
I put it. I was resolved that the first words spoken in his
presence should be words which expressed my intention to leave his
service.
He eyed me with one of his blackest looks, and thrust his hands
savagely into the pockets of his riding-coat.
"Why?" he said, "why, I should like to know?"
"It is not for me, Sir Percival, to express an opinion on what has
taken place in this house. I desire to give no offence. I merely
wish to say that I do not feel it consistent with my duty to Lady
Glyde and to myself to remain any longer in your service."
"Is it consistent with your duty to me to stand there, casting
suspicion on me to my face?" he broke out in his most violent
manner. "I see what you're driving at. You have taken your own
mean, underhand view of an innocent deception practised on Lady
Glyde for her own good. It was essential to her health that she
should have a change of air immediately, and you know as well as I
do she would never have gone away if she had been told Miss
Halcombe was still left here. She has been deceived in her own
interests--and I don't care who knows it. Go, if you like--there
are plenty of housekeepers as good as you to be had for the
asking. Go when you please--but take care how you spread scandals
about me and my affairs when you're out of my service. Tell the
truth, and nothing but the truth, or it will be the worse for you!
See Miss Halcombe for yourself--see if she hasn't been as well
taken care of in one part of the house as in the other. Remember
the doctor's own orders that Lady Glyde was to have a change of
air at the earliest possible opportunity. Bear all that well in
mind, and then say anything against me and my proceedings if you
dare!"
He poured out these words fiercely, all in a breath, walking
backwards and forwards, and striking about him in the air with his
whip.
Nothing that he said or did shook my opinion of the disgraceful
series of falsehoods that he had told in my presence the day
before, or of the cruel deception by which he had separated Lady
Glyde from her sister, and had sent her uselessly to London, when
she was half distracted with anxiety on Miss Halcombe's account.
I naturally kept these thoughts to myself, and said nothing more
to irritate him; but I was not the less resolved to persist in my
purpose. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and I suppressed my
own feelings accordingly when it was my turn to reply.
"While I am in your service, Sir Percival," I said, "I hope I know
my duty well enough not to inquire into your motives. When I am
out of your service, I hope I know my own place well enough not to
speak of matters which don't concern me "
"When do you want to go?" he asked, interrupting me without
ceremony. "Don't suppose I am anxious to keep you--don't suppose
I care about your leaving the house. I am perfectly fair and open
in this matter, from first to last. When do you want to go?"
"I should wish to leave at your earliest convenience, Sir
Percival."
"My convenience has nothing to do with it. I shall be out of the
house for good and all to-morrow morning, and I can settle your
accounts to-night. If you want to study anybody's convenience, it
had better be Miss Halcombe's. Mrs. Rubelle's time is up to-day,
and she has reasons for wishing to be in London to-night. If you
go at once, Miss Halcombe won't have a soul left here to look
after her."
I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that I was quite incapable
of deserting Miss Halcombe in such an emergency as had now
befallen Lady Glyde and herself. After first distinctly
ascertaining from Sir Percival that Mrs. Rubelle was certain to
leave at once if I took her place, and after also obtaining
permission to arrange for Mr. Dawson's resuming his attendance on
his patient, I willingly consented to remain at Blackwater Park
until Miss Halcombe no longer required my services. It was
settled that I should give Sir Percival's solicitor a week's
notice before I left, and that he was to undertake the necessary
arrangements for appointing my successor. The matter was
discussed in very few words. At its conclusion Sir Percival
abruptly turned on his heel, and left me free to join Mrs.
Rubelle. That singular foreign person had been sitting composedly
on the doorstep all this time, waiting till I could follow her to
Miss Halcombe's room.
I had hardly walked half-way towards the house when Sir Percival,
who had withdrawn in the opposite direction, suddenly stopped and
called me back.
"Why are you leaving my service?" he asked.
The question was so extraordinary, after what had just passed
between us, that I hardly knew what to say in answer to it.
"Mind! I don't know why you are going," he went on. "You must
give a reason for leaving me, I suppose, when you get another
situation. What reason? The breaking up of the family? Is that
it?"
"There can be no positive objection, Sir Percival, to that reason----"
"Very well! That's all I want to know. If people apply for your
character, that's your reason, stated by yourself. You go in
consequence of the breaking up of the family."
He turned away again before I could say another word, and walked
out rapidly into the grounds. His manner was as strange as his
language. I acknowledge he alarmed me.
Even the patience of Mrs. Rubelle was getting exhausted, when I
joined her at the house door.
"At last!" she said, with a shrug of her lean foreign shoulders.
She led the way into the inhabited side of the house, ascended the
stairs, and opened with her key the door at the end of the
passage, which communicated with the old Elizabethan rooms--a door
never previously used, in my time, at Blackwater Park. The rooms
themselves I knew well, having entered them myself on various
occasions from the other side of the house. Mrs. Rubelle stopped
at the third door along the old gallery, handed me the key of it,
with the key of the door of communication, and told me I should
find Miss Halcombe in that room. Before I went in I thought it
desirable to make her understand that her attendance had ceased.
Accordingly, I told her in plain words that the charge of the sick
lady henceforth devolved entirely on myself.
"I am glad to hear it, ma'am," said Mrs. Rubelle. "I want to go
very much."
"Do you leave to-day?" I asked, to make sure of her.
"Now that you have taken charge, ma'am, I leave in half an hour's
time. Sir Percival has kindly placed at my disposition the
gardener, and the chaise, whenever I want them. I shall want them
in half an hour's time to go to the station. I am packed up in
anticipation already. I wish you good-day, ma'am."
She dropped a brisk curtsey, and walked back along the gallery,
humming a little tune, and keeping time to it cheerfully with the
nosegay in her hand. I am sincerely thankful to say that was the
last I saw of Mrs. Rubelle.
When I went into the room Miss Halcombe was asleep. I looked at
her anxiously, as she lay in the dismal, high, old-fashioned bed.
She was certainly not in any respect altered for the worse since I
had seen her last. She had not been neglected, I am bound to
admit, in any way that I could perceive. The room was dreary, and
dusty, and dark, but the window (looking on a solitary court-yard
at the back of the house) was opened to let in the fresh air, and
all that could be done to make the place comfortable had been
done. The whole cruelty of Sir Percival's deception had fallen on
poor Lady Glyde. The only ill-usage which either he or Mrs.
Rubelle had inflicted on Miss Halcombe consisted, so far as I
could see, in the first offence of hiding her away.
I stole back, leaving the sick lady still peacefully asleep, to
give the gardener instructions about bringing the doctor. I
begged the man, after he had taken Mrs. Rubelle to the station, to
drive round by Mr. Dawson's, and leave a message in my name,
asking him to call and see me. I knew he would come on my
account, and I knew he would remain when he found Count Fosco had
left the house.
In due course of time the gardener returned, and said that he had
driven round by Mr. Dawson's residence, after leaving Mrs. Rubelle
at the station. The doctor sent me word that he was poorly in
health himself, but that he would call, if possible, the next
morning.
Having delivered his message the gardener was about to withdraw,
but I stopped him to request that he would come back before dark,
and sit up that night, in one of the empty bedrooms, so as to be
within call in case I wanted him. He understood readily enough my
unwillingness to be left alone all night in the most desolate part
of that desolate house, and we arranged that he should come in
between eight and nine.
He came punctually, and I found cause to be thankful that I had
adopted the precaution of calling him in. Before midnight Sir
Percival's strange temper broke out in the most violent and most
alarming manner, and if the gardener had not been on the spot to
pacify him on the instant, I am afraid to think what might have
happened.
Almost all the afternoon and evening he had been walking about the
house and grounds in an unsettled, excitable manner, having, in
all probability, as I thought, taken an excessive quantity of wine
at his solitary dinner. However that may be, I heard his voice
calling loudly and angrily in the new wing of the house, as I was
taking a turn backwards and forwards along the gallery the last
thing at night. The gardener immediately ran down to him, and I
closed the door of communication, to keep the alarm, if possible,
from reaching Miss Halcombe's ears. It was full half an hour
before the gardener came back. He declared that his master was
quite out of his senses--not through the excitement of drink, as I
had supposed, but through a kind of panic or frenzy of mind, for
which it was impossible to account. He had found Sir Percival
walking backwards and forwards by himself in the hall, swearing,
with every appearance of the most violent passion, that he would
not stop another minute alone in such a dungeon as his own house,
and that he would take the first stage of his journey immediately
in the middle of the night. The gardener, on approaching him, had
been hunted out, with oaths and threats, to get the horse and
chaise ready instantly. In a quarter of an hour Sir Percival had
joined him in the yard, had jumped into the chaise, and, lashing
the horse into a gallop, had driven himself away, with his face as
pale as ashes in the moonlight. The gardener had heard him
shouting and cursing at the lodge-keeper to get up and open the
gate--had heard the wheels roll furiously on again in the still
night, when the gate was unlocked--and knew no more.
The next day, or a day or two after, I forget which, the chaise
was brought back from Knowlesbury, our nearest town, by the ostler
at the old inn. Sir Percival had stopped there, and had
afterwards left by the train--for what destination the man could
not tell. I never received any further information, either from
himself or from any one else, of Sir Percival's proceedings, and I
am not even aware, at this moment, whether he is in England or out
of it. He and I have not met since he drove away like an escaped
criminal from his own house, and it is my fervent hope and prayer
that we may never meet again.
My own part of this sad family story is now drawing to an end.
I have been informed that the particulars of Miss Halcombe's
waking, and of what passed between us when she found me sitting by
her bedside, are not material to the purpose which is to be
answered by the present narrative. It will be sufficient for me
to say in this place, that she was not herself conscious of the
means adopted to remove her from the inhabited to the uninhabited
part of the house. She was in a deep sleep at the time, whether
naturally or artificially produced she could not say. In my
absence at Torquay, and in the absence of all the resident
servants except Margaret Porcher (who was perpetually eating,
drinking, or sleeping, when she was not at work), the secret
transfer of Miss Halcombe from one part of the house to the other
was no doubt easily performed. Mrs. Rubelle (as I discovered for
myself, in looking about the room) had provisions, and all other
necessaries, together with the means of heating water, broth, and
so on, without kindling a fire, placed at her disposal during the
few days of her imprisonment with the sick lady. She had declined
to answer the questions which Miss Halcombe naturally put, but had
not, in other respects, treated her with unkindness or neglect.
The disgrace of lending herself to a vile deception is the only
disgrace with which I can conscientiously charge Mrs. Rubelle.
I need write no particulars (and I am relieved to know it) of the
effect produced on Miss Halcombe by the news of Lady Glyde's
departure, or by the far more melancholy tidings which reached us
only too soon afterwards at Blackwater Park. In both cases I
prepared her mind beforehand as gently and as carefully as
possible, having the doctor's advice to guide me, in the last case
only, through Mr. Dawson's being too unwell to come to the house
for some days after I had sent for him. It was a sad time, a time
which it afflicts me to think of or to write of now. The precious
blessings of religious consolation which I endeavoured to convey
were long in reaching Miss Halcombe's heart, but I hope and
believe they came home to her at last. I never left her till her
strength was restored. The train which took me away from that
miserable house was the train which took her away also. We parted
very mournfully in London. I remained with a relative at
Islington, and she went on to Mr. Fairlie's house in Cumberland.
I have only a few lines more to write before I close this painful
statement. They are dictated by a sense of duty.
In the first place, I wish to record my own personal conviction
that no blame whatever, in connection with the events which I have
now related, attaches to Count Fosco. I am informed that a
dreadful suspicion has been raised, and that some very serious
constructions are placed upon his lordship's conduct. My
persuasion of the Count's innocence remains, however, quite
unshaken. If he assisted Sir Percival in sending me to Torquay,
he assisted under a delusion, for which, as a foreigner and a
stranger, he was not to blame. If he was concerned in bringing
Mrs. Rubelle to Blackwater Park, it was his misfortune and not his
fault, when that foreign person was base enough to assist a
deception planned and carried out by the master of the house. I
protest, in the interests of morality, against blame being
gratuitously and wantonly attached to the proceedings of the
Count.
In the second place, I desire to express my regret at my own
inability to remember the precise day on which Lady Glyde left
Blackwater Park for London. I am told that it is of the last
importance to ascertain the exact date of that lamentable journey,
and I have anxiously taxed my memory to recall it. The effort has
been in vain. I can only remember now that it was towards the
latter part of July. We all know the difficulty, after a lapse of
time, of fixing precisely on a past date unless it has been
previously written down. That difficulty is greatly increased in
my case by the alarming and confusing events which took place
about the period of Lady Glyde's departure. I heartily wish I had
made a memorandum at the time. I heartily wish my memory of the
date was as vivid as my memory of that poor lady's face, when it
looked at me sorrowfully for the last time from the carriage
window.
THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL NARRATIVES
1. THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER PINHORN, COOK IN THE SERVICE OF COUNT
FOSCO
[Taken down from her own statement]
I am sorry to say that I have never learnt to read or write. I
have been a hard-working woman all my life, and have kept a good
character. I know that it is a sin and wickedness to say the
thing which is not, and I will truly beware of doing so on this
occasion. All that I know I will tell, and I humbly beg the
gentleman who takes this down to put my language right as he goes
on, and to make allowances for my being no scholar.
In this last summer I happened to be out of place (through no
fault of my own), and I heard of a situation as plain cook, at
Number Five, Forest Road, St. John's Wood. I took the place on
trial. My master's name was Fosco. My mistress was an English
lady. He was Count and she was Countess. There was a girl to do
housemaid's work when I got there. She was not over-clean or
tidy, but there was no harm in her. I and she were the only
servants in the house.
Our master and mistress came after we got in; and as soon as they
did come we were told, downstairs, that company was expected from
the country.
The company was my mistress's niece, and the back bedroom on the
first floor was got ready for her. My mistress mentioned to me
that Lady Glyde (that was her name) was in poor health, and that I
must be particular in my cooking accordingly. She was to come
that day, as well as I can remember--but whatever you do, don't
trust my memory in the matter. I am sorry to say it's no use
asking me about days of the month, and such-like. Except Sundays,
half my time I take no heed of them, being a hard-working woman
and no scholar. All I know is Lady Glyde came, and when she did
come, a fine fright she gave us all surely. I don't know how
master brought her to the house, being hard at work at the time.
But he did bring her in the afternoon, I think, and the housemaid
opened the door to them, and showed them into the parlour. Before
she had been long down in the kitchen again with me, we heard a
hurry-skurry upstairs, and the parlour bell ringing like mad, and
my mistress's voice calling out for help.
We both ran up, and there we saw the lady laid on the sofa, with
her face ghastly white, and her hands fast clenched, and her head
drawn down to one side. She had been taken with a sudden fright,
my mistress said, and master he told us she was in a fit of
convulsions. I ran out, knowing the neighbourhood a little better
than the rest of them, to fetch the nearest doctor's help. The
nearest help was at Goodricke's and Garth's, who worked together
as partners, and had a good name and connection, as I have heard,
all round St. John's Wood. Mr. Goodricke was in, and he came back
with me directly.
It was some time before he could make himself of much use. The
poor unfortunate lady fell out of one fit into another, and went
on so till she was quite wearied out, and as helpless as a newborn
babe. We then got her to bed. Mr. Goodricke went away to
his house for medicine, and came back again in a quarter of an
hour or less. Besides the medicine he brought a bit of hollow
mahogany wood with him, shaped like a kind of trumpet, and after
waiting a little while, he put one end over the lady's heart and
the other to his ear, and listened carefully.
When he had done he says to my mistress, who was in the room,
"This is a very serious case," he says, "I recommend you to write
to Lady Glyde's friends directly." My mistress says to him, "Is it
heart-disease?" And he says, "Yes, heart-disease of a most
dangerous kind." He told her exactly what he thought was the
matter, which I was not clever enough to understand. But I know
this, he ended by saying that he was afraid neither his help nor
any other doctor's help was likely to be of much service.
My mistress took this ill news more quietly than my master. He
was a big, fat, odd sort of elderly man, who kept birds and white
mice, and spoke to them as if they were so many Christian
children. He seemed terribly cut up by what had happened. "Ah!
poor Lady Glyde! poor dear Lady Glyde!" he says, and went stalking
about, wringing his fat hands more like a play-actor than a
gentleman. For one question my mistress asked the doctor about
the lady's chances of getting round, he asked a good fifty at
least. I declare he quite tormented us all, and when he was quiet
at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking trumpery
little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make the
sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any good. I
think he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head. But
he was not a bad master--he had a monstrous civil tongue of his
own, and a jolly, easy, coaxing way with him. I liked him a deal
better than my mistress. She was a hard one, if ever there was a
hard one yet.
Towards night-time the lady roused up a little. She had been so
wearied out, before that, by the convulsions, that she never
stirred hand or foot, or spoke a word to anybody. She moved in
the bed now, and stared about her at the room and us in it. She
must have been a nice-looking lady when well, with light hair, and
blue eyes and all that. Her rest was troubled at night--at least
so I heard from my mistress, who sat up alone with her. I only
went in once before going to bed to see if I could be of any use,
and then she was talking to herself in a confused, rambling
manner. She seemed to want sadly to speak to somebody who was
absent from her somewhere. I couldn't catch the name the first
time, and the second time master knocked at the door, with his
regular mouthful of questions, and another of his trumpery
nosegays.
When I went in early the next morning, the lady was clean worn out
again, and lay in a kind of faint sleep. Mr. Goodricke brought
his partner, Mr. Garth, with him to advise. They said she must
not be disturbed out of her rest on any account. They asked my
mistress many questions, at the other end of the room, about what
the lady's health had been in past times, and who had attended
her, and whether she had ever suffered much and long together
under distress of mind. I remember my mistress said "Yes" to that
last question. And Mr. Goodricke looked at Mr. Garth, and shook
his head; and Mr. Garth looked at Mr. Goodricke, and shook his
head. They seemed to think that the distress might have something
to do with the mischief at the lady's heart. She was but a frail
thing to look at, poor creature! Very little strength at any time,
I should say--very little strength.
Later on the same morning, when she woke, the lady took a sudden
turn, and got seemingly a great deal better. I was not let in
again to see her, no more was the housemaid, for the reason that
she was not to be disturbed by strangers. What I heard of her
being better was through my master. He was in wonderful good
spirits about the change, and looked in at the kitchen window from
the garden, with his great big curly-brimmed white hat on, to go
out.
"Good Mrs. Cook," says he, "Lady Glyde is better. My mind is more
easy than it was, and I am going out to stretch my big legs with a
sunny little summer walk. Shall I order for you, shall I market
for you, Mrs. Cook? What are you making there? A nice tart for
dinner? Much crust, if you please--much crisp crust, my dear, that
melts and crumbles delicious in the mouth." That was his way. He
was past sixty, and fond of pastry. Just think of that!
The doctor came again in the forenoon, and saw for himself that
Lady Glyde had woke up better. He forbid us to talk to her, or to
let her talk to us, in case she was that way disposed, saying she
must be kept quiet before all things, and encouraged to sleep as
much as possible. She did not seem to want to talk whenever I saw
her, except overnight, when I couldn't make out what she was
saying--she seemed too much worn down. Mr. Goodricke was not
nearly in such good spirits about her as master. He said nothing
when he came downstairs, except that he would call again at five
o'clock.
About that time (which was before master came home again) the bell
rang hard from the bedroom, and my mistress ran out into the
landing, and called to me to go for Mr. Goodricke, and tell him
the lady had fainted. I got on my bonnet and shawl, when, as good
luck would have it, the doctor himself came to the house for his
promised visit.
I let him in, and went upstairs along with him. "Lady Glyde was
just as usual," says my mistress to him at the door; "she was
awake, and looking about her in a strange, forlorn manner, when I
heard her give a sort of half cry, and she fainted in a moment."
The doctor went up to the bed, and stooped down over the sick
lady. He looked very serious, all on a sudden, at the sight of
her, and put his hand on her heart.
My mistress stared hard in Mr. Goodricke's face. "Not dead!" says
she, whispering, and turning all of a tremble from head to foot.
"Yes," says the doctor, very quiet and grave. "Dead. I was
afraid it would happen suddenly when I examined her heart
yesterday." My mistress stepped back from the bedside while he was
speaking, and trembled and trembled again. "Dead!" she whispers
to herself; "dead so suddenly! dead so soon! What will the Count
say?" Mr. Goodricke advised her to go downstairs, and quiet
herself a little. "You have been sitting up all night," says he,
"and your nerves are shaken. This person," says he, meaning me,
"this person will stay in the room till I can send for the
necessary assistance." My mistress did as he told her. "I must
prepare the Count," she says. "I must carefully prepare the
Count." And so she left us, shaking from head to foot, and went
out.
"Your master is a foreigner," says Mr. Goodricke, when my mistress
had left us. "Does he understand about registering the death?"
"I can't rightly tell, sir," says I, "but I should think not."
The doctor considered a minute, and then says he, "I don't usually
do such things," says he, "but it may save the family trouble in
this case if I register the death myself. I shall pass the
district office in half an hour's time, and I can easily look in.
Mention, if you please, that I will do so." "Yes, sir," says I,
"with thanks, I'm sure, for your kindness in thinking of it."
"You don't mind staying here till I can send you the proper
person?" says he. "No, sir," says I; "I'll stay with the poor
lady till then. I suppose nothing more could be done, sir, than
was done?" says I. "No," says he, "nothing; she must have
suffered sadly before ever I saw her--the case was hopeless when I
was called in." "Ah, dear me! we all come to it, sooner or later,
don't we, sir?" says I. He gave no answer to that--he didn't seem
to care about talking. He said, "Good-day," and went out.
I stopped by the bedside from that time till the time when Mr.
Goodricke sent the person in, as he had promised. She was, by
name, Jane Gould. I considered her to be a respectable-looking
woman. She made no remark, except to say that she understood what
was wanted of her, and that she had winded a many of them in her
time.
How master bore the news, when he first heard it, is more than I
can tell, not having been present. When I did see him he looked
awfully overcome by it, to be sure. He sat quiet in a corner,
with his fat hands hanging over his thick knees, and his head
down, and his eyes looking at nothing. He seemed not so much
sorry, as scared and dazed like, by what had happened. My
mistress managed all that was to be done about the funeral. It
must have cost a sight of money--the coffin, in particular, being
most beautiful. The dead lady's husband was away, as we heard, in
foreign parts. But my mistress (being her aunt) settled it with
her friends in the country (Cumberland, I think) that she should
be buried there, in the same grave along with her mother.
Everything was done handsomely, in respect of the funeral, I say
again, and master went down to attend the burying in the country
himself. He looked grand in his deep mourning, with his big
solemn face, and his slow walk, and his broad hatband--that he
did!
In conclusion. I have to say, in answer to questions put to me--
(1) That neither I nor my fellow-servant ever saw my master give
Lady Glyde any medicine himself.
(2) That he was never, to my knowledge and belief, left alone in
the room with Lady Glyde.
(3) That I am not able to say what caused the sudden fright, which
my mistress informed me had seized the lady on her first coming
into the house. The cause was never explained, either to me or to
my fellow-servant.
The above statement has been read over in my presence. I have
nothing to add to it, or to take away from it. I say, on my oath
as a Christian woman, this is the truth.
(Signed) HESTER PINHORN, Her + Mark.
2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR
To the Registrar of the Sub-District in which the undermentioned
death took place.--I hereby certify that I attended Lady Glyde,
aged Twenty-One last Birthday; that I last saw her on Thursday the
25th July 1850; that she died on the same day at No. 5 Forest
Road, St. John's Wood, and that the cause of her death was
Aneurism. Duration of disease not known.
(Signed) Alfred Goodricke.
Profl. Title. M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A.
Address, 12 Croydon Gardens
St. John's Wood.
3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD
I was the person sent in by Mr. Goodricke to do what was right and
needful by the remains of a lady who had died at the house named
in the certificate which precedes this. I found the body in
charge of the servant, Hester Pinhorn. I remained with it, and
prepared it at the proper time for the grave. It was laid in the
coffin in my presence, and I afterwards saw the coffin screwed
down previous to its removal. When that had been done, and not
before, I received what was due to me and left the house. I refer
persons who may wish to investigate my character to Mr. Goodricke.
He will bear witness that I can be trusted to tell the truth.
(Signed) JANE GOULD
4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE
Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde, wife of Sir Percival
Glyde, Bart., of Blackwater Park, Hampshire, and daughter of the
late Philip Fairlie, Esq., of Limmeridge House, in this parish.
Born March 27th, 1829; married December 22nd, 1849; died July
25th, 1850.
5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT
Early in the summer of 1850 I and my surviving companions left the
wilds and forests of Central America for home. Arrived at the
coast, we took ship there for England. The vessel was wrecked in
the Gulf of Mexico--I was among the few saved from the sea. It
was my third escape from peril of death. Death by disease, death
by the Indians, death by drowning--all three had approached me;
all three had passed me by.
The survivors of the wreck were rescued by an American vessel
bound for Liverpool. The ship reached her port on the thirteenth
day of October 1850. We landed late in the afternoon, and I
arrived in London the same night.
These pages are not the record of my wanderings and my dangers
away from home. The motives which led me from my country and my
friends to a new world of adventure and peril are known. From
that self-imposed exile I came back, as I had hoped, prayed,
believed I should come back--a changed man. In the waters of a
new life I had tempered my nature afresh. In the stern school of
extremity and danger my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to
be resolute, my mind to rely on itself. I had gone out to fly
from my own future. I came back to face it, as a man should.
To face it with that inevitable suppression of myself which I knew
it would demand from me. I had parted with the worst bitterness
of the past, but not with my heart's remembrance of the sorrow and
the tenderness of that memorable time. I had not ceased to feel
the one irreparable disappointment of my life--I had only learnt
to bear it. Laura Fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship
bore me away, and I looked my last at England. Laura Fairlie was
in all my thoughts when the ship brought me back, and the morning
light showed the friendly shore in view.
My pen traces the old letters as my heart goes back to the old
love. I write of her as Laura Fairlie still. It is hard to think
of her, it is hard to speak of her, by her husband's name.
There are no more words of explanation to add on my appearance for
the second time in these pages. This narrative, if I have the
strength and the courage to write it, may now go on.
My first anxieties and first hopes when the morning came centred
in my mother and my sister. I felt the necessity of preparing
them for the joy and surprise of my return, after an absence
during which it had been impossible for them to receive any
tidings of me for months past. Early in the morning I sent a
letter to the Hampstead Cottage, and followed it myself in an
hour's time.
When the first meeting was over, when our quiet and composure of
other days began gradually to return to us, I saw something in my
mother's face which told me that a secret oppression lay heavy on
her heart. There was more than love--there was sorrow in the
anxious eyes that looked on me so tenderly--there was pity in the
kind hand that slowly and fondly strengthened its hold on mine.
We had no concealments from each other. She knew how the hope of
my life had been wrecked--she knew why I had left her. It was on
my lips to ask as composedly as I could if any letter had come for
me from Miss Halcombe, if there was any news of her sister that I
might hear. But when I looked in my mother's face I lost courage
to put the question even in that guarded form. I could only say,
doubtingly and restrainedly--
"You have something to tell me."
My sister, who had been sitting opposite to us, rose suddenly
without a word of explanation--rose and left the room.
My mother moved closer to me on the sofa and put her arms round my
neck. Those fond arms trembled--the tears flowed fast over the
faithful loving face.
"Walter!" she whispered, "my own darling! my heart is heavy for
you. Oh, my son! my son! try to remember that I am still left!"
My head sank on her bosom. She had said all in saying those
words.
* * * * * * * * * *
It was the morning of the third day since my return--the morning
of the sixteenth of October.
I had remained with them at the cottage--I had tried hard not to
embitter the happiness of my return to THEM as it was embittered
to ME. I had done all man could to rise after the shock, and
accept my life resignedly--to let my great sorrow come in
tenderness to my heart, and not in despair. It was useless and
hopeless. No tears soothed my aching eyes, no relief came to me
from my sister's sympathy or my mother's love.
On that third morning I opened my heart to them. At last the
words passed my lips which I had longed to speak on the day when
my mother told me of her death.
"Let me go away alone for a little while," I said. "I shall bear
it better when I have looked once more at the place where I first
saw her--when I have knelt and prayed by the grave where they have
laid her to rest."
I departed on my journey--my journey to the grave of Laura
Fairlie.
It was a quiet autumn afternoon when I stopped at the solitary
station, and set forth alone on foot by the well-remembered road.
The waning sun was shining faintly through thin white clouds--the
air was warm and still--the peacefulness of the lonely country was
overshadowed and saddened by the influence of the falling year.
I reached the moor--I stood again on the brow of the hill--I
looked on along the path--and there were the familiar garden trees
in the distance, the clear sweeping semicircle of the drive, the
high white walls of Limmeridge House. The chances and changes,
the wanderings and dangers of months and months past, all shrank
and shrivelled to nothing in my mind. It was like yesterday since
my feet had last trodden the fragrant heathy ground. I thought I
should see her coming to meet me, with her little straw hat
shading her face, her simple dress fluttering in the air, and her
well-filled sketch-book ready in her hand.
Oh death, thou hast thy sting! oh, grave, thou hast thy victory!
I turned aside, and there below me in the glen was the lonesome
grey church, the porch where I had waited for the coming of the
woman in white, the hills encircling the quiet burial-ground, the
brook bubbling cold over its stony bed. There was the marble
cross, fair and white, at the head of the tomb--the tomb that now
rose over mother and daughter alike.
I approached the grave. I crossed once more the low stone stile,
and bared my head as I touched the sacred ground. Sacred to
gentleness and goodness, sacred to reverence and grief.
I stopped before the pedestal from which the cross rose. On one
side of it, on the side nearest to me, the newly-cut inscription
met my eyes--the hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the
story of her life and death. I tried to read them. I did read as
far as the name. "Sacred to the Memory of Laura----" The kind
blue eyes dim with tears--the fair head drooping wearily--the
innocent parting words which implored me to leave her--oh, for a
happier last memory of her than this; the memory I took away with
me, the memory I bring back with me to her grave!
A second time I tried to read the inscription. I saw at the end
the date of her death, and above it----
Above it there were lines on the marble--there was a name among
them which disturbed my thoughts of her. I went round to the
other side of the grave, where there was nothing to read, nothing
of earthly vileness to force its way between her spirit and mine.
I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid my head on the
broad white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around,
on the light above. I let her come back to me. Oh, my love! my
love! my heart may speak to you NOW! I It is yesterday again since
we parted--yesterday, since your dear hand lay in mine--yesterday,
since my eyes looked their last on you. My love! my love!
* * * * * * * * * *
Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night over
its course.
The first sound that came after the heavenly peace rustled faintly
like a passing breath of air over the grass of the burial-ground.
I heard it nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my ear--
came like footsteps moving onward--then stopped.
I looked up.
The sunset was near at hand. The clouds had parted--the slanting
light fell mellow over the hills. The last of the day was cold
and clear and still in the quiet valley of the dead.
Beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing together in the cold
clearness of the lower light, I saw two women. They were looking
towards the tomb, looking towards me.
Two.
They came a little on, and stopped again. Their veils were down,
and hid their faces from me. When they stopped, one of them
raised her veil. In the still evening light I saw the face of
Marian Halcombe.
Changed, changed as if years had passed over it! The eyes large
and wild, and looking at me with a strange terror in them. The
face worn and wasted piteously. Pain and fear and grief written
on her as with a brand.
I took one step towards her from the grave. She never moved--she
never spoke. The veiled woman with her cried out faintly. I
stopped. The springs of my life fell low, and the shuddering of
an unutterable dread crept over me from head to foot.
The woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and
came towards me slowly. Left by herself, standing by herself,
Marian Halcombe spoke. It was the voice that I remembered--the
voice not changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted face.
"My dream! my dream!" I heard her say those words softly in the
awful silence. She sank on her knees, and raised her clasped
hands to heaven. "Father! strengthen him. Father! help him in
his hour of need."
The woman came on, slowly and silently came on. I looked at her--
at her, and at none other, from that moment.
The voice that was praying for me faltered and sank low--then rose
on a sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me to
come away.
But the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. She
stopped on one side of the grave. We stood face to face with the
tombstone between us. She was close to the inscription on the
side of the pedestal. Her gown touched the black letters.
The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still.
"Hide your face! don't look at her! Oh, for God's sake, spare him----"
The woman lifted her veil.
"Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde----"
Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was
looking at me over the grave.
[The Second Epoch of the Story closes here.]
THE THIRD EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT.
I
I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week.
The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain
unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and
confusion when I think of it. This must not be, if I who write am
to guide, as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the clue
that leads through the windings of the story is to remain from end
to end untangled in my hands.
A life suddenly changed--its whole purpose created afresh, its
hopes and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices
all turned at once and for ever into a new direction--this is the
prospect which now opens before me, like the burst of view from a
mountain's top. I left my narrative in the quiet shadow of
Limmeridge church--I resume it, one week later, in the stir and
turmoil of a London street.
The street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood. The ground
floor of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small
newsvendor's shop, and the first floor and the second are let as
furnished lodgings of the humblest kind.
I have taken those two floors in an assumed name. On the upper
floor I live, with a room to work in, a room to sleep in. On the
lower floor, under the same assumed name, two women live, who are
described as my sisters. I get my bread by drawing and engraving
on wood for the cheap periodicals. My sisters are supposed to
help me by taking in a little needlework. Our poor place of
abode, our humble calling, our assumed relationship, and our
assumed name, are all used alike as a means of hiding us in the
house-forest of London. We are numbered no longer with the people
whose lives are open and known. I am an obscure, unnoticed man,
without patron or friend to help me. Marian Halcombe is nothing
now but my eldest sister, who provides for our household wants by
the toil of her own hands. We two, in the estimation of others,
are at once the dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. We
are supposed to be the accomplices of mad Anne Catherick, who
claims the name, the place, and the living personality of dead
Lady Glyde.
That is our situation. That is the changed aspect in which we
three must appear, henceforth, in this narrative, for many and
many a page to come.
In the eye of reason and of law, in the estimation of relatives
and friends, according to every received formality of civilised
society, "Laura, Lady Glyde," lay buried with her mother in
Limmeridge churchyard. Torn in her own lifetime from the list of
the living, the daughter of Philip Fairlie and the wife of
Percival Glyde might still exist for her sister, might still exist
for me, but to all the world besides she was dead. Dead to her
uncle, who had renounced her; dead to the servants of the house,
who had failed to recognise her; dead to the persons in authority,
who had transmitted her fortune to her husband and her aunt; dead
to my mother and my sister, who believed me to be the dupe of an
adventuress and the victim of a fraud; socially, morally, legally--
dead.
And yet alive! Alive in poverty and in hiding. Alive, with the
poor drawing-master to fight her battle, and to win the way back
for her to her place in the world of living beings.
Did no suspicion, excited by my own knowledge of Anne Catherick's
resemblance to her, cross my mind, when her face was first
revealed to me? Not the shadow of a suspicion, from the moment
when she lifted her veil by the side of the inscription which
recorded her death.
Before the sun of that day had set, before the last glimpse of the
home which was closed against her had passed from our view, the
farewell words I spoke, when we parted at Limmeridge House, had
been recalled by both of us--repeated by me, recognised by her.
"If ever the time comes, when the devotion of my whole heart and
soul and strength will give you a moment's happiness, or spare you
a moment's sorrow, will you try to remember the poor drawingmaster
who has taught you?" She, who now remembered so little of
the trouble and terror of a later time, remembered those words,
and laid her poor head innocently and trustingly on the bosom of
the man who had spoken them. In that moment, when she called me
by my name, when she said, "They have tried to make me forget
everything, Walter, but I remember Marian, and I remember YOU"--in
that moment, I, who had long since given her my love, gave her my
life, and thanked God that it was mine to bestow on her. Yes! the
time had come. From thousands on thousands of miles away--through
forest and wilderness, where companions stronger than I had fallen
by my side, through peril of death thrice renewed, and thrice
escaped, the Hand that leads men on the dark road to the future
had led me to meet that time. Forlorn and disowned, sorely tried
and sadly changed--her beauty faded, her mind clouded--robbed of
her station in the world, of her place among living creatures--the
devotion I had promised, the devotion of my whole heart and soul
and strength, might be laid blamelessly now at those dear feet.
In the right of her calamity, in the right of her friendlessness,
she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect, to cherish, to
restore. Mine to love and honour as father and brother both.
Mine to vindicate through all risks and all sacrifices--through
the hopeless struggle against Rank and Power, through the long
fight with armed deceit and fortified Success, through the waste
of my reputation, through the loss of my friends, through the
hazard of my life.
II
My position is defined--my motives are acknowledged. The story of
Marian and the story of Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often
interrupted, often inevitably confused) of the speakers
themselves, but in the words of the brief, plain, studiously
simple abstract which I committed to writing for my own guidance,
and for the guidance of my legal adviser. So the tangled web will
be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled.
The story of Marian begins where the narrative of the housekeeper
at Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde's departure from her husband's house, the fact of
that departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances
under which it had taken place, were communicated to Miss Halcombe
by the housekeeper. It was not till some days afterwards (how
many days exactly, Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any written
memorandum on the subject, could not undertake to say) that a
letter arrived from Madame Fosco announcing Lady Glyde's sudden
death in Count Fosco's house. The letter avoided mentioning
dates, and left it to Mrs. Michelson's discretion to break the
news at once to Miss Halcombe, or to defer doing so until that
lady's health should be more firmly established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself delayed, by ill
health, in resuming his attendance at Blackwater Park), Mrs.
Michelson, by the doctor's advice, and in the doctor's presence,
communicated the news, either on the day when the letter was
received, or on the day after. It is not necessary to dwell here
upon the effect which the intelligence of Lady Glyde's sudden
death produced on her sister. It is only useful to the present
purpose to say that she was not able to travel for more than three
weeks afterwards. At the end of that time she proceeded to London
accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted there--Mrs. Michelson
previously informing Miss Halcombe of her address, in case they
might wish to communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper Miss Halcombe went at once to the
office of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle to consult with the latter
gentleman in Mr. Gilmore's absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle
what she had thought it desirable to conceal from every one else
(Mrs. Michelson included)--her suspicion of the circumstances
under which Lady Glyde was said to have met her death. Mr. Kyrle,
who had previously given friendly proof of his anxiety to serve
Miss Halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries as the
delicate and dangerous nature of the investigation proposed to him
would permit.
To exhaust this part of the subject before going farther, it may
be mentioned that Count Fosco offered every facility to Mr. Kyrle,
on that gentleman's stating that he was sent by Miss Halcombe to
collect such particulars as had not yet reached her of Lady
Glyde's decease. Mr. Kyrle was placed in communication with the
medical man, Mr. Goodricke, and with the two servants. In the
absence of any means of ascertaining the exact date of Lady
Glyde's departure from Blackwater Park, the result of the doctor's
and the servants' evidence, and of the volunteered statements of
Count Fosco and his wife, was conclusive to the mind of Mr. Kyrle.
He could only assume that the intensity of Miss Halcombe's
suffering, under the loss of her sister, had misled her judgment
in a most deplorable manner, and he wrote her word that the
shocking suspicion to which she had alluded in his presence was,
in his opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of foundation
in truth. Thus the investigation by Mr. Gilmore's partner began
and ended.
Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe had returned to Limmeridge House, and had
there collected all the additional information which she was able
to obtain.
Mr. Fairlie had received his first intimation of his niece's death
from his sister, Madame Fosco, this letter also not containing any
exact reference to dates. He had sanctioned his sister's proposal
that the deceased lady should be laid in her mother's grave in
Limmeridge churchyard. Count Fosco had accompanied the remains to
Cumberland, and had attended the funeral at Limmeridge, which took
place on the 30th of July. It was followed, as a mark of respect,
by all the inhabitants of the village and the neighbourhood. On
the next day the inscription (originally drawn out, it was said,
by the aunt of the deceased lady, and submitted for approval to
her brother, Mr. Fairlie) was engraved on one side of the monument
over the tomb.
On the day of the funeral, and for one day after it, Count Fosco
had been received as a guest at Limmeridge House, but no interview
had taken place between Mr. Fairlie and himself, by the former
gentleman's desire. They had communicated by writing, and through
this medium Count Fosco had made Mr. Fairlie acquainted with the
details of his niece's last illness and death. The letter
presenting this information added no new facts to the facts
already known, but one very remarkable paragraph was contained in
the postscript. It referred to Anne Catherick.
The substance of the paragraph in question was as follows--
It first informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick (of whom he
might hear full particulars from Miss Halcombe when she reached
Limmeridge) had been traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater Park, and had been for the second time placed under the
charge of the medical man from whose custody she had once escaped.
This was the first part of the postscript. The second part warned
Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick's mental malady had been
aggravated by her long freedom from control, and that the insane
hatred and distrust of Sir Percival Glyde, which had been one of
her most marked delusions in former times, still existed under a
newly-acquired form. The unfortunate woman's last idea in
connection with Sir Percival was the idea of annoying and
distressing him, and of elevating herself, as she supposed, in the
estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming the character
of his deceased wife, the scheme of this personation having
evidently occurred to her after a stolen interview which she had
succeeded in obtaining with Lady Glyde, and at which she had
observed the extraordinary accidental likeness between the
deceased lady and herself. It was to the last degree improbable
that she would succeed a second time in escaping from the Asylum,
but it was just possible she might find some means of annoying the
late Lady Glyde's relatives with letters, and in that case Mr.
Fairlie was warned beforehand how to receive them.
The postscript, expressed in these terms, was shown to Miss
Halcombe when she arrived at Limmeridge. There were also placed
in her possession the clothes Lady Glyde had worn, and the other
effects she had brought with her to her aunt's house. They had
been carefully collected and sent to Cumberland by Madame Fosco.
Such was the posture of affairs when Miss Halcombe reached
Limmeridge in the early part of September.
Shortly afterwards she was confined to her room by a relapse, her
weakened physical energies giving way under the severe mental
affliction from which she was now suffering. On getting stronger
again, in a month's time, her suspicion of the circumstances
described as attending her sister's death still remained unshaken.
She had heard nothing in the interim of Sir Percival Glyde, but
letters had reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most
affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband and herself.
Instead of answering these letters, Miss Halcombe caused the house
in St. John's Wood, and the proceedings of its inmates, to be
privately watched.
Nothing doubtful was discovered. The same result attended the
next investigations, which were secretly instituted on the subject
of Mrs. Rubelle. She had arrived in London about six months
before with her husband. They had come from Lyons, and they had
taken a house in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, to be
fitted up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were expected to
visit England in large numbers to see the Exhibition of 1851.
Nothing was known against husband or wife in the neighbourhood.
They were quiet people, and they had paid their way honestly up to
the present time. The final inquiries related to Sir Percival
Glyde. He was settled in Paris, and living there quietly in a
small circle of English and French friends.
Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest, Miss Halcombe
next determined to visit the Asylum in which she then supposed
Anne Catherick to be for the second time confined. She had felt a
strong curiosity about the woman in former days, and she was now
doubly interested--first, in ascertaining whether the report of
Anne Catherick's attempted personation of Lady Glyde was true, and
secondly (if it proved to be true), in discovering for herself
what the poor creature's real motives were for attempting the
deceit.
Although Count Fosco's letter to Mr. Fairlie did not mention the
address of the Asylum, that important omission cast no
difficulties in Miss Halcombe's way. When Mr. Hartright had met
Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, she had informed him of the locality
in which the house was situated, and Miss Halcombe had noted down
the direction in her diary, with all the other particulars of the
interview exactly as she heard them from Mr. Hartright's own lips.
Accordingly she looked back at the entry and extracted the
address--furnished herself with the Count's letter to Mr. Fairlie
as a species of credential which might be useful to her, and
started by herself for the Asylum on the eleventh of October.
She passed the night of the eleventh in London. It had been her
intention to sleep at the house inhabited by Lady Glyde's old
governess, but Mrs. Vesey's agitation at the sight of her lost
pupil's nearest and dearest friend was so distressing that Miss
Halcombe considerately refrained from remaining in her presence,
and removed to a respectable boarding-house in the neighbourhood,
recommended by Mrs. Vesey's married sister. The next day she
proceeded to the Asylum, which was situated not far from London on
the northern side of the metropolis.
She was immediately admitted to see the proprietor.
At first he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to let her
communicate with his patient. But on her showing him the
postscript to Count Fosco's letter--on her reminding him that she
was the "Miss Halcombe" there referred to--that she was a near
relative of the deceased Lady Glyde--and that she was therefore
naturally interested, for family reasons, in observing for herself
the extent of Anne Catherick's delusion in relation to her late
sister--the tone and manner of the owner of the Asylum altered,
and he withdrew his objections. He probably felt that a continued
refusal, under these circumstances, would not only be an act of
discourtesy in itself, but would also imply that the proceedings
in his establishment were not of a nature to bear investigation by
respectable strangers.
Miss Halcombe's own impression was that the owner of the Asylum
had not been received into the confidence of Sir Percival and the
Count. His consenting at all to let her visit his patient seemed
to afford one proof of this, and his readiness in making
admissions which could scarcely have escaped the lips of an
accomplice, certainly appeared to furnish another.
For example, in the course of the introductory conversation which
took place, he informed Miss Halcombe that Anne Catherick had been
brought back to him with the necessary order and certificates by
Count Fosco on the twenty-seventh of July--the Count also
producing a letter of explanations and instructions signed by Sir
Percival Glyde. On receiving his inmate again, the proprietor of
the Asylum acknowledged that he had observed some curious personal
changes in her. Such changes no doubt were not without precedent
in his experience of persons mentally afflicted. Insane people
were often at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly, unlike what
they were at another--the change from better to worse, or from
worse to better, in the madness having a necessary tendency to
produce alterations of appearance externally. He allowed for
these, and he allowed also for the modification in the form of
Anne Catherick's delusion, which was reflected no doubt in her
manner and expression. But he was still perplexed at times by
certain differences between his patient before she had escaped and
his patient since she had been brought back. Those differences
were too minute to be described. He could not say of course that
she was absolutely altered in height or shape or complexion, or in
the colour of her hair and eyes, or in the general form of her
face--the change was something that he felt more than something
that he saw. In short, the case had been a puzzle from the first,
and one more perplexity was added to it now.
It cannot be said that this conversation led to the result of even
partially preparing Miss Halcombe's mind for what was to come.
But it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her.
She was so completely unnerved by it, that some little time
elapsed before she could summon composure enough to follow the
proprietor of the Asylum to that part of the house in which the
inmates were confined.
On inquiry, it turned out that the supposed Anne Catherick was
then taking exercise in the grounds attached to the establishment.
One of the nurses volunteered to conduct Miss Halcombe to the
place, the proprietor of the Asylum remaining in the house for a
few minutes to attend to a case which required his services, and
then engaging to join his visitor in the grounds.
The nurse led Miss Halcombe to a distant part of the property,
which was prettily laid out, and after looking about her a little,
turned into a turf walk, shaded by a shrubbery on either side.
About half-way down this walk two women were slowly approaching.
The nurse pointed to them and said, "There is Anne Catherick,
ma'am, with the attendant who waits on her. The attendant will
answer any questions you wish to put." With those words the nurse
left her to return to the duties of the house.
Miss Halcombe advanced on her side, and the women advanced on
theirs. When they were within a dozen paces of each other, one of
the women stopped for an instant, looked eagerly at the strange
lady, shook off the nurse's grasp on her, and the next moment
rushed into Miss Halcombe's arms. In that moment Miss Halcombe
recognised her sister--recognised the dead-alive.
Fortunately for the success of the measures taken subsequently, no
one was present at that moment but the nurse. She was a young
woman, and she was so startled that she was at first quite
incapable of interfering. When she was able to do so her whole
services were required by Miss Halcombe, who had for the moment
sunk altogether in the effort to keep her own senses under the
shock of the discovery. After waiting a few minutes in the fresh
air and the cool shade, her natural energy and courage helped her
a little, and she became sufficiently mistress of herself to feel
the necessity of recalling her presence of mind for her
unfortunate sister's sake.
She obtained permission to speak alone with the patient, on
condition that they both remained well within the nurse's view.
There was no time for questions--there was only time for Miss
Halcombe to impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of
controlling herself, and to assure her of immediate help and
rescue if she did so. The prospect of escaping from the Asylum by
obedience to her sister's directions was sufficient to quiet Lady
Glyde, and to make her understand what was required of her. Miss
Halcombe next returned to the nurse, placed all the gold she then
had in her pocket (three sovereigns) in the nurse's hands, and
asked when and where she could speak to her alone.
The woman was at first surprised and distrustful. But on Miss
Halcombe's declaring that she only wanted to put some questions
which she was too much agitated to ask at that moment, and that
she had no intention of misleading the nurse into any dereliction
of duty, the woman took the money, and proposed three o'clock on
the next day as the time for the interview. She might then slip
out for half an hour, after the patients had dined, and she would
meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high north wall
which screened the grounds of the house. Miss Halcombe had only
time to assent, and to whisper to her sister that she should hear
from her on the next day, when the proprietor of the Asylum joined
them. He noticed his visitor's agitation, which Miss Halcombe
accounted for by saying that her interview with Anne Catherick had
a little startled her at first. She took her leave as soon after
as possible--that is to say, as soon as she could summon courage
to force herself from the presence of her unfortunate sister.
A very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect returned,
convinced her that any attempt to identify Lady Glyde and to
rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a
delay that might be fatal to her sister's intellects, which were
shaken already by the horror of the situation to which she had
been consigned. By the time Miss Halcombe had got back to London,
she had determined to effect Lady Glyde's escape privately, by
means of the nurse.
She went at once to her stockbroker, and sold out of the funds all
the little property she possessed, amounting to rather less than
seven hundred pounds. Determined, if necessary, to pay the price
of her sister's liberty with every farthing she had in the world,
she repaired the next day, having the whole sum about her in banknotes,
to her appointment outside the Asylum wall.
The nurse was there. Miss Halcombe approached the subject
cautiously by many preliminary questions. She discovered, among
other particulars, that the nurse who had in former times attended
on the true Anne Catherick had been held responsible (although she
was not to blame for it) for the patient's escape, and had lost
her place in consequence. The same penalty, it was added, would
attach to the person then speaking to her, if the supposed Anne
Catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover, the nurse in
this case had an especial interest in keeping her place. She was
engaged to be married, and she and her future husband were waiting
till they could save, together, between two and three hundred
pounds to start in business. The nurse's wages were good, and she
might succeed, by strict economy, in contributing her small share
towards the sum required in two years' time.
On this hint Miss Halcombe spoke. She declared that the supposed
Anne Catherick was nearly related to her, that she had been placed
in the Asylum under a fatal mistake, and that the nurse would be
doing a good and a Christian action in being the means of
restoring them to one another. Before there was time to start a
single objection, Miss Halcombe took four bank-notes of a hundred
pounds each from her pocket-book, and offered them to the woman,
as a compensation for the risk she was to run, and for the loss of
her place.
The nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity and surprise. Miss
Halcombe pressed the point on her firmly.
"You will be doing a good action," she repeated; "you will be
helping the most injured and unhappy woman alive. There is your
marriage portion for a reward. Bring her safely to me here, and I
will put these four bank-notes into your hand before I claim her."
"Will you give me a letter saying those words, which I can show to
my sweetheart when he asks how I got the money?" inquired the
woman.
"I will bring the letter with me, ready written and signed,"
answered Miss Halcombe.
"Then I'll risk it," said the nurse.
"When?"
"To-morrow."
It was hastily agreed between them that Miss Halcombe should
return early the next morning and wait out of sight among the
trees--always, however, keeping near the quiet spot of ground
under the north wall. The nurse could fix no time for her
appearance, caution requiring that she should wait and be guided
by circumstances. On that understanding they separated.
Miss Halcombe was at her place, with the promised letter and the
promised bank-notes, before ten the next morning. She waited more
than an hour and a half. At the end of that time the nurse came
quickly round the corner of the wall holding Lady Glyde by the
arm. The moment they met Miss Halcombe put the bank-notes and the
letter into her hand, and the sisters were united again.
The nurse had dressed Lady Glyde, with excellent forethought, in a
bonnet, veil, and shawl of her own. Miss Halcombe only detained
her to suggest a means of turning the pursuit in a false
direction, when the escape was discovered at the Asylum. She was
to go back to the house, to mention in the hearing of the other
nurses that Anne Catherick had been inquiring latterly about the
distance from London to Hampshire, to wait till the last moment,
before discovery was inevitable, and then to give the alarm that
Anne was missing. The supposed inquiries about Hampshire, when
communicated to the owner of the Asylum, would lead him to imagine
that his patient had returned to Blackwater Park, under the
influence of the delusion which made her persist in asserting
herself to be Lady Glyde, and the first pursuit would, in all
probability, be turned in that direction.
The nurse consented to follow these suggestions, the more readily
as they offered her the means of securing herself against any
worse consequences than the loss of her place, by remaining in the
Asylum, and so maintaining the appearance of innocence, at least.
She at once returned to the house, and Miss Halcombe lost no time
in taking her sister back with her to London. They caught the
afternoon train to Carlisle the same afternoon, and arrived at
Limmeridge, without accident or difficulty of any kind, that
night.
During the latter part of their journey they were alone in the
carriage, and Miss Halcombe was able to collect such remembrances
of the past as her sister's confused and weakened memory was able
to recall. The terrible story of the conspiracy so obtained was
presented in fragments, sadly incoherent in themselves, and widely
detached from each other. Imperfect as the revelation was, it
must nevertheless be recorded here before this explanatory
narrative closes with the events of the next day at Limmeridge
House.
Lady Glyde's recollection of the events which followed her
departure from Blackwater Park began with her arrival at the
London terminus of the South Western Railway. She had omitted to
make a memorandum beforehand of the day on which she took the
journey. All hope of fixing that important date by any evidence
of hers, or of Mrs. Michelson's, must be given up for lost.
On the arrival of the train at the platform Lady Glyde found Count
Fosco waiting for her. He was at the carriage door as soon as the
porter could open it. The train was unusually crowded, and there
was great confusion in getting the luggage. Some person whom
Count Fosco brought with him procured the luggage which belonged
to Lady Glyde. It was marked with her name. She drove away alone
with the Count in a vehicle which she did not particularly notice
at the time.
Her first question, on leaving the terminus, referred to Miss
Halcombe. The Count informed her that Miss Halcombe had not yet
gone to Cumberland, after-consideration having caused him to doubt
the prudence of her taking so long a journey without some days'
previous rest.
Lady Glyde next inquired whether her sister was then staying in
the Count's house. Her recollection of the answer was confused,
her only distinct impression in relation to it being that the
Count declared he was then taking her to see Miss Halcombe. Lady
Glyde's experience of London was so limited that she could not
tell, at the time, through what streets they were driving. But
they never left the streets, and they never passed any gardens or
trees. When the carriage stopped, it stopped in a small street
behind a square--a square in which there were shops, and public
buildings, and many people. From these recollections (of which
Lady Glyde was certain) it seems quite clear that Count Fosco did
not take her to his own residence in the suburb of St. John's
Wood.
They entered the house, and went upstairs to a back room, either
on the first or second floor. The luggage was carefully brought
in. A female servant opened the door, and a man with a dark
beard, apparently a foreigner, met them in the hall, and with
great politeness showed them the way upstairs. In answer to Lady
Glyde's inquiries, the Count assured her that Miss Halcombe was in
the house, and that she should be immediately informed of her
sister's arrival. He and the foreigner then went away and left
her by herself in the room. It was poorly furnished as a sittingroom,
and it looked out on the backs of houses.
The place was remarkably quiet--no footsteps went up or down the
stairs--she only heard in the room beneath her a dull, rumbling
sound of men's voices talking. Before she had been long left
alone the Count returned, to explain that Miss Halcombe was then
taking rest, and could not be disturbed for a little while. He
was accompanied into the room by a gentleman (an Englishman), whom
he begged to present as a friend of his.
After this singular introduction--in the course of which no names,
to the best of Lady Glyde's recollection, had been mentioned--she
was left alone with the stranger. He was perfectly civil, but he
startled and confused her by some odd questions about herself, and
by looking at her, while he asked them, in a strange manner.
After remaining a short time he went out, and a minute or two
afterwards a second stranger--also an Englishman--came in. This
person introduced himself as another friend of Count Fosco's, and
he, in his turn, looked at her very oddly, and asked some curious
questions--never, as well as she could remember, addressing her by
name, and going out again, after a little while, like the first
man. By this time she was so frightened about herself, and so
uneasy about her sister, that she had thoughts of venturing
downstairs again, and claiming the protection and assistance of
the only woman she had seen in the house--the servant who answered
the door.
Just as she had risen from her chair, the Count came back into the
room.
The moment he appeared she asked anxiously how long the meeting
between her sister and herself was to be still delayed. At first
he returned an evasive answer, but on being pressed, he
acknowledged, with great apparent reluctance, that Miss Halcombe
was by no means so well as he had hitherto represented her to be.
His tone and manner, in making this reply, so alarmed Lady Glyde,
or rather so painfully increased the uneasiness which she had felt
in the company of the two strangers, that a sudden faintness
overcame her, and she was obliged to ask for a glass of water.
The Count called from the door for water, and for a bottle of
smelling-salts. Both were brought in by the foreign-looking man
with the beard. The water, when Lady Glyde attempted to drink it,
had so strange a taste that it increased her faintness, and she
hastily took the bottle of salts from Count Fosco, and smelt at
it. Her head became giddy on the instant. The Count caught the
bottle as it dropped out of her hand, and the last impression of
which she was conscious was that he held it to her nostrils again.
From this point her recollections were found to be confused,
fragmentary, and difficult to reconcile with any reasonable
probability.
Her own impression was that she recovered her senses later in the
evening, that she then left the house, that she went (as she had
previously arranged to go, at Blackwater Park) to Mrs. Vesey's--
that she drank tea there, and that she passed the night under Mrs.
Vesey's roof. She was totally unable to say how, or when, or in
what company she left the house to which Count Fosco had brought
her. But she persisted in asserting that she had been to Mrs.
Vesey's, and still more extraordinary, that she had been helped to
undress and get to bed by Mrs. Rubelle! She could not remember
what the conversation was at Mrs. Vesey's or whom she saw there
besides that lady, or why Mrs. Rubelle should have been present in
the house to help her.
Her recollection of what happened to her the next morning was
still more vague and unreliable.
She had some dim idea of driving out (at what hour she could not
say) with Count Fosco, and with Mrs. Rubelle again for a female
attendant. But when, and why, she left Mrs. Vesey she could not
tell; neither did she know what direction the carriage drove in,
or where it set her down, or whether the Count and Mrs. Rubelle
did or did not remain with her all the time she was out. At this
point in her sad story there was a total blank. She had no
impressions of the faintest kind to communicate--no idea whether
one day, or more than one day, had passed--until she came to
herself suddenly in a strange place, surrounded by women who were
all unknown to her.
This was the Asylum. Here she first heard herself called by Anne
Catherick's name, and here, as a last remarkable circumstance in
the story of the conspiracy, her own eyes informed her that she
had Anne Catherick's clothes on. The nurse, on the first night in
the Asylum, had shown her the marks on each article of her
underclothing as it was taken off, and had said, not at all
irritably or unkindly, "Look at your own name on your own clothes,
and don't worry us all any more about being Lady Glyde. She's
dead and buried, and you're alive and hearty. Do look at your
clothes now! There it is, in good marking ink, and there you will
find it on all your old things, which we have kept in the house--
Anne Catherick, as plain as print!" And there it was, when Miss
Halcombe examined the linen her sister wore, on the night of their
arrival at Limmeridge House.
These were the only recollections--all of them uncertain, and some
of them contradictory--which could be extracted from Lady Glyde by
careful questioning on the journey to Cumberland. Miss Halcombe
abstained from pressing her with any inquiries relating to events
in the Asylum--her mind being but too evidently unfit to bear the
trial of reverting to them. It was known, by the voluntary
admission of the owner of the mad-house, that she was received
there on the twenty-seventh of July. From that date until the
fifteenth of October (the day of her rescue) she had been under
restraint, her identity with Anne Catherick systematically
asserted, and her sanity, from first to last, practically denied.
Faculties less delicately balanced, constitutions less tenderly
organised, must have suffered under such an ordeal as this. No
man could have gone through it and come out of it unchanged.
Arriving at Limmeridge late on the evening of the fifteenth, Miss
Halcombe wisely resolved not to attempt the assertion of Lady
Glyde's identity until the next day.
The first thing in the morning she went to Mr. Fairlie's room, and
using all possible cautions and preparations beforehand, at last
told him in so many words what had happened. As soon as his first
astonishment and alarm had subsided, he angrily declared that Miss
Halcombe had allowed herself to be duped by Anne Catherick. He
referred her to Count Fosco's letter, and to what she had herself
told him of the personal resemblance between Anne and his deceased
niece, and he positively declined to admit to his presence, even
for one minute only, a madwoman, whom it was an insult and an
outrage to have brought into his house at all.
Miss Halcombe left the room--waited till the first heat of her
indignation had passed away--decided on reflection that Mr.
Fairlie should see his niece in the interests of common humanity
before he closed his doors on her as a stranger--and thereupon,
without a word of previous warning, took Lady Glyde with her to
his room. The servant was posted at the door to prevent their
entrance, but Miss Halcombe insisted on passing him, and made her
way into Mr. Fairlie's presence, leading her sister by the hand.
The scene that followed, though it only lasted for a few minutes,
was too painful to be described--Miss Halcombe herself shrank from
referring to it. Let it be enough to say that Mr. Fairlie
declared, in the most positive terms, that he did not recognise
the woman who had been brought into his room--that he saw nothing
in her face and manner to make him doubt for a moment that his
niece lay buried in Limmeridge churchyard, and that he would call
on the law to protect him if before the day was over she was not
removed from the house.
Taking the very worst view of Mr. Fairlie's selfishness,
indolence, and habitual want of feeling, it was manifestly
impossible to suppose that he was capable of such infamy as
secretly recognising and openly disowning his brother's child.
Miss Halcombe humanely and sensibly allowed all due force to the
influence of prejudice and alarm in preventing him from fairly
exercising his perceptions, and accounted for what had happened in
that way. But when she next put the servants to the test, and
found that they too were, in every case, uncertain, to say the
least of it, whether the lady presented to them was their young
mistress or Anne Catherick, of whose resemblance to her they had
all heard, the sad conclusion was inevitable that the change
produced in Lady Glyde's face and manner by her imprisonment in
the Asylum was far more serious than Miss Halcombe had at first
supposed. The vile deception which had asserted her death defied
exposure even in the house where she was born, and among the
people with whom she had lived.
In a less critical situation the effort need not have been given
up as hopeless even yet.
For example, the maid, Fanny, who happened to be then absent from
Limmeridge, was expected back in two days, and there would be a
chance of gaining her recognition to start with, seeing that she
had been in much more constant communication with her mistress,
and had been much more heartily attached to her than the other
servants. Again, Lady Glyde might have been privately kept in the
house or in the village to wait until her health was a little
recovered and her mind was a little steadied again. When her
memory could be once more trusted to serve her, she would
naturally refer to persons and events in the past with a certainty
and a familiarity which no impostor could simulate, and so the
fact of her identity, which her own appearance had failed to
establish, might subsequently be proved, with time to help her, by
the surer test of her own words.
But the circumstances under which she had regained her freedom
rendered all recourse to such means as these simply impracticable.
The pursuit from the Asylum, diverted to Hampshire for the time
only, would infallibly next take the direction of Cumberland. The
persons appointed to seek the fugitive might arrive at Limmeridge
House at a few hours' notice, and in Mr. Fairlie's present temper
of mind they might count on the immediate exertion of his local
influence and authority to assist them. The commonest
consideration for Lady Glyde's safety forced on Miss Halcombe the
necessity of resigning the struggle to do her justice, and of
removing her at once from the place of all others that was now
most dangerous to her--the neighbourhood of her own home.
An immediate return to London was the first and wisest measure of
security which suggested itself. In the great city all traces of
them might be most speedily and most surely effaced. There were
no preparations to make--no farewell words of kindness to exchange
with any one. On the afternoon of that memorable day of the
sixteenth Miss Halcombe roused her sister to a last exertion of
courage, and without a living soul to wish them well at parting,
the two took their way into the world alone, and turned their
backs for ever on Limmeridge House.
They had passed the hill above the churchyard, when Lady Glyde
insisted on turning back to look her last at her mother's grave.
Miss Halcombe tried to shake her resolution, but, in this one
instance, tried in vain. She was immovable. Her dim eyes lit
with a sudden fire, and flashed through the veil that hung over
them--her wasted fingers strengthened moment by moment round the
friendly arm by which they had held so listlessly till this time.
I believe in my soul that the hand of God was pointing their way
back to them, and that the most innocent and the most afflicted of
His creatures was chosen in that dread moment to see it.
They retraced their steps to the burial-ground, and by that act
sealed the future of our three lives.
III
This was the story of the past--the story so far as we knew it
then.
Two obvious conclusions presented themselves to my mind after
hearing it. In the first place, I saw darkly what the nature of
the conspiracy had been, how chances had been watched, and how
circumstances had been handled to ensure impunity to a daring and
an intricate crime. While all details were still a mystery to me,
the vile manner in which the personal resemblance between the
woman in white and Lady Glyde had been turned to account was clear
beyond a doubt. It was plain that Anne Catherick had been
introduced into Count Fosco's house as Lady Glyde--it was plain
that Lady Glyde had taken the dead woman's place in the Asylum--
the substitution having been so managed as to make innocent people
(the doctor and the two servants certainly, and the owner of the
mad-house in all probability) accomplices in the crime
The second conclusion came as the necessary consequence of the
first. We three had no mercy to expect from Count Fosco and Sir
Percival Glyde. The success of the conspiracy had brought with it
a clear gain to those two men of thirty thousand pounds--twenty
thousand to one, ten thousand to the other through his wife. They
had that interest, as well as other interests, in ensuring their
impunity from exposure, and they would leave no stone unturned, no
sacrifice unattempted, no treachery untried, to discover the place
in which their victim was concealed, and to part her from the only
friends she had in the world--Marian Halcombe and myself.
The sense of this serious peril--a peril which every day and every
hour might bring nearer and nearer to us--was the one influence
that guided me in fixing the place of our retreat. I chose it in
the far east of London, where there were fewest idle people to
lounge and look about them in the streets. I chose it in a poor
and a populous neighbourhood--because the harder the struggle for
existence among the men and women about us, the less the risk of
their having the time or taking the pains to notice chance
strangers who came among them. These were the great advantages I
looked to, but our locality was a gain to us also in another and a
hardly less important respect. We could live cheaply by the daily
work of my hands, and could save every farthing we possessed to
forward the purpose, the righteous purpose, of redressing an
infamous wrong--which, from first to last, I now kept steadily in
view.
In a week's time Marian Halcombe and I had settled how the course
of our new lives should be directed.
There were no other lodgers in the house, and we had the means of
going in and out without passing through the shop. I arranged,
for the present at least, that neither Marian nor Laura should
stir outside the door without my being with them, and that in my
absence from home they should let no one into their rooms on any
pretence whatever. This rule established, I went to a friend whom
I had known in former days--a wood engraver in large practice--to
seek for employment, telling him, at the same time, that I had
reasons for wishing to remain unknown.
He at once concluded that I was in debt, expressed his regret in
the usual forms, and then promised to do what he could to assist
me. I left his false impression undisturbed, and accepted the
work he had to give. He knew that he could trust my experience
and my industry. I had what he wanted, steadiness and facility,
and though my earnings were but small, they sufficed for our
necessities. As soon as we could feel certain of this, Marian
Halcombe and I put together what we possessed. She had between
two and three hundred pounds left of her own property, and I had
nearly as much remaining from the purchase-money obtained by the
sale of my drawing-master's practice before I left England.
Together we made up between us more than four hundred pounds. I
deposited this little fortune in a bank, to be kept for the
expense of those secret inquiries and investigations which I was
determined to set on foot, and to carry on by myself if I could
find no one to help me. We calculated our weekly expenditure to
the last farthing, and we never touched our little fund except in
Laura's interests and for Laura's sake.
The house-work, which, if we had dared trust a stranger near us,
would have been done by a servant, was taken on the first day,
taken as her own right, by Marian Halcombe. "What a woman's hands
ARE fit for," she said, "early and late, these hands of mine shall
do." They trembled as she held them out. The wasted arms told
their sad story of the past, as she turned up the sleeves of the
poor plain dress that she wore for safety's sake; but the
unquenchable spirit of the woman burnt bright in her even yet. I
saw the big tears rise thick in her eyes, and fall slowly over her
cheeks as she looked at me. She dashed them away with a touch of
her old energy, and smiled with a faint reflection of her old good
spirits. "Don't doubt my courage, Walter," she pleaded, "it's my
weakness that cries, not ME. The house-work shall conquer it if I
can't." And she kept her word--the victory was won when we met in
the evening, and she sat down to rest. Her large steady black
eyes looked at me with a flash of their bright firmness of bygone
days. "I am not quite broken down yet," she said. "I am worth
trusting with my share of the work." Before I could answer, she
added in a whisper, "And worth trusting with my share in the risk
and the danger too. Remember that, if the time comes!"
I did remember it when the time came.
As early as the end of October the daily course of our lives had
assumed its settled direction, and we three were as completely
isolated in our place of concealment as if the house we lived in
had been a desert island, and the great network of streets and the
thousands of our fellow-creatures all round us the waters of an
illimitable sea. I could now reckon on some leisure time for
considering what my future plan of action should be, and how I
might arm myself most securely at the outset for the coming
struggle with Sir Percival and the Count.
I gave up all hope of appealing to my recognition of Laura, or to
Marian's recognition of her, in proof of her identity. If we had
loved her less dearly, if the instinct implanted in us by that
love had not been far more certain than any exercise of reasoning,
far keener than any process of observation, even we might have
hesitated on first seeing her.
The outward changes wrought by the suffering and the terror of the
past had fearfully, almost hopelessly, strengthened the fatal
resemblance between Anne Catherick and herself. In my narrative
of events at the time of my residence in Limmeridge House, I have
recorded, from my own observation of the two, how the likeness,
striking as it was when viewed generally, failed in many important
points of similarity when tested in detail. In those former days,
if they had both been seen together side by side, no person could
for a moment have mistaken them one for the other--as has happened
often in the instances of twins. I could not say this now. The
sorrow and suffering which I had once blamed myself for
associating even by a passing thought with the future of Laura
Fairlie, HAD set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of
her face; and the fatal resemblance which I had once seen and
shuddered at seeing, in idea only, was now a real and living
resemblance which asserted itself before my own eyes. Strangers,
acquaintances, friends even who could not look at her as we
looked, if she had been shown to them in the first days of her
rescue from the Asylum, might have doubted if she were the Laura
Fairlie they had once seen, and doubted without blame.
The one remaining chance, which I had at first thought might be
trusted to serve us--the chance of appealing to her recollection
of persons and events with which no impostor could be familiar,
was proved, by the sad test of our later experience, to be
hopeless. Every little caution that Marian and I practised
towards her--every little remedy we tried, to strengthen and
steady slowly the weakened, shaken faculties, was a fresh protest
in itself against the risk of turning her mind back on the
troubled and the terrible past.
The only events of former days which we ventured on encouraging
her to recall were the little trivial domestic events of that
happy time at Limmeridge, when I first went there and taught her
to draw. The day when I roused those remembrances by showing her
the sketch of the summer-house which she had given me on the
morning of our farewell, and which had never been separated from
me since, was the birthday of our first hope. Tenderly and
gradually, the memory of the old walks and drives dawned upon her,
and the poor weary pining eyes looked at Marian and at me with a
new interest, with a faltering thoughtfulness in them, which from
that moment we cherished and kept alive. I bought her a little
box of colours, and a sketch-book like the old sketch-book which I
had seen in her hands on the morning that we first met. Once
again--oh me, once again!--at spare hours saved from my work, in
the dull London light, in the poor London room, I sat by her side
to guide the faltering touch, to help the feeble hand. Day by day
I raised and raised the new interest till its place in the blank
of her existence was at last assured--till she could think of her
drawing and talk of it, and patiently practise it by herself, with
some faint reflection of the innocent pleasure in my
encouragement, the growing enjoyment in her own progress, which
belonged to the lost life and the lost happiness of past days.
We helped her mind slowly by this simple means, we took her out
between us to walk on fine days, in a quiet old City square near
at hand, where there was nothing to confuse or alarm her--we
spared a few pounds from the fund at the banker's to get her wine,
and the delicate strengthening food that she required--we amused
her in the evenings with children's games at cards, with scrapbooks
full of prints which I borrowed from the engraver who
employed me--by these, and other trifling attentions like them, we
composed her and steadied her, and hoped all things, as cheerfully
as we could from time and care, and love that never neglected and
never despaired of her. But to take her mercilessly from
seclusion and repose--to confront her with strangers, or with
acquaintances who were little better than strangers--to rouse the
painful impressions of her past life which we had so carefully
hushed to rest--this, even in her own interests, we dared not do.
Whatever sacrifices it cost, whatever long, weary, heart-breaking
delays it involved, the wrong that had been inflicted on her, if
mortal means could grapple it, must be redressed without her
knowledge and without her help.
This resolution settled, it was next necessary to decide how the
first risk should be ventured, and what the first proceedings
should be.
After consulting with Marian, I resolved to begin by gathering
together as many facts as could be collected--then to ask the
advice of Mr. Kyrle (whom we knew we could trust), and to
ascertain from him, in the first instance, if the legal remedy lay
fairly within our reach. I owed it to Laura's interests not to
stake her whole future on my own unaided exertions, so long as
there was the faintest prospect of strengthening our position by
obtaining reliable assistance of any kind.
The first source of information to which I applied was the journal
kept at Blackwater Park by Marian Halcombe. There were passages
in this diary relating to myself which she thought it best that I
should not see. Accordingly, she read to me from the manuscript,
and I took the notes I wanted as she went on. We could only find
time to pursue this occupation by sitting up late at night. Three
nights were devoted to the purpose, and were enough to put me in
possession of all that Marian could tell.
My next proceeding was to gain as much additional evidence as I
could procure from other people without exciting suspicion. I
went myself to Mrs. Vesey to ascertain if Laura's impression of
having slept there was correct or not. In this case, from
consideration for Mrs. Vesey's age and infirmity, and in all
subsequent cases of the same kind from considerations of caution,
I kept our real position a secret, and was always careful to speak
of Laura as "the late Lady Glyde."
Mrs. Vesey's answer to my inquiries only confirmed the
apprehensions which I had previously felt. Laura had certainly
written to say she would pass the night under the roof of her old
friend--but she had never been near the house.
Her mind in this instance, and, as I feared, in other instances
besides, confusedly presented to her something which she had only
intended to do in the false light of something which she had
really done. The unconscious contradiction of herself was easy to
account for in this way--but it was likely to lead to serious
results. It was a stumble on the threshold at starting--it was a
flaw in the evidence which told fatally against us.
When I next asked for the letter which Laura had written to Mrs.
Vesey from Blackwater Park, it was given to me without the
envelope, which had been thrown into the wastepaper basket, and
long since destroyed. In the letter itself no date was mentioned--
not even the day of the week. It only contained these lines:--
"Dearest Mrs. Vesey, I am in sad distress and anxiety, and I may
come to your house to-morrow night, and ask for a bed. I can't
tell you what is the matter in this letter--I write it in such
fear of being found out that I can fix my mind on nothing. Pray
be at home to see me. I will give you a thousand kisses, and tell
you everything. Your affectionate Laura." What help was there in
those lines? None.
On returning from Mrs. Vesey's, I instructed Marian to write
(observing the same caution which I practised myself) to Mrs.
Michelson. She was to express, if she pleased, some general
suspicion of Count Fosco's conduct, and she was to ask the
housekeeper to supply us with a plain statement of events, in the
interests of truth. While we were waiting for the answer, which
reached us in a week's time, I went to the doctor in St. John's
Wood, introducing myself as sent by Miss Halcombe to collect, if
possible, more particulars of her sister's last illness than Mr.
Kyrle had found the time to procure. By Mr. Goodricke's
assistance, I obtained a copy of the certificate of death, and an
interview with the woman (Jane Gould) who had been employed to
prepare the body for the grave. Through this person I also
discovered a means of communicating with the servant, Hester
Pinhorn. She had recently left her place in consequence of a
disagreement with her mistress, and she was lodging with some
people in the neighbourhood whom Mrs. Gould knew. In the manner
here indicated I obtained the Narratives of the housekeeper, of
the doctor, of Jane Gould, and of Hester Pinhorn, exactly as they
are presented in these pages.
Furnished with such additional evidence as these documents
afforded, I considered myself to be sufficiently prepared for a
consultation with Mr. Kyrle, and Marian wrote accordingly to
mention my name to him, and to specify the day and hour at which I
requested to see him on private business.
There was time enough in the morning for me to take Laura out for
her walk as usual, and to see her quietly settled at her drawing
afterwards. She looked up at me with a new anxiety in her face as
I rose to leave the room, and her fingers began to toy doubtfully,
in the old way, with the brushes and pencils on the table.
"You are not tired of me yet?" she said. "You are not going away
because you are tired of me? I will try to do better--I will try
to get well. Are you as fond of me, Walter as you used to be, now
I am so pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?"
She spoke as a child might have spoken, she showed me her thoughts
as a child might have shown them. I waited a few minutes longer--
waited to tell her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever
been in the past times. "Try to get well again," I said,
encouraging the new hope in the future which I saw dawning in her
mind, "try to get well again, for Marian's sake and for mine."
"Yes," she said to herself, returning to her drawing. "I must
try, because they are both so fond of me." She suddenly looked up
again. "Don't be gone long! I can't get on with my drawing,
Walter, when you are not here to help me."
"I shall soon be back, my darling--soon be back to see how you are
getting on."
My voice faltered a little in spite of me. I forced myself from
the room. It was no time, then, for parting with the self-control
which might yet serve me in my need before the day was out.
As I opened the door, I beckoned to Marian to follow me to the
stairs. It was necessary to prepare her for a result which I felt
might sooner or later follow my showing myself openly in the
streets.
"I shall, in all probability, be back in a few hours," I said,
"and you will take care, as usual, to let no one inside the doors
in my absence. But if anything happens----"
"What can happen?" she interposed quickly. "Tell me plainly,
Walter, if there is any danger, and I shall know how to meet it."
"The only danger," I replied, "is that Sir Percival Glyde may have
been recalled to London by the news of Laura's escape. You are
aware that he had me watched before I left England, and that he
probably knows me by sight, although I don't know him?"
She laid her hand on my shoulder and looked at me in anxious
silence. I saw she understood the serious risk that threatened
us.
"It is not likely," I said, "that I shall be seen in London again
so soon, either by Sir Percival himself or by the persons in his
employ. But it is barely possible that an accident may happen.
In that case, you will not be alarmed if I fail to return tonight,
and you will satisfy any inquiry of Laura's with the best
excuse that you can make for me? If I find the least reason to
suspect that I am watched, I will take good care that no spy
follows me back to this house. Don't doubt my return, Marian,
however it may be delayed--and fear nothing."
"Nothing!" she answered firmly. "You shall not regret, Walter,
that you have only a woman to help you." She paused, and detained
me for a moment longer. "Take care!" she said, pressing my hand
anxiously--"take care!"
I left her, and set forth to pave the way for discovery--the dark
and doubtful way, which began at the lawyer's door.
IV
No circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to
the offices of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, in Chancery Lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration
occurred to me which I deeply regretted not having thought of
before. The information derived from Marian's diary made it a
matter of certainty that Count Fosco had opened her first letter
from Blackwater Park to Mr. Kyrle, and had, by means of his wife,
intercepted the second. He was therefore well aware of the
address of the office, and he would naturally infer that if Marian
wanted advice and assistance, after Laura's escape from the
Asylum, she would apply once more to the experience of Mr. Kyrle.
In this case the office in Chancery Lane was the very first place
which he and Sir Percival would cause to be watched, and if the
same persons were chosen for the purpose who had been employed to
follow me, before my departure from England, the fact of my return
would in all probability be ascertained on that very day. I had
thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in the
streets, but the special risk connected with the office had never
occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to
repair this unfortunate error in judgment--too late to wish that I
had made arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place
privately appointed beforehand. I could only resolve to be
cautious on leaving Chancery Lane, and not to go straight home
again under any circumstances whatever.
After waiting a few minutes I was shown into Mr. Kyrle's private
room. He was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very
attentive eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative
manner--not (as I judged) ready with his sympathy where strangers
were concerned, and not at all easy to disturb in his professional
composure. A better man for my purpose could hardly have been
found. If he committed himself to a decision at all, and if the
decision was favourable, the strength of our case was as good as
proved from that moment.
"Before I enter on the business which brings me here," I said, "I
ought to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can
make of it may occupy some little time."
"My time is at Miss Halcombe's disposal," he replied. "Where any
interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner
personally, as well as professionally. It was his request that I
should do so, when he ceased to take an active part in business."
"May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?"
"He is not, he is living with his relatives in Germany. His
health has improved, but the period of his return is still
uncertain.
While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been
searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from
them a sealed letter. I thought he was about to hand the letter
to me, but, apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself
on the table, settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to
hear what I had to say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered
on my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events
which have already been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him
out of his professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and
surprise, which he could not repress, interrupted me several times
before I had done. I persevered, however, to the end, and as soon
as I reached it, boldly asked the one important question--
"What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?"
He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer without taking
time to recover his self-possession first.
"Before I give my opinion," he said, "I must beg permission to
clear the ground by a few questions."
He put the questions--sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions,
which clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was
the victim of a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but
for my introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not
attempting the perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud.
"Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?" I asked,
when he had done examining me.
"So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you
have spoken the truth," he replied. "I have the highest esteem
for Miss Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a
gentleman whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I
will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy's sake
and for argument's sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde as a
living person is a proved fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But
you come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer
only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr. Hartright, that you have not
the shadow of a case."
"You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle."
"I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady
Glyde's death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory.
There is her aunt's testimony to prove that she came to Count
Fosco's house, that she fell ill, and that she died. There is the
testimony of the medical certificate to prove the death, and to
show that it took place under natural circumstances. There is the
fact of the funeral at Limmeridge, and there is the assertion of
the inscription on the tomb. That is the case you want to
overthrow. What evidence have you to support the declaration on
your side that the person who died and was buried was not Lady
Glyde? Let us run through the main points of your statement and
see what they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to a certain private
Asylum, and there sees a certain female patient. It is known that
a woman named Anne Catherick, and bearing an extraordinary
personal resemblance to Lady Glyde, escaped from the Asylum; it is
known that the person received there last July was received as
Anne Catherick brought back; it is known that the gentleman who
brought her back warned Mr. Fairlie that it was part of her
insanity to be bent on personating his dead niece; and it is known
that she did repeatedly declare herself in the Asylum (where no
one believed her) to be Lady Glyde. These are all facts. What
have you to set against them? Miss Halcombe's recognition of the
woman, which recognition after-events invalidate or contradict.
Does Miss Halcombe assert her supposed sister's identity to the
owner of the Asylum, and take legal means for rescuing her? No,
she secretly bribes a nurse to let her escape. When the patient
has been released in this doubtful manner, and is taken to Mr.
Fairlie, does he recognise her? Is he staggered for one instant in
his belief of his niece's death? No. Do the servants recognise
her? No. Is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her own
identity, and to stand the test of further proceedings? No, she is
privately taken to London. In the meantime you have recognised
her also, but you are not a relative--you are not even an old
friend of the family. The servants contradict you, and Mr.
Fairlie contradicts Miss Halcombe, and the supposed Lady Glyde
contradicts herself. She declares she passed the night in London
at a certain house. Your own evidence shows that she has never
been near that house, and your own admission is that her condition
of mind prevents you from producing her anywhere to submit to
investigation, and to speak for herself. I pass over minor points
of evidence on both sides to save time, and I ask you, if this
case were to go now into a court of law--to go before a jury,
bound to take facts as they reasonably appear--where are your
proofs?"
I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I could answer
him. It was the first time the story of Laura and the story of
Marian had been presented to me from a stranger's point of view--
the first time the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had
been made to show themselves in their true character.
"There can be no doubt," I said, "that the facts, as you have
stated them, appear to tell against us, but----"
"But you think those facts can be explained away," interposed Mr.
Kyrle. "Let me tell you the result of my experience on that
point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact ON
the surface and a long explanation UNDER the surface, it always
takes the fact in preference to the explanation. For example,
Lady Glyde (I call the lady you represent by that name for
argument's sake) declares she has slept at a certain house, and it
is proved that she has not slept at that house. You explain this
circumstance by entering into the state of her mind, and deducing
from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don't say the conclusion is
wrong--I only say that the jury will take the fact of her
contradicting herself in preference to any reason for the
contradiction that you can offer."
"But is it not possible," I urged, "by dint of patience and
exertion, to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I
have a few hundred pounds----"
He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.
"Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of
view," he said. "If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and
Count Fosco (which I don't admit, mind), every imaginable
difficulty would be thrown in the way of your getting fresh
evidence. Every obstacle of litigation would be raised--every
point in the case would be systematically contested--and by the
time we had spent our thousands instead of our hundreds, the final
result would, in all probability, be against us. Questions of
identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned,
are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle--the
hardest, even when they are free from the complications which
beset the case we are now discussing. I really see no prospect of
throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. Even if
the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she
was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should
gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have
the body exhumed. In short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright--
there is really no case."
I was determined to believe that there WAS a case, and in that
determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.
"Are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the
proof of identity?" I asked.
"Not as you are situated," he replied. "The simplest and surest
of all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I
understand, altogether out of your reach. If you could show a
discrepancy between the date of the doctor's certificate and the
date of Lady Glyde's journey to London, the matter would wear a
totally different aspect, and I should be the first to say, Let us
go on."
"That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle."
"On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a
case. If you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it--
tell me, and we shall see if I can advise you."
I considered. The housekeeper could not help us--Laura could not
help us--Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only
persons in existence who knew the date were Sir Percival and the
Count.
"I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present," I
said, "because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it,
but Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde."
Mr. Kyrle's calmly attentive face relaxed, for the first time,
into a smile.
"With your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen," he
said, "you don't expect help in that quarter, I presume? If they
have combined to gain large sums of money by a conspiracy, they
are not likely to confess it, at any rate."
"They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle."
"By whom?"
"By me."
We both rose. He looked me attentively in the face with more
appearance of interest than he had shown yet. I could see that I
had perplexed him a little.
"You are very determined," he said. "You have, no doubt, a
personal motive for proceeding, into which it is not my business
to inquire. If a case can be produced in the future, I can only
say, my best assistance is at your service. At the same time I
must warn you, as the money question always enters into the law
question, that I see little hope, even if you ultimately
established the fact of Lady Glyde's being alive, of recovering
her fortune. The foreigner would probably leave the country
before proceedings were commenced, and Sir Percival's
embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing enough to transfer
almost any sum of money he may possess from himself to his
creditors. You are of course aware----"
I stopped him at that point.
"Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde's affairs," I said.
"I have never known anything about them in former times, and I
know nothing of them now--except that her fortune is lost. You are
right in assuming that I have personal motives for stirring in
this matter. I wish those motives to be always as disinterested
as they are at the present moment----"
He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little heated, I
suppose, by feeling that he had doubted me, and I went on bluntly,
without waiting to hear him.
"There shall be no money motive," I said, "no idea of personal
advantage in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has
been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born--
a lie which records her death has been written on her mother's
tomb--and there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are
responsible for it. That house shall open again to receive her in
the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the
grave--that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the
authority of the head of the family, and those two men shall
answer for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in
tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my life to
that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will
accomplish it."
He drew back towards his table, and said nothing. His face showed
plainly that he thought my delusion had got the better of my
reason, and that he considered it totally useless to give me any
more advice.
"We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle," I said, "and we must wait
till the events of the future decide between us. In the meantime,
I am much obliged to you for the attention you have given to my
statement. You have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every
sense of the word, beyond our means. We cannot produce the law
proof, and we are not rich enough to pay the law expenses. It is
something gained to know that."
I bowed and walked to the door. He called me back and gave me the
letter which I had seen him place on the table by itself at the
beginning of our interview.
"This came by post a few days ago," he said. "Perhaps you will
not mind delivering it? Pray tell Miss Halcombe, at the same time,
that I sincerely regret being, thus far, unable to help her,
except by advice, which will not be more welcome, I am afraid, to
her than to you."
I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It was addressed to
"Miss Halcombe. Care of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane."
The handwriting was quite unknown to me.
On leaving the room I asked one last question.
"Do you happen to know," I said, "if Sir Percival Glyde is still
in Paris?"
"He has returned to London," replied Mr. Kyrle. "At least I heard
so from his solicitor, whom I met yesterday."
After that answer I went out.
On leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to
abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. I
walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the
north of Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a
place where a long stretch of pavement was left behind me.
There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped
also, and who were standing talking together. After a moment's
reflection I turned back so as to pass them. One moved as I came
near, and turned the corner leading from the square into the
street. The other remained stationary. I looked at him as I
passed and instantly recognised one of the men who had watched me
before I left England.
If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably
have begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him
down. But I was bound to consider consequences. If I once placed
myself publicly in the wrong, I put the weapons at once into Sir
Percival's hands. There was no choice but to oppose cunning by
cunning. I turned into the street down which the second man had
disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway. He was a
stranger to me, and I was glad to make sure of his personal
appearance in case of future annoyance. Having done this, I again
walked northward till I reached the New Road. There I turned
aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time), and
waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some distance from
a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to
pass me. One passed in a few minutes. I jumped in and told the
man to drive rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast
cab for the spies behind me. I saw them dart across to the other
side of the road, to follow me by running, until a cab or a cabstand
came in their way. But I had the start of them, and when I
stopped the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight. I
crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the open ground, that I was
free. When I at last turned my steps homewards, it was not till
many hours later--not till after dark.
I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room.
She had persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to
show me her drawing the moment I came in. The poor little dim
faint sketch--so trifling in itself, so touching in its
associations--was propped up carefully on the table with two
books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle we
allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage. I sat
down to look at the drawing, and to tell Marian, in whispers, what
had happened. The partition which divided us from the next room
was so thin that we could almost hear Laura's breathing, and we
might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud.
Marian preserved her composure while I described my interview with
Mr. Kyrle. But her face became troubled when I spoke next of the
men who had followed me from the lawyer's office, and when I told
her of the discovery of Sir Percival's return.
"Bad news, Walter," she said, "the worst news you could bring.
Have you nothing more to tell me?"
"I have something to give you," I replied, handing her the note
which Mr. Kyrle had confided to my care.
She looked at the address and recognised the handwriting
instantly.
"You know your correspondent?" I said.
"Too well," she answered. "My correspondent is Count Fosco."
With that reply she opened the note. Her face flushed deeply
while she read it--her eyes brightened with anger as she handed it
to me to read in my turn.
The note contained these lines--
"Impelled by honourable admiration--honourable to myself,
honourable to you--I write, magnificent Marian, in the interests
of your tranquillity, to say two consoling words--
"Fear nothing!
"Exercise your fine natural sense and remain in retirement. Dear
and admirable woman, invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation
is sublime--adopt it. The modest repose of home is eternally
fresh--enjoy it. The storms of life pass harmless over the valley
of Seclusion--dwell, dear lady, in the valley.
"Do this and I authorise you to fear nothing. No new calamity
shall lacerate your sensibilities--sensibilities precious to me as
my own. You shall not be molested, the fair companion of your
retreat shall not be pursued. She has found a new asylum in your
heart. Priceless asylum!--I envy her and leave her there.
"One last word of affectionate warning, of paternal caution, and I
tear myself from the charm of addressing you--I close these
fervent lines.
"Advance no farther than you have gone already, compromise no
serious interests, threaten nobody. Do not, I implore you, force
me into action--ME, the Man of Action--when it is the cherished
object of my ambition to be passive, to restrict the vast reach of
my energies and my combinations for your sake. If you have rash
friends, moderate their deplorable ardour. If Mr. Hartright
returns to England, hold no communication with him. I walk on a
path of my own, and Percival follows at my heels. On the day when
Mr. Hartright crosses that path, he is a lost man."
The only signature to these lines was the initial letter F,
surrounded by a circle of intricate flourishes. I threw the
letter on the table with all the contempt that I felt for it.
"He is trying to frighten you--a sure sign that he is frightened
himself," I said.
She was too genuine a woman to treat the letter as I treated it.
The insolent familiarity of the language was too much for her
self-control. As she looked at me across the table, her hands
clenched themselves in her lap, and the old quick fiery temper
flamed out again brightly in her cheeks and her eyes.
"Walter!" she said, "if ever those two men are at your mercy, and
if you are obliged to spare one of them, don't let it be the
Count."
"I will keep this letter, Marian, to help my memory when the time
comes."
She looked at me attentively as I put the letter away in my
pocket-book.
"When the time comes?" she repeated. "Can you speak of the future
as if you were certain of it?--certain after what you have heard
in Mr. Kyrle's office, after what has happened to you to-day?"
"I don't count the time from to-day, Marian. All I have done today
is to ask another man to act for me. I count from to-morrow----"
"Why from to-morrow?"
"Because to-morrow I mean to act for myself."
"How?"
"I shall go to Blackwater by the first train, and return, I hope,
at night."
"To Blackwater!"
"Yes. I have had time to think since I left Mr. Kyrle. His
opinion on one point confirms my own. We must persist to the last
in hunting down the date of Laura's journey. The one weak point
in the conspiracy, and probably the one chance of proving that she
is a living woman, centre in the discovery of that date."
"You mean," said Marian, "the discovery that Laura did not leave
Blackwater Park till after the date of her death on the doctor's
certificate?"
"Certainly."
"What makes you think it might have been AFTER? Laura can tell us
nothing of the time she was in London."
"But the owner of the Asylum told you that she was received there
on the twenty-seventh of July. I doubt Count Fosco's ability to
keep her in London, and to keep her insensible to all that was
passing around her, more than one night. In that case, she must
have started on the twenty-sixth, and must have come to London one
day after the date of her own death on the doctor's certificate.
If we can prove that date, we prove our case against Sir Percival
and the Count."
"Yes, yes--I see! But how is the proof to be obtained?"
"Mrs. Michelson's narrative has suggested to me two ways of trying
to obtain it. One of them is to question the doctor, Mr. Dawson,
who must know when he resumed his attendance at Blackwater Park
after Laura left the house. The other is to make inquiries at the
inn to which Sir Percival drove away by himself at night. We know
that his departure followed Laura's after the lapse of a few
hours, and we may get at the date in that way. The attempt is at
least worth making, and to-morrow I am determined it shall be
made."
"And suppose it fails--I look at the worst now, Walter; but I will
look at the best if disappointments come to try us--suppose no one
can help you at Blackwater?"
"There are two men who can help me, and shall help me in London--
Sir Percival and the Count. Innocent people may well forget the
date--but THEY are guilty, and THEY know it. If I fail everywhere
else, I mean to force a confession out of one or both of them on
my own terms."
All the woman flushed up in Marian's face as I spoke.
"Begin with the Count," she whispered eagerly. "For my sake,
begin with the Count."
"We must begin, for Laura's sake, where there is the best chance
of success," I replied.
The colour faded from her face again, and she shook her head
sadly.
"Yes," she said, "you are right--it was mean and miserable of me
to say that. I try to be patient, Walter, and succeed better now
than I did in happier times. But I have a little of my old temper
still left, and it will get the better of me when I think of the
Count!"
"His turn will come," I said. "But, remember, there is no weak
place in his life that we know of yet." I waited a little to let
her recover her self-possession, and then spoke the decisive
words--
"Marian! There is a weak place we both know of in Sir Percival's
life----"
"You mean the Secret!"
"Yes: the Secret. It is our only sure hold on him. I can force
him from his position of security, I can drag him and his villainy
into the face of day, by no other means. Whatever the Count may
have done, Sir Percival has consented to the conspiracy against
Laura from another motive besides the motive of gain. You heard
him tell the Count that he believed his wife knew enough to ruin
him? You heard him say that he was a lost man if the secret of
Anne Catherick was known?"
"Yes! yes! I did."
"Well, Marian, when our other resources have failed us, I mean to
know the Secret. My old superstition clings to me, even yet. I
say again the woman in white is a living influence in our three
lives. The End is appointed--the End is drawing us on--and Anne
Catherick, dead in her grave, points the way to it still!"
V
The story of my first inquiries in Hampshire is soon told.
My early departure from London enabled me to reach Mr. Dawson's
house in the forenoon. Our interview, so far as the object of my
visit was concerned, led to no satisfactory result.
Mr. Dawson's books certainly showed when he had resumed his
attendance on Miss Halcombe at Blackwater Park, but it was not
possible to calculate back from this date with any exactness,
without such help from Mrs. Michelson as I knew she was unable to
afford. She could not say from memory (who, in similar cases,
ever can?) how many days had elapsed between the renewal of the
doctor's attendance on his patient and the previous departure of
Lady Glyde. She was almost certain of having mentioned the
circumstance of the departure to Miss Halcombe, on the day after
it happened--but then she was no more able to fix the date of the
day on which this disclosure took place, than to fix the date of
the day before, when Lady Glyde had left for London. Neither
could she calculate, with any nearer approach to exactness, the
time that had passed from the departure of her mistress, to the
period when the undated letter from Madame Fosco arrived. Lastly,
as if to complete the series of difficulties, the doctor himself,
having been ill at the time, had omitted to make his usual entry
of the day of the week and month when the gardener from Blackwater
Park had called on him to deliver Mrs. Michelson's message.
Hopeless of obtaining assistance from Mr. Dawson, I resolved to
try next if I could establish the date of Sir Percival's arrival
at Knowlesbury.
It seemed like a fatality! When I reached Knowlesbury the inn was
shut up, and bills were posted on the walls. The speculation had
been a bad one, as I was informed, ever since the time of the
railway. The new hotel at the station had gradually absorbed the
business, and the old inn (which we knew to be the inn at which
Sir Percival had put up), had been closed about two months since.
The proprietor had left the town with all his goods and chattels,
and where he had gone I could not positively ascertain from any
one. The four people of whom I inquired gave me four different
accounts of his plans and projects when he left Knowlesbury.
There were still some hours to spare before the last train left
for London, and I drove back again in a fly from the Knowlesbury
station to Blackwater Park, with the purpose of questioning the
gardener and the person who kept the lodge. If they, too, proved
unable to assist me, my resources for the present were at an end,
and I might return to town.
I dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park, and getting my
directions from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house.
As I turned into the lane from the high-road, I saw a man, with a
carpet-bag, walking before me rapidly on the way to the lodge. He
was a little man, dressed in shabby black, and wearing a
remarkably large hat. I set him down (as well as it was possible
to judge) for a lawyer's clerk, and stopped at once to widen the
distance between us. He had not heard me, and he walked on out of
sight, without looking back. When I passed through the gates
myself, a little while afterwards, he was not visible--he had
evidently gone on to the house.
There were two women in the lodge. One of them was old, the other
I knew at once, by Marian's description of her, to be Margaret
Porcher.
I asked first if Sir Percival was at the Park, and receiving a
reply in the negative, inquired next when he had left it. Neither
of the women could tell me more than that he had gone away in the
summer. I could extract nothing from Margaret Porcher but vacant
smiles and shakings of the head. The old woman was a little more
intelligent, and I managed to lead her into speaking of the manner
of Sir Percival's departure, and of the alarm that it caused her.
She remembered her master calling her out of bed, and remembered
his frightening her by swearing--but the date at which the
occurrence happened was, as she honestly acknowledged, "quite
beyond her."
On leaving the lodge I saw the gardener at work not far off. When
I first addressed him, he looked at me rather distrustfully, but
on my using Mrs. Michelson's name, with a civil reference to
himself, he entered into conversation readily enough. There is no
need to describe what passed between us--it ended, as all my other
attempts to discover the date had ended. The gardener knew that
his master had driven away, at night, "some time in July, the last
fortnight or the last ten days in the month"--and knew no more.
While we were speaking together I saw the man in black, with the
large hat, come out from the house, and stand at some little
distance observing us.
Certain suspicions of his errand at Blackwater Park had already
crossed my mind. They were now increased by the gardener's
inability (or unwillingness) to tell me who the man was, and I
determined to clear the way before me, if possible, by speaking to
him. The plainest question I could put as a stranger would be to
inquire if the house was allowed to be shown to visitors. I
walked up to the man at once, and accosted him in those words.
His look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he knew who I was,
and that he wanted to irritate me into quarrelling with him. His
reply was insolent enough to have answered the purpose, if I had
been less determined to control myself. As it was, I met him with
the most resolute politeness, apologised for my involuntary
intrusion (which he called a "trespass,") and left the grounds.
It was exactly as I suspected. The recognition of me when I left
Mr. Kyrle's office had been evidently communicated to Sir Percival
Glyde, and the man in black had been sent to the Park in
anticipation of my making inquiries at the house or in the
neighbourhood. If I had given him the least chance of lodging any
sort of legal complaint against me, the interference of the local
magistrate would no doubt have been turned to account as a clog on
my proceedings, and a means of separating me from Marian and Laura
for some days at least.
I was prepared to be watched on the way from Blackwater Park to
the station, exactly as I had been watched in London the day
before. But I could not discover at the time, whether I was
really followed on this occasion or not. The man in black might
have had means of tracking me at his disposal of which I was not
aware, but I certainly saw nothing of him, in his own person,
either on the way to the station, or afterwards on my arrival at
the London terminus in the evening. I reached home on foot,
taking the precaution, before I approached our own door, of
walking round by the loneliest street in the neighbourhood, and
there stopping and looking back more than once over the open space
behind me. I had first learnt to use this stratagem against
suspected treachery in the wilds of Central America--and now I was
practising it again, with the same purpose and with even greater
caution, in the heart of civilised London!
Nothing had happened to alarm Marian during my absence. She asked
eagerly what success I had met with. When I told her she could
not conceal her surprise at the indifference with which I spoke of
the failure of my investigations thus far.
The truth was, that the ill-success of my inquiries had in no
sense daunted me. I had pursued them as a matter of duty, and I
had expected nothing from them. In the state of my mind at that
time, it was almost a relief to me to know that the struggle was
now narrowed to a trial of strength between myself and Sir
Percival Glyde. The vindictive motive had mingled itself all
along with my other and better motives, and I confess it was a
satisfaction to me to feel that the surest way, the only way left,
of serving Laura's cause, was to fasten my hold firmly on the
villain who had married her.
While I acknowledge that I was not strong enough to keep my
motives above the reach of this instinct of revenge, I can
honestly say something in my own favour on the other side. No
base speculation on the future relations of Laura and myself, and
on the private and personal concessions which I might force from
Sir Percival if I once had him at my mercy, ever entered my mind.
I never said to myself, "If I do succeed, it shall be one result
of my success that I put it out of her husband's power to take her
from me again." I could not look at her and think of the future
with such thoughts as those. The sad sight of the change in her
from her former self, made the one interest of my love an interest
of tenderness and compassion which her father or her brother might
have felt, and which I felt, God knows, in my inmost heart. All
my hopes looked no farther on now than to the day of her recovery.
There, till she was strong again and happy again--there, till she
could look at me as she had once looked, and speak to me as she
had once spoken--the future of my happiest thoughts and my dearest
wishes ended.
These words are written under no prompting of idle selfcontemplation.
Passages in this narrative are soon to come which
will set the minds of others in judgment on my conduct. It is
right that the best and the worst of me should be fairly balanced
before that time.
On the morning after my return from Hampshire I took Marian
upstairs into my working-room, and there laid before her the plan
that I had matured thus far, for mastering the one assailable
point in the life of Sir Percival Glyde.
The way to the Secret lay through the mystery, hitherto
impenetrable to all of us, of the woman in white. The approach to
that in its turn might be gained by obtaining the assistance of
Anne Catherick's mother, and the only ascertainable means of
prevailing on Mrs. Catherick to act or to speak in the matter
depended on the chance of my discovering local particulars and
family particulars first of all from Mrs. Clements. After
thinking the subject over carefully, I felt certain that I could
only begin the new inquiries by placing myself in communication
with the faithful friend and protectress of Anne Catherick.
The first difficulty then was to find Mrs. Clements.
I was indebted to Marian's quick perception for meeting this
necessity at once by the best and simplest means. She proposed to
write to the farm near Limmeridge (Todd's Corner), to inquire
whether Mrs. Clements had communicated with Mrs. Todd during the
past few months. How Mrs. Clements had been separated from Anne
it was impossible for us to say, but that separation once
effected, it would certainly occur to Mrs. Clements to inquire
after the missing woman in the neighbourhood of all others to
which she was known to be most attached--the neighbourhood of
Limmeridge. I saw directly that Marian's proposal offered us a
prospect of success, and she wrote to Mrs. Todd accordingly by
that day's post.
While we were waiting for the reply, I made myself master of all
the information Marian could afford on the subject of Sir
Percival's family, and of his early life. She could only speak on
these topics from hearsay, but she was reasonably certain of the
truth of what little she had to tell.
Sir Percival was an only child. His father, Sir Felix Glyde, had
suffered from his birth under a painful and incurable deformity,
and had shunned all society from his earliest years. His sole
happiness was in the enjoyment of music, and he had married a lady
with tastes similar to his own, who was said to be a most
accomplished musician. He inherited the Blackwater property while
still a young man. Neither he nor his wife after taking
possession, made advances of any sort towards the society of the
neighbourhood, and no one endeavoured to tempt them into
abandoning their reserve, with the one disastrous exception of the
rector of the parish.
The rector was the worst of all innocent mischief-makers--an overzealous
man. He had heard that Sir Felix had left College with
the character of being little better than a revolutionist in
politics and an infidel in religion, and he arrived
conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his bounden duty to
summon the lord of the manor to hear sound views enunciated in the
parish church. Sir Felix fiercely resented the clergyman's wellmeant
but ill-directed interference, insulting him so grossly and
so publicly, that the families in the neighbourhood sent letters
of indignant remonstrance to the Park, and even the tenants of the
Blackwater property expressed their opinion as strongly as they
dared. The baronet, who had no country tastes of any kind, and no
attachment to the estate or to any one living on it, declared that
society at Blackwater should never have a second chance of
annoying him, and left the place from that moment.
After a short residence in London he and his wife departed for the
Continent, and never returned to England again. They lived part
of the time in France and part in Germany--always keeping
themselves in the strict retirement which the morbid sense of his
own personal deformity had made a necessity to Sir Felix. Their
son, Percival, had been born abroad, and had been educated there
by private tutors. His mother was the first of his parents whom
he lost. His father had died a few years after her, either in 1825
or 1826. Sir Percival had been in England, as a young man, once
or twice before that period, but his acquaintance with the late
Mr. Fairlie did not begin till after the time of his father's
death. They soon became very intimate, although Sir Percival was
seldom, or never, at Limmeridge House in those days. Mr.
Frederick Fairlie might have met him once or twice in Mr. Philip
Fairlie's company, but he could have known little of him at that
or at any other time. Sir Percival's only intimate friend in the
Fairlie family had been Laura's father.
These were all the particulars that I could gain from Marian.
They suggested nothing which was useful to my present purpose, but
I noted them down carefully, in the event of their proving to be
of importance at any future period.
Mrs. Todd's reply (addressed, by our own wish, to a post-office at
some distance from us) had arrived at its destination when I went
to apply for it. The chances, which had been all against us
hitherto, turned from this moment in our favour. Mrs. Todd's
letter contained the first item of information of which we were in
search.
Mrs. Clements, it appeared, had (as we had conjectured) written to
Todd's Corner, asking pardon in the first place for the abrupt
manner in which she and Anne had left their friends at the farmhouse
(on the morning after I had met the woman in white in
Limmeridge churchyard), and then informing Mrs. Todd of Anne's
disappearance, and entreating that she would cause inquiries to be
made in the neighbourhood, on the chance that the lost woman might
have strayed back to Limmeridge. In making this request, Mrs.
Clements had been careful to add to it the address at which she
might always be heard of, and that address Mrs. Todd now
transmitted to Marian. It was in London, and within half an
hour's walk of our own lodging.
In the words of the proverb, I was resolved not to let the grass
grow under my feet. The next morning I set forth to seek an
interview with Mrs. Clements. This was my first step forward in
the investigation. The story of the desperate attempt to which I
now stood committed begins here.
VI
The address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to a lodging-house
situated in a respectable street near the Gray's Inn Road.
When I knocked the door was opened by Mrs. Clements herself. She
did not appear to remember me, and asked what my business was. I
recalled to her our meeting in Limmeridge churchyard at the close
of my interview there with the woman in white, taking special care
to remind her that I was the person who assisted Anne Catherick
(as Anne had herself declared) to escape the pursuit from the
Asylum. This was my only claim to the confidence of Mrs.
Clements. She remembered the circumstance the moment I spoke of
it, and asked me into the parlour, in the greatest anxiety to know
if I had brought her any news of Anne.
It was impossible for me to tell her the whole truth without, at
the same time, entering into particulars on the subject of the
conspiracy, which it would have been dangerous to confide to a
stranger. I could only abstain most carefully from raising any
false hopes, and then explain that the object of my visit was to
discover the persons who were really responsible for Anne's
disappearance. I even added, so as to exonerate myself from any
after-reproach of my own conscience, that I entertained not the
least hope of being able to trace her--that I believed we should
never see her alive again--and that my main interest in the affair
was to bring to punishment two men whom I suspected to be
concerned in luring her away, and at whose hands I and some dear
friends of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. With this
explanation I left it to Mrs. Clements to say whether our interest
in the matter (whatever difference there might be in the motives
which actuated us) was not the same, and whether she felt any
reluctance to forward my object by giving me such information on
the subject of my inquiries as she happened to possess.
The poor woman was at first too much confused and agitated to
understand thoroughly what I said to her. She could only reply
that I was welcome to anything she could tell me in return for the
kindness I had shown to Anne; but as she was not very quick and
ready, at the best of times, in talking to strangers, she would
beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where I wished her
to begin.
Knowing by experience that the plainest narrative attainable from
persons who are not accustomed to arrange their ideas, is the
narrative which goes far enough back at the beginning to avoid all
impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked Mrs. Clements
to tell me first what had happened after she had left Limmeridge,
and so, by watchful questioning, carried her on from point to
point, till we reached the period of Anne's disappearance.
The substance of the information which I thus obtained was as
follows:--
On leaving the farm at Todd's Corner, Mrs. Clements and Anne had
travelled that day as far as Derby, and had remained there a week
on Anne's account. They had then gone on to London, and had lived
in the lodging occupied by Mrs. Clements at that time for a month
or more, when circumstances connected with the house and the
landlord had obliged them to change their quarters. Anne's terror
of being discovered in London or its neighbourhood, whenever they
ventured to walk out, had gradually communicated itself to Mrs.
Clements, and she had determined on removing to one of the most
out-of-the-way places in England--to the town of Grimsby in
Lincolnshire, where her deceased husband had passed all his early
life. His relatives were respectable people settled in the town--
they had always treated Mrs. Clements with great kindness, and she
thought it impossible to do better than go there and take the
advice of her husband's friends. Anne would not hear of returning
to her mother at Welmingham, because she had been removed to the
Asylum from that place, and because Sir Percival would be certain
to go back there and find her again. There was serious weight in
this objection, and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not to be
easily removed.
At Grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness had shown
themselves in Anne. They appeared soon after the news of Lady
Glyde's marriage had been made public in the newspapers, and had
reached her through that medium.
The medical man who was sent for to attend the sick woman
discovered at once that she was suffering from a serious affection
of the heart. The illness lasted long, left her very weak, and
returned at intervals, though with mitigated severity, again and
again. They remained at Grimsby, in consequence, during the first
half of the new year, and there they might probably have stayed
much longer, but for the sudden resolution which Anne took at this
time to venture back to Hampshire, for the purpose of obtaining a
private interview with Lady Glyde.
Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose the execution of this
hazardous and unaccountable project. No explanation of her
motives was offered by Anne, except that she believed the day of
her death was not far off, and that she had something on her mind
which must be communicated to Lady Glyde, at any risk, in secret.
Her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so firmly settled
that she declared her intention of going to Hampshire by herself
if Mrs. Clements felt any unwillingness to go with her. The
doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that serious opposition
to her wishes would, in all probability, produce another and
perhaps a fatal fit of illness, and Mrs. Clements, under this
advice, yielded to necessity, and once more, with sad forebodings
of trouble and danger to come, allowed Anne Catherick to have her
own way.
On the journey from London to Hampshire Mrs. Clements discovered
that one of their fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the
neighbourhood of Blackwater, and could give her all the
information she needed on the subject of localities. In this way
she found out that the only place they could go to, which was not
dangerously near to Sir Percival's residence, was a large village
called Sandon. The distance here from Blackwater Park was between
three and four miles--and that distance, and back again, Anne had
walked on each occasion when she had appeared in the neighbourhood
of the lake.
For the few days during which they were at Sandon without being
discovered they had lived a little away from the village, in the
cottage of a decent widow-woman who had a bedroom to let, and
whose discreet silence Mrs. Clements had done her best to secure,
for the first week at least. She had also tried hard to induce
Anne to be content with writing to Lady Glyde, in the first
instance; but the failure of the warning contained in the
anonymous letter sent to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to
speak this time, and obstinate in the determination to go on her
errand alone.
Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her privately on each
occasion when she went to the lake, without, however, venturing
near enough to the boat-house to be witness of what took place
there. When Anne returned for the last time from the dangerous
neighbourhood, the fatigue of walking, day after day, distances
which were far too great for her strength, added to the exhausting
effect of the agitation from which she had suffered, produced the
result which Mrs. Clements had dreaded all along. The old pain
over the heart and the other symptoms of the illness at Grimsby
returned, and Anne was confined to her bed in the cottage.
In this emergency the first necessity, as Mrs. Clements knew by
experience, was to endeavour to quiet Anne's anxiety of mind, and
for this purpose the good woman went herself the next day to the
lake, to try if she could find Lady Glyde (who would be sure, as
Anne said, to take her daily walk to the boat-house), and prevail
on her to come back privately to the cottage near Sandon. On
reaching the outskirts of the plantation Mrs. Clements
encountered, not Lady Glyde, but a tall, stout, elderly gentleman,
with a book in his hand--in other words, Count Fosco.
The Count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment,
asked if she expected to see any one in that place, and added,
before she could reply, that he was waiting there with a message
from Lady Glyde, but that he was not quite certain whether the
person then before him answered the description of the person with
whom he was desired to communicate.
Upon this Mrs. Clements at once confided her errand to him, and
entreated that he would help to allay Anne's anxiety by trusting
his message to her. The Count most readily and kindly complied
with her request. The message, he said, was a very important one.
Lady Glyde entreated Anne and her good friend to return
immediately to London, as she felt certain that Sir Percival would
discover them if they remained any longer in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater. She was herself going to London in a short time, and
if Mrs. Clements and Anne would go there first, and would let her
know what their address was, they should hear from her and see her
in a fortnight or less. The Count added that he had already
attempted to give a friendly warning to Anne herself, but that she
had been too much startled by seeing that he was a stranger to let
him approach and speak to her.
To this Mrs. Clements replied, in the greatest alarm and distress,
that she asked nothing better than to take Anne safely to London,
but that there was no present hope of removing her from the
dangerous neighbourhood, as she lay ill in her bed at that moment.
The Count inquired if Mrs. Clements had sent for medical advice,
and hearing that she had hitherto hesitated to do so, from the
fear of making their position publicly known in the village,
informed her that he was himself a medical man, and that he would
go back with her if she pleased, and see what could be done for
Anne. Mrs. Clements (feeling a natural confidence in the Count,
as a person trusted with a secret message from Lady Glyde)
gratefully accepted the offer, and they went back together to the
cottage.
Anne was asleep when they got there. The Count started at the
sight of her (evidently from astonishment at her resemblance to
Lady Glyde). Poor Mrs. Clements supposed that he was only shocked
to see how ill she was. He would not allow her to be awakened--he
was contented with putting questions to Mrs. Clements about her
symptoms, with looking at her, and with lightly touching her
pulse. Sandon was a large enough place to have a grocer's and
druggist's shop in it, and thither the Count went to write his
prescription and to get the medicine made up. He brought it back
himself, and told Mrs. Clements that the medicine was a powerful
stimulant, and that it would certainly give Anne strength to get
up and bear the fatigue of a journey to London of only a few
hours. The remedy was to be administered at stated times on that
day and on the day after. On the third day she would be well
enough to travel, and he arranged to meet Mrs. Clements at the
Blackwater station, and to see them off by the mid-day train. If
they did not appear he would assume that Anne was worse, and would
proceed at once to the cottage.
As events turned out, no such emergency as this occurred.
This medicine had an extraordinary effect on Anne, and the good
results of it were helped by the assurance Mrs. Clements could now
give her that she would soon see Lady Glyde in London. At the
appointed day and time (when they had not been quite so long as a
week in Hampshire altogether), they arrived at the station. The
Count was waiting there for them, and was talking to an elderly
lady, who appeared to be going to travel by the train to London
also. He most kindly assisted them, and put them into the
carriage himself, begging Mrs. Clements not to forget to send her
address to Lady Glyde. The elderly lady did not travel in the
same compartment, and they did not notice what became of her on
reaching the London terminus. Mrs. Clements secured respectable
lodgings in a quiet neighbourhood, and then wrote, as she had
engaged to do, to inform Lady Glyde of the address.
A little more than a fortnight passed, and no answer came.
At the end of that time a lady (the same elderly lady whom they
had seen at the station) called in a cab, and said that she came
from Lady Glyde, who was then at an hotel in London, and who
wished to see Mrs. Clements, for the purpose of arranging a future
interview with Anne. Mrs. Clements expressed her willingness
(Anne being present at the time, and entreating her to do so) to
forward the object in view, especially as she was not required to
be away from the house for more than half an hour at the most.
She and the elderly lady (clearly Madame Fosco) then left in the
cab. The lady stopped the cab, after it had driven some distance,
at a shop before they got to the hotel, and begged Mrs. Clements
to wait for her for a few minutes while she made a purchase that
had been forgotten. She never appeared again.
After waiting some time Mrs. Clements became alarmed, and ordered
the cabman to drive back to her lodgings. When she got there,
after an absence of rather more than half an hour, Anne was gone.
The only information to be obtained from the people of the house
was derived from the servant who waited on the lodgers. She had
opened the door to a boy from the street, who had left a letter
for "the young woman who lived on the second floor" (the part of
the house which Mrs. Clements occupied). The servant had
delivered the letter, had then gone downstairs, and five minutes
afterwards had observed Anne open the front door and go out,
dressed in her bonnet and shawl. She had probably taken the
letter with her, for it was not to be found, and it was therefore
impossible to tell what inducement had been offered to make her
leave the house. It must have been a strong one, for she would
never stir out alone in London of her own accord. If Mrs.
Clements had not known this by experience nothing would have
induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short a time as
half an hour only.
As soon as she could collect her thoughts, the first idea that
naturally occurred to Mrs. Clements was to go and make inquiries
at the Asylum, to which she dreaded that Anne had been taken back.
She went there the next day, having been informed of the locality
in which the house was situated by Anne herself. The answer she
received (her application having in all probability been made a
day or two before the false Anne Catherick had really been
consigned to safe keeping in the Asylum) was, that no such person
had been brought back there. She had then written to Mrs.
Catherick at Welmingham to know if she had seen or heard anything
of her daughter, and had received an answer in the negative.
After that reply had reached her, she was at the end of her
resources, and perfectly ignorant where else to inquire or what
else to do. From that time to this she had remained in total
ignorance of the cause of Anne's disappearance and of the end of
Anne's story.
VII
Thus far the information which I had received from Mrs. Clements--
though it established facts of which I had not previously been
aware--was of a preliminary character only.
It was clear that the series of deceptions which had removed Anne
Catherick to London, and separated her from Mrs. Clements, had
been accomplished solely by Count Fosco and the Countess, and the
question whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife had
been of a kind to place either of them within reach of the law
might be well worthy of future consideration. But the purpose I
had now in view led me in another direction than this. The
immediate object of my visit to Mrs. Clements was to make some
approach at least to the discovery of Sir Percival's secret, and
she had said nothing as yet which advanced me on my way to that
important end. I felt the necessity of trying to awaken her
recollections of other times, persons, and events than those on
which her memory had hitherto been employed, and when I next spoke
I spoke with that object indirectly in view.
"I wish I could be of any help to you in this sad calamity," I
said. "All I can do is to feel heartily for your distress. If
Anne had been your own child, Mrs. Clements, you could have shown
her no truer kindness--you could have made no readier sacrifices
for her sake."
"There's no great merit in that, sir," said Mrs. Clements simply.
"The poor thing was as good as my own child to me. I nursed her
from a baby, sir, bringing her up by hand--and a hard job it was
to rear her. It wouldn't go to my heart so to lose her if I
hadn't made her first short clothes and taught her to walk. I
always said she was sent to console me for never having chick or
child of my own. And now she's lost the old times keep coming
back to my mind, and even at my age I can't help crying about her--
I can't indeed, sir!"
I waited a little to give Mrs. Clements time to compose herself.
Was the light that I had been looking for so long glimmering on
me--far off, as yet--in the good woman's recollections of Anne's
early life?
"Did you know Mrs. Catherick before Anne was born?" I asked.
"Not very long, sir--not above four months. We saw a great deal
of each other in that time, but we were never very friendly
together."
Her voice was steadier as she made that reply. Painful as many of
her recollections might be, I observed that it was unconsciously a
relief to her mind to revert to the dimly-seen troubles of the
past, after dwelling so long on the vivid sorrows of the present.
"Were you and Mrs. Catherick neighbours?" I inquired, leading her
memory on as encouragingly as I could.
"Yes, sir--neighbours at Old Welmingham."
"OLD Welmingham? There are two places of that name, then, in
Hampshire?"
"Well, sir, there used to be in those days--better than three-andtwenty
years ago. They built a new town about two miles off,
convenient to the river--and Old Welmingham, which was never much
more than a village, got in time to be deserted. The new town is
the place they call Welmingham now--but the old parish church is
the parish church still. It stands by itself, with the houses
pulled down or gone to ruin all round it. I've lived to see sad
changes. It was a pleasant, pretty place in my time.
"Did you live there before your marriage, Mrs. Clements?"
"No, sir--I'm a Norfolk woman. It wasn't the place my husband
belonged to either. He was from Grimsby, as I told you, and he
served his apprenticeship there. But having friends down south,
and hearing of an opening, he got into business at Southampton.
It was in a small way, but he made enough for a plain man to
retire on, and settled at Old Welmingham. I went there with him
when he married me. We were neither of us young, but we lived
very happy together--happier than our neighbour, Mr. Catherick,
lived along with his wife when they came to Old Welmingham a year
or two afterwards."
"Was your husband acquainted with them before that?"
"With Catherick, sir--not with his wife. She was a stranger to
both of us. Some gentlemen had made interest for Catherick, and
he got the situation of clerk at Welmingham church, which was the
reason of his coming to settle in our neighbourhood. He brought
his newly-married wife along with him, and we heard in course of
time she had been lady's-maid in a family that lived at Varneck
Hall, near Southampton. Catherick had found it a hard matter to
get her to marry him, in consequence of her holding herself
uncommonly high. He had asked and asked, and given the thing up
at last, seeing she was so contrary about it. When he HAD given
it up she turned contrary just the other way, and came to him of
her own accord, without rhyme or reason seemingly. My poor
husband always said that was the time to have given her a lesson.
But Catherick was too fond of her to do anything of the sort--he
never checked her either before they were married or after. He
was a quick man in his feelings, letting them carry him a deal too
far, now in one way and now in another, and he would have spoilt a
better wife than Mrs. Catherick if a better had married him. I
don't like to speak ill of any one, sir, but she was a heartless
woman, with a terrible will of her own--fond of foolish admiration
and fine clothes, and not caring to show so much as decent outward
respect to Catherick, kindly as he always treated her. My husband
said he thought things would turn out badly when they first came
to live near us, and his words proved true. Before they had been
quite four months in our neighbourhood there was a dreadful
scandal and a miserable break-up in their household. Both of them
were in fault--I am afraid both of them were equally in fault."
"You mean both husband and wife?"
"Oh, no, sir! I don't mean Catherick--he was only to be pitied. I
meant his wife and the person--"
"And the person who caused the scandal?"
"Yes, sir. A gentleman born and brought up, who ought to have set
a better example. You know him, sir--and my poor dear Anne knew
him only too well."
"Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Yes, Sir Percival Glyde."
My heart beat fast--I thought I had my hand on the clue. How
little I knew then of the windings of the labyrinths which were
still to mislead me!
"Did Sir Percival live in your neighbourhood at that time?" I
asked.
"No, sir. He came among us as a stranger. His father had died
not long before in foreign parts. I remember he was in mourning.
He put up at the little inn on the river (they have pulled it down
since that time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. He wasn't
much noticed when he first came--it was a common thing enough for
gentlemen to travel from all parts of England to fish in our
river."
"Did he make his appearance in the village before Anne was born?"
"Yes, sir. Anne was born in the June month of eighteen hundred
and twenty-seven--and I think he came at the end of April or the
beginning of May."
"Came as a stranger to all of you? A stranger to Mrs. Catherick as
well as to the rest of the neighbours?"
"So we thought at first, sir. But when the scandal broke out,
nobody believed they were strangers. I remember how it happened
as well as if it was yesterday. Catherick came into our garden
one night, and woke us by throwing up a handful of gravel from the
walk at our window. I heard him beg my husband, for the Lord's
sake, to come down and speak to him. They were a long time
together talking in the porch. When my husband came back upstairs
he was all of a tremble. He sat down on the side of the bed and
he says to me, 'Lizzie! I always told you that woman was a bad
one--I always said she would end ill, and I'm afraid in my own
mind that the end has come already. Catherick has found a lot of
lace handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold watch and
chain, hid away in his wife's drawer--things that nobody but a
born lady ought ever to have--and his wife won't say how she came
by them.' 'Does he think she stole them?' says I. 'No,' says he,
'stealing would be bad enough. But it's worse than that, she's
had no chance of stealing such things as those, and she's not a
woman to take them if she had. They're gifts, Lizzie--there's her
own initials engraved inside the watch--and Catherick has seen her
talking privately, and carrying on as no married woman should,
with that gentleman in mourning, Sir Percival Glyde. Don't you
say anything about it--I've quieted Catherick for to-night. I've
told him to keep his tongue to himself, and his eyes and his ears
open, and to wait a day or two, till he can be quite certain.' 'I
believe you are both of you wrong,' says I. 'It's not in nature,
comfortable and respectable as she is here, that Mrs. Catherick
should take up with a chance stranger like Sir Percival Glyde.'
'Ay, but is he a stranger to her?' says my husband. 'You forget
how Catherick's wife came to marry him. She went to him of her
own accord, after saying No over and over again when he asked her.
There have been wicked women before her time, Lizzie, who have
used honest men who loved them as a means of saving their
characters, and I'm sorely afraid this Mrs. Catherick is as wicked
as the worst of them. We shall see,' says my husband, 'we shall
soon see.' And only two days afterwards we did see."
Mrs. Clements waited for a moment before she went on. Even in
that moment, I began to doubt whether the clue that I thought I
had found was really leading me to the central mystery of the
labyrinth after all. Was this common, too common, story of a
man's treachery and a woman's frailty the key to a secret which
had been the life-long terror of Sir Percival Glyde?
"Well, sir, Catherick took my husband's advice and waited," Mrs.
Clements continued. "And as I told you, he hadn't long to wait.
On the second day he found his wife and Sir Percival whispering
together quite familiar, close under the vestry of the church. I
suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last
place in the world where anybody would think of looking after
them, but, however that may be, there they were. Sir Percival,
being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended himself in such
a guilty way that poor Catherick (whose quick temper I have told
you of already) fell into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace,
and struck Sir Percival. He was no match (and I am sorry to say
it) for the man who had wronged him, and he was beaten in the
cruelest manner, before the neighbours, who had come to the place
on hearing the disturbance, could run in to part them. All this
happened towards evening, and before nightfall, when my husband
went to Catherick's house, he was gone, nobody knew where. No
living soul in the village ever saw him again. He knew too well,
by that time, what his wife's vile reason had been for marrying
him, and he felt his misery and disgrace, especially after what
had happened to him with Sir Percival, too keenly. The clergyman
of the parish put an advertisement in the paper begging him to
come back, and saying that he should not lose his situation or his
friends. But Catherick had too much pride and spirit, as some
people said--too much feeling, as I think, sir--to face his
neighbours again, and try to live down the memory of his disgrace.
My husband heard from him when he had left England, and heard a
second time, when he was settled and doing well in America. He is
alive there now, as far as I know, but none of us in the old
country--his wicked wife least of all--are ever likely to set eyes
on him again."
"What became of Sir Percival?" I inquired. "Did he stay in the
neighbourhood?"
"Not he, sir. The place was too hot to hold him. He was heard at
high words with Mrs. Catherick the same night when the scandal
broke out, and the next morning he took himself off."
"And Mrs. Catherick? Surely she never remained in the village
among the people who knew of her disgrace?"
"She did, sir. She was hard enough and heartless enough to set
the opinions of all her neighbours at flat defiance. She declared
to everybody, from the clergyman downwards, that she was the
victim of a dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers in
the place should not drive her out of it, as if she was a guilty
woman. All through my time she lived at Old Welmingham, and after
my time, when the new town was building, and the respectable
neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if she was
determined to live among them and scandalise them to the very
last. There she is now, and there she will stop, in defiance of
the best of them, to her dying day."
"But how has she lived through all these years?" I asked. "Was
her husband able and willing to help her?"
"Both able and willing, sir," said Mrs. Clements. "In the second
letter he wrote to my good man, he said she had borne his name,
and lived in his home, and, wicked as she was, she must not starve
like a beggar in the street. He could afford to make her some
small allowance, and she might draw for it quarterly at a place in
London."
"Did she accept the allowance?"
"Not a farthing of it, sir. She said she would never be beholden
to Catherick for bit or drop, if she lived to be a hundred. And
she has kept her word ever since. When my poor dear husband died,
and left all to me, Catherick's letter was put in my possession
with the other things, and I told her to let me know if she was
ever in want. 'I'll let all England know I'm in want,' she said,
'before I tell Catherick, or any friend of Catherick's. Take that
for your answer, and give it to HIM for an answer, if he ever
writes again.' "
"Do you suppose that she had money of her own?"
"Very little, if any, sir. It was said, and said truly, I am
afraid, that her means of living came privately from Sir Percival
Glyde."
After that last reply I waited a little, to reconsider what I had
heard. If I unreservedly accepted the story so far, it was now
plain that no approach, direct or indirect, to the Secret had yet
been revealed to me, and that the pursuit of my object had ended
again in leaving me face to face with the most palpable and the
most disheartening failure.
But there was one point in the narrative which made me doubt the
propriety of accepting it unreservedly, and which suggested the
idea of something hidden below the surface.
I could not account to myself for the circumstance of the clerk's
guilty wife voluntarily living out all her after-existence on the
scene of her disgrace. The woman's own reported statement that
she had taken this strange course as a practical assertion of her
innocence did not satisfy me. It seemed, to my mind, more natural
and more probable to assume that she was not so completely a free
agent in this matter as she had herself asserted. In that case,
who was the likeliest person to possess the power of compelling
her to remain at Welmingham? The person unquestionably from whom
she derived the means of living. She had refused assistance from
her husband, she had no adequate resources of her own, she was a
friendless, degraded woman--from what source should she derive
help but from the source at which report pointed--Sir Percival
Glyde?
Reasoning on these assumptions, and always bearing in mind the one
certain fact to guide me, that Mrs. Catherick was in possession of
the Secret, I easily understood that it was Sir Percival's
interest to keep her at Welmingham, because her character in that
place was certain to isolate her from all communication with
female neighbours, and to allow her no opportunities of talking
incautiously in moments of free intercourse with inquisitive bosom
friends. But what was the mystery to be concealed? Not Sir
Percival's infamous connection with Mrs. Catherick's disgrace, for
the neighbours were the very people who knew of it--not the
suspicion that he was Anne's father, for Welmingham was the place
in which that suspicion must inevitably exist. If I accepted the
guilty appearances described to me as unreservedly as others had
accepted them, if I drew from them the same superficial conclusion
which Mr. Catherick and all his neighbours had drawn, where was
the suggestion, in all that I had heard, of a dangerous secret
between Sir Percival and Mrs. Catherick, which had been kept
hidden from that time to this?
And yet, in those stolen meetings, in those familiar whisperings
between the clerk's wife and "the gentleman in mourning," the clue
to discovery existed beyond a doubt.
Was it possible that appearances in this case had pointed one way
while the truth lay all the while unsuspected in another
direction? Could Mrs. Catherick's assertion, that she was the
victim of a dreadful mistake, by any possibility be true? Or,
assuming it to be false, could the conclusion which associated Sir
Percival with her guilt have been founded in some inconceivable
error? Had Sir Percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that
was wrong for the sake of diverting from himself some other
suspicion that was right? Here--if I could find it--here was the
approach to the Secret, hidden deep under the surface of the
apparently unpromising story which I had just heard.
My next questions were now directed to the one object of
ascertaining whether Mr. Catherick had or had not arrived truly at
the conviction of his wife's misconduct. The answers I received
from Mrs. Clements left me in no doubt whatever on that point.
Mrs. Catherick had, on the clearest evidence, compromised her
reputation, while a single woman, with some person unknown, and
had married to save her character. It had been positively
ascertained, by calculations of time and place into which I need
not enter particularly, that the daughter who bore her husband's
name was not her husband's child
The next object of inquiry, whether it was equally certain that
Sir Percival must have been the father of Anne, was beset by far
greater difficulties. I was in no position to try the
probabilities on one side or on the other in this instance by any
better test than the test of personal resemblance.
"I suppose you often saw Sir Percival when he was in your
village?" I said.
"Yes, sir, very often," replied Mrs. Clements.
"Did you ever observe that Anne was like him?"
"She was not at all like him, sir."
"Was she like her mother, then?"
"Not like her mother either, sir. Mrs. Catherick was dark, and
full in the face."
Not like her mother and not like her (supposed) father. I knew
that the test by personal resemblance was not to be implicitly
trusted, but, on the other hand, it was not to be altogether
rejected on that account. Was it possible to strengthen the
evidence by discovering any conclusive facts in relation to the
lives of Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival before they either of
them appeared at Old Welmingham? When I asked my next questions I
put them with this view.
"When Sir Percival first arrived in your neighbourhood," I said,
"did you hear where he had come from last?"
"No, sir. Some said from Blackwater Park, and some said from
Scotland--but nobody knew."
"Was Mrs. Catherick living in service at Varneck Hall immediately
before her marriage?"
"Yes, sir."
"And had she been long in her place?"
"Three or four years, sir; I am not quite certain which."
"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman to whom Varneck Hall
belonged at that time?"
"Yes, sir. His name was Major Donthorne."
"Did Mr. Catherick, or did any one else you knew, ever hear that
Sir Percival was a friend of Major Donthorne's, or ever see Sir
Percival in the neighbourhood of Varneck Hall?"
"Catherick never did, sir, that I can remember--nor any one else
either, that I know of."
I noted down Major Donthorne's name and address, on the chance
that he might still be alive, and that it might be useful at some
future time to apply to him. Meanwhile, the impression on my mind
was now decidedly adverse to the opinion that Sir Percival was
Anne's father, and decidedly favourable to the conclusion that the
secret of his stolen interviews with Mrs. Catherick was entirely
unconnected with the disgrace which the woman had inflicted on her
husband's good name. I could think of no further inquiries which
I might make to strengthen this impression--I could only encourage
Mrs. Clements to speak next of Anne's early days, and watch for
any chance-suggestion which might in this way offer itself to me.
"I have not heard yet," I said, "how the poor child, born in all
this sin and misery, came to be trusted, Mrs. Clements, to your
care."
"There was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature
in hand," replied Mrs. Clements. "The wicked mother seemed to
hate it--as if the poor baby was in fault!--from the day it was
born. My heart was heavy for the child, and I made the offer to
bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own."
"Did Anne remain entirely under your care from that time?"
"Not quite entirely, sir. Mrs. Catherick had her whims and
fancies about it at times, and used now and then to lay claim to
the child, as if she wanted to spite me for bringing it up. But
these fits of hers never lasted for long. Poor little Anne was
always returned to me, and was always glad to get back--though she
led but a gloomy life in my house, having no playmates, like other
children, to brighten her up. Our longest separation was when her
mother took her to Limmeridge. Just at that time I lost my
husband, and I felt it was as well, in that miserable affliction,
that Anne should not be in the house. She was between ten and
eleven years old then, slow at her lessons, poor soul, and not so
cheerful as other children--but as pretty a little girl to look at
as you would wish to see. I waited at home till her mother
brought her back, and then I made the offer to take her with me to
London--the truth being, sir, that I could not find it in my heart
to stop at Old Welmingham after my husband's death, the place was
so changed and so dismal to me."
"And did Mrs. Catherick consent to your proposal?"
"No, sir. She came back from the north harder and bitterer than
ever. Folks did say that she had been obliged to ask Sir
Percival's leave to go, to begin with; and that she only went to
nurse her dying sister at Limmeridge because the poor woman was
reported to have saved money--the truth being that she hardly left
enough to bury her. These things may have soured Mrs. Catherick
likely enough, but however that may be, she wouldn't hear of my
taking the child away. She seemed to like distressing us both by
parting us. All I could do was to give Anne my direction, and to
tell her privately, if she was ever in trouble, to come to me.
But years passed before she was free to come. I never saw her
again, poor soul, till the night she escaped from the mad-house."
"You know, Mrs. Clements, why Sir Percival Glyde shut her up?"
"I only know what Anne herself told me, sir. The poor thing used
to ramble and wander about it sadly. She said her mother had got
some secret of Sir Percival's to keep, and had let it out to her
long after I left Hampshire--and when Sir Percival found she knew
it, he shut her up. But she never could say what it was when I
asked her. All she could tell me was, that her mother might be
the ruin and destruction of Sir Percival if she chose. Mrs.
Catherick may have let out just as much as that, and no more. I'm
next to certain I should have heard the whole truth from Anne, if
she had really known it as she pretended to do, and as she very
likely fancied she did, poor soul."
This idea had more than once occurred to my own mind. I had
already told Marian that I doubted whether Laura was really on the
point of making any important discovery when she and Anne
Catherick were disturbed by Count Fosco at the boat-house. It was
perfectly in character with Anne's mental affliction that she
should assume an absolute knowledge of the secret on no better
grounds than vague suspicion, derived from hints which her mother
had incautiously let drop in her presence. Sir Percival's guilty
distrust would, in that case, infallibly inspire him with the
false idea that Anne knew all from her mother, just as it had
afterwards fixed in his mind the equally false suspicion that his
wife knew all from Anne.
The time was passing, the morning was wearing away. It was
doubtful, if I stayed longer, whether I should hear anything more
from Mrs. Clements that would be at all useful to my purpose. I
had already discovered those local and family particulars, in
relation to Mrs. Catherick, of which I had been in search, and I
had arrived at certain conclusions, entirely new to me, which
might immensely assist in directing the course of my future
proceedings. I rose to take my leave, and to thank Mrs. Clements
for the friendly readiness she had shown in affording me
information.
"I am afraid you must have thought me very inquisitive," I said.
"I have troubled you with more questions than many people would
have cared to answer."
"You are heartily welcome, sir, to anything I can tell you,"
answered Mrs. Clements. She stopped and looked at me wistfully.
"But I do wish," said the poor woman, "you could have told me a
little more about Anne, sir. I thought I saw something in your
face when you came in which looked as if you could. You can't
think how hard it is not even to know whether she is living or
dead. I could bear it better if I was only certain. You said you
never expected we should see her alive again. Do you know, sir--
do you know for truth--that it has pleased God to take her?"
I was not proof against this appeal, it would have been
unspeakably mean and cruel of me if I had resisted it.
"I am afraid there is no doubt of the truth," I answered gently;
"I have the certainty in my own mind that her troubles in this
world are over."
The poor woman dropped into her chair and hid her face from me.
"Oh, sir," she said, "how do you know it? Who can have told you?"
"No one has told me, Mrs. Clements. But I have reasons for
feeling sure of it--reasons which I promise you shall know as soon
as I can safely explain them. I am certain she was not neglected
in her last moments--I am certain the heart complaint from which
she suffered so sadly was the true cause of her death. You shall
feel as sure of this as I do, soon--you shall know, before long,
that she is buried in a quiet country churchyard--in a pretty,
peaceful place, which you might have chosen for her yourself."
"Dead!" said Mrs. Clements, "dead so young, and I am left to hear
it! I made her first short frocks. I taught her to walk. The
first time she ever said Mother she said it to me--and now I am
left and Anne is taken! Did you say, sir," said the poor woman,
removing the handkerchief from her face, and looking up at me for
the first time, "did you say that she had been nicely buried? Was
it the sort of funeral she might have had if she had really been
my own child?"
I assured her that it was. She seemed to take an inexplicable
pride in my answer--to find a comfort in it which no other and
higher considerations could afford. "It would have broken my
heart," she said simply, "if Anne had not been nicely buried--but
how do you know it, sir? who told you?" I once more entreated her
to wait until I could speak to her unreservedly. "You are sure to
see me again," I said, "for I have a favour to ask when you are a
little more composed--perhaps in a day or two."
"Don't keep it waiting, sir, on my account," said Mrs. Clements.
"Never mind my crying if I can be of use. If you have anything on
your mind to say to me, sir, please to say it now."
"I only wish to ask you one last question," I said. "I only want
to know Mrs. Catherick's address at Welmingham."
My request so startled Mrs. Clements, that, for the moment, even
the tidings of Anne's death seemed to be driven from her mind.
Her tears suddenly ceased to flow, and she sat looking at me in
blank amazement.
"For the Lord's sake, sir!" she said, "what do you want with Mrs.
Catherick!"
"I want this, Mrs. Clements," I replied, "I want to know the
secret of those private meetings of hers with Sir Percival Glyde.
There is something more in what you have told me of that woman's
past conduct, and of that man's past relations with her, than you
or any of your neighbours ever suspected. There is a secret we
none of us know between those two, and I am going to Mrs.
Catherick with the resolution to find it out."
"Think twice about it, sir!" said Mrs. Clements, rising in her
earnestness and laying her hand on my arm. "She's an awful woman--
you don't know her as I do. Think twice about it."
"I am sure your warning is kindly meant, Mrs. Clements. But I am
determined to see the woman, whatever comes of it."
Mrs. Clements looked me anxiously in the face.
"I see your mind is made up, sir," she said. "I will give you the
address."
I wrote it down in my pocket-book and then took her hand to say
farewell.
"You shall hear from me soon," I said; "you shall know all that I
have promised to tell you."
Mrs. Clements sighed and shook her head doubtfully.
"An old woman's advice is sometimes worth taking, sir," she said.
"Think twice before you go to Welmingham."
VIII
When I reached home again after my interview with Mrs. Clements, I
was struck by the appearance of a change in Laura.
The unvarying gentleness and patience which long misfortune had
tried so cruelly and had never conquered yet, seemed now to have
suddenly failed her. Insensible to all Marian's attempts to
soothe and amuse her, she sat, with her neglected drawing pushed
away on the table, her eyes resolutely cast down, her fingers
twining and untwining themselves restlessly in her lap. Marian
rose when I came in, with a silent distress in her face, waited
for a moment to see if Laura would look up at my approach,
whispered to me, "Try if you can rouse her," and left the room.
I sat down in the vacant chair--gently unclasped the poor, worn,
restless fingers, and took both her hands in mine.
"What are you thinking of, Laura? Tell me, my darling--try and
tell me what it is."
She struggled with herself, and raised her eyes to mine. "I can't
feel happy," she said, "I can't help thinking----" She stopped,
bent forward a little, and laid her head on my shoulder, with a
terrible mute helplessness that struck me to the heart.
"Try to tell me," I repeated gently; "try to tell me why you are
not happy."
"I am so useless--I am such a burden on both of you," she
answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh. "You work and get money,
Walter, and Marian helps you. Why is there nothing I can do? You
will end in liking Marian better than you like me--you will,
because I am so helpless! Oh, don't, don't, don't treat me like a
child!"
I raised her head, and smoothed away the tangled hair that fell
over her face, and kissed her--my poor, faded flower! my lost,
afflicted sister! "You shall help us, Laura," I said, "you shall
begin, my darling, to-day."
She looked at me with a feverish eagerness, with a breathless
interest, that made me tremble for the new life of hope which I
had called into being by those few words.
I rose, and set her drawing materials in order, and placed them
near her again.
"You know that I work and get money by drawing," I said. "Now you
have taken such pains, now you are so much improved, you shall
begin to work and get money too. Try to finish this little sketch
as nicely and prettily as you can. When it is done I will take it
away with me, and the same person will buy it who buys all that I
do. You shall keep your own earnings in your own purse, and
Marian shall come to you to help us, as often as she comes to me.
Think how useful you are going to make yourself to both of us, and
you will soon be as happy, Laura, as the day is long."
Her face grew eager, and brightened into a smile. In the moment
while it lasted, in the moment when she again took up the pencils
that had been laid aside, she almost looked like the Laura of past
days.
I had rightly interpreted the first signs of a new growth and
strength in her mind, unconsciously expressing themselves in the
notice she had taken of the occupations which filled her sister's
life and mine. Marian (when I told her what had passed) saw, as I
saw, that she was longing to assume her own little position of
importance, to raise herself in her own estimation and in ours--
and, from that day, we tenderly helped the new ambition which gave
promise of the hopeful, happier future, that might now not be far
off. Her drawings, as she finished them, or tried to finish them,
were placed in my hands. Marian took them from me and hid them
carefully, and I set aside a little weekly tribute from my
earnings, to be offered to her as the price paid by strangers for
the poor, faint, valueless sketches, of which I was the only
purchaser. It was hard sometimes to maintain our innocent
deception, when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute
her share towards the expenses, and wondered with serious
interest, whether I or she had earned the most that week. I have
all those hidden drawings in my possession still--they are my
treasures beyond price--the dear remembrances that I love to keep
alive--the friends in past adversity that my heart will never part
from, my tenderness never forget.
Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am I looking
forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet
reached? Yes. Back again--back to the days of doubt and dread,
when the spirit within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy
stillness of perpetual suspense. I have paused and rested for a
while on my forward course. It is not, perhaps, time wasted, if
the friends who read these pages have paused and rested too.
I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in
private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries
which I had made that morning. She seemed to share the opinion on
the subject of my proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs.
Clements had already expressed to me.
"Surely, Walter," she said, "you hardly know enough yet to give
you any hope of claiming Mrs. Catherick's confidence? Is it wise
to proceed to these extremities, before you have really exhausted
all safer and simpler means of attaining your object? When you
told me that Sir Percival and the Count were the only two people
in existence who knew the exact date of Laura's journey, you
forgot, and I forgot, that there was a third person who must
surely know it--I mean Mrs. Rubelle. Would it not be far easier,
and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession from her, than
to force it from Sir Percival?"
"It might be easier," I replied, "but we are not aware of the full
extent of Mrs. Rubelle's connivance and interest in the
conspiracy, and we are therefore not certain that the date has
been impressed on her mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on
the minds of Sir Percival and the Count. It is too late, now, to
waste the time on Mrs. Rubelle, which may be all-important to the
discovery of the one assailable point in Sir Percival's life? Are
you thinking a little too seriously, Marian, of the risk I may run
in returning to Hampshire? Are you beginning to doubt whether Sir
Percival Glyde may not in the end be more than a match for me?"
"He will not be more than your match," she replied decidedly,
"because he will not be helped in resisting you by the
impenetrable wickedness of the Count."
"What has led you to that conclusion?" I replied, in some
surprise.
"My own knowledge of Sir Percival's obstinacy and impatience of
the Count's control," she answered. "I believe he will insist on
meeting you single-handed--just as he insisted at first on acting
for himself at Blackwater Park. The time for suspecting the
Count's interference will be the time when you have Sir Percival
at your mercy. His own interests will then be directly
threatened, and he will act, Walter, to terrible purpose in his
own defence."
"We may deprive him of his weapons beforehand," I said. "Some of
the particulars I have heard from Mrs. Clements may yet be turned
to account against him, and other means of strengthening the case
may be at our disposal. There are passages in Mrs. Michelson's
narrative which show that the Count found it necessary to place
himself in communication with Mr. Fairlie, and there may be
circumstances which compromise him in that proceeding. While I am
away, Marian, write to Mr. Fairlie and say that you want an answer
describing exactly what passed between the Count and himself, and
informing you also of any particulars that may have come to his
knowledge at the same time in connection with his niece. Tell him
that the statement you request will, sooner or later, be insisted
on, if he shows any reluctance to furnish you with it of his own
accord."
"The letter shall be written, Walter. But are you really
determined to go to Welmingham?"
"Absolutely determined. I will devote the next two days to
earning what we want for the week to come, and on the third day I
go to Hampshire."
When the third day came I was ready for my journey.
As it was possible that I might be absent for some little time, I
arranged with Marian that we were to correspond every day--of
course addressing each other by assumed names, for caution's sake.
As long as I heard from her regularly, I should assume that
nothing was wrong. But if the morning came and brought me no
letter, my return to London would take place, as a matter of
course, by the first train. I contrived to reconcile Laura to my
departure by telling her that I was going to the country to find
new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and I left her
occupied and happy. Marian followed me downstairs to the street
door.
"Remember what anxious hearts you leave here," she whispered, as
we stood together in the passage. "Remember all the hopes that
hang on your safe return. If strange things happen to you on this
journey--if you and Sir Percival meet----"
"What makes you think we shall meet?" I asked.
"I don't know--I have fears and fancies that I cannot account for.
Laugh at them, Walter, if you like--but, for God's sake, keep your
temper if you come in contact with that man!"
"Never fear, Marian! I answer for my self-control."
With those words we parted.
I walked briskly to the station. There was a glow of hope in me.
There was a growing conviction in my mind that my journey this
time would not be taken in vain. It was a fine, clear, cold
morning. My nerves were firmly strung, and I felt all the
strength of my resolution stirring in me vigorously from head to
foot.
As I crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among
the people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them
that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have
been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting
out for Hampshire. But there was something so repellent to me in
the idea--something so meanly like the common herd of spies and
informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise--that I dismissed
the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in
my mind. Even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding was
doubtful in the extreme. If I tried the experiment at home the
landlord of the house would sooner or later discover me, and would
have his suspicions aroused immediately. If I tried it away from
home the same persons might see me, by the commonest accident,
with the disguise and without it, and I should in that way be
inviting the notice and distrust which it was my most pressing
interest to avoid. In my own character I had acted thus far--and
in my own character I was resolved to continue to the end.
The train left me at Welmingham early in the afternoon.
Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there
any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can
rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing
influence on the mind, of an English country town in the first
stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its
prosperity? I asked myself that question as I passed through the
clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim torpor of the
streets of Welmingham. And the tradesmen who stared after me from
their lonely shops--the trees that drooped helpless in their arid
exile of unfinished crescents and squares--the dead housecarcasses
that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to
animate them with the breath of life--every creature that I saw,
every object that I passed, seemed to answer with one accord: The
deserts of Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation--the
ruins of Palestine are incapable of our modern gloom!
I inquired my way to the quarter of the town in which Mrs.
Catherick lived, and on reaching it found myself in a square of
small houses, one story high. There was a bare little plot of
grass in the middle, protected by a cheap wire fence. An elderly
nursemaid and two children were standing in a corner of the
enclosure, looking at a lean goat tethered to the grass. Two
foot-passengers were talking together on one side of the pavement
before the houses, and an idle little boy was leading an idle
little dog along by a string on the other. I heard the dull
tinkling of a piano at a distance, accompanied by the intermittent
knocking of a hammer nearer at hand. These were all the sights
and sounds of life that encountered me when I entered the square.
I walked at once to the door of Number Thirteen--the number of
Mrs. Catherick's house--and knocked, without waiting to consider
beforehand how I might best present myself when I got in. The
first necessity was to see Mrs. Catherick. I could then judge,
from my own observation, of the safest and easiest manner of
approaching the object of my visit.
The door was opened by a melancholy middle-aged woman servant. I
gave her my card, and asked if I could see Mrs. Catherick. The
card was taken into the front parlour, and the servant returned
with a message requesting me to mention what my business was.
"Say, if you please, that my business relates to Mrs. Catherick's
daughter," I replied. This was the best pretext I could think of,
on the spur of the moment, to account for my visit.
The servant again retired to the parlour, again returned, and this
time begged me, with a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in.
I entered a little room, with a flaring paper of the largest
pattern on the walls. Chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all
gleamed with the glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On the
largest table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart Bible,
placed exactly in the centre on a red and yellow woollen mat and
at the side of the table nearest to the window, with a little
knitting-basket on her lap, and a wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel
crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black
net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-coloured mittens
on her hands. Her iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either
side of her face--her dark eyes looked straight forward, with a
hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks, a
long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure
was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed.
This was Mrs. Catherick.
"You have come to speak to me about my daughter," she said, before
I could utter a word on my side. "Be so good as to mention what
you have to say."
The tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant, as implacable as
the expression of her eyes. She pointed to a chair, and looked me
all over attentively, from head to foot, as I sat down in it. I
saw that my only chance with this woman was to speak to her in her
own tone, and to meet her, at the outset of our interview, on her
own ground.
"You are aware," I said, "that your daughter has been lost?"
"I am perfectly aware of it."
"Have you felt any apprehension that the misfortune of her loss
might be followed by the misfortune of her death?"
"Yes. Have you come here to tell me she is dead?"
"I have."
"Why?"
She put that extraordinary question without the slightest change
in her voice, her face, or her manner. She could not have
appeared more perfectly unconcerned if I had told her of the death
of the goat in the enclosure outside.
"Why?" I repeated. "Do you ask why I come here to tell you of
your daughter's death?"
"Yes. What interest have you in me, or in her? How do you come to
know anything about my daughter?"
"In this way. I met her on the night when she escaped from the
Asylum, and I assisted her in reaching a place of safety."
"You did very wrong."
"I am sorry to hear her mother say so."
"Her mother does say so. How do you know she is dead?"
"I am not at liberty to say how I know it--but I DO know it."
"Are you at liberty to say how you found out my address?"
"Certainly. I got your address from Mrs. Clements."
"Mrs. Clements is a foolish woman. Did she tell you to come
here?"
"She did not."
"Then, I ask you again, why did you come?"
As she was determined to have her answer, I gave it to her in the
plainest possible form.
"I came," I said, "because I thought Anne Catherick's mother might
have some natural interest in knowing whether she was alive or
dead."
"Just so," said Mrs. Catherick, with additional self-possession.
"Had you no other motive?"
I hesitated. The right answer to that question was not easy to
find at a moment's notice.
"If you have no other motive," she went on, deliberately taking
off her slate-coloured mittens, and rolling them up, "I have only
to thank you for your visit, and to say that I will not detain you
here any longer. Your information would be more satisfactory if
you were willing to explain how you became possessed of it.
However, it justifies me, I suppose, in going into mourning.
There is not much alteration necessary in my dress, as you see.
When I have changed my mittens, I shall be all in black."
She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black
lace mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest
composure, and then quietly crossed her hands in her lap.
"I wish you good morning," she said.
The cool contempt of her manner irritated me into directly avowing
that the purpose of my visit had not been answered yet.
"I HAVE another motive in coming here," I said.
"Ah! I thought so," remarked Mrs. Catherick.
"Your daughter's death----"
"What did she die of?"
"Of disease of the heart."
"Yes. Go on."
"Your daughter's death has been made the pretext for inflicting
serious injury on a person who is very dear to me. Two men have
been concerned, to my certain knowledge, in doing that wrong. One
of them is Sir Percival Glyde."
"Indeed!"
I looked attentively to see if she flinched at the sudden mention
of that name. Not a muscle of her stirred--the hard, defiant,
implacable stare in her eyes never wavered for an instant.
"You may wonder," I went on, "how the event of your daughter's
death can have been made the means of inflicting injury on another
person."
"No," said Mrs. Catherick; "I don't wonder at all. This appears
to be your affair. You are interested in my affairs. I am not
interested in yours."
"You may ask, then," I persisted, "why I mention the matter in
your presence."
"Yes, I DO ask that."
"I mention it because I am determined to bring Sir Percival Glyde
to account for the wickedness he has committed."
"What have I to do with your determination?"
"You shall hear. There are certain events in Sir Percival's past
life which it is necessary for my purpose to be fully acquainted
with. YOU know them--and for that reason I come to YOU."
"What events do you mean?"
"Events that occurred at Old Welmingham when your husband was
parish-clerk at that place, and before the time when your daughter
was born."
I had reached the woman at last through the barrier of
impenetrable reserve that she had tried to set up between us. I
saw her temper smouldering in her eyes--as plainly as I saw her
hands grow restless, then unclasp themselves, and begin
mechanically smoothing her dress over her knees.
"What do you know of those events?" she asked.
"All that Mrs. Clements could tell me," I answered.
There was a momentary flush on her firm square face, a momentary
stillness in her restless hands, which seemed to betoken a coming
outburst of anger that might throw her off her guard. But no--she
mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her chair, crossed
her arms on her broad bosom, and with a smile of grim sarcasm on
her thick lips, looked at me as steadily as ever.
"Ah! I begin to understand it all now," she said, her tamed and
disciplined anger only expressing itself in the elaborate mockery
of her tone and manner. "You have got a grudge of your own
against Sir Percival Glyde, and I must help you to wreak it. I
must tell you this, that, and the other about Sir Percival and
myself, must I? Yes, indeed? You have been prying into my private
affairs. You think you have found a lost woman to deal with, who
lives here on sufferance, and who will do anything you ask for
fear you may injure her in the opinions of the town's-people. I
see through you and your precious speculation--I do! and it amuses
me. Ha! ha!"
She stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over her bosom, and
she laughed to herself--a hard, harsh, angry laugh.
"You don't know how I have lived in this place, and what I have
done in this place, Mr. What's-your-name," she went on. "I'll
tell you, before I ring the bell and have you shown out. I came
here a wronged woman--I came here robbed of my character and
determined to claim it back. I've been years and years about it--
and I HAVE claimed it back. I have matched the respectable people
fairly and openly on their own ground. If they say anything
against me now they must say it in secret--they can't say it, they
daren't say it, openly. I stand high enough in this town to be
out of your reach. THE CLERGYMAN BOWS TO ME. Aha! you didn't
bargain for that when you came here. Go to the church and inquire
about me--you will find Mrs. Catherick has her sitting like the
rest of them, and pays the rent on the day it's due. Go to the
town-hall. There's a petition lying there--a petition of the
respectable inhabitants against allowing a circus to come and
perform here and corrupt our morals--yes! OUR morals. I signed
that petition this morning. Go to the bookseller's shop. The
clergyman's Wednesday evening Lectures on Justification by Faith
are publishing there by subscription--I'm down on the list. The
doctor's wife only put a shilling in the plate at our last charity
sermon--I put half-a-crown. Mr. Churchwarden Soward held the
plate, and bowed to me. Ten years ago he told Pigrum the chemist
I ought to be whipped out of the town at the cart's tail. Is your
mother alive? Has she got a better Bible on her table than I have
got on mine? Does she stand better with her trades-people than I
do with mine? Has she always lived within her income? I have
always lived within mine. Ah! there IS the clergyman coming along
the square. Look, Mr. What's-your-name--look, if you please!"
She started up with the activity of a young woman, went to the
window, waited till the clergyman passed, and bowed to him
solemnly. The clergyman ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked
on. Mrs. Catherick returned to her chair, and looked at me with a
grimmer sarcasm than ever.
"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a woman with a
lost character? How does your speculation look now?"
The singular manner in which she had chosen to assert herself, the
extraordinary practical vindication of her position in the town
which she had just offered, had so perplexed me that I listened to
her in silent surprise. I was not the less resolved, however, to
make another effort to throw her off her guard. If the woman's
fierce temper once got beyond her control, and once flamed out on
me, she might yet say the words which would put the clue in my
hands.
"How does your speculation look now?" she repeated.
"Exactly as it looked when I first came in," I answered. "I don't
doubt the position you have gained in the town, and I don't wish
to assail it even if I could. I came here because Sir Percival
Glyde is, to my certain knowledge, your enemy, as well as mine.
If I have a grudge against him, you have a grudge against him too.
You may deny it if you like, you may distrust me as much as you
please, you may be as angry as you will--but, of all the women in
England, you, if you have any sense of injury, are the woman who
ought to help me to crush that man."
"Crush him for yourself," she said; "then come back here, and see
what I say to you."
She spoke those words as she had not spoken yet, quickly,
fiercely, vindictively. I had stirred in its lair the serpenthatred
of years, but only for a moment. Like a lurking reptile it
leaped up at me as she eagerly bent forward towards the place in
which I was sitting. Like a lurking reptile it dropped out of
sight again as she instantly resumed her former position in the
chair.
"You won't trust me?" I said.
"No."
"You are afraid?"
"Do I look as if I was?"
"You are afraid of Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Am I?"
Her colour was rising, and her hands were at work again smoothing
her gown. I pressed the point farther and farther home, I went on
without allowing her a moment of delay.
"Sir Percival has a high position in the world," I said; "it would
be no wonder if you were afraid of him. Sir Percival is a
powerful man, a baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the
descendant of a great family----"
She amazed me beyond expression by suddenly bursting out laughing.
"Yes," she repeated, in tones of the bitterest, steadiest
contempt. "A baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the
descendant of a great family. Yes, indeed! A great family--
especially by the mother's side."
There was no time to reflect on the words that had just escaped
her, there was only time to feel that they were well worth
thinking over the moment I left the house.
"I am not here to dispute with you about family questions," I
said. "I know nothing of Sir Percival's mother----"
"And you know as little of Sir Percival himself," she interposed
sharply.
"I advise you not to be too sure of that," I rejoined. "I know
some things about him, and I suspect many more."
"What do you suspect?"
"I'll tell you what I DON'T suspect. I DON'T suspect him of being
Anne's father."
She started to her feet, and came close up to me with a look of
fury.
"How dare you talk to me about Anne's father! How dare you say who
was her father, or who wasn't!" she broke out, her face quivering,
her voice trembling with passion.
"The secret between you and Sir Percival is not THAT secret," I
persisted. "The mystery which darkens Sir Percival's life was not
born with your daughter's birth, and has not died with your
daughter's death."
She drew back a step. "Go!" she said, and pointed sternly to the
door.
"There was no thought of the child in your heart or in his,' I
went on, determined to press her back to her last defences.
"There was no bond of guilty love between you and him when you
held those stolen meetings, when your husband found you whispering
together under the vestry of the church."
Her pointing hand instantly dropped to her side, and the deep
flush of anger faded from her face while I spoke. I saw the
change pass over her--I saw that hard, firm, fearless, selfpossessed
woman quail under a terror which her utmost resolution
was not strong enough to resist when I said those five last words,
"the vestry of the church."
For a minute or more we stood looking at each other in silence. I
spoke first.
"Do you still refuse to trust me?" I asked.
She could not call the colour that had left it back to her face,
but she had steadied her voice, she had recovered the defiant
self-possession of her manner when she answered me.
"I do refuse," she said.
"Do you still tell me to go?"
"Yes. Go--and never come back."
I walked to the door, waited a moment before I opened it, and
turned round to look at her again.
"I may have news to bring you of Sir Percival which you don't
expect," I said, "and in that case I shall come back."
"There is no news of Sir Percival that I don't expect, except----"
She stopped, her pale face darkened, and she stole back with a
quiet, stealthy, cat-like step to her chair.
"Except the news of his death," she said, sitting down again, with
the mockery of a smile just hovering on her cruel lips, and the
furtive light of hatred lurking deep in her steady eyes.
As I opened the door of the room to go out, she looked round at me
quickly. The cruel smile slowly widened her lips--she eyed me,
with a strange stealthy interest, from head to foot--an
unutterable expectation showed itself wickedly all over her face.
Was she speculating, in the secrecy of her own heart, on my youth
and strength, on the force of my sense of injury and the limits of
my self-control, and was she considering the lengths to which they
might carry me, if Sir Percival and I ever chanced to meet? The
bare doubt that it might be so drove me from her presence, and
silenced even the common forms of farewell on my lips. Without a
word more, on my side or on hers, I left the room.
As I opened the outer door, I saw the same clergyman who had
already passed the house once, about to pass it again, on his way
back through the square. I waited on the door-step to let him go
by, and looked round, as I did so, at the parlour window.
Mrs. Catherick had heard his footsteps approaching, in the silence
of that lonely place, and she was on her feet at the window again,
waiting for him. Not all the strength of all the terrible
passions I had roused in that woman's heart, could loosen her
desperate hold on the one fragment of social consideration which
years of resolute effort had just dragged within her grasp. There
she was again, not a minute after I had left her, placed purposely
in a position which made it a matter of common courtesy on the
part of the clergyman to bow to her for a second time. He raised
his hat once more. I saw the hard ghastly face behind the window
soften, and light up with gratified pride--I saw the head with the
grim black cap bend ceremoniously in return. The clergyman had
bowed to her, and in my presence, twice in one day!
IX
I Left the house, feeling that Mrs. Catherick had helped me a step
forward, in spite of herself. Before I had reached the turning
which led out of the square, my attention was suddenly aroused by
the sound of a closing door behind me.
I looked round, and saw an undersized man in black on the doorstep
of a house, which, as well as I could judge, stood next to
Mrs. Catherick's place of abode--next to it, on the side nearest
to me. The man did not hesitate a moment about the direction he
should take. He advanced rapidly towards the turning at which I
had stopped. I recognised him as the lawyer's clerk, who had
preceded me in my visit to Blackwater Park, and who had tried to
pick a quarrel with me, when I asked him if I could see the house.
I waited where I was, to ascertain whether his object was to come
to close quarters and speak on this occasion. To my surprise he
passed on rapidly, without saying a word, without even looking up
in my face as he went by. This was such a complete inversion of
the course of proceeding which I had every reason to expect on his
part, that my curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and
I determined on my side to keep him cautiously in view, and to
discover what the business might be in which he was now employed.
Without caring whether he saw me or not, I walked after him. He
never looked back, and he led me straight through the streets to
the railway station.
The train was on the point of starting, and two or three
passengers who were late were clustering round the small opening
through which the tickets were issued. I joined them, and
distinctly heard the lawyer's clerk demand a ticket for the
Blackwater station I satisfied myself that he had actually left by
the train before I came away.
There was only one interpretation that I could place on what I had
just seen and heard. I had unquestionably observed the man
leaving a house which closely adjoined Mrs. Catherick's residence.
He had been probably placed there, by Sir Percival's directions,
as a lodger, in anticipation of my inquiries leading me, sooner or
later, to communicate with Mrs. Catherick. He had doubtless seen
me go in and come out, and he had hurried away by the first train
to make his report at Blackwater Park, to which place Sir Percival
would naturally betake himself (knowing what he evidently knew of
my movements), in order to be ready on the spot, if I returned to
Hampshire. Before many days were over, there seemed every
likelihood now that he and I might meet.
Whatever result events might be destined to produce, I resolved to
pursue my own course, straight to the end in view, without
stopping or turning aside for Sir Percival or for any one. The
great responsibility which weighed on me heavily in London--the
responsibility of so guiding my slightest actions as to prevent
them from leading accidentally to the discovery of Laura's place
of refuge--was removed, now that I was in Hampshire. I could go
and come as I pleased at Welmingham, and if I chanced to fail in
observing any necessary precautions, the immediate results, at
least, would affect no one but myself.
When I left the station the winter evening was beginning to close
in. There was little hope of continuing my inquiries after dark
to any useful purpose in a neighbourhood that was strange to me.
Accordingly, I made my way to the nearest hotel, and ordered my
dinner and my bed. This done, I wrote to Marian, to tell her that
I was safe and well, and that I had fair prospects of success. I
had directed her, on leaving home, to address the first letter she
wrote to me (the letter I expected to receive the next morning) to
"The Post-Office, Welmingham," and I now begged her to send her
second day's letter to the same address.
I could easily receive it by writing to the postmaster if I
happened to be away from the town when it arrived.
The coffee-room of the hotel, as it grew late in the evening,
became a perfect solitude. I was left to reflect on what I had
accomplished that afternoon as uninterruptedly as if the house had
been my own. Before I retired to rest I had attentively thought
over my extraordinary interview with Mrs. Catherick from beginning
to end, and had verified at my leisure the conclusions which I had
hastily drawn in the earlier part of the day.
The vestry of Old Welmingham church was the starting-point from
which my mind slowly worked its way back through all that I had
heard Mrs. Catherick say, and through all I had seen Mrs.
Catherick do.
At the time when the neighbourhood of the vestry was first
referred to in my presence by Mrs. Clements, I had thought it the
strangest and most unaccountable of all places for Sir Percival to
select for a clandestine meeting with the clerk's wife.
Influenced by this impression, and by no other, I had mentioned
"the vestry of the church" before Mrs. Catherick on pure
speculation--it represented one of the minor peculiarities of the
story which occurred to me while I was speaking. I was prepared
for her answering me confusedly or angrily, but the blank terror
that seized her when I said the words took me completely by
surprise. I had long before associated Sir Percival's Secret with
the concealment of a serious crime which Mrs. Catherick knew of,
but I had gone no further than this. Now the woman's paroxysm of
terror associated the crime, either directly or indirectly, with
the vestry, and convinced me that she had been more than the mere
witness of it--she was also the accomplice, beyond a doubt.
What had been the nature of the crime? Surely there was a
contemptible side to it, as well as a dangerous side, or Mrs.
Catherick would not have repeated my own words, referring to Sir
Percival's rank and power, with such marked disdain as she had
certainly displayed. It was a contemptible crime then and a
dangerous crime, and she had shared in it, and it was associated
with the vestry of the church.
The next consideration to be disposed of led me a step farther
from this point.
Mrs. Catherick's undisguised contempt for Sir Percival plainly
extended to his mother as well. She had referred with the
bitterest sarcasm to the great family he had descended from--"
especially by the mother's side." What did this mean?
There appeared to be only two explanations of it. Either his
mother's birth had been low, or his mother's reputation was
damaged by some hidden flaw with which Mrs. Catherick and Sir
Percival were both privately acquainted? I could only put the
first explanation to the test by looking at the register of her
marriage, and so ascertaining her maiden name and her parentage as
a preliminary to further inquiries.
On the other hand, if the second case supposed were the true one,
what had been the flaw in her reputation? Remembering the account
which Marian had given me of Sir Percival's father and mother, and
of the suspiciously unsocial secluded life they had both led, I
now asked myself whether it might not be possible that his mother
had never been married at all. Here again the register might, by
offering written evidence of the marriage, prove to me, at any
rate, that this doubt had no foundation in truth. But where was
the register to be found? At this point I took up the conclusions
which I had previously formed, and the same mental process which
had discovered the locality of the concealed crime, now lodged the
register also in the vestry of Old Welmingham church.
These were the results of my interview with Mrs. Catherick--these
were the various considerations, all steadily converging to one
point, which decided the course of my proceedings on the next day.
The morning was cloudy and lowering, but no rain fell. I left my
bag at the hotel to wait there till I called for it, and, after
inquiring the way, set forth on foot for Old Welmingham church.
It was a walk of rather more than two miles, the ground rising
slowly all the way.
On the highest point stood the church--an ancient, weather-beaten
building, with heavy buttresses at its sides, and a clumsy square
tower in front. The vestry at the back was built out from the
church, and seemed to be of the same age. Round the building at
intervals appeared the remains of the village which Mrs. Clements
had described to me as her husband's place of abode in former
years, and which the principal inhabitants had long since deserted
for the new town. Some of the empty houses had been dismantled to
their outer walls, some had been left to decay with time, and some
were still inhabited by persons evidently of the poorest class.
It was a dreary scene, and yet, in the worst aspect of its ruin,
not so dreary as the modern town that I had just left. Here there
was the brown, breezy sweep of surrounding fields for the eye to
repose on--here the trees, leafless as they were, still varied the
monotony of the prospect, and helped the mind to look forward to
summer-time and shade.
As I moved away from the back of the church, and passed some of
the dismantled cottages in search of a person who might direct me
to the clerk, I saw two men saunter out after me from behind a
wall. The tallest of the two--a stout muscular man in the dress
of a gamekeeper--was a stranger to me. The other was one of the
men who had followed me in London on the day when I left Mr.
Kyrle's office. I had taken particular notice of him at the time;
and I felt sure that I was not mistaken in identifying the fellow
on this occasion.
Neither he nor his companion attempted to speak to me, and both
kept themselves at a respectful distance, but the motive of their
presence in the neighbourhood of the church was plainly apparent.
It was exactly as I had supposed--Sir Percival was already
prepared for me. My visit to Mrs. Catherick had been reported to
him the evening before, and those two men had been placed on the
look-out near the church in anticipation of my appearance at Old
Welmingham. If I had wanted any further proof that my
investigations had taken the right direction at last, the plan now
adopted for watching me would have supplied it.
I walked on away from the church till I reached one of the
inhabited houses, with a patch of kitchen garden attached to it on
which a labourer was at work. He directed me to the clerk's
abode, a cottage at some little distance off, standing by itself
on the outskirts of the forsaken village. The clerk was indoors,
and was just putting on his greatcoat. He was a cheerful,
familiar, loudly-talkative old man, with a very poor opinion (as I
soon discovered) of the place in which he lived, and a happy sense
of superiority to his neighbours in virtue of the great personal
distinction of having once been in London.
"It's well you came so early, sir," said the old man, when I had
mentioned the object of my visit. "I should have been away in ten
minutes more. Parish business, sir, and a goodish long trot
before it's all done for a man at my age. But, bless you, I'm
strong on my legs still! As long as a man don't give at his legs,
there's a deal of work left in him. Don't you think so yourself,
sir?"
He took his keys down while he was talking from a hook behind the
fireplace, and locked his cottage door behind us.
"Nobody at home to keep house for me," said the clerk, with a
cheerful sense of perfect freedom from all family encumbrances.
"My wife's in the churchyard there, and my children are all
married. A wretched place this, isn't it, sir? But the parish is
a large one--every man couldn't get through the business as I do.
It's learning does it, and I've had my share, and a little more.
I can talk the Queen's English (God bless the Queen!), and that's
more than most of the people about here can do. You're from
London, I suppose, sir? I've been in London a matter of five-andtwenty
year ago. What's the news there now, if you please?"
Chattering on in this way, he led me back to the vestry. I looked
about to see if the two spies were still in sight. They were not
visible anywhere. After having discovered my application to the
clerk, they had probably concealed themselves where they could
watch my next proceedings in perfect freedom.
The vestry door was of stout old oak, studded with strong nails,
and the clerk put his large heavy key into the lock with the air
of a man who knew that he had a difficulty to encounter, and who
was not quite certain of creditably conquering it.
"I'm obliged to bring you this way, sir," he said, "because the
door from the vestry to the church is bolted on the vestry side.
We might have got in through the church otherwise. This is a
perverse lock, if ever there was one yet. It's big enough for a
prison-door--it's been hampered over and over again, and it ought
to be changed for a new one. I've mentioned that to the
churchwarden fifty times over at least--he's always saying, 'I'll
see about it'--and he never does see. Ah, It's a sort of lost
corner, this place. Not like London--is it, sir? Bless you, we
are all asleep here! We don't march with the times."
After some twisting and turning of the key, the heavy lock
yielded, and he opened the door.
The vestry was larger than I should have supposed it to be,
judging from the outside only. It was a dim, mouldy, melancholy
old room, with a low, raftered ceiling. Round two sides of it,
the sides nearest to the interior of the church, ran heavy wooden
presses, worm-eaten and gaping with age. Hooked to the inner
corner of one of these presses hung several surplices, all bulging
out at their lower ends in an irreverent-looking bundle of limp
drapery. Below the surplices, on the floor, stood three packingcases,
with the lids half off, half on, and the straw profusely
bursting out of their cracks and crevices in every direction.
Behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty papers, some large
and rolled up like architects' plans, some loosely strung together
on files like bills or letters. The room had once been lighted by
a small side window, but this had been bricked up, and a lantern
skylight was now substituted for it. The atmosphere of the place
was heavy and mouldy, being rendered additionally oppressive by
the closing of the door which led into the church. This door also
was composed of solid oak, and was bolted at the top and bottom on
the vestry side.
"We might be tidier, mightn't we, sir?" said the cheerful clerk;
"but when you're in a lost corner of a place like this, what are
you to do? Why, look here now, just look at these packing-cases.
There they've been, for a year or more, ready to go down to
London--there they are, littering the place, and there they'll
stop as long as the nails hold them together. I'll tell you what,
sir, as I said before, this is not London. We are all asleep
here. Bless you, WE don't march with the times!"
"What is there in the packing-cases?" I asked.
"Bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and panels from the
chancel, and images from the organ-loft," said the clerk.
"Portraits of the twelve apostles in wood, and not a whole nose
among 'em. All broken, and worm-eaten, and crumbling to dust at
the edges. As brittle as crockery, sir, and as old as the church,
if not older."
"And why were they going to London? To be repaired?"
"That's it, sir, to be repaired, and where they were past repair,
to be copied in sound wood. But, bless you, the money fell short,
and there they are, waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to
subscribe. It was all done a year ago, sir. Six gentlemen dined
together about it, at the hotel in the new town. They made
speeches, and passed resolutions, and put their names down, and
printed off thousands of prospectuses. Beautiful prospectuses,
sir, all flourished over with Gothic devices in red ink, saying it
was a disgrace not to restore the church and repair the famous
carvings, and so on. There are the prospectuses that couldn't be
distributed, and the architect's plans and estimates, and the
whole correspondence which set everybody at loggerheads and ended
in a dispute, all down together in that corner, behind the
packing-cases. The money dribbled in a little at first--but what
CAN you expect out of London? There was just enough, you know, to
pack the broken carvings, and get the estimates, and pay the
printer's bill, and after that there wasn't a halfpenny left.
There the things are, as I said before. We have nowhere else to
put them--nobody in the new town cares about accommodating us--
we're in a lost corner--and this is an untidy vestry--and who's to
help it?--that's what I want to know."
My anxiety to examine the register did not dispose me to offer
much encouragement to the old man's talkativeness. I agreed with
him that nobody could help the untidiness of the vestry, and then
suggested that we should proceed to our business without more
delay.
"Ay, ay, the marriage-register, to be sure," said the clerk,
taking a little bunch of keys from his pocket. "How far do you
want to look back, sir?"
Marian had informed me of Sir Percival's age at the time when we
had spoken together of his marriage engagement with Laura. She
had then described him as being forty-five years old. Calculating
back from this, and making due allowance for the year that had
passed since I had gained my information, I found that he must
have been born in eighteen hundred and four, and that I might
safely start on my search through the register from that date.
"I want to begin with the year eighteen hundred and four," I said.
"Which way after that, sir?" asked the clerk. "Forwards to our
time or backwards away from us?"
"Backwards from eighteen hundred and four."
He opened the door of one of the presses--the press from the side
of which the surplices were hanging--and produced a large volume
bound in greasy brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of
the place in which the register was kept. The door of the press
was warped and cracked with age, and the lock was of the smallest
and commonest kind. I could have forced it easily with the
walking-stick I carried in my hand.
"Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?"
I inquired. "Surely a book of such importance as this ought to be
protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?"
"Well, now, that's curious!" said the clerk, shutting up the book
again, just after he had opened it, and smacking his hand
cheerfully on the cover. "Those were the very words my old master
was always saying years and years ago, when I was a lad. 'Why
isn't the register' (meaning this register here, under my hand)--
'why isn't it kept in an iron safe?' If I've heard him say that
once, I've heard him say it a hundred times. He was the solicitor
in those days, sir, who had the appointment of vestry-clerk to
this church. A fine hearty old gentleman, and the most particular
man breathing. As long as he lived he kept a copy of this book in
his office at Knowlesbury, and had it posted up regular, from time
to time, to correspond with the fresh entries here. You would
hardly think it, but he had his own appointed days, once or twice
in every quarter, for riding over to this church on his old white
pony, to check the copy, by the register, with his own eyes and
hands. 'How do I know?' (he used to say) 'how do I know that the
register in this vestry may not be stolen or destroyed? Why isn't
it kept in an iron safe? Why can't I make other people as careful
as I am myself? Some of these days there will be an accident
happen, and when the register's lost, then the parish will find
out the value of my copy.' He used to take his pinch of snuff
after that, and look about him as bold as a lord. Ah! the like of
him for doing business isn't easy to find now. You may go to
London and not match him, even THERE. Which year did you say,
sir? Eighteen hundred and what?"
"Eighteen hundred and four," I replied, mentally resolving to give
the old man no more opportunities of talking, until my examination
of the register was over.
The clerk put on his spectacles, and turned over the leaves of the
register, carefully wetting his finger and thumb at every third
page. "There it is, sir," said he, with another cheerful smack on
the open volume. "There's the year you want."
As I was ignorant of the month in which Sir Percival was born, I
began my backward search with the early part of the year. The
register-book was of the old-fashioned kind, the entries being all
made on blank pages in manuscript, and the divisions which
separated them being indicated by ink lines drawn across the page
at the close of each entry.
I reached the beginning of the year eighteen hundred and four
without encountering the marriage, and then travelled back through
December eighteen hundred and three--through November and October--
through----
No! not through September also. Under the heading of that month
in the year I found the marriage.
I looked carefully at the entry. It was at the bottom of a page,
and was for want of room compressed into a smaller space than that
occupied by the marriages above. The marriage immediately before
it was impressed on my attention by the circumstance of the
bridegroom's Christian name being the same as my own. The entry
immediately following it (on the top of the next page) was
noticeable in another way from the large space it occupied, the
record in this case registering the marriages of two brothers at
the same time. The register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde
was in no respect remarkable except for the narrowness of the
space into which it was compressed at the bottom of the page. The
information about his wife was the usual information given in such
cases. She was described as "Cecilia Jane Elster, of Park-View
Cottages, Knowlesbury, only daughter of the late Patrick Elster,
Esq., formerly of Bath."
I noted down these particulars in my pocket-book, feeling as I did
so both doubtful and disheartened about my next proceedings. The
Secret which I had believed until this moment to be within my
grasp seemed now farther from my reach than ever.
What suggestions of any mystery unexplained had arisen out of my
visit to the vestry? I saw no suggestions anywhere. What progress
had I made towards discovering the suspected stain on the
reputation of Sir Percival's mother? The one fact I had
ascertained vindicated her reputation. Fresh doubts, fresh
difficulties, fresh delays began to open before me in interminable
prospect. What was I to do next? The one immediate resource left
to me appeared to be this. I might institute inquiries about
"Miss Elster of Knowlesbury," on the chance of advancing towards
the main object of my investigation, by first discovering the
secret of Mrs. Catherick's contempt for Sir Percival's mother.
"Have you found what you wanted, sir?" said the clerk, as I closed
the register-book.
"Yes," I replied, "but I have some inquiries still to make. I
suppose the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen
hundred and three is no longer alive?"
"No, no, sir, he was dead three or four years before I came here,
and that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this
place, sir," persisted my talkative old friend, "through the clerk
before me leaving it. They say he was driven out of house and
home by his wife--and she's living still down in the new town
there. I don't know the rights of the story myself--all I know is
I got the place. Mr. Wansborough got it for me--the son of my old
master that I was tell you of. He's a free pleasant gentleman as
ever lived--rides to the hounds, keeps his pointers and all that.
He's vestry-clerk here now as his father was before him."
"Did you not tell me your former master lived at Knowlesbury?" I
asked, calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman
of the old school with which my talkative friend had wearied me
before he opened the register-book.
"Yes, to be sure, sir," replied the clerk. "Old Mr. Wansborough
lived at Knowlesbury, and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too."
"You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before
him. I am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is."
"Don't you indeed, sir?--and you come from London too! Every
parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk.
The parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I've got a deal
more learning than most of them--though I don't boast of it). The
vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get, and
if there's any business to be done for the vestry, why there they
are to do it. It's just the same in London. Every parish church
there has got its vestry-clerk--and you may take my word for it
he's sure to be a lawyer."
"Then young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer, I suppose?"
"Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High Street, Knowlesbury--the
old offices that his father had before him. The number of times
I've swept those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come
trotting in to business on his white pony, looking right and left
all down the street and nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a
popular character!--he'd have done in London!"
"How far is it to Knowlesbury from this place?"
"A long stretch, sir," said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea
of distances, and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting
from place to place, which is peculiar to all country people.
"Nigh on five mile, I can tell you!"
It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of time for
a walk to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was
no person probably in the town who was fitter to assist my
inquiries about the character and position of Sir Percival's
mother before her marriage than the local solicitor. Resolving to
go at once to Knowlesbury on foot, I led the way out of the
vestry.
"Thank you kindly, sir," said the clerk, as I slipped my little
present into his hand. "Are you really going to walk all the way
to Knowlesbury and back? Well! you're strong on your legs, too--
and what a blessing that is, isn't it? There's the road, you can't
miss it. I wish I was going your way--it's pleasant to meet with
gentlemen from London in a lost corner like this. One hears the
news. Wish you good-morning, sir, and thank you kindly once
more."
We parted. As I left the church behind me I looked back, and
there were the two men again on the road below, with a third in
their company, that third person being the short man in black whom
I had traced to the railway the evening before.
The three stood talking together for a little while, then
separated. The man in black went away by himself towards
Welmingham--the other two remained together, evidently waiting to
follow me as soon as I walked on.
I proceeded on my way without letting the fellows see that I took
any special notice of them. They caused me no conscious
irritation of feeling at that moment--on the contrary, they rather
revived my sinking hopes. In the surprise of discovering the
evidence of the marriage, I had forgotten the inference I had
drawn on first perceiving the men in the neighbourhood of the
vestry. Their reappearance reminded me that Sir Percival had
anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church as the next result
of my interview with Mrs. Catherick--otherwise he would never have
placed his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and fairly as
appearances looked in the vestry, there was something wrong
beneath them--there was something in the register-book, for aught
I knew, that I had not discovered yet.
X
Once out of sight of the church, I pressed forward briskly on my
way to Knowlesbury.
The road was, for the most part, straight and level. Whenever I
looked back over it I saw the two spies steadily following me.
For the greater part of the way they kept at a safe distance
behind. But once or twice they quickened their pace, as if with
the purpose of overtaking me, then stopped, consulted together,
and fell back again to their former position. They had some
special object evidently in view, and they seemed to be hesitating
or differing about the best means of accomplishing it. I could
not guess exactly what their design might be, but I felt serious
doubts of reaching Knowlesbury without some mischance happening to
me on the way. These doubts were realised.
I had just entered on a lonely part of the road, with a sharp turn
at some distance ahead, and had just concluded (calculating by
time) that I must be getting near to the town, when I suddenly
heard the steps of the men close behind me.
Before I could look round, one of them (the man by whom I had been
followed in London) passed rapidly on my left side and hustled me
with his shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in
which he and his companion had dogged my steps all the way from
Old Welmingham than I was myself aware of, and I unfortunately
pushed the fellow away smartly with my open hand. He instantly
shouted for help. His companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper's
clothes, sprang to my right side, and the next moment the two
scoundrels held me pinioned between them in the middle of the
road.
The conviction that a trap had been laid for me, and the vexation
of knowing that I had fallen into it, fortunately restrained me
from making my position still worse by an unavailing struggle with
two men, one of whom would, in all probability, have been more
than a match for me single-handed. I repressed the first natural
movement by which I had attempted to shake them off, and looked
about to see if there was any person near to whom I could appeal.
A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have
witnessed all that had passed. I called to him to follow us to
the town. He shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked
away in the direction of a cottage which stood back from the highroad.
At the same time the men who held me between them declared
their intention of charging me with an assault. I was cool enough
and wise enough now to make no opposition. "Drop your hold of my
arms," I said, "and I will go with you to the town." The man in
the gamekeeper's dress roughly refused. But the shorter man was
sharp enough to look to consequences, and not to let his companion
commit himself by unnecessary violence. He made a sign to the
other, and I walked on between them with my arms free.
We reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us,
were the suburbs of Knowlesbury. One of the local policemen was
walking along the path by the roadside. The men at once appealed
to him. He replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the
town-hall, and recommended that we should appear before him
immediately.
We went on to the town-hall. The clerk made out a formal summons,
and the charge was preferred against me, with the customary
exaggeration and the customary perversion of the truth on such
occasions. The magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour
enjoyment in the exercise of his own power) inquired if any one on
or near the road had witnessed the assault, and, greatly to my
surprise, the complainant admitted the presence of the labourer in
the field. I was enlightened, however, as to the object of the
admission by the magistrate's next words. He remanded me at once
for the production of the witness, expressing, at the same time,
his willingness to take bail for my reappearance if I could
produce one responsible surety to offer it. If I had been known
in the town he would have liberated me on my own recognisances,
but as I was a total stranger it was necessary that I should find
responsible bail.
The whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me. It had
been so managed as to make a remand necessary in a town where I
was a perfect stranger, and where I could not hope to get my
liberty on bail. The remand merely extended over three days,
until the next sitting of the magistrate. But in that time, while
I was in confinement, Sir Percival might use any means he pleased
to embarrass my future proceedings--perhaps to screen himself from
detection altogether--without the slightest fear of any hindrance
on my part. At the end of the three days the charge would, no
doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of the witness would be
perfectly useless.
My indignation, I may almost say, my despair, at this mischievous
check to all further progress--so base and trifling in itself, and
yet so disheartening and so serious in its probable results--quite
unfitted me at first to reflect on the best means of extricating
myself from the dilemma in which I now stood. I had the folly to
call for writing materials, and to think of privately
communicating my real position to the magistrate. The
hopelessness and the imprudence of this proceeding failed to
strike me before I had actually written the opening lines of the
letter. It was not till I had pushed the paper away--not till, I
am ashamed to say, I had almost allowed the vexation of my
helpless position to conquer me--that a course of action suddenly
occurred to my mind, which Sir Percival had probably not
anticipated, and which might set me free again in a few hours. I
determined to communicate the situation in which I was placed to
Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.
I had visited this gentleman's house, it may be remembered, at the
time of my first inquiries in the Blackwater Park neighbourhood,
and I had presented to him a letter of introduction from Miss
Halcombe, in which she recommended me to his friendly attention in
the strongest terms. I now wrote, referring to this letter, and
to what I had previously told Mr. Dawson of the delicate and
dangerous nature of my inquiries. I had not revealed to him the
truth about Laura, having merely described my errand as being of
the utmost importance to private family interests with which Miss
Halcombe was concerned. Using the same caution still, I now
accounted for my presence at Knowlesbury in the same manner, and I
put it to the doctor to say whether the trust reposed in me by a
lady whom he well knew, and the hospitality I had myself received
in his house, justified me or not in asking him to come to my
assistance in a place where I was quite friendless.
I obtained permission to hire a messenger to drive away at once
with my letter in a conveyance which might be used to bring the
doctor back immediately. Oak Lodge was on the Knowlesbury side of
Blackwater. The man declared he could drive there in forty
minutes, and could bring Mr. Dawson back in forty more. I
directed him to follow the doctor wherever he might happen to be,
if he was not at home, and then sat down to wait for the result
with all the patience and all the hope that I could summon to help
me.
It was not quite half-past one when the messenger departed.
Before half-past three he returned, and brought the doctor with
him. Mr. Dawson's kindness, and the delicacy with which he
treated his prompt assistance quite as a matter of course, almost
overpowered me. The bail required was offered, and accepted
immediately. Before four o'clock, on that afternoon, I was
shaking hands warmly with the good old doctor--a free man again--
in the streets of Knowlesbury.
Mr. Dawson hospitably invited me to go back with him to Oak Lodge,
and take up my quarters there for the night. I could only reply
that my time was not my own, and I could only ask him to let me
pay my visit in a few days, when I might repeat my thanks, and
offer to him all the explanations which I felt to be only his due,
but which I was not then in a position to make. We parted with
friendly assurances on both sides, and I turned my steps at once
to Mr. Wansborough's office in the High Street.
Time was now of the last importance.
The news of my being free on bail would reach Sir Percival, to an
absolute certainty, before night. If the next few hours did not
put me in a position to justify his worst fears, and to hold him
helpless at my mercy, I might lose every inch of the ground I had
gained, never to recover it again. The unscrupulous nature of the
man, the local influence he possessed, the desperate peril of
exposure with which my blindfold inquiries threatened him--all
warned me to press on to positive discovery, without the useless
waste of a single minute. I had found time to think while I was
waiting for Mr. Dawson's arrival, and I had well employed it.
Certain portions of the conversation of the talkative old clerk,
which had wearied me at the time, now recurred to my memory with a
new significance, and a suspicion crossed my mind darkly which had
not occurred to me while I was in the vestry. On my way to
Knowlesbury, I had only proposed to apply to Mr. Wansborough for
information on the subject of Sir Percival's mother. My object
now was to examine the duplicate register of Old Welmingham
Church.
Mr. Wansborough was in his office when I inquired for him.
He was a jovial, red-faced, easy-looking man--more like a country
squire than a lawyer--and he seemed to be both surprised and
amused by my application. He had heard of his father's copy of
the register, but had not even seen it himself. It had never been
inquired after, and it was no doubt in the strong room among other
papers that had not been disturbed since his father's death. It
was a pity (Mr. Wansborough said) that the old gentleman was not
alive to hear his precious copy asked for at last. He would have
ridden his favourite hobby harder than ever now. How had I come
to hear of the copy? was it through anybody in the town?
I parried the question as well as I could. It was impossible at
this stage of the investigation to be too cautious, and it was
just as well not to let Mr. Wansborough know prematurely that I
had already examined the original register. I described myself,
therefore, as pursuing a family inquiry, to the object of which
every possible saving of time was of great importance. I was
anxious to send certain particulars to London by that day's post,
and one look at the duplicate register (paying, of course, the
necessary fees) might supply what I required, and save me a
further journey to Old Welmingham. I added that, in the event of
my subsequently requiring a copy of the original register, I
should make application to Mr. Wansborough's office to furnish me
with the document.
After this explanation no objection was made to producing the
copy. A clerk was sent to the strong room, and after some delay
returned with the volume. It was of exactly the same size as the
volume in the vestry, the only difference being that the copy was
more smartly bound. I took it with me to an unoccupied desk. My
hands were trembling--my head was burning hot--I felt the
necessity of concealing my agitation as well as I could from the
persons about me in the room, before I ventured on opening the
book.
On the blank page at the beginning, to which I first turned, were
traced some lines in faded ink. They contained these words--
"Copy of the Marriage Register of Welmingham Parish Church.
Executed under my orders, and afterwards compared, entry by entry,
with the original, by myself. (Signed) Robert Wansborough,
vestry-clerk." Below this note there was a line added, in another
handwriting, as follows: "Extending from the first of January,
1800, to the thirtieth of June, 1815."
I turned to the month of September, eighteen hundred and three. I
found the marriage of the man whose Christian name was the same as
my own. I found the double register of the marriages of the two
brothers. And between these entries, at the bottom of the page?
Nothing! Not a vestige of the entry which recorded the marriage of
Sir Felix Glyde and Cecilia Jane Elster in the register of the
church!
My heart gave a great bound, and throbbed as if it would stifle
me. I looked again--I was afraid to believe the evidence of my
own eyes. No! not a doubt. The marriage was not there. The
entries on the copy occupied exact]y the same places on the page
as the entries in the original. The last entry on one page
recorded the marriage of the man with my Christian name. Below it
there was a blank space--a space evidently left because it was too
narrow to contain the entry of the marriages of the two brothers,
which in the copy, as in the original, occupied the top of the
next page. That space told the whole story! There it must have
remained in the church register from eighteen hundred and three
(when the marriages had been solemnised and the copy had been
made) to eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when Sir Percival
appeared at Old Welmingham. Here, at Knowlesbury, was the chance
of committing the forgery shown to me in the copy, and there, at
Old Welmingham) was the forgery committed in the register of the
church.
My head turned giddy--I held by the desk to keep myself from
falling. Of all the suspicions which had struck me in relation to
that desperate man, not one had been near the truth.
The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no
more claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater Park than the
poorest labourer who worked on the estate, had never once occurred
to my mind. At one time I had thought he might be Anne
Catherick's father--at another time I had thought he might have
been Anne Catherick's husband--the offence of which he was really
guilty had been, from first to last, beyond the widest reach of my
imagination.
The paltry means by which the fraud had been effected, the
magnitude and daring of the crime that it represented, the horror
of the consequences involved in its discovery, overwhelmed me.
Who could wonder now at the brute-restlessness of the wretch's
life--at his desperate alternations between abject duplicity and
reckless violence--at the madness of guilty distrust which had
made him imprison Anne Catherick in the Asylum, and had given him
over to the vile conspiracy against his wife, on the bare
suspicion that the one and the other knew his terrible secret? The
disclosure of that secret might, in past years, have hanged him--
might now transport him for life. The disclosure of that secret,
even if the sufferers by his deception spared him the penalties of
the law, would deprive him at one blow of the name, the rank, the
estate, the whole social existence that he had usurped. This was
the Secret, and it was mine! A word from me, and house, lands,
baronetcy, were gone from him for ever--a word from me, and he was
driven out into the world, a nameless, penniless, friendless
outcast! The man's whole future hung on my lips--and he knew it by
this time as certainly as I did!
That last thought steadied me. Interests far more precious than
my own depended on the caution which must now guide my slightest
actions. There was no possible treachery which Sir Percival might
not attempt against me. In the danger and desperation of his
position he would be staggered by no risks, he would recoil at no
crime--he would literally hesitate at nothing to save himself.
I considered for a minute. My first necessity was to secure
positive evidence in writing of the discovery that I had just
made, and in the event of any personal misadventure happening to
me, to place that evidence beyond Sir Percival's reach. The copy
of the register was sure to be safe in Mr. Wansborough's strong
room. But the position of the original in the vestry was, as I
had seen with my own eyes, anything but secure.
In this emergency I resolved to return to the church, to apply
again to the clerk, and to take the necessary extract from the
register before I slept that night. I was not then aware that a
legally-certified copy was necessary, and that no document merely
drawn out by myself could claim the proper importance as a proof.
I was not aware of this, and my determination to keep my present
proceedings a secret prevented me from asking any questions which
might have procured the necessary information. My one anxiety was
the anxiety to get back to Old Welmingham. I made the best
excuses I could for the discomposure in my face and manner which
Mr. Wansborough had already noticed, laid the necessary fee on his
table, arranged that I should write to him in a day or two, and
left the office, with my head in a whirl and my blood throbbing
through my veins at fever heat.
It was just getting dark. The idea occurred to me that I might be
followed again and attacked on the high-road.
My walking-stick was a light one, of little or no use for purposes
of defence. I stopped before leaving Knowlesbury and bought a
stout country cudgel, short, and heavy at the head. With this
homely weapon, if any one man tried to stop me I was a match for
him. If more than one attacked me I could trust to my heels. In
my school-days I had been a noted runner, and I had not wanted for
practice since in the later time of my experience in Central
America.
I started from the town at a brisk pace, and kept the middle of
the road.
A small misty rain was falling, and it was impossible for the
first half of the way to make sure whether I was followed or not.
But at the last half of my journey, when I supposed myself to be
about two miles from the church, I saw a man run by me in the
rain, and then heard the gate of a field by the roadside shut to
sharply. I kept straight on, with my cudgel ready in my hand, my
ears on the alert, and my eyes straining to see through the mist
and the darkness. Before I had advanced a hundred yards there was
a rustling in the hedge on my right, and three men sprang out into
the road.
I drew aside on the instant to the footpath. The two foremost men
were carried beyond me before they could check themselves. The
third was as quick as lightning. He stopped, half turned, and
struck at me with his stick. The blow was aimed at hazard, and
was not a severe one. It fell on my left shoulder. I returned it
heavily on his head. He staggered back and jostled his two
companions just as they were both rushing at me. This
circumstance gave me a moment's start. I slipped by them, and
took to the middle of the road again at the top of my speed.
The two unhurt men pursued me. They were both good runners--the
road was smooth and level, and for the first five minutes or more
I was conscious that I did not gain on them. It was perilous work
to run for long in the darkness. I could barely see the dim black
line of the hedges on either side, and any chance obstacle in the
road would have thrown me down to a certainty. Ere long I felt
the ground changing--it descended from the level at a turn, and
then rose again beyond. Downhill the men rather gained on me, but
uphill I began to distance them. The rapid, regular thump of
their feet grew fainter on my ear, and I calculated by the sound
that I was far enough in advance to take to the fields with a good
chance of their passing me in the darkness. Diverging to the
footpath, I made for the first break that I could guess at, rather
than see, in the hedge. It proved to be a closed gate. I vaulted
over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it steadily with
my back to the road. I heard the men pass the gate, still
running, then in a minute more heard one of them call to the other
to come back. It was no matter what they did now, I was out of
their sight and out of their hearing. I kept straight across the
field, and when I had reached the farther extremity of it, waited
there for a minute to recover my breath.
It was impossible to venture back to the road, but I was
determined nevertheless to get to Old Welmingham that evening.
Neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me. I only knew that I
had kept the wind and rain at my back on leaving Knowlesbury, and
if I now kept them at my back still, I might at least be certain
of not advancing altogether in the wrong direction.
Proceeding on this plan, I crossed the country--meeting with no
worse obstacles than hedges, ditches, and thickets, which every
now and then obliged me to alter my course for a little while--
until I found myself on a hillside, with the ground sloping away
steeply before me. I descended to the bottom of the hollow,
squeezed my way through a hedge, and got out into a lane. Having
turned to the right on leaving the road, I now turned to the left,
on the chance of regaining the line from which I had wandered.
After following the muddy windings of the lane for ten minutes or
more, I saw a cottage with a light in one of the windows. The
garden gate was open to the lane, and I went in at once to inquire
my way.
Before I could knock at the door it was suddenly opened, and a man
came running out with a lighted lantern in his hand. He stopped
and held it up at the sight of me. We both started as we saw each
other. My wanderings had led me round the outskirts of the
village, and had brought me out at the lower end of it. I was
back at Old Welmingham, and the man with the lantern was no other
than my acquaintance of the morning, the parish clerk.
His manner appeared to have altered strangely in the interval
since I had last seen him. He looked suspicious and confused--his
ruddy cheeks were deeply flushed--and his first words, when he
spoke, were quite unintelligible to me.
"Where are the keys?" he asked. "Have you taken them?"
"What keys?" I repeated. "I have this moment come from
Knowlesbury. What keys do you mean?"
"The keys of the vestry. Lord save us and help us! what shall I
do? The keys are gone! Do you hear?" cried the old man, shaking
the lantern at me in his agitation, "the keys are gone!"
"How? When? Who can have taken them?"
"I don't know," said the clerk, staring about him wildly in the
darkness. "I've only just got back. I told you I had a long
day's work this morning--I locked the door and shut the window
down--it's open now, the window's open. Look! somebody has got in
there and taken the keys."
He turned to the casement window to show me that it was wide open.
The door of the lantern came loose from its fastening as he swayed
it round, and the wind blew the candle out instantly.
"Get another light," I said, "and let us both go to the vestry
together. Quick! quick!"
I hurried him into the house. The treachery that I had every
reason to expect, the treachery that might deprive me of every
advantage I had gained, was at that moment, perhaps, in process of
accomplishment. My impatience to reach the church was so great
that I could not remain inactive in the cottage while the clerk
lit the lantern again. I walked out, down the garden path, into
the lane.
Before I had advanced ten paces a man approached me from the
direction leading to the church. He spoke respectfully as we met.
I could not see his face, but judging by his voice only, he was a
perfect stranger to me.
"I beg your pardon, Sir Percival----" he began.
I stopped him before he could say more.
"The darkness misleads you," I said. "I am not Sir Percival."
The man drew back directly.
"I thought it was my master," he muttered, in a confused, doubtful
way.
"You expected to meet your master here?"
"I was told to wait in the lane."
With that answer he retraced his steps. I looked back at the
cottage and saw the clerk coming out, with the lantern lighted
once more. I took the old man's arm to help him on the more
quickly. We hastened along the lane, and passed the person who
had accosted me. As well as I could see by the light of the
lantern, he was a servant out of livery.
"Who's that?" whispered the clerk. "Does he know anything about
the keys?"
"We won't wait to ask him," I replied. "We will go on to the
vestry first."
The church was not visible, even by daytime, until the end of the
lane was reached. As we mounted the rising ground which led to
the building from that point, one of the village children--a boy--
came close up to us, attracted by the light we carried, and
recognised the clerk.
"I say, measter," said the boy, pulling officiously at the clerk's
coat, "there be summun up yander in the church. I heerd un lock
the door on hisself--I heerd un strike a loight wi' a match."
The clerk trembled and leaned against me heavily.
"Come! come!" I said encouragingly. "We are not too late. We
will catch the man, whoever he is. Keep the lantern, and follow
me as fast as you can."
I mounted the hill rapidly. The dark mass of the church-tower was
the first object I discerned dimly against the night sky. As I
turned aside to get round to the vestry, I heard heavy footsteps
close to me. The servant had ascended to the church after us. "I
don't mean any harm," he said, when I turned round on him, "I'm
only looking for my master." The tones in which he spoke betrayed
unmistakable fear. I took no notice of him and went on.
The instant I turned the corner and came in view of the vestry, I
saw the lantern-skylight on the roof brilliantly lit up from
within. It shone out with dazzling brightness against the murky,
starless sky.
I hurried through the churchyard to the door.
As I got near there was a strange smell stealing out on the damp
night air. I heard a snapping noise inside--I saw the light above
grow brighter and brighter--a pane of the glass cracked--I ran to
the door and put my hand on it. The vestry was on fire!
Before I could move, before I could draw my breath after that
discovery, I was horror-struck by a heavy thump against the door
from the inside. I heard the key worked violently in the lock--I
heard a man's voice behind the door, raised to a dreadful
shrillness, screaming for help.
The servant who had followed me staggered back shuddering, and
dropped to his knees. "Oh, my God!" he said, "it's Sir Percival!"
As the words passed his lips the clerk joined us, and at the same
moment there was another and a last grating turn of the key in the
lock.
"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" said the old man. "He is
doomed and dead. He has hampered the lock."
I rushed to the door. The one absorbing purpose that had filled
all my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions, for weeks and
weeks past, vanished in an instant from my mind. All remembrance
of the heartless injury the man's crimes had inflicted--of the
love, the innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste--
of the oath I had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the
terrible reckoning that he deserved--passed from my memory like a
dream. I remembered nothing but the horror of his situation. I
felt nothing but the natural human impulse to save him from a
frightful death.
"Try the other door!" I shouted. "Try the door into the church!
The lock's hampered. You're a dead man if you waste another
moment on it."
There had been no renewed cry for help when the key was turned for
the last time. There was no sound now of any kind, to give token
that he was still alive. I heard nothing but the quickening
crackle of the flames, and the sharp snap of the glass in the
skylight above.
I looked round at my two companions. The servant had risen to his
feet--he had taken the lantern, and was holding it up vacantly at
the door. Terror seemed to have struck him with downright idiocy--
he waited at my heels, he followed me about when I moved like a
dog. The clerk sat crouched up on one of the tombstones,
shivering, and moaning to himself. The one moment in which I
looked at them was enough to show me that they were both helpless.
Hardly knowing what I did, acting desperately on the first impulse
that occurred to me, I seized the servant and pushed him against
the vestry wall. "Stoop!" I said, "and hold by the stones. I am
going to climb over you to the roof--I am going to break the
skylight, and give him some air!"
The man trembled from head to foot, but he held firm. I got on
his back, with my cudgel in my mouth, seized the parapet with both
hands, and was instantly on the roof. In the frantic hurry and
agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I might let out
the flame instead of letting in the air. I struck at the
skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow.
The fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. If the wind
had not chanced, in the position I occupied, to set it away from
me, my exertions might have ended then and there. I crouched on
the roof as the smoke poured out above me with the flame. The
gleams and flashes of the light showed me the servant's face
staring up vacantly under the wall--the clerk risen to his feet on
the tombstone, wringing his hands in despair--and the scanty
population of the village, haggard men and terrified women,
clustered beyond in the churchyard--all appearing and
disappearing, in the red of the dreadful glare, in the black of
the choking smoke. And the man beneath my feet!--the man,
suffocating, burning, dying so near us all, so utterly beyond our
reach!
The thought half maddened me. I lowered myself from the roof, by
my hands, and dropped to the ground.
"The key of the church!" I shouted to the clerk. "We must try it
that way--we may save him yet if we can burst open the inner
door."
"No, no, no!" cried the old man. "No hope! the church key and the
vestry key are on the same ring--both inside there! Oh, sir, he's
past saving--he's dust and ashes by this time!"
"They'll see the fire from the town," said a voice from among the
men behind me. "There's a ingine in the town. They'll save the
church."
I called to that man--HE had his wits about him--I called to him
to come and speak to me. It would be a quarter of an hour at
least before the town engine could reach us. The horror of
remaining inactive all that time was more than I could face. In
defiance of my own reason I persuaded myself that the doomed and
lost wretch in the vestry might still be lying senseless on the
floor, might not be dead yet. If we broke open the door, might we
save him? I knew the strength of the heavy lock--I knew the
thickness of the nailed oak--I knew the hopelessness of assailing
the one and the other by ordinary means. But surely there were
beams still left in the dismantled cottages near the church? What
if we got one, and used it as a battering-ram against the door?
The thought leaped through me like the fire leaping out of the
shattered skylight. I appealed to the man who had spoken first of
the fire-engine in the town. "Have you got your pick-axes handy?"
Yes, they had. "And a hatchet, and a saw, and a bit of rope?"
Yes! yes! yes! I ran down among the villagers, with the lantern in
my hand. "Five shillings apiece to every man who helps me!" They
started into life at the words. That ravenous second hunger of
poverty--the hunger for money--roused them into tumult and
activity in a moment. "Two of you for more lanterns, if you have
them! Two of you for the pickaxes and the tools! The rest after me
to find the beam!" They cheered--with shrill starveling voices
they cheered. The women and the children fled back on either
side. We rushed in a body down the churchyard path to the first
empty cottage. Not a man was left behind but the clerk--the poor
old clerk standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing over
the church. The servant was still at my heels--his white,
helpless, panic-stricken face was close over my shoulder as we
pushed into the cottage. There were rafters from the torn-down
floor above, lying loose on the ground--but they were too light.
A beam ran across over our heads, but not out of reach of our arms
and our pickaxes--a beam fast at each end in the ruined wall, with
ceiling and flooring all ripped away, and a great gap in the roof
above, open to the sky. We attacked the beam at both ends at
once. God! how it held--how the brick and mortar of the wall
resisted us! We struck, and tugged, and tore. The beam gave at
one end--it came down with a lump of brickwork after it. There
was a scream from the women all huddled in the doorway to look at
us--a shout from the men--two of them down but not hurt. Another
tug all together--and the beam was loose at both ends. We raised
it, and gave the word to clear the doorway. Now for the work! now
for the rush at the door! There is the fire streaming into the
sky, streaming brighter than ever to light us! Steady along the
churchyard path--steady with the beam for a rush at the door.
One, two, three--and off. Out rings the cheering again,
irrepressibly. We have shaken it already, the hinges must give if
the lock won't. Another run with the beam! One, two, three--and
off. It's loose! the stealthy fire darts at us through the
crevice all round it. Another, and a last rush! The door falls in
with a crash. A great hush of awe, a stillness of breathless
expectation, possesses every living soul of us. We look for the
body. The scorching heat on our faces drives us back: we see
nothing--above, below, all through the room, we see nothing but a
sheet of living fire.
"Where is he?" whispered the servant, staring vacantly at the
flames.
"He's dust and ashes," said the clerk. "And the books are dust
and ashes--and oh, sirs! the church will be dust and ashes soon."
Those were the only two who spoke. When they were silent again,
nothing stirred in the stillness but the bubble and the crackle of
the flames.
Hark!
A harsh rattling sound in the distance--then the hollow beat of
horses' hoofs at full gallop--then the low roar, the allpredominant
tumult of hundreds of human voices clamouring and
shouting together. The engine at last.
The people about me all turned from the fire, and ran eagerly to
the brow of the hill. The old clerk tried to go with the rest,
but his strength was exhausted. I saw him holding by one of the
tombstones. "Save the church!" he cried out faintly, as if the
firemen could hear him already.
Save the church!
The only man who never moved was the servant. There he stood, his
eyes still fastened on the flames in a changeless, vacant stare.
I spoke to him, I shook him by the arm. He was past rousing. He
only whispered once more, "Where is he?"
In ten minutes the engine was in position, the well at the back of
the church was feeding it, and the hose was carried to the doorway
of the vestry. If help had been wanted from me I could not have
afforded it now. My energy of will was gone--my strength was
exhausted--the turmoil of my thoughts was fearfully and suddenly
stilled, now I knew that he was dead.
I stood useless and helpless--looking, looking, looking into the
burning room.
I saw the fire slowly conquered. The brightness of the glare
faded--the steam rose in white clouds, and the smouldering heaps
of embers showed red and black through it on the floor. There was
a pause--then an advance all together of the firemen and the
police which blocked up the doorway--then a consultation in low
voices--and then two men were detached from the rest, and sent out
of the churchyard through the crowd. The crowd drew back on
either side in dead silence to let them pass.
After a while a great shudder ran through the people, and the
living lane widened slowly. The men came back along it with a
door from one of the empty houses. They carried it to the vestry
and went in. The police closed again round the doorway, and men
stole out from among the crowd by twos and threes and stood behind
them to be the first to see. Others waited near to be the first
to hear. Women and children were among these last.
The tidings from the vestry began to flow out among the crowd--
they dropped slowly from mouth to mouth till they reached the
place where I was standing. I heard the questions and answers
repeated again and again in low, eager tones all round me.
"Have they found him?" "Yes."--" Where?" "Against the door, on his
face."--"Which door?" "The door that goes into the church. His
head was against it--he was down on his face."--"Is his face
burnt?" "No." "Yes, it is." "No, scorched, not burnt--he lay on
his face, I tell you."--"Who was he? A lord, they say." "No, not a
lord. SIR Something; Sir means Knight." "And Baronight, too."
"No." "Yes, it does."--"What did he want in there?" "No good, you
may depend on it."--"Did he do it on purpose?"--" Burn himself on
purpose!"--"I don't mean himself, I mean the vestry."--"Is he
dreadful to look at?" "Dreadful!"--"Not about the face, though?"
"No, no, not so much about the face. Don't anybody know him?"
"There's a man says he does."--"Who?" "A servant, they say. But
he's struck stupid-like, and the police don't believe him."--
"Don't anybody else know who it is?" "Hush----!"
The loud, clear voice of a man in authority silenced the low hum
of talking all round me in an instant.
"Where is the gentleman who tried to save him?" said the voice.
"Here, sir--here he is!" Dozens of eager faces pressed about me--
dozens of eager arms parted the crowd. The man in authority came
up to me with a lantern in his hand.
"This way, sir, if you please," he said quietly.
I was unable to speak to him, I was unable to resist him when he
took my arm. I tried to say that I had never seen the dead man in
his lifetime--that there was no hope of identifying him by means
of a stranger like me. But the words failed on my lips. I was
faint, and silent, and helpless.
"Do you know him, sir?"
I was standing inside a circle of men. Three of them opposite to
me were holding lanterns low down to the ground. Their eyes, and
the eyes of all the rest, were fixed silently and expectantly on
my face. I knew what was at my feet--I knew why they were holding
the lanterns so low to the ground.
"Can you identify him, sir?"
My eyes dropped slowly. At first I saw nothing under them but a
coarse canvas cloth. The dripping of the rain on it was audible
in the dreadful silence. I looked up, along the cloth, and there
at the end, stark and grim and black, in the yellow light--there
was his dead face.
So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So the Visitation of
God ruled it that he and I should meet.
XI
The inquest was hurried for certain local reasons which weighed
with the coroner and the town authorities. It was held on the
afternoon of the next day. I was necessarily one among the
witnesses summoned to assist the objects of the investigation.
My first proceeding in the morning was to go to the post-office,
and inquire for the letter which I expected from Marian. No
change of circumstances, however extraordinary, could affect the
one great anxiety which weighed on my mind while I was away from
London. The morning's letter, which was the only assurance I
could receive that no misfortune had happened in my absence, was
still the absorbing interest with which my day began.
To my relief, the letter from Marian was at the office waiting for
me.
Nothing had happened--they were both as safe and as well as when I
had left them. Laura sent her love, and begged that I would let
her know of my return a day beforehand. Her sister added, in
explanation of this message, that she had saved "nearly a
sovereign" out of her own private purse, and that she had claimed
the privilege of ordering the dinner and giving the dinner which
was to celebrate the day of my return. I read these little
domestic confidences in the bright morning with the terrible
recollection of what had happened the evening before vivid in my
memory. The necessity of sparing Laura any sudden knowledge of
the truth was the first consideration which the letter suggested
to me. I wrote at once to Marian to tell her what I have told in
these pages--presenting the tidings as gradually and gently as I
could, and warning her not to let any such thing as a newspaper
fall in Laura's way while I was absent. In the case of any other
woman, less courageous and less reliable, I might have hesitated
before I ventured on unreservedly disclosing the whole truth. But
I owed it to Marian to be faithful to my past experience of her,
and to trust her as I trusted herself.
My letter was necessarily a long one. It occupied me until the
time came for proceeding to the inquest.
The objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily beset by
peculiar complications and difficulties. Besides the
investigation into the manner in which the deceased had met his
death, there were serious questions to be settled relating to the
cause of the fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the
presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time when the flames
broke out. Even the identification of the dead man had not yet
been accomplished. The helpless condition of the servant had made
the police distrustful of his asserted recognition of his master.
They had sent to Knowlesbury over-night to secure the attendance
of witnesses who were well acquainted with the personal appearance
of Sir Percival Glyde, and they had communicated, the first thing
in the morning, with Blackwater Park. These precautions enabled
the coroner and jury to settle the question of identity, and to
confirm the correctness of the servant's assertion; the evidence
offered by competent witnesses, and by the discovery of certain
facts, being subsequently strengthened by an examination of the
dead man's watch. The crest and the name of Sir Percival Glyde
were engraved inside it.
The next inquiries related to the fire.
The servant and I, and the boy who had heard the light struck in
the vestry, were the first witnesses called. The boy gave his
evidence clearly enough, but the servant's mind had not yet
recovered the shock inflicted on it--he was plainly incapable of
assisting the objects of the inquiry, and he was desired to stand
down.
To my own relief, my examination was not a long one. I had not
known the deceased--I had never seen him--I was not aware of his
presence at Old Welmingham--and I had not been in the vestry at
the finding of the body. All I could prove was that I had stopped
at the clerk's cottage to ask my way--that I had heard from him of
the loss of the keys--that I had accompanied him to the church to
render what help I could--that I had seen the fire--that I had
heard some person unknown, inside the vestry, trying vainly to
unlock the door--and that I had done what I could, from motives of
humanity, to save the man. Other witnesses, who had been
acquainted with the deceased, were asked if they could explain the
mystery of his presumed abstraction of the keys, and his presence
in the burning room. But the coroner seemed to take it for
granted, naturally enough, that I, as a total stranger in the
neighbourhood, and a total stranger to Sir Percival Glyde, could
not be in a position to offer any evidence on these two points.
The course that I was myself bound to take, when my formal
examination had closed, seemed clear to me. I did not feel called
on to volunteer any statement of my own private convictions, in
the first place, because my doing so could serve no practical
purpose, now that all proof in support of any surmises of mine was
burnt with the burnt register; in the second place, because I
could not have intelligibly stated my opinion--my unsupported
opinion--without disclosing the whole story of the conspiracy, and
producing beyond a doubt the same unsatisfactory effect an the
mind of the coroner and the jury, which I had already produced on
the mind of Mr. Kyrle.
In these pages, however, and after the time that has now elapsed,
no such cautions and restraints as are here described need fetter
the free expression of my opinion. I will state briefly, before
my pen occupies itself with other events, how my own convictions
lead me to account for the abstraction of the keys, for the
outbreak of the fire, and for the death of the man.
The news of my being free on bail drove Sir Percival, as I
believe, to his last resources. The attempted attack on the road
was one of those resources, and the suppression of all practical
proof of his crime, by destroying the page of the register on
which the forgery had been committed, was the other, and the
surest of the two. If I could produce no extract from the
original book to compare with the certified copy at Knowlesbury, I
could produce no positive evidence, and could threaten him with no
fatal exposure. All that was necessary to the attainment of his
end was, that he should get into the vestry unperceived, that he
should tear out the page in the register, and that he should leave
the vestry again as privately as he had entered it.
On this supposition, it is easy to understand why he waited until
nightfall before he made the attempt, and why he took advantage of
the clerk's absence to possess himself of the keys. Necessity
would oblige him to strike a light to find his way to the right
register, and common caution would suggest his locking the door on
the inside in case of intrusion on the part of any inquisitive
stranger, or on my part, if I happened to be in the neighbourhood
at the time.
I cannot believe that it was any part of his intention to make the
destruction of the register appear to be the result of accident,
by purposely setting the vestry on fire. The bare chance that
prompt assistance might arrive, and that the books might, by the
remotest possibility, be saved, would have been enough, on a
moment's consideration, to dismiss any idea of this sort from his
mind. Remembering the quantity of combustible objects in the
vestry--the straw, the papers, the packing-cases, the dry wood,
the old worm-eaten presses--all the probabilities, in my
estimation, point to the fire as the result of an accident with
his matches or his light.
His first impulse, under these circumstances, was doubtless to try
to extinguish the flames, and failing in that, his second impulse
(ignorant as he was of the state of the lock) had been to attempt
to escape by the door which had given him entrance. When I had
called to him, the flames must have reached across the door
leading into the church, on either side of which the presses
extended, and close to which the other combustible objects were
placed. In all probability, the smoke and flame (confined as they
were to the room) had been too much for him when he tried to
escape by the inner door. He must have dropped in his deathswoon,
he must have sunk in the place where he was found, just as
I got on the roof to break the skylight window. Even if we had
been able, afterwards, to get into the church, and to burst open
the door from that side, the delay must have been fatal. He would
have been past saving, long past saving, by that time. We should
only have given the flames free ingress into the church--the
church, which was now preserved, but which, in that event, would
have shared the fate of the vestry. There is no doubt in my mind,
there can be no doubt in the mind of any one, that he was a dead
man before ever we got to the empty cottage, and worked with might
and main to tear down the beam.
This is the nearest approach that any theory of mine can make
towards accounting for a result which was visible matter of fact.
As I have described them, so events passed to us out-side. As I
have related it, so his body was found.
The inquest was adjourned over one day--no explanation that the
eye of the law could recognise having been discovered thus far to
account for the mysterious circumstances of the case.
It was arranged that more witnesses should be summoned, and that
the London solicitor of the deceased should be invited to attend.
A medical man was also charged with the duty of reporting on the
mental condition of the servant, which appeared at present to
debar him from giving any evidence of the least importance. He
could only declare, in a dazed way, that he had been ordered, on
the night of the fire, to wait in the lane, and that he knew
nothing else, except that the deceased was certainly his master.
My own impression was, that he had been first used (without any
guilty knowledge on his own part) to ascertain the fact of the
clerk's absence from home on the previous day, and that he had
been afterwards ordered to wait near the church (but out of sight
of the vestry) to assist his master, in the event of my escaping
the attack on the road, and of a collision occurring between Sir
Percival and myself. It is necessary to add, that the man's own
testimony was never obtained to confirm this view. The medical
report of him declared that what little mental faculty he
possessed was seriously shaken; nothing satisfactory was extracted
from him at the adjourned inquest, and for aught I know to the
contrary, he may never have recovered to this day.
I returned to the hotel at Welmingham so jaded in body and mind,
so weakened and depressed by all that I had gone through, as to be
quite unfit to endure the local gossip about the inquest, and to
answer the trivial questions that the talkers addressed to me in
the coffee-room. I withdrew from my scanty dinner to my cheap
garret-chamber to secure myself a little quiet, and to think
undisturbed of Laura and Marian.
If I had been a richer man I would have gone back to London, and
would have comforted myself with a sight of the two dear faces
again that night. But I was bound to appear, if called on, at the
adjourned inquest, and doubly bound to answer my bail before the
magistrate at Knowlesbury. Our slender resources had suffered
already, and the doubtful future--more doubtful than ever now--
made me dread decreasing our means unnecessarily by allowing
myself an indulgence even at the small cost of a double railway
journey in the carriages of the second class.
The next day--the day immediately following the inquest--was left
at my own disposal. I began the morning by again applying at the
post-office for my regular report from Marian. It was waiting for
me as before, and it was written throughout in good spirits. I
read the letter thankfully, and then set forth with my mind at
ease for the day to go to Old Welmingham, and to view the scene of
the fire by the morning light.
What changes met me when I got there!
Through all the ways of our unintelligible world the trivial and
the terrible walk hand in hand together. The irony of
circumstances holds no mortal catastrophe in respect. When I
reached the church, the trampled condition of the burial-ground
was the only serious trace left to tell of the fire and the death.
A rough hoarding of boards had been knocked up before the vestry
doorway. Rude caricatures were scrawled on it already, and the
village children were fighting and shouting for the possession of
the best peep-hole to see through. On the spot where I had heard
the cry for help from the burning room, on the spot where the
panic-stricken servant had dropped on his knees, a fussy flock of
poultry was now scrambling for the first choice of worms after the
rain; and on the ground at my feet, where the door and its
dreadful burden had been laid, a workman's dinner was waiting for
him, tied up in a yellow basin, and his faithful cur in charge was
yelping at me for coming near the food. The old clerk, looking
idly at the slow commencement of the repairs, had only one
interest that he could talk about now--the interest of escaping
all blame for his own part on account of the accident that had
happened. One of the village women, whose white wild face I
remembered the picture of terror when we pulled down the beam, was
giggling with another woman, the picture of inanity, over an old
washing-tub. There is nothing serious in mortality! Solomon in
all his glory was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible
lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his
palace.
As I left the place, my thoughts turned, not for the first time,
to the complete overthrow that all present hope of establishing
Laura's identity had now suffered through Sir Percival's death.
He was gone--and with him the chance was gone which had been the
one object of all my labours and all my hopes.
Could I look at my failure from no truer point of view than this?
Suppose he had lived, would that change of circumstance have
altered the result? Could I have made my discovery a marketable
commodity, even for Laura's sake, after I had found out that
robbery of the rights of others was the essence of Sir Percival's
crime? Could I have offered the price of MY silence for HIS
confession of the conspiracy, when the effect of that silence must
have been to keep the right heir from the estates, and the right
owner from the name? Impossible! If Sir Percival had lived, the
discovery, from which (In my ignorance of the true nature of the
Secret) I had hoped so much, could not have been mine to suppress
or to make public, as I thought best, for the vindication of
Laura's rights. In common honesty and common honour I must have
gone at once to the stranger whose birthright had been usurped--I
must have renounced the victory at the moment when it was mine by
placing my discovery unreservedly in that stranger's hands--and I
must have faced afresh all the difficulties which stood between me
and the one object of my life, exactly as I was resolved in my
heart of hearts to face them now!
I returned to Welmingham with my mind composed, feeling more sure
of myself and my resolution than I had felt yet.
On my way to the hotel I passed the end of the square in which
Mrs. Catherick lived. Should I go back to the house, and make
another attempt to see her. No. That news of Sir Percival's
death, which was the last news she ever expected to hear, must
have reached her hours since. All the proceedings at the inquest
had been reported in the local paper that morning--there was
nothing I could tell her which she did not know already. My
interest in making her speak had slackened. I remembered the
furtive hatred in her face when she said, "There is no news of Sir
Percival that I don't expect--except the news of his death." I
remembered the stealthy interest in her eyes when they settled on
me at parting, after she had spoken those words. Some instinct,
deep in my heart, which I felt to be a true one, made the prospect
of again entering her presence repulsive to me--I turned away from
the square, and went straight back to the hotel.
Some hours later, while I was resting in the coffee-room, a letter
was placed in my hands by the waiter. It was addressed to me by
name, and I found on inquiry that it had been left at the bar by a
woman just as it was near dusk, and just before the gas was
lighted. She had said nothing, and she had gone away again before
there was time to speak to her, or even to notice who she was.
I opened the letter. It was neither dated nor signed, and the
handwriting was palpably disguised. Before I had read the first
sentence, however, I knew who my correspondent was--Mrs.
Catherick.
The letter ran as follows--I copy it exactly, word for word:--
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MRS. CATHERICK
SIR,--You have not come back, as you said you would. No matter--I
know the news, and I write to tell you so. Did you see anything
particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering, in my own
mind, whether the day of his downfall had come at last, and
whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. You were,
and you HAVE worked it.
You were weak enough, as I have heard, to try and save his life.
If you had succeeded, I should have looked upon you as my enemy.
Now you have failed, I hold you as my friend. Your inquiries
frightened him into the vestry by night--your inquiries, without
your privity and against your will, have served the hatred and
wreaked the vengeance of three-and-twenty vears. Thank you, sir,
in spite of yourself.
I owe something to the man who has done this. How can I pay my
debt? If I was a young woman still I might say, "Come, put your
arm round my waist, and kiss me, if you like." I should have been
fond enough of you even to go that length, and you would have
accepted my invitation--you would, sir, twenty years ago! But I am
an old woman now. Well! I can satisfy your curiosity, and pay my
debt in that way. You HAD a great curiosity to know certain
private affairs of mine when you came to see me--private affairs
which all your sharpness could not look into without my help--
private affairs which you have not discovered, even now. You
SHALL discover them--your curiosity shall be satisfied. I will
take any trouble to please you, my estimable young friend!
You were a little boy, I suppose, in the year twenty-seven? I was
a handsome young woman at that time, living at Old Welmingham. I
had a contemptible fool for a husband. I had also the honour of
being acquainted (never mind how) with a certain gentleman (never
mind whom). I shall not call him by his name. Why should I? It
was not his own. He never had a name: you know that, by this
time, as well as I do.
It will be more to the purpose to tell you how he worked himself
into my good graces. I was born with the tastes of a lady, and he
gratified them--in other words, he admired me, and he made me
presents. No woman can resist admiration and presents--especially
presents, provided they happen to be just the thing she wants. He
was sharp enough to know that--most men are. Naturally he wanted
something in return--all men do. And what do you think was the
something? The merest trifle. Nothing but the key of the vestry,
and the key of the press inside it, when my husband's back was
turned. Of course he lied when I asked him why he wished me to
get him the keys in that private way. He might have saved himself
the trouble--I didn't believe him. But I liked my presents, and I
wanted more. So I got him the keys, without my husband's
knowledge, and I watched him, without his own knowledge. Once,
twice, four times I watched him, and the fourth time I found him
out.
I was never over-scrupulous where other people's affairs were
concerned, and I was not over-scrupulous about his adding one to
the marriages in the register on his own account.
Of course I knew it was wrong, but it did no harm to me, which was
one good reason for not making a fuss about it. And I had not got
a gold watch and chain, which was another, still better--and he
had promised me one from London only the day before, which was a
third, best of all. If I had known what the law considered the
crime to be, and how the law punished it, I should have taken
proper care of myself, and have exposed him then and there. But I
knew nothing, and I longed for the gold watch. All the conditions
I insisted on were that he should take me into his confidence and
tell me everything. I was as curious about his affairs then as
you are about mine now. He granted my conditions--why, you will
see presently.
This, put in short, is what I heard from him. He did not
willingly tell me all that I tell you here. I drew some of it
from him by persuasion and some of it by questions. I was
determined to have all the truth, and I believe I got it.
He knew no more than any one else of what the state of things
really was between his father and mother till after his mother's
death. Then his father confessed it, and promised to do what he
could for his son. He died having done nothing--not having even
made a will. The son (who can blame him?) wisely provided for
himself. He came to England at once, and took possession of the
property. There was no one to suspect him, and no one to say him
nay. His father and mother had always lived as man and wife--none
of the few people who were acquainted with them ever supposed them
to be anything else. The right person to claim the property (if
the truth had been known) was a distant relation, who had no idea
of ever getting it, and who was away at sea when his father died.
He had no difficulty so far--he took possession, as a matter of
course. But he could not borrow money on the property as a matter
of course. There were two things wanted of him before he could do
this. One was a certificate of his birth, and the other was a
certificate of his parents' marriage. The certificate of his
birth was easily got--he was born abroad, and the certificate was
there in due form. The other matter was a difficulty, and that
difficulty brought him to Old Welmingham.
But for one consideration he might have gone to Knowlesbury
instead.
His mother had been living there just before she met with his
father--living under her maiden name, the truth being that she was
really a married woman, married in Ireland, where her husband had
ill-used her, and had afterwards gone off with some other person.
I give you this fact on good authority--Sir Felix mentioned it to
his son as the reason why he had not married. You may wonder why
the son, knowing that his parents had met each other at
Knowlesbury, did not play his first tricks with the register of
that church, where it might have been fairly presumed his father
and mother were married. The reason was that the clergyman who
did duty at Knowlesbury church, in the year eighteen hundred and
three (when, according to his birth certificate, his father and
mother OUGHT to have been married), was alive still when he took
possession of the property in the New Year of eighteen hundred and
twenty-seven. This awkward circumstance forced him to extend his
inquiries to our neighbourhood. There no such danger existed, the
former clergyman at our church having been dead for some years.
Old Welmingham suited his purpose as well as Knowlesbury. His
father had removed his mother from Knowlesbury, and had lived with
her at a cottage on the river, a little distance from our village.
People who had known his solitary ways when he was single did not
wonder at his solitary ways when he was supposed to be married.
If he had not been a hideous creature to look at, his retired life
with the lady might have raised suspicions; but, as things were,
his hiding his ugliness and his deformity in the strictest privacy
surprised nobody. He lived in our neighbourhood till he came in
possession of the Park. After three or four and twenty years had
passed, who was to say (the clergyman being dead) that his
marriage had not been as private as the rest of his life, and that
it had not taken place at Old Welmingham church?
So, as I told you, the son found our neighbourhood the surest
place he could choose to set things right secretly in his own
interests. It may surprise you to hear that what he really did to
the marriage register was done on the spur of the moment--done on
second thoughts.
His first notion was only to tear the leaf out (in the right year
and month), to destroy it privately, to go back to London, and to
tell the lawyers to get him the necessary certificate of his
father's marriage, innocently referring them of course to the date
on the leaf that was gone. Nobody could say his father and mother
had NOT been married after that, and whether, under the
circumstances, they would stretch a point or not about lending him
the money (he thought they would), he had his answer ready at all
events, if a question was ever raised about his right to the name
and the estate.
But when he came to look privately at the register for himself, he
found at the bottom of one of the pages for the year eighteen
hundred and three a blank space left, seemingly through there
being no room to make a long entry there, which was made instead
at the top of the next page. The sight of this chance altered all
his plans. It was an opportunity he had never hoped for, or
thought of--and he took it--you know how. The blank space, to
have exactly tallied with his birth certificate, ought to have
occurred in the July part of the register. It occurred in the
September part instead. However, in this case, if suspicious
questions were asked, the answer was not hard to find. He had
only to describe himself as a seven months' child.
I was fool enough, when he told me his story, to feel some
interest and some pity for him--which was just what he calculated
on, as you will see. I thought him hardly used. It was not his
fault that his father and mother were not married, and it was not
his father's and mother's fault either. A more scrupulous woman
than I was--a woman who had not set her heart on a gold watch and
chain--would have found some excuses for him. At all events, I
held my tongue, and helped to screen what he was about.
He was some time getting the ink the right colour (mixing it over
and over again in pots and bottles of mine), and some time
afterwards in practising the handwriting. But he succeeded in the
end, and made an honest woman of his mother after she was dead in
her grave! So far, I don't deny that he behaved honourably enough
to myself. He gave me my watch and chain, and spared no expense
in buying them; both were of superior workmanship, and very
expensive. I have got them still--the watch goes beautifully.
You said the other day that Mrs. Clements had told you everything
she knew. In that case there is no need for me to write about the
trumpery scandal by which I was the sufferer--the innocent
sufferer, I positively assert. You must know as well as I do what
the notion was which my husband took into his head when he found
me and my fine-gentleman acquaintance meeting each other privately
and talking secrets together. But what you don't know is how it
ended between that same gentleman and myself. You shall read and
see how he behaved to me.
The first words I said to him, when I saw the turn things had
taken, were, "Do me justice--clear my character of a stain on it
which you know I don't deserve. I don't want you to make a clean
breast of it to my husband--only tell him, on your word of honour
as a gentleman, that he is wrong, and that I am not to blame in
the way he thinks I am. Do me that justice, at least, after all I
have done for you." He flatly refused, in so many words. He told
me plainly that it was his interest to let my husband and all my
neighbours believe the falsehood--because, as long as they did so
they were quite certain never to suspect the truth. I had a
spirit of my own, and I told him they should know the truth from
my lips. His reply was short, and to the point. If I spoke, I
was a lost woman, as certainly as he was a lost man.
Yes! it had come to that. He had deceived me about the risk I ran
in helping him. He had practised on my ignorance, he had tempted
me with his gifts, he had interested me with his story--and the
result of it was that he made me his accomplice. He owned this
coolly, and he ended by telling me, for the first time, what the
frightful punishment really was for his offence, and for any one
who helped him to commit it. In those days the law was not so
tender-hearted as I hear it is now. Murderers were not the only
people liable to be hanged, and women convicts were not treated
like ladies in undeserved distress. I confess he frightened me--
the mean impostor! the cowardly blackguard! Do you understand now
how I hated him? Do you understand why I am taking all this
trouble--thankfully taking it--to gratify the curiosity of the
meritorious young gentleman who hunted him down?
Well, to go on. He was hardly fool enough to drive me to
downright desperation. I was not the sort of woman whom it was
quite safe to hunt into a corner--he knew that, and wisely quieted
me with proposals for the future.
I deserved some reward (he was kind enough to say) for the service
I had done him, and some compensation (he was so obliging as to
add) for what I had suffered. He was quite willing--generous
scoundrel!--to make me a handsome yearly allowance, payable
quarterly, on two conditions. First, I was to hold my tongue--in
my own interests as well as in his. Secondly, I was not to stir
away from Welmingham without first letting him know, and waiting
till I had obtained his permission. In my own neighbourhood, no
virtuous female friends would tempt me into dangerous gossiping at
the tea-table. In my own neighbourhood, he would always know
where to find me. A hard condition, that second one--but I
accepted it.
What else was I to do? I was left helpless, with the prospect of a
coming incumbrance in the shape of a child. What else was I to
do? Cast myself on the mercy of my runaway idiot of a husband who
had raised the scandal against me? I would have died first.
Besides, the allowance WAS a handsome one. I had a better income,
a better house over my head, better carpets on my floors, than
half the women who turned up the whites of their eyes at the sight
of me. The dress of Virtue, in our parts, was cotton print. I
had silk.
So I accepted the conditions he offered me, and made the best of
them, and fought my battle with my respectable neighbours on their
own ground, and won it in course of time--as you saw yourself.
How I kept his Secret (and mine) through all the years that have
passed from that time to this, and whether my late daughter, Anne,
ever really crept into my confidence, and got the keeping of the
Secret too--are questions, I dare say, to which you are curious to
find an answer. Well! my gratitude refuses you nothing. I will
turn to a fresh page and give you the answer immediately. But you
must excuse one thing--you must excuse my beginning, Mr.
Hartright, with an expression of surprise at the interest which
you appear to have felt in my late daughter. It is quite
unaccountable to me. If that interest makes you anxious for any
particulars of her early life, I must refer you to Mrs. Clements,
who knows more of the subject than I do. Pray understand that I
do not profess to have been at all over-fond of my late daughter.
She was a worry to me from first to last, with the additional
disadvantage of being always weak in the head. You like candour,
and I hope this satisfies you.
There is no need to trouble you with many personal particulars
relating to those past times. It will be enough to say that I
observed the terms of the bargain on my side, and that I enjoyed
my comfortable income in return, paid quarterly.
Now and then I got away and changed the scene for a short time,
always asking leave of my lord and master first, and generally
getting it. He was not, as I have already told you, fool enough
to drive me too hard, and he could reasonably rely on my holding
my tongue for my own sake, if not for his. One of my longest
trips away from home was the trip I took to Limmeridge to nurse a
half-sister there, who was dying. She was reported to have saved
money, and I thought it as well (in case any accident happened to
stop my allowance) to look after my own interests in that
direction. As things turned out, however, my pains were all
thrown away, and I got nothing, because nothing was to be had.
I had taken Anne to the north with me, having my whims and
fancies, occasionally, about my child, and getting, at such times,
jealous of Mrs. Clements' influence over her. I never liked Mrs.
Clements. She was a poor, empty-headed, spiritless woman--what
you call a born drudge--and I was now and then not averse to
plaguing her by taking Anne away. Not knowing what else to do
with my girl while I was nursing in Cumberland, I put her to
school at Limmeridge. The lady of the manor, Mrs. Fairlie (a
remarkably plain-looking woman, who had entrapped one of the
handsomest men in England into marrying her), amused me
wonderfully by taking a violent fancy to my girl. The consequence
was, she learnt nothing at school, and was petted and spoilt at
Limmeridge House. Among other whims and fancies which they taught
her there, they put some nonsense into her head about always
wearing white. Hating white and liking colours myself, I
determined to take the nonsense out of her head as soon as we got
home again.
Strange to say, my daughter resolute]y resisted me. When she HAD
got a notion once fixed in her mind she was, like other halfwitted
people, as obstinate as a mule in keeping it. We
quarrelled finely, and Mrs. Clements, not liking to see it, I
suppose, offered to take Anne away to live in London with her. I
should have said Yes, if Mrs. Clements had not sided with my
daughter about her dressing herself in white. But being
determined she should NOT dress herself in white, and disliking
Mrs. Clements more than ever for taking part against me, I said
No, and meant No, and stuck to No. The consequence was, my
daughter remained with me, and the consequence of that, in its
turn, was the first serious quarrel that happened about the
Secret.
The circumstance took place long after the time I have just been
writing of. I had been settled for years in the new town, and was
steadily living down my bad character and slowly gaining ground
among the respectable inhabitants. It helped me forward greatly
towards this object to have my daughter with me. Her harmlessness
and her fancy for dressing in white excited a certain amount of
sympathy. I left off opposing her favourite whim on that account,
because some of the sympathy was sure, in course of time, to fall
to my share. Some of it did fall. I date my getting a choice of
the two best sittings to let in the church from that time, and I
date the clergyman's first bow from my getting the sittings.
Well, being settled in this way, I received a letter one morning
from that highly born gentleman (now deceased) in answer to one of
mine, warning him, according to agreement, of my wishing to leave
the town for a little change of air and scene.
The ruffianly side of him must have been uppermost, I suppose,
when he got my letter, for he wrote back, refusing me in such
abominably insolent language, that I lost all command over myself,
and abused him, in my daughter's presence, as "a low impostor whom
I could ruin for life if I chose to open my lips and let out his
Secret." I said no more about him than that, being brought to my
senses as soon as those words had escaped me by the sight of my
daughter's face looking eagerly and curiously at mine. I
instantly ordered her out of the room until I had composed myself
again.
My sensations were not pleasant, I can tell you, when I came to
reflect on my own folly. Anne had been more than usually crazy
and queer that year, and when I thought of the chance there might
be of her repeating my words in the town, and mentioning HIS name
in connection with them, if inquisitive people got hold of her, I
was finely terrified at the possible consequences. My worst fears
for myself, my worst dread of what he might do, led me no farther
than this. I was quite unprepared for what really did happen only
the next day.
On that next day, without any warning to me to expect him, he came
to the house.
His first words, and the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it
was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his
insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a
mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was
too late. Seeing my daughter in the room with me (I had been
afraid to let her out of my sight after what had happened the day
before) he ordered her away. They neither of them liked each
other, and he vented the ill-temper on HER which he was afraid to
show to ME.
"Leave us," he said, looking at her over his shoulder. She looked
back over HER shoulder and waited as if she didn't care to go.
"Do you hear?" he roared out, "leave the room." "Speak to me
civilly," says she, getting red in the face. "Turn the idiot
out," says he, looking my way. She had always had crazy notions
of her own about her dignity, and that word "idiot " upset her in
a moment. Before I could interfere she stepped up to him in a
fine passion. "Beg my pardon, directly," says she, "or I'll make
it the worse for you. I'll let out your Secret. I can ruin you
for life if I choose to open my lips." My own words!--repeated
exactly from what I had said the day before--repeated, in his
presence, as if they had come from herself. He sat speechless, as
white as the paper I am writing on, while I pushed her out of the
room. When he recovered himself----
No! I am too respectable a woman to mention what he said when he
recovered himself. My pen is the pen of a member of the rector's
congregation, and a subscriber to the "Wednesday Lectures on
Justification by Faith"--how can you expect me to employ it in
writing bad language? Suppose, for yourself, the raging, swearing
frenzy of the lowest ruffian in England, and let us get on
together, as fast as may be, to the way in which it all ended.
It ended, as you probably guess by this time, in his insisting on
securing his own safety by shutting her up.
I tried to set things right. I told him that she had merely
repeated, like a parrot, the words she had heard me say and that
she knew no particulars whatever, because I had mentioned none. I
explained that she had affected, out of crazy spite against him,
to know what she really did NOT know--that she only wanted to
threaten him and aggravate him for speaking to her as he had just
spoken--and that my unlucky words gave her just the chance of
doing mischief of which she was in search. I referred him to
other queer ways of hers, and to his own experience of the
vagaries of half-witted people--it was all to no purpose--he would
not believe me on my oath--he was absolutely certain I had
betrayed the whole Secret. In short, he would hear of nothing but
shutting her up.
Under these circumstances, I did my duty as a mother. "No pauper
Asylum," I said, "I won't have her put in a pauper Asylum. A
Private Establishment, if you please. I have my feelings as a
mother, and my character to preserve in the town, and I will
submit to nothing but a Private Establishment, of the sort which
my genteel neighbours would choose for afflicted relatives of
their own." Those were my words. It is gratifying to me to
reflect that I did my duty. Though never overfond of my late
daughter, I had a proper pride about her. No pauper stain--thanks
to my firmness and resolution--ever rested on MY child.
Having carried my point (which I did the more easily, in
consequence of the facilities offered by private Asylums), I could
not refuse to admit that there were certain advantages gained by
shutting her up. In the first place, she was taken excellent care
of--being treated (as I took care to mention in the town) on the
footing of a lady. In the second place, she was kept away from
Welmingham, where she might have set people suspecting and
inquiring, by repeating my own incautious words.
The only drawback of putting her under restraint was a very slight
one. We merely turned her empty boast about knowing the Secret
into a fixed delusion. Having first spoken in sheer crazy
spitefulness against the man who had offended her, she was cunning
enough to see that she had seriously frightened him, and sharp
enough afterwards to discover that HE was concerned in shutting
her up. The consequence was she flamed out into a perfect frenzy
of passion against him, going to the Asylum, and the first words
she said to the nurses, after they had quieted her, were, that she
was put in confinement for knowing his Secret, and that she meant
to open her lips and ruin him, when the right time came.
She may have said the same thing to you, when you thoughtlessly
assisted her escape. She certainly said it (as I heard last
summer) to the unfortunate woman who married our sweet-tempered,
nameless gentleman lately deceased. If either you, or that
unlucky lady, had questioned my daughter closely, and had insisted
on her explaining what she really meant, you would have found her
lose all her self-importance suddenly, and get vacant, and
restless, and confused--you would have discovered that I am
writing nothing here but the plain truth. She knew that there was
a Secret--she knew who was connected with it--she knew who would
suffer by its being known--and beyond that, whatever airs of
importance she may have given herself, whatever crazy boasting she
may have indulged in with strangers, she never to her dying day
knew more.
Have I satisfied your curiosity? I have taken pains enough to
satisfy it at any rate. There is really nothing else I have to
tell you about myself or my daughter. My worst responsibilities,
so far as she was concerned, were all over when she was secured in
the Asylum. I had a form of letter relating to the circumstances
under which she was shut up, given me to write, in answer to one
Miss Halcombe, who was curious in the matter, and who must have
heard plenty of lies about me from a certain tongue well
accustomed to the telling of the same. And I did what I could
afterwards to trace my runaway daughter, and prevent her from
doing mischief by making inquiries myself in the neighbourhood
where she was falsely reported to have been seen. But these, and
other trifles like them, are of little or no interest to you after
what you have heard already.
So far, I have written in the friendliest possible spirit. But I
cannot close this letter without adding a word here of serious
remonstrance and reproof, addressed to yourself.
In the course of your personal interview with me, you audaciously
referred to my late daughter's parentage on the father's side, as
if that parentage was a matter of doubt. This was highly improper
and very ungentlemanlike on your part! If we see each other again,
remember, if you please, that I will allow no liberties to be
taken with my reputation, and that the moral atmosphere of
Welmingham (to use a favourite expression of my friend the
rector's) must not be tainted by loose conversation of any kind.
If you allow yourself to doubt that my husband was Anne's father,
you personally insult me in the grossest manner. If you have
felt, and if you still continue to feel, an unhallowed curiosity
on this subject, I recommend you, in your own interests, to check
it at once, and for ever. On this side of the grave, Mr.
Hartright, whatever may happen on the other, THAT curiosity will
never be gratified.
Perhaps, after what I have just said, you will see the necessity
of writing me an apology. Do so, and I will willingly receive it.
I will, afterwards, if your wishes point to a second interview
with me, go a step farther, and receive you. My circumstances
only enable me to invite you to tea--not that they are at all
altered for the worse by what has happened. I have always lived,
as I think I told you, well within my income, and I have saved
enough, in the last twenty years, to make me quite comfortable for
the rest of my life. It is not my intention to leave Welmingham.
There are one or two little advantages which I have still to gain
in the town. The clergyman bows to me--as you saw. He is
married, and his wife is not quite so civil. I propose to join
the Dorcas Society, and I mean to make the clergyman's wife bow to
me next.
If you favour me with your company, pray understand that the
conversation must be entirely on general subjects. Any attempted
reference to this letter will be quite useless--I am determined
not to acknowledge having written it. The evidence has been
destroyed in the fire, I know, but I think it desirable to err on
the side of caution, nevertheless.
On this account no names are mentioned here, nor is any signature
attached to these lines: the handwriting is disguised throughout,
and I mean to deliver the letter myself, under circumstances which
will prevent all fear of its being traced to my house. You can
have no possible cause to complain of these precautions, seeing
that they do not affect the information I here communicate, in
consideration of the special indulgence which you have deserved at
my hands. My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered
toast waits for nobody.
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
I
My first impulse, after reading Mrs. Catherick's extraordinary
narrative, was to destroy it. The hardened shameless depravity of
the whole composition, from beginning to end--the atrocious
perversity of mind which persistently associated me with a
calamity for which I was in no sense answerable, and with a death
which I had risked my life in trying to avert--so disgusted me,
that I was on the point of tearing the letter, when a
consideration suggested itself which warned me to wait a little
before I destroyed it.
This consideration was entirely unconnected with Sir Percival.
The information communicated to me, so far as it concerned him,
did little more than confirm the conclusions at which I had
already arrived.
He had committed his offence, as I had supposed him to have
committed it, and the absence of all reference, on Mrs.
Catherick's part, to the duplicate register at Knowlesbury,
strengthened my previous conviction that the existence of the
book, and the risk of detection which it implied, must have been
necessarily unknown to Sir Percival. My interest in the question
of the forgery was now at an end, and my only object in keeping
the letter was to make it of some future service in clearing up
the last mystery that still remained to baffle me--the parentage
of Anne Catherick on the father's side. There were one or two
sentences dropped in her mother's narrative, which it might be
useful to refer to again, when matters of more immediate
importance allowed me leisure to search for the missing evidence.
I did not despair of still finding that evidence, and I had lost
none of my anxiety to discover it, for I had lost none of my
interest in tracing the father of the poor creature who now lay at
rest in Mrs. Fairlie's grave.
Accordingly, I sealed up the letter and put it away carefully in
my pocket-book, to be referred to again when the time came.
The next day was my last in Hampshire. When I had appeared again
before the magistrate at Knowlesbury, and when I had attended at
the adjourned inquest, I should be free to return to London by the
afternoon or the evening train.
My first errand in the morning was, as usual, to the post-office.
The letter from Marian was there, but I thought when it was handed
to me that it felt unusually light. I anxiously opened the
envelope. There was nothing inside but a small strip of paper
folded in two. The few blotted hurriedly-written lines which were
traced on it contained these words:
"Come back as soon as you can. I have been obliged to move. Come
to Gower's Walk, Fulham (number five). I will be on the look-out
for you. Don't be alarmed about us, we are both safe and well.
But come back.--Marian."
The news which those lines contained--news which I instantly
associated with some attempted treachery on the part of Count
Fosco--fairly overwhelmed me. I stood breathless with the paper
crumpled up in my hand. What had happened? What subtle wickedness
had the Count planned and executed in my absence? A night had
passed since Marian's note was written--hours must elapse still
before I could get back to them--some new disaster might have
happened already of which I was ignorant. And here, miles and
miles away from them, here I must remain--held, doubly held, at
the disposal of the law!
I hardly know to what forgetfulness of my obligations anxiety and
alarm might not have tempted me, but for the quieting influence of
my faith in Marian. My absolute reliance on her was the one
earthly consideration which helped me to restrain myself, and gave
me courage to wait. The inquest was the first of the impediments
in the way of my freedom of action. I attended it at the
appointed time, the legal formalities requiring my presence in the
room, but as it turned out, not calling on me to repeat my
evidence. This useless delay was a hard trial, although I did my
best to quiet my impatience by following the course of the
proceedings as closely as I could.
The London solicitor of the deceased (Mr. Merriman) was among the
persons present. But he was quite unable to assist the objects of
the inquiry. He could only say that he was inexpressibly shocked
and astonished, and that he could throw no light whatever on the
mysterious circumstances of the case. At intervals during the
adjourned investigation, he suggested questions which the Coroner
put, but which led to no results. After a patient inquiry, which
lasted nearly three hours, and which exhausted every available
source of information, the jury pronounced the customary verdict
in cases of sudden death by accident. They added to the formal
decision a statement, that there had been no evidence to show how
the keys had been abstracted, how the fire had been caused, or
what the purpose was for which the deceased had entered the
vestry. This act closed the proceedings. The legal
representative of the dead man was left to provide for the
necessities of the interment, and the witnesses were free to
retire.
Resolved not to lose a minute in getting to Knowlesbury, I paid my
bill at the hotel, and hired a fly to take me to the town. A
gentleman who heard me give the order, and who saw that I was
going alone, informed me that he lived in the neighbourhood of
Knowlesbury, and asked if I would have any objection to his
getting home by sharing the fly with me. I accepted his proposal
as a matter of course.
Our conversation during the drive was naturally occupied by the
one absorbing subject of local interest.
My new acquaintance had some knowledge of the late Sir Percival's
solicitor, and he and Mr. Merriman had been discussing the state
of the deceased gentleman's affairs and the succession to the
property. Sir Percival's embarrassments were so well known all
over the county that his solicitor could only make a virtue of
necessity and plainly acknowledge them. He had died without
leaving a will, and he had no personal property to bequeath, even
if he had made one, the whole fortune which he had derived from
his wife having been swallowed up by his creditors. The heir to
the estate (Sir Percival having left no issue) was a son of Sir
Felix Glyde's first cousin, an officer in command of an East
Indiaman. He would find his unexpected inheritance sadly
encumbered, but the property would recover with time, and, if "the
captain" was careful, he might be a rich man yet before he died.
Absorbed as I was in the one idea of getting to London, this
information (which events proved to be perfectly correct) had an
interest of its own to attract my attention. I thought it
justified me in keeping secret my discovery of Sir Percival's
fraud. The heir, whose rights he had usurped, was the heir who
would now have the estate. The income from it, for the last
three-and-twenty years, which should properly have been his, and
which the dead man had squandered to the last farthing, was gone
beyond recall. If I spoke, my speaking would confer advantage on
no one. If I kept the secret, my silence concealed the character
of the man who had cheated Laura into marrying him. For her sake,
I wished to conceal it--for her sake, still, I tell this story
under feigned names.
I parted with my chance companion at Knowlesbury, and went at once
to the town-hall. As I had anticipated, no one was present to
prosecute the case against me--the necessary formalities were
observed, and I was discharged. On leaving the court a letter
from Mr. Dawson was put into my hand. It informed me that he was
absent on professional duty, and it reiterated the offer I had
already received from him of any assistance which I might require
at his hands. I wrote back, warmly acknowledging my obligations
to his kindness, and apologising for not expressing my thanks
personally, in consequence of my immediate recall on pressing
business to town.
Half an hour later I was speeding back to London by the express
train.
II
It was between nine and ten o'clock before I reached Fulham, and
found my way to Gower's Walk.
Both Laura and Marian came to the door to let me in. I think we
had hardly known how close the tie was which bound us three
together, until the evening came which united us again. We met as
if we had been parted for months instead of for a few days only.
Marian's face was sadly worn and anxious. I saw who had known all
the danger and borne all the trouble in my absence the moment I
looked at her. Laura's brighter looks and better spirits told me
how carefully she had been spared all knowledge of the dreadful
death at Welmingham, and of the true reason of our change of
abode.
The stir of the removal seemed to have cheered and interested her.
She only spoke of it as a happy thought of Marian's to surprise me
on my return with a change from the close, noisy street to the
pleasant neighbourhood of trees and fields and the river. She was
full of projects for the future--of the drawings she was to
finish--of the purchasers I had found in the country who were to
buy them--of the shillings and sixpences she had saved, till her
purse was so heavy that she proudly asked me to weigh it in my own
hand. The change for the better which had been wrought in her
during the few days of my absence was a surprise to me for which I
was quite unprepared--and for all the unspeakable happiness of
seeing it, I was indebted to Marian's courage and to Marian's
love.
When Laura had left us, and when we could speak to one another
without restraint, I tried to give some expression to the
gratitude and the admiration which filled my heart. But the
generous creature would not wait to hear me. That sublime selfforgetfulness
of women, which yields so much and asks so little,
turned all her thoughts from herself to me.
"I had only a moment left before post-time," she said, "or I
should have written less abruptly. You look worn and weary,
Walter. I am afraid my letter must have seriously alarmed you?"
"Only at first," I replied. "My mind was quieted, Marian, by my
trust in you. Was I right in attributing this sudden change of
place to some threatened annoyance on the part of Count Fosco?"
"Perfectly right," she said. "I saw him yesterday, and worse than
that, Walter--I spoke to him."
"Spoke to him? Did he know where we lived? Did he come to the
house?"
"He did. To the house--but not upstairs. Laura never saw him--
Laura suspects nothing. I will tell you how it happened: the
danger, I believe and hope, is over now. Yesterday, I was in the
sitting-room, at our old lodgings. Laura was drawing at the
table, and I was walking about and setting things to rights. I
passed the window, and as I passed it, looked out into the street.
There, on the opposite side of the way, I saw the Count, with a
man talking to him----"
"Did he notice you at the window?"
"No--at least, I thought not. I was too violently startled to be
quite sure."
"Who was the other man? A stranger?"
"Not a stranger, Walter. As soon as I could draw my breath again,
I recognised him. He was the owner of the Lunatic Asylum."
"Was the Count pointing out the house to him?"
"No, they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in
the street. I remained at the window looking at them from behind
the curtain. If I had turned round, and if Laura had seen my face
at that moment----Thank God, she was absorbed over her drawing!
They soon parted. The man from the Asylum went one way, and the
Count the other. I began to hope they were in the street by
chance, till I saw the Count come back, stop opposite to us again,
take out his card-case and pencil, write something, and then cross
the road to the shop below us. I ran past Laura before she could
see me, and said I had forgotten something upstairs. As soon as I
was out of the room I went down to the first landing and waited--I
was determined to stop him if he tried to come upstairs. He made
no such attempt. The girl from the shop came through the door
into the passage, with his card in her hand--a large gilt card
with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath
in pencil: 'Dear lady' (yes! the villain could address me in that
way still)--'dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter
serious to us both.' If one can think at all, in serious
difficulties, one thinks quick. I felt directly that it might be
a fatal mistake to leave myself and to leave you in the dark,
where such a man as the Count was concerned. I felt that the
doubt of what he might do, in your absence, would be ten times
more trying to me if I declined to see him than if I consented.
'Ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,' I said. 'I will be with
him in a moment.' I ran upstairs for my bonnet, being determined
not to let him speak to me indoors. I knew his deep ringing
voice, and I was afraid Laura might hear it, even in the shop. In
less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened
the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop.
There he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly
smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great
size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold
knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me
the moment I set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and
crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish and
spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a
day since."
"You remember what he said?"
"I can't repeat it, Walter. You shall know directly what he said
about you---but I can't repeat what he said to me. It was worse
than the polite insolence of his letter. My hands tingled to
strike him, as if I had been a man! I only kept them quiet by
tearing his card to pieces under my shawl. Without saying a word
on my side, I walked away from the house (for fear of Laura seeing
us), and he followed, protesting softly all the way. In the first
by-street I turned, and asked him what he wanted with me. He
wanted two things. First, if I had no objection, to express his
sentiments. I declined to hear them. Secondly, to repeat the
warning in his letter. I asked, what occasion there was for
repeating it. He bowed and smiled, and said he would explain.
The explanation exactly confirmed the fears I expressed before you
left us. I told you, if you remember, that Sir Percival would be
too headstrong to take his friend's advice where you were
concerned, and that there was no danger to be dreaded from the
Count till his own interests were threatened, and he was roused
into acting for himself?"
"I recollect, Marian."
"Well, so it has really turned out. The Count offered his advice,
but it was refused. Sir Percival would only take counsel of his
own violence, his own obstinacy, and his own hatred of you. The
Count let him have his way, first privately ascertaining, in case
of his own interests being threatened next, where we lived. You
were followed, Walter, on returning here, after your first journey
to Hampshire, by the lawyer's men for some distance from the
railway, and by the Count himself to the door of the house. How
he contrived to escape being seen by you he did not tell me, but
he found us out on that occasion, and in that way. Having made
the discovery, he took no advantage of it till the news reached
him of Sir Percival's death, and then, as I told you, he acted for
himself, because he believed you would next proceed against the
dead man's partner in the conspiracy. He at once made his
arrangements to meet the owner of the Asylum in London, and to
take him to the place where his runaway patient was hidden,
believing that the results, whichever way they ended, would be to
involve you in interminable legal disputes and difficulties, and
to tie your hands for all purposes of offence, so far as he was
concerned. That was his purpose, on his own confession to me.
The only consideration which made him hesitate, at the last
moment----"
"Yes?"
"It is hard to acknowledge it, Walter, and yet I must. I was the
only consideration. No words can say how degraded I feel in my
own estimation when I think of it, but the one weak point in that
man's iron character is the horrible admiration he feels for me.
I have tried, for the sake of my own self-respect, to disbelieve
it as long as I could; but his looks, his actions, force on me the
shameful conviction of the truth. The eyes of that monster of
wickedness moistened while he was speaking to me--they did,
Walter! He declared that at the moment of pointing out the house
to the doctor, he thought of my misery if I was separated from
Laura, of my responsibility if I was called on to answer for
effecting her escape, and he risked the worst that you could do to
him, the second time, for my sake. All he asked was that I would
remember the sacrifice, and restrain your rashness, in my own
interests--interests which he might never be able to consult
again. I made no such bargain with him--I would have died first.
But believe him or not, whether it is true or false that he sent
the doctor away with an excuse, one thing is certain, I saw the
man leave him without so much as a glance at our window, or even
at our side of the way."
"I believe it, Marian. The best men are not consistent in good--
why should the worst men be consistent in evil? At the same time,
I suspect him of merely attempting to frighten you, by threatening
what he cannot really do. I doubt his power of annoying us, by
means of the owner of the Asylum, now that Sir Percival is dead,
and Mrs. Catherick is free from all control. But let me hear
more. What did the Count say of me?"
"He spoke last of you. His eyes brightened and hardened, and his
manner changed to what I remember it in past times--to that
mixture of pitiless resolution and mountebank mockery which makes
it so impossible to fathom him. 'Warn Mr. Hartright!' he said in
his loftiest manner. 'He has a man of brains to deal with, a man
who snaps his big fingers at the laws and conventions of society,
when he measures himself with ME. If my lamented friend had taken
my advice, the business of the inquest would have been with the
body of Mr. Hartright. But my lamented friend was obstinate.
See! I mourn his loss--inwardly in my soul, outwardly on my hat.
This trivial crape expresses sensibilities which I summon Mr.
Hartright to respect. They may be transformed to immeasurable
enmities if he ventures to disturb them. Let him be content with
what he has got--with what I leave unmolested, for your sake, to
him and to you. Say to him (with my compliments), if he stirs me,
he has Fosco to deal with. In the English of the Popular Tongue,
I inform him--Fosco sticks at nothing. Dear lady, good morning.'
His cold grey eyes settled on my face--he took off his hat
solemnly--bowed, bare-headed--and left me."
"Without returning? without saying more last words?"
"He turned at the corner of the street, and waved his hand, and
then struck it theatrically on his breast. I lost sight of him
after that. He disappeared in the opposite direction to our
house, and I ran back to Laura. Before I was indoors again, I had
made up my mind that we must go. The house (especially in your
absence) was a place of danger instead of a place of safety, now
that the Count had discovered it. If I could have felt certain of
your return, I should have risked waiting till you came back. But
I was certain of nothing, and I acted at once on my own impulse.
You had spoken, before leaving us, of moving into a quieter
neighbourhood and purer air, for the sake of Laura's health. I
had only to remind her of that, and to suggest surprising you and
saving you trouble by managing the move in your absence, to make
her quite as anxious for the change as I was. She helped me to
pack up your things, and she has arranged them all for you in your
new working-room here."
"What made you think of coming to this place?"
"My ignorance of other localities in the neighbourhood of London.
I felt the necessity of getting as far away as possible from our
old lodgings, and I knew something of Fulham, because I had once
been at school there. I despatched a messenger with a note, on
the chance that the school might still be in existence. It was in
existence--the daughters of my old mistress were carrying it on
for her, and they engaged this place from the instructions I had
sent. It was just post-time when the messenger returned to me
with the address of the house. We moved after dark--we came here
quite unobserved. Have I done right, Walter? Have I justified
your trust in me?"
I answered her warmly and gratefully, as I really felt. But the
anxious look still remained on her face while I was speaking, and
the first question she asked, when I had done, related to Count
Fosco.
I saw that she was thinking of him now with a changed mind. No
fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten
the day of reckoning escaped her. Her conviction that the man's
hateful admiration of herself was really sincere, seemed to have
increased a hundredfold her distrust of his unfathomable cunning,
her inborn dread of the wicked energy and vigilance of all his
faculties. Her voice fell low, her manner was hesitating, her
eyes searched into mine with an eager fear when she asked me what
I thought of his message, and what I meant to do next after
hearing it.
"Not many weeks have passed, Marian," I answered, "since my
interview with Mr. Kyrle. When he and I parted, the last words I
said to him about Laura were these: 'Her uncle's house shall open
to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the
false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall
be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head
of the family, and the two men who have wronged her shall answer
for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in tribunals
is powerless to pursue them.' One of those men is beyond mortal
reach. The other remains, and my resolution remains."
Her eyes lit up--her colour rose. She said nothing, but I saw all
her sympathies gathering to mine in her face.
"I don't disguise from myself, or from you," I went on, "that the
prospect before us is more than doubtful. The risks we have run
already are, it may be, trifles compared with the risks that
threaten us in the future, but the venture shall be tried, Marian,
for all that. I am not rash enough to measure myself against such
a man as the Count before I am well prepared for him. I have
learnt patience--I can wait my time. Let him believe that his
message has produced its effect--let him know nothing of us, and
hear nothing of us--let us give him full time to feel secure--his
own boastful nature, unless I seriously mistake him, will hasten
that result. This is one reason for waiting, but there is another
more important still. My position, Marian, towards you and
towards Laura ought to be a stronger one than it is now before I
try our last chance."
She leaned near to me, with a look of surprise.
"How can it be stronger?" she asked.
"I will tell you," I replied, "when the time comes. It has not
come yet--it may never come at all. I may be silent about it to
Laura for ever--I must be silent now, even to YOU, till I see for
myself that I can harmlessly and honourably speak. Let us leave
that subject. There is another which has more pressing claims on
our attention. You have kept Laura, mercifully kept her, in
ignorance of her husband's death----"
"Oh, Walter, surely it must be long yet before we tell her of it?"
"No, Marian. Better that you should reveal it to her now, than
that accident, which no one can guard against, should reveal it to
her at some future time. Spare her all the details--break it to
her very tenderly, but tell her that he is dead."
"You have a reason, Walter, for wishing her to know of her
husband's death besides the reason you have just mentioned?"
"I have."
"A reason connected with that subject which must not be mentioned
between us yet?--which may never be mentioned to Laura at all?"
She dwelt on the last words meaningly. When I answered her in the
affirmative, I dwelt on them too.
Her face grew pale. For a while she looked at me with a sad,
hesitating interest. An unaccustomed tenderness trembled in her
dark eyes and softened her firm lips, as she glanced aside at the
empty chair in which the dear companion of all our joys and
sorrows had been sitting.
"I think I understand," she said. "I think I owe it to her and to
you, Walter, to tell her of her husband's death."
She sighed, and held my hand fast for a moment--then dropped it
abruptly, and left the room. On the next day Laura knew that his
death had released her, and that the error and the calamity of her
life lay buried in his tomb.
His name was mentioned among us no more. Thenceforward, we shrank
from the slightest approach to the subject of his death, and in
the same scrupulous manner, Marian and I avoided all further
reference to that other subject, which, by her consent and mine,
was not to be mentioned between us yet. It was not the less
present in our minds--it was rather kept alive in them by the
restraint which we had imposed on ourselves. We both watched
Laura more anxiously than ever, sometimes waiting and hoping,
sometimes waiting and fearing, till the time came.
By degrees we returned to our accustomed way of life. I resumed
the daily work, which had been suspended during my absence in
Hampshire. Our new lodgings cost us more than the smaller and
less convenient rooms which we had left, and the claim thus
implied on my increased exertions was strengthened by the
doubtfulness of our future prospects. Emergencies might yet
happen which would exhaust our little fund at the banker's, and
the work of my hands might be, ultimately, all we had to look to
for support. More permanent and more lucrative employment than
had yet been offered to me was a necessity of our position--a
necessity for which I now diligently set myself to provide.
It must not be supposed that the interval of rest and seclusion of
which I am now writing, entirely suspended, on my part, all
pursuit of the one absorbing purpose with which my thoughts and
actions are associated in these pages. That purpose was, for
months and months yet, never to relax its claims on me. The slow
ripening of it still left me a measure of precaution to take, an
obligation of gratitude to perform, and a doubtful question to
solve.
The measure of precaution related, necessarily, to the Count. It
was of the last importance to ascertain, if possible, whether his
plans committed him to remaining in England--or, in other words,
to remaining within my reach. I contrived to set this doubt at
rest by very simple means. His address in St. John's Wood being
known to me, I inquired in the neighbourhood, and having found out
the agent who had the disposal of the furnished house in which he
lived, I asked if number five, Forest Road, was likely to be let
within a reasonable time. The reply was in the negative. I was
informed that the foreign gentleman then residing in the house had
renewed his term of occupation for another six months, and would
remain in possession until the end of June in the following year.
We were then at the beginning of December only. I left the agent
with my mind relieved from all present fear of the Count's
escaping me.
The obligation I had to perform took me once more into the
presence of Mrs. Clements. I had promised to return, and to
confide to her those particulars relating to the death and burial
of Anne Catherick which I had been obliged to withhold at our
first interview. Changed as circumstances now were, there was no
hindrance to my trusting the good woman with as much of the story
of the conspiracy as it was necessary to tell. I had every reason
that sympathy and friendly feeling could suggest to urge on me the
speedy performance of my promise, and I did conscientiously and
carefully perform it. There is no need to burden these pages with
any statement of what passed at the interview. It will be more to
the purpose to say, that the interview itself necessarily brought
to my mind the one doubtful question still remaining to be solved--
the question of Anne Catherick's parentage on the father's side.
A multitude of small considerations in connection with this
subject--trifling enough in themselves, but strikingly important
when massed together--had latterly led my mind to a conclusion
which I resolved to verify. I obtained Marian's permission to
write to Major Donthorne, of Varneck Hall (where Mrs. Catherick
had lived in service for some years previous to her marriage), to
ask him certain questions. I made the inquiries in Marian's name,
and described them as relating to matters of personal history in
her family, which might explain and excuse my application. When I
wrote the letter I had no certain knowledge that Major Donthorne
was still alive--I despatched it on the chance that he might be
living, and able and willing to reply.
After a lapse of two days proof came, in the shape of a letter,
that the Major was living, and that he was ready to help us.
The idea in my mind when I wrote to him, and the nature of my
inquiries. will be easily inferred from his reply. His letter
answered my questions by communicating these important facts--
In the first place, "the late Sir Percival Glyde, of Blackwater
Park," had never set foot in Varneck Hall. The deceased gentleman
was a total stranger to Major Donthorne, and to all his family.
In the second place, "the late Mr. Philip Fairlie, of Limmeridge
House," had been, in his younger days, the intimate friend and
constant guest of Major Donthorne. Having refreshed his memory by
looking back to old letters and other papers, the Major was in a
position to say positively that Mr. Philip Fairlie was staying at
Varneck Hall in the month of August, eighteen hundred and twentysix,
and that he remained there for the shooting during the month
of September and part of October following. He then left, to the
best of the Major's belief, for Scotland, and did not return to
Varneck Hall till after a lapse of time, when he reappeared in the
character of a newly-married man.
Taken by itself, this statement was, perhaps, of little positive
value, but taken in connection with certain facts, every one of
which either Marian or I knew to be true, it suggested one plain
conclusion that was, to our minds, irresistible.
Knowing, now, that Mr. Philip Fairlie had been at Varneck Hall in
the autumn of eighteen hundred and twenty-six, and that Mrs.
Catherick had been living there in service at the same time, we
knew also--first, that Anne had been born in June, eighteen
hundred and twenty-seven; secondly, that she had always presented
an extraordinary personal resemblance to Laura; and, thirdly, that
Laura herself was strikingly like her father. Mr. Philip Fairlie
had been one of the notoriously handsome men of his time. In
disposition entirely unlike his brother Frederick, he was the
spoilt darling of society, especially of the women--an easy,
light-hearted, impulsive, affectionate man--generous to a fault--
constitutionally lax in his principles, and notoriously
thoughtless of moral obligations where women were concerned. Such
were the facts we knew--such was the character of the man. Surely
the plain inference that follows needs no pointing out?
Read by the new light which had now broken upon me, even Mrs.
Catherick's letter, in despite of herself, rendered its mite of
assistance towards strengthening the conclusion at which I had
arrived. She had described Mrs. Fairlie (in writing to me) as
"plain-looking," and as having "entrapped the handsomest man in
England into marrying her." Both assertions were gratuitously
made, and both were false. Jealous dislike (which, in such a
woman as Mrs. Catherick, would express itself in petty malice
rather than not express itself at all) appeared to me to be the
only assignable cause for the peculiar insolence of her reference
to Mrs. Fairlie, under circumstances which did not necessitate any
reference at all.
The mention here of Mrs. Fairlie's name naturally suggests one
other question. Did she ever suspect whose child the little girl
brought to her at Limmeridge might be?
Marian's testimony was positive on this point. Mrs. Fairlie's
letter to her husband, which had been read to me in former days--
the letter describing Anne's resemblance to Laura, and
acknowledging her affectionate interest in the little stranger--
had been written, beyond all question, in perfect innocence of
heart. It even seemed doubtful, on consideration, whether Mr.
Philip Fairlie himself had been nearer than his wife to any
suspicion of the truth. The disgracefully deceitful circumstances
under which Mrs. Catherick had married, the purpose of concealment
which the marriage was intended to answer, might well keep her
silent for caution's sake, perhaps for her own pride's sake also,
even assuming that she had the means, in his absence, of
communicating with the father of her unborn child.
As this surmise floated through my mind, there rose on my memory
the remembrance of the Scripture denunciation which we have all
thought of in our time with wonder and with awe: "The sins of the
fathers shall be visited on the children." But for the fatal
resemblance between the two daughters of one father, the
conspiracy of which Anne had been the innocent instrument and
Laura the innocent victim could never have been planned. With
what unerring and terrible directness the long chain of
circumstances led down from the thoughtless wrong committed by the
father to the heartless injury inflicted on the child!
These thoughts came to me, and others with them, which drew my
mind away to the little Cumberland churchyard where Anne Catherick
now lay buried. I thought of the bygone days when I had met her
by Mrs. Fairlie's grave, and met her for the last time. I thought
of her poor helpless hands beating on the tombstone, and her
weary, yearning words, murmured to the dead remains of her
protectress and her friend: "Oh, if I could die, and be hidden and
at rest with YOU!" Little more than a year had passed since she
breathed that wish; and how inscrutably, how awfully, it had been
fulfilled! The words she had spoken to Laura by the shores of the
lake, the very words had now come true. "Oh, if I could only be
buried with your mother! If I could only wake at her side when the
angel's trumpet sounds and the graves give up their dead at the
resurrection!" Through what mortal crime and horror, through what
darkest windings of the way down to death--the lost creature had
wandered in God's leading to the last home that, living, she never
hoped to reach! In that sacred rest I leave her--in that dread
companionship let her remain undisturbed.
So the ghostly figure which has haunted these pages, as it haunted
my life, goes down into the impenetrable gloom. Like a shadow she
first came to me in the loneliness of the night. Like a shadow
she passes away in the loneliness of the dead.
III
Four months elapsed. April came--the month of spring--the month
of change.
The course of time had flowed through the interval since the
winter peacefully and happily in our new home. I had turned my
long leisure to good account, had largely increased my sources of
employment, and had placed our means of subsistence on surer
grounds. Freed from the suspense and the anxiety which had tried
her so sorely and hung over her so long, Marian's spirits rallied,
and her natural energy of character began to assert itself again,
with something, if not all, of the freedom and the vigour of
former times.
More pliable under change than her sister, Laura showed more
plainly the progress made by the healing influences of her new
life. The worn and wasted look which had prematurely aged her
face was fast leaving it, and the expression which had been the
first of its charms in past days was the first of its beauties
that now returned. My closest observations of her detected but
one serious result of the conspiracy which had once threatened her
reason and her life. Her memory of events, from the period of her
leaving Blackwater Park to the period of our meeting in the
burial-ground of Limmeridge Church, was lost beyond all hope of
recovery. At the slightest reference to that time she changed and
trembled still, her words became confused, her memory wandered and
lost itself as helplessly as ever. Here, and here only, the
traces of the past lay deep--too deep to be effaced.
In all else she was now so far on the way to recovery that, on her
best and brightest days, she sometimes looked and spoke like the
Laura of old times. The happy change wrought its natural result
in us both. From their long slumber, on her side and on mine,
those imperishable memories of our past life in Cumberland now
awoke, which were one and all alike, the memories of our love.
Gradually and insensibly our daily relations towards each other
became constrained. The fond words which I had spoken to her so
naturally, in the days of her sorrow and her suffering, faltered
strangely on my lips. In the time when my dread of losing her was
most present to my mind, I had always kissed her when she left me
at night and when she met me in the morning. The kiss seemed now
to have dropped between us--to be lost out of our lives. Our
hands began to tremble again when they met. We hardly ever looked
long at one another out of Marian's presence. The talk often
flagged between us when we were alone. When I touched her by
accident I felt my heart beating fast, as it used to beat at
Limmeridge House--I saw the lovely answering flush glowing again
in her cheeks, as if we were back among the Cumberland Hills in
our past characters of master and pupil once more. She had long
intervals of silence and thoughtfulness, and denied she had been
thinking when Marian asked her the question. I surprised myself
one day neglecting my work to dream over the little water-colour
portrait of her which I had taken in the summer-house where we
first met--just as I used to neglect Mr. Fairlie's drawings to
dream over the same likeness when it was newly finished in the
bygone time. Changed as all the circumstances now were, our
position towards each other in the golden days of our first
companionship seemed to be revived with the revival of our love.
It was as if Time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early
hopes to the old familiar shore!
To any other woman I could have spoken the decisive words which I
still hesitated to speak to HER. The utter helplessness of her
position--her friendless dependence on all the forbearing
gentleness that I could show her--my fear of touching too soon
some secret sensitiveness in her which my instinct as a man might
not have been fine enough to discover--these considerations, and
others like them, kept me self-distrustfully silent. And yet I
knew that the restraint on both sides must be ended, that the
relations in which we stood towards one another must be altered in
some settled manner for the future, and that it rested with me, in
the first instance, to recognise the necessity for a change.
The more I thought of our position, the harder the attempt to
alter it appeared, while the domestic conditions on which we three
had been living together since the winter remained undisturbed. I
cannot account for the capricious state of mind in which this
feeling originated, but the idea nevertheless possessed me that
some previous change of place and circumstances, some sudden break
in the quiet monotony of our lives, so managed as to vary the home
aspect under which we had been accustomed to see each other, might
prepare the way for me to speak, and might make it easier and less
embarrassing for Laura and Marian to hear.
With this purpose in view, I said, one morning, that I thought we
had all earned a little holiday and a change of scene. After some
consideration, it was decided that we should go for a fortnight to
the seaside.
On the next day we left Fulham for a quiet town on the south
coast. At that early season of the year we were the only visitors
in the place. The cliffs, the beach, and the walks inland were
all in the solitary condition which was most welcome to us. The
air was mild--the prospects over hill and wood and down were
beautifully varied by the shifting April light and shade, and the
restless sea leapt under our windows, as if it felt, like the
land, the glow and freshness of spring.
I owed it to Marian to consult her before I spoke to Laura, and to
be guided afterwards by her advice.
On the third day from our arrival I found a fit opportunity of
speaking to her alone. The moment we looked at one another, her
quick instinct detected the thought in my mind before I could give
it expression. With her customary energy and directness she spoke
at once, and spoke first.
"You are thinking of that subject which was mentioned between us
on the evening of your return from Hampshire," she said. "I have
been expecting you to allude to it for some time past. There must
be a change in our little household, Walter, we cannot go on much
longer as we are now. I see it as plainly as you do--as plainly
as Laura sees it, though she says nothing. How strangely the old
times in Cumberland seem to have come back! You and I are together
again, and the one subject of interest between us is Laura once
more. I could almost fancy that this room is the summer-house at
Limmeridge, and that those waves beyond us are beating on our
seashore."
"I was guided by your advice in those past days," I said, "and
now, Marian, with reliance tenfold greater I will be guided by it
again."
She answered by pressing my hand. I saw that she was deeply
touched by my reference to the past. We sat together near the
window, and while I spoke and she listened, we looked at the glory
of the sunlight shining on the majesty of the sea.
"Whatever comes of this confidence between us," I said, "whether
it ends happily or sorrowfully for ME, Laura's interests will
still be the interests of my life. When we leave this place, on
whatever terms we leave it, my determination to wrest from Count
Fosco the confession which I failed to obtain from his accomplice,
goes back with me to London, as certainly as I go back myself.
Neither you nor I can tell how that man may turn on me, if I bring
him to bay; we only know, by his own words and actions, that he is
capable of striking at me through Laura, without a moment's
hesitation, or a moment's remorse. In our present position I have
no claim on her which society sanctions, which the law allows, to
strengthen me in resisting him, and in protecting HER. This
places me at a serious disadvantage. If I am to fight our cause
with the Count, strong in the consciousness of Laura's safety, I
must fight it for my Wife. Do you agree to that, Marian, so far?"
"To every word of it," she answered.
"I will not plead out of my own heart," I went on; "I will not
appeal to the love which has survived all changes and all shocks--
I will rest my only vindication of myself for thinking of her, and
speaking of her as my wife, on what I have just said. If the
chance of forcing a confession from the Count is, as I believe it
to be, the last chance left of publicly establishing the fact of
Laura's existence, the least selfish reason that I can advance for
our marriage is recognised by us both. But I may be wrong in my
conviction--other means of achieving our purpose may be in our
power, which are less uncertain and less dangerous. I have
searched anxiously, in my own mind, for those means, and I have
not found them. Have you?"
"No. I have thought about it too, and thought in vain."
"In all likelihood," I continued, "the same questions have
occurred to you, in considering this difficult subject, which have
occurred to me. Ought we to return with her to Limmeridge, now
that she is like herself again, and trust to the recognition of
her by the people of the village, or by the children at the
school? Ought we to appeal to the practical test of her
handwriting? Suppose we did so. Suppose the recognition of her
obtained, and the identity of the handwriting established. Would
success in both those cases do more than supply an excellent
foundation for a trial in a court of law? Would the recognition
and the handwriting prove her identity to Mr. Fairlie and take her
back to Limmeridge House, against the evidence of her aunt,
against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact
of the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? No! We
could only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the
assertion of her death, a doubt which nothing short of a legal
inquiry can settle. I will assume that we possess (what we have
certainly not got) money enough to carry this inquiry on through
all its stages. I will assume that Mr. Fairlie's prejudices might
be reasoned away--that the false testimony of the Count and his
wife, and all the rest of the false testimony, might be confuted--
that the recognition could not possibly be ascribed to a mistake
between Laura and Anne Catherick, or the handwriting be declared
by our enemies to be a clever fraud--all these are assumptions
which, more or less, set plain probabilities at defiance; but let
them pass--and let us ask ourselves what would be the first
consequence or the first questions put to Laura herself on the
subject of the conspiracy. We know only too well what the
consequence would be, for we know that she has never recovered her
memory of what happened to her in London. Examine her privately,
or examine her publicly, she is utterly incapable of assisting the
assertion of her own case. If you don't see this, Marian, as
plainly as I see it, we will go to Limmeridge and try the
experiment to-morrow."
"I DO see it, Walter. Even if we had the means of paying all the
law expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be
unendurable, the perpetual suspense, after what we have suffered
already, would be heartbreaking. You are right about the
hopelessness of going to Limmeridge. I wish I could feel sure
that you are right also in determining to try that last chance
with the Count. IS it a chance at all?"
"Beyond a doubt, Yes. It is the chance of recovering the lost
date of Laura's journey to London. Without returning to the
reasons I gave you some time since, I am still as firmly persuaded
as ever that there is a discrepancy between the date of that
journey and the date on the certificate of death. There lies the
weak point of the whole conspiracy--it crumbles to pieces if we
attack it in that way, and the means of attacking it are in
possession of the Count. If I succeed in wresting them from him,
the object of your life and mine is fulfilled. If I fail, the
wrong that Laura has suffered will, in this world, never be
redressed."
"Do you fear failure yourself, Walter?"
"I dare not anticipate success, and for that very reason, Marian,
I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and
my conscience I can say it, Laura's hopes for the future are at
their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone--I know that
the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at
the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely
unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the end. With
every worldly advantage gone from her, with all prospect of
recovering her rank and station more than doubtful, with no
clearer future before her than the future which her husband can
provide, the poor drawing-master may harmlessly open his heart at
last. In the days of her prosperity, Marian, I was only the
teacher who guided her hand--I ask for it, in her adversity, as
the hand of my wife!"
Marian's eyes met mine affectionately--I could say no more. My
heart was full, my lips were trembling. In spite of myself I was
in danger of appealing to her pity. I got up to leave the room.
She rose at the same moment, laid her hand gently on my shoulder,
and stopped me.
"Walter!" she said, "I once parted you both, for your good and for
hers. Wait here, my brother!--wait, my dearest, best friend, till
Laura comes, and tells you what I have done now!"
For the first time since the farewell morning at Limmeridge she
touched my forehead with her lips. A tear dropped on my face as
she kissed me. She turned quickly, pointed to the chair from
which I had risen, and left the room.
I sat down alone at the window to wait through the crisis of my
life. My mind in that breathless interval felt like a total
blank. I was conscious of nothing but a painful intensity of all
familiar perceptions. The sun grew blinding bright, the white sea
birds chasing each other far beyond me seemed to be flitting
before my face, the mellow murmur of the waves on the beach was
like thunder in my ears.
The door opened, and Laura came in alone. So she had entered the
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House on the morning when we parted.
Slowly and falteringly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once
approached me. Now she came with the haste of happiness in her
feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. Of their
own accord those dear arms clasped themselves round me, of their
own accord the sweet lips came to meet mine. "My darling!" she
whispered, "we may own we love each other now?" Her head nestled
with a tender contentedness on my bosom. "Oh," she said
innocently, "I am so happy at last!"
Ten days later we were happier still. We were married.
IV
The course of this narrative, steadily flowing on, bears me away
from the morning-time of our married life, and carries me forward
to the end.
In a fortnight more we three were back in London, and the shadow
was stealing over us of the struggle to come.
Marian and I were careful to keep Laura in ignorance of the cause
that had hurried us back--the necessity of making sure of the
Count. It was now the beginning of May, and his term of
occupation at the house in Forest Road expired in June. If he
renewed it (and I had reasons, shortly to be mentioned, for
anticipating that he would), I might be certain of his not
escaping me. But if by any chance he disappointed my expectations
and left the country, then I had no time to lose in arming myself
to meet him as I best might.
In the first fulness of my new happiness, there had been moments
when my resolution faltered--moments when I was tempted to be
safely content, now that the dearest aspiration of my life was
fulfilled in the possession of Laura's love. For the first time I
thought faint-heartedly of the greatness of the risk, of the
adverse chances arrayed against me, of the fair promise of our new
life, and of the peril in which I might place the happiness which
we had so hardly earned. Yes! let me own it honestly. For a
brief time I wandered, in the sweet guiding of love, far from the
purpose to which I had been true under sterner discipline and in
darker days. Innocently Laura had tempted me aside from the hard
path--innocently she was destined to lead me back again.
At times, dreams of the terrible past still disconnectedly
recalled to her, in the mystery of sleep, the events of which her
waking memory had lost all trace. One night (barely two weeks
after our marriage), when I was watching her at rest, I saw the
tears come slowly through her closed eyelids, I heard the faint
murmuring words escape her which told me that her spirit was back
again on the fatal journey from Blackwater Park. That unconscious
appeal, so touching and so awful in the sacredness of her sleep,
ran through me like fire. The next day was the day we came back
to London--the day when my resolution returned to me with tenfold
strength.
The first necessity was to know something of the man. Thus far,
the true story of his life was an impenetrable mystery to me.
I began with such scanty sources of information as were at my own
disposal. The important narrative written by Mr. Frederick
Fairlie (which Marian had obtained by following the directions I
had given to her in the winter) proved to be of no service to the
special object with which I now looked at it. While reading it I
reconsidered the disclosure revealed to me by Mrs. Clements of the
series of deceptions which had brought Anne Catherick to London,
and which had there devoted her to the interests of the
conspiracy. Here, again, the Count had not openly committed
himself--here, again, he was, to all practical purpose, out of my
reach.
I next returned to Marian's journal at Blackwater Park. At my
request she read to me again a passage which referred to her past
curiosity about the Count, and to the few particulars which she
had discovered relating to him.
The passage to which I allude occurs in that part of her journal
which delineates his character and his personal appearance. She
describes him as "not having crossed the frontiers of his native
country for years past"--as "anxious to know if any Italian
gentlemen were settled in the nearest town to Blackwater Park"--as
"receiving letters with all sorts of odd stamps on them, and one
with a large official-looking seal on it." She is inclined to
consider that his long absence from his native country may be
accounted for by assuming that he is a political exile. But she
is, on the other hand, unable to reconcile this idea with the
reception of the letter from abroad bearing "the large officiallooking
seal"--letters from the Continent addressed to political
exiles being usually the last to court attention from foreign
post-offices in that way.
The considerations thus presented to me in the diary, joined to
certain surmises of my own that grew out of them, suggested a
conclusion which I wondered I had not arrived at before. I now
said to myself--what Laura had once said to Marian at Blackwater
Park, what Madame Fosco had overheard by listening at the door--
the Count is a spy!
Laura had applied the word to him at hazard, in natural anger at
his proceedings towards herself. I applied it to him with the
deliberate conviction that his vocation in life was the vocation
of a spy. On this assumption, the reason for his extraordinary
stay in England so long after the objects of the conspiracy had
been gained, became, to my mind, quite intelligible.
The year of which I am now writing was the year of the famous
Crystal Palace Exhibition in Hyde Park. Foreigners in unusually
large numbers had arrived already, and were still arriving in
England. Men were among us by hundreds whom the ceaseless
distrustfulness of their governments had followed privately, by
means of appointed agents, to our shores. My surmises did not for
a moment class a man of the Count's abilities and social position
with the ordinary rank and file o~ foreign spies. I suspected him
of holding a position of authority, of being entrusted by the
government which he secretly served with the organisation and
management of agents specially employed in this country, both men
and women, and I believed Mrs. Rubelle, who had been so
opportunely found to act as nurse at Blackwater Park, to be, in
all probability, one of the number.
Assuming that this idea of mine had a foundation in truth, the
position of the Count might prove to be more assailable than I had
hitherto ventured to hope. To whom could I apply to know
something more of the man's history and of the man himself than I
knew now?
In this emergency it naturally occurred to my mind that a
countryman of his own, on whom I could rely, might be the fittest
person to help me. The first man whom I thought of under these
circumstances was also the only Italian with whom I was intimately
acquainted--my quaint little friend, Professor Pesca.
The professor has been so long absent from these pages that he has
run some risk of being forgotten altogether.
It is the necessary law of such a story as mine that the persons
concerned in it only appear when the course of events takes them
up--they come and go, not by favour of my personal partiality, but
by right of their direct connection with the circumstances to be
detailed. For this reason, not Pesca alone, but my mother and
sister as well, have been left far in the background of the
narrative. My visits to the Hampstead cottage, my mother's belief
in the denial of Laura's identity which the conspiracy had
accomplished, my vain efforts to overcome the prejudice on her
part and on my sister's to which, in their jealous affection for
me, they both continued to adhere, the painful necessity which
that prejudice imposed on me of concealing my marriage from them
till they had learnt to do justice to my wife--all these little
domestic occurrences have been left unrecorded because they were
not essential to the main interest of the story. It is nothing
that they added to my anxieties and embittered my disappointments--
the steady march of events has inexorably passed them by.
For the same reason I have said nothing here of the consolation
that I found in Pesca's brotherly affection for me, when I saw him
again after the sudden cessation of my residence at Limmeridge
House. I have not recorded the fidelity with which my warmhearted
little friend followed me to the place of embarkation when
I sailed for Central America, or the noisy transport of joy with
which he received me when we next met in London. If I had felt
justified in accepting the offers of service which he made to me
on my return, he would have appeared again long ere this. But,
though I knew that his honour and his courage were to be
implicitly relied on, I was not so sure that his discretion was to
be trusted, and, for that reason only, I followed the course of
all my inquiries alone. It will now be sufficiently understood
that Pesca was not separated from all connection with me and my
interests, although he has hitherto been separated from all
connection with the progress of this narrative. He was as true
and as ready a friend of mine still as ever he had been in his
life.
Before I summoned Pesca to my assistance it was necessary to see
for myself what sort of man I had to deal with. Up to this time I
had never once set eyes on Count Fosco.
Three days after my return with Laura and Marian to London, I set
forth alone for Forest Road, St. John's Wood, between ten and
eleven o'clock in the morning. It was a fine day--I had some
hours to spare--and I thought it likely, if I waited a little for
him, that the Count might be tempted out. I had no great reason
to fear the chance of his recognising me in the daytime, for the
only occasion when I had been seen by him was the occasion on
which he had followed me home at night.
No one appeared at the windows in the front of the house. I
walked down a turning which ran past the side of it, and looked
over the low garden wall. One of the back windows on the lower
floor was thrown up and a net was stretched across the opening. I
saw nobody, but I heard, in the room, first a shrill whistling and
singing of birds, then the deep ringing voice which Marian's
description had made familiar to me. "Come out on my little
finger, my pret-pret-pretties!" cried the voice. "Come out and
hop upstairs! One, two, three--and up! Three, two, one--and down!
One, two, three--twit-twit-twit-tweet!" The Count was exercising
his canaries as he used to exercise them in Marian's time at
Blackwater Park.
I waited a little while, and the singing and the whistling ceased.
"Come, kiss me, my pretties!" said the deep voice. There was a
responsive twittering and chirping--a low, oily laugh--a silence
of a minute or so, and then I heard the opening of the house door.
I turned and retraced my steps. The magnificent melody of the
Prayer in Rossini's Moses, sung in a sonorous bass voice, rose
grandly through the suburban silence of the place. The front
garden gate opened and closed. The Count had come out.
He crossed the road and walked towards the western boundary of the
Regent's Park. I kept on my own side of the way, a little behind
him, and walked in that direction also.
Marian had prepared me for his high stature, his monstrous
corpulence, and his ostentatious mourning garments, but not for
the horrible freshness and cheerfulness and vitality of the man.
He carried his sixty years as if they had been fewer than forty.
He sauntered along, wearing his hat a little on one side, with a
light jaunty step, swinging his big stick, humming to himself,
looking up from time to time at the houses and gardens on either
side of him with superb, smiling patronage. If a stranger had
been told that the whole neighbourhood belonged to him, that
stranger would not have been surprised to hear it. He never
looked back, he paid no apparent attention to me, no apparent
attention to any one who passed him on his own side of the road,
except now and then, when he smiled and smirked, with an easy
paternal good humour, at the nursery-maids and the children whom
he met. In this way he led me on, till we reached a colony of
shops outside the western terraces of the Park.
Here he stopped at a pastrycook's, went in (probably to give an
order), and came out again immediately with a tart in his hand.
An Italian was grinding an organ before the shop, and a miserable
little shrivelled monkey was sitting on the instrument. The Count
stopped, bit a piece for himself out of the tart, and gravely
handed the rest to the monkey. "My poor little man!" he said,
with grotesque tenderness, "you look hungry. In the sacred name
of humanity, I offer you some lunch!" The organ-grinder piteously
put in his claim to a penny from the benevolent stranger. The
Count shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and passed on.
We reached the streets and the better class of shops between the
New Road and Oxford Street. The Count stopped again and entered a
small optician's shop, with an inscription in the window
announcing that repairs were neatly executed inside. He came out
again with an opera-glass in his hand, walked a few paces on, and
stopped to look at a bill of the opera placed outside a musicseller's
shop. He read the bill attentively, considered a moment,
and then hailed an empty cab as it passed him. "Opera Boxoffice,"
he said to the man, and was driven away.
I crossed the road, and looked at the bill in my turn. The
performance announced was Lucrezia Borgia, and it was to take
place that evening. The opera-glass in the Count's hand, his
careful reading of the bill, and his direction to the cabman, all
suggested that he proposed making one of the audience. I had the
means of getting an admission for myself and a friend to the pit
by applying to one of the scene-painters attached to the theatre,
with whom I had been well acquainted in past times. There was a
chance at least that the Count might be easily visible among the
audience to me and to any one with me, and in this case I had the
means of ascertaining whether Pesca knew his countryman or not
that very night.
This consideration at once decided the disposal of my evening. I
procured the tickets, leaving a note at the Professor's lodgings
on the way. At a quarter to eight I called to take him with me to
the theatre. My little friend was in a state of the highest
excitement, with a festive flower in his button-hole, and the
largest opera-glass I ever saw hugged up under his arm.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
"Right-all-right," said Pesca.
We started for the theatre.
V
The last notes of the introduction to the opera were being played,
and the seats in the pit were all filled, when Pesca and I reached
the theatre.
There was plenty of room, however, in the passage that ran round
the pit--precisely the position best calculated to answer the
purpose for which I was attending the performance. I went first
to the barrier separating us from the stalls, and looked for the
Count in that part of the theatre. He was not there. Returning
along the passage, on the left-hand side from the stage, and
looking about me attentively, I discovered him in the pit. He
occupied an excellent place, some twelve or fourteen seats from
the end of a bench, within three rows of the stalls. I placed
myself exactly on a line with him. Pesca standing by my side.
The Professor was not yet aware of the purpose for which I had
brought him to the theatre, and he was rather surprised that we
did not move nearer to the stage.
The curtain rose, and the opera began.
Throughout the whole of the first act we remained in our position--
the Count, absorbed by the orchestra and the stage, never casting
so much as a chance glance at us. Not a note of Donizetti's
delicious music was lost on him. There he sat, high above his
neighbours, smiling, and nodding his great head enjoyingly from
time to time. When the people near him applauded the close of an
air (as an English audience in such circumstances always WILL
applaud), without the least consideration for the orchestral
movement which immediately followed it, he looked round at them
with an expression of compassionate remonstrance, and held up one
hand with a gesture of polite entreaty. At the more refined
passages of the singing, at the more delicate phases of the music,
which passed unapplauded by others, his fat hands, adorned with
perfectly-fitting black kid gloves, softly patted each other, in
token of the cultivated appreciation of a musical man. At such
times, his oily murmur of approval, "Bravo! Bra-a-a-a!" hummed
through the silence, like the purring of a great cat. His
immediate neighbours on either side--hearty, ruddy-faced people
from the country, basking amazedly in the sunshine of fashionable
London--seeing and hearing him, began to follow his lead. Many a
burst of applause from the pit that night started from the soft,
comfortable patting of the black-gloved hands. The man's
voracious vanity devoured this implied tribute to his local and
critical supremacy with an appearance of the highest relish.
Smiles rippled continuously over his fat face. He looked about
him, at the pauses in the music, serenely satisfied with himself
and his fellow-creatures. "Yes! yes! these barbarous English
people are learning something from ME. Here, there, and
everywhere, I--Fosco--am an influence that is felt, a man who sits
supreme!" If ever face spoke, his face spoke then, and that was
its language.
The curtain fell on the first act, and the audience rose to look
about them. This was the time I had waited for--the time to try
if Pesca knew him.
He rose with the rest, and surveyed the occupants of the boxes
grandly with his opera-glass. At first his back was towards us,
but he turned round in time, to our side of the theatre, and
looked at the boxes above us, using his glass for a few minutes--
then removing it, but still continuing to look up. This was the
moment I chose, when his full face was in view, for directing
Pesca's attention to him.
"Do you know that man?" I asked.
"Which man, my friend?"
"The tall, fat man, standing there, with his face towards us."
Pesca raised himself on tiptoe, and looked at the Count.
"No," said the Professor. "The big fat man is a stranger to me.
Is he famous? Why do you point him out?"
"Because I have particular reasons for wishing to know something
of him. He is a countryman of yours--his name is Count Fosco. Do
you know that name?"
"Not I, Walter. Neither the name nor the man is known to me."
"Are you quite sure you don't recognise him? Look again--look
carefully. I will tell you why I am so anxious about it when we
leave the theatre. Stop! let me help you up here, where you can
see him better."
I helped the little man to perch himself on the edge of the raised
dais upon which the pit-seats were all placed. His small stature
was no hindrance to him--here he could see over the heads of the
ladies who were seated near the outermost part of the bench.
A slim, light-haired man standing by us, whom I had not noticed
before--a man with a scar on his left cheek--looked attentively at
Pesca as I helped him up, and then looked still more attentively,
following the direction of Pesca's eyes, at the Count. Our
conversation might have reached his ears, and might, as it struck
me, have roused his curiosity.
Meanwhile, Pesca fixed his eyes earnestly on the broad, full,
smiling face turned a little upward, exactly opposite to him.
"No," he said, "I have never set my two eyes on that big fat man
before in all my life."
As he spoke the Count looked downwards towards the boxes behind us
on the pit tier.
The eyes of the two Italians met.
The instant before I had been perfectly satisfied, from his own
reiterated assertion, that Pesca did not know the Count. The
instant afterwards I was equally certain that the Count knew
Pesca!
Knew him, and--more surprising still--FEARED him as well! There
was no mistaking the change that passed over the villain's face.
The leaden hue that altered his yellow complexion in a moment, the
sudden rigidity of all his features, the furtive scrutiny of his
cold grey eyes, the motionless stillness of him from head to foot
told their own tale. A mortal dread had mastered him body and
soul--and his own recognition of Pesca was the cause of it!
The slim man with the scar on his cheek was still close by us. He
had apparently drawn his inference from the effect produced on the
Count by the sight of Pesca as I had drawn mine. He was a mild,
gentlemanlike man, looking like a foreigner, and his interest in
our proceedings was not expressed in anything approaching to an
offensive manner.
For my own part I was so startled by the change in the Count's
face, so astounded at the entirely unexpected turn which events
had taken, that I knew neither what to say or do next. Pesca
roused me by stepping back to his former place at my side and
speaking first.
"How the fat man stares!" he exclaimed. "Is it at ME?
Am I famous? How can he know me when I don't know him?"
I kept my eye still on the Count. I saw him move for the first
time when Pesca moved, so as not to lose sight of the little man
in the lower position in which he now stood. I was curious to see
what would happen if Pesca's attention under these circumstances
was withdrawn from him, and I accordingly asked the Professor if
he recognised any of his pupils that evening among the ladies in
the boxes. Pesca immediately raised the large opera-glass to his
eyes, and moved it slowly all round the upper part of the theatre,
searching for his pupils with the most conscientious scrutiny.
The moment he showed himself to be thus engaged the Count turned
round, slipped past the persons who occupied seats on the farther
side of him from where we stood, and disappeared in the middle
passage down the centre of the pit. I caught Pesca by the arm,
and to his inexpressible astonishment, hurried him round with me
to the back of the pit to intercept the Count before he could get
to the door. Somewhat to my surprise, the slim man hastened out
before us, avoiding a stoppage caused by some people on our side
of the pit leaving their places, by which Pesca and myself were
delayed. When we reached the lobby the Count had disappeared, and
the foreigner with the scar was gone too.
"Come home," I said; "come home, Pesca to your lodgings. I must
speak to you in private--I must speak directly."
"My-soul-bless-my-soul!" cried the Professor, in a state of the
extremest bewilderment. "What on earth is the matter?"
I walked on rapidly without answering. The circumstances under
which the Count had left the theatre suggested to me that his
extraordinary anxiety to escape Pesca might carry him to further
extremities still. He might escape me, too, by leaving London. I
doubted the future if I allowed him so much as a day's freedom to
act as he pleased. And I doubted that foreign stranger, who had
got the start of us, and whom I suspected of intentionally
following him out.
With this double distrust in my mind, I was not long in making
Pesca understand what I wanted. As soon as we two were alone in
his room, I increased his confusion and amazement a hundredfold by
telling him what my purpose was as plainly and unreservedly as I
have acknowledged it here.
"My friend, what can I do?" cried the Professor, piteously
appealing to me with both hands. "Deuce-what-the-deuce! how can I
help you, Walter, when I don't know the man?"
"HE knows YOU--he is afraid of you--he has left the theatre to
escape you. Pesca! there must be a reason for this. Look back
into your own life before you came to England. You left Italy, as
you have told me yourself, for political reasons. You have never
mentioned those reasons to me, and I don't inquire into them now.
I only ask you to consult your own recollections, and to say if
they suggest no past cause for the terror which the first sight of
you produced in that man."
To my unutterable surprise, these words, harmless as they appeared
to ME, produced the same astounding effect on Pesca which the
sight of Pesca had produced on the Count. The rosy face of my
little friend whitened in an instant, and he drew back from me
slowly, trembling from head to foot.
"Walter!" he said. "You don't know what you ask."
He spoke in a whisper--he looked at me as if I had suddenly
revealed to him some hidden danger to both of us. In less than
one minute of time he was so altered from the easy, lively, quaint
little man of all my past experience, that if I had met him in the
street, changed as I saw him now, I should most certainly not have
known him again.
"Forgive me, if I have unintentionally pained and shocked you," I
replied. "Remember the cruel wrong my wife has suffered at Count
Fosco's hands. Remember that the wrong can never be redressed,
unless the means are in my power of forcing him to do her justice.
I spoke in HER interests, Pesca--I ask you again to forgive me--I
can say no more."
I rose to go. He stopped me before I reached the door.
"Wait," he said. "You have shaken me from head to foot. You
don't know how I left my country, and why I left my country. Let
me compose myself, let me think, if I can."
I returned to my chair. He walked up and down the room, talking
to himself incoherently in his own language. After several turns
backwards and forwards, he suddenly came up to me, and laid his
little hands with a strange tenderness and solemnity on my breast.
"On your heart and soul, Walter," he said, "is there no other way
to get to that man but the chance-way through ME?"
"There is no other way," I answered.
He left me again, opened the door of the room and looked out
cautiously into the passage, closed it once more, and came back.
"You won your right over me, Walter," he said, "on the day when
you saved my life. It was yours from that moment, when you
pleased to take it. Take it now. Yes! I mean what I say. My
next words, as true as the good God is above us, will put my life
into your hands."
The trembling earnestness with which he uttered this extraordinary
warning, carried with it, to my mind, the conviction that he spoke
the truth.
"Mind this!" he went on, shaking his hands at me in the vehemence
of his agitation. "I hold no thread, in my own mind, between that
man Fosco, and the past time which I call back to me for your
sake. If you find the thread, keep it to yourself--tell me
nothing--on my knees I beg and pray, let me be ignorant, let me be
innocent, let me be blind to all the future as I am now!"
He said a few words more, hesitatingly and disconnectedly, then
stopped again.
I saw that the effort of expressing himself in English, on an
occasion too serious to permit him the use of the quaint turns and
phrases of his ordinary vocabulary, was painfully increasing the
difficulty he had felt from the first in speaking to me at all.
Having learnt to read and understand his native language (though
not to speak it), in the earlier days of our intimate
companionship, I now suggested to him that he should express
himself in Italian, while I used English in putting any questions
which might be necessary to my enlightenment. He accepted the
proposal. In his smooth-flowing language, spoken with a vehement
agitation which betrayed itself in the perpetual working of his
features, in the wildness and the suddenness of his foreign
gesticulations, but never in the raising of his voice, I now heard
the words which armed me to meet the last struggle, that is left
for this story to record.[3]
[3] It is only right to mention here, that I repeat Pesco's
statement to me with the careful suppressions and alterations
which the serious nature of the subject and my own sense of duty
to my friend demand. My first and last concealments from the
reader are those which caution renders absolutely necessary in
this portion of the narrative.
"You know nothing of my motive for leaving Italy," he began,
"except that it was for political reasons. If I had been driven
to this country by the persecution of my government, I should not
have kept those reasons a secret from you or from any one. I have
concealed them because no government authority has pronounced the
sentence of my exile. You have heard, Walter, of the political
societies that are hidden in every great city on the continent of
Europe? To one of those societies I belonged in Italy--and belong
still in England. When I came to this country, I came by the
direction of my chief. I was over-zealous in my younger time--I
ran the risk of compromising myself and others. For those reasons
I was ordered to emigrate to England and to wait. I emigrated--I
have waited--I wait still. To-morrow I may be called away--ten
years hence I may be called away. It is all one to me--I am here,
I support myself by teaching, and I wait. I violate no oath (you
shall hear why presently) in making my confidence complete by
telling you the name of the society to which I belong. All I do
is to put my life in your hands. If what I say to you now is ever
known by others to have passed my lips, as certainly as we two sit
here, I am a dead man."
He whispered the next words in my ear. I keep the secret which he
thus communicated. The society to which he belonged will be
sufficiently individualised for the purpose of these pages, if I
call it "The Brotherhood," on the few occasions when any reference
to the subject will be needed in this place.
"The object of the Brotherhood," Pesca went on, "is, briefly, the
object of other political societies of the same sort--the
destruction of tyranny and the assertion of the rights of the
people. The principles of the Brotherhood are two. So long as a
man's life is useful, or even harmless only, he has the right to
enjoy it. But, if his life inflicts injury on the well-being of
his fellow-men, from that moment he forfeits the right, and it is
not only no crime, but a positive merit, to deprive him of it. It
is not for me to say in what frightful circumstances of oppression
and suffering this society took its rise. It is not for you to
say--you Englishmen, who have conquered your freedom so long ago,
that you have conveniently forgotten what blood you shed, and what
extremities you proceeded to in the conquering--it is not for you
to say how far the worst of all exasperations may, or may not,
carry the maddened men of an enslaved nation. The iron that has
entered into our souls has gone too deep for you to find it.
Leave the refugee alone! Laugh at him, distrust him, open your
eyes in wonder at that secret self which smoulders in him,
sometimes under the every-day respectability and tranquillity of a
man like me--sometimes under the grinding poverty, the fierce
squalor, of men less lucky, less pliable, less patient than I am--
but judge us not! In the time of your first Charles you might have
done us justice--the long luxury of your own freedom has made you
incapable of doing us justice now.
All the deepest feelings of his nature seemed to force themselves
to the surface in those words--all his heart was poured out to me
for the first time in our lives--but still his voice never rose,
still his dread of the terrible revelation he was making to me
never left him.
"So far," he resumed, "you think the society like other societies.
Its object (in your English opinion) is anarchy and revolution.
It takes the life of a bad king or a bad minister, as if the one
and the other were dangerous wild beasts to be shot at the first
opportunity. I grant you this. But the laws of the Brotherhood
are the laws of no other political society on the face of the
earth. The members are not known to one another. There is a
president in Italy; there are presidents abroad. Each of these
has his secretary. The presidents and the secretaries know the
members, but the members, among themselves, are all strangers,
until their chiefs see fit, in the political necessity of the
time, or in the private necessity of the society, to make them
known to each other. With such a safeguard as this there is no
oath among us on admittance. We are identified with the
Brotherhood by a secret mark, which we all bear, which lasts while
our lives last. We are told to go about our ordinary business,
and to report ourselves to the president, or the secretary, four
times a year, in the event of our services being required. We are
warned, if we betray the Brotherhood, or if we injure it by
serving other interests, that we die by the principles of the
Brotherhood--die by the hand of a stranger who may be sent from
the other end of the world to strike the blow--or by the hand of
our own bosom-friend, who may have been a member unknown to us
through all the years of our intimacy. Sometimes the death is
delayed--sometimes it follows close on the treachery. It is our
first business to know how to wait--our second business to know
how to obey when the word is spoken. Some of us may wait our
lives through, and may not be wanted. Some of us may be called to
the work, or to the preparation for the work, the very day of our
admission. I myself--the little, easy, cheerful man you know,
who, of his own accord, would hardly lift up his handkerchief to
strike down the fly that buzzes about his face--I, in my younger
time, under provocation so dreadful that I will not tell you of
it, entered the Brotherhood by an impulse, as I might have killed
myself by an impulse. I must remain in it now--it has got me,
whatever I may think of it in my better circumstances and my
cooler manhood, to my dying day. While I was still in Italy I was
chosen secretary, and all the members of that time, who were
brought face to face with my president, were brought face to face
also with me."
I began to understand him--I saw the end towards which his
extraordinary disclosure was now tending. He waited a moment,
watching me earnestly--watching till he had evidently guessed what
was passing in my mind before he resumed.
"You have drawn your own conclusion already," he said. "I see it
in your face. Tell me nothing--keep me out of the secret of your
thoughts. Let me make my one last sacrifice of myself, for your
sake, and then have done with this subject, never to return to it
again."
He signed to me not to answer him--rose--removed his coat--and
rolled up the shirt-sleeve on his left arm.
"I promised you that this confidence should be complete," he
whispered, speaking close at my ear, with his eyes looking
watchfully at the door. "Whatever comes of it you shall not
reproach me with having hidden anything from you which it was
necessary to your interests to know. I have said that the
Brotherhood identifies its members by a mark that lasts for life.
See the place, and the mark on it for yourself."
He raised his bare arm, and showed me, high on the upper part of
it and in the inner side, a brand deeply burnt in the flesh and
stained of a bright blood-red colour. I abstain from describing
the device which the brand represented. It will be sufficient to
say that it was circular in form, and so small that it would have
been completely covered by a shilling coin.
"A man who has this mark, branded in this place," he said,
covering his arm again, "is a member of the Brotherhood. A man
who has been false to the Brotherhood is discovered sooner or
later by the chiefs who know him--presidents or secretaries, as
the case may be. And a man discovered by the chiefs is dead. NO
HUMAN LAWS CAN PROTECT HIM. Remember what you have seen and
heard--draw what conclusions YOU like--act as you please. But, in
the name of God, whatever you discover, whatever you do, tell me
nothing! Let me remain free from a responsibility which it
horrifies me to think of--which I know, in my conscience, is not
my responsibility now. For the last time I say it--on my honour
as a gentleman, on my oath as a Christian, if the man you pointed
out at the Opera knows ME, he is so altered, or so disguised, that
I do not know him. I am ignorant of his proceedings or his
purposes in England. I never saw him, I never heard the name he
goes by, to my knowledge, before to-night. I say no more. Leave
me a little, Walter. I am overpowered by what has happened--I am
shaken by what I have said. Let me try to be like myself again
when we meet next.
He dropped into a chair, and turning away from me, hid his face in
his hands. I gently opened the door so as not to disturb him, and
spoke my few parting words in low tones, which he might hear or
not, as he pleased.
"I will keep the memory of to-night in my heart of hearts," I
said. "You shall never repent the trust you have reposed in me.
May I come to you to-morrow? May I come as early as nine o'clock?"
"Yes, Walter," he replied, looking up at me kindly, and speaking
in English once more, as if his one anxiety now was to get back to
our former relations towards each other. "Come to my little bit
of breakfast before I go my ways among the pupils that I teach."
"Good-night, Pesca."
"Good-night, my friend."
VI
MY first conviction as soon as I found myself outside the house,
was that no alternative was left me but to act at once on the
information I had received--to make sure of the Count that night,
or to risk the loss, if I only delayed till the morning, of
Laura's last chance. I looked at my watch--it was ten o'clock.
Not the shadow of a doubt crossed my mind of the purpose for which
the Count had left the theatre. His escape from us, that evening,
was beyond all question the preliminary only to his escape from
London. The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm--I felt as
certain of it as if he had shown me the brand; and the betrayal of
the Brotherhood was on his conscience--I had seen it in his
recognition of Pesca.
It was easy to understand why that recognition had not been
mutual. A man of the Count's character would never risk the
terrible consequences of turning spy without looking to his
personal security quite as carefully as he looked to his golden
reward. The shaven face, which I had pointed out at the Opera,
might have been covered by a beard in Pesca's time--his dark brown
hair might be a wig--his name was evidently a false one. The
accident of time might have helped him as well--his immense
corpulence might have come with his later years. There was every
reason why Pesca should not have known him again--every reason
also why he should have known Pesca, whose singular personal
appearance made a marked man of him, go where he might.
I have said that I felt certain of the purpose in the Count's mind
when he escaped us at the theatre. How could I doubt it, when I
saw, with my own eyes, that he believed himself, in spite of the
change in his appearance, to have been recognised by Pesca, and to
be therefore in danger of his life? If I could get speech of him
that night, if I could show him that I, too knew of the mortal
peril in which he stood, what result would follow? Plainly this.
One of us must be master of the situation--one of us must
inevitably be at the mercy of the other.
I owed it to myself to consider the chances against me before I
confronted them. I owed it to my wife to do all that lay in my
power to lessen the risk.
The chances against me wanted no reckoning up--they were all
merged in one. If the Count discovered, by my own avowal, that
the direct way to his safety lay through my life, he was probably
the last man in existence who would shrink from throwing me off my
guard and taking that way, when he had me alone within his reach.
The only means of defence against him on which I could at all rely
to lessen the risk, presented themselves, after a little careful
thinking, clearly enough. Before I made any personal
acknowledgment of my discovery in his presence, I must place the
discovery itself where it would be ready for instant use against
him, and safe from any attempt at suppression on his part. If I
laid the mine under his feet before I approached him, and if I
left instructions with a third person to fire it on the expiration
of a certain time, unless directions to the contrary were
previously received under my own hand, or from my own lips--in
that event the Count's security was absolutely dependent upon
mine, and I might hold the vantage ground over him securely, even
in his own house.
This idea occurred to me when I was close to the new lodgings
which we had taken on returning from the sea-side. I went in
without disturbing any one, by the help of my key. A light was in
the hall, and I stole up with it to my workroom to make my
preparations, and absolutely to commit myself to an interview with
the Count, before either Laura or Marian could have the slightest
suspicion of what I intended to do.
A letter addressed to Pesca represented the surest measure of
precaution which it was now possible for me to take. I wrote as
follows--
"The man whom I pointed out to you at the Opera is a member of the
Brotherhood, and has been false to his trust. Put both these
assertions to the test instantly. You know the name he goes by in
England. His address is No. 5 Forest Road, St. John's Wood. On
the love you once bore me, use the power entrusted to you without
mercy and without delay against that man. I have risked all and
lost all--and the forfeit of my failure has been paid with my
life."
I signed and dated these lines, enclosed them in an envelope, and
sealed it up. On the outside I wrote this direction: "Keep the
enclosure unopened until nine o'clock to-morrow morning. If you
do not hear from me, or see me, before that time, break the seal
when the clock strikes, and read the contents." I added my
initials, and protected the whole by enclosing it in a second
sealed envelope, addressed to Pesca at his lodgings.
Nothing remained to be done after this but to find the means of
sending my letter to its destination immediately. I should then
have accomplished all that lay in my power. If anything happened
to me in the Count's house, I had now provided for his answering
it with his life.
That the means of preventing his escape, under any circumstances
whatever, were at Pesca's disposal, if he chose to exert them, I
did not for an instant doubt. The extraordinary anxiety which he
had expressed to remain unenlightened as to the Count's identity--
or, in other words, to be left uncertain enough about facts to
justify him to his own conscience in remaining passive--betrayed
plainly that the means of exercising the terrible justice of the
Brotherhood were ready to his hand, although, as a naturally
humane man, he had shrunk from plainly saying as much in my
presence. The deadly certainty with which the vengeance of
foreign political societies can hunt down a traitor to the cause,
hide himself where he may, had been too often exemplified, even in
my superficial experience, to allow of any doubt. Considering the
subject only as a reader of newspapers, cases recurred to my
memory, both in London and in Paris, of foreigners found stabbed
in the streets, whose assassins could never be traced--of bodies
and parts of bodies thrown into the Thames and the Seine, by hands
that could never be discovered--of deaths by secret violence which
could only be accounted for in one way. I have disguised nothing
relating to myself in these pages, and I do not disguise here that
I believed I had written Count Fosco's death-warrant, if the fatal
emergency happened which authorised Pesca to open my enclosure.
I left my room to go down to the ground floor of the house, and
speak to the landlord about finding me a messenger. He happened
to be ascending the stairs at the time, and we met on the landing.
His son, a quick lad, was the messenger he proposed to me on
hearing what I wanted. We had the boy upstairs, and I gave him
his directions. He was to take the letter in a cab, to put it
into Professor Pesca's own hands, and to bring me back a line of
acknowledgment from that gentleman--returning in the cab, and
keeping it at the door for my use. It was then nearly half-past
ten. I calculated that the boy might be back in twenty minutes,
and that I might drive to St. John's Wood, on his return, in
twenty minutes more.
When the lad had departed on his errand I returned to my own room
for a little while, to put certain papers in order, so that they
might be easily found in case of the worst. The key of the oldfashioned
bureau in which the papers were kept I sealed up, and
left it on my table, with Marian's name written on the outside of
the little packet. This done, I went down-stairs to the sittingroom,
in which I expected to find Laura and Marian awaiting my
return from the Opera. I felt my hand trembling for the first
time when I laid it on the lock of the door.
No one was in the room but Marian. She was reading, and she
looked at her watch, in surprise, when I came in.
"How early you are back!" she said. "You must have come away
before the Opera was over."
"Yes," I replied, "neither Pesca nor I waited for the end. Where
is Laura?"
"She had one of her bad headaches this evening, and I advised her
to go to bed when we had done tea."
I left the room again on the pretext of wishing to see whether
Laura was asleep. Marian's quick eyes were beginning to look
inquiringly at my face--Marian's quick instinct was beginning to
discover that I had something weighing on my mind.
When I entered the bedchamber, and softly approached the bedside
by the dim flicker of the night-lamp, my wife was asleep.
We had not been married quite a month yet. If my heart was heavy,
if my resolution for a moment faltered again, when I looked at her
face turned faithfully to my pillow in her sleep--when I saw her
hand resting open on the coverlid, as if it was waiting
unconsciously for mine--surely there was some excuse for me? I
only allowed myself a few minutes to kneel down at the bedside,
and to look close at her--so close that her breath, as it came and
went, fluttered on my face. I only touched her hand and her cheek
with my lips at parting. She stirred in her sleep and murmured my
name, but without waking. I lingered for an instant at the door
to look at her again. "God bless and keep you, my darling!" I
whispered, and left her.
Marian was at the stairhead waiting for me. She had a folded slip
of paper in her hand.
"The landlord's son has brought this for you," she said. "He has
got a cab at the door--he says you ordered him to keep it at your
disposal."
"Quite right, Marian. I want the cab--I am going out again."
I descended the stairs as I spoke, and looked into the sittingroom
to read the slip of paper by the light on the table. It
contained these two sentences in Pesca's handwriting--
"Your letter is received. If I don't see you before the time you
mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes."
I placed the paper in my pocket-book, and made for the door.
Marian met me on the threshold, and pushed me back into the room,
where the candle-light fell full on my face. She held me by both
hands, and her eyes fastened searchingly on mine.
"I see!" she said, in a low eager whisper. "You are trying the
last chance to-night."
"Yes, the last chance and the best," I whispered back.
"Not alone! Oh, Walter, for God's sake, not alone! Let me go with
you. Don't refuse me because I'm only a woman. I must go! I will
go! I'll wait outside in the cab!"
It was my turn now to hold HER. She tried to break away from me
and get down first to the door.
"If you want to help me," I said, "stop here and sleep in my
wife's room to-night. Only let me go away with my mind easy about
Laura, and I answer for everything else. Come, Marian, give me a
kiss, and show that you have the courage to wait till I come
back."
I dared not allow her time to say a word more. She tried to hold
me again. I unclasped her hands, and was out of the room in a
moment. The boy below heard me on the stairs, and opened the
hall-door. I jumped into the cab before the driver could get off
the box. "Forest Road, St. John's Wood," I called to him through
the front window. "Double fare if you get there in a quarter of
an hour." "I'll do it, sir." I looked at my watch. Eleven
o'clock. Not a minute to lose.
The rapid motion of the cab, the sense that every instant now was
bringing me nearer to the Count, the conviction that I was
embarked at last, without let or hindrance, on my hazardous
enterprise, heated me into such a fever of excitement that I
shouted to the man to go faster and faster. As we left the
streets, and crossed St. John's Wood Road, my impatience so
completely overpowered me that I stood up in the cab and stretched
my head out of the window, to see the end of the journey before we
reached it. Just as a church clock in the distance struck the
quarter past, we turned into the Forest Road. I stopped the
driver a little away from the Count's house, paid and dismissed
him, and walked on to the door.
As I approached the garden gate, I saw another person advancing
towards it also from the direction opposite to mine. We met under
the gas lamp in the road, and looked at each other. I instantly
recognised the light-haired foreigner with the scar on his cheek,
and I thought he recognised me. He said nothing, and instead of
stopping at the house, as I did, he slowly walked on. Was he in
the Forest Road by accident? Or had he followed the Count home
from the Opera?
I did not pursue those questions. After waiting a little till the
foreigner had slowly passed out of sight, I rang the gate bell.
It was then twenty minutes past eleven--late enough to make it
quite easy for the Count to get rid of me by the excuse that he
was in bed.
The only way of providing against this contingency was to send in
my name without asking any preliminary questions, and to let him
know, at the same time, that I had a serious motive for wishing to
see him at that late hour. Accordingly, while I was waiting, I
took out my card and wrote under my name "On important business."
The maid-servant answered the door while I was writing the last
word in pencil, and asked me distrustfully what I "pleased to
want."
"Be so good as to take that to your master," I replied, giving her
the card.
I saw, by the girl's hesitation of manner, that if I had asked for
the Count in the first instance she would only have followed her
instructions by telling me he was not at home. She was staggered
by the confidence with which I gave her the card. After staring
at me, in great perturbation, she went back into the house with my
message, closing the door, and leaving me to wait in the garden.
In a minute or so she reappeared. "Her master's compliments, and
would I be so obliging as to say what my business was?" "Take my
compliments back," I replied, "and say that the business cannot be
mentioned to any one but your master." She left me again, again
returned, and this time asked me to walk in.
I followed her at once. In another moment I was inside the
Count's house.
VII
There was no lamp in the hall, but by the dim light of the kitchen
candle, which the girl had brought upstairs with her, I saw an
elderly lady steal noiselessly out of a back room on the ground
floor. She cast one viperish look at me as I entered the hall,
but said nothing, and went slowly upstairs without returning my
bow. My familiarity with Marian's journal sufficiently assured me
that the elderly lady was Madame Fosco.
The servant led me to the room which the Countess had just left.
I entered it, and found myself face to face with the Count.
He was still in his evening dress, except his coat, which he had
thrown across a chair. His shirt-sleeves were turned up at the
wrists, but no higher. A carpet-bag was on one side of him, and a
box on the other. Books, papers, and articles of wearing apparel
were scattered about the room. On a table, at one side of the
door, stood the cage, so well known to me by description, which
contained his white mice. The canaries and the cockatoo were
probably in some other room. He was seated before the box,
packing it, when I went in, and rose with some papers in his hand
to receive me. His face still betrayed plain traces of the shock
that had overwhelmed him at the Opera. His fat cheeks hung loose,
his cold grey eyes were furtively vigilant, his voice, look, and
manner were all sharply suspicious alike, as he advanced a step to
meet me, and requested, with distant civility, that I would take a
chair.
"You come here on business, sir?" he said. "I am at a loss to
know what that business can possibly he."
The unconcealed curiosity, with which he looked hard in my face
while he spoke, convinced me that I had passed unnoticed by him at
the Opera. He had seen Pesca first, and from that moment till he
left the theatre he had evidently seen nothing else. My name
would necessarily suggest to him that I had not come into his
house with other than a hostile purpose towards himself, but he
appeared to be utterly ignorant thus far of the real nature of my
errand.
"I am fortunate in finding you here to-night," I said. "You seem
to be on the point of taking a journey?"
"Is your business connected with my journey?"
"In some degree."
"In what degree? Do you know where I am going to?"
"No. I only know why you are leaving London."
He slipped by me with the quickness of thought, locked the door,
and put the key in his pocket.
"You and I, Mr. Hartright, are excellently well acquainted with
one another by reputation," he said. "Did it, by any chance,
occur to you when you came to this house that I was not the sort
of man you could trifle with?"
"It did occur to me," I replied. "And I have not come to trifle
with you. I am here on a matter of life and death, and if that
door which you have locked was open at this moment, nothing you
could say or do would induce me to pass through it."
I walked farther into the room, and stood opposite to him on the
rug before the fireplace. He drew a chair in front of the door,
and sat down on it, with his left arm resting on the table. The
cage with the white mice was close to him, and the little
creatures scampered out of their sleeping-place as his heavy arm
shook the table, and peered at him through the gaps in the smartly
painted wires
"On a matter of life and death," he repeated to himself. "Those
words are more serious, perhaps, than you think. What do you
mean?"
"What I say."
The perspiration broke out thickly on his broad forehead. His
left hand stole over the edge of the table. There was a drawer in
it, with a lock, and the key was in the lock. His finger and
thumb closed over the key, but did not turn it.
"So you know why I am leaving London?" he went on. "Tell me the
reason, if you please." He turned the key, and unlocked the drawer
as he spoke.
"I can do better than that," I replied. I can SHOW you the
reason, if you like."
"How can you show it?"
"You have got your coat off," I said. "Roll up the shirt-sleeve
on your left arm, and you will see it there."
The same livid leaden change passed over his face which I had seen
pass over it at the theatre. The deadly glitter in his eyes shone
steady and straight into mine. He said nothing. But his left
hand slowly opened the table-drawer, and softly slipped into it.
The harsh grating noise of something heavy that he was moving
unseen to me sounded for a moment, then ceased. The silence that
followed was so intense that the faint ticking nibble of the white
mice at their wires was distinctly audible where I stood.
My life hung by a thread, and I knew it. At that final moment I
thought with HIS mind, I felt with HIS fingers--I was as certain
as if I had seen it of what he kept hidden from me in the drawer.
"Wait a little," I said. "You have got the door locked--you see I
don't move--you see my hands are empty. Wait a little. I have
something more to say."
"You have said enough," he replied, with a sudden composure so
unnatural and so ghastly that it tried my nerves as no outbreak of
violence could have tried them. "I want one moment for my own
thoughts, if you please. Do you guess what I am thinking about?"
"Perhaps I do."
"I am thinking," he remarked quietly, "whether I shall add to the
disorder in this room by scattering your brains about the
fireplace."
If I had moved at that moment, I saw in his face that he would
have done it.
"I advise you to read two lines of writing which I have about me,"
I rejoined, "before you finally decide that question."
The proposal appeared to excite his curiosity. He nodded his
head. I took Pesca's acknowledgment of the receipt of my letter
out of my pocket-book, handed it to him at arm's length, and
returned to my former position in front of the fireplace.
He read the lines aloud: "Your letter is received. If I don't
hear from you before the time you mention, I will break the seal
when the clock strikes."
Another man in his position would have needed some explanation of
those words--the Count felt no such necessity. One reading of the
note showed him the precaution that I had taken as plainly as if
he had been present at the time when I adopted it. The expression
of his face changed on the instant, and his hand came out of the
drawer empty.
"I don't lock up my drawer, Mr. Hartright," he said, "and I don't
say that I may not scatter your brains about the fireplace yet.
But I am a just man even to my enemy, and I will acknowledge
beforehand that they are cleverer brains than I thought them.
Come to the point, sir! You want something of me?"
"I do, and I mean to have it."
"On conditions?"
"On no conditions."
His hand dropped into the drawer again.
"Bah! we are travelling in a circle," he said, "and those clever
brains of yours are in danger again. Your tone is deplorably
imprudent, sir--moderate it on the spot! The risk of shooting you
on the place where you stand is less to me than the risk of
letting you out of this house, except on conditions that I dictate
and approve. You have not got my lamented friend to deal with
now--you are face to face with Fosco! If the lives of twenty Mr.
Hartrights were the stepping-stones to my safety, over all those
stones I would go, sustained by my sublime indifference, selfbalanced
by my impenetrable calm. Respect me, if you love your
own life! I summon you to answer three questions before you open
your lips again. Hear them--they are necessary to this interview.
Answer them--they are necessary to ME." He held up one finger of
his right hand. "First question!" he said. "You come here
possessed of information which may be true or may be false--where
did you get it?"
"I decline to tell you."
"No matter--I shall find out. If that information is true--mind I
say, with the whole force of my resolution, if--you are making
your market of it here by treachery of your own or by treachery of
some other man. I note that circumstance for future use in my
memory, which forgets nothing, and proceed." He held up another
finger. "Second question! Those lines you invited me to read are
without signature. Who wrote them?"
"A man whom I have every reason to depend on, and whom you have
every reason to fear."
My answer reached him to some purpose. His left hand trembled
audibly in the drawer.
"How long do you give me," he asked, putting his third question in
a quieter tone, "before the clock strikes and the seal is broken?"
"Time enough for you to come to my terms," I replied.
"Give me a plainer answer, Mr. Hartright. What hour is the clock
to strike?"
"Nine, to-morrow morning."
"Nine, to-morrow morning? Yes, yes--your trap is laid for me
before I can get my passport regulated and leave London. It is
not earlier, I suppose? We will see about that presently--I can
keep you hostage here, and bargain with you to send for your
letter before I let you go. In the meantime, be so good next as
to mention your terms."
"You shall hear them. They are simple, and soon stated. You know
whose interests I represent in coming here?"
He smiled with the most supreme composure, and carelessly waved
his right hand.
"I consent to hazard a guess," he said jeeringly. "A lady's
interests, of course!"
"My Wife's interests."
He looked at me with the first honest expression that had crossed
his face in my presence--an expression of blank amazement. I
could see that I sank in his estimation as a dangerous man from
that moment. He shut up the drawer at once, folded his arms over
his breast, and listened to me with a smile of satirical
attention.
"You are well enough aware," I went on, "of the course which my
inquiries have taken for many months past, to know that any
attempted denial of plain facts will be quite useless in my
presence. You are guilty of an infamous conspiracy! And the gain
of a fortune of ten thousand pounds was your motive for it."
He said nothing. But his face became overclouded suddenly by a
lowering anxiety.
"Keep your gain," I said. (His face lightened again immediately,
and his eyes opened on me in wider and wider astonishment.) "I am
not here to disgrace myself by bargaining for money which has
passed through your hands, and which has been the price of a vile
crime
"Gently, Mr. Hartright. Your moral clap-traps have an excellent
effect in England--keep them for yourself and your own countrymen,
if you please. The ten thousand pounds was a legacy left to my
excellent wife by the late Mr. Fairlie. Place the affair on those
grounds, and I will discuss it if you like. To a man of my
sentiments, however, the subject is deplorably sordid. I prefer
to pass it over. I invite you to resume the discussion of your
terms. What do you demand?"
"In the first place, I demand a full confession of the conspiracy,
written and signed in my presence by yourself."
He raised his finger again. "One!" he said, checking me off with
the steady attention of a practical man.
"In the second place, I demand a plain proof, which does not
depend on your personal asseveration, of the date at which my wife
left Blackwater Park and travelled to London."
"So! so! you can lay your finger, I see, on the weak place," he
remarked composedly. "Any more?"
"At present, no more."
"Good! you have mentioned your terms, now listen to mine. The
responsibility to myself of admitting what you are pleased to call
the 'conspiracy' is less, perhaps, upon the whole, than the
responsibility of laying you dead on that hearthrug. Let us say
that I meet your proposal--on my own conditions. The statement
you demand of me shall be written, and the plain proof shall be
produced. You call a letter from my late lamented friend
informing me of the day and hour of his wife's arrival in London,
written, signed, and dated by himself, a proof, I suppose? I can
give you this. I can also send you to the man of whom I hired the
carriage to fetch my visitor from the railway, on the day when she
arrived--his order-book may help you to your date, even if his
coachman who drove me proves to be of no use. These things I can
do, and will do, on conditions. I recite them. First condition!
Madame Fosco and I leave this house when and how we please,
without interference of any kind on your part. Second condition!
You wait here, in company with me, to see my agent, who is coming
at seven o'clock in the morning to regulate my affairs. You give
my agent a written order to the man who has got your sealed letter
to resign his possession of it. You wait here till my agent
places that letter unopened in my hands, and you then allow me one
clear half-hour to leave the house--after which you resume your
own freedom of action and go where you please. Third condition!
You give me the satisfaction of a gentleman for your intrusion
into my private affairs, and for the language you have allowed
yourself to use to me at this conference. The time and place,
abroad, to be fixed in a letter from my hand when I am safe on the
Continent, and that letter to contain a strip of paper measuring
accurately the length of my sword. Those are my terms. Inform me
if you accept them--Yes or No."
The extraordinary mixture of prompt decision, far-sighted cunning,
and mountebank bravado in this speech, staggered me for a moment--
and only for a moment. The one question to consider was, whether
I was justified or not in possessing myself of the means of
establishing Laura's identity at the cost of allowing the
scoundrel who had robbed her of it to escape me with impunity. I
knew that the motive of securing the just recognition of my wife
in the birthplace from which she had been driven out as an
impostor, and of publicly erasing the lie that still profaned her
mother's tombstone, was far purer, in its freedom from all taint
of evil passion, than the vindictive motive which had mingled
itself with my purpose from the first. And yet I cannot honestly
say that my own moral convictions were strong enough to decide the
struggle in me by themselves. They were helped by my remembrance
of Sir Percival's death. How awfully, at the last moment, had the
working of the retribution THERE been snatched from my feeble
hands! What right had I to decide, in my poor mortal ignorance of
the future, that this man, too, must escape with impunity because
he escaped ME? I thought of these things--perhaps with the
superstition inherent in my nature, perhaps with a sense worthier
of me than superstition. It was hard, when I had fastened my hold
on him at last, to loosen it again of my own accord--but I forced
myself to make the sacrifice. In plainer words, I determined to
be guided by the one higher motive of which I was certain, the
motive of serving the cause of Laura and the cause of Truth.
"I accept your conditions," I said. "With one reservation on my
part."
"What reservation may that be?" he asked.
"It refers to the sealed letter," I answered. "I require you to
destroy it unopened in my presence as soon as it is placed in your
hands."
My object in making this stipulation was simply to prevent him
from carrying away written evidence of the nature of my
communication with Pesca. The fact of my communication he would
necessarily discover, when I gave the address to his agent in the
morning. But he could make no use of it on his own unsupported
testimony--even if he really ventured to try the experiment--which
need excite in me the slightest apprehension on Pesca's account.
"I grant your reservation," he replied, after considering the
question gravely for a minute or two. "It is not worth dispute--
the letter shall be destroyed when it comes into my hands."
He rose, as he spoke, from the chair in which he had been sitting
opposite to me up to this time. With one effort he appeared to
free his mind from the whole pressure on it of the interview
between us thus far. "Ouf!" he cried, stretching his arms
luxuriously, "the skirmish was hot while it lasted. Take a seat,
Mr. Hartright. We meet as mortal enemies here-after--let us, like
gallant gentlemen, exchange polite attentions in the meantime.
Permit me to take the liberty of calling for my wife."
He unlocked and opened the door. "Eleanor!" he called out in his
deep voice. The lady of the viperish face came in "Madame Fosco--
Mr. Hartright," said the Count, introducing us with easy dignity.
"My angel," he went on, addressing his wife, "will your labours of
packing up allow you time to make me some nice strong coffee? I
have writing business to transact with Mr. Hartright--and I
require the full possession of my intelligence to do justice to
myself."
Madame Fosco bowed her head twice--once sternly to me, once
submissively to her husband, and glided out of the room.
The Count walked to a writing-table near the window, opened his
desk, and took from it several quires of paper and a bundle of
quill pens. He scattered the pens about the table, so that they
might lie ready in all directions to be taken up when wanted, and
then cut the paper into a heap of narrow slips, of the form used
by professional writers for the press. "I shall make this a
remarkable document," he said, looking at me over his shoulder.
"Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One
of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man
can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense
privilege! I possess it. Do you?"
He marched backwards and forwards in the room, until the coffee
appeared, humming to himself, and marking the places at which
obstacles occurred in the arrangement of his ideas, by striking
his forehead from time to time with the palm of his hand. The
enormous audacity with which he seized on the situation in which I
placed him, and made it the pedestal on which his vanity mounted
for the one cherished purpose of self-display, mastered my
astonishment by main force. Sincerely as I loathed the man, the
prodigious strength of his character, even in its most trivial
aspects, impressed me in spite of myself.
The coffee was brought in by Madame Fosco. He kissed her hand in
grateful acknowledgment, and escorted her to the door; returned,
poured out a cup of coffee for himself, and took it to the
writing-table.
"May I offer you some coffee, Mr. Hartright?" he said, before he
sat down.
I declined.
"What! you think I shall poison you?" he said gaily. "The English
intellect is sound, so far as it goes," he continued, seating
himself at the table; "but it has one grave defect--it is always
cautious in the wrong place."
He dipped his pen in the ink, placed the first slip of paper
before him with a thump of his hand on the desk, cleared his
throat, and began. He wrote with great noise and rapidity, in so
large and bold a hand, and with such wide spaces between the
lines, that he reached the bottom of the slip in not more than two
minutes certainly from the time when he started at the top. Each
slip as he finished it was paged, and tossed over his shoulder out
of his way on the floor. When his first pen was worn out, THAT
went over his shoulder too, and he pounced on a second from the
supply scattered about the table. Slip after slip, by dozens, by
fifties, by hundreds, flew over his shoulders on either side of
him till he had snowed himself up in paper all round his chair.
Hour after hour passed--and there I sat watching, there he sat
writing. He never stopped, except to sip his coffee, and when
that was exhausted, to smack his forehead from time to time. One
o'clock struck, two, three, four--and still the slips flew about
all round him; still the untiring pen scraped its way ceaselessly
from top to bottom of the page, still the white chaos of paper
rose higher and higher all round his chair. At four o'clock I
heard a sudden splutter of the pen, indicative of the flourish
with which he signed his name. "Bravo!" he cried, springing to
his feet with the activity of a young man, and looking me straight
in the face with a smile of superb triumph.
"Done, Mr. Hartright I " he announced with a self-renovating thump
of his fist on his broad breast. "Done, to my own profound
satisfaction--to YOUR profound astonishment, when you read what I
have written. The subject is exhausted: the man--Fosco--is not.
I proceed to the arrangement of my slips--to the revision of my
slips--to the reading of my slips--addressed emphatically to your
private ear. Four o'clock has just struck. Good! Arrangement,
revision, reading, from four to five. Short snooze of restoration
for myself from five to six. Final preparations from six to
seven. Affair of agent and sealed letter from seven to eight. At
eight, en route. Behold the programme!"
He sat down cross-legged on the floor among his papers, strung
them together with a bodkin and a piece of string--revised them,
wrote all the titles and honours by which he was personally
distinguished at the head of the first page, and then read the
manuscript to me with loud theatrical emphasis and profuse
theatrical gesticulation. The reader will have an opportunity,
ere long, of forming his own opinion of the document. It will be
sufficient to mention here that it answered my purpose.
He next wrote me the address of the person from whom he had hired
the fly, and handed me Sir Percival's letter. It was dated from
Hampshire on the 25th of July, and it announced the journey of
"Lady Glyde" to London on the 26th. Thus, on the very day (the
25th) when the doctor's certificate declared that she had died in
St. John's Wood, she was alive, by Sir Percival's own showing, at
Blackwater--and, on the day after, she was to take a journey! When
the proof of that journey was obtained from the flyman, the
evidence would be complete.
"A quarter-past five," said the Count, looking at his watch.
"Time for my restorative snooze. I personally resemble Napoleon
the Great, as you may have remarked, Mr. Hartright--I also
resemble that immortal man in my power of commanding sleep at
will. Excuse me one moment. I will summon Madame Fosco, to keep
you from feeling dull."
Knowing as well as he did, that he was summoning Madame Fosco to
ensure my not leaving the house while he was asleep, I made no
reply, and occupied myself in tying up the papers which he had
placed in my possession.
The lady came in, cool, pale, and venomous as ever. "Amuse Mr.
Hartright, my angel," said the Count. He placed a chair for her,
kissed her hand for the second time, withdrew to a sofa, and, in
three minutes, was as peacefully and happily asleep as the most
virtuous man in existence.
Madame Fosco took a book from the table, sat down, and looked at
me, with the steady vindictive malice of a woman who never forgot
and never forgave.
"I have been listening to your conversation with my husband," she
said. "If I had been in HIS place--I would have laid you dead on
the hearthrug."
With those words she opened her book, and never looked at me or
spoke to me from that time till the time when her husband woke.
He opened his eyes and rose from the sofa, accurately to an hour
from the time when he had gone to sleep.
"I feel infinitely refreshed," he remarked. "Eleanor, my good
wife, are you all ready upstairs? That is well. My little packing
here can be completed in ten minutes--my travelling-dress assumed
in ten minutes more. What remains before the agent comes?" He
looked about the room, and noticed the cage with his white mice in
it. "Ah!" he cried piteously, "a last laceration of my sympathies
still remains. My innocent pets! my little cherished children!
what am I to do with them? For the present we are settled nowhere;
for the present we travel incessantly--the less baggage we carry
the better for ourselves. My cockatoo, my canaries, and my little
mice--who will cherish them when their good Papa is gone?"
He walked about the room deep in thought. He had not been at all
troubled about writing his confession, but he was visibly
perplexed and distressed about the far more important question of
the disposal of his pets. After long consideration he suddenly
sat down again at the writing-table.
"An idea!" he exclaimed. "I will offer my canaries and my
cockatoo to this vast Metropolis--my agent shall present them in
my name to the Zoological Gardens of London. The Document that
describes them shall be drawn out on the spot."
He began to write, repeating the words as they flowed from his
pen.
"Number one. Cockatoo of transcendent plumage: attraction, of
himself, to all visitors of taste. Number two. Canaries of
unrivalled vivacity and intelligence: worthy of the garden of
Eden, worthy also of the garden in the Regent's Park. Homage to
British Zoology. Offered by Fosco."
The pen spluttered again, and the flourish was attached to his
signature.
"Count! you have not included the mice," said Madame Fosco
He left the table, took her hand, and placed it on his heart.
"All human resolution, Eleanor," he said solemnly, "has its
limits. MY limits are inscribed on that Document. I cannot part
with my white mice. Bear with me, my angel, and remove them to
their travelling cage upstairs."
"Admirable tenderness!" said Madame Fosco, admiring her husband,
with a last viperish look in my direction. She took up the cage
carefully, and left the room.
The Count looked at his watch. In spite of his resolute
assumption of composure, he was getting anxious for the agent's
arrival. The candles had long since been extinguished, and the
sunlight of the new morning poured into the room. It was not till
five minutes past seven that the gate bell rang, and the agent
made his appearance. He was a foreigner with a dark beard.
"Mr. Hartright--Monsieur Rubelle," said the Count, introducing us.
He took the agent (a foreign spy, in every line of his face, if
ever there was one yet) into a corner of the room, whispered some
directions to him, and then left us together. "Monsieur Rubelle,"
as soon as we were alone, suggested with great politeness that I
should favour him with his instructions. I wrote two lines to
Pesca, authorising him to deliver my sealed letter "to the
bearer," directed the note, and handed it to Monsieur Rubelle.
The agent waited with me till his employer returned, equipped in
travelling costume. The Count examined the address of my letter
before he dismissed the agent. "I thought so!" he said, turning
on me with a dark look, and altering again in his manner from that
moment.
He completed his packing, and then sat consulting a travelling
map, making entries in his pocket-book, and looking every now and
then impatiently at his watch. Not another word, addressed to
myself, passed his lips. The near approach of the hour for his
departure, and the proof he had seen of the communication
established between Pesca and myself, had plainly recalled his
whole attention to the measures that were necessary for securing
his escape.
A little before eight o'clock, Monsieur Rubelle came back with my
unopened letter in his hand. The Count looked carefully at the
superscription and the seal, lit a candle, and burnt the letter.
"I perform my promise," he said, "but this matter, Mr. Hartright,
shall not end here."
The agent had kept at the door the cab in which he had returned.
He and the maid-servant now busied themselves in removing the
luggage. Madame Fosco came downstairs, thickly veiled, with the
travelling cage of the white mice in her hand. She neither spoke
to me nor looked towards me. Her husband escorted her to the cab.
"Follow me as far as the passage," he whispered in my ear; "I may
want to speak to you at the last moment."
I went out to the door, the agent standing below me in the front
garden. The Count came back alone, and drew me a few steps inside
the passage.
"Remember the Third condition!" he whispered. "You shall hear
from me, Mr. Hartright--I may claim from you the satisfaction of a
gentleman sooner than you think for." He caught my hand before I
was aware of him, and wrung it hard--then turned to the door,
stopped, and came back to me again.
"One word more," he said confidentially. "When I last saw Miss
Halcombe, she looked thin and ill. I am anxious about that
admirable woman. Take care of her, sir! With my hand on my heart,
I solemnly implore you, take care of Miss Halcombe!"
Those were the last words he said to me before he squeezed his
huge body into the cab and drove off.
The agent and I waited at the door a few moments looking after
him. While we were standing together, a second cab appeared from
a turning a little way down the road. It followed the direction
previously taken by the Count's cab, and as it passed the house
and the open garden gate, a person inside looked at us out of the
window. The stranger at the Opera again!--the foreigner with a
scar on his left cheek.
"You wait here with me, sir, for half an hour more!" said Monsieur
Rubelle.
"I do."
We returned to the sitting-room. I was in no humour to speak to
the agent, or to allow him to speak to me. I took out the papers
which the Count had placed in my hands, and read the terrible
story of the conspiracy told by the man who had planned and
perpetrated it.
THE STORY CONTINUED BY ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE FOSCO
(Count of the Holy Roman Empire, Knight Grand Cross of the Order
of the Brazen Crown, Perpetual Arch-Master of the Rosicrucian
Masons of Mesopotamia; Attached (in Honorary Capacities) to
Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and
Societies General Benevolent, throughout Europe; etc. etc. etc.)
THE COUNT'S NARRATIVE
In the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty I arrived in England,
charged with a delicate political mission from abroad.
Confidential persons were semi-officially connected with me, whose
exertions I was authorised to direct, Monsieur and Madame Rubelle
being among the number. Some weeks of spare time were at my
disposal, before I entered on my functions by establishing myself
in the suburbs of London. Curiosity may stop here to ask for some
explanation of those functions on my part. I entirely sympathise
with the request. I also regret that diplomatic reserve forbids
me to comply with it.
I arranged to pass the preliminary period of repose, to which I
have just referred, in the superb mansion of my late lamented
friend, Sir Percival Glyde. HE arrived from the Continent with
his wife. I arrived from the Continent with MINE. England is the
land of domestic happiness--how appropriately we entered it under
these domestic circumstances!
The bond of friendship which united Percival and myself was
strengthened, on this occasion, by a touching similarity in the
pecuniary position on his side and on mine. We both wanted money.
Immense necessity! Universal want! Is there a civilised human
being who does not feel for us? How insensible must that man be!
Or how rich!
I enter into no sordid particulars, in discussing this part of the
subject. My mind recoils from them. With a Roman austerity, I
show my empty purse and Percival's to the shrinking public gaze.
Let us allow the deplorable fact to assert itself, once for all,
in that manner, and pass on.
We were received at the mansion by the magnificent creature who is
inscribed on my heart as "Marian," who is known in the colder
atmosphere of society as "Miss Halcombe."
Just Heaven! with what inconceivable rapidity I learnt to adore
that woman. At sixty, I worshipped her with the volcanic ardour
of eighteen. All the gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly
at her feet. My wife--poor angel!--my wife, who adores me, got
nothing but the shillings and the pennies. Such is the World,
such Man, such Love. What are we (I ask) but puppets in a showbox?
Oh, omnipotent Destiny, pull our strings gently! Dance us
mercifully off our miserable little stage!
The preceding lines, rightly understood, express an entire system
of philosophy. It is mine.
I resume.
The domestic position at the commencement of our residence at
Blackwater Park has been drawn with amazing accuracy, with
profound mental insight, by the hand of Marian herself. (Pass me
the intoxicating familiarity of mentioning this sublime creature
by her Christian name.) Accurate knowledge of the contents of her
journal--to which I obtained access by clandestine means,
unspeakably precious to me in the remembrance--warns my eager pen
from topics which this essentially exhaustive woman has already
made her own.
The interests--interests, breathless and immense!--with which I am
here concerned, begin with the deplorable calamity of Marian's
illness.
The situation at this period was emphatically a serious one.
Large sums of money, due at a certain time, were wanted by
Percival (I say nothing of the modicum equally necessary to
myself), and the one source to look to for supplying them was the
fortune of his wife, of which not one farthing was at his disposal
until her death. Bad so far, and worse still farther on. My
lamented friend had private troubles of his own, into which the
delicacy of my disinterested attachment to him forbade me from
inquiring too curiously. I knew nothing but that a woman, named
Anne Catherick, was hidden in the neighbourhood, that she was in
communication with Lady Glyde, and that the disclosure of a
secret, which would be the certain ruin of Percival, might be the
result. He had told me himself that he was a lost man, unless his
wife was silenced, and unless Anne Catherick was found. If he was
a lost man, what would become of our pecuniary interests?
Courageous as I am by nature, I absolutely trembled at the idea!
The whole force of my intelligence was now directed to the finding
of Anne Catherick. Our money affairs, important as they were,
admitted of delay--but the necessity of discovering the woman
admitted of none. I only knew her by description, as presenting
an extraordinary personal resemblance to Lady Glyde. The
statement of this curious fact--intended merely to assist me in
identifying the person of whom we were in search--when coupled
with the additional information that Anne Catherick had escaped
from a mad-house, started the first immense conception in my mind,
which subsequently led to such amazing results. That conception
involved nothing less than the complete transformation of two
separate identities. Lady Glyde and Anne Catherick were to change
names, places, and destinies, the one with the other--the
prodigious consequences contemplated by the change being the gain
of thirty thousand pounds, and the eternal preservation of Sir
Percival's secret.
My instincts (which seldom err) suggested to me, on reviewing the
circumstances, that our invisible Anne would, sooner or later,
return to the boat-house at the Blackwater lake. There I posted
myself, previously mentioning to Mrs. Michelson, the housekeeper,
that I might be found when wanted, immersed in study, in that
solitary place. It is my rule never to make unnecessary
mysteries, and never to set people suspecting me for want of a
little seasonable candour on my part. Mrs. Michelson believed in
me from first to last. This ladylike person (widow of a
Protestant priest) overflowed with faith. Touched by such
superfluity of simple confidence in a woman of her mature years, I
opened the ample reservoirs of my nature and absorbed it all.
I was rewarded for posting myself sentinel at the lake by the
appearance--not of Anne Catherick herself, but of the person in
charge of her. This individual also overflowed with simple faith,
which I absorbed in myself, as in the case already mentioned. I
leave her to describe the circumstances (if she has not done so
already) under which she introduced me to the object of her
maternal care. When I first saw Anne Catherick she was asleep. I
was electrified by the likeness between this unhappy woman and
Lady Glyde. The details of the grand scheme which had suggested
themselves in outline only, up to that period, occurred to me, in
all their masterly combination, at the sight of the sleeping face.
At the same time, my heart, always accessible to tender
influences, dissolved in tears at the spectacle of suffering
before me. I instantly set myself to impart relief. In other
words, I provided the necessary stimulant for strengthening Anne
Catherick to perform the journey to London.
The best years of my life have been passed in the ardent study of
medical and chemical science. Chemistry especially has always had
irresistible attractions for me from the enormous, the illimitable
power which the knowledge of it confers. Chemists--I assert it
emphatically--might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of
humanity. Let me explain this before I go further.
Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules the mind? The
body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the most
omnipotent of all potentates--the Chemist. Give me--Fosco--
chemistry; and when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits
down to execute the conception--with a few grains of powder
dropped into his daily food, I will reduce his mind, by the action
of his body, till his pen pours out the most abject drivel that
has ever degraded paper. Under similar circumstances, revive me
the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that when he sees the apple
fall he shall EAT IT, instead of discovering the principle of
gravitation. Nero's dinner shall transform Nero into the mildest
of men before he has done digesting it, and the morning draught of
Alexander the Great shall make Alexander run for his life at the
first sight of the enemy the same afternoon. On my sacred word of
honour it is lucky for Society that modern chemists are, by
incomprehensible good fortune, the most harmless of mankind. The
mass are worthy fathers of families, who keep shops. The few are
philosophers besotted with admiration for the sound of their own
lecturing voices, visionaries who waste their lives on fantastic
impossibilities, or quacks whose ambition soars no higher than our
corns. Thus Society escapes, and the illimitable power of
Chemistry remains the slave of the most superficial and the most
insignificant ends.
Why this outburst? Why this withering eloquence?
Because my conduct has been misrepresented, because my motives
have been misunderstood. It has been assumed that I used my vast
chemical resources against Anne Catherick, and that I would have
used them if I could against the magnificent Marian herself.
Odious insinuations both! All my interests were concerned (as will
be seen presently) in the preservation of Anne Catherick's life.
All my anxieties were concentrated on Marian's rescue from the
hands of the licensed imbecile who attended her, and who found my
advice confirmed from first to last by the physician from London.
On two occasions only--both equally harmless to the individual on
whom I practised--did I summon to myself the assistance of
chemical knowledge. On the first of the two, after following
Marian to the inn at Blackwater (studying, behind a convenient
waggon which hid me from her, the poetry of motion, as embodied in
her walk), I availed myself of the services of my invaluable wife,
to copy one and to intercept the other of two letters which my
adored enemy had entrusted to a discarded maid. In this case, the
letters being in the bosom of the girl's dress, Madame Fosco could
only open them, read them, perform her instructions, seal them,
and put them back again by scientific assistance--which assistance
I rendered in a half-ounce bottle. The second occasion, when the
same means were employed, was the occasion (to which I shall soon
refer) of Lady Glyde's arrival in London. Never at any other time
was I indebted to my Art as distinguished from myself. To all
other emergencies and complications my natural capacity for
grappling, single-handed, with circumstances, was invariably
equal. I affirm the all-pervading intelligence of that capacity.
At the expense of the Chemist I vindicate the Man.
Respect this outburst of generous indignation. It has
inexpressibly relieved me. En route! Let us proceed.
Having suggested to Mrs. Clement (or Clements, I am not sure
which) that the best method of keeping Anne out of Percival's
reach was to remove her to London--having found that my proposal
was eagerly received, and having appointed a day to meet the
travellers at the station and to see them leave it, I was at
liberty to return to the house and to confront the difficulties
which still remained to be met.
My first proceeding was to avail myself of the sublime devotion of
my wife. I had arranged with Mrs. Clements that she should
communicate her London address, in Anne's interests, to Lady
Glyde. But this was not enough. Designing persons in my absence
might shake the simple confidence of Mrs. Clements, and she might
not write after all. Who could I find capable of travelling to
London by the train she travelled by, and of privately seeing her
home? I asked myself this question. The conjugal part of me
immediately answered--Madame Fosco.
After deciding on my wife's mission to London, I arranged that the
journey should serve a double purpose. A nurse for the suffering
Marian, equally devoted to the patient and to myself, was a
necessity of my position. One of the most eminently confidential
and capable women in existence was by good fortune at my disposal.
I refer to that respectable matron, Madame Rubelle, to whom I
addressed a letter, at her residence in London, by the hands of my
wife.
On the appointed day Mrs. Clements and Anne Catherick met me at
the station. I politely saw them off, I politely saw Madame Fosco
off by the same train. The last thing at night my wife returned
to Blackwater, having followed her instructions with the most
unimpeachable accuracy. She was accompanied by Madame Rubelle,
and she brought me the London address of Mrs. Clements. Afterevents
proved this last precaution to have been unnecessary. Mrs.
Clements punctually informed Lady Glyde of her place of abode.
With a wary eye on future emergencies, I kept the letter.
The same day I had a brief interview with the doctor, at which I
protested, in the sacred interests of humanity, against his
treatment of Marian's case. He was insolent, as all ignorant
people are. I showed no resentment, I deferred quarrelling with
him till it was necessary to quarrel to some purpose. My next
proceeding was to leave Blackwater myself. I had my London
residence to take in anticipation of coming events. I had also a
little business of the domestic sort to transact with Mr.
Frederick Fairlie. I found the house I wanted in St. John's Wood.
I found Mr. Fairlie at Limmeridge, Cumberland.
My own private familiarity with the nature of Marian's
correspondence had previously informed me that she had written to
Mr. Fairlie, proposing, as a relief to Lady Glyde's matrimonial
embarrassments, to take her on a visit to her uncle in Cumberland.
This letter I had wisely allowed to reach its destination, feeling
at the time that it could do no harm, and might do good. I now
presented myself before Mr. Fairlie to support Marian's own
proposal--with certain modifications which, happily for the
success of my plans, were rendered really inevitable by her
illness. It was necessary that Lady Glyde should leave Blackwater
alone, by her uncle's invitation, and that she should rest a night
on the journey at her aunt's house (the house I had in St. John's
Wood) by her uncle's express advice. To achieve these results,
and to secure a note of invitation which could be shown to Lady
Glyde, were the objects of my visit to Mr. Fairlie. When I have
mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in mind and body,
and that I let loose the whole force of my character on him, I
have said enough. I came, saw, and conquered Fairlie.
On my return to Blackwater Park (with the letter of invitation) I
found that the doctor's imbecile treatment of Marian's case had
led to the most alarming results. The fever had turned to typhus.
Lady Glyde, on the day of my return, tried to force herself into
the room to nurse her sister. She and I had no affinities of
sympathy--she had committed the unpardonable outrage on my
sensibilities of calling me a spy--she was a stumbling-block in my
way and in Percival's--but, for all that, my magnanimity forbade
me to put her in danger of infection with my own hand. At the
same time I offered no hindrance to her putting herself in danger.
If she had succeeded in doing so, the intricate knot which I was
slowly and patiently operating on might perhaps have been cut by
circumstances. As it was, the doctor interfered and she was kept
out of the room.
I had myself previously recommended sending for advice to London.
This course had been now taken. The physician, on his arrival,
confirmed my view of the case. The crisis was serious. But we
had hope of our charming patient on the fifth day from the
appearance of the typhus. I was only once absent from Blackwater
at this time--when I went to London by the morning train to make
the final arrangements at my house in St. John's Wood, to assure
myself by private inquiry that Mrs. Clements had not moved, and to
settle one or two little preliminary matters with the husband of
Madame Rubelle. I returned at night. Five days afterwards the
physician pronounced our interesting Marian to be out of all
danger, and to be in need of nothing but careful nursing. This
was the time I had waited for. Now that medical attendance was no
longer indispensable, I played the first move in the game by
asserting myself against the doctor. He was one among many
witnesses in my way whom it was necessary to remove. A lively
altercation between us (in which Percival, previously instructed
by me, refused to interfere) served the purpose in view. I
descended on the miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of
indignation, and swept him from the house.
The servants were the next encumbrances to get rid of. Again I
instructed Percival (whose moral courage required perpetual
stimulants), and Mrs. Michelson was amazed, one day, by hearing
from her master that the establishment was to be broken up. We
cleared the house of all the servants but one, who was kept for
domestic purposes, and whose lumpish stupidity we could trust to
make no embarrassing discoveries. When they were gone, nothing
remained but to relieve ourselves of Mrs. Michelson--a result
which was easily achieved by sending this amiable lady to find
lodgings for her mistress at the sea-side.
The circumstances were now exactly what they were required to be.
Lady Glyde was confined to her room by nervous illness, and the
lumpish housemaid (I forget her name) was shut up there at night
in attendance on her mistress. Marian, though fast recovering,
still kept her bed, with Mrs. Rubelle for nurse. No other living
creatures but my wife, myself, and Percival were in the house.
With all the chances thus in our favour I confronted the next
emergency, and played the second move in the game.
The object of the second move was to induce Lady Glyde to leave
Blackwater unaccompanied by her sister. Unless we could persuade
her that Marian had gone on to Cumberland first, there was no
chance of removing her, of her own free will, from the house. To
produce this necessary operation in her mind, we concealed our
interesting invalid in one of the uninhabited bedrooms at
Blackwater. At the dead of night Madame Fosco, Madame Rubelle,
and myself (Percival not being cool enough to be trusted)
accomplished the concealment. The scene was picturesque,
mysterious, dramatic in the highest degree. By my directions the
bed had been made, in the morning, on a strong movable framework
of wood. We had only to lift the framework gently at the head and
foot, and to transport our patient where we pleased, without
disturbing herself or her bed. No chemical assistance was needed
or used in this case. Our interesting Marian lay in the deep
repose of convalescence. We placed the candles and opened the
doors beforehand. I, in right of my great personal strength, took
the head of the framework--my wife and Madame Rubelle took the
foot. I bore my share of that inestimably precious burden with a
manly tenderness, with a fatherly care. Where is the modern
Rembrandt who could depict our midnight procession? Alas for the
Arts! alas for this most pictorial of subjects! The modern
Rembrandt is nowhere to be found.
The next morning my wife and I started for London, leaving Marian
secluded, in the uninhabited middle of the house, under care of
Madame Rubelle, who kindly consented to imprison herself with her
patient for two or three days. Before taking our departure I gave
Percival Mr. Fairlie's letter of invitation to his niece
(instructing her to sleep on the journey to Cumberland at her
aunt's house), with directions to show it to Lady Glyde on hearing
from me. I also obtained from him the address of the Asylum in
which Anne Catherick had been confined, and a letter to the
proprietor, announcing to that gentleman the return of his runaway
patient to medical care.
I had arranged, at my last visit to the metropolis, to have our
modest domestic establishment ready to receive us when we arrived
in London by the early train. In consequence of this wise
precaution, we were enabled that same day to play the third move
in the game--the getting possession of Anne Catherick.
Dates are of importance here. I combine in myself the opposite
characteristics of a Man of Sentiment and a Man of Business. I
have all the dates at my fingers' ends.
On Wednesday, the 24th of July 1850, I sent my wife in a cab to
clear Mrs. Clements out of the way, in the first place. A
supposed message from Lady Glyde in London was sufficient to
obtain this result. Mrs. Clements was taken away in the cab, and
was left in the cab, while my wife (on pretence of purchasing
something at a shop) gave her the slip, and returned to receive
her expected visitor at our house in St. John's Wood. It is
hardly necessary to add that the visitor had been described to the
servants as "Lady Glyde."
In the meanwhile I had followed in another cab, with a note for
Anne Catherick, merely mentioning that Lady Glyde intended to keep
Mrs. Clements to spend the day with her, and that she was to join
them under care of the good gentleman waiting outside, who had
already saved her from discovery in Hampshire by Sir Percival.
The "good gentleman" sent in this note by a street boy, and paused
for results a door or two farther on. At the moment when Anne
appeared at the house door and closed it this excellent man had
the cab door open ready for her, absorbed her into the vehicle,
and drove off.
(Pass me, here, one exclamation in parenthesis. How interesting
this is!)
On the way to Forest Road my companion showed no fear. I can be
paternal--no man more so--when I please, and I was intensely
paternal on this occasion. What titles I had to her confidence! I
had compounded the medicine which had done her good--I had warned
her of her danger from Sir Percival. Perhaps I trusted too
implicitly to these titles--perhaps I underrated the keenness of
the lower instincts in persons of weak intellect--it is certain
that I neglected to prepare her sufficiently for a disappointment
on entering my house. When I took her into the drawing-room--when
she saw no one present but Madame Fosco, who was a stranger to
her--she exhibited the most violent agitation; if she had scented
danger in the air, as a dog scents the presence of some creature
unseen, her alarm could not have displayed itself more suddenly
and more causelessly. I interposed in vain. The fear from which
she was suffering I might have soothed, but the serious heartdisease,
under which she laboured, was beyond the reach of all
moral palliatives. To my unspeakable horror she was seized with
convulsions--a shock to the system, in her condition, which might
have laid her dead at any moment at our feet.
The nearest doctor was sent for, and was told that "Lady Glyde"
required his immediate services. To my infinite relief, he was a
capable man. I represented my visitor to him as a person of weak
intellect, and subject to delusions, and I arranged that no nurse
but my wife should watch in the sick-room. The unhappy woman was
too ill, however, to cause any anxiety about what she might say.
The one dread which now oppressed me was the dread that the false
Lady Glyde might die before the true Lady Glyde arrived in London.
I had written a note in the morning to Madame Rubelle, telling her
to join me at her husband's house on the evening of Friday the
26th, with another note to Percival, warning him to show his wife
her uncle's letter of invitation, to assert that Marian had gone
on before her, and to despatch her to town by the midday train, on
the 26th, also. On reflection I had felt the necessity, in Anne
Catherick's state of health, of precipitating events, and of
having Lady Glyde at my disposal earlier than I had originally
contemplated. What fresh directions, in the terrible uncertainty
of my position, could I now issue? I could do nothing but trust to
chance and the doctor. My emotions expressed themselves in
pathetic apostrophes, which I was just self-possessed enough to
couple, in the hearing of other people, with the name of "Lady
Glyde." In all other respects Fosco, on that memorable day, was
Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.
She passed a bad night, she awoke worn out, but later in the day
she revived amazingly. My elastic spirits revived with her. I
could receive no answers from Percival and Madame Rubelle till the
morning of the next day, the 26th. In anticipation of their
following my directions, which, accident apart, I knew they would
do, I went to secure a fly to fetch Lady Glyde from the railway,
directing it to be at my house on the 26th, at two o'clock. After
seeing the order entered in the book, I went on to arrange matters
with Monsieur Rubelle. I also procured the services of two
gentlemen who could furnish me with the necessary certificates of
lunacy. One of them I knew personally--the other was known to
Monsieur Rubelle. Both were men whose vigorous minds soared
superior to narrow scruples--both were labouring under temporary
embarrassments--both believed in ME.
It was past five o'clock in the afternoon before I returned from
the performance of these duties. When I got back Anne Catherick
was dead. Dead on the 25th, and Lady Glyde was not to arrive in
London till the 26th!
I was stunned. Meditate on that. Fosco stunned!
It was too late to retrace our steps. Before my return the doctor
had officiously undertaken to save me all trouble by registering
the death, on the date when it happened, with his own hand. My
grand scheme, unassailable hitherto, had its weak place now--no
efforts on my part could alter the fatal event of the 25th. I
turned manfully to the future. Percival's interests and mine
being still at stake, nothing was left but to play the game
through to the end. I recalled my impenetrable calm--and played
it.
On the morning of the 26th Percival's letter reached me,
announcing his wife's arrival by the midday train. Madame Rubelle
also wrote to say she would follow in the evening. I started in
the fly, leaving the false Lady Glyde dead in the house, to
receive the true Lady Glyde on her arrival by the railway at three
o'clock. Hidden under the seat of the carriage, I carried with me
all the clothes Anne Catherick had worn on coming into my house--
they were destined to assist the resurrection of the woman who was
dead in the person of the woman who was living. What a situation!
I suggest it to the rising romance writers of England. I offer
it, as totally new, to the worn-out dramatists of France.
Lady Glyde was at the station. There was great crowding and
confusion, and more delay than I liked (in case any of her friends
had happened to be on the spot), in reclaiming her luggage. Her
first questions, as we drove off, implored me to tell her news of
her sister. I invented news of the most pacifying kind, assuring
her that she was about to see her sister at my house. My house,
on this occasion only, was in the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square, and was in the occupation of Monsieur Rubelle, who
received us in the hall.
I took my visitor upstairs into a back room, the two medical
gentlemen being there in waiting on the floor beneath to see the
patient, and to give me their certificates. After quieting Lady
Glyde by the necessary assurances about her sister, I introduced
my friends separately to her presence. They performed the
formalities of the occasion briefly, intelligently,
conscientiously. I entered the room again as soon as they had
left it, and at once precipitated events by a reference of the
alarming kind to "Miss Halcombe's" state of health.
Results followed as I had anticipated. Lady Glyde became
frightened, and turned faint. For the second time, and the last,
I called Science to my assistance. A medicated glass of water and
a medicated bottle of smelling-salts relieved her of all further
embarrassment and alarm. Additional applications later in the
evening procured her the inestimable blessing of a good night's
rest. Madame Rubelle arrived in time to preside at Lady Glyde's
toilet. Her own clothes were taken away from her at night, and
Anne Catherick's were put on her in the morning, with the
strictest regard to propriety, by the matronly hands of the good
Rubelle. Throughout the day I kept our patient in a state of
partially-suspended consciousness, until the dexterous assistance
of my medical friends enabled me to procure the necessary order
rather earlier than I had ventured to hope. That evening (the
evening of the 27th) Madame Rubelle and I took our revived "Anne
Catherick" to the Asylum. She was received with great surprise,
but without suspicion, thanks to the order and certificates, to
Percival's letter, to the likeness, to the clothes, and to the
patient's own confused mental condition at the time. I returned
at once to assist Madame Fosco in the preparations for the burial
of the False "Lady Glyde," having the clothes and luggage of the
true "Lady Glyde" in my possession. They were afterwards sent to
Cumberland by the conveyance which was used for the funeral. I
attended the funeral, with becoming dignity, attired in the
deepest mourning.
My narrative of these remarkable events, written under equally
remarkable circumstances, closes here. The minor precautions
which I observed in communicating with Limmeridge House are
already known, so is the magnificent success of my enterprise, so
are the solid pecuniary results which followed it. I have to
assert, with the whole force of my conviction, that the one weak
place in my scheme would never have been found out if the one weak
place in my heart had not been discovered first. Nothing but my
fatal admiration for Marian restrained me from stepping in to my
own rescue when she effected her sister's escape. I ran the risk,
and trusted in the complete destruction of Lady Glyde's identity.
If either Marian or Mr. Hartright attempted to assert that
identity, they would publicly expose themselves to the imputation
of sustaining a rank deception, they would be distrusted and
discredited accordingly, and they would therefore be powerless to
place my interests or Percival's secret in jeopardy. I committed
one error in trusting myself to such a blindfold calculation of
chances as this. I committed another when Percival had paid the
penalty of his own obstinacy and violence, by granting Lady Glyde
a second reprieve from the mad-house, and allowing Mr. Hartright a
second chance of escaping me. In brief, Fosco, at this serious
crisis, was untrue to himself. Deplorable and uncharacteristic
fault! Behold the cause, in my heart--behold, in the image of
Marian Halcombe, the first and last weakness of Fosco's life!
At the ripe age of sixty, I make this unparalleled confession.
Youths! I invoke your sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears.
A word more, and the attention of the reader (concentrated
breathlessly on myself) shall be released.
My own mental insight informs me that three inevitable questions
will be asked here by persons of inquiring minds. They shall be
stated--they shall be answered.
First question. What is the secret of Madame Fosco's unhesitating
devotion of herself to the fulfilment of my boldest wishes, to the
furtherance of my deepest plans? I might answer this by simply
referring to my own character, and by asking, in my turn, Where,
in the history of the world, has a man of my order ever been found
without a woman in the background self-immolated on the altar of
his life? But I remember that I am writing in England, I remember
that I was married in England, and I ask if a woman's marriage
obligations in this country provide for her private opinion of her
husband's principles? No! They charge her unreservedly to love,
honour, and obey him. That is exactly what my wife has done. I
stand here on a supreme moral elevation, and I loftily assert her
accurate performance of her conjugal duties. Silence, Calumny!
Your sympathy, Wives of England, for Madame Fosco!
Second question. If Anne Catherick had not died when she did,
what should I have done? I should, in that case, have assisted
worn-out Nature in finding permanent repose. I should have opened
the doors of the Prison of Life, and have extended to the captive
(incurably afflicted in mind and body both) a happy release.
Third question. On a calm revision of all the circumstances--Is
my conduct worthy of any serious blame? Most emphatically, No!
Have I not carefully avoided exposing myself to the odium of
committing unnecessary crime? With my vast resources in chemistry,
I might have taken Lady Glyde's life. At immense personal
sacrifice I followed the dictates of my own ingenuity, my own
humanity, my own caution, and took her identity instead. Judge me
by what I might have done. How comparatively innocent! how
indirectly virtuous I appear in what I really did!
I announced on beginning it that this narrative would be a
remarkable document. It has entirely answered my expectations.
Receive these fervid lines--my last legacy to the country I leave
for ever. They are worthy of the occasion, and worthy of
FOSCO.
THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
I
When I closed the last leaf of the Count's manuscript the halfhour
during which I had engaged to remain at Forest Road had
expired. Monsieur Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. I rose
immediately, and left the agent in possession of the empty house.
I never saw him again--I never heard more of him or of his wife.
Out of the dark byways of villainy and deceit they had crawled
across our path--into the same byways they crawled back secretly
and were lost.
In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest Road I was at home
again.
But few words sufficed to tell Laura and Marian how my desperate
venture had ended, and what the next event in our lives was likely
to be. I left all details to be described later in the day, and
hastened back to St. John's Wood, to see the person of whom Count
Fosco had ordered the fly, when he went to meet Laura at the
station.
The address in my possession led me to some "livery stables,"
about a quarter of a mile distant from Forest Road. The
proprietor proved to be a civil and respectable man. When I
explained that an important family matter obliged me to ask him to
refer to his books for the purpose of ascertaining a date with
which the record of his business transactions might supply me, he
offered no objection to granting my request. The book was
produced, and there, under the date of "July 26th, 1850," the
order was entered in these words--
"Brougham to Count Fosco, 5 Forest Road. Two o'clock. (John
Owen)."
I found on inquiry that the name of "John Owen," attached to the
entry, referred to the man who had been employed to drive the fly.
He was then at work in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me
at my request.
"Do you remember driving a gentleman, in the month of July last,
from Number Five Forest Road to the Waterloo Bridge station?" I
asked.
"Well, sir," said the man, "I can't exactly say I do."
"Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? Can you call to mind
driving a foreigner last summer--a tall gentleman and remarkably
fat?" The man's face brightened directly.
"I remember him, sir! The fattest gentleman as ever I see, and the
heaviest customer as ever I drove. Yes, yes--I call him to mind,
sir! We DID go to the station, and it WAS from Forest Road. There
was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window. The
gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady's luggage, and he
gave me a handsome present for looking sharp and getting the
boxes."
Getting the boxes! I recollected immediately that Laura's own
account of herself on her arrival in London described her luggage
as being collected for her by some person whom Count Fosco brought
with him to the station. This was the man.
"Did you see the lady?" I asked. "What did she look like? Was she
young or old?"
"Well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of people pushing
about, I can't rightly say what the lady looked like. I can't
call nothing to mind about her that I know of excepting her name."
"You remember her name?"
"Yes, sir. Her name was Lady Glyde."
"How do you come to remember that, when you have forgotten what
she looked like?"
The man smiled, and shifted his feet in some little embarrassment.
"Why, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I hadn't been long
married at that time, and my wife's name, before she changed it
for mine, was the same as the lady's--meaning the name of Glyde,
sir. The lady mentioned it herself. 'Is your name on your boxes,
ma'am?' says I. 'Yes,' says she, 'my name is on my luggage--it is
Lady Glyde.' 'Come! ' I says to myself, 'I've a bad head for
gentlefolks' names in general--but THIS one comes like an old
friend, at any rate.' I can't say nothing about the time, sir, it
might be nigh on a year ago, or it mightn't. But I can swear to
the stout gentleman, and swear to the lady's name."
There was no need that he should remember the time--the date was
positively established by his master's order-book. I felt at once
that the means were now in my power of striking down the whole
conspiracy at a blow with the irresistible weapon of plain fact.
Without a moment's hesitation, I took the proprietor of the livery
stables aside and told him what the real importance was of the
evidence of his order-book and the evidence of his driver. An
arrangement to compensate him for the temporary loss of the man's
services was easily made, and a copy of the entry in the book was
taken by myself, and certified as true by the master's own
signature. I left the livery stables, having settled that John
Owen was to hold himself at my disposal for the next three days,
or for a longer period if necessity required it.
I now had in my possession all the papers that I wanted--the
district registrar's own copy of the certificate of death, and Sir
Percival's dated letter to the Count, being safe in my pocketbook.
With this written evidence about me, and with the coachman's
answers fresh in my memory, I next turned my steps, for the first
time since the beginning of all my inquiries, in the direction of
Mr. Kyrle's office. One of my objects in paying him this second
visit was, necessarily, to tell him what I had done. The other
was to warn him of my resolution to take my wife to Limmeridge the
next morning, and to have her publicly received and recognised in
her uncle's house. I left it to Mr. Kyrle to decide under these
circumstances, and in Mr. Gilmore's absence, whether he was or was
not bound, as the family solicitor, to be present on that occasion
in the family interests.
I will say nothing of Mr. Kyrle's amazement, or of the terms in
which he expressed his opinion of my conduct from the first stage
of the investigation to the last. It is only necessary to mention
that he at once decided on accompanying us to Cumberland.
We started the next morning by the early train. Laura, Marian,
Mr. Kyrle, and myself in one carriage, and John Owen, with a clerk
from Mr. Kyrle's office, occupying places in another. On reaching
the Limmeridge station we went first to the farmhouse at Todd's
Corner. It was my firm determination that Laura should not enter
her uncle's house till she appeared there publicly recognised as
his niece. I left Marian to settle the question of accommodation
with Mrs. Todd, as soon as the good woman had recovered from the
bewilderment of hearing what our errand was in Cumberland, and I
arranged with her husband that John Owen was to be committed to
the ready hospitality of the farm-servants. These preliminaries
completed, Mr. Kyrle and I set forth together for Limmeridge
House.
I cannot write at any length of our interview with Mr. Fairlie,
for I cannot recall it to mind without feelings of impatience and
contempt, which make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly
repulsive to me. I prefer to record simply that I carried my
point. Mr. Fairlie attempted to treat us on his customary plan.
We passed without notice his polite insolence at the outset of the
interview. We heard without sympathy the protestations with which
he tried next to persuade us that the disclosure of the conspiracy
had overwhelmed him. He absolutely whined and whimpered at last
like a fretful child. "How was he to know that his niece was
alive when he was told that she was dead? He would welcome dear
Laura with pleasure, if we would only allow him time to recover.
Did we think he looked as if he wanted hurrying into his grave?
No. Then, why hurry him?" He reiterated these remonstrances at
every available opportunity, until I checked them once for all, by
placing him firmly between two inevitable alternatives. I gave
him his choice between doing his niece justice on my terms, or
facing the consequence of a public assertion of her existence in a
court of law. Mr. Kyrle, to whom he turned for help, told him
plainly that he must decide the question then and there.
Characteristically choosing the alternative which promised soonest
to release him from all personal anxiety, he announced with a
sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong enough to bear
any more bullying, and that we might do as we pleased.
Mr. Kyrle and I at once went downstairs, and agreed upon a form of
letter which was to be sent round to the tenants who had attended
the false funeral, summoning them, in Mr. Fairlie's name, to
assemble in Limmeridge House on the next day but one. An order
referring to the same date was also written, directing a statuary
in Carlisle to send a man to Limmeridge churchyard for the purpose
of erasing an inscription--Mr. Kyrle, who had arranged to sleep in
the house, undertaking that Mr. Fairlie should hear these letters
read to him, and should sign them with his own hand.
I occupied the interval day at the farm in writing a plain
narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of
the practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion
of Laura's death. This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle before I read it
the next day to the assembled tenants. We also arranged the form
in which the evidence should be presented at the close of the
reading. After these matters were settled, Mr. Kyrle endeavoured
to turn the conversation next to Laura's affairs. Knowing, and
desiring to know nothing of those affairs, and doubting whether he
would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to
my wife's life-interest in the legacy left to Madame Fosco, I
begged Mr. Kyrle to excuse me if I abstained from discussing the
subject. It was connected, as I could truly tell him, with those
sorrows and troubles of the past which we never referred to among
ourselves, and which we instinctively shrank from discussing with
others.
My last labour, as the evening approached, was to obtain "The
Narrative of the Tombstone," by taking a copy of the false
inscription on the grave before it was erased.
The day came--the day when Laura once more entered the familiar
breakfast-room at Lummeridge House. All the persons assembled
rose from their seats as Marian and I led her in. A perceptible
shock of surprise, an audible murmur of interest ran through them,
at the sight of her face. Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express
stipulation), with Mr. Kyrle by his side. His valet stood behind
him with a smelling-bottle ready in one hand, and a white
handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-Cologne, in the other.
I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to Mr. Fairlie to
say whether I appeared there with his authority and under his
express sanction. He extended an arm, on either side, to Mr.
Kyrle and to his valet--was by them assisted to stand on his legs,
and then expressed himself in these terms: "Allow me to present
Mr. Hartright. I am as great an invalid as ever, and he is so
very obliging as to speak for me. The subject is dreadfully
embarrassing. Please hear him, and don't make a noise!" With
those words he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took
refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief.
The disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after I had offered my
preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the
plainest words. I was there present (I informed my hearers) to
declare, first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter
of the late Mr. Philip Fairlie; secondly, to prove by positive
facts, that the funeral which they had attended in Limmeridge
churchyard was the funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them
a plain account of how it had all happened. Without further
preface, I at once read the narrative of the conspiracy,
describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the
pecuniary motive for it, in order to avoid complicating my
statement by unnecessary reference to Sir Percival's secret. This
done, I reminded my audience of the date on the inscription in the
churchyard (the 25th), and confirmed its correctness by producing
the certificate of death. I then read them Sir Percival's letter
of the 25th, announcing his wife's intended journey from Hampshire
to London on the 26th. I next showed that she had taken that
journey, by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly, and I
proved that she had performed it on the appointed day, by the
order-book at the livery stables. Marian then added her own
statement of the meeting between Laura and herself at the madhouse,
and of her sister's escape. After which I closed the
proceedings by informing the persons present of Sir Percival's
death and of my marriage.
Mr. Kyrle rose when I resumed my seat, and declared, as the legal
adviser of the family, that my case was proved by the plainest
evidence he had ever heard in his life. As he spoke those words,
I put my arm round Laura, and raised her so that she was plainly
visible to every one in the room. "Are you all of the same
opinion?" I asked, advancing towards them a few steps, and
pointing to my wife.
The effect of the question was electrical. Far down at the lower
end of the room one of the oldest tenants on the estate started to
his feet, and led the rest with him in an instant. I see the man
now, with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair, mounted on
the window-seat, waving his heavy riding-whip over his head, and
leading the cheers. "There she is, alive and hearty--God bless
her! Gi' it tongue, lads! Gi' it tongue!" The shout that answered
him, reiterated again and again, was the sweetest music I ever
heard. The labourers in the village and the boys from the school,
assembled on the lawn, caught up the cheering and echoed it back
on us. The farmers' wives clustered round Laura, and struggled
which should be first to shake hands with her, and to implore her,
with the tears pouring over their own cheeks, to bear up bravely
and not to cry. She was so completely overwhelmed, that I was
obliged to take her from them, and carry her to the door. There I
gave her into Marian's care--Marian, who had never failed us yet,
whose courageous self-control did not fail us now. Left by myself
at the door, I invited all the persons present (after thanking
them in Laura's name and mine) to follow me to the churchyard, and
see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own
eyes.
They all left the house, and all joined the throng of villagers
collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting
for us. In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the
steel sounded on the marble. Not a voice was heard--not a soul
moved, till those three words, "Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished
from sight. Then there was a great heave of relief among the
crowd, as if they felt that the last fetters of the conspiracy had
been struck off Laura herself, and the assembly slowly withdrew.
It was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased.
One line only was afterwards engraved in its place: "Anne
Catherick, July 25th, 1850."
I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in the evening to take
leave of Mr. Kyrle. He and his clerk, and the driver of the fly,
went back to London by the night train. On their departure an
insolent message was delivered to me from Mr. Fairlie--who had
been carried from the room in a shattered condition, when the
first outbreak of cheering answered my appeal to the tenantry.
The message conveyed to us "Mr. Fairlie's best congratulations,"
and requested to know whether "we contemplated stopping in the
house." I sent back word that the only object for which we had
entered his doors was accomplished--that I contemplated stopping
in no man's house but my own--and that Mr. Fairlie need not
entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing
from us again. We went back to our friends at the farm to rest
that night, and the next morning--escorted to the station, with
the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and
by all the farmers in the neighbourhood--we returned to London.
As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the distance, I
thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the
long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. It was
strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had
denied us all hope of assistance had been the indirect means of
our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich
enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The
gain (on Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would have been more than
doubtful--the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they
had really happened, certain. The law would never have obtained
me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have
made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.
II
Two more events remain to be added to the chain before it reaches
fairly from the outset of the story to the close.
While our new sense of freedom from the long oppression of the
past was still strange to us, I was sent for by the friend who had
given me my first employment in wood engraving, to receive from
him a fresh testimony of his regard for my welfare. He had been
commissioned by his employers to go to Paris, and to examine for
them a fresh discovery in the practical application of his Art,
the merits of which they were anxious to ascertain. His own
engagements had not allowed him leisure time to undertake the
errand, and he had most kindly suggested that it should be
transferred to me. I could have no hesitation in thankfully
accepting the offer, for if I acquitted myself of my commission as
I hoped I should, the result would be a permanent engagement on
the illustrated newspaper, to which I was now only occasionally
attached.
I received my instructions and packed up for the journey the next
day. On leaving Laura once more (under what changed
circumstances!) in her sister's care, a serious consideration
recurred to me, which had more than once crossed my wife's mind,
as well as my own, already--I mean the consideration of Marian's
future. Had we any right to let our selfish affection accept the
devotion of all that generous life? Was it not our duty, our best
expression of gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to think only of
HER? I tried to say this when we were alone for a moment, before
I went away. She took my hand, and silenced me at the first
words.
"After all that we three have suffered together," she said "there
can be no parting between us till the last parting of all. My
heart and my happiness, Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a
little till there are children's voices at your fireside. I will
teach them to speak for me in THEIR language, and the first lesson
they say to their father and mother shall be--We can't spare our
aunt!"
My journey to Paris was not undertaken alone. At the eleventh
hour Pesca decided that he would accompany me. He had not
recovered his customary cheerfulness since the night at the Opera,
and he determined to try what a week's holiday would do to raise
his spirits.
I performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew out the necessary
report, on the fourth day from our arrival in Paris. The fifth
day I arranged to devote to sight-seeing and amusements in Pesca's
company.
Our hotel had been too full to accommodate us both on the same
floor. My room was on the second story, and Pesca's was above me,
on the third. On the morning of the fifth day I went upstairs to
see if the Professor was ready to go out. Just before I reached
the landing I saw his door opened from the inside--a long,
delicate, nervous hand (not my friend's hand certainly) held it
ajar. At the same time I heard Pesca's voice saying eagerly, in
low tones, and in his own language--"I remember the name, but I
don't know the man. You saw at the Opera he was so changed that I
could not recognise him. I will forward the report--I can do no
more." "No more need be done," answered the second voice. The
door opened wide, and the light-haired man with the scar on his
cheek--the man I had seen following Count Fosco's cab a week
before--came out. He bowed as I drew aside to let him pass--his
face was fearfully pale--and he held fast by the banisters as he
descended the stairs.
I pushed open the door and entered Pesca's room. He was crouched
up, in the strangest manner, in a corner of the sofa. He seemed
to shrink from me when I approached him.
"Am I disturbing you?" I asked. "I did not know you had a friend
with you till I saw him come out."
"No friend," said Pesca eagerly. "I see him to-day for the first
time and the last."
"I am afraid he has brought you bad news?"
"Horrible news, Walter! Let us go back to London--I don't want to
stop here--I am sorry I ever came. The misfortunes of my youth
are very hard upon me," he said, turning his face to the wall,
"very hard upon me in my later time. I try to forget them--and
they will not forget ME!"
"We can't return, I am afraid, before the afternoon," I replied.
"Would you like to come out with me in the meantime?"
"No, my friend, I will wait here. But let us go back to-day--pray
let us go back."
I left him with the assurance that he should leave Paris that
afternoon. We had arranged the evening before to ascend the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, with Victor Hugo's noble romance for our
guide. There was nothing in the French capital that I was more
anxious to see, and I departed by myself for the church.
Approaching Notre Dame by the river-side, I passed on my way the
terrible dead-house of Paris--the Morgue. A great crowd clamoured
and heaved round the door. There was evidently something inside
which excited the popular curiosity, and fed the popular appetite
for horror.
I should have walked on to the church if the conversation of two
men and a woman on the outskirts of the crowd had not caught my
ear. They had just come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue,
and the account they were giving of the dead body to their
neighbours described it as the corpse of a man--a man of immense
size, with a strange mark on his left arm.
The moment those words reached me I stopped and took my place with
the crowd going in. Some dim foreshadowing of the truth had
crossed my mind when I heard Pesca's voice through the open door,
and when I saw the stranger's face as he passed me on the stairs
of the hotel. Now the truth itself was revealed to me--revealed
in the chance words that had just reached my ears. Other
vengeance than mine had followed that fated man from the theatre
to his own door--from his own door to his refuge in Paris. Other
vengeance than mine had called him to the day of reckoning, and
had exacted from him the penalty of his life. The moment when I
had pointed him out to Pesca at the theatre in the hearing of that
stranger by our side, who was looking for him too--was the moment
that sealed his doom. I remembered the struggle in my own heart,
when he and I stood face to face--the struggle before I could let
him escape me--and shuddered as I recalled it.
Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed in with the crowd, moving nearer
and nearer to the great glass screen that parts the dead from the
living at the Morgue--nearer and nearer, till I was close behind
the front row of spectators, and could look in.
There he lay, unowned, unknown, exposed to the flippant curiosity
of a French mob! There was the dreadful end of that long life of
degraded ability and heartless crime! Hushed in the sublime repose
of death, the broad, firm, massive face and head fronted us so
grandly that the chattering Frenchwomen about me lifted their
hands in admiration, and cried in shrill chorus, "Ah, what a
handsome man!" The wound that had killed him had been struck with
a knife or dagger exactly over his heart. No other traces of
violence appeared about the body except on the left arm, and
there, exactly in the place where I had seen the brand on Pesca's
arm, were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter T, which
entirely obliterated the mark of the Brotherhood. His clothes,
hung above him, showed that he had been himself conscious of his
danger--they were clothes that had disguised him as a French
artisan. For a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself
to see these things through the glass screen. I can write of them
at no greater length, for I saw no more.
The few facts in connection with his death which I subsequently
ascertained (partly from Pesca and partly from other sources), may
be stated here before the subject is dismissed from these pages.
His body was taken out of the Seine in the disguise which I have
described, nothing being found on him which revealed his name, his
rank, or his place of abode. The hand that struck him was never
traced, and the circumstances under which he was killed were never
discovered. I leave others to draw their own conclusions in
reference to the secret of the assassination as I have drawn mine.
When I have intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a
member of the Brotherhood (admitted in Italy after Pesca's
departure from his native country), and when I have further added
that the two cuts, in the form of a T, on the left arm of the dead
man, signified the Italian word "Traditore," and showed that
justice had been done by the Brotherhood on a traitor, I have
contributed all that I know towards elucidating the mystery of
Count Fosco's death.
The body was identified the day after I had seen it by means of an
anonymous letter addressed to his wife. He was buried by Madame
Fosco in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths
continue to this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze railings
round the tomb by the Countess's own hand. She lives in the
strictest retirement at Versailles. Not long since she published
a biography of her deceased husband. The work throws no light
whatever on the name that was really his own or on the secret
history of his life--it is almost entirely devoted to the praise
of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his rare abilities, and
the enumeration of the honours conferred on him. The
circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed, and
are summed up on the last page in this sentence--"His life was one
long assertion of the rights of the aristocracy and the sacred
principles of Order, and he died a martyr to his cause."
III
The summer and autumn passed after my return from Paris, and
brought no changes with them which need be noticed here. We lived
so simply and quietly that the income which I was now steadily
earning sufficed for all our wants.
In the February of the new year our first child was born--a son.
My mother and sister and Mrs. Vesey were our guests at the little
christening party, and Mrs. Clements was present to assist my wife
on the same occasion. Marian was our boy's godmother, and Pesca
and Mr. Gilmore (the latter acting by proxy) were his godfathers.
I may add here that when Mr. Gilmore returned to us a year later
he assisted the design of these pages, at my request, by writing
the Narrative which appears early in the story under his name, and
which, though first in order of precedence, was thus, in order of
time, the last that I received.
The only event in our lives which now remains to be recorded,
occurred when our little Walter was six months old.
At that time I was sent to Ireland to make sketches for certain
forthcoming illustrations in the newspaper to which I was
attached. I was away for nearly a fortnight, corresponding
regularly with my wife and Marian, except during the last three
days of my absence, when my movements were too uncertain to enable
me to receive letters. I performed the latter part of my journey
back at night, and when I reached home in the morning, to my utter
astonishment there was no one to receive me. Laura and Marian and
the child had left the house on the day before my return.
A note from my wife, which was given to me by the servant, only
increased my surprise, by informing me that they had gone to
Limmeridge House. Marian had prohibited any attempt at written
explanations--I was entreated to follow them the moment I came
back--complete enlightenment awaited me on my arrival in
Cumberland--and I was forbidden to feel the slightest anxiety in
the meantime. There the note ended. It was still early enough to
catch the morning train. I reached Limmeridge House the same
afternoon.
My wife and Marian were both upstairs. They had established
themselves (by way of completing my amazement) in the little room
which had been once assigned to me for a studio, when I was
employed on Mr. Fairlie's drawings. On the very chair which I
used to occupy when I was at work Marian was sitting now, with the
child industriously sucking his coral upon her lap--while Laura
was standing by the well-remembered drawing-table which I had so
often used, with the little album that I had filled for her in
past times open under her hand.
"What in the name of heaven has brought you here?" I asked. "Does
Mr. Fairlie know----?"
Marian suspended the question on my lips by telling me that Mr.
Fairlie was dead. He had been struck by paralysis, and had never
rallied after the shock. Mr. Kyrle had informed them of his
death, and had advised them to proceed immediately to Limmeridge
House.
Some dim perception of a great change dawned on my mind. Laura
spoke before I had quite realised it. She stole close to me to
enjoy the surprise which was still expressed in my face.
"My darling Walter," she said, "must we really account for our
boldness in coming here? I am afraid, love, I can only explain it
by breaking through our rule, and referring to the past."
"There is not the least necessity for doing anything of the kind,"
said Marian. "We can be just as explicit, and much more
interesting, by referring to the future." She rose and held up the
child kicking and crowing in her arms. "Do you know who this is,
Walter?" she asked, with bright tears of happiness gathering in
her eyes.
"Even MY bewilderment has its limits," I replied. "I think I can
still answer for knowing my own child."
"Child!" she exclaimed, with all her easy gaiety of old times.
"Do you talk in that familiar manner of one of the landed gentry
of England? Are you aware, when I present this illustrious baby to
your notice, in whose presence you stand? Evidently not! Let me
make two eminent personages known to one another: Mr. Walter
Hartright--THE HEIR OF LIMMERIDGE."
So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written all.
The pen falters in my hand. The long, happy labour of many months
is over. Marian was the good angel of our lives--let Marian end
our Story.