The Woman in White
by
Wilkie Collins
Part 10 out of 14
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 drawing-
master 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 bank-
notes, 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 sitting-
room, 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 scrap-
books 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 to-
night, 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 cab-
stand 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 to-
day 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 self-
contemplation. 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
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