I
I write these lines at the request of my friend,
Mr. Walter Hartright. They are intended to convey a
description of certain events which seriously
affected Miss Fairlie's interests, and which took
place after the period of Mr. Hartright's departure
from Limmeridge House.
There is no need for me to say whether my own
opinion does or does not sanction the disclosure of
the remarkable family story, of which my narrative
forms an important component part. Mr. Hartright has
taken that responsibility on himself, and
circumstances yet to be related will show that he
has amply earned the right to do so, if he chooses
to exercise it. The plan he has adopted for
presenting the story to others, in the most truthful
and most vivid manner, requires that it should be
told, at each successive stage in the march of
events, by the persons who were directly concerned
in those events at the time of their occurrence. My
appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary
consequence of this arrangement. I was present
during the sojourn of Sir Percival Glyde in
Cumberland, and was personally concerned in one
important result of his short residence under Mr.
Fairlie's roof. It is my duty, therefore, to add
these new links to the chain of events, and to take
up the chain itself at the point where, for the
present only Mr. Hartright has dropped it.
I arrived at Limmeridge House on Friday the second of November.
My object was to remain at Mr. Fairlie's until
the arrival of Sir Percival Glyde. If that event led
to the appointment of any given day for Sir
Percival's union with Miss Fairlie, I was to take
the necessary instructions back with me to London,
and to occupy myself in drawing the lady's
marriage-settlement.
On the Friday I was not favoured by Mr. Fairlie
with an interview. He had been, or had fancied
himself to be, an invalid for years past, and he was
not well enough to receive me. Miss Halcombe was the
first member of the family whom I saw. She met me at
the house door, and introduced me to Mr. Hartright,
who had been staying at Limmeridge for some time
past.
I did not see Miss Fairlie until later in the
day, at dinner-time. She was not looking well, and I
was sorry to observe it. She is a sweet lovable
girl, as amiable and attentive to every one about
her as her excellent mother used to be—though,
personally speaking, she takes after her father.
Mrs. Fairlie had dark eyes and hair, and her elder
daughter, Miss Halcombe, strongly reminds me of her.
Miss Fairlie played to us in the evening—not so well
as usual, I thought. We had a rubber at whist, a
mere profanation, so far as play was concerned, of
that noble game. I had been favourably impressed by
Mr. Hartright on our first introduction to one
another, but I soon discovered that he was not free
from the social failings incidental to his age.
There are three things that none of the young men of
the present generation can do. They can't sit over
their wine, they can't play at whist, and they can't
pay a lady a compliment. Mr. Hartright was no
exception to the general rule. Otherwise, even in
those early days and on that short acquaintance, he
struck me as being a modest and gentlemanlike young
man.
So the Friday passed. I say nothing about the
more serious matters which engaged my attention on
that day—the anonymous letter to Miss Fairlie, the
measures I thought it right to adopt when the matter
was mentioned to me, and the conviction I
entertained that every possible explanation of the
circumstances would be readily afforded by Sir
Percival Glyde, having all been fully noticed, as I
understand, in the narrative which precedes this.
On the Saturday Mr. Hartright had left before I
got down to breakfast. Miss Fairlie kept her room
all day, and Miss Halcombe appeared to me to be out
of spirits. The house was not what it used to be in
the time of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Fairlie. I took a
walk by myself in the forenoon, and looked about at
some of the places which I first saw when I was
staying at Limmeridge to transact family business,
more than thirty years since. They were not what
they used to be either.
At two o'clock Mr. Fairlie sent to say he was
well enough to see me. HE had not altered, at any
rate, since I first knew him. His talk was to the
same purpose as usual—all about himself and his
ailments, his wonderful coins, and his matchless
Rembrandt etchings. The moment I tried to speak of
the business that had brought me to his house, he
shut his eyes and said I "upset" him. I persisted in
upsetting him by returning again and again to the
subject. All I could ascertain was that he looked on
his niece's marriage as a settled thing, that her
father had sanctioned it, that he sanctioned it
himself, that it was a desirable marriage, and that
he should be personally rejoiced when the worry of
it was over. As to the settlements, if I would
consult his niece, and afterwards dive as deeply as
I pleased into my own knowledge of the family
affairs, and get everything ready, and limit his
share in the business, as guardian, to saying Yes,
at the right moment—why, of course he would meet my
views, and everybody else's views, with infinite
pleasure. In the meantime, there I saw him, a
helpless sufferer, confined to his room. Did I think
he looked as if he wanted teasing? No. Then why
tease him?
I might, perhaps, have been a little astonished
at this extraordinary absence of all self-assertion
on Mr. Fairlie's part, in the character of guardian,
if my knowledge of the family affairs had not been
sufficient to remind me that he was a single man,
and that he had nothing more than a life-interest in
the Limmeridge property. As matters stood,
therefore, I was neither surprised nor disappointed
at the result of the interview. Mr. Fairlie had
simply justified my expectations—and there was an
end of it.
Sunday was a dull day, out of doors and in. A
letter arrived for me from Sir Percival Glyde's
solicitor, acknowledging the receipt of my copy of
the anonymous letter and my accompanying statement
of the case. Miss Fairlie joined us in the
afternoon, looking pale and depressed, and
altogether unlike herself. I had some talk with her,
and ventured on a delicate allusion to Sir Percival.
She listened and said nothing. All other subjects
she pursued willingly, but this subject she allowed
to drop. I began to doubt whether she might not be
repenting of her engagement—just as young ladies
often do, when repentance comes too late.
On Monday Sir Percival Glyde arrived.
I found him to be a most prepossessing man, so
far as manners and appearance were concerned. He
looked rather older than I had expected, his head
being bald over the forehead, and his face somewhat
marked and worn, but his movements were as active
and his spirits as high as a young man's. His
meeting with Miss Halcombe was delightfully hearty
and unaffected, and his reception of me, upon my
being presented to him, was so easy and pleasant
that we got on together like old friends. Miss
Fairlie was not with us when he arrived, but she
entered the room about ten minutes afterwards. Sir
Percival rose and paid his compliments with perfect
grace. His evident concern on seeing the change for
the worse in the young lady's looks was expressed
with a mixture of tenderness and respect, with an
unassuming delicacy of tone, voice, and manner,
which did equal credit to his good breeding and his
good sense. I was rather surprised, under these
circumstances, to see that Miss Fairlie continued to
be constrained and uneasy in his presence, and that
she took the first opportunity of leaving the room
again. Sir Percival neither noticed the restraint in
her reception of him, nor her sudden withdrawal from
our society. He had not obtruded his attentions on
her while she was present, and he did not embarrass
Miss Halcombe by any allusion to her departure when
she was gone. His tact and taste were never at fault
on this or on any other occasion while I was in his
company at Limmeridge House.
As soon as Miss Fairlie had left the room he
spared us all embarrassment on the subject of the
anonymous letter, by adverting to it of his own
accord. He had stopped in London on his way from
Hampshire, had seen his solicitor, had read the
documents forwarded by me, and had travelled on to
Cumberland, anxious to satisfy our minds by the
speediest and the fullest explanation that words
could convey. On hearing him express himself to this
effect, I offered him the original letter, which I
had kept for his inspection. He thanked me, and
declined to look at it, saying that he had seen the
copy, and that he was quite willing to leave the
original in our hands.
The statement itself, on which he immediately
entered, was as simple and satisfactory as I had all
along anticipated it would be.
Mrs. Catherick, he informed us, had in past years
laid him under some obligations for faithful
services rendered to his family connections and to
himself. She had been doubly unfortunate in being
married to a husband who had deserted her, and in
having an only child whose mental faculties had been
in a disturbed condition from a very early age.
Although her marriage had removed her to a part of
Hampshire far distant from the neighbourhood in
which Sir Percival's property was situated, he had
taken care not to lose sight of her—his friendly
feeling towards the poor woman, in consideration of
her past services, having been greatly strengthened
by his admiration of the patience and courage with
which she supported her calamities. In course of
time the symptoms of mental affliction in her
unhappy daughter increased to such a serious extent,
as to make it a matter of necessity to place her
under proper medical care. Mrs. Catherick herself
recognised this necessity, but she also felt the
prejudice common to persons occupying her
respectable station, against allowing her child to
be admitted, as a pauper, into a public Asylum. Sir
Percival had respected this prejudice, as he
respected honest independence of feeling in any rank
of life, and had resolved to mark his grateful sense
of Mrs. Catherick's early attachment to the
interests of himself and his family, by defraying
the expense of her daughter's maintenance in a
trustworthy private Asylum. To her mother's regret,
and to his own regret, the unfortunate creature had
discovered the share which circumstances had induced
him to take in placing her under restraint, and had
conceived the most intense hatred and distrust of
him in consequence. To that hatred and
distrust—which had expressed itself in various ways
in the Asylum—the anonymous letter, written after
her escape, was plainly attributable. If Miss
Halcombe's or Mr. Gilmore's recollection of the
document did not confirm that view, or if they
wished for any additional particulars about the
Asylum (the address of which he mentioned, as well
as the names and addresses of the two doctors on
whose certificates the patient was admitted), he was
ready to answer any question and to clear up any
uncertainty. He had done his duty to the unhappy
young woman, by instructing his solicitor to spare
no expense in tracing her, and in restoring her once
more to medical care, and he was now only anxious to
do his duty towards Miss Fairlie and towards her
family, in the same plain, straightforward way.
I was the first to speak in answer to this
appeal. My own course was plain to me. It is the
great beauty of the Law that it can dispute any
human statement, made under any circumstances, and
reduced to any form. If I had felt professionally
called upon to set up a case against Sir Percival
Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I
could have done so beyond all doubt. But my duty did
not lie in this direction—my function was of the
purely judicial kind. I was to weigh the explanation
we had just heard, to allow all due force to the
high reputation of the gentleman who offered it, and
to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on Sir
Percival's own showing, were plainly with him, or
plainly against him. My own conviction was that they
were plainly with him, and I accordingly declared
that his explanation was, to my mind, unquestionably
a satisfactory one.
Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very
earnestly, said a few words, on her side, to the
same effect—with a certain hesitation of manner,
however, which the circumstances did not seem to me
to warrant. I am unable to say, positively, whether
Sir Percival noticed this or not. My opinion is that
he did, seeing that he pointedly resumed the
subject, although he might now, with all propriety,
have allowed it to drop.
"If my plain statement of facts had only been
addressed to Mr. Gilmore," he said, "I should
consider any further reference to this unhappy
matter as unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr.
Gilmore, as a gentleman, to believe me on my word,
and when he has done me that justice, all discussion
of the subject between us has come to an end. But my
position with a lady is not the same. I owe to
her—what I would concede to no man alive—a PROOF of
the truth of my assertion. You cannot ask for that
proof, Miss Halcombe, and it is therefore my duty to
you, and still more to Miss Fairlie, to offer it.
May I beg that you will write at once to the mother
of this unfortunate woman—to Mrs. Catherick—to ask
for her testimony in support of the explanation
which I have just offered to you."
I saw Miss Halcombe change colour, and look a
little uneasy. Sir Percival's suggestion, politely
as it was expressed, appeared to her, as it appeared
to me, to point very delicately at the hesitation
which her manner had betrayed a moment or two since.
"I hope, Sir Percival, you don't do me the
injustice to suppose that I distrust you," she said
quickly.
"Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my proposal
purely as an act of attention to YOU. Will you
excuse my obstinacy if I still venture to press it?"
He walked to the writing-table as he spoke, drew
a chair to it, and opened the paper case.
"Let me beg you to write the note," he said, "as
a favour to ME. It need not occupy you more than a
few minutes. You have only to ask Mrs. Catherick two
questions. First, if her daughter was placed in the
Asylum with her knowledge and approval. Secondly, if
the share I took in the matter was such as to merit
the expression of her gratitude towards myself? Mr.
Gilmore's mind is at ease on this unpleasant
subject, and your mind is at ease—pray set my mind
at ease also by writing the note."
"You oblige me to grant your request, Sir
Percival, when I would much rather refuse it."
With those words Miss Halcombe rose from her
place and went to the writing-table. Sir Percival
thanked her, handed her a pen, and then walked away
towards the fireplace. Miss Fairlie's little Italian
greyhound was lying on the rug. He held out his
hand, and called to the dog good-humouredly.
"Come, Nina," he said, "we remember each other,
don't we?"
The little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as
pet-dogs usually are, looked up at him sharply,
shrank away from his outstretched hand, whined,
shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was
scarcely possible that he could have been put out by
such a trifle as a dog's reception of him, but I
observed, nevertheless, that he walked away towards
the window very suddenly. Perhaps his temper is
irritable at times. If so, I can sympathise with
him. My temper is irritable at times too.
Miss Halcombe was not long in writing the note.
When it was done she rose from the writing-table,
and handed the open sheet of paper to Sir Percival.
He bowed, took it from her, folded it up immediately
without looking at the contents, sealed it, wrote
the address, and handed it back to her in silence. I
never saw anything more gracefully and more
becomingly done in my life.
"You insist on my posting this letter, Sir
Percival?" said Miss Halcombe.
"I beg you will post it," he answered. "And now
that it is written and sealed up, allow me to ask
one or two last questions about the unhappy woman to
whom it refers. I have read the communication which
Mr. Gilmore kindly addressed to my solicitor,
describing the circumstances under which the writer
of the anonymous letter was identified. But there
are certain points to which that statement does not
refer. Did Anne Catherick see Miss Fairlie?"
"Certainly not," replied Miss Halcombe.
"Did she see you?"
"No."
"She saw nobody from the house then, except a
certain Mr. Hartright, who accidentally met with her
in the churchyard here?"
"Nobody else."
"Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge as a
drawing-master, I believe? Is he a member of one of
the Water-Colour Societies?"
"I believe he is," answered Miss Halcombe.
He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking
over the last answer, and then added—
"Did you find out where Anne Catherick was
living, when she was in this neighbourhood?"
"Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd's
Corner."
"It is a duty we all owe to the poor creature
herself to trace her," continued Sir Percival. "She
may have said something at Todd's Corner which may
help us to find her. I will go there and make
inquiries on the chance. In the meantime, as I
cannot prevail on myself to discuss this painful
subject with Miss Fairlie, may I beg, Miss Halcombe,
that you will kindly undertake to give her the
necessary explanation, deferring it of course until
you have received the reply to that note."
Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his
request. He thanked her, nodded pleasantly, and left
us, to go and establish himself in his own room. As
he opened the door the cross-grained greyhound poked
out her sharp muzzle from under the sofa, and barked
and snapped at him.
"A good morning's work, Miss Halcombe," I said,
as soon as we were alone. "Here is an anxious day
well ended already."
"Yes," she answered; "no doubt. I am very glad
your mind is satisfied."
"My mind! Surely, with that note in your hand,
your mind is at ease too?"
"Oh yes—how can it be otherwise? I know the thing
could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself
than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had
stayed here long enough to be present at the
explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write
this note."
I was a little surprised—perhaps a little piqued
also—by these last words.
"Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very
remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said;
"and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all
things considered, with great delicacy and
discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand
what useful influence his presence could have
exercised in relation to the effect of Sir
Percival's statement on your mind or mine."
"It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There
is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your
experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can
desire."
I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole
responsibility, in this marked manner, on my
shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not
have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss
Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom
I should have expected to find shrinking from the
expression of an opinion of her own.
"If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why
not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly,
have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?"
"None whatever."
"Do you see anything improbable, or
contradictory, in his explanation?"
"How can I say I do, after the proof he has
offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better
testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the
testimony of the woman's mother?"
"None better. If the answer to your note of
inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot
see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can
possibly expect from him."
"Then we will post the note," she said, rising to
leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference
to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't
attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no
better reason for it than that I have been
over-anxious about Laura lately—and anxiety, Mr.
Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us."
She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice
faltering as she spoke those last words. A
sensitive, vehement, passionate nature—a woman of
ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I
had known her from her earliest years—I had seen her
tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying
family crisis, and my long experience made me attach
an importance to her hesitation under the
circumstances here detailed, which I should
certainly not have felt in the case of another
woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or
any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and
a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I
should have chafed and fretted under the irritation
of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I
knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it
off.
II
We all met again at dinner-time.
Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits
that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose
quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed
me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The
only trace of his former self that I could detect
reappeared, every now and then, in his manner
towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her
suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow
of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and
to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he
never openly tried to draw her into the
conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she
gave him of letting her drift into it by accident,
and of saying the words to her, under those
favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact
and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her
the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my
surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of
his attentions without being moved by them. She was
a little confused from time to time when he looked
at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed
towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good
looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion
of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and,
so far as appearances went, were all offered in
vain.
On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went
in the morning (taking one of the servants with him
as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I
afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return
he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the
afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together.
Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening
passed as usual. There was no change in Sir
Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie.
The Wednesday's post brought with it an event—the
reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the
document, which I have preserved, and which I may as
well present in this place. It ran as follows—
"MADAM,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter,
inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed
under medical superintendence with my knowledge and
approval, and whether the share taken in the matter
by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the
expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman.
Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to
both those questions, and believe me to remain, your
obedient servant,
"JANE ANNE CATHERICK."
Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter
for a woman to write—in substance as plain a
confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival
Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with
certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion
also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to
him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short
tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a
woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward,
unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly,
just as she spoke.
The next duty to be accomplished, now that the
answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss
Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss
Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the
room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned
again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was
reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a
minute before to look at the stables, and no one was
in the room but ourselves.
"I suppose we have really and truly done all we
can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs.
Catherick's letter in her hand.
"If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know
him and trust him, we have done all, and more than
all, that is necessary," I answered, a little
annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we
are enemies who suspect him——"
"That alternative is not even to be thought of,"
she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and
if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard
for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as
well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday,
and that he afterwards went out with me."
"Yes. I saw you riding away together."
"We began the ride by talking about Anne
Catherick, and about the singular manner in which
Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that
subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most
unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He
said he had observed that she was out of spirits,
and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary,
to attribute to that cause the alteration in her
manner towards him during his present visit. If,
however, there was any more serious reason for the
change, he would entreat that no constraint might be
placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or
by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she
would recall to mind, for the last time, what the
circumstances were under which the engagement
between them was made, and what his conduct had been
from the beginning of the courtship to the present
time. If, after due reflection on those two
subjects, she seriously desired that he should
withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming
her husband—and if she would tell him so plainly
with her own lips—he would sacrifice himself by
leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the
engagement."
"No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe.
As to my experience, few men in his situation would
have said as much."
She paused after I had spoken those words, and
looked at me with a singular expression of
perplexity and distress.
"I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she
broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not
accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to
this marriage."
"That is exactly the course which Sir Percival
Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied
in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her
inclinations."
"And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I
give her his message."
"How can that possibly be?"
"Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr.
Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the
circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to
two of the strongest feelings in her nature—to her
love for her father's memory, and to her strict
regard for truth. You know that she never broke a
promise in her life—you know that she entered on
this engagement at the beginning of her father's
fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and
happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his
deathbed."
I own that I was a little shocked at this view of
the case.
"Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that
when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he
speculated on such a result as you have just
mentioned?"
Her frank, fearless face answered for her before
she spoke.
"Do you think I would remain an instant in the
company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness
as that?" she asked angrily.
I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out
on me in that way. We see so much malice and so
little indignation in my profession.
"In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you,
in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of
the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir
Percival has a right to expect that your sister
should carefully consider her engagement from every
reasonable point of view before she claims her
release from it. If that unlucky letter has
prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her
that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in
mine. What objection can she urge against him after
that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing
her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted
for her husband more than two years ago?"
"In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no
excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I
still hesitate, you must attribute our strange
conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and
we must bear the imputation as well as we can."
With those words she suddenly rose and left me.
When a sensible woman has a serious question put to
her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a
sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
that she has something to conceal. I returned to the
perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that
Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between
them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and
keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us,
especially on Sir Percival.
My doubts—or to speak more correctly, my
convictions—were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's
language and manner when I saw her again later in
the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in
telling me the result of her interview with her
sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened
quietly while the affair of the letter was placed
before her in the right point of view, but when Miss
Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of
Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on
her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she
checked all further reference to the subject by
begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to
spare her for the present, she would undertake to
give him his final answer before the end of the
year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety
and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to
use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and
there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all
further discussion of the marriage question had
ended.
The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed
might have been convenient enough to the young lady,
but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of
these lines. That morning's post had brought a
letter from my partner, which obliged me to return
to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was
extremely probable that I should find no second
opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House
during the remainder of the year. In that case,
supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding
to her engagement, my necessary personal
communication with her, before I drew her
settlement, would become something like a downright
impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to
writing questions which ought always to be discussed
on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about
this difficulty until Sir Percival had been
consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He
was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request
immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this
I told her that I must absolutely speak to her
sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was,
therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie
in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did
not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening.
Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir
Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed
when he heard of it.
The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over,
I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor
girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to
welcome me so readily and prettily, that the
resolution to lecture her on her caprice and
indecision, which I had been forming all the way
upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to
the chair from which she had risen, and placed
myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet
greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a
barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the
whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by
jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle
familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down.
"You used often to sit on my knee when you were a
child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog
seems determined to succeed you in the vacant
throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?"
I pointed to a little album which lay on the
table by her side and which she had evidently been
looking over when I came in. The page that lay open
had a small water-colour landscape very neatly
mounted on it. This was the drawing which had
suggested my question—an idle question enough—but
how could I begin to talk of business to her the
moment I opened my lips?
"No," she said, looking away from the drawing
rather confusedly, "it is not my doing."
Her fingers had a restless habit, which I
remembered in her as a child, of always playing with
the first thing that came to hand whenever any one
was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered
to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of
the little water-colour drawing. The expression of
melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at
the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily
from object to object in the room, betraying plainly
that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to
speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get
to the purpose with as little delay as possible.
"One of the errands, my dear, which brings me
here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get
back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want
to have a word with you on the subject of your own
affairs."
"I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she
said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy
old times to have you here.
"I hope I may be able to come back and recall
those pleasant memories once more," I continued;
"but as there is some uncertainty about the future,
I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and
speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old
friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without
offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir
Percival Glyde."
She took her hand off the little album as
suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her
fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her
eyes looked down again at the floor, and an
expression of constraint settled on her face which
looked almost like an expression of pain.
"Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my
marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones.
"It is necessary to refer to it," I answered,
"but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you
may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first
case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your
settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a
matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may
be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are.
Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your
marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as
possible, what your position is now, and what you
may make it, if you please, in the future."
I explained to her the object of a
marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what
her prospects were—in the first place, on her coming
of age, and in the second place, on the decease of
her uncle—marking the distinction between the
property in which she had a life-interest only, and
the property which was left at her own control. She
listened attentively, with the constrained
expression still on her face, and her hands still
nervously clasped together in her lap.
"And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you
can think of any condition which, in the case we
have supposed, you would wish me to make for
you—subject, of course, to your guardian's approval,
as you are not yet of age."
She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in
my face on a sudden very earnestly.
"If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I
am——"
"If you are married," I added, helping her out.
"Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried,
with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore,
pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!"
Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have
been amused at this essentially feminine
interpretation of my question, and of the long
explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and
tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me
more than serious—they distressed me. Her words, few
as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the
past which boded ill for the future.
"Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can
easily be settled by private arrangement," I said.
"You hardly understood my question, I think. It
referred to your own property—to the disposal of
your money. Supposing you were to make a will when
you come of age, who would you like the money to go
to?"
"Marian has been mother and sister both to me,"
said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue
eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to
Marian, Mr. Gilmore?"
"Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember
what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go
to Miss Halcombe?"
She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her
hand stole back again to the little album.
"Not all of it," she said. "There is some one
else besides Marian——"
She stopped; her colour heightened, and the
fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat
gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her
memory had set them going mechanically with the
remembrance of a favourite tune.
"You mean some other member of the family besides
Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to
proceed.
The heightening colour spread to her forehead and
her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped
themselves fast round the edge of the book.
"There is some one else," she said, not noticing
my last words, though she had evidently heard them;
"there is some one else who might like a little
keepsake if—if I might leave it. There would be no
harm if I should die first——"
She paused again. The colour that had spread over
her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand
on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little,
and moved the book away from her. She looked at me
for an instant—then turned her head aside in the
chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she
changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face
from me in her hands.
Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest,
happiest child that ever laughed the day through,
and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her
beauty, so broken and so brought down as this!
In the distress that she caused me I forgot the
years that had passed, and the change they had made
in our position towards one another. I moved my
chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief
from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face
gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the
tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own
hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of
ten long years ago.
It was the best way I could have taken to compose
her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled
faintly through her tears.
"I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said
artlessly. "I have not been well—I have felt sadly
weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without
reason when I am alone. I am better now—I can answer
you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed."
"No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider
the subject as done with for the present. You have
said enough to sanction my taking the best possible
care of your interests, and we can settle details at
another opportunity. Let us have done with business
now, and talk of something else."
I led her at once into speaking on other topics.
In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and
I rose to take my leave.
"Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will
try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and
for my interests if you will only come again."
Still clinging to the past—that past which I
represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did
in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking
back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look
back at the end of mine.
"If I do come again, I hope I shall find you
better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you,
my dear!"
She only answered by putting up her cheek to me
to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine
ached a little as I took leave of her.
The whole interview between us had hardly lasted
more than half an hour—she had not breathed a word,
in my presence, to explain the mystery of her
evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her
marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over
to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor
why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir
Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the
manner in which she was treating him. I left it,
secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking
him at his word and claiming her release. A man of
my age and experience ought to have known better
than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can
make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the
truth, and say—so it was.
The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I
sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him
to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse
my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back,
written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and
best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is
inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of
yourself. Good-bye."
Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a
moment alone.
"Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she
asked.
"Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous—I
am glad she has you to take care of her."
Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face
attentively.
"You are altering your opinion about Laura," she
said. "You are readier to make allowances for her
than you were yesterday."
No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a
fencing match of words with a woman. I only
answered—
"Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till
I hear from you."
She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was
all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore—and so do you."
With those words she left me.
Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me
to the carriage door.
"If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said,
"pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to
improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old
friend of this family will be always a welcome
visitor in any house of mine."
A really irresistible man—courteous, considerate,
delightfully free from pride—a gentleman, every inch
of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if
I could cheerfully do anything to promote the
interests of Sir Percival Glyde—anything in the
world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his
wife.
III
A week passed, after my return to London, without
the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe.
On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was
placed among the other letters on my table.
It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been
definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to
take place, as he had originally desired, before the
end of the year. In all probability the ceremony
would be performed during the last fortnight in
December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was
late in March. She would, therefore, by this
arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three
months before she was of age.
I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not
to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry,
nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by
the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's
letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and
contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity
for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced
the proposed marriage—in three more, she told me
that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to
his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding
sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was
sadly in want of change and cheerful society;
secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of
some such change forthwith, by taking her sister
away with her on a visit to certain old friends in
Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to
explain what the circumstances were which had
decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in
one short week from the time when I had last seen
her.
At a later period the cause of this sudden
determination was fully explained to me. It is not
my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay
evidence. The circumstances came within the personal
experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative
succeeds mine, she will describe them in every
particular exactly as they happened. In the
meantime, the plain duty for me to perform—before I,
in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the
story—is to relate the one remaining event connected
with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was
concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement.
It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this
document without first entering into certain
particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary
affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly
and plainly, and to keep it free from professional
obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the
utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines
that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious
part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's
experience, in this particular, must be their
experience also, if they wish to understand the
narratives which are yet to come.
Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a
twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of
real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her
absolute inheritance of personal property, or money,
when she came of age.
Let us take the land first.
In the time of Miss Fairlie's paternal
grandfather (whom we will call Mr. Fairlie, the
elder) the entailed succession to the Limmeridge
estate stood thus—
Mr. Fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons,
Philip, Frederick, and Arthur. As eldest son, Philip
succeeded to the estate, If he died without leaving
a son, the property went to the second brother,
Frederick; and if Frederick died also without
leaving a son, the property went to the third
brother, Arthur.
As events turned out, Mr. Philip Fairlie died
leaving an only daughter, the Laura of this story,
and the estate, in consequence, went, in course of
law, to the second brother, Frederick, a single man.
The third brother, Arthur, had died many years
before the decease of Philip, leaving a son and a
daughter. The son, at the age of eighteen, was
drowned at Oxford. His death left Laura, the
daughter of Mr. Philip Fairlie, presumptive heiress
to the estate, with every chance of succeeding to
it, in the ordinary course of nature, on her uncle
Frederick's death, if the said Frederick died
without leaving male issue.
Except in the event, then, of Mr. Frederick
Fairlie's marrying and leaving an heir (the two very
last things in the world that he was likely to do),
his niece, Laura, would have the property on his
death, possessing, it must be remembered, nothing
more than a life-interest in it. If she died single,
or died childless, the estate would revert to her
cousin, Magdalen, the daughter of Mr. Arthur
Fairlie. If she married, with a proper
settlement—or, in other words, with the settlement I
meant to make for her—the income from the estate (a
good three thousand a year) would, during her
lifetime, be at her own disposal. If she died before
her husband, he would naturally expect to be left in
the enjoyment of the income, for HIS lifetime. If
she had a son, that son would be the heir, to the
exclusion of her cousin Magdalen. Thus, Sir
Percival's prospects in marrying Miss Fairlie (so
far as his wife's expectations from real property
were concerned) promised him these two advantages,
on Mr. Frederick Fairlie's death: First, the use of
three thousand a year (by his wife's permission,
while she lived, and in his own right, on her death,
if he survived her); and, secondly, the inheritance
of Limmeridge for his son, if he had one.
So much for the landed property, and for the
disposal of the income from it, on the occasion of
Miss Fairlie's marriage. Thus far, no difficulty or
difference of opinion on the lady's settlement was
at all likely to arise between Sir Percival's lawyer
and myself.
The personal estate, or, in other words, the
money to which Miss Fairlie would become entitled on
reaching the age of twenty-one years, is the next
point to consider.
This part of her inheritance was, in itself, a
comfortable little fortune. It was derived under her
father's will, and it amounted to the sum of twenty
thousand pounds. Besides this, she had a
life-interest in ten thousand pounds more, which
latter amount was to go, on her decease, to her aunt
Eleanor, her father's only sister. It will greatly
assist in setting the family affairs before the
reader in the clearest possible light, if I stop
here for a moment, to explain why the aunt had been
kept waiting for her legacy until the death of the
niece.
Mr. Philip Fairlie had lived on excellent terms
with his sister Eleanor, as long as she remained a
single woman. But when her marriage took place,
somewhat late in life, and when that marriage united
her to an Italian gentleman named Fosco, or, rather,
to an Italian nobleman—seeing that he rejoiced in
the title of Count—Mr. Fairlie disapproved of her
conduct so strongly that he ceased to hold any
communication with her, and even went the length of
striking her name out of his will. The other members
of the family all thought this serious manifestation
of resentment at his sister's marriage more or less
unreasonable. Count Fosco, though not a rich man,
was not a penniless adventurer either. He had a
small but sufficient income of his own. He had lived
many years in England, and he held an excellent
position in society. These recommendations, however,
availed nothing with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his
opinions he was an Englishman of the old school, and
he hated a foreigner simply and solely because he
was a foreigner. The utmost that he could be
prevailed on to do, in after years—mainly at Miss
Fairlie's intercession—was to restore his sister's
name to its former place in his will, but to keep
her waiting for her legacy by giving the income of
the money to his daughter for life, and the money
itself, if her aunt died before her, to her cousin
Magdalen. Considering the relative ages of the two
ladies, the aunt's chance, in the ordinary course of
nature, of receiving the ten thousand pounds, was
thus rendered doubtful in the extreme; and Madame
Fosco resented her brother's treatment of her as
unjustly as usual in such cases, by refusing to see
her niece, and declining to believe that Miss
Fairlie's intercession had ever been exerted to
restore her name to Mr. Fairlie's will.
Such was the history of the ten thousand pounds.
Here again no difficulty could arise with Sir
Percival's legal adviser. The income would be at the
wife's disposal, and the principal would go to her
aunt or her cousin on her death.
All preliminary explanations being now cleared
out of the way, I come at last to the real knot of
the case—to the twenty thousand pounds.
This sum was absolutely Miss Fairlie's own on her
completing her twenty-first year, and the whole
future disposition of it depended, in the first
instance, on the conditions I could obtain for her
in her marriage-settlement. The other clauses
contained in that document were of a formal kind,
and need not be recited here. But the clause
relating to the money is too important to be passed
over. A few lines will be sufficient to give the
necessary abstract of it.
My stipulation in regard to the twenty thousand
pounds was simply this: The whole amount was to be
settled so as to give the income to the lady for her
life—afterwards to Sir Percival for his life—and the
principal to the children of the marriage. In
default of issue, the principal was to be disposed
of as the lady might by her will direct, for which
purpose I reserved to her the right of making a
will. The effect of these conditions may be thus
summed up. If Lady Glyde died without leaving
children, her half-sister Miss Halcombe, and any
other relatives or friends whom she might be anxious
to benefit, would, on her husband's death, divide
among them such shares of her money as she desired
them to have. If, on the other hand, she died
leaving children, then their interest, naturally and
necessarily, superseded all other interests
whatsoever. This was the clause—and no one who reads
it can fail, I think, to agree with me that it meted
out equal justice to all parties.
We shall see how my proposals were met on the
husband's side.
At the time when Miss Halcombe's letter reached
me I was even more busily occupied than usual. But I
contrived to make leisure for the settlement. I had
drawn it, and had sent it for approval to Sir
Percival's solicitor, in less than a week from the
time when Miss Halcombe had informed me of the
proposed marriage.
After a lapse of two days the document was
returned to me, with notes and remarks of the
baronet's lawyer. His objections, in general, proved
to be of the most trifling and technical kind, until
he came to the clause relating to the twenty
thousand pounds. Against this there were double
lines drawn in red ink, and the following note was
appended to them—
"Not admissible. The PRINCIPAL to go to Sir
Percival Glyde, in the event of his surviving Lady
Glyde, and there being no issue."
That is to say, not one farthing of the twenty
thousand pounds was to go to Miss Halcombe, or to
any other relative or friend of Lady Glyde's. The
whole sum, if she left no children, was to slip into
the pockets of her husband.
The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was
as short and sharp as I could make it. "My dear sir.
Miss Fairlie's settlement. I maintain the clause to
which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours
truly." The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an
hour. "My dear sir. Miss Fairlie's settlement. I
maintain the red ink to which you object, exactly as
it stands. Yours truly." In the detestable slang of
the day, we were now both "at a deadlock," and
nothing was left for it but to refer to our clients
on either side.
As matters stood, my client—Miss Fairlie not
having yet completed her twenty-first year—Mr.
Frederick Fairlie, was her guardian. I wrote by that
day's post, and put the case before him exactly as
it stood, not only urging every argument I could
think of to induce him to maintain the clause as I
had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the
mercenary motive which was at the bottom of the
opposition to my settlement of the twenty thousand
pounds. The knowledge of Sir Percival's affairs
which I had necessarily gained when the provisions
of the deed on HIS side were submitted in due course
to my examination, had but too plainly informed me
that the debts on his estate were enormous, and that
his income, though nominally a large one, was
virtually, for a man in his position, next to
nothing. The want of ready money was the practical
necessity of Sir Percival's existence, and his
lawyer's note on the clause in the settlement was
nothing but the frankly selfish expression of it.
Mr. Fairlie's answer reached me by return of
post, and proved to be wandering and irrelevant in
the extreme. Turned into plain English, it
practically expressed itself to this effect: "Would
dear Gilmore be so very obliging as not to worry his
friend and client about such a trifle as a remote
contingency? Was it likely that a young woman of
twenty-one would die before a man of forty five, and
die without children? On the other hand, in such a
miserable world as this, was it possible to
over-estimate the value of peace and quietness? If
those two heavenly blessings were offered in
exchange for such an earthly trifle as a remote
chance of twenty thousand pounds, was it not a fair
bargain? Surely, yes. Then why not make it?"
I threw the letter away in disgust. Just as it
had fluttered to the ground, there was a knock at my
door, and Sir Percival's solicitor, Mr. Merriman,
was shown in. There are many varieties of sharp
practitioners in this world, but I think the hardest
of all to deal with are the men who overreach you
under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. A fat,
well fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of
all parties to a bargain the most hopeless to deal
with. Mr. Merriman was one of this class.
"And how is good Mr. Gilmore?" he began, all in a
glow with the warmth of his own amiability. "Glad to
see you, sir, in such excellent health. I was
passing your door, and I thought I would look in in
case you might have something to say to me. Do—now
pray do let us settle this little difference of ours
by word of mouth, if we can! Have you heard from
your client yet?"
"Yes. Have you heard from yours?"
"My dear, good sir! I wish I had heard from him
to any purpose—I wish, with all my heart, the
responsibility was off my shoulders; but he is
obstinate—or let me rather say, resolute—and he
won't take it off. 'Merriman, I leave details to
you. Do what you think right for my interests, and
consider me as having personally withdrawn from the
business until it is all over.' Those were Sir
Percival's words a fortnight ago, and all I can get
him to do now is to repeat them. I am not a hard
man, Mr. Gilmore, as you know. Personally and
privately, I do assure you, I should like to sponge
out that note of mine at this very moment. But if
Sir Percival won't go into the matter, if Sir
Percival will blindly leave all his interests in my
sole care, what course can I possibly take except
the course of asserting them? My hands are
bound—don't you see, my dear sir?—my hands are
bound."
"You maintain your note on the clause, then, to
the letter?" I said.
"Yes—deuce take it! I have no other alternative."
He walked to the fireplace and warmed himself,
humming the fag end of a tune in a rich convivial
bass voice. "What does your side say?" he went on;
"now pray tell me—what does your side say?"
I was ashamed to tell him. I attempted to gain
time—nay, I did worse. My legal instincts got the
better of me, and I even tried to bargain.
"Twenty thousand pounds is rather a large sum to
be given up by the lady's friends at two days'
notice," I said.
"Very true," replied Mr. Merriman, looking down
thoughtfully at his boots. "Properly put, sir—most
properly put!"
"A compromise, recognising the interests of the
lady's family as well as the interests of the
husband, might not perhaps have frightened my client
quite so much," I went on. "Come, come! this
contingency resolves itself into a matter of
bargaining after all. What is the least you will
take?"
"The least we will take," said Mr. Merriman, "is
nineteen-
thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-pounds-nineteen-shillings-
and-elevenpence-three-farthings. Ha! ha! ha! Excuse
me, Mr. Gilmore. I must have my little joke."
"Little enough," I remarked. "The joke is just
worth the odd farthing it was made for."
Mr. Merriman was delighted. He laughed over my
retort till the room rang again. I was not half so
good-humoured on my side; I came back to business,
and closed the interview.
"This is Friday," I said. "Give us till Tuesday
next for our final answer."
"By all means," replied Mr. Merriman. "Longer, my
dear sir, if you like." He took up his hat to go,
and then addressed me again. "By the way," he said,
"your clients in Cumberland have not heard anything
more of the woman who wrote the anonymous letter,
have they?"
"Nothing more," I answered. "Have you found no
trace of her?"
"Not yet," said my legal friend. "But we don't
despair. Sir Percival has his suspicions that
Somebody is keeping her in hiding, and we are having
that Somebody watched."
"You mean the old woman who was with her in
Cumberland," I said.
"Quite another party, sir," answered Mr.
Merriman. "We don't happen to have laid hands on the
old woman yet. Our Somebody is a man. We have got
him close under our eye here in London, and we
strongly suspect he had something to do with helping
her in the first instance to escape from the Asylum.
Sir Percival wanted to question him at once, but I
said, 'No. Questioning him will only put him on his
guard—watch him, and wait.' We shall see what
happens. A dangerous woman to be at large, Mr.
Gilmore; nobody knows what she may do next. I wish
you good-morning, sir. On Tuesday next I shall hope
for the pleasure of hearing from you." He smiled
amiably and went out.
My mind had been rather absent during the latter
part of the conversation with my legal friend. I was
so anxious about the matter of the settlement that I
had little attention to give to any other subject,
and the moment I was left alone again I began to
think over what my next proceeding ought to be.
In the case of any other client I should have
acted on my instructions, however personally
distasteful to me, and have given up the point about
the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. But I could
not act with this business-like indifference towards
Miss Fairlie. I had an honest feeling of affection
and admiration for her—I remembered gratefully that
her father had been the kindest patron and friend to
me that ever man had—I had felt towards her while I
was drawing the settlement as I might have felt, if
I had not been an old bachelor, towards a daughter
of my own, and I was determined to spare no personal
sacrifice in her service and where her interests
were concerned. Writing a second time to Mr. Fairlie
was not to be thought of—it would only be giving him
a second opportunity of slipping through my fingers.
Seeing him and personally remonstrating with him
might possibly be of more use. The next day was
Saturday. I determined to take a return ticket and
jolt my old bones down to Cumberland, on the chance
of persuading him to adopt the just, the
independent, and the honourable course. It was a
poor chance enough, no doubt, but when I had tried
it my conscience would be at ease. I should then
have done all that a man in my position could do to
serve the interests of my old friend's only child.
The weather on Saturday was beautiful, a west
wind and a bright sun. Having felt latterly a return
of that fulness and oppression of the head, against
which my doctor warned me so seriously more than two
years since, I resolved to take the opportunity of
getting a little extra exercise by sending my bag on
before me and walking to the terminus in Euston
Square. As I came out into Holborn a gentleman
walking by rapidly stopped and spoke to me. It was
Mr. Walter Hartright.
If he had not been the first to greet me I should
certainly have passed him. He was so changed that I
hardly knew him again. His face looked pale and
haggard—his manner was hurried and uncertain—and his
dress, which I remembered as neat and gentlemanlike
when I saw him at Limmeridge, was so slovenly now
that I should really have been ashamed of the
appearance of it on one of my own clerks.
"Have you been long back from Cumberland?" he
asked. "I heard from Miss Halcombe lately. I am
aware that Sir Percival Glyde's explanation has been
considered satisfactory. Will the marriage take
place soon? Do you happen to know Mr. Gilmore?"
He spoke so fast, and crowded his questions
together so strangely and confusedly, that I could
hardly follow him. However accidentally intimate he
might have been with the family at Limmeridge, I
could not see that he had any right to expect
information on their private affairs, and I
determined to drop him, as easily as might be, on
the subject of Miss Fairlie's marriage.
"Time will show, Mr. Hartright," I said—"time
will show. I dare say if we look out for the
marriage in the papers we shall not be far wrong.
Excuse my noticing it, but I am sorry to see you not
looking so well as you were when we last met."
A momentary nervous contraction quivered about
his lips and eyes, and made me half reproach myself
for having answered him in such a significantly
guarded manner.
"I had no right to ask about her marriage," he
said bitterly. "I must wait to see it in the
newspapers like other people. Yes,"—he went on
before I could make any apologies—"I have not been
well lately. I am going to another country to try a
change of scene and occupation. Miss Halcombe has
kindly assisted me with her influence, and my
testimonials have been found satisfactory. It is a
long distance off, but I don't care where I go, what
the climate is, or how long I am away." He looked
about him while he said this at the throng of
strangers passing us by on either side, in a
strange, suspicious manner, as if he thought that
some of them might be watching us.
"I wish you well through it, and safe back
again," I said, and then added, so as not to keep
him altogether at arm's length on the subject of the
Fairlies, "I am going down to Limmeridge to-day on
business. Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie are away
just now on a visit to some friends in Yorkshire."
His eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say
something in answer, but the same momentary nervous
spasm crossed his face again. He took my hand,
pressed it hard, and disappeared among the crowd
without saying another word. Though he was little
more than a stranger to me, I waited for a moment,
looking after him almost with a feeling of regret. I
had gained in my profession sufficient experience of
young men to know what the outward signs and tokens
were of their beginning to go wrong, and when I
resumed my walk to the railway I am sorry to say I
felt more than doubtful about Mr. Hartright's
future.
IV
Leaving by an early train, I got to Limmeridge in
time for dinner. The house was oppressively empty
and dull. I had expected that good Mrs. Vesey would
have been company for me in the absence of the young
ladies, but she was confined to her room by a cold.
The servants were so surprised at seeing me that
they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all
sorts of annoying mistakes. Even the butler, who was
old enough to have known better, brought me a bottle
of port that was chilled. The reports of Mr.
Fairlie's health were just as usual, and when I sent
up a message to announce my arrival, I was told that
he would be delighted to see me the next morning but
that the sudden news of my appearance had prostrated
him with palpitations for the rest of the evening.
The wind howled dismally all night, and strange
cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there,
and everywhere in the empty house. I slept as
wretchedly as possible, and got up in a mighty bad
humour to breakfast by myself the next morning.
At ten o'clock I was conducted to Mr. Fairlie's
apartments. He was in his usual room, his usual
chair, and his usual aggravating state of mind and
body. When I went in, his valet was standing before
him, holding up for inspection a heavy volume of
etchings, as long and as broad as my office
writing-desk. The miserable foreigner grinned in the
most abject manner, and looked ready to drop with
fatigue, while his master composedly turned over the
etchings, and brought their hidden beauties to light
with the help of a magnifying glass.
"You very best of good old friends," said Mr.
Fairlie, leaning back lazily before he could look at
me, "are you QUITE well? How nice of you to come
here and see me in my solitude. Dear Gilmore!"
I had expected that the valet would be dismissed
when I appeared, but nothing of the sort happened.
There he stood, in front of his master's chair,
trembling under the weight of the etchings, and
there Mr. Fairlie sat, serenely twirling the
magnifying glass between his white fingers and
thumbs.
"I have come to speak to you on a very important
matter," I said, "and you will therefore excuse me,
if I suggest that we had better be alone."
The unfortunate valet looked at me gratefully.
Mr. Fairlie faintly repeated my last three words,
"better be alone," with every appearance of the
utmost possible astonishment.
I was in no humour for trifling, and I resolved
to make him understand what I meant.
"Oblige me by giving that man permission to
withdraw," I said, pointing to the valet.
Mr. Fairlie arched his eyebrows and pursed up his
lips in sarcastic surprise.
"Man?" he repeated. "You provoking old Gilmore,
what can you possibly mean by calling him a man?
He's nothing of the sort. He might have been a man
half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings, and
he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don't
want them any longer. At present he is simply a
portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio
stand?"
"I DO object. For the third time, Mr. Fairlie, I
beg that we may be alone."
My tone and manner left him no alternative but to
comply with my request. He looked at the servant,
and pointed peevishly to a chair at his side.
"Put down the etchings and go away," he said.
"Don't upset me by losing my place. Have you, or
have you not, lost my place? Are you sure you have
not? And have you put my hand-bell quite within my
reach? Yes? Then why the devil don't you go?"
The valet went out. Mr. Fairlie twisted himself
round in his chair, polished the magnifying glass
with his delicate cambric handkerchief, and indulged
himself with a sidelong inspection of the open
volume of etchings. It was not easy to keep my
temper under these circumstances, but I did keep it.
"I have come here at great personal
inconvenience," I said, "to serve the interests of
your niece and your family, and I think I have
established some slight claim to be favoured with
your attention in return."
"Don't bully me!" exclaimed Mr. Fairlie, falling
back helplessly in the chair, and closing his eyes.
"Please don't bully me. I'm not strong enough."
I was determined not to let him provoke me, for
Laura Fairlie's sake.
"My object," I went on, "is to entreat you to
reconsider your letter, and not to force me to
abandon the just rights of your niece, and of all
who belong to her. Let me state the case to you once
more, and for the last time."
Mr. Fairlie shook his head and sighed piteously.
"This is heartless of you, Gilmore—very
heartless," he said. "Never mind, go on."
I put all the points to him carefully—I set the
matter before him in every conceivable light. He lay
back in the chair the whole time I was speaking with
his eyes closed. When I had done he opened them
indolently, took his silver smelling-bottle from the
table, and sniffed at it with an air of gentle
relish.
"Good Gilmore!" he said between the sniffs, "how
very nice this is of you! How you reconcile one to
human nature!"
"Give me a plain answer to a plain question, Mr.
Fairlie. I tell you again, Sir Percival Glyde has no
shadow of a claim to expect more than the income of
the money. The money itself if your niece has no
children, ought to be under her control, and to
return to her family. If you stand firm, Sir
Percival must give way—he must give way, I tell you,
or he exposes himself to the base imputation of
marrying Miss Fairlie entirely from mercenary
motives."
Mr. Fairlie shook the silver smelling-bottle at
me playfully.
"You dear old Gilmore, how you do hate rank and
family, don't you? How you detest Glyde because he
happens to be a baronet. What a Radical you are—oh,
dear me, what a Radical you are!"
A Radical!!! I could put up with a good deal of
provocation, but, after holding the soundest
Conservative principles all my life, I could NOT put
up with being called a Radical. My blood boiled at
it—I started out of my chair—I was speechless with
Indignation.
"Don't shake the room!" cried Mr. Fairlie—"for
Heaven's sake don't shake the room! Worthiest of all
possible Gilmores, I meant no offence. My own views
are so extremely liberal that I think I am a Radical
myself. Yes. We are a pair of Radicals. Please don't
be angry. I can't quarrel—I haven't stamina enough.
Shall we drop the subject? Yes. Come and look at
these sweet etchings. Do let me teach you to
understand the heavenly pearliness of these lines.
Do now, there's a good Gilmore!"
While he was maundering on in this way I was,
fortunately for my own self-respect, returning to my
senses. When I spoke again I was composed enough to
treat his impertinence with the silent contempt that
it deserved.
"You are entirely wrong, sir," I said, "in
supposing that I speak from any prejudice against
Sir Percival Glyde. I may regret that he has so
unreservedly resigned himself in this matter to his
lawyer's direction as to make any appeal to himself
impossible, but I am not prejudiced against him.
What I have said would equally apply to any other
man in his situation, high or low. The principle I
maintain is a recognised principle. If you were to
apply at the nearest town here, to the first
respectable solicitor you could find, he would tell
you as a stranger what I tell you as a friend. He
would inform you that it is against all rule to
abandon the lady's money entirely to the man she
marries. He would decline, on grounds of common
legal caution, to give the husband, under any
circumstances whatever, an interest of twenty
thousand pounds in his wife's death."
"Would he really, Gilmore?" said Mr. Fairlie. "If
he said anything half so horrid, I do assure you I
should tinkle my bell for Louis, and have him sent
out of the house immediately."
"You shall not irritate me, Mr. Fairlie—for your
niece's sake and for her father's sake, you shall
not irritate me. You shall take the whole
responsibility of this discreditable settlement on
your own shoulders before I leave the room."
"Don't!—now please don't!" said Mr. Fairlie.
"Think how precious your time is, Gilmore, and don't
throw it away. I would dispute with you if I could,
but I can't—I haven't stamina enough. You want to
upset me, to upset yourself, to upset Glyde, and to
upset Laura; and—oh, dear me!—all for the sake of
the very last thing in the world that is likely to
happen. No, dear friend, in the interests of peace
and quietness, positively No!"
"I am to understand, then, that you hold by the
determination expressed in your letter?"
"Yes, please. So glad we understand each other at
last. Sit down again—do!"
I walked at once to the door, and Mr. Fairlie
resignedly "tinkled" his hand-bell. Before I left
the room I turned round and addressed him for the
last time.
"Whatever happens in the future, sir," I said,
"remember that my plain duty of warning you has been
performed. As the faithful friend and servant of
your family, I tell you, at parting, that no
daughter of mine should be married to any man alive
under such a settlement as you are forcing me to
make for Miss Fairlie."
The door opened behind me, and the valet stood
waiting on the threshold.
"Louis," said Mr. Fairlie, "show Mr. Gilmore out,
and then come back and hold up my etchings for me
again. Make them give you a good lunch downstairs.
Do, Gilmore, make my idle beasts of servants give
you a good lunch!"
I was too much disgusted to reply—I turned on my
heel, and left him in silence. There was an up train
at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by that train I
returned to London.
On the Tuesday I sent in the altered settlement,
which practically disinherited the very persons whom
Miss Fairlie's own lips had informed me she was most
anxious to benefit. I had no choice. Another lawyer
would have drawn up the deed if I had refused to
undertake it.
My task is done. My personal share in the events of the family story
extends no farther than the point which I have just
reached. Other pens than mine will describe the
strange circumstances which are now shortly to
follow. Seriously and sorrowfully I close this brief
record. Seriously and sorrowfully I repeat here the
parting words that I spoke at Limmeridge House:—No
daughter of mine should have been married to any man
alive under such a settlement as I was compelled to
make for Laura Fairlie.
The End of Mr. Gilmore's Narrative.
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE
(in Extracts from her Diary)
LIMMERIDGE HOUSE, Nov. 8.[1]
This morning Mr. Gilmore left us.
His interview with Laura had evidently grieved
and surprised him more than he liked to confess. I
felt afraid, from his look and manner when we
parted, that she might have inadvertently betrayed
to him the real secret of her depression and my
anxiety. This doubt grew on me so, after he had
gone, that I declined riding out with Sir Percival,
and went up to Laura's room instead.
I have been sadly distrustful of myself, in this
difficult and lamentable matter, ever since I found
out my own ignorance of the strength of Laura's
unhappy attachment. I ought to have known that the
delicacy and forbearance and sense of honour which
drew me to poor Hartright, and made me so sincerely
admire and respect him, were just the qualities to
appeal most irresistibly to Laura's natural
sensitiveness and natural generosity of nature. And
yet, until she opened her heart to me of her own
accord, I had no suspicion that this new feeling had
taken root so deeply. I once thought time and care
might remove it. I now fear that it will remain with
her and alter her for life. The discovery that I
have committed such an error in judgment as this
makes me hesitate about everything else. I hesitate
about Sir Percival, in the face of the plainest
proofs. I hesitate even in speaking to Laura. On
this very morning I doubted, with my hand on the
door, whether I should ask her the questions I had
come to put, or not.
When I went into her room I found her walking up
and down in great impatience. She looked flushed and
excited, and she came forward at once, and spoke to
me before I could open my lips.
"I wanted you," she said. "Come and sit down on
the sofa with me. Marian! I can bear this no
longer—I must and will end it."
There was too much colour in her cheeks, too much
energy in her manner, too much firmness in her
voice. The little book of Hartright's drawings—the
fatal book that she will dream over whenever she is
alone—was in one of her hands. I began by gently and
firmly taking it from her, and putting it out of
sight on a side-table.
"Tell me quietly, my darling, what you wish to
do," I said. "Has Mr. Gilmore been advising you?"
She shook her head. "No, not in what I am
thinking of now. He was very kind and good to me,
Marian, and I am ashamed to say I distressed him by
crying. I am miserably helpless—I can't control
myself. For my own sake, and for all our sakes, I
must have courage enough to end it."
"Do you mean courage enough to claim your
release?" I asked.
"No," she said simply. "Courage, dear, to tell
the truth."
She put her arms round my neck, and rested her
head quietly on my bosom. On the opposite wall hung
the miniature portrait of her father. I bent over
her, and saw that she was looking at it while her
head lay on my breast.
"I can never claim my release from my
engagement," she went on. "Whatever way it ends it
must end wretchedly for me. All I can do, Marian, is
not to add the remembrance that I have broken my
promise and forgotten my father's dying words, to
make that wretchedness worse."
"What is it you propose, then?" I asked.
"To tell Sir Percival Glyde the truth with my own
lips," she answered, "and to let him release me, if
he will, not because I ask him, but because he knows
all."
"What do you mean, Laura, by 'all'? Sir Percival
will know enough (he has told me so himself) if he
knows that the engagement is opposed to your own
wishes."
"Can I tell him that, when the engagement was
made for me by my father, with my own consent? I
should have kept my promise, not happily, I am
afraid, but still contentedly—" she stopped, turned
her face to me, and laid her cheek close against
mine—"I should have kept my engagement, Marian, if
another love had not grown up in my heart, which was
not there when I first promised to be Sir Percival's
wife."
"Laura! you will never lower yourself by making a
confession to him?"
"I shall lower myself, indeed, if I gain my
release by hiding from him what he has a right to
know."
"He has not the shadow of a right to know it!"
"Wrong, Marian, wrong! I ought to deceive no
one—least of all the man to whom my father gave me,
and to whom I gave myself." She put her lips to
mine, and kissed me. "My own love," she said softly,
"you are so much too fond of me, and so much too
proud of me, that you forget, in my case, what you
would remember in your own. Better that Sir Percival
should doubt my motives, and misjudge my conduct if
he will, than that I should be first false to him in
thought, and then mean enough to serve my own
interests by hiding the falsehood."
I held her away from me in astonishment. For the
first time in our lives we had changed places—the
resolution was all on her side, the hesitation all
on mine. I looked into the pale, quiet, resigned
young face—I saw the pure, innocent heart, in the
loving eyes that looked back at me—and the poor
worldly cautions and objections that rose to my lips
dwindled and died away in their own emptiness. I
hung my head in silence. In her place the despicably
small pride which makes so many women deceitful
would have been my pride, and would have made me
deceitful too.
"Don't be angry with me, Marian," she said,
mistaking my silence.
I only answered by drawing her close to me again.
I was afraid of crying if I spoke. My tears do not
flow so easily as they ought—they come almost like
men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in
pieces, and that frighten every one about me.
"I have thought of this, love, for many days,"
she went on, twining and twisting my hair with that
childish restlessness in her fingers, which poor
Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to
cure her of—"I have thought of it very seriously,
and I can be sure of my courage when my own
conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to him
to-morrow—in your presence, Marian. I will say
nothing that is wrong, nothing that you or I need be
ashamed of—but, oh, it will ease my heart so to end
this miserable concealment! Only let me know and
feel that I have no deception to answer for on my
side, and then, when he has heard what I have to
say, let him act towards me as he will."
She sighed, and put her head back in its old
position on my bosom. Sad misgivings about what the
end would be weighed upon my mind, but still
distrusting myself, I told her that I would do as
she wished. She thanked me, and we passed gradually
into talking of other things.
At dinner she joined us again, and was more easy
and more herself with Sir Percival than I have seen
her yet. In the evening she went to the piano,
choosing new music of the dexterous, tuneless,
florid kind. The lovely old melodies of Mozart,
which poor Hartright was so fond of, she has never
played since he left. The book is no longer in the
music-stand. She took the volume away herself, so
that nobody might find it out and ask her to play
from it.
I had no opportunity of discovering whether her
purpose of the morning had changed or not, until she
wished Sir Percival good-night—and then her own
words informed me that it was unaltered. She said,
very quietly, that she wished to speak to him after
breakfast, and that he would find her in her
sitting-room with me. He changed colour at those
words, and I felt his hand trembling a little when
it came to my turn to take it. The event of the next
morning would decide his future life, and he
evidently knew it.
I went in, as usual, through the door between our
two bedrooms, to bid Laura good-night before she
went to sleep. In stooping over her to kiss her I
saw the little book of Hartright's drawings half
hidden under her pillow, just in the place where she
used to hide her favourite toys when she was a
child. I could not find it in my heart to say
anything, but I pointed to the book and shook my
head. She reached both hands up to my cheeks, and
drew my face down to hers till our lips met.
"Leave it there to-night," she whispered;
"to-morrow may be cruel, and may make me say
good-bye to it for ever."
9th.—The first event of the morning was not of a kind to raise my
spirits—a letter arrived for me from poor Walter
Hartright. It is the answer to mine describing the
manner in which Sir Percival cleared himself of the
suspicions raised by Anne Catherick's letter. He
writes shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival's
explanations, only saying that he has no right to
offer an opinion on the conduct of those who are
above him. This is sad, but his occasional
references to himself grieve me still more. He says
that the effort to return to his old habits and
pursuits grows harder instead of easier to him every
day and he implores me, if I have any interest, to
exert it to get him employment that will necessitate
his absence from England, and take him among new
scenes and new people. I have been made all the
readier to comply with this request by a passage at
the end of his letter, which has almost alarmed me.
After mentioning that he has neither seen nor
heard anything of Anne Catherick, he suddenly breaks
off, and hints in the most abrupt, mysterious
manner, that he has been perpetually watched and
followed by strange men ever since he returned to
London. He acknowledges that he cannot prove this
extraordinary suspicion by fixing on any particular
persons, but he declares that the suspicion itself
is present to him night and day. This has frightened
me, because it looks as if his one fixed idea about
Laura was becoming too much for his mind. I will
write immediately to some of my mother's influential
old friends in London, and press his claims on their
notice. Change of scene and change of occupation may
really be the salvation of him at this crisis in his
life.
Greatly to my relief, Sir Percival sent an
apology for not joining us at breakfast. He had
taken an early cup of coffee in his own room, and he
was still engaged there in writing letters. At
eleven o'clock, if that hour was convenient, he
would do himself the honour of waiting on Miss
Fairlie and Miss Halcombe.
My eyes were on Laura's face while the message
was being delivered. I had found her unaccountably
quiet and composed on going into her room in the
morning, and so she remained all through breakfast.
Even when we were sitting together on the sofa in
her room, waiting for Sir Percival, she still
preserved her self-control.
"Don't be afraid of me, Marian," was all she
said; "I may forget myself with an old friend like
Mr. Gilmore, or with a dear sister like you, but I
will not forget myself with Sir Percival Glyde."
I looked at her, and listened to her in silent
surprise. Through all the years of our close
intimacy this passive force in her character had
been hidden from me—hidden even from herself, till
love found it, and suffering called it forth.
As the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven Sir
Percival knocked at the door and came in. There was
suppressed anxiety and agitation in every line of
his face. The dry, sharp cough, which teases him at
most times, seemed to be troubling him more
incessantly than ever. He sat down opposite to us at
the table, and Laura remained by me. I looked
attentively at them both, and he was the palest of
the two.
He said a few unimportant words, with a visible
effort to preserve his customary ease of manner. But
his voice was not to be steadied, and the restless
uneasiness in his eyes was not to be concealed. He
must have felt this himself, for he stopped in the
middle of a sentence, and gave up even the attempt
to hide his embarrassment any longer.
There was just one moment of dead silence before
Laura addressed him.
"I wish to speak to you, Sir Percival," she said,
"on a subject that is very important to us both. My
sister is here, because her presence helps me and
gives me confidence. She has not suggested one word
of what I am going to say—I speak from my own
thoughts, not from hers. I am sure you will be kind
enough to understand that before I go any farther?"
Sir Percival bowed. She had proceeded thus far,
with perfect outward tranquillity and perfect
propriety of manner. She looked at him, and he
looked at her. They seemed, at the outset, at least,
resolved to understand one another plainly.
"I have heard from Marian," she went on, "that I
have only to claim my release from our engagement to
obtain that release from you. It was forbearing and
generous on your part, Sir Percival, to send me such
a message. It is only doing you justice to say that
I am grateful for the offer, and I hope and believe
that it is only doing myself justice to tell you
that I decline to accept it."
His attentive face relaxed a little. But I saw
one of his feet, softly, quietly, incessantly
beating on the carpet under the table, and I felt
that he was secretly as anxious as ever.
"I have not forgotten," she said, "that you asked
my father's permission before you honoured me with a
proposal of marriage. Perhaps you have not forgotten
either what I said when I consented to our
engagement? I ventured to tell you that my father's
influence and advice had mainly decided me to give
you my promise. I was guided by my father, because I
had always found him the truest of all advisers, the
best and fondest of all protectors and friends. I
have lost him now—I have only his memory to love,
but my faith in that dear dead friend has never been
shaken. I believe at this moment, as truly as I ever
believed, that he knew what was best, and that his
hopes and wishes ought to be my hopes and wishes
too."
Her voice trembled for the first time. Her
restless fingers stole their way into my lap, and
held fast by one of my hands. There was another
moment of silence, and then Sir Percival spoke.
"May I ask," he said, "if I have ever proved
myself unworthy of the trust which it has been
hitherto my greatest honour and greatest happiness
to possess?"
"I have found nothing in your conduct to blame,"
she answered. "You have always treated me with the
same delicacy and the same forbearance. You have
deserved my trust, and, what is of far more
importance in my estimation, you have deserved my
father's trust, out of which mine grew. You have
given me no excuse, even if I had wanted to find
one, for asking to be released from my pledge. What
I have said so far has been spoken with the wish to
acknowledge my whole obligation to you. My regard
for that obligation, my regard for my father's
memory, and my regard for my own promise, all forbid
me to set the example, on my side, of withdrawing
from our present position. The breaking of our
engagement must be entirely your wish and your act,
Sir Percival—not mine."
The uneasy beating of his foot suddenly stopped,
and he leaned forward eagerly across the table.
"My act?" he said. "What reason can there be on
my side for withdrawing?"
I heard her breath quickening—I felt her hand
growing cold. In spite of what she had said to me
when we were alone, I began to be afraid of her. I
was wrong.
"A reason that it is very hard to tell you," she
answered. "There is a change in me, Sir Percival—a
change which is serious enough to justify you, to
yourself and to me, in breaking off our engagement."
His face turned so pale again that even his lips
lost their colour. He raised the arm which lay on
the table, turned a little away in his chair, and
supported his head on his hand, so that his profile
only was presented to us.
"What change?" he asked. The tone in which he put
the question jarred on me—there was something
painfully suppressed in it.
She sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a
little, so as to rest her shoulder against mine. I
felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by
speaking myself. She stopped me by a warning
pressure of her hand, and then addressed Sir
Percival one more, but this time without looking at
him.
"I have heard," she said, "and I believe it, that
the fondest and truest of all affections is the
affection which a woman ought to bear to her
husband. When our engagement began that affection
was mine to give, if I could, and yours to win, if
you could. Will you pardon me, and spare me, Sir
Percival, if I acknowledge that it is not so any
longer?"
A few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped
over her cheeks slowly as she paused and waited for
his answer. He did not utter a word. At the
beginning of her reply he had moved the hand on
which his head rested, so that it hid his face. I
saw nothing but the upper part of his figure at the
table. Not a muscle of him moved. The fingers of the
hand which supported his head were dented deep in
his hair. They might have expressed hidden anger or
hidden grief—it was hard to say which—there was no
significant trembling in them. There was nothing,
absolutely nothing, to tell the secret of his
thoughts at that moment—the moment which was the
crisis of his life and the crisis of hers.
I was determined to make him declare himself, for
Laura's sake.
"Sir Percival!" I interposed sharply, "have you
nothing to say when my sister has said so much?
More, in my opinion," I added, my unlucky temper
getting the better of me, "than any man alive, in
your position, has a right to hear from her."
That last rash sentence opened a way for him by
which to escape me if he chose, and he instantly
took advantage of it.
"Pardon me, Miss Halcombe," he said, still
keeping his hand over his face, "pardon me if I
remind you that I have claimed no such right."
The few plain words which would have brought him
back to the point from which he had wandered were
just on my lips, when Laura checked me by speaking
again.
"I hope I have not made my painful acknowledgment
in vain," she continued. "I hope it has secured me
your entire confidence in what I have still to say?"
"Pray be assured of it." He made that brief reply
warmly, dropping his hand on the table while he
spoke, and turning towards us again. Whatever
outward change had passed over him was gone now. His
face was eager and expectant—it expressed nothing
but the most intense anxiety to hear her next words.
"I wish you to understand that I have not spoken
from any selfish motive," she said. "If you leave
me, Sir Percival, after what you have just heard,
you do not leave me to marry another man, you only
allow me to remain a single woman for the rest of my
life. My fault towards you has begun and ended in my
own thoughts. It can never go any farther. No word
has passed—" She hesitated, in doubt about the
expression she should use next, hesitated in a
momentary confusion which it was very sad and very
painful to see. "No word has passed," she patiently
and resolutely resumed, "between myself and the
person to whom I am now referring for the first and
last time in your presence of my feelings towards
him, or of his feelings towards me—no word ever can
pass—neither he nor I are likely, in this world, to
meet again. I earnestly beg you to spare me from
saying any more, and to believe me, on my word, in
what I have just told you. It is the truth. Sir
Percival, the truth which I think my promised
husband has a claim to hear, at any sacrifice of my
own feelings. I trust to his generosity to pardon
me, and to his honour to keep my secret."
"Both those trusts are sacred to me," he said,
"and both shall be sacredly kept."
After answering in those terms he paused, and
looked at her as if he was waiting to hear more.
"I have said all I wish to say," she added
quietly—"I have said more than enough to justify you
in withdrawing from your engagement."
"You have said more than enough," he answered,
"to make it the dearest object of my life to KEEP
the engagement." With those words he rose from his
chair, and advanced a few steps towards the place
where she was sitting.
She started violently, and a faint cry of
surprise escaped her. Every word she had spoken had
innocently betrayed her purity and truth to a man
who thoroughly understood the priceless value of a
pure and true woman. Her own noble conduct had been
the hidden enemy, throughout, of all the hopes she
had trusted to it. I had dreaded this from the
first. I would have prevented it, if she had allowed
me the smallest chance of doing so. I even waited
and watched now, when the harm was done, for a word
from Sir Percival that would give me the opportunity
of putting him in the wrong.
"You have left it to ME, Miss Fairlie, to resign
you," he continued. "I am not heartless enough to
resign a woman who has just shown herself to be the
noblest of her sex."
He spoke with such warmth and feeling, with such
passionate enthusiasm, and yet with such perfect
delicacy, that she raised her head, flushed up a
little, and looked at him with sudden animation and
spirit.
"No!" she said firmly. "The most wretched of her
sex, if she must give herself in marriage when she
cannot give her love."
"May she not give it in the future," he asked,
"if the one object of her husband's life is to
deserve it?"
"Never!" she answered. "If you still persist in
maintaining our engagement, I may be your true and
faithful wife, Sir Percival—your loving wife, if I
know my own heart, never!"
She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said
those brave words that no man alive could have
steeled his heart against her. I tried hard to feel
that Sir Percival was to blame, and to say so, but
my womanhood would pity him, in spite of myself.
"I gratefully accept your faith and truth," he
said. "The least that you can offer is more to me
than the utmost that I could hope for from any other
woman in the world."
Her left hand still held mine, but her right hand
hung listlessly at her side. He raised it gently to
his lips—touched it with them, rather than kissed
it—bowed to me—and then, with perfect delicacy and
discretion, silently quitted the room.
She neither moved nor said a word when he was
gone—she sat by me, cold and still, with her eyes
fixed on the ground. I saw it was hopeless and
useless to speak, and I only put my arm round her,
and held her to me in silence. We remained together
so for what seemed a long and weary time—so long and
so weary, that I grew uneasy and spoke to her
softly, in the hope of producing a change.
The sound of my voice seemed to startle her into
consciousness. She suddenly drew herself away from
me and rose to her feet.
"I must submit, Marian, as well as I can," she
said. "My new life has its hard duties, and one of
them begins to-day."
As she spoke she went to a side-table near the
window, on which her sketching materials were
placed, gathered them together carefully, and put
them in a drawer of her cabinet. She locked the
drawer and brought the key to me.
"I must part from everything that reminds me of
him," she said. "Keep the key wherever you please—I
shall never want it again."
Before I could say a word she had turned away to
her book-case, and had taken from it the album that
contained Walter Hartright's drawings. She hesitated
for a moment, holding the little volume fondly in
her hands—then lifted it to her lips and kissed it.
"Oh, Laura! Laura!" I said, not angrily, not
reprovingly—with nothing but sorrow in my voice, and
nothing but sorrow in my heart.
"It is the last time, Marian," she pleaded. "I am
bidding it good-bye for ever."
She laid the book on the table and drew out the
comb that fastened her hair. It fell, in its
matchless beauty, over her back and shoulders, and
dropped round her, far below her waist. She
separated one long, thin lock from the rest, cut it
off, and pinned it carefully, in the form of a
circle, on the first blank page of the album. The
moment it was fastened she closed the volume
hurriedly, and placed it in my hands.
"You write to him and he writes to you," she
said. "While I am alive, if he asks after me always
tell him I am well, and never say I am unhappy.
Don't distress him, Marian, for my sake, don't
distress him. If I die first, promise you will give
him this little book of his drawings, with my hair
in it. There can be no harm, when I am gone, in
telling him that I put it there with my own hands.
And say—oh, Marian, say for me, then, what I can
never say for myself—say I loved him!"
She flung her arms round my neck, and whispered
the last words in my ear with a passionate delight
in uttering them which it almost broke my heart to
hear. All the long restraint she had imposed on
herself gave way in that first last outburst of
tenderness. She broke from me with hysterical
vehemence, and threw herself on the sofa in a
paroxysm of sobs and tears that shook her from head
to foot.
I tried vainly to soothe her and reason with
her—she was past being soothed, and past being
reasoned with. It was the sad, sudden end for us two
of this memorable day. When the fit had worn itself
out she was too exhausted to speak. She slumbered
towards the afternoon, and I put away the book of
drawings so that she might not see it when she woke.
My face was calm, whatever my heart might be, when
she opened her eyes again and looked at me. We said
no more to each other about the distressing
interview of the morning. Sir Percival's name was
not mentioned. Walter Hartright was not alluded to
again by either of us for the remainder of the day.
10th.—Finding that she was composed and like herself this morning, I
returned to the painful subject of yesterday, for
the sole purpose of imploring her to let me speak to
Sir Percival and Mr. Fairlie, more plainly and
strongly than she could speak to either of them
herself, about this lamentable marriage. She
interposed, gently but firmly, in the middle of my
remonstrances.
"I left yesterday to decide," she said; "and
yesterday HAS decided. It is too late to go back."
Sir Percival spoke to me this afternoon about
what had passed in Laura's room. He assured me that
the unparalleled trust she had placed in him had
awakened such an answering conviction of her
innocence and integrity in his mind, that he was
guiltless of having felt even a moment's unworthy
jealousy, either at the time when he was in her
presence, or afterwards when he had withdrawn from
it. Deeply as he lamented the unfortunate attachment
which had hindered the progress he might otherwise
have made in her esteem and regard, he firmly
believed that it had remained unacknowledged in the
past, and that it would remain, under all changes of
circumstance which it was possible to contemplate,
unacknowledged in the future. This was his absolute
conviction; and the strongest proof he could give of
it was the assurance, which he now offered, that he
felt no curiosity to know whether the attachment was
of recent date or not, or who had been the object of
it. His implicit confidence in Miss Fairlie made him
satisfied with what she had thought fit to say to
him, and he was honestly innocent of the slightest
feeling of anxiety to hear more.
He waited after saying those words and looked at
me. I was so conscious of my unreasonable prejudice
against him—so conscious of an unworthy suspicion
that he might be speculating on my impulsively
answering the very questions which he had just
described himself as resolved not to ask—that I
evaded all reference to this part of the subject
with something like a feeling of confusion on my own
part. At the same time I was resolved not to lose
even the smallest opportunity of trying to plead
Laura's cause, and I told him boldly that I
regretted his generosity had not carried him one
step farther, and induced him to withdraw from the
engagement altogether.
Here, again, he disarmed me by not attempting to
defend himself. He would merely beg me to remember
the difference there was between his allowing Miss
Fairlie to give him up, which was a matter of
submission only, and his forcing himself to give up
Miss Fairlie, which was, in other words, asking him
to be the suicide of his own hopes. Her conduct of
the day before had so strengthened the unchangeable
love and admiration of two long years, that all
active contention against those feelings, on his
part, was henceforth entirely out of his power. I
must think him weak, selfish, unfeeling towards the
very woman whom he idolised, and he must bow to my
opinion as resignedly as he could—only putting it to
me, at the same time, whether her future as a single
woman, pining under an unhappily placed attachment
which she could never acknowledge, could be said to
promise her a much brighter prospect than her future
as the wife of a man who worshipped the very ground
she walked on? In the last case there was hope from
time, however slight it might be—in the first case,
on her own showing, there was no hope at all.
I answered him—more because my tongue is a
woman's, and must answer, than because I had
anything convincing to say. It was only too plain
that the course Laura had adopted the day before had
offered him the advantage if he chose to take it—and
that he HAD chosen to take it. I felt this at the
time, and I feel it just as strongly now, while I
write these lines, in my own room. The one hope left
is that his motives really spring, as he says they
do, from the irresistible strength of his attachment
to Laura.
Before I close my diary for to-night I must
record that I wrote to-day, in poor Hartright's
interest, to two of my mother's old friends in
London—both men of influence and position. If they
can do anything for him, I am quite sure they will.
Except Laura, I never was more anxious about any one
than I am now about Walter. All that has happened
since he left us has only increased my strong regard
and sympathy for him. I hope I am doing right in
trying to help him to employment abroad—I hope, most
earnestly and anxiously, that it will end well.
11th.—Sir Percival had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and I was sent
for to join them.
I found Mr. Fairlie greatly relieved at the
prospect of the "family worry" (as he was pleased to
describe his niece's marriage) being settled at
last. So far, I did not feel called on to say
anything to him about my own opinion, but when he
proceeded, in his most aggravatingly languid manner,
to suggest that the time for the marriage had better
be settled next, in accordance with Sir Percival's
wishes, I enjoyed the satisfaction of assailing Mr.
Fairlie's nerves with as strong a protest against
hurrying Laura's decision as I could put into words.
Sir Percival immediately assured me that he felt the
force of my objection, and begged me to believe that
the proposal had not been made in consequence of any
interference on his part. Mr. Fairlie leaned back in
his chair, closed his eyes, said we both of us did
honour to human nature, and then repeated his
suggestion as coolly as if neither Sir Percival nor
I had said a word in opposition to it. It ended in
my flatly declining to mention the subject to Laura,
unless she first approached it of her own accord. I
left the room at once after making that declaration.
Sir Percival looked seriously embarrassed and
distressed, Mr. Fairlie stretched out his lazy legs
on his velvet footstool, and said, "Dear Marian! how
I envy you your robust nervous system! Don't bang
the door!"
On going to Laura's room I found that she had
asked for me, and that Mrs. Vesey had informed her
that I was with Mr. Fairlie. She inquired at once
what I had been wanted for, and I told her all that
had passed, without attempting to conceal the
vexation and annoyance that I really felt. Her
answer surprised and distressed me inexpressibly—it
was the very last reply that I should have expected
her to make.
"My uncle is right," she said. "I have caused
trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about
me. Let me cause no more, Marian—let Sir Percival
decide."
I remonstrated warmly, but nothing that I could
say moved her.
"I am held to my engagement," she replied; "I
have broken with my old life. The evil day will not
come the less surely because I put it off. No,
Marian! once again my uncle is right. I have caused
trouble enough and anxiety enough, and I will cause
no more."
She used to be pliability itself, but she was now
inflexibly passive in her resignation—I might almost
say in her despair. Dearly as I love her, I should
have been less pained if she had been violently
agitated—it was so shockingly unlike her natural
character to see her as cold and insensible as I saw
her now.
12th.—Sir Percival put some questions to me at breakfast about Laura,
which left me no choice but to tell him what she had
said.
While we were talking she herself came down and
joined us. She was just as unnaturally composed in
Sir Percival's presence as she had been in mine.
When breakfast was over he had an opportunity of
saying a few words to her privately, in a recess of
one of the windows. They were not more than two or
three minutes together, and on their separating she
left the room with Mrs. Vesey, while Sir Percival
came to me. He said he had entreated her to favour
him by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time
for the marriage at her own will and pleasure. In
reply she had merely expressed her acknowledgments,
and had desired him to mention what his wishes were
to Miss Halcombe.
I have no patience to write more. In this
instance, as in every other, Sir Percival has
carried his point with the utmost possible credit to
himself, in spite of everything that I can say or
do. His wishes are now, what they were, of course,
when he first came here; and Laura having resigned
herself to the one inevitable sacrifice of the
marriage, remains as coldly hopeless and enduring as
ever. In parting with the little occupations and
relics that reminded her of Hartright, she seems to
have parted with all her tenderness and all her
impressibility. It is only three o'clock in the
afternoon while I write these lines, and Sir
Percival has left us already, in the happy hurry of
a bridegroom, to prepare for the bride's reception
at his house in Hampshire. Unless some extraordinary
event happens to prevent it they will be married
exactly at the time when he wished to be
married—before the end of the year. My very fingers
burn as I write it!
13th.—A sleepless night, through uneasiness about Laura. Towards the
morning I came to a resolution to try what change of
scene would do to rouse her. She cannot surely
remain in her present torpor of insensibility, if I
take her away from Limmeridge and surround her with
the pleasant faces of old friends? After some
consideration I decided on writing to the Arnolds,
in Yorkshire. They are simple, kind-hearted,
hospitable people, and she has known them from her
childhood. When I had put the letter in the post-bag
I told her what I had done. It would have been a
relief to me if she had shown the spirit to resist
and object. But no—she only said, "I will go
anywhere with you, Marian. I dare say you are
right—I dare say the change will do me good."
14th.—I wrote to Mr. Gilmore, informing him that there was really a
prospect of this miserable marriage taking place,
and also mentioning my idea of trying what change of
scene would do for Laura. I had no heart to go into
particulars. Time enough for them when we get nearer
to the end of the year.
15th.—Three letters for me. The first, from the Arnolds, full of
delight at the prospect of seeing Laura and me. The
second, from one of the gentlemen to whom I wrote on
Walter Hartright's behalf, informing me that he has
been fortunate enough to find an opportunity of
complying with my request. The third, from Walter
himself, thanking me, poor fellow, in the warmest
terms, for giving him an opportunity of leaving his
home, his country, and his friends. A private
expedition to make excavations among the ruined
cities of Central America is, it seems, about to
sail from Liverpool. The draughtsman who had been
already appointed to accompany it has lost heart,
and withdrawn at the eleventh hour, and Walter is to
fill his place. He is to be engaged for six months
certain, from the time of the landing in Honduras,
and for a year afterwards, if the excavations are
successful, and if the funds hold out. His letter
ends with a promise to write me a farewell line when
they are all on board ship, and when the pilot
leaves them. I can only hope and pray earnestly that
he and I are both acting in this matter for the
best. It seems such a serious step for him to take,
that the mere contemplation of it startles me. And
yet, in his unhappy position, how can I expect him
or wish him to remain at home?
16th.—The carriage is at the door. Laura and I set out on our visit to
the Arnolds to-day.
POLESDEAN LODGE, YORKSHIRE.
23rd.—A week in these new scenes and among these
kind-hearted people has done her some good, though
not so much as I had hoped. I have resolved to
prolong our stay for another week at least. It is
useless to go back to Limmeridge till there is an
absolute necessity for our return.
24th.—Sad news by this morning's post. The expedition to Central
America sailed on the twenty-first. We have parted
with a true man—we have lost a faithful friend.
Water Hartright has left England.
25th.—Sad news yesterday—ominous news to-day. Sir Percival Glyde has
written to Mr. Fairlie, and Mr. Fairlie has written
to Laura and me, to recall us to Limmeridge
immediately.
What can this mean? Has the day for the marriage
been fixed in our absence?
II
LIMMERIDGE HOUSE.
November 27th.—My forebodings are realised. The
marriage is fixed for the twenty-second of December.
The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge Sir
Percival wrote, it seems, to Mr. Fairlie, to say
that the necessary repairs and alterations in his
house in Hampshire would occupy a much longer time
in completion than he had originally anticipated.
The proper estimates were to be submitted to him as
soon as possible, and it would greatly facilitate
his entering into definite arrangements with the
workpeople, if he could be informed of the exact
period at which the wedding ceremony might be
expected to take place. He could then make all his
calculations in reference to time, besides writing
the necessary apologies to friends who had been
engaged to visit him that winter, and who could not,
of course, be received when the house was in the
hands of the workmen.
To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by
requesting Sir Percival himself to suggest a day for
the marriage, subject to Miss Fairlie's approval,
which her guardian willingly undertook to do his
best to obtain. Sir Percival wrote back by the next
post, and proposed (in accordance with his own views
and wishes from the first?) the latter part of
December—perhaps the twenty-second, or
twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and
her guardian might prefer. The lady not being at
hand to speak for herself, her guardian had decided,
in her absence, on the earliest day mentioned—the
twenty-second of December, and had written to recall
us to Limmeridge in consequence.
After explaining these particulars to me at a
private interview yesterday, Mr. Fairlie suggested,
in his most amiable manner, that I should open the
necessary negotiations to-day. Feeling that
resistance was useless, unless I could first obtain
Laura's authority to make it, I consented to speak
to her, but declared, at the same time, that I would
on no consideration undertake to gain her consent to
Sir Percival's wishes. Mr. Fairlie complimented me
on my "excellent conscience," much as he would have
complimented me, if he had been out walking, on my
"excellent constitution," and seemed perfectly
satisfied, so far, with having simply shifted one
more family responsibility from his own shoulders to
mine.
This morning I spoke to Laura as I had promised.
The composure—I may almost say, the
insensibility—which she has so strangely and so
resolutely maintained ever since Sir Percival left
us, was not proof against the shock of the news I
had to tell her. She turned pale and trembled
violently.
"Not so soon!" she pleaded. "Oh, Marian, not so
soon!"
The slightest hint she could give was enough for
me. I rose to leave the room, and fight her battle
for her at once with Mr. Fairlie.
Just as my hand was on the door, she caught fast
hold of my dress and stopped me.
"Let me go!" I said. "My tongue burns to tell
your uncle that he and Sir Percival are not to have
it all their own way."
She sighed bitterly, and still held my dress.
"No!" she said faintly. "Too late, Marian, too
late!"
"Not a minute too late," I retorted. "The
question of time is OUR question—and trust me,
Laura, to take a woman's full advantage of it."
I unclasped her hand from my gown while I spoke;
but she slipped both her arms round my waist at the
same moment, and held me more effectually than ever.
"It will only involve us in more trouble and more
confusion," she said. "It will set you and my uncle
at variance, and bring Sir Percival here again with
fresh causes of complaint—"
"So much the better!" I cried out passionately.
"Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to
break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man
under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us
women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence
and our peace—they drag us away from our parents'
love and our sisters' friendship—they take us body
and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless
lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his
kennel. And what does the best of them give us in
return? Let me go, Laura—I'm mad when I think of
it!"
The tears—miserable, weak, women's tears of
vexation and rage—started to my eyes. She smiled
sadly, and put her handkerchief over my face to hide
for me the betrayal of my own weakness—the weakness
of all others which she knew that I most despised.
"Oh, Marian!" she said. "You crying! Think what
you would say to me, if the places were changed, and
if those tears were mine. All your love and courage
and devotion will not alter what must happen, sooner
or later. Let my uncle have his way. Let us have no
more troubles and heart-burnings that any sacrifice
of mine can prevent. Say you will live with me,
Marian, when I am married—and say no more."
But I did say more. I forced back the
contemptible tears that were no relief to ME, and
that only distressed HER, and reasoned and pleaded
as calmly as I could. It was of no avail. She made
me twice repeat the promise to live with her when
she was married, and then suddenly asked a question
which turned my sorrow and my sympathy for her into
a new direction.
"While we were at Polesdean," she said, "you had
a letter, Marian——"
Her altered tone—the abrupt manner in which she
looked away from me and hid her face on my
shoulder—the hesitation which silenced her before
she had completed her question, all told me, but too
plainly, to whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed.
"I thought, Laura, that you and I were never to
refer to him again," I said gently.
"You had a letter from him?" she persisted.
"Yes," I replied, "if you must know it."
"Do you mean to write to him again?"
I hesitated. I had been afraid to tell her of his
absence from England, or of the manner in which my
exertions to serve his new hopes and projects had
connected me with his departure. What answer could I
make? He was gone where no letters could reach him
for months, perhaps for years, to come.
"Suppose I do mean to write to him again," I said
at last. "What then, Laura?"
Her cheek grew burning hot against my neck, and
her arms trembled and tightened round me.
"Don't tell him about THE TWENTY-SECOND," she
whispered. "Promise, Marian—pray promise you will
not even mention my name to him when you write
next."
I gave the promise. No words can say how
sorrowfully I gave it. She instantly took her arm
from my waist, walked away to the window, and stood
looking out with her back to me. After a moment she
spoke once more, but without turning round, without
allowing me to catch the smallest glimpse of her
face.
"Are you going to my uncle's room?" she asked.
"Will you say that I consent to whatever arrangement
he may think best? Never mind leaving me, Marian. I
shall be better alone for a little while."
I went out. If, as soon as I got into the
passage, I could have transported Mr. Fairlie and
Sir Percival Glyde to the uttermost ends of the
earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger
would have been raised without an instant's
hesitation. For once my unhappy temper now stood my
friend. I should have broken down altogether and
burst into a violent fit of crying, if my tears had
not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger. As it
was, I dashed into Mr. Fairlie's room—called to him
as harshly as possible, "Laura consents to the
twenty-second"—and dashed out again without waiting
for a word of answer. I banged the door after me,
and I hope I shattered Mr. Fairlie's nervous system
for the rest of the day.
28th.—This morning I read poor Hartright's farewell letter over again,
a doubt having crossed my mind since yesterday,
whether I am acting wisely in concealing the fact of
his departure from Laura.
On reflection, I still think I am right. The
allusions in his letter to the preparations made for
the expedition to Central America, all show that the
leaders of it know it to be dangerous. If the
discovery of this makes me uneasy, what would it
make HER? It is bad enough to feel that his
departure has deprived us of the friend of all
others to whose devotion we could trust in the hour
of need, if ever that hour comes and finds us
helpless; but it is far worse to know that he has
gone from us to face the perils of a bad climate, a
wild country, and a disturbed population. Surely it
would be a cruel candour to tell Laura this, without
a pressing and a positive necessity for it?
I almost doubt whether I ought not to go a step
farther, and burn the letter at once, for fear of
its one day falling into wrong hands. It not only
refers to Laura in terms which ought to remain a
secret for ever between the writer and me, but it
reiterates his suspicion—so obstinate, so
unaccountable, and so alarming—that he has been
secretly watched since he left Limmeridge. He
declares that he saw the faces of the two strange
men who followed him about the streets of London,
watching him among the crowd which gathered at
Liverpool to see the expedition embark, and he
positively asserts that he heard the name of Anne
Catherick pronounced behind him as he got into the
boat. His own words are, "These events have a
meaning, these events must lead to a result. The
mystery of Anne Catherick is NOT cleared up yet. She
may never cross my path again, but if ever she
crosses yours, make better use of the opportunity,
Miss Halcombe, than I made of it. I speak on strong
conviction—I entreat you to remember what I say."
These are his own expressions. There is no danger of
my forgetting them—my memory is only too ready to
dwell on any words of Hartright's that refer to Anne
Catherick. But there is danger in my keeping the
letter. The merest accident might place it at the
mercy of strangers. I may fall ill—I may die. Better
to burn it at once, and have one anxiety the less.
It is burnt. The ashes of his farewell letter—the
last he may ever write to me—lie in a few black
fragments on the hearth. Is this the sad end to all
that sad story? Oh, not the end—surely, surely not
the end already!
29th.—The preparations for the marriage have begun. The dressmaker has
come to receive her orders. Laura is perfectly
impassive, perfectly careless about the question of
all others in which a woman's personal interests are
most closely bound up. She has left it all to the
dressmaker and to me. If poor Hartright had been the
baronet, and the husband of her father's choice, how
differently she would have behaved! How anxious and
capricious she would have been, and what a hard task
the best of dressmakers would have found it to
please her!
30th.—We hear every day from Sir Percival. The last news is that the
alterations in his house will occupy from four to
six months before they can be properly completed. If
painters, paperhangers, and upholsterers could make
happiness as well as splendour, I should be
interested about their proceedings in Laura's future
home. As it is, the only part of Sir Percival's last
letter which does not leave me as it found me,
perfectly indifferent to all his plans and projects,
is the part which refers to the wedding tour. He
proposes, as Laura is delicate, and as the winter
threatens to be unusually severe, to take her to
Rome, and to remain in Italy until the early part of
next summer. If this plan should not be approved, he
is equally ready, although he has no establishment
of his own in town, to spend the season in London,
in the most suitable furnished house that can be
obtained for the purpose.
Putting myself and my own feelings entirely out
of the question (which it is my duty to do, and
which I have done), I, for one, have no doubt of the
propriety of adopting the first of these proposals.
In either case a separation between Laura and me is
inevitable. It will be a longer separation, in the
event of their going abroad, than it would be in the
event of their remaining in London—but we must set
against this disadvantage the benefit to Laura, on
the other side, of passing the winter in a mild
climate, and more than that, the immense assistance
in raising her spirits, and reconciling her to her
new existence, which the mere wonder and excitement
of travelling for the first time in her life in the
most interesting country in the world, must surely
afford. She is not of a disposition to find
resources in the conventional gaieties and
excitements of London. They would only make the
first oppression of this lamentable marriage fall
the heavier on her. I dread the beginning of her new
life more than words can tell, but I see some hope
for her if she travels—none if she remains at home.
It is strange to look back at this latest entry
in my journal, and to find that I am writing of the
marriage and the parting with Laura, as people write
of a settled thing. It seems so cold and so
unfeeling to be looking at the future already in
this cruelly composed way. But what other way is
possible, now that the time is drawing so near?
Before another month is over our heads she will be
HIS Laura instead of mine! HIS Laura! I am as little
able to realise the idea which those two words
convey—my mind feels almost as dulled and stunned by
it—as if writing of her marriage were like writing
of her death.
December 1st.—A sad, sad day—a day that I have no heart to describe at
any length. After weakly putting it off last night,
I was obliged to speak to her this morning of Sir
Percival's proposal about the wedding tour.
In the full conviction that I should be with her
wherever she went, the poor child—for a child she is
still in many things—was almost happy at the
prospect of seeing the wonders of Florence and Rome
and Naples. It nearly broke my heart to dispel her
delusion, and to bring her face to face with the
hard truth. I was obliged to tell her that no man
tolerates a rival—not even a woman rival—in his
wife's affections, when he first marries, whatever
he may do afterwards. I was obliged to warn her that
my chance of living with her permanently under her
own roof, depended entirely on my not arousing Sir
Percival's jealousy and distrust by standing between
them at the beginning of their marriage, in the
position of the chosen depositary of his wife's
closest secrets. Drop by drop I poured the profaning
bitterness of this world's wisdom into that pure
heart and that innocent mind, while every higher and
better feeling within me recoiled from my miserable
task. It is over now. She has learnt her hard, her
inevitable lesson. The simple illusions of her
girlhood are gone, and my hand has stripped them
off. Better mine than his—that is all my
consolation—better mine than his.
So the first proposal is the proposal accepted.
They are to go to Italy, and I am to arrange, with
Sir Percival's permission, for meeting them and
staying with them when they return to England. In
other words, I am to ask a personal favour, for the
first time in my life, and to ask it of the man of
all others to whom I least desire to owe a serious
obligation of any kind. Well! I think I could do
even more than that, for Laura's sake.
2nd.—On looking back, I find myself always referring to Sir Percival in
disparaging terms. In the turn affairs have now
taken. I must and will root out my prejudice against
him, I cannot think how it first got into my mind.
It certainly never existed in former times.
Is it Laura's reluctance to become his wife that
has set me against him? Have Hartright's perfectly
intelligible prejudices infected me without my
suspecting their influence? Does that letter of Anne
Catherick's still leave a lurking distrust in my
mind, in spite of Sir Percival's explanation, and of
the proof in my possession of the truth of it? I
cannot account for the state of my own feelings; the
one thing I am certain of is, that it is my
duty—doubly my duty now—not to wrong Sir Percival by
unjustly distrusting him. If it has got to be a
habit with me always to write of him in the same
unfavourable manner, I must and will break myself of
this unworthy tendency, even though the effort
should force me to close the pages of my journal
till the marriage is over! I am seriously
dissatisfied with myself—I will write no more
to-day.
December 16th.—A whole fortnight has passed, and I have not once opened
these pages. I have been long enough away from my
journal to come back to it with a healthier and
better mind, I hope, so far as Sir Percival is
concerned.
There is not much to record of the past two
weeks. The dresses are almost all finished, and the
new travelling trunks have been sent here from
London. Poor dear Laura hardly leaves me for a
moment all day, and last night, when neither of us
could sleep, she came and crept into my bed to talk
to me there. "I shall lose you so soon, Marian," she
said; "I must make the most of you while I can."
They are to be married at Limmeridge Church, and
thank Heaven, not one of the neighbours is to be
invited to the ceremony. The only visitor will be
our old friend, Mr. Arnold, who is to come from
Polesdean to give Laura away, her uncle being far
too delicate to trust himself outside the door in
such inclement weather as we now have. If I were not
determined, from this day forth, to see nothing but
the bright side of our prospects, the melancholy
absence of any male relative of Laura's, at the most
important moment of her life, would make me very
gloomy and very distrustful of the future. But I
have done with gloom and distrust—that is to say, I
have done with writing about either the one or the
other in this journal.
Sir Percival is to arrive to-morrow. He offered,
in case we wished to treat him on terms of rigid
etiquette, to write and ask our clergyman to grant
him the hospitality of the rectory, during the short
period of his sojourn at Limmeridge, before the
marriage. Under the circumstances, neither Mr.
Fairlie nor I thought it at all necessary for us to
trouble ourselves about attending to trifling forms
and ceremonies. In our wild moorland country, and in
this great lonely house, we may well claim to be
beyond the reach of the trivial conventionalities
which hamper people in other places. I wrote to Sir
Percival to thank him for his polite offer, and to
beg that he would occupy his old rooms, just as
usual, at Limmeridge House.
17th.—He arrived to-day, looking, as I thought, a little worn and
anxious, but still talking and laughing like a man
in the best possible spirits. He brought with him
some really beautiful presents in jewellery, which
Laura received with her best grace, and, outwardly
at least, with perfect self-possession. The only
sign I can detect of the struggle it must cost her
to preserve appearances at this trying time,
expresses itself in a sudden unwillingness, on her
part, ever to be left alone. Instead of retreating
to her own room, as usual, she seems to dread going
there. When I went upstairs to-day, after lunch, to
put on my bonnet for a walk, she volunteered to join
me, and again, before dinner, she threw the door
open between our two rooms, so that we might talk to
each other while we were dressing. "Keep me always
doing something," she said; "keep me always in
company with somebody. Don't let me think—that is
all I ask now, Marian—don't let me think."
This sad change in her only increases her
attractions for Sir Percival. He interprets it, I
can see, to his own advantage. There is a feverish
flush in her cheeks, a feverish brightness in her
eyes, which he welcomes as the return of her beauty
and the recovery of her spirits. She talked to-day
at dinner with a gaiety and carelessness so false,
so shockingly out of her character, that I secretly
longed to silence her and take her away. Sir
Percival's delight and surprise appeared to be
beyond all expression. The anxiety which I had
noticed on his face when he arrived totally
disappeared from it, and he looked, even to my eyes,
a good ten years younger than he really is.
There can be no doubt—though some strange
perversity prevents me from seeing it myself—there
can be no doubt that Laura's future husband is a
very handsome man. Regular features form a personal
advantage to begin with—and he has them. Bright
brown eyes, either in man or woman, are a great
attraction—and he has them. Even baldness, when it
is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case),
is rather becoming than not in a man, for it
heightens the head and adds to the intelligence of
the face. Grace and ease of movement, untiring
animation of manner, ready, pliant, conversational
powers—all these are unquestionable merits, and all
these he certainly possesses. Surely Mr. Gilmore,
ignorant as he is of Laura's secret, was not to
blame for feeling surprised that she should repent
of her marriage engagement? Any one else in his
place would have shared our good old friend's
opinion. If I were asked, at this moment, to say
plainly what defects I have discovered in Sir
Percival, I could only point out two. One, his
incessant restlessness and excitability—which may be
caused, naturally enough, by unusual energy of
character. The other, his short, sharp, ill-tempered
manner of speaking to the servants—which may be only
a bad habit after all. No, I cannot dispute it, and
I will not dispute it—Sir Percival is a very
handsome and a very agreeable man. There! I have
written it down at last, and I am glad it's over.
18th.—Feeling weary and depressed this morning, I left Laura with Mrs.
Vesey, and went out alone for one of my brisk midday
walks, which I have discontinued too much of late. I
took the dry airy road over the moor that leads to
Todd's Corner. After having been out half an hour, I
was excessively surprised to see Sir Percival
approaching me from the direction of the farm. He
was walking rapidly, swinging his stick, his head
erect as usual, and his shooting jacket flying open
in the wind. When we met he did not wait for me to
ask any questions—he told me at once that he had
been to the farm to inquire if Mr. or Mrs. Todd had
received any tidings, since his last visit to
Limmeridge, of Anne Catherick.
"You found, of course, that they had heard
nothing?" I said.
"Nothing whatever," he replied. "I begin to be
seriously afraid that we have lost her. Do you
happen to know," he continued, looking me in the
face very attentively "if the artist—Mr.
Hartright—is in a position to give us any further
information?"
"He has neither heard of her, nor seen her, since
he left Cumberland," I answered.
"Very sad," said Sir Percival, speaking like a
man who was disappointed, and yet, oddly enough,
looking at the same time like a man who was
relieved. "It is impossible to say what misfortunes
may not have happened to the miserable creature. I
am inexpressibly annoyed at the failure of all my
efforts to restore her to the care and protection
which she so urgently needs."
This time he really looked annoyed. I said a few
sympathising words, and we then talked of other
subjects on our way back to the house. Surely my
chance meeting with him on the moor has disclosed
another favourable trait in his character? Surely it
was singularly considerate and unselfish of him to
think of Anne Catherick on the eve of his marriage,
and to go all the way to Todd's Corner to make
inquiries about her, when he might have passed the
time so much more agreeably in Laura's society?
Considering that he can only have acted from motives
of pure charity, his conduct, under the
circumstances, shows unusual good feeling and
deserves extraordinary praise. Well! I give him
extraordinary praise—and there's an end of it.
19th.—More discoveries in the inexhaustible mine of Sir Percival's
virtues.
To-day I approached the subject of my proposed
sojourn under his wife's roof when he brings her
back to England. I had hardly dropped my first hint
in this direction before he caught me warmly by the
hand, and said I had made the very offer to him
which he had been, on his side, most anxious to make
to me. I was the companion of all others whom he
most sincerely longed to secure for his wife, and he
begged me to believe that I had conferred a lasting
favour on him by making the proposal to live with
Laura after her marriage, exactly as I had always
lived with her before it.
When I had thanked him in her name and mine for
his considerate kindness to both of us, we passed
next to the subject of his wedding tour, and began
to talk of the English society in Rome to which
Laura was to be introduced. He ran over the names of
several friends whom he expected to meet abroad this
winter. They were all English, as well as I can
remember, with one exception. The one exception was
Count Fosco.
The mention of the Count's name, and the
discovery that he and his wife are likely to meet
the bride and bridegroom on the continent, puts
Laura's marriage, for the first time, in a
distinctly favourable light. It is likely to be the
means of healing a family feud. Hitherto Madame
Fosco has chosen to forget her obligations as
Laura's aunt out of sheer spite against the late Mr.
Fairlie for his conduct in the affair of the legacy.
Now however, she can persist in this course of
conduct no longer. Sir Percival and Count Fosco are
old and fast friends, and their wives will have no
choice but to meet on civil terms. Madame Fosco in
her maiden days was one of the most impertinent
women I ever met with—capricious, exacting, and vain
to the last degree of absurdity. If her husband has
succeeded in bringing her to her senses, he deserves
the gratitude of every member of the family, and he
may have mine to begin with.
I am becoming anxious to know the Count. He is
the most intimate friend of Laura's husband, and in
that capacity he excites my strongest interest.
Neither Laura nor I have ever seen him. All I know
of him is that his accidental presence, years ago,
on the steps of the Trinita del Monte at Rome,
assisted Sir Percival's escape from robbery and
assassination at the critical moment when he was
wounded in the hand, and might the next instant have
been wounded in the heart. I remember also that, at
the time of the late Mr. Fairlie's absurd objections
to his sister's marriage, the Count wrote him a very
temperate and sensible letter on the subject, which,
I am ashamed to say, remained unanswered. This is
all I know of Sir Percival's friend. I wonder if he
will ever come to England? I wonder if I shall like
him?
My pen is running away into mere speculation. Let
me return to sober matter of fact. It is certain
that Sir Percival's reception of my venturesome
proposal to live with his wife was more than kind,
it was almost affectionate. I am sure Laura's
husband will have no reason to complain of me if I
can only go on as I have begun. I have already
declared him to be handsome, agreeable, full of good
feeling towards the unfortunate and full of
affectionate kindness towards me. Really, I hardly
know myself again, in my new character of Sir
Percival's warmest friend.
20th.—I hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his good looks. I consider him
to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and
totally wanting in kindness and good feeling. Last
night the cards for the married couple were sent
home. Laura opened the packet and saw her future
name in print for the first time. Sir Percival
looked over her shoulder familiarly at the new card
which had already transformed Miss Fairlie into Lady
Glyde—smiled with the most odious self-complacency,
and whispered something in her ear. I don't know
what it was—Laura has refused to tell me—but I saw
her face turn to such a deadly whiteness that I
thought she would have fainted. He took no notice of
the change—he seemed to be barbarously unconscious
that he had said anything to pain her. All my old
feelings of hostility towards him revived on the
instant, and all the hours that have passed since
have done nothing to dissipate them. I am more
unreasonable and more unjust than ever. In three
words—how glibly my pen writes them!—in three words,
I hate him.
21st.—Have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little, at
last? I have been writing, for the last few days, in
a tone of levity which, Heaven knows, is far enough
from my heart, and which it has rather shocked me to
discover on looking back at the entries in my
journal.
Perhaps I may have caught the feverish excitement
of Laura's spirits for the last week. If so, the fit
has already passed away from me, and has left me in
a very strange state of mind. A persistent idea has
been forcing itself on my attention, ever since last
night, that something will yet happen to prevent the
marriage. What has produced this singular fancy? Is
it the indirect result of my apprehensions for
Laura's future? Or has it been unconsciously
suggested to me by the increasing restlessness and
irritability which I have certainly observed in Sir
Percival's manner as the wedding-day draws nearer
and nearer? Impossible to say. I know that I have
the idea—surely the wildest idea, under the
circumstances, that ever entered a woman's head?—but
try as I may, I cannot trace it back to its source.
This last day has been all confusion and
wretchedness. How can I write about it?—and yet, I
must write. Anything is better than brooding over my
own gloomy thoughts.
Kind Mrs. Vesey, whom we have all too much
overlooked and forgotten of late, innocently caused
us a sad morning to begin with. She has been, for
months past, secretly making a warm Shetland shawl
for her dear pupil—a most beautiful and surprising
piece of work to be done by a woman at her age and
with her habits. The gift was presented this
morning, and poor warm-hearted Laura completely
broke down when the shawl was put proudly on her
shoulders by the loving old friend and guardian of
her motherless childhood. I was hardly allowed time
to quiet them both, or even to dry my own eyes, when
I was sent for by Mr. Fairlie, to be favoured with a
long recital of his arrangements for the
preservation of his own tranquillity on the
wedding-day.
"Dear Laura" was to receive his present—a shabby
ring, with her affectionate uncle's hair for an
ornament, instead of a precious stone, and with a
heartless French inscription inside, about congenial
sentiments and eternal friendship—"dear Laura" was
to receive this tender tribute from my hands
immediately, so that she might have plenty of time
to recover from the agitation produced by the gift
before she appeared in Mr. Fairlie's presence. "Dear
Laura" was to pay him a little visit that evening,
and to be kind enough not to make a scene. "Dear
Laura" was to pay him another little visit in her
wedding-dress the next morning, and to be kind
enough, again, not to make a scene. "Dear Laura" was
to look in once more, for the third time, before
going away, but without harrowing his feelings by
saying WHEN she was going away, and without
tears—"in the name of pity, in the name of
everything, dear Marian, that is most affectionate
and most domestic, and most delightfully and
charmingly self-composed, WITHOUT TEARS!" I was so
exasperated by this miserable selfish trifling, at
such a time, that I should certainly have shocked
Mr. Fairlie by some of the hardest and rudest truths
he has ever heard in his life, if the arrival of Mr.
Arnold from Polesdean had not called me away to new
duties downstairs.
The rest of the day is indescribable. I believe
no one in the house really knew how it passed. The
confusion of small events, all huddled together one
on the other, bewildered everybody. There were
dresses sent home that had been forgotten—there were
trunks to be packed and unpacked and packed
again—there were presents from friends far and near,
friends high and low. We were all needlessly
hurried, all nervously expectant of the morrow. Sir
Percival, especially, was too restless now to remain
five minutes together in the same place. That short,
sharp cough of his troubled him more than ever. He
was in and out of doors all day long, and he seemed
to grow so inquisitive on a sudden, that he
questioned the very strangers who came on small
errands to the house. Add to all this, the one
perpetual thought in Laura's mind and mine, that we
were to part the next day, and the haunting dread,
unexpressed by either of us, and yet ever present to
both, that this deplorable marriage might prove to
be the one fatal error of her life and the one
hopeless sorrow of mine. For the first time in all
the years of our close and happy intercourse we
almost avoided looking each other in the face, and
we refrained, by common consent, from speaking
together in private through the whole evening. I can
dwell on it no longer. Whatever future sorrows may
be in store for me, I shall always look back on this
twenty-first of December as the most comfortless and
most miserable day of my life.
I am writing these lines in the solitude of my
own room, long after midnight, having just come back
from a stolen look at Laura in her pretty little
white bed—the bed she has occupied since the days of
her girlhood.
There she lay, unconscious that I was looking at
her—quiet, more quiet than I had dared to hope, but
not sleeping. The glimmer of the night-light showed
me that her eyes were only partially closed—the
traces of tears glistened between her eyelids. My
little keepsake—only a brooch—lay on the table at
her bedside, with her prayer-book, and the miniature
portrait of her father which she takes with her
wherever she goes. I waited a moment, looking at her
from behind her pillow, as she lay beneath me, with
one arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so
still, so quietly breathing, that the frill on her
night-dress never moved—I waited, looking at her, as
I have seen her thousands of times, as I shall never
see her again—and then stole back to my room. My own
love! with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how
friendless you are! The one man who would give his
heart's life to serve you is far away, tossing, this
stormy night, on the awful sea. Who else is left to
you? No father, no brother—no living creature but
the helpless, useless woman who writes these sad
lines, and watches by you for the morning, in sorrow
that she cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot
conquer. Oh, what a trust is to be placed in that
man's hands to-morrow! If ever he forgets it—if ever
he injures a hair of her head!——
THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. Seven o'clock. A wild, unsettled
morning. She has just risen—better and calmer, now
that the time has come, than she was yesterday.
Ten o'clock. She is dressed. We have kissed each other—we have promised
each other not to lose courage. I am away for a
moment in my own room. In the whirl and confusion of
my thoughts, I can detect that strange fancy of some
hindrance happening to stop the marriage still
hanging about my mind. Is it hanging about HIS mind
too? I see him from the window, moving hither and
thither uneasily among the carriages at the
door.—How can I write such folly! The marriage is a
certainty. In less than half an hour we start for
the church.
Eleven o'clock. It is all over. They are married.
Three o'clock. They are gone! I am blind with crying—I can write no
more——
The First
Epoch of the Story closes here.
