THE STORY CONTINUED BY ELIZA
MICHELSON
(Housekeeper at Blackwater Park)
I
I am asked to state plainly what I know of the
progress of Miss Halcombe's illness and of the
circumstances under which Lady Glyde left Blackwater
Park for London.
The reason given for making this demand on me is,
that my testimony is wanted in the interests of
truth. As the widow of a clergyman of the Church of
England (reduced by misfortune to the necessity of
accepting a situation), I have been taught to place
the claims of truth above all other considerations.
I therefore comply with a request which I might
otherwise, through reluctance to connect myself with
distressing family affairs, have hesitated to grant.
I made no memorandum at the time, and I cannot
therefore be sure to a day of the date, but I
believe I am correct in stating that Miss Halcombe's
serious illness began during the last fortnight or
ten days in June. The breakfast hour was late at
Blackwater Park—sometimes as late as ten, never
earlier than half-past nine. On the morning to which
I am now referring, Miss Halcombe (who was usually
the first to come down) did not make her appearance
at the table. After the family had waited a quarter
of an hour, the upper housemaid was sent to see
after her, and came running out of the room
dreadfully frightened. I met the servant on the
stairs, and went at once to Miss Halcombe to see
what was the matter. The poor lady was incapable of
telling me. She was walking about her room with a
pen in her hand, quite light-headed, in a state of
burning fever.
Lady Glyde (being no longer in Sir Percival's
service, I may, without impropriety, mention my
former mistress by her name, instead of calling her
my lady) was the first to come in from her own
bedroom. She was so dreadfully alarmed and
distressed that she was quite useless. The Count
Fosco, and his lady, who came upstairs immediately
afterwards, were both most serviceable and kind. Her
ladyship assisted me to get Miss Halcombe to her
bed. His lordship the Count remained in the
sitting-room, and having sent for my medicine-chest,
made a mixture for Miss Halcombe, and a cooling
lotion to be applied to her head, so as to lose no
time before the doctor came. We applied the lotion,
but we could not get her to take the mixture. Sir
Percival undertook to send for the doctor. He
despatched a groom, on horseback, for the nearest
medical man, Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.
Mr. Dawson arrived in less than an hour's time.
He was a respectable elderly man, well known all
round the country, and we were much alarmed when we
found that he considered the case to be a very
serious one.
His lordship the Count affably entered into
conversation with Mr. Dawson, and gave his opinions
with a judicious freedom. Mr. Dawson, not
over-courteously, inquired if his lordship's advice
was the advice of a doctor, and being informed that
it was the advice of one who had studied medicine
unprofessionally, replied that he was not accustomed
to consult with amateur physicians. The Count, with
truly Christian meekness of temper, smiled and left
the room. Before he went out he told me that he
might be found, in case he was wanted in the course
of the day, at the boat-house on the banks of the
lake. Why he should have gone there, I cannot say.
But he did go, remaining away the whole day till
seven o'clock, which was dinner-time. Perhaps he
wished to set the example of keeping the house as
quiet as possible. It was entirely in his character
to do so. He was a most considerate nobleman.
Miss Halcombe passed a very bad night, the fever
coming and going, and getting worse towards the
morning instead of better. No nurse fit to wait on
her being at hand in the neighbourhood, her ladyship
the Countess and myself undertook the duty,
relieving each other. Lady Glyde, most unwisely,
insisted on sitting up with us. She was much too
nervous and too delicate in health to bear the
anxiety of Miss Halcombe's illness calmly. She only
did herself harm, without being of the least real
assistance. A more gentle and affectionate lady
never lived—but she cried, and she was frightened,
two weaknesses which made her entirely unfit to be
present in a sick-room.
Sir Percival and the Count came in the morning to
make their inquiries.
Sir Percival (from distress, I presume, at his
lady's affliction and at Miss Halcombe's illness)
appeared much confused and unsettled in his mind.
His lordship testified, on the contrary, a becoming
composure and interest. He had his straw hat in one
hand, and his book in the other, and he mentioned to
Sir Percival in my hearing that he would go out
again and study at the lake. "Let us keep the house
quiet," he said. "Let us not smoke indoors, my
friend, now Miss Halcombe is ill. You go your way,
and I will go mine. When I study I like to be alone.
Good-morning, Mrs. Michelson."
Sir Percival was not civil enough—perhaps I ought
in justice to say, not composed enough—to take leave
of me with the same polite attention. The only
person in the house, indeed, who treated me, at that
time or at any other, on the footing of a lady in
distressed circumstances, was the Count. He had the
manners of a true nobleman—he was considerate
towards every one. Even the young person (Fanny by
name) who attended on Lady Glyde was not beneath his
notice. When she was sent away by Sir Percival, his
lordship (showing me his sweet little birds at the
time) was most kindly anxious to know what had
become of her, where she was to go the day she left
Blackwater Park, and so on. It is in such little
delicate attentions that the advantages of
aristocratic birth always show themselves. I make no
apology for introducing these particulars—they are
brought forward in justice to his lordship, whose
character, I have reason to know, is viewed rather
harshly in certain quarters. A nobleman who can
respect a lady in distressed circumstances, and can
take a fatherly interest in the fortunes of an
humble servant girl, shows principles and feelings
of too high an order to be lightly called in
question. I advance no opinions—I offer facts only.
My endeavour through life is to judge not that I be
not judged. One of my beloved husband's finest
sermons was on that text. I read it constantly—in my
own copy of the edition printed by subscription, in
the first days of my widowhood—and at every fresh
perusal I derive an increase of spiritual benefit
and edification.
There was no improvement in Miss Halcombe, and
the second night was even worse than the first. Mr.
Dawson was constant in his attendance. The practical
duties of nursing were still divided between the
Countess and myself, Lady Glyde persisting in
sitting up with us, though we both entreated her to
take some rest. "My place is by Marian's bedside,"
was her only answer. "Whether I am ill, or well,
nothing will induce me to lose sight of her."
Towards midday I went downstairs to attend to
some of my regular duties. An hour afterwards, on my
way back to the sick-room, I saw the Count (who had
gone out again early, for the third time) entering
the hall, to all appearance in the highest good
spirits. Sir Percival, at the same moment, put his
head out of the library door, and addressed his
noble friend, with extreme eagerness, in these
words—
"Have you found her?"
His lordship's large face became dimpled all over
with placid smiles, but he made no reply in words.
At the same time Sir Percival turned his head,
observed that I was approaching the stairs, and
looked at me in the most rudely angry manner
possible.
"Come in here and tell me about it," he said to
the Count. "Whenever there are women in a house
they're always sure to be going up or down stairs."
"My dear Percival," observed his lordship kindly,
"Mrs. Michelson has duties. Pray recognise her
admirable performance of them as sincerely as I do!
How is the sufferer, Mrs. Michelson?"
"No better, my lord, I regret to say."
"Sad—most sad!" remarked the Count. "You look
fatigued, Mrs. Michelson. It is certainly time you
and my wife had some help in nursing. I think I may
be the means of offering you that help.
Circumstances have happened which will oblige Madame
Fosco to travel to London either to-morrow or the
day after. She will go away in the morning and
return at night, and she will bring back with her,
to relieve you, a nurse of excellent conduct and
capacity, who is now disengaged. The woman is known
to my wife as a person to be trusted. Before she
comes here say nothing about her, if you please, to
the doctor, because he will look with an evil eye on
any nurse of my providing. When she appears in this
house she will speak for herself, and Mr. Dawson
will be obliged to acknowledge that there is no
excuse for not employing her. Lady Glyde will say
the same. Pray present my best respects and
sympathies to Lady Glyde."
I expressed my grateful acknowledgments for his
lordship's kind consideration. Sir Percival cut them
short by calling to his noble friend (using, I
regret to say, a profane expression) to come into
the library, and not to keep him waiting there any
longer.
I proceeded upstairs. We are poor erring
creatures, and however well established a woman's
principles may be she cannot always keep on her
guard against the temptation to exercise an idle
curiosity. I am ashamed to say that an idle
curiosity, on this occasion, got the better of my
principles, and made me unduly inquisitive about the
question which Sir Percival had addressed to his
noble friend at the library door. Who was the Count
expected to find in the course of his studious
morning rambles at Blackwater Park? A woman, it was
to be presumed, from the terms of Sir Percival's
inquiry. I did not suspect the Count of any
impropriety—I knew his moral character too well. The
only question I asked myself was—Had he found her?
To resume. The night passed as usual without
producing any change for the better in Miss
Halcombe. The next day she seemed to improve a
little. The day after that her ladyship the
Countess, without mentioning the object of her
journey to any one in my hearing, proceeded by the
morning train to London—her noble husband, with his
customary attention, accompanying her to the
station.
I was now left in sole charge of Miss Halcombe,
with every apparent chance, in consequence of her
sister's resolution not to leave the bedside, of
having Lady Glyde herself to nurse next.
The only circumstance of any importance that
happened in the course of the day was the occurrence
of another unpleasant meeting between the doctor and
the Count.
His lordship, on returning from the station,
stepped up into Miss Halcombe's sitting-room to make
his inquiries. I went out from the bedroom to speak
to him, Mr. Dawson and Lady Glyde being both with
the patient at the time. The Count asked me many
questions about the treatment and the symptoms. I
informed him that the treatment was of the kind
described as "saline," and that the symptoms,
between the attacks of fever, were certainly those
of increasing weakness and exhaustion. Just as I was
mentioning these last particulars, Mr. Dawson came
out from the bedroom.
"Good-morning, sir," said his lordship, stepping
forward in the most urbane manner, and stopping the
doctor, with a high-bred resolution impossible to
resist, "I greatly fear you find no improvement in
the symptoms to-day?"
"I find decided improvement," answered Mr.
Dawson.
"You still persist in your lowering treatment of
this case of fever?" continued his lordship.
"I persist in the treatment which is justified by
my own professional experience," said Mr. Dawson.
"Permit me to put one question to you on the vast
subject of professional experience," observed the
Count. "I presume to offer no more advice—I only
presume to make an inquiry. You live at some
distance, sir, from the gigantic centres of
scientific activity—London and Paris. Have you ever
heard of the wasting effects of fever being
reasonably and intelligibly repaired by fortifying
the exhausted patient with brandy, wine, ammonia,
and quinine? Has that new heresy of the highest
medical authorities ever reached your ears—Yes or
No?"
"When a professional man puts that question to me
I shall be glad to answer him," said the doctor,
opening the door to go out. "You are not a
professional man, and I beg to decline answering
you."
Buffeted in this inexcusably uncivil way on one
cheek, the Count, like a practical Christian,
immediately turned the other, and said, in the
sweetest manner, "Good-morning, Mr. Dawson."
If my late beloved husband had been so fortunate
as to know his lordship, how highly he and the Count
would have esteemed each other!
Her ladyship the Countess returned by the last
train that night, and brought with her the nurse
from London. I was instructed that this person's
name was Mrs. Rubelle. Her personal appearance, and
her imperfect English when she spoke, informed me
that she was a foreigner.
I have always cultivated a feeling of humane
indulgence for foreigners. They do not possess our
blessings and advantages, and they are, for the most
part, brought up in the blind errors of Popery. It
has also always been my precept and practice, as it
was my dear husband's precept and practice before me
(see Sermon XXIX. in the Collection by the late Rev.
Samuel Michelson, M.A.), to do as I would be done
by. On both these accounts I will not say that Mrs.
Rubelle struck me as being a small, wiry, sly
person, of fifty or thereabouts, with a dark brown
or Creole complexion and watchful light grey eyes.
Nor will I mention, for the reasons just alleged,
that I thought her dress, though it was of the
plainest black silk, inappropriately costly in
texture and unnecessarily refined in trimming and
finish, for a person in her position in life. I
should not like these things to be said of me, and
therefore it is my duty not to say them of Mrs.
Rubelle. I will merely mention that her manners
were, not perhaps unpleasantly reserved, but only
remarkably quiet and retiring—that she looked about
her a great deal, and said very little, which might
have arisen quite as much from her own modesty as
from distrust of her position at Blackwater Park;
and that she declined to partake of supper (which
was curious perhaps, but surely not suspicious?),
although I myself politely invited her to that meal
in my own room.
At the Count's particular suggestion (so like his
lordship's forgiving kindness!), it was arranged
that Mrs. Rubelle should not enter on her duties
until she had been seen and approved by the doctor
the next morning. I sat up that night. Lady Glyde
appeared to be very unwilling that the new nurse
should be employed to attend on Miss Halcombe. Such
want of liberality towards a foreigner on the part
of a lady of her education and refinement surprised
me. I ventured to say, "My lady, we must all
remember not to be hasty in our judgments on our
inferiors—especially when they come from foreign
parts." Lady Glyde did not appear to attend to me.
She only sighed, and kissed Miss Halcombe's hand as
it lay on the counterpane. Scarcely a judicious
proceeding in a sick-room, with a patient whom it
was highly desirable not to excite. But poor Lady
Glyde knew nothing of nursing—nothing whatever, I am
sorry to say.
The next morning Mrs. Rubelle was sent to the
sitting-room, to be approved by the doctor on his
way through to the bedroom.
I left Lady Glyde with Miss Halcombe, who was
slumbering at the time, and joined Mrs. Rubelle,
with the object of kindly preventing her from
feeling strange and nervous in consequence of the
uncertainty of her situation. She did not appear to
see it in that light. She seemed to be quite
satisfied, beforehand, that Mr. Dawson would approve
of her, and she sat calmly looking out of window,
with every appearance of enjoying the country air.
Some people might have thought such conduct
suggestive of brazen assurance. I beg to say that I
more liberally set it down to extraordinary strength
of mind.
Instead of the doctor coming up to us, I was sent
for to see the doctor. I thought this change of
affairs rather odd, but Mrs. Rubelle did not appear
to be affected by it in any way. I left her still
calmly looking out of the window, and still silently
enjoying the country air.
Mr. Dawson was waiting for me by himself in the
breakfast-room.
"About this new nurse, Mrs. Michelson," said the
doctor.
"Yes, sir?"
"I find that she has been brought here from
London by the wife of that fat old foreigner, who is
always trying to interfere with me. Mrs. Michelson,
the fat old foreigner is a quack."
This was very rude. I was naturally shocked at
it.
"Are you aware, sir," I said, "that you are
talking of a nobleman?"
"Pooh! He isn't the first quack with a handle to
his name. They're all Counts—hang 'em!"
"He would not be a friend of Sir Percival
Glyde's, sir, if he was not a member of the highest
aristocracy—excepting the English aristocracy, of
course."
"Very well, Mrs. Michelson, call him what you
like, and let us get back to the nurse. I have been
objecting to her already."
"Without having seen her, sir?"
"Yes, without having seen her. She may be the
best nurse in existence, but she is not a nurse of
my providing. I have put that objection to Sir
Percival, as the master of the house. He doesn't
support me. He says a nurse of my providing would
have been a stranger from London also, and he thinks
the woman ought to have a trial, after his wife's
aunt has taken the trouble to fetch her from London.
There is some justice in that, and I can't decently
say No. But I have made it a condition that she is
to go at once, if I find reason to complain of her.
This proposal being one which I have some right to
make, as medical attendant, Sir Percival has
consented to it. Now, Mrs. Michelson, I know I can
depend on you, and I want you to keep a sharp eye on
the nurse for the first day or two, and to see that
she gives Miss Halcombe no medicines but mine. This
foreign nobleman of yours is dying to try his quack
remedies (mesmerism included) on my patient, and a
nurse who is brought here by his wife may be a
little too willing to help him. You understand? Very
well, then, we may go upstairs. Is the nurse there?
I'll say a word to her before she goes into the
sick-room."
We found Mrs. Rubelle still enjoying herself at
the window. When I introduced her to Mr. Dawson,
neither the doctor's doubtful looks nor the doctor's
searching questions appeared to confuse her in the
least. She answered him quietly in her broken
English, and though he tried hard to puzzle her, she
never betrayed the least ignorance, so far, about
any part of her duties. This was doubtless the
result of strength of mind, as I said before, and
not of brazen assurance, by any means.
We all went into the bedroom.
Mrs. Rubelle looked very attentively at the
patient, curtseyed to Lady Glyde, set one or two
little things right in the room, and sat down
quietly in a corner to wait until she was wanted.
Her ladyship seemed startled and annoyed by the
appearance of the strange nurse. No one said
anything, for fear of rousing Miss Halcombe, who was
still slumbering, except the doctor, who whispered a
question about the night. I softly answered, "Much
as usual," and then Mr. Dawson went out. Lady Glyde
followed him, I suppose to speak about Mrs. Rubelle.
For my own part, I had made up my mind already that
this quiet foreign person would keep her situation.
She had all her wits about her, and she certainly
understood her business. So far, I could hardly have
done much better by the bedside myself.
Remembering Mr. Dawson's caution to me, I
subjected Mrs. Rubelle to a severe scrutiny at
certain intervals for the next three or four days. I
over and over again entered the room softly and
suddenly, but I never found her out in any
suspicious action. Lady Glyde, who watched her as
attentively as I did, discovered nothing either. I
never detected a sign of the medicine bottles being
tampered with, I never saw Mrs. Rubelle say a word
to the Count, or the Count to her. She managed Miss
Halcombe with unquestionable care and discretion.
The poor lady wavered backwards and forwards between
a sort of sleepy exhaustion, which was half
faintness and half slumbering, and attacks of fever
which brought with them more or less of wandering in
her mind. Mrs. Rubelle never disturbed her in the
first case, and never startled her in the second, by
appearing too suddenly at the bedside in the
character of a stranger. Honour to whom honour is
due (whether foreign or English)—and I give her
privilege impartially to Mrs. Rubelle. She was
remarkably uncommunicative about herself, and she
was too quietly independent of all advice from
experienced persons who understood the duties of a
sick-room—but with these drawbacks, she was a good
nurse, and she never gave either Lady Glyde or Mr.
Dawson the shadow of a reason for complaining of
her.
The next circumstance of importance that occurred
in the house was the temporary absence of the Count,
occasioned by business which took him to London. He
went away (I think) on the morning of the fourth day
after the arrival of Mrs. Rubelle, and at parting he
spoke to Lady Glyde very seriously, in my presence,
on the subject of Miss Halcombe.
"Trust Mr. Dawson," he said, "for a few days
more, if you please. But if there is not some change
for the better in that time, send for advice from
London, which this mule of a doctor must accept in
spite of himself. Offend Mr. Dawson, and save Miss
Halcombe. I say this seriously, on my word of honour
and from the bottom of my heart."
His lordship spoke with extreme feeling and
kindness. But poor Lady Glyde's nerves were so
completely broken down that she seemed quite
frightened at him. She trembled from head to foot,
and allowed him to take his leave without uttering a
word on her side. She turned to me when he had gone,
and said, "Oh, Mrs. Michelson, I am heartbroken
about my sister, and I have no friend to advise me!
Do you think Mr. Dawson is wrong? He told me himself
this morning that there was no fear, and no need to
send for another doctor."
"With all respect to Mr. Dawson," I answered, "in
your ladyship's place I should remember the Count's
advice."
Lady Glyde turned away from me suddenly, with an
appearance of despair, for which I was quite unable
to account.
"HIS advice!" she said to herself. "God help
us—HIS advice!"
The Count was away from Blackwater Park, as nearly as I remember, a
week.
Sir Percival seemed to feel the loss of his
lordship in various ways, and appeared also, I
thought, much depressed and altered by the sickness
and sorrow in the house. Occasionally he was so very
restless that I could not help noticing it, coming
and going, and wandering here and there and
everywhere in the grounds. His inquiries about Miss
Halcombe, and about his lady (whose failing health
seemed to cause him sincere anxiety), were most
attentive. I think his heart was much softened. If
some kind clerical friend—some such friend as he
might have found in my late excellent husband—had
been near him at this time, cheering moral progress
might have been made with Sir Percival. I seldom
find myself mistaken on a point of this sort, having
had experience to guide me in my happy married days.
Her ladyship the Countess, who was now the only
company for Sir Percival downstairs, rather
neglected him, as I considered—or, perhaps, it might
have been that he neglected her. A stranger might
almost have supposed that they were bent, now they
were left together alone, on actually avoiding one
another. This, of course, could not be. But it did
so happen, nevertheless, that the Countess made her
dinner at luncheon-time, and that she always came
upstairs towards evening, although Mrs. Rubelle had
taken the nursing duties entirely off her hands. Sir
Percival dined by himself, and William (the man out
of livery) make the remark, in my hearing, that his
master had put himself on half rations of food and
on a double allowance of drink. I attach no
importance to such an insolent observation as this
on the part of a servant. I reprobated it at the
time, and I wish to be understood as reprobating it
once more on this occasion.
In the course of the next few days Miss Halcombe
did certainly seem to all of us to be mending a
little. Our faith in Mr. Dawson revived. He appeared
to be very confident about the case, and he assured
Lady Glyde, when she spoke to him on the subject,
that he would himself propose to send for a
physician the moment he felt so much as the shadow
of a doubt crossing his own mind.
The only person among us who did not appear to be
relieved by these words was the Countess. She said
to me privately, that she could not feel easy about
Miss Halcombe on Mr. Dawson's authority, and that
she should wait anxiously for her husband's opinion
on his return. That return, his letters informed
her, would take place in three days' time. The Count
and Countess corresponded regularly every morning
during his lordship's absence. They were in that
respect, as in all others, a pattern to married
people.
On the evening of the third day I noticed a
change in Miss Halcombe, which caused me serious
apprehension. Mrs. Rubelle noticed it too. We said
nothing on the subject to Lady Glyde, who was then
lying asleep, completely overpowered by exhaustion,
on the sofa in the sitting-room.
Mr. Dawson did not pay his evening visit till
later than usual. As soon as he set eyes on his
patient I saw his face alter. He tried to hide it,
but he looked both confused and alarmed. A messenger
was sent to his residence for his medicine-chest,
disinfecting preparations were used in the room, and
a bed was made up for him in the house by his own
directions. "Has the fever turned to infection?" I
whispered to him. "I am afraid it has," he answered;
"we shall know better to-morrow morning."
By Mr. Dawson's own directions Lady Glyde was
kept in ignorance of this change for the worse. He
himself absolutely forbade her, on account of her
health, to join us in the bedroom that night. She
tried to resist—there was a sad scene—but he had his
medical authority to support him, and he carried his
point.
The next morning one of the men-servants was sent
to London at eleven o'clock, with a letter to a
physician in town, and with orders to bring the new
doctor back with him by the earliest possible train.
Half an hour after the messenger had gone the Count
returned to Blackwater Park.
The Countess, on her own responsibility,
immediately brought him in to see the patient. There
was no impropriety that I could discover in her
taking this course. His lordship was a married man,
he was old enough to be Miss Halcombe's father, and
he saw her in the presence of a female relative,
Lady Glyde's aunt. Mr. Dawson nevertheless protested
against his presence in the room, but I could
plainly remark the doctor was too much alarmed to
make any serious resistance on this occasion.
The poor suffering lady was past knowing any one
about her. She seemed to take her friends for
enemies. When the Count approached her bedside her
eyes, which had been wandering incessantly round and
round the room before, settled on his face with a
dreadful stare of terror, which I shall remember to
my dying day. The Count sat down by her, felt her
pulse and her temples, looked at her very
attentively, and then turned round upon the doctor
with such an expression of indignation and contempt
in his face, that the words failed on Mr. Dawson's
lips, and he stood for a moment, pale with anger and
alarm—pale and perfectly speechless.
His lordship looked next at me.
"When did the change happen?" he asked.
I told him the time.
"Has Lady Glyde been in the room since?"
I replied that she had not. The doctor had
absolutely forbidden her to come into the room on
the evening before, and had repeated the order again
in the morning.
"Have you and Mrs. Rubelle been made aware of the
full extent of the mischief?" was his next question.
We were aware, I answered, that the malady was
considered infectious. He stopped me before I could
add anything more.
"It is typhus fever," he said.
In the minute that passed, while these questions
and answers were going on, Mr. Dawson recovered
himself, and addressed the Count with his customary
firmness.
"It is NOT typhus fever," he remarked sharply. "I
protest against this intrusion, sir. No one has a
right to put questions here but me. I have done my
duty to the best of my ability—"
The Count interrupted him—not by words, but only
by pointing to the bed. Mr. Dawson seemed to feel
that silent contradiction to his assertion of his
own ability, and to grow only the more angry under
it.
"I say I have done my duty," he reiterated. "A
physician has been sent for from London. I will
consult on the nature of the fever with him, and
with no one else. I insist on your leaving the
room."
"I entered this room, sir, in the sacred
interests of humanity," said the Count. "And in the
same interests, if the coming of the physician is
delayed, I will enter it again. I warn you once more
that the fever has turned to typhus, and that your
treatment is responsible for this lamentable change.
If that unhappy lady dies, I will give my testimony
in a court of justice that your ignorance and
obstinacy have been the cause of her death."
Before Mr. Dawson could answer, before the Count
could leave us, the door was opened from the
sitting-room, and we saw Lady Glyde on the
threshold.
"I MUST and WILL come in," she said, with
extraordinary firmness.
Instead of stopping her, the Count moved into the
sitting-room, and made way for her to go in. On all
other occasions he was the last man in the world to
forget anything, but in the surprise of the moment
he apparently forgot the danger of infection from
typhus, and the urgent necessity of forcing Lady
Glyde to take proper care of herself.
To my astonishment Mr. Dawson showed more
presence of mind. He stopped her ladyship at the
first step she took towards the bedside. "I am
sincerely sorry, I am sincerely grieved," he said.
"The fever may, I fear, be infectious. Until I am
certain that it is not, I entreat you to keep out of
the room."
She struggled for a moment, then suddenly dropped
her arms and sank forward. She had fainted. The
Countess and I took her from the doctor and carried
her into her own room. The Count preceded us, and
waited in the passage till I came out and told him
that we had recovered her from the swoon.
I went back to the doctor to tell him, by Lady
Glyde's desire, that she insisted on speaking to him
immediately. He withdrew at once to quiet her
ladyship's agitation, and to assure her of the
physician's arrival in the course of a few hours.
Those hours passed very slowly. Sir Percival and the
Count were together downstairs, and sent up from
time to time to make their inquiries. At last,
between five and six o'clock, to our great relief,
the physician came.
He was a younger man than Mr. Dawson, very
serious and very decided. What he thought of the
previous treatment I cannot say, but it struck me as
curious that he put many more questions to myself
and to Mrs. Rubelle than he put to the doctor, and
that he did not appear to listen with much interest
to what Mr. Dawson said, while he was examining Mr.
Dawson's patient. I began to suspect, from what I
observed in this way, that the Count had been right
about the illness all the way through, and I was
naturally confirmed in that idea when Mr. Dawson,
after some little delay, asked the one important
question which the London doctor had been sent for
to set at rest.
"What is your opinion of the fever?" he inquired.
"Typhus," replied the physician "Typhus fever
beyond all doubt."
That quiet foreign person, Mrs. Rubelle, crossed
her thin brown hands in front of her, and looked at
me with a very significant smile. The Count himself
could hardly have appeared more gratified if he had
been present in the room and had heard the
confirmation of his own opinion.
After giving us some useful directions about the
management of the patient, and mentioning that he
would come again in five days' time, the physician
withdrew to consult in private with Mr. Dawson. He
would offer no opinion on Miss Halcombe's chances of
recovery—he said it was impossible at that stage of
the illness to pronounce one way or the other.
The five days passed anxiously.
Countess Fosco and myself took it by turns to
relieve Mrs. Rubelle, Miss Halcombe's condition
growing worse and worse, and requiring our utmost
care and attention. It was a terribly trying time.
Lady Glyde (supported, as Mr. Dawson said, by the
constant strain of her suspense on her sister's
account) rallied in the most extraordinary manner,
and showed a firmness and determination for which I
should myself never have given her credit. She
insisted on coming into the sick-room two or three
times every day, to look at Miss Halcombe with her
own eyes, promising not to go too close to the bed,
if the doctor would consent to her wishes so far.
Mr. Dawson very unwillingly made the concession
required of him—I think he saw that it was hopeless
to dispute with her. She came in every day, and she
self-denyingly kept her promise. I felt it
personally so distressing (as reminding me of my own
affliction during my husband's last illness) to see
how she suffered under these circumstances, that I
must beg not to dwell on this part of the subject
any longer. It is more agreeable to me to mention
that no fresh disputes took place between Mr. Dawson
and the Count. His lordship made all his inquiries
by deputy, and remained continually in company with
Sir Percival downstairs.
On the fifth day the physician came again and
gave us a little hope. He said the tenth day from
the first appearance of the typhus would probably
decide the result of the illness, and he arranged
for his third visit to take place on that date. The
interval passed as before—except that the Count went
to London again one morning and returned at night.
On the tenth day it pleased a merciful Providence
to relieve our household from all further anxiety
and alarm. The physician positively assured us that
Miss Halcombe was out of danger. "She wants no
doctor now—all she requires is careful watching and
nursing for some time to come, and that I see she
has." Those were his own words. That evening I read
my husband's touching sermon on Recovery from
Sickness, with more happiness and advantage (in a
spiritual point of view) than I ever remember to
have derived from it before.
The effect of the good news on poor Lady Glyde
was, I grieve to say, quite overpowering. She was
too weak to bear the violent reaction, and in
another day or two she sank into a state of debility
and depression which obliged her to keep her room.
Rest and quiet, and change of air afterwards, were
the best remedies which Mr. Dawson could suggest for
her benefit. It was fortunate that matters were no
worse, for, on the very day after she took to her
room, the Count and the doctor had another
disagreement—and this time the dispute between them
was of so serious a nature that Mr. Dawson left the
house.
I was not present at the time, but I understood
that the subject of dispute was the amount of
nourishment which it was necessary to give to assist
Miss Halcombe's convalescence after the exhaustion
of the fever. Mr. Dawson, now that his patient was
safe, was less inclined than ever to submit to
unprofessional interference, and the Count (I cannot
imagine why) lost all the self-control which he had
so judiciously preserved on former occasions, and
taunted the doctor, over and over again, with his
mistake about the fever when it changed to typhus.
The unfortunate affair ended in Mr. Dawson's
appealing to Sir Percival, and threatening (now that
he could leave without absolute danger to Miss
Halcombe) to withdraw from his attendance at
Blackwater Park if the Count's interference was not
peremptorily suppressed from that moment. Sir
Percival's reply (though not designedly uncivil) had
only resulted in making matters worse, and Mr.
Dawson had thereupon withdrawn from the house in a
state of extreme indignation at Count Fosco's usage
of him, and had sent in his bill the next morning.
We were now, therefore, left without the
attendance of a medical man. Although there was no
actual necessity for another doctor—nursing and
watching being, as the physician had observed, all
that Miss Halcombe required—I should still, if my
authority had been consulted, have obtained
professional assistance from some other quarter, for
form's sake.
The matter did not seem to strike Sir Percival in
that light. He said it would be time enough to send
for another doctor if Miss Halcombe showed any signs
of a relapse. In the meanwhile we had the Count to
consult in any minor difficulty, and we need not
unnecessarily disturb our patient in her present
weak and nervous condition by the presence of a
stranger at her bedside. There was much that was
reasonable, no doubt, in these considerations, but
they left me a little anxious nevertheless. Nor was
I quite satisfied in my own mind of the propriety of
our concealing the doctor's absence as we did from
Lady Glyde. It was a merciful deception, I admit—for
she was in no state to bear any fresh anxieties. But
still it was a deception, and, as such, to a person
of my principles, at best a doubtful proceeding.
A second perplexing circumstance which happened on the same day, and
which took me completely by surprise, added greatly
to the sense of uneasiness that was now weighing on
my mind.
I was sent for to see Sir Percival in the
library. The Count, who was with him when I went in,
immediately rose and left us alone together. Sir
Percival civilly asked me to take a seat, and then,
to my great astonishment, addressed me in these
terms—
"I want to speak to you, Mrs. Michelson, about a
matter which I decided on some time ago, and which I
should have mentioned before, but for the sickness
and trouble in the house. In plain words, I have
reasons for wishing to break up my establishment
immediately at this place—leaving you in charge, of
course, as usual. As soon as Lady Glyde and Miss
Halcombe can travel they must both have change of
air. My friends, Count Fosco and the Countess, will
leave us before that time to live in the
neighbourhood of London, and I have reasons for not
opening the house to any more company, with a view
to economising as carefully as I can. I don't blame
you, but my expenses here are a great deal too
heavy. In short, I shall sell the horses, and get
rid of all the servants at once. I never do things
by halves, as you know, and I mean to have the house
clear of a pack of useless people by this time
to-morrow."
I listened to him, perfectly aghast with
astonishment.
"Do you mean, Sir Percival, that I am to dismiss
the indoor servants under my charge without the
usual month's warning?" I asked.
"Certainly I do. We may all be out of the house
before another month, and I am not going to leave
the servants here in idleness, with no master to
wait on."
"Who is to do the cooking, Sir Percival, while
you are still staying here?"
"Margaret Porcher can roast and boil—keep her.
What do I want with a cook if I don't mean to give
any dinner-parties?"
"The servant you have mentioned is the most
unintelligent servant in the house, Sir Percival."
"Keep her, I tell you, and have a woman in from
the village to do the cleaning and go away again. My
weekly expenses must and shall be lowered
immediately. I don't send for you to make
objections, Mrs. Michelson—I send for you to carry
out my plans of economy. Dismiss the whole lazy pack
of indoor servants to-morrow, except Porcher. She is
as strong as a horse—and we'll make her work like a
horse."
"You will excuse me for reminding you, Sir
Percival, that if the servants go to-morrow they
must have a month's wages in lieu of a month's
warning."
"Let them! A month's wages saves a month's waste
and gluttony in the servants' hall."
This last remark conveyed an aspersion of the
most offensive kind on my management. I had too much
self-respect to defend myself under so gross an
imputation. Christian consideration for the helpless
position of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde, and for
the serious inconvenience which my sudden absence
might inflict on them, alone prevented me from
resigning my situation on the spot. I rose
immediately. It would have lowered me in my own
estimation to have permitted the interview to
continue a moment longer.
"After that last remark, Sir Percival, I have
nothing more to say. Your directions shall be
attended to." Pronouncing those words, I bowed my
head with the most distant respect, and went out of
the room.
The next day the servants left in a body. Sir
Percival himself dismissed the grooms and stablemen,
sending them, with all the horses but one, to
London. Of the whole domestic establishment, indoors
and out, there now remained only myself, Margaret
Porcher, and the gardener—this last living in his
own cottage, and being wanted to take care of the
one horse that remained in the stables.
With the house left in this strange and lonely
condition—with the mistress of it ill in her
room—with Miss Halcombe still as helpless as a
child—and with the doctor's attendance withdrawn
from us in enmity—it was surely not unnatural that
my spirits should sink, and my customary composure
be very hard to maintain. My mind was ill at ease. I
wished the poor ladies both well again, and I wished
myself away from Blackwater Park.
II
The next event that occurred was of so singular a
nature that it might have caused me a feeling of
superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been
fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of
that sort. The uneasy sense of something wrong in
the family which had made me wish myself away from
Blackwater Park, was actually followed, strange to
say, by my departure from the house. It is true that
my absence was for a temporary period only, but the
coincidence was, in my opinion, not the less
remarkable on that account.
My departure took place under the following
circumstances—
A day or two after the servants all left I was
again sent for to see Sir Percival. The undeserved
slur which he had cast on my management of the
household did not, I am happy to say, prevent me
from returning good for evil to the best of my
ability, by complying with his request as readily
and respectfully as ever. It cost me a struggle with
that fallen nature, which we all share in common,
before I could suppress my feelings. Being
accustomed to self-discipline, I accomplished the
sacrifice.
I found Sir Percival and Count Fosco sitting
together again. On this occasion his lordship
remained present at the interview, and assisted in
the development of Sir Percival's views.
The subject to which they now requested my
attention related to the healthy change of air by
which we all hoped that Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde
might soon be enabled to profit. Sir Percival
mentioned that both the ladies would probably pass
the autumn (by invitation of Frederick Fairlie,
Esquire) at Limmeridge House, Cumberland. But before
they went there, it was his opinion, confirmed by
Count Fosco (who here took up the conversation and
continued it to the end), that they would benefit by
a short residence first in the genial climate of
Torquay. The great object, therefore, was to engage
lodgings at that place, affording all the comforts
and advantages of which they stood in need, and the
great difficulty was to find an experienced person
capable of choosing the sort of residence which they
wanted. In this emergency the Count begged to
inquire, on Sir Percival's behalf, whether I would
object to give the ladies the benefit of my
assistance, by proceeding myself to Torquay in their
interests.
It was impossible for a person in my situation to
meet any proposal, made in these terms, with a
positive objection.
I could only venture to represent the serious
inconvenience of my leaving Blackwater Park in the
extraordinary absence of all the indoor servants,
with the one exception of Margaret Porcher. But Sir
Percival and his lordship declared that they were
both willing to put up with inconvenience for the
sake of the invalids. I next respectfully suggested
writing to an agent at Torquay, but I was met here
by being reminded of the imprudence of taking
lodgings without first seeing them. I was also
informed that the Countess (who would otherwise have
gone to Devonshire herself) could not, in Lady
Glyde's present condition, leave her niece, and that
Sir Percival and the Count had business to transact
together which would oblige them to remain at
Blackwater Park. In short, it was clearly shown me
that if I did not undertake the errand, no one else
could be trusted with it. Under these circumstances,
I could only inform Sir Percival that my services
were at the disposal of Miss Halcombe and Lady
Glyde.
It was thereupon arranged that I should leave the
next morning, that I should occupy one or two days
in examining all the most convenient houses in
Torquay, and that I should return with my report as
soon as I conveniently could. A memorandum was
written for me by his lordship, stating the
requisites which the place I was sent to take must
be found to possess, and a note of the pecuniary
limit assigned to me was added by Sir Percival.
My own idea on reading over these instructions
was, that no such residence as I saw described could
be found at any watering-place in England, and that,
even if it could by chance be discovered, it would
certainly not be parted with for any period on such
terms as I was permitted to offer. I hinted at these
difficulties to both the gentlemen, but Sir Percival
(who undertook to answer me) did not appear to feel
them. It was not for me to dispute the question. I
said no more, but I felt a very strong conviction
that the business on which I was sent away was so
beset by difficulties that my errand was almost
hopeless at starting.
Before I left I took care to satisfy myself that
Miss Halcombe was going on favourably.
There was a painful expression of anxiety in her
face which made me fear that her mind, on first
recovering itself, was not at ease. But she was
certainly strengthening more rapidly than I could
have ventured to anticipate, and she was able to
send kind messages to Lady Glyde, saying that she
was fast getting well, and entreating her ladyship
not to exert herself again too soon. I left her in
charge of Mrs. Rubelle, who was still as quietly
independent of every one else in the house as ever.
When I knocked at Lady Glyde's door before going
away, I was told that she was still sadly weak and
depressed, my informant being the Countess, who was
then keeping her company in her room. Sir Percival
and the Count were walking on the road to the lodge
as I was driven by in the chaise. I bowed to them
and quitted the house, with not a living soul left
in the servants' offices but Margaret Porcher.
Every one must feel what I have felt myself since
that time, that these circumstances were more than
unusual—they were! almost suspicious. Let me,
however, say again that it was impossible for me, in
my dependent position, to act otherwise than I did.
The result of my errand at Torquay was exactly
what I had foreseen. No such lodgings as I was
instructed to take could be found in the whole
place, and the terms I was permitted to give were
much too low for the purpose, even if I had been
able to discover what I wanted. I accordingly
returned to Blackwater Park, and informed Sir
Percival, who met me at the door, that my journey
had been taken in vain. He seemed too much occupied
with some other subject to care about the failure of
my errand, and his first words informed me that even
in the short time of my absence another remarkable
change had taken place in the house.
The Count and Countess Fosco had left Blackwater
Park for their new residence in St. John's Wood.
I was not made aware of the motive for this
sudden departure—I was only told that the Count had
been very particular in leaving his kind compliments
to me. When I ventured on asking Sir Percival
whether Lady Glyde had any one to attend to her
comforts in the absence of the Countess, he replied
that she had Margaret Porcher to wait on her, and he
added that a woman from the village had been sent
for to do the work downstairs.
The answer really shocked me—there was such a
glaring impropriety in permitting an under-housemaid
to fill the place of confidential attendant on Lady
Glyde. I went upstairs at once, and met Margaret on
the bedroom landing. Her services had not been
required (naturally enough), her mistress having
sufficiently recovered that morning to be able to
leave her bed. I asked next after Miss Halcombe, but
I was answered in a slouching, sulky way, which left
me no wiser than I was before.
I did not choose to repeat the question, and
perhaps provoke an impertinent reply. It was in
every respect more becoming to a person in my
position to present myself immediately in Lady
Glyde's room.
I found that her ladyship had certainly gained in
health during the last few days. Although still
sadly weak and nervous, she was able to get up
without assistance, and to walk slowly about her
room, feeling no worse effect from the exertion than
a slight sensation of fatigue. She had been made a
little anxious that morning about Miss Halcombe,
through having received no news of her from any one.
I thought this seemed to imply a blamable want of
attention on the part of Mrs. Rubelle, but I said
nothing, and remained with Lady Glyde to assist her
to dress. When she was ready we both left the room
together to go to Miss Halcombe.
We were stopped in the passage by the appearance
of Sir Percival. He looked as if he had been
purposely waiting there to see us.
"Where are you going?" he said to Lady Glyde.
"To Marian's room," she answered.
"It may spare you a disappointment," remarked Sir
Percival, "if I tell you at once that you will not
find her there."
"Not find her there!"
"No. She left the house yesterday morning with
Fosco and his wife."
Lady Glyde was not strong enough to bear the
surprise of this extraordinary statement. She turned
fearfully pale, and leaned back against the wall,
looking at her husband in dead silence.
I was so astonished myself that I hardly knew
what to say. I asked Sir Percival if he really meant
that Miss Halcombe had left Blackwater Park.
"I certainly mean it," he answered.
"In her state, Sir Percival! Without mentioning
her intentions to Lady Glyde!"
Before he could reply her ladyship recovered
herself a little and spoke.
"Impossible!" she cried out in a loud, frightened
manner, taking a step or two forward from the wall.
"Where was the doctor? where was Mr. Dawson when
Marian went away?"
"Mr. Dawson wasn't wanted, and wasn't here," said
Sir Percival. "He left of his own accord, which is
enough of itself to show that she was strong enough
to travel. How you stare! If you don't believe she
has gone, look for yourself. Open her room door, and
all the other room doors if you like."
She took him at his word, and I followed her.
There was no one in Miss Halcombe's room but
Margaret Porcher, who was busy setting it to rights.
There was no one in the spare rooms or the
dressing-rooms when we looked into them afterwards.
Sir Percival still waited for us in the passage. As
we were leaving the last room that we had examined
Lady Glyde whispered, "Don't go, Mrs. Michelson!
don't leave me, for God's sake!" Before I could say
anything in return she was out again in the passage,
speaking to her husband.
"What does it mean, Sir Percival? I insist—I beg
and pray you will tell me what it means."
"It means," he answered, "that Miss Halcombe was
strong enough yesterday morning to sit up and be
dressed, and that she insisted on taking advantage
of Fosco's going to London to go there too."
"To London!"
"Yes—on her way to Limmeridge."
Lady Glyde turned and appealed to me.
"You saw Miss Halcombe last," she said. "Tell me
plainly, Mrs. Michelson, did you think she looked
fit to travel?"
"Not in MY opinion, your ladyship."
Sir Percival, on his side, instantly turned and
appealed to me also.
"Before you went away," he said, "did you, or did
you not, tell the nurse that Miss Halcombe looked
much stronger and better?"
"I certainly made the remark, Sir Percival."
He addressed her ladyship again the moment I
offered that reply.
"Set one of Mrs. Michelson's opinions fairly
against the other," he said, "and try to be
reasonable about a perfectly plain matter. If she
had not been well enough to be moved do you think we
should any of us have risked letting her go? She has
got three competent people to look after her—Fosco
and your aunt, and Mrs. Rubelle, who went away with
them expressly for that purpose. They took a whole
carriage yesterday, and made a bed for her on the
seat in case she felt tired. To-day, Fosco and Mrs.
Rubelle go on with her themselves to Cumberland."
"Why does Marian go to Limmeridge and leave me
here by myself?" said her ladyship, interrupting Sir
Percival.
"Because your uncle won't receive you till he has
seen your sister first," he replied. "Have you
forgotten the letter he wrote to her at the
beginning of her illness? It was shown to you, you
read it yourself, and you ought to remember it."
"I do remember it."
"If you do, why should you be surprised at her
leaving you? You want to be back at Limmeridge, and
she has gone there to get your uncle's leave for you
on his own terms."
Poor Lady Glyde's eyes filled with tears.
"Marian never left me before," she said, "without
bidding me good-bye."
"She would have bid you good-bye this time,"
returned Sir Percival, "if she had not been afraid
of herself and of you. She knew you would try to
stop her, she knew you would distress her by crying.
Do you want to make any more objections? If you do,
you must come downstairs and ask questions in the
dining-room. These worries upset me. I want a glass
of wine."
He left us suddenly.
His manner all through this strange conversation
had been very unlike what it usually was. He seemed
to be almost as nervous and fluttered, every now and
then, as his lady herself. I should never have
supposed that his health had been so delicate, or
his composure so easy to upset.
I tried to prevail on Lady Glyde to go back to
her room, but it was useless. She stopped in the
passage, with the look of a woman whose mind was
panic-stricken.
"Something has happened to my sister!" she said.
"Remember, my lady, what surprising energy there
is in Miss Halcombe," I suggested. "She might well
make an effort which other ladies in her situation
would be unfit for. I hope and believe there is
nothing wrong—I do indeed."
"I must follow Marian," said her ladyship, with
the same panic-stricken look. "I must go where she
has gone, I must see that she is alive and well with
my own eyes. Come! come down with me to Sir
Percival."
I hesitated, fearing that my presence might be
considered an intrusion. I attempted to represent
this to her ladyship, but she was deaf to me. She
held my arm fast enough to force me to go downstairs
with her, and she still clung to me with all the
little strength she had at the moment when I opened
the dining-room door.
Sir Percival was sitting at the table with a
decanter of wine before him. He raised the glass to
his lips as we went in and drained it at a draught.
Seeing that he looked at me angrily when he put it
down again, I attempted to make some apology for my
accidental presence in the room.
"Do you suppose there are any secrets going on
here?" he broke out suddenly; "there are none—there
is nothing underhand, nothing kept from you or from
any one." After speaking those strange words loudly
and sternly, he filled himself another glass of wine
and asked Lady Glyde what she wanted of him.
"If my sister is fit to travel I am fit to
travel" said her ladyship, with more firmness than
she had yet shown. "I come to beg you will make
allowances for my anxiety about Marian, and let me
follow her at once by the afternoon train."
"You must wait till to-morrow," replied Sir
Percival, "and then if you don't hear to the
contrary you can go. I don't suppose you are at all
likely to hear to the contrary, so I shall write to
Fosco by to-night's post."
He said those last words holding his glass up to
the light, and looking at the wine in it instead of
at Lady Glyde. Indeed he never once looked at her
throughout the conversation. Such a singular want of
good breeding in a gentleman of his rank impressed
me, I own, very painfully.
"Why should you write to Count Fosco?" she asked,
in extreme surprise.
"To tell him to expect you by the midday train,"
said Sir Percival. "He will meet you at the station
when you get to London, and take you on to sleep at
your aunt's in St. John's Wood."
Lady Glyde's hand began to tremble violently
round my arm—why I could not imagine.
"There is no necessity for Count Fosco to meet
me," she said. "I would rather not stay in London to
sleep."
"You must. You can't take the whole journey to
Cumberland in one day. You must rest a night in
London—and I don't choose you to go by yourself to
an hotel. Fosco made the offer to your uncle to give
you house-room on the way down, and your uncle has
accepted it. Here! here is a letter from him
addressed to yourself. I ought to have sent it up
this morning, but I forgot. Read it and see what Mr.
Fairlie himself says to you."
Lady Glyde looked at the letter for a moment and
then placed it in my hands.
"Read it," she said faintly. "I don't know what
is the matter with me. I can't read it myself."
It was a note of only four lines—so short and so
careless that it quite struck me. If I remember
correctly it contained no more than these words—
"Dearest Laura, Please come whenever you like.
Break the journey by sleeping at your aunt's house.
Grieved to hear of dear Marian's illness.
Affectionately yours, Frederick Fairlie."
"I would rather not go there—I would rather not
stay a night in London," said her ladyship, breaking
out eagerly with those words before I had quite done
reading the note, short as it was. "Don't write to
Count Fosco! Pray, pray don't write to him!"
Sir Percival filled another glass from the
decanter so awkwardly that he upset it and spilt all
the wine over the table. "My sight seems to be
failing me," he muttered to himself, in an odd,
muffled voice. He slowly set the glass up again,
refilled it, and drained it once more at a draught.
I began to fear, from his look and manner, that the
wine was getting into his head.
"Pray don't write to Count Fosco," persisted Lady
Glyde, more earnestly than ever.
"Why not, I should like to know?" cried Sir
Percival, with a sudden burst of anger that startled
us both. "Where can you stay more properly in London
than at the place your uncle himself chooses for
you—at your aunt's house? Ask Mrs. Michelson."
The arrangement proposed was so unquestionably
the right and the proper one, that I could make no
possible objection to it. Much as I sympathised with
Lady Glyde in other respects, I could not sympathise
with her in her unjust prejudices against Count
Fosco. I never before met with any lady of her rank
and station who was so lamentably narrow-minded on
the subject of foreigners. Neither her uncle's note
nor Sir Percival's increasing impatience seemed to
have the least effect on her. She still objected to
staying a night in London, she still implored her
husband not to write to the Count.
"Drop it!" said Sir Percival, rudely turning his
back on us. "If you haven't sense enough to know
what is best for yourself other people must know it
for you. The arrangement is made and there is an end
of it. You are only wanted to do what Miss Halcombe
has done for you—-"
"Marian?" repeated her Ladyship, in a bewildered
manner; "Marian sleeping in Count Fosco's house!"
"Yes, in Count Fosco's house. She slept there
last night to break the journey, and you are to
follow her example, and do what your uncle tells
you. You are to sleep at Fosco's to-morrow night, as
your sister did, to break the journey. Don't throw
too many obstacles in my way! don't make me repent
of letting you go at all!"
He started to his feet, and suddenly walked out
into the verandah through the open glass doors.
"Will your ladyship excuse me," I whispered, "if
I suggest that we had better not wait here till Sir
Percival comes back? I am very much afraid he is
over-excited with wine."
She consented to leave the room in a weary,
absent manner.
As soon as we were safe upstairs again, I did all
I could to compose her ladyship's spirits. I
reminded her that Mr. Fairlie's letters to Miss
Halcombe and to herself did certainly sanction, and
even render necessary, sooner or later, the course
that had been taken. She agreed to this, and even
admitted, of her own accord, that both letters were
strictly in character with her uncle's peculiar
disposition—but her fears about Miss Halcombe, and
her unaccountable dread of sleeping at the Count's
house in London, still remained unshaken in spite of
every consideration that I could urge. I thought it
my duty to protest against Lady Glyde's unfavourable
opinion of his lordship, and I did so, with becoming
forbearance and respect.
"Your ladyship will pardon my freedom," I
remarked, in conclusion, "but it is said, 'by their
fruits ye shall know them.' I am sure the Count's
constant kindness and constant attention, from the
very beginning of Miss Halcombe's illness, merit our
best confidence and esteem. Even his lordship's
serious misunderstanding with Mr. Dawson was
entirely attributable to his anxiety on Miss
Halcombe's account."
"What misunderstanding?" inquired her ladyship,
with a look of sudden interest.
I related the unhappy circumstances under which
Mr. Dawson had withdrawn his attendance—mentioning
them all the more readily because I disapproved of
Sir Percival's continuing to conceal what had
happened (as he had done in my presence) from the
knowledge of Lady Glyde.
Her ladyship started up, with every appearance of
being additionally agitated and alarmed by what I
had told her.
"Worse! worse than I thought!" she said, walking
about the room, in a bewildered manner. "The Count
knew Mr. Dawson would never consent to Marian's
taking a journey—he purposely insulted the doctor to
get him out of the house."
"Oh, my lady! my lady!" I remonstrated.
"Mrs. Michelson!" she went on vehemently, "no
words that ever were spoken will persuade me that my
sister is in that man's power and in that man's
house with her own consent. My horror of him is
such, that nothing Sir Percival could say and no
letters my uncle could write, would induce me, if I
had only my own feelings to consult, to eat, drink,
or sleep under his roof. But my misery of suspense
about Marian gives me the courage to follow her
anywhere, to follow her even into Count Fosco's
house."
I thought it right, at this point, to mention
that Miss Halcombe had already gone on to
Cumberland, according to Sir Percival's account of
the matter.
"I am afraid to believe it!" answered her
ladyship. "I am afraid she is still in that man's
house. If I am wrong, if she has really gone on to
Limmeridge, I am resolved I will not sleep to-morrow
night under Count Fosco's roof. My dearest friend in
the world, next to my sister, lives near London. You
have heard me, you have heard Miss Halcombe, speak
of Mrs. Vesey? I mean to write, and propose to sleep
at her house. I don't know how I shall get there—I
don't know how I shall avoid the Count—but to that
refuge I will escape in some way, if my sister has
gone to Cumberland. All I ask of you to do, is to
see yourself that my letter to Mrs. Vesey goes to
London to-night, as certainly as Sir Percival's
letter goes to Count Fosco. I have reasons for not
trusting the post-bag downstairs. Will you keep my
secret, and help me in this? it is the last favour,
perhaps, that I shall ever ask of you."
I hesitated, I thought it all very strange, I
almost feared that her ladyship's mind had been a
little affected by recent anxiety and suffering. At
my own risk, however, I ended by giving my consent.
If the letter had been addressed to a stranger, or
to any one but a lady so well known to me by report
as Mrs. Vesey, I might have refused. I thank
God—looking to what happened afterwards—I thank God
I never thwarted that wish, or any other, which Lady
Glyde expressed to me, on the last day of her
residence at Blackwater Park.
The letter was written and given into my hands. I
myself put it into the post-box in the village that
evening.
We saw nothing more of Sir Percival for the rest
of the day.
I slept, by Lady Glyde's own desire, in the next
room to hers, with the door open between us. There
was something so strange and dreadful in the
loneliness and emptiness of the house, that I was
glad, on my side, to have a companion near me. Her
ladyship sat up late, reading letters and burning
them, and emptying her drawers and cabinets of
little things she prized, as if she never expected
to return to Blackwater Park. Her sleep was sadly
disturbed when she at last went to bed—she cried out
in it several times, once so loud that she woke
herself. Whatever her dreams were, she did not think
fit to communicate them to me. Perhaps, in my
situation, I had no right to expect that she should
do so. It matters little now. I was sorry for her, I
was indeed heartily sorry for her all the same.
The next day was fine and sunny. Sir Percival
came up, after breakfast, to tell us that the chaise
would be at the door at a quarter to twelve—the
train to London stopping at our station at twenty
minutes after. He informed Lady Glyde that he was
obliged to go out, but added that he hoped to be
back before she left. If any unforeseen accident
delayed him, I was to accompany her to the station,
and to take special care that she was in time for
the train. Sir Percival communicated these
directions very hastily—walking here and there about
the room all the time. Her ladyship looked
attentively after him wherever he went. He never
once looked at her in return.
She only spoke when he had done, and then she
stopped him as he approached the door, by holding
out her hand.
"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very
marked manner. "This is our parting—our parting, it
may be for ever. Will you try to forgive me,
Percival, as heartily as I forgive YOU?"
His face turned of an awful whiteness all over,
and great beads of perspiration broke out on his
bald forehead. "I shall come back," he said, and
made for the door, as hastily as if his wife's
farewell words had frightened him out of the room.
I had never liked Sir Percival, but the manner in
which he left Lady Glyde made me feel ashamed of
having eaten his bread and lived in his service. I
thought of saying a few comforting and Christian
words to the poor lady, but there was something in
her face, as she looked after her husband when the
door closed on him, that made me alter my mind and
keep silence.
At the time named the chaise drew up at the
gates. Her ladyship was right—Sir Percival never
came back. I waited for him till the last moment,
and waited in vain.
No positive responsibility lay on my shoulders,
and yet I did not feel easy in my mind. "It is of
your own free will," I said, as the chaise drove
through the lodge-gates, "that your ladyship goes to
London?"
"I will go anywhere," she answered, "to end the
dreadful suspense that I am suffering at this
moment."
She had made me feel almost as anxious and as
uncertain about Miss Halcombe as she felt herself. I
presumed to ask her to write me a line, if all went
well in London. She answered, "Most willingly, Mrs.
Michelson."
"We all have our crosses to bear, my lady," I
said, seeing her silent and thoughtful, after she
had promised to write.
She made no reply—she seemed to be too much
wrapped up in her own thoughts to attend to me.
"I fear your ladyship rested badly last night," I
remarked, after waiting a little.
"Yes," she said, "I was terribly disturbed by
dreams."
"Indeed, my lady?" I thought she was going to
tell me her dreams, but no, when she spoke next it
was only to ask a question.
"You posted the letter to Mrs. Vesey with your
own hands?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Did Sir Percival say, yesterday, that Count
Fosco was to meet me at the terminus in London?"
"He did, my lady."
She sighed heavily when I answered that last
question, and said no more.
We arrived at the station, with hardly two
minutes to spare. The gardener (who had driven us)
managed about the luggage, while I took the ticket.
The whistle of the train was sounding when I joined
her ladyship on the platform. She looked very
strangely, and pressed her hand over her heart, as
if some sudden pain or fright had overcome her at
that moment.
"I wish you were going with me!" she said,
catching eagerly at my arm when I gave her the
ticket.
If there had been time, if I had felt the day
before as I felt then, I would have made my
arrangements to accompany her, even though the doing
so had obliged me to give Sir Percival warning on
the spot. As it was, her wishes, expressed at the
last moment only, were expressed too late for me to
comply with them. She seemed to understand this
herself before I could explain it, and did not
repeat her desire to have me for a travelling
companion. The train drew up at the platform. She
gave the gardener a present for his children, and
took my hand, in her simple hearty manner, before
she got into the carriage.
"You have been very kind to me and to my sister,"
she said—"kind when we were both friendless. I shall
remember you gratefully, as long as I live to
remember any one. Good-bye—and God bless you!"
She spoke those words with a tone and a look
which brought the tears into my eyes—she spoke them
as if she was bidding me farewell for ever.
"Good-bye, my lady," I said, putting her into the
carriage, and trying to cheer her; "good-bye, for
the present only; good-bye, with my best and kindest
wishes for happier times."
She shook her head, and shuddered as she settled
herself in the carriage. The guard closed the door.
"Do you believe in dreams?" she whispered to me at
the window. "My dreams, last night, were dreams I
have never had before. The terror of them is hanging
over me still." The whistle sounded before I could
answer, and the train moved. Her pale quiet face
looked at me for the last time—looked sorrowfully
and solemnly from the window. She waved her hand,
and I saw her no more.
Towards five o'clock on the afternoon of that same day, having a little
time to myself in the midst of the household duties
which now pressed upon me, I sat down alone in my
own room, to try and compose my mind with the volume
of my husband's Sermons. For the first time in my
life I found my attention wandering over those pious
and cheering words. Concluding that Lady Glyde's
departure must have disturbed me far more seriously
than I had myself supposed, I put the book aside,
and went out to take a turn in the garden. Sir
Percival had not yet returned, to my knowledge, so I
could feel no hesitation about showing myself in the
grounds.
On turning the corner of the house, and gaining a
view of the garden, I was startled by seeing a
stranger walking in it. The stranger was a woman—she
was lounging along the path with her back to me, and
was gathering the flowers.
As I approached she heard me, and turned round.
My blood curdled in my veins. The strange woman
in the garden was Mrs. Rubelle!
I could neither move nor speak. She came up to
me, as composedly as ever, with her flowers in her
hand.
"What is the matter, ma'am?" she said quietly.
"You here!" I gasped out. "Not gone to London!
Not gone to Cumberland!"
Mrs. Rubelle smelt at her flowers with a smile of
malicious pity.
"Certainly not," she said. "I have never left
Blackwater Park."
I summoned breath enough and courage enough for
another question.
"Where is Miss Halcombe?"
Mrs. Rubelle fairly laughed at me this time, and
replied in these words—
"Miss Halcombe, ma'am, has not left Blackwater
Park either."
When I heard that astounding answer, all my
thoughts were startled back on the instant to my
parting with Lady Glyde. I can hardly say I
reproached myself, but at that moment I think I
would have given many a year's hard savings to have
known four hours earlier what I knew now.
Mrs. Rubelle waited, quietly arranging her
nosegay, as if she expected me to say something.
I could say nothing. I thought of Lady Glyde's
worn-out energies and weakly health, and I trembled
for the time when the shock of the discovery that I
had made would fall on her. For a minute or more my
fears for the poor ladies silenced me. At the end of
that time Mrs. Rubelle looked up sideways from her
flowers, and said, "Here is Sir Percival, ma'am,
returned from his ride."
I saw him as soon as she did. He came towards us,
slashing viciously at the flowers with his
riding-whip. When he was near enough to see my face
he stopped, struck at his boot with the whip, and
burst out laughing, so harshly and so violently that
the birds flew away, startled, from the tree by
which he stood.
"Well, Mrs. Michelson," he said, "you have found
it out at last, have you?"
I made no reply. He turned to Mrs. Rubelle.
"When did you show yourself in the garden?"
"I showed myself about half an hour ago, sir. You
said I might take my liberty again as soon as Lady
Glyde had gone away to London."
"Quite right. I don't blame you—I only asked the
question." He waited a moment, and then addressed
himself once more to me. "You can't believe it, can
you?" he said mockingly. "Here! come along and see
for yourself."
He led the way round to the front of the house. I
followed him, and Mrs. Rubelle followed me. After
passing through the iron gates he stopped, and
pointed with his whip to the disused middle wing of
the building.
"There!" he said. "Look up at the first floor.
You know the old Elizabethan bedrooms? Miss Halcombe
is snug and safe in one of the best of them at this
moment. Take her in, Mrs. Rubelle (you have got your
key?); take Mrs. Michelson in, and let her own eyes
satisfy her that there is no deception this time."
The tone in which he spoke to me, and the minute
or two that had passed since we left the garden,
helped me to recover my spirits a little. What I
might have done at this critical moment, if all my
life had been passed in service, I cannot say. As it
was, possessing the feelings, the principles, and
the bringing up of a lady, I could not hesitate
about the right course to pursue. My duty to myself,
and my duty to Lady Glyde, alike forbade me to
remain in the employment of a man who had shamefully
deceived us both by a series of atrocious
falsehoods.
"I must beg permission, Sir Percival, to speak a
few words to you in private," I said. "Having done
so, I shall be ready to proceed with this person to
Miss Halcombe's room."
Mrs. Rubelle, whom I had indicated by a slight
turn of my head, insolently sniffed at her nosegay
and walked away, with great deliberation, towards
the house door.
"Well," said Sir Percival sharply, "what is it
now?"
"I wish to mention, sir, that I am desirous of
resigning the situation I now hold at Blackwater
Park." That was literally how I put it. I was
resolved that the first words spoken in his presence
should be words which expressed my intention to
leave his service.
He eyed me with one of his blackest looks, and
thrust his hands savagely into the pockets of his
riding-coat.
"Why?" he said, "why, I should like to know?"
"It is not for me, Sir Percival, to express an
opinion on what has taken place in this house. I
desire to give no offence. I merely wish to say that
I do not feel it consistent with my duty to Lady
Glyde and to myself to remain any longer in your
service."
"Is it consistent with your duty to me to stand
there, casting suspicion on me to my face?" he broke
out in his most violent manner. "I see what you're
driving at. You have taken your own mean, underhand
view of an innocent deception practised on Lady
Glyde for her own good. It was essential to her
health that she should have a change of air
immediately, and you know as well as I do she would
never have gone away if she had been told Miss
Halcombe was still left here. She has been deceived
in her own interests—and I don't care who knows it.
Go, if you like—there are plenty of housekeepers as
good as you to be had for the asking. Go when you
please—but take care how you spread scandals about
me and my affairs when you're out of my service.
Tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, or it
will be the worse for you! See Miss Halcombe for
yourself—see if she hasn't been as well taken care
of in one part of the house as in the other.
Remember the doctor's own orders that Lady Glyde was
to have a change of air at the earliest possible
opportunity. Bear all that well in mind, and then
say anything against me and my proceedings if you
dare!"
He poured out these words fiercely, all in a
breath, walking backwards and forwards, and striking
about him in the air with his whip.
Nothing that he said or did shook my opinion of
the disgraceful series of falsehoods that he had
told in my presence the day before, or of the cruel
deception by which he had separated Lady Glyde from
her sister, and had sent her uselessly to London,
when she was half distracted with anxiety on Miss
Halcombe's account. I naturally kept these thoughts
to myself, and said nothing more to irritate him;
but I was not the less resolved to persist in my
purpose. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and I
suppressed my own feelings accordingly when it was
my turn to reply.
"While I am in your service, Sir Percival," I
said, "I hope I know my duty well enough not to
inquire into your motives. When I am out of your
service, I hope I know my own place well enough not
to speak of matters which don't concern me—"
"When do you want to go?" he asked, interrupting
me without ceremony. "Don't suppose I am anxious to
keep you—don't suppose I care about your leaving the
house. I am perfectly fair and open in this matter,
from first to last. When do you want to go?"
"I should wish to leave at your earliest
convenience, Sir Percival."
"My convenience has nothing to do with it. I
shall be out of the house for good and all to-morrow
morning, and I can settle your accounts to-night. If
you want to study anybody's convenience, it had
better be Miss Halcombe's. Mrs. Rubelle's time is up
to-day, and she has reasons for wishing to be in
London to-night. If you go at once, Miss Halcombe
won't have a soul left here to look after her."
I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that I was
quite incapable of deserting Miss Halcombe in such
an emergency as had now befallen Lady Glyde and
herself. After first distinctly ascertaining from
Sir Percival that Mrs. Rubelle was certain to leave
at once if I took her place, and after also
obtaining permission to arrange for Mr. Dawson's
resuming his attendance on his patient, I willingly
consented to remain at Blackwater Park until Miss
Halcombe no longer required my services. It was
settled that I should give Sir Percival's solicitor
a week's notice before I left, and that he was to
undertake the necessary arrangements for appointing
my successor. The matter was discussed in very few
words. At its conclusion Sir Percival abruptly
turned on his heel, and left me free to join Mrs.
Rubelle. That singular foreign person had been
sitting composedly on the door-step all this time,
waiting till I could follow her to Miss Halcombe's
room.
I had hardly walked half-way towards the house
when Sir Percival, who had withdrawn in the opposite
direction, suddenly stopped and called me back.
"Why are you leaving my service?" he asked.
The question was so extraordinary, after what had
just passed between us, that I hardly knew what to
say in answer to it.
"Mind! I don't know why you are going," he went
on. "You must give a reason for leaving me, I
suppose, when you get another situation. What
reason? The breaking up of the family? Is that it?"
"There can be no positive objection, Sir
Percival, to that reason——"
"Very well! That's all I want to know. If people
apply for your character, that's your reason, stated
by yourself. You go in consequence of the breaking
up of the family."
He turned away again before I could say another
word, and walked out rapidly into the grounds. His
manner was as strange as his language. I acknowledge
he alarmed me.
Even the patience of Mrs. Rubelle was getting
exhausted, when I joined her at the house door.
"At last!" she said, with a shrug of her lean
foreign shoulders. She led the way into the
inhabited side of the house, ascended the stairs,
and opened with her key the door at the end of the
passage, which communicated with the old Elizabethan
rooms—a door never previously used, in my time, at
Blackwater Park. The rooms themselves I knew well,
having entered them myself on various occasions from
the other side of the house. Mrs. Rubelle stopped at
the third door along the old gallery, handed me the
key of it, with the key of the door of
communication, and told me I should find Miss
Halcombe in that room. Before I went in I thought it
desirable to make her understand that her attendance
had ceased. Accordingly, I told her in plain words
that the charge of the sick lady henceforth devolved
entirely on myself.
"I am glad to hear it, ma'am," said Mrs. Rubelle.
"I want to go very much."
"Do you leave to-day?" I asked, to make sure of
her.
"Now that you have taken charge, ma'am, I leave
in half an hour's time. Sir Percival has kindly
placed at my disposition the gardener, and the
chaise, whenever I want them. I shall want them in
half an hour's time to go to the station. I am
packed up in anticipation already. I wish you
good-day, ma'am."
She dropped a brisk curtsey, and walked back
along the gallery, humming a little tune, and
keeping time to it cheerfully with the nosegay in
her hand. I am sincerely thankful to say that was
the last I saw of Mrs. Rubelle.
When I went into the room Miss Halcombe was
asleep. I looked at her anxiously, as she lay in the
dismal, high, old-fashioned bed. She was certainly
not in any respect altered for the worse since I had
seen her last. She had not been neglected, I am
bound to admit, in any way that I could perceive.
The room was dreary, and dusty, and dark, but the
window (looking on a solitary court-yard at the back
of the house) was opened to let in the fresh air,
and all that could be done to make the place
comfortable had been done. The whole cruelty of Sir
Percival's deception had fallen on poor Lady Glyde.
The only ill-usage which either he or Mrs. Rubelle
had inflicted on Miss Halcombe consisted, so far as
I could see, in the first offence of hiding her
away.
I stole back, leaving the sick lady still
peacefully asleep, to give the gardener instructions
about bringing the doctor. I begged the man, after
he had taken Mrs. Rubelle to the station, to drive
round by Mr. Dawson's, and leave a message in my
name, asking him to call and see me. I knew he would
come on my account, and I knew he would remain when
he found Count Fosco had left the house.
In due course of time the gardener returned, and
said that he had driven round by Mr. Dawson's
residence, after leaving Mrs. Rubelle at the
station. The doctor sent me word that he was poorly
in health himself, but that he would call, if
possible, the next morning.
Having delivered his message the gardener was
about to withdraw, but I stopped him to request that
he would come back before dark, and sit up that
night, in one of the empty bedrooms, so as to be
within call in case I wanted him. He understood
readily enough my unwillingness to be left alone all
night in the most desolate part of that desolate
house, and we arranged that he should come in
between eight and nine.
He came punctually, and I found cause to be
thankful that I had adopted the precaution of
calling him in. Before midnight Sir Percival's
strange temper broke out in the most violent and
most alarming manner, and if the gardener had not
been on the spot to pacify him on the instant, I am
afraid to think what might have happened.
Almost all the afternoon and evening he had been
walking about the house and grounds in an unsettled,
excitable manner, having, in all probability, as I
thought, taken an excessive quantity of wine at his
solitary dinner. However that may be, I heard his
voice calling loudly and angrily in the new wing of
the house, as I was taking a turn backwards and
forwards along the gallery the last thing at night.
The gardener immediately ran down to him, and I
closed the door of communication, to keep the alarm,
if possible, from reaching Miss Halcombe's ears. It
was full half an hour before the gardener came back.
He declared that his master was quite out of his
senses—not through the excitement of drink, as I had
supposed, but through a kind of panic or frenzy of
mind, for which it was impossible to account. He had
found Sir Percival walking backwards and forwards by
himself in the hall, swearing, with every appearance
of the most violent passion, that he would not stop
another minute alone in such a dungeon as his own
house, and that he would take the first stage of his
journey immediately in the middle of the night. The
gardener, on approaching him, had been hunted out,
with oaths and threats, to get the horse and chaise
ready instantly. In a quarter of an hour Sir
Percival had joined him in the yard, had jumped into
the chaise, and, lashing the horse into a gallop,
had driven himself away, with his face as pale as
ashes in the moonlight. The gardener had heard him
shouting and cursing at the lodge-keeper to get up
and open the gate—had heard the wheels roll
furiously on again in the still night, when the gate
was unlocked—and knew no more.
The next day, or a day or two after, I forget
which, the chaise was brought back from Knowlesbury,
our nearest town, by the ostler at the old inn. Sir
Percival had stopped there, and had afterwards left
by the train—for what destination the man could not
tell. I never received any further information,
either from himself or from any one else, of Sir
Percival's proceedings, and I am not even aware, at
this moment, whether he is in England or out of it.
He and I have not met since he drove away like an
escaped criminal from his own house, and it is my
fervent hope and prayer that we may never meet
again.
My own part of this sad family story is now drawing to an end.
I have been informed that the particulars of Miss
Halcombe's waking, and of what passed between us
when she found me sitting by her bedside, are not
material to the purpose which is to be answered by
the present narrative. It will be sufficient for me
to say in this place, that she was not herself
conscious of the means adopted to remove her from
the inhabited to the uninhabited part of the house.
She was in a deep sleep at the time, whether
naturally or artificially produced she could not
say. In my absence at Torquay, and in the absence of
all the resident servants except Margaret Porcher
(who was perpetually eating, drinking, or sleeping,
when she was not at work), the secret transfer of
Miss Halcombe from one part of the house to the
other was no doubt easily performed. Mrs. Rubelle
(as I discovered for myself, in looking about the
room) had provisions, and all other necessaries,
together with the means of heating water, broth, and
so on, without kindling a fire, placed at her
disposal during the few days of her imprisonment
with the sick lady. She had declined to answer the
questions which Miss Halcombe naturally put, but had
not, in other respects, treated her with unkindness
or neglect. The disgrace of lending herself to a
vile deception is the only disgrace with which I can
conscientiously charge Mrs. Rubelle.
I need write no particulars (and I am relieved to
know it) of the effect produced on Miss Halcombe by
the news of Lady Glyde's departure, or by the far
more melancholy tidings which reached us only too
soon afterwards at Blackwater Park. In both cases I
prepared her mind beforehand as gently and as
carefully as possible, having the doctor's advice to
guide me, in the last case only, through Mr.
Dawson's being too unwell to come to the house for
some days after I had sent for him. It was a sad
time, a time which it afflicts me to think of or to
write of now. The precious blessings of religious
consolation which I endeavoured to convey were long
in reaching Miss Halcombe's heart, but I hope and
believe they came home to her at last. I never left
her till her strength was restored. The train which
took me away from that miserable house was the train
which took her away also. We parted very mournfully
in London. I remained with a relative at Islington,
and she went on to Mr. Fairlie's house in
Cumberland.
I have only a few lines more to write before I
close this painful statement. They are dictated by a
sense of duty.
In the first place, I wish to record my own
personal conviction that no blame whatever, in
connection with the events which I have now related,
attaches to Count Fosco. I am informed that a
dreadful suspicion has been raised, and that some
very serious constructions are placed upon his
lordship's conduct. My persuasion of the Count's
innocence remains, however, quite unshaken. If he
assisted Sir Percival in sending me to Torquay, he
assisted under a delusion, for which, as a foreigner
and a stranger, he was not to blame. If he was
concerned in bringing Mrs. Rubelle to Blackwater
Park, it was his misfortune and not his fault, when
that foreign person was base enough to assist a
deception planned and carried out by the master of
the house. I protest, in the interests of morality,
against blame being gratuitously and wantonly
attached to the proceedings of the Count.
In the second place, I desire to express my
regret at my own inability to remember the precise
day on which Lady Glyde left Blackwater Park for
London. I am told that it is of the last importance
to ascertain the exact date of that lamentable
journey, and I have anxiously taxed my memory to
recall it. The effort has been in vain. I can only
remember now that it was towards the latter part of
July. We all know the difficulty, after a lapse of
time, of fixing precisely on a past date unless it
has been previously written down. That difficulty is
greatly increased in my case by the alarming and
confusing events which took place about the period
of Lady Glyde's departure. I heartily wish I had
made a memorandum at the time. I heartily wish my
memory of the date was as vivid as my memory of that
poor lady's face, when it looked at me sorrowfully
for the last time from the carriage window.
THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL NARRATIVES
1. THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER
PINHORN,
COOK IN THE SERVICE OF COUNT FOSCO
[Taken down from her own
statement]
I am sorry to say that I have never learnt to read or write. I have
been a hard-working woman all my life, and have kept
a good character. I know that it is a sin and
wickedness to say the thing which is not, and I will
truly beware of doing so on this occasion. All that
I know I will tell, and I humbly beg the gentleman
who takes this down to put my language right as he
goes on, and to make allowances for my being no
scholar.
In this last summer I happened to be out of place
(through no fault of my own), and I heard of a
situation as plain cook, at Number Five, Forest
Road, St. John's Wood. I took the place on trial. My
master's name was Fosco. My mistress was an English
lady. He was Count and she was Countess. There was a
girl to do housemaid's work when I got there. She
was not over-clean or tidy, but there was no harm in
her. I and she were the only servants in the house.
Our master and mistress came after we got in; and
as soon as they did come we were told, downstairs,
that company was expected from the country.
The company was my mistress's niece, and the back
bedroom on the first floor was got ready for her. My
mistress mentioned to me that Lady Glyde (that was
her name) was in poor health, and that I must be
particular in my cooking accordingly. She was to
come that day, as well as I can remember—but
whatever you do, don't trust my memory in the
matter. I am sorry to say it's no use asking me
about days of the month, and such-like. Except
Sundays, half my time I take no heed of them, being
a hard-working woman and no scholar. All I know is
Lady Glyde came, and when she did come, a fine
fright she gave us all surely. I don't know how
master brought her to the house, being hard at work
at the time. But he did bring her in the afternoon,
I think, and the housemaid opened the door to them,
and showed them into the parlour. Before she had
been long down in the kitchen again with me, we
heard a hurry-skurry upstairs, and the parlour bell
ringing like mad, and my mistress's voice calling
out for help.
We both ran up, and there we saw the lady laid on
the sofa, with her face ghastly white, and her hands
fast clenched, and her head drawn down to one side.
She had been taken with a sudden fright, my mistress
said, and master he told us she was in a fit of
convulsions. I ran out, knowing the neighbourhood a
little better than the rest of them, to fetch the
nearest doctor's help. The nearest help was at
Goodricke's and Garth's, who worked together as
partners, and had a good name and connection, as I
have heard, all round St. John's Wood. Mr. Goodricke
was in, and he came back with me directly.
It was some time before he could make himself of
much use. The poor unfortunate lady fell out of one
fit into another, and went on so till she was quite
wearied out, and as helpless as a new-born babe. We
then got her to bed. Mr. Goodricke went away to his
house for medicine, and came back again in a quarter
of an hour or less. Besides the medicine he brought
a bit of hollow mahogany wood with him, shaped like
a kind of trumpet, and after waiting a little while,
he put one end over the lady's heart and the other
to his ear, and listened carefully.
When he had done he says to my mistress, who was
in the room, "This is a very serious case," he says,
"I recommend you to write to Lady Glyde's friends
directly." My mistress says to him, "Is it
heart-disease?" And he says, "Yes, heart-disease of
a most dangerous kind." He told her exactly what he
thought was the matter, which I was not clever
enough to understand. But I know this, he ended by
saying that he was afraid neither his help nor any
other doctor's help was likely to be of much
service.
My mistress took this ill news more quietly than
my master. He was a big, fat, odd sort of elderly
man, who kept birds and white mice, and spoke to
them as if they were so many Christian children. He
seemed terribly cut up by what had happened. "Ah!
poor Lady Glyde! poor dear Lady Glyde!" he says, and
went stalking about, wringing his fat hands more
like a play-actor than a gentleman. For one question
my mistress asked the doctor about the lady's
chances of getting round, he asked a good fifty at
least. I declare he quite tormented us all, and when
he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of
back garden, picking trumpery little nosegays, and
asking me to take them upstairs and make the
sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any
good. I think he must have been, at times, a little
soft in his head. But he was not a bad master—he had
a monstrous civil tongue of his own, and a jolly,
easy, coaxing way with him. I liked him a deal
better than my mistress. She was a hard one, if ever
there was a hard one yet.
Towards night-time the lady roused up a little.
She had been so wearied out, before that, by the
convulsions, that she never stirred hand or foot, or
spoke a word to anybody. She moved in the bed now,
and stared about her at the room and us in it. She
must have been a nice-looking lady when well, with
light hair, and blue eyes and all that. Her rest was
troubled at night—at least so I heard from my
mistress, who sat up alone with her. I only went in
once before going to bed to see if I could be of any
use, and then she was talking to herself in a
confused, rambling manner. She seemed to want sadly
to speak to somebody who was absent from her
somewhere. I couldn't catch the name the first time,
and the second time master knocked at the door, with
his regular mouthful of questions, and another of
his trumpery nosegays.
When I went in early the next morning, the lady
was clean worn out again, and lay in a kind of faint
sleep. Mr. Goodricke brought his partner, Mr. Garth,
with him to advise. They said she must not be
disturbed out of her rest on any account. They asked
my mistress many questions, at the other end of the
room, about what the lady's health had been in past
times, and who had attended her, and whether she had
ever suffered much and long together under distress
of mind. I remember my mistress said "Yes" to that
last question. And Mr. Goodricke looked at Mr.
Garth, and shook his head; and Mr. Garth looked at
Mr. Goodricke, and shook his head. They seemed to
think that the distress might have something to do
with the mischief at the lady's heart. She was but a
frail thing to look at, poor creature! Very little
strength at any time, I should say—very little
strength.
Later on the same morning, when she woke, the
lady took a sudden turn, and got seemingly a great
deal better. I was not let in again to see her, no
more was the housemaid, for the reason that she was
not to be disturbed by strangers. What I heard of
her being better was through my master. He was in
wonderful good spirits about the change, and looked
in at the kitchen window from the garden, with his
great big curly-brimmed white hat on, to go out.
"Good Mrs. Cook," says he, "Lady Glyde is better.
My mind is more easy than it was, and I am going out
to stretch my big legs with a sunny little summer
walk. Shall I order for you, shall I market for you,
Mrs. Cook? What are you making there? A nice tart
for dinner? Much crust, if you please—much crisp
crust, my dear, that melts and crumbles delicious in
the mouth." That was his way. He was past sixty, and
fond of pastry. Just think of that!
The doctor came again in the forenoon, and saw
for himself that Lady Glyde had woke up better. He
forbid us to talk to her, or to let her talk to us,
in case she was that way disposed, saying she must
be kept quiet before all things, and encouraged to
sleep as much as possible. She did not seem to want
to talk whenever I saw her, except overnight, when I
couldn't make out what she was saying—she seemed too
much worn down. Mr. Goodricke was not nearly in such
good spirits about her as master. He said nothing
when he came downstairs, except that he would call
again at five o'clock.
About that time (which was before master came
home again) the bell rang hard from the bedroom, and
my mistress ran out into the landing, and called to
me to go for Mr. Goodricke, and tell him the lady
had fainted. I got on my bonnet and shawl, when, as
good luck would have it, the doctor himself came to
the house for his promised visit.
I let him in, and went upstairs along with him.
"Lady Glyde was just as usual," says my mistress to
him at the door; "she was awake, and looking about
her in a strange, forlorn manner, when I heard her
give a sort of half cry, and she fainted in a
moment." The doctor went up to the bed, and stooped
down over the sick lady. He looked very serious, all
on a sudden, at the sight of her, and put his hand
on her heart.
My mistress stared hard in Mr. Goodricke's face.
"Not dead!" says she, whispering, and turning all of
a tremble from head to foot.
"Yes," says the doctor, very quiet and grave.
"Dead. I was afraid it would happen suddenly when I
examined her heart yesterday." My mistress stepped
back from the bedside while he was speaking, and
trembled and trembled again. "Dead!" she whispers to
herself; "dead so suddenly! dead so soon! What will
the Count say?" Mr. Goodricke advised her to go
downstairs, and quiet herself a little. "You have
been sitting up all night," says he, "and your
nerves are shaken. This person," says he, meaning
me, "this person will stay in the room till I can
send for the necessary assistance." My mistress did
as he told her. "I must prepare the Count," she
says. "I must carefully prepare the Count." And so
she left us, shaking from head to foot, and went
out.
"Your master is a foreigner," says Mr. Goodricke,
when my mistress had left us. "Does he understand
about registering the death?" "I can't rightly tell,
sir," says I, "but I should think not." The doctor
considered a minute, and then says he, "I don't
usually do such things," says he, "but it may save
the family trouble in this case if I register the
death myself. I shall pass the district office in
half an hour's time, and I can easily look in.
Mention, if you please, that I will do so." "Yes,
sir," says I, "with thanks, I'm sure, for your
kindness in thinking of it." "You don't mind staying
here till I can send you the proper person?" says
he. "No, sir," says I; "I'll stay with the poor lady
till then. I suppose nothing more could be done,
sir, than was done?" says I. "No," says he,
"nothing; she must have suffered sadly before ever I
saw her—the case was hopeless when I was called in."
"Ah, dear me! we all come to it, sooner or later,
don't we, sir?" says I. He gave no answer to that—he
didn't seem to care about talking. He said,
"Good-day," and went out.
I stopped by the bedside from that time till the
time when Mr. Goodricke sent the person in, as he
had promised. She was, by name, Jane Gould. I
considered her to be a respectable-looking woman.
She made no remark, except to say that she
understood what was wanted of her, and that she had
winded a many of them in her time.
How master bore the news, when he first heard it,
is more than I can tell, not having been present.
When I did see him he looked awfully overcome by it,
to be sure. He sat quiet in a corner, with his fat
hands hanging over his thick knees, and his head
down, and his eyes looking at nothing. He seemed not
so much sorry, as scared and dazed like, by what had
happened. My mistress managed all that was to be
done about the funeral. It must have cost a sight of
money—the coffin, in particular, being most
beautiful. The dead lady's husband was away, as we
heard, in foreign parts. But my mistress (being her
aunt) settled it with her friends in the country
(Cumberland, I think) that she should be buried
there, in the same grave along with her mother.
Everything was done handsomely, in respect of the
funeral, I say again, and master went down to attend
the burying in the country himself. He looked grand
in his deep mourning, with his big solemn face, and
his slow walk, and his broad hatband—that he did!
In conclusion. I have to say, in answer to
questions put to me—
(1) That neither I nor my fellow-servant ever saw
my master give Lady Glyde any medicine himself.
(2) That he was never, to my knowledge and
belief, left alone in the room with Lady Glyde.
(3) That I am not able to say what caused the
sudden fright, which my mistress informed me had
seized the lady on her first coming into the house.
The cause was never explained, either to me or to my
fellow-servant.
The above statement has been read over in my
presence. I have nothing to add to it, or to take
away from it. I say, on my oath as a Christian
woman, this is the truth.
(Signed) HESTER PINHORN, Her + Mark.
2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR
To the Registrar of the Sub-District in which the
undermentioned death took place.—I hereby certify
that I attended Lady Glyde, aged Twenty-One last
Birthday; that I last saw her on Thursday the 25th
July 1850; that she died on the same day at No. 5
Forest Road, St. John's Wood, and that the cause of
her death was Aneurism. Duration of disease not
known.
(Signed) Alfred Goodricke.
Prof. Title. M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A. Address, 12
Croydon Gardens
St. John's Wood.
3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD
I was the person sent in by Mr. Goodricke to do
what was right and needful by the remains of a lady
who had died at the house named in the certificate
which precedes this. I found the body in charge of
the servant, Hester Pinhorn. I remained with it, and
prepared it at the proper time for the grave. It was
laid in the coffin in my presence, and I afterwards
saw the coffin screwed down previous to its removal.
When that had been done, and not before, I received
what was due to me and left the house. I refer
persons who may wish to investigate my character to
Mr. Goodricke. He will bear witness that I can be
trusted to tell the truth.
(Signed) JANE GOULD
4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE
Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde, wife of Sir Percival Glyde,
Bart., of Blackwater Park, Hampshire, and daughter
of the late Philip Fairlie, Esq., of Limmeridge
House, in this parish. Born March 27th, 1829;
married December 22nd, 1849; died July 25th, 1850.
5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT
Early in the summer of 1850 I and my surviving
companions left the wilds and forests of Central
America for home. Arrived at the coast, we took ship
there for England. The vessel was wrecked in the
Gulf of Mexico—I was among the few saved from the
sea. It was my third escape from peril of death.
Death by disease, death by the Indians, death by
drowning—all three had approached me; all three had
passed me by.
The survivors of the wreck were rescued by an
American vessel bound for Liverpool. The ship
reached her port on the thirteenth day of October
1850. We landed late in the afternoon, and I arrived
in London the same night.
These pages are not the record of my wanderings
and my dangers away from home. The motives which led
me from my country and my friends to a new world of
adventure and peril are known. From that
self-imposed exile I came back, as I had hoped,
prayed, believed I should come back—a changed man.
In the waters of a new life I had tempered my nature
afresh. In the stern school of extremity and danger
my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to be
resolute, my mind to rely on itself. I had gone out
to fly from my own future. I came back to face it,
as a man should.
To face it with that inevitable suppression of
myself which I knew it would demand from me. I had
parted with the worst bitterness of the past, but
not with my heart's remembrance of the sorrow and
the tenderness of that memorable time. I had not
ceased to feel the one irreparable disappointment of
my life—I had only learnt to bear it. Laura Fairlie
was in all my thoughts when the ship bore me away,
and I looked my last at England. Laura Fairlie was
in all my thoughts when the ship brought me back,
and the morning light showed the friendly shore in
view.
My pen traces the old letters as my heart goes
back to the old love. I write of her as Laura
Fairlie still. It is hard to think of her, it is
hard to speak of her, by her husband's name.
There are no more words of explanation to add on
my appearance for the second time in these pages.
This narrative, if I have the strength and the
courage to write it, may now go on.
My first anxieties and first hopes when the morning came centred in my
mother and my sister. I felt the necessity of
preparing them for the joy and surprise of my
return, after an absence during which it had been
impossible for them to receive any tidings of me for
months past. Early in the morning I sent a letter to
the Hampstead Cottage, and followed it myself in an
hour's time.
When the first meeting was over, when our quiet
and composure of other days began gradually to
return to us, I saw something in my mother's face
which told me that a secret oppression lay heavy on
her heart. There was more than love—there was sorrow
in the anxious eyes that looked on me so
tenderly—there was pity in the kind hand that slowly
and fondly strengthened its hold on mine. We had no
concealments from each other. She knew how the hope
of my life had been wrecked—she knew why I had left
her. It was on my lips to ask as composedly as I
could if any letter had come for me from Miss
Halcombe, if there was any news of her sister that I
might hear. But when I looked in my mother's face I
lost courage to put the question even in that
guarded form. I could only say, doubtingly and
restrainedly—
"You have something to tell me."
My sister, who had been sitting opposite to us,
rose suddenly without a word of explanation—rose and
left the room.
My mother moved closer to me on the sofa and put
her arms round my neck. Those fond arms trembled—the
tears flowed fast over the faithful loving face.
"Walter!" she whispered, "my own darling! my
heart is heavy for you. Oh, my son! my son! try to
remember that I am still left!"
My head sank on her bosom. She had said all in
saying those words.
It was the morning of the third day since my
return—the morning of the sixteenth of October.
I had remained with them at the cottage—I had
tried hard not to embitter the happiness of my
return to THEM as it was embittered to ME. I had
done all man could to rise after the shock, and
accept my life resignedly—to let my great sorrow
come in tenderness to my heart, and not in despair.
It was useless and hopeless. No tears soothed my
aching eyes, no relief came to me from my sister's
sympathy or my mother's love.
On that third morning I opened my heart to them.
At last the words passed my lips which I had longed
to speak on the day when my mother told me of her
death.
"Let me go away alone for a little while," I
said. "I shall bear it better when I have looked
once more at the place where I first saw her—when I
have knelt and prayed by the grave where they have
laid her to rest."
I departed on my journey—my journey to the grave
of Laura Fairlie.
It was a quiet autumn afternoon when I stopped at
the solitary station, and set forth alone on foot by
the well-remembered road. The waning sun was shining
faintly through thin white clouds—the air was warm
and still—the peacefulness of the lonely country was
overshadowed and saddened by the influence of the
falling year.
I reached the moor—I stood again on the brow of
the hill—I looked on along the path—and there were
the familiar garden trees in the distance, the clear
sweeping semicircle of the drive, the high white
walls of Limmeridge House. The chances and changes,
the wanderings and dangers of months and months
past, all shrank and shrivelled to nothing in my
mind. It was like yesterday since my feet had last
trodden the fragrant heathy ground. I thought I
should see her coming to meet me, with her little
straw hat shading her face, her simple dress
fluttering in the air, and her well-filled
sketch-book ready in her hand.
Oh death, thou hast thy sting! oh, grave, thou
hast thy victory!
I turned aside, and there below me in the glen
was the lonesome grey church, the porch where I had
waited for the coming of the woman in white, the
hills encircling the quiet burial-ground, the brook
bubbling cold over its stony bed. There was the
marble cross, fair and white, at the head of the
tomb—the tomb that now rose over mother and daughter
alike.
I approached the grave. I crossed once more the
low stone stile, and bared my head as I touched the
sacred ground. Sacred to gentleness and goodness,
sacred to reverence and grief.
I stopped before the pedestal from which the
cross rose. On one side of it, on the side nearest
to me, the newly-cut inscription met my eyes—the
hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the
story of her life and death. I tried to read them. I
did read as far as the name. "Sacred to the Memory
of Laura——" The kind blue eyes dim with tears—the
fair head drooping wearily—the innocent parting
words which implored me to leave her—oh, for a
happier last memory of her than this; the memory I
took away with me, the memory I bring back with me
to her grave!
A second time I tried to read the inscription. I
saw at the end the date of her death, and above it——
Above it there were lines on the marble—there was
a name among them which disturbed my thoughts of
her. I went round to the other side of the grave,
where there was nothing to read, nothing of earthly
vileness to force its way between her spirit and
mine.
I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid
my head on the broad white stone, and closed my
weary eyes on the earth around, on the light above.
I let her come back to me. Oh, my love! my love! my
heart may speak to you NOW! It is yesterday again
since we parted—yesterday, since your dear hand lay
in mine—yesterday, since my eyes looked their last
on you. My love! my love!
Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like
thick night over its course.
The first sound that came after the heavenly
peace rustled faintly like a passing breath of air
over the grass of the burial-ground. I heard it
nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my
ear—came like footsteps moving onward—then stopped.
I looked up.
The sunset was near at hand. The clouds had
parted—the slanting light fell mellow over the
hills. The last of the day was cold and clear and
still in the quiet valley of the dead.
Beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing
together in the cold clearness of the lower light, I
saw two women. They were looking towards the tomb,
looking towards me.
Two.
They came a little on, and stopped again. Their
veils were down, and hid their faces from me. When
they stopped, one of them raised her veil. In the
still evening light I saw the face of Marian
Halcombe.
Changed, changed as if years had passed over it!
The eyes large and wild, and looking at me with a
strange terror in them. The face worn and wasted
piteously. Pain and fear and grief written on her as
with a brand.
I took one step towards her from the grave. She
never moved—she never spoke. The veiled woman with
her cried out faintly. I stopped. The springs of my
life fell low, and the shuddering of an unutterable
dread crept over me from head to foot.
The woman with the veiled face moved away from
her companion, and came towards me slowly. Left by
herself, standing by herself, Marian Halcombe spoke.
It was the voice that I remembered—the voice not
changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted
face.
"My dream! my dream!" I heard her say those words
softly in the awful silence. She sank on her knees,
and raised her clasped hands to heaven. "Father!
strengthen him. Father! help him in his hour of
need."
The woman came on, slowly and silently came on. I
looked at her—at her, and at none other, from that
moment.
The voice that was praying for me faltered and
sank low—then rose on a sudden, and called
affrightedly, called despairingly to me to come
away.
But the veiled woman had possession of me, body
and soul. She stopped on one side of the grave. We
stood face to face with the tombstone between us.
She was close to the inscription on the side of the
pedestal. Her gown touched the black letters.
The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more
passionately still. "Hide your face! don't look at
her! Oh, for God's sake, spare him——"
The woman lifted her veil.
"Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde——"
Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at
me over the grave.
The
Second Epoch of the Story closes here.
