THE THIRD EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT.
I
I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one
week.
The history of the interval which I thus pass
over must remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint,
my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when I think
of it. This must not be, if I who write am to guide,
as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the
clue that leads through the windings of the story is
to remain from end to end untangled in my hands.
A life suddenly changed—its whole purpose created
afresh, its hopes and fears, its struggles, its
interests, and its sacrifices all turned at once and
for ever into a new direction—this is the prospect
which now opens before me, like the burst of view
from a mountain's top. I left my narrative in the
quiet shadow of Limmeridge church—I resume it, one
week later, in the stir and turmoil of a London
street.
The street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood. The ground floor
of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small
newsvendor's shop, and the first floor and the
second are let as furnished lodgings of the humblest
kind.
I have taken those two floors in an assumed name.
On the upper floor I live, with a room to work in, a
room to sleep in. On the lower floor, under the same
assumed name, two women live, who are described as
my sisters. I get my bread by drawing and engraving
on wood for the cheap periodicals. My sisters are
supposed to help me by taking in a little
needle-work. Our poor place of abode, our humble
calling, our assumed relationship, and our assumed
name, are all used alike as a means of hiding us in
the house-forest of London. We are numbered no
longer with the people whose lives are open and
known. I am an obscure, unnoticed man, without
patron or friend to help me. Marian Halcombe is
nothing now but my eldest sister, who provides for
our household wants by the toil of her own hands. We
two, in the estimation of others, are at once the
dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. We are
supposed to be the accomplices of mad Anne
Catherick, who claims the name, the place, and the
living personality of dead Lady Glyde.
That is our situation. That is the changed aspect
in which we three must appear, henceforth, in this
narrative, for many and many a page to come.
In the eye of reason and of law, in the
estimation of relatives and friends, according to
every received formality of civilised society,
"Laura, Lady Glyde," lay buried with her mother in
Limmeridge churchyard. Torn in her own lifetime from
the list of the living, the daughter of Philip
Fairlie and the wife of Percival Glyde might still
exist for her sister, might still exist for me, but
to all the world besides she was dead. Dead to her
uncle, who had renounced her; dead to the servants
of the house, who had failed to recognise her; dead
to the persons in authority, who had transmitted her
fortune to her husband and her aunt; dead to my
mother and my sister, who believed me to be the dupe
of an adventuress and the victim of a fraud;
socially, morally, legally—dead.
And yet alive! Alive in poverty and in hiding.
Alive, with the poor drawing-master to fight her
battle, and to win the way back for her to her place
in the world of living beings.
Did no suspicion, excited by my own knowledge of
Anne Catherick's resemblance to her, cross my mind,
when her face was first revealed to me? Not the
shadow of a suspicion, from the moment when she
lifted her veil by the side of the inscription which
recorded her death.
Before the sun of that day had set, before the
last glimpse of the home which was closed against
her had passed from our view, the farewell words I
spoke, when we parted at Limmeridge House, had been
recalled by both of us—repeated by me, recognised by
her. "If ever the time comes, when the devotion of
my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a
moment's happiness, or spare you a moment's sorrow,
will you try to remember the poor drawing-master who
has taught you?" She, who now remembered so little
of the trouble and terror of a later time,
remembered those words, and laid her poor head
innocently and trustingly on the bosom of the man
who had spoken them. In that moment, when she called
me by my name, when she said, "They have tried to
make me forget everything, Walter; but I remember
Marian, and I remember YOU"—in that moment, I, who
had long since given her my love, gave her my life,
and thanked God that it was mine to bestow on her.
Yes! the time had come. From thousands on thousands
of miles away—through forest and wilderness, where
companions stronger than I had fallen by my side,
through peril of death thrice renewed, and thrice
escaped, the Hand that leads men on the dark road to
the future had led me to meet that time. Forlorn and
disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed—her beauty
faded, her mind clouded—robbed of her station in the
world, of her place among living creatures—the
devotion I had promised, the devotion of my whole
heart and soul and strength, might be laid
blamelessly now at those dear feet. In the right of
her calamity, in the right of her friendlessness,
she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect,
to cherish, to restore. Mine to love and honour as
father and brother both. Mine to vindicate through
all risks and all sacrifices—through the hopeless
struggle against Rank and Power, through the long
fight with armed deceit and fortified Success,
through the waste of my reputation, through the loss
of my friends, through the hazard of my life.
II
My position is defined—my motives are
acknowledged. The story of Marian and the story of
Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words
(often interrupted, often inevitably confused) of
the speakers themselves, but in the words of the
brief, plain, studiously simple abstract which I
committed to writing for my own guidance, and for
the guidance of my legal adviser. So the tangled web
will be most speedily and most intelligibly
unrolled.
The story of Marian begins where the narrative of
the housekeeper at Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde's departure from her husband's house, the fact of that
departure, and the necessary statement of the
circumstances under which it had taken place, were
communicated to Miss Halcombe by the housekeeper. It
was not till some days afterwards (how many days
exactly, Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any
written memorandum on the subject, could not
undertake to say) that a letter arrived from Madame
Fosco announcing Lady Glyde's sudden death in Count
Fosco's house. The letter avoided mentioning dates,
and left it to Mrs. Michelson's discretion to break
the news at once to Miss Halcombe, or to defer doing
so until that lady's health should be more firmly
established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself
delayed, by ill health, in resuming his attendance
at Blackwater Park), Mrs. Michelson, by the doctor's
advice, and in the doctor's presence, communicated
the news, either on the day when the letter was
received, or on the day after. It is not necessary
to dwell here upon the effect which the intelligence
of Lady Glyde's sudden death produced on her sister.
It is only useful to the present purpose to say that
she was not able to travel for more than three weeks
afterwards. At the end of that time she proceeded to
London accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted
there—Mrs. Michelson previously informing Miss
Halcombe of her address, in case they might wish to
communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper Miss Halcombe
went at once to the office of Messrs. Gilmore &
Kyrle to consult with the latter gentleman in Mr.
Gilmore's absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle what
she had thought it desirable to conceal from every
one else (Mrs. Michelson included)—her suspicion of
the circumstances under which Lady Glyde was said to
have met her death. Mr. Kyrle, who had previously
given friendly proof of his anxiety to serve Miss
Halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries
as the delicate and dangerous nature of the
investigation proposed to him would permit.
To exhaust this part of the subject before going
farther, it may be mentioned that Count Fosco
offered every facility to Mr. Kyrle, on that
gentleman's stating that he was sent by Miss
Halcombe to collect such particulars as had not yet
reached her of Lady Glyde's decease. Mr. Kyrle was
placed in communication with the medical man, Mr.
Goodricke, and with the two servants. In the absence
of any means of ascertaining the exact date of Lady
Glyde's departure from Blackwater Park, the result
of the doctor's and the servants' evidence, and of
the volunteered statements of Count Fosco and his
wife, was conclusive to the mind of Mr. Kyrle. He
could only assume that the intensity of Miss
Halcombe's suffering, under the loss of her sister,
had misled her judgment in a most deplorable manner,
and he wrote her word that the shocking suspicion to
which she had alluded in his presence was, in his
opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of
foundation in truth. Thus the investigation by Mr.
Gilmore's partner began and ended.
Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe had returned to
Limmeridge House, and had there collected all the
additional information which she was able to obtain.
Mr. Fairlie had received his first intimation of
his niece's death from his sister, Madame Fosco,
this letter also not containing any exact reference
to dates. He had sanctioned his sister's proposal
that the deceased lady should be laid in her
mother's grave in Limmeridge churchyard. Count Fosco
had accompanied the remains to Cumberland, and had
attended the funeral at Limmeridge, which took place
on the 30th of July. It was followed, as a mark of
respect, by all the inhabitants of the village and
the neighbourhood. On the next day the inscription
(originally drawn out, it was said, by the aunt of
the deceased lady, and submitted for approval to her
brother, Mr. Fairlie) was engraved on one side of
the monument over the tomb.
On the day of the funeral, and for one day after
it, Count Fosco had been received as a guest at
Limmeridge House, but no interview had taken place
between Mr. Fairlie and himself, by the former
gentleman's desire. They had communicated by
writing, and through this medium Count Fosco had
made Mr. Fairlie acquainted with the details of his
niece's last illness and death. The letter
presenting this information added no new facts to
the facts already known, but one very remarkable
paragraph was contained in the postscript. It
referred to Anne Catherick.
The substance of the paragraph in question was as
follows—
It first informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick
(of whom he might hear full particulars from Miss
Halcombe when she reached Limmeridge) had been
traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater Park, and had been for the second time
placed under the charge of the medical man from
whose custody she had once escaped.
This was the first part of the postscript. The
second part warned Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick's
mental malady had been aggravated by her long
freedom from control, and that the insane hatred and
distrust of Sir Percival Glyde, which had been one
of her most marked delusions in former times, still
existed under a newly-acquired form. The unfortunate
woman's last idea in connection with Sir Percival
was the idea of annoying and distressing him, and of
elevating herself, as she supposed, in the
estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming
the character of his deceased wife, the scheme of
this personation having evidently occurred to her
after a stolen interview which she had succeeded in
obtaining with Lady Glyde, and at which she had
observed the extraordinary accidental likeness
between the deceased lady and herself. It was to the
last degree improbable that she would succeed a
second time in escaping from the Asylum, but it was
just possible she might find some means of annoying
the late Lady Glyde's relatives with letters, and in
that case Mr. Fairlie was warned beforehand how to
receive them.
The postscript, expressed in these terms, was
shown to Miss Halcombe when she arrived at
Limmeridge. There were also placed in her possession
the clothes Lady Glyde had worn, and the other
effects she had brought with her to her aunt's
house. They had been carefully collected and sent to
Cumberland by Madame Fosco.
Such was the posture of affairs when Miss
Halcombe reached Limmeridge in the early part of
September.
Shortly afterwards she was confined to her room
by a relapse, her weakened physical energies giving
way under the severe mental affliction from which
she was now suffering. On getting stronger again, in
a month's time, her suspicion of the circumstances
described as attending her sister's death still
remained unshaken. She had heard nothing in the
interim of Sir Percival Glyde, but letters had
reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most
affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband
and herself. Instead of answering these letters,
Miss Halcombe caused the house in St. John's Wood,
and the proceedings of its inmates, to be privately
watched.
Nothing doubtful was discovered. The same result
attended the next investigations, which were
secretly instituted on the subject of Mrs. Rubelle.
She had arrived in London about six months before
with her husband. They had come from Lyons, and they
had taken a house in the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square, to be fitted up as a boarding-house for
foreigners, who were expected to visit England in
large numbers to see the Exhibition of 1851. Nothing
was known against husband or wife in the
neighbourhood. They were quiet people, and they had
paid their way honestly up to the present time. The
final inquiries related to Sir Percival Glyde. He
was settled in Paris, and living there quietly in a
small circle of English and French friends.
Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest,
Miss Halcombe next determined to visit the Asylum in
which she then supposed Anne Catherick to be for the
second time confined. She had felt a strong
curiosity about the woman in former days, and she
was now doubly interested—first, in ascertaining
whether the report of Anne Catherick's attempted
personation of Lady Glyde was true, and secondly (if
it proved to be true), in discovering for herself
what the poor creature's real motives were for
attempting the deceit.
Although Count Fosco's letter to Mr. Fairlie did
not mention the address of the Asylum, that
important omission cast no difficulties in Miss
Halcombe's way. When Mr. Hartright had met Anne
Catherick at Limmeridge, she had informed him of the
locality in which the house was situated, and Miss
Halcombe had noted down the direction in her diary,
with all the other particulars of the interview
exactly as she heard them from Mr. Hartright's own
lips. Accordingly she looked back at the entry and
extracted the address—furnished herself with the
Count's letter to Mr. Fairlie as a species of
credential which might be useful to her, and started
by herself for the Asylum on the eleventh of
October.
She passed the night of the eleventh in London.
It had been her intention to sleep at the house
inhabited by Lady Glyde's old governess, but Mrs.
Vesey's agitation at the sight of her lost pupil's
nearest and dearest friend was so distressing that
Miss Halcombe considerately refrained from remaining
in her presence, and removed to a respectable
boarding-house in the neighbourhood, recommended by
Mrs. Vesey's married sister. The next day she
proceeded to the Asylum, which was situated not far
from London on the northern side of the metropolis.
She was immediately admitted to see the
proprietor.
At first he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to
let her communicate with his patient. But on her
showing him the postscript to Count Fosco's
letter—on her reminding him that she was the "Miss
Halcombe" there referred to—that she was a near
relative of the deceased Lady Glyde—and that she was
therefore naturally interested, for family reasons,
in observing for herself the extent of Anne
Catherick's delusion in relation to her late
sister—the tone and manner of the owner of the
Asylum altered, and he withdrew his objections. He
probably felt that a continued refusal, under these
circumstances, would not only be an act of
discourtesy in itself, but would also imply that the
proceedings in his establishment were not of a
nature to bear investigation by respectable
strangers.
Miss Halcombe's own impression was that the owner
of the Asylum had not been received into the
confidence of Sir Percival and the Count. His
consenting at all to let her visit his patient
seemed to afford one proof of this, and his
readiness in making admissions which could scarcely
have escaped the lips of an accomplice, certainly
appeared to furnish another.
For example, in the course of the introductory
conversation which took place, he informed Miss
Halcombe that Anne Catherick had been brought back
to him with the necessary order and certificates by
Count Fosco on the twenty-seventh of July—the Count
also producing a letter of explanations and
instructions signed by Sir Percival Glyde. On
receiving his inmate again, the proprietor of the
Asylum acknowledged that he had observed some
curious personal changes in her. Such changes no
doubt were not without precedent in his experience
of persons mentally afflicted. Insane people were
often at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly,
unlike what they were at another—the change from
better to worse, or from worse to better, in the
madness having a necessary tendency to produce
alterations of appearance externally. He allowed for
these, and he allowed also for the modification in
the form of Anne Catherick's delusion, which was
reflected no doubt in her manner and expression. But
he was still perplexed at times by certain
differences between his patient before she had
escaped and his patient since she had been brought
back. Those differences were too minute to be
described. He could not say of course that she was
absolutely altered in height or shape or complexion,
or in the colour of her hair and eyes, or in the
general form of her face—the change was something
that he felt more than something that he saw. In
short, the case had been a puzzle from the first,
and one more perplexity was added to it now.
It cannot be said that this conversation led to
the result of even partially preparing Miss
Halcombe's mind for what was to come. But it
produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon
her. She was so completely unnerved by it, that some
little time elapsed before she could summon
composure enough to follow the proprietor of the
Asylum to that part of the house in which the
inmates were confined.
On inquiry, it turned out that the supposed Anne
Catherick was then taking exercise in the grounds
attached to the establishment. One of the nurses
volunteered to conduct Miss Halcombe to the place,
the proprietor of the Asylum remaining in the house
for a few minutes to attend to a case which required
his services, and then engaging to join his visitor
in the grounds.
The nurse led Miss Halcombe to a distant part of
the property, which was prettily laid out, and after
looking about her a little, turned into a turf walk,
shaded by a shrubbery on either side. About half-way
down this walk two women were slowly approaching.
The nurse pointed to them and said, "There is Anne
Catherick, ma'am, with the attendant who waits on
her. The attendant will answer any questions you
wish to put." With those words the nurse left her to
return to the duties of the house.
Miss Halcombe advanced on her side, and the women
advanced on theirs. When they were within a dozen
paces of each other, one of the women stopped for an
instant, looked eagerly at the strange lady, shook
off the nurse's grasp on her, and the next moment
rushed into Miss Halcombe's arms. In that moment
Miss Halcombe recognised her sister—recognised the
dead-alive.
Fortunately for the success of the measures taken
subsequently, no one was present at that moment but
the nurse. She was a young woman, and she was so
startled that she was at first quite incapable of
interfering. When she was able to do so her whole
services were required by Miss Halcombe, who had for
the moment sunk altogether in the effort to keep her
own senses under the shock of the discovery. After
waiting a few minutes in the fresh air and the cool
shade, her natural energy and courage helped her a
little, and she became sufficiently mistress of
herself to feel the necessity of recalling her
presence of mind for her unfortunate sister's sake.
She obtained permission to speak alone with the
patient, on condition that they both remained well
within the nurse's view. There was no time for
questions—there was only time for Miss Halcombe to
impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of
controlling herself, and to assure her of immediate
help and rescue if she did so. The prospect of
escaping from the Asylum by obedience to her
sister's directions was sufficient to quiet Lady
Glyde, and to make her understand what was required
of her. Miss Halcombe next returned to the nurse,
placed all the gold she then had in her pocket
(three sovereigns) in the nurse's hands, and asked
when and where she could speak to her alone.
The woman was at first surprised and distrustful.
But on Miss Halcombe's declaring that she only
wanted to put some questions which she was too much
agitated to ask at that moment, and that she had no
intention of misleading the nurse into any
dereliction of duty, the woman took the money, and
proposed three o'clock on the next day as the time
for the interview. She might then slip out for half
an hour, after the patients had dined, and she would
meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high
north wall which screened the grounds of the house.
Miss Halcombe had only time to assent, and to
whisper to her sister that she should hear from her
on the next day, when the proprietor of the Asylum
joined them. He noticed his visitor's agitation,
which Miss Halcombe accounted for by saying that her
interview with Anne Catherick had a little startled
her at first. She took her leave as soon after as
possible—that is to say, as soon as she could summon
courage to force herself from the presence of her
unfortunate sister.
A very little reflection, when the capacity to
reflect returned, convinced her that any attempt to
identify Lady Glyde and to rescue her by legal
means, would, even if successful, involve a delay
that might be fatal to her sister's intellects,
which were shaken already by the horror of the
situation to which she had been consigned. By the
time Miss Halcombe had got back to London, she had
determined to effect Lady Glyde's escape privately,
by means of the nurse.
She went at once to her stockbroker, and sold out
of the funds all the little property she possessed,
amounting to rather less than seven hundred pounds.
Determined, if necessary, to pay the price of her
sister's liberty with every farthing she had in the
world, she repaired the next day, having the whole
sum about her in bank-notes, to her appointment
outside the Asylum wall.
The nurse was there. Miss Halcombe approached the
subject cautiously by many preliminary questions.
She discovered, among other particulars, that the
nurse who had in former times attended on the true
Anne Catherick had been held responsible (although
she was not to blame for it) for the patient's
escape, and had lost her place in consequence. The
same penalty, it was added, would attach to the
person then speaking to her, if the supposed Anne
Catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover,
the nurse in this case had an especial interest in
keeping her place. She was engaged to be married,
and she and her future husband were waiting till
they could save, together, between two and three
hundred pounds to start in business. The nurse's
wages were good, and she might succeed, by strict
economy, in contributing her small share towards the
sum required in two years' time.
On this hint Miss Halcombe spoke. She declared
that the supposed Anne Catherick was nearly related
to her, that she had been placed in the Asylum under
a fatal mistake, and that the nurse would be doing a
good and a Christian action in being the means of
restoring them to one another. Before there was time
to start a single objection, Miss Halcombe took four
bank-notes of a hundred pounds each from her
pocket-book, and offered them to the woman, as a
compensation for the risk she was to run, and for
the loss of her place.
The nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity
and surprise. Miss Halcombe pressed the point on her
firmly.
"You will be doing a good action," she repeated;
"you will be helping the most injured and unhappy
woman alive. There is your marriage portion for a
reward. Bring her safely to me here, and I will put
these four bank-notes into your hand before I claim
her."
"Will you give me a letter saying those words,
which I can show to my sweetheart when he asks how I
got the money?" inquired the woman.
"I will bring the letter with me, ready written
and signed," answered Miss Halcombe.
"Then I'll risk it," said the nurse.
"When?"
"To-morrow."
It was hastily agreed between them that Miss
Halcombe should return early the next morning and
wait out of sight among the trees—always, however,
keeping near the quiet spot of ground under the
north wall. The nurse could fix no time for her
appearance, caution requiring that she should wait
and be guided by circumstances. On that
understanding they separated.
Miss Halcombe was at her place, with the promised
letter and the promised bank-notes, before ten the
next morning. She waited more than an hour and a
half. At the end of that time the nurse came quickly
round the corner of the wall holding Lady Glyde by
the arm. The moment they met Miss Halcombe put the
bank-notes and the letter into her hand, and the
sisters were united again.
The nurse had dressed Lady Glyde, with excellent
forethought, in a bonnet, veil, and shawl of her
own. Miss Halcombe only detained her to suggest a
means of turning the pursuit in a false direction,
when the escape was discovered at the Asylum. She
was to go back to the house, to mention in the
hearing of the other nurses that Anne Catherick had
been inquiring latterly about the distance from
London to Hampshire, to wait till the last moment,
before discovery was inevitable, and then to give
the alarm that Anne was missing. The supposed
inquiries about Hampshire, when communicated to the
owner of the Asylum, would lead him to imagine that
his patient had returned to Blackwater Park, under
the influence of the delusion which made her persist
in asserting herself to be Lady Glyde, and the first
pursuit would, in all probability, be turned in that
direction.
The nurse consented to follow these suggestions,
the more readily as they offered her the means of
securing herself against any worse consequences than
the loss of her place, by remaining in the Asylum,
and so maintaining the appearance of innocence, at
least. She at once returned to the house, and Miss
Halcombe lost no time in taking her sister back with
her to London. They caught the afternoon train to
Carlisle the same afternoon, and arrived at
Limmeridge, without accident or difficulty of any
kind, that night.
During the latter part of their journey they were
alone in the carriage, and Miss Halcombe was able to
collect such remembrances of the past as her
sister's confused and weakened memory was able to
recall. The terrible story of the conspiracy so
obtained was presented in fragments, sadly
incoherent in themselves, and widely detached from
each other. Imperfect as the revelation was, it must
nevertheless be recorded here before this
explanatory narrative closes with the events of the
next day at Limmeridge House.
Lady Glyde's recollection of the events which followed her departure
from Blackwater Park began with her arrival at the
London terminus of the South Western Railway. She
had omitted to make a memorandum beforehand of the
day on which she took the journey. All hope of
fixing that important date by any evidence of hers,
or of Mrs. Michelson's, must be given up for lost.
On the arrival of the train at the platform Lady
Glyde found Count Fosco waiting for her. He was at
the carriage door as soon as the porter could open
it. The train was unusually crowded, and there was
great confusion in getting the luggage. Some person
whom Count Fosco brought with him procured the
luggage which belonged to Lady Glyde. It was marked
with her name. She drove away alone with the Count
in a vehicle which she did not particularly notice
at the time.
Her first question, on leaving the terminus,
referred to Miss Halcombe. The Count informed her
that Miss Halcombe had not yet gone to Cumberland,
after-consideration having caused him to doubt the
prudence of her taking so long a journey without
some days' previous rest.
Lady Glyde next inquired whether her sister was
then staying in the Count's house. Her recollection
of the answer was confused, her only distinct
impression in relation to it being that the Count
declared he was then taking her to see Miss
Halcombe. Lady Glyde's experience of London was so
limited that she could not tell, at the time,
through what streets they were driving. But they
never left the streets, and they never passed any
gardens or trees. When the carriage stopped, it
stopped in a small street behind a square—a square
in which there were shops, and public buildings, and
many people. From these recollections (of which Lady
Glyde was certain) it seems quite clear that Count
Fosco did not take her to his own residence in the
suburb of St. John's Wood.
They entered the house, and went upstairs to a
back room, either on the first or second floor. The
luggage was carefully brought in. A female servant
opened the door, and a man with a dark beard,
apparently a foreigner, met them in the hall, and
with great politeness showed them the way upstairs.
In answer to Lady Glyde's inquiries, the Count
assured her that Miss Halcombe was in the house, and
that she should be immediately informed of her
sister's arrival. He and the foreigner then went
away and left her by herself in the room. It was
poorly furnished as a sitting-room, and it looked
out on the backs of houses.
The place was remarkably quiet—no footsteps went
up or down the stairs—she only heard in the room
beneath her a dull, rumbling sound of men's voices
talking. Before she had been long left alone the
Count returned, to explain that Miss Halcombe was
then taking rest, and could not be disturbed for a
little while. He was accompanied into the room by a
gentleman (an Englishman), whom he begged to present
as a friend of his.
After this singular introduction—in the course of
which no names, to the best of Lady Glyde's
recollection, had been mentioned—she was left alone
with the stranger. He was perfectly civil, but he
startled and confused her by some odd questions
about herself, and by looking at her, while he asked
them, in a strange manner. After remaining a short
time he went out, and a minute or two afterwards a
second stranger—also an Englishman—came in. This
person introduced himself as another friend of Count
Fosco's, and he, in his turn, looked at her very
oddly, and asked some curious questions—never, as
well as she could remember, addressing her by name,
and going out again, after a little while, like the
first man. By this time she was so frightened about
herself, and so uneasy about her sister, that she
had thoughts of venturing downstairs again, and
claiming the protection and assistance of the only
woman she had seen in the house—the servant who
answered the door.
Just as she had risen from her chair, the Count
came back into the room.
The moment he appeared she asked anxiously how
long the meeting between her sister and herself was
to be still delayed. At first he returned an evasive
answer, but on being pressed, he acknowledged, with
great apparent reluctance, that Miss Halcombe was by
no means so well as he had hitherto represented her
to be. His tone and manner, in making this reply, so
alarmed Lady Glyde, or rather so painfully increased
the uneasiness which she had felt in the company of
the two strangers, that a sudden faintness overcame
her, and she was obliged to ask for a glass of
water. The Count called from the door for water, and
for a bottle of smelling-salts. Both were brought in
by the foreign-looking man with the beard. The
water, when Lady Glyde attempted to drink it, had so
strange a taste that it increased her faintness, and
she hastily took the bottle of salts from Count
Fosco, and smelt at it. Her head became giddy on the
instant. The Count caught the bottle as it dropped
out of her hand, and the last impression of which
she was conscious was that he held it to her
nostrils again.
From this point her recollections were found to
be confused, fragmentary, and difficult to reconcile
with any reasonable probability.
Her own impression was that she recovered her
senses later in the evening, that she then left the
house, that she went (as she had previously arranged
to go, at Blackwater Park) to Mrs. Vesey's—that she
drank tea there, and that she passed the night under
Mrs. Vesey's roof. She was totally unable to say
how, or when, or in what company she left the house
to which Count Fosco had brought her. But she
persisted in asserting that she had been to Mrs.
Vesey's, and still more extraordinary, that she had
been helped to undress and get to bed by Mrs.
Rubelle! She could not remember what the
conversation was at Mrs. Vesey's or whom she saw
there besides that lady, or why Mrs. Rubelle should
have been present in the house to help her.
Her recollection of what happened to her the next
morning was still more vague and unreliable.
She had some dim idea of driving out (at what
hour she could not say) with Count Fosco, and with
Mrs. Rubelle again for a female attendant. But when,
and why, she left Mrs. Vesey she could not tell;
neither did she know what direction the carriage
drove in, or where it set her down, or whether the
Count and Mrs. Rubelle did or did not remain with
her all the time she was out. At this point in her
sad story there was a total blank. She had no
impressions of the faintest kind to communicate—no
idea whether one day, or more than one day, had
passed—until she came to herself suddenly in a
strange place, surrounded by women who were all
unknown to her.
This was the Asylum. Here she first heard herself
called by Anne Catherick's name, and here, as a last
remarkable circumstance in the story of the
conspiracy, her own eyes informed her that she had
Anne Catherick's clothes on. The nurse, on the first
night in the Asylum, had shown her the marks on each
article of her underclothing as it was taken off,
and had said, not at all irritably or unkindly,
"Look at your own name on your own clothes, and
don't worry us all any more about being Lady Glyde.
She's dead and buried, and you're alive and hearty.
Do look at your clothes now! There it is, in good
marking ink, and there you will find it on all your
old things, which we have kept in the house—Anne
Catherick, as plain as print!" And there it was,
when Miss Halcombe examined the linen her sister
wore, on the night of their arrival at Limmeridge
House.
These were the only recollections—all of them uncertain, and some of
them contradictory—which could be extracted from
Lady Glyde by careful questioning on the journey to
Cumberland. Miss Halcombe abstained from pressing
her with any inquiries relating to events in the
Asylum—her mind being but too evidently unfit to
bear the trial of reverting to them. It was known,
by the voluntary admission of the owner of the
mad-house, that she was received there on the
twenty-seventh of July. From that date until the
fifteenth of October (the day of her rescue) she had
been under restraint, her identity with Anne
Catherick systematically asserted, and her sanity,
from first to last, practically denied. Faculties
less delicately balanced, constitutions less
tenderly organised, must have suffered under such an
ordeal as this. No man could have gone through it
and come out of it unchanged.
Arriving at Limmeridge late on the evening of the
fifteenth, Miss Halcombe wisely resolved not to
attempt the assertion of Lady Glyde's identity until
the next day.
The first thing in the morning she went to Mr.
Fairlie's room, and using all possible cautions and
preparations beforehand, at last told him in so many
words what had happened. As soon as his first
astonishment and alarm had subsided, he angrily
declared that Miss Halcombe had allowed herself to
be duped by Anne Catherick. He referred her to Count
Fosco's letter, and to what she had herself told him
of the personal resemblance between Anne and his
deceased niece, and he positively declined to admit
to his presence, even for one minute only, a
madwoman, whom it was an insult and an outrage to
have brought into his house at all.
Miss Halcombe left the room—waited till the first
heat of her indignation had passed away—decided on
reflection that Mr. Fairlie should see his niece in
the interests of common humanity before he closed
his doors on her as a stranger—and thereupon,
without a word of previous warning, took Lady Glyde
with her to his room. The servant was posted at the
door to prevent their entrance, but Miss Halcombe
insisted on passing him, and made her way into Mr.
Fairlie's presence, leading her sister by the hand.
The scene that followed, though it only lasted
for a few minutes, was too painful to be
described—Miss Halcombe herself shrank from
referring to it. Let it be enough to say that Mr.
Fairlie declared, in the most positive terms, that
he did not recognise the woman who had been brought
into his room—that he saw nothing in her face and
manner to make him doubt for a moment that his niece
lay buried in Limmeridge churchyard, and that he
would call on the law to protect him if before the
day was over she was not removed from the house.
Taking the very worst view of Mr. Fairlie's
selfishness, indolence, and habitual want of
feeling, it was manifestly impossible to suppose
that he was capable of such infamy as secretly
recognising and openly disowning his brother's
child. Miss Halcombe humanely and sensibly allowed
all due force to the influence of prejudice and
alarm in preventing him from fairly exercising his
perceptions, and accounted for what had happened in
that way. But when she next put the servants to the
test, and found that they too were, in every case,
uncertain, to say the least of it, whether the lady
presented to them was their young mistress or Anne
Catherick, of whose resemblance to her they had all
heard, the sad conclusion was inevitable that the
change produced in Lady Glyde's face and manner by
her imprisonment in the Asylum was far more serious
than Miss Halcombe had at first supposed. The vile
deception which had asserted her death defied
exposure even in the house where she was born, and
among the people with whom she had lived.
In a less critical situation the effort need not
have been given up as hopeless even yet.
For example, the maid, Fanny, who happened to be
then absent from Limmeridge, was expected back in
two days, and there would be a chance of gaining her
recognition to start with, seeing that she had been
in much more constant communication with her
mistress, and had been much more heartily attached
to her than the other servants. Again, Lady Glyde
might have been privately kept in the house or in
the village to wait until her health was a little
recovered and her mind was a little steadied again.
When her memory could be once more trusted to serve
her, she would naturally refer to persons and events
in the past with a certainty and a familiarity which
no impostor could simulate, and so the fact of her
identity, which her own appearance had failed to
establish, might subsequently be proved, with time
to help her, by the surer test of her own words.
But the circumstances under which she had
regained her freedom rendered all recourse to such
means as these simply impracticable. The pursuit
from the Asylum, diverted to Hampshire for the time
only, would infallibly next take the direction of
Cumberland. The persons appointed to seek the
fugitive might arrive at Limmeridge House at a few
hours' notice, and in Mr. Fairlie's present temper
of mind they might count on the immediate exertion
of his local influence and authority to assist them.
The commonest consideration for Lady Glyde's safety
forced on Miss Halcombe the necessity of resigning
the struggle to do her justice, and of removing her
at once from the place of all others that was now
most dangerous to her—the neighbourhood of her own
home.
An immediate return to London was the first and
wisest measure of security which suggested itself.
In the great city all traces of them might be most
speedily and most surely effaced. There were no
preparations to make—no farewell words of kindness
to exchange with any one. On the afternoon of that
memorable day of the sixteenth Miss Halcombe roused
her sister to a last exertion of courage, and
without a living soul to wish them well at parting,
the two took their way into the world alone, and
turned their backs for ever on Limmeridge House.
They had passed the hill above the churchyard,
when Lady Glyde insisted on turning back to look her
last at her mother's grave. Miss Halcombe tried to
shake her resolution, but, in this one instance,
tried in vain. She was immovable. Her dim eyes lit
with a sudden fire, and flashed through the veil
that hung over them—her wasted fingers strengthened
moment by moment round the friendly arm by which
they had held so listlessly till this time. I
believe in my soul that the hand of God was pointing
their way back to them, and that the most innocent
and the most afflicted of His creatures was chosen
in that dread moment to see it.
They retraced their steps to the burial-ground,
and by that act sealed the future of our three
lives.
III
This was the story of the past—the story so far
as we knew it then.
Two obvious conclusions presented themselves to
my mind after hearing it. In the first place, I saw
darkly what the nature of the conspiracy had been,
how chances had been watched, and how circumstances
had been handled to ensure impunity to a daring and
an intricate crime. While all details were still a
mystery to me, the vile manner in which the personal
resemblance between the woman in white and Lady
Glyde had been turned to account was clear beyond a
doubt. It was plain that Anne Catherick had been
introduced into Count Fosco's house as Lady Glyde—it
was plain that Lady Glyde had taken the dead woman's
place in the Asylum—the substitution having been so
managed as to make innocent people (the doctor and
the two servants certainly, and the owner of the
mad-house in all probability) accomplices in the
crime.
The second conclusion came as the necessary
consequence of the first. We three had no mercy to
expect from Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. The
success of the conspiracy had brought with it a
clear gain to those two men of thirty thousand
pounds—twenty thousand to one, ten thousand to the
other through his wife. They had that interest, as
well as other interests, in ensuring their impunity
from exposure, and they would leave no stone
unturned, no sacrifice unattempted, no treachery
untried, to discover the place in which their victim
was concealed, and to part her from the only friends
she had in the world—Marian Halcombe and myself.
The sense of this serious peril—a peril which
every day and every hour might bring nearer and
nearer to us—was the one influence that guided me in
fixing the place of our retreat. I chose it in the
far east of London, where there were fewest idle
people to lounge and look about them in the streets.
I chose it in a poor and a populous
neighbourhood—because the harder the struggle for
existence among the men and women about us, the less
the risk of their having the time or taking the
pains to notice chance strangers who came among
them. These were the great advantages I looked to,
but our locality was a gain to us also in another
and a hardly less important respect. We could live
cheaply by the daily work of my hands, and could
save every farthing we possessed to forward the
purpose, the righteous purpose, of redressing an
infamous wrong—which, from first to last, I now kept
steadily in view.
In a week's time Marian Halcombe and I had
settled how the course of our new lives should be
directed.
There were no other lodgers in the house, and we
had the means of going in and out without passing
through the shop. I arranged, for the present at
least, that neither Marian nor Laura should stir
outside the door without my being with them, and
that in my absence from home they should let no one
into their rooms on any pretence whatever. This rule
established, I went to a friend whom I had known in
former days—a wood engraver in large practice—to
seek for employment, telling him, at the same time,
that I had reasons for wishing to remain unknown.
He at once concluded that I was in debt,
expressed his regret in the usual forms, and then
promised to do what he could to assist me. I left
his false impression undisturbed, and accepted the
work he had to give. He knew that he could trust my
experience and my industry. I had what he wanted,
steadiness and facility, and though my earnings were
but small, they sufficed for our necessities. As
soon as we could feel certain of this, Marian
Halcombe and I put together what we possessed. She
had between two and three hundred pounds left of her
own property, and I had nearly as much remaining
from the purchase-money obtained by the sale of my
drawing-master's practice before I left England.
Together we made up between us more than four
hundred pounds. I deposited this little fortune in a
bank, to be kept for the expense of those secret
inquiries and investigations which I was determined
to set on foot, and to carry on by myself if I could
find no one to help me. We calculated our weekly
expenditure to the last farthing, and we never
touched our little fund except in Laura's interests
and for Laura's sake.
The house-work, which, if we had dared trust a
stranger near us, would have been done by a servant,
was taken on the first day, taken as her own right,
by Marian Halcombe. "What a woman's hands ARE fit
for," she said, "early and late, these hands of mine
shall do." They trembled as she held them out. The
wasted arms told their sad story of the past, as she
turned up the sleeves of the poor plain dress that
she wore for safety's sake; but the unquenchable
spirit of the woman burnt bright in her even yet. I
saw the big tears rise thick in her eyes, and fall
slowly over her cheeks as she looked at me. She
dashed them away with a touch of her old energy, and
smiled with a faint reflection of her old good
spirits. "Don't doubt my courage, Walter," she
pleaded, "it's my weakness that cries, not ME. The
house-work shall conquer it if I can't." And she
kept her word—the victory was won when we met in the
evening, and she sat down to rest. Her large steady
black eyes looked at me with a flash of their bright
firmness of bygone days. "I am not quite broken down
yet," she said. "I am worth trusting with my share
of the work." Before I could answer, she added in a
whisper, "And worth trusting with my share in the
risk and the danger too. Remember that, if the time
comes!"
I did remember it when the time came.
As early as the end of October the daily course of our lives had
assumed its settled direction, and we three were as
completely isolated in our place of concealment as
if the house we lived in had been a desert island,
and the great network of streets and the thousands
of our fellow-creatures all round us the waters of
an illimitable sea. I could now reckon on some
leisure time for considering what my future plan of
action should be, and how I might arm myself most
securely at the outset for the coming struggle with
Sir Percival and the Count.
I gave up all hope of appealing to my recognition
of Laura, or to Marian's recognition of her, in
proof of her identity. If we had loved her less
dearly, if the instinct implanted in us by that love
had not been far more certain than any exercise of
reasoning, far keener than any process of
observation, even we might have hesitated on first
seeing her.
The outward changes wrought by the suffering and
the terror of the past had fearfully, almost
hopelessly, strengthened the fatal resemblance
between Anne Catherick and herself. In my narrative
of events at the time of my residence in Limmeridge
House, I have recorded, from my own observation of
the two, how the likeness, striking as it was when
viewed generally, failed in many important points of
similarity when tested in detail. In those former
days, if they had both been seen together side by
side, no person could for a moment have mistaken
them one for the other—as has happened often in the
instances of twins. I could not say this now. The
sorrow and suffering which I had once blamed myself
for associating even by a passing thought with the
future of Laura Fairlie, HAD set their profaning
marks on the youth and beauty of her face; and the
fatal resemblance which I had once seen and
shuddered at seeing, in idea only, was now a real
and living resemblance which asserted itself before
my own eyes. Strangers, acquaintances, friends even
who could not look at her as we looked, if she had
been shown to them in the first days of her rescue
from the Asylum, might have doubted if she were the
Laura Fairlie they had once seen, and doubted
without blame.
The one remaining chance, which I had at first
thought might be trusted to serve us—the chance of
appealing to her recollection of persons and events
with which no impostor could be familiar, was
proved, by the sad test of our later experience, to
be hopeless. Every little caution that Marian and I
practised towards her—every little remedy we tried,
to strengthen and steady slowly the weakened, shaken
faculties, was a fresh protest in itself against the
risk of turning her mind back on the troubled and
the terrible past.
The only events of former days which we ventured
on encouraging her to recall were the little trivial
domestic events of that happy time at Limmeridge,
when I first went there and taught her to draw. The
day when I roused those remembrances by showing her
the sketch of the summer-house which she had given
me on the morning of our farewell, and which had
never been separated from me since, was the birthday
of our first hope. Tenderly and gradually, the
memory of the old walks and drives dawned upon her,
and the poor weary pining eyes looked at Marian and
at me with a new interest, with a faltering
thoughtfulness in them, which from that moment we
cherished and kept alive. I bought her a little box
of colours, and a sketch-book like the old
sketch-book which I had seen in her hands on the
morning that we first met. Once again—oh me, once
again!—at spare hours saved from my work, in the
dull London light, in the poor London room, I sat by
her side to guide the faltering touch, to help the
feeble hand. Day by day I raised and raised the new
interest till its place in the blank of her
existence was at last assured—till she could think
of her drawing and talk of it, and patiently
practise it by herself, with some faint reflection
of the innocent pleasure in my encouragement, the
growing enjoyment in her own progress, which
belonged to the lost life and the lost happiness of
past days.
We helped her mind slowly by this simple means,
we took her out between us to walk on fine days, in
a quiet old City square near at hand, where there
was nothing to confuse or alarm her—we spared a few
pounds from the fund at the banker's to get her
wine, and the delicate strengthening food that she
required—we amused her in the evenings with
children's games at cards, with scrap-books full of
prints which I borrowed from the engraver who
employed me—by these, and other trifling attentions
like them, we composed her and steadied her, and
hoped all things, as cheerfully as we could from
time and care, and love that never neglected and
never despaired of her. But to take her mercilessly
from seclusion and repose—to confront her with
strangers, or with acquaintances who were little
better than strangers—to rouse the painful
impressions of her past life which we had so
carefully hushed to rest—this, even in her own
interests, we dared not do. Whatever sacrifices it
cost, whatever long, weary, heartbreaking delays it
involved, the wrong that had been inflicted on her,
if mortal means could grapple it, must be redressed
without her knowledge and without her help.
This resolution settled, it was next necessary to
decide how the first risk should be ventured, and
what the first proceedings should be.
After consulting with Marian, I resolved to begin
by gathering together as many facts as could be
collected—then to ask the advice of Mr. Kyrle (whom
we knew we could trust), and to ascertain from him,
in the first instance, if the legal remedy lay
fairly within our reach. I owed it to Laura's
interests not to stake her whole future on my own
unaided exertions, so long as there was the faintest
prospect of strengthening our position by obtaining
reliable assistance of any kind.
The first source of information to which I
applied was the journal kept at Blackwater Park by
Marian Halcombe. There were passages in this diary
relating to myself which she thought it best that I
should not see. Accordingly, she read to me from the
manuscript, and I took the notes I wanted as she
went on. We could only find time to pursue this
occupation by sitting up late at night. Three nights
were devoted to the purpose, and were enough to put
me in possession of all that Marian could tell.
My next proceeding was to gain as much additional
evidence as I could procure from other people
without exciting suspicion. I went myself to Mrs.
Vesey to ascertain if Laura's impression of having
slept there was correct or not. In this case, from
consideration for Mrs. Vesey's age and infirmity,
and in all subsequent cases of the same kind from
considerations of caution, I kept our real position
a secret, and was always careful to speak of Laura
as "the late Lady Glyde."
Mrs. Vesey's answer to my inquiries only
confirmed the apprehensions which I had previously
felt. Laura had certainly written to say she would
pass the night under the roof of her old friend—but
she had never been near the house.
Her mind in this instance, and, as I feared, in
other instances besides, confusedly presented to her
something which she had only intended to do in the
false light of something which she had really done.
The unconscious contradiction of herself was easy to
account for in this way—but it was likely to lead to
serious results. It was a stumble on the threshold
at starting—it was a flaw in the evidence which told
fatally against us.
When I next asked for the letter which Laura had
written to Mrs. Vesey from Blackwater Park, it was
given to me without the envelope, which had been
thrown into the wastepaper basket, and long since
destroyed. In the letter itself no date was
mentioned—not even the day of the week. It only
contained these lines:—"Dearest Mrs. Vesey, I am in
sad distress and anxiety, and I may come to your
house to-morrow night, and ask for a bed. I can't
tell you what is the matter in this letter—I write
it in such fear of being found out that I can fix my
mind on nothing. Pray be at home to see me. I will
give you a thousand kisses, and tell you everything.
Your affectionate Laura." What help was there in
those lines? None.
On returning from Mrs. Vesey's, I instructed
Marian to write (observing the same caution which I
practised myself) to Mrs. Michelson. She was to
express, if she pleased, some general suspicion of
Count Fosco's conduct, and she was to ask the
housekeeper to supply us with a plain statement of
events, in the interests of truth. While we were
waiting for the answer, which reached us in a week's
time, I went to the doctor in St. John's Wood,
introducing myself as sent by Miss Halcombe to
collect, if possible, more particulars of her
sister's last illness than Mr. Kyrle had found the
time to procure. By Mr. Goodricke's assistance, I
obtained a copy of the certificate of death, and an
interview with the woman (Jane Gould) who had been
employed to prepare the body for the grave. Through
this person I also discovered a means of
communicating with the servant, Hester Pinhorn. She
had recently left her place in consequence of a
disagreement with her mistress, and she was lodging
with some people in the neighbourhood whom Mrs.
Gould knew. In the manner here indicated I obtained
the Narratives of the housekeeper, of the doctor, of
Jane Gould, and of Hester Pinhorn, exactly as they
are presented in these pages.
Furnished with such additional evidence as these
documents afforded, I considered myself to be
sufficiently prepared for a consultation with Mr.
Kyrle, and Marian wrote accordingly to mention my
name to him, and to specify the day and hour at
which I requested to see him on private business.
There was time enough in the morning for me to
take Laura out for her walk as usual, and to see her
quietly settled at her drawing afterwards. She
looked up at me with a new anxiety in her face as I
rose to leave the room, and her fingers began to toy
doubtfully, in the old way, with the brushes and
pencils on the table.
"You are not tired of me yet?" she said. "You are
not going away because you are tired of me? I will
try to do better—I will try to get well. Are you as
fond of me, Walter as you used to be, now I am so
pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?"
She spoke as a child might have spoken, she
showed me her thoughts as a child might have shown
them. I waited a few minutes longer—waited to tell
her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever
been in the past times. "Try to get well again," I
said, encouraging the new hope in the future which I
saw dawning in her mind, "try to get well again, for
Marian's sake and for mine."
"Yes," she said to herself, returning to her
drawing. "I must try, because they are both so fond
of me." She suddenly looked up again. "Don't be gone
long! I can't get on with my drawing, Walter, when
you are not here to help me."
"I shall soon be back, my darling—soon be back to
see how you are getting on."
My voice faltered a little in spite of me. I
forced myself from the room. It was no time, then,
for parting with the self-control which might yet
serve me in my need before the day was out.
As I opened the door, I beckoned to Marian to
follow me to the stairs. It was necessary to prepare
her for a result which I felt might sooner or later
follow my showing myself openly in the streets.
"I shall, in all probability, be back in a few
hours," I said, "and you will take care, as usual,
to let no one inside the doors in my absence. But if
anything happens——"
"What can happen?" she interposed quickly. "Tell
me plainly, Walter, if there is any danger, and I
shall know how to meet it."
"The only danger," I replied, "is that Sir
Percival Glyde may have been recalled to London by
the news of Laura's escape. You are aware that he
had me watched before I left England, and that he
probably knows me by sight, although I don't know
him?"
She laid her hand on my shoulder and looked at me
in anxious silence. I saw she understood the serious
risk that threatened us.
"It is not likely," I said, "that I shall be seen
in London again so soon, either by Sir Percival
himself or by the persons in his employ. But it is
barely possible that an accident may happen. In that
case, you will not be alarmed if I fail to return
to-night, and you will satisfy any inquiry of
Laura's with the best excuse that you can make for
me? If I find the least reason to suspect that I am
watched, I will take good care that no spy follows
me back to this house. Don't doubt my return,
Marian, however it may be delayed—and fear nothing."
"Nothing!" she answered firmly. "You shall not
regret, Walter, that you have only a woman to help
you." She paused, and detained me for a moment
longer. "Take care!" she said, pressing my hand
anxiously—"take care!"
I left her, and set forth to pave the way for
discovery—the dark and doubtful way, which began at
the lawyer's door.
IV
No circumstance of the slightest importance
happened on my way to the offices of Messrs. Gilmore
& Kyrle, in Chancery Lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a
consideration occurred to me which I deeply
regretted not having thought of before. The
information derived from Marian's diary made it a
matter of certainty that Count Fosco had opened her
first letter from Blackwater Park to Mr. Kyrle, and
had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second.
He was therefore well aware of the address of the
office, and he would naturally infer that if Marian
wanted advice and assistance, after Laura's escape
from the Asylum, she would apply once more to the
experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case the office in
Chancery Lane was the very first place which he and
Sir Percival would cause to be watched, and if the
same persons were chosen for the purpose who had
been employed to follow me, before my departure from
England, the fact of my return would in all
probability be ascertained on that very day. I had
thought, generally, of the chances of my being
recognised in the streets, but the special risk
connected with the office had never occurred to me
until the present moment. It was too late now to
repair this unfortunate error in judgment—too late
to wish that I had made arrangements for meeting the
lawyer in some place privately appointed beforehand.
I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving
Chancery Lane, and not to go straight home again
under any circumstances whatever.
After waiting a few minutes I was shown into Mr.
Kyrle's private room. He was a pale, thin, quiet,
self-possessed man, with a very attentive eye, a
very low voice, and a very undemonstrative
manner—not (as I judged) ready with his sympathy
where strangers were concerned, and not at all easy
to disturb in his professional composure. A better
man for my purpose could hardly have been found. If
he committed himself to a decision at all, and if
the decision was favourable, the strength of our
case was as good as proved from that moment.
"Before I enter on the business which brings me
here," I said, "I ought to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that
the shortest statement I can make of it may occupy
some little time."
"My time is at Miss Halcombe's disposal," he
replied. "Where any interests of hers are concerned,
I represent my partner personally, as well as
professionally. It was his request that I should do
so, when he ceased to take an active part in
business."
"May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in
England?"
"He is not, he is living with his relatives in
Germany. His health has improved, but the period of
his return is still uncertain."
While we were exchanging these few preliminary
words, he had been searching among the papers before
him, and he now produced from them a sealed letter.
I thought he was about to hand the letter to me,
but, apparently changing his mind, he placed it by
itself on the table, settled himself in his chair,
and silently waited to hear what I had to say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of
any sort, I entered on my narrative, and put him in
full possession of the events which have already
been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones,
I startled him out of his professional composure.
Expressions of incredulity and surprise, which he
could not repress, interrupted me several times
before I had done. I persevered, however, to the
end, and as soon as I reached it, boldly asked the
one important question—
"What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?"
He was too cautious to commit himself to an
answer without taking time to recover his
self-possession first.
"Before I give my opinion," he said, "I must beg
permission to clear the ground by a few questions."
He put the questions—sharp, suspicious,
unbelieving questions, which clearly showed me, as
they proceeded, that he thought I was the victim of
a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but
for my introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether
I was not attempting the perpetration of a
cunningly-designed fraud.
"Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr.
Kyrle?" I asked, when he had done examining me.
"So far as your own convictions are concerned, I
am certain you have spoken the truth," he replied.
"I have the highest esteem for Miss Halcombe, and I
have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman
whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind.
I will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for
courtesy's sake and for argument's sake, that the
identity of Lady Glyde as a living person is a
proved fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you
come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as
a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr.
Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case."
"You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle."
"I will try to put it plainly as well. The
evidence of Lady Glyde's death is, on the face of
it, clear and satisfactory. There is her aunt's
testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco's
house, that she fell ill, and that she died. There
is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove
the death, and to show that it took place under
natural circumstances. There is the fact of the
funeral at Limmeridge, and there is the assertion of
the inscription on the tomb. That is the case you
want to overthrow. What evidence have you to support
the declaration on your side that the person who
died and was buried was not Lady Glyde? Let us run
through the main points of your statement and see
what they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to a certain
private Asylum, and there sees a certain female
patient. It is known that a woman named Anne
Catherick, and bearing an extraordinary personal
resemblance to Lady Glyde, escaped from the Asylum;
it is known that the person received there last July
was received as Anne Catherick brought back; it is
known that the gentleman who brought her back warned
Mr. Fairlie that it was part of her insanity to be
bent on personating his dead niece; and it is known
that she did repeatedly declare herself in the
Asylum (where no one believed her) to be Lady Glyde.
These are all facts. What have you to set against
them? Miss Halcombe's recognition of the woman,
which recognition after-events invalidate or
contradict. Does Miss Halcombe assert her supposed
sister's identity to the owner of the Asylum, and
take legal means for rescuing her? No, she secretly
bribes a nurse to let her escape. When the patient
has been released in this doubtful manner, and is
taken to Mr. Fairlie, does he recognise her? Is he
staggered for one instant in his belief of his
niece's death? No. Do the servants recognise her?
No. Is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her
own identity, and to stand the test of further
proceedings? No, she is privately taken to London.
In the meantime you have recognised her also, but
you are not a relative—you are not even an old
friend of the family. The servants contradict you,
and Mr. Fairlie contradicts Miss Halcombe, and the
supposed Lady Glyde contradicts herself. She
declares she passed the night in London at a certain
house. Your own evidence shows that she has never
been near that house, and your own admission is that
her condition of mind prevents you from producing
her anywhere to submit to investigation, and to
speak for herself. I pass over minor points of
evidence on both sides to save time, and I ask you,
if this case were to go now into a court of law—to
go before a jury, bound to take facts as they
reasonably appear—where are your proofs?"
I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I
could answer him. It was the first time the story of
Laura and the story of Marian had been presented to
me from a stranger's point of view—the first time
the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had
been made to show themselves in their true
character.
"There can be no doubt," I said, "that the facts,
as you have stated them, appear to tell against us,
but——"
"But you think those facts can be explained
away," interposed Mr. Kyrle. "Let me tell you the
result of my experience on that point. When an
English jury has to choose between a plain fact ON
the surface and a long explanation UNDER the
surface, it always takes the fact in preference to
the explanation. For example, Lady Glyde (I call the
lady you represent by that name for argument's sake)
declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is
proved that she has not slept at that house. You
explain this circumstance by entering into the state
of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical
conclusion. I don't say the conclusion is wrong—I
only say that the jury will take the fact of her
contradicting herself in preference to any reason
for the contradiction that you can offer."
"But is it not possible," I urged, "by dint of
patience and exertion, to discover additional
evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred
pounds——"
He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and
shook his head.
"Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your
own point of view," he said. "If you are right about
Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which I don't
admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be
thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence.
Every obstacle of litigation would be raised—every
point in the case would be systematically
contested—and by the time we had spent our thousands
instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in
all probability, be against us. Questions of
identity, where instances of personal resemblance
are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of
all questions to settle—the hardest, even when they
are free from the complications which beset the case
we are now discussing. I really see no prospect of
throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary
affair. Even if the person buried in Limmeridge
churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in life, on
your own showing, so like her, that we should gain
nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority
to have the body exhumed. In short, there is no
case, Mr. Hartright—there is really no case."
I was determined to believe that there WAS a
case, and in that determination shifted my ground,
and appealed to him once more.
"Are there not other proofs that we might produce
besides the proof of identity?" I asked.
"Not as you are situated," he replied. "The
simplest and surest of all proofs, the proof by
comparison of dates, is, as I understand, altogether
out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy
between the date of the doctor's certificate and the
date of Lady Glyde's journey to London, the matter
would wear a totally different aspect, and I should
be the first to say, Let us go on."
"That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle."
"On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright,
you will have a case. If you have any prospect, at
this moment, of getting at it—tell me, and we shall
see if I can advise you."
I considered. The housekeeper could not help
us—Laura could not help us—Marian could not help us.
In all probability, the only persons in existence
who knew the date were Sir Percival and the Count.
"I can think of no means of ascertaining the date
at present," I said, "because I can think of no
persons who are sure to know it, but Count Fosco and
Sir Percival Glyde."
Mr. Kyrle's calmly attentive face relaxed, for
the first time, into a smile.
"With your opinion of the conduct of those two
gentlemen," he said, "you don't expect help in that
quarter, I presume? If they have combined to gain
large sums of money by a conspiracy, they are not
likely to confess it, at any rate."
"They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle."
"By whom?"
"By me."
We both rose. He looked me attentively in the
face with more appearance of interest than he had
shown yet. I could see that I had perplexed him a
little.
"You are very determined," he said. "You have, no
doubt, a personal motive for proceeding, into which
it is not my business to inquire. If a case can be
produced in the future, I can only say, my best
assistance is at your service. At the same time I
must warn you, as the money question always enters
into the law question, that I see little hope, even
if you ultimately established the fact of Lady
Glyde's being alive, of recovering her fortune. The
foreigner would probably leave the country before
proceedings were commenced, and Sir Percival's
embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing
enough to transfer almost any sum of money he may
possess from himself to his creditors. You are of
course aware——"
I stopped him at that point.
"Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde's
affairs," I said. "I have never known anything about
them in former times, and I know nothing of them
now—except that her fortune is lost. You are right
in assuming that I have personal motives for
stirring in this matter. I wish those motives to be
always as disinterested as they are at the present
moment——"
He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little
heated, I suppose, by feeling that he had doubted
me, and I went on bluntly, without waiting to hear
him.
"There shall be no money motive," I said, "no
idea of personal advantage in the service I mean to
render to Lady Glyde. She has been cast out as a
stranger from the house in which she was born—a lie
which records her death has been written on her
mother's tomb—and there are two men, alive and
unpunished, who are responsible for it. That house
shall open again to receive her in the presence of
every soul who followed the false funeral to the
grave—that lie shall be publicly erased from the
tombstone by the authority of the head of the
family, and those two men shall answer for their
crime to ME, though the justice that sits in
tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given
my life to that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if
God spares me, I will accomplish it."
He drew back towards his table, and said nothing.
His face showed plainly that he thought my delusion
had got the better of my reason, and that he
considered it totally useless to give me any more
advice.
"We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle," I said,
"and we must wait till the events of the future
decide between us. In the meantime, I am much
obliged to you for the attention you have given to
my statement. You have shown me that the legal
remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our
means. We cannot produce the law proof, and we are
not rich enough to pay the law expenses. It is
something gained to know that."
I bowed and walked to the door. He called me back
and gave me the letter which I had seen him place on
the table by itself at the beginning of our
interview.
"This came by post a few days ago," he said.
"Perhaps you will not mind delivering it? Pray tell
Miss Halcombe, at the same time, that I sincerely
regret being, thus far, unable to help her, except
by advice, which will not be more welcome, I am
afraid, to her than to you."
I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It
was addressed to "Miss Halcombe. Care of Messrs.
Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane." The handwriting was
quite unknown to me.
On leaving the room I asked one last question.
"Do you happen to know," I said, "if Sir Percival
Glyde is still in Paris?"
"He has returned to London," replied Mr. Kyrle.
"At least I heard so from his solicitor, whom I met
yesterday."
After that answer I went out.
On leaving the office the first precaution to be
observed was to abstain from attracting attention by
stopping to look about me. I walked towards one of
the quietest of the large squares on the north of
Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a
place where a long stretch of pavement was left
behind me.
There were two men at the corner of the square
who had stopped also, and who were standing talking
together. After a moment's reflection I turned back
so as to pass them. One moved as I came near, and
turned the corner leading from the square into the
street. The other remained stationary. I looked at
him as I passed and instantly recognised one of the
men who had watched me before I left England.
If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I
should probably have begun by speaking to the man,
and have ended by knocking him down. But I was bound
to consider consequences. If I once placed myself
publicly in the wrong, I put the weapons at once
into Sir Percival's hands. There was no choice but
to oppose cunning by cunning. I turned into the
street down which the second man had disappeared,
and passed him, waiting in a doorway. He was a
stranger to me, and I was glad to make sure of his
personal appearance in case of future annoyance.
Having done this, I again walked northward till I
reached the New Road. There I turned aside to the
west (having the men behind me all the time), and
waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some
distance from a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel
cab, empty, should happen to pass me. One passed in
a few minutes. I jumped in and told the man to drive
rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast
cab for the spies behind me. I saw them dart across
to the other side of the road, to follow me by
running, until a cab or a cab-stand came in their
way. But I had the start of them, and when I stopped
the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight.
I crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the open
ground, that I was free. When I at last turned my
steps homewards, it was not till many hours
later—not till after dark.
I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room. She had
persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising
to show me her drawing the moment I came in. The
poor little dim faint sketch—so trifling in itself,
so touching in its associations—was propped up
carefully on the table with two books, and was
placed where the faint light of the one candle we
allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best
advantage. I sat down to look at the drawing, and to
tell Marian, in whispers, what had happened. The
partition which divided us from the next room was so
thin that we could almost hear Laura's breathing,
and we might have disturbed her if we had spoken
aloud.
Marian preserved her composure while I described
my interview with Mr. Kyrle. But her face became
troubled when I spoke next of the men who had
followed me from the lawyer's office, and when I
told her of the discovery of Sir Percival's return.
"Bad news, Walter," she said, "the worst news you
could bring. Have you nothing more to tell me?"
"I have something to give you," I replied,
handing her the note which Mr. Kyrle had confided to
my care.
She looked at the address and recognised the
handwriting instantly.
"You know your correspondent?" I said.
"Too well," she answered. "My correspondent is
Count Fosco."
With that reply she opened the note. Her face
flushed deeply while she read it—her eyes brightened
with anger as she handed it to me to read in my
turn.
The note contained these lines—
"Impelled by honourable admiration—honourable to myself,
honourable to you—I write, magnificent Marian, in
the interests of your tranquillity, to say two
consoling words—
"Fear nothing!
"Exercise your fine natural sense
and remain in retirement. Dear and admirable woman,
invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation is
sublime—adopt it. The modest repose of home is
eternally fresh—enjoy it. The storms of life pass
harmless over the valley of Seclusion—dwell, dear
lady, in the valley.
"Do this and I authorise you to
fear nothing. No new calamity shall lacerate your
sensibilities—sensibilities precious to me as my
own. You shall not be molested, the fair companion
of your retreat shall not be pursued. She has found
a new asylum in your heart. Priceless asylum!—I envy
her and leave her there.
"One last word of affectionate
warning, of paternal caution, and I tear myself from
the charm of addressing you—I close these fervent
lines.
"Advance no farther than you have
gone already, compromise no serious interests,
threaten nobody. Do not, I implore you, force me
into action—ME, the Man of Action—when it is the
cherished object of my ambition to be passive, to
restrict the vast reach of my energies and my
combinations for your sake. If you have rash
friends, moderate their deplorable ardour. If Mr.
Hartright returns to England, hold no communication
with him. I walk on a path of my own, and Percival
follows at my heels. On the day when Mr. Hartright
crosses that path, he is a lost man."
The only signature to these lines was the initial letter F, surrounded
by a circle of intricate flourishes. I threw the
letter on the table with all the contempt that I
felt for it.
"He is trying to frighten you—a sure sign that he
is frightened himself," I said.
She was too genuine a woman to treat the letter
as I treated it. The insolent familiarity of the
language was too much for her self-control. As she
looked at me across the table, her hands clenched
themselves in her lap, and the old quick fiery
temper flamed out again brightly in her cheeks and
her eyes.
"Walter!" she said, "if ever those two men are at
your mercy, and if you are obliged to spare one of
them, don't let it be the Count."
"I will keep this letter, Marian, to help my
memory when the time comes."
She looked at me attentively as I put the letter
away in my pocket-book.
"When the time comes?" she repeated. "Can you
speak of the future as if you were certain of
it?—certain after what you have heard in Mr. Kyrle's
office, after what has happened to you to-day?"
"I don't count the time from to-day, Marian. All
I have done to-day is to ask another man to act for
me. I count from to-morrow——"
"Why from to-morrow?"
"Because to-morrow I mean to act for myself."
"How?"
"I shall go to Blackwater by the first train, and
return, I hope, at night."
"To Blackwater!"
"Yes. I have had time to think since I left Mr.
Kyrle. His opinion on one point confirms my own. We
must persist to the last in hunting down the date of
Laura's journey. The one weak point in the
conspiracy, and probably the one chance of proving
that she is a living woman, centre in the discovery
of that date."
"You mean," said Marian, "the discovery that
Laura did not leave Blackwater Park till after the
date of her death on the doctor's certificate?"
"Certainly."
"What makes you think it might have been AFTER?
Laura can tell us nothing of the time she was in
London."
"But the owner of the Asylum told you that she
was received there on the twenty-seventh of July. I
doubt Count Fosco's ability to keep her in London,
and to keep her insensible to all that was passing
around her, more than one night. In that case, she
must have started on the twenty-sixth, and must have
come to London one day after the date of her own
death on the doctor's certificate. If we can prove
that date, we prove our case against Sir Percival
and the Count."
"Yes, yes—I see! But how is the proof to be
obtained?"
"Mrs. Michelson's narrative has suggested to me
two ways of trying to obtain it. One of them is to
question the doctor, Mr. Dawson, who must know when
he resumed his attendance at Blackwater Park after
Laura left the house. The other is to make inquiries
at the inn to which Sir Percival drove away by
himself at night. We know that his departure
followed Laura's after the lapse of a few hours, and
we may get at the date in that way. The attempt is
at least worth making, and to-morrow I am determined
it shall be made."
"And suppose it fails—I look at the worst now,
Walter; but I will look at the best if
disappointments come to try us—suppose no one can
help you at Blackwater?"
"There are two men who can help me, and shall
help me in London—Sir Percival and the Count.
Innocent people may well forget the date—but THEY
are guilty, and THEY know it. If I fail everywhere
else, I mean to force a confession out of one or
both of them on my own terms."
All the woman flushed up in Marian's face as I
spoke.
"Begin with the Count," she whispered eagerly.
"For my sake, begin with the Count."
"We must begin, for Laura's sake, where there is
the best chance of success," I replied.
The colour faded from her face again, and she
shook her head sadly.
"Yes," she said, "you are right—it was mean and
miserable of me to say that. I try to be patient,
Walter, and succeed better now than I did in happier
times. But I have a little of my old temper still
left, and it will get the better of me when I think
of the Count!"
"His turn will come," I said. "But, remember,
there is no weak place in his life that we know of
yet." I waited a little to let her recover her
self-possession, and then spoke the decisive words—
"Marian! There is a weak place we both know of in
Sir Percival's life——"
"You mean the Secret!"
"Yes: the Secret. It is our only sure hold on
him. I can force him from his position of security,
I can drag him and his villainy into the face of
day, by no other means. Whatever the Count may have
done, Sir Percival has consented to the conspiracy
against Laura from another motive besides the motive
of gain. You heard him tell the Count that he
believed his wife knew enough to ruin him? You heard
him say that he was a lost man if the secret of Anne
Catherick was known?"
"Yes! yes! I did."
"Well, Marian, when our other resources have
failed us, I mean to know the Secret. My old
superstition clings to me, even yet. I say again the
woman in white is a living influence in our three
lives. The End is appointed—the End is drawing us
on—and Anne Catherick, dead in her grave, points the
way to it still!"
V
The story of my first inquiries in Hampshire is
soon told.
My early departure from London enabled me to
reach Mr. Dawson's house in the forenoon. Our
interview, so far as the object of my visit was
concerned, led to no satisfactory result.
Mr. Dawson's books certainly showed when he had
resumed his attendance on Miss Halcombe at
Blackwater Park, but it was not possible to
calculate back from this date with any exactness,
without such help from Mrs. Michelson as I knew she
was unable to afford. She could not say from memory
(who, in similar cases, ever can?) how many days had
elapsed between the renewal of the doctor's
attendance on his patient and the previous departure
of Lady Glyde. She was almost certain of having
mentioned the circumstance of the departure to Miss
Halcombe, on the day after it happened—but then she
was no more able to fix the date of the day on which
this disclosure took place, than to fix the date of
the day before, when Lady Glyde had left for London.
Neither could she calculate, with any nearer
approach to exactness, the time that had passed from
the departure of her mistress, to the period when
the undated letter from Madame Fosco arrived.
Lastly, as if to complete the series of
difficulties, the doctor himself, having been ill at
the time, had omitted to make his usual entry of the
day of the week and month when the gardener from
Blackwater Park had called on him to deliver Mrs.
Michelson's message.
Hopeless of obtaining assistance from Mr. Dawson,
I resolved to try next if I could establish the date
of Sir Percival's arrival at Knowlesbury.
It seemed like a fatality! When I reached
Knowlesbury the inn was shut up, and bills were
posted on the walls. The speculation had been a bad
one, as I was informed, ever since the time of the
railway. The new hotel at the station had gradually
absorbed the business, and the old inn (which we
knew to be the inn at which Sir Percival had put
up), had been closed about two months since. The
proprietor had left the town with all his goods and
chattels, and where he had gone I could not
positively ascertain from any one. The four people
of whom I inquired gave me four different accounts
of his plans and projects when he left Knowlesbury.
There were still some hours to spare before the
last train left for London, and I drove back again
in a fly from the Knowlesbury station to Blackwater
Park, with the purpose of questioning the gardener
and the person who kept the lodge. If they, too,
proved unable to assist me, my resources for the
present were at an end, and I might return to town.
I dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park,
and getting my directions from the driver, proceeded
by myself to the house.
As I turned into the lane from the high-road, I
saw a man, with a carpet-bag, walking before me
rapidly on the way to the lodge. He was a little
man, dressed in shabby black, and wearing a
remarkably large hat. I set him down (as well as it
was possible to judge) for a lawyer's clerk, and
stopped at once to widen the distance between us. He
had not heard me, and he walked on out of sight,
without looking back. When I passed through the
gates myself, a little while afterwards, he was not
visible—he had evidently gone on to the house.
There were two women in the lodge. One of them
was old, the other I knew at once, by Marian's
description of her, to be Margaret Porcher.
I asked first if Sir Percival was at the Park,
and receiving a reply in the negative, inquired next
when he had left it. Neither of the women could tell
me more than that he had gone away in the summer. I
could extract nothing from Margaret Porcher but
vacant smiles and shakings of the head. The old
woman was a little more intelligent, and I managed
to lead her into speaking of the manner of Sir
Percival's departure, and of the alarm that it
caused her. She remembered her master calling her
out of bed, and remembered his frightening her by
swearing—but the date at which the occurrence
happened was, as she honestly acknowledged, "quite
beyond her."
On leaving the lodge I saw the gardener at work
not far off. When I first addressed him, he looked
at me rather distrustfully, but on my using Mrs.
Michelson's name, with a civil reference to himself,
he entered into conversation readily enough. There
is no need to describe what passed between us—it
ended, as all my other attempts to discover the date
had ended. The gardener knew that his master had
driven away, at night, "some time in July, the last
fortnight or the last ten days in the month"—and
knew no more.
While we were speaking together I saw the man in
black, with the large hat, come out from the house,
and stand at some little distance observing us.
Certain suspicions of his errand at Blackwater
Park had already crossed my mind. They were now
increased by the gardener's inability (or
unwillingness) to tell me who the man was, and I
determined to clear the way before me, if possible,
by speaking to him. The plainest question I could
put as a stranger would be to inquire if the house
was allowed to be shown to visitors. I walked up to
the man at once, and accosted him in those words.
His look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he
knew who I was, and that he wanted to irritate me
into quarrelling with him. His reply was insolent
enough to have answered the purpose, if I had been
less determined to control myself. As it was, I met
him with the most resolute politeness, apologised
for my involuntary intrusion (which he called a
"trespass,") and left the grounds. It was exactly as
I suspected. The recognition of me when I left Mr.
Kyrle's office had been evidently communicated to
Sir Percival Glyde, and the man in black had been
sent to the Park in anticipation of my making
inquiries at the house or in the neighbourhood. If I
had given him the least chance of lodging any sort
of legal complaint against me, the interference of
the local magistrate would no doubt have been turned
to account as a clog on my proceedings, and a means
of separating me from Marian and Laura for some days
at least.
I was prepared to be watched on the way from
Blackwater Park to the station, exactly as I had
been watched in London the day before. But I could
not discover at the time, whether I was really
followed on this occasion or not. The man in black
might have had means of tracking me at his disposal
of which I was not aware, but I certainly saw
nothing of him, in his own person, either on the way
to the station, or afterwards on my arrival at the
London terminus in the evening. I reached home on
foot, taking the precaution, before I approached our
own door, of walking round by the loneliest street
in the neighbourhood, and there stopping and looking
back more than once over the open space behind me. I
had first learnt to use this stratagem against
suspected treachery in the wilds of Central
America—and now I was practising it again, with the
same purpose and with even greater caution, in the
heart of civilised London!
Nothing had happened to alarm Marian during my
absence. She asked eagerly what success I had met
with. When I told her she could not conceal her
surprise at the indifference with which I spoke of
the failure of my investigations thus far.
The truth was, that the ill-success of my
inquiries had in no sense daunted me. I had pursued
them as a matter of duty, and I had expected nothing
from them. In the state of my mind at that time, it
was almost a relief to me to know that the struggle
was now narrowed to a trial of strength between
myself and Sir Percival Glyde. The vindictive motive
had mingled itself all along with my other and
better motives, and I confess it was a satisfaction
to me to feel that the surest way, the only way
left, of serving Laura's cause, was to fasten my
hold firmly on the villain who had married her.
While I acknowledge that I was not strong enough
to keep my motives above the reach of this instinct
of revenge, I can honestly say something in my own
favour on the other side. No base speculation on the
future relations of Laura and myself, and on the
private and personal concessions which I might force
from Sir Percival if I once had him at my mercy,
ever entered my mind. I never said to myself, "If I
do succeed, it shall be one result of my success
that I put it out of her husband's power to take her
from me again." I could not look at her and think of
the future with such thoughts as those. The sad
sight of the change in her from her former self,
made the one interest of my love an interest of
tenderness and compassion which her father or her
brother might have felt, and which I felt, God
knows, in my inmost heart. All my hopes looked no
farther on now than to the day of her recovery.
There, till she was strong again and happy
again—there, till she could look at me as she had
once looked, and speak to me as she had once
spoken—the future of my happiest thoughts and my
dearest wishes ended.
These words are written under no prompting of
idle self-contemplation. Passages in this narrative
are soon to come which will set the minds of others
in judgment on my conduct. It is right that the best
and the worst of me should be fairly balanced before
that time.
On the morning after my return from Hampshire I took Marian upstairs
into my working-room, and there laid before her the
plan that I had matured thus far, for mastering the
one assailable point in the life of Sir Percival
Glyde.
The way to the Secret lay through the mystery,
hitherto impenetrable to all of us, of the woman in
white. The approach to that in its turn might be
gained by obtaining the assistance of Anne
Catherick's mother, and the only ascertainable means
of prevailing on Mrs. Catherick to act or to speak
in the matter depended on the chance of my
discovering local particulars and family particulars
first of all from Mrs. Clements. After thinking the
subject over carefully, I felt certain that I could
only begin the new inquiries by placing myself in
communication with the faithful friend and
protectress of Anne Catherick.
The first difficulty then was to find Mrs.
Clements.
I was indebted to Marian's quick perception for
meeting this necessity at once by the best and
simplest means. She proposed to write to the farm
near Limmeridge (Todd's Corner), to inquire whether
Mrs. Clements had communicated with Mrs. Todd during
the past few months. How Mrs. Clements had been
separated from Anne it was impossible for us to say,
but that separation once effected, it would
certainly occur to Mrs. Clements to inquire after
the missing woman in the neighbourhood of all others
to which she was known to be most attached—the
neighbourhood of Limmeridge. I saw directly that
Marian's proposal offered us a prospect of success,
and she wrote to Mrs. Todd accordingly by that day's
post.
While we were waiting for the reply, I made
myself master of all the information Marian could
afford on the subject of Sir Percival's family, and
of his early life. She could only speak on these
topics from hearsay, but she was reasonably certain
of the truth of what little she had to tell.
Sir Percival was an only child. His father, Sir
Felix Glyde, had suffered from his birth under a
painful and incurable deformity, and had shunned all
society from his earliest years. His sole happiness
was in the enjoyment of music, and he had married a
lady with tastes similar to his own, who was said to
be a most accomplished musician. He inherited the
Blackwater property while still a young man. Neither
he nor his wife after taking possession, made
advances of any sort towards the society of the
neighbourhood, and no one endeavoured to tempt them
into abandoning their reserve, with the one
disastrous exception of the rector of the parish.
The rector was the worst of all innocent
mischief-makers—an over-zealous man. He had heard
that Sir Felix had left College with the character
of being little better than a revolutionist in
politics and an infidel in religion, and he arrived
conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his
bounden duty to summon the lord of the manor to hear
sound views enunciated in the parish church. Sir
Felix fiercely resented the clergyman's well-meant
but ill-directed interference, insulting him so
grossly and so publicly, that the families in the
neighbourhood sent letters of indignant remonstrance
to the Park, and even the tenants of the Blackwater
property expressed their opinion as strongly as they
dared. The baronet, who had no country tastes of any
kind, and no attachment to the estate or to any one
living on it, declared that society at Blackwater
should never have a second chance of annoying him,
and left the place from that moment.
After a short residence in London he and his wife
departed for the Continent, and never returned to
England again. They lived part of the time in France
and part in Germany—always keeping themselves in the
strict retirement which the morbid sense of his own
personal deformity had made a necessity to Sir
Felix. Their son, Percival, had been born abroad,
and had been educated there by private tutors. His
mother was the first of his parents whom he lost.
His father had died a few years after her, either in
1825 or 1826. Sir Percival had been in England, as a
young man, once or twice before that period, but his
acquaintance with the late Mr. Fairlie did not begin
till after the time of his father's death. They soon
became very intimate, although Sir Percival was
seldom, or never, at Limmeridge House in those days.
Mr. Frederick Fairlie might have met him once or
twice in Mr. Philip Fairlie's company, but he could
have known little of him at that or at any other
time. Sir Percival's only intimate friend in the
Fairlie family had been Laura's father.
These were all the particulars that I could gain
from Marian. They suggested nothing which was useful
to my present purpose, but I noted them down
carefully, in the event of their proving to be of
importance at any future period.
Mrs. Todd's reply (addressed, by our own wish, to
a post-office at some distance from us) had arrived
at its destination when I went to apply for it. The
chances, which had been all against us hitherto,
turned from this moment in our favour. Mrs. Todd's
letter contained the first item of information of
which we were in search.
Mrs. Clements, it appeared, had (as we had
conjectured) written to Todd's Corner, asking pardon
in the first place for the abrupt manner in which
she and Anne had left their friends at the
farm-house (on the morning after I had met the woman
in white in Limmeridge churchyard), and then
informing Mrs. Todd of Anne's disappearance, and
entreating that she would cause inquiries to be made
in the neighbourhood, on the chance that the lost
woman might have strayed back to Limmeridge. In
making this request, Mrs. Clements had been careful
to add to it the address at which she might always
be heard of, and that address Mrs. Todd now
transmitted to Marian. It was in London, and within
half an hour's walk of our own lodging.
In the words of the proverb, I was resolved not
to let the grass grow under my feet. The next
morning I set forth to seek an interview with Mrs.
Clements. This was my first step forward in the
investigation. The story of the desperate attempt to
which I now stood committed begins here.
VI
The address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to
a lodging-house situated in a respectable street
near the Gray's Inn Road.
When I knocked the door was opened by Mrs.
Clements herself. She did not appear to remember me,
and asked what my business was. I recalled to her
our meeting in Limmeridge churchyard at the close of
my interview there with the woman in white, taking
special care to remind her that I was the person who
assisted Anne Catherick (as Anne had herself
declared) to escape the pursuit from the Asylum.
This was my only claim to the confidence of Mrs.
Clements. She remembered the circumstance the moment
I spoke of it, and asked me into the parlour, in the
greatest anxiety to know if I had brought her any
news of Anne.
It was impossible for me to tell her the whole
truth without, at the same time, entering into
particulars on the subject of the conspiracy, which
it would have been dangerous to confide to a
stranger. I could only abstain most carefully from
raising any false hopes, and then explain that the
object of my visit was to discover the persons who
were really responsible for Anne's disappearance. I
even added, so as to exonerate myself from any
after-reproach of my own conscience, that I
entertained not the least hope of being able to
trace her—that I believed we should never see her
alive again—and that my main interest in the affair
was to bring to punishment two men whom I suspected
to be concerned in luring her away, and at whose
hands I and some dear friends of mine had suffered a
grievous wrong. With this explanation I left it to
Mrs. Clements to say whether our interest in the
matter (whatever difference there might be in the
motives which actuated us) was not the same, and
whether she felt any reluctance to forward my object
by giving me such information on the subject of my
inquiries as she happened to possess.
The poor woman was at first too much confused and
agitated to understand thoroughly what I said to
her. She could only reply that I was welcome to
anything she could tell me in return for the
kindness I had shown to Anne; but as she was not
very quick and ready, at the best of times, in
talking to strangers, she would beg me to put her in
the right way, and to say where I wished her to
begin.
Knowing by experience that the plainest narrative
attainable from persons who are not accustomed to
arrange their ideas, is the narrative which goes far
enough back at the beginning to avoid all
impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked
Mrs. Clements to tell me first what had happened
after she had left Limmeridge, and so, by watchful
questioning, carried her on from point to point,
till we reached the period of Anne's disappearance.
The substance of the information which I thus
obtained was as follows:—
On leaving the farm at Todd's Corner, Mrs.
Clements and Anne had travelled that day as far as
Derby, and had remained there a week on Anne's
account. They had then gone on to London, and had
lived in the lodging occupied by Mrs. Clements at
that time for a month or more, when circumstances
connected with the house and the landlord had
obliged them to change their quarters. Anne's terror
of being discovered in London or its neighbourhood,
whenever they ventured to walk out, had gradually
communicated itself to Mrs. Clements, and she had
determined on removing to one of the most
out-of-the-way places in England—to the town of
Grimsby in Lincolnshire, where her deceased husband
had passed all his early life. His relatives were
respectable people settled in the town—they had
always treated Mrs. Clements with great kindness,
and she thought it impossible to do better than go
there and take the advice of her husband's friends.
Anne would not hear of returning to her mother at
Welmingham, because she had been removed to the
Asylum from that place, and because Sir Percival
would be certain to go back there and find her
again. There was serious weight in this objection,
and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not to be easily
removed.
At Grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness
had shown themselves in Anne. They appeared soon
after the news of Lady Glyde's marriage had been
made public in the newspapers, and had reached her
through that medium.
The medical man who was sent for to attend the
sick woman discovered at once that she was suffering
from a serious affection of the heart. The illness
lasted long, left her very weak, and returned at
intervals, though with mitigated severity, again and
again. They remained at Grimsby, in consequence,
during the first half of the new year, and there
they might probably have stayed much longer, but for
the sudden resolution which Anne took at this time
to venture back to Hampshire, for the purpose of
obtaining a private interview with Lady Glyde.
Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose the
execution of this hazardous and unaccountable
project. No explanation of her motives was offered
by Anne, except that she believed the day of her
death was not far off, and that she had something on
her mind which must be communicated to Lady Glyde,
at any risk, in secret. Her resolution to accomplish
this purpose was so firmly settled that she declared
her intention of going to Hampshire by herself if
Mrs. Clements felt any unwillingness to go with her.
The doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that
serious opposition to her wishes would, in all
probability, produce another and perhaps a fatal fit
of illness, and Mrs. Clements, under this advice,
yielded to necessity, and once more, with sad
forebodings of trouble and danger to come, allowed
Anne Catherick to have her own way.
On the journey from London to Hampshire Mrs.
Clements discovered that one of their
fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the
neighbourhood of Blackwater, and could give her all
the information she needed on the subject of
localities. In this way she found out that the only
place they could go to, which was not dangerously
near to Sir Percival's residence, was a large
village called Sandon. The distance here from
Blackwater Park was between three and four miles—and
that distance, and back again, Anne had walked on
each occasion when she had appeared in the
neighbourhood of the lake.
For the few days during which they were at Sandon
without being discovered they had lived a little
away from the village, in the cottage of a decent
widow-woman who had a bedroom to let, and whose
discreet silence Mrs. Clements had done her best to
secure, for the first week at least. She had also
tried hard to induce Anne to be content with writing
to Lady Glyde, in the first instance; but the
failure of the warning contained in the anonymous
letter sent to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to
speak this time, and obstinate in the determination
to go on her errand alone.
Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her
privately on each occasion when she went to the
lake, without, however, venturing near enough to the
boat-house to be witness of what took place there.
When Anne returned for the last time from the
dangerous neighbourhood, the fatigue of walking, day
after day, distances which were far too great for
her strength, added to the exhausting effect of the
agitation from which she had suffered, produced the
result which Mrs. Clements had dreaded all along.
The old pain over the heart and the other symptoms
of the illness at Grimsby returned, and Anne was
confined to her bed in the cottage.
In this emergency the first necessity, as Mrs.
Clements knew by experience, was to endeavour to
quiet Anne's anxiety of mind, and for this purpose
the good woman went herself the next day to the
lake, to try if she could find Lady Glyde (who would
be sure, as Anne said, to take her daily walk to the
boat-house), and prevail on her to come back
privately to the cottage near Sandon. On reaching
the outskirts of the plantation Mrs. Clements
encountered, not Lady Glyde, but a tall, stout,
elderly gentleman, with a book in his hand—in other
words, Count Fosco.
The Count, after looking at her very attentively
for a moment, asked if she expected to see any one
in that place, and added, before she could reply,
that he was waiting there with a message from Lady
Glyde, but that he was not quite certain whether the
person then before him answered the description of
the person with whom he was desired to communicate.
Upon this Mrs. Clements at once confided her
errand to him, and entreated that he would help to
allay Anne's anxiety by trusting his message to her.
The Count most readily and kindly complied with her
request. The message, he said, was a very important
one. Lady Glyde entreated Anne and her good friend
to return immediately to London, as she felt certain
that Sir Percival would discover them if they
remained any longer in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater. She was herself going to London in a
short time, and if Mrs. Clements and Anne would go
there first, and would let her know what their
address was, they should hear from her and see her
in a fortnight or less. The Count added that he had
already attempted to give a friendly warning to Anne
herself, but that she had been too much startled by
seeing that he was a stranger to let him approach
and speak to her.
To this Mrs. Clements replied, in the greatest
alarm and distress, that she asked nothing better
than to take Anne safely to London, but that there
was no present hope of removing her from the
dangerous neighbourhood, as she lay ill in her bed
at that moment. The Count inquired if Mrs. Clements
had sent for medical advice, and hearing that she
had hitherto hesitated to do so, from the fear of
making their position publicly known in the village,
informed her that he was himself a medical man, and
that he would go back with her if she pleased, and
see what could be done for Anne. Mrs. Clements
(feeling a natural confidence in the Count, as a
person trusted with a secret message from Lady
Glyde) gratefully accepted the offer, and they went
back together to the cottage.
Anne was asleep when they got there. The Count
started at the sight of her (evidently from
astonishment at her resemblance to Lady Glyde). Poor
Mrs. Clements supposed that he was only shocked to
see how ill she was. He would not allow her to be
awakened—he was contented with putting questions to
Mrs. Clements about her symptoms, with looking at
her, and with lightly touching her pulse. Sandon was
a large enough place to have a grocer's and
druggist's shop in it, and thither the Count went to
write his prescription and to get the medicine made
up. He brought it back himself, and told Mrs.
Clements that the medicine was a powerful stimulant,
and that it would certainly give Anne strength to
get up and bear the fatigue of a journey to London
of only a few hours. The remedy was to be
administered at stated times on that day and on the
day after. On the third day she would be well enough
to travel, and he arranged to meet Mrs. Clements at
the Blackwater station, and to see them off by the
midday train. If they did not appear he would assume
that Anne was worse, and would proceed at once to
the cottage.
As events turned out, no such emergency as this
occurred.
This medicine had an extraordinary effect on
Anne, and the good results of it were helped by the
assurance Mrs. Clements could now give her that she
would soon see Lady Glyde in London. At the
appointed day and time (when they had not been quite
so long as a week in Hampshire altogether), they
arrived at the station. The Count was waiting there
for them, and was talking to an elderly lady, who
appeared to be going to travel by the train to
London also. He most kindly assisted them, and put
them into the carriage himself, begging Mrs.
Clements not to forget to send her address to Lady
Glyde. The elderly lady did not travel in the same
compartment, and they did not notice what became of
her on reaching the London terminus. Mrs. Clements
secured respectable lodgings in a quiet
neighbourhood, and then wrote, as she had engaged to
do, to inform Lady Glyde of the address.
A little more than a fortnight passed, and no
answer came.
At the end of that time a lady (the same elderly
lady whom they had seen at the station) called in a
cab, and said that she came from Lady Glyde, who was
then at an hotel in London, and who wished to see
Mrs. Clements, for the purpose of arranging a future
interview with Anne. Mrs. Clements expressed her
willingness (Anne being present at the time, and
entreating her to do so) to forward the object in
view, especially as she was not required to be away
from the house for more than half an hour at the
most. She and the elderly lady (clearly Madame
Fosco) then left in the cab. The lady stopped the
cab, after it had driven some distance, at a shop
before they got to the hotel, and begged Mrs.
Clements to wait for her for a few minutes while she
made a purchase that had been forgotten. She never
appeared again.
After waiting some time Mrs. Clements became
alarmed, and ordered the cabman to drive back to her
lodgings. When she got there, after an absence of
rather more than half an hour, Anne was gone.
The only information to be obtained from the
people of the house was derived from the servant who
waited on the lodgers. She had opened the door to a
boy from the street, who had left a letter for "the
young woman who lived on the second floor" (the part
of the house which Mrs. Clements occupied). The
servant had delivered the letter, had then gone
downstairs, and five minutes afterwards had observed
Anne open the front door and go out, dressed in her
bonnet and shawl. She had probably taken the letter
with her, for it was not to be found, and it was
therefore impossible to tell what inducement had
been offered to make her leave the house. It must
have been a strong one, for she would never stir out
alone in London of her own accord. If Mrs. Clements
had not known this by experience nothing would have
induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short
a time as half an hour only.
As soon as she could collect her thoughts, the
first idea that naturally occurred to Mrs. Clements
was to go and make inquiries at the Asylum, to which
she dreaded that Anne had been taken back.
She went there the next day, having been informed
of the locality in which the house was situated by
Anne herself. The answer she received (her
application having in all probability been made a
day or two before the false Anne Catherick had
really been consigned to safe keeping in the Asylum)
was, that no such person had been brought back
there. She had then written to Mrs. Catherick at
Welmingham to know if she had seen or heard anything
of her daughter, and had received an answer in the
negative. After that reply had reached her, she was
at the end of her resources, and perfectly ignorant
where else to inquire or what else to do. From that
time to this she had remained in total ignorance of
the cause of Anne's disappearance and of the end of
Anne's story.
VII
Thus far the information which I had received
from Mrs. Clements—though it established facts of
which I had not previously been aware—was of a
preliminary character only.
It was clear that the series of deceptions which
had removed Anne Catherick to London, and separated
her from Mrs. Clements, had been accomplished solely
by Count Fosco and the Countess, and the question
whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife
had been of a kind to place either of them within
reach of the law might be well worthy of future
consideration. But the purpose I had now in view led
me in another direction than this. The immediate
object of my visit to Mrs. Clements was to make some
approach at least to the discovery of Sir Percival's
secret, and she had said nothing as yet which
advanced me on my way to that important end. I felt
the necessity of trying to awaken her recollections
of other times, persons, and events than those on
which her memory had hitherto been employed, and
when I next spoke I spoke with that object
indirectly in view.
"I wish I could be of any help to you in this sad
calamity," I said. "All I can do is to feel heartily
for your distress. If Anne had been your own child,
Mrs. Clements, you could have shown her no truer
kindness—you could have made no readier sacrifices
for her sake."
"There's no great merit in that, sir," said Mrs.
Clements simply. "The poor thing was as good as my
own child to me. I nursed her from a baby, sir,
bringing her up by hand—and a hard job it was to
rear her. It wouldn't go to my heart so to lose her
if I hadn't made her first short clothes and taught
her to walk. I always said she was sent to console
me for never having chick or child of my own. And
now she's lost the old times keep coming back to my
mind, and even at my age I can't help crying about
her—I can't indeed, sir!"
I waited a little to give Mrs. Clements time to
compose herself. Was the light that I had been
looking for so long glimmering on me—far off, as
yet—in the good woman's recollections of Anne's
early life?
"Did you know Mrs. Catherick before Anne was
born?" I asked.
"Not very long, sir—not above four months. We saw
a great deal of each other in that time, but we were
never very friendly together."
Her voice was steadier as she made that reply.
Painful as many of her recollections might be, I
observed that it was unconsciously a relief to her
mind to revert to the dimly-seen troubles of the
past, after dwelling so long on the vivid sorrows of
the present.
"Were you and Mrs. Catherick neighbours?" I
inquired, leading her memory on as encouragingly as
I could.
"Yes, sir—neighbours at Old Welmingham."
"OLD Welmingham? There are two places of that
name, then, in Hampshire?"
"Well, sir, there used to be in those days—better
than three-and-twenty years ago. They built a new
town about two miles off, convenient to the
river—and Old Welmingham, which was never much more
than a village, got in time to be deserted. The new
town is the place they call Welmingham now—but the
old parish church is the parish church still. It
stands by itself, with the houses pulled down or
gone to ruin all round it. I've lived to see sad
changes. It was a pleasant, pretty place in my
time."
"Did you live there before your marriage, Mrs.
Clements?"
"No, sir—I'm a Norfolk woman. It wasn't the place
my husband belonged to either. He was from Grimsby,
as I told you, and he served his apprenticeship
there. But having friends down south, and hearing of
an opening, he got into business at Southampton. It
was in a small way, but he made enough for a plain
man to retire on, and settled at Old Welmingham. I
went there with him when he married me. We were
neither of us young, but we lived very happy
together—happier than our neighbour, Mr. Catherick,
lived along with his wife when they came to Old
Welmingham a year or two afterwards."
"Was your husband acquainted with them before
that?"
"With Catherick, sir—not with his wife. She was a
stranger to both of us. Some gentlemen had made
interest for Catherick, and he got the situation of
clerk at Welmingham church, which was the reason of
his coming to settle in our neighbourhood. He
brought his newly-married wife along with him, and
we heard in course of time she had been lady's-maid
in a family that lived at Varneck Hall, near
Southampton. Catherick had found it a hard matter to
get her to marry him, in consequence of her holding
herself uncommonly high. He had asked and asked, and
given the thing up at last, seeing she was so
contrary about it. When he HAD given it up she
turned contrary just the other way, and came to him
of her own accord, without rhyme or reason
seemingly. My poor husband always said that was the
time to have given her a lesson. But Catherick was
too fond of her to do anything of the sort—he never
checked her either before they were married or
after. He was a quick man in his feelings, letting
them carry him a deal too far, now in one way and
now in another, and he would have spoilt a better
wife than Mrs. Catherick if a better had married
him. I don't like to speak ill of any one, sir, but
she was a heartless woman, with a terrible will of
her own—fond of foolish admiration and fine clothes,
and not caring to show so much as decent outward
respect to Catherick, kindly as he always treated
her. My husband said he thought things would turn
out badly when they first came to live near us, and
his words proved true. Before they had been quite
four months in our neighbourhood there was a
dreadful scandal and a miserable break-up in their
household. Both of them were in fault—I am afraid
both of them were equally in fault."
"You mean both husband and wife?"
"Oh, no, sir! I don't mean Catherick—he was only
to be pitied. I meant his wife and the person—"
"And the person who caused the scandal?"
"Yes, sir. A gentleman born and brought up, who
ought to have set a better example. You know him,
sir—and my poor dear Anne knew him only too well."
"Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Yes, Sir Percival Glyde."
My heart beat fast—I thought I had my hand on the
clue. How little I knew then of the windings of the
labyrinths which were still to mislead me!
"Did Sir Percival live in your neighbourhood at
that time?" I asked.
"No, sir. He came among us as a stranger. His
father had died not long before in foreign parts. I
remember he was in mourning. He put up at the little
inn on the river (they have pulled it down since
that time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. He
wasn't much noticed when he first came—it was a
common thing enough for gentlemen to travel from all
parts of England to fish in our river."
"Did he make his appearance in the village before
Anne was born?"
"Yes, sir. Anne was born in the June month of
eighteen hundred and twenty-seven—and I think he
came at the end of April or the beginning of May."
"Came as a stranger to all of you? A stranger to
Mrs. Catherick as well as to the rest of the
neighbours?"
"So we thought at first, sir. But when the
scandal broke out, nobody believed they were
strangers. I remember how it happened as well as if
it was yesterday. Catherick came into our garden one
night, and woke us by throwing up a handful of
gravel from the walk at our window. I heard him beg
my husband, for the Lord's sake, to come down and
speak to him. They were a long time together talking
in the porch. When my husband came back upstairs he
was all of a tremble. He sat down on the side of the
bed and he says to me, 'Lizzie! I always told you
that woman was a bad one—I always said she would end
ill, and I'm afraid in my own mind that the end has
come already. Catherick has found a lot of lace
handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold
watch and chain, hid away in his wife's
drawer—things that nobody but a born lady ought ever
to have—and his wife won't say how she came by
them.' 'Does he think she stole them?' says I. 'No,'
says he, 'stealing would be bad enough. But it's
worse than that, she's had no chance of stealing
such things as those, and she's not a woman to take
them if she had. They're gifts, Lizzie—there's her
own initials engraved inside the watch—and Catherick
has seen her talking privately, and carrying on as
no married woman should, with that gentleman in
mourning, Sir Percival Glyde. Don't you say anything
about it—I've quieted Catherick for to-night. I've
told him to keep his tongue to himself, and his eyes
and his ears open, and to wait a day or two, till he
can be quite certain.' 'I believe you are both of
you wrong,' says I. 'It's not in nature, comfortable
and respectable as she is here, that Mrs. Catherick
should take up with a chance stranger like Sir
Percival Glyde.' 'Ay, but is he a stranger to her?'
says my husband. 'You forget how Catherick's wife
came to marry him. She went to him of her own
accord, after saying No over and over again when he
asked her. There have been wicked women before her
time, Lizzie, who have used honest men who loved
them as a means of saving their characters, and I'm
sorely afraid this Mrs. Catherick is as wicked as
the worst of them. We shall see,' says my husband,
'we shall soon see.' And only two days afterwards we
did see."
Mrs. Clements waited for a moment before she went
on. Even in that moment, I began to doubt whether
the clue that I thought I had found was really
leading me to the central mystery of the labyrinth
after all. Was this common, too common, story of a
man's treachery and a woman's frailty the key to a
secret which had been the lifelong terror of Sir
Percival Glyde?
"Well, sir, Catherick took my husband's advice
and waited," Mrs. Clements continued. "And as I told
you, he hadn't long to wait. On the second day he
found his wife and Sir Percival whispering together
quite familiar, close under the vestry of the
church. I suppose they thought the neighbourhood of
the vestry was the last place in the world where
anybody would think of looking after them, but,
however that may be, there they were. Sir Percival,
being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended
himself in such a guilty way that poor Catherick
(whose quick temper I have told you of already) fell
into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace, and
struck Sir Percival. He was no match (and I am sorry
to say it) for the man who had wronged him, and he
was beaten in the cruelest manner, before the
neighbours, who had come to the place on hearing the
disturbance, could run in to part them. All this
happened towards evening, and before nightfall, when
my husband went to Catherick's house, he was gone,
nobody knew where. No living soul in the village
ever saw him again. He knew too well, by that time,
what his wife's vile reason had been for marrying
him, and he felt his misery and disgrace, especially
after what had happened to him with Sir Percival,
too keenly. The clergyman of the parish put an
advertisement in the paper begging him to come back,
and saying that he should not lose his situation or
his friends. But Catherick had too much pride and
spirit, as some people said—too much feeling, as I
think, sir—to face his neighbours again, and try to
live down the memory of his disgrace. My husband
heard from him when he had left England, and heard a
second time, when he was settled and doing well in
America. He is alive there now, as far as I know,
but none of us in the old country—his wicked wife
least of all—are ever likely to set eyes on him
again."
"What became of Sir Percival?" I inquired. "Did
he stay in the neighbourhood?"
"Not he, sir. The place was too hot to hold him.
He was heard at high words with Mrs. Catherick the
same night when the scandal broke out, and the next
morning he took himself off."
"And Mrs. Catherick? Surely she never remained in
the village among the people who knew of her
disgrace?"
"She did, sir. She was hard enough and heartless
enough to set the opinions of all her neighbours at
flat defiance. She declared to everybody, from the
clergyman downwards, that she was the victim of a
dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers
in the place should not drive her out of it, as if
she was a guilty woman. All through my time she
lived at Old Welmingham, and after my time, when the
new town was building, and the respectable
neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if
she was determined to live among them and scandalise
them to the very last. There she is now, and there
she will stop, in defiance of the best of them, to
her dying day."
"But how has she lived through all these years?"
I asked. "Was her husband able and willing to help
her?"
"Both able and willing, sir," said Mrs. Clements.
"In the second letter he wrote to my good man, he
said she had borne his name, and lived in his home,
and, wicked as she was, she must not starve like a
beggar in the street. He could afford to make her
some small allowance, and she might draw for it
quarterly at a place in London."
"Did she accept the allowance?"
"Not a farthing of it, sir. She said she would
never be beholden to Catherick for bit or drop, if
she lived to be a hundred. And she has kept her word
ever since. When my poor dear husband died, and left
all to me, Catherick's letter was put in my
possession with the other things, and I told her to
let me know if she was ever in want. 'I'll let all
England know I'm in want,' she said, 'before I tell
Catherick, or any friend of Catherick's. Take that
for your answer, and give it to HIM for an answer,
if he ever writes again.'"
"Do you suppose that she had money of her own?"
"Very little, if any, sir. It was said, and said
truly, I am afraid, that her means of living came
privately from Sir Percival Glyde."
After that last reply I waited a little, to reconsider what I had
heard. If I unreservedly accepted the story so far,
it was now plain that no approach, direct or
indirect, to the Secret had yet been revealed to me,
and that the pursuit of my object had ended again in
leaving me face to face with the most palpable and
the most disheartening failure.
But there was one point in the narrative which
made me doubt the propriety of accepting it
unreservedly, and which suggested the idea of
something hidden below the surface.
I could not account to myself for the
circumstance of the clerk's guilty wife voluntarily
living out all her after-existence on the scene of
her disgrace. The woman's own reported statement
that she had taken this strange course as a
practical assertion of her innocence did not satisfy
me. It seemed, to my mind, more natural and more
probable to assume that she was not so completely a
free agent in this matter as she had herself
asserted. In that case, who was the likeliest person
to possess the power of compelling her to remain at
Welmingham? The person unquestionably from whom she
derived the means of living. She had refused
assistance from her husband, she had no adequate
resources of her own, she was a friendless, degraded
woman—from what source should she derive help but
from the source at which report pointed—Sir Percival
Glyde?
Reasoning on these assumptions, and always
bearing in mind the one certain fact to guide me,
that Mrs. Catherick was in possession of the Secret,
I easily understood that it was Sir Percival's
interest to keep her at Welmingham, because her
character in that place was certain to isolate her
from all communication with female neighbours, and
to allow her no opportunities of talking
incautiously in moments of free intercourse with
inquisitive bosom friends. But what was the mystery
to be concealed? Not Sir Percival's infamous
connection with Mrs. Catherick's disgrace, for the
neighbours were the very people who knew of it—not
the suspicion that he was Anne's father, for
Welmingham was the place in which that suspicion
must inevitably exist. If I accepted the guilty
appearances described to me as unreservedly as
others had accepted them, if I drew from them the
same superficial conclusion which Mr. Catherick and
all his neighbours had drawn, where was the
suggestion, in all that I had heard, of a dangerous
secret between Sir Percival and Mrs. Catherick,
which had been kept hidden from that time to this?
And yet, in those stolen meetings, in those
familiar whisperings between the clerk's wife and
"the gentleman in mourning," the clue to discovery
existed beyond a doubt.
Was it possible that appearances in this case had
pointed one way while the truth lay all the while
unsuspected in another direction? Could Mrs.
Catherick's assertion, that she was the victim of a
dreadful mistake, by any possibility be true? Or,
assuming it to be false, could the conclusion which
associated Sir Percival with her guilt have been
founded in some inconceivable error? Had Sir
Percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that
was wrong for the sake of diverting from himself
some other suspicion that was right? Here—if I could
find it—here was the approach to the Secret, hidden
deep under the surface of the apparently unpromising
story which I had just heard.
My next questions were now directed to the one object of ascertaining
whether Mr. Catherick had or had not arrived truly
at the conviction of his wife's misconduct. The
answers I received from Mrs. Clements left me in no
doubt whatever on that point. Mrs. Catherick had, on
the clearest evidence, compromised her reputation,
while a single woman, with some person unknown, and
had married to save her character. It had been
positively ascertained, by calculations of time and
place into which I need not enter particularly, that
the daughter who bore her husband's name was not her
husband's child.
The next object of inquiry, whether it was
equally certain that Sir Percival must have been the
father of Anne, was beset by far greater
difficulties. I was in no position to try the
probabilities on one side or on the other in this
instance by any better test than the test of
personal resemblance.
"I suppose you often saw Sir Percival when he was
in your village?" I said.
"Yes, sir, very often," replied Mrs. Clements.
"Did you ever observe that Anne was like him?"
"She was not at all like him, sir."
"Was she like her mother, then?"
"Not like her mother either, sir. Mrs. Catherick
was dark, and full in the face."
Not like her mother and not like her (supposed)
father. I knew that the test by personal resemblance
was not to be implicitly trusted, but, on the other
hand, it was not to be altogether rejected on that
account. Was it possible to strengthen the evidence
by discovering any conclusive facts in relation to
the lives of Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival before
they either of them appeared at Old Welmingham? When
I asked my next questions I put them with this view.
"When Sir Percival first arrived in your
neighbourhood," I said, "did you hear where he had
come from last?"
"No, sir. Some said from Blackwater Park, and
some said from Scotland—but nobody knew."
"Was Mrs. Catherick living in service at Varneck
Hall immediately before her marriage?"
"Yes, sir."
"And had she been long in her place?"
"Three or four years, sir; I am not quite certain
which."
"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman to
whom Varneck Hall belonged at that time?"
"Yes, sir. His name was Major Donthorne."
"Did Mr. Catherick, or did any one else you knew,
ever hear that Sir Percival was a friend of Major
Donthorne's, or ever see Sir Percival in the
neighbourhood of Varneck Hall?"
"Catherick never did, sir, that I can
remember—nor any one else either, that I know of."
I noted down Major Donthorne's name and address,
on the chance that he might still be alive, and that
it might be useful at some future time to apply to
him. Meanwhile, the impression on my mind was now
decidedly adverse to the opinion that Sir Percival
was Anne's father, and decidedly favourable to the
conclusion that the secret of his stolen interviews
with Mrs. Catherick was entirely unconnected with
the disgrace which the woman had inflicted on her
husband's good name. I could think of no further
inquiries which I might make to strengthen this
impression—I could only encourage Mrs. Clements to
speak next of Anne's early days, and watch for any
chance-suggestion which might in this way offer
itself to me.
"I have not heard yet," I said, "how the poor
child, born in all this sin and misery, came to be
trusted, Mrs. Clements, to your care."
"There was nobody else, sir, to take the little
helpless creature in hand," replied Mrs. Clements.
"The wicked mother seemed to hate it—as if the poor
baby was in fault!—from the day it was born. My
heart was heavy for the child, and I made the offer
to bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own."
"Did Anne remain entirely under your care from
that time?"
"Not quite entirely, sir. Mrs. Catherick had her
whims and fancies about it at times, and used now
and then to lay claim to the child, as if she wanted
to spite me for bringing it up. But these fits of
hers never lasted for long. Poor little Anne was
always returned to me, and was always glad to get
back—though she led but a gloomy life in my house,
having no playmates, like other children, to
brighten her up. Our longest separation was when her
mother took her to Limmeridge. Just at that time I
lost my husband, and I felt it was as well, in that
miserable affliction, that Anne should not be in the
house. She was between ten and eleven years old
then, slow at her lessons, poor soul, and not so
cheerful as other children—but as pretty a little
girl to look at as you would wish to see. I waited
at home till her mother brought her back, and then I
made the offer to take her with me to London—the
truth being, sir, that I could not find it in my
heart to stop at Old Welmingham after my husband's
death, the place was so changed and so dismal to
me."
"And did Mrs. Catherick consent to your
proposal?"
"No, sir. She came back from the north harder and
bitterer than ever. Folks did say that she had been
obliged to ask Sir Percival's leave to go, to begin
with; and that she only went to nurse her dying
sister at Limmeridge because the poor woman was
reported to have saved money—the truth being that
she hardly left enough to bury her. These things may
have soured Mrs. Catherick likely enough, but
however that may be, she wouldn't hear of my taking
the child away. She seemed to like distressing us
both by parting us. All I could do was to give Anne
my direction, and to tell her privately, if she was
ever in trouble, to come to me. But years passed
before she was free to come. I never saw her again,
poor soul, till the night she escaped from the
mad-house."
"You know, Mrs. Clements, why Sir Percival Glyde
shut her up?"
"I only know what Anne herself told me, sir. The
poor thing used to ramble and wander about it sadly.
She said her mother had got some secret of Sir
Percival's to keep, and had let it out to her long
after I left Hampshire—and when Sir Percival found
she knew it, he shut her up. But she never could say
what it was when I asked her. All she could tell me
was, that her mother might be the ruin and
destruction of Sir Percival if she chose. Mrs.
Catherick may have let out just as much as that, and
no more. I'm next to certain I should have heard the
whole truth from Anne, if she had really known it as
she pretended to do, and as she very likely fancied
she did, poor soul."
This idea had more than once occurred to my own
mind. I had already told Marian that I doubted
whether Laura was really on the point of making any
important discovery when she and Anne Catherick were
disturbed by Count Fosco at the boat-house. It was
perfectly in character with Anne's mental affliction
that she should assume an absolute knowledge of the
secret on no better grounds than vague suspicion,
derived from hints which her mother had incautiously
let drop in her presence. Sir Percival's guilty
distrust would, in that case, infallibly inspire him
with the false idea that Anne knew all from her
mother, just as it had afterwards fixed in his mind
the equally false suspicion that his wife knew all
from Anne.
The time was passing, the morning was wearing
away. It was doubtful, if I stayed longer, whether I
should hear anything more from Mrs. Clements that
would be at all useful to my purpose. I had already
discovered those local and family particulars, in
relation to Mrs. Catherick, of which I had been in
search, and I had arrived at certain conclusions,
entirely new to me, which might immensely assist in
directing the course of my future proceedings. I
rose to take my leave, and to thank Mrs. Clements
for the friendly readiness she had shown in
affording me information.
"I am afraid you must have thought me very
inquisitive," I said. "I have troubled you with more
questions than many people would have cared to
answer."
"You are heartily welcome, sir, to anything I can
tell you," answered Mrs. Clements. She stopped and
looked at me wistfully. "But I do wish," said the
poor woman, "you could have told me a little more
about Anne, sir. I thought I saw something in your
face when you came in which looked as if you could.
You can't think how hard it is not even to know
whether she is living or dead. I could bear it
better if I was only certain. You said you never
expected we should see her alive again. Do you know,
sir—do you know for truth—that it has pleased God to
take her?"
I was not proof against this appeal, it would
have been unspeakably mean and cruel of me if I had
resisted it.
"I am afraid there is no doubt of the truth," I
answered gently; "I have the certainty in my own
mind that her troubles in this world are over."
The poor woman dropped into her chair and hid her
face from me. "Oh, sir," she said, "how do you know
it? Who can have told you?"
"No one has told me, Mrs. Clements. But I have
reasons for feeling sure of it—reasons which I
promise you shall know as soon as I can safely
explain them. I am certain she was not neglected in
her last moments—I am certain the heart complaint
from which she suffered so sadly was the true cause
of her death. You shall feel as sure of this as I
do, soon—you shall know, before long, that she is
buried in a quiet country churchyard—in a pretty,
peaceful place, which you might have chosen for her
yourself."
"Dead!" said Mrs. Clements, "dead so young, and I
am left to hear it! I made her first short frocks. I
taught her to walk. The first time she ever said
Mother she said it to me—and now I am left and Anne
is taken! Did you say, sir," said the poor woman,
removing the handkerchief from her face, and looking
up at me for the first time, "did you say that she
had been nicely buried? Was it the sort of funeral
she might have had if she had really been my own
child?"
I assured her that it was. She seemed to take an
inexplicable pride in my answer—to find a comfort in
it which no other and higher considerations could
afford. "It would have broken my heart," she said
simply, "if Anne had not been nicely buried—but how
do you know it, sir? who told you?" I once more
entreated her to wait until I could speak to her
unreservedly. "You are sure to see me again," I
said, "for I have a favour to ask when you are a
little more composed—perhaps in a day or two."
"Don't keep it waiting, sir, on my account," said
Mrs. Clements. "Never mind my crying if I can be of
use. If you have anything on your mind to say to me,
sir, please to say it now."
"I only wish to ask you one last question," I
said. "I only want to know Mrs. Catherick's address
at Welmingham."
My request so startled Mrs. Clements, that, for
the moment, even the tidings of Anne's death seemed
to be driven from her mind. Her tears suddenly
ceased to flow, and she sat looking at me in blank
amazement.
"For the Lord's sake, sir!" she said, "what do
you want with Mrs. Catherick!"
"I want this, Mrs. Clements," I replied, "I want
to know the secret of those private meetings of hers
with Sir Percival Glyde. There is something more in
what you have told me of that woman's past conduct,
and of that man's past relations with her, than you
or any of your neighbours ever suspected. There is a
secret we none of us know between those two, and I
am going to Mrs. Catherick with the resolution to
find it out."
"Think twice about it, sir!" said Mrs. Clements,
rising in her earnestness and laying her hand on my
arm. "She's an awful woman—you don't know her as I
do. Think twice about it."
"I am sure your warning is kindly meant, Mrs.
Clements. But I am determined to see the woman,
whatever comes of it."
Mrs. Clements looked me anxiously in the face.
"I see your mind is made up, sir," she said. "I
will give you the address."
I wrote it down in my pocket-book and then took
her hand to say farewell.
"You shall hear from me soon," I said; "you shall
know all that I have promised to tell you."
Mrs. Clements sighed and shook her head
doubtfully.
"An old woman's advice is sometimes worth taking,
sir," she said. "Think twice before you go to
Welmingham."
VIII
When I reached home again after my interview with
Mrs. Clements, I was struck by the appearance of a
change in Laura.
The unvarying gentleness and patience which long
misfortune had tried so cruelly and had never
conquered yet, seemed now to have suddenly failed
her. Insensible to all Marian's attempts to soothe
and amuse her, she sat, with her neglected drawing
pushed away on the table, her eyes resolutely cast
down, her fingers twining and untwining themselves
restlessly in her lap. Marian rose when I came in,
with a silent distress in her face, waited for a
moment to see if Laura would look up at my approach,
whispered to me, "Try if you can rouse her," and
left the room.
I sat down in the vacant chair—gently unclasped
the poor, worn, restless fingers, and took both her
hands in mine.
"What are you thinking of, Laura? Tell me, my
darling—try and tell me what it is."
She struggled with herself, and raised her eyes
to mine. "I can't feel happy," she said, "I can't
help thinking——" She stopped, bent forward a little,
and laid her head on my shoulder, with a terrible
mute helplessness that struck me to the heart.
"Try to tell me," I repeated gently; "try to tell
me why you are not happy."
"I am so useless—I am such a burden on both of
you," she answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh.
"You work and get money, Walter, and Marian helps
you. Why is there nothing I can do? You will end in
liking Marian better than you like me—you will,
because I am so helpless! Oh, don't, don't, don't
treat me like a child!"
I raised her head, and smoothed away the tangled
hair that fell over her face, and kissed her—my
poor, faded flower! my lost, afflicted sister! "You
shall help us, Laura," I said, "you shall begin, my
darling, to-day."
She looked at me with a feverish eagerness, with
a breathless interest, that made me tremble for the
new life of hope which I had called into being by
those few words.
I rose, and set her drawing materials in order,
and placed them near her again.
"You know that I work and get money by drawing,"
I said. "Now you have taken such pains, now you are
so much improved, you shall begin to work and get
money too. Try to finish this little sketch as
nicely and prettily as you can. When it is done I
will take it away with me, and the same person will
buy it who buys all that I do. You shall keep your
own earnings in your own purse, and Marian shall
come to you to help us, as often as she comes to me.
Think how useful you are going to make yourself to
both of us, and you will soon be as happy, Laura, as
the day is long."
Her face grew eager, and brightened into a smile.
In the moment while it lasted, in the moment when
she again took up the pencils that had been laid
aside, she almost looked like the Laura of past
days.
I had rightly interpreted the first signs of a
new growth and strength in her mind, unconsciously
expressing themselves in the notice she had taken of
the occupations which filled her sister's life and
mine. Marian (when I told her what had passed) saw,
as I saw, that she was longing to assume her own
little position of importance, to raise herself in
her own estimation and in ours—and, from that day,
we tenderly helped the new ambition which gave
promise of the hopeful, happier future, that might
now not be far off. Her drawings, as she finished
them, or tried to finish them, were placed in my
hands. Marian took them from me and hid them
carefully, and I set aside a little weekly tribute
from my earnings, to be offered to her as the price
paid by strangers for the poor, faint, valueless
sketches, of which I was the only purchaser. It was
hard sometimes to maintain our innocent deception,
when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute
her share towards the expenses, and wondered with
serious interest, whether I or she had earned the
most that week. I have all those hidden drawings in
my possession still—they are my treasures beyond
price—the dear remembrances that I love to keep
alive—the friends in past adversity that my heart
will never part from, my tenderness never forget.
Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my
task? am I looking forward to the happier time which
my narrative has not yet reached? Yes. Back
again—back to the days of doubt and dread, when the
spirit within me struggled hard for its life, in the
icy stillness of perpetual suspense. I have paused
and rested for a while on my forward course. It is
not, perhaps, time wasted, if the friends who read
these pages have paused and rested too.
I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in
private, and of communicating to her the result of
the inquiries which I had made that morning. She
seemed to share the opinion on the subject of my
proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs. Clements
had already expressed to me.
"Surely, Walter," she said, "you hardly know
enough yet to give you any hope of claiming Mrs.
Catherick's confidence? Is it wise to proceed to
these extremities, before you have really exhausted
all safer and simpler means of attaining your
object? When you told me that Sir Percival and the
Count were the only two people in existence who knew
the exact date of Laura's journey, you forgot, and I
forgot, that there was a third person who must
surely know it—I mean Mrs. Rubelle. Would it not be
far easier, and far less dangerous, to insist on a
confession from her, than to force it from Sir
Percival?"
"It might be easier," I replied, "but we are not
aware of the full extent of Mrs. Rubelle's
connivance and interest in the conspiracy, and we
are therefore not certain that the date has been
impressed on her mind, as it has been assuredly
impressed on the minds of Sir Percival and the
Count. It is too late, now, to waste the time on
Mrs. Rubelle, which may be all-important to the
discovery of the one assailable point in Sir
Percival's life. Are you thinking a little too
seriously, Marian, of the risk I may run in
returning to Hampshire? Are you beginning to doubt
whether Sir Percival Glyde may not in the end be
more than a match for me?"
"He will not be more than your match," she
replied decidedly, "because he will not be helped in
resisting you by the impenetrable wickedness of the
Count."
"What has led you to that conclusion?" I replied,
in some surprise.
"My own knowledge of Sir Percival's obstinacy and
impatience of the Count's control," she answered. "I
believe he will insist on meeting you
single-handed—just as he insisted at first on acting
for himself at Blackwater Park. The time for
suspecting the Count's interference will be the time
when you have Sir Percival at your mercy. His own
interests will then be directly threatened, and he
will act, Walter, to terrible purpose in his own
defence."
"We may deprive him of his weapons beforehand," I
said. "Some of the particulars I have heard from
Mrs. Clements may yet be turned to account against
him, and other means of strengthening the case may
be at our disposal. There are passages in Mrs.
Michelson's narrative which show that the Count
found it necessary to place himself in communication
with Mr. Fairlie, and there may be circumstances
which compromise him in that proceeding. While I am
away, Marian, write to Mr. Fairlie and say that you
want an answer describing exactly what passed
between the Count and himself, and informing you
also of any particulars that may have come to his
knowledge at the same time in connection with his
niece. Tell him that the statement you request will,
sooner or later, be insisted on, if he shows any
reluctance to furnish you with it of his own
accord."
"The letter shall be written, Walter. But are you
really determined to go to Welmingham?"
"Absolutely determined. I will devote the next
two days to earning what we want for the week to
come, and on the third day I go to Hampshire."
When the third day came I was ready for my
journey.
As it was possible that I might be absent for
some little time, I arranged with Marian that we
were to correspond every day—of course addressing
each other by assumed names, for caution's sake. As
long as I heard from her regularly, I should assume
that nothing was wrong. But if the morning came and
brought me no letter, my return to London would take
place, as a matter of course, by the first train. I
contrived to reconcile Laura to my departure by
telling her that I was going to the country to find
new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and I
left her occupied and happy. Marian followed me
downstairs to the street door.
"Remember what anxious hearts you leave here,"
she whispered, as we stood together in the passage.
"Remember all the hopes that hang on your safe
return. If strange things happen to you on this
journey—if you and Sir Percival meet——"
"What makes you think we shall meet?" I asked.
"I don't know—I have fears and fancies that I
cannot account for. Laugh at them, Walter, if you
like—but, for God's sake, keep your temper if you
come in contact with that man!"
"Never fear, Marian! I answer for my
self-control."
With those words we parted.
I walked briskly to the station. There was a glow
of hope in me. There was a growing conviction in my
mind that my journey this time would not be taken in
vain. It was a fine, clear, cold morning. My nerves
were firmly strung, and I felt all the strength of
my resolution stirring in me vigorously from head to
foot.
As I crossed the railway platform, and looked
right and left among the people congregated on it,
to search for any faces among them that I knew, the
doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been
to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before
setting out for Hampshire. But there was something
so repellent to me in the idea—something so meanly
like the common herd of spies and informers in the
mere act of adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the
question from consideration almost as soon as it had
risen in my mind. Even as a mere matter of
expediency the proceeding was doubtful in the
extreme. If I tried the experiment at home the
landlord of the house would sooner or later discover
me, and would have his suspicions aroused
immediately. If I tried it away from home the same
persons might see me, by the commonest accident,
with the disguise and without it, and I should in
that way be inviting the notice and distrust which
it was my most pressing interest to avoid. In my own
character I had acted thus far—and in my own
character I was resolved to continue to the end.
The train left me at Welmingham early in the
afternoon.
Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there any
prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine,
which can rival the repelling effect on the eye, and
the depressing influence on the mind, of an English
country town in the first stage of its existence,
and in the transition state of its prosperity? I
asked myself that question as I passed through the
clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim torpor
of the streets of Welmingham. And the tradesmen who
stared after me from their lonely shops—the trees
that drooped helpless in their arid exile of
unfinished crescents and squares—the dead
house-carcasses that waited in vain for the
vivifying human element to animate them with the
breath of life—every creature that I saw, every
object that I passed, seemed to answer with one
accord: The deserts of Arabia are innocent of our
civilised desolation—the ruins of Palestine are
incapable of our modern gloom!
I inquired my way to the quarter of the town in
which Mrs. Catherick lived, and on reaching it found
myself in a square of small houses, one story high.
There was a bare little plot of grass in the middle,
protected by a cheap wire fence. An elderly
nursemaid and two children were standing in a corner
of the enclosure, looking at a lean goat tethered to
the grass. Two foot-passengers were talking together
on one side of the pavement before the houses, and
an idle little boy was leading an idle little dog
along by a string on the other. I heard the dull
tinkling of a piano at a distance, accompanied by
the intermittent knocking of a hammer nearer at
hand. These were all the sights and sounds of life
that encountered me when I entered the square.
I walked at once to the door of Number
Thirteen—the number of Mrs. Catherick's house—and
knocked, without waiting to consider beforehand how
I might best present myself when I got in. The first
necessity was to see Mrs. Catherick. I could then
judge, from my own observation, of the safest and
easiest manner of approaching the object of my
visit.
The door was opened by a melancholy middle-aged
woman servant. I gave her my card, and asked if I
could see Mrs. Catherick. The card was taken into
the front parlour, and the servant returned with a
message requesting me to mention what my business
was.
"Say, if you please, that my business relates to
Mrs. Catherick's daughter," I replied. This was the
best pretext I could think of, on the spur of the
moment, to account for my visit.
The servant again retired to the parlour, again
returned, and this time begged me, with a look of
gloomy amazement, to walk in.
I entered a little room, with a flaring paper of
the largest pattern on the walls. Chairs, tables,
cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the glutinous
brightness of cheap upholstery. On the largest
table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart
Bible, placed exactly in the centre on a red and
yellow woollen mat and at the side of the table
nearest to the window, with a little knitting-basket
on her lap, and a wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel
crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman,
wearing a black net cap and a black silk gown, and
having slate-coloured mittens on her hands. Her
iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either side of
her face—her dark eyes looked straight forward, with
a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full
square cheeks, a long, firm chin, and thick,
sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was stout and
sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed.
This was Mrs. Catherick.
"You have come to speak to me about my daughter,"
she said, before I could utter a word on my side.
"Be so good as to mention what you have to say."
The tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant, as
implacable as the expression of her eyes. She
pointed to a chair, and looked me all over
attentively, from head to foot, as I sat down in it.
I saw that my only chance with this woman was to
speak to her in her own tone, and to meet her, at
the outset of our interview, on her own ground.
"You are aware," I said, "that your daughter has
been lost?"
"I am perfectly aware of it."
"Have you felt any apprehension that the
misfortune of her loss might be followed by the
misfortune of her death?"
"Yes. Have you come here to tell me she is dead?"
"I have."
"Why?"
She put that extraordinary question without the
slightest change in her voice, her face, or her
manner. She could not have appeared more perfectly
unconcerned if I had told her of the death of the
goat in the enclosure outside.
"Why?" I repeated. "Do you ask why I come here to
tell you of your daughter's death?"
"Yes. What interest have you in me, or in her?
How do you come to know anything about my daughter?"
"In this way. I met her on the night when she
escaped from the Asylum, and I assisted her in
reaching a place of safety."
"You did very wrong."
"I am sorry to hear her mother say so."
"Her mother does say so. How do you know she is
dead?"
"I am not at liberty to say how I know it—but I
DO know it."
"Are you at liberty to say how you found out my
address?"
"Certainly. I got your address from Mrs.
Clements."
"Mrs. Clements is a foolish woman. Did she tell
you to come here?"
"She did not."
"Then, I ask you again, why did you come?"
As she was determined to have her answer, I gave
it to her in the plainest possible form.
"I came," I said, "because I thought Anne
Catherick's mother might have some natural interest
in knowing whether she was alive or dead."
"Just so," said Mrs. Catherick, with additional
self-possession. "Had you no other motive?"
I hesitated. The right answer to that question
was not easy to find at a moment's notice.
"If you have no other motive," she went on,
deliberately taking off her slate-coloured mittens,
and rolling them up, "I have only to thank you for
your visit, and to say that I will not detain you
here any longer. Your information would be more
satisfactory if you were willing to explain how you
became possessed of it. However, it justifies me, I
suppose, in going into mourning. There is not much
alteration necessary in my dress, as you see. When I
have changed my mittens, I shall be all in black."
She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out
a pair of black lace mittens, put them on with the
stoniest and steadiest composure, and then quietly
crossed her hands in her lap.
"I wish you good morning," she said.
The cool contempt of her manner irritated me into
directly avowing that the purpose of my visit had
not been answered yet.
"I HAVE another motive in coming here," I said.
"Ah! I thought so," remarked Mrs. Catherick.
"Your daughter's death——"
"What did she die of?"
"Of disease of the heart."
"Yes. Go on."
"Your daughter's death has been made the pretext
for inflicting serious injury on a person who is
very dear to me. Two men have been concerned, to my
certain knowledge, in doing that wrong. One of them
is Sir Percival Glyde."
"Indeed!"
I looked attentively to see if she flinched at
the sudden mention of that name. Not a muscle of her
stirred—the hard, defiant, implacable stare in her
eyes never wavered for an instant.
"You may wonder," I went on, "how the event of
your daughter's death can have been made the means
of inflicting injury on another person."
"No," said Mrs. Catherick; "I don't wonder at
all. This appears to be your affair. You are
interested in my affairs. I am not interested in
yours."
"You may ask, then," I persisted, "why I mention
the matter in your presence."
"Yes, I DO ask that."
"I mention it because I am determined to bring
Sir Percival Glyde to account for the wickedness he
has committed."
"What have I to do with your determination?"
"You shall hear. There are certain events in Sir
Percival's past life which it is necessary for my
purpose to be fully acquainted with. YOU know
them—and for that reason I come to YOU."
"What events do you mean?"
"Events that occurred at Old Welmingham when your
husband was parish-clerk at that place, and before
the time when your daughter was born."
I had reached the woman at last through the
barrier of impenetrable reserve that she had tried
to set up between us. I saw her temper smouldering
in her eyes—as plainly as I saw her hands grow
restless, then unclasp themselves, and begin
mechanically smoothing her dress over her knees.
"What do you know of those events?" she asked.
"All that Mrs. Clements could tell me," I
answered.
There was a momentary flush on her firm square
face, a momentary stillness in her restless hands,
which seemed to betoken a coming outburst of anger
that might throw her off her guard. But no—she
mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her
chair, crossed her arms on her broad bosom, and with
a smile of grim sarcasm on her thick lips, looked at
me as steadily as ever.
"Ah! I begin to understand it all now," she said,
her tamed and disciplined anger only expressing
itself in the elaborate mockery of her tone and
manner. "You have got a grudge of your own against
Sir Percival Glyde, and I must help you to wreak it.
I must tell you this, that, and the other about Sir
Percival and myself, must I? Yes, indeed? You have
been prying into my private affairs. You think you
have found a lost woman to deal with, who lives here
on sufferance, and who will do anything you ask for
fear you may injure her in the opinions of the
town's-people. I see through you and your precious
speculation—I do! and it amuses me. Ha! ha!"
She stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over
her bosom, and she laughed to herself—a hard, harsh,
angry laugh.
"You don't know how I have lived in this place,
and what I have done in this place, Mr.
What's-your-name," she went on. "I'll tell you,
before I ring the bell and have you shown out. I
came here a wronged woman—I came here robbed of my
character and determined to claim it back. I've been
years and years about it—and I HAVE claimed it back.
I have matched the respectable people fairly and
openly on their own ground. If they say anything
against me now they must say it in secret—they can't
say it, they daren't say it, openly. I stand high
enough in this town to be out of your reach. THE
CLERGYMAN BOWS TO ME. Aha! you didn't bargain for
that when you came here. Go to the church and
inquire about me—you will find Mrs. Catherick has
her sitting like the rest of them, and pays the rent
on the day it's due. Go to the town-hall. There's a
petition lying there—a petition of the respectable
inhabitants against allowing a circus to come and
perform here and corrupt our morals—yes! OUR morals.
I signed that petition this morning. Go to the
bookseller's shop. The clergyman's Wednesday evening
Lectures on Justification by Faith are publishing
there by subscription—I'm down on the list. The
doctor's wife only put a shilling in the plate at
our last charity sermon—I put half-a-crown. Mr.
Churchwarden Soward held the plate, and bowed to me.
Ten years ago he told Pigrum the chemist I ought to
be whipped out of the town at the cart's tail. Is
your mother alive? Has she got a better Bible on her
table than I have got on mine? Does she stand better
with her trades-people than I do with mine? Has she
always lived within her income? I have always lived
within mine. Ah! there IS the clergyman coming along
the square. Look, Mr. What's-your-name—look, if you
please!"
She started up with the activity of a young
woman, went to the window, waited till the clergyman
passed, and bowed to him solemnly. The clergyman
ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked on. Mrs.
Catherick returned to her chair, and looked at me
with a grimmer sarcasm than ever.
"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for
a woman with a lost character? How does your
speculation look now?"
The singular manner in which she had chosen to
assert herself, the extraordinary practical
vindication of her position in the town which she
had just offered, had so perplexed me that I
listened to her in silent surprise. I was not the
less resolved, however, to make another effort to
throw her off her guard. If the woman's fierce
temper once got beyond her control, and once flamed
out on me, she might yet say the words which would
put the clue in my hands.
"How does your speculation look now?" she
repeated.
"Exactly as it looked when I first came in," I
answered. "I don't doubt the position you have
gained in the town, and I don't wish to assail it
even if I could. I came here because Sir Percival
Glyde is, to my certain knowledge, your enemy, as
well as mine. If I have a grudge against him, you
have a grudge against him too. You may deny it if
you like, you may distrust me as much as you please,
you may be as angry as you will—but, of all the
women in England, you, if you have any sense of
injury, are the woman who ought to help me to crush
that man."
"Crush him for yourself," she said; "then come
back here, and see what I say to you."
She spoke those words as she had not spoken yet,
quickly, fiercely, vindictively. I had stirred in
its lair the serpent-hatred of years, but only for a
moment. Like a lurking reptile it leaped up at me as
she eagerly bent forward towards the place in which
I was sitting. Like a lurking reptile it dropped out
of sight again as she instantly resumed her former
position in the chair.
"You won't trust me?" I said.
"No."
"You are afraid?"
"Do I look as if I was?"
"You are afraid of Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Am I?"
Her colour was rising, and her hands were at work
again smoothing her gown. I pressed the point
farther and farther home, I went on without allowing
her a moment of delay.
"Sir Percival has a high position in the world,"
I said; "it would be no wonder if you were afraid of
him. Sir Percival is a powerful man, a baronet, the
possessor of a fine estate, the descendant of a
great family——"
She amazed me beyond expression by suddenly
bursting out laughing.
"Yes," she repeated, in tones of the bitterest,
steadiest contempt. "A baronet, the possessor of a
fine estate, the descendant of a great family. Yes,
indeed! A great family—especially by the mother's
side."
There was no time to reflect on the words that
had just escaped her, there was only time to feel
that they were well worth thinking over the moment I
left the house.
"I am not here to dispute with you about family
questions," I said. "I know nothing of Sir
Percival's mother——"
"And you know as little of Sir Percival himself,"
she interposed sharply.
"I advise you not to be too sure of that," I
rejoined. "I know some things about him, and I
suspect many more."
"What do you suspect?"
"I'll tell you what I DON'T suspect. I DON'T
suspect him of being Anne's father."
She started to her feet, and came close up to me
with a look of fury.
"How dare you talk to me about Anne's father! How
dare you say who was her father, or who wasn't!" she
broke out, her face quivering, her voice trembling
with passion.
"The secret between you and Sir Percival is not
THAT secret," I persisted. "The mystery which
darkens Sir Percival's life was not born with your
daughter's birth, and has not died with your
daughter's death."
She drew back a step. "Go!" she said, and pointed
sternly to the door.
"There was no thought of the child in your heart
or in his," I went on, determined to press her back
to her last defences. "There was no bond of guilty
love between you and him when you held those stolen
meetings, when your husband found you whispering
together under the vestry of the church."
Her pointing hand instantly dropped to her side,
and the deep flush of anger faded from her face
while I spoke. I saw the change pass over her—I saw
that hard, firm, fearless, self-possessed woman
quail under a terror which her utmost resolution was
not strong enough to resist when I said those five
last words, "the vestry of the church."
For a minute or more we stood looking at each
other in silence. I spoke first.
"Do you still refuse to trust me?" I asked.
She could not call the colour that had left it
back to her face, but she had steadied her voice,
she had recovered the defiant self-possession of her
manner when she answered me.
"I do refuse," she said.
"Do you still tell me to go?"
"Yes. Go—and never come back."
I walked to the door, waited a moment before I
opened it, and turned round to look at her again.
"I may have news to bring you of Sir Percival
which you don't expect," I said, "and in that case I
shall come back."
"There is no news of Sir Percival that I don't
expect, except——"
She stopped, her pale face darkened, and she
stole back with a quiet, stealthy, cat-like step to
her chair.
"Except the news of his death," she said, sitting
down again, with the mockery of a smile just
hovering on her cruel lips, and the furtive light of
hatred lurking deep in her steady eyes.
As I opened the door of the room to go out, she
looked round at me quickly. The cruel smile slowly
widened her lips—she eyed me, with a strange
stealthy interest, from head to foot—an unutterable
expectation showed itself wickedly all over her
face. Was she speculating, in the secrecy of her own
heart, on my youth and strength, on the force of my
sense of injury and the limits of my self-control,
and was she considering the lengths to which they
might carry me, if Sir Percival and I ever chanced
to meet? The bare doubt that it might be so drove me
from her presence, and silenced even the common
forms of farewell on my lips. Without a word more,
on my side or on hers, I left the room.
As I opened the outer door, I saw the same
clergyman who had already passed the house once,
about to pass it again, on his way back through the
square. I waited on the door-step to let him go by,
and looked round, as I did so, at the parlour
window.
Mrs. Catherick had heard his footsteps
approaching, in the silence of that lonely place,
and she was on her feet at the window again, waiting
for him. Not all the strength of all the terrible
passions I had roused in that woman's heart, could
loosen her desperate hold on the one fragment of
social consideration which years of resolute effort
had just dragged within her grasp. There she was
again, not a minute after I had left her, placed
purposely in a position which made it a matter of
common courtesy on the part of the clergyman to bow
to her for a second time. He raised his hat once
more. I saw the hard ghastly face behind the window
soften, and light up with gratified pride—I saw the
head with the grim black cap bend ceremoniously in
return. The clergyman had bowed to her, and in my
presence, twice in one day!
IX
I Left the house, feeling that Mrs. Catherick had
helped me a step forward, in spite of herself.
Before I had reached the turning which led out of
the square, my attention was suddenly aroused by the
sound of a closing door behind me.
I looked round, and saw an undersized man in
black on the door-step of a house, which, as well as
I could judge, stood next to Mrs. Catherick's place
of abode—next to it, on the side nearest to me. The
man did not hesitate a moment about the direction he
should take. He advanced rapidly towards the turning
at which I had stopped. I recognised him as the
lawyer's clerk, who had preceded me in my visit to
Blackwater Park, and who had tried to pick a quarrel
with me, when I asked him if I could see the house.
I waited where I was, to ascertain whether his
object was to come to close quarters and speak on
this occasion. To my surprise he passed on rapidly,
without saying a word, without even looking up in my
face as he went by. This was such a complete
inversion of the course of proceeding which I had
every reason to expect on his part, that my
curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and
I determined on my side to keep him cautiously in
view, and to discover what the business might be in
which he was now employed. Without caring whether he
saw me or not, I walked after him. He never looked
back, and he led me straight through the streets to
the railway station.
The train was on the point of starting, and two
or three passengers who were late were clustering
round the small opening through which the tickets
were issued. I joined them, and distinctly heard the
lawyer's clerk demand a ticket for the Blackwater
station. I satisfied myself that he had actually
left by the train before I came away.
There was only one interpretation that I could
place on what I had just seen and heard. I had
unquestionably observed the man leaving a house
which closely adjoined Mrs. Catherick's residence.
He had been probably placed there, by Sir Percival's
directions, as a lodger, in anticipation of my
inquiries leading me, sooner or later, to
communicate with Mrs. Catherick. He had doubtless
seen me go in and come out, and he had hurried away
by the first train to make his report at Blackwater
Park, to which place Sir Percival would naturally
betake himself (knowing what he evidently knew of my
movements), in order to be ready on the spot, if I
returned to Hampshire. Before many days were over,
there seemed every likelihood now that he and I
might meet.
Whatever result events might be destined to
produce, I resolved to pursue my own course,
straight to the end in view, without stopping or
turning aside for Sir Percival or for any one. The
great responsibility which weighed on me heavily in
London—the responsibility of so guiding my slightest
actions as to prevent them from leading accidentally
to the discovery of Laura's place of refuge—was
removed, now that I was in Hampshire. I could go and
come as I pleased at Welmingham, and if I chanced to
fail in observing any necessary precautions, the
immediate results, at least, would affect no one but
myself.
When I left the station the winter evening was
beginning to close in. There was little hope of
continuing my inquiries after dark to any useful
purpose in a neighbourhood that was strange to me.
Accordingly, I made my way to the nearest hotel, and
ordered my dinner and my bed. This done, I wrote to
Marian, to tell her that I was safe and well, and
that I had fair prospects of success. I had directed
her, on leaving home, to address the first letter
she wrote to me (the letter I expected to receive
the next morning) to "The Post-Office, Welmingham,"
and I now begged her to send her second day's letter
to the same address.
I could easily receive it by writing to the
postmaster if I happened to be away from the town
when it arrived.
The coffee-room of the hotel, as it grew late in
the evening, became a perfect solitude. I was left
to reflect on what I had accomplished that afternoon
as uninterruptedly as if the house had been my own.
Before I retired to rest I had attentively thought
over my extraordinary interview with Mrs. Catherick
from beginning to end, and had verified at my
leisure the conclusions which I had hastily drawn in
the earlier part of the day.
The vestry of Old Welmingham church was the
starting-point from which my mind slowly worked its
way back through all that I had heard Mrs. Catherick
say, and through all I had seen Mrs. Catherick do.
At the time when the neighbourhood of the vestry
was first referred to in my presence by Mrs.
Clements, I had thought it the strangest and most
unaccountable of all places for Sir Percival to
select for a clandestine meeting with the clerk's
wife. Influenced by this impression, and by no
other, I had mentioned "the vestry of the church"
before Mrs. Catherick on pure speculation—it
represented one of the minor peculiarities of the
story which occurred to me while I was speaking. I
was prepared for her answering me confusedly or
angrily, but the blank terror that seized her when I
said the words took me completely by surprise. I had
long before associated Sir Percival's Secret with
the concealment of a serious crime which Mrs.
Catherick knew of, but I had gone no further than
this. Now the woman's paroxysm of terror associated
the crime, either directly or indirectly, with the
vestry, and convinced me that she had been more than
the mere witness of it—she was also the accomplice,
beyond a doubt.
What had been the nature of the crime? Surely
there was a contemptible side to it, as well as a
dangerous side, or Mrs. Catherick would not have
repeated my own words, referring to Sir Percival's
rank and power, with such marked disdain as she had
certainly displayed. It was a contemptible crime
then and a dangerous crime, and she had shared in
it, and it was associated with the vestry of the
church.
The next consideration to be disposed of led me a
step farther from this point.
Mrs. Catherick's undisguised contempt for Sir
Percival plainly extended to his mother as well. She
had referred with the bitterest sarcasm to the great
family he had descended from—"especially by the
mother's side." What did this mean?
There appeared to be only two explanations of it.
Either his mother's birth had been low, or his
mother's reputation was damaged by some hidden flaw
with which Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival were both
privately acquainted? I could only put the first
explanation to the test by looking at the register
of her marriage, and so ascertaining her maiden name
and her parentage as a preliminary to further
inquiries.
On the other hand, if the second case supposed
were the true one, what had been the flaw in her
reputation? Remembering the account which Marian had
given me of Sir Percival's father and mother, and of
the suspiciously unsocial secluded life they had
both led, I now asked myself whether it might not be
possible that his mother had never been married at
all. Here again the register might, by offering
written evidence of the marriage, prove to me, at
any rate, that this doubt had no foundation in
truth. But where was the register to be found? At
this point I took up the conclusions which I had
previously formed, and the same mental process which
had discovered the locality of the concealed crime,
now lodged the register also in the vestry of Old
Welmingham church.
These were the results of my interview with Mrs.
Catherick—these were the various considerations, all
steadily converging to one point, which decided the
course of my proceedings on the next day.
The morning was cloudy and lowering, but no rain fell. I left my bag at
the hotel to wait there till I called for it, and,
after inquiring the way, set forth on foot for Old
Welmingham church.
It was a walk of rather more than two miles, the
ground rising slowly all the way.
On the highest point stood the church—an ancient,
weather-beaten building, with heavy buttresses at
its sides, and a clumsy square tower in front. The
vestry at the back was built out from the church,
and seemed to be of the same age. Round the building
at intervals appeared the remains of the village
which Mrs. Clements had described to me as her
husband's place of abode in former years, and which
the principal inhabitants had long since deserted
for the new town. Some of the empty houses had been
dismantled to their outer walls, some had been left
to decay with time, and some were still inhabited by
persons evidently of the poorest class. It was a
dreary scene, and yet, in the worst aspect of its
ruin, not so dreary as the modern town that I had
just left. Here there was the brown, breezy sweep of
surrounding fields for the eye to repose on—here the
trees, leafless as they were, still varied the
monotony of the prospect, and helped the mind to
look forward to summer-time and shade.
As I moved away from the back of the church, and
passed some of the dismantled cottages in search of
a person who might direct me to the clerk, I saw two
men saunter out after me from behind a wall. The
tallest of the two—a stout muscular man in the dress
of a gamekeeper—was a stranger to me. The other was
one of the men who had followed me in London on the
day when I left Mr. Kyrle's office. I had taken
particular notice of him at the time; and I felt
sure that I was not mistaken in identifying the
fellow on this occasion.
Neither he nor his companion attempted to speak
to me, and both kept themselves at a respectful
distance, but the motive of their presence in the
neighbourhood of the church was plainly apparent. It
was exactly as I had supposed—Sir Percival was
already prepared for me. My visit to Mrs. Catherick
had been reported to him the evening before, and
those two men had been placed on the look-out near
the church in anticipation of my appearance at Old
Welmingham. If I had wanted any further proof that
my investigations had taken the right direction at
last, the plan now adopted for watching me would
have supplied it.
I walked on away from the church till I reached
one of the inhabited houses, with a patch of kitchen
garden attached to it on which a labourer was at
work. He directed me to the clerk's abode, a cottage
at some little distance off, standing by itself on
the outskirts of the forsaken village. The clerk was
indoors, and was just putting on his greatcoat. He
was a cheerful, familiar, loudly-talkative old man,
with a very poor opinion (as I soon discovered) of
the place in which he lived, and a happy sense of
superiority to his neighbours in virtue of the great
personal distinction of having once been in London.
"It's well you came so early, sir," said the old
man, when I had mentioned the object of my visit. "I
should have been away in ten minutes more. Parish
business, sir, and a goodish long trot before it's
all done for a man at my age. But, bless you, I'm
strong on my legs still! As long as a man don't give
at his legs, there's a deal of work left in him.
Don't you think so yourself, sir?"
He took his keys down while he was talking from a
hook behind the fireplace, and locked his cottage
door behind us.
"Nobody at home to keep house for me," said the
clerk, with a cheerful sense of perfect freedom from
all family encumbrances. "My wife's in the
churchyard there, and my children are all married. A
wretched place this, isn't it, sir? But the parish
is a large one—every man couldn't get through the
business as I do. It's learning does it, and I've
had my share, and a little more. I can talk the
Queen's English (God bless the Queen!), and that's
more than most of the people about here can do.
You're from London, I suppose, sir? I've been in
London a matter of five-and-twenty year ago. What's
the news there now, if you please?"
Chattering on in this way, he led me back to the
vestry. I looked about to see if the two spies were
still in sight. They were not visible anywhere.
After having discovered my application to the clerk,
they had probably concealed themselves where they
could watch my next proceedings in perfect freedom.
The vestry door was of stout old oak, studded
with strong nails, and the clerk put his large heavy
key into the lock with the air of a man who knew
that he had a difficulty to encounter, and who was
not quite certain of creditably conquering it.
"I'm obliged to bring you this way, sir," he
said, "because the door from the vestry to the
church is bolted on the vestry side. We might have
got in through the church otherwise. This is a
perverse lock, if ever there was one yet. It's big
enough for a prison-door—it's been hampered over and
over again, and it ought to be changed for a new
one. I've mentioned that to the churchwarden fifty
times over at least—he's always saying, 'I'll see
about it'—and he never does see. Ah, It's a sort of
lost corner, this place. Not like London—is it, sir?
Bless you, we are all asleep here! We don't march
with the times."
After some twisting and turning of the key, the
heavy lock yielded, and he opened the door.
The vestry was larger than I should have supposed
it to be, judging from the outside only. It was a
dim, mouldy, melancholy old room, with a low,
raftered ceiling. Round two sides of it, the sides
nearest to the interior of the church, ran heavy
wooden presses, worm-eaten and gaping with age.
Hooked to the inner corner of one of these presses
hung several surplices, all bulging out at their
lower ends in an irreverent-looking bundle of limp
drapery. Below the surplices, on the floor, stood
three packing-cases, with the lids half off, half
on, and the straw profusely bursting out of their
cracks and crevices in every direction. Behind them,
in a corner, was a litter of dusty papers, some
large and rolled up like architects' plans, some
loosely strung together on files like bills or
letters. The room had once been lighted by a small
side window, but this had been bricked up, and a
lantern skylight was now substituted for it. The
atmosphere of the place was heavy and mouldy, being
rendered additionally oppressive by the closing of
the door which led into the church. This door also
was composed of solid oak, and was bolted at the top
and bottom on the vestry side.
"We might be tidier, mightn't we, sir?" said the
cheerful clerk; "but when you're in a lost corner of
a place like this, what are you to do? Why, look
here now, just look at these packing-cases. There
they've been, for a year or more, ready to go down
to London—there they are, littering the place, and
there they'll stop as long as the nails hold them
together. I'll tell you what, sir, as I said before,
this is not London. We are all asleep here. Bless
you, WE don't march with the times!"
"What is there in the packing-cases?" I asked.
"Bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and
panels from the chancel, and images from the
organ-loft," said the clerk. "Portraits of the
twelve apostles in wood, and not a whole nose among
'em. All broken, and worm-eaten, and crumbling to
dust at the edges. As brittle as crockery, sir, and
as old as the church, if not older."
"And why were they going to London? To be
repaired?"
"That's it, sir, to be repaired, and where they
were past repair, to be copied in sound wood. But,
bless you, the money fell short, and there they are,
waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to
subscribe. It was all done a year ago, sir. Six
gentlemen dined together about it, at the hotel in
the new town. They made speeches, and passed
resolutions, and put their names down, and printed
off thousands of prospectuses. Beautiful
prospectuses, sir, all flourished over with Gothic
devices in red ink, saying it was a disgrace not to
restore the church and repair the famous carvings,
and so on. There are the prospectuses that couldn't
be distributed, and the architect's plans and
estimates, and the whole correspondence which set
everybody at loggerheads and ended in a dispute, all
down together in that corner, behind the
packing-cases. The money dribbled in a little at
first—but what CAN you expect out of London? There
was just enough, you know, to pack the broken
carvings, and get the estimates, and pay the
printer's bill, and after that there wasn't a
halfpenny left. There the things are, as I said
before. We have nowhere else to put them—nobody in
the new town cares about accommodating us—we're in a
lost corner—and this is an untidy vestry—and who's
to help it?—that's what I want to know."
My anxiety to examine the register did not
dispose me to offer much encouragement to the old
man's talkativeness. I agreed with him that nobody
could help the untidiness of the vestry, and then
suggested that we should proceed to our business
without more delay.
"Ay, ay, the marriage-register, to be sure," said
the clerk, taking a little bunch of keys from his
pocket. "How far do you want to look back, sir?"
Marian had informed me of Sir Percival's age at
the time when we had spoken together of his marriage
engagement with Laura. She had then described him as
being forty-five years old. Calculating back from
this, and making due allowance for the year that had
passed since I had gained my information, I found
that he must have been born in eighteen hundred and
four, and that I might safely start on my search
through the register from that date.
"I want to begin with the year eighteen hundred
and four," I said.
"Which way after that, sir?" asked the clerk.
"Forwards to our time or backwards away from us?"
"Backwards from eighteen hundred and four."
He opened the door of one of the presses—the
press from the side of which the surplices were
hanging—and produced a large volume bound in greasy
brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of the
place in which the register was kept. The door of
the press was warped and cracked with age, and the
lock was of the smallest and commonest kind. I could
have forced it easily with the walking-stick I
carried in my hand.
"Is that considered a sufficiently secure place
for the register?" I inquired. "Surely a book of
such importance as this ought to be protected by a
better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?"
"Well, now, that's curious!" said the clerk,
shutting up the book again, just after he had opened
it, and smacking his hand cheerfully on the cover.
"Those were the very words my old master was always
saying years and years ago, when I was a lad. 'Why
isn't the register' (meaning this register here,
under my hand)—'why isn't it kept in an iron safe?'
If I've heard him say that once, I've heard him say
it a hundred times. He was the solicitor in those
days, sir, who had the appointment of vestry-clerk
to this church. A fine hearty old gentleman, and the
most particular man breathing. As long as he lived
he kept a copy of this book in his office at
Knowlesbury, and had it posted up regular, from time
to time, to correspond with the fresh entries here.
You would hardly think it, but he had his own
appointed days, once or twice in every quarter, for
riding over to this church on his old white pony, to
check the copy, by the register, with his own eyes
and hands. 'How do I know?' (he used to say) 'how do
I know that the register in this vestry may not be
stolen or destroyed? Why isn't it kept in an iron
safe? Why can't I make other people as careful as I
am myself? Some of these days there will be an
accident happen, and when the register's lost, then
the parish will find out the value of my copy.' He
used to take his pinch of snuff after that, and look
about him as bold as a lord. Ah! the like of him for
doing business isn't easy to find now. You may go to
London and not match him, even THERE. Which year did
you say, sir? Eighteen hundred and what?"
"Eighteen hundred and four," I replied, mentally
resolving to give the old man no more opportunities
of talking, until my examination of the register was
over.
The clerk put on his spectacles, and turned over
the leaves of the register, carefully wetting his
finger and thumb at every third page. "There it is,
sir," said he, with another cheerful smack on the
open volume. "There's the year you want."
As I was ignorant of the month in which Sir
Percival was born, I began my backward search with
the early part of the year. The register-book was of
the old-fashioned kind, the entries being all made
on blank pages in manuscript, and the divisions
which separated them being indicated by ink lines
drawn across the page at the close of each entry.
I reached the beginning of the year eighteen
hundred and four without encountering the marriage,
and then travelled back through December eighteen
hundred and three—through November and
October—through——
No! not through September also. Under the heading
of that month in the year I found the marriage.
I looked carefully at the entry. It was at the
bottom of a page, and was for want of room
compressed into a smaller space than that occupied
by the marriages above. The marriage immediately
before it was impressed on my attention by the
circumstance of the bridegroom's Christian name
being the same as my own. The entry immediately
following it (on the top of the next page) was
noticeable in another way from the large space it
occupied, the record in this case registering the
marriages of two brothers at the same time. The
register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde was in
no respect remarkable except for the narrowness of
the space into which it was compressed at the bottom
of the page. The information about his wife was the
usual information given in such cases. She was
described as "Cecilia Jane Elster, of Park-View
Cottages, Knowlesbury, only daughter of the late
Patrick Elster, Esq., formerly of Bath."
I noted down these particulars in my pocket-book,
feeling as I did so both doubtful and disheartened
about my next proceedings. The Secret which I had
believed until this moment to be within my grasp
seemed now farther from my reach than ever.
What suggestions of any mystery unexplained had
arisen out of my visit to the vestry? I saw no
suggestions anywhere. What progress had I made
towards discovering the suspected stain on the
reputation of Sir Percival's mother? The one fact I
had ascertained vindicated her reputation. Fresh
doubts, fresh difficulties, fresh delays began to
open before me in interminable prospect. What was I
to do next? The one immediate resource left to me
appeared to be this. I might institute inquiries
about "Miss Elster of Knowlesbury," on the chance of
advancing towards the main object of my
investigation, by first discovering the secret of
Mrs. Catherick's contempt for Sir Percival's mother.
"Have you found what you wanted, sir?" said the
clerk, as I closed the register-book.
"Yes," I replied, "but I have some inquiries
still to make. I suppose the clergyman who
officiated here in the year eighteen hundred and
three is no longer alive?"
"No, no, sir, he was dead three or four years
before I came here, and that was as long ago as the
year twenty-seven. I got this place, sir," persisted
my talkative old friend, "through the clerk before
me leaving it. They say he was driven out of house
and home by his wife—and she's living still down in
the new town there. I don't know the rights of the
story myself—all I know is I got the place. Mr.
Wansborough got it for me—the son of my old master
that I was tell you of. He's a free, pleasant
gentleman as ever lived—rides to the hounds, keeps
his pointers and all that. He's vestry-clerk here
now as his father was before him."
"Did you not tell me your former master lived at
Knowlesbury?" I asked, calling to mind the long
story about the precise gentleman of the old school
with which my talkative friend had wearied me before
he opened the register-book.
"Yes, to be sure, sir," replied the clerk. "Old
Mr. Wansborough lived at Knowlesbury, and young Mr.
Wansborough lives there too."
"You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his
father before him. I am not quite sure that I know
what a vestry-clerk is."
"Don't you indeed, sir?—and you come from London
too! Every parish church, you know, has a
vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. The parish-clerk is
a man like me (except that I've got a deal more
learning than most of them—though I don't boast of
it). The vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment
that the lawyers get, and if there's any business to
be done for the vestry, why there they are to do it.
It's just the same in London. Every parish church
there has got its vestry-clerk—and you may take my
word for it he's sure to be a lawyer."
"Then young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer, I
suppose?"
"Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High Street,
Knowlesbury—the old offices that his father had
before him. The number of times I've swept those
offices out, and seen the old gentleman come
trotting in to business on his white pony, looking
right and left all down the street and nodding to
everybody! Bless you, he was a popular
character!—he'd have done in London!"
"How far is it to Knowlesbury from this place?"
"A long stretch, sir," said the clerk, with that
exaggerated idea of distances, and that vivid
perception of difficulties in getting from place to
place, which is peculiar to all country people.
"Nigh on five mile, I can tell you!"
It was still early in the forenoon. There was
plenty of time for a walk to Knowlesbury and back
again to Welmingham; and there was no person
probably in the town who was fitter to assist my
inquiries about the character and position of Sir
Percival's mother before her marriage than the local
solicitor. Resolving to go at once to Knowlesbury on
foot, I led the way out of the vestry.
"Thank you kindly, sir," said the clerk, as I
slipped my little present into his hand. "Are you
really going to walk all the way to Knowlesbury and
back? Well! you're strong on your legs, too—and what
a blessing that is, isn't it? There's the road, you
can't miss it. I wish I was going your way—it's
pleasant to meet with gentlemen from London in a
lost corner like this. One hears the news. Wish you
good-morning, sir, and thank you kindly once more."
We parted. As I left the church behind me I
looked back, and there were the two men again on the
road below, with a third in their company, that
third person being the short man in black whom I had
traced to the railway the evening before.
The three stood talking together for a little
while, then separated. The man in black went away by
himself towards Welmingham—the other two remained
together, evidently waiting to follow me as soon as
I walked on.
I proceeded on my way without letting the fellows
see that I took any special notice of them. They
caused me no conscious irritation of feeling at that
moment—on the contrary, they rather revived my
sinking hopes. In the surprise of discovering the
evidence of the marriage, I had forgotten the
inference I had drawn on first perceiving the men in
the neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance
reminded me that Sir Percival had anticipated my
visit to Old Welmingham church as the next result of
my interview with Mrs. Catherick—otherwise he would
never have placed his spies there to wait for me.
Smoothly and fairly as appearances looked in the
vestry, there was something wrong beneath them—there
was something in the register-book, for aught I
knew, that I had not discovered yet.
X
Once out of sight of the church, I pressed
forward briskly on my way to Knowlesbury.
The road was, for the most part, straight and
level. Whenever I looked back over it I saw the two
spies steadily following me. For the greater part of
the way they kept at a safe distance behind. But
once or twice they quickened their pace, as if with
the purpose of overtaking me, then stopped,
consulted together, and fell back again to their
former position. They had some special object
evidently in view, and they seemed to be hesitating
or differing about the best means of accomplishing
it. I could not guess exactly what their design
might be, but I felt serious doubts of reaching
Knowlesbury without some mischance happening to me
on the way. These doubts were realised.
I had just entered on a lonely part of the road,
with a sharp turn at some distance ahead, and had
just concluded (calculating by time) that I must be
getting near to the town, when I suddenly heard the
steps of the men close behind me.
Before I could look round, one of them (the man
by whom I had been followed in London) passed
rapidly on my left side and hustled me with his
shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in
which he and his companion had dogged my steps all
the way from Old Welmingham than I was myself aware
of, and I unfortunately pushed the fellow away
smartly with my open hand. He instantly shouted for
help. His companion, the tall man in the
gamekeeper's clothes, sprang to my right side, and
the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned
between them in the middle of the road.
The conviction that a trap had been laid for me,
and the vexation of knowing that I had fallen into
it, fortunately restrained me from making my
position still worse by an unavailing struggle with
two men, one of whom would, in all probability, have
been more than a match for me single-handed. I
repressed the first natural movement by which I had
attempted to shake them off, and looked about to see
if there was any person near to whom I could appeal.
A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who
must have witnessed all that had passed. I called to
him to follow us to the town. He shook his head with
stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction
of a cottage which stood back from the high-road. At
the same time the men who held me between them
declared their intention of charging me with an
assault. I was cool enough and wise enough now to
make no opposition. "Drop your hold of my arms," I
said, "and I will go with you to the town." The man
in the gamekeeper's dress roughly refused. But the
shorter man was sharp enough to look to
consequences, and not to let his companion commit
himself by unnecessary violence. He made a sign to
the other, and I walked on between them with my arms
free.
We reached the turning in the road, and there,
close before us, were the suburbs of Knowlesbury.
One of the local policemen was walking along the
path by the roadside. The men at once appealed to
him. He replied that the magistrate was then sitting
at the town-hall, and recommended that we should
appear before him immediately.
We went on to the town-hall. The clerk made out a
formal summons, and the charge was preferred against
me, with the customary exaggeration and the
customary perversion of the truth on such occasions.
The magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour
enjoyment in the exercise of his own power) inquired
if any one on or near the road had witnessed the
assault, and, greatly to my surprise, the
complainant admitted the presence of the labourer in
the field. I was enlightened, however, as to the
object of the admission by the magistrate's next
words. He remanded me at once for the production of
the witness, expressing, at the same time, his
willingness to take bail for my reappearance if I
could produce one responsible surety to offer it. If
I had been known in the town he would have liberated
me on my own recognisances, but as I was a total
stranger it was necessary that I should find
responsible bail.
The whole object of the stratagem was now
disclosed to me. It had been so managed as to make a
remand necessary in a town where I was a perfect
stranger, and where I could not hope to get my
liberty on bail. The remand merely extended over
three days, until the next sitting of the
magistrate. But in that time, while I was in
confinement, Sir Percival might use any means he
pleased to embarrass my future proceedings—perhaps
to screen himself from detection altogether—without
the slightest fear of any hindrance on my part. At
the end of the three days the charge would, no
doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of the
witness would be perfectly useless.
My indignation, I may almost say, my despair, at
this mischievous check to all further progress—so
base and trifling in itself, and yet so
disheartening and so serious in its probable
results—quite unfitted me at first to reflect on the
best means of extricating myself from the dilemma in
which I now stood. I had the folly to call for
writing materials, and to think of privately
communicating my real position to the magistrate.
The hopelessness and the imprudence of this
proceeding failed to strike me before I had actually
written the opening lines of the letter. It was not
till I had pushed the paper away—not till, I am
ashamed to say, I had almost allowed the vexation of
my helpless position to conquer me—that a course of
action suddenly occurred to my mind, which Sir
Percival had probably not anticipated, and which
might set me free again in a few hours. I determined
to communicate the situation in which I was placed
to Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.
I had visited this gentleman's house, it may be
remembered, at the time of my first inquiries in the
Blackwater Park neighbourhood, and I had presented
to him a letter of introduction from Miss Halcombe,
in which she recommended me to his friendly
attention in the strongest terms. I now wrote,
referring to this letter, and to what I had
previously told Mr. Dawson of the delicate and
dangerous nature of my inquiries. I had not revealed
to him the truth about Laura, having merely
described my errand as being of the utmost
importance to private family interests with which
Miss Halcombe was concerned. Using the same caution
still, I now accounted for my presence at
Knowlesbury in the same manner, and I put it to the
doctor to say whether the trust reposed in me by a
lady whom he well knew, and the hospitality I had
myself received in his house, justified me or not in
asking him to come to my assistance in a place where
I was quite friendless.
I obtained permission to hire a messenger to
drive away at once with my letter in a conveyance
which might be used to bring the doctor back
immediately. Oak Lodge was on the Knowlesbury side
of Blackwater. The man declared he could drive there
in forty minutes, and could bring Mr. Dawson back in
forty more. I directed him to follow the doctor
wherever he might happen to be, if he was not at
home, and then sat down to wait for the result with
all the patience and all the hope that I could
summon to help me.
It was not quite half-past one when the messenger
departed. Before half-past three he returned, and
brought the doctor with him. Mr. Dawson's kindness,
and the delicacy with which he treated his prompt
assistance quite as a matter of course, almost
overpowered me. The bail required was offered, and
accepted immediately. Before four o'clock, on that
afternoon, I was shaking hands warmly with the good
old doctor—a free man again—in the streets of
Knowlesbury.
Mr. Dawson hospitably invited me to go back with
him to Oak Lodge, and take up my quarters there for
the night. I could only reply that my time was not
my own, and I could only ask him to let me pay my
visit in a few days, when I might repeat my thanks,
and offer to him all the explanations which I felt
to be only his due, but which I was not then in a
position to make. We parted with friendly assurances
on both sides, and I turned my steps at once to Mr.
Wansborough's office in the High Street.
Time was now of the last importance.
The news of my being free on bail would reach Sir
Percival, to an absolute certainty, before night. If
the next few hours did not put me in a position to
justify his worst fears, and to hold him helpless at
my mercy, I might lose every inch of the ground I
had gained, never to recover it again. The
unscrupulous nature of the man, the local influence
he possessed, the desperate peril of exposure with
which my blindfold inquiries threatened him—all
warned me to press on to positive discovery, without
the useless waste of a single minute. I had found
time to think while I was waiting for Mr. Dawson's
arrival, and I had well employed it. Certain
portions of the conversation of the talkative old
clerk, which had wearied me at the time, now
recurred to my memory with a new significance, and a
suspicion crossed my mind darkly which had not
occurred to me while I was in the vestry. On my way
to Knowlesbury, I had only proposed to apply to Mr.
Wansborough for information on the subject of Sir
Percival's mother. My object now was to examine the
duplicate register of Old Welmingham Church.
Mr. Wansborough was in his office when I inquired
for him.
He was a jovial, red-faced, easy-looking man—more
like a country squire than a lawyer—and he seemed to
be both surprised and amused by my application. He
had heard of his father's copy of the register, but
had not even seen it himself. It had never been
inquired after, and it was no doubt in the strong
room among other papers that had not been disturbed
since his father's death. It was a pity (Mr.
Wansborough said) that the old gentleman was not
alive to hear his precious copy asked for at last.
He would have ridden his favourite hobby harder than
ever now. How had I come to hear of the copy? was it
through anybody in the town?
I parried the question as well as I could. It was
impossible at this stage of the investigation to be
too cautious, and it was just as well not to let Mr.
Wansborough know prematurely that I had already
examined the original register. I described myself,
therefore, as pursuing a family inquiry, to the
object of which every possible saving of time was of
great importance. I was anxious to send certain
particulars to London by that day's post, and one
look at the duplicate register (paying, of course,
the necessary fees) might supply what I required,
and save me a further journey to Old Welmingham. I
added that, in the event of my subsequently
requiring a copy of the original register, I should
make application to Mr. Wansborough's office to
furnish me with the document.
After this explanation no objection was made to
producing the copy. A clerk was sent to the strong
room, and after some delay returned with the volume.
It was of exactly the same size as the volume in the
vestry, the only difference being that the copy was
more smartly bound. I took it with me to an
unoccupied desk. My hands were trembling—my head was
burning hot—I felt the necessity of concealing my
agitation as well as I could from the persons about
me in the room, before I ventured on opening the
book.
On the blank page at the beginning, to which I
first turned, were traced some lines in faded ink.
They contained these words—
"Copy of the Marriage Register of Welmingham
Parish Church. Executed under my orders, and
afterwards compared, entry by entry, with the
original, by myself. (Signed) Robert Wansborough,
vestry-clerk." Below this note there was a line
added, in another handwriting, as follows:
"Extending from the first of January, 1800, to the
thirtieth of June, 1815."
I turned to the month of September, eighteen
hundred and three. I found the marriage of the man
whose Christian name was the same as my own. I found
the double register of the marriages of the two
brothers. And between these entries, at the bottom
of the page?
Nothing! Not a vestige of the entry which
recorded the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde and Cecilia
Jane Elster in the register of the church!
My heart gave a great bound, and throbbed as if
it would stifle me. I looked again—I was afraid to
believe the evidence of my own eyes. No! not a
doubt. The marriage was not there. The entries on
the copy occupied exactly the same places on the
page as the entries in the original. The last entry
on one page recorded the marriage of the man with my
Christian name. Below it there was a blank space—a
space evidently left because it was too narrow to
contain the entry of the marriages of the two
brothers, which in the copy, as in the original,
occupied the top of the next page. That space told
the whole story! There it must have remained in the
church register from eighteen hundred and three
(when the marriages had been solemnised and the copy
had been made) to eighteen hundred and twenty-seven,
when Sir Percival appeared at Old Welmingham. Here,
at Knowlesbury, was the chance of committing the
forgery shown to me in the copy, and there, at Old
Welmingham, was the forgery committed in the
register of the church.
My head turned giddy—I held by the desk to keep
myself from falling. Of all the suspicions which had
struck me in relation to that desperate man, not one
had been near the truth.
The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at
all, that he had no more claim to the baronetcy and
to Blackwater Park than the poorest labourer who
worked on the estate, had never once occurred to my
mind. At one time I had thought he might be Anne
Catherick's father—at another time I had thought he
might have been Anne Catherick's husband—the offence
of which he was really guilty had been, from first
to last, beyond the widest reach of my imagination.
The paltry means by which the fraud had been
effected, the magnitude and daring of the crime that
it represented, the horror of the consequences
involved in its discovery, overwhelmed me. Who could
wonder now at the brute-restlessness of the wretch's
life—at his desperate alternations between abject
duplicity and reckless violence—at the madness of
guilty distrust which had made him imprison Anne
Catherick in the Asylum, and had given him over to
the vile conspiracy against his wife, on the bare
suspicion that the one and the other knew his
terrible secret? The disclosure of that secret
might, in past years, have hanged him—might now
transport him for life. The disclosure of that
secret, even if the sufferers by his deception
spared him the penalties of the law, would deprive
him at one blow of the name, the rank, the estate,
the whole social existence that he had usurped. This
was the Secret, and it was mine! A word from me, and
house, lands, baronetcy, were gone from him for
ever—a word from me, and he was driven out into the
world, a nameless, penniless, friendless outcast!
The man's whole future hung on my lips—and he knew
it by this time as certainly as I did!
That last thought steadied me. Interests far more
precious than my own depended on the caution which
must now guide my slightest actions. There was no
possible treachery which Sir Percival might not
attempt against me. In the danger and desperation of
his position he would be staggered by no risks, he
would recoil at no crime—he would literally hesitate
at nothing to save himself.
I considered for a minute. My first necessity was
to secure positive evidence in writing of the
discovery that I had just made, and in the event of
any personal misadventure happening to me, to place
that evidence beyond Sir Percival's reach. The copy
of the register was sure to be safe in Mr.
Wansborough's strong room. But the position of the
original in the vestry was, as I had seen with my
own eyes, anything but secure.
In this emergency I resolved to return to the
church, to apply again to the clerk, and to take the
necessary extract from the register before I slept
that night. I was not then aware that a
legally-certified copy was necessary, and that no
document merely drawn out by myself could claim the
proper importance as a proof. I was not aware of
this, and my determination to keep my present
proceedings a secret prevented me from asking any
questions which might have procured the necessary
information. My one anxiety was the anxiety to get
back to Old Welmingham. I made the best excuses I
could for the discomposure in my face and manner
which Mr. Wansborough had already noticed, laid the
necessary fee on his table, arranged that I should
write to him in a day or two, and left the office,
with my head in a whirl and my blood throbbing
through my veins at fever heat.
It was just getting dark. The idea occurred to me
that I might be followed again and attacked on the
high-road.
My walking-stick was a light one, of little or no
use for purposes of defence. I stopped before
leaving Knowlesbury and bought a stout country
cudgel, short, and heavy at the head. With this
homely weapon, if any one man tried to stop me I was
a match for him. If more than one attacked me I
could trust to my heels. In my school-days I had
been a noted runner, and I had not wanted for
practice since in the later time of my experience in
Central America.
I started from the town at a brisk pace, and kept
the middle of the road.
A small misty rain was falling, and it was
impossible for the first half of the way to make
sure whether I was followed or not. But at the last
half of my journey, when I supposed myself to be
about two miles from the church, I saw a man run by
me in the rain, and then heard the gate of a field
by the roadside shut to sharply. I kept straight on,
with my cudgel ready in my hand, my ears on the
alert, and my eyes straining to see through the mist
and the darkness. Before I had advanced a hundred
yards there was a rustling in the hedge on my right,
and three men sprang out into the road.
I drew aside on the instant to the footpath. The
two foremost men were carried beyond me before they
could check themselves. The third was as quick as
lightning. He stopped, half turned, and struck at me
with his stick. The blow was aimed at hazard, and
was not a severe one. It fell on my left shoulder. I
returned it heavily on his head. He staggered back
and jostled his two companions just as they were
both rushing at me. This circumstance gave me a
moment's start. I slipped by them, and took to the
middle of the road again at the top of my speed.
The two unhurt men pursued me. They were both
good runners—the road was smooth and level, and for
the first five minutes or more I was conscious that
I did not gain on them. It was perilous work to run
for long in the darkness. I could barely see the dim
black line of the hedges on either side, and any
chance obstacle in the road would have thrown me
down to a certainty. Ere long I felt the ground
changing—it descended from the level at a turn, and
then rose again beyond. Downhill the men rather
gained on me, but uphill I began to distance them.
The rapid, regular thump of their feet grew fainter
on my ear, and I calculated by the sound that I was
far enough in advance to take to the fields with a
good chance of their passing me in the darkness.
Diverging to the footpath, I made for the first
break that I could guess at, rather than see, in the
hedge. It proved to be a closed gate. I vaulted
over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it
steadily with my back to the road. I heard the men
pass the gate, still running, then in a minute more
heard one of them call to the other to come back. It
was no matter what they did now, I was out of their
sight and out of their hearing. I kept straight
across the field, and when I had reached the farther
extremity of it, waited there for a minute to
recover my breath.
It was impossible to venture back to the road,
but I was determined nevertheless to get to Old
Welmingham that evening.
Neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me. I
only knew that I had kept the wind and rain at my
back on leaving Knowlesbury, and if I now kept them
at my back still, I might at least be certain of not
advancing altogether in the wrong direction.
Proceeding on this plan, I crossed the
country—meeting with no worse obstacles than hedges,
ditches, and thickets, which every now and then
obliged me to alter my course for a little
while—until I found myself on a hill-side, with the
ground sloping away steeply before me. I descended
to the bottom of the hollow, squeezed my way through
a hedge, and got out into a lane. Having turned to
the right on leaving the road, I now turned to the
left, on the chance of regaining the line from which
I had wandered. After following the muddy windings
of the lane for ten minutes or more, I saw a cottage
with a light in one of the windows. The garden gate
was open to the lane, and I went in at once to
inquire my way.
Before I could knock at the door it was suddenly
opened, and a man came running out with a lighted
lantern in his hand. He stopped and held it up at
the sight of me. We both started as we saw each
other. My wanderings had led me round the outskirts
of the village, and had brought me out at the lower
end of it. I was back at Old Welmingham, and the man
with the lantern was no other than my acquaintance
of the morning, the parish clerk.
His manner appeared to have altered strangely in
the interval since I had last seen him. He looked
suspicious and confused—his ruddy cheeks were deeply
flushed—and his first words, when he spoke, were
quite unintelligible to me.
"Where are the keys?" he asked. "Have you taken
them?"
"What keys?" I repeated. "I have this moment come
from Knowlesbury. What keys do you mean?"
"The keys of the vestry. Lord save us and help
us! what shall I do? The keys are gone! Do you
hear?" cried the old man, shaking the lantern at me
in his agitation, "the keys are gone!"
"How? When? Who can have taken them?"
"I don't know," said the clerk, staring about him
wildly in the darkness. "I've only just got back. I
told you I had a long day's work this morning—I
locked the door and shut the window down—it's open
now, the window's open. Look! somebody has got in
there and taken the keys."
He turned to the casement window to show me that
it was wide open. The door of the lantern came loose
from its fastening as he swayed it round, and the
wind blew the candle out instantly.
"Get another light," I said, "and let us both go
to the vestry together. Quick! quick!"
I hurried him into the house. The treachery that
I had every reason to expect, the treachery that
might deprive me of every advantage I had gained,
was at that moment, perhaps, in process of
accomplishment. My impatience to reach the church
was so great that I could not remain inactive in the
cottage while the clerk lit the lantern again. I
walked out, down the garden path, into the lane.
Before I had advanced ten paces a man approached
me from the direction leading to the church. He
spoke respectfully as we met. I could not see his
face, but judging by his voice only, he was a
perfect stranger to me.
"I beg your pardon, Sir Percival——" he began.
I stopped him before he could say more.
"The darkness misleads you," I said. "I am not
Sir Percival."
The man drew back directly.
"I thought it was my master," he muttered, in a
confused, doubtful way.
"You expected to meet your master here?"
"I was told to wait in the lane."
With that answer he retraced his steps. I looked
back at the cottage and saw the clerk coming out,
with the lantern lighted once more. I took the old
man's arm to help him on the more quickly. We
hastened along the lane, and passed the person who
had accosted me. As well as I could see by the light
of the lantern, he was a servant out of livery.
"Who's that?" whispered the clerk. "Does he know
anything about the keys?"
"We won't wait to ask him," I replied. "We will
go on to the vestry first."
The church was not visible, even by daytime,
until the end of the lane was reached. As we mounted
the rising ground which led to the building from
that point, one of the village children—a boy—came
close up to us, attracted by the light we carried,
and recognised the clerk.
"I say, measter," said the boy, pulling
officiously at the clerk's coat, "there be summun up
yander in the church. I heerd un lock the door on
hisself—I heerd un strike a loight wi' a match."
The clerk trembled and leaned against me heavily.
"Come! come!" I said encouragingly. "We are not
too late. We will catch the man, whoever he is. Keep
the lantern, and follow me as fast as you can."
I mounted the hill rapidly. The dark mass of the
church-tower was the first object I discerned dimly
against the night sky. As I turned aside to get
round to the vestry, I heard heavy footsteps close
to me. The servant had ascended to the church after
us. "I don't mean any harm," he said, when I turned
round on him, "I'm only looking for my master." The
tones in which he spoke betrayed unmistakable fear.
I took no notice of him and went on.
The instant I turned the corner and came in view
of the vestry, I saw the lantern-skylight on the
roof brilliantly lit up from within. It shone out
with dazzling brightness against the murky, starless
sky.
I hurried through the churchyard to the door.
As I got near there was a strange smell stealing
out on the damp night air. I heard a snapping noise
inside—I saw the light above grow brighter and
brighter—a pane of the glass cracked—I ran to the
door and put my hand on it. The vestry was on fire!
Before I could move, before I could draw my
breath after that discovery, I was horror-struck by
a heavy thump against the door from the inside. I
heard the key worked violently in the lock—I heard a
man's voice behind the door, raised to a dreadful
shrillness, screaming for help.
The servant who had followed me staggered back
shuddering, and dropped to his knees. "Oh, my God!"
he said, "it's Sir Percival!"
As the words passed his lips the clerk joined us,
and at the same moment there was another and a last
grating turn of the key in the lock.
"The Lord have mercy on his soul!" said the old
man. "He is doomed and dead. He has hampered the
lock."
I rushed to the door. The one absorbing purpose
that had filled all my thoughts, that had controlled
all my actions, for weeks and weeks past, vanished
in an instant from my mind. All remembrance of the
heartless injury the man's crimes had inflicted—of
the love, the innocence, the happiness he had
pitilessly laid waste—of the oath I had sworn in my
own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning
that he deserved—passed from my memory like a dream.
I remembered nothing but the horror of his
situation. I felt nothing but the natural human
impulse to save him from a frightful death.
"Try the other door!" I shouted. "Try the door
into the church! The lock's hampered. You're a dead
man if you waste another moment on it."
There had been no renewed cry for help when the
key was turned for the last time. There was no sound
now of any kind, to give token that he was still
alive. I heard nothing but the quickening crackle of
the flames, and the sharp snap of the glass in the
skylight above.
I looked round at my two companions. The servant
had risen to his feet—he had taken the lantern, and
was holding it up vacantly at the door. Terror
seemed to have struck him with downright idiocy—he
waited at my heels, he followed me about when I
moved like a dog. The clerk sat crouched up on one
of the tombstones, shivering, and moaning to
himself. The one moment in which I looked at them
was enough to show me that they were both helpless.
Hardly knowing what I did, acting desperately on
the first impulse that occurred to me, I seized the
servant and pushed him against the vestry wall.
"Stoop!" I said, "and hold by the stones. I am going
to climb over you to the roof—I am going to break
the skylight, and give him some air!"
The man trembled from head to foot, but he held
firm. I got on his back, with my cudgel in my mouth,
seized the parapet with both hands, and was
instantly on the roof. In the frantic hurry and
agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I
might let out the flame instead of letting in the
air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the
cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped
out like a wild beast from its lair. If the wind had
not chanced, in the position I occupied, to set it
away from me, my exertions might have ended then and
there. I crouched on the roof as the smoke poured
out above me with the flame. The gleams and flashes
of the light showed me the servant's face staring up
vacantly under the wall—the clerk risen to his feet
on the tombstone, wringing his hands in despair—and
the scanty population of the village, haggard men
and terrified women, clustered beyond in the
churchyard—all appearing and disappearing, in the
red of the dreadful glare, in the black of the
choking smoke. And the man beneath my feet!—the man,
suffocating, burning, dying so near us all, so
utterly beyond our reach!
The thought half maddened me. I lowered myself
from the roof, by my hands, and dropped to the
ground.
"The key of the church!" I shouted to the clerk.
"We must try it that way—we may save him yet if we
can burst open the inner door."
"No, no, no!" cried the old man. "No hope! the
church key and the vestry key are on the same
ring—both inside there! Oh, sir, he's past
saving—he's dust and ashes by this time!"
"They'll see the fire from the town," said a
voice from among the men behind me. "There's a
ingine in the town. They'll save the church."
I called to that man—HE had his wits about him—I
called to him to come and speak to me. It would be a
quarter of an hour at least before the town engine
could reach us. The horror of remaining inactive all
that time was more than I could face. In defiance of
my own reason I persuaded myself that the doomed and
lost wretch in the vestry might still be lying
senseless on the floor, might not be dead yet. If we
broke open the door, might we save him? I knew the
strength of the heavy lock—I knew the thickness of
the nailed oak—I knew the hopelessness of assailing
the one and the other by ordinary means. But surely
there were beams still left in the dismantled
cottages near the church? What if we got one, and
used it as a battering-ram against the door?
The thought leaped through me like the fire
leaping out of the shattered skylight. I appealed to
the man who had spoken first of the fire-engine in
the town. "Have you got your pickaxes handy?" Yes,
they had. "And a hatchet, and a saw, and a bit of
rope?" Yes! yes! yes! I ran down among the
villagers, with the lantern in my hand. "Five
shillings apiece to every man who helps me!" They
started into life at the words. That ravenous second
hunger of poverty—the hunger for money—roused them
into tumult and activity in a moment. "Two of you
for more lanterns, if you have them! Two of you for
the pickaxes and the tools! The rest after me to
find the beam!" They cheered—with shrill starveling
voices they cheered. The women and the children fled
back on either side. We rushed in a body down the
churchyard path to the first empty cottage. Not a
man was left behind but the clerk—the poor old clerk
standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing
over the church. The servant was still at my
heels—his white, helpless, panic-stricken face was
close over my shoulder as we pushed into the
cottage. There were rafters from the torn-down floor
above, lying loose on the ground—but they were too
light. A beam ran across over our heads, but not out
of reach of our arms and our pickaxes—a beam fast at
each end in the ruined wall, with ceiling and
flooring all ripped away, and a great gap in the
roof above, open to the sky. We attacked the beam at
both ends at once. God! how it held—how the brick
and mortar of the wall resisted us! We struck, and
tugged, and tore. The beam gave at one end—it came
down with a lump of brickwork after it. There was a
scream from the women all huddled in the doorway to
look at us—a shout from the men—two of them down but
not hurt. Another tug all together—and the beam was
loose at both ends. We raised it, and gave the word
to clear the doorway. Now for the work! now for the
rush at the door! There is the fire streaming into
the sky, streaming brighter than ever to light us!
Steady along the churchyard path—steady with the
beam for a rush at the door. One, two, three—and
off. Out rings the cheering again, irrepressibly. We
have shaken it already, the hinges must give if the
lock won't. Another run with the beam! One, two,
three—and off. It's loose! the stealthy fire darts
at us through the crevice all round it. Another, and
a last rush! The door falls in with a crash. A great
hush of awe, a stillness of breathless expectation,
possesses every living soul of us. We look for the
body. The scorching heat on our faces drives us
back: we see nothing—above, below, all through the
room, we see nothing but a sheet of living fire.
"Where is he?" whispered the servant, staring vacantly at the flames.
"He's dust and ashes," said the clerk. "And the
books are dust and ashes—and oh, sirs! the church
will be dust and ashes soon."
Those were the only two who spoke. When they were
silent again, nothing stirred in the stillness but
the bubble and the crackle of the flames.
Hark!
A harsh rattling sound in the distance—then the
hollow beat of horses' hoofs at full gallop—then the
low roar, the all-predominant tumult of hundreds of
human voices clamouring and shouting together. The
engine at last.
The people about me all turned from the fire, and
ran eagerly to the brow of the hill. The old clerk
tried to go with the rest, but his strength was
exhausted. I saw him holding by one of the
tombstones. "Save the church!" he cried out faintly,
as if the firemen could hear him already.
Save the church!
The only man who never moved was the servant.
There he stood, his eyes still fastened on the
flames in a changeless, vacant stare. I spoke to
him, I shook him by the arm. He was past rousing. He
only whispered once more, "Where is he?"
In ten minutes the engine was in position, the
well at the back of the church was feeding it, and
the hose was carried to the doorway of the vestry.
If help had been wanted from me I could not have
afforded it now. My energy of will was gone—my
strength was exhausted—the turmoil of my thoughts
was fearfully and suddenly stilled, now I knew that
he was dead.
I stood useless and helpless—looking, looking,
looking into the burning room.
I saw the fire slowly conquered. The brightness
of the glare faded—the steam rose in white clouds,
and the smouldering heaps of embers showed red and
black through it on the floor. There was a
pause—then an advance all together of the firemen
and the police which blocked up the doorway—then a
consultation in low voices—and then two men were
detached from the rest, and sent out of the
churchyard through the crowd. The crowd drew back on
either side in dead silence to let them pass.
After a while a great shudder ran through the
people, and the living lane widened slowly. The men
came back along it with a door from one of the empty
houses. They carried it to the vestry and went in.
The police closed again round the doorway, and men
stole out from among the crowd by twos and threes
and stood behind them to be the first to see. Others
waited near to be the first to hear. Women and
children were among these last.
The tidings from the vestry began to flow out
among the crowd—they dropped slowly from mouth to
mouth till they reached the place where I was
standing. I heard the questions and answers repeated
again and again in low, eager tones all round me.
"Have they found him?" "Yes."—"Where?" "Against
the door, on his face."—"Which door?" "The door that
goes into the church. His head was against it—he was
down on his face."—"Is his face burnt?" "No." "Yes,
it is." "No, scorched, not burnt—he lay on his face,
I tell you."—"Who was he? A lord, they say." "No,
not a lord. SIR Something; Sir means Knight." "And
Baronight, too." "No." "Yes, it does."—"What did he
want in there?" "No good, you may depend on
it."—"Did he do it on purpose?"—"Burn himself on
purpose!"—"I don't mean himself, I mean the
vestry."—"Is he dreadful to look at?"
"Dreadful!"—"Not about the face, though?" "No, no,
not so much about the face. Don't anybody know him?"
"There's a man says he does."—"Who?" "A servant,
they say. But he's struck stupid-like, and the
police don't believe him."—"Don't anybody else know
who it is?" "Hush——!"
The loud, clear voice of a man in authority
silenced the low hum of talking all round me in an
instant.
"Where is the gentleman who tried to save him?"
said the voice.
"Here, sir—here he is!" Dozens of eager faces
pressed about me—dozens of eager arms parted the
crowd. The man in authority came up to me with a
lantern in his hand.
"This way, sir, if you please," he said quietly.
I was unable to speak to him, I was unable to
resist him when he took my arm. I tried to say that
I had never seen the dead man in his lifetime—that
there was no hope of identifying him by means of a
stranger like me. But the words failed on my lips. I
was faint, and silent, and helpless.
"Do you know him, sir?"
I was standing inside a circle of men. Three of
them opposite to me were holding lanterns low down
to the ground. Their eyes, and the eyes of all the
rest, were fixed silently and expectantly on my
face. I knew what was at my feet—I knew why they
were holding the lanterns so low to the ground.
"Can you identify him, sir?"
My eyes dropped slowly. At first I saw nothing
under them but a coarse canvas cloth. The dripping
of the rain on it was audible in the dreadful
silence. I looked up, along the cloth, and there at
the end, stark and grim and black, in the yellow
light—there was his dead face.
So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So
the Visitation of God ruled it that he and I should
meet.
XI
The inquest was hurried for certain local reasons
which weighed with the coroner and the town
authorities. It was held on the afternoon of the
next day. I was necessarily one among the witnesses
summoned to assist the objects of the investigation.
My first proceeding in the morning was to go to
the post-office, and inquire for the letter which I
expected from Marian. No change of circumstances,
however extraordinary, could affect the one great
anxiety which weighed on my mind while I was away
from London. The morning's letter, which was the
only assurance I could receive that no misfortune
had happened in my absence, was still the absorbing
interest with which my day began.
To my relief, the letter from Marian was at the
office waiting for me.
Nothing had happened—they were both as safe and
as well as when I had left them. Laura sent her
love, and begged that I would let her know of my
return a day beforehand. Her sister added, in
explanation of this message, that she had saved
"nearly a sovereign" out of her own private purse,
and that she had claimed the privilege of ordering
the dinner and giving the dinner which was to
celebrate the day of my return. I read these little
domestic confidences in the bright morning with the
terrible recollection of what had happened the
evening before vivid in my memory. The necessity of
sparing Laura any sudden knowledge of the truth was
the first consideration which the letter suggested
to me. I wrote at once to Marian to tell her what I
have told in these pages—presenting the tidings as
gradually and gently as I could, and warning her not
to let any such thing as a newspaper fall in Laura's
way while I was absent. In the case of any other
woman, less courageous and less reliable, I might
have hesitated before I ventured on unreservedly
disclosing the whole truth. But I owed it to Marian
to be faithful to my past experience of her, and to
trust her as I trusted herself.
My letter was necessarily a long one. It occupied
me until the time came for proceeding to the
inquest.
The objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily
beset by peculiar complications and difficulties.
Besides the investigation into the manner in which
the deceased had met his death, there were serious
questions to be settled relating to the cause of the
fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the
presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time
when the flames broke out. Even the identification
of the dead man had not yet been accomplished. The
helpless condition of the servant had made the
police distrustful of his asserted recognition of
his master. They had sent to Knowlesbury overnight
to secure the attendance of witnesses who were well
acquainted with the personal appearance of Sir
Percival Glyde, and they had communicated, the first
thing in the morning, with Blackwater Park. These
precautions enabled the coroner and jury to settle
the question of identity, and to confirm the
correctness of the servant's assertion; the evidence
offered by competent witnesses, and by the discovery
of certain facts, being subsequently strengthened by
an examination of the dead man's watch. The crest
and the name of Sir Percival Glyde were engraved
inside it.
The next inquiries related to the fire.
The servant and I, and the boy who had heard the
light struck in the vestry, were the first witnesses
called. The boy gave his evidence clearly enough,
but the servant's mind had not yet recovered the
shock inflicted on it—he was plainly incapable of
assisting the objects of the inquiry, and he was
desired to stand down.
To my own relief, my examination was not a long
one. I had not known the deceased—I had never seen
him—I was not aware of his presence at Old
Welmingham—and I had not been in the vestry at the
finding of the body. All I could prove was that I
had stopped at the clerk's cottage to ask my
way—that I had heard from him of the loss of the
keys—that I had accompanied him to the church to
render what help I could—that I had seen the
fire—that I had heard some person unknown, inside
the vestry, trying vainly to unlock the door—and
that I had done what I could, from motives of
humanity, to save the man. Other witnesses, who had
been acquainted with the deceased, were asked if
they could explain the mystery of his presumed
abstraction of the keys, and his presence in the
burning room. But the coroner seemed to take it for
granted, naturally enough, that I, as a total
stranger in the neighbourhood, and a total stranger
to Sir Percival Glyde, could not be in a position to
offer any evidence on these two points.
The course that I was myself bound to take, when
my formal examination had closed, seemed clear to
me. I did not feel called on to volunteer any
statement of my own private convictions; in the
first place, because my doing so could serve no
practical purpose, now that all proof in support of
any surmises of mine was burnt with the burnt
register; in the second place, because I could not
have intelligibly stated my opinion—my unsupported
opinion—without disclosing the whole story of the
conspiracy, and producing beyond a doubt the same
unsatisfactory effect an the minds of the coroner
and the jury, which I had already produced on the
mind of Mr. Kyrle.
In these pages, however, and after the time that
has now elapsed, no such cautions and restraints as
are here described need fetter the free expression
of my opinion. I will state briefly, before my pen
occupies itself with other events, how my own
convictions lead me to account for the abstraction
of the keys, for the outbreak of the fire, and for
the death of the man.
The news of my being free on bail drove Sir
Percival, as I believe, to his last resources. The
attempted attack on the road was one of those
resources, and the suppression of all practical
proof of his crime, by destroying the page of the
register on which the forgery had been committed,
was the other, and the surest of the two. If I could
produce no extract from the original book to compare
with the certified copy at Knowlesbury, I could
produce no positive evidence, and could threaten him
with no fatal exposure. All that was necessary to
the attainment of his end was, that he should get
into the vestry unperceived, that he should tear out
the page in the register, and that he should leave
the vestry again as privately as he had entered it.
On this supposition, it is easy to understand why
he waited until nightfall before he made the
attempt, and why he took advantage of the clerk's
absence to possess himself of the keys. Necessity
would oblige him to strike a light to find his way
to the right register, and common caution would
suggest his locking the door on the inside in case
of intrusion on the part of any inquisitive
stranger, or on my part, if I happened to be in the
neighbourhood at the time.
I cannot believe that it was any part of his
intention to make the destruction of the register
appear to be the result of accident, by purposely
setting the vestry on fire. The bare chance that
prompt assistance might arrive, and that the books
might, by the remotest possibility, be saved, would
have been enough, on a moment's consideration, to
dismiss any idea of this sort from his mind.
Remembering the quantity of combustible objects in
the vestry—the straw, the papers, the packing-cases,
the dry wood, the old worm-eaten presses—all the
probabilities, in my estimation, point to the fire
as the result of an accident with his matches or his
light.
His first impulse, under these circumstances, was
doubtless to try to extinguish the flames, and
failing in that, his second impulse (ignorant as he
was of the state of the lock) had been to attempt to
escape by the door which had given him entrance.
When I had called to him, the flames must have
reached across the door leading into the church, on
either side of which the presses extended, and close
to which the other combustible objects were placed.
In all probability, the smoke and flame (confined as
they were to the room) had been too much for him
when he tried to escape by the inner door. He must
have dropped in his death-swoon—he must have sunk in
the place where he was found—just as I got on the
roof to break the skylight window. Even if we had
been able, afterwards, to get into the church, and
to burst open the door from that side, the delay
must have been fatal. He would have been past
saving, long past saving, by that time. We should
only have given the flames free ingress into the
church—the church, which was now preserved, but
which, in that event, would have shared the fate of
the vestry. There is no doubt in my mind, there can
be no doubt in the mind of any one, that he was a
dead man before ever we got to the empty cottage,
and worked with might and main to tear down the
beam.
This is the nearest approach that any theory of
mine can make towards accounting for a result which
was visible matter of fact. As I have described
them, so events passed to us outside. As I have
related it, so his body was found.
The inquest was adjourned over one day—no explanation that the eye of
the law could recognise having been discovered thus
far to account for the mysterious circumstances of
the case.
It was arranged that more witnesses should be
summoned, and that the London solicitor of the
deceased should be invited to attend. A medical man
was also charged with the duty of reporting on the
mental condition of the servant, which appeared at
present to debar him from giving any evidence of the
least importance. He could only declare, in a dazed
way, that he had been ordered, on the night of the
fire, to wait in the lane, and that he knew nothing
else, except that the deceased was certainly his
master.
My own impression was, that he had been first
used (without any guilty knowledge on his own part)
to ascertain the fact of the clerk's absence from
home on the previous day, and that he had been
afterwards ordered to wait near the church (but out
of sight of the vestry) to assist his master, in the
event of my escaping the attack on the road, and of
a collision occurring between Sir Percival and
myself. It is necessary to add, that the man's own
testimony was never obtained to confirm this view.
The medical report of him declared that what little
mental faculty he possessed was seriously shaken;
nothing satisfactory was extracted from him at the
adjourned inquest, and for aught I know to the
contrary, he may never have recovered to this day.
I returned to the hotel at Welmingham so jaded in
body and mind, so weakened and depressed by all that
I had gone through, as to be quite unfit to endure
the local gossip about the inquest, and to answer
the trivial questions that the talkers addressed to
me in the coffee-room. I withdrew from my scanty
dinner to my cheap garret-chamber to secure myself a
little quiet, and to think undisturbed of Laura and
Marian.
If I had been a richer man I would have gone back
to London, and would have comforted myself with a
sight of the two dear faces again that night. But I
was bound to appear, if called on, at the adjourned
inquest, and doubly bound to answer my bail before
the magistrate at Knowlesbury. Our slender resources
had suffered already, and the doubtful future—more
doubtful than ever now—made me dread decreasing our
means unnecessarily by allowing myself an indulgence
even at the small cost of a double railway journey
in the carriages of the second class.
The next day—the day immediately following the
inquest—was left at my own disposal. I began the
morning by again applying at the post-office for my
regular report from Marian. It was waiting for me as
before, and it was written throughout in good
spirits. I read the letter thankfully, and then set
forth with my mind at ease for the day to go to Old
Welmingham, and to view the scene of the fire by the
morning light.
What changes met me when I got there!
Through all the ways of our unintelligible world
the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand
together. The irony of circumstances holds no mortal
catastrophe in respect. When I reached the church,
the trampled condition of the burial-ground was the
only serious trace left to tell of the fire and the
death. A rough hoarding of boards had been knocked
up before the vestry doorway. Rude caricatures were
scrawled on it already, and the village children
were fighting and shouting for the possession of the
best peep-hole to see through. On the spot where I
had heard the cry for help from the burning room, on
the spot where the panic-stricken servant had
dropped on his knees, a fussy flock of poultry was
now scrambling for the first choice of worms after
the rain; and on the ground at my feet, where the
door and its dreadful burden had been laid, a
workman's dinner was waiting for him, tied up in a
yellow basin, and his faithful cur in charge was
yelping at me for coming near the food. The old
clerk, looking idly at the slow commencement of the
repairs, had only one interest that he could talk
about now—the interest of escaping all blame for his
own part on account of the accident that had
happened. One of the village women, whose white wild
face I remembered the picture of terror when we
pulled down the beam, was giggling with another
woman, the picture of inanity, over an old
washing-tub. There is nothing serious in mortality!
Solomon in all his glory was Solomon with the
elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold
of his robes and in every corner of his palace.
As I left the place, my thoughts turned, not for
the first time, to the complete overthrow that all
present hope of establishing Laura's identity had
now suffered through Sir Percival's death. He was
gone—and with him the chance was gone which had been
the one object of all my labours and all my hopes.
Could I look at my failure from no truer point of
view than this?
Suppose he had lived, would that change of
circumstance have altered the result? Could I have
made my discovery a marketable commodity, even for
Laura's sake, after I had found out that robbery of
the rights of others was the essence of Sir
Percival's crime? Could I have offered the price of
MY silence for HIS confession of the conspiracy,
when the effect of that silence must have been to
keep the right heir from the estates, and the right
owner from the name? Impossible! If Sir Percival had
lived, the discovery, from which (In my ignorance of
the true nature of the Secret) I had hoped so much,
could not have been mine to suppress or to make
public, as I thought best, for the vindication of
Laura's rights. In common honesty and common honour
I must have gone at once to the stranger whose
birthright had been usurped—I must have renounced
the victory at the moment when it was mine by
placing my discovery unreservedly in that stranger's
hands—and I must have faced afresh all the
difficulties which stood between me and the one
object of my life, exactly as I was resolved in my
heart of hearts to face them now!
I returned to Welmingham with my mind composed,
feeling more sure of myself and my resolution than I
had felt yet.
On my way to the hotel I passed the end of the
square in which Mrs. Catherick lived. Should I go
back to the house, and make another attempt to see
her. No. That news of Sir Percival's death, which
was the last news she ever expected to hear, must
have reached her hours since. All the proceedings at
the inquest had been reported in the local paper
that morning—there was nothing I could tell her
which she did not know already. My interest in
making her speak had slackened. I remembered the
furtive hatred in her face when she said, "There is
no news of Sir Percival that I don't expect—except
the news of his death." I remembered the stealthy
interest in her eyes when they settled on me at
parting, after she had spoken those words. Some
instinct, deep in my heart, which I felt to be a
true one, made the prospect of again entering her
presence repulsive to me—I turned away from the
square, and went straight back to the hotel.
Some hours later, while I was resting in the
coffee-room, a letter was placed in my hands by the
waiter. It was addressed to me by name, and I found
on inquiry that it had been left at the bar by a
woman just as it was near dusk, and just before the
gas was lighted. She had said nothing, and she had
gone away again before there was time to speak to
her, or even to notice who she was.
I opened the letter. It was neither dated nor
signed, and the handwriting was palpably disguised.
Before I had read the first sentence, however, I
knew who my correspondent was—Mrs. Catherick.
The letter ran as follows—I copy it exactly, word
for word:—
