THE STORY CONTINUED BY ISIDOR, OTTAVIO, BALDASSARE
FOSCO
(Count of the Holy Roman Empire,
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown,
Perpetual Arch-Master of the Rosicrucian Masons of
Mesopotamia; Attached (in Honorary Capacities) to
Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies
Philosophical, and Societies General Benevolent,
throughout Europe; etc. etc. etc.)
THE COUNT'S NARRATIVE
In the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty I
arrived in England, charged with a delicate
political mission from abroad. Confidential persons
were semi-officially connected with me, whose
exertions I was authorised to direct, Monsieur and
Madame Rubelle being among the number. Some weeks of
spare time were at my disposal, before I entered on
my functions by establishing myself in the suburbs
of London. Curiosity may stop here to ask for some
explanation of those functions on my part. I
entirely sympathise with the request. I also regret
that diplomatic reserve forbids me to comply with
it.
I arranged to pass the preliminary period of
repose, to which I have just referred, in the superb
mansion of my late lamented friend, Sir Percival
Glyde. HE arrived from the Continent with his wife.
I arrived from the Continent with MINE. England is
the land of domestic happiness—how appropriately we
entered it under these domestic circumstances!
The bond of friendship which united Percival and
myself was strengthened, on this occasion, by a
touching similarity in the pecuniary position on his
side and on mine. We both wanted money. Immense
necessity! Universal want! Is there a civilised
human being who does not feel for us? How insensible
must that man be! Or how rich!
I enter into no sordid particulars, in discussing
this part of the subject. My mind recoils from them.
With a Roman austerity, I show my empty purse and
Percival's to the shrinking public gaze. Let us
allow the deplorable fact to assert itself, once for
all, in that manner, and pass on.
We were received at the mansion by the
magnificent creature who is inscribed on my heart as
"Marian," who is known in the colder atmosphere of
society as "Miss Halcombe."
Just Heaven! with what inconceivable rapidity I
learnt to adore that woman. At sixty, I worshipped
her with the volcanic ardour of eighteen. All the
gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly at her
feet. My wife—poor angel!—my wife, who adores me,
got nothing but the shillings and the pennies. Such
is the World, such Man, such Love. What are we (I
ask) but puppets in a show-box? Oh, omnipotent
Destiny, pull our strings gently! Dance us
mercifully off our miserable little stage!
The preceding lines, rightly understood, express
an entire system of philosophy. It is mine.
I resume.
The domestic position at the commencement of our residence at
Blackwater Park has been drawn with amazing
accuracy, with profound mental insight, by the hand
of Marian herself. (Pass me the intoxicating
familiarity of mentioning this sublime creature by
her Christian name.) Accurate knowledge of the
contents of her journal—to which I obtained access
by clandestine means, unspeakably precious to me in
the remembrance—warns my eager pen from topics which
this essentially exhaustive woman has already made
her own.
The interests—interests, breathless and
immense!—with which I am here concerned, begin with
the deplorable calamity of Marian's illness.
The situation at this period was emphatically a
serious one. Large sums of money, due at a certain
time, were wanted by Percival (I say nothing of the
modicum equally necessary to myself), and the one
source to look to for supplying them was the fortune
of his wife, of which not one farthing was at his
disposal until her death. Bad so far, and worse
still farther on. My lamented friend had private
troubles of his own, into which the delicacy of my
disinterested attachment to him forbade me from
inquiring too curiously. I knew nothing but that a
woman, named Anne Catherick, was hidden in the
neighbourhood, that she was in communication with
Lady Glyde, and that the disclosure of a secret,
which would be the certain ruin of Percival, might
be the result. He had told me himself that he was a
lost man, unless his wife was silenced, and unless
Anne Catherick was found. If he was a lost man, what
would become of our pecuniary interests? Courageous
as I am by nature, I absolutely trembled at the
idea!
The whole force of my intelligence was now
directed to the finding of Anne Catherick. Our money
affairs, important as they were, admitted of
delay—but the necessity of discovering the woman
admitted of none. I only knew her by description, as
presenting an extraordinary personal resemblance to
Lady Glyde. The statement of this curious
fact—intended merely to assist me in identifying the
person of whom we were in search—when coupled with
the additional information that Anne Catherick had
escaped from a mad-house, started the first immense
conception in my mind, which subsequently led to
such amazing results. That conception involved
nothing less than the complete transformation of two
separate identities. Lady Glyde and Anne Catherick
were to change names, places, and destinies, the one
with the other—the prodigious consequences
contemplated by the change being the gain of thirty
thousand pounds, and the eternal preservation of Sir
Percival's secret.
My instincts (which seldom err) suggested to me,
on reviewing the circumstances, that our invisible
Anne would, sooner or later, return to the
boat-house at the Blackwater lake. There I posted
myself, previously mentioning to Mrs. Michelson, the
housekeeper, that I might be found when wanted,
immersed in study, in that solitary place. It is my
rule never to make unnecessary mysteries, and never
to set people suspecting me for want of a little
seasonable candour on my part. Mrs. Michelson
believed in me from first to last. This ladylike
person (widow of a Protestant priest) overflowed
with faith. Touched by such superfluity of simple
confidence in a woman of her mature years, I opened
the ample reservoirs of my nature and absorbed it
all.
I was rewarded for posting myself sentinel at the
lake by the appearance—not of Anne Catherick
herself, but of the person in charge of her. This
individual also overflowed with simple faith, which
I absorbed in myself, as in the case already
mentioned. I leave her to describe the circumstances
(if she has not done so already) under which she
introduced me to the object of her maternal care.
When I first saw Anne Catherick she was asleep. I
was electrified by the likeness between this unhappy
woman and Lady Glyde. The details of the grand
scheme which had suggested themselves in outline
only, up to that period, occurred to me, in all
their masterly combination, at the sight of the
sleeping face. At the same time, my heart, always
accessible to tender influences, dissolved in tears
at the spectacle of suffering before me. I instantly
set myself to impart relief. In other words, I
provided the necessary stimulant for strengthening
Anne Catherick to perform the journey to London.
The best years of my life have been passed in the ardent study of
medical and chemical science. Chemistry especially
has always had irresistible attractions for me from
the enormous, the illimitable power which the
knowledge of it confers. Chemists—I assert it
emphatically—might sway, if they pleased, the
destinies of humanity. Let me explain this before I
go further.
Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules
the mind? The body (follow me closely here) lies at
the mercy of the most omnipotent of all
potentates—the Chemist. Give me—Fosco—chemistry; and
when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits down
to execute the conception—with a few grains of
powder dropped into his daily food, I will reduce
his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen
pours out the most abject drivel that has ever
degraded paper. Under similar circumstances, revive
me the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that when he
sees the apple fall he shall EAT IT, instead of
discovering the principle of gravitation. Nero's
dinner shall transform Nero into the mildest of men
before he has done digesting it, and the morning
draught of Alexander the Great shall make Alexander
run for his life at the first sight of the enemy the
same afternoon. On my sacred word of honour it is
lucky for Society that modern chemists are, by
incomprehensible good fortune, the most harmless of
mankind. The mass are worthy fathers of families,
who keep shops. The few are philosophers besotted
with admiration for the sound of their own lecturing
voices, visionaries who waste their lives on
fantastic impossibilities, or quacks whose ambition
soars no higher than our corns. Thus Society
escapes, and the illimitable power of Chemistry
remains the slave of the most superficial and the
most insignificant ends.
Why this outburst? Why this withering eloquence?
Because my conduct has been misrepresented,
because my motives have been misunderstood. It has
been assumed that I used my vast chemical resources
against Anne Catherick, and that I would have used
them if I could against the magnificent Marian
herself. Odious insinuations both! All my interests
were concerned (as will be seen presently) in the
preservation of Anne Catherick's life. All my
anxieties were concentrated on Marian's rescue from
the hands of the licensed imbecile who attended her,
and who found my advice confirmed from first to last
by the physician from London. On two occasions
only—both equally harmless to the individual on whom
I practised—did I summon to myself the assistance of
chemical knowledge. On the first of the two, after
following Marian to the inn at Blackwater (studying,
behind a convenient waggon which hid me from her,
the poetry of motion, as embodied in her walk), I
availed myself of the services of my invaluable
wife, to copy one and to intercept the other of two
letters which my adored enemy had entrusted to a
discarded maid. In this case, the letters being in
the bosom of the girl's dress, Madame Fosco could
only open them, read them, perform her instructions,
seal them, and put them back again by scientific
assistance—which assistance I rendered in a
half-ounce bottle. The second occasion, when the
same means were employed, was the occasion (to which
I shall soon refer) of Lady Glyde's arrival in
London. Never at any other time was I indebted to my
Art as distinguished from myself. To all other
emergencies and complications my natural capacity
for grappling, single-handed, with circumstances,
was invariably equal. I affirm the all-pervading
intelligence of that capacity. At the expense of the
Chemist I vindicate the Man.
Respect this outburst of generous indignation. It
has inexpressibly relieved me. En route! Let us
proceed.
Having suggested to Mrs. Clement (or Clements, I am not sure which)
that the best method of keeping Anne out of
Percival's reach was to remove her to London—having
found that my proposal was eagerly received, and
having appointed a day to meet the travellers at the
station and to see them leave it, I was at liberty
to return to the house and to confront the
difficulties which still remained to be met.
My first proceeding was to avail myself of the
sublime devotion of my wife. I had arranged with
Mrs. Clements that she should communicate her London
address, in Anne's interests, to Lady Glyde. But
this was not enough. Designing persons in my absence
might shake the simple confidence of Mrs. Clements,
and she might not write after all. Who could I find
capable of travelling to London by the train she
travelled by, and of privately seeing her home? I
asked myself this question. The conjugal part of me
immediately answered—Madame Fosco.
After deciding on my wife's mission to London, I
arranged that the journey should serve a double
purpose. A nurse for the suffering Marian, equally
devoted to the patient and to myself, was a
necessity of my position. One of the most eminently
confidential and capable women in existence was by
good fortune at my disposal. I refer to that
respectable matron, Madame Rubelle, to whom I
addressed a letter, at her residence in London, by
the hands of my wife.
On the appointed day Mrs. Clements and Anne
Catherick met me at the station. I politely saw them
off, I politely saw Madame Fosco off by the same
train. The last thing at night my wife returned to
Blackwater, having followed her instructions with
the most unimpeachable accuracy. She was accompanied
by Madame Rubelle, and she brought me the London
address of Mrs. Clements. After-events proved this
last precaution to have been unnecessary. Mrs.
Clements punctually informed Lady Glyde of her place
of abode. With a wary eye on future emergencies, I
kept the letter.
The same day I had a brief interview with the
doctor, at which I protested, in the sacred
interests of humanity, against his treatment of
Marian's case. He was insolent, as all ignorant
people are. I showed no resentment, I deferred
quarrelling with him till it was necessary to
quarrel to some purpose. My next proceeding was to
leave Blackwater myself. I had my London residence
to take in anticipation of coming events. I had also
a little business of the domestic sort to transact
with Mr. Frederick Fairlie. I found the house I
wanted in St. John's Wood. I found Mr. Fairlie at
Limmeridge, Cumberland.
My own private familiarity with the nature of
Marian's correspondence had previously informed me
that she had written to Mr. Fairlie, proposing, as a
relief to Lady Glyde's matrimonial embarrassments,
to take her on a visit to her uncle in Cumberland.
This letter I had wisely allowed to reach its
destination, feeling at the time that it could do no
harm, and might do good. I now presented myself
before Mr. Fairlie to support Marian's own
proposal—with certain modifications which, happily
for the success of my plans, were rendered really
inevitable by her illness. It was necessary that
Lady Glyde should leave Blackwater alone, by her
uncle's invitation, and that she should rest a night
on the journey at her aunt's house (the house I had
in St. John's Wood) by her uncle's express advice.
To achieve these results, and to secure a note of
invitation which could be shown to Lady Glyde, were
the objects of my visit to Mr. Fairlie. When I have
mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in
mind and body, and that I let loose the whole force
of my character on him, I have said enough. I came,
saw, and conquered Fairlie.
On my return to Blackwater Park (with the letter
of invitation) I found that the doctor's imbecile
treatment of Marian's case had led to the most
alarming results. The fever had turned to typhus.
Lady Glyde, on the day of my return, tried to force
herself into the room to nurse her sister. She and I
had no affinities of sympathy—she had committed the
unpardonable outrage on my sensibilities of calling
me a spy—she was a stumbling-block in my way and in
Percival's—but, for all that, my magnanimity forbade
me to put her in danger of infection with my own
hand. At the same time I offered no hindrance to her
putting herself in danger. If she had succeeded in
doing so, the intricate knot which I was slowly and
patiently operating on might perhaps have been cut
by circumstances. As it was, the doctor interfered
and she was kept out of the room.
I had myself previously recommended sending for
advice to London. This course had been now taken.
The physician, on his arrival, confirmed my view of
the case. The crisis was serious. But we had hope of
our charming patient on the fifth day from the
appearance of the typhus. I was only once absent
from Blackwater at this time—when I went to London
by the morning train to make the final arrangements
at my house in St. John's Wood, to assure myself by
private inquiry that Mrs. Clements had not moved,
and to settle one or two little preliminary matters
with the husband of Madame Rubelle. I returned at
night. Five days afterwards the physician pronounced
our interesting Marian to be out of all danger, and
to be in need of nothing but careful nursing. This
was the time I had waited for. Now that medical
attendance was no longer indispensable, I played the
first move in the game by asserting myself against
the doctor. He was one among many witnesses in my
way whom it was necessary to remove. A lively
altercation between us (in which Percival,
previously instructed by me, refused to interfere)
served the purpose in view. I descended on the
miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of
indignation, and swept him from the house.
The servants were the next encumbrances to get
rid of. Again I instructed Percival (whose moral
courage required perpetual stimulants), and Mrs.
Michelson was amazed, one day, by hearing from her
master that the establishment was to be broken up.
We cleared the house of all the servants but one,
who was kept for domestic purposes, and whose
lumpish stupidity we could trust to make no
embarrassing discoveries. When they were gone,
nothing remained but to relieve ourselves of Mrs.
Michelson—a result which was easily achieved by
sending this amiable lady to find lodgings for her
mistress at the sea-side.
The circumstances were now exactly what they were
required to be. Lady Glyde was confined to her room
by nervous illness, and the lumpish housemaid (I
forget her name) was shut up there at night in
attendance on her mistress. Marian, though fast
recovering, still kept her bed, with Mrs. Rubelle
for nurse. No other living creatures but my wife,
myself, and Percival were in the house. With all the
chances thus in our favour I confronted the next
emergency, and played the second move in the game.
The object of the second move was to induce Lady
Glyde to leave Blackwater unaccompanied by her
sister. Unless we could persuade her that Marian had
gone on to Cumberland first, there was no chance of
removing her, of her own free will, from the house.
To produce this necessary operation in her mind, we
concealed our interesting invalid in one of the
uninhabited bedrooms at Blackwater. At the dead of
night Madame Fosco, Madame Rubelle, and myself
(Percival not being cool enough to be trusted)
accomplished the concealment. The scene was
picturesque, mysterious, dramatic in the highest
degree. By my directions the bed had been made, in
the morning, on a strong movable framework of wood.
We had only to lift the framework gently at the head
and foot, and to transport our patient where we
pleased, without disturbing herself or her bed. No
chemical assistance was needed or used in this case.
Our interesting Marian lay in the deep repose of
convalescence. We placed the candles and opened the
doors beforehand. I, in right of my great personal
strength, took the head of the framework—my wife and
Madame Rubelle took the foot. I bore my share of
that inestimably precious burden with a manly
tenderness, with a fatherly care. Where is the
modern Rembrandt who could depict our midnight
procession? Alas for the Arts! alas for this most
pictorial of subjects! The modern Rembrandt is
nowhere to be found.
The next morning my wife and I started for
London, leaving Marian secluded, in the uninhabited
middle of the house, under care of Madame Rubelle,
who kindly consented to imprison herself with her
patient for two or three days. Before taking our
departure I gave Percival Mr. Fairlie's letter of
invitation to his niece (instructing her to sleep on
the journey to Cumberland at her aunt's house), with
directions to show it to Lady Glyde on hearing from
me. I also obtained from him the address of the
Asylum in which Anne Catherick had been confined,
and a letter to the proprietor, announcing to that
gentleman the return of his runaway patient to
medical care.
I had arranged, at my last visit to the
metropolis, to have our modest domestic
establishment ready to receive us when we arrived in
London by the early train. In consequence of this
wise precaution, we were enabled that same day to
play the third move in the game—the getting
possession of Anne Catherick.
Dates are of importance here. I combine in myself
the opposite characteristics of a Man of Sentiment
and a Man of Business. I have all the dates at my
fingers' ends.
On Wednesday, the 24th of July 1850, I sent my
wife in a cab to clear Mrs. Clements out of the way,
in the first place. A supposed message from Lady
Glyde in London was sufficient to obtain this
result. Mrs. Clements was taken away in the cab, and
was left in the cab, while my wife (on pretence of
purchasing something at a shop) gave her the slip,
and returned to receive her expected visitor at our
house in St. John's Wood. It is hardly necessary to
add that the visitor had been described to the
servants as "Lady Glyde."
In the meanwhile I had followed in another cab,
with a note for Anne Catherick, merely mentioning
that Lady Glyde intended to keep Mrs. Clements to
spend the day with her, and that she was to join
them under care of the good gentleman waiting
outside, who had already saved her from discovery in
Hampshire by Sir Percival. The "good gentleman" sent
in this note by a street boy, and paused for results
a door or two farther on. At the moment when Anne
appeared at the house door and closed it this
excellent man had the cab door open ready for her,
absorbed her into the vehicle, and drove off.
(Pass me, here, one exclamation in parenthesis.
How interesting this is!)
On the way to Forest Road my companion showed no
fear. I can be paternal—no man more so—when I
please, and I was intensely paternal on this
occasion. What titles I had to her confidence! I had
compounded the medicine which had done her good—I
had warned her of her danger from Sir Percival.
Perhaps I trusted too implicitly to these
titles—perhaps I underrated the keenness of the
lower instincts in persons of weak intellect—it is
certain that I neglected to prepare her sufficiently
for a disappointment on entering my house. When I
took her into the drawing-room—when she saw no one
present but Madame Fosco, who was a stranger to
her—she exhibited the most violent agitation; if she
had scented danger in the air, as a dog scents the
presence of some creature unseen, her alarm could
not have displayed itself more suddenly and more
causelessly. I interposed in vain. The fear from
which she was suffering I might have soothed, but
the serious heart-disease, under which she laboured,
was beyond the reach of all moral palliatives. To my
unspeakable horror she was seized with convulsions—a
shock to the system, in her condition, which might
have laid her dead at any moment at our feet.
The nearest doctor was sent for, and was told
that "Lady Glyde" required his immediate services.
To my infinite relief, he was a capable man. I
represented my visitor to him as a person of weak
intellect, and subject to delusions, and I arranged
that no nurse but my wife should watch in the
sick-room. The unhappy woman was too ill, however,
to cause any anxiety about what she might say. The
one dread which now oppressed me was the dread that
the false Lady Glyde might die before the true Lady
Glyde arrived in London.
I had written a note in the morning to Madame
Rubelle, telling her to join me at her husband's
house on the evening of Friday the 26th, with
another note to Percival, warning him to show his
wife her uncle's letter of invitation, to assert
that Marian had gone on before her, and to despatch
her to town by the midday train, on the 26th, also.
On reflection I had felt the necessity, in Anne
Catherick's state of health, of precipitating
events, and of having Lady Glyde at my disposal
earlier than I had originally contemplated. What
fresh directions, in the terrible uncertainty of my
position, could I now issue? I could do nothing but
trust to chance and the doctor. My emotions
expressed themselves in pathetic apostrophes, which
I was just self-possessed enough to couple, in the
hearing of other people, with the name of "Lady
Glyde." In all other respects Fosco, on that
memorable day, was Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.
She passed a bad night, she awoke worn out, but
later in the day she revived amazingly. My elastic
spirits revived with her. I could receive no answers
from Percival and Madame Rubelle till the morning of
the next day, the 26th. In anticipation of their
following my directions, which, accident apart, I
knew they would do, I went to secure a fly to fetch
Lady Glyde from the railway, directing it to be at
my house on the 26th, at two o'clock. After seeing
the order entered in the book, I went on to arrange
matters with Monsieur Rubelle. I also procured the
services of two gentlemen who could furnish me with
the necessary certificates of lunacy. One of them I
knew personally—the other was known to Monsieur
Rubelle. Both were men whose vigorous minds soared
superior to narrow scruples—both were labouring
under temporary embarrassments—both believed in ME.
It was past five o'clock in the afternoon before
I returned from the performance of these duties.
When I got back Anne Catherick was dead. Dead on the
25th, and Lady Glyde was not to arrive in London
till the 26th!
I was stunned. Meditate on that. Fosco stunned!
It was too late to retrace our steps. Before my
return the doctor had officiously undertaken to save
me all trouble by registering the death, on the date
when it happened, with his own hand. My grand
scheme, unassailable hitherto, had its weak place
now—no efforts on my part could alter the fatal
event of the 25th. I turned manfully to the future.
Percival's interests and mine being still at stake,
nothing was left but to play the game through to the
end. I recalled my impenetrable calm—and played it.
On the morning of the 26th Percival's letter
reached me, announcing his wife's arrival by the
midday train. Madame Rubelle also wrote to say she
would follow in the evening. I started in the fly,
leaving the false Lady Glyde dead in the house, to
receive the true Lady Glyde on her arrival by the
railway at three o'clock. Hidden under the seat of
the carriage, I carried with me all the clothes Anne
Catherick had worn on coming into my house—they were
destined to assist the resurrection of the woman who
was dead in the person of the woman who was living.
What a situation! I suggest it to the rising romance
writers of England. I offer it, as totally new, to
the worn-out dramatists of France.
Lady Glyde was at the station. There was great
crowding and confusion, and more delay than I liked
(in case any of her friends had happened to be on
the spot), in reclaiming her luggage. Her first
questions, as we drove off, implored me to tell her
news of her sister. I invented news of the most
pacifying kind, assuring her that she was about to
see her sister at my house. My house, on this
occasion only, was in the neighbourhood of Leicester
Square, and was in the occupation of Monsieur
Rubelle, who received us in the hall.
I took my visitor upstairs into a back room, the
two medical gentlemen being there in waiting on the
floor beneath to see the patient, and to give me
their certificates. After quieting Lady Glyde by the
necessary assurances about her sister, I introduced
my friends separately to her presence. They
performed the formalities of the occasion briefly,
intelligently, conscientiously. I entered the room
again as soon as they had left it, and at once
precipitated events by a reference of the alarming
kind to "Miss Halcombe's" state of health.
Results followed as I had anticipated. Lady Glyde
became frightened, and turned faint. For the second
time, and the last, I called Science to my
assistance. A medicated glass of water and a
medicated bottle of smelling-salts relieved her of
all further embarrassment and alarm. Additional
applications later in the evening procured her the
inestimable blessing of a good night's rest. Madame
Rubelle arrived in time to preside at Lady Glyde's
toilet. Her own clothes were taken away from her at
night, and Anne Catherick's were put on her in the
morning, with the strictest regard to propriety, by
the matronly hands of the good Rubelle. Throughout
the day I kept our patient in a state of
partially-suspended consciousness, until the
dexterous assistance of my medical friends enabled
me to procure the necessary order rather earlier
than I had ventured to hope. That evening (the
evening of the 27th) Madame Rubelle and I took our
revived "Anne Catherick" to the Asylum. She was
received with great surprise, but without suspicion,
thanks to the order and certificates, to Percival's
letter, to the likeness, to the clothes, and to the
patient's own confused mental condition at the time.
I returned at once to assist Madame Fosco in the
preparations for the burial of the False "Lady
Glyde," having the clothes and luggage of the true
"Lady Glyde" in my possession. They were afterwards
sent to Cumberland by the conveyance which was used
for the funeral. I attended the funeral, with
becoming dignity, attired in the deepest mourning.
My narrative of these remarkable events, written under equally
remarkable circumstances, closes here. The minor
precautions which I observed in communicating with
Limmeridge House are already known, so is the
magnificent success of my enterprise, so are the
solid pecuniary results which followed it. I have to
assert, with the whole force of my conviction, that
the one weak place in my scheme would never have
been found out if the one weak place in my heart had
not been discovered first. Nothing but my fatal
admiration for Marian restrained me from stepping in
to my own rescue when she effected her sister's
escape. I ran the risk, and trusted in the complete
destruction of Lady Glyde's identity. If either
Marian or Mr. Hartright attempted to assert that
identity, they would publicly expose themselves to
the imputation of sustaining a rank deception, they
would be distrusted and discredited accordingly, and
they would therefore be powerless to place my
interests or Percival's secret in jeopardy. I
committed one error in trusting myself to such a
blindfold calculation of chances as this. I
committed another when Percival had paid the penalty
of his own obstinacy and violence, by granting Lady
Glyde a second reprieve from the mad-house, and
allowing Mr. Hartright a second chance of escaping
me. In brief, Fosco, at this serious crisis, was
untrue to himself. Deplorable and uncharacteristic
fault! Behold the cause, in my heart—behold, in the
image of Marian Halcombe, the first and last
weakness of Fosco's life!
At the ripe age of sixty, I make this
unparalleled confession. Youths! I invoke your
sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears.
A word more, and the attention of the reader
(concentrated breathlessly on myself) shall be
released.
My own mental insight informs me that three
inevitable questions will be asked here by persons
of inquiring minds. They shall be stated—they shall
be answered.
First question. What is the secret of Madame
Fosco's unhesitating devotion of herself to the
fulfilment of my boldest wishes, to the furtherance
of my deepest plans? I might answer this by simply
referring to my own character, and by asking, in my
turn, Where, in the history of the world, has a man
of my order ever been found without a woman in the
background self-immolated on the altar of his life?
But I remember that I am writing in England, I
remember that I was married in England, and I ask if
a woman's marriage obligations in this country
provide for her private opinion of her husband's
principles? No! They charge her unreservedly to
love, honour, and obey him. That is exactly what my
wife has done. I stand here on a supreme moral
elevation, and I loftily assert her accurate
performance of her conjugal duties. Silence,
Calumny! Your sympathy, Wives of England, for Madame
Fosco!
Second question. If Anne Catherick had not died
when she did, what should I have done? I should, in
that case, have assisted worn-out Nature in finding
permanent repose. I should have opened the doors of
the Prison of Life, and have extended to the captive
(incurably afflicted in mind and body both) a happy
release.
Third question. On a calm revision of all the
circumstances—Is my conduct worthy of any serious
blame? Most emphatically, No! Have I not carefully
avoided exposing myself to the odium of committing
unnecessary crime? With my vast resources in
chemistry, I might have taken Lady Glyde's life. At
immense personal sacrifice I followed the dictates
of my own ingenuity, my own humanity, my own
caution, and took her identity instead. Judge me by
what I might have done. How comparatively innocent!
how indirectly virtuous I appear in what I really
did!
I announced on beginning it that this narrative
would be a remarkable document. It has entirely
answered my expectations. Receive these fervid
lines—my last legacy to the country I leave for
ever. They are worthy of the occasion, and worthy of
FOSCO.
THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
I
When I closed the last leaf of the Count's
manuscript the half-hour during which I had engaged
to remain at Forest Road had expired. Monsieur
Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. I rose
immediately, and left the agent in possession of the
empty house. I never saw him again—I never heard
more of him or of his wife. Out of the dark byways
of villainy and deceit they had crawled across our
path—into the same byways they crawled back secretly
and were lost.
In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest Road
I was at home again.
But few words sufficed to tell Laura and Marian
how my desperate venture had ended, and what the
next event in our lives was likely to be. I left all
details to be described later in the day, and
hastened back to St. John's Wood, to see the person
of whom Count Fosco had ordered the fly, when he
went to meet Laura at the station.
The address in my possession led me to some
"livery stables," about a quarter of a mile distant
from Forest Road. The proprietor proved to be a
civil and respectable man. When I explained that an
important family matter obliged me to ask him to
refer to his books for the purpose of ascertaining a
date with which the record of his business
transactions might supply me, he offered no
objection to granting my request. The book was
produced, and there, under the date of "July 26th,
1850," the order was entered in these words—
"Brougham to Count Fosco, 5 Forest Road. Two
o'clock. (John Owen)."
I found on inquiry that the name of "John Owen,"
attached to the entry, referred to the man who had
been employed to drive the fly. He was then at work
in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me at my
request.
"Do you remember driving a gentleman, in the
month of July last, from Number Five Forest Road to
the Waterloo Bridge station?" I asked.
"Well, sir," said the man, "I can't exactly say I
do."
"Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? Can
you call to mind driving a foreigner last summer—a
tall gentleman and remarkably fat?" The man's face
brightened directly.
"I remember him, sir! The fattest gentleman as
ever I see, and the heaviest customer as ever I
drove. Yes, yes—I call him to mind, sir! We DID go
to the station, and it WAS from Forest Road. There
was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the
window. The gentleman was in a mortal hurry about
the lady's luggage, and he gave me a handsome
present for looking sharp and getting the boxes."
Getting the boxes! I recollected immediately that
Laura's own account of herself on her arrival in
London described her luggage as being collected for
her by some person whom Count Fosco brought with him
to the station. This was the man.
"Did you see the lady?" I asked. "What did she
look like? Was she young or old?"
"Well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of
people pushing about, I can't rightly say what the
lady looked like. I can't call nothing to mind about
her that I know of excepting her name."
"You remember her name?"
"Yes, sir. Her name was Lady Glyde."
"How do you come to remember that, when you have
forgotten what she looked like?"
The man smiled, and shifted his feet in some
little embarrassment.
"Why, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I
hadn't been long married at that time, and my wife's
name, before she changed it for mine, was the same
as the lady's—meaning the name of Glyde, sir. The
lady mentioned it herself. 'Is your name on your
boxes, ma'am?' says I. 'Yes,' says she, 'my name is
on my luggage—it is Lady Glyde.' 'Come!' I says to
myself, 'I've a bad head for gentlefolks' names in
general—but THIS one comes like an old friend, at
any rate.' I can't say nothing about the time, sir,
it might be nigh on a year ago, or it mightn't. But
I can swear to the stout gentleman, and swear to the
lady's name."
There was no need that he should remember the
time—the date was positively established by his
master's order-book. I felt at once that the means
were now in my power of striking down the whole
conspiracy at a blow with the irresistible weapon of
plain fact. Without a moment's hesitation, I took
the proprietor of the livery stables aside and told
him what the real importance was of the evidence of
his order-book and the evidence of his driver. An
arrangement to compensate him for the temporary loss
of the man's services was easily made, and a copy of
the entry in the book was taken by myself, and
certified as true by the master's own signature. I
left the livery stables, having settled that John
Owen was to hold himself at my disposal for the next
three days, or for a longer period if necessity
required it.
I now had in my possession all the papers that I
wanted—the district registrar's own copy of the
certificate of death, and Sir Percival's dated
letter to the Count, being safe in my pocket-book.
With this written evidence about me, and with the
coachman's answers fresh in my memory, I next turned
my steps, for the first time since the beginning of
all my inquiries, in the direction of Mr. Kyrle's
office. One of my objects in paying him this second
visit was, necessarily, to tell him what I had done.
The other was to warn him of my resolution to take
my wife to Limmeridge the next morning, and to have
her publicly received and recognised in her uncle's
house. I left it to Mr. Kyrle to decide under these
circumstances, and in Mr. Gilmore's absence, whether
he was or was not bound, as the family solicitor, to
be present on that occasion in the family interests.
I will say nothing of Mr. Kyrle's amazement, or
of the terms in which he expressed his opinion of my
conduct from the first stage of the investigation to
the last. It is only necessary to mention that he at
once decided on accompanying us to Cumberland.
We started the next morning by the early train.
Laura, Marian, Mr. Kyrle, and myself in one
carriage, and John Owen, with a clerk from Mr.
Kyrle's office, occupying places in another. On
reaching the Limmeridge station we went first to the
farmhouse at Todd's Corner. It was my firm
determination that Laura should not enter her
uncle's house till she appeared there publicly
recognised as his niece. I left Marian to settle the
question of accommodation with Mrs. Todd, as soon as
the good woman had recovered from the bewilderment
of hearing what our errand was in Cumberland, and I
arranged with her husband that John Owen was to be
committed to the ready hospitality of the
farm-servants. These preliminaries completed, Mr.
Kyrle and I set forth together for Limmeridge House.
I cannot write at any length of our interview
with Mr. Fairlie, for I cannot recall it to mind
without feelings of impatience and contempt, which
make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly
repulsive to me. I prefer to record simply that I
carried my point. Mr. Fairlie attempted to treat us
on his customary plan. We passed without notice his
polite insolence at the outset of the interview. We
heard without sympathy the protestations with which
he tried next to persuade us that the disclosure of
the conspiracy had overwhelmed him. He absolutely
whined and whimpered at last like a fretful child.
"How was he to know that his niece was alive when he
was told that she was dead? He would welcome dear
Laura with pleasure, if we would only allow him time
to recover. Did we think he looked as if he wanted
hurrying into his grave? No. Then, why hurry him?"
He reiterated these remonstrances at every available
opportunity, until I checked them once for all, by
placing him firmly between two inevitable
alternatives. I gave him his choice between doing
his niece justice on my terms, or facing the
consequence of a public assertion of her existence
in a court of law. Mr. Kyrle, to whom he turned for
help, told him plainly that he must decide the
question then and there. Characteristically choosing
the alternative which promised soonest to release
him from all personal anxiety, he announced with a
sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong
enough to bear any more bullying, and that we might
do as we pleased.
Mr. Kyrle and I at once went downstairs, and
agreed upon a form of letter which was to be sent
round to the tenants who had attended the false
funeral, summoning them, in Mr. Fairlie's name, to
assemble in Limmeridge House on the next day but
one. An order referring to the same date was also
written, directing a statuary in Carlisle to send a
man to Limmeridge churchyard for the purpose of
erasing an inscription—Mr. Kyrle, who had arranged
to sleep in the house, undertaking that Mr. Fairlie
should hear these letters read to him, and should
sign them with his own hand.
I occupied the interval day at the farm in
writing a plain narrative of the conspiracy, and in
adding to it a statement of the practical
contradiction which facts offered to the assertion
of Laura's death. This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle
before I read it the next day to the assembled
tenants. We also arranged the form in which the
evidence should be presented at the close of the
reading. After these matters were settled, Mr. Kyrle
endeavoured to turn the conversation next to Laura's
affairs. Knowing, and desiring to know nothing of
those affairs, and doubting whether he would
approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in
relation to my wife's life-interest in the legacy
left to Madame Fosco, I begged Mr. Kyrle to excuse
me if I abstained from discussing the subject. It
was connected, as I could truly tell him, with those
sorrows and troubles of the past which we never
referred to among ourselves, and which we
instinctively shrank from discussing with others.
My last labour, as the evening approached, was to
obtain "The Narrative of the Tombstone," by taking a
copy of the false inscription on the grave before it
was erased.
The day came—the day when Laura once more entered the familiar
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House. All the persons
assembled rose from their seats as Marian and I led
her in. A perceptible shock of surprise, an audible
murmur of interest ran through them, at the sight of
her face. Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express
stipulation), with Mr. Kyrle by his side. His valet
stood behind him with a smelling-bottle ready in one
hand, and a white handkerchief, saturated with
eau-de-Cologne, in the other.
I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to
Mr. Fairlie to say whether I appeared there with his
authority and under his express sanction. He
extended an arm, on either side, to Mr. Kyrle and to
his valet—was by them assisted to stand on his legs,
and then expressed himself in these terms: "Allow me
to present Mr. Hartright. I am as great an invalid
as ever, and he is so very obliging as to speak for
me. The subject is dreadfully embarrassing. Please
hear him, and don't make a noise!" With those words
he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took
refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief.
The disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after
I had offered my preliminary explanation, first of
all, in the fewest and the plainest words. I was
there present (I informed my hearers) to declare,
first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the
daughter of the late Mr. Philip Fairlie; secondly,
to prove by positive facts, that the funeral which
they had attended in Limmeridge churchyard was the
funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them a
plain account of how it had all happened. Without
further preface, I at once read the narrative of the
conspiracy, describing it in clear outline, and
dwelling only upon the pecuniary motive for it, in
order to avoid complicating my statement by
unnecessary reference to Sir Percival's secret. This
done, I reminded my audience of the date on the
inscription in the churchyard (the 25th), and
confirmed its correctness by producing the
certificate of death. I then read them Sir
Percival's letter of the 25th, announcing his wife's
intended journey from Hampshire to London on the
26th. I next showed that she had taken that journey,
by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly,
and I proved that she had performed it on the
appointed day, by the order-book at the livery
stables. Marian then added her own statement of the
meeting between Laura and herself at the mad-house,
and of her sister's escape. After which I closed the
proceedings by informing the persons present of Sir
Percival's death and of my marriage.
Mr. Kyrle rose when I resumed my seat, and
declared, as the legal adviser of the family, that
my case was proved by the plainest evidence he had
ever heard in his life. As he spoke those words, I
put my arm round Laura, and raised her so that she
was plainly visible to every one in the room. "Are
you all of the same opinion?" I asked, advancing
towards them a few steps, and pointing to my wife.
The effect of the question was electrical. Far
down at the lower end of the room one of the oldest
tenants on the estate started to his feet, and led
the rest with him in an instant. I see the man now,
with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair,
mounted on the window-seat, waving his heavy
riding-whip over his head, and leading the cheers.
"There she is, alive and hearty—God bless her! Gi'
it tongue, lads! Gi' it tongue!" The shout that
answered him, reiterated again and again, was the
sweetest music I ever heard. The labourers in the
village and the boys from the school, assembled on
the lawn, caught up the cheering and echoed it back
on us. The farmers' wives clustered round Laura, and
struggled which should be first to shake hands with
her, and to implore her, with the tears pouring over
their own cheeks, to bear up bravely and not to cry.
She was so completely overwhelmed, that I was
obliged to take her from them, and carry her to the
door. There I gave her into Marian's care—Marian,
who had never failed us yet, whose courageous
self-control did not fail us now. Left by myself at
the door, I invited all the persons present (after
thanking them in Laura's name and mine) to follow me
to the churchyard, and see the false inscription
struck off the tombstone with their own eyes.
They all left the house, and all joined the
throng of villagers collected round the grave, where
the statuary's man was waiting for us. In a
breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the
steel sounded on the marble. Not a voice was
heard—not a soul moved, till those three words,
"Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished from sight. Then
there was a great heave of relief among the crowd,
as if they felt that the last fetters of the
conspiracy had been struck off Laura herself, and
the assembly slowly withdrew. It was late in the day
before the whole inscription was erased. One line
only was afterwards engraved in its place: "Anne
Catherick, July 25th, 1850."
I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in
the evening to take leave of Mr. Kyrle. He and his
clerk, and the driver of the fly, went back to
London by the night train. On their departure an
insolent message was delivered to me from Mr.
Fairlie—who had been carried from the room in a
shattered condition, when the first outbreak of
cheering answered my appeal to the tenantry. The
message conveyed to us "Mr. Fairlie's best
congratulations," and requested to know whether "we
contemplated stopping in the house." I sent back
word that the only object for which we had entered
his doors was accomplished—that I contemplated
stopping in no man's house but my own—and that Mr.
Fairlie need not entertain the slightest
apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing from us
again. We went back to our friends at the farm to
rest that night, and the next morning—escorted to
the station, with the heartiest enthusiasm and good
will, by the whole village and by all the farmers in
the neighbourhood—we returned to London.
As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the
distance, I thought of the first disheartening
circumstances under which the long struggle that was
now past and over had been pursued. It was strange
to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which
had denied us all hope of assistance had been the
indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act
for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal
help, what would have been the result? The gain (on
Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would have been more than
doubtful—the loss, judging by the plain test of
events as they had really happened, certain. The law
would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs.
Catherick. The law would never have made Pesca the
means of forcing a confession from the Count.
II
Two more events remain to be added to the chain
before it reaches fairly from the outset of the
story to the close.
While our new sense of freedom from the long
oppression of the past was still strange to us, I
was sent for by the friend who had given me my first
employment in wood engraving, to receive from him a
fresh testimony of his regard for my welfare. He had
been commissioned by his employers to go to Paris,
and to examine for them a fresh discovery in the
practical application of his Art, the merits of
which they were anxious to ascertain. His own
engagements had not allowed him leisure time to
undertake the errand, and he had most kindly
suggested that it should be transferred to me. I
could have no hesitation in thankfully accepting the
offer, for if I acquitted myself of my commission as
I hoped I should, the result would be a permanent
engagement on the illustrated newspaper, to which I
was now only occasionally attached.
I received my instructions and packed up for the
journey the next day. On leaving Laura once more
(under what changed circumstances!) in her sister's
care, a serious consideration recurred to me, which
had more than once crossed my wife's mind, as well
as my own, already—I mean the consideration of
Marian's future. Had we any right to let our selfish
affection accept the devotion of all that generous
life? Was it not our duty, our best expression of
gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to think only of
HER? I tried to say this when we were alone for a
moment, before I went away. She took my hand, and
silenced me at the first words.
"After all that we three have suffered together,"
she said "there can be no parting between us till
the last parting of all. My heart and my happiness,
Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a little till
there are children's voices at your fireside. I will
teach them to speak for me in THEIR language, and
the first lesson they say to their father and mother
shall be—We can't spare our aunt!"
My journey to Paris was not undertaken alone. At
the eleventh hour Pesca decided that he would
accompany me. He had not recovered his customary
cheerfulness since the night at the Opera, and he
determined to try what a week's holiday would do to
raise his spirits.
I performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew
out the necessary report, on the fourth day from our
arrival in Paris. The fifth day I arranged to devote
to sight-seeing and amusements in Pesca's company.
Our hotel had been too full to accommodate us
both on the same floor. My room was on the second
story, and Pesca's was above me, on the third. On
the morning of the fifth day I went upstairs to see
if the Professor was ready to go out. Just before I
reached the landing I saw his door opened from the
inside—a long, delicate, nervous hand (not my
friend's hand certainly) held it ajar. At the same
time I heard Pesca's voice saying eagerly, in low
tones, and in his own language—"I remember the name,
but I don't know the man. You saw at the Opera he
was so changed that I could not recognise him. I
will forward the report—I can do no more." "No more
need be done," answered the second voice. The door
opened wide, and the light-haired man with the scar
on his cheek—the man I had seen following Count
Fosco's cab a week before—came out. He bowed as I
drew aside to let him pass—his face was fearfully
pale—and he held fast by the banisters as he
descended the stairs.
I pushed open the door and entered Pesca's room.
He was crouched up, in the strangest manner, in a
corner of the sofa. He seemed to shrink from me when
I approached him.
"Am I disturbing you?" I asked. "I did not know
you had a friend with you till I saw him come out."
"No friend," said Pesca eagerly. "I see him
to-day for the first time and the last."
"I am afraid he has brought you bad news?"
"Horrible news, Walter! Let us go back to
London—I don't want to stop here—I am sorry I ever
came. The misfortunes of my youth are very hard upon
me," he said, turning his face to the wall, "very
hard upon me in my later time. I try to forget
them—and they will not forget ME!"
"We can't return, I am afraid, before the
afternoon," I replied. "Would you like to come out
with me in the meantime?"
"No, my friend, I will wait here. But let us go
back to-day—pray let us go back."
I left him with the assurance that he should
leave Paris that afternoon. We had arranged the
evening before to ascend the Cathedral of Notre
Dame, with Victor Hugo's noble romance for our
guide. There was nothing in the French capital that
I was more anxious to see, and I departed by myself
for the church.
Approaching Notre Dame by the river-side, I
passed on my way the terrible dead-house of
Paris—the Morgue. A great crowd clamoured and heaved
round the door. There was evidently something inside
which excited the popular curiosity, and fed the
popular appetite for horror.
I should have walked on to the church if the
conversation of two men and a woman on the outskirts
of the crowd had not caught my ear. They had just
come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue, and
the account they were giving of the dead body to
their neighbours described it as the corpse of a
man—a man of immense size, with a strange mark on
his left arm.
The moment those words reached me I stopped and
took my place with the crowd going in. Some dim
foreshadowing of the truth had crossed my mind when
I heard Pesca's voice through the open door, and
when I saw the stranger's face as he passed me on
the stairs of the hotel. Now the truth itself was
revealed to me—revealed in the chance words that had
just reached my ears. Other vengeance than mine had
followed that fated man from the theatre to his own
door—from his own door to his refuge in Paris. Other
vengeance than mine had called him to the day of
reckoning, and had exacted from him the penalty of
his life. The moment when I had pointed him out to
Pesca at the theatre in the hearing of that stranger
by our side, who was looking for him too—was the
moment that sealed his doom. I remembered the
struggle in my own heart, when he and I stood face
to face—the struggle before I could let him escape
me—and shuddered as I recalled it.
Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed in with the
crowd, moving nearer and nearer to the great glass
screen that parts the dead from the living at the
Morgue—nearer and nearer, till I was close behind
the front row of spectators, and could look in.
There he lay, unowned, unknown, exposed to the
flippant curiosity of a French mob! There was the
dreadful end of that long life of degraded ability
and heartless crime! Hushed in the sublime repose of
death, the broad, firm, massive face and head
fronted us so grandly that the chattering
Frenchwomen about me lifted their hands in
admiration, and cried in shrill chorus, "Ah, what a
handsome man!" The wound that had killed him had
been struck with a knife or dagger exactly over his
heart. No other traces of violence appeared about
the body except on the left arm, and there, exactly
in the place where I had seen the brand on Pesca's
arm, were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter
T, which entirely obliterated the mark of the
Brotherhood. His clothes, hung above him, showed
that he had been himself conscious of his
danger—they were clothes that had disguised him as a
French artisan. For a few moments, but not for
longer, I forced myself to see these things through
the glass screen. I can write of them at no greater
length, for I saw no more.
The few facts in connection with his death which
I subsequently ascertained (partly from Pesca and
partly from other sources), may be stated here
before the subject is dismissed from these pages.
His body was taken out of the Seine in the
disguise which I have described, nothing being found
on him which revealed his name, his rank, or his
place of abode. The hand that struck him was never
traced, and the circumstances under which he was
killed were never discovered. I leave others to draw
their own conclusions in reference to the secret of
the assassination as I have drawn mine. When I have
intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a
member of the Brotherhood (admitted in Italy after
Pesca's departure from his native country), and when
I have further added that the two cuts, in the form
of a T, on the left arm of the dead man, signified
the Italian word "Traditore," and showed that
justice had been done by the Brotherhood on a
traitor, I have contributed all that I know towards
elucidating the mystery of Count Fosco's death.
The body was identified the day after I had seen
it by means of an anonymous letter addressed to his
wife. He was buried by Madame Fosco in the cemetery
of Pere la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths continue to
this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze
railings round the tomb by the Countess's own hand.
She lives in the strictest retirement at Versailles.
Not long since she published a biography of her
deceased husband. The work throws no light whatever
on the name that was really his own or on the secret
history of his life—it is almost entirely devoted to
the praise of his domestic virtues, the assertion of
his rare abilities, and the enumeration of the
honours conferred on him. The circumstances
attending his death are very briefly noticed, and
are summed up on the last page in this sentence—"His
life was one long assertion of the rights of the
aristocracy and the sacred principles of Order, and
he died a martyr to his cause."
III
The summer and autumn passed after my return from
Paris, and brought no changes with them which need
be noticed here. We lived so simply and quietly that
the income which I was now steadily earning sufficed
for all our wants.
In the February of the new year our first child
was born—a son. My mother and sister and Mrs. Vesey
were our guests at the little christening party, and
Mrs. Clements was present to assist my wife on the
same occasion. Marian was our boy's godmother, and
Pesca and Mr. Gilmore (the latter acting by proxy)
were his godfathers. I may add here that when Mr.
Gilmore returned to us a year later he assisted the
design of these pages, at my request, by writing the
Narrative which appears early in the story under his
name, and which, though first in order of
precedence, was thus, in order of time, the last
that I received.
The only event in our lives which now remains to
be recorded, occurred when our little Walter was six
months old.
At that time I was sent to Ireland to make
sketches for certain forthcoming illustrations in
the newspaper to which I was attached. I was away
for nearly a fortnight, corresponding regularly with
my wife and Marian, except during the last three
days of my absence, when my movements were too
uncertain to enable me to receive letters. I
performed the latter part of my journey back at
night, and when I reached home in the morning, to my
utter astonishment there was no one to receive me.
Laura and Marian and the child had left the house on
the day before my return.
A note from my wife, which was given to me by the
servant, only increased my surprise, by informing me
that they had gone to Limmeridge House. Marian had
prohibited any attempt at written explanations—I was
entreated to follow them the moment I came
back—complete enlightenment awaited me on my arrival
in Cumberland—and I was forbidden to feel the
slightest anxiety in the meantime. There the note
ended. It was still early enough to catch the
morning train. I reached Limmeridge House the same
afternoon.
My wife and Marian were both upstairs. They had
established themselves (by way of completing my
amazement) in the little room which had been once
assigned to me for a studio, when I was employed on
Mr. Fairlie's drawings. On the very chair which I
used to occupy when I was at work Marian was sitting
now, with the child industriously sucking his coral
upon her lap—while Laura was standing by the
well-remembered drawing-table which I had so often
used, with the little album that I had filled for
her in past times open under her hand.
"What in the name of heaven has brought you
here?" I asked. "Does Mr. Fairlie know——?"
Marian suspended the question on my lips by
telling me that Mr. Fairlie was dead. He had been
struck by paralysis, and had never rallied after the
shock. Mr. Kyrle had informed them of his death, and
had advised them to proceed immediately to
Limmeridge House.
Some dim perception of a great change dawned on
my mind. Laura spoke before I had quite realised it.
She stole close to me to enjoy the surprise which
was still expressed in my face.
"My darling Walter," she said, "must we really
account for our boldness in coming here? I am
afraid, love, I can only explain it by breaking
through our rule, and referring to the past."
"There is not the least necessity for doing
anything of the kind," said Marian. "We can be just
as explicit, and much more interesting, by referring
to the future." She rose and held up the child
kicking and crowing in her arms. "Do you know who
this is, Walter?" she asked, with bright tears of
happiness gathering in her eyes.
"Even MY bewilderment has its limits," I replied.
"I think I can still answer for knowing my own
child."
"Child!" she exclaimed, with all her easy gaiety
of old times. "Do you talk in that familiar manner
of one of the landed gentry of England? Are you
aware, when I present this illustrious baby to your
notice, in whose presence you stand? Evidently not!
Let me make two eminent personages known to one
another: Mr. Walter Hartright—THE HEIR OF
LIMMERIDGE."
So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written all. The pen
falters in my hand. The long, happy labour of many
months is over. Marian was the good angel of our
lives—let Marian end our Story.
