No. 35.] SATURDAY,
DECEMBER 24, 1859
[PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
HARTRIGHT'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.
Not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house. Miss Halcombe hastened immediately to her sister's room; and I withdrew to my studio to set in order all of Mr. Fairlie's drawings that I had not yet mounted and restored before I resigned them to the care of other hands. Thoughts that I had hitherto restrained, thoughts that made my position harder than ever to endure, crowded on me now that I was alone.
She was engaged to be married; and her future husband was Sir Percival Glyde. A man of the rank of Baronet, and the owner of property in Hampshire.
There were hundreds of baronets in England, and dozens of landowners in Hampshire. Judging by the ordinary rules of evidence, I had not the shadow of a reason, thus far, for connecting Sir Percival Glyde with the suspicious words of inquiry that had been spoken to me by the woman in white. And yet, I did connect him with them. Was it because he had now become associated in my mind with Miss Fairlie; Miss Fairlie being in her turn, associated with Anne Catherick, since the night when I had discovered the ominous likeness between them? Had the events of the morning so unnerved me already that I was at the mercy of any delusion which common chances and common coincidences might suggest to my imagination? Impossible to say. I could only feel that what had passed between Miss Halcombe and myself, on our way from the summer-house, had affected me very strangely. The foreboding of some undiscoverable danger lying hid from us all in the darkness of the future, was strong on me. The doubt whether I was not linked already to a chain of events which even my approaching departure from Cumberland would be powerless to snap asunder — the doubt whether we any of us saw the end as the end would really be — gathered more and more darkly over my mind. Poignant as it was, the sense of suffering caused by the miserable end of my brief, presumptuous love, seemed to be blunted and deadened by the still stronger sense of something obscurely impending, something invisibly threatening, that Time was holding over our heads.
I had been engaged with the drawings little more than half an hour, when there was a knock at the door. It opened, on my answering; and, to my surprise, Miss Halcombe entered the room.
Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught up a chair for herself, before I could give her one; and sat down in it, close at my side.
"Mr. Hartright," she said, "I had hoped that all painful subjects of conversation were exhausted between us, for to-day at least. But it is not to be so. There is some underhand villany at work to frighten my sister about her approaching marriage. You saw me send the gardener on to the house, with a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to Miss Fairlie?"
"Certainly."
"That letter is an anonymous letter — a vile attempt to injure Sir Percival Glyde in my sister's estimation. It has so agitated and alarmed her that I have had the greatest possible difficulty in composing her spirits sufficiently to allow me to leave her room and come here. I know this is a family matter on which I ought not to consult you, and in which you can feel no concern or interest ——
"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe. I feel the strongest possible concern and interest in anything that affects Miss Fairlie's happiness or yours."
"I am glad to hear you say so. You are the only person in the house, or out of it, who can advise me. Mr. Fairlie, in his state of health and with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not to be thought of. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing out of the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable, jog-trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times of trouble and danger. What I want to know is this: ought I, at once, to take such steps as I can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought I to wait, and apply to Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? It is a question — perhaps a very important one — of gaining or losing a day. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright. If necessity had not already obliged me to take you into my confidence under very delicate circumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps, be no excuse for me. But, as things are, I cannot surely be wrong, after all that has passed between us, in forgetting that you are a friend of only three months' standing."
She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any preliminary form of
address, as follows:
"Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do. See what Scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis xl. 8, xli. 25; Daniel iv. 18-25); and take the warning I send you before it is too late.
"Last night, I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. I dreamed that I was standing
inside the communion rails of a church: I on one side of the altar-table, and
the clergyman, with his surplice and his prayer-book, on the other.
"After a time, there walked towards us, down the aisle of the church, a man and
a woman, coming to be married. You were the woman. You looked so pretty and
innocent in your beautiful white silk dress, and your long white lace veil, that
my heart felt for you and the tears came into my eyes.
"They were tears of pity, young lady, that Heaven blesses; and, instead of
falling from my eyes like the every-day tears that we all of us shed, they
turned into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer to the man
standing at the altar with you, till they touched his breast. The two rays
sprang in arches like two rainbows, between me and him. I looked along them; and
I saw down into his inmost heart.
"The outside of the man you were marrying was fair enough to see. He was neither
tall, nor short — he was a little below the middle size. A light, active,
high-spirited man — about five-and-forty years old, to look at. He had a pale
face, and was bald over the forehead, but had dark hair on the rest of his head.
His beard was shaven on his chin, but was let to grow, of a fine rich brown, on
his cheeks and his upper lip. His eyes were brown too, and very bright; his nose
straight and handsome and delicate enough to have done for a woman's. His hands
the same. He was troubled from time to time with a dry hacking cough; and when
he put up his white right hand to his mouth, he showed the red scar of an old
wound across the back of it. Have I dreamt of the right man? You know best, Miss
Fairlie; and you can say if I was deceived or not. Read, next, what I saw
beneath the outside — I entreat you, read, and profit.
"I looked along the two rays of light; and I saw down into his inmost heart. It
was black as night; and on it was written, in the red flaming letters which are
the handwriting of the fallen angel: 'Without pity and without remorse. He has
strewn with misery the paths of others, and he will live to strew with misery
the path of this woman by his side.' I read that; and then the rays of light
shifted and pointed over his shoulder; and there, behind him, stood a fiend,
laughing. And the rays of light shifted once more, and pointed over your
shoulder; and there, behind you, stood an angel weeping. And the rays of light
shifted for the third time, and pointed straight between you and that man. They
widened and widened, thrusting you both asunder, one from the other. And the
clergyman looked for the marriage-service in vain: it was gone out of the book,
and he shut up the leaves, and put it from him in despair. And I woke with my
eyes full of tears and my heart beating — for I
believe in dreams.
"Believe, too, Miss Fairlie — I beg of you, for your own sake, believe as I do.
Joseph and Daniel, and others in Scripture, believed in dreams. Inquire into the
past life of that man with the scar on his hand, before you say the words that
make you his miserable wife. I don't give you this warning on my account, but on
yours. I have an interest in your well-being that will live as long as I draw
breath. Your mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart — for your mother
was my first, my best, my only friend."
There, the extraordinary letter ended, without signature of any sort.
The handwriting afforded no prospect of a clue. It was traced on ruled lines, in
the cramped, conventional, copybook character, technically termed "small hand."
It was feeble and faint, and defaced by blots, but had otherwise nothing to
distinguish it.
"That is not an illiterate letter," said Miss Halcombe, "and, at the same time,
it is surely too incoherent to be the letter of an educated person in the higher
ranks of life. The reference to the bridal dress and veil, and other little
expressions, seem to point to it as the production of a woman. What do you
think, Mr. Hartright?"
"I think so too. It seems to me to be not only the letter of a woman, but of a
woman whose mind must be ——"
"Deranged?" suggested Miss Halcombe. "It struck me in that light, too."
I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the last sentence of
the letter: "Your mother's daughter has a tender place in my heart — for your
mother was my first, my best, my only friend." Those words and the doubt which
had just escaped me as to the sanity of the writer of the letter, acting
together on my mind, suggested an idea, which I was literally afraid to express
openly, or even to encourage secretly. I began to doubt whether my own faculties
were not in danger of losing their balance. It seemed almost like a monomania to
be tracing back everything strange that happened, everything unexpected that was
said, always to the same hidden source and the same sinister influence. I
resolved, this time, in defence of my own courage and my own sense, to come to
no decision that plain fact did not warrant, and to turn my back resolutely on
everything that tempted me in the shape of surmise.
"If we have any chance of tracing the person who has written this," I said,
returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, "there can be no harm in seizing our
opportunity the moment it offers. I think we ought to speak to the gardener
again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our
inquiries in the village. But first let me ask a question. You mentioned just
now the alternative of consulting Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow. Is
there no possibility of communicating with him earlier? Why not to-day?"
"I can only explain," replied Miss Halcombe, "by entering into certain
particulars, connected with my sister's marriage engagement, which I did not
think it necessary or desirable to mention to you this morning. One of Sir
Percival Glyde's objects in coming here, on Monday, is to fix the period of his
marriage, which has hitherto been left quite unsettled. He is anxious that the
event should take place before the end of the year."
"Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?" I asked, eagerly.
"She has no suspicion of it; and, after what has happened, I shall not take the
responsibility upon myself of enlightening her. Sir Percival has only mentioned
his views to Mr. Fairlie, who has told me himself that he is ready and anxious,
as Laura's guardian, to forward them. He has written to London, to the family
solicitor, Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore happens to be away in Glasgow on business;
and he has replied by proposing to stop at Limmeridge House, on his way back to
town. He will arrive to-morrow, and will stay with us a few days, so as to allow
Sir Percival time to plead his own cause. If he succeeds, Mr. Gilmore will then
return to London, taking with him his instructions for my sister's
marriage-settlement. You understand now, Mr. Hartright, why I speak of waiting
to take legal advice until to-morrow? Mr. Gilmore is the old and tried friend of
two generations of Fairlies; and we can trust him, as we could trust no one
else."
The marriage-settlement! The mere hearing of those two words stung me with a
jealous despair that was poison to my higher and better instincts. I began to
think — it is hard to confess this, but I must suppress nothing from beginning
to end of the terrible story that I now stand committed to reveal — I began to
think, with a hateful eagerness of hope, of the vague charges against Sir
Percival Glyde which the anonymous letter contained. What if those wild
accusations rested on a foundation of truth? What if their truth could be proved
before the fatal words of consent were spoken, and the marriage-settlement was
drawn? I have tried to think, since, that the feeling which then animated me
began and ended in pure devotion to Miss Fairlie's interests. But I have never
succeeded in deceiving myself into believing it; and I must not now attempt to
deceive others. The feeling began and ended in reckless, vindictive, hopeless
hatred of the man who was to marry her.
"If we are to find out anything," I said, speaking under the new influence which
was now directing me, "we had better not let another minute slip by us
unemployed. I can only suggest, once more, the propriety of questioning the
gardener a second time, and of inquiring in the village immediately afterwards."
"I think I may be of help to you in both cases," said Miss Halcombe, rising.
"Let us go, Mr. Hartright, at once, and do the best we can together."
I had the door in my hand to open it for her — but I stopped, on a sudden, to
ask an important question before we set forth.
"One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter," I said, "contains some
sentences of minute personal description. Sir Percival Glyde's name is not
mentioned, I know — but does that description at all resemble him?"
"Accurately; even in stating his age to be forty-five ——"
Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! Men of his age married wives of her
age every day; and experience had shown those marriages to be often the happiest
ones. I knew that — and yet even the mention of his age, when I contrasted it
with hers, added to my blind hatred and distrust of him.
"Accurately," Miss Halcombe continued, "even to the scar on his right hand,
which is the scar of a wound that he received years since when he was travelling
in Italy. There can be no doubt that every peculiarity of his personal
appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter."
"Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?"
"Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it lightly himself, though it sometimes
makes his friends anxious about him."
"I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his character?"
"Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous letter
influence you?"
I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it
had
influenced me.
"I hope not," I answered, confusedly. "Perhaps I had no right to ask the
question."
"I am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it enables me to do justice to Sir
Percival's reputation. Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me, or my
family, against him. He has fought successfully two contested elections; and has
come out of the ordeal unscathed. A man who can do that, in England, is a man
whose character is established."
I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not
convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from heaven to confirm her,
and had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording angel would not have
convinced me.
We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning could extract a
single answer of any importance from the lad's impenetrable stupidity. The woman
who had given him the letter was an elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to
him; and she had gone away towards the south in a great hurry. That was all the
gardener could tell us.
The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.
XI.
Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among
all sorts and conditions of people. But nothing came of them. Three of the
villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman; but as they were
quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact
direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her, these three bright
exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance afforded no more real
assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.
The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to the end of the
village, at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated. As we
passed the side of the building appropriated to the use of the boys, I suggested
the propriety of making a last inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might
presume to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man in the place.
"I am afraid the schoolmaster must have been occupied with his scholars," said
Miss Halcombe, "just at the time when the woman passed through the village, and
returned again. However, we can but try."
We entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom window, to get
round to the door, which was situated at the back of the building. I stopped for
a moment at the window and looked in.
The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me, apparently
haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front of him, with one
exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from
all the rest on a stool in a corner — a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his
own desert island of solitary penal disgrace.
The door, when we got round to it, was ajar; and the schoolmaster's voice
reached us plainly, as we both stopped for a minute under the porch.
"Now, boys," said the voice, "mind what I tell you. If I hear another word
spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the worse for all of you. There
are no such things as ghosts; and, therefore, any boy who believes in ghosts
believes in what can't possibly be; and a boy who belongs to Limmeridge School,
and believes in what can't possibly be, sets up his back against reason and
discipline, and must be punished accordingly. You all see Jacob Postlethwaite
standing up on the stool there in disgrace. He has been punished, not because he
said he saw a ghost last night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate
to listen to reason; and because he persists in saying he saw the ghost after I
have told him that no such thing can possibly be. If nothing else will do, I
mean to cane the ghost out of Jacob Postlethwaite; and if the thing spreads
among any of the rest of you, I mean to go a step farther, and cane the ghost
out of the whole school."
"We seem to have chosen an awkward moment for our visit," said Miss Halcombe,
pushing open the door at the end of the schoolmaster's address, and leading the
way in.
Our appearance produced a strong sensation among the boys. They appeared to
think that we had arrived for the express purpose of seeing Jacob Postlethwaite
caned.
"Go home all of you to dinner," said the schoolmaster, "except Jacob. Jacob must
stop where he is; and the ghost may bring him his dinner, if the ghost pleases."
Jacob's fortitude deserted him at the double disappearance of his schoolfellows
and his prospect of dinner. He took his hands out of his pockets, looked hard at
his knuckles, raised them with great deliberation to his eyes, and, when they
got there, ground them round and round slowly, accompanying the action by short
spasms of sniffing, which followed each other at regular intervals — the nasal
minute guns of juvenile distress.
"We came here to ask you a question, Mr. Dempster," said Miss Halcombe,
addressing the schoolmaster; "and we little expected to find you occupied in
exorcising a ghost. What does it all mean? What has really happened?"
"That wicked boy has been frightening the whole school, Miss Halcombe, by
declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening," answered the master. "And he
still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that I can say to him."
"Most extraordinary," said Miss Halcombe. "I should not have thought it possible
that any of the boys had imagination enough to see a ghost. This is a new
accession indeed to the hard labour of forming the youthful mind at Limmeridge
— and I heartily wish you well through it, Mr. Dempster. In the mean time, let
me explain why you see me here, and what it is I want."
She then put the same question to the schoolmaster, which we had asked already of
almost every one else in the village. It was met by the same discouraging
answer. Mr. Dempster had not set eyes on the stranger of whom we were in search.
"We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hartright," said Miss Halcombe; "the
information we want is evidently not to be found."
She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to leave the schoolroom, when the
forlorn position of Jacob Postlethwaite, piteously sniffing on the stool of
penitence, attracted her attention as she passed him, and made her stop
good-humouredly to speak a word to the little prisoner before she opened the
door.
"You foolish boy," she said, "why don't you beg Mr. Dempster's pardon, and hold
your tongue about the ghost?"
"Eh! — but I saw t' ghaist," persisted Jacob Postlethwaite, with a stare of
terror and a burst of tears.
"Stuff and nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed! What ghost
——"
"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe," interposed the schoolmaster, a little
uneasily — "but I think you had better not question the boy. The obstinate
folly of his story is beyond all belief; and you might lead him into ignorantly
——"
"Ignorantly, what?" inquired Miss Halcombe, sharply.
"Ignorantly shocking your feelings," said Mr. Dempster, looking very much
discomposed.
"Upon my word, Mr. Dempster, you pay my feelings a great compliment in thinking
them weak enough to be shocked by such an urchin as that!" She turned with an
air of satirical defiance to little Jacob, and began to question him directly.
"Come!" she said; "I mean to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did you
see the ghost!"
"Yester'een, at the gloaming," replied Jacob.
"Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? And what was it like?"
"Arl in white — as a ghaist should be," answered the ghost-seer, with a
confidence beyond his years.
"And where was it?"
"Away yander, in t' kirkyard — where a ghaist ought to be."
"As a 'ghaist' should be — where a 'ghaist' ought to be — why, you little
fool, you talk as if the manners and customs of ghosts had been familiar to you
from your infancy! You have got your story at your fingers' end, at any rate. I
suppose I shall hear next that you can actually tell me whose ghost it was?"
"Eh! but I just can," replied Jacob, nodding his head with an air of gloomy
triumph.
Mr. Dempster had already tried several times to speak, while Miss Halcombe was
examining his pupil; and he now interposed resolutely enough to make himself
heard.
"Excuse me, Miss Halcombe," he said, "if I venture to say that you are only
encouraging the boy by asking him these questions."
"I will merely ask one more, Mr. Dempster, and then I shall be quite satisfied.
Well," she continued, turning to the boy, "and whose ghost was it?"
"T' ghaist of Mistress Fairlie," answered Jacob, in a whisper.
The effect which this extraordinary reply produced on Miss Halcombe, fully
justified the anxiety which the schoolmaster had shown to prevent her from
hearing it. Her face crimsoned with indignation — she turned upon little Jacob
with an angry suddenness which terrified him into a fresh burst of tears —
opened her lips to speak to him — then controlled herself — and addressed the
master instead of the boy.
"It is useless," she said, "to hold such a child as that responsible for what he
says. I have little doubt that the idea has been put into his head by others. If
there are people in this village, Mr. Dempster, who have forgotten the respect
and gratitude due from every soul in it to my mother's memory, I will find them
out; and, if I have any influence with Mr. Fairlie, they shall suffer for it."
"I hope — indeed, I am sure, Miss Halcombe — that you are mistaken," said the
schoolmaster. "The matter begins and ends with the boy's own perversity and
folly. He saw, or thought he saw, a woman in white, yesterday evening, as he was
passing the churchyard; and the figure, real or fancied, was standing by the
marble cross, which he and every one else in Limmeridge knows to be the monument
over Mrs. Fairlie's grave. These two circumstances are surely sufficient to have
suggested to the boy himself the answer which has so naturally shocked you?"
Although Miss Halcombe did not seem to be convinced, she evidently felt that the
schoolmaster's statement of the case was too sensible to be openly combated. She
merely replied by thanking him for his attention, and by promising to see him
again when her doubts were satisfied. This said, she bowed, and led the way out
of the schoolroom.
Throughout the whole of this strange scene, I had stood apart, listening
attentively, and drawing my own conclusions. As soon as we were alone again,
Miss Halcombe asked me if I had formed any opinion on what I had heard.
"A very strong opinion," I answered; "the boy's story, as I believe, has a
foundation in fact. I confess I am anxious to see the monument over Mrs.
Fairlie's grave, and to examine the ground about it."
"You shall see the grave."
She paused after making that reply, and reflected a little as we walked on.
"What has happened in the schoolroom," she resumed, "has so completely
distracted my attention from the subject of the letter, that I feel a little
bewildered when I try to return to it. Must we give up all idea of making any
further inquiries, and wait to place the thing in Mr. Gilmore's hands,
to-morrow?"
"By no means, Miss Halcombe. What has happened in the schoolroom encourages me
to persevere in the investigation."
"Why does it encourage you?"
"Because it strengthens a suspicion I felt, when you gave me the letter to
read."
"I suppose you had your reasons, Mr. Hartright, for concealing that suspicion
from me till this moment?"
"I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought it was utterly preposterous
— I distrusted it as the result of some perversity in my own imagination. But I
can do so no longer. Not only the boy's own answers to your questions, but even
a chance expression that dropped from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his
story, have forced the idea back into my mind. Events may yet prove that idea to
be a delusion, Miss Halcombe; but the belief is strong in me, at this moment,
that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous
letter, are one and the same person."
She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face.
"What person?"
"The schoolmaster unconsciously told you. When he spoke of the figure that the
boy saw in the churchyard he called it 'a woman in white.' "
"Not Anne Catherick!"
"Yes, Anne Catherick."
She put her hand through my arm, and leaned on it heavily.
"I don't know why," she said, in low tones, "but there is something in this
suspicion of yours that seems to startle and unnerve me. I feel ——" She
stopped, and tried to laugh it off. "Mr. Hartright," she went on, "I will show
you the grave, and then go back at once to the house. I had better not leave
Laura too long alone. I had better go back, and sit with her."
We were close to the churchyard when she spoke. The church, a dreary building of
grey stone, was situated in a little valley, so as to be sheltered from the
bleak winds blowing over the moorland all round it. The burial-ground advanced,
from the side of the church, a little way up the slope of the hill. It was
surrounded by a rough, low stone wall, and was bare and open to the sky, except
at one extremity, where a brook trickled down the stony hill side, and a clump
of dwarf trees threw their narrow shadows over the short, meagre grass. Just
beyond the brook and the trees, and not far from one of the three stone stiles
which afforded entrance, at various points, to the churchyard, rose the white
marble cross that distinguished Mrs. Fairlie's grave from the humbler monuments
scattered about it.
"I need go no farther with you," said Miss Halcombe, pointing to the grave. "You
will let me know if you find anything to confirm the idea you have just
mentioned to me. Let us meet again at the house."
She left me. I descended at once to the churchyard, and crossed the stile which
led directly to Mrs. Fairlie's grave.
The grass about it was too short, and the ground too hard, to show any marks of
footsteps. Disappointed thus far, I next looked attentively at the cross, and at
the square block of marble below it, on which the inscription was cut.
The natural whiteness of the cross was a little clouded, here and there, by
weather-stains, and rather more than one half of the square block beneath it, on
the side which bore the inscription, was in the same condition. The other half,
however, attracted my attention at once by its singular freedom from stain or
impurity of any kind. I looked closer, and saw that it had been cleaned —
recently cleaned, in a downward direction from top to bottom. The boundary line
between the part that had been cleaned and the part that had not, was traceable
wherever the inscription left a blank space of marble — sharply traceable as a
line that had been produced by artificial means. Who had begun the cleansing of
the marble, and who had left it unfinished?
I looked about me, wondering how the question was to be solved. No sign of a
habitation could be discerned from the point at which I was standing: the
burial-ground was left in the lonely possession of the dead. I returned to the
church, and walked round it till I came to the back of the building; then
crossed the boundary wall beyond, by another of the stone stiles; and found
myself at the head of a path leading down into a deserted stone quarry. Against
one side of the quarry a little two-room cottage was built; and just outside the
door an old woman was engaged in washing.
I walked up to her, and entered into conversation about the church and
burial-ground. She was ready enough to talk; and almost the first words she said
informed me that her husband filled the two offices of clerk and sexton. I said
a few words next in praise of Mrs. Fairlie's monument. The old woman shook her
head, and told me I had not seen it at its best. It was her husband's business
to look after it; but he had been so ailing and weak, for months and months
past, that he had hardly been able to crawl into church on Sundays to do his
duty; and the monument had been neglected in consequence. He was getting a
little better now; and, in a week or ten days' time, he hoped to be strong
enough to set to work and clean it.
This information — extracted from a long rambling answer, in the broadest
Cumberland dialect — told me all that I most wanted to know. I gave the poor
woman a trifle, and returned at once to Limmeridge House.
The partial cleansing of the monument had evidently been accomplished by a
strange hand. Connecting what I had discovered, thus far, with what I had
suspected after hearing the story of the ghost seen at twilight, I wanted
nothing more to confirm my resolution to watch Mrs. Fairlie's grave, in secret,
that evening; returning to it at sunset, and waiting within sight of it till the
night fell. The work of cleansing the monument had been left unfinished; and the
person by whom it had been begun might return to complete it.
On getting back to the house, I informed Miss Halcombe of what I intended to do.
She looked surprised and uneasy, while I was explaining my purpose; but she made
no positive objection to the execution of it. She only said, "I hope it may end
well." Just as she was leaving me again, I stopped her to inquire, as calmly as
I could, after Miss Fairlie's health. She was in better spirits; and Miss
Halcombe hoped she might be induced to take a little walking exercise while the
afternoon sun lasted.
I returned to my own room, to resume setting the drawings in order. It was
necessary to do this, and doubly necessary to keep my mind employed on anything
that would help to distract my attention from myself, and from the hopeless
future that lay before me. From time to time, I paused in my work to look out of
window and watch the sky as the sun sank nearer and nearer to the horizon. On
one of those occasions I saw a figure on the broad gravel walk under my window.
It was Miss Fairlie.
I had not seen her since the morning; and I had hardly spoken to her then.
Another day at Limmeridge was all that remained to me; and after that day my
eyes might never look on her again. This thought was enough to hold me at the
window. I had sufficient consideration for her, to arrange the blind so that she
might not see me if she looked up; but I had no strength to resist the
temptation of letting my eyes, at least, follow her as far as they could on her
walk.
She was dressed in a brown cloak, with a plain black silk gown under it. On her
head was the same simple straw hat which she had worn on the morning when we
first met. A veil was attached to it now, which hid her face from me. By her
side, trotted a little Italian greyhound, the pet companion of all her walks,
smartly dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to keep the sharp air from his
delicate skin. She did not seem to notice the dog. She walked straight forward,
with her head drooping a little, and her arms folded in her cloak. The dead
leaves which had whirled in the wind before me, when I had heard of her
marriage engagement in the morning, whirled in the wind before her, and rose and
fell and scattered themselves at her feet, as she walked on in the pale waning
sunlight. The dog shivered and trembled, and pressed against her dress
impatiently for notice and encouragement. But she never heeded him. She walked
on, farther and farther away from me, with the dead leaves whirling about her on
the path — walked on, till my aching eyes could see her no more, and I was left
alone again with my own heavy heart.
In another hour's time, I had done my work, and the sunset was at hand. I got my
hat and coat in the hall, and slipped out of the house without meeting anyone.
The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew chill from the
sea. Far as the shore was, the sound of the surf swept over the intervening
moorland, and beat drearily in my ears, when I entered the churchyard. Not a
living creature was in sight. The place looked lonelier than ever, as I chose my
position, and waited and watched, with my eyes on the white cross that rose over
Mrs. Fairlie's grave.
All The Year Round, 24 December 1859, Vol.II, No.35, pp.189-195.
Weekly Part 5.
DOWNLOAD
pdf of this part
Harper's Weekly illustrations to date