No. 51.] SATURDAY,
APRIL 14, 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
MISS HALCOMBE’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.
July 5th.
I remained leaning on the window-sill for nearly a quarter of an hour,
looking out absently into the black darkness, and hearing nothing, except,
now and then, the voices of the servants, or the distant sound of a closing
door, in the lower part of the house.
Just as I was turning away wearily from the window, to go back to the
bedroom, and make a second attempt to complete the unfinished entry in my
journal, I smelt the odour of tobacco-smoke, stealing towards me on the
heavy night air. The next moment I saw a tiny red spark advancing from the
farther end of the house in the pitch darkness. I heard no footsteps, and I
could see nothing but the spark. It travelled along in the night; passed the
window at which I was standing; and stopped opposite my bedroom window,
inside which I had left the light burning on the dressing-table.
The spark remained stationary, for a moment, then moved back again in the
direction from which it had advanced. As I followed its progress, I saw a
second red spark, larger than the first, approaching from the distance. The
two met together in the darkness. Remembering who smoked cigarettes, and who
smoked cigars, I inferred, immediately, that the Count had come out first to
look and listen, under my window, and that Sir Percival had afterwards
joined him. They must both have been walking on the lawn—or I should
certainly have heard Sir Percival’s heavy footfall, though the Count’s soft
step might have escaped me, even on the gravel walk.
I waited quietly at the window, certain that they could neither of them see
me, in the darkness of the room.
“What’s the matter?” I heard Sir Percival say, in a low voice. “Why don’t
you come in and sit down?”
“I want to see the light out of that window,” replied the Count, softly.
“What harm does the light do?”
“It shows she is not in bed yet. She is sharp enough to suspect something,
and bold enough to come downstairs and listen, if she can get the chance.
Patience, Percival—patience.”
“Humbug! You’re always talking of patience.”
“I shall talk of something else presently. My good friend, you are on the
edge of your domestic precipice; and if I let you give the women one other
chance, on my sacred word of honour, they will push you over it!”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“We will come to our explanations, Percival, when the light is out of that
window, and when I have had one little look at the rooms on each side of the
library, and a peep at the staircase as well.”
They slowly moved away; and the rest of the conversation between them (which
had been conducted, throughout, in the same low tones) ceased to be audible.
It was no matter. I had heard enough to determine me on justifying the
Count’s opinion of my sharpness and my courage. Before the red sparks were
out of sight in the darkness, I had made up my mind that there should be a
listener when those two men sat down to their talk—and that the listener, in
spite of all the Count’s precautions to the contrary, should be myself. I
wanted but one motive to sanction the act to my own conscience, and to give
me courage enough for performing it; and that motive I had. Laura’s honour,
Laura’s happiness—Laura’s life itself—might depend on my quick ears, and my
faithful memory, to-night.
I had heard the Count say that he meant to examine the rooms on each side of
the library, and the staircase as well, before he entered on any
explanations with Sir Percival. This expression of his intentions was
necessarily sufficient to inform me that the library was the room in which
he proposed that the conversation should take place. The one moment of time
which was long enough to bring me to that conclusion, was also the moment
which showed me a means of baffling his precautions—or, in other words, of
hearing what he and Sir Percival said to each other, without the risk of
descending at all into the lower regions of the house.
In speaking of the rooms on the ground floor, I have mentioned incidentally
the verandah outside them, on which they all opened by means of French
windows, extending from the cornice to the floor. The top of this verandah
was flat; the rain-water being carried off from it, by pipes, into tanks
which helped to supply the house. On the narrow leaden roof, which ran along
past the bedrooms, and which was rather less, I should think, than three
feet below the sills of the windows, a row of flower-pots was ranged, with
wide intervals between each pot; the whole being protected from falling, in
high winds, by an ornamental iron railing along the edge of the roof.
The plan which had now occurred to me was to get out, at my sitting-room
window, on to this roof; to creep along noiselessly, till I reached that
part of it which was immediately over the library window; and to crouch down
between the flower-pots, with my ear against the outer railing. If Sir
Percival and the Count sat and smoked to-night, as I had seen them sitting
and smoking many nights before, with their chairs close at the open window,
and their feet stretched on the zinc garden seats which were placed under
the verandah, every word they said to each other above a whisper (and no
long conversation, as we all know by experience, can be carried on
in a whisper) must inevitably
reach my ears. If, on the other hand, they chose, to-night, to sit far back
inside the room, then, the chances were, that I should hear little or
nothing; and, in that case, I must run the far more serious risk of trying
to outwit them down stairs.
Strongly as I was fortified in my resolution by the desperate nature of our
situation, I hoped most fervently that I might escape this last emergency.
My courage was only a woman’s courage, after all; and it was very near to
failing me, when I thought of trusting myself on the ground floor, at the
dead of night, within reach of Sir Percival and the Count.
I went softly back to my bedroom, to try the safer experiment of the
verandah roof, first.
A complete change in my dress was imperatively necessary, for many reasons.
I took off my silk gown to begin with, because the slightest noise from it,
on that still night, might have betrayed me. I next removed the white and
cumbersome parts of my underclothing, and replaced them by a petticoat of
dark flannel. Over this, I put my black travelling cloak, and pulled the
hood on to my head. In my ordinary evening costume, I took up the room of
three men at least. In my present dress, when it was held close about me, no
man could have passed through the narrowest spaces more easily than I. The
little breadth left on the roof of the verandah, between the flower-pots on
one side, and the wall and windows of the house on the other, made this a
serious consideration. If I knocked anything down, if I made the least
noise, who could say what the consequences might be?
I only waited to put the matches near the candle, before I extinguished it,
and groped my way back into the sitting-room. I locked that door, as I had
locked my bedroom door—then quietly got out of the window, and cautiously
set my feet on the leaden roof of the verandah. My two rooms were at the
inner extremity of the new wing of the house in which we all lived; and I
had five windows to pass, before I could reach the position it was necessary
to take up immediately over the library. The first window belonged to a
spare room, which was empty. The second and third windows belonged to
Laura’s room. The fourth window belonged to Sir Percival’s room. The fifth,
belonged to the Countess’s room. The others, by which it was not necessary
for me to pass, were the windows of the Count’s dressing-room, of the
bath-room, and of the second empty spare-room.
No sound reached my ears—the black blinding darkness of the night was all
round me when I first stood on the verandah, except at that part of it which
Madame Fosco’s window overlooked. There, at the very place above the
library, to which my course was directed—there, I saw a gleam of light! The
Countess was not yet in bed.
It was too late to draw back; it was no time to wait. I determined to go on
at all hazards, and trust for security to my own caution and to the darkness
of the night. “For Laura’s sake!” I thought to myself, as I took the first
step forward on the roof, with one hand holding my cloak close round me, and
the other groping against the wall of the house. It was better to brush
close by the wall, than to risk striking my feet against the flower-pots
within a few inches of me, on the other side.
I passed the dark window of the spare-room, trying the leaden roof, at each
step, with my foot, before I risked resting my weight on it. I passed the
dark windows of Laura’s room (“God bless her and keep her to-night!”). I
passed the dark window of Sir Percival’s room. Then, I waited a moment,
knelt down, with my hands to support me; and so crept to my position, under
the protection of the low wall between the bottom of the lighted window and
the verandah roof.
When I ventured to look up at the window itself, I found that the top of it
only was open, and that the blind inside was drawn down. While I was
looking, I saw the shadow of Madame Fosco pass across the white field of the
blind—then pass slowly back again. Thus far, she could not have heard me—or
the shadow would surely have stopped at the blind, even if she had wanted
courage enough to open the window, and look out?
I placed myself sideways against the railing of the verandah; first
ascertaining, by touching them, the position of the flower-pots on either
side of me. There was room enough for me to sit between them, and no more.
The sweet-scented leaves of the flower on my left hand, just brushed my
cheek as I lightly rested my head against the railing.
The first sounds that reached me from below were caused by the opening or
closing (most probably the latter) of three doors in succession—the doors,
no doubt, leading into the hall, and into the rooms on each side of the
library, which the Count had pledged himself to examine. The first object
that I saw was the red spark again travelling out into the night, from under
the verandah; moving away towards my window; waiting a moment; and then
returning to the place from which it had set out.
“The devil take your restlessness! When do you mean to sit down?” growled
Sir Percival’s voice beneath me.
“Ouf! how hot it is!” said the Count, sighing and puffing wearily.
His exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs on the
tiled pavement under the verandah—the welcome sound which told me they were
going to sit close at the window as usual. So far, the chance was mine. The
clock in the turret struck the quarter to twelve as they settled themselves
in their chairs. I heard Madame Fosco through the open window, yawning; and
saw her shadow pass once more across the white field of the blind.
Meanwhile, Sir Percival and the Count began talking together below; now and
then dropping their voices a little lower than usual, but never sinking them
to a whisper. The strangeness and peril of my situation, the dread, which I
could not master, of Madame Fosco’s lighted window, made it difficult,
almost impossible for me, at first, to keep my presence of mind, and to fix
my attention solely on the conversation beneath. For some minutes, I could
only succeed in gathering the general substance of it. I understood the
Count to say that the one window alight was his wife’s; that the ground
floor of the house was quite clear; and that they might now speak to each
other, without fear of accidents. Sir Percival merely answered by upbraiding
his friend with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his
interests, all through the day. The Count, thereupon, defended himself by
declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles and anxieties which had
absorbed all his attention, and that the only safe time to come to an
explanation, was a time when they could feel certain of being neither
interrupted nor overheard. “We are at a serious crisis in our affairs,
Percival,” he said; “and if we are to decide on the future at all, we must
decide secretly to-night.”
That sentence of the Count’s was the first which my attention was ready
enough to master, exactly as it was spoken. From this point, with certain
breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed breathlessly on the
conversation; and I followed it word for word.
“Crisis?” repeated Sir Percival. “It’s a worse crisis than you think for, I
can tell you!”
“So I should suppose, from your behaviour for the last day or two,” returned
the other, coolly. “But, wait a little. Before we advance to what I do
not know, let us be quite certain
of what I do know. Let us first
see if I am right about the time that is past, before I make any proposal to
you for the time that is to come.”
“Stop till I get the brandy and water. Have some yourself.”
“Thank you, Percival. The cold water with pleasure, a spoon, and the basin
of sugar. Eau sucrée, my friend—nothing more.”
“Sugar and water, for a man of your age!—There! mix your sickly mess. You
foreigners are all alike.”
“Now, listen, Percival. I will put our position plainly before you, as I
understand it; and you shall say if I am right or wrong. You and I both came
back to this house from the Continent, with our affairs very seriously
embarrassed——”
“Cut it short! I wanted some thousands, and you some hundreds—and, without
the money, we were both in a fair way to go to the dogs together. There’s
the situation. Make what you can of it. Go on.”
“Well, Percival, in your own solid English words, you wanted some thousands
and I wanted some hundreds; and the only way of getting them was for you to
raise the money for your own necessity (with a small margin, beyond, for my
poor little hundreds), by the help of your wife. What did I tell you about
your wife on our way to England? and what did I tell you again, when we had
come here, and when I had seen for myself the sort of woman Miss Halcombe
was?”
“How should I know? You talked nineteen to the dozen, I suppose, just as
usual.”
“I said this: Human ingenuity, my friend, has hitherto only discovered two
ways in which a man can manage a woman. One way is to knock her down—a
method largely adopted by the brutal lower orders of the people, but utterly
abhorrent to the refined and educated classes above them. The other way
(much longer, much more difficult, but, in the end, not less certain) is
never to accept a provocation at a woman’s hands. It holds with animals, it
holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing but children
grown up. Quiet resolution is the one quality the animals, the children, and
the women all fail in. If they can once shake this superior quality in their
master, they get the better of him.
If they can never succeed in disturbing it, he gets the better of
them. I said to you, Remember
that plain truth, when you want your wife to help you to the money. I said,
Remember it doubly and trebly, in the presence of your wife’s sister, Miss
Halcombe. Have you remembered it? Not once, in all the complications that
have twisted themselves about us in this house. Every provocation that your
wife, and her sister, could offer to you, you instantly accepted from them.
Your mad temper lost the signature to the deed, lost the ready money, set
Miss Halcombe writing to the lawyer, for the first time——”
“First time? what do you mean?”
“This. Miss Halcombe has written to the lawyer for the second time, to-day.”
A chair fell on the pavement of the verandah—fell with a crash, as if it had
been struck, or kicked down. It was well for me that the Count’s revelation
roused Sir Percival’s anger, as it did. On hearing that I had been again
discovered, my self-control failed me at the critical moment; and I started
so that the railing, against which I leaned, cracked again. How, in the name
of Heaven, had he found me out? The letters had never left my own
possession, till I placed them in Fanny’s hands at the inn.
“Thank your lucky star,” I heard the Count say next, “that you have me in
the house, to undo the harm, as fast as you do it. Thank your lucky star
that I said, No, when you were mad enough to talk of turning the key to-day
on Miss Halcombe, as you turned it, in your mischievous folly, on your wife.
Where are your eyes? Can you look at Miss Halcombe, and not see that she has
the foresight and the resolution of a man? With that woman for my friend, I
would snap these fingers of mine at the world. With that woman for my enemy,
I, with all my brains and experience—I, Fosco, cunning as the devil himself,
as you have told me a hundred times—I walk, in your English phrase, upon
egg-shells! And this grand creature—I drink her health in my sugar and
water—this grand creature, who stands in the strength of her love and her
courage, firm as a rock between us two, and that poor flimsy pretty blonde
wife of yours—this magnificent woman, whom I admire with all my soul, though
I oppose her in your interests and in mine, you drive to extremities, as if
she was no sharper and no bolder than the rest of her sex. Percival!
Percival! you deserve to fail, and you
have failed.”
There was a pause. I write the villain’s words about myself, because I mean
to remember them, because I hope yet for the day when I may speak out, once
for all in his presence, and cast them back, one by one, in his teeth.
Sir Percival was the first to break the silence again.
“Yes, yes; bully and bluster as much as you like,” he said, sulkily; “the
difficulty about the money is not the only difficulty. You would be for
taking strong measures with the women, yourself—if you knew as much as I
do.”
“We will come to that second difficulty, all in good time,” rejoined the
Count. “You may confuse yourself, Percival, as much as you please, but you
shall not confuse me. Let the question of the money be settled first. Have I
convinced your obstinacy? have I shown you that your temper will not let you
help yourself?—Or must I go back, and (as you put it in your dear
straightforward English) bully and bluster a little more?”
“Pooh! It’s easy enough to grumble at
me. Say what is to be done—that’s a little harder.”
“Is it? Bah! This is what is to be done: You give up all direction in the
business from to-night; you leave it, for the future, in my hands only. I am
talking to a Practical British man—ha? Well, Practical, will that do for
you?”
“What do you propose, if I leave it all to you?”
“Answer me first. Is it to be in my hands or not?”
“Say it is in your hands—what then?”
“A few questions, Percival, to begin with. I must wait a little, yet, to let
circumstances guide me; and I must know, in every possible way, what those
circumstances are likely to be. There is no time to lose. I have told you
already that Miss Halcombe has written to the lawyer to-day, for the second
time.”
“How did you find it out? What did she say?”
“If I told you, Percival, we should only come back at the end to where we
are now. Enough that I have found out—and the finding has caused that
trouble and anxiety which made me so inaccessible to you all through to-day.
Now, to refresh my memory about your affairs—it is some time since I talked
them over with you. The money has been raised, in the absence of your wife’s
signature, by means of bills at three months—raised at a cost that makes my
poverty-stricken foreign hair stand on end to think of it! When the bills
are due, is there really and truly no earthly way of paying them but by the
help of your wife?”
“None.”
“What! You have no money at the banker’s!”
“A few hundreds, when I want as many thousands.”
“Have you no other security to borrow upon?”
“Not a shred.”
“What have you actually got with your wife, at the present moment?”
“Nothing, but the interest of her twenty thousand pounds—barely enough to
pay our daily expenses.”
“What do you expect from your wife?”
“Three thousand a year, when her uncle dies.”
“A fine fortune, Percival. What sort of a man is this uncle? Old?”
“No—neither old nor young.”
“A good-tempered, freely-living man? Married? No—I think my wife told me,
not married.”
“Of course not. If he was married, and had a son, Lady Glyde would not be
next heir to the property. I’ll tell you what he is. He’s a maudlin,
twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who comes near him about the
state of his health.”
“Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently when you
least expect it. I don’t give you much, my friend, for your chance of the
three thousand a year. Is there nothing more that comes to you from your
wife?”
“Nothing.”
“Absolutely nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing—except in case of her death.”
“Aha? in the case of her death.”
There was another pause. The Count moved from the verandah to the gravel
walk outside. I knew that he had moved, by his voice. “The rain has come at
last,” I heard him say. It had
come. The state of my cloak showed that it had been falling thickly for some
little time.
The Count went back under the verandah—I heard the chair creak beneath his
weight as he sat down in it again.
“Well, Percival,” he said; “and, in the case of Lady Glyde’s death, what do
you get then?”
“If she leaves no children——”
“Which she is likely to do?”
“Which she is not in the least likely to do——”
“Yes?”
“Why, then I get her twenty thousand pounds.”
“Paid down?”
“Paid down.”
They were silent once more. As their voices ceased, Madame Fosco’s shadow
darkened the blind again. Instead of passing this time, it remained, for a
moment, quite still. I saw her fingers steal round the corner of the blind,
and draw it on one side. The dim white outline of her face, looking out
straight over me, appeared behind the window. I kept quite still, shrouded
from head to foot in my black cloak. The rain, which was fast wetting me,
dripped over the glass, blurred it, and prevented her from seeing anything.
“More rain!” I heard her say to herself. She dropped the blind—and I
breathed again freely.
The talk went on below me; the Count resuming it, this time.
“Percival! do you care about your wife?”
“Fosco! that’s rather a downright question.”
“I am a downright man; and I repeat it.”
“Why the devil do you look at me in that way?”
“You won’t answer me? Well, then; let us say your wife dies before the
summer is out——”
“Drop it, Fosco!”
“Let us say your wife dies——”
“Drop it, I tell you!”
“In that case, you would gain twenty thousand pounds; and you would lose——”
“I should lose the chance of three thousand a year.”
“The remote chance, Percival—the
remote chance only. And you want money, at once. In your position, the gain
is certain—the loss doubtful.”
“Speak for yourself as well as for me. Some of the money I want has been
borrowed for you. And if you come
to gain, my wife’s death would be
ten thousand pounds in your
wife’s pocket. Sharp as you are, you seem to have conveniently forgotten
Madame Fosco’s legacy. Don’t look at me in that way! I won’t have it! What
with your looks and your questions, upon my soul, you make my flesh creep!”
“Your flesh? Does flesh mean conscience in English? I speak of your wife’s
death, as I speak of a possibility. Why not? The respectable lawyers who
scribble-scrabble your deeds and your wills, look the deaths of living
people in the face. Do lawyers make your flesh creep? Why should I? It is my
business to-night, to clear up your position beyond the possibility of
mistake—and I have now done it. Here is your position. If your wife lives,
you pay those bills with her signature to the parchment. If your wife dies,
you pay them with her death.”
As he spoke, the light in Madame Fosco’s room was extinguished; and the
whole second floor of the house was now sunk in darkness.
“Talk! talk!” grumbled Sir Percival. “One would think, to hear you, that my
wife’s signature to the deed was got already.”
“You have left the matter in my hands,” retorted the Count; “and I have more
than two months before me to turn round in. Say no more about it, if you
please, for the present. When the bills are due, you will see for yourself
if my ‘talk! talk!’ is worth something, or if it is not. And now, Percival,
having done with the money-matters, for to-night, I can place my attention
at your disposal, if you wish to consult me on that second difficulty, which
has mixed itself up with our little embarrassments, and which has so altered
you for the worse, that I hardly know you again. Speak, my friend—and pardon
me if I shock your fiery national tastes by mixing myself a second glass of
sugar-and-water.”
“It’s very well to say speak,” replied Sir Percival, in a far more quiet and
more polite tone than he had yet adopted; “but it’s not so easy to know how
to begin.”
“Shall I help you?” suggested the Count. “Shall I give this private
difficulty of yours a name? What, if I call it—Anne Catherick?”
“Look here, Fosco, you and I have known each other for a long time; and, if
you have helped me out of one or two scrapes before this, I have done the
best I could to help you in return, as far as money would go. We have made
as many friendly sacrifices, on both sides, as men could; but we have had
our secrets from each other, of course—haven’t we?”
“You have had a secret from me,
Percival. There is a skeleton in your cupboard here at Blackwater Park, that
has peeped out, in these last few days, at other people besides yourself.”
“Well, suppose it has. If it doesn’t concern you, you needn’t be curious
about it, need you?”
“Do I look curious about it?”
“Yes, you do.”
“So! so! my face speaks the truth, then? What an immense foundation of good
there must be in the nature of a man who arrives at my age, and whose face
has not yet lost the habit of speaking the truth!—Come, Glyde! let us be
candid one with the other. This secret of yours has sought
me: I have not sought
it. Let us say I am curious—do
you ask me, as your old friend, to respect your secret, and to leave it,
once for all, in your own keeping?”
“Yes—that’s just what I do ask.”
“Then my curiosity is at an end. It dies in me, from this moment.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“What makes you doubt me?”
“I have had some experience, Fosco, of your roundabout ways; and I am not so
sure that you won’t worm it out of me, after all.”
The chair below suddenly creaked again—I felt the trellis-work pillar under
me shake from top to bottom. The Count had started to his feet and struck it
with his hand, in indignation.
“Percival! Percival!” he cried, passionately, “do you know me no better than
that? Has all your experience shown you nothing of my character yet? I am a
man of the antique type! I am capable of the most exalted acts of
virtue—when I have the chance of performing them. It has been the misfortune
of my life that I have had few chances. My conception of friendship is
sublime! Is it my fault that your skeleton has peeped out at me? Why do I
confess my curiosity? You poor superficial Englishman, it is to magnify my
own self-control. I could draw your secret out of you, if I liked, as I draw
this finger out of the palm of my hand—you know I could! But you have
appealed to my friendship; and the duties of friendship are sacred to me.
See! I trample my base curiosity under my feet. My exalted sentiments lift
me above it. Recognise them, Percival! imitate them, Percival! Shake hands—I
forgive you.”
His voice faltered over the last words—faltered, as if he was actually
shedding tears!
Sir Percival confusedly attempted to excuse himself. But the Count was too
magnanimous to listen to him.
“No!” he said. “When my friend has wounded me, I can pardon him without
apologies. Tell me, in plain words, do you want my help?”
“Yes, badly enough.”
“And you can ask for it without compromising yourself?”
“I can try, at any rate.”
“Try, then.”
“Well, this is how it stands:—I told you, to-day, that I had done my best to
find Anne Catherick, and failed.”
“Yes; you did.”
“Fosco! I’m a lost man, if I don’t
find her.”
“Ha! Is it so serious as that?”
A little stream of light travelled out under the verandah, and fell over the
gravel-walk. The Count had taken the lamp from the inner part of the room,
to see his friend clearly by the light of it.
“Yes!” he said. “Your face speaks
the truth this time. Serious, indeed—as serious as the money matters
themselves.”
“More serious. As true as I sit here, more serious!”
The light disappeared again, and the talk went on.
“I showed you the letter to my wife that Anne Catherick hid in the sand,”
Sir Percival continued. “There’s no boasting in that letter, Fosco—she
does know the Secret.”
“Say as little as possible, Percival, in my presence, of the Secret. Does
she know it from you?”
“No; from her mother.”
“Two women in possession of your private mind—bad, bad, bad, my friend! One
question here, before we go any farther. The motive of your shutting up the
daughter in the asylum, is now plain enough to me—but the manner of her
escape is not quite so clear. Do you suspect the people in charge of her of
closing their eyes purposely, at the instance of some enemy, who could
afford to make it worth their while?”
“No; she was the best-behaved patient they had—and, like fools, they trusted
her. She’s just mad enough to be shut up, and just sane enough to ruin me
when she’s at large—if you understand that?”
“I do understand it. Now, Percival, come at once to the point; and then I
shall know what to do. Where is the danger of your position at the present
moment?”
“Anne Catherick is in this neighbourhood, and in communication with Lady
Glyde—there’s the danger, plain enough. Who can read the letter she hid in
the sand, and not see that my wife is in possession of the secret, deny it
as she may?”
“One moment, Percival. If Lady Glyde does know the secret, she must know
also that it is a compromising secret for
you. As your wife, surely it is
her interest to keep it?”
“Is it? I’m coming to that. It might be her interest if she cared two straws
about me. But I happen to be an encumbrance in the way of another man. She
was in love with him, before she married me—she’s in love with him now—an
infernal vagabond of a drawing-master, named Hartright.”
“My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all in love
with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman’s heart? In all my
experience I have never yet met with the man who was Number One. Number Two,
sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five, often. Number One, never! He exists, of
course—but, I have not met with him.”
“Wait! I haven’t done yet. Who do you think helped Anne Catherick to get the
start, when the people from the madhouse were after her? Hartright. Who do
you think saw her again in Cumberland? Hartright. Both times, he spoke to
her alone. Stop! don’t interrupt me. The scoundrel’s as sweet on my wife, as
she is on him. He knows the secret, and she knows the secret. Once let them
both get together again, and it’s her interest and his interest to turn
their information against me.”
“Gently, Percival—gently! Are you insensible to the virtue of Lady Glyde?”
“That for the virtue of Lady Glyde! I believe in nothing about her but her
money. Don’t you see how the case stands? She might be harmless enough by
herself; but if she and that vagabond Hartright——”
“Yes, yes, I see. Where is Mr. Hartright?”
“Out of the country. If he means to keep a whole skin on his bones, I
recommend him not to come back in a hurry.’
“Are you sure he is out of the country?”
“Certain. I had him watched from the time he left Cumberland to the time he
sailed. Oh, I’ve been careful, I can tell you! Anne Catherick lived with
some people at a farm-house near Limmeridge. I went there, myself, after she
had given me the slip, and made sure that they knew nothing. I gave her
mother a form of letter to write to Miss Halcombe, exonerating me from any
bad motive in putting her under restraint. I’ve spent, I’m afraid to say how
much, in trying to trace her. And, in spite of it all, she turns up here,
and escapes me on my own property! How do I know who else may see her, who
else may speak to her? That prying scoundrel, Hartright, may come back
without my knowing it, and may make use of her to-morrow——”
“Not he, Percival! While I am on the spot, and while that woman is in the
neighbourhood, I will answer for our laying hands on her, before Mr.
Hartright—even if he does come back. I see! yes, yes, I see! The finding of
Anne Catherick is the first necessity: make your mind easy about the rest.
Your wife is here, under your thumb; Miss Halcombe is inseparable from her,
and is, therefore, under your thumb also; and Mr. Hartright is out of the
country. This invisible Anne of yours, is all we have to think of for the
present. You have made your inquiries?”
“Yes. I have been to her mother; I have ransacked the village—and all to no
purpose.”
“Is her mother to be depended on?”
“Yes.”
“She has told your secret once.”
“She won’t tell it again.”
“Why not? Are her own interests concerned in keeping it, as well as yours?”
“Yes—deeply concerned.”
“I am glad to hear it, Percival, for your sake. Don’t be discouraged, my
friend. Our money matters, as I told you, leave me plenty of time to turn
round in; and I may search for
Anne Catherick to-morrow to better purpose than you. One last question,
before we go to bed.”
“What is it?”
“It is this. When I went to the boat-house to tell Lady Glyde that the
little difficulty of her signature was put off, accident took me there in
time to see a strange woman parting in a very suspicious manner from your
wife. But accident did not bring me near enough to see this same woman’s
face plainly. I must know how to recognise our invisible Anne. What is she
like?”
“Like? Come! I’ll tell you, in two words. She’s a sickly likeness of my
wife.”
The chair creaked, and the pillar shook once more. The Count was on his feet
again—this time in astonishment.
“What!!!” he exclaimed, eagerly.
“Fancy my wife, after a bad illness, with a touch of something wrong in her
head—and there is Anne Catherick for you,” answered Sir Percival.
“Are they related to each other?”
“Not a bit of it.”
“And yet, so like?”
“Yes, so like. What are you laughing about?”
There was no answer, and no sound of any kind. The Count was laughing in his
smooth, silent, internal way.
“What are you laughing about?” reiterated Sir Percival.
“Perhaps, at my own fancies, my good friend. Allow me my Italian humour—do I
not come of the illustrious nation which invented the exhibition of Punch?
Well, well, well, I shall know Anne Catherick when I see her—and so enough
for to-night. Make your mind easy, Percival. Sleep, my son, the sleep of the
just; and see what I will do for you, when daylight comes to help us both. I
have my projects and my plans, here in my big head. You shall pay those
bills and find Anne Catherick—my sacred word of honour on it, but you shall!
Am I a friend to be treasured in the best corner of your heart, or am I not?
Am I worth those loans of money which you so delicately reminded me of a
little while since? Whatever you do, never wound me in my sentiments any
more. Recognise them, Percival! imitate them! I forgive you again; I shake
hands again. Good night!”
Not another word was spoken. I heard the Count close the library door. I
heard Sir Percival barring up the window-shutters. It had been raining,
raining all the time. I was cramped by my position, and chilled to the
bones. When I first tried to move, the effort was so painful to me, that I
was obliged to desist. I tried a second time, and succeeded in rising to my
knees on the wet roof.
As I crept to the wall, and raised myself against it, I looked back, and saw
the window of the Count’s dressing-room gleam into light. My sinking courage
flickered up in me again, and kept my eyes fixed on his window, as I stole
my way, step by step, back, along the wall of the house.
The clock struck the quarter-past one, when I laid my hands on the
window-sill of my own room. I had seen nothing and heard nothing which could
lead me to suppose that my retreat had been discovered.
All The Year Round, 14 April 1860, Vol.III, No.51, pp.1-7
Weekly Part 21.
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