No. 57.] SATURDAY,
MAY 26 , 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE.
I.
I
open
a new page. I advance my narrative by one week.
The history of the interval which I thus pass over must
remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and
confusion when I think of it. This must not be, if I, who write, am to
guide, as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the clue that leads
through the windings of the Story is to remain, from end to end, untangled
in my hands.
A life suddenly changed—its whole purpose created
afresh; its hopes and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its
sacrifices, all turned at once and for ever into a new direction—this is the
prospect which now opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain’s
top. I left my narrative in the quiet shadow of Limmeridge church: I resume
it, one week later, in the stir and turmoil of a London street.
The street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood.
The ground floor of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small
newsvendor’s shop; and the first floor and the second are let as furnished
lodgings of the humblest kind.
I have taken those two floors, in an assumed name. On
the upper floor I live, with a room to work in, a room to sleep in. On the
lower floor, under the same assumed name, two women live, who are described
as my sisters. I get my bread by drawing and engraving on wood for the cheap
periodicals. My sisters are supposed to help me by taking in a little
needlework. Our poor place of abode, our humble calling, our assumed
relationship, and our assumed name, are all used alike as a means of hiding
us in the house-forest of London. We are numbered no longer with the people
whose lives are open and known. I am an obscure, unnoticed man, without
patron or friend to help me. Marian Halcombe is nothing now, but my eldest
sister, who provides for our household wants by the toil of her own hands.
We two are at once the dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. We are
the accomplices of mad Anne Catherick, who claims the name, the place, and
the living personality of dead Lady Glyde.
That is our situation. That is the changed aspect in
which we three must appear, henceforth, in this narrative, for many and many
a page to come.
In the eye of reason and of law, in the estimation of
relatives and friends, according to every received formality of civilised
society, “Laura, Lady Glyde,” lay buried with her mother in Limmeridge
churchyard. Torn in her own lifetime from the list of the living, the
daughter of Philip Fairlie and the wife of Percival Glyde, might still exist
for her sister, might still exist for me, but to all the world besides she
was dead. Dead to her uncle who had renounced her; dead to the servants of
the house, who had failed to recognise her; dead to the persons in authority
who had transmitted her fortune to her husband and her aunt; dead to my
mother and my sister, who believed me to be the dupe of an adventuress and
the victim of a fraud; socially, morally, legally—dead.
And yet alive! Alive in poverty and in hiding. Alive,
with the poor drawing-master to fight her battle, and to win the way back
for her to her place in the world of living beings.
Did no suspicion, excited by my own knowledge of Anne
Catherick’s resemblance to her, cross my mind, when her face was first
revealed to me? Not the shadow of a suspicion, from the moment when she
lifted the veil by the side of the inscription which recorded her death.
Before the sun of that day had set, before the last
glimpse of the home which was closed against her had passed from our view,
the farewell words I spoke, when we parted at Limmeridge House, had been
recalled by both of us; repeated by me, recognised by her. “If ever the time
comes, when the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give
you a moment’s happiness, or spare you a moment’s sorrow, will you try to
remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you?” She, who now
remembered so little of the trouble and the terror of a later time,
remembered those words, and laid her poor head innocently and trustingly on
the bosom of the man who had spoken them. In that moment, when she called me
by my name, when she said, “They have tried to make me forget everything,
Walter; but I remember Marian, and I remember
you”—in that moment, I who had
long since given her my love, gave her my life, and thanked God that it was
mine to bestow on her. Yes! the time had come. From thousands on thousands
of miles away; through forest and wilderness, where companions stronger than
I had fallen by my side; through peril of death thrice renewed, and thrice
escaped, the Hand that leads men on the dark road to the future, had led me
to meet that time. Forlorn and disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed; her
beauty faded, her mind clouded; robbed of her station in the world, of her
place among living creatures, the devotion I had promised, the devotion of
my whole heart and soul and strength might be laid blamelessly, now, at
those dear feet. In the right of her calamity, in the right of her
friendlessness, she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect, to
cherish, to restore. Mine to love and honour as father and brother both.
Mine to vindicate through all risks and all sacrifices—through the hopeless
struggle against Rank and Power, through the long fight with armed Deceit
and fortified Success, through the waste of my reputation, through the loss
of my friends, through the hazard of my life.
II.
My
position is defined; my motives are acknowledged. The story of Marian and
the story of Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often
interrupted, often inevitably confused) of the speakers themselves, but in
the words of the brief, plain, studiously simple abstract which I committed
to writing for my own guidance, and for the guidance of my legal adviser. So
the tangled web will be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled.
The story of Marian begins, where the narrative of the
housekeeper at Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde’s departure from her husband’s house, the
fact of that departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances
under which it had taken place, were communicated to Miss Halcombe by the
housekeeper. It was not till some days afterwards (how many days exactly,
Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any written memorandum on the subject,
could not undertake to say) that a letter arrived from Madame Fosco
announcing Lady Glyde’s sudden death in Count Fosco’s house. The letter
avoided mentioning dates, and left it to Mrs. Michelson’s discretion to
break the news at once to Miss Halcombe, or to defer doing so until that
lady’s health should be more firmly established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself
delayed, by ill health, in resuming his attendance at Blackwater Park), Mrs.
Michelson, by the doctor’s advice and in the doctor’s presence, communicated
the news, either on the day when the letter was received, or on the day
after. It is not necessary to dwell here upon the effect which the
intelligence of Lady Glyde’s sudden death produced on her sister. It is only
useful to the present purpose to say that she was not able to travel for
more than three weeks afterwards. At the end of that time she proceeded to
London, accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted there; Mrs. Michelson
previously informing Miss Halcombe of her address, in case they might wish
to communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper, Miss Halcombe went at
once to the office of Messrs Gilmore and Kyrle, to consult with the latter
gentleman, in Mr. Gilmore’s absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle, what she
had thought it desirable to conceal from everyone else (Mrs. Michelson
included)—her suspicion of the circumstances under which Lady Glyde was said
to have met her death. Mr. Kyrle, who had previously given friendly proof of
his anxiety to serve Miss Halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries
as the delicate and dangerous nature of the investigation proposed to him
would permit.
To exhaust this part of the subject before going
farther, it may be here mentioned that Count Fosco offered every facility to
Mr. Kyrle, on that gentleman’s stating that he was sent by Miss Halcombe to
collect such particulars as had not yet reached her of Lady Glyde’s decease.
Mr. Kyrle was placed in communication with the medical man, Mr. Goodricke,
and with the two servants. In the absence of any means of ascertaining the
exact date of Lady Glyde’s departure from Blackwater Park, the result of the
doctor’s and the servants’ evidence, and of the volunteered statements of
Count Fosco and his wife, was conclusive to the mind of Mr. Kyrle. He could
only assume that the intensity of Miss Halcombe’s suffering under the loss
of her sister, had misled her judgment in a most deplorable manner; and he
wrote her word that the shocking suspicion to which she had alluded in his
presence, was, in his opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of
foundation in truth. Thus the investigation by Mr. Gilmore’s partner began
and ended.
Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe had returned to Limmeridge
House; and had there collected all the additional information which she was
able to obtain.
Mr. Fairlie had received his first intimation of his
niece’s death from his sister, Madame Fosco; this letter also not containing
any exact reference to dates. He had sanctioned his sister’s proposal that
the deceased lady should be laid in her mother’s grave in Limmeridge
churchyard. Count Fosco had accompanied the remains to Cumberland, and had
attended the funeral at Limmeridge, which took place on the 2nd of August.
It was followed, as a mark of respect, by all the inhabitants of the village
and the neighbourhood. On the next day, the inscription (originally drawn
out, it was said, by the aunt of the deceased lady, and submitted for
approval to her brother, Mr. Fairlie) was engraved on one side of the
monument over the tomb.
On the day of the funeral, and for one day after it,
Count Fosco had been received as a guest at Limmeridge House; but no
interview had taken place between Mr. Fairlie and himself, by the former
gentleman’s desire. They had communicated by writing; and, through this
medium, Count Fosco had made Mr. Fairlie acquainted with the details of his
niece’s last illness and death. The letter presenting this information added
no new facts to the facts already known; but one very remarkable paragraph
was contained in the postscript. It referred to the woman Anne Catherick.
The substance of the paragraph in question was as
follows:
It first informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick (of
whom he might hear full particulars from Miss Halcombe when she reached
Limmeridge) had been traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of Blackwater
Park, and had been, for the second time, placed under the charge of the
medical man from whose custody she had once escaped.
This was the first part of the postscript. The second
part warned Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick’s mental malady had been
aggravated by her long freedom from control; and that the insane hatred and
distrust of Sir Percival Glyde, which had been one of her most marked
delusions in former times, still existed, under a newly-acquired form. The
unfortunate woman’s last idea in connexion with Sir Percival, was the idea
of annoying and distressing him, and of elevating herself, as she supposed,
in the estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming the character of
his deceased wife; the scheme of this personation having evidently occurred
to her, after a stolen interview which she had succeeded in obtaining with
Lady Glyde, and at which she had observed the extraordinary accidental
likeness between the deceased lady and herself. It was to the last degree
improbable that she would succeed a second time in escaping from the Asylum;
but it was just possible she might find some means of annoying the late Lady
Glyde’s relatives with letters; and, in that case, Mr. Fairlie was warned
beforehand how to receive them.
The postscript, expressed in these terms, was shown to
Miss Halcombe, when she arrived at Limmeridge. There were also placed in her
possession the clothes Lady Glyde had worn, and the other effects she had
brought with her to her aunt’s house. They had been carefully collected and
sent to Cumberland by Madame Fosco.
Such was the posture of affairs when Miss Halcombe
reached Limmeridge, in the early part of September. Shortly afterwards, she
was confined to her room by a relapse; her weakened physical energies giving
way under the severe mental affliction from which she was now suffering. On
getting stronger again, in a month’s time, her suspicion of the
circumstances described as attending her sister’s death, still remained
unshaken. She had heard nothing, in the interim, of Sir Percival Glyde; but
letters had reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most affectionate
inquiries on the part of her husband and herself. Instead of answering these
letters, Miss Halcombe caused the house in St. John’s Wood, and the
proceedings of its inmates, to be privately watched. Nothing doubtful was
discovered. The same result attended the next investigations, which were
secretly instituted on the subject of Mrs. Rubelle. She had arrived in
London, about six months before, with her husband. They had come from Lyons;
and they had taken a house in the neighbourhood of Leicester-square, to be
fitted up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were expected to visit
England in large numbers to see the Exhibition of 1851. Nothing was known
against husband or wife, in the neighbourhood. They were quiet people; and
they had paid their way honestly up to the present time. The final inquiries
related to Sir Percival Glyde. He was settled in Paris; and living there
quietly in a small circle of English and French friends.
Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest, Miss
Halcombe next determined to visit the Asylum in which Anne Catherick was for
the second time confined. She had felt a strong curiosity about the woman in
former days; and she was now doubly interested—first, in ascertaining
whether the report of Anne Catherick’s attempted personation of Lady Glyde
was true; and, secondly (if it proved to be true), in discovering for
herself what the poor creature’s real motives were for attempting the
deceit.
Although Count Fosco’s letter to Mr. Fairlie did not
mention the address of the Asylum, that important omission cast no
difficulties in Miss Halcombe’s way. When Mr. Hartright had met Anne
Catherick at Limmeridge, she had informed him of the locality in which the
house was situated; and Miss Halcombe had noted down the direction in her
diary, with all the other particulars of the interview, exactly as she heard
them from Mr. Hartright’s own lips. Accordingly, she looked back at the
entry, and extracted the address; furnished herself with the Count’s letter
to Mr. Fairlie, as a species of credential which might be useful to her; and
started by herself for the Asylum on the eleventh of October.
She passed the night of the eleventh in London. It had
been her intention to sleep at the house inhabited by Lady Glyde’s old
governess; but Mrs. Vesey’s agitation at the sight of her lost pupil’s
nearest and dearest friend was so distressing, that Miss Halcombe
considerately refrained from remaining in her presence, and removed to a
respectable boarding-house in the neighbourhood, recommended by Mrs. Vesey’s
married sister. The next day, she proceeded to the Asylum, which was
situated, not far from London, on the northern side of the metropolis.
She was immediately admitted to see the proprietor. At
first, he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to let her communicate with his
patient. But, on her showing him the postscript to Count Fosco’s letter—on
her reminding him that she was the “Miss Halcombe” there referred to; that
she was a near relative of the deceased Lady Glyde; and that she was
therefore naturally interested, for family reasons, in observing for herself
the extent of Anne Catherick’s delusion, in relation to her late sister—the
tone and manner of the owner of the Asylum altered, and he withdrew his
objections. He probably felt that a continued refusal, under these
circumstances, would not only be an act of discourtesy in itself, but would
also imply that the proceedings in his establishment were not of a nature to
bear investigation by respectable strangers.
Miss Halcombe’s own impression was that the owner of
the Asylum had not been received into the confidence of Sir Percival and the
Count. His consenting at all to let her visit his patient seemed to afford
one proof of this, and his readiness in making admissions which could
scarcely have escaped the lips of an accomplice, certainly appeared to
furnish another.
For example, in the course of the introductory
conversation which took place, he informed Miss Halcombe that Anne Catherick
had been brought back to him, with the necessary order and certificates, by
Count Fosco, on the thirtieth of July; the Count producing a letter of
explanations and instructions, signed by Sir Percival Glyde. On receiving
his inmate again, he (the proprietor of the Asylum) acknowledged that he had
observed some curious personal changes in her. Such changes, no doubt, were
not without precedent in his experience of persons mentally afflicted.
Insane people were often, at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly, unlike
what they were at another; the change from better to worse, or from worse to
better, in the madness having a necessary tendency to produce alterations of
appearance externally. He allowed for these; and he allowed also for the
modification in the form of Anne Catherick’s delusion, which was reflected,
no doubt, in her manner and expression. But he was still perplexed, at
times, by certain differences between his patient before she had escaped,
and his patient since she had been brought back. Those differences were too
minute to be described. He could not say, of course, that she was absolutely
altered in height or shape or complexion, or in the colour of her hair and
eyes, or in the general form of her face: the change was something that he
felt, more than something that he saw. In short, the case had been a puzzle
from the first, and one more perplexity was added to it now.
It cannot be said that this conversation led to the
result of even partially preparing Miss Halcombe’s mind for what was to
come. But it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her. She was
so completely unnerved by it, that some little time elapsed before she could
summon composure enough to follow the proprietor of the Asylum to that part
of the house in which the inmates were confined.
On inquiry, it turned out that Anne Catherick was then
taking exercise in the grounds attached to the establishment. One of the
nurses volunteered to conduct Miss Halcombe to the place; the proprietor of
the Asylum remaining in the house for a few minutes to attend to a case
which required his services, and then engaging to join his visitor in the
grounds.
The nurse led Miss Halcombe to a distant part of the
property, which was prettily laid out; and, after looking about her a
little, turned into a turf walk, shaded by a shrubbery on either side. About
half way down this walk, two women were slowly approaching. The nurse
pointed to them, and said, “There is Anne Catherick, ma’am, with the
attendant who waits on her. The attendant will answer any questions you wish
to put.” With those words the nurse left her, to return to the duties of the
house.
Miss Halcombe advanced on her side, and the women
advanced on theirs. When they were within a dozen paces of each other, one
of the women stopped for an instant, looked eagerly at the strange lady,
shook off the nurse’s grasp on her, and, the next moment, rushed into Miss
Halcombe’s arms. In that moment Miss Halcombe recognised her
sister—recognised the dead-alive.
Fortunately for the success of the measures taken
subsequently, no one witnessed this recognition but the nurse. She was a
young woman; and she was so startled by it that she was at first quite
incapable of interfering. When she was able to do so, her whole services
were required by Miss Halcombe, who had for the moment sunk altogether in
the effort to keep her own senses under the shock of the discovery. After
waiting a few minutes in the fresh air and the cool shade, her natural
energy and courage helped her a little, and she became sufficiently mistress
of herself to feel the necessity of recalling her presence of mind for her
unfortunate sister’s sake.
She obtained permission to speak alone with the
patient, on condition that they both remained well within the nurse’s view.
There was no time for questions—there was only time for Miss Halcombe to
impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of controlling herself, and to
assure her of immediate help and rescue if she did so. The prospect of
escaping from the Asylum by obedience to her sister’s directions, was
sufficient to quiet Lady Glyde, and to make her understand what was required
of her. Miss Halcombe next returned to the nurse, placed all the gold she
then had in her pocket (three sovereigns) in the nurse’s hands, and asked
when and where she could speak to her alone.
The woman was at first surprised and distrustful. But,
on Miss Halcombe’s declaring that she only wanted to put some questions
which she was too much agitated to ask at that moment, and that she had no
intention of misleading the nurse into any dereliction of duty, the woman
took the money, and proposed three o’clock on the next day as the time for
the interview. She might then slip out for half an hour, after the patients
had dined; and she would meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high
north wall which screened the grounds of the house. Miss Halcombe had only
time to assent, and to whisper to her sister that she should hear from her
on the next day, when the proprietor of the Asylum joined them. He noticed
his visitor’s agitation, which Miss Halcombe accounted for by saying that
her interview with Anne Catherick had a little startled her, at first. She
took her leave as soon after as possible—that is to say, as soon as she
could summon courage to force herself from the presence of her unfortunate
sister.
A very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect
returned, convinced her that any attempt to identify Lady Glyde and to
rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a delay that
might be fatal to her sister’s intellects, which were shaken already by the
horror of the situation to which she had been consigned. By the time Miss
Halcombe had got back to London, she had determined to effect Lady Glyde’s
escape privately, by means of the nurse.
She went at once to her stockbroker; and sold out of
the funds all the little property she possessed, amounting to rather less
than seven hundred pounds. Determined, if necessary, to pay the price of her
sister’s liberty with every farthing she had in the world, she repaired the
next day, having the whole sum about her, in bank-notes, to her appointment
outside the Asylum wall.
The nurse was there. Miss Halcombe approached the
subject cautiously by many preliminary questions. She discovered among other
particulars, that the nurse who had, in former times, attended on the true
Anne Catherick, had been held responsible (although she was not to blame for
it) for the patient’s escape, and had lost her place in consequence. The
same penalty, it was added, would attach to the person then speaking to her,
if the supposed Anne Catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover, the
nurse, in this case, had an especial interest in keeping her place. She was
engaged to be married; and she and her future husband were waiting till they
could save, together, between two and three hundred pounds to start in
business. The nurse’s wages were good; and she might succeed, by strict
economy, in contributing her small share towards the sum required in two
years’ time.
On this hint, Miss Halcombe spoke. She declared that
the supposed Anne Catherick was nearly related to her; that she had been
placed in the Asylum, under a fatal mistake; and that the nurse would be
doing a good and a Christian action in being the means of restoring them to
one another. Before there was time to start a single objection, Miss
Halcombe took four bank-notes of a hundred pounds each from her pocket-book,
and offered them to the woman, as a compensation for the risk she was to
run, and for the loss of her place.
The nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity and
surprise. Miss Halcombe pressed the point on her firmly.
“You will be doing a good action,” she repeated; “you
will be helping the most injured and unhappy woman alive. There is your
marriage-portion for a reward. Bring her safely to me, here; and I will put
these four bank-notes into your hand, before I claim her.”
“Will you give me a letter saying those words, which I
can show to my sweetheart, when he asks how I got the money?” inquired the
woman.
“I will bring the letter with me, ready written and
signed,” answered Miss Halcombe.
“Then I’ll risk it,” said the nurse.
“When?”
“To-morrow.”
It was hastily agreed between them that Miss Halcombe
should return early the next morning, and wait out of sight, among the
trees—always, however, keeping near the quiet spot of ground under the north
wall. The nurse could fix no time for her appearance; caution requiring that
she should wait, and be guided by circumstances. On that understanding, they
separated.
Miss Halcombe was at her place, with the promised
letter, and the promised bank-notes, before ten the next morning. She waited
more than an hour and a half. At the end of that time, the nurse came
quickly round the corner of the wall, holding Lady Glyde by the arm. The
moment they met, Miss Halcombe put the bank-notes and the letter into her
hand—and the sisters were united again.
The nurse had dressed Lady Glyde, with excellent
forethought, in a bonnet, veil, and shawl of her own. Miss Halcombe only
detained her to suggest a means of turning the pursuit in a false direction,
when the escape was discovered at the Asylum. She was to go back to the
house; to mention in the hearing of the other nurses that Anne Catherick had
been inquiring, latterly, about the distance from London to Hampshire; to
wait till the last moment, before discovery was inevitable; and then to give
the alarm that Anne was missing. The supposed inquiries about Hampshire,
when communicated to the owner of the Asylum, would lead him to suppose that
his patient had returned to Blackwater Park, under the influence of the
delusion which made her persist in asserting herself to be Lady Glyde; and
the first pursuit would, in all probability, be turned in that direction.
The nurse consented to follow these suggestions—the
more readily, as they offered her the means of securing herself against any
worse consequences than the loss of her place, by remaining in the Asylum,
and so maintaining the appearance of innocence, at least. She at once
returned to the house; and Miss Halcombe lost no time in taking her sister
back with her to London. They caught the afternoon train to Carlisle the
same afternoon, and arrived at Limmeridge, without accident or difficulty of
any kind, that night.
During the latter part of their journey, they were
alone in the carriage, and Miss Halcombe was able to collect such
remembrances of the past as her sister’s confused and weakened memory was
able to recal. The terrible story of the conspiracy so obtained, was
presented in fragments, sadly incoherent in themselves, and widely detached
from each other. Imperfect as the revelation was, it must nevertheless be
recorded here before this explanatory narrative closes with the events of
the next day at Limmeridge House.
The following particulars comprise all that Miss
Halcombe was able to discover.
All The Year Round, 26 May 1860, Vol.III, No.57, pp.145-150
Weekly Part 27.
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