No. 59.] SATURDAY,
JUNE 9, 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE.
IV.
No
circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the offices
of Messrs. Gilmore and Kyrle, in Chancery-lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred to
me which I deeply regretted not having thought of before. The information
derived from Marian’s diary made it a matter of certainty that Count Fosco
had opened her first letter from Blackwater Park to Mr. Kyrle, and had, by
means of his wife, intercepted the second. He was therefore well aware of
the address of the office; and he would naturally infer that if Marian
wanted advice and assistance, after Laura’s escape from the Asylum, she
would apply once more to the experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case, the
office in Chancery-lane was the very first place which he and Sir Percival
would cause to be watched; and, if the same persons were chosen for the
purpose who had been employed to follow me, before my departure from
England, the fact of my return would in all probability be ascertained on
that very day. I had thought, generally, of the chances of my being
recognised in the streets; but the special risk connected with the office
had never occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to
repair this unfortunate error in judgment—too late to wish that I had made
arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed
beforehand. I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving Chancery-lane,
and not to go straight home again under any circumstances whatever.
After waiting a few minutes, I was shown into Mr. Kyrle’s private room. He
was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive eye, a
very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner; not (as I judged) ready
with his sympathy, where strangers were concerned; and not at all easy to
disturb in his professional composure. A better man for my purpose could
hardly have been found. If he committed himself to a decision at all, and if
the decision was favourable, the strength of our case was as good as proved
from that moment.
“Before I enter on the business which brings me here,” I said, “I ought to
warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can make of it may occupy
some little time.”
“My time is at Miss Halcombe’s disposal,” he replied. “Where any interests
of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally as well as
professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he ceased to
take an active part in business.”
“May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?”
“He is not: he is living with his relatives in Germany. His health has
improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain.”
While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been searching
among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a sealed letter.
I thought he was about to hand the letter to me; but, apparently changing
his mind, he placed it by itself on the table, settled himself in his chair,
and silently waited to hear what I had to say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered on my
narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have already
been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him out of his
professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and surprise, which he
could not repress, interrupted me several times, before I had done. I
persevered, however, to the end, and, as soon as I reached it, boldly asked
the one important question:
“What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?”
He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer, without taking time to
recover his self-possession first.
“Before I give my opinion,” he said, “I must beg permission to clear the
ground by a few questions.”
He put the questions—sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which clearly
showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was the victim of a
delusion; and that he might even have doubted, but for my introduction to
him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not attempting the perpetration of a
cunningly-designed fraud.
“Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?” I asked, when he
had done examining me.
“So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have spoken
the truth,” he replied. “I have the highest esteem for Miss Halcombe, and I
have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman whose mediation she
trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go farther, if you like, and
admit, for courtesy’s sake and for argument’s sake, that the identity of
Lady Glyde, as a living person, is a proved fact to Miss Halcombe and
yourself. But you come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as a
lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr. Hartright, that you have not the
shadow of a case.”
“You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle.”
“I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde’s death
is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her aunt’s testimony
to prove that she came to Count Fosco’s house, that she fell ill, and that
she died. There is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove the
death, and to show that it took place under natural circumstances. There is
the fact of the funeral at Limmeridge, and there is the assertion of the
inscription on the tomb. That is the case you want to overthrow. What
evidence have you to support the declaration on your side that the person
who died and was buried was not Lady Glyde? Let us run through the main
points of your statement and see what they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to
a certain private Asylum, and there sees a certain female patient. It is
known that a woman named Anne Catherick, and bearing an extraordinary
personal resemblance to Lady Glyde, escaped from the Asylum; it is known
that the person received there last July, was received as Anne Catherick
brought back; it is known that the gentleman who brought her back warned Mr.
Fairlie that it was part of her insanity to be bent on personating his dead
niece; and it is known that she did repeatedly declare herself, in the
Asylum (where no one believed her), to be Lady Glyde. These are all facts.
What have you to set against them? Miss Halcombe’s recognition of the woman,
which recognition after-events invalidate or contradict. Does Miss Halcombe
assert her supposed sister’s identity to the owner of the Asylum, and take
legal means for rescuing her? No: she secretly bribes a nurse to let her
escape. When the patient has been released in this doubtful manner, and is
taken to Mr. Fairlie, does he recognise her? is he staggered for one instant
in his belief of his niece’s death? No. Do the servants recognise her? No.
Is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her own identity, and to stand
the test of further proceedings? No: she is privately taken to London. In
the mean time, you have recognised her also—but you are not a relative; you
are not even an old friend of the family. The servants contradict you; and
Mr. Fairlie contradicts Miss Halcombe; and the supposed Lady Glyde
contradicts herself. She declares she passed the night in London at a
certain house. Your own evidence shows that she has never been near that
house; and your own admission is, that her condition of mind prevents you
from producing her anywhere to submit to investigation, and to speak for
herself. I pass over minor points of evidence, on both sides, to save time;
and I ask you, if this case were to go now into a court of law—to go before
a jury, bound to take facts as they reasonably appear—where are your
proofs?”
I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I could answer him. It was
the first time the story of Laura and the story of Marian had been presented
to me from a stranger’s point of view—the first time the terrible obstacles
that lay across our path had been made to show themselves in their true
character.
“There can be no doubt,” I said, “that the facts, as you have stated them,
appear to tell against us; but——”
“But you think those facts can be explained away,” interposed Mr. Kyrle.
“Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English
jury has to choose between a plain fact,
on the surface, and a long
explanation under the surface, it
always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation. For example, Lady
Glyde (I call the lady you represent by that name for argument’s sake)
declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not
slept at that house. You explain this circumstance by entering into the
state of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don’t
say the conclusion is wrong—I only say that the jury will take the fact of
her contradicting herself, in preference to any reason for the contradiction
that you can offer.”
“But is it not possible,” I urged, “by dint of patience and exertion, to
discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred
pounds——-”
He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.
“Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view,” he said.
“If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which I don’t
admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in the way of your
getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of litigation would be raised; every
point in the case would be systematically contested—and by the time we had
spent our thousands, instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all
probability, be against us. Questions of identity, where instances of
personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all
questions to settle—the hardest, even when they are free from the
complications which beset the case we are now discussing. I really see no
prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. Even
if the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in
life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing, if we
applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. In short,
there is no case, Mr. Hartright—there is really no case.”
I was determined to believe that there
was a case; and, in that
determination, shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.
“Are there not other proofs that we might produce, besides the proof of
identity?” I asked.
“Not as you are situated,” he replied. “The simplest and surest of all
proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I understand, altogether
out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy between the date of the
doctor’s certificate and the date of Lady Glyde’s journey to London, the
matter would wear a totally different aspect; and I should be the first to
say, Let us go on.”
“That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle.”
“On the day when it is recovered,
Mr. Hartright, you will have a case. If you have any prospect, at this
moment, of getting at it—tell me, and we shall see if I can advise you.”
I considered. The housekeeper could not help us; Laura could not help us;
Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only persons in existence
who knew the date were Sir Percival and the Count.
“I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present,” I said,
“because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it, but Count Fosco
and Sir Percival Glyde.”
Mr. Kyrle’s calmly-attentive face relaxed, for the first time, into a smile.
“With your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen,” he said, “you
don’t expect help in that quarter, I presume? If they have combined to gain
large sums of money by a conspiracy, they are not likely to confess it, at
any rate.”
“They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle.”
“By whom?”
“By me.”
We both rose. He looked me attentively in the face with more appearance of
interest than he had shown yet. I could see that I had perplexed him a
little.
“You are very determined,” he said. “You have, no doubt, a personal motive
for proceeding, into which it is not my business to inquire. If a case can
be produced in the future, I can only say, my best assistance is at your
service. At the same time, I must warn you, as the money question always
enters into the law question, that I see little hope, even if you ultimately
established the fact of Lady Glyde’s being alive, of recovering her fortune.
The foreigner would probably leave the country, before proceedings were
commenced; and Sir Percival’s embarrassments are numerous enough and
pressing enough to transfer almost any sum of money he may possess from
himself to his creditors. You are, of course, aware——”
I stopped him at that point.
“Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde’s affairs,” I said. “I have
never known anything about them, in former times; and I know nothing of them
now—except that her fortune is lost. You are right in assuming that I have
personal motives for stirring in this matter. I wish those motives to be
always as disinterested as they are at the present moment——”
He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little heated, I suppose, by
feeling that he had doubted me; and I went on bluntly, without waiting to
hear him.
“There shall be no money-motive,” I said, “no idea of personal advantage, in
the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has been cast out as a
stranger from the house in which she was born—a lie which records her death
has been written on her mother’s tomb—and there are two men, alive and
unpunished, who are responsible for it. That house shall open again to
receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to
the grave; that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone, by the
authority of the head of the family; and those two men shall answer for
their crime to me, though the
justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my
life to that purpose; and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will
accomplish it.”
He drew back towards his table, and said nothing. His face showed plainly
that he thought my delusion had got the better of my reason, and that he
considered it totally useless to give me any more advice.
“We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle,” I said; “and we must wait till the
events of the future decide between us. In the mean time, I am much obliged
to you for the attention you have given to my statement. You have shown me
that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our means. We
cannot produce the law-proof; and we are not rich enough to pay the law
expenses. It is something gained to know that.”
I bowed, and walked to the door. He called me back, and gave me the letter
which I had seen him place on the table by itself at the beginning of our
interview.
“This came by post, a few days ago,” he said. “Perhaps you will not mind
delivering it? Pray tell Miss Halcombe, at the same time, that I sincerely
regret being, thus far, unable to help her—except by advice, which will not
be more welcome, I am afraid, to her than to you.”
I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It was addressed to “Miss
Halcombe. Care of Messrs. Gilmore and Kyrle, Chancery-lane.” The handwriting
was quite unknown to me.
On leaving the room, I asked one last question.
“Do you happen to know,” I said, “if Sir Percival Glyde is still in Paris?”
“He has returned to London,” replied Mr. Kyrle. “At least, I heard so from
his solicitor, whom I met yesterday.”
After that answer I went out.
On leaving the office, the first precaution to be observed was to abstain
from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. I walked towards one
of the quietest of the large squares on the north of Holborn—then suddenly
stopped, and turned round at a place where a long stretch of pavement was
left behind me.
There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped also, and who
were standing talking together. After a moment’s reflection, I turned back,
so as to pass them. One moved, as I came near, and turned the corner,
leading from the square, into the street. The other remained stationary. I
looked at him, as I passed, and instantly recognised one of the men who had
watched me before I left England.
If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably have begun
by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him down. But I was bound
to consider consequences. If I once placed myself publicly in the wrong, I
put the weapons at once into Sir Percival’s hands. There was no choice but
to oppose cunning by cunning. I turned into the street down which the second
man had disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway. He was a stranger
to me; and I was glad to make sure of his personal appearance, in case of
future annoyance. Having done this, I again walked northward, till I reached
the New-road. There, I turned aside to the west (having the men behind me
all the time), and waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some
distance from a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen
to pass me. One passed in a few minutes. I jumped in, and told the man to
drive rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast cab for the spies
behind me. I saw them dart across to the other side of the road, to follow
me by running, until a cab, or a cabstand, came in their way. But I had the
start of them; and when I stopped the driver, and got out, they were nowhere
in sight. I crossed Hyde Park, and made sure, on the open ground, that I was
free. When I at last turned my steps homeward, it was not till many hours
later—not till after dark.
I found Marian waiting for me, alone in the little sitting-room. She had
persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to show me her drawing,
the moment I came in. The poor little dim faint sketch—so trifling in
itself, so touching in its associations—was propped up carefully on the
table with two books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle
we allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage. I sat down to
look at the drawing, and to tell Marian, in whispers, what had happened. The
partition which divided us from the next room was so thin that we could
almost hear Laura’s breathing, and we might have disturbed her if we had
spoken aloud.
Marian preserved her composure while I described my interview with Mr. Kyrle.
But her face became troubled when I spoke next of the men who had followed
me from the lawyer’s office, and when I told her of the discovery of Sir
Percival’s return.
“Bad news, Walter,” she said; “the worst news you could bring. Have you
nothing more to tell me?”
“I have something to give you,” I replied, handing her the note which Mr.
Kyrle had confided to my care.
She looked at the address, and recognised the handwriting instantly.
“You know your correspondent?” I said.
“Too well,” she answered. “My correspondent is Count Fosco.”
With that reply she opened the note. Her face flushed deeply while she read
it—her eyes brightened with anger, as she handed it to me to read in my
turn.
The note contained these lines:
“Impelled by honourable admiration—honourable to myself, honourable to you—I
write, magnificent Marian, in the interests of your tranquillity, to say two
consoling words:
“Fear nothing!
“Exercise your fine natural sense, and remain in retirement. Dear and
admirable woman! invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation is sublime—adopt
it. The modest repose of home is eternally fresh—enjoy it. The Storms of
life pass harmless over the valley of Seclusion—dwell, dear lady, in the
valley.
“Do this; and I authorise you to fear nothing. No new calamity shall
lacerate your sensibilities—sensibilities precious to me as my own. You
shall not be molested; the fair companion of your retreat shall not be
pursued. She has found a new asylum, in your heart. Priceless asylum!—I envy
her, and leave her there.
“One last word of affectionate warning, of paternal caution—and I tear
myself from the charm of addressing you; I close these fervent lines.
“Advance no farther than you have gone already; compromise no serious
interests; threaten nobody. Do not, I implore you, force me into action—me,
the Man of Action—when it is the cherished object of my ambition to be
passive, to restrict the vast reach of my energies and my combinations, for
your sake. If you have rash friends, moderate their deplorable ardour. If
Mr. Hartright returns to England, hold no communication with him. I walk on
a path of my own; and Percival follows at my heels. On the day when Mr.
Hartright crosses that path, he is a lost man.”
The only signature to these lines was the initial letter F, surrounded by a
circle of intricate flourishes. I threw the letter on the table, with all
the contempt that I felt for it.
“He is trying to frighten you—a sure sign that he is frightened himself,” I
said.
She was too genuine a woman to treat the letter as I treated it. The
insolent familiarity of the language was too much for her self-control. As
she looked at me across the table, her hands clenched themselves in her lap,
and the old quick fiery temper flamed out again, brightly, in her cheeks and
her eyes.
“Walter!” she said, “if ever those two men are at your mercy, and if you are
obliged to spare one of them—don’t let it be the Count.”
“I will keep his letter, Marian, to help my memory when the time comes.”
She looked at me attentively as I put the letter away in my pocket-book.
“When the time comes?” she repeated. “Can you speak of the future as if you
were certain of it?—certain after what you have heard in Mr. Kyrle’s office,
after what has happened to you to-day?”
“I don’t count the time from to-day, Marian. All I have done to-day, is to
ask another man to act for me. I count from to-morrow——”
“Why from to-morrow?”
“Because to-morrow I mean to act for myself.”
“How?”
“I shall go to Blackwater by the first train; and return, I hope, at night.”
“To Blackwater!”
“Yes. I have had time to think, since I left Mr. Kyrle. His opinion, on one
point, confirms my own. We must persist, to the last, in hunting down the
date of Laura’s journey. The one weak point in the conspiracy, and probably
the one chance of proving that she is a living woman, centre in the
discovery of that date.”
“You mean,” said Marian, “the discovery that Laura did not leave Blackwater
Park till after the date of her
death on the doctor’s certificate?”
“Certainly.”
“What makes you think it might have been
after?
Laura can tell us nothing of the
time she was in London.”
“But the owner of the Asylum told you that she was received there on the
thirtieth of July. I doubt Count Fosco’s ability to keep her in London, and
to keep her insensible to all that was passing around her, more than one
night. In that case, she must have started on the twenty-ninth, and must
have come to London one day after the date of her own death on the doctor’s
certificate. If we can prove that date, we prove our case against Sir
Percival and the Count.”
“Yes, yes—I see! But how is the proof to be obtained?”
“Mrs. Michelson’s narrative has suggested to me two ways of trying to obtain
it. One of them is, to question the doctor, Mr. Dawson—who must know when he
resumed his attendance at Blackwater Park, after Laura left the house. The
other is, to make inquiries at the inn to which Sir Percival drove away by
himself, at night. We know that his departure followed Laura’s, after the
lapse of a few hours; and we may get at the date in that way. The attempt is
at least worth making—and, to-morrow, I am determined it shall be made.”
“And suppose it fails—I look at the worst, now, Walter; but I will look at
the best, if disappointments come to try us—suppose no one can help you at
Blackwater?”
“There are two men who can help me, and shall help me, in London—Sir
Percival and the Count. Innocent people may well forget the date—but
they are guilty, and
they know it. If I fail
everywhere else, I mean to force a confession out of one or both of them, on
my own terms.”
All the woman flushed up in Marian’s face, as I spoke.
“Begin with the Count!” she whispered, eagerly. “For my sake, begin with the
Count.”
“We must begin, for Laura’s sake, where there is the best chance of
success,” I replied.
The colour faded from her face again, and she shook her head sadly.
“Yes,” she said, “you are right—it was mean and miserable of me to say that.
I try to be patient, Walter, and succeed better now than I did in happier
times. But I have a little of my old temper still left—and it
will get the better of me when I
think of the Count!”
“His turn will come,” I said. “But, remember, there is no weak place in his
life that we know of, yet.” I waited a little to let her recover her
self-possession; and then spoke the decisive words:
“Marian! There is a weak place we both know of in Sir Percival’s life——”
“You mean the Secret!”
“Yes: the Secret. It is our only sure hold on him. I can force him from his
position of security, I can drag him and his villainy into the face of day,
by no other means. Whatever the Count may have done, Sir Percival has
consented to the conspiracy against Laura from another motive besides the
motive of gain. You heard him tell the Count that he believed his wife knew
enough to ruin him? You heard him say that he was a lost man if the secret
of Anne Catherick was known?”
“Yes! yes! I did.”
“Well, Marian, when our other resources have failed us, I mean to know it.
My old superstition clings to me, even yet. I say again, the woman in white
is a living influence in our three lives. The End is appointed; the End is
drawing us on—and Anne Catherick, dead in her grave, points the way to it
still!”
All The Year Round, 9 June 1860, Vol.III, No.59, pp.193-197
Weekly Part 29.
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