No. 60.] SATURDAY,
JUNE 16, 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE.
V.
The
story of my first inquiries in Hampshire is soon told.
My early departure from London enabled me to reach Mr. Dawson’s house in the
forenoon. Our interview, so far as the object of my visit was concerned, led
to no satisfactory result. Mr. Dawson’s books certainly showed when he had
resumed his attendance on Miss Halcombe, at Blackwater Park; but it was not
possible to calculate back from this date with any exactness, without such
help from Mrs. Michelson as I knew she was unable to afford. She could not
say from memory (who, in similar cases, ever can?) how many days had elapsed
between the renewal of the doctor’s attendance on his patient and the
previous departure of Lady Glyde. She was almost certain of having mentioned
the circumstance of the departure to Miss Halcombe, on the day after it
happened—but then she was no more able to fix the date of the day on which
this disclosure took place, than to fix the date of the day before, when
Lady Glyde had left for London. Neither could she calculate, with any nearer
approach to exactness, the time that had passed from the departure of her
mistress, to the period when the undated letter from Madame Fosco arrived.
Lastly, as if to complete the series of difficulties, the doctor himself,
having been ill at the time, had omitted to make his usual entry of the day
of the week and month when the gardener from Blackwater Park has called on
him to deliver Mrs. Michelson’s message.
Hopeless of obtaining assistance from Mr. Dawson, I resolved to try next if
I could establish the date of Sir Percival’s arrival at Knowlesbury. It
seemed like a fatality! When I reached Knowlesbury the inn was shut up; and
bills were posted on the walls. The speculation had been a bad one, as I was
informed, ever since the time of the railway. The new hotel at the station
had gradually absorbed the business; and the old inn (which we knew to be
the inn at which Sir Percival had put up), had been closed about two months
since. The proprietor had left the town with all his goods and chattels, and
where he had gone I could not positively ascertain from any one. The four
people of whom I inquired gave me four different accounts of his plans and
projects when he left Knowlesbury.
There were still some hours to spare before the last train left for London;
and I drove back again, in a fly from the Knowlesbury station, to Blackwater
Park, with the purpose of questioning the gardener and the person who kept
the lodge. If they, too, proved unable to assist me, my resources, for the
present, were at an end, and I might return to town.
I dismissed the fly a mile distant from the park; and, getting my directions
from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house. As I turned into the lane
from the high road, I saw a man, with a carpet-bag, walking before me
rapidly on the way to the lodge. He was a little man, dressed in shabby
black, and wearing a remarkably large hat. I set him down (as well as it was
possible to judge) for a lawyer’s clerk; and stopped at once to widen the
distance between us. He had not heard me; and he walked on out of sight,
without looking back. When I passed through the gates myself, a little while
afterwards, he was not visible—he had evidently gone on to the house.
There were two women in the lodge. One of them was old; the other, I knew at
once, by Marian’s description of her, to be Margaret Porcher. I asked first
if Sir Percival was at the park; and, receiving a reply in the negative,
inquired next when he had left it. Neither of the women could tell me more
than that he had gone away in the summer. I could extract nothing from
Margaret Porcher but vacant smiles and shakings of the head. The old woman
was a little more intelligent; and I managed to lead her into speaking of
the manner of Sir Percival’s departure, and of the alarm that it caused her.
She remembered her master calling her out of bed, and remembered his
frightening her by swearing—but the date at which the occurrence happened
was, as she honestly acknowledged, “quite beyond her.”
On leaving the lodge, I saw the gardener at work not far off. When I first
addressed him, he looked at me rather distrustfully; but, on my using Mrs.
Michelson’s name, with a civil reference to himself, he entered into
conversation readily enough. There is no need to describe what passed
between us: it ended, as all my other attempts to discover the date had
ended. The gardener knew that his master had driven away, at night “some
time in July, the last fortnight or the last ten days in the month”—and knew
no more.
While we were speaking together, I saw the man in black, with the large hat,
come out from the house, and stand at some little distance observing us.
Certain suspicions of his errand at Blackwater Park had already crossed my
mind. They were now increased by the gardener’s inability (or unwillingness)
to tell me who the man was; and I determined to clear the way before me, if
possible, by speaking to him. The plainest question I could put, as a
stranger, would be to inquire if the house was allowed to be shown to
visitors. I walked up to the man at once, and accosted him in those words.
His look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he knew who I was, and that
he wanted to irritate me into quarrelling with him. His reply was insolent
enough to have answered the purpose, if I had been less determined to
control myself. As it was, I met him with the most resolute politeness;
apologised for my involuntary intrusion (which he called a “trespass”), and
left the grounds. It was exactly as I suspected. The recognition of me, when
I left Mr. Kyrle’s office, had been evidently communicated to Sir Percival
Glyde; and the man in black had been sent to the park, in anticipation of my
making inquiries at the house, or in the neighbourhood. If I had given him
the least chance of lodging any sort of legal complaint against me, the
interference of the local magistrate would no doubt have been turned to
account, as a clog on my proceedings, and a means of separating me from
Marian and Laura for some days at least.
I was prepared to be watched on the way from Blackwater Park to the station,
exactly as I had been watched, in London, the day before. But I could not
discover at the time, and I have never found out since, whether I was really
followed on this occasion or not. The man in black might have had means of
tracking me at his disposal of which I was not aware—but I certainly saw
nothing of him, in his own person, either on the way to the station, or
afterwards on my arrival at the London terminus, in the evening. I reached
home, on foot; taking the precaution, before I approached our own door, of
walking round by the loneliest street in the neighbourhood, and there
stopping and looking back more than once over the open space behind me. I
had first learnt to use this stratagem against suspected treachery in the
wilds of Central America—and now I was practising it again, with the same
purpose and with even greater caution, in the heart of civilised London!
Nothing had happened to alarm Marian during my absence. She asked eagerly
what success I had met with. When I told her, she could not conceal her
surprise at the indifference with which I spoke of the failure of my
investigations, thus far.
The truth was, that the ill-success of my inquiries had in no sense daunted
me. I had pursued them as a matter of duty, and I had expected nothing from
them. In the state of my mind, at that time, it was almost a relief to me to
know that the struggle was now narrowed to a trial of strength between
myself and Sir Percival Glyde. The vindictive motive had mingled itself, all
along, with my other and better motives; and I confess it was a satisfaction
to me to feel that the surest way—the only way left—of serving Laura’s
cause, was to fasten my hold firmly on the villain who had married her. I
acknowledge that I was not strong enough to keep my motives above the reach
of this instinct of revenge. But I can honestly say that no base speculation
on the future relations of Laura and myself, and on the private and personal
concessions which I might force from Sir Percival if I once had him at my
mercy, ever entered my mind. I never said to myself, “If I do succeed, it
shall be one result of my success that I put it out of her husband’s power
to take her from me again.” I could not look at her and think of the future
with such thoughts as those. The sad sight of the change in her from her
former self, made the one interest of my love an interest of tenderness and
compassion, which her father or her brother might have felt, and which I
felt, God knows, in my inmost heart. All my hopes looked no farther on, now,
than to the day of her recovery. There, till she was strong again and happy
again—there, till she could look at me as she had once looked, and speak to
me as she had once spoken—the future of my happiest thoughts and my dearest
wishes ended.
These words are written under no prompting of idle self-contemplation.
Passages in this narrative are soon to come, which will set the minds of
others in judgment on my conduct. It is right that the best and the worst of
me should be fairly balanced, before that time.
On the morning after my return from Hampshire, I took Marian up-stairs into
my working-room; and there laid before her the plan that I had matured, thus
far, for mastering the one assailable point in the life of Sir Percival
Glyde.
The way to the Secret lay through the mystery, hitherto impenetrable to all
of us, of the woman in white. The approach to that, in its turn, might be
gained by obtaining the assistance of Anne Catherick’s mother; and the only
ascertainable means of prevailing on Mrs. Catherick to act or to speak in
the matter, depended on the chance of my discovering local particulars and
family particulars, first of all, from Mrs. Clements. I had thought the
subject over carefully; and I felt certain that the new inquiries could only
begin, to any purpose, by my placing myself in communication with the
faithful friend and protectress of Anne Catherick.
The first difficulty, then, was to find Mrs. Clements.
I was indebted to Marian’s quick perception for meeting this necessity at
once by the best and simplest means. She proposed to write to the farm near
Limmeridge (Todd’s Corner), to inquire whether Mrs. Clements had
communicated with Mrs. Todd during the past few months. How Mrs. Clements
had been separated from Anne, it was impossible for us to say; but that
separation once effected, it would certainly occur to Mrs. Clements to
inquire after the missing woman in the neighbourhood of all others to which
she was known to be most attached—the neighbourhood of Limmeridge. I saw
directly that Marian’s proposal offered us a prospect of success; and she
wrote to Mrs. Todd accordingly by that day’s post.
While we were waiting for the reply, I made myself master of all the
information Marian could afford on the subject of Sir Percival’s family, and
of his early life. She could only speak on these topics from hearsay; but
she was reasonably certain of the truth of what little she had to tell.
Sir Percival was an only child. His father, Sir Felix Glyde, had suffered,
from his birth, under a painful and incurable deformity, and had shunned all
society from his earliest years. His sole happiness was in the enjoyment of
music; and he had married a lady with tastes similar to his own, who was
said to be a most accomplished musician. He inherited the Blackwater
property while still a young man. Neither he nor his wife, after taking
possession, made advances of any sort towards the society of the
neighbourhood; and no one endeavoured to tempt them into abandoning their
reserve, with the one disastrous exception of the rector of the parish.
The rector was the worst of all innocent mischief-makers—an over-zealous
man. He had heard that Sir Felix had left College with the character of
being little better than a revolutionist in politics and an infidel in
religion; and he arrived conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his
bounden duty to summon the lord of the manor to hear sound views enunciated
in the parish church. Sir Felix fiercely resented the clergyman’s well-meant
but ill-directed interference; insulting him so grossly and so publicly,
that the families in the neighbourhood sent letters of indignant
remonstrance to the park; and even the tenants on the Blackwater property
expressed their opinion as strongly as they dared. The baronet, who had no
country tastes of any kind, and no attachment to the estate, or to any one
living on it, declared that society at Blackwater should never have a second
chance of annoying him; and left the place from that moment. After a short
residence in London, he and his wife departed for the Continent; and never
returned to England again. They lived part of the time in France, and part
in Germany—always keeping themselves in the strict retirement which the
morbid sense of his own personal deformity had made a necessity to Sir
Felix. Their son, Percival, had been born abroad, and had been educated
there by private tutors. His mother was the first of his parents whom he
lost. His father had died a few years after her, either in 1825 or 1826. Sir
Percival had been in England, as a young man, once or twice before that
period; but his acquaintance with the late Mr. Fairlie did not begin till
after the time of his father’s death. They soon became very intimate,
although Sir Percival was seldom, or never, at Limmeridge House in those
days. Mr. Frederick Fairlie might have met him once or twice in Mr. Philip
Fairlie’s company; but he could have known little of him at that or at any
other time. Sir Percival’s only intimate friend in the Fairlie family had
been Laura’s father.
These were all the particulars that I could gain from Marian. They suggested
nothing which was useful to my present purpose, but I noted them down
carefully, in the event of their proving to be of importance at any future
period.
Mrs. Todd’s reply (addressed, by our own wish, to a post-office at some
distance from us) had arrived at its destination when I went to apply for
it. The chances, which had been all against us, hitherto, turned, from this
moment, in our favour. Mrs. Todd’s letter contained the first item of
information of which we were in search.
Mrs. Clements, it appeared, had (as we had conjectured) written to Todd’s
Corner; asking pardon, in the first place, for the abrupt manner in which
she and Anne had left their friends at the farm-house (on the morning after
I had met the woman in white in Limmeridge churchyard); and then informing
Mrs. Todd of Anne’s disappearance, and entreating that she would cause
inquiries to be made in the neighbourhood, on the chance that the lost woman
might have strayed back to Limmeridge. In making this request, Mrs. Clements
had been careful to add to it the address at which she might always be heard
of; and that address Mrs. Todd now transmitted to Marian. It was in London;
and within half an hour’s walk of our own lodging.
In the words of the proverb, I was resolved not to let the grass grow under
my feet. The next morning, I set forth to seek an interview with Mrs.
Clements. This was my first step forward in the investigation. The story of
the desperate attempt to which I now stood committed, begins here.
VI.
The
address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to a lodging-house situated in a
respectable street near the Gray’s Inn-road.
When I knocked, the door was opened by Mrs. Clements herself. She did not
appear to remember me; and asked what my business was. I recalled to her our
meeting in Limmeridge churchyard, at the close of my interview there with
the woman in white; taking special care to remind her that I was the person
who assisted Anne Catherick (as Anne had herself declared) to escape the
pursuit from the Asylum. This was my only claim to the confidence of Mrs.
Clements. She remembered the circumstance the moment I spoke of it; and
asked me into the parlour, in the greatest anxiety to know if I had brought
her any news of Anne.
It was impossible for me to tell her the whole truth, without, at the same
time, entering into particulars on the subject of the conspiracy, which it
would have been dangerous to confide to a stranger. I could only abstain
most carefully from raising any false hopes, and then explain that the
object of my visit was to discover the persons who were really responsible
for Anne’s disappearance. I even added, so as to exonerate myself from any
after-reproach of my own conscience, that I entertained not the least hope
of being able to trace her; that I believed we should never see her alive
again; and that my main interest in the affair was to bring to punishment
two men whom I suspected to be concerned in luring her away, and at whose
hands I and some dear friends of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. With
this explanation, I left it to Mrs. Clements to say whether our interest in
the matter (whatever difference there might be in the motives which actuated
us) was not the same; and whether she felt any reluctance to forward my
object by giving me such information on the subject of my inquiries as she
happened to possess.
The poor woman was, at first, too much confused and agitated to understand
thoroughly what I said to her. She could only reply that I was welcome to
anything she could tell me in return for the kindness I had shown to Anne.
But as she was not very quick and ready, at the best of times, in talking to
strangers, she would beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where I
wished her to begin. Knowing by experience that the plainest narrative
attainable from persons who are not accustomed to arrange their ideas, is
the narrative which goes far enough back at the beginning to avoid all
impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked Mrs. Clements to tell
me, first, what had happened after she had left Limmeridge; and so, by
watchful questioning, carried her on from point to point till we reached the
period of Anne’s disappearance.
The substance of the information which I thus obtained, was as follows:
On leaving the farm at Todd’s Corner, Mrs. Clements and Anne had travelled,
that day, as far as Derby; and had remained there a week, on Anne’s account.
They had then gone on to London, and had lived in the lodging occupied by
Mrs. Clements, at that time, for a month or more, when circumstances
connected with the house and the landlord had obliged them to change their
quarters. Anne’s terror of being discovered in London or its neighbourhood,
whenever they ventured to walk out, had gradually communicated itself to
Mrs. Clements; and she had determined on removing to one of the most
out-of-the-way places in England, to the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire,
where her deceased husband had passed all his early life. His relatives were
respectable people settled in the town; they had always treated Mrs.
Clements with great kindness; and she thought it impossible to do better
than go there, and take the advice of her husband’s friends. Anne would not
hear of returning to her mother at Welmingham, because she had been removed
to the Asylum from that place, and because Sir Percival would be certain to
go back there and find her again. There was serious weight in this
objection, and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not to be easily removed.
At Grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness had shown themselves in
Anne. They appeared soon after the news of Lady Glyde’s marriage had been
made public in the newspapers, and had reached her through that medium.
The medical man who was sent for to attend the sick woman, discovered at
once that she was suffering from a serious affection of the heart. The
illness lasted long, left her very weak, and returned, at intervals, though
with mitigated severity, again and again. They remained at Grimsby, in
consequence, all through the first half of the new year; and there they
might probably have stayed much longer, but for the sudden resolution which
Anne took, at this time, to venture back to Hampshire, for the purpose of
obtaining a private interview with Lady Glyde.
Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose the execution of this hazardous
and unaccountable project. No explanation of her motives was offered by
Anne, except that she believed the day of her death was not far off, and
that she had something on her mind which must be communicated to Lady Glyde,
at any risk, in secret. Her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so
firmly settled, that she declared her intention of going to Hampshire by
herself, if Mrs. Clements felt any unwillingness to go with her. The doctor,
on being consulted, was of opinion that serious opposition to her wishes
would, in all probability, produce another and perhaps a fatal fit of
illness; and Mrs. Clements, under this advice, yielded to necessity, and
once more, with sad forebodings of trouble and danger to come, allowed Anne
Catherick to have her own way.
On the journey from London to Hampshire, Mrs. Clements discovered that one
of their fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the neighbourhood of
Blackwater, and could give her all the information she needed on the subject
of localities. In this way, she found out that the only place they could go
to which was not dangerously near to Sir Percival’s residence, was a large
village, called Sandon. The distance, here, from Blackwater Park was between
three and four miles—and that distance, and back again, Anne had walked, on
each occasion when she had appeared in the neighbourhood of the lake.
For the few days, during which they were at Sandon without being discovered,
they had lived a little away from the village, in the cottage of a decent
widow-woman, who had a bedroom to let, and whose discreet silence Mrs.
Clements had done her best to secure, for the first week at least. She had
also tried hard to induce Anne to be content with writing to Lady Glyde, in
the first instance. But the failure of the warning contained in the
anonymous letter sent to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to speak this
time, and obstinate in the determination to go on her errand alone.
Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her privately on each occasion when
she went to the lake—without, however, venturing near enough to the
boat-house to be witness of what took place there. When Anne returned for
the last time from the dangerous neighbourhood, the fatigue of walking, day
after day, distances which were far too great for her strength, added to the
exhausting effect of the agitation from which she had suffered, produced the
result which Mrs. Clements had dreaded all along. The old pain over the
heart and the other symptoms of the illness at Grimsby returned; and Anne
was confined to her bed in the cottage.
In this emergency, the first necessity, as Mrs. Clements knew by experience,
was to endeavour to quiet Anne’s anxiety of mind; and, for this purpose, the
good woman went herself the next day to the lake, to try if she could find
Lady Glyde (who would be sure, as Anne said, to take her daily walk to the
boat-house), and prevail on her to come back privately to the cottage near
Sandon. On reaching the outskirts of the plantation, Mrs. Clements
encountered, not Lady Glyde, but a tall, stout, elderly gentleman with a
book in his hand—in other words, Count Fosco.
The Count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment, asked if she
expected to see any one in that place; and added, before she could reply,
that he was waiting there with a message from Lady Glyde, but that he was
not quite certain whether the person then before him answered the
description of the person with whom he was desired to communicate. Upon
this, Mrs. Clements at once confided her errand to him, and entreated that
he would help to allay Anne’s anxiety by trusting his message to her. The
Count most readily and kindly complied with her request. The message, he
said, was a most important one. Lady Glyde entreated Anne and her good
friend to return immediately to London, as she felt certain that Sir
Percival would discover them, if they remained any longer in the
neighbourhood of Blackwater. She was herself going to London in a short
time; and if Mrs. Clements and Anne would go there first, and would let her
know what their address was, they should hear from her and see her, in a
fortnight or less. The Count added, that he had already attempted to give a
friendly warning to Anne herself, but that she had been too much startled by
seeing that he was a stranger, to let him approach and speak to her.
To this, Mrs. Clements replied, in the greatest alarm and distress, that she
asked nothing better than to take Anne safely to London; but that there was
no present hope of removing her from the dangerous neighbourhood, as she lay
ill in her bed at that moment. The Count inquired if Mrs. Clements had sent
for medical advice; and, hearing that she had hitherto hesitated to do so,
from the fear of making their position publicly known in the village,
informed her that he was himself a medical man, and that he would go back
with her, if she pleased, and see what could be done for Anne. Mrs. Clements
(feeling a natural confidence in the Count, as a person trusted with a
secret message from Lady Glyde) gratefully accepted the offer; and they went
back together to the cottage.
Anne was asleep when they got there. The Count started at the sight of her
(evidently from astonishment at her resemblance to Lady Glyde). Poor Mrs.
Clements supposed that he was only shocked to see how ill she was. He would
not allow her to be awakened; he was contented with putting questions to
Mrs. Clements about her symptoms, with looking at her, and with lightly
touching her pulse. Sandon was a large enough place to have a grocer’s and
druggist’s shop in it; and thither the Count went, to write his prescription
and to get the medicine made up. He brought it back himself; and told Mrs.
Clements that the medicine was a powerful stimulant, and that it would
certainly give Anne strength to get up and bear the fatigue of a journey to
London of only a few hours. The remedy was to be administered at stated
times, on that day, and on the day after. On the third day she would be well
enough to travel; and he arranged to meet Mrs. Clements at the Blackwater
station, and to see them off by the mid-day train. If they did not appear,
he would assume that Anne was worse, and would proceed at once to the
cottage.
As events turned out, however, no such emergency as this occurred. The
medicine had an extraordinary effect on Anne, and the good results of it
were helped by the assurance Mrs. Clements could now give her that she would
soon see Lady Glyde in London. At the appointed day and time (when they had
not been quite so long as a week in Hampshire, altogether), they arrived at
the station. The Count was waiting there for them, and was talking to an
elderly lady, who appeared to be going to travel by the train to London
also. He most kindly assisted them, and put them into the carriage himself;
begging Mrs. Clements not to forget to send her address to Lady Glyde. The
elderly lady did not travel in the same compartment; and they did not notice
what became of her on reaching the London terminus. Mrs. Clements secured
respectable lodgings in a quiet neighbourhood; and then wrote, as she had
engaged to do, to inform Lady Glyde of the address.
A little more than a fortnight passed, and no answer came.
At the end of that time, a lady (the same elderly lady whom they had seen at
the station) called in a cab, and said that she came from Lady Glyde, who
was then at an hotel in London, and who wished to see Mrs. Clements for the
purpose of arranging a future interview with Anne. Mrs. Clements expressed
her willingness (Anne being present at the time, and entreating her to do
so) to forward the object in view, especially as she was not required to be
away from the house for more than half an hour at the most. She and the
elderly lady (clearly Madame Fosco) then left in the cab. The lady stopped
the cab, after it had driven some distance, at a shop, before they got to
the hotel; and begged Mrs. Clements to wait for her for a few minutes, while
she made a purchase that had been forgotten. She never appeared again.
After waiting some time, Mrs. Clements became alarmed, and ordered the
cabman to drive back to her lodgings. When she got there, after an absence
of rather more than half an hour, Anne was gone.
The only information to be obtained from the people of the house, was
derived from the servant who waited on the lodgers. She had opened the door
to a boy from the street, who had left a letter for “the young woman who
lived on the second floor” (the part of the house which Mrs. Clements
occupied). The servant had delivered the letter; had then gone down stairs;
and, five minutes afterwards, had observed Anne open the front door, and go
out, dressed in her bonnet and shawl. She had probably taken the letter with
her; for it was not to be found, and it was therefore impossible to tell
what inducement had been offered to make her leave the house. It must have
been a strong one—for she would never stir out alone in London of her own
accord. If Mrs. Clements had not known this by experience, nothing would
have induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short a time as half an
hour only.
As soon as she could collect her thoughts, the first idea that naturally
occurred to Mrs. Clements, was to go and make inquiries at the Asylum, to
which she dreaded that Anne had been taken back.
She went there the next day—having been informed of the locality in which
the house was situated by Anne herself. The answer she received (her
application having, in all probability, been made a day or two before the
false Anne Catherick had really been consigned to safe keeping in the
Asylum) was, that no such person had been brought back there. She had then
written to Mrs. Catherick, at Welmingham, to know if she had seen or heard
anything of her daughter; and had received an answer in the negative. After
that reply had reached her, she was at the end of her resources, and
perfectly ignorant where else to inquire, or what else to do. From that time
to this, she had remained in total ignorance of the cause of Anne’s
disappearance, and of the end of Anne’s story.
All The Year Round, 16 June 1860, Vol.III, No.60, pp.217-222
Weekly Part 30.
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