No. 63.] SATURDAY,
JULY 7, 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED.
VIII.
Before
I had reached the turning which led out of the square, my attention was
aroused by the sound of a closing door, in the row of houses behind me. I
looked round, and saw an undersized man in black, on the door-step of a
house, which, as well as I could judge, stood next to Mrs. Catherick’s place
of abode, on the side nearest to me. The man advanced rapidly towards the
turning at which I had stopped. I recognised him as the lawyer’s clerk who
had preceded me in my visit to Blackwater Park, and who had tried to pick a
quarrel with me, when I asked him if I could see the house.
I waited where I was, to ascertain whether his object
was to come to close quarters and speak, on this occasion. To my surprise,
he passed on rapidly, without saying a word, without even looking up in my
face as he went by. This was such a complete inversion of the course of
proceeding which I had every reason to expect on his part, that my
curiosity, or rather my suspicion, was aroused, and I determined, on my
side, to keep him cautiously in view, and to discover what the business
might be on which he was now employed. Without caring whether he saw me or
not, I walked after him. He never looked back; and led me straight through
the streets to the railway station.
The train was on the point of starting, and two or
three passengers who were late were clustering round the small opening
through which the tickets were issued. I joined them, and distinctly heard
the lawyer’s clerk demand a ticket for the Blackwater station. I satisfied
myself that he had actually left by the train, before I came away.
There was only one interpretation that I could place on
what I had just seen and heard. I had unquestionably observed the man
leaving a house which closely adjoined Mrs. Catherick’s residence. He had
been probably placed there, by Sir Percival’s directions, as a lodger, in
anticipation of my inquiries leading me, sooner or later, to communicate
with Mrs. Catherick. He had doubtless seen me go in and come out; and he had
hurried away by the first train to make his report at Blackwater Park—to
which place Sir Percival would naturally betake himself (knowing what he
evidently knew of my movements), in order to be ready on the spot, if I
returned to Hampshire. I saw this clearly; and I felt for the first time
that the apprehensions which Marian had expressed to me at parting, might be
realised. Before many days, there seemed every likelihood, now, that Sir
Percival and I might meet.
Whatever result events might be destined to produce, I
resolved to pursue my own course, straight to the end in view, without
stopping or turning aside, for Sir Percival, or for any one. The great
responsibility which weighed on me heavily in London—the responsibility of
so guiding my slightest actions as to prevent them from leading accidentally
to the discovery of Laura’s place of refuge—was removed, now that I was in
Hampshire. I could go and come as I pleased, at Welmingham; and if I failed
in observing any necessary precautions, the immediate results would, at
least, affect only myself.
When I left the station, the winter evening was
beginning to close in. There was little hope of continuing my inquiries
after dark to any useful purpose, in a neighbourhood that was strange to me.
Accordingly, I made my way to the nearest hotel, and ordered my dinner and
my bed. This done, I wrote to Marian, to tell her that I was safe and well,
and that I had fair prospects of success. I had directed her, on leaving
home, to address her first letter (the letter I expected to receive the next
morning) to “The Post-office, Welmingham;” and I now begged her to send her
second day’s letter to the same address. I could easily receive it, by
writing to the postmaster, if I happened to be away from the town when it
arrived.
The coffee-room of the hotel, as it grew late in the
evening, became a perfect solitude. I was left to reflect on what I had
accomplished that afternoon, as uninterruptedly as if the house had been my
own. Before I retired to rest, I had thought over my extraordinary interview
with Mrs. Catherick, from beginning to end; and had verified the conclusions
which I had hastily drawn in the earlier part of the day.
The vestry of Old Welmingham church was the
starting-point from which my mind slowly worked its way back through all
that I had heard Mrs. Catherick say, and through all that I had seen Mrs.
Catherick do. At the time when the neighbourhood of the vestry was first
referred to in my presence by Mrs. Clements, I had thought it the strangest
and most unaccountable of all places for Sir Percival to select for a
clandestine meeting with the clerk’s wife. Influenced by this impression,
and by no other, I had mentioned “the vestry of the church,” before Mrs.
Catherick, on pure speculation—it represented one of the minor peculiarities
of the story, which occurred to me while I was speaking. I was prepared for
her answering me confusedly, or angrily; but the blank terror that seized
her, when I said the words, took me completely by surprise. I had, long
before, associated Sir Percival’s Secret with the concealment of a crime,
which Mrs. Catherick knew of—but I had gone no farther than this. Now, the
woman’s terror associated the crime, either directly or indirectly, with the
vestry, and convinced me that she had been more than the mere witness of
it—she was also the accomplice.
What had been the nature of the crime? Surely there was
a contemptible side to it, as well as a dangerous side—or Mrs. Catherick
would not have repeated my own words, referring to Sir Percival’s rank and
power, with such marked disdain as she had certainly displayed. It was a
contemptible crime, then, and a dangerous crime; and she had shared in it,
and it was associated with the vestry of the church.
The next consideration to be disposed of led me a step
farther from this point.
Mrs. Catherick’s undisguised contempt for Sir Percival
plainly extended to his mother as well. She had referred, with the bitterest
sarcasm, to the great family he had descended from—”especially by the
mother’s side.” What did this mean? There appeared to be only two
explanations of it. Either his mother’s birth had been low? or his mother’s
reputation was damaged by some hidden flaw with which Mrs. Catherick and Sir
Percival were both privately acquainted? I could only put the first
explanation to the test by looking at the register of her marriage, and so
ascertaining her maiden name and her parentage, as a preliminary to further
inquiries. On the other hand, if the second case supposed were the true one,
what had been the flaw in her reputation? Remembering the account which
Marian had given me of Sir Percival’s father and mother, and of the
suspiciously unsocial secluded life they had both led, I now asked myself,
whether it might not be possible that his mother had never been married at
all. Here again, the register might, by offering written evidence of the
marriage, prove to me, at any rate, that this doubt had no foundation in
truth. But where was the register to be found? At this point, I took up the
conclusions which I had previously formed; and the same mental process which
had discovered the locality of the concealed crime, now lodged the register,
also, in the vestry of Old Welmingham church.
These were the results of my interview with Mrs.
Catherick—these were the various considerations, all steadily converging to
one point, which decided my course on the next day.
The morning was
cloudy and lowering, but no rain fell. I left my bag at the hotel; and,
after inquiring the way, set forth on foot for Old Welmingham church.
It was a walk of rather more than two miles, the ground
rising slowly all the way. On the highest point stood the church—an ancient,
weather-beaten building, with heavy buttresses at its sides, and a clumsy
square tower in front. The vestry, at the back, was built out from the
church, and seemed to be of the same age. Round the building, at intervals,
appeared the remains of the village which Mrs. Clements had described to me
as her husband’s place of abode in former years, and which the principal
inhabitants had long since deserted for the new town. Some of the empty
houses had been dismantled to their outer walls; some had been left to decay
with time; and some were still inhabited by persons evidently of the poorest
class. It was a dreary scene—and yet, in the worst aspect of its ruin, not
so dreary as the modern town that I had just left. Here, there was the
brown, breezy sweep of surrounding fields for the eye to repose on; here the
trees, leafless as they were, still varied the monotony of the prospect, and
helped the mind to look forward to summer time and shade.
As I moved away from the back of the church, and passed
some of the dismantled cottages in search of a person who might direct me to
the clerk, I saw two men saunter out after me, from behind a wall. The
tallest of the two—a stout muscular man, in the dress of a gamekeeper—was a
stranger to me. The other was one of the men who had followed me in London,
on the day when I left Mr. Kyrle’s office. I had taken particular notice of
him, at the time; and I felt sure that I was not mistaken in identifying the
fellow on this occasion. Neither he nor his companion attempted to speak to
me, and both kept themselves at a respectful distance—but the motive of
their presence in the neighbourhood of the church was plainly apparent. It
was exactly as I had supposed—Sir Percival was already prepared for me. My
visit to Mrs. Catherick had been reported to him the evening before; and
those two men at my heels had been placed on the look-out for me, near the
church at Old Welmingham. If I had wanted any further proof that my
investigations had taken the right direction at last, the plan now adopted
for watching me would have supplied it.
I walked on, away from the church, till I reached one
of the inhabited houses, with a patch of kitchen garden attached to it, on
which a labourer was at work. He directed me to the clerk’s abode—a cottage,
at some little distance off, standing by itself on the outskirts of the
forsaken village. The clerk was in-doors, and was just putting on his
great-coat. He was a cheerful, familiar, loudly-talkative old man, with a
very poor opinion (as I soon discovered) of the place in which he lived, and
a happy sense of superiority to his neighbours in virtue of the great
distinction of having once been in London.
“It’s well you came so early, sir,” said the old man,
when I had mentioned the object of my visit. “I should have been away in ten
minutes more. Parish business, sir—and a goodish long trot before it’s all
done, for a man at my age. But, bless you, I’m strong on my legs still! As
long as a man’s legs don’t give, there’s a deal of work left in him. Don’t
you think so, sir?”
He took his keys down, while he was talking, from a
hook behind the fireplace, and locked his cottage door behind us.
“Nobody at home to keep house for me,” said the clerk,
with a cheerful sense of perfect freedom from all family encumbrances. “My
wife’s in the churchyard, there; and my children are all married. A wretched
place this, isn’t it, sir? But the parish is a large one—every man couldn’t
get through the business as I do. It’s learning does it; and I’ve had my
share, and a little more. I can talk the Queen’s English (God bless the
Queen!)—and that’s more than most of the people about here can do. You’re
from London, I suppose, sir? I’ve been in London, a matter of
five-and-twenty years ago.”
Chattering on in this way, he led me back to the
vestry. I looked about, to see if the two spies were still in sight. They
were not visible anywhere. After having discovered my application to the
clerk, they had probably concealed themselves where they could watch my next
proceedings in perfect freedom. The vestry door was of stout old oak,
studded with strong nails; and the clerk put his large, heavy key into the
lock, with the air of a man who knew that he had a difficulty to encounter,
and who was not quite certain of creditably conquering it.
“I’m obliged to bring you this way, sir,” he said,
“because the door from the vestry to the church is bolted on the vestry
side. We might have got in through the church, otherwise. This is a perverse
lock, if ever there was one yet. It’s big enough for a prison-door; it’s
been hampered over and over again; and it ought to be changed for a new one.
I’ve mentioned that to the church-warden, fifty times over at least: he’s
always saying ‘I’ll see about it’—and he never does see. Ah, it’s a lost
corner, this place. Not like London—is it, sir? Bless you, we are all asleep
here! We don’t march with the times.”
After twisting and turning the key, the heavy lock
yielded; and he opened the door.
The vestry was larger than I should have supposed it to
be, judging from the outside only. It was a dim, mouldy, melancholy old
room, with a low, raftered ceiling. Round two sides of it, the sides nearest
to the interior of the church, ran heavy wooden presses, wormeaten and
gaping with age. Hooked to the inner corner of one of these presses hung
several surplices, all bulging out at their lower ends in an
irreverent-looking bundle of limp drapery, and wanting nothing but legs
under them to suggest the idea of a cluster of neglected curates who had
committed suicide, by companionably hanging themselves all together. Below
the surplices, on the floor, stood three packing-cases, with the lids half
off, half on, and the straw profusely bursting out of their cracks and
crevices in every direction. Behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty
papers; some large and rolled up, like architects’ plans; some loosely
strung together on files, like bills or letters. The room had once been
lighted by a small side window; but this had been bricked up, and a lantern
skylight was now substituted for it. The atmosphere was heavy and mouldy;
being rendered oppressive by the closing of the door which led into the
church. This door also was composed of solid oak, and was bolted, at the top
and bottom, on the vestry side.
“We might be tidier, mightn’t we, sir?” said the
cheerful clerk. “But when you’re in a lost corner of a place like this, what
are you to do? Why, look here, now—just look at these packing-cases. There
they’ve been, for a year or more, ready to go to London—there they are,
littering the place—and there they’ll stop as long as the nails hold them
together. I’ll tell you what, sir, as I said before, this is not London. We
are all asleep here. Bless you, we
don’t march with the times!”
“What is there in the packing-cases?” I asked.
“Bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and panels
from the chancel, and images from the organ-loft,” said the clerk.
“Portraits of the twelve apostles in wood—and not a whole nose among ‘em.
All broken, and wormeaten: crumbling to dust at the edges—as brittle as
crockery, and as old as the church, if not older.”
“And why were they going to London? To be repaired?”
“That’s it, sir. To be repaired; and where they were
past repair, to be copied in sound wood. But, bless you, the money fell
short—and there they are, waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to
subscribe. It was all done a year ago, sir. Six gentlemen dined together
about it, at the hotel in the new town. They made speeches, and passed
resolutions, and put their names down, and printed off thousands of
prospectuses. Beautiful prospectuses, sir, all flourished over with Gothic
devices in red ink, saying it was a disgrace not to restore the church and
repair the famous carvings, and so on. There are the prospectuses that
couldn’t be distributed, and the architect’s plans and estimates, and the
whole correspondence which set everybody at loggerheads and ended in a
dispute, all down together in that corner, behind the packing-cases. The
money dribbled in a little at first—but what
can you expect out of London?
There was just enough, you know, to pack the broken carvings, and get the
estimates, and pay the printer’s bill—and after that, there wasn’t a
halfpenny left. We have nowhere else to put them—nobody in the new town
cares about accommodating us—we’re
in a lost corner—and this is an untidy vestry—and who’s to help it?—that’s
what I want to know.”
My anxiety to examine the register did not dispose me
to offer much encouragement to the old man’s talkativeness. I agreed with
him that nobody could help the untidiness of the vestry—and then suggested
that we should proceed to our business without more delay.
“Ay, ay, the marriage register,” said the clerk, taking
a little bunch of keys from his pocket. “How far do you want to look back,
sir?”
Marian had informed me of Sir Percival’s age, at the
time when we had spoken together of his marriage engagement with Laura. She
had then described him as being forty-five years old. Calculating back from
this, and making due allowance for the year that had passed since I had
gained my information, I found that he must have been born in eighteen
hundred and four.
“I want to begin with the year eighteen hundred and
four,” I said.
“Which way after that, sir?” asked the clerk. “Forwards
to our time, or backwards?”
“Backwards from eighteen hundred and four.”
He opened the door of one of the presses—the press from
the side of which the surplices were hanging—and produced a large volume
bound in greasy brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of the place
in which the register was kept. The door of the press was warped and cracked
with age; and the lock was of the smallest and commonest kind. I could have
forced it easily with my walking-stick.
“Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the
register?” I inquired. “Surely, a book of such importance ought to be
protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?”
“Well, now, that’s curious!” said the clerk, shutting
up the book again, just after he had opened it, and smacking his hand
cheerfully on the cover. “Those were the very words my old master was always
saying, years and years ago, when I was a lad. ‘Why isn’t the register’
(meaning this register here, under my hand)—’why isn’t it kept in an iron
safe?’ If I’ve heard him say that once, I’ve heard him say it a hundred
times. He was the solicitor, in those days, sir, who had the appointment of
vestry clerk to this church. A fine hearty old gentleman—and the most
particular man breathing. As long as he lived, he kept a copy of this book,
in his office at Knowlesbury, and had it posted up regular, from time to
time, to correspond with the fresh entries here. You would hardly think it,
but he had his own appointed days, once or twice, in every quarter, for
riding over to this church on his old white pony to check the copy, by the
register, with his own eyes and hands. ‘How do I know’ (he used to say)—‘how
do I know that the register in this vestry may not be stolen or destroyed?
Why isn’t it kept in an iron safe? Why can’t I make other people as careful
as I am myself? Some of these days there will be an accident happen—and when
the register’s lost, then the parish will find out the value of my copy.’ He
used to take his pinch of snuff after that, and look about him as bold as a
lord. Ah! the like of him for doing business isn’t easy to find now. You may
go to London, and not match him, even
there. Which year did you say? Eighteen hundred and what?”
“Eighteen hundred and four,” I replied; mentally
resolving to give the old man no more opportunities of talking.
The clerk put on his spectacles, and turned over the
leaves of the register, carefully wetting his finger and thumb, at every
third page. “There it is, sir,” he said, with another cheerful smack on the
open volume. “There’s the year you want.”
As I was ignorant of the month in which Sir Percival
was born, I began my backward search with the early part of the year. The
register-book was of the old fashioned kind; the entries being all made on
blank pages, in manuscript, and the divisions which separated them being
indicated by ink lines drawn across the page, at the close of each entry.
I reached the beginning of the year eighteen hundred
and four, without encountering the marriage; and then travelled back through
December, eighteen hundred and three; through November, and October;
through——No! not through September also. Under the heading of that month in
the year I found the marriage!
I looked carefully at the entry. It was at the bottom
of a page, and was, for want of room, compressed into a smaller space than
that occupied by the marriages above. The marriage immediately before it was
impressed on my attention by the circumstance of the bridegroom’s Christian
name being the same as my own. The entry immediately following it (on the
top of the next page) was noticeable, in another way, from the large space
it occupied; the record, in this case, registering the marriages of two
brothers at the same time. The register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde
was in no respect remarkable, except for the narrowness of the space into
which it was compressed at the bottom of the page. The information about his
wife, was the usual information given in such cases. She was described, as
“Cecilia Jane Elster, of Park-View Cottages, Knowlesbury; only daughter of
the late Patrick Elster, Esq., formerly of Bath.”
I noted down these particulars in my pocket-book,
feeling, as I did so, both doubtful and disheartened about my next
proceedings. The Secret, which I had believed, until this moment, to be
within my grasp, seemed now farther from my reach than ever. What
suggestions of any mystery unexplained had arisen out of my visit to the
vestry? I saw no suggestions anywhere. What progress had I made towards
discovering the suspected stain on the reputation of Sir Percival’s mother?
The one fact I had ascertained, vindicated her reputation. Fresh doubts,
fresh difficulties, fresh delays, began to open before me in interminable
prospect. What was I to do next? The one immediate resource left to me,
appeared to be this: I might institute inquiries about “Miss Elster, of
Knowlesbury,” on the chance of advancing towards my main object, by first
discovering the secret of Mrs. Catherick’s contempt for Sir Percival’s
mother.
“Have you found what you wanted, sir?” said the clerk,
as I closed the register-book.
“Yes,” I replied; “but I have some inquiries still to
make. I suppose the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen
hundred and three is no longer alive?”
“No, no, sir; he was dead three or four years before I
came here—and that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this
place, sir,” persisted my talkative old friend, “through the clerk before me
leaving it. They say he was driven out of house and home by his wife—and
she’s living still, down in the new town there. I don’t know the rights of
the story, myself; all I know is, I got the place. Mr. Wansborough got it
for me—the son of my old master that I was telling you of. He’s a free,
pleasant gentleman as ever lived; rides to the hounds, keeps his pointers,
and all that. He’s vestry-clerk here now, as his father was before him.”
“Did you not tell me your former master lived at
Knowlesbury?” I asked, calling to mind the long story about the precise
gentleman of the old school, with which my talkative friend had wearied me
before he opened the register.
“Yes, to be sure, sir,” replied the clerk. “Old Mr.
Wansborough lived at Knowlesbury; and young Mr. Wansborough lives there
too.”
“You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father
before him. I am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is.”
“Don’t you indeed, sir?—and you come from London, too!
Every parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. The
parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I’ve got a deal more learning
than most of them—though I don’t boast of it). The vestry-clerk is a sort of
an appointment that the lawyers get; and if there’s any business to be done
for the vestry, why there they are to do it. It’s just the same in London.
Every parish church there has got its vestry-clerk—and, you may take my word
for it, he’s sure to be a lawyer.”
“Then, young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer?”
“Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High-street,
Knowlesbury—the old offices that his father had before him. The number of
times I’ve swept those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting
in on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street, and
nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a popular character!—he’d have done
in London!”
“How far is it to Knowlesbury from here?”
“A long stretch, sir,” said the clerk, with that
exaggerated idea of distances and that vivid perception of difficulties in
getting from place to place, peculiar to country people. “Nigh on five mile,
I can tell you!”
It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of
time for a walk to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was
no person probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about
the character and position of Sir Percival’s mother, before her marriage,
than the local solicitor. I resolved to go at once to Knowlesbury on foot.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the clerk, as I slipped
my little present into his hand. “Are you really going to walk all the way
to Knowlesbury and back? Well! you’re strong on your legs, too—and what a
blessing that is, isn’t it? There’s the road; you can’t miss it. I wish I
was going your way—it’s pleasant to meet with gentlemen from London, in a
lost corner like this. One hears the news. Wish you good morning, sir—and
thank you kindly, once more.”
As I left the church behind me, I looked back—and there
were the two men again, on the road below, with a third in their
company:—the short man in black, whom I had traced to the railway the
evening before.
The three stood talking together for a little
while—then separated. The man in black went away by himself towards
Welmingham; the other two remained together, evidently waiting to follow me,
as soon as I walked on.
I proceeded on my way, without letting the fellows see
that I took any special notice of them. They caused me no conscious
irritation of feeling at that moment—on the contrary, they rather revived my
sinking hopes. In the surprise of discovering the evidence of the marriage,
I had forgotten the inference I had drawn, on first perceiving the men in
the neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance reminded me that Sir
Percival had anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church, as the next
result of my interview with Mrs. Catherick—otherwise, he would never have
placed his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and fairly as appearances
looked in the vestry, there was something wrong beneath them—there was
something in the register-book, for aught I knew, that I had not discovered
yet.
“I shall come back,” I thought to myself, as I turned
for a farewell look at the tower of the old church. “I shall trouble the
cheerful clerk a second time to conquer the perverse lock, and to open the
vestry door.”
All The Year Round, 7 July 1860, Vol.III, No.63, pp.289-293
Weekly Part 33.
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