No. 70.] SATURDAY,
AUGUST 25, 1860 [PRICE 2d.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE.
———•———
PART THE THIRD. THE NARRATIVE OF ISIDOR OTTAVIO BALDASSARE FOSCO. COUNT OF
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE ORDER OF THE BRAZEN CROWN.
ARCH-MASTER OF THE ROSICRUCIAN MASONS OF MESOPOTAMIA. ATTACHED, IN HONORARY
CAPACITIES, TO SOCIETIES MEDICAL, SOCIETIES MUSICAL, SOCIETIES
PHILOSOPHICAL, AND SOCIETIES GENERAL BENEVOLENT, THROUGHOUT EUROPE, &c. &c.
&c.
In
the summer of eighteen hundred and fifty, I arrived in England, charged with
a delicate political mission from abroad. Confidential persons were
semi-officially connected with me, whose exertions I was authorised to
direct—Monsieur and Madame Rubelle being among the number. Some weeks of
spare time were at my disposal, before I entered on my functions by
establishing myself in the suburbs of London. Curiosity may stop here, to
ask for some explanation of those functions on my part. I entirely
sympathise with the request. I also regret that diplomatic reserve forbids
me to comply with it.
I arranged to pass the preliminary period of repose, to
which I have just referred, in the superb mansion of my late lamented
friend, Sir Percival Glyde. He
arrived from the Continent with his
wife. I arrived from the
Continent with mine. England is
the land of domestic happiness—how appropriately we entered it under these
domestic circumstances!
The bond of friendship which united Percival and
myself, was strengthened, on this occasion, by a touching similarity in the
pecuniary position, on his side and on mine. We both wanted money. Immense
necessity! Universal want! Is there a civilised human being who does not
feel for us? How insensible must that man be! Or how rich!
I enter into no sordid particulars, in discussing this
part of the subject. My mind recoils from them. With a Roman austerity, I
show my empty purse and Percival’s to the shrinking public gaze. Let us
allow the deplorable fact to assert itself, once for all, in that manner—and
pass on.
We were received at the mansion by the magnificent
creature who is inscribed on my heart as “Marian”—who is known in the colder
atmosphere of Society, as “Miss Halcombe.”
Just Heaven! with what inconceivable rapidity I learnt
to adore that woman. At sixty, I worshipped her with the volcanic ardour of
eighteen. All the gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly at her feet.
My wife—poor angel!—my wife, who adores me, got nothing but the shillings
and the pennies. Such is the World; such Man; such Love. What are we (I ask)
but puppets in a show-box? Oh, omnipotent Destiny, pull our strings gently!
Dance us mercifully off our miserable little stage!
The preceding lines, rightly understood, express an
entire system of philosophy. It is Mine.
I resume.
————
The domestic position at the commencement of our
residence at Blackwater Park has been drawn with amazing accuracy, with
profound mental insight, by the hand of Marian herself. (Pass me the
intoxicating familiarity of mentioning this sublime creature by her
Christian name.) Accurate knowledge of the contents of her journal—to which
I obtained access by clandestine means, unspeakably precious to me in the
remembrance—warns my eager pen from topics which this essentially exhaustive
woman has already made her own.
The interests—interests, breathless and immense!—with
which I am here concerned, begin with the deplorable calamity of Marian’s
illness.
The situation, at this period, was emphatically a
serious one. Large sums of money, due at a certain time, were wanted by
Percival (I say nothing of the modicum equally necessary to myself); and the
one source to look to for supplying them was the fortune of his wife, of
which not one farthing was at his disposal until her death. Bad, so far;
but—in the language of the all-pervading Shakespeare—worse remained behind.
My lamented friend had private troubles of his own, into which the delicacy
of my disinterested attachment to him forbade me from inquiring too
curiously. I knew nothing but that a woman, named Anne Catherick, was hidden
in the neighbourhood; that she was in communication with Lady Glyde; and
that the disclosure of a secret, which would be the certain ruin of
Percival, might be the result. He had told me himself that he was a lost
man, unless his wife was silenced, and unless Anne Catherick was found. If
he was a lost man, what would become of our pecuniary interests? Courageous
as I am by nature, I absolutely trembled at the idea!
The whole force of my intelligence was now directed to
the finding of Anne Catherick. Our money affairs, important as they were,
admitted of delay—but the necessity of discovering the woman admitted of
none. I only knew her, by description, as presenting an extraordinary
personal resemblance to Lady Glyde. The statement of this curious
fact—intended merely to assist me in identifying the person of whom we were
in search—when coupled with the additional information that Anne Catherick
had escaped from a madhouse, started the first immense conception in my
mind, which subsequently led to such amazing results. That conception
involved nothing less than the complete transformation of two separate
identities. Lady Glyde and Anne Catherick were to change names, places, and
destinies, the one with the other—the prodigious consequences contemplated
by the change, being the gain of thirty thousand pounds, and the eternal
preservation of Percival’s secret.
My instincts (which seldom err) suggested to me, on
reviewing the circumstances, that our invisible Anne would, sooner or later,
return to the boat-house at the Blackwater lake. There I posted myself;
previously mentioning to Mrs. Michelson, the housekeeper, that I might be
found when wanted, immersed in study, in that solitary place. It is my rule
never to make unnecessary mysteries, and never to set people suspecting me
for want of a little seasonable candour, on my part. Mrs. Michelson believed
in me from first to last. This ladylike person (widow of a Protestant
Priest) overflowed with faith. Touched by such superfluity of simple
confidence, in a woman of her mature years, I opened the ample reservoirs of
my nature, and absorbed it all.
I was rewarded for posting myself sentinel at the lake,
by the appearance—not of Anne Catherick herself, but of the person in charge
of her. This individual also overflowed with simple faith, which I absorbed
in myself, as in the case already mentioned. I leave her to describe the
circumstances (if she has not done so already) under which she introduced me
to the object of her maternal care. When I first saw Anne Catherick, she was
asleep. I was electrified by the likeness between this unhappy woman and
Lady Glyde. The details of the grand scheme, which had suggested themselves
in outline only, up to that period, occurred to me, in all their masterly
combination, at the sight of the sleeping face. At the same time, my heart,
always accessible to tender influences, dissolved in tears at the spectacle
of suffering before me. I instantly set myself to impart relief. In other
words, I provided the necessary stimulant for strengthening Anne Catherick
to perform the journey to London.
At this point, I enter a necessary protest, and correct
a lamentable error.
————
The best years of my life have been passed in the
ardent study of medical and chemical science. Chemistry, especially, has
always had irresistible attractions for me, from the enormous, the
illimitable power which the knowledge of it confers. Chemists, I assert it
emphatically, might sway, if they pleased, the destinies of humanity. Let me
explain this before I go further.
Mind, they say, rules the world. But what rules the
mind? The body. The body (follow me closely here) lies at the mercy of the
most omnipotent of all mortal potentates—the Chemist. Give me—Fosco—chemistry;
and when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits down to execute the
conception—with a few grains of powder dropped into his daily food, I will
reduce his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen pours out the most
abject drivel that has ever degraded paper. Under similar circumstances,
revive me the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that, when he sees the apple
fall, he shall eat it, instead of
discovering the principle of gravitation. Nero’s dinner, shall transform
Nero into the mildest of men, before he has done digesting it; and the
morning draught of Alexander the Great, shall make Alexander run for his
life, at the first sight of the enemy, the same afternoon. On my sacred word
of honour, it is lucky for society that modern chemists are, by
incomprehensible good fortune, the most harmless of mankind. The mass are
good fathers of families, who keep shops. The few, are philosophers besotted
with admiration for the sound of their own lecturing voices; visionaries who
waste their lives on fantastic impossibilities; or quacks whose ambition
soars no higher than our corns. Thus Society escapes; and the illimitable
power of Chemistry remains the slave of the most superficial and the most
insignificant ends.
Why this outburst? Why this withering eloquence?
Because my conduct has been misrepresented; because my
motives have been misunderstood. It has been assumed that I used my vast
chemical resources against Anne Catherick; and that I would have used them,
if I could, against the magnificent Marian herself. Odious insinuations
both! All my interests were concerned (as will be seen presently) in the
preservation of Anne Catherick’s life. All my anxieties were concentrated on
Marian’s rescue from the hands of the licensed Imbecile who attended her;
and who found my advice confirmed, from first to last, by the physician from
London. On two occasions only—both equally harmless to the individual on
whom I practised—did I summon to myself the assistance of chemical
knowledge. On the first of the two, after following Marian to the Inn at
Blackwater (studying, behind a convenient waggon which hid me from her, the
poetry of motion, as embodied in her walk), I availed myself of the services
of my invaluable wife, to copy one and to intercept the other of two letters
which my adored enemy had entrusted to a discarded maid. In this case, the
letters being in the bosom of the girl’s dress, Madame Fosco could only open
them, read them, perform her instructions, seal them, and put them back
again, by scientific assistance—which assistance I rendered in a half-ounce
bottle. The second occasion when the same means were employed, was the
occasion (to which I shall soon refer) of Lady Glyde’s arrival in London.
Never, at any other time, was I indebted to my Art, as distinguished from
myself. To all other emergencies and complications my natural capacity for
grappling, single-handed, with circumstances, was invariably equal. I affirm
the all-pervading intelligence of that capacity. At the expense of the
Chemist, I vindicate the Man.
Respect this outburst of generous indignation. It has
inexpressibly relieved me. En route!
Let us proceed.
————
Having suggested to Mrs. Clement (or Clements, I am not
sure which) that the best method of keeping Anne out of Percival’s reach was
to remove her to London; having found that my proposal was eagerly received;
and having appointed a day to meet the travellers at the station, and to see
them leave it—I was at liberty to return to the house, and to confront the
difficulties which still remained to be met.
My first proceeding was to avail myself of the sublime
devotion of my wife. I had arranged with Mrs. Clements that she should
communicate her London address, in Anne’s interests, to Lady Glyde. But this
was not enough. Designing persons, in my absence, might shake the simple
confidence of Mrs. Clements, and she might not write, after all. Who could I
find capable of travelling to London by the train she travelled by, and of
privately seeing her home? I asked myself this question. The conjugal part
of me immediately answered—Madame Fosco.
After deciding on my wife’s mission to London, I
arranged that the journey should serve a double purpose. A nurse for the
suffering Marian, equally devoted to the patient and to myself, was a
necessity of my position. One of the most eminently confidential and capable
women in existence, was by good fortune at my disposal. I refer to that
respectable matron, Madame Rubelle—to whom I addressed a letter, at her
residence in London, by the hands of my wife.
On the appointed day, Mrs. Clements and Anne Catherick
met me at the station. I politely saw them off. I politely saw Madame Fosco
off by the same train. The last thing at night, my wife returned to
Blackwater, having followed her instructions with the most unimpeachable
accuracy. She was accompanied by Madame Rubelle; and she brought me the
London address of Mrs. Clements. After-events proved this last precaution to
have been unnecessary. Mrs. Clements punctually informed Lady Glyde of her
place of abode. With a wary eye on future emergencies, I kept the letter.
The same day, I had a brief interview with the doctor,
at which I protested, in the sacred interests of humanity, against his
treatment of Marian’s case. He was insolent, as all ignorant people are. I
showed no resentment; I deferred quarrelling with him till it was necessary
to quarrel to some purpose.
My next proceeding was to leave Blackwater myself. I
had my London residence to take, in anticipation of coming events. I had
also a little business, of the domestic sort, to transact with Mr. Frederick
Fairlie. I found the house I wanted, in St. John’s Wood. I found Mr. Fairlie
at Limmeridge, Cumberland.
My own private familiarity with the nature of Marian’s
correspondence, had previously informed me that she had written to Mr.
Fairlie, proposing, as a relief to Lady Glyde’s matrimonial embarrassments,
to take her on a visit to her uncle in Cumberland. This letter I had wisely
allowed to reach its destination; feeling, at the time, that it could do no
harm, and might do good. I now presented myself before Mr. Fairlie, to
support Marian’s own proposal—with certain modifications which, happily for
the success of my plans, were rendered really inevitable by her illness. It
was necessary that Lady Glyde should leave Blackwater alone, by her uncle’s
invitation, and that she should rest a night on the journey, at her aunt’s
house (the house I had taken in St. John’s Wood), by her uncle’s express
advice. To achieve these results, and to secure a note of invitation which
could be shown to Lady Glyde, were the objects of my visit to Mr. Fairlie.
When I have mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in mind and
body, and that I let loose the whole force of my character on him, I have
said enough. I came, saw, and conquered Fairlie.
On my return to Blackwater Park (with the letter of
invitation) I found that the doctor’s imbecile treatment of Marian’s case
had led to the most alarming results. The fever had turned to Typhus. Lady
Glyde, on the day of my return, tried to force herself into the room to
nurse her sister. She and I had no affinities of sympathy; she had committed
the unpardonable outrage on my sensibilities of calling me a Spy; she was a
stumbling-block in my way and in Percival’s—but, for all that, my
magnanimity forbade me to put her in danger of infection with my own hand.
At the same time, I offered no hindrance to her putting herself in danger.
If she had succeeded in doing so, the intricate knot which I was slowly and
patiently operating on, might perhaps have been cut, by circumstances. As it
was, the doctor interfered, and she was kept out of the room.
I had myself previously recommended sending for advice
to London. This course had been now taken. The physician, on his arrival,
confirmed my view of the case. The crisis was serious. But we had hope of
our charming patient on the fifth day from the appearance of the Typhus. I
was only once absent from Blackwater at this time—when I went to London by
the morning train, to make the final arrangements at my house in St. John’s
Wood; to assure myself, by private inquiry, that Mrs. Clements had not
moved; and to settle one or two little preliminary matters with the husband
of Madame Rubelle. I returned at night. Five days afterwards, the physician
pronounced our interesting Marian to be out of all danger, and to be in need
of nothing but careful nursing. This was the time I had waited for. Now that
medical attendance was no longer indispensable, I played the first move in
the game by asserting myself against the doctor. He was one among many
witnesses in my way, whom it was necessary to remove. A lively altercation
between us (in which Percival, previously instructed by me, refused to
interfere) served the purpose in view. I descended on the miserable man in
an irresistible avalanche of indignation—and swept him from the house.
The servants were the next encumbrances to get rid of.
Again I instructed Percival (whose moral courage required perpetual
stimulants), and Mrs. Michelson was amazed, one day, by hearing from her
master that the establishment was to be broken up. We cleared the house of
all the servants but one, who was kept for domestic purposes, and whose
lumpish stupidity we could trust to make no embarrassing discoveries. When
they were gone, nothing remained but to relieve ourselves of Mrs.
Michelson—a result which was easily achieved by sending this amiable lady to
find lodgings for her mistress at the sea-side.
The circumstances were now—exactly what they were
required to be. Lady Glyde was confined to her room by nervous illness; and
the lumpish housemaid (I forget her name) was shut up there, at night, in
attendance on her mistress. Marian, though fast recovering, still kept her
bed, with Mrs. Rubelle for nurse. No other living creatures but my wife,
myself, and Percival, were in the house. With all the chances thus in our
favour, I confronted the next emergency, and played the second move in the
game.
The object of the second move was to induce Lady Glyde
to leave Blackwater, unaccompanied by her sister. Unless we could persuade
her that Marian had gone on to Cumberland first, there was no chance of
removing her, of her own free will, from the house. To produce this
necessary operation in her mind, we concealed our interesting invalid in one
of the uninhabited bedrooms at Blackwater. At the dead of night, Madame
Fosco, Madame Rubelle, and myself (Percival not being cool enough to be
trusted), accomplished the concealment. The scene was picturesque,
mysterious, dramatic, in the highest degree. By my directions, the bed had
been made, in the morning, on a strong movable framework of wood. We had
only to lift the framework gently at the head and foot, and to transport our
patient where we pleased, without disturbing herself or her bed. No chemical
assistance was needed, or used, in this case. Our interesting Marian lay in
the deep repose of convalescence. We placed the candles and opened the
doors, beforehand. I, in right of my great personal strength, took the head
of the framework—my wife and Madame Rubelle took the foot. I bore my share
of that inestimably precious burden with a manly tenderness, with a fatherly
care. Where is the modern Rembrandt who could depict our midnight
procession? Alas for the Arts! alas for this most pictorial of subjects! The
modern Rembrandt is nowhere to be found.
The next morning, my wife and I started for
London—leaving Marian secluded, in the uninhabited middle of the house,
under care of Madame Rubelle; who kindly consented to imprison herself with
her patient for two or three days. Before taking our departure, I gave
Percival Mr. Fairlie’s letter of invitation to his niece (instructing her to
sleep on the journey to Cumberland at her aunt’s house), with directions to
show it to Lady Glyde on hearing from me. I also obtained from him the
address of the Asylum in which Anne Catherick had been confined, and a
letter to the proprietor, announcing to that gentleman the return of his
runaway patient to medical care.
I had arranged, at my last visit to the metropolis, to
have our modest domestic establishment ready to receive us when we arrived
in London by the early train. In consequence of this wise precaution, we
were enabled that same day to play the third move in the game—the getting
possession of Anne Catherick.
Dates are of importance here. I combine in myself the
opposite characteristics of a Man of Sentiment and a Man of Business. I have
all the dates at my fingers’ ends.
On the 27th of July, 1850, I sent my wife, in a cab, to
clear Mrs. Clements out of the way, in the first place. A supposed message
from Lady Glyde in London, was sufficient to obtain this result. Mrs.
Clements was taken away in the cab, and was left in the cab, while my wife
(on pretence of purchasing something at a shop) gave her the slip, and
returned to receive her expected visitor at our house in St. John’s Wood. It
is hardly necessary to add that the visitor had been described to the
servants as “Lady Glyde.”
In the mean while I had followed in another cab, with a
note for Anne Catherick, merely mentioning that Lady Glyde intended to keep
Mrs. Clements to spend the day with her, and that she was to join them,
under care of the good gentleman waiting outside, who had already saved her
from discovery in Hampshire by Sir Percival. The “good gentleman” sent in
this note by a street boy, and paused for results, a door or two farther on.
At the moment when Anne appeared at the house-door and closed it, this
excellent man had the cab-door open ready for her—absorbed her into the
vehicle—and drove off.
(Pass me, here, one exclamation in parenthesis. How
interesting this is!)
On the way to Forest-road, my companion showed no fear.
I can be paternal—no man more so—when I please; and I was intensely paternal
on this occasion. What titles I had to her confidence! I had compounded the
medicine which had done her good; I had warned her of her danger from Sir
Percival. Perhaps, I trusted too implicitly to these titles; perhaps, I
underrated the keenness of the lower instincts in persons of weak
intellect—it is certain that I neglected to prepare her sufficiently for a
disappointment on entering my house. When I took her into the
drawing-room—when she saw no one present but Madame Fosco, who was a
stranger to her—she exhibited the most violent agitation: if she had scented
danger in the air, as a dog scents the presence of some creature unseen, her
alarm could not have displayed itself more suddenly and more causelessly. I
interposed in vain. The fear from which she was suffering, I might have
soothed—but the serious heart-disease, under which she laboured, was beyond
the reach of all moral palliatives. To my unspeakable horror, she was seized
with convulsions—a shock to the system, in her condition, which might have
laid her dead at any moment, at our feet.
The nearest doctor was sent for, and was told that
“Lady Glyde” required his immediate services. To my infinite relief, he was
a capable man. I represented my visitor to him as a person of weak
intellect, and subject to delusions; and I arranged that no nurse but my
wife should watch in the sick-room. The unhappy woman was too ill, however,
to cause any anxiety about what she might say. The one dread which now
oppressed me, was the dread that the false Lady Glyde might die, before the
true Lady Glyde arrived in London.
I had written a note in the morning to Madame Rubelle,
telling her to join me, at her husband’s house, on the evening of the 29th;
with another note to Percival, warning him to show his wife her uncle’s
letter of invitation, to assert that Marian had gone on before her, and to
despatch her to town, by the mid-day train, on the 29th, also. On
reflection, I had felt the necessity, in Anne Catherick’s state of health,
of precipitating events, and of having Lady Glyde at my disposal earlier
than I had originally contemplated. What fresh directions, in the terrible
uncertainty of my position, could I now issue? I could do nothing but trust
to chance and the doctor. My emotions expressed themselves in pathetic
apostrophes—which I was just self-possessed enough to couple, in the hearing
of other people, with the name of “Lady Glyde.” In all other respects, Fosco,
on that memorable day, was Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.
She passed a bad night—she awoke worn out—but, later in
the day, she revived amazingly. My elastic spirits revived with her. I could
receive no answers from Percival and Madame Rubelle till the morning of the
next day—the 29th. In anticipation of their following my directions, which,
accident apart, I knew they would do, I went to secure a fly to fetch Lady
Glyde from the railway; directing it to be at my house, on the 29th, at two
o’clock. After seeing the order entered in the book, I went on to arrange
matters with Monsieur Rubelle. I also procured the services of two
gentlemen, who could furnish me with the necessary certificates of lunacy.
One of them I knew personally: the other was known to Monsieur Rubelle. Both
were men whose vigorous minds soared superior to narrow scruples—both were
labouring under temporary embarrassments — both believed in
me.
It was past five o’clock in the afternoon before I
returned from the performance of these duties. When I got back, Anne
Catherick was dead. Dead on the 28th; and Lady Glyde was not to arrive in
London till the 29th!
I was stunned. Meditate on that. Fosco stunned!
It was too late to retrace our steps. Before my return,
the doctor had officiously undertaken to save me all trouble, by registering
the death, on the date when it happened, with his own hand. My grand scheme,
unassailable hitherto, had its weak place now—no efforts, on my part, could
alter the fatal event of the 28th. I turned manfully to the future.
Percival’s interests and mine being still at stake, nothing was left but to
play the game through to the end. I recalled my impenetrable calm—and played
it.
On the morning of the 29th, Percival’s letter reached
me, announcing his wife’s arrival by the mid-day train. Madame Rubelle also
wrote to say she would follow in the evening. I started in the fly, leaving
the false Lady Glyde dead in the house, to receive the true Lady Glyde, on
her arrival by the railway, at three o’clock. Hidden under the seat of the
carriage, I carried with me all the clothes Anne Catherick had worn on
coming into my house—they were destined to assist the resurrection of the
woman who was dead, in the person of the woman who was living. What a
situation! I suggest it to the rising romance writers of England. I offer
it, as totally new, to the worn-out dramatists of France.
Lady Glyde was at the station. There was great crowding
and confusion, and more delay than I liked (in case any of her friends had
happened to be at the station), in reclaiming her luggage. Her first
questions, as we drove off, implored me to tell her news of her sister. I
invented news of the most pacifying kind; assuring her that she was about to
see her sister at my house. My house, on this occasion only, was in the
neighbourhood of Leicester-square, and was in the occupation of Monsieur
Rubelle, who received us in the hall.
I took my visitor up-stairs into a back room; the two
medical gentlemen being there in waiting on the floor beneath, to see the
patient, and to give me their certificates. After quieting Lady Glyde by the
necessary assurances about her sister, I introduced my friends, separately,
to her presence. They performed the formalities of the occasion, briefly,
intelligently, conscientiously. I entered the room again, as soon as they
had left it; and at once precipitated events by a reference, of the alarming
kind, to “Miss Halcombe’s” state of health.
Results followed as I had anticipated. Lady Glyde
became frightened, and turned faint. For the second time, and the last, I
called Science to my assistance. A medicated glass of water, and a medicated
bottle of smelling-salts, relieved her of all further embarrassment and
alarm. Additional applications, later in the evening, procured her the
inestimable blessing of a good night’s rest. Madame Rubelle arrived in time
to preside at Lady Glyde’s toilet. Her own clothes were taken away from her
at night, and Anne Catherick’s were put on her in the morning, with the
strictest regard to propriety, by the matronly hands of the good Rubelle.
Throughout the day, I kept our patient in a state of partially-suspended
consciousness, until the dexterous assistance of my medical friends enabled
me to procure the necessary order, rather earlier than I had ventured to
hope. That evening (the evening of the 30th) Madame Rubelle and I took our
revived “Anne Catherick” to the Asylum. She was received, with great
surprise—but without suspicion; thanks to the order and certificates, to
Percival’s letter, to the likeness, to the clothes, and to the patient’s own
confused mental condition at the time. I returned at once to assist Madame
Fosco in the preparations for the burial of the false “Lady Glyde,” having
the clothes of the true “Lady Glyde” in my possession. They were afterwards
sent to Cumberland by the conveyance which was used for the funeral. I
attended the funeral, with becoming dignity, attired in the deepest
mourning.
————
My narrative of these remarkable events, written under
equally remarkable circumstances, closes here. The minor precautions which I
observed, in communicating with Limmeridge House, are already known—so is
the magnificent success of my enterprise—so are the solid pecuniary results
which followed it. I have to assert, with the whole force of my conviction,
that the one weak place in my scheme, would never have been found out, if
the one weak place in my heart had not been discovered first. Nothing but my
fatal admiration for Marian restrained me from stepping in to my own rescue,
when she effected her sister’s escape. I ran the risk, and trusted in the
complete destruction of Lady Glyde’s identity. If either Marian or Mr.
Hartright attempted to assert that identity, they would publicly expose
themselves to the imputation of sustaining a rank deception; they would be
distrusted and discredited accordingly; and they would, therefore, be
powerless to place my interests or Percival’s secret in jeopardy. I
committed one error in trusting myself to such a blindfold calculation of
chances as this. I committed another when Percival had paid the penalty of
his own obstinacy and violence, by granting Lady Glyde a second reprieve
from the madhouse, and allowing Mr. Hartright a second chance of escaping
me. In brief, Fosco, at this serious crisis, was untrue to himself.
Deplorable and uncharacteristic fault! Behold the cause, in my Heart—behold,
in the image of Marian Halcombe, the first and last weakness of Fosco’s
life!
At the ripe age of sixty, I make this unparalleled
confession. Youths! I invoke your sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears.
————
A word more—and the attention of the reader
(concentrated breathlessly on myself) shall be released.
My own mental insight informs me that three inevitable
questions will be asked, here, by persons of inquiring minds. They shall be
stated; they shall be answered.
First question. What is the secret of Madame Fosco’s
unhesitating devotion of herself to the fulfilment of my boldest wishes, to
the furtherance of my deepest plans? I might answer this, by simply
referring to my own character, and by asking, in my turn:—Where, in the
history of the world, has a man of my order ever been found without a woman
in the background, self-immolated on the altar of his life? But, I remember
that I am writing in England; I remember that I was married in England—and I
ask, if a woman’s marriage-obligations, in this country, provide for her
private opinion of her husband’s principles? No! They charge her
unreservedly, to love, honour, and obey him. That is exactly what my wife
has done. I stand, here, on a supreme moral elevation; and I loftily assert
her accurate performance of her conjugal duties. Silence, Calumny! Your
sympathy, Wives of England, for Madame Fosco!
Second question. If Anne Catherick had not died when
she did, what should I have done? I should, in that case, have assisted
worn-out Nature in finding permanent repose. I should have opened the doors
of the Prison of Life, and have extended to the captive (incurably afflicted
in mind and body both) a happy release.
Third question. On a calm revision of all the
circumstances—Is my conduct worthy of any serious blame? Most emphatically,
No! Have I not carefully avoided exposing myself to the odium of committing
unnecessary crime? With my vast resources in chemistry, I might have taken
Lady Glyde’s life. At immense personal sacrifice, I followed the dictates of
my own ingenuity, my own humanity, my own caution—and took her identity,
instead. Judge me by what I might have done. How comparatively innocent! how
indirectly virtuous I appear, in what I really did!
I announced, on beginning it, that this narrative would
be a remarkable document. It has entirely answered my expectations. Receive
these fervid lines—my last legacy to the country I leave for ever. They are
worthy of the occasion, and worthy of
FOSCO.
———————————
PART THE THIRD. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE, CONCLUDED.
I.
When
I closed the last leaf of the Count’s manuscript, the half-hour during which
I had engaged to remain at Forest-road had expired. Monsieur Rubelle looked
at his watch, and bowed. I rose immediately, and left the agent in
possession of the empty house. I never saw him again; I never heard more of
him or of his wife. Out of the dark byways of villany and deceit, they had
crawled across our path—into the same byways they crawled back secretly, and
were lost.
In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest-road, I
was at home again.
But few words sufficed to tell Laura and Marian how my
desperate venture had ended, and what the next event in our lives was likely
to be. I left all details to be described later in the day; and hastened
back to St. John’s Wood, to see the person of whom Count Fosco had ordered
the fly, when he went to meet Laura at the station.
The address in my possession led me to some “livery
stables,” about a quarter of a mile distant from Forest-road. The proprietor
proved to be a civil and respectable man. When I explained that an important
family matter obliged me to ask him to refer to his books, for the purpose
of ascertaining a date with which the record of his business transactions
might supply me, he offered no objection to granting my request. The book
was produced; and there, under the date of “July 29th, 1850,” the order was
entered, in these words:
“Brougham to Count Fosco, 5, Forest-road. Two o’clock.
(John Owen).”
I found, on inquiry, that the name of “John Owen,”
attached to the entry, referred to the man who had been employed to drive
the fly. He was then at work in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me,
at my request.
“Do you remember driving a gentleman, in the month of
July last, from Number Five, Forest-road, to the Waterloo-bridge station?” I
asked.
“Well, sir,” said the man; “I can’t exactly say I do.”
“Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? Can you
call to mind driving a foreigner, last summer—a tall gentleman, and
remarkably fat?”
The man’s face brightened directly. “I remember him,
sir! The fattest gentleman as ever I see—and the heaviest customer as ever I
drove. Yes, yes—I call him to mind, sir. We
did
go to the station, and it was from Forest-road.
There was a parrot, or summut like it, screeching in the window. The
gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady’s luggage; and he give me a
handsome present for looking sharp and getting the boxes.”
Getting the boxes! I recollected immediately that
Laura’s own account of herself, on her arrival in London, described her
luggage as being collected for her by some person whom Count Fosco brought
with him to the station. This was the man.
“Did you see the lady?” I asked. “What did she look
like? Was she young or old?”
“Well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of people
pushing about, I can’t rightly say what the lady looked like. I can’t call
nothing to mind about her that I know of—excepting her name.”
“You remember her name?”
“Yes, sir. Her name was Lady Glyde.”
“How do you come to remember that, when you have
forgotten what she looked like?”
The man smiled, and shifted his feet in some little
embarrassment.
“Why, to tell you the truth, sir,” he said, “I hadn’t
been long married at that time; and my wife’s name, before she changed it
for mine, was the same as the lady’s—meaning the name of Glyde, sir. The
lady mentioned it herself. ‘Is your name on your boxes, ma’am?’ says I.
‘Yes,’ says she, ‘my name is on my luggage—it is Lady Glyde.’ ‘Come!’ I says
to myself, ‘I’ve a bad head for gentlefolks’ names in general—but
this one comes like an old friend,
at any rate.’ I can’t say nothing about the time, sir: it might be nigh on a
year ago, or it mightn’t. But I can swear to the stout gentleman, and swear
to the lady’s name.”
There was no need that he should remember the time; the
date was positively established by his master’s order-book. I felt at once
that the means were at last in my power of striking down the whole
conspiracy at a blow with the irresistible weapon of plain fact. Without a
moment’s hesitation, I took the proprietor of the livery stables aside, and
told him what the real importance was of the evidence of his order-book and
the evidence of his driver. An arrangement to compensate him for the
temporary loss of the man’s services was easily made; and a copy of the
entry in the book was taken by myself, and certified as true by the master’s
own signature. I left the livery stables, having settled that John Owen was
to hold himself at my disposal for the next three days, or for a longer
period, if necessity required it.
I now had in my possession all the papers that I
wanted; the district registrar’s own copy of the certificate of death, and
Sir Percival’s dated letter to the Count, being safe in my pocket-book.
With this written evidence about me, and with the
coachman’s answers fresh in my memory, I next turned my steps, for the first
time since the beginning of all my inquiries, in the direction of Mr.
Kyrle’s office. One of my objects, in paying him this second visit, was,
necessarily, to tell him what I had done. The other, was to warn him of my
resolution to take my wife to Limmeridge the next morning, and to have her
publicly received and recognised in her uncle’s house. I left it to Mr.
Kyrle to decide, under these circumstances, and in Mr. Gilmore’s absence,
whether he was or was not bound, as the family solicitor, to be present, on
that occasion, in the family interests.
I will say nothing of Mr. Kyrle’s amazement, or of the
terms in which he expressed his opinion of my conduct, from the first stage
of the investigation to the last. It is only necessary to mention that he at
once decided on accompanying us to Cumberland.
We started, the next morning, by the early train.
Laura, Marian, Mr. Kyrle, and myself in one carriage; and John Owen, with a
clerk from Mr. Kyrle’s office, occupying places in another. On reaching the
Limmeridge station, we went first to the farm-house at Todd’s Corner. It was
my firm determination that Laura should not enter her uncle’s house till she
appeared there publicly recognised as his niece. I left Marian to settle the
question of accommodation with Mrs. Todd, as soon as the good woman had
recovered from the bewilderment of hearing what our errand was in
Cumberland; and I arranged with her husband that John Owen was to be
committed to the ready hospitality of the farm-servants. These preliminaries
completed, Mr. Kyrle and I set forth together for Limmeridge House.
I cannot write at any length of our interview with Mr.
Fairlie, for I cannot recal it to mind, without feelings of impatience and
contempt, which make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly repulsive
to me. I prefer to record simply that I carried my point. Mr. Fairlie
attempted to treat us on his customary plan. We passed without notice his
polite insolence at the outset of the interview. We heard without sympathy
the protestations with which he tried next to persuade us that the
disclosure of the conspiracy had overwhelmed him. He absolutely whined and
whimpered, at last, like a fretful child. “How was he to know that his niece
was alive, when he was told that she was dead? He would welcome dear Laura,
with pleasure, if we would only allow him time to recover. Did we think he
looked as if he wanted hurrying into his grave? No. Then, why hurry him?” He
reiterated these remonstrances at every available opportunity, until I
checked them once for all, by placing him firmly between two inevitable
alternatives. I gave him his choice between doing his niece justice, on my
terms—or facing the consequences of a public assertion of her identity in a
court of law. Mr. Kyrle, to whom he turned for help, told him plainly that
he must decide the question, then and there. Characteristically choosing the
alternative which promised soonest to release him from all personal anxiety,
he announced, with a sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong
enough to bear any more bullying, and that we might do as we pleased.
Mr. Kyrle and I at once went down stairs, and agreed
upon a form of letter which was to be sent round to the tenants who had
attended the false funeral, summoning them, in Mr. Fairlie’s name, to
assemble in Limmeridge House, on the next day but one. An order, referring
to the same date, was also written, directing a statuary in Carlisle to send
a man to Limmeridge churchyard, for the purpose of erasing an
inscription—Mr. Kyrle, who had arranged to sleep in the house, undertaking
that Mr. Fairlie should hear these letters read to him, and should sign them
with his own hand.
I occupied the interval-day, at the farm, in writing a
plain narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of the
practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion of Laura’s
death. This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle, before I read it, the next day, to the
assembled tenants. We also arranged the form in which the evidence should be
presented at the close of the reading. After these matters were settled, Mr.
Kyrle endeavoured to turn the conversation, next, to Laura’s affairs.
Knowing, and desiring to know, nothing of those affairs; and doubting
whether he would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to
my wife’s life-interest in the legacy left to Madame Fosco, I begged Mr.
Kyrle to excuse me if I abstained from discussing the subject. It was
connected, as I could truly tell him, with those sorrows and troubles of the
past, which we never referred to among ourselves, and which we instinctively
shrank from discussing with others.
My last labour, as the evening approached, was to
obtain “The Narrative of the Tombstone,” by taking a copy of the false
inscription on the grave, before it was erased.
The day came—the day when Laura once more entered the
familiar breakfast-room at Limmeridge House. All the persons assembled rose
from their seats as Marian and I led her in. A perceptible shock of
surprise, an audible murmur of interest, ran through them, at the sight of
her face. Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express stipulation), with Mr.
Kyrle by his side. His valet stood behind him with a smelling-bottle ready
in one hand, and a white handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-Cologne, in the
other.
I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to Mr.
Fairlie to say whether I appeared there with his authority and under his
express sanction. He extended an arm, on either side, to Mr. Kyrle and to
his valet; was by them assisted to stand on his legs; and then expressed
himself in these terms: “Allow me to present Mr. Hartright. I am as great an
invalid as ever; and he is so very obliging as to speak for me. The subject
is dreadfully embarrassing. Please hear him—and don’t make a noise!” With
those words, he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took refuge in
his scented pocket-handkerchief.
My disclosure of the conspiracy followed—after I had
offered my preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the
plainest words. I was there present (I informed my hearers) to declare
first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter of the late Mr.
Philip Fairlie; secondly, to prove, by positive facts, that the funeral
which they had attended in Limmeridge churchyard, was the funeral of another
woman; thirdly, to give them a plain account of how it had all happened.
Without further preface, I at once read the narrative of the conspiracy,
describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the pecuniary motive
for it, in order to avoid complicating my statement by unnecessary reference
to Sir Percival’s secret. This done, I reminded my audience of the date of
“Lady Glyde’s” death, recorded on the inscription in the churchyard (the
28th of July); and confirmed its correctness by producing the doctor’s
certificate. I then read them Sir Percival’s letter announcing his wife’s
intended journey from Hampshire to London on the 29th, and dated from
Blackwater on the 28th—the very day when the certificate asserted her
decease in St. John’s Wood. I next showed that she had actually taken that
journey, by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly; and I proved
that she had performed it on the day appointed in her husband’s letter, by
the evidence of the order-book at the livery stables. Marian, at my request,
next added her own statement of the meeting between Laura and herself at the
madhouse, and of her sister’s escape. After which, I closed the proceedings
by informing the persons present of Sir Percival’s death, and of my
marriage.
Mr. Kyrle rose, when I resumed my seat, and declared,
as the legal adviser of the family, that my case was proved by the plainest
evidence he had ever heard in his life. As he spoke those words, I put my
arm round Laura, and raised her so that she was plainly visible to every one
in the room. “Are you all of the same opinion?” I asked, advancing towards
them a few steps, and pointing to my wife.
The effect of the question was electrical. Far down at
the lower end of the room, one of the oldest tenants on the estate, started
to his feet, and led the rest with him in an instant. I see the man now,
with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair, mounted on the
window-seat, waving his heavy riding-whip frantically over his head, and
leading the cheers. “There she is alive and hearty—God bless her! Gi’ it
tongue, lads! Gi’ it tongue!” The shout that answered him, reiterated again
and again, was the sweetest music I ever heard. The labourers in the village
and the boys from the school, assembled on the lawn, caught up the cheering
and echoed it back on us. The farmers’ wives clustered round Laura, and
struggled which should be first to shake hands with her, and to implore her,
with the tears pouring over their own cheeks, to bear up bravely and not to
cry. She was so completely overwhelmed, that I was obliged to take her from
them, and carry her to the door. There I gave her into Marian’s care—Marian,
who had never failed us yet, whose courageous self-control did not fail us
now. Left by myself at the door, I invited all the persons present (after
thanking them in Laura’s name and mine) to follow me to the churchyard, and
see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own eyes.
They all left the house, and all joined the throng of
villagers collected round the grave, where the statuary’s man was waiting
for us. In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the steel sounded
on the marble. Not a voice was heard; not a soul moved, till those three
words, “Laura, Lady Glyde,” had vanished from sight. Then, there was a great
heave of relief among the crowd, as if they felt that the last fetters of
the conspiracy had been struck off Laura herself—and the assembly slowly
withdrew. It was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased.
One line only was afterwards engraved in its place: “Anne Catherick, July
28th, 1850.”
I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in the
evening to take leave of Mr. Kyrle. He, and his clerk, and the driver of the
fly, went back to London by the night train. On their departure, an insolent
message was delivered to me from Mr. Fairlie—who had been carried from the
room in a shattered condition, when the first outbreak of cheering answered
my appeal to the tenantry. The message conveyed to us “Mr. Fairlie’s best
congratulations,” and requested to know whether “we contemplated stopping in
the house.” I sent back word that the only object for which we had entered
his doors was accomplished; that I contemplated stopping in no man’s house
but my own; and that Mr. Fairlie need not entertain the slightest
apprehension of ever seeing us, or hearing from us again. We went back to
our friends at the farm, to rest that night; and the next morning—escorted
to the station, with the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole
village and by all the farmers in the neighbourhood—we returned to London.
As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the
distance, I thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the
long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. It was strange to
look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of
assistance, had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act
for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have
been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle’s own showing) would have been more
than doubtful; the loss—judging by the plain test of events as they had
really happened—certain. The Law would never have obtained me my interview
with Mrs. Catherick. The Law would never have made Pesca the means of
forcing a confession from the Count.
II.
Two
more events remain to be added to the chain, before it reaches fairly from
the outset of the story to the close.
While our new sense of freedom from the long oppression
of the past was still strange to us, I was sent for by the friend who had
given me my first employment in wood engraving, to receive from him a fresh
testimony of his regard for my welfare. He had been commissioned by his
employers to go to Paris, and to examine for them a French discovery in the
practical application of his Art, the merits of which they were anxious to
ascertain. His own engagements had not allowed him leisure time to undertake
the errand; and he had most kindly suggested that it should be transferred
to me. I could have no hesitation in thankfully accepting the offer; for if
I acquitted myself of my commission as I hoped I should, the result would be
a permanent engagement on the illustrated newspaper, to which I was now only
occasionally attached.
I received my instructions and packed up for the
journey the next day. On leaving Laura once more (under what changed
circumstances!) in her sister’s care, a serious consideration recurred to
me, which had more than once crossed my wife’s mind, as well as my own,
already—I mean the consideration of Marian’s future. Had we any right to let
our selfish affection accept the devotion of all that generous life? Was it
not our duty, our best expression of gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to
think only of her? I tried to say this,
when we were alone for a moment, before I went away. She took my hand, and
silenced me, at the first words.
“After all that we three have suffered together,” she
said, “there can be no parting between us, till the last parting of all. My
heart and my happiness, Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a little till
there are children’s voices at your fireside. I will teach them to speak for
me, in their language; and the
first lesson they say to their father and mother shall be—We can’t spare our
aunt!”
My journey to Paris was not undertaken alone. At the
eleventh hour, Pesca decided that he would accompany me. He had not
recovered his customary cheerfulness, since the night at the Opera; and he
determined to try what a week’s holiday would do to raise his spirits.
I performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew out
the necessary report, on the fourth day from our arrival in Paris. The fifth
day, I arranged to devote to sight-seeing and amusement in Pesca’s company.
Our hotel had been too full to accommodate us both on
the same floor. My room was on the second story, and Pesca’s was above me,
on the third. On the morning of the fifth day, I went up-stairs to see if
the Professor was ready to go out. Just before I reached the landing, I saw
his door opened from the inside; a long, delicate, nervous hand (not my
friend’s hand certainly) held it ajar. At the same time, I heard Pesca’s
voice saying eagerly, in low tones, and in his own language: “I remember the
name, but I don’t know the man. You saw at the Opera, he was so changed that
I could not recognise him. I will forward the report—I can do no more.” “No
more need be done,” answered a second voice. The door opened wide; and the
light-haired man with the scar on his cheek—the man I had seen following
Count Fosco’s cab a week before—came out. He bowed, as I drew aside to let
him pass—his face was fearfully pale—and he held fast by the banisters, as
he descended the stairs.
I pushed open the door, and entered Pesca’s room. He
was crouched up, in the strangest manner, in a corner of the sofa. He seemed
to shrink from himself—to shrink from me, when I approached him.
“Am I disturbing you?” I asked. “I did not know you had
a friend with you till I saw him come out.”
“No friend,” said Pesca eagerly. “I see him to day for
the first time, and the last.”
“I am afraid he has brought you bad news?”
“Horrible news, Walter! Let us go back to London—I
don’t want to stop here—I am sorry I ever came. The misfortunes of my youth
are very hard upon me,” he said, turning his face to the wall; “very hard
upon me, in my later time. I try to forget them—and they will not forget
me! ”
“We can’t return, I am afraid, before the afternoon,” I
replied. “Would you like to come out with me, in the mean time?”
“No, my friend; I will wait here. But let us go back
to-day—pray let us go back.”
I left him, with the assurance that he should leave
Paris that afternoon. We had arranged, the evening before, to ascend the
Cathedral of Notre-Dame, with Victor Hugo’s noble romance for our guide.
There was nothing in the French capital that I was more anxious to see—and I
departed, by myself, for the church.
Approaching Notre-Dame by the river-side, I passed, on
my way, the terrible dead-house of Paris—the Morgue. A great crowd clamoured
and heaved round the door. There was evidently something inside which
excited the popular curiosity, and fed the popular appetite for horror.
I should have walked on to the church, if the
conversation of two men and a woman on the outskirts of the crowd had not
caught my ear. They had just come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue;
and the account they were giving of the dead body to their neighbours,
described it as the corpse of a man—a man of immense size, with a strange
mark on his left arm.
The moment those words reached me, I stopped, and took
my place with the crowd going in. Some dim foreshadowing of the truth had
crossed my mind, when I heard Pesca’s voice through the open door, and when
I saw the stranger’s face as he passed me on the stairs of the hotel. Now,
the truth itself was revealed to me—revealed, in the chance words that had
just reached my ears. Other vengeance than mine had followed that fated man
from the theatre to his own door; from his own door to his refuge in Paris.
Other vengeance than mine had called him to the day of reckoning, and had
exacted from him the penalty of his life. The moment when I had pointed him
out to Pesca, at the theatre, in the hearing of that stranger by our side,
who was looking for him, too—was the moment that sealed his doom. I
remembered the struggle in my own heart, when he and I stood face to
face—the struggle before I could let him escape me—and shuddered as I
recalled it.
Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed in with the crowd,
moving nearer and nearer to the great glass screen that parts the dead from
the living at the Morgue—nearer and nearer, till I was close behind the
front row of spectators, and could look in.
There he lay, unowned, unknown; exposed to the flippant
curiosity of a French mob—there was the dreadful end of that long life of
degraded ability and heartless crime! Hushed in the sublime repose of death,
the broad, firm, massive face and head fronted us so grandly, that the
chattering Frenchwomen about me lifted their hands in admiration, and cried,
in shrill chorus, “Ah, what a handsome man!” The wound that had killed him
had been struck with a knife or dagger exactly over his heart. No other
traces of violence appeared about the body, except on the left arm; and
there, exactly in the place where I had seen the brand on Pesca’s arm, were
two deep cuts in the shape of the letter T, which entirely obliterated the
mark of the Brotherhood. His clothes hung above him, showed that he had been
himself conscious of his danger—they were clothes that had disguised him as
a French artisan. For a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself to
see these things through the glass screen. I can write of them at no greater
length, for I saw no more.
The few facts, in connexion with his death which I
subsequently ascertained (partly from Pesca and partly from other sources),
may be stated here, before the subject is dismissed from these pages.
His body was taken out of the Seine, in the disguise
which I have described; nothing being found on him which revealed his name,
his rank, or his place of abode. The hand that struck him was never traced;
and the circumstances under which he was killed were never discovered. I
leave others to draw their own conclusions, in reference to the secret of
the assassination, as I have drawn mine. When I have intimated that the
foreigner with the scar was a Member of the Brotherhood (admitted in Italy,
after Pesca’s departure from his native country), and when I have further
added that the two cuts, in the form of a T, on the left arm of the dead
man, signified the Italian word “Traditore,” and showed that justice had
been done by the Brotherhood on a Traitor, I have contributed all that I
know towards elucidating the mystery of Count Fosco’s death.
The body was identified, the day after I had seen it,
by means of an anonymous letter addressed to his wife. He was buried, by
Madame Fosco, in the cemetery of Père la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths
continue, to this day, to be hung on the ornamental bronze-railings round
the tomb, by the Countess’s own hand. She lives, in the strictest
retirement, at Versailles. Not long since, she published a Biography of her
deceased husband. The work throws no light whatever on the name that was
really his own, or on the secret history of his life: it is almost entirely
devoted to the praise of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his rare
abilities, and the enumeration of the honours conferred on him. The
circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed; and are summed
up, on the last page, in this sentence:—His life was one long assertion of
the rights of the aristocracy, and the sacred principles of Order—and he
died a Martyr to his cause.”
III.
The
summer and autumn passed, after my return from Paris, and brought no changes
with them which need be noticed here. We lived so simply and quietly, that
the income which I was now steadily earning sufficed for all our wants.
In the February of the new year, our first child was
born—a son. My mother and sister and Mrs. Vesey, were our guests at the
little christening party; and Mrs. Clements was present, to assist my wife,
on the same occasion. Marian was our boy’s godmother; and Pesca and Mr.
Gilmore (the latter acting by proxy) were his godfathers. I may add here,
that, when Mr. Gilmore returned to us, a year later, he assisted the design
of these pages, at my request, by writing the Narrative which appears early
in the story under his name, and which, though the first in order of
precedence, was thus, in order of time, the last that I received.
The only event in our lives which now remains to be
recorded, occurred when our little Walter was six months old.
At that time, I was sent to Ireland, to make sketches
for certain forthcoming illustrations in the newspaper to which I was
attached. I was away for nearly a fortnight, corresponding regularly with my
wife and Marian, except during the last three days of my absence, when my
movements were too uncertain to enable me to receive letters. I performed
the latter part of my journey back, at night; and when I reached home in the
morning, to my utter astonishment, there was no one to receive me. Laura and
Marian and the child had left the house on the day before my return.
A note from my wife, which was given to me by the
servant, only increased my surprise, by informing me that they had gone to
Limmeridge House. Marian had prohibited any attempt at written
explanations—I was entreated to follow them the moment I came back—complete
enlightenment awaited me on my arrival in Cumberland—and I was forbidden to
feel the slightest anxiety, in the mean time. There the note ended.
It was still early enough to catch the morning train. I
reached Limmeridge House the same afternoon.
My wife and Marian were both up-stairs. They had
established themselves (by way of completing my amazement) in the little
room which had once been assigned to me for a studio, when I was employed on
Mr. Fairlie’s drawings. On the very chair which I used to occupy when I was
at work, Marian was sitting now, with the child industriously sucking his
coral upon her lap—while Laura was standing by the well-remembered
drawing-table which I had so often used, with the little album that I had
filled for her, in past times, open under her hand.
“What in the name of heaven has brought you here?” I
asked. “Does Mr. Fairlie know——?”
Marian suspended the question on my lips, by telling me
that Mr Fairlie was dead. He had been struck by paralysis, and had never
rallied after the shock. Mr. Kyrle had informed them of his death, and had
advised them to proceed immediately to Limmeridge House.
Some dim perception of a great change dawned on my
mind. Laura spoke before I had quite realised it. She stole close to me, to
enjoy the surprise which was still expressed in my face.
“My darling Walter,” she said, “must we really account
for our boldness in coming here? I am afraid, love, I can only explain it by
breaking through our rule, and referring to the past.”
“There is not the least necessity for doing anything of
the kind,” said Marian. “We can be just as explicit, and much more
interesting, by referring to the future.” She rose; and held up the child,
kicking and crowing in her arms. “Do you know who this is, Walter?” she
asked, with bright tears of happiness gathering in her eyes.
“Even my
bewilderment has its limits,” I replied. “I think I can still answer for
knowing my own child.”
“Child!” she exclaimed, with all her easy gaiety of old
times. “Do you talk in that familiar manner of one of the landed gentry of
England? Are you aware, when I present this august baby to your notice, in
whose presence you stand? Evidently not! Let me make two eminent personages
known to one another: Mr. Walter Hartright—the
Heir of Limmeridge.”
————
So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have
written all. The pen falters in my hand; the long, happy labour of many
months is over! Marian was the good angel of our lives—let Marian end our
Story.
THE END.
All The Year Round, 25 August 1860, Vol.III, No.70, pp.457-468
Weekly Part 40.
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