‘Mr. Merriman has just come, Sir Percival, and wishes to see you immediately.’
Sir Percival started, and looked at the man, with an expression of angry alarm.
‘Mr. Merriman?’ he repeated as if he thought his own ears must have deceived him.
‘Yes, Sir Percival: Mr. Merriman, from London.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the library, Sir Percival.’
He left the table the instant the last answer was given; and hurried out of the room without saying a word to any of us.
‘Who is Mr. Merriman?’ asked Laura, appealing to me.
‘I have not the least idea,’ was all I could say in reply.
The Count had finished his fourth tart, and had gone to a side-table to look after his vicious cockatoo. He turned round to us, with the bird perched on his shoulder.
‘Mr. Merriman is Sir Percival’s solicitor,’ he said quietly.
Sir Percival’s solicitor. It was a perfectly straightforward answer to Laura’s question; and yet, under the circumstances, it was not satisfactory. If Mr. Merriman had been specially sent for by his client, there would have been nothing very wonderful in his leaving town to obey the summons. But when a lawyer travels from London to Hampshire, without being sent for, and when his arrival at a gentleman’s house seriously startles the gentleman himself, it may be safely taken for granted that the legal visitor is the bearer of some very important and very unexpected news—news which may be either very good or very bad, but which cannot, in either case, be of the common every-day kind.
Laura and I sat silent at the table, for a quarter of an hour or more, wondering uneasily what had happened, and waiting for the chance of Sir Percival’s speedy return. There were no signs of his return; and we rose to leave the room.
The Count, attentive as usual, advanced from the corner in which he had been feeding his cockatoo, with the bird still perched on his shoulder, and opened the door for us. Laura and Madame Fosco went out first. Just as I was on the point of following them, he made a sign with his hand, and spoke to me, before I passed him, in the oddest manner.
‘Yes,’ he said; quietly answering the unexpressed idea at that moment in my mind, as if I had plainly confided it to him in so many words—‘yes, Miss Halcombe; something has happened.’
I was on the point of answering, ‘I never said so.’ But the vicious cockatoo ruffled his clipped wings, and gave a screech that set all my nerves on edge in an instant, and made me only too glad to get out of the room.
I joined Laura at the foot of the stairs. The thought in her mind was the same as the thought in mine, which Count Fosco had surprised—and, when she spoke, her words were almost the echo of his. She, too, said to me, secretly, that she was afraid something had happened.
III
JUNE 16TH. I HAVE a few lines more to add to this day’s entry before I go to bed to-night.
About two hours after Sir Percival rose from the luncheon-table to receive his solicitor, Mr. Merriman, in the library, I left my room, alone, to take a walk in the plantations. Just as I was at the end of the landing, the library door opened, and the two gentlemen came out. Thinking it best not to disturb them by appearing on the stairs, I resolved to defer going down till they had crossed the hall. Although they spoke to each other in guarded tones, their words were pronounced with sufficient distinctness of utterance to reach my ears.
‘Make your mind easy, Sir Percival,’ I heard the lawyer say. ‘It all rests with Lady Glyde.’
I had turned to go back to my own room, for a minute or two; but the sound of Laura’s name, on the lips of a stranger, stopped me instantly. I dare say it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen—but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the other?
I listened; and, under similar circumstances, I would listen again—yes! with my ear at the keyhole, if I could not possibly manage it in any other way.
‘You quite understand, Sir Percival?’ the lawyer went on. ‘Lady Glyde is to sign her name in the presence of a witness—or of two witnesses, if you wish to be particularly careful—and is then to put her finger on the seal, and say, “I deliver this as my act and deed.” If that is done in a week’s time, the arrangement will be perfectly successful, and the anxiety will be all over. If not—’
‘What do you mean by “if not”?’ asked Sir Percival, angrily. ‘If the thing must be done, it shall be done. I promise you that, Merriman.’
‘Just so, Sir Percival—just so; but there are two alternatives in all transactions; and we lawyers like to look both of them in the face boldly. If through any extraordinary circumstance the arrangement should not be made, I think I may be able to get the parties to accept bills at three months. But how the money is to be raised when the bills fall due—’
‘Damn the bills! The money is only to be got in one way; and in that way, I tell you again, it shall be got. Take a glass of wine, Merriman, before you go.’
‘Much obliged, Sir Percival; I have not a moment to lose if I am to catch the up-train. You will let me know as soon as the arrangement is complete? and you will not forget the caution I recommended—’
‘Of course I won’t. There’s the dog-cartbv at the door for you. My groom will get you to the station in no time. Benjamin, drive like mad! Jump in. If Mr. Merriman misses the train, you lose your place. Hold fast, Merriman, and if you are upset, trust to the devil to save his own.’ With that parting benediction, the baronet turned about, and walked back to the library.
I had not heard much; but the little that had reached my ears was enough to make me feel uneasy. The ‘something’ that ‘had happened’, was but too plainly a serious money-embarrassment; and Sir Percival’s relief from it depended upon Laura. The prospect of seeing her involved in her husband’s secret difficulties filled me with dismay, exaggerated, no doubt, by my ignorance of business and my settled distrust of Sir Percival. Instead of going out, as I proposed, I went back immediately to Laura’s room to tell her what I had heard.
She received my bad news so composedly as to surprise me. She evidently knows more of her husband’s character and her husband’s embarrassments than I have suspected up to this time.
‘I feared as much,’ she said, ‘when I heard of that strange gentleman who called, and declined to leave his name.’
‘Who do you think the gentleman was, then?’ I asked.
‘Some person who has heavy claims on Sir Percival,’ she answered; ‘and who has been the cause of Mr. Merriman’s visit here today.’
‘Do you know anything about those claims?’
‘No; I know no particulars.’
‘You will sign nothing, Laura, without first looking at it?’
‘Certainly not, Marian. Whatever I can harmlessly and honestly do to help him I will do for the sake of making your life and mine, love, as easy and as happy as possible. But I will do nothing, ignorantly, which we might, one day, have reason to feel ashamed of. Let us say no more about it, now. You have got your hat on—suppose we go and dream away the afternoon in the grounds?’
On leaving the house we directed our steps to the nearest shade.
As we passed an open space among the trees in front of the house, there was Count Fosco, slowly walking backwards and forwards on the grass, sunning himself in the full blaze of the hot June afternoon. He had a broad straw hat on, with a violet coloured ribbon round it. A blue blouse, with profuse white fancy-work over the bosom, covered his prodigious body, and was girt about the place where his waist might once have been, with a broad scarlet leather belt. Nankeenbw trousers, displaying more white fancy-work over the ankles, and purple morocco slippers,bx adorned his lower extremities. He was singing Figaro’s famous song in the Barber of Seville,10 with that crisply fluent vocalisation which is never heard from any other than an Italian throat; acc
ompanying himself on the concertina,by which he played with ecstatic throwings-up of his arms, and graceful twistings and turnings of his head, like a fat St. Ceciliabz masquerading in male attire. Figaro qua! Figaro là! Figaro sù! Figaro giù!’ sang the Count, jauntily tossing up the concertina at arm’s length, and bowing to us, on one side of the instrument, with the airy grace and elegance of Figaro himself at twenty years of age.
‘Take my word for it, Laura, that man knows something of Sir Percival’s embarrassments,’ I said, as we returned the Count’s salutation from a safe distance.
‘What makes you think that?’ she asked.
‘How should he have known, otherwise, that Mr. Merriman was Sir Percival’s solicitor?’ I rejoined. ‘Besides, when I followed you out of the luncheon-room, he told me, without a single word of inquiry on my part, that something had happened. Depend upon it, he knows more than we do.’
‘Don’t ask him any questions, if he does. Don’t take him into our confidence!’
‘You seem to dislike him, Laura, in a very determined manner. What has he said or done to justify you?’
‘Nothing, Marian. On the contrary, he was all kindness and attention on our journey home, and he several times checked Sir Percival’s outbreaks of temper, in the most considerate manner towards me. Perhaps, I dislike him because he has so much more power over my husband than I have. Perhaps it hurts my pride to be under any obligations to his interference. All I know is, that I do dislike him.’
The rest of the day and evening passed quietly enough. The Count and I played at chess. For the first two games he politely allowed me to conquer him; and then, when he saw that I had found him out, begged my pardon, and, at the third game, checkmated me in ten minutes. Sir Percival never once referred, all through the evening, to the lawyer’s visit. But either that event, or something else, had produced a singular alteration for the better in him. He was as polite and agreeable to all of us, as he used to be in the days of his probation at Limmeridge; and he was so amazingly attentive and kind to his wife, that even icy Madame Fosco was roused into looking at him with a grave surprise. What does this mean? I think I can guess; I am afraid Laura can guess; and I am sure Count Fosco knows. I caught Sir Percival looking at him for approval more than once in the course of the evening.
June 17th.—A day of events. I most fervently hope I may not have to add, a day of disasters as well.
Sir Percival was as silent at breakfast as he had been the evening before, on the subject of the mysterious ‘arrangement’ (as the lawyer called it), which is hanging over our heads. An hour afterwards, however, he suddenly entered the morning-room, where his wife and I were waiting, with our hats on, for Madame Fosco to join us; and inquired for the Count.
‘We expect to see him here directly,’ I said.
‘The fact is,’ Sir Percival went on, walking nervously about the room, ‘I want Fosco and his wife in the library, for a mere business formality; and I want you there, Laura, for a minute, too.’ He stopped, and appeared to notice, for the first time, that we were in our walking costume. ‘Have you just come in?’ he asked, ‘or were you just going out?’
‘We were all thinking of going to the lake this morning,’ said Laura. ‘But if you have any other arrangement to propose—’
‘No, no,’ he answered, hastily. ‘My arrangement can wait. After lunch will do as well for it, as after breakfast. All going to the lake, eh? A good idea. Let’s have an idle morning; I’ll be one of the party.’
There was no mistaking his manner, even if it had been possible to mistake the uncharacteristic readiness which his words expressed, to submit his own plans and projects to the convenience of others. He was evidently relieved at finding any excuse for delaying the business formality in the library, to which his own words had referred. My heart sank within me, as I drew the inevitable inference.
The Count and his wife joined us, at that moment. The lady had her husband’s embroidered tobacco-pouch, and her store of paper in her hand, for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. The gentleman, dressed, as usual, in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda-cage, with his darling white mice in it, and smiled on them, and on us, with a bland amiability which it was impossible to resist.
‘With your kind permission,’ said the Count, ‘I will take my small family here—my poor-little-harmless-pretty-Mouseys, out for an airing along with us. There are dogs about the house, and shall I leave my forlorn white children at the mercies of the dogs? Ah, never!’
He chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of the pagoda; and we all left the house for the lake.
In the plantation, Sir Percival strayed away from us. It seems to be part of his restless disposition always to separate himself from his companions on these occasions, and always to occupy himself, when he is alone, in cutting new walking-sticks for his own use. The mere act of cutting and lopping, at hazard, appears to please him. He has filled the house with walking-sticks of his own making, not one of which he ever takes up for a second time. When they have been once used, his interest in them is all exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going on, and making more.
At the old boat-house, he joined us again. I will put down the conversation that ensued, when we were all settled in our places, exactly as it passed. It is an important conversation, so far as I am concerned, for it has seriously disposed me to distrust the influence which Count Fosco has exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to resist it, for the future, as resolutely as I can.
The boat-house was large enough to hold us all; but Sir Percival remained outside, trimming the last new stick with his pocket-axe. We three women found plenty of room on the large seat. Laura took her work, and Madame Fosco began her cigarettes. I, as usual, had nothing to do. My hands always were, and always will be, as awkward as a man’s. The Count good-humouredly took a stool many sizes too small for him, and balanced himself on it with his back against the side of the shed, which creaked and groaned under his weight. He put the pagoda-cage on his lap, and let out the mice to crawl over him as usual. They are pretty, innocent-looking little creatures; but the sight of them, creeping about a man’s body is, for some reason, not pleasant to me. It excites a strange, responsive creeping in my own nerves; and suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison, with the crawling creatures of the dungeon preying on them undisturbed.
The morning was windy and cloudy; and the rapid alternations of shadow and sunlight over the waste of the lake, made the view look doubly wild, weird, and gloomy.
‘Some people call that picturesque,’ said Sir Percival, pointing over the wide prospect with his half-finished walking-stick. ‘I call it a blot on a gentleman’s property. In my great-grandfather’s time, the lake flowed to this place. Look at it now! It is not four feet deep anywhere, and it is all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it, and plant it all over. My bailiffca (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea.cb What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn’t it?’
‘My good Percival!’ remonstrated the Count. ‘What is your solid English sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body; and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer’s footsteps. It is, upon the whole, the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on.
‘Humbug!’ said Sir Percival, cutting away fiercely at his stick. ‘You know what I mean. The dreary scenery—the lonely situation. If you choose to understand me, you can—if you don’t choose, I am not going to trouble myself to explain my meaning.’
‘And why not,’ asked the Count, ‘when your meaning can be explained by anybody in two words? If a fool was going to commit a murder, your lake is the first place he would choose for it. If a wise man was going to commit a murder, your lake is the last place he would choose for it. Is that your meaning? If it is, there is your explanation for you, ready made. Take it, Percival, with your good Fosco’s blessing.’
>
Laura looked at the Count, with her dislike for him appearing a little too plainly in her face. He was so busy with his mice that he did not notice her.
‘I am sorry to hear the lake-view connected with anything so horrible as the idea of murder,’ she said. ‘And if Count Fosco must divide murderers into classes, I think he has been very unfortunate in his choice of expressions. To describe them as fools only, seems like treating them with an indulgence to which they have no claim. And to describe them as wise men, sounds to me like a downright contradiction in terms. I have always heard that truly wise men are truly good men, and have a horror of crime.’
‘My dear lady,’ said the Count, ‘those are admirable sentiments; and I have seen them stated at the tops of copy-books.’ He lifted one of the white mice in the palm of his hand, and spoke to it in his whimsical way. ‘My pretty little smooth white rascal,’ he said, ‘here is a moral lesson for you. A truly wise Mouse is a truly good Mouse. Mention that, if you please, to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again as long as you live.’
‘It is easy to turn everything into ridicule,’ said Laura, resolutely; ‘but you will not find it quite so easy, Count Fosco, to give me an instance of a wise man who has been a great criminal.’
The Count shrugged his huge shoulders, and smiled on Laura in the friendliest manner.
‘Most true!’ he said. ‘The fool’s crime is the crime that is found out; and the wise man’s crime is the crime that is not found out. If I could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man. Dear Lady Glyde, your sound English common sense has been too much for me. It is checkmate for me this time, Miss Halcombe—ha?’
‘Stand to your guns, Laura,’ sneered Sir Percival, who had been listening in his place at the door. ‘Tell him, next, that crimes cause their own detection. There’s another bit of copy-book morality for you, Fosco. Crimes cause their own detection. What infernal humbug!’
Woman in White (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 30
