II
MY POSITION IS DEFINED; my motives are acknowledged. The story of Marian and the story of Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often interrupted, often inevitably confused) of the speakers themselves, but in the words of the brief, plain, studiously simple abstract which I committed to writing for my own guidance, and for the guidance of my legal adviser. So the tangled web will be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled.
The story of Marian begins, where the narrative of the housekeeper at Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde’s departure from her husband’s house, the fact of that departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances under which it had taken place, were communicated to Miss Halcombe by the housekeeper. It was not till some days afterwards (how many days exactly, Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any written memorandum on the subject, could not undertake to say) that a letter arrived from Madame Fosco announcing Lady Glyde’s sudden death in Count Fosco’s house. The letter avoided mentioning dates, and left it to Mrs. Michelson’s discretion to break the news at once to Miss Halcombe, or to defer doing so until that lady’s health should be more firmly established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself delayed, by ill health, in resuming his attendance at Blackwater Park), Mrs. Michelson, by the doctor’s advice, and in the doctor’s presence, communicated the news, either on the day when the letter was received, or on the day after. It is not necessary to dwell here upon the effect which the intelligence of Lady Glyde’s sudden death produced on her sister. It is only useful to the present purpose to say that she was not able to travel for more than three weeks afterwards. At the end of that time she proceeded to London, accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted there; Mrs. Michelson previously informing Miss Halcombe of her address, in case they might wish to communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper, Miss Halcombe went at once to the office of Messrs Gilmore and Kyrle, to consult with the latter gentleman, in Mr. Gilmore’s absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle, what she had thought it desirable to conceal from every one else (Mrs. Michelson included)—her suspicion of the circumstances under which Lady Glyde was said to have met her death. Mr. Kyrle, who had previously given friendly proof of his anxiety to serve Miss Halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries as the delicate and dangerous nature of the investigation proposed to him would permit.
To exhaust this part of the subject before going farther, it may be here mentioned that Count Fosco offered every facility to Mr. Kyrle, on that gentleman’s stating that he was sent by Miss Halcombe to collect such particulars as had not yet reached her of Lady Glyde’s decease. Mr. Kyrle was placed in communication with the medical man, Mr. Goodricke, and with the two servants. In the absence of any means of ascertaining the exact date of Lady Glyde’s departure from Blackwater Park, the result of the doctor’s and the servants’ evidence, and of the volunteered statements of Count Fosco and his wife, was conclusive to the mind of Mr. Kyrle. He could only assume that the intensity of Miss Halcombe’s suffering under the loss of her sister, had misled her judgment in a most deplorable manner; and he wrote her word that the shocking suspicion to which she had alluded in his presence, was, in his opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of foundation in truth. Thus the investigation by Mr. Gilmore’s partner began and ended.
Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe had returned to Limmeridge House: and had there collected all the additional information which she was able to obtain.
Mr. Fairlie had received his first intimation of his niece’s death from his sister, Madame Fosco; this letter also not containing any exact reference to dates. He had sanctioned his sister’s proposal that the deceased lady should be laid in her mother’s grave in Limmeridge churchyard. Count Fosco had accompanied the remains to Cumberland, and had attended the funeral at Limmeridge, which took place on the 30th of July. It was followed, as a mark of respect, by all the inhabitants of the village and the neighbourhood. On the next day, the inscription (originally drawn out, it was said, by the aunt of the deceased lady, and submitted for approval to her brother, Mr. Fairlie) was engraved on one side of the monument over the tomb.
On the day of the funeral, and for one day after it, Count Fosco had been received as a guest at Limmeridge House; but no interview had taken place between Mr. Fairlie and himself, by the former gendeman’s desire. They had communicated by writing; and, through this medium, Count Fosco had made Mr. Fairlie acquainted with the details of his niece’s last illness and death. The letter presenting this information added no new facts to the facts already known; but one very remarkable paragraph was contained in the postscript. It referred to Anne Catherick.
The substance of the paragraph in question was as follows:
It first informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick (of whom he might hear full particulars from Miss Halcombe when she reached Limmeridge) had been traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of Blackwater Park, and had been, for the second time, placed under the charge of the medical man from whose custody she had once escaped.
This was the first part of the postscript. The second part warned Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick’s mental malady had been aggravated by her long freedom from control; and that the insane hatred and distrust of Sir Percival Glyde, which had been one of her most marked delusions in former times, still existed, under a newly-acquired form. The unfortunate woman’s last idea in connection with Sir Percival, was the idea of annoying and distressing him, and of elevating herself, as she supposed, in the estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming the character of his deceased wife; the scheme of this personation having evidently occurred to her, after a stolen interview which she had succeeded in obtaining with Lady Glyde, and at which she had observed the extraordinary accidental likeness between the deceased lady and herself. It was to the last degree improbable that she would succeed a second time in escaping from the Asylum; but it was just possible she might find some means of annoying the late Lady Glyde’s relatives with letters; and, in that case, Mr. Fairlie was warned beforehand how to receive them.
The postscript, expressed in these terms, was shown to Miss Halcombe, when she arrived at Limmeridge. There were also placed in her possession the clothes Lady Glyde had worn, and the other effects she had brought with her to her aunt’s house. They had been carefully collected and sent to Cumberland by Madame Fosco.
Such was the posture of affairs when Miss Halcombe reached Limmeridge, in the early part of September.
Shortly afterwards, she was confined to her room by a relapse; her weakened physical energies giving way under the severe mental affliction from which she was now suffering. On getting stronger again, in a month’s time, her suspicion of the circumstances described as attending her sister’s death, still remained unshaken. She had heard nothing, in the interim, of Sir Percival Glyde; but letters had reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband and herself. Instead of answering these letters, Miss Halcombe caused the house in St. John’s Wood, and the proceedings of its inmates, to be privately watched.
Nothing doubtful was discovered. The same result attended the next investigations, which were secretly instituted on the subject of Mrs. Rubelle. She had arrived in London, about six months before, with her husband. They had come from Lyons; and they had taken a house in the neighbourhood of Leicester-square, to be fitted up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were expected to visit England in large numbers to see the Exhibition of 1851.dh Nothing was known against husband or wife, in the neighbourhood. They were quiet people; and they had paid their way honestly up to the present time. The final inquiries related to Sir Percival Glyde. He was settled in Paris; and living there quietly in a small circle of English and French friends.
Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest, Miss Halcombe next determined to visit the Asylum in which she then supposed Anne Catherick to be for the second
time confined. She had felt a strong curiosity about the woman in former days; and she was now doubly interested—first, in ascertaining whether the report of Anne Catherick’s attempted personation of Lady Glyde was true; and, secondly (if it proved to be true), in discovering for herself what the poor creature’s real motives were for attempting the deceit.
Although Count Fosco’s letter to Mr. Fairlie did not mention the address of the Asylum, that important omission cast no difficulties in Miss Halcombe’s way. When Mr. Hartright had met Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, she had informed him of the locality in which the house was situated; and Miss Halcombe had noted down the direction in her diary, with all the other particulars of the interview, exactly as she heard them from Mr. Hartright’s own lips. Accordingly, she looked back at the entry, and extracted the address; furnished herself with the Count’s letter to Mr. Fairlie, as a species of credential which might be useful to her; and started by herself for the Asylum, on the eleventh of October.
She passed the night of the eleventh in London. It had been her intention to sleep at the house inhabited by Lady Glyde’s old governess ; but Mrs. Vesey’s agitation at the sight of her lost pupil’s nearest and dearest friend was so distressing, that Miss Halcombe considerately refrained from remaining in her presence, and removed to a respectable boarding-house in the neighbourhood, recommendedby Mrs. Vesey’s married sister. The next day, she proceeded to the Asylum, which was situated not far from London, on the northern side of the metropolis.
She was immediately admitted to see the proprietor.
At first, he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to let her communicate with his patient. But, on her showing him the postscript to Count Fosco’s letter—on her reminding him that she was the ‘Miss Halcombe’ there referred to; that she was a near relative of the deceased Lady Glyde; and that she was therefore naturally interested, for family reasons, in observing for herself the extent of Anne Catherick’s delusion, in relation to her late sister—the tone and manner of the owner of the Asylum altered, and he withdrew his objections. He probably felt that a continued refusal, under these circumstances, would not only be an act of discourtesy in itself, but would also imply that the proceedings in his establishment were not of a nature to bear investigation by respectable strangers.
Miss Halcombe’s own impression was that the owner of the Asylum had not been received into the confidence of Sir Percival and the Count. His consenting at all to let her visit his patient seemed to afford one proof of this, and his readiness in making admissions which could scarcely have escaped the lips of an accomplice, certainly appeared to furnish another.
For example, in the course of the introductory conversation which took place, he informed Miss Halcombe that Anne Catherick had been brought back to him, with the necessary order and certificates, by Count Fosco, on the twenty-seventh of July; the Count also producing a letter of explanations and instructions, signed by Sir Percival Glyde. On receiving his inmate again, the proprietor of the Asylum acknowledged that he had observed some curious personal changes in her. Such changes, no doubt, were not without precedent in his experience of persons mentally afflicted. Insane people were often, at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly, unlike what they were at another; the change from better to worse, or from worse to better, in the madness, having a necessary tendency to produce alterations of appearance externally. He allowed for these; and he allowed also for the modification in the form of Anne Catherick’s delusion, which was reflected, no doubt, in her manner and expression. But he was still perplexed, at times, by certain differences between his patient before she had escaped, and his patient since she had been brought back. Those differences were too minute to be described. He could not say, of course, that she was absolutely altered in height or shape or complexion, or in the colour of her hair and eyes, or in the general form of her face: the change was something that he felt, more than something that he saw. In short, the case had been a puzzle from the first, and one more perplexity was added to it now.
It cannot be said that this conversation led to the result of even partially preparing Miss Halcombe’s mind for what was to come. But it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her. She was so completely unnerved by it, that some little time elapsed before she could summon composure enough to follow the proprietor of the Asylum to that part of the house in which the inmates were confined.
On inquiry, it turned out that the supposed Anne Catherick was then taking exercise in the grounds attached to the establishment. One of the nurses volunteered to conduct Miss Halcombe to the place; the proprietor of the Asylum remaining in the house for a few minutes to attend to a case which required his services, and then engaging to join his visitor in the grounds.
The nurse led Miss Halcombe to a distant part of the property, which was prettily laid out; and, after looking about her a little, turned into a turf walk,di shaded by a shrubbery on either side. About halfway down this walk, two women were slowly approaching. The nurse pointed to them, and said, ‘There is Anne Catherick, ma’am, with the attendant who waits on her. The attendant will answer any questions you wish to put.’ With those words the nurse left her, to return to the duties of the house.
Miss Halcombe advanced on her side, and the women advanced on theirs. When they were within a dozen paces of each other, one of the women stopped for an instant, looked eagerly at the strange lady, shook off the nurse’s grasp on her, and, the next moment, rushed into Miss Halcombe’s arms. In that moment Miss Halcombe recognised her sister—recognised the dead-alive.
Fortunately for the success of the measures taken subsequently, no one was present, at that moment, but the nurse. She was a young woman; and she was so startled that she was at first quite incapable of interfering. When she was able to do so, her whole services were required by Miss Halcombe, who had for the moment sunk altogether in the effort to keep her own senses under the shock of the discovery. After waiting a few minutes in the fresh air and the cool shade, her natural energy and courage helped her a little, and she became sufficiently mistress of herself to feel the necessity of recalling her presence of mind for her unfortunate sister’s sake.
She obtained permission to speak alone with the patient, on condition that they both remained well within the nurse’s view. There was no time for questions—there was only time for Miss Halcombe to impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of controlling herself, and to assure her of immediate help and rescue if she did so. The prospect of escaping from the Asylum by obedience to her sister’s directions, was sufficient to quiet Lady Glyde, and to make her understand what was required of her. Miss Halcombe next returned to the nurse, placed all the gold she then had in her pocket (three sovereigns) in the nurse’s hands, and asked when and where she could speak to her alone.
The woman was at first surprised and distrustful. But, on Miss Halcombe’s declaring that she only wanted to put some questions which she was too much agitated to ask at that moment, and that she had no intention of misleading the nurse into any dereliction of duty, the woman took the money, and proposed three o’clock on the next day as the time for the interview. She might then slip out for half an hour, after the patients had dined; and she would meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high north wall which screened the grounds of the house. Miss Halcombe had only time to assent, and to whisper to her sister that she should hear from her on the next day, when the proprietor of the Asylum joined them. He noticed his visitor’s agitation, which Miss Halcombe accounted for by saying that her interview with Anne Catherick had a little startled her, at first. She took her leave as soon after as possible—that is to say, as soon as she could summon courage to force herself from the presence of her unfortunate sister.
A very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect returned, convinced her that any attempt to identify Lady Glyde and to rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a delay that might be fatal to her sister’s intellects, which were shaken already by the horror of
the situation to which she had been consigned. By the time Miss Halcombe had got back to London, she had determined to effect Lady Glyde’s escape privately, by means of the nurse.
She went at once to her stockbroker; and sold out of the funds all the little property she possessed, amounting to rather less than seven hundred pounds. Determined, if necessary, to pay the price of her sister’s liberty with every farthing she had in the world, she repaired the next day, having the whole sum about her, in bank-notes, to her appointment outside the Asylum wall.
The nurse was there. Miss Halcombe approached the subject cautiously by many preliminary questions. She discovered, among other particulars, that the nurse who had, in former times, attended on the true Anne Catherick, had been held responsible (although she was not to blame for it) for the patient’s escape, and had lost her place in consequence. The same penalty, it was added, would attach to the person then speaking to her, if the supposed Anne Catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover, the nurse, in this case, had an especial interest in keeping her place. She was engaged to be married; and she and her future husband were waiting till they could save, together, between two and three hundred pounds to start in business. The nurse’s wages were good; and she might succeed, by strict economy, in contributing her small share towards the sum required in two years’ time.
On this hint, Miss Halcombe spoke. She declared that the supposed Anne Catherick was nearly related to her; that she had been placed in the Asylum under a fatal mistake; and that the nurse would be doing a good and a Christian action in being the means of restoring them to one another. Before there was time to start a single objection, Miss Halcombe took four bank-notes of a hundred pounds each from her pocket-book, and offered them to the woman, as a compensation for the risk she was to run, and for the loss of her place.
Woman in White (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 52
