Woman in White (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Wilkie Collins

  ‘Come back as soon as you can. I have been obliged to move. Come to Gower’s Walk, Fulhameh (number five) . I will be on the look-out for you. Don’t be alarmed about us; we are both safe and well. But come back.—MARIAN.’

  The news which those lines contained—news which I instantly associated with some attempted treachery on the part of Count Fosco—fairly overwhelmed me. I stood breathless, with the paper crumpled up in my hand. What had happened? What subtle wickedness had the Count planned and executed in my absence? A night had passed since Marian’s note was written—hours must elapse still, before I could get back to them—some new disaster might have happened already, of which I was ignorant. And here, miles and miles away from them, here I must remain—held, doubly held, at the disposal of the law!

  I hardly know to what forgetfulness of my obligations anxiety and alarm might not have tempted me, but for the quieting influence of my faith in Marian. My absolute reliance on her was the one earthly consideration which helped me to restrain myself, and gave me courage to wait. The Inquest was the first of the impediments in the way of my freedom of action. I attended it at the appointed time; the legal formalities requiring my presence in the room, but, as it turned out, not calling on me to repeat my evidence. This useless delay was a hard trial, although I did my best to quiet my impatience by following the course of the proceedings as closely as I could.

  The London solicitor of the deceased (Mr. Merriman) was among the persons present. But he was quite unable to assist the objects of the inquiry. He could only say that he was inexpressibly shocked and astonished, and that he could throw no light whatever on the mysterious circumstances of the case. At intervals during the adjourned investigation, he suggested questions, which the Coroner put, but which led to no results. After a patient inquiry, which lasted nearly three hours, and which exhausted every available source of information, the jury pronounced the customary verdict in cases of sudden death by accident. They added to the formal decision a statement that there had been no evidence to show how the keys had been abstracted, how the fire had been caused, or what the purpose was for which the deceased had entered the vestry. This act closed the proceedings. The legal representative of the dead man was left to provide for the necessities of the interment; and the witnesses were free to retire.

  Resolved not to lose a minute in getting to Knowlesbury, I paid my bill at the hotel, and hired a fly to take me to the town. A gentleman who heard me give the order, and who saw that I was going alone, informed me that he lived in the neighbourhood of Knowlesbury, and asked if I would have any objection to his getting home by sharing the fly with me. I accepted his proposal as a matter of course.

  Our conversation during the drive was naturally occupied by the one absorbing subject of local interest.

  My new acquaintance had some knowledge of the late Sir Percival’s solicitor; and he and Mr. Merriman had been discussing the state of the deceased gentleman’s affairs and the succession to the property. Sir Percival’s embarrassments were so well known all over the county that his solicitor could only make a virtue of necessity and plainly acknowledge them. He had died without leaving a will, and he had no personal property to bequeath, even if he had made one; the whole fortune which he had derived from his wife having been swallowed up by his creditors. The heir to the estate (Sir Percival having left no issue) was a son of Sir Felix Glyde’s first cousin—an officer in command of an East Indiaman.ei He would find his unexpected inheritance sadly encumbered;ej but the property would recover with time, and, if ‘the captain’ was careful, he might be a rich man yet, before he died.

  Absorbed as I was in the one idea of getting to London, this information (which events proved to be perfectly correct) had an interest of its own to attract my attention. I thought it justified me in keeping secret my discovery of Sir Percival’s fraud. The heir whose rights he had usurped was the heir who would now have the estate. The income from it, for the last three-and-twenty years, which should properly have been his, and which the dead man had squandered to the last farthing, was gone beyond recall. If I spoke, my speaking would confer advantage on no one. If I kept the secret, my silence concealed the character of the man who had cheated Laura into marrying him. For her sake, I wished to conceal it—for her sake, still, I tell this story under feigned names.

  I parted with my chance companion at Knowlesbury; and went at once to the town-hall. As I had anticipated, no one was present to prosecute the case against me—the necessary formalities were observed—and I was discharged. On leaving the court, a letter from Mr. Dawson was put into my hand. It informed me that he was absent on professional duty, and it reiterated the offer I had already received from him of any assistance which I might require at his hands. I wrote back, warmly acknowledging my obligations to his kindness, and apologising for not expressing my thanks personally, in consequence of my immediate recall, on pressing business, to town.

  Half an hour later I was speeding back to London by the express train.

  II

  IT WAS BETWEEN NINE and ten o’clock before I reached Fulham, and found my way to Gower’s Walk.

  Both Laura and Marian came to the door to let me in. I think we had hardly known how close the tie was which bound us three together, until the evening came which united us again. We met as if we had been parted for months, instead of for a few days only. Marian’s face was sadly worn and anxious. I saw who had known all the danger, and borne all the trouble, in my absence, the moment I looked at her. Laura’s brighter looks and better spirits told me how carefully she had been spared all knowledge of the dreadful death at Welmingham, and of the true reason for our change of abode.

  The stir of the removal seemed to have cheered and interested her. She only spoke of it as a happy thought of Marian’s to surprise me, on my return, with a change from the close, noisy street, to the pleasant neighbourhood of trees and fields and the river. She was full of projects for the future—of the drawings she was to finish; of the purchasers I had found in the country, who were to buy them; of the shillings and sixpences she had saved, till her purse was so heavy that she proudly asked me to weigh it in my own hand. The change for the better which had been wrought in her, during the few days of my absence, was a surprise to me for which I was quite unprepared—and for all the unspeakable happiness of seeing it, I was indebted to Marian’s courage and to Marian’s love.

  When Laura had left us, and when we could speak to one another without restraint, I tried to give some expression to the gratitude and the admiration which filled my heart. But the generous creature would not wait to hear me. That sublime self-forgetfulness of women, which yields so much and asks so little, turned all her thoughts from herself to me.

  ‘I had only a moment left before post-time,’ she said, ‘or I should have written less abruptly You look worn and weary, Walter—I am afraid my letter must have seriously alarmed you?’

  ‘Only at first,’ I replied. ‘My mind was quieted, Marian, by my trust in you. Was I right in attributing this sudden change of place to some threatened annoyance on the part of Count Fosco?’

  ‘Perfectly right,’ she said. ‘I saw him yesterday; and, worse than that, Walter—I spoke to him.’

  ‘Spoke to him? Did he know where we lived? Did he come to the house?’

  ‘He did. To the house—but not up-stairs. Laura never saw him; Laura suspects nothing. I will tell you how it happened: the danger, I believe and hope, is over now. Yesterday, I was in the sitting-room, at our old lodgings. Laura was drawing at the table; and I was walking about and setting things to rights. I passed the window, and, as I passed it, looked out into the street. There, on the opposite side of the way, I saw the Count, with a man talking to him—’

  ‘Did he notice you at the window?’

  ‘No—at least, I thought not. I was too violently startled to be quite sure.’

  ‘Who was the other man? A stranger?’

  ‘Not a stranger, Walter. As soon as I could draw my breath
again, I recognised him. He was the owner of the Lunatic Asylum.’

  ‘Was the Count pointing out the house to him?’

  ‘No; they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in the street. I remained at the window looking at them from behind the curtain. If I had turned round, and if Laura had seen my face at that moment—Thank God, she was absorbed over her drawing! They soon parted. The man from the Asylum went one way, and the Count the other. I began to hope they were in the street by chance, till I saw the Count come back, stop opposite to us again, take out his card-case and pencil, write something, and then cross the road to the shop below us. I ran past Laura before she could see me, and said I had forgotten something up-stairs. As soon I was out of the room, I went down to the first landing, and waited—I was determined to stop him if he tried to come up-stairs. He made no such attempt. The girl from the shop came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand—a large gilt card, with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath in pencil: “Dear lady” (yes! the villain could address me in that way still)—“dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter serious to us both.” If one can think at all, in serious difficulties, one thinks quick. I felt directly that it might be a fatal mistake to leave myself and to leave you in the dark, where such a man as the Count was concerned. I felt that the doubt of what he might do, in your absence, would be ten times more trying to me if I declined to see him than if I consented. “Ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,” I said. “I will be with him in a moment.” I ran up-stairs for my bonnet, being determined not to let him speak to me indoors. I knew his deep ringing voice; and I was afraid Laura might hear it, even in the shop. In less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop. There he was, in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me the moment I set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish, and spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a day since.’

  ‘You remember what he said?’

  ‘I can’t repeat it, Walter. You shall know directly what he said about you—but I can’t repeat what he said to me. It was worse than the polite insolence of his letter. My hands tingled to strike him, as if I had been a man! I only kept them quiet by tearing his card to pieces under my shawl. Without saying a word on my side, I walked away from the house (for fear of Laura seeing us); and he followed, protesting softly all the way. In the first by-street I turned, and asked him what he wanted with me. He wanted two things. First, if I had no objection, to express his sentiments. I declined to hear them. Secondly, to repeat the warning in his letter. I asked, what occasion there was for repeating it. He bowed and smiled, and said he would explain. The explanation exactly confirmed the fears I expressed before you left us. I told you, if you remember, that Sir Percival would be too headstrong to take his friend’s advice where you were concerned; and that there was no danger to be dreaded from the Count till his own interests were threatened, and he was roused into acting for himself?’

  ‘I recollect, Marian.’

  ‘Well; so it has really turned out. The Count offered his advice; but it was refused. Sir Percival would only take counsel of his own violence, his own obstinacy, and his own hatred of you. The Count let him have his way; first privately ascertaining, in case of his own interests being threatened next, where we lived. You were followed, Walter, on returning here, after your first journey to Hampshire—by the lawyer’s men for some distance from the railway, and by the Count himself to the door of the house. How he contrived to escape being seen by you, he did not tell me; but he found us out on that occasion, and in that way Having made the discovery, he took no advantage of it till the news reached him of Sir Percival’s death—and then, as I told you, he acted for himself, because he believed you would next proceed against the dead man’s partner in the conspiracy. He at once made his arrangements to meet the owner of the Asylum in London, and to take him to the place where his runaway patient was hidden; believing that the results, whichever way they ended, would be to involve you in interminable legal disputes and difficulties, and to tie your hands for all purposes of offence, so far as he was concerned. That was his purpose, on his own confession to me. The only consideration which made him hesitate, at the last moment—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It is hard to acknowledge it, Walter—and yet I must. I was the only consideration. No words can say how degraded I feel in my own estimation when I think of it—but the one weak point in that man’s iron character is the horrible admiration he feels for me. I have tried, for the sake of my own self-respect, to disbelieve it as long as I could; but his looks, his actions, force on me the shameful conviction of the truth. The eyes of that monster of wickedness moistened while he was speaking to me—they did, Walter! He declared, that at the moment of pointing out the house to the doctor, he thought of my misery if I was separated from Laura, of my responsibility if I was called on to answer for effecting her escape—and he risked the worst that you could do to him, the second time, for my sake. All he asked was that I would remember the sacrifice, and restrain your rashness, in my own interests—interests which he might never be able to consult again. I made no such bargain with him; I would have died first. But believe him, or not—whether it is true or false that he sent the doctor away with an excuse—one thing is certain, I saw the man leave him, without so much as a glance at our window, or even at our side of the way.’

  ‘I believe it, Marian. The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil? At the same time, I suspect him of merely attempting to frighten you, by threatening what he cannot really do. I doubt his power of annoying us, by means of the owner of the Asylum, now that Sir Percival is dead, and Mrs. Catherick is free from all control. But let me hear more. What did the Count say of me?’

  ‘He spoke last of you. His eyes brightened and hardened, and his manner changed to what I remember it, in past times—to that mixture of pitiless resolution and mountebank mockery which makes it so impossible to fathom him. “Warn Mr. Hartright!” he said, in his loftiest manner. “He has a man of brains to deal with, a man who snaps his big fingers at the laws and conventions of society, when he measures himself with ME. If my lamented friend had taken my advice, the business of the Inquest would have been with the body of Mr. Hartright. But my lamented friend was obstinate. See! I mourn his loss—inwardly in my soul; outwardly on my hat. This trivial crapeek expresses sensibilities which I summon Mr. Hartright to respect. They may be transformed to immeasurable enmities, if he ventures to disturb them. Let him be content with what he has got—with what I leave unmolested, for your sake, to him and to you. Say to him (with my compliments), if he stirs me, he has Fosco to deal with. In the English of the Popular Tongue, I inform him—Fosco sticks at nothing! Dear lady, good morning.” His cold grey eyes settled on my face—he took off his hat solemnly—bowed, bare-headed—and left me.’

  ‘Without returning? Without saying more last words?’

  ‘He turned at the corner of the street, and waved his hand, and then struck it theatrically on his breast. I lost sight of him, after that. He disappeared in the opposite direction to our house; and I ran back to Laura. Before I was in-doors again, I had made up my mind that we must go. The house (especially in your absence) was a place of danger instead of a place of safety, now that the Count had discovered it. If I could have felt certain of your return, I should have risked waiting till you came back. But I was certain of nothing, and I acted at once on my own impulse. You had spoken, before leaving us, of moving into a quieter neighbourhood and purer air, for the sake of Laura’s health. I had only to remind her of that, and to suggest surprising you and saving you trouble by
managing the move in your absence, to make her quite as anxious for the change as I was. She helped me to pack up your things—and she has arranged them all for you in your new working-room here.’

  ‘What made you think of coming to this place?’

  ‘My ignorance of other localities in the neighbourhood of London. I felt the necessity of getting as far away as possible from our old lodgings; and I knew something of Fulham because I had once been at school there. I despatched a messenger with a note, on the chance that the school might still be in existence. It was in existence; the daughters of my old mistress were carrying it on for her; and they engaged this place from the instructions I had sent. It was just post-time when the messenger returned to me with the address of the house. We moved after dark—we came here quite unobserved. Have I done right, Walter? Have I justified your trust in me?’

  I answered her warmly and gratefully, as I really felt. But the anxious look still remained on her face while I was speaking; and the first question she asked, when I had done, related to Count Fosco.

  I saw that she was thinking of him now with a changed mind. No fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten the day of reckoning, escaped her. Her conviction that the man’s hateful admiration of herself was really sincere, seemed to have increased a hundredfold her distrust of his unfathomable cunning, her inborn dread of the wicked energy and vigilance of all his faculties. Her voice fell low, her manner was hesitating, her eyes searched into mine with an eager fear, when she asked me what I thought of his message, and what I meant to do next, after hearing it.

  ‘Not many weeks have passed, Marian,’ I answered, ‘since my interview with Mr. Kyrle. When he and I parted, the last words I said to him about Laura were these: “Her uncle’s house shall open to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family; and the two men who have wronged her shall answer for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them.” One of those men is beyond mortal reach. The other remains—and my resolution remains.’