The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  My mistress stared hard in Mr. Goodricke’s face. “Not dead!” says she, whispering, and turning all of a tremble from head to foot.

  “Yes,” says the doctor, very quiet and grave. “Dead. I was afraid it would happen suddenly, when I examined her heart yesterday.” My mistress stepped back from the bedside, while he was speaking, and trembled and trembled again. “Dead!” she whispers to herself; “dead so suddenly! dead so soon! What will the Count say?” Mr. Goodricke advised her to go down stairs, and quiet herself a little. “You have been sitting up all night,” says he; “and your nerves are shaken. This person,” says he, meaning me, “this person will stay in the room, till I can send for the necessary assistance.” My mistress did as he told her. “I must prepare the Count,” she says. “I must carefully prepare the Count.” And so she left us, shaking from head to foot, and went out.

  “Your master is a foreigner,” says Mr. Goodricke, when my mistress had left us. “Does he understand about registering the death?” “I can’t rightly tell, sir,” says I; “but I should think not.” The doctor considered a minute; and then, says he, “I don’t usually do such things,” says he, “but it may save the family trouble in this case, if I register the death myself. I shall pass the district office in half an hour’s time; and I can easily look in. Mention, if you please, that I will do so.” “Yes, sir,” says I, “with thanks, I’m sure, for your kindness in thinking of it.” “You don’t mind staying here, till I can send you the proper person?” says he. “No, sir,” says I; “I’ll stay with the poor lady, till then. I suppose nothing more could be done, sir, than was done?” says I. “No,” says he; “nothing; she must have suffered sadly before ever I saw her: the case was hopeless when I was called in.” “Ah, dear me! we all come to it, sooner or later, don’t we, sir?” says I. He gave no answer to that; he didn’t seem to care about talking. He said, “Good day,” and went out.

  I stopped by the bedside from that time, till the time when Mr. Goodricke sent the person in, as he had promised. She was, by name, Jane Gould. I considered her to be a respectable-looking woman. She made no remark, except to say that she understood what was wanted of her, and that she had winded a many of them in her time.

  How master bore the news, when he first heard it, is more than I can tell; not having been present. When I did see him, he looked awfully overcome by it, to be sure. He sat quiet in a corner, with his fat hands hanging over his thick knees, and his head down, and his eyes looking at nothing. He seemed not so much sorry as scared and dazed like, by what had happened. My mistress managed all that was to be done about the funeral. It must have cost a sight of money: the coffin, in particular, being most beautiful. The dead lady’s husband was away, as we heard, in foreign parts. But my mistress (being her aunt) settled it with her friends in the country (Cumberland, I think) that she should be buried there, in the same grave along with her mother. Everything was done handsomely, in respect of the funeral, I say again; and master went down to attend the burying in the country himself. He looked grand in his deep mourning, with his big solemn face, and his slow walk, and his broad hatband—that he did!

  In conclusion, I have to say, in answer to questions put to me,

  (1) That neither I nor my fellow-servant ever saw my master give Lady Glyde any medicine himself.

  (2) That he was never, to my knowledge and belief, left alone in the room with Lady Glyde.

  (3) That I am not able to say what caused the sudden fright, which my mistress informed me had seized the lady on her first coming into the house. The cause was never explained, either to me or to my fellow-servant.

  The above statement has been read over in my presence. I have nothing to add to it, or to take away from it. I say, on my oath as a Christian woman, This is the truth.

  (Signed) Hester Pinhorn, Her + Mark.

  THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR

  “To The Registrar of the Sub-District in which the undermentioned Death took place.—I hereby certify that I attended Lady Glyde, aged Twenty-one last Birthday; that I last saw her, on the 25th July, 1850; that she died on the same day at No. 5, Forest-road, St. John’s Wood; and that the cause of her death was

  CAUSE OF DEATH

  Aneurism DURATION OF DISEASE

  Not Known

  Signed,

  Alfred Goodricke.

  Prof. Title. M.R.C.S. Eng. L.S.A.

  Address. 12, Croydon Gardens, St. John’s Wood.

  THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD

  I was the person sent in by Mr. Goodricke, to do what was right and needful by the remains of a lady, who had died at the house named in the certificate which precedes this. I found the body in charge of the servant, Hester Pinhorn. I remained with it, and prepared it, at the proper time, for the grave. It was laid in the coffin, in my presence; and I afterwards saw the coffin screwed down, previous to its removal. When that had been done, and not before, I received what was due to me, and left the house. I refer persons who may wish to investigate my character to Mr. Goodricke. He had known me for more than six years; and he will bear witness that I can be trusted to tell the truth.

  (Signed) Jane Gould.

  THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE

  SACRED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  LAURA,

  LADY GLYDE,

  WIFE OF SIR PERCIVAL GLYDE, BART.,

  OF BLACKWATER PARK, HAMPSHIRE;

  AND

  DAUGHTER OF THE LATE PHILIP FAIRLIE, ESQ.,

  OF LIMMERIDGE HOUSE, IN THIS PARISH,

  BORN, MARCH 27TH, 1829

  MARRIED, DECEMBER 22ND, 1849

  DIED, JULY 25TH, 1850.

  THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT, RESUMED

  I

  Early in the summer of 1850, I, and my surviving companions, left the wilds and forests of Central America for home. Arrived at the coast, we took ship there for England. The vessel was wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico; I was among the few saved from the sea. It was my third escape from the peril of death. Death by disease, death by the Indians, death by drowning—all three had approached me; all three had passed me by.

  The survivors of the wreck were rescued by an American vessel, bound for Liverpool. The ship reached her port on the thirteenth day of October, 1850. We landed late in the afternoon; and I arrived in London the same night.

  These pages are not the record of my wanderings and my danger away from home. The motives which led me from my country and my friends to a new world of adventure and peril are known. From that self-imposed exile I came back, as I had hoped, prayed, believed I should come back—a changed man. In the waters of a new life I had tempered my nature afresh. In the stern school of extremity and danger my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to be resolute, my mind to rely on itself. I had gone out to fly from my own future. I came back to face it, as a man should.

  To face it with that inevitable suppression of myself which I knew it would demand from me. I had parted with the worst bitterness of the past, but not with my heart’s remembrance of the sorrow and the tenderness of that memorable time. I had not ceased to feel the one irreparable disappointment of my life—I had only learnt to bear it. Laura Fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship bore me away, and I looked my last at England. Laura Fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship brought me back, and the morning light showed the friendly shore in view.

  My pen traces the old letters as my heart goes back to the old love. I write of her as Laura Fairlie still. It is hard to think of her, it is hard to speak of her, by her husband’s name.

  There are no more words of explanation to add, on my appearing for the second time in these pages. This final narrative, if I have the strength and the courage to write it, may now go on.

  My first anxieties and first hopes, when the morning came, centred in my mother and my sister. I felt the necessity of preparing them for the joy and surprise of my return, after an absence, during which it had been impossible for them to receive any tidings of me for months past. Early in the
morning, I sent a letter to the Hampstead Cottage; and followed it myself, in an hour’s time.

  When the first meeting was over, when our quiet and composure of other days began gradually to return to us, I saw something in my mother’s face which told me that a secret oppression lay heavy on her heart. There was more than love—there was sorrow in the anxious eyes that looked on me so tenderly; there was pity in the kind hand that slowly and fondly strengthened its hold on mine. We had no concealments from each other. She knew how the hope of my life had been wrecked—she knew why I had left her. It was on my lips to ask as composedly as I could, if any letter had come for me from Miss Halcombe—if there was any news of her sister that I might hear. But, when I looked in my mother’s face, I lost courage to put the question even in that guarded form. I could only say, doubtfully and restrainedly,

  “You have something to tell me.”

  My sister, who had been sitting opposite to us, rose suddenly, without a word of explanation—rose, and left the room.

  My mother moved closer to me on the sofa, and put her arms round my neck. Those fond arms trembled; the tears flowed fast over the faithful, loving face.

  “Walter!” she whispered—“my own darling! my heart is heavy for you. Oh, my son! my son! try to remember that I am still left!”

  My head sank on her bosom. She had said all, in saying those words.

  II

  It was the morning of the third day since my return—the morning of the sixteenth of October.

  I had remained with them at the Cottage; I had tried hard not to embitter the happiness of my return, to them, as it was embittered to me. I had done all man could to rise after the shock, and accept my life resignedly—to let my great sorrow come in tenderness to my heart, and not in despair. It was useless and hopeless. No tears soothed my aching eyes; no relief came to me from my sister’s sympathy or my mother’s love.

  On that third morning, I opened my heart to them. At last the words passed my lips which I had longed to speak on the day when my mother told me of her death.

  “Let me go away alone, for a little while,” I said. “I shall bear it better when I have looked once more at the place where I first saw her—when I have knelt and prayed by the grave where they have laid her to rest.”

  I departed on my journey—my journey to the grave of Laura Fairlie.

  It was a quiet autumn afternoon, when I stopped at the solitary station, and set forth alone, on foot, by the well-remembered road. The waning sun was shining faintly through thin white clouds; the air was warm and still; the peacefulness of the lonely country was overshadowed and saddened by the influence of the falling year.

  I reached the moor; I stood again on the brow of the hill; I looked on, along the path—and there were the familiar garden trees in the distance, the clear sweeping semicircle of the drive, the high white walls of Limmeridge House. The chances and changes, the wanderings and dangers of months and months past, all shrank and shrivelled to nothing in my mind. It was like yesterday, since my feet had last trodden the fragrant heathy ground! I thought I should see her coming to meet me, with her little straw hat shading her face, her simple dress fluttering in the air, and her well-filled sketch-book ready in her hand.

  Oh, Death, thou hast thy sting! oh, Grave, thou hast thy victory!

  I turned aside; and there below me, in the glen, was the lonesome grey church; the porch where I had waited for the coming of the woman in white; the hills encircling the quiet burial-ground; the brook bubbling cold over its stony bed. There was the marble cross, fair and white, at the head of the tomb—the tomb that now rose over mother and daughter alike.

  I approached the grave. I crossed once more the low stone stile, and bared my head as I touched the sacred ground. Sacred to gentleness and goodness; sacred to reverence and grief.

  I stopped before the pedestal from which the cross rose. On one side of it, on the side nearest to me, the newly-cut inscription met my eyes—the hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the story of her life and death. I tried to read them. I did read, as far as the name. “Sacred to the Memory of Laura——” The kind blue eyes dim with tears; the fair head drooping wearily; the innocent, parting words which implored me to leave her—oh, for a happier last memory of her than this; the memory I took away with me, the memory I bring back with me to her grave!

  A second time, I tried to read the inscription. I saw, at the end, the date of her death; and, above it——

  Above it, there were lines on the marble, there was a name among them, which disturbed my thoughts of her. I went round to the other side of the grave, where there was nothing to read—nothing of earthly vileness to force its way between her spirit and mine.

  I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid my head, on the broad white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around, on the light above. I let her come back to me. Oh, my love! my love! my heart may speak to you now! It is yesterday again, since we parted—yesterday, since your dear hand lay in mine—yesterday, since my eyes looked their last on you. My love! my love!

  Time had flowed on; and Silence had fallen, like thick night, over its course.

  The first sound that came, after the heavenly peace, rustled faintly, like a passing breath of air, over the grass of the burial-ground. I heard it nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my ear—came like footsteps moving onward—then stopped.

  I looked up.

  The sunset was near at hand. The clouds had parted; the slanting light fell mellow over the hills. The last of the day was cold and clear and still in the quiet valley of the dead.

  Beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing together in the cold clearness of the lower light, I saw two women. They were looking towards the tomb; looking towards me.

  Two.

  They came a little on; and stopped again. Their veils were down, and hid their faces from me. When they stopped, one of them raised her veil. In the still evening light, I saw the face of Marian Halcombe.

  Changed, changed as if years had passed over it! The eyes large and wild, and looking at me with a strange terror in them. The face worn and wasted piteously. Pain and fear and grief written on her as with a brand.

  I took one step towards her from the grave. She never moved—she never spoke. The veiled woman with her cried out faintly. I stopped. The springs of my life fell low; and the shuddering of an unutterable dread crept over me from head to foot.

  The woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and came towards me slowly. Left by herself, standing by herself, Marian Halcombe spoke. It was the voice that I remembered—the voice not changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted face.

  “My dream! my dream!” I heard her say these words softly, in the awful silence. She sank on her knees, and raised her clasped hands to heaven. “Father! strengthen him. Father! help him, in his hour of need.”

  The woman came on; slowly and silently came on. I looked at her—at her, and at none other, from that moment.

  The voice that was praying for me, faltered and sank low—then rose on a sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me to come away.

  But the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. She stopped on one side of the grave. We stood face to face, with the tombstone between us. She was close to the inscription on the side of the pedestal. Her gown touched the black letters.

  The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still. “Hide your face! don’t look at her! Oh, for God’s sake, spare him!——”

  The woman lifted her veil.

  SACRED

  TO THE MEMORY OF

  LAURA,

  LADY GLYDE,

  Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at me over the grave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE

  I

  I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week.

  The history of the interval which
I thus pass over must remain unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and confusion when I think of it. This must not be, if I, who write, am to guide, as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the clue that leads through the windings of the Story is to remain, from end to end, untangled in my hands.

  A life suddenly changed—its whole purpose created afresh; its hopes and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices, all turned at once and for ever into a new direction—this is the prospect which now opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain’s top. I left my narrative in the quiet shadow of Limmeridge church: I resume it, one week later, in the stir and turmoil of a London street.

  The street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood. The ground floor of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small newsvendor’s shop; and the first floor and the second are let as furnished lodgings of the humblest kind.

  I have taken those two floors, in an assumed name. On the upper floor I live, with a room to work in, a room to sleep in. On the lower floor, under the same assumed name, two women live, who are described as my sisters. I get my bread by drawing and engraving on wood for the cheap periodicals. My sisters are supposed to help me by taking in a little needlework. Our poor place of abode, our humble calling, our assumed relationship, and our assumed name, are all used alike as a means of hiding us in the house-forest of London. We are numbered no longer with the people whose lives are open and known. I am an obscure, unnoticed man, without patron or friend to help me. Marian Halcombe is nothing now, but my eldest sister, who provides for our household wants by the toil of her own hands. We two are at once the dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. We are the accomplices of mad Anne Catherick, who claims the name, the place, and the living personality of dead Lady Glyde.

  That is our situation. That is the changed aspect in which we three must appear, henceforth, in this narrative, for many and many a page to come.