The Woman in White
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. He would find his unexpected inheritance
sadly encumbered, 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
of 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 upstairs. 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
upstairs. As soon as 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
upstairs. 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 upstairs 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