The Woman in White
by a few minutes of needful and welcome silence. The servant who had
been despatched to trace Anne Catherick and Mrs. Clements returned with
his report, and was shown into the dining-room immediately.
“Well,” said Mr. Gilmore, “what have you found out?”
“I have found out, sir,” answered the man, “that both the women took
tickets at our station here for Carlisle.”
“You went to Carlisle, of course, when you heard that?”
“I did, sir, but I am sorry to say I could find no further trace of
them.”
“You inquired at the railway?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And at the different inns?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you left the statement I wrote for you at the police station?”
“I did, sir.”
“Well, my friend, you have done all you could, and I have done all I
could, and there the matter must rest till further notice. We have
played our trump cards, Mr. Hartright,” continued the old gentleman
when the servant had withdrawn. “For the present, at least, the women
have outmanoeuvred us, and our only resource now is to wait till Sir
Percival Glyde comes here on Monday next. Won’t you fill your glass
again? Good bottle of port, that—sound, substantial, old wine. I have
got better in my own cellar, though.”
We returned to the drawing-room—the room in which the happiest evenings
of my life had been passed—the room which, after this last night, I was
never to see again. Its aspect was altered since the days had shortened
and the weather had grown cold. The glass doors on the terrace side
were closed, and hidden by thick curtains. Instead of the soft twilight
obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of
lamplight now dazzled my eyes. All was changed—indoors and out all was
changed.
Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together at the card-table—Mrs.
Vesey took her customary chair. There was no restraint on the disposal
of THEIR evening, and I felt the restraint on the disposal of mine all
the more painfully from observing it. I saw Miss Fairlie lingering near
the music-stand. The time had been when I might have joined her there.
I waited irresolutely—I knew neither where to go nor what to do next.
She cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of music suddenly from
the stand, and came towards me of her own accord.
“Shall I play some of those little melodies of Mozart’s which you used
to like so much?” she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking
down at it while she spoke.
Before I could thank her she hastened to the piano. The chair near it,
which I had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty. She struck a
few chords—then glanced round at me—then looked back again at her music.
“Won’t you take your old place?” she said, speaking very abruptly and
in very low tones.
“I may take it on the last night,” I answered.
She did not reply—she kept her attention riveted on the music—music
which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in
former times, without the book. I only knew that she had heard me, I
only knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the
red spot on the cheek that was nearest to me fade out, and the face
grow pale all over.
“I am very sorry you are going,” she said, her voice almost sinking
to a whisper, her eyes looking more and more intently at the music,
her fingers flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish
energy which I had never noticed in her before.
“I shall remember those kind words, Miss Fairlie, long after to-morrow
has come and gone.”
The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned it farther away
from me.
“Don’t speak of to-morrow,” she said. “Let the music speak to us of
to-night, in a happier language than ours.”
Her lips trembled—a faint sigh fluttered from them, which she tried
vainly to suppress. Her fingers wavered on the piano—she struck a false
note, confused herself in trying to set it right, and dropped her
hands angrily on her lap. Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore looked up in
astonishment from the card-table at which they were playing. Even Mrs.
Vesey, dozing in her chair, woke at the sudden cessation of the music,
and inquired what had happened.
“You play at whist, Mr. Hartright?” asked Miss Halcombe, with her eyes
directed significantly at the place I occupied.
I knew what she meant—I knew she was right, and I rose at once to go to
the card-table. As I left the piano Miss Fairlie turned a page of the
music, and touched the keys again with a surer hand.
“I WILL play it,” she said, striking the notes almost passionately. “I
WILL play it on the last night.”
“Come, Mrs. Vesey,” said Miss Halcombe, “Mr. Gilmore and I are tired of
ecarte—come and be Mr. Hartright’s partner at whist.”
The old lawyer smiled satirically. His had been the winning hand, and
he had just turned up a king. He evidently attributed Miss Halcombe’s
abrupt change in the card-table arrangements to a lady’s inability to
play the losing game.
The rest of the evening passed without a word or a look from her. She
kept her place at the piano, and I kept mine at the card-table. She
played unintermittingly—played as if the music was her only refuge
from herself. Sometimes her fingers touched the notes with a lingering
fondness—a soft, plaintive, dying tenderness, unutterably beautiful and
mournful to hear; sometimes they faltered and failed her, or hurried
over the instrument mechanically, as if their task was a burden to
them. But still, change and waver as they might in the expression they
imparted to the music, their resolution to play never faltered. She
only rose from the piano when we all rose to say good night.
Mrs. Vesey was the nearest to the door, and the first to shake hands
with me.
“I shall not see you again, Mr. Hartright,” said the old lady. “I am
truly sorry you are going away. You have been very kind and attentive,
and an old woman like me feels kindness and attention. I wish you
happy, sir—I wish you a kind good-bye.”
Mr. Gilmore came next.
“I hope we shall have a future opportunity of bettering our
acquaintance, Mr. Hartright. You quite understand about that little
matter of business being safe in my hands? Yes, yes, of course. Bless
me, how cold it is! Don’t let me keep you at the door. Bon voyage, my
dear sir—bon voyage, as the French say.”
Miss Halcombe followed.
“Half-past seven to-morrow morning,” she said—then added in a whisper,
“I have heard and seen more than you think. Your conduct to-night has
made me your friend for life.”
Miss Fairlie came last. I could not trust myself to look at her when I
took her hand, and when I thought of the next morning.
“My departure must be a very early one,” I said. “I shall be gone, Miss
Fairlie, before you——”
“No, no,” she interposed hastily, “not before I am out of my room. I
shall be down to breakfast with Marian. I am not so ungrateful, not so
forgetful of the past three months——”
Her voice failed her, her hand closed gently round mine—then dropped it
suddenly. Before I could say “Good-night” she was gone.
The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably, as the light of the
last morning came at Limmeridge House.
It was barely half-past seven when I went downstairs, but I found
them both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. In the chill air, in
the dim light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house, we three
sat down together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The struggle to
preserve appearances was hopeless and useless, and I rose to end it.
As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, who was nearest to me, took
it, Miss Fairlie turned away suddenly and hurried from the room.
“Better so,” said Miss Halcombe, when the door had closed—“better so,
for you and for her.”
I waited a moment before I could speak—it was hard to lose her, without
a parting word or a parting look. I controlled myself—I tried to take
leave of Miss Halcombe in fitting terms; but all the farewell words I
would fain have spoken dwindled to one sentence.
“Have I deserved that you should write to me?” was all I could say.
“You have nobly deserved everything that I can do for you, as long as
we both live. Whatever the end is you shall know it.”
“And if I can ever be of help again, at any future time, long after the
memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten . . .”
I could add no more. My voice faltered, my eyes moistened in spite of
me.
She caught me by both hands—she pressed them with the strong, steady
grasp of a man—her dark eyes glittered—her brown complexion flushed
deep—the force and energy of her face glowed and grew beautiful with
the pure inner light of her generosity and her pity.
“I will trust you—if ever the time comes I will trust you as my friend
and HER friend, as my brother and HER brother.” She stopped, drew
me nearer to her—the fearless, noble creature—touched my forehead,
sister-like, with her lips, and called me by my Christian name. “God
bless you, Walter!” she said. “Wait here alone and compose yourself—I
had better not stay for both our sakes—I had better see you go from the
balcony upstairs.”
She left the room. I turned away towards the window, where nothing
faced me but the lonely autumn landscape—I turned away to master
myself, before I too left the room in my turn, and left it for ever.
A minute passed—it could hardly have been more—when I heard the door
open again softly, and the rustling of a woman’s dress on the carpet
moved towards me. My heart beat violently as I turned round. Miss
Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of the room.
She stopped and hesitated when our eyes met, and when she saw that we
were alone. Then, with that courage which women lose so often in the
small emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer to me,
strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand after her along
the table by which she walked, and holding something at her side in the
other, which was hidden by the folds of her dress.
“I only went into the drawing-room,” she said, “to look for this. It
may remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave behind
you. You told me I had improved very much when I did it, and I thought
you might like——”
She turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch, drawn
throughout by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had first
met. The paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to me—trembled
in mine as I took it from her.
I was afraid to say what I felt—I only answered, “It shall never leave
me—all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize most. I am
very grateful for it—very grateful to you, for not letting me go away
without bidding you good-bye.”
“Oh!” she said innocently, “how could I let you go, after we have
passed so many happy days together!”
“Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie—my way of life and yours
are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the devotion of my
whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment’s happiness,
or spare you a moment’s sorrow, will you try to remember the poor
drawing-master who has taught you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust
me—will you promise too?”
The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her
gathering tears.
“I promise it,” she said in broken tones. “Oh, don’t look at me like
that! I promise it with all my heart.”
I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.
“You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is
the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the
dear object of MY hopes too?”
The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling hand on
the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. I took it in
mine—I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my