The Woman in White
of which he mentioned, as well as the names and addresses of the two
doctors on whose certificates the patient was admitted), he was ready
to answer any question and to clear up any uncertainty. He had done his
duty to the unhappy young woman, by instructing his solicitor to spare
no expense in tracing her, and in restoring her once more to medical
care, and he was now only anxious to do his duty towards Miss Fairlie
and towards her family, in the same plain, straightforward way.
I was the first to speak in answer to this appeal. My own course was
plain to me. It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute
any human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to
any form. If I had felt professionally called upon to set up a case
against Sir Percival Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I
could have done so beyond all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this
direction—my function was of the purely judicial kind. I was to weigh
the explanation we had just heard, to allow all due force to the high
reputation of the gentleman who offered it, and to decide honestly
whether the probabilities, on Sir Percival’s own showing, were plainly
with him, or plainly against him. My own conviction was that they were
plainly with him, and I accordingly declared that his explanation was,
to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.
Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly, said a few words,
on her side, to the same effect—with a certain hesitation of manner,
however, which the circumstances did not seem to me to warrant. I am
unable to say, positively, whether Sir Percival noticed this or not. My
opinion is that he did, seeing that he pointedly resumed the subject,
although he might now, with all propriety, have allowed it to drop.
“If my plain statement of facts had only been addressed to Mr.
Gilmore,” he said, “I should consider any further reference to this
unhappy matter as unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr. Gilmore, as
a gentleman, to believe me on my word, and when he has done me that
justice, all discussion of the subject between us has come to an end.
But my position with a lady is not the same. I owe to her—what I would
concede to no man alive—a PROOF of the truth of my assertion. You
cannot ask for that proof, Miss Halcombe, and it is therefore my duty
to you, and still more to Miss Fairlie, to offer it. May I beg that
you will write at once to the mother of this unfortunate woman—to Mrs.
Catherick—to ask for her testimony in support of the explanation which
I have just offered to you.”
I saw Miss Halcombe change colour, and look a little uneasy. Sir
Percival’s suggestion, politely as it was expressed, appeared to her,
as it appeared to me, to point very delicately at the hesitation which
her manner had betrayed a moment or two since.
“I hope, Sir Percival, you don’t do me the injustice to suppose that I
distrust you,” she said quickly.
“Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my proposal purely as an act of
attention to YOU. Will you excuse my obstinacy if I still venture to
press it?”
He walked to the writing-table as he spoke, drew a chair to it, and
opened the paper case.
“Let me beg you to write the note,” he said, “as a favour to ME. It
need not occupy you more than a few minutes. You have only to ask Mrs.
Catherick two questions. First, if her daughter was placed in the
Asylum with her knowledge and approval. Secondly, if the share I took
in the matter was such as to merit the expression of her gratitude
towards myself? Mr. Gilmore’s mind is at ease on this unpleasant
subject, and your mind is at ease—pray set my mind at ease also by
writing the note.”
“You oblige me to grant your request, Sir Percival, when I would much
rather refuse it.”
With those words Miss Halcombe rose from her place and went to the
writing-table. Sir Percival thanked her, handed her a pen, and then
walked away towards the fireplace. Miss Fairlie’s little Italian
greyhound was lying on the rug. He held out his hand, and called to the
dog good-humouredly.
“Come, Nina,” he said, “we remember each other, don’t we?”
The little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually are,
looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched hand,
whined, shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was scarcely possible
that he could have been put out by such a trifle as a dog’s reception
of him, but I observed, nevertheless, that he walked away towards the
window very suddenly. Perhaps his temper is irritable at times. If so,
I can sympathise with him. My temper is irritable at times too.
Miss Halcombe was not long in writing the note. When it was done she
rose from the writing-table, and handed the open sheet of paper to Sir
Percival. He bowed, took it from her, folded it up immediately without
looking at the contents, sealed it, wrote the address, and handed it
back to her in silence. I never saw anything more gracefully and more
becomingly done in my life.
“You insist on my posting this letter, Sir Percival?” said Miss
Halcombe.
“I beg you will post it,” he answered. “And now that it is written and
sealed up, allow me to ask one or two last questions about the unhappy
woman to whom it refers. I have read the communication which Mr.
Gilmore kindly addressed to my solicitor, describing the circumstances
under which the writer of the anonymous letter was identified. But
there are certain points to which that statement does not refer. Did
Anne Catherick see Miss Fairlie?”
“Certainly not,” replied Miss Halcombe.
“Did she see you?”
“No.”
“She saw nobody from the house then, except a certain Mr. Hartright,
who accidentally met with her in the churchyard here?”
“Nobody else.”
“Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge as a drawing-master, I
believe? Is he a member of one of the Water-Colour Societies?”
“I believe he is,” answered Miss Halcombe.
He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking over the last answer, and
then added—
“Did you find out where Anne Catherick was living, when she was in this
neighbourhood?”
“Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd’s Corner.”
“It is a duty we all owe to the poor creature herself to trace her,”
continued Sir Percival. “She may have said something at Todd’s Corner
which may help us to find her. I will go there and make inquiries on
the chance. In the meantime, as I cannot prevail on myself to discuss
this painful subject with Miss Fairlie, may I beg, Miss Halcombe,
that you will kindly undertake to give her the necessary explanation,
deferring it of course until you have received the reply to that note.”
Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his request. He thanked her,
nodded pleasantly, and left us, to go and establish himself in his own
room. As he opened the door the cross-grained greyhound poked out her
sharp muzzle from under the sofa, and barked and snapped at him.
“A good morning’s work, Miss Halcombe,” I said, as soon as we were
alone. “Here is an anxious day well ended already.”
“Yes,” she answered; “no doubt. I am very glad your mind is satisfied.”
“My mind! Surely, with that note in your hand, your mind is at ease
too?”
“Oh yes—how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be,” she
went on, speaking more to herself than to me; “but I almost wish Walter
Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation,
and to hear the proposal to me to write this note.”
I was a little surprised—perhaps a little piqued also—by these last
words.
“Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the
affair of the letter,” I said; “and I readily admit that he conducted
himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But
I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence
could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival’s
statement on your mind or mine.”
“It was only a fancy,” she said absently. “There is no need to discuss
it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I
can desire.”
I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility,
in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it,
I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss
Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have
expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own.
“If any doubts still trouble you,” I said, “why not mention them to me
at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival
Glyde?”
“None whatever.”
“Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?”
“How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of
it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the
testimony of the woman’s mother?”
“None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be
satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir
Percival’s can possibly expect from him.”
“Then we will post the note,” she said, rising to leave the room, “and
dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives.
Don’t attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason
for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately—and
anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us.”
She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke
those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature—a woman
of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her
from her earliest years—I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more
than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach
an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed,
which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman.
I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had
made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my
youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own
unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out
philosophically to walk it off.
II
We all met again at dinner-time.
Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly
recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good
sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning.
The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared,
every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a
word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of
talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at
table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into
the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of
letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her,
under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and
delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred
to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of
his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused
from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never
warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the
respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly
placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered
in vain.
On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking
one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd’s Corner. His
inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he
had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss
Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The