The Woman in White
back at me—and the poor worldly cautions and objections that rose to
my lips dwindled and died away in their own emptiness. I hung my head
in silence. In her place the despicably small pride which makes so
many women deceitful would have been my pride, and would have made me
deceitful too.
“Don’t be angry with me, Marian,” she said, mistaking my silence.
I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of
crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought—they
come almost like men’s tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces,
and that frighten every one about me.
“I have thought of this, love, for many days,” she went on, twining
and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers,
which poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure
her of—“I have thought of it very seriously, and I can be sure of my
courage when my own conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to him
to-morrow—in your presence, Marian. I will say nothing that is wrong,
nothing that you or I need be ashamed of—but, oh, it will ease my heart
so to end this miserable concealment! Only let me know and feel that I
have no deception to answer for on my side, and then, when he has heard
what I have to say, let him act towards me as he will.”
She sighed, and put her head back in its old position on my bosom.
Sad misgivings about what the end would be weighed upon my mind, but
still distrusting myself, I told her that I would do as she wished. She
thanked me, and we passed gradually into talking of other things.
At dinner she joined us again, and was more easy and more herself with
Sir Percival than I have seen her yet. In the evening she went to the
piano, choosing new music of the dexterous, tuneless, florid kind.
The lovely old melodies of Mozart, which poor Hartright was so fond
of, she has never played since he left. The book is no longer in the
music-stand. She took the volume away herself, so that nobody might
find it out and ask her to play from it.
I had no opportunity of discovering whether her purpose of the morning
had changed or not, until she wished Sir Percival good-night—and
then her own words informed me that it was unaltered. She said, very
quietly, that she wished to speak to him after breakfast, and that he
would find her in her sitting-room with me. He changed colour at those
words, and I felt his hand trembling a little when it came to my turn
to take it. The event of the next morning would decide his future life,
and he evidently knew it.
I went in, as usual, through the door between our two bedrooms, to bid
Laura good-night before she went to sleep. In stooping over her to kiss
her I saw the little book of Hartright’s drawings half hidden under her
pillow, just in the place where she used to hide her favourite toys
when she was a child. I could not find it in my heart to say anything,
but I pointed to the book and shook my head. She reached both hands up
to my cheeks, and drew my face down to hers till our lips met.
“Leave it there to-night,” she whispered; “to-morrow may be cruel, and
may make me say good-bye to it for ever.”
9th.—The first event of the morning was not of a kind to raise my
spirits—a letter arrived for me from poor Walter Hartright. It is the
answer to mine describing the manner in which Sir Percival cleared
himself of the suspicions raised by Anne Catherick’s letter. He writes
shortly and bitterly about Sir Percival’s explanations, only saying
that he has no right to offer an opinion on the conduct of those who
are above him. This is sad, but his occasional references to himself
grieve me still more. He says that the effort to return to his old
habits and pursuits grows harder instead of easier to him every day
and he implores me, if I have any interest, to exert it to get him
employment that will necessitate his absence from England, and take him
among new scenes and new people. I have been made all the readier to
comply with this request by a passage at the end of his letter, which
has almost alarmed me.
After mentioning that he has neither seen nor heard anything of Anne
Catherick, he suddenly breaks off, and hints in the most abrupt,
mysterious manner, that he has been perpetually watched and followed by
strange men ever since he returned to London. He acknowledges that he
cannot prove this extraordinary suspicion by fixing on any particular
persons, but he declares that the suspicion itself is present to him
night and day. This has frightened me, because it looks as if his one
fixed idea about Laura was becoming too much for his mind. I will write
immediately to some of my mother’s influential old friends in London,
and press his claims on their notice. Change of scene and change of
occupation may really be the salvation of him at this crisis in his
life.
Greatly to my relief, Sir Percival sent an apology for not joining us
at breakfast. He had taken an early cup of coffee in his own room, and
he was still engaged there in writing letters. At eleven o’clock, if
that hour was convenient, he would do himself the honour of waiting on
Miss Fairlie and Miss Halcombe.
My eyes were on Laura’s face while the message was being delivered.
I had found her unaccountably quiet and composed on going into her
room in the morning, and so she remained all through breakfast. Even
when we were sitting together on the sofa in her room, waiting for Sir
Percival, she still preserved her self-control.
“Don’t be afraid of me, Marian,” was all she said; “I may forget myself
with an old friend like Mr. Gilmore, or with a dear sister like you,
but I will not forget myself with Sir Percival Glyde.”
I looked at her, and listened to her in silent surprise. Through all
the years of our close intimacy this passive force in her character had
been hidden from me—hidden even from herself, till love found it, and
suffering called it forth.
As the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven Sir Percival knocked at
the door and came in. There was suppressed anxiety and agitation in
every line of his face. The dry, sharp cough, which teases him at most
times, seemed to be troubling him more incessantly than ever. He sat
down opposite to us at the table, and Laura remained by me. I looked
attentively at them both, and he was the palest of the two.
He said a few unimportant words, with a visible effort to preserve his
customary ease of manner. But his voice was not to be steadied, and the
restless uneasiness in his eyes was not to be concealed. He must have
felt this himself, for he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and gave
up even the attempt to hide his embarrassment any longer.
There was just one moment of dead silence before Laura addressed him.
“I wish to speak to you, Sir Percival,” she said, “on a subject that
is very important to us both. My sister is here, because her presence
helps me and gives me confidence. She has not suggested one word of
what I am going to say—I speak from my own thoughts, not from hers.
I am sure you will be kind enough to understand that before I go any
farther?”
Sir Percival bowed. She had proceeded thus far, with perfect outward
tranquillity and perfect propriety of manner. She looked at him, and
he looked at her. They seemed, at the outset, at least, resolved to
understand one another plainly.
“I have heard from Marian,” she went on, “that I have only to claim my
release from our engagement to obtain that release from you. It was
forbearing and generous on your part, Sir Percival, to send me such a
message. It is only doing you justice to say that I am grateful for the
offer, and I hope and believe that it is only doing myself justice to
tell you that I decline to accept it.”
His attentive face relaxed a little. But I saw one of his feet, softly,
quietly, incessantly beating on the carpet under the table, and I felt
that he was secretly as anxious as ever.
“I have not forgotten,” she said, “that you asked my father’s
permission before you honoured me with a proposal of marriage. Perhaps
you have not forgotten either what I said when I consented to our
engagement? I ventured to tell you that my father’s influence and
advice had mainly decided me to give you my promise. I was guided by my
father, because I had always found him the truest of all advisers, the
best and fondest of all protectors and friends. I have lost him now—I
have only his memory to love, but my faith in that dear dead friend
has never been shaken. I believe at this moment, as truly as I ever
believed, that he knew what was best, and that his hopes and wishes
ought to be my hopes and wishes too.”
Her voice trembled for the first time. Her restless fingers stole their
way into my lap, and held fast by one of my hands. There was another
moment of silence, and then Sir Percival spoke.
“May I ask,” he said, “if I have ever proved myself unworthy of the
trust which it has been hitherto my greatest honour and greatest
happiness to possess?”
“I have found nothing in your conduct to blame,” she answered. “You
have always treated me with the same delicacy and the same forbearance.
You have deserved my trust, and, what is of far more importance in my
estimation, you have deserved my father’s trust, out of which mine
grew. You have given me no excuse, even if I had wanted to find one,
for asking to be released from my pledge. What I have said so far has
been spoken with the wish to acknowledge my whole obligation to you.
My regard for that obligation, my regard for my father’s memory, and
my regard for my own promise, all forbid me to set the example, on my
side, of withdrawing from our present position. The breaking of our
engagement must be entirely your wish and your act, Sir Percival—not
mine.”
The uneasy beating of his foot suddenly stopped, and he leaned forward
eagerly across the table.
“My act?” he said. “What reason can there be on my side for
withdrawing?”
I heard her breath quickening—I felt her hand growing cold. In spite
of what she had said to me when we were alone, I began to be afraid of
her. I was wrong.
“A reason that it is very hard to tell you,” she answered. “There is a
change in me, Sir Percival—a change which is serious enough to justify
you, to yourself and to me, in breaking off our engagement.”
His face turned so pale again that even his lips lost their colour.
He raised the arm which lay on the table, turned a little away in his
chair, and supported his head on his hand, so that his profile only was
presented to us.
“What change?” he asked. The tone in which he put the question jarred
on me—there was something painfully suppressed in it.
She sighed heavily, and leaned towards me a little, so as to rest her
shoulder against mine. I felt her trembling, and tried to spare her by
speaking myself. She stopped me by a warning pressure of her hand, and
then addressed Sir Percival one more, but this time without looking at
him.
“I have heard,” she said, “and I believe it, that the fondest and
truest of all affections is the affection which a woman ought to bear
to her husband. When our engagement began that affection was mine to
give, if I could, and yours to win, if you could. Will you pardon me,
and spare me, Sir Percival, if I acknowledge that it is not so any
longer?”
A few tears gathered in her eyes, and dropped over her cheeks slowly as
she paused and waited for his answer. He did not utter a word. At the
beginning of her reply he had moved the hand on which his head rested,
so that it hid his face. I saw nothing but the upper part of his figure
at the table. Not a muscle of him moved. The fingers of the hand which
supported his head were dented deep in his hair. They might have
expressed hidden anger or hidden grief—it was hard to say which—there