The Woman in White
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
downstairs, 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.
2. 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 Thursday 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 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.
3. 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 will bear witness that I can be trusted
to tell the truth.
(Signed) JANE GOULD
4. 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.
5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT
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 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 dangers 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 appearance for the
second time in these pages. This 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, doubtingly 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.
* * * * * * * * * *
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