The Woman in White
of it, on the side nearest to me, the newly-cut inscription met my
eyes—the hard, clear, cruel black letters which told the story of her
life and death. I tried to read them. I did read as far as the name.
“Sacred to the Memory of Laura——” The kind blue eyes dim with tears—the
fair head drooping wearily—the innocent parting words which implored me
to leave her—oh, for a happier last memory of her than this; the memory
I took away with me, the memory I bring back with me to her grave!
A second time I tried to read the inscription. I saw at the end the
date of her death, and above it——
Above it there were lines on the marble—there was a name among them
which disturbed my thoughts of her. I went round to the other side of
the grave, where there was nothing to read, nothing of earthly vileness
to force its way between her spirit and mine.
I knelt down by the tomb. I laid my hands, I laid my head on the broad
white stone, and closed my weary eyes on the earth around, on the light
above. I let her come back to me. Oh, my love! my love! my heart may
speak to you NOW! It is yesterday again since we parted—yesterday,
since your dear hand lay in mine—yesterday, since my eyes looked their
last on you. My love! my love!
* * * * * * * * * *
Time had flowed on, and silence had fallen like thick night over its
course.
The first sound that came after the heavenly peace rustled faintly like
a passing breath of air over the grass of the burial-ground. I heard it
nearing me slowly, until it came changed to my ear—came like footsteps
moving onward—then stopped.
I looked up.
The sunset was near at hand. The clouds had parted—the slanting light
fell mellow over the hills. The last of the day was cold and clear and
still in the quiet valley of the dead.
Beyond me, in the burial-ground, standing together in the cold
clearness of the lower light, I saw two women. They were looking
towards the tomb, looking towards me.
Two.
They came a little on, and stopped again. Their veils were down, and
hid their faces from me. When they stopped, one of them raised her
veil. In the still evening light I saw the face of Marian Halcombe.
Changed, changed as if years had passed over it! The eyes large and
wild, and looking at me with a strange terror in them. The face worn
and wasted piteously. Pain and fear and grief written on her as with a
brand.
I took one step towards her from the grave. She never moved—she never
spoke. The veiled woman with her cried out faintly. I stopped. The
springs of my life fell low, and the shuddering of an unutterable dread
crept over me from head to foot.
The woman with the veiled face moved away from her companion, and
came towards me slowly. Left by herself, standing by herself, Marian
Halcombe spoke. It was the voice that I remembered—the voice not
changed, like the frightened eyes and the wasted face.
“My dream! my dream!” I heard her say those words softly in the awful
silence. She sank on her knees, and raised her clasped hands to heaven.
“Father! strengthen him. Father! help him in his hour of need.”
The woman came on, slowly and silently came on. I looked at her—at her,
and at none other, from that moment.
The voice that was praying for me faltered and sank low—then rose on a
sudden, and called affrightedly, called despairingly to me to come away.
But the veiled woman had possession of me, body and soul. She stopped
on one side of the grave. We stood face to face with the tombstone
between us. She was close to the inscription on the side of the
pedestal. Her gown touched the black letters.
The voice came nearer, and rose and rose more passionately still. “Hide
your face! don’t look at her! Oh, for God’s sake, spare him——”
The woman lifted her veil.
“Sacred to the Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde——”
Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the inscription, and was looking at
me over the grave.
[The Second Epoch of the Story closes here.]
THE THIRD EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT.
I
I open a new page. I advance my narrative by one week.
The history of the interval which I thus pass over must remain
unrecorded. My heart turns faint, my mind sinks in darkness and
confusion when I think of it. This must not be, if I who write am to
guide, as I ought, you who read. This must not be, if the clue that
leads through the windings of the story is to remain from end to end
untangled in my hands.
A life suddenly changed—its whole purpose created afresh, its hopes and
fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices all turned at
once and for ever into a new direction—this is the prospect which now
opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain’s top. I left
my narrative in the quiet shadow of Limmeridge church—I resume it, one
week later, in the stir and turmoil of a London street.
The street is in a populous and a poor neighbourhood. The ground floor
of one of the houses in it is occupied by a small newsvendor’s shop,
and the first floor and the second are let as furnished lodgings of the
humblest kind.
I have taken those two floors in an assumed name. On the upper floor I
live, with a room to work in, a room to sleep in. On the lower floor,
under the same assumed name, two women live, who are described as my
sisters. I get my bread by drawing and engraving on wood for the cheap
periodicals. My sisters are supposed to help me by taking in a little
needle-work. Our poor place of abode, our humble calling, our assumed
relationship, and our assumed name, are all used alike as a means of
hiding us in the house-forest of London. We are numbered no longer with
the people whose lives are open and known. I am an obscure, unnoticed
man, without patron or friend to help me. Marian Halcombe is nothing
now but my eldest sister, who provides for our household wants by the
toil of her own hands. We two, in the estimation of others, are at once
the dupes and the agents of a daring imposture. We are supposed to be
the accomplices of mad Anne Catherick, who claims the name, the place,
and the living personality of dead Lady Glyde.
That is our situation. That is the changed aspect in which we three
must appear, henceforth, in this narrative, for many and many a page to
come.
In the eye of reason and of law, in the estimation of relatives and
friends, according to every received formality of civilised society,
“Laura, Lady Glyde,” lay buried with her mother in Limmeridge
churchyard. Torn in her own lifetime from the list of the living, the
daughter of Philip Fairlie and the wife of Percival Glyde might still
exist for her sister, might still exist for me, but to all the world
besides she was dead. Dead to her uncle, who had renounced her; dead
to the servants of the house, who had failed to recognise her; dead
to the persons in authority, who had transmitted her fortune to her
husband and her aunt; dead to my mother and my sister, who believed me
to be the dupe of an adventuress and the victim of a fraud; socially,
morally, legally—dead.
And yet alive! Alive in poverty and in hiding. Alive, with the poor
drawing-master to fight her battle, and to win the way back for her to
her place in the world of living beings.
Did no suspicion, excited by my own knowledge of Anne Catherick’s
resemblance to her, cross my mind, when her face was first revealed to
me? Not the shadow of a suspicion, from the moment when she lifted her
veil by the side of the inscription which recorded her death.
Before the sun of that day had set, before the last glimpse of the home
which was closed against her had passed from our view, the farewell
words I spoke, when we parted at Limmeridge House, had been recalled
by both of us—repeated by me, recognised by her. “If ever the time
comes, 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?” She,
who now remembered so little of the trouble and terror of a later
time, remembered those words, and laid her poor head innocently and
trustingly on the bosom of the man who had spoken them. In that moment,
when she called me by my name, when she said, “They have tried to make
me forget everything, Walter; but I remember Marian, and I remember
YOU”—in that moment, I, who had long since given her my love, gave her
my life, and thanked God that it was mine to bestow on her. Yes! the
time had come. From thousands on thousands of miles away—through forest
and wilderness, where companions stronger than I had fallen by my side,
through peril of death thrice renewed, and thrice escaped, the Hand
that leads men on the dark road to the future had led me to meet that
time. Forlorn and disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed—her beauty
faded, her mind clouded—robbed of her station in the world, of her
place among living creatures—the devotion I had promised, the devotion
of my whole heart and soul and strength, might be laid blamelessly now
at those dear feet. In the right of her calamity, in the right of her
friendlessness, she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect, to
cherish, to restore. Mine to love and honour as father and brother
both. Mine to vindicate through all risks and all sacrifices—through
the hopeless struggle against Rank and Power, through the long fight
with armed deceit and fortified Success, through the waste of my
reputation, through the loss of my friends, through the hazard of my
life.
II
My position is defined—my motives are acknowledged. The story of Marian
and the story of Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often interrupted,
often inevitably confused) of the speakers themselves, but in the words
of the brief, plain, studiously simple abstract which I committed to
writing for my own guidance, and for the guidance of my legal adviser.
So the tangled web will be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled.
The story of Marian begins where the narrative of the housekeeper at
Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde’s departure from her husband’s house, the fact of that
departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances under
which it had taken place, were communicated to Miss Halcombe by the
housekeeper. It was not till some days afterwards (how many days
exactly, Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any written memorandum on
the subject, could not undertake to say) that a letter arrived from
Madame Fosco announcing Lady Glyde’s sudden death in Count Fosco’s
house. The letter avoided mentioning dates, and left it to Mrs.
Michelson’s discretion to break the news at once to Miss Halcombe,
or to defer doing so until that lady’s health should be more firmly
established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself delayed, by ill
health, in resuming his attendance at Blackwater Park), Mrs. Michelson,
by the doctor’s advice, and in the doctor’s presence, communicated the
news, either on the day when the letter was received, or on the day
after. It is not necessary to dwell here upon the effect which the
intelligence of Lady Glyde’s sudden death produced on her sister. It
is only useful to the present purpose to say that she was not able to
travel for more than three weeks afterwards. At the end of that time
she proceeded to London accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted
there—Mrs. Michelson previously informing Miss Halcombe of her address,
in case they might wish to communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper Miss Halcombe went at once to the
office of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle to consult with the latter gentleman
in Mr. Gilmore’s absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle what she had