The Woman in White
always careful to speak of Laura as “the late Lady Glyde.”
Mrs. Vesey’s answer to my inquiries only confirmed the apprehensions
which I had previously felt. Laura had certainly written to say she
would pass the night under the roof of her old friend—but she had never
been near the house.
Her mind in this instance, and, as I feared, in other instances
besides, confusedly presented to her something which she had only
intended to do in the false light of something which she had really
done. The unconscious contradiction of herself was easy to account
for in this way—but it was likely to lead to serious results. It was
a stumble on the threshold at starting—it was a flaw in the evidence
which told fatally against us.
When I next asked for the letter which Laura had written to Mrs. Vesey
from Blackwater Park, it was given to me without the envelope, which
had been thrown into the wastepaper basket, and long since destroyed.
In the letter itself no date was mentioned—not even the day of the
week. It only contained these lines:—“Dearest Mrs. Vesey, I am in sad
distress and anxiety, and I may come to your house to-morrow night, and
ask for a bed. I can’t tell you what is the matter in this letter—I
write it in such fear of being found out that I can fix my mind on
nothing. Pray be at home to see me. I will give you a thousand kisses,
and tell you everything. Your affectionate Laura.” What help was there
in those lines? None.
On returning from Mrs. Vesey’s, I instructed Marian to write (observing
the same caution which I practised myself) to Mrs. Michelson. She was
to express, if she pleased, some general suspicion of Count Fosco’s
conduct, and she was to ask the housekeeper to supply us with a plain
statement of events, in the interests of truth. While we were waiting
for the answer, which reached us in a week’s time, I went to the doctor
in St. John’s Wood, introducing myself as sent by Miss Halcombe to
collect, if possible, more particulars of her sister’s last illness
than Mr. Kyrle had found the time to procure. By Mr. Goodricke’s
assistance, I obtained a copy of the certificate of death, and an
interview with the woman (Jane Gould) who had been employed to prepare
the body for the grave. Through this person I also discovered a means
of communicating with the servant, Hester Pinhorn. She had recently
left her place in consequence of a disagreement with her mistress,
and she was lodging with some people in the neighbourhood whom Mrs.
Gould knew. In the manner here indicated I obtained the Narratives of
the housekeeper, of the doctor, of Jane Gould, and of Hester Pinhorn,
exactly as they are presented in these pages.
Furnished with such additional evidence as these documents afforded, I
considered myself to be sufficiently prepared for a consultation with
Mr. Kyrle, and Marian wrote accordingly to mention my name to him, and
to specify the day and hour at which I requested to see him on private
business.
There was time enough in the morning for me to take Laura out for
her walk as usual, and to see her quietly settled at her drawing
afterwards. She looked up at me with a new anxiety in her face as I
rose to leave the room, and her fingers began to toy doubtfully, in the
old way, with the brushes and pencils on the table.
“You are not tired of me yet?” she said. “You are not going away
because you are tired of me? I will try to do better—I will try to get
well. Are you as fond of me, Walter, as you used to be, now I am so
pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?”
She spoke as a child might have spoken, she showed me her thoughts as
a child might have shown them. I waited a few minutes longer—waited to
tell her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever been in the
past times. “Try to get well again,” I said, encouraging the new hope
in the future which I saw dawning in her mind, “try to get well again,
for Marian’s sake and for mine.”
“Yes,” she said to herself, returning to her drawing. “I must try,
because they are both so fond of me.” She suddenly looked up again.
“Don’t be gone long! I can’t get on with my drawing, Walter, when you
are not here to help me.”
“I shall soon be back, my darling—soon be back to see how you are
getting on.”
My voice faltered a little in spite of me. I forced myself from the
room. It was no time, then, for parting with the self-control which
might yet serve me in my need before the day was out.
As I opened the door, I beckoned to Marian to follow me to the stairs.
It was necessary to prepare her for a result which I felt might sooner
or later follow my showing myself openly in the streets.
“I shall, in all probability, be back in a few hours,” I said, “and you
will take care, as usual, to let no one inside the doors in my absence.
But if anything happens——”
“What can happen?” she interposed quickly. “Tell me plainly, Walter, if
there is any danger, and I shall know how to meet it.”
“The only danger,” I replied, “is that Sir Percival Glyde may have been
recalled to London by the news of Laura’s escape. You are aware that he
had me watched before I left England, and that he probably knows me by
sight, although I don’t know him?”
She laid her hand on my shoulder and looked at me in anxious silence. I
saw she understood the serious risk that threatened us.
“It is not likely,” I said, “that I shall be seen in London again so
soon, either by Sir Percival himself or by the persons in his employ.
But it is barely possible that an accident may happen. In that case,
you will not be alarmed if I fail to return to-night, and you will
satisfy any inquiry of Laura’s with the best excuse that you can make
for me? If I find the least reason to suspect that I am watched, I will
take good care that no spy follows me back to this house. Don’t doubt
my return, Marian, however it may be delayed—and fear nothing.”
“Nothing!” she answered firmly. “You shall not regret, Walter, that
you have only a woman to help you.” She paused, and detained me for a
moment longer. “Take care!” she said, pressing my hand anxiously—“take
care!”
I left her, and set forth to pave the way for discovery—the dark and
doubtful way, which began at the lawyer’s door.
IV
No circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the
offices of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, in Chancery Lane.
While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred
to me which I deeply regretted not having thought of before. The
information derived from Marian’s diary made it a matter of certainty
that Count Fosco had opened her first letter from Blackwater Park to
Mr. Kyrle, and had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second. He
was therefore well aware of the address of the office, and he would
naturally infer that if Marian wanted advice and assistance, after
Laura’s escape from the Asylum, she would apply once more to the
experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case the office in Chancery Lane
was the very first place which he and Sir Percival would cause to be
watched, and if the same persons were chosen for the purpose who had
been employed to follow me, before my departure from England, the fact
of my return would in all probability be ascertained on that very day.
I had thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in
the streets, but the special risk connected with the office had never
occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to repair
this unfortunate error in judgment—too late to wish that I had made
arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed
beforehand. I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving Chancery
Lane, and not to go straight home again under any circumstances
whatever.
After waiting a few minutes I was shown into Mr. Kyrle’s private room.
He was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive
eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner—not (as I
judged) ready with his sympathy where strangers were concerned, and not
at all easy to disturb in his professional composure. A better man for
my purpose could hardly have been found. If he committed himself to a
decision at all, and if the decision was favourable, the strength of
our case was as good as proved from that moment.
“Before I enter on the business which brings me here,” I said, “I ought
to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can make of it
may occupy some little time.”
“My time is at Miss Halcombe’s disposal,” he replied. “Where any
interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally, as
well as professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he
ceased to take an active part in business.”
“May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?”
“He is not, he is living with his relatives in Germany. His health has
improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain.”
While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been
searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a
sealed letter. I thought he was about to hand the letter to me, but,
apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself on the table,
settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to hear what I had to
say.
Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered on
my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have
already been related in these pages.
Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him out of
his professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and surprise,
which he could not repress, interrupted me several times before I had
done. I persevered, however, to the end, and as soon as I reached it,
boldly asked the one important question—
“What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?”
He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer without taking time
to recover his self-possession first.
“Before I give my opinion,” he said, “I must beg permission to clear
the ground by a few questions.”
He put the questions—sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which
clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was the
victim of a delusion, and that he might even have doubted, but for my
introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not attempting the
perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud.
“Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?” I asked, when
he had done examining me.
“So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have
spoken the truth,” he replied. “I have the highest esteem for Miss
Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman
whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go
farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy’s sake and for argument’s
sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde as a living person is a proved
fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you come to me for a legal
opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you,
Mr. Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case.”
“You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle.”
“I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde’s
death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her
aunt’s testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco’s house, that
she fell ill, and that she died. There is the testimony of the medical
certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under
natural circumstances. There is the fact of the funeral at Limmeridge,
and there is the assertion of the inscription on the tomb. That is
the case you want to overthrow. What evidence have you to support the
declaration on your side that the person who died and was buried was
not Lady Glyde? Let us run through the main points of your statement
and see what they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to a certain private