The Woman in White
I had rightly interpreted the first signs of a new growth and strength
in her mind, unconsciously expressing themselves in the notice she
had taken of the occupations which filled her sister’s life and mine.
Marian (when I told her what had passed) saw, as I saw, that she was
longing to assume her own little position of importance, to raise
herself in her own estimation and in ours—and, from that day, we
tenderly helped the new ambition which gave promise of the hopeful,
happier future, that might now not be far off. Her drawings, as she
finished them, or tried to finish them, were placed in my hands. Marian
took them from me and hid them carefully, and I set aside a little
weekly tribute from my earnings, to be offered to her as the price
paid by strangers for the poor, faint, valueless sketches, of which I
was the only purchaser. It was hard sometimes to maintain our innocent
deception, when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute her
share towards the expenses, and wondered with serious interest,
whether I or she had earned the most that week. I have all those
hidden drawings in my possession still—they are my treasures beyond
price—the dear remembrances that I love to keep alive—the friends in
past adversity that my heart will never part from, my tenderness never
forget.
Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am I looking
forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet reached?
Yes. Back again—back to the days of doubt and dread, when the spirit
within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy stillness of
perpetual suspense. I have paused and rested for a while on my forward
course. It is not, perhaps, time wasted, if the friends who read these
pages have paused and rested too.
I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in
private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries which
I had made that morning. She seemed to share the opinion on the subject
of my proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs. Clements had already
expressed to me.
“Surely, Walter,” she said, “you hardly know enough yet to give you any
hope of claiming Mrs. Catherick’s confidence? Is it wise to proceed
to these extremities, before you have really exhausted all safer and
simpler means of attaining your object? When you told me that Sir
Percival and the Count were the only two people in existence who knew
the exact date of Laura’s journey, you forgot, and I forgot, that there
was a third person who must surely know it—I mean Mrs. Rubelle. Would
it not be far easier, and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession
from her, than to force it from Sir Percival?”
“It might be easier,” I replied, “but we are not aware of the full
extent of Mrs. Rubelle’s connivance and interest in the conspiracy,
and we are therefore not certain that the date has been impressed
on her mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on the minds of Sir
Percival and the Count. It is too late, now, to waste the time on
Mrs. Rubelle, which may be all-important to the discovery of the one
assailable point in Sir Percival’s life. Are you thinking a little too
seriously, Marian, of the risk I may run in returning to Hampshire? Are
you beginning to doubt whether Sir Percival Glyde may not in the end be
more than a match for me?”
“He will not be more than your match,” she replied decidedly, “because
he will not be helped in resisting you by the impenetrable wickedness
of the Count.”
“What has led you to that conclusion?” I replied, in some surprise.
“My own knowledge of Sir Percival’s obstinacy and impatience of the
Count’s control,” she answered. “I believe he will insist on meeting
you single-handed—just as he insisted at first on acting for himself at
Blackwater Park. The time for suspecting the Count’s interference will
be the time when you have Sir Percival at your mercy. His own interests
will then be directly threatened, and he will act, Walter, to terrible
purpose in his own defence.”
“We may deprive him of his weapons beforehand,” I said. “Some of the
particulars I have heard from Mrs. Clements may yet be turned to
account against him, and other means of strengthening the case may
be at our disposal. There are passages in Mrs. Michelson’s narrative
which show that the Count found it necessary to place himself in
communication with Mr. Fairlie, and there may be circumstances which
compromise him in that proceeding. While I am away, Marian, write to
Mr. Fairlie and say that you want an answer describing exactly what
passed between the Count and himself, and informing you also of any
particulars that may have come to his knowledge at the same time in
connection with his niece. Tell him that the statement you request
will, sooner or later, be insisted on, if he shows any reluctance to
furnish you with it of his own accord.”
“The letter shall be written, Walter. But are you really determined to
go to Welmingham?”
“Absolutely determined. I will devote the next two days to earning what
we want for the week to come, and on the third day I go to Hampshire.”
When the third day came I was ready for my journey.
As it was possible that I might be absent for some little time, I
arranged with Marian that we were to correspond every day—of course
addressing each other by assumed names, for caution’s sake. As long as
I heard from her regularly, I should assume that nothing was wrong. But
if the morning came and brought me no letter, my return to London would
take place, as a matter of course, by the first train. I contrived to
reconcile Laura to my departure by telling her that I was going to
the country to find new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and
I left her occupied and happy. Marian followed me downstairs to the
street door.
“Remember what anxious hearts you leave here,” she whispered, as we
stood together in the passage. “Remember all the hopes that hang on
your safe return. If strange things happen to you on this journey—if
you and Sir Percival meet——”
“What makes you think we shall meet?” I asked.
“I don’t know—I have fears and fancies that I cannot account for. Laugh
at them, Walter, if you like—but, for God’s sake, keep your temper if
you come in contact with that man!”
“Never fear, Marian! I answer for my self-control.”
With those words we parted.
I walked briskly to the station. There was a glow of hope in me. There
was a growing conviction in my mind that my journey this time would not
be taken in vain. It was a fine, clear, cold morning. My nerves were
firmly strung, and I felt all the strength of my resolution stirring in
me vigorously from head to foot.
As I crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among the
people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them that I
knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my
advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting out for Hampshire.
But there was something so repellent to me in the idea—something so
meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of
adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the question from consideration
almost as soon as it had risen in my mind. Even as a mere matter of
expediency the proceeding was doubtful in the extreme. If I tried the
experiment at home the landlord of the house would sooner or later
discover me, and would have his suspicions aroused immediately. If I
tried it away from home the same persons might see me, by the commonest
accident, with the disguise and without it, and I should in that way
be inviting the notice and distrust which it was my most pressing
interest to avoid. In my own character I had acted thus far—and in my
own character I was resolved to continue to the end.
The train left me at Welmingham early in the afternoon.
Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there any
prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can rival
the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the
mind, of an English country town in the first stage of its existence,
and in the transition state of its prosperity? I asked myself that
question as I passed through the clean desolation, the neat ugliness,
the prim torpor of the streets of Welmingham. And the tradesmen who
stared after me from their lonely shops—the trees that drooped helpless
in their arid exile of unfinished crescents and squares—the dead
house-carcasses that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to
animate them with the breath of life—every creature that I saw, every
object that I passed, seemed to answer with one accord: The deserts of
Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation—the ruins of Palestine
are incapable of our modern gloom!
I inquired my way to the quarter of the town in which Mrs. Catherick
lived, and on reaching it found myself in a square of small houses,
one story high. There was a bare little plot of grass in the middle,
protected by a cheap wire fence. An elderly nursemaid and two children
were standing in a corner of the enclosure, looking at a lean goat
tethered to the grass. Two foot-passengers were talking together on
one side of the pavement before the houses, and an idle little boy was
leading an idle little dog along by a string on the other. I heard the
dull tinkling of a piano at a distance, accompanied by the intermittent
knocking of a hammer nearer at hand. These were all the sights and
sounds of life that encountered me when I entered the square.
I walked at once to the door of Number Thirteen—the number of Mrs.
Catherick’s house—and knocked, without waiting to consider beforehand
how I might best present myself when I got in. The first necessity was
to see Mrs. Catherick. I could then judge, from my own observation, of
the safest and easiest manner of approaching the object of my visit.
The door was opened by a melancholy middle-aged woman servant. I gave
her my card, and asked if I could see Mrs. Catherick. The card was
taken into the front parlour, and the servant returned with a message
requesting me to mention what my business was.
“Say, if you please, that my business relates to Mrs. Catherick’s
daughter,” I replied. This was the best pretext I could think of, on
the spur of the moment, to account for my visit.
The servant again retired to the parlour, again returned, and this time
begged me, with a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in.
I entered a little room, with a flaring paper of the largest pattern on
the walls. Chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the
glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On the largest table, in the
middle of the room, stood a smart Bible, placed exactly in the centre
on a red and yellow woollen mat and at the side of the table nearest to
the window, with a little knitting-basket on her lap, and a wheezing,
blear-eyed old spaniel crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly
woman, wearing a black net cap and a black silk gown, and having
slate-coloured mittens on her hands. Her iron-grey hair hung in heavy
bands on either side of her face—her dark eyes looked straight forward,
with a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks, a
long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was
stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed. This was
Mrs. Catherick.
“You have come to speak to me about my daughter,” she said, before I
could utter a word on my side. “Be so good as to mention what you have
to say.”
The tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant, as implacable as the
expression of her eyes. She pointed to a chair, and looked me all over
attentively, from head to foot, as I sat down in it. I saw that my only
chance with this woman was to speak to her in her own tone, and to meet