The Woman in White
her, at the outset of our interview, on her own ground.
“You are aware,” I said, “that your daughter has been lost?”
“I am perfectly aware of it.”
“Have you felt any apprehension that the misfortune of her loss might
be followed by the misfortune of her death?”
“Yes. Have you come here to tell me she is dead?”
“I have.”
“Why?”
She put that extraordinary question without the slightest change in
her voice, her face, or her manner. She could not have appeared more
perfectly unconcerned if I had told her of the death of the goat in the
enclosure outside.
“Why?” I repeated. “Do you ask why I come here to tell you of your
daughter’s death?”
“Yes. What interest have you in me, or in her? How do you come to know
anything about my daughter?”
“In this way. I met her on the night when she escaped from the Asylum,
and I assisted her in reaching a place of safety.”
“You did very wrong.”
“I am sorry to hear her mother say so.”
“Her mother does say so. How do you know she is dead?”
“I am not at liberty to say how I know it—but I DO know it.”
“Are you at liberty to say how you found out my address?”
“Certainly. I got your address from Mrs. Clements.”
“Mrs. Clements is a foolish woman. Did she tell you to come here?”
“She did not.”
“Then, I ask you again, why did you come?”
As she was determined to have her answer, I gave it to her in the
plainest possible form.
“I came,” I said, “because I thought Anne Catherick’s mother might have
some natural interest in knowing whether she was alive or dead.”
“Just so,” said Mrs. Catherick, with additional self-possession. “Had
you no other motive?”
I hesitated. The right answer to that question was not easy to find at
a moment’s notice.
“If you have no other motive,” she went on, deliberately taking off her
slate-coloured mittens, and rolling them up, “I have only to thank you
for your visit, and to say that I will not detain you here any longer.
Your information would be more satisfactory if you were willing to
explain how you became possessed of it. However, it justifies me, I
suppose, in going into mourning. There is not much alteration necessary
in my dress, as you see. When I have changed my mittens, I shall be all
in black.”
She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black lace
mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest composure, and
then quietly crossed her hands in her lap.
“I wish you good morning,” she said.
The cool contempt of her manner irritated me into directly avowing that
the purpose of my visit had not been answered yet.
“I HAVE another motive in coming here,” I said.
“Ah! I thought so,” remarked Mrs. Catherick.
“Your daughter’s death——”
“What did she die of?”
“Of disease of the heart.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“Your daughter’s death has been made the pretext for inflicting serious
injury on a person who is very dear to me. Two men have been concerned,
to my certain knowledge, in doing that wrong. One of them is Sir
Percival Glyde.”
“Indeed!”
I looked attentively to see if she flinched at the sudden mention of
that name. Not a muscle of her stirred—the hard, defiant, implacable
stare in her eyes never wavered for an instant.
“You may wonder,” I went on, “how the event of your daughter’s death
can have been made the means of inflicting injury on another person.”
“No,” said Mrs. Catherick; “I don’t wonder at all. This appears to be
your affair. You are interested in my affairs. I am not interested in
yours.”
“You may ask, then,” I persisted, “why I mention the matter in your
presence.”
“Yes, I DO ask that.”
“I mention it because I am determined to bring Sir Percival Glyde to
account for the wickedness he has committed.”
“What have I to do with your determination?”
“You shall hear. There are certain events in Sir Percival’s past life
which it is necessary for my purpose to be fully acquainted with. YOU
know them—and for that reason I come to YOU.”
“What events do you mean?”
“Events that occurred at Old Welmingham when your husband was
parish-clerk at that place, and before the time when your daughter was
born.”
I had reached the woman at last through the barrier of impenetrable
reserve that she had tried to set up between us. I saw her temper
smouldering in her eyes—as plainly as I saw her hands grow restless,
then unclasp themselves, and begin mechanically smoothing her dress
over her knees.
“What do you know of those events?” she asked.
“All that Mrs. Clements could tell me,” I answered.
There was a momentary flush on her firm square face, a momentary
stillness in her restless hands, which seemed to betoken a coming
outburst of anger that might throw her off her guard. But no—she
mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her chair, crossed her
arms on her broad bosom, and with a smile of grim sarcasm on her thick
lips, looked at me as steadily as ever.
“Ah! I begin to understand it all now,” she said, her tamed and
disciplined anger only expressing itself in the elaborate mockery of
her tone and manner. “You have got a grudge of your own against Sir
Percival Glyde, and I must help you to wreak it. I must tell you this,
that, and the other about Sir Percival and myself, must I? Yes, indeed?
You have been prying into my private affairs. You think you have found
a lost woman to deal with, who lives here on sufferance, and who will
do anything you ask for fear you may injure her in the opinions of the
town’s-people. I see through you and your precious speculation—I do!
and it amuses me. Ha! ha!”
She stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over her bosom, and she
laughed to herself—a hard, harsh, angry laugh.
“You don’t know how I have lived in this place, and what I have done in
this place, Mr. What’s-your-name,” she went on. “I’ll tell you, before
I ring the bell and have you shown out. I came here a wronged woman—I
came here robbed of my character and determined to claim it back.
I’ve been years and years about it—and I HAVE claimed it back. I have
matched the respectable people fairly and openly on their own ground.
If they say anything against me now they must say it in secret—they
can’t say it, they daren’t say it, openly. I stand high enough in this
town to be out of your reach. THE CLERGYMAN BOWS TO ME. Aha! you didn’t
bargain for that when you came here. Go to the church and inquire about
me—you will find Mrs. Catherick has her sitting like the rest of them,
and pays the rent on the day it’s due. Go to the town-hall. There’s a
petition lying there—a petition of the respectable inhabitants against
allowing a circus to come and perform here and corrupt our morals—yes!
OUR morals. I signed that petition this morning. Go to the bookseller’s
shop. The clergyman’s Wednesday evening Lectures on Justification by
Faith are publishing there by subscription—I’m down on the list. The
doctor’s wife only put a shilling in the plate at our last charity
sermon—I put half-a-crown. Mr. Churchwarden Soward held the plate, and
bowed to me. Ten years ago he told Pigrum the chemist I ought to be
whipped out of the town at the cart’s tail. Is your mother alive? Has
she got a better Bible on her table than I have got on mine? Does she
stand better with her trades-people than I do with mine? Has she always
lived within her income? I have always lived within mine. Ah! there IS
the clergyman coming along the square. Look, Mr. What’s-your-name—look,
if you please!”
She started up with the activity of a young woman, went to the window,
waited till the clergyman passed, and bowed to him solemnly. The
clergyman ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked on. Mrs. Catherick
returned to her chair, and looked at me with a grimmer sarcasm than
ever.
“There!” she said. “What do you think of that for a woman with a lost
character? How does your speculation look now?”
The singular manner in which she had chosen to assert herself, the
extraordinary practical vindication of her position in the town which
she had just offered, had so perplexed me that I listened to her in
silent surprise. I was not the less resolved, however, to make another
effort to throw her off her guard. If the woman’s fierce temper once
got beyond her control, and once flamed out on me, she might yet say
the words which would put the clue in my hands.
“How does your speculation look now?” she repeated.
“Exactly as it looked when I first came in,” I answered. “I don’t doubt
the position you have gained in the town, and I don’t wish to assail
it even if I could. I came here because Sir Percival Glyde is, to my
certain knowledge, your enemy, as well as mine. If I have a grudge
against him, you have a grudge against him too. You may deny it if you
like, you may distrust me as much as you please, you may be as angry as
you will—but, of all the women in England, you, if you have any sense
of injury, are the woman who ought to help me to crush that man.”
“Crush him for yourself,” she said; “then come back here, and see what
I say to you.”
She spoke those words as she had not spoken yet, quickly, fiercely,
vindictively. I had stirred in its lair the serpent-hatred of years,
but only for a moment. Like a lurking reptile it leaped up at me as she
eagerly bent forward towards the place in which I was sitting. Like a
lurking reptile it dropped out of sight again as she instantly resumed
her former position in the chair.
“You won’t trust me?” I said.
“No.”
“You are afraid?”
“Do I look as if I was?”
“You are afraid of Sir Percival Glyde?”
“Am I?”
Her colour was rising, and her hands were at work again smoothing her
gown. I pressed the point farther and farther home, I went on without
allowing her a moment of delay.
“Sir Percival has a high position in the world,” I said; “it would be
no wonder if you were afraid of him. Sir Percival is a powerful man,
a baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the descendant of a great
family——”
She amazed me beyond expression by suddenly bursting out laughing.
“Yes,” she repeated, in tones of the bitterest, steadiest contempt.
“A baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the descendant of a great
family. Yes, indeed! A great family—especially by the mother’s side.”
There was no time to reflect on the words that had just escaped her,
there was only time to feel that they were well worth thinking over the
moment I left the house.
“I am not here to dispute with you about family questions,” I said. “I
know nothing of Sir Percival’s mother——”
“And you know as little of Sir Percival himself,” she interposed
sharply.
“I advise you not to be too sure of that,” I rejoined. “I know some
things about him, and I suspect many more.”
“What do you suspect?”
“I’ll tell you what I DON’T suspect. I DON’T suspect him of being
Anne’s father.”
She started to her feet, and came close up to me with a look of fury.
“How dare you talk to me about Anne’s father! How dare you say who was
her father, or who wasn’t!” she broke out, her face quivering, her
voice trembling with passion.
“The secret between you and Sir Percival is not THAT secret,” I
persisted. “The mystery which darkens Sir Percival’s life was not born
with your daughter’s birth, and has not died with your daughter’s
death.”
She drew back a step. “Go!” she said, and pointed sternly to the door.
“There was no thought of the child in your heart or in his,” I went on,
determined to press her back to her last defences. “There was no bond
of guilty love between you and him when you held those stolen meetings,
when your husband found you whispering together under the vestry of the
church.”
Her pointing hand instantly dropped to her side, and the deep flush of
anger faded from her face while I spoke. I saw the change pass over