The Woman in White
encountering the marriage, and then travelled back through December
eighteen hundred and three—through November and October—through——
No! not through September also. Under the heading of that month in the
year I found the marriage.
I looked carefully at the entry. It was at the bottom of a page,
and was for want of room compressed into a smaller space than
that occupied by the marriages above. The marriage immediately
before it was impressed on my attention by the circumstance of the
bridegroom’s Christian name being the same as my own. The entry
immediately following it (on the top of the next page) was noticeable
in another way from the large space it occupied, the record in this
case registering the marriages of two brothers at the same time.
The register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde was in no respect
remarkable except for the narrowness of the space into which it was
compressed at the bottom of the page. The information about his wife
was the usual information given in such cases. She was described as
“Cecilia Jane Elster, of Park-View Cottages, Knowlesbury, only daughter
of the late Patrick Elster, Esq., formerly of Bath.”
I noted down these particulars in my pocket-book, feeling as I did so
both doubtful and disheartened about my next proceedings. The Secret
which I had believed until this moment to be within my grasp seemed now
farther from my reach than ever.
What suggestions of any mystery unexplained had arisen out of my
visit to the vestry? I saw no suggestions anywhere. What progress
had I made towards discovering the suspected stain on the reputation
of Sir Percival’s mother? The one fact I had ascertained vindicated
her reputation. Fresh doubts, fresh difficulties, fresh delays began
to open before me in interminable prospect. What was I to do next?
The one immediate resource left to me appeared to be this. I might
institute inquiries about “Miss Elster of Knowlesbury,” on the chance
of advancing towards the main object of my investigation, by first
discovering the secret of Mrs. Catherick’s contempt for Sir Percival’s
mother.
“Have you found what you wanted, sir?” said the clerk, as I closed the
register-book.
“Yes,” I replied, “but I have some inquiries still to make. I suppose
the clergyman who officiated here in the year eighteen hundred and
three is no longer alive?”
“No, no, sir, he was dead three or four years before I came here, and
that was as long ago as the year twenty-seven. I got this place, sir,”
persisted my talkative old friend, “through the clerk before me leaving
it. They say he was driven out of house and home by his wife—and she’s
living still down in the new town there. I don’t know the rights of
the story myself—all I know is I got the place. Mr. Wansborough got
it for me—the son of my old master that I was telling you of. He’s a
free, pleasant gentleman as ever lived—rides to the hounds, keeps his
pointers and all that. He’s vestry-clerk here now as his father was
before him.”
“Did you not tell me your former master lived at Knowlesbury?” I asked,
calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman of the old
school with which my talkative friend had wearied me before he opened
the register-book.
“Yes, to be sure, sir,” replied the clerk. “Old Mr. Wansborough lived
at Knowlesbury, and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too.”
“You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before him. I
am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is.”
“Don’t you indeed, sir?—and you come from London too! Every
parish church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk.
The parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I’ve got a deal
more learning than most of them—though I don’t boast of it). The
vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get, and if
there’s any business to be done for the vestry, why there they are to
do it. It’s just the same in London. Every parish church there has got
its vestry-clerk—and you may take my word for it he’s sure to be a
lawyer.”
“Then young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer, I suppose?”
“Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High Street, Knowlesbury—the old
offices that his father had before him. The number of times I’ve swept
those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting in to
business on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street
and nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a popular character!—he’d
have done in London!”
“How far is it to Knowlesbury from this place?”
“A long stretch, sir,” said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea of
distances, and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting from
place to place, which is peculiar to all country people. “Nigh on five
mile, I can tell you!”
It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of time for a walk
to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was no person
probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about the
character and position of Sir Percival’s mother before her marriage
than the local solicitor. Resolving to go at once to Knowlesbury on
foot, I led the way out of the vestry.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said the clerk, as I slipped my little present
into his hand. “Are you really going to walk all the way to Knowlesbury
and back? Well! you’re strong on your legs, too—and what a blessing
that is, isn’t it? There’s the road, you can’t miss it. I wish I was
going your way—it’s pleasant to meet with gentlemen from London in a
lost corner like this. One hears the news. Wish you good-morning, sir,
and thank you kindly once more.”
We parted. As I left the church behind me I looked back, and there were
the two men again on the road below, with a third in their company,
that third person being the short man in black whom I had traced to the
railway the evening before.
The three stood talking together for a little while, then separated.
The man in black went away by himself towards Welmingham—the other two
remained together, evidently waiting to follow me as soon as I walked
on.
I proceeded on my way without letting the fellows see that I took any
special notice of them. They caused me no conscious irritation of
feeling at that moment—on the contrary, they rather revived my sinking
hopes. In the surprise of discovering the evidence of the marriage, I
had forgotten the inference I had drawn on first perceiving the men in
the neighbourhood of the vestry. Their reappearance reminded me that
Sir Percival had anticipated my visit to Old Welmingham church as the
next result of my interview with Mrs. Catherick—otherwise he would
never have placed his spies there to wait for me. Smoothly and fairly
as appearances looked in the vestry, there was something wrong beneath
them—there was something in the register-book, for aught I knew, that I
had not discovered yet.
X
Once out of sight of the church, I pressed forward briskly on my way to
Knowlesbury.
The road was, for the most part, straight and level. Whenever I looked
back over it I saw the two spies steadily following me. For the greater
part of the way they kept at a safe distance behind. But once or
twice they quickened their pace, as if with the purpose of overtaking
me, then stopped, consulted together, and fell back again to their
former position. They had some special object evidently in view, and
they seemed to be hesitating or differing about the best means of
accomplishing it. I could not guess exactly what their design might
be, but I felt serious doubts of reaching Knowlesbury without some
mischance happening to me on the way. These doubts were realised.
I had just entered on a lonely part of the road, with a sharp turn at
some distance ahead, and had just concluded (calculating by time) that
I must be getting near to the town, when I suddenly heard the steps of
the men close behind me.
Before I could look round, one of them (the man by whom I had been
followed in London) passed rapidly on my left side and hustled me with
his shoulder. I had been more irritated by the manner in which he and
his companion had dogged my steps all the way from Old Welmingham
than I was myself aware of, and I unfortunately pushed the fellow
away smartly with my open hand. He instantly shouted for help. His
companion, the tall man in the gamekeeper’s clothes, sprang to my right
side, and the next moment the two scoundrels held me pinioned between
them in the middle of the road.
The conviction that a trap had been laid for me, and the vexation of
knowing that I had fallen into it, fortunately restrained me from
making my position still worse by an unavailing struggle with two men,
one of whom would, in all probability, have been more than a match for
me single-handed. I repressed the first natural movement by which I had
attempted to shake them off, and looked about to see if there was any
person near to whom I could appeal.
A labourer was at work in an adjoining field who must have witnessed
all that had passed. I called to him to follow us to the town. He
shook his head with stolid obstinacy, and walked away in the direction
of a cottage which stood back from the high-road. At the same time
the men who held me between them declared their intention of charging
me with an assault. I was cool enough and wise enough now to make no
opposition. “Drop your hold of my arms,” I said, “and I will go with
you to the town.” The man in the gamekeeper’s dress roughly refused.
But the shorter man was sharp enough to look to consequences, and not
to let his companion commit himself by unnecessary violence. He made a
sign to the other, and I walked on between them with my arms free.
We reached the turning in the road, and there, close before us, were
the suburbs of Knowlesbury. One of the local policemen was walking
along the path by the roadside. The men at once appealed to him. He
replied that the magistrate was then sitting at the town-hall, and
recommended that we should appear before him immediately.
We went on to the town-hall. The clerk made out a formal summons, and
the charge was preferred against me, with the customary exaggeration
and the customary perversion of the truth on such occasions. The
magistrate (an ill-tempered man, with a sour enjoyment in the exercise
of his own power) inquired if any one on or near the road had witnessed
the assault, and, greatly to my surprise, the complainant admitted the
presence of the labourer in the field. I was enlightened, however,
as to the object of the admission by the magistrate’s next words. He
remanded me at once for the production of the witness, expressing, at
the same time, his willingness to take bail for my reappearance if I
could produce one responsible surety to offer it. If I had been known
in the town he would have liberated me on my own recognisances, but as
I was a total stranger it was necessary that I should find responsible
bail.
The whole object of the stratagem was now disclosed to me. It had
been so managed as to make a remand necessary in a town where I was a
perfect stranger, and where I could not hope to get my liberty on bail.
The remand merely extended over three days, until the next sitting
of the magistrate. But in that time, while I was in confinement,
Sir Percival might use any means he pleased to embarrass my future
proceedings—perhaps to screen himself from detection altogether—without
the slightest fear of any hindrance on my part. At the end of the three
days the charge would, no doubt, be withdrawn, and the attendance of
the witness would be perfectly useless.
My indignation, I may almost say, my despair, at this mischievous check
to all further progress—so base and trifling in itself, and yet so
disheartening and so serious in its probable results—quite unfitted