The Woman in White
me at first to reflect on the best means of extricating myself from
the dilemma in which I now stood. I had the folly to call for writing
materials, and to think of privately communicating my real position to
the magistrate. The hopelessness and the imprudence of this proceeding
failed to strike me before I had actually written the opening lines
of the letter. It was not till I had pushed the paper away—not till,
I am ashamed to say, I had almost allowed the vexation of my helpless
position to conquer me—that a course of action suddenly occurred to
my mind, which Sir Percival had probably not anticipated, and which
might set me free again in a few hours. I determined to communicate the
situation in which I was placed to Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge.
I had visited this gentleman’s house, it may be remembered, at the time
of my first inquiries in the Blackwater Park neighbourhood, and I had
presented to him a letter of introduction from Miss Halcombe, in which
she recommended me to his friendly attention in the strongest terms. I
now wrote, referring to this letter, and to what I had previously told
Mr. Dawson of the delicate and dangerous nature of my inquiries. I had
not revealed to him the truth about Laura, having merely described my
errand as being of the utmost importance to private family interests
with which Miss Halcombe was concerned. Using the same caution still, I
now accounted for my presence at Knowlesbury in the same manner, and I
put it to the doctor to say whether the trust reposed in me by a lady
whom he well knew, and the hospitality I had myself received in his
house, justified me or not in asking him to come to my assistance in a
place where I was quite friendless.
I obtained permission to hire a messenger to drive away at once with
my letter in a conveyance which might be used to bring the doctor back
immediately. Oak Lodge was on the Knowlesbury side of Blackwater. The
man declared he could drive there in forty minutes, and could bring Mr.
Dawson back in forty more. I directed him to follow the doctor wherever
he might happen to be, if he was not at home, and then sat down to wait
for the result with all the patience and all the hope that I could
summon to help me.
It was not quite half-past one when the messenger departed. Before
half-past three he returned, and brought the doctor with him. Mr.
Dawson’s kindness, and the delicacy with which he treated his prompt
assistance quite as a matter of course, almost overpowered me. The bail
required was offered, and accepted immediately. Before four o’clock, on
that afternoon, I was shaking hands warmly with the good old doctor—a
free man again—in the streets of Knowlesbury.
Mr. Dawson hospitably invited me to go back with him to Oak Lodge, and
take up my quarters there for the night. I could only reply that my
time was not my own, and I could only ask him to let me pay my visit
in a few days, when I might repeat my thanks, and offer to him all
the explanations which I felt to be only his due, but which I was not
then in a position to make. We parted with friendly assurances on both
sides, and I turned my steps at once to Mr. Wansborough’s office in the
High Street.
Time was now of the last importance.
The news of my being free on bail would reach Sir Percival, to an
absolute certainty, before night. If the next few hours did not put me
in a position to justify his worst fears, and to hold him helpless at
my mercy, I might lose every inch of the ground I had gained, never
to recover it again. The unscrupulous nature of the man, the local
influence he possessed, the desperate peril of exposure with which
my blindfold inquiries threatened him—all warned me to press on to
positive discovery, without the useless waste of a single minute. I had
found time to think while I was waiting for Mr. Dawson’s arrival, and
I had well employed it. Certain portions of the conversation of the
talkative old clerk, which had wearied me at the time, now recurred
to my memory with a new significance, and a suspicion crossed my mind
darkly which had not occurred to me while I was in the vestry. On my
way to Knowlesbury, I had only proposed to apply to Mr. Wansborough for
information on the subject of Sir Percival’s mother. My object now was
to examine the duplicate register of Old Welmingham Church.
Mr. Wansborough was in his office when I inquired for him.
He was a jovial, red-faced, easy-looking man—more like a country squire
than a lawyer—and he seemed to be both surprised and amused by my
application. He had heard of his father’s copy of the register, but
had not even seen it himself. It had never been inquired after, and it
was no doubt in the strong room among other papers that had not been
disturbed since his father’s death. It was a pity (Mr. Wansborough
said) that the old gentleman was not alive to hear his precious copy
asked for at last. He would have ridden his favourite hobby harder than
ever now. How had I come to hear of the copy? was it through anybody in
the town?
I parried the question as well as I could. It was impossible at this
stage of the investigation to be too cautious, and it was just as well
not to let Mr. Wansborough know prematurely that I had already examined
the original register. I described myself, therefore, as pursuing a
family inquiry, to the object of which every possible saving of time
was of great importance. I was anxious to send certain particulars
to London by that day’s post, and one look at the duplicate register
(paying, of course, the necessary fees) might supply what I required,
and save me a further journey to Old Welmingham. I added that, in the
event of my subsequently requiring a copy of the original register, I
should make application to Mr. Wansborough’s office to furnish me with
the document.
After this explanation no objection was made to producing the copy.
A clerk was sent to the strong room, and after some delay returned
with the volume. It was of exactly the same size as the volume in the
vestry, the only difference being that the copy was more smartly bound.
I took it with me to an unoccupied desk. My hands were trembling—my
head was burning hot—I felt the necessity of concealing my agitation
as well as I could from the persons about me in the room, before I
ventured on opening the book.
On the blank page at the beginning, to which I first turned, were
traced some lines in faded ink. They contained these words—
“Copy of the Marriage Register of Welmingham Parish Church. Executed
under my orders, and afterwards compared, entry by entry, with the
original, by myself. (Signed) Robert Wansborough, vestry-clerk.” Below
this note there was a line added, in another handwriting, as follows:
“Extending from the first of January, 1800, to the thirtieth of June,
1815.”
I turned to the month of September, eighteen hundred and three. I found
the marriage of the man whose Christian name was the same as my own.
I found the double register of the marriages of the two brothers. And
between these entries, at the bottom of the page?
Nothing! Not a vestige of the entry which recorded the marriage of Sir
Felix Glyde and Cecilia Jane Elster in the register of the church!
My heart gave a great bound, and throbbed as if it would stifle me.
I looked again—I was afraid to believe the evidence of my own eyes.
No! not a doubt. The marriage was not there. The entries on the copy
occupied exactly the same places on the page as the entries in the
original. The last entry on one page recorded the marriage of the
man with my Christian name. Below it there was a blank space—a space
evidently left because it was too narrow to contain the entry of the
marriages of the two brothers, which in the copy, as in the original,
occupied the top of the next page. That space told the whole story!
There it must have remained in the church register from eighteen
hundred and three (when the marriages had been solemnised and the copy
had been made) to eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when Sir Percival
appeared at Old Welmingham. Here, at Knowlesbury, was the chance of
committing the forgery shown to me in the copy, and there, at Old
Welmingham, was the forgery committed in the register of the church.
My head turned giddy—I held by the desk to keep myself from falling. Of
all the suspicions which had struck me in relation to that desperate
man, not one had been near the truth.
The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no more
claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater Park than the poorest labourer
who worked on the estate, had never once occurred to my mind. At one
time I had thought he might be Anne Catherick’s father—at another time
I had thought he might have been Anne Catherick’s husband—the offence
of which he was really guilty had been, from first to last, beyond the
widest reach of my imagination.
The paltry means by which the fraud had been effected, the magnitude
and daring of the crime that it represented, the horror of the
consequences involved in its discovery, overwhelmed me. Who could
wonder now at the brute-restlessness of the wretch’s life—at his
desperate alternations between abject duplicity and reckless
violence—at the madness of guilty distrust which had made him imprison
Anne Catherick in the Asylum, and had given him over to the vile
conspiracy against his wife, on the bare suspicion that the one and the
other knew his terrible secret? The disclosure of that secret might,
in past years, have hanged him—might now transport him for life. The
disclosure of that secret, even if the sufferers by his deception
spared him the penalties of the law, would deprive him at one blow of
the name, the rank, the estate, the whole social existence that he had
usurped. This was the Secret, and it was mine! A word from me, and
house, lands, baronetcy, were gone from him for ever—a word from me,
and he was driven out into the world, a nameless, penniless, friendless
outcast! The man’s whole future hung on my lips—and he knew it by this
time as certainly as I did!
That last thought steadied me. Interests far more precious than my own
depended on the caution which must now guide my slightest actions.
There was no possible treachery which Sir Percival might not attempt
against me. In the danger and desperation of his position he would be
staggered by no risks, he would recoil at no crime—he would literally
hesitate at nothing to save himself.
I considered for a minute. My first necessity was to secure positive
evidence in writing of the discovery that I had just made, and in the
event of any personal misadventure happening to me, to place that
evidence beyond Sir Percival’s reach. The copy of the register was sure
to be safe in Mr. Wansborough’s strong room. But the position of the
original in the vestry was, as I had seen with my own eyes, anything
but secure.
In this emergency I resolved to return to the church, to apply again to
the clerk, and to take the necessary extract from the register before
I slept that night. I was not then aware that a legally-certified
copy was necessary, and that no document merely drawn out by myself
could claim the proper importance as a proof. I was not aware of
this, and my determination to keep my present proceedings a secret
prevented me from asking any questions which might have procured the
necessary information. My one anxiety was the anxiety to get back to
Old Welmingham. I made the best excuses I could for the discomposure in
my face and manner which Mr. Wansborough had already noticed, laid the
necessary fee on his table, arranged that I should write to him in a
day or two, and left the office, with my head in a whirl and my blood
throbbing through my veins at fever heat.
It was just getting dark. The idea occurred to me that I might be