The Woman in White (12 page)

Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught up a chair for
herself before I could give her one, and sat down in it, close at
my side.

"Mr. Hartright," she said, "I had hoped that all painful subjects
of conversation were exhausted between us, for to-day at least.
But it is not to be so. There is some underhand villainy at work
to frighten my sister about her approaching marriage. You saw me
send the gardener on to the house, with a letter addressed, in a
strange handwriting, to Miss Fairlie?"

"Certainly."

"The letter is an anonymous letter—a vile attempt to injure Sir
Percival Glyde in my sister's estimation. It has so agitated and
alarmed her that I have had the greatest possible difficulty in
composing her spirits sufficiently to allow me to leave her room
and come here. I know this is a family matter on which I ought
not to consult you, and in which you can feel no concern or
interest—-"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe. I feel the strongest possible
concern and interest in anything that affects Miss Fairlie's
happiness or yours."

"I am glad to hear you say so. You are the only person in the
house, or out of it, who can advise me. Mr. Fairlie, in his state
of health and with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all
kinds, is not to be thought of. The clergyman is a good, weak
man, who knows nothing out of the routine of his duties; and our
neighbours are just the sort of comfortable, jog-trot
acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times of trouble and
danger. What I want to know is this: ought I at once to take such
steps as I can to discover the writer of the letter? or ought I to
wait, and apply to Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser to-morrow? It is a
question—perhaps a very important one—of gaining or losing a
day. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright. If necessity had not
already obliged me to take you into my confidence under very
delicate circumstances, even my helpless situation would, perhaps,
be no excuse for me. But as things are I cannot surely be wrong,
after all that has passed between us, in forgetting that you are a
friend of only three months' standing."

She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any
preliminary form of address, as follows—

"Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do.
See what Scripture says about dreams and their fulfilment (Genesis
xl. 8, xli. 25; Daniel iv. 18-25), and take the warning I send you
before it is too late.

"Last night I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. I dreamed that I
was standing inside the communion rails of a church—I on one side
of the altar-table, and the clergyman, with his surplice and his
prayer-book, on the other.

"After a time there walked towards us, down the aisle of the
church, a man and a woman, coming to be married. You were the
woman. You looked so pretty and innocent in your beautiful white
silk dress, and your long white lace veil, that my heart felt for
you, and the tears came into my eyes.

"They were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven blesses and
instead of falling from my eyes like the everyday tears that we
all of us shed, they turned into two rays of light which slanted
nearer and nearer to the man standing at the altar with you, till
they touched his breast. The two rays sprang ill arches like two
rainbows between me and him. I looked along them, and I saw down
into his inmost heart.

"The outside of the man you were marrying was fair enough to see.
He was neither tall nor short—he was a little below the middle
size. A light, active, high-spirited man—about five-and-forty
years old, to look at. He had a pale face, and was bald over the
forehead, but had dark hair on the rest of his head. His beard
was shaven on his chin, but was let to grow, of a fine rich brown,
on his cheeks and his upper lip. His eyes were brown too, and
very bright; his nose straight and handsome and delicate enough to
have done for a woman's. His hands the same. He was troubled
from time to time with a dry hacking cough, and when he put up his
white right hand to his mouth, he showed the red scar of an old
wound across the back of it. Have I dreamt of the right man? You
know best, Miss Fairlie and you can say if I was deceived or not.
Read next, what I saw beneath the outside—I entreat you, read,
and profit.

"I looked along the two rays of light, and I saw down into his
inmost heart. It was black as night, and on it were written, in
the red flaming letters which are the handwriting of the fallen
angel, 'Without pity and without remorse. He has strewn with
misery the paths of others, and he will live to strew with misery
the path of this woman by his side.' I read that, and then the
rays of light shifted and pointed over his shoulder; and there,
behind him, stood a fiend laughing. And the rays of light shifted
once more, and pointed over your shoulder; and there behind you,
stood an angel weeping. And the rays of light shifted for the
third time, and pointed straight between you and that man. They
widened and widened, thrusting you both asunder, one from the
other. And the clergyman looked for the marriage-service in vain:
it was gone out of the book, and he shut up the leaves, and put it
from him in despair. And I woke with my eyes full of tears and my
heart beating—for I believe in dreams.

"Believe too, Miss Fairlie—I beg of you, for your own sake,
believe as I do. Joseph and Daniel, and others in Scripture,
believed in dreams. Inquire into the past life of that man with
the scar on his hand, before you say the words that make you his
miserable wife. I don't give you this warning on my account, but
on yours. I have an interest in your well-being that will live as
long as I draw breath. Your mother's daughter has a tender place
in my heart—for your mother was my first, my best, my only
friend."

There the extraordinary letter ended, without signature of any
sort.

The handwriting afforded no prospect of a clue. It was traced on
ruled lines, in the cramped, conventional, copy-book character
technically termed "small hand." It was feeble and faint, and
defaced by blots, but had otherwise nothing to distinguish it.

"That is not an illiterate letter," said Miss Halcombe, "and at
the same time, it is surely too incoherent to be the letter of an
educated person in the higher ranks of life. The reference to the
bridal dress and veil, and other little expressions, seem to point
to it as the production of some woman. What do you think, Mr.
Hartright?"

"I think so too. It seems to me to be not only the letter of a
woman, but of a woman whose mind must be—-"

"Deranged?" suggested Miss Halcombe. "It struck me in that light
too."

I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the
last sentence of the letter: "Your mother's daughter has a tender
place in my heart—for your mother was my first, my best, my only
friend." Those words and the doubt which had just escaped me as to
the sanity of the writer of the letter, acting together on my
mind, suggested an idea, which I was literally afraid to express
openly, or even to encourage secretly. I began to doubt whether
my own faculties were not in danger of losing their balance. It
seemed almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything
strange that happened, everything unexpected that was said, always
to the same hidden source and the same sinister influence. I
resolved, this time, in defence of my own courage and my own
sense, to come to no decision that plain fact did not warrant, and
to turn my back resolutely on everything that tempted me in the
shape of surmise.

"If we have any chance of tracing the person who has written
this," I said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, "there can
be no harm in seizing our opportunity the moment it offers. I
think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly
woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries
in the village. But first let me ask a question. You mentioned
just now the alternative of consulting Mr. Fairlie's legal adviser
to-morrow. Is there no possibility of communicating with him
earlier? Why not to-day?"

"I can only explain," replied Miss Halcombe, "by entering into
certain particulars, connected with my sister's marriage-
engagement, which I did not think it necessary or desirable to
mention to you this morning. One of Sir Percival Glyde's objects
in coming here on Monday, is to fix the period of his marriage,
which has hitherto been left quite unsettled. He is anxious that
the event should take place before the end of the year."

"Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?" I asked eagerly.

"She has no suspicion of it, and after what has happened, I shall
not take the responsibility upon myself of enlightening her. Sir
Percival has only mentioned his views to Mr. Fairlie, who has told
me himself that he is ready and anxious, as Laura's guardian, to
forward them. He has written to London, to the family solicitor,
Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore happens to be away in Glasgow on
business, and he has replied by proposing to stop at Limmeridge
House on his way back to town. He will arrive to-morrow, and will
stay with us a few days, so as to allow Sir Percival time to plead
his own cause. If he succeeds, Mr. Gilmore will then return to
London, taking with him his instructions for my sister's marriage-
settlement. You understand now, Mr. Hartright, why I speak of
waiting to take legal advice until to-morrow? Mr. Gilmore is the
old and tried friend of two generations of Fairlies, and we can
trust him, as we could trust no one else."

The marriage-settlement! The mere hearing of those two words stung
me with a jealous despair that was poison to my higher and better
instincts. I began to think—it is hard to confess this, but I
must suppress nothing from beginning to end of the terrible story
that I now stand committed to reveal—I began to think, with a
hateful eagerness of hope, of the vague charges against Sir
Percival Glyde which the anonymous letter contained. What if
those wild accusations rested on a foundation of truth? What if
their truth could be proved before the fatal words of consent were
spoken, and the marriage-settlement was drawn? I have tried to
think since, that the feeling which then animated me began and
ended in pure devotion to Miss Fairlie's interests, but I have
never succeeded in deceiving myself into believing it, and I must
not now attempt to deceive others. The feeling began and ended in
reckless, vindictive, hopeless hatred of the man who was to marry
her.

"If we are to find out anything," I said, speaking under the new
influence which was now directing me, "we had better not let
another minute slip by us unemployed. I can only suggest, once
more, the propriety of questioning the gardener a second time, and
of inquiring in the village immediately afterwards."

"I think I may be of help to you in both cases," said Miss
Halcombe, rising. "Let us go, Mr. Hartright, at once, and do the
best we can together."

I had the door in my hand to open it for her—but I stopped, on a
sudden, to ask an important question before we set forth.

"One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter," I said, "contains
some sentences of minute personal description. Sir Percival
Glyde's name is not mentioned, I know—but does that description
at all resemble him?"

"Accurately—even in stating his age to be forty-five—-"

Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! Men of his age married
wives of her age every day—and experience had shown those
marriages to be often the happiest ones. I knew that—and yet
even the mention of his age, when I contrasted it with hers, added
to my blind hatred and distrust of him.

"Accurately," Miss Halcombe continued, "even to the scar on his
right hand, which is the scar of a wound that he received years
since when he was travelling in Italy. There can be no doubt that
every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well
known to the writer of the letter."

"Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember
right?"

"Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it lightly himself,
though it sometimes makes his friends anxious about him."

"I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his
character?"

"Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that
infamous letter influence you?"

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it HAD
influenced me.

"I hope not," I answered confusedly. "Perhaps I had no right to
ask the question."

"I am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it enables me to do
justice to Sir Percival's reputation. Not a whisper, Mr.
Hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against him. He has
fought successfully two contested elections, and has come out of
the ordeal unscathed. A man who can do that, in England, is a man
whose character is established."

I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She
had not convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from
heaven to confirm her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes,
the recording angel would not have convinced me.

We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning
could extract a single answer of any importance from the lad's
impenetrable stupidity. The woman who had given him the letter
was an elderly woman; she had not spoken a word to him, and she
had gone away towards the south in a great hurry. That was all
the gardener could tell us.

The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went
next.

Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all
directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But
nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure
us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to
describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact
direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her,
these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total
ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of
their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.