The Woman in White (95 page)

We started the next morning by the early train. Laura, Marian,
Mr. Kyrle, and myself in one carriage, and John Owen, with a clerk
from Mr. Kyrle's office, occupying places in another. On reaching
the Limmeridge station we went first to the farmhouse at Todd's
Corner. It was my firm determination that Laura should not enter
her uncle's house till she appeared there publicly recognised as
his niece. I left Marian to settle the question of accommodation
with Mrs. Todd, as soon as the good woman had recovered from the
bewilderment of hearing what our errand was in Cumberland, and I
arranged with her husband that John Owen was to be committed to
the ready hospitality of the farm-servants. These preliminaries
completed, Mr. Kyrle and I set forth together for Limmeridge
House.

I cannot write at any length of our interview with Mr. Fairlie,
for I cannot recall it to mind without feelings of impatience and
contempt, which make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly
repulsive to me. I prefer to record simply that I carried my
point. Mr. Fairlie attempted to treat us on his customary plan.
We passed without notice his polite insolence at the outset of the
interview. We heard without sympathy the protestations with which
he tried next to persuade us that the disclosure of the conspiracy
had overwhelmed him. He absolutely whined and whimpered at last
like a fretful child. "How was he to know that his niece was
alive when he was told that she was dead? He would welcome dear
Laura with pleasure, if we would only allow him time to recover.
Did we think he looked as if he wanted hurrying into his grave?
No. Then, why hurry him?" He reiterated these remonstrances at
every available opportunity, until I checked them once for all, by
placing him firmly between two inevitable alternatives. I gave
him his choice between doing his niece justice on my terms, or
facing the consequence of a public assertion of her existence in a
court of law. Mr. Kyrle, to whom he turned for help, told him
plainly that he must decide the question then and there.
Characteristically choosing the alternative which promised soonest
to release him from all personal anxiety, he announced with a
sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong enough to bear
any more bullying, and that we might do as we pleased.

Mr. Kyrle and I at once went downstairs, and agreed upon a form of
letter which was to be sent round to the tenants who had attended
the false funeral, summoning them, in Mr. Fairlie's name, to
assemble in Limmeridge House on the next day but one. An order
referring to the same date was also written, directing a statuary
in Carlisle to send a man to Limmeridge churchyard for the purpose
of erasing an inscription—Mr. Kyrle, who had arranged to sleep in
the house, undertaking that Mr. Fairlie should hear these letters
read to him, and should sign them with his own hand.

I occupied the interval day at the farm in writing a plain
narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of
the practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion
of Laura's death. This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle before I read it
the next day to the assembled tenants. We also arranged the form
in which the evidence should be presented at the close of the
reading. After these matters were settled, Mr. Kyrle endeavoured
to turn the conversation next to Laura's affairs. Knowing, and
desiring to know nothing of those affairs, and doubting whether he
would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to
my wife's life-interest in the legacy left to Madame Fosco, I
begged Mr. Kyrle to excuse me if I abstained from discussing the
subject. It was connected, as I could truly tell him, with those
sorrows and troubles of the past which we never referred to among
ourselves, and which we instinctively shrank from discussing with
others.

My last labour, as the evening approached, was to obtain "The
Narrative of the Tombstone," by taking a copy of the false
inscription on the grave before it was erased.

The day came—the day when Laura once more entered the familiar
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House. All the persons assembled
rose from their seats as Marian and I led her in. A perceptible
shock of surprise, an audible murmur of interest ran through them,
at the sight of her face. Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express
stipulation), with Mr. Kyrle by his side. His valet stood behind
him with a smelling-bottle ready in one hand, and a white
handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-Cologne, in the other.

I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to Mr. Fairlie to
say whether I appeared there with his authority and under his
express sanction. He extended an arm, on either side, to Mr.
Kyrle and to his valet—was by them assisted to stand on his legs,
and then expressed himself in these terms: "Allow me to present
Mr. Hartright. I am as great an invalid as ever, and he is so
very obliging as to speak for me. The subject is dreadfully
embarrassing. Please hear him, and don't make a noise!" With
those words he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took
refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief.

The disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after I had offered my
preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the
plainest words. I was there present (I informed my hearers) to
declare, first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter
of the late Mr. Philip Fairlie; secondly, to prove by positive
facts, that the funeral which they had attended in Limmeridge
churchyard was the funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them
a plain account of how it had all happened. Without further
preface, I at once read the narrative of the conspiracy,
describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the
pecuniary motive for it, in order to avoid complicating my
statement by unnecessary reference to Sir Percival's secret. This
done, I reminded my audience of the date on the inscription in the
churchyard (the 25th), and confirmed its correctness by producing
the certificate of death. I then read them Sir Percival's letter
of the 25th, announcing his wife's intended journey from Hampshire
to London on the 26th. I next showed that she had taken that
journey, by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly, and I
proved that she had performed it on the appointed day, by the
order-book at the livery stables. Marian then added her own
statement of the meeting between Laura and herself at the mad-
house, and of her sister's escape. After which I closed the
proceedings by informing the persons present of Sir Percival's
death and of my marriage.

Mr. Kyrle rose when I resumed my seat, and declared, as the legal
adviser of the family, that my case was proved by the plainest
evidence he had ever heard in his life. As he spoke those words,
I put my arm round Laura, and raised her so that she was plainly
visible to every one in the room. "Are you all of the same
opinion?" I asked, advancing towards them a few steps, and
pointing to my wife.

The effect of the question was electrical. Far down at the lower
end of the room one of the oldest tenants on the estate started to
his feet, and led the rest with him in an instant. I see the man
now, with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair, mounted on
the window-seat, waving his heavy riding-whip over his head, and
leading the cheers. "There she is, alive and hearty—God bless
her! Gi' it tongue, lads! Gi' it tongue!" The shout that answered
him, reiterated again and again, was the sweetest music I ever
heard. The labourers in the village and the boys from the school,
assembled on the lawn, caught up the cheering and echoed it back
on us. The farmers' wives clustered round Laura, and struggled
which should be first to shake hands with her, and to implore her,
with the tears pouring over their own cheeks, to bear up bravely
and not to cry. She was so completely overwhelmed, that I was
obliged to take her from them, and carry her to the door. There I
gave her into Marian's care—Marian, who had never failed us yet,
whose courageous self-control did not fail us now. Left by myself
at the door, I invited all the persons present (after thanking
them in Laura's name and mine) to follow me to the churchyard, and
see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own
eyes.

They all left the house, and all joined the throng of villagers
collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting
for us. In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the
steel sounded on the marble. Not a voice was heard—not a soul
moved, till those three words, "Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished
from sight. Then there was a great heave of relief among the
crowd, as if they felt that the last fetters of the conspiracy had
been struck off Laura herself, and the assembly slowly withdrew.
It was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased.
One line only was afterwards engraved in its place: "Anne
Catherick, July 25th, 1850."

I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in the evening to take
leave of Mr. Kyrle. He and his clerk, and the driver of the fly,
went back to London by the night train. On their departure an
insolent message was delivered to me from Mr. Fairlie—who had
been carried from the room in a shattered condition, when the
first outbreak of cheering answered my appeal to the tenantry.
The message conveyed to us "Mr. Fairlie's best congratulations,"
and requested to know whether "we contemplated stopping in the
house." I sent back word that the only object for which we had
entered his doors was accomplished—that I contemplated stopping
in no man's house but my own—and that Mr. Fairlie need not
entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing
from us again. We went back to our friends at the farm to rest
that night, and the next morning—escorted to the station, with
the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and
by all the farmers in the neighbourhood—we returned to London.

As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the distance, I
thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the
long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. It was
strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had
denied us all hope of assistance had been the indirect means of
our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich
enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The
gain (on Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would have been more than
doubtful—the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they
had really happened, certain. The law would never have obtained
me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have
made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.

Two more events remain to be added to the chain before it reaches
fairly from the outset of the story to the close.

While our new sense of freedom from the long oppression of the
past was still strange to us, I was sent for by the friend who had
given me my first employment in wood engraving, to receive from
him a fresh testimony of his regard for my welfare. He had been
commissioned by his employers to go to Paris, and to examine for
them a fresh discovery in the practical application of his Art,
the merits of which they were anxious to ascertain. His own
engagements had not allowed him leisure time to undertake the
errand, and he had most kindly suggested that it should be
transferred to me. I could have no hesitation in thankfully
accepting the offer, for if I acquitted myself of my commission as
I hoped I should, the result would be a permanent engagement on
the illustrated newspaper, to which I was now only occasionally
attached.

I received my instructions and packed up for the journey the next
day. On leaving Laura once more (under what changed
circumstances!) in her sister's care, a serious consideration
recurred to me, which had more than once crossed my wife's mind,
as well as my own, already—I mean the consideration of Marian's
future. Had we any right to let our selfish affection accept the
devotion of all that generous life? Was it not our duty, our best
expression of gratitude, to forget ourselves, and to think only of
HER? I tried to say this when we were alone for a moment, before
I went away. She took my hand, and silenced me at the first
words.

"After all that we three have suffered together," she said "there
can be no parting between us till the last parting of all. My
heart and my happiness, Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a
little till there are children's voices at your fireside. I will
teach them to speak for me in THEIR language, and the first lesson
they say to their father and mother shall be—We can't spare our
aunt!"

My journey to Paris was not undertaken alone. At the eleventh
hour Pesca decided that he would accompany me. He had not
recovered his customary cheerfulness since the night at the Opera,
and he determined to try what a week's holiday would do to raise
his spirits.

I performed the errand entrusted to me, and drew out the necessary
report, on the fourth day from our arrival in Paris. The fifth
day I arranged to devote to sight-seeing and amusements in Pesca's
company.

Our hotel had been too full to accommodate us both on the same
floor. My room was on the second story, and Pesca's was above me,
on the third. On the morning of the fifth day I went upstairs to
see if the Professor was ready to go out. Just before I reached
the landing I saw his door opened from the inside—a long,
delicate, nervous hand (not my friend's hand certainly) held it
ajar. At the same time I heard Pesca's voice saying eagerly, in
low tones, and in his own language—"I remember the name, but I
don't know the man. You saw at the Opera he was so changed that I
could not recognise him. I will forward the report—I can do no
more." "No more need be done," answered the second voice. The
door opened wide, and the light-haired man with the scar on his
cheek—the man I had seen following Count Fosco's cab a week
before—came out. He bowed as I drew aside to let him pass—his
face was fearfully pale—and he held fast by the banisters as he
descended the stairs.