Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (337 page)

I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I could answer him. It was the first time the story of Laura and the story of Marian had been presented to me from a stranger’s point of view — the first time the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had been made to show themselves in their true character.

“There can be no doubt,” I said, “that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us, but —
 
— ”

“But you think those facts can be explained away,” interposed Mr. Kyrle. “Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact ON the surface and a long explanation UNDER the surface, it always takes the fact in preference to the explanation. For example, Lady Glyde (I call the lady you represent by that name for argument’s sake) declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not slept at that house. You explain this circumstance by entering into the state of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don’t say the conclusion is wrong — I only say that the jury will take the fact of her contradicting herself in preference to any reason for the contradiction that you can offer.”

“But is it not possible,” I urged, “by dint of patience and exertion, to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred pounds —
 
— ”

He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.

“Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view,” he said. “If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which I don’t admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of litigation would be raised — every point in the case would be systematically contested — and by the time we had spent our thousands instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be against us. Questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle — the hardest, even when they are free from the complications which beset the case we are now discussing. I really see no prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. Even if the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. In short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright — there is really no case.”

I was determined to believe that there WAS a case, and in that determination shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.

“Are there not other proofs that we might produce besides the proof of identity?” I asked.

“Not as you are situated,” he replied. “The simplest and surest of all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I understand, altogether out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy between the date of the doctor’s certificate and the date of Lady Glyde’s journey to London, the matter would wear a totally different aspect, and I should be the first to say, Let us go on.”

“That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle.”

“On the day when it is recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a case. If you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it — tell me, and we shall see if I can advise you.”

I considered. The housekeeper could not help us — Laura could not help us — Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only persons in existence who knew the date were Sir Percival and the Count.

“I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present,” I said, “because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it, but Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde.”

Mr. Kyrle’s calmly attentive face relaxed, for the first time, into a smile.

“With your opinion of the conduct of those two gentlemen,” he said, “you don’t expect help in that quarter, I presume? If they have combined to gain large sums of money by a conspiracy, they are not likely to confess it, at any rate.”

“They may be forced to confess it, Mr. Kyrle.”

“By whom?”

“By me.”

We both rose. He looked me attentively in the face with more appearance of interest than he had shown yet. I could see that I had perplexed him a little.

“You are very determined,” he said. “You have, no doubt, a personal motive for proceeding, into which it is not my business to inquire. If a case can be produced in the future, I can only say, my best assistance is at your service. At the same time I must warn you, as the money question always enters into the law question, that I see little hope, even if you ultimately established the fact of Lady Glyde’s being alive, of recovering her fortune. The foreigner would probably leave the country before proceedings were commenced, and Sir Percival’s embarrassments are numerous enough and pressing enough to transfer almost any sum of money he may possess from himself to his creditors. You are of course aware —
 
— ”

I stopped him at that point.

“Let me beg that we may not discuss Lady Glyde’s affairs,” I said. “I have never known anything about them in former times, and I know nothing of them now — except that her fortune is lost. You are right in assuming that I have personal motives for stirring in this matter. I wish those motives to be always as disinterested as they are at the present moment —
 
— ”

He tried to interpose and explain. I was a little heated, I suppose, by feeling that he had doubted me, and I went on bluntly, without waiting to hear him.

“There shall be no money motive,” I said, “no idea of personal advantage in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born — a lie which records her death has been written on her mother’s tomb — and there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are responsible for it. That house shall open again to receive her in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave — that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and those two men shall answer for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my life to that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will accomplish it.”

He drew back towards his table, and said nothing. His face showed plainly that he thought my delusion had got the better of my reason, and that he considered it totally useless to give me any more advice.

“We each keep our opinion, Mr. Kyrle,” I said, “and we must wait till the events of the future decide between us. In the meantime, I am much obliged to you for the attention you have given to my statement. You have shown me that the legal remedy lies, in every sense of the word, beyond our means. We cannot produce the law proof, and we are not rich enough to pay the law expenses. It is something gained to know that.”

I bowed and walked to the door. He called me back and gave me the letter which I had seen him place on the table by itself at the beginning of our interview.

“This came by post a few days ago,” he said. “Perhaps you will not mind delivering it? Pray tell Miss Halcombe, at the same time, that I sincerely regret being, thus far, unable to help her, except by advice, which will not be more welcome, I am afraid, to her than to you.”

I looked at the letter while he was speaking. It was addressed to “Miss Halcombe. Care of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle, Chancery Lane.” The handwriting was quite unknown to me.

On leaving the room I asked one last question.

“Do you happen to know,” I said, “if Sir Percival Glyde is still in Paris?”

“He has returned to London,” replied Mr. Kyrle. “At least I heard so from his solicitor, whom I met yesterday.”

After that answer I went out.

On leaving the office the first precaution to be observed was to abstain from attracting attention by stopping to look about me. I walked towards one of the quietest of the large squares on the north of Holborn, then suddenly stopped and turned round at a place where a long stretch of pavement was left behind me.

There were two men at the corner of the square who had stopped also, and who were standing talking together. After a moment’s reflection I turned back so as to pass them. One moved as I came near, and turned the corner leading from the square into the street. The other remained stationary. I looked at him as I passed and instantly recognised one of the men who had watched me before I left England.

If I had been free to follow my own instincts, I should probably have begun by speaking to the man, and have ended by knocking him down. But I was bound to consider consequences. If I once placed myself publicly in the wrong, I put the weapons at once into Sir Percival’s hands. There was no choice but to oppose cunning by cunning. I turned into the street down which the second man had disappeared, and passed him, waiting in a doorway. He was a stranger to me, and I was glad to make sure of his personal appearance in case of future annoyance. Having done this, I again walked northward till I reached the New Road. There I turned aside to the west (having the men behind me all the time), and waited at a point where I knew myself to be at some distance from a cab-stand, until a fast two-wheel cab, empty, should happen to pass me. One passed in a few minutes. I jumped in and told the man to drive rapidly towards Hyde Park. There was no second fast cab for the spies behind me. I saw them dart across to the other side of the road, to follow me by running, until a cab or a cab-stand came in their way. But I had the start of them, and when I stopped the driver and got out, they were nowhere in sight. I crossed Hyde Park and made sure, on the open ground, that I was free. When I at last turned my steps homewards, it was not till many hours later — not till after dark.

I found Marian waiting for me alone in the little sitting-room. She had persuaded Laura to go to rest, after first promising to show me her drawing the moment I came in. The poor little dim faint sketch — so trifling in itself, so touching in its associations — was propped up carefully on the table with two books, and was placed where the faint light of the one candle we allowed ourselves might fall on it to the best advantage. I sat down to look at the drawing, and to tell Marian, in whispers, what had happened. The partition which divided us from the next room was so thin that we could almost hear Laura’s breathing, and we might have disturbed her if we had spoken aloud.

Marian preserved her composure while I described my interview with Mr. Kyrle. But her face became troubled when I spoke next of the men who had followed me from the lawyer’s office, and when I told her of the discovery of Sir Percival’s return.

“Bad news, Walter,” she said, “the worst news you could bring. Have you nothing more to tell me?”

“I have something to give you,” I replied, handing her the note which Mr. Kyrle had confided to my care.

She looked at the address and recognised the handwriting instantly.

“You know your correspondent?” I said.

“Too well,” she answered. “My correspondent is Count Fosco.”

With that reply she opened the note. Her face flushed deeply while she read it — her eyes brightened with anger as she handed it to me to read in my turn.

The note contained these lines —

“Impelled by honourable admiration — honourable to myself, honourable to you — I write, magnificent Marian, in the interests of your tranquillity, to say two consoling words —

“Fear nothing!

“Exercise your fine natural sense and remain in retirement. Dear and admirable woman, invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation is sublime — adopt it. The modest repose of home is eternally fresh — enjoy it. The storms of life pass harmless over the valley of Seclusion — dwell, dear lady, in the valley.

“Do this and I authorise you to fear nothing. No new calamity shall lacerate your sensibilities — sensibilities precious to me as my own. You shall not be molested, the fair companion of your retreat shall not be pursued. She has found a new asylum in your heart. Priceless asylum! — I envy her and leave her there.

“One last word of affectionate warning, of paternal caution, and I tear myself from the charm of addressing you — I close these fervent lines.