The Woman in White (17 page)

"Mr. Fairlie's compliments to Mr. Hartright. Mr. Fairlie is more
surprised and disappointed than he can say (in the present state
of his health) by Mr. Hartright's application. Mr. Fairlie is not
a man of business, but he has consulted his steward, who is, and
that person confirms Mr. Fairlie's opinion that Mr. Hartright's
request to be allowed to break his engagement cannot be justified
by any necessity whatever, excepting perhaps a case of life and
death. If the highly-appreciative feeling towards Art and its
professors, which it is the consolation and happiness of Mr.
Fairlie's suffering existence to cultivate, could be easily
shaken, Mr. Hartright's present proceeding would have shaken it.
It has not done so—except in the instance of Mr. Hartright
himself.

"Having stated his opinion—so far, that is to say, as acute
nervous suffering will allow him to state anything—Mr. Fairlie
has nothing to add but the expression of his decision, in
reference to the highly irregular application that has been made
to him. Perfect repose of body and mind being to the last degree
important in his case, Mr. Fairlie will not suffer Mr. Hartright
to disturb that repose by remaining in the house under
circumstances of an essentially irritating nature to both sides.
Accordingly, Mr. Fairlie waives his right of refusal, purely with
a view to the preservation of his own tranquillity—and informs
Mr. Hartright that he may go."

I folded the letter up, and put it away with my other papers. The
time had been when I should have resented it as an insult—I
accepted it now as a written release from my engagement. It was
off my mind, it was almost out of my memory, when I went
downstairs to the breakfast-room, and informed Miss Halcombe that
I was ready to walk with her to the farm.

"Has Mr. Fairlie given you a satisfactory answer?" she asked as we
left the house.

"He has allowed me to go, Miss Halcombe."

She looked up at me quickly, and then, for the first time since I
had known her, took my arm of her own accord. No words could have
expressed so delicately that she understood how the permission to
leave my employment had been granted, and that she gave me her
sympathy, not as my superior, but as my friend. I had not felt
the man's insolent letter, but I felt deeply the woman's atoning
kindness.

On our way to the farm we arranged that Miss Halcombe was to enter
the house alone, and that I was to wait outside, within call. We
adopted this mode of proceeding from an apprehension that my
presence, after what had happened in the churchyard the evening
before, might have the effect of renewing Anne Catherick's nervous
dread, and of rendering her additionally distrustful of the
advances of a lady who was a stranger to her. Miss Halcombe left
me, with the intention of speaking, in the first instance, to the
farmer's wife (of whose friendly readiness to help her in any way
she was well assured), while I waited for her in the near
neighbourhood of the house.

I had fully expected to be left alone for some time. To my
surprise, however, little more than five minutes had elapsed
before Miss Halcombe returned.

"Does Anne Catherick refuse to see you?" I asked in astonishment.

"Anne Catherick is gone," replied Miss Halcombe.

"Gone?"

"Gone with Mrs. Clements. They both left the farm at eight
o'clock this morning."

I could say nothing—I could only feel that our last chance of
discovery had gone with them.

"All that Mrs. Todd knows about her guests, I know," Miss Halcombe
went on, "and it leaves me, as it leaves her, in the dark. They
both came back safe last night, after they left you, and they
passed the first part of the evening with Mr. Todd's family as
usual. Just before supper-time, however, Anne Catherick startled
them all by being suddenly seized with faintness. She had had a
similar attack, of a less alarming kind, on the day she arrived at
the farm; and Mrs. Todd had connected it, on that occasion, with
something she was reading at the time in our local newspaper,
which lay on the farm table, and which she had taken up only a
minute or two before."

"Does Mrs. Todd know what particular passage in the newspaper
affected her in that way?" I inquired.

"No," replied Miss Halcombe. "She had looked it over, and had
seen nothing in it to agitate any one. I asked leave, however, to
look it over in my turn, and at the very first page I opened I
found that the editor had enriched his small stock of news by
drawing upon our family affairs, and had published my sister's
marriage engagement, among his other announcements, copied from
the London papers, of Marriages in High Life. I concluded at once
that this was the paragraph which had so strangely affected Anne
Catherick, and I thought I saw in it, also, the origin of the
letter which she sent to our house the next day."

"There can be no doubt in either case. But what did you hear
about her second attack of faintness yesterday evening?"

"Nothing. The cause of it is a complete mystery. There was no
stranger in the room. The only visitor was our dairymaid, who, as
I told you, is one of Mr. Todd's daughters, and the only
conversation was the usual gossip about local affairs. They heard
her cry out, and saw her turn deadly pale, without the slightest
apparent reason. Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Clements took her upstairs,
and Mrs. Clements remained with her. They were heard talking
together until long after the usual bedtime, and early this
morning Mrs. Clements took Mrs. Todd aside, and amazed her beyond
all power of expression by saying that they must go. The only
explanation Mrs. Todd could extract from her guest was, that
something had happened, which was not the fault of any one at the
farmhouse, but which was serious enough to make Anne Catherick
resolve to leave Limmeridge immediately. It was quite useless to
press Mrs. Clements to be more explicit. She only shook her head,
and said that, for Anne's sake, she must beg and pray that no one
would question her. All she could repeat, with every appearance
of being seriously agitated herself, was that Anne must go, that
she must go with her, and that the destination to which they might
both betake themselves must be kept a secret from everybody. I
spare you the recital of Mrs. Todd's hospitable remonstrances and
refusals. It ended in her driving them both to the nearest
station, more than three hours since. She tried hard on the way
to get them to speak more plainly, but without success; and she
set them down outside the station-door, so hurt and offended by
the unceremonious abruptness of their departure and their
unfriendly reluctance to place the least confidence in her, that
she drove away in anger, without so much as stopping to bid them
good-bye. That is exactly what has taken place. Search your own
memory, Mr. Hartright, and tell me if anything happened in the
burial-ground yesterday evening which can at all account for the
extraordinary departure of those two women this morning."

"I should like to account first, Miss Halcombe, for the sudden
change in Anne Catherick which alarmed them at the farmhouse,
hours after she and I had parted, and when time enough had elapsed
to quiet any violent agitation that I might have been unfortunate
enough to cause. Did you inquire particularly about the gossip
which was going on in the room when she turned faint?"

"Yes. But Mrs. Todd's household affairs seem to have divided her
attention that evening with the talk in the farmhouse parlour.
She could only tell me that it was 'just the news,'—meaning, I
suppose, that they all talked as usual about each other."

"The dairymaid's memory may be better than her mother's," I said.
"It may be as well for you to speak to the girl, Miss Halcombe, as
soon as we get back."

My suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house.
Miss Halcombe led me round to the servants' offices, and we found
the girl in the dairy, with her sleeves tucked up to her
shoulders, cleaning a large milk-pan and singing blithely over her
work.

"I have brought this gentleman to see your dairy, Hannah," said
Miss Halcombe. "It is one of the sights of the house, and it
always does you credit."

The girl blushed and curtseyed, and said shyly that she hoped she
always did her best to keep things neat and clean.

"We have just come from your father's," Miss Halcombe continued.
"You were there yesterday evening, I hear, and you found visitors
at the house?"

"Yes, miss."

"One of them was taken faint and ill, I am told. I suppose
nothing was said or done to frighten her? You were not talking of
anything very terrible, were you?"

"Oh no, miss!" said the girl, laughing. "We were only talking of
the news."

"Your sisters told you the news at Todd's Corner, I suppose?"

"Yes, miss."

"And you told them the news at Limmeridge House?"

"Yes, miss. And I'm quite sure nothing was said to frighten the
poor thing, for I was talking when she was taken ill. It gave me
quite a turn, miss, to see it, never having been taken faint
myself."

Before any more questions could be put to her, she was called away
to receive a basket of eggs at the dairy door. As she left us I
whispered to Miss Halcombe—

"Ask her if she happened to mention, last night, that visitors
were expected at Limmeridge House."

Miss Halcombe showed me, by a look, that she understood, and put
the question as soon as the dairymaid returned to us.

"Oh yes, miss, I mentioned that," said the girl simply. "The
company coming, and the accident to the brindled cow, was all the
news I had to take to the farm."

"Did you mention names? Did you tell them that Sir Percival Glyde
was expected on Monday?"

"Yes, miss—I told them Sir Percival Glyde was coming. I hope
there was no harm in it—I hope I didn't do wrong."

"Oh no, no harm. Come, Mr. Hartright, Hannah will begin to think
us in the way, if we interrupt her any longer over her work."

We stopped and looked at one another the moment we were alone
again.

"Is there any doubt in your mind, NOW, Miss Halcombe?"

"Sir Percival Glyde shall remove that doubt, Mr. Hartright—or
Laura Fairlie shall never be his wife."

As we walked round to the front of the house a fly from the
railway approached us along the drive. Miss Halcombe waited on
the door-steps until the fly drew up, and then advanced to shake
hands with an old gentleman, who got out briskly the moment the
steps were let down. Mr. Gilmore had arrived.

I looked at him, when we were introduced to each other, with an
interest and a curiosity which I could hardly conceal. This old
man was to remain at Limmeridge House after I had left it, he was
to hear Sir Percival Glyde's explanation, and was to give Miss
Halcombe the assistance of his experience in forming her judgment;
he was to wait until the question of the marriage was set at rest;
and his hand, if that question were decided in the affirmative,
was to draw the settlement which bound Miss Fairlie irrevocably to
her engagement. Even then, when I knew nothing by comparison with
what I know now, I looked at the family lawyer with an interest
which I had never felt before in the presence of any man breathing
who was a total stranger to me.

In external appearance Mr. Gilmore was the exact opposite of the
conventional idea of an old lawyer. His complexion was florid—
his white hair was worn rather long and kept carefully brushed—
his black coat, waistcoat, and trousers fitted him with perfect
neatness—his white cravat was carefully tied, and his lavender-
coloured kid gloves might have adorned the hands of a fashionable
clergyman, without fear and without reproach. His manners were
pleasantly marked by the formal grace and refinement of the old
school of politeness, quickened by the invigorating sharpness and
readiness of a man whose business in life obliges him always to
keep his faculties in good working order. A sanguine constitution
and fair prospects to begin with—a long subsequent career of
creditable and comfortable prosperity—a cheerful, diligent,
widely-respected old age—such were the general impressions I
derived from my introduction to Mr. Gilmore, and it is but fair to
him to add, that the knowledge I gained by later and better
experience only tended to confirm them.

I left the old gentleman and Miss Halcombe to enter the house
together, and to talk of family matters undisturbed by the
restraint of a stranger's presence. They crossed the hall on
their way to the drawing-room, and I descended the steps again to
wander about the garden alone.

My hours were numbered at Limmeridge House—my departure the next
morning was irrevocably settled—my share in the investigation
which the anonymous letter had rendered necessary was at an end.
No harm could be done to any one but myself if I let my heart
loose again, for the little time that was left me, from the cold
cruelty of restraint which necessity had forced me to inflict upon
it, and took my farewell of the scenes which were associated with
the brief dream-time of my happiness and my love.

I turned instinctively to the walk beneath my study-window, where
I had seen her the evening before with her little dog, and
followed the path which her dear feet had trodden so often, till I
came to the wicket gate that led into her rose garden. The winter
bareness spread drearily over it now. The flowers that she had
taught me to distinguish by their names, the flowers that I had
taught her to paint from, were gone, and the tiny white paths that
led between the beds were damp and green already. I went on to
the avenue of trees, where we had breathed together the warm
fragrance of August evenings, where we had admired together the
myriad combinations of shade and sunlight that dappled the ground
at our feet. The leaves fell about me from the groaning branches,
and the earthy decay in the atmosphere chilled me to the bones. A
little farther on, and I was out of the grounds, and following the
lane that wound gently upward to the nearest hills. The old
felled tree by the wayside, on which we had sat to rest, was
sodden with rain, and the tuft of ferns and grasses which I had
drawn for her, nestling under the rough stone wall in front of us,
had turned to a pool of water, stagnating round an island of
draggled weeds. I gained the summit of the hill, and looked at
the view which we had so often admired in the happier time. It
was cold and barren—it was no longer the view that I remembered.
The sunshine of her presence was far from me-the charm of her
voice no longer murmured in my ear. She had talked to me, on the
spot from which I now looked down, of her father, who was her last
surviving parent—had told me how fond of each other they had
been, and how sadly she missed him still when she entered certain
rooms in the house, and when she took up forgotten occupations and
amusements with which he had been associated. Was the view that I
had seen, while listening to those words, the view that I saw now,
standing on the hill-top by myself? I turned and left it—I wound
my way back again, over the moor, and round the sandhills, down to
the beach. There was the white rage of the surf, and the
multitudinous glory of the leaping waves—but where was the place
on which she had once drawn idle figures with her parasol in the
sand—the place where we had sat together, while she talked to me
about myself and my home, while she asked me a woman's minutely
observant questions about my mother and my sister, and innocently
wondered whether I should ever leave my lonely chambers and have a
wife and a house of my own? Wind and wave had long since smoothed
out the trace of her which she had left in those marks on the
sand, I looked over the wide monotony of the seaside prospect, and
the place in which we two had idled away the sunny hours was as
lost to me as if I had never known it, as strange to me as if I
stood already on a foreign shore.