The Woman in White (19 page)

Her voice failed her, her hand closed gently round mine—then
dropped it suddenly. Before I could say "Good-night" she was
gone.

The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably, as the light of
the last morning came at Limmeridge House.

It was barely half-past seven when I went downstairs, but I found
them both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. In the chill
air, in the dim light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house,
we three sat down together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The
struggle to preserve appearances was hopeless and useless, and I
rose to end it.

As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, who was nearest to me,
took it, Miss Fairlie turned away suddenly and hurried from the
room.

"Better so," said Miss Halcombe, when the door had closed—"better
so, for you and for her."

I waited a moment before I could speak—it was hard to lose her,
without a parting word or a parting look. I controlled myself—I
tried to take leave of Miss Halcombe in fitting terms; but all the
farewell words I would fain have spoken dwindled to one sentence.

"Have I deserved that you should write to me?" was all I could
say.

"You have nobly deserved everything that I can do for you, as long
as we both live. Whatever the end is you shall know it."

"And if I can ever be of help again, at any future time, long
after the memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten . . ."

I could add no more. My voice faltered, my eyes moistened in
spite of me.

She caught me by both hands—she pressed them with the strong,
steady grasp of a man—her dark eyes glittered—her brown
complexion flushed deep—the force and energy of her face glowed
and grew beautiful with the pure inner light of her generosity and
her pity.

"I will trust you—if ever the time comes I will trust you as my
friend and HER friend, as my brother and HER brother." She
stopped, drew me nearer to her—the fearless, noble creature—
touched my forehead, sister-like, with her lips, and called me by
my Christian name. "God bless you, Walter!" she said. "Wait here
alone and compose yourself—I had better not stay for both our
sakes—I had better see you go from the balcony upstairs."

She left the room. I turned away towards the window, where
nothing faced me but the lonely autumn landscape—I turned away to
master myself, before I too left the room in my turn, and left it
for ever.

A minute passed—it could hardly have been more—when I heard the
door open again softly, and the rustling of a woman's dress on the
carpet moved towards me. My heart beat violently as I turned
round. Miss Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of
the room.

She stopped and hesitated when our eyes met, and when she saw that
we were alone. Then, with that courage which women lose so often
in the small emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on
nearer to me, strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand
after her along the table by which she walked, and holding
something at her side in the other, which was hidden by the folds
of her dress.

"I only went into the drawing-room," she said, "to look for this.
It may remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave
behind you. You told me I had improved very much when I did it,
and I thought you might like—-"

She turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch, drawn
throughout by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had
first met. The paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to
me—trembled in mine as I took it from her.

I was afraid to say what I felt—I only answered, "It shall never
leave me—all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize
most. I am very grateful for it—very grateful to you, for not
letting me go away without bidding you good-bye."

"Oh!" she said innocently, "how could I let you go, after we have
passed so many happy days together!"

"Those days may never return, Miss Fairlie—my way of life and
yours are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the
devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a
moment's happiness, or spare you a moment's sorrow, will you try
to remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you? Miss
Halcombe has promised to trust me—will you promise too?"

The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her
gathering tears.

"I promise it," she said in broken tones. "Oh, don't look at me
like that! I promise it with all my heart."

I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.

"You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy
future is the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting,
that it is the dear object of MY hopes too?"

The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling
hand on the table to steady herself while she gave me the other.
I took it in mine—I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my
tears fell on it, my lips pressed it—not in love; oh, not in
love, at that last moment, but in the agony and the self-
abandonment of despair.

"For God's sake, leave me!" she said faintly.

The confession of her heart's secret burst from her in those
pleading words. I had no right to hear them, no right to answer
them—they were the words that banished me, in the name of her
sacred weakness, from the room. It was all over. I dropped her
hand, I said no more. The blinding tears shut her out from my
eyes, and I dashed them away to look at her for the last time.
One look as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table,
as her fair head dropped on them wearily. One farewell look, and
the door had closed upon her—the great gulf of separation had
opened between us—the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the
past already.

The End of Hartright's Narrative.

I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter
Hartright. They are intended to convey a description of certain
events which seriously affected Miss Fairlie's interests, and
which took place after the period of Mr. Hartright's departure
from Limmeridge House.

There is no need for me to say whether my own opinion does or does
not sanction the disclosure of the remarkable family story, of
which my narrative forms an important component part. Mr.
Hartright has taken that responsibility on himself, and
circumstances yet to be related will show that he has amply earned
the right to do so, if he chooses to exercise it. The plan he has
adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful
and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each
successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were
directly concerned in those events at the time of their
occurrence. My appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary
consequence of this arrangement. I was present during the sojourn
of Sir Percival Glyde in Cumberland, and was personally concerned
in one important result of his short residence under Mr. Fairlie's
roof. It is my duty, therefore, to add these new links to the
chain of events, and to take up the chain itself at the point
where, for the present only Mr. Hartright has dropped it.

I arrived at Limmeridge House on Friday the second of November.

My object was to remain at Mr. Fairlie's until the arrival of Sir
Percival Glyde. If that event led to the appointment of any given
day for Sir Percival's union with Miss Fairlie, I was to take the
necessary instructions back with me to London, and to occupy
myself in drawing the lady's marriage-settlement.

On the Friday I was not favoured by Mr. Fairlie with an interview.
He had been, or had fancied himself to be, an invalid for years
past, and he was not well enough to receive me. Miss Halcombe was
the first member of the family whom I saw. She met me at the
house door, and introduced me to Mr. Hartright, who had been
staying at Limmeridge for some time past.

I did not see Miss Fairlie until later in the day, at dinner-time.
She was not looking well, and I was sorry to observe it. She is a
sweet lovable girl, as amiable and attentive to every one about
her as her excellent mother used to be—though, personally
speaking, she takes after her father. Mrs. Fairlie had dark eyes
and hair, and her elder daughter, Miss Halcombe, strongly reminds
me of her. Miss Fairlie played to us in the evening—not so well
as usual, I thought. We had a rubber at whist, a mere
profanation, so far as play was concerned, of that noble game. I
had been favourably impressed by Mr. Hartright on our first
introduction to one another, but I soon discovered that he was not
free from the social failings incidental to his age. There are
three things that none of the young men of the present generation
can do. They can't sit over their wine, they can't play at whist,
and they can't pay a lady a compliment. Mr. Hartright was no
exception to the general rule. Otherwise, even in those early
days and on that short acquaintance, he struck me as being a
modest and gentlemanlike young man.

So the Friday passed. I say nothing about the more serious
matters which engaged my attention on that day—the anonymous
letter to Miss Fairlie, the measures I thought it right to adopt
when the matter was mentioned to me, and the conviction I
entertained that every possible explanation of the circumstances
would be readily afforded by Sir Percival Glyde, having all been
fully noticed, as I understand, in the narrative which precedes
this.

On the Saturday Mr. Hartright had left before I got down to
breakfast. Miss Fairlie kept her room all day, and Miss Halcombe
appeared to me to be out of spirits. The house was not what it
used to be in the time of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Fairlie. I took a
walk by myself in the forenoon, and looked about at some of the
places which I first saw when I was staying at Limmeridge to
transact family business, more than thirty years since. They were
not what they used to be either.

At two o'clock Mr. Fairlie sent to say he was well enough to see
me. HE had not altered, at any rate, since I first knew him. His
talk was to the same purpose as usual—all about himself and his
ailments, his wonderful coins, and his matchless Rembrandt
etchings. The moment I tried to speak of the business that had
brought me to his house, he shut his eyes and said I "upset" him.
I persisted in upsetting him by returning again and again to the
subject. All I could ascertain was that he looked on his niece's
marriage as a settled thing, that her father had sanctioned it,
that he sanctioned it himself, that it was a desirable marriage,
and that he should be personally rejoiced when the worry of it was
over. As to the settlements, if I would consult his niece, and
afterwards dive as deeply as I pleased into my own knowledge of
the family affairs, and get everything ready, and limit his share
in the business, as guardian, to saying Yes, at the right moment—
why, of course he would meet my views, and everybody else's views,
with infinite pleasure. In the meantime, there I saw him, a
helpless sufferer, confined to his room. Did I think he looked as
if he wanted teasing? No. Then why tease him?

I might, perhaps, have been a little astonished at this
extraordinary absence of all self-assertion on Mr. Fairlie's part,
in the character of guardian, if my knowledge of the family
affairs had not been sufficient to remind me that he was a single
man, and that he had nothing more than a life-interest in the
Limmeridge property. As matters stood, therefore, I was neither
surprised nor disappointed at the result of the interview. Mr.
Fairlie had simply justified my expectations—and there was an end
of it.

Sunday was a dull day, out of doors and in. A letter arrived for
me from Sir Percival Glyde's solicitor, acknowledging the receipt
of my copy of the anonymous letter and my accompanying statement
of the case. Miss Fairlie joined us in the afternoon, looking
pale and depressed, and altogether unlike herself. I had some
talk with her, and ventured on a delicate allusion to Sir
Percival. She listened and said nothing. All other subjects she
pursued willingly, but this subject she allowed to drop. I began
to doubt whether she might not be repenting of her engagement—
just as young ladies often do, when repentance comes too late.

On Monday Sir Percival Glyde arrived.

I found him to be a most prepossessing man, so far as manners and
appearance were concerned. He looked rather older than I had
expected, his head being bald over the forehead, and his face
somewhat marked and worn, but his movements were as active and his
spirits as high as a young man's. His meeting with Miss Halcombe
was delightfully hearty and unaffected, and his reception of me,
upon my being presented to him, was so easy and pleasant that we
got on together like old friends. Miss Fairlie was not with us
when he arrived, but she entered the room about ten minutes
afterwards. Sir Percival rose and paid his compliments with
perfect grace. His evident concern on seeing the change for the
worse in the young lady's looks was expressed with a mixture of
tenderness and respect, with an unassuming delicacy of tone,
voice, and manner, which did equal credit to his good breeding and
his good sense. I was rather surprised, under these
circumstances, to see that Miss Fairlie continued to be
constrained and uneasy in his presence, and that she took the
first opportunity of leaving the room again. Sir Percival neither
noticed the restraint in her reception of him, nor her sudden
withdrawal from our society. He had not obtruded his attentions
on her while she was present, and he did not embarrass Miss
Halcombe by any allusion to her departure when she was gone. His
tact and taste were never at fault on this or on any other
occasion while I was in his company at Limmeridge House.