The Woman in White (4 page)

"I want to ask you something," she said suddenly. "Do you know
many people in London?"

"Yes, a great many."

"Many men of rank and title?" There was an unmistakable tone of
suspicion in the strange question. I hesitated about answering
it.

"Some," I said, after a moment's silence.

"Many"—she came to a full stop, and looked me searchingly in the
face—"many men of the rank of Baronet?"

Too much astonished to reply, I questioned her in my turn.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I hope, for my own sake, there is one Baronet that you
don't know."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"I can't—I daren't—I forget myself when I mention it." She spoke
loudly and almost fiercely, raised her clenched hand in the air,
and shook it passionately; then, on a sudden, controlled herself
again, and added, in tones lowered to a whisper "Tell me which of
them YOU know."

I could hardly refuse to humour her in such a trifle, and I
mentioned three names. Two, the names of fathers of families
whose daughters I taught; one, the name of a bachelor who had once
taken me a cruise in his yacht, to make sketches for him.

"Ah! you DON'T know him," she said, with a sigh of relief. "Are
you a man of rank and title yourself?"

"Far from it. I am only a drawing-master."

As the reply passed my lips—a little bitterly, perhaps—she took
my arm with the abruptness which characterised all her actions.

"Not a man of rank and title," she repeated to herself. "Thank
God! I may trust HIM."

I had hitherto contrived to master my curiosity out of
consideration for my companion; but it got the better of me now.

"I am afraid you have serious reason to complain of some man of
rank and title?" I said. "I am afraid the baronet, whose name you
are unwilling to mention to me, has done you some grievous wrong?
Is he the cause of your being out here at this strange time of
night?"

"Don't ask me: don't make me talk of it," she answered. "I'm not
fit now. I have been cruelly used and cruelly wronged. You will
be kinder than ever, if you will walk on fast, and not speak to
me. I sadly want to quiet myself, if I can."

We moved forward again at a quick pace; and for half an hour, at
least, not a word passed on either side. From time to time, being
forbidden to make any more inquiries, I stole a look at her face.
It was always the same; the lips close shut, the brow frowning,
the eyes looking straight forward, eagerly and yet absently. We
had reached the first houses, and were close on the new Wesleyan
college, before her set features relaxed and she spoke once more.

"Do you live in London?" she said.

"Yes." As I answered, it struck me that she might have formed some
intention of appealing to me for assistance or advice, and that I
ought to spare her a possible disappointment by warning her of my
approaching absence from home. So I added, "But to-morrow I shall
be away from London for some time. I am going into the country."

"Where?" she asked. "North or south?"

"North—to Cumberland."

"Cumberland!" she repeated the word tenderly. "Ah! wish I was
going there too. I was once happy in Cumberland."

I tried again to lift the veil that hung between this woman and
me.

"Perhaps you were born," I said, "in the beautiful Lake country."

"No," she answered. "I was born in Hampshire; but I once went to
school for a little while in Cumberland. Lakes? I don't remember
any lakes. It's Limmeridge village, and Limmeridge House, I
should like to see again."

It was my turn now to stop suddenly. In the excited state of my
curiosity, at that moment, the chance reference to Mr. Fairlie's
place of residence, on the lips of my strange companion, staggered
me with astonishment.

"Did you hear anybody calling after us?" she asked, looking up and
down the road affrightedly, the instant I stopped.

"No, no. I was only struck by the name of Limmeridge House. I
heard it mentioned by some Cumberland people a few days since."

"Ah! not my people. Mrs. Fairlie is dead; and her husband is
dead; and their little girl may be married and gone away by this
time. I can't say who lives at Limmeridge now. If any more are
left there of that name, I only know I love them for Mrs.
Fairlie's sake."

She seemed about to say more; but while she was speaking, we came
within view of the turnpike, at the top of the Avenue Road. Her
hand tightened round my arm, and she looked anxiously at the gate
before us.

"Is the turnpike man looking out?" she asked.

He was not looking out; no one else was near the place when we
passed through the gate. The sight of the gas-lamps and houses
seemed to agitate her, and to make her impatient.

"This is London," she said. "Do you see any carriage I can get? I
am tired and frightened. I want to shut myself in and be driven
away."

I explained to her that we must walk a little further to get to a
cab-stand, unless we were fortunate enough to meet with an empty
vehicle; and then tried to resume the subject of Cumberland. It
was useless. That idea of shutting herself in, and being driven
away, had now got full possession of her mind. She could think
and talk of nothing else.

We had hardly proceeded a third of the way down the Avenue Road
when I saw a cab draw up at a house a few doors below us, on the
opposite side of the way. A gentleman got out and let himself in
at the garden door. I hailed the cab, as the driver mounted the
box again. When we crossed the road, my companion's impatience
increased to such an extent that she almost forced me to run.

"It's so late," she said. "I am only in a hurry because it's so
late."

"I can't take you, sir, if you're not going towards Tottenham
Court Road," said the driver civilly, when I opened the cab door.
"My horse is dead beat, and I can't get him no further than the
stable."

"Yes, yes. That will do for me. I'm going that way—I'm going
that way." She spoke with breathless eagerness, and pressed by me
into the cab.

I had assured myself that the man was sober as well as civil
before I let her enter the vehicle. And now, when she was seated
inside, I entreated her to let me see her set down safely at her
destination.

"No, no, no," she said vehemently. "I'm quite safe, and quite
happy now. If you are a gentleman, remember your promise. Let
him drive on till I stop him. Thank you—oh! thank you, thank
you!"

My hand was on the cab door. She caught it in hers, kissed it,
and pushed it away. The cab drove off at the same moment—I
started into the road, with some vague idea of stopping it again,
I hardly knew why—hesitated from dread of frightening and
distressing her—called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract
the driver's attention. The sound of the wheels grew fainter in
the distance—the cab melted into the black shadows on the road—
the woman in white was gone.

Ten minutes or more had passed. I was still on the same side of
the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now
stopping again absently. At one moment I found myself doubting
the reality of my own adventure; at another I was perplexed and
distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left
me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right. I hardly
knew where I was going, or what I meant to do next; I was
conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I
was abruptly recalled to myself—awakened, I might almost say—by
the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me.

I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some
garden trees, when I stopped to look round. On the opposite and
lighter side of the way, a short distance below me, a policeman
was strolling along in the direction of the Regent's Park.

The carriage passed me—an open chaise driven by two men.

"Stop!" cried one. "There's a policeman. Let's ask him."

The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark
place where I stood.

"Policeman!" cried the first speaker. "Have you seen a woman pass
this way?"

"What sort of woman, sir?"

"A woman in a lavender-coloured gown—-"

"No, no," interposed the second man. "The clothes we gave her
were found on her bed. She must have gone away in the clothes she
wore when she came to us. In white, policeman. A woman in
white."

"I haven't seen her, sir."

"If you or any of your men meet with the woman, stop her, and send
her in careful keeping to that address. I'll pay all expenses,
and a fair reward into the bargain."

The policeman looked at the card that was handed down to him.

"Why are we to stop her, sir? What has she done?"

"Done! She has escaped from my Asylum. Don't forget; a woman in
white. Drive on."

"She has escaped from my Asylum!"

I cannot say with truth that the terrible inference which those
words suggested flashed upon me like a new revelation. Some of
the strange questions put to me by the woman in white, after my
ill-considered promise to leave her free to act as she pleased,
had suggested the conclusion either that she was naturally flighty
and unsettled, or that some recent shock of terror had disturbed
the balance of her faculties. But the idea of absolute insanity
which we all associate with the very name of an Asylum, had, I can
honestly declare, never occurred to me, in connection with her. I
had seen nothing, in her language or her actions, to justify it at
the time; and even with the new light thrown on her by the words
which the stranger had addressed to the policeman, I could see
nothing to justify it now.

What had I done? Assisted the victim of the most horrible of all
false imprisonments to escape; or cast loose on the wide world of
London an unfortunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and
every man's duty, mercifully to control? I turned sick at heart
when the question occurred to me, and when I felt self-
reproachfully that it was asked too late.

In the disturbed state of my mind, it was useless to think of
going to bed, when I at last got back to my chambers in Clement's
Inn. Before many hours elapsed it would be necessary to start on
my journey to Cumberland. I sat down and tried, first to sketch,
then to read—but the woman in white got between me and my pencil,
between me and my book. Had the forlorn creature come to any
harm? That was my first thought, though I shrank selfishly from
confronting it. Other thoughts followed, on which it was less
harrowing to dwell. Where had she stopped the cab? What had
become of her now? Had she been traced and captured by the men in
the chaise? Or was she still capable of controlling her own
actions; and were we two following our widely parted roads towards
one point in the mysterious future, at which we were to meet once
more?

It was a relief when the hour came to lock my door, to bid
farewell to London pursuits, London pupils, and London friends,
and to be in movement again towards new interests and a new life.
Even the bustle and confusion at the railway terminus, so
wearisome and bewildering at other times, roused me and did me
good.

My travelling instructions directed me to go to Carlisle, and then
to diverge by a branch railway which ran in the direction of the
coast. As a misfortune to begin with, our engine broke down
between Lancaster and Carlisle. The delay occasioned by this
accident caused me to be too late for the branch train, by which I
was to have gone on immediately. I had to wait some hours; and
when a later train finally deposited me at the nearest station to
Limmeridge House, it was past ten, and the night was so dark that
I could hardly see my way to the pony-chaise which Mr. Fairlie had
ordered to be in waiting for me.

The driver was evidently discomposed by the lateness of my
arrival. He was in that state of highly respectful sulkiness
which is peculiar to English servants. We drove away slowly
through the darkness in perfect silence. The roads were bad, and
the dense obscurity of the night increased the difficulty of
getting over the ground quickly. It was, by my watch, nearly an
hour and a half from the time of our leaving the station before I
heard the sound of the sea in the distance, and the crunch of our
wheels on a smooth gravel drive. We had passed one gate before
entering the drive, and we passed another before we drew up at the
house. I was received by a solemn man-servant out of livery, was
informed that the family had retired for the night, and was then
led into a large and lofty room where my supper was awaiting me,
in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany
wilderness of dining-table.

I was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink much,
especially with the solemn servant waiting on me as elaborately as
if a small dinner party had arrived at the house instead of a
solitary man. In a quarter of an hour I was ready to be taken up
to my bedchamber. The solemn servant conducted me into a prettily
furnished room—said, "Breakfast at nine o'clock, sir"—looked all
round him to see that everything was in its proper place, and
noiselessly withdrew.

"What shall I see in my dreams to-night?" I thought to myself, as
I put out the candle; "the woman in white? or the unknown
inhabitants of this Cumberland mansion?" It was a strange
sensation to be sleeping in the house, like a friend of the
family, and yet not to know one of the inmates, even by sight!

When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened
before me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the
distant coast of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of
melting blue.

The view was such a surprise, and such a change to me, after my
weary London experience of brick and mortar landscape, that I
seemed to burst into a new life and a new set of thoughts the
moment I looked at it. A confused sensation of having suddenly
lost my familiarity with the past, without acquiring any
additional clearness of idea in reference to the present or the
future, took possession of my mind. Circumstances that were but a
few days old faded back in my memory, as if they had happened
months and months since. Pesca's quaint announcement of the means
by which he had procured me my present employment; the farewell
evening I had passed with my mother and sister; even my mysterious
adventure on the way home from Hampstead—had all become like
events which might have occurred at some former epoch of my
existence. Although the woman in white was still in my mind, the
image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint already.