The Woman in White (50 page)

"Have you no other security to borrow upon?"

"Not a shred."

"What have you actually got with your wife at the present moment?"

"Nothing but the interest of her twenty thousand pounds—barely
enough to pay our daily expenses."

"What do you expect from your wife?"

"Three thousand a year when her uncle dies."

"A fine fortune, Percival. What sort of a man is this uncle?
Old?"

"No—neither old nor young."

"A good-tempered, freely-living man? Married? No—I think my
wife told me, not married."

"Of course not. If he was married, and had a son, Lady Glyde
would not be next heir to the property. I'll tell you what he is.
He's a maudlin, twaddling, selfish fool, and bores everybody who
comes near him about the state of his health."

"Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently
when you least expect it. I don't give you much, my friend, for
your chance of the three thousand a year. Is there nothing more
that comes to you from your wife?"

"Nothing."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing—except in case of her death."

"Aha! in the case of her death."

There was another pause. The Count moved from the
verandah to the gravel walk outside. I knew that he had moved by
his voice. "The rain has come at last," I heard him say. It had
come. The state of my cloak showed that it had been falling
thickly for some little time.

The Count went back under the verandah—I heard the chair creak
beneath his weight as he sat down in it again.

"Well, Percival," he said, "and in the case of Lady Glyde's death,
what do you get then?"

"If she leaves no children—-"

"Which she is likely to do?"

"Which she is not in the least likely to do—-"

"Yes?"

"Why, then I get her twenty thousand pounds."

"Paid down?"

"Paid down."

They were silent once more. As their voices ceased Madame Fosco's
shadow darkened the blind again. Instead of passing this time, it
remained, for a moment, quite still. I saw her fingers steal
round the corner of the blind, and draw it on one side. The dim
white outline of her face, looking out straight over me, appeared
behind the window. I kept still, shrouded from head to foot in my
black cloak. The rain, which was fast wetting me, dripped over
the glass, blurred it, and prevented her from seeing anything.
"More rain!" I heard her say to herself. She dropped the blind,
and I breathed again freely.

The talk went on below me, the Count resuming it this time.

"Percival! do you care about your wife?"

"Fosco! that's rather a downright question."

"I am a downright man, and I repeat it."

"Why the devil do you look at me in that way?"

"You won't answer me? Well, then, let us say your wife dies before
the summer is out—-"

"Drop it, Fosco!"

"Let us say your wife dies—-"

"Drop it, I tell you!"

"In that case, you would gain twenty thousand pounds, and you
would lose—-"

"I should lose the chance of three thousand a year."

"The REMOTE chance, Percival—the remote chance only. And you
want money, at once. In your position the gain is certain—the
loss doubtful."

"Speak for yourself as well as for me. Some of the money I want
has been borrowed for you. And if you come to gain, my wife's
death would be ten thousand pounds in your wife's pocket. Sharp
as you are, you seem to have conveniently forgotten Madame Fosco's
legacy. Don't look at me in that way! I won't have it! What with
your looks and your questions, upon my soul, you make my flesh
creep!"

"Your flesh? Does flesh mean conscience in English? speak of your
wife's death as I speak of a possibility. Why not? The
respectable lawyers who scribble-scrabble your deeds and your
wills look the deaths of living people in the face. Do lawyers
make your flesh creep? Why should I? It is my business to-night to
clear up your position beyond the possibility of mistake, and I
have now done it. Here is your position. If your wife lives, you
pay those bills with her signature to the parchment. If your wife
dies, you pay them with her death."

As he spoke the light in Madame Fosco's room was extinguished, and
the whole second floor of the house was now sunk in darkness.

"Talk! talk!" grumbled Sir Percival. "One would think, to hear
you, that my wife's signature to the deed was got already."

"You have left the matter in my hands," retorted the Count, "and I
have more than two months before me to turn round in. Say no more
about it, if you please, for the present. When the bills are due,
you will see for yourself if my 'talk! talk!' is worth something,
or if it is not. And now, Percival, having done with the money
matters for to-night, I can place my attention at your disposal,
if you wish to consult me on that second difficulty which has
mixed itself up with our little embarrassments, and which has so
altered you for the worse, that I hardly know you again. Speak,
my friend—and pardon me if I shock your fiery national tastes by
mixing myself a second glass of sugar-and-water."

"It's very well to say speak," replied Sir Percival, in a far more
quiet and more polite tone than he had yet adopted, "but it's not
so easy to know how to begin."

"Shall I help you?" suggested the Count. "Shall I give this
private difficulty of yours a name? What if I call it—Anne
Catherick?"

"Look here, Fosco, you and I have known each other for a long
time, and if you have helped me out of one or two scrapes before
this, I have done the best I could to help you in return, as far
as money would go. We have made as many friendly sacrifices, on
both sides, as men could, but we have had our secrets from each
other, of course—haven't we?"

"You have had a secret from me, Percival. There is a skeleton in
your cupboard here at Blackwater Park that has peeped out in these
last few days at other people besides yourself."

"Well, suppose it has. If it doesn't concern you, you needn't be
curious about it, need you?"

"Do I look curious about it?"

"Yes, you do."

"So! so! my face speaks the truth, then? What an immense
foundation of good there must be in the nature of a man who
arrives at my age, and whose face has not yet lost the habit of
speaking the truth!—Come, Glyde! let us be candid one with the
other. This secret of yours has sought me: I have not sought it.
Let us say I am curious—do you ask me, as your old friend, to
respect your secret, and to leave it, once for all, in your own
keeping?"

"Yes—that's just what I do ask."

"Then my curiosity is at an end. It dies in me from this moment."

"Do you really mean that?"

"What makes you doubt me?"

"I have had some experience, Fosco, of your roundabout ways, and I
am not so sure that you won't worm it out of me after all."

The chair below suddenly creaked again—I felt the trellis-work
pillar under me shake from top to bottom. The Count had started
to his feet, and had struck it with his hand in indignation.

"Percival! Percival!" he cried passionately, "do you know me no
better than that? Has all your experience shown you nothing of my
character yet? I am a man of the antique type! I am capable of the
most exalted acts of virtue—when I have the chance of performing
them. It has been the misfortune of my life that I have had few
chances. My conception of friendship is sublime! Is it my fault
that your skeleton has peeped out at me? Why do I confess my
curiosity? You poor superficial Englishman, it is to magnify my
own self-control. I could draw your secret out of you, if I
liked, as I draw this finger out of the palm of my hand—you know
I could! But you have appealed to my friendship, and the duties of
friendship are sacred to me. See! I trample my base curiosity
under my feet. My exalted sentiments lift me above it. Recognise
them, Percival! imitate them, Percival! Shake hands—I forgive
you."

His voice faltered over the last words—faltered, as if he were
actually shedding tears!

Sir Percival confusedly attempted to excuse himself, but the Count
was too magnanimous to listen to him.

"No!" he said. "When my friend has wounded me, I can pardon him
without apologies. Tell me, in plain words, do you want my help?"

"Yes, badly enough."

"And you can ask for it without compromising yourself?"

"I can try, at any rate."

"Try, then."

"Well, this is how it stands:—I told you to-day that I had done
my best to find Anne Catherick, and failed."

"Yes, you did."

"Fosco! I'm a lost man if I DON'T find her."

"Ha! Is it so serious as that?"

A little stream of light travelled out under the verandah, and
fell over the gravel-walk. The Count had taken the lamp from the
inner part of the room to see his friend clearly by the light of
it.

"Yes!" he said. "Your face speaks the truth this time. Serious,
indeed—as serious as the money matters themselves."

"More serious. As true as I sit here, more serious!"

The light disappeared again and the talk went on.

"I showed you the letter to my wife that Anne Catherick hid in the
sand," Sir Percival continued. "There's no boasting in that
letter, Fosco—she DOES know the Secret."

"Say as little as possible, Percival, in my presence, of the
Secret. Does she know it from you?"

"No, from her mother."

"Two women in possession of your private mind—bad, bad, bad, my
friend! One question here, before we go any farther. The motive
of your shutting up the daughter in the asylum is now plain enough
to me, but the manner of her escape is not quite so clear. Do you
suspect the people in charge of her of closing their eyes
purposely, at the instance of some enemy who could afford to make
it worth their while?"

"No, she was the best-behaved patient they had—and, like fools,
they trusted her. She's just mad enough to be shut up, and just
sane enough to ruin me when she's at large—if you understand
that?"

"I do understand it. Now, Percival, come at once to the point,
and then I shall know what to do. Where is the danger of your
position at the present moment?"

"Anne Catherick is in this neighbourhood, and in communication
with Lady Glyde—there's the danger, plain enough. Who can read
the letter she hid in the sand, and not see that my wife is in
possession of the Secret, deny it as she may?"

"One moment, Percival. If Lady Glyde does know the Secret, she
must know also that it is a compromising secret for you. As your
wife, surely it is her interest to keep it?"

"Is it? I'm coming to that. It might be her interest if she cared
two straws about me. But I happen to be an encumbrance in the way
of another man. She was in love with him before she married me—
she's in love with him now—an infernal vagabond of a drawing-
master, named Hartright."

"My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all
in love with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman's
heart? In all my experience I have never yet met with the man who
was Number One. Number Two, sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five,
often. Number One, never! He exists, of course—but I have not
met with him."

"Wait! I haven't done yet. Who do you think helped Anne Catherick
to get the start, when the people from the mad-house were after
her? Hartright. Who do you think saw her again in Cumberland?
Hartright. Both times he spoke to her alone. Stop! don't
interrupt me. The scoundrel's as sweet on my wife as she is on
him. He knows the Secret, and she knows the Secret. Once let
them both get together again, and it's her interest and his
interest to turn their information against me."

"Gently, Percival—gently! Are you insensible to the virtue of
Lady Glyde?"

"That for the virtue of Lady Glyde! I believe in nothing about her
but her money. Don't you see how the case stands? She might be
harmless enough by herself; but if she and that vagabond
Hartright—-"

"Yes, yes, I see. Where is Mr. Hartright?"

"Out of the country. If he means to keep a whole skin on his
bones, I recommend him not to come back in a hurry."

"Are you sure he is out of the country?"

"Certain. I had him watched from the time he left Cumberland to
the time he sailed. Oh, I've been careful, I can tell you! Anne
Catherick lived with some people at a farm-house near Limmeridge.
I went there myself, after she had given me the slip, and made
sure that they knew nothing. I gave her mother a form of letter
to write to Miss Halcombe, exonerating me from any bad motive in
putting her under restraint. I've spent, I'm afraid to say how
much, in trying to trace her, and in spite of it all, she turns up
here and escapes me on my own property! How do I know who else may
see her, who else may speak to her? That prying scoundrel,
Hartright, may come back with-out my knowing it, and may make use
of her to-morrow—-"

"Not he, Percival! While I am on the spot, and while that woman is
in the neighbourhood, I will answer for our laying hands on her
before Mr. Hartright—even if he does come back. I see! yes, yes,
I see! The finding of Anne Catherick is the first necessity—make
your mind easy about the rest. Your wife is here, under your
thumb—Miss Halcombe is inseparable from her, and is, therefore,
under your thumb also—and Mr. Hartright is out of the country.
This invisible Anne of yours is all we have to think of for the
present. You have made your inquiries?"

"Yes. I have been to her mother, I have ransacked the village—
and all to no purpose."

"Is her mother to be depended on?"

"Yes."

"She has told your secret once."

"She won't tell it again."

"Why not? Are her own interests concerned in keeping it, as well
as yours?"