The Woman in White (86 page)

With this purpose in view, I said, one morning, that I thought we
had all earned a little holiday and a change of scene. After some
consideration, it was decided that we should go for a fortnight to
the seaside.

On the next day we left Fulham for a quiet town on the south
coast. At that early season of the year we were the only visitors
in the place. The cliffs, the beach, and the walks inland were
all in the solitary condition which was most welcome to us. The
air was mild—the prospects over hill and wood and down were
beautifully varied by the shifting April light and shade, and the
restless sea leapt under our windows, as if it felt, like the
land, the glow and freshness of spring.

I owed it to Marian to consult her before I spoke to Laura, and to
be guided afterwards by her advice.

On the third day from our arrival I found a fit opportunity of
speaking to her alone. The moment we looked at one another, her
quick instinct detected the thought in my mind before I could give
it expression. With her customary energy and directness she spoke
at once, and spoke first.

"You are thinking of that subject which was mentioned between us
on the evening of your return from Hampshire," she said. "I have
been expecting you to allude to it for some time past. There must
be a change in our little household, Walter, we cannot go on much
longer as we are now. I see it as plainly as you do—as plainly
as Laura sees it, though she says nothing. How strangely the old
times in Cumberland seem to have come back! You and I are together
again, and the one subject of interest between us is Laura once
more. I could almost fancy that this room is the summer-house at
Limmeridge, and that those waves beyond us are beating on our
seashore."

"I was guided by your advice in those past days," I said, "and
now, Marian, with reliance tenfold greater I will be guided by it
again."

She answered by pressing my hand. I saw that she was deeply
touched by my reference to the past. We sat together near the
window, and while I spoke and she listened, we looked at the glory
of the sunlight shining on the majesty of the sea.

"Whatever comes of this confidence between us," I said, "whether
it ends happily or sorrowfully for ME, Laura's interests will
still be the interests of my life. When we leave this place, on
whatever terms we leave it, my determination to wrest from Count
Fosco the confession which I failed to obtain from his accomplice,
goes back with me to London, as certainly as I go back myself.
Neither you nor I can tell how that man may turn on me, if I bring
him to bay; we only know, by his own words and actions, that he is
capable of striking at me through Laura, without a moment's
hesitation, or a moment's remorse. In our present position I have
no claim on her which society sanctions, which the law allows, to
strengthen me in resisting him, and in protecting HER. This
places me at a serious disadvantage. If I am to fight our cause
with the Count, strong in the consciousness of Laura's safety, I
must fight it for my Wife. Do you agree to that, Marian, so far?"

"To every word of it," she answered.

"I will not plead out of my own heart," I went on; "I will not
appeal to the love which has survived all changes and all shocks—
I will rest my only vindication of myself for thinking of her, and
speaking of her as my wife, on what I have just said. If the
chance of forcing a confession from the Count is, as I believe it
to be, the last chance left of publicly establishing the fact of
Laura's existence, the least selfish reason that I can advance for
our marriage is recognised by us both. But I may be wrong in my
conviction—other means of achieving our purpose may be in our
power, which are less uncertain and less dangerous. I have
searched anxiously, in my own mind, for those means, and I have
not found them. Have you?"

"No. I have thought about it too, and thought in vain."

"In all likelihood," I continued, "the same questions have
occurred to you, in considering this difficult subject, which have
occurred to me. Ought we to return with her to Limmeridge, now
that she is like herself again, and trust to the recognition of
her by the people of the village, or by the children at the
school? Ought we to appeal to the practical test of her
handwriting? Suppose we did so. Suppose the recognition of her
obtained, and the identity of the handwriting established. Would
success in both those cases do more than supply an excellent
foundation for a trial in a court of law? Would the recognition
and the handwriting prove her identity to Mr. Fairlie and take her
back to Limmeridge House, against the evidence of her aunt,
against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact
of the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? No! We
could only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the
assertion of her death, a doubt which nothing short of a legal
inquiry can settle. I will assume that we possess (what we have
certainly not got) money enough to carry this inquiry on through
all its stages. I will assume that Mr. Fairlie's prejudices might
be reasoned away—that the false testimony of the Count and his
wife, and all the rest of the false testimony, might be confuted—
that the recognition could not possibly be ascribed to a mistake
between Laura and Anne Catherick, or the handwriting be declared
by our enemies to be a clever fraud—all these are assumptions
which, more or less, set plain probabilities at defiance; but let
them pass—and let us ask ourselves what would be the first
consequence or the first questions put to Laura herself on the
subject of the conspiracy. We know only too well what the
consequence would be, for we know that she has never recovered her
memory of what happened to her in London. Examine her privately,
or examine her publicly, she is utterly incapable of assisting the
assertion of her own case. If you don't see this, Marian, as
plainly as I see it, we will go to Limmeridge and try the
experiment to-morrow."

"I DO see it, Walter. Even if we had the means of paying all the
law expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be
unendurable, the perpetual suspense, after what we have suffered
already, would be heartbreaking. You are right about the
hopelessness of going to Limmeridge. I wish I could feel sure
that you are right also in determining to try that last chance
with the Count. IS it a chance at all?"

"Beyond a doubt, Yes. It is the chance of recovering the lost
date of Laura's journey to London. Without returning to the
reasons I gave you some time since, I am still as firmly persuaded
as ever that there is a discrepancy between the date of that
journey and the date on the certificate of death. There lies the
weak point of the whole conspiracy—it crumbles to pieces if we
attack it in that way, and the means of attacking it are in
possession of the Count. If I succeed in wresting them from him,
the object of your life and mine is fulfilled. If I fail, the
wrong that Laura has suffered will, in this world, never be
redressed."

"Do you fear failure yourself, Walter?"

"I dare not anticipate success, and for that very reason, Marian,
I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and
my conscience I can say it, Laura's hopes for the future are at
their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone—I know that
the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at
the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely
unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the end. With
every worldly advantage gone from her, with all prospect of
recovering her rank and station more than doubtful, with no
clearer future before her than the future which her husband can
provide, the poor drawing-master may harmlessly open his heart at
last. In the days of her prosperity, Marian, I was only the
teacher who guided her hand—I ask for it, in her adversity, as
the hand of my wife!"

Marian's eyes met mine affectionately—I could say no more. My
heart was full, my lips were trembling. In spite of myself I was
in danger of appealing to her pity. I got up to leave the room.
She rose at the same moment, laid her hand gently on my shoulder,
and stopped me.

"Walter!" she said, "I once parted you both, for your good and for
hers. Wait here, my brother!—wait, my dearest, best friend, till
Laura comes, and tells you what I have done now!"

For the first time since the farewell morning at Limmeridge she
touched my forehead with her lips. A tear dropped on my face as
she kissed me. She turned quickly, pointed to the chair from
which I had risen, and left the room.

I sat down alone at the window to wait through the crisis of my
life. My mind in that breathless interval felt like a total
blank. I was conscious of nothing but a painful intensity of all
familiar perceptions. The sun grew blinding bright, the white sea
birds chasing each other far beyond me seemed to be flitting
before my face, the mellow murmur of the waves on the beach was
like thunder in my ears.

The door opened, and Laura came in alone. So she had entered the
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House on the morning when we parted.
Slowly and falteringly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once
approached me. Now she came with the haste of happiness in her
feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. Of their
own accord those dear arms clasped themselves round me, of their
own accord the sweet lips came to meet mine. "My darling!" she
whispered, "we may own we love each other now?" Her head nestled
with a tender contentedness on my bosom. "Oh," she said
innocently, "I am so happy at last!"

Ten days later we were happier still. We were married.

The course of this narrative, steadily flowing on, bears me away
from the morning-time of our married life, and carries me forward
to the end.

In a fortnight more we three were back in London, and the shadow
was stealing over us of the struggle to come.

Marian and I were careful to keep Laura in ignorance of the cause
that had hurried us back—the necessity of making sure of the
Count. It was now the beginning of May, and his term of
occupation at the house in Forest Road expired in June. If he
renewed it (and I had reasons, shortly to be mentioned, for
anticipating that he would), I might be certain of his not
escaping me. But if by any chance he disappointed my expectations
and left the country, then I had no time to lose in arming myself
to meet him as I best might.

In the first fulness of my new happiness, there had been moments
when my resolution faltered—moments when I was tempted to be
safely content, now that the dearest aspiration of my life was
fulfilled in the possession of Laura's love. For the first time I
thought faint-heartedly of the greatness of the risk, of the
adverse chances arrayed against me, of the fair promise of our new
life, and of the peril in which I might place the happiness which
we had so hardly earned. Yes! let me own it honestly. For a
brief time I wandered, in the sweet guiding of love, far from the
purpose to which I had been true under sterner discipline and in
darker days. Innocently Laura had tempted me aside from the hard
path—innocently she was destined to lead me back again.

At times, dreams of the terrible past still disconnectedly
recalled to her, in the mystery of sleep, the events of which her
waking memory had lost all trace. One night (barely two weeks
after our marriage), when I was watching her at rest, I saw the
tears come slowly through her closed eyelids, I heard the faint
murmuring words escape her which told me that her spirit was back
again on the fatal journey from Blackwater Park. That unconscious
appeal, so touching and so awful in the sacredness of her sleep,
ran through me like fire. The next day was the day we came back
to London—the day when my resolution returned to me with tenfold
strength.

The first necessity was to know something of the man. Thus far,
the true story of his life was an impenetrable mystery to me.

I began with such scanty sources of information as were at my own
disposal. The important narrative written by Mr. Frederick
Fairlie (which Marian had obtained by following the directions I
had given to her in the winter) proved to be of no service to the
special object with which I now looked at it. While reading it I
reconsidered the disclosure revealed to me by Mrs. Clements of the
series of deceptions which had brought Anne Catherick to London,
and which had there devoted her to the interests of the
conspiracy. Here, again, the Count had not openly committed
himself—here, again, he was, to all practical purpose, out of my
reach.

I next returned to Marian's journal at Blackwater Park. At my
request she read to me again a passage which referred to her past
curiosity about the Count, and to the few particulars which she
had discovered relating to him.

The passage to which I allude occurs in that part of her journal
which delineates his character and his personal appearance. She
describes him as "not having crossed the frontiers of his native
country for years past"—as "anxious to know if any Italian
gentlemen were settled in the nearest town to Blackwater Park"—as
"receiving letters with all sorts of odd stamps on them, and one
with a large official-looking seal on it." She is inclined to
consider that his long absence from his native country may be
accounted for by assuming that he is a political exile. But she
is, on the other hand, unable to reconcile this idea with the
reception of the letter from abroad bearing "the large official-
looking seal"—letters from the Continent addressed to political
exiles being usually the last to court attention from foreign
post-offices in that way.

The considerations thus presented to me in the diary, joined to
certain surmises of my own that grew out of them, suggested a
conclusion which I wondered I had not arrived at before. I now
said to myself—what Laura had once said to Marian at Blackwater
Park, what Madame Fosco had overheard by listening at the door—
the Count is a spy!