The Woman in White (20 page)

As soon as Miss Fairlie had left the room he spared us all
embarrassment on the subject of the anonymous letter, by adverting
to it of his own accord. He had stopped in London on his way from
Hampshire, had seen his solicitor, had read the documents
forwarded by me, and had travelled on to Cumberland, anxious to
satisfy our minds by the speediest and the fullest explanation
that words could convey. On hearing him express himself to this
effect, I offered him the original letter, which I had kept for
his inspection. He thanked me, and declined to look at it, saying
that he had seen the copy, and that he was quite willing to leave
the original in our hands.

The statement itself, on which he immediately entered, was as
simple and satisfactory as I had all along anticipated it would
be.

Mrs. Catherick, he informed us, had in past years laid him under
some obligations for faithful services rendered to his family
connections and to himself. She had been doubly unfortunate in
being married to a husband who had deserted her, and in having an
only child whose mental faculties had been in a disturbed
condition from a very early age. Although her marriage had
removed her to a part of Hampshire far distant from the
neighbourhood in which Sir Percival's property was situated, he
had taken care not to lose sight of her—his friendly feeling
towards the poor woman, in consideration of her past services,
having been greatly strengthened by his admiration of the patience
and courage with which she supported her calamities. In course of
time the symptoms of mental affliction in her unhappy daughter
increased to such a serious extent, as to make it a matter of
necessity to place her under proper medical care. Mrs. Catherick
herself recognised this necessity, but she also felt the prejudice
common to persons occupying her respectable station, against
allowing her child to be admitted, as a pauper, into a public
Asylum. Sir Percival had respected this prejudice, as he
respected honest independence of feeling in any rank of life, and
had resolved to mark his grateful sense of Mrs. Catherick's early
attachment to the interests of himself and his family, by
defraying the expense of her daughter's maintenance in a
trustworthy private Asylum. To her mother's regret, and to his
own regret, the unfortunate creature had discovered the share
which circumstances had induced him to take in placing her under
restraint, and had conceived the most intense hatred and distrust
of him in consequence. To that hatred and distrust—which had
expressed itself in various ways in the Asylum—the anonymous
letter, written after her escape, was plainly attributable. If
Miss Halcombe's or Mr. Gilmore's recollection of the document did
not confirm that view, or if they wished for any additional
particulars about the Asylum (the address of which he mentioned,
as well as the names and addresses of the two doctors on whose
certificates the patient was admitted), he was ready to answer any
question and to clear up any uncertainty. He had done his duty to
the unhappy young woman, by instructing his solicitor to spare no
expense in tracing her, and in restoring her once more to medical
care, and he was now only anxious to do his duty towards Miss
Fairlie and towards her family, in the same plain, straightforward
way.

I was the first to speak in answer to this appeal. My own course
was plain to me. It is the great beauty of the Law that it can
dispute any human statement, made under any circumstances, and
reduced to any form. If I had felt professionally called upon to
set up a case against Sir Percival Glyde, on the strength of his
own explanation, I could have done so beyond all doubt. But my
duty did not lie in this direction—my function was of the purely
judicial kind. I was to weigh the explanation we had just heard,
to allow all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who
offered it, and to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on
Sir Percival's own showing, were plainly with him, or plainly
against him. My own conviction was that they were plainly with
him, and I accordingly declared that his explanation was, to my
mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.

Miss Halcombe, after looking at me very earnestly, said a few
words, on her side, to the same effect—with a certain hesitation
of manner, however, which the circumstances did not seem to me to
warrant. I am unable to say, positively, whether Sir Percival
noticed this or not. My opinion is that he did, seeing that he
pointedly resumed the subject, although he might now, with all
propriety, have allowed it to drop.

"If my plain statement of facts had only been addressed to Mr.
Gilmore," he said, "I should consider any further reference to
this unhappy matter as unnecessary. I may fairly expect Mr.
Gilmore, as a gentleman, to believe me on my word, and when he has
done me that justice, all discussion of the subject between us has
come to an end. But my position with a lady is not the same. I
owe to her—what I would concede to no man alive—a PROOF of the
truth of my assertion. You cannot ask for that proof, Miss
Halcombe, and it is therefore my duty to you, and still more to
Miss Fairlie, to offer it. May I beg that you will write at once
to the mother of this unfortunate woman—to Mrs. Catherick—to ask
for her testimony in support of the explanation which I have just
offered to you."

I saw Miss Halcombe change colour, and look a little uneasy. Sir
Percival's suggestion, politely as it was expressed, appeared to
her, as it appeared to me, to point very delicately at the
hesitation which her manner had betrayed a moment or two since.

"I hope, Sir Percival, you don't do me the injustice to suppose
that I distrust you," she said quickly.

"Certainly not, Miss Halcombe. I make my proposal purely as an
act of attention to YOU. Will you excuse my obstinacy if I still
venture to press it?"

He walked to the writing-table as he spoke, drew a chair to it,
and opened the paper case.

"Let me beg you to write the note," he said, "as a favour to ME.
It need not occupy you more than a few minutes. You have only to
ask Mrs. Catherick two questions. First, if her daughter was
placed in the Asylum with her knowledge and approval. Secondly,
if the share I took in the matter was such as to merit the
expression of her gratitude towards myself? Mr. Gilmore's mind is
at ease on this unpleasant subject, and your mind is at ease—pray
set my mind at ease also by writing the note."

"You oblige me to grant your request, Sir Percival, when I would
much rather refuse it."

With those words Miss Halcombe rose from her place and went to the
writing-table. Sir Percival thanked her, handed her a pen, and
then walked away towards the fireplace. Miss Fairlie's little
Italian greyhound was lying on the rug. He held out his hand, and
called to the dog good-humouredly.

"Come, Nina," he said, "we remember each other, don't we?"

The little beast, cowardly and cross-grained, as pet-dogs usually
are, looked up at him sharply, shrank away from his outstretched
hand, whined, shivered, and hid itself under a sofa. It was
scarcely possible that he could have been put out by such a trifle
as a dog's reception of him, but I observed, nevertheless, that he
walked away towards the window very suddenly. Perhaps his temper
is irritable at times. If so, I can sympathise with him. My
temper is irritable at times too.

Miss Halcombe was not long in writing the note. When it was done
she rose from the writing-table, and handed the open sheet of
paper to Sir Percival. He bowed, took it from her, folded it up
immediately without looking at the contents, sealed it, wrote the
address, and handed it back to her in silence. I never saw
anything more gracefully and more becomingly done in my life.

"You insist on my posting this letter, Sir Percival?" said Miss
Halcombe.

"I beg you will post it," he answered. "And now that it is
written and sealed up, allow me to ask one or two last questions
about the unhappy woman to whom it refers. I have read the
communication which Mr. Gilmore kindly addressed to my solicitor,
describing the circumstances under which the writer of the
anonymous letter was identified. But there are certain points to
which that statement does not refer. Did Anne Catherick see Miss
Fairlie?"

"Certainly not," replied Miss Halcombe.

"Did she see you?"

"No."

"She saw nobody from the house then, except a certain Mr.
Hartright, who accidentally met with her in the churchyard here?"

"Nobody else."

"Mr. Hartright was employed at Limmeridge as a drawing-master, I
believe? Is he a member of one of the Water-Colour Societies?"

"I believe he is," answered Miss Halcombe.

He paused for a moment, as if he was thinking over the last
answer, and then added—

"Did you find out where Anne Catherick was living, when she was in
this neighbourhood?"

"Yes. At a farm on the moor, called Todd's Corner."

"It is a duty we all owe to the poor creature herself to trace
her," continued Sir Percival. "She may have said something at
Todd's Corner which may help us to find her. I will go there and
make inquiries on the chance. In the meantime, as I cannot
prevail on myself to discuss this painful subject with Miss
Fairlie, may I beg, Miss Halcombe, that you will kindly undertake
to give her the necessary explanation, deferring it of course
until you have received the reply to that note."

Miss Halcombe promised to comply with his request. He thanked
her, nodded pleasantly, and left us, to go and establish himself
in his own room. As he opened the door the cross-grained
greyhound poked out her sharp muzzle from under the sofa, and
barked and snapped at him.

"A good morning's work, Miss Halcombe," I said, as soon as we were
alone. "Here is an anxious day well ended already."

"Yes," she answered; "no doubt. I am very glad your mind is
satisfied."

"My mind! Surely, with that note in your hand, your mind is at
ease too?"

"Oh yes—how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be,"
she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost
wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at
the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this
note."

I was a little surprised—perhaps a little piqued also—by these
last words.

"Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with
the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he
conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and
discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful
influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the
effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine."

"It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to
discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the
best guide I can desire."

I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility,
in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done
it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded
Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should
have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion
of her own.

"If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them
to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust
Sir Percival Glyde?"

"None whatever."

"Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his
explanation?"

"How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the
truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr.
Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?"

"None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be
satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir
Percival's can possibly expect from him."

"Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room,
"and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer
arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no
better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about
Laura lately—and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of
us."

She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she
spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature—
a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I
had known her from her earliest years—I had seen her tested, as
she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long
experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under
the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have
felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any
uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and
a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have
chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable
state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out
philosophically to walk it off.

We all met again at dinner-time.

Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly
recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and
good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the
morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect
reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss
Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh,
checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to
her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he
never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never
lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into
it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those
favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy
would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to
him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible
of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little
confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her;
but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding,
good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a
lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as
appearances went, were all offered in vain.