The Woman in White (38 page)

Laura walked before me to the door as I advanced, and at the same
time her husband spoke to her once more.

"You positively refuse, then, to give me your signature?" he said,
in the altered tone of a man who was conscious that he had let his
own licence of language seriously injure him.

"After what you have just said to me," she replied firmly, "I
refuse my signature until I have read every line in that parchment
from the first word to the last. Come away, Marian, we have
remained here long enough."

"One moment!" interposed the Count before Sir Percival could speak
again—"one moment, Lady Glyde, I implore you!"

Laura would have left the room without noticing him, but I stopped
her.

"Don't make an enemy of the Count!" I whispered. "Whatever you
do, don't make an enemy of the Count!"

She yielded to me. I closed the door again, and we stood near it
waiting. Sir Percival sat down at the table, with his elbow on
the folded parchment, and his head resting on his clenched fist.
The Count stood between us—master of the dreadful position in
which we were placed, as he was master of everything else.

"Lady Glyde," he said, with a gentleness which seemed to address
itself to our forlorn situation instead of to ourselves, "pray
pardon me if I venture to offer one suggestion, and pray believe
that I speak out of my profound respect and my friendly regard for
the mistress of this house." He turned sharply towards Sir
Percival. "Is it absolutely necessary," he asked "that this thing
here, under your elbow, should be signed to-day?"

"It is necessary to my plans and wishes," returned the other
sulkily. "But that consideration, as you may have noticed, has no
influence with Lady Glyde."

"Answer my plain question plainly. Can the business of the
signature be put off till to-morrow—Yes or No?"

"Yes, if you will have it so."

"Then what are you wasting your time for here? Let the signature
wait till to-morrow—let it wait till you come back."

Sir Percival looked up with a frown and an oath.

"You are taking a tone with me that I don't like," he said. "A
tone I won't bear from any man."

"I am advising you for your good," returned the Count, with a
smile of quiet contempt. "Give yourself time—give Lady Glyde
time. Have you forgotten that your dog-cart is waiting at the
door? My tone surprises you—ha? I dare say it does—it is the
tone of a man who can keep his temper. How many doses of good
advice have I given you in my time? More than you can count. Have
I ever been wrong? I defy you to quote me an instance of it. Go!
take your drive. The matter of the signature can wait till to-
morrow. Let it wait—and renew it when you come back."

Sir Percival hesitated and looked at his watch. His anxiety about
the secret journey which he was to take that day, revived by the
Count's words, was now evidently disputing possession of his mind
with his anxiety to obtain Laura's signature. He considered for a
little while, and then got up from his chair.

"It is easy to argue me down," he said, "when I have no time to
answer you. I will take your advice, Fosco—not because I want
it, or believe in it, but because I can't stop here any longer."
He paused, and looked round darkly at his wife. "If you don't
give me your signature when I come back to-morrow!" The rest was
lost in the noise of his opening the book-case cupboard again, and
locking up the parchment once more. He took his hat and gloves
off the table, and made for the door. Laura and I drew back to
let him pass. "Remember to-morrow!" he said to his wife, and went
out.

We waited to give him time to cross the hall and drive away. The
Count approached us while we were standing near the door.

"You have just seen Percival at his worst, Miss Halcombe," he
said. "As his old friend, I am sorry for him and ashamed of him.
As his old friend, I promise you that he shall not break out to-
morrow in the same disgraceful manner in which he has broken out
to-day."

Laura had taken my arm while he was speaking and she pressed it
significantly when he had done. It would have been a hard trial
to any woman to stand by and see the office of apologist for her
husband's misconduct quietly assumed by his male friend in her own
house—and it was a trial to HER. I thanked the Count civilly,
and let her out. Yes! I thanked him: for I felt already, with a
sense of inexpressible helplessness and humiliation, that it was
either his interest or his caprice to make sure of my continuing
to reside at Blackwater Park, and I knew after Sir Percival's
conduct to me, that without the support of the Count's influence,
I could not hope to remain there. His influence, the influence of
all others that I dreaded most, was actually the one tie which now
held me to Laura in the hour of her utmost need!

We heard the wheels of the dog-cart crashing on the gravel of the
drive as we came into the hall. Sir Percival had started on his
journey.

"Where is he going to, Marian?" Laura whispered. "Every fresh
thing he does seems to terrify me about the future. Have you any
suspicions?"

After what she had undergone that morning, I was unwilling to tell
her my suspicions.

"How should I know his secrets?" I said evasively.

"I wonder if the housekeeper knows?" she persisted.

"Certainly not," I replied. "She must be quite as ignorant as we
are."

Laura shook her head doubtfully.

"Did you not hear from the housekeeper that there was a report of
Anne Catherick having been seen in this neighbourhood? Don't you
think he may have gone away to look for her?"

"I would rather compose myself, Laura, by not thinking about it at
all, and after what has happened, you had better follow my
example. Come into my room, and rest and quiet yourself a
little."

We sat down together close to the window, and let the fragrant
summer air breathe over our faces.

"I am ashamed to look at you, Marian," she said, "after what you
submitted to downstairs, for my sake. Oh, my own love, I am
almost heartbroken when I think of it! But I will try to make it
up to you—I will indeed!"

"Hush! hush!" I replied; "don't talk so. What is the trifling
mortification of my pride compared to the dreadful sacrifice of
your happiness?"

"You heard what he said to me?" she went on quickly and
vehemently. "You heard the words—but you don't know what they
meant—you don't know why I threw down the pen and turned my back
on him." She rose in sudden agitation, and walked about the room.
"I have kept many things from your knowledge, Marian, for fear of
distressing you, and making you unhappy at the outset of our new
lives. You don't know how he has used me. And yet you ought to
know, for you saw how he used me to-day. You heard him sneer at
my presuming to be scrupulous—you heard him say I had made a
virtue of necessity in marrying him." She sat down again, her face
flushed deeply, and her hands twisted and twined together in her
lap. "I can't tell you about it now," she said; "I shall burst
out crying if I tell you now—later, Marian, when I am more sure
of myself. My poor head aches, darling—aches, aches, aches.
Where is your smelling-bottle? Let me talk to you about yourself.
I wish I had given him my signature, for your sake. Shall I give
it to him to-morrow? I would rather compromise myself than
compromise you. After your taking my part against him, he will
lay all the blame on you if I refuse again. What shall we do? Oh,
for a friend to help us and advise us!—a friend we could really
trust!"

She sighed bitterly. I saw in her face that she was thinking of
Hartright—saw it the more plainly because her last words set me
thinking of him too. In six months only from her marriage we
wanted the faithful service he had offered to us in his farewell
words. How little I once thought that we should ever want it at
all!

"We must do what we can to help ourselves," I said. "Let us try
to talk it over calmly, Laura—let us do all in our power to
decide for the best."

Putting what she knew of her husband's embarrassments and what I
had heard of his conversation with the lawyer together, we arrived
necessarily at the conclusion that the parchment in the library
had been drawn up for the purpose of borrowing money, and that
Laura's signature was absolutely necessary to fit it for the
attainment of Sir Percival's object.

The second question, concerning the nature of the legal contract
by which the money was to be obtained, and the degree of personal
responsibility to which Laura might subject herself if she signed
it in the dark, involved considerations which lay far beyond any
knowledge and experience that either of us possessed. My own
convictions led me to believe that the hidden contents of the
parchment concealed a transaction of the meanest and the most
fraudulent kind.

I had not formed this conclusion in consequence of Sir Percival's
refusal to show the writing or to explain it, for that refusal
might well have proceeded from his obstinate disposition and his
domineering temper alone. My sole motive for distrusting his
honesty sprang from the change which I had observed in his
language and his manners at Blackwater Park, a change which
convinced me that he had been acting a part throughout the whole
period of his probation at Limmeridge House. His elaborate
delicacy, his ceremonious politeness which harmonised so agreeably
with Mr. Gilmore's old-fashioned notions, his modesty with Laura,
his candour with me, his moderation with Mr. Fairlie—all these
were the artifices of a mean, cunning, and brutal man, who had
dropped his disguise when his practised duplicity had gained its
end, and had openly shown himself in the library on that very day.
I say nothing of the grief which this discovery caused me on
Laura's account, for it is not to be expressed by any words of
mine. I only refer to it at all, because it decided me to oppose
her signing the parchment, whatever the consequences might be,
unless she was first made acquainted with the contents.

Under these circumstances, the one chance for us when to-morrow
came was to be provided with an objection to giving the signature,
which might rest on sufficiently firm commercial or legal grounds
to shake Sir Percival's resolution, and to make him suspect that
we two women understood the laws and obligations of business as
well as himself.

After some pondering, I determined to write to the only honest man
within reach whom we could trust to help us discreetly in our
forlorn situation. That man was Mr. Gilmore's partner, Mr. Kyrle,
who conducted the business now that our old friend had been
obliged to withdraw from it, and to leave London on account of his
health. I explained to Laura that I had Mr. Gilmore's own
authority for placing implicit confidence in his partner's
integrity, discretion, and accurate knowledge of all her affairs,
and with her full approval I sat down at once to write the letter,
I began by stating our position to Mr. Kyrle exactly as it was,
and then asked for his advice in return, expressed in plain,
downright terms which he could comprehend without any danger of
misinterpretations and mistakes. My letter was as short as I
could possibly make it, and was, I hope, unencumbered by needless
apologies and needless details.

Just as I was about to put the address on the envelope an obstacle
was discovered by Laura, which in the effort and preoccupation of
writing had escaped my mind altogether.

"How are we to get the answer in time?" she asked. "Your letter
will not be delivered in London before to-morrow morning, and the
post will not bring the reply here till the morning after."

The only way of overcoming this difficulty was to have the answer
brought to us from the lawyer's office by a special messenger. I
wrote a postscript to that effect, begging that the messenger
might be despatched with the reply by the eleven o'clock morning
train, which would bring him to our station at twenty minutes past
one, and so enable him to reach Blackwater Park by two o'clock at
the latest. He was to be directed to ask for me, to answer no
questions addressed to him by any one else, and to deliver his
letter into no hands but mine.

"In case Sir Percival should come back to-morrow before two
o'clock," I said to Laura, "the wisest plan for you to adopt is to
be out in the grounds all the morning with your book or your work,
and not to appear at the house till the messenger has had time to
arrive with the letter. I will wait here for him all the morning,
to guard against any misadventures or mistakes. By following this
arrangement I hope and believe we shall avoid being taken by
surprise. Let us go down to the drawing-room now. We may excite
suspicion if we remain shut up together too long."

"Suspicion?" she repeated. "Whose suspicion can we excite, now
that Sir Percival has left the house? Do you mean Count Fosco?"

"Perhaps I do, Laura."

"You are beginning to dislike him as much as I do, Marian."

"No, not to dislike him. Dislike is always more or less
associated with contempt—I can see nothing in the Count to
despise."

"You are not afraid of him, are you?"

"Perhaps I am—a little."

"Afraid of him, after his interference in our favour to-day!"

"Yes. I am more afraid of his interference than I am of Sir
Percival's violence. Remember what I said to you in the library.
Whatever you do, Laura, don't make an enemy of the Count!"

We went downstairs. Laura entered the drawing-room, while I
proceeded across the hall, with my letter in my hand, to put it
into the post-bag, which hung against the wall opposite to me.

The house door was open, and as I crossed past it, I saw Count
Fosco and his wife standing talking together on the steps outside,
with their faces turned towards me.