The Woman in White (81 page)

As I left the place, my thoughts turned, not for the first time,
to the complete overthrow that all present hope of establishing
Laura's identity had now suffered through Sir Percival's death.
He was gone—and with him the chance was gone which had been the
one object of all my labours and all my hopes.

Could I look at my failure from no truer point of view than this?

Suppose he had lived, would that change of circumstance have
altered the result? Could I have made my discovery a marketable
commodity, even for Laura's sake, after I had found out that
robbery of the rights of others was the essence of Sir Percival's
crime? Could I have offered the price of MY silence for HIS
confession of the conspiracy, when the effect of that silence must
have been to keep the right heir from the estates, and the right
owner from the name? Impossible! If Sir Percival had lived, the
discovery, from which (In my ignorance of the true nature of the
Secret) I had hoped so much, could not have been mine to suppress
or to make public, as I thought best, for the vindication of
Laura's rights. In common honesty and common honour I must have
gone at once to the stranger whose birthright had been usurped—I
must have renounced the victory at the moment when it was mine by
placing my discovery unreservedly in that stranger's hands—and I
must have faced afresh all the difficulties which stood between me
and the one object of my life, exactly as I was resolved in my
heart of hearts to face them now!

I returned to Welmingham with my mind composed, feeling more sure
of myself and my resolution than I had felt yet.

On my way to the hotel I passed the end of the square in which
Mrs. Catherick lived. Should I go back to the house, and make
another attempt to see her. No. That news of Sir Percival's
death, which was the last news she ever expected to hear, must
have reached her hours since. All the proceedings at the inquest
had been reported in the local paper that morning—there was
nothing I could tell her which she did not know already. My
interest in making her speak had slackened. I remembered the
furtive hatred in her face when she said, "There is no news of Sir
Percival that I don't expect—except the news of his death." I
remembered the stealthy interest in her eyes when they settled on
me at parting, after she had spoken those words. Some instinct,
deep in my heart, which I felt to be a true one, made the prospect
of again entering her presence repulsive to me—I turned away from
the square, and went straight back to the hotel.

Some hours later, while I was resting in the coffee-room, a letter
was placed in my hands by the waiter. It was addressed to me by
name, and I found on inquiry that it had been left at the bar by a
woman just as it was near dusk, and just before the gas was
lighted. She had said nothing, and she had gone away again before
there was time to speak to her, or even to notice who she was.

I opened the letter. It was neither dated nor signed, and the
handwriting was palpably disguised. Before I had read the first
sentence, however, I knew who my correspondent was—Mrs.
Catherick.

The letter ran as follows—I copy it exactly, word for word:—

SIR,—You have not come back, as you said you would. No matter—I
know the news, and I write to tell you so. Did you see anything
particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering, in my own
mind, whether the day of his downfall had come at last, and
whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. You were,
and you HAVE worked it.

You were weak enough, as I have heard, to try and save his life.
If you had succeeded, I should have looked upon you as my enemy.
Now you have failed, I hold you as my friend. Your inquiries
frightened him into the vestry by night—your inquiries, without
your privity and against your will, have served the hatred and
wreaked the vengeance of three-and-twenty vears. Thank you, sir,
in spite of yourself.

I owe something to the man who has done this. How can I pay my
debt? If I was a young woman still I might say, "Come, put your
arm round my waist, and kiss me, if you like." I should have been
fond enough of you even to go that length, and you would have
accepted my invitation—you would, sir, twenty years ago! But I am
an old woman now. Well! I can satisfy your curiosity, and pay my
debt in that way. You HAD a great curiosity to know certain
private affairs of mine when you came to see me—private affairs
which all your sharpness could not look into without my help—
private affairs which you have not discovered, even now. You
SHALL discover them—your curiosity shall be satisfied. I will
take any trouble to please you, my estimable young friend!

You were a little boy, I suppose, in the year twenty-seven? I was
a handsome young woman at that time, living at Old Welmingham. I
had a contemptible fool for a husband. I had also the honour of
being acquainted (never mind how) with a certain gentleman (never
mind whom). I shall not call him by his name. Why should I? It
was not his own. He never had a name: you know that, by this
time, as well as I do.

It will be more to the purpose to tell you how he worked himself
into my good graces. I was born with the tastes of a lady, and he
gratified them—in other words, he admired me, and he made me
presents. No woman can resist admiration and presents—especially
presents, provided they happen to be just the thing she wants. He
was sharp enough to know that—most men are. Naturally he wanted
something in return—all men do. And what do you think was the
something? The merest trifle. Nothing but the key of the vestry,
and the key of the press inside it, when my husband's back was
turned. Of course he lied when I asked him why he wished me to
get him the keys in that private way. He might have saved himself
the trouble—I didn't believe him. But I liked my presents, and I
wanted more. So I got him the keys, without my husband's
knowledge, and I watched him, without his own knowledge. Once,
twice, four times I watched him, and the fourth time I found him
out.

I was never over-scrupulous where other people's affairs were
concerned, and I was not over-scrupulous about his adding one to
the marriages in the register on his own account.

Of course I knew it was wrong, but it did no harm to me, which was
one good reason for not making a fuss about it. And I had not got
a gold watch and chain, which was another, still better—and he
had promised me one from London only the day before, which was a
third, best of all. If I had known what the law considered the
crime to be, and how the law punished it, I should have taken
proper care of myself, and have exposed him then and there. But I
knew nothing, and I longed for the gold watch. All the conditions
I insisted on were that he should take me into his confidence and
tell me everything. I was as curious about his affairs then as
you are about mine now. He granted my conditions—why, you will
see presently.

This, put in short, is what I heard from him. He did not
willingly tell me all that I tell you here. I drew some of it
from him by persuasion and some of it by questions. I was
determined to have all the truth, and I believe I got it.

He knew no more than any one else of what the state of things
really was between his father and mother till after his mother's
death. Then his father confessed it, and promised to do what he
could for his son. He died having done nothing—not having even
made a will. The son (who can blame him?) wisely provided for
himself. He came to England at once, and took possession of the
property. There was no one to suspect him, and no one to say him
nay. His father and mother had always lived as man and wife—none
of the few people who were acquainted with them ever supposed them
to be anything else. The right person to claim the property (if
the truth had been known) was a distant relation, who had no idea
of ever getting it, and who was away at sea when his father died.
He had no difficulty so far—he took possession, as a matter of
course. But he could not borrow money on the property as a matter
of course. There were two things wanted of him before he could do
this. One was a certificate of his birth, and the other was a
certificate of his parents' marriage. The certificate of his
birth was easily got—he was born abroad, and the certificate was
there in due form. The other matter was a difficulty, and that
difficulty brought him to Old Welmingham.

But for one consideration he might have gone to Knowlesbury
instead.

His mother had been living there just before she met with his
father—living under her maiden name, the truth being that she was
really a married woman, married in Ireland, where her husband had
ill-used her, and had afterwards gone off with some other person.
I give you this fact on good authority—Sir Felix mentioned it to
his son as the reason why he had not married. You may wonder why
the son, knowing that his parents had met each other at
Knowlesbury, did not play his first tricks with the register of
that church, where it might have been fairly presumed his father
and mother were married. The reason was that the clergyman who
did duty at Knowlesbury church, in the year eighteen hundred and
three (when, according to his birth certificate, his father and
mother OUGHT to have been married), was alive still when he took
possession of the property in the New Year of eighteen hundred and
twenty-seven. This awkward circumstance forced him to extend his
inquiries to our neighbourhood. There no such danger existed, the
former clergyman at our church having been dead for some years.

Old Welmingham suited his purpose as well as Knowlesbury. His
father had removed his mother from Knowlesbury, and had lived with
her at a cottage on the river, a little distance from our village.
People who had known his solitary ways when he was single did not
wonder at his solitary ways when he was supposed to be married.
If he had not been a hideous creature to look at, his retired life
with the lady might have raised suspicions; but, as things were,
his hiding his ugliness and his deformity in the strictest privacy
surprised nobody. He lived in our neighbourhood till he came in
possession of the Park. After three or four and twenty years had
passed, who was to say (the clergyman being dead) that his
marriage had not been as private as the rest of his life, and that
it had not taken place at Old Welmingham church?

So, as I told you, the son found our neighbourhood the surest
place he could choose to set things right secretly in his own
interests. It may surprise you to hear that what he really did to
the marriage register was done on the spur of the moment—done on
second thoughts.

His first notion was only to tear the leaf out (in the right year
and month), to destroy it privately, to go back to London, and to
tell the lawyers to get him the necessary certificate of his
father's marriage, innocently referring them of course to the date
on the leaf that was gone. Nobody could say his father and mother
had NOT been married after that, and whether, under the
circumstances, they would stretch a point or not about lending him
the money (he thought they would), he had his answer ready at all
events, if a question was ever raised about his right to the name
and the estate.

But when he came to look privately at the register for himself, he
found at the bottom of one of the pages for the year eighteen
hundred and three a blank space left, seemingly through there
being no room to make a long entry there, which was made instead
at the top of the next page. The sight of this chance altered all
his plans. It was an opportunity he had never hoped for, or
thought of—and he took it—you know how. The blank space, to
have exactly tallied with his birth certificate, ought to have
occurred in the July part of the register. It occurred in the
September part instead. However, in this case, if suspicious
questions were asked, the answer was not hard to find. He had
only to describe himself as a seven months' child.

I was fool enough, when he told me his story, to feel some
interest and some pity for him—which was just what he calculated
on, as you will see. I thought him hardly used. It was not his
fault that his father and mother were not married, and it was not
his father's and mother's fault either. A more scrupulous woman
than I was—a woman who had not set her heart on a gold watch and
chain—would have found some excuses for him. At all events, I
held my tongue, and helped to screen what he was about.

He was some time getting the ink the right colour (mixing it over
and over again in pots and bottles of mine), and some time
afterwards in practising the handwriting. But he succeeded in the
end, and made an honest woman of his mother after she was dead in
her grave! So far, I don't deny that he behaved honourably enough
to myself. He gave me my watch and chain, and spared no expense
in buying them; both were of superior workmanship, and very
expensive. I have got them still—the watch goes beautifully.

You said the other day that Mrs. Clements had told you everything
she knew. In that case there is no need for me to write about the
trumpery scandal by which I was the sufferer—the innocent
sufferer, I positively assert. You must know as well as I do what
the notion was which my husband took into his head when he found
me and my fine-gentleman acquaintance meeting each other privately
and talking secrets together. But what you don't know is how it
ended between that same gentleman and myself. You shall read and
see how he behaved to me.

The first words I said to him, when I saw the turn things had
taken, were, "Do me justice—clear my character of a stain on it
which you know I don't deserve. I don't want you to make a clean
breast of it to my husband—only tell him, on your word of honour
as a gentleman, that he is wrong, and that I am not to blame in
the way he thinks I am. Do me that justice, at least, after all I
have done for you." He flatly refused, in so many words. He told
me plainly that it was his interest to let my husband and all my
neighbours believe the falsehood—because, as long as they did so
they were quite certain never to suspect the truth. I had a
spirit of my own, and I told him they should know the truth from
my lips. His reply was short, and to the point. If I spoke, I
was a lost woman, as certainly as he was a lost man.