The Woman in White (84 page)

"Was the Count pointing out the house to him?"

"No, they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in
the street. I remained at the window looking at them from behind
the curtain. If I had turned round, and if Laura had seen my face
at that moment—-Thank God, she was absorbed over her drawing!
They soon parted. The man from the Asylum went one way, and the
Count the other. I began to hope they were in the street by
chance, till I saw the Count come back, stop opposite to us again,
take out his card-case and pencil, write something, and then cross
the road to the shop below us. I ran past Laura before she could
see me, and said I had forgotten something upstairs. As soon as I
was out of the room I went down to the first landing and waited—I
was determined to stop him if he tried to come upstairs. He made
no such attempt. The girl from the shop came through the door
into the passage, with his card in her hand—a large gilt card
with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath
in pencil: 'Dear lady' (yes! the villain could address me in that
way still)—'dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter
serious to us both.' If one can think at all, in serious
difficulties, one thinks quick. I felt directly that it might be
a fatal mistake to leave myself and to leave you in the dark,
where such a man as the Count was concerned. I felt that the
doubt of what he might do, in your absence, would be ten times
more trying to me if I declined to see him than if I consented.
'Ask the gentleman to wait in the shop,' I said. 'I will be with
him in a moment.' I ran upstairs for my bonnet, being determined
not to let him speak to me indoors. I knew his deep ringing
voice, and I was afraid Laura might hear it, even in the shop. In
less than a minute I was down again in the passage, and had opened
the door into the street. He came round to meet me from the shop.
There he was in deep mourning, with his smooth bow and his deadly
smile, and some idle boys and women near him, staring at his great
size, his fine black clothes, and his large cane with the gold
knob to it. All the horrible time at Blackwater came back to me
the moment I set eyes on him. All the old loathing crept and
crawled through me, when he took off his hat with a flourish and
spoke to me, as if we had parted on the friendliest terms hardly a
day since."

"You remember what he said?"

"I can't repeat it, Walter. You shall know directly what he said
about you—but I can't repeat what he said to me. It was worse
than the polite insolence of his letter. My hands tingled to
strike him, as if I had been a man! I only kept them quiet by
tearing his card to pieces under my shawl. Without saying a word
on my side, I walked away from the house (for fear of Laura seeing
us), and he followed, protesting softly all the way. In the first
by-street I turned, and asked him what he wanted with me. He
wanted two things. First, if I had no objection, to express his
sentiments. I declined to hear them. Secondly, to repeat the
warning in his letter. I asked, what occasion there was for
repeating it. He bowed and smiled, and said he would explain.
The explanation exactly confirmed the fears I expressed before you
left us. I told you, if you remember, that Sir Percival would be
too headstrong to take his friend's advice where you were
concerned, and that there was no danger to be dreaded from the
Count till his own interests were threatened, and he was roused
into acting for himself?"

"I recollect, Marian."

"Well, so it has really turned out. The Count offered his advice,
but it was refused. Sir Percival would only take counsel of his
own violence, his own obstinacy, and his own hatred of you. The
Count let him have his way, first privately ascertaining, in case
of his own interests being threatened next, where we lived. You
were followed, Walter, on returning here, after your first journey
to Hampshire, by the lawyer's men for some distance from the
railway, and by the Count himself to the door of the house. How
he contrived to escape being seen by you he did not tell me, but
he found us out on that occasion, and in that way. Having made
the discovery, he took no advantage of it till the news reached
him of Sir Percival's death, and then, as I told you, he acted for
himself, because he believed you would next proceed against the
dead man's partner in the conspiracy. He at once made his
arrangements to meet the owner of the Asylum in London, and to
take him to the place where his runaway patient was hidden,
believing that the results, whichever way they ended, would be to
involve you in interminable legal disputes and difficulties, and
to tie your hands for all purposes of offence, so far as he was
concerned. That was his purpose, on his own confession to me.
The only consideration which made him hesitate, at the last
moment—-"

"Yes?"

"It is hard to acknowledge it, Walter, and yet I must. I was the
only consideration. No words can say how degraded I feel in my
own estimation when I think of it, but the one weak point in that
man's iron character is the horrible admiration he feels for me.
I have tried, for the sake of my own self-respect, to disbelieve
it as long as I could; but his looks, his actions, force on me the
shameful conviction of the truth. The eyes of that monster of
wickedness moistened while he was speaking to me—they did,
Walter! He declared that at the moment of pointing out the house
to the doctor, he thought of my misery if I was separated from
Laura, of my responsibility if I was called on to answer for
effecting her escape, and he risked the worst that you could do to
him, the second time, for my sake. All he asked was that I would
remember the sacrifice, and restrain your rashness, in my own
interests—interests which he might never be able to consult
again. I made no such bargain with him—I would have died first.
But believe him or not, whether it is true or false that he sent
the doctor away with an excuse, one thing is certain, I saw the
man leave him without so much as a glance at our window, or even
at our side of the way."

"I believe it, Marian. The best men are not consistent in good—
why should the worst men be consistent in evil? At the same time,
I suspect him of merely attempting to frighten you, by threatening
what he cannot really do. I doubt his power of annoying us, by
means of the owner of the Asylum, now that Sir Percival is dead,
and Mrs. Catherick is free from all control. But let me hear
more. What did the Count say of me?"

"He spoke last of you. His eyes brightened and hardened, and his
manner changed to what I remember it in past times—to that
mixture of pitiless resolution and mountebank mockery which makes
it so impossible to fathom him. 'Warn Mr. Hartright!' he said in
his loftiest manner. 'He has a man of brains to deal with, a man
who snaps his big fingers at the laws and conventions of society,
when he measures himself with ME. If my lamented friend had taken
my advice, the business of the inquest would have been with the
body of Mr. Hartright. But my lamented friend was obstinate.
See! I mourn his loss—inwardly in my soul, outwardly on my hat.
This trivial crape expresses sensibilities which I summon Mr.
Hartright to respect. They may be transformed to immeasurable
enmities if he ventures to disturb them. Let him be content with
what he has got—with what I leave unmolested, for your sake, to
him and to you. Say to him (with my compliments), if he stirs me,
he has Fosco to deal with. In the English of the Popular Tongue,
I inform him—Fosco sticks at nothing. Dear lady, good morning.'
His cold grey eyes settled on my face—he took off his hat
solemnly—bowed, bare-headed—and left me."

"Without returning? without saying more last words?"

"He turned at the corner of the street, and waved his hand, and
then struck it theatrically on his breast. I lost sight of him
after that. He disappeared in the opposite direction to our
house, and I ran back to Laura. Before I was indoors again, I had
made up my mind that we must go. The house (especially in your
absence) was a place of danger instead of a place of safety, now
that the Count had discovered it. If I could have felt certain of
your return, I should have risked waiting till you came back. But
I was certain of nothing, and I acted at once on my own impulse.
You had spoken, before leaving us, of moving into a quieter
neighbourhood and purer air, for the sake of Laura's health. I
had only to remind her of that, and to suggest surprising you and
saving you trouble by managing the move in your absence, to make
her quite as anxious for the change as I was. She helped me to
pack up your things, and she has arranged them all for you in your
new working-room here."

"What made you think of coming to this place?"

"My ignorance of other localities in the neighbourhood of London.
I felt the necessity of getting as far away as possible from our
old lodgings, and I knew something of Fulham, because I had once
been at school there. I despatched a messenger with a note, on
the chance that the school might still be in existence. It was in
existence—the daughters of my old mistress were carrying it on
for her, and they engaged this place from the instructions I had
sent. It was just post-time when the messenger returned to me
with the address of the house. We moved after dark—we came here
quite unobserved. Have I done right, Walter? Have I justified
your trust in me?"

I answered her warmly and gratefully, as I really felt. But the
anxious look still remained on her face while I was speaking, and
the first question she asked, when I had done, related to Count
Fosco.

I saw that she was thinking of him now with a changed mind. No
fresh outbreak of anger against him, no new appeal to me to hasten
the day of reckoning escaped her. Her conviction that the man's
hateful admiration of herself was really sincere, seemed to have
increased a hundredfold her distrust of his unfathomable cunning,
her inborn dread of the wicked energy and vigilance of all his
faculties. Her voice fell low, her manner was hesitating, her
eyes searched into mine with an eager fear when she asked me what
I thought of his message, and what I meant to do next after
hearing it.

"Not many weeks have passed, Marian," I answered, "since my
interview with Mr. Kyrle. When he and I parted, the last words I
said to him about Laura were these: 'Her uncle's house shall open
to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the
false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall
be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head
of the family, and the two men who have wronged her shall answer
for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in tribunals
is powerless to pursue them.' One of those men is beyond mortal
reach. The other remains, and my resolution remains."

Her eyes lit up—her colour rose. She said nothing, but I saw all
her sympathies gathering to mine in her face.

"I don't disguise from myself, or from you," I went on, "that the
prospect before us is more than doubtful. The risks we have run
already are, it may be, trifles compared with the risks that
threaten us in the future, but the venture shall be tried, Marian,
for all that. I am not rash enough to measure myself against such
a man as the Count before I am well prepared for him. I have
learnt patience—I can wait my time. Let him believe that his
message has produced its effect—let him know nothing of us, and
hear nothing of us—let us give him full time to feel secure—his
own boastful nature, unless I seriously mistake him, will hasten
that result. This is one reason for waiting, but there is another
more important still. My position, Marian, towards you and
towards Laura ought to be a stronger one than it is now before I
try our last chance."

She leaned near to me, with a look of surprise.

"How can it be stronger?" she asked.

"I will tell you," I replied, "when the time comes. It has not
come yet—it may never come at all. I may be silent about it to
Laura for ever—I must be silent now, even to YOU, till I see for
myself that I can harmlessly and honourably speak. Let us leave
that subject. There is another which has more pressing claims on
our attention. You have kept Laura, mercifully kept her, in
ignorance of her husband's death—-"

"Oh, Walter, surely it must be long yet before we tell her of it?"

"No, Marian. Better that you should reveal it to her now, than
that accident, which no one can guard against, should reveal it to
her at some future time. Spare her all the details—break it to
her very tenderly, but tell her that he is dead."

"You have a reason, Walter, for wishing her to know of her
husband's death besides the reason you have just mentioned?"

"I have."

"A reason connected with that subject which must not be mentioned
between us yet?—which may never be mentioned to Laura at all?"

She dwelt on the last words meaningly. When I answered her in the
affirmative, I dwelt on them too.

Her face grew pale. For a while she looked at me with a sad,
hesitating interest. An unaccustomed tenderness trembled in her
dark eyes and softened her firm lips, as she glanced aside at the
empty chair in which the dear companion of all our joys and
sorrows had been sitting.

"I think I understand," she said. "I think I owe it to her and to
you, Walter, to tell her of her husband's death."

She sighed, and held my hand fast for a moment—then dropped it
abruptly, and left the room. On the next day Laura knew that his
death had released her, and that the error and the calamity of her
life lay buried in his tomb.

His name was mentioned among us no more. Thenceforward, we shrank
from the slightest approach to the subject of his death, and in
the same scrupulous manner, Marian and I avoided all further
reference to that other subject, which, by her consent and mine,
was not to be mentioned between us yet. It was not the less
present in our minds—it was rather kept alive in them by the
restraint which we had imposed on ourselves. We both watched
Laura more anxiously than ever, sometimes waiting and hoping,
sometimes waiting and fearing, till the time came.