The Woman in White (96 page)

I pushed open the door and entered Pesca's room. He was crouched
up, in the strangest manner, in a corner of the sofa. He seemed
to shrink from me when I approached him.

"Am I disturbing you?" I asked. "I did not know you had a friend
with you till I saw him come out."

"No friend," said Pesca eagerly. "I see him to-day for the first
time and the last."

"I am afraid he has brought you bad news?"

"Horrible news, Walter! Let us go back to London—I don't want to
stop here—I am sorry I ever came. The misfortunes of my youth
are very hard upon me," he said, turning his face to the wall,
"very hard upon me in my later time. I try to forget them—and
they will not forget ME!"

"We can't return, I am afraid, before the afternoon," I replied.
"Would you like to come out with me in the meantime?"

"No, my friend, I will wait here. But let us go back to-day—pray
let us go back."

I left him with the assurance that he should leave Paris that
afternoon. We had arranged the evening before to ascend the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, with Victor Hugo's noble romance for our
guide. There was nothing in the French capital that I was more
anxious to see, and I departed by myself for the church.

Approaching Notre Dame by the river-side, I passed on my way the
terrible dead-house of Paris—the Morgue. A great crowd clamoured
and heaved round the door. There was evidently something inside
which excited the popular curiosity, and fed the popular appetite
for horror.

I should have walked on to the church if the conversation of two
men and a woman on the outskirts of the crowd had not caught my
ear. They had just come out from seeing the sight in the Morgue,
and the account they were giving of the dead body to their
neighbours described it as the corpse of a man—a man of immense
size, with a strange mark on his left arm.

The moment those words reached me I stopped and took my place with
the crowd going in. Some dim foreshadowing of the truth had
crossed my mind when I heard Pesca's voice through the open door,
and when I saw the stranger's face as he passed me on the stairs
of the hotel. Now the truth itself was revealed to me—revealed
in the chance words that had just reached my ears. Other
vengeance than mine had followed that fated man from the theatre
to his own door—from his own door to his refuge in Paris. Other
vengeance than mine had called him to the day of reckoning, and
had exacted from him the penalty of his life. The moment when I
had pointed him out to Pesca at the theatre in the hearing of that
stranger by our side, who was looking for him too—was the moment
that sealed his doom. I remembered the struggle in my own heart,
when he and I stood face to face—the struggle before I could let
him escape me—and shuddered as I recalled it.

Slowly, inch by inch, I pressed in with the crowd, moving nearer
and nearer to the great glass screen that parts the dead from the
living at the Morgue—nearer and nearer, till I was close behind
the front row of spectators, and could look in.

There he lay, unowned, unknown, exposed to the flippant curiosity
of a French mob! There was the dreadful end of that long life of
degraded ability and heartless crime! Hushed in the sublime repose
of death, the broad, firm, massive face and head fronted us so
grandly that the chattering Frenchwomen about me lifted their
hands in admiration, and cried in shrill chorus, "Ah, what a
handsome man!" The wound that had killed him had been struck with
a knife or dagger exactly over his heart. No other traces of
violence appeared about the body except on the left arm, and
there, exactly in the place where I had seen the brand on Pesca's
arm, were two deep cuts in the shape of the letter T, which
entirely obliterated the mark of the Brotherhood. His clothes,
hung above him, showed that he had been himself conscious of his
danger—they were clothes that had disguised him as a French
artisan. For a few moments, but not for longer, I forced myself
to see these things through the glass screen. I can write of them
at no greater length, for I saw no more.

The few facts in connection with his death which I subsequently
ascertained (partly from Pesca and partly from other sources), may
be stated here before the subject is dismissed from these pages.

His body was taken out of the Seine in the disguise which I have
described, nothing being found on him which revealed his name, his
rank, or his place of abode. The hand that struck him was never
traced, and the circumstances under which he was killed were never
discovered. I leave others to draw their own conclusions in
reference to the secret of the assassination as I have drawn mine.
When I have intimated that the foreigner with the scar was a
member of the Brotherhood (admitted in Italy after Pesca's
departure from his native country), and when I have further added
that the two cuts, in the form of a T, on the left arm of the dead
man, signified the Italian word "Traditore," and showed that
justice had been done by the Brotherhood on a traitor, I have
contributed all that I know towards elucidating the mystery of
Count Fosco's death.

The body was identified the day after I had seen it by means of an
anonymous letter addressed to his wife. He was buried by Madame
Fosco in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. Fresh funeral wreaths
continue to this day to be hung on the ornamental bronze railings
round the tomb by the Countess's own hand. She lives in the
strictest retirement at Versailles. Not long since she published
a biography of her deceased husband. The work throws no light
whatever on the name that was really his own or on the secret
history of his life—it is almost entirely devoted to the praise
of his domestic virtues, the assertion of his rare abilities, and
the enumeration of the honours conferred on him. The
circumstances attending his death are very briefly noticed, and
are summed up on the last page in this sentence—"His life was one
long assertion of the rights of the aristocracy and the sacred
principles of Order, and he died a martyr to his cause."

The summer and autumn passed after my return from Paris, and
brought no changes with them which need be noticed here. We lived
so simply and quietly that the income which I was now steadily
earning sufficed for all our wants.

In the February of the new year our first child was born—a son.
My mother and sister and Mrs. Vesey were our guests at the little
christening party, and Mrs. Clements was present to assist my wife
on the same occasion. Marian was our boy's godmother, and Pesca
and Mr. Gilmore (the latter acting by proxy) were his godfathers.
I may add here that when Mr. Gilmore returned to us a year later
he assisted the design of these pages, at my request, by writing
the Narrative which appears early in the story under his name, and
which, though first in order of precedence, was thus, in order of
time, the last that I received.

The only event in our lives which now remains to be recorded,
occurred when our little Walter was six months old.

At that time I was sent to Ireland to make sketches for certain
forthcoming illustrations in the newspaper to which I was
attached. I was away for nearly a fortnight, corresponding
regularly with my wife and Marian, except during the last three
days of my absence, when my movements were too uncertain to enable
me to receive letters. I performed the latter part of my journey
back at night, and when I reached home in the morning, to my utter
astonishment there was no one to receive me. Laura and Marian and
the child had left the house on the day before my return.

A note from my wife, which was given to me by the servant, only
increased my surprise, by informing me that they had gone to
Limmeridge House. Marian had prohibited any attempt at written
explanations—I was entreated to follow them the moment I came
back—complete enlightenment awaited me on my arrival in
Cumberland—and I was forbidden to feel the slightest anxiety in
the meantime. There the note ended. It was still early enough to
catch the morning train. I reached Limmeridge House the same
afternoon.

My wife and Marian were both upstairs. They had established
themselves (by way of completing my amazement) in the little room
which had been once assigned to me for a studio, when I was
employed on Mr. Fairlie's drawings. On the very chair which I
used to occupy when I was at work Marian was sitting now, with the
child industriously sucking his coral upon her lap—while Laura
was standing by the well-remembered drawing-table which I had so
often used, with the little album that I had filled for her in
past times open under her hand.

"What in the name of heaven has brought you here?" I asked. "Does
Mr. Fairlie know—-?"

Marian suspended the question on my lips by telling me that Mr.
Fairlie was dead. He had been struck by paralysis, and had never
rallied after the shock. Mr. Kyrle had informed them of his
death, and had advised them to proceed immediately to Limmeridge
House.

Some dim perception of a great change dawned on my mind. Laura
spoke before I had quite realised it. She stole close to me to
enjoy the surprise which was still expressed in my face.

"My darling Walter," she said, "must we really account for our
boldness in coming here? I am afraid, love, I can only explain it
by breaking through our rule, and referring to the past."

"There is not the least necessity for doing anything of the kind,"
said Marian. "We can be just as explicit, and much more
interesting, by referring to the future." She rose and held up the
child kicking and crowing in her arms. "Do you know who this is,
Walter?" she asked, with bright tears of happiness gathering in
her eyes.

"Even MY bewilderment has its limits," I replied. "I think I can
still answer for knowing my own child."

"Child!" she exclaimed, with all her easy gaiety of old times.
"Do you talk in that familiar manner of one of the landed gentry
of England? Are you aware, when I present this illustrious baby to
your notice, in whose presence you stand? Evidently not! Let me
make two eminent personages known to one another: Mr. Walter
Hartright—THE HEIR OF LIMMERIDGE."

So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written all.
The pen falters in my hand. The long, happy labour of many months
is over. Marian was the good angel of our lives—let Marian end
our Story.

[1]
The passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in Miss Halcombe's
Diary are only those which bear no reference to Miss Fairlie or to
any of the persons with whom she is associated in these pages.

[2]
The manner in which Mr. Fairlie's Narrative and other
Narratives that are shortly to follow it, were originally
obtained, forms the subject of an explanation which will appear at
a later period.

[3]
It is only right to mention here, that I repeat Pesco's
statement to me with the careful suppressions and alterations
which the serious nature of the subject and my own sense of duty
to my friend demand. My first and last concealments from the
reader are those which caution renders absolutely necessary in
this portion of the narrative.