FANNY'S NARRATIVE
FANNY returned to London. Partly, the slenderness of her resources gave
her no choice; partly, she had learned all there was to learn, and
would do no good by staying longer at Passy.
She arrived with thirty shillings left out of Mr. Mountjoy's timely
gift. She sought a cheap lodging, and found a room, among people who
seemed respectable, which she could have for four-and-sixpence a week,
with board at a shilling a day. This settled, she hastened to Mr.
Mountjoy's hotel brimful of her news for Mrs. Vimpany.
Everyone knows the disappointment when the one person in the world whom
you want at the moment to see and to talk with proves to be out. Then
the news has to be suppressed; the conclusions, the suspicions, the
guesses have to be postponed; the active brain falls back upon itself.
This disappointment--almost as great as that at Berne--was experienced
by Fanny Mere at the hotel.
Mr. Mountjoy was no longer there.
The landlady of the hotel, who knew Fanny, came out herself and told
her what had happened.
"He was better," she said, "but still weak. They sent him down to
Scotland in Mrs. Vimpany's care. He was to travel by quick or slow
stages, just as he felt able. And I've got the address for you. Here it
is. Oh! and Mrs. Vimpany left a message. Will you, she says, when you
write, send the letter to her and not to him? She says, you know why."
Fanny returned to her lodging profoundly discouraged. She was filled
with this terrible secret that she had discovered. The only man who
could advise at this juncture was Mr. Mountjoy, and he was gone. And
she knew not what had become of her mistress. What could she do? The
responsibility was more than she could bear.
The conversation with the French nurse firmly established one thing in
her mind. The man who was buried in the cemetery of Auteuil with the
name of Lord Harry Norland on a headstone, the man who had lingered so
long with pulmonary disease, was the man whose death she had witnessed.
It was Oxbye the Dane. Of that there could be no doubt. Equally there
was no doubt in her own mind that he had been poisoned by the
doctor--by Mrs. Vimpany's husband--in the presence and, to all
appearance, with the consent and full knowledge of Lord Harry himself.
Then her mistress was in the power of these two men--villains who had
now added murder to their other crimes. As for herself, she was alone,
almost friendless; in a week or two she would be penniless. If she told
her tale, what mischief might she not do? If she was silent, what
mischief might not follow?
She sat down to write to the only friend she had. But her trouble froze
her brain. She had not been able to put the case plainly. Words failed
her.
She was not at any time fluent with her pen. She now found herself
really unable to convey any intelligible account of what had happened.
To state clearly all that she knew so that the conclusion should be
obvious and patent to the reader would have been at all times
difficult, and was now impossible. She could only confine herself to a
simple vague statement. "I can only say that from all I have seen and
heard I have reasons for believing that Lord Harry is not dead at all."
She felt that this was a feeble way of summing up, but she was not at
the moment equal to more. "When I write again, after I have heard from
you, I will tell you more. To-day I cannot. I am too much weighed down.
I am afraid of saying too much. Besides, I have no money, and must look
for work. I am not anxious, however, about my own future, because my
lady will not forsake me. I am sure of that. It is my anxiety about her
and the dreadful secrets I have learned which give me no rest."
Several days passed before the answer came. And then it was an answer
which gave her little help. "I have no good news for you," she said.
"Mr. Mountjoy continues weak. Whatever your secret, I cannot ask you to
communicate it to him in his present condition. He has been grieved and
angry beyond all belief by Lady Harry's decision to rejoin her husband.
It is hard to understand that a man should be so true a friend and so
constant a lover. Yet he has brought himself to declare that he has
broken off all friendly relations with her. He could no longer endure
London. It was associated with thoughts and memories of her. In spite
of his weak condition, he insisted on coming down here to his Scotch
villa. Ill as he was, he would brook no delay. We came down by very
easy stages, stopping at Peterborough, York, Durham, Newcastle, and
Berwick--at some places for one night, and others for more. In spite of
all my precautions, when we arrived at the villa he was dangerously
exhausted. I sent for the local doctor, who seems to know something. At
all events, he is wise enough to understand that this is not a case for
drugs. Complete rest and absence from all agitating thoughts must be
aimed at. Above all, he is not to see the newspapers. That is
fortunate, because, I suppose, Lord Harry's death has been announced in
them, and the thought that his former mistress is a widow might excite
him very dangerously. You will now understand why I left that message
at the hotel for you, and why I have not shown him your letter. I told
him, it is true, that you had returned without finding your mistress.
'Speak no more to me of Lady Harry,' he replied irritably. So I have
said no more. As for money, I have a few pounds by me, which are at
your service. You can repay me at some future time. I have thought of
one thing--that new Continental paper started by Lord Harry. Wherever
she may be, Lady Harry is almost sure to see that. Put an advertisement
in it addressed to her, stating that you have not heard of her address,
but that you yourself will receive any letter sent to some post-office
which you can find. I think that such an advertisement will draw a
reply from her, unless she desires to remain in seclusion."
Fanny thought the suggestion worth adopting. After careful
consideration, she drew up an advertisement:--
"Fanny H. to L--H--. I have not been able to ascertain your address.
Please write to me, at the Post Office, Hunter Street, London, W.C."
She paid for the insertion of this advertisement three times on
alternate Saturdays. They told her that this would be a more likely way
than to take three successive Saturdays. Then, encouraged by the
feeling that something, however little, had been done, she resolved to
sit down to write out a narrative in which she would set down in order
everything that had happened--exactly as it had happened. Her intense
hatred and suspicion of Dr. Vimpany aided her, strange to say, to keep
to the strictest fidelity as regards the facts. For it was not her
desire to make up charges and accusations. She wanted to find out the
exact truth, and so to set it down that anybody who read her statement
would arrive at the same conclusion as she herself had done. In the
case of an eye-witness there are thousands of things which cannot be
produced in evidence which yet are most important in directing and
confirming suspicions. The attitude, the voice, the look of a speaker,
the things which he conceals as well as the things which he
reveals--all these are evidence. But these Fanny was unable to set
down. Therefore it behoved her to be strictly careful.
First, she stated how she became aware that there was some secret
scheme under consideration between Lord Harry and the doctor. Next, she
set down the fact that they began to talk French to each other,
thinking that she could not understand them; that they spoke of
deceiving Lady Harry by some statement which had already deceived the
authorities; that the doctor undertook to get the lady out of the
house; that they engaged herself as nurse to a sick man; that she
suspected from the beginning that their design was to profit in some
way by the death of this sick than, who bore a slight resemblance to
Lord Harry himself. And so on, following the story as closely as she
could remember, to the death of the Dane and her own subsequent
conversation with the nurse. She was careful to put in the dates, day
after day. When she had done all this--it took a good deal of time--she
bought a manuscript book and copied it all out. This enabled her to
remember two or three facts which had escaped her at the beginning.
Then she made another copy this time without names of people or place.
The second copy she forwarded as a registered letter to Mrs. Vimpany,
with a letter of which this was the conclusion: "Considering,
therefore, that on Wednesday morning I left Lord Harry in perfect
health; considering that on the Thursday morning I saw the man who had
been ill so long actually die--how, I have told you in the packet
enclosed; considering that the nurse was called in purposely to attend
a patient who was stated to have long been ill--there can be no doubt
whatever that the body in the cemetery is that of the unfortunate Dane,
Oxbye; and that, somewhere or other, Lord Harry is alive and well.
"What have they done it for? First of all, I suppose, to get money. If
it were not for the purpose of getting money the doctor would have had
nothing to do with the conspiracy, which was his own invention. That is
very certain. Your idea was they would try to get money out of the
Insurance Offices. I suppose that is their design. But Lord Harry may
have many other secret reasons of his own for wishing to be thought
dead. They say his life has been full of wicked things, and he may well
wish to be considered dead and gone. Lots of wicked men would like
above all things, I should think, to be considered dead and buried. But
the money matter is at the bottom of all, I am convinced. What are we
to do?"
What could they do? These two women had got hold of a terrible secret.
Neither of them could move. It was too big a thing. One cannot expect a
woman to bring her own husband--however wicked a husband he may be--to
the awful shame and horror of the gallows if murder should be
proved--or to a lifelong imprisonment if the conspiracy alone should be
brought home to him. Therefore Mrs. Vimpany could do nothing. As for
Fanny, the mere thought of the pain she would inflict upon her
mistress, were Lord Harry, through her interference, to be brought to
justice and an infamous sentence, kept her quiet.
Meantime, the announcement of Lord Harry's death had been made. Those
who knew the family history spoke cheerfully of the event. "Best timing
he had ever done. Very good thing for his people. One more bad lot out
of the way. Dead, Sir, and a very good thing, too. Married, I believe.
One of the men who have done everything. Pity they can't write a life
of him." These were the comments made upon the decease of this young
gentleman. Such is fame. Next day he was clean forgotten; just as if he
had never existed. Such is life.