My position is defined--my motives are acknowledged. The story of
Marian and the story of Laura must come next.
I shall relate both narratives, not in the words (often
interrupted, often inevitably confused) of the speakers
themselves, but in the words of the brief, plain, studiously
simple abstract which I committed to writing for my own guidance,
and for the guidance of my legal adviser. So the tangled web will
be most speedily and most intelligibly unrolled.
The story of Marian begins where the narrative of the housekeeper
at Blackwater Park left off.
On Lady Glyde's departure from her husband's house, the fact of
that departure, and the necessary statement of the circumstances
under which it had taken place, were communicated to Miss Halcombe
by the housekeeper. It was not till some days afterwards (how
many days exactly, Mrs. Michelson, in the absence of any written
memorandum on the subject, could not undertake to say) that a
letter arrived from Madame Fosco announcing Lady Glyde's sudden
death in Count Fosco's house. The letter avoided mentioning
dates, and left it to Mrs. Michelson's discretion to break the
news at once to Miss Halcombe, or to defer doing so until that
lady's health should be more firmly established.
Having consulted Mr. Dawson (who had been himself delayed, by ill
health, in resuming his attendance at Blackwater Park), Mrs.
Michelson, by the doctor's advice, and in the doctor's presence,
communicated the news, either on the day when the letter was
received, or on the day after. It is not necessary to dwell here
upon the effect which the intelligence of Lady Glyde's sudden
death produced on her sister. It is only useful to the present
purpose to say that she was not able to travel for more than three
weeks afterwards. At the end of that time she proceeded to London
accompanied by the housekeeper. They parted there--Mrs. Michelson
previously informing Miss Halcombe of her address, in case they
might wish to communicate at a future period.
On parting with the housekeeper Miss Halcombe went at once to the
office of Messrs. Gilmore & Kyrle to consult with the latter
gentleman in Mr. Gilmore's absence. She mentioned to Mr. Kyrle
what she had thought it desirable to conceal from every one else
(Mrs. Michelson included)--her suspicion of the circumstances
under which Lady Glyde was said to have met her death. Mr. Kyrle,
who had previously given friendly proof of his anxiety to serve
Miss Halcombe, at once undertook to make such inquiries as the
delicate and dangerous nature of the investigation proposed to him
would permit.
To exhaust this part of the subject before going farther, it may
be mentioned that Count Fosco offered every facility to Mr. Kyrle,
on that gentleman's stating that he was sent by Miss Halcombe to
collect such particulars as had not yet reached her of Lady
Glyde's decease. Mr. Kyrle was placed in communication with the
medical man, Mr. Goodricke, and with the two servants. In the
absence of any means of ascertaining the exact date of Lady
Glyde's departure from Blackwater Park, the result of the doctor's
and the servants' evidence, and of the volunteered statements of
Count Fosco and his wife, was conclusive to the mind of Mr. Kyrle.
He could only assume that the intensity of Miss Halcombe's
suffering, under the loss of her sister, had misled her judgment
in a most deplorable manner, and he wrote her word that the
shocking suspicion to which she had alluded in his presence was,
in his opinion, destitute of the smallest fragment of foundation
in truth. Thus the investigation by Mr. Gilmore's partner began
and ended.
Meanwhile, Miss Halcombe had returned to Limmeridge House, and had
there collected all the additional information which she was able
to obtain.
Mr. Fairlie had received his first intimation of his niece's death
from his sister, Madame Fosco, this letter also not containing any
exact reference to dates. He had sanctioned his sister's proposal
that the deceased lady should be laid in her mother's grave in
Limmeridge churchyard. Count Fosco had accompanied the remains to
Cumberland, and had attended the funeral at Limmeridge, which took
place on the 30th of July. It was followed, as a mark of respect,
by all the inhabitants of the village and the neighbourhood. On
the next day the inscription (originally drawn out, it was said,
by the aunt of the deceased lady, and submitted for approval to
her brother, Mr. Fairlie) was engraved on one side of the monument
over the tomb.
On the day of the funeral, and for one day after it, Count Fosco
had been received as a guest at Limmeridge House, but no interview
had taken place between Mr. Fairlie and himself, by the former
gentleman's desire. They had communicated by writing, and through
this medium Count Fosco had made Mr. Fairlie acquainted with the
details of his niece's last illness and death. The letter
presenting this information added no new facts to the facts
already known, but one very remarkable paragraph was contained in
the postscript. It referred to Anne Catherick.
The substance of the paragraph in question was as follows--
It first informed Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick (of whom he
might hear full particulars from Miss Halcombe when she reached
Limmeridge) had been traced and recovered in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater Park, and had been for the second time placed under the
charge of the medical man from whose custody she had once escaped.
This was the first part of the postscript. The second part warned
Mr. Fairlie that Anne Catherick's mental malady had been
aggravated by her long freedom from control, and that the insane
hatred and distrust of Sir Percival Glyde, which had been one of
her most marked delusions in former times, still existed under a
newly-acquired form. The unfortunate woman's last idea in
connection with Sir Percival was the idea of annoying and
distressing him, and of elevating herself, as she supposed, in the
estimation of the patients and nurses, by assuming the character
of his deceased wife, the scheme of this personation having
evidently occurred to her after a stolen interview which she had
succeeded in obtaining with Lady Glyde, and at which she had
observed the extraordinary accidental likeness between the
deceased lady and herself. It was to the last degree improbable
that she would succeed a second time in escaping from the Asylum,
but it was just possible she might find some means of annoying the
late Lady Glyde's relatives with letters, and in that case Mr.
Fairlie was warned beforehand how to receive them.
The postscript, expressed in these terms, was shown to Miss
Halcombe when she arrived at Limmeridge. There were also placed
in her possession the clothes Lady Glyde had worn, and the other
effects she had brought with her to her aunt's house. They had
been carefully collected and sent to Cumberland by Madame Fosco.
Such was the posture of affairs when Miss Halcombe reached
Limmeridge in the early part of September.
Shortly afterwards she was confined to her room by a relapse, her
weakened physical energies giving way under the severe mental
affliction from which she was now suffering. On getting stronger
again, in a month's time, her suspicion of the circumstances
described as attending her sister's death still remained unshaken.
She had heard nothing in the interim of Sir Percival Glyde, but
letters had reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most
affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband and herself.
Instead of answering these letters, Miss Halcombe caused the house
in St. John's Wood, and the proceedings of its inmates, to be
privately watched.
Nothing doubtful was discovered. The same result attended the
next investigations, which were secretly instituted on the subject
of Mrs. Rubelle. She had arrived in London about six months
before with her husband. They had come from Lyons, and they had
taken a house in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, to be
fitted up as a boarding-house for foreigners, who were expected to
visit England in large numbers to see the Exhibition of 1851.
Nothing was known against husband or wife in the neighbourhood.
They were quiet people, and they had paid their way honestly up to
the present time. The final inquiries related to Sir Percival
Glyde. He was settled in Paris, and living there quietly in a
small circle of English and French friends.
Foiled at all points, but still not able to rest, Miss Halcombe
next determined to visit the Asylum in which she then supposed
Anne Catherick to be for the second time confined. She had felt a
strong curiosity about the woman in former days, and she was now
doubly interested--first, in ascertaining whether the report of
Anne Catherick's attempted personation of Lady Glyde was true, and
secondly (if it proved to be true), in discovering for herself
what the poor creature's real motives were for attempting the
deceit.
Although Count Fosco's letter to Mr. Fairlie did not mention the
address of the Asylum, that important omission cast no
difficulties in Miss Halcombe's way. When Mr. Hartright had met
Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, she had informed him of the locality
in which the house was situated, and Miss Halcombe had noted down
the direction in her diary, with all the other particulars of the
interview exactly as she heard them from Mr. Hartright's own lips.
Accordingly she looked back at the entry and extracted the
address--furnished herself with the Count's letter to Mr. Fairlie
as a species of credential which might be useful to her, and
started by herself for the Asylum on the eleventh of October.
She passed the night of the eleventh in London. It had been her
intention to sleep at the house inhabited by Lady Glyde's old
governess, but Mrs. Vesey's agitation at the sight of her lost
pupil's nearest and dearest friend was so distressing that Miss
Halcombe considerately refrained from remaining in her presence,
and removed to a respectable boarding-house in the neighbourhood,
recommended by Mrs. Vesey's married sister. The next day she
proceeded to the Asylum, which was situated not far from London on
the northern side of the metropolis.
She was immediately admitted to see the proprietor.
At first he appeared to be decidedly unwilling to let her
communicate with his patient. But on her showing him the
postscript to Count Fosco's letter--on her reminding him that she
was the "Miss Halcombe" there referred to--that she was a near
relative of the deceased Lady Glyde--and that she was therefore
naturally interested, for family reasons, in observing for herself
the extent of Anne Catherick's delusion in relation to her late
sister--the tone and manner of the owner of the Asylum altered,
and he withdrew his objections. He probably felt that a continued
refusal, under these circumstances, would not only be an act of
discourtesy in itself, but would also imply that the proceedings
in his establishment were not of a nature to bear investigation by
respectable strangers.
Miss Halcombe's own impression was that the owner of the Asylum
had not been received into the confidence of Sir Percival and the
Count. His consenting at all to let her visit his patient seemed
to afford one proof of this, and his readiness in making
admissions which could scarcely have escaped the lips of an
accomplice, certainly appeared to furnish another.
For example, in the course of the introductory conversation which
took place, he informed Miss Halcombe that Anne Catherick had been
brought back to him with the necessary order and certificates by
Count Fosco on the twenty-seventh of July--the Count also
producing a letter of explanations and instructions signed by Sir
Percival Glyde. On receiving his inmate again, the proprietor of
the Asylum acknowledged that he had observed some curious personal
changes in her. Such changes no doubt were not without precedent
in his experience of persons mentally afflicted. Insane people
were often at one time, outwardly as well as inwardly, unlike what
they were at another--the change from better to worse, or from
worse to better, in the madness having a necessary tendency to
produce alterations of appearance externally. He allowed for
these, and he allowed also for the modification in the form of
Anne Catherick's delusion, which was reflected no doubt in her
manner and expression. But he was still perplexed at times by
certain differences between his patient before she had escaped and
his patient since she had been brought back. Those differences
were too minute to be described. He could not say of course that
she was absolutely altered in height or shape or complexion, or in
the colour of her hair and eyes, or in the general form of her
face--the change was something that he felt more than something
that he saw. In short, the case had been a puzzle from the first,
and one more perplexity was added to it now.
It cannot be said that this conversation led to the result of even
partially preparing Miss Halcombe's mind for what was to come.
But it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her.
She was so completely unnerved by it, that some little time
elapsed before she could summon composure enough to follow the
proprietor of the Asylum to that part of the house in which the
inmates were confined.
On inquiry, it turned out that the supposed Anne Catherick was
then taking exercise in the grounds attached to the establishment.
One of the nurses volunteered to conduct Miss Halcombe to the
place, the proprietor of the Asylum remaining in the house for a
few minutes to attend to a case which required his services, and
then engaging to join his visitor in the grounds.
The nurse led Miss Halcombe to a distant part of the property,
which was prettily laid out, and after looking about her a little,
turned into a turf walk, shaded by a shrubbery on either side.
About half-way down this walk two women were slowly approaching.
The nurse pointed to them and said, "There is Anne Catherick,
ma'am, with the attendant who waits on her. The attendant will
answer any questions you wish to put." With those words the nurse
left her to return to the duties of the house.
Miss Halcombe advanced on her side, and the women advanced on
theirs. When they were within a dozen paces of each other, one of
the women stopped for an instant, looked eagerly at the strange
lady, shook off the nurse's grasp on her, and the next moment
rushed into Miss Halcombe's arms. In that moment Miss Halcombe
recognised her sister--recognised the dead-alive.
Fortunately for the success of the measures taken subsequently, no
one was present at that moment but the nurse. She was a young
woman, and she was so startled that she was at first quite
incapable of interfering. When she was able to do so her whole
services were required by Miss Halcombe, who had for the moment
sunk altogether in the effort to keep her own senses under the
shock of the discovery. After waiting a few minutes in the fresh
air and the cool shade, her natural energy and courage helped her
a little, and she became sufficiently mistress of herself to feel
the necessity of recalling her presence of mind for her
unfortunate sister's sake.
She obtained permission to speak alone with the patient, on
condition that they both remained well within the nurse's view.
There was no time for questions--there was only time for Miss
Halcombe to impress on the unhappy lady the necessity of
controlling herself, and to assure her of immediate help and
rescue if she did so. The prospect of escaping from the Asylum by
obedience to her sister's directions was sufficient to quiet Lady
Glyde, and to make her understand what was required of her. Miss
Halcombe next returned to the nurse, placed all the gold she then
had in her pocket (three sovereigns) in the nurse's hands, and
asked when and where she could speak to her alone.
The woman was at first surprised and distrustful. But on Miss
Halcombe's declaring that she only wanted to put some questions
which she was too much agitated to ask at that moment, and that
she had no intention of misleading the nurse into any dereliction
of duty, the woman took the money, and proposed three o'clock on
the next day as the time for the interview. She might then slip
out for half an hour, after the patients had dined, and she would
meet the lady in a retired place, outside the high north wall
which screened the grounds of the house. Miss Halcombe had only
time to assent, and to whisper to her sister that she should hear
from her on the next day, when the proprietor of the Asylum joined
them. He noticed his visitor's agitation, which Miss Halcombe
accounted for by saying that her interview with Anne Catherick had
a little startled her at first. She took her leave as soon after
as possible--that is to say, as soon as she could summon courage
to force herself from the presence of her unfortunate sister.
A very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect returned,
convinced her that any attempt to identify Lady Glyde and to
rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a
delay that might be fatal to her sister's intellects, which were
shaken already by the horror of the situation to which she had
been consigned. By the time Miss Halcombe had got back to London,
she had determined to effect Lady Glyde's escape privately, by
means of the nurse.
She went at once to her stockbroker, and sold out of the funds all
the little property she possessed, amounting to rather less than
seven hundred pounds. Determined, if necessary, to pay the price
of her sister's liberty with every farthing she had in the world,
she repaired the next day, having the whole sum about her in bank-
notes, to her appointment outside the Asylum wall.
The nurse was there. Miss Halcombe approached the subject
cautiously by many preliminary questions. She discovered, among
other particulars, that the nurse who had in former times attended
on the true Anne Catherick had been held responsible (although she
was not to blame for it) for the patient's escape, and had lost
her place in consequence. The same penalty, it was added, would
attach to the person then speaking to her, if the supposed Anne
Catherick was missing a second time; and, moreover, the nurse in
this case had an especial interest in keeping her place. She was
engaged to be married, and she and her future husband were waiting
till they could save, together, between two and three hundred
pounds to start in business. The nurse's wages were good, and she
might succeed, by strict economy, in contributing her small share
towards the sum required in two years' time.
On this hint Miss Halcombe spoke. She declared that the supposed
Anne Catherick was nearly related to her, that she had been placed
in the Asylum under a fatal mistake, and that the nurse would be
doing a good and a Christian action in being the means of
restoring them to one another. Before there was time to start a
single objection, Miss Halcombe took four bank-notes of a hundred
pounds each from her pocket-book, and offered them to the woman,
as a compensation for the risk she was to run, and for the loss of
her place.
The nurse hesitated, through sheer incredulity and surprise. Miss
Halcombe pressed the point on her firmly.
"You will be doing a good action," she repeated; "you will be
helping the most injured and unhappy woman alive. There is your
marriage portion for a reward. Bring her safely to me here, and I
will put these four bank-notes into your hand before I claim her."
"Will you give me a letter saying those words, which I can show to
my sweetheart when he asks how I got the money?" inquired the
woman.
"I will bring the letter with me, ready written and signed,"
answered Miss Halcombe.
"Then I'll risk it," said the nurse.
"When?"
"To-morrow."
It was hastily agreed between them that Miss Halcombe should
return early the next morning and wait out of sight among the
trees--always, however, keeping near the quiet spot of ground
under the north wall. The nurse could fix no time for her
appearance, caution requiring that she should wait and be guided
by circumstances. On that understanding they separated.
Miss Halcombe was at her place, with the promised letter and the
promised bank-notes, before ten the next morning. She waited more
than an hour and a half. At the end of that time the nurse came
quickly round the corner of the wall holding Lady Glyde by the
arm. The moment they met Miss Halcombe put the bank-notes and the
letter into her hand, and the sisters were united again.
The nurse had dressed Lady Glyde, with excellent forethought, in a
bonnet, veil, and shawl of her own. Miss Halcombe only detained
her to suggest a means of turning the pursuit in a false
direction, when the escape was discovered at the Asylum. She was
to go back to the house, to mention in the hearing of the other
nurses that Anne Catherick had been inquiring latterly about the
distance from London to Hampshire, to wait till the last moment,
before discovery was inevitable, and then to give the alarm that
Anne was missing. The supposed inquiries about Hampshire, when
communicated to the owner of the Asylum, would lead him to imagine
that his patient had returned to Blackwater Park, under the
influence of the delusion which made her persist in asserting
herself to be Lady Glyde, and the first pursuit would, in all
probability, be turned in that direction.
The nurse consented to follow these suggestions, the more readily
as they offered her the means of securing herself against any
worse consequences than the loss of her place, by remaining in the
Asylum, and so maintaining the appearance of innocence, at least.
She at once returned to the house, and Miss Halcombe lost no time
in taking her sister back with her to London. They caught the
afternoon train to Carlisle the same afternoon, and arrived at
Limmeridge, without accident or difficulty of any kind, that
night.
During the latter part of their journey they were alone in the
carriage, and Miss Halcombe was able to collect such remembrances
of the past as her sister's confused and weakened memory was able
to recall. The terrible story of the conspiracy so obtained was
presented in fragments, sadly incoherent in themselves, and widely
detached from each other. Imperfect as the revelation was, it
must nevertheless be recorded here before this explanatory
narrative closes with the events of the next day at Limmeridge
House.
Lady Glyde's recollection of the events which followed her
departure from Blackwater Park began with her arrival at the
London terminus of the South Western Railway. She had omitted to
make a memorandum beforehand of the day on which she took the
journey. All hope of fixing that important date by any evidence
of hers, or of Mrs. Michelson's, must be given up for lost.
On the arrival of the train at the platform Lady Glyde found Count
Fosco waiting for her. He was at the carriage door as soon as the
porter could open it. The train was unusually crowded, and there
was great confusion in getting the luggage. Some person whom
Count Fosco brought with him procured the luggage which belonged
to Lady Glyde. It was marked with her name. She drove away alone
with the Count in a vehicle which she did not particularly notice
at the time.
Her first question, on leaving the terminus, referred to Miss
Halcombe. The Count informed her that Miss Halcombe had not yet
gone to Cumberland, after-consideration having caused him to doubt
the prudence of her taking so long a journey without some days'
previous rest.
Lady Glyde next inquired whether her sister was then staying in
the Count's house. Her recollection of the answer was confused,
her only distinct impression in relation to it being that the
Count declared he was then taking her to see Miss Halcombe. Lady
Glyde's experience of London was so limited that she could not
tell, at the time, through what streets they were driving. But
they never left the streets, and they never passed any gardens or
trees. When the carriage stopped, it stopped in a small street
behind a square--a square in which there were shops, and public
buildings, and many people. From these recollections (of which
Lady Glyde was certain) it seems quite clear that Count Fosco did
not take her to his own residence in the suburb of St. John's
Wood.
They entered the house, and went upstairs to a back room, either
on the first or second floor. The luggage was carefully brought
in. A female servant opened the door, and a man with a dark
beard, apparently a foreigner, met them in the hall, and with
great politeness showed them the way upstairs. In answer to Lady
Glyde's inquiries, the Count assured her that Miss Halcombe was in
the house, and that she should be immediately informed of her
sister's arrival. He and the foreigner then went away and left
her by herself in the room. It was poorly furnished as a sitting-
room, and it looked out on the backs of houses.
The place was remarkably quiet--no footsteps went up or down the
stairs--she only heard in the room beneath her a dull, rumbling
sound of men's voices talking. Before she had been long left
alone the Count returned, to explain that Miss Halcombe was then
taking rest, and could not be disturbed for a little while. He
was accompanied into the room by a gentleman (an Englishman), whom
he begged to present as a friend of his.
After this singular introduction--in the course of which no names,
to the best of Lady Glyde's recollection, had been mentioned--she
was left alone with the stranger. He was perfectly civil, but he
startled and confused her by some odd questions about herself, and
by looking at her, while he asked them, in a strange manner.
After remaining a short time he went out, and a minute or two
afterwards a second stranger--also an Englishman--came in. This
person introduced himself as another friend of Count Fosco's, and
he, in his turn, looked at her very oddly, and asked some curious
questions--never, as well as she could remember, addressing her by
name, and going out again, after a little while, like the first
man. By this time she was so frightened about herself, and so
uneasy about her sister, that she had thoughts of venturing
downstairs again, and claiming the protection and assistance of
the only woman she had seen in the house--the servant who answered
the door.
Just as she had risen from her chair, the Count came back into the
room.
The moment he appeared she asked anxiously how long the meeting
between her sister and herself was to be still delayed. At first
he returned an evasive answer, but on being pressed, he
acknowledged, with great apparent reluctance, that Miss Halcombe
was by no means so well as he had hitherto represented her to be.
His tone and manner, in making this reply, so alarmed Lady Glyde,
or rather so painfully increased the uneasiness which she had felt
in the company of the two strangers, that a sudden faintness
overcame her, and she was obliged to ask for a glass of water.
The Count called from the door for water, and for a bottle of
smelling-salts. Both were brought in by the foreign-looking man
with the beard. The water, when Lady Glyde attempted to drink it,
had so strange a taste that it increased her faintness, and she
hastily took the bottle of salts from Count Fosco, and smelt at
it. Her head became giddy on the instant. The Count caught the
bottle as it dropped out of her hand, and the last impression of
which she was conscious was that he held it to her nostrils again.
From this point her recollections were found to be confused,
fragmentary, and difficult to reconcile with any reasonable
probability.
Her own impression was that she recovered her senses later in the
evening, that she then left the house, that she went (as she had
previously arranged to go, at Blackwater Park) to Mrs. Vesey's--
that she drank tea there, and that she passed the night under Mrs.
Vesey's roof. She was totally unable to say how, or when, or in
what company she left the house to which Count Fosco had brought
her. But she persisted in asserting that she had been to Mrs.
Vesey's, and still more extraordinary, that she had been helped to
undress and get to bed by Mrs. Rubelle! She could not remember
what the conversation was at Mrs. Vesey's or whom she saw there
besides that lady, or why Mrs. Rubelle should have been present in
the house to help her.
Her recollection of what happened to her the next morning was
still more vague and unreliable.
She had some dim idea of driving out (at what hour she could not
say) with Count Fosco, and with Mrs. Rubelle again for a female
attendant. But when, and why, she left Mrs. Vesey she could not
tell; neither did she know what direction the carriage drove in,
or where it set her down, or whether the Count and Mrs. Rubelle
did or did not remain with her all the time she was out. At this
point in her sad story there was a total blank. She had no
impressions of the faintest kind to communicate--no idea whether
one day, or more than one day, had passed--until she came to
herself suddenly in a strange place, surrounded by women who were
all unknown to her.
This was the Asylum. Here she first heard herself called by Anne
Catherick's name, and here, as a last remarkable circumstance in
the story of the conspiracy, her own eyes informed her that she
had Anne Catherick's clothes on. The nurse, on the first night in
the Asylum, had shown her the marks on each article of her
underclothing as it was taken off, and had said, not at all
irritably or unkindly, "Look at your own name on your own clothes,
and don't worry us all any more about being Lady Glyde. She's
dead and buried, and you're alive and hearty. Do look at your
clothes now! There it is, in good marking ink, and there you will
find it on all your old things, which we have kept in the house--
Anne Catherick, as plain as print!" And there it was, when Miss
Halcombe examined the linen her sister wore, on the night of their
arrival at Limmeridge House.
These were the only recollections--all of them uncertain, and some
of them contradictory--which could be extracted from Lady Glyde by
careful questioning on the journey to Cumberland. Miss Halcombe
abstained from pressing her with any inquiries relating to events
in the Asylum--her mind being but too evidently unfit to bear the
trial of reverting to them. It was known, by the voluntary
admission of the owner of the mad-house, that she was received
there on the twenty-seventh of July. From that date until the
fifteenth of October (the day of her rescue) she had been under
restraint, her identity with Anne Catherick systematically
asserted, and her sanity, from first to last, practically denied.
Faculties less delicately balanced, constitutions less tenderly
organised, must have suffered under such an ordeal as this. No
man could have gone through it and come out of it unchanged.
Arriving at Limmeridge late on the evening of the fifteenth, Miss
Halcombe wisely resolved not to attempt the assertion of Lady
Glyde's identity until the next day.
The first thing in the morning she went to Mr. Fairlie's room, and
using all possible cautions and preparations beforehand, at last
told him in so many words what had happened. As soon as his first
astonishment and alarm had subsided, he angrily declared that Miss
Halcombe had allowed herself to be duped by Anne Catherick. He
referred her to Count Fosco's letter, and to what she had herself
told him of the personal resemblance between Anne and his deceased
niece, and he positively declined to admit to his presence, even
for one minute only, a madwoman, whom it was an insult and an
outrage to have brought into his house at all.
Miss Halcombe left the room--waited till the first heat of her
indignation had passed away--decided on reflection that Mr.
Fairlie should see his niece in the interests of common humanity
before he closed his doors on her as a stranger--and thereupon,
without a word of previous warning, took Lady Glyde with her to
his room. The servant was posted at the door to prevent their
entrance, but Miss Halcombe insisted on passing him, and made her
way into Mr. Fairlie's presence, leading her sister by the hand.
The scene that followed, though it only lasted for a few minutes,
was too painful to be described--Miss Halcombe herself shrank from
referring to it. Let it be enough to say that Mr. Fairlie
declared, in the most positive terms, that he did not recognise
the woman who had been brought into his room--that he saw nothing
in her face and manner to make him doubt for a moment that his
niece lay buried in Limmeridge churchyard, and that he would call
on the law to protect him if before the day was over she was not
removed from the house.
Taking the very worst view of Mr. Fairlie's selfishness,
indolence, and habitual want of feeling, it was manifestly
impossible to suppose that he was capable of such infamy as
secretly recognising and openly disowning his brother's child.
Miss Halcombe humanely and sensibly allowed all due force to the
influence of prejudice and alarm in preventing him from fairly
exercising his perceptions, and accounted for what had happened in
that way. But when she next put the servants to the test, and
found that they too were, in every case, uncertain, to say the
least of it, whether the lady presented to them was their young
mistress or Anne Catherick, of whose resemblance to her they had
all heard, the sad conclusion was inevitable that the change
produced in Lady Glyde's face and manner by her imprisonment in
the Asylum was far more serious than Miss Halcombe had at first
supposed. The vile deception which had asserted her death defied
exposure even in the house where she was born, and among the
people with whom she had lived.
In a less critical situation the effort need not have been given
up as hopeless even yet.
For example, the maid, Fanny, who happened to be then absent from
Limmeridge, was expected back in two days, and there would be a
chance of gaining her recognition to start with, seeing that she
had been in much more constant communication with her mistress,
and had been much more heartily attached to her than the other
servants. Again, Lady Glyde might have been privately kept in the
house or in the village to wait until her health was a little
recovered and her mind was a little steadied again. When her
memory could be once more trusted to serve her, she would
naturally refer to persons and events in the past with a certainty
and a familiarity which no impostor could simulate, and so the
fact of her identity, which her own appearance had failed to
establish, might subsequently be proved, with time to help her, by
the surer test of her own words.
But the circumstances under which she had regained her freedom
rendered all recourse to such means as these simply impracticable.
The pursuit from the Asylum, diverted to Hampshire for the time
only, would infallibly next take the direction of Cumberland. The
persons appointed to seek the fugitive might arrive at Limmeridge
House at a few hours' notice, and in Mr. Fairlie's present temper
of mind they might count on the immediate exertion of his local
influence and authority to assist them. The commonest
consideration for Lady Glyde's safety forced on Miss Halcombe the
necessity of resigning the struggle to do her justice, and of
removing her at once from the place of all others that was now
most dangerous to her--the neighbourhood of her own home.
An immediate return to London was the first and wisest measure of
security which suggested itself. In the great city all traces of
them might be most speedily and most surely effaced. There were
no preparations to make--no farewell words of kindness to exchange
with any one. On the afternoon of that memorable day of the
sixteenth Miss Halcombe roused her sister to a last exertion of
courage, and without a living soul to wish them well at parting,
the two took their way into the world alone, and turned their
backs for ever on Limmeridge House.
They had passed the hill above the churchyard, when Lady Glyde
insisted on turning back to look her last at her mother's grave.
Miss Halcombe tried to shake her resolution, but, in this one
instance, tried in vain. She was immovable. Her dim eyes lit
with a sudden fire, and flashed through the veil that hung over
them--her wasted fingers strengthened moment by moment round the
friendly arm by which they had held so listlessly till this time.
I believe in my soul that the hand of God was pointing their way
back to them, and that the most innocent and the most afflicted of
His creatures was chosen in that dread moment to see it.
They retraced their steps to the burial-ground, and by that act
sealed the future of our three lives.