Thus far the information which I had received from Mrs. Clements--
though it established facts of which I had not previously been
aware--was of a preliminary character only.
It was clear that the series of deceptions which had removed Anne
Catherick to London, and separated her from Mrs. Clements, had
been accomplished solely by Count Fosco and the Countess, and the
question whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife had
been of a kind to place either of them within reach of the law
might be well worthy of future consideration. But the purpose I
had now in view led me in another direction than this. The
immediate object of my visit to Mrs. Clements was to make some
approach at least to the discovery of Sir Percival's secret, and
she had said nothing as yet which advanced me on my way to that
important end. I felt the necessity of trying to awaken her
recollections of other times, persons, and events than those on
which her memory had hitherto been employed, and when I next spoke
I spoke with that object indirectly in view.
"I wish I could be of any help to you in this sad calamity," I
said. "All I can do is to feel heartily for your distress. If
Anne had been your own child, Mrs. Clements, you could have shown
her no truer kindness--you could have made no readier sacrifices
for her sake."
"There's no great merit in that, sir," said Mrs. Clements simply.
"The poor thing was as good as my own child to me. I nursed her
from a baby, sir, bringing her up by hand--and a hard job it was
to rear her. It wouldn't go to my heart so to lose her if I
hadn't made her first short clothes and taught her to walk. I
always said she was sent to console me for never having chick or
child of my own. And now she's lost the old times keep coming
back to my mind, and even at my age I can't help crying about her--
I can't indeed, sir!"
I waited a little to give Mrs. Clements time to compose herself.
Was the light that I had been looking for so long glimmering on
me--far off, as yet--in the good woman's recollections of Anne's
early life?
"Did you know Mrs. Catherick before Anne was born?" I asked.
"Not very long, sir--not above four months. We saw a great deal
of each other in that time, but we were never very friendly
together."
Her voice was steadier as she made that reply. Painful as many of
her recollections might be, I observed that it was unconsciously a
relief to her mind to revert to the dimly-seen troubles of the
past, after dwelling so long on the vivid sorrows of the present.
"Were you and Mrs. Catherick neighbours?" I inquired, leading her
memory on as encouragingly as I could.
"Yes, sir--neighbours at Old Welmingham."
"OLD Welmingham? There are two places of that name, then, in
Hampshire?"
"Well, sir, there used to be in those days--better than three-and-
twenty years ago. They built a new town about two miles off,
convenient to the river--and Old Welmingham, which was never much
more than a village, got in time to be deserted. The new town is
the place they call Welmingham now--but the old parish church is
the parish church still. It stands by itself, with the houses
pulled down or gone to ruin all round it. I've lived to see sad
changes. It was a pleasant, pretty place in my time."
"Did you live there before your marriage, Mrs. Clements?"
"No, sir--I'm a Norfolk woman. It wasn't the place my husband
belonged to either. He was from Grimsby, as I told you, and he
served his apprenticeship there. But having friends down south,
and hearing of an opening, he got into business at Southampton.
It was in a small way, but he made enough for a plain man to
retire on, and settled at Old Welmingham. I went there with him
when he married me. We were neither of us young, but we lived
very happy together--happier than our neighbour, Mr. Catherick,
lived along with his wife when they came to Old Welmingham a year
or two afterwards."
"Was your husband acquainted with them before that?"
"With Catherick, sir--not with his wife. She was a stranger to
both of us. Some gentlemen had made interest for Catherick, and
he got the situation of clerk at Welmingham church, which was the
reason of his coming to settle in our neighbourhood. He brought
his newly-married wife along with him, and we heard in course of
time she had been lady's-maid in a family that lived at Varneck
Hall, near Southampton. Catherick had found it a hard matter to
get her to marry him, in consequence of her holding herself
uncommonly high. He had asked and asked, and given the thing up
at last, seeing she was so contrary about it. When he HAD given
it up she turned contrary just the other way, and came to him of
her own accord, without rhyme or reason seemingly. My poor
husband always said that was the time to have given her a lesson.
But Catherick was too fond of her to do anything of the sort--he
never checked her either before they were married or after. He
was a quick man in his feelings, letting them carry him a deal too
far, now in one way and now in another, and he would have spoilt a
better wife than Mrs. Catherick if a better had married him. I
don't like to speak ill of any one, sir, but she was a heartless
woman, with a terrible will of her own--fond of foolish admiration
and fine clothes, and not caring to show so much as decent outward
respect to Catherick, kindly as he always treated her. My husband
said he thought things would turn out badly when they first came
to live near us, and his words proved true. Before they had been
quite four months in our neighbourhood there was a dreadful
scandal and a miserable break-up in their household. Both of them
were in fault--I am afraid both of them were equally in fault."
"You mean both husband and wife?"
"Oh, no, sir! I don't mean Catherick--he was only to be pitied. I
meant his wife and the person--"
"And the person who caused the scandal?"
"Yes, sir. A gentleman born and brought up, who ought to have set
a better example. You know him, sir--and my poor dear Anne knew
him only too well."
"Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Yes, Sir Percival Glyde."
My heart beat fast--I thought I had my hand on the clue. How
little I knew then of the windings of the labyrinths which were
still to mislead me!
"Did Sir Percival live in your neighbourhood at that time?" I
asked.
"No, sir. He came among us as a stranger. His father had died
not long before in foreign parts. I remember he was in mourning.
He put up at the little inn on the river (they have pulled it down
since that time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. He wasn't
much noticed when he first came--it was a common thing enough for
gentlemen to travel from all parts of England to fish in our
river."
"Did he make his appearance in the village before Anne was born?"
"Yes, sir. Anne was born in the June month of eighteen hundred
and twenty-seven--and I think he came at the end of April or the
beginning of May."
"Came as a stranger to all of you? A stranger to Mrs. Catherick as
well as to the rest of the neighbours?"
"So we thought at first, sir. But when the scandal broke out,
nobody believed they were strangers. I remember how it happened
as well as if it was yesterday. Catherick came into our garden
one night, and woke us by throwing up a handful of gravel from the
walk at our window. I heard him beg my husband, for the Lord's
sake, to come down and speak to him. They were a long time
together talking in the porch. When my husband came back upstairs
he was all of a tremble. He sat down on the side of the bed and
he says to me, 'Lizzie! I always told you that woman was a bad
one--I always said she would end ill, and I'm afraid in my own
mind that the end has come already. Catherick has found a lot of
lace handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold watch and
chain, hid away in his wife's drawer--things that nobody but a
born lady ought ever to have--and his wife won't say how she came
by them.' 'Does he think she stole them?' says I. 'No,' says he,
'stealing would be bad enough. But it's worse than that, she's
had no chance of stealing such things as those, and she's not a
woman to take them if she had. They're gifts, Lizzie--there's her
own initials engraved inside the watch--and Catherick has seen her
talking privately, and carrying on as no married woman should,
with that gentleman in mourning, Sir Percival Glyde. Don't you
say anything about it--I've quieted Catherick for to-night. I've
told him to keep his tongue to himself, and his eyes and his ears
open, and to wait a day or two, till he can be quite certain.' 'I
believe you are both of you wrong,' says I. 'It's not in nature,
comfortable and respectable as she is here, that Mrs. Catherick
should take up with a chance stranger like Sir Percival Glyde.'
'Ay, but is he a stranger to her?' says my husband. 'You forget
how Catherick's wife came to marry him. She went to him of her
own accord, after saying No over and over again when he asked her.
There have been wicked women before her time, Lizzie, who have
used honest men who loved them as a means of saving their
characters, and I'm sorely afraid this Mrs. Catherick is as wicked
as the worst of them. We shall see,' says my husband, 'we shall
soon see.' And only two days afterwards we did see."
Mrs. Clements waited for a moment before she went on. Even in
that moment, I began to doubt whether the clue that I thought I
had found was really leading me to the central mystery of the
labyrinth after all. Was this common, too common, story of a
man's treachery and a woman's frailty the key to a secret which
had been the life-long terror of Sir Percival Glyde?
"Well, sir, Catherick took my husband's advice and waited," Mrs.
Clements continued. "And as I told you, he hadn't long to wait.
On the second day he found his wife and Sir Percival whispering
together quite familiar, close under the vestry of the church. I
suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last
place in the world where anybody would think of looking after
them, but, however that may be, there they were. Sir Percival,
being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended himself in such
a guilty way that poor Catherick (whose quick temper I have told
you of already) fell into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace,
and struck Sir Percival. He was no match (and I am sorry to say
it) for the man who had wronged him, and he was beaten in the
cruelest manner, before the neighbours, who had come to the place
on hearing the disturbance, could run in to part them. All this
happened towards evening, and before nightfall, when my husband
went to Catherick's house, he was gone, nobody knew where. No
living soul in the village ever saw him again. He knew too well,
by that time, what his wife's vile reason had been for marrying
him, and he felt his misery and disgrace, especially after what
had happened to him with Sir Percival, too keenly. The clergyman
of the parish put an advertisement in the paper begging him to
come back, and saying that he should not lose his situation or his
friends. But Catherick had too much pride and spirit, as some
people said--too much feeling, as I think, sir--to face his
neighbours again, and try to live down the memory of his disgrace.
My husband heard from him when he had left England, and heard a
second time, when he was settled and doing well in America. He is
alive there now, as far as I know, but none of us in the old
country--his wicked wife least of all--are ever likely to set eyes
on him again."
"What became of Sir Percival?" I inquired. "Did he stay in the
neighbourhood?"
"Not he, sir. The place was too hot to hold him. He was heard at
high words with Mrs. Catherick the same night when the scandal
broke out, and the next morning he took himself off."
"And Mrs. Catherick? Surely she never remained in the village
among the people who knew of her disgrace?"
"She did, sir. She was hard enough and heartless enough to set
the opinions of all her neighbours at flat defiance. She declared
to everybody, from the clergyman downwards, that she was the
victim of a dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers in
the place should not drive her out of it, as if she was a guilty
woman. All through my time she lived at Old Welmingham, and after
my time, when the new town was building, and the respectable
neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if she was
determined to live among them and scandalise them to the very
last. There she is now, and there she will stop, in defiance of
the best of them, to her dying day."
"But how has she lived through all these years?" I asked. "Was
her husband able and willing to help her?"
"Both able and willing, sir," said Mrs. Clements. "In the second
letter he wrote to my good man, he said she had borne his name,
and lived in his home, and, wicked as she was, she must not starve
like a beggar in the street. He could afford to make her some
small allowance, and she might draw for it quarterly at a place in
London."
"Did she accept the allowance?"
"Not a farthing of it, sir. She said she would never be beholden
to Catherick for bit or drop, if she lived to be a hundred. And
she has kept her word ever since. When my poor dear husband died,
and left all to me, Catherick's letter was put in my possession
with the other things, and I told her to let me know if she was
ever in want. 'I'll let all England know I'm in want,' she said,
'before I tell Catherick, or any friend of Catherick's. Take that
for your answer, and give it to HIM for an answer, if he ever
writes again.' "
"Do you suppose that she had money of her own?"
"Very little, if any, sir. It was said, and said truly, I am
afraid, that her means of living came privately from Sir Percival
Glyde."
After that last reply I waited a little, to reconsider what I had
heard. If I unreservedly accepted the story so far, it was now
plain that no approach, direct or indirect, to the Secret had yet
been revealed to me, and that the pursuit of my object had ended
again in leaving me face to face with the most palpable and the
most disheartening failure.
But there was one point in the narrative which made me doubt the
propriety of accepting it unreservedly, and which suggested the
idea of something hidden below the surface.
I could not account to myself for the circumstance of the clerk's
guilty wife voluntarily living out all her after-existence on the
scene of her disgrace. The woman's own reported statement that
she had taken this strange course as a practical assertion of her
innocence did not satisfy me. It seemed, to my mind, more natural
and more probable to assume that she was not so completely a free
agent in this matter as she had herself asserted. In that case,
who was the likeliest person to possess the power of compelling
her to remain at Welmingham? The person unquestionably from whom
she derived the means of living. She had refused assistance from
her husband, she had no adequate resources of her own, she was a
friendless, degraded woman--from what source should she derive
help but from the source at which report pointed--Sir Percival
Glyde?
Reasoning on these assumptions, and always bearing in mind the one
certain fact to guide me, that Mrs. Catherick was in possession of
the Secret, I easily understood that it was Sir Percival's
interest to keep her at Welmingham, because her character in that
place was certain to isolate her from all communication with
female neighbours, and to allow her no opportunities of talking
incautiously in moments of free intercourse with inquisitive bosom
friends. But what was the mystery to be concealed? Not Sir
Percival's infamous connection with Mrs. Catherick's disgrace, for
the neighbours were the very people who knew of it--not the
suspicion that he was Anne's father, for Welmingham was the place
in which that suspicion must inevitably exist. If I accepted the
guilty appearances described to me as unreservedly as others had
accepted them, if I drew from them the same superficial conclusion
which Mr. Catherick and all his neighbours had drawn, where was
the suggestion, in all that I had heard, of a dangerous secret
between Sir Percival and Mrs. Catherick, which had been kept
hidden from that time to this?
And yet, in those stolen meetings, in those familiar whisperings
between the clerk's wife and "the gentleman in mourning," the clue
to discovery existed beyond a doubt.
Was it possible that appearances in this case had pointed one way
while the truth lay all the while unsuspected in another
direction? Could Mrs. Catherick's assertion, that she was the
victim of a dreadful mistake, by any possibility be true? Or,
assuming it to be false, could the conclusion which associated Sir
Percival with her guilt have been founded in some inconceivable
error? Had Sir Percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that
was wrong for the sake of diverting from himself some other
suspicion that was right? Here--if I could find it--here was the
approach to the Secret, hidden deep under the surface of the
apparently unpromising story which I had just heard.
My next questions were now directed to the one object of
ascertaining whether Mr. Catherick had or had not arrived truly at
the conviction of his wife's misconduct. The answers I received
from Mrs. Clements left me in no doubt whatever on that point.
Mrs. Catherick had, on the clearest evidence, compromised her
reputation, while a single woman, with some person unknown, and
had married to save her character. It had been positively
ascertained, by calculations of time and place into which I need
not enter particularly, that the daughter who bore her husband's
name was not her husband's child.
The next object of inquiry, whether it was equally certain that
Sir Percival must have been the father of Anne, was beset by far
greater difficulties. I was in no position to try the
probabilities on one side or on the other in this instance by any
better test than the test of personal resemblance.
"I suppose you often saw Sir Percival when he was in your
village?" I said.
"Yes, sir, very often," replied Mrs. Clements.
"Did you ever observe that Anne was like him?"
"She was not at all like him, sir."
"Was she like her mother, then?"
"Not like her mother either, sir. Mrs. Catherick was dark, and
full in the face."
Not like her mother and not like her (supposed) father. I knew
that the test by personal resemblance was not to be implicitly
trusted, but, on the other hand, it was not to be altogether
rejected on that account. Was it possible to strengthen the
evidence by discovering any conclusive facts in relation to the
lives of Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival before they either of
them appeared at Old Welmingham? When I asked my next questions I
put them with this view.
"When Sir Percival first arrived in your neighbourhood," I said,
"did you hear where he had come from last?"
"No, sir. Some said from Blackwater Park, and some said from
Scotland--but nobody knew."
"Was Mrs. Catherick living in service at Varneck Hall immediately
before her marriage?"
"Yes, sir."
"And had she been long in her place?"
"Three or four years, sir; I am not quite certain which."
"Did you ever hear the name of the gentleman to whom Varneck Hall
belonged at that time?"
"Yes, sir. His name was Major Donthorne."
"Did Mr. Catherick, or did any one else you knew, ever hear that
Sir Percival was a friend of Major Donthorne's, or ever see Sir
Percival in the neighbourhood of Varneck Hall?"
"Catherick never did, sir, that I can remember--nor any one else
either, that I know of."
I noted down Major Donthorne's name and address, on the chance
that he might still be alive, and that it might be useful at some
future time to apply to him. Meanwhile, the impression on my mind
was now decidedly adverse to the opinion that Sir Percival was
Anne's father, and decidedly favourable to the conclusion that the
secret of his stolen interviews with Mrs. Catherick was entirely
unconnected with the disgrace which the woman had inflicted on her
husband's good name. I could think of no further inquiries which
I might make to strengthen this impression--I could only encourage
Mrs. Clements to speak next of Anne's early days, and watch for
any chance-suggestion which might in this way offer itself to me.
"I have not heard yet," I said, "how the poor child, born in all
this sin and misery, came to be trusted, Mrs. Clements, to your
care."
"There was nobody else, sir, to take the little helpless creature
in hand," replied Mrs. Clements. "The wicked mother seemed to
hate it--as if the poor baby was in fault!--from the day it was
born. My heart was heavy for the child, and I made the offer to
bring it up as tenderly as if it was my own."
"Did Anne remain entirely under your care from that time?"
"Not quite entirely, sir. Mrs. Catherick had her whims and
fancies about it at times, and used now and then to lay claim to
the child, as if she wanted to spite me for bringing it up. But
these fits of hers never lasted for long. Poor little Anne was
always returned to me, and was always glad to get back--though she
led but a gloomy life in my house, having no playmates, like other
children, to brighten her up. Our longest separation was when her
mother took her to Limmeridge. Just at that time I lost my
husband, and I felt it was as well, in that miserable affliction,
that Anne should not be in the house. She was between ten and
eleven years old then, slow at her lessons, poor soul, and not so
cheerful as other children--but as pretty a little girl to look at
as you would wish to see. I waited at home till her mother
brought her back, and then I made the offer to take her with me to
London--the truth being, sir, that I could not find it in my heart
to stop at Old Welmingham after my husband's death, the place was
so changed and so dismal to me."
"And did Mrs. Catherick consent to your proposal?"
"No, sir. She came back from the north harder and bitterer than
ever. Folks did say that she had been obliged to ask Sir
Percival's leave to go, to begin with; and that she only went to
nurse her dying sister at Limmeridge because the poor woman was
reported to have saved money--the truth being that she hardly left
enough to bury her. These things may have soured Mrs. Catherick
likely enough, but however that may be, she wouldn't hear of my
taking the child away. She seemed to like distressing us both by
parting us. All I could do was to give Anne my direction, and to
tell her privately, if she was ever in trouble, to come to me.
But years passed before she was free to come. I never saw her
again, poor soul, till the night she escaped from the mad-house."
"You know, Mrs. Clements, why Sir Percival Glyde shut her up?"
"I only know what Anne herself told me, sir. The poor thing used
to ramble and wander about it sadly. She said her mother had got
some secret of Sir Percival's to keep, and had let it out to her
long after I left Hampshire--and when Sir Percival found she knew
it, he shut her up. But she never could say what it was when I
asked her. All she could tell me was, that her mother might be
the ruin and destruction of Sir Percival if she chose. Mrs.
Catherick may have let out just as much as that, and no more. I'm
next to certain I should have heard the whole truth from Anne, if
she had really known it as she pretended to do, and as she very
likely fancied she did, poor soul."
This idea had more than once occurred to my own mind. I had
already told Marian that I doubted whether Laura was really on the
point of making any important discovery when she and Anne
Catherick were disturbed by Count Fosco at the boat-house. It was
perfectly in character with Anne's mental affliction that she
should assume an absolute knowledge of the secret on no better
grounds than vague suspicion, derived from hints which her mother
had incautiously let drop in her presence. Sir Percival's guilty
distrust would, in that case, infallibly inspire him with the
false idea that Anne knew all from her mother, just as it had
afterwards fixed in his mind the equally false suspicion that his
wife knew all from Anne.
The time was passing, the morning was wearing away. It was
doubtful, if I stayed longer, whether I should hear anything more
from Mrs. Clements that would be at all useful to my purpose. I
had already discovered those local and family particulars, in
relation to Mrs. Catherick, of which I had been in search, and I
had arrived at certain conclusions, entirely new to me, which
might immensely assist in directing the course of my future
proceedings. I rose to take my leave, and to thank Mrs. Clements
for the friendly readiness she had shown in affording me
information.
"I am afraid you must have thought me very inquisitive," I said.
"I have troubled you with more questions than many people would
have cared to answer."
"You are heartily welcome, sir, to anything I can tell you,"
answered Mrs. Clements. She stopped and looked at me wistfully.
"But I do wish," said the poor woman, "you could have told me a
little more about Anne, sir. I thought I saw something in your
face when you came in which looked as if you could. You can't
think how hard it is not even to know whether she is living or
dead. I could bear it better if I was only certain. You said you
never expected we should see her alive again. Do you know, sir--
do you know for truth--that it has pleased God to take her?"
I was not proof against this appeal, it would have been
unspeakably mean and cruel of me if I had resisted it.
"I am afraid there is no doubt of the truth," I answered gently;
"I have the certainty in my own mind that her troubles in this
world are over."
The poor woman dropped into her chair and hid her face from me.
"Oh, sir," she said, "how do you know it? Who can have told you?"
"No one has told me, Mrs. Clements. But I have reasons for
feeling sure of it--reasons which I promise you shall know as soon
as I can safely explain them. I am certain she was not neglected
in her last moments--I am certain the heart complaint from which
she suffered so sadly was the true cause of her death. You shall
feel as sure of this as I do, soon--you shall know, before long,
that she is buried in a quiet country churchyard--in a pretty,
peaceful place, which you might have chosen for her yourself."
"Dead!" said Mrs. Clements, "dead so young, and I am left to hear
it! I made her first short frocks. I taught her to walk. The
first time she ever said Mother she said it to me--and now I am
left and Anne is taken! Did you say, sir," said the poor woman,
removing the handkerchief from her face, and looking up at me for
the first time, "did you say that she had been nicely buried? Was
it the sort of funeral she might have had if she had really been
my own child?"
I assured her that it was. She seemed to take an inexplicable
pride in my answer--to find a comfort in it which no other and
higher considerations could afford. "It would have broken my
heart," she said simply, "if Anne had not been nicely buried--but
how do you know it, sir? who told you?" I once more entreated her
to wait until I could speak to her unreservedly. "You are sure to
see me again," I said, "for I have a favour to ask when you are a
little more composed--perhaps in a day or two."
"Don't keep it waiting, sir, on my account," said Mrs. Clements.
"Never mind my crying if I can be of use. If you have anything on
your mind to say to me, sir, please to say it now."
"I only wish to ask you one last question," I said. "I only want
to know Mrs. Catherick's address at Welmingham."
My request so startled Mrs. Clements, that, for the moment, even
the tidings of Anne's death seemed to be driven from her mind.
Her tears suddenly ceased to flow, and she sat looking at me in
blank amazement.
"For the Lord's sake, sir!" she said, "what do you want with Mrs.
Catherick!"
"I want this, Mrs. Clements," I replied, "I want to know the
secret of those private meetings of hers with Sir Percival Glyde.
There is something more in what you have told me of that woman's
past conduct, and of that man's past relations with her, than you
or any of your neighbours ever suspected. There is a secret we
none of us know between those two, and I am going to Mrs.
Catherick with the resolution to find it out."
"Think twice about it, sir!" said Mrs. Clements, rising in her
earnestness and laying her hand on my arm. "She's an awful woman--
you don't know her as I do. Think twice about it."
"I am sure your warning is kindly meant, Mrs. Clements. But I am
determined to see the woman, whatever comes of it."
Mrs. Clements looked me anxiously in the face.
"I see your mind is made up, sir," she said. "I will give you the
address."
I wrote it down in my pocket-book and then took her hand to say
farewell.
"You shall hear from me soon," I said; "you shall know all that I
have promised to tell you."
Mrs. Clements sighed and shook her head doubtfully.
"An old woman's advice is sometimes worth taking, sir," she said.
"Think twice before you go to Welmingham."