Four months elapsed. April came--the month of spring--the month
of change.
The course of time had flowed through the interval since the
winter peacefully and happily in our new home. I had turned my
long leisure to good account, had largely increased my sources of
employment, and had placed our means of subsistence on surer
grounds. Freed from the suspense and the anxiety which had tried
her so sorely and hung over her so long, Marian's spirits rallied,
and her natural energy of character began to assert itself again,
with something, if not all, of the freedom and the vigour of
former times.
More pliable under change than her sister, Laura showed more
plainly the progress made by the healing influences of her new
life. The worn and wasted look which had prematurely aged her
face was fast leaving it, and the expression which had been the
first of its charms in past days was the first of its beauties
that now returned. My closest observations of her detected but
one serious result of the conspiracy which had once threatened her
reason and her life. Her memory of events, from the period of her
leaving Blackwater Park to the period of our meeting in the
burial-ground of Limmeridge Church, was lost beyond all hope of
recovery. At the slightest reference to that time she changed and
trembled still, her words became confused, her memory wandered and
lost itself as helplessly as ever. Here, and here only, the
traces of the past lay deep--too deep to be effaced.
In all else she was now so far on the way to recovery that, on her
best and brightest days, she sometimes looked and spoke like the
Laura of old times. The happy change wrought its natural result
in us both. From their long slumber, on her side and on mine,
those imperishable memories of our past life in Cumberland now
awoke, which were one and all alike, the memories of our love.
Gradually and insensibly our daily relations towards each other
became constrained. The fond words which I had spoken to her so
naturally, in the days of her sorrow and her suffering, faltered
strangely on my lips. In the time when my dread of losing her was
most present to my mind, I had always kissed her when she left me
at night and when she met me in the morning. The kiss seemed now
to have dropped between us--to be lost out of our lives. Our
hands began to tremble again when they met. We hardly ever looked
long at one another out of Marian's presence. The talk often
flagged between us when we were alone. When I touched her by
accident I felt my heart beating fast, as it used to beat at
Limmeridge House--I saw the lovely answering flush glowing again
in her cheeks, as if we were back among the Cumberland Hills in
our past characters of master and pupil once more. She had long
intervals of silence and thoughtfulness, and denied she had been
thinking when Marian asked her the question. I surprised myself
one day neglecting my work to dream over the little water-colour
portrait of her which I had taken in the summer-house where we
first met--just as I used to neglect Mr. Fairlie's drawings to
dream over the same likeness when it was newly finished in the
bygone time. Changed as all the circumstances now were, our
position towards each other in the golden days of our first
companionship seemed to be revived with the revival of our love.
It was as if Time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early
hopes to the old familiar shore!
To any other woman I could have spoken the decisive words which I
still hesitated to speak to HER. The utter helplessness of her
position--her friendless dependence on all the forbearing
gentleness that I could show her--my fear of touching too soon
some secret sensitiveness in her which my instinct as a man might
not have been fine enough to discover--these considerations, and
others like them, kept me self-distrustfully silent. And yet I
knew that the restraint on both sides must be ended, that the
relations in which we stood towards one another must be altered in
some settled manner for the future, and that it rested with me, in
the first instance, to recognise the necessity for a change.
The more I thought of our position, the harder the attempt to
alter it appeared, while the domestic conditions on which we three
had been living together since the winter remained undisturbed. I
cannot account for the capricious state of mind in which this
feeling originated, but the idea nevertheless possessed me that
some previous change of place and circumstances, some sudden break
in the quiet monotony of our lives, so managed as to vary the home
aspect under which we had been accustomed to see each other, might
prepare the way for me to speak, and might make it easier and less
embarrassing for Laura and Marian to hear.
With this purpose in view, I said, one morning, that I thought we
had all earned a little holiday and a change of scene. After some
consideration, it was decided that we should go for a fortnight to
the seaside.
On the next day we left Fulham for a quiet town on the south
coast. At that early season of the year we were the only visitors
in the place. The cliffs, the beach, and the walks inland were
all in the solitary condition which was most welcome to us. The
air was mild--the prospects over hill and wood and down were
beautifully varied by the shifting April light and shade, and the
restless sea leapt under our windows, as if it felt, like the
land, the glow and freshness of spring.
I owed it to Marian to consult her before I spoke to Laura, and to
be guided afterwards by her advice.
On the third day from our arrival I found a fit opportunity of
speaking to her alone. The moment we looked at one another, her
quick instinct detected the thought in my mind before I could give
it expression. With her customary energy and directness she spoke
at once, and spoke first.
"You are thinking of that subject which was mentioned between us
on the evening of your return from Hampshire," she said. "I have
been expecting you to allude to it for some time past. There must
be a change in our little household, Walter, we cannot go on much
longer as we are now. I see it as plainly as you do--as plainly
as Laura sees it, though she says nothing. How strangely the old
times in Cumberland seem to have come back! You and I are together
again, and the one subject of interest between us is Laura once
more. I could almost fancy that this room is the summer-house at
Limmeridge, and that those waves beyond us are beating on our
seashore."
"I was guided by your advice in those past days," I said, "and
now, Marian, with reliance tenfold greater I will be guided by it
again."
She answered by pressing my hand. I saw that she was deeply
touched by my reference to the past. We sat together near the
window, and while I spoke and she listened, we looked at the glory
of the sunlight shining on the majesty of the sea.
"Whatever comes of this confidence between us," I said, "whether
it ends happily or sorrowfully for ME, Laura's interests will
still be the interests of my life. When we leave this place, on
whatever terms we leave it, my determination to wrest from Count
Fosco the confession which I failed to obtain from his accomplice,
goes back with me to London, as certainly as I go back myself.
Neither you nor I can tell how that man may turn on me, if I bring
him to bay; we only know, by his own words and actions, that he is
capable of striking at me through Laura, without a moment's
hesitation, or a moment's remorse. In our present position I have
no claim on her which society sanctions, which the law allows, to
strengthen me in resisting him, and in protecting HER. This
places me at a serious disadvantage. If I am to fight our cause
with the Count, strong in the consciousness of Laura's safety, I
must fight it for my Wife. Do you agree to that, Marian, so far?"
"To every word of it," she answered.
"I will not plead out of my own heart," I went on; "I will not
appeal to the love which has survived all changes and all shocks--
I will rest my only vindication of myself for thinking of her, and
speaking of her as my wife, on what I have just said. If the
chance of forcing a confession from the Count is, as I believe it
to be, the last chance left of publicly establishing the fact of
Laura's existence, the least selfish reason that I can advance for
our marriage is recognised by us both. But I may be wrong in my
conviction--other means of achieving our purpose may be in our
power, which are less uncertain and less dangerous. I have
searched anxiously, in my own mind, for those means, and I have
not found them. Have you?"
"No. I have thought about it too, and thought in vain."
"In all likelihood," I continued, "the same questions have
occurred to you, in considering this difficult subject, which have
occurred to me. Ought we to return with her to Limmeridge, now
that she is like herself again, and trust to the recognition of
her by the people of the village, or by the children at the
school? Ought we to appeal to the practical test of her
handwriting? Suppose we did so. Suppose the recognition of her
obtained, and the identity of the handwriting established. Would
success in both those cases do more than supply an excellent
foundation for a trial in a court of law? Would the recognition
and the handwriting prove her identity to Mr. Fairlie and take her
back to Limmeridge House, against the evidence of her aunt,
against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact
of the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? No! We
could only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the
assertion of her death, a doubt which nothing short of a legal
inquiry can settle. I will assume that we possess (what we have
certainly not got) money enough to carry this inquiry on through
all its stages. I will assume that Mr. Fairlie's prejudices might
be reasoned away--that the false testimony of the Count and his
wife, and all the rest of the false testimony, might be confuted--
that the recognition could not possibly be ascribed to a mistake
between Laura and Anne Catherick, or the handwriting be declared
by our enemies to be a clever fraud--all these are assumptions
which, more or less, set plain probabilities at defiance; but let
them pass--and let us ask ourselves what would be the first
consequence or the first questions put to Laura herself on the
subject of the conspiracy. We know only too well what the
consequence would be, for we know that she has never recovered her
memory of what happened to her in London. Examine her privately,
or examine her publicly, she is utterly incapable of assisting the
assertion of her own case. If you don't see this, Marian, as
plainly as I see it, we will go to Limmeridge and try the
experiment to-morrow."
"I DO see it, Walter. Even if we had the means of paying all the
law expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be
unendurable, the perpetual suspense, after what we have suffered
already, would be heartbreaking. You are right about the
hopelessness of going to Limmeridge. I wish I could feel sure
that you are right also in determining to try that last chance
with the Count. IS it a chance at all?"
"Beyond a doubt, Yes. It is the chance of recovering the lost
date of Laura's journey to London. Without returning to the
reasons I gave you some time since, I am still as firmly persuaded
as ever that there is a discrepancy between the date of that
journey and the date on the certificate of death. There lies the
weak point of the whole conspiracy--it crumbles to pieces if we
attack it in that way, and the means of attacking it are in
possession of the Count. If I succeed in wresting them from him,
the object of your life and mine is fulfilled. If I fail, the
wrong that Laura has suffered will, in this world, never be
redressed."
"Do you fear failure yourself, Walter?"
"I dare not anticipate success, and for that very reason, Marian,
I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and
my conscience I can say it, Laura's hopes for the future are at
their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone--I know that
the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at
the mercy of her worst enemy, of a man who is now absolutely
unassailable, and who may remain unassailable to the end. With
every worldly advantage gone from her, with all prospect of
recovering her rank and station more than doubtful, with no
clearer future before her than the future which her husband can
provide, the poor drawing-master may harmlessly open his heart at
last. In the days of her prosperity, Marian, I was only the
teacher who guided her hand--I ask for it, in her adversity, as
the hand of my wife!"
Marian's eyes met mine affectionately--I could say no more. My
heart was full, my lips were trembling. In spite of myself I was
in danger of appealing to her pity. I got up to leave the room.
She rose at the same moment, laid her hand gently on my shoulder,
and stopped me.
"Walter!" she said, "I once parted you both, for your good and for
hers. Wait here, my brother!--wait, my dearest, best friend, till
Laura comes, and tells you what I have done now!"
For the first time since the farewell morning at Limmeridge she
touched my forehead with her lips. A tear dropped on my face as
she kissed me. She turned quickly, pointed to the chair from
which I had risen, and left the room.
I sat down alone at the window to wait through the crisis of my
life. My mind in that breathless interval felt like a total
blank. I was conscious of nothing but a painful intensity of all
familiar perceptions. The sun grew blinding bright, the white sea
birds chasing each other far beyond me seemed to be flitting
before my face, the mellow murmur of the waves on the beach was
like thunder in my ears.
The door opened, and Laura came in alone. So she had entered the
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House on the morning when we parted.
Slowly and falteringly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once
approached me. Now she came with the haste of happiness in her
feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. Of their
own accord those dear arms clasped themselves round me, of their
own accord the sweet lips came to meet mine. "My darling!" she
whispered, "we may own we love each other now?" Her head nestled
with a tender contentedness on my bosom. "Oh," she said
innocently, "I am so happy at last!"
Ten days later we were happier still. We were married.