THE STORY CONCLUDED BY WALTER HARTRIGHT
I
When I closed the last leaf of the Count's manuscript the half-
hour during which I had engaged to remain at Forest Road had
expired. Monsieur Rubelle looked at his watch and bowed. I rose
immediately, and left the agent in possession of the empty house.
I never saw him again--I never heard more of him or of his wife.
Out of the dark byways of villainy and deceit they had crawled
across our path--into the same byways they crawled back secretly
and were lost.
In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest Road I was at home
again.
But few words sufficed to tell Laura and Marian how my desperate
venture had ended, and what the next event in our lives was likely
to be. I left all details to be described later in the day, and
hastened back to St. John's Wood, to see the person of whom Count
Fosco had ordered the fly, when he went to meet Laura at the
station.
The address in my possession led me to some "livery stables,"
about a quarter of a mile distant from Forest Road. The
proprietor proved to be a civil and respectable man. When I
explained that an important family matter obliged me to ask him to
refer to his books for the purpose of ascertaining a date with
which the record of his business transactions might supply me, he
offered no objection to granting my request. The book was
produced, and there, under the date of "July 26th, 1850," the
order was entered in these words--
"Brougham to Count Fosco, 5 Forest Road. Two o'clock. (John
Owen)."
I found on inquiry that the name of "John Owen," attached to the
entry, referred to the man who had been employed to drive the fly.
He was then at work in the stable-yard, and was sent for to see me
at my request.
"Do you remember driving a gentleman, in the month of July last,
from Number Five Forest Road to the Waterloo Bridge station?" I
asked.
"Well, sir," said the man, "I can't exactly say I do."
"Perhaps you remember the gentleman himself? Can you call to mind
driving a foreigner last summer--a tall gentleman and remarkably
fat?" The man's face brightened directly.
"I remember him, sir! The fattest gentleman as ever I see, and the
heaviest customer as ever I drove. Yes, yes--I call him to mind,
sir! We DID go to the station, and it WAS from Forest Road. There
was a parrot, or summat like it, screeching in the window. The
gentleman was in a mortal hurry about the lady's luggage, and he
gave me a handsome present for looking sharp and getting the
boxes."
Getting the boxes! I recollected immediately that Laura's own
account of herself on her arrival in London described her luggage
as being collected for her by some person whom Count Fosco brought
with him to the station. This was the man.
"Did you see the lady?" I asked. "What did she look like? Was she
young or old?"
"Well, sir, what with the hurry and the crowd of people pushing
about, I can't rightly say what the lady looked like. I can't
call nothing to mind about her that I know of excepting her name."
"You remember her name?"
"Yes, sir. Her name was Lady Glyde."
"How do you come to remember that, when you have forgotten what
she looked like?"
The man smiled, and shifted his feet in some little embarrassment.
"Why, to tell you the truth, sir," he said, "I hadn't been long
married at that time, and my wife's name, before she changed it
for mine, was the same as the lady's--meaning the name of Glyde,
sir. The lady mentioned it herself. 'Is your name on your boxes,
ma'am?' says I. 'Yes,' says she, 'my name is on my luggage--it is
Lady Glyde.' 'Come!' I says to myself, 'I've a bad head for
gentlefolks' names in general--but THIS one comes like an old
friend, at any rate.' I can't say nothing about the time, sir, it
might be nigh on a year ago, or it mightn't. But I can swear to
the stout gentleman, and swear to the lady's name."
There was no need that he should remember the time--the date was
positively established by his master's order-book. I felt at once
that the means were now in my power of striking down the whole
conspiracy at a blow with the irresistible weapon of plain fact.
Without a moment's hesitation, I took the proprietor of the livery
stables aside and told him what the real importance was of the
evidence of his order-book and the evidence of his driver. An
arrangement to compensate him for the temporary loss of the man's
services was easily made, and a copy of the entry in the book was
taken by myself, and certified as true by the master's own
signature. I left the livery stables, having settled that John
Owen was to hold himself at my disposal for the next three days,
or for a longer period if necessity required it.
I now had in my possession all the papers that I wanted--the
district registrar's own copy of the certificate of death, and Sir
Percival's dated letter to the Count, being safe in my pocket-
book.
With this written evidence about me, and with the coachman's
answers fresh in my memory, I next turned my steps, for the first
time since the beginning of all my inquiries, in the direction of
Mr. Kyrle's office. One of my objects in paying him this second
visit was, necessarily, to tell him what I had done. The other
was to warn him of my resolution to take my wife to Limmeridge the
next morning, and to have her publicly received and recognised in
her uncle's house. I left it to Mr. Kyrle to decide under these
circumstances, and in Mr. Gilmore's absence, whether he was or was
not bound, as the family solicitor, to be present on that occasion
in the family interests.
I will say nothing of Mr. Kyrle's amazement, or of the terms in
which he expressed his opinion of my conduct from the first stage
of the investigation to the last. It is only necessary to mention
that he at once decided on accompanying us to Cumberland.
We started the next morning by the early train. Laura, Marian,
Mr. Kyrle, and myself in one carriage, and John Owen, with a clerk
from Mr. Kyrle's office, occupying places in another. On reaching
the Limmeridge station we went first to the farmhouse at Todd's
Corner. It was my firm determination that Laura should not enter
her uncle's house till she appeared there publicly recognised as
his niece. I left Marian to settle the question of accommodation
with Mrs. Todd, as soon as the good woman had recovered from the
bewilderment of hearing what our errand was in Cumberland, and I
arranged with her husband that John Owen was to be committed to
the ready hospitality of the farm-servants. These preliminaries
completed, Mr. Kyrle and I set forth together for Limmeridge
House.
I cannot write at any length of our interview with Mr. Fairlie,
for I cannot recall it to mind without feelings of impatience and
contempt, which make the scene, even in remembrance only, utterly
repulsive to me. I prefer to record simply that I carried my
point. Mr. Fairlie attempted to treat us on his customary plan.
We passed without notice his polite insolence at the outset of the
interview. We heard without sympathy the protestations with which
he tried next to persuade us that the disclosure of the conspiracy
had overwhelmed him. He absolutely whined and whimpered at last
like a fretful child. "How was he to know that his niece was
alive when he was told that she was dead? He would welcome dear
Laura with pleasure, if we would only allow him time to recover.
Did we think he looked as if he wanted hurrying into his grave?
No. Then, why hurry him?" He reiterated these remonstrances at
every available opportunity, until I checked them once for all, by
placing him firmly between two inevitable alternatives. I gave
him his choice between doing his niece justice on my terms, or
facing the consequence of a public assertion of her existence in a
court of law. Mr. Kyrle, to whom he turned for help, told him
plainly that he must decide the question then and there.
Characteristically choosing the alternative which promised soonest
to release him from all personal anxiety, he announced with a
sudden outburst of energy, that he was not strong enough to bear
any more bullying, and that we might do as we pleased.
Mr. Kyrle and I at once went downstairs, and agreed upon a form of
letter which was to be sent round to the tenants who had attended
the false funeral, summoning them, in Mr. Fairlie's name, to
assemble in Limmeridge House on the next day but one. An order
referring to the same date was also written, directing a statuary
in Carlisle to send a man to Limmeridge churchyard for the purpose
of erasing an inscription--Mr. Kyrle, who had arranged to sleep in
the house, undertaking that Mr. Fairlie should hear these letters
read to him, and should sign them with his own hand.
I occupied the interval day at the farm in writing a plain
narrative of the conspiracy, and in adding to it a statement of
the practical contradiction which facts offered to the assertion
of Laura's death. This I submitted to Mr. Kyrle before I read it
the next day to the assembled tenants. We also arranged the form
in which the evidence should be presented at the close of the
reading. After these matters were settled, Mr. Kyrle endeavoured
to turn the conversation next to Laura's affairs. Knowing, and
desiring to know nothing of those affairs, and doubting whether he
would approve, as a man of business, of my conduct in relation to
my wife's life-interest in the legacy left to Madame Fosco, I
begged Mr. Kyrle to excuse me if I abstained from discussing the
subject. It was connected, as I could truly tell him, with those
sorrows and troubles of the past which we never referred to among
ourselves, and which we instinctively shrank from discussing with
others.
My last labour, as the evening approached, was to obtain "The
Narrative of the Tombstone," by taking a copy of the false
inscription on the grave before it was erased.
The day came--the day when Laura once more entered the familiar
breakfast-room at Limmeridge House. All the persons assembled
rose from their seats as Marian and I led her in. A perceptible
shock of surprise, an audible murmur of interest ran through them,
at the sight of her face. Mr. Fairlie was present (by my express
stipulation), with Mr. Kyrle by his side. His valet stood behind
him with a smelling-bottle ready in one hand, and a white
handkerchief, saturated with eau-de-Cologne, in the other.
I opened the proceedings by publicly appealing to Mr. Fairlie to
say whether I appeared there with his authority and under his
express sanction. He extended an arm, on either side, to Mr.
Kyrle and to his valet--was by them assisted to stand on his legs,
and then expressed himself in these terms: "Allow me to present
Mr. Hartright. I am as great an invalid as ever, and he is so
very obliging as to speak for me. The subject is dreadfully
embarrassing. Please hear him, and don't make a noise!" With
those words he slowly sank back again into the chair, and took
refuge in his scented pocket-handkerchief.
The disclosure of the conspiracy followed, after I had offered my
preliminary explanation, first of all, in the fewest and the
plainest words. I was there present (I informed my hearers) to
declare, first, that my wife, then sitting by me, was the daughter
of the late Mr. Philip Fairlie; secondly, to prove by positive
facts, that the funeral which they had attended in Limmeridge
churchyard was the funeral of another woman; thirdly, to give them
a plain account of how it had all happened. Without further
preface, I at once read the narrative of the conspiracy,
describing it in clear outline, and dwelling only upon the
pecuniary motive for it, in order to avoid complicating my
statement by unnecessary reference to Sir Percival's secret. This
done, I reminded my audience of the date on the inscription in the
churchyard (the 25th), and confirmed its correctness by producing
the certificate of death. I then read them Sir Percival's letter
of the 25th, announcing his wife's intended journey from Hampshire
to London on the 26th. I next showed that she had taken that
journey, by the personal testimony of the driver of the fly, and I
proved that she had performed it on the appointed day, by the
order-book at the livery stables. Marian then added her own
statement of the meeting between Laura and herself at the mad-
house, and of her sister's escape. After which I closed the
proceedings by informing the persons present of Sir Percival's
death and of my marriage.
Mr. Kyrle rose when I resumed my seat, and declared, as the legal
adviser of the family, that my case was proved by the plainest
evidence he had ever heard in his life. As he spoke those words,
I put my arm round Laura, and raised her so that she was plainly
visible to every one in the room. "Are you all of the same
opinion?" I asked, advancing towards them a few steps, and
pointing to my wife.
The effect of the question was electrical. Far down at the lower
end of the room one of the oldest tenants on the estate started to
his feet, and led the rest with him in an instant. I see the man
now, with his honest brown face and his iron-grey hair, mounted on
the window-seat, waving his heavy riding-whip over his head, and
leading the cheers. "There she is, alive and hearty--God bless
her! Gi' it tongue, lads! Gi' it tongue!" The shout that answered
him, reiterated again and again, was the sweetest music I ever
heard. The labourers in the village and the boys from the school,
assembled on the lawn, caught up the cheering and echoed it back
on us. The farmers' wives clustered round Laura, and struggled
which should be first to shake hands with her, and to implore her,
with the tears pouring over their own cheeks, to bear up bravely
and not to cry. She was so completely overwhelmed, that I was
obliged to take her from them, and carry her to the door. There I
gave her into Marian's care--Marian, who had never failed us yet,
whose courageous self-control did not fail us now. Left by myself
at the door, I invited all the persons present (after thanking
them in Laura's name and mine) to follow me to the churchyard, and
see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own
eyes.
They all left the house, and all joined the throng of villagers
collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting
for us. In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the
steel sounded on the marble. Not a voice was heard--not a soul
moved, till those three words, "Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished
from sight. Then there was a great heave of relief among the
crowd, as if they felt that the last fetters of the conspiracy had
been struck off Laura herself, and the assembly slowly withdrew.
It was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased.
One line only was afterwards engraved in its place: "Anne
Catherick, July 25th, 1850."
I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in the evening to take
leave of Mr. Kyrle. He and his clerk, and the driver of the fly,
went back to London by the night train. On their departure an
insolent message was delivered to me from Mr. Fairlie--who had
been carried from the room in a shattered condition, when the
first outbreak of cheering answered my appeal to the tenantry.
The message conveyed to us "Mr. Fairlie's best congratulations,"
and requested to know whether "we contemplated stopping in the
house." I sent back word that the only object for which we had
entered his doors was accomplished--that I contemplated stopping
in no man's house but my own--and that Mr. Fairlie need not
entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us or hearing
from us again. We went back to our friends at the farm to rest
that night, and the next morning--escorted to the station, with
the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and
by all the farmers in the neighbourhood--we returned to London.
As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the distance, I
thought of the first disheartening circumstances under which the
long struggle that was now past and over had been pursued. It was
strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had
denied us all hope of assistance had been the indirect means of
our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich
enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The
gain (on Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would have been more than
doubtful--the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they
had really happened, certain. The law would never have obtained
me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have
made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.