When I reached home again after my interview with Mrs. Clements, I
was struck by the appearance of a change in Laura.
The unvarying gentleness and patience which long misfortune had
tried so cruelly and had never conquered yet, seemed now to have
suddenly failed her. Insensible to all Marian's attempts to
soothe and amuse her, she sat, with her neglected drawing pushed
away on the table, her eyes resolutely cast down, her fingers
twining and untwining themselves restlessly in her lap. Marian
rose when I came in, with a silent distress in her face, waited
for a moment to see if Laura would look up at my approach,
whispered to me, "Try if you can rouse her," and left the room.
I sat down in the vacant chair--gently unclasped the poor, worn,
restless fingers, and took both her hands in mine.
"What are you thinking of, Laura? Tell me, my darling--try and
tell me what it is."
She struggled with herself, and raised her eyes to mine. "I can't
feel happy," she said, "I can't help thinking----" She stopped,
bent forward a little, and laid her head on my shoulder, with a
terrible mute helplessness that struck me to the heart.
"Try to tell me," I repeated gently; "try to tell me why you are
not happy."
"I am so useless--I am such a burden on both of you," she
answered, with a weary, hopeless sigh. "You work and get money,
Walter, and Marian helps you. Why is there nothing I can do? You
will end in liking Marian better than you like me--you will,
because I am so helpless! Oh, don't, don't, don't treat me like a
child!"
I raised her head, and smoothed away the tangled hair that fell
over her face, and kissed her--my poor, faded flower! my lost,
afflicted sister! "You shall help us, Laura," I said, "you shall
begin, my darling, to-day."
She looked at me with a feverish eagerness, with a breathless
interest, that made me tremble for the new life of hope which I
had called into being by those few words.
I rose, and set her drawing materials in order, and placed them
near her again.
"You know that I work and get money by drawing," I said. "Now you
have taken such pains, now you are so much improved, you shall
begin to work and get money too. Try to finish this little sketch
as nicely and prettily as you can. When it is done I will take it
away with me, and the same person will buy it who buys all that I
do. You shall keep your own earnings in your own purse, and
Marian shall come to you to help us, as often as she comes to me.
Think how useful you are going to make yourself to both of us, and
you will soon be as happy, Laura, as the day is long."
Her face grew eager, and brightened into a smile. In the moment
while it lasted, in the moment when she again took up the pencils
that had been laid aside, she almost looked like the Laura of past
days.
I had rightly interpreted the first signs of a new growth and
strength in her mind, unconsciously expressing themselves in the
notice she had taken of the occupations which filled her sister's
life and mine. Marian (when I told her what had passed) saw, as I
saw, that she was longing to assume her own little position of
importance, to raise herself in her own estimation and in ours--
and, from that day, we tenderly helped the new ambition which gave
promise of the hopeful, happier future, that might now not be far
off. Her drawings, as she finished them, or tried to finish them,
were placed in my hands. Marian took them from me and hid them
carefully, and I set aside a little weekly tribute from my
earnings, to be offered to her as the price paid by strangers for
the poor, faint, valueless sketches, of which I was the only
purchaser. It was hard sometimes to maintain our innocent
deception, when she proudly brought out her purse to contribute
her share towards the expenses, and wondered with serious
interest, whether I or she had earned the most that week. I have
all those hidden drawings in my possession still--they are my
treasures beyond price--the dear remembrances that I love to keep
alive--the friends in past adversity that my heart will never part
from, my tenderness never forget.
Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am I looking
forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet
reached? Yes. Back again--back to the days of doubt and dread,
when the spirit within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy
stillness of perpetual suspense. I have paused and rested for a
while on my forward course. It is not, perhaps, time wasted, if
the friends who read these pages have paused and rested too.
I took the first opportunity I could find of speaking to Marian in
private, and of communicating to her the result of the inquiries
which I had made that morning. She seemed to share the opinion on
the subject of my proposed journey to Welmingham, which Mrs.
Clements had already expressed to me.
"Surely, Walter," she said, "you hardly know enough yet to give
you any hope of claiming Mrs. Catherick's confidence? Is it wise
to proceed to these extremities, before you have really exhausted
all safer and simpler means of attaining your object? When you
told me that Sir Percival and the Count were the only two people
in existence who knew the exact date of Laura's journey, you
forgot, and I forgot, that there was a third person who must
surely know it--I mean Mrs. Rubelle. Would it not be far easier,
and far less dangerous, to insist on a confession from her, than
to force it from Sir Percival?"
"It might be easier," I replied, "but we are not aware of the full
extent of Mrs. Rubelle's connivance and interest in the
conspiracy, and we are therefore not certain that the date has
been impressed on her mind, as it has been assuredly impressed on
the minds of Sir Percival and the Count. It is too late, now, to
waste the time on Mrs. Rubelle, which may be all-important to the
discovery of the one assailable point in Sir Percival's life. Are
you thinking a little too seriously, Marian, of the risk I may run
in returning to Hampshire? Are you beginning to doubt whether Sir
Percival Glyde may not in the end be more than a match for me?"
"He will not be more than your match," she replied decidedly,
"because he will not be helped in resisting you by the
impenetrable wickedness of the Count."
"What has led you to that conclusion?" I replied, in some
surprise.
"My own knowledge of Sir Percival's obstinacy and impatience of
the Count's control," she answered. "I believe he will insist on
meeting you single-handed--just as he insisted at first on acting
for himself at Blackwater Park. The time for suspecting the
Count's interference will be the time when you have Sir Percival
at your mercy. His own interests will then be directly
threatened, and he will act, Walter, to terrible purpose in his
own defence."
"We may deprive him of his weapons beforehand," I said. "Some of
the particulars I have heard from Mrs. Clements may yet be turned
to account against him, and other means of strengthening the case
may be at our disposal. There are passages in Mrs. Michelson's
narrative which show that the Count found it necessary to place
himself in communication with Mr. Fairlie, and there may be
circumstances which compromise him in that proceeding. While I am
away, Marian, write to Mr. Fairlie and say that you want an answer
describing exactly what passed between the Count and himself, and
informing you also of any particulars that may have come to his
knowledge at the same time in connection with his niece. Tell him
that the statement you request will, sooner or later, be insisted
on, if he shows any reluctance to furnish you with it of his own
accord."
"The letter shall be written, Walter. But are you really
determined to go to Welmingham?"
"Absolutely determined. I will devote the next two days to
earning what we want for the week to come, and on the third day I
go to Hampshire."
When the third day came I was ready for my journey.
As it was possible that I might be absent for some little time, I
arranged with Marian that we were to correspond every day--of
course addressing each other by assumed names, for caution's sake.
As long as I heard from her regularly, I should assume that
nothing was wrong. But if the morning came and brought me no
letter, my return to London would take place, as a matter of
course, by the first train. I contrived to reconcile Laura to my
departure by telling her that I was going to the country to find
new purchasers for her drawings and for mine, and I left her
occupied and happy. Marian followed me downstairs to the street
door.
"Remember what anxious hearts you leave here," she whispered, as
we stood together in the passage. "Remember all the hopes that
hang on your safe return. If strange things happen to you on this
journey--if you and Sir Percival meet----"
"What makes you think we shall meet?" I asked.
"I don't know--I have fears and fancies that I cannot account for.
Laugh at them, Walter, if you like--but, for God's sake, keep your
temper if you come in contact with that man!"
"Never fear, Marian! I answer for my self-control."
With those words we parted.
I walked briskly to the station. There was a glow of hope in me.
There was a growing conviction in my mind that my journey this
time would not be taken in vain. It was a fine, clear, cold
morning. My nerves were firmly strung, and I felt all the
strength of my resolution stirring in me vigorously from head to
foot.
As I crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among
the people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them
that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have
been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting
out for Hampshire. But there was something so repellent to me in
the idea--something so meanly like the common herd of spies and
informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise--that I dismissed
the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in
my mind. Even as a mere matter of expediency the proceeding was
doubtful in the extreme. If I tried the experiment at home the
landlord of the house would sooner or later discover me, and would
have his suspicions aroused immediately. If I tried it away from
home the same persons might see me, by the commonest accident,
with the disguise and without it, and I should in that way be
inviting the notice and distrust which it was my most pressing
interest to avoid. In my own character I had acted thus far--and
in my own character I was resolved to continue to the end.
The train left me at Welmingham early in the afternoon.
Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there
any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can
rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing
influence on the mind, of an English country town in the first
stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its
prosperity? I asked myself that question as I passed through the
clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim torpor of the
streets of Welmingham. And the tradesmen who stared after me from
their lonely shops--the trees that drooped helpless in their arid
exile of unfinished crescents and squares--the dead house-
carcasses that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to
animate them with the breath of life--every creature that I saw,
every object that I passed, seemed to answer with one accord: The
deserts of Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation--the
ruins of Palestine are incapable of our modern gloom!
I inquired my way to the quarter of the town in which Mrs.
Catherick lived, and on reaching it found myself in a square of
small houses, one story high. There was a bare little plot of
grass in the middle, protected by a cheap wire fence. An elderly
nursemaid and two children were standing in a corner of the
enclosure, looking at a lean goat tethered to the grass. Two
foot-passengers were talking together on one side of the pavement
before the houses, and an idle little boy was leading an idle
little dog along by a string on the other. I heard the dull
tinkling of a piano at a distance, accompanied by the intermittent
knocking of a hammer nearer at hand. These were all the sights
and sounds of life that encountered me when I entered the square.
I walked at once to the door of Number Thirteen--the number of
Mrs. Catherick's house--and knocked, without waiting to consider
beforehand how I might best present myself when I got in. The
first necessity was to see Mrs. Catherick. I could then judge,
from my own observation, of the safest and easiest manner of
approaching the object of my visit.
The door was opened by a melancholy middle-aged woman servant. I
gave her my card, and asked if I could see Mrs. Catherick. The
card was taken into the front parlour, and the servant returned
with a message requesting me to mention what my business was.
"Say, if you please, that my business relates to Mrs. Catherick's
daughter," I replied. This was the best pretext I could think of,
on the spur of the moment, to account for my visit.
The servant again retired to the parlour, again returned, and this
time begged me, with a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in.
I entered a little room, with a flaring paper of the largest
pattern on the walls. Chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all
gleamed with the glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On the
largest table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart Bible,
placed exactly in the centre on a red and yellow woollen mat and
at the side of the table nearest to the window, with a little
knitting-basket on her lap, and a wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel
crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black
net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-coloured mittens
on her hands. Her iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either
side of her face--her dark eyes looked straight forward, with a
hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks, a
long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure
was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed.
This was Mrs. Catherick.
"You have come to speak to me about my daughter," she said, before
I could utter a word on my side. "Be so good as to mention what
you have to say."
The tone of her voice was as hard, as defiant, as implacable as
the expression of her eyes. She pointed to a chair, and looked me
all over attentively, from head to foot, as I sat down in it. I
saw that my only chance with this woman was to speak to her in her
own tone, and to meet her, at the outset of our interview, on her
own ground.
"You are aware," I said, "that your daughter has been lost?"
"I am perfectly aware of it."
"Have you felt any apprehension that the misfortune of her loss
might be followed by the misfortune of her death?"
"Yes. Have you come here to tell me she is dead?"
"I have."
"Why?"
She put that extraordinary question without the slightest change
in her voice, her face, or her manner. She could not have
appeared more perfectly unconcerned if I had told her of the death
of the goat in the enclosure outside.
"Why?" I repeated. "Do you ask why I come here to tell you of
your daughter's death?"
"Yes. What interest have you in me, or in her? How do you come to
know anything about my daughter?"
"In this way. I met her on the night when she escaped from the
Asylum, and I assisted her in reaching a place of safety."
"You did very wrong."
"I am sorry to hear her mother say so."
"Her mother does say so. How do you know she is dead?"
"I am not at liberty to say how I know it--but I DO know it."
"Are you at liberty to say how you found out my address?"
"Certainly. I got your address from Mrs. Clements."
"Mrs. Clements is a foolish woman. Did she tell you to come
here?"
"She did not."
"Then, I ask you again, why did you come?"
As she was determined to have her answer, I gave it to her in the
plainest possible form.
"I came," I said, "because I thought Anne Catherick's mother might
have some natural interest in knowing whether she was alive or
dead."
"Just so," said Mrs. Catherick, with additional self-possession.
"Had you no other motive?"
I hesitated. The right answer to that question was not easy to
find at a moment's notice.
"If you have no other motive," she went on, deliberately taking
off her slate-coloured mittens, and rolling them up, "I have only
to thank you for your visit, and to say that I will not detain you
here any longer. Your information would be more satisfactory if
you were willing to explain how you became possessed of it.
However, it justifies me, I suppose, in going into mourning.
There is not much alteration necessary in my dress, as you see.
When I have changed my mittens, I shall be all in black."
She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black
lace mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest
composure, and then quietly crossed her hands in her lap.
"I wish you good morning," she said.
The cool contempt of her manner irritated me into directly avowing
that the purpose of my visit had not been answered yet.
"I HAVE another motive in coming here," I said.
"Ah! I thought so," remarked Mrs. Catherick.
"Your daughter's death----"
"What did she die of?"
"Of disease of the heart."
"Yes. Go on."
"Your daughter's death has been made the pretext for inflicting
serious injury on a person who is very dear to me. Two men have
been concerned, to my certain knowledge, in doing that wrong. One
of them is Sir Percival Glyde."
"Indeed!"
I looked attentively to see if she flinched at the sudden mention
of that name. Not a muscle of her stirred--the hard, defiant,
implacable stare in her eyes never wavered for an instant.
"You may wonder," I went on, "how the event of your daughter's
death can have been made the means of inflicting injury on another
person."
"No," said Mrs. Catherick; "I don't wonder at all. This appears
to be your affair. You are interested in my affairs. I am not
interested in yours."
"You may ask, then," I persisted, "why I mention the matter in
your presence."
"Yes, I DO ask that."
"I mention it because I am determined to bring Sir Percival Glyde
to account for the wickedness he has committed."
"What have I to do with your determination?"
"You shall hear. There are certain events in Sir Percival's past
life which it is necessary for my purpose to be fully acquainted
with. YOU know them--and for that reason I come to YOU."
"What events do you mean?"
"Events that occurred at Old Welmingham when your husband was
parish-clerk at that place, and before the time when your daughter
was born."
I had reached the woman at last through the barrier of
impenetrable reserve that she had tried to set up between us. I
saw her temper smouldering in her eyes--as plainly as I saw her
hands grow restless, then unclasp themselves, and begin
mechanically smoothing her dress over her knees.
"What do you know of those events?" she asked.
"All that Mrs. Clements could tell me," I answered.
There was a momentary flush on her firm square face, a momentary
stillness in her restless hands, which seemed to betoken a coming
outburst of anger that might throw her off her guard. But no--she
mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her chair, crossed
her arms on her broad bosom, and with a smile of grim sarcasm on
her thick lips, looked at me as steadily as ever.
"Ah! I begin to understand it all now," she said, her tamed and
disciplined anger only expressing itself in the elaborate mockery
of her tone and manner. "You have got a grudge of your own
against Sir Percival Glyde, and I must help you to wreak it. I
must tell you this, that, and the other about Sir Percival and
myself, must I? Yes, indeed? You have been prying into my private
affairs. You think you have found a lost woman to deal with, who
lives here on sufferance, and who will do anything you ask for
fear you may injure her in the opinions of the town's-people. I
see through you and your precious speculation--I do! and it amuses
me. Ha! ha!"
She stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over her bosom, and
she laughed to herself--a hard, harsh, angry laugh.
"You don't know how I have lived in this place, and what I have
done in this place, Mr. What's-your-name," she went on. "I'll
tell you, before I ring the bell and have you shown out. I came
here a wronged woman--I came here robbed of my character and
determined to claim it back. I've been years and years about it--
and I HAVE claimed it back. I have matched the respectable people
fairly and openly on their own ground. If they say anything
against me now they must say it in secret--they can't say it, they
daren't say it, openly. I stand high enough in this town to be
out of your reach. THE CLERGYMAN BOWS TO ME. Aha! you didn't
bargain for that when you came here. Go to the church and inquire
about me--you will find Mrs. Catherick has her sitting like the
rest of them, and pays the rent on the day it's due. Go to the
town-hall. There's a petition lying there--a petition of the
respectable inhabitants against allowing a circus to come and
perform here and corrupt our morals--yes! OUR morals. I signed
that petition this morning. Go to the bookseller's shop. The
clergyman's Wednesday evening Lectures on Justification by Faith
are publishing there by subscription--I'm down on the list. The
doctor's wife only put a shilling in the plate at our last charity
sermon--I put half-a-crown. Mr. Churchwarden Soward held the
plate, and bowed to me. Ten years ago he told Pigrum the chemist
I ought to be whipped out of the town at the cart's tail. Is your
mother alive? Has she got a better Bible on her table than I have
got on mine? Does she stand better with her trades-people than I
do with mine? Has she always lived within her income? I have
always lived within mine. Ah! there IS the clergyman coming along
the square. Look, Mr. What's-your-name--look, if you please!"
She started up with the activity of a young woman, went to the
window, waited till the clergyman passed, and bowed to him
solemnly. The clergyman ceremoniously raised his hat, and walked
on. Mrs. Catherick returned to her chair, and looked at me with a
grimmer sarcasm than ever.
"There!" she said. "What do you think of that for a woman with a
lost character? How does your speculation look now?"
The singular manner in which she had chosen to assert herself, the
extraordinary practical vindication of her position in the town
which she had just offered, had so perplexed me that I listened to
her in silent surprise. I was not the less resolved, however, to
make another effort to throw her off her guard. If the woman's
fierce temper once got beyond her control, and once flamed out on
me, she might yet say the words which would put the clue in my
hands.
"How does your speculation look now?" she repeated.
"Exactly as it looked when I first came in," I answered. "I don't
doubt the position you have gained in the town, and I don't wish
to assail it even if I could. I came here because Sir Percival
Glyde is, to my certain knowledge, your enemy, as well as mine.
If I have a grudge against him, you have a grudge against him too.
You may deny it if you like, you may distrust me as much as you
please, you may be as angry as you will--but, of all the women in
England, you, if you have any sense of injury, are the woman who
ought to help me to crush that man."
"Crush him for yourself," she said; "then come back here, and see
what I say to you."
She spoke those words as she had not spoken yet, quickly,
fiercely, vindictively. I had stirred in its lair the serpent-
hatred of years, but only for a moment. Like a lurking reptile it
leaped up at me as she eagerly bent forward towards the place in
which I was sitting. Like a lurking reptile it dropped out of
sight again as she instantly resumed her former position in the
chair.
"You won't trust me?" I said.
"No."
"You are afraid?"
"Do I look as if I was?"
"You are afraid of Sir Percival Glyde?"
"Am I?"
Her colour was rising, and her hands were at work again smoothing
her gown. I pressed the point farther and farther home, I went on
without allowing her a moment of delay.
"Sir Percival has a high position in the world," I said; "it would
be no wonder if you were afraid of him. Sir Percival is a
powerful man, a baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the
descendant of a great family----"
She amazed me beyond expression by suddenly bursting out laughing.
"Yes," she repeated, in tones of the bitterest, steadiest
contempt. "A baronet, the possessor of a fine estate, the
descendant of a great family. Yes, indeed! A great family--
especially by the mother's side."
There was no time to reflect on the words that had just escaped
her, there was only time to feel that they were well worth
thinking over the moment I left the house.
"I am not here to dispute with you about family questions," I
said. "I know nothing of Sir Percival's mother----"
"And you know as little of Sir Percival himself," she interposed
sharply.
"I advise you not to be too sure of that," I rejoined. "I know
some things about him, and I suspect many more."
"What do you suspect?"
"I'll tell you what I DON'T suspect. I DON'T suspect him of being
Anne's father."
She started to her feet, and came close up to me with a look of
fury.
"How dare you talk to me about Anne's father! How dare you say who
was her father, or who wasn't!" she broke out, her face quivering,
her voice trembling with passion.
"The secret between you and Sir Percival is not THAT secret," I
persisted. "The mystery which darkens Sir Percival's life was not
born with your daughter's birth, and has not died with your
daughter's death."
She drew back a step. "Go!" she said, and pointed sternly to the
door.
"There was no thought of the child in your heart or in his," I
went on, determined to press her back to her last defences.
"There was no bond of guilty love between you and him when you
held those stolen meetings, when your husband found you whispering
together under the vestry of the church."
Her pointing hand instantly dropped to her side, and the deep
flush of anger faded from her face while I spoke. I saw the
change pass over her--I saw that hard, firm, fearless, self-
possessed woman quail under a terror which her utmost resolution
was not strong enough to resist when I said those five last words,
"the vestry of the church."
For a minute or more we stood looking at each other in silence. I
spoke first.
"Do you still refuse to trust me?" I asked.
She could not call the colour that had left it back to her face,
but she had steadied her voice, she had recovered the defiant
self-possession of her manner when she answered me.
"I do refuse," she said.
"Do you still tell me to go?"
"Yes. Go--and never come back."
I walked to the door, waited a moment before I opened it, and
turned round to look at her again.
"I may have news to bring you of Sir Percival which you don't
expect," I said, "and in that case I shall come back."
"There is no news of Sir Percival that I don't expect, except----"
She stopped, her pale face darkened, and she stole back with a
quiet, stealthy, cat-like step to her chair.
"Except the news of his death," she said, sitting down again, with
the mockery of a smile just hovering on her cruel lips, and the
furtive light of hatred lurking deep in her steady eyes.
As I opened the door of the room to go out, she looked round at me
quickly. The cruel smile slowly widened her lips--she eyed me,
with a strange stealthy interest, from head to foot--an
unutterable expectation showed itself wickedly all over her face.
Was she speculating, in the secrecy of her own heart, on my youth
and strength, on the force of my sense of injury and the limits of
my self-control, and was she considering the lengths to which they
might carry me, if Sir Percival and I ever chanced to meet? The
bare doubt that it might be so drove me from her presence, and
silenced even the common forms of farewell on my lips. Without a
word more, on my side or on hers, I left the room.
As I opened the outer door, I saw the same clergyman who had
already passed the house once, about to pass it again, on his way
back through the square. I waited on the door-step to let him go
by, and looked round, as I did so, at the parlour window.
Mrs. Catherick had heard his footsteps approaching, in the silence
of that lonely place, and she was on her feet at the window again,
waiting for him. Not all the strength of all the terrible
passions I had roused in that woman's heart, could loosen her
desperate hold on the one fragment of social consideration which
years of resolute effort had just dragged within her grasp. There
she was again, not a minute after I had left her, placed purposely
in a position which made it a matter of common courtesy on the
part of the clergyman to bow to her for a second time. He raised
his hat once more. I saw the hard ghastly face behind the window
soften, and light up with gratified pride--I saw the head with the
grim black cap bend ceremoniously in return. The clergyman had
bowed to her, and in my presence, twice in one day!