The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

There was great crowding and confusion, and more delay than I liked (in case any of her friends had happened to be on the spot), in reclaiming her luggage. Her first questions, as we drove off, implored me to tell her news of her sister. I invented news of the most pacifying kind, assuring her that she was about to see her sister at my house. My house, on this occasion only, was in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, and was in the occupation of Monsieur Rubelle, who received us in the hall.

I took my visitor upstairs into a back room, the two medical gentlemen being there in waiting on the floor beneath to see the patient, and to give me their certificates. After quieting Lady Glyde by the necessary assurances about her sister, I introduced my friends separately to her presence. They performed the formalities of the occasion briefly, intelligently, conscientiously. I entered the room again as soon as they had left it, and at once precipitated events by a reference of the alarming kind to “Miss Halcombe’s” state of health.

Results followed as I had anticipated. Lady Glyde became frightened, and turned faint. For the second time, and the last, I called Science to my assistance. A medicated glass of water and a medicated bottle of smelling-salts relieved her of all further embarrassment and alarm. Additional applications later in the evening procured her the inestimable blessing of a good night’s rest. Madame Rubelle arrived in time to preside at Lady Glyde’s toilet. Her own clothes were taken away from her at night, and Anne Catherick’s were put on her in the morning, with the strictest regard to propriety, by the matronly hands of the good Rubelle. Throughout the day I kept our patient in a state of partially-suspended consciousness, until the dexterous assistance of my medical friends enabled me to procure the necessary order rather earlier than I had ventured to hope. That evening (the evening of the 27th) Madame Rubelle and I took our revived “Anne Catherick” to the Asylum. She was received with great surprise, but without suspicion, thanks to the order and certificates, to Percival’s letter, to the likeness, to the clothes, and to the patient’s own confused mental condition at the time. I returned at once to assist Madame Fosco in the preparations for the burial of the False “Lady Glyde,” having the clothes and luggage of the true “Lady Glyde” in my possession. They were afterwards sent to Cumberland by the conveyance which was used for the funeral. I attended the funeral, with becoming dignity, attired in the deepest mourning.

My narrative of these remarkable events, written under equally remarkable circumstances, closes here. The minor precautions which I observed in communicating with Limmeridge House are already known, so is the magnificent success of my enterprise, so are the solid pecuniary results which followed it. I have to assert, with the whole force of my conviction, that the one weak place in my scheme would never have been found out if the one weak place in my heart had not been discovered first. Nothing but my fatal admiration for Marian restrained me from stepping in to my own rescue when she effected her sister’s escape. I ran the risk, and trusted in the complete destruction of Lady Glyde’s identity. If either Marian or Mr. Hartright attempted to assert that identity, they would publicly expose themselves to the imputation of sustaining a rank deception, they would be distrusted and discredited accordingly, and they would therefore be powerless to place my interests or Percival’s secret in jeopardy. I committed one error in trusting myself to such a blindfold calculation of chances as this. I committed another when Percival had paid the penalty of his own obstinacy and violence, by granting Lady Glyde a second reprieve from the mad-house, and allowing Mr. Hartright a second chance of escaping me. In brief, Fosco, at this serious crisis, was untrue to himself. Deplorable and uncharacteristic fault! Behold the cause, in my heart—behold, in the image of Marian Halcombe, the first and last weakness of Fosco’s life!

At the ripe age of sixty, I make this unparalleled confession. Youths! I invoke your sympathy. Maidens! I claim your tears.

A word more, and the attention of the reader (concentrated breathlessly on myself) shall be released.

My own mental insight informs me that three inevitable questions will be asked here by persons of inquiring minds. They shall be stated—they shall be answered.

First question. What is the secret of Madame Fosco’s unhesitating devotion of herself to the fulfilment of my boldest wishes, to the furtherance of my deepest plans? I might answer this by simply referring to my own character, and by asking, in my turn, Where, in the history of the world, has a man of my order ever been found without a woman in the background self-immolated on the altar of his life? But I remember that I am writing in England, I remember that I was married in England, and I ask if a woman’s marriage obligations in this country provide for her private opinion of her husband’s principles? No! They charge her unreservedly to love, honour, and obey him. That is exactly what my wife has done. I stand here on a supreme moral elevation, and I loftily assert her accurate performance of her conjugal duties. Silence, Calumny! Your sympathy, Wives of England, for Madame Fosco!

Second question. If Anne Catherick had not died when she did, what should I have done? I should, in that case, have assisted worn-out Nature in finding permanent repose. I should have opened the doors of the Prison of Life, and have extended to the captive (incurably afflicted in mind and body both) a happy release.

Third question. On a calm revision of all the circumstances—Is my conduct worthy of any serious blame? Most emphatically, No! Have I not carefully avoided exposing myself to the odium of committing unnecessary crime? With my vast resources in chemistry, I might have taken Lady Glyde’s life. At immense personal sacrifice I followed the dictates of my own ingenuity, my own humanity, my own caution, and took her identity instead. Judge me by what I might have done. How comparatively innocent! how indirectly virtuous I appear in what I really did!

I announced on beginning it that this narrative would be a remarkable document. It has entirely answered my expectations. Receive these fervid lines—my last legacy to the country I leave for ever. They are worthy of the occasion, and worthy of FOSCO.

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