The Woman in White (70 page)

After a short residence in London he and his wife departed for the
Continent, and never returned to England again. They lived part
of the time in France and part in Germany—always keeping
themselves in the strict retirement which the morbid sense of his
own personal deformity had made a necessity to Sir Felix. Their
son, Percival, had been born abroad, and had been educated there
by private tutors. His mother was the first of his parents whom
he lost. His father had died a few years after her, either in 1825
or 1826. Sir Percival had been in England, as a young man, once
or twice before that period, but his acquaintance with the late
Mr. Fairlie did not begin till after the time of his father's
death. They soon became very intimate, although Sir Percival was
seldom, or never, at Limmeridge House in those days. Mr.
Frederick Fairlie might have met him once or twice in Mr. Philip
Fairlie's company, but he could have known little of him at that
or at any other time. Sir Percival's only intimate friend in the
Fairlie family had been Laura's father.

These were all the particulars that I could gain from Marian.
They suggested nothing which was useful to my present purpose, but
I noted them down carefully, in the event of their proving to be
of importance at any future period.

Mrs. Todd's reply (addressed, by our own wish, to a post-office at
some distance from us) had arrived at its destination when I went
to apply for it. The chances, which had been all against us
hitherto, turned from this moment in our favour. Mrs. Todd's
letter contained the first item of information of which we were in
search.

Mrs. Clements, it appeared, had (as we had conjectured) written to
Todd's Corner, asking pardon in the first place for the abrupt
manner in which she and Anne had left their friends at the farm-
house (on the morning after I had met the woman in white in
Limmeridge churchyard), and then informing Mrs. Todd of Anne's
disappearance, and entreating that she would cause inquiries to be
made in the neighbourhood, on the chance that the lost woman might
have strayed back to Limmeridge. In making this request, Mrs.
Clements had been careful to add to it the address at which she
might always be heard of, and that address Mrs. Todd now
transmitted to Marian. It was in London, and within half an
hour's walk of our own lodging.

In the words of the proverb, I was resolved not to let the grass
grow under my feet. The next morning I set forth to seek an
interview with Mrs. Clements. This was my first step forward in
the investigation. The story of the desperate attempt to which I
now stood committed begins here.

The address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to a lodging-house
situated in a respectable street near the Gray's Inn Road.

When I knocked the door was opened by Mrs. Clements herself. She
did not appear to remember me, and asked what my business was. I
recalled to her our meeting in Limmeridge churchyard at the close
of my interview there with the woman in white, taking special care
to remind her that I was the person who assisted Anne Catherick
(as Anne had herself declared) to escape the pursuit from the
Asylum. This was my only claim to the confidence of Mrs.
Clements. She remembered the circumstance the moment I spoke of
it, and asked me into the parlour, in the greatest anxiety to know
if I had brought her any news of Anne.

It was impossible for me to tell her the whole truth without, at
the same time, entering into particulars on the subject of the
conspiracy, which it would have been dangerous to confide to a
stranger. I could only abstain most carefully from raising any
false hopes, and then explain that the object of my visit was to
discover the persons who were really responsible for Anne's
disappearance. I even added, so as to exonerate myself from any
after-reproach of my own conscience, that I entertained not the
least hope of being able to trace her—that I believed we should
never see her alive again—and that my main interest in the affair
was to bring to punishment two men whom I suspected to be
concerned in luring her away, and at whose hands I and some dear
friends of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. With this
explanation I left it to Mrs. Clements to say whether our interest
in the matter (whatever difference there might be in the motives
which actuated us) was not the same, and whether she felt any
reluctance to forward my object by giving me such information on
the subject of my inquiries as she happened to possess.

The poor woman was at first too much confused and agitated to
understand thoroughly what I said to her. She could only reply
that I was welcome to anything she could tell me in return for the
kindness I had shown to Anne; but as she was not very quick and
ready, at the best of times, in talking to strangers, she would
beg me to put her in the right way, and to say where I wished her
to begin.

Knowing by experience that the plainest narrative attainable from
persons who are not accustomed to arrange their ideas, is the
narrative which goes far enough back at the beginning to avoid all
impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked Mrs. Clements
to tell me first what had happened after she had left Limmeridge,
and so, by watchful questioning, carried her on from point to
point, till we reached the period of Anne's disappearance.

The substance of the information which I thus obtained was as
follows:—

On leaving the farm at Todd's Corner, Mrs. Clements and Anne had
travelled that day as far as Derby, and had remained there a week
on Anne's account. They had then gone on to London, and had lived
in the lodging occupied by Mrs. Clements at that time for a month
or more, when circumstances connected with the house and the
landlord had obliged them to change their quarters. Anne's terror
of being discovered in London or its neighbourhood, whenever they
ventured to walk out, had gradually communicated itself to Mrs.
Clements, and she had determined on removing to one of the most
out-of-the-way places in England—to the town of Grimsby in
Lincolnshire, where her deceased husband had passed all his early
life. His relatives were respectable people settled in the town—
they had always treated Mrs. Clements with great kindness, and she
thought it impossible to do better than go there and take the
advice of her husband's friends. Anne would not hear of returning
to her mother at Welmingham, because she had been removed to the
Asylum from that place, and because Sir Percival would be certain
to go back there and find her again. There was serious weight in
this objection, and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not to be
easily removed.

At Grimsby the first serious symptoms of illness had shown
themselves in Anne. They appeared soon after the news of Lady
Glyde's marriage had been made public in the newspapers, and had
reached her through that medium.

The medical man who was sent for to attend the sick woman
discovered at once that she was suffering from a serious affection
of the heart. The illness lasted long, left her very weak, and
returned at intervals, though with mitigated severity, again and
again. They remained at Grimsby, in consequence, during the first
half of the new year, and there they might probably have stayed
much longer, but for the sudden resolution which Anne took at this
time to venture back to Hampshire, for the purpose of obtaining a
private interview with Lady Glyde.

Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose the execution of this
hazardous and unaccountable project. No explanation of her
motives was offered by Anne, except that she believed the day of
her death was not far off, and that she had something on her mind
which must be communicated to Lady Glyde, at any risk, in secret.
Her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so firmly settled
that she declared her intention of going to Hampshire by herself
if Mrs. Clements felt any unwillingness to go with her. The
doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that serious opposition
to her wishes would, in all probability, produce another and
perhaps a fatal fit of illness, and Mrs. Clements, under this
advice, yielded to necessity, and once more, with sad forebodings
of trouble and danger to come, allowed Anne Catherick to have her
own way.

On the journey from London to Hampshire Mrs. Clements discovered
that one of their fellow-passengers was well acquainted with the
neighbourhood of Blackwater, and could give her all the
information she needed on the subject of localities. In this way
she found out that the only place they could go to, which was not
dangerously near to Sir Percival's residence, was a large village
called Sandon. The distance here from Blackwater Park was between
three and four miles—and that distance, and back again, Anne had
walked on each occasion when she had appeared in the neighbourhood
of the lake.

For the few days during which they were at Sandon without being
discovered they had lived a little away from the village, in the
cottage of a decent widow-woman who had a bedroom to let, and
whose discreet silence Mrs. Clements had done her best to secure,
for the first week at least. She had also tried hard to induce
Anne to be content with writing to Lady Glyde, in the first
instance; but the failure of the warning contained in the
anonymous letter sent to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to
speak this time, and obstinate in the determination to go on her
errand alone.

Mrs. Clements, nevertheless, followed her privately on each
occasion when she went to the lake, without, however, venturing
near enough to the boat-house to be witness of what took place
there. When Anne returned for the last time from the dangerous
neighbourhood, the fatigue of walking, day after day, distances
which were far too great for her strength, added to the exhausting
effect of the agitation from which she had suffered, produced the
result which Mrs. Clements had dreaded all along. The old pain
over the heart and the other symptoms of the illness at Grimsby
returned, and Anne was confined to her bed in the cottage.

In this emergency the first necessity, as Mrs. Clements knew by
experience, was to endeavour to quiet Anne's anxiety of mind, and
for this purpose the good woman went herself the next day to the
lake, to try if she could find Lady Glyde (who would be sure, as
Anne said, to take her daily walk to the boat-house), and prevail
on her to come back privately to the cottage near Sandon. On
reaching the outskirts of the plantation Mrs. Clements
encountered, not Lady Glyde, but a tall, stout, elderly gentleman,
with a book in his hand—in other words, Count Fosco.

The Count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment,
asked if she expected to see any one in that place, and added,
before she could reply, that he was waiting there with a message
from Lady Glyde, but that he was not quite certain whether the
person then before him answered the description of the person with
whom he was desired to communicate.

Upon this Mrs. Clements at once confided her errand to him, and
entreated that he would help to allay Anne's anxiety by trusting
his message to her. The Count most readily and kindly complied
with her request. The message, he said, was a very important one.
Lady Glyde entreated Anne and her good friend to return
immediately to London, as she felt certain that Sir Percival would
discover them if they remained any longer in the neighbourhood of
Blackwater. She was herself going to London in a short time, and
if Mrs. Clements and Anne would go there first, and would let her
know what their address was, they should hear from her and see her
in a fortnight or less. The Count added that he had already
attempted to give a friendly warning to Anne herself, but that she
had been too much startled by seeing that he was a stranger to let
him approach and speak to her.

To this Mrs. Clements replied, in the greatest alarm and distress,
that she asked nothing better than to take Anne safely to London,
but that there was no present hope of removing her from the
dangerous neighbourhood, as she lay ill in her bed at that moment.
The Count inquired if Mrs. Clements had sent for medical advice,
and hearing that she had hitherto hesitated to do so, from the
fear of making their position publicly known in the village,
informed her that he was himself a medical man, and that he would
go back with her if she pleased, and see what could be done for
Anne. Mrs. Clements (feeling a natural confidence in the Count,
as a person trusted with a secret message from Lady Glyde)
gratefully accepted the offer, and they went back together to the
cottage.

Anne was asleep when they got there. The Count started at the
sight of her (evidently from astonishment at her resemblance to
Lady Glyde). Poor Mrs. Clements supposed that he was only shocked
to see how ill she was. He would not allow her to be awakened—he
was contented with putting questions to Mrs. Clements about her
symptoms, with looking at her, and with lightly touching her
pulse. Sandon was a large enough place to have a grocer's and
druggist's shop in it, and thither the Count went to write his
prescription and to get the medicine made up. He brought it back
himself, and told Mrs. Clements that the medicine was a powerful
stimulant, and that it would certainly give Anne strength to get
up and bear the fatigue of a journey to London of only a few
hours. The remedy was to be administered at stated times on that
day and on the day after. On the third day she would be well
enough to travel, and he arranged to meet Mrs. Clements at the
Blackwater station, and to see them off by the mid-day train. If
they did not appear he would assume that Anne was worse, and would
proceed at once to the cottage.

As events turned out, no such emergency as this occurred.

This medicine had an extraordinary effect on Anne, and the good
results of it were helped by the assurance Mrs. Clements could now
give her that she would soon see Lady Glyde in London. At the
appointed day and time (when they had not been quite so long as a
week in Hampshire altogether), they arrived at the station. The
Count was waiting there for them, and was talking to an elderly
lady, who appeared to be going to travel by the train to London
also. He most kindly assisted them, and put them into the
carriage himself, begging Mrs. Clements not to forget to send her
address to Lady Glyde. The elderly lady did not travel in the
same compartment, and they did not notice what became of her on
reaching the London terminus. Mrs. Clements secured respectable
lodgings in a quiet neighbourhood, and then wrote, as she had
engaged to do, to inform Lady Glyde of the address.