The Woman in White (93 page)

Respect this outburst of generous indignation. It has
inexpressibly relieved me. En route! Let us proceed.

Having suggested to Mrs. Clement (or Clements, I am not sure
which) that the best method of keeping Anne out of Percival's
reach was to remove her to London—having found that my proposal
was eagerly received, and having appointed a day to meet the
travellers at the station and to see them leave it, I was at
liberty to return to the house and to confront the difficulties
which still remained to be met.

My first proceeding was to avail myself of the sublime devotion of
my wife. I had arranged with Mrs. Clements that she should
communicate her London address, in Anne's interests, to Lady
Glyde. But this was not enough. Designing persons in my absence
might shake the simple confidence of Mrs. Clements, and she might
not write after all. Who could I find capable of travelling to
London by the train she travelled by, and of privately seeing her
home? I asked myself this question. The conjugal part of me
immediately answered—Madame Fosco.

After deciding on my wife's mission to London, I arranged that the
journey should serve a double purpose. A nurse for the suffering
Marian, equally devoted to the patient and to myself, was a
necessity of my position. One of the most eminently confidential
and capable women in existence was by good fortune at my disposal.
I refer to that respectable matron, Madame Rubelle, to whom I
addressed a letter, at her residence in London, by the hands of my
wife.

On the appointed day Mrs. Clements and Anne Catherick met me at
the station. I politely saw them off, I politely saw Madame Fosco
off by the same train. The last thing at night my wife returned
to Blackwater, having followed her instructions with the most
unimpeachable accuracy. She was accompanied by Madame Rubelle,
and she brought me the London address of Mrs. Clements. After-
events proved this last precaution to have been unnecessary. Mrs.
Clements punctually informed Lady Glyde of her place of abode.
With a wary eye on future emergencies, I kept the letter.

The same day I had a brief interview with the doctor, at which I
protested, in the sacred interests of humanity, against his
treatment of Marian's case. He was insolent, as all ignorant
people are. I showed no resentment, I deferred quarrelling with
him till it was necessary to quarrel to some purpose. My next
proceeding was to leave Blackwater myself. I had my London
residence to take in anticipation of coming events. I had also a
little business of the domestic sort to transact with Mr.
Frederick Fairlie. I found the house I wanted in St. John's Wood.
I found Mr. Fairlie at Limmeridge, Cumberland.

My own private familiarity with the nature of Marian's
correspondence had previously informed me that she had written to
Mr. Fairlie, proposing, as a relief to Lady Glyde's matrimonial
embarrassments, to take her on a visit to her uncle in Cumberland.
This letter I had wisely allowed to reach its destination, feeling
at the time that it could do no harm, and might do good. I now
presented myself before Mr. Fairlie to support Marian's own
proposal—with certain modifications which, happily for the
success of my plans, were rendered really inevitable by her
illness. It was necessary that Lady Glyde should leave Blackwater
alone, by her uncle's invitation, and that she should rest a night
on the journey at her aunt's house (the house I had in St. John's
Wood) by her uncle's express advice. To achieve these results,
and to secure a note of invitation which could be shown to Lady
Glyde, were the objects of my visit to Mr. Fairlie. When I have
mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in mind and body,
and that I let loose the whole force of my character on him, I
have said enough. I came, saw, and conquered Fairlie.

On my return to Blackwater Park (with the letter of invitation) I
found that the doctor's imbecile treatment of Marian's case had
led to the most alarming results. The fever had turned to typhus.
Lady Glyde, on the day of my return, tried to force herself into
the room to nurse her sister. She and I had no affinities of
sympathy—she had committed the unpardonable outrage on my
sensibilities of calling me a spy—she was a stumbling-block in my
way and in Percival's—but, for all that, my magnanimity forbade
me to put her in danger of infection with my own hand. At the
same time I offered no hindrance to her putting herself in danger.
If she had succeeded in doing so, the intricate knot which I was
slowly and patiently operating on might perhaps have been cut by
circumstances. As it was, the doctor interfered and she was kept
out of the room.

I had myself previously recommended sending for advice to London.
This course had been now taken. The physician, on his arrival,
confirmed my view of the case. The crisis was serious. But we
had hope of our charming patient on the fifth day from the
appearance of the typhus. I was only once absent from Blackwater
at this time—when I went to London by the morning train to make
the final arrangements at my house in St. John's Wood, to assure
myself by private inquiry that Mrs. Clements had not moved, and to
settle one or two little preliminary matters with the husband of
Madame Rubelle. I returned at night. Five days afterwards the
physician pronounced our interesting Marian to be out of all
danger, and to be in need of nothing but careful nursing. This
was the time I had waited for. Now that medical attendance was no
longer indispensable, I played the first move in the game by
asserting myself against the doctor. He was one among many
witnesses in my way whom it was necessary to remove. A lively
altercation between us (in which Percival, previously instructed
by me, refused to interfere) served the purpose in view. I
descended on the miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of
indignation, and swept him from the house.

The servants were the next encumbrances to get rid of. Again I
instructed Percival (whose moral courage required perpetual
stimulants), and Mrs. Michelson was amazed, one day, by hearing
from her master that the establishment was to be broken up. We
cleared the house of all the servants but one, who was kept for
domestic purposes, and whose lumpish stupidity we could trust to
make no embarrassing discoveries. When they were gone, nothing
remained but to relieve ourselves of Mrs. Michelson—a result
which was easily achieved by sending this amiable lady to find
lodgings for her mistress at the sea-side.

The circumstances were now exactly what they were required to be.
Lady Glyde was confined to her room by nervous illness, and the
lumpish housemaid (I forget her name) was shut up there at night
in attendance on her mistress. Marian, though fast recovering,
still kept her bed, with Mrs. Rubelle for nurse. No other living
creatures but my wife, myself, and Percival were in the house.
With all the chances thus in our favour I confronted the next
emergency, and played the second move in the game.

The object of the second move was to induce Lady Glyde to leave
Blackwater unaccompanied by her sister. Unless we could persuade
her that Marian had gone on to Cumberland first, there was no
chance of removing her, of her own free will, from the house. To
produce this necessary operation in her mind, we concealed our
interesting invalid in one of the uninhabited bedrooms at
Blackwater. At the dead of night Madame Fosco, Madame Rubelle,
and myself (Percival not being cool enough to be trusted)
accomplished the concealment. The scene was picturesque,
mysterious, dramatic in the highest degree. By my directions the
bed had been made, in the morning, on a strong movable framework
of wood. We had only to lift the framework gently at the head and
foot, and to transport our patient where we pleased, without
disturbing herself or her bed. No chemical assistance was needed
or used in this case. Our interesting Marian lay in the deep
repose of convalescence. We placed the candles and opened the
doors beforehand. I, in right of my great personal strength, took
the head of the framework—my wife and Madame Rubelle took the
foot. I bore my share of that inestimably precious burden with a
manly tenderness, with a fatherly care. Where is the modern
Rembrandt who could depict our midnight procession? Alas for the
Arts! alas for this most pictorial of subjects! The modern
Rembrandt is nowhere to be found.

The next morning my wife and I started for London, leaving Marian
secluded, in the uninhabited middle of the house, under care of
Madame Rubelle, who kindly consented to imprison herself with her
patient for two or three days. Before taking our departure I gave
Percival Mr. Fairlie's letter of invitation to his niece
(instructing her to sleep on the journey to Cumberland at her
aunt's house), with directions to show it to Lady Glyde on hearing
from me. I also obtained from him the address of the Asylum in
which Anne Catherick had been confined, and a letter to the
proprietor, announcing to that gentleman the return of his runaway
patient to medical care.

I had arranged, at my last visit to the metropolis, to have our
modest domestic establishment ready to receive us when we arrived
in London by the early train. In consequence of this wise
precaution, we were enabled that same day to play the third move
in the game—the getting possession of Anne Catherick.

Dates are of importance here. I combine in myself the opposite
characteristics of a Man of Sentiment and a Man of Business. I
have all the dates at my fingers' ends.

On Wednesday, the 24th of July 1850, I sent my wife in a cab to
clear Mrs. Clements out of the way, in the first place. A
supposed message from Lady Glyde in London was sufficient to
obtain this result. Mrs. Clements was taken away in the cab, and
was left in the cab, while my wife (on pretence of purchasing
something at a shop) gave her the slip, and returned to receive
her expected visitor at our house in St. John's Wood. It is
hardly necessary to add that the visitor had been described to the
servants as "Lady Glyde."

In the meanwhile I had followed in another cab, with a note for
Anne Catherick, merely mentioning that Lady Glyde intended to keep
Mrs. Clements to spend the day with her, and that she was to join
them under care of the good gentleman waiting outside, who had
already saved her from discovery in Hampshire by Sir Percival.
The "good gentleman" sent in this note by a street boy, and paused
for results a door or two farther on. At the moment when Anne
appeared at the house door and closed it this excellent man had
the cab door open ready for her, absorbed her into the vehicle,
and drove off.

(Pass me, here, one exclamation in parenthesis. How interesting
this is!)

On the way to Forest Road my companion showed no fear. I can be
paternal—no man more so—when I please, and I was intensely
paternal on this occasion. What titles I had to her confidence! I
had compounded the medicine which had done her good—I had warned
her of her danger from Sir Percival. Perhaps I trusted too
implicitly to these titles—perhaps I underrated the keenness of
the lower instincts in persons of weak intellect—it is certain
that I neglected to prepare her sufficiently for a disappointment
on entering my house. When I took her into the drawing-room—when
she saw no one present but Madame Fosco, who was a stranger to
her—she exhibited the most violent agitation; if she had scented
danger in the air, as a dog scents the presence of some creature
unseen, her alarm could not have displayed itself more suddenly
and more causelessly. I interposed in vain. The fear from which
she was suffering I might have soothed, but the serious heart-
disease, under which she laboured, was beyond the reach of all
moral palliatives. To my unspeakable horror she was seized with
convulsions—a shock to the system, in her condition, which might
have laid her dead at any moment at our feet.

The nearest doctor was sent for, and was told that "Lady Glyde"
required his immediate services. To my infinite relief, he was a
capable man. I represented my visitor to him as a person of weak
intellect, and subject to delusions, and I arranged that no nurse
but my wife should watch in the sick-room. The unhappy woman was
too ill, however, to cause any anxiety about what she might say.
The one dread which now oppressed me was the dread that the false
Lady Glyde might die before the true Lady Glyde arrived in London.

I had written a note in the morning to Madame Rubelle, telling her
to join me at her husband's house on the evening of Friday the
26th, with another note to Percival, warning him to show his wife
her uncle's letter of invitation, to assert that Marian had gone
on before her, and to despatch her to town by the midday train, on
the 26th, also. On reflection I had felt the necessity, in Anne
Catherick's state of health, of precipitating events, and of
having Lady Glyde at my disposal earlier than I had originally
contemplated. What fresh directions, in the terrible uncertainty
of my position, could I now issue? I could do nothing but trust to
chance and the doctor. My emotions expressed themselves in
pathetic apostrophes, which I was just self-possessed enough to
couple, in the hearing of other people, with the name of "Lady
Glyde." In all other respects Fosco, on that memorable day, was
Fosco shrouded in total eclipse.

She passed a bad night, she awoke worn out, but later in the day
she revived amazingly. My elastic spirits revived with her. I
could receive no answers from Percival and Madame Rubelle till the
morning of the next day, the 26th. In anticipation of their
following my directions, which, accident apart, I knew they would
do, I went to secure a fly to fetch Lady Glyde from the railway,
directing it to be at my house on the 26th, at two o'clock. After
seeing the order entered in the book, I went on to arrange matters
with Monsieur Rubelle. I also procured the services of two
gentlemen who could furnish me with the necessary certificates of
lunacy. One of them I knew personally—the other was known to
Monsieur Rubelle. Both were men whose vigorous minds soared
superior to narrow scruples—both were labouring under temporary
embarrassments—both believed in ME.