The Solitary House (250 page)

“You are not tired of me yet?” she said. “You are not going away because you are tired of me? I will try to do better—I will try to get well. Are you as fond of me, Walter, as you used to be, now I am so pale and thin, and so slow in learning to draw?”

She spoke as a child might have spoken; she showed me her thoughts as a child might have shown them. I waited a few minutes longer—waited to tell her that she was dearer to me now than she had ever been in the past times. “Try to get well again,” I said, encouraging the new hope in the future which I saw dawning in her mind; “try to get well again, for Marian’s sake and for mine.”

“Yes,” she said to herself, returning to her drawing. “I must try, because they are both so fond of me.” She suddenly looked up again. “Don’t be gone long! I can’t get on with my drawing, Walter, when you are not here to help me.”

“I shall soon be back, my darling—soon be back to see how you are getting on.”

My voice faltered a little in spite of me. I forced myself from the room. It was no time, then, for parting with the self-control which might yet serve me in my need before the day was out.

As I opened the door, I beckoned to Marian to follow me to the stairs. It was necessary to prepare her for a result which I felt might sooner or later follow my showing myself openly in the streets.

“I shall, in all probability, be back in a few hours,” I said; “and you will take care, as usual, to let no one inside the doors in my absence. But if anything happens——”

“What can happen?” she interposed, quickly. “Tell me plainly, Walter, if there is any danger—and I shall know how to meet it.”

“The only danger,” I replied, “is that Sir Percival Glyde may have been recalled to London by the news of Laura’s escape. You are aware that he had me watched before I left England; and that he probably knows me by sight, although I don’t know him?”

She laid her hand on my shoulder, and looked at me in
anxious silence. I saw she understood the serious risk that threatened us.

“It is not likely,” I said, “that I shall be seen in London again so soon, either by Sir Percival himself or by the persons in his employ. But it is barely possible that an accident may happen. In that case, you will not be alarmed if I fail to return to-night; and you will satisfy any inquiries of Laura’s with the best excuse that you can make for me? If I find the least reason to suspect that I am watched, I will take good care that no spy follows me back to this house. Don’t doubt my return, Marian, however it may be delayed—and fear nothing.”

“Nothing!” she answered, firmly. “You shall not regret, Walter, that you have only a woman to help you.” She paused, and detained me for a moment longer. “Take care!” she said, pressing my hand anxiously—“take care!”

I left her; and set forth to pave the way for discovery—the dark and doubtful way, which began at the lawyer’s door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE

IV

N
o circumstance of the slightest importance happened on my way to the offices of Messrs. Gilmore and Kyrle, in Chancery-lane.

While my card was being taken in to Mr. Kyrle, a consideration occurred to me which I deeply regretted not having thought of before. The information derived from Marian’s diary made it a matter of certainty that Count Fosco had opened her first letter from Blackwater Park to Mr. Kyrle, and had, by means of his wife, intercepted the second. He was therefore well aware of the address of the office; and he would naturally infer that if Marian wanted advice and assistance, after Laura’s escape from the Asylum, she would apply once more to the experience of Mr. Kyrle. In this case, the office in Chancery-lane was the very first place which he and Sir Percival would cause to be watched; and, if the same persons were chosen for the purpose who had been employed to follow me, before my departure from England, the fact of my return would in all probability be ascertained on that very day. I had thought, generally, of the chances of my being recognised in the streets; but the special risk connected with the office had never occurred to me until the present moment. It was too late now to repair this unfortunate error in judgment—too late to wish that I had made arrangements for meeting the lawyer in some place privately appointed beforehand. I could only resolve to be cautious on leaving Chancery-lane, and not to go straight home again under any circumstances whatever.

After waiting a few minutes, I was shown into Mr. Kyrle’s private room. He was a pale, thin, quiet, self-possessed man, with a very attentive eye, a very low voice, and a very undemonstrative manner; not (as I judged) ready with his sympathy, where strangers were concerned; and not at all easy to disturb in his professional composure. A better man for my purpose could hardly have been found. If he committed himself to a decision at all, and if
the decision was favourable, the strength of our case was as good as proved from that moment.

“Before I enter on the business which brings me here,” I said, “I ought to warn you, Mr. Kyrle, that the shortest statement I can make of it may occupy some little time.”

“My time is at Miss Halcombe’s disposal,” he replied. “Where any interests of hers are concerned, I represent my partner personally as well as professionally. It was his request that I should do so, when he ceased to take an active part in business.”

“May I inquire whether Mr. Gilmore is in England?”

“He is not: he is living with his relatives in Germany. His health has improved, but the period of his return is still uncertain.”

While we were exchanging these few preliminary words, he had been searching among the papers before him, and he now produced from them a sealed letter. I thought he was about to hand the letter to me; but, apparently changing his mind, he placed it by itself on the table, settled himself in his chair, and silently waited to hear what I had to say.

Without wasting a moment in prefatory words of any sort, I entered on my narrative, and put him in full possession of the events which have already been related in these pages.

Lawyer as he was to the very marrow of his bones, I startled him out of his professional composure. Expressions of incredulity and surprise, which he could not repress, interrupted me several times, before I had done. I persevered, however, to the end, and, as soon as I reached it, boldly asked the one important question:

“What is your opinion, Mr. Kyrle?”

He was too cautious to commit himself to an answer, without taking time to recover his self-possession first.

“Before I give my opinion,” he said, “I must beg permission to clear the ground by a few questions.”

He put the questions—sharp, suspicious, unbelieving questions, which clearly showed me, as they proceeded, that he thought I was the victim of a delusion; and that he might even have doubted, but for my introduction to him by Miss Halcombe, whether I was not attempting the perpetration of a cunningly-designed fraud.

“Do you believe that I have spoken the truth, Mr. Kyrle?” I asked, when he had done examining me.

“So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have spoken the truth,” he replied. “I have the highest esteem for Miss Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy’s sake and for argument’s sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde, as a living person, is a proved fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr. Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case.”

“You put it strongly, Mr. Kyrle.”

“I will try to put it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde’s death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her aunt’s testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco’s house, that she fell ill, and that she died. There is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under natural circumstances. There is the fact of the funeral at Limmeridge, and there is the assertion of the inscription on the tomb. That is the case you want to overthrow. What evidence have you to support the declaration on your side that the person who died and was buried was not Lady Glyde? Let us run through the main points of your statement and see what
they are worth. Miss Halcombe goes to a certain private Asylum, and there sees a certain female patient. It is known that a woman named Anne Catherick, and bearing an extraordinary personal resemblance to Lady Glyde, escaped from the Asylum; it is known that the person received there last July, was received as Anne Catherick brought back; it is known that the gentleman who brought her back warned Mr. Fairlie that it was part of her insanity to be bent on personating his dead niece; and it is known that she did repeatedly declare herself, in the Asylum (where no one believed her), to be Lady Glyde. These are all facts. What have you to set against them? Miss Halcombe’s recognition of the woman, which recognition after-events invalidate or contradict. Does Miss Halcombe assert her supposed sister’s identity to the owner of the Asylum, and take legal means for rescuing her? No: she secretly bribes a nurse to let her escape. When the patient has been released in this doubtful manner, and is taken to Mr. Fairlie, does he recognise her? Is he staggered for one instant in his belief of his niece’s death? No. Do the servants recognise her? No. Is she kept in the neighbourhood to assert her own identity, and to stand the test of further proceedings? No: she is privately taken to London. In the mean time, you have recognised her also—but you are not a relative; you are not even an old friend of the family. The servants contradict you; and Mr. Fairlie contradicts Miss Halcombe; and the supposed Lady Glyde contradicts herself. She declares she passed the night in London at a certain house. Your own evidence shows that she has never been near that house; and your own admission is, that her condition of mind prevents you from producing her anywhere to submit to investigation, and to speak for herself. I pass over minor points of evidence, on both sides, to save time; and I ask you, if this case were to go now into a court of law—to go before a jury, bound
to take facts as they reasonably appear—where are your proofs?”

I was obliged to wait and collect myself before I could answer him. It was the first time the story of Laura and the story of Marian had been presented to me from a stranger’s point of view—the first time the terrible obstacles that lay across our path had been made to show themselves in their true character.

“There can be no doubt,” I said, “that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us; but——”

“But you think those facts can be explained away,” interposed Mr. Kyrle. “Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact,
on
the surface, and a long explanation
under
the surface, it always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation. For example, Lady Glyde (I call the lady you represent by that name for argument’s sake) declares she has slept at a certain house, and it is proved that she has not slept at that house. You explain this circumstance by entering into the state of her mind, and deducing from it a metaphysical conclusion. I don’t say the conclusion is wrong—I only say that the jury will take the fact of her contradicting herself, in preference to any reason for the contradiction that you can offer.”

“But is it not possible,” I urged, “by dint of patience and exertion, to discover additional evidence? Miss Halcombe and I have a few hundred pounds——”

He looked at me with a half-suppressed pity, and shook his head.

“Consider the subject, Mr. Hartright, from your own point of view,” he said. “If you are right about Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco (which I don’t admit, mind), every imaginable difficulty would be thrown in the way of your getting fresh evidence. Every obstacle of litigation
would be raised; every point in the case would be systematically contested—and by the time we had spent our thousands, instead of our hundreds, the final result would, in all probability, be against us. Questions of identity, where instances of personal resemblance are concerned, are, in themselves, the hardest of all questions to settle—the hardest, even when they are free from the complications which beset the case we are now discussing. I really see no prospect of throwing any light whatever on this extraordinary affair. Even if the person buried in Limmeridge churchyard be not Lady Glyde, she was, in life, on your own showing, so like her, that we should gain nothing, if we applied for the necessary authority to have the body exhumed. In short, there is no case, Mr. Hartright—there is really no case.”

I was determined to believe that there
was
a case; and, in that determination, shifted my ground, and appealed to him once more.

“Are there not other proofs that we might produce, besides the proof of identity?” I asked.

“Not as you are situated,” he replied. “The simplest and surest of all proofs, the proof by comparison of dates, is, as I understand, altogether out of your reach. If you could show a discrepancy between the date of the doctor’s certificate and the date of Lady Glyde’s journey to London, the matter would wear a totally different aspect; and I should be the first to say, Let us go on.”

“That date may yet be recovered, Mr. Kyrle.”

“On the day when it
is
recovered, Mr. Hartright, you will have a case. If you have any prospect, at this moment, of getting at it—tell me, and we shall see if I can advise you.”

I considered. The housekeeper could not help us; Laura
could not help us; Marian could not help us. In all probability, the only persons in existence who knew the date were Sir Percival and the Count.

“I can think of no means of ascertaining the date at present,” I said, “because I can think of no persons who are sure to know it, but Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde.”