The Solitary House (234 page)

The chair below suddenly creaked again—I felt the trellis-work pillar under me shake from top to bottom. The Count had started to his feet and struck it with his hand, in indignation.

“Percival! Percival!” he cried, passionately, “do you know me no better than that? Has all your experience shown you nothing of my character yet? I am a man of the antique type! I am capable of the most exalted acts of virtue—when I have the chance of performing them. It has been the misfortune of my life that I have had few chances. My conception of friendship is sublime! Is it my fault that your skeleton has peeped out at me? Why do I confess my curiosity? You poor superficial Englishman, it is to magnify my own self-control. I could draw your secret out of you, if I liked, as I draw this finger out of the palm of my hand—you know I could! But you have appealed to my friendship; and the duties of friendship are sacred to me. See! I trample my base curiosity under my feet. My exalted
sentiments lift me above it. Recognise them, Percival! imitate them, Percival! Shake hands—I forgive you.”

His voice faltered over the last words—faltered, as if he was actually shedding tears!

Sir Percival confusedly attempted to excuse himself. But the Count was too magnanimous to listen to him.

“No!” he said. “When my friend has wounded me, I can pardon him without apologies. Tell me, in plain words, do you want my help?”

“Yes, badly enough.”

“And you can ask for it without compromising yourself?”

“I can try, at any rate.”

“Try, then.”

“Well, this is how it stands:—I told you, to-day, that I had done my best to find Anne Catherick, and failed.”

“Yes; you did.”

“Fosco! I’m a lost man, if I
don’t
find her.”

“Ha! Is it so serious as that?”

A little stream of light travelled out under the verandah, and fell over the gravel-walk. The Count had taken the lamp from the inner part of the room, to see his friend clearly by the light of it.

“Yes!” he said. “
Your
face speaks the truth this time. Serious, indeed—as serious as the money matters themselves.”

“More serious. As true as I sit here, more serious!”

The light disappeared again, and the talk went on.

“I showed you the letter to my wife that Anne Catherick hid in the sand,” Sir Percival continued. “There’s no boasting in that letter, Fosco—she
does
know the Secret.”

“Say as little as possible, Percival, in my presence, of the Secret. Does she know it from you?”

“No; from her mother.”

“Two women in possession of your private mind—bad,
bad, bad, my friend! One question here, before we go any farther. The motive of your shutting up the daughter in the asylum, is now plain enough to me—but the manner of her escape is not quite so clear. Do you suspect the people in charge of her of closing their eyes purposely, at the instance of some enemy, who could afford to make it worth their while?”

“No; she was the best-behaved patient they had—and, like fools, they trusted her. She’s just mad enough to be shut up, and just sane enough to ruin me when she’s at large—if you understand that?”

“I do understand it. Now, Percival, come at once to the point; and then I shall know what to do. Where is the danger of your position at the present moment?”

“Anne Catherick is in this neighbourhood, and in communication with Lady Glyde—there’s the danger, plain enough. Who can read the letter she hid in the sand, and not see that my wife is in possession of the Secret, deny it as she may?”

“One moment, Percival. If Lady Glyde does know the Secret, she must know also that it is a compromising secret
for you
. As your wife, surely it is her interest to keep it?”

“Is it? I’m coming to that. It might be her interest if she cared two straws about me. But I happen to be an encumbrance in the way of another man. She was in love with him, before she married me—she’s in love with him now—an infernal vagabond of a drawing-master, named Hartright.”

“My dear friend! what is there extraordinary in that? They are all in love with some other man. Who gets the first of a woman’s heart? In all my experience I have never yet met with the man who was Number One. Number Two, sometimes. Number Three, Four, Five, often. Number One, never! He exists, of course—but, I have not met with him.”

“Wait! I haven’t done yet. Who do you think helped Anne Catherick to get the start, when the people from the madhouse were after her? Hartright. Who do you think saw her again in Cumberland? Hartright. Both times, he spoke to her alone. Stop! don’t interrupt me. The scoundrel’s as sweet on my wife, as she is on him. He knows the Secret, and she knows the Secret. Once let them both get together again, and it’s her interest and his interest to turn their information against me.”

“Gently, Percival—gently! Are you insensible to the virtue of Lady Glyde?”

“That for the virtue of Lady Glyde! I believe in nothing about her but her money. Don’t you see how the case stands? She might be harmless enough by herself; but if she and that vagabond Hartright——”

“Yes, yes, I see. Where is Mr. Hartright?”

“Out of the country. If he means to keep a whole skin on his bones, I recommend him not to come back in a hurry.”

“Are you sure he is out of the country?”

“Certain. I had him watched from the time he left Cumberland to the time he sailed. Oh, I’ve been careful, I can tell you! Anne Catherick lived with some people at a farm-house near Limmeridge. I went there, myself, after she had given me the slip, and made sure that they knew nothing. I gave her mother a form of letter to write to Miss Halcombe, exonerating me from any bad motive in putting her under restraint. I’ve spent, I’m afraid to say how much, in trying to trace her. And, in spite of it all, she turns up here, and escapes me on my own property! How do I know who else may see her, who else may speak to her? That prying scoundrel, Hartright, may come back without my knowing it, and may make use of her to-morrow——”

“Not he, Percival! While I am on the spot, and while that woman is in the neighbourhood, I will answer for our
laying hands on her, before Mr. Hartright—even if he does come back. I see! yes, yes, I see! The finding of Anne Catherick is the first necessity: make your mind easy about the rest. Your wife is here, under your thumb; Miss Halcombe is inseparable from her, and is, therefore, under your thumb also; and Mr. Hartright is out of the country. This invisible Anne of yours, is all we have to think of for the present. You have made your inquiries?”

“Yes. I have been to her mother; I have ransacked the village—and all to no purpose.”

“Is her mother to be depended on?”

“Yes.”

“She has told your secret once.”

“She won’t tell it again.”

“Why not? Are her own interests concerned in keeping it, as well as yours?”

“Yes—deeply concerned.”

“I am glad to hear it, Percival, for your sake. Don’t be discouraged, my friend. Our money matters, as I told you, leave me plenty of time to turn round in; and
I
may search for Anne Catherick to-morrow to better purpose than you. One last question, before we go to bed.”

“What is it?”

“It is this. When I went to the boat-house to tell Lady Glyde that the little difficulty of her signature was put off, accident took me there in time to see a strange woman parting in a very suspicious manner from your wife. But accident did not bring me near enough to see this same woman’s face plainly. I must know how to recognise our invisible Anne. What is she like?”

“Like? Come! I’ll tell you in two words. She’s a sickly likeness of my wife.”

The chair creaked, and the pillar shook once more. The Count was on his feet again—this time in astonishment.

“What!!!” he exclaimed, eagerly.

“Fancy my wife, after a bad illness, with a touch of something wrong in her head—and there is Anne Catherick for you,” answered Sir Percival.

“Are they related to each other?”

“Not a bit of it.”

“And yet, so like?”

“Yes, so like. What are you laughing about?”

There was no answer, and no sound of any kind. The Count was laughing in his smooth, silent, internal way.

“What are you laughing about?” reiterated Sir Percival.

“Perhaps, at my own fancies, my good friend. Allow me my Italian humour—do I not come of the illustrious nation which invented the exhibition of Punch? Well, well, well, I shall know Anne Catherick when I see her—and so enough for to-night. Make your mind easy, Percival. Sleep, my son, the sleep of the just; and see what I will do for you, when daylight comes to help us both. I have my projects and my plans, here in my big head. You shall pay those bills and find Anne Catherick—my sacred word of honour on it, but you shall! Am I a friend to be treasured in the best corner of your heart, or am I not? Am I worth those loans of money which you so delicately reminded me of a little while since? Whatever you do, never wound me in my sentiments any more. Recognise them, Percival! imitate them! I forgive you again; I shake hands again. Good night!”

Not another word was spoken. I heard the Count close the library door. I heard Sir Percival barring up the window-shutters. It had been raining, raining all the time. I was cramped by my position, and chilled to the bones. When I first tried to move, the effort was so painful to me, that I was obliged to desist. I tried a second time, and succeeded in rising to my knees on the wet roof.

As I crept to the wall, and raised myself against it, I looked back, and saw the window of the Count’s dressing-room gleam into light. My sinking courage flickered up in me again, and kept my eyes fixed on his window, as I stole my way, step by step, back, along the wall of the house.

The clock struck quarter-past one, when I laid my hands on the window-sill of my own room. I had seen nothing and heard nothing which could lead me to suppose that my retreat had been discovered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MISS HALCOMBE’S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED

June 20th. Eight o’clock. The sun is shining in a clear sky. I have not been near my bed—I have not once closed my weary, wakeful eyes. From the same window at which I looked out into the darkness of last night, I look out, now, at the bright stillness of the morning.

I count the hours that have passed since I escaped to the shelter of this room, by my own sensations—and those hours seem like weeks.

How short a time, and yet how long to
me
—since I sank down in the darkness, here, on the floor, drenched to the skin, cramped in every limb, cold to the bones, a useless, helpless, panic-stricken creature.

I hardly know when I roused myself. I hardly know when I groped my way back to the bedroom, and lighted the candle, and searched (with a strange ignorance, at first, of where to look for them) for dry clothes to warm me. The
doing of these things is in my mind, but not the time when they were done.

Can I even remember when the chilled, cramped feeling left me, and the throbbing heat came in its place?

Surely it was before the sun rose? Yes; I heard the clock strike three. I remember the time by the sudden brightness and clearness, the feverish strain and excitement of all my faculties which came with it. I remember my resolution to control myself, to wait patiently hour after hour, till the chance offered of removing Laura from this horrible place, without the danger of immediate discovery and pursuit. I remember the persuasion settling itself in my mind that the words those two men had said to each other, would furnish us, not only with our justification for leaving the house, but with our weapons of defence against them as well. I recall the impulse that awakened in me to preserve those words in writing, exactly as they were spoken, while the time was my own, and while my memory vividly retained them. All this I remember plainly: there is no confusion in my head yet. The coming in here, from the bedroom, with my pen and ink and paper, before sunrise—the sitting down at the widely-opened window to get all the air I could to cool me—the ceaseless writing, faster and faster, hotter and hotter, driving on, more and more wakefully, all through the dreadful interval before the house was astir again—how clearly I recall it, from the beginning by candlelight, to the end on the page before this, in the sunshine of the new day!

Why do I sit here still? Why do I weary my hot eyes and my burning head by writing more? Why not lie down and rest myself, and try to quench the fever that consumes me, in sleep?

I dare not attempt it. A fear beyond all other fears has got possession of me. I am afraid of this heat that parches
my skin. I am afraid of the creeping and throbbing that I feel in my head. If I lie down now, how do I know that I may have the sense and the strength to rise again?

Oh, the rain, the rain—the cruel rain that chilled me last night!

Nine o’clock. Was it nine struck, or eight? Nine, surely? I am shivering again—shivering, from head to foot, in the summer air. Have I been sitting here asleep? I don’t know what I have been doing.

Oh, my God! am I going to be ill?

Ill, at such a time as this!

My head—I am sadly afraid of my head. I can write, but the lines all run together. I see the words. Laura—I can write Laura, and see I write it. Eight or nine—which was it?

So cold, so cold—oh, that rain last night!—and the strokes of the clock, the strokes I can’t count, keep striking in my head——

NOTE

[At this place the entry in the Diary ceases to be legible. The two or three lines which follow, contain fragments of words only, mingled with blots and scratches of the pen. The last marks on the paper bear some resemblance to the first two letters (L. and A.) of the name of Lady Glyde.

On the next page of the Diary, another entry appears. It is in a man’s handwriting, large, bold, and firmly regular; and the date is “June the 21st.” It contains these lines:]

[POSTSCRIPT BY A SINCERE FRIEND.]