The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

  “I am afraid, Mr. Gilmore, I have the misfortune to differ from you in the view I take of the case.”

  “Just so, my dear sir—just so. I am an old man; and I take the practical view. You are a young man; and you take the romantic view. Let us not dispute about our views. I live, professionally, in an atmosphere of disputation, Mr. Hartright; and I am only too glad to escape from it, as I am here. We will wait for events—yes, yes, yes; we will wait for events. Charming place, this. Good shooting? Probably not—none of Mr. Fairlie’s land is preserved, I think. Charming place, though; and delightful people. You draw and paint, I hear, Mr. Hartright? Enviable accomplishment. What style?”

  We dropped into general conversation—or, rather, Mr. Gilmore talked, and I listened. My attention was far from him, and from the topics on which he discoursed so fluently. The solitary walk of the last two hours had wrought its effect on me—it had set the idea in my mind of hastening my departure from Limmeridge House. Why should I prolong the hard trial of saying farewell by one unnecessary minute? What further service was required of me by any one? There was no useful purpose to be served by my stay in Cumberland; there was no restriction of time in the permission to leave which my employer had granted to me. Why not end it, there and then?

  I determined to end it. There were some hours of daylight still left—there was no reason why my journey back to London should not begin on that afternoon. I made the first civil excuse that occurred to me for leaving Mr. Gilmore; and returned at once to the house.

  On my way up to my own room, I met Miss Halcombe on the stairs. She saw, by the hurry of my movements and the change in my manner, that I had some new purpose in view; and asked what had happened.

  I told her the reasons which induced me to think of hastening my departure, exactly as I have told them here.

  “No, no,” she said, earnestly and kindly, “leave us like a friend; break bread with us once more. Stay here and dine; stay here and help us to spend our last evening with you as happily, as like our first evenings, as we can. It is my invitation; Mrs. Vesey’s invitation——” she hesitated a little, and then added, “Laura’s invitation as well.”

  I promised to remain. God knows I had no wish to leave even the shadow of a sorrowful impression with any one of them.

  My own room was the best place for me till the dinner bell rang. I waited there till it was time to go down stairs.

  I had not spoken to Miss Fairlie—I had not even seen her—all that day. The first meeting with her, when I entered the drawing-room, was a hard trial to her self-control and to mine. She, too, had done her best to make our last evening renew the golden bygone time—the time that could never come again. She had put on the dress which I used to admire more than any other that she possessed—a dark blue silk, trimmed quaintly and prettily with old-fashioned lace; she came forward to meet me with her former readiness; she gave me her hand with the frank, innocent good will of happier days. The cold fingers that trembled round mine; the pale cheeks with a bright red spot burning in the midst of them; the faint smile that struggled to live on her lips and died away from them while I looked at it, told me at what sacrifice of herself her outward composure was maintained. My heart could take her no closer to me, or I should have loved her then as I had never loved her yet.

  Mr. Gilmore was a great assistance to us. He was in high good humour, and he led the conversation with unflagging spirit. Miss Halcombe seconded him resolutely; and I did all I could to follow her example. The kind blue eyes whose slightest changes of expression I had learnt to interpret so well, looked at me appealing when we first sat down to table. Help my sister—the sweet anxious face seemed to say—help my sister, and you will help me.

  We got through the dinner, to all outward appearance at least, happily enough. When the ladies had risen from table, and when Mr. Gilmore and I were left alone in the dining-room, a new interest presented itself to occupy our attention, and to give me an opportunity of quieting myself by a few minutes of needful and welcome silence. The servant who had been despatched to trace Anne Catherick and Mrs. Clements, returned with his report, and was shown into the dining-room immediately.

  “Well,” said Mr. Gilmore, “what have you found out?”

  “I have found out, sir,” answered the man, “that both the women took tickets, at our station here, for Carlisle.”

  “You went to Carlisle, of course, when you heard that?”

  “I did, sir; but I am sorry to say I could find no further trace of them.”

  “You inquired at the railway?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And at the different inns?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you left the statement I wrote for you, at the police station?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Well, my friend, you have done all you could, and I have done all I could; and there the matter must rest till further notice. We have played our trump cards, Mr. Hartright,” continued the old gentleman, when the servant had withdrawn. “For the present, at least, the women have outmanœuvred us; and our only resource, now, is to wait till Sir Percival Glyde comes here on Monday next. Won’t you fill your glass again? Good bottle of port, that—sound, substantial, old wine. I have got better in my own cellar, though.”

  We returned to the drawing-room—the room in which the happiest evenings of my life had been passed; the room which, after this last night, I was never to see again. Its aspect was altered since the days had shortened and the weather had grown cold. The glass doors on the terrace side were closed, and hidden by thick curtains. Instead of the soft twilight obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant glow of lamplight now dazzled my eyes. All was changed—in-doors and out, all was changed.

  Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together at the card-table; Mrs. Vesey took her customary chair. There was no restraint on the disposal of their evening; and I felt the restraint on the disposal of mine all the more painfully from observing it. I saw Miss Fairlie lingering near the music stand. The time had been when I might have joined her there. I waited irresolutely—I knew neither where to go nor what to do next. She cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of music suddenly from the stand, and came towards me of her own accord.

  “Shall I play some of those little melodies of Mozart’s, which you used to like so much?” she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking down at it while she spoke.

  Before I could thank her, she hastened to the piano. The chair near it, which I had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty. She struck a few chords—then glanced round at me—then looked back again at her music.

  “Won’t you take your old place?” she said, speaking very abruptly, and in very low tones.

  “I may take it on the last night,” I answered.

  She did not reply: she kept her attention riveted on the music—music which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in former times, without the book. I only knew that she had heard me, I only knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the red spot on the cheek that was nearest to me, fade out, and the face grow pale all over.

  “I am very sorry you are going,” she said, her voice almost sinking to a whisper; her eyes looking more and more intently at the music; her fingers flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish energy which I had never noticed in her before.

  “I shall remember those kind words, Miss Fairlie, long after to-morrow has come and gone.”

  The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned farther away from me.

  “Don’t speak of to-morrow,” she said. “Let the music speak to us of to-night, in a happier language than ours.”

  Her lips trembled—a faint sigh fluttered from them, which she tried vainly to suppress. Her fingers wavered on the piano; she struck a false note; confused herself in trying to set it right; and dropped her hands angrily on her lap. Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore looked up in astonishment from the card-table at wh
ich they were playing. Even Mrs. Vesey, dozing in her chair, woke at the sudden cessation of the music, and inquired what had happened.

  “You play at whist, Mr. Hartright?” asked Miss Halcombe, with her eyes directed significantly at the place I occupied.

  I knew what she meant; I knew she was right; and I rose at once to go to the card-table. As I left the piano, Miss Fairlie turned a page of the music, and touched the keys again with a surer hand.

  “I will play it,” she said, striking the notes almost passionately. “I will play it on the last night.”

  “Come, Mrs. Vesey,” said Miss Halcombe; “Mr. Gilmore and I are tired of écarté—come and be Mr. Hartright’s partner at whist.”

  The old lawyer smiled satirically. His had been the winning hand; and he had just turned up a king. He evidently attributed Miss Halcombe’s abrupt change in the card-table arrangements to a lady’s inability to play the losing game.

  The rest of the evening passed without a word or a look from her. She kept her place at the piano; and I kept mine at the card-table. She played unintermittingly—played as if the music was her only refuge from herself. Sometimes, her fingers touched the notes with a lingering fondness, a soft, plaintive, dying tenderness, unutterably beautiful and mournful to hear—sometimes, they faltered and failed her, or hurried over the instrument mechanically, as if their task was a burden to them. But still, change and waver as they might in the expression they imparted to the music, their resolution to play never faltered. She only rose from the piano when we all rose to say good night.

  Mrs. Vesey was the nearest to the door, and the first to shake hands with me.

  “I shall not see you again, Mr. Hartright,” said the old lady. “I am truly sorry you are going away. You have been very kind and attentive; and an old woman, like me, feels kindness and attention. I wish you happy, sir—I wish you a kind good-by.”

  Mr. Gilmore came next.

  “I hope we shall have a future opportunity of bettering our acquaintance, Mr. Hartright. You quite understand about that little matter of business being safe in my hands? Yes, yes, of course. Bless me, how cold it is! Don’t let me keep you at the door. Bon voyage, my dear sir—bon voyage, as the French say.”

  Miss Halcombe followed.

  “Half-past seven to-morrow morning,” she said; then added, in a whisper, “I have heard and seen more than you think. Your conduct to-night has made me your friend for life.”

  Miss Fairlie came last. I could not trust myself to look at her, when I took her hand, and when I thought of the next morning.

  “My departure must be a very early one,” I said. “I shall be gone, Miss Fairlie, before you——”

  “No, no,” she interposed, hastily; “not before I am out of my room. I shall be down to breakfast with Marian. I am not so ungrateful, not so forgetful of the past three months——”

  Her voice failed her; her hand closed gently round mine—then dropped it suddenly. Before I could say, “Good night,” she was gone.

  The end comes fast to meet me—comes inevitably, as the light of the last morning came at Limmeridge House.

  It was barely half-past seven when I went downstairs—but I found them both at the breakfast-table waiting for me. In the chill air, in the dim light, in the gloomy morning silence of the house, we three sat down together, and tried to eat, tried to talk. The struggle to preserve appearances was hopeless and useless; and I rose to end it.

  As I held out my hand, as Miss Halcombe, who was nearest to me, took it, Miss Fairlie turned away suddenly, and hurried from the room.

  “Better so,” said Miss Halcombe, when the door had closed—“better so, for you and for her.”

  I waited a moment before I could speak—it was hard to lose her, without a parting word, or a parting look. I controlled myself; I tried to take leave of Miss Halcombe in fitting terms; but all the farewell words I would fain have spoken, dwindled to one sentence.

  “Have I deserved that you should write to me?” was all I could say.

  “You have nobly deserved everything that I can do for you, as long as we both live. Whatever the end is, you shall know it.”

  “And if I can ever be of help again, at any future time, long after the memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten——”

  I could add no more. My voice faltered, my eyes moistened, in spite of me.

  She caught me by both hands—she pressed them with the strong, steady grasp of a man—her dark eyes glittered—her brown complexion flushed deep—the force and energy of her face glowed and grew beautiful with the pure inner light of her generosity and her pity.

  “I will trust you—if ever the time comes, I will trust you as my friend and her friend; as my brother and her brother.” She stopped; drew me nearer to her—the fearless, noble creature—touched my forehead, sisterlike, with her lips; and called me by my Christian name. “God bless you, Walter,” she said. “Wait here alone, and compose yourself—I had better not stay for both our sakes; I had better see you go, from the balcony upstairs.”

  She left the room. I turned away towards the window, where nothing faced me but the lonely autumn landscape—I turned away to master myself, before I, too, left the room in my turn, and left it for ever.

  A minute passed—it could hardly have been more—when I heard the door open again softly; and the rustling of a woman’s dress on the carpet, moved towards me. My heart beat violently as I turned round. Miss Fairlie was approaching me from the farther end of the room.

  She stopped and hesitated, when our eyes met, and when she saw that we were alone. Then, with that courage which women lose so often in the small emergency, and so seldom in the great, she came on nearer to me, strangely pale and strangely quiet, drawing one hand after her along the table by which she walked, and holding something at her side, in the other, which was hidden by the folds of her dress.

  “I only went into the drawing-room,” she said, “to look for this. It may remind you of your visit here, and of the friends you leave behind you. You told me I had improved very much when I did it—and I thought you might like——”

  She turned her head away, and offered me a little sketch drawn throughout by her own pencil, of the summer-house in which we had first met. The paper trembled in her hand as she held it out to me—trembled in mine, as I took it from her.

  I was afraid to say what I felt—I only answered: “It shall never leave me; all my life long it shall be the treasure that I prize most. I am very grateful for it—very grateful to you, for not letting me go away without bidding you good-by.”

  “Oh!” she said, innocently, “how could I let you go, after we have passed so many happy days together!”

  “Those days may never return again. Miss Fairlie—my way of life and yours are very far apart. But if a time should come, when the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength will give you a moment’s happiness or spare you a moment’s sorrow, will you try to remember the poor drawing-master who has taught you? Miss Halcombe has promised to trust me—will you promise, too?”

  The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her gathering tears.

  “I promise it,” she said, in broken tones. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I promise it with all my heart.”

  I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.

  “You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the dear object of my hopes too?”

  The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling hand on the table to steady herself, while she gave me the other. I took it in mine—I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it—not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but in the agony and the self-abandonment of despair.

  “For God’s sake, leave me!” she said, faintly.

  The confession of her heart’s secret burst from her in those pleading words. I had no right to he
ar them, no right to answer them: they were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from the room. It was all over. I dropped her hand; I said no more. The blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to look at her for the last time. One look, as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily. One farewell look; and the door had closed on her—the great gulf of separation had opened between us—the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the past already.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE NARRATIVE OF VINCENT GILMORE, SOLICITOR, OF CHANCERY-LANE, LONDON

  I

  I write these lines at the request of my friend, Mr. Walter Hartright. They are intended to convey a description of certain events which seriously affected Miss Fairlie’s interests, and which took place after the period of Mr. Hartright’s departure from Limmeridge House.

  There is no need for me to say whether my own opinion does or does not sanction the disclosure of the remarkable family story, of which my narrative forms an important component part. Mr. Hartright has taken that responsibility on himself; and circumstances yet to be related will show that he has amply earned the right to do so, if he chooses to exercise it. The plan he has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence. My appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement. I was present during the sojourn of Sir Percival Glyde in Cumberland, and was personally concerned in one important result of his short residence under Mr. Fairlie’s roof. It is my duty, therefore, to add these new links to the chain of events, and to take up the chain itself at the point where, for the present only, Mr. Hartright has dropped it.