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

by Lynn Shepherd

  He looked at me, with an unearthly quiet in his face. “Wait,” he said. “I shall come back. The night, when I met the lost Woman on the highway, was the night which set my life apart to be the instrument of a Design that is yet unseen. Here, lost in the wilderness, or there, welcomed back in the land of my birth, I am still walking on the dark road which leads me, and you, and the sister of your love and mine, to the unknown Retribution and the inevitable End. Wait and look. The Pestilence which touches the rest, will pass me.”

  I saw him again. He was still in the forest; and the numbers of his lost companions had dwindled to very few. The temple was gone, and the idols were gone—and, in their place, the figures of dark, dwarfish men lurked murderously among the trees, with bows in their hands, and arrows fitted to the string. Once more, I feared for Walter, and cried out to warn him. Once more, he turned to me, with the immovable quiet in his face. “Another step,” he said, “on the dark road. Wait and look. The arrows that strike the rest, will spare me.”

  I saw him for the third time, in a wrecked ship, stranded on a wild, sandy shore. The overloaded boats were making away from him for the land, and he alone was left, to sink with the ship. I cried to him to hail the hindmost boat, and to make a last effort for his life. The quiet face looked at me in return, and the unmoved voice gave me back the changeless reply. “Another step on the journey. Wait and look. The Sea which drowns the rest, will spare me.”

  I saw him for the last time. He was kneeling by a tomb of white marble; and the shadow of a veiled woman rose out of the grave beneath, and waited by his side. The unearthly quiet of his face had changed to an unearthly sorrow. But the terrible certainty of his words remained the same. “Darker and darker,” he said; “farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young—and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.”

  My heart sank under a dread beyond words, under a grief beyond tears. The darkness closed round the pilgrim at the marble tomb; closed round the veiled woman from the grave; closed round the dreamer who looked on them. I saw and heard no more.

  I was aroused by a hand laid on my shoulder. It was Laura’s.

  She had dropped on her knees by the side of the sofa. Her face was flushed and agitated; and her eyes met mine in a wild bewildered manner. I started up the instant I saw her.

  “What has happened?” I asked. “What has frightened you?”

  She looked round at the half-open door—put her lips close to my ear—and answered in a whisper:

  “Marian!—the figure at the lake—the footsteps last night—I’ve just seen her! I’ve just spoken to her!”

  “Who, for Heaven’s sake?”

  “Anne Catherick.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MISS HALCOMBE’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED

  June 18th. I was so startled by the disturbance in Laura’s face and manner, and so dismayed by the first waking impressions of my dream, that I was not fit to bear the revelation which burst upon me, when the name of Anne Catherick passed her lips. I could only stand rooted to the floor, looking at her in breathless silence.

  She was too much absorbed by what had happened to notice the effect which her reply had produced on me. “I have seen Anne Catherick! I have spoken to Anne Catherick!” she repeated, as if I had not heard her. “Oh, Marian, I have such things to tell you! Come away—we may be interrupted here—come at once into my room!”

  With those eager words, she caught me by the hand, and led me through the library, to the end room on the ground floor, which had been fitted up for her own especial use. No third person, except her maid, could have any excuse for surprising us here. She pushed me in before her, locked the door, and drew the chintz curtains that hung over the inside.

  The strange, stunned feeling which had taken possession of me still remained. But a growing conviction that the complications which had long threatened to gather about her, and to gather about me, had suddenly closed fast round us both, was now beginning to penetrate my mind. I could not express it in words—I could hardly even realise it dimly in my own thoughts. “Anne Catherick!” I whispered to myself, with useless, helpless reiteration—“Anne Catherick!”

  Laura drew me to the nearest seat, an ottoman in the middle of the room. “Look!” she said; “look here!”—and pointed to the bosom of her dress.

  I saw, for the first time, that the lost brooch was pinned in its place again. There was something real in the sight of it, something real in the touching of it afterwards, which seemed to steady the whirl and confusion in my thoughts, and to help me to compose myself.

  “Where did you find your brooch?” The first words I could say to her were the words which put that trivial question at that important moment.

  “She found it, Marian.”

  “Where?”

  “On the floor of the boat-house. Oh, how shall I begin—how shall I tell you about it! She talked to me so strangely—she looked so fearfully ill—she left me so suddenly——!”

  Her voice rose as the tumult of her recollections pressed upon her mind. The inveterate distrust which weighs, night and day, on my spirits in this house, instantly roused me to warn her—just as the sight of the brooch had roused me to question her, the moment before.

  “Speak low,” I said. “The window is open, and the garden path runs beneath it. Begin at the beginning, Laura. Tell me, word for word, what passed between that woman and you.”

  “Shall I close the window first?”

  “No; only speak low: only remember that Anne Catherick is a dangerous subject under your husband’s roof. Where did you first see her?”

  “At the boat-house, Marian. I went out, as you know, to find my brooch; and I walked along the path through the plantation, looking down on the ground carefully at every step. In that way I got on, after a long time, to the boat-house; and, as soon as I was inside it, I went on my knees to hunt over the floor. I was still searching, with my back to the doorway, when I heard a soft, strange voice, behind me, say, ‘Miss Fairlie.’ ”

  “Miss Fairlie!”

  “Yes—my old name—the dear, familiar name that I thought I had parted from for ever. I started up—not frightened, the voice was too kind and gentle to frighten anybody—but very much surprised. There, looking at me from the doorway, stood a woman, whose face I never remembered to have seen before——”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “She had a neat, pretty white gown on, and over it a poor worn thin dark shawl. Her bonnet was of brown straw, as poor and worn as the shawl. I was struck by the difference between her gown and the rest of her dress, and she saw that I noticed it. ‘Don’t look at my bonnet and shawl,’ she said, speaking in a quick, breathless, sudden way; ‘if I mustn’t wear white, I don’t care what I wear. Look at my gown, as much as you please; I’m not ashamed of that.’ Very strange, was it not? Before I could say anything to soothe her, she held out one of her hands, and I saw my brooch in it. I was so pleased and so grateful, that I went quite close to her to say what I really felt. ‘Are you thankful enough to do me one little kindness?’ she asked. ‘Yes, indeed,’ I answered; ‘any kindness in my power I shall be glad to show you.’ ‘Then let me pin your brooch on for you, now I have found it.’ Her request was so unexpected, Marian, and she made it with such extraordinary eagerness, that I drew back a step or two, not well knowing what to do. ‘Ah!’ she said, ‘your mother would have let me pin on the brooch.’ There was something in her voice and her look, as well as in her mentioning my mother in that reproachful manner, which made me ashamed of my distrust. I took her hand with the brooch in it, and put it up gently on the bosom of my dress. ‘You knew my mother?’ I said. ‘Was it very long ago? have I ever seen you before?’ Her hands were busy fastening the brooch: she stopped and pressed them against my breast. ‘You don’t remember a fine spring day at Limmeridge,’
she said, ‘and your mother walking down the path that led to the school, with a little girl on each side of her? I have had nothing else to think of since; and I remember it. You were one of the little girls, and I was the other. Pretty, clever Miss Fairlie, and poor dazed Anne Catherick were nearer to each other, then, than they are now!’——”

  “Did you remember her, Laura, when she told you her name?”

  “Yes—I remembered your asking me about Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, and your saying that she had once been considered like me.”

  “What reminded you of that, Laura?”

  “She reminded me. While I was looking at her, while she was very close to me, it came over my mind suddenly that we were like each other! Her face was pale and thin and weary—but the sight of it startled me, as if it had been the sight of my own face in the glass after a long illness. The discovery—I don’t know why—gave me such a shock, that I was perfectly incapable of speaking to her, for the moment.”

  “Did she seem hurt by your silence?”

  “I am afraid she was hurt by it. ‘You have not got your mother’s face,’ she said, ‘or your mother’s heart. Your mother’s face was dark; and your mother’s heart, Miss Fairlie, was the heart of an angel.’ ‘I am sure I feel kindly towards you,’ I said, ‘though I may not be able to express it as I ought. Why do you call me Miss Fairlie——?’ ‘Because I love the name of Fairlie and hate the name of Glyde,’ she broke out, violently. I had seen nothing like madness in her before this; but I fancied I saw it now in her eyes. ‘I only thought you might not know I was married,’ I said, remembering the wild letter she wrote to me at Limmeridge, and trying to quiet her. She sighed bitterly, and turned away from me. ‘Not know you were married!’ she repeated. ‘I am here because you are married. I am here to make atonement to you, before I meet your mother in the world beyond the grave.’ She drew farther and farther away from me, till she was out of the boat-house—and, then, she watched and listened for a little while. When she turned round to speak again, instead of coming back, she stopped where she was, looking in at me, with a hand on each side of the entrance. ‘Did you see me at the lake last night?’ she said. ‘Did you hear me following you in the wood? I have been waiting for days together to speak to you alone—I have left the only friend I have in the world, anxious and frightened about me—I have risked being shut up again in the madhouse—and all for your sake, Miss Fairlie, all for your sake.’ Her words alarmed me, Marian; and yet, there was something in the way she spoke, that made me pity her with all my heart. I am sure my pity must have been sincere, for it made me bold enough to ask the poor creature to come in, and sit down in the boat-house, by my side.”

  “Did she do so?”

  “No. She shook her head, and told me she must stop where she was, to watch and listen, and see that no third person surprised us. And from first to last, there she waited at the entrance, with a hand on each side of it; sometimes bending in suddenly to speak to me; sometimes drawing back suddenly to look about her. ‘I was here yesterday,’ she said, ‘before it came dark; and I heard you, and the lady with you, talking together. I heard you tell her about your husband. I heard you say you had no influence to make him believe you, and no influence to keep him silent. Ah! I knew what those words meant; my conscience told me while I was listening. Why did I ever let you marry him!

  Oh, my fear—my mad, miserable, wicked fear!——’ She covered up her face in her poor worn shawl, and moaned and murmured to herself behind it. I began to be afraid she might break out into some terrible despair which neither she nor I could master. ‘Try to quiet yourself,’ I said; ‘try to tell me how you might have prevented my marriage.’ She took the shawl from her face, and looked at me vacantly. ‘I ought to have had heart enough to stop at Limmeridge,’ she answered. ‘I ought never to have let the news of his coming there frighten me away. I ought to have warned you and saved you before it was too late. Why did I only have courage enough to write you that letter? Why did I only do harm, when I wanted and meant to do good? Oh, my fear—my mad, miserable, wicked fear!’ She repeated those words again, and hid her face again in the end of her poor worn shawl. It was dreadful to see her, and dreadful to hear her.”

  “Surely, Laura, you asked what the fear was which she dwelt on so earnestly?”

  “Yes; I asked that.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She asked me, in return, if I should not be afraid of a man who had shut me up in a madhouse, and who would shut me up again, if he could? I said, ‘Are you afraid still? Surely you would not be here, if you were afraid now?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I am not afraid now.’ I asked why not. She suddenly bent forward into the boat-house, and said, ‘Can’t you guess why?’ I shook my head. ‘Look at me,’ she went on. I told her I was grieved to see that she looked very sorrowful and very ill. She smiled, for the first time. ‘Ill?’ she repeated; ‘I’m dying. You know why I’m not afraid of him now. Do you think I shall meet your mother in heaven? Will she forgive me, if I do?’ I was so shocked and so startled, that I could make no reply. ‘I have been thinking of it,’ she went on, ‘all the time I have been in hiding from your husband, all the time I lay ill. My thoughts have driven me here—I want to make atonement—I want to undo all I can of the harm I once did.’ I begged her as earnestly as I could to tell me what she meant. She still looked at me with fixed, vacant eyes. ‘Shall I undo the harm?’ she said to herself, doubtfully. ‘You have friends to take your part. If you know his wicked secret, he will be afraid of you; he won’t dare use you as he used me. He must treat you mercifully for his own sake, if he is afraid of you and your friends. And if he treats you mercifully, and if I can say it was my doing——’ I listened eagerly for more; but she stopped at those words.”

  “You tried to make her go on?”

  “I tried; but she only drew herself away from me again, and leaned her face and arms against the side of the boat-house. ‘Oh!’ I heard her say, with a dreadful, distracted tenderness in her voice, ‘oh! if I could only be buried with your mother! If I could only wake at her side, when the angel’s trumpet sounds, and the graves give up their dead at the resurrection!’—Marian! I trembled from head to foot—it was horrible to hear her. ‘But there is no hope of that,’ she said, moving a little, so as to look at me again; ‘no hope for a poor stranger like me. I shall not rest under the marble cross that I washed with my own hands, and made so white and pure for her sake. Oh no! oh no! God’s mercy, not man’s, will take me to her, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.’ She spoke those words quietly and sorrowfully, with a heavy, hopeless sigh; and then waited a little. Her face was confused and troubled; she seemed to be thinking, or trying to think. ‘What was it I said just now?’ she asked, after a while. ‘When your mother is in my mind, everything else goes out of it. What was I saying? what was I saying?’ I reminded the poor creature, as kindly and delicately as I could. ‘Ah, yes, yes,’ she said, still in a vacant, perplexed manner. ‘You are helpless with your wicked husband. Yes. And I must do what I have come to do here—I must make it up to you for having been afraid to speak out at a better time.’ ‘What is it you have to tell me?’ I asked. ‘A Secret,’ she answered. ‘The Secret that your cruel husband is afraid of.’ Her face darkened; and a hard, angry stare fixed herself in her eyes. She began waving her hand at me in a strange, unmeaning manner. ‘My mother knows the Secret,’ she said, speaking slowly for the first time; weighing every word as she uttered it. ‘My mother has wasted and worn away under the Secret half her lifetime. One day, when I was grown up, she told it to me. And your husband knew she told it. Knew, to my cost. Ah, poor me! knew, knew, knew she told it.’ ”

  “Yes! yes! What did she say next?”

  “She stopped again, Marian, at that point——”

  “And said no more?”

  “And listened eagerly. ‘Hush!’ she whispered, still waving her hand at me. ‘Hush!’ She moved aside out of the doorway, moved slowly an
d stealthily, step by step, till I lost her past the edge of the boat-house.”

  “Surely, you followed her?”

  “Yes; my anxiety made me bold enough to rise and follow her. Just as I reached the entrance, she appeared again, suddenly, round the side of the boat-house. ‘The secret,’ I whispered to her—’wait and tell me the secret!’ She caught hold of my arm, and looked at me, with wild, frightened eyes. ‘Not now,’ she said; ‘we are not alone—we are watched. Come here to-morrow, at this time—by yourself—mind—by yourself.’ She pushed me roughly into the boat-house again; and I saw her no more.”

  “Oh, Laura, Laura, another chance lost! If I had only been near you, she should not have escaped us. On which side did you lose sight of her?”

  “On the left side, where the ground sinks and the wood is thickest.”

  “Did you run out again? did you call after her?”

  “How could I? I was too terrified to move or speak.”

  “But when you did move—when you came out——?”

  “I ran back here, to tell you what had happened.”

  “Did you see any one, or hear any one in the plantation?”

  “No—it seemed to be all still and quiet, when I passed through it.”

  I waited for a moment, to consider. Was this third person, supposed to have been secretly present at the interview, a reality, or the creature of Anne Catherick’s excited fancy? It was impossible to determine. The one thing certain was, that we had failed again on the very brink of discovery—failed utterly and irretrievably, unless Anne Catherick kept her appointment at the boat-house, for the next day.

  “Are you quite sure you have told me everything that passed. Every word that was said?” I inquired.

  “I think so,” she answered. “My powers of memory, Marian, are not like yours. But I was so strongly impressed, so deeply interested, that nothing of any importance can possibly have escaped me.”