CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE
Thus far, the information which I had received from Mrs. Clements—though it established facts of which I had not previously been aware—was of a preliminary character only. It was clear that the series of deceptions which had removed Anne Catherick to London and separated her from Mrs. Clements, had been accomplished solely by Count Fosco and the Countess; and the question whether any part of the conduct of husband or wife had been of a kind to place either of them within reach of the law, might be well worthy of future consideration. But the purpose I had now in view led me in another direction than this. The immediate object of my visit to Mrs. Clements was to make some approach at least to the discovery of Sir Percival’s secret; and she had said nothing, as yet, which advanced me on my way to that important end. I felt the necessity of trying to awaken her recollections of other times, persons, and events, than those on which her memory had hitherto been employed; and, when I next spoke, I spoke with that object indirectly in view.
“I wish I could be of any help to you in this sad calamity,” I said. “All I can do is to feel heartily for your distress. If Anne had been your own child, Mrs. Clements, you could have shown her no truer kindness—you could have made no readier sacrifices for her sake.”
“There’s no great merit in that, sir,” said Mrs. Clements, simply. “The poor thing was as good as my own child to me. I nursed her from a baby, sir; bringing her up by hand—and a hard job it was to rear her. It wouldn’t go to my heart so to lose her, if I hadn’t made her first short-clothes, and taught her to walk. I always said she was sent to console me for never having chick or child of my own. And now she’s lost, the old times keep coming back to my mind; and, even at my age, I can’t help crying about her—I can’t indeed, sir!”
I waited a little to give Mrs. Clements time to compose herself. Was the light that I had been looking for so long, now glimmering on me—far off, as yet—in the good woman’s recollections of Anne’s early life?
“Did you know Mrs. Catherick before Anne was born?” I asked.
“Not very long, sir—not above four months. We saw a great deal of each other in that time, but we were never very friendly together.”
Her voice was steadier as she made that reply. Painful as many of her recollections might be, I observed that it was, unconsciously, a relief to her mind to revert to the dimly-seen troubles of the past, after dwelling so long on the vivid sorrows of the present.
“Were you and Mrs. Catherick neighbours?” I inquired, leading her memory on, as encouragingly as I could.
“Yes, sir—neighbours at Old Welmingham.”
“Old Welmingham? There are two places of that name, then, in Hampshire?”
“Well, sir, there used to be in those days—better than three-and-twenty years ago. They built a new town about two miles off, convenient to the river—and Old Welmingham, which was never much more than a village, got in time to be deserted. The new town is the place they call Welmingham, now—but the old parish church is the parish church still. It stands by itself, with the houses pulled down, or gone to ruin, all round it. I’ve lived to see sad changes. It was a pleasant, pretty place in my time.” “Did you live there before your marriage, Mrs. Clements?” “No, sir—I’m a Norfolk woman. It wasn’t the place my husband belonged to, either. He was from Grimsby, as I told you; and he served his apprenticeship there. But having friends down south, and hearing of an opening, he got into business at Southampton. It was in a small way, but he made enough for a plain man to retire on, and settled at Old Welmingham. I went there with him, when he married me. We were neither of us young; but we lived very happy together—happier than our neighbour, Mr. Catherick, lived along with his wife, when they came to Old Welmingham, a year or two afterwards.”
“Was your husband acquainted with them before that?”
“With Catherick, sir—not with his wife. She was a stranger to both of us. Some gentlemen had made interest for Catherick; and he got the situation of clerk at Welmingham church, which was the reason of his coming to settle in our neighbourhood. He brought his newly-married wife along with him; and we heard, in course of time, she had been lady’s maid in a great family that lived at Varneck Hall, near Southampton. Catherick had found it a hard matter to get her to marry him—in consequence of her holding herself uncommonly high. He had asked and asked, and given the thing up at last, seeing she was so contrary about it. When he had given it up, she turned contrary, just the other way, and came to him of her own accord, without rhyme or reason seemingly. My poor husband always said that was the time to have given her a lesson. But Catherick was too fond of her to do anything of the sort; he never checked her, either before they were married or after. He was a quick man in his feelings, letting them carry him a deal too far, now in one way, and now in another; and he would have spoilt a better wife than Mrs. Catherick, if a better had married him. I don’t like to speak ill of any one, sir—but she was a heartless woman, with a terrible will of her own; fond of foolish admiration and fine clothes, and not caring to show so much as decent outward respect to Catherick, kindly as he always treated her. My husband said he thought things would turn out badly, when they first came to live near us; and his words proved true. Before they had been quite four months in our neighbourhood, there was a dreadful scandal and a miserable break-up in their household. Both of them were in fault—I am afraid both of them were equally in fault.”
“You mean both husband and wife?”
“Oh, no, sir! I don’t mean Catherick—he was only to be pitied. I meant his wife, and the person——”
“And the person who caused the scandal?”
“Yes, sir. A gentleman born and brought up, who ought to have set a better example. You know him, sir—and my poor, dear Anne knew him, only too well.”
“Sir Percival Glyde?”
“Yes. Sir Percival Glyde.”
My heart beat fast—I thought I had my hand on the clue. How little I knew, then, of the windings of the labyrinth which were still to mislead me!
“Did Sir Percival live in your neighbourhood at that time?” I asked.
“No, sir. He came among us as a stranger. His father had died, not long before, in foreign parts. I remember he was in mourning. He put up at the little inn on the river (they have pulled it down since that time), where gentlemen used to go to fish. He wasn’t much noticed when he first came—it was a common thing enough for gentlemen to travel, from all parts of England, to fish in our river.”
“Did he make his appearance in the village before Anne was born?”
“Yes, sir. Anne was born in the June month of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven—and I think he came at the end of April, or the beginning of May.”
“Came as a stranger to all of you? A stranger to Mrs. Catherick, as well as to the rest of the neighbours?”
“So we thought at first, sir. But when the scandal broke out, nobody believed they were strangers. I remember how it happened, as well as if it was yesterday. Catherick came into our garden one night, and woke us with throwing up a handful of gravel from the walk, at our window. I heard him beg my husband, for the Lord’s sake, to come down and speak to him. They were a long time together talking in the porch. When my husband came back up-stairs, he was all of a tremble. He sat down on the side of the bed, and he says to me, ‘Lizzie! I always told you that woman was a bad one; I always said she would end ill—and I’m afraid, in my own mind, that the end has come already. Catherick has found a lot of lace handkerchiefs, and two fine rings, and a new gold watch and chain, hid away in his wife’s drawer—things that nobody but a born lady ought ever to have—and his wife won’t say how she came by them.’ ‘Does he think she stole them?’ says I. ‘No,’ says he, ‘stealing would be bad enough. But it’s worse than that—she’s had no chance of stealing such things as those, and she’s not a woman to take them, if she had. They’re gifts, Lizzie—there’s her own initials engrav
ed inside the watch—and Catherick has seen her, talking privately, and carrying on as no married woman should with that gentleman in mourning—Sir Percival Glyde. Don’t you say anything about it—I’ve quieted Catherick for to-night. I’ve told him to keep his tongue to himself, and his eyes and his ears open, and to wait a day or two, till he can be quite certain.’ ‘I believe you are both of you wrong,’ says I. ‘It’s not in nature, comfortable and respectable as she is here, that Mrs. Catherick should take up with a chance stranger like Sir Percival Glyde.’ ‘Ay, but is he a stranger to her?’ says my husband. ‘You forget how Catherick’s wife came to marry him. She went to him of her own accord, after saying No, over and over again, when he asked her. There have been wicked women, before her time, Lizzie, who have used honest men who loved them as a means of saving their characters—and I’m sorely afraid this Mrs. Catherick is as wicked as the worst of them. We shall see,’ says my husband, ‘we shall soon see.’ And only two days afterwards, we did see.”
Mrs. Clements waited for a moment, before she went on. Even in that moment, I began to doubt whether the clue that I thought I had found was really leading me to the central mystery of the labyrinth, after all. Was this common, too common, story of a man’s treachery and a woman’s frailty the key to a secret which had been the life-long terror of Sir Percival Glyde?
“Well, sir, Catherick took my husband’s advice, and waited,” Mrs. Clements continued. “And, as I told you, he hadn’t long to wait. On the second day, he found his wife and Sir Percival whispering together, quite familiar, close under the vestry of the church. I suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last place in the world where anybody would think of looking after them—but, however that may be, there they were. Sir Percival, being seemingly surprised and confounded, defended himself in such a guilty way, that poor Catherick (whose quick temper I have told you of already) fell into a kind of frenzy at his own disgrace, and struck Sir Percival. He was no match (and I am sorry to say it) for the man who had wronged him—and he was beaten in the cruelest manner, before the neighbours, who had come to the place on hearing the disturbance, could run in to part them. All this happened towards evening; and, before nightfall, when my husband went to Catherick’s house, he was gone, nobody knew where. No living soul in the village ever saw him again. He knew too well, by that time, what his wife’s vile reason had been for marrying him; and he felt his misery and disgrace—especially after what had happened to him with Sir Percival—too keenly. The clergyman of the parish put an advertisement in the paper, begging him to come back, and saying that he should not lose his situation or his friends. But Catherick had too much pride and spirit, as some people said—too much feeling, as I think, sir—to face his neighbours again, and try to live down the memory of his disgrace. My husband heard from him, when he had left England; and heard a second time, when he was settled, and doing well, in America. He is alive there now, as far as I know; but none of us in the old country—his wicked wife least of all—are ever likely to set eyes on him again.”
“What became of Sir Percival?” I inquired. “Did he stay in the neighbourhood?”
“Not he, sir. The place was too hot to hold him. He was heard at high words with Mrs. Catherick, the same night when the scandal broke out—and the next morning he took himself off.”
“And Mrs. Catherick? Surely she never remained in the village, among the people who knew of her disgrace?”
“She did, sir. She was hard enough and heartless enough to set the opinions of all her neighbours at flat defiance. She declared to everybody, from the clergyman downwards, that she was the victim of a dreadful mistake, and that all the scandal-mongers in the place should not drive her out of it as if she was a guilty woman. All through my time, she lived at Old Welmingham; and, after my time, when the new town was building, and the respectable neighbours began moving to it, she moved too, as if she was determined to live among them and scandalise them to the very last. There she is now, and there she will stop, in defiance of the best of them, to her dying day.”
“But how has she lived, through all these years?” I asked. “Was her husband able and willing to help her?”
“Both able and willing, sir,” said Mrs. Clements. “In the second letter he wrote to my good man, he said she had borne his name, and lived in his home, and, wicked as she was, she must not starve like a beggar in the street. He could afford to make her some small allowance, and she might draw for it quarterly, at a place in London.”
“Did she accept the allowance?”
“Not a farthing of it, sir. She said she would never be beholden to Catherick for bit or drop, if she lived to be a hundred. And she has kept her word ever since. When my poor dear husband died, and left all to me, Catherick’s letter was put in my possession with the other things—and I told her to let me know if she was ever in want. ‘I’ll let all England know I’m in want,’ she said, ‘before I tell Catherick, or any friend of Catherick’s. Take that for your answer—and give it to him for an answer, if he ever writes again.’ ”
“Do you suppose that she had money of her own?”
“Very little, if any, sir. It was said, and said truly, I am afraid, that her means of living came privately from Sir Percival Glyde.”
After that last reply, I waited a little, to reconsider what I had heard. If I unreservedly accepted the story so far, it was now plain that no approach, direct or indirect, to the Secret had yet been revealed to me, and that the pursuit of my object had ended again in leaving me face to face with the most palpable and the most disheartening failure.
But there was one point in the narrative which made me doubt the propriety of accepting it unreservedly, and which suggested the idea of something hidden below the surface.
I could not account to myself for the circumstance of the clerk’s guilty wife voluntarily living out all her after-existence on the scene of her disgrace. The woman’s own reported statement that she had taken this strange course as a practical assertion of her innocence, did not satisfy me. It seemed, to my mind, more natural and more probable to assume that she was not so completely a free agent in this matter as she had herself asserted. In that case, who was the likeliest person to possess the power of compelling her to remain at Welmingham? The person unquestionably from whom she derived the means of living. She had refused assistance from her husband, she had no adequate resources of her own, she was a friendless, disgraced woman: from what source should she derive help but from the source at which report pointed—Sir Percival Glyde?
Reasoning on these assumptions, and always bearing in mind the one certain fact to guide me, that Mrs. Catherick was in possession of the Secret, I easily understood that it was Sir Percival’s interest to keep her at Welmingham, because her character in that place was certain to isolate her from all communication with female neighbours, and to allow her no opportunities of talking incautiously, in moments of free intercourse with inquisitive bosom friends. But what was the mystery to be concealed? Not Sir Percival’s infamous connexion with Mrs. Catherick’s disgrace—for the neighbours were the very people who knew of it. Not the suspicion that he was Anne’s father—for Welmingham was the place in which that suspicion must inevitably exist. If I accepted the guilty appearances described to me, as unreservedly as others had accepted them; if I drew from them the same superficial conclusion which Mr. Catherick and all his neighbours had drawn—where was the suggestion, in all that I had heard, of a dangerous secret between Sir Percival and Mrs. Catherick, which had been kept hidden from that time to this?
And yet, in those stolen meetings, in those familiar whisperings between the clerk’s wife and “the gentleman in mourning,” the clue to discovery existed beyond a doubt.
Was it possible that appearances, in this case, had pointed one way, while the truth lay, all the while, unsuspected, in another direction? Could Mrs. Catherick’s assertion that she was the victim of a dreadful mistake, by any possibility be true? Or, assuming it to be false,
could the conclusion which associated Sir Percival with her guilt have been founded in some inconceivable error? Had Sir Percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that was wrong, for the sake of diverting from himself some other suspicion that might be right? Here, if I could find it—here was the approach to the Secret, hidden deep under the surface of the apparently unpromising story which I had just heard.
My next questions were now directed to the one object of ascertaining whether Mr. Catherick had, or had not, arrived truly at the conviction of his wife’s misconduct. The answers I received from Mrs. Clements, left me in no doubt whatever on that point. Mrs. Catherick had, on the clearest evidence, compromised her reputation, while a single woman, with some person unknown; and had married to save her character. It had been positively ascertained, by calculations of time and place into which I need not enter particularly, that the daughter who bore her husband’s name was not her husband’s child.
The next object of inquiry, whether it was equally certain that Sir Percival must have been the father of Anne, was beset by far greater difficulties. I was in no position to try the probabilities on one side or on the other, in this instance, by any better test than the test of personal resemblance.
“I suppose you often saw Sir Percival, when he was in your village?” I said.
“Yes, sir—very often,” replied Mrs. Clements.
“Did you ever observe that Anne was like him?”
“She was not at all like him, sir.”
The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White) Page 193