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

by Lynn Shepherd

  The servant, who had followed me, staggered back shuddering, and dropped to his knees. “Oh, my God!” he said; “it’s Sir Percival!”

  As the words passed his lips, the clerk joined us—and, at the same moment, there was a last grating turn of the key in the lock.

  “The Lord have mercy on his soul!” said the old man. “He is doomed and dead. He has hampered the lock.”

  I rushed to the door. The one absorbing purpose that had filled all my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions, for weeks and weeks past, vanished in an instant from my mind. All remembrance of the heartless injury the man’s crimes had inflicted; of the love, the innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste; of the oath I had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning that he deserved—passed from my memory like a dream. I remembered nothing but the horror of his situation. I felt nothing but the natural human impulse to save him from a frightful death.

  “Try the other door!” I shouted. “Try the door into the church! The lock’s hampered. You’re a dead man if you waste another moment!”

  There had been no renewed cry for help, when the key was turned for the last time. There was no sound, now, of any kind, to give token that he was still alive. I heard nothing but the quickening crackle of the flames, and the sharp snap of the glass in the skylight above.

  I looked round at my two companions. The servant had risen to his feet: he had taken the lantern, and was holding it up vacantly at the door. Terror seemed to have struck him with downright idiocy—he waited at my heels, he followed me about when I moved, like a dog. The clerk sat crouched up on one of the tombstones, shivering, and moaning to himself. The one moment in which I looked at them was enough to show me that they were both helpless.

  Hardly knowing what I did, acting desperately on the first impulse that occurred to me, I seized the servant and pushed him against the vestry wall. “Stoop!” I said, “and hold by the stones. I am going to climb over you to the roof—I am going to break the skylight, and give him some air!” The man trembled from head to foot, but he held firm. I got on his back, with my cudgel in my mouth; seized the parapet with both hands; and was instantly on the roof. In the frantic hurry and agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I might let out the flame instead of letting in the air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. If the wind had not chanced, in the position I occupied, to set it away from me, my exertions might have ended then and there. I crouched on the roof as the smoke poured out above me, with the flame. The gleams and flashes of the light showed me the servant’s face staring up vacantly under the wall; the clerk risen to his feet on the tombstone, wringing his hands in despair; and the scanty population of the village, haggard men and terrified women, clustered beyond in the churchyard—all appearing and disappearing, in the red of the dreadful glare, in the black of the choking smoke. And the man beneath my feet!—the man, suffocating, burning, dying so near us all, so utterly beyond our reach!

  The thought half maddened me. I lowered myself from the roof, by my hands, and dropped to the ground.

  “The key of the church!” I shouted to the clerk. “We must try it that way—we may save him yet if we can burst open the inner door.”

  “No, no, no!” cried the old man. “No hope! the church key and the vestry key are on the same ring—both inside there! Oh, sir, he’s past saving—he’s dust and ashes by this time!”

  “They’ll see the fire from the town,” said a voice from among the men behind me. “There’s a ingine in the town. They’ll save the church.”

  I called to that man—he had his wits about him—I called to him to come and speak to me. It would be a quarter of an hour at least before the town engine could reach us. The horror of remaining inactive, all that time, was more than I could face. In defiance of my own reason I persuaded myself that the doomed and lost wretch in the vestry might still be lying senseless on the floor, might not be dead yet. If we broke open the door, might we save him? I knew the strength of the heavy lock—I knew the thickness of the nailed oak—I knew the hopelessness of assailing the one and the other by ordinary means. But surely there were beams still left in the dismantled cottages near the church? What if we got one, and used it as a battering-ram against the door?

  The thought leaped through me, like the fire leaping out of the shattered skylight. I appealed to the man who had spoken first of the fire-engine in the town. “Have you got your pickaxes handy?” Yes; they had. And a hatchet, and a saw, and a bit of rope? Yes! yes! yes! I ran down among the villagers, with the lantern in my hand. “Five shillings apiece to every man who helps me!” They started into life at the words. That ravenous second hunger of poverty—the hunger for money—roused them into tumult and activity in a moment. “Two of you for more lanterns if you have them! Two of you for the pickaxes and the tools! The rest after me to find the beam!” They cheered—with shrill starveling voices they cheered. The women and the children fled back on either side. We rushed in a body down the churchyard path to the first empty cottage. Not a man was left behind but the clerk—the poor old clerk standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing over the church. The servant was still at my heels; his white, helpless, panic-stricken face was close over my shoulder as we pushed into the cottage. There were rafters from the torn-down floor above, lying loose on the ground—but they were too light. A beam ran across over our heads, but not out of reach of our arms and our pickaxes—a beam fast at each end in the ruined wall, with ceiling and flooring all ripped away, and a great gap in the roof above, open to the sky. We attacked the beam at both ends at once. God! how it held—how the brick and mortar of the wall resisted us! We struck, and tugged, and tore. The beam gave at one end—it came down with a lump of brickwork after it. There was a scream from the women all huddled in the doorway to look at us—a shout from the men—two of them down, but not hurt. Another tug all together—and the beam was loose at both ends. We raised it, and gave the word to clear the doorway. Now for the work! now for the rush at the door! There is the fire streaming into the sky, streaming brighter than ever to light us! Steady, along the churchyard path—steady with the beam, for a rush at the door. One, two, three—and off. Out rings the cheering again, irrepressibly. We have shaken it already; the hinges must give, if the lock won’t. Another run with the beam! One, two, three—and off. It’s loose! the stealthy fire darts at us through the crevice all round it. Another, and a last rush! The door falls in with a crash. A great hush of awe, a stillness of breathless expectation, possesses every living soul of us. We look for the body. The scorching heat on our faces drives us back: we see nothing—above, below, all through the room, we see nothing but a sheet of living fire.

  “Where is he?” whispered the servant, staring vacantly at the flames.

  “He’s dust and ashes,” said the clerk. “And the books are dust and ashes—and oh, sirs! the church will be dust and ashes soon.”

  When they were silent again, nothing stirred in the stillness but the bubble and the crackle of the flames.

  Hark!

  A harsh rattling sound in the distance—then, the hollow beat of horses’ hoofs at full gallop—then, the low roar, the all-predominant tumult of hundreds of human voices clamouring and shouting together. The engine at last!

  The people about me all turned from the fire, and ran eagerly to the brow of the hill. The old clerk tried to go with the rest; but his strength was exhausted. I saw him holding by one of the tombstones. “Save the church!” he cried out, faintly, as if the firemen could hear him already. “Save the church!”

  The only man who never moved was the servant. There he stood, his eyes still fastened on the flames in a changeless, vacant stare. I spoke to him, I shook him by the arm. He was past rousing. He only whispered once more, “Where is he?”

  In ten minutes, the engine was in position; the well at the back of the church was feeding it; and
the hose was carried to the doorway of the vestry. If help had been wanted from me, I could not have afforded it now. My energy of will was gone—my strength was exhausted—the turmoil of my thoughts was fearfully and suddenly stilled, now I knew that he was dead. I stood useless and helpless—looking, looking, looking into the burning room.

  I saw the fire slowly conquered. The brightness of the glare faded—the steam rose in white clouds, and the smouldering heaps of embers showed red and black through it on the floor. There was a pause—then, an advance altogether of the firemen and the police, which blocked up the doorway—then a consultation in low voices—and then, two men were detached from the rest, and sent out of the churchyard through the crowd. The crowd drew back in dead silence, to let them pass.

  After a while, a great shudder ran through the people; and the living lane widened slowly. The men came back along it, with a door from one of the empty houses. They carried it to the vestry, and went in. The police closed again round the doorway; and men stole out from among the crowd by twos and threes, and stood behind them, to be the first to see. Others waited near, to be the first to hear. Women were among these last—women with children in their arms.

  The tidings from the vestry began to flow out among the crowd—they dropped slowly from mouth to mouth, till they reached the place where I was standing. I heard the questions and answers repeated again and again, in low, eager tones, all round me.

  “Have they found him?” “Yes.”—“Where?” “Against the door. On his face.”—“Which door?” “The door that goes into the church. His head was against it. He was down on his face.”—“Is his face burnt?” “No.” “Yes, it is.” “No: scorched, not burnt. He lay on his face, I tell you.”—“Who was he? A lord, they say.” “No, not a lord. Sir Something; Sir means Knight.” “And Baroknight, too.” “No.” “Yes, it does.”—“What did he want in there?” “No good, you may depend on it.”—“Did he do it on purpose?”—“Burn himself on purpose!”—“I don’t mean himself; I mean the vestry.”—“Is he dreadful to look at?” “Dreadful!”—“Not about the face, though?” “No, no; not so much about the face.”—“Don’t anybody know him?” “There’s a man says he does.”—“Who?” “A servant, they say. But he’s struck stupid-like, and the police don’t believe him.”—“Don’t anybody else know who it is?” “Hush——!”

  The loud, clear voice of a man in authority silenced the low hum of talking all round me, in an instant.

  “Where is the gentleman who tried to save him?” said the voice.

  “Here, sir—here he is!” Dozens of eager faces pressed about me—dozens of eager arms, parted the crowd. The man in authority came up to me with a lantern in his hand.

  “This way, sir, if you please,” he said, quietly.

  I was unable to speak to him; I was unable to resist him, when he took my arm. I tried to say that I had never seen the dead man, in his lifetime—that there was no hope of identifying him by means of a stranger like me. But the words failed on my lips. I was faint and silent and helpless.

  “Do you know him, sir?”

  I was standing inside a circle of men. Three of them, opposite to me, were holding lanterns low down to the ground. Their eyes, and the eyes of all the rest, were fixed silently and expectantly on my face. I knew what was at my feet—I knew why they were holding the lanterns so low to the ground.

  “Can you identify him, sir?”

  My eyes dropped slowly. At first, I saw nothing under them but a coarse canvas cloth. The dripping of the rain on it was audible in the dreadful silence. I looked up, along the cloth; and there at the end, stark and grim and black, in the yellow light—there, was his dead face.

  So, for the first and last time, I saw him. So the Visitation of God ruled it that he and I should meet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART THE SECOND. HARTRIGHT’S NARRATIVE

  X

  The inquest was hurried for certain local reasons which weighed with the coroner and the town authorities. It was held on the afternoon of the next day. I was, necessarily, one among the witnesses.

  My first proceeding, in the morning, was to go to the post-office, and inquire for the letter which I expected from Marian. No change of circumstances, however extraordinary, could affect the one great anxiety which weighed on my mind while I was away from London. The morning’s letter, which was my only assurance that no misfortune had happened, was still the absorbing interest with which my day began.

  To my relief, the letter from Marian was at the office waiting for me. Nothing had happened—they were both as safe and as well as when I had left them. Laura sent her love, and begged that I would let her know of my return, a day beforehand. Her sister added, in explanation of this message, that she had saved “nearly a sovereign” out of her own private purse, and that she had claimed the privilege of ordering the dinner and giving the dinner which was to celebrate the day of my return. I read these little domestic confidences, in the bright morning, with the terrible recollection of what had happened the evening before, vivid in my memory. The necessity of sparing Laura any sudden knowledge of the truth was the first consideration which the letter suggested to me. I wrote at once to Marian, to tell her what I have told in these pages; presenting the tidings as gradually and gently as I could, and warning her not to let any such thing as a newspaper fall in Laura’s way while I was absent. In the case of any other woman, less courageous and less reliable, I might have hesitated before I ventured on unreservedly disclosing the whole truth. But I owed it to Marian to be faithful to my past experience of her, and to trust her as I trusted myself.

  My letter was necessarily long. It occupied me until the time for going to the Inquest.

  The objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily beset by peculiar complications and difficulties. Besides the investigation into the manner in which the deceased had met his death, there were serious questions to be settled relating to the cause of the fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time when the flames broke out. Even the identification of the dead man had not yet been accomplished. The helpless condition of the servant had made the police distrustful of his asserted recognition of his master. They had sent to Knowlesbury over-night to secure the attendance of witnesses who were well acquainted with the person of Sir Percival Glyde, and they had communicated, the first thing in the morning, with Blackwater Park. These precautions enabled the coroner and jury to settle the question of identity, and to confirm the correctness of the servant’s assertion; the evidence offered by competent witnesses, and by the discovery of certain facts, being strengthened by the dead man’s watch. The crest and the name of Sir Percival Glyde were engraved inside it.

  The next inquiries related to the fire.

  The servant and I, and the boy who had heard the light struck in the vestry, were the first witnesses called. The boy gave his evidence clearly enough; but the servant’s mind had not yet recovered the shock inflicted on it—he was plainly incapable of assisting the objects of the inquiry, and he was desired to stand down. To my own relief, my examination was not a long one. I had not known the deceased; I had never seen him; I was not aware of his presence at Old Welmingham; and I had not been in the vestry at the finding of the body. All I could prove was that I had stopped at the clerk’s cottage to ask my way; that I had heard from him of the loss of the keys; that I had accompanied him to the church to render what help I could; that I had seen the fire; that I had heard some person unknown, inside the vestry, trying vainly to unlock the door; and that I had done what I could, from motives of humanity, to save the man. Other witnesses, who had been acquainted with the deceased, were asked if they could explain the mystery of his presumed abstraction of the keys, and his presence in the burning room. But the coroner seemed to take it for granted, naturally enough, that I, as a total stranger in the neighbourhood, and a total stranger to Sir Percival Glyde, could not be in a position to offer any evidence on th
ese two points.

  The course that I was myself bound to take, when my formal examination had closed, seemed clear to me. I did not feel called on to volunteer any statement of my own private convictions; in the first place, because my doing so could serve no practical purpose, now that all proof in support of any surmises of mine was burnt with the burnt register; in the second place, because I could not have intelligibly stated my opinion—my unsupported opinion—without disclosing the whole story of the conspiracy; and producing the same unsatisfactory effect on the minds of the coroner and the jury which I had already produced on the mind of Mr. Kyrle.

  In these pages, however, and after the time that has now elapsed, no such cautions and restraints as are here described, need fetter the free expression of my opinion. I will state, before my pen occupies itself with other events, how my own convictions lead me to account for the abstraction of the keys, for the outbreak of the fire, and for the death of the man.

  The news of my being unexpectedly free on bail, drove Sir Percival, as I believe, to his last resources. The attempted attack on the road was one of those resources; and the suppression of all practical proof of his crime, by destroying the page of the register on which the forgery had been committed, was the other, and the surest of the two. If I could produce no extract from the original book, to compare with the certified copy at Knowlesbury, I could produce no positive evidence, and could threaten him with no fatal exposure. All that was necessary to his end was, that he should get into the vestry unperceived, that he should tear out the page in the register, and that he should leave the vestry again as privately as he had entered it.

  On this supposition, it is easy to understand why he waited until nightfall before he made the attempt, and why he took advantage of the clerk’s absence to possess himself of the keys. Necessity would oblige him to strike a light to find his way to the right register; and common caution would suggest his locking the door on the inside, in case of intrusion on the part of any inquisitive stranger, or on my part, if I happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time.