XIV

Half an hour later, I was back at the house, and was informing Miss Halcombe of all that had happened.

She listened to me from beginning to end, with a steady, silent attention, which, in a woman of her temperament and disposition, was the strongest proof that could be offered of the serious manner in which my narrative affected her.

’My mind misgives me,’ was all she said when I had done. ’My mind misgives me sadly about the future.’

’The future may depend,’ I suggested, ’on the use we make of the present. It is not improbable that Anne Catherick may speak more readily and unreservedly to a woman than she has spoken to me. If Miss Fairlie-’

’Not to be thought of for a moment,’ interposed Miss Halcombe, in her most decided manner.

’Let me suggest, then,’ I continued, ’that you should see Anne Catherick yourself, and do all you can to win her confidence. For my own part, I shrink from the idea of alarming the poor creature a second time, as I have most unhappily alarmed her already. Do you see any objection to accompanying me to the farmhouse to-morrow?’

’None whatever. I will go anywhere and do anything to serve Laura’s interests. What did you say the place was called?’

’You must know it well. It is called Todd’s Corner.’

’Certainly. Todd’s Corner is one of Mr. Fairlie’s farms. Our dairymaid here is the farmer’s second daughter. She goes backwards and forwards constantly, between this house and her father’s farm; and she may have heard or seen something which it may be useful to us to know. Shall I ascertain, at once, if the girl is down stairs?’

She rang the bell, and sent the servant with his message. He returned, and announced that the dairymaid was then at the farm. She had not been there for the last three days; and the housekeeper had given her leave to go home, for an hour or two, that evening.

’I can speak to her to-morrow,’ said Miss Halcombe, when the servant had left the room again. ’In the mean time, let me thoroughly understand the object to be gained by my interview with Anne Catherick. Is there no doubt in your mind that the person who confined her in the Asylum was Sir Percival Glyde?’

’There is not the shadow of a doubt. The only mystery that remains, is the mystery of his motive. Looking to the great difference between his station in life and hers, which seems to preclude an idea of the most distant relationship between them, it is of the last importance- even assuming that she really required to be placed under restraint- to know why he should have been the person to assume the serious responsibility of shutting her up-’

’In a private Asylum, I think you said?’

’Yes, in a private Asylum, where a sum of money which no poor person could afford to give, must have been paid for her maintenance as a patient.’

’I see where the doubt lies, Mr. Hartright; and I promise you that it shall be set at rest, whether Anne Catherick assists us to-morrow or not. Sir Percival Glyde shall not be long in this house without satisfying Mr. Gilmore, and satisfying me. My sister’s future is my dearest care in life; and I have influence enough over her to give me some power, where her marriage is, concerned, in the disposal of it.’

We parted for the night.

After breakfast, the next morning, an obstacle, which the events of the evening before had put out of my memory, interposed to prevent our proceeding immediately to the farm. This was my last day at Limmeridge House; and it was necessary, as soon as the post came in, to follow Miss Halcombe’s advice, and to ask Mr. Fairlie’s permission to shorten my engagement by a month, in consideration of an unforeseen necessity for my return to London.

Fortunately for the probability of this excuse, so far as appearances were concerned, the post brought me two letters from London friends, that morning. I took them away at once to my own room; and sent the servant with a message to Mr. Fairlie, requesting to know when I could see him on a matter of business.

I awaited the man’s return, free from the slightest feeling of anxiety about the manner in which his master might receive my application. With Mr. Fairlie’s leave or without it, I must go. The consciousness- of having now taken the first step on the dreary journey which was henceforth to separate my life from Miss Fairlie’s seemed to have blunted my sensibility to every consideration connected with myself. I had done with my poor man’s touchy pride; I had done with all my little artist vanities. No insolence of Mr. Fairlie’s, if he chose to be insolent, could wound me now.

The servant returned with a message for which I was not unprepared. Mr. Fairlie regretted that the state of his health, on that particular morning, was such as to preclude all hope of his having the pleasure of receiving me. He begged, therefore, that I would accept his apologies, and kindly communicate what I had to say, in the form of a letter. Similar messages to this had reached me, at various intervals, during my three months’ residence in the house. Throughout the whole of that period, Mr. Fairlie had been rejoiced to ’possess’ me, but had never been well enough to see me for a second time. The servant took every fresh batch of drawings that I mounted and restored, back to his master, with my ’respects;’ and returned empty-handed with Mr. Fairlie’s ’kind compliments,’ ’best thanks,’ and ’sincere regrets’ that the state of his health still obliged him to remain a solitary prisoner in his own room. A more satisfactory arrangement to both sides could not possibly have been adopted. It would be hard to say which of us, under the circumstances, felt the most grateful sense of obligation to Mr. Fairlie’s accommodating nerves.

I sat down at once to write the letter, expressing myself in it as civilly, as clearly, and as briefly as possible. Mr. Fairlie did not hurry his reply. Nearly an hour elapsed before the answer was placed in my hands. It was written with beautiful regularity and neatness of character, in violet-coloured ink, on notepaper as smooth as ivory and almost as thick as cardboard; and it addressed me in these terms ’Mr. Fairlie’s compliments to Mr. Hartright. Mr. Fairlie is more surprised and disappointed than he can say (in the present state of his health) by Mr. Hartright’s application. Mr. Fairlie is not a man of business, but he has consulted his steward, who is, and that person confirms Mr. Fairlie’s opinion that Mr. Hartright’s request to be allowed to break his engagement cannot be justified by any necessity whatever, excepting perhaps a case of life and death. If the highly-appreciative feeling towards Art and its professors, which it is the consolation and happiness of Mr. Fairlie’s suffering existence to cultivate, could be easily shaken, Mr. Hartright’s present proceeding would have shaken it. It has not done so- except in the instance of Mr. Hartright himself.

’Having stated his opinion- so far, that is to say, as acute nervous suffering will allow him to state anything- Mr. Fairlie has nothing to add but the expression of his decision, in reference to the highly irregular application that has been made to him. Perfect repose of body and mind being to the last degree important in his case, Mr. Fairlie will not suffer Mr. Hartright to disturb that repose by remaining in the house under circumstances of an essentially irritating nature to both sides. Accordingly, Mr. Fairlie waives his right of refusal, purely with a view to the preservation of his own tranquillity- and informs Mr. Hartright that he may go.’

I folded the letter up, and put it away with my other papers. The time had been when I should have resented it as an insult; I accepted it, now, as a written release from my engagement. It was off my mind, it was almost out of my memory, when I went down stairs to the breakfast-room, and informed Miss Halcombe that I was ready to walk with her to the farm.

’Has Mr. Fairlie given you a satisfactory answer?’ she asked, as we left the house.

’He has allowed me to go, Miss Halcombe.’ She looked up at me quickly; and then, for the first time since I had known her, took my arm of her own accord. No words could have expressed so delicately that she understood how the permission to leave my employment had been granted, and that she gave me her sympathy, not as my superior, but as my friend. I had not felt the man’s insolent letter; but I felt deeply the woman’s atoning kindness.

On our way to the farm we arranged that Miss Halcombe was to enter the house alone, and that I was to wait outside, within call. We adopted this mode of proceeding from an apprehension that my presence, after what had happened in the churchyard the evening before, might have the effect of renewing Anne Catherick’s nervous dread, and of rendering her additionally distrustful of the advances of a lady who was a stranger to her. Miss Halcombe left me, with the intention of speaking, in the first instance, to the farmer’s wife (of whose friendly readiness to help her in any way she was well assured), while I waited for her in the near neighbourhood of the house.

I had fully expected to be left alone, for some time. To my surprise, however, little more than five minutes had elapsed, before Miss Halcombe returned.

’Does Anne Catherick refuse to see you?’ I asked in astonishment.

’Anne Catherick is gone,’ replied Miss Halcombe.

’Gone!’

’Gone, with Mrs. Clements. They both left the farm at eight o’clock this morning.’

I could say nothing- I could only feel that our last chance of discovery had gone with them.

’All that Mrs. Todd knows about her guests, I know,’ Miss Halcombe went on; ’and it leaves me, as it leaves her, in the dark. They both came back safe, last night, after they left you, and they passed the first part of the evening with Mr. Todd’s family, as usual. just before supper-time, however, Anne Catherick startled them all by being suddenly seized with faintness. She had had a similar attack, of a less alarming kind, on the day she arrived at the farm; and Mrs. Todd had connected it, on that occasion, with something she was reading at the time in our local newspaper, which lay on the farm table, and which she had taken up only a minute or two before.

’Does Mrs. Todd know what particular passage in the newspaper affected her in that way?’ I inquired.

’No,’ replied Miss Halcombe. ’She had looked it over, and had seen nothing in it to agitate any one. I asked leave, however, to look it over in my turn; and at the very first page I opened I found that the editor had enriched his small stock of news by drawing upon our family affairs, and had published my sister’s marriage engagement, among his other announcements, copied from the London papers, of Marriages in High Life. I concluded at once that this was the paragraph which had so strangely affected Anne Catherick; and I thought I saw in it, also, the origin of the letter which she sent to our house the next day.’

’There can be no doubt in either case. But what did you hear about her second attack of faintness yesterday evening?’

’Nothing. The cause of it is a complete mystery. There was no stranger in the room. The only visitor was our dairymaid, who, as I told you, is one of Mr. Todd’s daughters; and the only conversation was the usual gossip about local affairs. They heard her cry out, and saw her turn deadly pale, without the slightest apparent reason. Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Clements took her up-stairs; and Mrs. Clements remained with her. They were heard talking together until long after the usual bedtime; and, early this morning, Mrs. Clements took Mrs. Todd aside, and amazed her beyond all power of expression, by saying that they must go. The only explanation Mrs. Todd could extract from her guest was, that something had happened, which was not the fault of any one at the farm-house, but which was serious enough to make Anne Catherick resolve to leave Limmeridge immediately. It was quite useless to press Mrs. Clements to be more explicit. She only shook her head, and said that, for Anne’s sake, she must beg and pray that no one would question her. All she could repeat, with every appearance of being seriously agitated herself, was that Anne must go, that she must go with her, and that the destination to which they might both betake themselves must be kept a secret from everybody. I spare you the recital of Mrs. Todd’s hospitable remonstrances and refusals. It ended in her driving them both to the nearest station, more than three hours since. She tried hard, on the way, to get them to speak more plainly; but without success. And she set them down outside the station-door, so hurt and offended by the unceremonious abruptness of their departure and their unfriendly reluctance to place the least confidence in her, that she drove away in anger, without so much as stopping to bid them good-by. That is exactly what has taken place. Search your own memory, Mr. Hartright, and tell me if anything happened in the burial-ground yesterday evening which can at all account for the extraordinary departure of those two women this morning.’

’I should like to account first, Miss Halcombe, for the sudden change in Anne Catherick which alarmed them at the farm-house, hours after she and I had parted, and when time enough had elapsed to quiet any violent agitation that I might have been unfortunate enough to cause. Did you inquire particularly about the gossip which was going on in the room when she turned faint?’

’Yes. But Mrs. Todd’s household affairs seem to have divided her attention, that evening, with the talk in the farm-house parlour. She could only tell me that it was "just the news"- meaning, I suppose, that they all talked as usual about each other.’

’The dairymaid’s memory may be better than her mother’s,’ I said. ’It may be as well for you to speak to the girl, Miss Halcombe, as soon as we get back.’

My suggestion was acted on the moment we returned to the house. Miss Halcombe led me round to the servant’s offices, and we found the girl in the dairy, with her sleeves tucked up to her shoulders, cleaning a large milk-pan, and singing blithely over her work.

’I have brought this gentleman to see your dairy, Hannah,’ said Miss Halcombe. ’It is one of the sights of the house, and it always does you credit.’

The girl blushed and curtseyed, and said, shyly, that she hoped she always did her best to keep things neat and clean.

’We have just come from your father’s,’ Miss Halcombe continued. ’You were there yesterday evening, I hear; and you found visitors at the house?’

’Yes, miss.’

’One of them was taken faint and ill, I am told? I suppose nothing was said or done to frighten her? You were not talking of anything very terrible, were you?’

’Oh, no, miss!’ said the girl, laughing. ’We were only talking of the news.’

’Your sisters told you the news at Todd’s Corner, I suppose?’

’Yes, miss.’

’And you told them the news at Limmeridge House?’

’Yes, miss. And I’m quite sure nothing was said to frighten the poor thing, for I was talking when she was taken ill. It gave me quite a turn, miss, to see it, never having been taken faint myself.’

Before any more questions could be put to her, she was called away to receive a basket of eggs at the dairy door. As she left us, I whispered to Miss Halcombe:

’Ask her if she happened to mention, last night, that visitors were expected at Limmeridge House.’

Miss Halcombe showed me, by a look, that she understood, and put the question as soon as the dairymaid returned to us.

’Oh, yes, miss; I mentioned that,’ said the girl simply. ’The company coming, and the accident to the brindled cow, was all the news I had to take to the farm.’

’Did you mention names? Did you tell them that Sir Percival Glyde was expected on Monday?’

’Yes, miss- I told them Sir Percival Glyde was coming. I hope there was no harm in it; I hope I didn’t do wrong.’

’Oh no, no harm. Come, Mr. Hartright; Hannah will begin to think us in the way, if we interrupt her any longer over her work.’

We stopped and looked at one another, the moment we were alone again.

’Is there any doubt in your mind, now, Miss Halcombe?’

’Sir Percival Glyde shall remove that doubt, Mr. Hartright- or, Laura Fairlie shall never be his wife.’