The Story Continued by Mrs. Catherick

Sir, – You have not come back, as you said you would. No matter – I know the news, and I write to tell you so. Thank you, sir, I owe something to the man who has done this.

How can I pay my debt? If I was a young woman still I might say, “Come, put your arm round my waist, and kiss me, if you like.” But I am an old woman now. Well! I can satisfy your curiosity, and pay my debt in that way.

You wanted to know who my daughter’s father was but you couldn’t guess the truth. During the summer of 1826, I was a maid in service at a large house belonging to a gentleman. He had a very good friend who came to stay with him. That friend had a house in the north of England, near a village called Limmeridge.

In those days I was a pretty girl, and I soon caught his eye. He was one of the most handsome and best men in England. We had a relationship, and after he left I found I was going to have a child.

Soon I married a local man. When my baby was born – a little girl – everyone, including my husband, thought that the child was his and nobody asked any questions about it. Unfortunately, she was very weak in the head. I never told my friend about his daughter because I knew he was already married.

You were a little boy, I suppose, in the year twenty-seven? I was a handsome young woman at that time, living at Old Welmingham. I had a fool for a husband. I had a job cleaning the church there. I had also the honour of being acquainted with a certain gentleman (never mind whom). I shall not call him by his name. Why should I? It was not his own. He never had a name.

He admired me, and he made me presents. No woman can resist admiration and presents. Naturally he wanted something in return – all men do. And what do you think was the something? The merest trifle. Nothing but the key of the vestry, and the key of the press inside it. Of course he lied when I asked him why he wished me to get him the keys in that private way. But I liked my presents, and I wanted more. So I got him the keys, and I watched him, without his own knowledge. Once, twice, four times I watched him, and the fourth time I found him out. I knew he had added something to the marriages in the register on his own account.

He had only recently come back to England. He had been born and brought up abroad, but his parents had both died suddenly, and he had returned. His father and mother had always lived as man and wife – nobody could imagine that they had not been married. His father could not marry his mother because she was married already! She used to be a wife of a cruel man who left her one day, and she ran away.

So he wrote something in the registry. Nobody could say his father and mother had not been married after that, if a question was ever raised about his right to the name and the estate.

I didn’t know that forgery was a serious crime so I accepted his presents. And by doing so, I made myself an accomplice to his crime. Now if I told anyone about him, I would be in terrible trouble as well. So I kept quiet for many years, and went on accepting his presents.

* * *

One day, without any warning to me to expect him, he came to my house. Seeing my daughter in the room with me he ordered her away. They neither of them liked each other.

“Leave us,” he said, looking at her over his shoulder. She looked back over her shoulder and waited.

“Do you hear?” he roared out, “Leave the room!”

“Speak to me civilly,” said she, getting red in the face.

“Turn the idiot out,” cried he.

The word ‘idiot’ upset her in a moment.

“Beg my pardon, directly,” said she, “or I’ll make it the worse for you. I know your secret. I can ruin you for life if I choose to open my lips.”

He sat speechless. No! I am too respectable a woman to mention what he said when he recovered himself. It ended like this: he insisted on taking her to the Asylum.

I tried to set things right. I told him that she had merely repeated, like a parrot, the words she had heard me say. I explained that she knew nothing – that she only wanted to threaten him, but he did not want to listen to me. What was I to do? I was helpless.

Have I satisfied your curiosity? There is really nothing else I have to tell you about myself or my daughter.

No names are mentioned here, nor is any signature attached to these lines. If you are interested, my hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.”

The Story Continued by Walter Hartright

My first impulse, after reading Mrs. Catherick’s letter, was to destroy it. It disgusted me very much. The secret has been solved. The information communicated to me, confirms the conclusions at which I had already arrived.

The shocking truth was that Laura and Anne had had the same father. That was why they looked so like each other – they were half-sisters. Half an hour later I was speeding back to London by the express train.

Both Laura and Marian came to the door to let me in. It was wonderful to be all together again. “You look worn and weary, Walter,” said Marian.

Later, after Laura was in bed, I told Marian the whole story of how Sir Percival had met his death, and the information I had learned from Mrs. Catherick about Anne’s father.

“Not many weeks have passed, Marian,” I answered, “since my interview with a lawyer. When he and I parted, the last words I said to him about Laura were these: ‘Her uncle’s house shall open to receive her, in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave; the lie that records her death shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and the two men who have wronged her shall answer for their crime to me.’ One of those men is beyond mortal reach. The other remains, and my resolution remains. But, Marian, I am not rash enough to measure myself against such a man as the Count before I am well prepared for him. I have learnt patience – I can wait my time.”

We decided that it would be best for Laura not to know any of the details of this until she was stronger; we would tell her only that her husband was dead.

I loved Laura just as much as ever, but I hesitated to ask her to become my wife. She was so friendless, so helpless. Every day Laura was becoming brighter, and it gave me enormous pleasure to see how much better she was. She sometimes looked and spoke just like the Laura of old times, the happy girl whom I had first met at Limmeridge House.

* * *

Four months elapsed. April came – the month of spring – the month of change. One day the door opened, and Laura came in alone. So she had entered the breakfast-room at Limmeridge House on the morning when we parted. Slowly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once approached me. Now she came with the haste of happiness in her feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. I understood that she recovered.

“My darling!” she whispered, “We may love each other now.”

Her head nestled on my bosom. “Oh,” she said, “I am so happy at last!”

Ten days later we were happier still. We were married.

I was the happiest person in the world, but I didn’t forget about the Count. The first necessity was to know something of him. The true story of his life was a mystery to me.

I returned to Marian’s journal at Blackwater Park. At my request she read to me passages which referred to the Count.

To whom could I apply to know something more of the Count’s history and of the man himself than I knew now?

Naturally, to a countryman of his own, on whom I could rely. The first man whom I thought of was also the only Italian with whom I was acquainted – my friend, Professor Pesca. The professor was a true friend of mine.

I invited the professor to go with me to the theatre. I knew that Fosco was a great opera admirer. The opera was good, but the most important thing was that we met Fosco himself there. I directed Pesca’s attention to him.

“Do you know that man?” I asked.

“Which man, my friend?”

“The tall, fat man, standing there, with his face towards us.”

Pesca raised himself on tiptoe, and looked at the Count.

“No,” said the Professor. “The big fat man is a stranger to me. Is he famous?”

“His name is Count Fosco. Do you know that name?”

“Not I, Walter. Neither the name nor the man is known to me.”

“Are you quite sure you don’t recognise him? Look again – look carefully. I will tell you why I am so anxious about it when we leave the theatre. “

“No,” he said, “I have never seen that big fat man before in all my life.”

As he spoke the Count looked downwards. The eyes of the two Italians met.

Yes, Pesca did not know the Count. But the Count knew Pesca! Knew him, and – more surprising still – feared him as well!

The Count turned round, slipped past the persons, and disappeared in the middle passage.

“Come home,” I said; “come home, Pesca. I must speak to you in private – I must speak directly.”

I walked on rapidly without answering.

“My friend, what can I do?” cried the Professor, piteously appealing to me with both hands. “How can I help you, Walter, when I don’t know the man?”

“He knows you – he is afraid of you – he has left the theatre to escape you. Pesca! there must be a reason for this. Look back into your own life before you came to England. You left Italy, as you have told me yourself, for political reasons. You have never mentioned those reasons to me.”

To my surprise, these words, harmless as they appeared to me, produced the same astounding effect on Pesca which the sight of Pesca had produced on the Count. “Walter!” he said. “You don’t know what you ask.”

He spoke in a whisper.

“Forgive me, if I have pained you,” I replied. “Remember the cruel wrong my wife has suffered at Count Fosco’s hands. I spoke in her interests, Pesca – I ask you again to forgive me – I can say no more.”

I rose to go. He stopped me before I reached the door.

“Wait,” he said. “You have shaken me from head to foot. You don’t know how I left my country, and why I left my country. Let me think, if I can.”

I returned to my chair. He walked up and down the room, talking to himself in his own language.

“Tell me, Walter,” he said, “is there no other way to get to that man but through me?”

“There is no other way,” I answered.

He opened the door of the room and looked out cautiously into the passage, closed it once more, and came back.

“Walter,” he said, “one day you helped me a lot. Now, I think, it’s my turn. Listen. You have heard, Walter, of the political societies that are hidden in every great city on the continent of Europe? To one of those societies I belonged in Italy – and belong still in England. When I came to this country, I came by the direction of my chief. I emigrated – I have waited – I wait still. All I do is to put my life in your hands. If what I say to you now is ever known, I am a dead man.”

He whispered the next words in my ear. I keep the secret which he thus communicated. I’ll call the society to which he belonged “The Brotherhood.” Pesca showed me the mark of the Brotherhood on his arm.

“The object of the Brotherhood,” Pesca went on, “is the destruction of tyranny and the assertion of the rights of the people. The members are not known to one another. There is a president in Italy; there are presidents abroad. Each of these has his secretary. The presidents and the secretaries know the members, but the members, among themselves, are all strangers. We are warned, if we betray the Brotherhood, we will die. Sometimes the death is delayed – sometimes it follows close on the treachery. A man who has been false to the Brotherhood is discovered sooner or later by the chiefs who know him – presidents or secretaries. And a man discovered by the chiefs is dead. No human laws can protect him. If the man you pointed out at the Opera knows me, he is so altered, or so disguised, that I do not know him. I never saw him, I never heard the name he goes by. But if he is afraid of me, he has done something wrong. I say no more, Walter.”

He dropped into a chair, and turning away from me, hid his face in his hands. I gently opened the door so as not to disturb him, and spoke my few parting words in low tones.

I looked at my watch – it was ten o’clock. The Count’s escape from us, that evening, was beyond all question. The mark of the Brotherhood was on his arm – I was certain of it; and the betrayal of the Brotherhood was on his conscience – I had seen it in his recognition of Pesca.

It was easy to understand why that recognition had not been mutual. A man of the Count’s character would never risk. The shaven face might have been covered by a beard in Pesca’s time – his dark brown hair might be a wig – his name was evidently a false one.

The Count believed himself, in spite of the change in his appearance, to have been recognised by Pesca, and to be therefore in danger of his life. So I decided to visit him.

I wrote a letter to Pesca. I wrote as follows —

“The man whom I pointed out to you at the Opera is a member of the Brotherhood, and has been false to his trust. You know the name he goes by in England. His address is No. 5 Forest Road, St. John’s Wood.”

I signed and dated these lines, enclosed them in an envelope, and sealed it up. On the outside I wrote this direction: “Keep the enclosure unopened until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. If you do not hear from me, or see me, before that time, break the seal when the clock strikes, and read the contents.”

I added my initials, and protected the whole by enclosing it in a second sealed envelope, addressed to Pesca. Then I sent it.

Soon I received the answer. It contained these two sentences in Pesca’s handwriting —

“Your letter is received. If I don’t see you before the time you mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes.”

I placed the paper in my pocket, and made for the door. Marian met me on the threshold, and pushed me back into the room. She held me by both hands.

“I see!” she said, in a low eager whisper. “You are trying the last chance tonight.”

“Yes, the last chance and the best,” I whispered back.

“Not alone! Oh, Walter, for God’s sake, not alone! Let me go with you. Don’t refuse me because I’m only a woman. I must go! I will go! I’ll wait outside in the cab!”

“If you want to help me,” I said, “Stop here and sleep in my wife’s room tonight. Come, Marian, show that you have the courage to wait till I come back.”

I was out of the room in a moment. “Forest Road, St. John’s Wood,” I called to the driver. Not a minute to lose.

We left the streets, and crossed St. John’s Wood Road. Just as a church clock in the distance struck the quarter past, we turned into the Forest Road. I stopped the driver a little away from the Count’s house, paid and dismissed him, and walked on to the door.

“Be so good as to take that to your master,” I gave my card to the maid-servant. In another moment I was inside the Count’s house.

The servant led me to the room. I entered it, and found myself face to face with the Count.

He was in his evening dress. Books and papers were scattered about the room. On a table, at one side of the door, which contained his white mice. The canaries and the cockatoo were probably in some other room.

“You come here on business, sir?” he said.

“I am fortunate in finding you here tonight,” I said. “You seem to be taking a journey?”

“Is your business connected with my journey?”

“In some degree.”

“In what degree? Do you know where I am going to?”

“No. I only know why you are leaving London.”

He locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.

“So you know why I am leaving London?” he went on. “Tell me the reason, if you please.” He turned the key, and unlocked the drawer as he spoke.

“I can do better than that,” I replied. I can show you the reason, if you like.”

“How can you show it?”

“Roll up the shirt-sleeve on your left arm,” I said, “and you will see it there.”

He said nothing. But his left hand slowly opened the table-drawer, and softly slipped into it.

My life hung by a thread, and I knew it.

“Wait a little,” I said. “You have got the door locked – you see I don’t move – you see my hands are empty. Wait a little. I have something more to say.”

“You have said enough,” he replied.

“I advise you to read two lines of writing which I have about me,” I rejoined, “before you finally decide that question.”

He nodded his head. I took Pesca’s acknowledgment of the receipt of my letter out of my pocket-book, handed it to him, and returned to my former position in front of the fireplace.

He read the lines aloud: “Your letter is received. If I don’t hear from you before the time you mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes.”

“I don’t lock up my drawer, Mr. Hartright,” he said, “Come to the point, sir! You want something of me?”

“I do. In the first place, I demand a full confession of the conspiracy, written and signed in my presence by yourself. In the second place, I demand a plain proof of the date at which my wife left Blackwater Park and travelled to London.”

The Count walked to a writing-table near the window, opened his desk, and took from it several pieces of paper and a bundle of pens.

“I shall make this a remarkable document,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder. “Composition is perfectly familiar to me.”

When his letter was finished, I took it and went out to the door. In a quarter of an hour after leaving Forest Road I was at home again.

I never saw the Count again – I never heard more of him or of his wife. Some years after he was killed in Paris. His body was taken out of the Seine. He was buried by Madame Fosco in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. There was the dreadful end of that life of degraded ability and heartless crime!

I now had in my possession all the papers that I wanted to restore Laura’s good name. With the written evidence I went in the direction of Mr. Gilmore’s office to tell him what I had done.

I took my wife to Limmeridge the next morning to have her publicly received and recognised in her uncle’s house.

I will say nothing of Mr. Gilmore amazement, or of the terms in which he expressed his opinion of my conduct from the first stage of the investigation to the last. It is only necessary to mention that he at once decided on accompanying us to Cumberland.

We started the next morning by the early train. Laura, Marian, Mr. Gilmore, and myself in one carriage. I cannot write of our interview with Mr. Fairlie. “How was I to know that my niece was alive when I was told that she was dead? I would welcome dear Laura with pleasure, if you would only allow me time to recover.”

We walked into the main room where a great crowd of people was waiting to see us. A gasp of surprise went up when Laura walked through the door, looking just the same as she used to in the days before her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde.

Mr. Fairlie rose from his chair, supported on each side by a strong servant holding his arm.

“May I present Mr. Hartright and his wife,” he said to the people. “Please hear what he has to say and don’t make a noise. My nerves are very delicate, you know.”

With these words, Mr. Fairlie sank back down again into his chair. I told the people what had happened – that a terrible mistake had been made and another woman, Anne Catherick, lay dead and buried in the churchyard at Limmeridge and not Laura. I told them about Sir Percival Glyde and the wicked things he had done to obtain Laura’s fortune. After that, I invited all the persons present to follow me to the churchyard, and see the false inscription struck off the tombstone with their own eyes. Not a voice was heard – not a soul moved, till those three words, “Laura, Lady Glyde,” had vanished from sight. It was late in the day before the whole inscription was erased. One line only was afterwards engraved in its place: “Anne Catherick, July 25th, 1850.”

Marian took my hand, and silenced me at the first words.

“After all that we three have suffered together,” she said “there can be no parting between us till the last parting of all. My heart and my happiness, Walter, are with Laura and you. Wait a little till there are children’s voices at your side.”

In the February of the new year our first child was born – a son. Marian was our boy’s godmother, and Pesca and Mr. Gilmore were his godfathers.

The only event in our lives which now remains to be recorded, occurred when our little Walter was six months old.

At that time I was sent to Ireland on business. When I returned to London, to my great surprise, I found our house empty. Laura and Marian and the child had left the house on the day before my return.

A note from my wife, which was given to me by the servant, only increased my surprise, by informing me that they had gone to Limmeridge House. I reached Limmeridge House the same afternoon.

My wife and Marian were both upstairs. They had established themselves in the little room which had been once assigned to me for a studio, when I was employed on Mr. Fairlie’s drawings.

“What’s happened?” I asked. “Does Mr. Fairlie know —?”

Marian told me that Mr. Fairlie was dead. He had been struck by paralysis. Mr. Gilmore had informed them of his death, and had advised them to proceed immediately to Limmeridge House. On her uncle’s death, Limmeridge House now belonged to Laura.

Marian rose and held up my son.

“Do you know who this is, Walter?” she asked, with bright tears of happiness gathering in her eyes.

“I think I can answer,” I replied. “It is my own child.”

“Child!” she exclaimed. “Let me introduce you. Mr. Walter Hartright – the heir of Limmeridge!”

So she spoke. In writing those last words, I have written all. The pen falters in my hand. Marian was the good angel of our lives – let Marian end our Story.