June 18th.—The misery of self-reproach which I suffered yesterday
evening, on hearing what Laura told me in the boat-house, returned in
the loneliness of the night, and kept me waking and wretched for hours.
I lighted my candle at last, and searched through my old journals to
see what my share in the fatal error of her marriage had really been,
and what I might have once done to save her from it. The result soothed
me a little for it showed that, however blindly and ignorantly I acted,
I acted for the best. Crying generally does me harm; but it was not so
last night—I think it relieved me. I rose this morning with a settled
resolution and a quiet mind. Nothing Sir Percival can say or do shall
ever irritate me again, or make me forget for one moment that I am
staying here in defiance of mortifications, insults, and threats, for
Laura’s service and for Laura’s sake.
The speculations in which we might have indulged this morning, on the
subject of the figure at the lake and the footsteps in the plantation,
have been all suspended by a trifling accident which has caused Laura
great regret. She has lost the little brooch I gave her for a keepsake
on the day before her marriage. As she wore it when we went out
yesterday evening we can only suppose that it must have dropped from
her dress, either in the boat-house or on our way back. The servants
have been sent to search, and have returned unsuccessful. And now Laura
herself has gone to look for it. Whether she finds it or not the loss
will help to excuse her absence from the house, if Sir Percival returns
before the letter from Mr. Gilmore’s partner is placed in my hands.
One o’clock has just struck. I am considering whether I had better
wait here for the arrival of the messenger from London, or slip away
quietly, and watch for him outside the lodge gate.
My suspicion of everybody and everything in this house inclines me
to think that the second plan may be the best. The Count is safe in
the breakfast-room. I heard him, through the door, as I ran upstairs
ten minutes since, exercising his canary-birds at their tricks:—“Come
out on my little finger, my pret-pret-pretties! Come out, and hop
upstairs! One, two, three—and up! Three, two, one—and down! One, two,
three—twit-twit-twit-tweet!” The birds burst into their usual ecstasy
of singing, and the Count chirruped and whistled at them in return,
as if he was a bird himself. My room door is open, and I can hear the
shrill singing and whistling at this very moment. If I am really to
slip out without being observed, now is my time.
FOUR O’CLOCK. The three hours that have passed since I made my last
entry have turned the whole march of events at Blackwater Park in a new
direction. Whether for good or for evil, I cannot and dare not decide.
Let me get back first to the place at which I left off, or I shall lose
myself in the confusion of my own thoughts.
I went out, as I had proposed, to meet the messenger with my letter
from London at the lodge gate. On the stairs I saw no one. In the
hall I heard the Count still exercising his birds. But on crossing
the quadrangle outside, I passed Madame Fosco, walking by herself in
her favourite circle, round and round the great fish-pond. I at once
slackened my pace, so as to avoid all appearance of being in a hurry,
and even went the length, for caution’s sake, of inquiring if she
thought of going out before lunch. She smiled at me in the friendliest
manner—said she preferred remaining near the house, nodded pleasantly,
and re-entered the hall. I looked back, and saw that she had closed the
door before I had opened the wicket by the side of the carriage gates.
In less than a quarter of an hour I reached the lodge.
The lane outside took a sudden turn to the left, ran on straight for
a hundred yards or so, and then took another sharp turn to the right
to join the high-road. Between these two turns, hidden from the lodge
on one side, and from the way to the station on the other, I waited,
walking backwards and forwards. High hedges were on either side of me,
and for twenty minutes, by my watch, I neither saw nor heard anything.
At the end of that time the sound of a carriage caught my ear, and
I was met, as I advanced towards the second turning, by a fly from
the railway. I made a sign to the driver to stop. As he obeyed me a
respectable-looking man put his head out of the window to see what was
the matter.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, “but am I right in supposing that you are
going to Blackwater Park?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“With a letter for any one?”
“With a letter for Miss Halcombe, ma’am.”
“You may give me the letter. I am Miss Halcombe.”
The man touched his hat, got out of the fly immediately, and gave me
the letter.
I opened it at once and read these lines. I copy them here, thinking it
best to destroy the original for caution’s sake.
“DEAR MADAM,—Your letter received this morning has caused me very great
anxiety. I will reply to it as briefly and plainly as possible.
“My careful consideration of the statement made by yourself, and my
knowledge of Lady Glyde’s position, as defined in the settlement,
lead me, I regret to say, to the conclusion that a loan of the
trust money to Sir Percival (or, in other words, a loan of some
portion of the twenty thousand pounds of Lady Glyde’s fortune) is in
contemplation, and that she is made a party to the deed, in order to
secure her approval of a flagrant breach of trust, and to have her
signature produced against her if she should complain hereafter. It is
impossible, on any other supposition, to account, situated as she is,
for her execution to a deed of any kind being wanted at all.
“In the event of Lady Glyde’s signing such a document, as I am
compelled to suppose the deed in question to be, her trustees would be
at liberty to advance money to Sir Percival out of her twenty thousand
pounds. If the amount so lent should not be paid back, and if Lady
Glyde should have children, their fortune will then be diminished by
the sum, large or small, so advanced. In plainer terms still, the
transaction, for anything that Lady Glyde knows to the contrary, may be
a fraud upon her unborn children.
“Under these serious circumstances, I would recommend Lady Glyde to
assign as a reason for withholding her signature, that she wishes the
deed to be first submitted to myself, as her family solicitor (in the
absence of my partner, Mr. Gilmore). No reasonable objection can be
made to taking this course—for, if the transaction is an honourable
one, there will necessarily be no difficulty in my giving my approval.
“Sincerely assuring you of my readiness to afford any additional help
or advice that may be wanted, I beg to remain, Madam, your faithful
servant,
“WILLIAM KYRLE.”
I read this kind and sensible letter very thankfully. It supplied Laura
with a reason for objecting to the signature which was unanswerable,
and which we could both of us understand. The messenger waited near me
while I was reading to receive his directions when I had done.
“Will you be good enough to say that I understand the letter, and that
I am very much obliged?” I said. “There is no other reply necessary at
present.”
Exactly at the moment when I was speaking those words, holding the
letter open in my hand, Count Fosco turned the corner of the lane from
the high-road, and stood before me as if he had sprung up out of the
earth.
The suddenness of his appearance, in the very last place under heaven
in which I should have expected to see him, took me completely by
surprise. The messenger wished me good-morning, and got into the fly
again. I could not say a word to him—I was not even able to return
his bow. The conviction that I was discovered—and by that man, of all
others—absolutely petrified me.
“Are you going back to the house, Miss Halcombe?” he inquired, without
showing the least surprise on his side, and without even looking after
the fly, which drove off while he was speaking to me.