This was the story of the past—the story so far as we knew it then.
Two obvious conclusions presented themselves to my mind after hearing
it. In the first place, I saw darkly what the nature of the conspiracy
had been, how chances had been watched, and how circumstances had been
handled to ensure impunity to a daring and an intricate crime. While
all details were still a mystery to me, the vile manner in which the
personal resemblance between the woman in white and Lady Glyde had
been turned to account was clear beyond a doubt. It was plain that
Anne Catherick had been introduced into Count Fosco’s house as Lady
Glyde—it was plain that Lady Glyde had taken the dead woman’s place in
the Asylum—the substitution having been so managed as to make innocent
people (the doctor and the two servants certainly, and the owner of the
mad-house in all probability) accomplices in the crime.
The second conclusion came as the necessary consequence of the first.
We three had no mercy to expect from Count Fosco and Sir Percival
Glyde. The success of the conspiracy had brought with it a clear gain
to those two men of thirty thousand pounds—twenty thousand to one, ten
thousand to the other through his wife. They had that interest, as well
as other interests, in ensuring their impunity from exposure, and they
would leave no stone unturned, no sacrifice unattempted, no treachery
untried, to discover the place in which their victim was concealed, and
to part her from the only friends she had in the world—Marian Halcombe
and myself.
The sense of this serious peril—a peril which every day and every
hour might bring nearer and nearer to us—was the one influence that
guided me in fixing the place of our retreat. I chose it in the far
east of London, where there were fewest idle people to lounge and
look about them in the streets. I chose it in a poor and a populous
neighbourhood—because the harder the struggle for existence among the
men and women about us, the less the risk of their having the time or
taking the pains to notice chance strangers who came among them. These
were the great advantages I looked to, but our locality was a gain to
us also in another and a hardly less important respect. We could live
cheaply by the daily work of my hands, and could save every farthing we
possessed to forward the purpose, the righteous purpose, of redressing
an infamous wrong—which, from first to last, I now kept steadily in
view.
In a week’s time Marian Halcombe and I had settled how the course of
our new lives should be directed.
There were no other lodgers in the house, and we had the means of
going in and out without passing through the shop. I arranged, for the
present at least, that neither Marian nor Laura should stir outside the
door without my being with them, and that in my absence from home they
should let no one into their rooms on any pretence whatever. This rule
established, I went to a friend whom I had known in former days—a wood
engraver in large practice—to seek for employment, telling him, at the
same time, that I had reasons for wishing to remain unknown.
He at once concluded that I was in debt, expressed his regret in the
usual forms, and then promised to do what he could to assist me. I
left his false impression undisturbed, and accepted the work he had to
give. He knew that he could trust my experience and my industry. I had
what he wanted, steadiness and facility, and though my earnings were
but small, they sufficed for our necessities. As soon as we could feel
certain of this, Marian Halcombe and I put together what we possessed.
She had between two and three hundred pounds left of her own property,
and I had nearly as much remaining from the purchase-money obtained
by the sale of my drawing-master’s practice before I left England.
Together we made up between us more than four hundred pounds. I
deposited this little fortune in a bank, to be kept for the expense of
those secret inquiries and investigations which I was determined to set
on foot, and to carry on by myself if I could find no one to help me.
We calculated our weekly expenditure to the last farthing, and we never
touched our little fund except in Laura’s interests and for Laura’s
sake.
The house-work, which, if we had dared trust a stranger near us, would
have been done by a servant, was taken on the first day, taken as her
own right, by Marian Halcombe. “What a woman’s hands ARE fit for,” she
said, “early and late, these hands of mine shall do.” They trembled as
she held them out. The wasted arms told their sad story of the past,
as she turned up the sleeves of the poor plain dress that she wore for
safety’s sake; but the unquenchable spirit of the woman burnt bright
in her even yet. I saw the big tears rise thick in her eyes, and fall
slowly over her cheeks as she looked at me. She dashed them away with
a touch of her old energy, and smiled with a faint reflection of her
old good spirits. “Don’t doubt my courage, Walter,” she pleaded, “it’s
my weakness that cries, not ME. The house-work shall conquer it if I
can’t.” And she kept her word—the victory was won when we met in the
evening, and she sat down to rest. Her large steady black eyes looked
at me with a flash of their bright firmness of bygone days. “I am not
quite broken down yet,” she said. “I am worth trusting with my share of
the work.” Before I could answer, she added in a whisper, “And worth
trusting with my share in the risk and the danger too. Remember that,
if the time comes!”