The Woman in White

Chapter 12

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Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all

directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But

nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure

us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to

describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact

direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her,

these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total

ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of

their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.

The course of our useless investigations brought us, in time, to

the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs.

Fairlie were situated. As we passed the side of the building

appropriated to the use of the boys, I suggested the propriety of

making a last inquiry of the schoolmaster, whom we might presume

to be, in virtue of his office, the most intelligent man in the

place.

"I am afraid the schoolmaster must have been occupied with his

scholars," said Miss Halcombe, "just at the time when the woman

passed through the village and returned again. However, we can

but try."

We entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom

window to get round to the door, which was situated at the back of

the building. I stopped for a moment at the window and looked in.

The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to

me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered

together in front of him, with one exception. The one exception

was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on

a stool in a corner--a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own

desert island of solitary penal disgrace.

The door, when we got round to it, was ajar, and the school-

master's voice reached us plainly, as we both stopped for a minute

under the porch.

"Now, boys," said the voice, "mind what I tell you. If I hear

another word spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the

worse for all of you. There are no such things as ghosts, and

therefore any boy who believes in ghosts believes in what can't

possibly be; and a boy who belongs to Limmeridge School, and

believes in what can't possibly be, sets up his back against

reason and discipline, and must be punished accordingly. You all

see Jacob Postlethwaite standing up on the stool there in

disgrace. He has been punished, not because he said he saw a

ghost last night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate

to listen to reason, and because he persists in saying he saw the

ghost after I have told him that no such thing can possibly be.

If nothing else will do, I mean to cane the ghost out of Jacob

Postlethwaite, and if the thing spreads among any of the rest of

you, I mean to go a step farther, and cane the ghost out of the

whole school."

"We seem to have chosen an awkward moment for our visit," said

Miss Halcombe, pushing open the door at the end of the

schoolmaster's address, and leading the way in.

Our appearance produced a strong sensation among the boys. They

appeared to think that we had arrived for the express purpose of

seeing Jacob Postlethwaite caned.

"Go home all of you to dinner," said the schoolmaster, "except

Jacob. Jacob must stop where he is; and the ghost may bring him

his dinner, if the ghost pleases."

Jacob's fortitude deserted him at the double disappearance of his

schoolfellows and his prospect of dinner. He took his hands out

of his pockets, looked hard at his knuckles, raised them with

great deliberation to his eyes, and when they got there, ground

them round and round slowly, accompanying the action by short

spasms of sniffing, which followed each other at regular

intervals--the nasal minute guns of juvenile distress.

"We came here to ask you a question, Mr. Dempster." said Miss

Halcombe, addressing the schoolmaster; "and we little expected to

find you occupied in exorcising a ghost. What does it all mean?

What has really happened?"

"That wicked boy has been frightening the whole school, Miss

Halcombe, by declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening,"

answered the master; "and he still persists in his absurd story,

in spite of all that I can say to him."

"Most extraordinary," said Miss Halcombe "I should not have

thought it possible that any of the boys had imagination enough to

see a ghost. This is a new accession indeed to the hard labour of

forming the youthful mind at Limmeridge, and I heartily wish you

well through it, Mr. Dempster. In the meantime, let me explain

why you see me here, and what it is I want."

She then put the same question to the schoolmaster which we had

asked already of almost every one else in the village. It was met

by the same discouraging answer Mr. Dempster had not set eyes on

the stranger of whom we were in search.

"We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hartright," said Miss

Halcombe; "the information we want is evidently not to be found."

She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to leave the

schoolroom, when the forlorn position of Jacob Postlethwaite,

piteously sniffing on the stool of penitence, attracted her

attention as she passed him, and made her stop good-humouredly to

speak a word to the little prisoner before she opened the door.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe," interposed the school-master a

little uneasily--"but I think you had better not question the boy.

The obstinate folly of his story is beyond all belief; and you

might lead him into ignorantly----"

"Upon my word, Mr. Dempster, you pay my feelings a great

compliment in thinking them weak enough to be shocked by such an

urchin as that!" She turned with an air of satirical defiance to

little Jacob, and began to question him directly. "Come!" she

said, "I mean to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did

you see the ghost?"

"As a 'ghaist' should be--where a 'ghaist' ought to be--why, you

little fool, you talk as if the manners and customs of ghosts had

been familiar to you from your infancy! You have got your story at

your fingers' ends, at any rate. I suppose I shall hear next that

you can actually tell me whose ghost it was?"

Mr. Dempster had already tried several times to speak while Miss

Halcombe was examining his pupil, and he now interposed resolutely

enough to make himself heard.

"Excuse me, Miss Halcombe," he said, "if I venture to say that you

are only encouraging the boy by asking him these questions."

"I will merely ask one more, Mr. Dempster, and then I shall be

quite satisfied. Well," she continued, turning to the boy, "and

whose ghost was it?"

The effect which this extraordinary reply produced on Miss

Halcombe fully justified the anxiety which the schoolmaster had

shown to prevent her from hearing it. Her face crimsoned with

indignation--she turned upon little Jacob with an angry suddenness

which terrified him into a fresh burst of tears--opened her lips

to speak to him--then controlled herself, and addressed the master

instead of the boy.

"It is useless," she said, "to hold such a child as that

responsible for what he says. I have little doubt that the idea

has been put into his head by others. If there are people in this

village, Mr. Dempster, who have forgotten the respect and

gratitude due from every soul in it to my mother's memory, I will

find them out, and if I have any influence with Mr. Fairlie, they

shall suffer for it."

"I hope--indeed, I am sure, Miss Halcombe--that you are mistaken,"

said the schoolmaster. "The matter begins and ends with the boy's

own perversity and folly. He saw, or thought he saw, a woman in

white, yesterday evening, as he was passing the churchyard; and

the figure, real or fancied, was standing by the marble cross,

which he and every one else in Limmeridge knows to be the monument

over Mrs. Fairlie's grave. These two circumstances are surely

sufficient to have suggested to the boy himself the answer which

has so naturally shocked you?"

Although Miss Halcombe did not seem to be convinced, she evidently

felt that the schoolmaster's statement of the case was too

sensible to be openly combated. She merely replied by thanking

him for his attention, and by promising to see him again when her

doubts were satisfied. This said, she bowed, and led the way out

of the schoolroom.

Throughout the whole of this strange scene I had stood apart,

listening attentively, and drawing my own conclusions. As soon as

we were alone again, Miss Halcombe asked me if I had formed any

opinion on what I had heard.

"A very strong opinion," I answered; "the boy's story, as I

believe, has a foundation in fact. I confess I am anxious to see

the monument over Mrs. Fairlie's grave, and to examine the ground

about it."

She paused after making that reply, and reflected a little as we

walked on. "What has happened in the schoolroom," she resumed,

"has so completely distracted my attention from the subject of the

letter, that I feel a little bewildered when I try to return to

it. Must we give up all idea of making any further inquiries, and

wait to place the thing in Mr. Gilmore's hands to-morrow?"

"I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought it was utterly

preposterous--I distrusted it as the result of some perversity in

my own imagination. But I can do so no longer. Not only the

boy's own answers to your questions, but even a chance expression

that dropped from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his story,

have forced the idea back into my mind. Events may yet prove that

idea to be a delusion, Miss Halcombe; but the belief is strong in

me, at this moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and

the writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same person."

"The schoolmaster unconsciously told you. When he spoke of the

figure that the boy saw in the churchyard he called it 'a woman in

white.'"

"I don't know why," she said in low tones, "but there is something

in this suspicion of yours that seems to startle and unnerve me.

I feel----" She stopped, and tried to laugh it off. "Mr.

Hartright," she went on, "I will show you the grave, and then go

back at once to the house. I had better not leave Laura too long

alone. I had better go back and sit with her."

We were close to the churchyard when she spoke. The church, a

dreary building of grey stone, was situated in a little valley, so

as to be sheltered from the bleak winds blowing over the moorland

all round it. The burial-ground advanced, from the side of the

church, a little way up the slope of the hill. It was surrounded

by a rough, low stone wall, and was bare and open to the sky,

except at one extremity, where a brook trickled down the stony

hill-side, and a clump of dwarf trees threw their narrow shadows

over the short, meagre grass. Just beyond the brook and the

trees, and not far from one of the three stone stiles which

afforded entrance, at various points, to the church-yard, rose the

white marble cross that distinguished Mrs. Fairlie's grave from

the humbler monuments scattered about it.

"I need go no farther with you," said Miss Halcombe, pointing to

the grave. "You will let me know if you find anything to confirm

the idea you have just mentioned to me. Let us meet again at the

house."

The grass about it was too short, and the ground too hard, to show

any marks of footsteps. Disappointed thus far, I next looked

attentively at the cross, and at the square block of marble below

it, on which the inscription was cut.

The natural whiteness of the cross was a little clouded, here and

there, by weather stains, and rather more than one half of the

square block beneath it, on the side which bore the inscription,

was in the same condition. The other half, however, attracted my

attention at once by its singular freedom from stain or impurity

of any kind. I looked closer, and saw that it had been cleaned--

recently cleaned, in a downward direction from top to bottom. The

boundary line between the part that had been cleaned and the part

that had not was traceable wherever the inscription left a blank

space of marble--sharply traceable as a line that had been

produced by artificial means. Who had begun the cleansing of the

marble, and who had left it unfinished?

I looked about me, wondering how the question was to be solved.

No sign of a habitation could be discerned from the point at which

I was standing--the burial-ground was left in the lonely

possession of the dead. I returned to the church, and walked

round it till I came to the back of the building; then crossed the

boundary wall beyond, by another of the stone stiles, and found

myself at the head of a path leading down into a deserted stone

quarry. Against one side of the quarry a little two-room cottage

was built, and just outside the door an old woman was engaged in

washing.

I walked up to her, and entered into conversation about the church

and burial-ground. She was ready enough to talk, and almost the

first words she said informed me that her husband filled the two

offices of clerk and sexton. I said a few words next in praise of

Mrs. Fairlie's monument. The old woman shook her head, and told

me I had not seen it at its best. It was her husband's business

to look after it, but he had been so ailing and weak for months

and months past, that he had hardly been able to crawl into church

on Sundays to do his duty, and the monument had been neglected in

consequence. He was getting a little better now, and in a week or

ten days' time he hoped to be strong enough to set to work and

clean it.

This information--extracted from a long rambling answer in the

broadest Cumberland dialect--told me all that I most wanted to

know. I gave the poor woman a trifle, and returned at once to

Limmeridge House.

The partial cleansing of the monument had evidently been

accomplished by a strange hand. Connecting what I had discovered,

thus far, with what I had suspected after hearing the story of the

ghost seen at twilight, I wanted nothing more to confirm my

resolution to watch Mrs. Fairlie's grave, in secret, that evening,

returning to it at sunset, and waiting within sight of it till the

night fell. The work of cleansing the monument had been left

unfinished, and the person by whom it had been begun might return

to complete it.

On getting back to the house I informed Miss Halcombe of what I

intended to do. She looked surprised and uneasy while I was

explaining my purpose, but she made no positive objection to the

execution of it. She only said, "I hope it may end well."

Just as she was leaving me again, I stopped her to inquire, as

calmly as I could, after Miss Fairlie's health. She was in better

spirits, and Miss Halcombe hoped she might be induced to take a

little walking exercise while the afternoon sun lasted.

I returned to my own room to resume setting the drawings in order.

It was necessary to do this, and doubly necessary to keep my mind

employed on anything that would help to distract my attention from

myself, and from the hopeless future that lay before me. From

time to time I paused in my work to look out of window and watch

the sky as the sun sank nearer and nearer to the horizon. On one

of those occasions I saw a figure on the broad gravel walk under

my window. It was Miss Fairlie.

I had not seen her since the morning, and I had hardly spoken to

her then. Another day at Limmeridge was all that remained to me,

and after that day my eyes might never look on her again. This

thought was enough to hold me at the window. I had sufficient

consideration for her to arrange the blind so that she might not

see me if she looked up, but I had no strength to resist the

temptation of letting my eyes, at least, follow her as far as they

could on her walk.

She was dressed in a brown cloak, with a plain black silk gown

under it. On her head was the same simple straw hat which she had

worn on the morning when we first met. A veil was attached to it

now which hid her face from me. By her side trotted a little

Italian greyhound, the pet companion of all her walks, smartly

dressed in a scarlet cloth wrapper, to keep the sharp air from his

delicate skin. She did not seem to notice the dog. She walked

straight forward, with her head drooping a little, and her arms

folded in her cloak. The dead leaves, which had whirled in the

wind before me when I had heard of her marriage engagement in the

morning, whirled in the wind before her, and rose and fell and

scattered themselves at her feet as she walked on in the pale

waning sunlight. The dog shivered and trembled, and pressed

against her dress impatiently for notice and encouragement. But

she never heeded him. She walked on, farther and farther away

from me, with the dead leaves whirling about her on the path--

walked on, till my aching eyes could see her no more, and I was

left alone again with my own heavy heart.

In another hour's time I had done my work, and the sunset was at

hand. I got my hat and coat in the hall, and slipped out of the

house without meeting any one.

The clouds were wild in the western heaven, and the wind blew

chill from the sea. Far as the shore was, the sound of the surf

swept over the intervening moorland, and beat drearily in my ears

when I entered the churchyard. Not a living creature was in

sight. The place looked lonelier than ever as I chose my

position, and waited and watched, with my eyes on the white cross

that rose over Mrs. Fairlie's grave.

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