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Faith Moore
Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore, and this season we're reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Oh, my goodness. What the heck, right? Wow. Okay, we have a lot to talk about. That last chapter was quite the chapter. So suddenly lots of action is happening and much to discuss. So I'm very excited to be with you, Welco. Welcome back. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so excited to talk to you about this book, as always, and this past chapter in particular, because that really came out of nowhere and now a whole bunch of wrenches have been thrown into this whole situation. So we have lots to discuss. But before we do that, just a quick kind of housekeeping announcement, because it is now May. Happy May. If you're listening in real time, this is in fact May 1st. So welcome to May. It's very exciting. And May is the month that I've been telling you all along this book is going to go until. And in fact, that is true. We are in the final month of this book. I believe that May 26 is going to be the final episode. And then we'll have one more episode about this book, which will be our conclusion episode. I usually take another question or two and we discuss the end of the book and we just kind of wrap things up a little bit and we do that at the end of each book just to make sure that we don't leave you hanging. So we will have one more episode where there aren't chapters, but we do discuss the end of the book together. And then, and this is kind of what I wanted to just alert you about. I've mentioned this a couple of times, and if you were with us last summer, you know, but what happens then is that we move into something called summer session. So that's what I just wanted to let you know about, which is coming. So after that final episode, the podcast will become once a week instead of twice a week. And instead of reading a book, it will become more like conversation. Last summer we did a kind of college class on Jane Eyre. We'd only ever read Jane Eyre at that point. So we talked all summer about Jane Eyre and I had some guests on and I talked for a while and we had a lot of, we had a lot of fun and we did a lot of deep diving into that book. We're not going to do that same thing with any of the books that we've read so far because we've actually read three books since last summer. We've read Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol and the Woman in White. So we're not going to do a college class on any one of those three books. And I am not yet going to reveal exactly what we will be doing. I will tell you about that in the next couple of weeks. I'll probably drop a trailer. So that's a good reason to be subscribed. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the trailer for what's going on in Summer Session and also all of the episodes that are coming into your podcast player. You're subscribed. So I will let you know much more about what the summer is going to be. I know already. I'm planning it already. I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to be really fun. But I just wanted to alert you at this point to what is coming. And the reason, of course, that I don't do a book in the summer is because I'm a stay at home mom. My kids are home with me in the summer and I don't have as much time to devote to this podcast as I would need in order to create the twice a week episodes and the chapters and all of those things. That takes a very long time to create. And so I want to keep going with this podcast. I want to keep connecting with you, but I can't do it over the summer at the same level that I do during the other months. So there will not be a new book until September. And in September we will start a new book. A trailer will drop during the summer. It usually drops in mid August. That will let you know what the next book is and when it will start. But it will start at the beginning of September and again away we will go with twice a week episodes and the chapters and your questions and all of those things. Things. But in the summer we will do something a little different and it will go to once a week. There will still be opportunities to ask questions and interact and all of those things. I'll still be here. So will you. It will be lots of fun. But I just wanted to let you know because the book is winding down. I can't believe it. It's been such a wild ride. But the book is winding down. And as I say, I believe May 26th will end up being the final episode of Chapters. And then we'll have one more episode after that. So I just wanted to let you know that that's happening. I know you like to know what's coming, so would I. So I'm just letting you know about that. Okay? Otherwise, the only other thing I have to say is, of course, subscribe, tap the five stars, leave a positive review, tell a friend, scroll down into the show notes and check out all those links. Buy some merchandise, get your short sleeve shirts and tank tops now that it's getting warmer and become a member if you want. We had a really lovely tea time on this past Tuesday. It was lots of fun. We had new people joining us and we had a fantastic discussion. So you can jo join and be a part of the next one. I'll announce the date in a little while and you can join and be a part of that. You can just join and be part of the Drawing Room, our online community. Or you can just make a donation to support the show financially. Or you can do none of those things and you can just listen to this show. But I hope that you will support the show in whatever way you feel comfortable doing. Even if it's just telling a friend or wearing a shirt or whatever it is, or just listening and writing into me, which is faith k.moore.com and click on contact or it's another one of those links in the show notes. Whatever you're doing, I'm so glad that you're here. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening to this show and for making it what it is. All right, enough. Let's get right to it. So last time we read hartright's narrative, chapter 10. Today we're reading Heart Wright's narrative, chapter 11 and Catherick's narrative. And I've got several comments to read because of course lots to discuss about the last chapter. So first let's do the recap. Okay, so where we left off, Percival's minions essentially orchestrate a situation that makes it look like Walter assaulted them so they can take him to the magistrate who locks him up for three days to wait for a witness. If he can find someone to vouch for him, he can go free and just come back when the three days are up. So Walter at first thinks he doesn't know anyone in the area, but then he remembers the doctor who attended Marian at Blackwater Park. So the doctor comes to vouch for him and then Walter is in allowed to go free. So he hurries to the lawyer to look at the copy of the register and discovers that in fact there is no record of the marriage of Sir Percival's parents. This means that the vestry register is a forgery and Percival is actually illegitimate. This is a crime punishable by life sentence in a penal colony. So this is clearly the secret that Percival has been trying so hard to keep. So Walter rushes back to the church to try to get a copy of the forgery before Sir Percival's men get there to destroy it. And on the on the way he's followed and he runs across a field at night to lose the men who are after him. And he ends up at the clerk's house and finds him very upset because someone has stolen the keys to the church. Walter is sure it's Sir Percival's men and hurries off to the church with the clerk. On the way they bump into a servant of Sir Percival's who seems to be looking for him. At the church they discover that someone is inside the vestry and that the place is on fire. Walter realizes it's Percival in there and even though he hates him, he is seized with the need to do everything he can to save him. The lock on the door is jammed, so he first goes into the roof and breaks the skylight and then organizes the townspeople to get a beam and break down the door. They get in, but it's too late. Sir Percival is dead. Alright, so I'm going to read three comments today. The first one comes from Kate B. Kate writes, I did not see the church fire coming at all. But it fits his wild desperation reaching a peak. Finally on that path to being find out that he spent his entire life running from what a brilliant show of Hartright's character too. Suddenly he had to save the man because it was simply the right thing to do. Even when the others about him were stupefied. Tragic situation, but wow. Okay. The second comes from Megan Pack. Meghan writes, I am glad that Walter explained why Sir Percival's secret was so bad because in my 21st century American ears it didn't sound shocking at first. But I guess it doesn't really matter now since Collins killed Sir Percival off. Honestly, at this point I would have rather seen Sir Percival and Walter square off and Sir Percival stripped of everything that would have been enjoyable. So the only one left who knows when Laura arrived in London is the Count. I have no idea how Walter is going to outsmart him. The Count is formidable so I know it will be good though. And the last one comes from Kimberly Bergansel. I hope I said that right. What a dramatic plot twist. I did not see that coming at all. I was completely riveted. The brilliant change of pace during the chase of Walter through the field, then the run of very short, punchy sentences during the fire and the efforts to save Sir Percival was brilliant. This turn of events opens up so many possibilities. Now that Laura is a widow, then once she recovers, she and Walter can get married for real. So, Right. Yes. After chapters and chapters of kind of dry information gathering and not too much danger, really, just sort of revelations about the switch of Laura and Anne and trying to figure out Sir Percival's secret. After all of that, suddenly, boom, we find out the secret, and then immediately we're dropped first into a chase scene through the rainy fields at night, and then we're rushing to the church, and then there's a fire and it's a rescue scene, and it's like, boom, boom, boom. One thing after the other, all culminating. And so Percival just dying, right. Without Walter having to even fight him or anything. Potentially kind of a letdown. Right? As Megan says in her letter. But also very exciting while it's all happening. But let's just back up for one second because I want to make sure that we're clear on something that Megan alluded to as well, which is what Sir Percival's secret is and why it was such a big deal. Okay? So the secret is that Sir Percival's parents weren't married at the time of his birth. Okay? Some of you were writing in to say, well, if Sir Percival is an imposter, then who is he actually? But he's not an imposter. Exactly. Okay? He's not some totally random person who came in and then told everyone he's a Percival Glyde. But actually he was like Joe Smith or whatever he is Percival Glyde. He's just not Sir Percival Glyde, okay? As far as we know, he is. Is the son of Felix Glyde and the woman who lived with him as his wife. But since the parents weren't actually married, Percival is a bastard. He's illegitimate. And illegitimate children weren't allowed to inherit titles, meaning the baronetcy. So the reason that Sir Percival is called sir is because he supposedly inherited that title from his father when his father died. So they can't inherit titles or money or land or anything in the line of succession. So the baronetcy, which gives him entry into the highest level of society in England, that Blackwater park, any money he Got on his father's death. All of this does not rightfully belong to him. In fact, it belongs to someone else. Right? Whoever the closest legitimate relative of Sir Felix is in the correct line of succession is the actual baronet. And that is why impersonating the legitimate son of someone when you were in fact the illegitimate son was such a serious crime. Okay. Walter tells us that this crime used to be punished by hanging, Right? Actual execution. Okay. And now, at the time that he's writing, it's punishable by transport to a penal colony, which was essentially a labor camp. So it is such a serious crime because you were essentially robbing the rightful heir of their title, their lands, their money, whatever was supposed to come to them in that inheritance. Okay, so to us, the idea of being illegitimate is not necessarily that big of a deal. But back then, so much was put on your social standing and in the aristocracy, so much depended on your place in the social hierarchy, and that place was determined by your birth. So if it was found out that you were not actually the legitimate heir to whatever it was that you had claimed as an inheritance, it would firstly be bad because you were essentially a thief of the highest order and would be subject to punishment. But even if you weren't punished, you would lose your social standing. You wouldn't be admitted into the social circles that were open to baronets. Your marriage prospects would become terrible. I mean, Laura's father would never have agreed to a marriage between Laura and some illegitimate guy with no land and no title and no standing whatsoever. You know, you'd probably have to work for a living, you'd be seen as inferior, etc. Etc. Okay, so when Percival told Fosco that the secret coming out would ruin him, he was not kidding. Okay, so it may not seem like a big deal to us, but it would have been a huge deal back then. In fact, you can tell how big a deal it would have seemed to people back then by looking at Walter's reaction to discovering it. Okay, here is what he. The idea that he was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no more claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater park than the poorest laborer who worked on the estate state had never once occurred to my mind. It hadn't even occurred to him. It's that insane and unthinkable. And by the way, I think it may have been confusing when it said that he wasn't Sir Percival Glyde at all. That just means that he's not Sir Percival Glyde. He's Not a baronet, and probably isn't entitled actually to take the last name of Glyde either, unless his father had allowed it. It doesn't mean that he's not named Percival or that he's not the son of Sir Felix. It just means that he's not Sir Percival. He's just plain old Percival. So that's the secret. Okay? That's what Percival locked Anne up about. That's what Percival locked Laura up about. That's the reason why Laura is in the situation that she is in now. That's the whole thing. That's it. That's the secret. Except it actually doesn't matter anymore, right? Percival is now dead. The whole reason to discover the secret was to tell him that they'd reveal it if he didn't confess to the plot against Laura and Anne. But they can't use it that way now because he's dead. So the whole plotline has turned out to be a dead end. Which is kind of crazy, but also kind of fantastic. Because like I've been saying, the secret has been one of the dominoes that has set off so much of the plot, right? Without the secret, Anne wouldn't have been locked up. If she hadn't been locked up, she wouldn't have been on the road that night when she met Walter. If she hadn't been locked up, she wouldn't have developed a hatred of Sir Percival. So she wouldn't have sent Laura the anonymous letter or come to the boathouse and tried to tell her this secret. And on and on. Okay, so much of the plot was set in motion by the fact of Sir Percival's secret. But the secret itself is not our end goal. Our end goal is restoring Laura's identity and bringing Percival and Fosco to justice. Okay, so now we know the secret, but just as suddenly, it doesn't actually matter at all. And it means that they can't get justice for Laura through Percival. Percival is dead, so he's not going to be confessing to anything. So what removing Percival does is it sets up. As Megan pointed out in her letter, it sets us up for our final boss. The only person now who can prove what happened is Count Fosco. But how on earth are they going to get Count Fosco to confess to what happened? It's seems sort of impossible, but that's what's happening now. Those are the stakes. But Percival's death does something else too, right? As Kimberly pointed out in her letter, Laura is now a widow. I mean, we probably should have seen this Coming in some way or other. Right? Because if there's going to be any kind of happy ending for Walter and Laura, it necessitates Laura getting out of her marriage to Percival somehow. And so now there is no legal or spiritual impediment to that marriage happening. Of course, he can't marry her in her current state, so we still don't know if she will recover her mental faculties and be able to marry him. And of course, there's still the problem of her social standing, because if they do restore her identity, she will be a member of the aristocracy and he'll still be a lowly drawing master. So it's not like a clear path to wedding bells for Laura and Walter or anything. But it does clear away the one totally impenetrable obstacle, which was the fact that she was married already to somebody else. And as Kate pointed out in her letter, this whole exciting sequence from the last chapter also gives us yet another glimpse into Walter's kind of shining character. Right. All this time, he has felt that Percival is his mortal enemy. He hates him for marrying Laura when he was in love with Laura. He hates him for the part he played in the conspiracy. He's been working tirelessly to bring him down. But the minute he sees him in danger, he rushes in and tries to save his life. Okay, here's what Walter says. The one absorbing purpose that had filled all my thoughts, that had controlled all my actions for weeks and weeks past, vanished in an instant from my mind. All remembrance of the heartless injury the man's crimes had inflicted, of the love, the innocence, the happiness he had pitilessly laid waste of. The oath I had sworn in my own heart to summon him to the terrible reckoning that he deserved passed from my memory like a dream. I remembered nothing but the horror of his situation. I felt nothing but the natural human impulse to save him from a frightful death. Okay? Walter Hartright as ever, has his heart in the right place. And of course, from a writing perspective, this impulse to save Percival allows for a great scene with the rallying of the townspeople and the battering ram and the bashing in the skylight and everything. I mean, we wouldn't have gotten that scene if not for Walter's good heart. Because no one else was going to do it. So he's a good man, as always. And we also saw again his skills. We saw Walter 2.0, okay, whose running skills have improved, who knows how to use a cudgel, who can outmaneuver two hired thugs on the road, who can organize a rescue party to break down the door. Walter, our hero. Always and forever. So now the stage is set for Walter, Marian and Laura to do battle with Count Fosco. Everything else has been cleared away. I mean, for our own curiosity, we may want to understand exactly how Sir Percival orchestrated this forgery in the church and what Mrs. Catherick had to do with it and everything. So there may still be more to learn there. But in terms of the actual plot, the extraneous stuff has now been cleared away. The only way to justice is through Count Fosco. Because Fosco is the Big bad. He's the final boss. He's the actual mastermind behind all of this. Percival was just a guy with some problems, right? The problem of his debts, the problem of his secret. He wasn't the mob boss. He didn't even want to kill anyone. Remember, he jumped through all kinds of hoops to keep his secret and get some money without killing anyone. But Fosco, he's the mob boss. He's the true villain here. And now nothing stands between our heroes and him. They have to face him if they want justice. So we've potentially got more to learn about the details of the secret. And we've got the coming battle with Fosco, whatever that will turn out to be. So let's keep reading. Okay? Let's get back into it. And don't forget to write to me faithkmoor.com click on contact. Send me all of your questions and thoughts. Things are getting real here. We've got to figure out what's going to happen. All right, let's get started with hartright's narrative, chapter 11. And Catherick's narrative of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time. 11. The inquest was hurried for certain local reasons which weighed with the coroner and the town authorities. It was held on the afternoon of the next day. I was necessarily one among the witnesses summoned to assist the objections of the investigation. So they're having an inquest into the cause of Sir Percival's death. And Walter has to participate as one of the witnesses. Witnesses? My first proceeding in the morning was to go to the post office and inquire for the letter which I expected from Marian. No change of circumstances, however extraordinary, could affect the one great anxiety which weighed on my mind while I was away from London. The morning's letter, which was the only assurance I could receive that no misfortune had happened in my absence, Was still the absorbing interest with which my date began. Meaning no Matter what other weird thing is going on, he's always going to look for that daily letter assuring him that Laura and Maren are still safe. To my relief, the letter from Marian was at the office waiting for me. Nothing had happened. They were both as safe and as well as when I had left them. Laura sent her love and begged that I would let her know of my return a day beforehand. Her sister added in explanation of this message that she had saved nearly a sovereign out of her own private purse. And that she had claimed the privilege of ordering the dinner and giving the dinner which was to celebrate the day of my return. I read these little domestic confidences in the bright morning. With the terrible recollection of what had happened the evening before vivid in my memory. The necessity of sparing Laura any sudden knowledge of the truth. Was the first consideration which the letter suggested to me. I wrote at once to Marion to tell her what I have told in these pages, presenting the tidings as gradually and gently as I could. And warning her not to let any such thing as a newspaper fall in Laura's way while I was absent. In the case of any other woman less courageous and less reliable, I might have hesitated before I ventured on unreservedly disclosing the whole truth. But I owed it to Marian to be faithful to my past experience of her. And to trust her as I trusted myself. My letter was necessarily a long one. It occupied me until the time came for proceeding to the inquest. The objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily beset by peculiar complications and difficulties. Besides the investigation into the manner in which the deceased had met his death. There were serious questions to be settled relating to the cause of the fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time when the flames broke out. Even the identification of the dead man had not yet been accomplished. The helpless condition of the servant had made the police distrustful of his asserted recognition of his master. So they can't definitively trust the servant's word that the body is Percival's because the servant is kind of freaking out. They had sent to Knowlesbury overnight to secure the attendance of witnesses who were well acquainted with the personal appearance of Sir Percival Glyde. And they had communicated the first thing in the morning with Blackwater Park. These precautions enabled the coroner and jury to settle the question of identity and to confirm the correctness of the servant's assertion. The evidence offered by competent witnesses and by the discovery of certain facts being subsequently strengthened by an examination of the dead man's watch, the crest and the name of Sir Percival Glyde were engraved inside it. The next inquiries related to the fire, the servant and I, and the boy who had heard the light struck in the vestry were the first witnesses called. The boy gave his evidence clearly enough but the servant's mind had not yet recovered the shock inflicted on it. He was plainly incapable of assisting the objects of the inquiry and he was desired to stand down. To my own relief, my examination was not a long one. I had not known the deceased, I had never seen him. I was not aware of his presence at Old Welmingham and I had not been in the vestry at the finding of the body. Body? All I could prove was that I had stopped at the clerk's cottage to ask my way, that I had heard from him of the loss of the keys, that I had accompanied him to the church to render what help I could, that I had seen the fire, that I had heard some person unknown inside the vestry trying vainly to unlock the door and that I had done what I could from motives of humanity to save the man. Other witnesses who had been acquainted with the deceased were asked if they could explain the mystery of his presumed abstraction of the keys and his presence in the burning room. Meaning could anyone explain why Percival had taken the keys or why he was in the vestry? But the coroner seemed to take it for granted, naturally enough, that I, as a total stranger in the neighbourhood and a total stranger to Sir Percival Glyde, could not be in a position to offer any evidence on these two points, the course that I was myself bound to take when my formal examination had closed seemed clear to me. I did not feel called on to volunteer any statement of my own private convictions in the first place because my doing so could serve no practical purpose. Now that all proof in support of any surmises of mine was burnt with the burnt register. Meaning he now can't prove that Percival committed a forgery because the forged document is gone. In the second place, because I could not have intelligibly stated my opinion, my unsupported opinion, without disclosing the whole story of the conspiracy and producing beyond doubt the same unsatisfactory effect on the minds of the coroner and the jury which I had already produced on the mind of Mr. Curll in these pages. However, and after the time that has now elapsed, no such cautions and restraints as are here described need fetter the free expression of my opinion. So he couldn't explain himself then, but he can explain himself. Now I will state briefly, before my pen occupies itself with other events, how my own convictions lead me to account for the abstraction of the keys, for the outbreak of the fire and for the death of the man. The news of my being free on bail drove Sir Percival, as I believe, to his last resources. The attempted attack on the road was one of those resources. And the suppression of all practical proof of his crime by destroying the page of the register on which the forgery had been committed was the other and the surest of the two. If I could produce no extract from the original book to compare with the certified copy at Knowlesbury, I could produce no positive evidence and could threaten him with no fatal exposure. All that was necessary to the attainment of his end was that he should get into the vestry unperceived, that he should tear out the page in the register and that he should leave the vestry again as privately as he had entered it. So Walter thinks that Sir Percival's plan was to destroy the forged page of the registry in order to foil Walter's plan of using it to expose Sir Percival's lies. On this supposition it is easy to understand why he waited until nightfall before he made the attempt and why he took advantage of the clerk's absence to possess himself of the keys. Necessity would oblige him to strike a light to find his way to the right register register and common caution would suggest his locking the door on the inside in case of intrusion on the part of any inquisitive stranger or on my part if I happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time. I cannot believe that it was any part of his intention to make the destruction of the register appear to be the result of accident. By purposely setting the vestry on fire. The bare chance that prompt assistance might arrive and the books might by the remotest possibility be saved would have been enough, on a moment's consideration to dismiss any idea of this sort from his mind. He's saying he doesn't think Percival meant to set anything on fire. He wasn't trying to destroy the page by making it look like there had been a fire in the vestry because that was too risky since someone might put out the fire before the page was destroyed. Remembering the quantity of combustible objects in the vestry, the straw, the papers, the packing cases, the dry wood, the old worm eaten presses. All the probabilities in my estimation point to the fire as the result of an accident with his matches or his light. Meaning the fire was a total accident. One of the flammable items in the room just caught fire from a spark from either his match or his lantern. His first impulse under these circumstances was doubtless to try to extinguish the flames. And failing in that, his second impulse, ignorant as he was of the state of the lock, had been to attempt to escape by the door which had given him entrance. Entrance. When I had called to him, the flames must have reached across the door leading into the church, on either side of which the presses extended and close to which the other combustible objects were placed. In all probability, the smoke and flame, confined as they were to the room, had been too much for him. When he tried to escape by the inner door, he must have dropped in his death swoon. He must have sunk in the place where he was found just as I got on the roof to break the skylight window. Even if we had been able afterwards to get into the church and to burst open the door from that side, the delay must have been fatal. He would have been past saving, long past saving. By that time we should only have given the flames free ingress into the church, the church which was now preserved, but which in that event would have shared the fate of the vestry. There is no doubt in my mind. There can be no doubt in the mind of anyone that he was a dead man before ever we got to the empty cottage and worked with might and main to tear down the beam. This is the nearest approach that any theory of mine can make towards accounting for a result which was visible. Matter of fact, as I have described them. So events pass to us outside as I have related it. So his body was found. The inquest was adjourned over one day. No explanation that the eye of the law could recognize having been discovered thus far. To account for the mysterious circumstances of the case, it was arranged that more witnesses should be summoned and that the London solicitor of the deceased should be invited to attend. A medical man was also charged with the duty of reporting on the mental condition of the servant which appeared at present to debar him from giving any evidence of the least important importance. He could only declare in a dazed way that he had been ordered on the night of the fire to wait in the lane, and that he knew nothing else except that the deceased was certainly his master. My own impression was that he had been first used without any guilty knowledge on his own part to ascertain the fact of the clerk's absence from home on the previous day, and that he had been afterwards ordered to wait near the church, but out of sight of the vestry to assist his master in the event of my escaping the attack on the road and of a collision occurring between Sir Percival and myself. It is necessary to add that the man's own testimony was never obtained to confirm this view. The medical report of him declared that what little mental faculty he possessed was seriously shaken. Nothing satisfactory was extracted from him at the adjourned inquest, and for aught I know to the contrary, he may never have recovered. To this day I returned to the hotel at Welmingham so jaded in body and mind, so weakened and depressed by all that I had gone through, as to be quite unfit to endure the local gossip about the inquest and to answer the trivial questions that the talkers addressed to me in the coffee room. I withdrew from my scanty dinner to my cheap garret chamber to secure myself a little quiet and to think undisturbed of Laura and Marian. If I had been a richer man, I would have gone back to London and would have comforted myself with the sight of the two dear faces again that night. But I was bound to appear if called on at the adjourned inquest and doubly bound to answer my bail before the magistrate at Knowlesbury. So he can't go back to London yet, because he's still needed at the inquest and also because he still has to appear before the judge in the case that Percival's minions cooked up against him on the road. Our slender resources had suffered already ready, and the doubtful future more doubtful than ever now made me dread decreasing our means unnecessarily by allowing myself an indulgence, even at the smallest cost of a double railway journey in the carriages of the second class. The next day, the day immediately following the inquest was left at my own disposal. I began the morning by again applying at the post office for my regular report from Marion. It was waiting for me as before, and it was written throughout in good spirits. I read the letter thankfully and then set forth with my mind at ease for the day to go to old Welmingham and to view the scene of the fire by the morning light. What changes met me when I got there? Through all the ways of our unintelligible world, the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together, the irony of circumstances holds no mortal catastrophe in respect. When I reached the church, the trampled condition of the burial ground was the only serious trace left to tell of the fire and the death. A rough hoarding of boards had been knocked up before the vestry doorway. Rude caricatures were scrawled on it already and the village children were fighting and shouting for the possession of the best peep hole to see through. On the spot where I had heard the cry for help from the burning room, on the spot where the panic stricken servant had dropped on his knees, a fussy flock of poultry was now scramb for the first choice of worms after the rain. And on the ground at my feet where the door and its dreadful burden had been laid, a workman's dinner was waiting for him tied up in a yellow basin and his faithful cur in charge was yelping at me for coming near the food. So a cur is a dog. So the dog is barking at Walter. The old clerk, looking idly at the slow commencement of the repairs, had only one interest that he could talk about now. The interest of escaping all blame for his own part on account of the accident that had happened. One of the village women, whose white wild face I remembered the picture of terror when we pulled down the beam, was giggling with another woman, the picture of inanity over an old washing tub. There is nothing serious in mortality. Solomon in all his glory was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace. Palace. As I left the place my thoughts turned not for the first time to the complete overthrow that all present hope of establishing Laura's identity had now suffered through Sir Percival's death. He was gone and with him the chance was gone, which had been the one object of all my labours and all my hopes. Could I look at my failure from no truer point of view than this? Suppose he had lived. Would that change of circumstance have altered the result? Could I have made my discovery a marketable commodity, even for Laura's sake, after I had found out that robbery of the rights of others was the essence of Sir Percival's crime? Could I have offered the price of my silence for his confession of the conspiracy, when the effect of that silence must have been to keep the right heir from the estates rights and the right owner from the name? Impossible. If Sir Percival had lived, the discovery from which, in my ignorance of the true nature of the secret I had hoped so much could not have been mine to suppress or to make public as I thought best for the vindication of Laura's rights in common honesty and common honour, I must have gone at once to the stranger whose birthright had been usurped, warped. I must have renounced the victory at the moment when it was mine by placing my discovery unreservedly in that stranger's hands. And I must have faced afresh all the difficulties which stood between me and the one object of my life, exactly as I was resolved in my heart of hearts to face them now. So he's saying that even if Sir Percival had lived, Walter wouldn't have thought it right to use the information of his forgery as blackmail. Because if he was successful, then he'd have to keep a secret the fact that someone else was actually entitled to Percival's lands and title. And Walter knows that wouldn't be fair to that person. So he'd have to reveal the situation to that person and therefore forfeit the right to use it as a weapon against Percival. For Laura's sake. I returned to Welmingham with my mind composed, feeling more sure of myself and my resolution than I had felt yet. On my way to the hotel, I passed the end of the square in which Mrs. Catherick lived. Lived? Should I go back to the house and make another attempt to see her? No. That news of Sir Percival's death, which was the last news she ever expected to hear, must have reached her hours, since all the proceedings at the inquest had been reported in the local paper that morning. There was nothing I could tell her which she did not know. Already my interest in making her speak had slackened. I remembered the furtive hatred in her face when she said, there is no news of Sir Percival that I don't expect, except the news of his death. I remembered the stealthy interest in her eyes when they settled on me at parting after she had spoken those words. Some instinct deep in my heart, which I felt to be a true one, made the prospect of again entering her presence repulsive to me. I turned away from the square and went straight back to the hotel. Some hours later, while I was resting in the coffee room, a letter was placed in my hands by the waiter. It was addressed to me by name and I found on inquiry that had been left at the bar by a woman just as it was near dusk and just before the gas was lighted. She had said nothing and she had gone away again before there was time to speak to her or even to notice who she was. I opened the letter. It was neither dated nor signed and the handwriting was palpably disguised. Before I had read the first sentence, however, I knew who my correspondent was. Mrs. Catherick. The letter ran as follows. I copy it exactly word for word. The story continued by Mrs. Sir, you have not come back as you said you would. No matter. I know the News. And I write to tell you so. Meaning she knows Percival is dead. And she's writing to tell Walter that she knows it. Did you see anything particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering in my own mind whether the day of his downfall had come at last and whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. You were. And you have worked it. You were weak enough, as I have heard, to try and save his life. If you had succeeded, I should have looked upon you as my enemy. Now you have failed. I hold you as my friend. Your inquiries frightened him into the vestry by night. Your inquiries, without your privity and against your will, have served the hatred and wreaked the vengeance of three and 20 years. Thank you, sir, in spite of yourself. So she's thanking Walter for being, albeit indirectly, the cause of Percival's death. 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. I should have been fond enough of you even to go that length. Length. And you would have accepted my invitation? You would, sir, 20 years ago. But I am an old woman now. Well, I can satisfy your curiosity and pay my debt in that way. You had a great curiosity to know certain private affairs of mine when you came to see me. Private affairs which all your sharpness could not look into without my help. Private affairs which you have not discovered even now. You shall discover them. Your curiosity shall be satisfied. I will take any trouble to please you, my estimable young friend. You were a little boy, I suppose, in the year 27. I was a handsome young woman at that time, living at old Welmingham. I had a contemptible fool for a husband. I had also the honour of being acquainted, never mind how, 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. You know that by this time as well as I do. So the gentleman she's talking about, then, is Percival? Because he's not really Sir Percival. That's why he doesn't have a name. It will be more to the purpose to tell you how he worked himself into my good graces. I was born with the taste of a lady and he gratified them. In other words, he admired me. And he made me presents. No woman can resist admiration and presents. Especially presents, provided they happen to be just the thing she wants. He was sharp enough to know that most men are 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. When my husband's back was turned, of course he lied. When I asked him why he wished me to get him the keys in that private way, he might have saved himself the trouble. I didn't believe him. But I liked my presents and I wanted more. So I got him the keys without my husband's knowledge. And I watched him without his own knowledge. So she did what Percival wanted. But she also spied on him afterwards. Once, twice, four times I watched him and the fourth time I found him out. I was never over scrupulous where other people's affairs were concerned. And I was not over scrupulous about his adding one to the marriages in the register on his own account, of course. I knew it was wrong, but it did no harm to me. Which was one good reason for not making a fuss about it. It and I had not got a gold watch and chain, which was another still better. And he had promised me one from London only the day before. Which was a third best of all. If I had known what the law considered the crime to be and how the law punished it I should have taken proper care of myself and have exposed him then and there. But I knew nothing and I longed for the gold watch. Meaning if she'd known this forgery was such a serious crime she would have exposed him so that she herself wouldn't be potentially implicated in the crime as well. All the conditions I insisted on were that he should take me into his confidence and tell me everything. I was as curious about his affairs then as you are about mine now. He granted my conditions. Why, you will see presently. This, put in short, is what I heard from him. He did not willingly tell me all that I tell you here. I drew some of it from him by persuasion and some of it by question. I was determined to have all the truth and I believe I got it. He knew no more than anyone else of what the state of things really was between his father and mother. Till after his mother's death. So Percival thought. His parents were married until his mother died. Then his father confessed it and promised to do what he could for his son. He died having done nothing, not even made a will. The son, who can blame him, wisely provided for himself. He came to England at once and took possession of the property. There was no one to suspect him and no one to say him nay. His father and mother had Always lived as man and wife. None of the few people who were acquainted with them ever supposed them to be anything else. The right person to claim the property, if the truth had been known, was a distant relation who had no idea of ever getting it and who was away at sea when his father died. So the actual heir didn't even know that he was the heir and was away. So it was easy for Percival to just say that he was the heir. He had no difficulty so far. He took possession as a matter of course. But he could not borrow money on the property as a matter of course. There were two things wanted of him before he could do this. One was a certificate of his birth and the other was a certificate of his parents marriage. The certificate of his birth was easily got. He was born abroad and the certificate was there in due form. The other matter was a difficulty. And that difficulty brought him to old Welmingham. But for one consideration, he might have gone to Knowlesbury instead. His mother had been living there just before she met with his father, living under her maiden name. The truth being that she was really a married woman, married in Ireland, where her husband had ill used her and had afterwards gone off with some other person. So the reason that Percival's parents never got married was that his mother was actually already married to somebody else. I give you this fact on good authority. Sir Felix mentioned it to his son as the reason why he had not married. You may wonder why the son, knowing that his parents had met each other at Knowlesbury, did not play his first tricks with the register of that church where it might have been fairly presumed his father and mother were married. The reason was that the clergyman who did duty at Knowlesbury Church in the year 1803, when, according to his birth certificate, his father and mother ought to have been married, was alive still when he took possession of the property in the New Year of 1827. This awkward circumstance forced him to extend his inquiries to our neighborhood. There no such danger existed. The former clergyman at our church having been dead for some years, old Welmingham suited his purpose as well as Knowlesbury. His father had removed his mother from Knowlesbury and had lived with her at a cottage on the river a little distance from our village. People who had known his solitary ways when he was single did not wonder at his solitary ways when he was supposed to be married. If he had not been a hideous creature to look at, his retired life with the lady might have raised suspicions. But as things were his hiding his ugliness and his deformity in the Strictest privacy surprised nobody. He lived in our neighbourhood till he came in possession of the park after three or four and 20 years had passed. Who was to say, the clergyman being dead, that his marriage had not been as private as the rest of his life and that it had not taken place at old Welmingham Church. So, as I told you, the son John found our neighborhood the surest place he could choose to set things right secretly in his own interests. It may surprise you to hear that what he really did to the marriage register was done on the spur of the moment, done on second thoughts. His first notion was only to tear the leaf out in the right year and month, to destroy it privately, to go back to London and to tell the lawyers to get him the necessary certificate of his father's marriage. Marriage. Innocently referring them, of course, to the date on the leaf that was gone. Nobody could say his father and mother had not been married after that. And whether, under the circumstances they would stretch a point or not about lending him the money he thought they would. He had his answer ready at all events, if a question was ever raised about his right to the name and the estate. But when he came to look privately at the register for himself, he found at the bottom of one of the pages for the year 1803, a blank space left seemingly through there being no room to make a long entry there, which was made instead at the top of the next page. The sight of this chance altered all his plans. It was an opportunity he had never hoped for or thought of, and he took it. You know how the blank space to have exactly tallied with his birth certificate ought to have occurred in the July part of the register. It occurred in the September part instead. However, in this case, if suspicious questions were asked, the answer was not hard to find. He had only to describe himself as a seventh month child. So the dates didn't totally match up. But if anyone asked, he could just tell them that he was born prematurely. I was fool enough when he told me his story to feel some interest and some pity for him, which was just what he calculated on. On, as you will see, I thought him hardly used. It was not his fault that his father and mother were not married. And it was not his father's and mother's fault either. A more scrupulous woman than I wasa woman who had not set her heart on a gold watch and chain would have found some excuses for him. At all events, I held my tongue and helped to screen what he was about. He was some time getting the ink the Right colour, mixing it over and over again in pots and bottles of mine and some time afterwards in practising the handwriting. But he succeeded in the end and made an honest woman of his mother after she was dead in her grave. So far, I don't deny that he behaved honourably enough to myself. He gave me my watch and chain and spared no expense in buying them. Both were of superior workmanship and very expensive. I have got them. Still, the watch goes beautifully. You said the other day that Mrs. Clements had told you everything she knew. In that case, there is no need for me to write about the Trumpery scandal by which I was the sufferer. The innocent sufferer, I positively assert. You must know as well as I do what the notion was which my husband took into his head when he found me and my fine gentleman acquaintance meeting each other privately and talking secrets together. Meaning her husband assumed she and Percival were having an affair. But what you don't know is how it ended between that same gentleman and myself. You shall read and see how he behaved to me. The first words I said to him when I saw the turn things had taken. Do me justice. Clear my character of a stain on it, which you know I don't deserve. I don't want you to make a clean breast of it to my husband. Only tell him on your word of honor as a gentleman that he is wrong and that I am not to blame in the way he thinks I am. Do me that justice at least. After all I have done for you. So she's asking Percival to swear to her husband that he wasn't having an affair with her. She says he doesn't have to come clean about the forgery, just about the affair. He flatly refused. In so many words. He told me plainly that it was his interest to let my husband and all my neighbors believe the falsehood. Because as long as they did so, they were quite certain never to suspect the truth. I had a spirit of my own and I told him they should know the truth from my lips. His reply was short and to the point. If I spoke, I was a lost woman as certainly as he was a lost man. Yes, it had come to that. He had deceived me about the risk I ran in helping him. Him. He had practiced on my ignorance. He had tempted me with his gifts. He had interested me with his story. And the result of it was that he made me his accomplice. So if Mrs. Catherick ever tells what Percival did, Percival will implicate her as well. And she'll be punished as much as him, he owned this coolly. And he ended by telling me for the first time what the frightful punishment really was for his offense defence and for any one who helped him to commit it. In those days, the law was not so tender hearted as I hear it is now. Murderers were not the only people liable to be hanged. And women convicts were not treated like ladies in undeserved distress. I confess he frightened me. The mean impostor, the cowardly blackguard. Do you understand now how I hated him? Do you understand why I am taking all this trouble? Thankfully taking it to gratify the curiosity of the meritorious young gentleman who hunted him down? Well, to go on, he was hardly fool enough to drive me to downright desperation. I was not the sort of woman whom it was quite safe to hunt into a corner. He knew that and wisely quieted me with proposals for the future. I deserved some reward, he was kind enough to say, for the service I had done him. And some compensation, he was so obliging as to add. For what I had suffered, he was quite willing to make me a handsome yearly allowance, payable quarterly, on two conditions. First, I was to hold my tongue in my own interests as well as in his. Secondly, I was not to stir away from Welmingham without first letting him know and waiting till I had obtained his permission in my own neighborhood. No virtuous female friends would tempt me into dangerous gossiping at the tea table in my own neighbourhood. He would always know where to find me. A hard condition, that second one. But I accepted it. What else was I to do? I was left helpless with the prospect of a coming encumbrance in the shape of a child guilt. What else was I to do? Cast myself on the mercy of my runaway idiot of a husband who had raised the scandal against me? I would have died first. Besides, the allowance was a handsome one. I had a better income, a better house over my head, better carpets on my floors than half the women who turned up the whites of their eyes at the sight of me. The dress of virtue do in our parts was cotton print. I had silk. So she had to care for her child. And with her husband gone, this allowance, or Percival is offering her, is the only way to do it. Plus she gets to have more money and more stylish things than her neighbors. So I accepted the conditions he offered me and made the best of them and fought my battle with my respectable neighbors on their own ground and won it in course of time. Him, as you saw yourself how I kept his secret and mine through all the years that have passed from that time to this, and whether my late daughter Anne ever really crept into my confidence and got the keeping of the secret too, are questions, I dare say, to which you are curious to find an answer. Well, my gratitude refuses you nothing. I will turn to a fresh page and give you the answer immediately. But you must excuse one thing. You must excuse my beginning, Mr. Hartright, with an expression of surprise at the interest which you appear to have felt in my late daughter. It is quite unaccountable to me if that interest makes you anxious for any particulars of her early life. I must refer you to Mrs. Clements, who knows more of the subject than I do. I do so remember that Mrs. Clements essentially raised Anne when she was younger. Pray understand that I do not profess to have been at all over fond of my late daughter. She was a worry to me from first to last, with the additional disadvantage of being always weak in the head. You like candor and I hope this satisfies you. There is no need to trouble you with many personal particulars relating to those past times. Times. It will be enough to say that I observed the terms of the bargain on my side and that I enjoyed my comfortable income in return. Paid quarterly now and then I got away and changed the scene for a short time, always asking leave of my lord and master first and generally getting it. He was not, as I have already told you, fool enough to drive me too hard. And he could reasonably rely on my holding my tongue for my own sake, if not for hits. One of my longest trips away from home was the trip I took to Limmeridge to nurse a half sister there who was dying. She was reported to have saved money and I thought it as well in case any accident happened to stop my allowance to look after my own interests in that direction. As things turned out, however, my pains were all thrown away and I got nothing because nothing was to be had. I had taken Anne to the north with me, me having my whims and fancies occasionally about my child and getting at such times jealous of Mrs. Clements's influence over her. I never liked Mrs. Clements. She was a poor, empty headed, spiritless woman, what you call a born drudge. And I was now and then not averse to plaguing her by taking Anne away. Not knowing what else to do with my girl. While I was nursing in Cumberland, I put her to school at lim hemorrhage. The lady of the manor, Mrs. Fairlie, a remarkably plain looking woman who had entrapped one of the handsomest men in England into marrying her amused me wonderfully by taking a violent fancy to my girl. The consequence was, she learnt nothing at school and was petted and spoilt at Limmeridge House among other whims and fancies which they taught her there. They put some nonsense into her head about always wearing white, hating white and liking colours myself. I determined to take the nonsense out of her head as soon as we got home again. Strange to say, my daughter resolutely resisted me when she had got a notion once fixed in her mind. She was like other half witted people, as obstinate as a mule in keeping it. We quarrelled finally and Mrs. Clements, not liking to see it, I suppose, offered to take Anne away to live in London with her. I should have said yes if Mrs. Clements had not sided with my daughter about her dressing herself in white. But being determined she should not dress herself in white and disliking Mrs. Clemens more than ever for taking part against me, I said no and meant no and stuck to no. The consequence was my daughter remained with me and the consequence of that in its turn was the first serious quarrel that happened about the secret. The circumstance took place long after the time I have just been writing. I had been settled for years in the new town and was steadily living down my bad character and slowly gaining ground among the respectable inhabitants. It helped me forward greatly towards this object to have my daughter with me. Her harmlessness and her fancy for dressing in white excited a certain amount of sympathy. I left off opposing her favorite whim on that account, because some of the sympathy was sure in course of time to fall to my share. Some of it did fall. I date my getting a choice of the two best sittings to let in the church from that time and I date the clergyman's first bow from my getting the sittings. Well, being settled in this way, I received a letter one morning from that highly born gentleman, now deceased, in answer to one of mine, warning him according to agreement of my wishing to leave the town for a little change of air and se. The ruffianly side of him must have been uppermost, I suppose, when he got my letter. For he wrote back refusing me in such abominably insolent language that I lost all command over myself and abused him in my daughter's presence as a low impostor whom I could ruin for life if I chose to open my lips and let out his secret meaning. She said this to herself in Anne's hearing after reading the letter from Percival saying that she couldn't go out of town. I said no more about him than that being brought to my senses. As soon as those words had escaped me by the sight of my daughter's face looking eagerly and curiously at mine, I instantly ordered her out of the room until I had composed myself again. My sensations were not pleasant, I can tell you, when I came to reflect on my own folly. Anne had been more than usually crazy and queer that year, and when I thought of the chance there might be of her repeating my words in the town and mentioning his name in connection with them if inquisitive people got hold of her, I was finally terrified at the possible consequences. My worst fears for myself, my worst dread of what he might do, led me no farther than this. I was quite unprepared for what really did happen. Only the next day, on that next day, without any warning to me to expect him, he came to the house. House. His first words, and the tone in which he spoke them, surly as it was, showed me plainly enough that he had repented already of his insolent answer to my application, and that he had come in a mighty bad temper to try and set matters right again before it was too late. Seeing my daughter in the room with Mei had been afraid to let her out of my sight after what had happened the day before. He ordered her away. They neither of them liked each other, and he vented the ill temper on her, which he was afraid to show to me. Leave us, he said, looking at her over his shoulder. She looked back over her shoulder and waited as if she didn't care to go. Do you hear? He roared out. Leave the room. Speak to me civilly, says she, getting red in the face. Turn the idiot out, says he, looking my way. She had always had crazy notions of her own about her dignity, and that word idiot upset her in a moment. Before I could interfere, she stepped up to him in a fine passion. Beg my pardon directly, says she, or I'll make it the worse for you. I'll let out your secret. I can ruin you for life if I choose to open my lips. My own words repeated exactly from what I had said the day before, repeated in his presence as if they had come from herself. He sat speechless, as white as the paper I am writing on, while I pushed her out of the room when he recovered himself. No, I am too respectable a woman to mention what he said when he recovered himself. My pen is the pen of a member of the rector's congregation and a subscriber to the Wednesday lectures on Justification by Faith how can you expect me to employ it in writing bad language? Suppose for yourself the raging swearing frenzy of the lowest ruffian in England, and let us get on together as fast as may be to the way in which it all ended. It ended, as you probably guessed by this time, in his insisting on securing his own safety by shutting her up, meaning by putting her in 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, and that she knew no particulars whatever because I had mentioned none. I explained that she had affected out of crazy spite against him, to know what she really did not know. That she only wanted to threaten him and aggravate him for speaking to her as he had just spoken, and that my unlucky words gave her just the chance of doing mischief of which she was in search. I referred him to other queer ways of hers and to his own experience of the vagaries of half witted people. It was all to no purpose. He would not believe me. On my oath, he was absolutely certain I had betrayed the whole secret. In short, he would hear of nothing but shutting her up. Under these circumstances I did my duty as a mother. No pauper asylum, I said. I won't have her put in a pauper asylum. A private establishment, if you please. I have my feelings as a mother and my character to preserve in the town, and I will submit to nothing but a private establishment of the sort which my genteel neighbours would choose for afflicted relatives of their own. Those were my words. It is gratifying to me to reflect that I did my duty. Beauty. Though never over. Fond of my late daughter, I had a proper pride about her. No pauper stain, thanks to my firmness and resolution, ever rested on my child. Having carried my point, which I did the more easily in consequence of the facilities offered by private asylums, I could not refuse to admit that there were certain advantages gained by shutting her up. Up. In the first place, she was taken excellent care of being treated, as I took care to mention, in the town on the footing of a lady. In the second place, she was kept away from Welmingham, where she might have set people suspecting and inquiring by repeating my own incautious words. The only drawback of putting her under restraint was a very slight one. We merely turned her empty boast about knowing the secret it into a fixed delusion. Having first spoken in sheer crazy spitefulness against the man who had offended her, she was cunning enough to see that she had seriously frightened him and sharp enough afterwards to discover that he was concerned in shutting her up. The consequence was she flamed out into a perfect frenzy of passion against him going to the asylum. And the first words she said to the nurses after they had quieted her were that she was put in confinement for knowing his secret, and that she meant to open her lips and ruin him when the right time came. She may have said the same thing to you when you thoughtlessly assisted her escape. She certainly said it, as I heard last summer, to the unfortunate woman who married our sweet tempered, nameless gentleman lately deceased. If either you or that unlucky lady had questioned my daughter close loosely, and had insisted on her explaining what she really meant, you would have found her lose all her self importance suddenly and get vacant and restless and confused. You would have discovered that I am writing nothing but the plain truth. She knew that there was a secret. She knew who was connected with it. She knew who would suffer by its being known. And beyond that. But whatever airs of importance she may have given herself, whatever crazy boasting she may have indulged in with strangers, she never to her dying day knew more. Have I satisfied your curiosity? I have taken pains enough to satisfy it. At any rate, there is really nothing else I have to tell you about myself or my daughter. My worst responsibilities, so far as she was concerned, were all over when she was secured in the assignment asylum. I had a form of letter relating to the circumstances under which she was shut up given me to write in answer to one Miss Halcombe, who was curious in the matter, and who must have heard plenty of lies about me from a certain tongue well accustomed to the telling of the same. And I did what I could afterwards to trace my runaway daughter and prevent her from doing mischief by making inquiries myself in the neighbourhood where she was falsely reported to have been seen. But these and other trifles like them are of little or no interest to you after what you have heard already so far. I have written in the friendliest possible spirit, but I cannot close this letter without adding a word here of serious remonstrance and reproof addressed to yourself. In the course of your personal interview with me, you audaciously referred to my late daughter's parentage on the father's side, as if that parentage was a matter of doubt. This was highly improper and very ungentlemanlike on your part. If we see each other again, remember, if you please, that I will allow no liberties to be taken with my reputation, and that the moral atmosphere of Welmingham. To use a favorite expression of my friend, the rectors must not be tainted by loose conversation of any kind. If you allow yourself to doubt that my husband was Anne's father, you personally insult me in the grossest manner. If you have felt, and if you still continue to feel an unhallowed curiosity on this subject, I recommend you, in your own interests, to check it at once and forever on this side of the grave. Mr. Hartright. Whatever may happen on the other, that curiosity will never be gratified. Perhaps, after what I have just said, you will see the necessity of writing me an apology. Do so, and I will willingly receive it. I will. Afterwards, if your wishes point to a second interview with me, go a step farther and receive you. My circumstances only enable me to invite you to tea. Not that they are at all altered for the worse by what has happened. I have always lived, as I think I told you, well within my income. And I have saved enough in the last 20 years to make me quite comfortable for the rest of my life. It is not my intention to leave Welmingham. There are one or two little advantages which I have still to gain in the town. The clergyman bows to me. As you saw, he is married and his wife is not quite so civil. I propose to join the Dorcas Society, and I mean to make the clergyman's wife bow to me. Now. Next. The Dorcas Society is essentially a church group. If you favor me with your company, pray understand that the conversation must be entirely on general subjects. Any attempted reference to this letter will be quite useless. I am determined not to acknowledge having written it. The evidence has been destroyed in the fire, I know, but I think it desirable to err on the side of caution. Nevertheless, on this account, no names are mentioned here, here, nor is any signature attached to these lines. The handwriting is disguised throughout. And I mean to deliver the letter myself under circumstances which will prevent all fear of its being traced to my house. You can have no possible cause to complain of these precautions, seeing that they do not affect the information I here communicate. In consideration of the special indulgence which you have deserved at my hands. My hour for tea is half past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the show Notes to contact me me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the show notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store, or pick up one of my books. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded, and marketed by me, so I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the show notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, story time is over. To be continue.