“Deranged?” suggested Miss Halcombe.
I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the last sentence of the letter: “Your mother was my first, my best, my only friend.”
“We must use any chance of tracing the person who has written this,” I said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, “I think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries in the village.”
“Sir Percival Glyde is anxious that the marriage should take place before the end of the year.”
“Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?” I asked eagerly.
“She has no suspicion of it. Mr. Fairlie has written to London, to the family solicitor,[37] Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore will arrive tomorrow, and will stay with us a few days. Mr. Gilmore is the old friend of two generations of Fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one else.”
“One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter,” I said, “contains some sentences of personal description. Sir Percival Glyde’s name is not mentioned, I know – but does that description at all resemble him?”
“Accurately – even in stating his age to be forty-five – ”
Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! That added to my blind hatred and distrust of him.
“There can be no doubt,” Miss Halcombe continued, “that every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter.”
“Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?”
“Yes, and mentioned correctly.”
I felt the blood rush into my cheeks.
“But,” she said, “not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against Sir Percival.”
I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not convinced me.
“We must find out more about the woman who gave this letter to the gardener,” said Marian. “Come on.”
We found the gardener at work as usual – but he couldn’t give us any more information to help us. The woman who had given him the letter had been wearing a long dark-blue coat and a scarf which covered her hair. She hadn’t spoken a word to him. After giving him the letter, she had hurried away in the direction of the village. That was all the gardener could tell us.
The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.
We then went to the village and spent several hours asking people there if they had seen a strange woman that day, but nobody had. Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but they were quite unable to describe her.
The course of our useless investigations brought us to the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated.
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. The pupils 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.
“Now, boys,” said the voice, “mind what I tell you.[38] 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 belongsto Limmeridge School, and believes in what can’t possibly be must be punished accordingly. Jacob[39] 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.”
Marian and I looked at each other in astonishment.
“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.”
We asked him if he had seen any strangers in the village that morning, but he shook his head.
“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.”
“You foolish boy,” said Marian, “why don’t you beg Mr. Dempster’s pardon, and hold your tongue about the ghost?”
“Eh! – but I saw a ghost yesterday evening,” persisted Jacob, with a stare of terror and a burst of tears.
“Nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed! Don’t tell lies,” said Marian angrily. “There are no such things as ghosts.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe,” interposed the schoolmaster, “but I think you had better not question the boy.”
She turned with an air of defiance to little Jacob, and began to question him directly. “Come!” she said, “I want to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did you see the ghost?”
“Yesterday. It was just where a ghost ought to be – in the churchyard. Near the grave with the tall white cross,” replied Jacob.
“Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? And what was it like?”
“All in white – as a ghost should be,” answered the ghost-seer, with a confidence beyond his years.
Marian turned pale and looked me eagerly in the face.
“The woman in white!” she said. “And the grave with the tall white cross is my mother’s grave. What does she want with that? I go at once to the churchyard. Perhaps we can learn something more there.”
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.”
“You shall see the grave.”
“Miss Halcombe, what has happened in the schoolroom encourages me to continue the investigation.”
“Why does it encourage you?”
“Miss Halcombe, I believe, at this moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same person.[40]”
She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face.
“What person?”
“The schoolmaster unconsciously told you.[41] When he spoke of the figure that the boy saw in the churchyard he called it ‘a woman in white.’”
“Not Anne Catherick?”
“Yes, Anne Catherick.”
She put her hand through my arm and leaned on it heavily.
“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “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 was a small building of grey stone, and was situated in a peaceful valley. The graves lay behind the church and rose a little way up the hillside.
There was a low stone wall all around the graves, and in one corner of the churchyard there was a group of trees, and among them was a tall white marble