書蟲6級《白衣女人》9．墓碑

9．The gravestone

On 13th October 1850 I left the wild forests of Central America and returned to England. I had escaped death by disease, death by war, and death by drowning, and hoped that these experiences had strengthened me to face my future — a future without Laura Fairlie. I still remembered her as Laura Fairlie, and could not think of her by her husband's name.

The first thing I did was to visit my mother and sister in their Hampstead cottage. The joy of our meeting, however, soon turned to sadness. I have no secrets from my mother, and when I saw the loving pity in her eyes, I feared the worst.

The news was soon told. I tried hard not to let my sorrow spoil the happiness of my return for my mother and sister, but by the third day I knew I had to go away alone for a while.

Let me go up to Limmeridge,' I begged my mother. 'I can bear it better when I have seen her grave.'

It was a warm autumn afternoon when I arrived at the station and walked down the familiar road, seeing in the distance the high white walls of Limmeridge House. In the churchyard I found the grave and knelt down beside the gravestone, closing my eyes.

Oh my love! My Love! My dear, dear Love!

Hours passed, and the evening sunlight threw long shadows among the sleeping places of the dead. I had lost all sense of time, kneeling there. Then, in the silence, I heard the soft sound of footsteps on the grass.

I looked up.

Beyond me, standing together by the churchyard wall, were two women, their veils down, hiding their faces. They were looking towards the grave, looking towards me.

Two.

They came closer, and stopped. One of them lifted her veil, and in the still evening light I saw the face of Marian Halcombe. A changed face. Thin and pale, full of pain and fear.

The woman with the veiled face came towards me slowly. Marian Halcombe sank to her knees, murmuring, 'Oh God, help him! Please, please help him, God!'

The veiled woman came on, slowly and silently. I looked at her — at her, and at no one else, from that moment. She had possession of me, body and soul. She stopped by the side of the gravestone, and we stood face to face with the grave between us.

Oh God, help him, help him!'

The woman lifted her veil.

In Loving Memory of Laura, Lady Glyde...

Laura, Lady Glyde, was standing by the gravestone, looking at me over her grave.

*　　*　　*

A life suddenly changed. A new future before me, like the sunlit view from a mountain top. I leave my story in the quiet shadow of Limmeridge church, and begin again, one week later, in the noise and rush of a London street.

I have rented rooms under a different name. Marian and Laura, using the same name, are said to be my sisters. I earn our bread by doing drawings for cheap magazines. We employ no servant; my elder sister, Marian, does the housework with her own hands. Marian and I are known to be the friends of mad Anne Catherick (address unknown), who falsely claims the identity of Lady Glyde. To the rest of the world, Laura, Lady Glyde, is dead. Dead to her uncle, who has refused to recognize her; dead to the lawyers, who have passed her fortune to her husband and aunt.

But to Marian and me she is alive! Penniless and sadly changed — her beauty faded, her mind confused — but alive, with her poor drawing teacher to fight her battles and to win her way back to the world of living beings. She is mine at last — mine to support, to protect, to defend. And mine to love.