I stopped by the bedside from that time till the time when Mr Goodricke sent the person in, as he had promised. She was, by name, Jane Gould. I considered her to be a respectable-looking woman. She made no remark, except to say that she understood what was wanted of her, and that she had winded a many of them in her time.
How master bore the news, when he first heard it, is more than I can tell, not having been present. When I did see him he looked awfully overcome by it, to be sure. He sat quiet in a corner, with his fat hands hanging over his thick knees, and his head down, and his eyes looking at nothing.
He seemed not so much sorry, as scared and dazed like, by what had happened.
My mistress managed all that was to be done about the funeral. It must have cost a sight of money -- the coffin, in particular, being most beautiful.
The dead lady's husband was away, as we heard, in foreign parts. But my mistress (being her aunt) settled it with her friends in the country (Cumberland, I think) that she should be buried there, in the same grave along with her mother. Everything was done handsomely, in respect of the funeral, I say again, and master went down to attend the burying in the country himself. He looked grand in his deep mourning, with his big solemn face, and his slow walk, and his broad hatband -- that he did!
In conclusion, I have to say, in answer to questions put to me --
(i) That neither I nor my fellow-servant ever saw my master give Lady Glyde any medicine himself.
(2) That he was never, to my knowledge and belief, left alone in the room with Lady Glyde.
(3) That I am not able to say what caused the sudden fright, which my mistress informed me had seized the lady on her first coming into the house.
The cause was never explained, either to me or to my fellow-servant.
The above statement has been read over in my presence. I have nothing to add to it, or to take away from it. I say, on my oath as a Christian woman, this is the truth.
(Signed) HESTER PINHORN, Her+Mark. 2. THE NARRATIVE OF THE DOCTOR To the Registrar of the Sub-District in which the undermentioned death took place. -- I hereby certify that I attended Lady Glyde, aged Twenty-One last Birthday; that I last saw her on Thursday the 25th July 1850; that she died on the same day at No. 5 Forest Road, St John's Wood, and that the Cause of her death Duration of disease Aneurism Not known (Signed) ALFRED GOODRICKE.
Prof. Title. M.R.C.S. Eng., L.S.A.
Address : 12 Croydon Gardens, St John's Wood. 3. THE NARRATIVE OF JANE GOULD I WAS the person sent in by Mr Goodricke to do what was right and needful by the remains of a lady who had died at the house named in the certificate which precedes this. I found the body in charge of the servant, Hester Pinhorn. I remained with it, and prepared it at the proper time for the grave. It was laid in the coffin in my presence, and I afterwards saw the coffin screwed down previous to its removal. When that had been done, and not before, I received what was due to me and left the house. I refer persons who may wish to investigate my character to Mr Goodricke. He will bear witness that I can be trusted to tell the truth.
(Signed) JANE GOULD. 4. THE NARRATIVE OF THE TOMBSTONE SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF LAURA, LADY GLYDE, WIFE OF SIR PERCIVAL GLYDE, BART., OF BLACKWATER PARK, HAMPSHIRE, AND DAUGHTER OF THE LATE PHILIP FAIRLIE, ESQ., OF LIMMERIDGE HOUSE, IN THIS PARISH. BORN MARCH 27TH, 1829; MARRIED DECEMBER 22ND, 1849; DIED JULY 25TH, 1850. 5. THE NARRATIVE OF WALTER HARTRIGHT EARLY in the summer of 1850 I and my surviving companions left the wilds and forests of Central America for home. Arrived at the coast, we took ship there for England. The vessel was wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico --
I was among the few saved from the sea. It was my third escape from peril of death. Death by disease, death by the Indians, death by drowning --
all three had approached me; all three had passed me by.
The survivors of the wreck were rescued by an American vessel bound for Liverpool. The ship reached her port on the thirteenth day of October 1850. We landed late in the afternoon, and I arrived in London the same night.
These pages are not the record of my wanderings and my dangers away from home. The motives which led me from my country and my friends to a new world of adventure and peril are known. From that self-imposed exile I came back, as I had hoped, prayed, believed I should come back -- a changed man. In the waters of a new life I had tempered my nature afresh. In the stern school of extremity and danger my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to be resolute, my mind to rely on itself. I had gone out to fly from my own future. I came back to face it, as a man should.
To face it with that inevitable suppression of myself which I knew it would demand from me. I had parted with the worst bitterness of the past, but not with my heart's remembrance of the sorrow and the tenderness of that memorable time. I had not ceased to feel the one irreparable disappointment of my life -- I had only learnt to bear it. Laura Fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship bore me away, and I looked my last at England. Laura Fairlie was in all my thoughts when the ship brought me back, and the morning light showed the friendly shore in view.
My pen traces the old letters as my heart goes back to the old love.
I write of her as Laura Fairlie still. It is hard to think of her, it is hard to speak of her, by her husband's name.
There are no more words of explanation to add on my appearing for the second time in these pages. This narrative, if I have the strength and the courage to write it, may now go on.
My first anxieties and first hopes when the morning came centred in my mother and my sister. I felt the necessity of preparing them for the joy and surprise of my return, after an absence during which it had been impossible for them to receive any tidings of me for months past. Early in the morning I sent a letter to the Hampstead Cottage, and followed it myself in an hour's time.
