The Woman in White
Mr. Fairlie, the elder, died and left three sons, Philip, Frederick,
and Arthur. As eldest son, Philip succeeded to the estate, if he
died without leaving a son, the property went to the second brother,
Frederick; and if Frederick died also without leaving a son, the
property went to the third brother, Arthur.
As events turned out, Mr. Philip Fairlie died leaving an only daughter,
the Laura of this story, and the estate, in consequence, went, in
course of law, to the second brother, Frederick, a single man. The
third brother, Arthur, had died many years before the decease of
Philip, leaving a son and a daughter. The son, at the age of eighteen,
was drowned at Oxford. His death left Laura, the daughter of Mr.
Philip Fairlie, presumptive heiress to the estate, with every chance
of succeeding to it, in the ordinary course of nature, on her uncle
Frederick’s death, if the said Frederick died without leaving male
issue.
Except in the event, then, of Mr. Frederick Fairlie’s marrying and
leaving an heir (the two very last things in the world that he was
likely to do), his niece, Laura, would have the property on his death,
possessing, it must be remembered, nothing more than a life-interest
in it. If she died single, or died childless, the estate would revert
to her cousin, Magdalen, the daughter of Mr. Arthur Fairlie. If
she married, with a proper settlement—or, in other words, with the
settlement I meant to make for her—the income from the estate (a good
three thousand a year) would, during her lifetime, be at her own
disposal. If she died before her husband, he would naturally expect
to be left in the enjoyment of the income, for HIS lifetime. If she
had a son, that son would be the heir, to the exclusion of her cousin
Magdalen. Thus, Sir Percival’s prospects in marrying Miss Fairlie (so
far as his wife’s expectations from real property were concerned)
promised him these two advantages, on Mr. Frederick Fairlie’s death:
First, the use of three thousand a year (by his wife’s permission,
while she lived, and in his own right, on her death, if he survived
her); and, secondly, the inheritance of Limmeridge for his son, if he
had one.
So much for the landed property, and for the disposal of the income
from it, on the occasion of Miss Fairlie’s marriage. Thus far, no
difficulty or difference of opinion on the lady’s settlement was at all
likely to arise between Sir Percival’s lawyer and myself.
The personal estate, or, in other words, the money to which Miss
Fairlie would become entitled on reaching the age of twenty-one years,
is the next point to consider.
This part of her inheritance was, in itself, a comfortable little
fortune. It was derived under her father’s will, and it amounted to the
sum of twenty thousand pounds. Besides this, she had a life-interest
in ten thousand pounds more, which latter amount was to go, on her
decease, to her aunt Eleanor, her father’s only sister. It will greatly
assist in setting the family affairs before the reader in the clearest
possible light, if I stop here for a moment, to explain why the aunt
had been kept waiting for her legacy until the death of the niece.
Mr. Philip Fairlie had lived on excellent terms with his sister
Eleanor, as long as she remained a single woman. But when her marriage
took place, somewhat late in life, and when that marriage united
her to an Italian gentleman named Fosco, or, rather, to an Italian
nobleman—seeing that he rejoiced in the title of Count—Mr. Fairlie
disapproved of her conduct so strongly that he ceased to hold any
communication with her, and even went the length of striking her name
out of his will. The other members of the family all thought this
serious manifestation of resentment at his sister’s marriage more
or less unreasonable. Count Fosco, though not a rich man, was not a
penniless adventurer either. He had a small but sufficient income of
his own. He had lived many years in England, and he held an excellent
position in society. These recommendations, however, availed nothing
with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his opinions he was an Englishman of the
old school, and he hated a foreigner simply and solely because he was
a foreigner. The utmost that he could be prevailed on to do, in after
years—mainly at Miss Fairlie’s intercession—was to restore his sister’s
name to its former place in his will, but to keep her waiting for her
legacy by giving the income of the money to his daughter for life, and
the money itself, if her aunt died before her, to her cousin Magdalen.
Considering the relative ages of the two ladies, the aunt’s chance, in
the ordinary course of nature, of receiving the ten thousand pounds,
was thus rendered doubtful in the extreme; and Madame Fosco resented
her brother’s treatment of her as unjustly as usual in such cases, by
refusing to see her niece, and declining to believe that Miss Fairlie’s
intercession had ever been exerted to restore her name to Mr. Fairlie’s
will.
Such was the history of the ten thousand pounds. Here again no
difficulty could arise with Sir Percival’s legal adviser. The income
would be at the wife’s disposal, and the principal would go to her aunt
or her cousin on her death.
All preliminary explanations being now cleared out of the way, I come
at last to the real knot of the case—to the twenty thousand pounds.
This sum was absolutely Miss Fairlie’s own on her completing her
twenty-first year, and the whole future disposition of it depended, in
the first instance, on the conditions I could obtain for her in her
marriage-settlement. The other clauses contained in that document were
of a formal kind, and need not be recited here. But the clause relating
to the money is too important to be passed over. A few lines will be
sufficient to give the necessary abstract of it.
My stipulation in regard to the twenty thousand pounds was simply
this: The whole amount was to be settled so as to give the income to
the lady for her life—afterwards to Sir Percival for his life—and the
principal to the children of the marriage. In default of issue, the
principal was to be disposed of as the lady might by her will direct,
for which purpose I reserved to her the right of making a will. The
effect of these conditions may be thus summed up. If Lady Glyde died
without leaving children, her half-sister Miss Halcombe, and any other
relatives or friends whom she might be anxious to benefit, would, on
her husband’s death, divide among them such shares of her money as she
desired them to have. If, on the other hand, she died leaving children,
then their interest, naturally and necessarily, superseded all other
interests whatsoever. This was the clause—and no one who reads it can
fail, I think, to agree with me that it meted out equal justice to all
parties.
We shall see how my proposals were met on the husband’s side.
At the time when Miss Halcombe’s letter reached me I was even more
busily occupied than usual. But I contrived to make leisure for the
settlement. I had drawn it, and had sent it for approval to Sir
Percival’s solicitor, in less than a week from the time when Miss
Halcombe had informed me of the proposed marriage.
After a lapse of two days the document was returned to me, with notes
and remarks of the baronet’s lawyer. His objections, in general, proved
to be of the most trifling and technical kind, until he came to the
clause relating to the twenty thousand pounds. Against this there were
double lines drawn in red ink, and the following note was appended to
them—
“Not admissible. The PRINCIPAL to go to Sir Percival Glyde, in the
event of his surviving Lady Glyde, and there being no issue.”
That is to say, not one farthing of the twenty thousand pounds was
to go to Miss Halcombe, or to any other relative or friend of Lady
Glyde’s. The whole sum, if she left no children, was to slip into the
pockets of her husband.
The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as
I could make it. “My dear sir. Miss Fairlie’s settlement. I maintain
the clause to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly.”
The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. “My dear sir. Miss
Fairlie’s settlement. I maintain the red ink to which you object,
exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” In the detestable slang of the day,
we were now both “at a deadlock,” and nothing was left for it but to
refer to our clients on either side.
As matters stood, my client—Miss Fairlie not having yet completed her
twenty-first year—Mr. Frederick Fairlie, was her guardian. I wrote by
that day’s post, and put the case before him exactly as it stood, not
only urging every argument I could think of to induce him to maintain
the clause as I had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary
motive which was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of
the twenty thousand pounds. The knowledge of Sir Percival’s affairs
which I had necessarily gained when the provisions of the deed on
HIS side were submitted in due course to my examination, had but too
plainly informed me that the debts on his estate were enormous, and
that his income, though nominally a large one, was virtually, for a
man in his position, next to nothing. The want of ready money was the
practical necessity of Sir Percival’s existence, and his lawyer’s note
on the clause in the settlement was nothing but the frankly selfish
expression of it.
Mr. Fairlie’s answer reached me by return of post, and proved to be
wandering and irrelevant in the extreme. Turned into plain English, it
practically expressed itself to this effect: “Would dear Gilmore be so
very obliging as not to worry his friend and client about such a trifle
as a remote contingency? Was it likely that a young woman of twenty-one
would die before a man of forty five, and die without children? On
the other hand, in such a miserable world as this, was it possible to
over-estimate the value of peace and quietness? If those two heavenly
blessings were offered in exchange for such an earthly trifle as a
remote chance of twenty thousand pounds, was it not a fair bargain?
Surely, yes. Then why not make it?”
I threw the letter away in disgust. Just as it had fluttered to the
ground, there was a knock at my door, and Sir Percival’s solicitor, Mr.
Merriman, was shown in. There are many varieties of sharp practitioners
in this world, but I think the hardest of all to deal with are the
men who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. A
fat, well fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to
a bargain the most hopeless to deal with. Mr. Merriman was one of this
class.
“And how is good Mr. Gilmore?” he began, all in a glow with the warmth
of his own amiability. “Glad to see you, sir, in such excellent health.
I was passing your door, and I thought I would look in in case you
might have something to say to me. Do—now pray do let us settle this
little difference of ours by word of mouth, if we can! Have you heard
from your client yet?”
“Yes. Have you heard from yours?”
“My dear, good sir! I wish I had heard from him to any purpose—I
wish, with all my heart, the responsibility was off my shoulders; but
he is obstinate—or let me rather say, resolute—and he won’t take it
off. ‘Merriman, I leave details to you. Do what you think right for
my interests, and consider me as having personally withdrawn from the
business until it is all over.’ Those were Sir Percival’s words a
fortnight ago, and all I can get him to do now is to repeat them. I am
not a hard man, Mr. Gilmore, as you know. Personally and privately, I
do assure you, I should like to sponge out that note of mine at this
very moment. But if Sir Percival won’t go into the matter, if Sir
Percival will blindly leave all his interests in my sole care, what