The Woman in White
venturesome proposal to live with his wife was more than kind, it was
almost affectionate. I am sure Laura’s husband will have no reason to
complain of me if I can only go on as I have begun. I have already
declared him to be handsome, agreeable, full of good feeling towards
the unfortunate and full of affectionate kindness towards me. Really, I
hardly know myself again, in my new character of Sir Percival’s warmest
friend.
20th.—I hate Sir Percival! I flatly deny his good looks. I consider
him to be eminently ill-tempered and disagreeable, and totally wanting
in kindness and good feeling. Last night the cards for the married
couple were sent home. Laura opened the packet and saw her future name
in print for the first time. Sir Percival looked over her shoulder
familiarly at the new card which had already transformed Miss Fairlie
into Lady Glyde—smiled with the most odious self-complacency, and
whispered something in her ear. I don’t know what it was—Laura has
refused to tell me—but I saw her face turn to such a deadly whiteness
that I thought she would have fainted. He took no notice of the
change—he seemed to be barbarously unconscious that he had said
anything to pain her. All my old feelings of hostility towards him
revived on the instant, and all the hours that have passed since have
done nothing to dissipate them. I am more unreasonable and more unjust
than ever. In three words—how glibly my pen writes them!—in three
words, I hate him.
21st.—Have the anxieties of this anxious time shaken me a little, at
last? I have been writing, for the last few days, in a tone of levity
which, Heaven knows, is far enough from my heart, and which it has
rather shocked me to discover on looking back at the entries in my
journal.
Perhaps I may have caught the feverish excitement of Laura’s spirits
for the last week. If so, the fit has already passed away from me,
and has left me in a very strange state of mind. A persistent idea
has been forcing itself on my attention, ever since last night, that
something will yet happen to prevent the marriage. What has produced
this singular fancy? Is it the indirect result of my apprehensions
for Laura’s future? Or has it been unconsciously suggested to me by
the increasing restlessness and irritability which I have certainly
observed in Sir Percival’s manner as the wedding-day draws nearer and
nearer? Impossible to say. I know that I have the idea—surely the
wildest idea, under the circumstances, that ever entered a woman’s
head?—but try as I may, I cannot trace it back to its source.
This last day has been all confusion and wretchedness. How can I write
about it?—and yet, I must write. Anything is better than brooding over
my own gloomy thoughts.
Kind Mrs. Vesey, whom we have all too much overlooked and forgotten
of late, innocently caused us a sad morning to begin with. She has
been, for months past, secretly making a warm Shetland shawl for her
dear pupil—a most beautiful and surprising piece of work to be done by
a woman at her age and with her habits. The gift was presented this
morning, and poor warm-hearted Laura completely broke down when the
shawl was put proudly on her shoulders by the loving old friend and
guardian of her motherless childhood. I was hardly allowed time to
quiet them both, or even to dry my own eyes, when I was sent for by Mr.
Fairlie, to be favoured with a long recital of his arrangements for the
preservation of his own tranquillity on the wedding-day.
“Dear Laura” was to receive his present—a shabby ring, with her
affectionate uncle’s hair for an ornament, instead of a precious
stone, and with a heartless French inscription inside, about congenial
sentiments and eternal friendship—“dear Laura” was to receive this
tender tribute from my hands immediately, so that she might have plenty
of time to recover from the agitation produced by the gift before she
appeared in Mr. Fairlie’s presence. “Dear Laura” was to pay him a
little visit that evening, and to be kind enough not to make a scene.
“Dear Laura” was to pay him another little visit in her wedding-dress
the next morning, and to be kind enough, again, not to make a scene.
“Dear Laura” was to look in once more, for the third time, before
going away, but without harrowing his feelings by saying WHEN she was
going away, and without tears—“in the name of pity, in the name of
everything, dear Marian, that is most affectionate and most domestic,
and most delightfully and charmingly self-composed, WITHOUT TEARS!” I
was so exasperated by this miserable selfish trifling, at such a time,
that I should certainly have shocked Mr. Fairlie by some of the hardest
and rudest truths he has ever heard in his life, if the arrival of Mr.
Arnold from Polesdean had not called me away to new duties downstairs.
The rest of the day is indescribable. I believe no one in the house
really knew how it passed. The confusion of small events, all huddled
together one on the other, bewildered everybody. There were dresses
sent home that had been forgotten—there were trunks to be packed
and unpacked and packed again—there were presents from friends far
and near, friends high and low. We were all needlessly hurried, all
nervously expectant of the morrow. Sir Percival, especially, was too
restless now to remain five minutes together in the same place. That
short, sharp cough of his troubled him more than ever. He was in and
out of doors all day long, and he seemed to grow so inquisitive on a
sudden, that he questioned the very strangers who came on small errands
to the house. Add to all this, the one perpetual thought in Laura’s
mind and mine, that we were to part the next day, and the haunting
dread, unexpressed by either of us, and yet ever present to both, that
this deplorable marriage might prove to be the one fatal error of her
life and the one hopeless sorrow of mine. For the first time in all the
years of our close and happy intercourse we almost avoided looking each
other in the face, and we refrained, by common consent, from speaking
together in private through the whole evening. I can dwell on it no
longer. Whatever future sorrows may be in store for me, I shall always
look back on this twenty-first of December as the most comfortless and
most miserable day of my life.
I am writing these lines in the solitude of my own room, long after
midnight, having just come back from a stolen look at Laura in her
pretty little white bed—the bed she has occupied since the days of her
girlhood.
There she lay, unconscious that I was looking at her—quiet, more
quiet than I had dared to hope, but not sleeping. The glimmer of the
night-light showed me that her eyes were only partially closed—the
traces of tears glistened between her eyelids. My little keepsake—only
a brooch—lay on the table at her bedside, with her prayer-book, and the
miniature portrait of her father which she takes with her wherever she
goes. I waited a moment, looking at her from behind her pillow, as she
lay beneath me, with one arm and hand resting on the white coverlid, so
still, so quietly breathing, that the frill on her night-dress never
moved—I waited, looking at her, as I have seen her thousands of times,
as I shall never see her again—and then stole back to my room. My own
love! with all your wealth, and all your beauty, how friendless you
are! The one man who would give his heart’s life to serve you is far
away, tossing, this stormy night, on the awful sea. Who else is left to
you? No father, no brother—no living creature but the helpless, useless
woman who writes these sad lines, and watches by you for the morning,
in sorrow that she cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer.
Oh, what a trust is to be placed in that man’s hands to-morrow! If ever
he forgets it—if ever he injures a hair of her head!——
THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. Seven o’clock. A wild, unsettled
morning. She has just risen—better and calmer, now that the time has
come, than she was yesterday.
Ten o’clock. She is dressed. We have kissed each other—we have promised
each other not to lose courage. I am away for a moment in my own room.
In the whirl and confusion of my thoughts, I can detect that strange
fancy of some hindrance happening to stop the marriage still hanging
about my mind. Is it hanging about HIS mind too? I see him from the
window, moving hither and thither uneasily among the carriages at the
door.—How can I write such folly! The marriage is a certainty. In less
than half an hour we start for the church.
Eleven o’clock. It is all over. They are married.
Three o’clock. They are gone! I am blind with crying—I can write no
more——
* * * * * * * * * *
[The First Epoch of the Story closes here.]
THE SECOND EPOCH
THE STORY CONTINUED BY MARIAN HALCOMBE.
I
BLACKWATER PARK, HAMPSHIRE.
June 11th, 1850.—Six months to look back on—six long, lonely months
since Laura and I last saw each other!
How many days have I still to wait? Only one! To-morrow, the twelfth,
the travellers return to England. I can hardly realise my own
happiness—I can hardly believe that the next four-and-twenty hours will
complete the last day of separation between Laura and me.
She and her husband have been in Italy all the winter, and afterwards
in the Tyrol. They come back, accompanied by Count Fosco and his wife,
who propose to settle somewhere in the neighbourhood of London, and who
have engaged to stay at Blackwater Park for the summer months before
deciding on a place of residence. So long as Laura returns, no matter
who returns with her. Sir Percival may fill the house from floor to
ceiling, if he likes, on condition that his wife and I inhabit it
together.
Meanwhile, here I am, established at Blackwater Park, “the ancient and
interesting seat” (as the county history obligingly informs me) “of
Sir Percival Glyde, Bart.,” and the future abiding-place (as I may now
venture to add on my account) of plain Marian Halcombe, spinster, now
settled in a snug little sitting-room, with a cup of tea by her side,
and all her earthly possessions ranged round her in three boxes and a
bag.
I left Limmeridge yesterday, having received Laura’s delightful letter
from Paris the day before. I had been previously uncertain whether
I was to meet them in London or in Hampshire, but this last letter
informed me that Sir Percival proposed to land at Southampton, and to
travel straight on to his country-house. He has spent so much money
abroad that he has none left to defray the expenses of living in London
for the remainder of the season, and he is economically resolved to
pass the summer and autumn quietly at Blackwater. Laura has had more
than enough of excitement and change of scene, and is pleased at the
prospect of country tranquillity and retirement which her husband’s
prudence provides for her. As for me, I am ready to be happy anywhere
in her society. We are all, therefore, well contented in our various
ways, to begin with.
Last night I slept in London, and was delayed there so long to-day by
various calls and commissions, that I did not reach Blackwater this
evening till after dusk.
Judging by my vague impressions of the place thus far, it is the exact
opposite of Limmeridge.
The house is situated on a dead flat, and seems to be shut in—almost
suffocated, to my north-country notions, by trees. I have seen nobody
but the man-servant who opened the door to me, and the housekeeper, a
very civil person, who showed me the way to my own room, and got me my
tea. I have a nice little boudoir and bedroom, at the end of a long
passage on the first floor. The servants and some of the spare rooms
are on the second floor, and all the living rooms are on the ground