The Woman in White
one of which I should like to burn. The rooms on the floor above the
two galleries are kept in tolerable repair, but are very seldom used.
The civil housekeeper, who acted as my guide, offered to show me over
them, but considerately added that she feared I should find them
rather out of order. My respect for the integrity of my own petticoats
and stockings infinitely exceeds my respect for all the Elizabethan
bedrooms in the kingdom, so I positively declined exploring the upper
regions of dust and dirt at the risk of soiling my nice clean clothes.
The housekeeper said, “I am quite of your opinion, miss,” and appeared
to think me the most sensible woman she had met with for a long time
past.
So much, then, for the main building. Two wings are added at either end
of it. The half-ruined wing on the left (as you approach the house)
was once a place of residence standing by itself, and was built in the
fourteenth century. One of Sir Percival’s maternal ancestors—I don’t
remember, and don’t care which—tacked on the main building, at right
angles to it, in the aforesaid Queen Elizabeth’s time. The housekeeper
told me that the architecture of “the old wing,” both outside and
inside, was considered remarkably fine by good judges. On further
investigation I discovered that good judges could only exercise their
abilities on Sir Percival’s piece of antiquity by previously dismissing
from their minds all fear of damp, darkness, and rats. Under these
circumstances, I unhesitatingly acknowledged myself to be no judge
at all, and suggested that we should treat “the old wing” precisely
as we had previously treated the Elizabethan bedrooms. Once more the
housekeeper said, “I am quite of your opinion, miss,” and once more
she looked at me with undisguised admiration of my extraordinary
common-sense.
We went next to the wing on the right, which was built, by way of
completing the wonderful architectural jumble at Blackwater Park, in
the time of George the Second.
This is the habitable part of the house, which has been repaired and
redecorated inside on Laura’s account. My two rooms, and all the good
bedrooms besides, are on the first floor, and the basement contains a
drawing-room, a dining-room, a morning-room, a library, and a pretty
little boudoir for Laura, all very nicely ornamented in the bright
modern way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern
luxuries. None of the rooms are anything like so large and airy as
our rooms at Limmeridge, but they all look pleasant to live in. I was
terribly afraid, from what I had heard of Blackwater Park, of fatiguing
antique chairs, and dismal stained glass, and musty, frouzy hangings,
and all the barbarous lumber which people born without a sense of
comfort accumulate about them, in defiance of the consideration due
to the convenience of their friends. It is an inexpressible relief to
find that the nineteenth century has invaded this strange future home
of mine, and has swept the dirty “good old times” out of the way of our
daily life.
I dawdled away the morning—part of the time in the rooms downstairs,
and part out of doors in the great square which is formed by the three
sides of the house, and by the lofty iron railings and gates which
protect it in front. A large circular fish-pond with stone sides,
and an allegorical leaden monster in the middle, occupies the centre
of the square. The pond itself is full of gold and silver fish, and
is encircled by a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked on. I
loitered here on the shady side pleasantly enough till luncheon-time,
and after that took my broad straw hat and wandered out alone in the
warm lovely sunlight to explore the grounds.
Daylight confirmed the impression which I had felt the night before, of
there being too many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled by them.
They are, for the most part, young, and planted far too thickly. I
suspect there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber all over
the estate before Sir Percival’s time, and an angry anxiety on the part
of the next possessor to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly
as possible. After looking about me in front of the house, I observed
a flower-garden on my left hand, and walked towards it to see what I
could discover in that direction.
On a nearer view the garden proved to be small and poor and ill kept.
I left it behind me, opened a little gate in a ring fence, and found
myself in a plantation of fir-trees.
A pretty winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees,
and my north-country experience soon informed me that I was approaching
sandy, heathy ground. After a walk of more than half a mile, I should
think, among the firs, the path took a sharp turn—the trees abruptly
ceased to appear on either side of me, and I found myself standing
suddenly on the margin of a vast open space, and looking down at the
Blackwater lake from which the house takes its name.
The ground, shelving away below me, was all sand, with a few little
heathy hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. The
lake itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on which I stood,
and had been gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its
former size. I saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter of a mile
away from me in the hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining
reeds and rushes, and little knolls of earth. On the farther bank from
me the trees rose thickly again, and shut out the view, and cast their
black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water. As I walked down to the
lake, I saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy,
overgrown with rank grass and dismal willows. The water, which was
clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black
and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of
the spongy banks, and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees.
The frogs were croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out of the
shadowy water, like live shadows themselves, as I got nearer to the
marshy side of the lake. I saw here, lying half in and half out of the
water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot
of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface,
and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and
treacherously still. Far and near the view suggested the same dreary
impressions of solitude and decay, and the glorious brightness of the
summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and
barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. I turned and retraced
my steps to the high heathy ground, directing them a little aside from
my former path towards a shabby old wooden shed, which stood on the
outer skirt of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto been too
unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of the lake.
On approaching the shed I found that it had once been a boat-house,
and that an attempt had apparently been made to convert it afterwards
into a sort of rude arbour, by placing inside it a firwood seat, a few
stools, and a table. I entered the place, and sat down for a little
while to rest and get my breath again.
I had not been in the boat-house more than a minute when it struck me
that the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by
something beneath me. I listened intently for a moment, and heard a
low, thick, sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under
the seat which I was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by
trifles, but on this occasion I started to my feet in a fright—called
out—received no answer—summoned back my recreant courage, and looked
under the seat.
There, crouched up in the farthest corner, lay the forlorn cause of my
terror, in the shape of a poor little dog—a black and white spaniel.
The creature moaned feebly when I looked at it and called to it, but
never stirred. I moved away the seat and looked closer. The poor little
dog’s eyes were glazing fast, and there were spots of blood on its
glossy white side. The misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is
surely one of the saddest of all the mournful sights which this world
can show. I lifted the poor dog in my arms as gently as I could, and
contrived a sort of make-shift hammock for him to lie in, by gathering
up the front of my dress all round him. In this way I took the
creature, as painlessly as possible, and as fast as possible, back to
the house.
Finding no one in the hall I went up at once to my own sitting-room,
made a bed for the dog with one of my old shawls, and rang the bell.
The largest and fattest of all possible house-maids answered it, in a
state of cheerful stupidity which would have provoked the patience of a
saint. The girl’s fat, shapeless face actually stretched into a broad
grin at the sight of the wounded creature on the floor.
“What do you see there to laugh at?” I asked, as angrily as if she had
been a servant of my own. “Do you know whose dog it is?”
“No, miss, that I certainly don’t.” She stooped, and looked down at
the spaniel’s injured side—brightened suddenly with the irradiation of
a new idea—and pointing to the wound with a chuckle of satisfaction,
said, “That’s Baxter’s doings, that is.”
I was so exasperated that I could have boxed her ears. “Baxter?” I
said. “Who is the brute you call Baxter?”
The girl grinned again more cheerfully than ever. “Bless you, miss!
Baxter’s the keeper, and when he finds strange dogs hunting about, he
takes and shoots ’em. It’s keeper’s dooty, miss. I think that dog will
die. Here’s where he’s been shot, ain’t it? That’s Baxter’s doings,
that is. Baxter’s doings, miss, and Baxter’s dooty.”
I was almost wicked enough to wish that Baxter had shot the housemaid
instead of the dog. Seeing that it was quite useless to expect this
densely impenetrable personage to give me any help in relieving the
suffering creature at our feet, I told her to request the housekeeper’s
attendance with my compliments. She went out exactly as she had come
in, grinning from ear to ear. As the door closed on her she said to
herself softly, “It’s Baxter’s doings and Baxter’s dooty—that’s what it
is.”
The housekeeper, a person of some education and intelligence,
thoughtfully brought upstairs with her some milk and some warm water.
The instant she saw the dog on the floor she started and changed colour.
“Why, Lord bless me,” cried the housekeeper, “that must be Mrs.
Catherick’s dog!”
“Whose?” I asked, in the utmost astonishment.
“Mrs. Catherick’s. You seem to know Mrs. Catherick, Miss Halcombe?”
“Not personally, but I have heard of her. Does she live here? Has she
had any news of her daughter?”
“No, Miss Halcombe, she came here to ask for news.”
“When?”
“Only yesterday. She said some one had reported that a stranger
answering to the description of her daughter had been seen in our
neighbourhood. No such report has reached us here, and no such report
was known in the village, when I sent to make inquiries there on Mrs.
Catherick’s account. She certainly brought this poor little dog with
her when she came, and I saw it trot out after her when she went away.
I suppose the creature strayed into the plantations, and got shot.
Where did you find it, Miss Halcombe?”
“In the old shed that looks out on the lake.”
“Ah, yes, that is the plantation side, and the poor thing dragged
itself, I suppose, to the nearest shelter, as dogs will, to die. If
you can moisten its lips with the milk, Miss Halcombe, I will wash the
clotted hair from the wound. I am very much afraid it is too late to do
any good. However, we can but try.”
Mrs. Catherick! The name still rang in my ears, as if the housekeeper
had only that moment surprised me by uttering it. While we were