The Woman in White
“Most assuredly,” said the Count’s quiet voice behind me. He had stolen
on us with his noiseless tread and his book in his hand from the
library.
“When Lady Glyde said those hasty words,” he went on, “she did me
an injustice which I lament—and forgive. Let us never return to the
subject, Miss Halcombe; let us all comfortably combine to forget it
from this moment.”
“You are very kind,” I said, “you relieve me inexpressibly.”
I tried to continue, but his eyes were on me; his deadly smile that
hides everything was set, hard, and unwavering on his broad, smooth
face. My distrust of his unfathomable falseness, my sense of my
own degradation in stooping to conciliate his wife and himself, so
disturbed and confused me, that the next words failed on my lips, and I
stood there in silence.
“I beg you on my knees to say no more, Miss Halcombe—I am truly shocked
that you should have thought it necessary to say so much.” With that
polite speech he took my hand—oh, how I despise myself! oh, how little
comfort there is even in knowing that I submitted to it for Laura’s
sake!—he took my hand and put it to his poisonous lips. Never did I
know all my horror of him till then. That innocent familiarity turned
my blood as if it had been the vilest insult that a man could offer me.
Yet I hid my disgust from him—I tried to smile—I, who once mercilessly
despised deceit in other women, was as false as the worst of them, as
false as the Judas whose lips had touched my hand.
I could not have maintained my degrading self-control—it is all that
redeems me in my own estimation to know that I could not—if he had
still continued to keep his eyes on my face. His wife’s tigerish
jealousy came to my rescue and forced his attention away from me the
moment he possessed himself of my hand. Her cold blue eyes caught
light, her dull white cheeks flushed into bright colour, she looked
years younger than her age in an instant.
“Count!” she said. “Your foreign forms of politeness are not understood
by Englishwomen.”
“Pardon me, my angel! The best and dearest Englishwoman in the world
understands them.” With those words he dropped my hand and quietly
raised his wife’s hand to his lips in place of it.
I ran back up the stairs to take refuge in my own room. If there had
been time to think, my thoughts, when I was alone again, would have
caused me bitter suffering. But there was no time to think. Happily
for the preservation of my calmness and my courage there was time for
nothing but action.
The letters to the lawyer and to Mr. Fairlie were still to be written,
and I sat down at once without a moment’s hesitation to devote myself
to them.
There was no multitude of resources to perplex me—there was absolutely
no one to depend on, in the first instance, but myself. Sir Percival
had neither friends nor relatives in the neighbourhood whose
intercession I could attempt to employ. He was on the coldest terms—in
some cases on the worst terms—with the families of his own rank and
station who lived near him. We two women had neither father nor brother
to come to the house and take our parts. There was no choice but to
write those two doubtful letters, or to put Laura in the wrong and
myself in the wrong, and to make all peaceable negotiation in the
future impossible by secretly escaping from Blackwater Park. Nothing
but the most imminent personal peril could justify our taking that
second course. The letters must be tried first, and I wrote them.
I said nothing to the lawyer about Anne Catherick, because (as I had
already hinted to Laura) that topic was connected with a mystery which
we could not yet explain, and which it would therefore be useless to
write about to a professional man. I left my correspondent to attribute
Sir Percival’s disgraceful conduct, if he pleased, to fresh disputes
about money matters, and simply consulted him on the possibility of
taking legal proceedings for Laura’s protection in the event of her
husband’s refusal to allow her to leave Blackwater Park for a time
and return with me to Limmeridge. I referred him to Mr. Fairlie for
the details of this last arrangement—I assured him that I wrote with
Laura’s authority—and I ended by entreating him to act in her name to
the utmost extent of his power and with the least possible loss of time.
The letter to Mr. Fairlie occupied me next. I appealed to him on
the terms which I had mentioned to Laura as the most likely to make
him bestir himself; I enclosed a copy of my letter to the lawyer to
show him how serious the case was, and I represented our removal to
Limmeridge as the only compromise which would prevent the danger and
distress of Laura’s present position from inevitably affecting her
uncle as well as herself at no very distant time.
When I had done, and had sealed and directed the two envelopes, I went
back with the letters to Laura’s room, to show her that they were
written.
“Has anybody disturbed you?” I asked, when she opened the door to me.
“Nobody has knocked,” she replied. “But I heard some one in the outer
room.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“A woman. I heard the rustling of her gown.”
“A rustling like silk?”
“Yes, like silk.”
Madame Fosco had evidently been watching outside. The mischief she
might do by herself was little to be feared. But the mischief she might
do, as a willing instrument in her husband’s hands, was too formidable
to be overlooked.
“What became of the rustling of the gown when you no longer heard it in
the ante-room?” I inquired. “Did you hear it go past your wall, along
the passage?”
“Yes. I kept still and listened, and just heard it.”
“Which way did it go?”
“Towards your room.”
I considered again. The sound had not caught my ears. But I was then
deeply absorbed in my letters, and I write with a heavy hand and a
quill pen, scraping and scratching noisily over the paper. It was more
likely that Madame Fosco would hear the scraping of my pen than that I
should hear the rustling of her dress. Another reason (if I had wanted
one) for not trusting my letters to the post-bag in the hall.
Laura saw me thinking. “More difficulties!” she said wearily; “more
difficulties and more dangers!”
“No dangers,” I replied. “Some little difficulty, perhaps. I am
thinking of the safest way of putting my two letters into Fanny’s
hands.”
“You have really written them, then? Oh, Marian, run no risks—pray,
pray run no risks!”
“No, no—no fear. Let me see—what o’clock is it now?”
It was a quarter to six. There would be time for me to get to the
village inn, and to come back again before dinner. If I waited till the
evening I might find no second opportunity of safely leaving the house.
“Keep the key turned in the lock, Laura,” I said, “and don’t be afraid
about me. If you hear any inquiries made, call through the door, and
say that I am gone out for a walk.”
“When shall you be back?”
“Before dinner, without fail. Courage, my love. By this time to-morrow
you will have a clear-headed, trustworthy man acting for your good. Mr.
Gilmore’s partner is our next best friend to Mr. Gilmore himself.”
A moment’s reflection, as soon as I was alone, convinced me that I had
better not appear in my walking-dress until I had first discovered what
was going on in the lower part of the house. I had not ascertained yet
whether Sir Percival was indoors or out.
The singing of the canaries in the library, and the smell of
tobacco-smoke that came through the door, which was not closed, told
me at once where the Count was. I looked over my shoulder as I passed
the doorway, and saw to my surprise that he was exhibiting the docility
of the birds in his most engagingly polite manner to the housekeeper.
He must have specially invited her to see them—for she would never
have thought of going into the library of her own accord. The man’s
slightest actions had a purpose of some kind at the bottom of every one
of them. What could be his purpose here?
It was no time then to inquire into his motives. I looked about for
Madame Fosco next, and found her following her favourite circle round
and round the fish-pond.
I was a little doubtful how she would meet me, after the outbreak of
jealousy of which I had been the cause so short a time since. But her
husband had tamed her in the interval, and she now spoke to me with the
same civility as usual. My only object in addressing myself to her was
to ascertain if she knew what had become of Sir Percival. I contrived
to refer to him indirectly, and after a little fencing on either side
she at last mentioned that he had gone out.
“Which of the horses has he taken?” I asked carelessly.
“None of them,” she replied. “He went away two hours since on foot.
As I understood it, his object was to make fresh inquiries about the
woman named Anne Catherick. He appears to be unreasonably anxious about
tracing her. Do you happen to know if she is dangerously mad, Miss
Halcombe?”
“I do not, Countess.”
“Are you going in?”
“Yes, I think so. I suppose it will soon be time to dress for dinner.”
We entered the house together. Madame Fosco strolled into the library,
and closed the door. I went at once to fetch my hat and shawl. Every
moment was of importance, if I was to get to Fanny at the inn and be
back before dinner.
When I crossed the hall again no one was there, and the singing of the
birds in the library had ceased. I could not stop to make any fresh
investigations. I could only assure myself that the way was clear, and
then leave the house with the two letters safe in my pocket.
On my way to the village I prepared myself for the possibility of
meeting Sir Percival. As long as I had him to deal with alone I felt
certain of not losing my presence of mind. Any woman who is sure of
her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his
own temper. I had no such fear of Sir Percival as I had of the Count.
Instead of fluttering, it had composed me, to hear of the errand on
which he had gone out. While the tracing of Anne Catherick was the
great anxiety that occupied him, Laura and I might hope for some
cessation of any active persecution at his hands. For our sakes now, as
well as for Anne’s, I hoped and prayed fervently that she might still
escape him.
I walked on as briskly as the heat would let me till I reached the
cross-road which led to the village, looking back from time to time to
make sure that I was not followed by any one.
Nothing was behind me all the way but an empty country waggon. The
noise made by the lumbering wheels annoyed me, and when I found that
the waggon took the road to the village, as well as myself, I stopped
to let it go by and pass out of hearing. As I looked toward it, more
attentively than before, I thought I detected at intervals the feet of
a man walking close behind it, the carter being in front, by the side
of his horses. The part of the cross-road which I had just passed over
was so narrow that the waggon coming after me brushed the trees and
thickets on either side, and I had to wait until it went by before I
could test the correctness of my impression. Apparently that impression
was wrong, for when the waggon had passed me the road behind it was
quite clear.
I reached the inn without meeting Sir Percival, and without noticing
anything more, and was glad to find that the landlady had received
Fanny with all possible kindness. The girl had a little parlour to sit
in, away from the noise of the taproom, and a clean bedchamber at the
top of the house. She began crying again at the sight of me, and said,
poor soul, truly enough, that it was dreadful to feel herself turned
out into the world as if she had committed some unpardonable fault,
when no blame could be laid at her door by anybody—not even by her