The Woman in White
her, on no account to miss the train in the morning, had prevented her
from waiting at the inn the next day. She was most anxious that the
misfortune of her fainting-fit should not lead to the second misfortune
of making her mistress think her neglectful, and she would humbly
beg to ask me whether I would advise her to write her explanations
and excuses to Miss Halcombe, requesting to receive the messages by
letter, if it was not too late. I make no apologies for this extremely
prosy paragraph. I have been ordered to write it. There are people,
unaccountable as it may appear, who actually take more interest in what
my niece’s maid said to me on this occasion than in what I said to my
niece’s maid. Amusing perversity!
“I should feel very much obliged to you, sir, if you would kindly tell
me what I had better do,” remarked the Young Person.
“Let things stop as they are,” I said, adapting my language to my
listener. “I invariably let things stop as they are. Yes. Is that all?”
“If you think it would be a liberty in me, sir, to write, of course I
wouldn’t venture to do so. But I am so very anxious to do all I can to
serve my mistress faithfully——”
People in the lower class of life never know when or how to go out of
a room. They invariably require to be helped out by their betters. I
thought it high time to help the Young Person out. I did it with two
judicious words—
“Good-morning.”
Something outside or inside this singular girl suddenly creaked. Louis,
who was looking at her (which I was not), says she creaked when she
curtseyed. Curious. Was it her shoes, her stays, or her bones? Louis
thinks it was her stays. Most extraordinary!
As soon as I was left by myself I had a little nap—I really wanted it.
When I awoke again I noticed dear Marian’s letter. If I had had the
least idea of what it contained I should certainly not have attempted
to open it. Being, unfortunately for myself, quite innocent of all
suspicion, I read the letter. It immediately upset me for the day.
I am, by nature, one of the most easy-tempered creatures that ever
lived—I make allowances for everybody, and I take offence at nothing.
But as I have before remarked, there are limits to my endurance. I laid
down Marian’s letter, and felt myself—justly felt myself—an injured man.
I am about to make a remark. It is, of course, applicable to the very
serious matter now under notice, or I should not allow it to appear in
this place.
Nothing, in my opinion, sets the odious selfishness of mankind in such
a repulsively vivid light as the treatment, in all classes of society,
which the Single people receive at the hands of the Married people.
When you have once shown yourself too considerate and self-denying to
add a family of your own to an already overcrowded population, you are
vindictively marked out by your married friends, who have no similar
consideration and no similar self-denial, as the recipient of half
their conjugal troubles, and the born friend of all their children.
Husbands and wives TALK of the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and
spinsters BEAR them. Take my own case. I considerately remain single,
and my poor dear brother Philip inconsiderately marries. What does he
do when he dies? He leaves his daughter to ME. She is a sweet girl—she
is also a dreadful responsibility. Why lay her on my shoulders? Because
I am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to relieve my
married connections of all their own troubles. I do my best with my
brother’s responsibility—I marry my niece, with infinite fuss and
difficulty, to the man her father wanted her to marry. She and her
husband disagree, and unpleasant consequences follow. What does she do
with those consequences? She transfers them to ME. Why transfer them to
ME? Because I am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to
relieve my married connections of all their own troubles. Poor single
people! Poor human nature!
It is quite unnecessary to say that Marian’s letter threatened me.
Everybody threatens me. All sorts of horrors were to fall on my devoted
head if I hesitated to turn Limmeridge House into an asylum for my
niece and her misfortunes. I did hesitate, nevertheless.
I have mentioned that my usual course, hitherto, had been to submit to
dear Marian, and save noise. But on this occasion, the consequences
involved in her extremely inconsiderate proposal were of a nature to
make me pause. If I opened Limmeridge House as an asylum to Lady Glyde,
what security had I against Sir Percival Glyde’s following her here in
a state of violent resentment against ME for harbouring his wife? I
saw such a perfect labyrinth of troubles involved in this proceeding
that I determined to feel my ground, as it were. I wrote, therefore, to
dear Marian to beg (as she had no husband to lay claim to her) that she
would come here by herself, first, and talk the matter over with me.
If she could answer my objections to my own perfect satisfaction, then
I assured her that I would receive our sweet Laura with the greatest
pleasure, but not otherwise.
I felt, of course, at the time, that this temporising on my part
would probably end in bringing Marian here in a state of virtuous
indignation, banging doors. But then, the other course of proceeding
might end in bringing Sir Percival here in a state of virtuous
indignation, banging doors also, and of the two indignations and
bangings I preferred Marian’s, because I was used to her. Accordingly
I despatched the letter by return of post. It gained me time, at all
events—and, oh dear me! what a point that was to begin with.
When I am totally prostrated (did I mention that I was totally
prostrated by Marian’s letter?) it always takes me three days to get
up again. I was very unreasonable—I expected three days of quiet. Of
course I didn’t get them.
The third day’s post brought me a most impertinent letter from a
person with whom I was totally unacquainted. He described himself as
the acting partner of our man of business—our dear, pig-headed old
Gilmore—and he informed me that he had lately received, by the post, a
letter addressed to him in Miss Halcombe’s handwriting. On opening the
envelope, he had discovered, to his astonishment, that it contained
nothing but a blank sheet of note-paper. This circumstance appeared
to him so suspicious (as suggesting to his restless legal mind that
the letter had been tampered with) that he had at once written to
Miss Halcombe, and had received no answer by return of post. In this
difficulty, instead of acting like a sensible man and letting things
take their proper course, his next absurd proceeding, on his own
showing, was to pester me by writing to inquire if I knew anything
about it. What the deuce should I know about it? Why alarm me as well
as himself? I wrote back to that effect. It was one of my keenest
letters. I have produced nothing with a sharper epistolary edge to it
since I tendered his dismissal in writing to that extremely troublesome
person, Mr. Walter Hartright.
My letter produced its effect. I heard nothing more from the lawyer.
This perhaps was not altogether surprising. But it was certainly a
remarkable circumstance that no second letter reached me from Marian,
and that no warning signs appeared of her arrival. Her unexpected
absence did me amazing good. It was so very soothing and pleasant to
infer (as I did of course) that my married connections had made it
up again. Five days of undisturbed tranquillity, of delicious single
blessedness, quite restored me. On the sixth day I felt strong enough
to send for my photographer, and to set him at work again on the
presentation copies of my art-treasures, with a view, as I have already
mentioned, to the improvement of taste in this barbarous neighbourhood.
I had just dismissed him to his workshop, and had just begun coquetting
with my coins, when Louis suddenly made his appearance with a card in
his hand.
“Another Young Person?” I said. “I won’t see her. In my state of health
Young Persons disagree with me. Not at home.”
“It is a gentleman this time, sir.”
A gentleman of course made a difference. I looked at the card.
Gracious Heaven! my tiresome sister’s foreign husband, Count Fosco.
Is it necessary to say what my first impression was when I looked at my
visitor’s card? Surely not! My sister having married a foreigner, there
was but one impression that any man in his senses could possibly feel.
Of course the Count had come to borrow money of me.
“Louis,” I said, “do you think he would go away if you gave him five
shillings?”
Louis looked quite shocked. He surprised me inexpressibly by declaring
that my sister’s foreign husband was dressed superbly, and looked the
picture of prosperity. Under these circumstances my first impression
altered to a certain extent. I now took it for granted that the Count
had matrimonial difficulties of his own to contend with, and that he
had come, like the rest of the family, to cast them all on my shoulders.
“Did he mention his business?” I asked.
“Count Fosco said he had come here, sir, because Miss Halcombe was
unable to leave Blackwater Park.”
Fresh troubles, apparently. Not exactly his own, as I had supposed, but
dear Marian’s. Troubles, anyway. Oh dear!
“Show him in,” I said resignedly.
The Count’s first appearance really startled me. He was such an
alarmingly large person that I quite trembled. I felt certain that
he would shake the floor and knock down my art-treasures. He did
neither the one nor the other. He was refreshingly dressed in summer
costume—his manner was delightfully self-possessed and quiet—he had
a charming smile. My first impression of him was highly favourable.
It is not creditable to my penetration—as the sequel will show—to
acknowledge this, but I am a naturally candid man, and I DO acknowledge
it notwithstanding.
“Allow me to present myself, Mr. Fairlie,” he said. “I come from
Blackwater Park, and I have the honour and the happiness of being
Madame Fosco’s husband. Let me take my first and last advantage of that
circumstance by entreating you not to make a stranger of me. I beg you
will not disturb yourself—I beg you will not move.”
“You are very good,” I replied. “I wish I was strong enough to get up.
Charmed to see you at Limmeridge. Please take a chair.”
“I am afraid you are suffering to-day,” said the Count.
“As usual,” I said. “I am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to
look like a man.”
“I have studied many subjects in my time,” remarked this sympathetic
person. “Among others the inexhaustible subject of nerves. May I make a
suggestion, at once the simplest and the most profound? Will you let me
alter the light in your room?”
“Certainly—if you will be so very kind as not to let any of it in on
me.”
He walked to the window. Such a contrast to dear Marian! so extremely
considerate in all his movements!
“Light,” he said, in that delightfully confidential tone which is so
soothing to an invalid, “is the first essential. Light stimulates,
nourishes, preserves. You can no more do without it, Mr. Fairlie,
than if you were a flower. Observe. Here, where you sit, I close the
shutters to compose you. There, where you do NOT sit, I draw up the
blind and let in the invigorating sun. Admit the light into your room
if you cannot bear it on yourself. Light, sir, is the grand decree of
Providence. You accept Providence with your own restrictions. Accept
light on the same terms.”
I thought this very convincing and attentive. He had taken me in up to
that point about the light, he had certainly taken me in.
“You see me confused,” he said, returning to his place—“on my word of
honour, Mr. Fairlie, you see me confused in your presence.”
“Shocked to hear it, I am sure. May I inquire why?”