The Woman in White
beforehand as gently and as carefully as possible, having the doctor’s
advice to guide me, in the last case only, through Mr. Dawson’s being
too unwell to come to the house for some days after I had sent for
him. It was a sad time, a time which it afflicts me to think of or to
write of now. The precious blessings of religious consolation which
I endeavoured to convey were long in reaching Miss Halcombe’s heart,
but I hope and believe they came home to her at last. I never left her
till her strength was restored. The train which took me away from that
miserable house was the train which took her away also. We parted very
mournfully in London. I remained with a relative at Islington, and she
went on to Mr. Fairlie’s house in Cumberland.
I have only a few lines more to write before I close this painful
statement. They are dictated by a sense of duty.
In the first place, I wish to record my own personal conviction that no
blame whatever, in connection with the events which I have now related,
attaches to Count Fosco. I am informed that a dreadful suspicion has
been raised, and that some very serious constructions are placed upon
his lordship’s conduct. My persuasion of the Count’s innocence remains,
however, quite unshaken. If he assisted Sir Percival in sending me to
Torquay, he assisted under a delusion, for which, as a foreigner and
a stranger, he was not to blame. If he was concerned in bringing Mrs.
Rubelle to Blackwater Park, it was his misfortune and not his fault,
when that foreign person was base enough to assist a deception planned
and carried out by the master of the house. I protest, in the interests
of morality, against blame being gratuitously and wantonly attached to
the proceedings of the Count.
In the second place, I desire to express my regret at my own inability
to remember the precise day on which Lady Glyde left Blackwater Park
for London. I am told that it is of the last importance to ascertain
the exact date of that lamentable journey, and I have anxiously taxed
my memory to recall it. The effort has been in vain. I can only
remember now that it was towards the latter part of July. We all know
the difficulty, after a lapse of time, of fixing precisely on a past
date unless it has been previously written down. That difficulty is
greatly increased in my case by the alarming and confusing events which
took place about the period of Lady Glyde’s departure. I heartily wish
I had made a memorandum at the time. I heartily wish my memory of the
date was as vivid as my memory of that poor lady’s face, when it looked
at me sorrowfully for the last time from the carriage window.
THE STORY CONTINUED IN SEVERAL NARRATIVES
1. THE NARRATIVE OF HESTER PINHORN, COOK IN THE SERVICE OF COUNT FOSCO
[Taken down from her own statement]
I am sorry to say that I have never learnt to read or write. I have
been a hard-working woman all my life, and have kept a good character.
I know that it is a sin and wickedness to say the thing which is not,
and I will truly beware of doing so on this occasion. All that I know
I will tell, and I humbly beg the gentleman who takes this down to put
my language right as he goes on, and to make allowances for my being no
scholar.
In this last summer I happened to be out of place (through no fault
of my own), and I heard of a situation as plain cook, at Number Five,
Forest Road, St. John’s Wood. I took the place on trial. My master’s
name was Fosco. My mistress was an English lady. He was Count and she
was Countess. There was a girl to do housemaid’s work when I got there.
She was not over-clean or tidy, but there was no harm in her. I and she
were the only servants in the house.
Our master and mistress came after we got in; and as soon as they did
come we were told, downstairs, that company was expected from the
country.
The company was my mistress’s niece, and the back bedroom on the
first floor was got ready for her. My mistress mentioned to me that
Lady Glyde (that was her name) was in poor health, and that I must
be particular in my cooking accordingly. She was to come that day,
as well as I can remember—but whatever you do, don’t trust my memory
in the matter. I am sorry to say it’s no use asking me about days of
the month, and such-like. Except Sundays, half my time I take no heed
of them, being a hard-working woman and no scholar. All I know is
Lady Glyde came, and when she did come, a fine fright she gave us all
surely. I don’t know how master brought her to the house, being hard
at work at the time. But he did bring her in the afternoon, I think,
and the housemaid opened the door to them, and showed them into the
parlour. Before she had been long down in the kitchen again with me, we
heard a hurry-skurry upstairs, and the parlour bell ringing like mad,
and my mistress’s voice calling out for help.
We both ran up, and there we saw the lady laid on the sofa, with her
face ghastly white, and her hands fast clenched, and her head drawn
down to one side. She had been taken with a sudden fright, my mistress
said, and master he told us she was in a fit of convulsions. I ran out,
knowing the neighbourhood a little better than the rest of them, to
fetch the nearest doctor’s help. The nearest help was at Goodricke’s
and Garth’s, who worked together as partners, and had a good name and
connection, as I have heard, all round St. John’s Wood. Mr. Goodricke
was in, and he came back with me directly.
It was some time before he could make himself of much use. The poor
unfortunate lady fell out of one fit into another, and went on so till
she was quite wearied out, and as helpless as a new-born babe. We then
got her to bed. Mr. Goodricke went away to his house for medicine, and
came back again in a quarter of an hour or less. Besides the medicine
he brought a bit of hollow mahogany wood with him, shaped like a kind
of trumpet, and after waiting a little while, he put one end over the
lady’s heart and the other to his ear, and listened carefully.
When he had done he says to my mistress, who was in the room, “This
is a very serious case,” he says, “I recommend you to write to
Lady Glyde’s friends directly.” My mistress says to him, “Is it
heart-disease?” And he says, “Yes, heart-disease of a most dangerous
kind.” He told her exactly what he thought was the matter, which I was
not clever enough to understand. But I know this, he ended by saying
that he was afraid neither his help nor any other doctor’s help was
likely to be of much service.
My mistress took this ill news more quietly than my master. He was a
big, fat, odd sort of elderly man, who kept birds and white mice, and
spoke to them as if they were so many Christian children. He seemed
terribly cut up by what had happened. “Ah! poor Lady Glyde! poor dear
Lady Glyde!” he says, and went stalking about, wringing his fat hands
more like a play-actor than a gentleman. For one question my mistress
asked the doctor about the lady’s chances of getting round, he asked
a good fifty at least. I declare he quite tormented us all, and when
he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking
trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make
the sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any good. I think
he must have been, at times, a little soft in his head. But he was not
a bad master—he had a monstrous civil tongue of his own, and a jolly,
easy, coaxing way with him. I liked him a deal better than my mistress.
She was a hard one, if ever there was a hard one yet.
Towards night-time the lady roused up a little. She had been so wearied
out, before that, by the convulsions, that she never stirred hand or
foot, or spoke a word to anybody. She moved in the bed now, and stared
about her at the room and us in it. She must have been a nice-looking
lady when well, with light hair, and blue eyes and all that. Her rest
was troubled at night—at least so I heard from my mistress, who sat up
alone with her. I only went in once before going to bed to see if I
could be of any use, and then she was talking to herself in a confused,
rambling manner. She seemed to want sadly to speak to somebody who
was absent from her somewhere. I couldn’t catch the name the first
time, and the second time master knocked at the door, with his regular
mouthful of questions, and another of his trumpery nosegays.
When I went in early the next morning, the lady was clean worn out
again, and lay in a kind of faint sleep. Mr. Goodricke brought his
partner, Mr. Garth, with him to advise. They said she must not be
disturbed out of her rest on any account. They asked my mistress many
questions, at the other end of the room, about what the lady’s health
had been in past times, and who had attended her, and whether she had
ever suffered much and long together under distress of mind. I remember
my mistress said “Yes” to that last question. And Mr. Goodricke
looked at Mr. Garth, and shook his head; and Mr. Garth looked at Mr.
Goodricke, and shook his head. They seemed to think that the distress
might have something to do with the mischief at the lady’s heart. She
was but a frail thing to look at, poor creature! Very little strength
at any time, I should say—very little strength.
Later on the same morning, when she woke, the lady took a sudden turn,
and got seemingly a great deal better. I was not let in again to see
her, no more was the housemaid, for the reason that she was not to be
disturbed by strangers. What I heard of her being better was through
my master. He was in wonderful good spirits about the change, and
looked in at the kitchen window from the garden, with his great big
curly-brimmed white hat on, to go out.
“Good Mrs. Cook,” says he, “Lady Glyde is better. My mind is more easy
than it was, and I am going out to stretch my big legs with a sunny
little summer walk. Shall I order for you, shall I market for you, Mrs.
Cook? What are you making there? A nice tart for dinner? Much crust, if
you please—much crisp crust, my dear, that melts and crumbles delicious
in the mouth.” That was his way. He was past sixty, and fond of pastry.
Just think of that!
The doctor came again in the forenoon, and saw for himself that Lady
Glyde had woke up better. He forbid us to talk to her, or to let her
talk to us, in case she was that way disposed, saying she must be kept
quiet before all things, and encouraged to sleep as much as possible.
She did not seem to want to talk whenever I saw her, except overnight,
when I couldn’t make out what she was saying—she seemed too much worn
down. Mr. Goodricke was not nearly in such good spirits about her as
master. He said nothing when he came downstairs, except that he would
call again at five o’clock.
About that time (which was before master came home again) the bell
rang hard from the bedroom, and my mistress ran out into the landing,
and called to me to go for Mr. Goodricke, and tell him the lady had
fainted. I got on my bonnet and shawl, when, as good luck would have
it, the doctor himself came to the house for his promised visit.
I let him in, and went upstairs along with him. “Lady Glyde was just
as usual,” says my mistress to him at the door; “she was awake, and
looking about her in a strange, forlorn manner, when I heard her give a
sort of half cry, and she fainted in a moment.” The doctor went up to
the bed, and stooped down over the sick lady. He looked very serious,
all on a sudden, at the sight of her, and put his hand on her heart.
My mistress stared hard in Mr. Goodricke’s face. “Not dead!” says she,
whispering, and turning all of a tremble from head to foot.
“Yes,” says the doctor, very quiet and grave. “Dead. I was afraid it
would happen suddenly when I examined her heart yesterday.” My mistress