The Woman in White

Chapter 8

June 19th.--I had only got as far as the top of the stairs when

the locking of Laura's door suggested to me the precaution of also

locking my own door, and keeping the key safely about me while I

was out of the room. My journal was already secured with other

papers in the table drawer, but my writing materials were left

out. These included a seal bearing the common device of two doves

drinking out of the same cup, and some sheets of blotting-paper,

which had the impression on them of the closing lines of my

writing in these pages traced during the past night. Distorted by

the suspicion which had now become a part of myself, even such

trifles as these looked too dangerous to be trusted without a

guard--even the locked table drawer seemed to be not sufficiently

protected in my absence until the means of access to it had been

carefully secured as well.

I found no appearance of any one having entered the room while I

had been talking with Laura. My writing materials (which I had

given the servant instructions never to meddle with) were

scattered over the table much as usual. The only circumstance in

connection with them that at all struck me was that the seal lay

tidily in the tray with the pencils and the wax. It was not in my

careless habits (I am sorry to say) to put it there, neither did I

remember putting it there. But as I could not call to mind, on

the other hand, where else I had thrown it down, and as I was also

doubtful whether I might not for once have laid it mechanically in

the right place, I abstained from adding to the perplexity with

which the day's events had filled my mind by troubling it afresh

about a trifle. I locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and

went downstairs.

Her face was composed again to its customary expression and its

customary colour. But the hand with which she pointed to the dial

of the weather-glass still trembled.

Could she have told her husband already that she had overheard

Laura reviling him, in my company, as a "spy?" My strong

suspicion that she must have told him, my irresistible dread (all

the more overpowering from its very vagueness) of the consequences

which might follow, my fixed conviction, derived from various

little self-betrayals which women notice in each other, that

Madame Fosco, in spite of her well-assumed external civility, had

not forgiven her niece for innocently standing between her and the

legacy of ten thousand pounds--all rushed upon my mind together,

all impelled me to speak in the vain hope of using my own

influence and my own powers of persuasion for the atonement of

Laura's offence.

She crossed her hands in front of her and bowed her head solemnly,

without uttering a word, and without taking her eyes off mine for

a moment.

"When you were so good as to bring me back my handkerchief," I

went on, "I am very, very much afraid you must have accidentally

heard Laura say something which I am unwilling to repeat, and

which I will not attempt to defend. I will only venture to hope

that you have not thought it of sufficient importance to be

mentioned to the Count?"

"I think it of no importance whatever," said Madame Fosco sharply

and suddenly. "But," she added, resuming her icy manner in a

moment, "I have no secrets from my husband even in trifles. When

he noticed just now that I looked distressed, it was my painful

duty to tell him why I was distressed, and I frankly acknowledge

to you, Miss Halcombe, that I HAVE told him."

"Let me earnestly entreat you, Madame Fosco--let me earnestly

entreat the Count--to make some allowances for the sad position in

which my sister is placed. She spoke while she was smarting under

the insult and injustice inflicted on her by her husband, and she

was not herself when she said those rash words. May I hope that

they will be considerately and generously forgiven?"

"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."

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.

"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.

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?"

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.

"No dangers," I replied. "Some little difficulty, perhaps. I am

thinking of the safest way of putting my two letters into Fanny's

hands."

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."

"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.

"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?"

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 master, who had sent her

away.

"Try to make the best of it, Fanny," I said. "Your mistress and I

will stand your friends, and will take care that your character

shall not suffer. Now, listen to me. I have very little time to

spare, and I am going to put a great trust in your hands. I wish

you to take care of these two letters. The one with the stamp on

it you are to put into the post when you reach London to-morrow.

The other, directed to Mr. Fairlie, you are to deliver to him

yourself as soon as you get home. Keep both the letters about you

and give them up to no one. They are of the last importance to

your mistress's interests."

Fanny put the letters into the bosom of her dress. "There they

shall stop, miss," she said, "till I have done what you tell me."

"Mind you are at the station in good time to-morrow morning," I

continued. "And when you see the housekeeper at Limmeridge give

her my compliments, and say that you are in my service until Lady

Glyde is able to take you back. We may meet again sooner than you

think. So keep a good heart, and don't miss the seven o'clock

train."

"Thank you, miss--thank you kindly. It gives one courage to hear

your voice again. Please to offer my duty to my lady, and say I

left all the things as tidy as I could in the time. Oh, dear!

dear! who will dress her for dinner to-day? It really breaks my

heart, miss, to think of it."

When I got back to the house I had only a quarter of an hour to

spare to put myself in order for dinner, and to say two words to

Laura before I went downstairs.

"No, he frightened me by a thump on the door outside. I said,

'Who's there?' 'You know,' he answered. 'Will you alter your

mind, and tell me the rest? You shall! Sooner or later I'll wring

it out of you. You know where Anne Catherick is at this moment.'

'Indeed, indeed,' I said, 'I don't.' 'You do!' he called back.

'I'll crush your obstinacy--mind that!--I'll wring it out of you!'

He went away with those words--went away, Marian, hardly five

minutes ago."

Sir Percival took Madame Fosco into the dining-room, and the Count

gave me his arm. He was hot and flushed, and was not dressed with

his customary care and completeness. Had he, too, been out before

dinner, and been late in getting back? or was he only suffering

from the heat a little more severely than usual?

However this might be, he was unquestionably troubled by some

secret annoyance or anxiety, which, with all his powers of

deception, he was not able entirely to conceal. Through the whole

of dinner he was almost as silent as Sir Percival himself, and he,

every now and then, looked at his wife with an expression of

furtive uneasiness which was quite new in my experience of him.

The one social obligation which he seemed to be self-possessed

enough to perform as carefully as ever was the obligation of being

persistently civil and attentive to me. What vile object he has

in view I cannot still discover, but be the design what it may,

invariable politeness towards myself, invariable humility towards

Laura, and invariable suppression (at any cost) of Sir Percival's

clumsy violence, have been the means he has resolutely and

impenetrably used to get to his end ever since he set foot in this

house. I suspected it when he first interfered in our favour, on

the day when the deed was produced in the library, and I feel

certain of it now.

"I am going away because I have had dinner enough, and wine

enough," answered the Count. "Be so kind, Percival, as to make

allowances for my foreign habit of going out with the ladies, as

well as coming in with them."

"Nonsense! Another glass of claret won't hurt you. Sit down again

like an Englishman. I want half an hour's quiet talk with you

over our wine."

"A quiet talk, Percival, with all my heart, but not now, and not

over the wine. Later in the evening, if you please--later in the

evening."

I had more than once seen him look at the Count uneasily during

dinner-time, and had observed that the Count carefully abstained

from looking at him in return. This circumstance, coupled with

the host's anxiety for a little quiet talk over the wine, and the

guest's obstinate resolution not to sit down again at the table,

revived in my memory the request which Sir Percival had vainly

addressed to his friend earlier in the day to come out of the

library and speak to him. The Count had deferred granting that

private interview, when it was first asked for in the afternoon,

and had again deferred granting it, when it was a second time

asked for at the dinner-table. Whatever the coming subject of

discussion between them might be, it was clearly an important

subject in Sir Percival's estimation--and perhaps (judging from

his evident reluctance to approach it) a dangerous subject as

well, in the estimation of the Count.

These considerations occurred to me while we were passing from the

dining-room to the drawing-room. Sir Percival's angry commentary

on his friend's desertion of him had not produced the slightest

effect. The Count obstinately accompanied us to the tea-table--

waited a minute or two in the room--went out into the hall--and

returned with the post-bag in his hands. It was then eight

o'clock--the hour at which the letters were always despatched from

Blackwater Park.

He gave the bag to the servant, who was then in the room; sat down

at the piano, and played the air of the lively Neapolitan street-

song, "La mia Carolina," twice over. His wife, who was usually

the most deliberate of women in all her movements, made the tea as

quickly as I could have made it myself--finished her own cup in

two minutes, and quietly glided out of the room.

I rose to follow her example--partly because I suspected her of

attempting some treachery upstairs with Laura, partly because I

was resolved not to remain alone in the same room with her

husband.

Before I could get to the door the Count stopped me, by a request

for a cup of tea. I gave him the cup of tea, and tried a second

time to get away. He stopped me again--this time by going back to

the piano, and suddenly appealing to me on a musical question in

which he declared that the honour of his country was concerned.

I vainly pleaded my own total ignorance of music, and total want

of taste in that direction. He only appealed to me again with a

vehemence which set all further protest on my part at defiance.

"The English and the Germans (he indignantly declared) were always

reviling the Italians for their inability to cultivate the higher

kinds of music. We were perpetually talking of our Oratorios, and

they were perpetually talking of their Symphonies. Did we forget

and did they forget his immortal friend and countryman, Rossini?

What was Moses in Egypt but a sublime oratorio, which was acted on

the stage instead of being coldly sung in a concert-room? What was

the overture to Guillaume Tell but a symphony under another name?

Had I heard Moses in Egypt? Would I listen to this, and this, and

this, and say if anything more sublimely sacred and grand had ever

been composed by mortal man?"--And without waiting for a word of

assent or dissent on my part, looking me hard in the face all the

time, he began thundering on the piano, and singing to it with

loud and lofty enthusiasm--only interrupting himself, at

intervals, to announce to me fiercely the titles of the different

pieces of music: "Chorus of Egyptians in the Plague of Darkness,

Miss Halcombe!"--"Recitativo of Moses with the tables of the

Law."--"Prayer of Israelites, at the passage of the Red Sea. Aha!

Aha! Is that sacred? is that sublime?" The piano trembled under

his powerful hands, and the teacups on the table rattled, as his

big bass voice thundered out the notes, and his heavy foot beat

time on the floor.

There was something horrible--something fierce and devilish--in

the outburst of his delight at his own singing and playing, and in

the triumph with which he watched its effect upon me as I shrank

nearer and nearer to the door. I was released at last, not by my

own efforts, but by Sir Percival's interposition. He opened the

dining-room door, and called out angrily to know what "that

infernal noise" meant. The Count instantly got up from the piano.

"Ah! if Percival is coming," he said, "harmony and melody are both

at an end. The Muse of Music, Miss Halcombe, deserts us in

dismay, and I, the fat old minstrel, exhale the rest of my

enthusiasm in the open air!" He stalked out into the verandah, put

his hands in his pockets, and resumed the Recitativo of Moses,

sotto voce, in the garden.

I heard Sir Percival call after him from the dining-room window.

But he took no notice--he seemed determined not to hear. That

long-deferred quiet talk between them was still to be put off, was

still to wait for the Count's absolute will and pleasure.

He had detained me in the drawing-room nearly half an hour from

the time when his wife left us. Where had she been, and what had

she been doing in that interval?

I went upstairs to ascertain, but I made no discoveries, and when

I questioned Laura, I found that she had not heard anything.

Nobody had disturbed her, no faint rustling of the silk dress had

been audible, either in the ante-room or in the passage.

It was then twenty minutes to nine. After going to my room to get

my journal, I returned, and sat with Laura, sometimes writing,

sometimes stopping to talk with her. Nobody came near us, and

nothing happened. We remained together till ten o'clock. I then

rose, said my last cheering words, and wished her good-night. She

locked her door again after we had arranged that I should come in

and see her the first thing in the morning.

I had a few sentences more to add to my diary before going to bed

myself, and as I went down again to the drawing-room after leaving

Laura for the last time that weary day, I resolved merely to show

myself there, to make my excuses, and then to retire an hour

earlier than usual for the night.

Sir Percival, and the Count and his wife, were sitting together.

Sir Percival was yawning in an easy-chair, the Count was reading,

Madame Fosco was fanning herself. Strange to say, HER face was

flushed now. She, who never suffered from the heat, was most

undoubtedly suffering from it to-night.

My dear! It was the first time she had ever addressed me with that

familiarity! There was an insolent smile too on her face when she

said the words.

"Ah, indeed? Want of exercise, I suppose? A walk before dinner

would have been just the thing for you." She referred to the

"walk" with a strange emphasis. Had she seen me go out? No matter

if she had. The letters were safe now in Fanny's hands.

"Excuse me, Countess, if I set you the example of retiring," I

said. "The only remedy for such a headache as mine is going to

bed."

I took my leave. There was the same insolent smile on the woman's

face when I shook hands with her. Sir Percival paid no attention

to me. He was looking impatiently at Madame Fosco, who showed no

signs of leaving the room with me. The Count smiled to himself

behind his book. There was yet another delay to that quiet talk

with Sir Percival--and the Countess was the impediment this time.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.