The Woman in White

Chapter 4

The heat had been painfully oppressive all day, and it was now a

close and sultry night.

My mother and sister had spoken so many last words, and had begged

me to wait another five minutes so many times, that it was nearly

midnight when the servant locked the garden-gate behind me. I

walked forward a few paces on the shortest way back to London,

then stopped and hesitated.

The moon was full and broad in the dark blue starless sky, and the

broken ground of the heath looked wild enough in the mysterious

light to be hundreds of miles away from the great city that lay

beneath it. The idea of descending any sooner than I could help

into the heat and gloom of London repelled me. The prospect of

going to bed in my airless chambers, and the prospect of gradual

suffocation, seemed, in my present restless frame of mind and

body, to be one and the same thing. I determined to stroll home

in the purer air by the most roundabout way I could take; to

follow the white winding paths across the lonely heath; and to

approach London through its most open suburb by striking into the

Finchley Road, and so getting back, in the cool of the new

morning, by the western side of the Regent's Park.

I wound my way down slowly over the heath, enjoying the divine

stillness of the scene, and admiring the soft alternations of

light and shade as they followed each other over the broken ground

on every side of me. So long as I was proceeding through this

first and prettiest part of my night walk my mind remained

passively open to the impressions produced by the view; and I

thought but little on any subject--indeed, so far as my own

sensations were concerned, I can hardly say that I thought at all.

But when I had left the heath and had turned into the by-road,

where there was less to see, the ideas naturally engendered by the

approaching change in my habits and occupations gradually drew

more and more of my attention exclusively to themselves. By the

time I had arrived at the end of the road I had become completely

absorbed in my own fanciful visions of Limmeridge House, of Mr.

Fairlie, and of the two ladies whose practice in the art of water-

colour painting I was so soon to superintend.

I had now arrived at that particular point of my walk where four

roads met--the road to Hampstead, along which I had returned, the

road to Finchley, the road to West End, and the road back to

London. I had mechanically turned in this latter direction, and

was strolling along the lonely high-road--idly wondering, I

remember, what the Cumberland young ladies would look like--when,

in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a

stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my

shoulder from behind me.

I turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the

handle of my stick.

There, in the middle of the broad bright high-road--there, as if

it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the

heaven--stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to

foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine,

her hand pointing to the dark cloud over London, as I faced her.

I was far too seriously startled by the suddenness with which this

extraordinary apparition stood before me, in the dead of night and

in that lonely place, to ask what she wanted. The strange woman

spoke first.

"Is that the road to London?" she said.

I looked attentively at her, as she put that singular question to

me. It was then nearly one o'clock. All I could discern

distinctly by the moonlight was a colourless, youthful face,

meagre and sharp to look at about the cheeks and chin; large,

grave, wistfully attentive eyes; nervous, uncertain lips; and

light hair of a pale, brownish-yellow hue. There was nothing

wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and self-

controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion;

not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the

manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life. The voice, little

as I had yet heard of it, had something curiously still and

mechanical in its tones, and the utterance was remarkably rapid.

She held a small bag in her hand: and her dress--bonnet, shawl,

and gown all of white--was, so far as I could guess, certainly not

composed of very delicate or very expensive materials. Her figure

was slight, and rather above the average height--her gait and

actions free from the slightest approach to extravagance. This

was all that I could observe of her in the dim light and under the

perplexingly strange circumstances of our meeting. What sort of a

woman she was, and how she came to be out alone in the high-road,

an hour after midnight, I altogether failed to guess. The one

thing of which I felt certain was, that the grossest of mankind

could not have misconstrued her motive in speaking, even at that

suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place.

"Did you hear me?" she said, still quietly and rapidly, and

without the least fretfulness or impatience. "I asked if that was

the way to London."

"Yes," I replied, "that is the way: it leads to St. John's Wood

and the Regent's Park. You must excuse my not answering you

before. I was rather startled by your sudden appearance in the

road; and I am, even now, quite unable to account for it."

"You don't suspect me of doing anything wrong, do you? have done

nothing wrong. I have met with an accident--I am very unfortunate

in being here alone so late. Why do you suspect me of doing

wrong?"

She spoke with unnecessary earnestness and agitation, and shrank

back from me several paces. I did my best to reassure her.

"Pray don't suppose that I have any idea of suspecting you," I

said, "or any other wish than to be of assistance to you, if I

can. I only wondered at your appearance in the road, because it

seemed to me to be empty the instant before I saw you."

She turned, and pointed back to a place at the junction of the

road to London and the road to Hampstead, where there was a gap in

the hedge.

"I heard you coming," she said, "and hid there to see what sort of

man you were, before I risked speaking. I doubted and feared

about it till you passed; and then I was obliged to steal after

you, and touch you."

Steal after me and touch me? Why not call to me? Strange, to say

the least of it.

"May I trust you?" she asked. "You don't think the worse of me

because I have met with an accident?" She stopped in confusion;

shifted her bag from one hand to the other; and sighed bitterly.

The loneliness and helplessness of the woman touched me. The

natural impulse to assist her and to spare her got the better of

the judgment, the caution, the worldly tact, which an older,

wiser, and colder man might have summoned to help him in this

strange emergency.

"You may trust me for any harmless purpose," I said. "If it

troubles you to explain your strange situation to me, don't think

of returning to the subject again. I have no right to ask you for

any explanations. Tell me how I can help you; and if I can, I

will."

"You are very kind, and I am very, very thankful to have met you."

The first touch of womanly tenderness that I had heard from her

trembled in her voice as she said the words; but no tears

glistened in those large, wistfully attentive eyes of hers, which

were still fixed on me. "I have only been in London once before,"

she went on, more and more rapidly, "and I know nothing about that

side of it, yonder. Can I get a fly, or a carriage of any kind?

Is it too late? I don't know. If you could show me where to get a

fly--and if you will only promise not to interfere with me, and to

let me leave you, when and how I please--I have a friend in London

who will be glad to receive me--I want nothing else--will you

promise?"

She looked anxiously up and down the road; shifted her bag again

from one hand to the other; repeated the words, "Will you

promise?" and looked hard in my face, with a pleading fear and

confusion that it troubled me to see.

What could I do? Here was a stranger utterly and helplessly at my

mercy--and that stranger a forlorn woman. No house was near; no

one was passing whom I could consult; and no earthly right existed

on my part to give me a power of control over her, even if I had

known how to exercise it. I trace these lines, self-

distrustfully, with the shadows of after-events darkening the very

paper I write on; and still I say, what could I do?

What I did do, was to try and gain time by questioning her. "Are

you sure that your friend in London will receive you at such a

late hour as this?" I said.

"Quite sure. Only say you will let me leave you when and how I

please--only say you won't interfere with me. Will you promise?"

As she repeated the words for the third time, she came close to me

and laid her hand, with a sudden gentle stealthiness, on my bosom--

a thin hand; a cold hand (when I removed it with mine) even on

that sultry night. Remember that I was young; remember that the

hand which touched me was a woman's.

"Will you promise?"

"Yes."

One word! The little familiar word that is on everybody's lips,

every hour in the day. Oh me! and I tremble, now, when I write

it.

We set our faces towards London, and walked on together in the

first still hour of the new day--I, and this woman, whose name,

whose character, whose story, whose objects in life, whose very

presence by my side, at that moment, were fathomless mysteries to

me. It was like a dream. Was I Walter Hartright? Was this the

well-known, uneventful road, where holiday people strolled on

Sundays? Had I really left, little more than an hour since, the

quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my mother's

cottage? I was too bewildered--too conscious also of a vague sense

of something like self-reproach--to speak to my strange companion

for some minutes. It was her voice again that first broke the

silence between us.

"I want to ask you something," she said suddenly. "Do you know

many people in London?"

"Yes, a great many."

"Many men of rank and title?" There was an unmistakable tone of

suspicion in the strange question. I hesitated about answering

it.

"Some," I said, after a moment's silence.

"Many"--she came to a full stop, and looked me searchingly in the

face--"many men of the rank of Baronet?"

Too much astonished to reply, I questioned her in my turn.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I hope, for my own sake, there is one Baronet that you

don't know."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"I can't--I daren't--I forget myself when I mention it." She spoke

loudly and almost fiercely, raised her clenched hand in the air,

and shook it passionately; then, on a sudden, controlled herself

again, and added, in tones lowered to a whisper "Tell me which of

them YOU know."

I could hardly refuse to humour her in such a trifle, and I

mentioned three names. Two, the names of fathers of families

whose daughters I taught; one, the name of a bachelor who had once

taken me a cruise in his yacht, to make sketches for him.

"Ah! you DON'T know him," she said, with a sigh of relief. "Are

you a man of rank and title yourself?"

"Far from it. I am only a drawing-master."

As the reply passed my lips--a little bitterly, perhaps--she took

my arm with the abruptness which characterised all her actions.

"Not a man of rank and title," she repeated to herself. "Thank

God! I may trust HIM."

I had hitherto contrived to master my curiosity out of

consideration for my companion; but it got the better of me now.

"I am afraid you have serious reason to complain of some man of

rank and title?" I said. "I am afraid the baronet, whose name you

are unwilling to mention to me, has done you some grievous wrong?

Is he the cause of your being out here at this strange time of

night?"

"Don't ask me: don't make me talk of it," she answered. "I'm not

fit now. I have been cruelly used and cruelly wronged. You will

be kinder than ever, if you will walk on fast, and not speak to

me. I sadly want to quiet myself, if I can."

We moved forward again at a quick pace; and for half an hour, at

least, not a word passed on either side. From time to time, being

forbidden to make any more inquiries, I stole a look at her face.

It was always the same; the lips close shut, the brow frowning,

the eyes looking straight forward, eagerly and yet absently. We

had reached the first houses, and were close on the new Wesleyan

college, before her set features relaxed and she spoke once more.

"Do you live in London?" she said.

"Yes." As I answered, it struck me that she might have formed some

intention of appealing to me for assistance or advice, and that I

ought to spare her a possible disappointment by warning her of my

approaching absence from home. So I added, "But to-morrow I shall

be away from London for some time. I am going into the country."

"Where?" she asked. "North or south?"

"North--to Cumberland."

"Cumberland!" she repeated the word tenderly. "Ah! wish I was

going there too. I was once happy in Cumberland."

I tried again to lift the veil that hung between this woman and

me.

"Perhaps you were born," I said, "in the beautiful Lake country."

"No," she answered. "I was born in Hampshire; but I once went to

school for a little while in Cumberland. Lakes? I don't remember

any lakes. It's Limmeridge village, and Limmeridge House, I

should like to see again."

It was my turn now to stop suddenly. In the excited state of my

curiosity, at that moment, the chance reference to Mr. Fairlie's

place of residence, on the lips of my strange companion, staggered

me with astonishment.

"Did you hear anybody calling after us?" she asked, looking up and

down the road affrightedly, the instant I stopped.

"No, no. I was only struck by the name of Limmeridge House. I

heard it mentioned by some Cumberland people a few days since."

"Ah! not my people. Mrs. Fairlie is dead; and her husband is

dead; and their little girl may be married and gone away by this

time. I can't say who lives at Limmeridge now. If any more are

left there of that name, I only know I love them for Mrs.

Fairlie's sake."

She seemed about to say more; but while she was speaking, we came

within view of the turnpike, at the top of the Avenue Road. Her

hand tightened round my arm, and she looked anxiously at the gate

before us.

"Is the turnpike man looking out?" she asked.

He was not looking out; no one else was near the place when we

passed through the gate. The sight of the gas-lamps and houses

seemed to agitate her, and to make her impatient.

"This is London," she said. "Do you see any carriage I can get? I

am tired and frightened. I want to shut myself in and be driven

away."

I explained to her that we must walk a little further to get to a

cab-stand, unless we were fortunate enough to meet with an empty

vehicle; and then tried to resume the subject of Cumberland. It

was useless. That idea of shutting herself in, and being driven

away, had now got full possession of her mind. She could think

and talk of nothing else.

We had hardly proceeded a third of the way down the Avenue Road

when I saw a cab draw up at a house a few doors below us, on the

opposite side of the way. A gentleman got out and let himself in

at the garden door. I hailed the cab, as the driver mounted the

box again. When we crossed the road, my companion's impatience

increased to such an extent that she almost forced me to run.

"It's so late," she said. "I am only in a hurry because it's so

late."

"I can't take you, sir, if you're not going towards Tottenham

Court Road," said the driver civilly, when I opened the cab door.

"My horse is dead beat, and I can't get him no further than the

stable."

"Yes, yes. That will do for me. I'm going that way--I'm going

that way." She spoke with breathless eagerness, and pressed by me

into the cab.

I had assured myself that the man was sober as well as civil

before I let her enter the vehicle. And now, when she was seated

inside, I entreated her to let me see her set down safely at her

destination.

"No, no, no," she said vehemently. "I'm quite safe, and quite

happy now. If you are a gentleman, remember your promise. Let

him drive on till I stop him. Thank you--oh! thank you, thank

you!"

My hand was on the cab door. She caught it in hers, kissed it,

and pushed it away. The cab drove off at the same moment--I

started into the road, with some vague idea of stopping it again,

I hardly knew why--hesitated from dread of frightening and

distressing her--called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract

the driver's attention. The sound of the wheels grew fainter in

the distance--the cab melted into the black shadows on the road--

the woman in white was gone.

Ten minutes or more had passed. I was still on the same side of

the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now

stopping again absently. At one moment I found myself doubting

the reality of my own adventure; at another I was perplexed and

distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left

me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right. I hardly

knew where I was going, or what I meant to do next; I was

conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I

was abruptly recalled to myself--awakened, I might almost say--by

the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me.

I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some

garden trees, when I stopped to look round. On the opposite and

lighter side of the way, a short distance below me, a policeman

was strolling along in the direction of the Regent's Park.

The carriage passed me--an open chaise driven by two men.

"Stop!" cried one. "There's a policeman. Let's ask him."

The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark

place where I stood.

"Policeman!" cried the first speaker. "Have you seen a woman pass

this way?"

"What sort of woman, sir?"

"A woman in a lavender-coloured gown----"

"No, no," interposed the second man. "The clothes we gave her

were found on her bed. She must have gone away in the clothes she

wore when she came to us. In white, policeman. A woman in

white."

"I haven't seen her, sir."

"If you or any of your men meet with the woman, stop her, and send

her in careful keeping to that address. I'll pay all expenses,

and a fair reward into the bargain."

The policeman looked at the card that was handed down to him.

"Why are we to stop her, sir? What has she done?"

"Done! She has escaped from my Asylum. Don't forget; a woman in

white. Drive on."