The Woman in White

Chapter 2

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a

close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were

beginning to think of the cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and

the autumn breezes on the sea-shore.

For my own poor part, the fading summer left me out of health, out

of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well.

During the past year I had not managed my professional resources

as carefully as usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the

prospect of spending the autumn economically between my mother's

cottage at Hampstead and my own chambers in town.

The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was

at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its

faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great

heart of the city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison,

languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. I roused

myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than

reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the

suburbs. It was one of the two evenings in every week which I was

accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. So I turned my

steps northward in the direction of Hampstead.

Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in

this place that my father had been dead some years at the period

of which I am now writing; and that my sister Sarah and I were the

sole survivors of a family of five children. My father was a

drawing-master before me. His exertions had made him highly

successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to

provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labours

had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote to the

insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than most

men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. Thanks

to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and sister

were left, after his death, as independent of the world as they

had been during his lifetime. I succeeded to his connection, and

had every reason to feel grateful for the prospect that awaited me

at my starting in life.

The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of

the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black

gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the

gate of my mother's cottage. I had hardly rung the bell before

the house door was opened violently; my worthy Italian friend,

Professor Pesca, appeared in the servant's place; and darted out

joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign parody on an English

cheer.

On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add, on mine also,

the Professor merits the honour of a formal introduction.

Accident has made him the starting-point of the strange family

story which it is the purpose of these pages to unfold.

I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend by meeting

him at certain great houses where he taught his own language and I

taught drawing. All I then knew of the history of his life was,

that he had once held a situation in the University of Padua; that

he had left Italy for political reasons (the nature of which he

uniformly declined to mention to any one); and that he had been

for many years respectably established in London as a teacher of

languages.

Without being actually a dwarf--for he was perfectly well

proportioned from head to foot--Pesca was, I think, the smallest

human being I ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere,

by his personal appearance, he was still further distinguished

among the rank and file of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of

his character. The ruling idea of his life appeared to be, that

he was bound to show his gratitude to the country which had

afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence by doing his

utmost to turn himself into an Englishman. Not content with

paying the nation in general the compliment of invariably carrying

an umbrella, and invariably wearing gaiters and a white hat, the

Professor further aspired to become an Englishman in his habits

and amusements, as well as in his personal appearance. Finding us

distinguished, as a nation, by our love of athletic exercises, the

little man, in the innocence of his heart, devoted himself

impromptu to all our English sports and pastimes whenever he had

the opportunity of joining them; firmly persuaded that he could

adopt our national amusements of the field by an effort of will

precisely as he had adopted our national gaiters and our national

white hat.

I had seen him risk his limbs blindly at a fox-hunt and in a

cricket-field; and soon afterwards I saw him risk his life, just

as blindly, in the sea at Brighton.

We had met there accidentally, and were bathing together. If we

had been engaged in any exercise peculiar to my own nation I

should, of course, have looked after Pesca carefully; but as

foreigners are generally quite as well able to take care of

themselves in the water as Englishmen, it never occurred to me

that the art of swimming might merely add one more to the list of

manly exercises which the Professor believed that he could learn

impromptu. Soon after we had both struck out from shore, I

stopped, finding my friend did not gain on me, and turned round to

look for him. To my horror and amazement, I saw nothing between

me and the beach but two little white arms which struggled for an

instant above the surface of the water, and then disappeared from

view. When I dived for him, the poor little man was lying quietly

coiled up at the bottom, in a hollow of shingle, looking by many

degrees smaller than I had ever seen him look before. During the

few minutes that elapsed while I was taking him in, the air

revived him, and he ascended the steps of the machine with my

assistance. With the partial recovery of his animation came the

return of his wonderful delusion on the subject of swimming. As

soon as his chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled

vacantly, and said he thought it must have been the Cramp.

When he had thoroughly recovered himself, and had joined me on the

beach, his warm Southern nature broke through all artificial

English restraints in a moment. He overwhelmed me with the

wildest expressions of affection--exclaimed passionately, in his

exaggerated Italian way, that he would hold his life henceforth at

my disposal--and declared that he should never be happy again

until he had found an opportunity of proving his gratitude by

rendering me some service which I might remember, on my side, to

the end of my days.

I did my best to stop the torrent of his tears and protestations

by persisting in treating the whole adventure as a good subject

for a joke; and succeeded at last, as I imagined, in lessening

Pesca's overwhelming sense of obligation to me. Little did I

think then--little did I think afterwards when our pleasant

holiday had drawn to an end--that the opportunity of serving me

for which my grateful companion so ardently longed was soon to

come; that he was eagerly to seize it on the instant; and that by

so doing he was to turn the whole current of my existence into a

new channel, and to alter me to myself almost past recognition.

Yet so it was. If I had not dived for Professor Pesca when he lay

under water on his shingle bed, I should in all human probability

never have been connected with the story which these pages will

relate--I should never, perhaps, have heard even the name of the

woman who has lived in all my thoughts, who has possessed herself

of all my energies, who has become the one guiding influence that

now directs the purpose of my life.