The Woman in White / Женщина в белом

I said a few words in answer – I hardly know what. All my attention was concentrated on the white gleam of Miss Fairlie’s dress.

“Listen to the last sentences of the letter,” said Miss Halcombe. “I think they will surprise you.”

As she raised the letter to the light of the candle, Miss Fairlie turned from the balustrade, looked doubtfully up and down the terrace, and then stopped, facing us.

“Anne told my mother that she would always wear white to remember her by, as my mother’s favourite colour was white.”

“So it’s quite possible that the woman in white is Anne Catherick,” I said slowly. “What happened to Anne?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Halcombe. “She and her mother left Limmeridge after a few months and never came back. There is no further mention of her in my mother’s letters.”

I looked further. There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her face, the living image of the woman in white!

During the following weeks, I experienced some of the happiest and most peaceful moments in my life. Every afternoon I went with Miss Halcombe, or Marian as I called her, and Laura into the countryside to draw and paint.

* * *

Miss Halcombe and I kept our secret. I enjoyed Marian’s company very much and I admired and respected her greatly. But feelings of a different kind were awakening within me for Laura.

* * *

The days passed on, the weeks passed on, and every day Laura and I were growing closer. As I was teaching how to hold her pencil to draw, my hand would nearly touch her hand or my cheek would touch her cheek. At those moments, I was breathing the perfume of her hair, and the warm fragrance of her breath. In the evenings after dinner we would light the tall candles in the sitting room and Laura would play the piano. I loved to sit and listen to the beautiful music while darkness fell outside.

I loved her. Yes, the truth was that I was falling deeply in love with Laura. I tried hard to keep my feelings hidden, but I suspected that Marian had guessed.

The days passed, the weeks passed; it was approaching the third month of my stay in Cumberland. We had parted one night as usual. Laura! No word had fallen from my lips, at that time or at any time before it, that could betray me. But when we met again in the morning, a change had come over her[26] – a change that told me all.

There was a coldness in her hand, there was an unnatural immobility in her face, there was in all her movements the mute expression of constant fear. The change in Miss Fairlie was reflected in her half-sister. A week elapsed, leaving us all three still in this position of secret constraint towards one another. My situation was becoming intolerable.

From this position of helplessness I was rescued by Miss Halcombe. Her lips told me the bitter, the necessary, the unexpected truth.

It was on a Thursday in the week, and nearly at the end of the third month of my living in Cumberland.

In the morning, when I went down into the breakfast-room at the usual hour, Miss Halcombe, for the first time since I had known her, was absent from her customary place at the table.

Miss Fairlie was out on the lawn. She bowed to me, but did not come in. She waited on the lawn, and I waited in the breakfast-room, till Miss Halcombe came in.

In a few minutes Miss Halcombe entered. She made her apologies for being late rather absently.

Our morning meal was short and silent. Miss Halcombe, after once or twice hesitating and checking herself, spoke at last.

“I have seen your uncle this morning, Laura,” she said. “He confirms what I told you. Monday is the day – not Tuesday.[27]”

Miss Fairlie looked down at the table beneath her. Her fingers moved nervously among the crumbs that were scattered on the cloth. Her lips themselves trembled visibly.

Miss Fairlie left the room. The kind sorrowful blue eyes looked at me, for a moment, with the sadness of a coming and a long farewell.

I turned towards the garden when the door had closed on her.[28] Miss Halcombe was standing with her hat in her hand, and her shawl over her arm, by the large window that led out to the lawn, and was looking at me attentively.

“I want to say a word to you in private, Mr. Hartright. Get your hat and come out into the garden. We are not likely to be disturbed there[29] at this hour in the morning.”

We were walking across the garden when the gardener passed with a letter in his hand. Marian stopped him.

“Is that letter for me?” she asked.

“No, it’s for Miss Laura,” answered the man, holding out the letter as he spoke. Marian took it from him and looked at the address.

“A strange handwriting,” she said to herself. “Where did you get this?” she continued, addressing the gardener.

“Well, miss,” said the lad, “I just got it from a woman.”

“What woman?”

“An old woman, miss.”

“Oh, an old woman. Any one you knew?”

“No, I have never met her before.”

“Which way did she go?”

“That gate,” said the under-gardener, turning towards the south.

“Curious,” said Miss Halcombe; handing the letter back to the lad, “take it to the house, and give it to one of the servants. And now, Mr. Hartright, if you have no objection, let us walk this way.”

She led me across the lawn, along the same path by which I had followed her on the day after my arrival at Limmeridge. She then brought me to the summer house – the same summer house where I had first seen Laura. We went inside and sat down. I waited, wondering what she would say.

“What I have to say to you I can say here.”

With those words she entered the summer-house, took one of the chairs at the little round table inside, and signed to me to take the other.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “As your friend, I am going to tell you, at once, that I have discovered your secret – without help or hint, mind, from any one else. Mr. Hartright, I know that you’re in love with Laura. I don’t even blame you and you’ve done nothing wrong. Shake hands – I have given you pain; I am going to give you more, but there is no help for it – shake hands with your friend, Marian Halcombe, first.”

I tried to look at her when she took my hand, but my eyes were dim. I tried to thank her, but my voice failed me.

“Listen to me,” she said. “There’s something I must tell you – something which will cause you great pain. You must leave Limmeridge House, Mr. Hartright, before more harm is done. It is my duty to say that to you.”

I felt terribly saddened by her words.

“I know I’m only a poor art teacher,” I began.

“You must leave us, not because you are a teacher of drawing.”

She waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching across the table, laid her hand firmly on my arm.

“Not because you are a teacher of drawing,” she repeated, “but because Laura Fairlie is engaged to be married. Her future husband is coming here on Monday with his lawyer. Our family lawyer, Mr. Gilmore, is coming here too. The two lawyers are going to draw up the marriage settlement between Laura and her husband. Once they have arranged this, a date for the wedding can be fixed.”

The last word went like a bullet to my heart. I never moved and never spoke. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me. Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they had loved her as I did.

The pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it remained. I felt Miss Halcombe’s hand again, tightening its hold on my arm – I raised my head and looked at her. Her large black eyes were rooted on me, watching the white change on my face, which I felt, and which she saw.

“Crush it![30]” she said. “Here, where you first saw her, crush it! Don’t shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under foot like a man! Are you yourself again?[31]”

“Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers. Enough myself to be guided by your advice, and to prove my gratitude in that way, if I can prove it.”

“It is an engagement of honour, not of love; her father sanctioned it on his deathbed, two years ago. Till you came here she was in the position of hundreds of other women, who marry men without love, and who learn to love them (when they don’t learn to hate!) after marriage, instead of before. Your absence and time will help us all three.”

“Let me go today,” I said bitterly. “The sooner the better.[32] But what reason shall I give to Mr Fairlie as to why I’m going?”

“No, not today,” she replied. “You must wait till tomorrow to explain tell Mr. Fairlie the sudden change in your plans. Wait until the post arrives tomorrow. Then tell Mr Fairlie you’ve received a letter from London and that you have to return there at once on urgent business.”

I had just agreed to this plan when we heard footsteps. It was Laura’s maid.

“Oh, Miss Marian,” said the girl. “Please can you come quickly to the house? Miss Laura is very upset by a letter she received this morning.”

“It must be the same letter the gardener brought,” said Marian worriedly.

We hurried back to the house.

“We have arranged all that is necessary, Mr. Hartright,” she said. “We have understood each other, as friends should, and we may go back at once to the house. To tell you the truth, I am worried about Laura.”

Her words felt like arrows shot into my heart. I could hardly move or speak.

“May I know who the gentleman engaged to Miss Fairlie is?” I asked at last.

She answered in a hasty, absent way —

“A gentleman of large property in Hampshire.”

Hampshire! Anne Catherick’s native place. Again, and yet again, the woman in white. There was a fatality in it.

“And his name?” I said, as quietly and indifferently as I could.

“Sir Percival Glyde.[33]”

Sir Percival! I stopped suddenly, and looked at Miss Halcombe.

“Sir Percival Glyde,” she repeated, imagining that I had not heard her former reply.

“Knight, or Baronet?” I asked, with an agitation that I could hide no longer.

She paused for a moment, and then answered, rather coldly —

“Baronet, of course.”

Baronet! Suddenly I was reminded of the woman in white. She had asked me if I knew any baronets and had told me of one who was cruel and wicked. Not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house. Miss Halcombe hastened immediately to her sister’s room, and I went to my studio.

She was engaged to be married, and her future husband was Sir Percival Glyde. A man of the rank of Baronet, and the owner of property in Hampshire.

There were hundreds of baronets in England, and dozens of landowners in Hampshire. I had not the shadow of a reason for connecting Sir Percival Glyde with the words that had been spoken to me by the woman in white. And yet, I did connect him with them.

I had been engaged with the drawings little more than half an hour, when there was a knock at the door. It opened, on my answering; and, to my surprise, Miss Halcombe entered the room.

Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught up a chair for herself before I could give her one, and sat down in it, close at my side. Marian was holding a letter in her hand and looking extremely angry and upset.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “You saw me send the gardener on to the house, with a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to Miss Fairlie?”

“Certainly.”

“The letter is an anonymous letter – a vile attempt to injure Sir Percival Glyde in my sister’s estimation.[34] You are the only person in the house who can advise me. Mr. Fairlie, in his state of health and with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not the right man. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing out of the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable acquaintances. I’d like you to read it. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright.”

She gave me the letter. It began abruptly, without any preliminary form of address, as follows —

“Do you believe in dreams? I hope, for your own sake, that you do. See what Scripture[35] says about dreams, and take the warning I send you before it is too late.

Last night I dreamed about you, Miss Fairlie. You were standing in a church, waiting to be married. You looked so pretty and innocent in your beautiful white silk dress, and your long white lace veil, that the tears came into my eyes.

Beside you stood the man who was going to be your husband. He was neither tall nor short – he was a little below the middle size. A light, active, high-spirited man – about five-and-forty years old. He had a pale face, and was bald over the forehead, but had dark hair on the rest of his head. His beard was shaven on his chin. His eyes were brown too, and very bright; his nose straight and handsome and delicate. Have I dreamt of the right man? You know best, Miss Fairlie and you can say if I was deceived or not.

He had a slight cough, and when he put his hand up to his month, I could see a thin red mark on the back of his hand.

I could see deep into this mans heart. It was as black as night, and on it were written, in the red flaming letters which are the handwriting of the fallen angel, ‘Without pity and without remorse. This man has done harm to many people, and he will do harm this woman by his side.’ Behind him, stood a devil laughing; and there behind you, stood an angel weeping. And I woke with my eyes full of tears and my heart beating – for I believe in dreams.

Believe too, Miss Fairlie – I beg of you, for your own sake, believe as I do. Joseph and Daniel[36], and others in Scripture, believed in dreams. Inquire into the past life of that man, before you say the words that make you his miserable wife. Listen to my warning, Miss Fairlie, Miss Fairlie. Don’t marry this man. Your mother was my first, my best, my only friend.”

There the extraordinary letter ended, without signature of any sort.

“That is not an illiterate letter,” said Miss Halcombe, “I think it was written by a woman. What do you think, Mr. Hartright?”

“I think so too. It seems to me to be not only the letter of a woman, but of a woman whose mind must be – ”

“Deranged?” suggested Miss Halcombe.

I did not answer. While I was speaking, my eyes rested on the last sentence of the letter: “Your mother was my first, my best, my only friend.”

“We must use any chance of tracing the person who has written this,” I said, returning the letter to Miss Halcombe, “I think we ought to speak to the gardener again about the elderly woman who gave him the letter, and then to continue our inquiries in the village.”

“Sir Percival Glyde is anxious that the marriage should take place before the end of the year.”

“Does Miss Fairlie know of that wish?” I asked eagerly.

“She has no suspicion of it. Mr. Fairlie has written to London, to the family solicitor,[37] Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore will arrive tomorrow, and will stay with us a few days. Mr. Gilmore is the old friend of two generations of Fairlies, and we can trust him, as we could trust no one else.”

“One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter,” I said, “contains some sentences of personal description. Sir Percival Glyde’s name is not mentioned, I know – but does that description at all resemble him?”

“Accurately – even in stating his age to be forty-five – ”

Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! That added to my blind hatred and distrust of him.

“There can be no doubt,” Miss Halcombe continued, “that every peculiarity of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of the letter.”

“Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember right?”

“Yes, and mentioned correctly.”

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks.

“But,” she said, “not a whisper, Mr. Hartright, has ever reached me, or my family, against Sir Percival.”

I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had not convinced me.

“We must find out more about the woman who gave this letter to the gardener,” said Marian. “Come on.”

We found the gardener at work as usual – but he couldn’t give us any more information to help us. The woman who had given him the letter had been wearing a long dark-blue coat and a scarf which covered her hair. She hadn’t spoken a word to him. After giving him the letter, she had hurried away in the direction of the village. That was all the gardener could tell us.

The village lay southward of the house. So to the village we went next.

We then went to the village and spent several hours asking people there if they had seen a strange woman that day, but nobody had. Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but they were quite unable to describe her.

The course of our useless investigations brought us to the end of the village at which the schools established by Mrs. Fairlie were situated.

We entered the playground enclosure, and walked by the schoolroom window to get round to the door, which was situated at the back of the building. I stopped for a moment at the window and looked in.

The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me. The pupils were all gathered together in front of him, with one exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner.

“Now, boys,” said the voice, “mind what I tell you.[38] If I hear another word spoken about ghosts in this school, it will be the worse for all of you. There are no such things as ghosts, and therefore any boy who believes in ghosts believes in what can’t possibly be; and a boy who belongsto Limmeridge School, and believes in what can’t possibly be must be punished accordingly. Jacob[39] has been punished, not because he said he saw a ghost last night, but because he is too impudent and too obstinate to listen to reason, and because he persists in saying he saw the ghost after I have told him that no such thing can possibly be.”

Marian and I looked at each other in astonishment.

“Go home all of you to dinner,” said the schoolmaster, “except Jacob. Jacob must stop where he is; and the ghost may bring him his dinner, if the ghost pleases.”

We asked him if he had seen any strangers in the village that morning, but he shook his head.

“That wicked boy has been frightening the whole school, Miss Halcombe, by declaring that he saw a ghost yesterday evening,” answered the master; “and he still persists in his absurd story, in spite of all that I can say to him.”

“You foolish boy,” said Marian, “why don’t you beg Mr. Dempster’s pardon, and hold your tongue about the ghost?”

“Eh! – but I saw a ghost yesterday evening,” persisted Jacob, with a stare of terror and a burst of tears.

“Nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed! Don’t tell lies,” said Marian angrily. “There are no such things as ghosts.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Halcombe,” interposed the schoolmaster, “but I think you had better not question the boy.”

She turned with an air of defiance to little Jacob, and began to question him directly. “Come!” she said, “I want to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did you see the ghost?”

“Yesterday. It was just where a ghost ought to be – in the churchyard. Near the grave with the tall white cross,” replied Jacob.

“Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? And what was it like?”

“All in white – as a ghost should be,” answered the ghost-seer, with a confidence beyond his years.

Marian turned pale and looked me eagerly in the face.

“The woman in white!” she said. “And the grave with the tall white cross is my mother’s grave. What does she want with that? I go at once to the churchyard. Perhaps we can learn something more there.”

As soon as we were alone again, Miss Halcombe asked me if I had formed any opinion on what I had heard.

“A very strong opinion,” I answered; “the boy’s story, as I believe, has a foundation in fact.”

“You shall see the grave.”

“Miss Halcombe, what has happened in the schoolroom encourages me to continue the investigation.”

“Why does it encourage you?”

“Miss Halcombe, I believe, at this moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same person.[40]”

She stopped, turned pale, and looked me eagerly in the face.

“What person?”

“The schoolmaster unconsciously told you.[41] When he spoke of the figure that the boy saw in the churchyard he called it ‘a woman in white.’”

“Not Anne Catherick?”

“Yes, Anne Catherick.”

She put her hand through my arm and leaned on it heavily.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “I will show you the grave, and then go back at once to the house. I had better not leave Laura too long alone. I had better go back and sit with her.”

We were close to the churchyard when she spoke. The church was a small building of grey stone, and was situated in a peaceful valley. The graves lay behind the church and rose a little way up the hillside.

There was a low stone wall all around the graves, and in one corner of the churchyard there was a group of trees, and among them was a tall white marble cross. Marian pointed to it.

“That cross marks my mother’s grave, I need go no farther with you,” said Miss Halcombe, pointing to the grave. “You will let me know if you find anything to confirm the idea you have just mentioned to me. Let us meet again at the house.”

She left me. I descended at once to the churchyard, and crossed the stile which led directly to Mrs. Fairlie’s grave. I looked attentively at the cross, and at the square block of marble below it, on which the inscription was cut. Then I noticed something strange. One half of the cross and the stone beneath had been marked and made dirty by the weather. But the other half was bright and clear as if somebody had cleaned the marble very recently. I looked closer, and saw that it had been cleaned – recently cleaned, in a downward direction from top to bottom.

The sun was beginning to go down and a cold wind started to blow. Dark storm clouds were moving quickly. In the far distance I could hear the noise of the sea. What a wild and lonely place this was.

Who had begun the cleansing of the marble, and who had left it unfinished? I found a hiding place among the trees and began to wait. I waited for about half an hour. The sun had just set when suddenly I saw a figure enter the churchyard and approach the grave hurriedly.

The figure was that of a woman. She was wearing a long coat of a dark-blue colour, but I could see a bit of the dress she wore underneath her coat. My heart began to beat fast as I noticed the colour – white.

The woman approached the grave and stood looking at it for a long time. Then she kissed the cross and took out a cloth from under her coat. She wet the cloth in the stream and started to clean the marble.

She was so busy with what she was doing that she didn’t hear me approach her. When I was within a few feet of her, I stopped.

She could sense that someone was behind her and stopped cleaning the marble, turning round slowly. When she saw me, she gave a faint cry of terror.

“Don’t be frightened,” I said. “Surely you remember me?”

I stopped while I spoke – then advanced a few steps gently – then stopped again – and so approached by little and little till I was close to her.

“You remember me?” I said. “We met very late, and I helped you to find the way to London. Surely you have not forgotten that?”

“You are very kind to me,” she murmured.

“I acted as your friend then, and I want to be your friend now. Please don’t be afraid.”

She stopped. She continued to look at me with a face full of fear. There was no doubt that it was the same strange woman – the woman I had met once.

“How did you come here?” she asked.

“Do you remember me telling you that I was going to Cumberland? Well, since we last met, I have been staying all the time at Limmeridge House.”

The woman’s sad pale face brightened for a moment.

“At Limmeridge House! Ah, how happy you must be there,” she said.

I looked at her. She smiled and I saw again the extraordinary likeness between her and Laura Fairlie. I had seen Anne Catherick’s likeness in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie’s likeness in Anne Catherick. The great difference was that Laura’s face was full of joy and happiness, while this woman’s face was sad and frightened. What could it mean?