Woman in White (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Wilkie Collins

In the case of any other client, I should have acted on my instructions, however personally distasteful to me, and have given up the point about the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. But I could not act with this business-like indifference towards Miss Fairlie. I had an honest feeling of affection and admiration for her; I remembered gratefully that her father had been the kindest patron and friend to me that ever man had; I had felt towards her, while I was drawing the settlement, as I might have felt, if I had not been an old bachelor, towards a daughter of my own; and I was determined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and where her interests were concerned. Writing a second time to Mr. Fairlie was not to be thought of; it would only be giving him a second opportunity of slipping through my fingers. Seeing him and personally remonstrating with him, might possibly be of more use. The next day was Saturday. I determined to take a return ticket, and jolt my old bones down to Cumberland, on the chance of persuading him to adopt the just, the independent, and the honourable course. It was a poor chance enough, no doubt; but, when I had tried it, my conscience would be at ease. I should then have done all that a man in my position could do to serve the interests of my old friend’s only child.

  The weather on Saturday was beautiful, a west wind and a bright sun. Having felt latterly a return of that fulness and oppression of the head, against which my doctor warned me so seriously more than two years since, I resolved to take the opportunity of getting a little extra exercise, by sending my bag on before me, and walking to the terminus in Euston-square.az As I came out into Holborn,ba a gentleman walking by rapidly, stopped and spoke to me. It was Mr. Walter Hartright.

  If he had not been the first to greet me, I should certainly have passed him. He was so changed that I hardly knew him again. His face looked pale and haggard—his manner was hurried and uncertain—and his dress, which I remembered as neat and gentlemanlike when I saw him at Limmeridge, was so slovenly now, that I should really have been ashamed of the appearance of it on one of my own clerks.

  ‘Have you been long back from Cumberland?’ he asked. ‘I heard from Miss Halcombe lately. I am aware that Sir Percival Glyde’s explanation has been considered satisfactory. Will the marriage take place soon? Do you happen to know, Mr. Gilmore?’

  He spoke so fast, and crowded his questions together so strangely and confusedly that I could hardly follow him. However accidently intimate he might have been with the family at Limmeridge, I could not see that he had any right to expect information on their private affairs; and I determined to drop him, as easily as might be, on the subject of Miss Fairlie’s marriage.

  ‘Time will show, Mr. Hartright,’ I said—‘time will show. I dare say if we look out for the marriage in the papers we shall not be far wrong. Excuse my noticing it but I am sorry to see you not looking so well as you were when we last met.’

  A momentary nervous contraction quivered about his lips and eyes, and made me half reproach myself for having answered him in such a significantly guarded manner.

  ‘I had no right to ask about her marriage,’ he said, bitterly. ‘I must wait to see it in the newspapers like other people. Yes,’ he went on, before I could make any apologies, ‘I have not been well lately. I am going to another country, to try a change of scene and occupation. Miss Halcombe has kindly assisted me with her influence, and my testimonials have been found satisfactory. It is a long distance off but I don’t care where I go, what the climate is, or how long I am away.’ He looked about him, while he said this, at the throng of strangers passing us by on either side, in a strange, suspicious manner, as if he thought that some of them might be watching us.

  ‘I wish you well through it, and safe back again,’ I said; and then added, so as not to keep him altogether at arm’s length on the subject of the Fairlies, ‘I am going down to Limmeridge to-day on business. Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie are away just now, on a visit to some friends in Yorkshire.’

  His eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say something in answer; but the same momentary nervous spasm crossed his face again. He took my hand, pressed it hard, and disappeared among the crowd, without saying another word. Though he was little more than a stranger to me, I waited for a moment, looking after him almost with a feeling of regret. I had gained, in my profession, sufficient experience of young men, to know what the outward signs and tokens were of their beginning to go wrong; and, when I resumed my walk to the railway, I am sorry to say I felt more than doubtful about Mr. Hartright’s future.

  IV

  LEAVING BY AN EARLY TRAIN, I got to Limmeridge in time for dinner. The house was oppressively empty and dull. I had expected that good Mrs. Vesey would have been company for me in the absence of the young ladies; but she was confined to her room by a cold. The servants were so surprised at seeing me that they hurried and bustled absurdly, and made all sorts of annoying mistakes. Even the butler, who was old enough to have known better, brought me a bottle of port that was chilled. The reports of Mr. Fairlie’s health were just as usual; and when I sent up a message to announce my arrival, I was told that he would be delighted to see me the next morning, but that the sudden news of my appearance had prostrated him with palpitations for the rest of the evening. The wind howled dismally all night, and strange cracking and groaning noises sounded here, there, and everywhere in the empty house. I slept as wretchedly as possible; and got up, in a mighty bad humour, to breakfast by myself the next morning.

  At ten o’clock I was conducted to Mr. Fairlie’s apartments. He was in his usual room, his usual chair, and his usual aggravating state of mind and body. When I went in, his valet was standing before him, holding up for inspection a heavy volume of etchings, as long and as broad as my office writing-desk. The miserable foreigner grinned in the most abject manner, and looked ready to drop with fatigue, while his master composedly turned over the etchings, and brought their hidden beauties to light with the help of a magnifying glass.

  ‘You very best of good old friends,’ said Mr. Fairlie, leaning back lazily before he could look at me, ‘are you quite well? How nice of you to come here and see me in my solitude. Dear Gilmore!’

  I had expected that the valet would be dismissed when I appeared; but nothing of the sort happened. There he stood, in front of his master’s chair, trembling under the weight of the etchings; and there Mr. Fairlie sat, serenely twirling the magnifying glass between his white fingers and thumbs.

  ‘I have come to speak to you on a very important matter,’ I said; ‘and you will therefore excuse me, if I suggest that we had better be alone.’

  The unfortunate valet looked at me gratefully. Mr. Fairlie faintly repeated my last three words, ‘better be alone’, with every appearance of the utmost possible astonishment.

  I was in no humour for trifling; and I resolved to make him understand what I meant.

  ‘Oblige me by giving that man permission to withdraw,’ I said, pointing to the valet.

  Mr. Fairlie arched his eyebrows, and pursed up his lips, in sarcastic surprise.

  ‘Man?’ he repeated. ‘You provoking old Gilmore, what can you possibly mean by calling him a man? He’s nothing of the sort. He might have been a man half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings; and he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don’t want them any longer. At present he is simply a portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?’

  ‘I do object. For the third time, Mr. Fairlie, I beg that we may be alone.’

  My tone and manner left him no alternative but to comply with my request. He looked at the servant, and pointed peevishly to a chair at his side.

  ‘Put down the etchings and go away,’ he said. ‘Don’t upset me by losing my place. Have you, or have you not, lost my place? Are you sure you have not? And have you put my hand-bell quite within my reach? Yes? Then, why the devil don’t you go?’

  The valet went out. Mr. Fairlie twisted himself round in his chair, polished the magnifying glass with his delicate cambricbb handkerchief, and indulged himself with a sidelong inspe
ction of the open volume of etchings. It was not easy to keep my temper under these circumstances; but I did keep it.

  ‘I have come here at great personal inconvenience,’ I said, ‘to serve the interests of your niece and your family; and I think I have established some slight claim to be favoured with your attention in return.’

  ‘Don’t bully me!’ exclaimed Mr. Fairlie, falling back helplessly in the chair, and closing his eyes. ‘Please don’t bully me. I’m not strong enough.’

  I was determined not to let him provoke me, for Laura Fairlie’s sake.

  ‘My object,’ I went on, ‘is to entreat you to reconsider your letter, and not to force me to abandon the just rights of your niece, and of all who belong to her. Let me state the case to you once more, and for the last time.’

  Mr. Fairlie shook his head and sighed piteously.

  ‘This is heartless of you, Gilmore—very heartless,’ he said. ‘Never mind; go on.’

  I put all the points to him carefully; I set the matter before him in every conceivable light. He lay back in the chair the whole time I was speaking, with his eyes closed. When I had done, he opened them indolently, took his silver smelling-bottle from the table, and sniffed at it with an air of gentle relish.

  ‘Good Gilmore!’ he said, between the sniffs, ‘how very nice this is of you! How you reconcile one to human nature!’

  ‘Give me a plain answer to a plain question, Mr. Fairlie. I tell you again, Sir Percival Glyde has no shadow of a claim to expect more than the income of the money. The money itself, if your niece has no children, ought to be under her control, and to return to her family. If you stand firm, Sir Percival must give way—he must give way, I tell you, or he exposes himself to the base imputation of marrying Miss Fairlie entirely from mercenary motives.’

  Mr. Fairlie shook the silver smelling-bottle at me playfully.

  ‘You dear old Gilmore; how you do hate rank and family, don’t you? How you detest Glyde, because he happens to be a baronet. What a Radicalbc you are—oh, dear me, what a Radical you are!’

  A Radical!!! I could put up with a good deal of provocation, but, after holding the soundest Conservativebd principles all my life, I could not put up with being called a Radical. My blood boiled at it—I started out of my chair—I was speechless with indignation.

  ‘Don’t shake the room!’ cried Mr. Fairlie—‘for Heaven’s sake, don’t shake the room! Worthiest of all possible Gilmores, I meant no offence. My own views are so extremely liberal that I think I am a Radical myself. Yes. We are a pair of Radicals. Please don’t be angry. I can’t quarrel—I haven’t stamina enough. Shall we drop the subject? Yes. Come and look at these sweet etchings. Do let me teach you to understand the heavenly pearliness of these lines. Do, now, there’s a good Gilmore!’

  While he was maundering on in this way I was, fortunately for my own self-respect, returning to my senses. When I spoke again I was composed enough to treat his impertinence with the silent contempt that it deserved.

  ‘You are entirely wrong, sir,’ I said, ‘in supposing that I speak from any prejudice against Sir Percival Glyde. I may regret that he has so unreservedly resigned himself in this matter to his lawyer’s direction as to make any appeal to himself impossible; but I am not prejudiced against him. What I have said would equally apply to any other man in his situation, high or low. The principle I maintain is a recognised principle. If you were to apply at the nearest town here, to the first respectable solicitor you could find, he would tell you, as a stranger, what I tell you, as a friend. He would inform you that it is against all rule to abandon the lady’s money entirely to the man she marries. He would decline, on grounds of common legal caution, to give the husband, under any circumstances whatever, an interest of twenty thousand pounds in his wife’s death.’

  ‘Would he really, Gilmore?’ said Mr. Fairlie. ‘If he said anything half so horrid I do assure you I should tinkle my bell for Louis, and have him sent out of the house immediately.’

  ‘You shall not irritate me, Mr. Fairlie—for your niece’s sake and for her father’s sake, you shall not irritate me.You shall take the whole responsibility of this discreditable settlement on your own shoulders before I leave the room.’

  ‘Don’t!—now please don‘t!’ said Mr. Fairlie. ‘Think how precious your time is, Gilmore; and don’t throw it away. I would dispute with you if I could, but I can’t—I haven’t stamina enough. You want to upset me, to upset yourself, to upset Glyde, and to upset Laura; and—oh, dear me!—all for the sake of the very last thing in the world that is likely to happen. No, dear friend—in the interests of peace and quietness, positively No!’

  ‘I am to understand, then, that you hold by the determination expressed in your letter?’

  ‘Yes, please. So glad we understand each other at last. Sit down again—do!’

  I walked at once to the door; and Mr. Fairlie resignedly ‘tinkled’ his hand-bell. Before I left the room I turned round and addressed him for the last time.

  ‘Whatever happens in the future, sir,’ I said, ‘remember that my plain duty of warning you has been performed. As the faithful friend and servant of your family, I tell you, at parting, that no daughter of mine should be married to any man alive under such a settlement as you are forcing me to make for Miss Fairlie.’

  The door opened behind me, and the valet stood waiting on the threshold.

  ‘Louis,’ said Mr. Fairlie, ‘show Mr. Gilmore out, and then come back and hold up my etchings for me again. Make them give you a good lunch down stairs. Do, Gilmore, make my idle beasts of servants give you a good lunch!’

  I was too much disgusted to reply; I turned on my heel, and left him in silence. There was an up train at two o’clock in the afternoon; and by that train I returned to London.

  On the Tuesday I sent in the altered settlement, which practically disinherited the very persons whom Miss Fairlie’s own lips had informed me she was most anxious to benefit. I had no choice. Another lawyer would have drawn up the deed if I had refused to undertake it.

  My task is done. My personal share in the events of the family story extends no farther than the point which I have just reached. Other pens than mine will describe the strange circumstances which are now shortly to follow. Seriously and sorrowfully, I close this brief record. Seriously and sorrowfully, I repeat here the parting words that I spoke at Limmeridge House:—No daughter of mine should have been married to any man alive under such a settlement as I was compelled to make for Laura Fairlie.

  The End of Mr. Gilmore’s Narrative.

  The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, in Extracts from her Diary.

  I

  LIMMERIDGE HOUSE, NOV. 8TH.

  THIS MORNING MR. GILMORE left us.

  His interview with Laura had evidently grieved and surprised him more than he liked to confess. I felt afraid, from his look and manner when we parted, that she might have inadvertently betrayed to him the real secret of her depression and my anxiety. This doubt grew on me so, after he had gone, that I declined riding out with Sir Percival, and went up to Laura’s room instead.

  I have been sadly distrustful of myself, in this difficult and lamentable matter, ever since I found out my own ignorance of the strength of Laura’s unhappy attachment. I ought to have known that the delicacy and forbearance and sense of honour which drew me to poor Hartright, and made me so sincerely admire and respect him, were just the qualities to appeal most irresistibly to Laura’s natural sensitiveness and natural generosity of nature. And yet, until she opened her heart to me of her own accord, I had no suspicion that this new feeling had taken root so deeply. I once thought time and care might remove it. I now fear that it will remain with her and alter her for life. The discovery that I have committed such an error in judgment as this, makes me hesitate about everything else. I hesitate about Sir Percival, in the face of the plainest proofs. I hesitate even in speaking to Laura. On this very morning, I doubted, with my handThe passages omitted, here and elsewhere, in Mi
ss Halcombe’s Diary, are only those which bear no reference to Miss Fairlie or to any of the persons with whom she is associated in these pages. [Author’s note]

  on the door, whether I should ask her the questions I had come to put, or not.

  When I went into her room, I found her walking up and down in great impatience. She looked flushed and excited; and she came forward at once, and spoke to me before I could open my lips.

  ‘I wanted you,’ she said. ‘Come and sit down on the sofa with me, Marian! I can bear this no longer—I must and will end it.’

  There was too much colour in her cheeks, too much energy in her manner, too much firmness in her voice. The little book of Hartright’s drawings—the fatal book that she will dream over whenever she is alone—was in one of her hands. I began by gently and firmly taking it from her, and putting it out of sight on a side-table.

  ‘Tell me quietly, my darling, what you wish to do,’ I said. ‘Has Mr. Gilmore been advising you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, not in what I am thinking of now. He was very kind and good to me, Marian,—and I am ashamed to say I distressed him by crying. I am miserably helpless; I can’t control myself For my own sake and for all our sakes, I must have courage enough to end it.’

  ‘Do you mean courage enough to claim your release?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, simply. ‘Courage, dear, to tell the truth.’

  She put her arms round my neck, and rested her head quietly on my bosom. On the opposite wall hung the miniature portrait of her father. I bent over her, and saw that she was looking at it while her head lay on my breast.

  ‘I can never claim my release from my engagement,’ she went on. ‘Whatever way it ends, it must end wretchedly for me. All I can do, Marian, is not to add the remembrance that I have broken my promise and forgotten my father’s dying words, to make that wretchedness worse.’