The Woman in White (49 page)

I went softly back to my bedroom to try the safer experiment of
the verandah roof first.

A complete change in my dress was imperatively necessary for many
reasons. I took off my silk gown to begin with, because the
slightest noise from it on that still night might have betrayed
me. I next removed the white and cumbersome parts of my
underclothing, and replaced them by a petticoat of dark flannel.
Over this I put my black travelling cloak, and pulled the hood on
to my head. In my ordinary evening costume I took up the room of
three men at least. In my present dress, when it was held close
about me, no man could have passed through the narrowest spaces
more easily than I. The little breadth left on the roof of the
verandah, between the flower-pots on one side and the wall and the
windows of the house on the other, made this a serious
consideration. If I knocked anything down, if I made the least
noise, who could say what the consequences might be?

I only waited to put the matches near the candle before I
extinguished it, and groped my way back into the sitting-room, I
locked that door, as I had locked my bedroom door—then quietly
got out of the window, and cautiously set my feet on the leaden
roof of the verandah.

My two rooms were at the inner extremity of the new wing of the
house in which we all lived, and I had five windows to pass before
I could reach the position it was necessary to take up immediately
over the library. The first window belonged to a spare room which
was empty. The second and third windows belonged to Laura's room.
The fourth window belonged to Sir Percival's room. The fifth
belonged to the Countess's room. The others, by which it was not
necessary for me to pass, were the windows of the Count's
dressing-room, of the bath-room, and of the second empty spare
room.

No sound reached my ears—the black blinding darkness of the night
was all round me when I first stood on the verandah, except at
that part of it which Madame Fosco's window over-looked. There,
at the very place above the library to which my course was
directed—there I saw a gleam of light! The Countess was not yet
in bed.

It was too late to draw back—it was no time to wait. I
determined to go on at all hazards, and trust for security to my
own caution and to the darkness of the night. "For Laura's sake!"
I thought to myself, as I took the first step forward on the roof,
with one hand holding my cloak close round me, and the other
groping against the wall of the house. It was better to brush
close by the wall than to risk striking my feet against the
flower-pots within a few inches of me, on the other side.

I passed the dark window of the spare room, trying the leaden roof
at each step with my foot before I risked resting my weight on it.
I passed the dark windows of Laura's room ("God bless her and keep
her to-night!"). I passed the dark window of Sir Percival's room.
Then I waited a moment, knelt down with my hands to support me,
and so crept to my position, under the protection of the low wall
between the bottom of the lighted window and the verandah roof.

When I ventured to look up at the window itself I found that the
top of it only was open, and that the blind inside was drawn down.
While I was looking I saw the shadow of Madame Fosco pass across
the white field of the blind—then pass slowly back again. Thus
far she could not have heard me, or the shadow would surely have
stopped at the blind, even if she had wanted courage enough to
open the window and look out?

I placed myself sideways against the railing of the verandah—
first ascertaining, by touching them, the position of the flower-
pots on either side of me. There was room enough for me to sit
between them and no more. The sweet-scented leaves of the flower
on my left hand just brushed my cheek as I lightly rested my head
against the railing.

The first sounds that reached me from below were caused by the
opening or closing (most probably the latter) of three doors in
succession—the doors, no doubt, leading into the hall and into
the rooms on each side of the library, which the Count had pledged
himself to examine. The first object that I saw was the red spark
again travelling out into the night from under the verandah,
moving away towards my window, waiting a moment, and then
returning to the place from which it had set out.

"The devil take your restlessness! When do you mean to sit down?"
growled Sir Percival's voice beneath me.

"Ouf! how hot it is!" said the Count, sighing and puffing wearily.

His exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs
on the tiled pavement under the verandah—the welcome sound which
told me they were going to sit close at the window as usual. So
far the chance was mine. The clock in the turret struck the
quarter to twelve as they settled themselves in their chairs. I
heard Madame Fosco through the open window yawning, and saw her
shadow pass once more across the white field of the blind.

Meanwhile, Sir Percival and the Count began talking together
below, now and then dropping their voices a little lower than
usual, but never sinking them to a whisper. The strangeness and
peril of my situation, the dread, which I could not master, of
Madame Fosco's lighted window, made it difficult, almost
impossible, for me, at first, to keep my presence of mind, and to
fix my attention solely on the conversation beneath. For some
minutes I could only succeed in gathering the general substance of
it. I understood the Count to say that the one window alight was
his wife's, that the ground floor of the house was quite clear,
and that they might now speak to each other without fear of
accidents. Sir Percival merely answered by upbraiding his friend
with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his
interests all through the day. The Count thereupon defended
himself by declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles
and anxieties which had absorbed all his attention, and that the
only safe time to come to an explanation was a time when they
could feel certain of being neither interrupted nor overheard.
"We are at a serious crisis in our affairs, Percival," he said,
"and if we are to decide on the future at all, we must decide
secretly to-night."

That sentence of the Count's was the first which my attention was
ready enough to master exactly as it was spoken. From this point,
with certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed
breathlessly on the conversation, and I followed it word for word.

"Crisis?" repeated Sir Percival. "It's a worse crisis than you
think for, I can tell you."

"So I should suppose, from your behaviour for the last day or
two," returned the other coolly. "But wait a little. Before we
advance to what I do NOT know, let us be quite certain of what I
DO know. Let us first see if I am right about the time that is
past, before I make any proposal to you for the time that is to
come."

"Stop till I get the brandy and water. Have some yourself."

"Thank you, Percival. The cold water with pleasure, a spoon, and
the basin of sugar. Eau sucree, my friend—nothing more."

"Sugar-and-water for a man of your age!—There! mix your sickly
mess. You foreigners are all alike."

"Now listen, Percival. I will put our position plainly before
you, as I understand it, and you shall say if I am right or wrong.
You and I both came back to this house from the Continent with our
affairs very seriously embarrassed—"

"Cut it short! I wanted some thousands and you some hundreds, and
without the money we were both in a fair way to go to the dogs
together. There's the situation. Make what you can of it. Go
on."

"Well, Percival, in your own solid English words, you wanted some
thousands and I wanted some hundreds, and the only way of getting
them was for you to raise the money for your own necessity (with a
small margin beyond for my poor little hundreds) by the help of
your wife. What did I tell you about your wife on our way to
England?—and what did I tell you again when we had come here, and
when I had seen for myself the sort of woman Miss Halcombe was?"

"How should I know? You talked nineteen to the dozen, I suppose,
just as usual."

"I said this: Human ingenuity, my friend, has hitherto only
discovered two ways in which a man can manage a woman. One way is
to knock her down—a method largely adopted by the brutal lower
orders of the people, but utterly abhorrent to the refined and
educated classes above them. The other way (much longer, much
more difficult, but in the end not less certain) is never to
accept a provocation at a woman's hands. It holds with animals,
it holds with children, and it holds with women, who are nothing
but children grown up. Quiet resolution is the one quality the
animals, the children, and the women all fail in. If they can
once shake this superior quality in their master, they get the
better of HIM. If they can never succeed in disturbing it, he
gets the better of THEM. I said to you, Remember that plain truth
when you want your wife to help you to the money. I said,
Remember it doubly and trebly in the presence of your wife's
sister, Miss Halcombe. Have you remembered it? Not once in all
the implications that have twisted themselves about us in this
house. Every provocation that your wife and her sister could
offer to you, you instantly accepted from them. Your mad temper
lost the signature to the deed, lost the ready money, set Miss
Halcombe writing to the lawyer for the first time."

"First time! Has she written again?"

"Yes, she has written again to-day."

A chair fell on the pavement of the verandah—fell with a crash,
as if it had been kicked down.

It was well for me that the Count's revelation roused Sir
Percival's anger as it did. On hearing that I had been once more
discovered I started so that the railing against which I leaned
cracked again. Had he followed me to the inn? Did he infer that I
must have given my letters to Fanny when I told him I had none for
the post-bag. Even if it was so, how could he have examined the
letters when they had gone straight from my hand to the bosom of
the girl's dress?

"Thank your lucky star," I heard the Count say next, "that you
have me in the house to undo the harm as fast as you do it. Thank
your lucky star that I said No when you were mad enough to talk of
turning the key to-day on Miss Halcombe, as you turned it in your
mischievous folly on your wife. Where are your eyes? Can you look
at Miss Halcombe and not see that she has the foresight and the
resolution of a man? With that woman for my friend I would snap
these fingers of mine at the world. With that woman for my enemy,
I, with all my brains and experience—I, Fosco, cunning as the
devil himself, as you have told me a hundred times—I walk, in
your English phrase, upon egg-shells! And this grand creature—I
drink her health in my sugar-and-water—this grand creature, who
stands in the strength of her love and her courage, firm as a
rock, between us two and that poor, flimsy, pretty blonde wife of
yours—this magnificent woman, whom I admire with all my soul,
though I oppose her in your interests and in mine, you drive to
extremities as if she was no sharper and no bolder than the rest
of her sex. Percival! Percival! you deserve to fail, and you HAVE
failed."

There was a pause. I write the villain's words about myself
because I mean to remember them—because I hope yet for the day
when I may speak out once for all in his presence, and cast them
back one by one in his teeth.

Sir Percival was the first to break the silence again.

"Yes, yes, bully and bluster as much as you like," he said
sulkily; "the difficulty about the money is not the only
difficulty. You would be for taking strong measures with the
women yourself—if you knew as much as I do."

"We will come to that second difficulty all in good time,"
rejoined the Count. "You may confuse yourself, Percival, as much
as you please, but you shall not confuse me. Let the question of
the money be settled first. Have I convinced your obstinacy? have
I shown you that your temper will not let you help yourself?—Or
must I go back, and (as you put it in your dear straightforward
English) bully and bluster a little more?"

"Pooh! It's easy enough to grumble at ME. Say what is to be done—
that's a little harder."

"Is it? Bah! This is what is to be done: You give up all direction
in the business from to-night—you leave it for the future in my
hands only. I am talking to a Practical British man—ha? Well,
Practical, will that do for you?"

"What do you propose if I leave it all to you?"

"Answer me first. Is it to be in my hands or not?"

"Say it is in your hands—what then?"

"A few questions, Percival, to begin with. I must wait a little
yet, to let circumstances guide me, and I must know, in every
possible way, what those circumstances are likely to be. There is
no time to lose. I have told you already that Miss Halcombe has
written to the lawyer to-day for the second time."

"How did you find it out? What did she say?"

"If I told you, Percival, we should only come back at the end to
where we are now. Enough that I have found it out—and the
finding has caused that trouble and anxiety which made me so
inaccessible to you all through to-day. Now, to refresh my memory
about your affairs—it is some time since I talked them over with
you. The money has been raised, in the absence of your wife's
signature, by means of bills at three months—raised at a cost
that makes my poverty-stricken foreign hair stand on end to think
of it! When the bills are due, is there really and truly no
earthly way of paying them but by the help of your wife?"

"None."

"What! You have no money at the bankers?"

"A few hundreds, when I want as many thousands."