The Woman in White (52 page)

This rigorous mode of treatment, I have observed, invariably
brings persons in the lower class of life to their senses. It
brought Louis to HIS senses. He was so obliging as to leave off
grinning, and inform me that a Young Person was outside wanting to
see me. He added (with the odious talkativeness of servants),
that her name was Fanny.

"Who is Fanny?"

"Lady Glyde's maid, sir."

"What does Lady Glyde's maid want with me?"

"A letter, sir—-"

"Take it."

"She refuses to give it to anybody but you, sir."

"Who sends the letter?"

"Miss Halcombe, sir."

The moment I heard Miss Halcombe's name I gave up. It is a habit
of mine always to give up to Miss Halcombe. I find, by
experience, that it saves noise. I gave up on this occasion.
Dear Marian!

"Let Lady Glyde's maid come in, Louis. Stop! Do her shoes creak?"

I was obliged to ask the question. Creaking shoes invariably
upset me for the day. I was resigned to see the Young Person, but
I was NOT resigned to let the Young Person's shoes upset me.
There is a limit even to my endurance.

Louis affirmed distinctly that her shoes were to be depended upon.
I waved my hand. He introduced her. Is it necessary to say that
she expressed her sense of embarrassment by shutting up her mouth
and breathing through her nose? To the student of female human
nature in the lower orders, surely not.

Let me do the girl justice. Her shoes did NOT creak. But why do
Young Persons in service all perspire at the hands? Why have they
all got fat noses and hard cheeks? And why are their faces so
sadly unfinished, especially about the corners of the eyelids? I
am not strong enough to think deeply myself on any subject, but I
appeal to professional men, who are. Why have we no variety in
our breed of Young Persons?

"You have a letter for me, from Miss Halcombe? Put it down on the
table, please, and don't upset anything. How is Miss Halcombe?"

"Very well, thank you, sir."

"And Lady Glyde?"

I received no answer. The Young Person's face became more
unfinished than ever, and I think she began to cry. I certainly
saw something moist about her eyes. Tears or perspiration? Louis
(whom I have just consulted) is inclined to think, tears. He is
in her class of life, and he ought to know best. Let us say,
tears.

Except when the refining process of Art judiciously removes from
them all resemblance to Nature, I distinctly object to tears.
Tears are scientifically described as a Secretion. I can
understand that a secretion may be healthy or unhealthy, but I
cannot see the interest of a secretion from a sentimental point of
view. Perhaps my own secretions being all wrong together, I am a
little prejudiced on the subject. No matter. I behaved, on this
occasion, with all possible propriety and feeling. I closed my
eyes and said to Louis—

"Endeavour to ascertain what she means."

Louis endeavoured, and the Young Person endeavoured. They
succeeded in confusing each other to such an extent that I am
bound in common gratitude to say, they really amused me. I think
I shall send for them again when I am in low spirits. I have just
mentioned this idea to Louis. Strange to say, it seems to make
him uncomfortable. Poor devil!

Surely I am not expected to repeat my niece's maid's explanation
of her tears, interpreted in the English of my Swiss valet? The
thing is manifestly impossible. I can give my own impressions and
feelings perhaps. Will that do as well? Please say, Yes.

My idea is that she began by telling me (through Louis) that her
master had dismissed her from her mistress's service. (Observe,
throughout, the strange irrelevancy of the Young Person. Was it
my fault that she had lost her place?) On her dismissal, she had
gone to the inn to sleep. (I don't keep the inn—why mention it
to ME?) Between six o'clock and seven Miss Halcombe had come to
say good-bye, and had given her two letters, one for me, and one
for a gentleman in London. (I am not a gentleman in London—hang
the gentleman in London!) She had carefully put the two letters
into her bosom (what have I to do with her bosom?); she had been
very unhappy, when Miss Halcombe had gone away again; she had not
had the heart to put bit or drop between her lips till it was near
bedtime, and then, when it was close on nine o'clock, she had
thought she should like a cup of tea. (Am I responsible for any
of these vulgar fluctuations, which begin with unhappiness and end
with tea?) Just as she was WARMING THE POT (I give the words on
the authority of Louis, who says he knows what they mean, and
wishes to explain, but I snub him on principle)—just as she was
warming the pot the door opened, and she was STRUCK OF A HEAP (her
own words again, and perfectly unintelligible this time to Louis,
as well as to myself) by the appearance in the inn parlour of her
ladyship the Countess. I give my niece's maid's description of my
sister's title with a sense of the highest relish. My poor dear
sister is a tiresome woman who married a foreigner. To resume:
the door opened, her ladyship the Countess appeared in the
parlour, and the Young Person was struck of a heap. Most
remarkable!

I must really rest a little before I can get on any farther. When
I have reclined for a few minutes, with my eyes closed, and when
Louis has refreshed my poor aching temples with a little eau-de-
Cologne, I may be able to proceed.

Her ladyship the Countess—-

No. I am able to proceed, but not to sit up. I will recline and
dictate. Louis has a horrid accent, but he knows the language,
and can write. How very convenient!

Her ladyship, the Countess, explained her unexpected appearance at
the inn by telling Fanny that she had come to bring one or two
little messages which Miss Halcombe in her hurry had forgotten.
The Young Person thereupon waited anxiously to hear what the
messages were, but the Countess seemed disinclined to mention them
(so like my sister's tiresome way!) until Fanny had had her tea.
Her ladyship was surprisingly kind and thoughtful about it
(extremely unlike my sister), and said, "I am sure, my poor girl,
you must want your tea. We can let the messages wait till
afterwards. Come, come, if nothing else will put you at your
ease, I'll make the tea and have a cup with you." I think those
were the words, as reported excitably, in my presence, by the
Young Person. At any rate, the Countess insisted on making the
tea, and carried her ridiculous ostentation of humility so far as
to take one cup herself, and to insist on the girl's taking the
other. The girl drank the tea, and according to her own account,
solemnised the extraordinary occasion five minutes afterwards by
fainting dead away for the first time in her life. Here again I
use her own words. Louis thinks they were accompanied by an
increased secretion of tears. I can't say myself. The effort of
listening being quite as much as I could manage, my eyes were
closed.

Where did I leave off? Ah, yes—she fainted after drinking a cup
of tea with the Countess—a proceeding which might have interested
me if I had been her medical man, but being nothing of the sort I
felt bored by hearing of it, nothing more. When she came to
herself in half an hour's time she was on the sofa, and nobody was
with her but the landlady. The Countess, finding it too late to
remain any longer at the inn, had gone away as soon as the girl
showed signs of recovering, and the landlady had been good enough
to help her upstairs to bed.

Left by herself, she had felt in her bosom (I regret the necessity
of referring to this part of the subject a second time), and had
found the two letters there quite safe, but strangely crumpled.
She had been giddy in the night, but had got up well enough to
travel in the morning. She had put the letter addressed to that
obtrusive stranger, the gentleman in London into the post, and had
now delivered the other letter into my hands as she was told.
This was the plain truth, and though she could not blame herself
for any intentional neglect, she was sadly troubled in her mind,
and sadly in want of a word of advice. At this point Louis thinks
the secretions appeared again. Perhaps they did, but it is of
infinitely greater importance to mention that at this point also I
lost my patience, opened my eyes, and interfered.

"What is the purport of all this?" I inquired.

My niece's irrelevant maid stared, and stood speechless.

"Endeavour to explain," I said to my servant. "Translate me,
Louis."

Louis endeavoured and translated. In other words, he descended
immediately into a bottomless pit of confusion, and the Young
Person followed him down. I really don't know when I have been so
amused. I left them at the bottom of the pit as long as they
diverted me. When they ceased to divert me, I exerted my
intelligence, and pulled them up again.

It is unnecessary to say that my interference enabled me, in due
course of time, to ascertain the purport of the Young Person's
remarks.

I discovered that she was uneasy in her mind, because the train of
events that she had just described to me had prevented her from
receiving those supplementary messages which Miss Halcombe had
intrusted to the Countess to deliver. She was afraid the messages
might have been of great importance to her mistress's interests.
Her dread of Sir Percival had deterred her from going to
Blackwater Park late at night to inquire about them, and Miss
Halcombe's own directions to her, on no account to miss the train
in the morning, had prevented her from waiting at the inn the next
day. She was most anxious that the misfortune of her fainting-fit
should not lead to the second misfortune of making her mistress
think her neglectful, and she would humbly beg to ask me whether I
would advise her to write her explanations and excuses to Miss
Halcombe, requesting to receive the messages by letter, if it was
not too late. I make no apologies for this extremely prosy
paragraph. I have been ordered to write it. There are people,
unaccountable as it may appear, who actually take more interest in
what my niece's maid said to me on this occasion than in what I
said to my niece's maid. Amusing perversity!

"I should feel very much obliged to you, sir, if you would kindly
tell me what I had better do," remarked the Young Person.

"Let things stop as they are," I said, adapting my language to my
listener. "I invariably let things stop as they are. Yes. Is
that all?"

"If you think it would be a liberty in me, sir, to write, of
course I wouldn't venture to do so. But I am so very anxious to
do all I can to serve my mistress faithfully—-"

People in the lower class of life never know when or how to go out
of a room. They invariably require to be helped out by their
betters. I thought it high time to help the Young Person out. I
did it with two judicious words—

"Good-morning."

Something outside or inside this singular girl suddenly creaked.
Louis, who was looking at her (which I was not), says she creaked
when she curtseyed. Curious. Was it her shoes, her stays, or her
bones? Louis thinks it was her stays. Most extraordinary!

As soon as I was left by myself I had a little nap—I really
wanted it. When I awoke again I noticed dear Marian's letter. If
I had had the least idea of what it contained I should certainly
not have attempted to open it. Being, unfortunately for myself,
quite innocent of all suspicion, I read the letter. It
immediately upset me for the day.

I am, by nature, one of the most easy-tempered creatures that ever
lived—I make allowances for everybody, and I take offence at
nothing. But as I have before remarked, there are limits to my
endurance. I laid down Marian's letter, and felt myself—justly
felt myself—an injured man.

I am about to make a remark. It is, of course, applicable to the
very serious matter now under notice, or I should not allow it to
appear in this place.

Nothing, in my opinion, sets the odious selfishness of mankind in
such a repulsively vivid light as the treatment, in all classes of
society, which the Single people receive at the hands of the
Married people. When you have once shown yourself too considerate
and self-denying to add a family of your own to an already
overcrowded population, you are vindictively marked out by your
married friends, who have no similar consideration and no similar
self-denial, as the recipient of half their conjugal troubles, and
the born friend of all their children. Husbands and wives TALK of
the cares of matrimony, and bachelors and spinsters BEAR them.
Take my own case. I considerately remain single, and my poor dear
brother Philip inconsiderately marries. What does he do when he
dies? He leaves his daughter to ME. She is a sweet girl—she is
also a dreadful responsibility. Why lay her on my shoulders?
Because I am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to
relieve my married connections of all their own troubles. I do my
best with my brother's responsibility—I marry my niece, with
infinite fuss and difficulty, to the man her father wanted her to
marry. She and her husband disagree, and unpleasant consequences
follow. What does she do with those consequences? She transfers
them to ME. Why transfer them to ME? Because I am bound, in the
harmless character of a single man, to relieve my married
connections of all their own troubles. Poor single people! Poor
human nature!

It is quite unnecessary to say that Marian's letter threatened me.
Everybody threatens me. All sorts of horrors were to fall on my
devoted head if I hesitated to turn Limmeridge House into an
asylum for my niece and her misfortunes. I did hesitate,
nevertheless.

I have mentioned that my usual course, hitherto, had been to
submit to dear Marian, and save noise. But on this occasion, the
consequences involved in her extremely inconsiderate proposal were
of a nature to make me pause. If I opened Limmeridge House as an
asylum to Lady Glyde, what security had I against Sir Percival
Glyde's following her here in a state of violent resentment
against ME for harbouring his wife? I saw such a perfect labyrinth
of troubles involved in this proceeding that I determined to feel
my ground, as it were. I wrote, therefore, to dear Marian to beg
(as she had no husband to lay claim to her) that she would come
here by herself, first, and talk the matter over with me. If she
could answer my objections to my own perfect satisfaction, then I
assured her that I would receive our sweet Laura with the greatest
pleasure, but not otherwise.