Faith Moore (0:00)

Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi everyone. So just a reminder, this episode is pre recorded. I'm away until the 27th. I'll be back with you in real time then. But we're still going to do the recap, a little discussion and the chapters. So we're going to get right into that. And just one quick note before we do this is now. We are now in the second epoch, which is sort of like the second part of the narrative. And so the chapter numbers have started again. So even though we're still with Marian, this is Holcomb's narrative one again because it is the first chapter of the second epoch. So if you're following along in your books, that's what's going on here. That's why it's labeled one again instead of three. Three. So now the chapters will begin from one until we get to the third epoch because there are three. So don't forget, all of the same things are true, even though I'm not here in real time. Subscribe, tap the five stars, tell your friends, share it everywhere. Let's come back to even more listeners than we had before I left. So here is the recap from last time. All right, so where we left off, Marian and Laura were called home to Limbridge House because, as Marian suspected, the date of Laura's wedding to Sir Percival has now been set. They're going to be married on 22nd December. And even though Marian wanted to protest and say they should wait longer, Laura said that it should go forward because she might as well get it over with. Basically, Laura can't quite keep her resolution never to speak of Walter again and asks Marian about him. But Marian doesn't tell her that he's gone on this dangerous mission to Honduras because she doesn't want to add to Laura's worries. So then Marian burns Walter's letter, after writing in her diary what it said about the fact that Walter felt he was being followed. Followed and that the people following him seem to be talking about Anne Catherick. So the preparations for the wedding get underway. Sir Percival comes to stay with them at Linridge House and It's decided that Laura and Sir Percival will go on their honeymoon to Rome. And Marian has to break it to Laura that she won't be able to come with her. But she does ask Sir Percival if she can come and live with them once they are back. And Sir Percival replies very warmly that he was hoping that she would do that. Marian bumps into Sir Percival one day coming back from Todd's Corner, where he's been asking after Anne Catherick, but he hasn't found anything out. He's clearly very anxious that she should be found for a while. Marian kind of resolves to say only good things about Sir Percival, since she can't actually find any fault with him. But after he says something to Laura about her married name that makes her very upset, Marian goes back to hating him. And as the wedding gets closer, Sir Percival seems to get more and more anxious, and Laura is basically sort of despondent and sad. But eventually, the day of the wedding comes. Laura and Sir Percival get married and they go off on their honeymoon, leaving Marian alone. All right, so again, no questions this time, but I'm just gonna riff here for a couple of minutes and then we'll do the chapters. So it really happened, right? Laura and Sir Percival are married. And Laura has left Limmeridge with Sir Percival for many months without marrying. So again, here is another narrowing of Laura's world. Right now, she's utterly alone. First we lost Walter, then we lost Gilmore because he can't help us anymore. His hands are tied. And now Laura has lost Marian and she's alone with Sir Percival, who might turn out to be a good husband to her. But we've seriously got our doubts. And Marian, who has tried to like him, clearly thoroughly detests him. And we know that potentially, or we think we know that Percival might be after Laura's money. We do know he's in debt. We know Laura has lots of money, and now they're alone together. And our fear has been that he's going to kill her for the money because he gets this money for himself on her death, right? And Laura doesn't have Marian to stand up for her if she needs standing up for. So what are we gonna come back to? And I don't know about you, but I felt like there was a lot of sort of foreboding and almost prophetic stuff going on in the last episode. Laura's marriage, which ought to been a happy event, right? I mean, we've been talking about how it's not, but it ought to be. It's a marriage. It was being spoken of as if it were a terrible tragedy or maybe the precursor to one. Right. Which is what we're afraid of. Marian even says, here's a quote. It's as if writing of her marriage were like writing of her death. And Marian is clear, just as we are clear on how alone Laura is. Now here's what she the one man who would give his heart's life to serve you is far away. Tossing this stormy night on the awful sea. See who else is left to you. No father, no brother, no living creature, but the helpless, useless woman who writes these sad lines and watches by you for the morning in sorrow that she cannot compose, in doubt that she cannot conquer. So it's all very ominous. But still Sir Percival hasn't actually done anything wrong. And on the face of it, still is being very attentive and thoughtful and kind. And in the same way that when Walter was our narrator, we hated Sir Percival for his sake. Now Marian is our narrator and we hate him for her sake. But just like Walter, Marian's feelings about Sir Percival are not at all objective. We talked a little bit about this last time. She tells us that she's afraid of losing Laura. They've always been inseparable and now Laura is married, so that bond between them is necessarily going to have to change. Marian is most likely going to be an old maid, right? She has no fortune to tempt a husband. She's not beautiful. So I think we're meant to feel that the chances of someone falling in love with her are also slim. Though of course we feel that someone could fall in love with her because we have fallen in love with her. But I think Collins feels that it's unlikely. So Marian dislikes Percival for marrying Laura, which again is not really a mark against him. Specifically, here's what she before another month is over our heads, she will be his Laura instead of mine. His Laura. So Marian knows that her reasons for disliking Sir Percival don't make sense. And she remembers that she never disliked him before Laura fell in love with Walter. She sees her dislike as a prejudice and not based on anything. But she feels it nonetheless, and so do we. And actually, there are a few little hints that are starting to pop up about Sir Percival that might point to something concerning. Although, as with so much of what's going on, they also might not. Sir Percival ended up giving a good reason for requesting that the marriage date be set. He says he's renovating his house to make it ready for a wife and it's going to take longer than he thought. So he wants to know when he'll be married, to factor that into his plans and sort out all his other scheduling issues. We have no reason to doubt him. But of course we're wondering if instead it was that he wanted to marry her before she came of age because he knew that Mr. Fairlie wouldn't object to Sir Percival inheriting all of Laura's money. So is it harmless or is it not? Ser Percival seems really intent on finding Anne Catherick and getting her back to the asylum. He says it's because he feels a sense of responsibility for her and she really does need to be under the care of a mental health professional. We have no reason to doubt him. But of course we're wondering if actually he has some nefarious reason to keep her locked up again. Is he harmless? Is he not? He seems to be getting more and more agitated as the wedding approaches. This could easily just be nerves. Lots of men get nervous right before their wedding. But of course, if he wants to marry her before she comes of age in order to secure her money, then he'd be worried that she's going to back out and ask him to delay here again. Is he harmless? Is he not? Marian feels that the evidence points to him being harmless, but her gut tells her something is wrong. Our gut also tells us something is wrong. And now I at least am terrified because she's all alone with him and there's just this overwhelming sense of danger. But we still don't know exactly where this danger is going to come from. So let's keep reading and see if we find out. And remember, even though I'm not actually here, I do want to hear from you. Faithkmoore.com and click on Contact. Send me all your questions and thoughts and I will see them when I get back. And we will talk about them when I get back. Alright, let's get started with Holcomb's narrative. Chapter one of the Second Epoch of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time. The Second Epoch the story continued by Marian Halcombe 1 Blackwater Park, Hampshire. June 11, 1856 Months to look back on six long, lonely months since Laura and I last saw each other. How many days have I still to wait? Only one. Tomorrow, the 12th, the travelers return to England. I can hardly realize my own happiness. I can hardly believe that the next four and 20 hours will complete the last day of separation between Laura and me. She and her husband have been in Italy all the Winter and afterwards in the Tyrol. They came back accompanied by Count Fosco and his wife, who propose to settle somewhere in the neighborhood of London, and who have engaged to stay at Blackwater park for the summer months before deciding on a place of residence. So long as Laura returns, no matter who returns with her, Sir Percival may fill the house from floor to ceiling if he likes, on condition that his wife and I inhabit it together. Meanwhile, here I am established at Blackwater park, the ancient and interesting seat, as the county history obligingly informs me of Sir Percival Glyde, baronet. So Marian has come to live at one of Sir Percival's estates in preparation for Laura's arrival there with Sir Percival. After being apart from her for six months. Madam and Count Fosco will be also coming with them to stay there for the summer before they find their own house in London and the future abiding place, as I may now venture to add on my account, of plain Marian. Spinster, now settled in a snug little room with a cup of tea by her side and all her earthly possessions ranged round her in three boxes and a bag. I left Limmeridge yesterday, having received Laura's delightful letter from Paris the day before. I had been previously uncertain whether I was to meet them in London or in Hampshire. But this last letter informed me that Sir Percival proposed to land at Southampton and to travel straight on to his country house. He has spent so much money abroad that he has none left to defray the expenses of living in London for the remainder of the season. And he is economically resolved to pass the summer and autumn quietly at Blackwater. Laura has had more than enough of excitement and change of scene, and is pleased at the prospect of country tranquillity and retirement which her husband's prudence provides for her. As for me, I am ready to be happy anywhere in her society. We are all therefore well contented in our various ways. To begin with, last night I slept in London and was delayed there so long to day by various calls and commissions that I did not reach Blackwater this evening till after dusk. Judging by my vague impressions of the place thus far, it is the exact opposite of Limmeridge. The house is situated on a dead flat and seems to be shut in, almost suffocated to my north country notions by trees. I have seen nobody but the man servant who opened the door to me and the housekeeper, a very civil person who showed me the way to my own room and got me my tea. I have a nice little boudoir and bedroom at the end of a long passage on the first floor. The servants in some of the spare rooms are on the second floor and all the living rooms are on the ground floor. I have not seen one of them yet and I know nothing about the house except that one wing of it is said to be 500 years old, that it had a moat round it once, and that it gets its name of Blackwater from a lake in the park. 11 o'clock has just struck in a ghostly and solemn manner from a turret over the centre of the house which I saw when I came in. A large dog has been woke apparently by the sound of the bell and and is howling and yawning drearily Somewhere round a corner. I hear echoing footsteps in the passages below and the iron thumping of bolts and bars at the house door. The servants are evidently going to bed. Shall I follow their example? No. I am not half sleepy enough. Sleepy, did I say? I feel as if I should never close my eyes again. The bare anticipation of sleep, seeing that dear face and hearing that well known voice to morrow keeps me in a perpetual fever of excitement. If I only had the privileges of a man, I would order out Sir Percival's best horse instantly and tear away on a night gallop eastward to meet the rising sun. A long, hard, heavy, ceaseless gallop of hours and hours like the famous highwayman's ride to York. Being, however, nothing but a woman condemned to patience, propriety and petticoats for life, I must respect the housekeeper's opinions and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way. Reading is out of the question. I can't fix my attention on books. Let me try, if I can write myself into sleepiness and fatigue? My journal has been very much neglected of late. What can I recall, standing as I do on the threshold of a new life of persons and events, of chances and changes during the past six months, the long, weary, empty interval since Laura's wedding day. Walter Hartright is uppermost in my memory and he passes first in the shadowy procession of my absent friends. I received a few lines from him after the landing of the expedition in Honduras, Written more cheerfully and hopefully than he has written yet. A month or six weeks later I saw an extract from an American newspaper describing the departure of the adventurers on their inland journey. They were last seen entering a wild primeval forest, each man with his rifle on his shoulder and his baggage at his back. Since that time, civilization has lost all trace of them. Not a line more have I received from Walter, not a fragment of news from the expedition has appeared in any of the public journals. The same dense, disheartening obscurity hangs over the fate and fortunes of Anne Catherick and her companion, Mrs. Clements. Nothing whatever has been heard of either of them, whether they are in the country or out of it. Whether they are living or dead, no one knows. Even Sir Percival's solicitor has lost all hope and has ordered the useless search after the fugitives to be finally given up. Our good old friend Mr. Gilmour has met with a sad check in his active professional career. Early in the spring we were alarmed by hearing that he had been found insensible at his desk, and that the seizure was pronounced to be an apoplectic fit. He had been long complaining of fullness and oppression in the head, and his doctor had warned him of the consequences that would follow his persistency in continuing to work early and late as if he were still a young man. The result now is that he has been positively ordered to keep out of his office for a year to come at least, and to seek repose of body and relief of mind by altogether changing his usual mode of life. The business is left accordingly to be carried on by his partner, and he is himself at this moment away in Germany, visiting some relations who are settled there in mercantile pursuits. Thus another true friend and trustworthy adviser is lost to us. Lost, I earnestly hope and trust for a time only poor Mrs. Vesey travelled with me as far as London. It was impossible to abandon her to solitude at Limmeridge after Laura and I had both left the house. And we have arranged that she is to live with an unmarried younger sister of hers who keeps a school at Clapham. She is to come here this autumn to visit her pupil, I might almost say her adopted child. I saw the good old lady safe to her destination and left her in the care of her relative, quietly happy at the prospect of seeing Laura again in a few months time. As for Mr. Fairlie, I believe I am guilty of no injustice if I describe him as being unutterably relieved by having the house clear of us women. The idea of his missing his niece is simply preposterous. He used to let months pass in the old times without attempting to see her. And in my case and Mrs. Vesey's, I take leave to consider his telling us both that he was half heartbroken at our departure to be equivalent to a confession that he was secretly rejoiced to get rid of us. His last caprice has led him to keep two photographers incessantly employed in producing sun pictures. Of all the treasures and curiosities in his possession, one complete copy of the collection of the photographs is to be presented to the Mechanics Institution of Carlos Lisle. Mounted on the finest cardboard with ostentatious red letter inscriptions underneath. Madonna and Child by Raphael. In the possession of Frederick Fairley, Esquire. Copper coin of the period of Tiglath Piliser. In the possession of Frederick Fairley, Esquire. Unique Rembrandt etching known all over Europe as the smudge from a painter's blot in the corner, which exists in no other copy valued at 300 guineas. In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire. Dozens of photographs of this sort and all inscribed in this manner were completed before I left Cumberland. And hundreds more remain to be done with this new interest to occupy him. Mr. Fairlie will be a happy man for months and months to come. And the two unfortunate photographers will share the social martyrdom which he has hitherto inflicted on his valet alone. So much for the persons and events which hold the foremost place in my memory. What next? Of the one person who holds the foremost place in my heart. Laura has been present to my thoughts all the while I have been writing these lines. What can I recall of her during the past six months before I close my journal for the night? I have only her letters to guide me. And on the most important of all the questions which our correspondence can discuss, every one of those letters leaves me in the dark. Does he treat her kindly? Is she happier now than she was when I parted with her on the wedding day? All my letters have contained these two inquiries put more or less directly now in one form and now in another. And all on that point only have remained without reply or have been answered, as if my questions merely related to the state of her health. She informs me over and over again that she is perfectly well, that traveling agrees with her, that she is getting through the winter for the first time in her life without catching a cold. But not a word can I find anywhere which tells me plainly that she is reconciled to her marriage and that she can now look back to 22 December without any bitter feelings of repentance and regret. The name of her husband is only mentioned in her letters as she might mention the name of a friend who was traveling with them and who had undertaken to make all the arrangements for the journey. Sir Percival has settled that we leave on such a day. Sir Percival has decided that we travel by such a road sometimes, she writes Percival only, but very seldom. In nine cases out of 10. She gives him his title. I cannot find that his habits and opinions have changed and coloured hers in any single particular. The usual moral transformation which is insensibly wrought in a young, fresh, sensitive woman by her marriage seems never to have taken place in Laura. She writes of her own thoughts and impressions amid all the wonders she has seen, exactly as she might have written to someone else if I had been traveling with her instead of her husband. I see no betrayal anywhere of sympathy of any kind existing between them. Even when she wanders from the subject of her travels and occupies herself with the prospects that await her in England, her speculations are busied with her future as my sister, and persistently neglect to notice her future as Sir Percival's wife. In all this there is no undertone of complaint to warn me that she is absolutely unhappy in her married life. The impression I have derived from our correspondence does not, thank God, lead me to any such distressing conclusion as that I only see a sad torpor, an unchangeable indifference, when I turn my mind from her in the old character of a sister and look at her through the medium of her letters in the new character of a wife. In other words, it is always Laura Fairlie who has been writing to me for the last six months and never Lady Glyde. The strange silence which she maintains on the subject of her husband's character and conduct she preserves with almost equal resolution in the few references which her later letters contain to the name of her husband's bosom friend, Count Fosco. So Laura refuses to write to Marian about her husband and what sort of man she's finding him to be. And she also won't write about Count Fosco and what he's like. For some unexplained reason, the Count and his wife appear to have changed their plans abruptly at the end of the last autumn and to have gone to Vienna instead of going to Rome, at which latter place Sir Percival had expected to find them when he left England. They only quitted Vienna in the spring and travelled as far as the Tyrol to meet the bride and bridegroom on their homeward journey. Laura writes readily enough about the meeting with Madame Fosco and assures me that she has found her aunt so much changed for the better, so much quieter and so much more sensible as a wife than she was as a single woman, that I shall hardly know her again when I see her here. But on the subject of Count Fosco, who interests me infinitely more than his wife, Laura is provokingly circumspect and silent. She only says that he puzzles her, and that she will not tell me what her impression of him is until I have seen him and formed my own opinion first. This, to my mind, looks ill for the Count Laura has preserved far more perfectly than most people do in later life the child's subtle faculty of knowing a friend by instinct. And if I am right in assuming that her first impression of Count Fosco has not been favorable, I for one, am in some danger of doubting and distrusting that illustrious foreigner before I have so much as set eyes on him. But patience, patience. This uncertainty and many uncertainties more cannot last much longer. To morrow will see all my doubts in a fair way of being cleared up Sooner or later. 12 o'clock has struck and I have just come back to close these pages after looking out at my open window. It is a still, sultry, moonless night. The stars are dull and few. The trees that shut out the view on all sides look dimly black and solid in the distance, like a great wall of rock. I hear the croaking of frogs, faint and far off, and the echoes of the great clock hum in the airless calm long after the strokes have ceased. I wonder how Blackwater park will look in the daytime. I don't altogether like it by night. 12th meaning the 12th of June. So the next day, a day of investigations and discoveries. A more interesting day for many reasons than I had ventured to anticipate. I began my sightseeing, of course, with the house. The main body of the building is of the time of that highly overrated woman, Queen Elizabeth. On the ground floor there are two hugely long galleries with low ceilings lying parallel with each other and rendered additionally dark and dismal by hideous family portraits, every one of which I should like to burn. The rooms on the floor above the two galleries are kept in tolerable repair, but are very seldom used. The civil housekeeper who acted as my guide offered to show me over them, but considerately added that she feared I should find them rather out of order. My respect for the integrity of my own petticoats and stockings infinitely exceeds my respect for all the Elizabethan bedrooms in the kingdom, so I positively declined, exploring the upper regions of dust and dirt at the risk of soiling my nice clean clothes. The housekeeper said, I am quite of your opinion, Miss, and appeared to think me the most sensible woman she had met with for a long time past. So much, then, for the main building. Two wings are added at either end of it, the half ruined wing on the left as you approach. The house was once a place of residence standing by itself and was built in the 14th century. One of Sir Percival's maternal ancestors, I don't remember and don't care which tacked on the main building at right angles to it in the aforesaid Queen Elizabeth's time. The housekeeper told me that the architecture of the old wing, both outside and inside, was considered remarkably fine by good judges. On further investigation, I discovered that good judges could only exercise their abilities on Sir Percival's piece of antiquity by previously dismissing from their minds all fear of damp, darkness and rats. Under these circumstances, I unhesitatingly acknowledged myself to be no judge at all and suggested that we should treat the old wing precisely as we had previously treated the Elizabethan bedrooms. Once more the housekeeper said, I am quite of your opinion, Miss. And once more she looked at me with undisguised admiration of my extraordinary common sense. We went next to the wing on the right, which was built by way of completing the wonderful architectural jumble at Blackwater park in the time of George ii. This is the habitable part of the house which has been repaired and redecorated inside on Laura's account, meaning this portion of the house has been recently redone in anticipation of Sir Percival bringing home a wife. My two rooms and all the good bedrooms besides are on the first floor, and the basement contains a drawing room, a dining room, a morning room, a library, and a pretty little boudoir for Laura. All very nicely ornamented in the bright modern way, and all very elegantly furnished with the delightful modern luxuries. None of the rooms are anything like so large and airy as our rooms at Limmeridge, but they all look pleasant to live in. I was terribly afraid, from what I had heard of Blackwater park, of fatiguing antique chairs and dismal stained glass and musty frowzy hangings, and all the barbarous lumber which people born without a sense of comfort accumulate about them in defiance of the consideration due to the convenience of their friends. It is an inexpressible relief to find that the 19th century has invaded this strange future home of mine and has swept the dirty good old times out of the way of our daily life. I dawdled away the morning part of the time in the rooms downstairs and part out of doors in the great square which is formed by the three sides of the house and by the lofty iron railings and gates which protect it. In front, a large circular fish pond with stone sides and an allegorical leaden Monster in the middle occupies the centre of the square. The pond itself is full of gold and silver fish and is encircled by a broad belt of the softest turf I ever walked. Walked on. I loitered here on the shady side pleasantly enough till luncheon time, and after that took my broad straw hat and wandered out alone in the warm, lovely sunlight to explore the grounds. Daylight confirmed the impression which I had felt the night before of there being too many trees at Blackwater. The house is stifled by them. They are, for the most part young and planted far too thickly. I suspect there must have been a ruinous cutting down of timber all over the estate before Sir Percival's time, and an angry anxiety on the part of the next possessor to fill up all the gaps as thickly and rapidly as possible. After looking about me in front of the house, I observed a flower garden on my left hand and walked towards it to see what I could discover in that direction. On a nearer view, the garden proved to be small and poor and ill kept. I left it behind me, opened a little gate in a ring fence and found myself in a plantation of fir trees. A pretty winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees, and my north country experience soon informed me that I was approaching sandy, heathy ground. After a walk of more than half a mile, I should think among the firs, the path took a sharp turn. The trees abruptly ceased to appear on either side of me, and I found myself standing suddenly on the margin of a vast open space and looking down at the Blackwater lake from which the house takes its name. The ground shelving away below me was all sand, with a few little heathy hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. The lake itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on which I stood and had been gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its former size. I saw its still stagnant waters a quarter of a mile away from me in the hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining weeds and rushes and little knolls of earth. On the farther bank from me, the trees rose thickly again and shut out the view and cast their black shadows on the sluggish shallow water. As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, overgrown with rank grass and dismal willows. The water, which was clear enough on the open, sandy side where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous. Opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy Banks and the rank, overhanging thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were croaking and the rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water like live shadows themselves. As I got nearer to the marshy side of the lake, I saw here, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still. Far and near, the view suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay, and the glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. I turned and retraced my steps to the high heathy ground, directing them a little aside from my former path towards a shabby old wooden shed which stood on the outer skirt of the fir plantation and which had hitherto been too unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of the lake. On approaching the shed, I found that it had once been a boathouse and that an attempt had apparently been made to convert it afterwards into a sort of rude arbor by placing inside it a fir wood seat, a few stools and a table. So this used to be a shed for storing boats, and now it's supposed to be a sort of resting spot with chairs and a table, but it's all very dilapidated. I entered the place and sat down for a little while to rest and get my breath again. I had not been in the boat house more than a minute when it struck me that the sound of my own quick breathing was very strangely echoed by something beneath me. I listened intently for a moment and heard a low, thick, sobbing breath that seemed to come from the ground under the seat which I was occupying. My nerves are not easily shaken by trifles, but on this occasion I started to my feet in affright, called out, received no answer, summoned back my recreant courage, and looked under the seat. There, crouched up in the farthest corner, lay the forlorn cause of my terror in the shape of a poor little dog, a black and white spaniel. The creature moaned feebly when I looked at it and called to it, but never stirred. I moved away the seat and looked closer. The poor little dog's eyes were glazing fast, and there were spots of blood on its glossy white side. The misery of a weak, helpless, dumb creature is surely one of the saddest of all the mournful sights which this world can show. I lifted the poor dog in my arms as gently as I could, and contrived a sort of makeshift hammock for him to lie in by gathering up the front of my dress all round him. In this way I took the creature as painlessly as possible and as fast as possible back to the house. Finding no one in the hall, I went up at once to my own sitting room, made a bed for the dog with one of my old shawls, and rang the bell, the largest and fattest of all possible housemeads, answered it in a state of cheerful stupidity which would have provoked the patience of a saint. The girl's fat, shapeless face actually stretched into a broad grin at the sight of the wounded creature on the floor. What do you see there to laugh at? I asked as angrily as if she had been a servant of my own. Do you know whose dog it is? No, miss, that I certainly don't. She stooped and looked down at the spaniel's injured side, brightened suddenly with the irradiation of a new idea, and, pointing to the wound with a chuckle of satisfaction, said, that's Baxter's doings, that is. I was so exasperated that I could have boxed her ears. Baxter, I said. Who is the brute you call Baxter? The girl grinned again, more cheerfully than ever. Bless you, miss. Baxter's the keeper, and when he finds strange dogs hunting about, he takes and shoots em. It's keeper's duty, miss. I think that dog will die. Here's where he's been shot, ain't it? That's Baxter's doings, that is Baxter's doings, miss, and Baxter's duty. I was almost wicked enough to wish that Baxter had shot the housemaid instead of the dog, seeing that it was quite useless to expect this densely impenetrable personage to give me any help in relieving the sufferers. Creature at our feet. I told her to request the housekeeper's attendance with my compliments, meaning she asked the servant to go and get the housekeeper. She went out exactly as she had come in, grinning from ear to ear as the door closed on her. She said to herself softly, it's Baxter's doings and Baxter's duty, that's what it is. The housekeeper, a person of some education and intelligence, thoughtfully brought upstairs with her some milk and some warm water. The instant she saw the dog on the floor, she started and changed colour. Why, Lord, bless me. Cried the housekeeper. That must be Mrs. Catherick's dog. Whose? I asked in the utmost astonishment? Mrs. Catherick's. You seem to know Mrs. Catherick, Ms. Halcombe? Not personally, but I have heard of her. Does she live here? Has she had any news of her daughter? No, Miss Halcombe. She came here to ask for news. When? Only yesterday. She said someone had reported that a stranger answering to the description of her daughter had been seen in our neighbourhood. No such report has reached us here. And no such report was known in the village when I sent to make inquiries there on Mrs. Catherick's account. She certainly brought this poor little dog with her when she came, and I saw it trot out after her when she went away. I suppose the creature strayed into the plantations and got shot. Where did you find it, Miss Halcombe? In the old shed that looks out on the lake. Ah, yes, that is the plantation side. And the poor thing dragged itself, I suppose, to the nearest shelter, as dogs will to die. If you can moisten its lips with the milk, Miss Halcombe, I will wash the clotted hair from the wound. I am very much afraid it is too late to do any good. However. We can but try, Mrs. Catherick. The name still rang in my ears, as if the housekeeper had only that moment surprised me by uttering it. While we were attending to the dog, the words of Walter Hartright's caution to me returned to my if ever Anne Catherick crosses your path, make better use of the opportunity, Miss Halcomb, than I made of it. The finding of the wounded spaniel had led me already to the discovery of Mrs. Catherick's visit to Blackwater park. And that event might lead in its turn to something more. I determined to make the most of the chance which was now offered to me, and to gain as much information as I could. Did you say that Mrs. Catherick lived anywhere in this neighbourhood? I asked. Oh, dear, no, said the housekeeper. She lives at Welmingham, Quite at the other end of the county. 5 and 20 miles off at least. I suppose you have known Mrs. Catherick for some years? On the contrary, Miss Halcombe. I never saw her before she came here yesterday. I had heard of her, of course, because I had heard of Sir Percival's kindness in putting her daughter under medical care. Mrs. Catherick is rather a strange person in her manners, but extremely respectable looking. She seemed sorely put out when she found that there was no foundation, none, at least that any of us could discover, for the report of her daughter having been seen in this neighbourhood. I am rather interested about Mrs. Catherick, I went on Continuing the conversation as long as possible. I wish I had arrived here soon enough to see her yesterday. Did she stay for any length of time? Yes, said the housekeeper. She stayed for some time. And I think she would have remained longer if I had not been called away to speak to a strange gentleman. A gentleman who came to ask when Sir Percival was expected back. Mrs. Catherick got up and left at once. When she heard the maid tell me what the visitor's errand was, she said to me at parting that there was no need to tell Sir Percival of her coming here. I thought that rather an odd remark to make, especially to a person in my responsible situation. I thought it an odd remark, too. Sir Percival had certainly led me to believe at Limmeridge that the most perfect confidence existed between himself and Mrs. Catherick. If that was the case, why should she be anxious to have her visit at Blackwater park kept a secret from him? Probably, I said, seeing that the housekeeper expected me to give my opinion on Mrs. Catherick's parting words. Probably she thought the announcement of her visit might vex Sir Percival to no purpose by reminding him that her lost daughter was not found yet. Did she talk much on that subject? Very little, replied the housekeeper. She talked principally of Sir Percival and asked a great many questions about where he had been travelling and what sort of lady his new wife was. She seemed to be more soured and put out than distressed by failing to find any traces of her daughter in these parts. I give her up, were the last words she said that I can remember. I give her up, ma'am, for lost. And from that she passed at once to her questions about Lady Glyde, wanting to know if she was a handsome, amiable lady, comely and healthy and young. Ah, dear, I thought how it would end. Look, Miss Halcombe. The poor thing is out of its misery. At last the dog was dead. It had given a faint sobbing cry. It had suffered an instant's convulsion of the limbs. Just as those last words, comely and healthy and young, dropped from the housekeeper's lips. The change had happened with startling suddenness. In one moment the creature lay lifeless under our hands. Eight o'clock. I have just returned from dining downstairs in solitary state. The sunset is burning redly on the wilderness of trees that I see from my window, and I am poring over my journal again to calm my impatience for the return of the travelers. They ought to have arrived by my calculations, before this. How still and lonely the house is in the drowsy evening quiet. Oh, Me. How many minutes more before I hear the carriage wheels and run downstairs to find myself in Laura's arms? The poor little dog. I wish my first day at Blackwater park had not been associated with death, though it is only the death of a stray animal. Welmingham. I see on looking back through these private pages of mine that Welmingham is the name of the place where Mrs. Catherick lives. Her note is still in my possession. The note in answer to that letter about her unhappy daughter which Sir Percival obliged me to write. One of these days, when I can find a safe opportunity, I will take the note with me by way of introduction and try what I can make of Mrs. Catherick at a personal interview. I don't understand her wishing to conceal her visit to this place from Sir Percival's knowledge. And I don't feel half so sure, as the housekeeper seems to do, that her daughter Anne is not in the neighborhood after all. What would Walter Hartright have said in this emergency? Poor dear Hartright. I am beginning to feel the want of his honest advice and his willing help. Already, surely I heard something. Was it a bustle of footsteps below stairs? Yes. I hear the horses feet. I hear the rolling wheels. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store or pick up one of my books. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me, so I need your help. 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