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. This is the last pre recorded episode. I will be back with you again on Thursday the 27th and I cannot wait. I can't wait to be back with you in real time. Also a reminder that that day, the 27th, is going to be our next tea time over in the Storytime for Grown Ups drawing room. You must be a member of the Landed Gentry membership tier in order to join us. There's a link in the show notes to click that. It doesn't mean you're going to sign up for anything just by clicking on it. It will give you more information. If you'd like to join us for that chat. I hope you will click it. I hope you will join. It's like a phone call, a kind of group phone call where we can all hear each other's voice. You can ask me anything. We'll talk about the book so far. We'll talk about books in general. It's just a fun way to get to chat with me and to get to chat with each other. So I hope that you will ch out that link and join if that sounds interesting to you. And I am thrilled that I will be back with you again on that day. And thank you for emailing me. I know I'm getting all your emails. Even though this is pre recorded. I know it's happening and I will be getting back to you. I will be featuring questions again starting on Thursday. So thank you for bearing with me with all these pre recorded episodes as I go on a trip. And I'm really excited to be back with you. So last time we read Halcombe's Narrative Chapter two and today we are reading Halcomb's Narrative Chapter three. So here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off, everyone is now kind of settling in at Blackwater Park. Marian, Laura, Sir Percival and their guests Count and Madame Fosco are all there. Marian feels that Laura is basically her old self, except that she refuses to talk about her married life. And she seems to want to kind of cling to the familiarity of her relationship with Marian. She also is clearly still in love with Walter and she asks Marian about him. But Marian still won't tell her that Walter has gone off to Honduras. Sir Percival seems more agitated and less polite than he was before the wedding. And every little thing seems to bother him. Madame Fosco, who, remember, is Laura's aunt. And she used to be this kind of loudmouth, sort of flirtatious person. She has become this silent, demure, matronly sort of person. And she sits quietly all day sewing or rolling cigarettes for her husband. And the only emotion she ever shows is jealousy if her husband talks to any woman except herself. So then Count Fosco is this truly strange person. And Marian has kind of come to like him, sort of against her will. He is Italian, but he speaks English fluently with hardly any accent. He's enormously fat. Marian suspects that he wears a wig. He dresses in these ridiculous light colored waistcoats. He keeps a bunch of little pets which he lets climb all over him and which he loves. But Marian feels that there is a sort of hypnotism to him and a kind of steely will that allows him to keep Madame Fosco in check. And it allowed him to get the better of a dangerous dog. So Fosco also seems to be able to see into each person's character. And he knows what everyone wants and how they think. And he's tried to ingratiate himself with all of them in this way. So for Marian, it means treating her like an equal and taking her seriously. He's also apparently a great intellect and a scientist. But even though Marian is really drawn to him, Laura secretly dislikes him. So then one day at breakfast, the servant comes in to say that Sir Percival's solicitor has arrived unexpectedly. And this causes Marian and Laura to feel that something momentous happen has happened. And Count Fosco seems to think so too. Okay, so this is our last time without questions. Can't wait to do questions again next time. But I will just talk again this time. And we'll get back to questions next time. So last time Marian basically told us that we should pay attention to Count Fosco and try to form our own opinions of him. And there's certainly a lot to talk about about him, I think. But before we talk about him, let's just talk very briefly about Laura and Sir Percival. Since the other thing we were waiting to see was what they would be like after being married for while and all this time away without marrying. So even though we now have all of these crazy suspicions about Sir Percival, Laura seems to have survived the honeymoon And Percival still hasn't really done anything definitively bad. Right. Marian has noticed that he's a little different now that he's back. He's less polite, he's less attentive, he's less eager to please. Here's what she Small vexations and annoyances seem to have beset him since he came back. And no man under those circumstances is ever presented at his best. He also seems suddenly sort of ocd. Here's another quote. It says, most men show something of their disposition in their own houses, which they have concealed elsewhere. And Sir Percival has already displayed a mania for order and regularity, which is quite a new revelation of him so far as my previous knowledge of his character is concerned. So these things are odd. They're sort of negative, but they're not like the behavior of a man who's about to kill someone or anything. If we weren't so suspicious of him, we might feel like, well, yeah, before he was court Laura. And now he's got her, so his guard is down a little more and it seems like he's kind of cranky. So fine. But of course, all of these things seem more ominous to us because we're suspicious of him. Laura seems to imply to Marian that things aren't great between her and Sir Percival. She says, here's a quote. We shall both be happier and easier with one another if we accept my married life for what it is and say and think as little about it as possible. Which again, could mean that Sir Percival is a horrible person. But it could also mean that they just don't get along. I mean, the marriage was arranged. Percival knows that Laura doesn't love him and feels she can't love him. It doesn't really make for a great start to their relationship. So again, not exactly proof positive that Percival is evil. So everything there is still inconclusive. Except we now have one more piece of evidence in Sir Percival's favor, which is that Laura is alive. Right? He didn't kill her on their honeymoon and take all her money and run off. So that's interesting, right? A lot of us thought she'd be dead by now, I think. But back to Count Fosco. So he's certainly very odd, right? He's this enormously fat Italian guy who wears these flamboyant clothes and has all these little pets and everything. But he also seems to have this kind of iron will. He has caused his wife, Laura's aunt, who used to be very loud and sort of inappropriate. He's brought her completely under his control, he can tame scary dogs. So he's kind of this strange contradiction. But what I think is the most interesting thing about him at this point. Is Marian's reaction to him. She is powerfully drawn to him. Right. Here's what she I am almost afraid to confess it even to these secret pages. The man has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him. In two short days he has made his way straight into my favorable estimation. And how he has worked the miracle is more than I can tell. And Marian feels the force of his will. This strange ability he has to sort of bring people under his command. Here's another quote. It says he looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes as his wife does. I should have held my tongue when he looked at me as she holds hers. But for all his force of will, there's also something sort of womanish about him. Right. Here's what Marian says. Here's another quote. Fat as he is and old as he is. His movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any of us women. And more than that, with all his look of unmistakable mental firmness and power. He is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us. And he's always playing with his little mice and birds. In this sort of dainty way. And he loves clothes. And he's very attentive to the ladies and everything. But he can also totally dominate anything and anyone. Any. Even Sir Percival seems afraid of him. Which is interesting, too. If we're thinking that Sir Percival is our villain, Then what does it mean? That Sir Percival's afraid of Count Fosco. Right. Might Count Fosco be our savior? Right. It's possible. But also, Laura dislikes him, which is interesting, too. And while Marian really likes him and is very drawn to him. She also thinks that he might be a little frightening. Here's what she Free and even rude as he may occasionally be in his manner towards his fat friend. Sir Percival is nevertheless afraid, as I can plainly see. Of giving any serious offense to the count. I wonder whether I am afraid, too. I certainly never saw a man in all my experience. Whom I should be so sorry to have for an enemy. Is this because I like him or because I am afraid of him? So I think that's our question, too. Do we like him or are we afraid of him? And we're still watching Sir Percival too. So I will be back in time for the next episode and I would absolutely like to know what you're thinking about Count Fosco and about Sir Percival and about any of it. So faith k.moore.com click on contact or just scroll down to the link in the show notes and contact me. I will be back again with you on Thursday. I can't wait. And sign up for the drawing room if you want to talk to me on that day as well, at 8pm Eastern on February 27th in the drawing room. All right, let's get started with Holcomb's Narrative Chapter three of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time 3 June 16th. I have a few lines more to add to this day's entry before I go to bed tonight. About two hours after Sir Percival rose from the luncheon table to receive his solicitor, Mr. Merriman, in the library, I left my room alone to take a walk in the plantations. Just as I was at the end of the landing, the library door opened and two gentlemen came out. Thinking it best not to disturb them by appearing on the stairs, I resolved to defer going down till they had crossed the hall. Although they spoke to each other in guarded tones, their words were pronounced with sufficient distinctness of utterance to reach my ears. Make your mind easy, Sir Percival, I heard the lawyer say. It all rests with Lady Glyde. I had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two, but the sound of Laura's name on the lips of a stranger stopped me instantly. I dare say it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen. But where is the woman in the whole range of our sex who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way and when her affections and the interests which grow out of them point another? So she knew it was wrong to eavesdrop on Sir Percival and his lawyer, but she's so loyal to Laura that when she heard they were talking about her, she couldn't help it. I listened, and under similar circumstances I would listen again, yes, with my ear at the keyhole, if I could not possibly manage it any other way. You quite understand, Sir Percival, the lawyer went on. Lady Glyde is to sign her name in the presence of a witness, or of two witnesses, if you wish to be particularly careful, and is then to put her finger on the seal and say, I deliver this as my act and deed. If that is done in a week's time, the Arrangement will be perfectly successful and the anxiety will all be over. If not. What do you mean by if not? Asked Sir Percival angrily. If the thing must be done, it shall be done. I promise you that, Merriman. Just so, Sir Percival. Just so. But there are two alternatives in all transactions. And we lawyers like to look both of them in the face boldly. If through any extraordinary circumstance, the arrangement should not be made. I think I may be able to get the parties to accept bills at three months. But how? The money is to be raised when the bills fall due. Meaning Sir Percival owes some money. And if Laura won't sign something, we don't know what yet, then the lawyer might be able to get a delay. But then Sir Percival would have to pay it up somehow. Damn the bills. The money is only to be got in one way. And in that way, I tell you again, it shall be got. Take a glass of wine, Merriman, before you go. Much obliged, Sir Percival. I have not a moment to lose if I am to catch the up train. You will let me know as soon as the arrangement is complete. And you will not forget the caution I recommended. Of course I won't. There's the dog cart at the door for you. My groom will get you to the station in no time. Benjamin, drive like mad. Jump in. If Merriman misses the train, you lose your place. Hold fast, Merriman. And if you are upset, trust to the devil to save his own. With that parting benediction, the baronet turned about and walked back to the library. I had not heard much, but the little that had reached my ears was enough to make me feel uneasy. The something that had happened was but too plainly a serious money embarrassment. And Sir Percival's relief from it depended upon Laura. The prospect of seeing her involved in her husband's secret difficulties filled me with dismay, exaggerated, no doubt, by my ignorance of business and my settled distrust of Sir Percival. Instead of going out as I proposed, I went back immediately to Laura's room to tell her what I had heard. She received my bad news so composedly as to surprise me. She evidently knows more of her husband's character and her husband's embarrassments than I have suspected up to this time. I feared as much, she said, when I heard of that strange gentleman who called and declined to leave his name meaning the gentleman who came to the house on the Same day as Mrs. Catherick before Laura and Sir Percival got back from their honeymoon. Who do you think the gentleman was then? I asked. Some person who has heavy claims on Sir Percival. She answered. And who has been the cause of Mr. Merriman's visit here today? Who? Laura thinks that the gentleman is the person that Sir Percival owes money to. Do you know anything about those claims? No, I know no particulars. You will sign nothing, Laura, without first looking at it? Certainly not. Marian. Whatever I can harmlessly and honestly do to help him, I will do for the sake of making your life and mine love as easy and as happy as possible. But I will do nothing ignorantly, which we might one day have reason to feel ashamed of. Let us say no more about it now you've got your hat on. Suppose we go and dream away the afternoon in the grounds. On leaving the house we directed our steps to the nearest shade. As we passed an open space among the trees in front of the house there was Count Fosco slowly walking backwards and forwards on the grass, sunning himself in the full blaze of the hot June afternoon. He had a broad straw hat on with a violet colored ribbon round it. A blue blouse with profuse white fancy work over the bosom covered his prodigious body and was girt about the place where his waist might once have been with a broad scarlet leather belt. Nankeen trousers. Nankeen is a yellowish cotton cloth displaying more white fancy work over the ankles, and purple morocco slippers adorned his lower extremities. He was singing Figaro's famous song in the Barber of Seville, with that crisply fluent vocalization which is never heard from any other than an Italian throat, accompanying himself on the concertina. A concertina is sort of like an accordion, which he played with ecstatic throwings up of his arms and graceful twistings and turnings of his head, like a fat Saint Cecilia masquerading in male attire. Figaro quoi Figaro la Figaro su Figaro Jewel, sang the Count jauntily, tossing up the concertina at arm's length and bowing to us on one side of the instrument with the airy grace and elegance of figaro himself at 20 years of age. Take my word for it, Laura, that man knows something of Sir Percival's embarrassments, I said as we returned the Count's salutation from a safe distance. What makes you think that? She asked. How should he have known otherwise that Mr. Merriman was Sir Percival's solicitor? I rejoined. Besides, when I followed you out of the luncheon room, he told me without a single word of inquiry on my part that something had happened. Depend upon it. He knows more than we do. Don't ask him any questions. If he Does. Don't take him into our confidence. You seem to dislike him, Laura, in a very determined manner. What has he said or done to justify you? Nothing, Marianne. On the contrary, he was all kindness and attention on our journey home. And he several times checked Sir Percival's outbreaks of temper in the most considerate manner towards me. Meaning he stopped Sir Percival from losing his temper at Laura. Perhaps I dislike him because he has so much more power over my husband than I have. Perhaps it hurts my pride to be under any obligations to his interference. All I know is that I do dislike him. The rest of the day and evening passed quietly enough. The count and I played at chess. For the first two games he politely allowed me to conquer him, and then, when he saw that I had found him out, begged my pardon, and at the third game, checkmated me in 10 minutes. Sir Percival never once referred all through the evening to the lawyer's visit. But either that event or something else had produced a singular alteration for the better in him. He was as polite and agreeable to all of us as he used to be in the days of his probation at Limmeridge. And he was so amazingly attentive and kind to his wife that even icy Madame Fosco was roused into looking at him with a grave surprise. What does this mean? I think I can guess. I am afraid Laura can guess, and I am sure Count Fosco knows. I caught Sir Percival looking at him for approval more than once in the course of the evening. June 17th. A day of events, I most fervently hope I may not have to add. A day of disasters as well. Sir Percival was as silent at breakfast as he had been the evening before on the subject of the mysterious arrangement, as the lawyer called it, which is hanging over our heads. An hour afterwards, however, he suddenly entered the morning room where his wife and I were waiting with our hats on for Madame Fosco to join us and inquired for the count. We expect to see him here directly, I said. The fact is, Sir Percival went on walking nervously about the room. I want Fosco and his wife in the library for a mere business formality. And I want you there, Laura. For a minute, too. He stopped and appeared to notice for the first time that we were in our walking costume. Have you just come in? He asked, or were you just going out? We were all thinking of going to the lake this morning, said Laura. But if you have any other arrangement to propose. No, no, he answered hastily. My arrangement can wait. After lunch will do as well for it as after breakfast. All going to the lake, eh? A good idea. Let's have an idle morning. I'll be one of the party. There was no mistaking his manner. Even if it had been possible to mistake the uncharacteristic readiness which his words expressed to submit his own plans and projects to the convenience of others, he was evidently relieved at finding any excuse for delaying the business formality in the library to which his own words had referred. My heart sank within me as I drew the inevitable inference. Meaning that the business in the library has to do with whatever it is that Sir Percival wants Laura to sign. The count and his wife joined us at that moment. The lady had her husband's embroidered tobacco pouch and her store of paper in her hand for the manufacture of the eternal cigarettes. The gentleman, dressed as usual in his blouse and straw hat, carried the gay little pagoda cage with his darling white mice in it and smiled on them and on us with a bland amiability which it was impossible to resist. With your kind permission, said the count, I will take my small family here, my poor little harmless pretty mousies, out for an airing along with us. There are dogs about the house. And shall I leave my forlorn white children at the mercies of the dogs? Ah, never. He chirruped paternally at his small white children through the bars of the pagoda, and we all left the house for the lake. In the plantation. Sir Percival strayed away from us. It seems to be part of his restless disposition always to separate himself from his companions on these occasions, and always to occupy himself when he is alone in cutting new walking sticks for his own use. The mere act of cutting and lopping at hazard appears to please him. He has filled the house with walking sticks of his own making, not one of which he ever takes up for a second time when they have been once used. His interest in them is all exhausted, and he thinks of nothing but going on and making more. At the old boat house he joined us again. I will put down the conversation that ensued when we were all settled in our places, exactly as it passed. It is an important conversation so far as I am concerned, for it has seriously disposed me to distrust the influence which Count Fosco has exercised over my thoughts and feelings, and to resist it for the future as resolutely as I can. The boat house was large enough to hold us all, but Sir Percival remained outside, trimming the last new stick with his pocket axe. We three women found plenty of room on the large seat. Laura took her work, work meaning her sewing, and Madame Fosco began her cigarettes. I, as usual, had nothing to do. My hands always were and always will be as awkward as a man's. The Count good humoredly took a stool many sizes too small for him and balanced himself on it with his back against the side of the shed, which creaked and groaned under his weight. He put the pagoda cage on his lap and let out the mice to crawl over him. As usual they are pretty innocent looking little creatures, but the sight of them creeping about a man's body is for some reason not pleasant to me. It excites a strange, responsive creeping in my own nerves and suggests hideous ideas of men dying in prison with the crawling creatures of the dungeon preying on them undisturbed. The morning was windy and cloudy and the rapid alternations of shadow and sunlight over the waste of the lake made the view look doubly wild, weird and gloomy. Some people call that picturesque, said Sir Percival, pointing over the wide prospect with his half finished walking stick. I call it a blot on a gentleman's property. In my great grandfather's time the lake flowed to this place. Look at it now. It is not four feet deep anywhere and it is all puddles and pools. I wish I could afford to drain it and plant it all over. My bailiff, a superstitious idiot, says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn't it, my good Percival? Remonstrated the count. What is your solid English sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body, and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer's footsteps. It is upon the whole the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on. Humbug, said Sir Percival, cutting away fiercely at his stick. You know what I mean. The dreary scenery, the lonely situation. If you choose to understand me, you can. If you don't choose, I'm not going to trouble myself to explain my meaning. And why not? Asked the Count, when your meaning can be explained by anybody in two words. If a fool was going to commit a murder, your lake is the first place he would choose for it. If a wise man was going to commit a murder, your lake is the last place he would choose for it. Is that your meaning? If it is, there is your explanation for you, ready made. Take it, Percival, with your good Fosco's blessing. Laura looked at the Count with her dislike for him appearing a little too plainly in her face. He was so busy with his mice that he did not notice her. I am sorry to hear the lake view connected with anything so horrible as the idea of murder, she said. And if Count Fosco must divide murderers into classes, I think he has been very unfortunate in his choice of expressions. To describe them as fools only seems like treating them with an indulgence to which they have no claim. And to describe them as wise men sounds to me like a downright contradiction in terms. I have always heard that truly wise men are truly good men and have a horror of crime. My dear lady, said the count, those are admirable sentiments, and I have seen them stated at the tops of copy books. He lifted one of the white mice in the palm of his hand and spoke to it in his whimsical way. My pretty little smooth white rascal, he said, here is a moral lesson for you. A truly wise mouse is a truly good mouse. Mention that, if you please to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again as long as you live. It is easy to turn everything into ridicule, said Laura resolutely. But you will not find it quite so easy, Count Fosco, to give me an instance of a wise man who has been a great criminal. The count shrugged his huge shoulders and smiled on Laura in the friendliest manner. Most true, he said. The fool's crime is the crime that is found out, and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out. If I could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man. Dear Lady Glyde, your sound English common sense has been too much for me. It is checkmate for me this time, Ms. Halcombe. Huh? Stand to your guns, Laura, sneered Sir Percival, who had been listening in his place at the door. Tell him next that crimes cause their own detection. There's another bit of copybook morality for you, Fosco. Crimes cause their own detection. What infernal humbug. I believe it to be true, said Laura quietly. Sir Percival burst out laughing so violently, so outrageously that he quite startled us all, the Count more than any of us. I believe it too, I said, coming to Laura's rescue. Sir Percival, who had been unaccountably amused at his wife's remark, was just as unaccountably irritated by mine. He struck the new stick savagely on the sand and walked away from us. Poor dear Percival. Cried Count Fosco, looking after him gaily. He is the victim of English spleen. But my dear Ms. Halcombe, my dear Lady Glyde, do you really believe that crimes cause their own detection? And you, my angel, he continued, turning to his wife, who had not uttered a word yet. Do you think so too? I wait to be instructed, replied the countess in tones of freezing reproof intended for Laura and me, before I venture on giving my opinion in the presence of well informed men. Do you indeed? I said. I remember the time, Countess, when you advocated the rights of women, and freedom of female opinion was one of them. What is your view on the subject, Count? Asked Madame Fosco, calmly proceeding with her cigarettes and not taking the least notice of me. The count stroked one of his white mice reflectively with his chubby little finger before he answered. It is truly wonderful, he said, how easily society can console itself for the worst of its shortcomings with a little bit of claptrap. The machinery it has set up for the detection of crime is miserably ineffective, and yet only invent a moral epigram saying that it works well, and you blind everybody to its blunders from that moment. Crimes cause their own detection, do they? And murder will out another moral epigram. Will it? Ask coroners who sit at inquests in large towns if that is true? Lady Guide and secretaries of life assurance companies if that is true. Ms. Halcombe, read your own public journals. In the few cases that get into the newspapers, are there not instances of slain bodies found, and no murderers ever discovered? Multiply the cases that are reported by the cases that are not reported, and the bodies that are found by the bodies that are not found. And what conclusion do you come to this? That there are foolish criminals who are discovered and wise criminals who escape the hiding of a crime or the detection of a crime. What is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police in nine cases out of 10 win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly intelligent man, the police in nine cases out of 10 lose. If the police win, you generally hear all about it. If the police lose, you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering foundation you build up your comfortable moral maxim that crime causes its own detection. Yes, all the crime you know of. And what of the rest? Devilish true and very well put, cried a voice at the entrance of the boat house. Sir Percival had recovered his equanimity and had come back while we were listening to the count. Some of it may be true, I said, and all of it may be very well put, but I Don't see why Count Fosco should celebrate the victory of the criminal over society with so much exultation. Or why you, Sir Percival, should applaud him so loudly for doing it. Do you hear that? Fusco? Asked Sir Percival. Take my advice and make your peace with your audience. Tell them virtue's a fine thing. They like that, I can promise you. The count laughed inwardly and silently, and two of the white mice in his waistcoat, alarmed by the internal convulsion going on beneath them, darted out in a violent hurry and scrambled into their cage again. The ladies, my good Percival, shall tell me about virtue, he said. They are better authorities than I am, for they know what virtue is and I don't. You hear him, said Sir Percival. Isn't that awful? It is true, said the count quietly. I am a citizen of the world, and I have met in my time with so many different sorts of virtue that I am puzzled in my old age to say which is the right sort and which is the wrong. Here in England there is one virtue, and there in China there is another virtue. And John Englishman says, my virtue is the genuine virtue. And John Chinaman says, my virtue is the genuine virtue. And I say yes to one and no to the other. And am just as much bewildered about it in the case of John with the top boots as I am in the case of John with the pigtail. Ah, nice little mousie. Come kiss me. What is your own private notion of a virtuous man, my prit. Pret. Pretty. A man who keeps you warm and gives you plenty to eat. And a good notion too, for it is intelligible at the least. Stay a minute, Count, I interposed, accepting your illustration. Surely we have one unquestionable virtue in England which is wanting in China. The Chinese authorities kill thousands of innocent people on the most frivolous pretexts. We in England are free from all guilt of that kind. We commit no such dreadful crime. We abhor reckless bloodshed with all our hearts. Quite right, Marian, said Laura. Well thought of and well expressed. Pray allow the count to proceed, said Madame Fosco with stern civility. You will find, young ladies, that he never speaks without having excellent reasons for all that he says. Thank you, my angel, replied the count. Have a bon bon. He took out of his pocket a pretty little inlaid box and placed it open on the table. Chocolate a lavenil. Cried the impenetrable man cheerfully, rattling the sweet meats in the box and bowing all around. Offered by Fosco as an act of homage to the charming society. Be good enough to go on, count, said his wife, with a spiteful reference to myself. Oblige me by answering Miss Halcombe. Miss Halcombe is unanswerable, replied the polite Italian. That is to say, so far as she goes, yes, I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours, and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own. Who exists on the face of creation. Is he so very much better in this way than the people whom he condemns in their way? English Society, Ms. Halcombe is as often the accomplice as it is the enemy of crime. Yes, yes. Crime is in this country what crime is in other countries. A good friend to a man and to those about him. As often as it is an enemy. A great rascal provides for his wife and family. The worse he is, the more he makes them the objects of your sympathy. He often provides also for himself. A profligate spendthrift who is always borrowing money will get more from his friends than the rigidly honest man who only borrows from them once under pressure of the direst want. In the one case the friends will not be at all surprised and they will give. In the other case they will be very much surprised and they will hesitate. Is the prison that Mr. Scoundrel lives in at the end of his career a more uncomfortable place than the workhouse that Mr. Honesty lives in at the end of his career? When John Howard, philanthropist, wants to relieve misery, he goes to find it in prisons where crime is wretched, not in huts and hovels, where virtue is wretched too. Who is the English poet who has won the most universal sympathy? Who makes the easiest of all subjects for pathetic writing and pathetic painting? That nice young person who began life with a forgery and ended it by a suicide. Your dear romantic, interesting Chatterton. So Chatterton was a poet prodigy who passed off his work as that of an imaginary 15th century poet. But he killed himself at the age of 17 when he couldn't make enough money to make ends meet. Which gets on best, do you think, of two poor starving dressmakers? The woman who resists temptation and is honest, or the woman who falls under temptation and steals. You all know that the stealing is the making of that second woman's fortune. It advertises her from length to breadth of good humoured, charitable England. And she is relieved as the breaker of a commandment when she would have been left to starve as the keeper of it. So he's saying that people are often better off when they break the law to help themselves. Come here, my jolly little mouse. Hey, presto pass. I transform you, for the time being, into a respectable lady. Stop there in the palm of my great big hand, my dear, and listen. So now he's talking to the mouse as if the mouse was a respectable lady. You marry the poor man whom you love, mouse, and one half of your friends pity and the other half blame you. And now, on the contrary, you sell yourself for gold to a man you don't care for, and all your friends rejoice over you. And a minister of public worship sanctions the base horror of the vilest of all human bargains and smiles and smirks. Afterwards, at your table, if you are polite enough to ask him to breakfast. Meaning, if you marry for love and the man is poor, everyone disapproves. But if you marry for money, even if there's no love, then everyone does approve. But isn't that just the same as prostituting yourself essentially? Hey, you. Presto, pass. Be a mouse again and squeak. If you continue to be a lady much longer, I shall have you telling me that society abhors crime. And then, Mouse, I shall doubt if your own eyes and ears are really of any use to you. Ah. I am a bad man, Lady Glyde, am I not? I say what other people only think. And when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard and shows the bare bones beneath, I will get up on my big elephant legs before I do myself any more harm. In your amiable estimations, I will get up and take a little airy walk of my own. Dear ladies, as your excellent Sheridan said, I go and leave my character behind me. He got up, put the cage on the table, and paused for a moment to count the mice in it. 1, 2, 3, 4. Ha. He cried with a look of horror. Where in the name of heaven is the fifth, the youngest, the widest, the most amiable of all, my Benjamin of Mice. Neither Laura nor I were in any favorable disposition to be amused. The count's glib cynicism had revealed a new aspect of his nature from which we both recoiled. But it was impossible to resist the comical distress of so very large a man at the loss of so very small a mouse. We laughed in spite of ourselves. And when Madame Fosco rose to set the example of leaving the boat house empty so that her husband might search it to its remotest corners. We rose also to follow her out. Before we had taken three steps, the Count's quick eye discovered the lost mouse under the seat that we had been occupying. He pulled aside the bench, took the little animal up in his hand, and then suddenly stopped on his knees, looking intently at a particular place on the ground just beneath him. When he rose to his feet again, his hand shook so that he could hardly put the mouse back in the cage, and his face was of a faint colour, livid yellow hue all over. Percival, he said in a whisper. Percival, come here. Sir Percival had paid no attention to any of us. For the last 10 minutes he had been entirely absorbed in writing figures on the sand and then rubbing them out again with the point of his stick. What's the matter now? He asked, lounging carelessly into the boathouse. Do you see nothing there? Said the Count, catching him nervously by the collar with one hand and pointing with the other to the place near which he had found the mouse. I see plenty of dry sand, answered Sir Percival, and a spot of dirt in the middle of it. Not dirt, whispered the count, fastening the other hand suddenly on Sir Percival's collar and shaking it in his agitation. Blood. Laura was near enough to hear the last word. Softly as he whispered it, she turned to me with a look of terror. Nonsense, my dear, I said. There is no need to be alarmed. It is only the blood of a poor little stray dog. Everybody was astonished, and everybody's eyes were fixed on me inquiringly. How do you know that? Asked Sir Percival, speaking first. I found the dog here dying on the day when you all returned from abroad, I replied. The poor creature had strayed into the plantation and had been shot by your keeper. Whose dog was it? Inquired Sir Percival. Not one of mine. Did you try to save the poor thing? Asked Laura earnestly. Surely you tried to save it, Marian. Yes, I said. The housekeeper and I both did our best, but the dog was mortally wounded and he died under our hands. Whose dog was it? Persisted Sir Percival, repeating his question a little irritably. One of mine? No, not one of yours. Whose, then? Did the housekeeper know? The housekeeper's report of Mrs. Catherick's desire to conceal her visit to Blackwater park from Sir Percival's knowledge recurred to my memory the moment he put the last question, and I half doubted the discretion of answering it. But in my anxiety to quiet the general alarm, I had thoughtlessly advanced too far to draw back, except at the risk of exciting suspicion which Might only make matters worse. There was nothing for it but to answer at once without reference to results. So Marian is remembering too late that Mrs. Catherick didn't want Sir Percival to know that she'd been to the house. But she has to tell them now so that she can explain the blood in the boat house. Yes, I said. The housekeeper knew. She told me it was Mrs. Catherick's dog. Sir Percival had hitherto remained at the inner end of the boat house with Count Fosco while I spoke to him from the door. But the instant Mrs. Catherick's name passed my lips, he pushed by the count roughly and placed himself face to face with me under the open daylight. How came the housekeeper to know it was Mrs. Catherick's dog? He asked, fixing his eyes on mine with a frowning interest and attention, which half angered, half startled me. She knew it, I said quietly, because Mrs. Catherick brought the dog with her. Brought it with her? Where did she bring it with her? To this house? What the devil did Mrs. Catherick want at this house? The manner in which he put the question was even more offensive than the language in which he expressed it. I marked my sense of his want of common politeness by silently turning away from him. Just as I moved, the count's persuasive hand was laid on his shoulder, and the count's mellifluous voice interposed to quiet him. My dear Percival. Gently, gently. Sir Percival looked round in his angriest manner. The count only smiled and repeated the soothing application. Gently, my good friend, gently. Sir Percival hesitated, followed me a few steps, and to my great surprise, offered me an apology. I beg your pardon, Ms. Halcombe, he said. I have been out of order lately, and I am afraid I am a little irritable. But I should like to know what Mrs. Catherick could possibly want here. When did she come? Was the housekeeper the only person who saw her? The only person, I answered, so far as I know, the count interposed again. In that case, why not question the housekeeper? He said. Why not go Percival to the fountain head of information at once? Quite right, said Sir Percival. Of course. The housekeeper is the first person to question excessively. Stupid of me not to see it myself. With those words he instantly left us to return to the house. The motive of the Count's interference, which had puzzled me at first, betrayed itself when Sir Percival's back was turned. He had a host of questions to put to me about Mrs. Catherick and the cause of her visit to Blackwater. Park which she could scarcely have asked in his friend's presence. I made my answers as short as I civilly could. For I had already determined to check the least approach to any exchanging of confidences between Count Fosco and myself. So Marian has decided she can't really trust Fosco, so she's telling him as little as she can. Laura, however, unconsciously helped him to extract all my information by making inquiries herself. Which left me no alternative but to reply to her or to appear in the very unenviable and very false character of a depositary of Sir Percival's secrets. The end of it was that in about 10 minutes time the Count knew as much as I know of Mrs. Catherick and of the events which have so strangely connected us with her daughter Anne from the time when Hartright met with her to this day. So Marian told the Count and Laura everything, including about Anne Catherick and the fact that Sir Percival helped her find a private asylum instead of a public one. The effect of my information on him was in one respect curious enough. Intimately as he knows Sir Percival and closely as he appears to be associated with Sir Percival's private affairs in general. He is certainly, as far as I am from knowing anything of the true story of Anne Catherick. The unsolved mystery in connection with this unhappy woman is now rendered doubly suspicious in my eyes by the absolute conviction which I feel that the clue to it has been hidden by Sir Percival from the most intimate friend he has in the world. It was impossible to mistake the eager curiosity of the Count's look and manner while he drank in greedily every word that fell from my lips. There are many kinds of curiosity, I know, but there is no misinterpreting the curiosity of blank surprise. If I ever saw it in my life, I saw it in the Count's face. So even though the Count seems to know all of Percival's affairs, it's obvious he doesn't know about Anne Catherick. While the questions and answers were going on we had all been strolling quietly back through the plantation. As soon as we reached the house the first object that we saw in front of it was Sir Percival's dog cart with the horse put to and the groom waiting by it in his stable jacket. If these unexpected appearances were to be trusted, the examination of the housekeeper had produced important results already. A fine horse, my friend, said the Count, addressing the groom with the most engaging familiarity of manner. You are going to drive out? I am not going, sir, replied the man. Looking at his stable jacket and evidently wondering whether the foreign gentleman took it for livery. So his livery would be the uniform he wears that associates him with Sir Percival. My master drives himself. Aha, said the count. Does he indeed? I wonder. He gives himself the trouble when he has got you to drive for him. Is he going to fatigue that nice shining pretty horse by taking him very far today? I don't know, sir, answered the man. The horse is a mare, if you please, sir. She's the highest courage thing we've got in the stables. Her name's Brown Molly, sir, and she'll go till she drops. Sir Percival usually takes Isaac of York for the short distances and your shining courageous Brown Molly for the long. Yes, Sir. Logical inference, Ms. Halcombe, continued the count, wheeling round briskly and addressing me. Sir Percival is going a long distance to day. I made no reply. I had my own inferences to draw from what I knew through the housekeeper and from what I saw before me, and I did not choose to share them with Count Fosco. When Sir Percival was in Cumberland, I thought to myself, he walked away a long distance on Anne's account to question the family at Todd's Corner. Now he is in Hampshire, he is going to drive away a long distance on Anne's account again to question Mrs. Catherick at welmingham. So Marian suspects that Sir Percival is leaving in a hurry to travel to Mrs. Catherick's house to ask her what she was doing at his house. We all entered the house. As we crossed the hall, Sir Percival came out from the library to meet us. He looked hurried and pale and anxious, but for all that he was in his most polite mood when he spoke to us. I am sorry to say I am obliged to leave you. He began a long drivea matter that I can't very well put off. I shall be back in good time to morrow. But before I go, I should like that little business formality which I spoke of this morning to be settled. Laura, will you come into the library? It won't take a minute. A mere formality, Countess. May I trouble you also? I want you and the Countess Fosco to be witness to a signature, nothing more. Come in at once and get it over. He held the library door open until they passed in, followed them, and shut it softly. I remained for a moment afterwards standing alone in the hall with my heart beating fast and my mind misgiving me sadly. Then I went on to the staircase and ascended slowly to my own room. Thank you so much for listening. 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