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. Welcome back. I'm starting to get emails from you guys saying how much you're going to miss this book and these characters and somebody said they're getting separation anxiety and I have to tell you, I'm feeling the same way. It is so sad. Sad that we are coming to the end and that we're going to have to say goodbye to Walter and Laura and Marian and. And even Count Fosco. We're gonna have to say goodbye. And it's so hard. But that is part of a great book, is that by the end of it, you just don't want it to end. But it does end and of course you do want it to end because you have to find out what happens. But it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard to leave our friends behind. And so I just wanted to acknowledge that, yes, I'm right there with you. I don't want to leave. We will have to eventually, but not yet. It is not time yet. We are still in it and we are still here. We have a little bit longer to enjoy our friends Walter, Marian and Laura and even Fosco. And so we're going to do that. We're going to enjoy them for as long as we can, as much as we can, and then we're going to move on. And that's one thing I wanted to talk to you about here at the beginning. I wanted to let you know that the trailer for Summer Session, I'm going to drop a trailer about it. It's going to come out on Saturday, May 16, so. So make sure you're subscribed because then it will just drop right into your podcast player. And that's where I'm going to tell you a little bit more about what we're actually going to be talking about over the summer. I've already let you know what Summer Session is if you missed that. I think I talked about it in the last episode or maybe two episodes ago, and I will talk about it again. But just to let you know now, I haven't revealed what we're even going to be talking about. Right. Last summer we talked all about Jane Eyre, and I've said we're not going to do that because we've read multiple books since last summer, and I'm not going to delve as deeply as I did with Jane Eyre into those books. So we're not doing that. What are we going to do? Well, I'm going to reveal it on Saturday, May 16, in a little trailer that will drop into your podcast feed as long as you're subscribed. So make sure you're subscribed. That's coming out then. And when it does come out, I hope you'll write to me and tell me what you think of this idea. This is new. This is only our second summer session, so we're going to try something new and hopefully it's going to be really fun. I'm excited about it. I'm already planning it. I'm starting to record interviews and all kinds of things. So. So I'm looking forward to that. I hope that you are, too. Another piece of housekeeping news. The next tea time. So this is tea time in our lovely drawing room community, where we withdraw after the book is over in our lovely pretend Victorian house. And once a month we have a voice chat. Those of you who are signed up to be landed Gentry get to chat with me and with each other once a month in a kind of group form phone call that we do together. And so I wanted to let you know that the next tea time is going to be Tuesday, May 27th at 8pm Eastern. And what's cool about that is that's going to be the day after we finish the last chapter of the book. So that chat is going to be really fun because we will have just finished the book, so we're going to get to talk all about it. And so if you're not a member and you'd like to be, you'd like to join us for that chat, just scroll down into the show notes of this episode. There's a link there, you can click on it. It doesn't do any automatically. It just gives you a little bit more information about our membership tiers and you can join and then you can be with us when we have that chat, which is going to be, as I said, Tuesday, May 27th at 8pm Eastern. And I'll remind you again as it gets closer, but I know some of you like to mark your calendars and so I just wanted to let you know about that now. Okay. The only other thing to say is please make sure you're subscribed because you'll get all the episodes and you'll get that trailer that's coming about Summer Session. Please tap the five stars if you're enjoying the show, leave a positive review in your podcast player. Tell a friend, email a link to somebody, text a link to somebody, buy some merch, scroll into the show notes and take a look at everything that's there. And of course, get in touch with me with all your questions and thoughts. Faithk moore.com Click on Contact or just scroll into those links and click on the link that's there. All right, so as I say, we actually have a lot to talk about today, so let's get to it. So last time we read Hartright's narrative chapters one and two Today we're going to read Hartright's narrative chapters three and four. So let's just go over what we heard about last time. Here's the recap. Okay, so where we left off Walter can't go back to London yet because he has to attend the inquest into Sir Percival's death and also the hearing about the alleged assault that he committed on Sir Percival's men. He checks for Marian's letter as usual and finds it there, but it's just a short line saying that they've had to move for their safety and he should come back as soon as he can. This makes him really worried because he assumes that Count Fosco has threatened them in some way, but he has to stay. He attends the inquest which rules that Sir Percival's death was an accident, and then he goes to the hearing. On the way there, he meets a man who says that he spoke to Sir Percival's solicitor, Mr. Merriman, who told him that Percival was completely ruined financially and all the money he inherited after Laura's death has been taken now by his creditors. Walter goes to the hearing, where he's quickly dismissed and can finally head home. So then, back in London, he finds Marian and Laura at this new address and he's relieved to see that they're both safe. Marian hasn't told Laura the real reason for their move, so after she goes to bed, Marian tells Walter what happened. She says that a few days ago she looked out the window and saw Count Fosco on the street talking to another man. Marian recognized that other man as the owner of the asylum from which Anne and then Laura had escaped. The man walked away, and then Marian received a message from the shopkeeper downstairs that the Count wanted to speak with her, so she left Laura and she went into the street where she found the Count. He was incredibly admiring and flattering to her, which she found disgusting. And he tells her that he wasn't going to bother them at all. But now that Sir Percival is dead, which he blames Walter for, he assumes that they will come after him next. So now he has to act. So his original plan, he says, was to lead the director of the asylum to them and have Walter and Marian arrested for hiding Laura. But he changed his mind at the last moment because he cares so deeply for Marian. Marian is super creeped out by all of that, and that is what caused her to move them to another place. Walter tells Marian that he will not go back on the promise that he made in Mr. Crill's office. He will restore Laura's identity and bring the people who harmed her to justice. And he decides to tell Laura that Percival is dead and that she's no longer married. And he doesn't say this, but he implies to Marian that he hopes one day, when her mental state and her health are restored, that this means that he can marry her. So after this, they go on living their lives. Walter finds out that Count Fosco is staying in London until the following summer. He also goes back to Mrs. Clements and tells her what he can about Anne's death. And this reminds him that he still doesn't know who Anne's father was. And so he decides to try to figure that out. He writes to the man who owns the house where Mrs. Catherick was working before coming to Welmingham and receives a reply which tells him that Laura's father, Philip Fairlie, was a friend of the family and frequently went there when Mrs. Catherick was in service there. And Walter concludes that Laura's father was also Anne's father and that they were half sisters. Okay, I'm going to read 3 comments today. The first one comes from Corinthia writes, Marian just solidified herself as my favorite person in a sea of wonderful characters. She is intelligent, controlled and faithful. All the characteristics that make me love her also attract the admiration of Count Fosco. Marian is controlled enough to speak with the mastermind of their terrible situation and is able to keep her cool. But I love her even more for wanting to punch Fosco in his fat face. The second one comes from Kate. Kate says, I know you touched on this a bit, but Laura's current state of, like, comatose meekness is kind of annoying. And it makes Walter's devotion, which had a sexual romantic side to it, to her, less Credible. I know he is motivated to help her out of kindness, loyalty and sense of duty too. But romantic love is a big part of the equation. Isn't there a part of you that wants Laura to buck up, join the adventure, be a woman worthy of sexual feelings? And the last one comes from Rebecca Holman. Rebecca writes, how tragic that Anne was so mistreated and she didn't even know her parentage. It makes me wonder if Philip Fairley was even a good father to Laura. After all, he promised her to the lowlife Percival while he was living. Okay, so there's a lot I want to say this time, mostly about Marian. But before I do that, let's just acknowledge that the final piece of the puzzle regarding Anne Catherick was finally revealed last time. Right. We know who Anne's father was and it was Laura's father, Mr. Philip Fairley. So not Frederick Fairley, Laura's uncle, whom we've come to know very well, sadly, but Philip Fairley, Laura's father. Okay, this explains why Ann Laura look so much alike. They are actually half sisters. And I know a lot of you guessed this and I've been saying like, good theory, interesting idea and everything so as not to give anything away one way or the other. But now we know it for sure. So if you thought Laura's father was Anne's father, you were right. He was. And often when someone would write in to say that they thought Philip Fairley was Anne's father, they would also say essentially what Rebecca is saying here, like, wasn't Laura's father this beloved person who Laura trusted implicitly and whose protection she missed? And wasn't one of the issues with Laura's situation that only the horrible uncle was her protector because her beloved father was gone? How could this beloved wonderful person have an affair with a servant, get her pregnant and then wander off? How could this beloved person think that Percival would be a good match for Laura? Where is the strong father figure that we thought Laura's father was supposed to be? But listen to what we're told, what we were told last time about Laura's father, Philip Fairlie. Okay, Here's a quote. Mr. Philip Fairlie had been one of the notoriously handsome men of his time. In disposition entirely unlike his brother Frederick. He was the spoilt darling of society, especially of the women. An easy, light hearted, impulsive, affectionate man, generous to a fault, constitutionally lax in his principles and notoriously thoughtless of moral obligations where women were concerned. So I don't know about you, but I can totally See how a beloved and coddled daughter would come to idolize a father like that. Right. A charming, carefree, generous man like that would probably make a really doting father. And a little girl would do anything for a father like that, I think. So. We had been imagining that Laura's father was a kind of strong, just wise old man, but it never actually said that in the book. It only ever said that Laura loved him dearly and was devoted to him and would do whatever he said. And you can see how a guy who's fun and carefree and loving but not particularly interested in morals might befriend a guy like Sir Percival. Okay. Especially since, remember, Percival wasn't as bad back then as he later became when his money problems and Anne potentially knowing the secret and his bad marriage to Laura, when all those things kind of made him even worse. So Percival was a young man kind of gallivanting around and so was Philip Fairley, and they were friends. And Mr. Fairley felt like this guy was lots of fun and would make a good husband for his daughter. So I think we formed an impression of Philip Fairley that wasn't necessarily there in the book, based on how we believe a good father should act. But there are a few details even so that might make Philip Fairley seem like slightly less awful in our eyes. Though I do say only slightly. First is that he clearly didn't know what Percival was capable of. He didn't know about the secret, he didn't know about his debts, and he didn't know. And I would argue that even Percival didn't know before he met the count. Let's say he didn't know that Percival was capable of enacting the conspiracy that he ended up participating in with switching Anne and Laura. So that's one thing. Another thing is that Philip had the affair with Mrs. Catherick before he married Mrs. Fairley. Okay. We're told that he stayed at Varnick hall, then went off and came back later as a married man. So Anne was conceived before Philip met and married Mrs. Fairley. So it was still bad back then to sleep with someone that you weren't married to. But at least he wasn't cheating on his wife. And the last thing is that he probably didn't know that Anne existed. Right. In order to maintain her reputation and then try to claw back her reputation, Mrs. Catherick had to insist forever that Anne was Mr. Catherick Child. Which means she never reached out to Philip and told him, hey, I had this daughter, Anne, and she's Yours. Right. So he had no idea about her, which might explain why he never acknowledged her or sent money for her care or anything like that. So, as I say, this stuff only slightly exonerates him. But I think we can place him in the category of sort of carefree, fun doting dad and wish that he'd been a bit more grown up and thoughtful about his daughter's future. But there you go. He wasn't. Okay, so now we know pretty much everything there is to know about Anne's story. And as Walter does so well at the end of the last chapter, we kind of lay her to rest. Okay. Anne is the initial domino. She's the first spark that detonates the whole story. Anne, that keeps popping up at various other places in the chain of dominoes to detonate other plot points. That's why the story is named after her. She's the catalyst. But her work in the story is done now, and Walter and we are saying goodbye to her now as we kind of tick through the chapters, on our way very soon to the end. But I don't feel like I can move on to the chapters without spending a little time talking about Marian. Okay. Marian is kind of the unsung hero, I think, of this whole story. And for a while, we became very intimate with her right through her diary in those sections of the narrative. And then she got ill. And since then, we've been viewing her from afar or from other people's perspectives, and we kind of haven't talked about her in a while. But in the last chapter, we had a kind of extended section in her voice where she told Walter about how Fosco had come to visit them and how she'd handled it. And as Corinthia says, you kind of just can't help loving her, and Fosco can't help loving her. I have to say, the fact that Fosco legitimately loves Marian is one of the best things about Fosco as a character. I think she is his weakness. Right. He's this awful, awful guy that no one can stop. But the one thing that can stop him sometimes is the fact that he loves this wonderful woman, Marian. And, I mean, who can blame him? Okay, so we love Marian, Laura loves Marian, Fosco loves Marian, and Walter loves Marian. Not romantically, but he loves her as a brother and he trusts her implicitly. She's like his trusty sidekick or his brother or his most esteemed friend. You know, I have often thought that an amazing spin off of this book would be a series Called, like Marian Halcombe's detective agency. And it would be like Sherlock Holmes, only Marian would be the detective and Count Fosco would be her Moriarty. You know, I think that would be brilliant. Okay. But moving on from that. So Marian is wonderful. And. And this alludes to what Kate was saying in her letter. There is a way in which the relationship between Walter and Marian is so much more real and human than the relationship between Walter and Laura. Walter tells us, I was indebted to Marian's courage and to Marian's love. Okay. He talks about the quieting influence of my faith in Marian and my absolute reliance on her. So Walter loves Marian, and Marian clearly loves Walter. And she craves his approval. Right. After telling him about Fosco and why she moved to another house. And everything she says, have I done right, Walter? Have I justified your trust in me? So she cares about him and she wants him to approve of her actions. They love each other, just not like that. But I think we would be justified in maybe sometimes wishing that they did love each other like that. I mean, in the last chapter, Walter kind of alludes to the fact that he's holding out hope that Laura's mental state will improve and that he'll one day be able to marry her. And Marian seems to hope that too. I mean, I do think that you can plausibly make the case that Marian is in love with Walter romantically, but Walter isn't in love with her. But I don't really think that that's what Collins is necessarily going for. So I'm not gonna totally pursue that. But I think you can read the book that way and not be entirely wrong. But either way, I think we, particularly as modern readers, we have a hard time, as Kate does, feeling like of marriage between Walter and Laura isn't a little disappointing or maybe even a little icky. You know, we want the bright, vibrant intelligence and ingenuity and bravery of Marian, not the poor, sad, depleted, childlike Laura. So, first of all, I want to give you permission to feel that way. I think it's a valid feeling. I feel it sometimes when I read this book as well. I think Marian is a much more modern character. She makes more sense to us. She's real, er, if that's a word, which is not. And we are meant to love her. We're meant to feel that while Walter is the manly hero out there in the world, Marian is the feminine hero, doing everything she can from her place in the world of the domestic. Collins wants us to love and admire Marian. I think what I think Collins can't go so far as to imagine is that a woman like Marian could be the love interest, because in Collins's mind, she's too much like a man. It would be like Walter falling in love with his brother or his best male friend or something. Laura. And we talked about this a while ago, too. I think Laura is the feminine ideal. At least the feminine ideal of the time. And we talked about how she does have more backbone and more personality than we originally gave her credit for. At least she did before this whole thing happened to her. And she got PTSD or whatever we want to call it. So she's not like a total drip or anything, but she's no Marian. And it's hard to feel in comparison with Marian that Laura is the one we want Walter to end up with. I mean, from a plot standpoint, okay, Laura has to be a damsel in distress. None of this stuff would ever have happened to a character like Marian. So in order for the plot to make sense, Laura has to be more passive, less passionate, more prone to fainting and all of that. And at this point, Walter can't just ditch Laura and run off with Marian. That's not what our devoted hero would do. So we can't do that. But I just think for Wilkie Collins, Marian is not wife material. She's friend material, spinster sister material. She's not wife material. And we can disagree. I give you full permission to disagree. I disagree. But there it is. And remember that Walter doesn't want to marry Laura the way she is now. He's just hoping that she's gonna go back to the way that she used to. Used to be the way she was when he first met her and they first fell in love. But to answer Kate's question, yes, there is a part of me that wishes Laura were more of a full on, modern, realistic character like Marian. I definitely want some guy to show up at the last minute and give Marian a sort of flirtatious look or something before the curtain drops for good. I wish she could find love, too. But I also don't want to throw Laura under the bus. And I think we need to trust Walter when he tells us that Laura is the one that he wants. Wants. He loves Laura and Laura loves him. And I think we need to honor that, even if we wish things could be different somehow. So I just wanted to give you permission to feel that way. I wanted to spend some time just praising Marian because I think she deserves it. And I wanted to also kind of make the case that we can't just toss Laura aside either. So now Walter, Marian and Laura, they're gonna bide their time, right? They're gonna lull Fosco into a false sense of security and make him think that they're following his advice and just continuing to kind of secluded life with everyone in the world thinking Laura is Anne. And then. Well, and then what? Right? That's what we need to find out. What are they going to do? How can they possibly get Count Fosco to confess? That's the question as we go into these last chapters, the last, you know, few episodes that we've got coming up. So what's going to happen? Let's keep reading and find out. And of course, write to me faithk moore.com and click on Contact. Or just scroll into the show notes and take a look at all all the links that are there, including the link to the contact page. All right, let's get started with Hartright's narrative. Chapters three and four of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time. Three, four months elapsed. April came, the month of spring, the month of change. The course of time had flowed through the interval since the winter peacefully and happily. In our new home, I had turned my long leisure to good account, had largely increased my sources of employment, and had placed our means of subsistence on surer grounds. Freed from the suspense and the anxiety which had tried her so sorely and hung over her so long, Marian's spirits rallied and her natural energy of character began to assert itself again with something, if not all of the freedom and the vigor of former times. More pliable under change than her sister Laura showed more plainly the progress made by the healing influences of her new life. The worn and wasted look which had prematurely aged her face was fast leaving it, and the expression which had been the first of its charms in past days was the first of its beauties that now returned. My closest observations of her detected but one serious result of the conspiracy which had once threatened her reason and her life. Her memory of events from the period of her leaving Blackwater park to the period of our meeting in the burial ground of Limmeridge Church was lost beyond all hope of recovery. At the slightest reference to that time, she changed and trembled. Still her words became confused. Her memory wandered and lost itself as helplessly as ever. Here and here only the traces of the past lay deep, too deep to be effaced in all else. She was now so far on the way to recovery that on her best and Brightest days she sometimes looked and spoke like the Laura of old times. The happy change wrought its natural result in us both. From their long slumber on her side and on mine, those imperishable memories of our past life in Cumberland now awoke, which were one and all alike, the memories of our love. So now that Laura is basically herself again, she and Walter are falling in love all over again. Gradually and insensibly, our daily relations towards each other became constrained. The fond words which I had spoken to her so naturally in the days of her sorrow and her suffering faltered strangely on my lips in the time when my dread of losing her was most present to my mind. I had always kissed her when she left me at night and when she met me in the morning, the kiss seemed now to have dropped between us, to be lost out of our lives. Our hands began to tremble again when they met. We hardly ever looked long at one another out of Marian's presence. The talk often flagged between us when we were alone. When I touched her by accident, I felt my heart beating fast as it used to beat at Limmeridge House. I saw the lovely answering flush glowing again in her cheeks as if we were back among the Cumberland hills in our past characters of master and pupil. Once more she had long intervals of silence and thoughtfulness and denied she had been thinking when Marian asked her the question. I surprised myself one day neglecting my work to dream over the little water colour portrait of her which I had taken in the summer house where we first met. Just as I used to neglect Mr. Fairlie's drawings to dream over the same likeness when it was newly finished in the bygone time changed as all the circumstances now were. Our position towards each other in the golden days of our first companionship seemed to be revived with the revival of our love. It was as if time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early hopes to the old familiar shore. To any other woman I could have spoken the decisive words which I still hesitated to speak to her. The utter helplessness of her position, her friendless dependence on all the forbearing gentleness that I could show her, my fear of touching too soon some secret sensitiveness in her which my instinct as a man might not have been fine enough to discover. However, these considerations and others like them kept me self distrustfully silent. And yet I knew that the restraint on both sides must be ended. That the relations in which we stood towards one another must be altered in some settled manner for the future and that it rested with me in the first instance to recognize the necessity for a change. The more I thought of our position, the harder the attempt to alter it appeared. While the domestic conditions on which we three had been living together since the winter remained undisturbed. I cannot account for the capricious state of mind in which this feeling originated, but the idea nevertheless possessed me that some previous change of place and circumstances, some sudden break in the quiet monotony of our lives, so managed as to vary the home aspect under which we had been accustomed to see each other, might prepare the way for me to speak and might make it easier and less embarrassing for Laura and Marian to hear. So he wants to propose to Laura, which he can do now since she's poor and so is he and she has no husband. But he feels that he wants to change up their situation somehow before he does this. With this purpose in view, I said one morning that I thought we had all earned a little holiday and a change of scene. After some consideration, it was decided that we should go for a fortnight to the seaside. On the next day, we left Fulham for a quiet town on the south coast. At that early season of the year, we were the only visitors in the place. The cliffs, the beach, and the walks inland were all in the solitary condition which was most welcome to us. The air was mild. The prospects over hill and wood and down were beautifully varied by the shifting April light and shade. And the restless sea leapt under our windows as if it felt like the land, the glow and freshness of spring. I owed it to Marion to consult her before I spoke to Laura and to be guided afterwards by her advice. On the third day from our arrival, I found a fit opportunity of speaking to her alone. The moment we looked at one another, her quick instinct detected the thought in my mind before I could give it expression. With her customary energy and directness, she spoke at once and spoke first. You are thinking of that subject which was mentioned between us on the evening of your return from Hampshire, she said. I have been expecting you to allude to it for some time past. There must be a change in our little household, Walter. We cannot go on much longer as we are now. I see it as plainly as you doas plainly as Laura sees it, though she says nothing. How strangely the old times in Cumberland seem to have come back. You and I are together again, and the one subject of interest between us is Laura. Once more, I could almost fancy that this room is the summer house at Limmeridge, and that those waves beyond us are beating on our seashore. I was guided by your advice in Those past days, I said. And now, Marian, with reliance tenfold greater. I will be guided by it. Again she answered by pressing my hand. I saw that she was deeply touched by my reference to the past. We sat together near the window, and while I spoke and she listened, we looked at the glory of the sunlight shining on the majesty of the sea. Whatever comes of this confidence between us, I said, whether it ends happily or sorrowfully for me, Laura's interests will still be the interests of my life when we leave this place, on whatever terms we leave it. My determination to wrest from Count Fosco the confession which I failed to obtain from his accomplice goes back with me to London, as certainly as I go back myself. Neither you nor I can tell how that man may turn on me if I bring him to bay. We only know by his own words and actions that he is capable of striking at me through Laura without a moment's hesitation or a moment's remorse. In our present position, I have no claim on her which society sanctions, which the law allows to strengthen me in resisting him and in protecting her. This places me at a serious disadvantage. If I am to fight our cause with the Count strong in the consciousness of Laura's safety, I must fight it for my wife. Meaning he can fight for Laura's rights much more easily if he's tied to her by marriage. Do you agree to that, Marion? So far, to every word of it, she answered. I will not plead out of my own heart, I went on. I will not appeal to the love which has survived all changes and all shocks. I will wrest my only vindication of myself for thinking of her and speaking of her as my wife. On what I have just said, if the chance of forcing a confession from the Count is, as I believe it to be, the last chance left of publicly establishing the fact of Laura's existence. The least selfish reason that I can advance for our marriage is recognized by us both. But I may be wrong in my conviction other means of achieving our purpose may be in our power which are less uncertain and less dangerous. I have searched anxiously in my own mind for those means, and I have not found them. Have you? No. I have thought about it, too, and thought in vain. In all likelihood, I continued, the same questions have occurred to you in considering this difficult subject, which have occurred to me. Ought we to return with her to Limmeridge now that she is like herself again and trust to the recognition of her by the people of the village or by the children at the school? Meaning now that she's better. Maybe someone at Limmeridge will believe that she's Laura now and not Anne. Ought we to appeal to the practical test of her handwriting? Suppose we did so. Suppose the recognition of her obtained and the identity of the handwriting established. Would success in both those cases do more than supply an excellent foundation for a trial in a court of law? Would the recognition and the handwriting prove her identity to Mr. Fairlie and take her back to Limmeridge House against the evidence of her aunt? Against the evidence of the medical certificate, against the fact of the funeral and the fact of the inscription on the tomb? No. We could only hope to succeed in throwing a serious doubt on the assertion of her death. A doubt which nothing short of a legal inquiry can settle. I will assume that we possess what we have certainly not got money enough to carry this inquiry on through all its stages. I will assume that Mr. Fairlie's prejudices might be reasoned away. That the false testimony of the Count and his wife and all the rest of the false testimony might be confuted. That the recognition could not possibly be ascribed to a mistake between Laura and Anne Catherick or the handwriting be declared by our enemies to be a clever fraud. All these assumptions which more or less set plain probabilities at defiance, but let them pass. So he's saying it's highly unlikely that they could get anyone to believe them. Or that they could pay for a hearing in court. Or that Mr. Fairley would go to the trouble of saying he was wrong. Or that they could prove that they that the count did it. But for argument's sake, he's saying imagine they could. And let us ask ourselves what would be the first consequence or the first questions put to Laura herself on the subject of the conspiracy? We know only too well what the consequence would be. For we know that she has never recovered her memory of what happened to her in London. Examine her privately or examine her publicly. She is utterly incapable of assisting the assertion of her own case. If you don't see this Marian as plainly as I see it, we will go to Limmeridge and try the experiment tomorrow. So even if they could do all of that, if Laura was questions about her identity and what happened, she wouldn't be able to tell anyone because she doesn't remember that time. I do see it, Walter. Even if we had the means of paying all the law expenses, even if we succeeded in the end, the delays would be unendurable. The perpetual suspense after what we have suffered already would be heartbreaking. You are right about the hopelessness of Going to Limmeridge. I wish I could feel secure that you are right also in determining to try that last chance with the Count. Is it a chance at all? Beyond a doubt, yes. It is. The chance of recovering the lost date of Laura's journey to London without returning to the reasons I gave you some time since. I am still. Still as firmly persuaded as ever that there is a discrepancy between the date of that journey and the date on the certificate of death. There lies the weak point of the whole conspiracy. It crumbles to pieces if we attack it in that way. And the means of attacking it are in the possession of the count. So the way to prove that Laura is really Laura is to get the Count to confess that Laura was Is still at Blackwater park on the date when her death certificate says that she died. If I succeed in wresting them from him, the object of your life and mine is fulfilled. If I fail, the wrong that Laura has suffered will in this world never be redressed. Do you fear failure yourself, Walter? I dare not anticipate success. And for that very reason, Marian, I speak openly and plainly as I have spoken now. In my heart and my conscience. I can say it. Laura's hopes for the future are at their lowest ebb. I know that her fortune is gone. I know that the last chance of restoring her to her place in the world lies at the mercy of her worst enemy. Of a man who is now absolutely unassailable and who may remain unassailable to the end. With every worldly advantage gone from her, with every prospect of recovering her rank and station more than doubtful, with no clearer future before her than the future which her husband can provide. The poor drawing master may harmlessly open his heart at last. In the days of her prosperity, Marian, I was only the teacher who guided her hand. I ask for it in her adversity as the hand of my wife. Marion's eyes met mine affectionately. I could say no more. My heart was full. My lips were trembling in spite of myself. I was in danger of appealing to her pity. I got up to leave the room. She rose at the same moment, laid her hand gently on my shoulder and stopped me. Walter, she said, I once parted you both for your good and for hers. Wait here, my brother. Wait, my dearest best friend, till Laura comes and tells you what I have done. Now, for the first time since the farewell morning at Limmeridge, she touched my forehead with her lips. A tear dropped on my face as she kissed me. She turned quickly, pointed to the chair from which I had risen and left the room. I sat down alone at the window to wait through the crisis of my life. My mind in that breathless interval felt like a total blank. I was conscious of nothing but a painful intensity of all familiar perceptions. The sun grew blinding bright. The white sea birds chasing each other far beyond me seemed to be flitting before my face. The mellow murmur of the waves on the beach was like thunder in my ears. The door opened and Laura came in alone. So she had entered the breakfast room at Limmeridge House on the morning when we parted. Slowly and falteringly, in sorrow and in hesitation, she had once approached me. Now she came with the haste of happiness in her feet, with the light of happiness radiant in her face. Of their own accord, those dear arms clasped themselves round me. Of their own accord the sweet lips came to meet mine. My darling, she whispered, we may own we love each other now. Her head nestled with a tender contentedness on my bosom. Oh, she said innocently, I am so happy at last. Ten days later we were happier still. We were married. 4 the course of this narrative, steadily flowing on, bears me away from the morning time of our married life and carries me forward to the end. In a fortnight more, we three were back in London, and the shadow was stealing over us of the struggle to come. Marian and I were careful to keep Laura in ignorance of the cause that had hurried us back the necessity of making sure of the count. It was now the beginning of May, and his term of occupation at the house in Forest Road expired in June, meaning Fosco's lease on his house in London will run out in a month, and they don't know if he's going to try to leave the country after that. If he renewed it, and I had reasons shortly to be mentioned for anticipating that he would, I might be certain of his not escaping me me. But if by any chance he disappointed my expectations and left the country, then I had no time to lose in arming myself to meet him as I best might in the first fulness of my new happiness. There had been moments when my resolution falteredmoments, when I was tempted to be safely content. Now that the dearest aspiration of my life was fulfilled in the possession of Laura's love for the first time I thought faint heartedly of the greatness of the risk, of the adverse chances arrayed against me, of the fair promise of our new life, and of the peril in which I might place the happiness which we had so hardly earned. Yes, let me Own it honestly. For a brief time I wandered in the sweet guiding of love, far from the purpose to which I had been true. Under sterner discipline and in darker days, innocently, Laura had tempted me aside from the hard path. Innocently, she was destined to lead me back again. At times, dreams of the terrible past still disconnectedly recalled to her in the mystery of sleep, the events of which her waking memory had lost all trace. One night, barely two weeks after our marriage, when I was watching her at rest, I saw the tears come slowly through her closed eyelids. I heard the faint murmuring words escape her, which told me that her spirit was back again on the fatal journey from Blackwater Park. That unconscious appeal, so touching and so awful in the sacredness of her sleep, ran through me like fire. The next day was the day we came back to London, the day when my resolution returned to me with tenfold strength. The first necessity was to know something of the man thus far. The true story of his life was an impenetrable mystery to me. Me. So Walter's first step is to try to figure out everything he can about Count Fosco. I began with such scanty sources of information as were at my own disposal. The important narrative written by Mr. Frederick Fairlie, which Marian had obtained by following the direction I had given to her in the winter, proved to be of no service to the special object with which I now looked at it. While reading it, I reconsidered the disclosure revealed to Me by Mrs. Clements of the series of deceptions which had brought Anne Catherick to London and which had there devoted her to the interests of the conspiracy. Here again the Count had not openly committed himself. Here again he was, to all practical purpose, out of my reach. I next returned to Marian's journal at Blackwater Park. At my request, she read to me again a passage which referred to her past curiosity about the count and to the few particulars which she had discovered relating to him. Him. The passage to which I allude occurs in that part of her journal which delineates his character and his personal appearance. She described him as not having crossed the frontiers of his native country for years past, as anxious to know if any Italian gentlemen were settled in the nearest town to Blackwater, as receiving letters with all sorts of odd stamps on them and one with a large official looking seal on it. She is inclined to consider that his long absence from his native country may be accounted for by assuming that he is a political exile. But she is, on the other hand, unable to reconcile this idea with the reception of the letter from abroad bearing the large official looking seal. Letters from the continent addressed to political exiles, being usually the last to court attention from foreign post offices. In that way. Meaning, if he's a political exile, why is he receiving government documents? The considerations thus presented to me in the diary, joined to certain surmises of my own that grew out of them, suggested a conclusion which, I wondered, I had not arrived at before. I now said to myself what Laura had once said to Marian at Blackwater Park. What Madame Fosco had overheard by listening at the door. The Count Walter is a spy. Laura had applied the word to him at hazard, in natural anger at his proceedings towards herself. I applied it to him with the deliberate conviction that his vocation in life was the vocation of a spy. Meaning Walter thinks he's a literal spy, spying for his government against England. On this assumption, the reason for his extraordinary stay in England, so long after the objects of the conspiracy had been gained, became to my mind quite intelligible. The year of which I am now writing was the year of the famous Crystal palace exhibition in Hyde Park. So this was a huge exhibition showcasing technology and cultural artifacts from around the world. Foreigners in unusually large numbers had arrived already and were still arriving in England. Men were among us by hundreds, whom the ceaseless distrustfulness of their governments had followed privately by means of appointed agents to our shores. My surmises did not for a moment class a man of the count's abilities and social position with the ordinary rank and file of foreign spies. I suspected him of holding a position of authority, of being entrusted by the government which he secretly served with the organization and management of agents specially employed in this country, both men and women. And I believed Mrs. Rubell, who had been so opportunely found to act as nurse at Blackwater park, to be in all probability one of the number. So Walter thinks that Fosco is essentially a spymaster, organizing and directing a network of foreign spies in England. And that Mrs. Rubell is one of those spies. Assuming that this idea of mine had a foundation in truth, the position of the count might prove to be more assailable than I had hitherto ventured to hope. Meaning they might have more ammunition against them than they thought. If he really is a spy, to whom could I apply to know something more of the man's history and of the man himself than I knew? Now, in this emergency, it naturally occurred to my mind that a countryman of his own on whom I could rely might be the fittest person to help me. The first man Whom I thought of under these circumstances was also the only Italian with whom I was intimately acquainted, my quaint little friend, Professor Pesca. The professor has been so long absent from these pages that he has run the risk of being forgotten altogether. It is the necessary law of such a story as mine that the persons concerned in it only appear when the course of events takes them up. They come and go not by favor of my personal partiality, but by right of their direct connection with the circumstances to be detailed. Guilt. For this reason, not Pesca alone, but my mother and sister as well, have been left far in the background of the narrative. My visits to the Hampstead cottage, my mother's belief in the denial of Laura's identity which the conspiracy had accomplished. My vain efforts to overcome the prejudice on her part and on my sister's, to which, in their jealous affection for me, they both continued to adhere the painful necessity which that prejudice imposed on me of concealing my marriage from them till they had learnt to do justice to my wife. All these little domestic occurrences have been left unrecorded because they were not essential to the main interest of the story. It is nothing that they added to my anxieties and embittered my disappointments. The steady march of events has inexorably passed them by. So, because it wasn't important to the narrative, Walter hasn't mentioned his mother and sister, even though it's been very hurtful to him that they don't believe that Laura is Laura and he's had to keep conceal his marriage from them because of that. For the same reason I have said nothing here of the consolation that I found in Pesca's brotherly affection for me when I saw him again after the sudden cessation of my residence at Limmeridge House. I have not recorded the fidelity with which my warm hearted little friend followed me to the place of embarkation when I sailed for Central America, or the noisy transport of joy with which he received me when we next met in London. London. If I had felt justified in accepting the offers of service which he made to me on my return, he would have appeared again long ere this. But though I knew that his honour and his courage were to be implicitly relied on, I was not so sure that his discretion was to be trusted. And for that reason only I followed the course of all my inquiries alone. So he hasn't mentioned Pesca, but he's still friends with him. He just didn't feel that he could tell him everything without him potentially telling someone else. It will now be sufficiently understood that Pesco was not separated from all connection with me and my interests, although he has hitherto been separated from all connection with the progress of this narrative. He was as true and as ready a friend of mine still as ever he had been in his life. Before I summoned Pesca to my assistance, it was necessary to see for myself what sort of man I had to deal with. Up to this time I had never once set eyes on Count Fosco. Three days after my return with Laura and Marian to London, I set forth alone for Forest Road, St John's Wood, between 10 and 11 o' clock in the morning. It was a fine day. I had some hours to spare, and I thought it likely if I waited a little for him, that the Count might be tempted out. I had no great reason to fear the chance of his recognizing me in the daytime time, for the only occasion when I had been seen by him was the occasion on which he had followed me home at night. No one appeared at the windows in the front of the house. I walked down a turning which ran past the side of it and looked over the low garden wall. One of the back windows on the lower floor was thrown up and a net was stretched across the opening. I saw nobody, but I heard in the room first a shrill whistling and singing of birds, words, then the deep ringing voice which Marion's description had made familiar to me. Come out onto my little finger, my prit, pret, pretties. Cried the voice. Come out and hop upstairs. 1, 2, 3, and up. 3, 2, 1, and down. 1, 2, 3, twit, twit, twit, tweet. The Count was exercising his canaries as he used to exercise them in Marian's time at Blackwater Park. I waited a little while and the singing and the whistling ceased. Come kiss me, my pretties, said the deep voice. There was a responsive twittering and chirping, a low oily laugh, a silence of a minute or so. And then I heard the opening of the house door. I turned and retraced my steps. The magnificent melody of the prayer in Rossini's Moses, sung in a sonorous bass voice, rose grandly through the suburban silence of the place. The front garden gate opened and closed. The Count had come out. He crossed the road and walked towards the western boundary of the Regent's Park. I kept on my own side of the way a little behind him him and walked in that direction also. Marian had prepared me for his high stature, his monstrous corpulence, and his ostentatious mourning garments. But not for the horrible freshness and cheerfulness and vitality of the man. He carried his 60 years as if they had been fewer than 40. He sauntered along, wearing his hat a little on one side, with a light jaunty step, swinging his big stick, humming to himself, looking up from time to time at the houses and gardens on either side of him, with superb smiling patronage. If a stranger had been told that the whole neighbourhood belonged to him, that stranger would not have been surprised to hear it. He never looked back. He paid no apparent attention to Meno, apparent attention to anyone who passed him on his own side of the road, except now and then, when he smiled and smirked with an easy paternal good humour at the nursery maids and the children whom he met in this way. He led me on till we reached a colony of shops outside the western terraces of the park. Here he stopped at a pastrycook's, went in probably to give an order, and came out again immediately with a tart in his hand. An Italian was grinding an organ before the shop, and a miserable little shriveled monkey was sitting on the instrument. The count stopped, bit a piece for himself out of the tart, and gravely handed the rest to the monkey. My poor little man, he said with grotesque tenderness, you look hungry. In the sacred name of humanity, I offer you some lunch. The organ grinder piteously put in his claim to a penny from the benevolent stranger. The count shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and passed on. We reached the streets and the better class of shops between the New Road and Oxford Street. The count stopped again and entered a small optician's shop with an inscription in the window announcing that repairs were neatly executed inside. He came out again with an opera glass in his hand. Opera glasses are like binoculars for seeing the stage from far away in a theater, walked a few paces on and stopped to look at a bill of the opera placed outside a music seller's shop. He read the bill attentively, considered a moment, and then hailed an empty cab as it passed him. Opera box office, he said to the man, and was driven away. I crossed the road and looked at the bill in my turn. The performance announced was Lucrezia Borgia, and it was to take place that evening. The opera glass in the count's hand, his careful reading of the bill, and his direction to the cabman all suggested that he proposed making one of the audience, meaning Fosco is going to the opera to night. I had the means of getting an admission for myself and a friend to the pit by applying to one of the scene painters attached to the theatre with whom I had been well acquainted in past times. There was a chance, at least, that the Count might be easily visible among the audience to me and to anyone with me. And in this case I had the means of ascertaining whether Pesca knew his countrymen or not that very night. So Walter can get free tickets to the opera from a scene painter friend of his. So he's going to take Pesca to the opera and have him look at Fosco and see if Pesca knows him. This consideration at once decided the disposal of my evening. I procured the tickets, leaving a note at the professor's lodgings on the way. At a quarter to eight, I called to take him with me to the theatre. My little friend was in a state of the highest excitement, with a festive flower in his buttonhole and the largest opera glass I ever saw hugged up under his arm. Are you ready? I asked. Right. All right, said Pesca. We started for the theater. 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. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. 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