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, welcome back. Okay, more pieces of the puzzle are starting to slot into place and we heard from my favorite, Count Fosco. So we have lots to talk about today and of course, more chapters to read, but a couple of very quick housekeeping things before we move into all of that. The first is that I have scheduled the April tea time for our drawing room online community. So if you're not sure what I mean by that. We have an online community, it's called the drawing room, which is short for withdrawing room, which is the room in an old Victorian house where the house guests and their hosts would withdraw after dinner to this room, the drawing room where they would chat and play music and talk about about books and play games and talk about life. And so that's what we do in our drawing room. It is basically a kind of chat room where people type to each other about the books that we're reading, the books that we've read in the past, and also just generally about life. It's become a really lovely community and I really like stopping in from time to time and seeing what's going on. But also I let you guys just chat because you guys are having such fantastic conversations with each other. And I don't want to intervene, but I do come from time to time and say hello and it's a lovely place to be. And once a month we have these tea times which are basically voice chats where I am there and I am chatting with you. So you get to chat with me and you get to also chat with each other. We talk about the book, but also we talk about literature more generally, life. I take questions. If you just have burning questions for me, this is a time to ask them. And last time we talked about our favorite villains because we were just learning in the book about Fosco being a villain and we talk about all kinds of other things. So if you would like to join, the next one is going to be Tuesday. That's different. The last few have been on Thursdays, so take note. Tuesday, April 29th at 8pm Eastern. So if you would like to be a part of that I would love to have you. There's always room for you at tea time and I love to chat with new people and people who have been there before. So I hope that you can make it. If you're not already a storyt Grown Ups member in the Landed Gentry membership tier, you would need to do that in order to participate in this chat. So if you scroll down into the show notes, there's a link there that says something about becoming a Storytime for Grown Ups member. Joining the drawing room. Click on that link. It doesn't automatically sign you up for anything or take your money or anything like that. It's just more information for you to decide if you would like to join or not. And of course it's completely up to you. This podcast is what it is. It's main room of our lovely Victorian house. It will always be what it is. So feel free to just stay here in the main room. But if you're interested, it's also another way that you can support the show. Just realistically, of course, it's a way that you support me and the work that I'm doing here and allow me to spend my time on this show instead of on other things. So if you are able to support the show in that way, I hope you will. And what I give back to you is access to this online community as well as these monthly tea time chats. So I hope you'll join us Tuesday, April 29th at 8pm Eastern. And I'll remind you again as it gets closer. Okay, the other thing, and this is really cool, I'm excited about this. The other thing is that there are now Spotify playlists for each book that we've done with the chapters listed in chronological order. So starting at the top of the list with chapter one and then going down through the final chapter, as opposed to how they probably show up in your podcast player, which is with the most recent episode first, which makes sense if you're listening in real time, but is kind of tricky if you're trying to listen to past episodes. It's not like a regular podcast, right? You want to find chapter one of whichever book you're trying to find. And that's been tricky for some people. And I know people have been writing to say, oh, I tried to send this to someone but they got confused. So now this is a way that you can force those confused people to listen to the show. Anyway, these playlists were created by a wonderful listener. Her name is AM Burke and she is the one that put these playlists together. So thank you so much to her and you guys are so wonderfully generous. This is not the first time that a listener has done something lovely for me and for this show. So thank you for your generosity. Thank you, a.m. burke, for putting these playlists together. So the way that you can find them, what I have done is I have created on my website, faith k.moore.com I've created a tab, a page specifically for story time for grownups. So if you go to faith k.moore.com you can click on at the top on Storytime for Grown Ups. And there you will find a bunch of different things, links to the podcast, to the merch store, a lot of the stuff that's already in the show notes. But if you scroll down to the very bottom, there are links to each playlist by book. So we've got Jane Eyre, we've got Pride and Prejudice, we've got A Christmas Carol. We've also got the summer session that we did last summer as well as up to where we currently are in the Woman in White. And you can just click on those and if you're trying to send them to a friend, click on it. Then you can copy the link and send that link to your friend. And then they won't be able to use the excuse of not being able to figure out where chapter one is for not listening to this show. So I put a link in the show notes to that specific Storytime for Grown Ups page on my website and check it out, you might find some interesting things there. I also put a contact form on that page so that if you're wanting to write to me about the podcast, you can fill out that form. It's the exact same form, so don't get mixed up about this. Just still faith k.moore.com Click on contact. I'll get all of those. But if you're on that page and then you want to write to me, there's a contact form there as well. So that's all in the show notes. And thank you again, AM Burke for those playlists. Okay, that's all the housekeeping that I have for now, of course. Don't forget to subscribe, tap the five stars, leave a review, tell your friends, make the classics cool again. All right, let's get into this episode. So last time we read Heart Wright's narrative chapters three and four. Today we're reading chapters five and six, and I have two great comments that we're going to talk about and then we'll get into the chapters. But first let's remember what we read last time. Here is the recap. So where we left off from listening to Marian and Laura's stories, Walter figures out that it was Count Fosco who switched Anne and Laura and that he and Sir Percival have benefited financially from Laura's supposed death. Laura's ordeal has put her into a kind of state of shock and she's almost like a child at this point. Marian and Walter won't do anything to upset her. So there. Taking on the case of trying to prove her identity themselves, Walter goes first to Mr. Curl, the lawyer, and tells him the whole story. But Mr. Curl doesn't believe him and he says that even if he did, there was no way that they could prove anything legally. But he does give Walter a letter that came to him for Marian. On the way home, Walter realizes that he's being followed, but he loses his followers by jumping into a cab and riding away. So then back at the apartment while Laura is sleeping, Walter gives Marian the letter. And it turns out to be from Count Fosco. And he's basically threatening her. He's telling her that he knows that she broke Laura out of the asylum and he will leave them alone so long as they don't try to prove what happened or to involve Walter. Marian is furious and she's pleased when Walter says that if it comes to it, he'll take Sir Percival and Count Fosco down by any means necessary. So Walter and Marian are now on their own in terms of proving the case. And Walter realizes that the date when Laura came to London is of the utmost importance. Because if he can prove that she came to London after her supposed death in London, then he can prove that it wasn't Laura who actually died. So he decides that he's going to go to Blackwater park the next day and try to get more information. He also feels he needs to figure out Sir Percival's secret, right, the one that Anne knew. Because he might be able to hold that over Sir Percival's head and get him to admit what he did. So he's going to go now to Blackwater Park. All right. So as I say, I have two comments today. The first comes from Deli. She writes, these chapters really bring out Walter's integrity. If all he wanted was to marry Laura, he would be free to run off with her now, and only Marian would know she was a married woman. But instead, he's determined to restore her to her place as Lady Glyde, even if that means he can't be with her. He loves her so selflessly that he is content to be father, brother and drawing master to her, setting aside his desire to be her husband. And the second comes from Elizabeth Bodie. Elizabeth writes, I breathed a big sigh of relief when we saw our heroes settled in London. Safe for now, but now I'm beginning to see the dangers and challenges they will face going forward. And that letter from the Count was just, just plain creepy. I mean, what a smarmy, chilling, patronizing, flattering bunch of threats. Right? Okay, so last time I said that we're turning a new page, right? We're starting a new part of this story and I think that's really true. Gone are the days of suspensefully waiting to find out what's going to happen to Laura and Marian at Blackwater Park. Gone are the days of wondering if they can escape back to Limmeridge. Gone are the days of trying to get letters out unseen and not trusting the post bag and dreaming of Walter's return. All of that is in the past. Right now we're in completely new territory. Like I said before, now we are in sleuth mode. Okay? Now we've got to figure out how to bring justice to Laura so that one, she can have her identity back and be able to say that she is who she actually is instead of being Anne Catherick. But two, so that she's safe from the people at the asylum and Sir Percival who all want to take her back there as Anne. So this is a new situation and it's very much a sort of detective novel situation. Right? We know that Wilkie Collins would go on to write the first novel length detective story, which was the Moonstone. But I think it's fair to say that he's trying out a lot of these things that he'll eventually use there in the Woman in White. And this new phase is basically that it's a detective novel with Walter as our detective, Marian as his trusty sidekick and Laura as the damsel in distress. And already more pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Right? We've now got even more information than last time about the crime that Fos and Percival committed. I said in the last episode that we could probably guess who was buried in Laura's grave. But in the last chapters we found out for certain, right? It's Anne. Anne Catherick was found, presumably by Count Fosco. Remember when Mrs. Mickelson overheard sir Percival ask if he had found her and then Fosco just smiled. So Fosco did find Anne, brought her to his house in London introduced her to everyone as Lady Glyde. And then when she died there, he had her buried as Lady Glyde and had Laura locked away in the asylum as Anne Dastardly. Right. You know, I can now reveal that many of you have been saying for quite a while now that there was going to be some kind of switch. That the fact that Ann and Laura look so alike must mean that some part of the crime was going to involve switching them. Well, it did. And that is in fact the crime that we've been waiting all this time to learn about. Here is how Walter puts it. Here's a quote. It was plain that Anne Catherick had been introduced into Count Fosco's house as Lady Glyde. It was plain that Lady Glyde had taken the dead woman's place in the asylum, the substitution having been so managed as to make innocent people, the doctor and the two servants certainly, and the owner of the madhouse, in all probability accomplices to the crime. So he's saying that because Anne and Laura looked so alike, Fosco was able to convince a bunch of people that Laura was Anne without having to bring them in on the crime. So Fosco knew that the switch had happened because he's the one who did it. And we assume that Percival knew too, though we haven't had direct confirmation of that yet. And probably Madame Fosco knows as well. But everyone else was just doing what they thought was right. Which is part of what makes this crime so dastardly. Because the death certificate is real. It just records the death of the wrong person. The asylum owner is acting in good faith. The servants were all acting in good faith. The only people who might be able to prove that Laura is really Laura and not Anne are the people who committed the crime, and therefore the people that most want to keep it a secret. And I don't know about you, but I actually find this really horrifying. Right? The idea that no one believes that you are who you say you are. Ugh. Like that gives me the heebie jeebies, right? Everyone telling you that you're really Anne when you know you're Laura. People who are supposed to know you really well, like your uncle and the servants in the house. You grew up in saying that, no, you are not Laura. You are annoying. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. Right? And the only people who believe that Laura is really Laura are Marian, who is a woman with no real social standing and no power, and Walter, who also has no social standing. And power and isn't related to Laura in any way and therefore wouldn't be believed if he tried to say that he recognizes her. So essentially now it's Walter standing between Laura and the whole rest of the world, including Percival and Fosco, who actively want to see her silenced. Here is what Walter says. He says they would leave no stone unturned, no sacrifice unattempted, no treachery untried to discover the place in which their victim was concealed and to part her from the only friends she had in the world, Marian Halcombe and myself. Okay, so Marian and Walter, that's all that's standing between Laura and certain danger. Okay. But as Deli points out in her letter, Walter is a pretty good guy to have on your side in this situation. Dele uses the word integrity, and I completely agree. And this, I think, is part of his kind of new character as this sort of avenging angel. He's still human. He does still long for Laura to return to herself and recover her usual mental state and her strength and everything. But at this point, he's not thinking of marriage at all. And we really commend him for that, I think, because Laura is so diminished, right. She's like a child or an amnesiac or something. It would be wrong of him, I think, to be thinking about marriage at this point. So he's not thinking about that. He's only thinking of righting the wrong. That's his whole thing right now. He's fated to be Laura's protector. He believes that God has guided him back to her so that he can bring her justice and restore her identity. When the lawyer Mr. Curl implies that perhaps Walter is somehow in this for Laura's money, Walter is really offended. Right. But it's kind of a good question. I mean, Walter is in love with Laura. If Laura got her name and her fortune back and then was somehow free to marry and chose to marry Walter, then Walter would become a very rich man. But of course, Laura's money is actually all gone, so that's not Walter's goal here. And actually, as Deli points out, if Laura is reinstated as Laura Lady Glyde, then she would still be married to Ser Percival because Percival is still alive, so Walter couldn't marry her anyway. And, and I think this is important to just point out because we might not think of it necessarily as modern readers, but Laura is actually still even now married to Sir Percival. If Walter wanted to marry her, he would have to marry her as Anne Catherick. And that would work, since Everyone believes that she is Anne, and Anne wasn't married. But to Walter, marrying Laura under the name of Anne would mean that they weren't really married, right? He knows that she's not Anne, so the marriage wouldn't really be a true marriage. So even if he wanted to marry her, at this point, he couldn't do it. Neither version of the marriage would be legitimate because Laura as Laura is already married and Laura as Anne is not actually Anne. So Walter is behaving with a huge degree of integrity here. He only wants to get at the truth so that justice can be done and Laura can be herself again without fear. Here is what he says. Here's a she has been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born. A lie which records her death has been written on her mother's tomb. And there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are responsible for it. That house shall open again to receive her in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave. That lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family. And those two men shall answer for their crime. To me, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my life to that purpose, and alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will accomplish it. So there it is, right? He's this avenging angel again. But as Elizabeth points out in her letter, Fosco is onto them, sort of, right? He knows that Marian helped Laura escape from the asylum, but he doesn't know where they are. And he also doesn't know that Walter, Detective Walter, is on the case. And in fact, he says that if Marian teams up with Walter, then Fosco will be forced to act against them. And the love that he feels for Marian, which I really think is genuine, I think he genuinely loves her, he's genuinely attracted to her, he genuinely admires her, which I think is such a fantastic piece of his character, right? So the love that he feels for Marian compels him to let them live their poor little life in retirement in London, with everyone thinking Laura is Anne. But if they try to assert that Laura is Laura, and if they get Walter involved, then he will act against them, which is really bad, both because he's Fosco and having him as your enemy is bad, but also because they're now doing exactly what he told them not to do. Marian has teamed up with Walter and they're going to try to assert Laura's identity. So Vosko's out there and eventually he'll be actively working against them. And I love. Okay, just like a side note for a second, I love this matchup of Fosco and Marian, don't you? I love how she hates him so much because he loves her, right? It's fantastic. Vosco is genuinely evil and he's genuinely enamored of Marian. And the very thing he loves about her, her feistiness and her intelligence and her courage, is exactly the thing that makes her hate him with every fiber of her being. It's fantastic. So we've got our big bad, right? Fosco, he's out there somewhere waiting for them to make a false move. And we've got Sir Percival, who is essentially, I guess, like our little dad, if you will. He is the more accessible one, more easy to get at than Fosco. And he's back in London, so he's a danger to us as well. And we've got Walter going into full detective mode and relying on Marian to keep Laura safe at home and to help him with the case as he goes along. And they've got a couple leads, right? The first is that they are pretty sure that the date on which Anne died doesn't actually line up with the date on which Laura came to London. They think that Laura was actually still at Blackwater park when Anne died in London, but they can't prove it because no one remembers the date except for Fosco and Percival, who aren't going to tell them. Right? But that's one lead. If they can prove that Laura wasn't in London at all on the day that she supposedly died there, then they've got a case. And the other lead is that they know that Sir Percival has this secret, a secret so shameful that he's willing to lock people up and potentially even kill to keep it from coming out. So if they can find out what that secret is, then they might be able to use it to get Sir Percival to confess that Laura is really Laura rather than letting the secret be known. Right? So that's where they're going to start. And Walter is not just a detective in this situation, not just an avenging angel, but he's also at least willing to be a vigilante. Right? Here's what he. There are two men who can help me and shall help me in London. Sir Percival and the Count. Innocent people may well forget the date, but they are guilty and they know it. If I fail everywhere else, I mean, to force a confession out of one or both of them on my own terms. Okay, so he's going to do whatever it takes, essentially, and he's going to start by trying to figure out what the secret is, which is something I know that we have all been wondering about as well for quite a while now. So hopefully he will find out soon and we will get to know it too. But that's where he, and by proxy we are going to start what is Sir Percival's secret? So hopefully we can learn a bit more. Don't forget to write to me faithkmoore.com and click on Contact. And don't forget to scroll into the show notes and take a look at all of those great links. All right, let's get started with Heartbright's narrative Chapters five and six of the Woman in White by Wilkie COLLINS it's story time. 5 the story of my first inquiries in Hampshire is soon told. My early departure from London enabled me to reach Mr. Dawson's house in the forenoon. So remember, Mr. Dawson is the doctor who attended Marion during her illness, and who fought with Count Fosco about her career. Our interview, so far as the object of my visit was concerned, led to no satisfactory result. Mr. Dawson's book certainly shewed when he had resumed his attendance on Ms. Halcombe at Blackwater park, but it was not possible to calculate back from this date with any exactness without such help from Mrs. Mickelson as I knew she was unable to afford. She could not say from memory, who in similar cases ever can, how many days had elapsed between the renewal of the doctor's attendance on his patient and the previous departure of Lady Glyde. She was almost certain of having mentioned the circumstance of the departure to Ms. Halcombe on the day after it happened. But then she was no more able to fix the date of the day on which this disclosure took place than to fix the date of the day before when Lady Glyde had left for London. Neither could she calculate with any nearer approach to exactness the time that had passed from the departure of her mistress to the period when the undated letter from Madame Fosco arrived. Lastly, as if to complete the series of difficulties, the doctor himself, having been ill at the time, had omitted to make his usual entry of the day of the week and month when the gardener from Blackwater park had called on him to deliver Mrs. Mickelson's message, hopeless of obtaining assistance from Mr. Dawson, I resolved to try next, if I could establish the date of Sir Percival's arrival at Knowlesbury. It seemed like a fatality When I reached Knowlesbury, the inn was shut up and bills were posted on the walls. The speculation had been a bad one, as I was informed, ever since the time of the railway. The new hotel at the station had gradually absorbed the business, and the old inn, which we knew to be the inn at which Sir Percival had put up, had been closed about two months since. The proprietor had left the town with all his goods and chattels, and where he had gone I could not positively ascertain from any one. The four people of whom I inquired gave me four different accounts of his plans and projects. When he left Knowlesbury. There were still some hours to spare before the last train left for London, and I drove back again in a fly from the Knowlesbury station to Blackwater park, with the purpose of questioning the gardener and the person who kept the lodge. If they too proved unable to assist me, my resources for the present were at an end, and I might return to town. I dismissed the fly a mile from the park and, getting my directions from the driver, proceeded by myself to the house. As I turned into the lane from the high road, I saw a man with a carpet bag walking before me rapidly on the way to the lodge. He was a little man, dressed in shabby black and wearing a remarkably large hat. I set him down as well as it was possible to judge for a lawyer's clerk, and stopped at once to widen the distance between us. He had not heard me, and he walked on out of sight without looking back. When I passed through the gates myself a little while afterwards, he was not visible. He had evidently gone on to the house. There were two women in the lodge. One of them was old. The other I knew at once by Marian's description of her to be Margaret Porcher. I asked first if Sir Percival was at the park, and, receiving a reply in the negative, inquired next when he had left it. Neither of the women could tell me more than that he had gone away in the summer. I could extract nothing from Margaret Porcher but vacant smiles and shakings of the head. The old woman was a little more intelligent, and I managed to lead her into speaking of the manner of Sir Percival's departure and of the alarm that had caused her. She remembered her master calling her out of bed, and remembered his frightening her by swearing, but the date at which the occurrence happened was, as she honestly acknowledged, quite beyond her. On leaving the lodge I saw the gardener at work, not far off. When I first addressed him, he looked at me rather distrustfully, but on my using Mrs. Mickelson's name with a civil reference to himself. He entered into conversation readily enough. There is no need to describe what passed between us. It ended as all my other attempts to discover the date had ended. The gardener knew that his master had driven away at night sometime in July, the last fortnight or the last 10 days in the month and knew no more. While we were speaking together I saw the man in black with the large hat come out from the house and stand at some distance observing us. Certain suspicions of his errand at Blackwater park had already crossed my mind. They were now increased by the gardener's inability or unwillingness to tell me who the man was and I determined to clear the way before me if possible by speaking to him. The plainest question I could put as a stranger would be to inquire if the house was allowed to be shown to visitors so some country houses could be toured by the public. So he's pretending that he wants to know if this one can. I walked up to the man at once and accosted him in those words his look and manner unmistakably betrayed that he knew who I was and that he wanted to irritate me into quarreling with him. His reply was insolent enough to have answered the purpose if I had been less determined to control myself. Meaning if Walter wasn't on his guard he would have quarreled with this man because he's being intentionally rude. As it was, I met him with the most resolute politeness, apologized for my involuntary intrusion which he called a trespass and left the grounds. It was exactly as I suspected. The recognition of me when I left Mr. Curll's office had been evidently communicated to Sir Percival Glyde and the man in black had been sent to the park in anticipation of my making inquiries at the house or in the neighbourhood. If I had given him the least chance of lodging any sort of legal complaint against me the interference of the local magistrate would no doubt have turned to account as a clog in my proceedings and a means of separating me from Marian and Laura for some days at least. So this man is here to inform Sir Percival if Walter shows up at Blackwater park and he's supposed to try to get Walter to do something that would allow him to call the police and get him arrested. It I was prepared to be watched on the way back from Blackwater park to the station exactly as I had been watched in London the day before. But I could not discover at the time whether I was really followed. On this occasion or not the man in Black might have had means of tracking me at his disposal, of which I was not aware, but I certainly saw nothing of him in his own person, either on the way to the station or afterwards. On my arrival at the London terminus in the evening, I reached home on foot, taking the precaution before I approached our own door of walking round by the loneliest street in the neighborhood and there stopping and looking back more than once over the open space behind me. I had first learnt to use this stratagem against suspected treachery in the wilds of Central America. And now I was practicing it again with the same purpose and with even greater caution in the heart of civilized London. Nothing had happened to alarm Marian during my absence. She asked eagerly what success I had met with. When I told her, she could not conceal her surprise at the indifference with which I spoke of the failure of my investigations. Thus far. The truth was that the ill success of my inquiries had in no sense daunted me. I had pursued them as a matter of duty and I had expected nothing from them them. In the state of my mind at that time, it was almost a relief to me to know that the struggle was now narrowed to a trial of strength between myself and Sir Percival Glyde. The vindictive motive had mingled itself all along with my other and better motives. And I confess it was a satisfaction to me to feel that the surest way, the only way left of serving Laura's cause was to fasten my hold firmly on the villain who had married her. While I acknowledge that I was not strong enough to keep my motives above the reach of this instinct of revenge, I can honestly say something in my own favour. On the other side, no base speculation on the future relations of Laura and myself and on the private and personal concessions which I might force from Sir Percival if I once had him at my mercy, ever entered my mind. I never said to myself, if I do succeed, it shall be one result of my success that I put it out of her husband's power to take her from me again. I could not look at her and think of the future with such thoughts as those the sad sight of the change in her from her former self made the one interest of my love an interest of tenderness and compassion, which her father or her brother might have felt and which I felt, God knows, in my inmost heart. So he's saying he doesn't at this point think of marrying Laura himself or becoming romantically involved with her because her current state makes her more like a child than a woman. All my hopes Looked no farther on now than to the day of her recovery. There till she was strong again and happy again. There till she could look at me as she had once looked and speak to me as she had once looked spoken the future of my happiest thoughts and my dearest wishes ended. These words are written under no prompting of idle self contemplation. Passages in this narrative are soon to come which will set the minds of others in judgment on my conduct. It is right that the best and the worst of me should be fairly balanced before that time. On the morning after my return from Hampshire, I took Marian upstairs into my working room and there laid before her the plan that I had matured thus far for mastering the one assailable point in the life of Sir Percival Glyde. The way to the secret lay through the mystery hitherto impenetrable to all of us of the woman in white. The approach to that in its turn might be gained by obtaining the assistance of Anne Catherick's mother and the only ascertainable means of prevailing on Mrs. Catherick. To act or to speak in the matter depended on the chance of my discovering local particulars and family particulars, first of all from Mrs. Clements. After thinking the subject over carefully, I felt certain that I could only begin the new inquiries by placing myself in communication with the faithful friend and protectress of Anne Catherick. The first difficulty then was to find Mrs. Clements. So their only hope now is to find out Sir Percival's secret, the one that Anne knew, and use it against him. Him? The only person who could help with that is Anne's mother, Mrs. Catherick. And the only way to ingratiate themselves with her is maybe through Mrs. Clements. So they have to find Mrs. Clements. I was indebted to Marian's quick perception for meeting this necessity at once by the best and simplest means. She proposed to write to the farm near Limmeridge, Todd's Corner, to inquire whether Mrs. Clements had communicated with Mrs. Todd during the past few months. Months. How Mrs. Clements had been separated from Anne it was impossible for us to say. But that separation, once effected, it would certainly occur to Mrs. Clements to inquire after the missing woman in the neighborhood of all others to which she was known to be most attached. The neighborhood of Limmeridge. I saw directly that Marian's proposal offered us a prospect of success and she wrote to Mrs. Todd accordingly by that day's post. Host. While we were waiting for the reply, I made myself master of all the information Marian could afford on the subject of Sir Percival's family and of his early life. She could only speak on these topics from hearsay. But she was reasonably certain of the truth of what little she had to tell. Sir Percival was an only child. His father, Sir Felix Glyde, had suffered from his birth under a painful and incurable deformity and had shunned all society from his earliest years. His sole happiness was in the enjoyment of music and he had married a lady with tastes similar to his own, who was said to be a most accomplished musician. He inherited the Blackwater property while still a young man. Neither he nor his wife, after taking possession, made advances of any sort towards the society of the neighborhood. And no one endeavored to tempt them into abandoning their reserves with the one disastrous exception of the Rector of the parish. The rector was the worst of all. Innocent mischief makers and overzealous man. He had heard that Sir Felix had left college with the character of being little better than a revolutionist in politics and an infidel in religion. And he arrived conscientiously at the conclusion that it was his bounden duty to summon the Lord of the manor to hear sound views enunciated in the parish parish church. Sir Felix fiercely resented the clergyman's well meant but ill directed interference, insulting him so grossly and so publicly that the families in the neighbourhood sent letters of indignant remonstrance to the park. And even the tenants of the Blackwater property expressed their opinion as strongly as they dared. The Baronet, who had no country tastes of any kind and no attachment to the estate or to anyone living on it, declared that society at Blackwater should never have a second chance of annoying him and left the place from that moment. After a short residence in London, he and his wife departed for the continent and never returned to England again. They lived part of the time in France and part in Germany, always keeping themselves in the strict retirement which the morbid sense of his own personal deformity had made a necessity to Sir Feeling Felix. So Sir Percival's father Felix had some sort of deformity that made him a recluse. And he was also an eccentric. He was married, but he and his wife kept apart from society. And when the clergyman tried to get them to come to church, they responded so rudely that everyone was shocked and they left the country. Their son Percival had been born abroad and had been educated there by private tutors. His mother was the first of his parents whom he lost. His father had died a few years after her either in 1825 or 1826. Sir Percival had been in England as a young man once or twice before that period, but his acquaintance with the late Mr. Fairlie did not begin till after the time of his father's death. They soon became very intimate, although Sir Percival was seldom or never at Limmeridge House in those days. Mr. Frederick Fairlie might have met him once or twice in Mr. Philip Fairlie's company, but he could have known little of him at that or at any other time. Sir Percival's only intimate friend in the Fairlie family had been Laura's father. So Sir Percival grew up abroad, came back to England as a young man and made friends with Laura's father, Mr. Fairlie. These were all the particulars that I could gain from Marian. They suggested nothing which was useful to my present purpose, but I noted them down carefully in the event of their proving to be of importance at any future period. It Mrs. Todd's reply, addressed by our own wish to a post office at some distance from us, had arrived at its destination when I went to apply for it. The chances which had been all against us hitherto turned from this moment in our favour. Mrs. Todd's letter contained the first item of information of which we were in search. Mrs. Clements, it appeared, had, as we had conjectured, written to Todd's Corner, asking pardon in the first place for the abrupt manner in which she and Ann at the farmhouse on the morning after I had met the woman in white in Limmeridge churchyard, and then informing Mrs. Tod of Anne's disappearance and entreating that she would cause inquiries to be made in the neighborhood on the chance that the lost woman might have strayed back to Limmeridge. In making this request, Mrs. Clements had been careful to add to it the address at which she might always be heard of, and that address Mrs. Tod now transmitted to Marion. It was in London and within half an hour's walk of our own lodging. In the words of the Proverb, I was resolved not to let the grass grow under my feet. The next morning I set forth to seek an interview with Mrs. Clements. This was my first step forward in the investigation. The story of the desperate attempt to which I now stood committed begins here. 6. The address communicated by Mrs. Todd took me to a lodging house situated in a respectable street near the Gray's Inn Road. When I knocked, the door was opened by Mrs. Clements herself. She did not appear to remember me and asked what my business was. I recalled to her our meeting in Limmeridge churchyard at the close of my interview There with the woman in white, taking special care to remind her that I was the person who assisted Anne Catherick, public as Anne had herself declared, to escape the pursuit from the asylum. This was my only claim to the confidence of Mrs. Clements. She remembered the circumstance the moment I spoke of it, and asked me into the parlour in the greatest anxiety to know if I had brought her any news of Anne. It was impossible for me to tell her the whole truth without at the same time entering into particulars on the subject of the conspiracy, which it would have been dangerous to confide to a stranger. I could only abstain most carefully from raising any false hopes, and then explain that the object of my visit was to discover the persons who were really responsible for Anne's disappearance. I even added, so as to exonerate myself from any after reproach of my own conscience, that I entertained not the least hope of being able to trace her, that I believed we should never see her alive again, and that my main interest in the affair was to bring to punishment two men whom I suspected to be concerned in luring her away, and at whose hands I and some dear friends of mine had suffered a grievous wrong. With this explanation, I left it to Mrs. Clements to say whether our interest in the matter, whatever difference there might be in the motives which actuated us, was not the same, and whether she felt any reluctance to forward my objects by giving me such information on the subject of my inquiries as she happened to possess. The poor woman was at first too much confused and agitated to understand thoroughly what I said to her. She could only reply that I was welcome to anything she could tell me in return for the kindness I had shown to Ann. But as she was not very quick and ready at the best of times in talking to strangers, she would beg me to put her in the right way and to say where I wished her to begin. Knowing by experience that the plainest narrative attainable from persons who are not accustomed to arrange their ideas is the narrative which goes far enough back at the beginning to avoid all impediments of retrospection in its course, I asked Mrs. Clements to tell me first what had happened after she had left Limmeridge. And so, by watchful questioning, carried her on from point to point till we reached the period of Anne's disappearance. Appearance. The substance of the information which I thus obtained was as on leaving the farm At Todd's Corner, Mrs. Clements and Anne had travelled that day as far as Derby, and had remained there a week on Anne's Account they had then gone on to London and had lived in the lodging occupied by Mrs. Clements at that time for a month or more, when circumstances connected with the house and the landlord had obliged them to change their their quarters. Anne's terror at being discovered in London or its neighborhood whenever they ventured to walk out had gradually communicated itself to Mrs. Clements and she had determined on removing to one of the most out of the way places in England, to the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire, where her deceased husband had passed all his early life. His relatives were respectable people settled in the town. They had always treated Mrs. Clements with great kindness and she thought it impossible to do better than go there and take the advice of her husband's friends. Anne would not hear of returning to her mother at Welmingham, because she had been removed to the asylum from that place and because Sir Percival would be certain to go back there and find her again. There was serious weight in this objection and Mrs. Clements felt that it was not to be easily removed. So Mrs. Clements can't take Anne to her mother, because her mother seems to have approved of Anne being locked up. And also, even if she didn't, Sir Percival would look for Anne there. There, at Grimsby, the first serious symptoms of illness had shown themselves in Anne. They appeared soon after the news of Lady Glyde's marriage had been made public in the newspapers and had reached her through that medium. The medical man who was sent for to attend the sick woman discovered at once that she was suffering from a serious affection of the heart, meaning Ann has some kind of heart disease. The illness lasted long, long, left her very weak, and returned at intervals, though with mitigated severity, again and again. They remained at Grimsby in consequence during the first half of the new year, and there they might probably have stayed much longer, but for the sudden resolution which Anne took at this time to venture back to Hampshire for the purpose of obtaining a private interview with Lady Glyde. Mrs. Clements did all in her power to oppose the execution of this hazardous and unaccountable project. No explanation of her motives was offered by Anne, except that she believed the day of her death was not far off, and that she had something on her mind which must be communicated to Lady Glyde at any risk, in secret. Her resolution to accomplish this purpose was so firmly settled that she declared her intention of going to Hampshire by herself. If Mrs. Clements felt any unwillingness to go with her, the doctor, on being consulted, was of opinion that serious opposition to her wishes would in all probability produce another and perhaps a fatal fit of illness. And Mrs. Clements, under this advice, yielded to necessity, and once more, with sad forebodings of trouble and danger to come, allowed Anne Catherick to have her own way. On the journey from London to Hampshire, Mrs. Clements discovered that one of their fellow passengers was well acquainted with the neighbourhood of Blackwater and could give her all the information she needed on the subject of localities. In this way, she found out that the only place they could go to which was not dangerously near to Sir Percival's residence was a large village called Sandon. The distance here from Blackwater park was between three and four miles, and that distance and back again Anne had walked on each occasion when she had appeared in the neighborhood of the lake. For the few days during which they were at Sandon without being discovered, they had lived a little away from the village, in the cottage of a decent widow woman who had a bedroom to let and whose discreet silence Mrs. Clements had done her best to secure. For the first week at least, she had also tried hard to induce Anne to be content with writing to Lady Glyde in the first instance. But the failure of the warning contained in the anonymous letter sent to Limmeridge had made Anne resolute to speak this time, and obstinate in the determination to go on her errand alone, Mrs. Clements nevertheless followed her privately on each occasion. When she went to the lake, without, however, venturing near enough to the boathouse to be witness of what took place there. When Ann returned for the last time from the dangerous neighborhood, the fatigue of walking day after day distances which were far too great for her strength, added to the exhausting effect of the agitation from which she had suffered, produced the result which Mrs. Clements had dreaded all along. The old pain over the heart and the other symptoms of the illness at Grimsby returned, and Anne was confined to her bed in the cottage. In this emergency, the first necessity, as Mrs. Clements knew by experience, was to endeavor to quiet Anne's anxiety of mind, mind. And for this purpose, the good woman went herself the next day to the lake to try, if she could find Lady Glyde, who would be sure, as Anne said, to take her daily walk to the boathouse and prevail on her to come back privately to the cottage near Sandon. On reaching the outskirts of the plantation, Mrs. Clements encountered not Lady Glyde, but a tall, stout, elderly gentleman with a book in his hand. In other words, Count Fosco. The count, after looking at her very attentively for a moment, asked if she expected to see anyone in that place and added before she could reply that he was waiting there with a message from Lady Glyde, but that he was not quite certain whether the person then before him answered the description of the person with whom he was desired to communicate. Upon this Mrs. Clements at once confirmed her errand to him him and entreated that he would help to allay Anne's anxiety by trusting his message to her. The count most readily and kindly complied with her request. The message, he said, was a very important one. Lady Glyde entreated Anne and her good friend to return immediately to London, as she felt certain that Sir Percival would discover them if they remained any longer in the neighborhood of Blackwater. She was herself going to London in a short time time, and if Mrs. Clements and Anne would go there first and would let her know what their address was, they should hear from her and see her in a fortnight or less. The count added that he had already attempted to give a friendly warning to Anne herself, but that she had been too much startled by seeing that he was a stranger to let him approach and speak to her. To this Mrs. Clements replied in the greatest alarm and distress that she asked nothing better than to take Anne safely to London. London. But that there was no present hope of removing her from the dangerous neighbourhood. As she lay ill in her bed at that moment, the count inquired if Mrs. Clements had sent for medical advice, and hearing that she had hitherto hesitated to do so from the fear of making their position publicly known in the village, informed her that he was himself a medical man and that he would go back with her if she pleased, and see what could be done for Anne. Mrs. Clemens. Clyde, feeling a natural confidence in the count as a person trusted with a secret message from Lady Glyde, gratefully accepted the offer and they went back together to the cottage. Anne was asleep when they got there. The count started at the sight of her, evidently from astonishment at her resemblance to Lady Glyde. Poor Mrs. Clements supposed that he was only shocked to see how ill she was. He would not allow her to be awakened. He was contented with putting questions to Mrs. Clements about her symptoms, with looking at her and with lightly touching her pulse. Sandon was a large enough place to have a grocer's and druggist shop in it and thither. The count went to write his prescription and to get the medicine made up. He brought it back himself and told Mrs. Clements that the medicine was a powerful stimulant and that it would certainly give Anne strength to get up and bear the fatigue of a journey to London of only a few hours. The remedy was to be administered at stated times on that day and on the day after. On the third day she would be well enough to travel, and he arranged to meet Mrs. Clements at the Blackwater station and to see them off by the midday train. If they did not appear, he would assume that Anne was worse and would proceed at once to the cottage. As events turned out, no such emergency as this occurred. This medicine had an extraordinary effect on Anne, and the good results of it were helped by the assurance Mrs. Clements could now give her that she would soon see Lady Glyde in London. At the appointed day and time, when they had not been quite so long as a week in Hampshire altogether, they arrived at the station. The count was waiting there for them, and was talking to an elderly lady who appeared to be going to travel by the train to London also. So he most kindly assisted them and put them into the carriage himself, begging Mrs. Clements not to forget to send her address to Lady Glyde. The elderly lady did not travel in the same compartment, and they did not notice what became of her. On reaching the London terminus, Mrs. Clements secured respectable lodgings in a quiet neighbourhood, and then wrote, as she had engaged to do, to inform Lady Glyde of the address. A little more than a fortnight passed and no answer came. At the end of that time, a lady, the same elderly lady whom they had seen at the station, called in a cab and said that she came from Lady Glyde, who was then at a hotel in London, and who wished to see Mrs. Clements for the purpose of arranging a future interview with Anne. Mrs. Clements expressed her willingness, Anne being present at the time and entreating her to do so, to forward the object in view, especially as she was not required to be away from the house for more than half an hour at the most. She and the elderly lady, clearly Madame Fosco, then left in the cab. The lady stopped the cab after it had driven some distance at a shop before they got to the hotel, and begged Mrs. Clements to wait for her for a few minutes while she made a purchase that had been forgotten. She never appeared again. After waiting some time, Mrs. Clements became alarmed and ordered the cabin to drive back to her lodgings. When she got there, after an absence of rather more than half an hour, Anne was gone. The only information to be obtained from the people of the house was derived from the servant who waited on the lodgers. She had opened the door to a boy from the street who had left a letter for the young woman. Who lived on the second floor door, the part of the house which Mrs. Clements occupied. The servant had delivered the letter, had then gone downstairs, and five minutes afterwards had observed Anne open the front door and go out dressed in her bonnet and shawl. She had probably taken the letter with her, for it was not to be found, and it was therefore impossible to tell what inducement had been offered to make her leave the house. It must have been a strong one, for she would never stir out alone in London of her own Accord. If Mrs. Clements had not known this by experience, nothing would have induced her to go away in the cab, even for so short a time as half an hour only, meaning Mrs. Clements thought she could leave Anne alone because Ann was so scared of being out in London by herself that Mrs. Clements assumed she wouldn't go anywhere while she was gone. As soon as she could collect her thoughts, the first idea that naturally occurred to Mrs. Clements was to go and make inquiries at the asylum, to which she dreaded that Anne had been taken back. She went there the next day, having been informed of the locality in which the house was situated by Anne herself. The answer she received, her application having in all probability been made a day or two before the false Anne Catherick had really been consigned to safekeeping in the asylum, was that no such person had been brought back there. She had then written to Mrs. Catherick at welmingham him to know if she had seen or heard anything of her daughter and had received an answer in the negative after that reply had reached her. She was at an end of her resources and perfectly ignorant where else to inquire or what else to do. From that time to this, she had remained in total ignorance of the cause of Anne's disappearance and of the end of Anne's story. 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. 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