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. Hello. Welcome back. I'm so happy to be here with you. Thank you so much for all of your emails. I've been getting so many emails from you in the time since the last episode aired and I love it. I love getting your emails. And there has been a theme this time. Actually, the theme has been men writing in to say, I'm sure I'm your only male listener, but I'm really enjoying this show. So first of all, thank you for those. Thank you for telling me that you're enjoying the show. I'm so glad you are. And so I just want to take a moment to say welcome to all my male listeners. There are many of you. You are not alone. This is not a women's only club. There are men here. There are also children. A lot of stay at home moms are listening with their very young children, which is wonderful. I love it when you guys write into me to tell me that someone just said there's a three and a half year old listening. A couple of seasons ago we had a two year old. We have a bunch of little tiny kids listening along with us, which is fantastic. And we also have young adults who listen in the car, in the carpool, on the way home from school and on their way to various practices. So this is an all inclusive book experience for everyone. And whoever you are, whatever your situation, however you listen, whether you're in your cozy chair or in your car or taking a walk or at work, whatever you're doing, wherever you are, whoever you are, welcome. This show is for you and I am so glad that you're here with us today. 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Okay, so last time we read Hartright's narrative chapters four through five. And today we're going to read Hartright's narrative chapters six through seven. And just as a reminder, I'm putting the following episodes chapters. So what we'll be reading next time in the show notes, if you're someone who likes to read along. Okay, so let's first do a recap of what we read last time. And then I have two related questions and comments that I'm going to share with you. We'll talk for a little bit and then we'll get into our chapters. Here's the recap. All right, so where we left off, as Walter is walking home late at night because he just said goodbye to his mother and sister. Because he's going off for four months to teach drawing at this house in the country, he encounters a very strange woman. She's dressed all in white, and she wants him to help her find her way to London. She seems very nervous and she asks him not to ask her where she's going or what brings her out so late at night. All she wants is to find a cab to take her to a friend who she says will receive her. She also tells him that she is afraid of a man who holds the rank of baronet, but she won't say anything more about him. And she also seems to have some connection to the place that Walter is going. Limridge House. And a woman there named Mrs. Fairley, who was kind to her when she was at school, but apparently isn't there anymore and is dead. Walter isn't sure what the right thing to do is, but he does help her get to London, and he does put her into a cab. She won't let him come with her. And so she rides off into the night. But soon after that, another carriage shows up and two men inside ask a policeman whether he has seen a woman in white because she has escaped from their lunatic asylum. So now Walter doesn't know if he helped a crazy person escape a place that she really ought to be, or if he helped a sane person escape some kind of wrongful imprisonment because she didn't seem insane to him, although she did seem very strange. But there's kind of nothing he can do about it now. So the next morning, he just starts his journey to Limmeridge House. And because of some sort of problem with the train, he arrives very late. And he doesn't really know what sort of place he's come to. And that's where we left him, going to bed in Lynbridge House. But without having met anyone that lives there and knowing at all what it's like or what it looks like. All right, so our first question comes to us from Sarah. Sarah writes, I now have to buy this book and read ahead. I'm not sure if it's because I was already familiar with the other works you've previously covered and so could enjoy your readings without too much impatience. Or if it's the suspenseful nature of the Woman in White. Either way, Monday is much too far off to sit in limbo. And the other comes from Maria. She writes, the man in the chaise said she escaped from my asylum. Was he speaking literally, or is he just in charge of the asylum today? People don't own and operate asylums on their own, although they might own and operate group homes or adult family homes. Is the word my significant? And if so, could that be somewhat sinister? Okay, so I absolutely love the part of the book that we read last time. That moment with Walter all alone on this moonlit road, already feeling sort of apprehensive about his future. And then suddenly a hand is laid on his shoulder. Like, can you imagine that? Like, what would you do? I would probably like, scream and throw something at his head, like instinctually or something. But this hand is laid on his shoulder and he turns around and it's a woman, right? Dressed all in white, like a ghost or something. And there is this kind of air of the otherworldly, the supernatural or the eerie or something about the whole encounter. And the woman is very strange, right? And the whole interaction is very weird. And then after it's all over, these guys show up in a carriage asking if anyone saw a woman in white because she's escaped from a lunatic asylum. And that sort of lays this additional layer of strangeness and not quite rightness onto the whole situation. Because Walter had thought that the lady was strange, but was she actually insane? Had he been walking through the empty moonlit streets alone with a lunatic? I mean, what the heck is going on here, Right? So I included Sarah's comment because, yeah, by the end of those scenes, I think you are meant to feel like, what is going to happen next, I have got to know. And part of that is those sensation elements that we were talking about last time. I mean, when the guy in the carriage is like, she escaped from my asylum. I always feel you can almost hear, like, dun, dun, dun, right afterward, you know, like there is a sort of melodrama to it, a sort of larger than life quality to the events that is the mark of a sensation novel. But it's also really masterful, I think, because we've been in this really very strange and spooky situation for a while now. And it's been telegraphed to us that it is spooky and even that there might be a touch of the supernatural to it. Right? It begins with Walter saying, here's a quote. Every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me. Right? That could be a line from a ghost story or something. So it begins that way. And it gets Walter's blood going, but it gets our blood going too. It's a little like a jump SC scare or something. But it's more nuanced and more stealthy than that, right? The touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder. Right. It's not something jumping out and screaming boo or anything, but it is a totally unexpected and pretty spooky event. So we are told very clearly that now we are in spooky territory. And we also know right away that this situation is significant to the story in some way, because the book is called the Woman in White. And here she is, right, the Woman in White. So this moonlit meeting is spooky and weird and otherworldly and also incredibly important for reasons that aren't yet clear to us. So immediately the situation is heightened and Walter is on high alert. And we are too, because the character that the book is named after has appeared. And it's important to remember that at the time it would have been very odd for a young woman to be out alone at this time of night. And Walter even wonders for a minute if she has some kind of nefarious purpose. The implication, I think, is like, is she a prostitute of some kind or some other sort of unsavory character? But Walter becomes convinced pretty quickly that she's not, that she's a respectable person, which then kind of deepens the mystery, right, what is a respectable person doing out so late at night? And there are a lot of really odd details about this woman as well. One is that she has some connection with the place where Walter has taken a job and where he'll be going the next. Right, this place in Cumberland called Limmeridge House. And in fact, the woman in white seems to have very fond feelings about someone named Mrs. Fairley, who she says is now dead, but who was kind to her in her past. So Walter's employer is a Mr. Fairley. The woman in white says that Mr. Fairley is also dead. So possibly the current owner of the house is some relative of the family that the woman in white knew whenever she was there, like a cousin or brother or something like that. We don't know. But it's odd that this strange woman knows, loves the exact place and someone from the family where Walter is going. So that is spooky and odd. And she also seems to have some strange problem with a baronet. So a baronet is like a title in the British aristocracy, a peer of the realm, essentially a very upper class person with lots of power higher up socially even than someone in the landed gentry. And there is one who she is very frightened of and can't even seem to say the name of. And she's glad that Walter isn't a landed or a titled, because she feels that he's not likely to come into contact with this baronet person, so he's safer for her than someone who might. So that's kind of strange, too. And then of Course, there's the fact that she won't tell Walter anything about herself and that she says she has met with an accident and just really wants to get in a cab and go to her friend's house. And of course, we learn that in reality, she's on the run, right? She's escaped from a lunatic asylum. So at the end of this whole sequence, that's very strange and very spooky and very otherworldly, we think it's all over, right? We think she's gone off in this cab. She's gone and then suddenly it's like what this other element gets thrown in. She's escaped from my asylum. It's masterful. Which brings me to Maria's question about what it means for someone to have an asylum. Who is this person who is talking about his asylum and is he sinister? So I think there is a sort of sinister edge here, but not really, because the man is implying that he owns or runs an asylum. At the time, there were public lunatic asylums and private ones. I'm not going to go into this too much right now. It's a huge topic about how insanity was handled in Victorian England, because the attitudes around insanity were changing and shifting during the Victorian period. So there's a lot going on and we don't really need to know it so much right now for our purposes at this particular point in the story. But the public asylums were basically these large institutions where not much was done. There was a lot of kind of restraining people. It felt very much like being locked away, a prison. It was kind of a horrible place to go. Even though, in theory these places were trying to support the insane, it was thought of as sort of a more humane way to handle the situation of insanity. But in reality, they were kind of squalid places where people were just kind of chained up and locked away. And the private ones were much more humane. Private doctors would run a private institution where they would try to treat. Try to care for people with mental illness. But of course, the public ones were free and the private ones had to be paid for. But the point is, there were private asylums. So the man saying that she escaped from his asylum doesn't really mean that he's some sort of weirdo who keeps a bunch of crazy people in his house or something. He just means that he runs the asylum either because he owns it or because he's the superintendent of one of the public ones. But insanity is something that crops up quite a lot in the Victorian novel generally, but even more so in the sensation novel or even the gothic novel, which we talked about when we talked about Jane Eyre. So this idea of insanity held sort of two ideas within it, broadly. One was the idea of madness and what it means to be mad, Whether you're a person who kind of has control of their faculties or not. And if you don't, what does that mean? And it is a little bit spooky. It's often associated in these novels with the supernatural. There's something kind of odd or eerie or otherworldly about insanity. So there's that piece to it. But there was also a kind of fascination at the time with people being locked up incorrectly. So, like sane people being locked up for some reason in an insane asylum because someone thought they were insane and then they can't get out. There was a kind of fascination, a sort of horrifying fascination with that idea. And that's the question in Walter's mind right now, right? Did he help someone escape from an asylum who'd been locked up incorrectly? Or did he set free into the world somebody who actually should probably have been locked away? Here's what he says. He says, what had I done? Assisted the victim of the most horrible of all false imprisonments to escape or cast loose on the wide world of London, an unfortunate creature whose actions. It was my duty and every man's duty mercifully to control, right? Did he just help a totally wronged person get out of a truly horrific situation? Or did he allow an insane person to run free who might cause harm to people because she's out of control? And Walter is pretty upset by this, right? By not knowing. And all of this tells us something about Walter as well. At the end of all of this, we know that Walter is the sort of person who helps strange women on the side of the road in the middle of the night. He's the sort of person who allows them to go on their way even when he learns that some sort of authority is after them. He's the sort of person who worries if he's done the right thing, right? If he's done enough to protect this woman, who worries that he hasn't done enough to protect her. He's a good man. This is what we're learning. He's a good man. He's the sort of man whose heart is in the right place. He's Walter Hartright. Hartright. So now we know that about Walter. He's a good man. He looks out for the weak and the innocent. He cares very deeply about doing the right thing. And finally we get another little bit of that yummy delicious foreshadowing, right? He says. I trace these lines self distrustfully with the shadows of after events darkening the very paper I write on. And still I say, what could I do? He's saying he felt he had to help her, that there was no other choice, even knowing what happened next, whatever that was, he feels that helping her was the only thing he could have done in that situation, which causes us to know that he is still a good person, still the kind of man who would help a woman in need. And it also causes us to ask, well, okay, what did happen? Right? So let's find out. Don't forget to write to me faithkmoore.com and click on Contact. Or just scroll down into the show notes and click on that link. I absolutely love your questions. I absolutely love to know what you're thinking as you're reading it. It makes me so happy to hear your reaction. So please don't forget to write in all right, let's get started with Heart Wright's narrative. Chapters six through seven of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins it's story time six When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind the sea opened before me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the distant coast of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of melting blue. The view was such a surprise and such a change to me after my weary London experience of brick and mortar landscape that I seemed to burst into a new life and a new set of thoughts the moment I looked at it. A confused sensation of having suddenly lost my familiarity with the past without acquiring any additional clearness of idea in reference to the present or future took possession of my mind. Circumstances that were but a few days old faded back in my memory as if they had happened months and months since Pesca's quaint announcement of the means by which she had procured me my present employment, the farewell evening I had passed with my mother and sister, even my mysterious adventure on the way home from Hampstead had all become like events which might have occurred at some former epoch of my existence. Although the woman in white was still in my mind, the image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint already. A little before 9 o'clock I descended to the ground floor of the house. The solemn man servant of the night before met me wandering among the passages and compassionately showed me the way to the breakfast room. My first glance round me as the man opened the door disclosed a well furnished breakfast table standing in the middle of a Long room with many windows in it. I looked from the table to the window farthest from me and saw a lady standing at it with her back turned towards me. The instant my eyes rested on her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her form and by the unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall, comely and well developed, yet not fat. Her head set on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness. Her waist, perfection in the eyes of a man, for it occupied its natural place. It filled out its natural circle. It was visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays. So stays are sort of similar to a corset. So this woman has a lovely natural waist and doesn't need a corset to shape her figure. She had not heard my entrance into the room and I allowed myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments before I moved one of the chairs near me as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window and I said to myself, the lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps and I said to myself, the lady is young. She approached nearer and I said to myself, with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express, the lady is ugly. Never was the old conventional maxim that nature cannot err more flatly contradicted. Never was the promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it. The lady's complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a mustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw. Prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes and thick, coal black hair growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression, bright, frank and intelligent, appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete. To see such a face as this set on shoulders that a sculptor would have longed to model, to be charmed by the modest graces of action through which the symmetrical limbs betrayed their beauty when they moved, and then to be almost repelled by the masculine form and masculine look of the features in which the perfectly shaped figure ended, was to feel a sensation oddly akin to the helpless discomfort familiar to us all in sleep, when we recognize, yet cannot reconcile, the anomalies and contradictions of a dream. Mr. Hartright, said the lady interrogatively, her dark face lighting up with a smile and softening and growing womanly the moment she began to speak. We resigned all hope of you last night and went to bed as usual. Accept my apologies for our apparent want of attention and allow me to introduce myself as one of your pupils. Shall we shake hands? I suppose we must come to it sooner or later. And why not sooner? So this woman is one of the young ladies that Walter has been hired to teach drawing to. These odd words of welcome were spoken in a clear ringing pleasant voice. The offered hand, rather large but beautifully formed, was given to me with the easy unaffected self reliance of a highly bred woman. We sat down together at the breakfast table in as cordial and customary a manner as if we had known each other for years and had met at Limmeridge House to talk over old times. By previous appointment. I hope you come here good humouredly determined to make the best of your position, continued the lady. You will have to begin this morning by putting up with no other company at breakfast than mine. My sister is in her own room nursing that essentially feminine malady, a slight headache. And her old governess, Mrs. Veyze is charitably attending on her with restorative tea. My uncle, Mr. Fairlie never joins us at any of our meals. He is an invalid and keeps bachelor state in his own apartments. There is nobody else in the house but me. Two young ladies have been staying here but they went away yesterday in despair. No wonder. All through their visit, in consequence of Mr. Fairlie's invalid condition, we produced no such convenience in the house as a flirtable, danceable, small talkable creature of the male sex. And the consequence was we did nothing but quarrel. Especially at dinner time. How can you expect four women to dine together alone every day and not quarrel? We are such fools we can't entertain each other at table. You see, I don't think much of my own sex. Mr. Hartright. Which will you have? Tea or coffee? No woman does think much of her own sex, although few of them confess it as freely as I do. Dear me, you look puzzled. Why? Are you wondering what you will have for breakfast? Or are you surprised at my careless way of talking? In the first case I advise you as a friend to have nothing to do with that cold ham at your elbow and to wait till the omelette comes in. In the second case I will give you some tea to compose your spirits and do all a woman can, which is very little by the by, to hold my tongue. She handed me my cup of tea, laughing gaily. Her light flow of talk and her lively familiarity of manner with a total stranger were accompanied by an unaffected naturalness and an easy inborn confidence in herself and her position, which would have secured her the respect of the most audacious man breathing. While it was impossible to be formal and reserved in her company, it was more than impossible to take the faintest vestige of a liberty with her, even in thought. I felt this instinctively, even while I caught the infection of her own bright gaiety of spirits, even while I did my best to answer her in her own frank, lively way. Yes, yes, she said, when I had suggested the only explanation I could offer to account for my perplexed looks. I understand you are such a perfect stranger in the house that you are puzzled by my familiar references to the worthy inhabitants. Natural enough I ought to have thought of it before. At any rate, I can set it right. Now. Suppose I begin with myself so as to get done with that part of the subject as soon as possible. My name is Marian Halcombe and I am as inaccurate as women usually are in calling Mr. Fairley my uncle, and Miss Fairlie my sister. My mother was twice married, the first time to Mr. Halcombe my father, the second time to Mr. Fairley, my half sister's father. Except that we are both orphans, we are in every respect as unlike each other as possible. My father was a poor man and Miss Fairlie's father was a rich man. I have got nothing and she has a fortune. I am dark and ugly and she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks me crabbed and odd with perfect justice, and everybody thinks her sweet tempered and charming, with more justice still. In short, she is an angel and I am. Try some of that marmalade, Mr. Hartright, and finish the sentence in the name of female propriety for yourself. So Walter's two pupils are Marian Halcombe, who he's talking to now, and Miss Fairley, who is Marian's half sister. They have the same mother. But Miss Fairlie's father was the brother of the Mr. Fairlie that hired Walter, and who is apparently an invalid. And Miss Fairlie is wealthy and Miss Halcombe is not. What am I to tell you about Mr. Fairlie? Upon my honour, I hardly know. He is sure to send for you after breakfast and you can study him for yourself. In the meantime. I may inform you, first, that he is the late Mr. Fairlie's younger brother, secondly, that he is a single man, and thirdly, that he is Miss Fairlie's Guardian. I won't live without her, and she can't live without me. And that is how I come to be at Lynridge House. So Miss Fairlie's uncle, Mr. Fairlie, is now her guardian. Marian and Miss Fairlie are inseparable. So Marian came with Miss Fairlie to live here at Limmeridge House. My sister and I are honestly fond of each other. Which you will say is perfectly unaccountable under the circumstances. And I quite agree with you. But so it is. You must please both of us, Mr. Hartright, or please neither of us. And what is still more trying. You will be thrown entirely upon our society. Mrs. Vesey is an excellent person. Who possesses all the cardinal virtues and counts for nothing. And Mr. Fairlie is too great an invalid to be a companion for anybody. I don't know what is the matter with him. And the doctors don't know what is the matter with him. And he doesn't know himself what is the matter with him. We all say it's on the nerves. And we none of us know what we mean when we say it. However, I advise you to humor his little peculiarities. When you see him today. Admire his collection of coins, prints and watercolor drawings. And you will win his heart. Upon my word, if you can be contented with a quiet country life. I don't see why you should not get on very well here. From breakfast to lunch. Mr. Fairley's drawings will occupy you. After lunch, Miss Fairley and I shoulder our sketchbooks and go out to misrepresent nature under your directions. Drawing is her favorite mind, not mine. Women can't draw. Their minds are too flighty and their eyes are too inattentive. No matter. My sister likes it so. I waste paint and spoil paper for her sake. As composedly as any woman in England. As for the evenings, I think we can help you through them. Miss Fairlie plays delightfully. Meaning Ms. Fairley is good at playing the piano. For my own poor part, I don't know one note of music from the other. But I can match you at chess, backgammon, Eckart. And with the inevitable female drawbacks. Even at billiards as well. What do you think of the program? Can you reconcile yourself to our quiet, regular life? Or do you mean to be restless and secretly thirst for change and adventure? In the humdrum atmosphere of Limmeridge House? She had run on thus far in her gracefully bantering way. With no other interruptions on my part. Than the unimportant replies which politeness required of me. The Turn of the expression, however, in her last question, or rather the one chance word adventure, lightly as it fell from her lips, recalled my thoughts to my meeting with the woman in white and urged me to discover the connection which the stranger's own reference to Mrs. Fairlie informed me must once have existed between the nameless fugitive from the asylum and the former mistress of Limmeridge House. Even if I were the most restless of mankind, I said, I should be in no danger of thirsting after adventures for some time to come. The very night before I arrived at this house, I met with an adventure. And the wonder and excitement of it, I can assure you. Miss Halcomb, will last me for the whole term of my stay in Cumberland, if not for a much longer period. You don't say so, Mr. Hartright. May I hear it? You have a claim to hear it. The chief person in the adventure was a total stranger to me and may perhaps be a total stranger to you. But she certainly mentioned the name of the late Mrs. Fairlie in terms of the sincerest gratitude and regard. Mentioned my mother's name. You interest me indescribably. Pray go on. I at once related the circumstances under which I had met the woman in white exactly as they had occurred. And I repeated what she had said to me about Mrs. Fairlie and Limmeridge House word for word. Miss Halcombe's bright, resolute eyes looked eagerly into mine from the beginning of the narrative to the end. Her face expressed vivid interest and astonishment, but nothing more. She was evidently as far from knowing of any clue to the mystery as I was myself. Are you quite sure of those words referring to my mother? She asked. Quite sure, I replied. Whoever she may be, the woman was once at a school in the village of Limmeridge, was treated with especial kindness by Mrs. Fairlie, and in grateful remembrance of that kindness feels an affectionate interest in all surviving members of the. She knew that Mrs. Fairlie and her husband were both dead and she spoke of Miss Fairlie as if they had known each other when they were children. You said, I think, that she denied belonging to this place. Yes, she told me she came from Hampshire. And you entirely failed to find out her name? Entirely. Very strange. I think you were quite justified, Mr. Hartright, in giving the poor creature her liberty. For she seems to have done nothing in your presence to show herself unfit to enjoy it. Meaning that Marian feels that Walter was right to let the woman in white go and not turn her in to the people from the asylum. But I wish you had been a Little more resolute about finding out her name. We must really clear up this mystery in some way. You had better not speak of it yet to Mr. Fairlie or to my sister. They are both of them, I am certain, quite as ignorant of who the woman is and of what her past history and connection with us can be, as I am myself. But they are also, in widely different ways, rather nervous and sensitive and you would only fidget one and alarm the other to no purpose. As for myself, I am all aflame with curiosity and I devote my whole energies to the business of discovery from this moment. When my mother came here after her second marriage, she certainly established the village school just as it exists at the present time. But the old teachers are all dead or gone elsewhere and no enlightenment is to be hoped for from that quarter. The only other alternative I can think of at this point we were interrupted by the entrance of the servant with a message from Mr. Fairlie, intimating that he would be glad to see me as soon as I had done breakfast. Wait in the hall, said Ms. Halcombe, answering the servant for me in her quick ready way. Mr. Hartright will come out directly, I was about to say, she went on, addressing me again, that my sister and I have a large collection of my mother's letters addressed to my father and to hers. In the absence of any other means of getting information, I will pass the morning in looking over my mother's correspondence with Mr. Fairlie. He was fond of London and was constantly away from his country home, and she was accustomed at such times to write and report to him how things went on at Limmeridge. Her letters are full of references to the school in which she took so strong an interesting and I think it more than likely that I may have discovered something when we meet again. The luncheon hour is two, Mr. Hartright. I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister by that time, and we will occupy the afternoon in driving around the neighborhood and showing you all our pet points of view. Till 2 o'clock, then. Farewell. So Marian is going to try to figure out who the woman in white might be by looking over her mother's old letters. She nodded to me with the lively grace, the delightful refinement of familiarity which characterized all that she did and all that she said, and disappeared by a door at the lower end of the room. As soon as she left me I turned my steps towards the hall and followed the servant on my way for the first time to the presence of Mr. Fairlie. 7 My conductor led me upstairs into A passage which took us back to the bedchamber in which I had slept during the past night, and opening the door next to it, begged me to look in. I have my master's orders to show you your own sitting room, sir, said the man, and to inquire if you approve of the situation and the light. I must have been hard to please indeed if I had not approved of the room and of everything about it. The bow window looked out on the same lovely view which I had admired in the morning from my bedroom. The furniture was the perfection of luxury and beauty. The table in the center was bright with gaily bound books, elegant conveniences for writing, and beautiful flowers. The second table near the window was covered with all the necessary materials for mounting watercolor drawings and had a little easel attached to it which I could expand or fold up at will. The walls were hung with gaily tinted chintz, and the floor was spread with Indian matting in maize color and red. It was the prettiest and most luxurious little sitting room I had ever seen, and I admired it with the warmest enthusiasm. The solemn servant was far too highly trained to betray the slightest satisfaction. He bowed with icy deference when my terms of eulogy were all exhausted, and silently opened the door for me to go out into the passage again. We turned a corner and entered a long second passage, ascended a short flight of stairs at the end, crossed a small circular upper hall, and stopped in front of a door covered with dark baize. Baize is a kind of felt material, like what you might see covering a pool table. The servant opened this door and led me on a few yards to a second, opened that also and disclosed two curtains of pale sea green silk hanging before us. Raised one of them noiselessly, softly uttered the words Mr. Hartright, and left me. I found myself in a large lofty room with a magnificent carved ceiling and with a carpet over the floor so thick and soft that it felt like piles of velvet under my feet. One side of the room was occupied by a long bookcase of some rare inlaid wood that was quite new to me. It was not more than six feet high, and the top was adorned with statuettes in marble ranged at regular distances one from the other. On the opposite side stood two antique cabinets, and between them and above them hung a picture of the Virgin and Child protected by glass and bearing Raphael's name on the gilt tablet at the bottom of the frame. On my right hand and on my left as I stood inside the door, were chiffonier and little stands In Buhl and Marquetterie, loaded with figures in Dresden, china with rare vases, ivory ornaments and toys and curiosities that sparkled at all points with gold, silver and precious stones, so the room is filled with very expensive artwork. At the lower end of the room, opposite to me, the windows were concealed and the sunlight was tempered by large blinds of the same pale sea green color as the curtains over the door. The light thus produced was deliciously soft, mysterious and subdued. It fell equally upon all the objects in the room. It helped to intensify the deep silence and the air of profound seclusion that possessed the place. And it surrounded with an appropriate halo of repose, the solitary figure of the master of the house, leaning back, listlessly composed in a large easy chair with a reading easel fastened on one of its arms and a little table on the other. If a man's personal appearance when he is out of his dressing room and when he has passed 40, can be accepted as a safe guide to his time of life, which is more than doubtful, Mr. Fairley's age, when I saw him, might have been reasonably computed at over 50 and under 60 years. His beardless face was thin, worn and transparently pale, but not wrinkled. His nose was high and hooked. His eyes were of a dim grayish blue, large, prominent and rather red round the rims of the eyelids. His hair was scanty soft to look at and of that light sandy color which is the last to disclose its own changes towards gray. He was dressed in a dark frock coat of some substance much thinner than cloth, and in waistcoat and trousers of spotless white. His feet were effeminately small and were clad in buff coloured silk stockings and little womanish bronze leather slippers. Two rings adorned his white, delicate hands, the value of which even my inexperienced observation detected to be all but priceless. Upon the whole, he had a frail, languidly, fretful, over refined look. Something singularly and unpleasantly delicate in its association with a man, and at the same time something which could by no possibility have looked natural and appropriate if it had been transferred. Transferred to the personal appearance of a woman. My Morning's experience of Ms. Halcombe had predisposed me to be pleased with everybody in the house. But my sympathies shut themselves up resolutely at the first sight of Mr. Fairlie. Meaning that Walter has taken an immediate dislike to Mr. Fairlie. On approaching nearer to him, I discovered that he was not so entirely without occupation as I had first supposed. Placed amid the other rare and beautiful objects on a large Round table. Near him was a dwarf cabinet in ebony and silver containing coins of all shapes and sizes, set out in little drawers lined with dark purple velvet. One of these drawers lay on the small table attached to his chair, and near it were some tiny jeweler's brushes, a wash leather stump and a little bottle of liquid, all waiting to be used in various ways for the removal of any accidental impurities which might be discovered on the coin veins. His frail white fingers were listlessly toying with something which looked to my uninstructed eyes like a dirty pewter metal with ragged edges, when I advanced within a respectful distance of his chair and stopped to make my bow. So glad to possess you at Limmerich, Mr. Hartright, he said in a querulous croaking voice which combined in anything but an agreeable manner, a discordantly high tone with a drowsily languid utterance. Pray sit down and don't trouble yourself to move the chair, please. In the wretched state of my nerves, movement of any kind is exquisitely painful to me. Have you seen your studio? Will it do? I have just come from seeing the room, Mr. Fairlie, and I assure you he stopped me in the middle of the sentence by closing his eyes and holding up one of his white hands imploringly. I paused in astonishment, and the croaking voice honoured me with this. Pray excuse me, but could you contrive to speak in a lower key? In the wretched state of my nerves, loud sound of any kind is indescribable torture to me. You will pardon an invalid. I only say to you what the lamentable soul state of my health obliges me to say to everybody. Yes, and you really like the room? I could wish for nothing prettier and nothing more comfortable, I answered, dropping my voice and beginning to discover already that Mr. Fairlie's selfish affectation and Mr. Fairlie's wretched nerves meant one and the same thing. So glad you will find your position here, Mr. Hartright, properly recognized. There is none of the horrid English barbarity of feeling about the social position of an artist in this house. So much of my early life has been passed abroad that I have quite cast my insular skin in that respect. I wish I could say the same for the gentry. Detestable word, but I suppose I must use it of the gentry in the neighbourhood. They are sad goths in art, Mr. Hartright. People, I do assure you, who would have opened their eyes in astonishment if they had seen Charles V pick up Titian's brush for him. So this is referring to an anecdote about the artist Titian and Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who apparently had a friendship. And Charles V once picked up Titian's brush when he dropped it, which is a sign of his respect for him. So Mr. Fairlie is saying that he doesn't see Walter or any artist as a servant but as an equal. Do you mind putting this tray of coins back in the cabinet and giving me the next one? To wit, in the wretched state of my nerves, exertion of any kind is unspeakably disagreeable to me. Yes, thank you. As a practical commentary on the liberal social theory which he had just favoured me by illustrating, Mr. Fairlie's cool request rather amused me. Meaning Mr. Fairley just said Walter was his equal and then he asked him to do a menial task that a servant might have done. I put back one drawer and gave him the other. With all possible politeness he began trifling with the new set of coins and the little brushes, immediately languidly looking at them and admiring them all the time he was speaking to me. A thousand thanks and a thousand excuses. Do you like coins? Yes. So glad we have another taste in common besides our taste for art. Now, about the pecuniary arrangements between us, do tell me, are they satisfactory? So the pecuniary arrangements. Are the financial arrangements most satisfactory, Mr. Fairley. So glad. And what next? Ah, I remember. Yes. In reference to the consideration which you are good enough to accept of giving me the benefit of your accomplishments in art. My steward will wait on you at the end of the first week to ascertain your wishes. And what next? Curious, is it not? I had a great deal more to say and I appear to have quite forgotten it. Do you mind touching the bell in that corner? Yes, thank you. I rang and a new servant noiselessly made his appearance. A foreigner with a set smile and perfectly brushed hair. A valet every inch of him. Lewis, said Mr. Fairlie dreamily, dusting the tips of his fingers with one of the tiny brushes for the coins. I made some entries in my tablets this morning. Find my tablets. A thousand pardons, Mr. Hartright. I'm afraid I bore you so. Tablets are essentially little notebooks. As he wearily closed his eyes again before I could answer, and as he did most assuredly bore me, I sat silent and looked up at the Madonna and Child by Raphael. In the meantime, the valet left the room and returned shortly with a little ivory book. Mr. Fairlie, after first relieving himself by A gentle sigh. Let the book drop open with one hand and held up the tiny brush with the other as a sign to the servant to wait for further orders. Yes, just so, said Mr. Fairlie, consulting the tablets. Lewis, take down that portfolio. He pointed as he spoke to several portfolios placed near the window on mahogany stands. No, not the one with the green back that contains my Rembrandt etchings, Mr. Hartright. Do you like etchings? Yes. So glad we have another taste in common. The portfolio with the red back. Louis, don't drop it. You have no idea of the tortures I should suffer, Mr. Hartright, if Lewis dropped that portfolio. Is it safe on the chair? Do you think it safe, Mr. Hartright? Yes. So glad. Will you oblige me by looking at the drawings if you really think they are quite safe? Lewis, go away. What an ass you are. Don't you see me holding the tablets? Do you suppose I want to hold them? Then why not relieve me of the tablets without being told? A thousand pardons, Mr. Hartright. Servants are such asses, are they not? Do tell me, what do you think of the drawings? They have come from a sale in a shocking state. I thought they smelt of horrid dealers and brokers fingers when I looked at them last. Can you undertake them? Although my nerves were not delicate enough to detect the odor of plebeian fingers which had offended Mr. Fairley's nostrils, my taste was sufficiently educated to enable me to appreciate the value of the drawings while I turned them over. They were for the most part really fine specimens of English watercolor art and they had deserved much better treatment at the hands of their former possessor than they appeared to have received. The drawings, I answered, require careful straining and mounting and in my opinion they are well worth. I beg Your pardon interposed, Mr. Fairley. Do you mind my closing my eyes while you speak? Even this light is too much for them. Yes, I was about to say that the drawings are well worth all the time and trouble. Mr. Fairlie suddenly opened his eyes again and rolled them with an expression of helpless alarm in the direction of the window. I entreat you to excuse me, Mr. Hartright, he said in a feeble flutter. But surely I hear some horrid children in the gardenmy private garden below. I can't say, Mr. Fairlie, I heard nothing myself. Oblige me. You have been so very good in humouring my poor nerves. Oblige me by lifting up a corner of the blind. Don't let the sun shine in on me, Mr. Hartright, have you got the blind up? Yes. Then will you be so very kind as to look into the garden and make quite sure I complied with this new request? The garden was carefully walled in all round. Not a human creature, large or small, appeared in any part of the sacred seclusion. I reported that gratifying fact to Mr. Fairlie. A thousand thanks, my fancy, I suppose. There are no children, thank heaven, in the house, but the servants, persons born without nerves, will encourage the children from the village. Such brats. Oh dear me, such brats. Shall I confess it, Mr. Hartright? I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise. Surely our delightful Raffaello's conception is infinitely preferable. He pointed to the picture of the Madonna, the upper part of which represented the conventional cherubs of Italian art, celestially provided with sitting accommodation for their chins on balloons of buff coloured cloud. Quite a model family, said Mr. Fairlie, leering at the cherubs. Such nice round faces and such nice soft wings and nothing else. No dirty little legs to run about on and no noisy little lungs to scream with. How immeasurably superior to the existing construction. I will close my eyes again if you will allow me. And you really can manage the drawings. So glad. Is there anything else to settle? If there is, I think I have forgotten it. Shall we ring for Lewis again? Being by this time quite anxious on my side, as Mr. Fairlie evidently was on his to bring the interview to a speedy conclusion, I thought I would try to render the summoning of the servant unnecessary by offering the requisite suggestion on my own responsibility. The only point, Mr. Fairlie, that remains to be discussed, I said. Refers, I think, to the instruction in sketching which I am engaged to communicate to the two young ladies. Ah, just so, said Mr. Fairlie. I wish I felt strong enough to go into that part of the arrangement, but I don't. The ladies who profit by your kind services, Mr. Hartright, must settle and decide and so on for themselves. My niece is fond of your charming art. She knows just enough about it to be conscious of her own sad defects. Please take pains with her. Yes. Is there anything else? No. We quite understand each other, don't we? I have no right to detain you any longer from your delightful pursuit, have I? So pleasant to have settled everything. Such a sensible relief to have done business. Do you mind ringing for Lewis to carry the portfolio to your own room? I will carry it there myself, Mr. Fairlie, if you will allow me. Will you really? Are you strong enough? How nice to be so strong. Are you sure you won't drop it? Glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hartright. I am such a sufferer that I hardly dare hope to enjoy much of your society. Would you mind taking great pains not to let the doors bang and not to drop the portfolio? Thank you. Gently with the curtains, please. The slightest noise from them goes through me like a knife. Yes? Good morning. When the sea green curtains were closed and when the two baize doors were shut behind me, I stopped for a moment in the little circular hall beyond and drew a long, luxurious breath of relief. It was like coming to the surface of the water after diving deep to find myself once more on the outside of Mr. Fairlie's room. As soon as I was comfortably established for the morning in my pretty little studio, the first resolution at which I arrived was to turn my steps no more in the direction of the apartments occupied by the master of the house, except in the very improbable event of his honouring me with a special invitation to pay him another visit. Having settled this satisfactory plan of future conduct in reference to Mr. Fairlie, I soon recovered the serenity of temper of which my employer's haughty familiarity and impudent politeness had for the moment deprived me. The remaining hours of the morning passed away pleasantly enough in looking over the drawings, arranging them in sets, trimming their ragged edges, and accomplishing the other necessary preparations in anticipation of the business of mounting them. I ought perhaps to have made more progress than this, but as the luncheon time drew near, I grew restless and unsettled and felt unable to fix my attention on work, even though that work was only of the humble manual kind. At 2 o'clock I descended again to the breakfast room a little anxiously. Expectations of some interest were connected with my approaching reappearance in that part of the house. My introduction to Miss Fairlie was now close at hand. And if Miss Halcombe's search through her mother's letters had produced the result which she anticipated, the time had come for clearing up the mystery of the woman in white. 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 favorite. 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. If you are able to support the show financially, there's a link in the show notes to make a donation. I would really, really appreciate it. Alright everyone, storytime is over. To be continued.