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. Oh, my gosh, you guys, we are one week away. We're one week from finishing this book. Next Thursday, a week from today, Thursday, May 22, Wednesday, we will read the final chapters of the Woman in White. I cannot believe it. And I don't know. I'm sad. I mean, this has been such an amazing journey. I have had so much fun reading this book with you guys and it's been such a pleasure to get to experience these characters in this plot with you and hear all of your thoughts and get all of your emails. And I'm sad that it's coming to an end, but I'm also really, really grateful. I'm so grateful always. But whenever one of these books comes to an end, I just feel so grateful for all of you that, for this podcast, for the fact that you're all out there listening and that we got to go on this journey together. So thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for coming along with me on this wild, wild ride of the Woman in White. You know. You know a book is good when you don't want it to end, because you don't. You don't want to have to leave the world of the book and say goodbye to the characters that you've come to love over all of this time. But you also know it's good when you're just dying to know how it's going to end. You both don't want it to end, and you've got to let it end because you have to know what's going to happen. And that's how this feels to me right now. I'm going to be so sad to say goodbye. To say goodbye to Walter and Marian. Oh, Marian. And. And Laura. We have to say goodbye, but just sit here. We can't just do nothing and stop time and sort of sit around in this world, even if we might want to. We've got to get to the end because we have to know what's going on. Things just got really crazy now. There's like secret societies and vigilantes and Walter is in Count Fosco's house. So we can't stop now. We've got to keep going. And one thing that is kind of sustaining me here is that this is not the end of story, story time. It's just the end of this book. We have to say goodbye to this book very soon, but we don't have to say goodbye to each other. Summer Session is coming. That's going to be lots of fun. And in September, we'll start a whole other book and we'll get to walk around in a completely different world with completely different characters who hopefully we will fall in love with just the same way as we did with these. So that is actually a great segue into just a reminder that this Saturday, Saturday, May 17, the trailer for Summer Sess is going to drop into your podcast feed if you are subscribed. So please make sure that you're subscribed. And that is going to give you more information about what Summer Session is going to look like this year, what we're going to be talking about and what the topic is going to be. You know, Summer Session is essentially a college class only fun. Last year it was a college class only fun on Jane Eyre, but this year it's going to be on something else. So check out that trailer and then write to me once you've listened to it and tell me what you think about Summer Session. Are you excited for it? What are your thoughts? And on Monday, after the trailer has dropped, when we come back together again, I will talk a little bit more about it so that you're really clear and really ready to go. Because this is the book is ending, but this show is not ending and our time together is not ending. And we're going to go into the summer. We're going to have a great time. I'm already prepping September's book, so I know what that is. But I'm going to keep you in the dark a little while longer. But I'm already prepping. I'm really excited for it. It's another book that I just love, so I'm prepping for that. So much, much more to come. An ending is coming, it's true, but much, much more time together and more books are on the horizon. So I hope that you'll stick around. I hope that you'll keep joining Storytime and being a part of this show and a part of this community, because it's just such a joy for me to be able to do this. And I it's nothing without you. So thank you for being here for this. Thank you for coming along with me on the Woman in White. And thank you for sticking around afterwards for all the books to come and for the summer. But we're not done yet. We've still got more to read. We've got three episodes, including this one left to go of the chapters. So let's get right back into it. Last time we read Hartright's narrative, chapters five and six. Today we're reading Heart Wright's narrative, chapter seven. So let's go over what happened last time. There was a lot. There was a lot to cover, and a lot of really weird stuff happened. A lot of crazy things were revealed. So let's talk about that. And then I've got one question that I would like to read. And we'll talk for a bit and then we'll get into the chapters. But first, here is the recap. All right, so where we left off. Walter and Pesca get to the opera, and Walter sees Fosco sitting near the front. When there's a pause, Walter asks Pesca if he recognizes the Count. But Pesca says no, he doesn't. Fosco, on the other hand, seems to recognize Pesca and to actually be really terrified of him. Walter also notices another man with a scar on his face who seems interested in them and in Fosco. Fosco rushes out of the theater, the scarred man follows him, and Walter pulls Pesca out with him as well. Walter and Pesca go back to Pesca's house where Walter says he needs to hear about whatever political issues caused Pesca to leave Italy. Pesca becomes very upset, but he finally reveals that he is part of a city secret society of vigilantes called the Brotherhood. He's been ordered to live in England and await his orders. If he tells anyone about the Brotherhood and it's discovered that he told, he will be killed. He explains that people in the Brotherhood don't know each other, but they've each been branded with a secret mark on their upper arms. Walter realizes that Fosco must also be a member of the Brotherhood, but must have turned spy against them. Pesca says that he doesn't recognize Fosco, perhaps because he's in disguise or very changed from whenever he did did see him. In his capacity as the secretary for the Brotherhood. Fosco must assume that Pesca is here to kill him for becoming a spy. Walter promises to keep Pesca secret and says he'll come back and see him for breakfast in the morning. Walter realizes that he has to confront Fosco right away because now Fosco's gonna try to flee the country. He rushes home and writes out a note to Pesca, which says to only open it if he doesn't show up for their breakfast appointment. The letter reveals that the Count is a traitor to the Brotherhood, so that way, even if Fosco tries to kill Walter, secret would still be revealed. So hopefully, that'll stop Fosco from just killing Walter right away. As he's doing all of this, he sees Marian, who realizes that he's about to do something big involving the Count, and she begs to come, but Walter says she has to stay behind. Laura is asleep, and Walter goes to look at her before leaving, but he doesn't wake her up. So Walter goes to Fosco's house, and outside, he sees the scarred man from the opera house. But they don't speak to each other. Walter. Walter sends in his card saying that he needs to speak to the Count on urgent business and is eventually let into the house. So we left Walter inside of Count Fosco's house. Okay, so today's comment comes to us from Ursula Poli. Ursula writes, this is by far the biggest cliffhanger in the story yet. Oh, my stars. Thursday can't get here fast enough. I'm very scared for Walter's life. I won't put it past Fosco to have a crazy trick up his sleeve. Although Walter's contingency plan is smart. I mean, he couldn't be in a better position to pull the trigger on Fosco's life. With our little Italian friend being who he is, could this all actually work out the suspense? Okay, so, yes, here we are at the final showdown. Right? Walter is in the Count's house, and he's all set up to try to force him to confess to the conspiracy by threatening to essentially sick Pesca on him if he doesn't confess. Right. Walter's life is in danger. Right. The Count could just kill him. And the Count's life is in danger. Walter isn't going to kill him himself, but he has in his power the means to strike him dead. So this really is a showdown to the death. Potentially. So first, let's just make sure that we understand what the plan is here, because things got really crazy really fast last time. So, okay, so Pesca, funny little Pesca, is in fact, as it turns out, a member of a secret society of Italian vigilantes which Walter is calling the Brotherhood. It's crazy. It's hilarious. It's just the most fun ever, I think. Right? So he Joined. Pesca joined when he was young and kind of hot headed and out for justice. And he wishes he wasn't in it anymore, but. But he is. And he can't get out. And he doesn't know who else is in the Brotherhood. But if it comes to his attention that someone from the Brotherhood has gone against the Brotherhood in some way, he, Pesca, is sworn to kill that person or he'll be killed himself. Okay, so Fosco, it turns out, is not just a spy for the Italian government. He is also a member of the Brotherhood. Right. So crazy and so awesome. So Fosco is in the Brotherhood, except that by turning spy and working for the government, he has betrayed the Brotherhood. So any member of the Brotherhood who can find him is bound by the rules of the Brotherhood to kill him. Okay, so if Pesca knows for certain that Fosco is a member of the Brotherhood who has gone against the Brotherhood and is now spying for the Italian government, Pesca will have to kill him. Pesca doesn't want to kill anyone, so he doesn't want to know about any of this. But he would have to kill him if he knew for certain that Foska was a member who had become a spy. So things have essentially come full circle. Right at the beginning of the book, we learned that Walter saved Pesca's life. He saved him from drowning. And because of this, Pesca has felt ever afterward that he owes his life to Walter. And now Pesca is essentially putting his life into Walter's hands in order to save Walter's life. Right. He's finally repaying Walter for saving his life by potentially saving Walter's life and Laura's and Marian's lives as well. Here's what Pesca says. He says, you won your right over me, Walter, on the day when you saved my life. It was yours from that moment when you please to take it. Take it now. Yes, I mean what I say. My next words, as true as the good God is above us, will put my life into your hands. So by telling Walter all this about the Brotherhood, Pesca is giving Walter the means with which to kill him. To kill Pesca. Because if anyone from the Brotherhood finds out that Pesca told a civilian essentially about the Brotherhood, Pesca will be hunted down and killed by the Brotherhood. So we have to believe Walter that he has concealed enough and changed enough for the Book that Pesca is safe, even if he shares all this with us. But what all this means is that now Walter finally has some ammunition against Count Fosco, right? Before we were saying, what could Walter possibly do to get Count Fosco to confess to the conspiracy? Well, now we know. And it's really great, right? It's a full on trap worthy of like any spy novel, any James Bond movie. It's fantastic and crazy and out there and insane. The trap is. Okay, this is what it is, that if Fosco kills Walter, Pesca will kill Fosco. Because Walter has arranged to be at Pesca's lodgings at 9am the next day. And he sent him this letter that says to only open it if he doesn't show up at 9am and in the letter is the information about Fosco betraying the brotherhood, which will necessitate that Pesca come after Fosco and kill him. So the letter is already with Pesca. So if Fosco kills Walter, Pesca will open it. And there's nothing that Fosco can do about that. And the letter that Walter sends to Pesca is like wonderfully dramatic, right? Here's what it says. He says, on the love you once bore me, use the power entrusted to you without mercy and without delay. Against that man, I have risked all and lost all. And the forfeit of my failure has been paid with my life. Okay? So there he is again, in all his glory. Walter 2.0. Walter our hero. Walter the avenging angel. This is his moment. This is how he's going to bring down the Count. Or he's gonna die trying. And he's clear that he knows this might end in him being the instrument the Count's death. Right in the last reckoning, in this moment of truth, Walter is willing to kill to bring Laura justice. Here's what he says. He says I have disguised nothing relating to myself in these pages. And I do not disguise here that I believed I had written Count Fosco's death warrant if the fatal emergency happened, which authorized Pesca to open my enclosure. Okay, so he's not messing around here. He will not waver. He has always told us this. He will not waver in his mission. He's gonna get justice for Laura if he has to kill Fosco. And he's gonna get justice for Laura if he has to die in the attempt. So there's a lot at stake here. And I just want to quickly mention Marian here as well. You know, poor Marian, who yearns to fight Fosco herself, who can't bear the thought that she won't even get to see him bested, right? Marian is left at home and she can't here's what she. Not alone. Oh, Walter, for God's sake. Not alone. Let me go with you. Don't refuse me, because I am only a woman. I must go. I will go. I'll wait outside in the cab. Okay? So here, in this final moment of truth, Marian is absolutely straining against the conventions that hold her back. She's straining against the truth of her womanhood, essentially, or the truth of her femininity. And. And there's a part of us, I think, maybe, that wants to let her go, right? That wants to let her, like, smack Fosco in his fat face or spit on him or just gloat while Walter takes him down. But I also think that realistically. No, right. She can't come. This is no place for a woman. Walter would have to protect her, and that would distract him from his mission. And this is the most important thing. I think Marian is needed at home. She's needed to care for Laura. She'll need to take care of both of them if Walter doesn't make it back. She'll need to comfort Laura if Walter is killed. Walter is Laura's avenging angel, but Marian is Laura's guardian angel. And so she rises up and wants to fight, but Walter tells her no. And that's the right choice, I think. You know, as much as we might like to see her put on her black spy outfit or whatever and go sneaking over rooftops again, but here, in this last moment, Walter must walk these mean streets alone. Okay? And so now, as Ursula says in her letter, we were left on a cliffhanger. Walter is in the Count's house. He's in the nest of vipers. He's in the villain's lair, and he's got a plan. But will Fosco have something up his sleeve that Walter didn't consider? Or is he actually gonna finally get the proof that he needs to restore Laura's identity? Well, there is only one way to find out. Let's keep reading, okay? And don't forget to write to me faith k.moore.com and click on Contact. Or just scroll into the show notes and find the link there. Check out all the other links that are there. Write to me about this episode. And also write to me about your thoughts on the trailer for Summer Session. So please do get in touch. All right, let's get started with heart rights narrative, chapter seven of the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. It's story time seven. There was no lamp in the hall, but by the dim light of the kitchen candle, which the girl had brought upstairs with her. I saw an elderly lady steal noiselessly out of a back room on the ground floor. She cast one viperish look at me as I entered the hall, but said nothing and went slowly upstairs without returning my bow. My familiarity with Marian's journal sufficiently assured me that the elderly lady was Madame Fosco. The servant led me to the room which the Countess had just left. I entered it and found myself face to face with the Count. He was still in his evening dress except his coat, which he had thrown across a chair. His shirt sleeves were turned up at the wrists, but no higher. A carpet bag was on one side of him and a box on the other. Books, papers, and articles of wearing apparel were scattered about the room. On a table at one side of the door stood the cage, so well known to me by description, which contained his white mice. The canaries and the cockatoo were probably in some other room. He was seated before the box, packing it when I went in and rose with some papers in his hand to receive me. His face still betrayed plain traces of the shock that had overwhelmed him at the opera. His fat cheeks hung loose, his cold grey eyes were furtively vigilant. His voice, look, and manner were all sharply suspicious alike as he advanced a step to meet me and requested with distant civility that I would take a chair. You come here on business, sir? He said. I am at a loss to know what that business can possibly be. The unconcealed curiosity with which he looked hard in my face while he spoke convinced me that I had passed unnoticed by him at the opera. He had seen Pesca first, and from that moment till he left the theatre, he had evidently seen nothing else. My name would necessarily suggest to him that I had not come into his house with other than a hostile purpose towards himself, but he appeared to be utterly ignorant thus far of the real nature of my errand. Okay, so Fosco knows who Hartright is. He knows that he's connected with Laura and Marian, but he doesn't yet know that. He also knows about the Brotherhood and the Count's connection to that. I am fortunate to find you here tonight, I said. You seem to be on the point of taking a journey. Is your business connected with my journey in some degree? In what degree? Do you know where I am going to? No. I only know why you are leaving London. He slipped by me with the quickness of thought, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. You and I, Mr. Hartright, are excellently well acquainted with one another by Reputation, he said. Did it by any chance occur to you when you came to this house that I was not the sort of man you could trifle with? It did occur to me, I replied. And I have not come to trifle with you. I am here on a matter of life and death, and if that door which you have locked was open at this moment, nothing you could say or do would induce me to pass through it. I walked farther into the room and stood opposite to him on the rug before the fireplace. He drew a chair in front of the door and sat down on it with his left arm resting on the table. The cage with the white mice was close to him, and the little creatures scampered out of their sleeping places as his heavy arm shook the table and peered at him through the gaps in the smartly painted wires. On a matter of life and death, he repeated to himself, those words are more serious perhaps, than you think. What do you mean? What I say. The perspiration broke out thickly on his broad forehead. His left hand stole over the edge of the table. There was a drawer in it with a lock, and the key was in the lock. His finger and thumb closed over the key but did not turn it. So you know why I am leaving London, he went on. Tell me the reason, if you please. He turned the key and unlocked the drawer as he spoke. I can do better than that, I replied. I can show you the reason if you like. How can you show it? You have got your coat off, I said. Roll up the shirt sleeve on your left arm and you will see it there. The same livid, leaden change passed over his face which I had seen pass over it at the theatre. The deadly glitter in his eyes shone steady and straight into mine. He said nothing, but his left hand slowly opened the table drawer and softly slipped into it. The harsh grating noise of something heavy that he was moving unseen to me sounded for a moment, then ceased. The silence that followed was so intense that the faint ticking nibble of the white mice at their wires was distinctly audible where I stood. My life hung by a thread, and I knew it. At that final moment, I thought with his mind, I felt with his fingers. I was as certain as if I had seen it of what he kept hidden from me in the drawer. Meaning? He's saying that he's got a gun in there. Wait a little, I said. You have got the door locked. You see, I don't move. You see, my hands are empty. Wait a little. I have something more to say. You have said enough. He replied with a sudden composure so unnatural and so ghastly that it tried my nerves as no outbreak of violence could have tried them. I want one moment for my own thoughts, if you please. Do you guess what I am thinking about? Perhaps I do. I am thinking, he remarked quietly, whether I shall add to the disorder of this room by scattering your brains about the fireplace. If I had moved at that moment, I saw in his face that he would have done it. I advise you to read two lines of writing which I have about me, I rejoined, before you finally decide that question. The proposal appeared to excite his curiosity. He nodded his head. I took Pesca's acknowledgment of the receipt of my letter out of my pocketbook, handed it to him at arm's length, and returned to my former position in front of the fireplace. He read the lines aloud. Your letter is received. If I don't hear from you before the time you mention, I will break the seal when the clock strikes. Another man in his position would have needed some explanation of those words. The Count felt no such necessity. One reading of the note showed him the precaution that I had taken as plainly as if he had been present at the time when I adopted it. The expression on his face changed on the instant, and his hand came out of the drawer empty. I don't lock up my drawer, Mr. Hartright, he said. And I don't say that I may not scatter your brains about the fireplace yet, but I am a just man, even to my enemy, and I will acknowledge beforehand that they are cleverer brains than I thought them. Come to the point, sir. You want something of me. I do, and I mean to have it. On conditions. On no conditions. His hand dropped into the drawer again. Bah. We are traveling in a circle, he said, and those clever brains of yours are in danger again. Your tone is deplorably impudent, sir. Moderate it on the spot. The risk of shooting you on the place where you stand is less to me than the risk of letting you out of this house, except on conditions that I dictate and approve. You have not got my lamented friend to deal with. Now you face to face with Fosco. If the lives of 20 Mr. Hartright's were the stepping stones to my safety, over all those stones I would go, sustained by my sublime indifference self, balanced by my impenetrable calm. Respect me if you love your own life. I summon you to answer three questions before you open your lips again. Hear them. They are necessary to this interview. Answer them they are necessary to me. He held up one finger of his right hand. First question, he said. You come here possessed of information which may be true or may be false. Where did you get it? I decline to tell you. No matter. I shall find out if that information is true. Mind, I say with the whole force of my resolution. You are making your market of it here by treachery of your own or by treachery of some other man. I note that circumstance for future use in my memory which forgets nothing and proceed. He held up another finger. Second question. Those lines you invited me to read are without signature. Who wrote them? A man whom I have every reason to depend on and whom you have every reason to fear. My answer reached him to some purpose. His left hand trembled audibly in the drawer. How long do you give me? He asked, putting his third question in a quieter tone, before the clock strikes and the seal is broken. Time enough for you to come to my terms, I replied. Give me a plainer answer, Mr. Hartright. What hour is the clock to strike? Nine to morrow morning. Nine to morrow morning? Yes, yes. Your trap is laid for me before I can get my passport regulated and leave London. It is not earlier, I suppose. We will see about that presently. I can keep you hostage here and bargain with you to send for your letter before I let you go. In the meantime, be so good next as to mention your terms. Terms? You shall hear them. They are simple and soon stated. You know whose interests I represent in coming here. He smiled with the most supreme composure and carelessly waved his right hand. I consent to hazard a guess, he said jeeringly. A lady's interests, of course. My wife's interests. He looked at me with the first honest expression that had crossed his face in my presence, an expression of blank amazement. I could see that I sank in his estimation as a dangerous man. From that moment. He shut up the drawer at once, folded his arms over his breast, and listened to me with a smile of satirical attention. You are well enough aware, I went on, of the course which my inquiries have taken for many months past to know that any attempted denial of plain facts will be quite useless in my presence. You are guilty of an infamous conspiracy, and the gain of a fortune of £10,000 was your motive for it. He said nothing, but his face became overclouded suddenly by a lowering anxiety. Keep your gain, I said. His face lightened again immediately, and his eyes opened on me in wider and wider astonishment. I am not here to disgrace myself by bargaining for money which has passed through your hands. And which has been the price of a vile crime. So Walter is saying he doesn't care about the money that Fosco got via the conspiracy. He's not going to ask him to pay it back. Gently. Mr. Hartright, your moral clap traps have an excellent effect in England. Keep them for yourself and your own countrymen, if you please. The £10,000 was a legacy left to my excellent wife by the late Mr. Fairley. Place the affair on those grounds and I will discuss it, if you like. To a man of my sentiments. However, the subject is deplorably sordid. I prefer to pass it over. I invite you to resume the discussion of your terms. What do you demand? In the first place, I demand a full confession of the conspiracy, written and signed in my presence. By yourself? He raised his finger again. One, he said, checking me off with the steady attention of a practical man. In the second place, I demand a plain proof, which does not depend on your personal asseveration, of the date at which my wife left Blackwater park and traveled to London. So an asseveration is a solemn declaration. So he wants him to give some physical proof that Laura was still at Blackwater Park. So? So you can lay your finger, I see, on the weak place, he remarked composedly. Any more? At present, no more. Good. You have mentioned your terms. Now listen to mine. The responsibility to myself of admitting what you are pleased to call the conspiracy is less, perhaps upon the whole than the responsibility of laying you dead on that hearthrug. Let us say that I meet your proposal on my own conditions. The statement you demand of me shall be written and the plain proof shall be produced. You call a letter from my late lamented friend informing me of the day and hour of his wife's arrival in London. Written, signed and dated by himself. A proof. I suppose I can give you this. So the late lamented friend is Percival. So he's saying. He could give Walter a dated letter from Percival discussing when Laura left for London. I can also send you to the man of whom I hired the carriage to fetch my visitor from the railway on the day when she arrived. His order book may help you to your date, even if his coachman who drove me proves to be of no use. These things I can do and will do on conditions. I recite them. First condition. Madame Fosco and I leave this house when and how we please without interference of all, any kind on your part. Second condition. You wait here in company with me to see my agent, who is coming at 7 o' clock in the morning to Regulate my affairs. You give my agent a written order to the man who has got your sealed letter to resign his possession of it. You wait here till my agent places that letter unopened in my hands. And you then allow me one clear half hour to leave the house. After which you resume your own freedom of action and go where you please. Third condition. You give me the satisfaction of a gentleman for your intrusion into my private affairs and for the language you have allowed yourself to use to me at this conference. Meaning? He wants to be able to challenge Walter to a duel at some future point. The time and place abroad to be fixed in a letter from my hand when I am safe on the continent. And that letter to contain a strip of paper measuring accurately the length of my sword. Those are my terms. Inform me if you accept them. Yes or no? The extraordinary mixture of prompt decision, far sighted cunning and Mountbach bravado in this speech staggered me for a moment, and only for a moment. The one question to consider was whether I was justified or not in possessing myself of the means of establishing Laura's identity. At the cost of allowing the scoundrel who had robbed her of it to escape me with impunity. Meaning? He's trying to decide if he should allow Fosco to go free After Fosco gives him the evidence he needs to prove Laura's identity. I knew that the motive of securing the just recognition of my wife in the birthplace from which she had been driven out as an impostor and of publicly erasing the lie that still profaned her mother's tomb was far purer in its freedom from all taint of evil passion than the vindictive motive which had mingled itself with my purpose from the first. And yet I cannot honestly say that my own moral convictions were strong enough to decide the struggle in me by themselves. They were helped by my remembrance of Sir Percival's death. How awfully, at the last moment had the working of the retribution there been snatched from my feeble hands. What right had I to decide in my poor mortal ignorance of the future, that this man too must escape with impunity because he escaped me? I thought of these things perhaps with the superstition inherent in my nature, perhaps with a sense worthier of me than superstition. It was hard, when I had fastened my hold on him at last to loosen it again of my own accord. But I forced myself to make the sacrifice in plainer words. I determined to be guided by the one higher motive of which I was certain. The motive of serving the cause of Laura and the cause of truth. So he's saying he's going to let Fosco go because he isn't here for vengeance but for the truth. And Fosco will give him the truth. I accept your conditions, I said, with one reservation on my part. What reservation may that be? He asked. It refers to my sealed letter, I answered. I require you to destroy it unopened in my presence as soon as it is placed in your hands. My object in making this stipulation was simply to prevent him from carrying away written evidence of the nature of my communication with Pesca. The fact of my communication he would necessarily discover when I gave the address to his agent in the morning. But he could make no use of it on his own unsupported testimony, even if he really ventured to try the experiment, which need excite in me the slightest apprehension on Pesca's account. I grant your reservation, he replied, after considering the question gravely for a minute or two. It is not worth dispute. The letter shall be destroyed when it comes into my hands. He rose as he spoke from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite to me up to this time. With one effort he appeared to free his mind from the whole pressure on it of the interview between us thus far. Oof. He cried, stretching his arms luxuriously. The skirmish was hot while it lasted. Take a seat, Mr. Hartright. We meet as mortal enemies hereafter. Let us, like gallant gentlemen, exchange polite attentions. In the meantime, permit me to take the liberty of calling for my wife. He unlocked and opened the door. Eleanor. He called out in his deep voice. The lady of the Viperous Face came in. Madame Fosco, Mr. Hartright, said the count, introducing us with easy dignity. My angel, he went on, addressing his wife, will your labors of packing up allow you time to make me some nice strong coffee? I have writing business to transact with Mr. Hartright, and I require the full possession of my intelligence to do justice to myself. Madame Fosco bowed her head twice, once sternly to me, once submissively to her husband, and glided out of the room. The count walked to a writing table near the window, opened his desk, and took from it several quires of paper and a bundle of quill pens. So a quire of paper is a set bundle of sheets of paper, all the same size, usually about 25 sheets. He scattered the pens about the table so that they might lie ready in all directions to be taken up when wanted, and then cut the paper into a heap of narrow slips of the form used by professional writers for the press. I shall make this a remarkable document, he said, looking at me over his shoulder. Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand final faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense privilege. I possess it. Do you? He marched backwards and forwards in the room until the coffee appeared, humming to himself and marking the places at which obstacles occurred in the arrangement of his ideas by striking his forehead from time to time with the palm of his hand. The enormous audacity with which he seized on the situation in which I placed him him and made it the pedestal on which his vanity mounted for the one cherished purpose of self display mastered my astonishment by main force. Sincerely, as I loathed the man, the prodigious strength of his character, even in its most trivial aspects, impressed me in spite of myself. The coffee was brought in by Madame Fosco. He kissed her hand in grateful acknowledgment and escorted her to the door, returned, poured out a cup of coffee for himself, and took it to the writing table. May I offer you some coffee, Mr. Hartright? He said before he sat down. I declined. What, you think I shall poison you? He said gaily. The English intellect is sound so far as it goes. He continued seating himself at the table, but it has one grave defect. It is always cautious in the wrong place. He dipped his pen in the ink, placed the first slip of paper before him with a thump of his hand on the desk, cleared his throat, and began. He wrote with great noise and rapidity in so large and bold a hand and with such wide spaces between the lines that he reached the bottom of the slip in not more than two minutes, certainly from the time when he started at the each slip, as he finished it, was paged and tossed over his shoulder, out of his way on the floor. When his first pen was worn out, that went over his shoulder too, and he pounced on a second from the supply scattered about the table. Slip after slip, by dozens, by 50s, by hundreds, flew over his shoulders on either side of him till he had snowed himself up in paper all round his chair. Hour after hour passed, and there I sat watching. There he sat, writing. He never stopped except to sip his coffee, and when that was exhausted, to smack his forehead from time to time. One o' clock struck 2, 3, 4, and still the slips flew about all round him till the untiring pen scraped its way ceaselessly from top to bottom of the page till the white chaos of paper rose higher and higher all round his chair. At 4 o' clock I heard a sudden splutter of the pen, indicative of the flourish with which he signed his name. Bravo. He cried, springing to his feet with the activity of a young man and looking me straight in the face with a smile of Superb triumph. Done, Mr. Hartright. He announced with a self renovating thump of his fist on his broad chest. Done. To my own profound satisfaction. To your profound astonishment when you read what I have written, the subject is exhausted. The man Fosco is not. I proceed to the arrangement of my slips. To the revision of my slips. To the reading of my slips addressed emphatically to your private ear. 4 o' clock has just struck. Good arrangement. Revision. Reading from 4 to 5. Short snooze of restoration for myself from 5 to 6. Final preparations from 6 to 7. A fair of agent and sealed letter. From 7 to 8. At 8 en route. Behold the programme. He sat down cross legged on the floor among his papers, strung them together with a bodkin and a piece of string so a bodkin is like a large dull needle. Revised them, wrote all the titles and honors by which he was personally distinguished at the head of the first page and then read the manuscript to me with loud theatrical emphasis and profuse theatrical gesticulation. The reader will have an opportunity ere long of forming his own opinion of the document. It will be sufficient to mention here that it answered my purpose. He next wrote me the address of the person from whom he had hired the fly and handed me Sir Percival's letter. It was dated from Hampshire on the 25th of July. And it announced the journey of Lady Glyde to London on the 26th. Thus on the very day the 25th, when the doctor's certificate declared that she had died in St. John's Wood, she was alive by Sir Percival's own showing at Blackwater. And on the day after she was to take a journey. Okay, so this is the date that they've been missing all this time. It proves that Laura was still at Blackwater park on the day when she supposedly died in London. When the proof of that journey was obtained from the flyman, the evidence would be complete. The flyman is the cab that drove her from the station. A quarter past five, said the Count, looking at his watch. Time for my restorative snooze. I personally resemble Napoleon the Great. As you may have remarked, Mr. Hartright, I also resemble that immortal man in my power of commanding sleep at will. Excuse me one moment. I will summon Madame Fosco to keep you from feeling dull, Knowing as well as he did that he was summoning Madame Fosco to ensure my not leaving the house while he was asleep. I made no reply and occupied myself in tying up the papers which she had placed in my possession. The lady came in, cool, pale and venomous as ever. Amuse Mr. Hartright, my angel, said the count. He placed a chair for her, kissed her hand for the second time, withdrew to a sofa, and in three minutes was as peacefully and happily asleep as the most virtuous man in existence. Madame Fosco took a book from the table, sat down, and looked at me with the steady, vindictive malice of a woman who never forgot and never forgave. I have been listening to your conversation with my husband, she said. If I had been in his place, I would have laid you dead on the hearthrug. With those words she opened her book and never looked at me or spoke to me from that time till the time when her husband woke up. He opened his eyes and rose from the sofa accurately to an hour from the time when he had gone to sleep. I feel infinitely refreshed, he remarked. Eleanor, my good wife, Are you all ready upstairs? That is well. My little packing here can be completed in 10 minutes. My travelling dress assumed in 10 minutes more. What remains before the agent comes. He looked about the room and noticed the cage with his white mice in it. Ah. He cried piteously. A last laceration of my sympathies still remains. My innocent pets, my little cherished children. What am I to do with them? For the present, we are settled nowhere. For the present. We travel incessantly. The less baggage we carry, the better for ourselves. My cockatoo, my canaries and my little mice. Who will cherish them when their good papa is gone? He walked about the room deep in thought. He had not been at all troubled about writing his confession. But he was visibly perplexed and distressed about the far more important question of the disposal of his pets. After long consideration, he suddenly sat down again at the writing table. An idea. He exclaimed. I will offer my canaries and my cockatoo to this vast metropolis. My agent shall present them in my name to the zoological gardens of London. The document that describes them shall be drawn out on the spot. He began to write, repeating the words as they flowed from his pen. Number one, cockatoo of transcendent plumage. Attraction of himself to all visitors. Of taste. Number two, canaries of unrivaled vivacity and intelligence. Worthy of the Garden of Eden. Worthy also of the garden in the Regent's Park. Homage to British Zoology offered by Fosco. The pen spluttered again, and the flourish was attached to his signature. Count, you have not included the mice, said Madame Fosco. He left the table, took her hand, and placed it on his heart. All human resolution, Eleanor, he said solemnly, has its limits. My limits are inscribed on that document. I cannot part with my white mice. Bear with me, my angel, and remove them to their traveling cage upstairs. Admirable tenderness, said Madame Fosco, admiring her husband with a last viperish look in my direction. She took up the cage carefully and left the room. The Count looked at his watch. In spite of his resolute assumption of composure, he was getting anxious for the agent's arrival. The candles had long since been extinguished, and the sunlight of the new morning poured into the room. It was not till five minutes past seven that the gate bell rang and the agent made his appearance. He was a foreigner with a dark beard. Mr. Hartright, Monsieur Rubelle, said the Count, introducing us. He took the agent, a foreign spy in every line of his face if ever there was one yet, into a corner of the room, whispered some directions to him, and then left us together. Monsieur Rubelle, as soon as we were alone, suggested with great politeness that I should favor him with his instructions. I wrote two lines to Pesca, authorizing him to deliver my sealed letter to the bearer, directed the note, meaning, wrote the address on it, and handed it to Monsieur Rubelle. The agent waited with me till his employer returned, equipped in traveling costume. The Count examined the address of my letter before he dismissed the agent. I thought so, he said, turning on me with a dark look and altering again in his manner. From that moment he completed his packing and then sat consulting a travelling map, making entries in his pocket book, and looking every now and then impatiently at his watch. Not another word addressed to myself passed his lips. The near approach of the hour for his departure and the proof he had seen of the communication established between Pasca and myself had plainly recalled his whole attention to the measures that were necessary for securing his escape. A little before 8 o' clock Monsieur Rubelle came back with my unopened letter in his hand. The Count looked carefully at the superscription and the seal, lit a candle, and burnt the letter. I perform my promise, he said, but this matter, Mr. Hartright, shall not end here. The agent had kept at the door the cab in which he had returned. He and the maid servant now busied themselves in removing the luggage. Madame Fosco came downstairs thickly veiled, with the traveling cage of the white mice in her hand. She neither spoke to me nor looked towards me. Her husband escorted her to the cab. Follow me as far as the passage, he whispered in my ear. I may want to speak to you. At the last moment I went out to the door, the agent standing below me in the front garden. The count came back alone and drew me a few steps inside the passage. Remember the third condition, he whispered. You shall hear from me, Mr. Hartright. I may claim from you the satisfaction of a gentleman sooner than you think, for meaning he's going to challenge him to a duel. Maybe very soon. He caught my hand before I was aware of him and wrung it hard, then turned to the door, stopped, and came back to me again. One word more, he said confidentially. When I last saw Ms. Halcombe, she looked thin and ill. I am anxious about that admirable woman. Take care of her, sir. With my hand on my heart, I solemnly implore you, take care of Miss. Those were the last words he said to me before he squeezed his huge body into the cab and drove off. The agent and I waited at the door a few moments, looking after him. While we were standing together, a second cab appeared from a turning a little way down the road. It followed the direction previously taken by the Count's cab, and as it passed the house and the open garden gate, a person inside looked at us out of the window. The stranger at the opera again, the foreigner with a scar on his left cheek. You wait here with me, sir, for half an hour more, said Monsieur Rubelle. I do. We returned to the sitting room. I was in no humor to speak to the agent or to allow him to speak to me. I took out the papers which the Count had placed in my hands and read the terrible story of the conspiracy told by the man who had planned and perpetrated it. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the show notes. You can learn more about me, check out our merch store, or pick up one of my books. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favor this is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded and marketed by me. So I need your help. Spread the word about the show by posting about it on social media or texting a link to your friends. Subscribe, tap those five stars and leave a positive review wherever you're listening. 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, story time is over. To be continued.