Уильям Коллинз - The Woman in White / Женщина в белом

We were walking across the garden when the gardener passed with a letter in his hand. Marian stopped him.

“Is that letter for me?” she asked.

“No, it’s for Miss Laura,” answered the man, holding out the letter as he spoke. Marian took it from him and looked at the address.

“A strange handwriting,” she said to herself. “Where did you get this?” she continued, addressing the gardener.

“Well, miss,” said the lad, “I just got it from a woman.”

“What woman?”

“An old woman, miss.”

“Oh, an old woman. Any one you knew?”

“No, I have never met her before.”

“Which way did she go?”

“That gate,” said the under-gardener, turning towards the south.

“Curious,” said Miss Halcombe; handing the letter back to the lad, “take it to the house, and give it to one of the servants. And now, Mr. Hartright, if you have no objection, let us walk this way.”

She led me across the lawn, along the same path by which I had followed her on the day after my arrival at Limmeridge. She then brought me to the summer house – the same summer house where I had first seen Laura. We went inside and sat down. I waited, wondering what she would say.

“What I have to say to you I can say here.”

With those words she entered the summer-house, took one of the chairs at the little round table inside, and signed to me to take the other.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “As your friend, I am going to tell you, at once, that I have discovered your secret – without help or hint, mind, from any one else. Mr. Hartright, I know that you’re in love with Laura. I don’t even blame you and you’ve done nothing wrong. Shake hands – I have given you pain; I am going to give you more, but there is no help for it – shake hands with your friend, Marian Halcombe, first.”

I tried to look at her when she took my hand, but my eyes were dim. I tried to thank her, but my voice failed me.

“Listen to me,” she said. “There’s something I must tell you – something which will cause you great pain. You must leave Limmeridge House, Mr. Hartright, before more harm is done. It is my duty to say that to you.”

I felt terribly saddened by her words.

“I know I’m only a poor art teacher,” I began.

“You must leave us, not because you are a teacher of drawing.”

She waited a moment, turned her face full on me, and reaching across the table, laid her hand firmly on my arm.

“Not because you are a teacher of drawing,” she repeated, “but because Laura Fairlie is engaged to be married. Her future husband is coming here on Monday with his lawyer. Our family lawyer, Mr. Gilmore, is coming here too. The two lawyers are going to draw up the marriage settlement between Laura and her husband. Once they have arranged this, a date for the wedding can be fixed.”

The last word went like a bullet to my heart. I never moved and never spoke. Hopes! Betrothed, or not betrothed, she was equally far from me. Would other men have remembered that in my place? Not if they had loved her as I did.

The pang passed, and nothing but the dull numbing pain of it remained. I felt Miss Halcombe’s hand again, tightening its hold on my arm – I raised my head and looked at her. Her large black eyes were rooted on me, watching the white change on my face, which I felt, and which she saw.

“Crush it! [30] Crush it! – Покончите с этим! ” she said. “Here, where you first saw her, crush it! Don’t shrink under it like a woman. Tear it out; trample it under foot like a man! Are you yourself again? [31] Are you yourself again? – Вы пришли в себя? ”

“Enough myself, Miss Halcombe, to ask your pardon and hers. Enough myself to be guided by your advice, and to prove my gratitude in that way, if I can prove it.”

“It is an engagement of honour, not of love; her father sanctioned it on his deathbed, two years ago. Till you came here she was in the position of hundreds of other women, who marry men without love, and who learn to love them (when they don’t learn to hate!) after marriage, instead of before. Your absence and time will help us all three.”

“Let me go today,” I said bitterly. “The sooner the better. [32] The sooner the better. – Чем раньше, тем лучше. But what reason shall I give to Mr Fairlie as to why I’m going?”

“No, not today,” she replied. “You must wait till tomorrow to explain tell Mr. Fairlie the sudden change in your plans. Wait until the post arrives tomorrow. Then tell Mr Fairlie you’ve received a letter from London and that you have to return there at once on urgent business.”

I had just agreed to this plan when we heard footsteps. It was Laura’s maid.

“Oh, Miss Marian,” said the girl. “Please can you come quickly to the house? Miss Laura is very upset by a letter she received this morning.”

“It must be the same letter the gardener brought,” said Marian worriedly.

We hurried back to the house.

“We have arranged all that is necessary, Mr. Hartright,” she said. “We have understood each other, as friends should, and we may go back at once to the house. To tell you the truth, I am worried about Laura.”

Her words felt like arrows shot into my heart. I could hardly move or speak.

“May I know who the gentleman engaged to Miss Fairlie is?” I asked at last.

She answered in a hasty, absent way —

“A gentleman of large property in Hampshire.”

Hampshire! Anne Catherick’s native place. Again, and yet again, the woman in white. There was a fatality in it.

“And his name?” I said, as quietly and indifferently as I could.

“Sir Percival Glyde. [33] Percival Glyde – Персиваль Глайд ”

Sir Percival! I stopped suddenly, and looked at Miss Halcombe.

“Sir Percival Glyde,” she repeated, imagining that I had not heard her former reply.

“Knight, or Baronet?” I asked, with an agitation that I could hide no longer.

She paused for a moment, and then answered, rather coldly —

“Baronet, of course.”

Baronet! Suddenly I was reminded of the woman in white. She had asked me if I knew any baronets and had told me of one who was cruel and wicked. Not a word more was said, on either side, as we walked back to the house. Miss Halcombe hastened immediately to her sister’s room, and I went to my studio.

She was engaged to be married, and her future husband was Sir Percival Glyde. A man of the rank of Baronet, and the owner of property in Hampshire.

There were hundreds of baronets in England, and dozens of landowners in Hampshire. I had not the shadow of a reason for connecting Sir Percival Glyde with the words that had been spoken to me by the woman in white. And yet, I did connect him with them.

I had been engaged with the drawings little more than half an hour, when there was a knock at the door. It opened, on my answering; and, to my surprise, Miss Halcombe entered the room.

Her manner was angry and agitated. She caught up a chair for herself before I could give her one, and sat down in it, close at my side. Marian was holding a letter in her hand and looking extremely angry and upset.

“Mr. Hartright,” she said, “You saw me send the gardener on to the house, with a letter addressed, in a strange handwriting, to Miss Fairlie?”

“Certainly.”

“The letter is an anonymous letter – a vile attempt to injure Sir Percival Glyde in my sister’s estimation. [34] in my sister’s estimation – в глазах моей сестры You are the only person in the house who can advise me. Mr. Fairlie, in his state of health and with his horror of difficulties and mysteries of all kinds, is not the right man. The clergyman is a good, weak man, who knows nothing out of the routine of his duties; and our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable acquaintances. I’d like you to read it. Tell me what you think, Mr. Hartright.”