The Solitary House (With Bonus Novels Bleak House and the Woman in White)

by Lynn Shepherd

Where did I leave off? Ah, yes—she fainted, after drinking a cup of tea with the Countess: a proceeding which might have interested me, if I had been her medical man; but, being nothing of the sort, I felt bored by hearing of it, nothing more. When she came to herself, in half an hour’s time, she was on the sofa, and nobody was with her but the landlady. The Countess, finding it too late to remain any longer at the inn, had gone away as soon as the girl showed signs of recovering; and the landlady had been good enough to help her up-stairs to bed. Left by herself, she had felt in her bosom (I regret the necessity of referring to this part of the subject a second time), and had found the two letters there, quite safe, but very much crumpled. She had been giddy in the night; but had got up well enough to travel in the morning. She had put the letter addressed to that obtrusive stranger, the gentleman in London, into the post; and had now delivered the other letter into my hands, as she was told. This was the plain truth; and, though she could not blame herself for any intentional neglect, she was sadly troubled in her mind, and sadly in want of a word of advice. At this point, Louis thinks the secretions appeared again. Perhaps they did; but it is of infinitely greater importance to mention that, at this point also, I lost my patience, opened my eyes, and interfered.

  “What is the purport of all this?” I inquired.

  My niece’s irrelevant maid stared, and stood speechless.

  “Endeavour to explain,” I said to my servant. “Translate me, Louis.”

  Louis endeavoured, and translated. In other words, he descended immediately into a bottomless pit of confusion; and the Young Person followed him down. I really don’t know when I have been so amused. I left them at the bottom of the pit, as long as they diverted me. When they ceased to divert me, I exerted my intelligence, and pulled them up again.

  It is unnecessary to say that my interference enabled me, in due course of time, to ascertain the purport of the Young Person’s remarks. I discovered that she was uneasy in her mind, because the train of events that she had just described to me, had prevented her from receiving those supplementary messages which Miss Halcombe had entrusted to the Countess to deliver. She was afraid the messages might have been of great importance to her mistress’s interests. Her dread of Sir Percival had deterred her from going to Blackwater Park late at night to inquire about them; and Miss Halcombe’s own directions to her, on no account to miss the train in the morning, had prevented her from waiting at the inn the next day. She was most anxious that the misfortune of her fainting-fit should not lead to the second misfortune of making her mistress think her neglectful, and she would humbly beg to ask me whether I would advise her to write her explanations and excuses to Miss Halcombe, requesting to receive the messages by letter, if it was not too late. I make no apologies for this extremely prosy paragraph. I have been ordered to write it. There are people, unaccountable as it may appear, who actually take more interest in what my niece’s maid said to me on this occasion, than in what I said to my niece’s maid. Amusing perversity!

  “I should feel very much obliged to you, sir, if you would kindly tell me what I had better do,” remarked the Young Person.

  “Let things stop as they are,” I said, adapting my language to my listener. “I invariably let things stop as they are. Yes. Is that all?”

  “If you think it would be a liberty in me, sir, to write, of course I wouldn’t venture to do so. But I am so very anxious to do all I can to serve my mistress faithfully——”

  People in the lower class of life never know when or how to go out of a room. They invariably require to be helped out by their betters. I thought it high time to help the Young Person out. I did it with two judicious words:

  “Good morning!”

  Something, outside or inside this singular girl, suddenly creaked. Louis, who was looking at her (which I was not) says she creaked when she curtseyed. Curious. Was it her shoes, her stays, or her bones? Louis thinks it was her stays. Most extraordinary!

  As soon as I was left by myself, I had a little nap—I really wanted it. When I awoke again, I noticed dear Marian’s letter. If I had had the least idea of what it contained, I should certainly not have attempted to open it. Being, unfortunately for myself, quite innocent of all suspicion, I read the letter. It immediately upset me for the day.

  I am, by nature, one of the most easy-tempered creatures that ever lived—I make allowances for everybody, and I take offence at nothing. But, as I have before remarked, there are limits to my endurance. I laid down Marian’s letter, and felt myself—justly felt myself—an injured man.

  I am about to make a remark. It is, of course, applicable to the very serious matter now under notice—or I should not allow it to appear in this place.

  Nothing, in my opinion, sets the odious selfishness of mankind in such a repulsively vivid light, as the treatment, in all cases of society, which the Single people receive at the hands of the Married people. When you have once shown yourself too considerate and self-denying to add a family of your own to an already overcrowded population, you are vindictively marked out, by your married friends, who have no similar consideration and no similar self-denial, as the recipient of half their conjugal troubles, and the born friend of all their children. Husbands and wives talk of the cares of matrimony; and bachelors and spinsters bear them. Take my own case. I considerately remain single; and my poor dear brother, Philip, inconsiderately marries. What does he do when he dies? He leaves his daughter to me. She is a sweet girl. She is also a dreadful responsibility. Why lay her on my shoulders? Because I am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to relieve my married connexions of all their own troubles. I do my best with my brother’s responsibility; I marry my niece, with infinite fuss and difficulty, to the man her father wanted her to marry. She and her husband disagree, and unpleasant consequences follow. What does she do with those consequences? She transfers them to me. Why transfer them to me? Because I am bound, in the harmless character of a single man, to relieve my married connexions of all their own troubles. Poor single people! Poor human nature!

  It is quite unnecessary to say that Marian’s letter threatened me. Everybody threatens me. All sorts of horrors were to fall on my devoted head, if I hesitated to turn Limmeridge House into an asylum for my niece and her misfortunes. I did hesitate, nevertheless.

  I have mentioned that my usual course, hitherto, had been to submit to dear Marian, and save noise. But, on this occasion, the consequences involved in her extremely inconsiderate proposal, were of a nature to make me pause. If I opened Limmeridge House as an asylum to Lady Glyde, what security had I against Sir Percival Glyde’s following her here, in a state of violent resentment against me for harbouring his wife? I saw such a perfect labyrinth of troubles involved in this proceeding, that I determined to feel my ground, as it were. I wrote, therefore, to dear Marian, to beg (as she had no husband to lay claim to her) that she would come here by herself, first, and talk the matter over with me. If she could answer my objections to my own perfect satisfaction, then I assured her that I would receive our sweet Laura with the greatest pleasure—but not otherwise. I felt, of course, at the time, that this temporising, on my part, would probably end in bringing Marian here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors. But, then, the other course of proceeding might end in bringing Sir Percival here in a state of virtuous indignation, banging doors also; and, of the two indignations and bangings, I preferred Marian’s—because I was used to her. Accordingly, I despatched the letter by return of post. It gained me time, at all events—and, oh dear me! what a point that was to begin with.

  When I am totally prostrated (did I mention that I was totally prostrated by Marian’s letter?), it always takes me three days to get up again. I was very unreasonable—I expected three days of quiet. Of course, I didn’t get them.

  The third day’s post brought me a most impertinent letter from a person with whom I was totally unacquainted. He described himself, as the acting partner of our man of business—our dear, pig-he
aded old Gilmore—and he informed me that he had lately received, by the post, a letter addressed to him in Miss Halcombe’s handwriting. On opening the envelope, he had discovered, to his astonishment, that it contained nothing but a blank sheet of note paper. This circumstance appeared to him so suspicious (as suggesting to his restless legal mind that the letter had been tampered with) that he had at once written to Miss Halcombe, and had received no answer by return of post. In this difficulty, instead of acting like a sensible man and letting things take their course, his next absurd proceeding, on his own showing, was to pester me, by writing to inquire if I knew anything about it. What the deuce should I know about it? Why alarm me as well as himself? I wrote back to that effect. It was one of my keenest letters. I have produced nothing with a sharper epistolary edge to it, since I tendered his dismissal in writing to that extremely troublesome person, Mr. Walter Hartright.

  My letter produced its effect. I heard nothing more from the lawyer. This, perhaps, was not altogether surprising. But it was certainly a remarkable circumstance that no second letter reached me from Marian, and that no warning signs appeared of her arrival. Her unexpected absence did me amazing good. It was so very soothing and pleasant to infer (as I did of course) that my married connexions had made it up again. Five days of undisturbed tranquillity, of delicious single blessedness, quite restored me. On the sixth day I felt strong enough to send for my photographer, and to set him at work again on the presentation copies of my art-treasures, with a view, as I have already mentioned, to the improvement of taste in this barbarous neighbourhood. I had just dismissed him to his work-shop, and had just begun coquetting with my coins, when Louis suddenly made his appearance with a card in his hand.

  “Another Young Person?” I said. “I won’t see her. In my state of health, Young Persons disagree with me. Not at home.”

  “It is a gentleman this time, sir.”

  A gentleman of course made a difference. I looked at the card.

  Gracious Heaven! my tiresome sister’s foreign husband. Count Fosco.

  *The manner in which Mr. Fairlie’s Narrative and other Narratives that are shortly to follow it, were originally obtained, forms the subject of an explanation which will appear at a later period of the Story.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MR. FAIRLIE’S NARRATIVE CONCLUDED

  Is it necessary to say what my first impression was, when I looked at my visitor’s card? Surely not? My sister having married a foreigner, there was but one impression that any man in his senses could possibly feel. Of course the Count had come to borrow money of me.

  “Louis,” I said, “do you think he would go away, if you gave him five shillings?”

  Louis looked quite shocked. He surprised me inexpressibly, by declaring that my sister’s foreign husband was dressed superbly, and looked the picture of prosperity. Under these circumstances, my first impression altered to a certain extent. I now took it for granted, that the Count had matrimonial difficulties of his own to contend with, and that he had come, like the rest of the family, to cast them all on my shoulders.

  “Did he mention his business?” I asked.

  “Count Fosco said he had come here, sir, because Miss Halcombe was unable to leave Blackwater Park.”

  Fresh troubles, apparently. Not exactly his own, as I had supposed, but dear Marian’s. It made very little difference. Troubles, any way. Oh dear!

  “Show him in,” I said, resignedly.

  The Count’s first appearance really startled me. He was such an alarmingly large person, that I quite trembled. I felt certain that he would shake the floor, and knock down my art-treasures. He did neither the one nor the other. He was refreshingly dressed in summer costume; his manner was delightfully self-possessed and quiet—he had a charming smile. My first impression of him was highly favourable. It is not creditable to my penetration—as the sequel will show—to acknowledge this; but I am a naturally candid man, and I do acknowledge it, notwithstanding.

  “Allow me to present myself, Mr. Fairlie,” he said. “I come from Blackwater Park, and I have the honour and the happiness of being Madame Fosco’s husband. Let me take my first, and last, advantage of that circumstance, by entreating you not to make a stranger of me. I beg you will not disturb yourself—I beg you will not move.”

  “You are very good,” I replied. “I wish I was strong enough to get up. Charmed to see you at Limmeridge. Please take a chair.”

  “I am afraid you are suffering to-day,” said the Count.

  “As usual,” I said. “I am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to look like a man.”

  “I have studied many subjects in my time,” remarked this sympathetic person. “Among others, the inexhaustible subject of nerves. May I make a suggestion, at once the simplest and the most profound? Will you let me alter the light in your room?”

  “Certainly—if you will be so very kind as not to let any of it in on me.”

  He walked to the window. Such a contrast to dear Marian! so extremely considerate in all his movements!

  “Light,” he said, in that delightfully confidential tone which is so soothing to an invalid, “is the first essential. Light stimulates, nourishes, preserves. You can no more do without it, Mr. Fairlie, than if you were a flower. Observe. Here, where you sit, I close the shutters, to compose you. There, where you do not sit, I draw up the blind and let in the invigorating sun. Admit the light into your room, if you cannot bear it on yourself. Light, sir, is the grand decree of Providence. You accept Providence with your own restrictions. Accept Light—on the same terms.”

  I thought this very convincing and attentive. He had taken me in—up to that point about the light, he had certainly taken me in.

  “You see me confused,” he said, returning to his place—“on my word of honour, Mr. Fairlie, you see me confused in your presence.”

  “Shocked to hear it, I am sure. May I inquire why?”

  “Sir, can I enter this room (where you sit a sufferer), and see you surrounded by these admirable objects of Art, without discovering that you are a man whose feelings are acutely impressionable, whose sympathies are perpetually alive? Tell me, can I do this?”

  If I had been strong enough to sit up in my chair, I should of course have bowed. Not being strong enough, I smiled my acknowledgments instead. It did just as well; we both understood one another.

  “Pray follow my train of thought,” continued the Count. “I sit here, a man of refined sympathies myself, in the presence of another man of refined sympathies also. I am conscious of a terrible necessity for lacerating those sympathies, by referring to domestic events of a very melancholy kind. What is the inevitable consequence? I have done myself the honour of pointing it out to you, already. I sit confused.”

  Was it at this point that I began to suspect he was going to bore me? I rather think it was.

  “Is it absolutely necessary to refer to these unpleasant matters?” I inquired. “In our homely English phrase, Count Fosco, won’t they keep?”

  The Count, with the most alarming solemnity, sighed and shook his head.

  “Must I really hear them?”

  He shrugged his shoulders (it was the first foreign thing he had done, since he had been in the room); and looked at me in an unpleasantly penetrating manner. My instincts told me that I had better close my eyes. I obeyed my instincts.

  “Please, break it gently,” I pleaded. “Anybody dead?”

  “Dead!” cried the Count, with unnecessary foreign fierceness. “Mr. Fairlie! your national composure terrifies me. In the name of Heaven, what have I said, or done, to make you think me the messenger of death?”

  “Pray accept my apologies,” I answered. “You have said and done nothing. I make it a rule, in these distressing cases, always to anticipate the worst. It breaks the blow, by meeting it half way, and so on. Inexpressibly relieved, I am sure, to hear that nobody is dead. Anybody ill?”

  I opened my eyes, and looked at him. Was he very yellow, when he
came in? or had he he turned very yellow, in the last minute or two? I really can’t say; and I can’t ask Louis, because he was not in the room at the time.

  “Anybody ill?” I repeated; observing that my national composure still appeared to affect him.

  “That is part of my bad news, Mr. Fairlie. Yes. Somebody is ill.”

  “Grieved, I am sure. Which of them is it?”

  “To my profound sorrow, Miss Halcombe. Perhaps you were in some degree prepared to hear this? Perhaps, when you found that Miss Halcombe did not come here by herself, as you proposed, and did not write a second time, your affectionate anxiety may have made you fear that she was ill?”

  I have no doubt my affectionate anxiety had led to that melancholy apprehension, at some time or other; but at the moment, my wretched memory entirely failed to remind me of the circumstance. However, I said, Yes, in justice to myself. I was much shocked. It was so very uncharacteristic of such a robust person as dear Marian to be ill, that I could only suppose she had met with an accident. A horse or a false step on the stairs, or something of the sort.

  “Is it serious?” I asked.

  “Serious—beyond a doubt,” he replied. “Dangerous—I hope and trust not. Miss Halcombe unhappily exposed herself to be wetted through by a heavy rain. The cold that followed was of an aggravated kind; and it has now brought with it the worst consequence—Fever.”

  When I heard the word, Fever, and when I remembered, at the same moment, that the unscrupulous person who was now addressing me had just come from Blackwater Park, I thought I should have fainted on the spot.

  “Good God!” I said. “Is it infectious?”

  “Not at present,” he answered, with detestable composure. “It may turn to infection—but no such deplorable complication had taken place when I left Blackwater Park. I have felt the deepest interest in the case, Mr. Fairlie—I have endeavoured to assist the regular medical attendant in watching it—accept my personal assurances of the uninfectious nature of the fever, when I last saw it.”