The Woman in White

The Woman in White

Episode 1

PREAMBLE

THIS is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice.

But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will be the narrator. When not, he will retire from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them.

Thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness -- with the same object in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events, by making the persons who have been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate their own experience, word for word.

Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing, aged twenty-eight years, be heard first. THE STORY BEGUN BY WALTER HARTRIGHT (of Clement's inn, Teacher of Drawing)

I

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of the cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the sea-shore.

For my own poor part, the fading summer left me out of health, out of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well. During the past year I had not managed my professional resources as carefully as usual; and my extravagance now limited me to the prospect of spending the autumn economically between my mother's cottage at Hampstead and my own chambers in town.

The evening, I remember, was still and cloudy; the London air was at its heaviest; the distant hum of the street-traffic was at its faintest; the small pulse of the life within me, and the great heart of the city around me, seemed to be sinking in unison, languidly and more languidly, with the sinking sun. I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs. It was one of the two evenings in every week Which I was accustomed to spend with my mother and my sister. So I turned my steps northward in the direction of Hampstead.

Events which I have yet to relate make it necessary to mention in this place that my father had been dead some years at the period of which I am now writing; and that my sister Sarah and I were the sole survivors of a family of five children. My father was a drawing-master before me.

His exertions had made him highly successful in his profession; and his affectionate anxiety to provide for the future of those who were dependent on his labours had impelled him, from the time of his marriage, to devote to the insuring of his life a much larger portion of his income than most men consider it necessary to set aside for that purpose. Thanks to his admirable prudence and self-denial my mother and sister were left, after his death, as independent of the world as they had been during his lifetime.

I succeeded to his connection, and had every reason to feel grateful for the prospect that awaited me at my starting in life.

The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my mother's cottage. I had hardly rung the bell before the house door was opened violently; my worthy Italian friend, Professor Pesca, appeared in the servant's place; and darted out joyously to receive me, with a shrill foreign parody on an English cheer.

On his own account, and, I must be allowed to add, on mine also, the Professor merits the honour of a formal introduction. Accident has made him the starting-point of the strange family story which it is the purpose of these pages to unfold.

I had first become acquainted with my Italian friend by meeting him at certain great houses where he taught his own language and I taught drawing.

All I then knew of the history of his life was, that he had once held a situation in the University of Padua; that he had left Italy for political reasons (the nature of which he uniformly declined to mention to any one); and that he had been for many years respectably established in London as a teacher of languages.

Episodes
1 Episode 1
2 Episode 2
3 Episode 3
4 Episode 4
5 Episode 5
6 Episode 6
7 Episode 7
8 Episode 8
9 Episode 9
10 Episode 10
11 Episode 11
12 Episode 12
13 Episode 13
14 Episode 14
15 Episode 15
16 Episode 16
17 Episode 17
18 Episode 18
19 Episode 19
20 Episode 20
21 Episode 21
22 Episode 22
23 Episode 23
24 Episode 24
25 Episode 25
26 Episode 26
27 Episode 27
28 Episode 28
29 Episode 29
30 Episode 30
31 Episode 31
32 Episode 32
33 Episode 33
34 Episode 34
35 Episode 35
36 Episode 36
37 Episode 37
38 Episode 38
39 Episode 39
40 Episode 40
41 Episode 41
42 Episode 42
43 Episode 43
44 Episode 44
45 Episode 45
46 Episode 46
47 Episode 47
48 Episode 48
49 Episode 49
50 Episode 50
51 Episode 51
52 Episode 52
53 Episode 53
54 Episode 54
55 Episode 55
56 Episode 56
57 Episode 57
58 Episode 58
59 Episode 59
60 Episode 60
61 Episode 61
62 Episode 62
63 Episode 63
64 Episode 64
65 Episode 65
66 Episode 66
67 Episode 67
68 Episode 68
69 Episode 69
70 Episode 70
71 Episode 71
72 Episode 72
73 Episode 73
74 Episode 74
75 Episode 75
76 Episode 76
77 Episode 77
78 Episode 78
79 Episode 79
80 Episode 80
81 Episode 81
82 Episode 82
83 Episode 83
84 Episode 84
85 Episode 85
86 Episode 86
87 Episode 87
88 Episode 88
89 Episode 89
90 Episode 90
91 Episode 91
92 Episode 92
93 Episode 93
94 Episode 94
95 Episode 95
96 Episode 96
97 Episode 97
98 Episode 98
99 Episode 99
100 Episode 100
101 Episode 101
102 Episode 102
103 Episode 103
104 Episode 104
105 Episode 105
106 Episode 106
107 Episode 107
108 Episode 108
109 Episode 109
110 Episode 110
111 Episode 111
112 Episode 112
113 Episode 113
114 Episode 114
115 Episode 115
116 Episode 116
117 Episode 117
118 Episode 118
119 Episode 119
120 Episode 120
121 Episode 121
122 Episode 122
123 Episode 123
124 Episode 124
125 Episode 125
126 Episode 126
127 Episode 127
128 Episode 128
129 Episode 129
130 Episode 130
131 Episode 131
132 Episode 132
133 Episode 133
134 Episode 134
135 Episode 135
136 Episode 136
137 Episode 137
138 Episode 138
139 Episode 139
140 Episode 140
141 Episode 141
142 Episode 142
143 Episode 143
144 Episode 144
145 Episode 145
146 Episode 146
147 Episode 147
148 Episode 148
149 Episode 149
150 Episode 150
151 Episode 151
152 Episode 152
153 Episode 153
154 Episode 154
155 Episode 155
156 Episode 156
157 Episode 157
158 Episode 158
159 Episode 159
160 Episode 160
161 Episode 161
162 Episode 162
163 Episode 163
164 Episode 164
165 Episode 165
166 Episode 166
167 Episode 167
168 Episode 168
169 Episode 169
170 Episode 170
171 Episode 171
172 Episode 172
173 Episode 173
174 Episode 174
175 Episode 175
176 Episode 176
177 Episode 177
178 Episode 178
179 Episode 179
180 Episode 180
181 Episode 181
182 Episode 182
183 Episode 183
184 Episode 184
185 Episode 185
186 Episode 186
187 Episode 187
188 Episode 188
189 Episode 189
190 Episode 190
191 Episode 191
192 Episode 192
193 Episode 193
194 Episode 194
195 Episode 195
196 Episode 196
197 Episode 197
198 Episode 198
199 Episode 199
200 Episode 200
201 Episode 201
202 Episode 202
203 Episode 203
204 Episode 204
205 Episode 205
206 Episode 206
207 Episode 207
208 Episode 208
209 Episode 209
210 Episode 210
211 Episode 211
212 Episode 212
213 Episode 213
214 Episode 214
215 Episode 215
216 Episode 216
217 Episode 217
218 Episode 218
219 Episode 219
220 Episode 220
221 Episode 221
222 Episode 222
223 Episode 223
224 Episode 224
225 Episode 225
226 Episode 226
227 Episode 227
228 Episode 228
229 Episode 229
230 Episode 230
231 Episode 231
232 Episode 232
233 Episode 233
234 Episode 234
235 Episode 235
236 Episode 236
237 Episode 237
238 Episode 238
239 Episode 239
240 Episode 240
241 Episode 241
242 Episode 242
243 Episode 243
244 Episode 244
245 Episode 245
246 Episode 246
247 Episode 247
248 Episode 248
249 Episode 249
Episodes

Updated 249 Episodes

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Episode 249

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