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The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters VII-XI

The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters VII-XI

VII.  In which we learn about A Scandal involving Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival Glyde.

•  Oh ho ho!  So there are two Welminghams... and Mrs. Clements makes specific mention that "the old parish church is the parish church still".  Could there be relevant documents there?  But... no.  If there was something to do with Sir Percival there, SOMEONE other than Mrs. Catherick would know about it.  Wouldn't they?  I need to just let the story unfold and stop making ridiculous guesses.

•  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm:

He brought his newly-married wife along with him, and we heard in course of time she had been lady's-maid in a family that lived at Varneck Hall, near Southampton. Catherick had found it a hard matter to get her to marry him, in consequence of her holding herself uncommonly high. He had asked and asked, and given the thing up at last, seeing she was so contrary about it. When he HAD given it up she turned contrary just the other way, and came to him of her own accord, without rhyme or reason seemingly.

Knocked up by a gentleman in the household, waited to be made an honest woman, disappointed, and then marrying Mr. Catherick to avoid scandal?  Possibly???

•  OH HO HO!  There was a scandal involving Mrs. Catherick and Sir Percival! 

•  Hmm.  So everyone assumed that Sir Percival was actually Anne's father -- to the point where Mr. Catherick attacked Sir Percival (and got seriously beaten) -- and the result was that Mr. Catherick ran away to America.  But I wonder if it could really be that easy.  I'm thinking not.

•  I love how convoluted Walter's reasoning has gotten (which is good, since if he thinks all this out as if it were a straight-forward crime, he'll never solve it):  "Had Sir Percival, by any chance, courted the suspicion that was wrong for the sake of diverting from himself some other suspicion that was right?"

•  Also, if Sir Percival had fathered a bastard, I don't see why he wouldn't have admitted that to Fosco.  The Secret has to be something much bigger.

•  I hadn't thought of that -- if Anne didn't really know The Secret (if she just thought she did, or was confused) -- then everything that happened to her would be that much more tragic.

•  Oh, good.  Walter as good as told Mrs. Clements about Anne's death.  And he informed her of his intention to meet with Mrs. Catherick.  To which she replied:

"An old woman's advice is sometimes worth taking, sir," she said. "Think twice before you go to Welmingham."

OOOOOooo.  A Vague Warning!  LOVE IT.

VIII.  In which we finally meet Mrs. Catherick in my favorite scene so far.

•  Ugh.  Laura's situation continues to break my heart -- especially now, as she begged Walter not to treat her like a child, and... that's exactly what he's doing.  Then again, I really don't know what else he could do, or how else he could treat her.  I've really come around about all three characters -- I liked Walter and Marian very much before, but now I love them, and for their sake, I want Laura to get better.  (But it would be nice for her to get better in a way that gives her a bit of confidence and strength, too.)

•  Oh, hell, this doesn't sound promising:  "I have all those hidden drawings in my possession still—they are my treasures beyond price—the dear remembrances that I love to keep alive—the friends in past adversity that my heart will never part from, my tenderness never forget."

Oh, BUT WAIT!  He follows that up with this: 

Am I trifling, here, with the necessities of my task? am I looking forward to the happier time which my narrative has not yet reached? Yes. Back again—back to the days of doubt and dread, when the spirit within me struggled hard for its life, in the icy stillness of perpetual suspense.

So it all may work out in the end.  God, it had better.

•  I'm really hope that they don't miss some easy way of solving the mystery by NOT visiting Mrs. Rubelle.  That would be unfortunate.

•  As for whether or not Walter is a match for Sir Percival -- after what Walter survived in South America, I think he'll be okay.  Also, he's the one writing this.

•  Oh, Walter, you're so manly and British:  

As I crossed the railway platform, and looked right and left among the people congregated on it, to search for any faces among them that I knew, the doubt occurred to me whether it might not have been to my advantage if I had adopted a disguise before setting out for Hampshire. But there was something so repellent to me in the idea—something so meanly like the common herd of spies and informers in the mere act of adopting a disguise—that I dismissed the question from consideration almost as soon as it had risen in my mind.

•  Well, then.  Mrs. Catherick is... formidable:

"I came," I said, "because I thought Anne Catherick's mother might have some natural interest in knowing whether she was alive or dead."

"Just so," said Mrs. Catherick, with additional self-possession. "Had you no other motive?"

I hesitated. The right answer to that question was not easy to find at a moment's notice.

"If you have no other motive," she went on, deliberately taking off her slate-coloured mittens, and rolling them up, "I have only to thank you for your visit, and to say that I will not detain you here any longer. Your information would be more satisfactory if you were willing to explain how you became possessed of it. However, it justifies me, I suppose, in going into mourning. There is not much alteration necessary in my dress, as you see. When I have changed my mittens, I shall be all in black."

She searched in the pocket of her gown, drew out a pair of black lace mittens, put them on with the stoniest and steadiest composure, and then quietly crossed her hands in her lap.

Criminy.  How do you even react to that?

•  What an fantastic, fantastic scene.  Yowza.  And what's up with the remark she made about Sir Percival's mother, eh??  It isn't her, is it?  Which would -- if it were the case -- make Anne his sister.  I've had a hard time figuring ages -- she's described as elderly, as was Madame Fosco, but if Percival is only in his forties, that could work.  But if they were so far removed in age, would people have suspected them of having an affair so quickly?  Maybe my idea of elderly isn't nearly the same as Walter's idea of elderly.  No, I don't think that could be it, anyway -- she's so adamant that she's a Wronged Woman.  Well, we'll see.

IX.  In which Walter does some detecting at the church.

•  THE MAN IN BLACK APPEARS AGAIN.  Did he eavesdrop on the conversation between Walter and Mrs. Catherick?

•  I feel that the mail is way too easily intercepted for Walter and Marian to be doing all of this corresponding.

•  Uh oh... he's got two guys on his tail.

•  I can't imagine that Sir Percival wouldn't have stolen any incriminating records from the parish, but we'll see...

•  AHA.  But the old parish clerk has a second copy...

•  "The register of the marriage of Sir Felix Glyde was in no respect remarkable except for the narrowness of the space into which it was compressed at the bottom of the page."  LIKE MAYBE IT WAS WRITTEN IN LATER???  Wasn't there an Agatha Christie that hinged on something like that?  WALTER.  GET YOUR HANDS ON THE OTHER COPY OF THE MARRIAGE RECORD.  MY BET?  IT'S DIFFERENT.

•  Did Sir Percival drive Mr. Catherick out of town so he could get access to the records?  It seems like there must have been an easier way to go about it, no?  Then again, it's not like he'd care about ruining lives as long as his was comfortable.

X.  In which there is some Serious Action.

•  Sir Percival's thugs get Walter arrested!  But Walter gets out on bail!  But now he knows that he has only a few hours to Get To The Bottom Of The Mystery!  And HE'S REALIZED THAT HE SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT THE DUPLICATE REGISTER!  Oh, hooray.  It makes me happy that he figures stuff out so quickly -- in so many books, I wait and wait and wait for the main character to have a Lightbulb Moment -- it's so refreshing.

•  YES!  I was RIGHT!  I LOVE BEING RIGHT.  So we think that Sir Percival is a bastard, yes?  And if that's true, than he doesn't really have any claim to his title, his land, the money (well, he already spent all of that...)  I mean, he wouldn't have attempted to cover all this up if he wasn't... Oh, tra la, tra la.

•  "I was not then aware that a legally-certified copy was necessary, and that no document merely drawn out by myself could claim the proper importance as a proof. I was not aware of this, and my determination to keep my present proceedings a secret prevented me from asking any questions which might have procured the necessary information."  1.  I really love how Wilkie very carefully avoids plot holes and second guessing on the part of the reader.  2.  Does this mean that ultimately, Walter's detecting will be ALL FOR NAUGHT??

•  Walter got JUMPED!  But he fought 'em off and out ran them.  AND he's going to continue on back to the church.  HE RULES.

•  Sir Percival is trapped in the burning church?  FOR REAL???

•  Walter, being Heroic, tries his damnedest to save him.

•  Is the dead body really Sir Percival??  I mean, it would be fitting for him to set fire for the church and then die in it -- and we are coming to the end of the book -- but is it him, for real?

XI.  In which there is an inquest.

•  It appears that Sir Percival is, indeed, dead.

•  Walter is Down in the Dumps, feeling that there is no way to fix things for Laura, and then he gets back to his hotel room to FIND A LETTER FROM MRS. CATHERICK!!  Man, Wilkie was the MASTER of cliffhangers.

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson
The Second Epoch:  The Story Continued in Several Narratives
The Third Epoch: The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VI

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Other reader/bloggers:

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Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Third Epoch: The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VI

I told a patron yesterday that I remember so little (ie: nothing) about this book that I've started to wonder if I ever actually had read it before.  I very clearly remember walking around with it.  I remember opening it.  Maybe I never got any further than that?  I do have a tendency for getting distracted...  Anyway, spoilers follow.

The Third Epoch:  The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VI

I.  In which Walter sets the stage.

•  Well, I did ask how Sir Percival and Count Fosco would get away with it:

Torn in her own lifetime from the list of the living, the daughter of Philip Fairlie and the wife of Percival Glyde might still exist for her sister, might still exist for me, but to all the world besides she was dead. Dead to her uncle, who had renounced her; dead to the servants of the house, who had failed to recognise her; dead to the persons in authority, who had transmitted her fortune to her husband and her aunt; dead to my mother and my sister, who believed me to be the dupe of an adventuress and the victim of a fraud; socially, morally, legally—dead.

Really?  No one (except Walter and Marian) at all recognizes (or is willing to admit) that she is Laura?  In some of the cases, I would, of course, accept and expect that -- cough*Mr. Fairlie*cough -- but surely there are others?  Maybe I'm just being slow because I'm reading this at 4am.  (Can't sleep.)

•  Walter's had quite the Hero's Journey, huh?  He practically walked through Death, even.

•  Soooo... maybe laura's mind has snapped, and that's part of why people won't accept her as her?:

Forlorn and disowned, sorely tried and sadly changed—her beauty faded, her mind clouded—robbed of her station in the world, of her place among living creatures—the devotion I had promised, the devotion of my whole heart and soul and strength, might be laid blamelessly now at those dear feet. In the right of her calamity, in the right of her friendlessness, she was mine at last! Mine to support, to protect, to cherish, to restore. Mine to love and honour as father and brother both. Mine to vindicate through all risks and all sacrifices—through the hopeless struggle against Rank and Power, through the long fight with armed deceit and fortified Success, through the waste of my reputation, through the loss of my friends, through the hazard of my life.

If she has reverted to a semi-childlike state, that STINKS -- especially because she'd gotten so much more formidable.  Unless this is a double-switcheroo and Walter and Marian are just deluding themselves that the woman they're living with isn't Laura.  NO.  I am not going down that road.  She's got to be Laura.

II.  In which we are told how Walter, Marian and Laura came to be hiding in London.

•  So that's how they did it -- Fosco went on the offensive and told everyone that Anne Catherick was wandering around telling everyone that she was Laura.  So smart.  Once again, I really do wish he would use his powers for good.  But then he wouldn't be as great a character.  So he'll have to stay evil.

•  Marian just gets better and better -- rather than pitching herself out of a window or something, she tries to get justice.  Sending the lawyer over to investigate Laura's "death" doesn't pan out, so:

Shortly afterwards she was confined to her room by a relapse, her weakened physical energies giving way under the severe mental affliction from which she was now suffering. On getting stronger again, in a month's time, her suspicion of the circumstances described as attending her sister's death still remained unshaken. She had heard nothing in the interim of Sir Percival Glyde, but letters had reached her from Madame Fosco, making the most affectionate inquiries on the part of her husband and herself. Instead of answering these letters, Miss Halcombe caused the house in St. John's Wood, and the proceedings of its inmates, to be privately watched.

Is the "severe mental affliction" grief, or something else?  Do all of the main characters in this book go a little bit nuts?  Laura, yes.  Walter, I'm starting to think maybe a little bit, yes.  Marian...?

•  I don't understand how Sir Percival has ANY friends, let alone a whole circle.  Maybe because he spends a lot of (Laura's) money on them?

•  Mrs. Vesey freaked out when Marian showed.  Rats.  I was hoping that Laura'd avoided Fosco at the station and hidden out with her. 

•  Well, hell.  If Fosco stuck Laura in an asylum, NO WONDER she's a mess.  And I feel terrible that Marian's suffering has caused her to become so much less... stomp-y:

It cannot be said that this conversation led to the result of even partially preparing Miss Halcombe's mind for what was to come. But it produced, nevertheless, a very serious effect upon her. She was so completely unnerved by it, that some little time elapsed before she could summon composure enough to follow the proprietor of the Asylum to that part of the house in which the inmates were confined.

OH MY GOD, HE DID DO IT.  WHAT A BAD, BAD MAN.  I really didn't see that coming!  I really, really thought she'd been able to avoid him.  (Somewhat unrelated, but have you read Fingersmith?  You should.)

•  I shouldn't have worried about Marian so much, as she's now planning to illegally spring Laura from the asylum.  Her reasoning, I think, is sound:

A very little reflection, when the capacity to reflect returned, convinced her that any attempt to identify Lady Glyde and to rescue her by legal means, would, even if successful, involve a delay that might be fatal to her sister's intellects, which were shaken already by the horror of the situation to which she had been consigned.

And as everyone still thinks that Laura is Anne Catherick, that's why they're in hiding.  Okay, NOW I get it.

•  WOW.  So that's how he did it.  (Seriously, kids.  You have GOT to read Fingersmith.)

•  I hope that we find out whether or not Laura did see Mrs. Vesey...

•  "From that date until the fifteenth of October (the day of her rescue) she had been under restraint, her identity with Anne Catherick systematically asserted, and her sanity, from first to last, practically denied. Faculties less delicately balanced, constitutions less tenderly organised, must have suffered under such an ordeal as this. No man could have gone through it and come out of it unchanged."  Being a woman, of course, she snapped.

•  Still hoping that someone will chuck Mr. Fairlie out a window.  If he hadn't been such a &*%$!, everything could probably have been resolved somewhat easily with Fanny's return.

•  And that's why they ended up in London.  Anne Catherick may have died, but the Woman in White lives on.  Laura is becoming her.

III.  In which Walter begins to compile evidence and we finally hear more about Laura's condition.

•  Our Marian is coming back:  "Her large steady black eyes looked at me with a flash of their bright firmness of bygone days. "I am not quite broken down yet," she said. "I am worth trusting with my share of the work." Before I could answer, she added in a whisper, "And worth trusting with my share in the risk and the danger too. Remember that, if the time comes!""

•  The passages about the healing of Laura's mind are heartbreaking.  And VIVID.

•  The investigation and the planning begin!  There is Still Hope.

•  So Laura never did go to Mrs. Vesey's house.

•  And this is why Mrs. Michelson's testimony was so defensive of Count Fosco:

On returning from Mrs. Vesey's, I instructed Marian to write (observing the same caution which I practised myself) to Mrs. Michelson. She was to express, if she pleased, some general suspicion of Count Fosco's conduct, and she was to ask the housekeeper to supply us with a plain statement of events, in the interests of truth.

•  I really like that Wilkie included this section about Walter compiling the evidence -- it adds verisimilitude.  And it gives the earlier sections a whole new spin, knowing that they -- or some of them, at any rate -- were written before everything was resolved.

•  And Walter heads out to see the lawyer, though he's quite worried about being recognized.  Or maybe even killed?

IV.  In which Fosco returns, sort of.

•  Uh oh.  Mr. Kyrle's opinion:

"So far as your own convictions are concerned, I am certain you have spoken the truth," he replied. "I have the highest esteem for Miss Halcombe, and I have therefore every reason to respect a gentleman whose mediation she trusts in a matter of this kind. I will even go farther, if you like, and admit, for courtesy's sake and for argument's sake, that the identity of Lady Glyde as a living person is a proved fact to Miss Halcombe and yourself. But you come to me for a legal opinion. As a lawyer, and as a lawyer only, it is my duty to tell you, Mr. Hartright, that you have not the shadow of a case."

Wouldn't it be worth trying to get evidence from Anne Catherick's mother?  I know that she's Afraid of Scandal or Sir Percival or SOMETHING, but REALLY.  At some point you have to stand up.

•  COME ON!  How could anyone not love Walter?  (cue up an awesomely dramatic swell of music):

"There shall be no money motive," I said, "no idea of personal advantage in the service I mean to render to Lady Glyde. She has been cast out as a stranger from the house in which she was born—a lie which records her death has been written on her mother's tomb—and there are two men, alive and unpunished, who are responsible for it. That house shall open again to receive her in the presence of every soul who followed the false funeral to the grave—that lie shall be publicly erased from the tombstone by the authority of the head of the family, and those two men shall answer for their crime to ME, though the justice that sits in tribunals is powerless to pursue them. I have given my life to that purpose, and, alone as I stand, if God spares me, I will accomplish it."

I can almost see him shaking his fist at the sky and eating a dirty carrot and everything.

•  YIKES.  Horrible Sir Percival is back in England.  In London, specifically.

•  And, NOOOOOOO!  There's someone on Walter's tail!

•  Oh, good.  He lost them.  I think.

•  I KNEW IT!  I knew the note had to be from Count Fosco!  Open it, Marian, open it!

•  Okay, that doesn't surprise me -- Fosco basically tells Marian that if she doesn't Pursue Justice, he'll leave her alone.  Oh, and:  "If Mr. Hartright returns to England, hold no communication with him. I walk on a path of my own, and Percival follows at my heels. On the day when Mr. Hartright crosses that path, he is a lost man."

•  Marian's getting kind of bloodthirsty.  Which is understandable.  Is it wrong that while I want our three heroes to get a Happy Ever After, I also want Count Fosco to escape?  Probably.  Well, I can't help it.  He's just... rad.

•  And now Walter's headed to Blackwater to try and find out when Laura left, as it might help their case -- hey, while you're there, WHY DON'T YOU TRY TALKING TO ANNE CATHERICK'S MOTHER????  Arg.

V.  In which progress is made.

•  Walter's attempts to discover The Date of Laura's Departure From Blackwater are not going well.

•  WHO IS THE MAN IN BLACK?  It couldn't be Sir Percival himself, could it?  And it couldn't be Count Fosco, because Walter would have noted his size.  Is he just an unnamed hired goon?  But it doesn't seem as if he was there to spy on Walter -- it seemed like he was there for another reason, and that the timing was a coincidence.  So maybe it was Sir Percival -- it would be fitting for Walter to describe him as the Woman in White's opposite:  the Man in Black.  At the same time, it's hard for me to think of Sir Percival as remotely formidable.  He's just such a tool.

•  Walter's feeling the desire for revenge -- not just for the crime, I think, but also because Sir Percival married Laura.  And, awwww (and oooooo):

These words are written under no prompting of idle self-contemplation. Passages in this narrative are soon to come which will set the minds of others in judgment on my conduct. It is right that the best and the worst of me should be fairly balanced before that time.

•  FINALLY.  They start thinking about talking to Anne Catherick's mother.

•  It's really weird that Laura's beloved father was such good friends with Sir Percival.  I don't get it.

•  The letter to Todd's Corner bears fruit:

The next morning I set forth to seek an interview with Mrs. Clements. This was my first step forward in the investigation. The story of the desperate attempt to which I now stood committed begins here.

Six chapters into Book Three, the story begins.  Nice, Walter.  (I know what he means, it's just funny.)

VI.  In which the story begins.  (Heh.)

•  Wow.  So Walter didn't tell Mrs. Clements about Anne's death.  No wonder he said that he was going to admit to some shady moves.  (That's like the time that Veronica Mars didn't tell Abel Koontz' daughter that he was dying...!  Yep, I went there.  Always important to bring dated pop culture references into my readings of the classics....)

•  WOW.  So Mrs. Clements ran into Count Fosco.  And trusted him.  (Of course.)  And we learn how Anne came to be in his power.  It's kind of awesome to think back at how he was figuring the angles and planning his moves as it all unfolded.  It's the sort of book that would make for a great visual timeline.

•  I'd never thought of Madame Fosco as an "elderly lady".

•  SAD.:  "From that time to this she had remained in total ignorance of the cause of Anne's disappearance and of the end of Anne's story."  I understand why Walter didn't tell her, but, still.  SAD.

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson
The Third Epoch: The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VI

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Other reader/bloggers:

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Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Second Epoch: The Story Continued in Several Narratives

It figures that I'd finally catch up JUST IN TIME to read this extremely short section.  HUGE spoilers below, and much hypothesizing on my part.

The Second Epoch:  The Story Continued in Several Narratives

The Narrative of Hester Pinhorn
In which Death comes to call.

•  As this character is illiterate, her testimony is being transcribed by an unnamed 'gentleman'. Walter, probably?

•  Rats.  So Laura (assuming that IT IS Laura -- after all, this character has only Fosco's word on the matter -- yes, I'm still hoping for some sort of switch) is at Count Fosco's London residence and has already collapsed.

•  Yeah, no way is that Laura.  Heart disease?  No.  Even the hysterics seemed too... hysterical.

•  You don't have to know how to read to be extremely perceptive.  On Fosco:  "He seemed terribly cut up by what had happened. "Ah! poor Lady Glyde! poor dear Lady Glyde!" he says, and went stalking about, wringing his fat hands more like a play-actor than a gentleman."  Hester Pinhorn sees much more than the educated Mrs. Michelson.

•  HA!:  "I declare he quite tormented us all, and when he was quiet at last, out he went into the bit of back garden, picking trumpery little nosegays, and asking me to take them upstairs and make the sick-room look pretty with them. As if THAT did any good."

•  Then she gets better for a while, then Fosco goes shopping...

•  Aaand DEAD.  Totally, totally Anne Catherick.  RIGHT??

•  Hmmmm.  "He seemed not so much sorry, as scared and dazed like, by what had happened."  Is it guilt?

•  Nice alibi for the jerk:  "The dead lady's husband was away, as we heard, in foreign parts."

•  If the dead lady is indeed Anne Catherick, she's getting what she said she wanted way back at the beginning -- to be buried next to Laura's mother.

• Hester Pinhorn finishes up by stating that she never saw Fosco give anything to "Lady Glyde", and that to the best of her knowledge, he was never alone with her.

The Narrative of the Doctor
In which we read the death certificate.

•  Aneurism.

The Narrative of Jane Gould
In which we follow The Body to The Coffin.

•  It's nice that Wilkie is giving the readers a chance to mull over "Laura's" death.

•  Also, no chance for a faked death or body switch or any other such nonsense.  Jane Gould prepared the body, it was placed in the coffin, and the lid was screwed down.

The Narrative of the Tombstone
In which we read "Laura's" tombstone.

•  It stinks that Sir Percival is with her (whoever 'her' is) in death.

The Narrative of Walter Hartright
In which Our Hero returns.

•  The visions that Marian had came to pass, and Walter -- surviving "death by disease, death by the Indians, death by drowning" -- is back in England.

•  WALTER.  I LOVE YOU:  "In the stern school of extremity and danger my will had learnt to be strong, my heart to be resolute, my mind to rely on itself. I had gone out to fly from my own future. I came back to face it, as a man should."  (Still overly concerned with gender roles, but I'm going to give him a pass because I'm so happy to see him and because that tombstone is going to give him a horrible, horrible shock.)

•  "My pen traces the old letters as my heart goes back to the old love. I write of her as Laura Fairlie still. It is hard to think of her, it is hard to speak of her, by her husband's name."  (Is it ridiculous that I'm hoping that they're married?  I mean, assuming that I'm right and that she isn't actually dead?  Because that would be a nice happy little line if they were.)

•  Oh.  This doesn't suggest nice and happy:  "There are no more words of explanation to add on my appearance for the second time in these pages. This narrative, if I have the strength and the courage to write it, may now go on. "

•  Oh, SAD:

A second time I tried to read the inscription. I saw at the end the date of her death, and above it——

Above it there were lines on the marble—there was a name among them which disturbed my thoughts of her. I went round to the other side of the grave, where there was nothing to read, nothing of earthly vileness to force its way between her spirit and mine.

Even more sad -- again, assuming that Laura isn't actually dead -- it's quite likely that Sir Percival will receive no sort of comeuppance.  Or maybe he will and Fosco won't.  But it sounded like, from Mrs. Michelson's testimony, that Sir Percival was still alive, but just... gone.  We'll see, I guess.

•  Two women approach... Marian... and... YES.  Laura.  PHEW.  I was getting worried there.  And BTW, Wilkie, THANKS FOR STRESSING ME OUT.

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson

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Other reader/bloggers:

____________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson

The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson

The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.
In which Fosco masterfully handles Mr. Fairlie.

•  Oh, my.  I have a feeling that this section is going to be both maddening and hilarious.  It begins, "It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone."  Our Wilkie really was rather wonderful, wasn't he?  All of these characters' voices are so distinct and real -- it's hard not to think of them as actual people.  (Not that I'm trying not to -- oh, you know what I mean.)

•  If he'd stop complaining for two minutes, his section would probably be two thirds shorter.  Also, POOR Louis:

Shattered by my miserable health and my family troubles, I am incapable of resistance. If you insist, you take your unjust advantage of me, and I give way immediately. I will endeavour to remember what I can (under protest), and to write what I can (also under protest), and what I can't remember and can't write, Louis must remember and write for me. He is an ass, and I am an invalid, and we are likely to make all sorts of mistakes between us. How humiliating!

• Okay, I need to stop quoting, but he's just such a monster, and so funny:

At the end of June, or the beginning of July, then, I was reclining in my customary state, surrounded by the various objects of Art which I have collected about me to improve the taste of the barbarous people in my neighbourhood. That is to say, I had the photographs of my pictures, and prints, and coins, and so forth, all about me, which I intend, one of these days, to present (the photographs, I mean, if the clumsy English language will let me mean anything) to present to the institution at Carlisle (horrid place!), with a view to improving the tastes of the members (Goths and Vandals to a man). It might be supposed that a gentleman who was in course of conferring a great national benefit on his countrymen was the last gentleman in the world to be unfeelingly worried about private difficulties and family affairs. Quite a mistake, I assure you, in my case.

However, there I was, reclining, with my art-treasures about me, and wanting a quiet morning. Because I wanted a quiet morning, of course Louis came in. It was perfectly natural that I should inquire what the deuce he meant by making his appearance when I had not rung my bell. I seldom swear—it is such an ungentlemanlike habit—but when Louis answered by a grin, I think it was also perfectly natural that I should damn him for grinning. At any rate, I did.

For a guy who's so Put Out about writing this (assuming that poor Louis isn't being forced to transcribe, which wouldn't surprise me), he seems to be enjoying the pulpit.

•  HA.  Now poor Louis IS taking dictation.

•  NOOOO!  So Madame Fosco drugged Fanny?  And read or replaced the letters??

•  DOUBLE NOOOOO!  Madame Fosco swiped the letter to Gilmore!?  But of course, receiving a blank piece of paper in the mail would get Gilmore riled anyway... as he, unlike Mr. Fairlie, has a working brain.

•  Note that he refers to Gilmore as "dear, pig-headed Mr. Gilmore".  I wonder if his gentlemanly delicacy prevented him from using the same epithet in reference to Marian?

•  Ooo, I want to KICK him.  He doesn't hear anything more from Marian, so he assumes that All Is Well.  Meanwhile, she's probably being slowly poisoned by Fosco or something.  GOD.

•  AND OH MY GOD, NOW FOSCO IS THERE TO TALK TO HIM.  !!!  And, ha ha ha ha:

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?"

•  Mr. Fairlie's first impression on Fosco:  "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."  Oh, yes, Mr. Fairlie, you are nothing if not candid.

•  Fosco is so awesomely manipulative.  If only he would Use His Powers For Good.

•  HA!  Yes, very candid indeed:  "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."

•  So Marian is sick, but not dying.  (According to Fosco, but I don't see why he'd lie.)  PHEW!

•  Ha!  And Fosco is totally messing with Mr. Fairlie about the infectious nature of Marian's fever -- Oh, no, don't worry!  It isn't infectious, and I WOULD KNOW BECAUSE I'VE BEEN SPENDING LOTS OF TIME IN THE SICKROOM!  Aha ha ha ha ha!  Oh, Fosco, I would love you if you weren't Made Of Evil.

•  Still not knowing what Fosco's Long Game is: he's pushing for a separation, he's sworn that Sir Percival won't come to Limmeridge.  Cutting through all of the explanations, he REALLY wants Laura out of the way.  Or something.

•  WAIT A MINUTE.  Are they going to bump off Anne Catherick and then pretend she's Laura and then claim Laura's inheritance while she's hiding out at Limmeridge??  No, that's insane and also completely ridiculous and just RIFE with probable pitfalls.  There's no way they could get away with that.  Right?  I mean, RIGHT??  It would make much more sense to just bump off Laura.  But that just seems too easy, and then what would be the point of having a dopplegänger?

•  It seems that Count Fosco is going to be with Laura at each changing point of her journey -- if she was a more capable, determined woman, he'd probably go the whole way with her, but as it is...  Also, did you notice that her health has taken a turn?  She probably looks even MORE like Anne Catherick now.

The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson (Housekeeper at Blackwater Park)
I.  In which I nearly lose my mind because I hate the narrator OH SO VERY MUCH.

•  Mrs. Michelson is VERY aware of What Is Proper: "Lady Glyde (being no longer in Sir Percival's service, I may, without impropriety, mention my former mistress by her name, instead of calling her my lady) was the first to come in from her own bedroom." 

•  This bit, from the very beginning of this section, made me feel that she felt a bit that having a job was Beneath Her:  "As the widow of a clergyman of the Church of England (reduced by misfortune to the necessity of accepting a situation), I have been taught to place the claims of truth above all other considerations."  She also seems to have a pretty serious case of Snobbery Of The Servant Class.

•  On Laura:  "She was so dreadfully alarmed and distressed that she was quite useless."

•  What was the Count doing at the boathouse?  Waiting for Anne Catherick?

•  Lots more of the Count's Amazing Superpower:  Manipulation.  I wonder if Mrs. Michelson ever figures it out -- I'm not going to hold my breath.

•  "I advance no opinions—I offer facts only. My endeavour through life is to judge not that I be not judged."  Yeah, except that your "facts" are totally colored by your opinions, but lets move along, shall we?

•  What with this character and Miss Clack from The Moonstone, I wonder how Wilkie felt about religion.

• Ooo.  Has Anne Catherick been found?

•  HA!:  "I did not suspect the Count of any impropriety—I knew his moral character too well."

•  I never thought I'd find a character MORE maddening than Mr. Fairlie.  But, here we are.

•  And now the nurse hired by the Foscos is introduced.  So first she tries to hawk copies of the aforementioned collection of her dead husband's sermons, and THEN, she proceeds to do lots of "not judging": 

It has also always been my precept and practice, as it was my dear husband's precept and practice before me (see Sermon XXIX. in the Collection by the late Rev. Samuel Michelson, M.A.), to do as I would be done by. On both these accounts I will not say that Mrs. Rubelle struck me as being a small, wiry, sly person, of fifty or thereabouts, with a dark brown or Creole complexion and watchful light grey eyes. Nor will I mention, for the reasons just alleged, that I thought her dress, though it was of the plainest black silk, inappropriately costly in texture and unnecessarily refined in trimming and finish, for a person in her position in life. I should not like these things to be said of me, and therefore it is my duty not to say them of Mrs. Rubelle.

Oh, you won't say any of that, will you?  At least Mr. Fairlie isn't totally self-righteous.

•  And she's a complete hypocrite:

Such want of liberality towards a foreigner on the part of a lady of her education and refinement surprised me. I ventured to say, "My lady, we must all remember not to be hasty in our judgments on our inferiors—especially when they come from foreign parts."

I can't believe that I'm feeling so defensive of Laura.  If Marian wasn't all passed out and feverish, she'd have had words for Mrs. Michelson.

•  GAH!!!!: "Some people might have thought such conduct suggestive of brazen assurance. I beg to say that I more liberally set it down to extraordinary strength of mind."  I HATE HER.

•  The doctor, on the other hand, is awesome.

•  AND she's thicker than thick:

"With all respect to Mr. Dawson," I answered, "in your ladyship's place I should remember the Count's advice."

Lady Glyde turned away from me suddenly, with an appearance of despair, for which I was quite unable to account.

"HIS advice!" she said to herself. "God help us—HIS advice!"

•  AND she's a gossip but pretends not to be:

Sir Percival dined by himself, and William (the man out of livery) make the remark, in my hearing, that his master had put himself on half rations of food and on a double allowance of drink. I attach no importance to such an insolent observation as this on the part of a servant. I reprobated it at the time, and I wish to be understood as reprobating it once more on this occasion.

•  Ooo.  Sneaky Count Fosco stepped aside to let Laura into the possibly typhus-infected room.  But Doctor Dawson stopped her.

•  So did Mrs. Rubelle bring the typhus with her?  I'm at a loss as to her real reason for being there.  I mean, unless the Count really did want to help Marian.  Which I could believe.  But I doubt that he does many things for one reason alone...  Did he bring her in to torque the doctor up a bit more so he'd be more likely to give notice?  If so, he ultimately succeeded.

•  Finally.  It took a lot -- Sir Percival fired almost all of the servants (to save money, he says, but also, I assume, to GET RID OF WITNESSES) -- but Mrs. Michelson finally has started to think that Blackwater Park might not be a healthy (beyond the typhus) place to be:

With the house left in this strange and lonely condition—with the mistress of it ill in her room—with Miss Halcombe still as helpless as a child—and with the doctor's attendance withdrawn from us in enmity—it was surely not unnatural that my spirits should sink, and my customary composure be very hard to maintain. My mind was ill at ease. I wished the poor ladies both well again, and I wished myself away from Blackwater Park.

II.  In which I am TOTALLY blindsided by a Plot Twist.

•  GAAAAAAAAAAAH.  Just when I thought I was coming around, she starts the chapter off with this:  "The next event that occurred was of so singular a nature that it might have caused me a feeling of superstitious surprise, if my mind had not been fortified by principle against any pagan weakness of that sort."  SUCH.  A.  COW.

•  Percival and Fosco pack Mrs. Michelson off to Torquay to secure lodgings for Laura and Marian.  (Man, for two broke guys, they do spend a lot of money.  Spend it to make it, I guess.  So they want her out of the way, for one thing.  Are they really going to send the sisters to Torquay?  Isn't Fawlty Towers set in Torquay?  Heh.  Marian Halcombe vs. Basil Fawlty.  No contest, there -- even while recuperating from typhus.) 

•  Oh, okay.  They really do just want her out of the way, as they've given her impossible requirements for the desired lodgings.

•  I'm still dying to know what the deal is with Mrs. Rubelle.  (Rubella is measles.  But once again, maybe I SHOULD JUST READ.  No wonder I've been so behind.)

•  Eeek.  The Countess is hanging out in Laura's room.  Mrs. Michelson didn't actually see Laura before leaving.

•  So she gets back from Torquay to find the Foscos have cleared out and that Margaret Poacher (GROSS) is acting as Laura's maid.  Okay, in this case I agree with Mrs. Michelson about the "glaring impropriety".  But more because Margaret Poacher is a sadist (and stupid) than because of class issues.

•  The Foscos TOOK Marian AWAY??  Oh, wait.  But then Percival says it's so that she can speak with Mr. Fairlie before Laura shows up.  But I thought that was all squared with Mr. Fairlie already.  Yeah.  LIAR.  Hey, Laura, here's a plan:  While he's getting drunk (again), RUN AWAY.

• Erm... protest too much, much?:

"Do you suppose there are any secrets going on here?" he broke out suddenly; "there are none—there is nothing underhand, nothing kept from you or from any one." After speaking those strange words loudly and sternly, he filled himself another glass of wine and asked Lady Glyde what she wanted of him.

•  SNORT:  "Much as I sympathised with Lady Glyde in other respects, I could not sympathise with her in her unjust prejudices against Count Fosco. I never before met with any lady of her rank and station who was so lamentably narrow-minded on the subject of foreigners."

• Ooo, look at that -- Laura's strength is returning and she's getting willful again... AND she's using her BRAIN, which is always nice to see.  And look at that -- Laura actually wrote a letter of her own!  To Mrs. Vesey!  And convinced Mrs. Michelson to secretly post it!  I'm so proud!

•  The Laura/Percival farewell scene suggests that Percival and Fosco have a really, really ugly plan, erm, planned:

She only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he approached the door, by holding out her hand.

"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner. "This is our parting—our parting, it may be for ever. Will you try to forgive me, Percival, as heartily as I forgive YOU?"

His face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of perspiration broke out on his bald forehead. "I shall come back," he said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife's farewell words had frightened him out of the room.

•  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Marian hasn't actually left Blackwater Park!  Mrs. Rubelle IS (probably) Evil! (I know, I know, shocker, right?)  Now Laura is totally On Her Own.  I hope she is able to avoid Count Fosco at the train station.

•  And Sir Percival is such a horrid human being:

I saw him as soon as she did. He came towards us, slashing viciously at the flowers with his riding-whip. When he was near enough to see my face he stopped, struck at his boot with the whip, and burst out laughing, so harshly and so violently that the birds flew away, startled, from the tree by which he stood.

•  So Mrs. Michelson gives notice.  Which, in this case, is totally, totally understandable.  Though it does leave Marian rather at the mercy of some Very Bad People.

•  And now Mrs. Rubelle is being sent to London -- is she going to act as Laura's jailer now?

•  Okay, Mrs. Michelson is staying to take care of Marian.  Which is good.  She's Awful, but she's certainly not Evil.

•  And has Percival SNAPPED?  I hope he falls off his horse and breaks his neck.  Sure, it'd be a lame ending, but if ANYONE deserves to just DROP DEAD, it's him.

•  Well, it seems clear that he's still alive at the time of Mrs. Michelson's writing.  Rats.  Though she never saw him again after he took off.  Lucky lady.

•  Harumph: "The disgrace of lending herself to a vile deception is the only disgrace with which I can conscientiously charge Mrs. Rubelle."  I'll add And Seeming To Revel In It to that.

•  UH OH.  "I need write no particulars (and I am relieved to know it) of the effect produced on Miss Halcombe by the news of Lady Glyde's departure, or by the far more melancholy tidings which reached us only too soon afterwards at Blackwater Park."

•  Wow.  And she STILL believes that Fosco is/was completely innocent in all that happened.  Well, she's loyal, I'll give her that.  But also easily swayed by Pretty Manners.  Well, as I said before, he does have the superpower of manipulation.  So maybe I shouldn't be quite so hard on her.

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript

____________________________________________________________

Other reader/bloggers:

____________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript

By this time, I'm sure you know that spoilers follow.

The Second Epoch: 
The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

VI.  In which the Woman in White makes an appearance.

•  Marian re-read her journal and realized, as we already had, that she wasn't to blame for Laura's predicament.  So that's good.

• Okay, also good:  the lawyer wrote back and said that Sir Percival probably wants to draw from the principal of Laura's fortune, and not to sign anything unless he's there.  Which is solid advice.  Here's hoping that the ladies don't get manipulated into signing anyway.  It probably doesn't bode well that Count Fosco just appeared.

• So, knowing that the document wasn't going to happen, Fosco talked Sir Percival out of pushing it any further -- do they have a new plan now?  Will they make an attempt on Laura's life??  And is Marian all dizzy and weak because she was up all night, or is her health taking a turn?

• Okay.  So Marian did some astral projecting, à la Jane Eyre, and there was more what-looked-to-me-like foreshadowing about Laura's future:

I saw him for the last time. He was kneeling by a tomb of white marble, and the shadow of a veiled woman rose out of the grave beneath and waited by his side. The unearthly quiet of his face had changed to an unearthly sorrow. But the terrible certainty of his words remained the same. "Darker and darker," he said; "farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young—and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End."

My heart sank under a dread beyond words, under a grief beyond tears. The darkness closed round the pilgrim at the marble tomb—closed round the veiled woman from the grave—closed round the dreamer who looked on them. I saw and heard no more.

I was aroused by a hand laid on my shoulder. It was Laura's.

Unless there's a switcheroo and Anne Catherick dies -- I think Laura Fairlie might be totally screwed.  Damn it.  Oh, but Laura just told Marian that she's talked with the Woman in White -- so we'll see.

•  Oh.  Anne Catherick is dying, so she isn't scared of horrid Sir Percival anymore.  (On the one hand, sad.  But on the other, if she dies, Laura might live -- because Wilkie wouldn't kill both of them, would he?)

•  GAH!!  JUST TELL HER THE SECRET!  I CAN'T TAKE ALL OF THIS BUILD UP!

•  OH, COME ON!  Seriously?  Another miss?  But now they know that there IS a Secret, so that's something.  (It had really better not be that he's broke.  That would be worse than Laura's My Husband Doesn't Love Me secret.)

• Bad times are coming:  "I felt the ominous future coming close, chilling me with an unutterable awe, forcing on me the conviction of an unseen design in the long series of complications which had now fastened round us. I thought of Hartright—as I saw him in the body when he said farewell; as I saw him in the spirit in my dream—and I too began to doubt now whether we were not advancing blindfold to an appointed and an inevitable end."  Suddenly I'm concerned about Marian again -- if her contribution to this manuscript is her journal... well, we really don't know that she's survived all of this.

VII.  In which Sir Percival shows his even truer colors.

•  I'm a bit concerned that Sir Percival is around somewhere, that Marian can't find Laura or Anne Catherick, AND that they were supposed to meet at the boat house, which is exactly the spot that Sir Percival thought was a good spot for a murder.

•  Color me flabbergasted.  So Sir Percival locks Laura up and fires her maid; Marian protests; Sir Percival threatens to lock her up, TOO; Madame Fosco protests (clearly at the behest of the Count); Sir Percival backs down.  I have given up trying to figure out what the Count's game is.  And I really don't know if it'll bother him that Laura called him a spy -- but it sure bothered his wife.

•  Rather than writing letters to find out their legal options, I would like for Marian and Laura to just run away.  Like, NOW.  Even if they never solve the mystery, and even if it ruins their respectability.  This book is STRESSING.  ME.  OUT.

VIII.  In which letters are written and the Foscos (maybe?) take action.

•  Marian attempts to smooth things over with the Count and his wife -- and on the surface, she does.  But she finally realizes just how strongly she feels about Fosco:

With that polite speech he took my hand—oh, how I despise myself! oh, how little comfort there is even in knowing that I submitted to it for Laura's sake!—he took my hand and put it to his poisonous lips. Never did I know all my horror of him till then. That innocent familiarity turned my blood as if it had been the vilest insult that a man could offer me. Yet I hid my disgust from him—I tried to smile—I, who once mercilessly despised deceit in other women, was as false as the worst of them, as false as the Judas whose lips had touched my hand.

It's interesting, too, that this entire experience has made Marian much more forgiving of her sex -- maybe because previously, she'd never really been trapped before?  Or felt unable to speak her mind without Serious Repercussions?

•  The Count is "hot and flushed" at dinner -- does that mean that he followed Marian into town?  Does he know about the letters she gave to Fanny?  And he keeps looking "at his wife with an expression of furtive uneasiness".  Does that mean that they've taken action in something together, or that he's worried she will do something on her own?

•  Is Fosco refusing to stay with Percival after dinner because he doesn't want to talk to Percival, or because he wants to keep tabs on his wife?

•  And now Madame Fosco is Up To Something (searching Marian's room?), while the Count is keeping Marian from checking up on her.  Oh, the trials of polite society! 

•  Uh oh.  I rather think that Madame Fosco read Marian's journal.  And she seems really smirky about Marian's pallor.  At this point, I'm much more worried about Marian than I am about Laura.  Of course, it's hard to get all worried about Laura since she's locked herself in her room.  (But she trusts the food that they give her?  I wouldn't.)

IX.  In which Marian eavesdrops from the veranda roof in the pouring rain.

•  It's finally official -- we know now that Percival and Fosco are in cahoots because they both need money.  And Fosco, though he is at odds with Marian, certainly appreciates her:

With that woman for my friend I would snap these fingers of mine at the world. With that woman for my enemy, I, with all my brains and experience—I, Fosco, cunning as the devil himself, as you have told me a hundred times—I walk, in your English phrase, upon egg-shells! And this grand creature—I drink her health in my sugar-and-water—this grand creature, who stands in the strength of her love and her courage, firm as a rock, between us two and that poor, flimsy, pretty blonde wife of yours—this magnificent woman, whom I admire with all my soul, though I oppose her in your interests and in mine, you drive to extremities as if she was no sharper and no bolder than the rest of her sex. Percival! Percival! you deserve to fail, and you HAVE failed.

•  Ha.  Without even meeting him, Fosco has Mr. Fairlie's number:  "Men of that sort, Percival, live long, and marry malevolently when you least expect it. I don't give you much, my friend, for your chance of the three thousand a year."

•  So Fosco puts the situation to Percival very bluntly:  If Laura lives, Percival has a remote chance at three thousand a year.  If she dies, he gets twenty.  (And Fosco gets ten.)  Percival, interestingly, seems rather horrified by the idea of offing his wife.

•  Ah.  And Fosco doesn't know what The Secret is -- no wonder he's been so interested in Anne Catherick.

•  Staying out in the rain like this can't be good for Marian.  It almost killed Jane Bennet.  And Marianne Dashwood.

•  Fosco's description of himself:  "I am a man of the antique type! I am capable of the most exalted acts of virtue—when I have the chance of performing them. It has been the misfortune of my life that I have had few chances."  Thoughts?

•  Percival on Anne Catherick:  "She's just mad enough to be shut up, and just sane enough to ruin me when she's at large—if you understand that?" 

•  They're going to have this entire conversation without revealing The Secret, aren't they?  ARRRG!

•  So The Secret involves Anne Catherick's mother, and therefore she won't reveal it.  So is it something about Percival's parentage?  About Anne Catherick's?  According to Sir Percival, despite their physical similarities, Anne Catherick and Laura aren't related. 

•  Fosco seems to be a little bit too happy about the fact that the women look alike.  I'm concerned that he's just Hatched A Plan.

X.  In which DAMMIT.

•  Oh, hell.  She IS sick.  Really sick.  Really, really, really sick.

Postscript:  In which we get Fosco's voice -- which is wonderful and so perfectly him -- but also, DOUBLE DAMMIT.

•  So, wait.  IS SHE DEAD?  She isn't -- yet -- right?  Has Fosco "helped" the doctor to keep Marian Out Of The Way?  If circumstances had been very, very different... would he have wanted to marry her? 

•  So she is still alive at the end of this chapter -- but incapacitated. 

•  If Wilkie offs her, I'm going to have to stomp off to Kensal Green Cemetery, Grave Number 31754, Square 141, Row 1, and give him a piece of my mind.

•  I just double-checked the table of contents -- no more Marian.  !!?!?!  Gulp.

____________________________________________________________

Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V

____________________________________________________________

Other reader/bloggers:

____________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Second Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V

The Second Epoch: 
The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

I.  Blackwater Park, Hampshire. 
In which Marian catches us up and explores Blackwater Park.

•  And, whoa, time warp!  It has been six months since Marian and Laura have been together.  They'll be reunited tomorrow, and YIKES -- Count Fosco and his wife are relocating to the same neighborhood.

•  "He has spent so much money abroad that he has none left to defray the expenses of living in London for the remainder of the season, and he is economically resolved to pass the summer and autumn quietly at Blackwater."  Ooookay.  So, is he spending her money yet?

•  This is exactly why the Heroine Raised In An Unusual Manner Resulting In Modern Sensibilities And Behavior is such a popular sub-genre of historical fiction:  "Being, however, nothing but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats for life, I must respect the house-keeper's opinions, and try to compose myself in some feeble and feminine way."

•  Getting caught up:  Walter was last seen entering the jungle with his team; nothing has been heard of Anne Catherick; Mr. Gilmore had a heart attack and isn't allowed to do business stuff; Mrs. Vesey has gone to live with her sister; and Mr. Fairlie is happy to have Limmeridge to himself, his poor, poor valet, and the two unfortunate photographers he's hired.  So, basically, Marian and Laura are going to be On Their Own Up Against Whatever Evil Plot Is At Hand.

•  As for Laura: "Even when she wanders from the subject of her travels, and occupies herself with the prospects that await her in England, her speculations are busied with her future as my sister, and persistently neglect to notice her future as Sir Percival's wife."  So it doesn't sound to me like Sir Percival has attempted to get amorous or as if he's even trying to gain her affection.

•  I'm glad that the housekeeper doesn't appear to be evil.  Good to know that when Sir Percival spent all of that money fixing up his house, he didn't disturb the damp, darkness or rats -- makes me wonder what state it was in BEFORE he fixed it up.  (Yes, yes, I know it's a huge place.  But, still: gross.)

•  If the Lovecraftian Blackwater Lake isn't ominous, I don't know what is.

•  Great.  So the gameskeeper shoots dogs and lets them crawl off to die slow and painful deaths, and the housemaid thinks it's funny.  Did Sir Percival SPECIFY in his want ad that was looking for sadists?  AND THE DOG BELONGS TO MRS. CATHERICK?!  AND SOMEONE WHO LOOKS LIKE ANNE HAS BEEN SEEN IN THE VICINITY??  Also, who shows up with her dog and then goes the twenty-five miles home without him -- or without at least mentioning that he took off?  Maybe she didn't leave?  Maybe Baxter SHOT HER, TOO!  MAYBE I should keep reading!  Ooo, she didn't want Sir Percival to know she'd been there?  WHY?  Are they not on the friendly terms that he led us all to believe??

•  Wilkie does love his omens:  "The dog was dead. It had given a faint, sobbing cry, it had suffered an instant's convulsion of the limbs, just as those last words, "comely and healthy and young," dropped from the housekeeper's lips."

II.  In which we finally get a look at Count Fosco.

•  Laura is less innocent, physically stronger, and seemingly hardier than she was six months ago.  She refuses to talk to Marian about her marriage, which doesn't bode well, and it seems to me that she's setting up a sort-of fantasy refuge in Marian's living area, what with keeping all of her Limmeridge stuff in one place.  Like she's compartmentalizing her life in an somewhat unhealthy way.

•  Still hoping Sir Percival is consumptive.  He's twitchy and coughy.  And he's acting like the control freak husband from Sleeping with the Enemy.  Minus the domestic violence (and probably minus the sex, too?) -- he just REALLY likes stuff to be orderly.

• So was the guy who visited A) someone he hired to find Anne Catherick; B) a bill collector; or C) part of some other mystery?  Will there be a knee-capping scene?  God, I hope so.

• Oh, dear.  Judging by the description of Madame Fosco (Why isn't she a Countess?  How does that work, exactly?), I'm thinking that I was right, and that Count Fosco is evil.  Because that is one scared, unhappy lady.  Who might snap at any moment.  So she could do evil stuff, too.

• On the Count himself:  "This in two words: He looks like a man who could tame anything. If he had married a tigress, instead of a woman, he would have tamed the tigress. If he had married me, I should have made his cigarettes, as his wife does—I should have held my tongue when he looked at me, as she holds hers."  WOW.  That's rather major.  And worrisome, because she sounds fascinated by him.  In a BAD way.

• After writing the above, I got all fascinated by the Count and didn't take any notes.  Now that he's off-screen, I can describe him as a possibly evil chemistry genius, a fan of small, fragile animals, a flamboyant dresser and a man who can wrap anyone around his little finger.  (Except, interestingly, Laura.)  It's odd that Marian doesn't find Madame Fosco's behavior worrisome -- because it shows (or seems to show) that for all of the Count's charms, there's something ugly lurking.

•  And now Sir Percival's lawyer has showed up, and it seems that SOMETHING has happened.

•  I don't care how fascinating the Count is (and he IS) -- I still think he's bad news.  I keep picturing him as a super-sized evil version of Hercule Poirot, minus the moustaches, plus some mice.  Wait a minute... he's always so interested to know if there are Italians in the vicinity, and he hasn't been home in ages -- I hope that Pesca shows up later and turns out to be a secret agent.  I suspect that I'm mixing my genres here, but COME ON.  That would be AWESOME.

III.  In which the Count expresses his opinions on Crime.

•  It's funny that Marian, for all of her dislike of her sex and the frustrations that come of it, totally pulls the "I couldn't help myself -- I'm a WOMAN" card:  "I daresay it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the other?"  Heh.

•  AHA!  And now the money issues begin.  Laura seems more composed and blasé about it than I would have expected.  I think she's been hiding a big brain in her head.

• Ugh.  Sir Percival sucking up is worse than Sir Percival being cranky.  At least when he's cranky, he's not there.

• WOW.  GO, Laura.  She should let her irritation show more often.

• And YOW.  Again, I got so pulled in that I didn't take notes.  That discussion about crime was something, no?  I'm thinking that Count Fosco might actually be the Devil, making Bad Things sound Reasonable and Right and Almost Good.  And finally, Sir Percival finds out about Mrs. Catherick's visit.  I wish Marian'd kept her trap shut -- but then, so does she.  That last bit with the door shutting her out and her ascending the stairs felt really... final.

IV.  In which Sir Percival shows his True Colors, Laura shows some Serious Backbone, and both of them allude to a Dreadful Secret.

•  Despite that feeling of finality:  Now Marian has to be one of the witnesses because Fosco won't let his wife sign.  WHAT IS HIS GAME???

•  I wonder if Fosco's monologue about wise criminals and foolish criminals was actually sort of about himself and Sir Percival.  Because Fosco wouldn't have played the document signing the way that Sir Percival did.  And he certainly never would have let himself go like this:

"A cool declaration, upon my soul!" cried Sir Percival. "The next time you invite yourself to a man's house, Miss Halcombe, I recommend you not to repay his hospitality by taking his wife's side against him in a matter that doesn't concern you."

•  I never thought I'd see Laura like this -- I mean, she HATES him:

"Scruples!" he repeated. "YOUR scruples! It is rather late in the day for you to be scrupulous. I should have thought you had got over all weakness of that sort, when you made a virtue of necessity by marrying me."

The instant he spoke those words, Laura threw down the pen—looked at him with an expression in her eyes which, throughout all my experience of her, I had never seen in them before, and turned her back on him in dead silence.

And, of course, I'd like to know what he's talking about.  She didn't, like, have Walter's love child while she was abroad, did she?

•  OH NOOOOO!  Now the Count is going to get the letter and have a fake messenger bring a fake letter!  Right?  Right?  I mean, Madame Fosco is obviously keeping Marian distracted for a reason, right?

•  So he read it, and she knows he read it, but he doesn't know that she knows.  Maybe.  But he didn't replace it with a different letter.  So there's that.  But he is BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD and I'm kind of scared.

V.  In which Laura reveals her Dreadful Secret.

• Seriously?  That's the Big Secret?  That Sir Percival married her for her money?  DUH!  I was hoping for something, you know -- juicy.  That isn't to say that her confession wasn't sad:

"It would have been better for me if I had gone on crying, but his contempt dried up my tears and hardened my heart. From that time, Marian, I never checked myself again in thinking of Walter Hartright. I let the memory of those happy days, when we were so fond of each other in secret, come back and comfort me."

Or was her Big Secret that Sir Percival discovered Walter's name?  Either way, not very exciting.  But sad for her, and sad for Walter.  Even though, really, she could have prevented ALL OF THIS.

• I'm surprised that Sir Percival has been such a bastard about Walter, since he's made it so very clear that he doesn't even remotely care about Laura.  Is it because he's a big sadistic jerk and just wants her to be miserable?  Oh, I guess it could be pride, too.

•  Oh, Marian, stop it.  You're being melodramatic, and I know you hate that.  It wasn't your fault. 

• Who was it, out there with them?  Is the Woman in White back?  Or was someone else spying on them?

____________________________________________________________

Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

____________________________________________________________

Other reader/bloggers:

Sarah at what we have here is failure to communicate
Gina at Dickensblog
Ms Avery at The Degrassi Digest

____________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

Real life continues to infringe on my reading time, so I'm still behind, but I do have the day off tomorrow.  By Friday, I should be back on track.  Spoilers follow.

The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

I.  Limmeridge House:  In which Laura's behavior threatens to MAKE ME CRAZY.

•  "There was too much colour in her cheeks, too much energy in her manner, too much firmness in her voice."  Really?  What else?  Too much life in her body?  You'd prefer the usual wilting flower? 

• While I think it's crap that Laura's going to throw away her entire life and future happiness to follow through on her dead father's wishes, I think her decision to Tell Sir Percival All shows more bravery than she's shown thus far.  Though maybe it's just that she's so miserable that she wants to make herself more miserable.  I dunno. 

•  "...I saw the little book of Hartright's drawings half hidden under her pillow, just in the place where she used to hide her favourite toys when she was a child."  Yeesh.

•  AHA!  Walter IS being followed.  Poor guy.  He was already on the edge.  I wish Marian was a bit more paranoid -- then maybe she'd realize that ALL OF THIS STUFF IS, HELLO, RELATED, instead of assuming that Walter's brain broke when his heart did.

•  BAH.  If she'd told Sir Percival that her money was gone, I bet he'd have been out of there faster than the Road Runner.  As it was, I'd have LOVED to see the expression on his face when she was confessing.  Was he smirking?  Smolderingly angry?  Biting his nails?  What?  I want to know!

•  Now that he HASN'T taken her up on breaking it off and she's all upset, I can't really feel bad for her anymore -- if you try to get someone to do your dirty work for you and they don't take you up on it, you can't get all upset.  Criminy.  If she felt that strongly about it -- and as she'd pressed her Resolute Button and everything, why not go whole hog and take action?  Wow, I go back and forth about Laura.  Now that I see she's capable of some strength, I want to shake her.  Then again, if she had called it all off, it probably would have messed up Wilkie's plotting.

•  "I was so conscious of my unreasonable prejudice against him—so conscious of an unworthy suspicion that he might be speculating on my impulsively answering the very questions which he had just described himself as resolved not to ask—that I evaded all reference to this part of the subject with something like a feeling of confusion on my own part."  STICK TO YOUR GUNS, MARIAN.  TRUST.  YOUR.  FREAKING.  INSTINCTS.

•  I've been fantasizing about stabbing Mr. Fairlie.  I am a bad person.

•  "She used to be pliability itself, but she was now inflexibly passive in her resignation—I might almost say in her despair."  Her resigned passivity is WAY more maddening than her previous behavior.  But I already went on and on about that.  GRRRR.

•  Walter is headed to Central America for the next eighteen months, and Marian is bringing Laura to Yorkshire.  SIGH.  I almost wish she'd just start bullying Laura.  Marian's bossiness would eventually win out over Laura's stubbornness, wouldn't it?  Or she could just conk her on the head and spirit her away.

II.  Polesdean Lodge, Yorkshire:  In which nothing happens.

III.  Limmeridge House:  In which Marian flirts with the Dark Side.

•  Do people not know the state Sir Percival's finances are in?  I got the impression from Mr. Gilmore that it was common knowledge that he had no money.  So is he borrowing against the money he'll have access to once he's married?  And why has no-one but Mr. Gilmore realized that he has mercenary motives?  God, he's a dirtbag.

• So far, this bit has been my only respite from my rage in this chapter:

If, as soon as I got into the passage, I could have transported Mr. Fairlie and Sir Percival Glyde to the uttermost ends of the earth by lifting one of my fingers, that finger would have been raised without an instant's hesitation.

My thoughts exactly.

For once my unhappy temper now stood my friend. I should have broken down altogether and burst into a violent fit of crying, if my tears had not been all burnt up in the heat of my anger. As it was, I dashed into Mr. Fairlie's room—called to him as harshly as possible, "Laura consents to the twenty-second"—and dashed out again without waiting for a word of answer. I banged the door after me, and I hope I shattered Mr. Fairlie's nervous system for the rest of the day.

I hope it did, too.

•  THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE FORESHADOWING:

But there is danger in my keeping the letter. The merest accident might place it at the mercy of strangers. I may fall ill—I may die. Better to burn it at once, and have one anxiety the less.

•  He's bringing Laura to Italy?  Is that where Count Fosco is?  Are they a Tag Team of Titled Evil?

•  What happened to make Marian decide to stop distrusting Sir Percival? 

•  "No, I cannot dispute it, and I will not dispute it—Sir Percival is a very handsome and a very agreeable man. There! I have written it down at last, and I am glad it's over."  Try to convince yourself, much, Marian?  And he's mean to the servants?  COME ON!  BAD MAN!

•  "Considering that he can only have acted from motives of pure charity, his conduct, under the circumstances, shows unusual good feeling and deserves extraordinary praise."  OH, I'M SO SURE.

• AHA!  He DOES know Count Fosco.  (I really have no reason for being down on the Count.  He's probably a perfectly nice man.  It's just that, you know -- he's a Count.  AND he's "the most intimate friend" of Sir Percival, which obviously makes him sketchy.)

•  PHEW.  She hates him again.  The world is no longer atilt.

•  I hope Sir Percival dies of consumption.

•  And they are married.  DAMN IT.

The First Epoch of the Story closes here.

____________________________________________________________

Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV
The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore

____________________________________________________________

Other reader/bloggers:

Gina at the Dickensblog
Ms Avery at The Degrassi Digest
Jodie at Book Gazing
Sarah at what we have here is failure to communicate
Anastasia at the Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

____________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But after forgetting it at work, I ended up giving it to a patron.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.