The Woman in White Wilkie Collins (bts books to read txt) š
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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āYou remember me?ā I said. āWe met very late, and I helped you to find the way to London. Surely you have not forgotten that?ā
Her features relaxed, and she drew a heavy breath of relief. I saw the new life of recognition stirring slowly under the deathlike stillness which fear had set on her face.
āDonāt attempt to speak to me just yet,ā I went on. āTake time to recover yourselfā ātake time to feel quite certain that I am a friend.ā
āYou are very kind to me,ā she murmured. āAs kind now as you were then.ā
She stopped, and I kept silence on my side. I was not granting time for composure to her only, I was gaining time also for myself. Under the wan wild evening light, that woman and I were met together again, a grave between us, the dead about us, the lonesome hills closing us round on every side. The time, the place, the circumstances under which we now stood face to face in the evening stillness of that dreary valleyā āthe lifelong interests which might hang suspended on the next chance words that passed between usā āthe sense that, for aught I knew to the contrary, the whole future of Laura Fairlieās life might be determined, for good or for evil, by my winning or losing the confidence of the forlorn creature who stood trembling by her motherās graveā āall threatened to shake the steadiness and the self-control on which every inch of the progress I might yet make now depended. I tried hard, as I felt this, to possess myself of all my resources; I did my utmost to turn the few moments for reflection to the best account.
āAre you calmer now?ā I said, as soon as I thought it time to speak again. āCan you talk to me without feeling frightened, and without forgetting that I am a friend?ā
āHow did you come here?ā she asked, without noticing what I had just said to her.
āDonāt you remember my telling you, when we last met, that I was going to Cumberland? I have been in Cumberland ever sinceā āI have been staying all the time at Limmeridge House.ā
āAt Limmeridge House!ā Her pale face brightened as she repeated the words, her wandering eyes fixed on me with a sudden interest. āAh, how happy you must have been!ā she said, looking at me eagerly, without a shadow of its former distrust left in her expression.
I took advantage of her newly-aroused confidence in me to observe her face, with an attention and a curiosity which I had hitherto restrained myself from showing, for cautionās sake. I looked at her, with my mind full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by moonlight. I had seen Anne Catherickās likeness in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlieās likeness in Anne Catherickā āsaw it all the more clearly because the points of dissimilarity between the two were presented to me as well as the points of resemblance. In the general outline of the countenance and general proportion of the featuresā āin the colour of the hair and in the little nervous uncertainty about the lipsā āin the height and size of the figure, and the carriage of the head and body, the likeness appeared even more startling than I had ever felt it to be yet. But there the resemblance ended, and the dissimilarity, in details, began. The delicate beauty of Miss Fairlieās complexion, the transparent clearness of her eyes, the smooth purity of her skin, the tender bloom of colour on her lips, were all missing from the worn weary face that was now turned towards mine. Although I hated myself even for thinking such a thing, still, while I looked at the woman before me, the idea would force itself into my mind that one sad change, in the future, was all that was wanting to make the likeness complete, which I now saw to be so imperfect in detail. If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlieās face, then, and then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflections of one another.
I shuddered at the thought. There was something horrible in the blind unreasoning distrust of the future which the mere passage of it through my mind seemed to imply. It was a welcome interruption to be roused by feeling Anne Catherickās hand laid on my shoulder. The touch was as stealthy and as sudden as that other touch which had petrified me from head to foot on the night when we first met.
āYou are looking at me, and you are thinking of something,ā she said, with her strange breathless rapidity of utterance. āWhat is it?ā
āNothing extraordinary,ā I answered. āI was only wondering how you came here.ā
āI came with a friend who is very good to me. I have only been here two days.ā
āAnd you found your way to this place yesterday?ā
āHow do you know that?ā
āI only guessed it.ā
She turned from me, and knelt down before the inscription once more.
āWhere should I go if not here?ā she said. āThe friend who was better than a mother to me is the only friend I have to visit at Limmeridge. Oh, it makes my heart ache to see a stain on her tomb! It ought to be kept white as snow, for her sake. I was tempted to begin cleaning it yesterday, and I canāt help coming back to go on with it today. Is there anything wrong in that? I hope not. Surely nothing can be wrong that I do for Mrs. Fairlieās sake?ā
The old grateful sense of her benefactressās kindness was evidently the ruling idea still in the poor creatureās mindā āthe narrow mind which had but too plainly opened to no other lasting impression since that first impression of her younger and happier
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