"The strangeness and peril of my situation," etc. — staff artist John McLenan's twenty-first composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 21, published on 14 April 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch; The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, Blackwater Park, Hampshire: July 5th," p. 229; p. 135 in the 1861 volume. This instalment was published without a headnote vignette. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage: Marian overhears a conversation between the Count and Sir Percival

“Ouf! how hot it is!” said the Count, sighing and puffing wearily.

His exclamation was followed by the scraping of the garden chairs on the tiled pavement under the verandah — the welcome sound which told me they were going to sit close at the window as usual. So far the chance was mine. The clock in the turret struck the quarter to twelve as they settled themselves in their chairs. I heard Madame Fosco through the open window yawning, and saw her shadow pass once more across the white field of the blind.

Meanwhile, Sir Percival and the Count began talking together below, now and then dropping their voices a little lower than usual, but never sinking them to a whisper. The strangeness and peril of my situation, the dread, which I could not master, of Madame Fosco’s lighted window, made it difficult, almost impossible, for me, at first, to keep my presence of mind, and to fix my attention solely on the conversation beneath. For some minutes I could only succeed in gathering the general substance of it. I understood the Count to say that the one window alight was his wife’s, that the ground floor of the house was quite clear, and that they might now speak to each other without fear of accidents. Sir Percival merely answered by upbraiding his friend with having unjustifiably slighted his wishes and neglected his interests all through the day. The Count thereupon defended himself by declaring that he had been beset by certain troubles and anxieties which had absorbed all his attention, and that the only safe time to come to an explanation was a time when they could feel certain of being neither interrupted nor overheard. “We are at a serious crisis in our affairs, Percival,” he said, “and if we are to decide on the future at all, we must decide secretly to-night.”

That sentence of the Count’s was the first which my attention was ready enough to master exactly as it was spoken. From this point, with certain breaks and interruptions, my whole interest fixed breathlessly on the conversation, and I followed it word for word. ["The Second Epoch; The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, Blackwater Park, Hampshire: July 5th," p. 229; p. 135 in the 1861 volume]

Commentary: Marian shows herself up to the Challenge of Overhearing Fosco and Glyde

Convinced that, once they feel secure, the Count and Sir Percival will discuss their plans to extricate the baronet from his financial difficulties, Marion dons a less cumbersome costume. She makes her way to the leaded roof above the veranda in front of the library, and overhears the conspirators. Surely they will mention how both Lady Glyde and Anne Catherick feature in their devious plans? And they may even reveal Sir Percival's "Secret," his "private difficulty" associated with The Woman in White. Glyde unwittingly tantalizes Marian (as well as the reader) when he remarks, "I'm a lost man if I don't find her." Ironically, Glyde is convinced that Laura has already learned his secret from Anne Catherick, who in turn (apparently) has learned it from her mother.

The illustrator, however, focuses not on Glyde and Fosco, but on the determined Marian Halcombe, who, enduring wind and rain, attends carefully to what she overhears as she follows the red sparks that signify Fosco's cigarette and Glyde's cigar. Her apprehension is that the light from Madame Fosco's window may suddenly expose her position. Significantly, Marian learns from Fosco's remarks that he knows that she has written to her lawyer a second time today, news that provokes Glyde to kick a chair over on the veranda. Glyde then admits that he has only temporarily resolved his financial problems by arranging high-interest bills due three months, when he must have Lady Glyde's help since he needs thousands, but has only hundreds in his bank account. He can expect some three thousand a year from his wife, "except in case of her death." In that event, he would come into her twenty thousand pounds. Just at this juncture, the Countess appears at the window, signified by the shutters in the illustration; but she fails to detect Marion crouching below her line of sight. Cramped to the bone and wet clear through, Marian now knows how critical it is that she find Anne Catherick before Glyde and Fosco do.

Related Material

• Fred Walker's poster: The Woman in White for the Olympic's October 1871 adaptation

Bibliography

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (26 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 2006.

Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-225.

Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.

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Created 16 July 2024