Free The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins Page B

saw Miss Halcombe retire into a recess of one of the
side windows, to proceed with the search through her mother's
letters by the last quiet rays of the evening light.
    How vividly that peaceful home-picture of the drawing-room comes
back to me while I write! From the place where I sat I could see
Miss Halcombe's graceful figure, half of it in soft light, half in
mysterious shadow, bending intently over the letters in her lap;
while, nearer to me, the fair profile of the player at the piano
was just delicately defined against the faintly-deepening
background of the inner wall of the room. Outside, on the
terrace, the clustering flowers and long grasses and creepers
waved so gently in the light evening air, that the sound of their
rustling never reached us. The sky was without a cloud, and the
dawning mystery of moonlight began to tremble already in the
region of the eastern heaven. The sense of peace and seclusion
soothed all thought and feeling into a rapt, unearthly repose; and
the balmy quiet, that deepened ever with the deepening light,
seemed to hover over us with a gentler influence still, when there
stole upon it from the piano the heavenly tenderness of the music
of Mozart. It was an evening of sights and sounds never to
forget.
    We all sat silent in the places we had chosen—Mrs. Vesey still
sleeping, Miss Fairlie still playing, Miss Halcombe still reading—
till the light failed us. By this time the moon had stolen round
to the terrace, and soft, mysterious rays of light were slanting
already across the lower end of the room. The change from the
twilight obscurity was so beautiful that we banished the lamps, by
common consent, when the servant brought them in, and kept the
large room unlighted, except by the glimmer of the two candles at
the piano.
    For half an hour more the music still went on. After that the
beauty of the moonlight view on the terrace tempted Miss Fairlie
out to look at it, and I followed her. When the candles at the
piano had been lighted Miss Halcombe had changed her place, so as
to continue her examination of the letters by their assistance.
We left her, on a low chair, at one side of the instrument, so
absorbed over her reading that she did not seem to notice when we
moved.
    We had been out on the terrace together, just in front of the
glass doors, hardly so long as five minutes, I should think; and
Miss Fairlie was, by my advice, just tying her white handkerchief
over her head as a precaution against the night air—when I heard
Miss Halcombe's voice—low, eager, and altered from its natural
lively tone—pronounce my name.
    "Mr. Hartright," she said, "will you come here for a minute? I
want to speak to you."
    I entered the room again immediately. The piano stood about half-
way down along the inner wall. On the side of the instrument
farthest from the terrace Miss Halcombe was sitting with the
letters scattered on her lap, and with one in her hand selected
from them, and held close to the candle. On the side nearest to
the terrace there stood a low ottoman, on which I took my place.
In this position I was not far from the glass doors, and I could
see Miss Fairlie plainly, as she passed and repassed the opening
on to the terrace, walking slowly from end to end of it in the
full radiance of the moon.
    "I want you to listen while I read the concluding passages in this
letter," said Miss Halcombe. "Tell me if you think they throw any
light upon your strange adventure on the road to London. The
letter is addressed by my mother to her second husband, Mr.
Fairlie, and the date refers to a period of between eleven and
twelve years since. At that time Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie, and my
half-sister Laura, had been living for years in this house; and I
was away from them completing my education at a school in Paris."
    She looked and spoke earnestly, and, as I thought, a little
uneasily as well. At the moment when she raised the letter to the
candle before beginning to read it, Miss Fairlie passed us on