The Woman in White / Женщина в белом

On the side nearest to the terrace there stood a low sofa, on which I took my place. In this position I was not far from the glass doors, and I could see Miss Fairlie plainly.

“I’ve found out something interesting,” said Miss Halcombe. “I’ve been reading my mother’s letters and in one of them she mentions a little girl called Anne Catherick,[25 - Anne Catherick – Анна Катерик] who was visiting Limmeridge one summer with her mother. My mother had set up a school for the village children and while Anne was in Limmeridge, she went to this school.

My mother writes about Anne Catherick with great affection.”

Miss Halcombe paused, and looked at me across the piano.

“Did the forlorn woman whom you met in the road seem young?” she asked. “Young enough to be two – or three-and-twenty?”

“Yes, Miss Halcombe, as young as that.”

“And she was strangely dressed, from head to foot, all in white?”

“All in white.”

“All in white?” Miss Halcombe repeated.

“The most important sentences in the letter, Mr. Hartright, are those at the end, which I will read to you immediately. The doctor may have been wrong when he discovered the child’s defects of intellect, and predicted that she would �grow out of them.’ She may never have grown out of them.”

I said a few words in answer – I hardly know what. All my attention was concentrated on the white gleam of Miss Fairlie’s dress.

“Listen to the last sentences of the letter,” said Miss Halcombe.

“I think they will surprise you.”

As she raised the letter to the light of the candle, Miss Fairlie turned from the balustrade, looked doubtfully up and down the terrace, and then stopped, facing us.

“Anne told my mother that she would always wear white to remember her by, as my mother’s favourite colour was white.”

“So it’s quite possible that the woman in white is Anne Catherick,” I said slowly. “What happened to Anne?”

“I don’t know,” said Miss Halcombe.

“She and her mother left Limmeridge after a few months and never came back. There is no further mention of her in my mother’s letters.”

I looked further. There stood Miss Fairlie, a white figure, alone in the moonlight; in her attitude, in the turn of her head, in her complexion, in the shape of her face, the living image of the woman in white!

During the following weeks, I experienced some of the happiest and most peaceful moments in my life.