74 pages • 2 hours read
The Woman in White
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Part 1, Sections 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The First Epoch”, Part 1, Section 2: “The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore” - Part 1, Section 3: “The Story Continued by Mary Halcomb”
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 1 Summary
The narrative is taken up by Mr. Gilmore, who remains at Limmeridge House after Walter has left to arrange the legal agreements preliminary to Laura’s marriage.
Gilmore arrives at Limmeridge on Friday night, with Sir Percival Glyde expected on Monday. Walter makes a positive impression on Gilmore, though he considers him a little awkward. Gilmore also notices that Laura seems unwell. On Saturday, Mr. Fairlie finally agrees to speak to Gilmore. He has little interest in discussing Laura’s marriage but is keen to complete the arrangements quickly and without fuss, as the match was made by Laura’s father, Mr. Philip Fairlie.
Sir Percival arrives on Monday and speaks to Gilmore and Marian as soon as possible about Anne’s letter. According to Sir Percival, Anne and her mother, Mrs. Catherick, live near his house in Hampshire. Anne has experienced mental health conditions since her childhood, and Sir Percival says that her mother wished for her to be placed in a private psychiatric hospital. However, Anne has become resentful and fixated on his role in her commitment. Gilmore finds Sir Percival a pleasant and respectable man and accepts his explanation, but Marian voices skepticism. Sir Percival says that if Marian writes to Mrs. Catherick, she will vouch for his version of events. He insists that she do so immediately, and as she does, Laura’s greyhound shrinks from Sir Percival’s caresses, visibly irritating him.
Sir Percival asks Marian several questions about Anne, including whether she spoke to Laura and where she stayed while in Limmeridge. Sir Percival, claiming to be concerned for Anne’s safety, announces plans to go to Todd’s Corner.
Sir Percival leaves the room, and Gilmore and Marian agree that the best course of action is to send the letter to Mrs. Catherick as Sir Percival advised. However, Marian’s general attitude of hesitation—at one point, she wishes Walter were there to hear Sir Percival’s account—irritates Gilmore.
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 2 Summary
On Tuesday, Sir Percival goes to Todd’s Corner but fails to learn anything more about Anne’s whereabouts. On Wednesday, Mrs. Catherick’s reply to Marian’s letter arrives. It confirms Sir Percival’s story in matter-of-fact prose that strikes Gilmore as terse for a woman. In private, Marian speaks to Gilmore and reluctantly agrees that Sir Percival’s version of events seems corroborated. Pressed by Gilmore, she confides that Sir Percival has agreed that Laura is free to break off the engagement but that he asks her to remember how they came to be engaged. This strikes Gilmore as an honorable offer, but Marian suggests it is manipulative to remind Laura of her father’s dying wish.
Marian later tells Gilmore that she has explained Sir Percival’s account of the letter to Laura, who seemed to accept it. However, she does not want to set a date for the wedding yet. Since Gilmore must soon return to London and will not be able to return for some time, he decides he needs to speak to her about her legal affairs as soon as possible. He finds Laura looking at a sketchbook (Walter’s, though Gilmore does not know it) and appearing downcast. Gilmore wants to talk to her about her wishes for the settlement that will protect her inheritance, but Laura is only interested in ensuring that Marian can live with her after she marries. Gilmore explains that this is not what the settlement is for, and eventually Laura decides to leave her money to Marian and one other, unnamed person. She begins to cry at Gilmore’s attempts to learn more, so he drops the subject.
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Back in London, Gilmore receives a letter from Marian: Laura’s wedding will take place in December. Before setting aside his narrative, he wants to explain Laura’s inheritance because it will be an important part of her story.
Mr. Fairlie has arranged for Laura to inherit Limmeridge House and its annual income of £3,000 after his death. When she dies, this inheritance will pass either to her male heir or her husband. In addition, Laura will receive a sum of £30,000 when she turns 21. If Laura dies childless, £20,000 of this may be bequeathed as Laura chooses, but the remaining £10,000 will go to her aunt, Madame Fosco, whom Laura’s father disowned for marrying a foreigner.
The marriage settlement that Gilmore writes includes a clause that allows Laura to make a will determining who will inherit her £20,000. Sir Percival’s lawyer, Mr. Merriman, refuses this clause, insisting that Laura’s money should go to Sir Percival. Gilmore appeals to Mr. Fairlie as Laura’s legal guardian, hoping that he will intervene on her behalf; in addition to the disagreement about the settlement, Gilmore is unnerved by the discovery that Sir Percival is deeply in debt. However, Mr. Fairlie does not do so, and Merriman visits Gilmore personally to insist that there is no negotiating the clause. He also tells Gilmore that Anne has not yet been found but that Sir Percival thinks he knows who is hiding her and is having them watched. The person they suspect is a man who may also have helped Anne escape the hospital—i.e., Walter, though Merriman does not name him.
Gilmore decides to appeal to Fairlie in person to intercede on his niece’s behalf. He meets Walter at the train station and finds him looking pale and anxious. Walter asks about Laura’s upcoming wedding. Gilmore tells him he will need to read about it in the newspaper, believing that it is inappropriate for Walter—a former employee—to show so much interest. Walter tells Gilmore he is going abroad, looking nervously around him as he speaks and then abruptly breaking off their conversation.
Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 4 Summary
When Gilmore arrives at Limmeridge, Mr. Fairlie puts off speaking with him until the next day, citing his health. The next day, Gilmore enters Mr. Fairlie’s study and finds him looking at etchings. Gilmore tells Fairlie that he believes Sir Percival is marrying for her money and asks him to insist on allowing Laura control over the £20,000. Fairlie accuses Gilmore of trying to stir up trouble. Frustrated, Gilmore gives up but tells Fairlie that the responsibility will lie with him, as Laura’s only male relative, if anything happens to her.
Part 1, Section 3, Chapter 1 Summary
The next section of the narrative is told through excerpts from Marian’s diary, beginning on November 8—the day of Gilmore’s initial departure from Limmeridge. Marian visits Laura in her room after Mr. Gilmore has discussed the settlement with her and finds her agitated. She tells Marian that she has decided to tell Sir Percival about her feelings for Walter, as she feels he has a right to know. After dinner, Laura asks to speak to Sir Percival the next morning. Sir Percival looks visibly anxious after this announcement. Marian later finds Laura going to bed, having placed Walter’s sketchbook under her pillow.
Marian receives a letter from Walter the following day. He declines to comment on Sir Percival’s explanation regarding Anne, “bitterly” citing Sir Percival’s higher social status, but explains that he believes he is being followed, which makes Marian worry about his mental health. He asks Marian to help him find employment abroad.
After breakfast, Marian waits with Laura for Sir Percival. When he appears, he again seems nervous, whereas Laura is unusually calm. She explains to Sir Percival that she agreed to the engagement on her father’s wishes and intends to honor that duty. However, Sir Percival may wish to end the engagement, as she is in love with another man. She assures Sir Percival that she will not marry this man even if Sir Percival chooses to break their engagement, but Sir Percival says that he still wants to marry Laura because her conduct has shown her to be an honest woman. When Sir Percival leaves, Laura says she knows that Walter and Marian write to one another. She asks that, if she dies young, her sister tell Walter that Laura loved him.
During a private conversation the next day, Sir Percival tells Marian that he will be a good husband. Marian writes in her diary that she believes he is manipulating Laura.
Another day passes, and Mr. Fairlie consults Marian and Sir Percival regarding when the wedding will take place. When Mr. Fairlie says that Sir Percival should decide, Marian objects to rushing Laura and then flatly declines to bring up the subject with her. However, when Laura asks about it later, she agrees that Sir Percival should set the date. The following day, Sir Percival leaves to set up his own home for Laura’s arrival.
On November 13, Marian decides to try to cheer Laura up by taking her to Yorkshire to visit with some friends. The day before they leave, Marian hears that Walter has been employed as a draughtsman on an expedition to Honduras. Marian and Laura plan to be gone for two weeks, but after just one, they receive a letter from their uncle, calling them to return because Sir Percival requests their presence.
Part 1, Section 3, Chapter 2 Summary
Upon returning to Limmeridge, Marian and Laura learn that Mr. Fairlie and Sir Percival have arranged for the latter to marry Laura toward the end of the year. Settling the precise date with Laura falls to Marian. When Laura begs her not to anger Sir Percival by delaying the wedding, Marian cries, accusing men of ruining women’s lives while demanding that they placate men’s feelings.
Sir Percival writes that he intends to take Laura on a honeymoon tour of Italy. This pleases Laura until she realizes that Marian won’t accompany them. Marian explains that she will only be able to live with Laura after her marriage if Sir Percival allows it, so she does not want to press the issue. She tries to write only positive things about him in her diary.
On December 17, Sir Percival arrives at Limmeridge for the wedding, which will take place on the 22. On December 18, Marian happens to meet Sir Percival on a walk. He explains that he was just asking about Anne at Todd’s Corner and wants to know if Marian has heard anything from Walter, which she has not. The next day, she raises the subject of living with Laura and Sir Percival after the marriage; Sir Percival “warmly” agrees and then announces that they will meet Count Fosco and Madame Fosco on the honeymoon tour.
As Laura sleeps the night before the wedding, Marian reflects on how vulnerable Laura is without male relatives to protect her. By 11:00 am the following day, she and Sir Percival are married. The chapter ends when Laura and Sir Percival have left, and Marian puts her diary aside in weariness and grief.
Part 1, Sections 2-3 Analysis
These two sections of the novel each have different narrators, resulting in differences in tone, reliability, and (ultimately) narrative function. Mr. Gilmore has been asked to write his testimony by Walter at a later date—specifically, to give his view on what transpired after Walter left Limmeridge. He also writes in a professional capacity as the family’s lawyer, most obviously when explaining the details of Laura’s inheritance. Marian’s contribution is a more personal and confidential document: her diary, which is also written immediately alongside the events it describes. The differences in style between these two sections are both stark and revealing. Gilmore’s account, for example, is filled with dramatic irony given what readers have previously learned from Walter. For instance, at dinner before Walter’s departure, Gilmore finds Laura sad and Walter awkward. Within the context of their feelings for one another, the implication is that both feel constrained by company and dread parting from each other. However, Gilmore is ignorant of their love for one another and misinterprets the clues he reports, as when he doesn’t recognize Walter’s sketchbook or understand its significance to Laura. That the reader is better able to understand the narrative than its narrator again places the former in the role of detective. The novel invites readers to interpret everything that transpires rather than merely accept the interpretation of the narrator.
Marian’s narrative raises the question of unreliability and bias more explicitly as Marian reflects on her reactions, considering whether she is being fair or acting on prejudice against Sir Percival. For instance, she wonders why she doesn’t find him handsome when she can see that he is. Her self-scrutiny implies a degree of reliability—she may be mistaken, but she is at least aware of the possibility—but the novel’s incorporation of different voices with overlapping narratives that don’t perfectly agree generally fractures the idea of a single intelligible story, developing the theme of The Elusiveness of Truth. For all Walter’s efforts to compile an accurate and comprehensive account of events, what emerges may necessarily be something other than the “pure” or “whole” truth. The same choice also deepens the mystery by alerting readers to the fact that no single testimony can be relied on in isolation. One facet of the struggle to get at the truth will come from misunderstanding and misinterpretation, and these first-person narratives hammer this message home.
The question of narratorial reliability is intertwined with this section’s interest in the differences between appearance and reality. This is especially the case with the character of Sir Percival. Mr. Gilmore and Marian’s judgments of the baronet differ significantly. Mr. Gilmore expects to find him a respectable nobleman, and that is how he interprets his actions (at least initially). When presented with apparent proof that Anne’s accusations are baseless and that she dislikes Sir Percival because of the role he played in placing her in a psychiatric hospital, Gilmore explicitly states that this could be received in more than one way. A friend of Sir Percival would take his assurances and Mrs. Catherick’s letter at face value and accept that the matter is closed. An enemy of Sir Percival, or someone who has reason to suspect his honesty, might enquire more deeply into the subject. Notably, he says that a legal case could be made in either direction but that his duty in this instance is not legal. This compounds the idea that there are different ways of telling and receiving a story, an idea already introduced through the juxtaposition of diverging narrative voices.
This section also establishes the legal frameworks around inheritance as they touch on women’s lives, developing the theme of The Harm of Gender Inequality. The legal wrangling about whether Laura has a right to make a will—and the decision that she does not—encapsulates her powerlessness before the law. Both her characterization (as passive, retiring, compliant, etc.) and her interactions with other characters underscore this point. Those around Laura see her as someone to take care of but not necessarily to consult. Mr. Fairlie, for example, doesn’t see the necessity of asking her when her marriage should take place. It is notable that despite being centrally involved in the matters discussed, Laura is the only major character who never authors her own story. Even Anne writes letters (like the one about her dream in this section of the novel) that are interpolated into the narrative. Laura is extensively spoken about, but she seldom gets a say in her fate.
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