The Woman in White

von Wilkie Collins

It was the last day of July. The long, hot summer was coming to an end, and we, the weary travelers on the streets of London, were starting to think about the shadows on the cornfields and the autumn breezes at the beach.

As for me, the fading summer had left me feeling unwell, low in spirits, and, if I’m honest, short on cash too. Over the past year, I hadn’t managed my finances as carefully as I usually did, and my spending habits now meant I could only look forward to a frugal autumn split between my mother’s cottage in Hampstead and my own small apartment in the city.

I remember the evening was still and overcast. The air in London felt heavy, and the distant sounds of traffic were barely audible. It felt as if my own heartbeat, along with the pulse of the city around me, was slowing down, sinking in sync with the setting sun. I pulled myself away from the book I had been half-reading, half-daydreaming over, and stepped out of my apartment to greet the cool night air in the suburbs. It was one of the two evenings each week I spent with my mother and sister, so I headed north toward Hampstead.

It’s important to mention that my father had passed away several years before this moment, leaving my sister Sarah and me as the only survivors of a family of five. He had been a drawing master, and his hard work had brought him considerable success. His deep concern for our future had led him to set aside a larger portion of his income for life insurance than most people would consider necessary. Thanks to his careful planning and selflessness, my mother and sister were left as independent as they had been during his life. I inherited his connections and had every reason to feel grateful for the opportunities that lay ahead of me.

The quiet twilight still lingered on the highest points of the heath, and the view of London below had faded into a dark abyss under the cloudy night when I arrived at my mother’s cottage. I had barely rung the doorbell when the door swung open with a flourish. My dear Italian friend, Professor Pesca, appeared instead of the servant and joyfully rushed out to greet me, letting out a cheerful, albeit exaggerated, rendition of an English welcome.

For both his sake and mine, the Professor deserves a proper introduction. By chance, he became the starting point for the unusual family story I’m about to share.

I first met my Italian friend at various grand houses where he taught his language while I taught drawing. All I knew about his past was that he had once held a position at the University of Padua, that he had left Italy for political reasons—which he never discussed—and that he had been living in London for many years, successfully teaching languages.

Though he wasn’t a dwarf—he was perfectly proportioned from head to toe—Pesca was, in my experience, the smallest person I had ever seen outside of a circus. His appearance was striking, but what truly set him apart was his quirky personality. His main goal in life seemed to be to express his gratitude to the country that had given him refuge and a means to live by trying his best to become an Englishman. He didn’t just carry an umbrella everywhere or wear gaiters and a white hat; he also wanted to adopt our habits and pastimes. Seeing that we were known for our love of sports, he eagerly threw himself into every English game he could join, convinced that he could embrace our national pastimes just as easily as he had embraced our style of dress.

I had watched him throw caution to the wind at a fox hunt and on the cricket field, and soon after, I saw him recklessly risk his life in the sea at Brighton.

We had stumbled upon each other by chance, enjoying a swim together. If we had been engaged in any activity typical of my own country, I would have kept a close eye on Pesca. However, since foreigners usually swim just as well as Englishmen, it didn’t cross my mind that the art of swimming might be just another one of those manly skills the Professor believed he could master on the spot.

Not long after we both set out from the shore, I paused, noticing that my friend wasn’t keeping up. I turned to look for him, and to my horror, I saw nothing but two small white arms flailing for a brief moment above the water before vanishing. When I dove in after him, I found the poor little man curled up at the bottom in a hollow of pebbles, appearing much smaller than I had ever seen him.

As I pulled him up, the air revived him, and with my help, he climbed the steps of the platform. As he began to regain his strength, his peculiar belief about swimming returned. Once his chattering teeth allowed him to speak, he managed a vacant smile and declared that it must have been cramp.

Once he was fully recovered and back on the beach, his warm Southern temperament broke free from the usual English reserve. He overwhelmed me with the most extravagant expressions of affection, passionately exclaiming in his dramatic Italian way that he would dedicate his life to me from that moment on. He insisted he would never be truly happy until he found a way to repay me, a gesture I would remember for the rest of my days.

I tried to ease his flood of tears and declarations by treating the whole incident as a lighthearted joke. Eventually, I thought I had succeeded in diminishing Pesca’s overwhelming sense of gratitude. Little did I know then—little did I realize later, as our enjoyable holiday came to an end—that the chance for him to help me, which he so desperately desired, was just around the corner. He would seize that opportunity in an instant, and in doing so, he would redirect the entire course of my life, transforming me into someone almost unrecognizable.

And so it happened. If I hadn’t dived for Professor Pesca when he lay submerged on that bed of pebbles, I likely would never have been connected to the story that unfolds in these pages. I might never have even heard the name of the woman who now occupies my thoughts, who has captured all my energy, and who has become the guiding force behind my life’s purpose.