Black Secrets Cloak Wilkie Collins's Woman in White

in the eyes of man." When she turns from the window, however, Walter is dismayed to discover that "The lady is ugly!" Despite his initial reaction, it is fair to say that Walter eventually falls in love with Miriam as well.

Although Walter opens the story, the plot unfolds from different perspectives, reminiscent of Emily Bronte's layered narrative in Wuthering Heights. Miriam and Walter present much of the story, but other characters' contributions are proferred either formally or unwillingly, like testimony in a court trial. Through their own voices, characters reveal, often humorously, unflattering personal traits and hence confirm observations previously made by others. By using multiple narrators, Collins offers different perspectives not only on characters but also of key events in the plot.

The setting moves among beautiful country landscapes, towns that have practically been abandoned because of the Industrial Revolution, and the city of London, where Miriam, Laura, and Walter are forced to escape to blend anonymously among the crowds. Since certain evidence they possess is not sufficient enough to sway a jury, they must hide while Walter and Miriam rely upon ingenuity to save Laura from a malicious fate inflicted upon her by her manipulative husband, Sir Percival Glyde. Her husband's schemes result from the shrewdness of his charming and Machiavellian Italian side-kick, Count Fosco, who is in turn abetted by Madame Fosco, his obedient puppet of a wife. Count Fosco and Miriam develop into major adversaries; until the end, however, the Count, much to her intense dismay, displays unwavering and lurid admiration for Miriam.

Although some of the issues that spur the mystery may seem antiquated or trivial today (the discovery of an unwed mother, for example), the novel is not merely a "quaint" Jessica Fletcher whodunit. Insinuations of a menage a trois and of incestuous relationships subtly weave throughout the text, undoubtedly contributing to its appeal and its sensationalism. No less scandalous is Uncle Fairlie's sadistic behavior toward his strangely obedient servant.

As I was jostled, some might say sadistically, around Boston and annoyed by less than sensational Realtors, I found myself yearning for certain simplicities and the slower pace seemingly inherent in the pre-modern world as depicted in the novel: travel by horse and buggy rather than by car, entertainment by piano rather than by television, and corresponding by letter rather by phone or e-mail. Yet despite the simplicities of the age and of the pastoral landscape,

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