The law is presented as a flawed institution in Wilkie Collins’ novel The Woman in White. In the novel, Walter Hartright, a young drawing teacher who is in love with Laura Fairlie, tries to expose her husband, Sir Percival Glyde, and his accomplice Count Fosco, for trying to steal Laura’s inheritance. The case also concerns the mystery of the “woman in white,” a young woman named Anne Catherick who has escaped from an asylum and who strongly resembles Laura. When Anne dies, Count Fosco confines Laura in the asylum under Anne’s name, in order to fake her death and lay claim to her fortune. Although Walter uses certain legal methods, such as the compilation of written evidence, to build his case against Sir Percival, the law itself is depicted as a limited institution that is easily influenced by powerful individuals. Therefore, law is presented as a force that can easily be abused and used against vulnerable people like Laura and Anne. In Collins’ novel, it is the effort of individuals like Walter, rather than the institution of the law itself, that discovers the truth and triumphs over corruption and conspiracy.
The structure of The Woman in White suggests that the collection of written evidence is an effective way of reaching a fair verdict in a court of law—at least in theory. The story of The Woman in White is presented to the reader as a series of documents collected by Walter, which narrate the events of the story from the perspective of several witnesses. In this sense, the novel deliberately mimics the process of providing evidence to a jury in order to ascertain the facts of a case. Walter states that he will only describe the events for which he was present; the rest will be told through the written testimony of others, through letters, diaries, and legal documents. Walter’s disclaimer mimics the objectivity that is achieved when evidence is set before an unbiased jury. By distancing himself from parts of the narrative, Walter is unable to influence the opinion of his readers, who will play the role of the “judge” in examining the case of the conspiracy. Walter believes that the reader will be able to compare the different written accounts of events and successfully decide which characters are innocent and which are guilty in the story. A comparison of written evidence further aids Walter in the novel when he is able to compare Sir Percival Glyde’s forged copy of the church register with the unbiased one kept by a clerk, which does not include the entry of Sir Percival’s parents’ marriage (because they were never married) and proves that Sir Percival is not really the Baronet of Blackwater as he claims to be. This incident, and the overarching structure of the novel, suggests that the legal structure of a court case, in which evidence is presented to an unbiased jury, can be an effective method of judging guilt in a crime.
However, although Collins suggests that legal methods work well in theory, in reality the law is not unbiased, and the characters in the novel are repeatedly let down by the legal system. Walter acknowledges that the case he has carefully compiled is never put before a court. Although he is convinced that a jury would support his case, “the machinery of the Law” is still “the pre-engaged servant of the long purse.” This suggests that people with money wield the most legal power in nineteenth-century England. This is demonstrated when Walter approaches Mr. Kyrle, the Fairlie’s lawyer, with the evidence he has compiled. Mr. Kyrle will not help Walter take his case against Sir Percival and Count Fosco to court because he knows that—without Laura’s inheritance, which has been stolen—Walter will not have enough money to fund a lengthy trial. This demonstrates that poor people like Walter and Laura do not get a fair hearing in the justice system as lawyers are unlikely to take on poorer clients. This is further implied by the fact that the narrative contains no evidence from either Anne or Laura’s perspective. Those who are poor and vulnerable like Anne, or socially vulnerable like Laura (who is a woman and has fewer legal rights and protections than men), are voiceless in the nineteenth-century justice system, revealing the legal system to be ineffective and flawed.
Rather than helping vulnerable individuals, the law and legal evidence can be used against them by powerful individuals, such as Sir Percival Glyde, who are able to gain the support of the law, or defy it entirely, because of their money and privilege. For instance, Sir Percival Glyde marries Laura because he knows that he can legally claim her fortune if he can convince her to sign it over to him before her death, which he and Count Fosco conspire to fake. Although Marian, Laura’s half-sister, appeals to her lawyer, Mr. Gilmore, to help Laura break her engagement to Sir Percival, Mr. Gilmore is easily won over by Sir Percival’s charming facade and reputation as a wealthy and noble man. Although Mr. Gilmore feels sympathetic towards Laura, he does not (at first) suspect Sir Percival. Mr. Gilmore’s inaction suggests that powerful individuals like Sir Percival cannot easily be stopped as they are able to use their wealth to bring the law round to their side. When Count Fosco succeeds in his plan to fake Laura’s death, both the legal evidence of Laura’s death certificate and the written testimony on the tombstone, which bears Laura’s name, legally bar Laura from retrieving her identity or inheriting her fortune, which goes to Sir Percival and is split with Count Fosco instead. This situation—and the novel as a whole—reveals that while examining written evidence can be a reliable system of fathoming truth, the system of judging this evidence must be unbiased, otherwise it will be exploited by powerful individuals and wielded against those who are poor or vulnerable.
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Evidence and Law Quotes in The Woman in White
If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of justice. But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place.
It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute any human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form. If I had felt professionally called upon to set up a case against Sir Percival Glyde, on the strength of his own explanation, I could have done so beyond all doubt. But my duty did not lie in this direction: my function was of the purely judicial kind. I was to weigh the explanation we had just heard; to allow all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who offered it; and to decide honestly whether the probabilities, on Sir Percival’s own showing, were plainly with him, or plainly against him. My own conviction was that they were plainly with him; and I accordingly declared that his explanation was, to my mind, unquestionably a satisfactory one.
As matters stood, my client – Miss Fairlie not having yet completed her twenty-first year – was her guardian, Mr. Frederick Fairlie. I wrote by that day’s post and put the case before him exactly as it stood; not only urging every argument I could think of to induce him to maintain the clause as I had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary motive which was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of the twenty thousand pounds. The knowledge of Sir Percival’s affairs which I had necessarily gained when the provisions of the deed on his side were submitted in due course to my examination, had but too plainly informed me that the debts on his estate were enormous, and that his income, though nominally a large one, was, virtually, for a man in his position, next to nothing.
‘My bailiff (a superstitious idiot) says he is quite sure the lake has a curse on it, like the Dead Sea. What do you think, Fosco? It looks just the place for a murder, doesn’t it?’ ‘My good Percival!’ remonstrated the Count. ‘What is your solid English sense thinking of? The water is too shallow to hide the body; and there is sand everywhere to print off the murderer’s footsteps. It is, upon the whole, the very worst place for a murder that I ever set my eyes on.’
‘I have always heard that truly wise men are truly good men, and have a horror of crime.’ ‘My dear lady,’ said the Count, ‘those are admirable sentiments; and I have seen them stated at the tops of copy-books.’ He lifted one of the white mice in the palm of his hand, and spoke to it in his whimsical way. ‘My pretty little smooth white rascal,’ he said, ‘here is a moral lesson for you. A truly wise Mouse is a truly good Mouse. Mention that, if you please, to your companions, and never gnaw at the bars of your cage again as long as you live.’
‘The fool’s crime is the crime that is found out; and the wise man’s crime is the crime that is not found out. If I could give you an instance, it would not be the instance of a wise man. Dear Lady Glyde, your sound English common sense has been too much for me. It is checkmate for me this time, Miss Halcombe –ha?’ ‘Stand to your guns, Laura,’ sneered Sir Percival, who had been listening in his place at the door. ‘Tell him, next, that crimes cause their own detection. There’s another bit of copy-book morality for you, Fosco. Crimes cause their own detection. What infernal humbug!’
The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police, in nine cases out of ten, win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police, in nine cases out of ten, lose. If the police win, you generally hear all about it. If the police lose, you generally hear nothing. And on this tottering foundation you build up your comfortable moral maxim that Crime causes its own detection! Yes — all the crime you know of. And, what of the rest?’
Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his neighbors’, and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own […] English society, Miss Halcombe, is as often the accomplice, as it is the enemy of crime. Yes! yes! Crime is in this country what crime is in other countries […] Is the prison that Mr. Scoundrel lives in, at the end of his career, a more uncomfortable place than the workhouse that Mr. Honesty lives in, at the end of his career? […] Which gets on best, do you think, of two poor starving dressmakers – the woman who resists temptation, and is honest, or the woman who falls under temptation, and steals?
The Count’s firm hand slowly tightened its grasp on his shoulder, and the Count’s steady voice, quietly repeated, ‘Be good enough, if you please, to remember it, too.’ They both looked at each other: Sir Percival slowly drew his shoulder from under the Count’s hand; slowly turned his face away from the Count’s eyes; doggedly looked down for a little while at the parchment on the table; and then spoke, with the sullen submission of a tamed animal, rather than the becoming resignation of a convinced man.
“If I do build you a tomb,” he said, “it will be done with your own money. I wonder whether Cecilia Metella had a fortune, and paid for hers.” I made no reply — how could I, when I was crying behind my veil?
‘There can be no doubt,’ I said, ‘that the facts, as you have stated them, appear to tell against us; but— ’ ‘But you think those facts can be explained away,’ interposed Mr. Kyrle. ‘Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact, on the surface, and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact, in preference to the explanation.’
It was strange to look back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of assistance, had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to act for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle’s own showing) would have been more than doubtful; the loss – judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened – certain. The Law would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The Law would never have made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.
