Plot summary
Poor art master Walter Hartright encounters a mysterious woman dressed all in white on a moonlit road in Hampstead.She is in a state of confusion and distress,and Hartright helps her to find her way back to London.In return,she warns him against a certain (unnamed) baronet,"a man of rank and title".Immediately after they part,Hartright learns that she may have escaped from an asylum.
He goes to Cumberland to take up a position as art tutor at Limmeridge House to two young women:Marian Halcombe and her wealthy half-sister,Laura Fairlie.He finds to his amazement that the story of the woman in white,Anne Catherick,may be entangled with the lives of the two sisters.Walter and Laura fall rapidly in love but she is soon to be married,by her late father's wish,to Sir Percival Glyde,a baronet.Hartright resigns and travels abroad to forget.
Marian moves in with Laura and her husband.The marriage is unhappy,and Marian soon realises that Sir Percival is attempting to gain control of Laura's fortune with the help of his Italian friend Count Fosco,a menacing yet charming and intelligent villain with an enigmatic past.She also meets the mysterious Anne Catherick,who hates and fears Sir Percival,blaming him for sending her to the asylum to keep her from revealing his "secret".Marian tries to untangle the mystery and protect her sister from Sir Percival and Fosco,but falls ill.When she recovers she is told first that Laura has gone to London,and then that she has died there.Anne Catherick,it appears,has been recaptured and is back at the asylum.
Walter returns to England and visits Limmeridge to mourn at Laura's grave,only to encounter Marian and a living Laura at the graveside.Laura's death has been faked:Anne Catherick,who greatly resembles Laura,died in London,and was buried as Laura.Laura's property has all passed to Sir Percival.Laura herself was sent to the asylum as Anne,where her protestations were dismissed as proof of insanity,and the ordeal almost destroyed her before Marian discovered the substitution and bribed a member of staff to help her escape.
The rest of the novel traces the attempts of Marian and Walter to safeguard Laura from capture and return to the asylum,to nurse her back to health,to expose the plot and to force Laura's family and friends to acknowledge her identity.In the process Walter meets Anne's strange mother and uncovers Sir Percival's dark secret - his parents were not legally married,so he is not the rightful owner of his property or title.Walter tries to obtain church registers as evidence,in order to blackmail Sir Percival into confessing,but the baronet starts a fire to destroy them and burns to death in the ensuing blaze.With his death there is some hope of proving the plot and regaining Laura's fortune,but Walter does fulfil his vow that Laura - now Mrs Hartright - should be publicly acknowledged at Limmeridge as herself.Nor is there any further threat from Fosco,who is murdered by an Italian secret society he has betrayed,and his body is thrown into the river.
