The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (31 page)

How often I sit,
poring o'er
  My strange distorted
youth,
Seeking in vain, in all
my store,
  One feeling based
on truth; . . .
So constant as my heart
would be,
  So fickle as it must,
'Twere well for others and
for me
'  Twere dry as summer
dust.
Excitements come, and act
and speech
  Flow freely forth:--but
no,
Nor they, nor aught beside
can reach
  The buried world
below.

--
A. H. Clough,
Poem (1840)

"This is a pleasure, Smithson.
That stupid woman now-- has she not given you something to counteract the
rain?"

"Thank you ..." he was going
to refuse the brandy decanter, but changed his mind. And when he had the
glass in his hand, he came straight out with his purpose. "I have something
private and very personal to discuss. I need your advice."

A little glint showed in
the doctor's eyes then. He had had other well-bred young men come to him
shortly before their marriage. Sometimes it was gonorrhea, less often syphilis;
sometimes it was mere fear, masturbation phobia; a widespread theory of
the time maintained that the wages of self-abuse was impotence. But usually
it was ignorance; only a year before a miserable and childless young husband
had come to see Dr. Grogan, who had had gravely to explain that new life
is neither begotten nor born through the navel.

"Do you now? Well I'm not
sure I have any left--I've given a vast amount of it away today. Mainly
concerning what should be executed upon that damned old bigot up in Marlborough
House. You've heard what she's done?"

"That is precisely what I
wish to talk to you about."

The doctor breathed a little
inward sigh of relief; and he once again jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"Ah, of course--Mrs. Tranter
is worried? Tell her from me that all is being done that can be done. A
party is out searching. I have offered five pounds to the man who brings
her back ..." his voice went bitter "... or finds the poor creature's body."

"She is alive. I've just
received a note from her."

Charles looked down before
the doctor's amazed look. And then, at first addressing his brandy glass,
he began to tell the truth of his encounters with Sarah--that is, almost
all the truth, for he left undescribed his own more secret feelings, He
managed, or tried, to pass some of the blame off on Dr. Grogan and their
previous conversation; giving himself a sort of scientific status that
the shrewd little man opposite did not fail to note. Old doctors and old
priests share one thing in common: they get a long nose for deceit, whether
it is overt or, as in Charles's case, committed out of embarrassment. As
he went on with his confession, the end of Dr. Grogan's nose began metaphorically
to twitch; and this invisible twitching signified very much the same as
Sam's pursing of his lips. The doctor let no sign of his suspicions appear.
Now and then he asked questions, but in general he let Charles talk his
increasingly lame way to the end of his story. Then he stood up.

"Well, first things first.
We must get those poor devils back." The thunder was now much closer and
though the curtains had been drawn, the white shiver of lightning trembled
often in their weave behind Charles's back.

"I came as soon as I could."

"Yes, you are not to blame
for that. Now let me see ..." The doctor was already seated at a small
desk in the rear of the room. For a few moments there was no sound in it
but the rapid scratch of his pen. Then he read what he had written to Charles.

"'Dear Forsythe, News has
this minute reached me that Miss Woodruff is safe. She does not wish her
whereabouts disclosed, but you may set your mind at rest. I hope to have
further news of her tomorrow. Please offer the enclosed to the party of
searchers when they return. 'Will that do?"

"Excellently. Except that
the enclosure must be mine." Charles produced a small embroidered purse,
Ernestina's work, and set three sovereigns on the green cloth desk beside
Grogan, who pushed two away. He looked up with a smile.

"Mr. Forsythe is trying to
abolish the demon alcohol. I think one piece of gold is enough." He placed
the note and the coin in an envelope, sealed it, and then went to arrange
for the letter's speedy delivery. He came back, talking. "Now the girl--what's
to be done about her? You have no notion where she is at the moment?"

"None at all. Though I am
sure she will be where she indicated tomorrow morning."

"But of course you cannot
be there. In your situation you cannot risk any further compromise."

Charles looked at him, then
down at the carpet.

"I am in your hands."

The doctor stared thoughtfully
at Charles. He had just set a little test to probe his guest's mind. And
it had revealed what he had expected. He turned and went to the bookshelves
by his desk and then came back with the same volume he had shown Charles
before: Darwin's great work. He sat before him across the fire; then with
a small smile and a look at Charles over his glasses, he laid his hand,
as if swearing on a Bible on The Origin of Species.

"Nothing that has been said
in this room or that remains to be said shall go beyond its walls." Then
he put the book aside.

"My dear Doctor, that was
not necessary."

"Confidence in the practitioner
is half of medicine."

Charles smiled wanly. "And
the other half?"

"Confidence in the patient."
But he stood before Charles could speak. "Well now--you came for my advice,
did you not?" He eyed Charles almost as if he was going to box with him;
no longer the bantering, but the fighting Irishman. Then he began to pace
his "cabin," his hands tucked under his frock coat. "I am a young woman
of superior intelligence and some education. I think the world has done
badly by me. I am not in full command of my emotions. I do foolish things,
such as throwing myself at the head of the first handsome rascal who is
put in my path. What is worse, I have fallen in love with being a victim
of fate. I put out a very professional line in the way of looking melancholy.
I have tragic eyes. I weep without explanation. Et cetera. Et cetera. And
now..." the little doctor waved his hand at the door, as if invoking magic
"...enter a young god. Intelligent. Good-looking. A perfect specimen of
that class my
education has taught me
to admire. I see he is interested in me. The sadder I seem, the more interested
he appears to be. I kneel before him, he raises me to my feet. He treats
me like a lady. Nay, more than that. In a spirit of Christian brotherhood
he offers to help me escape from my unhappy lot."

Charles made to interrupt,
but the doctor silenced him.

"Now I am very poor. I can
use none of the wiles the more fortunate of my sex employ to lure mankind
into their power." He raised his forefinger. "I have but one weapon. The
pity I inspire in this kindhearted man. Now pity is a thing that takes
a devil of a lot of feeding. I have fed this Good Samaritan my past and
he has devoured it. So what can I do? I must make him pity my present.
One day, when I am walking where I have been forbidden to walk, I seize
my chance. I show myself to someone I know will report my crime to the
one person who will not condone it. I get myself dismissed from my position.
I disappear, under the strong presumption that it is in order to throw
myself off the nearest clifftop. And then, in
extremis
and
de
profundis
--or rather
de altis
--I cry to my savior for help."
He left a long pause then, and Charles's eyes slowly met his. The doctor
smiled, "I present what is partly hypothesis, of course."

"But your specific accusation--that
she invited her own..."

The doctor sat and poked
the fire into life. "I was called early this morning to Marlborough House.
I did not know why--merely that Mrs. P. was severely indisposed. Mrs. Fairley--the
housekeeper, you know--told me the gist of what had happened." He paused
and fixed Charles's unhappy eyes. "Mrs. Fairley was yesterday at the dairy
out there on Ware Cleeves. The girl walked flagrantly out of the woods
under her nose. Now that woman is a very fair match to her mistress, and
I'm sure she did her subsequent duty with all the mean appetite of her
kind. But I am convinced, my dear Smithson, that she was deliberately invited
to do it."

"You mean ..." The doctor
nodded. Charles gave him a terrible look, then revolted. "I cannot believe
it. It is not possible she should--"

He did not finish the sentence.
The doctor murmured, "It is possible. Alas."

"But only a person of ..."
he was going to say "warped mind," but he stood abruptly and went to the
window, parted the curtains, stared a blind moment out into the teeming
night. A livid flash of sheet lightning lit the Cobb, the beach, the torpid
sea. He turned.

"In other words, I have been
led by the nose."

"Yes, I think you have. But
it required a generous nose. And you must remember that a deranged mind
is not a criminal mind. In this case you must think of despair as a disease,
no more or less. That girl, Smithson, has a cholera, a typhus of the intellectual
faculties. You must think of her like that. Not as some malicious schemer."

Charles came back into the
room. "And what do you suppose her final intention to be?"

"I very much doubt if she
knows. She lives from day to day. Indeed she must. No one of foresight
could have behaved as she has."

"But she cannot seriously
have supposed that someone in my position ..."

"As a man who is betrothed?"
The doctor smiled grimly. "I have known many prostitutes. I hasten to add:
in pursuance of my own profession, not theirs. And I wish I had a guinea
for every one I have heard gloat over the fact that a majority of their
victims are husbands and fathers." He stared into the fire, into his past.
" 'I am cast out. But I shall be revenged.'"

"You make her sound like
a fiend--she is not so." He had spoken too vehemently, and turned quickly
away. "I cannot believe this of her."

"That, if you will permit
a man old enough to be your father to say so, is because you are half in
love with her."

Charles spun round and stared
at the doctor's bland face.

"I do not permit you to say
that." Grogan bowed his head. In the silence, Charles added, "It is highly
insulting to Miss Freeman."

"It is indeed. But who is
making the insult?"

Charles swallowed. He could
not bear these quizzical eyes, and he started down the long, narrow room
as if to go. But before he could reach the door, Grogan had him by the
arm and made him turn, and seized the other arm--and he was fierce, a terrier
at Charles's dignity.

"Man, man, are we not both
believers in science? Do we not both hold that truth is the one great principle?
What did Socrates die for? A keeping social face? A homage to decorum?
Do you think in my forty years as a doctor I have not learned to tell when
a man is in distress? And because he is hiding the truth from himself?
Know thyself, Smithson, know thyself!"

The mixture of ancient Greek
and Gaelic fire in Grogan's soul seared Charles. He stood staring down
at the doctor, then looked aside, and returned to the fireside, his back
to his tormentor. There was a long silence. Grogan watched him intently.

At last Charles spoke.

"I am not made for marriage.
My misfortune is to have realized it too late."

"Have you read Malthus?"
Charles shook his head. "For him the tragedy of Homo sapiens is that the
least fit to survive breed the most. So don't say you aren't made for marriage,
my boy. And don't blame yourself for falling for that girl. I think I know
why that French sailor ran away. He knew she had eyes a man could drown
in."