The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (36 page)

He went immediately to Aunt
Tranter's house. What he said we need not inquire, except that it must
have been penetrated with tragedy, since when Aunt Tranter (who kept uncivilized
rural hours) came down to the kitchen only a minute later, she found Mary
slumped in a collapse of tears at the kitchen table. The deaf cook's sarcastic
uplift of her chin showed there was little sympathy there. Mary was interrogated;
and Aunt Tranter soon elicited, in her briskly gentle way, the source of
misery; and applied a much kinder remedy than Charles had. The maid might
be off till Ernestina had to be attended to; since Miss Ernestina's heavy
brocade curtains customarily remained drawn until ten, that was nearly
three hours' grace. Aunt Tranter was rewarded by the most grateful smile
the world saw that day. Five minutes later Sam was to be seen sprawling
in the middle of Broad Street. One should not run full tilt across cobbles,
even to a Mary.
 
 

O let me love my
love unto myself alone,
And know my knowledge to
the world unknown,
No witness to the vision
call,
Beholding, unbeheld of all...
--
A. h. Clough, Poem (1852)

"What the devil are you doing
here?"

"Out walkin', Mr. Charles."

"I thought I left instructions
to--"

"I done it, sir. S'all ready."

Charles knew he was lying.
Mary had turned away, with a delicacy that became her. Charles hesitated,
then strode up to Sam, through whose mind flashed visions of dismissal,
assault

"We didn't know, Mr. Charles.
'Onest we didn't."

Mary flashed a shy look back
at Charles: there was shock in it, and fear, but the faintest touch of
a sly admiration. He addressed her.

"Kindly leave us alone a
moment." The girl bobbed and began to walk quickly out of earshot. Charles
eyed Sam, who reverted to his humblest footman self and stared intently
at his master's boots. "I have come here on that business I mentioned."

"Yes, sir."

Charles dropped his voice.
"At the request of the physician who is treating her. He is fully aware
of the circumstances."

"Yes, sir."

"Which must on no account
be disclosed."

"I hunderstand, Mr. Charles."

"Does she?"

Sam looked up. "Mary won't
say nuffink, sir. On my life."

Now Charles looked down.
He was aware that his cheeks were deep red. "Very well. I ... I thank you.
And I'll see that... here." He fumbled for his purse.

"Oh no, Mr. Charles." Sam
took a small step back, a little overdramatically to convince a dispassionate
observer. "Never."

Charles's hand came to a
mumbling stop. A look passed between master and servant. Perhaps both knew
a shrewd sacrifice had just been made.

"Very well. I will make it
up to you. But not a word."

"On my slombest hoath, Mr.
Charles."

With this dark superlative
(most solemn and best) Sam turned and went after his Mary, who now waited,
her back discreetly turned, some hundred yards off in the gorse and bracken.

Why their destination should
have been the barn, one can only speculate; it may have already struck
you as curious that a sensible girl like Mary should have burst into tears
at the thought of a mere few days' absence. But let us leave Sam and Mary
as they reeenter the woods, walk a little way in shocked silence, then
covertly catch each other's eyes-- and dissolve into a helpless paralysis
of silent laughter; and return to the scarlet-faced Charles.

He watched them out of sight,
then glanced back at the uninformative barn. His behavior had rent his
profoundest being, but the open air allowed him to reflect a moment. Duty,
as so often, came to his aid. He had flagrantly fanned the forbidden fire.
Even now the other victim might be perishing in its flames, casting the
rope over the beam ... He hesitated, then marched back to the barn and
Sarah.

She stood by the window's
edge, hidden from view from outside, as if she had tried to hear what had
passed between Charles and Sam. He stood by the door.

"You must forgive me for
taking an unpardonable advantage of your unhappy situation." He paused,
then went on. "And not only this morning." She looked down. He was relieved
to see that she seemed abashed, no longer wild. "The last thing I wished
was to engage your affections. I have behaved very foolishly. Very foolishly.
It is I who am wholly to blame." She stared at the rough stone floor between
them, the prisoner awaiting sentence. "The damage is done, alas. I must
ask you now to help me repair it." Still she refused his invitation to
speak. "Business calls me to London. I do not know for how long." She looked
at him then, but only for a moment. He stumbled on. "I think you should
go to Exeter. I beg you to take the money in this purse--as a loan, if
you wish ... until you can find a suitable position ... and if you should
need any further pecuniary assistance ..." His voice tailed off. It had
become progressively more formal. He knew he must sound detestable. She
turned her back on him.

"I shall never see you again."

"You cannot expect me to
deny that."

"Though seeing you is all
I live for."

The terrible threat hung
in the silence that followed. He dared not bring it into the open. He felt
like a man in irons; and his release came as unexpectedly as to a condemned
prisoner. She looked round, and patently read his thought.

"If I had wished to kill
myself, I have had reason enough before now." She looked out of the window.
"I accept your loan ... with gratitude."

His eyes closed in a moment
of silent thanksgiving. He placed the purse--not the one Ernestina had
embroidered for him--on a ledge by the door.

"You will go to Exeter?"

"If that is your advice."

"It most emphatically is."

She bowed her head.

"And I must tell you something
else. There is talk in the town of committing you to an institution." Her
eyes flashed round. "The idea emanates from Marlborough House, no doubt.
You need not take it seriously. For all that, you may save yourself embarrassment
if you do not return to Lyme." He hesitated, then said, "I understand a
party is to come shortly searching for you again. That is why I came so
early."

"My box ..."

"I will see to that. I will
have it sent to the depot at Exeter. It occurred to me that if you have
the strength, it might be wiser to walk to Axmouth Cross. That would avoid
..." scandal for them both. But he knew what he was asking. Axmouth was
seven miles away; and the Cross, where the coaches passed, two miles farther
still.

She assented.

"And you will let Mrs. Tranter
know as soon as you have found a situation?"

"I have no references."

"You may give Mrs. Talbot's
name. And Mrs. Tranter's. I will speak to her. And you are not to be too
proud to call on her for further financial provision, should it be necessary.
I shall see to that as well before I leave."

"It will not be necessary."
Her voice was almost inaudible. "But I thank you."

"I think it is I who have
to thank you."

She glanced up into his eyes.
The lance was still there, the seeing him whole.

"You are a very remarkable
person, Miss Woodruff. I feel deeply ashamed not to have perceived it earlier."

She said, "Yes, I am a remarkable
person."

But she said it without pride;
without sarcasm; with no more than a bitter simplicity. And the silence
flowed back. He bore it as long as he could, then took out his half hunter,
a very uninspired hint that he must leave. He felt his clumsiness, his
stiffness, her greater dignity than his; perhaps he still felt her lips.

"Will you not walk with me
back to the path?"

He would not let her, at
this last parting, see he was ashamed. If Grogan appeared, it would not
matter now. But Grogan did not appear. Sarah preceded him, through the
dead bracken and living gorse in the early sunlight, the hair glinting;
silent, not once turning. Charles knew very well that Sam and Mary might
be watching, but it now seemed better that they should see him openly with
her. The way led up through trees and came at last to the main path. She
turned. He stepped beside her, his hand out. She hesitated, then held out
her own. He gripped it firmly, forbidding any further folly.

He murmured, "I shall never
forget you."

She raised her face to his,
with an imperceptible yet searching movement of her eyes; as if there was
something he must see, it was not too late: a truth beyond his truths,
an emotion beyond his emotions, a history beyond all his conceptions of
history. As if she could say worlds; yet at the same time knew that if
he could not apprehend those words without her saying them ...

It lasted a long moment.
Then he dropped his eyes, and her hand.

A minute later he looked
back. She stood where he had left her, watching him. He raised his hat.
She made no sign.

Ten minutes later still,
he stopped at a gateway on the seaward side of the track to the Dairy.
It gave a view down across fields towards the Cobb. In the distance below
a short figure mounted the fieldpath towards the gate where Charles stood.
He drew back a little, hesitated a moment ... then went on his own way
along the track to the lane that led down to the town.
 
 

And the rotten rose
is ript from the wall.
--
Hardy, "During Wind and
Rain"

His second change of clothes
was thus proved a vain pretense.

"I needed to clear my mind.
I slept badly."

"So did I." She added, "You
said you were fatigued beyond belief."

"I was."

"But you stayed up until
after one o'clock."

Charles turned somewhat abruptly
to the window. "I had many things to consider."

Ernestina's part in this
stiff exchange indicates a certain failure to maintain in daylight the
tone of her nocturnal self-adjurations. But besides the walking she also
knew, via Sam, Mary and a bewildered Aunt Tranter, that Charles planned
to leave Lyme that day. She had determined not to demand an explanation
of this sudden change of intention; let his lordship give it in his own
good time.

And then, when he had finally
come, just before eleven, and while she sat primly waiting in the back
parlor, he had had the unkindness to speak at length in the hall to Aunt
Tranter, and inaudibly, which was the worst of all. Thus she inwardly seethed.

Perhaps not the least of
her resentments was that she had taken especial pains with her toilet that
morning, and he had not paid her any compliment on it. She wore a rosepink
"breakfast" dress with bishop sleeves--tight at the delicate armpit, then
pleating voluminously in a froth of gauze to the constricted wrist. It
set off her fragility very prettily; and the white ribbons in her smooth
hair and a delicately pervasive fragrance of lavender water played their
part. She was a sugar Aphrodite, though with faintly bruised eyes, risen
from a bed of white linen. Charles might have found it rather easy to be
cruel. But he managed a smile and sitting beside her, took one of her hands,
and patted it.

"My dearest, I must ask forgiveness.
I am not myself. And I fear I've decided I must go to London."

"Oh Charles!"

"I wish it weren't so. But
this new turn of events makes it imperative I see Montague at once." Montague
was the solicitor, in those days before accountants, who looked after Charles's
affairs.