The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (48 page)

Above all he felt himself
coming to the end of a story; and to an end he did not like. If you noticed
in those last two chapters an abruptness, a lack of consonance, a betrayal
of Charles's deeper potentiality and a small matter of his being given
a life span of very nearly a century and a quarter; if you entertained
a suspicion, not uncommon in literature, that the writer's breath has given
out and he has rather arbitrarily ended the race while he feels he's still
winning, then do not blame me; because all these feelings, or reflections
of them, were very present in Charles's own mind. The book of his existence,
so it seemed to him, was about to come to a distinctly shabby close.

And the "I," that entity
who found such slickly specious reasons for consigning Sarah to the shadows
of oblivion, was not myself; it was merely the personification of a certain
massive indifference in things--too hostile for Charles to think of as
"God"--that had set its malevolent inertia on the Ernestina side of the
scales; that seemed an inexorable onward direction as fixed as that of
the train which drew Charles along.

I was not cheating when I
said that Charles had decided, in London that day after his escapade, to
go through with his marriage; that was his official decision, just as it
had once been his official decision (reaction might be a more accurate
word) to go into Holy Orders. Where I have cheated was in analyzing the
effect that three-word letter continued to have on him. It tormented him,
it obsessed him, it confused him. The more he thought about it the more
Sarah-like that sending of the address--and nothing more--appeared. It
was perfectly in key with all her other behavior, and to be described only
by oxymoron; luring-receding, subtle-simple, proud-begging, defending-accusing.
The Victorian was a prolix age; and unaccustomed to the Delphic.

But above all it seemed to
set Charles a choice; and while one part of him hated having to choose,
we come near the secret of his state on that journey west when we know
that another part of him felt intolerably excited by the proximity of the
moment of choice. He had not the benefit of existentialist terminology;
but what he felt was really a very clear case of the anxiety of freedom--that
is, the realization that one is free and the realization that being free
is a situation of terror.

So let us kick Sam out of
his hypothetical future and back into his Exeter present. He goes to his
master's compartment when the train stops.

"Are we stayin' the night,
sir?"

Charles stares at him a moment,
a decision still to make, and looks over his head at the overcast sky.

"I fancy it will rain. We'll
put up at the Ship."

And so Sam, a thousand unpossessed
pounds richer, stood a few minutes later with his master outside the station,
watching the loading of Charles's impedimenta on to the roof of a tired
fly. Charles showed a decided restlessness. The portmanteau was at last
tied down, and all waited on him.

"I think, Sam, after that
confounded train journey, I will stretch my legs. Do you go on with the
baggage."

Sam's heart sank.

"With respeck, Mr. Charles,
I wouldn't. Not with them rainclouds up there about to break."

"A little rain won't hurt
me."

Sam swallowed, bowed.

"Yes, Mr. Charles. Shall
I give horders for dinner?"

"Yes . . . that is ... I'll
see when I come in. I may attend Evensong at the Cathedral."

Charles set off up the hill
towards the city. Sam watched him gloomily on his way for a little while,
then turned to the cabby.

"Eh--'card of Hendicott's
Family 'Otel?"

"Aye."

"Know where it is?"

"Aye."

"Well, you dolly me up to
the Ship double quick and you may 'ear somethink to your hadvantage, my
man."

And with a suitable aplomb
Sam got into the carriage. It very soon overtook Charles, who walked with
a flagrant slowness, as if taking the air. But as soon as it had gone out
of sight he quickened his pace. Sam had plenty of experience of dealing
with sleepy provincial inns. The luggage was unloaded, the best available
rooms chosen, a fire lit, nightwear laid out with other necessities--and
all in seven minutes. Then he strode sharply out into the street, where
the cabby still waited. A short further journey took place. From inside
Sam looked cautiously round, then descended and paid off his driver.

"First left you'll find 'un,
sir."

"Thank you, my man. 'Ere's
a couple o' browns for you." And with this disgracefully mean tip (even
for Exeter) Sam tipped his bowler over his eyes and melted away into the
dusk. Halfway down the street he was in, and facing the one the cabby had
indicated, stood a Methodist Chapel, with imposing columns under its pediment.
Behind one of these the embryo detective installed himself. It was now
nearly night, come early under a gray-black sky.

Sam did not have to wait
long. His heart leaped as a tall figure came into sight. Evidently at a
loss the figure addressed himself to a small boy. The boy promptly led
the way to the corner below Sam's viewpoint, and pointed, a gesture that
earned him, to judge by his grin, rather more than twopence. Charles's
back receded. Then he stopped and looked up. He retraced a few steps back
towards Sam. Then as if impatient with himself he turned again and entered
one of the houses. Sam slipped from behind his pillar and ran down the
steps and across to the street in which Endicott's Family stood. He waited
a while on the corner. But Charles did not reappear. Sam became bolder
and lounged casually along the warehouse wall that faced the row of houses.
He came to where he could see the hallway of the hotel. It was empty. Several
rooms had lights. Some fifteen minutes passed and it began to rain.

Sam bit his nails for a while,
in furious thought. Then he began to walk quickly away.
 
 

As yet, when all
is thought and said,
The heart still overrules
the head;
Still what we hope we must
believe,
And what is given us receive;

Must still believe,
for still we hope
That in a world of larger
scope,
What here is faithfully
begun
Will be completed, not undone.

My child, we still
must think, when we
That ampler life together
see,
Some true results will yet
appear
Of what we are, together,
here.
--
A. H. Clough, Poem (1849)

"A room, sir?"

"No. I ... that is, I wish
to speak with one of your ... a Miss Woodruff?" Mrs. Endicott's smile abruptly
gave way to a long face. Charles's heart dropped. "She is not... ?"

"Oh the poor young lady,
sir, she was a-coming downstairs the day before yesterday morning and she
slipped, sir. She's turned her ankle something horrible. Swole up big as
a marrow. I wanted to ask the doctor, sir, but she won't hear of it. 'Tis
true a turned ankle mends itself. And physicians come very expensive."

Charles looked at the end
of his cane. "Then I cannot see her."

"Oh bless me, you can go
up, sir. 'Twill raise her spirits. You'll be some relative, I daresay?"

"I have to see her ... on
a business matter."

Mrs. Endicott's respect deepened.
"Ah ... a gentleman of the law?"

Charles hesitated, then said,
"Yes."

"Then you must go up, sir."

"I think ... would you please
send to ask if my visit were not better put off till she is recovered?"

He felt very much at a loss.
He remembered Varguennes; sin was to meet in privacy. He had come merely
to inquire; had hoped for a downstairs sitting room--somewhere both intimate
and public. The old woman hesitated, then cast a quick eye at a certain
open box beside her rolltop desk and apparently decided that even lawyers
can be thieves--a possibility few who have had to meet their fees would
dispute. Without moving and with a surprising violence she called for one
Betty Anne.

Betty Anne appeared and was
sent off with a visiting card. She seemed gone some time, during which
Charles had to repel a number of inquisitive attempts to discover his errand.
At last Betty Anne came back: he was prayed to go up. He followed the plump
maid's back to the top floor and was shown the scene of the accident. The
stairs were certainly steep; and in those days, when they could rarely
see their own feet, women were always falling: it was a commonplace of
domestic life.

They came to a door at the
end of a mournful corridor. Charles, his heart beating far faster than
even the three flights of steep stairs had warranted, was brusquely announced.

"The gennelmun, miss."

He stepped into the room.
Sarah was seated by the fire in a chair facing the door, her feet on a
stool, with both them and her legs covered by a red Welsh blanket. The
green merino shawl was round her shoulders, but could not quite hide the
fact that she was in a long-sleeved nightgown. Her hair was loose and fell
over her green shoulders. She seemed to him much smaller--and agonizingly
shy. She did not smile, but looked down at her hands--only, as he first
came in, one swift look up, like a frightened penitent, sure of his anger,
before she bowed her head again. He stood with his hat in one hand, his
stick and gloves in the other.

"I was passing through Exeter."

Her head bowed a fraction
deeper in a mingled understanding and shame.

"Had I not better go at once
and fetch a doctor?"

She spoke into her lap. "Please
not. He would only advise me to do what I am already doing."

He could not take his eyes
from her--to see her so pinioned, so invalid (though her cheeks were a
deep pink), helpless. And after that eternal indigo dress--the green shawl,
the never before fully revealed richness of that hair. A faint cedary smell
of liniment crept into Charles's nostrils.

"You are not in pain?"

She shook her head. "To do
such a thing ... I cannot understand how I should be so foolish."

"At any rate be thankful
that it did not happen in the Undercliff."

"Yes."

She seemed hopelessly abashed
by his presence. He glanced round the small room. A newly made-up fire
burned in the grate. There were some tired stems of narcissus in a Toby
jug on the mantelpiece. But the meanness of the furnishing was painfully
obvious, and an added embarrassment. On the ceiling were blackened patches--fumes
from the oil lamp; like so many spectral relics of countless drab past
occupants of the room.

"Perhaps I should ..."

"No. Please. Sit down. Forgive
me. I ... I did not expect..." He placed his things on the chest of drawers,
then sat at the only other, a wooden chair by the table, across the room
from her. How should she expect, in spite of her letter, what he had himself
so firmly ruled out of the question? He sought for some excuse.

"You have communicated your
address to Mrs. Tranter?"

She shook her head. Silence.
Charles stared at the carpet.

"Only to myself?"

Again her head bowed. He
nodded gravely, as if he had guessed as much. And then there was more silence.
An angry flurry of rain spattered against the panes of the window behind
her.

Charles said, "That is what
I have come to discuss."

She waited, but he did not
go on. Again his eyes were fixed on her. The nightgown buttoned high at
the neck and at her wrists. Its whiteness shimmered rose in the firelight,
for the lamp on the table beside him was not turned up very high. And her
hair, already enhanced by the green shawl, was ravishingly alive where
the firelight touched it; as if all her mystery, this most intimate self,
was exposed before him: proud and submissive, bound and unbound, his slave
and his equal. He knew why he had come: it was to see her again. Seeing
her was the need; like an intolerable thirst that had to be assuaged.