The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (54 page)

"The world will know, whatever
happens."

The enormity of what he had
done flooded back through her. She kept shaking her head. He went and took
a chair and sat facing her, too far to touch, but close enough to appeal
to her better self. "Can you suppose for one serious moment that I am unpunished?
That this has not been the most terrible
decision of my life? This
hour the most dreaded? The one I shall remember with the deepest remorse
till the day I die? I may be--very well, I am a deceiver. But you know
I am not heartless. I should not be here now if I were. I should have written
a letter, fled abroad--"

"I wish you had."

He gave the crown of her
head a long look, then stood. He caught sight of himself in a mirror; and
the man in the mirror, Charles in another world, seemed the true self.
The one in the room was what she said, an impostor; had always been, in
his relations with Ernestina, an impostor, an observed other. He went at
last into one of his prepared speeches.

"I cannot expect you to feel
anything but anger and resentment. All I ask is that when these . . . natural
feelings have diminished you will recall that no condemnation of my conduct
can approach the severity of my own ... and that my one excuse is my incapacity
longer to deceive a person whom I have learned to respect and admire."

It sounded false; it was
false; and Charles was uncomfortably aware of her unpent contempt for him.
"I am trying to picture her. I suppose she is titled--has pretensions to
birth. Oh ... if I had only listened to my poor, dear father!"

"What does that mean?"

"He knows the nobility. He
has a phrase for them--Fine manners and unpaid bills."

"I am not a member of the
nobility."

"You are like your uncle.
You behave as if your rank excuses you all concern with what we ordinary
creatures of the world believe in. And so does she. What woman could be
so vile as to make a man break his vows? I can guess." She spat the guess
out. "She is married."

"I will not discuss this."

"Where is she now? In London?"

He stared at Ernestine a
moment, then turned on his heel and walked towards the door. She stood.
"My father will drag your name, both your names, through the mire. You
will be spurned and detested by all who know you. You will be hounded out
of England, you will be--"

He had halted at the door.
Now he opened it. And that-- or the impossibility of thinking of a sufficient
infamy for him--made her stop. Her face was working, as if she wanted to
say so much more, but could not. She swayed; and then some contradictory
self in her said his name; as if it had been a nightmare, and now she wished
to be told she was waking from it.

He did not move. She faltered
and then abruptly slumped to the floor by her chair. His first instinctive
move was to go to her. But something in the way she had fallen, the rather
too careful way her knees had crumpled and her body slipped sideways onto
the carpet, stopped him.

He stared a moment down at
that collapsed figure, and recognized the catatonia of convention. He said,
"I shall write at once to your father."

She made no sign, but lay
with her eyes closed, her hand pathetically extended on the carpet. He
strode to the bellrope beside the mantelpiece and pulled it sharply, then
strode back to the open door. As soon as he heard Mary's footsteps, he
left the room. The maid came running up the stairs from the kitchen. Charles
indicated the sitting room.

"She has had a shock. You
must on no account leave her. I go to fetch Doctor Grogan." Mary herself
looked for a moment as if she might faint. She put her hand on the banister
rail and stared at Charles with stricken eyes. "You understand. On no account
leave her." She nodded and bobbed, but did not move. "She has merely fainted.
Loosen her dress."

With one more terrified look
at him, the maid went into the room. Charles waited a few seconds more.
He heard a faint moan, then Mary's voice.

"Oh miss, miss, 'tis Mary.
The doctor's comin', miss. 'Tis all right, miss, I woan' leave ee." And
Charles for a brief moment stepped back into the room. He saw Mary on her
knees, cradling Ernestina up. The mistress's face was turned against the
maid's breast. Mary looked up at Charles: those vivid eyes seemed to forbid
him to watch or remain. He accepted their candid judgment.
 
 

For a long time,
as I have said, the strong feudal habits of subordination and deference
continued to tell upon the working class. The modern spirit has now almost
entirely dissolved those habits . . . More and more this and that man,
and this and that body of men, all over the country, are beginning to assert
and put in practice an Englishman's right to do what he likes: his right
to march where he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot
as he likes, threaten as he likes, smash as he likes. All this, I say,
tends to anarchy.
--
Matthew Arnold, Culture
and Anarchy (1869)

"I have just broken off my
engagement. She is very distressed. I beg you not to ask for explanation--and
to go to Broad Street without delay."

Grogan threw Charles an astounded
look over his spectacles, then without a word went back indoors. A few
seconds later he reappeared with his hat and medical bag. They began walking
at once.

"Not. . . ?"

Charles nodded; and for once
the little doctor seemed too shocked to say any more. They walked some
twenty or thirty steps.

"She is not what you think,
Grogan. I am certain of that."

"I am without words, Smithson."

"I seek no excuse."

"She knows?"

"That there is another. No
more." They turned the corner and began to mount Broad Street. "I must
ask you not to reveal her name." The doctor gave him a fierce little side-look.
"For Miss Woodruff's sake.

Not mine."

The doctor stopped abruptly.
"That morning--am I to understand ... ?"

"I beg you. Go now. I will
wait at the inn."

But Grogan remained staring,
as if he too could not believe he was not in some nightmare. Charles stood
it a moment, then, gesturing the doctor on up the hill, began to cross
the street towards the White Lion. "By heavens, Smithson ..."

Charles turned a moment,
bore the Irishman's angry look, then continued without word on his way.
As did the doctor, though he did not quit Charles with his eyes till he
had disappeared under the rain-porch. Charles regained his rooms, in time
to see the doctor admitted into Aunt Tranter's house. He entered with him
in spirit; he felt like a Judah, an Ephialtes, like every traitor since
time began. But he was saved from further self-maceration by a knock on
the door. Sam appeared.

"What the devil do you want?
I didn't ring." Sam opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. Charles could
not bear the shock of that look. "But now you've come--fetch me a glass
of brandy."

But that was mere playing
for time. The brandy was brought, and Charles sipped it; and then once
more had to face his servant's stare.

"It's never true, Mr. Charles?"

"Were you at the house?"

"Yes, Mr. Charles."

Charles went to the bay window
overlooking Broad Street.

"Yes, it is true. Miss Freeman
and I are no longer to marry. Now go. And keep your mouth shut."

"But. .. Mr. Charles, me
and my Mary?"

"Later, later. I can't think
of such matters now."

He tossed off the last of
his brandy and then went to the writing desk and drew out a sheet of notepaper.
Some seconds passed. Sam did not move. Or his feet did not move. His gorge
was visibly swelling. "Did you hear what I said?"

Sam had a strange glistening
look. "Yes, sir. Honly with respeck I 'ave to consider my hown sitwation."
Charles swung round from his desk.

"And what may that mean?"

"Will you be residin' in
London from 'enceforward, sir?"

Charles picked up the pen
from the standish.

"I shall very probably go
abroad."

"Then I 'ave to beg to hadvise
you, sir, that I won't be haccompanin' you."

Charles jumped up. "How dare
you address me in that damned impertinent manner! Take yourself off!"

Sam was now the enraged bantam.

"Not 'fore you've 'eard me
out. I'm not comin' back to Hexeter. I'm leavin' your hemploy!"

"Sam!" It was a shout of
rage.

"As I bought to 'ave done--"

"Go to the devil!"

Sam drew himself up then.
For two pins he would have given his master a never-say-die* (as he told
Mary later) but he controlled his Cockney fire and remembered that a gentleman's
gentleman uses finer weapons. So he went to the door and opened it, then
threw a freezingly dignified look back at Charles.
[* A black eye.]

"I don't fancy nowhere, sir,
as where I might meet a friend o' yours."

The door was closed none
too gently. Charles strode to it and ripped it open. Sam was retreating
down the corridor.

"How dare you! Come here!"

Sam turned with a grave calm.
"If you wishes for hattention, pray ring for one of the 'otel domestics."

And with that parting shot,
which left Charles speechless, he disappeared round a corner and downstairs.
His grin when he heard the door above violently slammed again did not last
long. He had gone and done it. And in truth he felt like a marooned sailor
seeing his ship sail away; worse, he had a secret knowledge that he deserved
his punishment. Mutiny, I am afraid, was not his only crime.

Charles spent his rage on
the empty brandy glass, which he hurled into the fireplace. This was his
first taste of the real thorn-and-stone treatment, and he did not like
it one bit. For a wild moment he almost rushed out of the White Lion--he
would throw himself on his knees at Ernestina's feet, he would plead insanity,
inner torment, a testing of her love ... he kept striking his fist in his
open palm. What had he done? What was he doing? What would he do? If even
his servants despised and rejected him!

He stood holding his head
in his hands. Then he looked at his watch. He should still see Sarah tonight;
and a vision of her face, gentle, acquiescent, soft tears of joy as he
held her ... it was enough. He went back to his desk and started to draft
the letter to Ernestina's father. He was still engaged on it when Dr. Grogan
was announced.
 
 

Oh, make my love
a coffin
Of the gold that shines
yellow,
And she shall be buried
By the banks of green willow.
--
Somerset folksong: "By
the Banks of Green Willow"

"Child, child, what has happened!"

Mary could only shake her
head in agony. A door opened upstairs and the good lady raised her skirt
and began to trot up them like a woman half her age. On the landing she
met Dr. Grogan, who urgently raised his finger to his lips. It was not
until they were in the fateful sitting room, and he had seen Mrs. Tranter
seated, that he broke the reality to her.

"It cannot be. It cannot
be."

"Dear woman, a thousand times
alas ... but it can--and is."

"But Charles ... so affectionate,
so loving . . . why, only yesterday a telegram ..." and she looked as if
she no longer knew her room, or the doctor's quiet, downlooking face.

"His conduct is atrocious.
I cannot understand it."