The French Lieutenant's Woman (11 page)

She looked up at once,
so quickly that his step back was in vain. He was detected, and he
was too much a gentleman to deny it. So when Sarah scrambled to her
feet, gathering her coat about her, and stared back up at him from
her ledge, he raised his wideawake and bowed. She said nothing, but
fixed him with a look of shock and bewilderment, perhaps not untinged
with shame. She had fine eyes, dark eyes. They stood thus for several
seconds, locked in a mutual incomprehension. She seemed so small to
him, standing there below him, hidden from the waist down, clutching
her collar, as if, should he take a step towards her, she would turn
and fling herself out of his sight. He came to his sense of what was
proper.
"
A
thousand apologies. I came upon you inadvertently." And then he
turned and walked away. He did not look back, but scrambled down to
the path he had left, and back to the fork, where he wondered why he
had not had the presence of mind to ask which path he was to take,
and waited half a minute to see if she was following him. She did not
appear. Very soon he marched firmly away up the steeper path.

Charles did not know it,
but in those brief poised seconds above the waiting sea, in that
luminous evening silence broken only by the waves' quiet wash, the
whole Victorian Age was lost. And I do not mean he had taken the
wrong path.
 
 

11

With the form
conforming duly,
Senseless
what it meaneth truly,
Go
to church--the world require you,
To
balls--the world require you too,
And
marry--papa and mama desire you,
And
your sisters and schoolfellows do.
--
A.
H. Clough, "Duty" (1841)

"
Oh!
no, what he!" she cried in scorn,
"
I
woulden gi'e a penny vor'n;
The
best ov him's outzide in view;
His
cwoat is gay enough, 'tis true,
But
then the wold vo'k didden bring
En
up to know a single thing..."
--
William
Barnes, Poems in the Dorset Dialect (1869)

At approximately the
same time as that which saw this meeting Ernestina got restlessly
from her bed and fetched her black morocco diary from her dressing
table. She first turned rather sulkily to her entry of that morning,
which was certainly not very inspired from a literary point of view:
"Wrote letter to Mama. Did not see dearest Charles. Did not go
out, tho' it is very fine. Did not feel happy."

It had been a very
did-not sort of day for the poor girl, who had had only Aunt Tranter
to show her displeasure to. There had been Charles's daffodils and
jonquils, whose perfume she now inhaled, but even they had vexed her
at first. Aunt Tranter's house was small, and she had heard Sam knock
on the front door downstairs; she had heard the wicked and irreverent
Mary open it--a murmur of voices and then a distinct, suppressed
gurgle of laughter from the maid, a slammed door. The odious and
abominable suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down
there, flirting; and this touched on one of her deepest fears about
him.

She knew he had lived in
Paris, in Lisbon, and traveled much; she knew he was eleven years
older than herself; she knew he was attractive to women. His answers
to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests
were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub. She
felt he must be hiding something--a tragic French countess, a
passionate Portuguese marquesa. Her mind did not allow itself to run
to a Parisian grisette or an almond-eyed inn-girl at Cintra, which
would have been rather nearer the truth. But in a way the matter of
whether he had slept with other women worried her less than it might
a modern girl. Of course Ernestina uttered her autocratic "I
must not" just as soon as any such sinful speculation crossed
her mind; but it was really Charles's heart of which she was jealous.
That, she could not bear to think of having to share, either
historically or presently. Occam's useful razor was unknown to her.
Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became
clear proof to Ernestina, on her darker days, that he had once been
passionately so. His calm exterior she took for the terrible silence
of a recent battlefield, Waterloo a month after; instead of for what
it really was--a place without history.

When the front door
closed, Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one
and a half minutes, whereupon her fragile little hand reached out and
peremptorily pulled the gilt handle beside her bed. A pleasantly
insistent tinkle filtered up from the basement kitchen; and soon
afterwards, there were footsteps, a knock, and the door opened to
reveal Mary bearing a vase with a positive fountain of spring
flowers. The girl came and stood by the bed, her face half hidden by
the blossoms, smiling, impossible for a man to have been angry
with--and therefore quite the reverse to Ernestina, who frowned
sourly and reproachfully at this unwelcome vision of Flora.

Of the three young women
who pass through these pages Mary was, in my opinion, by far the
prettiest. She had infinitely the most life, and infinitely the least
selfishness; and physical charms to match ... an exquisitely pure, if
pink complexion, corn-colored hair and delectably wide gray-blue
eyes, eyes that invited male provocation and returned it as gaily as
it was given. They bubbled as the best champagne bubbles,
irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. Not even the sad
Victorian clothes she had so often to wear could hide the trim, plump
promise of her figure--indeed, "plump" is unkind. I brought
up Ronsard's name just now; and her figure required a word from his
vocabulary, one for which we have no equivalent in English:
rondelet--all that is seductive in plumpness without losing all that
is nice in slimness.

Mary's
great-great-granddaughter, who is twenty-two years old this month I
write in, much resembles her ancestor; and her face is known over the
entire world, for she is one of the more celebrated younger English
film actresses.

But it was not, I am
afraid, the face for 1867. It had not, for instance, been at all the
face for Mrs. Poulteney, to whom it had become familiar some three
years previously. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs. Fairley, who
had wheedled Mrs. Poulteney into taking the novice into the unkind
kitchen. But Marlborough House and Mary had suited each other as well
as a tomb would a goldfinch; and when one day Mrs. Poulteney was
somberly surveying her domain and saw from her upstairs window the
disgusting sight of her stableboy soliciting a kiss, and not being
very successfully resisted, the goldfinch was given an instant
liberty; whereupon it flew to Mrs. Tranter's, in spite of Mrs.
Poulteney's solemn warnings to that lady as to the foolhardiness of
harboring such proven dissoluteness.

In Broad Street Mary was
happy. Mrs. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty, laughing girls
even better. Of course, Ernestina was her niece, and she worried for
her more; but Ernestina she saw only once or twice a year, and Mary
she saw every day. Below her mobile, flirtatious surface the girl had
a gentle affectionateness; and she did not stint, she returned the
warmth that was given. Ernestina did not know a dreadful secret of
that house in Broad Street; there were times, if cook had a day off,
when Mrs. Tranter sat and ate with Mary alone in the downstairs
kitchen; and they were not the unhappiest hours in either of their
lives.

Mary was not faultless;
and one of her faults was a certain envy of Ernestina. It was not
only that she ceased abruptly to be the tacit favorite of the
household when the young lady from London arrived; but the young lady
from London came also with trunkfuls of the latest London and Paris
fashions, not the best recommendation to a servant with only three
dresses to her name--and not one of which she really liked, even
though the best of them she could really dislike only because it had
been handed down by the young princess from the capital. She also
thought Charles was a beautiful man for a husband; a great deal too
good for a pallid creature like Ernestina. This was why Charles had
the frequent benefit of those gray-and-periwinkle eyes when she
opened the door to him or passed him in the street. In wicked fact
the creature picked her exits and entrances to coincide with
Charles's; and each time he raised his hat to her in the street she
mentally cocked her nose at Ernestina; for she knew very well why
Mrs. Tranter's niece went upstairs so abruptly after Charles's
departures. Like all soubrettes, she dared to think things her young
mistress did not; and knew it.

Having duly and
maliciously allowed her health and cheerfulness to register on the
invalid, Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode.

"From Mr. Charles,
Miss Tina. With 'er complimums." Mary spoke in a dialect
notorious for its contempt of pronouns and suffixes.

"Place them on my
dressing table. I do not like them so close."

Mary obediently removed
them there and disobediently began to rearrange them a little before
turning to smile at the suspicious Ernestina.

"Did he bring them
himself?"

"No, miss."

"Where is Mr.
Charles?"

"Doan know, miss. I
didn' ask'un." But her mouth was pressed too tightly together,
as if she wanted to giggle.

"But I heard you
speak with the man."

"Yes, miss."

"What about?"

"'Twas just the
time o' day, miss."

"Is that what made
you laugh?"

"Yes, miss. 'Tis
the way 'e speaks, miss."

The Sam who had
presented himself at the door had in fact borne very little
resemblance to the mournful and indignant young man who had stropped
the razor. He had thrust the handsome bouquet into the mischievous
Mary's arms. "For the bootiful young lady hupstairs." Then
dexterously he had placed his foot where the door had been about to
shut and as dexterously produced from behind his back, in his other
hand, while his now free one swept off his a la mode near-brimless
topper, a little posy of crocuses.

"And for the heven
more lovely one down." Mary had blushed a deep pink; the
pressure of the door on Sam's foot had mysteriously lightened. He
watched her smell the yellow flowers; not politely, but genuinely, so
that a tiny orange smudge of saffron appeared on the charming,
impertinent nose.

"That there bag o'
soot will be delivered as bordered." She bit her lips, and
waited. "Hon one condition. No tick. Hit must be a-paid for at
once."

"'Ow much would'er
cost then?"

The forward fellow eyed
his victim, as if calculating a fair price; then laid a finger on his
mouth and gave a profoundly unambiguous wink. It was this that had
provoked that smothered laugh; and the slammed door.

Ernestina gave her a
look that would have not disgraced Mrs. Poulteney. "You will
kindly remember that he comes from London."

"Yes, miss."

"Mr. Smithson has
already spoken to me of him. The man fancies himself a Don Juan."

"What's that then,
Miss Tina?"

There was a certain
eager anxiety for further information in Mary's face that displeased
Ernestina very much.

"Never mind now.
But if he makes advances I wish to be told at once. Now bring me some
barley water.
And
be more discreet in future."

There passed a tiny
light in Mary's eyes, something singularly like a flash of defiance.
But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap, bobbing a
token curtsy, and left the room. Three flights down, and three
flights up, as Ernestina, who had not the least desire for Aunt
Tranter's wholesome but uninteresting barley water, consoled herself
by remembering.

But Mary had in a sense
won the exchange, for it reminded Ernestina, not by nature a domestic
tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child, that soon she would have to
stop playing at mistress, and be one in real earnest. The idea
brought pleasures, of course; to have one's own house, to be free of
parents . . . but servants were such a problem, as everyone said.
Were no longer what they were, as everyone said. Were tiresome, in a
word. Perhaps Ernestina's puzzlement and distress were not far
removed from those of Charles, as he had sweated and stumbled his way
along the shore. Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to
think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne, here and
now.

It was to banish such
gloomy forebodings, still with her in the afternoon, that Ernestina
fetched her diary, propped herself up in bed and once more turned to
the page with the sprig of jasmine.