The French Lieutenant's Woman (28 page)

They passed a group of his uncle's workers: Ebenezer the smith,
beside a portable brazier, hammering straight one of the iron rails
that had been bent. Behind him, two woodmen, passing the time of day;
and a fourth very old man, who still wore the smock of his youth and
an ancient billycock ... old Ben, the smith's father, now one of the
dozen or more aged pensioners of the estate allowed to live there, as
free in all his outdoor comings and goings as the master himself; a
kind of living file, and still often consulted, of the last eighty
years or more of Winsyatt history.

These four turned as the chaise went past, and raised arms, and
the billycock. Charles waved seigneurially back. He knew all their
lives, as they knew his. He even knew how the rail had been bent. . .
the great Jonas, his uncle's favorite bull, had charged Mrs.
Tomkins's landau. "Her own d--d fault"--his uncle's letter
had said--"for painting her mouth scarlet." Charles smiled,
remembering the dry inquiry in his answer as to why such an
attractive widow should be calling at Winsyatt unchaperoned ...

But it was the great immutable rural peace that was so delicious
to reenter. The miles of spring sward, the background of Wiltshire
downland, the distant house now coming into view, cream and gray,
with its huge cedars, the famous copper beech (all copper beeches are
famous) by the west wing, the almost hidden stable row behind, with
its little wooden tower and clock like a white exclamation mark
between the intervening branches. It was symbolic, that stable clock;
though nothing--despite the telegram--was ever really urgent at
Winsyatt, green todays flowed into green tomorrows, the only real
hours were the solar hours, and though, except at haymaking and
harvest, there were always too many hands for too little work, the
sense of order was almost mechanical in its profundity, in one's
feeling that it could not be disturbed, that it would always remain
thus: benevolent and divine. Heaven--and Millie--knows there were
rural injustices and poverties as vile as those taking place in
Sheffield and Manchester; but they shunned the neighborhood of the
great houses of England, perhaps for no better reason than that the
owners liked well-tended peasants as much as well-tended fields and
livestock. Their comparative kindness to their huge staffs may have
been no more than a side-product of their pursuit of the pleasant
prospect; but the underlings gained thereby. And the motives of
"intelligent" modern management are probably no more
altruistic. One set of kind exploiters went for the Pleasant
Prospect; the others go for Higher Productivity.

As the chaise emerged from the end of the avenue of limes, where
the railed pasture gave way to smoother lawns and shrubberies, and
the drive entered its long curve up to the front of the house--a
Palladian structure not too ruthlessly improved and added to by the
younger Wyatt--Charles felt himself truly entering upon his
inheritance. It seemed to him to explain all his previous idling
through life, his dallying with religion, with science, with travel;
he had been waiting for this moment ... his call to the throne, so to
speak. The absurd adventure in the Undercliff was forgotten. Immense
duties, the preservation of this peace and order, lay ahead, as they
had lain ahead of so many young men of his family in the past.
Duty--that was his real wife, his Ernestina and his Sarah, and he
sprang out of the chaise to welcome her as joyously as a boy not half
his real age.

He was greeted in return, however, by an empty hall. He broke into
the dayroom, or drawing room, expecting to see his uncle smilingly on
his feet to meet him. But that room was empty, too. And something was
strange in it, puzzling Charles a moment. Then he smiled. There were
new curtains --and the carpets, yes, they were new as well. Ernestina
would not be pleased, to have had the choice taken out of her
hands--but what surer demonstration could there be of the old
bachelor's intention gracefully to hand on the torch?

Yet something else had also changed. It was some moments before
Charles realized what it was. The immortal bustard had been banished;
where its glass case had last stood was now a cabinet of china. But
still he did not guess.

Nor did he--but in this case, how could he?--guess what had
happened to Sarah when she left him the previous afternoon. She had
walked quickly back through the woods until she came to the place
where she normally took the higher path that precluded any chance of
her being seen from the Dairy. An observer would have seen her
hesitate, and then, if he had had as sharp hearing as Sarah herself,
have guessed why: a sound of voices from the Dairy cottage some
hundred yards away down through the trees. Slowly and silently Sarah
made her way forward until she came to a great holly bush, through
whose dense leaves she could stare down at the back of the cottage.
She remained standing some time, her face revealing nothing of what
passed through her mind. Then some development in the scene below,
outside the cottage, made her move ... but not back into the cover of
the woods. Instead she walked boldly from out behind the holly tree
and along the path that joined the cart track above the cottage. Thus
she emerged in full view of the two women at the cottage door, one of
whom carried a basket and was evidently about to set off on her way
home.

Sarah's dark figure came into view. She did not look down towards
the cottage, towards those two surprised pairs of eyes, but went
swiftly on her way until she passed behind the hedge of one of the
fields that ran above the Dairy.

One of the women below was the dairyman's wife. The other was Mrs.
Fairley.
 

24

I once heard it suggested that the typical Victorian
saying was, "You must remember he is your uncle ..."
--G.
M. Young, Victorian Essays

"It is monstrous. Monstrous. I cannot believe he has not lost
his senses."

"He has lost his sense of proportion. But that is not quite
the same thing."

"But at this juncture!"

"My dear Tina, Cupid has a notorious contempt for other
people's convenience."

"You know very well that Cupid has nothing to do with it."

"I am afraid he has everything to do with it. Old hearts are
the most susceptible."

"It is my fault. I know he disapproves of me."

"Come now, that is nonsense."

"It is not nonsense. I know perfectly well that for him I am
a draper's daughter."

"My dear child, contain yourself."

"It is for you I am so angry."

"Very well--then let me be angry on my own behalf."

There was silence then, which allows me to say that the
conversation above took place in Aunt Tranter's rear parlor. Charles
stood at the window, his back to Ernestina, who had very recently
cried, and who now sat twisting a lace handkerchief in a vindictive
manner.

"I know how much you love Winsyatt."

How Charles would have answered can only be conjectured, for the
door opened at that moment and Aunt Tranter appeared, a pleased smile
of welcome on her face.

"You are back so soon!" It was half past nine of the
same day we saw Charles driving up to Winsyatt House.

Charles smiled thinly. "Our business was soon . . .
finished."

"Something terrible and disgraceful has happened." Aunt
Tranter looked with alarm at the tragic and outraged face of her
niece, who went on: "Charles had been disinherited."

"Disinherited!"

"Ernestina exaggerates. It is simply that my uncle has
decided to marry. If he should be so fortunate as to have a son and
heir ..."

"Fortunate . . . !" Ernestina slipped Charles a scalding
little glance. Aunt Tranter looked in consternation from one face to
the other.

"But... who is the lady?"

"Her name is Mrs. Tomkins, Mrs. Tranter. A widow."

"And young enough to bear a dozen sons."

Charles smiled. "Hardly that. But young enough to bear sons."

"You know her?"

Ernestina answered before Charles could, "That is what is so
disgraceful. Only two months ago his uncle made fun of the woman to
Charles in a letter. And now he is groveling at her feet."

"My dear Ernestina!"

"I will not be calm! It is too much. After all these
years..." Charles took a deep breath, and turned to Aunt
Tranter. "I understand she has excellent connections. Her
husband was colonel in the Fortieth Hussars and left her handsomely
provided for. There is no suspicion of fortune hunting."
Ernestina's smoldering look up at him showed plainly that in her mind
there was every suspicion. "I am told she is a very attractive
woman."

"No doubt she rides to hounds."

He smiled bleakly at Ernestina, who was referring to a black mark
she had earlier gained in the monstrous uncle's book. "No doubt.
But that is not yet a crime."

Aunt Tranter plumped down on a chair and looked again from one
young face to the other, searching, as ever in such situations, for
some ray of hope.

"But is he not too old to have children?"

Charles managed a gentle smile for her innocence. "He is
sixty-seven, Mrs. Tranter. That is not too old." "Even
though she is young enough to be his granddaughter."

"My dear Tina, all one has in such circumstances is one's
dignity. I must beg you for my sake not to be
bitter. We must
accept the event with as good a grace as possible."

She looked up and saw how nervously stern he was; that she must
play a different role. She ran to him, and catching his hand, raised
it to her lips. He drew her to him and kissed the top of her head,
but he was not deceived. A shrew and a mouse may look the same; but
they are not the same; and though he could not find a word to
describe Ernestina's reception of his shocking and unwelcome news, it
was not far removed from "unladylike." He had leaped
straight from the trap bringing him back from Exeter into Aunt
Tranter's house; and expected a gentle sympathy, not a sharp rage,
however flatteringly it was intended to resemble his own feelings.
Perhaps that was it--that she had not divined that a gentleman could
never reveal the anger she ascribed to him. But there seemed to him
something only too reminiscent of the draper's daughter in her during
those first minutes; of one who had been worsted in a business deal,
and who lacked a traditional imperturbability, that fine aristocratic
refusal to allow the setbacks of life ever to ruffle one's style.

He handed Ernestina back to the sofa from which she had sprung. An
essential reason for his call, a decision he had come to on his long
return, he now perceived must be left for discussion on the morrow.
He sought for some way to demonstrate the correct attitude; and could
find none better than that of lightly changing the subject.

"And what great happenings have taken place in Lyme today?"

As if reminded, Ernestina turned to her aunt. "Did you get
news of her?" And then, before Aunt Tranter could answer, she
looked up at Charles, "There has been an event. Mrs. Poulteney
has dismissed Miss Woodruff."

Charles felt his heart miss a beat. But any shock his face may
have betrayed passed unnoticed in Aunt Tranter's eagerness to tell
her news: for that is why she had been absent when Charles arrived.
The dismissal had apparently taken place the previous evening; the
sinner had been allowed one last night under the roof of Marlborough
House. Very early that same morning a porter had come to collect her
box-- and had been instructed to take it to the White Lion. Here
Charles quite literally blanched, but Aunt Tranter allayed his fears
in the very next sentence.

"That is the depot for the coaches, you know." The
Dorchester to Exeter omnibuses did not descend the steep hill to
Lyme, but had to be picked up at a crossroads some four miles inland
on the main road to the west. "But Mrs. Hunnicott spoke to the
man. He is most positive that Miss Woodruff was not there. The maid
said she had left very early at dawn, and gave only the instructions
as to her box."

"And since?"

"Not a sign."

"You saw the vicar?"

"No, but Miss Trimble assures me he went to Marlborough House
this forenoon. He was told Mrs. Poulteney was unwell. He spoke to
Mrs. Fairley. All she knew was that some disgraceful matter had come
to Mrs. Poulteney's knowledge, that she was deeply shocked and upset
..." The good Mrs. Tranter broke off, apparently almost as
distressed at her ignorance as at Sarah's isappearance. She sought
her niece's and Charles's eyes. "What can it be--what can it
be?"

"She ought never to have been employed at Marlborough House.
It was like offering a lamb to a wolf."

Ernestina looked at Charles for confirmation of her opinion.
Feeling far less calm than he looked, he turned to Aunt Tranter.

"There is no danger of ..."

"That is what we all fear. The vicar has sent men to search
along towards Charmouth. She walks there, on the cliffs."

"And they have ...?"

"Found nothing."

"Did you not say she once worked for--"

"They have sent there. No word of her."

"Grogan--has he not been called to Marlborough House?"
He skillfully made use of his introduction of the name, turning to
Ernestina. "That evening when we took grog--he mentioned her. I
know he is concerned for her situation."

"Miss Trimble saw him talking with the vicar at seven
o'clock. She said he looked most agitated. Angry. That was her word."
Miss Trimble kept a ladies' trinket shop at the bottom of Broad
Street--and was therefore admirably placed to be the general
information center of the town. Aunt Tranter's gentle face achieved
the impossible--and looked harshly severe. "I shall not call on
Mrs. Poulteney, however ill she is."

Ernestina covered her face in her hands. "Oh, what a cruel
day it's been!"