The French Lieutenant's Woman (44 page)

"Pardon me, sir. If
you'd make yourself at 'ome. I shan't be a minute."

She went through another
door into a room at the back of the house. It was in darkness, and he
noticed that she closed the door after her very gently. He went and
stood with his back to the fire. Through the closed door he heard the
faint mutter of an awakened child, a shushing, a few low words. The
door opened again and the prostitute reappeared. She had taken off
her shawl and her hat. She smiled nervously at him.

"It's my little
gel, sir. She won't make no noise. She's good as gold." Sensing
his disapproval, she hurried on. "There's a chophouse just a
step away, sir, if you're 'ungry."

Charles was not; but nor
did he now feel sexually hungry, either. He found it hard to look at
her. "Pray order for yourself what you want. I don't ... that is
... some wine, perhaps, if it can be got." "French or
German, sir?"

"A glass of
hock--you like that?"

"Thank you, sir.
I'll send the lad out."

And again she
disappeared. He heard her call sharply, much less genteel, down the
hall. "'Arry!"

The murmur of voices,
the front door slammed. When she came back he asked if he should not
have given her some money. But it seemed this service was included.
"Won't you take the chair, sir?"

And she held out her
hands for his hat and stick, which he still held. He handed them
over, then parted the tails of his frock coat and sat by the fire.
The coal she had put on seemed slow to burn. She knelt before it, and
before him, and busied herself again with the poker.

"They're best
quality, they didn't ought to be so slow catchin'. It's the cellar.
Damp as old 'ouses."

He watched her profile
in the red light from the fire. It was not a pretty face, but sturdy,
placid, unthinking. Her bust was well developed; her wrists and hands
surprisingly delicate, almost fragile. They, and her abundant hair,
momentarily sparked off his desire. He almost put out his hand to
touch her, but changed his mind. He would feel better when he had
more wine. They remained so for a minute or more. At last she looked
at him, and he smiled. For the first time that day he had a fleeting
sense of peace. She turned her eyes back to the fire then and
murmured, "'E won't be more'n a minute. It's only two steps."

And so they stayed in
silence again. But such moments as these were very strange to a
Victorian man; even between husband and wife the intimacy was largely
governed by the iron laws of convention. Yet here Charles was,
sitting at the fire of this woman he had not known existed an hour
before, like ... "The father of your little girl... ?"

"'E's a sojjer,
sir."

"A soldier?"

She stared at the fire:
memories.

"'E's out in Hindia
now."

"Would he not marry
you?"

She smiled at his
innocence, then shook her head. "'E gave me money for when I was
brought to bed." By which she seemed to suggest that he had done
all one could decently expect.

"And could you not
find any other means of livelihood?"

"There's work. But
it's all day work. And then when I paid to look after little Mary . .
." she shrugged. "Once you been done wrong to, you been
done wrong to. Can't be mended, so you 'ave to make out as best you
can."

"And you believe
this the best way?"

"I don't know no
other no more, sir."

But she spoke without
much sign of shame or regret. Her fate was determined, and she lacked
the imagination to see it.

There were feet on the
stairs. She rose and went to the door and opened it before the knock.
Charles glimpsed a boy of thirteen or so outside, who had evidently
been trained not to stare, since his eyes remained down while she
herself carried the tray to a table by the window and then returned
to the door with her purse. There was the chink of small coins, and
the door softly closed. She poured him a glass of wine and brought it
to him, setting the half-bottle on a trivet in the hearth beside him,
as if all wine should be warmed. Then she sat and removed the cloth
from the plate on the tray. Out of the corner of his eye Charles saw
a small pie, potatoes, a tumbler of what was evidently gin and water,
for she would hardly have had water alone brought up. His hock tasted
acid, but he drank it in the hope that his senses would be dulled.

The small crackle from
the now burning fire, the quiet hiss of the gas jets, the chink of
cutlery: he could not see how they should ever pass to the real
purpose of his presence. He drank another glass of the vinegary wine.

But she soon finished
her repast. The tray was taken outside. Then she went back into the
darkened bedroom where the little girl slept. A minute passed. She
reappeared. Now she wore a white peignoir, which she held closed. Her
hair was loosened and fell down her back; and her hand held the edges
of the robe together sufficiently tightly to show she was naked
beneath it. Charles rose.

"No 'aste, sir.
Finish your wine."

He stared down at the
bottle beside him, as if he had not noticed it before; then nodded
and sat down again, and poured himself another glass. She moved in
front of him and reached, her other hand still holding the peignoir
together, to turn down the gas to two small green points. Firelight
bathed her, softened her young features; and then again she knelt at
his feet facing the fire. After a moment she reached out both hands
to it and the robe fell a little open. He saw a white breast,
shadowed, and not fully bared.

She spoke into the fire.
"Would you like me to sit on your knees, sir?"

"Yes ... please
do."

He tossed off his wine.
Clutching her robe together again she stood, then sat easily back
across his braced legs, her right arm round his shoulders. His left
arm he put round her waist, while his right lay, with an absurd
unnaturalness, along the low arm of the chair. For a moment her left
hand clasped the fabric of her gown, but then she reached it out and
caressed his cheek. A moment; she kissed his other cheek. Their eyes
met. She glanced down at his mouth, as if shyly, but she went about
her business without shyness.

"You're a very
'andsome gentleman."

"You're a pretty
girl."

"You like us wicked
girls?"

He noted she had dropped
the "sir." He tightened his left arm a little.

She reached then and
took his recalcitrant right hand and led it under her robe to her
bare breast. He felt the stiff point of flesh in the center of his
palm. Her hand drew his head to hers, and they kissed, as his hand,
now recalling forbidden female flesh, silken and swollen contours, a
poem forgotten, sized and approved the breast then slid deeper and
lower inside her robe to the incurve of her waist. She was naked, and
her mouth tasted faintly of onions.

Perhaps it was that
which gave him his first wave of nausea. He concealed it, becoming
two people: one who had drunk too much and one who was now sexually
excited. The robe fell shamelessly open over the girl's slight belly,
the dark well of pubic hair, the white thighs that seduced him both
by sight and pressure. His hand did not wander lower than her waist;
but it wandered above, touching those open breasts, the neck, the
shoulders. She made no advances after that first leading of his hand;
she was his passive victim, her head resting on his shoulder, marble
made warmth, an Etty nude, the Pygmalion myth brought to a happy end.
Another wave of nausea came over him. She sensed it, but
misinterpreted.

"I'm too 'eavy for
you?"

"No ... that is
..."

"It's a nice bed.
Soft."

She stood away from him,
went to it and folded back the bedclothes carefully, then turned to
look at him. She let the robe slip from her shoulders. She was
well-formed, with shapely buttocks. A moment, then she sat and swung
her legs under the bedclothes and lay back with her eyes closed, in
what she transparently thought was a position both discreet and
abandoned. A coal began to flicker brightly, casting intense but
quavering shadows; a cage, the end-rails of the bed, danced on the
wall behind her. Charles stood, fighting the battle in his stomach.
It was the hock--he had been insane to drink it. He saw her eyes open
and look at him. She hesitated, then reached out those delicate white
arms. He made a gesture towards his frock coat.

After a few moments he
felt a little better and began seriously to undress; he laid his
clothes neatly, much more neatly than he ever did in his own room,
over the back of the chair. He had to sit to unbutton his boots. He
stared into the fire as he took off his trousers and the
undergarment, which reached, in the fashion of those days, somewhat
below his knees. But his shirt he could not bring himself to remove.
The nausea returned. He gripped the lace-fringed mantelpiece, his
eyes closed, fighting for control. This time she took his delay for
shyness and threw back the bedclothes as if to come and lead him to
bed. He forced himself to
walk
towards her. She sank back again, but without covering her body. He
stood by the bed and stared down at her. She reached out her arms. He
still stared, conscious only of the swimming sensation in his head,
the now totally rebellious fumes of the milk punch, champagne,
claret, port, that
damnable
hock...

"I don't know your
name."

She smiled up at him,
then reached for his hands and pulled him down towards her.

"Sarah, sir."

He was racked by an
intolerable spasm. Twisting sideways he began to vomit into the
pillow beside her
shocked,
flungback head.
 

41

. . . Arise and
fly The reeling faun, the sensual feast;
Move
upward, working out the beast,
And
let the ape and tiger die.
--
tennyson,
In Memoriam (1850)

For the twenty-ninth
time that morning Sam caught the cook's eye, directed his own to a
row of bells over the kitchen door and then eloquently swept them up
to the ceiling. It was noon. One might have thought Sam glad to have
a morning off; but the only mornings off he coveted were with more
attractive female company than that of the portly Mrs. Rogers.

"'E's not 'imself,"
said the dowager, also for the twenty-ninth time. If she felt
irritated, however, it was with Sam, not the young lord upstairs.
Ever since their return from Lyme two days before, the valet had
managed to hint at dark goings-on. It is true he had graciously
communicated the news about Winsyatt; but he had regularly added "And
that ain't 'alf of what's a-foot." He refused to be drawn.
"There's sartin confidences" (a word he pronounced with a
long i) "as can't be yet spoken of, Mrs. R. But things 'as
'appened my heyes couldn't 'ardly believe they was seein'."

Sam had certainly one
immediate subject for bitterness. Charles had omitted to dismiss him
for the evening when he went out to see Mr. Freeman. Thus Sam had
waited in and up until after midnight, only to be greeted, when he
heard the front door open, by a black look from a white face.

"Why the devil
aren't you in bed?"

"'Cos you didn't
say you was dinin' out, Mr. Charles."

"I've been at my
club."

"Yes, sir."

"And take that
insolent look off your damned face."

"Yes, sir."

Sam held out his hands
and took--or caught--the various objects, beginning with sundry bits
of outdoor apparel and terminating in a sulphurous glare, that
Charles threw at him. Then the master marched majestically upstairs.
His mind was now very sober, but his body was still a little drunk, a
fact Sam's bitter but unseen smirk had only too plainly reflected.

"You're right, Mrs.
R. 'E's not 'imself. 'E was blind drunk last night."

"I wouldn't 'ave
believed it possible."

"There's lots o'
things yours truly wouldn't 'ave believed possible, Mrs. R. As 'as
'appened hall the same."

"'E never wants to
cry off!"

"Wild 'osses
wouldn't part my lips, Mrs. R." The cook took a deep-bosomed
breath. Her clock ticked beside her range. Sam smiled at her. "But
you're sharp, Mrs. R. Very sharp."