The French Lieutenant's Woman (46 page)

He expected pages, but
there was only one.

He expected a flood of
words, but there were only three.

An address.

He crumpled the sheet of
paper in his hand, then returned to the fire that had been lit by the
upstairs maid, to the accompaniment of his snores, at eight o'clock
that morning, and threw it into the flames. In five seconds it
was
ashes. He took the cup of tea that Sam stood waiting to hand to him.
Charles drained it at one gulp, and passed the cup and saucer for
more.

"I have done my
business, Sam. We return to Lyme tomorrow. The ten o'clock train. You
will see to the tickets. And take those two messages on my desk to
the telegraph office. And then you may have the afternoon off to
choose some ribbons for the fair Mary--that is, if you haven't
disposed of your heart elsewhere since our return."

Sam had been waiting for
that cue. He flicked a glance at his master's back as he refilled the
gilt breakfast cup; and made his announcement as he extended the cup
on a small silver tray to Charles's reaching fingers.

"Mr. Charles, I'm
a-goin' to hask for 'er 'and."

"Are you indeed!"

"Or I would, Mr.
Charles, if it weren't I didn't 'ave such hexcellent prospecks under
your hemploy."

Charles supped his tea.

"Out with it, Sam.
Stop talking riddles."

"If I was merrid
I'd 'ave to live out, sir."

Charles's sharp look of
instinctive objection showed how little he had thought about the
matter. He turned and sat by his fire.

"Now, Sam, heaven
forbid that I should be an impediment to your marriage--but surely
you're not going to forsake me so soon before mine?"

"You mistake my
hintention, Mr. Charles. I was a-thinkin' of harterwards."

"We shall be in a
much larger establishment. I'm sure my wife would be happy to have
Mary there with her ... so what is the trouble?"

Sam took a deep breath.

"I've been thinkin'
of goin' into business, Mr. Charles. When you're settled, that is,
Mr. Charles. I "ope you know I should never leave you in the
hower of need."

"Business! What
business?"

"I've set my 'eart
on 'aving a little shop, Mr. Charles."

Charles placed the cup
back on the speedily proffered salver.

"But don't you ...
I mean, you know, some of the ready?"
 

"I 'ave made
heekomonies, Mr. Charles. And so's my Mary."

"Yes, yes, but
there is rent to pay and heavens above, man, goods to buy ... What
sort of business?"

"Draper's and
'aberdasher's, Mr. Charles."

Charles stared at Sam
rather as if the Cockney had decided to turn Buddhist. But he
recalled one or two little past incidents; that penchant for the
genteelism; and the one aspect of his present profession where Sam
had never given cause for complaint was in his care of clothes.
Charles had indeed more than once (about ten thousand times, to be
exact) made fun of him for his personal vanity in that direction.

"And you've put by
enough to--"

"Halas no, Mr.
Charles. We'd 'ave to save very 'ard."

There was a pregnant
silence. Sam was busy with milk and sugar. Charles rubbed the side of
his nose in a rather Sam-like manner. He twigged. He took the third
cup of tea.

"How much?"

"I know a shop as
I'd like, Mr. Charles. 'E wants an 'undred an' fifty pound for the
goodwill and an 'undred for the stock. An' there's thirty pound rent
to be found." He sized Charles up, then went on, "It ain't
I'm not very 'appy with you, Mr. Charles. On'y a shop's what I
halways fancied."

"And how much have
you put by?"

Sam hesitated.

"Thirty pound,
sir."

Charles did not smile,
but went and stood at his bedroom window.

"How long has it
taken you to save that?"

"Three years, sir."

Ten pounds a year may
not seem much; but it was a third of three years' wages, as Charles
rapidly calculated; and made proportionally a much better showing in
the thrift line than Charles himself could have offered. He glanced
back at Sam, who stood meekly waiting--but waiting for what?--by the
side table with the tea things. In the silence that followed Charles
entered upon his first fatal mistake, which was to give Sam his
sincere opinion of the project. Perhaps it was in a very small way a
bluff, a pretending not even faintly to suspect the whiff of
for-services-rendered in Sam's approach; but it was far more an
assumption of the ancient responsibility--and not quite synonymous
with sublime arrogance--of the infallible master for the fallible
underling.

"I warn you, Sam,
once you take ideas above your station you will have nothing but
unhappiness. You'll be miserable without a shop. And doubly miserable
with it." Sam's head sunk a fraction lower. "And besides,
Sam, I'm used to you ... fond of you. I'm damned if I want to lose
you."

"I know, Mr.
Charles. Your feelings is 'ighly reproskitated. With respeck, sir."

"Well then. We're
happy with each other. Let us continue that way."

Sam bowed his head and
turned to pick up the tea things. His disappointment was flagrant; he
was Hope Abandoned, Life Cut Short, Virtue Unrewarded, and a dozen
other moping statues.

"Now, Sam spare me
the whipped dog. If you marry this girl then of course you must have
a married man's wages. And something to set you up. I shall do
handsomely by you, rest assured of that." "That's very kind
hindeed of you, Mr. Charles." But the voice was sepulchral,
those statues in no way demolished. Charles saw himself a moment from
Sam's eyes. He had been seen in their years together to spend a great
deal of money; Sam must know he had a great deal more money coming to
him on his marriage; and he might not unnaturally--that is, with
innocent motive--have come to believe that two or three hundred
pounds was not much to ask for.

"Sam, you must not
think me ungenerous. The fact is ... well, the reason I went to
Winsyatt is that ... well, Sir Robert is going to get married."

"No, sir! Sir
Robert! Never!"

Sam's surprise makes one
suspect that his real ambition should have been in the theater. He
did everything but drop the tray that he was carrying; but this was
of course ante Stanislavski. Charles faced the window and went on.

"Which means, Sam,
that at a time when I have already considerable expense to meet I
haven't much to spare."

"I 'ad no idea, Mr.
Charles. Why ... I can't 'ardly believe-- at 'is hage!"

Charles hastily stopped
the impending commiseration. "We must wish Sir Robert every
happiness. But there it is. It will soon all be public knowledge.
However, Sam--you will say nothing of this."

"Oh Mr.
Charles--you knows I knows 'ow to keep a secret."

Charles did give a sharp
look round at Sam then, but his servant's eyes were modestly down
again. Charles wished desperately that he could see them. But they
remained averted from his keen gaze; and drove him into his second
fatal mistake--for Sam's despair had come far less from being
rebuffed than from suspecting his master had no guilty secret upon
which he could be levered.

"Sam, I ... that
is, when I'm married, circumstances will be easier ... I don't wish
to dash your hopes completely--let me think on it."

In Sam's heart a little
flame of exultation leaped into life. He had done it; a lever
existed.

"Mr. Charles, sir,
I wish I 'adn't spoke. I 'ad no idea."

"No, no. I am glad
you brought this up. I will perhaps ask Mr. Freeman's advice if I
find an opportunity. No doubt he knows what is to be said for such a
venture."

"Pure gold, Mr.
Charles, pure gold--that's 'ow I'd treat any words of hadvice from
that gentleman's mouth."

With this hyperbole Sam
left. Charles stared at the closed door. He began to wonder if there
wasn't something of a Uriah Heep beginning to erupt on the surface of
Sam's personality; a certain duplicity. He had always aped the
gentleman in his clothes and manners; and now there was vaguely
something else about the spurious gentleman he was aping. It was such
an age of change! So many orders beginning to melt and dissolve.

He remained staring for
several moments--but then bah! What would granting Sam his wish
matter with Ernestina's money in the bank? He turned to his
escritoire and unlocked a drawer. From it he drew a pocketbook and
scribbled something: no doubt a reminder to speak to Mr. Freeman.

Meanwhile, downstairs,
Sam was reading the contents of the two telegrams. One was to the
White Lion, informing the landlord of their return. The other read:

MISS FREEMAN AT
MRS. TRANTER'S, BROAD STREET, LYME REGIS. MY IMMEDIATE RETURN HAS
BEEN COMMANDED AND WILL BE MOST HAPPILY OBEYED BY YOUR MOST
AFFECTIONATE CHARLES SMITHSON.

In those days only the
uncouth Yankees descended to telegraphese.

This was not the first
private correspondence that had been under Sam's eyes that morning.
The envelope of the second letter he had brought to Charles had been
gummed but not sealed. A little steam does wonders; and Sam had had a
whole morning in which to find himself alone for a minute in that
kitchen. Perhaps you have begun to agree with Charles about Sam. He
is not revealing himself the most honest of men, that must be said.
But the thought of marriage does strange things. It makes the
intending partners suspect an inequality in things; it makes them
wish they had more to give to each other; it kills the insouciance of
youth; its responsibilities isolate, and the more altruistic aspects
of the social contract are dimmed. It is easier, in short, to be
dishonest for two than for one. Sam did not think of his procedure as
dishonest; he called it "playing your cards right." In
simple terms it meant now that the marriage with
Ernestina must go
through; only from her dowry could he hope for his two hundred and
fifty pounds; if more spooning between the master and the wicked
woman of Lyme were to take place, it must take place under the
cardplayer's sharp nose--and might not be altogether a bad thing,
since the more guilt Charles had the surer touch he became; but if it
went too far ... Sam sucked his lower lip and frowned. It was no
wonder he was beginning to feel rather above his station; matchmakers
always have.
 

43

Yet I thought I
saw her stand,
A
shadow there at my feet,
High
over the shadowy land.
--
tennyson,
Maud (1855)

Perhaps one can find
more color for the myth of a rational human behavior in an iron age
like the Victorian than in most others. Charles had certainly
decided, after his night of rebellion, to go through with his
marriage to Ernestina. It had never seriously entered his mind that
he would not; Ma Terpsichore's and the prostitute had but been,
unlikely though it may seem, confirmations of that intention--last
petulant doubts of a thing concluded, last questionings of the
unquestionable. He had said as much to himself on his queasy return
home, which may explain the rough treatment Sam received. As for
Sarah ... the other Sarah had been her surrogate, her sad and sordid
end, and his awakening. For all that, he could have wished her letter
had shown a clearer guilt--that she had asked for money (but she
could hardly have spent ten pounds in so short a time), or poured out
her illicit feelings for him. But it is difficult to read either
passion or despair into the three words. "Endicott's Family
Hotel"; and not even a date, an initial! It was certainly an act
of disobedience, a by-passing of Aunt Tranter; but she could hardly
be arraigned for knocking on his door.

It was easy to decide
that the implicit invitation must be ignored: he must never see her
again. But perhaps Sarah the prostitute had reminded Charles of the
uniqueness of Sarah the outcast: that total absence of finer feeling
in the one only affirmed its astonishing survival in the other. How
shrewd and sensitive she was, in her strange way . . . some of those
things she had said after her confession--they haunted one.