The French Lieutenant's Woman (54 page)

There was the sound of
torn paper. Without looking round he knew that she had vented her
anger on her father's letter.

"I believed her
gone forever from my life. Extraordinary circumstances ..."

A silence: as if she
considered whether she could throw vitriol at him. Her voice was
suddenly cold and venomous.

"You have broken
your promise. There is a remedy for members of my sex."

"You have every
right to bring such an action. I could only plead guilty."

"The world shall
know you for what you are. That is all I care about."

"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.
 

51

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)

Dr. Grogan was
mercifully not on his rounds. Charles refused the housekeeper's
invitation to go in, but waited on the doorstep until the little
doctor came hurriedly down to meet him--and stepped, at a gesture
from Charles, outside the door so that their words could not be
heard.

"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.
 

52

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"

The sad figure in all
this is poor Aunt Tranter. She came back from her lunch expecting to
meet Charles. Instead she met her house in universal catastrophe.
Mary first greeted her in the hall, white and distraught.