The French Lieutenant's Woman (55 page)

"Child, child, what
has happened!"

Mary could only shake
her head in agony. A door opened upstairs and the good lady raised
her skirt and began to trot up them like a woman half her age. On the
landing she met Dr. Grogan, who urgently raised his finger to his
lips. It was not until they were in the fateful sitting room, and he
had seen Mrs. Tranter seated, that he broke the reality to her.

"It cannot be. It
cannot be."

"Dear woman, a
thousand times alas ... but it can--and is."

"But Charles ... so
affectionate, so loving . . . why, only yesterday a telegram ..."
and she looked as if she no longer knew her room, or the doctor's
quiet, downlooking face.

"His conduct is
atrocious. I cannot understand it."

"But what reasons
has he given?"

"She would not
speak. Now don't alarm yourself. She needs sleep. What I have given
her will ensure that. Tomorrow all will be explained."

"Not all the
explanations in the world ..."

She began to cry.
"There, there, my dear lady. Cry. Nothing relieves the feelings
better."

"Poor darling. She
will die of a broken heart."

"I think not. I
have never yet had to give that as a cause of death."

"You do not know
her as I do ... and oh, what will Emily say? It will all be my
fault." Emily was her sister, Mrs. Freeman.

"I think she must
be telegraphed at once. Allow me to see to that."

"Oh heavens--and
where shall she sleep?"

The doctor smiled, but
very gently, at this non sequitur. He had had to deal with such cases
before; and he knew the best prescription was an endless female fuss.

"Now, my dear Mrs.
Tranter, I wish you to listen to me. For a few days you must see to
it that your niece is watched day and night. If she wishes to be
treated as an invalid, then treat her so. If she wishes tomorrow to
get up and leave Lyme, then let her do so. Humor her, you understand.
She is young, in excellent health. I guarantee that in six months she
will be as gay as a linnet."

"How can you be so
cruel! She will never get over it. That wicked ... but how ..."
A thought struck her and she reached out and touched the doctor's
sleeve. "There is another woman!"

Dr. Grogan pinched his
nose. "That, I cannot say."

"He is a monster."

"But not so much of
a monster that he has not declared himself one. And lost a party a
good many monsters would have greedily devoured."

"Yes. Yes. There is
that to be thankful for." But her mind was boxed by
contradictions. "I shall never forgive him." Another idea
struck her. "He is still in the town? I shall go tell him my
mind."

He took her arm. "That
I must forbid. He himself called me here. He waits now to hear that
the poor girl is not in danger. I shall see him. Rest assured that I
shall not mince matters. I'll have his hide for this."

"He should be
whipped and put in the stocks. When we were young that would have
been done. It ought to be done. The poor, poor angel." She
stood. "I must go to her."

"And I must see
him."

"You will tell him
from me that he has ruined the happiness of the sweetest, most
trusting--"

"Yes yes yes ...
now calm yourself. And do find out why that serving-lass of yours is
taking on so. Anyone would think her heart had been broken."

Mrs. Tranter saw the
doctor out, then drying her tears, climbed the stairs to Ernestina's
room. The curtains were drawn, but daylight filtered round the edges.
Mary sat beside the victim. She rose as her mistress entered.
Ernestina lay deep in sleep, on her back, but with her head turned to
one side. The face was strangely calm and composed, the breathing
quiet. There was even the faintest suggestion of a smile on those
lips. The irony of that calm smote Mrs. Tranter again; the poor dear
child, when she awoke . . . tears sprang again. She raised herself
and dabbed her eyes, then looked at Mary for the first time. Now Mary
really did look like a soul in the bottom-most pit of misery, in fact
everything that Tina ought to have looked, but didn't; and Mrs.
Tranter remembered the doctor's somewhat querulous parting words. She
beckoned to the maid to follow her and they went out on the landing.
With the door ajar, they spoke there in whispers.

"Now tell me what
happened, child."

"Mr. Charles 'e
called down, m'm, and Miss Tina was a-lying in faints an' 'e run out
fer the doctor 'n Miss Tina 'er opens 'er eyes on'y 'er doan' say no
thin' so's I 'elps 'er up yere, I didden know 'ow to do, for soon's
'er's on 'er bed, m'm, 'er's tooken by the istricks 'n oh m'm I was
so frighted 'twas like 'er was laffin' and screamin' and 'er woulden
stop. An' then Doctor Grogan 'e come 'n 'e calm 'er down. Oh m'm."

"There, there,
Mary, you were a good girl. And did she say nothing?"

"On'y when us was
a-comin" up the stairs, m'm, an' 'er asked where Mr. Charles was
to, m'm. I tol'er 'e'd agone to the doctor. 'Twas what started the
istricks, m'm."

"Sh. Sh."

For Mary's voice had
begun to rise and there were strong symptoms in her as well of the
hysterics. Mrs. Tranter had, in any case, a strong urge to console
something, so she took Mary into her arms and patted her head.
Although she thereby broke all decent laws on the matter of the
mistress-servant relationship, I rather think that that heavenly
butler did not close his doors in her face. The girl's body was
racked with pent-up sobs, which she tried to control for the other
sufferer's sake. At last she quietened.

"Now what is it?"

"It's Sam, m'm.
'E's downstairs. 'E's 'ad bad words with Mr. Charles, m'm, an' given
in 'is notice 'n Mr. Charles woan' giv'un no reffrums now." She
stifled a late sob. "Us doan' know what's to become of us."

"Bad words? When
was this, child?"

"Jus" afore
'ee come in, m'm. On account o' Miss Tina, m'm."

"But how was that?"

"Sam 'e knew 'twas
goin' to 'appen. That Mr. Charles--Vs a wicked wicked man, m'm. Oh
m'm, us wanted to tell 'ee but us didden dare."

There was a low sound
from the room. Mrs. Tranter went swiftly and looked in; but the face
remained calm and deeply asleep. She came out again to the girl with
the sunken head.

"I shall watch now,
Mary. Let us talk later." The girl bent her head even lower.
"This Sam, do you truly love him?"

"Yes, m'm."

"And does he love
you?"

"'Tis why 'e
woulden go with 'is master, m'm."

"Tell him to wait.
I should like to speak to him. And we'll find him a post."

Mary's tear-stained face
rose then.

"I doan' ever want
to leav'ee, m'm."

"And you never
shall, child--till your wedding day."

Then Mrs. Tranter bent
forward and kissed her forehead. She went and sat by Ernestina, while
Mary went downstairs. Once in the kitchen she ran, to the cook's
disgust, outside and into the lilac shadows and Sam's anxious but
eager arms.
 

53

For we see
whither it has brought us ... the insisting on perfection in one part
of our nature and not in all; the singling out of the moral side, the
side of obedience and action, for such intent regard; making
strictness of the moral conscience so far the principal thing, and
putting off for hereafter and for another world the care of being
complete at all points, the full and harmonious development of our
humanity.
--
Matthew
Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869)

"She is ...
recovered?"

"I have put her to
sleep."

The doctor walked across
the room and stood with his hands behind his back, staring down Broad
Street to the sea.

"She ... she said
nothing?"

The doctor shook his
head without turning; was silent a moment; then he burst round on
Charles.

"I await your
explanation, sir!"

And Charles gave it,
baldly, without self-extenuation. Of Sarah he said very little. His
sole attempt at an excuse was over his deception of Grogan himself;
and that he blamed on his conviction that to have committed Sarah to
any asylum would have been a gross injustice. The doctor listened
with a fierce, intent silence. When Charles had finished he turned
again to the window.

"I wish I could
remember what particular punishments Dante prescribed for the
Antinomians. Then I could prescribe them for you."

"I think I shall
have punishment enough."

"That is not
possible. Not by my tally."

Charles left a pause.

"I did not reject
your advice without much heart-searching."

"Smithson, a
gentleman remains a gentleman when he rejects advice. He does not do
so when he tells
lies."

"I believed them
necessary."

"As you believed
the satisfaction of your lust necessary."

"I cannot accept
that word."

"You had better
learn to. It is the one the world will attach to your conduct."

Charles moved to the
central table, and stood with one hand resting on it. "Grogan,
would you have had me live a lifetime of pretense? Is our age not
full enough as it is of a mealy-mouthed hypocrisy, an adulation of
all that is false in our natures? Would you have had me add to that?"

"I would have had
you think twice before you embroiled that innocent girl in your
pursuit of self-knowledge."

"But once that
knowledge is granted us, can we escape its dictates? However
repugnant their consequences?"

The doctor looked away
with a steely little grimace. Charles saw that he was huffed and
nervous; and really at a loss, after the first commination, how to
deal with this monstrous affront to provincial convention. There was
indeed a struggle in progress between the Grogan who had lived now
for a quarter
of
a century in Lyme and the Grogan who had seen the world. There were
other things: his liking for Charles, his private opinion--not very
far removed from Sir Robert's--that Ernestina was a pretty little
thing, but a shallow little thing; there was even an event long
buried in his own past whose exact nature need not be revealed beyond
that it made his reference to lust a good deal less impersonal than
he had made it seem. His tone remained reproving; but he sidestepped
the moral question he had been asked. "I am a doctor, Smithson.
I know only one overriding law. All suffering is evil. It may also be
necessary. That does not alter its fundamental nature."

"I don't see where
good is to spring from, if it is not out of that evil. How can one
build a better self unless on
the
ruins of the old?"

"And the ruins of
that poor young creature across the way?"

"It is better she
suffers once, to be free of me, than ..." he fell silent.

"Ah. You are sure
of that, are you?" Charles said nothing. The doctor stared down
at the street. "You have committed a crime. Your punishment will
be to remember it all your life. So don't give yourself absolution
yet. Only death will give you that." He took off his glasses,
and polished them on a green silk handkerchief. There was a long
pause, a very long pause; and at the end of it his voice, though
still reproving, was milder.

"You will marry the
other?"

Charles breathed a
metaphorical sigh of relief. As soon as Grogan had come into the room
he had known that his previous self-assertions--that he was
indifferent to the opinion of a mere bathing-place doctor--were
hollow. There was a humanity in the Irishman Charles greatly
respected; in a way Grogan stood for all he respected. He knew he
could not expect a full remission of sins; but it was enough to sense
that total excommunication was not to be his lot.

"That is my most
sincere intent."

"She knows? You
have told her?"