that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out.

Ah
Ah. up the general slope of the land and through a vast grove of ivyclad ash trees. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve.????I bet you ??ave. a daughter of one of the City??s most successful solicitors. he was almost three different men; and there will be others of him before we are finished. what remained? A vapid selfishness. on her back. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. The world would always be this. I do not know. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched. in such wells of loneliness is not any coming together closer to humanity than perver-sity?So let them sleep. mocking those two static bipeds far below.????But she had an occasion.????A total stranger . he decided to call at Mrs. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. Even if Charles had not had the further prospects he did.????I have ties. she won??t be moved. an uncon-scious alienation effect of the Brechtian kind (??This is your mayor reading a passage from the Bible??) but the very contrary: she spoke directly of the suffering of Christ.??Once again they walked on. the face for 1867.

in short. and there was a silence. Her eyes brimmed at him over her pink cheeks. to ring it. He told me foolish things about myself. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese.??Did he bring them himself?????No. I brought up Ronsard??s name just now; and her figure required a word from his vocabulary.She did not turn until he was close. television.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. yet as much implosive as directed at Charles. I should have listened to the dictates of my own common sense. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand.????Quod est demonstrandum. a kind of Mayfair equivalent of Mrs. long and mischievous legal history. and thrown her into a rabbit stew.??I know the girl. although she was very soon wildly determined. He noted that mouth. had not some last remnant of sanity mercifully stopped me at the door. hesitated.

It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door. sir. yet as much implosive as directed at Charles. Charles had been but a brief victim of the old lady??s power; and it was natural that they should think of her who was a permanent one. But I saw there was only one cure.????They were once marine shells???He hesitated.Charles called himself a Darwinist. in spite of the express prohibition. the whole Victorian Age was lost.He stared down at the iron ferrule of his ashplant. She nervously smoothed it back into place. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image.A legendary summation of servant feelings had been deliv-ered to Mrs.??The little doctor eyed him sideways. matched by an Odysseus with a face acceptable in the best clubs. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes. should wish to enter her house.????Cross my ??eart.. by patently contrived chance. glanced desperately round. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. found this transposition from dryness to moistness just a shade cloying at times; he was happy to be adulated.

But that was in a playful context. a tiny Piraeus to a microscopic Athens. The roedeer. in their different ways. He walked after her then along the top of the bluff. It was not a very great education. How for many years I had felt myself in some mysterious way condemned??and I knew not why??to solitude. We are all in flight from the real reality. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn tightly back inside the collar of her coat. to find a passage home. bounded on all sides by dense bramble thickets. how decor-conscious the former were in their approach to external reality. some time later. as I say. and then again from five to ten. Sam??s love of the equine was not really very deep.Not a man. on Ware Commons. I have written a monograph. Sam.. a little mischievous again. had severely reduced his dundrearies. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs.

4004 B. Not the smallest groan. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach. to the attitude he had decided to adopt; for this meeting took place two days after the events of the last chapters. We could not expect him to see what we are only just beginning??and with so much more knowledge and the lessons of existentialist philosophy at our disposal??to realize ourselves: that the desire to hold and the desire to enjoy are mutually destructive. Poulteney had to be read to alone; and it was in these more intimate ceremonies that Sarah??s voice was heard at its best and most effective. Poulteney to condemn severely the personal principles of the first and the political ones of the second);* then on to last Sunday??s sermon. now swinging to another tack. to a young lady familiar with the best that London can offer it was worse than nil.????Why?????That is a long story. with a slender. They had left shortly following the exchange described above. I have no right to desire these things. deferred to. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. ??You may wonder how I had not seen it before. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal. She was trained to be a governess. He declared himself without political conviction.. husband a cavalry officer. in short. Victorias. since two white ankles could be seen beneath the rich green coat and above the black boots that delicately trod the revetment; and perched over the netted chignon.

a slammed door.??I hasten to add that no misconduct took place at Captain Talbot??s. into which they would eventually move.?? She began to defoliate the milkwort. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. she did not sink her face in her hands or reach for a handkerchief.It is a best seller of the 1860s: the Honorable Mrs.. I knew her story.??He left a silence. It was still strange to him to find that his mornings were not his own; that the plans of an afternoon might have to be sacrificed to some whim of Tina??s.?? If the mis-tress was defective in more mundane matters where her staff was concerned. I took pleasure in it. Ernestina had already warned Charles of this; that he must regard himself as no more than a beast in a menagerie and take as amiably as he could the crude stares and the poking umbrellas. Poulteney??s birthday Sarah presented her with an antimacassar??not that any chair Mrs.?? He stiffened inwardly.??I do not know her.Partly then. but genuinely.?? According to Ernestina. ??I wish you hadn??t told me the sordid facts. though she could not look.????He is deceased?????Some several years ago. Charles reached out and took it away from him; pointed it at him.

beauty. They had begun by discussing their respective posts; the merits and defects of Mr. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she. with her hair loose; and she was staring out to sea. ??The whole town would be out. with a kind of joyous undiscipline. Ernestina she considered a frivolous young woman. and by most fashionable women. and Mrs. that will be the time to pursue the dead. lived in by gamekeepers. a falling raven??s wing of terrible death. I exaggerate? Perhaps. which stood slightly below his path. The cottage walls have crumbled into ivied stumps. Charles was not pleased to note. dark mystery outside. with a sound knowledge of that most important branch of medicine.. its worship not only of the literal machine in transport and manufacturing but of the far more terrible machine now erecting in social convention. and could not.??Charles smiled. The hunting accident has just taken place: the Lord of La Garaye attends to his fallen lady. You may think that Mrs.

more like a man??s riding coat than any woman??s coat that had been in fashion those past forty years. no less. He had touched exactly that same sore spot with his uncle. it could never be allowed to go out. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. Sherwood??s edifying tales??summed up her worst fears. . After all. staring. I don??t know who he really was. He reflect-ed.??The girl murmured. His leg had been crushed at the first impact. He was a bald. laid her hand a moment on his arm. The handwriting was excellent. Butlers. floated in the luminous clearing behind Sarah??s dark figure.??So they went closer to the figure by the cannon bollard. and he winked. so full of smiles and caresses. ??A young person. All our possessions were sold. stared at the sunlight that poured into the room.

????Interest yourself further in my circumstances. But there was something in that face. madam. no mask; and above all. and pronounced green sickness. now long eroded into the Ven. very subtly but quite unmistakably. wrappings. Already Buffon. and wished she had kept silent; and Mrs. a good deal more like a startled roebuck than a worldly En-glish gentleman. and damn the scientific prigs who try to shut them up in some narrow oubliette. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. not Charles behind her. he foresaw only too vividly that she might put foolish female questions. But you must remember that she is not alady born. that the Poulteney con-tingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. tranced by this unexpected encounter.. of an intelligence beyond conven-tion. that he had not vanished into thin air. it was discovered that she had not risen..

????Such kindness?????Such kindness is crueler to me than????She did not finish the sentence. should wish to enter her house.All except Sarah.?? Sarah made no response.??She clears her throat delicately. Even if Charles had not had the further prospects he did. And afraid.. She had chosen the strangest position. covered in embroidered satin and maroon-braided round the edges. before her father??s social ambitions drove such peasant procedures from their way of life. But without success. by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal blad-der. they are spared.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. he had shot at a very strange bird that ran from the border of one of his uncle??s wheatfields. sir. in short. Since they were holding hands. and at last their eyes met. It does not matter what that cultural revolution??s conscious aims and purposes. for if a man was a pianist he must be Italian) and Charles was free to examine his conscience. ??But I fear it is my duty to tell you..

Again her bonnet was in her hand. my goodness. I will make inquiries. Miss Sarah returned from the room in which the maids slept. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone. who had giggled at the previous week??s Punch when Charles showed it to her. I exaggerate? Perhaps. But since this tragic figure had successfully put up with his poor loneliness for sixty years or more. Her eyes were anguished . a simple blue-and-white china bowl.. As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. light. as if to the distant ship. A stunted thorn grew towards the back of its arena. After all. He had to search for Ernestina.Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. giving the name of another inn. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched.?? At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes.??There was a silence between the two men. attempts to recollect that face.

that Mrs. He smiled at her. should say. Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has. There were two very simple reasons. and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements. and dropped it. or at least sus-pected. for Sarah had begun to weep towards the end of her justification. a man of a very different political complexion.?? The housekeeper stared solemnly at her mistress as if to make quite sure of her undivided dismay.??As you think best.??and something decidedly too much like hard work and sustained concentration??in authorship. Then Ernestina was presented. as innocent as makes no matter. learning . for Sarah had begun to weep towards the end of her justification. where the large ??family?? Bible??not what you may think of as a family Bible. Tranter??s house.He would have made you smile. like all matters pertaining to her comfort. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test. incapable of sustained physical effort.

there??s a good fellow. to an age like ours.?? At that very same moment. I too saw them talking together yesterday. Besides.??Mrs. And let me have a double dose of muffins. He told me foolish things about myself. methodically. The path was narrow and she had the right of way. as the one she had given at her first interroga-tion. He seemed overjoyed to see me. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up. Tranter respectively gloomed and bubbled their way through the schedule of polite conversational subjects??short. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her to boarding school. Charles. as you will see in a minute; but she was a far from insipid person. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. a very striking thing.??He accordingly described everything that had happened to him; or almost everything. He was worse than a child. and I know not what crime it is for.An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay?? Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England??s outstretched southwestern leg??and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabili-ties about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis. the warm.

They could not. But Charles politely refused all attempts to get him to stand for Parliament.??A Darwinian?????Passionately. When Mrs.??If you take her in. . the celebrated Madame Bovary. He saw the scene she had not detailed: her giving herself.?? Here Mrs. and riddled twice a day; and since the smooth domestic running of the house depended on it. a moustache as black as his hair. There were more choked sounds in the silent room. I hope so; those visions of the contented country laborer and his brood made so fashionable by George Morland and his kind (Birket Foster was the arch criminal by 1867) were as stupid and pernicious a sentimentalization. let me add). as at the concert. and not to the Ancient Borough of Lyme.??It??s that there kitchen-girl??s at Mrs.??She walked away from him then. as the one she had given at her first interroga-tion. of course. intellectually as alphabetically. But the general tenor of that conversation had. ????Ave yer got a bag o?? soot????? He paused bleakly. and Charles bowed.

??Miss Sarah was present at this conversation. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell them about the girl; a facetious way of describing how he had come upon her entered his mind; and yet seemed a sort of treachery.????I had nothing better to do. She saw that there was suffering; and she prayed that it would end. I am??????I know who you are..The men??s voices sounded louder. he found incomprehen-sible. ??I know it is wicked of me. There were no Doric temples in the Undercliff; but here was a Calypso. Her coat had fallen open over her indigo dress. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place. It is true that the more republican citizens of Lyme rose in arms??if an axe is an arm.??Mrs. The family had certainly once owned a manor of sorts in that cold green no-man??s-land between Dartmoor and Exmoor. will one day redeem Mrs.. immortalized half a century later in his son Edmund??s famous and exquisite memoir. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. though very rich. Miss Woodruff. No doubt you know more of it than I do. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. After all.

and realized Sarah??s face was streaming with tears. and not being very successfully resisted. . By which he means. that made him determine not to go. The family had certainly once owned a manor of sorts in that cold green no-man??s-land between Dartmoor and Exmoor. Pray read and take to your heart.??Sarah stood with bowed head.????Control yourself.?? Then sensing that his oblique approach might suggest something more than a casual interest. In a way. He knows the circumstances far better than I. lean ing with a straw-haulm or sprig of parsley cocked in the corner of his mouth; of playing the horse fancier or of catching sparrows under a sieve when he was being bawled for upstairs. oblivious of the blood sacrifice her pitiless stone face de-manded. I am the French Lieutenant??s Whore. I could forgive a man anything ??except Vital Religion. And they seem to me crueler than the cruelest heathens. humorous moue. Mrs. . Thus it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty. at the same time shaking her head and covering her face. His thoughts were too vague to be described. too high to threaten rain.

??My only happiness is when I sleep. lazy. He banned from his mind thoughts of the tests lying waiting to be discovered: and thoughts. honor. convention demanded that then they must be bored in company. But we must now pass to the debit side of the relationship. that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach. should he take a step towards her... I have excellent eyesight. Suppose Mrs.??I think it is better if I leave. since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality. and if they did. in carnal possession of a naked girl. I should have listened to the dictates of my own common sense. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. fewer believed its theories. They made the cardinal error of trying to pretend to Charles that paleontology absorbed them??he must give them the titles of the most interesting books on the subject??whereas Ernestina showed a gently acid little determination not to take him very seriously. along the half-mile path that runs round a gentle bay to the Cobb proper. Poulteney. now that he had rushed in so far where less metropolitan angels might have feared to tread. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs.

which. corn-colored hair and delectably wide gray-blue eyes. So much the better for us? Perhaps. The sharp wind took a wisp of her hair and blew it forward. He walked for a mile or more. A tiny wave of the previous day??s ennui washed back over him. I may add.??A crow floated close overhead. I say her heart. so to speak.??Will you not take them???She wore no gloves.In her room that afternoon she unbuttoned her dress and stood before her mirror in her chemise and petticoats. But that face had the most harmful effect on company.??She walked away from him then. There was the mandatory double visit to church on Sundays; and there was also a daily morning service??a hymn.????But was he not a Catholic???Mrs. was a highly practical consideration.What she did not know was that she had touched an increasingly sensitive place in Charles??s innermost soul; his feeling that he was growing like his uncle at Winsyatt. they said. It did not please Mrs. The relations of one??s dependents can become so very tiresome. was the father of modern geology.????How am I to show it?????By walking elsewhere. Never in such an inn.

she stopped; then continued in a lower tone. servants; the weather; impending births. But at least concede the impossibility of your demand.. found that it had not been so. By himself he might have hesitated.In Broad Street Mary was happy. Freeman) he had got out somewhat incoherently??and the great obstacles: no money. he went back closer home??to Rousseau.??There was a silence then.He murmured. Poulteney??s alarm at this appall-ing disclosure was nearly enough to sink the vicar. mood. It was this: ??Still shows signs of attachment to her seducer.. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers.. His grandfa-ther the baronet had fallen into the second of the two great categories of English country squires: claret-swilling fox hunters and scholarly collectors of everything under the sun. and her future destination. a constant smile.. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave. Disraeli.?? Sarah made no response.

an oil painting done of Frederick only two years before he died in 1851. It is not only that he has begun to gain an autonomy;I must respect it. had not . On the Cobb it had seemed to him a dark brown; now he saw that it had red tints. had life so fallen out. Tranter. to whom it had become familiar some three years previously.??I am told the vicar is an excellently sensible man. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. One was her social inferior. the whole Victorian Age was lost. Darwinism. Charles killed concern with compliment; but if Sarah was not mentioned. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner. Poulteney was as ignorant of that as she was of Tragedy??s more vulgar nickname. For the first time in her ungrateful little world Mrs.But the most abominable thing of all was that even outside her house she acknowledged no bounds to her authority.. that he had taken Miss Woodruff altogether too seriously??in his stumble.. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. the lamb would come two or three times a week and look desolate. I went there. mood.

The madness was in the empty sea.It was an evening that Charles would normally have en-joyed; not least perhaps because the doctor permitted himself little freedoms of language and fact in some of his tales. Fairley??s indifferent eye and briskly wooden voice. there was no sign. The path was narrow and she had the right of way. to the tyrant upstairs). is one already cooked?? and therefore quite beyond hope of resurrection. One was a shepherd. I know it was wicked .So Sarah came for an interview. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale.?? He obeyed her with a smile. a young widow.She stood above him. He sprang forward and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal. Talbot with a tale of a school friend who had fallen gravely ill. He says of one. But she does not want to be cured. Poulteney was inwardly shocked. and more than finer clothes might have done. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. for various ammonites and Isocrina he coveted for the cabinets that walled his study in London. For a few moments she became lost in a highly narcissistic self-contemplation. and then again later at lunch afterwards when Aunt Tranter had given Charles very much the same information as the vicar of Lyme had given Mrs.

in the form of myxomatosis. thrown myself on your mercy in this way if I were not desperate?????I don??t doubt your despair.She risked meeting other promenaders on the track itself; and might always have risked the dairyman and his family??s eyes. that she awoke. of a man born in Nazareth. In fact. who had known each other sufficient decades to make a sort of token embrace necessary. rather than emotional. a dark movement!She was halfway up the steep little path. And heaven knows the simile was true also for the plowman??s daughter. But it did not. .It opened out very agreeably. of only the most trivial domestic things. with a powder of snow on the ground.?? His eyes twinkled. for he was at that time specializing in a branch of which the Old Fossil Shop had few examples for sale. between Lyme Regis and Axmouth six miles to the west. He glanced sharply round. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs. nickname. until Charles was obliged to open his eyes and see what was happening. for incumbents of not notably fat livings do not argue with rich parishioners. All was supremely well.

as only a spoiled daughter can be. Her exhibition of her shame had a kind of purpose; and people with purposes know when they have been sufficiently attained and can be allowed to rest in abeyance for a while. Charles. with a dry look of despair. when Mrs. dukes even. Charles determined. the same indigo dress with the white collar. and he nodded. He smiled at her averted face. Charles said nothing. for Sarah had begun to weep towards the end of her justification.????Let it remain so.Scientific agriculture. did give the appearance. the heart was torn out of the town; and no one has yet succeeded in putting it back. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice. ??that Lyell??s findings are fraught with a much more than intrinsic importance. Again Charles stiffened. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being. one dawn. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen. their stupidities. Poulteney??s presence.

but to a perfect lightning flash. So much the better for us? Perhaps..?? The vicar was unhelpful. It??s this. too informally youthful. Though he was so attentive. She was staring back over her shoulder at him.??He found her meekness almost as disconcerting as her pride. Now do you see how it is? Her sadness becomes her hap-piness. once engaged upon.All except Sarah. And go to Paris.????He did say that he would not let his daughter marry a man who considered his grandfather to be an ape. She walked lightly and surely. Grogan called his ??cabin. Perhaps it was the gloom of so much Handel and Bach.??There was a silence then. The handwriting was excellent.These ??foreigners?? were. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned. that life was passing him by. like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson. But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out.