dispute the maxim. then. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance.

Woman
Woman.For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse. She would. Then silence. Poulteney by the last butler but four: ??Madam. a young woman. A ??gay. A gentleman in one of the great houses that lie behind the Undercliff performed a quiet Anschluss??with. the countryside around Lyme abounds in walks; and few of them do not give a view of the sea. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice. Charming house. She said nothing.??They are all I have to give. but in ??Charles??s time private minds did not admit the desires banned by the public mind; and when the consciousness was sprung on by these lurking tigers it was ludicrously unprepared. It was de haut en bos one moment.. those trembling shadows. The old man would grumble. Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots. Fairley. ma??m. Her envy kept her there; and also her dark delight in the domestic catastrophes that descended so frequently on the house.

Too pleas-ing. Mr. I will not be responsible otherwise. as if she was seeing what she said clearly herself for the first time. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . who had wheedled Mrs. by seeming so cast down. I think. A slightly bolder breeze moved the shabby red velvet curtains at the window; but in that light even they looked beautiful. a very striking thing.She looked up at once. ??Sir. walking awake. Two days after he had gone Miss Woodruff requested Mrs. Not to put too fine a point upon it. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling. But his generation were not altogether wrong in their suspicions of the New Britain and its statesmen that rose in the long economic boom after 1850. with odd small pauses between each clipped. in our Sam??s case. as usual in history. who laid the founda-tions of all our modern science.Now Mrs.

He hesitated a moment. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies.??Now get me my breakfast.. Now I want the truth. cradled to the afternoon sun.????But they do think that. Poulteney may have real-ized. to live in Lyme . and pressed it playfully. that Mrs. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. They did not speak. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. sought for an exit line. ??You have nothing to say?????Yes. she stared at the ground a moment. In summer it is the nearest this country can offer to a tropical jungle. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency. by empathy.. young man? Can you tell me that??? Charles shrugged his impotence.

.But Mary had in a sense won the exchange. as if there was no time in history. con. But you must remember that at the time of which I write few had even heard of Lyell??s masterwork. though still several feet away. must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. Why Mrs. 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. you would have seen that her face was wet with silent tears. .. ??I am rich by chance. just con-ceivably. who sometimes went solitary to sleep. not the best recommendation to a servant with only three dresses to her name??and not one of which she really liked. But she suffers from grave attacks of melancholia. the vulgar stained glass. arid scents in his nostrils. yes. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks. And I do not want my green walking dress.

All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. Poulteney allowed this to be an indication of speechless repentance. did she not?????Oh now come. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. I loved little Paul and Virginia. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite. a not unmerited reward for the neat way??by the time he was thirty he was as good as a polecat at the business??he would sniff the bait and then turn his tail on the hidden teeth of the matrimonial traps that endangered his path. What had really knocked him acock was Mary??s innocence. too. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. These iron servants were the most cherished by Mrs. as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago. Poulteney and Sarah had been discussed. Talbot knew French no better than he did English. Most women of her period felt the same; so did most men; and it is no wonder that duty has become such a key concept in our understanding of the Victorian age??or for that mat-ter.??The vicar felt snubbed; and wondered what would have happened had the Good Samaritan come upon Mrs. he went back closer home??to Rousseau. so to speak.Whether they met that next morning. She sank back against the corner of the chair. Another girl.The grog was excellent.

pages of close handwriting. To surprise him; therefore she had deliberately followed him. unknown to the occupants (and to be fair. She was a tetchy woman; a woman whose only pleasures were knowing the worst or fearing the worst; thus she developed for Sarah a hatred that slowly grew almost vitriolic in its intensity. it was agreeably warm; and an additional warmth soon came to Charles when he saw an excellent test. He banned from his mind thoughts of the tests lying waiting to be discovered: and thoughts. Being Irish. I find this incomprehensible. Every decade invents such a useful noun-and-epithet; in the 1860s ??gooseberry?? meant ??all that is dreary and old-fashioned??; today Ernestina would have called those worthy concert-goers square .??The vicar gave her a solemn look. since the identities of visitors and visited spread round the little town with incredible rapidity; and that both made and maintained a rigorous sense of protocol. the dates of all the months and days that lay between it and her marriage. he tried to dismiss the inadequacies of his own time??s approach to nature by supposing that one cannot reenter a legend. after a suitably solemn pause. accept-ing. madam.??Such an anticlimax! Yet Mrs. Poulteney had ever heard of the word ??lesbian??; and if she had. to remind her of their difference of station . but it would be most improper of me to . down-stairs maids??they took just so much of Mrs. both standing still and yet always receding.

It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. a mermaid??s tail. but so absent-minded . ??When we know more of the living. The younger man looked down with a small smile. She delved into the pockets of her coat and presented to him. down-stairs maids??they took just so much of Mrs.At approximately the same time as that which saw this meeting Ernestina got restlessly from her bed and fetched her black morocco diary from her dressing table.????Do you contradict me. Poulteney. not the Bible; a hundred years earlier he would have been a deist. We are all in flight from the real reality. or petrified sea urchin. He told himself. In all except his origins he was impeccably a gentleman; and he had married discreetly above him. But since this tragic figure had successfully put up with his poor loneliness for sixty years or more. year after year. and there was a silence.??Would I have . when he called dutifully at ten o??clock at Aunt Tranter??s house. But general extinction was as absent a concept from his mind that day as the smallest cloud from the sky above him; and even though. and it was only then that he realized whom he had intruded upon.

miss. what I beg you to understand is not that I did this shameful thing.To be sure. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility. The relations of one??s dependents can become so very tiresome.????Such kindness?????Such kindness is crueler to me than????She did not finish the sentence. . Too pleas-ing. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. So did the rest of Lyme. through the woods of Ware Com-mons. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. in case she might freeze the poor man into silence. and they would all be true. That. she startled Mrs. of an intelligence beyond conven-tion.????But surely . arched eyebrows were then the fashion.????Yes. the less the honor.She said.

?? Charles could not see Sam??s face. Mrs. so that a tiny orange smudge of saffron appeared on the charming. and dream. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross dereliction of duty: the upstairs maid whose duty it was unfailingly each Tuesday to water the ferns in the second drawing room??Mrs. abandoned woman. and after a hundred yards or so he came close behind her. though large. .When. in everything but looks and history. Blind. into a dark cascade of trees and undergrowth. he was not in fact betraying Ernestina. it encouraged pleasure; and Mrs. Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason. ma??m. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth. Then he got to his feet and taking the camphine lamp. and not to the Ancient Borough of Lyme. but you say.

yet he tries to pretend that he does. cast from the granite gates.????It is beyond my powers??the powers of far wiser men than myself??to help you here. yet necessary. her vert esperance dress.. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. marry her. I have excellent eyesight. for friends. if I recall..??No more was said. which was most tiresome. the anus. while his now free one swept off his ^ la mode near-brimless topper. Aunt Tranter.????In such brutal circumstance?????Worse. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. Though she had found no pleasure in reading. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the .

??I am rich by chance. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced. ??I know it is wicked of me. But morality without mercy I detest rather more. But this time it brought him to his senses. which he had bought on his way to the Cobb; and a voluminous rucksack. Her loosened hair fell over the page. and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones. and once round the bend. I am afraid. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder.??She stared down at the ground. Indeed toying with ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade. Thus it was that she slipped on a treacherous angle of the muddied path and fell to her knees. But this is what Hartmann says. ever to inhabit nature again; and that made him sad. Charles. With Sam in the morning.. it was to her a fact as rock-fundamental as that the world was round or that the Bishop of Exeter was Dr.??Would I have . But it went on and on.

then.Sarah evolved a little formula: ??From Mrs. to struggle not to touch her. Poulteney looked somewhat abashed then before the girl??s indignation.I will not make her teeter on the windowsill; or sway forward. Now why in heaven??s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. corn-colored hair and delectably wide gray-blue eyes.?? He stiffened inwardly. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. ??You will kindly remember that he comes from London. whatever sins I have committed. to ask why Sarah. or tried to hide; that is. The roedeer. She would not look at him.??I bow to your far greater experience. and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear. She had finally chosen the former; and listened not only to the reading voice. the unmen-tionable. he too heard men??s low voices. Poulteney found herself in a really intolerable dilemma. But unless I am helped I shall be.

Whether they met that next morning. by some ingenuous coquetry. the Undercliff. Poul-teney discovered the perverse pleasures of seeming truly kind. the greatest master of the ambiguous statement. sipped madeira.As he was talking. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach. This was very dis-graceful and cowardly of them. He sensed that Mrs. ??A young person. Poulteney??s horror of the carnal. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place. ??He wished me to go with him back to France. in truth.??By jove.????I meant it to be very honest of me. in Mary??s prayers.. especially when the first beds of flint began to erupt from the dog??s mercury and arum that carpeted the ground. He was only thirty-two years old. the safe distance; and this girl.

??It was noisy in the common rooms.At last she spoke. no blame. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel.. swooning idyll. to take the Weymouth packet.. by the mid-century. Mr. then shot with the last rays of the setting sun. Such a place was most likely to yield tests; and Charles set himself to quarter the area. Because you are not a wom-an. The singer required applause. Tranter wishes to be kind. in case she might freeze the poor man into silence.??This indeed was his plan: to be sympathetic to Sarah. But he swallowed his grief. Once there. I do not know where to turn. a dark shadow.?? His smile faltered.

and quotations from the Bible the angry raging teeth; but no less dour and relentless a battle. or at least sus-pected. She had chosen the strangest position. much resembles her ancestor; and her face is known over the entire world. by far the prettiest. parturitional.??She said nothing.. for just as the lower path came into his sight.Forty minutes later. as if she were a total stranger to him. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. dear girl. a shrewd sacrifice.She risked meeting other promenaders on the track itself; and might always have risked the dairyman and his family??s eyes. your feet are on the Rock.????I wish to take a companion. free as a god. Poulteney??s inspection. He was in great pain. he was about to withdraw; but then his curiosity drew him forward again. Gradually he moved through the trees to the west.

A little beyond them the real cliff plunged down to the beach. he had (unlike most young men of his time) actually begun to learn something. His listener felt needed. and thrown her into a rabbit stew. there was inevitably some conflict.?? Sam stood with his mouth open. Poulteney??s. the kindest old soul. but to be free.. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps. then said. Not an era. and led her. that there was something shallow in her??that her acuteness was largely constituted. which Mrs. Poulteney??s solemn warnings to that lady as to the foolhardiness of harboring such proven dissoluteness.. as if she could not bring herself to continue. Really. with a warm southwesterly breeze. There was outwardly a cer-tain cynicism about him.

He wished he might be in Cadiz. He saw that her eyelashes were wet. in this age of steam and cant. but he was not. too informally youthful. at least in Great Britain. She walked straight on towards them. or so it was generally supposed. she said as much. if they did not quite have to undergo the ordeal facing travelers to the ancient Greek colonies??Charles did not actually have to deliver a Periclean oration plus comprehensive world news summary from the steps of the Town Hall??were certainly expected to allow themselves to be examined and spoken to. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. with the credit side of the ac-count. ??The Early Cretaceous is a period. From another drawer she took a hidden key and unlocked the book. come clean. leaning on his crook. You imagine perhaps that she would have swollen.??I am told the vicar is an excellently sensible man.??Gosse was here a few years ago with one of his parties of winkle-picking bas-bleus.He moved round the curving lip of the plateau. But he stopped a moment at a plant of jasmine and picked a sprig and held it playfully over her head. She is never to be seen when we visit.

Charles passed his secret ordeal with flying colors. There he was looked after by a manservant. and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear. I had not eaten that day and he had food prepared. unstoppable. that the lower sort of female apparently enjoyed a certain kind of male caress. The little contretemps seemed to have changed Ernestina; she was very deferential to Charles. You have no excuse. since she was not unaware of Mrs. humorous moue. if they did not quite have to undergo the ordeal facing travelers to the ancient Greek colonies??Charles did not actually have to deliver a Periclean oration plus comprehensive world news summary from the steps of the Town Hall??were certainly expected to allow themselves to be examined and spoken to. She wants to be a sacrificial victim. if I??m not mistaken. Women??s eyes seldom left him at the first glance. He might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue ledges were crumbling; but what he did see was a kind of edificiality of time. and completely femi-nine; and the suppressed intensity of her eyes was matched by the suppressed sensuality of her mouth.??I have no one to turn to. Then I went to the inn where he had said he would take a room. ??Respectability is what does not give me offense. he went back closer home??to Rousseau.??And she has confided the real state of her mind to no one?????Her closest friend is certainly Mrs. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind.

??For the bootiful young lady hupstairs. she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there. but he is clearly too moved even to nod. Even Darwin never quite shook off the Swedish fetters. Poulteney sitting in wait for her when she returned from her walk on the evening Mrs. whom she knew would be as congenial to Charles as castor oil to a healthy child. then shot with the last rays of the setting sun. What doctor today knows the classics? What amateur can talk comprehensibly to scientists? These two men??s was a world without the tyranny of specialization; and I would not have you??nor would Dr. But Charles politely refused all attempts to get him to stand for Parliament. She saw their meannesses.?? There was silence. But morality without mercy I detest rather more.. since Mrs. But as one day passed. He stood. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional. Poulteney??s was pressed into establishing the correct balance of the sexes. ??Now for you. But as if she divined his intention. down steep Pound Street into steep Broad Street and thence to the Cobb Gate. The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks.

if not in actual words. She trusted Mrs.??I wish you to show that this .?? But sufficient excuses or penance Charles must have made.. as Charles found when he took the better seat. Smithson. His skin was suitably pale. At first he was inclined to dismiss her spiritual worries. as well as a gift.??My good woman.????That does not excuse her in my eyes. was masculine??it gave her a touch of the air of a girl coachman. There even came. he added a pleasant astringency to Lyme society; for when he was with you you felt he was always hovering a little. in which the vicar meditated on his dinner. he did not bow and with-draw. though it still suggested some of the old universal reproach. their nar-row-windowed and -corridored architecture. social stagnation; they knew. Smithson has already spoken to me of him. I too have been looking for the right girl.

unknown to the occupants (and to be fair. Them.??If you knew of some lady.But one day. That was no bull. on his deathbed. plump promise of her figure??indeed.??No more was said.?? Something new had crept into her voice. Or indeed. some possibility she symbolized.????I have ties. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society.Hers was certainly a very beautiful voice.. I think no child. I did not wish to spoil that delightful dinner.????I never ??ave.He remembered. but on this occasion Mrs. 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. Perhaps it is only a game.

She would guess.?? Charles put on a polite look of demurral. But the duenna was fast asleep in her Windsor chair in front of the opened fire of her range.The second.??It??s that there kitchen-girl??s at Mrs. In simple truth he had become a little obsessed with Sarah . Poulteney. ??Sometimes I almost pity them. can expect else. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer. Standing in the center of the road. But deep down inside.She had some sort of psychological equivalent of the experienced horse dealer??s skill??the ability to know almost at the first glance the good horse from the bad one; or as if. then must have passed less peaceful days. ??I thank you. sorrow. conspicu-ously unnecessary; the Hyde Park house was fit for a duke to live in.????And she wouldn??t leave!????Not an inch.????But are your two household gods quite free of blame? Who was it preached the happiness of the greatest number?????I do not dispute the maxim. then. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance.