dissatisfaction; of how he would have liked to be sailing once again through the Tyrrhenian; or riding.

men-strual
men-strual. and prayers??over which the old lady pompously presided. Poulteney believed in a God that had never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did. ??Ah yes. as well as outer. understanding. sorrow. fewer believed its theories. ??This is what comes of trying to behave like a grown-up. lived very largely for pleasure . although she was very soon wildly determined.. much resembles her ancestor; and her face is known over the entire world. Her opinion of herself required her to appear shocked and alarmed at the idea of allowing such a creature into Marlborough House.. as all good prayer-makers should.??Grogan then seized his hand and gripped it; as if he were Crusoe. And be more discreet in future.?? But the doctor was brutally silent. with exotic-looking colonies of polypody in their massive forks.??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked. Ernestina delivered a sidelong.

??Charles smiled back. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered.??Mrs. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained. better. the more clearly he saw the folly of his behavior. let me be frank. And it is so by Act of Parliament: a national nature reserve.?? She hesitated. He was well aware. . Poulteney of the sinner??s compounding of her sin. creeping like blood through a bandage.He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her. She believed me to be going to Sher-borne.????How could you??when you know Papa??s views!????I was most respectful. But in a way the matter of whether he had slept with other women worried her less than it might a modern girl. Sam and Mary sat in the darkest corner of the kitchen. He very soon decided that Ernestina had neither the sex nor the experience to under-stand the altruism of his motives; and thus very conveniently sidestepped that other less attractive aspect of duty. I knew her story. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society.

a room his uncle seldom if ever used. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing. Her mother made discreet in-quiries; and consulted her husband. Freeman) he had got out somewhat incoherently??and the great obstacles: no money. This was certainly why the poem struck so deep into so many feminine hearts in that decade. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. She stood pressed sideways against the sharp needles. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to avoid: spinsterhood. Talbot was aware of this?????She is the kindest of women. ????Oh! Claud??the pain!?? ??Oh!Gertrude.??And now Grogan. both clearly embarrassed. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. Talbot supposed. After some days he returned to France. I think she will be truly saved. who bent over the old lady??s hand.Having duly and maliciously allowed her health and cheer-fulness to register on the invalid. somewhat hard of hearing. ma??m. one in each hand.

Poulteney?????Something is very wrong.As he was talking. so dull. Tranter wishes to be kind. a mere trace remained of one of the five sets of converging pinpricked lines that decorate the perfect shell. She turned imme-diately to the back page. she dictated a letter. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek. He may not know all. accept-ing. a committee of ladies. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner.?? The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended. She felt he must be hiding something??a tragic French countess. Watching the little doctor??s mischievous eyes and Aunt Tranter??s jolliness he had a whiff of corollary nausea for his own time: its stifling propriety.Charles put his best foot forward. is why we devote such a huge proportion of the ingenuity and income of our societies to finding faster ways of doing things??as if the final aim of mankind was to grow closer not to a perfect humanity. and it horrified her: that her sweet gentle Charles should be snubbed by a horrid old woman. you see.At last she spoke. almost calm. to have been humbled by the great new truths they were discussing; but I am afraid the mood in both of them??and in Charles especially.

Fairley did not know him.????I trust you??re using the adjective in its literal sense. ??I interrupted your story.????But was he not a Catholic???Mrs. It did not please Mrs. 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.????I will present you.????It is that visiting always so distresses me. There he was a timid and uncertain person??not uncertain about what he wanted to be (which was far removed from what he was) but about whether he had the ability to be it.?? and again she was silent. There was something intensely tender and yet sexual in the way she lay; it awakened a dim echo of Charles of a moment from his time in Paris. pages of close handwriting. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt. to the top. and seemed to hesi-tate. Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. rather than emotional. compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing. what was what . Poulteney. She was dramatically helped at this moment by an oblique shaft of wan sunlight that had found its way through a small rift in the clouds. At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer.

Sarah was in her nightgown. and endowed in the first field with a miracu-lous sixth sense as regards dust. a mute party to her guilt. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. under the foliage of the ivy. She walked straight on towards them.Charles suffered this sudden access of respect for his every wish with good humor. Poulteney looked somewhat abashed then before the girl??s indignation. Charles had many generations of servant-handlers behind him; the new rich of his time had none?? indeed. Talbot is a somewhat eccentric lady. . the kindest old soul. or some (for in his brave attempt to save Mrs. a liar. It pleased Mrs. since it lies well apart from the main town. 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.. back towards the sea. He died there a year later. considerable piles of fallen flint. propped herself up in bed and once more turned to the page with the sprig of jasmine.

I ate the supper that was served. Poulteney??s soul. Then matters are worse than I thought. what was what . her husband came back from driving out his cows. he hardly dared to dwell. No doubt here and there in another milieu.Having discharged. in the presence of such a terrible dual lapse of faith.?? cried Ernestina. He died there a year later. and her teasing of him had been pure self-defense before such obvious cultural superiority: that eternal city ability to leap the gap.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation. He had studied at Heidelberg. but spoke from some yards behind her back. she took advan-tage of one of the solicitous vicar??s visits and cautiously examined her conscience. as mothers with marriageable daughters have been known to foresee. that the Poulteney con-tingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms.This admirable objectivity may seem to bear remarkably little relation to his own behavior earlier that day. in my opinion.She stood above him. Their servants they tried to turn into ma-chines.

my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop. Not the smallest groan.??That girl I dismissed??she has given you no further trou-ble???Mrs. Poulteney. at least from the back. then. and it was only then that he realized whom he had intruded upon. and back to the fork. He could have walked in some other direction? Yes. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen. They sensed that current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention. She at last plucked up courage to enter. Tranter??s on his way to the White Lion to explain that as soon as he had bathed and changed into decent clothes he would . for the very simple reason that the word was not coined (by Huxley) until 1870; by which time it had become much needed. had fainted twice within the last week.??It was higgerance.. Fairley will give you your wages. He sold his portion of land. Never in such an inn.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret.

so dull.. Tranter??s niece went upstairs so abruptly after Charles??s departures.Of course to us any Cockney servant called Sam evokes immediately the immortal Weller; and it was certainly from that background that this Sam had emerged.. Prostitutes.??She walked away from him then. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. Charles felt immediately as if he had trespassed; as if the Cobb belonged to that face. a traditionally Low Church congregation. Dr. funerals and marriages; Mr. It is true Sarah went less often to the woods than she had become accustomed to. the other man out of the Tory camp. he was an interesting young man. accept-ing. his pipe lay beside his favorite chair. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker quali-ties.??No one is beyond help . On his other feelings. the Undercliff. She had infi-nitely the most life.

But I find myself suddenly like a man in the sharp spring night.The second. .. still attest.????How has she supported herself since .Charles was about to climb back to the path. such a child. and had to sit a minute to recover. what use are precautions?Visitors to Lyme in the nineteenth century. not to notice. Tranter??s com-mentary??places of residence. we have settled that between us. If he returns. With those that secretly wanted to be bullied. The madness was in the empty sea. to work again from half past eleven to half past four. They are doubtless partly attributable to remorse. but a man of excellent princi-ples and highly respected in that neighborhood. but still with the devil??s singe on him. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses..

for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. The programme was unrelievedly religious.Mrs. It was not only her profound ignorance of the reality of copulation that frightened her; it was the aura of pain and brutality that the act seemed to require. and knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him. In the monkey house. And I must conform to that definition.??They are all I have to give.????I am not like Lady Cotton. Miss Freeman. more quietly. Besides. not ahead of him. since Mrs. He moved. ran to her at the door and kissed her on both cheeks. ma??m. let me add).??You have surely a Bible???The girl shook her head. It must be so. since he creates (and not even the most aleatory avant-garde modern novel has managed to extirpate its author completely); what has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the Victorian image.The pattern of her exterior movements??when she was spared the tracts??was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk.

little sunlight . their nar-row-windowed and -corridored architecture. the less the honor. a passionate Portuguese marquesa. She spoke quietly. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered. Grogan recommended that she be moved out of the maids?? dormitory and given a room with more light. You may think that Mrs.. fingermarks. We who live afterwards think of great reformers as triumphing over great opposition or great apathy. she seemed calm.Charles produced the piece of ammonitiferous rock he had brought for Ernestina. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. or so it was generally supposed. a young woman without children paid to look after children. impertinent nose. However. was given a precarious footing in Marlborough House; and when the doctor came to look at the maid. ??Sometimes I almost pity them.. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time.

I understand. He stared into his fire and murmured.This was the echinoderm. Not the smallest groan.??A crow floated close overhead. notebooks. 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 she too looked down..??Mrs. Watching the little doctor??s mischievous eyes and Aunt Tranter??s jolliness he had a whiff of corollary nausea for his own time: its stifling propriety.. But even then a figure. and was not deceived by the fact that it was pressed unnaturally tight. No doubt you know more of it than I do. he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy.????Mr. had been too afraid to tell anyone . this fine spring day. one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. with her.But one day.

??And now Grogan. But morality without mercy I detest rather more. Mrs. She was not standing at her window as part of her mysterious vigil for Satan??s sails; but as a preliminary to jumping from it. Talbot provided an interminable letter of reference. as Ernestina. though always shaded with sorrow and often intense in feeling; but above all. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. and her future destination. too. but Ernestina would never allow that. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her. watching from the lawn beneath that dim upper window in Marlborough House; I know in the context of my book??s reality that Sarah would never have brushed away her tears and leaned down and delivered a chapter of revelation. Now I could see what was wrong at once??weeping without reason. She felt he must be hiding something??a tragic French countess. she stared at the ground a moment. walking awake. when they see on the map where they were lost. behind her facade of humility forbade it. I brought up Ronsard??s name just now; and her figure required a word from his vocabulary. So I married shame. He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London.

?? Here Mrs. a truly orgastic lesbianism existed then; but we may ascribe this very com-mon Victorian phenomenon of women sleeping together far more to the desolating arrogance of contemporary man than to a more suspect motive. a weakness abominably raped. she sent for the doctor. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea. Indeed I cannot believe that you should be anything else in your present circumstances. And the most innocent. whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world. we laugh. that house above Elm House.His ambition was very simple: he wanted to be a haber-dasher. more serious world the ladies and the occasion had obliged them to leave. She be the French Loot??n??nt??s Hoer. Charles. No man had ever paid me the kind of attentions that he did??I speak of when he was mending. Fairley had come to Mrs. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. on her darker days. up a steep small slope crowned with grass. you??ve been drinking again.????Yes.

but fraternal.When Charles departed from Aunt Tranter??s house in Broad Street to stroll a hundred paces or so down to his hotel. but continued to avoid his eyes.He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her. ??there on the same silver dish. not discretion. and sincerely. smiled bleakly in return. more quietly. Charles watched her. casual thought. and the silence. He had been very foolish. He looked up at the doctor??s severe eyes.. When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street. I believe I had. If gangrene had inter-vened.????To give is a most excellent deed. I attend Mrs. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner. Poulteney was whitely the contrary.

as if to the distant ship. ] know very well that I could still. But it was better than nothing and thus encouraged. At least the deadly dust was laid. Charles??s down-staring face had shocked her; she felt the speed of her fall accelerate; when the cruel ground rushes up.Charles called himself a Darwinist. Where you and I flinch back. He moved up past her and parted the wall of ivy with his stick. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. lips salved. The colors of the young lady??s clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident; but the world was then in the first fine throes of the discovery of aniline dyes. Poulteney??s secretary. a liar. pages of close handwriting. the ineffable . since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality.??The doctor nodded vehemently. but fraternal. but he found himself not in the mood. that shy.??I think the only truly scarlet things about you are your cheeks. a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah.

in only six months from this March of 1867. as if she had been pronouncing sentence on herself; and righteousness were synonymous with suffering. He did not always write once a week; and he had a sinister fondness for spending the afternoons at Winsyatt in the library. but the reverse: an indication of low rank. And heaven also help the young man so in love that he tried to approach Marlborough House secretly to keep an assignation: for the gardens were a positive forest of humane man-traps????humane?? in this con-text referring to the fact that the great waiting jaws were untoothed. but my heart craves them and I cannot believe it is all vanity .?? The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended. since the values she computed belong more there than in the mind. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. there .He lifts her. ??I found it central to nothing but the sheerest absurdity. To the mere landscape enthusiast this stone is not attractive. Ernestina usually persuaded him to stay at Aunt Tranter??s; there were very serious domestic matters to discuss. 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. ever to inhabit nature again; and that made him sad. as in so many other things. to where he could see the sleeper??s face better. He felt as ashamed as if he had. For a moment it flamed. Sarah had merely to look round to see if she was alone. If Captain Talbot had been there .

and without benefit of cinema or television! For those who had a living to earn this was hardly a great problem: when you have worked a twelve-hour day. that such social occasions were like a hair shirt to the sinner. who frowned sourly and reproachfully at this unwelcome vision of Flora.????And what was the subject of your conversation?????Your father ventured the opinion that Mr. will it not???And so they kissed. or the subsequent effects of its later indiscriminate consumption. He gave up his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap. She had finally chosen the former; and listened not only to the reading voice. Sheer higgerance.Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment?? those inaudible words were simply ??I must not????whenever the physical female implications of her body. sir. Do not come near me. so pic-turesquely rural; and perhaps this exorcizes the Victorian horrors that took place there. He did not care that the prey was uneatable. But you must show it.????I am not quite clear what you intend.??She stared out to sea for a moment. which meant that Sarah had to be seen.????We are not in London now.. Disraeli. which strikes Charles a glancing blow on the shoulder and lands on the floor behind the sofa.

??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. just as the simple primroses at Charles??s feet survived all the competition of exotic conserva-tory plants. watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served. I exaggerate? Perhaps. jumping a century.????It is beyond my powers??the powers of far wiser men than myself??to help you here.??Do but think. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she. But I must point out that if you were in some way disabled I am the only person in Lyme who could lead your rescuers to you. but endlessly long in process .??I??m a Derby duck. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite.?? was the very reverse. that can be almost as harmful. I have Mr. yet proud to be so. inclined almost to stop and wait for her. mum. She must have heard the sound of his nailed boots on the flint that had worn through the chalk. will it not???And so they kissed.Finally.

superior to most. fingermarks. Only the eyes were more intense: eyes without sun. and her future destination. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously. The younger man looked down with a small smile.????Never mind. Personal extinction Charles was aware of??no Victorian could not be. that will be the time to pursue the dead. but from closer acquaintance with London girls he had never got much beyond a reflection of his own cynicism. But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct. whose name now he could not even remember.Perhaps you suppose that a novelist has only to pull the right strings and his puppets will behave in a lifelike manner; and produce on request a thorough analysis of their motives and intentions. You have no family ties.. oh Charles . From Mama?????I know that something happened . Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that.Perhaps he was disappointed when his daughter came home from school at the age of eighteen??who knows what miracles he thought would rain on him???and sat across the elm table from him and watched him when he boasted. as the one she had given at her first interroga-tion..

At last she spoke.]He eyed Charles more kindly.??And she turned. lips salved. It did not intoxicate me. your romanced autobiography. Tranter smiled. The banks of the dell were carpeted with primroses and violets. in England. come on??what I really mean is that the idea crossed my mind as I wrote that it might be more clever to have him stop and drink milk .????And if .And there. since sooner or later the news must inevi-tably come to Mrs. then turned; and again those eyes both repelled and lanced him. black. Fairley reads so poorly. No romance. but less for her widowhood than by temperament. In London the beginnings of a plutocratic stratification of society had. However. And I do not want my green walking dress. But the far clouds reminded him of his own dissatisfaction; of how he would have liked to be sailing once again through the Tyrrhenian; or riding.