charming. then he walked round to the gorse.

I??m not sitting with a socialist
I??m not sitting with a socialist. ??The Early Cretaceous is a period. a knowledge that she would one day make a good wife and a good mother; and she knew.. at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her own covey of simperers. Charles saw what stood behind the seductive appeal of the Oxford Movement??Roman Catholicism propria terra. and it seems highly appropriate that Linnaeus himself finally went mad; he knew he was in a labyrinth. not the best recommendation to a servant with only three dresses to her name??and not one of which she really liked. unable to look at him. and nodded??very vehemently. It was The Origin of Species.??You have something . I have difficulty in writing now. But we must now pass to the debit side of the relationship. Disraeli was the type.?? was the very reverse.??You must allow me to pay for these tests what I should pay at Miss Arming??s shop. and came upon those two affec-tionate bodies lying so close. already suspected but not faced. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme. Charles. There was.????Why?????That is a long story. She did not.

That life is without under-standing or compassion. He stood. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid.????The first thing I admired in him was his courage.??Ernestina looked down at that. and the test is not fair if you look back towards land.????No..????To give is a most excellent deed. some refined person who has come upon adverse circumstances . who had not the least desire for Aunt Tranter??s wholesome but uninteresting barley water. And I have not found her. are we ever to be glued together in holy matrimony?????And you will keep your low humor for your club. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes. but to the girl. one last poised look. behind her facade of humility forbade it. heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age??the Gibson Girl type of beauty. She is asleep. so that she faced the sea; and so.But though death may be delayed.??And I wish to hear what passed between you and Papa last Thursday.

you may be as dry a stick as you like with everyone else. All he was left with was the after-image of those eyes??they were abnormal-ly large. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal. No doubt here and there in another milieu. The girl became a governess to Captain John Talbot??s family at Charmouth.Charles was about to climb back to the path.. It was a kind of suicide. You are able to gain your living. madam.??Miss Sarah was present at this conversation. honor. She stared at it a moment.She took her hand away. at the vicar??s suggestion. After some days he returned to France. had fainted twice within the last week. that lends the area its botanical strangeness??its wild arbutus and ilex and other trees rarely seen growing in England; its enormous ashes and beeches; its green Brazilian chasms choked with ivy and the liana of wild clematis; its bracken that grows seven.????To this French gentleman??? She turned away. very soon it would come back to him. but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor. when Charles came out of Mrs. and its vegetation. 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.

They did not need to. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. Smithson. of falling short. But it did not. each time she took her throne. ??It??s no matter.??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness.So Charles sat silent. never serious with him; without exactly saying so she gave him the impression that she liked him because he was fun?? but of course she knew he would never marry. 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. He drew himself up.??I. and countless scien-tists in other fields. she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own. it was always with a tonic wit and the humanity of a man who had lived and learned. I took the omnibus to Weymouth. But it was not a sun trap many would have chosen. we shall never be yours.Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane. Smithson.??She did not move. Her envy kept her there; and also her dark delight in the domestic catastrophes that descended so frequently on the house.

Nor were hers the sobbing. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand.To most Englishmen of his age such an intuition of Sarah??s real nature would have been repellent; and it did very faintly repel??or at least shock??Charles. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. in truth. a liar. And the other lump of Parian is Voltaire. towards the sun; and it is this fact. The logical conclusion of his feelings should have been that he raised his hat with a cold finality and walked away in his stout nailed boots.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. The ill was familiar; but it was out of the question that she should inflict its conse-quences upon Charles. The revolutionary art movement of Charles??s day was of course the Pre-Raphaelite: they at least were making an attempt to admit nature and sexuality. But it seemed without offense. Charles would almost certainly not have believed you??and even though. Poulteney a more than generous acknowledgment of her superior status vis-a-vis the maids?? and only then condoned by the need to disseminate tracts; but the vicar had advised it. He was the devil in the guise of a sailor. in short lived more as if he had been born in 1702 than 1802. but I am informed that she lodged with a female cousin. for he had been born a Catholic; he was. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such a morning. but the figure stood mo-tionless. down steep Pound Street into steep Broad Street and thence to the Cobb Gate. My servant. but he caught himself stealing glances at the girl beside him??looking at her as if he saw her for the first time.

smells. How else can a sour old bachelor divert his days???He was ready to go on in this vein.??Sam tested the blade of the cutthroat razor on the edge of his small thumb. as if that subject was banned. the etiolated descendants of Beau Brummel.??He saw a second reason behind the gift of the tests; they would not have been found in one hour. you??ve been drinking again.It so happened that the avalanche for the morning after Charles??s discovery of the Undercliff was appointed to take place at Marlbo-rough House. who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. I??m as gentle to her as if she??s my favorite niece.??Now get me my breakfast. He moved up past her and parted the wall of ivy with his stick. she murmured. He had been at this task perhaps ten minutes.. ma??m. already deeply shadowed.??What you call my obstinacy is my only succor. and in a reality no less. Charles and Mrs. she had acuity in practical matters. she goes to a house she must know is a living misery. and Sarah had simply slipped into the bed and taken the girl in her arms. Talbot??s patent laxity of standard and foolish sentimen-tality finally helped Sarah with Mrs.

??Now for you.??Charles had to close his eye then in a hurry. and that the discovery was of the utmost impor-tance to the future of man.????My dear lady. and the real Lymers will never see much more to it than a long claw of old gray wall that flexes itself against the sea. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses.He murmured.He came to the main path through the Undercliff and strode out back towards Lyme. curlews cried. already deeply shadowed. I did what I could for the girl. Perhaps it is only a game. which the arbiters of the best English male fashion had declared a shade vulgar??that is. freezing to the timid. Tranter??s house. ancestry??with one ear. and looked him in the eyes. Ernestina and her like behaved always as if habited in glass: infinitely fragile. He was taken to the place; it had been most insignificant.??Spare yourself. the small but ancient eponym of the inbite. He loved Ernestina. which loom over the lush foliage around them like the walls of ruined castles. he could not believe its effect.

Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for??and more than the age allowed for. I was afraid lest you had been taken ill. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys. between Lyme Regis and Axmouth six miles to the west. and pronounced green sickness. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted.??I wish that more mistresses were as fond. For the gentleman had set his heart on having an arbore-tum in the Undercliff. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap. These last hundred years or more the commonest animal on its shores has been man??wielding a geologist??s hammer. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water. If I had left that room. I saw him for what he was. and never on foot. Did not go out. I regret to say that he did not deserve that appellation. The first item would undoubtedly have been the least expected at the time of committal a year before. I do not mean that she had one of those masculine. Poul-teney might go off.??I have come to bid my adieux.??I should visit.There were. as if it were some expiatory offering.

He kept at this level. was a deceit beyond the Lymers?? imagination. I am well aware how fond you are of her.??How are you. published between 1830 and 1833??and so coinciding very nicely with reform elsewhere?? had burled it back millions. And with His infinite compassion He will??????But supposing He did not?????My dear Mrs. But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out.????The new room is better?????Yes. or some (for in his brave attempt to save Mrs.. This is why we cannot plan. and a keg or two of cider. and clenched her fingers on her lap. their condescensions. therefore he must do them??just as he must wear heavy flannel and nailed boots to go walking in the country. cheap travel and the rest. or being talked to. and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds?? songs. as Ernestina. breakages and all the ills that houses are heir to. Then he looked up in surprise at her unsmiling face. ??I am merely saying what I know Mrs. invincible eyes a tear.??What you call my obstinacy is my only succor.

curlews cried. home. Already it will be clear that if the accepted destiny of the Victorian girl was to become a wife and mother. let the word be said.????But I can guess who it is. Needless to say. 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.He came to the main path through the Undercliff and strode out back towards Lyme.????You bewilder me.??I. the least sign of mockery of his absurd pretensions. like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson. Furthermore I have omitted to tell you that the Frenchman had plighted his troth. we have paid our homage to Neptune.????Would ??ee???He winked then.?? She added. but less for her widowhood than by temperament. and prayers??over which the old lady pompously presided.?? There was silence. who maintained that their influence was best exerted from the home. which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. order. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention.

and he was ushered into the little back drawing room.. the obedient.I risk making Sarah sound like a bigot. No doubt here and there in another milieu. you have been drinking. He worked all the way round the rim of his bowler. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. Charles. social stagnation; they knew. but I can be put to the test. a human bond. Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand. None like you. Again she glanced up at Charles. Poulteney had lis-tened to this crossfire with some pleasure; and she now decided that she disliked Charles sufficiently to be rude to him. had been too afraid to tell anyone . For the gentleman had set his heart on having an arbore-tum in the Undercliff. But before he could ask her what was wrong. But a message awaited me. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. ??You are kind. Fairley??s uninspired stumbling that the voice first satisfied Mrs. creeping like blood through a bandage.

They could not.But what of Sarah??s motives? As regards lesbianism. Let us turn. Waterloo a month after; instead of for what it really was??a place without history. By which he really means. he gave her a brief lecture on melancholia??he was an advanced man for his time and place??and ordered her to allow her sinner more fresh air and freedom. Failure to be seen at church. indeed he could. at any subsequent place or time. bending. a darling man and a happy wife and four little brats like angels.??Charles murmured a polite agreement. and not to be denied their enjoyment of the Cobb by a mere harsh wind.. if not so dramatic. A punishment.. so out-of-the-way. I shall not do so again. Poulteney began to change her tack. and which was in turn a factor of his intuition of her appalling loneliness. ??This is what comes of trying to behave like a grown-up. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes.Which brings me to this evening of the concert nearly a week later.

and then to a compro-mise: a right of way was granted. He told us he came from Bordeau. but finally because it is a superb fragment of folk art. wanted Charles to be that husband. her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint; too frail for such sudden changes of emotion. it is not right that I should suffer so much. It had been furnished for her and to her taste. as if he had taken root.??I have no one to turn to. He loved Ernestina. But it did not. tables.She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical face of the bluff had collapsed. had life so fallen out. No one will see us. or blessed him.. and more than finer clothes might have done. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status.On Mrs. he stepped forward as soon as the wind allowed. It is true Sarah went less often to the woods than she had become accustomed to.?? But the doctor was brutally silent. of marrying shame.

. You have no family ties. she had never dismissed. and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away.??He left a silence.??Dear. Now is that not common sense???There was a long silence. when she died. He walked for a mile or more. When he returned to London he fingered and skimmed his way through a dozen religious theories of the time. She now went very rarely to the Cobb. Fairley. the other as if he was not quite sure which planet he had just landed on. Be ??appier ??ere. It had always been considered common land until the enclosure acts; then it was encroached on. and Charles languidly gave his share. and fewer still accepted all their implications. But she stood still. It did not intoxicate me. But the commonage was done for. by the simple trick of staring at the ground.????I hoped I had made it clear that Mrs. and simply bowed her head and shook it. so much assurance of position.

or being talked to. .????It is beyond my powers??the powers of far wiser men than myself??to help you here.Nor did Ernestina.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. if I wish him to be real. that is. those two sanctuaries of the lonely. unable to look at him. Gladstone at least recognizes a radical rottenness in the ethical foundations of our times.. I think no child.?? Mrs. It was very brief. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs.You must not think. Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne.??How are you.. in a word. but I knew he was changed. He will forgive us if we now turn our backs on him. very interestingly to a shrewd observer.

Placing her own hands back in their muff. alone.. thus a hundred-hour week. he had felt much more sym-pathy for her behavior than he had shown; he could imagine the slow.??Mrs. It is all gossip. Besides. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. but was not that face a little characterless.????I should certainly wish to hear it before proceeding. conspicu-ously unnecessary; the Hyde Park house was fit for a duke to live in. if you had been watching. Poulteney twelve months before. Mrs. A tiny wave of the previous day??s ennui washed back over him. Ernestina having a migraine. Failure to be seen at church.?? The housekeeper stared solemnly at her mistress as if to make quite sure of her undivided dismay.??He smiled. But you could offer that girl the throne of England??and a thousand pounds to a penny she??d shake her head. adzes and heaven knows what else. Smithson. too spoiled by civilization.

At least he began in the spirit of such an examination; as if it was his duty to do so. rigidly disapproving; yet in his eyes a something that searched hers .For a while they said nothing. as soon as the obstacular uncle did his duty); or less sly ones from the father on the size of the fortune ??my dearest girl?? would bring to her husband. her back to Sarah. ????Oh! Claud??the pain!?? ??Oh!Gertrude. though it still suggested some of the old universal reproach. a passionate Portuguese marquesa. I could endure it no longer. why should we deny to others what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones???She smiled up at him from her chair. Tranter. Tina. At first meetings she could cast down her eyes very prettily. Even Ernestina. I foolishly believed him. In all except his origins he was impeccably a gentleman; and he had married discreetly above him. And slowly Charles realized that he was in temperament nearer to his grandfather than to either of his grandfather??s sons. for the day was beautiful. should he take a step towards her. the most meaningful space. 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. an infuriated black swan. ??Hon one condition. Charles.

He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London. of the importance of sea urchins. He began to frequent the conversazioni of the Geological Society. was always also a delicate emanation of mothballs. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes. at least from the back. but each time Sarah departed with a batch to deliver Mrs. then that was life. as the door closed in their smiling faces. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop. for friends. He was shrewd enough to realize that Ernestina had been taken by surprise; until the little disagree-ment she had perhaps been more in love with marriage than with her husband-to-be; now she had recognized the man.??Dearest. Talbot was aware of this?????She is the kindest of women. No words were needed.. When he discovered what he had shot. and lower cheeks. Poulteney had been a total. He smiled at her averted face.????He asked you to marry him???She found difficulty in answering.]He returned from his six months in the City of Sin in 1856.??It was a little south-facing dell. though large.

the increased weight on his back made it a labor.She lowered her eyes. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop.??????Ow much would??er cost then???The forward fellow eyed his victim. He did not always write once a week; and he had a sinister fondness for spending the afternoons at Winsyatt in the library. She walked straight on towards them. and there he saw that all the sadness he had so remarked before was gone; in sleep the face was gentle.?? he faltered here. with her pretty arms folded. without close relatives.????What??s that then?????It??s French for Coombe Street. all of which had to be stoked twice a day. which the fixity of her stare at him aggravated. I do not know. If no one dares speak of them. impeccably in a light gray. Poulteney??s alarm at this appall-ing disclosure was nearly enough to sink the vicar. But Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias. and it seems highly appropriate that Linnaeus himself finally went mad; he knew he was in a labyrinth. had more than one vocabulary. for he had been born a Catholic; he was. They did not kiss. Why. the nearest acknowledgment to an apology she had ever been known to muster.

?? She hesitated.????No. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. But she saw that all was not well. to certain characteristic evasions he had made; to whether his interest in paleontology was a sufficient use for his natural abilities; to whether Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her; to a general sentiment of dislocated purpose originating perhaps in no more??as he finally concluded??than the threat of a long and now wet afternoon to pass. There were accordingly some empty seats before the fern-fringed dais at one end of the main room. invested shrewdly in railway stock and un-shrewdly at the gambling-tables (he went to Almack??s rather than to the Almighty for consolation). as he kissed Ernestina??s fingers in a way that showed he would in fact have made a very poor Irish navvy... It was dark. miss. We are not to dispute His under-standing. too. light and graceful. He was especially solicitous to Ernestina. both standing still and yet always receding.????He asked you to marry him???She found difficulty in answering. However. Hall the hosslers ??eard. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. I say her heart. There were so many things she must never understand: the richness of male life.??Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters.

. He found himself like some boy who flashes a mirror??and one day does it to someone far too gentle to deserve such treatment. There too I can be put to proof. The madness was in the empty sea.??The vicar gave her a solemn look. He let the lather stay where it was.Your predicament.. Poulteney. in the famous Epoques de la Nature of 1778. my beloved!??Then faintly o??er her lips a wan smile moved. clapped on the back by the papas and simpered at by the girls. her mistress. for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties. since he could see a steep but safe path just ahead of him which led up the cliff to the dense woods above.From then on. he foresaw only too vividly that she might put foolish female questions. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. When his leg was mended he took coach to Weymouth. Ernestina teased her aunt unmercifully about him. Sarah stood shyly. not altogether of sound mind.On Mrs. She frowned and stared at her deep-piled carpet.

that independence so perilously close to defiance which had become her mask in Mrs. can touch me. Charles stole a kiss on each wet eyelid as a revenge. watched to make sure that the couple did not themselves take the Dairy track; then retraced her footsteps and entered her sanctuary unob-served.????Ah indeed??if you were only called Lord Brabazon Vava-sour Vere de Vere??how much more I should love you!??But behind her self-mockery lurked a fear. is what he then said. had earlier firmly offered to do so??she was aware that Sarah was now incapa-ble of that sustained and daylong attention to her charges that a governess??s duties require. her face half hidden by the blossoms. As Charles smiled and raised eyebrows and nodded his way through this familiar purgatory.?? He sat down again. at Mrs. the approval of his fellows in society. exemplia gratia Charles Smithson. When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street. and disap-probation of. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy. He saw his way of life sinking without trace. For the rest of my life I shall travel. And their directness of look??he did not know it. A gentleman in one of the great houses that lie behind the Undercliff performed a quiet Anschluss??with. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoul-ders and shake her; tragedy is all very well on the stage.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep.??Not exackly hugly. Of the woman who stared.

Another breath and fierce glance from the reader. or petrified sea urchin. We consider such frankness about the real drives of human behavior healthy. Charles faced his own free hours. it was only 1867.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. But I thank Mother Nature I shall not be alive in fifty years?? time. you must practice for your part. two excellent Micraster tests.His uncle bored the visiting gentry interminably with the story of how the deed had been done; and whenever he felt inclined to disinherit??a subject which in itself made him go purple. her cheeks red.Then.?? and again she was silent. as others suffer in every town and village in this land. Charles watched her black back recede. ??Whose exact nature I am still ignorant of. Burkley. The third class he calls obscure melancholia.????Yes. let me quickly add that she did not know it. swooning idyll. A case of a widow. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. a paragon of mass.

but he had meant to walk quickly to it. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast. have suspected that a mutual solitude interested them rather more than maritime architecture; and he would most certainly have remarked that they were peo-ple of a very superior taste as regards their outward appear-ance. as confirmed an old bachelor as Aunt Tranter a spinster. the features are: a healthy young woman of twenty-six or -seven.?? said the abbess. ??Ernestina my dear . but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaint-ances at her command. oval. Millie???Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room.??It was. to tell Sarah their conclusion that day. She made him aware of a deprivation. she is slightly crazed. their freedom as well. of course; to have one??s own house. A slightly bolder breeze moved the shabby red velvet curtains at the window; but in that light even they looked beautiful. almost fierce on occasion. Smithson has already spoken to me of him. almost.????And what did she call. She recalled that Sarah had not lived in Lyme until recently; and that she could therefore. it was charming. then he walked round to the gorse.