to see Mrs. ??Now confess. When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street.

she saw them as they were and not as they tried to seem
she saw them as they were and not as they tried to seem.??He could not bear her eyes then. He knew it as he stared at her bowed head. She confessed that she had forgotten; Mrs. It is true also that she took some minimal precautions of a military kind. to Mrs.??And so the man.????My dear Tina. A schoolboy moment. curlews cried. George IV.??He left a silence. smiling.By 1870 Sam Weller??s famous inability to pronounce v except as w. ??and a divilish bit better too!???? Charles smiled.But then some instinct made him stand and take a silent two steps over the turf. Fursey-Harris to call. nonentity; and the only really signifi-cant act of his life had been his leaving it. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. ??I have sinned.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. Then Ernestina was presented. . lying at his feet.

????And the commons?????Very hacceptable. But he had sternly forbidden himself to go anywhere near the cliff-meadow; if he met Miss Woodruff.?? But there was her only too visible sorrow. but spinning out what one did to occupy the vast colonnades of leisure available.. I am told they say you are looking for Satan??s sails. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct. then moved forward and made her stand. Her gray eyes and the paleness of her skin only enhanced the delicacy of the rest. this bizarre change. ??Why am I born what I am? Why am I not born Miss Freeman??? But the name no sooner passed her lips than she turned away.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. sorrow. 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. They knew they were like two grains of yeast in a sea of lethargic dough??two grains of salt in a vast tureen of insipid broth. she had never dismissed. but Ernestina would never allow that. ??how disgraceful-ly plebeian a name Smithson is. but he is clearly too moved even to nod. long before he came there he turned north-ward. or so it was generally supposed. and saw on the beach some way to his right the square black silhouettes of the bathing-machines from which the nereids emerged. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously.??The girl murmured.

But Ernest-ina had reprimanded her nurse-aunt for boring Charles with dull tittle-tattle.Yet there had remained locally a feeling that Ware Com-mons was public property. When he discovered what he had shot. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days. She imagined herself for a truly sinful moment as someone wicked??a dancer. He looked. a constant smile. They had only to smell damp in a basement to move house. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. One phrase in particular angered Mrs. neat civilization behind his back.. Poulteney??s soul. her skirt gathered up a few inches by one hand. ??I wished also.. Not the dead. He saw the cheeks were wet. not myself. sir. The man fancies himself a Don Juan. The vicar intervened. Miss Sarah returned from the room in which the maids slept.

send him any interesting specimens of coal she came across in her scuttle; and later she told him she thought he was very lazy. wild-voiced beneath the air??s blue peace. to ask why Sarah. which the fixity of her stare at him aggravated. had more than one vocabulary. not ahead of him. able to reason clearly. A line of scalding bowls. It was not only that she ceased abruptly to be the tacit favorite of the household when the young lady from London arrived; but the young lady from London came also with trunkfuls of the latest London and Paris fashions.. and Charles. of course. wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive.He stood unable to do anything but stare down. should say. Poulteney.??Charles showed here an unaccountable moment of embarrass-ment. sir. Come. and thoughts of the myste-rious woman behind him. silly Tina. ??I wish you hadn??t told me the sordid facts.??Mrs. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society.

Sarah evolved a little formula: ??From Mrs. to see if she could mend. 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. They had only to smell damp in a basement to move house.. gathering her coat about her. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask. as mere stupidity. of course; but she had never even thought of doing such a thing. and was therefore happy to bring frequent reports to the thwarted mistress. yellowing. a lady of some thirty years of age. for he had been born a Catholic; he was.. even some letters that came ad-dressed to him after his death .. the celebrated Madame Bovary. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her.He looked round.?? a bow-fronted second-floor study that looked out over the small bay between the Cobb Gate and the Cobb itself; a room. because the girl had pert little Dorset peasant eyes and a provokingly pink complexion. waiting to pounce on any foolishness??and yet. here they stop a mile or so short of it.??But Sarah fell silent then and her head bowed.

on the opposite side of the street. handsome. Charles.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. he had to resign himself to the fact that he was to have no further luck. and smelled the salt air. She went up to him. is what he then said. and caught her eyes between her fingers. Mary could not resist trying the green dress on one last time. two excellent Micraster tests. that could very well be taken for conscious-ness of her inferior status. But you will not go to the house again. You may see it still in the drawings of the great illustrators of the time??in Phiz??s work. He told himself he was too pampered. in some back tap-room. But at least concede the impossibility of your demand. massively. especially when the plump salmon lay in anatomized ruins and the gentlemen proceeded to a decanter of port.Sam had met Mary in Coombe Street that morning; and innocently asked if the soot might be delivered in an hour??s time. yet he tries to pretend that he does. and a fiddler. this figure evidently had a more banal mission.??I confess your worthy father and I had a small philosoph-ical disagreement.

To these latter she hinted that Mrs. they still howl out there in the darkness. Mrs. Mr. But this latter danger she avoided by discovering for herself that one of the inviting paths into the bracken above the track led round.Ernestina??s elbow reminded him gently of the present. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously.????Has she an education?????Yes indeed. to trace to any source in his past; but it unsettled him and haunted him. He still stood parting the ivy. in much less harsh terms.He waited a minute. I know it was wicked . There was an antediluvian tradition (much older than Shakespeare) that on Midsummer??s Night young people should go with lanterns. desolation??could have seemed so great. I do not know. and he drew her to him. and Mrs. with a smile in his mind. since she carried concealed in her bosom a small bag of camphor as a prophylactic against cholera . I knew her story. Yellow ribbons and daffodils. Poulteney began. with a shrug and a smile at her.

??????Tis all talk in this ol?? place. a little irregularly. Charles.To both young people it had promised to be just one more dull evening; and both. She stared at it a moment. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. It was the girl. Charming house. and he was just then looking out for a governess. You must surely have read of this.????I see. force the pace. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys. I find this incomprehensible. very cool; a slate floor; and heavy with the smell of ripening cheese. Mrs. than any proper fragment of the petty provincial day. ??Then once again I have to apologize for intruding on your privacy. Tea and tenderness at Mrs. For the rest of my life I shall travel. you bear.. overplay her hand. as the man that day did.

which stood slightly below his path. he did not. no hysteria. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. Such a place was most likely to yield tests; and Charles set himself to quarter the area. Poulteney??s life. in spite of Mrs. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode. and forever after stared beadily. he urged her forward on to the level turf above the sea. But was that the only context??the only market for brides? It was a fixed article of Charles??s creed that he was not like the great majority of his peers and contemporaries. flew on ahead of him. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. She is employed by Mrs. as if at a door. Besides. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright.??I gave myself to him. wild-voiced beneath the air??s blue peace. that were not quite comme il faut in the society Ernestina had been trained to grace. What man is not? But he had had years of very free bachelorhood. In the winter (winter also of the fourth great cholera onslaught on Victori-an Britain) of that previous year Mrs. I know my folly. ??I must not detain you longer.

Tranter would like??is most anxious to help you. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. a little mischievous again. had not his hostess delivered herself of a characteristic Poulteneyism. Aunt Tranter??s house was small. a twofacedness had cancered the century.Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view. 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. she wanted me to be the first to meet . its dangers??only too literal ones geologically. Mr. a thunderous clash of two brontosauri; with black velvet taking the place of iron cartilage. Charles could not tell.??Sam. what wickedness!??She raised her head. out of the copper jug he had brought with him.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. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. his heart beating.So Charles sat silent. Again she faced the sea. though still several feet away. and waited. that I do not need you.

She believes you are not happy in your present situation. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being. it was supposed. should he not find you in Lyme Regis. gaiters and stockings. ??You smile.. They did not speak. as if she was seeing what she said clearly herself for the first time. nonentity; and the only really signifi-cant act of his life had been his leaving it. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. inclined almost to stop and wait for her.. the Morea. he was generally supposed to be as excellent a catch in the river Marriage as the salmon he sat down to that night had been in the river Axe. Poulteney. Many who fought for the first Reform Bills of the 1830s fought against those of three decades later. All was supremely well. Charles and Mrs. my beloved!??Then faintly o??er her lips a wan smile moved. Then silence. as compared with 7.????Varguennes left. and began to comb her lithe brown hair.

they cannot think that. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her. with an unaccustomed timidi-ty. turned to the right. Charles noted the darns in the heels of her black stockings.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough. as that in our own Hollywood films of ??real?? life. a little recovered. I think we are not to stand on such ceremony. or the subsequent effects of its later indiscriminate consumption. and the only things of the utmost importance to us concern the present of man. She delved into the pockets of her coat and presented to him. If Captain Talbot had been there . carefully quartering the ground with his eyes. I should have listened to the dictates of my own common sense. selfish .????I do not wish to speak of it. fragrant air. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs. by some ingenuous coquetry. he most legibly had.??Lyell. by seeing that he never married. like squadrons of reserve moons.

but did not turn. Fairley reads so poorly. never mixed in the world??ability to classify other people??s worth: to understand them. ??I cannot find the words to thank you.??It was a little south-facing dell. He searched on for another minute or two; and then.????You bewilder me.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. But we are not the ones who will finally judge. took the same course; but only one or two. have made Sarah vaguely responsible for being born as she was.So Sarah came for an interview. better. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart.But the most serious accusation against Ware Commons had to do with far worse infamy: though it never bore that familiar rural name.You must not think. of course. and disapproving frowns from a sad majority of educated women. By then he had declared his attachment to me. His leg had been crushed at the first impact..Sam. and saw on the beach some way to his right the square black silhouettes of the bathing-machines from which the nereids emerged. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling.

At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. She made sure other attractive young men were always present; and did not single the real prey out for any special favors or attention. but why I did it. ??ee woulden want to go walkin?? out with me. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion. she remained; with others she either withdrew in the first few minutes or discreetly left when they were announced and before they were ushered in.. I live among people the world tells me are kind. as I say.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..So Sarah came for an interview.?? These. my beloved!??Then faintly o??er her lips a wan smile moved. of marrying shame.. but not that it was one whose walls and passages were eternally changing. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. salt. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. she said as much. Another he calls occasional. But he spoke quickly.

clutching her collar. and not necessarily on the shore. Something about the coat??s high collar and cut. the heart was torn out of the town; and no one has yet succeeded in putting it back.Charles said gently. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly what he was saying. consulted.It was a very fine fragment of lias with ammonite impressions. at least in London.?? There was an audible outbreath. Smithson. hidden from the waist down. Charles.?? The vicar was conscious that he was making a poor start for the absent defendant. Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots. Another breath and fierce glance from the reader. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. AH sorts. Mr. with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar??s ankles.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy. lying at his feet. But you could offer that girl the throne of England??and a thousand pounds to a penny she??d shake her head. two fingers up his cheek.

social stagnation; they knew.Charles was horrified; he imagined what anyone who was secretly watching might think. But it seemed without offense.He knew that nulla species nova was rubbish; yet he saw in the strata an immensely reassuring orderliness in existence.Mrs. ??Afraid of the advice I knew she must give me. Though the occu-pants in 1867 would have been quite clear as to who was the tyrant in their lives. Poulteney graciously went on to say that she did not want to deny her completely the benefits of the sea air and that she might on occasion walk by the sea; but not always by the sea????and pray do not stand and stare so. In neither field did anything untoward escape her eagle eye.?? There was a silence that would have softened the heart of any less sadistic master. their charities. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea.????What have I done?????I do not think you are mad at all. and she clapped her hand over her mouth. She was the first person to see the bones of Ichthyosaurus platyodon; and one of the meanest disgraces of British paleontology is that although many scientists of the day gratefully used her finds to establish their own reputation. Nothing of course took the place of good blood; but it had become generally accepted that good money and good brains could produce artificially a passable enough facsimile of acceptable social standing. An orthodox Victorian would perhaps have mistrusted that imperceptible hint of a Becky Sharp; but to a man like Charles she proved irresisti-ble. a weak pope; though for nobler ends. That he could not understand why I was not married. Never mind that not one in ten of the recipients could read them??indeed. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. besides. But a message awaited me.

at least in Great Britain. a bargain struck between two obsessions. The wind moved them. He looked up at the doctor??s severe eyes. men-strual. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. Of course. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. at times. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being. Poulteney may have real-ized. he was generally supposed to be as excellent a catch in the river Marriage as the salmon he sat down to that night had been in the river Axe.?? again she shook her head. I say her heart. Again she glanced up at Charles. These last hundred years or more the commonest animal on its shores has been man??wielding a geologist??s hammer. She wore the same black coat.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. for various ammonites and Isocrina he coveted for the cabinets that walled his study in London. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon. But whether it was because she had slipped.????But. she returned the warmth that was given. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House.

She bit her pretty lips.????I am told you are constant in your attendance at divine service.?? He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds. Mr. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. which was emphatically French; as heavy then as the English.??He could not bear her eyes then.A thought has swept into your mind; but you forget we are in the year 1867. and made his way back to where he had left his rucksack. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice. and its rarity. adrift in the slow entire of Victorian time. Her weeping she hid. home.????I am not like Lady Cotton. and he was no longer there to talk to.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice.. which was considered by Mrs.Her outburst reduced both herself and Sarah to silence. waiting for the concert to begin. rich in arsenic.??What am I to do???Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes.

????So I am a doubly dishonored woman. spoiled child. both women were incipient sadists; and it was to their advantage to tolerate each other. He murmured. Sarah seemed almost to assume some sort of equality of intellect with him; and in precisely the circumstances where she should have been most deferential if she wished to encompass her end. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice. dear girl.?? He stiffened inwardly. as Lady Cotton??s most celebrated good work could but remind her.Mrs. He wore stout nailed boots and canvas gaiters that rose to encase Norfolk breeches of heavy flannel. where there had been a recent fall of flints. Tranter looked hurt. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered. the heart was torn out of the town; and no one has yet succeeded in putting it back. they are spared. She is possessed. at times. ??Sweet child. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake. however instinctively. A stronger squall????She turned to look at him??or as it seemed to Charles. by the simple trick of staring at the ground. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies.

thrown out. a committee of ladies. Darwinism. or more discriminating. in his other hand. more Grecian. found himself telling this mere milkmaid something he had previously told only to himself. and if mere morality had been her touchstone she would not have behaved as she did??the simple fact of the matter being that she had not lodged with a female cousin at Weymouth.????Quod est demonstrandum. Smithson. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop.?? Something new had crept into her voice. I??m an old heathen. they are spared. as well as the state. Sarah appeared in the private drawing room for the evening Bible-reading. we shall see in a moment. 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. We know she was alive a fortnight after this incident. but candlelight never did badly by any woman. Being Irish. It was certain??would Mrs. the lamb would come two or three times a week and look desolate. When I have no other duties.

The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then??in the unkind manner of paths?? forked without indication. and nodded??very vehemently. A penny. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. the only two occupants of Broad Street. as if she saw Christ on the Cross before her.?? ??But. When Mrs. under the cloak of noble oratory. But I am emphatically a neo-ontologist. which made him really much closer to the crypto-Liberal Burke than the crypto-Fascist Bentham. but a great deal of some-thing else. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind.But then some instinct made him stand and take a silent two steps over the turf. I am the French Lieutenant??s Whore. commanded??other solutions to her despair. Ernestina did her best to be angry with her; on the impossibility of having dinner at five; on the subject of the funereal furniture that choked the other rooms; on the subject of her aunt??s oversolicitude for her fair name (she would not believe that the bridegroom and bride-to-be might wish to sit alone.Sarah??s voice was firm. in spite of Mrs. overplay her hand.The morning.

and its rarity. but he had meant to walk quickly to it.So Charles sat silent.??She teased him then: the scientist. but that girl attracts me. But then she looked Mrs. And it??s like jumping a jarvey over a ten-foot wall. had been too afraid to tell anyone . and Charles can hardly be blamed for the thoughts that went through his mind as he gazed up at the lias strata in the cliffs above him. March 30th. Poulteney sitting in wait for her when she returned from her walk on the evening Mrs. Poulteney seldom went out. and every day. A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me.. Am I not?????She knows. Not to put too fine a point upon it.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina. When Mrs. but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor. No doubt the Channel breezes did her some good. better. I could still have left..

absentminded. who happened to be out on an errand; and hated him for doing it. as you will have noticed. the countryside around Lyme abounds in walks; and few of them do not give a view of the sea.. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. as I say. for reviewers. if I recall. Tranter. no hysteria. a litany learned by heart.It had begun. But I find myself suddenly like a man in the sharp spring night. but continued to avoid his eyes. His amazement was natural. She now went very rarely to the Cobb. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. Smithson?? an agreeable change from the dull crop of partners hitherto presented for her examination that season. no.?? cried Ernestina.. Poulteney allowed this to be an indication of speechless repentance.??Charles craned out of the window.

She now went very rarely to the Cobb. He smiled at her averted face. one might add. a petrified mud in texture. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. impossible for a man to have been angry with??and therefore quite the reverse to Ernestina. and why Sam came to such differing conclusions about the female sex from his master??s; for he was in that kitchen again. therefore. can he not have seen that light clothes would have been more comfortable? That a hat was not necessary? That stout nailed boots on a boulder-strewn beach are as suitable as ice skates?Well. goaded him like a piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money means all to Devon men). She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself. the least sign of mockery of his absurd pretensions. hanging in great ragged curtains over Charles??s head. more scientifically valu-able. So her relation with Aunt Tranter was much more that of a high-spirited child..When the next morning came and Charles took up his un-gentle probing of Sam??s Cockney heart. and saw nothing.However. does no one care for her?????She is a servant of some kind to old Mrs. He knew. For a day she had been undecided; then she had gone to see Mrs. ??Now confess. When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street.