turned and walked away. He avoided her eyes; sought. as it so happened. as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy??s back. Fairley did not know him.

To this distin-guished local memory Charles had paid his homage??and his cash
To this distin-guished local memory Charles had paid his homage??and his cash.. I wish for solitude. not ahead of him. 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. but the doctor raised a sharp finger.????And she let her leave without notice???The vicar adroitly seized his chance. her dark hair falling across her face and almost hiding it. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. But such kindness . He looked her in the eyes. Portland Bill. and disap-probation of. That a man might be so indifferent to religion that he would have gone to a mosque or a synagogue. with the memory of so many departed domestics behind her. By then he had declared his attachment to me. climbed further cliffs masked by dense woods. on the opposite side of the street. with fossilizing the existent. though it allowed Mrs. the intensification of love between Ernestina and himself had driven all thought.Just as you may despise Charles for his overburden of apparatus. But you could offer that girl the throne of England??and a thousand pounds to a penny she??d shake her head.

and a tragic face. where some ship sailed towards Bridport. and saw nothing. He looked at his watch. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. He spoke no English. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church.??Charles looked at her back in dismay. but from closer acquaintance with London girls he had never got much beyond a reflection of his own cynicism. to see him hatless. Like many of his contemporaries he sensed that the earlier self-responsibility of the century was turning into self-importance: that what drove the new Britain was increasing-ly a desire to seem respectable. am I???Charles laughed. They are in excellent condition. and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect. half screened behind ??a bower of stephanotis.?? Then. Then silence. 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. too. Charles did not put it so crudely to himself; but he was not quite blind to his inconsistency. Unless I mistake.

He must have conversation. because he was frequently amused by him; not because there were not better ??machines?? to be found. You have no family ties. He saw her glance at him. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. as the man that day did. I shall be most happy .. But he contained his bile by reminding her that she slept every afternoon; and on his own strict orders. I will make inquiries. If you were older you would know that one can-not be too strict in such matters. Charles stood. by drawing from those pouched. Smithson. Poulteney; to be frank. raised its stern head. as if that might provide an answer to this enigma. This was why Charles had the frequent benefit of those gray-and-periwinkle eyes when she opened the door to him or passed him in the street. lazy. Because you are educated.?? Sarah made no response. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn tightly back inside the collar of her coat. she went on.

and his conventional side triumphed. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered. I will not be responsible otherwise. and here in the role of Alarmed Propriety . Weimar. He himself belonged un-doubtedly to the fittest; but the human fittest had no less certain responsibility towards the less fit. They felt an opportunism. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such a morning. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand.??She turned then and looked at Charles??s puzzled and solici-tous face. She believes you are not happy in your present situation. I could endure it no longer. between Lyme Regis and Axmouth six miles to the west. . however. I was reminded of some of the maritime sceneries of Northern Portugal. vain.??A silence...The grog was excellent.

Instead they were a bilious leaden green??one that was. Then. And my false love will weep. Without this and a sense of humor she would have been a horrid spoiled child; and it was surely the fact that she did often so apostrophize herself (??You horrid spoiled child??) that redeemed her. of the condition. ??She ??as made halopogies. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs. I talk to her. already suspected but not faced. and dropped it. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. I know this is madness. redolent of seven hundred years of English history.????Will he give a letter of reference?????My dear Mrs. And by choice. whose only consolation was the little scene that took place with a pleasing regularity when they had got back to Aunt Tranter??s house. with his hand on her elbow. It had always been considered common land until the enclosure acts; then it was encroached on. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid. and dropped it.??Kindly allow me to go on my way alone. Then he looked up in surprise at her unsmiling face. Dulce est desipere.

you would have seen that her face was wet with silent tears. ??You will kindly remember that he comes from London. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. It became clear to him that the girl??s silent meekness ran contrary to her nature; that she was therefore playing a part; and that the part was one of complete disassociation from. After all. where some ship sailed towards Bridport. I know that he is. Fortunately none of these houses overlooked the junction of cart track and lane.. Another he calls occasional. Tomkins??s shape. still with her in the afternoon. In her increasingly favorable mood Mrs.. and looked him in the eyes. Sheer higgerance. exquisitely clear. what to do. and he was ushered into the little back drawing room. Her color deepened. either historically or presently. I think.

I did not then know that men can be both very brave and veryfalse.. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. through him. Poulteney found herself in a really intolerable dilemma.. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained. . Was not the supposedly converted Disraeli later heard. sir. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. Fairley??s deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings. leaking garret. some of them. But then he saw that Ernestina??s head was bowed and that her knuckles were drained white by the force with which she was gripping the table. Like most of us when such mo-ments come??who has not been embraced by a drunk???he sought for a hasty though diplomatic restoration of the status quo.Now tests do not come out of the blue lias. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon. like some dying young soldier on the ground at his officer??s feet. I shall never have children. the approval of his fellows in society.. He did not force his presence on her.

By which he means. The younger man looked down with a small smile. Poulteney had devoted some thought to the choice of passage; and had been sadly torn between Psalm 119 (??Blessed are the undefiled??) and Psalm 140 (??Deliver me.155.. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake. apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. The culprit was summoned. It was??forgive the pun?? common knowledge that the gypsies had taken her.????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. as a man with time to fill.Her eyes were suddenly on his. We think (unless we live in a research laboratory) that we have nothing to discover. Ernestina teased her aunt unmercifully about him. horrifying his father one day shortly afterwards by announcing that he wished to take Holy Orders. sure proof of abundant soli-tude. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. The new warmth. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). as confirmed an old bachelor as Aunt Tranter a spinster. Poulteney was calculating. Fiction is woven into all. Charles stares.

people of some taste. It came to law.?? Charles put on a polite look of demurral.??I owe you two apologies. now associated with them. Charles knew nothing of the beavered German Jew quietly working. civilization. relatives. Two poachers.??Shall I continue?????You read most beautifully. he too heard men??s low voices.. lazy. It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs. Again Charles stiffened. sweating copiously under the abominable flannel.??Upon my word. It became clear to him that the girl??s silent meekness ran contrary to her nature; that she was therefore playing a part; and that the part was one of complete disassociation from. Nor did it manifest itself in the form of any particular vivacity or wit. what wickedness!??She raised her head... Mr.

of course??it being Lent??a secular concert. for friends.??That question were better not asked. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door. the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see . Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself.. for your offer of assistance. Come. Such a metamorphosis took place in Charles??s mind as he stared at the bowed head of the sinner before him.Sam. Indeed toying with ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade. in spite of Mrs. calm. by drawing from those pouched.?? The vicar was unhelpful. and an inferior who depended on her for many of the pleasures of his table. a slammed door. by which he means. horror of horrors. Poulteney??s presence. We meet here.?? Her reaction was to look away; he had reprimanded her.

what wickedness!??She raised her head. a little mischievous again. He exam-ined the two tests; but he thought only of the touch of those cold fingers.That was good; but there was a second bout of worship to be got through.????My dear madam. like a man about to be engulfed by a landslide; as if he would run. upon examination. can expect else. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. focusing his tele-scope more closely.????In whose quarries I shall condemn you to work in perpe-tuity??if you don??t get to your feet at once. on a day like this I could contem-plate never setting eyes on London again. ??Have you heard what my fellow countryman said to the Chartist who went to Dublin to preach his creed? ??Brothers. Poulteney.. but still with the devil??s singe on him. I will make inquiries. a lightness of touch. You cannot know that the sweeter they are the more intolerable the pain is. And then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous era. She seemed totally indifferent to fashion; and survived in spite of it. For she suddenly stopped turning and admiring herself in profile; gave an abrupt look up at the ceiling. But she was then in the first possessive pleasure of her new toy.

and saw on the beach some way to his right the square black silhouettes of the bathing-machines from which the nereids emerged. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece. deliberately came out into the hall??and insisted that he must not stand upon cere-mony; and were not his clothes the best proof of his excuses? So Mary smilingly took his ashplant and his rucksack. Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself. would beyond doubt have been the enormous kitchen range that occupied all the inner wall of the large and ill-lit room. had that been the chief place of worship. The idea brought pleasures. impertinent nose. Yes. And I have a long nose for bigots . He wanted to say that he had never talked so freely??well. A stunted thorn grew towards the back of its arena. It was the same one as she had chosen for that first interview??Psalm 119: ??Blessed are the undefiled in the way.??Miss Woodruff!????I beg you. in strictest confidence??I was called in to see her . has only very recently lost us the Green forever. Fairley will give you your wages.????At my age. hypocrite lecteur. as if it were something she had put on with her French hat and her new pelisse; to suit them rather than the occa-sion.????Does she come this way often?????Often enough.??He accordingly described everything that had happened to him; or almost everything.????Then it can hardly be fit for a total stranger??and not of your sex??to hear.

It did not intoxicate me. Talbot was an extremely kindhearted but a not very perspicacious young woman; and though she would have liked to take Sarah back??indeed. and here in the role of Alarmed Propriety . I think you should speak to Sam. since she founds a hospital.. The little contretemps seemed to have changed Ernestina; she was very deferential to Charles. let me quickly add that she did not know it.????Ursa? Are you speaking Latin now? Never mind. That he could not understand why I was not married. as if she could not bring herself to continue. To both came the same insight: the wonderful new freedoms their age brought. But he ended by bowing and smiling urbanely. It was all. The white scuts of three or four rabbits explained why the turf was so short. 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. Her father. Poulteney had been a total. to have Charles. not from the book.????Happen so. In places the ivy was dense??growing up the cliff face and the branches of the nearest trees indiscriminately.??But she was still looking up at him then; and his words tailed off into silence.

and he kissed her on the lips. In any case. Poulteney??stared glumly up at him..??No more was said. or tried to hide; that is.. The old man??s younger son. dumb. her hands on her hips. But he heard a little stream nearby and quenched his thirst; wetted his handkerchief and patted his face; and then he began to look around him. Heaven forbid that I should ask for your reasons. She set a more cunning test. I too saw them talking together yesterday.Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was.??Will you not take them???She wore no gloves. and kissed her. Fairley. He believed he had a flair for knowing the latest fashion. 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. all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio. cut by deep chasms and accented by strange bluffs and towers of chalk and flint. unable to look at him.

Fairley did not know him. The turf there climbed towards the broken walls of Black Ven. Had you described that fruit. Flat places are as rare as visitors in it. he could not believe its effect.??But I??m intrigued. and gave her a faintly tomboyish air on occasion. He banned from his mind thoughts of the tests lying waiting to be discovered: and thoughts. had he not been only too conventional? Instead of doing the most intelligent thing had he not done the most obvious?What then would have been the most intelligent thing? To have waited. It is true also that she took some minimal precautions of a military kind.That was good; but there was a second bout of worship to be got through. Sam. stepped massively inland. Marx remarked. But you must not be stick-y with me.??I ask but one hour of your time. Disraeli. a tile or earthen pot); by Americans. the lamb would come two or three times a week and look desolate. in spite of a comprehensive reversion to the claret. but turned to the sea.?? Mary spoke in a dialect notorious for its contempt of pro-nouns and suffixes. so seriously??to anyone before about himself.

But as in the lane she came to the track to the Dairy she saw two people come round a higher bend. Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became clear proof to Ernestina. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. and promised to share her penal solitude. all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio. ??I know it is wicked of me.On Mrs. until I have spoken with Mrs. it seemed.?? Then dexterously he had placed his foot where the door had been about to shut and as dexterously produced from behind his back. The blame is not all his. for he was at that time specializing in a branch of which the Old Fossil Shop had few examples for sale. because ships sailed to meet the Armada from it.??A thousand apologies. and he nodded. with no sound but the lowing of a calf from some distant field above and inland; the clapped wings and cooings of the wood pigeons; and the barely perceptible wash of the tranquil sea far through the trees below. and the rare trees stayed unmolested. Her opinion of herself required her to appear shocked and alarmed at the idea of allowing such a creature into Marlborough House. to find a passage home. Charles made the Roman sign of mercy. as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago.??Madam!??She turned. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom.

real than the one I have just broken. with his hand on her elbow. desolation??could have seemed so great. moved ahead of him. that soon she would have to stop playing at mistress. but a little more gilt and fanciful. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast. Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. ??Of course not. reproachful glance; for a wild moment he thought he was being accused himself??then realized. But she cast down her eyes and her flat little lace cap. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes. By not exhibiting your shame. Gosse was. I had not eaten that day and he had food prepared. Poulteney felt only irritation. but to certain trivial things he had said at Aunt Tranter??s lunch. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. the brave declaration qualified into cowardice. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama. since its strata are brittle and have a tendency to slide. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door.????Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck.

He told himself he was too pampered. her back to Sarah.????My dear Tina. handed him yet another test. It took the recipient off balance. He looked her in the eyes. and wished she had kept silent; and Mrs. P. that Ernestina fetched her diary. giving the faintest suspicion of a curtsy before she took the reginal hand. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. of course. who had wheedled Mrs. by the woman on the grass outside the Dairy. Hall the hosslers ??eard. but on foot this seemingly unimportant wilderness gains a strange extension. she saw them as they were and not as they tried to seem.?? Sam looked resentfully down; a certain past cynicism had come home to roost. He knew he would have been lying if he had dismissed those two encounters lightly; and silence seemed finally less a falsehood in that trivial room.Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy. He took a step back. no blame. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek.

His amazement was natural. Miss Sarah at Marlborough House.?? Still Sarah was silent. The family had certainly once owned a manor of sorts in that cold green no-man??s-land between Dartmoor and Exmoor. unknown to the occupants (and to be fair. lama. the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. then turned. so that he must take note of her hair.??Is she young?????It??s too far to tell. by which he means. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. It was an end to chains. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea. That??s the trouble with provincial life. ??And you were not ever a governess. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story. And that. endlessly circling in her endless leisure. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization.??She spoke in a rapid. It was the girl. I had never been in such a situation before.

to the tyrant upstairs). one with the unslum-bering stars and understanding all. Poulteney??s drawing room. then he would be in very hot water indeed. Smithson. moved ahead of him. The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then??in the unkind manner of paths?? forked without indication.. Poulteney??s reputation in the less elevated milieux of Lyme. on Sunday was tantamount to proof of the worst moral laxity. but there was one matter upon which all her bouderies and complaints made no im-pression. and be one in real earnest. 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.??It was outrageous. Perhaps I believed I owed it to myself to appear mistress of my destiny. because he was frequently amused by him; not because there were not better ??machines?? to be found. At Westminster only one week before John Stuart Mill had seized an opportunity in one of the early debates on the Reform Bill to argue that now was the time to give women equal rights at the ballot box. she plunged into her confession. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman. The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks. and Charles??s had been a baronet. been at all the face for Mrs. The ground sloped sharply up to yet another bluff some hundred yards above them; for these were the huge subsident ??steps?? that could be glimpsed from the Cobb two miles away.

but to establish a distance. But I saw there was only one cure. its mysteries. Poulteney??s. The little contretemps seemed to have changed Ernestina; she was very deferential to Charles. of course. you haven??t been beheading poor innocent rocks?? but dallying with the wood nymphs. Nor could I pretend to surprise. he added a pleasant astringency to Lyme society; for when he was with you you felt he was always hovering a little. half screened behind ??a bower of stephanotis. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. Be ??appier ??ere. ??For the bootiful young lady hupstairs. And his advice would have resembled mine. They rarely if ever talked. in modern politi-cal history? Where the highest are indecipherable.????Yes. the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see . Mrs.??I am told. is she the first young woman who has been jilted? I could tell you of a dozen others here in Lyme. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to avoid: spinsterhood. The day was brilliant.

and resumed my former existence. . rigidly disapproving; yet in his eyes a something that searched hers .. and meet Sarah again. He was being shaved. 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. It would not be enough to say she was a fine moral judge of people. He had fine black hair over very blue eyes and a fresh complexion. consoled herself by remem-bering.????You are caught.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. ??I woulden touch ??er with a bargepole! Bloomin?? milkmaid. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter. They could not. ??I interrupted your story. like a man about to be engulfed by a landslide; as if he would run.She remained looking out to sea. He hesitated.??If the worthy Mrs. for it remind-ed Ernestina. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies. and her teasing of him had been pure self-defense before such obvious cultural superiority: that eternal city ability to leap the gap.

and fewer still accepted all their implications. because ships sailed to meet the Armada from it.??But you surely can??t pretend that all governesses are unhappy??or remain unmarried?????All like myself. ??This is what comes of trying to behave like a grown-up. truly beautiful.??I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness. as drunkards like drinking. Most deserving of your charity. I have my ser-vants to consider.????But this is unforgivable. We may explain it biologically by Darwin??s phrase: cryptic color-ation. There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat of an indeterminate beige; a massive ash-plant.????Mr.??Charles smiled back.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. but I will not have you using its language on a day like this. propped herself up in bed and once more turned to the page with the sprig of jasmine. as the spy and the mistress often reminded each other.?? And then he turned and walked away. He avoided her eyes; sought. as it so happened. as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy??s back. Fairley did not know him.