I am not doing well by Ernestina, who was after all a victim of circumstances; of an illiberal environment. It is, of course, its essentially schizophrenic outlook on society that makes the middle class such a peculiar mixture of yeast and dough. We tend nowadays to forget that it has always been the great revolutionary class; we see much more the doughy aspect, the bourgeoisie as the heartland of reaction, the universal insult, forever selfish and conforming. Now this Janus-like quality derives from the class’s one saving virtue, which is this: that alone of the three great castes of society it sincerely and habitually despises itself. Ernestina was certainly no exception here. It was not only Charles who heard an unwelcome acidity in her voice; she heard it herself. But her tragedy (and one that remains ubiquitous) was that she misapplied this precious gift of self-contempt and so made herself a victim of her class’s perennial lack of faith in itself. Instead of seeing its failings as a reason to reject the entire class system, she saw them as a reason to seek a higher. She cannot be blamed, of course; she had been hopelessly well trained to view society as so many rungs on a ladder; thus reducing her own to a mere step to something supposedly better.
Thus (“I am shameful, I have behaved like a draper’s daughter”) it was, in the small hours, that Ernestina gave up the attempt to sleep, rose and pulled on her peignoir, and then unlocked her diary. Perhaps Charles would see that her window was also still penitentially bright in the heavy darkness that followed the thunderstorm. Meanwhile, she set herself to composition.
I cannot sleep. Dearest C. is displeased with me—I was so very upset at the dreadful news from Winsyatt. I wished to cry, I was so very vexed, but I foolishly said many angry, spiteful things—which I ask God to forgive me, remembering I said them out of love for dearest C. and not wickedness. I did weep most terribly when he went away. Let this be a lesson to me to take the beautiful words of the Marriage Service to my conscience, to honor and obey my dearest Charles even when my feelings would drive me to contradict him. Let me earnestly and humbly learn to bend my horrid, spiteful willfulness to his much greater wisdom, let me cherish his judgment and chain myself to his heart, for “The sweet of true Repentance is the gate to Holy Bliss.”
You may have noted a certain lack of Ernestina’s normal dryness in this touching paragraph; but Charles was not alone in having several voices. And just as she hoped he might see the late light in her room, so did she envisage a day when he might coax her into sharing this intimate record of her prenuptial soul. She wrote partly for his eyes—as, like every other Victorian woman, she wrote partly for His eyes. She went relieved to bed, so totally and suitably her betrothed’s chastened bride in spirit that she leaves me no alternative but to conclude that she must, in the end, win Charles back from his infidelity.
And she was still fast asleep when a small drama took place four floors below her. Sam had not got up quite as early as his master that morning. When he went into the hotel kitchen for his tea and toasted cheese—one thing few Victorian servants did was eat less than their masters, whatever their lack of gastronomic propriety—the boots greeted him with the news that his master had gone out; and that Sam was to pack and strap and be ready to leave at noon. Sam hid his shock. Packing and strapping was but half an hour’s work. He had more pressing business.
He went immediately to Aunt Tranter’s house. What he said we need not inquire, except that it must have been penetrated with tragedy, since when Aunt Tranter (who kept uncivilized rural hours) came down to the kitchen only a minute later, she found Mary slumped in a collapse of tears at the kitchen table. The deaf cook’s sarcastic uplift of her chin showed there was little sympathy there. Mary was interrogated; and Aunt Tranter soon elicited, in her briskly gentle way, the source of misery; and applied a much kinder remedy than Charles had. The maid might be off till Ernestina had to be attended to; since Miss Ernestina’s heavy brocade curtains customarily remained drawn until ten, that was nearly three hours’ grace. Aunt Tranter was rewarded by the most grateful smile the world saw that day. Five minutes later Sam was to be seen sprawling in the middle of Broad Street. One should not run full tilt across cobbles, even to a Mary.
33
O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown, No witness to the vision call, Beholding, unbeheld of all…
A. H. Clough, Poem (1852)
It would be difficult to say who was more shocked—the master frozen six feet from the door, or the servants no less frozen some thirty yards away. So astounded were the latter that Sam did not even remove his arm from round Mary’s waist. What broke the tableau was the appearance of the fourth figure: Sarah, wildly, in the doorway. She withdrew so swiftly that the sight was barely more than subliminal. But it was enough. Sam’s mouth fell open and his arm dropped from Mary’s waist.
“What the devil are you doing here?”
“Out walkin’, Mr. Charles.”
“I thought I left instructions to—”
“I done it, sir. S’all ready.”
Charles knew he was lying. Mary had turned away, with a delicacy that became her. Charles hesitated, then strode up to Sam, through whose mind flashed visions of dismissal, assault.
“We didn’t know, Mr. Charles. ‘Onest we didn’t.”
Mary flashed a shy look back at Charles: there was shock in it, and fear, but the faintest touch of a sly admiration. He addressed her.
“Kindly leave us alone a moment.” The girl bobbed and began to walk quickly out of earshot. Charles eyed Sam, who reverted to his humblest footman self and stared intently at his master’s boots. “I have come here on that business I mentioned.”
“Yes, sir.”
Charles dropped his voice. “At the request of the physician who is treating her. He is fully aware of the circumstances.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which must on no account be disclosed.”
“I hunderstand, Mr. Charles.”
“Does she?”
Sam looked up. “Mary won’t say nuffink, sir. On my life.”
Now Charles looked down. He was aware that his cheeks were deep red. “Very well. I… I thank you. And I’ll see that… here.” He fumbled for his purse.
“Oh no, Mr. Charles.” Sam took a small step back, a little overdramatically to convince a dispassionate observer. “Never.”
Charles’s hand came to a mumbling stop. A look passed between master and servant. Perhaps both knew a shrewd sacrifice had just been made.
“Very well. I will make it up to you. But not a word.”
“On my slombest hoath, Mr. Charles.”
With this dark superlative (most solemn and best) Sam turned and went after his Mary, who now waited, her back discreetly turned, some hundred yards off in the gorse and bracken.
Why their destination should have been the barn, one can only speculate; it may have already struck you as curious that a sensible girl like Mary should have burst into tears at the thought of a mere few days’ absence. But let us leave Sam and Mary as they reeenter the woods, walk a little way in shocked silence, then covertly catch each other’s eyes—and dissolve into a helpless paralysis of silent laughter; and return to the scarlet-faced Charles.
He watched them out of sight, then glanced back at the uninformative barn. His behavior had rent his profoundest being, but the open air allowed him to reflect a moment. Duty, as so often, came to his aid. He had flagrantly fanned the forbidden fire. Even now the other victim might be perishing in its flames, casting the rope over the beam… He hesitated, then marched back to the barn and Sarah.
She stood by the window’s edge, hidden from view from outside, as if she had tried to hear what had passed between Charles and Sam. He stood by the door.
“You must forgive me for taking an unpardonable advantage of your unhappy situation.” He paused, then went on. “And not only this morning.” She looked down. He was relieved to see that she seemed abashed, no longer wild. “The last thing I wished was to engage your aff
ections. I have behaved very foolishly. Very foolishly. It is I who am wholly to blame.” She stared at the rough stone floor between them, the prisoner awaiting sentence. “The damage is done, alas. I must ask you now to help me repair it.” Still she refused his invitation to speak. “Business calls me to London. I do not know for how long.” She looked at him then, but only for a moment. He stumbled on. “I think you should go to Exeter. I beg you to take the money in this purse—as a loan, if you wish… until you can find a suitable position… and if you should need any further pecuniary assistance…” His voice tailed off. It had become progressively more formal. He knew he must sound detestable. She turned her back on him.
“I shall never see you again.”
“You cannot expect me to deny that.”
“Though seeing you is all I live for.”
The terrible threat hung in the silence that followed. He dared not bring it into the open. He felt like a man in irons; and his release came as unexpectedly as to a condemned prisoner. She looked round, and patently read his thought.
“If I had wished to kill myself, I have had reason enough before now.” She looked out of the window. “I accept your loan… with gratitude.”
His eyes closed in a moment of silent thanksgiving. He placed the purse—not the one Ernestina had embroidered for him—on a ledge by the door.
“You will go to Exeter?”
“If that is your advice.”
“It most emphatically is.”
She bowed her head.
“And I must tell you something else. There is talk in the town of committing you to an institution.” Her eyes flashed round. “The idea emanates from Marlborough House, no doubt. You need not take it seriously. For all that, you may save yourself embarrassment if you do not return to Lyme.” He hesitated, then said, “I understand a party is to come shortly searching for you again. That is why I came so early.”
“My box…”
“I will see to that. I will have it sent to the depot at Exeter. It occurred to me that if you have the strength, it might be wiser to walk to Axmouth Cross. That would avoid…” scandal for them both. But he knew what he was asking. Axmouth was seven miles away; and the Cross, where the coaches passed, two miles farther still.
She assented.
“And you will let Mrs. Tranter know as soon as you have found a situation?”
“I have no references.”
“You may give Mrs. Talbot’s name. And Mrs. Tranter’s. I will speak to her. And you are not to be too proud to call on her for further financial provision, should it be necessary. I shall see to that as well before I leave.”
“It will not be necessary.” Her voice was almost inaudible. “But I thank you.”
“I think it is I who have to thank you.”
She glanced up into his eyes. The lance was still there, the seeing him whole.
“You are a very remarkable person, Miss Woodruff. I feel deeply ashamed not to have perceived it earlier.”
She said, “Yes, I am a remarkable person.”
But she said it without pride; without sarcasm; with no more than a bitter simplicity. And the silence flowed back. He bore it as long as he could, then took out his half hunter, a very uninspired hint that he must leave. He felt his clumsiness, his stiffness, her greater dignity than his; perhaps he still felt her lips.
“Will you not walk with me back to the path?”
He would not let her, at this last parting, see he was ashamed. If Grogan appeared, it would not matter now. But Grogan did not appear. Sarah preceded him, through the dead bracken and living gorse in the early sunlight, the hair glinting; silent, not once turning. Charles knew very well that Sam and Mary might be watching, but it now seemed better that they should see him openly with her. The way led up through trees and came at last to the main path. She turned. He stepped beside her, his hand out.
She hesitated, then held out her own. He gripped it firmly, forbidding any further folly.
He murmured, “I shall never forget you.”
She raised her face to his, with an imperceptible yet searching movement of her eyes; as if there was something he must see, it was not too late: a truth beyond his truths, an emotion beyond his emotions, a history beyond all his conceptions of history. As if she could say worlds; yet at the same time knew that if he could not apprehend those words without her saying them…
It lasted a long moment. Then he dropped his eyes, and her hand.
A minute later he looked back. She stood where he had left her, watching him. He raised his hat. She made no sign.
Ten minutes later still, he stopped at a gateway on the seaward side of the track to the Dairy. It gave a view down across fields towards the Cobb. In the distance below a short figure mounted the fieldpath towards the gate where Charles stood. He drew back a little, hesitated a moment… then went on his own way along the track to the lane that led down to the town.
34
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
Hardy, During Wind and Rain
“You have been walking.”
His second change of clothes was thus proved a vain pretense.
“I needed to clear my mind. I slept badly.”
“So did I.” She added, “You said you were fatigued beyond belief.”
“I was.”
“But you stayed up until after one o’clock.”
Charles turned somewhat abruptly to the window. “I had many things to consider.”
Ernestina’s part in this stiff exchange indicates a certain failure to maintain in daylight the tone of her nocturnal self-adjurations. But besides the walking she also knew, via Sam, Mary and a bewildered Aunt Tranter, that Charles planned to leave Lyme that day. She had determined not to demand an explanation of this sudden change of intention; let his lordship give it in his own good time.
And then, when he had finally come, just before eleven, and while she sat primly waiting in the back parlor, he had had the unkindness to speak at length in the hall to Aunt Tranter, and inaudibly, which was the worst of all. Thus she inwardly seethed.
Perhaps not the least of her resentments was that she had taken especial pains with her toilet that morning, and he had not paid her any compliment on it. She wore a rosepink “breakfast” dress with bishop sleeves—tight at the delicate armpit, then pleating voluminously in a froth of gauze to the constricted wrist. It set off her fragility very prettily; and the white ribbons in her smooth hair and a delicately pervasive fragrance of lavender water played their part. She was a sugar Aphrodite, though with faintly bruised eyes, risen from a bed of white linen. Charles might have found it rather easy to be cruel. But he managed a smile and sitting beside her, took one of her hands, and patted it.
“My dearest, I must ask forgiveness. I am not myself. And I fear I’ve decided I must go to London.”
“Oh Charles!”
“I wish it weren’t so. But this new turn of events makes it imperative I see Montague at once.” Montague was the solicitor, in those days before accountants, who looked after Charles’s affairs.
“Can you not wait till I return? It is only ten more days.”
“I shall return to bring you back.”
“But cannot Mr. Montague come here?”
“Alas no, there are so many papers. Besides, that is not my only purpose. I must inform your father of what has happened.”
She removed her hand from his arm.
“But what is it to do with him?”
“My dear child, it has everything to do with him. He has entrusted you to my care. Such a grave alteration in my prospects—”
“But you have still your own income!”
“Well… of course, yes, I shall always be comfortably off. But there are other things. The title…”
“I had forgotten that. Of course. It’s quite impossible that I should marry a mere commoner.” She glanced back at him with an appropriately sarcastic firmness.
“My sweet, be patient. These things
have to be said—you bring a great sum of money with you. Of course our private affections are the paramount consideration. However, there is a… well, a legal and contractual side to matrimony which—”
“Fiddlesticks!”
“My dearest Tina…”
“You know perfectly well they would allow me to marry a Hottentot if I wanted.”
“That may be so. But even the most doting parents prefer to be informed—”
“How many rooms has the Belgravia house?” “I have no idea.” He hesitated, then added, “Twenty, I daresay.”
“And you mentioned one day that you had two and a half thousand a year. To which my dowry will bring—”
“Whether our changed circumstances are still sufficient for comfort is not at issue.”
“Very well. Suppose Papa tells you you cannot have my hand. What then?”
The French Lieutenant’s Woman Page 25
