The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  She was too striking a girl not to have had suitors, in spite of the lack of a dowry of any kind. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw their meannesses, their condescensions, their charities, their stupidities. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to avoid: spinsterhood.

  * * *

  Let us imagine the impossible, that Mrs. Poulteney drew up a list of fors and againsts on the subject of Sarah, and on the very day that Charles was occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of his engagement. At least it is conceivable that she might have done it that afternoon, since Sarah, Miss Sarah at Marlborough House, was out.

  And let us start happily, with the credit side of the account. The first item would undoubtedly have been the least expected at the time of committal a year before. It could be written so: "A happier domestic atmosphere." The astonishing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his, or her (statistically it had in the past rather more often proved to be the latter) way.

  It had begun, this bizarre change, one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had taken up her duties, that is, her responsibility for Mrs. Poulteney's soul. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross dereliction of duty: the upstairs maid whose duty it was unfailingly each Tuesday to water the ferns in the second drawing room--Mrs. Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company--had omitted to do so. The ferns looked greenly forgiving; but Mrs. Poulteney was whitely the contrary. The culprit was summoned. She confessed that she had forgotten; Mrs. Poulteney might ponderously have overlooked that, but the girl had a list of two or three recent similar peccadilloes on her charge sheet. Her knell had rung; and Mrs. Poulteney began, with the grim sense of duty of a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar's ankles, to ring it.

  "I will tolerate much, but I will not tolerate this."

  "I'll never do it again, mum."

  "You will most certainly never do it again in my house."

  "Oh, mum. Please, mum."

  Mrs. Poulteney allowed herself to savor for a few earnest, perceptive moments the girl's tears.

  "Mrs. Fairley will give you your wages."

  Miss Sarah was present at this conversation, since Mrs. Poulteney had been dictating letters, mostly to bishops or at least in the tone of voice with which one addresses bishops, to her. She now asked a question; and the effect was remarkable. It was, to begin with, the first question she had asked in Mrs. Poulteney's presence that was not directly connected with her duties. Secondly, it tacitly contradicted the old lady's judgment. Thirdly, it was spoken not to Mrs. Poulteney, but to the girl.

  "Are you quite well, Millie?"

  Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room, or the girl's condition, she startled Mrs. Poulteney by sinking to her knees, at the same time shaking her head and covering her face. Miss Sarah was swiftly beside her; and within the next minute had established that the girl was indeed not well, had fainted twice within the last week, had been too afraid to tell anyone ...

  When, some time later, Miss Sarah returned from the room in which the maids slept, and where Millie had now been put to bed, it was Mrs. Poulteney's turn to ask an astounding question.

  "What am I to do?"

  Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes, and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention.

  "As you think best, ma'm."

  So the rarest flower, forgiveness, was given a precarious footing in Marlborough House; and when the doctor came to look at the maid, and pronounced green sickness, Mrs. Poulteney discovered the perverse pleasures of seeming truly kind. There followed one or two other incidents, which, if not so dramatic, took the same course; but only one or two, since Sarah made it her business to do her own forestalling tours of inspection. Sarah had twigged Mrs. Poulteney, and she was soon as adept at handling her as a skilled cardinal, a weak pope; though for nobler ends.

  The second, more expectable item on Mrs. Poulteney's hypothetical list would have been: "Her voice." If the mistress was defective in more mundane matters where her staff was concerned, she took exceedingly good care of their spiritual welfare. There was the mandatory double visit to church on Sundays; and there was also a daily morning service--a hymn, a lesson, and prayers--over which the old lady pompously presided. Now it had always vexed her that not even her most terrible stares could reduce her servants to that state of utter meekness and repentance which she considered their God (let alone hers) must require. Their normal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. Poulteney and dumb incomprehension--like abashed sheep rather than converted sinners. But Sarah changed all that. Hers was certainly a very beautiful voice, controlled and clear, though always shaded with sorrow and often intense in feeling; but above all, it was a sincere voice. For the first time in her ungrateful little world Mrs. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. That was good; but there was a second bout of worship to be got through. The servants were permitted to hold evening prayer in the kitchen, under Mrs. Fairley's indifferent eye and briskly wooden voice. Upstairs, Mrs. Poulteney had to be read to alone; and it was in these more intimate ceremonies that Sarah's voice was heard at its best and most effective. Once or twice she had done the incredible, by drawing from those pouched, invincible eyes a tear. Such an effect was in no way intended, but sprang from a profound difference between the two women. Mrs. Poulteney believed in a God that had never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did.

  She did not create in her voice, like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson, an unconscious alienation effect of the Brechtian kind ("This is your mayor reading a passage from the Bible") but the very contrary: she spoke directly of the suffering of Christ, of a man born in Nazareth, as if there was no time in history, almost, at times, when the light in the room was dark, and she seemed to forget Mrs. Poulteney's presence, as if she saw Christ on the Cross before her. One day she came to the passage Lama, lama, sabachthane me; and as she read the words she faltered and was silent. Mrs. Poulteney turned to look at her, and realized Sarah's face was streaming with tears. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps, since the old lady rose and touched the girl's drooping shoulder, will one day redeem Mrs. Poulteney's now well-grilled soul.

  I risk making Sarah sound like a bigot. But she had no theology; as she saw through people, she saw through the follies, the vulgar stained glass, the narrow literalness of the Victorian church. She saw that there was suffering; and she prayed that it would end. I cannot say what she might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would have been either a saint or an emperor's mistress. Not because of religiosity on the one hand, or sexuality on the other, but because of that fused rare power that was her

  essence--understanding and emotion.

  There were other items: an ability--formidable in itself and almost unique--not often to get on Mrs. Poulteney's nerves, a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach, a skill with her needle.

  On Mrs. Poulteney's birthday Sarah presented her with an antimacassar--not that any chair Mrs. Poulteney sat in needed such protection, but by that time all chairs without such an adjunct seemed somehow naked--exquisitely embroidered with a border of ferns and lilies-of-the-valley. It pleased Mrs. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently--perhaps after all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal-- reminded the ogress, each time she took her throne, of her protegee's forgivable side. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles.

  Finally--and this had been the crudest ordeal for the victim--Sarah had passed the tract test. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers, Mrs. Poulteney placed great reliance on the power of the tract. Never mind that not one in ten of the recipients could read
them--indeed, quite a number could not read anything--never mind that not one in ten of those who could and did read them understood what the reverend writers were on about ... but each time Sarah departed with a batch to deliver Mrs. Poulteney saw an equivalent number of saved souls chalked up to her account in heaven; and she also saw the French Lieutenant's Woman doing public penance, an added sweet. So did the rest of Lyme, or poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. Poulteney may have realized.

  Sarah evolved a little formula: "From Mrs. Poulteney. Pray read and take to your heart." At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes. Those who had knowing smiles soon lost them; and the loquacious found their words die in their mouths. I think they learned rather more from those eyes than from the close-typed pamphlets thrust into their hands.

  * * *

  But we must now pass to the debit side of the relationship. First and foremost would undoubtedly have been: "She goes out alone." The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free, which was considered by Mrs. 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. All seemed well for two months. Then one morning Miss Sarah did not appear at the Marlborough House matins; and when the maid was sent to look for her, it was discovered that she had not risen. Mrs. Poulteney went to see her. Again Sarah was in tears, but on this occasion Mrs. Poulteney felt only irritation. However, she sent for the doctor. He remained closeted with Sarah a long time. When he came down to the impatient Mrs. Poulteney, 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.

  "If you insist on the most urgent necessity for it."

  "My dear madam, I do. And most emphatically. I will not be responsible otherwise."

  "It is very inconvenient." But the doctor was brutally silent. "I will dispense with her for two afternoons."

  Unlike the vicar, Doctor Grogan was not financially very dependent on Mrs. Poulteney; to be frank, there was not a death certificate in Lyme he would have less sadly signed than hers. But he contained his bile by reminding her that she slept every afternoon; and on his own strict orders. Thus it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty.

  The next debit item was this: "May not always be present with visitors." Here Mrs. Poulteney found herself in a really intolerable dilemma. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen, which meant that Sarah had to be seen. But that face had the most harmful effect on company. Its sadness reproached; its very rare interventions in conversation-- invariably prompted by some previous question that had to be answered (the more intelligent frequent visitors soon learned to make their polite turns towards the companion-secretary clearly rhetorical in nature and intent)--had a disquietingly decisive character about them, not through any desire on Sarah's part to kill the subject but simply because of the innocent imposition of simplicity or common sense on some matter that thrived on the opposite qualities. To Mrs. Poulteney she seemed in this context only too much like one of the figures on a gibbet she dimly remembered from her youth.

  Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy. With certain old-established visitors, 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. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House. It at least allowed Mrs. Poulteney to expatiate on the cross she had to carry, though the cross's withdrawal or absence implied a certain failure in her skill in carrying it, which was most tiresome. Yet Sarah herself could hardly be faulted.

  But I have left the worst matter to the end. It was this: "Still shows signs of attachment to her seducer." Mrs. Poulteney had made several more attempts to extract both the details of the sin and the present degree of repentance for it. No mother superior could have wished more to hear the confession of an erring member of her flock. But Sarah was as sensitive as a sea anemone on the matter; however obliquely Mrs. Poulteney approached the subject, the sinner guessed what was coming; and her answers first interrogation.

  Now Mrs. Poulteney seldom went out, and never on foot, and in her barouche only to the houses of her equals, so that she had to rely on other eyes for news of Sarah's activities outside her house. Fortunately for her such a pair of eyes existed; even better, the mind behind those eyes was directed by malice and resentment, and was therefore happy to bring frequent reports to the thwarted mistress. This spy, of course, was none other than Mrs. Fairley. Though she had found no pleasure in reading, it offended her that she had been demoted; and although Miss Sarah was scrupulously polite to her and took care not to seem to be usurping the housekeeper's functions, there was inevitably some conflict. It did not please Mrs. Fairley that she had a little less work, since that meant also a little less influence. Sarah's saving of Millie--and other more discreet interventions--made her popular and respected downstairs; and perhaps Mrs. Fairley's deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings. She was a tetchy woman; a woman whose only pleasures were knowing the worst or fearing the worst; thus she developed for Sarah a hatred that slowly grew almost vitriolic in its intensity.

  She was too shrewd a weasel not to hide this from Mrs. Poulteney. Indeed she made a pretense of being very sorry for "poor Miss Woodruff" and her reports were plentifully seasoned with "I fear" and "I am afraid." But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying, for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties, but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaintances at her command. To these latter she hinted that Mrs. Poulteney was concerned--of course for the best and most Christian of reasons--to be informed of Miss Woodruff's behavior outside the tall stone walls of the gardens of Marlborough House. The result, Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots, was that Sarah's every movement and expression-- darkly exaggerated and abundantly glossed--in her free hours was soon known to Mrs. Fairley.

  The pattern of her exterior movements--when she was spared the tracts--was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk, down steep Pound Street into steep Broad Street and thence to the Cobb Gate, which is a square terrace overlooking the sea and has nothing to do with the Cobb. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea, but generally not for long--no longer than the careful appraisal a ship's captain gives when he comes out on the bridge--before turning either down Cockmoil or going in the other direction, westwards, along the half-mile path that runs round a gentle bay to the Cobb proper. If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church, and pray for a few minutes (a fact that Mrs. Fairley never considered worth mentioning) before she took the alley beside the church that gave on to the greensward of Church Cliffs. The turf there climbed towards the broken walls of Black Ven. Up this grassland she might be seen walking, with frequent turns towards the sea, to where the path joined the old road to Charmouth, now long eroded into the Ven, whence she would return to Lyme. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or circumstance made it deserted, she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there, it was supposed, she felt herself nearest to France.

  All this, suitably distorted and draped in black, came back to Mrs. Poulteney. But she was then in the first possessive pleasure of her new toy, and as sympathetically disposed as it was in her sour and suspicious old nature to be. She did not, however, hesitate to take the toy to task.

  "I am told, Miss Woodruff, that you are always to be seen in the same places when you go out." Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. "You look to sea." Still Sarah was silent. "I am satisfied that you are in a state of repentance. Indeed I cannot believe that you should be anything else in your present circumstances."

  Sarah took her cue. "I am grateful to you, ma'm."


  "I am not concerned with your gratitude to me. There is One Above who has a prior claim."

  The girl murmured, "How should I not know it?"

  "To the ignorant it may seem that you are persevering in your sin."

  "If they know my story, ma'm, they cannot think that."

  "But they do think that. I am told they say you are looking for Satan's sails."

  Sarah rose then and went to the window. It was early summer, and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds' songs. She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself, then turned back to the old lady, who sat as implacably in her armchair as the Queen on her throne.

  "Do you wish me to leave, ma'm?"

  Mrs. Poulteney was inwardly shocked. Once again Sarah's simplicity took all the wind from her swelling spite. The voice, the other charms, to which she had become so addicted! Far worse, she might throw away the interest accruing to her on those heavenly ledgers. She moderated her tone.

  "I wish you to show that this ... person is expunged from your heart. I know that he is. But you must show it."