The French Lieutenant’s Woman

by John Robert Fowles

  “You are caught, sir. You have no excuse.”

  But sufficient excuses or penance Charles must have made, for the very next lunchtime he had the courage to complain when Ernestina proposed for the nineteenth time to discuss the furnishings of his study in the as yet unfound house. Leaving his very comfortable little establishment in Kensington was not the least of Charles’s impending sacrifices; and he could bear only just so much reminding of it. Aunt Tranter backed him up, and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his “wretched grubbing” among the stones.

  He knew at once where he wished to go. He had had no thought except for the French Lieutenant’s Woman when he found her on that wild cliff meadow; but he had just had enough time to notice, at the foot of the little bluff whose flat top was the meadow, considerable piles of fallen flint. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place. The new warmth, the intensification of love between Ernestina and himself had driven all thought, or all but the most fleeting, casual thought, of Mrs. Poulteney’s secretary from his conscious mind.

  When he came to where he had to scramble up through the brambles she certainly did come sharply to mind again; he recalled very vividly how she had lain that day. But when he crossed the grass and looked down at her ledge, it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. He found a way down to the foot of the bluff and began to search among the scree for his tests. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion, but the wind was out of the north. At the foot of the south-facing bluff, therefore, it was agreeably warm; and an additional warmth soon came to Charles when he saw an excellent test, seemingly not long broken from its flint matrix, lying at his feet.

  Forty minutes later, however, he had to resign himself to the fact that he was to have no further luck, at least among the flints below the bluff. He regained the turf above and walked towards the path that led back into the woods. And there, a dark movement!

  She was halfway up the steep little path, too occupied in disengaging her coat from a recalcitrant bramble to hear Charles’s turf-silenced approach. As soon as he saw her he stopped. The path was narrow and she had the right of way. But then she saw him. They stood some fifteen feet apart, both clearly embarrassed, though with very different expressions. Charles was smiling; and Sarah stared at him with profound suspicion.

  “Miss Woodruff!”

  She gave him an imperceptible nod, and seemed to hesitate, as if she would have turned back if she could. But then she realized he was standing to one side for her and made hurriedly to pass him. Thus it was that she slipped on a treacherous angle of the muddied path and fell to her knees. He sprang forward and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal, unable to look at him, trembling, dumb.

  Very gently, with his hand on her elbow, he urged her forward on to the level turf above the sea. She wore the same black coat, the same indigo dress with the white collar. But whether it was because she had slipped, or he held her arm, or the colder air, I do not know, but her skin had a vigor, a pink bloom, that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor. The wind had blown her hair a little loose; and she had a faint touch of a boy caught stealing apples from an orchard… a guilt, yet a mutinous guilt. Suddenly she looked at Charles, a swift sideways and upward glance from those almost exophthalmic dark-brown eyes with their clear whites: a look both timid and forbidding. It made him drop her arm.

  “I dread to think, Miss Woodruff, what would happen if you should one day turn your ankle in a place like this.”

  “It does not matter.”

  “But it would most certainly matter, my dear young lady. From your request to me last week I presume you don’t wish Mrs. Poulteney to know you come here. Heaven forbid that I should ask for your reasons. But I must point out that if you were in some way disabled I am the only person in Lyme who could lead your rescuers to you. Am I not?”

  “She knows. She would guess.”

  “She knows you come here—to this very place?”

  She stared at the turf, as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go. But there was something in that face, which Charles examined closely in profile, that made him determine not to go. All in it had been sacrificed, he now realized, to the eyes. They could not conceal an intelligence, an independence of spirit; there was also a silent contradiction of any sympathy; a determination to be what she was. Delicate, fragile, arched eyebrows were then the fashion, but Sarah’s were strong, or at least unusually dark, almost the color of her hair, which made them seem strong, and gave her a faintly tomboyish air on occasion. I do not mean that she had one of those masculine, handsome, heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age—the Gibson Girl type of beauty. Her face was well modeled, and completely feminine; and the suppressed intensity of her eyes was matched by the suppressed sensuality of her mouth, which was wide—and once again did not correspond with current taste, which veered between pretty little almost lipless mouths and childish cupid’s bows. Charles, like most men of his time, was still faintly under the influence of Lavater’s Physiognomy. He noted that mouth, and was not deceived by the fact that it was pressed unnaturally tight.

  Echoes, that one flashed glance from those dark eyes had certainly roused in Charles’s mind; but they were not English ones. He associated such faces with foreign women—to be frank (much franker than he would have been to himself) with foreign beds. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker qualities.

  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 shared enough of his contemporaries’ prejudices to suspect sensuality in any form; but whereas they would, by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego, have made Sarah vaguely responsible for being born as she was, he did not. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies. Darwinism, as its shrewder opponents realized, let open the floodgates to something far more serious than the undermining of the Biblical account of the origins of man; its deepest implications lay in the direction of determinism and behaviorism, that is, towards philosophies that reduce morality to a hypocrisy and duty to a straw hut in a hurricane. I do not mean that Charles completely exonerated Sarah; but he was far less inclined to blame her than she might have imagined.

  Partly then, his scientific hobbies… but Charles had also the advantage of having read—very much in private, for the book had been prosecuted for obscenity—a novel that had appeared in France some ten years before; a novel profoundly deterministic in its assumptions, the celebrated Madame Bovary. And as he looked down at the face beside him, it was suddenly, out of nowhere, that Emma Bovary’s name sprang into his mind. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. That is why, finally, he did not bow and withdraw.

  At last she spoke.

  “I did not know you were here.”

  “How should you?”

  “I must return.”

  And she turned. But he spoke quickly.

  “Will you permit me to say something first? Something I have perhaps, as a stranger to you and your circumstances, no right to say.” She stood with bowed head, her back to him. “May I proceed?”

  She was silent. He hesitated a moment, then spoke.

  “Miss Woodruff, I cannot pretend that your circumstances have not been discussed in front of me… by Mrs. Tranter. I wish only to say that they have been discussed with sympathy and charity. She believes you are not happy in your present situation, which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. I have known Mrs. Tranter only a very short time. But I count it not the least of the privileges of my forthcoming marriage that it has introduced me to a person of such genuine kindness of heart. I will come to the point. I am confident—”

  He broke
off as she looked quickly round at the trees behind them. Her sharper ears had heard a sound, a branch broken underfoot. But before he could ask her what was wrong, he too heard men’s low voices. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east, some forty yards; and there disappeared behind a thicket of gorse that had crept out a little over the turf. Charles stood dumbfounded, a mute party to her guilt.

  The men’s voices sounded louder. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. It was fortunate that he did, for just as the lower path came into his sight, so also did two faces, looking up; and both sharply surprised. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood. Charles opened his mouth to bid them good day; but the faces disappeared with astonishing quickness. He heard a hissed voice—“Run for ‘un, Jem!”—and the sound of racing footsteps. A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle, and the excited whimper of a dog. Then silence.

  He waited a minute, until he was certain they had gone, then he walked round to the gorse. She stood pressed sideways against the sharp needles, her face turned away.

  “They have gone. Two poachers, I fancy.”

  She nodded, but continued to avoid his eyes. The gorse was in full bloom, the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. The air was full of their honeyed musk.

  He said, “I think that was not necessary.”

  “No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme.”

  And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. He smiled at her averted face.

  “I think the only truly scarlet things about you are your cheeks.”

  Her eyes flashed round at him then, as if he were torturing some animal at bay. Then she turned away again.

  Charles said gently, “Do not misunderstand me. I deplore your unfortunate situation. As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. But it is indifferent to the esteem of such as Mrs. Poulteney.”

  She did not move. He continued smiling, at ease in all his travel, his reading, his knowledge of a larger world.

  “My dear Miss Woodruff, I have seen a good deal of life. And I have a long nose for bigots… whatever show of solemn piety they present to the world. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say.”

  He stepped aside and she walked out again onto the cropped turf. He saw that her eyelashes were wet. He did not force his presence on her, but spoke from some yards behind her back.

  “Mrs. Tranter would like—is most anxious to help you, if you wish to change your situation.”

  Her only answer was to shake her head.

  “No one is beyond help… who inspires sympathy in others.” He paused. The sharp wind took a wisp of her hair and blew it forward. She nervously smoothed it back into place. “I am merely saying what I know Mrs. Tranter would wish to say herself.”

  Charles was not exaggerating; for during the gay lunch that followed the reconciliation, Mrs. Poulteney and Sarah had been discussed. Charles had been but a brief victim of the old lady’s power; and it was natural that they should think of her who was a permanent one. Charles determined, now that he had rushed in so far where less metropolitan angels might have feared to tread, to tell Sarah their conclusion that day.

  “You should leave Lyme… this district. I understand you have excellent qualifications. I am sure a much happier use could be found for them elsewhere.” Sarah made no response. “I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London.”

  She walked away from him then, to the edge of the cliff meadow; and stared out to sea a long moment; then turned to look at him still standing by the gorse: a strange, glistening look, so direct that he smiled: one of those smiles the smiler knows are weak, but cannot end.

  She lowered her eyes. “I thank you. But I cannot leave this place.”

  He gave the smallest shrug. He felt baffled, obscurely wronged. “Then once again I have to apologize for intruding on your privacy. I shall not do so again.”

  He bowed and turned to walk away. But he had not gone two steps before she spoke.

  “I… I know Mrs. Tranter wishes to be kind.”

  “Then permit her to have her wish.”

  She looked at the turf between them.

  “To be spoken to again as if… as if I am not whom I am… I am most grateful. But such kindness…”

  “Such kindness?”

  “Such kindness is crueler to me than—”

  She did not finish the sentence, but turned to the sea. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoulders and shake her; tragedy is all very well on the stage, but it can seem mere perversity in ordinary life. And that, in much less harsh terms, is what he then said.

  “What you call my obstinacy is my only succor.”

  “Miss Woodruff, let me be frank. I have heard it said that you are… not altogether of sound mind. I think that is very far from true. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct. Now why in heaven’s name must you always walk alone? Have you not punished yourself enough? You are young. You are able to gain your living. You have no family ties, I believe, that confine you to Dorset.”

  “I have ties.”

  “To this French gentleman?” She turned away, as if that subject was banned. “Permit me to insist—these matters are like wounds. If no one dares speak of them, they fester. If he does not return, he was not worthy of you. If he returns, I cannot believe that he will be so easily put off, should he not find you in Lyme Regis, as not to discover where you are and follow you there. Now is that not common sense?”

  There was a long silence. He moved, though still several feet away, so that he could see the side of her face. Her expression was strange, almost calm, as if what he had said had confirmed some deep knowledge in her heart.

  She remained looking out to sea, where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. She spoke quietly, as if to the distant ship.

  “He will never return.”

  “You fear he will never return?”

  “I know he will never return.”

  “I do not take your meaning.”

  She turned then and looked at Charles’s puzzled and solicitous face. For a long moment she seemed almost to enjoy his bewilderment. Then she looked away.

  “I have long since received a letter. The gentleman is…” and again she was silent, as if she wished she had not revealed so much. Suddenly she was walking, almost running, across the turf towards the path.

  “Miss Woodruff!”

  She took a step or two more, then turned; and again those eyes both repelled and lanced him. Her voice had a pent-up harshness, yet as much implosive as directed at Charles.

  “He is married!”

  “Miss Woodruff!”

  But she took no notice. He was left standing there. His amazement was natural. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. It was as if he had shown a callous lack of sympathy, when he was quite sure he had done his best. He stared after her several moments after she had disappeared. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig, as if that might provide an answer to this enigma. But it did not.

  17

  The boats, the sands, the esplanade,

  The laughing crowd;

  Light-hearted, loud

  Greetings from some not ill-endowed:

  The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,

  Railings and halts,

  The keen sea-salts,

  The band, the Morgenblätter Waltz.

  Still, when at night I drew inside

  Forward she came,

  Sad, but the same…

  Hardy, At a Seaside Town in 1869

  That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. T
ranter and Ernestina in the Assembly Rooms. The Lyme Assembly Rooms were perhaps not much, compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing, with their spacious proportions and windows facing the sea. Too pleasing, alas, and too excellent a common meeting place not to be sacrificed to that Great British God, Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down, by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal bladder, to make way for what can very fairly claim to be the worst-sited and ugliest public lavatory in the British Isles.

  You must not think, however, that the Poulteney contingent in Lyme objected merely to the frivolous architecture of the Assembly Rooms. It was what went on there that really outraged them. The place provoked whist, and gentlemen with cigars in their mouths, and balls, and concerts. In short, it encouraged pleasure; and Mrs. Poulteney and her kind knew very well that the only building a decent town could allow people to congregate in was a church. When the Assembly Rooms were torn down in Lyme, the heart was torn out of the town; and no one has yet succeeded in putting it back.

  Charles and his ladies were in the doomed building for a concert. It was not, of course—it being Lent—a secular concert. The programme was unrelievedly religious. Even that shocked the narrower-minded in Lyme, who professed, at least in public, a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan. There were accordingly some empty seats before the fern-fringed dais at one end of the main room, where the concerts were held.

  Our broader-minded three had come early, like most of the rest of the audience; for these concerts were really enjoyed—in true eighteenth-century style—as much for the company as for the music. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors’ finery; and of course to show off their own. Even Ernestina, with all her contempt for the provinces, fell a victim to this vanity. At least here she knew she would have few rivals in the taste and luxury of her clothes; and the surreptitious glances at her little “plate” hat (no stuffy old bonnets for her) with its shamrock-and-white ribbons, her vert esperance dress, her mauve-and-black pelisse, her Balmoral boots, were an agreeable compensation for all the boredom inflicted at other times.