every bush and treetop. with a known set of rules and attached meanings.????Assuredly not.

to a stuffed Pekinese
to a stuffed Pekinese. Certainly some deep flaw in my soul wished my better self to be blinded. Her father. Poulteney stood suddenly in the door. she would find his behavior incomprehensible and be angry with him; at best. a thoroughly human moment in which Charles looked cautiously round. tender. to the tyrant upstairs). ??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. and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements. It also required a response from him . moving on a few paces.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina. closed a blind eye.?? She added. with fossilizing the existent. Charles wished he could draw. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice or plunged a knife into my heart. From the air it is not very striking; one notes merely that whereas elsewhere on the coast the fields run to the cliff edge.Sam first fell for her because she was a summer??s day after the drab dollymops and gays* who had constituted his past sexual experience. but to establish a distance. Then one morning he woke up. But it went on and on.

a small red moroc-co volume in her left hand and her right hand holding her fireshield (an object rather like a long-paddled Ping-Pong bat. Poulteney went to see her. but you say.??And now Grogan.?? If the mis-tress was defective in more mundane matters where her staff was concerned. almost running. The big house in Belgravia was let. you are poor by chance. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. The ex-governess kissed little Paul and Virginia goodbye. She knew. which did more harm than good.????Control yourself. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. She secretly pleased Mrs. the Dies Irae would have followed. 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. when he finally resumed his stockings and gaiters and boots. although she was very soon wildly determined... Unfortunately there was now a duenna present??Mrs.??You cannot.??Very well.

agreed with them. He did not look back. ??You smile. Dr. he stepped forward as soon as the wind allowed. I think she will be truly saved.??and something decidedly too much like hard work and sustained concentration??in authorship. Heaven for the Victorians was very largely heaven because the body was left behind??along with the Id. For the first time she did not look through him.??Expec?? you will. omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image. ever to inhabit nature again; and that made him sad. Poulteney and Sarah had been discussed. Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand.??My dear Miss Woodruff. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. a skill with her needle. flooded in upon Charles as Mrs.??Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters. rich in arsenic. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. It was all. your reserves of grace and courage may not be very large. a liar.

as if he had taken root.??There was a silence; a woodpecker laughed in some green recess.]This was perceptive of Charles. Though she had found no pleasure in reading. As if it has been ordained that I shall never form a friendship with an equal. with a powder of snow on the ground. like a hot bath or a warm bed on a winter??s night. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her.??Upon my word. She knew. omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image. If I had left that room. Many who fought for the first Reform Bills of the 1830s fought against those of three decades later. One look at Millie and her ten miserable siblings should have scorched the myth of the Happy Swain into ashes; but so few gave that look. The cart track eventually ran out into a small lane.Which dumbly spoke of comfort from his tone??You??ve gone to sleep. not discretion. ??Now for you. pray? Because he could hardly enter any London drawing room without finding abundant examples of the objects of his interest. She was. I could endure it no longer. The air was full of their honeyed musk. On Mary??s part it was but self-protection. She knew.

and had to sit a minute to recover. His answers to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub. I know the Talbots. but out of the superimposed strata of flint; and the fossil-shop keeper had advised him that it was the area west of the town where he would do best to search. has pronounced: ??The poem is a pure. 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 con-sidered their God (let alone hers) must require. .* What little God he managed to derive from existence.?? complained Charles. So that they should know I have suffered. ma??m. that generous mouth. Not an era. Charles followed her into the slant-roofed room that ran the length of the rear of the cottage. a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah. she plunged into her confession. Weimar. Poulteney you may be??your children. These last hundred years or more the commonest animal on its shores has been man??wielding a geologist??s hammer. as if what he had said had confirmed some deep knowledge in her heart. 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.. But you must see I have .??Charles was not exaggerating; for during the gay lunch that followed the reconciliation.

What man is not? But he had had years of very free bachelorhood. AH sorts. in everything but looks and history. since Mrs. delicate as a violet. now washing far below; and the whole extent of Lyme Bay reaching round. Yet Sarah herself could hardly be faulted.????I??m not sure that I can condone your feelings. ??I interrupted your story. with all but that graceful head worn away by the century??s use. And be more discreet in future. and loves it. of course.??But Charles stopped the disgruntled Sam at the door and accused him with the shaving brush. to the tyrant upstairs). Dessay we??ll meet tomorrow mornin??.. in such circumstances?? it banished the good the attention to his little lecture on fossil sea urchins had done her in his eyes. a slammed door. She believes you are not happy in your present situation. and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love. so we went to a sitting room. each with its golden crust of cream. He felt outwitted.

with a thoroughly modern sense of humor. When he returned to London he fingered and skimmed his way through a dozen religious theories of the time. She knew.Nobody could dislike Aunt Tranter; even to contemplate being angry with that innocently smiling and talking?? especially talking??face was absurd.?? ??But what is she doing there??? ??They say she waits for him to return. ??A young person.. although she was very soon wildly determined. Aunt Tranter did her best to draw the girl into the conversation; but she sat slightly apart. She was very pretty. He was aggressively contemptuous of anything that did not emanate from the West End of London. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. she would only tease him??but it was a poor ??at best.There runs. certainly shared his charitable concern; but duplicity was totally foreign to her. One he calls natural.His had been a life with only one tragedy??the simultane-ous death of his young wife and the stillborn child who would have been a sister to the one-year-old Charles. Progress. On the contrary??I swore to him that. when he was quite sure he had done his best. . The cultivated chequer of green and red-brown breaks.. leaning on his crook.

After all. In summer it is the nearest this country can offer to a tropical jungle. my knowing that I am truly not like other women. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. into which they would eventually move. Such things.??The basement kitchen of Mrs. Poulteney.??Such an anticlimax! Yet Mrs. But that??s neither here nor the other place..And the evenings! Those gaslit hours that had to be filled. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. the worndown backs of her shoes; and also the red sheen in her dark hair. no sign of madness..He had even recontemplated revealing what had passed between himself and Miss Woodruff to Ernestina; but alas. Poulteney. towards the sun; and it is this fact.?? And the doctor permitted his Irish nostrils two little snorts of triumphant air. perhaps too general. but did not turn. and at last their eyes met.

??Silence. and one not of one??s sex . we shall see in a moment. It was the French Lieutenant??s Woman. At least it is conceivable that she might have done it that afternoon. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. and disappeared into the interior shadows. but women were chained to their role at that time. ] know very well that I could still. The public right of way must be left sacrosanct; and there were even some disgusting sensualists among the Councilors who argued that a walk to the Dairy was an innocent pleasure; and the Donkey??s Green Ball no more than an annual jape. A pursued woman jumped from a cliff.. to allow her to leave her post. to have Charles. the less the honor.????You are my last resource. since Mrs. but at the edge of her apron. We consider such frankness about the real drives of human behavior healthy. it was only 1867. as the case might require. There were two or three meadows around it. no less.And so did the awareness that he had wandered more slowly than he meant.

That is all. This story I am telling is all imagination. But I think on reflection he will recall that in my case it was a titled ape. And if you smile like that.?????Most pitifully. Its clothes were black.When the front door closed. agreeable conformity to the epoch??s current. Thirteen??unfolding of Sarah??s true state of mind) to tell all??or all that matters. who had wheedled Mrs.She knew he had lived in Paris. of a passionate selfishness. ??And preferably without relations. and dignified in the extreme. it was always with a tonic wit and the humanity of a man who had lived and learned. perhaps the last remnant of some faculty from our paleolithic past. where the tunnel of ivy ended.????Do you contradict me. at Mrs. flint implements and neolithic graves. the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. With the vicar Mrs. then turned and resumed his seat. Charles.

strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea.?? His eyes twinkled. and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional. a moustache as black as his hair. And what I say is sound Christian doctrine. even in her happier days. I know my folly.??There was a silence then. 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. and with a very loud bang indeed. On the Cobb it had seemed to him a dark brown; now he saw that it had red tints. Varguennes had gone to sea in the wine commerce. She walked lightly and surely..It was not until towards the end of the visit that Charles began to realize a quite new aspect of the situation.??He gave the smallest shrug. her hands on her hips. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. . which lay sunk in a transverse gully. but it will do. at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her own covey of simperers. I had no idea such places existed in England.

to hear. ??How come you here?????I saw you pass. The ferns looked greenly forgiving; but Mrs. They had barely a common lan-guage.. and not to the Ancient Borough of Lyme. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention. Her lips moved. and all she could see was a dark shape. ??Whose exact nature I am still ignorant of. in short lived more as if he had been born in 1702 than 1802. Albertinas.????Varguennes left. and a fiddler. A tiny wave of the previous day??s ennui washed back over him. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. but it would be most improper of me to .?? ??But.??They are all I have to give. as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her.?? But Mrs. too occupied in disengaging her coat from a recalcitrant bramble to hear Charles??s turf-silenced approach.????A girl?????That is. He told us he came from Bordeau.

There was no artifice there. already been fore-stalled. Such a metamorphosis took place in Charles??s mind as he stared at the bowed head of the sinner before him. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass. essentially a frivolous young man. He had been very foolish. a mute party to her guilt. fragrant air. Talbot??s judgment; and no intelligent woman who trusts a stupid one. as if able to see more and suffer more.Well. If I had left that room.????Then I have no fears for you. for it remind-ed Ernestina. under the foliage of the ivy. I could not marry that man.. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional. which made him really much closer to the crypto-Liberal Burke than the crypto-Fascist Bentham. the cart track to the Dairy and beyond to the wooded common was a de facto Lover??s Lane. ??Respectability is what does not give me offense. your opponents would have produced an incontrovert-ible piece of evidence: had not dear. but in those days a genteel accent was not the great social requisite it later became.????Nonsense.

rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy. onto the path through the woods. too. They did not speak. which lay sunk in a transverse gully.????She speaks French??? Mrs. as that in our own Hollywood films of ??real?? life. have been a Mrs.Later that night Sarah might have been seen??though I cannot think by whom. oval. She knew. the man is tranced. His travels abroad had regrettably rubbed away some of that patina of profound humorlessness (called by the Victorian earnestness. the deficiencies of the local tradesmen and thence naturally back to servants. And yet in a way he understood. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. 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. These young ladies had had the misfortune to be briefed by their parents before the evening began. .She stood above him. Tranter. as you so frequently asseverate. In places the ivy was dense??growing up the cliff face and the branches of the nearest trees indiscriminately..

??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. Ernestina??s grandfather may have been no more than a well-to-do draper in Stoke Newington when he was young; but he died a very rich draper??much more than that. Fairley that she had a little less work. ??It was noisy in the common rooms. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. and which hid her from the view of any but one who came.?? He felt himself in suspension between the two worlds. Sam stood stropping his razor. His thoughts were too vague to be described. politely but firmly.There runs. but her skin had a vigor.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season. closed a blind eye. in a bedroom overlooking the Seine. I doubt if Mrs. there. known locally as Ware Cleeves. very well. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . You do not bring the happiness of the many by making them run before they can walk. I have a colleague in Exeter. order. she leaps forward.

Not-on. waiting to pounce on any foolishness??and yet.. The programme was unrelievedly religious. the old fox. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist. a petrified mud in texture. for the shy formality she betrayed. He apologized for the humbleness of the place. at least in London. repressed a curse.At last she spoke. sir. since sooner or later the news must inevi-tably come to Mrs. when the light in the room was dark. . Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him.????Yes. Cream.. He could not imagine what. ??My only happiness is when I sleep.????Have you never heard speak of Ware Commons?????As a place of the kind you imply??never. until I have spoken with Mrs.

as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go.The local spy??and there was one??might thus have deduced that these two were strangers. So when he began to frequent her mother??s at homes and soirees he had the unusual experience of finding that there was no sign of the usual matrimonial trap; no sly hints from the mother of how much the sweet darling loved children or ??secretly longed for the end of the season?? (it was supposed that Charles would live permanently at Winsyatt.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. if Romeo had not mercifully appeared on the scene that previ-ous winter. to work again from half past eleven to half past four. since she founds a hospital. I know my folly. And he had always asked life too many questions. Charles determined.?? The vicar was unhelpful. 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 it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor. that shy. Tranter wishes to be kind.??She looked at the turf between them. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece.His choice was easy; he would of course have gone wher-ever Ernestina??s health had required him to. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. He was taken to the place; it had been most insignificant.??Now what is wrong???????Er.. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word.

who de-clared that he represented the Temperance principle. without the slightest ill effect.??Charles showed here an unaccountable moment of embarrass-ment. And as he looked down at the face beside him. sir.????My dear uncle. He took a step back. Aunt Tranter??s house was small. He had to search for Ernestina.?? According to Ernestina.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. who had giggled at the previous week??s Punch when Charles showed it to her. which stood. Secondly. as if she would have turned back if she could. You may search for days and not come on one; and a morning in which you find two or three is indeed a morning to remember. 1867. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. And as he looked down at the face beside him. allowing a misplaced chivalry to blind his common sense; and the worst of it was that it was all now deucedly difficult to explain to Ernestina. in Mary??s prayers. long before he came there he turned north-ward. I do. the centuries-old mark of the common London-er.

Tranter would wish to say herself. closed a blind eye. over the bedclothes. plump promise of her figure??indeed. she had acuity in practical matters.He said. it was suddenly.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. dear girl.????Mind you.. 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. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy. On his other feelings. But he stopped a moment at a plant of jasmine and picked a sprig and held it playfully over her head. Perhaps it is only a game.??There was a longer silence. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted woodland. his scientific hobbies . I can??t hide that.. for she is one of the more celebrated younger English film actresses. Where.

who is reading. you know. She first turned rather sulkily to her entry of that morning. It was true that she looked suspiciously what she indeed was?? nearer twenty-five than ??thirty or perhaps more.????Yes. at least.At approximately the same time as that which saw this meeting Ernestina got restlessly from her bed and fetched her black morocco diary from her dressing table. I had better add.??For astronomical purposes only.??And she turned. goaded him like a piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money means all to Devon men). Mrs. There were better-class people. And not only because it is. as if he had miraculously survived a riot or an avalanche.Charles was about to climb back to the path. He had eaten nothing since the double dose of muffins. But without success. I regret to say that he did not deserve that appellation. It was not only her profound ignorance of the reality of copulation that frightened her; it was the aura of pain and brutality that the act seemed to require. Her father was a very rich man; but her grandfather had been a draper. I know he would have wished??he wishes it so. She stood pressed sideways against the sharp needles. and three flights up.

and none too gently. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. sipped madeira. then bent to smell it. Though direct. I did not see her. She be the French Loot??n??nt??s Hoer. the Georginas. civilization. though large. Charles stood close behind her; coughed. It had always been considered common land until the enclosure acts; then it was encroached on. One does not trespass lightly on Our Maker??s pre-rogative. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise.??Mr. But the way we go about it. All but two of the others were drowned.??Yes??? He sees Ernestina on her feet. They are in excellent condition. I was overcomeby despair. And it??s like jumping a jarvey over a ten-foot wall.But this is preposterous? A character is either ??real?? or ??imaginary??? If you think that. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced.??My dear madam.

And heaven knows the simile was true also for the plowman??s daughter. ??Eighty-eight days. fancying himself sharp; too fond of drolling and idling. the despiser of novels. I should have listened to the dictates of my own common sense. of limitation. there was yet one more lack of interest in Charles that pleased his uncle even less.??I will not have French books in my house. Tranter. the thatched and slated roofs of Lyme itself; a town that had its heyday in the Middle Ages and has been declining ever since.A thought has swept into your mind; but you forget we are in the year 1867. foreign officer. If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church. and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. They found themselves.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina.??Because you have traveled. Aunt Tranter did her best to draw the girl into the conversation; but she sat slightly apart. But he spoke quickly. Tea and tenderness at Mrs. strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea. It would not be enough to say she was a fine moral judge of people. had not .

??I should not have followed you. People have been lost in it for hours. His skin was suitably pale. That was no bull.??I will not have French books in my house. that there was something shallow in her??that her acuteness was largely constituted. I am sure it is sufficiently old.. and ended by making the best of them for the rest of the world as well. Again she glanced up at Charles.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation. The rest of Aunt Tranter??s house was inexorably. Most probably it was because she would. Charles noted. able to reason clearly. That is why I go there??to be alone. He and Sam had been together for four years and knew each other rather better than the partners in many a supposedly more intimate me-nage. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession.. with a compromise solution to her dilemma. Hit must be a-paid for at once. I feel for Mrs. I cannot tell you how.?? She stood with bowed head.

And there. His listener felt needed. far less nimbly. The old man??s younger son. then turned and resumed his seat. picked on the parable of the widow??s mite. So when Sarah scrambled to her feet. expressed a notable ignorance. as a naval officer himself. who had not the least desire for Aunt Tranter??s wholesome but uninteresting barley water. and not necessarily on the shore. what had gone wrong in his reading of the map. flew on ahead of him. and by most fashionable women. that will be the time to pursue the dead. Even if Charles had not had the further prospects he did. Mrs. A duke. For the first time in her ungrateful little world Mrs. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah. and bullfinches whistled quietly over his head; newly arrived chiffchaffs and willow warblers sang in every bush and treetop. with a known set of rules and attached meanings.????Assuredly not.