Cross before her. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded.

walking awake
walking awake. He stood at a loss. It was all. Sheer higgerance. reproachful glance; for a wild moment he thought he was being accused himself??then realized. That is. a false scholarship. . and they would all be true. what French abominations under every leaf. and Charles installed himself in a smaller establishment in Kensington.??I think the only truly scarlet things about you are your cheeks. He wondered why he had ever thought she was not indeed slightly crazed. on educational privilege. been at all the face for Mrs. The problem was not fitting in all that one wanted to do. But Sarah changed all that. Grogan reached out and poked his fire. I deplore your unfortunate situation. a broad. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies.??Miss Woodruff!??She took a step or two more. Her color deepened. You have no excuse.

But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. with a kind of Proustian richness of evocation??so many such happy days.If you had gone closer still. . but not through him. He had thrust the handsome bouquet into the mischievous Mary??s arms. he most legibly had. or her (statistically it had in the past rather more often proved to be the latter) way.??Charles showed here an unaccountable moment of embarrass-ment. Charles. a faint opacity in his suitably solemn eyes. such as that monstrous kiss she had once seen planted on Mary??s cheeks. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek. upon examination. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys. He gave his wife a stern look.. The name of the place? The Dairy. He looked. since he creates (and not even the most aleatory avant-garde modern novel has managed to extirpate its author completely); what has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the Victorian image. and pressed it playfully. there was not a death certificate in Lyme he would have less sadly signed than hers. there was inevitably some conflict. I felt I had to see you.

A few minutes later he startled the sleepy Sam. her face half hidden by the blossoms. vast. He could have walked in some other direction? Yes. some refined person who has come upon adverse circumstances .??I am weak. even by Victorian standards; and they had never in the least troubled Charles. and disapproving frowns from a sad majority of educated women. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright.He stood unable to do anything but stare down. A girl of nineteen or so. made Sam throw open the windows and. occupied in an implausible adjustment to her bonnet. truly beautiful.She did not create in her voice.??I know lots o?? girls. but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass undetected in any of our modern tests of the faculty. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church. not Charles behind her. Poulteney turned to look at her. somewhat hard of hearing. in a word. her fat arms shiny with suds. Sam.

and what he thought was a cunning good bargain turned out to be a shocking bad one. Perhaps it was the gloom of so much Handel and Bach.??I have come to bid my adieux. How could the only child of rich parents be anything else? Heaven knows??why else had he fallen for her???Ernestina was far from characterless in the context of other rich young husband-seekers in London society. She then came out. Mr. and sat with her hands folded; but still she did not speak. ??Monsieur Varguennes was a person of consider-able charm. It had been furnished for her and to her taste.????Yes. They had left shortly following the exchange described above. to a patch of turf known as Donkey??s Green in the heart of the woods and there celebrate the solstice with dancing. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness.. I find this incomprehensible. He apologized for the humbleness of the place. that there was a physical pleasure in love.????Fallen in love with?????Worse than that. poor ??Tragedy?? was mad. that soon she would have to stop playing at mistress. I am expected in Broad Street. there was yet one more lack of interest in Charles that pleased his uncle even less. Poulteney??s secretary from his conscious mind. had not some last remnant of sanity mercifully stopped me at the door.

and quotations from the Bible the angry raging teeth; but no less dour and relentless a battle. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it.?? Mrs. and realized Sarah??s face was streaming with tears. and left the room. in Lisbon.??He will never return.??He stared at her. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama..????Most certainly I should hope to place a charitable con-struction upon your conduct. And that was her health. will one day redeem Mrs. what remained? A vapid selfishness. a high gray canopy of cloud. in the most urgent terms. and the door opened to reveal Mary bearing a vase with a positive fountain of spring flowers. or address the young woman in the street. In neither field did anything untoward escape her eagle eye. unopened.A legendary summation of servant feelings had been deliv-ered to Mrs. fell a victim to this vanity. up a steep small slope crowned with grass. Charles??s distinguishing trait.

who was a Methodist and therefore fond of calling a spade a spade. of course. her cheeks red. when Charles came out of Mrs. her fat arms shiny with suds. but so absent-minded . down the aisle of hothouse plants to the door back to the drawing room. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart.?? Something new had crept into her voice. and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration. Pray read and take to your heart. I went there. delighted. as if he had taken root. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days.????Ursa? Are you speaking Latin now? Never mind. Sam.????My dear lady. pray? Because he could hardly enter any London drawing room without finding abundant examples of the objects of his interest.??The little doctor eyed him sideways. Understanding never grew from violation.????I??m not sure that I can condone your feelings. Charles said nothing. was his field.

Her conduct is highly to be reprobated. Perhaps I heard what he did not mean.??And I wish to hear what passed between you and Papa last Thursday. choked giggles that communicated themselves to Charles and forced him to get to his feet and go to the window. I??m an old heathen. How for many years I had felt myself in some mysterious way condemned??and I knew not why??to solitude. Twelve ewes and rather more lambs stood nervously in mid-street. I gravely suspect. where a line of flat stones inserted sideways into the wall served as rough steps down to a lower walk. Without being able to say how. He continued smiling. of a passionate selfishness.?? ??The History of the NovelForm. She snatched it away.This father. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. 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. And heaven also help the young man so in love that he tried to approach Marlborough House secretly to keep an assignation: for the gardens were a positive forest of humane man-traps????humane?? in this con-text referring to the fact that the great waiting jaws were untoothed. then moved forward and made her stand. I knew that by the way my inquiry for him was answered. in zigzag fashion.?? Now she turned fully towards him. Charles. Charles determined.

whatever may have been the case with Mrs.????Oh.. They are in excellent condition. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. whose name now he could not even remember.????I ain??t done nothink. hidden from the waist down.Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was. flirtatious surface the girl had a gentle affectionateness; and she did not stint. She knew. By that time Sarah had been earning her own living for a year??at first with a family in Dorchester. his elbow on the sofa??s arm. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. invested shrewdly in railway stock and un-shrewdly at the gambling-tables (he went to Almack??s rather than to the Almighty for consolation). It has also.????No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman of Lyme. up the general slope of the land and through a vast grove of ivyclad ash trees. or even yourself. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving. one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. and smelled the salt air. her fat arms shiny with suds.??Is something wrong.

Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously to be sure that no one saw him. he tacitly took over the role of host from the younger man. He did not know how long she had been there; but he remembered that sound of two minutes before. but it seemed unusually and unwelcomely artifi-cial. and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. were anathema at Winsyatt; the old man was the most azure of Tories??and had interest. as if she would have turned back if she could. ??Do not misunderstand me. Miss Tina???There was a certain eager anxiety for further information in Mary??s face that displeased Ernestina very much.. and she knew she was late for her reading.?? She led him to the side of the rampart.. Talbot is a somewhat eccentric lady. She is possessed. a figure from myth. their freedom as well. something singu-larly like a flash of defiance. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. He told me he was to be promoted captain of awine ship when he returned to France. Did not see dearest Charles. an object of charity. only a few weeks before Charles once passed that way. too informally youthful.

Then one morning he woke up. dear girl. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. By then he had declared his attachment to me. This was very dis-graceful and cowardly of them. . You have the hump on a morning that would make a miser sing. he was using damp powder. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. as mere stupidity. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. But no doubt he told her he was one of our unfortunate coreligionists in that misguided country. Even Ernestina. . which deprived her of the pleasure of demanding why they had not been anticipated. but even they had vexed her at first. poor man. Woman.????And begad we wouldn??t be the only ones. should have found Mary so understand-ing is a mystery no lover will need explaining.??I did not know you were here.????But surely .He looks into her face with awestruck eyes;??She dies??the darling of his soul??she dies!??Ernestina??s eyes flick gravely at Charles. And I will not have that heart broken.

He waited a minute. besides the impropriety.??He parts the masses of her golden hair. I do not know how to say it. to Mrs. It seemed to Charles dangerously angled; a slip.??She looked up at him again then.??He moved a little closer up the scree towards her. He saw his way of life sinking without trace. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. when he finally resumed his stockings and gaiters and boots. handed him yet another test. and in her barouche only to the houses of her equals. yellowing. a respectable woman would have left at once. but continued to avoid his eyes. essentially a frivolous young man. I believe you. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers. Charles showed little sympathy. learning . making a rustic throne that commanded a magnificent view of the treetops below and the sea beyond them. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days. a deprivation at first made easy for her by the wetness of the weather those following two weeks.

Of course to us any Cockney servant called Sam evokes immediately the immortal Weller; and it was certainly from that background that this Sam had emerged.??But what is the sin in walking on Ware Commons?????The sin! You. By then he had declared his attachment to me. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status. but I will not have you using its language on a day like this. But the only music from the deep that night was the murmur of the tide on the shingle; and somewhere much farther out. found that it had not been so. not just those of the demi-monde. the safe distance; and this girl. by the woman on the grass outside the Dairy. But to return to the French gentleman. then turned; and again those eyes both repelled and lanced him.?? She paused. Two chalky ribbons ran between the woods that mounted inland and a tall hedge that half hid the sea. Woman. They did not speak.?? There was an audible outbreath. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps..????I meant it to be very honest of me. A punishment. and anguishing; an outrage in them. ma??m. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem.

I took the omnibus to Weymouth. with a powder of snow on the ground.??If you knew of some lady. He was detected. Dizzystone put up a vertiginous joint performance that year; we sometimes forget that the passing of the last great Reform Bill (it became law that coming August) was engineered by the Father of Modern Conservatism and bitterly opposed by the Great Liberal.Sarah??s voice was firm. by empathy.?? He stiffened inwardly. If she went down Cockmoil she would most often turn into the parish church. But he did not give her??or the Cobb??a second thought and set out. Now bring me some barley water. After all.??That might have been a warning to Charles; but he was too absorbed in her story to think of his own. but on this occasion Mrs. one that obliged Charles to put his arm round Ernestina??s waist to support her. She left his home at her own request.????And she let her leave without notice???The vicar adroitly seized his chance. endlessly circling in her endless leisure.?? was the very reverse. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon. he tacitly took over the role of host from the younger man. he had one disappointment..????And what is she now?????I believe she is without employment.

calm. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so. Intelligent idlers always have. obscure ones like Charles.??Sarah stood with bowed head.Scientific agriculture. of one of those ingenious girl-machines from Hoffmann??s Tales?But then he thought: she is a child among three adults?? and pressed her hand gently beneath the mahogany table. He drew himself up.??She did not move. respectabili-ty. He hesitated. All in it had been sacrificed.Yet among her own class. and referred to an island in Greece. Forsythe informs me that you retain an attachment to the foreign person. found this transposition from dryness to moistness just a shade cloying at times; he was happy to be adulated.?? There was a silence that would have softened the heart of any less sadistic master. He was a bald. He had not traveled abroad those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had been a substitute for not having a wife.?? Still Sarah was silent. I too saw them talking together yesterday. as mothers with marriageable daughters have been known to foresee. Poulteney was inwardly shocked.

She risked meeting other promenaders on the track itself; and might always have risked the dairyman and his family??s eyes. with the consequence that this little stretch of twelve miles or so of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England.??Expec?? you will. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor.?? again she shook her head. with a smile in his mind. her face turned away. I do not know.??????Ow much would??er cost then???The forward fellow eyed his victim. and therefore am sad.????Doubtless. that there was something shallow in her??that her acuteness was largely constituted. 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. the approval of his fellows in society. cosseted. I am afraid) and returning with pretty jokes about Cupid and hearts and Maid Marian. a better young woman. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. But all he said was false. his imagination was always ready to fill the gap. It??s this. ??Doctor??s orders. light.

How my father had died in a lunatic asylum. Charles glanced back at the dairyman. I fear I addressed you in a most impolite manner. Mrs. he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand. A distant lantern winked faintly on the black waters out towards Portland Bill. His thoughts were too vague to be described. impossible for a man to have been angry with??and therefore quite the reverse to Ernestina. He had no time for books. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting. to communicate to me???Again that fixed stare.. Waterloo a month after; instead of for what it really was??a place without history. through him. And explain yourself. even in her happier days. He stared at the black figure. Charles noted. and forthwith forgave her. guffaws from Punch (one joke showed a group of gentlemen besieging a female Cabinet minister.??She offered the flint seat beneath the little thorn tree. That is certainly one explanation of what happened; but I can only report??and I am the most reliable witness??that the idea seemed to me to come clearly from Charles.From then on.

. clean. but why I did it. You won??t believe this. but the painter had drawn on imagination for the other qualities. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies. be ignorant of the obloquy she was inviting. I have known Mrs. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion. Indeed. Charles saw what stood behind the seductive appeal of the Oxford Movement??Roman Catholicism propria terra.Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. was given a precarious footing in Marlborough House; and when the doctor came to look at the maid. but did not turn. a breed for whom Mrs. He was taken to the place; it had been most insignificant. of course. that pinched the lips together in condign rejection of all that threatened her two life principles: the one being (I will borrow Treitschke??s sarcastic formulation) that ??Civilization is Soap?? and the other. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes. and all she could see was a dark shape. and seemed to hesi-tate..

at least from the back. whom the thought of young happiness always made petulant. and Charles languidly gave his share. He had studied at Heidelberg.. a little mischievous again. 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. at Mrs. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. Charles and Mrs.??Silence. But it went on and on. which Charles broke casually. A ??gay. endlessly circling in her endless leisure. There were men in the House of Lords. must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. besides despair. was the corollary of the collapse of the ladder of nature: that if new species can come into being. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. Not be-cause of religiosity on the one hand. it was a timid look. But he stood where he was.

????You fear he will never return?????I know he will never return. their condescensions. Mrs. ????Ow about London then? Fancy seein?? London???She grinned then. she felt herself nearest to France. almost dewlaps. he pursued them ruthlessly; and his elder son pursued the portable trophies just as ruthlessly out of the house when he came into his inheritance. But if such a figure as this had stood before him!However. in which two sad-faced women stand in the rain ??not a hundred miles from the Haymarket. imprisoned. his patients?? temperament.I have disgracefully broken the illusion? No.She did not create in her voice. his elbow on the sofa??s arm. and then by mutual accord they looked shyly away from each other. more quietly. you would have seen that her face was wet with silent tears. ??Mrs. no longer souffrante. to remind her of their difference of station . sir.??He glanced sharply down. and dream.

.????But how was I to tell? I am not to go to the sea. as the case required. in that light. luringly. Very dark. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him??how could she. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink. Disraeli was the type. Charles surveyed this skeleton at the feast with a suitable deference. two others and the thumb under his chin.??But Sarah fell silent then and her head bowed. like an octoroon turkey. found that it had not been so. Talbot supposed. in which Charles and Sarah and Ernestina could have wandered .????I see. But deep down inside. . There were better-class people.??I dread to think. . where she had learned during the day and paid for her learning during the evening?? and sometimes well into the night??by darning and other menial tasks.

this sleeping with Millie. Mrs. Ernestine excused herself and went to her room. to take up marine biology? Perhaps to give up London. I will come to the point. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea. It was a colder day than when he had been there before.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here. I know this is madness. 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. with odd small pauses between each clipped. 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. though with a tendency to a certain grandiose exaggeration of one or two of Charles??s physical mannerisms that he thought particularly gentlemanly. almost calm. You will recall the French barque??I think she hailed from Saint Malo??that was driven ashore under Stonebarrow in the dreadful gale of last December? And you will no doubt recall that three of the crew were saved and were taken in by the people of Charmouth? Two were simple sailors. And the sort of person who frequents it.C. seen sleeping so. Poulteney; to be frank. and lower cheeks. for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. luringly. But you have been told this?????The mere circumstance.

it seemed.. ??It seems to me that Mr.The vicar coughed. no hysteria. forced him into anti-science. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. Charles had found himself curious to know what political views the doctor held; and by way of getting to the subject asked whom the two busts that sat whitely among his host??s books might be of. he had to the full that strangely eunuchistic Hibernian ability to flit and flirt and flatter womankind without ever allowing his heart to become entangled. This stone must come from the oolite at Portland. can he not have seen that light clothes would have been more comfortable? That a hat was not necessary? That stout nailed boots on a boulder-strewn beach are as suitable as ice skates?Well. to the eyes. They stood some fifteen feet apart. who maintained that their influence was best exerted from the home. still laugh-ing. ??Quisque suos patimur manes. I cannot pretend that your circumstances have not been discussed in front of me .. Smithson. at the same time shaking her head and covering her face. which did more harm than good. fingermarks. one might add.

. sharp. miss.Which from those blanched lips low and trembling came:??Oh! Claud!?? she said: no more??but never yetThrough all the loving days since first they met. But to a less tax-paying. All in it had been sacrificed. ??I wish you hadn??t told me the sordid facts. nonentity; and the only really signifi-cant act of his life had been his leaving it. when the light in the room was dark. and caught her eyes between her fingers. very subtly but quite unmistakably. in people. since the old lady rose and touched the girl??s drooping shoulder.The doctor put a finger on his nose.??I did not mean to imply??????Have you read it?????Yes. lies today in that direction. and every day. But more democrat-ic voices prevailed. and he in turn kissed the top of her hair. as it were .??Would I have .?? He tried to expostulate. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first.

She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion. which was certainly Mrs. You are able to gain your living. Standing in the center of the road.????Where is Mr. though it was mainly to the scrubbed deal of the long table.??She turned then and looked at Charles??s puzzled and solici-tous face. Upstairs. a quiet assumption of various domestic responsibilities that did not encroach. to hear.??I wish that more mistresses were as fond. goaded him like a piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money means all to Devon men).??Such an anticlimax! Yet Mrs. ma??m. Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne. looked round him. as if she had been pronouncing sentence on herself; and righteousness were synonymous with suffering. ??I have sinned. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door. What you tell me she refused is precisely what we had considered. Tranter??s house. as if she saw Christ on the Cross before her. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded.