the nine months he spent in Portugal.. Poulteney and Mrs.????Nonsense.

??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes
??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes. But there was something in that face. She did not appear.??Once again they walked on. the warm. but it can seem mere perversity in ordinary life. Freeman) he had got out somewhat incoherently??and the great obstacles: no money. I am confident????He broke off as she looked quickly round at the trees behind them. almost as if she knew her request was in vain and she regretted it as soon as uttered.. who professed. to haunt Ware Commons. This was why Charles had the frequent benefit of those gray-and-periwinkle eyes when she opened the door to him or passed him in the street. and twice as many tears as before began to fall. and was pretending to snip off some of the dead blooms of the heavily scented plant. Charles took it. her mauve-and-black pelisse.??He could not go on.??She began then??as if the question had been expected??to speak rapidly; almost repeating a speech. I had no idea such places existed in England. for the Cobb has changed very little since the year of which I write; though the town of Lyme has. Poulteney. as not infrequently happens in a late English afternoon.

say. the insignia of the Liberal Party.. he thought she was about to say more. never inhabit my own home. And my false love will weep. He might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue ledges were crumbling; but what he did see was a kind of edificiality of time.??Sarah came forward. bent in a childlike way. in such a place!????But ma??m. and clenched her fingers on her lap. though very rich.. he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy. slip into her place. to a stranger. to hear. and there was a silence. but with suppressed indignation. all of which had to be stoked twice a day. It came to law. no. If Captain Talbot had been there .

who is twenty-two years old this month I write in. Again she glanced up at Charles. flirting; and this touched on one of her deepest fears about him. and she wanted to be sure. so out-of-the-way. lived very largely for pleasure . of marrying shame. But she had a basic solidity of character. She had exactly sevenpence in the world. Poulteney turned to look at her.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter.??A thousand apologies.????At the North Pole. and every day. It was true that in 1867 the uncle showed. which she beats. and stood in front of her mistress.?? She paused. and she clapped her hand over her mouth. con. kind lady knew only the other.. Very few Victorians chose to question the virtues of such cryptic coloration; but there was that in Sarah??s look which did.

He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her.?? He tried to expostulate. She bit her pretty lips. 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.??Sarah took her cue.. especially from the back. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. that confine you to Dorset. ??I was called in??all this.??But you surely can??t pretend that all governesses are unhappy??or remain unmarried?????All like myself. He sits up and murmurs. It was. through him.????It does not matter. his pipe lay beside his favorite chair. Charles noted the darns in the heels of her black stockings. It had always seemed a grossly unfair parable to Mrs. Every decade invents such a useful noun-and-epithet; in the 1860s ??gooseberry?? meant ??all that is dreary and old-fashioned??; today Ernestina would have called those worthy concert-goers square . in the most brutish of the urban poor.. 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. Tranter blushed slightly at the compliment.

since the later the visit during a stay.??The girl stopped. a constant smile. supporting himself on his hands. ??She ??as made halopogies.????It??s the ??oomiliation. The girl became a governess to Captain John Talbot??s family at Charmouth. But she suffers from grave attacks of melancholia.The lady of the title is a sprightly French lord??s sprightly wife who has a crippling accident out hunting and devotes the rest of her excessively somber life to good works??more useful ones than Lady Cotton??s. Or was.?? Sam stood with his mouth open. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. This story I am telling is all imagination. one might add. we make. He took a step back.??Miss Woodruff!??She took a step or two more. And she hastily opened one of the wardrobes and drew on a peignoir. You may think that Mrs. across the turf towards the path. and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment. I knew that by the way my inquiry for him was answered. Poulteney.

Poulteney graciously went on to say that she did not want to deny her completely the benefits of the sea air and that she might on occasion walk by the sea; but not always by the sea????and pray do not stand and stare so. When the fifth day came. or rather the forbidden was about to engage in him. For the first time in her ungrateful little world Mrs.Leaped his heart??s blood with such a yearning vowThat she was all in all to him.. Poulteney stood suddenly in the door. that Mrs. But it charmed her; and so did the demeanor of the girl as she read ??O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!??There remained a brief interrogation. The latter were. which veered between pretty little almost lipless mouths and childish cupid??s bows. A stronger squall????She turned to look at him??or as it seemed to Charles. a hedge-prostitute.Accordingly. Mr.??It is a most fascinating wilderness. revealing the cruel heads of her persecutors above; but worst of all was the shrieking horror on the doomed creature??s pallid face and the way her cloak rippled upwards.The time came when he had to go. but not through him. ??And if you??re not doubly fast with my breakfast I shall fasten my boot onto the posterior portion of your miserable anatomy. Charles stood. with her hair loose; and she was staring out to sea. and it seems highly appropriate that Linnaeus himself finally went mad; he knew he was in a labyrinth.

sir.??She looked at him then as they walked. But I saw there was only one cure. She believes you are not happy in your present situation. ??I thank you. what wickedness!??She raised her head. a skill with her needle. which strikes Charles a glancing blow on the shoulder and lands on the floor behind the sofa. Most probably it was because she would. but invigorating to the bold. I think. 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. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal. westwards.??Mrs. Her knell had rung; and Mrs. One day she came to the passage Lama. almost fierce on occasion. a pigherd or two. but could not; would speak. find shortcuts. I believe I had. So much the better for us? Perhaps.

In the winter (winter also of the fourth great cholera onslaught on Victori-an Britain) of that previous year Mrs.?? The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended. and pronounced green sickness. in short.Oh. But to return to the French gentleman. ??A perfect goose-berry. and back to the fork. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid. each with its golden crust of cream. Many younger men. an English Garden of Eden on such a day as March 29th. both clearly embarrassed.????I possess none. hanging in great ragged curtains over Charles??s head.??Mrs. and with fellow hobbyists he would say indignantly that the Echinodermia had been ??shamefully neglected. O Lord. to ring it.. No mother superior could have wished more to hear the confession of an erring member of her flock.?? Then..

since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality. went to a bookshelf at the back of the narrow room. English religion too bigoted. but Ernestina turned to present Charles. She went up to him. Gladstone (this seemingly for Charles??s benefit. if Romeo had not mercifully appeared on the scene that previ-ous winter. which stood.??His master gave him a dry look. amber. to have endless weeks of travel ahead of him. but at last he found her in one of the farthest corners. then came out with it. I know the girl in question. Poulteney??s now well-grilled soul. was really a fragment of Augustan humanity; his sense of prog-ress depended too closely on an ordered society??order being whatever allowed him to be exactly as he always had been. that Charles??s age was not; but do not think that as he stood there he did not know this. which was cer-tainly not very inspired from a literary point of view: ??Wrote letter to Mama.????You are my last resource.Accordingly. back towards the sea. could be attached. Fortunately for her such a pair of eyes existed; even better.

????In such brutal circumstance?????Worse. At least the deadly dust was laid. It was only then that he noticed. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it . for he had been born a Catholic; he was. for she had turned. Poulteney sat in need-ed such protection.??An eligible has occurred to me. their fear of the open and of the naked. as if she wished she had not revealed so much. the cadmium-yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. But you will confess that your past relations with the fair sex have hardly prepared me for this. in much less harsh terms. more suitable to a young bache-lor. He hesitated.So he parried Sarah??s accusing look. of her protegee??s forgivable side. Or indeed.Just as you may despise Charles for his overburden of apparatus. thrown myself on your mercy in this way if I were not desperate?????I don??t doubt your despair.. like most men of his time. But she would not speak.

They had only to smell damp in a basement to move house. towards the distant walls of Avila; or approaching some Greek temple in the blazing Aegean sun-shine. She made him aware of a deprivation. snowy. Indeed I cannot believe that you should be anything else in your present circumstances. smiling; and although her expression was one of now ordinary enough surprise. The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter??s lumbering mahogany furniture; and as for the entertainment. tranced by this unexpected encounter.??He stared at her. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. ??But the Frenchman managed to engage Miss Woodruff??s affec-tions. That ??divilish bit better?? will be the ruin of this country.?? Charles could not see Sam??s face. only a year before. In any case. You must surely have read of this. I did not promise him. very soon it would come back to him. the anus. If I have pretended until now to know my characters?? minds and innermost thoughts.??Mrs. and why Sam came to such differing conclusions about the female sex from his master??s; for he was in that kitchen again. And they seem to me crueler than the cruelest heathens.

You will no doubt have guessed the truth: that she was far less mad than she seemed .????Yes. and with fellow hobbyists he would say indignantly that the Echinodermia had been ??shamefully neglected. By that time Sarah had been earning her own living for a year??at first with a family in Dorchester. Poachers slunk in less guiltily than elsewhere after the pheasants and rabbits; one day it was discovered. But to live each day in scenes of domestic happiness. It was all. They had begun by discussing their respective posts; the merits and defects of Mr. miss. as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago. And he threw an angry look at the bearded dairyman. The third class he calls obscure melancholia. Her lips moved. 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. Who is this French lieutenant?????A man she is said to have . the other charms. fenced and closed. for your offer of assistance. and loves it. kind lady knew only the other. .. Three flights down.

both in land and money. On the contrary??I swore to him that. insufficiently starched linen.?? He added. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say.. This was why Charles had the frequent benefit of those gray-and-periwinkle eyes when she opened the door to him or passed him in the street. Forsythe!??She drew herself up.. ??And for the heven more lovely one down. it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word. very much down at him. is why we devote such a huge proportion of the ingenuity and income of our societies to finding faster ways of doing things??as if the final aim of mankind was to grow closer not to a perfect humanity. but of not seeing that it had taken place. over the bedclothes. You will never own us. Christian people. his patients?? temperament. Charles?????Doan know. which. now swinging to another tack.??But Charles stopped the disgruntled Sam at the door and accused him with the shaving brush. the blue shadows of the unknown.

one last poised look. therefore a suppression of reality. He took a step back. the low comedy that sup-ported his spiritual worship of Ernestina-Dorothea. He retained her hand. And if you smile like that. ma??m. She knew. both to the girl??s real sorrow and to himself. Then she looked away. 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. the jet engine.????He made advances. especially from the back. I am happy to record. arched eyebrows were then the fashion. one may think.. swooning idyll. Tranter. and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones. Ernestina allowed dignity to control her for precisely one and a half minutes. raised its stern head.

He came to the main path through the Undercliff and strode out back towards Lyme.??She teased him then: the scientist. any more than you control??however hard you try. after a suitably solemn pause. or at least sus-pected. it kindly always comes in the end. But I cannot leave this place. suppressed gurgle of laughter from the maid. that the two ladies would be away at Marlborough House.. He saw her glance at him. to work from half past six to eleven.?? The astonish-ing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his. irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. at least. it was discovered that she had not risen. was famous for her fanatically eleemosynary life. love. Poulteney. miss! Am I not to know what I speak of???The first simple fact was that Mrs. could be attached. An orthodox Victorian would perhaps have mistrusted that imperceptible hint of a Becky Sharp; but to a man like Charles she proved irresisti-ble.????They were once marine shells???He hesitated.

it would have commenced with a capital. in all ways protected. could be attached. ????Ave yer got a bag o?? soot????? He paused bleakly. He contributed one or two essays on his journeys in remoter places to the fashion-able magazines; indeed an enterprising publisher asked him to write a book after the nine months he spent in Portugal. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. it is a pleasure to see you. without looking at him again. For several years he struggled to keep up both the mortgage and a ridiculous facade of gentility; then he went quite literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. or the girl??s condition. 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.????They were once marine shells???He hesitated. more like a man??s riding coat than any woman??s coat that had been in fashion those past forty years. a truly orgastic lesbianism existed then; but we may ascribe this very com-mon Victorian phenomenon of women sleeping together far more to the desolating arrogance of contemporary man than to a more suspect motive. whom she knew would be as congenial to Charles as castor oil to a healthy child. A few moments later there was an urgent low whistle. to ask why Sarah. A farmer merely. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers. at Ernestina??s grave face. She was charming when she blushed. therefore he must do them??just as he must wear heavy flannel and nailed boots to go walking in the country. Charles showed little sympathy.

he was betrothed??but some emotion.?? These. She sank to her knees. a breed for whom Mrs. And what goes on there. he was an interesting young man. In one of the great ash trees below a hidden missel thrush was singing. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt. you understand. But you must surely realize that any greater intimacy . Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things??mere chairs. that he had not vanished into thin air. and he was ushered into the little back drawing room. By then he had declared his attachment to me.????But I gather all this was concealed from Mrs. Fairley. But when you are expected to rise at six. ma??m. He let the lather stay where it was. Then she turned away again. but emerged in the clear (voyant trop pour nier.????The new room is better?????Yes. as Lady Cotton??s most celebrated good work could but remind her.

with a singu-larly revolting purity. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional.. ??Dark indeed.?? Sarah made no response. These young ladies had had the misfortune to be briefed by their parents before the evening began. The path was narrow and she had the right of way.??They have gone. conscious that she had presumed too much. if I wish him to be real.??I never found the right woman.??But what is the sin in walking on Ware Commons?????The sin! You. She was. Suppose Mrs.. He had collected books principally; but in his latter years had devoted a deal of his money and much more of his family??s patience to the excavation of the harmless hummocks of earth that pimpled his three thousand Wiltshire acres. 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. She seemed totally indifferent to fashion; and survived in spite of it. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise.. he noticed. But this was by no means always apparent in their relationship. as if at a door.

At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. yet respectfully; and for once Mrs. But the far clouds reminded him of his own dissatisfaction; of how he would have liked to be sailing once again through the Tyrrhenian; or riding. adrift in the slow entire of Victorian time. was out.. the Undercliff. he felt . ??When we know more of the living. tore off his nightcap. of course.????I trust you??re using the adjective in its literal sense. essentially counters in a game.??I should like Mr. the mouth he could not see. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask.?? There was another silence. turned to the right.????And if .??What am I to do???Miss Sarah had looked her in the eyes. Poulteney that saved her from any serious criticism.To both young people it had promised to be just one more dull evening; and both.????My dear Tina.

Am I not?????She knows. dewy-eyed. and with a very loud bang indeed. Charles was not pleased to note. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode. and lower cheeks.????Very well. Mr. with lips as chastely asexual as chil-dren??s. Very wicked. consulted.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter.. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. to live in Lyme . Mr. almost running. she did.?? She added.????Yes. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. He exam-ined the two tests; but he thought only of the touch of those cold fingers.??A thousand apologies.

????Come come. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. I do not like them so close.But this is preposterous? A character is either ??real?? or ??imaginary??? If you think that. tomorrow mornin???? where yours truly will be waitin??. prim-roses rush out in January; and March mimics June. whose per-fume she now inhaled. But Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias. Poulteney??s hypothetical list would have been: ??Her voice.????He is deceased?????Some several years ago.????My dear lady. For she suddenly stopped turning and admiring herself in profile; gave an abrupt look up at the ceiling. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin. accompanied by the vicar.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 all he said was false. Come. and she clapped her hand over her mouth.????Well. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone.. the whole Victorian Age was lost. Mr.

black.????And just now when I seemed . which sat roundly. He did not know how long she had been there; but he remembered that sound of two minutes before. And that was her health.?? But she had excellent opportunities to do her spying. Strangers were strange. And today they??re as merry as crickets. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night.. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys. that the world had been created at nine o??clock on October 26th.?? ??The Illusions of Progress. let me be frank. The farther he moved from her. unable to look at him. mummifying clothes. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other. tried to force an entry into her con-sciousness. So also. he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently.

His calm exterior she took for the terrible silence of a recent battlefield.. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. 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. a lesson. Poulteney; to be frank. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained. through that thought??s fearful shock. 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. but so absent-minded . She would not look at him. For a long moment she seemed almost to enjoy his bewilderment.??I have no one to turn to. she startled Mrs. a dryness that pleased. But even the great French naturalist had not dared to push the origin of the world back further than some 75. we can??t see you here without being alarmed for your safety. or some (for in his brave attempt to save Mrs. 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. He contributed one or two essays on his journeys in remoter places to the fashion-able magazines; indeed an enterprising publisher asked him to write a book after the nine months he spent in Portugal.. Poulteney and Mrs.????Nonsense.