Джон Фаулз
The French Lieutenant's Woman / Любовница французского лейтенанта

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2024

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2024

1

In the late March of 1867, on a stormy morning, the pair began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis, a small town in Lime Bay, the most beautiful sea bastion on the south coast of England. Evidently, these two were strangers, people of a very good taste as regards[1] their appearance, interested in solitude.

The young lady was dressed in the height of fashion: a violet skirt of an almost daring narrowness – and shortness, since two white ankles could be seen under the rich green coat and above the black boots, and put over the chignon, one of the little flat hats with plumes at the side; while the taller man was dressed in a light gray, with his top hat held in his free hand.

But there was the other figure on that curving mole. It stood right at the pier end, leaning against an old cannon barrel[2]. Its clothes were black. The wind moved them, but the figure stood motionless, staring out to sea, like a living memorial to the drowned.

2

“My dear Tina, we have paid our homage[3] to Neptune. He will forgive us if we now turn our backs on him.”

“You are not very gallant.”

“What does that mean, dear?”

“I thought you might wish to prolong an opportunity to hold my arm without indecency.”

“How delicate we've become.”

“We are not in London now.”

“At the North Pole, if I'm not mistaken.”

“I wish to walk to the end.”

And so the couple continued down the pier.

“And I wish to hear what passed between you and Papa last Thursday.”

“ Your father and I had a small philosophical disagreement.”

“And what was the subject of your conversation?”

“Your father expressed the opinion that Mr. Darwin should be demonstrated in a cage in the zoological gardens. In the monkey house. I tried to explain some of the scientific arguments behind the Darwinian position. I was unsuccessful. Et voila tout[4].”

“How could you – when you know Papa's views!”

“I was most respectful.”

“Which means you were most hateful.”

“He said that he would not let his daughter marry a man who considered his grandfather to be an ape. But I think he will recall that in my case it was a titled ape.”

She looked at him then as they walked. Her father was a very rich man; but her grandfather had been a draper, and Charles's had been a baronet. He smiled and pressed the gloved hand that was hooked lightly to his left arm.

“Dearest, we have settled that between us. It is right that you should be afraid of your father. But I am not marrying him. And you forget that I'm a scientist. I have written a monograph, so I must be. And if you smile like that, I shall devote all my time to the fossils and none to you.”

“I am not jealous of the fossils.” She left an artful pause[5]. “Since you've been walking on them now for at least a minute – and haven't even remarked them.”

He glanced down and kneeled. Portions of the mole are paved with fossil-bearing stone.

She led him to the side of the rampart, where flat stones inserted into the wall served as steps down to a lower walk.

“Shall we make the dangerous descent?” he said.

“On the way back.”

Once again they walked on. It was only then that he noticed, or at least realized the sex of, the figure at the end.

“Good heavens, I took that to be a fisherman[6]. But isn't it a woman?”

Ernestina peered – her gray, pretty eyes, were shortsighted, and all she could see was a dark shape.

“Is she young?”

“It's too far to tell.”

“But I can guess who it is. It must be poor Tragedy.”

“Tragedy?”

“A nickname. One of her nicknames.”

“And what are the others?”

“The fishermen have a bad name for her.”

“My dear Tina, you can surely – ”

“They call her the French Lieutenant's… Woman.”

“And has she to spend her days out here now?”

“She is…a little mad. Let us turn. I don't like to go near her.”

They stopped. He stared at the black figure.

“But I'm intrigued. Who is this French lieutenant?”

“A man she is said to have.”

“Fallen in love with?”

“Worse than that.”

“And he abandoned her? There is a child?” “No. I think no child. It is all gossip.” “But what is she doing there?” “They say she waits for him to return.” “But… does no one care for her?”

“She is a servant of some kind to old Mrs. Poulteney. She is never to be seen when we visit. But she lives there. Please let us turn back.” But he smiled.

“If something goes wrong, I shall defend you and prove my gallantry. Come.”

So they went closer to the figure by the cannon. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in her hand; her hair was pulled tight back inside the collar of the black coat. Charles made some loud remark, to warn her that she was no longer alone, but she did not turn. The couple moved to where they could see her face in profile; and how her stare was aimed at the horizon. There came a stronger gust of wind, one that made Charles put his arm round Ernestina's waist to support her, and made the woman hold more tightly to the cannon. Without knowing why, he stepped forward as soon as the wind allowed.

“My good woman, we're alarmed for your safety. A stronger squall – ”

She turned to look at him – or as it seemed to Charles, through him. It was not a pretty face, like Ernestina's. It was certainly not a beautiful face. But it was an unforgettable face, and a tragic face. There was no hypocrisy there, no hysteria, no mask; and above all, no sign of madness.

Again and again, afterwards, Charles thought of that look. The woman said nothing. Her look back lasted two or three seconds at most; then she resumed her stare to the south. Ernestina plucked Charles's sleeve, and he turned away, with a shrug and a smile at her. When they were nearer land he said, “I wish you hadn't told me the dirty facts. That's the trouble with provincial life. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. No romance.”

3

Back in his rooms at the White Lion after lunch Charles stared at his face in the mirror. His thoughts were too vague to be described. But they contained mysterious elements: he asked himself if his interest in paleontology was a sufficient use for his natural abilities; if Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her. And he finally concluded that it was the threat of a long and now wet afternoon to pass. After all, it was only 1867. He was only thirty-two years old. And he had always asked life too many questions.

Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane, the jet engine, television, radar: what would have surprised him was the changed attitude to time itself. The great misery of our century is the lack of time; that is why we devote such a huge proportion of the talent 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 to a perfect lightning flash. But for Charles, and for almost all his contemporaries, the time went adagio[7].

One of the commonest symptoms of wealth today is destructive neurosis; in his century it was quiet boredom. There were many reasons why Charles wasn't pessimist. His grandfather the baronet had collected books principally; but in his later years had spent a lot of his money and his family's patience on the excavation of the hummocks of earth[8] that filled his three thousand Wiltshire acres where he had found neolithic graves. His elder son sold all the trophies when he came into his inheritance. But heaven had punished this son, or blessed him, by seeing that he never married. So the old man's younger son, Charles's father, was left with a lot of land and money.

There was only one tragedy in his life – the simultaneous death of his young wife and the stillborn child who would have been a sister to the one-year-old Charles. But he swallowed his grief. He lavished a series of tutors on his son, whom he liked only slightly less than himself. He sold his portion of land, invested in railway stock and at the gambling-tables, in short, lived very largely for pleasure and died in 1856. Charles was thus his only heir; heir not only to his father's fortune but eventually to his uncle's very considerable one.

Charles liked him, and his uncle liked Charles. But this was by no means[9] always apparent in their relationship. Though he would occasionally agree to shoot partridge and pheasant, Charles refused to hunt the fox. He had an unnatural fondness for walking instead of riding; and walking was not a gentleman's pastime except in the Swiss Alps.[10] He had nothing very much against the horse in itself, but he had the born naturalist's hatred of not being able to observe at close range and at leisure[11].

Charles had faults. He did not always write once a week; and he had a fondness for spending the afternoons in the library, a room his uncle seldom if ever used.

He had had graver faults than these, however. At Cambridge, he had (unlike most young men of his time) actually begun to learn something. But in his second year there he had drifted into a bad set[12] and ended up, one foggy night in London, in the arms of a naked girl. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church, horrifying his father by announcing that he wished to take Holy Orders[13]. There was only one answer to a crisis: the wicked youth was sent to Paris. There his tarnished virginity was soon blackened out of recognition; but so, as his father had hoped, was his intended marriage with the Church.

He returned from his six months in the City of Sin in 1856. His father had died three months later. The big house in Belgravia was let, and Charles installed himself in a smaller house in Kensington, more suitable to a young bachelor. There he was looked after by a manservant, a cook and two maids. He was happy there, and besides, he spent a great deal of time traveling. He offered one or two essays on his journeys to the fashionable magazines; indeed an enterprising publisher asked him to write a book after the nine months he spent in Portugal. He toyed with the idea, and dropped it. Indeed toying with ideas was his chief occupation during his third decade.

Yet he was not a frivolous young man. During the last three years he had become increasingly interested in paleontology; that, he had decided, was his field. He began to frequent the meetings of the Geological Society.

Charles was an interesting young man. There was a certain cynicism about him, but he never entered society without being looked at by the mamas, clapped on the back by the papas and simpered at by the girls. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he often led them, and their ambitious parents, on. Thus he had gained a reputation for coldness, by the time he was thirty he would sniff the bait[14] and then run away from the matrimonial traps.

His uncle often talked to him on the matter. The old man would grumble.

“I never found the right woman.”

“Nonsense. You never looked for her.”

“Indeed I did. When I was your age…”

“You lived for your hounds and the partridge season.”

The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. He did not really regret having no wife; but he bitterly lacked not having children to buy ponies and guns for.

“I was blind. Blind.”

“My dear uncle, I have excellent eyesight. Console yourself. I too have been looking for the right girl. And I have not found her.”

4

The basement kitchen of Mrs. Poulteney's large Regency house, which stood on one of the steep hills behind Lyme Regis, was a real hell, with its three fires, all of which had to be stoked twice a day. Never mind[15] how hot a summer's day was – the furnaces had to be fed. At the head of it was a Mrs. Fairley[16], a thin, small person who always wore black.

As Mrs. Poulteney's standards were very high, butlers, footmen, gardeners, upstairs maids, downstairs maids had worked for some time and soon fled. Exactly how Mrs. Fairley herself had stood her mistress so long was one of the local wonders. Most probably it was because she would, had life so fallen out[17], have been a Mrs. Poulteney on her own account[18]. In short, both women were sadistic; and it was to their advantage[19] to tolerate each other.

Mrs. Poulteney had two obsessions. One was Dirt and the other was Immorality. In neither field did anything wrong escape her eagle eye[20].

She was like some vulture, endlessly circling around the house looking for dust, finger-marks, poorly starched linen, smells, stains, breakages and other ills. A gardener would be dismissed for being seen to come into the house with earth on his hands; a butler for having a spot of wine on his stock; a maid for having wool under her bed.

Heaven help the maid seen out walking on one of her rare free afternoons with a young man. There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she could bring the strongest girls to tears in the first five minutes. Her only notion of justice was that she must be right.

Yet among her own class, a very limited circle, she was known for her charity. And if you had disputed that reputation, your opponents would have said: had not dear, kind Mrs. Poulteney taken in the French Lieutenant's Woman?

This remarkable event had taken place in the spring of 1866, exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs. Poulteney's life. It was a very simple secret. She believed in hell.

The vicar of Lyme knew very well on which side his pastoral bread was buttered. He suited Lyme very well. He had the knack of a good eloquence[21] in his sermons; and he kept his church free of all signs of the Romish cancer[22]. Mrs. Poulteney's purse was as open to calls from him as it was closed where her thirteen domestics' wages were concerned. She had given considerable sums to the church.

One day she took advantage of the vicar's visits and examined her conscience. At first he wanted to rid her of spiritual worries.

The vicar smiled. “My dear madam, the Creator is all-seeing and all-wise. It is not for us to doubt His mercy or His justice.”

“But supposing He should ask me if my conscience is clear?” There was a silence.

“If only poor Frederick had not died. It was a warning. A punishment. He would have advised me.”

“Doubtless”.

“I have given. But I have not done good deeds.”

“To give is a most excellent deed.”

A long silence followed, in which the vicar meditated on his dinner, still an hour away, and Mrs. Poulteney on her wickedness. She then came out, with an unusual timidity.

“If you knew of some lady, some nice person who is in a difficult situation.”

“I am not quite clear what you mean.”

“I wish to take a companion. I have difficulty in writing now. And Mrs. Fairley reads so poorly. I should be happy to give a home for such a person.”

“Very well. If you so wish it. I will make inquiries.”

“She must be of perfect moral character. I have my servants to consider[23].”

“My dear lady, of course, of course.” The vicar stood.

“And preferably without relations. They can become so very tiresome.”

“Rest assured[24] that I shall not present anyone unsuitable.” He pressed her hand and moved towards the door. “And Mr. Forsythe, not too young a person.” He bowed and left the room. But halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, he stopped. He remembered. He reflected. And an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. He stood in the doorway.

“An eligible[25] has occurred to me. Her name is Sarah Woodruff.”

5

Ernestina had exactly the right face for her age; that is, small-chinned, oval, delicate as a violet. At first meetings she could cast down her eyes very prettily, as if she might faint should any gentleman dare to address her. To a man like Charles she was irresistible. When Charles left Aunt Tranter's house in Broad Street to walk a hundred paces or so down to his hotel, there to mount the stairs to his rooms and look at his face in the mirror, Ernestine excused herself and went to her room.

She wanted to catch a last glimpse[26] of her betrothed through the lace curtains.

She admired the way he walked and the manner in which he raised his top hat to Aunt Tranter's maid; though she hated him for doing it, because the girl had beautiful eyes and a fine complexion, and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty. Then Ernestina turned back into her room. It had been furnished for her and to her taste, which was emphatically French. The rest of Aunt Tranter's house was in the style of a quarter-century before: that is, a museum of objects.

Nobody could dislike Aunt Tranter as she had the optimism of successful old maids. She had begun by making the best of things for herself, and ended by making the best of them for the rest of the world as well.

However, Ernestina was angry with her; on the impossibility of having dinner at five; on the subject of her aunt's excessive care for her fair name[27] (she would not believe that the bridegroom and bride-to-be might wish to sit alone, and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina's being in Lyme at all.

The poor girl had suffered the agony of every only child[28] since time began[29] – that is, parental worry. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim called decorators and dressmakers. This was all very well when it came to new dresses. But not when it was her health. Her mother and father were convinced she was consumptive. They had only to smell damp in a basement to move house[30], only to have two days' rain to change districts. All doctors had examined her, and found nothing; she had never had a serious illness in her life. She could have danced and played all night. They weren't able to see into the future! For Ernestina was to outlive all her generation. She was born in 1846. And she died on the day that Hitler invaded Poland.

An indispensable part of her life was thus her annual stay with her mother's sister in Lyme. Usually she came to recover from the season; this year she was sent early to gather strength for the marriage. No doubt the Channel[31] breezes did her some good, but she always went to Lyme with the gloom of a prisoner arriving in Siberia. The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter's old furniture; and as for the entertainment, to a young lady familiar with the best that London can offer it was worse than nil[32]. So her relation with Aunt Tranter was much more than what one would expect of niece and aunt. Ernestina had certainly a very strong will of her own. But fortunately she had a deep respect for tradition; and she shared with Charles a sense of self-irony. Without this and a sense of humor she would have been a horrid spoiled child.

In her room that afternoon she unbuttoned her dress and stood before her mirror in her chemise and petticoats. For a few moments she became lost in a highly narcissistic selfcontemplation. Her neck and shoulders did her face justice; she was really very pretty, one of the prettiest girls she knew. And as if to prove it she raised her arms and unloosed her hair, a thing she knew to be sinful. She imagined herself for a moment as someone wicked – a dancer, an actress. And then, if you had been watching, you would have seen something very curious. For she suddenly stopped turning and admiring herself in profile; gave an abrupt look up at the ceiling. Her lips moved. And she hastily opened one of the wardrobes and drew on a peignoir.

For what had crossed her mind was a sexual thought. 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. She had once or twice seen animals couple; the violence haunted her mind. She tried not to think about those things but she wanted a husband, wanted Charles to be that husband, wanted children; but the payment she would have to make for them seemed excessive.

Ernestina went to her dressing table, unlocked a drawer and there pulled out her diary. From another drawer she took a hidden key and unlocked the book. She turned immediately to the back page. There she had written out, on the day of her betrothal to Charles, the dates of all the months and days that lay between it and her marriage. Some ninety numbers remained till March 26th. Then she turned to the front of the book: some fifteen pages of close handwriting[33] in, there came a blank, upon which she had pressed a sprig of jasmine. She stared at it a moment, then bent to smell it. Her loosened hair fell over the page, and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could imagine the day she had thought she would die of joy…

But she heard Aunt Tranter's feet on the stairs, hastily put the book away, and began to comb her brown hair.

6

Mrs. Poulteney's face, that afternoon when the vicar returned and made the announcement, expressed ignorance. “I do not know her.”

“I did not suppose you would. She is a Charmouth[34] girl.”

“A girl?”

“That is, I am not quite sure of her age, a woman, a lady of some thirty years of age. Perhaps more.” The vicar felt that he was making a poor start. “But a most distressing case. Most deserving of your charity.”

“Has she an education?”

“Yes indeed. She was trained to be a governess. She was a governess.”

“And what is she now?”

“I believe she is without employment.”

“Why?”

“That is a long story.”

“I should certainly wish to hear it before taking her in.”

So the vicar sat down again, and told her what he knew of Sarah Woodruff.

“ The girl's father was a farmer merely, but a man of excellent principles and highly respected in the neighborhood. He most wisely gave the girl a good education.”

“He is dead?”

“Some several years ago. The girl became a governess to Captain John Talbot's family at Charmouth.”

“Will he give a letter of reference[35]?”

“My dear Mrs. Poulteney, we are discussing, if I understood our earlier conversation right, an object of charity, not an object of employment. No doubt such a letter can be obtained. She left his home at her own request[36]. What happened was this. You will recall the French ship that was driven ashore[37] under Stonebarrow 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. One, I understand, was the lieutenant of the vessel. His leg had been crushed, but he clung to a spar[38] and was washed ashore. You must surely have read of this.”

“Very probably. I do not like the French.”

“Captain Talbot, as a naval officer himself, most kindly offered hospitality to the foreign officer. He spoke no English. And Miss Woodruff was called upon to interpret and look after his needs.”

“She speaks French?” Mrs. Poulteney's alarm at this awful news was nearly enough to sink the vicar. But he smiled.

“My dear madam, so do most governesses. It is not their fault if the world requires such quality of them. But to return to the French gentleman. I regret to say that he did not deserve that name.”

“Mr. Forsythe!”

“I want to add that no misconduct took place at Captain Talbot's. Or so far as Miss Woodruff is concerned, at any place or time. But the Frenchman managed to gain Miss Woodruff's affections[39]. When his leg was mended he took coach to Weymouth, there to find a home passage[40]. Two days after he had gone Miss Woodruff asked Mrs. Talbot to allow her to leave her post. I am told that Mrs. Talbot tried to learn the woman's reasons. But without success.”

“And she let her leave without notice[41]?”

The vicar took his chance. “I agree – it was most foolish. But I will make my story short. Miss Woodruff joined the Frenchman in Weymouth. Her conduct should be criticized, but I am informed that she stayed with a female cousin.”

“That does not excuse her in my eyes.”

“Certainly not. But you must remember that she is not a lady born. The lower classes are not so accurate as ourselves. Furthermore I have forgotten to tell you that Miss Woodruff went to Weymouth because the Frenchman had promised to marry.”

“But was he not a Catholic?”

“I am afraid his conduct shows he was without any Christian faith. After some days he returned to France, promising Miss Woodruff that as soon as he had seen his family and got a new ship he would come back to Lyme, marry her, and take her away with him. Since then she has waited. It is quite clear that the man was a heartless deceiver.”

“And what has happened to her since? Surely Mrs. Talbot did not take her back?”

“Madam, Mrs. Talbot is an eccentric lady. She offered to do so. But I now come to the sad consequences of my story. Miss Woodruff is not insane. Far from it. She is perfectly able to perform any duties that may be given to her. But she suffers from grave attacks of melancholia. But also, she has a fixed idea that the lieutenant is an honorable man and will one day return to her. For that reason she may be frequently seen on the pier. I would say, madam, she is slightly crazed[42].”

There was a silence then. The vicar hoped for chance. He felt that Mrs. Poulteney was calculating. Her opinion of herself required her to appear shocked and alarmed at the idea of allowing such a creature into Marlborough House. But there was God to be accounted to[43].

“She has relatives?”

“I understand not.”

“How has she supported herself since…?”

“I understand she has been doing a little needlework. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation.”

“She has saved, then.”

The vicar breathed again.

“If you take her in, madam, I think she will be truly saved.” He played his trump card[44].

And a week later Mrs. Talbot mailed a letter of reference, which did more harm than good, since it didn't condemn sufficiently the governess's conduct. One phrase in particular angered Mrs. Poulteney. “Monsieur Varguennes was a person of considerable charm, and Captain Talbot wishes me to state that a sailor's life is not the best school of morals.” Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a “skilled and dutiful teacher” or that “My infants have deeply missed her.” But Mrs. Talbot's tolerance and sentimentality finally helped Sarah with Mrs. Poulteney; they set her a challenge[45].

So Sarah came for an interview, accompanied by the vicar. She pleased Mrs. Poulteney from the start, by seeming so cast down by circumstance. It was true that she looked what she indeed was – near twenty-five. But only her sorrow showed she was a sinner, and Mrs. Poulteney wanted her look more clearly to be in that category.

Then, at the vicar's suggestion, she dictated a letter. The handwriting was excellent, the spelling perfect. She passed Sarah her Bible and made her read. Sarah's voice was firm, rather deep. It had traces of a rural accent, but in those days a genteel accent was not the great social requisite it later became. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. Fairley's stumbling that the voice first satisfied and then charmed Mrs. Poulteney. There remained a brief interrogation.

“Mr. Forsythe informs me that you are attached to the foreign person.”

“I do not wish to speak of it, ma'm.”

If any maid had dared to say such a thing to Mrs. Poulteney, the Dies Irae[46] would have followed. But this was spoken openly, without fear, yet respectfully.

“I will not have French books in my house.”

“I have none. Nor English, ma'm.”

“You have surely a Bible?”

The girl shook her head. The vicar intervened. “I will attend to that, my dear Mrs. Poulteney.”

“I am told you constantly attend divine service.”

“Yes, ma'm.”

“Let it remain so. God consoles us in all adversity[47].”

“I try to share your belief, ma'm.”

Mrs. Poulteney put her most difficult question, one the vicar had in fact asked her not to make.

“What if this, person returns; what then?”

But again Sarah did the best possible thing: she said nothing, and simply bowed her head and shook it. In her favorable mood Mrs. Poulteney entered upon her good deed[48].

It had not occurred to her, of course, to ask why Sarah, who had refused offers of work from less strict Christian souls than Mrs. Poulteney's, should wish to enter her house. There were two very simple reasons. One was that Marlborough House gave a good view of Lyme Bay. The other was even simpler. She had exactly sevenpence in the world.

7

In the morning, when Sam drew the curtains, Charles sat up, took off his nightcap, told Sam to throw open the windows and stared at the sunlight that went into the room. The gloom that had oppressed him the previous day had blown away with the clouds. He felt the warm spring air through his nightshirt. In the cobbled street below, a rider clopped peacefully down towards the sea. All was supremely well. The world would always be this, and this moment.

Charles wished he could draw. Really, the country was charming. He turned to his man.

“Upon my word, Sam, on a day like this I could never see London again.”

“If you goes on a-standin' in the hair, sir, you won't, neither[49].”

His master gave him a dry look. He and Sam had been together for four years and knew each other very well.

“Sam, you've been drinking again.”

“No, sir.”

“ The new room is better?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam tested the blade of the razor on the edge of his small thumb, with an expression on his face that suggested that at any moment he might change his mind[50] and try it on his own throat; or perhaps even on his smiling master's.

“It's that there kitchen-girl's at Mrs. Tranter's, sir. I ain't 'alf going to…”

“Kindly put that instrument down. And explain yourself.”

“I sees her. Dahn out there.” He jerked his thumb at the window. “Right across the street she calls.”

“And what did she call?”

Sam's expression deepened to outrage. “'Ave yer got a bag o' soot?'” He paused. “Sir.”

Charles grinned.

“I know the girl. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at?” This was unkind of Charles, since he was speaking of the girl he had raised his hat to on the previous afternoon.

“Not exackly hugly. Leastways in looks.”

“A-ha. So. Cupid is being unfair to Cockneys.”

Sam gave an indignant look. “I woulden touch 'er with a bargepole[51]! Bloomin[52]' milkmaid.”

“I trust you're using the adjective in its literal sense[53], Sam.” “It's the 'oomiliation, Mr. Charles. Hall the hosslers 'eard.” As “all the ostlers” included exactly two persons, one of whom was stone deaf, Charles showed little sympathy. He smiled, then gestured to Sam to pour him his hot water.

“Now get me my breakfast, there's a good fellow. I'll shave myself this morning. And let me have a double dose of muffins.”

“Yes, sir.”

But Charles stopped Sam at the door.

“These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen – unless they've first been provoked. I suspect, Sam, that you've been fast.” Sam stood with his mouth open. “And if you're not doubly fast with my breakfast I shall fasten my boot onto the posterior portion of your miserable anatomy[54].”

The door was shut then, and none too gently. Charles winked at himself in the mirror. Then he smiled at his own face contemplating his features. He had indeed very regular ones – a wide forehead, a moustache as black as his hair. His skin was rather pale, though less so than that of many London gentlemen – for this was a time when a suntan was not at all a desirable social-sexual status symbol, but the reverse: an indication of low rank. Yes, upon examination, it was a rather foolish face, at such a moment. Too innocent a face, when it was stripped of its formal outdoor mask. There was really only the Doric nose[55], the cool gray eyes. Breeding and self-knowledge, he most certainly had[56].

He began to cover his face in lather.

8

Ernestina had woken in a mood that the brilliant day only worsened. The ill was familiar; but it was out of the question that she should inform Charles about her problem. And so, when he called dutifully at ten o'clock at Aunt Tranter's house, he was greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night, and wished to rest. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea, when no doubt she would recover?

Charles's polite questions – should the doctor not be called? – were politely answered in the negative, and he took his leave[57]. He told Sam to buy flowers and take them to the charming invalid's house, and accompanied his request with the permission and advice to present a blossom or two of his own to his young lady. Now Charles faced his own free hours.

Lyme is situated in the center of one of the rare outcrops of a stone known as blue lias[58]. To the mere landscape enthusiast this stone is not attractive. Moreover, it is treacherous, since this little stretch of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England. But it's a Mecca for the British paleontologist.

Charles had already visited what was perhaps the most famous shop in the Lyme of those days – the Old Fossil Shop. There he paid his cash for various species he kept in the cabinets that walled his study in London.

This was petrified sea urchin[59]. These beautiful little objects are of great scientific value; and they have the added charm that they are always difficult to find. 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.

Some half-hour after he had called on Aunt Tranter, Charles was once again at the Cobb[60].

The great mole was far from isolated that day. There were fishermen, better-class people, early visitors, local residents, walking beside the now mild sea. Of the woman who stared, Charles noted, there was no sign. But he did not give her a second thought[61] and set out for his destination.

He was carefully equipped for his role. He wore nailed boots and canvas gaiters. There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat[62]; and a huge rucksack, from which you might have shaken out hammers, wrappings, notebooks, pillboxes[63], and heaven knows what else.

As Charles hammered and bent and examined his way along the shore, trying to jump over a wide gap between boulders, he slipped on his back. He didn't mind slipping, for the day was beautiful, the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone.

The sea sparkled, birds cried, and an idea drifted across the poor fellow's brain – would it not be more fun, perhaps to give up London, to live in Lyme… but Ernestina would never allow that.

Finally he came across a very fine fragment of lias with ammonite impressions, exquisitely clear. Having duly filled a label with the date and place of finding, he once again switched to another theme – this time, to love. He determined to give it to Ernestina when he returned. It was pretty enough for her to like; and after all, very soon it would come back to him, with her. Even better, the increased weight on his back made it a labor, as well as a gift.

And Charles wandered more slowly than he meant. He unbuttoned his coat and took out his silver half-hunter[64]. Two o'clock! He looked sharply back then, and saw the waves lapping the foot of a point a mile away. He was in no danger of being cut off, since he could see a steep but safe path just ahead of him which led up the cliff to the dense woods above. But he could not return along the shore. His destination had indeed been this path, but he took it much too fast, and had to sit a minute to recover. He heard a little stream nearby and quenched his thirst[65]; wetted his handkerchief and patted his face; and then he began to look around him.

9

Sarah was intelligent, but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass unnoticed in any of our modern tests. It was not in the least analytical or problem-solving, nor did it demonstrate itself in the form of any particular vivacity or wit, even in her happier days. It was rather an unusual – unusual in one who had never been to London, never mixed in the world – ability to classify other people's worth: to understand them, in the fullest sense of that word.

She had some sort of psychological equivalent of the experienced horse dealer's skill – the ability to know almost at the first glance the good horse from the bad one. She could see people as they were and not as they tried to seem.

She got her education in a third-rate young ladies' seminary in Exeter, 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 small tasks. She did not get on well with the other pupils. They looked down on her; and she looked up through them. Thus it had come about that she had read far more fiction, and far more poetry. They served her as a substitute for experience. Without realizing it she judged people as much by the standards of Walter Scott[66] and Jane Austen[67]. She was a perfect victim of a caste society. Her father had forced her out of her own class, but could not raise her to the next. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to, she remained too banal.

This father sent her to boarding school not out of concern for his daughter but because of obsession with his own ancestry. Four generations back on the paternal side they were clearly established gentlemen. There was even a remote relationship with the Drake[68] family. Perhaps he was disappointed when his daughter came home from school at the age of eighteen and sat across the table from him and watched him when he boasted, annoyed him like a piece of useless machinery. He bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap, and what he thought was a good bargain[69] turned out to be a bad one. He went quite literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. He died there a year later. By that time Sarah had been earning her own living[70] for a year – at first with a family in Dorchester, to be near her father. Then when he died, she had taken her post with the Talbots.

She was too good-looking a girl not to have had suitors, in spite of the lack of a dowry of any kind. But she always saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw their meannesses, their stupidities. Thus she was doomed to spinsterhood.

Sarah stayed with Mrs. Poulteney for a year and there happened great changes which did credit[71] to their relationship.

It had begun one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had taken up her duties. The old lady had noticed that the upstairs maid whose duty it was each Tuesday to water the ferns in the drawing room hadn't done so. The girl was called and she confessed that she had forgotten; and Mrs. Poulteney began, like a bulldog about to sink its teeth into a burglar's ankles[72], to speak.

“I will tolerate much, but I will not tolerate this.”

“I'll never do it again, mum.”

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

“Oh, mum. Please, mum.”

“Mrs. Fairley will give you your wages.”

Miss Sarah was present at this conversation, since Mrs. Poulteney had been dictating letters. She now asked a question; and the effect was remarkable. It was, to begin with, the first question she had asked in Mrs. Poulteney's presence that was not directly connected with her duties. Secondly, it opposed the old lady's judgment[73]. Thirdly, it was spoken not to Mrs. Poulteney, but to the girl.

“Are you quite well, Millie?”

Miss Sarah was beside her; and within the next minute had learned that the girl was indeed not well, had fainted twice within the last week, had been too afraid to tell anyone…

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

“What am I to do?”

“As you think best, ma'm.”

On Mrs. Poulteney's birthday Sarah presented her with an antimacassar[74] embroidered with ferns and lilies-of-the-valley. It pleased Mrs. Poulteney highly.

But there was a debit side of the relationship. It had been initially arranged that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. All seemed well for two months. Then one morning Miss Sarah did not appear at the Marlborough House matins; and when the maid was sent to look for her, it was discovered that she had not risen. Mrs. Poulteney went to see her. Sarah was in tears, but on this occasion Mrs. Poulteney felt only irritation. However, she sent for the doctor. He remained closeted with Sarah a long time. When he came down to Mrs. Poulteney, he gave her a brief lecture on melancholia and ordered her to allow her sinner more fresh air and freedom.

“If you insist on the most urgent necessity for it.”

“My dear madam, I do. And I will not be responsible otherwise.”

And on his strict order it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty.

Mrs. Poulteney wanted her charity to be seen, which meant that Sarah had to be present with visitors. Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy. With certain old-established visitors, she remained; with others she discreetly left when they were announced. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House.

But I have left the worst matter to the end. Mrs. Poulteney had made several more attempts to learn the details of the sin. But every time Mrs. Poulteney approached the subject, the sinner's answers to direct questions were always the same as the one she had given at her first interrogation.

Now Mrs. Poulteney seldom went out, so that she had to rely on other eyes for news of Sarah's activities outside her house. Fortunately for her such a pair of eyes existed – this spy, of course, was none other than Mrs. Fairley, a woman whose only pleasures were knowing the worst or fearing the worst; thus she developed for Sarah a hatred.

She had a wide network of relations and acquaintances at her command. To these latter she said that Mrs. Poulteney wanted to be informed of Miss Woodruff's behavior outside the tall stone walls of the gardens of Marlborough House. The result was that Sarah's every movement and expression in her free hours was soon known to Mrs. Fairley.

Sarah always went to the Cobb Gate. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. On the way, she would most often turn into the parish church, and pray for a few minutes. She could be seen walking up the grassland, with frequent turns towards the sea. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather made it deserted, she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there, it was supposed, she felt herself nearest to France.

All this came back to Mrs. Poulteney.

“I am told, Miss Woodruff, that you are always to be seen in the same places when you go out.” Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. “You look to sea.” Still Sarah was silent. “I am satisfied that you are in a state of repentance.”

“I am grateful to you, ma'm.”

“I am not concerned with your gratitude to me. There is One Above[75] us all.”

The girl murmured, “How should I not know it?”

“To the ignorant it may seem that you are persistent in your sin.”

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

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

Sarah rose then and went to the window. She gazed for a moment out over that sea, then turned back to the old lady, who sat in her armchair as the Queen on her throne.

“Do you wish me to leave, ma'm?”

Mrs. Poulteney was shocked. She moderated her tone.

“I wish you to show that this… person is crossed out from your heart. I know that he is. But you must show it.”

“How am I to show it?”

“By walking elsewhere. If for no other reason, because I ask for it.”

Sarah stood with bowed head, and there was a silence. But then she looked Mrs. Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival, she gave the faintest smile.

“I will do as you wish, ma'm.”

Sarah kept her side of the bargain[76]. She now went very rarely to the Cobb, though when she did, she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare, as on the day we have described.

Mrs. Fairley, then, had a poor time of it for many months. But one day, not a fortnight before the beginning of my story, Mrs. Fairley had come to Mrs. Poulteney with the face of one about to announce the death of a close friend.

“I have something unhappy to communicate, ma'm.”

“It cannot concern Miss Woodruff?”

“Would that it did not, ma'm[77]. But I fear it is my duty to tell you.”

“We must never fear what is our duty.”

“No, ma'm.”

“She has taken to walking, ma'm, on Ware Commons[78].”

Mrs. Poulteney's mouth did something extraordinary. It fell open.

10

The Undercliff, a mile-long slope caused by erosion, makes one of the strangest coastal landscapes in Southern England. It is very steep: flat places are as rare as visitors in it. But this steepness pulls its vegetation towards the sun; and this fact gives the area its botanical strangeness – its wild trees rarely seen growing in England; its enormous ashes and beeches; fern that grows seven, eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than anywhere else in the district. It has also, like all land that has never been worked or lived on by man, its mysteries, its shadows, its dangers. Strange as it may seem, it was less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today. There is not a single cottage in the Undercliff now; in 1867 there were several, lived in by gamekeepers or woodmen. Now the Undercliff is in a state of total wildness.

It was this place that Charles had entered when he had climbed the path from the shore; and this same place was called Ware Commons.

When Charles had quenched his thirst and cooled his brow with his wetted handkerchief he began to look around him. He forgot science and enjoyed nature. A distant woodpecker drummed in the branches of some high tree. When he turned he saw the blue sea, now washing far below.

He started thinking about man and nature. Eventually science won, and he began to search for his tests. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop, but the sea urchins evaded him. He had no luck. An hour passed, and his duty towards Ernestina began to outweigh his lust for echinoderms[79]. He looked at his watch, and made his way back to where he had left his rucksack. Some way up the slope, with the declining sun on his back, he came on a path and set off for Lyme. The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then forked without indication. He hesitated, then walked some fifty yards or so along the lower path. But then he came to a solution to his problem, for yet another path suddenly branched to his right, up a steep small slope, and from which he could plainly orientate himself. He therefore pushed up through the bramble shrubs to the little green plateau.

It opened out very pleasantly, like a tiny alpine meadow. Charles stood in the sunlight. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau.

And there, below him, he saw a figure.

For one terrible moment he thought he had come upon a corpse. But it was a woman asleep. Charles's immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman's view. He did not see who she was. He stood at a loss, looking at but not seeing the fine landscape the place offered. He hesitated, he was about to leave; but then his curiosity drew him forward again.

The girl lay in deep sleep, on her back. Her coat had fallen open over her blue dress with a small white collar at the throat. The sleeper's face was turned away from him, her right arm thrown back, bent in a childlike way. There was something very tender and yet sexual in the way she lay; it awakened Charles's memory of a moment from his time in Paris. Another girl, whose name now he could not even remember, perhaps had never known, seen sleeping so, one dawn, in a bedroom overlooking the Seine.

He moved round the plateau, to where he could see the sleeper's face better, and it was only then that he realized whom he had come upon. It was the French Lieutenant's Woman. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek. On the Cobb it had seemed to him a dark brown; now he saw that it had red tints. The skin below seemed very brown in that light, as if the girl cared more for health than a fashionably pale complexion. A strong nose, heavy eyebrows, the mouth he could not see.

He stood unable to do anything but stare down, tranced by this unexpected meeting, and overcome by an equally strange feeling – not sexual, but fraternal, perhaps paternal, a certainty of the innocence of this creature, of her being unfairly outcast. He could not imagine what could drive her to this wild place.

He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her, directly over her face, and there he saw that all the sadness was gone; in sleep the face was gentle, it might even have had a smile. It was precisely then that she awoke.

She looked up at once. He was detected, and he was too much a gentleman to deny it. So when Sarah rose to her feet, gathering her coat about her, and stared back up at him, he raised his hat and bowed. She said nothing, but fixed him with a look of shock and confusion. She had fine dark eyes.

They stood thus for several seconds. She seemed so small to him, standing there below, as if, should he take a step towards her, she would turn and rush out of his sight.

“A thousand apologies. I came upon you by chance.” And then he turned and walked away. He did not look back, but went down to the path he had left, and waited half a minute to see if she was following him. She did not appear. Very soon he marched firmly away up the steeper path.

11

At about the same time Ernestina got from her bed and took her diary from her dressing table. In the morning she wrote: “Did not see dearest Charles. Did not go out, tho' it is very fine. Did not feel happy.”

Aunt Tranter's house was small, and she had heard Sam knock on the front door downstairs when he brought flowers; she had heard Mary open it – a murmur of voices and then a suppressed laughter from the maid, a slammed door. The suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down there, flirting; and this was one of her deepest fears about him.

She knew he had lived in Paris, in Lisbon, and traveled much; she knew he was eleven years older than herself; she knew he was attractive to women. His answers to her playful questions about his past conquests were always playful in return; and that was the rub[80]. She felt jealous. But the matter of whether he had slept with other women didn't worry her much. It was really Charles's heart of which she was jealous. That, she could not bear to think of having to share.

When the front door closed, Ernestina tried to control herself, then she rang the bell and soon afterwards, there were footsteps, a knock, and the door opened to let in Mary bearing a vase with a fountain of spring flowers. The girl came and stood by the bed, smiling.

Of the three young women who pass through these pages Mary was, in my opinion, by far the prettiest. She had pink complexion, corn-colored hair and wide gray-blue eyes. Not even the dull Victorian clothes could hide the seductive plump figure.

Mary's great-great-granddaughter, who is twenty-two years old this month I write in, much resembles her ancestor; and her face is known over the entire world, for she is one of the more celebrated younger English film actresses.

Mrs. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty, laughing girls even better. Of course, Ernestina was her niece, and she worried for her more; but Ernestina she saw only once or twice a year, and Mary she saw every day. The girl had a warm heart; she returned the warmth that was given.

Mary was not faultless; and one of her faults was a certain envy of Ernestina, who became the favorite of the household when she arrived from London; but the young lady from London came also with trunkfuls of the latest London and Paris fashions, while she had only three dresses. She also thought Charles was a beautiful man for a husband; too good for a pale creature like Ernestina. This was why Charles had the benefit of those gray-and-blue eyes when she opened the door to him or passed him in the street. Each time he raised his hat to her in the street she mentally cocked her nose at Ernestina[81].

Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode.

“From Mr. Charles, Miss Tina. With 'er complimums.” Mary spoke in a dialect known for its contempt of pronouns and suffixes[82].

“Place them on my dressing table. I do not like them so close.”

Mary obediently put them there.

“Did he bring them himself?”

“No, miss.”

“Where is Mr. Charles?”

“Doan know, miss. I didn' ask'un.” But her mouth was pressed too tightly together, as if she wanted to giggle.

“But I heard you speak with the man.”

“Yes, miss.”

“What about?”

“'Twas just the time o' day[83], miss.”

“Is that what made you laugh?”

“Yes, miss. 'Tis the way 'e speaks, miss.”

Ernestina gave her a look very much like Mrs. Poulteney's.

“You will kindly remember that he comes from London.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Mr. Smithson has already spoken to me of him. The man fancies himself a Don Juan[84].”

“What's that then, Miss Tina?[85]”

“Never mind now[86]. But if he makes advances[87] I wish to be told at once.”

In London the beginnings of a social stratification had, by the mid-century, begun. Nothing of course took the place of good blood[88]; but it had become generally accepted that good money and good brains could help achieve high social standing[89]. Ernestina's grandfather had been a draper when he was young; but he died a very rich draper since he had moved commercially into central London, founded one of the West End's great stores and extended his business into many departments besides drapery. Her father had given her the best education that money could buy. In all except his origins he was a gentleman; and he had married a daughter of one of the City's most successful solicitors, who had good ancestors.

Charles had first met her the preceding November, at the house of a lady who had her eye on him for one of her daughters. To both young people it had promised to be just one more dull evening; and both, when they returned to their homes, found that it had not been so.

They saw in each other a superiority of intelligence. Ernestina let it be known that she had found Mr. Smithson an agreeable change from the dull crop of partners presented for her examination that season. Her mother made discreet inquiries; and consulted her husband, who made more. Charles passed his secret exam with flying colors[90].

When he began to attend her mother's parties 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 less sly ones from the father on the size of the fortune “my dearest girl” would bring to her husband. The latter were, in any case, unnecessary; the Hyde Park house was fit for a duke to live in, and the absence of brothers and sisters said more than a thousand bank statements[91].

Ernestina played her hand well. She always invited other attractive young men; and did not do him any particular favour. She was, on principle, never serious with him: she gave him the impression that she liked him because he was fun – but of course she knew he would never marry. Then came an evening in January when she decided to plant the fatal seed[92].

She saw Charles standing alone; and on the opposite side of the room she saw an aged widow. She went up to him.

“Shall you not go converse with Lady Fairwether?”

“I should rather converse with you.”

“I will present you.”

So they began to cross the room together; but halfway to the lady, she stopped, laid her hand a moment on his arm, and looked him in the eyes.

“If you are determined to be an old bachelor, Mr. Smithson, you must practice for your part[93].”

She had moved on before he could answer; but her eyes made it clear that she made an offer.

What she did not know was that she had touched a sensitive place in Charles's soul; his feeling that life was passing him by, that he was being lazy, selfish… and worse. 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. It allowed him to take an occasional woman into his bed, a pleasure he strictly forbade himself, perhaps remembering what his first test in that field had caused, in England.

Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did, and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration. He passed a very thoughtful week. Then one morning he woke up.

Everything had become simple. He loved Ernestina. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such a cold, gray morning, and seeing that sweet little face asleep beside him. A few minutes later he startled the sleepy Sam by saying: “Sam! I am an absolute one hundred per cent heaven forgive me damned fool[94]!”

A day or two afterwards the fool had an interview with Ernestina's father. It was brief, and very satisfactory. He went down to the drawing room, where Ernestina's mother sat. Unable to speak to Charles, she pointed in the direction of the conservatory. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the hot, fragrant air. He had to search for Ernestina, but at last he found her in one of the farthest corners. She glanced at him, and then looked hastily down and away. She held a pair of silver scissors, and was pretending to snip off some of the dead blooms of the heavily scented plant. Charles stood close behind her; coughed.

“I have come to bid my adieux. I have decided to leave England. For the rest of my life I shall travel. How else can an old bachelor spend his days?”

He was ready to go on in this vein[95]. But then he saw that Ernestina's head was bowed and that her knuckles were drained white by the force with which she was gripping the table. He understood that it came from a deep emotion she felt for him.

“But if I believed that someone cared for me to share…”

He could not go on, for she had turned, her eyes full of tears. Their hands met, and he drew her to him. They did not kiss. They could not, for she burst into tears.

A few minutes later Charles led Tina to the door back to the drawing room. But he stopped a moment at a plant of jasmine and picked a sprig and held it playfully over her head.

“It isn't mistletoe[96], but it will do, will it not?”

And so they kissed, with lips as asexual as children's. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes, and allowed Charles to lead her back into the drawing room, where her mother and father stood. No words were needed. Ernestina ran into her mother's opened arms. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just concluded an excellent business deal, the other as if he was not quite sure which planet he had just landed on, but sincerely hoped the natives were friendly.

12

Charles walked for a mile or more through the woods of Ware Commons. Soon he was on the cart track[97] back to Lyme. Ahead moved the black figure of the girl; she walked not quickly, but with an even pace, like one used to covering long distances. Charles set out to catch up, and after a hundred yards or so he came close behind her. She must have heard the sound of his boots, but she did not turn. He noticed that the coat was a little too large for her, and that the heels of her shoes were mudstained. He hesitated only a moment, then:

“Madam!”

She turned, to see him hatless, smiling; and once again that face had an extraordinary effect on him. It seemed to both envelop and reject him.

“I owe you two apologies. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. Poulteney's secretary. I fear I addressed you in a most impolite manner.”

She stared down at the ground. “It's no matter, sir.”

“And just now when I seemed… I was afraid you had been taken ill.”

Still without looking at him, she inclined her head and turned to walk on.

“May I not accompany you?[98] Since we walk in the same direction?”

She stopped, but did not turn. “I prefer to walk alone.”

“Mrs. Tranter told me who you are. I am – ”

“I know who you are, sir.”

“Then.”

Her eyes were suddenly on his.

“Kindly allow me to go on my way alone.” His smile stopped. He bowed and stepped back. But instead of continuing on her way, she stared at the ground a moment. “And please tell no one you have seen me in this place.”

Then, without looking at him again, she turned and went. Standing in the center of the road, Charles watched her black back moving away. All he was left with[99] was the after-image of those eyes – they were abnormally large, as if able to see more and suffer more.

He looked round, trying to imagine why she should not wish it known that she came among these innocent woods. But then he remembered her story.

When Charles finally arrived in Broad Street, he decided to call at Mrs. Tranter's on his way to the White Lion. She brought him into the little drawing room, where he met Ernestina and kissed her fingers. She took her hand away. “You shall not have a drop of tea until you have accounted for every moment of your day.”

He described everything that had happened to him; or almost everything, for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant's Woman was unpleasant to her.

Charles produced the piece of rock he had brought for Ernestina. “It is a most fascinating wilderness, the Undercliff. I had no idea such places existed in England.”

“Now confess, Charles, you have been dallying with the wood nymphs.”

Charles showed here surprise, which he covered with a smile. It was on the tip of his tongue[100] to tell her about the girl; and yet seemed a sort of treachery, both to the girl and to himself.

Sarah found Mrs. Poulteney sitting in wait for her when she returned from her walk that evening. I said “in wait”; but “in state[101]” would have been a more appropriate term. Sarah appeared in the private drawing room for the evening Bible-reading, and found herself as if faced with the muzzle of a cannon. It was very clear that any moment Mrs. Poulteney might go off, and with a very loud bang indeed.

Sarah went towards the lectern in the corner of the room, where the large “family” Bible had laid. But she saw that all was not well.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Poulteney?”

“Something is very wrong,” said the abbess. “I have been told something I can hardly believe.”

“To do with me?”

“I should never have listened to the doctor. I should have listened to my own common sense[102].”

“What have I done?”

“I do not think you are mad at all. You are a cunning, wicked creature. You know very well what you have done.”

“I will swear on the Bible – ”

But Mrs. Poulteney gave her a look of indignation. “You will do nothing of the sort![103] That is blasphemy.”

Sarah came forward, and stood in front of her mistress. “I must insist on knowing of what I am accused.” Mrs. Poulteney told her.

To her amazement Sarah showed not the least sign of shame.

“But what is the sin in walking on Ware Commons?”

'The sin! You, a young woman, alone, in such a place!”

“But ma'm, it is nothing but a large wood.”

“I know very well what it is. And what goes on there. And the sort of person who frequents it.”

“No one frequents it. That is why I go there – to be alone.”

“Do you contradict me, miss! Am I not to know what I speak of?[104]”

Having said all, Mrs. Poulteney began to change her tack.

“You have distressed me deeply.”

“But how was I to tell? I am not to go to the sea[105]. Very well, I don't go to the sea. I wish for solitude. That is all. That is not a sin. I will not be called a sinner for that.”

“Have you never heard speak of Ware Commons?”

“As a place of the kind you mean – never.”

Mrs. Poulteney looked somewhat confused: she recalled that Sarah had not lived in Lyme until recently; and that she could be ignorant of the bad reputation of the place.

“Very well. But let it be plainly understood. I permit no one to go or to be seen near that place. You will walk to where it is decent. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes. I am to walk in the paths of righteousness.” For one moment Mrs. Poulteney thought she had been the subject of a sarcasm; but Sarah's eyes were down.

“Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. I do this for your own good.”

Sarah murmured, “I know.” Then, “I thank you, ma'm.”

No more was said. She turned to the Bible and read the passage Mrs. Poulteney had marked.

Later that night Sarah might have been seen standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. The house was silent, and the town as well, for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television. It was now one o'clock. Sarah was in her nightgown, with her hair loose; and she was staring out to sea.

14

When Mrs. Tranter, Ernestina and Charles were announced on the morning following that woodland meeting, Sarah rose at once to leave the room. But Mrs. Poulteney asked her to stay. The visitors were ushered in. Mrs. Tranter came forward, expansive and kind. Sarah stood shyly in the background; Charles and Ernestina stood behind the two elder ladies. Then Ernestina was presented.

“How are you, Mrs. Poulteney? You look exceedingly well.”

“At my age, Miss Freeman, spiritual health is all that counts[106].”

“Then I have no fears for you.”

She turned to present Charles, who bent over the old lady's hand.

“Great pleasure, ma'm. Charming house.”

“It is too large for me. I keep it on for my dear husband's sake[107]. I know he would have wished it so.”

And she stared past Charles at an oil painting done of Frederick only two years before he died in 1851, in which it was clear that he was a wise, Christian, dignified, good-looking sort of man. Actually, Mr. Poulteney had been a total, though very rich, nonentity; and the only really significant act of his life had been his leaving it. Charles respectfully looked at the portrait.

“Ah. Indeed. I understand. Most natural[108].”

Mrs. Tranter smiled at Sarah. “My dear Miss Woodruff, it is a pleasure to see you.” She went and pressed Sarah's hand, and said in a lower voice, “Will you come to see me – when dear Tina has gone?” She smiled and made a small nod.

Further introductions were then made. The two young ladies coolly inclined heads at one another, and Charles bowed. He watched closely to see if the girl would in any way show their two meetings of the day before, but her eyes avoided his. Mrs. Poulteney ignored Sarah absolutely. So also, Charles was not pleased to note, did Ernestina. Aunt Tranter did her best to draw the girl into the conversation; but she sat apart, with a blank face[109]. He himself once or twice turned politely to her to confirm an opinion, but it was without success.

Towards the end of the visit Charles began to realize a new aspect of the situation. It became clear to him that the girl's meekness was contrary to her nature; that she was playing a part; and that the part was one of complete dislike of her mistress. Mrs. Poulteney and Mrs. Tranter held a polite conversation on different subjects – the weather; births, funerals and marriages; politics; religion.

“That girl I dismissed – she has given you no further trouble?” Mrs. Poulteney asked.

Mrs. Tranter smiled. “Mary? I would not part with her for the world[110].”

“Mrs. Fairley informs me that she saw her only this morning talking with a person. A young person. Mrs. Fairley did not know him.”

Ernestina gave Charles a sharp glance; for a wild moment he thought she meant him – then realized.

He smiled. “Then no doubt it was Sam. My servant, madam,” he added for Mrs. Poulteney's benefit.

Ernestina avoided his eyes. “I think you should speak to Sam. There is a world of difference between what may be accepted in London and what is proper here.”

Mrs. Tranter looked hurt. “Ernestina my dear, she may be high-spirited. But I've never had the least cause to – ”

“My dear, kind aunt, I am well aware how fond you are of her.”

Charles heard the dryness in her voice and came to Mrs. Tranter's defense.

“There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door.”

Ernestina looked down at that, with a telltale little tightening of her lips[111]. Good Mrs. Tranter blushed slightly at the compliment, and also looked down. Mrs. Poulteney had listened to this crossfire with some pleasure; and she now decided that she disliked Charles sufficiently to be rude to him.

“Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters, Mr. Smithson. I know the girl in question. I had to dismiss her.”

And she too looked down, which marked the end of the subject.

“I bow to your far greater experience, madam[112].”

But his tone was unmistakably cold and sarcastic.

The three ladies all sat with averted eyes. It was when a look at last passed between Sarah and Charles. It was very brief, but it spoke worlds[113]; two people had recognized they had a common enemy.

15

They had left soon, and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk to Broad Street. Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt's back[114] than she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. It was the first disagreement that had ever darkened their love. Charles kissed her on each wet eyelid and forgave her.

“And my sweet, silly Tina, why shouldn't we let others do what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones?”

She smiled up at him from her chair. “This is what comes of trying to behave like a grown-up.”

He knelt beside her and took her hand. “Sweet child. You will always be that to me.” She bent her head to kiss his hand, and he in turn kissed the top of her hair.

She murmured, “Eighty-eight days. I cannot bear the thought[115].”

“Let us elope. And go to Paris.”

She raised her head, and he kissed her on the lips. She sank back in the chair, blushing, her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint. He held her hand, and pressed it playfully.

“If the worthy Mrs. P. could see us now?”

She covered her face with her hands, and began to laugh. They were both happy to enjoy the wonderful new freedoms their age brought.

16

Five days passed. For Charles, no opportunities to continue his exploration of the Undercliff presented themselves. All days long Ernestina was discussing with him the problems related to their future family life, which he began to find tiresome. Finally, he was granted a free afternoon.

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 there considerable piles of flint. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place.

When he crossed the grass he saw that the meadow was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. He began to search 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 bluff, therefore, it was agreeably warm; and an additional warmth soon came to Charles when he saw an excellent test lying at his feet.

Forty minutes later, however, he realized that he was to have no further luck below the bluff. He walked towards the path that led back into the woods. And there, a dark movement!

She was halfway up the steep little path. As soon as he saw her he stopped. 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 suspicion.

“Miss Woodruff!”

She gave him a 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[116] and made hurriedly to pass him. But she slipped on the muddied path and fell to her knees. He helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal, unable to look at him, trembling.

Very gently, with his hand on her elbow, he led her forward on to the level turf above the sea. She wore the same black coat, the same indigo dress with the white collar. The wind had blown her hair a little loose. Suddenly she looked at Charles, a swift sideways and upward glance from those dark-brown eyes with their clear whites. 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.”

She stared at the turf, as if she would answer no more questions; begged him to go. But there was something in that face that made him not to go. It was in her eyes. They could not conceal an intelligence, an independence of spirit; there was also a determination to be what she was. Her face was well modeled, and completely feminine; there was sensuality of her wide mouth, which he noted.

He associated her face with foreign women, rather with foreign beds. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah.

Also, Charles had 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; the celebrated Madame Bovary. And as he looked down at the face beside him, it was suddenly that Emma Bovary's name came into his mind. Such allusions are temptations. That is why, finally, he did not bow and go away.

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. I have known Mrs. Tranter only a very short time. 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[117]. Charles stood dumbfounded.

The men's voices sounded louder. He went up the upper path and soon two faces, looking up, came into his sight. Charles opened his mouth to bid them good day; but the faces disappeared quickly.

He waited a minute, until he was certain they had gone, then he walked round to the gorse. She stood pressed 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 yellow flowers so dense they almost hid the green. The air was full of their honeyed scent.

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

“No gentleman who cares for his good name can be seen with the scarlet woman[118] of Lyme.”

And 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 at him then, as if he were torturing some animal. Then she turned away again.

Charles said gently, “Do not misunderstand me. I feel sorry for your unfortunate situation.”

She did not move.

“My dear Miss Woodruff, I have seen a good deal of life. And I have a long nose for bigots. 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 turf. He saw that her eyelashes were wet.

“Mrs. Tranter would like 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. “I am merely saying what I know Mrs. Tranter would wish to say herself.”

Charles was not exaggerating; for during the lunch that followed the reconciliation, Mrs. Poulteney and Sarah had been discussed.

“You should leave Lyme… this district. I understand you have excellent qualifications.” Sarah made no response. “I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries[119] 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. She lowered her eyes. “I thank you. But I cannot leave this place.”

He gave the smallest shrug. “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.

“Such kindness is crueler to me than – ”

She did not finish the sentence, but turned to the sea looking at a distant brig. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoulders and shake her.

“Miss Woodruff, let me be frank. I have heard it said that you are… not altogether of sound mind[120]. I think that is very far from true. I believe you simply judged yourself for your past conduct too severely. 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[121]. 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. If he does not return, he was not worthy of you. If he returns, I believe that he will find out where you are and follow you there. Now is that not common sense?”

There was a long silence. Her expression was strange, almost calm.

She remained looking out to sea, then spoke quietly.

“He will never return.”

“You fear he will never return?”

“I know he will never return.”

“I do not take your meaning[122].”

She turned then and looked at Charles's puzzled and anxious face. Then she looked away.

“I have long since received a letter. The gentleman is.” and again she was silent. Suddenly she was walking, almost running, across the turf towards the path.

“Miss Woodruff!”

She took a step or two more, then turned. Her voice had a pent-up harshness.

“He is married!”

“Miss Woodruff!”

But she took no notice[123]. He was left standing there. What was unnatural was his sense of guilt. It was as if he had shown lack of sympathy, when he was quite sure he had done his best[124]. He stared after her several moments after she had disappeared. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig, as if that might give an answer to this enigma. But it did not.

17

That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. Tranter and Ernestina in the Assembly Rooms. He and his ladies were in the building for a concert. It was not, of course – it being Lent – a secular concert, the program was religious.

Our three had come early; for these concerts were really enjoyed 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[125]. At least here she knew she would have few rivals in the taste and luxury of her clothes. She was in a mischievous mood that evening as people came in. According to Ernestina, there were far more gooseberries than humans patiently waiting for the concert to begin. Every decade invents such a useful epithet; in the 1860s “gooseberry” meant “all that is dreary and old-fashioned”. But at last the distinguished soprano from Bristol appeared, together with her accompanist, and Charles was free to examine his conscience.

In simple truth he had become a little obsessed with Sarah… or at any rate with the enigma she presented. He had – or so he believed – intended to tell them of his meeting – though of course on the strict understanding that they must speak to no one about Sarah's wanderings over Ware Commons. But somehow the moment had not seemed suitable.

He was well aware that Ernestina would feel jealousy. At worst, she would be angry with him; at best, she would only tease him. Charles could perhaps have told Mrs. Tranter. She, he knew, certainly shared his charitable concern. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt, then he would be in very hot water indeed. On his mood toward Ernestina that evening, he hardly dared to dwell. Her humor did not exactly irritate him, but it seemed unusually and unwelcomely artificial, as if it were something she had put on with her French hat. It also required a response from him: a corresponding twinkle in his eyes, a constant smile, also artificial. He caught himself stealing glances[126] at the girl beside him – looking at her as if he saw her for the first time, as if she were a total stranger to him. She was very pretty, charming… but was not that face a little characterless, a little monotonous? But this cruel thought no sooner entered Charles's head than he dismissed it[127].

His mind went back to Sarah, to visual images, attempts to recollect that face, that mouth. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing, but that girl attracts me. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him – how could she, he was betrothed – but some emotion, some possibility she symbolized. She made him aware of a deprivation. His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place. She had reminded him of that.

Ernestina's elbow reminded him gently of the present. He smiled at her. She was so young, such a child. He could not be angry with her. After all, she was only a woman. There were so many things she must never understand: the richness of male life, the enormous difficulty of being one to whom the world was rather more than dress and home and children.

All would be well when she was truly his; in his bed and in his bank, and of course in his heart, too.

Sam, at that moment, was thinking the very opposite. It is difficult to imagine today the enormous differences then separating a lad born in the Seven Dials[128] and a carter's daughter from a Devon village. They had hardly a common language, so often did they not understand what the other had just said.

Yet this distance was not wholly bad. People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual.

Sam was contemptuous of anything that did not come from the West End of London. But deep down inside, it was another story. There he was a timid and uncertain person.

Now Mary was quite the reverse at heart. She was certainly dazzled by Sam to begin with: he was very much a superior being, and her teasing of him had been pure selfdefense before such obvious cultural superiority. But she had a basic solidity of character, a kind of self-confidence, a knowledge that she would one day make a good wife and a good mother; and she knew, in people, what was what. After all, she was a peasant; and peasants live much closer to real values.

Sam first fell for her because she was a summer's day after the drab dollymops[129] and gays who had constituted his past sexual experience. Self-confidence in that way he did not lack. He had fine black hair over very blue eyes and a fresh complexion. He was slim and well-built. Women's eyes seldom left him at the first glance. What had really knocked him a cock[130] was Mary's innocence. He suddenly wished to be what he was with her; and to discover what she was.

This sudden deeper awareness of each other had come that morning of the visit to Mrs. Poulteney. They had begun by discussing Mr. Charles and Mrs. Tranter. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman. Then Sam, to his own amazement, found himself telling this milkmaid something he had previously told only to himself.

His ambition was very simple: he wanted to be a haberdasher. He had never been able to pass such shops without stopping and staring in the windows. He believed he had a flair for knowing the latest fashion. He had traveled abroad with Charles, he had picked up some foreign ideas in the haberdashery field.

But for that he had neither money, nor education. Mary had modestly listened. Sam felt he was talking too much. But each time he looked nervously up for a sneer, he saw only a shy and wide-eyed sympathy. His listener felt needed[131], and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love.

The time came when he had to go. It seemed to him that he had hardly arrived. He stood, and she smiled at him, a little mischievous again. He wanted to say that he had never talked so freely – well, so seriously – to anyone before about himself. But he couldn't find the words.

“Well. Dessay we'll meet tomorrow mornin'.”

“Happen so.”

“Dessay you've got a suitor an' all.”

“None I really likes.”

“I bet you 'ave. I 'eard you 'ave.”

“' Tis all talk in this ol' place.”

He fingered his bowler hat[132]. A silence. He looked her in the eyes. “I ain't so bad?”

“I never said 'ee wuz.”

Silence. He worked all the way round the rim of his bowler[133].

“I know lots o' girls. All sorts. None like you.”

“Taren't so awful hard to find.”

“I never 'ave. Before.” There was another silence. She would not look at him, but at the edge of her apron. “ 'Ow about London then? Fancy seein' London?”

She grinned then, and nodded.

“Expec' you will. When they're a-married orf hupstairs. I'll show yer round.”

“Would 'ee?”

He winked then, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes looked at him over her pink cheeks.

“All they fashional Lunnon girls, 'ee woulden want to go walkin' out with me.”

“If you 'ad the clothes, you'd do. You'd do very nice.”

“Doan believe 'ee.”

“Cross my 'eart[134].”

Their eyes met and held for a long moment. He bowed and pressed his hat to his left breast.

“A demang[135], madymosseile.”

“What's that then?”

“It's French for tomorrow mornin' – where yours truly[136] will be waitin'.”

She turned then, unable to look at him. He stepped quickly behind her and took her hand and raised it to his lips. She snatched it away, and looked at it as if his lips might have left a sooty mark. Another look flashed between them. She bit her pretty lips. He winked again; and then he went.

Whether they met that next morning, in spite of Charles's prohibition, I do not know. But later that day, when Charles came out of Mrs. Tranter's house, he saw Sam waiting on the opposite side of the street. Charles made the Roman sign of mercy[137], and Sam uncovered, and once again placed his hat over his heart – his face bore a wide grin.

Which brings me to this evening of the concert nearly a week later. Sam was in that kitchen again. Unfortunately there was now a duenna present – Mrs. Tranter's cook. But she was fast asleep[138] in her chair in front of the opened fire of her range. Sam and Mary sat in the darkest corner of the kitchen. They did not speak. They did not need to. Since they were holding hands. On Mary's part it was self-protection, since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. Why Sam should have found Mary so understanding is a mystery no lover will need explaining.

18

For two days Charles's hammers lay in his rucksack. But then, Ernestina had a migraine, and he found himself unexpectedly with another free afternoon. He hesitated a while; but the events that passed before his eyes as he stood at the window of his room were so few, so dull. There was little wind, little sunlight. He had intended to write letters, but he found himself not in the mood.

To tell the truth he was not really in the mood for anything.

Half an hour later he was entering the woods of Ware Commons. If he met Miss Woodruff, he would do, politely but firmly, what he ought to have done at that last meeting – that is, refuse to enter into conversation with her.

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Примечания

1

что касается / относительно

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2

пушечный ствол

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3

отдали честь/должное

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4

(фр.) Вот и всё

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5

Она сделала умышленную паузу

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6

Я принял фигуру за рыбака

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7

(лат. муз.) медленно/спокойно

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8

земляные холмы

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9

никоим образом / никак

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10

Швейцарские Альпы

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11

вблизи и не спеша

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12

попал в дурную компанию

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13

принять священный сан

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14

умел учуять ловушку

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15

И не важно

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16

некая миссие Фэрли

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17

если бы так сложилась жизнь

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18

по-своему

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19

на пользу / к взаимной выгоде

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20

не избежать её острого/орлиного взгляда

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21

У него был талант красноречия

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22

Римская чума (подразумевается католицизм)

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23

Я должна думать о слугах

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24

Не беспокойтесь

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25

Подходящая кандидатура

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26

последний раз взглянуть

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27

доброе имя

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28

единственный ребёнок

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29

с незапамятных времён

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30

переехать / сменить местожительство

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31

пролив Ла-Манш

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32

хуже, чем ничего

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33

мелкий почерк

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34

Чармут – деревня в западном Дорсете, Англия.

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35

рекомендательное письмо

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36

по своей/собственной воле

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37

корабль, который выбросило на берег

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38

ухватился за лонжерон

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39

Но французу удалось завоевать расположение мисс Вудраф

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40

обратный рейс

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41

она позволила ей уйти без уведомления/предупреждения

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42

она немного не в себе

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43

Но надо было держать ответ перед богом

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44

козырная карта

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45

она поставили перед ней задачу

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46

(лат. букв.) День гнева, день Страшного суда

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47

Бог утешает нас во всех невзгодах.

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48

ступила на стезю добра

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49

(зд. и далее малограмотная речь лондонского кокни) Если будете стоять на ветру, сэр, то и не увидите

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50

он может передумать

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51

Да я близко к ней не подойду / Мне она и даром не нужна

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52

цветущий; проклятый

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53

Полагаю, ты употребляешь прилагательное в основном значении

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54

я припечатаю башмак к задней части твоей жалкой фигуры

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55

греческий профиль

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56

Хороших манер и самопознания у него было не отнять

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57

удалился

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58

редкие обнажения горной породы, известные как голубой лиас

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59

окаменелый морской ёж

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60

Кобб – пристань в Лайме.

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61

он о ней больше не вспоминал

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62

широкополая шляпа

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63

коробочки с лекарствами

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64

тип карманных часов с крышкой

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65

утолил жажду

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66

Вальтер Скотт (1771–1832) – основоположник жанра исторического романа.

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67

Джейн Остин (1775–1817) – английская писательница.

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68

Фрэнсис Дрейк (1540–1596) – английский капитан, совершивший кругосветное плавание.

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69

выгодная сделка/покупка

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70

зарабатывала себе на жизнь

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71

которые говорили в пользу

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72

как бульдог, который сейчас вонзит зубы в ногу вора

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73

это противоречило суждению старой леди

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74

подголовная салфетка

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75

Всевышний

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76

не нарушала договорённость / держала слово

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77

I wish it would not

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78

Веркоммонз – малолюдное место свиданий парочек.

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79

Иглокожие – морские донные животные.

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80

но в том-то всё и дело

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81

мысленно делала нос Эрнестине

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82

Диалект, известный своим пренебрежением к местоимениям и суффиксам.

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83

Просто спросил, который час

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84

Он мнит себя Дон Жуаном

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85

Ну и что из этого, мисс Тина?

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86

Пока это не важно

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87

Но если он будет заигрывать

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Ничто, конечно, не могло заменить благородную кровь

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высокое положение в обществе

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с отличием сдал тайный экзамен

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тысяча банковских счетов

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посеять роковое зерно

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Если вы определились с ролью старого холостяка, мистер Смитсон, вы должны в ней тренироваться

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Я абсолютный, стопроцентный, прости Господи, последний дурак

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Он был готов продолжать в том же духе

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Омела – вечнозелёное растение, поцелуй под которым, по поверью, приносит вечную любовь.

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просёлочная дорога

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Нельзя ли мне вас сопровождать?

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Всё, что у него осталось

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Он чуть было не

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наизготове

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здравый смысл

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Вы не посмеете это сделать!

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Я что, не знаю, о чём я говорю?

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Я не должна ходить к морю

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духовное здоровье важнее всего

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ради дорогого мужа

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Естественно

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с ничего не выражающим лицом

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Я ни за что с ней не расстанусь

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демонстративно слегка поджав губы

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Я преклоняюсь перед вашим большим опытом, мадам

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но он о многом говорил

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как только за тётушкой закрылась дверь

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Не могу вынести ожидания

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что он уступает ей дорогу

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заросли дрока

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проститутка

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разузнать / навести справки

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не совсем в здравом уме

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Вы можете зарабатывать себе на жизнь

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Я не совсем вас понимаю

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Но она не отреагировала

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он сделал всё возможное

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пала / стала жертвой тщеславия

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смотреть украдкой / коситься

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Эту коварную мысль он выбросил из головы, как только она появилась

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Семь Кругов – один из центральных районов Лондона, где сходятся семь улиц.

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дешёвые проститутки

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сбило его с толку

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Она была благодарным слушателем

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Он мял в руках свою шляпу

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Он вертел поля своей шляпы

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Клянусь

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(искаж. фр.) Au demain – До завтра

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искренне ваш

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римский знак милосердия

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крепко спала

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