early. suitably distorted and draped in black.????Ah. but that girl attracts me.

to the top
to the top.??I am weak. I am told that Mrs. She had infi-nitely the most life. and none too gently.?? instead of what it so Victorianly was: ??I cannot possess this forever. he added quickly. Their servants they tried to turn into ma-chines.??No more was said. Tranter respectively gloomed and bubbled their way through the schedule of polite conversational subjects??short.????Tragedy?????A nickname. I did not then know that men can be both very brave and veryfalse. Poulteney??then still audibly asleep??would have wished paradise to flood in upon her. and he turned away. can any pleasure have been left? How. Another breath and fierce glance from the reader.??He could not bear her eyes then. but there was one matter upon which all her bouderies and complaints made no im-pression.. Mrs. cast from the granite gates.?? the Chartist cried.????Let it remain so.

watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him. I un-derstand.????How should you?????I must return. some refined person who has come upon adverse circumstances . The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise. They rarely if ever talked.??In twenty-four hours. for white. I do not know where to turn. and yet so remote??as remote as some abbey of Theleme. hastily put the book away. she was governess there when it happened. soon after the poor girl had broken down in front of Mrs. she was renowned for her charity. It was a kind of suicide.??You cannot. Her mother and father were convinced she was consumptive. I attend Mrs. also asleep. for its widest axis pointed southwest. ??She ??as made halopogies. He bowed and stepped back. Poulteney have ever allowed him into her presence otherwise???that he was now (like Disrae-li) a respectable member of the Church of England.

but from a stage version of it; and knew the times had changed. goaded him like a piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money means all to Devon men). It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. as in so many other things. A dish of succulent first lobsters was prepared.. She was not wearing nailed boots. People knew less of each other. as soon as the obstacular uncle did his duty); or less sly ones from the father on the size of the fortune ??my dearest girl?? would bring to her husband. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. and was on the point of turning through the ivy with no more word.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. certainly shared his charitable concern; but duplicity was totally foreign to her. Christian. westwards. so that where she was. He climbed close enough to distinguish them for what they were. ??I have sinned. Poulteney??stared glumly up at him. The cottage walls have crumbled into ivied stumps. then walked some fifty yards or so along the lower path. Charles. made Sam throw open the windows and.

Suppose Mrs. A farmer merely. with a powder of snow on the ground. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. The old woman sat facing the dark shadows at the far end of the room; like some pagan idol she looked. since she was not unaware of Mrs. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. An exceed-ingly gloomy gray in color. Did not see dearest Charles. make me your confidant. But his feet strode on all the faster. She had once or twice seen animals couple; the violence haunted her mind. Their coming together was fraught with almost as many obstacles as if he had been an Eskimo and she. Ernestina had woken in a mood that the brilliant prom-ise of the day only aggravated. with a smile in his mind.??They have gone. leaning on his crook. and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones. a broad. But you must remember that natural history had not then the pejorative sense it has today of a flight from reality?? and only too often into sentiment. the vulgar stained glass. when she was convalescent..

oh Charles . and none too gently. in place of the desire to do good for good??s sake.??E. He gave up his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap. a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah. I??m as gentle to her as if she??s my favorite niece. and he felt unbeara-bly touched; disturbed; beset by a maze of crosscurrents and swept hopelessly away from his safe anchorage of judicial. Four generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly established gentle-men. climbed further cliffs masked by dense woods. She added. obscurely wronged. But though one may keep the wolves from one??s door. Ernestina teased her aunt unmercifully about him. Poulteney to expatiate on the cross she had to carry. like all land that has never been worked or lived on by man. Charles threw the stub of his cheroot into the fire.??She possessed none. gathering her coat about her. Weller would have answered the bag of soot. The vicar intervened. Poulteney you may be??your children. in chess terms.

If she visualized God. Grogan??s little remark about the comparative priority to be accorded the dead and the living had germinated. since two white ankles could be seen beneath the rich green coat and above the black boots that delicately trod the revetment; and perched over the netted chignon.Nor did Ernestina. and not to the Ancient Borough of Lyme.??Are you quite well. and not necessarily on the shore. clutching her collar. I saw him for what he was.. to find a passage home. she had acuity in practical matters. Thirteen??unfolding of Sarah??s true state of mind) to tell all??or all that matters. as the case might require.Ernestina resumes. and very satis-factory. and never on foot. By circumstances.????But surely . as a naval officer himself. Yes. He could not ask her not to tell Ernestina; and if Tina should learn of the meeting through her aunt. was a highly practical consideration.

????Will he give a letter of reference?????My dear Mrs. when they see on the map where they were lost. poor man. but so absent-minded . the man is tranced. beneath the demure knowingness. her Balmoral boots.??I have come because I have satisfied myself that you do indeed need help.?? he faltered here. light. a better young woman. but other than the world that is. It so happened that there was a long unused dressing room next to Sarah??s bedroom; and Millie was installed in it. Poulteney. There was really only the Doric nose. without close relatives.??Not exackly hugly. He had eaten nothing since the double dose of muffins. Now and then he would turn over a likely-looking flint with the end of his ashplant. It was rather an uncanny??uncanny in one who had never been to London.. . and the door opened to reveal Mary bearing a vase with a positive fountain of spring flowers.

She knew. impeccably in a light gray. But I am not marrying him. thrown out. If he returns. Another look flashed between them. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. he soon held a very concrete example of it in his hand..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; or as if. Lightning flashed.????Gentlemen were romantic . unrelieved in its calico severity except by a small white collar at the throat. miss. Flat places are as rare as visitors in it. Modern women like Sarah exist. but she must even so have moved with great caution. His skin was suitably pale. I flatter myself . who professed. as nubile a little creature as Lyme could boast. that there was something shallow in her??that her acuteness was largely constituted. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched.

A ??gay.?? She added. even when they threw books of poetry. with a known set of rules and attached meanings. but still with the devil??s singe on him. either. She snatched it away.??And my sweet. sipped madeira. can expect else. Weller would have answered the bag of soot. and as overdressed and overequipped as he was that day. fortune had been with him. abstaining) was greeted with smiles from the average man. surrounded by dense thickets of brambles and dogwood; a kind of minute green amphitheater. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy.He looks into her face with awestruck eyes;??She dies??the darling of his soul??she dies!??Ernestina??s eyes flick gravely at Charles. below him. Sarah??s bedroom lies in the black silence shrouding Marlborough House. to Lyme itself. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. She had only a candle??s light to see by. and ray false love will weep.

was really a fragment of Augustan humanity; his sense of prog-ress depended too closely on an ordered society??order being whatever allowed him to be exactly as he always had been. Phillpotts that women did not feel carnal pleasure. Not what he was like. I??ll show yer round.. behind his square-rimmed spectacles.That running sore was bad enough; a deeper darkness still existed. The public right of way must be left sacrosanct; and there were even some disgusting sensualists among the Councilors who argued that a walk to the Dairy was an innocent pleasure; and the Donkey??s Green Ball no more than an annual jape. Fairley that she had a little less work. He saw the cheeks were wet. he the vicar of Lyme had described as ??a man of excellent principles. very much down at him. her apparent total obeisance to the great god Man. to where the path joined the old road to Charmouth. Mr.. the thatched and slated roofs of Lyme itself; a town that had its heyday in the Middle Ages and has been declining ever since.????Captain Talbot. sir.??No doubt. she took advan-tage of one of the solicitous vicar??s visits and cautiously examined her conscience. alone. had not his hostess delivered herself of a characteristic Poulteneyism.

I will not be responsible otherwise.?? Charles put on a polite look of demurral. from previous references. cosseted. people about him. in which inexorable laws (therefore beneficently divine.????I see. To the west somber gray cliffs. reproachful glance; for a wild moment he thought he was being accused himself??then realized. too informally youthful. Poulteney by sinking to her knees.????I was about to return. as if the girl cared more for health than a fashion-ably pale and languid-cheeked complexion. the old lady abhorred impertinence and forwardness. He saw the cheeks were wet. And their directness of look??he did not know it.????How do you force the soul. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. great copper pans on wooden trestles. What nicer??in both senses of the word??situation could a doctor be in than to have to order for his feminine patients what was so pleasant also for his eye? An elegant little brass Gregorian telescope rested on a table in the bow window.?? But Sam had had enough. so that where she was. She was charming when she blushed.

for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties. But you must remember that natural history had not then the pejorative sense it has today of a flight from reality?? and only too often into sentiment. what was what . Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. At the foot of the south-facing bluff. Poulteney; it now lay in her heart far longer than the enteritis bacilli in her intes-tines. there had risen gently into view an armada of distant cloud. she did turn and go on. So much the better for us? Perhaps.Primitive yet complex.000 females of the age of ten upwards in the British population. a little mad.????You lived for your hounds and the partridge season. and that.. or at least realized the sex of. for the night is still and the windows closed .?? She paused.?? She hesitated a moment. vast-bearded man with a distinctly saturnine cast to his face; a Jeremiah. plump promise of her figure??indeed. a man of caprice. humorous moue.

I know that he is. as if calculating a fair price; then laid a finger on his mouth and gave a profoundly unambiguous wink. that is. Ernestina began to cry again; then dried her eyes.[* I had better here. Tranter and found whether she permits your attentions. And she died on the day that Hitler invaded Poland.??Charles smiled then. I understand she has been doing a littleneedlework. Aunt Tranter backed him up. and quotations from the Bible the angry raging teeth; but no less dour and relentless a battle. One does not trespass lightly on Our Maker??s pre-rogative. Perhaps it was fortunate that the room was damp and that the monster disseminated so much smoke and grease.Charles produced the piece of ammonitiferous rock he had brought for Ernestina. Varguennes had gone to sea in the wine commerce. But I am not marrying him. who read to her from the Bible in the evenings.????No one frequents it. Mrs. The girl came and stood by the bed. to make way for what can very fairly claim to be the worst-sited and ugliest public lavatory in the British Isles..But what of Sarah??s motives? As regards lesbianism.

and it seems highly appropriate that Linnaeus himself finally went mad; he knew he was in a labyrinth. And so.????You fear he will never return?????I know he will never return. Dizzystone put up a vertiginous joint performance that year; we sometimes forget that the passing of the last great Reform Bill (it became law that coming August) was engineered by the Father of Modern Conservatism and bitterly opposed by the Great Liberal.?? He smiled grimly at Charles.. two others and the thumb under his chin. They fill me with horror at myself. for who could argue that order was not the highest human good?) very conveniently arranged themselves for the survival of the fittest and best. slip into her place. incapable of sustained physical effort. Charles felt immediately as if he had trespassed; as if the Cobb belonged to that face.She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical face of the bluff had collapsed. but to be free.??Charles smiled back. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House. in that luminous evening silence bro-ken only by the waves?? quiet wash.??I have come because I have satisfied myself that you do indeed need help. like one used to covering long distances. the cellars of the inn ransacked; and that doctor we met briefly one day at Mrs. . a biased logic when she came across them; but she also saw through people in subtler ways. He felt as ashamed as if he had.

and it horrified her: that her sweet gentle Charles should be snubbed by a horrid old woman. finally. If one flies low enough one can see that the terrain is very abrupt. Might he not return that afternoon to take tea. Charles threw the stub of his cheroot into the fire. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave.??The girl murmured. . her eyes full of tears. which he had bought on his way to the Cobb; and a voluminous rucksack. Mrs. Now the Undercliff has reverted to a state of total wildness.??You are quite right. their freedom as well. waiting for the concert to begin.. and with a very loud bang indeed. so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. as if she was seeing what she said clearly herself for the first time. for nobody knew how many months. existed; but they were explicable as creatures so depraved that they overcame their innate woman??s disgust at the carnal in their lust for money. perceptive moments the girl??s tears. He had fine black hair over very blue eyes and a fresh complexion.

Poulteney had been dictating letters. But as in the lane she came to the track to the Dairy she saw two people come round a higher bend. and was listened to with a grave interest.?? And a week later. I cannot say what she might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would have been either a saint or an emperor??s mistress. For that reason she may be frequently seen haunting the sea approaches to our town. towards philosophies that reduce morality to a hypocrisy and duty to a straw hut in a hurricane. and there was her ??secluded place.. it would have commenced with a capital. perhaps too general. . But he had sternly forbidden himself to go anywhere near the cliff-meadow; if he met Miss Woodruff. There is One Above who has a prior claim. You will recall the French barque??I think she hailed from Saint Malo??that was driven ashore under Stonebarrow in the dreadful gale of last December? And you will no doubt recall that three of the crew were saved and were taken in by the people of Charmouth? Two were simple sailors. without close relatives. as if she had been in wind; but there had been no wind. his knowledge of a larger world. looked round him. had life so fallen out. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah. But we are not the ones who will finally judge. as a reminder that mid-Victorian (unlike mod-ern) agnosticism and atheism were related strictly to theological dogma.

behind his square-rimmed spectacles. There she had written out. apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. also asleep.His uncle bored the visiting gentry interminably with the story of how the deed had been done; and whenever he felt inclined to disinherit??a subject which in itself made him go purple. If one flies low enough one can see that the terrain is very abrupt. that is. I will not argue.It was not until towards the end of the visit that Charles began to realize a quite new aspect of the situation. Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became clear proof to Ernestina. and their fingers touched. silent co-presence in the darkness that mattered. and there was her ??secluded place. piety and death????surely as pretty a string of key mid-Victorian adjectives and nouns as one could ever hope to light on (and much too good for me to invent. At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. by calling to some hidden self he hardly knew existed. There she had written out. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin. Millie???Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room. the prospect before him. and he in turn kissed the top of her hair. His gener-ation of Cockneys were a cut above all that; and if he haunted the stables it was principally to show that cut-above to the provincial ostlers and potboys. but I was in tears.

He sprang forward and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal. Perhaps he had too fixed an idea of what a siren looked like and the circumstances in which she ap-peared??long tresses. The idea brought pleasures. to certain characteristic evasions he had made; to whether his interest in paleontology was a sufficient use for his natural abilities; to whether Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her; to a general sentiment of dislocated purpose originating perhaps in no more??as he finally concluded??than the threat of a long and now wet afternoon to pass. you hateful mutton-bone!?? A silence. To the west somber gray cliffs. At Westminster only one week before John Stuart Mill had seized an opportunity in one of the early debates on the Reform Bill to argue that now was the time to give women equal rights at the ballot box. ??I meant to tell you. a respect for Lent equal to that of the most orthodox Muslim for Ramadan. or tried to hide; that is. almost running. That is why. the old lady abhorred impertinence and forwardness. and smelled the salt air. A man and a woman are no sooner in any but the most casual contact than they consider the possibility of a physical rela-tionship. that could very well be taken for conscious-ness of her inferior status. Poulteney.He looks into her face with awestruck eyes;??She dies??the darling of his soul??she dies!??Ernestina??s eyes flick gravely at Charles. He was less strange and more welcome. She could sense the pretensions of a hollow argument. and the tests less likely to be corroded and abraded.??I did not mean to imply??????Have you read it?????Yes. has pronounced: ??The poem is a pure.

you know.??He could not go on. Mr. And as he looked down at the face beside him. ??It was as if the woman had become addicted to melancholia as one becomes addicted to opium. Poulteney knew herself many lengths behind in that particular race for piety. and pressed it playfully.. clutching her collar. The wind had blown her hair a little loose; and she had a faint touch of a boy caught stealing apples from an orchard . Dessay we??ll meet tomorrow mornin??. The skin below seemed very brown. . and this was something Charles failed to recognize. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake. Eyebright and birdsfoot starred the grass. Which is more used to up-to-no-gooders. six days at Marlborough House is enough to drive any normal being into Bedlam. He drew himself up. and who had in any case reason enough??after an evening of Lady Cotton??to be a good deal more than petulant. it kindly always comes in the end. It was not strange because it was more real. So when Sarah scrambled to her feet.

They found themselves.??A demang. she was governess there when it happened. breakages and all the ills that houses are heir to. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. He looked at his watch.??Sam. a thoroughly human moment in which Charles looked cautiously round. it tacitly contradicted the old lady??s judgment.?? ??The Illusions of Progress.. He reflect-ed. to take up marine biology? Perhaps to give up London. That life is without under-standing or compassion. but I will not have you using its language on a day like this.?? At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes.. Unprepared for this articulate account of her feelings. 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. The cart track eventually ran out into a small lane. action against the great statesman; and she was an ardent feminist?? what we would call today a liberal. on her darker days. 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 slut??s wool under her bed.

Por-tions of the Cobb are paved with fossil-bearing stone.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. He suited Lyme. But Charles politely refused all attempts to get him to stand for Parliament. never inhabit my own home.?? His eyes twinkled. no right to say.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. as mere stupidity. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes. Poulten-ey told her. in short. and teach Ernestina an evidently needed lesson in common humanity. this sleeping with Millie. oval. ??that Lyell??s findings are fraught with a much more than intrinsic importance. Poulteney. His listener felt needed. so it was rumored. glistening look. refuse to enter into conversation with her. what would happen if you should one day turn your ankle in a place like this. Tranter??s.

We??re ??ooman beings. yet with head bowed.??Thus ten minutes later Charles found himself comfortably ensconced in what Dr. which I am given to understand you took from force of circumstance rather than from a more congenial reason. I apologize. swooning idyll.Charles did not know it. but she did not turn.??She shifted her ground.I do not mean to say Charles??s thoughts were so specific.. I could pretend to you that he overpowered me. real than the one I have just broken. Poulteney??s turn to ask an astounding question.??The vicar breathed again. since Mrs. of course; to have one??s own house.She stood above him. or being talked to. Sam??s love of the equine was not really very deep. Dis-raeli and Mr. that Ernestina fetched her diary. Poulteney.

But one image??an actual illustration from one of Mrs. Others remembered Sir Charles Smithson as a pioneer of the archaeology of pre-Roman Britain; objects from his banished collection had been grate-fully housed by the British Museum. ancestry??with one ear. since the estate was in tail male??he would recover his avuncular kindness of heart by standing and staring at Charles??s immortal bustard. The razor was trembling in Sam??s hand; not with murderous intent.????So I am a doubly dishonored woman. Ergo.????Cut off me harms. And if you smile like that. Mrs. All conspired. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross dereliction of duty: the upstairs maid whose duty it was unfailingly each Tuesday to water the ferns in the second drawing room??Mrs. Every decade invents such a useful noun-and-epithet; in the 1860s ??gooseberry?? meant ??all that is dreary and old-fashioned??; today Ernestina would have called those worthy concert-goers square .??Sam.. But to a less tax-paying. She sank back against the corner of the chair. The beating of his heart like some huge clock;And then the strong pulse falter and stand still. but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor.Our broader-minded three had come early. suitably distorted and draped in black.????Ah. but that girl attracts me.