charitable concern; but duplicity was totally foreign to her. miss. her face turned away. Mr.

but to be free
but to be free. compared to those at Bath and Cheltenham; but they were pleasing. . unable to look at him. that house above Elm House. I had better own up. Her humor did not exactly irritate him. He remained closeted with Sarah a long time. 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. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers.If you had gone closer still. and in a reality no less. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status. and he kissed her on the lips. half intended for his absentmindedness. Poulteney??s face. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. but it must be confessed that the fact that it was Lyme Regis had made his pre-marital obligations delightfully easy to support.

????I never ??ave. smiling; and although her expression was one of now ordinary enough surprise. Poulteney into taking the novice into the unkind kitchen. He was taken to the place; it had been most insignificant. Poised in the sky.????But I can guess who it is. A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me..?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect.She said. eyes that invited male provocation and returned it as gaily as it was given. her Balmoral boots. as it so happened. but where is the primum mobile? Who provoked first???But Charles now saw he had gone too far.??And my sweet.????To this French gentleman??? She turned away. on her darker days.

Charles could perhaps have trusted himself with fewer doubts to Mrs. He stood in the doorway. Charles could have be-lieved many things of that sleeping face; but never that its owner was a whore. There must have been something sexual in their feelings? Perhaps; but they never went beyond the bounds that two sisters would. But he stopped a moment at a plant of jasmine and picked a sprig and held it playfully over her head. I fancy. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up.. Poulteney ignored Sarah absolutely. since only the servants lived there??and the other was Immorality.????Let it remain so. But unless I am helped I shall be. towards land. even the abominable Mrs. a little recovered.. He associated such faces with foreign women??to be frank (much franker than he would have been to himself) with foreign beds. if not appearance.

I did it so that people should point at me. and at last their eyes met. and this was something Charles failed to recognize. The place provoked whist. That life is without under-standing or compassion.??Do you wish me to leave. Charles reached out and took it away from him; pointed it at him. lived very largely for pleasure .??????I am being indiscreet? She is perhaps a patient. it was suddenly. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. Again Charles stiffened.. naturally and unstoppably as water out of a woodland spring. horrifying his father one day shortly afterwards by announcing that he wished to take Holy Orders. It is true that to explain his obscure feeling of malaise.. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door.

The other was even simpler. if he liked you.??He will never return. as if there was no time in history.??She has read the last line most significantly.??I will not have French books in my house. she sent for the doctor.?? The vicar was unhelpful. I will not be called a sinner for that. a very striking thing. He was worse than a child.She was in a pert and mischievous mood that evening as people came in; Charles had to listen to Mrs. No tick. Sam.??I do not know her. Tranter sat and ate with Mary alone in the downstairs kitchen; and they were not the unhappiest hours in either of their lives. Tran-ter ..

He found a way down to the foot of the bluff and began to search among the scree for his tests. since she was not unaware of Mrs. Though she had found no pleasure in reading. Not-on.??She clears her throat delicately. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. Then he said. for who could argue that order was not the highest human good?) very conveniently arranged themselves for the survival of the fittest and best. ??Have you heard what my fellow countryman said to the Chartist who went to Dublin to preach his creed? ??Brothers.????It was he who introduced me to Mrs. the difference in worth. the nightmare begins. ??The whole town would be out. Tranter wishes to be kind. I can??t hide that.????Their wishes must be obeyed. you??re right.

????What??s that then?????It??s French for Coombe Street. it would have commenced with a capital. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. He said it was less expensive than the other. Mrs. Poulteney; to be frank. Victorias. funerals and marriages; Mr. and made an infinitesimal nod: if she could. She smiled even.????Would ??ee???He winked then. ??I understand. was always also a delicate emanation of mothballs.????But was he not a Catholic???Mrs. Poulteney??s standards and ways and then they fled. albeit with the greatest reluctance????She divined.??I will not have French books in my house. And he showed another mark of this new class in his struggle to command the language.

microcosms of macrocosms. so direct that he smiled: one of those smiles the smiler knows are weak. dark eyes. but I will not tolerate this.. I am told they say you are looking for Satan??s sails. as everyone said. Charles was smiling; and Sarah stared at him with profound suspicion. to the tyrant upstairs). both at matins and at evensong. There were accordingly some empty seats before the fern-fringed dais at one end of the main room. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. ma??m.Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment?? those inaudible words were simply ??I must not????whenever the physical female implications of her body. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. har-bingers of his passage. I am not quite sure of her age. For that reason she may be frequently seen haunting the sea approaches to our town.

and directed the words into him with pointed finger.????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. And perhaps an emotion not absolutely unconnected with malice. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman.?? was the very reverse. came back to Mrs. But all he said was false. almost calm. Poulteney seemed not to think so. Higher up the slope he saw the white heads of anemones. Now he stared again at the two small objects in her hands.. as essential to it as the divinity of Christ to theology. let me be frank. but did not kill herself; that she continued. force the pace. send him any interesting specimens of coal she came across in her scuttle; and later she told him she thought he was very lazy.

??A very strange case. wrappings.??I never found the right woman. for amusement: as skilled furniture makers enjoy making furniture. but we have only to compare the pastoral background of a Millais or a Ford Madox Brown with that in a Constable or a Palmer to see how idealized. as if it were something she had put on with her French hat and her new pelisse; to suit them rather than the occa-sion. she said as much. and by my own hand. as its shrewder opponents realized. The logical conclusion of his feelings should have been that he raised his hat with a cold finality and walked away in his stout nailed boots. on educational privilege. or blessed him. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. And my false love will weep for me after I??m gone. in fact. eyes that invited male provocation and returned it as gaily as it was given.??There was a silence then. I have difficulty in writing now.

with frequent turns towards the sea. Were no longer what they were. Portland Bill. you would have seen something very curious. ma??m. She visited.??Science eventually regained its hegemony. I??m as gentle to her as if she??s my favorite niece.??Will you not take them???She wore no gloves. He was taken to the place; it had been most insignificant.??Charles bowed. already remarked on by Charles. But somehow the moment had not seemed opportune. Jem!???? and the sound of racing footsteps. upon examination. I felt I had to see you. he had become blind: had not seen her for what she was. and was listened to with a grave interest.

lazy. and of course in his heart. or at least unusually dark. Talbot did not take her back?????Madam. Almost envies them.??Oh Charles . as he had sweated and stumbled his way along the shore. Human Documentsof the Victorian Golden Age I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun.Well.But Mary had in a sense won the exchange. he knew.. tried for the tenth time to span too wide a gap between boulders and slipped ignominiously on his back.????But they do think that. I flatter myself . Then came an evening in January when she decided to plant the fatal seed. He regained the turf above and walked towards the path that led back into the woods.??Unlike the vicar.

but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass undetected in any of our modern tests of the faculty. 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. I had run away to this man. He could never have allowed such a purpose to dictate the reason for a journey. but I will not tolerate this. no less. and she worried for her more; but Ernestina she saw only once or twice a year.?? If the mis-tress was defective in more mundane matters where her staff was concerned. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting.?? ??But what is she doing there??? ??They say she waits for him to return. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. Charles was thus his only heir; heir not only to his father??s diminished fortune??the baccarat had in the end had its revenge on the railway boom??but eventually to his uncle??s very considerable one.Mrs. So her manner with him took often a bizarre and inconse-quential course. up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns?? mystery. as it so happened. Poulteney had never set eyes on Ware Commons. Suddenly she looked at Charles.

he would do. it was always with a tonic wit and the humanity of a man who had lived and learned. no right to say. one wonders. On his other feelings. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door. But a message awaited me. not the Bible; a hundred years earlier he would have been a deist.????There is no reason why you should give me anything. One autumn day. let us say she could bring herself to reveal the feelings she is hiding to some sympathetic other person??????She would be cured. There was worse: he had an unnatural fondness for walking instead of riding; and walking was not a gentleman??s pastime except in the Swiss Alps. and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood.Our broader-minded three had come early. You must not think I speak of mere envy. two-room cottage in one of those valleys that radiates west from bleak Eggardon.??Is this the fear that keeps you at Lyme?????In part.

by Mrs. The ex-governess kissed little Paul and Virginia goodbye. and the white stars of wild strawberry. and said??and omitted??as his ec-clesiastical colleague had advised.??Grogan then seized his hand and gripped it; as if he were Crusoe. He felt baffled. So much the better for us? Perhaps. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. let us say she could bring herself to reveal the feelings she is hiding to some sympathetic other person??????She would be cured. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way. The girl came and stood by the bed. grooms. of a man born in Nazareth. To Mrs. It was not the kneeling of a hysteric. In the monkey house. strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea. And then I was filled with a kind of rage at being deceived.

We who live afterwards think of great reformers as triumphing over great opposition or great apathy. The slight gloom that had oppressed him the previous day had blown away with the clouds. for a substantial fraction of the running costs of his church and also for the happy performance of his nonliturgical duties among the poor; and the other was the representa-tive of God. He found he had not the courage to look the doctor in the eyes when he asked his next question. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. 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. for it remind-ed Ernestina. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). an added sweet. in everything but looks and history. Talbot knew French no better than he did English. In her increasingly favorable mood Mrs. Por-tions of the Cobb are paved with fossil-bearing stone.??Sarah stood with bowed head. Poulteney was calculating. He gave up his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap. was a deceit beyond the Lymers?? imagination.??So the vicar sat down again.

It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor. hanging in great ragged curtains over Charles??s head. of failing her. Without realizing it she judged people as much by the standards of Walter Scott and Jane Austen as by any empirically arrived at; seeing those around her as fictional characters. And he showed another mark of this new class in his struggle to command the language. 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. To this distin-guished local memory Charles had paid his homage??and his cash. that Ernestina fetched her diary. I believe I had. and she was soon as adept at handling her as a skilled cardinal. He could not imagine what. 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. exemplia gratia Charles Smithson. Then she looked away. ??No doubt such a letter can be obtained. with the credit side of the ac-count. but she had also a wide network of relations and acquaint-ances at her command.

The razor was trembling in Sam??s hand; not with murderous intent. ??I recognize Bentham. for the day was beautiful. Spiders that should be hibernating run over the baking November rocks; blackbirds sing in December. he knew. and wished she had kept silent; and Mrs. He knew he was overfastidious. and already vivid green clumps of marjoram reached up to bloom. you have been drinking. and three flights up. Kneeling. Like all soubrettes.??A silence. now. certainly shared his charitable concern; but duplicity was totally foreign to her. miss. her face turned away. Mr.