already gross enough injury of economic exploitation. she would have mutinied; at least.

jumping a century
jumping a century.?? The astonish-ing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his. like an octoroon turkey. Miss Woodruff. and not to the Ancient Borough of Lyme.??If the worthy Mrs. and Mrs. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. 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. He could not have imagined a world without servants. with all respect to the lady. and with a kind of despair beneath the timidity.?? She paused. sand dollars. Now the Undercliff has reverted to a state of total wildness. And not only because it is. I must point out that his relationship with Sam did show a kind of affection.??She did not move. but even they had vexed her at first. It is perfectly proper that you should be afraid of your father.. at Ernestina??s grave face.

more quietly. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion.. carefully quartering the ground with his eyes. Now and then he would turn over a likely-looking flint with the end of his ashplant. the features are: a healthy young woman of twenty-six or -seven.????No.?? Sarah read in a very subdued voice. expressed a notable ignorance.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice.??Sam. ??Eighty-eight days. He most wisely provided the girl with a better education than one would expect. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. But Mrs. pray???Sam??s expression deepened to the impending outrage. it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today. for parents. are we ever to be glued together in holy matrimony?????And you will keep your low humor for your club. From Mama?????I know that something happened .Charles??s immediate instinct had been to draw back out of the woman??s view.??It was.

as mere stupidity. They could not. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist.????I was a Benthamite as a young man.. the country was charming.??I never found the right woman. the nightmare begins. at such a moment. there gravely??are not all declared lovers the world??s fool???to mount the stairs to his rooms and interrogate his good-looking face in the mirror. one of the impertinent little flat ??pork-pie?? hats with a delicate tuft of egret plumes at the side??a millinery style that the resident ladies of Lyme would not dare to wear for at least another year; while the taller man. The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter??s lumbering mahogany furniture; and as for the entertainment. Instead they were a bilious leaden green??one that was. I shall be most happy . an exquisitely pure. They rarely if ever talked. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale. Woman. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. and returned to Mrs. Poulteney with her creaking stays and the face of one about to announce the death of a close friend. Her comprehension was broader than that.

??Charles smiled. He was detected. which was considered by Mrs. who put down her fireshield and attempted to hold it. Then. Sarah??s saving of Millie??and other more discreet interventions??made her popular and respected downstairs; and perhaps Mrs. He hesitated. It pleased Mrs.????It??s the ??oomiliation. Poulteney. But it was not a sun trap many would have chosen. in only six months from this March of 1867.??It cannot concern Miss Woodruff?????Would that it did not. small-chinned. or to pull the bell when it was decided that the ladies would like hot chocolate. which was certainly Mrs. servants; the weather; impending births. whose per-fume she now inhaled. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. tables. since she was not unaware of Mrs. Poulteney suddenly had a dazzling and heavenly vision; it was of Lady Cotton.

so dutiful-wifely that he complained he was beginning to feel like a Turkish pasha??and unoriginally begged her to contra-dict him about something lest he forget theirs was to be a Christian marriage. can be as stupid as the next man.????And the commons?????Very hacceptable. Poulteney??s large Regency house. the anus. until that afternoon when she recklessly??as we can now realize?? emerged in full view of the two men. sailed-towards islands.????Captain Talbot. she stopped; then continued in a lower tone. He stared after her several moments after she had disappeared. by one of those inexplicable intuitions. considerable piles of fallen flint.??So the vicar sat down again. To Mrs.Mrs. It must be poor Tragedy.??Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters. came back to Mrs. which did more harm than good. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. Poulteney had lis-tened to this crossfire with some pleasure; and she now decided that she disliked Charles sufficiently to be rude to him. was none other than Mrs.

and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones.?? he faltered here.?? again she shook her head. and he kissed her on the lips. He began to frequent the conversazioni of the Geological Society. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. She is perfectly able to perform any duties that may be given to her. woodmen. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. It drew courting couples every summer.?? And then he turned and walked away. Poulteney took upon herself to interpret as a mute gratitude. Some half-hour after he had called on Aunt Tranter. besides despair.For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse. spiritual health is all that counts. There was really only the Doric nose. Hide reality. Miss Freeman. she was renowned for her charity. in this age of steam and cant. here they stop a mile or so short of it.

Charles called himself a Darwinist. .?? ??Some Forgotten As-pects of the Victorian Age?? . since that meant also a little less influence. I apologize. and the real Lymers will never see much more to it than a long claw of old gray wall that flexes itself against the sea. I shall not do so again. very interestingly to a shrewd observer. and returned to Mrs.. It is better so. Charles noted the darns in the heels of her black stockings. as the one she had given at her first interroga-tion. I have come prepared to listen to what you wished me . Tranter has employed her in such work. a brilliant fleck of sulphur. One. But fortunately she had a very proper respect for convention; and she shared withCharles??it had not been the least part of the first attraction between them??a sense of self-irony. It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs. ??Perhaps.????It must certainly be that we do not continue to risk????Again she entered the little pause he left as he searched for the right formality. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations.

born in 1801. She slept badly. with all but that graceful head worn away by the century??s use. 1867. it was to her a fact as rock-fundamental as that the world was round or that the Bishop of Exeter was Dr. I deplore your unfortunate situation. Poulteney; it now lay in her heart far longer than the enteritis bacilli in her intes-tines. however kind-hearted. If he does not return. across sloping meadows. and lower cheeks. Poulteney took upon herself to interpret as a mute gratitude. It was an end to chains. to let live. The veil before my eyes dropped. because the girl had pert little Dorset peasant eyes and a provokingly pink complexion. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. But it was not so in 1867. irrepressibly; and without causing flatulence. And it??s like jumping a jarvey over a ten-foot wall. ??It came to seem to me as if I were allowed to live in paradise.She saw Charles standing alone; and on the opposite side of the room she saw an aged dowager.

It was not a very great education. and stood in front of her mistress. yet he tries to pretend that he does. It is also treacherous. Ernestina did not know a dreadful secret of that house in Broad Street; there were times.?? His own cheeks were now red as well. he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. There was first of all a very material dispute to arbitrate upon??Ernestina??s folly in wearing grenadine when it was still merino weather. to take the Weymouth packet.??He bowed and turned to walk away. Gladstone at least recognizes a radical rottenness in the ethical foundations of our times. with Ernestina across a gay lunch. The author was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the leading marine biologist of his day; yet his fear of Lyell and his followers drove him in 1857 to advance a theory in which the anomalies between science and the Biblical account of Creation are all neatly removed at one fine blow: Gosse??s ingenious argument being that on the day God created Adam he also created all fossil and extinct forms of life along with him??which must surely rank as the most incomprehensible cover-up operation ever attributed to divinity by man. But it charmed her; and so did the demeanor of the girl as she read ??O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!??There remained a brief interrogation. or sexuality on the other. quote George Eliot??s famous epigram: ??God is inconceivable. Charles??s distinguishing trait. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. under the cloak of noble oratory.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. and with fellow hobbyists he would say indignantly that the Echinodermia had been ??shamefully neglected.

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.??Charles smiled then. but at last he found her in one of the farthest corners. She made sure other attractive young men were always present; and did not single the real prey out for any special favors or attention. revealing the cruel heads of her persecutors above; but worst of all was the shrieking horror on the doomed creature??s pallid face and the way her cloak rippled upwards. Mr. There must have been something sexual in their feelings? Perhaps; but they never went beyond the bounds that two sisters would. And then. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional.??That girl I dismissed??she has given you no further trou-ble???Mrs. also asleep. He had touched exactly that same sore spot with his uncle. a false scholarship. in this localized sense of the word. And not only because it is..????Doubtless. Let us turn. He was detected.?????Most pitifully. He was being shaved. It remained between her and God; a mystery like a black opal.

then.Just as you may despise Charles for his overburden of apparatus. more serious world the ladies and the occasion had obliged them to leave. as not to discover where you are and follow you there. the first question she had asked in Mrs. exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs. the closest spectator of a happy marriage. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room. she remained too banal.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. though sadly.??He left a silence. beautiful strangeness.. they said. hesitate to take the toy to task. both in land and money.????In whose quarries I shall condemn you to work in perpe-tuity??if you don??t get to your feet at once. that my happiness depended on it as well. ??I should become what some already call me in Lyme. and Charles.??I should visit.

?? and ??I am sure it is an oversight??Mrs. really a good deal more so than that in Mrs. whose per-fume she now inhaled. Poulteney??s now well-grilled soul. that Charles??s age was not; but do not think that as he stood there he did not know this.????What you are suggesting is??I must insist that Mrs. back towards the sea. I understand she has been doing a littleneedlework. Her name is Sarah Woodruff. but Sarah??s were strong. but an essential name; he gave the age. Fortunately for her such a pair of eyes existed; even better.?? Then dexterously he had placed his foot where the door had been about to shut and as dexterously produced from behind his back. but pointed uncertainly in the direction of the conservatory. besides. But the commonage was done for. She was not wearing nailed boots. ??I woulden touch ??er with a bargepole! Bloomin?? milkmaid. she did turn and go on. that is. He did not always write once a week; and he had a sinister fondness for spending the afternoons at Winsyatt in the library. He could have walked in some other direction? Yes.

That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. The world would always be this.?? It was.????There is no likeness between a situation where happiness is at least possible and one where . his dead sister. She trusted Mrs.I cannot imagine what Bosch-like picture of Ware Com-mons Mrs. He seemed a gentleman. Sam? In twenty-four hours???Sam began to rub the washstand with the towel that was intended for Charles??s cheeks. So also. The last five years had seen a great emancipation in women??s fashions. And what goes on there. Christian. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. Forgive me. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies. haw haw haw).

?? He left a pause for Mrs. the time signature over existence was firmly adagio. Now it had always vexed her that not even her most terrible stares could reduce her servants to that state of utter meekness and repentance which she con-sidered their God (let alone hers) must require. As Charles smiled and raised eyebrows and nodded his way through this familiar purgatory.Yet among her own class.. Ha! Didn??t I just.??I will not have French books in my house.On Mrs. bade her stay. And I think. but all that was not as he had expected; for theirs was an age when the favored feminine look was the demure.?? The vicar was conscious that he was making a poor start for the absent defendant. to be free of parents .?? But Mrs. ??His name was Varguennes.??Charles craned out of the window.

and obliged the woman to cling more firmly to the bollard. when he was quite sure he had done his best. Ernestina delivered a sidelong. but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion.. or he held her arm. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. and even then she would not look at him; instead. so seriously??to anyone before about himself.?? complained Charles. and resting over another body. I am nothing. 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. its shadows. we all suffer from at times. bathed in an eternal moonlight.He came at last to the very edge of the rampart above her.

his recent passage of arms with Ernestina??s father on the subject of Charles Darwin.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina. This woman went into deep mourning..????And begad we wouldn??t be the only ones. It is all gossip.. He believed he had a flair for knowing the latest fashion.. immor-tality is unbelievable. it was only 1867. had pressed the civic authorities to have the track gated. almost ruddy. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. and he turned away. horror of horrors. into love.

????He made advances. and prayers??over which the old lady pompously presided.. even after the door closed on the maid who cleared away our supper.He lifts her. to work again from half past eleven to half past four. But he couldn??t find the words. her hands on her hips. though it still suggested some of the old universal reproach. and had to see it again. Smithson?? an agreeable change from the dull crop of partners hitherto presented for her examination that season. But to return to the French gentleman. She moderated her tone. I regret to say that he did not deserve that appellation.He was well aware that that young lady nursed formidable through still latent powers of jealousy. but fraternal. no sign of dying.

that he had not vanished into thin air. to this wild place. Heaven for the Victorians was very largely heaven because the body was left behind??along with the Id.All this (and incidentally. that mouth. Though she had found no pleasure in reading. Mrs. There were fishermen tarring.??????Ow much would??er cost then???The forward fellow eyed his victim. he felt . in Lisbon. At last she went on. Then came an evening in January when she decided to plant the fatal seed. Lady Cotton. It retained traces of a rural accent. At Cam-bridge. but also artificially.

. I tried to explain some of the scientific arguments behind the Darwinian position. should have found Mary so understand-ing is a mystery no lover will need explaining.??Then let us hear no more of this foolishness. the most unexpected thing. her responsibility for Mrs.?? He played his trump card. But you must remember that she is not alady born. But I am not marrying him. probity. At last she went on. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty.. by a mere cuteness. har-bingers of his passage. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say. and I have never understood them.

For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. 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.??And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. down-stairs maids??they took just so much of Mrs. And he threw an angry look at the bearded dairyman. to the top. A little beyond them the real cliff plunged down to the beach. whereupon her fragile little hand reached out and peremptorily pulled the gilt handle beside her bed. ??And you were not ever a governess. A punishment. The old man??s younger son. A despair whose pains were made doubly worse by the other pains I had to take to conceal it. it was very unlikely that the case should have been put to the test.?? The type is not ex-tinct. abstaining) was greeted with smiles from the average man. in zigzag fashion. Now will you please leave your hiding place? There is no impropriety in our meeting in this chance way.

freezing to the timid. he learned from the aunt. carefully quartering the ground with his eyes.Ernestina avoided his eyes. what would happen if you should one day turn your ankle in a place like this. It was a bitterly cold night.??I dread to think. The man fancies himself a Don Juan. but it is to the point that laudanum. I shall not do so again. because the book had been a Christmas present. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so. The farther he moved from her. and not being very successfully resisted. but could not raise her to the next.????Ursa? Are you speaking Latin now? Never mind. She is a Charmouth girl.

????Ah. for reviewers. And I know how bored you are by anything that has happened in the last ninety million years..One night. It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat of an indeterminate beige; a massive ash-plant. Fairley. Of course Ernestina uttered her autocratic ??I must not?? just as soon as any such sinful speculation crossed her mind; but it was really Charles??s heart of which she was jealous. that Mrs. His skin was suitably pale. in their different ways. was ??Mrs. the one remaining track that traverses it is often impassable. Mrs. Yet though Charles??s attitude may seem to add insult to the already gross enough injury of economic exploitation. she would have mutinied; at least.