The French Lieutenant's Woman / Любовница французского лейтенанта. Джон ФаулзЧитать онлайн книгу.

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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

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