The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles (57 page)

A stare of a minute or so's
duration, of this kind, might have been explicable. Train journeys are
boring; it is amusing to spy on strangers; and so on. But this stare, which
became positively cannibalistic in its intensity, lasted far longer than
a minute. It lasted beyond Taunton, though it was briefly interrupted there
when the noise on the platform made Charles wake for a few moments. But
when he sank back into his slumbers, the eyes fastened on him again in
the same leech-like manner.

You may one day come under
a similar gaze. And you may--in the less reserved context of our own century--be
aware of it. The intent watcher will not wait till you are asleep. It will
no doubt suggest something unpleasant, some kind of devious sexual approach
... a desire to know you in a way you do not want to be known by a stranger.
In my experience there is only one profession that gives that particular
look, with its bizarre blend of the inquisitive and the magistral; of the
ironic and the soliciting.

Now could I use you?

Now what could I do with
you?

It is precisely, it has always
seemed to me, the look an omnipotent god--if there were such an absurd
thing--should be shown to have. Not at all what we think of as a divine
look; but one of a distinctly mean and dubious (as the theoreticians of
the nouveau roman have pointed out) moral quality. I see this with particular
clarity on the face, only too familiar to me, of the bearded man who stares
at Charles. And I will keep up the pretense no longer.

Now the question I am asking,
as I stare at Charles, is not quite the same as the two above. But rather,
what the devil am I going to do with you? I have already thought of ending
Charles's career here and now; of leaving him for eternity on his way to
London. But the conventions of Victorian fiction allow, allowed no place
for the open, the inconclusive ending; and I preached earlier of the freedom
characters must be given. My problem is simple--what Charles wants is clear?
It is indeed. But what the protagonist wants is not so clear; and I am
not at all sure where she is at the moment. Of course if these two were
two fragments of real life, instead of two figments of my imagination,
the issue of the dilemma is obvious: the one want combats the other want,
and fails or succeeds, as the actuality may be. Fiction usually pretends
to conform to the reality: the writer puts the conflicting wants in the
ring and then describes the fight--but in fact fixes the fight, letting
that want he himself favors win. And we judge writers of fiction both by
the skill they show in fixing the fights (in other words, in persuading
us that they were not fixed) and by the kind of fighter they fix in favor
of: the good one, the tragic one, the evil one, the funny one, and so on.

But the chief argument for
fight-fixing is to show one's readers what one thinks of the world around
one--whether one is a pessimist, an optimist, what you will. I have pretended
to slip back into 1867; but of course that year is in reality a century
past. It is futile to show optimism or pessimism, or anything else about
it, because we know what has happened since.

So I continue to stare at
Charles and see no reason this time for fixing the fight upon which he
is about to engage. That leaves me with two alternatives. I let the fight
proceed and take no more than a recording part in it; or I take both sides
in it. I stare at that vaguely effete but not completely futile face. And
as we near London, I think I see a solution; that is, I see the dilemma
is false. The only way I can take no part in the fight is to show two versions
of it. That leaves me with only one problem: I cannot give both versions
at once, yet whichever is the second will seem, so strong is the tyranny
of the last chapter, the final, the "real" version.

I take my purse from the
pocket of my frock coat, I extract a florin, I rest it on my right thumbnail,
I flick it, spinning, two feet into the air and catch it in my left hand.

So be it. And I am suddenly
aware that Charles has opened his eyes and is looking at me. There is something
more than disapproval in his eyes now; he perceives I am either a gambler
or mentally deranged. I return his disapproval, and my florin to my purse.
He picks up his hat, brushes some invisible
speck of dirt (a surrogate
for myself) from its nap and places it on his head.

We draw under one of the
great cast-iron beams that support the roof of Paddington station. We arrive,
he steps down to the platform, beckoning to a porter. In a few moments,
having given his instructions, he turns. The bearded man has disappeared
in the throng.
 
 

Ah Christ, that
it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that
they might tell us
What and where they be.
--
Tennyson, Maud (1855)

Private Inquiry
Office, Patronized by the Aristocracy, and under the sole direction of
Mr. Pollaky himself.
Relations with both the
British and the Foreign Detective Police.
DELICATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
INQUIRIES INSTITUTED WITH SECRECY AND DISPATCH IN ENGLAND, THE CONTINENT
AND THE COLONIES. EVIDENCE COLLECTED FOR CASES IN THE DIVORCE COURT, &C.
--
Mid-Victorian advertisement

He had achieved this ubiquity
by hiring four detectives-- whether they were under the sole direction
of Mr. Pollaky, I am not sure, but they worked hard. They had to, for they
were a very new profession, a mere eleven years old, and held in general
contempt. A gentleman in 1866 who stabbed one to death was considered to
have done a very proper thing. "If people go about got up as garrotters,"
warned Punch, "they must take the consequences."

Charles's men had first tried
the governess agencies, without success; they had tried the Educational
Boards of all the denominations that ran Church schools. Hiring a carriage,
he had himself spent fruitless hours patrolling, a pair of intent eyes
that scanned each younger female face that passed, the genteel-poor districts
of London. In one such Sarah must be lodging: in Peckham, in Pentonville,
in Putney; in a dozen similar districts of neat new roads and one-domestic
houses he searched. He also helped his men to investigate the booming new
female clerical agencies. A generalized hostility to Adam was already evident
in them, since they had to bear the full brunt of masculine prejudice and
were to become among the most important seedbeds of the emancipation movement.
I think these experiences, though fruitless in the one matter he cared
about, were not all wasted on Charles. Slowly he began to understand one
aspect of Sarah better: her feeling of resentment, of an unfair because
remediable bias in society. One morning he had woken to find himself very
depressed. The dreadful possibility of prostitution, that fate she had
once hinted at, became a certainty. That evening he went in a state of
panic to the same Haymarket area he visited earlier. What the driver imagined,
I cannot suppose; but he must certainly have thought his fare the most
fastidious man who ever existed. They drove up and down those streets for
two hours. Only once did they stop; the driver saw a red-haired prostitute
under a gaslight. But almost at once two taps bade him drive on again.

Other consequences of his
choice of freedom had meanwhile not waited to exact their toll. To his
finally achieved letter to Mr. Freeman he received no answer for ten days.
But then he had to sign for one, delivered ominously by hand, from Mr.
Freeman's solicitors.

Sir,
In re Miss Ernestina Freeman
We are instructed by Mr.
Ernest Freeman, father of the above-mentioned Miss Ernestina Freeman, to
request you to attend at
these chambers at 3 o'clock this coming Friday. Your failure to attend
will be
regarded as an acknowledgment
of our client's right to proceed.
Aubrey & Baggott

"Well, what does it mean,
Harry?"

"It means, my dear boy, that
you have the devil's own luck. They have cold feet."

"Then why should they want
to see me?"

"They won't let you off altogether,
Charles. That is asking too much. My guess is that you will be asked to
make a confessio delicti."

"A statement of guilt?"

"Just so. I am afraid you
must anticipate an ugly document. But I can only advise you to sign it.
You have no case."

On that Friday afternoon
Charles and Montague were ushered into a funereal waiting room in one of
the Inns of Court. Charles felt it was something like a duel; Montague
was his second. They were made to cool their heels until a quarter past
three. But since this preliminary penance had been predicted by Montague,
they bore it with a certain nervous amusement.

At last they were summoned.
A short and choleric old man rose from behind a large desk. A little behind
him stood Mr. Freeman. He had no eyes but for Charles, and they were very
cold eyes indeed; all amusement vanished. Charles bowed to him, but no
acknowledgment was made. The two solicitors shook hands curtly. There was
a fifth person present: a tall, thin, balding man with penetrating dark
eyes, at the sight of whom Montague imperceptibly flinched.

"You know Mr. Serjeant Murphy?"

"By reputation only."

A serjeant-at-law was in
Victorian times a top counsel; and Serjeant Murphy was a killer, the most
feared man of his day.

Mr. Aubrey peremptorily indicated
the chairs the two visitors were to take, then sat down himself again.
Mr. Freeman remained implacably standing. Mr. Aubrey shuffled papers, which
gave Charles time he did not want to absorb the usual intimidating atmosphere
of such places: the learned volumes, the rolls of sheepskin bound in green
ferret, the mournful box-files of dead cases ranged high around the room
like the urns of an overpopulated columbarium.

The old solicitor looked
severely up.

"I think, Mr. Montague, that
the facts of this abominable breach of engagement are not in dispute. I
do not know what construction your client has put upon his conduct to you.
But he has himself provided abundant evidence of his own guilt in this
letter to Mr. Freeman, though I note that with the usual
impudence of his kind he
has sought to--"

"Mr. Aubrey, such language
in these circumstances--"

Serjeant Murphy pounced,
"Would you prefer to hear the language I should use, Mr. Montague--and
in open court?"

Montague took a breath and
looked down. Old Aubrey stared at him with a massive disapproval. "Montague,
I knew your late grandfather well. I fancy he would have thought twice
before acting for such a client as yours--but let that pass for the nonce.
I consider this letter . . ." and he held it up, as if
with tongs "... I consider
this disgraceful letter adds most impertinent insult to an already gross
injury, both by its shameless attempt at self-exoneration and the complete
absence from it of any reference to the criminal and sordid liaison that
the writer well knows is the blackest aspect of his crime." He glowered
at Charles. "You may, sir, have thought Mr. Freeman not to be fully cognizant
of your amours. You are wrong. We know the name of the female with whom
you have entered into such base conversation. We have a witness to circumstances
I find too disgusting to name."

Charles flushed red. Mr.
Freeman's eyes bored into him. He could only lower his head; and curse
Sam. Montague spoke.

"My client did not come here
to defend his conduct."

"Then you would not defend
an action?"

"A person of your eminence
in our profession must know that I cannot answer that question."

Serjeant Murphy intervened
again. "You would not defend an action if one were brought?"

"With respect, sir, I must
reserve judgment on that matter."

A vulpine smile distorted
the serjeant-at-law's lips.