The French Lieutenant's Woman (31 page)

But it was Ernestina,
and the need once again to show the stiff upper lip, that was the
first thing to draw him out of his misery that day.
 

27

How often I
sit, poring o'er
My
strange distorted youth,
Seeking
in vain, in all my store,
One
feeling based on truth; . . .

So constant as
my heart would be,
So
fickle as it must,
'Twere
well for others and for me
'Twere
dry as summer dust.

Excitements
come, and act and speech
Flow
freely forth:--but no,
Nor
they, nor aught beside can reach
The
buried world below.
--
A.
H. Clough, Poem (1840)

The door was opened by
the housekeeper. The doctor, it seemed, was in his dispensary; but if
Charles would like to wait upstairs ... so, divested of his hat and
his Inverness cape he soon found himself in that same room where he
had drunk the grog and declared himself for Darwin. A fire burned in
the grate; and evidence of the doctor's solitary supper, which the
housekeeper hastened to clear, lay on the round table in the bay
window overlooking the sea. Charles very soon heard feet on the
stairs. Grogan came warmly into the room, hand extended.

"This is a
pleasure, Smithson. That stupid woman now-- has she not given you
something to counteract the rain?"

"Thank you ..."
he was going to refuse the brandy decanter, but changed his mind. And
when he had the glass in his hand, he came straight out with his
purpose. "I have something private and very personal to discuss.
I need your advice."

A little glint showed in
the doctor's eyes then. He had had other well-bred young men come to
him shortly before their marriage. Sometimes it was gonorrhea, less
often syphilis; sometimes it was mere fear, masturbation phobia; a
widespread theory of the time maintained that the wages of self-abuse
was impotence. But usually it was ignorance; only a year before a
miserable and childless young husband had come to see Dr. Grogan, who
had had gravely to explain that new life is neither begotten nor born
through the navel.

"Do you now? Well
I'm not sure I have any left--I've given a vast amount of it away
today. Mainly concerning what should be executed upon that damned old
bigot up in Marlborough House. You've heard what she's done?"

"That is precisely
what I wish to talk to you about."

The doctor breathed a
little inward sigh of relief; and he once again jumped to the wrong
conclusion.

"Ah, of
course--Mrs. Tranter is worried? Tell her from me that all is being
done that can be done. A party is out searching. I have offered five
pounds to the man who brings her back ..." his voice went bitter
"... or finds the poor creature's body."

"She is alive. I've
just received a note from her."

Charles looked down
before the doctor's amazed look. And then, at first addressing his
brandy glass, he began to tell the truth of his encounters with
Sarah--that is, almost all the truth, for he left undescribed his own
more secret feelings, He managed, or tried, to pass some of the blame
off on Dr. Grogan and their previous conversation; giving himself a
sort of scientific status that the shrewd little man opposite did not
fail to note. Old doctors and old priests share one thing in common:
they get a long nose for deceit, whether it is overt or, as in
Charles's case, committed out of embarrassment. As he went on with
his confession, the end of Dr. Grogan's nose began metaphorically to
twitch; and this invisible twitching signified very much the same as
Sam's pursing of his lips. The doctor let no sign of his suspicions
appear. Now and then he asked questions, but in general he let
Charles talk his increasingly lame way to the end of his story. Then
he stood up.

"Well, first things
first. We must get those poor devils back." The thunder was now
much closer and though the curtains had been drawn, the white shiver
of lightning trembled often in their weave behind Charles's back.

"I came as soon as
I could."

"Yes, you are not
to blame for that. Now let me see ..." The doctor was already
seated at a small desk in the rear of the room. For a few moments
there was no sound in it but the rapid scratch of his pen. Then he
read what he had written to Charles.

"'Dear Forsyth,
News has this minute reached me that Miss Woodruff is safe. She does
not wish her whereabouts disclosed, but you may set your mind at
rest. I hope to have further news of her tomorrow. Please offer the
enclosed to the party of searchers when they return. 'Will that do?"

"Excellently.
Except that the enclosure must be mine." Charles produced a
small embroidered purse, Ernestina's work, and set three sovereigns
on the green cloth desk beside Grogan, who pushed two away. He looked
up with a smile.

"Mr. Forsyth is
trying to abolish the demon alcohol. I think one piece of gold is
enough." He placed the note and the coin in an envelope, sealed
it, and then went to arrange for the letter's speedy delivery. He
came back, talking. "Now the girl--what's to be done about her?
You have no notion where she is at the moment?"

"None at all.
Though I am sure she will be where she indicated tomorrow morning."

"But of course you
cannot be there. In your situation you cannot risk any further
compromise."

Charles looked at him,
then down at the carpet.

"I am in your
hands."

The doctor stared
thoughtfully at Charles. He had just set a little test to probe his
guest's mind. And it had revealed what he had expected. He turned and
went to the bookshelves by his desk and then came back with the same
volume he had shown Charles before: Darwin's great work. He sat
before him across the fire; then with a small smile and a look at
Charles over his glasses, he laid his hand, as if swearing on a Bible
on The Origin of Species.

"Nothing that has
been said in this room or that remains to be said shall go beyond its
walls." Then he put the book aside.

"My dear Doctor,
that was not necessary."

"Confidence in the
practitioner is half of medicine."

Charles smiled wanly.
"And the other half?"

"Confidence in the
patient." But he stood before Charles could speak. "Well
now--you came for my advice, did you not?" He eyed Charles
almost as if he was going to box with him; no longer the bantering,
but the fighting Irishman. Then he began to pace his "cabin,"
his hands tucked under his frock coat. "I am a young woman of
superior intelligence and some education. I think the world has done
badly by me. I am not in full command of my emotions. I do foolish
things, such as throwing myself at the head of the first handsome
rascal who is put in my path. What is worse, I have fallen in love
with being a victim of fate. I put out a very professional line in
the way of looking melancholy. I have tragic eyes. I weep without
explanation. Et cetera. Et cetera. And now..." the little doctor
waved his hand at the door, as if invoking magic "...enter a
young god. Intelligent. Good-looking. A perfect specimen of that
class my
education
has taught me to admire. I see he is interested in me. The sadder I
seem, the more interested he appears to be. I kneel before him, he
raises me to my feet. He treats me like a lady. Nay, more than that.
In a spirit of Christian brotherhood he offers to help me escape from
my unhappy lot."

Charles made to
interrupt, but the doctor silenced him.

"Now I am very
poor. I can use none of the wiles the more fortunate of my sex employ
to lure mankind into their power." He raised his forefinger. "I
have but one weapon. The pity I inspire in this kindhearted man. Now
pity is a thing that takes a devil of a lot of feeding. I have fed
this Good Samaritan my past and he has devoured it. So what can I do?
I must make him pity my present. One day, when I am walking where I
have been forbidden to walk, I seize my chance. I show myself to
someone I know will report my crime to the one person who will not
condone it. I get myself dismissed from my position. I disappear,
under the strong presumption that it is in order to throw myself off
the nearest clifftop. And then, in
extremis
and
de
profundis
--or
rather
de
altis
--I
cry to my savior for help." He left a long pause then, and
Charles's eyes slowly met his. The doctor smiled, "I present
what is partly hypothesis, of course."

"But your specific
accusation--that she invited her own..."

The doctor sat and poked
the fire into life. "I was called early this morning to
Marlborough House. I did not know why--merely that Mrs. P. was
severely indisposed. Mrs. Fairley--the housekeeper, you know--told me
the gist of what had happened." He paused and fixed Charles's
unhappy eyes. "Mrs. Fairley was yesterday at the dairy out there
on Ware Cleeves. The girl walked flagrantly out of the woods under
her nose. Now that woman is a very fair match to her mistress, and
I'm sure she did her subsequent duty with all the mean appetite of
her kind. But I am convinced, my dear Smithson, that she was
deliberately invited to do it."

"You mean ..."
The doctor nodded. Charles gave him a terrible look, then revolted.
"I cannot believe it. It is not possible she should--"

He did not finish the
sentence. The doctor murmured, "It is possible. Alas."

"But only a person
of ..." he was going to say "warped mind," but he
stood abruptly and went to the window, parted the curtains, stared a
blind moment out into the teeming night. A livid flash of sheet
lightning lit the Cobb, the beach, the torpid sea. He turned.

"In other words, I
have been led by the nose."

"Yes, I think you
have. But it required a generous nose. And you must remember that a
deranged mind is not a criminal mind. In this case you must think of
despair as a disease, no more or less. That girl, Smithson, has a
cholera, a typhus of the intellectual faculties. You must think of
her like that. Not as some malicious schemer."

Charles came back into
the room. "And what do you suppose her final intention to be?"

"I very much doubt
if she knows. She lives from day to day. Indeed she must. No one of
foresight could have behaved as she has."

"But she cannot
seriously have supposed that someone in my position ..."

"As a man who is
betrothed?" The doctor smiled grimly. "I have known many
prostitutes. I hasten to add: in pursuance of my own profession, not
theirs. And I wish I had a guinea for every one I have heard gloat
over the fact that a majority of their victims are husbands and
fathers." He stared into the fire, into his past. " 'I am
cast out. But I shall be revenged.'"

"You make her sound
like a fiend--she is not so." He had spoken too vehemently, and
turned quickly away. "I cannot believe this of her."

"That, if you will
permit a man old enough to be your father to say so, is because you
are half in love with her."

Charles spun round and
stared at the doctor's bland face.

"I do not permit
you to say that." Grogan bowed his head. In the silence, Charles
added, "It is highly insulting to Miss Freeman."

"It is indeed. But
who is making the insult?"

Charles swallowed. He
could not bear these quizzical eyes, and he started down the long,
narrow room as if to go. But before he could reach the door, Grogan
had him by the arm and made him turn, and seized the other arm--and
he was fierce, a terrier at Charles's dignity.

"Man, man, are we
not both believers in science? Do we not both hold that truth is the
one great principle? What did Socrates die for? A keeping social
face? A homage to decorum? Do you think in my forty years as a doctor
I have not learned to tell when a man is in distress? And because he
is hiding the truth from himself? Know thyself, Smithson, know
thyself!"

The mixture of ancient
Greek and Gaelic fire in Grogan's soul seared Charles. He stood
staring down at the doctor, then looked aside, and returned to the
fireside, his back to his tormentor. There was a long silence. Grogan
watched him intently.