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Authors: John Fowles
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read far more
fiction, and far more poetry, those two sanctuaries of the lonely,
than most of her kind. They served as a substitute for experience.
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 making poetic judgments
on them. But alas, what she had thus taught herself had been very
largely vitiated by what she had been taught. Given the veneer of a
lady, she was made the perfect victim of a caste society. Her father
had forced her out of her own class, but could not raise her to the
next. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too
select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to, he remained too
banal.
This father, he the
vicar of Lyme had described as "a man of excellent principles,"
was the very reverse, since he had a fine collection of all the wrong
ones. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her
to boarding school, but obsession with his own ancestry. Four
generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly
established gentlemen. There was even a remote relationship with the
Drake family, an irrelevant fact that had petrified gradually over
the years into the assumption of a direct lineal descent from the
great Sir Francis. The family had certainly once owned a manor of
sorts in that cold green no-man's-land between
Dartmoor and Exmoor. Sarah's father had three times seen it with his
own eyes; and returned to the small farm he rented from the vast
Meriton estate to brood, and plot, and dream.
Perhaps he was
disappointed when his daughter came home from school at the age of
eighteen--who knows what miracles he thought would rain on him?--and
sat across the elm table from him and watched him when he boasted,
watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him, goaded him like a
piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money
means all to Devon men), goaded him finally into madness. He gave up
his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap,
and what he hought was a cunning good bargain turned out to be a
shocking bad one. For several years he struggled to keep up both the
mortgage and a ridiculous facade of gentility; then he went quite
literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. He died there a year
later. By that time Sarah had been earning her ownliving for a
year--at first with a family in Dorchester, to be near her father.
Then when he died, she had taken her post with the Talbots.
She was too striking a
girl not to have had suitors, in spite of the lack of a dowry of any
kind. But always then had her first and innate curse come into
operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw
their meannesses, their condescensions, their charities, their
stupidities. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate
nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to
avoid: spinsterhood.
Let us imagine the
impossible, that Mrs. Poulteney drew up a list of fors and againsts
on the subject of Sarah, and on the very day that Charles was
occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of
his engagement. At least it is conceivable that she might have done
it that afternoon, since Sarah, Miss Sarah at Marlborough House, was
out.
And let us start
happily, with the credit side of the account. The first item would
undoubtedly have been the least expected at the time of committal a
year before. It could be written so: "A happier domestic
atmosphere." The astonishing fact was that not a single servant
had been sent on his, or her (statistically it had in the past rather
more often proved to be the latter) way.
It had begun, this
bizarre change, one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had
taken up her duties, that is, her responsibility for Mrs. Poulteney's
soul. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross
dereliction of duty: the upstairs
fiction, and far more poetry, those two sanctuaries of the lonely,
than most of her kind. They served as a substitute for experience.
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 making poetic judgments
on them. But alas, what she had thus taught herself had been very
largely vitiated by what she had been taught. Given the veneer of a
lady, she was made the perfect victim of a caste society. Her father
had forced her out of her own class, but could not raise her to the
next. To the young men of the one she had left she had become too
select to marry; to those of the one she aspired to, he remained too
banal.
This father, he the
vicar of Lyme had described as "a man of excellent principles,"
was the very reverse, since he had a fine collection of all the wrong
ones. It was not concern for his only daughter that made him send her
to boarding school, but obsession with his own ancestry. Four
generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly
established gentlemen. There was even a remote relationship with the
Drake family, an irrelevant fact that had petrified gradually over
the years into the assumption of a direct lineal descent from the
great Sir Francis. The family had certainly once owned a manor of
sorts in that cold green no-man's-land between
Dartmoor and Exmoor. Sarah's father had three times seen it with his
own eyes; and returned to the small farm he rented from the vast
Meriton estate to brood, and plot, and dream.
Perhaps he was
disappointed when his daughter came home from school at the age of
eighteen--who knows what miracles he thought would rain on him?--and
sat across the elm table from him and watched him when he boasted,
watching with a quiet reserve that goaded him, goaded him like a
piece of useless machinery (for he was born a Devon man and money
means all to Devon men), goaded him finally into madness. He gave up
his tenancy and bought a farm of his own; but he bought it too cheap,
and what he hought was a cunning good bargain turned out to be a
shocking bad one. For several years he struggled to keep up both the
mortgage and a ridiculous facade of gentility; then he went quite
literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. He died there a year
later. By that time Sarah had been earning her ownliving for a
year--at first with a family in Dorchester, to be near her father.
Then when he died, she had taken her post with the Talbots.
She was too striking a
girl not to have had suitors, in spite of the lack of a dowry of any
kind. But always then had her first and innate curse come into
operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. She saw
their meannesses, their condescensions, their charities, their
stupidities. Thus she appeared inescapably doomed to the one fate
nature had so clearly spent many millions of years in evolving her to
avoid: spinsterhood.
Let us imagine the
impossible, that Mrs. Poulteney drew up a list of fors and againsts
on the subject of Sarah, and on the very day that Charles was
occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of
his engagement. At least it is conceivable that she might have done
it that afternoon, since Sarah, Miss Sarah at Marlborough House, was
out.
And let us start
happily, with the credit side of the account. The first item would
undoubtedly have been the least expected at the time of committal a
year before. It could be written so: "A happier domestic
atmosphere." The astonishing fact was that not a single servant
had been sent on his, or her (statistically it had in the past rather
more often proved to be the latter) way.
It had begun, this
bizarre change, one morning only a few weeks after Miss Sarah had
taken up her duties, that is, her responsibility for Mrs. Poulteney's
soul. The old lady had detected with her usual flair a gross
dereliction of duty: the upstairs
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