A Maggot - John Fowles (4 page)

'Perhaps. I can allow that.'

'And would not he, if he were Christian and kind -
and mark you, even if his prophetick science foretold the very
opposite, that this corrupt and cruel world should one day live in
eternal peace and plenty - would not he still most wisely keep his
secret to himself? If all were one day assured of paradise, who would
any longer trouble to stir himself to virtue or merit?'

'I take your general argument, sir. But not why you
should speak so in present circumstance.'

'This, Lacy. Suppose you were he that can read this
most awful decree upon what shall come. Is it not best that you
should accept to be its only victim? Might not a most condign divine
anger at such blasphemous breaking of the seals of time be assuaged
at the price of your silence - nay, your own life?'

'I cannot answer that. You touch upon matters ... it
is not for us to trespass upon the privilege of our Creator alone.'

The younger man, his eyes still lost in the fire,
bows his head a little in acquiescence.

'I but put a case. I mean no blasphemy.'

Then he falls silent, as if he regrets having opened
the subject at all. It is clear that this does not satisfy the actor,
for now he rises, and in his turn slowly goes to the window, his
hands behind his back. He stands there a moment before the shutters,
then suddenly clasps his hands more firmly, and turns and addresses
the back of the bald head that sits silhouetted between him and the
fire.

'I must speak frankly, Mr Bartholomew, since we part
tomorrow. One learns in my profession to read men by their
physiognomies. By their looks, their gait, their cast of countenance.
I have ventured to form an opinion of you. It is highly favourable,
sir. Behind the subterfuges we are presently reduced to, I believe
you an honest and honourable gentleman. I trust you know me well
enough by now to permit me to say that I should never have entered
upon this enterprise were I not persuaded that you had justice upon
your side.'

The younger man does not turn, and there is a tinge
of dryness in his voice.

'But?'

'I can forgive you, sir, for hiding some
circumstances in this our present business. I apprehend there is
necessity and good sense in that. To use such necessity to deceive me
as to the very business itself, that I could not forgive. I won't
conceal it, sir. You may speak of fancies, but what am I to make -'

Suddenly the younger man stands, it seems almost in a
rage, so abrupt is the movement. Yet he merely turns towards the
actor with another of his direct looks.

'I give you my word, Lacy. You know I am a
disobedient son, you know I have not told you all. If such be sins, I
confess to 'em. You have my word that what I do breaks no law of this
land.' He comes forward and reaches out a hand. 'I would have you
believe that.'

The actor hesitates, then takes the hand. The younger
man fixes him with his eyes.

'Upon my honour, Lacy. You have not misjudged me
there. And I pray you to remember this, whatever lies ahead.' He
drops the hand and turns away to the fire again, but looks back at
the actor standing by the chair. 'I have deceived you in much. I beg
you to believe that it is to spare you much, also. No one shall ever
find in you any but an innocent instrument. Should it come to that.'

The older man's eyes are stern.

'None the less, something other than what you have
led me to believe is afoot?'

The younger man looks back down to the fire.

'I seek a meeting with someone. That much is true.'

'But not of the kind you have given me to suppose?'
Mr

Bartholomew is silent. 'An affair of honour?'

Mr Bartholomew smiles faintly. 'I should not be here
without a friend, if that were the case. Nor ride so many miles to do
what may be done far closer London.'

The actor opens his mouth to speak, in vain. There is
the sound of a footstep outside the door, then a knock. The younger
man calls. The landlord Puddicombe appears, and addresses the
supposed uncle.

'Mr Brown, there be a gentleman below. His
compliments, sir. With your pardon.'

The actor throws a sharp look at the man by the fire,
but he shows no sign of expectation fulfilled. Yet it is he who
speaks impatiently to the landlord.

'Who?'

'Mr Beckford, sir.'

'And who may Mr Beckford be?'

'Our parson, sir.'

The man by the fire looks down, it seems almost with
relief, then up again at the actor.

'Forgive me, uncle. I am tired. Let me not prevent
you.'

The actor smoothly, if belatedly, takes his cue.
'Tell the reverend gentleman I shall be pleased to wait on him
downstairs. My nephew craves his indulgence.'

'Very good, sir. At once. Your honours.'

He withdraws. The younger man makes a small grimace.

'Gird yourself, my friend. One last throwing of
dust.'

'I cannot leave our conversation here, sir.'

'Be rid of him as soon as you civilly can.'

The actor feels for his neck-stock, touches his hat
and straightens his coat.

'Very well.'

With a slight bow, he goes to the door. His hand is
already on it when the younger man speaks one last time.

'And kindly ask our worthy landlord to send up more
of his wretched tallow. I would read.'

The actor silently bows again, and leaves the room.
For a few moments the man by the fire stares at the floor. Then he
goes and carries the small table near the window to beside the chair
he was sitting in; he fetches the candle-branch from the supper table
and

sets it there in preparation. Next, feeling in the
pocket of his knee-length waistcoat for a key, he goes and crouches
and unlocks the brassbound chest by the door. It seems to contain
nothing but books and loose manuscript papers. He rummages a little
and finds a particular sheaf, takes it to his chair and begins to
read.

In a few moments there is
a knock on the door. An inn maid comes in, carrying another lit
branch on a tray. She is gestured to put it on the table beside him;
which she does, then turns to clear the supper things. Mr Bartholomew
does not look at her; as if he lived not two hundred and fifty years
ago, but five centuries ahead, when all that is menial and irksome
will be done by automata. Leaving with the dishes on the tray, she
turns at the door, and curtseys awkwardly towards the oblivious
figure in the armchair, absorbed in his reading. He does not look up;
and awed, perhaps because reading belongs to the Devil, or perhaps
secretly piqued by such indifference, since even in those days inn
maids were not hired for their plain looks, she silently goes.

* * *

In a much humbler room above, a garret beneath the
roof, the young woman lies seemingly asleep beneath her brown
ridingcloak, spread over her as blanket on a narrow truckle-bed. At
the end of the unceiled room, by the one small gable-window, sits a
single candle on a table, whose faint light barely reaches the far
and inner end of the room where the girl lies; half on her stomach,
her legs bent up beneath the cloak, and a crooked arm on the coarse
pillow, on which she has spread the linen band that she used as a
muffler. There is something childlike in her pose and in her face,
with its slightly snub nose and closed eyelashes. Her left hand still
holds the limp last of her violets. A mouse rustles as it runs here
and there below the table, investigating and sniffing.

On the back of a chair beside the bed sits perched
above the discarded chip hat something apparently precious and taken
from the opened bundle on the floor: a flat white cambric hat, its
fronts and sides goffered into little flutes, with hanging from the
sides, to fall behind the wearer's ears, two foot-long white
lappetbands. It seems strangely ethereal, even faintly absurd and
impertinent in that rough room. Such caps, without the lappets, were
in history to become a mark of the house-maid and waitress, but they
were then worn by all female fashionable society, mistresses and
maids alike, as indeed were aprons on occasion. Male servants, the
slaves of livery, were easily known; but female ones, as at least one
contemporary male disapprovingly noted, and tried to prevent, were
allowed considerable licence at this date. Many a gentleman entering
a strange drawing-room had the mortification of bowing politely to
what he supposed a lady intimate of his hostess, only to find he was
wasting fine manners on a mere female domestic.

But the owner of this delicate and ambiguous little
cap is not truly asleep. At the sound of steps on stairs outside, her
eyes open. The feet stop at her door, there is a momentary pause,
then two thumps, as its bottom-board is kicked. She throws aside the
cloak and stands from the bed. She wears a dark green gown, fastened
between her breasts, but with its edges folded back, as also just
below her elbows, to reveal a yellow lining. Below she wears a full
white apron, to the ground. The dress is stayed, to a narrow waist,
and gives her upper body the unnatural and breastless shape of an
inverted cone. She slips her stockinged feet into a pair of worn
mules and goes and opens the door.

The manservant she has ridden with stands there, a
large brass jug of warm water in one hand, an ochre-glazed
earthenware bowl in the other. He is hardly visible in the darkness,
his face in shadow. The sight of her seems to freeze him, but she
stands back and points to the end of the narrow room, to the table.
He goes past her and puts down the jug by the candle, then the bowl;
but that done, he stands once more frozen, his back to her, his head
hanging.

The young woman has turned to pick up her large
bundle, then lay it on the bed. It reveals an assembly of
clothes,ribbons, an embroidered cotton scarf; and wrapped in them
another bundle, that holds an array of minute earthenware gallipots,
whose lids are formed, rather like those on modern jamjars, of scraps
of parchment bound with string. There are some small and corked blue
glass bottles also; a comb, a brush, a handmirror. Suddenly she
becomes aware of the man's stillness, and turns to look at him.

For a moment she does nothing. Then she goes towards
him, takes his arm and urges him round. His face remains impassive;
yet there is something both haggard and resentful in his stance, mute
and tormented, a beast at bay, unbestially questioning why it should
be so. Her look is steady. She shakes her head; at which his vacant
blue eyes look away from her brown ones, past her head, at the far
wall, though nothing else of his body moves. Now she looks down and
lifts one of his hands, seems to examine it; touches and pats it with
her other hand. They stand so for half a minute or more, in a strange
immobility and silence, as two people waiting for something to
happen. Finally she lets his hand fall and walking back to the door,
relatches it; turns and looks back at the man, whose eyes have
followed her. Now she points to the floor beside where she stands, as
one might to a pet dog - gently, yet not without a hint of firmness.
The man moves back down the room, still searching her eyes. Once more
she touches his hand, but this time only to press it briefly. She
goes back herself to the table, begins untying the apron. Then, as if
she has forgotten, she returns to the bed and delving for a moment in
the opened bundle, picks out one of the little pots, a small bottle
and a square of worn linen, evidently a makeshift towel. With these
she turns back to the table and stands there silent a moment,
unfastening the cover of the pot in the candle-light.

She begins to undress. First the apron is removed,
and hung on one of a row of primitive wooden pegs beside the window.
Next the yellow-lined green gown, which reveals a quilted calamanco
petticoat (a skirt in modern terms, the lower part of the dress opens
upon it). It is of a plum colour, and strangely glazed, for satin is
woven in its worsted cloth. She unties that at the waist, and hangs
it on another hook; then her stomacher. Beneath there remains only a
smicket, or small white under-bodice, that one might have expected
left on for modesty's sake. Yet that too is pulled over her
close-drawn hair and hung beside the rest. She is naked now, above
her swanskin and linen under-petticoats.

She does all this quickly and naturally, as if she is
alone. The effect on the watching man is peculiar, since from the
moment she has begun undressing, his feet have been cautiously
shifting; but not towards her. He edges thus back against the inner
wall of the room; only its beams and plaster can prevent him from
retreating further still.

Now she pours water and washes, having extracted a
small wash-ball of gilliflower soap from the glass pot: her face and
neck, the front of her body and her arms. Her movements make the
candle-light in front of her tremble a little; occasionally some
small twist of her body or arms causes a gleaming reflection on the
wet skin, or shows a soft rim of its whiteness on the edge of the
black-brown silhouette of her bare back. Among the rafters moves a
sinister parody, in elongated and spiderlike shadows, of the simple
domesticity of the ritual. It is sinister in both senses, for it is
clear now she is left-handed by nature. Not once does she turn while
this is going on, or while she is patting herself dry; and not once
do the silent man's eyes move from her half-naked body.