A Maggot - John Fowles (42 page)

Q. And that day, did you satisfy Dick's state of lust
again, as you rode?

A. No.

Q. Did he not attempt it?

A. I would not have it.

Q. Was he not angry? Did he not force you to it?

A. No.

Q. And bade his time until that night?

A. Nor then neither. For we found no inn at Taunton
that could lodge us as we wanted, and must put up at a poor place,
out of the town's centre. There I must sleep with other maids, and
his Lordship and Mr Brown in one small chamber, and Jones and Dick
upon hay in the loft. I could not be apart with either his Lordship
nor Dick, even had they wished it. Nothing passed. Unless the lice
and fleas.

Q. So be it. The next day?

A. We rode all day, I think more distance than
before. And when we had passed Bampton, we went not by the high-road.
By green paths and lanes, where we met few or none.

Q. Did you not say you purposed not to return to
Claiborne's, and to find your parents and sisters again in Bristol?

A. Yes.

Q. Then why chose you to come this far? Is it not far
west of where you might most conveniently have escaped for Bristol?

A. Yes, it is so. But I had not courage for it, nor
saw means. At heart I was whore still, may the Lord Jesus Christ
forgive me. A bagnio life makes hard in sin, soft in much else. We
have our servants and our needs looked to, as much as any lady. And
besides grow creatures of our humours, we think only of today. We
have no feet upon the rock, no faith to help us provide against our
future. I minded still to go to Bristol, as I told thee, and to
change my life; yet cared not at the time that I went as I did, since
it was ever more away from London, so be it at his Lordship's whim.
Thee may scorn, I will not deny it. When we rode from Taunton it was
to be the last day so. From that tomorrow I will not let thee scorn;
or if thee do, thee'll scorn theeself.

Q. Enough. No more of this.

A. Yea, I must. For else thee can't understand my
soul's road, nor his Lordship's neither. Thee must forgive, I tell
thee not the truth entire in one matter. 'Tis true I began out of
force, then out of pity for Dick. I came now to know he pleased me
more than that, yea, more than any man else I had known since the
first, when I was mere girl and in folly against all my parents had
taught me. He knew not the sinful art of love, no not one whit; yet
knew to please me more than those who did. For he loved me the more,
with all his strange heart, despite he could not say it in any words.
And I have thought since, in his no-words lay more speaking than in
any spoken. Which came not of what passed in the flesh, that is of
our fornicating and beastly selves, but of other times. When I did
sleep against his breast upon the road, of looks we passed, I know
not, when I heard what he would say better than if he had spoke it
out loud. He came to my bed on that last night, and had his will of
me; then lay a-weeping in my arms, and I wept also, for I knew why he
wept. As if we lived in two prison cells, able to see the one the
other and touch our hands, yet no more. And thee may call it what
thee will, I tell thee this weeping was most strange and most sweet
to me. For I saw it freed me from my harlotry, my sin, my hardness of
heart, all I had become since first I lost my innocence. 'Twas as if
for those years I had lived in darkness, and made of stone; and now
was flesh again, if not yet Christian, and fully saved. Believe me or
not, master. Every word I say is truth.

Q. You loved the man?

A. I might have loved him, could he have shed his
Adam.

Q. And what heard you in this speaking without words?

A That he was a desperate unhappy man, as I was
myself, tho' for a different cause; and that he knew me so, and loved
me also that I did not mock and spurn him.

Q Very well. Now did you not upon this last day's
journey ride aside with his Lordship?

A. Yes, the summit of a mountain, that lay beside the
road, and showed many miles to the land ahead.

Q Did Dick not point in a certain direction? To a
particular place?

A. I took it to be in show, to seem as he knew the
country.

Q. Did his Lordship ask Dick to point? Did they
exchange some sign first?

A. No.

Q. Was not where Dick pointed, to that cavern where
you were on the morrow?

A. I could not say.

Q. It was in that same direction, was it not?

A. It was westward. More I cannot tell. It may be so.

Q. This place was how far from where you rested that
night?

A. Two hours' ride or more.

Q. And nothing else passed as you rode?

A. His Lordship took offence that I wore violets
beneath my nose. I put them in a band there for their sweet scent. He
took it as an impertinence, I know not why. He said nothing till
later.

Q It was not reasonable? You gave him no other cause
than this, that you had picked a nosegay?

A. I am sure not.

Q. Now what said he later?

A He called me to him when we had supped, by Dick,
and I thought for his old purpose. However, Dick was dismissed as
soon as I was brought, when his Lordship would have me , make myself
naked before him; which I was obliged to do, ' expecting he would at
last try his prowess upon me. But he would not, he made me sit on a
bench before him, as I were a penitent, and called me impertinent as
I say, for the violets; then a whore, I know not what else, more
cruel than ever before, like he was half mad, for he forced me to
kneel, and make an oath that all he said was true. Then all of a
great sudden he changed, and maintained his cruelty was no more than
a test, that on the contrary he was well pleased with me. And spoke
of they he called the keepers of the waters, that we

should meet tomorrow, and now said I was brought by
him to please them and must do so, and he should reward me for it. I
must put off my London airs, so he said, and appear as simple as I
could, feign I came not from the bagnio.

Q. By these waters you supposed those he had spoken
of in London?

A. Yes.

Q. Said he no more of these keepers?

A. That they was foreign, and spoke not English, nor
any other language of Europe; nor knew nothing of women of vice. That
I must be in all like an innocent maid, with no knowledge of sin. And
meek, not forward in any way.

Q. He was not more particular- did he not name some
particular place or country from which these persons came?

A. No.

Q. Did he never intimate where he had heard of them?

A. Only that he much wished to meet them.

Q. He had not met them before, was that to be
understood?

A. Yes. Tho' it was not said plain, he had not.

Q. Did you not think this strange, that his Lordship
now talked of giving you to others, as a pandar might?

A. Yes, in part.

Q. Why only in part?

A. I knew by then he spoke most in riddles.

Q. Were you not made fearful again, even tho' you had
thought what passed at the Wiltshire temple not evil in its intent?

A. Still I saw behind his Lordship's dark humours no
evil purpose. I did not understand what he did, and most feared my
own ignorance.

Q. I would know something more in general. Believed
you that his Lordship knew of your amour with his servant? Was it
done within his knowledge or behind his back?

A. He knew, for he accused me of it, that I took too
great a pleasure in Dick's embraces; as a master might say, you are
bought for my pleasure, yet do find it in another's arms; and that I
would have told him as much by the wearing of the violets.

Q. He knew you lay with Dick in secret, outside of
those occasions he commanded?

A. What I had been hired for was done but twice, and
then no more, so to say his Lordship gave up hope of it, and I was
abandoned to this man; yet still seemed he angered that I took
pleasure in it.

Q. You would say, that he saw your coupling answered
not to his declared purpose, and so he cared no more?

A. His Lordship had more than one purpose, and one a
far greater.

Q. It shall be explained.

A. In good time.

Q. To the nonce: was it not singular that he should
put upon you that you must serve to these important strangers, yet
not say you must now put Dick by?

A. So it was, even so.

Q. That was his wish, as you conceived - that you
should be these persons' whore if they so desired, and despite your
appearance of innocence? Not less?

A. So I understood it.

Q. All this was said by way of command: that you must
do it? Not that the choice lay with you?

A. As his wish, that I must obey.

Q. Nothing else was said to you by his Lordship?

A. No.

Q. You hesitate.

A. I sought my memory.

Q. And you still say no?

A. I say no.

Q. Mistress, there is that in your answers I do not
like. 'Tis so you would tease, and riddle me. This is no riddling
matter, I warn thee.

A. If I speak riddles, I was set them. If I confuse
thee, so was I confused.

Q. His Lordship dismissed you?

A. Yes.

Q. You saw him no more until the morning?

A. No.

Q. You went to your room, and then Dick came?

A. I was asleep when he came.

Q. And did you not think, I must lie in another man's
arms tomorrow?

A. I did not know the morrow then, Jesus be praised.

Q. The morrow is close. Thou shalt put off no more.

A. I know it.

Q. Had you no warning that Jones would run away that
night?

A. No, none.

Q. He spoke not of it to you?

A. We spoke little.

Q. Why?

A. Because he would pry when we started out; and
would seem always to know more of me than he did; that I owed him a
favour for his silence.

Q. He did not lie in that?

A. Notwithstanding. He would ever mock Dick for his
dumbness and deafness. I liked not that, neither. He never spoke
plain, till the end.

Q. Knew you that Mr Brown should part also, so soon
upon your setting out?

A. No.

Q. Were you not surprised?

A. No. It seemed not strange. Their task was done.

Q. Very well. Mr Brown rode away, and you set off
upon the Bideford road. What next?

A. We rode, and entered soon upon woods, a most wild
place; and went there till we came upon a stream that fell across the
road, and we must cross. Where his Lordship stopped and looked back
upon Dick, for he rode ahead, and we behind; and raised a hand with
the forefinger stretched out so, the other forefinger so, as a cross.
To which Dick replied by pointing ahead as we stood, which was not to
the road we trod, that crooks back at where the stream crosses, but
up the hill, or mountain, on the course the water fell by.

Q. What put you upon this?

A. That Dick must know this place, and his Lordship
not; or was not so certain of it.

Q. Were other signs made?

A. His Lordship set his hands apart, as if to
measure. And Dick raised two fingers. Which I understood not then, I
think now to have meant, it is two miles away. There came no more
sign. Yet they moved not from where we stood, but stared still
together, like two people tranced by each other's eyes. Till of a
sudden his Lordship turned his horse, and rode away through the
trees, up the hill where Dick had pointed.

Q. Said he nothing to you?

A. No, not one word, nor looked at me. 'Twas as I was
not there.

Q. Had you seen them before stare in this manner?

A. Yes, once or twice, not so long.

Q. It was not as master and man?

A. More as two children will stare each other out.

Q. Then with a seeming hostility?

A. Not that, neither, not as an ordinary look. As if
they spoke, tho' their mouths moved not.

Q. Very well. You entered upon the valley above.
Jones has told me of it, how it lies. Come to where first you
stopped.

A. We must soon dismount, or our horses fall. And
there it was Dick who led our pillion and the pack-horse, and I
walked after, and his Lordship led his own horse behind. The all in
silence, save for the beasts' feet upon the stones, and we went
beside the stream. And so for a mile or more, I know not. Where Dick
of a sudden stopped and tied the two horses to a thorn branch, and
took his Lordship's when it came, and tied it to another. And there
began to unrope his Lordship's great box, from the seam the
pack-horse bore.