A Maggot - John Fowles (43 page)

Q. Dick did not stop of his Lordship's command?

A. Of his own will, like as if he knew best where we
went.

Q. Continue.

A. His Lordship came beside me, and spoke. And said
that my dress was not sufficient for who we met. That he had brought
an other more suitable and now I must wear it, for we were close. And
I asked, was there no better road? And he answered, no, there was
only this. And then, that I should not fear, no harm would come if I
did as I was told. The while, the box was upon the ground and opened,
and his Lordship himself gave me the clothes from it, that lay upon
the top.

Q. What were these clothes?

A. Why, a smicket and petticoat, then a fine white
holland gown, ruffled with cambric upon its sleeves, where it bore
pink ribbands also, in two knots. Fine clocked Nottingham stockings
also, and white likewise. And shoes of the same. 'Twas all white and
new, or fresh laundered.

Q. You would say, as a May dress?

A. As a country maid might wear, of dimity. Tho'
finer made, and of finer cloth, as for a lady.

Q. And stitched also to your figure?

A. Well enough.

Q. You had had no knowledge of these, before?

A. No, none.

Q. And next?

A. His Lordship said I must bathe, before I donned my
new clothes.

Q. You must bathe!

A. That I must be pure of my body, with no taint of
my former world upon me. And he did point a little back, to where the
stream did deepen a piece, as a pond, albeit not so deep, and small;
for most it ran shallow, upon stones.

Q. What thought you to this?

A. That it was too cold. To which he said I must,
this stream should be my Jordan.

Q. He said these words: This stream shall be thy
Jordan?

A. Yes.

Q. Spake he as in jest?

A. Thee shalt hear in what jest he spake. It seemed
jest then, tho' no jest to me.

Q. You did bathe?

A. As best I could. For the water came only to my
knees, and I must crouch in it, ice-cold as 'twas.

Q. You were naked?

A. I was naked.

Q. Did his Lordship watch you?

A. His back was turned, that I saw. And after, my
back upon him.

Q. And then?

A. I dried myself upon the bank; and did put on the
new clothes, and warmed myself in the sun. When his Lordship came to
me again where I sat and gave to me a knife that Dick had use to
carry, and said, It is May Day, and here is may enough. Thou shalt be
queen, Fanny, but thou must crown thyself.

Q. He spoke again in good humour?

A. Passing good, be it so his mind was elsewhere. For
he turned away some paces, and watched where Dick had gone.

Q. When was he gone? Was it before you had bathed?

A. As soon as the box was opened, and the horses
better tied. Across the stream and up the steep side, where we could
see him no more.

Q. The horses were not left tied as when you came?

A. No. For as I did go a little apart to bathe, I saw
Dick a-tying of them to long tethers, which he put to the thorn-tree
stems that were there; and that he had took off their saddles and
harness and set them so that they might drink from the stream and
take what grass there was.

Q. As to say, their stay would be long?

A. Yes.

Q. And you saw not Jones, when he was caught up and
did watch you?

A. I had no thought of him, nor anyone, only of
myself. I made my crown, as I could; then Dick was returned, and
signed to his Lordship, who waited.

Q. A sign like this, was it not so?

A. No, not so.

Q. Jones says it was so.

A. No, 'twas not, and I doubt he could see so well,
he was hidden.

Q. Then how?

A. With the hands clasped thus, before his breast.
Which I had seen before, and knew it meant much like to saying, It is
done; or I have done what is commanded. So here it might mean, Who we
meet awaits us above. For his Lordship came at once where I sat, and
said we must go. As we did, tho' first I must be carried. The ground
was most rough and steep at the first, and Dick took me in his arms.

Q. Seemed he not excited, or in good spirit, when he
returned from above?

A. No.

Q. Very well, enough for this present. We shall not
yet mount with thee to the cavern, mistress. My man shall take thee
to a room apart to dine. Thou'rt not to speak with thy husband, or
none else, is it clear?

A. So be it. I shall with
my soul's husband, that is Christ.

* * *

THE TALL, slightly bent-shouldered clerk opened the
door, and followed his prisoner out. But then she had to follow him,
as he led the way down a short passage to another door. Only when she
was inside the room, and turned back to look at him, did he speak.

'Ale or more water, mistress?'

'Water.'

'You will not leave this room.'

She shook her head, agreeing. He gave her a long
stare, as if he doubted her word, then left, closing the door behind
him. The room was evidently a small bedchamber, with only one window,
before which stood a table and two chairs. She did not move to it,
but beside the bed, and stooped, lifting the side of the coverlet and
looking on the floor below it; pulled out what she was looking for,
and quickly raising her skirts, sat upon it.

She did not have to remove any other garment for the
very simple reason that no Englishwoman, of any class, had ever worn
anything beneath her petticoats up to this date, nor was to do so for
at least another sixty years. One might write an essay on this
incomprehensible and little-known fact about their underclothing, or
lack in it. French and Italian women had long remedied the
deficiency, and English men also; but not English women. All those
graciously elegant and imposing upper-class ladies in their
fashionable or court dresses, whose image has been so variously left
us by the eighteenth-century painters, are - to put it brutally -
knickerless. And what is more, when the breach was finally made - or
rather, covered - and the first female drawers, and soon after
pantalettes, appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
they were considered grossly immodest, an unwarranted provocation
upon man; which is no doubt why they so swiftly became de rigueur.

Rebecca stood relieved, and pushed the earthenware
Jordan back beneath the bed, and straightened the coverlet. Next she
walked slowly to the window and looked out, down upon the large back
courtyard of the inn.

A private coach was drawn up, its four horses still
harnessed, as if it had just arrived, on the far side. Its nearer
door bore a painted coat of arms, supported by a wyvern and a
leopard; its motto and closer detail, beyond two quarters of red
diamonds, impossible to read. There was no sign of its passengers or
coachmen; only an ostler's boy, seemingly left to watch the horses.
Here and there some hens and a gamecock scratched among the cobbles,
and sparrows, and a pair of white doves, which the boy fed from a
palmful of grains, idly, as he leant against the coach. Every so
often he would put a fatter grain in his own mouth, and chew it.
Suddenly Rebecca's head bowed and she closed her eyes, as if she
could not bear to watch this innocent scene. Her mouth began to move,
though no sound came from it, and it became plain she was speaking to
that husband she had just given herself licence to address.

The movements of her lips stopped. There were
footsteps on the wooden floor of the passage outside. Her eyes opened
again, and she sat quickly, in one of the chairs, her back to the
door. It opened, the clerk stood there, staring a moment at her back.
She did not turn; some moments later, as if belatedly realizing that
no one had come in, no normal sound followed that of the opening
door, she glanced back over her shoulder. It was no longer the
sardonic clerk she had expected: another man, elderly, of medium
height yet rather stout, a gentleman in grey. He stood neither in nor
out of the room, doom in the doorway, and watched her. She rose, but
made no other obeisance. He wore a plain black hat, and his right
hand gripped a strange thing, a shepherd's crook, its foot on the
ground. However, this was no shepherd; where the top of a working
crook is of wood or horn, here it was of polished silver, like some
staff of office; closer to a bishop's crosier than anything else.

Nor was his stare at her that of a normal man; much
more that of a person sizing an animal, a mare or cow, as if he might
at any moment curtly state a price that he considered her worth.
There was something both imperious and imperial in that look,
indifferent to ordinary humanity, oblivious of it, above all law; and
something also that was unaccustomed, almost at a loss to be seen
there. Without warning he spoke, not to Rebecca, though his eyes did
not leave her face.

'Make her step forward. She stands in the light.'

The clerk appeared outside, and beckoned urgently to
her from behind the man in the doorway; two swift movements of a bent
finger. She came forward. The foot of the silver-ended crook was
quickly raised, to keep her at a distance. So she stood, some six
feet away. His face was heavy, deprived of any signs of humour, good
or bad, and without generosity; or even, much more oddly, of any
normal curiosity. One detected beneath it a hint of morose doubt that
was also a melancholy. Even that was very largely obscured by the
aura of absolute right, in both the ordinary and the ancient
monarchical sense; an impassivity both habitual and imprisoning. He
did not, now she was close, even look at her as a beast; but uniquely
into her eyes, as if trying to read some almost metaphysical meaning
through them. Rebecca faced him and gazed back, one hand upon the
other in front of her belly; neither respectfully nor insolently;
openly, yet neutrally, waiting.

Slowly the man's hand slipped down his crook and he
held it out, without threat, almost tentatively, until the curved
silver end lay against the close sidepiece of her white cap. Twisting
the crook a little, he pulled to draw her towards him. This was done
so cautiously, in other circumstances one might have said timidly,
that she did not flinch when the silver end of the crook touched her,
nor when it began to coax her forwards. She obeyed, until the
pressure at her neck ceased, and their faces were barely eighteen
inches apart. Yet they seemed no closer; not just divided by age and
gender, but by belonging to two eternally alien species.

And now, as abruptly as he appeared, the man ends
this wordless interview. The crook is jerked impatiently clear, and
set firmly to ground again as he turns away, as if disappointed.
Rebecca has time to see that he walks with a heavy limp. The
crook-staff is no mere eccentric adornment, it is a necessity; and
has just time also to see the clerk step back with a deep bow, and Mr
Ayscough also, with a lesser one, then turn to follow his master. The
clerk comes forward and stands in the doorway, with a faintly
quizzical look at her. Most unexpectedly his right eye flickers, in
the ghost of a wink. He disappears for a moment or two then returns
bearing a wooden tray, on which is a cold chicken; a rummer and a
small jug of water; a leather tankard, black with age; a bowl of
green pickles, eldershoot and gherkins; a salt-pot, two apples, and a
loaf of bread. These he sets upon the table, and produces from his
pocket a knife and two two-pronged forks. Now he takes off his coat
and throws it on the bed. Rebecca has not moved, and stares at the
ground. The clerk sits in his shirt sleeves, and briskly seizes the
chicken, knife in hand.

'You must eat, woman.'

Rebecca moves and sits opposite him, at the window;
when he would pass her the breast he has detached, she shakes her
head.

'I would send it outside, to my husband and father.'

'No. Feed your bastard. If not yourself. Come.' Now
he cuts a slice of the loaf, and puts the breast upon it, and places
it before her. 'Come. You are safe from the gallows till then.' And
again his right eye flickers, almost as if it is a tic, outside his
control. 'Your man and your father dine not so well. Yet they may
dine if they would. I have had bread and cheese sent. What do they
say? They say they will not eat the devil's food. There it lies, on
the street before them. Charity made sin.'

'No. 'tis not. I thank thee.'

'As I thee, mistress For the absolution.'

She bows her head a few seconds, as she had when she
prayed alone; and grace said, begins to eat. And so does he, a leg,
and a great slice of bread, folded round a forkful of the pickles;
alternate bite by bite. It is a kind of wolfing, without delicacy. An
acknowledgement of reality: that life is always near starvation, and
plenty . such as this not to be trifled with. She pours water into
the rummer; and later, spears a gherkin from the pickle, and another;
and finally a third. The second breast she refuses when it is 
silently offered; but takes her apple. She watches him opposite, and
when he seems finally done, the chicken in ruins, the ale supped,
speaks.