Free The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

permitted to
hold evening prayer in the kitchen, under Mrs. Fairley's indifferent
eye and briskly wooden voice. Upstairs, Mrs. Poulteney had to be read
to alone; and it was in these more intimate ceremonies that Sarah's
voice was heard at its best and most effective. Once or twice she had
done the incredible, by drawing from those pouched, invincible eyes a
tear. Such an effect was in no way intended, but sprang from a
profound difference between the two women. Mrs. Poulteney believed in
a God that had never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did.
    She did not create in
her voice, like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read
the lesson, an unconscious alienation effect of the Brechtian kind
("This is your mayor reading a passage from the Bible") but
the very contrary: she spoke directly of the suffering of Christ, of
a man born in Nazareth, as if there was no time in history, almost,
at times, when the light in the room was dark, and she seemed to
forget Mrs. Poulteney's presence, as if she saw Christ on the Cross
before her. One day she came to the passage Lama, lama, sabachthane
me; and as she read the words she faltered and was silent. Mrs.
Poulteney turned to look at her,
and realized Sarah's face was streaming with tears. That moment
redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps, since the
old lady rose and touched the girl's drooping shoulder, will one day
redeem Mrs. Poulteney's now well-grilled soul.
    I risk making Sarah
sound like a bigot. But she had no theology; as she saw through
people, she saw through the follies, the vulgar stained glass, the
narrow literalness of the Victorian church. She saw that there was
suffering; and she prayed that it would end. I cannot say what she
might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would
have been either a saint or an emperor's mistress. Not because of
religiosity on the one hand, or sexuality on the other, but because
of that fused rare power that was her
essence--understanding
and emotion.
    There were other items:
an ability--formidable in itself and almost unique--not often to get
on Mrs. Poulteney's nerves, a quiet assumption of various domestic
responsibilities that did not encroach, a skill with her needle.
    On Mrs. Poulteney's
birthday Sarah presented her with an antimacassar--not that any chair
Mrs. Poulteney sat in needed such protection, but by that time all
chairs without such an adjunct seemed somehow naked--exquisitely
embroidered with a border of ferns and lilies-of-the-valley. It
pleased Mrs. Poulteney highly; and it slyly and permanently--perhaps
after all Sarah really was something of a skilled cardinal-- reminded
the ogress, each time she took her throne, of her protegee's
forgivable side. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal
bustard had so often done for Charles.
    Finally--and this had
been the crudest ordeal for the victim--Sarah had passed the tract
test. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers, Mrs. Poulteney placed
great reliance on the power of the tract. Never mind that not one in
ten of the recipients could read them--indeed, quite a number could
not read anything--never mind that not one in ten of those who could
and did read them understood what the reverend writers were on about
... but each time Sarah departed with a batch to deliver Mrs.
Poulteney saw an equivalent number of saved souls chalked up to her
account in heaven; and she also saw the French Lieutenant's Woman
doing public penance, an added sweet. So did the rest of Lyme, or
poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. Poulteney may have realized.
    Sarah evolved a little
formula: "From Mrs. Poulteney. Pray read and take to your
heart." At the same time she looked the cottager in the eyes.
Those who had knowing smiles soon lost them; and the loquacious found
their words die in their mouths. I think they learned rather more
from those eyes than from the close-typed pamphlets thrust into their
hands.
    But we must now pass to
the debit side