Free The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles by John Fowles

her servants with genuinely
attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. That was good; but
there was a second bout of worship to be got through. The servants were
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