A Maggot - John Fowles Read Online Free PDF Page B

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