The French Lieutenant’s Woman: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Mrs. Poulteney’s house stands on a hill above Lyme Regis. Today, no one would put up with the huge kitchen range in the basement, which requires three fires to be burning constantly, no matter the weather. The walls are a hideous green rich in arsenic, though no one knows it. Mrs. Fairley runs the kitchen and always wears black, in fitting with her temperament. Because Mrs. Poulteney maintains ridiculously high standards and bad working conditions, servants never last very long here. One butler, upon quitting, supposedly told Mrs. Poulteney that he would rather spend his life in the poorhouse than work here. It’s a wonder that Mrs. Fairley has lasted so long, but it’s probably because she’s not so different from Mrs. Poulteney.

Mrs. Poulteney is obsessed with dirt and immorality, and she keeps a close watch over both in her house. In fact, she believes she has a right to punish wrongdoers even outside her house, for instance if any servants fail to go to church or are seen with lovers. One young man tried to approach the house to meet his lover and was caught in one of the man-traps scattered through the gardens. Mrs. Poulteney’s interrogation techniques could have qualified her for the Gestapo. In a way, she exemplifies the arrogance of the British Empire. However, among her class, she’s renowned for her charity because she took in the French Lieutenant’s Woman.

Mrs. Poulteney made this shocking decision a year earlier. The main secret of her life is that she believes in hell. The vicar of Lyme is very well suited to his congregation and keeps all hints of Catholicism out of his church. He never argues with Mrs. Poulteney about her belief in hell, because she gives so much money to the church. When she got ill one winter, the vicar came to her as frequently as the doctors did. Mrs. Poulteney is very practical about her future, and she’s worried that she might not get into heaven because she hasn’t given nearly one-tenth of her wealth. Besides, while she was sick, Mrs. Fairley read her the parable of the widow’s mite, which bothered her constantly.

One day when the vicar is visiting, he tries to reassure Mrs. Poulteney about her security after death, telling her that she mustn’t question God’s understanding of her conscience. Mrs. Poulteney always acts strangely towards the vicar, since he’s both her social inferior, dependent on her wealth, and her spiritual superior. She believes that her husband’s early death was God’s warning to her, and it remains a mystery in her life. She expresses her worry that though she has given money, she has not done good deeds like Lady Cotton has. Lady Cotton has set up a home for fallen women, though Mrs. Poulteney doesn’t know that the home is so strict that most of the women hurry back to their old, sinful lives. The vicar says Lady Cotton is an example to everyone. Mrs. Poulteney knows she should visit the home, but it always distresses her.

After a silence, Mrs. Poulteney decides that she will take a companion, someone who has fallen on hard times. She asks the vicar to find someone for her, but demands that the woman be a perfect Christian, not have any relations, and not be too young. The vicar agrees to do so. He heads out of the house, but he stops on the stairs with an idea. Perhaps something like malice makes him return to the drawing room, where he suggests Sarah Woodruff.