The French Lieutenant's Woman

Plot

Charles Smithson and Ernestina Freeman are engaged to be married. Charles is an upper-class aristocrat and Ernestina is a wealthy heiress. Charles and Ernestina meet Sarah Woodruff, an unemployed governess and the scarlet woman of Lyme Regis. Charles is struck by this woman who 'has been dumped by her French lover and now wanders the shores in the hope that would return some day." Sarah is employed as a lady's companion by Mrs Poulteney of Malborough House. Her stay is miserable due to her employer and the housekeeper, Mrs Fairley, who keeps spying on Sarah. They attempt to restrict her freedom in the name of making her repent for her sins. Meanwhile, Charles is intrigued by the outcast. His interest in her grows to be an obsession. An amateur palaeontologist, her meets her on several occasions at Ware Commons. He wants to help her but his interest is rooted in the fact that he finds her singularly different to other Victorian women. As an outcast, Sarah does not follow societal norms, yet she insists on Charles's help. Dr Grogan, Charles's friend, sympathises with her situation but believes that Sarah wants more than emotional support. Despite trying to remain objective, Charles eventually sends Sarah to Exeter, where he, during a journey, cannot resist stopping in to visit and see her. At the time she has suffered an ankle injury; he visits her alone and after they have made love he realises that she had been, contrary to the rumours, a virgin. Simultaneously, he learns that his prospective inheritance from an elder uncle is in jeopardy; the uncle has become engaged to a woman young enough to bear him an heir. From this point, the author offers three different endings for the novel.