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diff --git a/5986-h/5986-h.htm b/5986-h/5986-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1970680 --- /dev/null +++ b/5986-h/5986-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5736 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Clara Hopgood, by Mark Rutherford</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Clara Hopgood, by Mark Rutherford + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Clara Hopgood + + +Author: Mark Rutherford + + + +Release Date: July 15, 2014 [eBook #5986] +[This file was first posted on October 8, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARA HOPGOOD*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1907 T. Fisher Unwin edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" +src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1><span class="smcap">Clara Hopgood</span></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +MARK RUTHERFORD</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">EDITED BY +HIS FRIEND</span><br /> +REUBEN SHAPCOTT</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>THIRD IMPRESSION</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><b>LONDON</b><br /> +<b>T. FISHER UNWIN</b><br /> +<b>ADELPHI TERRACE</b></p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><i>First Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>March</i> 1896</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Second Impression</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>June</i> 1896</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Third Impression</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>July</i> 1907</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">About</span> ten miles north-east of +Eastthorpe lies the town of Fenmarket, very like Eastthorpe +generally; and as we are already familiar with Eastthorpe, a +particular description of Fenmarket is unnecessary. There +is, however, one marked difference between them. +Eastthorpe, it will be remembered, is on the border between the +low uplands and the Fens, and has one side open to soft, swelling +hills. Fenmarket is entirely in the Fens, and all the roads +that lead out of it are alike level, monotonous, straight, and +flanked by deep and stagnant ditches. The river, also, here +is broader and slower; more reluctant than it is even at +Eastthorpe to hasten its journey to the inevitable sea. +During the greater part of the year the visitor to Fenmarket +would perhaps find it dull and depressing, and at times, under a +grey, wintry sky, almost unendurable; but nevertheless, for days +and weeks it has a charm possessed by few other landscapes in +England, provided only that behind the eye which looks there is +something to which a landscape of that peculiar character +answers. There is, for example, the wide, dome-like expanse +of the sky, there is the distance, there is the freedom and there +are the stars on a clear night. The orderly, geometrical +march of the constellations from the extreme eastern horizon +across the meridian and down to the west has a solemn majesty, +which is only partially discernible when their course is +interrupted by broken country.</p> +<p>On a dark afternoon in November 1844, two young women, Clara +and Madge Hopgood, were playing chess in the back parlour of +their mother’s house at Fenmarket, just before tea. +Clara, the elder, was about five-and-twenty, fair, with rather +light hair worn flat at the side of her face, after the fashion +of that time. Her features were tolerably regular. It +is true they were somewhat marred by an uneven nasal outline, but +this was redeemed by the curved lips of a mouth which was small +and rather compressed, and by a definite, symmetrical and +graceful figure. Her eyes were grey, with a curious +peculiarity in them. Ordinarily they were steady, strong +eyes, excellent and renowned optical instruments. Over and +over again she had detected, along the stretch of the Eastthorpe +road, approaching visitors, and had named them when her +companions could see nothing but specks. Occasionally, +however, these steady, strong, grey eyes utterly changed. +They were the same eyes, the same colour, but they ceased to be +mere optical instruments and became instruments of expression, +transmissive of radiance to such a degree that the light which +was reflected from them seemed insufficient to account for +it. It was also curious that this change, though it must +have been accompanied by some emotion, was just as often not +attended by any other sign of it. Clara was, in fact, +little given to any display of feeling.</p> +<p>Madge, four years younger than her sister, was of a different +type altogether, and one more easily comprehended. She had +very heavy dark hair, and she had blue eyes, a combination which +fascinated Fenmarket. Fenmarket admired Madge more than it +was admired by her in return, and she kept herself very much to +herself, notwithstanding what it considered to be its +temptations. If she went shopping she nearly always went +with her sister; she stood aloof from all the small gaieties of +the town; walked swiftly through its streets, and repelled, +frigidly and decisively, all offers, and they were not a few, +which had been made to her by the sons of the Fenmarket +tradesfolk. Fenmarket pronounced her +‘stuck-up,’ and having thus labelled her, considered +it had exhausted her. The very important question, Whether +there was anything which naturally stuck up? Fenmarket +never asked. It was a great relief to that provincial +little town in 1844, in this and in other cases, to find a word +which released it from further mental effort and put out of sight +any troublesome, straggling, indefinable qualities which it would +otherwise have been forced to examine and name. Madge was +certainly stuck-up, but the projection above those around her was +not artificial. Both she and her sister found the ways of +Fenmarket were not to their taste. The reason lay partly in +their nature and partly in their history.</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood was the widow of the late manager in the Fenmarket +branch of the bank of Rumbold, Martin & Rumbold, and when her +husband died she had of course to leave the Bank Buildings. +As her income was somewhat straitened, she was obliged to take a +small house, and she was now living next door to the ‘Crown +and Sceptre,’ the principal inn in the town. There +was then no fringe of villas to Fenmarket for retired quality; +the private houses and shops were all mixed together, and Mrs +Hopgood’s cottage was squeezed in between the +ironmonger’s and the inn. It was very much lower than +either of its big neighbours, but it had a brass knocker and a +bell, and distinctly asserted and maintained a kind of +aristocratic superiority.</p> +<p>Mr Hopgood was not a Fenmarket man. He came straight +from London to be manager. He was in the bank of the London +agents of Rumbold, Martin & Rumbold, and had been strongly +recommended by the city firm as just the person to take charge of +a branch which needed thorough reorganisation. He +succeeded, and nobody in Fenmarket was more respected. He +lived, however, a life apart from his neighbours, excepting so +far as business was concerned. He went to church once on +Sunday because the bank expected him to go, but only once, and +had nothing to do with any of its dependent institutions. +He was a great botanist, very fond of walking, and in the +evening, when Fenmarket generally gathered itself into groups for +gossip, either in the street or in back parlours, or in the +‘Crown and Sceptre,’ Mr Hopgood, tall, lean and +stately, might be seen wandering along the solitary roads +searching for flowers, which, in that part of the world, were +rather scarce. He was also a great reader of the best +books, English, German and French, and held high doctrine, very +high for those days, on the training of girls, maintaining that +they need, even more than boys, exact discipline and +knowledge. Boys, he thought, find health in an occupation; +but an uncultivated, unmarried girl dwells with her own untutored +thoughts, which often breed disease. His two daughters, +therefore, received an education much above that which was usual +amongst people in their position, and each of them—an +unheard of wonder in Fenmarket—had spent some time in a +school in Weimar. Mr Hopgood was also peculiar in his way +of dealing with his children. He talked to them and made +them talk to him, and whatever they read was translated into +speech; thought, in his house, was vocal.</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood, too, had been the intimate friend of her husband, +and was the intimate friend of her daughters. She was now +nearly sixty, but still erect and graceful, and everybody could +see that the picture of a beautiful girl of one-and-twenty, which +hung opposite the fireplace, had once been her portrait. +She had been brought up, as thoroughly as a woman could be +brought up, in those days, to be a governess. The war +prevented her education abroad, but her father, who was a +clergyman, not too rich, engaged a French emigrant lady to live +in his house to teach her French and other accomplishments. +She consequently spoke French perfectly, and she could also read +and speak Spanish fairly well, for the French lady had spent some +years in Spain. Mr Hopgood had never been particularly in +earnest about religion, but his wife was a believer, neither High +Church nor Low Church, but inclined towards a kind of quietism +not uncommon in the Church of England, even during its bad time, +a reaction against the formalism which generally prevailed. +When she married, Mrs Hopgood did not altogether follow her +husband. She never separated herself from her faith, and +never would have confessed that she had separated herself from +her church. But although she knew that his creed externally +was not hers, her own was not sharply cut, and she persuaded +herself that, in substance, his and her belief were +identical. As she grew older her relationship to the Unseen +became more and more intimate, but she was less and less inclined +to criticise her husband’s freedom, or to impose on the +children a rule which they would certainly have observed, but +only for her sake. Every now and then she felt a little +lonely; when, for example, she read one or two books which were +particularly her own; when she thought of her dead father and +mother, and when she prayed her solitary prayer. Mr Hopgood +took great pains never to disturb that sacred moment. +Indeed, he never for an instant permitted a finger to be laid +upon what she considered precious. He loved her because she +had the strength to be what she was when he first knew her and +she had so fascinated him. He would have been disappointed +if the mistress of his youth had become some other person, +although the change, in a sense, might have been development and +progress. He did really love her piety, too, for its own +sake. It mixed something with her behaviour to him and to +the children which charmed him, and he did not know from what +other existing source anything comparable to it could be +supplied. Mrs Hopgood seldom went to church. The +church, to be sure, was horribly dead, but she did not give that +as a reason. She had, she said, an infirmity, a strange +restlessness which prevented her from sitting still for an +hour. She often pleaded this excuse, and her husband and +daughters never, by word or smile, gave her the least reason to +suppose that they did not believe her.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Both</span> Clara and Madge went first to +an English day-school, and Clara went straight from this school +to Germany, but Madge’s course was a little +different. She was not very well, and it was decided that +she should have at least a twelvemonth in a boarding-school at +Brighton before going abroad. It had been very highly +recommended, but the head-mistress was Low Church and +aggressive. Mr Hopgood, far away from the High and Low +Church controversy, came to the conclusion that, in Madge’s +case, the theology would have no effect on her. It was +quite impossible, moreover, to find a school which would be just +what he could wish it to be. Madge, accordingly, was sent +to Brighton, and was introduced into a new world. She was +just beginning to ask herself <i>why</i> certain things were +right and other things were wrong, and the Brighton answer was +that the former were directed by revelation and the latter +forbidden, and that the ‘body’ was an affliction to +the soul, a means of ‘probation,’ our principal duty +being to ‘war’ against it.</p> +<p>Madge’s bedroom companion was a Miss Selina Fish, +daughter of Barnabas Fish, Esquire, of Clapham, and merchant of +the City of London. Miss Fish was not traitorous at heart, +but when she found out that Madge had not been christened, she +was so overcome that she was obliged to tell her mother. +Miss Fish was really unhappy, and one cold night, when Madge +crept into her neighbour’s bed, contrary to law, but in +accordance with custom when the weather was very bitter, poor +Miss Fish shrank from her, half-believing that something dreadful +might happen if she should by any chance touch unbaptised, naked +flesh. Mrs Fish told her daughter that perhaps Miss Hopgood +might be a Dissenter, and that although Dissenters were to be +pitied, and even to be condemned, many of them were undoubtedly +among the redeemed, as for example, that man of God, Dr +Doddridge, whose <i>Family Expositor</i> was read systematically +at home, as Selina knew. Then there were Matthew Henry, +whose commentary her father preferred to any other, and the +venerable saint, the Reverend William Jay of Bath, whom she was +proud to call her friend. Miss Fish, therefore, made +further inquiries gently and delicately, but she found to her +horror that Madge had neither been sprinkled nor immersed! +Perhaps she was a Jewess or a heathen! This was a happy +thought, for then she might be converted. Selina knew what +interest her mother took in missions to heathens and Jews; and if +Madge, by the humble instrumentality of a child, could be brought +to the foot of the Cross, what would her mother and father +say? What would they not say? Fancy taking Madge to +Clapham in a nice white dress—it should be white, thought +Selina—and presenting her as a saved lamb!</p> +<p>The very next night she began,—</p> +<p>‘I suppose your father is a foreigner?’</p> +<p>‘No, he is an Englishman.’</p> +<p>‘But if he is an Englishman you must have been baptised, +or sprinkled, or immersed, and your father and mother must belong +to church or chapel. I know there are thousands of wicked +people who belong to neither, but they are drunkards and liars +and robbers, and even they have their children +christened.’</p> +<p>‘Well, he is an Englishman,’ said Madge, +smiling.</p> +<p>‘Perhaps,’ said Selina, timidly, ‘he may +be—he may be—Jewish. Mamma and papa pray for +the Jews every morning. They are not like other +unbelievers.’</p> +<p>‘No, he is certainly not a Jew.’</p> +<p>‘What is he, then?’</p> +<p>‘He is my papa and a very honest, good man.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, my dear Madge! honesty is a broken reed. I +have heard mamma say that she is more hopeful of thieves than +honest people who think they are saved by works, for the thief +who was crucified went to heaven, and if he had been only an +honest man he never would have found the Saviour and would have +gone to hell. Your father must be something.’</p> +<p>‘I can only tell you again that he is honest and +good.’</p> +<p>Selina was confounded. She had heard of those people who +were <i>nothing</i>, and had always considered them as so +dreadful that she could not bear to think of them. The +efforts of her father and mother did not extend to them; they +were beyond the reach of the preacher—mere vessels of +wrath. If Madge had confessed herself Roman Catholic, or +idolator, Selina knew how to begin. She would have pointed +out to the Catholic how unscriptural it was to suppose that +anybody could forgive sins excepting God, and she would at once +have been able to bring the idolator to his knees by exposing the +absurdity of worshipping bits of wood and stone; but with a +person who was nothing she could not tell what to do. She +was puzzled to understand what right Madge had to her name. +Who had any authority to say she was to be called Madge +Hopgood? She determined at last to pray to God and again +ask her mother’s help.</p> +<p>She did pray earnestly that very night, and had not finished +until long after Madge had said her Lord’s Prayer. +This was always said night and morning, both by Madge and +Clara. They had been taught it by their mother. It +was, by the way, one of poor Selina’s troubles that Madge +said nothing but the Lord’s Prayer when she lay down and +when she rose; of course, the Lord’s Prayer was the +best—how could it be otherwise, seeing that our Lord used +it?—but those who supplemented it with no petitions of +their own were set down as formalists, and it was always +suspected that they had not received the true enlightenment from +above. Selina cried to God till the counterpane was wet +with her tears, but it was the answer from her mother which came +first, telling her that however praiseworthy her intentions might +be, argument with such a <i>dangerous</i> infidel as Madge would +be most perilous, and she was to desist from it at once. +Mrs Fish had by that post written to Miss Pratt, the +schoolmistress, and Selina no doubt would not be exposed to +further temptation. Mrs Fish’s letter to Miss Pratt +was very strong, and did not mince matters. She informed +Miss Pratt that a wolf was in her fold, and that if the creature +were not promptly expelled, Selina must be removed into +safety. Miss Pratt was astonished, and instantly, as her +custom was, sought the advice of her sister, Miss Hannah Pratt, +who had charge of the wardrobes and household matters +generally. Miss Hannah Pratt was never in the best of +tempers, and just now was a little worse than usual. It was +one of the rules of the school that no tradesmen’s +daughters should be admitted, but it was very difficult to draw +the line, and when drawn, the Misses Pratt were obliged to admit +it was rather ridiculous. There was much debate over an +application by an auctioneer. He was clearly not a +tradesman, but he sold chairs, tables and pigs, and, as Miss +Hannah said, used vulgar language in recommending them. +However, his wife had money; they lived in a pleasant house in +Lewes, and the line went outside him. But when a druggist, +with a shop in Bond Street, proposed his daughter, Miss Hannah +took a firm stand. What is the use of a principle, she +inquired severely, if we do not adhere to it? On the other +hand, the druggist’s daughter was the eldest of six, who +might all come when they were old enough to leave home, and Miss +Pratt thought there was a real difference between a druggist and, +say, a bootmaker.</p> +<p>‘Bootmaker!’ said Miss Hannah with great +scorn. ‘I am surprised that you venture to hint the +remotest possibility of such a contingency.’</p> +<p>At last it was settled that the line should also be drawn +outside the druggist. Miss Hannah, however, had her +revenge. A tanner in Bermondsey with a house in Bedford +Square, had sent two of his children to Miss Pratt’s +seminary. Their mother found out that they had struck up a +friendship with a young person whose father compounded +prescriptions for her, and when she next visited Brighton she +called on Miss Pratt, reminded her that it was understood that +her pupils would ‘all be taken from a superior class in +society,’ and gently hinted that she could not allow +Bedford Square to be contaminated by Bond Street. Miss +Pratt was most apologetic, enlarged upon the druggist’s +respectability, and more particularly upon his well-known piety +and upon his generous contributions to the cause of +religion. This, indeed, was what decided her to make an +exception in his favour, and the piety also of his daughter was +‘most exemplary.’ However, the tanner’s +lady, although a shining light in the church herself, was not +satisfied that a retail saint could produce a proper companion +for her own offspring, and went away leaving Miss Pratt very +uncomfortable.</p> +<p>‘I warned you,’ said Miss Hannah; ‘I told +you what would happen, and as to Mr Hopgood, I suspected him from +the first. Besides, he is only a banker’s +clerk.’</p> +<p>‘Well, what is to be done?’</p> +<p>‘Put your foot down at once.’ Miss Hannah +suited the action to the word, and put down, with emphasis, on +the hearthrug a very large, plate-shaped foot cased in a black +felt shoe.</p> +<p>‘But I cannot dismiss them. Don’t you think +it will be better, first of all, to talk to Miss Hopgood? +Perhaps we could do her some good.’</p> +<p>‘Good! Now, do you think we can do any good to an +atheist? Besides, we have to consider our reputation. +Whatever good we might do, it would be believed that the +infection remained.’</p> +<p>‘We have no excuse for dismissing the other.’</p> +<p>‘Excuse! none is needed, nor would any be +justifiable. Excuses are immoral. Say at +once—of course politely and with regret—that the +school is established on a certain basis. It will be an +advantage to us if it is known why these girls do not +remain. I will dictate the letter, if you like.’</p> +<p>Miss Hannah Pratt had not received the education which had +been given to her younger sister, and therefore, was nominally +subordinate, but really she was chief. She considered it +especially her duty not only to look after the children’s +clothes, the servants and the accounts, but to maintain +<i>tone</i> everywhere in the establishment, and to stiffen her +sister when necessary, and preserve in proper sharpness her +orthodoxy, both in theology and morals.</p> +<p>Accordingly, both the girls left, and both knew the reason for +leaving. The druggist’s faith was sorely tried. +If Miss Pratt’s had been a worldly seminary he would have +thought nothing of such behaviour, but he did not expect it from +one of the faithful. The next Sunday morning after he +received the news, he stayed at home out of his turn to make up +any medicines which might be urgently required, and sent his +assistant to church.</p> +<p>As to Madge, she enjoyed her expulsion as a great joke, and +her Brighton experiences were the cause of much laughter. +She had learned a good deal while she was away from home, not +precisely what it was intended she should learn, and she came +back with a strong, insurgent tendency, which was even more +noticeable when she returned from Germany. Neither of the +sisters lived at the school in Weimar, but at the house of a lady +who had been recommended to Mrs Hopgood, and by this lady they +were introduced to the great German classics. She herself +was an enthusiast for Goethe, whom she well remembered in his old +age, and Clara and Madge, each of them in turn, learned to know +the poet as they would never have known him in England. +Even the town taught them much about him, for in many ways it was +expressive of him and seemed as if it had shaped itself for +him. It was a delightful time for them. They enjoyed +the society and constant mental stimulus; they loved the +beautiful park; not a separate enclosure walled round like an +English park, but suffering the streets to end in it, and in +summer time there were excursions into the Thüringer Wald, +generally to some point memorable in history, or for some +literary association. The drawback was the contrast, when +they went home, with Fenmarket, with its dulness and its complete +isolation from the intellectual world. At Weimar, in the +evening, they could see Egmont or hear Fidelio, or talk with +friends about the last utterance upon the Leben Jesu; but the +Fenmarket Egmont was a travelling wax-work show, its Fidelio +psalm tunes, or at best some of Bishop’s glees, performed +by a few of the tradesfolk, who had never had an hour’s +instruction in music; and for theological criticism there were +the parish church and Ram Lane Chapel. They did their best; +they read their old favourites and subscribed for a German as +well as an English literary weekly newspaper, but at times they +were almost beaten. Madge more than Clara was liable to +depression.</p> +<p>No Fenmarket maiden, other than the Hopgoods, was supposed to +have any connection whatever, or to have any capacity for any +connection with anything outside the world in which ‘young +ladies’ dwelt, and if a Fenmarket girl read a book, a rare +occurrence, for there were no circulating libraries there in +those days, she never permitted herself to say anything more than +that it was ‘nice,’ or it was ‘not nice,’ +or she ‘liked it’ or did ‘not like it;’ +and if she had ventured to say more, Fenmarket would have thought +her odd, not to say a little improper. The Hopgood young +women were almost entirely isolated, for the tradesfolk felt +themselves uncomfortable and inferior in every way in their +presence, and they were ineligible for rectory and brewery +society, not only because their father was merely a manager, but +because of their strange ways. Mrs Tubbs, the +brewer’s wife, thought they were due to Germany. From +what she knew of Germany she considered it most injudicious, and +even morally wrong, to send girls there. She once made the +acquaintance of a German lady at an hotel at Tunbridge Wells, and +was quite shocked. She could see quite plainly that the +standard of female delicacy must be much lower in that country +than in England. Mr Tubbs was sure Mrs Hopgood must have +been French, and said to his daughters, mysteriously, ‘you +never can tell who Frenchwomen are.’</p> +<p>‘But, papa,’ said Miss Tubbs, ‘you know Mrs +Hopgood’s maiden name; we found that out. It was +Molyneux.’</p> +<p>‘Of course, my dear, of course; but if she was a +Frenchwoman resident in England she would prefer to assume an +English name, that is to say if she wished to be +married.’</p> +<p>Occasionally the Miss Hopgoods were encountered, and they +confounded Fenmarket sorely. On one memorable occasion +there was a party at the Rectory: it was the annual party into +which were swept all the unclassifiable odds-and-ends which could +not be put into the two gatherings which included the aristocracy +and the democracy of the place. Miss Clara Hopgood amazed +everybody by ‘beginning talk,’ by asking Mrs +Greatorex, her hostess, who had been far away to Sidmouth for a +holiday, whether she had been to the place where Coleridge was +born, and when the parson’s wife said she had not, and that +she could not be expected to make a pilgrimage to the birthplace +of an infidel, Miss Hopgood expressed her surprise, and declared +she would walk twenty miles any day to see Ottery St Mary. +Still worse, when somebody observed that an Anti-Corn-Law +lecturer was coming to Fenmarket, and the parson’s daughter +cried ‘How horrid!’ Miss Hopgood talked again, +and actually told the parson that, so far as she had read upon +the subject—fancy her reading about the +Corn-Laws!—the argument was all one way, and that after +Colonel Thompson nothing new could really be urged.</p> +<p>‘What is so—’ she was about to say +‘objectionable,’ but she recollected her official +position and that she was bound to be politic—‘so odd +and unusual,’ observed Mrs Greatorex to Mrs Tubbs +afterwards, ‘is not that Miss Hopgood should have radical +views. Mrs Barker, I know, is a radical like her husband, +but then she never puts herself forward, nor makes +speeches. I never saw anything quite like it, except once +in London at a dinner-party. Lady Montgomery then went on +in much the same way, but she was a baronet’s wife; the +baronet was in Parliament; she received a good deal and was +obliged to entertain her guests.’</p> +<p>Poor Clara! she was really very unobtrusive and very modest, +but there had been constant sympathy between her and her father, +not the dumb sympathy as between man and dog, but that which can +manifest itself in human fashion.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Clara</span> and her father were both +chess-players, and at the time at which our history begins, Clara +had been teaching Madge the game for about six months.</p> +<p>‘Check!’ said Clara.</p> +<p>‘Check! after about a dozen moves. It is of no use +to go on; you always beat me. I should not mind that if I +were any better now than when I started. It is not in +me.’</p> +<p>‘The reason is that you do not look two moves +ahead. You never say to yourself, “Suppose I move +there, what is she likely to do, and what can I do +afterwards?”’</p> +<p>‘That is just what is impossible to me. I cannot +hold myself down; the moment I go beyond the next move my +thoughts fly away, and I am in a muddle, and my head turns +round. I was not born for it. I can do what is under +my nose well enough, but nothing more.’</p> +<p>‘The planning and the forecasting are the soul of the +game. I should like to be a general, and play against +armies and calculate the consequences of +manœuvres.’</p> +<p>‘It would kill me. I should prefer the +fighting. Besides, calculation is useless, for when I think +that you will be sure to move such and such a piece, you +generally do not.’</p> +<p>‘Then what makes the difference between the good and the +bad player?’</p> +<p>‘It is a gift, an instinct, I suppose.’</p> +<p>‘Which is as much as to say that you give it up. +You are very fond of that word instinct; I wish you would not use +it.’</p> +<p>‘I have heard you use it, and say you instinctively like +this person or that.’</p> +<p>‘Certainly; I do not deny that sometimes I am drawn to a +person or repelled from him before I can say why; but I always +force myself to discover afterwards the cause of my attraction or +repulsion, and I believe it is a duty to do so. If we +neglect it we are little better than the brutes, and may grossly +deceive ourselves.’</p> +<p>At this moment the sound of wheels was heard, and Madge jumped +up, nearly over-setting the board, and rushed into the front +room. It was the four-horse coach from London, which, once +a day, passed through Fenmarket on its road to Lincoln. It +was not the direct route from London to Lincoln, but the +<i>Defiance</i> went this way to accommodate Fenmarket and other +small towns. It slackened speed in order to change horses +at the ‘Crown and Sceptre,’ and as Madge stood at the +window, a gentleman on the box-seat looked at her intently as he +passed. In another minute he had descended, and was +welcomed by the landlord, who stood on the pavement. Clara +meanwhile had taken up a book, but before she had read a page, +her sister skipped into the parlour again, humming a tune.</p> +<p>‘Let me see—check, you said, but it is not +mate.’</p> +<p>She put her elbows on the table, rested her head between her +hands, and appeared to contemplate the game profoundly.</p> +<p>‘Now, then, what do you say to that?’</p> +<p>It was really a very lucky move, and Clara, whose thoughts +perhaps were elsewhere, was presently most unaccountably +defeated. Madge was triumphant.</p> +<p>‘Where are all your deep-laid schemes? Baffled by +a poor creature who can hardly put two and two +together.’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps your schemes were better than mine.’</p> +<p>‘You know they were not. I saw the queen ought to +take that bishop, and never bothered myself as to what would +follow. Have you not lost your faith in schemes?’</p> +<p>‘You are very much mistaken if you suppose that, because +of one failure, or of twenty failures, I would give up a +principle.’</p> +<p>‘Clara, you are a strange creature. Don’t +let us talk any more about chess.’</p> +<p>Madge swept all the pieces with her hand into the box, shut +it, closed the board, and put her feet on the fender.</p> +<p>‘You never believe in impulses or in doing a thing just +because here and now it appears to be the proper thing to +do. Suppose anybody were to make love to you—oh! how +I wish somebody would, you dear girl, for nobody deserves it +more—’ Madge put her head caressingly on +Clara’s shoulder and then raised it again. +‘Suppose, I say, anybody were to make love to you, would +you hold off for six months and consider, and consider, and ask +yourself whether he had such and such virtues, and whether he +could make you happy? Would not that stifle love +altogether? Would you not rather obey your first impression +and, if you felt you loved him, would you not say +“Yes”?’</p> +<p>‘Time is not everything. A man who is prompt and +is therefore thought to be hasty by sluggish creatures who are +never half awake, may in five minutes spend more time in +consideration than his critics will spend in as many weeks. +I have never had the chance, and am not likely to have it. +I can only say that if it were to come to me, I should try to use +the whole strength of my soul. Precisely because the +question would be so important, would it be necessary to employ +every faculty I have in order to decide it. I do not +believe in oracles which are supposed to prove their divinity by +giving no reasons for their commands.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, well, <i>I</i> believe in Shakespeare. His +lovers fall in love at first sight.’</p> +<p>‘No doubt they do, but to justify yourself you have to +suppose that you are a Juliet and your friend a Romeo. They +may, for aught I know, be examples in my favour. However, I +have to lay down a rule for my own poor, limited self, and, to +speak the truth, I am afraid that great men often do harm by +imposing on us that which is serviceable to themselves only; or, +to put it perhaps more correctly, we mistake the real nature of +their processes, just as a person who is unskilled in arithmetic +would mistake the processes of anybody who is very quick at it, +and would be led away by them. Shakespeare is much to me, +but the more he is to me, the more careful I ought to be to +discover what is the true law of my own nature, more important to +me after all than Shakespeare’s.’</p> +<p>‘Exactly. I know what the law of mine is. If +a man were to present himself to me, I should rely on that +instinct you so much despise, and I am certain that the +balancing, see-saw method would be fatal. It would disclose +a host of reasons against any conclusion, and I should never come +to any.’</p> +<p>Clara smiled. Although this impetuosity was foreign to +her, she loved it for the good which accompanied it.</p> +<p>‘You do not mean to say you would accept or reject him +at once?’</p> +<p>‘No, certainly not. What I mean is that in a few +days, perhaps in a shorter time, something within me would tell +me whether we were suited to one another, although we might not +have talked upon half-a-dozen subjects.’</p> +<p>‘I think the risk tremendous.’</p> +<p>‘But there is just as much risk the other way. You +would examine your friend, catalogue him, sum up his beliefs, +note his behaviour under various experimental trials, and +miserably fail, after all your scientific investigation, to +ascertain just the one important point whether you loved him and +could live with him. Your reason was not meant for that +kind of work. If a woman trusts in such matters to the +faculty by which, when she wishes to settle whether she is to +take this house or that, she puts the advantages of the larger +back kitchen on one side and the bigger front kitchen on the +other, I pity her.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood at this moment came downstairs and asked when in +the name of fortune they meant to have the tea ready.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Frank Palmer</span>, the gentleman whom we +saw descend from the coach, was the eldest son of a wholesale and +manufacturing chemist in London. He was now about +five-and-twenty, and having just been admitted as a partner, he +had begun, as the custom was in those days, to travel for his +firm. The elder Mr Palmer was a man of refinement, +something more than a Whig in politics, and an enthusiastic +member of the Broad Church party, which was then becoming a power +in the country. He was well-to-do, living in a fine old +red-brick house at Stoke Newington, with half-a-dozen acres of +ground round it, and, if Frank had been born thirty years later, +he would probably have gone to Cambridge or Oxford. In +those days, however, it was not the custom to send boys to the +Universities unless they were intended for the law, divinity or +idleness, and Frank’s training, which was begun at St +Paul’s school, was completed there. He lived at home, +going to school in the morning and returning in the +evening. He was surrounded by every influence which was +pure and noble. Mr Maurice and Mr Sterling were his +father’s guests, and hence it may be inferred that there +was an altar in the house, and that the sacred flame burnt +thereon. Mr Palmer almost worshipped Mr Maurice, and his +admiration was not blind, for Maurice connected the Bible with +what was rational in his friend. ‘What! still +believable: no need then to pitch it overboard: here after all is +the Eternal Word!’ It can be imagined how those who +dared not close their eyes to the light, and yet clung to that +book which had been so much to their forefathers and themselves, +rejoiced when they were able to declare that it belonged to them +more than to those who misjudged them and could deny that they +were heretics. The boy’s education was entirely +classical and athletic, and as he was quick at learning and loved +his games, he took a high position amongst his +school-fellows. He was not particularly reflective, but he +was generous and courageous, perfectly straightforward, a fair +specimen of thousands of English public-school boys. As he +grew up, he somewhat disappointed his father by a lack of any +real interest in the subjects in which his father was +interested. He accepted willingly, and even +enthusiastically, the household conclusions on religion and +politics, but they were not properly his, for he accepted them +merely as conclusions and without the premisses, and it was often +even a little annoying to hear him express some free opinion on +religious questions in a way which showed that it was not a +growth but something picked up. Mr Palmer, senior, +sometimes recoiled into intolerance and orthodoxy, and bewildered +his son who, to use one of his own phrases, ‘hardly knew +where his father was.’ Partly the reaction was due to +the oscillation which accompanies serious and independent +thought, but mainly it was caused by Mr Palmer’s discontent +with Frank’s appropriation of a sentiment or doctrine of +which he was not the lawful owner. Frank, however, was so +hearty, so affectionate, and so cheerful, that it was impossible +not to love him dearly.</p> +<p>In his visits to Fenmarket, Frank had often noticed Madge, for +the ‘Crown and Sceptre’ was his headquarters, and +Madge was well enough aware that she had been noticed. He +had inquired casually who it was who lived next door, and when +the waiter told him the name, and that Mr Hopgood was formerly +the bank manager, Frank remembered that he had often heard his +father speak of a Mr Hopgood, a clerk in a bank in London, as one +of his best friends. He did not fail to ask his father +about this friend, and to obtain an introduction to the +widow. He had now brought it to Fenmarket, and within half +an hour after he had alighted, he had presented it.</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood, of course, recollected Mr Palmer perfectly, and +the welcome to Frank was naturally very warm. It was +delightful to connect earlier and happier days with the present, +and she was proud in the possession of a relationship which had +lasted so long. Clara and Madge, too, were both excited and +pleased. To say nothing of Frank’s appearance, of his +unsnobbish, deferential behaviour which showed that he understood +who they were and that the little house made no difference to +him, the girls and the mother could not resist a side glance at +Fenmarket and the indulgence of a secret satisfaction that it +would soon hear that the son of Mr Palmer, so well known in every +town round about, was on intimate terms with them.</p> +<p>Madge was particularly gay that evening. The presence of +sympathetic people was always a powerful stimulus to her, and she +was often astonished at the witty things and even the wise things +she said in such company, although, when she was alone, so few +things wise or witty occurred to her. Like all persons who, +in conversation, do not so much express the results of previous +conviction obtained in silence as the inspiration of the moment, +Madge dazzled everybody by a brilliancy which would have been +impossible if she had communicated that which had been slowly +acquired, but what she left with those who listened to her, did +not always seem, on reflection, to be so much as it appeared to +be while she was talking. Still she was very charming, and +it must be confessed that sometimes her spontaneity was truer +than the limitations of speech more carefully weighed.</p> +<p>‘What makes you stay in Fenmarket, Mrs Hopgood? +How I wish you would come to London!’</p> +<p>‘I do not wish to leave it now; I have become attached +to it; I have very few friends in London, and lastly, perhaps the +most convincing reason, I could not afford it. Rent and +living are cheaper here than in town.’</p> +<p>‘Would you not like to live in London, Miss +Hopgood?’</p> +<p>Clara hesitated for a few seconds.</p> +<p>‘I am not sure—certainly not by myself. I +was in London once for six months as a governess in a very +pleasant family, where I saw much society; but I was glad to +return to Fenmarket.’</p> +<p>‘To the scenery round Fenmarket,’ interrupted +Madge; ‘it is so romantic, so mountainous, so interesting +in every way.’</p> +<p>‘I was thinking of people, strange as it may +appear. In London nobody really cares for anybody, at +least, not in the sense in which I should use the words. +Men and women in London stand for certain talents, and are valued +often very highly for them, but they are valued merely as +representing these talents. Now, if I had a talent, I +should not be satisfied with admiration or respect because of +it. No matter what admiration, or respect, or even +enthusiasm I might evoke, even if I were told that my services +had been immense and that life had been changed through my +instrumentality, I should feel the lack of quiet, personal +affection, and that, I believe, is not common in London. If +I were famous, I would sacrifice all the adoration of the world +for the love of a brother—if I had one—or a sister, +who perhaps had never heard what it was which had made me +renowned.’</p> +<p>‘Certainly,’ said Madge, laughing, ‘for the +love of <i>such</i> a sister. But, Mr Palmer, I like +London. I like the people, just the people, although I do +not know a soul, and not a soul cares a brass farthing about +me. I am not half so stupid in London as in the +country. I never have a thought of my own down here. +How should I? But in London there is plenty of talk about +all kinds of things, and I find I too have something in me. +It is true, as Clara says, that nobody is anything particular to +anybody, but that to me is rather pleasant. I do not want +too much of profound and eternal attachments. They are +rather a burden. They involve profound and eternal +attachment on my part; and I have always to be at my best; such +watchfulness and such jealousy! I prefer a dressing-gown +and slippers and bonds which are not so tight.’</p> +<p>‘Madge, Madge, I wish you would sometimes save me the +trouble of laboriously striving to discover what you really +mean.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood bethought herself that her daughters were talking +too much to one another, as they often did, even when guests were +present, and she therefore interrupted them.</p> +<p>‘Mr Palmer, you see both town and country—which do +you prefer?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! I hardly know; the country in summer-time, +perhaps, and town in the winter.’</p> +<p>This was a safe answer, and one which was not very original; +that is to say, it expressed no very distinct belief; but there +was one valid reason why he liked being in London in the +winter.</p> +<p>‘Your father, I remember, loves music. I suppose +you inherit his taste, and it is impossible to hear good music in +the country.’</p> +<p>‘I am very fond of music. Have you heard “St +Paul?” I was at Birmingham when it was first +performed in this country. Oh! it <i>is</i> lovely,’ +and he began humming ‘<i>Be thou faithful unto +death</i>.’</p> +<p>Frank did really care for music. He went wherever good +music was to be had; he belonged to a choral society and was in +great request amongst his father’s friends at evening +entertainments. He could also play the piano, so far as to +be able to accompany himself thereon. He sang to himself +when he was travelling, and often murmured favourite airs when +people around him were talking. He had lessons from an old +Italian, a little, withered, shabby creature, who was not very +proud of his pupil. ‘He is a talent,’ said the +Signor, ‘and he will amuse himself; good for a ballad at a +party, but a musician? no!’ and like all mere +‘talents’ Frank failed in his songs to give them just +what is of most value—just that which separates an artistic +performance from the vast region of well-meaning, respectable, +but uninteresting commonplace. There was a curious lack in +him also of correspondence between his music and the rest of +himself. As music is expression, it might be supposed that +something which it serves to express would always lie behind it; +but this was not the case with him, although he was so attractive +and delightful in many ways. There could be no doubt that +his love for Beethoven was genuine, but that which was in Frank +Palmer was not that of which the sonatas and symphonies of the +master are the voice. He went into raptures over the slow +movement in the <i>C minor</i> Symphony, but no <i>C minor</i> +slow movement was discernible in his character.</p> +<p>‘What on earth can be found in “St Paul” +which can be put to music?’ said Madge. ‘Fancy +a chapter in the Epistle to the Romans turned into a +duet!’</p> +<p>‘Madge! Madge! I am ashamed of you,’ +said her mother.</p> +<p>‘Well, mother,’ said Clara, ‘I am sure that +some of the settings by your divinity, Handel, are absurd. +“<i>For as in Adam all die</i>” may be true enough, +and the harmonies are magnificent, but I am always tempted to +laugh when I hear it.’</p> +<p>Frank hummed the familiar apostrophe ‘<i>Be not +afraid</i>.’</p> +<p>‘Is that a bit of “St Paul”?’ said Mrs +Hopgood.</p> +<p>‘Yes, it goes like this,’ and Frank went up to the +little piano and sang the song through.</p> +<p>‘There is no fault to be found with that,’ said +Madge, ‘so far as the coincidence of sense and melody is +concerned, but I do not care much for oratorios. Better +subjects can be obtained outside the Bible, and the main reason +for selecting the Bible is that what is called religious music +may be provided for good people. An oratorio, to me, is +never quite natural. Jewish history is not a musical +subject, and, besides, you cannot have proper love songs in an +oratorio, and in them music is at its best.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood was accustomed to her daughter’s +extravagance, but she was, nevertheless, a little +uncomfortable.</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ said Frank, who had not moved from the +piano, and he struck the first two bars of +‘<i>Adelaide</i>.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, please,’ said Madge, ‘go on, go +on,’ but Frank could not quite finish it.</p> +<p>She was sitting on the little sofa, and she put her feet up, +lay and listened with her eyes shut. There was a vibration +in Mr Palmer’s voice not perceptible during his vision of +the crown of life and of fidelity to death.</p> +<p>‘Are you going to stay over Sunday?’ inquired Mrs +Hopgood.</p> +<p>‘I am not quite sure; I ought to be back on Sunday +evening. My father likes me to be at home on that +day.’</p> +<p>‘Is there not a Mr Maurice who is a friend of your +father?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, yes, a great friend.’</p> +<p>‘He is not High Church nor Low Church?’</p> +<p>‘No, not exactly.’</p> +<p>‘What is he, then? What does he +believe?’</p> +<p>‘Well, I can hardly say; he does not believe that +anybody will be burnt in a brimstone lake for ever.’</p> +<p>‘That is what he does not believe,’ interposed +Clara.</p> +<p>‘He believes that Socrates and the great Greeks and +Romans who acted up to the light that was within them were not +sent to hell. I think that is glorious, don’t +you?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, but that also is something he does not +believe. What is there in him which is positive? What +has he distinctly won from the unknown?’</p> +<p>‘Ah, Miss Hopgood, you ought to hear him yourself; he is +wonderful. I do admire him so much; I am sure you would +like him.’</p> +<p>‘If you do not go home on Saturday,’ said Mrs +Hopgood, ‘we shall be pleased if you will have dinner with +us on Sunday; we generally go for a walk in the +afternoon.’</p> +<p>Frank hesitated, but at that moment Madge rose from the +sofa. Her hair was disarranged, and she pushed its thick +folds backward. It grew rather low down on her forehead and +stood up a little on her temples, a mystery of shadow and dark +recess. If it had been electrical with the force of a +strong battery and had touched him, he could not have been more +completely paralysed, and his half-erect resolution to go back on +Saturday was instantly laid flat.</p> +<p>‘Thank you, Mrs Hopgood,’ looking at Madge and +meeting her eyes, ‘I think it very likely I shall stay, and +if I do I will most certainly accept your kind +invitation.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Sunday</span> morning came, and Frank, +being in the country, considered himself absolved from the duty +of going to church, and went for a long stroll. At +half-past one he presented himself at Mrs Hopgood’s +house.</p> +<p>‘I have had a letter from London,’ said Clara to +Frank, ‘telling me a most extraordinary story, and I should +like to know what you think of it. A man, who was left a +widower, had an only child, a lovely daughter of about fourteen +years old, in whose existence his own was completely wrapped +up. She was subject at times to curious fits of +self-absorption or absence of mind, and while she was under their +influence she resembled a somnambulist rather than a sane human +being awake. Her father would not take her to a physician, +for he dreaded lest he should be advised to send her away from +home, and he also feared the effect which any recognition of her +disorder might have upon her. He believed that in obscure +and half-mental diseases like hers, it was prudent to suppress +all notice of them, and that if he behaved to her as if she were +perfectly well, she would stand a chance of recovery. +Moreover, the child was visibly improving, and it was probable +that the disturbance in her health would be speedily +outgrown. One hot day he went out shopping with her, and he +observed that she was tired and strange in her manner, although +she was not ill, or, at least, not so ill as he had often before +seen her. The few purchases they had to make at the +draper’s were completed, and they went out into the +street. He took her hand-bag, and, in doing so, it opened +and he saw to his horror a white silk pocket-handkerchief +crumpled up in it, which he instantly recognised as one which had +been shown him five minutes before, but he had not bought. +The next moment a hand was on his shoulder. It was that of +an assistant, who requested that they would both return for a few +minutes. As they walked the half dozen steps back, the +father’s resolution was taken. “I am +sixty,” he thought to himself, “and she is +fourteen.” They went into the counting-house and he +confessed that he had taken the handkerchief, but that it was +taken by mistake and that he was about to restore it when he was +arrested. The poor girl was now herself again, but her mind +was an entire blank as to what she had done, and she could not +doubt her father’s statement, for it was a man’s +handkerchief and the bag was in his hands. The draper was +inexorable, and as he had suffered much from petty thefts of +late, had determined to make an example of the first offender +whom he could catch. The father was accordingly prosecuted, +convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. When his term had +expired, his daughter, who, I am glad to say, never for an +instant lost her faith in him, went away with him to a distant +part of the country, where they lived under an assumed +name. About ten years afterwards he died and kept his +secret to the last; but he had seen the complete recovery and +happy marriage of his child. It was remarkable that it +never occurred to her that she might have been guilty, but her +father’s confession, as already stated, was apparently so +sincere that she could do nothing but believe him. You will +wonder how the facts were discovered. After his death a +sealed paper disclosing them was found, with the inscription, +“<i>Not to be opened during my daughter’s life</i>, +<i>and if she should have children or a husband who may survive +her</i>, <i>it is to be burnt</i>.” She had no +children, and when she died as an old woman, her husband also +being dead, the seal was broken.’</p> +<p>‘Probably,’ said Madge, ‘nobody except his +daughter believed he was not a thief. For her sake he +endured the imputation of common larceny, and was content to +leave the world with only a remote chance that he would ever be +justified.’</p> +<p>‘I wonder,’ said Frank, ‘that he did not +admit that it was his daughter who had taken the handkerchief, +and excuse her on the ground of her ailment.’</p> +<p>‘He could not do that,’ replied Madge. +‘The object of his life was to make as little of the +ailment as possible. What would have been the effect on her +if she had been made aware of its fearful consequences? +Furthermore, would he have been believed? And +then—awful thought, the child might have suspected him of +attempting to shield himself at her expense! Do you think +you could be capable of such sacrifice, Mr Palmer?’</p> +<p>Frank hesitated. ‘It would—’</p> +<p>‘The question is not fair, Madge,’ said Mrs +Hopgood, interrupting him. ‘You are asking for a +decision when all the materials to make up a decision are not +present. It is wrong to question ourselves in cold blood as +to what we should do in a great strait; for the emergency brings +the insight and the power necessary to deal with it. I +often fear lest, if such-and-such a trial were to befall me, I +should miserably fail. So I should, furnished as I now am, +but not as I should be under stress of the trial.’</p> +<p>‘What is the use,’ said Clara, ‘of +speculating whether we can, or cannot, do this or that? It +<i>is</i> now an interesting subject for discussion whether the +lie was a sin.’</p> +<p>‘No,’ said Madge, ‘a thousand times +no.’</p> +<p>‘Brief and decisive. Well, Mr Palmer, what do you +say?’</p> +<p>‘That is rather an awkward question. A lie is a +lie.’</p> +<p>‘But not,’ broke in Madge, vehemently, ‘to +save anybody whom you love. Is a contemptible little +two-foot measuring-tape to be applied to such an action as +that?’</p> +<p>‘The consequences of such a philosophy, though, my +dear,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘are rather serious. +The moment you dispense with a fixed standard, you cannot refuse +permission to other people to dispense with it also.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, yes, I know all about that, but I am not going to +give up my instinct for the sake of a rule. Do what you +feel to be right, and let the rule go hang. Somebody, +cleverer in logic than we are, will come along afterwards and +find a higher rule which we have obeyed, and will formulate it +concisely.’</p> +<p>‘As for my poor self,’ said Clara, ‘I do not +profess to know, without the rule, what is right and what is +not. We are always trying to transcend the rule by some +special pleading, and often in virtue of some fancied +superiority. Generally speaking, the attempt is +fatal.’</p> +<p>‘Madge,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘your dogmatic +decision may have been interesting, but it prevented the +expression of Mr Palmer’s opinion.’</p> +<p>Madge bent forward and politely inclined her head to the +embarrassed Frank.</p> +<p>‘I do not know what to say. I have never thought +much about such matters. Is not what they call casuistry a +science among Roman Catholics? If I were in a difficulty +and could not tell right from wrong, I should turn Catholic, and +come to you as my priest, Mrs Hopgood.’</p> +<p>‘Then you would do, not what you thought right yourself, +but what I thought right. The worth of the right to you is +that it is your right, and that you arrive at it in your own +way. Besides, you might not have time to consult +anybody. Were you never compelled to settle promptly a case +of this kind?’</p> +<p>‘I remember once at school, when the mathematical master +was out of the class-room, a boy named Carpenter ran up to the +blackboard and wrote “Carrots” on it. That was +the master’s nickname, for he was red-haired. +Scarcely was the word finished, when Carpenter heard him coming +along the passage. There was just time partially to rub out +some of the big letters, but CAR remained, and Carpenter was +standing at the board when “Carrots” came in. +He was an excitable man, and he knew very well what the boys +called him.</p> +<p>‘“What have you been writing on the board, +sir?”</p> +<p>‘“Carpenter, sir.”</p> +<p>‘The master examined the board. The upper half of +the second R was plainly perceptible, but it might possibly have +been a P. He turned round, looked steadily at Carpenter for +a moment, and then looked at us. Carpenter was no +favourite, but not a soul spoke.</p> +<p>‘“Go to your place, sir.”</p> +<p>‘Carpenter went to his place, the letters were erased +and the lesson was resumed. I was greatly perplexed; I had +acquiesced in a cowardly falsehood. Carrots was a great +friend of mine, and I could not bear to feel that he was +humbugged, so when we were outside I went up to Carpenter and +told him he was an infernal sneak, and we had a desperate fight, +and I licked him, and blacked both his eyes. I did not know +what else to do.’</p> +<p>The company laughed.</p> +<p>‘We cannot,’ said Madge, ‘all of us come to +terms after this fashion with our consciences, but we have had +enough of these discussions on morality. Let us go +out.’</p> +<p>They went out, and, as some relief from the straight road, +they turned into a field as they came home, and walked along a +footpath which crossed the broad, deep ditches by planks. +They were within about fifty yards of the last and broadest +ditch, more a dyke than a ditch, when Frank, turning round, saw +an ox which they had not noticed, galloping after them.</p> +<p>‘Go on, go on,’ he cried, ‘make for the +plank.’</p> +<p>He discerned in an instant that unless the course of the +animal could be checked it would overtake them before the bridge +could be reached. The women fled, but Frank remained. +He was in the habit of carrying a heavy walking-stick, the end of +which he had hollowed out in his schooldays and had filled up +with lead. Just as the ox came upon him, it laid its head +to the ground, and Frank, springing aside, dealt it a tremendous, +two-handed blow on the forehead with his knobbed weapon. +The creature was dazed, it stopped and staggered, and in another +instant Frank was across the bridge in safety. There was a +little hysterical sobbing, but it was soon over.</p> +<p>‘Oh, Mr Palmer,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘what +presence of mind and what courage! We should have been +killed without you.’</p> +<p>‘The feat is not original, Mrs Hopgood. I saw it +done by a tough little farmer last summer on a bull that was +really mad. There was no ditch for him though, poor fellow, +and he had to jump a hedge.’</p> +<p>‘You did not find it difficult,’ said Madge, +‘to settle your problem when it came to you in the shape of +a wild ox.’</p> +<p>‘Because there was nothing to settle,’ said Frank, +laughing; ‘there was only one thing to be done.’</p> +<p>‘So you believed, or rather, so you saw,’ said +Clara. ‘I should have seen half-a-dozen things at +once—that is to say, nothing.’</p> +<p>‘And I,’ said Madge, ‘should have settled it +the wrong way: I am sure I should, even if I had been a +man. I should have bolted.’</p> +<p>Frank stayed to tea, and the evening was musical. He +left about ten, but just as the door had shut he remembered he +had forgotten his stick. He gave a gentle rap and Madge +appeared. She gave him his stick.</p> +<p>‘Good-bye again. Thanks for my life.’</p> +<p>Frank cursed himself that he could not find the proper +word. He knew there was something which might be said and +ought to be said, but he could not say it. Madge held out +her hand to him, he raised it to his lips and kissed it, and +then, astonished at his boldness, he instantly retreated. +He went to the ‘Crown and Sceptre’ and was soon in +bed, but not to sleep. Strange, that the moment we lie down +in the dark, images, which were half obscured, should become so +intensely luminous! Madge hovered before Frank with almost +tangible distinctness, and he felt his fingers moving in her +heavy, voluptuous tresses. Her picture at last became +almost painful to him and shamed him, so that he turned over from +side to side to avoid it. He had never been thrown into the +society of women of his own age, for he had no sister, and a fire +was kindled within him which burnt with a heat all the greater +because his life had been so pure. At last he fell asleep +and did not wake till late in the morning. He had just time +to eat his breakfast, pay one more business visit in the town, +and catch the coach due at eleven o’clock from Lincoln to +London. As the horses were being changed, he walked as near +as he dared venture to the windows of the cottage next door, but +he could see nobody. When the coach, however, began to +move, he turned round and looked behind him, and a hand was waved +to him. He took off his hat, and in five minutes he was +clear of the town. It was in sight a long way, but when, at +last, it disappeared, a cloud of wretchedness swept over him as +the vapour sweeps up from the sea. What was she doing? +talking to other people, existing for others, laughing with +others! There were miles between himself and +Fenmarket. Life! what was life? A few moments of +living and long, dreary gaps between. All this, however, is +a vain attempt to delineate what was shapeless. It was an +intolerable, unvanquishable oppression. This was Love; this +was the blessing which the god with the ruddy wings had bestowed +on him. It was a relief to him when the coach rattled +through Islington, and in a few minutes had landed him at the +‘Angel.’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was to be a grand +entertainment in the assembly room of the ‘Crown and +Sceptre’ in aid of the County Hospital. Mrs Martin, +widow of one of the late partners in the bank, lived in a large +house near Fenmarket, and still had an interest in the +business. She was distinctly above anybody who lived in the +town, and she knew how to show her superiority by venturing +sometimes to do what her urban neighbours could not possibly +do. She had been known to carry through the street a quart +bottle of horse physic although it was wrapped up in nothing but +brown paper. On her way she met the brewer’s wife, +who was more aggrieved than she was when Mrs Martin’s +carriage swept past her in the dusty, narrow lane which led to +the Hall. Mrs Martin could also afford to recognise in a +measure the claims of education and talent. A gentleman +came from London to lecture in the town, and showed astonished +Fenmarket an orrery and a magic lantern with dissolving views of +the Holy Land. The exhibition had been provided in order to +extinguish a debt incurred in repairing the church, but the +rector’s wife, and the brewer’s wife, after +consultation, decided that they must leave the lecturer to return +to his inn. Mrs Martin, however, invited him to +supper. Of course she knew Mr Hopgood well, and knew that +he was no ordinary man. She knew also something of Mrs +Hopgood and the daughters, and that they were no ordinary +women. She had been heard to say that they were ladies, and +that Mr Hopgood was a gentleman; and she kept up a distant kind +of intimacy with them, always nodded to them whenever she met +them, and every now and then sent them grapes and flowers. +She had observed once or twice to Mrs Tubbs that Mr Hopgood was a +remarkable person, who was quite scientific and therefore did not +associate with the rest of the Fenmarket folk; and Mrs Tubbs was +much annoyed, particularly by a slight emphasis which she thought +she detected in the ‘therefore,’ for Mr Tubbs had +told her that one of the smaller London brewers, who had only +about fifty public-houses, had refused to meet at dinner a +learned French chemist who had written books. Mrs Martin +could not make friends with the Hopgoods, nor enter the +cottage. It would have been a transgression of that +infinitely fine and tortuous line whose inexplicable convolutions +mark off what is forbidden to a society lady. Clearly, +however, the Hopgoods could be requested to co-operate at the +‘Crown and Sceptre;’ in fact, it would be impolitic +not to put some of the townsfolk on the list of patrons. So +it came about that Mrs Hopgood was included, and that she was +made responsible for the provision of one song and one +recitation. For the song it was settled that Frank Palmer +should be asked, as he would be in Fenmarket. Usually he +came but once every half year, but he had not been able, so he +said, to finish all his work the last time. The recitation +Madge undertook.</p> +<p>The evening arrived, the room was crowded and a dozen private +carriages stood in the ‘Crown and Sceptre’ +courtyard. Frank called for the Hopgoods. Mrs Hopgood +and Clara sat with presentation tickets in the second row, +amongst the fashionable folk; Frank and Madge were upon the +platform. Frank was loudly applauded in ‘<i>Il Mio +Tesoro</i>,’ but the loudest applause of the evening was +reserved for Madge, who declaimed Byron’s +‘<i>Destruction of Sennacherib</i>’ with much +energy. She certainly looked very charming in her red gown, +harmonising with her black hair. The men in the audience +were vociferous for something more, and would not be contented +until she again came forward. The truth is, that the wily +young woman had prepared herself beforehand for possibilities, +but she artfully concealed her preparation. Looking on the +ground and hesitating, she suddenly raised her head as if she had +just remembered something, and then repeated Sir Henry +Wotton’s ‘<i>Happy Life</i>.’ She was +again greeted with cheers, subdued so as to be in accordance with +the character of the poem, but none the less sincere, and in the +midst of them she gracefully bowed and retired. Mrs Martin +complimented her warmly at the end of the performance, and +inwardly debated whether Madge could be asked to enliven one of +the parties at the Hall, and how it could, at the same time, be +made clear to the guests that she and her mother, who must come +with her, were not even acquaintances, properly so called, but +were patronised as persons of merit living in the town which the +Hall protected. Mrs Martin was obliged to be very +careful. She certainly was on the list at the Lord +Lieutenant’s, but she was in the outer ring, and she was +not asked to those small and select little dinners which were +given to Sir Egerton, the Dean of Peterborough, Lord Francis, and +his brother, the county member. She decided, however, that +she could make perfectly plain the conditions upon which the +Hopgoods would be present, and the next day she sent Madge a +little note asking her if she would ‘assist in some +festivities’ at the Hall in about two months’ time, +which were to be given in celebration of the twenty-first +birthday of Mrs Martin’s third son. The scene from +the ‘<i>Tempest</i>,’ where Ferdinand and Miranda are +discovered playing chess, was suggested, and it was proposed that +Madge should be Miranda, and Mr Palmer Ferdinand. Mrs +Martin concluded with a hope that Mrs Hopgood and her eldest +daughter would ‘witness the performance.’</p> +<p>Frank joyously consented, for amateur theatricals had always +attracted him, and in a few short weeks he was again at +Fenmarket. He was obliged to be there for three or four +days before the entertainment, in order to attend the rehearsals, +which Mrs Martin had put under the control of a professional +gentleman from London, and Madge and he were consequently +compelled to make frequent journeys to the Hall.</p> +<p>At last the eventful night arrived, and a carriage was hired +next door to take the party. They drove up to the grand +entrance and were met by a footman, who directed Madge and Frank +to their dressing-rooms, and escorted Mrs Hopgood and Clara to +their places in the theatre. They had gone early in order +to accommodate Frank and Madge, and they found themselves +alone. They were surprised that there was nobody to welcome +them, and a little more surprised when they found that the places +allotted to them were rather in the rear. Presently two or +three fiddlers were seen, who began to tune their +instruments. Then some Fenmarket folk and some of the +well-to-do tenants on the estate made their appearance, and took +seats on either side of Mrs Hopgood and Clara. Quite at the +back were the servants. At five minutes to eight the band +struck up the overture to ‘<i>Zampa</i>,’ and in the +midst of it in sailed Mrs Martin and a score or two of +fashionably-dressed people, male and female. The curtain +ascended and Prospero’s cell was seen. Alonso and his +companions were properly grouped, and Prospero began,—</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘Behold, +Sir King,<br /> +The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The audience applauded him vigorously when he came to the end +of his speech, but there was an instantaneous cry of +‘hush!’ when Prospero disclosed the lovers. It +was really very pretty. Miranda wore a loose, simple, white +robe, and her wonderful hair was partly twisted into a knot, and +partly strayed down to her waist. The dialogue between the +two was spoken with much dramatic feeling, and when Ferdinand +came to the lines—</p> + +<blockquote><p> ‘Sir, +she is mortal,<br /> +But by immortal Providence she’s mine,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>old Boston, a worthy and wealthy farmer, who sat next to Mrs +Hopgood, cried out ‘hear, hear!’ but was instantly +suppressed.</p> +<p>He put his head down behind the people in front of him, rubbed +his knees, grinned, and then turned to Mrs Hopgood, whom he knew, +and whispered, with his hand to his mouth,—</p> +<p>‘And a precious lucky chap he is.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood watched intently, and when Gonzalo invoked the +gods to drop a blessed crown on the couple, and the applause was +renewed, and Boston again cried ‘hear, hear!’ without +fear of check, she did not applaud, for something told her that +behind this stage show a drama was being played of far more +serious importance.</p> +<p>The curtain fell, but there were loud calls for the +performers. It rose, and they presented themselves, Alonso +still holding the hands of the happy pair. The cheering now +was vociferous, more particularly when a wreath was flung at the +feet of the young princess, and Ferdinand, stooping, placed it on +her head.</p> +<p>Again the curtain fell, the band struck up some dance music +and the audience were treated to ‘something light,’ +and roared with laughter at a pretty chambermaid at an inn who +captivated and bamboozled a young booby who was staying there, +pitched him overboard; ‘wondered what he meant;’ sang +an audacious song recounting her many exploits, and finished with +a <i>pas-seul</i>.</p> +<p>The performers and their friends were invited to a sumptuous +supper, and the Fenmarket folk were not at home until half-past +two in the morning. On their way back, Clara broke out +against the juxtaposition of Shakespeare and such vulgarity.</p> +<p>‘Much better,’ she said, ‘to have left the +Shakespeare out altogether. The lesson of the sequence is +that each is good in its way, a perfectly hateful doctrine to +me.</p> +<p>Frank and Madge were, however, in the best of humours, +especially Frank, who had taken a glass of wine beyond his +customary very temperate allowance.</p> +<p>‘But, Miss Hopgood, Mrs Martin had to suit all tastes; +we must not be too severe upon her.’</p> +<p>There was something in this remark most irritating to Clara; +the word ‘tastes,’ for example, as if the difference +between Miranda and the chambermaid were a matter of +‘taste.’ She was annoyed too with Frank’s +easy, cheery tones for she felt deeply what she said, and his +mitigation and smiling latitudinarianism were more exasperating +than direct opposition.</p> +<p>‘I am sure,’ continued Frank, ‘that if we +were to take the votes of the audience, Miranda would be the +queen of the evening;’ and he put the crown which he had +brought away with him on her head again.</p> +<p>Clara was silent. In a few moments they were at the door +of their house. It had begun to rain, and Madge, stepping +out of the carriage in a hurry, threw a shawl over her head, +forgetting the wreath. It fell into the gutter and was +splashed with mud. Frank picked it up, wiped it as well as +he could with his pocket-handkerchief, took it into the parlour +and laid it on a chair.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning it still rained, a +cold rain from the north-east, a very disagreeable type of +weather on the Fenmarket flats. Madge was not awake until +late, and when she caught sight of the grey sky and saw her +finery tumbled on the floor—no further use for it in any +shape save as rags—and the dirty crown, which she had +brought upstairs, lying on the heap, the leaves already fading, +she felt depressed and miserable. The breakfast was dull, +and for the most part all three were silent. Mrs Hopgood +and Clara went away to begin their housework, leaving Madge +alone.</p> +<p>‘Madge,’ cried Mrs Hopgood, ‘what am I to do +with this thing? It is of no use to preserve it; it is dead +and covered with dirt.’</p> +<p>‘Throw it down here.’</p> +<p>She took it and rammed it into the fire. At that moment +she saw Frank pass. He was evidently about to knock, but +she ran to the door and opened it.</p> +<p>‘I did not wish to keep you waiting in the +wet.’</p> +<p>‘I am just off but I could not help calling to see how +you are. What! burning your laurels, the testimony to your +triumph?’</p> +<p>‘Triumph! rather transitory; finishes in smoke,’ +and she pushed two or three of the unburnt leaves amongst the +ashes and covered them over. He stooped down, picked up a +leaf, smoothed it between his fingers, and then raised his +eyes. They met hers at that instant, as she lifted them and +looked in his face. They were near one another, and his +hands strayed towards hers till they touched. She did not +withdraw; he clasped the hand, she not resisting; in another +moment his arms were round her, his face was on hers, and he was +swept into self-forgetfulness. Suddenly the horn of the +coach about to start awoke him, and he murmured the line from one +of his speeches of the night before—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘But by immortal Providence she’s +mine.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>She released herself a trifle, held her head back as if she +desired to survey him apart from her, so that the ecstasy of +union might be renewed, and then fell on his neck.</p> +<p>The horn once more sounded, she let him out silently, and he +was off. Mrs Hopgood and Clara presently came +downstairs.</p> +<p>‘Mr Palmer came in to bid you good-bye, but he heard the +coach and was obliged to rush away.’</p> +<p>‘What a pity,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘that you +did not call us.’</p> +<p>‘I thought he would be able to stay longer.’</p> +<p>The lines which followed Frank’s quotation came into her +head,—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Sweet lord, you play me false.’<br /> + ‘No, my dearest love,<br /> + I would not for the world.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>‘An omen,’ she said to herself; ‘“he +would not for the world.”’</p> +<p>She was in the best of spirits all day long. When the +housework was over and they were quiet together, she +said,—</p> +<p>‘Now, my dear mother and sister, I want to know how the +performance pleased you.’</p> +<p>‘It was as good as it could be,’ replied her +mother, ‘but I cannot think why all plays should turn upon +lovemaking. I wonder whether the time will ever come when +we shall care for a play in which there is no +courtship.’</p> +<p>‘What a horrible heresy, mother,’ said Madge.</p> +<p>‘It may be so; it may be that I am growing old, but it +seems astonishing to me sometimes that the world does not grow a +little weary of endless variations on the same theme.’</p> +<p>‘Never,’ said Madge, ‘as long as it does not +weary of the thing itself, and it is not likely to do that. +Fancy a young man and a young woman stopping short and +exclaiming, “This is just what every son of Adam and +daughter of Eve has gone through before; why should we +proceed?” Besides, it is the one emotion common to +the whole world; we can all comprehend it. Once more, it +reveals character. In <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Othello</i>, for +example, what is interesting is not solely the bare love. +The natures of Hamlet and Othello are brought to light through it +as they would not have been through any other stimulus. I +am sure that no ordinary woman ever shows what she really is, +except when she is in love. Can you tell what she is from +what she calls her religion, or from her friends, or even from +her husband?’</p> +<p>‘Would it not be equally just to say women are more +alike in love than in anything else? Mind, I do not say +alike, but more alike. Is it not the passion which levels +us all?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, mother, mother! did one ever hear such dreadful +blasphemy? That the loves, for example, of two such +cultivated, exquisite creatures as Clara and myself would be +nothing different from those of the barmaids next +door?’</p> +<p>‘Well, at anyrate, I do not want to see <i>my</i> +children in love to understand what they are—to me at +least.’</p> +<p>‘Then, if you comprehend us so completely—and let +us have no more philosophy—just tell me, should I make a +good actress? Oh! to be able to sway a thousand human +beings into tears or laughter! It must be +divine.’</p> +<p>‘No, I do not think you would,’ replied Clara.</p> +<p>‘Why not, miss? <i>Your</i> opinion, mind, was not +asked. Did I not act to perfection last night?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Then why are you so decisive?’</p> +<p>‘Try a different part some day. I may be +mistaken.’</p> +<p>‘You are very oracular.’</p> +<p>She turned to the piano, played a few chords, closed the +instrument, swung herself round on the music stool, and said she +should go for a walk.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was Mr Palmer’s design to +send Frank abroad as soon as he understood the home trade. +It was thought it would be an advantage to him to learn something +of foreign manufacturing processes. Frank had gladly agreed +to go, but he was now rather in the mood for delay. Mr +Palmer conjectured a reason for it, and the conjecture was +confirmed when, after two or three more visits to Fenmarket, +perfectly causeless, so far as business was concerned, Frank +asked for the paternal sanction to his engagement with +Madge. Consent was willingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the +family well; letters passed between him and Mrs Hopgood, and it +was arranged that Frank’s visit to Germany should be +postponed till the summer. He was now frequently at +Fenmarket as Madge’s accepted suitor, and, as the spring +advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves out of +doors. One afternoon they went for a long walk, and on +their return they rested by a stile. Those were the days +when Tennyson was beginning to stir the hearts of the young +people in England, and the two little green volumes had just +become a treasure in the Hopgood household. Mr Palmer, +senior, knew them well, and Frank, hearing his father speak so +enthusiastically about them, thought Madge would like them, and +had presented them to her. He had heard one or two read +aloud at home, and had looked at one or two himself, but had gone +no further. Madge, her mother, and her sister had read and +re-read them.</p> +<p>‘Oh,’ said Madge, ‘for that Vale in +Ida. Here in these fens how I long for something that is +not level! Oh, for the roar of—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The long brook falling thro’ the +clov’n ravine<br /> +In cataract after cataract to the sea.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Go on with it, Frank.’</p> +<p>‘I cannot.’</p> +<p>‘But you know <i>Œnone</i>?’</p> +<p>‘I cannot say I do. I began it—’</p> +<p>‘Frank, how could you begin it and lay it down +unfinished? Besides, those lines are some of the first; you +<i>must</i> remember—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Behind the valley topmost Gargarus<br /> +Stands up and takes the morning.”’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>‘No, I do not recollect, but I will learn them; learn +them for your sake.’</p> +<p>‘I do not want you to learn them for my sake.’</p> +<p>‘But I shall.’</p> +<p>She had taken off her hat and his hand strayed to her +neck. Her head fell on his shoulder and she had forgotten +his ignorance of <i>Œnone</i>. Presently she awoke +from her delicious trance and they moved homewards in +silence. Frank was a little uneasy.</p> +<p>‘I do greatly admire Tennyson,’ he said.</p> +<p>‘What do you admire? You have hardly looked at +him.’</p> +<p>‘I saw a very good review of him. I will look that +review up, by the way, before I come down again. Mr Maurice +was talking about it.’</p> +<p>Madge had a desire to say something, but she did not know what +to say, a burden lay upon her chest. It was that weight +which presses there when we are alone with those with whom we are +not strangers, but with whom we are not completely at home, and +she actually found herself impatient and half-desirous of +solitude. This must be criminal or disease, she thought to +herself, and she forcibly recalled Frank’s virtues. +She was so far successful that when they parted and he kissed +her, she was more than usually caressing, and her ardent embrace, +at least for the moment, relieved that unpleasant sensation in +the region of the heart. When he had gone she reasoned with +herself. What a miserable counterfeit of love, she argued, +is mere intellectual sympathy, a sympathy based on books! +What did Miranda know about Ferdinand’s ‘views’ +on this or that subject? Love is something independent of +‘views.’ It is an attraction which has always +been held to be inexplicable, but whatever it may be it is not +‘views.’ She was becoming a little weary, she +thought, of what was called ‘culture.’ These +creatures whom we know through Shakespeare and Goethe are +ghostly. What have we to do with them? It is idle +work to read or even to talk fine things about them. It +ends in nothing. What we really have to go through and that +which goes through it are interesting, but not circumstances and +character impossible to us. When Frank spoke of his +business, which he understood, he was wise, and some observations +which he made the other day, on the management of his workpeople, +would have been thought original if they had been printed. +The true artist knows that his hero must be a character shaping +events and shaped by them, and not a babbler about +literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible. He liked +to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be +his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all +that makes a man admirable, with courage, with perfect +unselfishness! How handsome he was, and then his passion +for her! She had read something of passion, but she never +knew till now what the white intensity of its flame in a man +could be. She was committed, too, happily committed; it was +an engagement.</p> +<p>Thus, whenever doubt obtruded itself, she poured a self-raised +tide over it and concealed it. Alas! it could not be washed +away; it was a little sharp rock based beneath the ocean’s +depths, and when the water ran low its dark point +reappeared. She was more successful, however, than many +women would have been, for, although her interest in ideas was +deep, there was fire in her blood, and Frank’s arm around +her made the world well nigh disappear; her surrender was entire, +and if Sinai had thundered in her ears she would not have +heard. She was destitute of that power, which her sister +possessed, of surveying herself from a distance. On the +contrary, her emotion enveloped her, and the safeguard of +reflection on it was impossible to her.</p> +<p>As to Frank, no doubt ever approached him. He was +intoxicated, and beside himself. He had been brought up in +a clean household, knowing nothing of the vice by which so many +young men are overcome, and woman hitherto had been a mystery to +him. Suddenly he found himself the possessor of a beautiful +creature, whose lips it was lawful to touch and whose heartbeats +he could feel as he pressed her to his breast. It was +permitted him to be alone with her, to sit on the floor and rest +his head on her knees, and he had ventured to capture one of her +slippers and carry it off to London, where he kept it locked up +amongst his treasures. If he had been drawn over Fenmarket +sluice in a winter flood he would not have been more incapable of +resistance.</p> +<p>Every now and then Clara thought she discerned in Madge that +she was not entirely content, but the cloud-shadows swept past so +rapidly and were followed by such dazzling sunshine that she was +perplexed and hoped that her sister’s occasional moodiness +might be due to parting and absence, or the anticipation of +them. She never ventured to say anything about Frank to +Madge, for there was something in her which forbade all approach +from that side. Once when he had shown his ignorance of +what was so familiar to the Hopgoods, and Clara had expected some +sign of dissatisfaction from her sister, she appeared +ostentatiously to champion him against anticipated +criticism. Clara interpreted the warning and was silent, +but, after she had left the room with her mother in order that +the lovers might be alone, she went upstairs and wept many +tears. Ah! it is a sad experience when the nearest and +dearest suspects that we are aware of secret disapproval, knows +that it is justifiable, throws up a rampart and becomes +defensively belligerent. From that moment all confidence is +at an end. Without a word, perhaps, the love and friendship +of years disappear, and in the place of two human beings +transparent to each other, there are two who are opaque and +indifferent. Bitter, bitter! If the cause of +separation were definite disagreement upon conduct or belief, we +could pluck up courage, approach and come to an understanding, +but it is impossible to bring to speech anything which is so +close to the heart, and there is, therefore, nothing left for us +but to submit and be dumb.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was now far into June, and Madge +and Frank extended their walks and returned later. He had +come down to spend his last Sunday with the Hopgoods before +starting with his father for Germany, and on the Monday they were +to leave London.</p> +<p>Wordsworth was one of the divinities at Stoke Newington, and +just before Frank visited Fenmarket that week, he had heard the +<i>Intimations of Immortality</i> read with great fervour. +Thinking that Madge would be pleased with him if she found that +he knew something about that famous Ode, and being really smitten +with some of the passages in it, he learnt it, and just as they +were about to turn homewards one sultry evening he suddenly began +to repeat it, and declaimed it to the end with much rhetorical +power.</p> +<p>‘Bravo!’ said Madge, ‘but, of all +Wordsworth’s poems, that is the one for which I believe I +care the least.’</p> +<p>Frank’s countenance fell.</p> +<p>‘Oh, me! I thought it was just what would suit +you.’</p> +<p>‘No, not particularly. There are some noble lines +in it; for example—</p> +<blockquote><p>“And custom lie upon thee with a weight,<br +/> +Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But the very title—<i>Intimations of Immortality from +Recollections of Early Childhood</i>—is unmeaning to me, +and as for the verse which is in everybody’s +mouth—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Our birth is but a sleep and a +forgetting;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and still worse the vision of “that immortal sea,” +and of the children who “sport upon the shore,” they +convey nothing whatever to me. I find though they are much +admired by the clergy of the better sort, and by certain +religiously-disposed people, to whom thinking is distasteful or +impossible. Because they cannot definitely believe, they +fling themselves with all the more fervour upon these cloudy +Wordsworthian phrases, and imagine they see something solid in +the coloured fog.’</p> +<p>It was now growing dark and a few heavy drops of rain began to +fall, but in a minute or two they ceased. Frank, contrary +to his usual wont, was silent. There was something +undiscovered in Madge, a region which he had not visited and +perhaps could not enter. She discerned in an instant what +she had done, and in an instant repented. He had taken so +much pains with a long piece of poetry for her sake: was not that +better than agreement in a set of propositions? Scores of +persons might think as she thought about the ode, who would not +spend a moment in doing anything to gratify her. It was +delightful also to reflect that Frank imagined she would +sympathise with anything written in that temper. She +recalled what she herself had said when somebody gave Clara a +copy in ‘Parian’ of a Greek statue, a thing coarse in +outline and vulgar. Clara was about to put it in a cupboard +in the attic, but Madge had pleaded so pathetically that the +donor had in a measure divined what her sister loved, and had +done her best, although she had made a mistake, that finally the +statue was placed on the bedroom mantelpiece. Madge’s +heart overflowed, and Frank had never attracted her so powerfully +as at that moment. She took his hand softly in hers.</p> +<p>‘Frank,’ she murmured, as she bent her head +towards him, ‘it is really a lovely poem.’</p> +<p>Suddenly there was a flash of forked lightning at some +distance, followed in a few seconds by a roll of thunder +increasing in intensity until the last reverberation seemed to +shake the ground. They took refuge in a little barn and sat +down. Madge, who was timid and excited in a thunderstorm, +closed her eyes to shield herself from the glare.</p> +<p>The tumult in the heavens lasted for nearly two hours and, +when it was over, Madge and Frank walked homewards without +speaking a word for a good part of the way.</p> +<p>‘I cannot, cannot go to-morrow,’ he suddenly +cried, as they neared the town.</p> +<p>‘You <i>shall</i> go,’ she replied calmly.</p> +<p>‘But, Madge, think of me in Germany, think what my +dreams and thoughts will be—you here—hundreds of +miles between us.’</p> +<p>She had never seen him so shaken with terror.</p> +<p>‘You <i>shall</i> go; not another word.’</p> +<p>‘I must say something—what can I say? My +God, my God, have mercy on me!’</p> +<p>‘Mercy! mercy!’ she repeated, half unconsciously, +and then rousing herself, exclaimed, ‘You shall not say it; +I will not hear; now, good-bye.’</p> +<p>They had come to the door; he went inside; she took his face +between her hands, left one kiss on his forehead, led him back to +the doorway and he heard the bolts drawn. When he recovered +himself he went to the ‘Crown and Sceptre’ and tried +to write a letter to her, but the words looked hateful, horrible +on the paper, and they were not the words he wanted. He +dared not go near the house the next morning, but as he passed it +on the coach he looked at the windows. Nobody was to be +seen, and that night he left England.</p> +<p>‘Did you hear,’ said Clara to her mother at +breakfast, ‘that the lightning struck one of the elms in +the avenue at Mrs Martin’s yesterday evening and splintered +it to the ground?’</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> a few days Madge received the +following letter:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">‘<span +class="smcap">Frankfort</span>, O. M.,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Hôtel Waidenbusch</span>.</p> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">My dearest Madge</span>,—I do +not know how to write to you. I have begun a dozen letters +but I cannot bring myself to speak of what lies before me, hiding +the whole world from me. Forgiveness! how is any +forgiveness possible? But Madge, my dearest Madge, remember +that my love is intenser than ever. What has happened has +bound you closer to me. I <i>implore</i> you to let me come +back. I will find a thousand excuses for returning, and we +will marry. We had vowed marriage to each other and why +should not our vows be fulfilled? Marriage, marriage <i>at +once</i>. You will not, you <i>cannot</i>, no, you +<i>cannot</i>, you must see you cannot refuse. My father +wishes to make this town his headquarters for ten days. +Write by return for mercy’s sake.—Your ever +devoted</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘<span +class="smcap">Frank</span>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The reply came only a day late.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">My dear +Frank</span>,—Forgiveness! Who is to be +forgiven? Not you. You believed you loved me, but I +doubted my love, and I know now that no true love for you +exists. We must part, and part forever. Whatever +wrong may have been done, marriage to avoid disgrace would be a +wrong to both of us infinitely greater. I owe you an +expiation; your release is all I can offer, and it is +insufficient. I can only plead that I was deaf and +blind. By some miracle, I cannot tell how, my ears and eyes +are opened, and I hear and see. It is not the first time in +my life that the truth has been revealed to me suddenly, +supernaturally, I may say, as if in a vision, and I know the +revelation is authentic. There must be no wavering, no +half-measures, and I absolutely forbid another letter from +you. If one arrives I must, for the sake of my own peace +and resolution, refuse to read it. You have simply to +announce to your father that the engagement is at an end, and +give no reasons.—Your faithful friend</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘<span class="smcap">Madge +Hopgood</span>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Another letter did come, but Madge was true to her word, and +it was returned unopened.</p> +<p>For a long time Frank was almost incapable of +reflection. He dwelt on an event which might happen, but +which he dared not name; and if it should happen! Pictures +of his father, his home his father’s friends, Fenmarket, +the Hopgood household, passed before him with such wild rapidity +and intermingled complexity that it seemed as if the reins had +dropped out of his hands and he was being hurried away to +madness.</p> +<p>He resisted with all his might this dreadful sweep of the +imagination, tried to bring himself back into sanity and to +devise schemes by which, although he was prohibited from writing +to Madge, he might obtain news of her. Her injunction might +not be final. There was but one hope for him, one +possibility of extrication, one necessity—their +marriage. It <i>must</i> be. He dared not think of +what might be the consequences if they did not marry.</p> +<p>Hitherto Madge had given no explanation to her mother or +sister of the rupture, but one morning—nearly two months +had now passed—Clara did not appear at breakfast.</p> +<p>‘Clara is not here,’ said Mrs Hopgood; ‘she +was very tired last night, perhaps it is better not to disturb +her.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, no! please let her alone. I will see if she +still sleeps.’</p> +<p>Madge went upstairs, opened her sister’s door +noiselessly, saw that she was not awake, and returned. When +breakfast was over she rose, and after walking up and down the +room once or twice, seated herself in the armchair by her +mother’s side. Her mother drew herself a little +nearer, and took Madge’s hand gently in her own.</p> +<p>‘Madge, my child, have you nothing to say to your +mother?’</p> +<p>‘Nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Cannot you tell me why Frank and you have parted? +Do you not think I ought to know something about such an event in +the life of one so close to me?’</p> +<p>‘I broke off the engagement: we were not suited to one +another.’</p> +<p>‘I thought as much; I honour you; a thousand times +better that you should separate now than find out your mistake +afterwards when it is irrevocable. Thank God, He has given +you such courage! But you must have suffered—I know +you must;’ and she tenderly kissed her daughter.</p> +<p>‘Oh, mother! mother!’ cried Madge, ‘what is +the worst—at least to—you—the worst that can +happen to a woman?’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood did not speak; something presented itself which +she refused to recognise, but she shuddered. Before she +could recover herself Madge broke out again,—</p> +<p>‘It has happened to me; mother, your daughter has +wrecked your peace for ever!’</p> +<p>‘And he has abandoned you?’</p> +<p>‘No, no; I told you it was I who left him.’</p> +<p>It was Mrs Hopgood’s custom, when any evil news was +suddenly communicated to her, to withdraw at once if possible to +her own room. She detached herself from Madge, rose, and, +without a word, went upstairs and locked her door. The +struggle was terrible. So much thought, so much care, such +an education, such noble qualities, and they had not accomplished +what ordinary ignorant Fenmarket mothers and daughters were able +to achieve! This fine life, then, was a failure, and a +perfect example of literary and artistic training had gone the +way of the common wenches whose affiliation cases figured in the +county newspaper. She was shaken and bewildered. She +was neither orthodox nor secular. She was too strong to be +afraid that what she disbelieved could be true, and yet a fatal +weakness had been disclosed in what had been set up as its +substitute. She could not treat her child as a sinner who +was to be tortured into something like madness by immitigable +punishment, but, on the other hand, she felt that this sorrow was +unlike other sorrows and that it could never be healed. For +some time she was powerless, blown this way and that way by +contradictory storms, and unable to determine herself to any +point whatever. She was not, however, new to the +tempest. She had lived and had survived when she thought +she must have gone down. She had learned the wisdom which +the passage through desperate straits can bring. At last +she prayed and in a few minutes a message was whispered to +her. She went into the breakfast-room and seated herself +again by Madge. Neither uttered a word, but Madge fell down +before her, and, with a great cry, buried her face in her +mother’s lap. She remained kneeling for some time +waiting for a rebuke, but none came. Presently she felt +smoothing hands on her head and the soft impress of lips. +So was she judged.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was settled that they should +leave Fenmarket. Their departure caused but little +surprise. They had scarcely any friends, and it was always +conjectured that people so peculiar would ultimately find their +way to London. They were particularly desirous to conceal +their movements, and therefore determined to warehouse their +furniture in town, to take furnished apartments there for three +months, and then to move elsewhere. Any letters which might +arrive at Fenmarket for them during these three months would be +sent to them at their new address; nothing probably would come +afterwards, and as nobody in Fenmarket would care to take any +trouble about them, their trace would become obliterated. +They found some rooms near Myddelton Square, Pentonville, not a +particularly cheerful place, but they wished to avoid a more +distant suburb, and Pentonville was cheap. Fortunately for +them they had no difficulty whatever in getting rid of the +Fenmarket house for the remainder of their term.</p> +<p>For a little while London diverted them after a fashion, but +the absence of household cares told upon them. They had +nothing to do but to read and to take dismal walks through +Islington and Barnsbury, and the gloom of the outlook thickened +as the days became shorter and the smoke began to darken the +air. Madge was naturally more oppressed than the others, +not only by reason of her temperament, but because she was the +author of the trouble which had befallen them. Her mother +and Clara did everything to sustain and to cheer her. They +possessed the rare virtue of continuous tenderness. The +love, which with many is an inspiration, was with them their own +selves, from which they could not be separated; a harsh word +could not therefore escape from them. It was as impossible +as that there should be any failure in the pressure with which +the rocks press towards the earth’s centre. Madge at +times was very far gone in melancholy. How different this +thing looked when it was close at hand; when she personally was +to be the victim! She had read about it in history, the +surface of which it seemed scarcely to ripple; it had been turned +to music in some of her favourite poems and had lent a charm to +innumerable mythologies, but the actual fact was nothing like the +poetry or mythology, and threatened to ruin her own history +altogether. Nor would it be her own history solely, but +more or less that of her mother and sister.</p> +<p>Had she believed in the common creed, her attention would have +been concentrated on the salvation of her own soul; she would +have found her Redeemer and would have been comparatively at +peace; she would have acknowledged herself convicted of infinite +sin, and hell would have been opened before her, but above the +sin and the hell she would have seen the distinct image of the +Mediator abolishing both. Popular theology makes personal +salvation of such immense importance that, in comparison +therewith, we lose sight of the consequences to others of our +misdeeds. The sense of cruel injustice to those who loved +her remained with Madge perpetually.</p> +<p>To obtain relief she often went out of London for the day; +sometimes her mother and sister went with her; sometimes she +insisted on going alone. One autumn morning, she found +herself at Letherhead, the longest trip she had undertaken, for +there were scarcely any railways then. She wandered about +till she discovered a footpath which took her to a mill-pond, +which spread itself out into a little lake. It was fed by +springs which burst up through the ground. She watched at +one particular point, and saw the water boil up with such force +that it cleared a space of a dozen yards in diameter from every +weed, and formed a transparent pool just tinted with that pale +azure which is peculiar to the living fountains which break out +from the bottom of the chalk. She was fascinated for a +moment by the spectacle, and reflected upon it, but she passed +on. In about three-quarters of an hour she found herself +near a church, larger than an ordinary village church, and, as +she was tired, and the gate of the church porch was open, she +entered and sat down. The sun streamed in upon her, and +some sheep which had strayed into the churchyard from the +adjoining open field came almost close to her, unalarmed, and +looked in her face. The quiet was complete, and the air so +still, that a yellow leaf dropping here and there from the +churchyard elms—just beginning to turn—fell +quiveringly in a straight path to the earth. Sick at heart +and despairing, she could not help being touched, and she thought +to herself how strange the world is—so transcendent both in +glory and horror; a world capable of such scenes as those before +her, and a world in which such suffering as hers could be; a +world infinite both ways. The porch gate was open because +the organist was about to practise, and in another instant she +was listening to the <i>Kyrie</i> from Beethoven’s Mass in +C. She knew it; Frank had tried to give her some notion of +it on the piano, and since she had been in London she had heard +it at St Mary’s, Moorfields. She broke down and wept, +but there was something new in her sorrow, and it seemed as if a +certain Pity overshadowed her.</p> +<p>She had barely recovered herself when she saw a woman, +apparently about fifty, coming towards her with a wicker basket +on her arm. She sat down beside Madge, put her basket on +the ground, and wiped her face with her apron.</p> +<p>‘Marnin’ miss! its rayther hot walkin’, +isn’t it? I’ve come all the way from Darkin, +and I’m goin’ to Great Oakhurst. That’s a +longish step there and back again; not that this is the nearest +way, but I don’t like climbing them hills, and then when I +get to Letherhead I shall have a lift in a cart.’</p> +<p>Madge felt bound to say something as the sunburnt face looked +kind and motherly.</p> +<p>‘I suppose you live at Great Oakhurst?’</p> +<p>‘Yes. I do: my husband, God bless him! he was a +kind of foreman at The Towers, and when he died I was left alone +and didn’t know what to be at, as both my daughters were +out and one married; so I took the general shop at Great +Oakhurst, as Longwood used to have, but it don’t pay for I +ain’t used to it, and the house is too big for me, and +there isn’t nobody proper to mind it when I goes over to +Darkin for anything.’</p> +<p>‘Are you going to leave?’</p> +<p>‘Well, I don’t quite know yet, miss, but I thinks +I shall live with my daughter in London. She’s +married a cabinetmaker in Great Ormond Street: they let lodgings, +too. Maybe you know that part?’</p> +<p>‘No, I do not.’</p> +<p>‘You don’t live in London, then?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I do. I came from London this +morning.’</p> +<p>‘The Lord have mercy on us, did you though! I +suppose, then, you’re a-visitin’ here. I know +most of the folk hereabouts.’</p> +<p>‘No: I am going back this afternoon.’</p> +<p>Her interrogator was puzzled and her curiosity +stimulated. Presently she looked in Madge’s face.</p> +<p>‘Ah! my poor dear, you’ll excuse me, I don’t +mean to be forward, but I see you’ve been a-cryin’: +there’s somebody buried here.’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>That was all she could say. The walk from Letherhead, +and the excitement had been too much for her and she +fainted. Mrs Caffyn, for that was her name, was used to +fainting fits. She was often ‘a bit faint’ +herself, and she instantly loosened Madge’s gown, brought +out some smelling-salts and also a little bottle of brandy and +water. Something suddenly struck her. She took up +Madge’s hand: there was no wedding ring on it.</p> +<p>Presently her patient recovered herself.</p> +<p>‘Look you now, my dear; you aren’t noways fit to +go back to London to-day. If you was my child you +shouldn’t do it for all the gold in the Indies, no, nor you +sha’n’t now. I shouldn’t have a wink of +sleep this night if I let you go, and if anything were to happen +to you it would be me as ’ud have to answer for +it.’</p> +<p>‘But I must go; my mother and sister will not know what +has become of me.’</p> +<p>‘You leave that to me; I tell you again as you +can’t go. I’ve been a mother myself, and I +haven’t had children for nothing. I was just +a-goin’ to send a little parcel up to my daughter by the +coach, and her husband’s a-goin’ to meet it. +She’d left something behind last week when she was with me, +and I thought I’d get a bit of fresh butter here for her +and put along with it. They make better butter in the farm +in the bottom there, than they do at Great Oakhurst. A note +inside now will get to your mother all right; you have a bit of +something to eat and drink here, and you’ll be able to walk +along of me just into Letherhead, and then you can ride to Great +Oakhurst; it’s only about two miles, and you can stay there +all night.’</p> +<p>Madge was greatly touched; she took Mrs Caffyn’s hands +in hers, pressed them both and consented. She was very +weary, and the stamp on Mrs Caffyn’s countenance was +indubitable; it was evidently no forgery, but of royal +mintage. They walked slowly to Letherhead, and there they +found the carrier’s cart, which took them to Great +Oakhurst.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs Caffyn’s</span> house was a +roomy old cottage near the church, with a bow-window in which +were displayed bottles of ‘suckers,’ and of Day & +Martin’s blacking, cotton stuffs, a bag of nuts and some +mugs, cups and saucers. Inside were salt butter, +washing-blue, drapery, treacle, starch, tea, tobacco and snuff, +cheese, matches, bacon, and a few drugs, such as black draught, +magnesia, pills, sulphur, dill-water, Dalby’s Carminative, +and steel-drops. There was also a small stock of +writing-paper, string and tin ware. A boy was behind the +counter. When Mrs Caffyn was out he always asked the +customers who desired any article, the sale of which was in any +degree an art, to call again when she returned. He went as +far as those things which were put up in packets, such as what +were called ‘grits’ for making gruel, and he was also +authorised to venture on pennyworths of liquorice and +peppermints, but the sale of half-a-dozen yards of cotton print +was as much above him as the negotiation of a treaty of peace +would be to a messenger in the Foreign Office. In fact, +nobody, excepting children, went into the shop when Mrs Caffyn +was not to be seen there, and, if she had to go to Dorking or +Letherhead on business, she always chose the middle of the day, +when the folk were busy at their homes or in the fields. +Poor woman! she was much tried. Half the people who dealt +with her were in her debt, but she could not press them for her +money. During winter-time they were discharged by the score +from their farms, but as they were not sufficiently philosophic, +or sufficiently considerate for their fellows to hang or drown +themselves, they were obliged to consume food, and to wear +clothes, for which they tried to pay by instalments during +spring, summer and autumn. Mrs Caffyn managed to make both +ends meet by the help of two or three pigs, by great economy, and +by letting some of her superfluous rooms. Great Oakhurst +was not a show place nor a Spa, but the Letherhead doctor had +once recommended her to a physician in London, who occasionally +sent her a patient who wanted nothing but rest and fresh +air. She also, during the shooting-season, was often asked +to find a bedroom for visitors to The Towers.</p> +<p>She might have done better had she been on thoroughly good +terms with the parson. She attended church on Sunday +morning with tolerable regularity. She never went inside a +dissenting chapel, and was not heretical on any definite +theological point, but the rector and she were not friends. +She had lived in Surrey ever since she was a child, but she was +not Surrey born. Both her father and mother came from the +north country, and migrated southwards when she was very +young. They were better educated than the southerners +amongst whom they came; and although their daughter had no +schooling beyond what was obtainable in a Surrey village of that +time, she was distinguished by a certain superiority which she +had inherited or acquired from her parents. She was never +subservient to the rector after the fashion of her neighbours; +she never curtsied to him, and if he passed and nodded she said +‘Marnin’, sir,’ in just the same tone as that +in which she said it to the smallest of the Great Oakhurst +farmers. Her church-going was an official duty incumbent +upon her as the proprietor of the only shop in the parish. +She had nothing to do with church matters except on Sunday, and +she even went so far as to neglect to send for the rector when +one of her children lay dying. She was attacked for the +omission, but she defended herself.</p> +<p>‘What was the use when the poor dear was only seven year +old? What call was there for him to come to a blessed +innocent like that? I did tell him to look in when my +husband was took, for I know as before we were married there was +something atween him and that gal Sanders. He never would +own up to me about it, and I thought as he might to a clergyman, +and, if he did, it would ease his mind and make it a bit better +for him afterwards; but, Lord! it warn’t no use, for he +went off and we didn’t so much as hear her name, not even +when he was a-wandering. I says to myself when the parson +left, “What’s the good of having +you?”’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn was a Christian, but she was a disciple of St James +rather than of St Paul. She believed, of course, the +doctrines of the Catechism, in the sense that she denied none, +and would have assented to all if she had been questioned +thereon; but her belief that ‘faith, if it hath not works, +is dead, being alone,’ was something very vivid and very +practical.</p> +<p>Her estimate, too, of the relative values of the virtues and +of the relative sinfulness of sins was original, and the rector +therefore told all his parishioners that she was little better +than a heathen. The common failings in that part of the +country amongst the poor were Saturday-night drunkenness and +looseness in the relations between the young men and young +women. Mrs Caffyn’s indignation never rose to the +correct boiling point against these crimes. The rector once +ventured to say, as the case was next door to her,—</p> +<p>‘It is very sad, is it not, Mrs Caffyn, that Polesden +should be so addicted to drink. I hope he did not disturb +you last Saturday night. I have given the constable +directions to look after the street more closely on Saturday +evening, and if Polesden again offends he must be taken +up.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn was behind her own counter. She had just +served a customer with two ounces of Dutch cheese, and she sat +down on her stool. Being rather a heavy woman she always +sat down when she was not busy, and she never rose merely to +talk.</p> +<p>‘Yes, it is sad, sir, and Polesden isn’t no +particular friend of mine, but I tell you what’s sad too, +sir, and that’s the way them people are mucked up in that +cottage. Why, their living room opens straight on the road, +and the wind comes in fit to blow your head off, and when he goes +home o’ nights, there’s them children a-squalling, +and he can’t bide there and do nothing.’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid, though, Mrs Caffyn, there must be +something radically wrong with that family. I suppose you +know all about the eldest daughter?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir, I <i>have</i> heard it: it wouldn’t be +Great Oakhurst if I hadn’t, but p’r’aps, sir, +you’ve never been upstairs in that house, and yet a house +it isn’t. There’s just two sleeping-rooms, +that’s all; it’s shameful, it isn’t +decent. Well, that gal, she goes away to service. +Maybe, sir, them premises at the farm are also unbeknown to +you. In the back kitchen there’s a broadish sort of +shelf as Jim climbs into o’ nights, and it has a rail round +it to keep you from a-falling out, and there’s a ladder as +they draws up in the day as goes straight up from that kitchen to +the gal’s bedroom door. It’s downright +disgraceful, and I don’t believe the Lord A’mighty +would be marciful to neither of <i>us</i> if we was tried like +that.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn bethought herself of the ‘us’ and was +afraid that even she had gone a little too far; ‘leastways, +speaking for myself, sir,’ she added.</p> +<p>The rector turned rather red, and repented his attempt to +enlist Mrs Caffyn.</p> +<p>‘If the temptations are so great, Mrs Caffyn, that is +all the more reason why those who are liable to them should seek +the means which are provided in order that they may be +overcome. I believe the Polesdens are very lax attendants +at church, and I don’t think they ever +communicated.’</p> +<p>Mrs Polesden at that moment came in for an ounce of tea, and +as Mrs Caffyn rose to weigh it, the rector departed with a stiff +‘good-morning,’ made to do duty for both women.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs Caffyn</span> persuaded Madge to go to +bed at once, after giving her ‘something to comfort +her.’ In the morning her kind hostess came to her +bedside.</p> +<p>‘You’ve got a mother, haven’t +you—leastways, I know you have, because you wrote to +her.’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Well, and you lives with her and she looks after +you?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘And she’s fond of you, maybe?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, yes.’</p> +<p>‘That’s a marcy; well then, my dear, you shall go +back in the cart to Letherhead, and you’ll catch the Darkin +coach to London.’</p> +<p>‘You have been very good to me; what have I to pay +you?’</p> +<p>‘Pay? Nothing! why, if I was to let you pay, it +would just look as if I’d trapped you here to get something +out of you. Pay! no, not a penny.’</p> +<p>‘I can afford very well to pay, but if it vexes you I +will not offer anything. I don’t know how to thank +you enough.’</p> +<p>Madge took Mrs Caffyn’s hand in hers and pressed it +firmly.</p> +<p>‘Besides, my dear,’ said Mrs Caffyn, smoothing the +sheets a little, ‘you won’t mind my saying it, I +expex you are in trouble. There’s something on your +mind, and I believe as I knows pretty well what it is.’</p> +<p>Madge turned round in the bed so as no longer to face the +light; Mrs Caffyn sat between her and the window.</p> +<p>‘Look you here, my dear; don’t you suppose I meant +to say anything to hurt you. The moment I looked on you I +was drawed to you like; I couldn’t help it. I +see’d what was the matter, but I was all the more drawed, +and I just wanted you to know as it makes no difference. +That’s like me; sometimes I’m drawed that way and +sometimes t’other way, and it’s never no use for me +to try to go against it. I ain’t a-going to say +anything more to you; God-A’mighty, He’s above us +all; but p’r’aps you may be comm’ this way +again some day, and then you’ll look in.’</p> +<p>Madge turned again to the light, and again caught Mrs +Caffyn’s hand, but was silent.</p> +<p>The next morning, after Madge’s return, Mrs Cork, the +landlady, presented herself at the sitting-room door and +‘wished to speak with Mrs Hopgood for a minute.’</p> +<p>‘Come in, Mrs Cork.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you, ma’am, but I prefer as you should come +downstairs.’</p> +<p>Mrs Cork was about forty, a widow with no children. She +had a face of which it was impossible to recollect, when it had +been seen even a dozen times, any feature except the eyes, which +were steel-blue, a little bluer than the faceted head of the +steel poker in her parlour, but just as hard. She lived in +the basement with a maid, much like herself but a little more +human. Although the front underground room was furnished +Mrs Cork never used it, except on the rarest occasions, and a +kind of apron of coloured paper hung over the fireplace nearly +all the year. She was a woman of what she called regular +habits. No lodger was ever permitted to transgress her +rules, or to have meals ten minutes before or ten minutes after +the appointed time. She had undoubtedly been married, but +who Cork could have been was a marvel. Why he died, and why +there were never any children were no marvels. At two +o’clock her grate was screwed up to the narrowest possible +dimensions, and the ashes, potato peelings, tea leaves and +cabbage stalks were thrown on the poor, struggling coals. +No meat, by the way, was ever roasted—it was considered +wasteful—everything was baked or boiled. After +half-past four not a bit of anything that was not cold was +allowed till the next morning, and, indeed, from the first of +April to the thirty-first of October the fire was raked out the +moment tea was over. Mrs Hopgood one night was not very +well and Clara wished to give her mother something warm. +She rang the bell and asked for hot water. Maria came up +and disappeared without a word after receiving the message. +Presently she returned.</p> +<p>‘Mrs Cork, miss, wishes me to tell you as it was never +understood as ’ot water would be required after tea, and +she hasn’t got any.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood had a fire, although it was not yet the +thirty-first of October, for it was very damp and raw. She +had with much difficulty induced Mrs Cork to concede this favour +(which probably would not have been granted if the coals had not +yielded a profit of threepence a scuttleful), and Clara, +therefore, asked if she could not have the kettle upstairs. +Again Maria disappeared and returned.</p> +<p>‘Mrs Cork says, miss, as it’s very ill-convenient +as the kettle is cleaned up agin to-morrow, and if you can do +without it she will be obliged.’</p> +<p>It was of no use to continue the contest, and Clara bethought +herself of a little ‘Etna’ she had in her +bedroom. She went to the druggist’s, bought some +methylated spirit, and obtained what she wanted.</p> +<p>Mrs Cork had one virtue and one weakness. Her virtue was +cleanliness, but she persecuted the ‘blacks,’ not +because she objected to dirt as dirt, but because it was +unauthorised, appeared without permission at irregular hours, and +because the glittering polish on varnished paint and red mahogany +was a pleasure to her. She liked the dirt, too, in a way, +for she enjoyed the exercise of her ill-temper on it and the +pursuit of it to destruction. Her weakness was an enormous +tom-cat which had a bell round its neck and slept in a basket in +the kitchen, the best-behaved and most moral cat in the +parish. At half-past nine every evening it was let out into +the back-yard and vanished. At ten precisely it was heard +to mew and was immediately admitted. Not once in a +twelvemonth did that cat prolong its love making after five +minutes to ten.</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood went upstairs to her room, Mrs Cork following and +closing the door.</p> +<p>‘If you please, ma’am, I wish to give you notice +to leave this day week.’</p> +<p>‘What is the matter, Mrs Cork?’</p> +<p>‘Well, ma’am, for one thing, I didn’t know +as you’d bring a bird with you.’</p> +<p>It was a pet bird belonging to Madge.</p> +<p>‘But what harm does the bird do? It gives no +trouble; my daughter attends to it.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, ma’am, but it worrits my Joseph—the +cat, I mean. I found him the other mornin’ on the +table eyin’ it, and I can’t a-bear to see him +urritated.’</p> +<p>‘I should hardly have thought that a reason for parting +with good lodgers.’</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood had intended to move, as before explained, but she +did not wish to go till the three months had expired.</p> +<p>‘I don’t say as that is everything, but if you +wish me to tell you the truth, Miss Madge is not a person as I +like to keep in the house. I wish you to +know’—Mrs Cork suddenly became excited and +venomous—‘that I’m a respectable woman, and +have always let my apartments to respectable people, and do you +think I should ever let them to respectable people again if it +got about as I had had anybody as wasn’t respectable? +Where was she last night? And do you suppose as me as has +been a married woman can’t see the condition she’s +in? I say as you, Mrs Hopgood, ought to be ashamed of +yourself for bringing of such a person into a house like mine, +and you’ll please vacate these premises on the day +named.’ She did not wait for an answer, but banged +the door after her, and went down to her subterranean den.</p> +<p>Mrs Hopgood did not tell her children the true reason for +leaving. She merely said that Mrs Cork had been very +impertinent, and that they must look out for other rooms. +Madge instantly recollected Great Ormond Street, but she did not +know the number, and oddly enough she had completely forgotten +Mrs Caffyn’s name. It was a peculiar name, she had +heard it only once, she had not noticed it over the door, and her +exhaustion may have had something to do with her loss of +memory. She could not therefore write, and Mrs Hopgood +determined that she herself would go to Great Oakhurst. She +had another reason for her journey. She wished her kind +friend there to see that Madge had really a mother who cared for +her. She was anxious to confirm Madge’s story, and +Mrs Caffyn’s confidence. Clara desired to go also, +but Mrs Hopgood would not leave Madge alone, and the expense of a +double fare was considered unnecessary.</p> +<p>When Mrs Hopgood came to Letherhead on her return, the coach +was full inside, and she was obliged to ride outside, although +the weather was cold and threatening. In about half an hour +it began to rain heavily, and by the time she was in Pentonville +she was wet through. The next morning she ought to have +lain in bed, but she came down at her accustomed hour as Mrs Cork +was more than usually disagreeable, and it was settled that they +would leave at once if the rooms in Great Ormond Street were +available. Clara went there directly after breakfast, and +saw Mrs Marshall, who had already received an introductory letter +from her mother.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Marshall family included +Marshall and his wife. He was rather a small man, with +blackish hair, small lips, and with a nose just a little turned +up at the tip. As we have been informed, he was a +cabinet-maker. He worked for very good shops, and earned +about two pounds a week. He read books, but he did not know +their value, and often fancied he had made a great discovery on a +bookstall of an author long ago superseded and worthless. +He belonged to a mechanic’s institute, and was fond of +animal physiology; heard courses of lectures on it at the +institute, and had studied two or three elementary +handbooks. He found in a second-hand dealer’s shop a +model, which could be taken to pieces, of the inside of the human +body. He had also bought a diagram of a man, showing the +circulation, and this he had hung in his bedroom, his +mother-in-law objecting most strongly on the ground that its +effect on his wife was injurious. He had a notion that the +world might be regenerated if men and women were properly +instructed in physiological science, and if before marriage they +would study their own physical peculiarities, and those of their +intended partners. The crossing of peculiarities +nevertheless presented difficulties. A man with long legs +surely ought to choose a woman with short legs, but if a man who +was mathematical married a woman who was mathematical, the result +might be a mathematical prodigy. On the other hand the +parents of the prodigy might each have corresponding qualities, +which, mixed with the mathematical tendency, would completely +nullify it. The path of duty therefore was by no means +plain. However, Marshall was sure that great cities dwarfed +their inhabitants, and as he himself was not so tall as his +father, and, moreover, suffered from bad digestion, and had a +tendency to ‘run to head,’ he determined to select as +his wife a ‘daughter of the soil,’ to use his own +phrase, above the average height, with a vigorous constitution +and plenty of common sense. She need not be bookish, +‘he could supply all that himself.’ +Accordingly, he married Sarah Caffyn. His mother and Mrs +Caffyn had been early friends. He was not mistaken in +Sarah. She was certainly robust; she was a shrewd +housekeeper, and she never read anything, except now and then a +paragraph or two in the weekly newspaper, notwithstanding (for +there were no children), time hung rather heavily on her +hands. One child had been born, but to Marshall’s +surprise and disappointment it was a poor, rickety thing, and +died before it was a twelvemonth old.</p> +<p>Mrs Marshall was not a very happy woman. Marshall was a +great politician and spent many of his evenings away from home at +political meetings. He never informed her what he had been +doing, and if he had told her, she would neither have understood +nor cared anything about it. At Great Oakhurst she heard +everything and took an interest in it, and she often wished with +all her heart that the subject which occupied Marshall’s +thoughts was not Chartism but the draining of that heavy, +rush-grown bit of rough pasture that lay at the bottom of the +village. He was very good and kind to her, and she never +imagined, before marriage, that he ought to be more. She +was sure that at Great Oakhurst she would have been quite +comfortable with him but somehow, in London, it was +different. ‘I don’t know how it is,’ she +said one day, ‘the sort of husband as does for the country +doesn’t do for London.’</p> +<p>At Great Oakhurst, where the doors were always open into the +yard and the garden, where every house was merely a covered bit +of the open space, where people were always in and out, and women +never sat down, except to their meals, or to do a little +stitching or sewing, it was really not necessary, as Mrs Caffyn +observed, that husband and wife should ‘hit it so +fine.’ Mrs Marshall hated all the conveniences of +London. She abominated particularly the taps, and longed to +be obliged in all weathers to go out to the well and wind up the +bucket. She abominated also the dust-bin, for it was a +pleasure to be compelled—so at least she thought it +now—to walk down to the muck-heap and throw on it what the +pig could not eat. Nay, she even missed that corner of the +garden against the elder-tree, where the pig-stye was, for +‘you could smell the elder-flowers there in the +spring-time, and the pig-stye wasn’t as bad as the stuffy +back room in Great Ormond Street when three or four men were in +it.’ She did all she could to spend her energy on her +cooking and cleaning, but ‘there was no satisfaction in +it,’ and she became much depressed, especially after the +child died. This was the main reason why Mrs Caffyn +determined to live with her. Marshall was glad she resolved +to come. His wife had her full share of the common sense he +desired, but the experiment had not altogether succeeded. +He knew she was lonely, and he was sorry for her, although he did +not see how he could mend matters. He reflected carefully, +nothing had happened which was a surprise to him, the +relationship was what he had supposed it would be, excepting that +the child did not live and its mother was a little +miserable. There was nothing he would not do for her, but +he really had nothing more to offer her.</p> +<p>Although Mrs Marshall had made up her mind that husbands and +wives could not be as contented with one another in the big city +as they would be in a village, a suspicion crossed her mind one +day that, even in London, the relationship might be different +from her own. She was returning from Great Oakhurst after a +visit to her mother. She had stayed there for about a month +after her child’s death, and she travelled back to town +with a Letherhead woman, who had married a journeyman tanner, who +formerly worked in the Letherhead tan-yard, and had now moved to +Bermondsey, a horrid hole, worse than Great Ormond Street. +Both Marshall and the tanner were at the ‘Swan with Two +Necks’ to meet the covered van, and the tanner’s wife +jumped out first.</p> +<p>‘Hullo, old gal, here you are,’ cried the tanner, +and clasped her in his brown, bark-stained arms, giving her, +nothing loth, two or three hearty kisses. They were so much +excited at meeting one another, that they forgot their friends, +and marched off without bidding them good-bye. Mrs Marshall +was welcomed in quieter fashion.</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ she thought to herself. ‘Red +Tom,’ as the tanner was called, ‘is not used to +London ways. They are, perhaps, correct for London, but +Marshall might now and then remember that I have not been brought +up to them.’</p> +<p>To return, however, to the Hopgoods. Before the +afternoon they were in their new quarters, happily for them, for +Mrs Hopgood became worse. On the morrow she was seriously +ill, inflammation of the lungs appeared, and in a week she was +dead. What Clara and Madge suffered cannot be told +here. Whenever anybody whom we love dies, we discover that +although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We +may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close to +us, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are +entirely unprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss +so much as the strength of the bond which is broken that is the +surprise, and we are debtors in a way to death for revealing +something in us which ordinary life disguises. Long after +the first madness of their grief had passed, Clara and Madge were +astonished to find how dependent they had been on their +mother. They were grown-up women accustomed to act for +themselves, but they felt unsteady, and as if deprived of +customary support. The reference to her had been constant, +although it was often silent, and they were not conscious of +it. A defence from the outside waste desert had been broken +down, their mother had always seemed to intervene between them +and the world, and now they were exposed and shelterless.</p> +<p>Three parts of Mrs Hopgood’s little income was mainly an +annuity, and Clara and Madge found that between them they had but +seventy-five pounds a year.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Frank</span> could not rest. He +wrote again to Clara at Fenmarket; the letter went to Mrs +Cork’s, and was returned to him. He saw that the +Hopgoods had left Fenmarket, and suspecting the reason, he +determined at any cost to go home. He accordingly alleged +ill-health, a pretext not altogether fictitious, and within a few +days after the returned letter reached him he was back at Stoke +Newington. He went immediately to the address in +Pentonville which he found on the envelope, but was very shortly +informed by Mrs Cork that ‘she knew nothing whatever about +them.’ He walked round Myddelton Square, hopeless, +for he had no clue whatever.</p> +<p>What had happened to him would scarcely, perhaps, have caused +some young men much uneasiness, but with Frank the case was +altogether different. There was a chance of discovery, and +if his crime should come to light his whole future life would be +ruined. He pictured his excommunication, his father’s +agony, and it was only when it seemed possible that the water +might close over the ghastly thing thrown in it, and no ripple +reveal what lay underneath, that he was able to breathe +again. Immediately he asked himself, however, <i>if</i> he +could live with his father and wear a mask, and never betray his +dreadful secret. So he wandered homeward in the most +miserable of all conditions; he was paralysed by the intricacy of +the coil which enveloped and grasped him.</p> +<p>That evening it happened that there was a musical party at his +father’s house; and, of course, he was expected to +assist. It would have suited his mood better if he could +have been in his own room, or out in the streets, but absence +would have been inconsistent with his disguise, and might have +led to betrayal. Consequently he was present, and the +gaiety of the company and the excitement of his favourite +exercise, brought about for a time forgetfulness of his +trouble. Amongst the performers was a distant cousin, +Cecilia Morland, a young woman rather tall and fully developed; +not strikingly beautiful, but with a lovely reddish-brown tint on +her face, indicative of healthy, warm, rich pulsations. She +possessed a contralto voice, of a quality like that of a +blackbird, and it fell to her and to Frank to sing. She was +dressed in a fashion perhaps a little more courtly than was usual +in the gatherings at Mr Palmer’s house, and Frank, as he +stood beside her at the piano, could not restrain his eyes from +straying every now and then a way from his music to her +shoulders, and once nearly lost himself, during a solo which +required a little unusual exertion, in watching the movement of a +locket and of what was for a moment revealed beneath it. He +escorted her amidst applause to a corner of the room, and the two +sat down side by side.</p> +<p>‘What a long time it is, Frank, since you and I sang +that duet together. We have seen nothing of you +lately.’</p> +<p>‘Of course not; I was in Germany.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, but I think you deserted us before then. Do +you remember that summer when we were all together at Bonchurch, +and the part songs which astonished our neighbours just as it was +growing dark? I recollect you and I tried together that +very duet for the first time with the old lodging-house +piano.’</p> +<p>Frank remembered that evening well.</p> +<p>‘You sang better than you did to-night. You did +not keep time: what were you dreaming about?’</p> +<p>‘How hot the room is! Do you not feel it +oppressive? Let us go into the conservatory for a +minute.’</p> +<p>The door was behind them and they slipped in and sat down, +just inside, and under the orange tree.</p> +<p>‘You must not be away so long again. Now mind, we +have a musical evening this day fortnight. You will +come? Promise; and we must sing that duet again, and sing +it properly.’</p> +<p>He did not reply, but he stooped down, plucked a blood-red +begonia, and gave it to her.</p> +<p>‘That is a pledge. It is very good of +you.’</p> +<p>She tried to fasten it in her gown, underneath the locket, but +she dropped a little black pin. He went down on his knees +to find it; rose, and put the flower in its proper place himself, +and his head nearly touched her neck, quite unnecessarily.</p> +<p>‘We had better go back now,’ she said, ‘but +mind, I shall keep this flower for a fortnight and a day, and if +you make any excuses I shall return it faded and +withered.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I will come.’</p> +<p>‘Good boy; no apologies like those you sent the last +time. No bad throat. Play me false, and there will be +a pretty rebuke for you—a dead flower.’</p> +<p><i>Play me false</i>! It was as if there were some +stoppage in a main artery to his brain. <i>Play me +false</i>! It rang in his ears, and for a moment he saw +nothing but the scene at the Hall with Miranda. Fortunately +for him, somebody claimed Cecilia, and he slunk back into the +greenhouse.</p> +<p>One of Mr Palmer’s favourite ballads was <i>The Three +Ravens</i>. Its pathos unfits it for an ordinary +drawing-room, but as the music at Mr Palmer’s was not of +the common kind, <i>The Three Ravens</i> was put on the list for +that night.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<i>She was dead herself ere evensong +time</i>. <i>With a down</i>, <i>hey down</i>, <i>hey +down</i>,<br /> +<i>God send every gentleman</i><br /> +<i>Such hawks</i>, <i>such hounds</i>, <i>and such a +leman</i>. <i>With down</i>, <i>hey down</i>, <i>hey +down</i>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Frank knew well the prayer of that melody, and, as he +listened, he painted to himself, in the vividest colours, Madge +in a mean room, in a mean lodging, and perhaps dying. The +song ceased, and one for him stood next. He heard voices +calling him, but he passed out into the garden and went down to +the further end, hiding himself behind the shrubs. +Presently the inquiry for him ceased, and he was relieved by +hearing an instrumental piece begin.</p> +<p>Following on that presentation of Madge came self-torture for +his unfaithfulness. He scourged himself into what he +considered to be his duty. He recalled with an effort all +Madge’s charms, mental and bodily, and he tried to break +his heart for her. He was in anguish because he found that +in order to feel as he ought to feel some effort was necessary; +that treason to her was possible, and because he had looked with +such eyes upon his cousin that evening. He saw himself as +something separate from himself, and although he knew what he saw +to be flimsy and shallow, he could do nothing to deepen it, +absolutely nothing! It was not the betrayal of that +thunderstorm which now tormented him. He could have +represented that as a failure to be surmounted; he could have +repented it. It was his own inner being from which he +revolted, from limitations which are worse than crimes, for who, +by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature?</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> next morning found Frank once +more in Myddelton Square. He looked up at the house; the +windows were all shut, and the blinds were drawn down. He +had half a mind to call again, but Mrs Cork’s manner had +been so offensive and repellent that he desisted. Presently +the door opened, and Maria, the maid, came out to clean the +doorsteps. Maria, as we have already said, was a little +more human than her mistress, and having overheard the +conversation between her and Frank at the first interview, had +come to the conclusion that Frank was to be pitied, and she took +a fancy to him. Accordingly, when he passed her, she looked +up and said,—‘Good-morning.’ Frank +stopped, and returned her greeting.</p> +<p>‘You was here the other day, sir, asking where them +Hopgoods had gone.’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said Frank, eagerly, ‘do you know +what has become of them?’</p> +<p>‘I helped the cabman with the boxes, and I heard Mrs +Hopgood say “Great Ormond Street,” but I have +forgotten the number.’</p> +<p>‘Thank you very much.’</p> +<p>Frank gave the astonished and grateful Maria half-a-crown, and +went off to Great Ormond Street at once. He paced up and +down the street half a dozen times, hoping he might recognise in +a window some ornament from Fenmarket, or perhaps that he might +be able to distinguish a piece of Fenmarket furniture, but his +search was in vain, for the two girls had taken furnished rooms +at the back of the house. His quest was not renewed that +week. What was there to be gained by going over the ground +again? Perhaps they might have found the lodgings +unsuitable and have moved elsewhere. At church on Sunday he +met his cousin Cecilia, who reminded him of his promise.</p> +<p>‘See,’ she said, ‘here is the begonia. +I put it in my prayer-book in order to preserve it when I could +keep it in water no longer, and it has stained the leaf, and +spoilt the Athanasian Creed. You will have it sent to you +if you are faithless. Reflect on your emotions, sir, when +you receive a dead flower, and you have the bitter consciousness +also that you have damaged my creed without any +recompense.’</p> +<p>It was impossible not to protest that he had no thought of +breaking his engagement, although, to tell the truth, he had +wished once or twice he could find some way out of it. He +walked with her down the churchyard path to her carriage, +assisted her into it, saluted her father and mother, and then +went home with his own people.</p> +<p>The evening came, he sang with Cecilia, and it was observed, +and he himself observed it, how completely their voices +harmonised. He was not without a competitor, a handsome +young baritone, who was much commended. When he came to the +end of his performance everybody said what a pity it was that the +following duet could not also be given, a duet which Cecilia knew +perfectly well. She was very much pressed to take her part +with him, but she steadily refused, on the ground that she had +not practised it, that she had already sung once, and that she +was engaged to sing once more with her cousin. Frank was +sitting next to her, and she added, so as to be heard by him +alone, ‘He is no particular favourite of mine.’</p> +<p>There was no direct implication that Frank was a favourite, +but an inference was possible, and at least it was clear that she +preferred to reserve herself for him. Cecilia’s +gifts, her fortune, and her gay, happy face had made many a young +fellow restless, and had brought several proposals, none of which +had been accepted. All this Frank knew, and how could he +repress something more than satisfaction when he thought that +perhaps he might have been the reason why nobody as yet had been +able to win her. She always called him Frank, for although +they were not first cousins, they were cousins. He +generally called her Cecilia, but she was Cissy in her own +house. He was hardly close enough to venture upon the more +familiar nickname, but to-night, as they rose to go to the piano, +he said, and the baritone sat next to her,—</p> +<p>‘Now, <i>Cissy</i>, once more.’</p> +<p>She looked at him with just a little start of surprise, and a +smile spread itself over her face. After they had finished, +and she never sang better, the baritone noticed that she seemed +indisposed to return to her former place, and she retired with +Frank to the opposite corner of the room.</p> +<p>‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if being happy in a +thing is a sign of being born to do it. If it is, I am born +to be a musician.’</p> +<p>‘I should say it is; if two people are quite happy in +one another’s company, it is as a sign they were born for +one another.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, if they are sure they are happy. It is +easier for me to be sure that I am happier with a thing than with +a person.’</p> +<p>‘Do you think so? Why?’</p> +<p>‘There is the uncertainty whether the person is happy +with me. I cannot be altogether happy with anybody unless I +know I make him happy.’</p> +<p>‘What kind of person is he with whom you <i>could</i> be +without making him happy?’</p> +<p>The baritone rose to the upper F with a clash of chords on the +piano, and the company broke up. Frank went home with but +one thought in his head—the thought of Cecilia.</p> +<p>His bedroom faced the south-west, its windows were open, and +when he entered, the wind, which was gradually rising, struck him +on the face and nearly forced the door out of his hand; the fire +in his blood was quenched, and the image of Cecilia +receded. He looked out, and saw reflected on the low clouds +the dull glare of the distant city. Just over there was +Great Ormond Street, and underneath that dim, red light, like the +light of a great house burning, was Madge Hopgood. He lay +down, turning over from side to side in the vain hope that by +change of position he might sleep. After about an +hour’s feverish tossing, he just lost himself, but not in +that oblivion which slumber usually brought him. He was so +far awake that he saw what was around him, and yet, he was so far +released from the control of his reason that he did not recognise +what he saw, and it became part of a new scene created by his +delirium. The full moon, clearing away the clouds as she +moved upwards, had now passed round to the south, and just caught +the white window-curtain farthest from him. He half-opened +his eyes, his mad dream still clung to him, and there was the +dead Madge before him, pale in death, and holding a child in her +arms! He distinctly heard himself scream as he started up +in affright; he could not tell where he was; the spectre faded +and the furniture and hangings transformed themselves into their +familiar reality. He could not lie down again, and rose and +dressed himself. He was not the man to believe that the +ghost could be a revelation or a prophecy, but, nevertheless, he +was once more overcome with fear, a vague dread partly +justifiable by the fact of Madge, by the fact that his father +might soon know what had happened, that others also might know, +Cecilia for example, but partly also a fear going beyond all the +facts, and not to be accounted for by them, a strange, horrible +trembling such as men feel in earthquakes when the solid rock +shakes, on which everything rests.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Frank came downstairs to +breakfast the conversation turned upon his return to +Germany. He did not object to going, although it can hardly +be said that he willed to go. He was in that perilous +condition in which the comparison of reasons is impossible, and +the course taken depends upon some chance impulse of the moment, +and is a mere drift. He could not leave, however, in +complete ignorance of Madge, and with no certainty as to her +future. He resolved therefore to make one more effort to +discover the house. That was all which he determined to +do. What was to happen when he had found it, he did not +know. He was driven to do something, which could not be of +any importance, save for what must follow, but he was unable to +bring himself even to consider what was to follow. He knew +that at Fenmarket one or other of the sisters went out soon after +breakfast to make provision for the day, and perhaps, if they +kept up this custom, he might be successful in his search. +He accordingly stationed himself in Great Ormond Street at about +half-past nine, and kept watch from the Lamb’s Conduit +Street end, shifting his position as well as he could, in order +to escape notice. He had not been there half an hour when +he saw a door open, and Madge came out and went westwards. +She turned down Devonshire Street as if on her way to +Holborn. He instantly ran back to Theobalds Road, and when +he came to the corner of Devonshire Street she was about ten +yards from him, and he faced her. She stopped irresolutely, +as if she had a mind to return, but as he approached her, and she +found she was recognised, she came towards him.</p> +<p>‘Madge, Madge,’ he cried, ‘I want to speak +to you. I must speak with you.’</p> +<p>‘Better not; let me go.’</p> +<p>‘I say I <i>must</i> speak to you.’</p> +<p>‘We cannot talk here; let me go.’</p> +<p>‘I must! I must! come with me.’</p> +<p>She pitied him, and although she did not consent she did not +refuse. He called a cab, and in ten minutes, not a word +having been spoken during those ten minutes, they were at St +Paul’s. The morning service had just begun, and they +sat down in a corner far away from the worshippers.</p> +<p>‘Oh, Madge,’ he began, ‘I implore you to +take me back. I love you. I do love you, +and—and—I cannot leave you.’</p> +<p>She was side by side with the father of her child about to be +born. He was not and could not be as another man to her, +and for the moment there was the danger lest she should mistake +this secret bond for love. The thought of what had passed +between them, and of the child, his and hers, almost overpowered +her.</p> +<p>‘I cannot,’ he repeated. ‘I +<i>ought</i> not. What will become of me?’</p> +<p>She felt herself stronger; he was excited, but his excitement +was not contagious. The string vibrated, and the note was +resonant, but it was not a note which was consonant with hers, +and it did not stir her to respond. He might love her, he +was sincere enough to sacrifice himself for her, and to remain +faithful to her, but the voice was not altogether that of his own +true self. Partly, at least, it was the voice of what he +considered to be duty, of superstition and alarm. She was +silent.</p> +<p>‘Madge,’ he continued, ‘ought you to +refuse? You have some love for me. Is it not greater +than the love which thousands feel for one another. Will +you blast your future and mine, and, perhaps, that of someone +besides, who may be very dear to you? <i>Ought</i> you not, +I say, to listen?’</p> +<p>The service had come to an end, the organist was playing a +voluntary, rather longer than usual, and the congregation was +leaving, some of them passing near Madge and Frank, and casting +idle glances on the young couple who had evidently come neither +to pray nor to admire the architecture. Madge recognised +the well-known St Ann’s fugue, and, strange to say, even at +such a moment it took entire possession of her; the golden ladder +was let down and celestial visitors descended. When the +music ceased she spoke.</p> +<p>‘It would be a crime.’</p> +<p>‘A crime, but I—’ She stopped him.</p> +<p>‘I know what you are going to say. I know what is +the crime to the world; but it would have been a crime, perhaps a +worse crime, if a ceremony had been performed beforehand by a +priest, and the worst of crimes would be that ceremony now. +I must go.’ She rose and began to move towards the +door.</p> +<p>He walked silently by her side till they were in St +Paul’s churchyard, when she took him by the hand, pressed +it affectionately and suddenly turned into one of the courts that +lead towards Paternoster Row. He did not follow her, +something repelled him, and when he reached home it crossed his +mind that marriage, after such delay, would be a poor recompense, +as he could not thereby conceal her disgrace.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was clear that these two women +could not live in London on seventy-five pounds a year, most +certainly not with the prospect before them, and Clara cast about +for something to do. Marshall had a brother-in-law, a +certain Baruch Cohen, a mathematical instrument maker in +Clerkenwell, and to him Marshall accidentally one day talked +about Clara, and said that she desired an occupation. Cohen +himself could not give Clara any work, but he knew a second-hand +bookseller, an old man who kept a shop in Holborn, who wanted a +clerk, and Clara thus found herself earning another pound a +week. With this addition she and her sister could manage to +pay their way and provide what Madge would want. The hours +were long, the duties irksome and wearisome, and, worst of all, +the conditions under which they were performed, were not only as +bad as they could be, but their badness was of a kind to which +Clara had never been accustomed, so that she felt every particle +of it in its full force. The windows of the shop were, of +course, full of books, and the walls were lined with them. +In the middle of the shop also was a range of shelves, and books +were stacked on the floor, so that the place looked like a huge +cubical block of them through which passages had been +bored. At the back the shop became contracted in width to +about eight feet, and consequently the central shelves were not +continued there, but just where they ended, and overshadowed by +them were a little desk and a stool. All round the desk +more books were piled, and some manœuvring was necessary in +order to sit down. This was Clara’s station. +Occasionally, on a brilliant, a very brilliant day in summer, she +could write without gas, but, perhaps, there were not a dozen +such days in the year. By twisting herself sideways she +could just catch a glimpse of a narrow line of sky over some +heavy theology which was not likely to be disturbed, and was +therefore put at the top of the window, and once when somebody +bought the <i>Calvin Joann</i>. <i>Opera Omnia</i>, 9 +<i>vol. folio</i>, <i>Amst.</i> 1671—it was very clear that +afternoon—she actually descried towards seven o’clock +a blessed star exactly in the middle of the gap the Calvin had +left.</p> +<p>The darkness was very depressing, and poor Clara often shut +her eyes as she bent over her day-book and ledger, and thought of +the Fenmarket flats where the sun could be seen bisected by the +horizon at sun-rising and sun-setting, and where even the +southern Antares shone with diamond glitter close to the ground +during summer nights. She tried to reason with herself +during the dreadful smoke fogs; she said to herself that they +were only half-a-mile thick, and she carried herself up in +imagination and beheld the unclouded azure, the filthy smother +lying all beneath her, but her dream did not continue, and +reality was too strong for her. Worse, perhaps, than the +eternal gloom was the dirt. She was naturally fastidious, +and as her skin was thin and sensitive, dust was physically a +discomfort. Even at Fenmarket she was continually washing +her hands and face, and, indeed, a wash was more necessary to her +after a walk than food or drink. It was impossible to +remain clean in Holborn for five minutes; everything she touched +was foul with grime; her collar and cuffs were black with it when +she went home to her dinner, and it was not like the honest, +blowing road-sand of Fenmarket highways, but a loathsome +composition of everything disgusting which could be produced by +millions of human beings and animals packed together in +soot. It was a real misery to her and made her almost +ill. However, she managed to set up for herself a little +lavatory in the basement, and whenever she had a minute at her +command, she descended and enjoyed the luxury of a cool, dripping +sponge and a piece of yellow soap. The smuts began to +gather again the moment she went upstairs, but she strove to arm +herself with a little philosophy against them. ‘What +is there in life,’ she moralised, smiling at her +sermonising, ‘which once won is for ever won? It is +always being won and always being lost.’ Her master, +fortunately, was one of the kindest of men, an old gentleman of +about sixty-five, who wore a white necktie, clean every +morning. He was really a <i>gentle</i>man in the true sense +of that much misused word, and not a mere <i>trades</i>man; that +is to say, he loved his business, not altogether for the money it +brought him, but as an art. He was known far and wide, and +literary people were glad to gossip with him. He never +pushed his wares, and he hated to sell them to anybody who did +not know their value. He amused Clara one afternoon when a +carriage stopped at the door, and a lady inquired if he had a +Manning and Bray’s <i>History of Surrey</i>. Yes, he +had a copy, and he pointed to the three handsome, tall +folios.</p> +<p>‘What is the price?’</p> +<p>‘Twelve pounds ten.’</p> +<p>‘I think I will have them.’</p> +<p>‘Madam, you will pardon me, but, if I were you, I would +not. I think something much cheaper will suit you +better. If you will allow me, I will look out for you and +will report in a few days.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! very well,’ and she departed.</p> +<p>‘The wife of a brassfounder,’ he said to Clara; +‘made a lot of money, and now he has bought a house at +Dulwich and is setting up a library. Somebody has told him +that he ought to have a county history, and that Manning and Bray +is the book. Manning and Bray! What he wants is a +Dulwich and Denmark Hill Directory. No, no,’ and he +took down one of the big volumes, blew the dust off the top edges +and looked at the old book-plate inside, ‘you won’t +go there if I can help it.’ He took a fancy to Clara +when he found she loved literature, although what she read was +out of his department altogether, and his perfectly human +behaviour to her prevented that sense of exile and loneliness +which is so horrible to many a poor creature who comes up to +London to begin therein the struggle for existence. She +read and meditated a good deal in the shop, but not to much +profit, for she was continually interrupted, and the thought of +her sister intruded itself perpetually.</p> +<p>Madge seldom or never spoke of her separation from Frank, but +one night, when she was somewhat less reserved than usual, Clara +ventured to ask her if she had heard from him since they +parted.</p> +<p>‘I met him once.’</p> +<p>‘Madge, do you mean that he found out where we are +living, and that he came to see you?’</p> +<p>‘No, it was just round the corner as I was going towards +Holborn.’</p> +<p>‘Nothing could have brought him here but +yourself,’ said Clara, slowly.</p> +<p>‘Clara, you doubt?’</p> +<p>‘No, no! I doubt you? Never!’</p> +<p>‘But you hesitate; you reflect. Speak +out.’</p> +<p>‘God forbid I should utter a word which would induce you +to disbelieve what you know to be right. It is much more +important to believe earnestly that something is morally right +than that it should be really right, and he who attempts to +displace a belief runs a certain risk, because he is not sure +that what he substitutes can be held with equal force. +Besides, each person’s belief, or proposed course of +action, is a part of himself, and if he be diverted from it and +takes up with that which is not himself, the unity of his nature +is impaired, and he loses himself.’</p> +<p>‘Which is as much as to say that the prophet is to break +no idols.’</p> +<p>‘You know I do not mean that, and you know, too, how +incapable I am of defending myself in argument. I never can +stand up for anything I say. I can now and then say +something, but, when I have said it, I run away.’</p> +<p>‘My dearest Clara,’ Madge put her arm over her +sister’s shoulder as they sat side by side, ‘do not +run away now; tell me just what you think of me.’</p> +<p>Clara was silent for a minute.</p> +<p>‘I have sometimes wondered whether you have not demanded +a little too much of yourself and Frank. It is always a +question of how much. There is no human truth which is +altogether true, no love which is altogether perfect. You +may possibly have neglected virtue or devotion such as you could +not find elsewhere, overlooking it because some failing, or the +lack of sympathy on some unimportant point, may at the moment +have been prominent. Frank loved you, Madge.’</p> +<p>Madge did not reply; she withdrew her arm from her +sister’s neck, threw herself back in her chair and closed +her eyes. She saw again the Fenmarket roads, that summer +evening, and she felt once more Frank’s burning +caresses. She thought of him as he left St Paul’s, +perhaps broken-hearted. Stronger than every other motive to +return to him, and stronger than ever, was the movement towards +him of that which belonged to him.</p> +<p>At last she cried out, literally cried, with a vehemence which +startled and terrified Clara,—</p> +<p>‘Clara, Clara, you know not what you do! For +God’s sake forbear!’ She was again silent, and +then she turned round hurriedly, hid her face, and sobbed +piteously. It lasted, however, but for a minute; she rose, +wiped her eyes, went to the window, came back again, and +said,—</p> +<p>‘It is beginning to snow.’</p> +<p>The iron pillar bolted to the solid rock had quivered and +resounded under the blow, but its vibrations were nothing more +than those of the rigid metal; the base was unshaken and, except +for an instant, the column had not been deflected a +hair’s-breadth.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr Cohen</span>, who had obtained the +situation indirectly for Clara, thought nothing more about it +until, one day, he went to the shop, and he then recollected his +recommendation, which had been given solely in faith, for he had +never seen the young woman, and had trusted entirely to +Marshall. He found her at her dark desk, and as he +approached her, she hastily put a mark in a book and closed +it.</p> +<p>‘Have you sold a little volume called <i>After Office +Hours</i> by a man named Robinson?’</p> +<p>‘I did not know we had it. I have never seen +it.’</p> +<p>‘I do not wonder, but I saw it here about six months +ago; it was up there,’ pointing to a top shelf. Clara +was about to mount the ladder, but he stopped her, and found what +he wanted. Some of the leaves were torn.</p> +<p>‘We can repair those for you; in about a couple of days +it shall be ready.’</p> +<p>He lingered a little, and at that moment another customer +entered. Clara went forward to speak to him, and Cohen was +able to see that it was the <i>Heroes and Hero Worship</i> she +had been studying, a course of lectures which had been given by a +Mr Carlyle, of whom Cohen knew something. As the customer +showed no signs of departing, Cohen left, saying he would call +again.</p> +<p>Before sending Robinson’s <i>After Office Hours</i> to +the binder, Clara looked at it. It was made up of short +essays, about twenty altogether, bound in dark-green cloth, +lettered at the side, and published in 1841. They were upon +the oddest subjects: such as, <i>Ought Children to learn Rules +before Reasons</i>? <i>The Higher Mathematics and +Materialism</i>. <i>Ought We to tell Those Whom We love +what We think about Them</i>? <i>Deductive Reasoning in +Politics</i>. <i>What Troubles ought We to Make Known and +What ought We to Keep Secret</i>: <i>Courage as a Science and an +Art</i>.</p> +<p>Clara did not read any one essay through, she had no time, but +she was somewhat struck with a few sentences which caught her +eye; for example—‘A mere dream, a vague hope, ought +in some cases to be more potent than a certainty in regulating +our action. The faintest vision of God should be more +determinative than the grossest earthly assurance.’</p> +<p>‘I knew a case in which a man had to encounter three +successive trials of all the courage and inventive faculty in +him. Failure in one would have been ruin. The odds +against him in each trial were desperate, and against ultimate +victory were overwhelming. Nevertheless, he made the +attempt, and was triumphant, by the narrowest margin, in every +struggle. That which is of most value to us is often +obtained in defiance of the laws of probability.’</p> +<p>‘What is precious in Quakerism is not so much the +doctrine of the Divine voice as that of the preliminary +stillness, the closure against other voices and the reduction of +the mind to a condition in which it can <i>listen</i>, in which +it can discern the merest whisper, inaudible when the world, or +interest, or passion, are permitted to speak.’</p> +<p>‘The acutest syllogiser can never develop the actual +consequences of any system of policy, or, indeed, of any change +in human relationship, man being so infinitely complex, and the +interaction of human forces so incalculable.’</p> +<p>‘Many of our speculative difficulties arise from the +unauthorised conception of an <i>omnipotent</i> God, a conception +entirely of our own creation, and one which, if we look at it +closely, has no meaning. It is because God <i>could</i> +have done otherwise, and did not, that we are confounded. +It may be distressing to think that God cannot do any better, but +it is not so distressing as to believe that He might have done +better had He so willed.’</p> +<p>Although these passages were disconnected, each of them seemed +to Clara to be written in a measure for herself, and her +curiosity was excited about the author. Perhaps the man who +called would say something about him.</p> +<p>Baruch Cohen was now a little over forty. He was half a +Jew, for his father was a Jew and his mother a Gentile. The +father had broken with Judaism, but had not been converted to any +Christian church or sect. He was a diamond-cutter, +originally from Holland, came over to England and married the +daughter of a mathematical instrument maker, at whose house he +lodged in Clerkenwell. The son was apprenticed to his +maternal grandfather’s trade, became very skilful at it, +worked at it himself, employed a man and a boy, and supplied +London shops, which sold his instruments at about three times the +price he obtained for them. Baruch, when he was very young, +married Marshall’s elder sister, but she died at the birth +of her first child and he had been a widower now for nineteen +years. He had often thought of taking another wife, and had +seen, during these nineteen years, two or three women with whom +he had imagined himself to be really in love, and to whom he had +been on the verge of making proposals, but in each case he had +hung back, and when he found that a second and a third had +awakened the same ardour for a time as the first, he distrusted +its genuineness. He was now, too, at a time of life when a +man has to make the unpleasant discovery that he is beginning to +lose the right to expect what he still eagerly desires, and that +he must beware of being ridiculous. It is indeed a very +unpleasant discovery. If he has done anything well which +was worth doing, or has made himself a name, he may be treated by +women with respect or adulation, but any passable boy of twenty +is really more interesting to them, and, unhappily, there is +perhaps so much of the man left in him that he would rather see +the eyes of a girl melt when she looked at him than be adored by +all the drawing-rooms in London as the author of the greatest +poem since <i>Paradise Lost</i>, or as the conqueror of half a +continent. Baruch’s life during the last nineteen +years had been such that he was still young, and he desired more +than ever, because not so blindly as he desired it when he was a +youth, the tender, intimate sympathy of a woman’s +love. It was singular that, during all those nineteen +years, he should not once have been overcome. It seemed to +him as if he had been held back, not by himself, but by some +external power, which refused to give any reasons for so +doing. There was now less chance of yielding than ever; he +was reserved and self-respectful, and his manner towards women +distinctly announced to them that he knew what he was and that he +had no claims whatever upon them. He was something of a +philosopher, too; he accepted, therefore, as well as he could, +without complaint, the inevitable order of nature, and he tried +to acquire, although often he failed, that blessed art of taking +up lightly and even with a smile whatever he was compelled to +handle. ‘It is possible,’ he said once, +‘to consider death too seriously.’ He was +naturally more than half a Jew; his features were Jewish, his +thinking was Jewish, and he believed after a fashion in the +Jewish sacred books, or, at anyrate, read them continuously, +although he had added to his armoury defensive weapons of another +type. In nothing was he more Jewish than in a tendency to +dwell upon the One, or what he called God, clinging still to the +expression of his forefathers although departing so widely from +them. In his ethics and system of life, as well as in his +religion, there was the same intolerance of a multiplicity which +was not reducible to unity. He seldom explained his theory, +but everybody who knew him recognised the difference which it +wrought between him and other men. There was a certain +concord in everything he said and did, as if it were directed by +some enthroned but secret principle.</p> +<p>He had encountered no particular trouble since his +wife’s death, but his life had been unhappy. He had +no friends, much as he longed for friendship, and he could not +give any reasons for his failure. He saw other persons more +successful, but he remained solitary. Their needs were not +so great as his, for it is not those who have the least but those +who have the most to give who most want sympathy. He had +often made advances; people had called on him and had appeared +interested in him, but they had dropped away. The cause was +chiefly to be found in his nationality. The ordinary +Englishman disliked him simply as a Jew, and the better sort were +repelled by a lack of geniality and by his inability to manifest +a healthy interest in personal details. Partly also the +cause was that those who care to speak about what is nearest to +them are very rare, and most persons find conversation easy in +proportion to the remoteness of its topics from them. +Whatever the reasons may have been, Baruch now, no matter what +the pressure from within might be, generally kept himself to +himself. It was a mistake and he ought not to have +retreated so far upon repulse. A word will sometimes, when +least expected, unlock a heart, a soul is gained for ever, and at +once there is much more than a recompense for the indifference of +years.</p> +<p>After the death of his wife, Baruch’s affection spent +itself upon his son Benjamin, whom he had apprenticed to a firm +of optical instrument makers in York. The boy was not very +much like his father. He was indifferent to that religion +by which his father lived, but he inherited an aptitude for +mathematics, which was very necessary in his trade. +Benjamin also possessed his father’s rectitude, trusted +him, and looked to him for advice to such a degree that even +Baruch, at last, thought it would be better to send him away from +home in order that he might become a little more self-reliant and +independent. It was the sorest of trials to part with him, +and, for some time after he left, Baruch’s loneliness was +intolerable. It was, however, relieved by a visit to York +perhaps once in four or five months, for whenever business could +be alleged as an excuse for going north, he managed, as he said, +‘to take York on his way.’</p> +<p>The day after he met Clara he started for Birmingham, and +although York was certainly not ‘on his way,’ he +pushed forward to the city and reached it on a Saturday +evening. He was to spend Sunday there, and on Sunday +morning he proposed that they should hear the cathedral service, +and go for a walk in the afternoon. To this suggestion +Benjamin partially assented. He wished to go to the +cathedral in the morning, but thought his father had better rest +after dinner. Baruch somewhat resented the insinuation of +possible fatigue consequent on advancing years.</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’ he said; ‘you know well +enough I enjoy a walk in the afternoon; besides, I shall not see +much of you, and do not want to lose what little time I +have.’</p> +<p>About three, therefore, they started, and presently a girl met +them, who was introduced simply as ‘Miss +Masters.’</p> +<p>‘We are going to your side of the water,’ said the +son; ‘you may as well cross with us.’</p> +<p>They came to a point where a boat was moored, and a man was in +it. There was no regular ferry, but on Sundays he earned a +trifle by taking people to the opposite meadow, and thus enabling +them to vary their return journey to the city. When they +were about two-thirds of the way over, Benjamin observed that if +they stood up they could see the Minster. They all three +rose, and without an instant’s warning—they could not +tell afterwards how it happened—the boat half capsized, and +they were in eight or nine feet of water. Baruch could not +swim and went down at once, but on coming up close to the gunwale +he caught at it and held fast. Looking round, he saw that +Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss Masters, and, +having caught her by the back of the neck, was taking her +ashore. The boatman, who could also swim, called out to +Baruch to hold on, gave the boat three or four vigorous strokes +from the stern, and Baruch felt the ground under his feet. +The boatman’s little cottage was not far off, and, when the +party reached it, Benjamin earnestly desired Miss Masters to take +off her wet clothes and occupy the bed which was offered +her. He himself would run home—it was not +half-a-mile—and, after having changed, would go to her +house and send her sister with what was wanted. He was just +off when it suddenly struck him that his father might need some +attention.</p> +<p>‘Oh, father—’ he began, but the +boatman’s wife interposed.</p> +<p>‘He can’t be left like that, and he can’t go +home; he’ll catch his death o’ cold, and there +isn’t but one more bed in the house, and that isn’t +quite fit to put a gentleman in. Howsomever, he must turn +in there, and my husband, he can go into the back-kitchen and rub +himself down. You won’t do yourself no good, Mr +Cohen,’ addressing the son, whom she knew, ‘by going +back; you’d better stay here and get into bed with your +father.’</p> +<p>In a few minutes the boatman would have gone on the errand, +but Benjamin could not lose the opportunity of sacrificing +himself for Miss Masters. He rushed off, and in +three-quarters of an hour had returned with the sister. +Having learned, after anxious inquiry, that Miss Masters, so far +as could be discovered, had not caught a chill, he went to his +father.</p> +<p>‘Well, father, I hope you are none the worse for the +ducking,’ he said gaily. ‘The next time you +come to York you’d better bring another suit of clothes +with you.’</p> +<p>Baruch turned round uneasily and did not answer +immediately. He had had a narrow escape from drowning.</p> +<p>‘Nothing of much consequence. Is your friend all +right?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, yes; I was anxious about her, for she is not very +strong, but I do not think she will come to much harm. I +made them light a fire in her room.’</p> +<p>‘Are they drying my clothes?’</p> +<p>‘I’ll go and see.’</p> +<p>He went away and encountered the elder Miss Masters, who told +him that her sister, feeling no ill effects from the plunge, had +determined to go home at once, and in fact was nearly +ready. Benjamin waited, and presently she came downstairs, +smiling.</p> +<p>‘Nothing the matter. I owe it to you, however, +that I am not now in another world.’</p> +<p>Benjamin was in an ecstasy, and considered himself bound to +accompany her to her door.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Baruch lay upstairs alone in no very happy +temper. He heard the conversation below, and knew that his +son had gone. In all genuine love there is something of +ferocious selfishness. The perfectly divine nature knows +how to keep it in check, and is even capable—supposing it +to be a woman’s nature—of contentment if the loved +one is happy, no matter with what or with whom; but the nature +only a little less than divine cannot, without pain, endure the +thought that it no longer owns privately and exclusively that +which it loves, even when it loves a child, and Baruch was +particularly excusable, considering his solitude. +Nevertheless, he had learned a little wisdom, and, what was of +much greater importance, had learned how to use it when he needed +it. It had been forced upon him; it was an adjustment to +circumstances, the wisest wisdom. It was not something +without any particular connection with him; it was rather the +external protection built up from within to shield him where he +was vulnerable; it was the answer to questions which had been put +to <i>him</i>, and not to those which had been put to other +people. So it came to pass that, when he said bitterly to +himself that, if he were at that moment lying dead at the bottom +of the river, Benjamin would have found consolation very near at +hand, he was able to reflect upon the folly of self-laceration, +and to rebuke himself for a complaint against what was simply the +order of Nature, and not a personal failure.</p> +<p>His self-conquest, however, was not very permanent. When +he left York the next morning, he fancied his son was not +particularly grieved, and he was passive under the thought that +an epoch in his life had come, that the milestones now began to +show the distance to the place to which he travelled, and, still +worse, that the boy who had been so close to him, and upon whom +he had so much depended, had gone from him.</p> +<p>There is no remedy for our troubles which is uniformly and +progressively efficacious. All that we have a right to +expect from our religion is that gradually, very gradually, it +will assist us to a real victory. After each apparent +defeat, if we are bravely in earnest, we gain something on our +former position. Baruch was two days on his journey back to +town, and as he came nearer home, he recovered himself a +little. Suddenly he remembered the bookshop and the book +for which he had to call, and that he had intended to ask +Marshall something about the bookseller’s new +assistant.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Madge</span> was a puzzle to Mrs +Caffyn. Mrs Caffyn loved her, and when she was ill had +behaved like a mother to her. The newly-born child, a +healthy girl, was treated by Mrs Caffyn as if it were her own +granddaughter, and many little luxuries were bought which never +appeared in Mrs Marshall’s weekly bill. Naturally, +Mrs Caffyn’s affection moved a response from Madge, and Mrs +Caffyn by degrees heard the greater part of her history; but why +she had separated herself from her lover without any apparent +reason remained a mystery, and all the greater was the mystery +because Mrs Caffyn believed that there were no other facts to be +known than those she knew. She longed to bring about a +reconciliation. It was dreadful to her that Madge should be +condemned to poverty, and that her infant should be fatherless, +although there was a gentleman waiting to take them both and make +them happy.</p> +<p>‘The hair won’t be dark like yours, my +love,’ she said one afternoon, soon after Madge had come +downstairs and was lying on the sofa. ‘The hair do +darken a lot, but hers will never be black. It’s my +opinion as it’ll be fair.’</p> +<p>Madge did not speak, and Mrs Caffyn, who was sitting at the +head of the couch, put her work and her spectacles on the +table. It was growing dusk; she took Madge’s hand, +which hung down by her side, and gently lifted it up. Such +a delicate hand, Mrs Caffyn thought. She was proud that she +had for a friend the owner of such a hand, who behaved to her as +an equal. It was delightful to be kissed—no mere +formal salutations—by a lady fit to go into the finest +drawing-room in London, but it was a greater delight that +Madge’s talk suited her better than any she had heard at +Great Oakhurst. It was natural she should rejoice when she +discovered, unconsciously that she had a soul, to which the +speech of the stars, though somewhat strange, was not an utterly +foreign tongue.</p> +<p>She retained her hold on Madge’s hand.</p> +<p>‘May be,’ she continued, ‘it’ll be +like its father’s. In our family all the gals take +after the father, and all the boys after the mother. I +suppose as <i>he</i> has lightish hair?’</p> +<p>Still Madge said nothing.</p> +<p>‘It isn’t easy to believe as the father of that +blessed dear could have been a bad lot. I’m sure he +isn’t, and yet there’s that Polesden gal at the farm, +she as went wrong with Jim, a great ugly brute, and she herself +warnt up to much, well, as I say, her child was the delicatest +little angel as I ever saw. It’s my belief as +God-a-mighty mixes Hisself up in it more nor we think. But +there <i>was</i> nothing amiss with him, was there, my +sweet?’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn inclined her head towards Madge.</p> +<p>‘Oh, no! Nothing, nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t you think, my dear, if there’s +nothing atwixt you, as it was a flyin’ in the face of +Providence to turn him off? You were reglarly engaged to +him, and I have heard you say he was very fond of you. I +suppose there were some high words about something, and a kind of +a quarrel like, and so you parted, but that’s +nothing. It might all be made up now, and it ought to be +made up. What was it about?’</p> +<p>‘There was no quarrel.’</p> +<p>‘Well, of course, if you don’t like to say +anything more to me, I won’t ask you. I don’t +want to hear any secrets as I shouldn’t hear. I speak +only because I can’t abear to see you here when I believe +as everything might be put right, and you might have a house of +your own, and a good husband, and be happy for the rest of your +days. It isn’t too late for that now. I know +what I know, and as how he’d marry you at once.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, my dear Mrs Caffyn, I have no secret from you, who +have been so good to me: I can only say I could not love +him—not as I ought.’</p> +<p>‘If you can’t love a man, that’s to say if +you can’t <i>abear</i> him, it’s wrong to have him, +but if there’s a child that does make a difference, for one +has to think of the child and of being respectable. +There’s something in being respectable; although, for that +matter, I’ve see’d respectable people at Great +Oakhurst as were ten times worse than those as +aren’t. Still, a-speaking for myself, I’d put +up with a goodish bit to marry the man whose child wor +mine.’</p> +<p>‘For myself I could, but it wouldn’t be just to +him.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see what you mean.’</p> +<p>‘I mean that I could sacrifice myself if I believed it +to be my duty, but I should wrong him cruelly if I were to accept +him and did not love him with all my heart.’</p> +<p>‘My dear, you take my word for it, he isn’t so +particklar as you are. A man isn’t so particklar as a +woman. He goes about his work, and has all sorts of things +in his head, and if a woman makes him comfortable when he comes +home, he’s all right. I won’t say as one woman +is much the same as another to a man—leastways to all +men—but still they are <i>not</i> particklar. Maybe, +though, it isn’t quite the same with gentlefolk like +yourself,—but there’s that blessed baby +a-cryin’.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn hastened upstairs, leaving Madge to her +reflections. Once more the old dialectic reappeared. +‘After all,’ she thought, ‘it is, as Clara +said, a question of degree. There are not a thousand +husbands and wives in this great city whose relationship comes +near perfection. If I felt aversion my course would be +clear, but there is no aversion; on the contrary, our affection +for one another is sufficient for a decent household and decent +existence undisturbed by catastrophes. No brighter sunlight +is obtained by others far better than myself. Ought I to +expect a refinement of relationship to which I have no +right? Our claims are always beyond our deserts, and we are +disappointed if our poor, mean, defective natures do not obtain +the homage which belongs to those of ethereal texture. It +will be a life with no enthusiasms nor romance, perhaps, but it +will be tolerable, and what may be called happy, and my child +will be protected and educated. My child! what is there +which I ought to put in the balance against her? If our +sympathy is not complete, I have my own little oratory: I can +keep the candles alight, close the door, and worship there +alone.’</p> +<p>So she mused, and her foes again ranged themselves over +against her. There was nothing to support her but something +veiled, which would not altogether disclose or explain +itself. Nevertheless, in a few minutes, her enemies had +vanished, like a mist before a sudden wind, and she was once more +victorious. Precious and rare are those divine souls, to +whom that which is aërial is substantial, the only true +substance; those for whom a pale vision possesses an authority +they are forced unconditionally to obey.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs Caffyn</span> was unhappy, and made up +her mind that she would talk to Frank herself. She had +learned enough about him from the two sisters, especially from +Clara, to make her believe that, with a very little management, +she could bring him back to Madge. The difficulty was to +see him without his father’s knowledge. At last she +determined to write to him, and she made her son-in-law address +the envelope and mark it private. This is what she +said:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear +Sir</span>,—Although unbeknown to you, I take the liberty +of telling you as M. H. is alivin’ here with me, and +somebody else as I think you ought to see, but perhaps I’d +better have a word or two with you myself, if not quite +ill-convenient to you, and maybe you’ll be kind enough to +say how that’s to be done to your obedient, humble +servant,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘<span class="smcap">Mrs +Caffyn</span>.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>She thought this very diplomatic, inasmuch as nobody but Frank +could possibly suspect what the letter meant. It went to +Stoke Newington, but, alas! he was in Germany, and poor Mrs +Caffyn had to wait a week before she received a reply. +Frank of course understood it. Although he had thought +about Madge continually, he had become calmer. He saw, it +is true, that there was no stability in his position, and that he +could not possibly remain where he was. Had Madge been the +commonest of the common, and his relationship to her the +commonest of the common, he could not permit her to cast herself +loose from him for ever and take upon herself the whole burden of +his misdeed. But he did not know what to do, and, as +successive considerations and reconsiderations ended in nothing, +and the distractions of a foreign country were so numerous, Madge +had for a time been put aside, like a huge bill which we cannot +pay, and which staggers us. We therefore docket it, and +hide it in the desk, and we imagine we have done something. +Once again, however, the flame leapt up out of the ashes, vivid +as ever. Once again the thought that he had been so close +to Madge, and that she had yielded to him, touched him with +peculiar tenderness, and it seemed impossible to part himself +from her. To a man with any of the nobler qualities of man +it is not only a sense of honour which binds him to a woman who +has given him all she has to give. Separation seems +unnatural, monstrous, a divorce from himself; it is not she +alone, but it is himself whom he abandons. Frank’s +duty, too, pointed imperiously to the path he ought to take, duty +to the child as well as to the mother. He determined to go +home, secretly; Mrs Caffyn would not have written if she had not +seen good reason for believing that Madge still belonged to +him. He made up his mind to start the next day, but when +the next day came, instructions to go immediately to Hamburg +arrived from his father. There were rumours of the +insolvency of a house with which Mr Palmer dealt; inquiries were +necessary which could better be made personally, and if these +rumours were correct, as Mr Palmer believed them to be, his +agency must be transferred to some other firm. There was +now no possibility of a journey to England. For a moment he +debated whether, when he was at Hamburg, he could not slip over +to London, but it would be dangerous. Further orders might +come from his father, and the failure to acknowledge them would +lead to evasion, and perhaps to discovery. He must, +therefore, content himself with a written explanation to Mrs +Caffyn why he could not meet her, and there should be one more +effort to make atonement to Madge. This was what went to +Mrs Caffyn, and to her lodger:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear +Madam</span>,—Your note has reached me here. I am +very sorry that my engagements are so pressing that I cannot +leave Germany at present. I have written to Miss +Hopgood. There is one subject which I cannot mention to +her—I cannot speak to her about money. Will you +please give me full information? I enclose £20, and I +must trust to your discretion. I thank you heartily for all +your kindness.—Truly yours,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘<span class="smcap">Frank +Palmer</span>.’</p> +<p>‘<span class="smcap">My dearest Madge</span>,—I +cannot help saying one more word to you, although, when I last +saw you, you told me that it was useless for me to hope. I +know, however, that there is now another bond between us, the +child is mine as well as yours, and if I am not all that you +deserve, ought you to prevent me from doing my duty to it as well +as to you? It is true that if we were to marry I could +never right you, and perhaps my father would have nothing to do +with us, but in time he might relent, and I will come over at +once, or, at least, the moment I have settled some business here, +and you shall be my wife. Do, my dearest Madge, +consent.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When he came to this point his pen stopped. What he had +written was very smooth, but very tame and cold. However, +nothing better presented itself; he changed his position, sat +back in his chair, and searched himself, but could find +nothing. It was not always so. Some months ago there +would have been no difficulty, and he would not have known when +to come to an end. The same thing would have been said a +dozen times, perhaps, but it would not have seemed the same to +him, and each succeeding repetition would have been felt with the +force of novelty. He took a scrap of paper and tried to +draft two or three sentences, altered them several times and made +them worse. He then re-read the letter; it was too short; +but after all it contained what was necessary, and it must go as +it stood. She knew how he felt towards her. So he +signed it after giving his address at Hamburg, and it was +posted.</p> +<p>Three or four days afterwards Mrs Marshall, in accordance with +her usual custom, went to see Madge before she was up. The +child lay peacefully by its mother’s side and Frank’s +letter was upon the counterpane. The resolution that no +letter from him should be opened had been broken. The two +women had become great friends and, within the last few weeks, +Madge had compelled Mrs Marshall to call her by her Christian +name.</p> +<p>‘You’ve had a letter from Mr Palmer; I was sure it +was his handwriting when it came late last night.’</p> +<p>‘You can read it; there is nothing private in +it.’</p> +<p>She turned round to the child and Mrs Marshall sat down and +read. When she had finished she laid the letter on the bed +again and was silent.</p> +<p>‘Well?’ said Madge. ‘Would you say +“No?”’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I would.’</p> +<p>‘For your own sake, as well as for his?’</p> +<p>Mrs Marshall took up the letter and read half of it again.</p> +<p>‘Yes, you had better say “No.” You +will find it dull, especially if you have to live in +London.’</p> +<p>‘Did you find London dull when you came to live in +it?’</p> +<p>‘Rather; Marshall is away all day long.’</p> +<p>‘But scarcely any woman in London expects to marry a man +who is not away all day.’</p> +<p>‘They ought then to have heaps of work, or they ought to +have a lot of children to look after; but, perhaps, being born +and bred in the country, I do not know what people in London +are. Recollect you were country born and bred yourself, or, +at anyrate, you have lived in the country for the most of your +life.’</p> +<p>‘Dull! we must all expect to be dull.’</p> +<p>‘There’s nothing worse. I’ve had +rheumatic fever, and I say, give me the fever rather than what +comes over me at times here. If Marshall had not been so +good to me, I do not know what I should have done with +myself.’</p> +<p>Madge turned round and looked Mrs Marshall straight in the +face, but she did not flinch.</p> +<p>‘Marshall is very good to me, but I was glad when mother +and you and your sister came to keep me company when he is not at +home. It tired me to have my meals alone: it is bad for the +digestion; at least, so he says, and he believes that it was +indigestion that was the matter with me. I should be sorry +for myself if you were to go away; not that I want to put that +forward. Maybe I should never see much more of you: he is +rich: you might come here sometimes, but he would not like to +have Marshall and mother and me at his house.’</p> +<p>Not a word was spoken for at least a minute.</p> +<p>Suddenly Mrs Marshall took Madge’s hand in her own +hands, leaned over her, and in that kind of whisper with which we +wake a sleeper who is to be aroused to escape from sudden peril, +she said in her ear,—</p> +<p>‘Madge, Madge: for God’s sake leave +him!’</p> +<p>‘I have left him.’</p> +<p>‘Are you sure?’</p> +<p>‘Quite.’</p> +<p>‘For ever?’</p> +<p>‘For ever!’</p> +<p>Mrs Marshall let go Madge’s hand, turned her eyes +towards her intently for a moment, and again bent over her as if +she were about to embrace her. A knock, however, came at +the door, and Mrs Caffyn entered with the cup of coffee which she +always insisted on bringing before Madge rose. After she +and her daughter had left, Madge read the letter once more. +There was nothing new in it, but formally it was something, like +the tolling of the bell when we know that our friend is +dead. There was a little sobbing, and then she kissed her +child with such eagerness that it began to cry.</p> +<p>‘You’ll answer that letter, I suppose?’ said +Mrs Caffyn, when they were alone.</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘I’m rather glad. It would worrit you, and +there’s nothing worse for a baby than worritin’ when +it’s mother’s a-feedin it.’</p> +<p>Mr Caffyn wrote as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘<span class="smcap">Dear +Sir</span>,—I was sorry as you couldn’t come; but I +believe now as it was better as you didn’t. I am no +scollard, and so no more from your obedient, humble servant,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">‘<span class="smcap">Mrs +Caffyn</span>.</p> +<p>‘<i>P.S.</i>—I return the money, having no use for +the same.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Baruch</span> did not obtain any very +definite information from Marshall about Clara. He was told +that she had a sister; that they were both of them gentlewomen; +that their mother and father were dead; that they were great +readers, and that they did not go to church nor chapel, but that +they both went sometimes to hear a certain Mr A. J. Scott +lecture. He was once assistant minister to Irving, but was +now heretical, and had a congregation of his own creating at +Woolwich.</p> +<p>Baruch called at the shop and found Clara once more +alone. The book was packed up and had being lying ready for +him for two or three days. He wanted to speak, but hardly +knew how to begin. He looked idly round the shelves, taking +down one volume after another, and at last he said,—</p> +<p>‘I suppose nobody but myself has ever asked for a copy +of Robinson?’</p> +<p>‘Not since I have been here.’</p> +<p>‘I do not wonder at it; he printed only two hundred and +fifty; he gave away five-and-twenty, and I am sure nearly two +hundred were sold as wastepaper.’</p> +<p>‘He is a friend of yours?’</p> +<p>‘He was a friend; he is dead; he was an usher in a +private school, although you might have supposed, from the title +selected, that he was a clerk. I told him it was useless to +publish, and his publishers told him the same thing.’</p> +<p>‘I should have thought that some notice would have been +taken of him; he is so evidently worth it.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, but although he was original and reflective, he +had no particular talent. His excellence lay in criticism +and observation, often profound, on what came to him every day, +and he was valueless in the literary market. A talent of +some kind is necessary to genius if it is to be heard. So +he died utterly unrecognised, save by one or two personal friends +who loved him dearly. He was peculiar in the depth and +intimacy of his friendships. Few men understand the meaning +of the word friendship. They consort with certain +companions and perhaps very earnestly admire them, because they +possess intellectual gifts, but of friendship, such as we two, +Morris and I (for that was his real name) understood it, they +know nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Do you believe, that the good does not necessarily +survive?’</p> +<p>‘Yes and no; I believe that power every moment, so far +as our eyes can follow it, is utterly lost. I have had one +or two friends whom the world has never known and never will +know, who have more in them than is to be found in many an +English classic. I could take you to a little dissenting +chapel not very far from Holborn where you would hear a young +Welshman, with no education beyond that provided by a Welsh +denominational college, who is a perfect orator and whose depth +of insight is hardly to be matched, save by Thomas À +Kempis, whom he much resembles. When he dies he will be +forgotten in a dozen years. Besides, it is surely plain +enough to everybody that there are thousands of men and women +within a mile of us, apathetic and obscure, who, if, an object +worthy of them had been presented to them, would have shown +themselves capable of enthusiasm and heroism. Huge volumes +of human energy are apparently annihilated.’</p> +<p>‘It is very shocking, worse to me than the thought of +the earthquake or the pestilence.’</p> +<p>‘I said “yes and no” and there is another +side. The universe is so wonderful, so intricate, that it +is impossible to trace the transformation of its forces, and when +they seem to disappear the disappearance may be an +illusion. Moreover, “waste” is a word which is +applicable only to finite resources. If the resources are +infinite it has no meaning.’</p> +<p>Two customers came in and Baruch was obliged to leave. +When he came to reflect, he was surprised to find not only how +much he had said, but what he had said. He was usually +reserved, and with strangers he adhered to the weather or to +passing events. He had spoken, however, to this young woman +as if they had been acquainted for years. Clara, too, was +surprised. She always cut short attempts at conversation in +the shop. Frequently she answered questions and receipted +and returned bills without looking in the faces of the people who +spoke to her or offered her the money. But to this +foreigner, or Jew, she had disclosed something she felt. +She was rather abashed, but presently her employer, Mr Barnes, +returned and somewhat relieved her.</p> +<p>‘The gentleman who bought <i>After Office Hours</i> came +for it while you were out?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! what, Cohen? Good fellow Cohen is; he it was +who recommended you to me. He is brother-in-law to your +landlord.’ Clara was comforted; he was not a mere +‘casual,’ as Mr Barnes called his chance +customers.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">About</span> a fortnight afterwards, on a +Sunday afternoon, Cohen went to the Marshalls’. He +had called there once or twice since his mother-in-law came to +London, but had seen nothing of the lodgers. It was just +about tea-time, but unfortunately Marshall and his wife had gone +out. Mrs Caffyn insisted that Cohen should stay, but Madge +could not be persuaded to come downstairs, and Baruch, Mrs Caffyn +and Clara had tea by themselves. Baruch asked Mrs Caffyn if +she could endure London after living for so long in the +country.</p> +<p>‘Ah! my dear boy, I have to like it.’</p> +<p>‘No, you haven’t; what you mean is that, whether +you like it, or whether you do not, you have to put up with +it.’</p> +<p>‘No, I don’t mean that. Miss Hopgood, Cohen +and me, we are the best of friends, but whenever he comes here, +he allus begins to argue with me. Howsomever, arguing +isn’t everything, is it, my dear? There’s some +things, after all, as I can do and he can’t, but he’s +just wrong here in his arguing that wasn’t what I +meant. I meant what I said, as I had to like it.’</p> +<p>‘How can you like it if you don’t?’</p> +<p>‘How can I? That shows you’re a man and not +a woman. Jess like you men. <i>You’d</i> do +what you didn’t like, I know, for you’re a good +sort—and everybody would know you didn’t like +it—but what would be the use of me a-livin’ in a +house if I didn’t like it?—with my daughter and these +dear, young women? If it comes to livin’, you’d +ten thousand times better say at once as you hate bein’ +where you are than go about all day long, as if you was a blessed +saint and put upon.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn twitched at her gown and pulled it down over her +knees and brushed the crumbs off with energy. She +continued, ‘I can’t abide people who +everlastin’ make believe they are put upon. Suppose I +were allus a-hankering every foggy day after Great Oakhurst, and +yet a-tellin’ my daughter as I knew my place was here; if I +was she, I should wish my mother at Jericho.’</p> +<p>‘Then you really prefer London to Great Oakhurst?’ +said Clara.</p> +<p>‘Why, my dear, of course I do. Don’t you +think it’s pleasanter being here with you and your sister +and that precious little creature, and my daughter, than down in +that dead-alive place? Not that I don’t miss my walk +sometimes into Darkin; you remember that way as I took you once, +Baruch, across the hill, and we went over Ranmore Common and I +showed you Camilla Lacy, and you said as you knew a woman who +wrote books who once lived there? You remember them +beech-woods? Ah, it was one October! Weren’t +they a colour—weren’t they lovely?’</p> +<p>Baruch remembered them well enough. Who that had ever +seen them could forget them?</p> +<p>‘And it was I as took you! You wouldn’t +think it, my dear, though he’s always a-arguin’, I do +believe he’d love to go that walk again, even with an old +woman, and see them heavenly beeches. But, Lord, how I do +talk, and you’ve neither of you got any tea.’</p> +<p>‘Have you lived long in London, Miss Hopgood?’ +inquired Baruch.</p> +<p>‘Not very long.’</p> +<p>‘Do you feel the change?’</p> +<p>‘I cannot say I do not.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose, however, you have brought yourself to +believe in Mrs Caffyn’s philosophy?’</p> +<p>‘I cannot say that, but I may say that I am scarcely +strong enough for mere endurance, and I therefore always +endeavour to find something agreeable in circumstances from which +there is no escape.’</p> +<p>The recognition of the One in the Many had as great a charm +for Baruch as it had for Socrates, and Clara spoke with the ease +of a person whose habit it was to deal with principles and +generalisations.</p> +<p>‘Yes, and mere toleration, to say nothing of opposition, +at least so far as persons are concerned, is seldom +necessary. It is generally thought that what is called +dramatic power is a poetic gift, but it is really an +indispensable virtue to all of us if we are to be +happy.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn did not take much interest in abstract +statements. ‘You remember,’ she said, turning +to Baruch, ‘that man Chorley as has the big farm on the +left-hand side just afore you come to the common? He +wasn’t a Surrey man: he came out of the shires.’</p> +<p>‘Very well.’</p> +<p>‘He’s married that Skelton girl; married her the +week afore I left. There isn’t no love lost there, +but the girl’s father said he’d murder him if he +didn’t, and so it come off. How she ever brought +herself to it gets over me. She has that big farm-house, +and he’s made a fine drawing-room out of the livin’ +room on the left-hand side as you go in, and put a new grate in +the kitchen and turned that into the livin’ room, and they +does the cooking in the back kitchen, but for all that, if +I’d been her, I’d never have seen his face no more, +and I’d have packed off to Australia.’</p> +<p>‘Does anybody go near them?’</p> +<p>‘Near them! of course they do, and, as true as I’m +a-sittin’ here, our parson, who married them, went to the +breakfast. It isn’t Chorley as I blame so much; +he’s a poor, snivellin’ creature, and he was +frightened, but it’s the girl. She doesn’t care +for him no more than me, and then again, although, as I tell you, +he’s such a poor creature, he’s awful cruel and mean, +and she knows it. But what was I a-goin’ to +say? Never shall I forget that wedding. You know as +it’s a short cut to the church across the farmyard at the +back of my house. The parson, he was rather late—I +suppose he’d been giving himself a finishin’ +touch—and, as it had been very dry weather, he went across +the straw and stuff just at the edge like of the yard. +There was a pig under the straw—pigs, my dear,’ +turning to Clara, ‘nuzzle under the straw so as you +can’t see them. Just as he came to this pig it +started up and upset him, and he fell and straddled across its +back, and the Lord have mercy on me if it didn’t carry him +at an awful rate, as if he was a jockey at Epsom races, till it +come to a puddle of dung water, and then down he plumped in +it. You never see’d a man in such a pickle! I +heer’d the pig a-squeakin’ like mad, and I ran to the +door, and I called out to him, and I says, “Mr Ormiston, +won’t you come in here?” and though, as you know, he +allus hated me, he had to come. Mussy on us, how he did +stink, and he saw me turn up my nose, and he was wild with rage, +and he called the pig a filthy beast. I says to him as that +was the pig’s way and the pig didn’t know who it was +who was a-ridin’ it, and I took his coat off and wiped his +stockings, and sent to the rectory for another coat, and he crept +up under the hedge to his garden, and went home, and the people +at church had to wait for an hour. I was glad I was +goin’ away from Great Oakhurst, for he never would have +forgiven me.’</p> +<p>There was a ring at the front door bell, and Clara went to see +who was there. It was a runaway ring, but she took the +opportunity of going upstairs to Madge.</p> +<p>‘She has a sister?’ said Baruch.</p> +<p>‘Yes, and I may just as well tell you about her +now—leastways what I know—and I believe as I know +pretty near everything about her. You’ll have to be +told if they stay here. She was engaged to be married, and +how it came about with a girl like that is a bit beyond me, +anyhow, there’s a child, and the father’s a good sort +by what I can make out, but she won’t have anything more to +do with him.’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean by “a girl like +that.”’</p> +<p>‘She isn’t one of them as goes wrong; she can talk +German and reads books.’</p> +<p>‘Did he desert her?’</p> +<p>‘No, that’s just it. She loves me, although +I say it, as if I was her mother, and yet I’m just as much +in the dark as I was the first day I saw her as to why she left +that man.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn wiped the corners of her eyes with her apron.</p> +<p>‘It’s gospel truth as I never took to anybody as +I’ve took to her.’</p> +<p>After Baruch had gone, Clara returned.</p> +<p>‘He’s a curious creature, my dear,’ said Mrs +Caffyn, ‘as good as gold, but he’s too solemn by +half. It would do him a world of good if he’d +somebody with him who’d make him laugh more. He +<i>can</i> laugh, for I’ve seen him forced to get up and +hold his sides, but he never makes no noise. He’s a +Jew, and they say as them as crucified our blessed Lord never +laugh proper.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Baruch</span> was now in love. He +had fallen in love with Clara suddenly and totally. His +tendency to reflectiveness did not diminish his passion: it +rather augmented it. The men and women whose thoughts are +here and there continually are not the people to feel the full +force of love. Those who do feel it are those who are +accustomed to think of one thing at a time, and to think upon it +for a long time. ‘No man,’ said Baruch once, +‘can love a woman unless he loves God.’ +‘I should say,’ smilingly replied the Gentile, +‘that no man can love God unless he loves a +woman.’ ‘I am right,’ said Baruch, +‘and so are you.’</p> +<p>But Baruch looked in the glass: his hair, jet black when he +was a youth, was marked with grey, and once more the thought came +to him—this time with peculiar force—that he could +not now expect a woman to love him as she had a right to demand +that he should love, and that he must be silent. He was +obliged to call upon Barnes in about a fortnight’s +time. He still read Hebrew, and he had seen in the shop a +copy of the Hebrew translation of the <i>Moreh Nevochim</i> of +Maimonides, which he greatly coveted, but could not afford to +buy. Like every true book-lover, he could not make up his +mind when he wished for a book which was beyond his means that he +ought once for all to renounce it, and he was guilty of +subterfuges quite unworthy of such a reasonable creature in order +to delude himself into the belief that he might yield. For +example, he wanted a new overcoat badly, but determined it was +more prudent to wait, and a week afterwards very nearly came to +the conclusion that as he had not ordered the coat he had +actually accumulated a fund from which the <i>Moreh Nevochim</i> +might be purchased. When he came to the shop he saw Barnes +was there, and he persuaded himself he should have a quieter +moment or two with the precious volume when Clara was +alone. Barnes, of course, gossiped with everybody.</p> +<p>He therefore called again in the evening, about half an hour +before closing time, and found that Barnes had gone home. +Clara was busy with a catalogue, the proof of which she was +particularly anxious to send to the printer that night. He +did not disturb her, but took down the Maimonides, and for a few +moments was lost in revolving the doctrine, afterwards repeated +and proved by a greater than Maimonides, that the will and power +of God are co-extensive: that there is nothing which might be and +is not. It was familiar to Baruch, but like all ideas of +that quality and magnitude—and there are not many of +them—it was always new and affected him like a starry +night, seen hundreds of times, yet for ever infinite and +original.</p> +<p>But was it Maimonides which kept him till the porter began to +put up the shutters? Was he pondering exclusively upon God +as the folio lay open before him? He did think about Him, +but whether he would have thought about Him for nearly twenty +minutes if Clara had not been there is another matter.</p> +<p>‘Do you walk home alone?’ he said as she gave the +proof to the boy who stood waiting.</p> +<p>‘Yes, always.’</p> +<p>‘I am going to see Marshall to-night, but I must go to +Newman Street first. I shall be glad to walk with you, if +you do not mind diverging a little.’</p> +<p>She consented and they went along Oxford Street without +speaking, the roar of the carriages and waggons preventing a +word.</p> +<p>They turned, however, into Bloomsbury, and were able to hear +one another. He had much to say and he could not begin to +say it. There was a great mass of something to be +communicated pent up within him, and he would have liked to pour +it all out before her at once. It is just at such times +that we often take up as a means of expression and relief that +which is absurdly inexpressive and irrelevant.</p> +<p>‘I have not seen your sister yet; I hope I may see her +this evening.’</p> +<p>‘I hope you may, but she frequently suffers from +headache and prefers to be alone.’</p> +<p>‘How do you like Mr Barnes?’</p> +<p>The answer is not worth recording, nor is any question or +answer which was asked or returned for the next quarter of an +hour worth recording, although they were so interesting +then. When they were crossing Bedford Square on their +return Clara happened to say amongst other +commonplaces,—</p> +<p>‘What a relief a quiet space in London is.’</p> +<p>‘I do not mind the crowd if I am by myself.’</p> +<p>‘I do not like crowds; I dislike even the word, and +dislike “the masses” still more. I do not want +to think of human beings as if they were a cloud of dust, and as +if each atom had no separate importance. London is often +horrible to me for that reason. In the country it was not +quite so bad.’</p> +<p>‘That is an illusion,’ said Baruch after a +moment’s pause.</p> +<p>‘I do not quite understand you, but if it be an illusion +it is very painful. In London human beings seem the +commonest, cheapest things in the world, and I am one of +them. I went with Mr Marshall not long ago to a Free Trade +Meeting, and more than two thousand people were present. +Everybody told me it was magnificent, but it made me very +sad.’ She was going on, but she stopped. How +was it, she thought again, that she could be so +communicative? How was it? How is it that sometimes a +stranger crosses our path, with whom, before we have known him +for more than an hour, we have no secrets? An hour? we have +actually known him for centuries.</p> +<p>She could not understand it, and she felt as if she had been +inconsistent with her constant professions of wariness in +self-revelation.</p> +<p>‘It is an illusion, nevertheless—an illusion of +the senses. It is difficult to make what I mean clear, +because insight is not possible beyond a certain point, and +clearness does not come until penetration is complete and what we +acquire is brought into a line with other acquisitions. It +constantly happens that we are arrested short of this point, but +it would be wrong to suppose that our conclusions, if we may call +them so, are of no value.’</p> +<p>She was silent, and he did not go on. At last he +said,—</p> +<p>‘The illusion lies in supposing that number, quantity +and terms of that kind are applicable to any other than sensuous +objects, but I cannot go further, at least not now. After +all, it is possible here in London for one atom to be of eternal +importance to another.’</p> +<p>They had gone quite round Bedford Square without entering +Great Russell Street, which was the way eastwards. A +drunken man was holding on by the railings of the Square. +He had apparently been hesitating for some time whether he could +reach the road, and, just as Baruch and Clara came up to him, he +made a lurch towards it, and nearly fell over them. Clara +instinctively seized Baruch’s arm in order to avoid the +poor, staggering mortal; they went once more to the right, and +began to complete another circuit. Somehow her arm had been +drawn into Baruch’s, and there it remained.</p> +<p>‘Have you any friends in London?’ said Baruch.</p> +<p>‘There are Mrs Caffyn, her son and daughter, and there +is Mr A. J. Scott. He was a friend of my father.’</p> +<p>‘You mean the Mr Scott who was Irving’s +assistant?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘An addition—’ he was about to say, +‘an additional bond’ but he corrected himself. +‘A bond between us; I know Mr Scott.’</p> +<p>‘Do you really? I suppose you know many +interesting people in London, as you are in his +circle.’</p> +<p>‘Very few; weeks, months have passed since anybody has +said as much to me as you have.’</p> +<p>His voice quivered a little, for he was trembling with an +emotion quite inexplicable by mere intellectual +relationship. Something came through Clara’s glove as +her hand rested on his wrist which ran through every nerve and +sent the blood into his head.</p> +<p>Clara felt his excitement and dreaded lest he should say +something to which she could give no answer, and when they came +opposite Great Russell Street, she withdrew her arm from his, and +began to cross to the opposite pavement. She turned the +conversation towards some indifferent subject, and in a few +minutes they were at Great Ormond Street. Baruch would not +go in as he had intended; he thought it was about to rain, and he +was late. As he went along he became calmer, and when he +was fairly indoors he had passed into a despair entirely +inconsistent—superficially—with the philosopher +Baruch, as inconsistent as the irrational behaviour in Bedford +Square. He could well enough interpret, so he believed, +Miss Hopgood’s suppression of him. Ass that he was +not to see what he ought to have known so well, that he was +playing the fool to her; he, with a grown-up son, to pretend to +romance with a girl! At that moment she might be mocking +him, or, if she was too good for mockery, she might be contriving +to avoid or to quench him. The next time he met her, he +would be made to understand that he was <i>pitied</i>, and +perhaps he would then learn the name of the youth who was his +rival, and had won her. He would often meet her, no doubt, +but of what value would anything he could say be to her. +She could not be expected to make fine distinctions, and there +was a class of elderly men, to which of course he would be +assigned, but the thought was too horrible.</p> +<p>Perhaps his love for Clara might be genuine; perhaps it was +not. He had hoped that as he grew older he might be able +really to <i>see</i> a woman, but he was once more like one of +the possessed. It was not Clara Hopgood who was before him, +it was hair, lips, eyes, just as it was twenty years ago, just as +it was with the commonest shop-boy he met, who had escaped from +the counter, and was waiting at an area gate. It was +terrible to him to find that he had so nearly lost his +self-control, but upon this point he was unjust to himself, for +we are often more distinctly aware of the strength of the +temptation than of the authority within us, which falteringly, +but decisively, enables us at last to resist it.</p> +<p>Then he fell to meditating how little his studies had done for +him. What was the use of them? They had not made him +any stronger, and he was no better able than other people to +resist temptation. After twenty years continuous labour he +found himself capable of the vulgarest, coarsest faults and +failings from which the remotest skiey influence in his begetting +might have saved him.</p> +<p>Clara was not as Baruch. No such storm as that which had +darkened and disheartened him could pass over her, but she could +love, perhaps better than he, and she began to love him. It +was very natural to a woman such as Clara, for she had met a man +who had said to her that what she believed was really of some +worth. Her father and mother had been very dear to her; her +sister was very dear to her, but she had never received any such +recognition as that which had now been offered to her: her own +self had never been returned to her with such honour. She +thought, too—why should she not think it?—of the +future, of the release from her dreary occupation, of a happy +home with independence, and she thought of the children that +might be. She lay down without any misgiving. She was +sure he was in love with her; she did not know much of him, +certainly, in the usual meaning of the word, but she knew +enough. She would like to find out more of his history; +perhaps without exciting suspicion she might obtain it from Mrs +Caffyn.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr Frank Palmer</span> was back again in +England. He was much distressed when he received that last +letter from Mrs Caffyn, and discovered that Madge’s +resolution not to write remained unshaken. He was really +distressed, but he was not the man upon whom an event, however +deeply felt at the time, could score a furrow which could not be +obliterated. If he had been a dramatic personage, what had +happened to him would have been the second act leading to a +fifth, in which the Fates would have appeared, but life seldom +arranges itself in proper poetic form. A man determines +that he must marry; he makes the shop-girl an allowance, never +sees her or her child again, transforms himself into a model +husband, is beloved by his wife and family; the woman whom he +kissed as he will never kiss his lawful partner, withdraws +completely, and nothing happens to him.</p> +<p>Frank was sure he could never love anybody as he had loved +Madge, nor could he cut indifferently that other cord which bound +him to her. Nobody in society expects the same paternal +love for the offspring of a housemaid or a sempstress as for the +child of the stockbroker’s or brewer’s daughter, and +nobody expects the same obligations, but Frank was not a society +youth, and Madge was his equal. A score of times, when his +fancy roved, the rope checked him as suddenly as if it were the +lasso of a South American Gaucho. But what could he do? +that was the point. There were one or two things which he +could have done, perhaps, and one or two things which he could +not have done if he had been made of different stuff; but there +was nothing more to be done which Frank Palmer could do. +After all, it was better that Madge should be the child’s +mother than that it should belong to some peasant. At least +it would be properly educated. As to money, Mrs Caffyn had +told him expressly that she did not want it. That might be +nothing but pride, and he resolved, without very clearly seeing +how, and without troubling himself for the moment as to details, +that Madge should be entirely and handsomely supported by +him. Meanwhile it was of great importance that he should +behave in such a manner as to raise no suspicion. He did +not particularly care for some time after his return from Germany +to go out to the musical parties to which he was constantly +invited, but he went as a duty, and wherever he went he met his +charming cousin. They always sang together; they had easy +opportunities of practising together, and Frank, although nothing +definite was said to him, soon found that his family and hers +considered him destined for her. He could not retreat, and +there was no surprise manifested by anybody when it was rumoured +that they were engaged. His story may as well be finished +at once. He and Miss Cecilia Morland were married. A +few days before the wedding, when some legal arrangements and +settlements were necessary, Frank made one last effort to secure +an income for Madge, but it failed. Mrs Caffyn met him by +appointment, but he could not persuade her even to be the bearer +of a message to Madge. He then determined to confess his +fears. To his great relief Mrs Caffyn of her own accord +assured him that he never need dread any disturbance or +betrayal.</p> +<p>‘There are three of us,’ she said, ‘as knows +you—Miss Madge, Miss Clara and myself—and, as far as +you are concerned, we are dead and buried. I can’t +say as I was altogether of Miss Madge’s way of looking at +it at first, and I thought it ought to have been different, +though I believe now as she’s right, but,’ and the +old woman suddenly fired up as if some bolt from heaven had +kindled her, ‘I pity you, sir—you, sir, I +say—more nor I do her. You little know what +you’ve lost, the blessedest, sweetest, ah, and the +cleverest creature, too, as ever I set eyes on.’</p> +<p>‘But, Mrs Caffyn,’ said Frank, with much emotion, +‘it was not I who left her, you know it was not, and, and +even—’</p> +<p>The word ‘now’ was coming, but it did not +come.</p> +<p>‘Ah,’ said Mrs Caffyn, with something like scorn, +‘<i>I</i> know, yes, I do know. It was she, you +needn’t tell me that, but, God-a-mighty in heaven, if +I’d been you, I’d have laid myself on the ground +afore her, I’d have tore my heart out for her, and +I’d have said, “No other woman in this world but +you”—but there, what a fool I am! Goodbye, Mr +Palmer.’</p> +<p>She marched away, leaving Frank very miserable, and, as he +imagined, unsettled, but he was not so. The fit lasted all +day, but when he was walking home that evening, he met a poor +friend whose wife was dying.</p> +<p>‘I am so grieved,’ said Frank ‘to hear of +your trouble—no hope?’</p> +<p>‘None, I am afraid.’</p> +<p>‘It is very dreadful.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, it is hard to bear, but to what is inevitable we +must submit.’</p> +<p>This new phrase struck Frank very much, and it seemed very +philosophic to him, a maxim, for guidance through life. It +did not strike him that it was generally either a platitude or an +excuse for weakness, and that a nobler duty is to find out what +is inevitable and what is not, to declare boldly that what the +world oftentimes affirms to be inevitable is really evitable, and +heroically to set about making it so. Even if revolt be +perfectly useless, we are not particularly drawn to a man who +prostrates himself too soon and is incapable of a little +cursing.</p> +<p>As it was impossible to provide for Madge and the child now, +Frank considered whether he could not do something for them in +the will which he had to make before his marriage. He might +help his daughter if he could not help the mother.</p> +<p>But his wife would perhaps survive him, and the discovery +would cause her and her children much misery; it would damage his +character with them and inflict positive moral mischief. +The will, therefore, did not mention Madge, and it was not +necessary to tell his secret to his solicitor.</p> +<p>The wedding took place amidst much rejoicing; everybody +thought the couple were most delightfully matched; the presents +were magnificent; the happy pair went to Switzerland, came back +and settled in one of the smaller of the old, red brick houses in +Stoke Newington, with a lawn in front, always shaved and trimmed +to the last degree of smoothness and accuracy, with paths on +whose gravel not the smallest weed was ever seen, and with a +hot-house that provided the most luscious black grapes. +There was a grand piano in the drawing-room, and Frank and +Cecilia became more musical than ever, and Waltham Lodge was the +headquarters of a little amateur orchestra which practised Mozart +and Haydn, and gave local concerts. A twelvemonth after the +marriage a son was born and Frank’s father increased +Frank’s share in the business. Mr Palmer had long +ceased to take any interest in the Hopgoods. He considered +that Madge had treated Frank shamefully in jilting him, but was +convinced that he was fortunate in his escape. It was clear +that she was unstable; she probably threw him overboard for +somebody more attractive, and she was not the woman to be a wife +to his son.</p> +<p>One day Cecilia was turning out some drawers belonging to her +husband, and she found a dainty little slipper wrapped up in +white tissue paper. She looked at it for a long time, +wondering to whom it could have belonged, and had half a mind to +announce her discovery to Frank, but she was a wise woman and +forbore. It lay underneath some neckties which were not now +worn, two or three silk pocket handkerchiefs also discarded, and +some manuscript books containing school themes. She placed +them on the top of the drawers as if they had all been taken out +in a lump and the slipper was at the bottom.</p> +<p>‘Frank my dear,’ she said after dinner, ‘I +emptied this morning one of the drawers in the attic. I +wish you would look over the things and decide what you wish to +keep. I have not examined them, but they seem to be mostly +rubbish.’</p> +<p>He went upstairs after he had smoked his cigar and read his +paper. There was the slipper! It all came back to +him, that never-to-be-forgotten night, when she rebuked him for +the folly of kissing her foot, and he begged the slipper and +determined to preserve it for ever, and thought how delightful it +would be to take it out and look at it when he was an old +man. Even now he did not like to destroy it, but Cecilia +might have seen it and might ask him what he had done with it, +and what could he say? Finally he decided to burn it. +There was no fire, however, in the room, and while he stood +meditating, Cecilia called him. He replaced the slipper in +the drawer. He could not return that evening, but he +intended to go back the next morning, take the little parcel away +in his pocket and burn it at his office. At breakfast some +letters came which put everything else out of mind. The +first thing he did that evening was to revisit the garret, but +the slipper had gone. Cecilia had been there and had found +it carefully folded up in the drawer. She pulled it out, +snipped and tore it into fifty pieces, carried them downstairs, +threw them on the dining-room fire, sat down before it, poking +them further and further into the flames, and watched them till +every vestige had vanished. Frank did not like to make any +inquiries; Cecilia made none, and thence-forward no trace existed +at Waltham Lodge of Madge Hopgood.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Baruch</span> went neither to +Barnes’s shop nor to the Marshalls for nearly a +month. One Sunday morning he was poring over the <i>Moreh +Nevochim</i>, for it had proved too powerful a temptation for +him, and he fell upon the theorem that without God the Universe +could not continue to exist, for God is its Form. It was +one of those sayings which may be nothing or much to the +reader. Whether it be nothing or much depends upon the +quality of his mind.</p> +<p>There was certainly nothing in it particularly adapted to +Baruch’s condition at that moment, but an antidote may be +none the less efficacious because it is not direct. It +removed him to another region. It was like the sight and +sound of the sea to the man who has been in trouble in an inland +city. His self-confidence was restored, for he to whom an +idea is revealed becomes the idea, and is no longer personal and +consequently poor.</p> +<p>His room seemed too small for him; he shut his book and went +to Great Ormond Street. He found there Marshall, Mrs +Caffyn, Clara and a friend of Marshall’s named Dennis.</p> +<p>‘Where is your wife?’ said Baruch to Marshall.</p> +<p>‘Gone with Miss Madge to the Catholic chapel to hear a +mass of Mozart’s.’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said Mrs Caffyn. ‘I tell them +they’ll turn Papists if they do not mind. They are +always going to that place, and there’s no knowing, so +I’ve hear’d, what them priests can do. They +aren’t like our parsons. Catch that man at Great +Oakhurst a-turnin’ anybody.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose,’ said Baruch to Clara, ‘it is +the music takes your sister there?’</p> +<p>‘Mainly, I believe, but perhaps not entirely.’</p> +<p>‘What other attraction can there be?’</p> +<p>‘I am not in the least disposed to become a +convert. Once for all, Catholicism is incredible and that +is sufficient, but there is much in its ritual which suits +me. There is no such intrusion of the person of the +minister as there is in the Church of England, and still worse +amongst dissenters. In the Catholic service the priest is +nothing; it is his office which is everything; he is a mere means +of communication. The mass, in so far as it proclaims that +miracle is not dead, is also very impressive to me.’</p> +<p>‘I do not quite understand you,’ said Marshall, +‘but if you once chuck your reason overboard, you may just +as well be Catholic as Protestant. Nothing can be more +ridiculous than the Protestant objection, on the ground of +absurdity, to the story of the saint walking about with his head +under his arm.’</p> +<p>The tea things had been cleared away, and Marshall was +smoking. Both he and Dennis were Chartists, and Baruch had +interrupted a debate upon a speech delivered at a Chartist +meeting that morning by Henry Vincent.</p> +<p>Frederick Dennis was about thirty, tall and rather +loose-limbed. He wore loose clothes, his neck-cloth was +tied in a big, loose knot, his feet were large and his boots were +heavy. His face was quite smooth, and his hair, which was +very thick and light brown, fell across his forehead in a heavy +wave with just two complete undulations in it from the parting at +the side to the opposite ear. It had a trick of tumbling +over his eyes, so that his fingers were continually passed +through it to brush it away. He was a wood engraver, or, as +he preferred to call himself, an artist, but he also wrote for +the newspapers, and had been a contributor to the <i>Northern +Star</i>. He was well brought up and was intended for the +University, but he did not stick to his Latin and Greek, and as +he showed some talent for drawing he was permitted to follow his +bent. His work, however, was not of first-rate quality, and +consequently orders were not abundant. This was the reason +why he had turned to literature. When he had any books to +illustrate he lived upon what they brought him, and when there +were no books he renewed his acquaintance with politics. If +books and newspapers both failed, he subsisted on a little money +which had been left him, stayed with friends as long as he could, +and amused himself by writing verses which showed much command +over rhyme.</p> +<p>‘I cannot stand Vincent,’ said Marshall, ‘he +is too flowery for me, and he does not belong to the +people. He is middle-class to the backbone.’</p> +<p>‘He is deficient in ideas,’ said Dennis.</p> +<p>‘It is odd,’ continued Marshall, turning to Cohen, +‘that your race never takes any interest in +politics.’</p> +<p>‘My race is not a nation, or, if a nation, has no +national home. It took an interest in politics when it was +in its own country, and produced some rather remarkable political +writing.’</p> +<p>‘But why do you care so little for what is going on +now?’</p> +<p>‘I do care, but all people are not born to be agitators, +and, furthermore, I have doubts if the Charter will accomplish +all you expect.’</p> +<p>‘I know what is coming’—Marshall took the +pipe out of his mouth and spoke with perceptible +sarcasm—‘the inefficiency of merely external +remedies, the folly of any attempt at improvement which does not +begin with the improvement of individual character, and that +those to whom we intend to give power are no better than those +from whom we intend to take it away. All very well, Mr +Cohen. My answer is that at the present moment the +stockingers in Leicester are earning four shillings and sixpence +a week. It is not a question whether they are better or +worse than their rulers. They want something to eat, they +have nothing, and their masters have more than they can +eat.’</p> +<p>‘Apart altogether from purely material reasons,’ +said Dennis, ‘we have rights; we are born into this planet +without our consent, and, therefore, we may make certain +demands.’</p> +<p>‘Do you not think,’ said Clara, ‘that the +repeal of the corn laws will help you?’</p> +<p>Dennis smiled and was about to reply, but Marshall broke out +savagely,—</p> +<p>‘Repeal of the corn laws is a contemptible device of +manufacturing selfishness. It means low wages. Do you +suppose the great Manchester cotton lords care one straw for +their hands? Not they! They will face a revolution +for repeal because it will enable them to grind an extra profit +out of us.’</p> +<p>‘I agree with you entirely,’ said Dennis, turning +to Clara, ‘that a tax upon food is wrong; it is wrong in +the abstract. The notion of taxing bread, the fruit of the +earth, is most repulsive; but the point is—what is our +policy to be? If a certain end is to be achieved, we must +neglect subordinate ends, and, at times, even contradict what our +own principles would appear to dictate. That is the secret +of successful leadership.’</p> +<p>He took up the poker and stirred the fire.</p> +<p>‘That will do, Dennis,’ said Marshall, who was +evidently fidgety. ‘The room is rather warm. +There’s nothing in Vincent which irritates me more than +those bits of poetry with which he winds up.</p> +<blockquote><p>“God made the man—man made the +slave,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and all that stuff. If God made the man, God made the +slave. I know what Vincent’s little game is, and it +is the same game with all his set. They want to keep +Chartism religious, but we shall see. Let us once get the +six points, and the Established Church will go, and we shall have +secular education, and in a generation there will not be one +superstition left.’</p> +<p>‘Theological superstition, you mean?’ said +Clara.</p> +<p>‘Yes, of course, what others are there worth +notice?’</p> +<p>‘A few. The superstition of the ordinary newspaper +reader is just as profound, and the tyranny of the majority may +be just as injurious as the superstition of a Spanish peasant, or +the tyranny of the Inquisition.’</p> +<p>‘Newspapers will not burn people as the priests did and +would do again if they had the power, and they do not insult us +with fables and a hell and a heaven.’</p> +<p>‘I maintain,’ said Clara with emphasis, +‘that if a man declines to examine, and takes for granted +what a party leader or a newspaper tells him, he has no case +against the man who declines to examine, or takes for granted +what the priest tells him. Besides, although, as you know, +I am not a convert myself, I do lose a little patience when I +hear it preached as a gospel to every poor conceited creature who +goes to your Sunday evening atheist lecture, that he is to +believe nothing on one particular subject which his own precious +intellect cannot verify, and the next morning he finds it to be +his duty to swallow wholesale anything you please to put into his +mouth. As to the tyranny, the day may come, and I believe +is approaching, when the majority will be found to be more +dangerous than any ecclesiastical establishment which ever +existed.’</p> +<p>Baruch’s lips moved, but he was silent. He was not +strong in argument. He was thinking about Marshall’s +triumphant inquiry whether God is not responsible for +slavery. He would have liked to say something on that +subject, but he had nothing ready.</p> +<p>‘Practical people,’ said Dennis, who had not quite +recovered from the rebuke as to the warmth of the room, +‘are often most unpractical and injudicious. Nothing +can be more unwise than to mix up politics and religion. If +you <i>do</i>,’ Dennis waved his hand, ‘you will have +all the religious people against you. My friend Marshall, +Miss Hopgood, is under the illusion that the Church in this +country is tottering to its fall. Now, although I myself +belong to no sect, I do not share his illusion; nay, more, I am +not sure’—Mr Dennis spoke slowly, rubbed his chin and +looked up at the ceiling—‘I am not sure that there is +not something to be said in favour of State endowment—at +least, in a country like Ireland.’</p> +<p>‘Come along, Dennis, we shall be late,’ said +Marshall, and the two forthwith took their departure in order to +attend another meeting.</p> +<p>‘Much either of ’em knows about it,’ said +Mrs Caffyn when they had gone. ‘There’s +Marshall getting two pounds a week reg’lar, and goes on +talking about people at Leicester, and he has never been in +Leicester in his life; and, as for that Dennis, he knows less +than Marshall, for he does nothing but write for newspapers and +draw for picture-books, never nothing what you may call work, and +he does worrit me so whenever he begins about poor people that I +can’t sit still. <i>I</i> do know what the poor is, +having lived at Great Oakhurst all these years.’</p> +<p>‘You are not a Chartist, then?’ said Baruch.</p> +<p>‘Me—me a Chartist? No, I ain’t, and +yet, maybe, I’m something worse. What would be the +use of giving them poor creatures votes? Why, there +isn’t one of them as wouldn’t hold up his hand for +anybody as would give him a shilling. Quite right of +’em, too, for the one thing they have to think about from +morning to night is how to get a bit of something to fill their +bellies, and they won’t fill them by voting.’</p> +<p>‘But what would you do for them?’</p> +<p>‘Ah! that beats me! Hang somebody, but I +don’t know who it ought to be. There’s a family +by the name of Longwood, they live just on the slope of the hill +nigh the Dower Farm, and there’s nine of them, and the +youngest when I left was a baby six months old, and their +living-room faces the road so that the north wind blows in right +under the door, and I’ve seen the snow lie in heaps +inside. As reg’lar as winter comes Longwood is +knocked off—no work. I’ve knowed them not have +a bit of meat for weeks together, and him a-loungin’ about +at the corner of the street. Wasn’t that enough to +make him feel as if somebody ought to be killed? And +Marshall and Dennis say as the proper thing to do is to give him +a vote, and prove to him there was never no Abraham nor Isaac, +and that Jonah never was in a whale’s belly, and that +nobody had no business to have more children than he could +feed. And what goes on, and what must go on, inside such a +place as Longwood’s, with him and his wife, and with them +boys and gals all huddled together—But I’d better +hold my tongue. We’ll let the smoke out of this room, +I think, and air it a little.’</p> +<p>She opened the window, and Baruch rose and went home.</p> +<p>Whenever Mrs Caffyn talked about the labourers at Great +Oakhurst, whom she knew so well, Clara always felt as if all her +reading had been a farce, and, indeed, if we come into close +contact with actual life, art, poetry and philosophy seem little +better than trifling. When the mist hangs over the heavy +clay land in January, and men and women shiver in the bitter cold +and eat raw turnips, to indulge in fireside ecstasies over the +divine Plato or Shakespeare is surely not such a virtue as we +imagine it to be.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Baruch</span> sat and mused before he went +to bed. He had gone out stirred by an idea, but it was +already dead. Then he began to think about Clara. Who +was this Dennis who visited the Marshalls and the Hopgoods? +Oh! for an hour of his youth! Fifteen years ago the word +would have come unbidden if he had seen Clara, but now, in place +of the word, there was hesitation, shame. He must make up +his mind to renounce for ever. But, although this +conclusion had forced itself upon him overnight as inevitable, he +could not resist the temptation when he rose the next morning of +plotting to meet Clara, and he walked up and down the street +opposite the shop door that evening nearly a quarter of an hour, +just before closing time, hoping that she might come out and that +he might have the opportunity of overtaking her apparently by +accident. At last, fearing he might miss her, he went in +and found she had a companion whom he instantly knew, before any +induction, to be her sister. Madge was not now the Madge +whom we knew at Fenmarket. She was thinner in the face and +paler. Nevertheless, she was not careless; she was even +more particular in her costume, but it was simpler. If +anything, perhaps, she was a little prouder. She was more +attractive, certainly, than she had ever been, although her face +could not be said to be handsomer. The slight prominence of +the cheek-bone, the slight hollow underneath, the loss of colour, +were perhaps defects, but they said something which had a meaning +in it superior to that of the tint of the peach. She had +been reading a book while Clara was balancing her cash, and she +attempted to replace it. The shelf was a little too high, +and the volume fell upon the ground. It contained +Shelley’s <i>Revolt of Islam</i>.</p> +<p>‘Have you read Shelley?’ said Baruch.</p> +<p>‘Every line—when I was much younger.’</p> +<p>‘Do you read him now?’</p> +<p>‘Not much. I was an enthusiast for him when I was +nineteen, but I find that his subject matter is rather thin, and +his themes are a little worn. He was entirely enslaved by +the ideals of the French Revolution. Take away what the +French Revolution contributed to his poetry, and there is not +much left.’</p> +<p>‘As a man he is not very attractive to me.’</p> +<p>‘Nor to me; I never shall forgive his treatment of +Harriet.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose he had ceased to love her, and he thought, +therefore, he was justified in leaving her.’</p> +<p>Madge turned and fixed her eyes, unobserved, on Baruch. +He was looking straight at the bookshelves. There was not, +and, indeed, how could there be, any reference to herself.</p> +<p>‘I should put it in this way,’ she said, +‘that he thought he was justified in sacrificing a woman +for the sake of an <i>impulse</i>. Call this a defect or a +crime—whichever you like—it is repellent to me. +It makes no difference to me to know that he believed the impulse +to be divine.’</p> +<p>‘I wish,’ interrupted Clara, ‘you two would +choose less exciting subjects of conversation; my totals will not +come right.’</p> +<p>They were silent, and Baruch, affecting to study a +Rollin’s <i>Ancient History</i>, wondered, especially when +he called to mind Mrs Caffyn’s report, what this +girl’s history could have been. He presently +recovered himself, and it occurred to him that he ought to give +some reason why he had called. Before, however, he was able +to offer any excuse, Clara closed her book.</p> +<p>‘Now, it is right,’ she said, ‘and I am +ready.’</p> +<p>Just at that moment Barnes appeared, hot with hurrying.</p> +<p>‘Very sorry, Miss Hopgood, to ask you to stay for a few +minutes. I recollected after I left that the doctor +particularly wanted those books sent off to-night. I should +not like to disappoint him. I have been to the +booking-office, and the van will be here in about twenty +minutes. If you will make out the invoice and check me, I +will pack them.’</p> +<p>‘I will be off,’ said Madge. ‘The shop +will be shut if I do not make haste.’</p> +<p>‘You are not going alone, are you?’ said +Baruch. ‘May I not go with you, and cannot we both +come back for your sister?’</p> +<p>‘It is very kind of you.’</p> +<p>Clara looked up from her desk, watched them as they went out +at the door and, for a moment, seemed lost. Barnes turned +round.</p> +<p>‘Now, Miss Hopgood.’ She started.</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Fabricius</i>, <i>J. A.</i> <i>Bibliotheca +Ecclesiastica in qua continentur</i>.’</p> +<p>‘I need not put in the last three words.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, yes.’ Barnes never liked to be +corrected in a title. ‘There’s another +<i>Fabricius Bibliotheca</i> or <i>Bibliographia</i>. Go +on—<i>Basili opera ad MSS. codices</i>, 3 vols.’</p> +<p>Clara silently made the entries a little more scholarly. +In a quarter of an hour the parcel was ready and Cohen +returned.</p> +<p>‘Your sister would not allow me to wait. She met +Mrs Marshall; they said they should have something to carry, and +that it was not worth while to bring it here. I will walk +with you, if you will allow me. We may as well avoid +Holborn.’</p> +<p>They turned into Gray’s Inn, and, when they were in +comparative quietude, he said,—</p> +<p>‘Any Chartist news?’ and then without waiting for +an answer, ‘By the way, who is your friend +Dennis?’</p> +<p>‘He is no particular friend of mine. He is a +wood-engraver, and writes also, I believe, for the +newspapers.’</p> +<p>‘He can talk as well as write.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, he can talk very well.’</p> +<p>‘Do you not think there was something unreal about what +he said?’</p> +<p>‘I do not believe he is actually insincere. I have +noticed that men who write or read much often appear somewhat +shadowy.’</p> +<p>‘How do you account for it?’</p> +<p>‘What they say is not experience.’</p> +<p>‘I do not quite understand. A man may think much +which can never become an experience in your sense of the word, +and be very much in earnest with what he thinks; the thinking is +an experience.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I suppose so, but it is what a person has gone +through which I like to hear. Poor Dennis has suffered +much. You are perhaps surprised, but it is true, and when +he leaves politics alone he is a different creature.’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid I must be very uninteresting to +you?’</p> +<p>‘I did not mean that I care for nothing but my +friend’s aches and pains, but that I do not care for what +he just takes up and takes on.’</p> +<p>‘It is my misfortune that my subjects are not +very—I was about to say—human. Perhaps it is +because I am a Jew.’</p> +<p>‘I do not know quite what you mean by your +“subjects,” but if you mean philosophy and religion, +they are human.’</p> +<p>‘If they are, very few people like to hear anything +about them. Do you know, Miss Hopgood, I can never talk to +anybody as I can to you.’</p> +<p>Clara made no reply. A husband was to be had for a look, +for a touch, a husband whom she could love, a husband who could +give her all her intellect demanded. A little house rose +before her eyes as if by Arabian enchantment; there was a bright +fire on the hearth, and there were children round it; without the +look, the touch, there would be solitude, silence and a childless +old age, so much more to be feared by a woman than by a +man. Baruch paused, waiting for her answer, and her tongue +actually began to move with a reply, which would have sent his +arm round her, and made them one for ever, but it did not +come. Something fell and flashed before her like lightning +from a cloud overhead, divinely beautiful, but divinely +terrible.</p> +<p>‘I remember,’ she said, ‘that I have to call +in Lamb’s Conduit Street to buy something for my +sister. I shall just be in time.’ Baruch went +as far as Lamb’s Conduit Street with her. He, too, +would have determined his own destiny if she had uttered the +word, but the power to proceed without it was wanting and he fell +back. He left her at the door of the shop. She bid +him good-bye, obviously intending that he should go no further +with her, and he shook hands with her, taking her hand again and +shaking it again with a grasp which she knew well enough was too +fervent for mere friendship. He then wandered back once +more to his old room at Clerkenwell. The fire was dead, he +stirred it, the cinders fell through the grate and it dropped out +all together. He made no attempt to rekindle it, but sat +staring at the black ashes, not thinking, but dreaming. +Thirty years more perhaps with no change! The last chance +that he could begin a new life had disappeared. He cursed +himself that nothing drove him out of himself with Marshall and +his fellowmen; that he was not Chartist nor revolutionary; but it +was impossible to create in himself enthusiasm for a cause. +He had tried before to become a patriot and had failed, and was +conscious, during the trial, that he was pretending to be +something he was not and could not be. There was nothing to +be done but to pace the straight road in front of him, which led +nowhere, so far as he could see.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">month</span> afterwards Marshall +announced that he intended to pay a visit.</p> +<p>‘I am going,’ he said, ‘to see +Mazzini. Who will go with me?’</p> +<p>Clara and Madge were both eager to accompany him. Mrs +Caffyn and Mrs Marshall chose to stay at home.</p> +<p>‘I shall ask Cohen to come with us,’ said +Marshall. ‘He has never seen Mazzini and would like +to know him.’ Cohen accordingly called one Sunday +evening, and the party went together to a dull, dark, little +house in a shabby street of small shops and furnished +apartments. When they knocked at Mazzini’s door +Marshall asked for Mr — for, even in England, Mazzini had +an assumed name which was always used when inquiries were made +for him. They were shown upstairs into a rather mean room, +and found there a man, really about forty, but looking +older. He had dark hair growing away from his forehead, +dark moustache, dark beard and a singularly serious face. +It was not the face of a conspirator, but that of a saint, +although without that just perceptible touch of silliness which +spoils the faces of most saints. It was the face of a saint +of the Reason, of a man who could be ecstatic for rational +ideals, rarest of all endowments. It was the face, too, of +one who knew no fear, or, if he knew it, could crush it. He +was once concealed by a poor woman whose house was surrounded by +Austrian soldiers watching for him. He was determined that +she should not be sacrificed, and, having disguised himself a +little, walked out into the street in broad daylight, went up to +the Austrian sentry, asked for a light for his cigar and +escaped. He was cordial in his reception of his visitors, +particularly of Clara, Madge and Cohen, whom he had not seen +before.</p> +<p>‘The English,’ he said, after some preliminary +conversation, ‘are a curious people. As a nation they +are what they call practical and have a contempt for ideas, but I +have known some Englishmen who have a religious belief in them, a +nobler belief than I have found in any other nation. There +are English women, also, who have this faith, and one or two are +amongst my dearest friends.’</p> +<p>‘I never,’ said Marshall, ‘quite comprehend +you on this point. I should say that we know as clearly as +most folk what we want, and we mean to have it.’</p> +<p>‘That may be, but it is not Justice, as Justice which +inspires you. Those of you who have not enough, desire to +have more, that is all.’</p> +<p>‘If we are to succeed, we must preach what the people +understand.’</p> +<p>‘Pardon me, that is just where you and I differ. +Whenever any real good is done it is by a crusade; that is to +say, the cross must be raised and appeal be made to something +<i>above</i> the people. No system based on rights will +stand. Never will society be permanent till it is founded +on duty. If we consider our rights exclusively, we extend +them over the rights of our neighbours. If the oppressed +classes had the power to obtain their rights to-morrow, and with +the rights came no deeper sense of duty, the new order, for the +simple reason that the oppressed are no better than their +oppressors, would be just as unstable as that which preceded +it.’</p> +<p>‘To put it in my own language,’ said Madge, +‘you believe in God.’</p> +<p>Mazzini leaned forward and looked earnestly at her.</p> +<p>‘My dear young friend, without that belief I should have +no other.’</p> +<p>‘I should like, though,’ said Marshall, ‘to +see the church which would acknowledge you and Miss Madge, or +would admit your God to be theirs.’</p> +<p>‘What is essential,’ replied Madge, ‘in a +belief in God is absolute loyalty to a principle we know to have +authority.’</p> +<p>‘It may, perhaps,’ said Mazzini, ‘be more to +me, but you are right, it is a belief in the supremacy and +ultimate victory of the conscience.’</p> +<p>‘The victory seems distant in Italy now,’ said +Baruch. ‘I do not mean the millennial victory of +which you speak, but an approximation to it by the overthrow of +tyranny there.’</p> +<p>‘You are mistaken; it is far nearer than you +imagine.’</p> +<p>‘Do you obtain,’ said Clara, ‘any real help +from people here? Do you not find that they merely talk and +express what they call their sympathy?’</p> +<p>‘I must not say what help I have received; more than +words, though, from many.’</p> +<p>‘You expect, then,’ said Baruch, ‘that the +Italians will answer your appeal?’</p> +<p>‘If I had no faith in the people, I do not see what +faith could survive.’</p> +<p>‘The people are the persons you meet in the +street.’</p> +<p>‘A people is not a mere assemblage of uninteresting +units, but it is not a phantom. A spirit lives in each +nation which is superior to any individual in it. It is +this which is the true reality, the nation’s purpose and +destiny, it is this for which the patriot lives and +dies.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose,’ said Clara, ‘you have no +difficulty in obtaining volunteers for any dangerous +enterprise?’</p> +<p>‘None. You would be amazed if I were to tell you +how many men and women at this very moment would go to meet +certain death if I were to ask them.’</p> +<p>‘Women?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, yes; and women are of the greatest use, but it is +rather difficult to find those who have the necessary +qualifications.’</p> +<p>‘I suppose you employ them in order to obtain secret +information?’</p> +<p>‘Yes; amongst the Austrians.’</p> +<p>The party broke up. Baruch manœuvred to walk with +Clara, but Marshall wanted to borrow a book from Mazzini, and she +stayed behind for him. Madge was outside in the street, and +Baruch could do nothing but go to her. She seemed unwilling +to wait, and Baruch and she went slowly homewards, thinking the +others would overtake them. The conversation naturally +turned upon Mazzini.</p> +<p>‘Although,’ said Madge, ‘I have never seen +him before, I have heard much about him and he makes me +sad.’</p> +<p>‘Why?’</p> +<p>‘Because he has done something worth doing and will do +more.’</p> +<p>‘But why should that make you sad?’</p> +<p>‘I do not think there is anything sadder than to know +you are able to do a little good and would like to do it, and yet +you are not permitted to do it. Mazzini has a world open to +him large enough for the exercise of all his powers.’</p> +<p>‘It is worse to have a desire which is intense but not +definite, to be continually anxious to do something, you know not +what, and always to feel, if any distinct task is offered, your +incapability of attempting it.’</p> +<p>‘A man, if he has a real desire to be of any service, +can generally gratify it to some extent; a woman as a rule +cannot, although a woman’s enthusiasm is deeper than a +man’s. You can join Mazzini to-morrow, I suppose, if +you like.’</p> +<p>‘It is a supposition not quite justifiable, and if I +were free to go I could not.’</p> +<p>‘Why?’</p> +<p>‘I am not fitted for such work; I have not sufficient +faith. When I see a flag waving, a doubt always +intrudes. Long ago I was forced to the conclusion that I +should have to be content with a life which did not extend +outside itself.’</p> +<p>‘I am sure that many women blunder into the wrong path, +not because they are bad, but simply because—if I may say +so—they are too good.’</p> +<p>‘Maybe you are right. The inability to obtain mere +pleasure has not produced the misery which has been begotten of +mistaken or baffled self-sacrifice. But do you mean to say +that you would like to enlist under Mazzini?’</p> +<p>‘No!’</p> +<p>Baruch thought she referred to her child, and he was +silent.</p> +<p>‘You are a philosopher,’ said Madge, after a +pause. ‘Have you never discovered anything which will +enable us to submit to be useless?’</p> +<p>‘That is to say, have I discovered a religion? for the +core of religion is the relationship of the individual to the +whole, the faith that the poorest and meanest of us is a +person. That is the real strength of all +religions.’</p> +<p>‘Well, go on; what do you believe?’</p> +<p>‘I can only say it like a creed; I have no +demonstration, at least none such as I would venture to put into +words. Perhaps the highest of all truths is incapable of +demonstration and can only be stated. Perhaps, also, the +statement, at least to some of us, is a sufficient +demonstration. I believe that inability to imagine a thing +is not a reason for its non-existence. If the infinite is a +conclusion which is forced upon me, the fact that I cannot +picture it does not disprove it. I believe, also, in +thought and the soul, and it is nothing to me that I cannot +explain them by attributes belonging to body. That being +so, the difficulties which arise from the perpetual and +unconscious confusion of the qualities of thought and soul with +those of body disappear. Our imagination represents to +itself souls like pebbles, and asks itself what count can be kept +of a million, but number in such a case is inapplicable. I +believe that all thought is a manifestation of the Being, who is +One, whom you may call God if you like, and that, as It never was +created, It will never be destroyed.’</p> +<p>‘But,’ said Madge, interrupting him, +‘although you began by warning me not to expect that you +would prove anything, you can tell me whether you have any kind +of basis for what you say, or whether it is all a +dream.’</p> +<p>‘You will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that +mathematics, which, of course, I had to learn for my own +business, have supplied something for a foundation. They +lead to ideas which are inconsistent with the notion that the +imagination is a measure of all things. Mind, I do not for +a moment pretend that I have any theory which explains the +universe. It is something, however, to know that the sky is +as real as the earth.’</p> +<p>They had now reached Great Ormond Street, and parted. +Clara and Marshall were about five minutes behind them. +Madge was unusually cheerful when they sat down to supper.</p> +<p>‘Clara,’ she said, ‘what made you so silent +to-night at Mazzini’s?’ Clara did not reply, +but after a pause of a minute or two, she asked Mrs Caffyn +whether it would not be possible for them all to go into the +country on Whitmonday? Whitsuntide was late; it would be +warm, and they could take their food with them and eat it out of +doors.</p> +<p>‘Just the very thing, my dear, if we could get anything +cheap to take us; the baby, of course, must go with us.</p> +<p>‘I should like above everything to go to Great +Oakhurst.’</p> +<p>‘What, five of us—twenty miles there and twenty +miles back! Besides, although I love the place, it +isn’t exactly what one would go to see just for a +day. No! Letherhead or Mickleham or Darkin would be +ever so much better. They are too far, though, and, then, +that man Baruch must go with us. He’d be company for +Marshall, and he sticks up in Clerkenwell and never goes +nowhere. You remember as Marshall said as he must ask him +the next time we had an outing.’</p> +<p>Clara had not forgotten it.</p> +<p>‘Ah,’ continued Mrs Caffyn, ‘I should just +love to show you Mickleham.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn’s heart yearned after her Surrey land. +The man who is born in a town does not know what it is to be +haunted through life by lovely visions of the landscape which lay +about him when he was young. The village youth leaves the +home of his childhood for the city, but the river doubling on +itself, the overhanging alders and willows, the fringe of level +meadow, the chalk hills bounding the river valley and rising +against the sky, with here and there on their summits solitary +clusters of beech, the light and peace of the different seasons, +of morning, afternoon and evening, never forsake him. To +think of them is not a mere luxury; their presence modifies the +whole of his life.</p> +<p>‘I don’t see how it is to be managed,’ she +mused; ‘and yet there’s nothing near London as +I’d give two pins to see. There’s Richmond as +we went to one Sunday; it was no better, to my way of thinking, +than looking at a picture. I’d ever so much sooner be +a-walking across the turnips by the footpath from Darkin +home.’</p> +<p>‘Couldn’t we, for once in a way, stay somewhere +over-night?’</p> +<p>‘It might as well be two,’ said Mrs Marshall; +‘Saturday and Sunday.’</p> +<p>‘Two,’ said Madge; ‘I vote for +two.’</p> +<p>‘Wait a bit, my dears, we’re a precious awkward +lot to fit in—Marshall and his wife me and you and Miss +Clara and the baby; and then there’s Baruch, who’s +odd man, so to speak; that’s three bedrooms. We +sha’n’t do it—Otherwise, I was +a-thinking—’</p> +<p>‘What were you thinking?’ said Marshall.</p> +<p>‘I’ve got it,’ said Mrs Caffyn, +joyously. ‘Miss Clara and me will go to Great +Oakhurst on the Friday. We can easy enough stay at my old +shop. Marshall and Sarah, Miss Madge, the baby and Baruch +can go to Letherhead on the Saturday morning. The two women +and the baby can have one of the rooms at Skelton’s, and +Marshall and Baruch can have the other. Then, on Sunday +morning, Miss Clara and me we’ll come over for you, and +we’ll all walk through Norbury Park. That’ll be +ever so much better in many ways. Miss Clara and me, +we’ll go by the coach. Six of us, not reckoning the +baby, in that heavy ginger-beer cart of Masterman’s would +be too much.’</p> +<p>‘An expensive holiday, rather,’ said Marshall.</p> +<p>‘Leave that to me; that’s my business. I +ain’t quite a beggar, and if we can’t take our +pleasure once a year, it’s a pity. We aren’t +like some folk as messes about up to Hampstead every Sunday, and +spends a fortune on shrimps and donkeys. No; when I go +away, it <i>is</i> away, maybe it’s only for a couple of +days, where I can see a blessed ploughed field; no shrimps nor +donkeys for me.’</p> +<h2>CHARTER XXIX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">So</span> it was settled, and on the +Friday Clara and Mrs Caffyn journeyed to Great Oakhurst. +They were both tired, and went to bed very early, in order that +they might enjoy the next day. Clara, always a light +sleeper, woke between three and four, rose and went to the little +casement window which had been open all night. Below her, +on the left, the church was just discernible, and on the right, +the broad chalk uplands leaned to the south, and were waving with +green barley and wheat. Underneath her lay the cottage +garden, with its row of beehives in the north-east corner, +sheltered from the cold winds by the thick hedge. It had +evidently been raining a little, for the drops hung on the +currant bushes, but the clouds had been driven by the +south-westerly wind into the eastern sky, where they lay in a +long, low, grey band. Not a sound was to be heard, save +every now and then the crow of a cock or the short cry of a +just-awakened thrush. High up on the zenith, the approach +of the sun to the horizon was proclaimed by the most delicate +tints of rose-colour, but the cloud-bank above him was dark and +untouched, although the blue which was over it, was every moment +becoming paler. Clara watched; she was moved even to tears +by the beauty of the scene, but she was stirred by something more +than beauty, just as he who was in the Spirit and beheld a throne +and One sitting thereon, saw something more than loveliness, +although He was radiant with the colour of jasper and there was a +rainbow round about Him like an emerald to look upon. In a +few moments the highest top of the cloud-rampart was kindled, and +the whole wavy outline became a fringe of flame. In a few +moments more the fire just at one point became blinding, and in +another second the sun emerged, the first arrowy shaft passed +into her chamber, the first shadow was cast, and it was +day. She put her hands to her face; the tears fell faster, +but she wiped them away and her great purpose was fixed. +She crept back into bed, her agitation ceased, a strange and +almost supernatural peace overshadowed her and she fell asleep +not to wake till the sound of the scythe had ceased in the meadow +just beyond the rick-yard that came up to one side of the +cottage, and the mowers were at their breakfast.</p> +<p>Neither Mrs Caffyn nor Clara thought of seeing the Letherhead +party on Saturday. They could not arrive before the +afternoon, and it was considered hardly worth while to walk from +Great Oakhurst to Letherhead merely for the sake of an hour or +two. In the morning Mrs Caffyn was so busy with her old +friends that she rather tired herself, and in the evening Clara +went for a stroll. She did not know the country, but she +wandered on until she came to a lane which led down to the +river. At the bottom of the lane she found herself at a +narrow, steep, stone bridge. She had not been there more +than three or four minutes before she descried two persons coming +down the lane from Letherhead. When they were about a +couple of hundred yards from her they turned into the meadow over +the stile, and struck the river-bank some distance below the +point where she was. It was impossible to mistake them; +they were Madge and Baruch. They sauntered leisurely; +presently Baruch knelt down over the water, apparently to gather +something which he gave to Madge. They then crossed another +stile and were lost behind the tall hedge which stopped further +view of the footpath in that direction.</p> +<p>‘The message then was authentic,’ she said to +herself. ‘I thought I could not have misunderstood +it.’</p> +<p>On Sunday morning Clara wished to stay at home. She +pleaded that she preferred rest, but Mrs Caffyn vowed there +should be no Norbury Park if Clara did not go, and the kind +creature managed to persuade a pig-dealer to drive them over to +Letherhead for a small sum, notwithstanding it was Sunday. +The whole party then set out; the baby was drawn in a borrowed +carriage which also took the provisions, and they were fairly out +of the town before the Letherhead bells had ceased ringing for +church. It was one of the sweetest of Sundays, sunny, but +masses of white clouds now and then broke the heat. The +park was reached early in the forenoon, and it was agreed that +dinner should be served under one of the huge beech trees at the +lower end, as the hill was a little too steep for the +baby-carriage in the hot sun.</p> +<p>‘This is very beautiful,’ said Marshall, when +dinner was over, ‘but it is not what we came to see. +We ought to move upwards to the Druid’s grove.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, you be off, the whole lot of you,’ said Mrs +Caffyn. ‘I know every tree there, and I ain’t +going there this afternoon. Somebody must stay here to look +after the baby; you can’t wheel her, you’ll have to +carry her, and you won’t enjoy yourselves much more for +moiling along with her up that hill.’</p> +<p>‘I will stay with you,’ said Clara.</p> +<p>Everybody protested, but Clara was firm. She was tired, +and the sun had given her a headache. Madge pleaded that it +was she who ought to remain behind, but at last gave way for her +sister looked really fatigued.</p> +<p>‘There’s a dear child,’ said Clara, when +Madge consented to go. ‘I shall lie on the grass and +perhaps go to sleep.’</p> +<p>‘It is a pity,’ said Baruch to Madge as they went +away, ‘that we are separated; we must come +again.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, I am sorry, but perhaps it is better she should be +where she is; she is not particularly strong, and is obliged to +be very careful.’</p> +<p>In due time they all came to the famous yews, and sat down on +one of the seats overlooking that wonderful gate in the chalk +downs through which the Mole passes northwards.</p> +<p>‘We must go,’ said Marshall, ‘a little bit +further and see the oak.’</p> +<p>‘Not another step,’ said his wife. +‘You can go it you like.’</p> +<p>‘Content; nothing could be pleasanter than to sit +here,’ and he pulled out his pipe; ‘but really, Miss +Madge, to leave Norbury without paying a visit to the oak is a +pity.’</p> +<p>He did not offer, however, to accompany her.</p> +<p>‘It is the most extraordinary tree in these +parts,’ said Baruch; ‘of incalculable age and with +branches spreading into a tent big enough to cover a +regiment. Marshall is quite right.’</p> +<p>‘Where is it?’</p> +<p>‘Not above a couple of hundred yards further; just round +the corner.’</p> +<p>Madge rose and looked.</p> +<p>‘No; it is not visible here; it stands a little way +back. If you come a little further you will catch a glimpse +of it.’</p> +<p>She followed him and presently the oak came in view. +They climbed up the bank and went nearer to it. The whole +vale was underneath them and part of the weald with the Sussex +downs blue in the distance. Baruch was not much given to +raptures over scenery, but the indifference of Nature to the +world’s turmoil always appealed to him.</p> +<p>‘You are not now discontented because you cannot serve +under Mazzini?’</p> +<p>‘Not now.’</p> +<p>There was nothing in her reply on the face of it of any +particular consequence to Baruch. She might simply have +intended that the beauty of the fair landscape extinguished her +restlessness, or that she saw her own unfitness, but neither of +these interpretations presented itself to him.</p> +<p>‘I have sometimes thought,’ continued Baruch, +slowly, ‘that the love of any two persons in this world may +fulfil an eternal purpose which is as necessary to the Universe +as a great revolution.’</p> +<p>Madge’s eyes moved round from the hills and they met +Baruch’s. No syllable was uttered, but swiftest +messages passed, question and answer. There was no +hesitation on his part now, no doubt, the woman and the moment +had come. The last question was put, the final answer was +given; he took her hand in his and came closer to her.</p> +<p>‘Stop!’ she whispered, ‘do you know my +history?’</p> +<p>He did not reply, but fell upon her neck. This was the +goal to which both had been journeying all these years, although +with much weary mistaking of roads; this was what from the +beginning was designed for both! Happy Madge! happy +Baruch! There are some so closely akin that the meaning of +each may be said to lie in the other, who do not approach till it +is too late. They travel towards one another, but are +waylaid and detained, and just as they are within greeting, one +of them drops and dies.</p> +<p>They left the tree and went back to the Marshalls, and then +down the hill to Mrs Caffyn and Clara. Clara was much +better for her rest, and early in the evening the whole party +returned to Letherhead, Clara and Mrs Caffyn going on to Great +Oakhurst. Madge kept close to her sister till they +separated, and the two men walked together. On Whitmonday +morning the Letherhead people came over to Great Oakhurst. +They had to go back to London in the afternoon, but Mrs Caffyn +and Clara were to stay till Tuesday, as they stood a better +chance of securing places by the coach on that day. Mrs +Caffyn had as much to show them as if the village had been the +Tower of London. The wonder of wonders, however, was a big +house, where she was well known, and its hot-houses. Madge +wanted to speak to Clara, but it was difficult to find a private +opportunity. When they were in the garden, however, she +managed to take Clara unobserved down one of the twisted paths, +under pretence of admiring an ancient mulberry tree.</p> +<p>‘Clara,’ she said, ‘I want a word with +you. Baruch Cohen loves me.’</p> +<p>‘Do you love him?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Without a shadow of a doubt?’</p> +<p>‘Without a shadow of a doubt.’</p> +<p>Clara put her arm round her sister, kissed her tenderly and +said,—</p> +<p>‘Then I am perfectly happy.’</p> +<p>‘Did you suspect it?’</p> +<p>‘I knew it.’</p> +<p>Mrs Caffyn called them; it was time to be moving, and soon +afterwards those who had to go to London that afternoon left for +Letherhead. Clara stood at the gate for a long time +watching them along the straight, white road. They came to +the top of the hill; she could just discern them against the sky; +they passed over the ridge and she went indoors. In the +evening a friend called to see Mrs Caffyn, and Clara went to the +stone bridge which she had visited on Saturday. The water +on the upper side of the bridge was dammed up and fell over the +little sluice gates under the arches into a clear and deep basin +about forty or fifty feet in diameter. The river, for some +reason of its own, had bitten into the western bank, and had +scooped out a great piece of it into an island. The main +current went round the island with a shallow, swift ripple, +instead of going through the pool, as it might have done, for +there was a clear channel for it. The centre and the region +under the island were deep and still, but at the farther end, +where the river in passing called to the pool, it broke into +waves as it answered the appeal, and added its own contribution +to the stream, which went away down to the mill and onwards to +the big Thames. On the island were aspens and alders. +The floods had loosened the roots of the largest tree, and it +hung over heavily in the direction in which it had yielded to the +rush of the torrent, but it still held its grip, and the sap had +not forsaken a single branch. Every one was as dense with +foliage as if there had been no struggle for life, and the leaves +sang their sweet song, just perceptible for a moment every now +and then in the variations of the louder music below them. +It is curious that the sound of a weir is never uniform, but is +perpetually changing in the ear even of a person who stands close +by it. One of the arches of the bridge was dry, and Clara +went down into it, stood at the edge and watched that wonderful +sight—the plunge of a smooth, pure stream into the great +cup which it has hollowed out for itself. Down it went, +with a dancing, foamy fringe playing round it just where it met +the surface; a dozen yards away it rose again, bubbling and +exultant.</p> +<p>She came up from the arch and went home as the sun was +setting. She found Mrs Caffyn alone.</p> +<p>‘I have news to tell you,’ she said. +‘Baruch Cohen is in love with my sister, and she is in love +with him.’</p> +<p>‘The Lord, Miss Clara! I thought sometimes that +perhaps it might be you; but there, it’s better, maybe, as +it is, for—’</p> +<p>‘For what?’</p> +<p>‘Why, my dear, because somebody’s sure to turn up +who’ll make you happy, but there aren’t many men like +Baruch. You see what I mean, don’t you? +He’s always a-reading books, and, therefore, he don’t +think so much of what some people would make a fuss about. +Not as anything of that kind would ever stop me, if I were a man +and saw such a woman as Miss Madge. He’s really as +good a creature as ever was born, and with that child she might +have found it hard to get along, and now it will be cared for, +and so will she be to the end of their lives.’</p> +<p>The evening after their return to Great Ormond Street, Mazzini +was surprised by a visit from Clara alone.</p> +<p>‘When I last saw you,’ she said, ‘you told +us that you had been helped by women. I offer +myself.’</p> +<p>‘But, my dear madam, you hardly know what the +qualifications are. To begin with, there must be a +knowledge of three foreign languages, French, German and Italian, +and the capacity and will to endure great privation, suffering +and, perhaps, death.’</p> +<p>‘I was educated abroad, I can speak German and +French. I do not know much Italian, but when I reach Italy +I will soon learn.’</p> +<p>‘Pardon me for asking you what may appear a rude +question. Is it a personal disappointment which sends you +to me, or love for the cause? It is not uncommon to find +that young women, when earthly love is impossible, attempt to +satisfy their cravings with a love for that which is +impersonal.’</p> +<p>‘Does it make any difference, so far as their constancy +is concerned?’</p> +<p>‘I cannot say that it does. The devotion of many +of the martyrs of the Catholic church was repulsion from the +world as much as attraction to heaven. You must understand +that I am not prompted by curiosity. If you are to be my +friend, it is necessary that I should know you +thoroughly.’</p> +<p>‘My motive is perfectly pure.’</p> +<p>They had some further talk and parted. After a few more +interviews, Clara and another English lady started for +Italy. Madge had letters from her sister at intervals for +eighteen months, the last being from Venice. Then they +ceased, and shortly afterwards Mazzini told Baruch that his +sister-in-law was dead.</p> +<p>All efforts to obtain more information from Mazzini were in +vain, but one day when her name was mentioned, he said to +Madge,—</p> +<p>‘The theologians represent the Crucifixion as the most +sublime fact in the world’s history. It was sublime, +but let us reverence also the Eternal Christ who is for ever +being crucified for our salvation.’</p> +<p>‘Father,’ said a younger Clara to Baruch some ten +years later as she sat on his knee, ‘I had an Aunt Clara +once, hadn’t I?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, my child.’</p> +<p>‘Didn’t she go to Italy and die there?’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘Why did she go?’</p> +<p>‘Because she wanted to free the poor people of Italy who +were slaves.’</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>THE END</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Colston & Company</i>, +<i>Ltd.</i>, <i>Printers</i>, <i>Edinburgh</i>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARA HOPGOOD***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 5986-h.htm or 5986-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/9/8/5986 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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