THE ODD WOMEN
BY
GEORGE GISSING
CONTENTS
I THE FOLD AND THE SHEPHERD
II ADRIFT
III AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN
IV MONICA’S MAJORITY
V THE CASUAL ACQUAINTANCE
VI A CAMP OF THE RESERVE
VII A SOCIAL ADVANCE
VIII COUSIN EVERARD
IX THE SIMPLE FAITH
X FIRST PRINCIPLES
XI AT NATURE’S BIDDING
XII WEDDINGS
XIII DISCORD OF LEADERS
XIV MOTIVES MEETING
XV THE JOYS OF HOME
XVI HEALTH FROM THE SEA
XVII THE TRIUMPH
XVIII A REINFORCEMENT
XIX THE CLANK OF THE CHAINS
XX THE FIRST LIE
XXI TOWARDS THE DECISIVE
XXII HONOUR IN DIFFICULTIES
XXIII IN AMBUSH
XXIV TRACKED
XXV THE FATE OF THE IDEAL
XXVI THE UNIDEAL TESTED
XXVII THE REASCENT
XXVIII THE BURDEN OF FUTILE SOULS
XXIX CONFESSION AND COUNSEL
XXX RETREAT WITH HONOUR
XXXI A NEW BEGINNING
CHAPTER I
THE FOLD AND THE SHEPHERD
“So to-morrow, Alice,” said Dr. Madden, as he walked with his eldest
daughter on the coast-downs by Clevedon, “I shall take steps for
insuring my life for a thousand pounds.”
It was the outcome of a long and intimate conversation. Alice Madden,
aged nineteen, a plain, shy, gentle-mannered girl, short of stature,
and in movement something less than graceful, wore a pleased look as
she glanced at her father’s face and then turned her eyes across the
blue channel to the Welsh hills. She was flattered by the confidence
reposed in her, for Dr. Madden, reticent by nature, had never been
known to speak in the domestic circle about his pecuniary affairs. He
seemed to be the kind of man who would inspire his children with
affection: grave but benign, amiably diffident, with a hint of lurking
mirthfulness about his eyes and lips. And to-day he was in the best of
humours; professional prospects, as he had just explained to Alice,
were more encouraging than hitherto; for twenty years he had practised
medicine at Clevedon, but with such trifling emolument that the needs
of his large family left him scarce a margin over expenditure; now, at
the age of forty-nine—it was 1872—he looked forward with a larger
hope. Might he not reasonably count on ten or fifteen more years of
activity? Clevedon was growing in repute as a seaside resort; new
houses were rising; assuredly his practice would continue to extend.
“I don’t think girls ought to be troubled about this kind of thing,” he
added apologetically. “Let men grapple with the world; for, as the old
hymn says, “’tis their nature to.” I should grieve indeed if I thought
my girls would ever have to distress themselves about money matters.
But I find I have got into the habit, Alice, of talking to you very
much as I should talk with your dear mother if she were with us.”
Mrs. Madden, having given birth to six daughters, had fulfilled her
function in this wonderful world; for two years she had been resting in
the old churchyard that looks upon the Severn sea. Father and daughter
sighed as they recalled her memory. A sweet, calm, unpretending woman;
admirable in the domesticities; in speech and thought distinguished by
a native refinement, which in the most fastidious eyes would have
established her claim to the title of lady. She had known but little
repose, and secret anxieties told upon her countenance long before the
final collapse of health.
“And yet,” pursued the doctor—doctor only by courtesy—when he had
stooped to pluck and examine a flower, “I made a point of never
discussing these matters with her. As no doubt you guess, life has been
rather an uphill journey with us. But the home must be guarded against
sordid cares to the last possible moment; nothing upsets me more than
the sight of those poor homes where wife and children are obliged to
talk from morning to night of how the sorry earnings shall be laid out.
No, no; women, old or young, should never have to think about money.”
The magnificent summer sunshine, and the western breeze that tasted of
ocean, heightened his natural cheeriness. Dr. Madden fell into a
familiar strain of prescience.
“There will come a day, Alice, when neither man nor woman is troubled
with such sordid care. Not yet awhile; no, no; but the day will come.
Human beings are not destined to struggle for ever like beasts of prey.
Give them time; let civilization grow. You know what our poet says:
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe—””
He quoted the couplet with a subdued fervour which characterized the
man and explained his worldly lot. Elkanah Madden should never have
entered the medical profession; mere humanitarianism had prompted the
choice in his dreamy youth; he became an empiric, nothing more. “Our
poet,” said the doctor; Clevedon was chiefly interesting to him for its
literary associations. Tennyson he worshipped; he never passed
Coleridge’s cottage without bowing in spirit. From the contact of
coarse actualities his nature shrank.
When he and Alice returned from their walk it was the hour of family
tea. A guest was present this afternoon; the eight persons who sat down
to table were as many as the little parlour could comfortably contain.
Of the sisters, next in age to Alice came Virginia, a pretty but
delicate girl of seventeen. Gertrude, Martha, and Isabel, ranging from
fourteen to ten, had no physical charm but that of youthfulness; Isabel
surpassed her eldest sister in downright plainness of feature. The
youngest, Monica, was a bonny little maiden only just five years old,
dark and bright-eyed.
The parents had omitted no care in shepherding their fold. Partly at
home, and partly in local schools, the young ladies had received
instruction suitable to their breeding, and the elder ones were
disposed to better this education by private study. The atmosphere of
the house was intellectual; books, especially the poets, lay in every
room. But it never occurred to Dr. Madden that his daughters would do
well to study with a professional object. In hours of melancholy he had
of course dreaded the risks of life, and resolved, always with
postponement, to make some practical provision for his family; in
educating them as well as circumstances allowed, he conceived that he
was doing the next best thing to saving money, for, if a fatality
befell, teaching would always be their resource. The thought, however,
of his girls having to work for money was so utterly repulsive to him
that he could never seriously dwell upon it. A vague piety supported
his courage. Providence would not deal harshly with him and his dear
ones. He enjoyed excellent health; his practice decidedly improved. The
one duty clearly before him was to set an example of righteous life,
and to develop the girls’ minds—in every proper direction. For, as to
training them for any path save those trodden by English ladies of the
familiar type, he could not have dreamt of any such thing. Dr. Madden’s
hopes for the race were inseparable from a maintenance of morals and
conventions such as the average man assumes in his estimate of women.
The guest at table was a young girl named Rhoda Nunn. Tall, thin,
eager-looking, but with promise of bodily vigour, she was singled at a
glance as no member of the Madden family. Her immaturity (but fifteen,
she looked two years older) appeared in nervous restlessness, and in
her manner of speaking, childish at times in the hustling of
inconsequent thoughts, yet striving to imitate the talk of her seniors.
She had a good head, in both senses of the phrase; might or might not
develop a certain beauty, but would assuredly put forth the fruits of
intellect. Her mother, an invalid, was spending the summer months at
Clevedon, with Dr. Madden for medical adviser, and in this way the girl
became friendly with the Madden household. Its younger members she
treated rather condescendingly; childish things she had long ago put
away, and her sole pleasure was in intellectual talk. With a frankness
peculiar to her, indicative of pride, Miss Nunn let it be known that
she would have to earn her living, probably as a school teacher; study
for examinations occupied most of her day, and her hours of leisure
were frequently spent either at the Maddens or with a family named
Smithson—people, these latter, for whom she had a profound and
somewhat mysterious admiration. Mr. Smithson, a widower with a
consumptive daughter, was a harsh-featured, rough-voiced man of about
five-and-thirty, secretly much disliked by Dr. Madden because of his
aggressive radicalism; if women’s observation could be trusted, Rhoda
Nunn had simply fallen in love with him, had made him, perhaps
unconsciously, the object of her earliest passion. Alice and Virginia
commented on the fact in their private colloquy with a shamefaced
amusement; they feared that it spoke ill for the young lady’s breeding.
None the less they thought Rhoda a remarkable person, and listened to
her utterances respectfully.
“And what is your latest paradox, Miss Nunn?” inquired the doctor, with
grave facetiousness, when he had looked round the young faces at his
board.
“Really, I forget, doctor. Oh, but I wanted to ask you, Do you think
women ought to sit in Parliament?”
“Why, no,” was the response, as if after due consideration. “If they
are there at all they ought to stand.”
“Oh, I can’t get you to talk seriously,” rejoined Rhoda, with an air of
vexation, whilst the others were good-naturedly laughing. “Mr. Smithson
thinks there ought to be female members of Parliament.”
“Does he? Have the girls told you that there’s a nightingale in Mr.
Williams’s orchard?”
It was always thus. Dr. Madden did not care to discuss even playfully
the radical notions which Rhoda got from her objectionable friend. His
daughters would not have ventured to express an opinion on such topics
when he was present; apart with Miss Nunn, they betrayed a timid
interest in whatever proposition she advanced, but no gleam of
originality distinguished their arguments.
After tea the little company fell into groups—some out of doors
beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia was
playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her five-year-old
prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a canvas chair
against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr. Madden was thinking
how happy they made him, these kind, gentle girls; how his love for
them seemed to ripen with every summer; what a delightful old age his
would be, when some were married and had children of their own, and the
others tended him—they whom he had tended. Virginia would probably be
sought in marriage; she had good looks, a graceful demeanour, a bright
understanding. Gertrude also, perhaps. And little Monica—ah, little
Monica! she would be the beauty of the family. When Monica had grown up
it would be time for him to retire from practice; by then he would
doubtless have saved money.
He must find more society for them; they had always been too much
alone, whence their shyness among strangers. If their mother had but
lived!
“Rhoda wishes you to read us something, father,” said his eldest girl,
who had approached whilst he was lost in dream.
He often read aloud to them from the poets; Coleridge and Tennyson by
preference. Little persuasion was needed. Alice brought the volume, and
he selected “The Lotus-Eaters.” The girls grouped themselves about him,
delighted to listen. Many an hour of summer evening had they thus
spent, none more peaceful than the present. The reader’s cadenced voice
blended with the song of a thrush.
“Let us alone.
Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our
lips are dumb.
Let us alone.
What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us—”
There came an interruption, hurried, peremptory. A farmer over at
Kingston Seymour had been seized with alarming illness; the doctor must
come at once.
“Very sorry, girls. Tell James to put the horse in, sharp as he can.”
In ten minutes Dr. Madden was driving at full speed, alone in his
dog-cart, towards the scene of duty.
About seven o’clock Rhoda Nunn took leave, remarking with her usual
directness, that before going home she would walk along the sea-front
in the hope of a meeting with Mr. Smithson and his daughter. Mrs. Nunn
was not well enough to leave the house to-day; but, said Rhoda, the
invalid preferred being left alone at such times.
“Are you sure she prefers it?” Alice ventured to ask. The girl gave her
a look of surprise.
“Why should mother say what she doesn’t mean?”
It was uttered with an ingenuousness which threw some light on Rhoda’s
character.
By nine o’clock the younger trio of sisters had gone to bed; Alice,
Virginia, and Gertrude sat in the parlour, occupied with books, from
time to time exchanging a quiet remark. A tap at the door scarcely drew
their attention, for they supposed it was the maid-servant coming to
lay supper. But when the door opened there was a mysterious silence;
Alice looked up and saw the expected face, wearing, however, so strange
an expression that she rose with sudden fear.
“Can I speak to you, please, miss?”
The dialogue out in the passage was brief. A messenger had just arrived
with the tidings that Dr. Madden, driving back from Kingston Seymour,
had been thrown from his vehicle and lay insensible at a roadside
cottage.
* * *
For some time the doctor had been intending to buy a new horse; his
faithful old roadster was very weak in the knees. As in other matters,
so in this, postponement became fatality; the horse stumbled and fell,
and its driver was flung head forward into the road. Some hours later
they brought him to his home, and for a day or two there were hopes
that he might rally. But the sufferer’s respite only permitted him to
dictate and sign a brief will; this duty performed, Dr. Madden closed
his lips for ever.