That decision of Fan's to remain at home had really come with a little
surprise on Mrs. Churton; for although it was what she had hoped, the
hope had been a faint one, and the pleasure it gave her was therefore
all the greater. With this feeling another not altogether to her credit
was mingled--a certain satisfaction at finding her company preferred
to that of her daughter. For it could not be supposed that the girl
experienced just then any eager desire after religious knowledge; she
had just reported Miss Starbrow's scoffing words with such a curious
simplicity, as if she looked on religion merely as a branch of learning,
like mineralogy or astronomy, which was scarcely necessary to her, and
might therefore very well be dispensed with. No, it was purely a matter
of personal preference; and Mrs. Churton, albeit loving and thinking
well of herself, as most people do, could not help finding it a little
strange: for her daughter, notwithstanding that her mind was darkened
by that evil spirit of unbelief, was outwardly a beautiful, engaging
person, ready and eloquent of speech, and seemed in every way one who
would easily win the unsuspecting regard of a simple-minded affectionate
girl like Fan. It was strange and--_providential_. Yes, that explained
the whole mystery, and so fully satisfied her religious mind that she
was instantly relieved from the task of groping after any other cause.
While these thoughts were passing through her mind they were standing
together before the open window, following Miss Churton's form with
their eyes, as she went away in the direction of Eyethorne woods. But
Fan had a very different feeling; she recalled that interview of the
last evening in the orchard, the clear, tender eyes looking invitingly
into hers, the touch of a warm caressing hand, the words in which her
own strange feelings experienced for the first time had been so aptly
described to her; and the thought gave her a dull pain--a vague sense of
some great blessing missed, of something which had promised to make her
unspeakably happy passing from her life.
It was some slight compensation that the scene of that first lesson in
religious doctrine she had expressed herself willing to receive was
in the garden, where they were soon comfortably seated under an
acacia-tree; and that is a tree which does not shut out the heavenly
gladness, like beech and elm and lime, but rather tempers the sunshine
with its loose airy foliage, making a half-brightness that is pleasanter
than shade.
By means of much gentle questioning, herself often suggesting the
answers, Mrs. Churton gradually drew from the girl an account of all she
knew and thought about sacred subjects. She was shocked and grieved
to discover that this young lady from the metropolis was in a state of
ignorance with regard to such subjects that would have surprised her
in any cottage child among the poor she was accustomed to visit in
the neighbourhood. The names of the Creator and of the Saviour were
certainly familiar to Fan; from her earliest childhood she had heard
them spoken with frequency in her old Moon Street home. But that was
all. Her mother had taught her nothing--not even to lisp, when she was
small, the childish rhyme:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Her Scripture lessons at the Board School had powerfully impressed her,
but in a confused and unpleasant way. Certain portions of the historical
narrative affected her with their picturesque grandeur, and fragments
remained in her memory; the Bible and religion generally came to be
associated in her mind with dire wrath, and war, and the shedding
of blood, with ruin of cities and tribulations without end. It was
processional--a great confused host covered with clouds of dust, shields
and spears, and brass and scarlet, and noise of chariot-wheels and
blowing of trumpets--an awful pageant fascinating and terrifying to
contemplate. And when she stood still, a little frightened, to see a
horde of Salvationists surge past her in the street, with discordant
shouting and singing, waving of red flags and loud braying of brass
instruments, this seemed to her a kind of solemn representation of those
ancient and confused doings she had read about; beyond that it had
no meaning. Before her mother's death she had sometimes gone to St.
Michael's Church on wet or cold or foggy winter evenings; for in better
weather it was always overcrowded, and the vergers--a kind of mitigated
policemen, Fan thought them--would hunt her away from the door. For in
those days she was so ragged and such a sad-looking object, and they
doubtless knew very well what motive she had in going there. She had
gone there only because it was warm and dry, and the decorations and
vestments, the singing and the incense, were sweet to her senses; but
what she had heard had not enlightened her.
Mrs. Churton sighed. How unutterably sad it seemed to her that this
girl, so lovely in her person, so sweet in disposition, with so pure
and saint-like an expression, should be in this dark and heathenish
condition! But there was infinite comfort in the thought that this
precious soul to be saved had fallen into her hands, and not into those
of some worldling like Miss Starbrow herself, or, worse still, of a
downright freethinker like her own daughter. After having made her first
survey of Fan's mind, finding nothing there except that queer farrago
of Scripture lessons which had never been explained to her, and were now
nearly forgotten, it seemed to Mrs. Churton that it was almost a blank
with regard to spiritual things, like that proverbial clean sheet of
paper on which anything good or bad may be written. It troubled her
somewhat, and this was the one cloud on that fair prospect, that her
daughter would have so much to do with Fan's mind. She was anxious to
trust in her daughter's honour, yet felt, with her belief concerning the
weakness of any merely human virtue, that it would scarcely be safe or
right to trust her. She resolved to observe a middle course--to trust
her, but not wholly, to pray but to watch as well, lest the fowls of the
air should come in her absence and devour the sacred seed she was about
to scatter.
These, and many more reflections of a like kind, occurred to her while
she was occupied in turning over that pitiful rubbish, composed of
broken fragments of knowledge, in the girl's mind; then she addressed
herself fervently to the task of planting there the great elementary
truth that we are all alike bad by nature, and that only by faith in the
Son of God who died for our sins can we hope to save our souls alive.
This was unspeakably bewildering to Fan, for in a vague kind of way her
neglected mind had conceived a system of right and wrong of its own,
which was entirely independent of any narrative or set of doctrines, and
did not concern itself with the future of the soul. To her mind there
were good people and bad people, besides others she could not classify,
in whom the two opposite qualities were blended, or who were of
a neutral moral tint. The good were those who loved their
fellow-creatures, especially their relations, and were kind to them
in word and deed. The bad were those who gave pain to others by their
brutality and selfishness, by untruthfulness and deceit, and by speaking
unkind and impure words.
Now to be told that this was all a vain delusion, mere fancy, that
she was a child of sin, as unclean in the sight of Heaven as the
worst person she had ever known--a Joe Harrod or a Captain Horton, for
instance--and that God's anger would burn for ever against her unless
she cast away her own filthy rags--Fan thought that these had been
cast away a long time ago--and clothed herself with the divine
righteousness--all that bewildered and surprised her at first. But
being patient and docile she proved amenable to instruction, and as she
unhesitatingly and at once yielded up every point which her instructress
told her was wrong, there was nothing to hinder progress--if this rapid
skimming along over the surface of a subject can be so described. And as
the lesson progressed it seemed to Mrs. Churton that her pupil took
an ever-increasing interest in it, that her mind became more and more
receptive and her intelligence quicker.
The girl's shyness wore off by degrees, her tremulous voice grew firmer,
her pallid cheeks flushed with a colour tender as that of the wild
almond blossom, and her eyes, bright with a new-born confidence, were
lifted more frequently to the other's face. Their hands touched often
and lingered caressingly together, and when the elder lady smiled,
a responsive smile shone in the girl's raised eyes and played on her
delicately-moulded mouth--a smile that was like sunlight on clear water,
revealing a nature so simple and candid; and deep down, trembling into
light, the crystalline soul which had come without flaw from its Maker's
hands, and in the midst of evil had caught no stain to dim its perfect
purity. It seemed now to Mrs. Churton, as she expounded the sacred
doctrines which meant so much to her, that she had not known so great a
happiness since her daughter, white even to her lips at the thought
of the cruel pain she was about to inflict, yet unable to conceal the
truth, had come to her and said with trembling voice, “Mother, I no
longer believe as you do.” For how much grief had the children God had
given her already caused her spirit! Two comely sons, her first and
second-born, had after a time despised her teachings, and had grown up
almost to manhood only to bring shame and poverty on their home; and
had then drifted away beyond her ken to lose themselves in the wandering
tribe of ne'er-do-wells in some distant colony. But her daughter had
been left to her, the clear-minded thoughtful girl who would not be
corrupted by the weakness and vices of a father, nor meet with such
temptations as her brothers had been powerless to resist; and in loving
this dear girl with the whole strength of her nature--this one child
that was left to her to be with her in time and eternity--she had found
consolation, and had been happy, until that dark day had arrived, and
she heard the words that spoke to her heart
A deeper sorrow
Than the wail upon the dead.
It is true that she still hoped against hope; that she loved her
daughter with passionate intensity, and clove to her, and was filled
with a kind of terror at the thought of losing her, when Constance
spoke, as she sometimes did, of leaving her home; but this love had no
comfort, no sweetness, no joy in it, and it seemed to her more
bitter than hate. It showed itself like hatred in her looks and words
sometimes; for in spite of all her efforts to bear this great trial with
the meekness her Divine Exemplar had taught, the bitter feeling would
overcome her. “Mother, I know that you hate me!”--that was the reproach
that was hardest to bear from her daughter's lips, the words that stung
her to the quick. For although untrue, she felt that they were deserved;
so cold did her anger and unhappiness make her seem to this rebellious
child, so harsh and so bitter! And sometimes the reproach seemed to have
the strange power of actually turning her love to the hatred she was
charged with, and at such times she could scarcely refrain from crying
out in her overmastering wrath to invoke a curse from the Almighty on
her daughter's head, to reply that it was true, that she did hate her
with a great hatred, but that her hatred was as nothing compared to
that of her God, who would punish her for denying His existence with
everlasting fire. Unable to hide her terrible agitation, she would fly
to her room, her heart bursting with anguish, and casting herself on her
knees cry out for deliverance from such distracting thoughts. After one
of these stormy periods, followed by swift compunction, she would be
able again to meet and speak to her daughter in a frame of mind which by
contrast seemed strangely meek and subdued.
Now, sitting in the garden with Fan, all the old tender motherly
feelings, and the love that had no pain in it, were coming back to her,
and it was like the coming of spring after a long winter; and this girl,
a stranger to her only yesterday, one who was altogether without that
knowledge which alone can make the soul beautiful, seemed already to
have filled the void in her heart.
On the other side it seemed to Fan, as she looked up to meet the grave
tender countenance bent towards her, that it grew every moment dearer
to her sight, It was a comely face still: Miss Churton's beauty was
inherited from her mother--certainly not from her father. The features
were regular, and perhaps that grey hair had once been golden, thought
Fan--and the face now pallid and lined with care full of rich colour.
Imagination lends a powerful aid to affection. She had found someone
to love and was happy once more. For to her love was everything; “all
thoughts, all feelings, all delights” were its ministers and “fed its
sacred flame”; this was the secret motive ever inspiring her, and it was
impossible for her to put any other, higher or lower, in its place. Not
that sweet sickness and rage of the heart which is also called love, and
which so enriches life that we look with a kind of contemptuous pity on
those who have never experienced it, thinking that they have only a dim
incomplete existence, and move through life ghost-like and sorrowful
among their joyous brothers and sisters. Such a feeling had never yet
touched or come near to her young heart; and her ignorance was so great,
and the transition to her present life so recent, that she did not yet
distinguish between the different kinds of that feeling--that which was
wholly gross and animal, seen in foul faces and whispered in her ears by
polluted lips, from which she had fled, trembling and terrified, through
the dark lanes and streets of the City of Dreadful Night; and the same
feeling as it appears, sublimed and beautified, in the refined and the
virtuous. As yet she knew nothing about a beautiful love of that kind;
but she had in the highest degree that purer, better affection which
we prize as our most sacred possession, and even attribute to the
immortals, since our earthly finite minds cannot conceive any more
beautiful bond uniting them. It was this flame in her heart which had
kept her like one alone, apart and unsoiled in the midst of squalor
and vice, which had made her girlhood so unspeakably sad. Her soul had
existed in a semi-starved condition on such affection as her miserable
intemperate mother had bestowed on her, and, for the rest, the sight of
love in which she had no part in some measure ministered to her wants
and helped to sustain her.
One of the memories of her dreary life in Moon Street, which remained
most vividly impressed on her mind, was of a very poor family whose head
was an old man who mended broken-bottomed cane-chairs for a living; the
others being a daughter, a middle-aged woman whose husband had forsaken
her, and her three children. The eldest child was a stolid-looking
round-faced girl about thirteen years old, who had the care of the
little ones while her mother was away at work in a laundry. This family
lodged in a house adjoining the one in which Fan lived, and for several
weeks after they came there she used to shrink away in fear from the old
grandfather whenever she saw him going out in the morning and returning
in the evening. He was a tall spare old man, sixty-five or seventy years
old, with clothes worn almost to threads, a broad-brimmed old felt hat
on his head, and one of his knees stiff, so that he walked like a man
with a wooden leg. But he was erect as a soldier, and always walked
swiftly, even when returning, tired no doubt, from a long day's
wandering and burdened with his bundle of cane and three or four old
broken chairs--his day's harvest. But what a face was that old man's! He
had long hair, almost white, a thin grey stern face with sharp aquiline
features, and, set deep under his feather-like tufty eyebrows, blue
eyes that looked cold and keen as steel. If he had walked in Pall Mall,
dressed like a gentleman, the passer-by would have turned to look after
him, and probably said, “There goes a leader of men--a man of action--a
fighter of England's battles in some distant quarter of the globe.” But
he was only an old gatherer of broken chairs, and got sixpence for
each chair he mended, and lived on it; an indomitable old man who lived
bravely and would die bravely, albeit not on any burning plain or in
any wild mountain pass, leading his men, but in a garret, where he would
mend his last broken chair, and look up unflinching in the Destroyer's
face. Whenever he came stumping rapidly past, and turned that swift
piercing eagle glance on Fan, she would shrink aside as if she felt
the sting of sleet or a gust of icy-cold wind on her face. That was
at first. Afterwards she discovered that at a certain hour of the late
afternoon the eldest girl would come down and take up her station in the
doorway to wait his coming. When he appeared her eyes would sparkle and
her whole face kindle with a glad excitement, and hiding herself in the
doorway, she would wait his arrival, then suddenly spring out to startle
him with a joyous cry. The sight of this daily meeting had such a
fascination for Fan that she would always try to be there at the proper
time to witness it; and after it was over she would go about for hours
feeling a kind of reflected happiness in her heart at the love which
gladdened these poor people's lives.
Afterwards, in Dawson Place, Mary's affection for her had made her
inexpressibly happy, in spite of some very serious troubles, and now,
when Mary's last warning words had made any close friendship with Miss
Churton impossible, her heart turned readily to the mother. In this case
there had been no prohibition; Mary's jealousy had not gone so far as
that; Mrs. Churton was the one being in her new home to whom she could
cling without offence, and who could satisfy her soul with the food for
which it hungered.
They had been sitting together over two hours in the garden when Mrs.
Churton at length rose from her seat.
“I hope that I have not tired you--I hope that you have liked your
lesson,” she said, taking the girl's hand.
“I have liked it so much,” answered Fan. “I like to be with you so much,
because”--she hesitated a little and then finished--“because I think
that you like me.”
“I like you very much, Fan,” she returned, and stooping, kissed her on
the forehead. “I can say that I love you dearly, although you have only
been with us since yesterday. And if you can love me, Fan, and regard me
as a mother, it will be a great comfort to me and a great help to both
of us in our lessons.”
Fan caressed the hand which still retained hers, but at the same time
she cast down her eyes, over which a little shade of anxiety had come.
She was thinking, perhaps, that this relationship of mother and daughter
might not be an altogether desirable one.