After making her peace with Fan, there remained for Constance the heavy
task of informing her mother. She found her engaged with her needle in
the dining-room.
“Mother,” she began, “I have got something very unpleasant to tell you.
Miss Starbrow has written to Fan, casting her off. She tells her to
remain here until her year is up, and then to take care of herself, as
she, Miss Starbrow, will have nothing more to do with her. It is a cold,
heartless letter; and what poor Fan is to do I don't know.”
Mrs. Churton made no reply for some time, but the news disturbed her
greatly. Much as she felt for Fan, she could not help thinking also of
her own sad case; for after the last quarter had come, with no word from
Miss Starbrow, she had taken it for granted that Fan was to stay another
year with her. And the money had been a great boon, enabling her to
order her house better, and even to pay off a few old accounts,
and interest on the mortgage which weighed so heavily on her little
property.
Constance, guessing what was passing in her mind, pitied her, but waited
without saying more for her to speak; and at length when she did speak
it was to put the question which Constance had been expecting with some
apprehension.
“What is Miss Starbrow's reason for casting Fan off?” she said.
The other still considered a little before replying.
“Mother,” she spoke at length, “will you read Miss Starbrow's letter
for yourself? It is not very easy to see from it what she has to quarrel
with Fan about. Her reason is perhaps only an excuse, it seems so
fantastical. You must judge for yourself.”
“I suppose you can tell me whether her quarrel with Fan--you say that
there is a quarrel--is because the girl has been taught things she
disapproves.”
“No, nothing of the kind. She writes briefly, and, as I said,
heartlessly. Not one word of affection for Fan or of regret at parting
with her, and no allusion to the subject of her studies with you or me.
Not a word of thinks to us--”
“That I never expected,” said Mrs. Churton. “I could not look for such
a thing from a person of Miss Starbrow's description. A kind word or
message from her would have surprised me very much.”
While she was speaking Fan had entered the room unnoticed. She was pale
and looked sad, but calmer now, and the traces of tears had been washed
away. Her face flushed when she heard Mrs. Churton's words, and she
advanced and stood so that they could not help seeing her.
“Fan, I am deeply grieved to hear this,” said Mrs. Churton. “I cannot
tell you, my poor child, how much I feel this trouble that has come on
you so early in life. But before I can speak fully about it I must know
something more. I am in the dark yet--Constance has not told me why
Miss Starbrow has seen fit to act in such a way. Will you let me see her
letter?” and with trembling fingers she began to wipe her glasses, which
had grown dim.
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Churton, but I cannot show you the letter.”
They both looked at her, Constance becoming more and more convinced that
there was a strength in Fan's character which she had never suspected;
while in Mrs. Churton anxiety and sorrow for a moment gave place to a
different feeling.
“You surprise me very much, Fan,” she returned. “I understand that you
have already shown the letter to Constance.”
“Yes, but I am sorry now. I did it without thinking, and I cannot show
it again.”
“Fan, what is the meaning of this? It is only right and natural that
you should confide in me about such a serious matter; and I cannot
understand your motives in refusing to let me see a letter the contents
of which are known to my daughter.”
“Mother,” said Constance, “I think I can guess her motives, which make
it painful for her to show the letter, and will explain what I think
they are. Fan, dear, will you leave us for a while, and let me tell
mother why Miss Starbrow will not take you back?”
“You can say what you like, Constance, because I can't prevent you,”
said Fan, still speaking with that decision in her tone which seemed
so strange in her. “But I said I was sorry that I let you read Mary's
letter, and if you say anything about it, it will be against my wish.”
These words, although spoken in rebuke, were a relief to Constance, for
however “fantastical” she might consider Miss Starbrow's motives to be,
she very much doubted that her mother would take the same view; and she
knew that her mother, though entitled to know the whole matter, would
never ask her to reveal a secret of Fan's.
But Mrs. Churton had not finished yet. “Fan, dear, come to me,” she
said, and putting her arm about the girl's waist, drew her to her side.
“I think I have cause to be offended with your treatment of me, but
I shall not be offended, because you are probably only doing what you
think is right. But, dear child, you must allow me to judge for you in
some things, and I am convinced that you are making a great mistake. I
have been a great deal to you during all these months that you have been
with us, and since you received this letter I have become more to you.
You must not imagine that in a little time, in another two months, we
must separate; you are too young, too weak yet to go out into the world,
to face its temptations and struggle for your own livelihood. I have
been a mother to you; look on me as a mother still, a natural protector,
whose home is your home also. It might very well be that Miss Starbrow's
motives for casting you off would be of no assistance to me in the
future--I can hardly think that they could be; for I do not believe that
she has any valid reason for treating you as she has done. Nor is it
from mere curiosity that I ask you to show me her letter; but it is best
that you should do so for various reasons, and chiefly because it will
prove that you love me, and trust me, and are willing to be guided by
me.”
The tears rose to Fan's eyes, her strange self-collected mood seemed
to be gone. “Dear Mrs. Churton,” she said, with trembling voice,
“please--please don't think me ungrateful! ... You have made me so happy
... oh, what can I do to show how much I love you ... that I do trust
you?”
The girl was conquered, so they thought, mother and daughter; and
Constance, with a little internal sigh and a twinge of shame at her
cowardice, waited to see the letter read and to save Fan the pain of
answering the searching questions which her mother would be sure to ask.
“Dear Fan, let me see the letter,” said Mrs. Churton.
“Oh, dear Mrs. Churton, anything but that! I can't let you see it--I am
so sorry! When Constance read it and began to speak angrily of Mary, I
said to myself that no one should ever see it again.”
“Have you then destroyed it?”
“Oh, no,” she replied, involuntarily touching her bosom with her hand,
“but I cannot show it.”
“Very well, Fan, let us say no more about it,” returned the other
coldly, and withdrawing her arm from the girl's waist. And after a few
moments of painful silence she rose and left the room.
Fan looking up met her friend's eyes fixed on her face. “Do you think
Mrs. Churton is very angry with me, Constance?” she asked sadly.
“I think that she is offended. And surprised too, I believe.” Then she
came nearer and took the girl's hand. “You have surprised me a great
deal, I know. I am not yet quite sure that I understand your motives for
refusing to show the letter. Perhaps your only reason was that you would
not allow Miss Starbrow to be blamed at all--I am not questioning you.
In any case you make me feel ashamed of myself. You have made me feel
such a coward, and--it was a poor spiteful thing to say that I would
tear up the notes and send them back to the giver.”
Fan made no reply, but stood with eyes cast down as if thinking of
something else; and before long she made some excuse to go to her room,
where she spent the rest of the day shut up by herself.
From that day a cloud rested on the ladies of Wood End House. Just when
Nature called them to rejoice, when the sun laughed at the storm, and
the blackbird fluted so loud in the orchard, and earth knew once more
the glory of flowers, this great trouble had come on Fan, dimming the
sweet visible world with a mist of tears. The poverty and toil which
she must now face meant so much to her; day and night, at all times,
the thought of it forced itself on her--the perpetual toiling for a
bare subsistence, for bread to satisfy the cravings of hunger; the mean
narrow, sordid, weary life, day after day, with no hope, no dream of
joy to come; and worse than all, the evil things which she had seen and
heard and were associated in her mind with the thought of poverty, all
the things which made her old life seem like a hideous nightmare to her!
The sunshine and flowers and the fluting of the blackbird, that would
soon flute no more for her, could not drive this care from her heart;
she was preoccupied, and silent, and sad, and Constance was sad from
pure sympathy. Mrs. Churton, although still kind and even motherly
in her manner, could not help showing that Fan's offence had not been
forgotten; yet she loved the girl so well that she could not but feel
the deepest pity for her and anxiety about her future. And she even
still hoped to win her confidence.
“Fan,” she said one evening, when bidding her good-night, “you must not
think that what passed the other day between us makes any difference
with regard to my plans about your future. What I said to you then still
holds good, and my home while I have one is your home.”
Fan knew very well that she might not accept this offer; she knew that
the Churtons were poor and burdened with debt; and that even if it had
not been so, after taking up an independent position in opposition to
Mrs. Churton, she had no right to remain a day beyond the time for which
payment had been made. All this in a faltering way she tried to explain
to her kind friend, and Mrs. Churton confessed to herself that the girl
took the right view. She made no further attempt to win her confidence
or to make her change her mind; towards both Fan and her daughter she
thereafter observed a somewhat cold and distant manner, grieving in her
own heart, yearning over them in secret, but striving to hide it all
from their eyes.
A fortnight after the receipt of Miss Starbrow's letter, one afternoon
the girls came in from their walk, and Constance, seeing her mother at
work in the dining-room, remained standing at the door until Fan went
upstairs. Then she went inside and sat down near her mother. Mrs.
Churton glanced at her with a swift startled glance, then bent her eyes
on her work again. But her heart fluttered in her breast, for she knew
that she was about to hear some new and perhaps painful thing.
“Mother,” Constance began presently, “Fan has made up her mind to go
back to London when her time is up with us. She is going to look for a
situation.”
“A situation--what do you mean, Constance?”
“Her own idea is that she would like best to be a shop-girl in some
large London shop.”
“Then all I can say is that it is very shocking. Does the poor child
know what it means to be a shop-girl in a great city, where she has
no home or friends, where she will associate with ignorant and
vulgar people, and worse perhaps, and be exposed to the most terrible
temptations? But what can I say, Constance, that will have the slightest
weight with either Fan or you?”
“I should like it very much better if Fan could do something
different--if she could find some more ladylike occupation. But nothing
will move her. If she cannot get into a shop, she says that she must
be a servant, because she must earn her own living, and she will not
believe herself capable of anything higher. To be a shop-girl, or
a nursery-governess, or failing that a nursemaid, is as high as her
ambition goes; and though I am sorry that it must be so, I can't help
admiring her independence and resolution.”
“I am glad that there is anything in it all to be admired; it only makes
me sad, and just now I can say no more about it. I only hope that before
the time comes she will think better of it.”
“I have something else to say to you, mother,” said Constance, after a
rather long interval of silence. “I have made up my mind to accompany
Fan to London.”
“What do you mean, Constance?” the other asked, with a tremor in her
voice.
“To live in London, I mean. It has long been my wish, and I am surely
as well able to earn my living now as I ever shall be. When Fan goes I
shall not be needed at home any longer. And we are not happy together,
mother.”
“I know that, Constance; but you must put this idea of going to London
out of your head. I cannot consent to it--I shall never consent to it.”
“Why not, mother?”
“Do not ask me. I cannot say--I scarcely know myself. I dare not think
of such a thing; it is too dreadful. You must not, you cannot go. Do not
speak of it again.”
The other's task was all the harder because she knew the reason of her
mother's reluctance, and understood her feeling so well--the terrible
grief which only a mother can feel at the thought of an eternal
separation from her child. She rose to her feet, but instead of going
from the room remained standing, hesitating, twisting and untwisting her
fingers together, and at length she moved to a chair close to her mother
and sat down again.
“I must tell you something else, mother,” she said. “I do not quite
belong to myself now, but to another; and if the man I have promised to
marry were to come for me to-morrow, or to send for me to go to him, I
could no longer remain with you. As it happens, we are not going to be
married soon--not for a year at least, perhaps not for two. Before that
time comes I wish to know what it is to live by my own work.... He is
a worker, working with his mind in London: I think it would be a good
preparation for my future, that it would make me a better companion for
him, if I were also to work now and be independent.... If you can only
give me a little money--enough to pay my expenses for a short time--a
few weeks in London, until I begin to make enough to keep myself!”
“And who is this person you speak of, Constance, of whose existence I
now hear for the first time?”
“I have been for some months in correspondence with him, but our
engagement is only recent, and that is why you have not heard of it
before. He is a clerk in the Foreign Office, and from that you will know
that he is a gentleman. He also employs his leisure time in literary
work. I can show you his photograph if you would like to see it,
mother.”
“And have you, Constance, engaged yourself to a person you have not even
seen?”
“No, mother, I have of course seen him.”
“Where?”
“Here, in Eyethorne. Last August, when I was walking in the woods with
Fan, we met him, and he recognised Fan, whom he had met in London at
Miss Starbrow's house, and spoke to her. We had a long conversation
on that day, and I met him again and talked with him the next day, and
after that we kept up the acquaintance by letter.”
“And you and Fan together met this man and never mentioned it to me! Let
me ask you one question more, Constance. Is this person you are engaged
to a Christian or an infidel?”
“Mother, it is not fair to put the question in that way. You call me an
infidel, but I am not an infidel--I do not call myself one.”
“Do not let us go into hair-splitting distinctions, Constance. I ask you
again this simple question--Is he a Christian?”
“Not in the way that you understand it. He is not a Christian.”
The other turned her face away, a little involuntary moan of pain
escaping her lips; and for the space of two or three minutes there was
silence between them, the daughter repenting that she had vainly given
her confidence, and the mother revolving all she had heard in her mind,
her grief changing gradually into the old wrath and bitterness. And at
length she spoke.
“I don't know why you have condescended to tell me of this engagement.
Was it only to show me how utterly you put aside and despise a mother's
authority--a mother's right to be consulted before taking so important
a step? But that is the principle you have acted on all along--to ignore
and treat with silent contempt your mother's words and wishes. And you
have succeeded in making Fan as bad as yourself. I can see it all better
now. Your example, your teaching, has drawn her away from me, and I am
as little to her now as to you. She would never have entered into these
secret doings and plottings if you had not corrupted her. You have
made her what she is; take her and go where you like together, and ruin
yourself in any way that pleases you best, for I have no longer any
influence over either of you. Only do not ask me to sanction what you
do, or to give you any assistance.”
Constance rose and moved away, but before reaching the door she turned
and spoke. “Mother, I cannot pay any attention to such wild, unfounded
accusations. If I must leave home without a shilling in my purse after
teaching Fan for a year, I can only say that you are treating me with
the greatest injustice, and that a stranger would have treated me
better.” Then she left the room, and for several days after no word
passed between mother and daughter.
Nevertheless Mrs. Churton was keenly alive and deeply interested in all
that was passing around her. She noted that the hours of study were very
much shortened now, and that the girls were continually together in the
house, and from their bedroom sweepings and stray threads clinging to
their dresses, and the snipping sound of scissors, she judged that they
were busy with their preparations. Fan had gone back to her ancient but
happily not lost art of dressmaking, and was making Constance a dress
from a piece of stuff which the latter had kept by her for some time.
Mrs. Churton had continued hoping against hope, but the discovery that
this garment was being made convinced her at last that her daughter's
resolution was not to be shaken, and that the dreaded separation was
very near.
At length one morning, just after receiving a letter from London, and
when only one week of Fan's time at Wood End House remained, she spoke
to her daughter, calling her into her own room.
“Constance,” she said, speaking in a constrained tone and with studied
words, “I fully deserved your reproach the other day. I should not have
let you go from home without a shilling in your purse. I spoke hastily,
in anger, that day, and I hope you will forgive me. Miss Starbrow's
agent has just sent the eighteen pounds for the last quarter; I cannot
do less than hand it over to you, and only wish that I had it in my
power to give you more.”
“Thank you, mother; but I would much rather that you kept part of it. I
do not require as much as that.”
“You will find it little enough--in London among strangers. We need not
speak any more about it, and you owe me no thanks. It is only right that
you should have one quarter's money of the four I have received.” After
an interval of silence, and when her daughter was about to leave the
room, she continued, “Before you go, Constance, let me ask a favour of
you. If you are going away soon this will be our last conversation.”
“Our last! What favour, mother?”
“When you go, do so without coming to say goodbye to me. I do not feel
very strong, and--would prefer it if you went away quietly without any
leave-takings.”
“If that is your wish, mother,” she returned, and then remained
standing, her face full of distress. Then she moved a little nearer and
said, “Mother, if there is to be no good-bye, will you let me kiss you?”
Mrs. Churton's lips moved but made no sound. Constance after a moment's
hesitation came nearer still, and bending forward kissed her cheek, not
in a perfunctory way, but with a lingering, loving kiss; and after the
kiss she still lingered close, so that the breath from her lips came
warm and fragrant on the other's cold pale cheek. But her mother spoke
no word, and remained cold and motionless as a statue, until with a
slight sigh and lingering step the other left the room. Scarcely had she
gone before the unhappy mother dropped on to a chair, and covering her
face with her hands began to shed tears. Why, why, she asked herself
again and again, had she not returned that loving kiss, and clasped
her lost daughter once more to her heart? Too late! too late! She had
restrained her heart and made herself cold as stone, and now that last
caress, that sweet consolation was lost for ever! Ah, if her cold cheek
might keep for all the remaining days of her life the sensation of those
warm caressing lips, of that warm sweet breath! But her bitter tears
of regret were in vain; that dread eternal parting was now practically
over, and out of the infinite depths of her love no last tender word had
risen to her lips!