THE MARTYRDOM OF MADELINE
By Robert Buchanan
With A Frontispiece By A. W. Cooper
London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly
1889
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PREFATORY NOTE.
In this story I have touched, very feebly and inadequately, on one of
the greatest and saddest of human problems--as great and sad, certainly,
as the problem which forms the central purpose of my ‘Shadow of the
Sword.’ What the creed of Peace is to the state, the creed of Purity is
to the social community. So long as carnal indulgence is recognised as a
masculine prerogative, so long as personal chastity is a supreme factor
in the fate of women, but a mere accident in the lives of men, so long
as the diabolic ingenuity of a strong sex is tortured to devise legal
means for sacrificing a weaker sex--so long, in a word, as our homes
and our streets remain what they are--the creed of Purity must remain as
forlorn a dream as that other creed of Peace.
One word more with regard to my _dramatis persono_, none of whom are to
be taken for photographs or caricatures of living individuals. In one
case I have endeavoured to construct out of the editorial chit-chat of
a journal an amusing personality,--not, I think, ungenerously conceived;
of the real editor I know absolutely nothing, and I certainly bear him
no ill-will, much as I dislike the system of personal journalism
which he has created. All the other characters are purely fictitious.
Gavrolles and his circle are to be accepted as representatives, not
of æstheticism proper, but of the cant of æstheticism--which is quite
another thing.
R. B.
THE MARTYRDOM OF MADELINE.
PROLOGUE IN THE NIGHT.
As the two women gazed at one another under the lamplight, one standing
and looking down, the other sitting and looking up, you would have said
they might have been twin sisters--they looked so wonderfully alike.
Both were fair, with pale forget-me-not eyes, and skins delicately
clear; both were tall and slight. Nor was there any very noticeable
difference in the dress they wore. She who stood erect, with the rain
beating down upon her head, wore only, besides her bonnet and dress of
black stuff, a shawl wrapt tightly around her; the shawl was rich and
valuable, but looked common enough in the dim light. She who sat, with
her elbow on her knees and her chin resting in her open palms, wore a
shawl too, and a plain stuff dress, sodden with the rain; her bonnet had
fallen back, soaking and unheeded, on her shoulders, just held by the
sodden strings.
A close observer, however, would have perceived a world of difference
between these two women. The woman standing had the fierce, pained,
impatient manner of a wild animal; every look, every gesture was
self-contained, determined, yet full of overmastering anxiety, The woman
sitting was a crushed, gin-sodden, passionless, powerless waif, with
only the courage of a hunted pariah dog, to snap, and crawl uselessly
away.
Both were very young, neither being more than twenty-one or twenty-two
years of age.
‘That way!--over the Bridge!’ said the woman sitting, in a husky voice;
then she added, as the other seemed about to pass on, ‘Stop though! what
are you going to stand?’
The other turned quickly, and again looked down with her large eager
eyes.
‘What do you want?--Money?’ The voice was deep and clear, though it
trembled a little.
‘Yes, I’m as thirsty as a fish. Lend me a shilling, and I’ll pay you
back some night when I’m in luck. Only a shilling! that won’t break
you!’
‘If I give you the money, what will you do with it?’
‘Drink it,’ was the curt reply.
Something in the answer had a curious effect on the hearer. She stooped
softly down and looked earnestly in the other woman’s face.
‘You’ll know me again when you see me?’ ‘Do you mind telling me your
name?’
‘Ellen,--never mind what else. Nell for snort.
‘Where do you live?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Lord knows. Twenty or thereabouts. Are you going to keep on questioning
all the blessed night? I want something to drink.’
The girl who stood bent over the sitting girl and placed something in
her hand. She uttered a suppressed cry.
‘Gold! Why, you’ve given me a sovereign! What for?’
‘I have only another, or I would give you more. I am sorry for you. Good
night!’
‘Stop! don’t go. Let me have another look at you.’
‘Well?’
‘What a fool I was! Why you’re _a lady!_’
It was the other’s turn to laugh now--a low, bitter laugh.
‘And you’ve got on a real Injy shawl--let me feel it! And there’s a pair
of gold bracelets on your wrists! Well, I’m----!!’
This with a prolonged half whistle, expressive of utter surprise. Then
she continued--
‘I don’t know who you are, or where you’re a-going, but the streets
ain’t safe for the likes of _you_. You’d best go home, my lady!’
‘I have no home.’
‘What!’
‘What home I had I have left, never to go back. I am leaving London.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Anywhere.’ After a moment’s pause she pointed across the river and over
the house-tops, and added, ‘Out there.’
‘Friends there, I suppose?’
‘No friends.’
‘And not much coin. Ah, well, you’ve them swell bracelets; and the
shawl, too, is worth money.’
It was very strange--innocent as the remark seemed, it appeared to make
the tall figure of the listener tremble with agitation, perhaps with
anger. With a quick impetuous movement she drew off her bracelets and
threw them into the girl’s lap.
‘Take them--_I_ don’t want them! And the shawl too--take it, and give me
yours.’
‘No, you’re joking!’
‘Quick!’
In a moment the change was effected; and the women now stood erect and
face to face. The commoner and more outcast creature seemed utterly
stupefied by what had taken place. Suddenly the other seized both her
hands, and said quickly--
‘The river--is it there?’
A light seemed suddenly to flash in upon the outcast’s bewildered brain.
‘You’re not a-going to drown yourself? No!’ ‘I don’t know--perhaps!’
This with a peculiar smile.
‘It’s no use; there’s too many eyes a-watching. I tried it myself once,
slap off the Embankment, but I was fished out like a wet rag. Don’t you
be such a fool! You’re a lady, and you had best go home.’
Without replying, the lady began to move rapidly away. Seized by a
peculiar impulse, the outcast cried after her--‘Come back--take your
things--it’s a shame for me to have them. Take them back.’
‘No; keep them. Good-bye. May I kiss you?’ ‘If you like,’ was the
stupefied reply.
The lips of the two women met, their breaths mingled for a moment. Then,
while the one stood petrified, staring in utter astonishment, the other
flitted rapidly and silently away.
CHAPTER I.--A DANCING LESSON UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
Twelve years before the occurrence of the incident described in my
prologue, a curious group was assembled in a quiet corner of Grayfleet
Churchyard. Gray fleet is a damp, aguish, lonely, desolate village, on
the verge of the great Essex marshes; and its old church, like a skull
with two empty, lifeless eyes, gazes with two dreary windows right down
on the marshes, towards that low-lying mist where they mingle with the
sea.
The group of which I have spoken consisted of some six girls and one
little boy. The girls were of divers ages, from six to sixteen, and all
were more or less smartly dressed in holiday clothes, for it was a Good
Friday. They stood in a ring round a flat tombstone, grey with age, and
green with slime of moss. On this tombstone a fair little girl of eight,
with dishevelled hair and flushed cheeks, was practising the first
steps of a dance. Her instructress was the eldest of the party, a pale,
red-haired wench of sixteen, who watched her with keenly critical eyes,
and at times stepped forward, took her place on the tombstone, and
showed her how to use her feet.
First position--heel and toe--cut and shuffle.
‘Lookee here, Mawther!’ cried one of the girls to a passer by. ‘Come and
see Polly Lowther teaching Mark Peartree’s girl to dance.’
Another girl came running into the churchyard, and joined the group.
‘That’s the style!’ exclaimed Polly Lowther, as the red-haired girl was
called. ‘You’ll soon learn, if you only try. Look at me, Madlin. Watch
my feet.’
First position--heel and toe--cut and shuffle.
The girls clapped their hands enthusiastically, and the little boy, who
was sitting astride on a green grave, grinned approval.
Fired by the applause bestowed on her teacher, the little fair
girl--‘Madlin,’ as the others called her--began wildly practising the
steps.
First position--heel and toe--cut and shuffle.
Suddenly there was a rush, a cry. The troop of girls scattered on
every side and disappeared: the little boy cried and ran. Only ‘Madlin’
remained, so absorbed for the time being in her dancing that for a
moment she did not notice that she was left alone, and that a tall
figure in black, with white neckcloth, stood frowning at her.
The next moment she was conscious of her predicament. Flushed and
panting, she stood and gazed, and recognised to her horror the Rector of
the parish.
She gave one glance around, to see if she was quite abandoned, and then,
seeing no trace of her companions, she curtsied timidly, and stood her
ground.
‘Little girl,’ said the Rector, in a terrible voice, ‘I don’t know
you--what is your name?’
She hung her head awkwardly, and made no reply.
‘Do you hear me? What is your name?’
The little girl raised her head, looked straight at the Rector, and
answered in a clear voice--
‘If you please, sir, I’m Madlin--Mark Peartree’s girl.’
The Rector’s brows came down still more.
‘Mark Peartree; I think I know the man--he lives down at the ferry, and
sails in a barge. Is he your father?’
The girl, who had a common straw hat swinging by the ribbon in her
mouth, gnawed the ribbon, and replied shortly--
‘No, he ain’t.’
‘What is he, then?’ asked the Rector. ‘Some relation?’
‘No,’ was the immediate reply. ‘I call him uncle, but he isn’t a _real_
uncle, nor Uncle Luke neither. I’m a foundling--Aunt Jane found me, out
_there!_’
And with a back sweep of her hand, the little girl indicated the great
marshes, steaming and reddening in the setting sun.
‘And whoever you are, are you not aware,’ said the Rector, improving the
occasion, ‘that you are a very wicked little girl? Upon this holy day
of all days in the year I find you practising a vicious pastime here, in
God’s own acre! On a tombstone! Little girl, do you know that there is
a dead fellow-creature lying under you, and that you are profaning his
place of rest?’
The girl gave a start and a scared look downward, as if half expecting
the dead man to arise and confront her; then half unconsciously she
edged off the tombstone and stood ankle deep in the long churchyard
grass.
‘I am afraid,’ said the Rector, shaking his forefinger at her. ‘I am
really very much afraid that you have been very badly brought up. Tell
me, have you ever heard the word of God? Do you ever go to church?’
The answer was at any rate prompt and explicit.
‘No--never.’
‘Ah, I thought so. A sad case. And your father--I mean your adopted
father--is he not ashamed of himself to bring you up in ignorance and
sin?’
This was touching rather a dangerous chord. The little girl flushed,
panted, opened her large blue eyes full on the minister and exclaimed--
‘Uncle Mark isn’t ashamed of himself, no more is Uncle Luke! They go to
their meeting, and I go too. They’re United Brethren, and when I grow
up, _I’m_ to be a Brethren too!9
‘Brethren!’
This was said in a tone which clearly implied that their cup of moral
delinquency, in the Rector’s eyes, was now full and overflowing. The
good pastor could have endured a family which repudiated Christianity
altogether, but any form of Dissent was worse even than the rankest
blasphemy. It is doubtful what turn the interview would have taken, but
just at this moment an unexpected diversion took place. A thin
shrill voice, doubtless appertaining to one of the little girl’s late
companions, suddenly pealed out, from some mysterious corner where its
owner lay hidden--
‘Look out, Madlin! Here’s your Uncle Luke a-comin’!’
Madeline looked startled; then, strange to say, her face grew quite
bright and eager. The Rector seemed perplexed, and uncertain what to
say next. Just then the gate of the churchyard opened, and a little
man, with very short legs and a very large head, looked in, and seeing
Madeline, quietly entered.
‘Uncle! Uncle Luke!’
The little man nodded his head and smiled. Then, seeing the Rector, he
took off his hat and grinned.
It was a peculiarity of the little man that he expressed all thoughts
and moods by means of a rather mindless smile, sometimes broadening into
a grin. For the rest, he had large watery eyes and a large mouth, and
his general appearance was homely and awkward in the extreme.
By this time Madeline was at his side, holding his hand and looking up
into his face.
The Rector strode across the churchyard.
‘I have just been warning this child against dancing upon the
tombstones. I have told her that she is a very wicked child, and she has
informed me that her relations belong to some Methodist persuasion. Be
that as it may, you will doubtless agree with me that her conduct to-day
has been extremely sacrilegious.’
The little man, still holding his hat in his hand, looked at the Rector,
then looked at Madeline, then smiled imbecilely, then, feeling the
smile out of place, tried to frown, but only succeeded in distorting his
good-humoured countenance into a confirmed grin. Then suddenly darting
his mouth down to the little girl’s ear, he hoarsely whispered--
‘What is it, Madlin? What’s the matter?’
‘Polly Lowther was teaching me to cut and shuffle,’ said the girl out
loud, fixing her eyes in a fearless way on the Rector; ‘and Parson came
out and found us, and all the others ran away. I know dancing’s wicked,
because Uncle Mark says so, but I couldn’t help it, and Parson says
Uncle Mark ought to be ashamed of himself, and I told Parson it isn’t
_true!_’
This explanation seemed to confuse the little man still more. He
scratched his head and peeped at the Rector with a grin.
‘Dancing’s downright wicked,’ he said, ‘no doubt o’ that.’
‘It is no laughing matter,’ cried the Rector, indignantly, irritated at
the unaccountable expression on the little man’s face. ‘Be good enough
to leave the precincts of the church. The child is a bad child, and has
been badly trained. There, there, hold your tongue--I desire no
further explanations; only remember this, if that child desecrates the
churchyard again, I shall resort to severer measures.’
So saying he waved the pair from the churchyard, shut the gate sharply
upon them, and stalked away to the Rectory, with a bosom full of holy
emotion and Christian wrath.
The little man stood for some minutes in the open road, dazed, gaping,
and looking at the tall retreating figure. Then he quietly put on his
hat, and, conscious of the little hand within his own, looked down at
his companion, at a loss what to say or do. At last he cut the Gordian
knot of his perplexity by grinning from ear to ear.
‘Parson be in a powerful rage,’ he said; ‘but dancing be downright
wicked, that’s a fact;’ and he added, with a perplexed look, as if
communing with his own thoughts, ‘What shall I say to your Uncle Mark?’
Madeline seemed to muse for some moments, then, as if struck by a sudden
inspiration, she exclaimed--
‘Come along, Uncle Luke--let’s go home.’
The little man laughed contentedly, as if finding in the proposition a
solution of all his difficulty; and the little legs began to move. Hand
in hand, the two hurried down the descent leading from the church to the
outskirts of the village. As they went along, Madeline peeped up quietly
from time to time at her companion, as if trying to read his thoughts;
then, squeezing his hand tight, she said in a coaxing voice--
‘Uncle Luke!’
‘Yes, Madlin.’
‘You won’t tell Uncle Mark about my dancing.’
‘I don’t know--dancing be downright wicked.’
‘I couldn’t help it. Polly Lowther offered to teach me, and all the
other girls can dance a bit. And if you won’t say a word to Uncle Mark,
I’ll let you cut up my new money-box that Uncle Mark gave me, and find
out what’s inside.’
Unaccountable as it may seem, this extraordinary proposition seemed to
find peculiar favour in Uncle Luke’s eyes. His large eyes twinkled, and
his mouth broadened from ear to ear, but he pretended to shake his head
from side to side in solemn deprecation of the bribe. Madeline watched
him keenly, and just as he seemed wavering, she lifted his great
brown hand to her mouth, and gave it a passionate kiss. This seemed to
unsettle Uncle Luke altogether, and he murmured eagerly--
‘All right, Madlin, _I_ shan’t tell.’
And Madeline knew well that a promise of this sort from Uncle Luke was
as good as an oath from any other man. They quickened their pace, but
she continued to play with and fondle his hand, and now and then to hold
it to her lips. Confidence of this sort was what the little man loved
best of all things in the world, and the smile upon his face grew broad
and bright with intelligent content.