IT 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.
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.
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.
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 _Kyrie_ 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.
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.
‘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.’
Madge felt bound to say something as the sunburnt face looked kind and
motherly.
‘I suppose you live at Great Oakhurst?’
‘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.’
‘Are you going to leave?’
‘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?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘You don’t live in London, then?’
‘Yes, I do. I came from London this morning.’
‘The Lord have mercy on us, did you though! I suppose, then, you’re
a-visitin’ here. I know most of the folk hereabouts.’
‘No: I am going back this afternoon.’
Her interrogator was puzzled and her curiosity stimulated. Presently she
looked in Madge’s face.
‘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.’
‘No.’
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.
Presently her patient recovered herself.
‘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.’
‘But I must go; my mother and sister will not know what has become of
me.’
‘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.’
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.