MRS CAFFYN was unhappy, and made up her mind that she would talk to Frank
herself. She had learned enough about him from the two sisters,
especially from Clara, to make her believe that, with a very little
management, she could bring him back to Madge. The difficulty was to see
him without his father’s knowledge. At last she determined to write to
him, and she made her son-in-law address the envelope and mark it
private. This is what she said:—
‘DEAR SIR,—Although unbeknown to you, I take the liberty of telling
you as M. H. is alivin’ here with me, and somebody else as I think
you ought to see, but perhaps I’d better have a word or two with you
myself, if not quite ill-convenient to you, and maybe you’ll be kind
enough to say how that’s to be done to your obedient, humble servant,
‘MRS CAFFYN.’
She thought this very diplomatic, inasmuch as nobody but Frank could
possibly suspect what the letter meant. It went to Stoke Newington, but,
alas! he was in Germany, and poor Mrs Caffyn had to wait a week before
she received a reply. Frank of course understood it. Although he had
thought about Madge continually, he had become calmer. He saw, it is
true, that there was no stability in his position, and that he could not
possibly remain where he was. Had Madge been the commonest of the
common, and his relationship to her the commonest of the common, he could
not permit her to cast herself loose from him for ever and take upon
herself the whole burden of his misdeed. But he did not know what to do,
and, as successive considerations and reconsiderations ended in nothing,
and the distractions of a foreign country were so numerous, Madge had for
a time been put aside, like a huge bill which we cannot pay, and which
staggers us. We therefore docket it, and hide it in the desk, and we
imagine we have done something. Once again, however, the flame leapt up
out of the ashes, vivid as ever. Once again the thought that he had been
so close to Madge, and that she had yielded to him, touched him with
peculiar tenderness, and it seemed impossible to part himself from her.
To a man with any of the nobler qualities of man it is not only a sense
of honour which binds him to a woman who has given him all she has to
give. Separation seems unnatural, monstrous, a divorce from himself; it
is not she alone, but it is himself whom he abandons. Frank’s duty, too,
pointed imperiously to the path he ought to take, duty to the child as
well as to the mother. He determined to go home, secretly; Mrs Caffyn
would not have written if she had not seen good reason for believing that
Madge still belonged to him. He made up his mind to start the next day,
but when the next day came, instructions to go immediately to Hamburg
arrived from his father. There were rumours of the insolvency of a house
with which Mr Palmer dealt; inquiries were necessary which could better
be made personally, and if these rumours were correct, as Mr Palmer
believed them to be, his agency must be transferred to some other firm.
There was now no possibility of a journey to England. For a moment he
debated whether, when he was at Hamburg, he could not slip over to
London, but it would be dangerous. Further orders might come from his
father, and the failure to acknowledge them would lead to evasion, and
perhaps to discovery. He must, therefore, content himself with a written
explanation to Mrs Caffyn why he could not meet her, and there should be
one more effort to make atonement to Madge. This was what went to Mrs
Caffyn, and to her lodger:—
‘DEAR MADAM,—Your note has reached me here. I am very sorry that my
engagements are so pressing that I cannot leave Germany at present.
I have written to Miss Hopgood. There is one subject which I cannot
mention to her—I cannot speak to her about money. Will you please
give me full information? I enclose £20, and I must trust to your
discretion. I thank you heartily for all your kindness.—Truly yours,
‘FRANK PALMER.’
‘MY DEAREST MADGE,—I cannot help saying one more word to you,
although, when I last saw you, you told me that it was useless for me
to hope. I know, however, that there is now another bond between us,
the child is mine as well as yours, and if I am not all that you
deserve, ought you to prevent me from doing my duty to it as well as
to you? It is true that if we were to marry I could never right you,
and perhaps my father would have nothing to do with us, but in time
he might relent, and I will come over at once, or, at least, the
moment I have settled some business here, and you shall be my wife.
Do, my dearest Madge, consent.’
When he came to this point his pen stopped. What he had written was very
smooth, but very tame and cold. However, nothing better presented
itself; he changed his position, sat back in his chair, and searched
himself, but could find nothing. It was not always so. Some months ago
there would have been no difficulty, and he would not have known when to
come to an end. The same thing would have been said a dozen times,
perhaps, but it would not have seemed the same to him, and each
succeeding repetition would have been felt with the force of novelty. He
took a scrap of paper and tried to draft two or three sentences, altered
them several times and made them worse. He then re-read the letter; it
was too short; but after all it contained what was necessary, and it must
go as it stood. She knew how he felt towards her. So he signed it after
giving his address at Hamburg, and it was posted.
Three or four days afterwards Mrs Marshall, in accordance with her usual
custom, went to see Madge before she was up. The child lay peacefully by
its mother’s side and Frank’s letter was upon the counterpane. The
resolution that no letter from him should be opened had been broken. The
two women had become great friends and, within the last few weeks, Madge
had compelled Mrs Marshall to call her by her Christian name.
‘You’ve had a letter from Mr Palmer; I was sure it was his handwriting
when it came late last night.’
‘You can read it; there is nothing private in it.’
She turned round to the child and Mrs Marshall sat down and read. When
she had finished she laid the letter on the bed again and was silent.
‘Well?’ said Madge. ‘Would you say “No?”’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘For your own sake, as well as for his?’
Mrs Marshall took up the letter and read half of it again.
‘Yes, you had better say “No.” You will find it dull, especially if you
have to live in London.’
‘Did you find London dull when you came to live in it?’
‘Rather; Marshall is away all day long.’
‘But scarcely any woman in London expects to marry a man who is not away
all day.’
‘They ought then to have heaps of work, or they ought to have a lot of
children to look after; but, perhaps, being born and bred in the country,
I do not know what people in London are. Recollect you were country born
and bred yourself, or, at anyrate, you have lived in the country for the
most of your life.’
‘Dull! we must all expect to be dull.’
‘There’s nothing worse. I’ve had rheumatic fever, and I say, give me the
fever rather than what comes over me at times here. If Marshall had not
been so good to me, I do not know what I should have done with myself.’
Madge turned round and looked Mrs Marshall straight in the face, but she
did not flinch.
‘Marshall is very good to me, but I was glad when mother and you and your
sister came to keep me company when he is not at home. It tired me to
have my meals alone: it is bad for the digestion; at least, so he says,
and he believes that it was indigestion that was the matter with me. I
should be sorry for myself if you were to go away; not that I want to put
that forward. Maybe I should never see much more of you: he is rich: you
might come here sometimes, but he would not like to have Marshall and
mother and me at his house.’
Not a word was spoken for at least a minute.
Suddenly Mrs Marshall took Madge’s hand in her own hands, leaned over
her, and in that kind of whisper with which we wake a sleeper who is to
be aroused to escape from sudden peril, she said in her ear,—
‘Madge, Madge: for God’s sake leave him!’
‘I have left him.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite.’
‘For ever?’
‘For ever!’
Mrs Marshall let go Madge’s hand, turned her eyes towards her intently
for a moment, and again bent over her as if she were about to embrace
her. A knock, however, came at the door, and Mrs Caffyn entered with the
cup of coffee which she always insisted on bringing before Madge rose.
After she and her daughter had left, Madge read the letter once more.
There was nothing new in it, but formally it was something, like the
tolling of the bell when we know that our friend is dead. There was a
little sobbing, and then she kissed her child with such eagerness that it
began to cry.
‘You’ll answer that letter, I suppose?’ said Mrs Caffyn, when they were
alone.
‘No.’
‘I’m rather glad. It would worrit you, and there’s nothing worse for a
baby than worritin’ when it’s mother’s a-feedin it.’
Mr Caffyn wrote as follows:—
‘DEAR SIR,—I was sorry as you couldn’t come; but I believe now as it
was better as you didn’t. I am no scollard, and so no more from your
obedient, humble servant,
‘MRS CAFFYN.
‘_P.S._—I return the money, having no use for the same.