Clara Hopgood Part 7

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 h.e.l.l would have been opened before her, but above the sin and the h.e.l.l she would have seen the distinct image of the Mediator abolis.h.i.+ng 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed 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 Ma.s.s 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 ap.r.o.n.

'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, G.o.d 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 n.o.body 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 b.u.t.ter here for her and put along with it. They make better b.u.t.ter 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.

CHAPTER XII

Mrs Caffyn's house was a roomy old cottage near the church, with a bow-window in which were displayed bottles of 'suckers,' and of Day & Martin's blacking, cotton stuffs, a bag of nuts and some mugs, cups and saucers. Inside were salt b.u.t.ter, was.h.i.+ng-blue, drapery, treacle, starch, tea, tobacco and snuff, cheese, matches, bacon, and a few drugs, such as black draught, magnesia, pills, sulphur, dill- water, Dalby's Carminative, and steel-drops. There was also a small stock of writing-paper, string and tin ware. A boy was behind the counter. When Mrs Caffyn was out he always asked the customers who desired any article, the sale of which was in any degree an art, to call again when she returned. He went as far as those things which were put up in packets, such as what were called 'grits' for making gruel, and he was also authorised to venture on pennyworths of liquorice and peppermints, but the sale of half-a-dozen yards of cotton print was as much above him as the negotiation of a treaty of peace would be to a messenger in the Foreign Office. In fact, n.o.body, excepting children, went into the shop when Mrs Caffyn was not to be seen there, and, if she had to go to Dorking or Letherhead on business, she always chose the middle of the day, when the folk were busy at their homes or in the fields. Poor woman! she was much tried. Half the people who dealt with her were in her debt, but she could not press them for her money. During winter-time they were discharged by the score from their farms, but as they were not sufficiently philosophic, or sufficiently considerate for their fellows to hang or drown themselves, they were obliged to consume food, and to wear clothes, for which they tried to pay by instalments during spring, summer and autumn. Mrs Caffyn managed to make both ends meet by the help of two or three pigs, by great economy, and by letting some of her superfluous rooms. Great Oakhurst was not a show place nor a Spa, but the Letherhead doctor had once recommended her to a physician in London, who occasionally sent her a patient who wanted nothing but rest and fresh air. She also, during the shooting-season, was often asked to find a bedroom for visitors to The Towers.

She might have done better had she been on thoroughly good terms with the parson. She attended church on Sunday morning with tolerable regularity. She never went inside a dissenting chapel, and was not heretical on any definite theological point, but the rector and she were not friends. She had lived in Surrey ever since she was a child, but she was not Surrey born. Both her father and mother came from the north country, and migrated southwards when she was very young. They were better educated than the southerners amongst whom they came; and although their daughter had no schooling beyond what was obtainable in a Surrey village of that time, she was distinguished by a certain superiority which she had inherited or acquired from her parents. She was never subservient to the rector after the fas.h.i.+on of her neighbours; she never curtsied to him, and if he pa.s.sed and nodded she said 'Marnin', sir,' in just the same tone as that in which she said it to the smallest of the Great Oakhurst farmers. Her church-going was an official duty inc.u.mbent upon her as the proprietor of the only shop in the parish. She had nothing to do with church matters except on Sunday, and she even went so far as to neglect to send for the rector when one of her children lay dying. She was attacked for the omission, but she defended herself.

'What was the use when the poor dear was only seven year old? What call was there for him to come to a blessed innocent like that? I did tell him to look in when my husband was took, for I know as before we were married there was something atween him and that gal Sanders. He never would own up to me about it, and I thought as he might to a clergyman, and, if he did, it would ease his mind and make it a bit better for him afterwards; but, Lord! it warn't no use, for he went off and we didn't so much as hear her name, not even when he was a-wandering. I says to myself when the parson left, "What's the good of having you?"'

Mrs Caffyn was a Christian, but she was a disciple of St James rather than of St Paul. She believed, of course, the doctrines of the Catechism, in the sense that she denied none, and would have a.s.sented to all if she had been questioned thereon; but her belief that 'faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone,' was something very vivid and very practical.

Her estimate, too, of the relative values of the virtues and of the relative sinfulness of sins was original, and the rector therefore told all his paris.h.i.+oners that she was little better than a heathen.

The common failings in that part of the country amongst the poor were Sat.u.r.day-night drunkenness and looseness in the relations between the young men and young women. Mrs Caffyn's indignation never rose to the correct boiling point against these crimes. The rector once ventured to say, as the case was next door to her, -

'It is very sad, is it not, Mrs Caffyn, that Polesden should be so addicted to drink. I hope he did not disturb you last Sat.u.r.day night. I have given the constable directions to look after the street more closely on Sat.u.r.day evening, and if Polesden again offends he must be taken up.'

Mrs Caffyn was behind her own counter. She had just served a customer with two ounces of Dutch cheese, and she sat down on her stool. Being rather a heavy woman she always sat down when she was not busy, and she never rose merely to talk.

'Yes, it is sad, sir, and Polesden isn't no particular friend of mine, but I tell you what's sad too, sir, and that's the way them people are mucked up in that cottage. Why, their living room opens straight on the road, and the wind comes in fit to blow your head off, and when he goes home o' nights, there's them children a- squalling, and he can't bide there and do nothing.'

'I am afraid, though, Mrs Caffyn, there must be something radically wrong with that family. I suppose you know all about the eldest daughter?'

'Yes, sir, I HAVE heard it: it wouldn't be Great Oakhurst if I hadn't, but p'r'aps, sir, you've never been upstairs in that house, and yet a house it isn't. There's just two sleeping-rooms, that's all; it's shameful, it isn't decent. Well, that gal, she goes away to service. Maybe, sir, them premises at the farm are also unbeknown to you. In the back kitchen there's a broadish sort of shelf as Jim climbs into o' nights, and it has a rail round it to keep you from a- falling out, and there's a ladder as they draws up in the day as goes straight up from that kitchen to the gal's bedroom door. It's downright disgraceful, and I don't believe the Lord A'mighty would be marciful to neither of US if we was tried like that.'

Mrs Caffyn bethought herself of the 'us' and was afraid that even she had gone a little too far; 'leastways, speaking for myself, sir,' she added.

The rector turned rather red, and repented his attempt to enlist Mrs Caffyn.

'If the temptations are so great, Mrs Caffyn, that is all the more reason why those who are liable to them should seek the means which are provided in order that they may be overcome. I believe the Polesdens are very lax attendants at church, and I don't think they ever communicated.'

Mrs Polesden at that moment came in for an ounce of tea, and as Mrs Caffyn rose to weigh it, the rector departed with a stiff 'good- morning,' made to do duty for both women.

CHAPTER XIII

Mrs Caffyn persuaded Madge to go to bed at once, after giving her 'something to comfort her.' In the morning her kind hostess came to her bedside.

'You've got a mother, haven't you--leastways, I know you have, because you wrote to her.'

'Yes.'

'Well, and you lives with her and she looks after you?'

'Yes.'

'And she's fond of you, maybe?'