CHAPTER XVII

When Frank came downstairs to breakfast the conversation turned upon his return to Germany. He did not object to going, although it can hardly be said that he willed to go. He was in that perilous condition in which the comparison of reasons is impossible, and the course taken depends upon some chance impulse of the moment, and is a mere drift. He could not leave, however, in complete ignorance of Madge, and with no certainty as to her future. He resolved therefore to make one more effort to discover the house. That was all which he determined to do. What was to happen when he had found it, he did not know. He was driven to do something, which could not be of any importance, save for what must follow, but he was unable to bring himself even to consider what was to follow. He knew that at Fenmarket one or other of the sisters went out soon after breakfast to make provision for the day, and perhaps, if they kept up this custom, he might be successful in his search. He accordingly stationed himself in Great Ormond Street at about half-past nine, and kept watch from the Lamb's Conduit Street end, shifting his position as well as he could, in order to escape notice. He had not been there half an hour when he saw a door open, and Madge came out and went westwards. She turned down Devonshire Street as if on her way to Holborn. He instantly ran back to Theobalds Road, and when he came to the corner of Devonshire Street she was about ten yards from him, and he faced her. She stopped irresolutely, as if she had a mind to return, but as he approached her, and she found she was recognised, she came towards him.

'Madge, Madge,' he cried, 'I want to speak to you. I must speak with you.'

'Better not; let me go.'

'I say I MUST speak to you.'

'We cannot talk here; let me go.'

'I must! I must! come with me.'

She pitied him, and although she did not consent she did not refuse.

He called a cab, and in ten minutes, not a word having been spoken during those ten minutes, they were at St Paul's. The morning service had just begun, and they sat down in a corner far away from the worshippers.

'Oh, Madge,' he began, 'I implore you to take me back. I love you.

I do love you, and--and--I cannot leave you.'

She was side by side with the father of her child about to be born.

He was not and could not be as another man to her, and for the moment there was the danger lest she should mistake this secret bond for love. The thought of what had pa.s.sed between them, and of the child, his and hers, almost overpowered her.

'I cannot,' he repeated. 'I OUGHT not. What will become of me?'

She felt herself stronger; he was excited, but his excitement was not contagious. The string vibrated, and the note was resonant, but it was not a note which was consonant with hers, and it did not stir her to respond. He might love her, he was sincere enough to sacrifice himself for her, and to remain faithful to her, but the voice was not altogether that of his own true self. Partly, at least, it was the voice of what he considered to be duty, of superst.i.tion and alarm.

She was silent.

'Madge,' he continued, 'ought you to refuse? You have some love for me. Is it not greater than the love which thousands feel for one another. Will you blast your future and mine, and, perhaps, that of someone besides, who may be very dear to you? OUGHT you not, I say, to listen?'

The service had come to an end, the organist was playing a voluntary, rather longer than usual, and the congregation was leaving, some of them pa.s.sing near Madge and Frank, and casting idle glances on the young couple who had evidently come neither to pray nor to admire the architecture. Madge recognised the well-known St Ann's fugue, and, strange to say, even at such a moment it took entire possession of her; the golden ladder was let down and celestial visitors descended.

When the music ceased she spoke.

'It would be a crime.'

'A crime, but I--' She stopped him.

'I know what you are going to say. I know what is the crime to the world; but it would have been a crime, perhaps a worse crime, if a ceremony had been performed beforehand by a priest, and the worst of crimes would be that ceremony now. I must go.' She rose and began to move towards the door.

He walked silently by her side till they were in St Paul's churchyard, when she took him by the hand, pressed it affectionately and suddenly turned into one of the courts that lead towards Paternoster Row. He did not follow her, something repelled him, and when he reached home it crossed his mind that marriage, after such delay, would be a poor recompense, as he could not thereby conceal her disgrace.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was clear that these two women could not live in London on seventy-five pounds a year, most certainly not with the prospect before them, and Clara cast about for something to do. Marshall had a brother-in-law, a certain Baruch Cohen, a mathematical instrument maker in Clerkenwell, and to him Marshall accidentally one day talked about Clara, and said that she desired an occupation. Cohen himself could not give Clara any work, but he knew a second-hand bookseller, an old man who kept a shop in Holborn, who wanted a clerk, and Clara thus found herself earning another pound a week. With this addition she and her sister could manage to pay their way and provide what Madge would want. The hours were long, the duties irksome and wearisome, and, worst of all, the conditions under which they were performed, were not only as bad as they could be, but their badness was of a kind to which Clara had never been accustomed, so that she felt every particle of it in its full force. The windows of the shop were, of course, full of books, and the walls were lined with them.

In the middle of the shop also was a range of shelves, and books were stacked on the floor, so that the place looked like a huge cubical block of them through which pa.s.sages had been bored. At the back the shop became contracted in width to about eight feet, and consequently the central shelves were not continued there, but just where they ended, and overshadowed by them were a little desk and a stool. All round the desk more books were piled, and some manoeuvring was necessary in order to sit down. This was Clara's station.

Occasionally, on a brilliant, a very brilliant day in summer, she could write without gas, but, perhaps, there were not a dozen such days in the year. By twisting herself sideways she could just catch a glimpse of a narrow line of sky over some heavy theology which was not likely to be disturbed, and was therefore put at the top of the window, and once when somebody bought the Calvin Joann. Opera Omnia, 9 vol. folio, Amst. 1671--it was very clear that afternoon--she actually descried towards seven o'clock a blessed star exactly in the middle of the gap the Calvin had left.

The darkness was very depressing, and poor Clara often shut her eyes as she bent over her day-book and ledger, and thought of the Fenmarket flats where the sun could be seen bisected by the horizon at sun-rising and sun-setting, and where even the southern Antares shone with diamond glitter close to the ground during summer nights.

She tried to reason with herself during the dreadful smoke fogs; she said to herself that they were only half-a-mile thick, and she carried herself up in imagination and beheld the unclouded azure, the filthy smother lying all beneath her, but her dream did not continue, and reality was too strong for her. Worse, perhaps, than the eternal gloom was the dirt. She was naturally fastidious, and as her skin was thin and sensitive, dust was physically a discomfort. Even at Fenmarket she was continually washing her hands and face, and, indeed, a wash was more necessary to her after a walk than food or drink. It was impossible to remain clean in Holborn for five minutes; everything she touched was foul with grime; her collar and cuffs were black with it when she went home to her dinner, and it was not like the honest, blowing road-sand of Fenmarket highways, but a loathsome composition of everything disgusting which could be produced by millions of human beings and animals packed together in soot. It was a real misery to her and made her almost ill. However, she managed to set up for herself a little lavatory in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and whenever she had a minute at her command, she descended and enjoyed the luxury of a cool, dripping sponge and a piece of yellow soap. The s.m.u.ts began to gather again the moment she went upstairs, but she strove to arm herself with a little philosophy against them.

'What is there in life,' she moralised, smiling at her sermonising, 'which once won is for ever won? It is always being won and always being lost.' Her master, fortunately, was one of the kindest of men, an old gentleman of about sixty-five, who wore a white necktie, clean every morning. He was really a GENTLEman in the true sense of that much misused word, and not a mere TRADESman; that is to say, he loved his business, not altogether for the money it brought him, but as an art. He was known far and wide, and literary people were glad to gossip with him. He never pushed his wares, and he hated to sell them to anybody who did not know their value. He amused Clara one afternoon when a carriage stopped at the door, and a lady inquired if he had a Manning and Bray's History of Surrey. Yes, he had a copy, and he pointed to the three handsome, tall folios.

'What is the price?'

'Twelve pounds ten.'

'I think I will have them.'

'Madam, you will pardon me, but, if I were you, I would not. I think something much cheaper will suit you better. If you will allow me, I will look out for you and will report in a few days.'

'Oh! very well,' and she departed.

'The wife of a bra.s.sfounder,' he said to Clara; 'made a lot of money, and now he has bought a house at Dulwich and is setting up a library.

Somebody has told him that he ought to have a county history, and that Manning and Bray is the book. Manning and Bray! What he wants is a Dulwich and Denmark Hill Directory. No, no,' and he took down one of the big volumes, blew the dust off the top edges and looked at the old book-plate inside, 'you won't go there if I can help it.' He took a fancy to Clara when he found she loved literature, although what she read was out of his department altogether, and his perfectly human behaviour to her prevented that sense of exile and loneliness which is so horrible to many a poor creature who comes up to London to begin therein the struggle for existence. She read and meditated a good deal in the shop, but not to much profit, for she was continually interrupted, and the thought of her sister intruded itself perpetually.

Madge seldom or never spoke of her separation from Frank, but one night, when she was somewhat less reserved than usual, Clara ventured to ask her if she had heard from him since they parted.

'I met him once.'

'Madge, do you mean that he found out where we are living, and that he came to see you?'

'No, it was just round the corner as I was going towards Holborn.'

'Nothing could have brought him here but yourself,' said Clara, slowly.

'Clara, you doubt?'

'No, no! I doubt you? Never!'

'But you hesitate; you reflect. Speak out.'

'G.o.d forbid I should utter a word which would induce you to disbelieve what you know to be right. It is much more important to believe earnestly that something is morally right than that it should be really right, and he who attempts to displace a belief runs a certain risk, because he is not sure that what he subst.i.tutes can be held with equal force. Besides, each person's belief, or proposed course of action, is a part of himself, and if he be diverted from it and takes up with that which is not himself, the unity of his nature is impaired, and he loses himself.'

'Which is as much as to say that the prophet is to break no idols.'

'You know I do not mean that, and you know, too, how incapable I am of defending myself in argument. I never can stand up for anything I say. I can now and then say something, but, when I have said it, I run away.'

'My dearest Clara,' Madge put her arm over her sister's shoulder as they sat side by side, 'do not run away now; tell me just what you think of me.'

Clara was silent for a minute.

'I have sometimes wondered whether you have not demanded a little too much of yourself and Frank. It is always a question of how much.

There is no human truth which is altogether true, no love which is altogether perfect. You may possibly have neglected virtue or devotion such as you could not find elsewhere, overlooking it because some failing, or the lack of sympathy on some unimportant point, may at the moment have been prominent. Frank loved you, Madge.'

Madge did not reply; she withdrew her arm from her sister's neck, threw herself back in her chair and closed her eyes. She saw again the Fenmarket roads, that summer evening, and she felt once more Frank's burning caresses. She thought of him as he left St Paul's, perhaps broken-hearted. Stronger than every other motive to return to him, and stronger than ever, was the movement towards him of that which belonged to him.