Clara Hopgood Part 13

'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 G.o.d'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.

CHAPTER XXII

Baruch did not obtain any very definite information from Marshall about Clara. He was told that she had a sister; that they were both of them gentlewomen; that their mother and father were dead; that they were great readers, and that they did not go to church nor chapel, but that they both went sometimes to hear a certain Mr A. J.

Scott lecture. He was once a.s.sistant minister to Irving, but was now heretical, and had a congregation of his own creating at Woolwich.

Baruch called at the shop and found Clara once more alone. The book was packed up and had being lying ready for him for two or three days. He wanted to speak, but hardly knew how to begin. He looked idly round the shelves, taking down one volume after another, and at last he said, -

'I suppose n.o.body but myself has ever asked for a copy of Robinson?'

'Not since I have been here.'

'I do not wonder at it; he printed only two hundred and fifty; he gave away five-and-twenty, and I am sure nearly two hundred were sold as wastepaper.'

'He is a friend of yours?'

'He was a friend; he is dead; he was an usher in a private school, although you might have supposed, from the t.i.tle selected, that he was a clerk. I told him it was useless to publish, and his publishers told him the same thing.'

'I should have thought that some notice would have been taken of him; he is so evidently worth it.'

'Yes, but although he was original and reflective, he had no particular talent. His excellence lay in criticism and observation, often profound, on what came to him every day, and he was valueless in the literary market. A talent of some kind is necessary to genius if it is to be heard. So he died utterly unrecognised, save by one or two personal friends who loved him dearly. He was peculiar in the depth and intimacy of his friendships. Few men understand the meaning of the word friendship. They consort with certain companions and perhaps very earnestly admire them, because they possess intellectual gifts, but of friendship, such as we two, Morris and I (for that was his real name) understood it, they know nothing.'

'Do you believe, that the good does not necessarily survive?'

'Yes and no; I believe that power every moment, so far as our eyes can follow it, is utterly lost. I have had one or two friends whom the world has never known and never will know, who have more in them than is to be found in many an English cla.s.sic. I could take you to a little dissenting chapel not very far from Holborn where you would hear a young Welshman, with no education beyond that provided by a Welsh denominational college, who is a perfect orator and whose depth of insight is hardly to be matched, save by Thomas A Kempis, whom he much resembles. When he dies he will be forgotten in a dozen years.

Besides, it is surely plain enough to everybody that there are thousands of men and women within a mile of us, apathetic and obscure, who, if, an object worthy of them had been presented to them, would have shown themselves capable of enthusiasm and heroism.

Huge volumes of human energy are apparently annihilated.'

'It is very shocking, worse to me than the thought of the earthquake or the pestilence.'

'I said "yes and no" and there is another side. The universe is so wonderful, so intricate, that it is impossible to trace the transformation of its forces, and when they seem to disappear the disappearance may be an illusion. Moreover, "waste" is a word which is applicable only to finite resources. If the resources are infinite it has no meaning.'

Two customers came in and Baruch was obliged to leave. When he came to reflect, he was surprised to find not only how much he had said, but what he had said. He was usually reserved, and with strangers he adhered to the weather or to pa.s.sing events. He had spoken, however, to this young woman as if they had been acquainted for years. Clara, too, was surprised. She always cut short attempts at conversation in the shop. Frequently she answered questions and receipted and returned bills without looking in the faces of the people who spoke to her or offered her the money. But to this foreigner, or Jew, she had disclosed something she felt. She was rather abashed, but presently her employer, Mr Barnes, returned and somewhat relieved her.

'The gentleman who bought After Office Hours came for it while you were out?'

'Oh! what, Cohen? Good fellow Cohen is; he it was who recommended you to me. He is brother-in-law to your landlord.' Clara was comforted; he was not a mere 'casual,' as Mr Barnes called his chance customers.

CHAPTER XXIII

About a fortnight afterwards, on a Sunday afternoon, Cohen went to the Marshalls'. He had called there once or twice since his mother- in-law came to London, but had seen nothing of the lodgers. It was just about tea-time, but unfortunately Marshall and his wife had gone out. Mrs Caffyn insisted that Cohen should stay, but Madge could not be persuaded to come downstairs, and Baruch, Mrs Caffyn and Clara had tea by themselves. Baruch asked Mrs Caffyn if she could endure London after living for so long in the country.

'Ah! my dear boy, I have to like it.'

'No, you haven't; what you mean is that, whether you like it, or whether you do not, you have to put up with it.'

'No, I don't mean that. Miss Hopgood, Cohen and me, we are the best of friends, but whenever he comes here, he allus begins to argue with me. Howsomever, arguing isn't everything, is it, my dear? There's some things, after all, as I can do and he can't, but he's just wrong here in his arguing that wasn't what I meant. I meant what I said, as I had to like it.'

'How can you like it if you don't?'