Fan: Chapter 15
Chapter 15
For the rest of the day peace reigned at Wood End House. Mr. Churton,
whose absence at mealtime was never made the subject of remark, did not
return to tea when the three ladies met again; for now, according to that
proverb of the Peninsula which says "Tell me who you are with, and I will
tell you who you are," Fan had ceased to belong to the extensive genus
Young Person, and might only be classified as Young Lady, at all events
for so long as she remained on a footing of equality under the Churton
roof-tree.
There was not much conversation. Miss Churton was rather pale and subdued
in manner, speaking little. Fan was shy and ill at ease at this her first
meal in the house. Mrs. Churton alone seemed inclined to talk, and looked
serene and cheerful; but whether the late scene in the drawing-room had
been more transient in its effects in her case, or her self-command was
greater, she alone knew. After tea they all went out to sit in the garden
for an hour; Miss Churton taking a book with her, which, however, she
allowed to rest unread on her lap. Her mother had some knitting, which
occupied her fingers while she talked to Fan. The girl, she perceived,
was not yet feeling at home with them, and she tried to overcome her
diffidence by keeping up an easy flow of talk which required no answer
from the other, chiefly about their garden and its products--flowers,
fruit, and vegetables.
Presently they had a visitor, who came out across the lawn to them
unannounced. He shook hands with the Churtons, and then with Fan, to whom
he was introduced as Mr. Northcott. A large and rather somewhat rough-
looking young man was Mr. Northcott, in a clerical coat, for he was
curate of the church at Eyethorne. His head was large, and the hair and a
short somewhat disorderly beard and moustache brown in colour; the eyes
were blue, deep-set, and habitually down-cast, and had a trick of looking
suddenly up at anyone speaking to him. His nose was irregular, his mouth
too heavy, and there was that general appearance of ruggedness about him
which one usually takes as an outward sign of the stuff that makes the
successful emigrant. To find him a curate going round among the ladies in
a little rural parish in England seemed strange. He had as little of that
professional sleekness of skin and all-for-the-best placidity of manner
one expects to see in a clergyman of the Established Church as Mr.
Churton had of that confident, all-knowing, self-assured look one would
like to see in a barrister's countenance before entrusting him with a
brief.
He at once entered into conversation with Mrs. Churton, replying to some
question she put to him; and presently Fan began to listen with deep
interest, for they were discussing the unhappy affairs of one of the
Eyethorne poor--a bad man who was always getting drunk, fighting with his
wife, and leaving his children to starve. The curate, however, did not
seem deeply interested in the subject, and glanced not infrequently at
Miss Churton, who had resumed her reading; but it was plain to see that
she gave only a divided attention to her book.
Mrs. Churton was at length summoned to the house about some domestic
matter; then, after a short silence, the curate began a fresh
conversation with her daughter. He did not speak to her of parish affairs
and of persons, but of books, of things of the mind, and it seemed that
his heart was more in talk of this description. Or possibly the person
rather than the subject interested him. Miss Churton was living under a
cloud in her village, which was old-fashioned and pious; to be friendly
with her was not fashionable; he alone, albeit a curate, wished not to be
in the fashion. He even had the courage to approach personal questions.
"Fan, I know what you are thinking of," said Miss Churton, turning to the
girl. "It is that you would like to go and caress the flowers again--you
are such a flower-lover. Would you like to go and explore the orchard by
yourself?"
Fan thanked her gladly, and going from them, soon disappeared among the
trees.
"You live in too small a place, too remote from the world, and old-world
in character, to be allowed to live your own life in peace," said the
curate, at a later stage of the conversation. "Your set here is composed
of barely half a dozen families, and they take their cue from the
vicarage. In London, in any large town, one is allowed to think what one
likes without the neighbours troubling their heads about it. Do you know,
Miss Churton, it is strange to me that with your acquirements and talent
you do not seek a wider and more congenial field."
She smiled. "You must forgive me, Mr. Northcott, for having included you
among the troublers of my peace. It gives me a strange pleasure to tell
you this; it makes me strong to feel that I have your friendship and
sympathy."
"You certainly have that, Miss Churton."
"Thank you. I must tell you why I remain here. I am entirely dependent on
my parents just now, and shrink from beginning a second dependent life--
as a governess, for instance."
"There should be better things than that for you. You might get a good
position in a young ladies' school."
"It would be difficult. But apart from that, I shrink from entering a
profession which would absorb my whole time and faculties, and from which
I should probably find myself powerless to break away. I have dreams and
hopes of other things--foolish perhaps--time will show; but I am not in a
hurry to find a position, to become a crystal. And I wish to live for
myself as well as for others. I have now undertaken to teach Miss
Affleck, who will remain one year at least with us. I am glad that this
has given me an excuse for remaining where I am. I do not wish my
departure to look like running away."
"I am glad that you have so brave a spirit."
"I did not feel very brave to-day," she replied, smiling sadly. "But a
little sympathy serves to revive my courage. Do you remember that passage
in Bacon, 'Mark what a courage a dog will put on when sustained by a
nature higher than its own'? That is how it is with us women--those of
the strong-minded tribe excepted; man is to us a kind of _melior
natura_, without whose sustaining aid we degenerate into abject
cowards."
A red flush came into Mr. Northcott's dull-hued cheeks. "I presume you
are joking, Miss Churton; but if--"
"No, not joking," she quickly returned; "although I perhaps did not mean
as much as I said. But I wish I could show my gratitude for the comfort
you give me--for upholding me with your stronger nature."
"Do you, Miss Churton? Then I will be so bold as to make a request,
although I am perhaps running the risk of offending you. Will you come to
church next Sunday? I don't mean in the morning, but in the evening.
Please don't think for a moment that I have any faith in my power to
influence your mind in any way. I am not such a conceited ass as to
imagine anything of the sort. My motive for making the request was quite
independent of any such considerations. My experience is that those who
lose faith in Christianity do not recover it. I speak, of course, of
people who know their own minds."
"I know my own mind, Mr. Northcott."
"No doubt; and for that very reason I am not afraid to ask you this. You
used occasionally to come to church, so that it can't be scruples of
conscience that keep you away. As a rule, in London we always have a very
fair sprinkling of agnostics in a congregation, and sometimes more than a
sprinkling."
"I am not an agnostic, Mr. Northcott, if I know what that word means. But
let that pass. In London the church-goer is in very many cases a stranger
to the preacher; if he hears hard things spoken in the pulpit of those
who have no creed, he does not take it as a personal attack. I absented
myself from our church because the vicar in his sermon on unbelief
preached against _me_. He said that those who rejected Christianity
had no right to enter a church; that by doing so they insulted God and
man; and that their only motive was to parade their bitter scornful
infidelity before the world, and that they cherish a malignant hatred
towards the faith which they have cast off, and much more in the same
strain. Every person in the congregation had his or her eyes fixed on me,
to see how I liked it, knowing that it was meant for me; and I dare say
that what they saw gave them great pleasure. For a stronger nature than
my own was not sustaining me then, but all were against me, and the agony
of shame I suffered I shall never forget. I could only shut my eyes and
try to keep still; but I felt that all the blood in my veins had rushed
to my face and brain, and that my blood was like fire. I seemed to be
able to see myself fiery red--redder than the setting sun--in the midst
of all those shadowed faces that were watching me. I have hated that man
since, much as it distresses me to have such a feeling against any
fellow-creature."
"I remember the circumstance," said the curate, his face darkening. "I do
not agree with my vicar about some things, and he had no warrant for what
he said in the teachings of his Master. Since you have recalled this
incident to my mind, Miss Churton, I can only apologise for having asked
you to come on Sunday."
"I think I was wrong to let that sermon influence me so much," she
returned. "I feel ashamed of keeping my resentment so long. Mr.
Northcott, I will promise to go on Sunday evening, unless something
happens to prevent me."
He thanked her warmly. "Whatever your philosophical beliefs may be, Miss
Churton, you have the true Christian spirit," he said--saying perhaps too
much. "I am glad for your sake that Miss Affleck has come to reside with
you. Your life will be less lonely."
"Tell me, what do you think of her?"
"She has a rare delicate loveliness, and there is something indescribable
in her eyes which seemed to reveal her whole past life to me. Do you
know, Miss Churton, I often believe I have a strange faculty of reading
people's past history in the expression of their faces?"
"Tell me what you read?"
"When I was talking to your mother about that drunken ruffian in the
village, and his ill-treatment of his miserable children, I caught sight
of the girl's eyes fixed on me, wide open, expressing wonder and pain.
She had never, I feel sure, even heard of such things as I spoke about. I
seemed to know in some mysterious way that she was an only child--the
child, I believe, of a widowed father, who doted on her, and surrounded
her with every luxury wealth could purchase, and permitted no breath of
the world's misery to reach her, lest it should make her unhappy. Now,
tell me, have I prophesied truly?"
She smiled, but had no desire to laugh at his little delusion about a
mysterious faculty. It is one common enough, and very innocent. The girl
was an orphan, and that, she told him, was all she knew of her history.
The curate went away with a feeling of strange elation; for how gracious
she had been to him, how happy he was to have won her confidence, how
sweet the tender music of her voice had seemed when she had freely told
him the secrets of her heart! Poor man! his human nature was a stumbling-
block in his way. By-and-by he would have to reflect that his sympathy
with an unbeliever had led him almost to the point of speaking evil of
dignities--of his vicar, to wit, who paid him seventy pounds a year for
his services. That was about all Mr. Northcott had to live on; and yet--
oh, folly!--a declaration of love, an offer of marriage, had been
trembling on his lips throughout all that long conversation.
Miss Churton hurried off in search of Fan, surprised that she had kept
out of sight so long; and as she walked through the orchard, looking for
her on this side and that, she also felt surprised at her own light-
heartedness. For how strangely happy she felt after a morning so full of
contention and bitterness! Fan saw her coming--saw even at a distance in
her bright face the reflection of a heartfelt gladness. But the girl did
not move to meet her, nor did she watch her coming with responsive
gladness; she stood motionless, her pale face seen in profile against the
green cloud of a horse-chestnut tree that drooped its broad leaves to
touch and mingle with the grass at her very feet. It seemed strange to
Constance as she drew near, still glad, and yet with lingering footsteps
so that the sight might be the longer enjoyed, that her pupil should have
come at that precise period of the day to stand there motionless at that
particular spot; that this pale city girl in her civilised dress should
have in her appearance at that moment no suggestion of artificiality, but
should seem a something natural and unadulterated as flowering tree and
grass and sunshine, a part of nature, in absolute and perfect harmony
with it. The point to which Fan had wandered was a little beyond the
orchard, close to an old sunk fence or ha-ha separating it from the field
beyond. The turf at her feet was white with innumerable daisies, and the
only tree at that spot was the great chestnut beside which she stood, and
against which, in her white dress and with her pallid face, she looked so
strangely pure, so flower-like and yet ethereal, as if sprung from the
daisies whitening the turf around her, and retaining something of their
flower-like character, yet unsubstantial--a beautiful form that might at
any moment change to mist and float away from sight. In the field beyond,
where her eyes were resting, the lush grass was sprinkled with the gold
of buttercups; and in the centre of the field stood a group of four or
five majestic elm-trees; the sinking sun was now directly behind them,
and shining level through the foliage filled the spaces between the
leaves with a red light, which looked like misty fire. On the vast
expanse of heaven there was no cloud; only low down in the east and
south-east, near the horizon, there were pale vague shadows, which in
another half-hour's time would take the rounded form of clouds, deepening
to pearly grey and flushing red and purple in the setting beams. From the
elms and fields, from the orchard, from other trees and fields further
away, came up the songs of innumerable birds, making the whole air ring
and quiver with the delicate music; so many notes, so various in tone and
volume, had the effect of waves and wavelets and ripples, rising and
running and intersecting each other at all angles, forming an intricate
pattern, as it were, a network of sweetest melody. Loud and close at hand
were heard the lusty notes of thrush and blackbird, chaffinch and
blackcap; and from these there was a gradation of sounds, down to the
faint lispings of the more tender melodists singing at a distance,
reaching the sense like voices mysterious and spiritualised from some far
unseen world. And at intervals came the fluting cry of the cuckoo, again
and again repeated, so aerial, yet with such a passionate depth in it, as
if the Spirit of Nature itself had become embodied, and from some leafy
hiding-place cried aloud with mystic lips.
Listening to that rare melody Fan had stood for a long time, her heart
feeling almost oppressed with the infinite sweetness of nature; so
motionless that the yellow skippers and small blue-winged butterflies
fluttered round her in play, and at intervals alighting on her dress, sat
with spread wings, looking like strange yellow and blue gems on the snow-
white drapery. Her mind was troubled at Miss Churton's approach; for it
now seemed to her that human affection and sympathy were more to her than
they had ever been; that a touch, a word, a look almost, would be
sufficient to overcome her and make her fall from her loyalty to Mary.
Even when the other was standing by her side, curiously regarding her
still pale face, she made no sign, but after one troubled glance remained
with eyes cast down.
"Are you not tired of being alone with nature yet, Fan?" said Miss
Churton, with a smile, and placing her hand on the girl's neck.
"Oh no, Miss Churton; it is so--pleasant to be here!" she replied. But
she spoke in a slow mechanical way, and seemed to the other strangely
cold and irresponsive; she shivered a little, too, when the caressing
hand touched her neck, as if the warm fingers had seemed icy cold.
"Then you were not sorry to be left so long alone?"
"No--I could not feel tired. I think--I could have stayed alone here
until--until--" then her inability to express her thoughts confused her
and she became silent.
"Yes, Fan, until--" said the other, taking her hand. But the hand she
took rested cold and still in hers, and Fan was silent.
At length, reddening a little, she said:
"Miss Churton, I cannot say what I feel."
"Do you feel, Fan, that the sight of nature fills your heart with a
strange new happiness, such as no pleasure in your London life ever gave,
and at the same time a sadness for which you cannot imagine any cause?"
"Oh, do you feel that too, Miss Churton? Will you tell me what it is?"
The other smiled at the question. "If I could do that, Fan, I should be a
very wise girl indeed. It is a feeling that we all have at times; and
some day when we read the poets together you will find that they often
speak of it. Keats says of the music of the nightingale that it makes his
heart ache to hear it, but he does not know why it aches any more than we
do. We can say what the feeling is which human love and sympathy give us
--the touch of loving hands and lips, the words that are sweet to hear.
This we can understand; but that mixed glad and melancholy feeling we
have in nature we cannot analyse. How can anything in nature know our
heart like a fellow-being--the sun, and wind, and trees, and singing
birds? Yet it all seems to come in love to us--so great a love that we
can hardly bear it. The sun and wind seem to touch us lovingly; the earth
and sky seem to look on us with an affection deeper than man's--a meaning
which we cannot fathom. But, oh, Fan, it is foolish and idle of me to try
to put what we feel into words! Don't you think so?"
"I think I feel what you say, Miss Churton."
"And when you said just now that you could stand here alone, seeing and
hearing, _until--until_--and then stopped, perhaps you wished to say
that you could remain here until you understood it all, and knew the
meaning of that mysterious pain in your heart?"
"Yes--I think I felt that"; and glancing up she met the other's eyes full
on her own, so dark and full of affection, and with a mistiness rising in
their clear depths. She was sorely tempted then to put her arms about her
teacher's neck; the struggle was too much for her; she trembled, and
covering her face with her hands burst into tears.
"Dearest Fan, you must not cry," said Miss Churton, tenderly caressing
her; but there was no response, only that slight shivering of the frame
once more, as if it pained her to be caressed, and she wondered at the
girl's mood, which was so unlike that of the morning. A painful suspicion
crossed her mind. Had her mother, in her anxiety about Fan's spiritual
welfare, already taken the girl into her confidence, as she had taken
others, or dropped some word of warning to prejudice her mind? Had she
told this gentle human dove that she must learn the wisdom of the serpent
_from_ a serpent--a kind of Lamia who had assumed a beautiful female
form for the purpose of instructing her? No, it could not be; there had
been no opportunity for private conversation yet; and it was also hateful
to her to think so hardly of her mother. But she made no further attempt
just then to win her pupil's heart, and in a short time they returned to
the house together.