Her mornings, from nine till one o'clock, were spent with her teacher, and occasionally they went for a walk after dinner; but as a rule they were not together during the last half of the day. After school hours Miss Churton would hand over her pupil, not unwillingly, to her mother, and, if the state of the weather did not prevent, she would go away alone with her book to Eyethorne woods.
A strangely solitary and unsocial life, it seemed to Fan; and yet she felt convinced in her mind that her teacher was warm-hearted, a lover of her fellow-creatures, and glad to be with them; and that she should seem so lonely and friendless, so apart even in her own home, puzzled her greatly. A mystery, however, it was destined to remain for a long time; for no word to enlighten her ever fell from Mrs. Churton's lips, who seldom even mentioned her daughter's name, and never without a shade coming over her face, as if the name suggested some painful thought. All this troubled the girl's mind, but it was a slight trouble; and by-and-by, when she had got over her first shyness towards strangers, she formed fresh acquaintances, and found new interests and occupations which filled her leisure time. Mrs. Churton often took her when going to call on the few friends she had in the neighbourhood—friends who, for some unexplained reason, seldom returned her visits. At the vicarage, where they frequently went, Fan became acquainted with Mr. Long the vicar, a large, grey-haired, mild-mannered man; and Mrs. Long, a round energetic woman, with reddish cheeks and keen eyes; and the three Miss Longs, who were not exactly good-looking nor exactly young. Before very long it was discovered that she was clever with her needle, and, better still, that she had learnt the beautiful art of embroidery at South Kensington, and was fond of practising it. These talents were not permitted to lie folded up in a napkin. A new altar-cloth was greatly needed, and there were garments for the children of the very poor, and all sorts of things to be made; it was arranged that she should spend two afternoons each week at the vicarage assisting her new friends in their charitable work.
But more to her than these friends were the very poor, whose homes, sometimes made wretched by want or sickness or intemperance, she visited in Mrs. Churton's company. The lady of Wood End House was not without faults, as we have seen; but they were chiefly faults of temper—and her temper was very sorely tried. She could not forget her lost sons, nor shut her eyes to her husband's worthlessness. But the passive resistance her daughter always opposed to her efforts, her dogged adherence to a resolution never to discuss religious questions or give a reason for her unbelief, had a powerfully irritating, almost a maddening, effect on her, and made her at times denunciatory and violent. Her daughter's motive for keeping her lips closed was a noble one, only Mrs. Churton did not know what it was. But she was conscious of her own failings, and never ceased struggling to overcome them; and she was tolerant of faults in others, except that one fatal fault of infidelity in her daughter, which was too great, too terrible, to be contemplated with calm. In spite of these small blemishes she was in every sense a Christian, whose religion was a tremendous reality, and whose whole life was one unceasing and consistent endeavour to follow in the footsteps of her Divine Master. To go about doing good, to minister to the sick and suffering and comfort the afflicted—that was like the breath of life to her; there was not a cottage—hardly a room in a cottage—within the parish of Eyethorne where her kindly face was not as familiar as that of any person outside of its own little domestic circle. Mrs. Churton soon made the discovery that she could not give Fan a greater happiness than to take her when making her visits to the poor; to have the gentle girl she had learnt to love and look on almost as a daughter with her was such a comfort and pleasure, that she never failed to take her when it was practicable. At first Fan was naturally stared at, a little rudely at times, and addressed in that profoundly respectful manner the poor sometimes use to uninvited visitors of a class higher than themselves, in which the words border on servility while the tone suggests resentment. How inappropriate and even unnatural this seemed to her! For these were her own people—the very poor, and all the privations and sufferings peculiar to their condition were known to her, and she had not outgrown her sympathy with them. Only she could not tell them that, and it would have been a great mistake if she had done so. For no one loves a deserter—a renegade; and a beggar-girl who blossoms into a lady is to those who are beggars still a renegade of the worst description. But the keen interest she manifested in her shy way in their little domestic troubles and concerns, and above all her fondness for little children, smoothed the way, and before long made her visits welcome. She would kneel and take the staring youngster by its dirty hand—so perfectly unconscious of its dirtiness, which seemed very wonderful in one so dainty-looking—and start a little independent child's gossip with it, away from Mrs. Churton and the elders of the cottage. And she would win the little bucolic heart, and kiss its lips, sweet and fragrant to her in spite of the dirt surrounding them; and by-and-by the mother's sharp expression would soften when she met the tender grey eyes; and thereafter there would be a new happiness when Fan appeared, and if Mrs. Churton came without her, there would be sullen looks from the little one, and inquiries from its mother after “your beautiful young lady from London.”
All this was inexpressibly grateful to Mrs. Churton, all the more grateful when she noticed that these visits they made together to the very poor seemed to have the effect of drawing the girl more and more to her. To her mind, all this signified that her religious teachings were sinking into the girl's heart, that her own lofty ideal was becoming increasingly beautiful to that young mind.
But she was making a great mistake—one which is frequently made by those who do not know how easily some Christian virtues and qualities are simulated by the unregenerate. All the doctrinal religion she had imparted to Fan remained on the surface, and had not, and, owing to some defect in her or for some other cause, perhaps could not sink down to become rooted in her heart. After Mrs. Churton had, as she imagined, utterly and for ever smashed and pulverised all Fan's preconceived and wildly erroneous ideas about right and wrong, the girl's mind for some time had been in a state of chaos with regard to such matters. But gradually, by means of a kind of spiritual chemistry, the original elements of her peculiar system came together, and crystallised again in the old form. Her mental attitude was not like that of the downright and doggedly-conservative Jan Coggan, who scorned to turn his back on “his own old ancient doctrines merely for the sake of getting to heaven.” There was nothing stubborn or downright in her disposition, and she was hardly conscious of the change going on in her—the reversion to her own past. She assented readily to everything she was told by so good a woman as Mrs. Churton, and in a way she believed it all, and read her Bible and several pious books besides, and got the whole catechism by heart. It was all in her memory—many beautiful things, with others too dreadful to think about; but it could not make her life any different, or supplant her old simple beliefs, and she could never grasp the idea that a living faith in all these things was absolutely essential, or that they were really more than ornamental. Her lively sympathy for those of her own class was the only reason for the pleasure she took in going among the poor, and it also explained her natural unconstrained manner towards them, which so quickly won their hearts. During these visits she often recalled her own sad condition in that distant time when she lived in Moon Street; thinking that it would have made a great difference if some gracious lady had come to her there, with help in her hands and words of comfort on her lips. It was this memory, this thought, which filled her with love and reverence for her companion; it was gratitude for friendship to the poor, but nothing loftier.
This was a quiet and uneventful period in Fan's life; a time of growth, mental and physical, and of improvement; but as we have seen, the new conditions she found herself in had not so far wrought any change in her character. Those who knew her at Eyethorne, both gentle and simple, would have been surprised to hear that she was not a lady by birth; in her soul she was still the girl who had begged for pence in the Edgware Road, who had run crying through the dark streets after the cab that conveyed her drunken and fatally-injured mother to St. Mary's Hospital. Let them disbelieve who know not Fan, who have never known one like her.
CHAPTER XX
One afternoon in early August Fan accompanied Mrs. Churton on a visit to some cottages on the further side of Eyethorne village; she went gladly, for they were going to see Mrs. Cawood, a young married woman with three children, and one of them, the eldest, a sharp little fellow, was her special favourite. Mrs. Cawood was a good-tempered industrious little woman; but her husband—Cawood the carpenter—was a thorn in Mrs. Churton's tender side. Not that he was a black sheep in the Eyethorne fold; on the contrary, he was known to be temperate, a good husband and father, and a clever industrious mechanic. But he was never seen at church; on Sundays he went fishing, being devoted to the gentle craft; and it was wrong, more so in him because of his good name than in many another. Mrs. Churton was anxious to point this out to him, but unfortunately could not see him; he was always out of the way when she called, no matter when the call was timed. “I wish you could get hold of Cawood,” had been said to her many times by the parson and his wife; but there was no getting hold of him. The curate had also tried and failed. Once he had gone to him when he was engaged on some work, but the carpenter had reminded him very pleasantly that there is a time for everything, that carpentering and theology mixed badly together.