“Yes, that's all very well, and I don't say for a moment that your daughter has deliberately set herself to undo your work and win her pupil to her own pernicious views. But is it possible for her, even if she wished it, to conceal them altogether from one who is not only her pupil but her intimate friend and constant companion? Her whole life—thoughts, acts, words, and even looks—must be leavened with the evil leaven; how can Miss Affleck live with her in that intimate way without catching some of that spirit from her? You know that so long as they were not thus intimate this girl was everything that could be desired, that from the time they became close friends she began to change, and that religion is now becoming as distasteful to her as it is to her teacher.”
Poor woman! she had gone for comfort and counsel to her pastor, and this was all she got. He was a good hater, and regarded Miss Churton with a feeling that to his way of thinking was a holy one. “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies.” As for separating two inseparable things, the sinner and the sin (matter and an affection of matter), and loving one and hating the other, that was an intellectual feat altogether beyond his limited powers, although he considered it one which Mr. Northcott might be able to accomplish. He had made it impossible for his enemy to do any injury in the parish; she had been dropped by Eyethorne “society,” and she did not go among the poor; but this was not enough to satisfy him, and the sermon he had preached against her, which drove her from the church, had been deliberately prepared with the object of driving her from the parish. He had failed in his object, and now he was angry because he could not separate Fan from her, and, unjust and even cruel in his anger, he turned on the unhappy mother.
To his words Mrs. Churton could only reply, “What can I do—what can I do?” And as he refused to answer her, having said his last word, she rose and went home more unhappy than ever, more angry with Fan, and embittered against her daughter; for that the vicar had truly shown her the reason of her failure she could not doubt.
They were both entirely wrong, although the mistake was a very natural one, and, in the circumstances, almost unavoidable. Constance had scrupulously observed the compact. Nothing could be further from her mind than any desire to win others to her way of thinking. The religious instinct was strong in her, and could flourish without the support of creed or doctrine; at the same time she recognised the fact that in others—in a very large majority of persons, perhaps—it is a frail creeping plant that trails along the ground to perish trodden in the dust without extraneous support.
Fan, on her side, had drifted into her present way of thinking, or not thinking, independently of her teacher, and entirely uninfluenced by her. At the beginning she responded readily to Mrs. Churton's motherly teaching; but only because the teaching was motherly, and intimately associated with those purely human feelings which were everything to her. Afterwards when others, who were strangers and not dear to her, began to take part in her instruction, then gradually these two things—human and divine—separated themselves in her mind, and she clung to the one and lost her interest in the other. It was pleasant to go to church, to take part in singing and praying with the others, and to sit with half-closed eyes among well-dressed people during sermon-time, and think of other things, chiefly of Mary and Constance. But when religion came to be more than that, it began to oppress her like a vain show, and it was a relief to escape from all thoughts on the subject. So low and so earthly, in one sense, was Fan's mind. While she was in this frame that visit to the carpenter's cottage occurred, and the carpenter's words had taken a strong hold on her and could not be forgotten; for they fitted her case so exactly, and seemed so clearly to express all that she had had in her mind, and all that it was necessary for her to have, that it had the effect of making her spirit deaf to all other and higher teachings. If she could have explained it all to Mrs. Churton it would have been better, at all events for Constance, but she was incapable of such a thing, even if she had possessed the courage, and so she kept silence, although she could see that her want of interest was distressing to her kind friend.
Another great bitterness in Mrs. Churton's cup resulted from the conduct of her irreclaimable husband. Even Fan, who had never regarded any living soul with contempt, had soon enough learned to experience such a feeling towards this man. But it was a kindly contempt, for after repulsing him two or three times when he had attempted to conduct himself in too fatherly a manner, he had ceased to trouble her in any way. He was very unobtrusive in the house, except at intervals, when he would rebel against his wife and say shocking things and screech at her. But when cold weather came, then poor Mr. Churton took an extra amount of alcohol for warmth, and the spirit and cold combined brought on a variety of ailments which sometimes confined him for days to his bedroom. At such times he would be deeply penitent, and beg his wife to sit with him and read the Bible, which she was always ready to do. Never again would he seek oblivion from pain in the cup that cheers, and, alas, inebriates, or do anything to make his beloved wife grieve; thus would he protest, kissing her hand and shedding weak tears. But as soon as she had nursed him back into better health he would seize the first opportunity when she was out of the way to slip off “for a constitutional,” which would invariably end at the inn in the High Street; and in the evening he would return quarrelsome and abusive, or else groaning and ready to take to bed again.
Mr. Northcott, who might have melted into thin air for all we have seen or heard of him lately, was also unhappy in his mind at this period. He loved, and yet when it had almost seemed to him that he had not loved in vain, partly from prudential motives and partly because his religion stood in the way of his desire, he had refrained from speaking. Now it seemed to him that he had let his chance go by, and that Miss Churton, although still as friendly as any person not actually enamoured of her could have wished, was not so sympathetic, not so near to him, as formerly. Nevertheless, he still sought her out at every opportunity, and engaged her in long conversations which led to nothing; for they barely touched on the borders of those subjects which both felt most deeply about, and that other subject which he alone felt they never approached. His resolution had in some measure recovered its “native hue,” but too late, alas! and at length one day his vicar took him to task about this inconvenient friendship.
“Mr. Northcott,” he said very unexpectedly at the end of a conversation they had been having, “may I ask you whether you still hope to be able to win back Miss Churton to a more desirable frame of mind?”
The curate flushed a little, and glancing up encountered the suspicious eyes of his superior fixed on him.
“I regret that I am compelled to answer with a negative,” he returned.