'So to-morrow, Alice,' said Dr. Madden, as he walked with his
eldest daughter on the coast-downs by Clevedon, 'I shall take steps
for insuring my life for a thousand pounds.'
It was the outcome of a long and intimate conversation. Alice
Madden, aged nineteen, a plain, shy, gentle-mannered girl, short of
stature, and in movement something less than graceful, wore a
pleased look as she glanced at her father's face and then turned
her eyes across the blue channel to the Welsh hills. She was
flattered by the confidence reposed in her, for Dr. Madden,
reticent by nature, had never been known to speak in the domestic
circle about his pecuniary affairs. He seemed to be the kind of man
who would inspire his children with affection: grave but benign,
amiably diffident, with a hint of lurking mirthfulness about his
eyes and lips. And to-day he was in the best of humours;
professional prospects, as he had just explained to Alice, were
more encouraging than hitherto; for twenty years he had practised
medicine at Clevedon, but with such trifling emolument that the
needs of his large family left him scarce a margin over
expenditure; now, at the age of forty-nineâit was 1872âhe looked
forward with a larger hope. Might he not reasonably count on ten or
fifteen more years of activity? Clevedon was growing in repute as a
seaside resort; new houses were rising; assuredly his practice
would continue to extend.
'I don't think girls ought to be troubled about this kind of
thing,' he added apologetically. 'Let men grapple with the world;
for, as the old hymn says, "'tis their nature to." I should grieve
indeed if I thought my girls would ever have to distress themselves
about money matters. But I find I have got into the habit, Alice,
of talking to you very much as I should talk with your dear mother
if she were with us.'
Mrs. Madden, having given birth to six daughters, had fulfilled
her function in this wonderful world; for two years she had been
resting in the old churchyard that looks upon the Severn sea.
Father and daughter sighed as they recalled her memory. A sweet,
calm, unpretending woman; admirable in the domesticities; in speech
and thought distinguished by a native refinement, which in the most
fastidious eyes would have established her claim to the title of
lady. She had known but little repose, and secret anxieties told
upon her countenance long before the final collapse of health.
'And yet,' pursued the doctorâdoctor only by courtesyâwhen he
had stooped to pluck and examine a flower, 'I made a point of never
discussing these matters with her. As no doubt you guess, life has
been rather an uphill journey with us. But the home must be guarded
against sordid cares to the last possible moment; nothing upsets me
more than the sight of those poor homes where wife and children are
obliged to talk from morning to night of how the sorry earnings
shall be laid out. No, no; women, old or young, should never have
to think about money.
The magnificent summer sunshine, and the western breeze that
tasted of ocean, heightened his natural cheeriness. Dr. Madden fell
into a familiar strain of prescience.
'There will come a day, Alice, when neither man nor woman is
troubled with such sordid care. Not yet awhile; no, no; but the day
will come. Human beings are not destined to struggle for ever like
beasts of prey. Give them time; let civilization grow. You know
what our poet says: "There the common sense of most shall hold a
fretful realm in aweâ"'
He quoted the couplet with a subdued fervour which characterized
the man and explained his worldly lot. Elkanah Madden should never
have entered the medical profession; mere humanitarianism had
prompted the choice in his dreamy youth; he became an empiric,
nothing more. 'Our poet,' said the doctor; Clevedon was chiefly
interesting to him for its literary associations. Tennyson he
worshipped; he never passed Coleridge's cottage without bowing in
spirit. From the contact of coarse actualities his nature
shrank.
When he and Alice returned from their walk it was the hour of
family tea. A guest was present this afternoon; the eight persons
who sat down to table were as many as the little parlour could
comfortably contain. Of the sisters, next in age to Alice came
Virginia, a pretty but delicate girl of seventeen. Gertrude,
Martha, and Isabel, ranging from fourteen to ten, had no physical
charm but that of youthfulness; Isabel surpassed her eldest sister
in downright plainness of feature. The youngest, Monica, was a
bonny little maiden only just five years old, dark and
bright-eyed.
The parents had omitted no care in shepherding their fold.
Partly at home, and partly in local schools, the young ladies had
received instruction suitable to their breeding, and the elder ones
were disposed to better this education by private study. The
atmosphere of the house was intellectual; books, especially the
poets, lay in every room. But it never occurred to Dr. Madden that
his daughters would do well to study with a professional object. In
hours of melancholy he had of course dreaded the risks of life, and
resolved, always with postponement, to make some practical
provision for his family; in educating them as well as
circumstances allowed, he conceived that he was doing the next best
thing to saving money, for, if a fatality befell, teaching would
always be their resource. The thought, however, of his girls having
to work for money was so utterly repulsive to him that he could
never seriously dwell upon it. A vague piety supported his courage.
Providence would not deal harshly with him and his dear ones. He
enjoyed excellent health; his practice decidedly improved. The one
duty clearly before him was to set an example of righteous life,
and to develop the girls' mindsâin every proper direction. For, as
to training them for any path save those trodden by English ladies
of the familiar type, he could not have dreamt of any such thing.
Dr. Madden's hopes for the race were inseparable from a maintenance
of morals and conventions such as the average man assumes in his
estimate of women.
The guest at table was a young girl named Rhoda Nunn. Tall,
thin, eager-looking, but with promise of bodily vigour, she was
singled at a glance as no member of the Madden family. Her
immaturity (but fifteen, she looked two years older) appeared in
nervous restlessness, and in her manner of speaking, childish at
times in the hustling of inconsequent thoughts, yet striving to
imitate the talk of her seniors. She had a good head, in both
senses of the phrase; might or might not develop a certain beauty,
but would assuredly put forth the fruits of intellect. Her mother,
an invalid, was spending the summer months at Clevedon, with Dr.
Madden for medical adviser, and in this way the girl became
friendly with the Madden household. Its younger members she treated
rather condescendingly; childish things she had long ago put away,
and her sole pleasure was in intellectual talk. With a frankness
peculiar to her, indicative of pride, Miss Nunn let it be known
that she would have to earn her living, probably as a school
teacher; study for examinations occupied most of her day, and her
hours of leisure were frequently spent either at the Maddens or
with a family named Smithsonâpeople, these latter, for whom she had
a profound and somewhat mysterious admiration. Mr. Smithson, a
widower with a consumptive daughter, was a harsh-featured,
rough-voiced man of about five-and-thirty, secretly much disliked
by Dr. Madden because of his aggressive radicalism; if women's
observation could be trusted, Rhoda Nunn had simply fallen in love
with him, had made him, perhaps unconsciously, the object of her
earliest passion. Alice and Virginia commented on the fact in their
private colloquy with a shamefaced amusement; they feared that it
spoke ill for the young lady's breeding. None the less they thought
Rhoda a remarkable person, and listened to her utterances
respectfully.
'And what is your latest paradox, Miss Nunn?' inquired the
doctor, with grave facetiousness, when he had looked round the
young faces at his board.
'Really, I forget, doctor. Oh, but I wanted to ask you, Do you
think women ought to sit in Parliament?'
'Why, no,' was the response, as if after due consideration. 'If
they are there at all they ought to stand.'
'Oh, I can't get you to talk seriously,' rejoined Rhoda, with an
air of vexation, whilst the others were good-naturedly laughing.
'Mr. Smithson thinks there ought to be female members of
Parliament.
'Does he? Have the girls told you that there's a nightingale in
Mr. Williams's orchard?'
It was always thus. Dr. Madden did not care to discuss even
playfully the radical notions which Rhoda got from her
objectionable friend. His daughters would not have ventured to
express an opinion on such topics when he was present; apart with
Miss Nunn, they betrayed a timid interest in whatever proposition
she advanced, but no gleam of originality distinguished their
arguments.
After tea the little company fell into groupsâsome out of doors
beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia
was playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her
five-year-old prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a
canvas chair against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr.
Madden was thinking how happy they made him, these kind, gentle
girls; how his love for them seemed to ripen with every summer;
what a delightful old age his would be, when some were married and
had children of their own, and the others tended himâthey whom he
had tended. Virginia would probably be sought in marriage; she had
good looks, a graceful demeanour, a bright understanding. Gertrude
also, perhaps. And little Monicaâah, little Monica! she would be
the beauty of the family. When Monica had grown up it would be time
for him to retire from practice; by then he would doubtless have
saved money.
He must find more society for them; they had always been too
much alone, whence their shyness among strangers. If their mother
had but lived!
'Rhoda wishes you to read us something, father,' said his eldest
girl, who had approached whilst he was lost in dream.
He often read aloud to them from the poets; Coleridge and
Tennyson by preference. Little persuasion was needed. Alice brought
the volume, and he selected 'The Lotus-Eaters.' The girls grouped
themselves about him, delighted to listen. Many an hour of summer
evening had they thus spent, none more peaceful than the present.
The reader's cadenced voice blended with the song of a thrush.
'"Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while
our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All
thing' are taken from usâ"'
There came an interruption, hurried, peremptory. A farmer over
at Kingston Seymour had been seized with alarming illness; the
doctor must come at once.
'Very sorry, girls. Tell James to put the horse in, sharp as he
can.
In ten minutes Dr. Madden was driving at full speed, alone in
his dog-cart, towards the scene of duty.
About seven o'clock Rhoda Nunn took leave, remarking with her
usual directness, that before going home she would walk along the
sea-front in the hope of a meeting with Mr. Smithson and his
daughter. Mrs. Nunn was not well enough to leave the house to-day;
but, said Rhoda, the invalid preferred being left alone at such
times.
'Are you sure she prefers it?' Alice ventured to ask. The girl
gave her a look of surprise.
'Why should mother say what she doesn't mean?'
It was uttered with an ingenuousness which threw some light on
Rhoda's character.
By nine o'clock the younger trio of sisters had gone to bed;
Alice, Virginia, and Gertrude sat in the parlour, occupied with
books, from time to time exchanging a quiet remark. A tap at the
door scarcely drew their attention, for they supposed it was the
maid-servant coming to lay supper. But when the door opened there
was a mysterious silence; Alice looked up and saw the expected
face, wearing, however, so strange an expression that she rose with
sudden fear.
'Can I speak to you, please, miss?'
The dialogue out in the passage was brief. A messenger had just
arrived with the tidings that Dr. Madden, driving back from
Kingston Seymour, had been thrown from his vehicle and lay
insensible at a roadside cottage.
For some time the doctor had been intending to buy a new horse;
his faithful old roadster was very weak in the knees. As in other
matters, so in this, postponement became fatality; the horse
stumbled and fell, and its driver was flung head forward into the
road. Some hours later they brought him to his home, and for a day
or two there were hopes that he might rally. But the sufferer's
respite only permitted him to dictate and sign a brief will; this
duty performed, Dr. Madden closed his lips for ever.