It was settled that they should leave Fenmarket. Their departure
caused but little surprise. They had scarcely any friends, and it
was always conjectured that people so peculiar would ultimately find
their way to London. They were particularly desirous to conceal
their movements, and therefore determined to warehouse their
furniture in town, to take furnished apartments there for three
months, and then to move elsewhere. Any letters which might arrive
at Fenmarket for them during these three months would be sent to them
at their new address; nothing probably would come afterwards, and as
nobody in Fenmarket would care to take any trouble about them, their
trace would become obliterated. They found some rooms near Myddelton
Square, Pentonville, not a particularly cheerful place, but they
wished to avoid a more distant suburb, and Pentonville was cheap.
Fortunately for them they had no difficulty whatever in getting rid
of the Fenmarket house for the remainder of their term.
For a little while London diverted them after a fashion, but the
absence of household cares told upon them. They had nothing to do
but to read and to take dismal walks through Islington and Barnsbury,
and the gloom of the outlook thickened as the days became shorter and
the smoke began to darken the air. Madge was naturally more
oppressed than the others, not only by reason of her temperament, but
because she was the author of the trouble which had befallen them.
Her mother and Clara did everything to sustain and to cheer her.
They possessed the rare virtue of continuous tenderness. The love,
which with many is an inspiration, was with them their own selves,
from which they could not be separated; a harsh word could not
therefore escape from them. It was as impossible as that there
should be any failure in the pressure with which the rocks press
towards the earth's centre. Madge at times was very far gone in
melancholy. How different this thing looked when it was close at
hand; when she personally was to be the victim! She had read about
it in history, the surface of which it seemed scarcely to ripple; it
had been turned to music in some of her favourite poems and had lent
a charm to innumerable mythologies, but the actual fact was nothing
like the poetry or mythology, and threatened to ruin her own history
altogether. Nor would it be her own history solely, but more or less
that of her mother and sister.
Had she believed in the common creed, her attention would have been
concentrated on the salvation of her own soul; she would have found
her Redeemer and would have been comparatively at peace; she would
have acknowledged herself convicted of infinite sin, and hell would
have been opened before her, but above the sin and the hell she would
have seen the distinct image of the Mediator abolishing both.
Popular theology makes personal salvation of such immense importance
that, in comparison therewith, we lose sight of the consequences to
others of our misdeeds. The sense of cruel injustice to those who
loved her remained with Madge perpetually.