Mark Rutherford’s Deliverance

It was foggy and overcast as we walked home to Goodge Street. The churches and chapels were emptying themselves, but the great mass of the population had been “nowhere.” I had dinner with M’Kay, and as the day wore on the fog thickened. London on a dark Sunday afternoon, more especially about Goodge Street, is depressing. The inhabitants drag themselves hither and thither in languor and uncertainty. Small mobs loiter at the doors of the gin palaces. Costermongers wander aimlessly, calling “walnuts” with a cry so melancholy that it sounds as the wail of the hopelessly lost may be imagined to sound when their anguish has been deadened by the monotony of a million years.

About two or three o’clock decent working men in their best clothes emerge from the houses in such streets as Nassau Street. It is part of their duty to go out after dinner on Sunday with the wife and children.

One day in December the squire had gone out with the hounds. Clem, going on from bad to worse, had now reached the point of planning to be at the Hall when the squire was not at home. On that particular afternoon Clem was there. It was about half-past four o’clock, and the master was not expected till six. There had been some music, the lady accompanying, and Clem singing. It was over, and Clem, sitting down beside her at the piano, and pointing out with his right hand some passage which had troubled him, had placed his left arm on her shoulder, and round her neck, she not resisting. He always swore afterwards that never till then had such a familiarity as this been permitted, and I believe that he did not tell a lie. But what was there in that familiarity? The worst was already there, and it was through a mere accident that it never showed itself. The accident was this. The squire, for some unknown reason, had returned earlier than usual, and dismounting in the stable-yard, had walked round the garden on the turf which came close to the windows of the ground floor. Passing the drawing-room window, and looking in by the edge of the drawn-down blind, he saw his wife and Clem just at the moment described. He slipped round to the door, took off his boots so that he might not be heard, and as there was a large screen inside the room he was able to enter it unobserved.

“Have you been in the habit of teaching?”

“No. The necessity for taking to it has only lately arisen.”

“What can you teach?”

“Not much beyond what children of ten or eleven years old are expected to know; but I could take charge of them entirely.”

“Have you any children of your own?”

“One.”

“Could you take a situation as resident teacher if you have a child?”

“I must get something to do, and if I can make no arrangement by which my child can live with me, I shall try and place her with a friend. I may be able to hear of some appointment as a daily governess.”

“I should have thought that in your native town you would have been easily able to find employment⁠—you must be well known?”

There was a pause, and after a moment or so she said:⁠—

“We were well known once, but we went abroad and lost all our money. My husband died abroad. When I returned, I found that there was very little which my friends could do for me. I am not accomplished, and there are crowds of young women who are more capable than I am. Moreover, I saw that I was becoming a burden, and people called on me rather as a matter of duty than for any other reason. You don’t know how soon all but the very best insensibly neglect very poor relatives if they are not gifted or attractive. I do not wonder at being made to feel this, nor do I blame anybody.

I have said that Ellen had a child by her first husband. Marie, for that was her name, was now ten years old. She was like neither her mother nor father, and yet was shot as it were with strange gleams which reminded me of her paternal grandmother for a moment, and then disappeared. She had rather coarse dark hair, small black eyes, round face, and features somewhat blunt or blurred, the nose in particular being so. She had a tendency to be stout. For books she did not care, and it was with the greatest difficulty we taught her to read. She was not orderly or careful about her person, and in this respect was a sore disappointment⁠—not that she was positively careless, but she took no pride in dress, nor in keeping her room and her wardrobe neat. She was fond of bright colours, which was another trial to Ellen, who disliked any approach to gaudiness. She was not by any means a fool, and she had a peculiarly swift mode of expressing herself upon persons and things. A stranger looking at her would perhaps have adjudged her inclined to sensuousness, and dull. She was neither one nor the other. She ate little, although she was fond of sweets. Her rather heavy face, with no clearly cut outline in it, was not the typical face for passion; but she was capable of passion to