Mrs. Maldon

“ Maldon slowly became for her an old woman of seventy-two, with unquestionably wondrous hair, but failing in strength and in faculties; and it grew merely pathetic to Rachel that Mrs. Maldon should force herself always to sit straight upright. As for Mrs. Maldon's charitableness, Rachel could not deny that she refused to think evil, and yet it was plain that at bottom Mrs. Maldon was not much deceived about people: in which apparent inconsistency there hid a slight disturbing suggestion of falseness that mysteriously fretted the downright Rachel. ”

“ He did not know, or rather he absolutely did not realize, that she was acquainted with aught against his good fame. He forgot his sins with the insouciance of an animal.
"Don't stay up too late," said Mrs. Maldon, as it were dismissing him. "A long night will do you no harm for once in a way." She smiled. "I know you'll see that everything's locked up."
He nodded soothingly, and stood upright.
"You might turn the gas down, rather low."
He tripped to the gas-bracket and put the room in obscurity. The light of the street lamp irradiated the pale green blinds of the two windows. ”

“ Maldon's moral protection was now over Councillor Batchgrew, and Rachel's mistrustful scorn of him had lost some of its pleasing force.
"Rachel—"
Mrs. Maldon gave a hesitating cough.
"Yes, Mrs. Maldon?" said Rachel questioningly deferential, and smiling faintly into Mrs. Maldon's apprehensive eyes. Against the background of the aged pair she seemed dramatically young, lithe, living, and wistful. She was nervous, but she thought with strong superiority: "What are those old folks planning together? Why do they ring for me?" ”

“ Mrs. Maldon lay once more in bed; the bedclothes covered her without a crease, and from the neat fold-back of the white sheet her wrinkled ivory face and curving black hair emerged so still and calm that her recent flight to the stairs seemed unreal, impossible. The impression her mien gave was that she never had moved and never would move from the bed. ”

“ It was such apparently trifling gestures, eager and generous, that endeared the old lady to Rachel, giving her the priceless sensation of being esteemed and beloved. Her gaze lingered on her aged employer with affection and with profound respect. Mrs. Maldon made a striking, tall, slim figure, sitting erect in tight black, with the right side of her long, prominent nose in the full gaslight and the other heavily shadowed. Her hair was absolutely black at over seventy; her eyes were black and glowing, and she could read and do coarse crocheting without spectacles. ”

“ While he lounged against the pillar of a doorway, leaning on his cane, and resting his lame leg, and wondering lazily whether there was anything upon earth that repaid a man for the trouble of living, Cornet Maldon approached him with a woman's gloved hand lying lightly on his arm, and a divinity walking by his side. ”

“ But was it possible that she heard also the creak of the gate? She sprang to the bow window with surprising activity, and pulled aside a blind, one inch.... There was Rachel tripping hatless and in her best frock down the street! Inconceivable vision, affecting Mrs. Maldon with palpitation! A girl so excellent, so lovable, so trustworthy, to be guilty of the wanton caprice of a minx! Supposing Louis were to see her, to catch her in the brazen act of looking for him! Mrs. Maldon was grieved ”

“ Maldon ceremoniously accompanied her trustee as far as the sitting-room door, where she recommended him to the careful attention of Rachel. No woman in the Five Towns could take leave of a guest with more impressive dignity than old Mrs. Maldon, whose fine Southern accent always gave a finish to her farewells. In the lobby Mr. Batchgrew kept Rachel waiting with his overcoat in her outstretched hands while he completed the business of his gloves. As, close behind him, she coaxed his stiff arms into the overcoat, she suddenly felt that after all he was nothing but a decrepit survival ”

“ A very quiet place is Maldon—at one time a great centre of the corn trade, which, in consequence of railways, has shifted elsewhere—and which the Great Eastern Railway has brought within an hour and a half’s ride of London. The population is about six thousand, and, by the last census, it seems slightly to have declined. In the Town Hall are portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne, Charles II. and George III., and Dr. Plume, a Maldon celebrity, of whose career I have no particulars, save that he was a clergyman, and presented a library of over 6,000 volumes to the town. ”

“ Maldon in bed. Notwithstanding her strange and ecstatic experiences with Louis Fores that night in the dark, romantic town, the problem of the lost money remained, or ought to have remained, as disturbing as ever. To ignore it was not to destroy it. She sat rather tight in her place, increasing her primness, and trying to show by her carriage that she was an adult in full control of all her wise faculties. She set her lips to judge the film with the cold impartiality of middle age, but they persisted in being the fresh, responsive, mobile lips of a young girl. ”

“ But she had no courage for the confession. As a wise woman she perceived the advisability of letting well alone. Moreover, she hated confessions, remorse, and gnashing of teeth.
And Mrs. Maldon regarded her worldly and mature air, with its touch of polite condescension, as both comic and tragic, and thought sadly of all the girl would have to go through before the air of mature worldliness which she was now affecting could become natural to her.
"My dear," said Mrs. Maldon, "I have perfect confidence in you." It was not quite true, because Rachel's protest as to Mr. ”

“ It pleased him to think of the weakness of women; it pleased him to anticipate the impressed thanks of the weak women for this exertion of his power on their behalf. "Have you managed it so soon?" his aunt would exclaim, and he would answer in a carefully offhand way, "Of course. Why not?"
He was about to descend, but he remembered that he must not leave the gas at full. With his hand on the tap, he glanced perfunctorily around the little landing. The door of Mrs. Maldon's bedroom was in front of him, at right angles to the window. By the door, which was ajar, stood a cane-seated chair. ”

“ Maldon a future free from financial embarrassment; it represented to Rachel more than she could earn in half a century at her wage of eighteen pounds a year, an unimaginable source of endless gratifications; and yet the mere fact that it was to stay in the house all night changed it for them into something dire and formidable, so that it inspired both of them—the ancient dame and the young girl—with naught but a mystic dread. Mr. Batchgrew eyed the affrighted creatures with satisfaction, appearing to take a perverse pleasure in thus imposing upon them the horrid incubus. ”

“ Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master. Early in the day though it was, the old man's speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs. Plowson.
"You're a prett' creature to call yoursel' sensible woman?" ”

“ Maldon," Robert Audley said, after a pause, "I do not ask you to forgive me for what I have brought upon you, for the feeling is strong within me that it must have come to you sooner or later—if not through me, through some one else. There are—" he stopped for a moment hesitating. The sobbing did not cease; it was sometimes low, sometimes loud, bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an instant, but never ceasing. "There are some things which, as people say, cannot be hidden. ”

“ Maldon replied, and her other hand crept out, and stroked Rachel's captive hand. "I am only saying to you what it is my duty to say to you—or to any other young woman that comes to live in my house. You're a young woman, and Louis is a young man. ”

“ Maldon's sitting-room stood the youthful virgin, Rachel Louisa Fleckring. The prominent fact about her appearance was that she wore an apron. Not one of those white, waist-tied aprons, with or without bibs, worn proudly, uncompromisingly, by a previous generation of unaspiring housewives and housegirls! But an immense blue pinafore-apron, covering the whole front of the figure except the head, hands, and toes. Its virtues were that it fully protected the most fragile frock against all the perils of the kitchen ”

“ Maldon was better, and quietly sleeping. Mrs. Tarns was the most faithful and capable old person that was ever born. Hence she was justified in leaving the invalid. Louis Fores had offered to go with her. How could she refuse the offer? What reason could there be for refusing it? As for the cinema, who could object to the cinema? Certainly not Thomas Batchgrew! There was no hurry. And was she not an independent woman, earning her own living? Who on earth had the right to dictate to her? She was not a slave. Even a servant had an evening out once a week. ”

“ Robert Audley.
"What on earth is the matter with this woman," thought Robert as he turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself slowly toward the table upon which little George Talboys stood talking to his guardian. "Does she still take me for a tax-collector with inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels; or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still. That's scarcely likely, though; for whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it's not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them." ”

“ Robert thereafter traced the life history of Helen Maldon from her marriage to George Talboys at Wildernsea, Yorkshire, her secret departure from there after her husband's desertion, her appearance the following day as a teacher in a girl's school at Brompton under the name of Lucy Graham; her arrival as a governess in Essex, and finally her marriage to Sir Michael Audley. ”

“ MALDON, THOMAS (d. 1404) , Carmelite, was born at Maldon in Essex, and entered the Carmelite friary there. According to Leland, he became a distinguished theologian at Oxford, but Bale places him at Cambridge (Harl. MS. 3838, fol. 75) , and is supported by a note in a Balliol MS. (cod. lxxx.) Maldon is said to have been an acute thinker and disputant. He died in 1404 in the convent at Maldon, of which he had once been prior, and was buried there. ”

“ Maldon quietly.
"Then it's him as isna' good enough! And yet, if he's got such a good side to him as ye say—" Mr. Batchgrew snorted.
"He's not suited to her—not at all."
"Now, missis," said Mr. Batchgrew in triumph, "at last we're getting down to your real opinion of young Fores."
"I feel I'm responsible for Rachel, and—What ought I to do about it?"
"Do? What can a body do when a respectable young woman wi' red hair takes a fancy to a youth? Nowt, Elizabeth. That young woman'll marry Louis Fores, and ye can take it from me." ”

“ Maldon moved nervously in the bed.
"I should never forgive myself if I stood by and let Louis marry Rachel," she said, and there was a sudden desperate urgency in her voice.
"Isn't she good enough for a nephew o' yours?"
"She's good enough for any man," said Mrs. ”

“ There are manufactures of crystallized salt, breweries, an oyster fishery and some shipping. On Osea Island, in the Blackwater estuary, there is a farm colony for the unemployed. A mile west of Maldon are remains of Beeleigh Abbey, a Premonstratensian foundation of the 12th century. They consist of the chapter-house and another chamber, and are of fine Early English work. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. ”

“ What does Doctor Watts say,’ he added, looking at me, and moving his head to the time of his quotation, ‘“Satan finds some mischief still, for idle hands to do.”’
‘Egad, Doctor,’ returned Mr. Wickfield, ‘if Doctor Watts knew mankind, he might have written, with as much truth, “Satan finds some mischief still, for busy hands to do.” The busy people achieve their full share of mischief in the world, you may rely upon it. What have the people been about, who have been the busiest in getting money, and in getting power, this century or two? No mischief?’
‘Jack Maldon will never be very busy in getting either, I expect,’ said Doctor Strong, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. ”

“ These well-worn boards are holy ground. Here Andrew Malden lived; by that lounge he became a changed man; from that old rocker he went home to God. By yonder gate I first met her whom you all knew and loved; to this home, torn and crushed by life's troubles, I have fled like a child at dusk to its mother's arms, and in these rooms God has comforted and strengthened my heart. I love you all. Not always have we seen alike; you have not always loved me; but, some day, we shall know as we are known; some day we shall see face to face.
"I love these old mountains. ”

“ Letty is still troubled upon earth; her husband tests her patience and her temper every hour, but both temper and patience are in good training; and if ever Henry Malden is reclaimed, as I begin to see reasons to hope he will be, he will owe it to the continual example and gentle goodness of his wife, who has grown from a petulant, thoughtless girl into a lovely, unselfish, religious woman, a devoted mother and wife, "refined by fire." For me, the last,—whenever now I say, as I used to say, "Three of us," I mean a new three,—Paul, baby, and me; for Jo was not a prophet. ”