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Updated: June 26, 2025
My friend Marshall, Miss Hopgood, is under the illusion that the Church in this country is tottering to its fall.
Still worse, when somebody observed that an Anti-Corn-Law lecturer was coming to Fenmarket, and the parson's daughter cried 'How horrid! Miss Hopgood talked again, and actually told the parson that, so far as she had read upon the subject fancy her reading about the Corn- Laws! the argument was all one way, and that after Colonel Thompson nothing new could really be urged.
The scene from the 'Tempest, where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered playing chess, was suggested, and it was proposed that Madge should be Miranda, and Mr Palmer Ferdinand. Mrs Martin concluded with a hope that Mrs Hopgood and her eldest daughter would 'witness the performance.
Clearly, however, the Hopgoods could be requested to co-operate at the 'Crown and Sceptre; in fact, it would be impolitic not to put some of the townsfolk on the list of patrons. So it came about that Mrs Hopgood was included, and that she was made responsible for the provision of one song and one recitation.
Mr Hopgood had never been particularly in earnest about religion, but his wife was a believer, neither High Church nor Low Church, but inclined towards a kind of quietism not uncommon in the Church of England, even during its bad time, a reaction against the formalism which generally prevailed. When she married, Mrs Hopgood did not altogether follow her husband.
Mrs Hopgood watched intently, and when Gonzalo invoked the gods to drop a blessed crown on the couple, and the applause was renewed, and Boston again cried 'hear, hear! without fear of check, she did not applaud, for something told her that behind this stage show a drama was being played of far more serious importance. The curtain fell, but there were loud calls for the performers.
Consent was willingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the family well; letters passed between him and Mrs Hopgood, and it was arranged that Frank's visit to Germany should be postponed till the summer. He was now frequently at Fenmarket as Madge's accepted suitor, and, as the spring advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves out of doors.
She released herself a trifle, held her head back as if she desired to survey him apart from her, so that the ecstasy of union might be renewed, and then fell on his neck. The horn once more sounded, she let him out silently, and he was off. Mrs Hopgood and Clara presently came downstairs. 'Mr Palmer came in to bid you good-bye, but he heard the coach and was obliged to rush away.
She pulled it out, snipped and tore it into fifty pieces, carried them downstairs, threw them on the dining-room fire, sat down before it, poking them further and further into the flames, and watched them till every vestige had vanished. Frank did not like to make any inquiries; Cecilia made none, and thence-forward no trace existed at Waltham Lodge of Madge Hopgood.
Mr Hopgood, far away from the High and Low Church controversy, came to the conclusion that, in Madge's case, the theology would have no effect on her. It was quite impossible, moreover, to find a school which would be just what he could wish it to be. Madge, accordingly, was sent to Brighton, and was introduced into a new world.
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