Kitabı oku: «Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III)», sayfa 3

CHAPTER IV. GEORGE HALDANE

The low-lying landscape had vanished in the twilight, and the stars were twinkling in the clear blue sky before Edith rose, dried her eyes, and began to return homeward. The moon had risen, but had yet scarcely freed itself from the tops of the dark woods, through which it shone round and ruddy. As she passed the Vicarage, she paused and looked up at the windows. She felt prompted to steal quietly up to the door and inquire whether Mr. Santley was any better, but a fear arising from many causes held her back. Besides, the house was in darkness, and every one seemed to have retired to rest.

Since Edith had been in the habit of visiting the Vicarage, this was the first occasion on which she had returned home alone. Unreasonable as she acknowledged the suspicion to be, she could not rid herself of the belief that Mr. Santleys indisposition had been, assumed as an excuse for avoiding her. She strove to convince herself that she was foolishly sensitive and jealous, to hope that the change in the vicars manner was but an illusion of her excited fancy, to feel confident that when she saw him to-morrow she would recognize how childish she had been.

Miss Dove was exceedingly fond of music, and during the week she was accustomed to spend hours alone in the church, giving utterance to her thoughts, and feelings in dreamy voluntaries, which were the fugitive inspiration of the moment, or filling the cool, richly lighted aisles with the impassioned strains of Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. The sound of the organ could be heard at the Vicarage, and Mr. Santley had been in the habit of going into the church, and conversing with her while she played. It was with the hope that one of his favourite pieces would again bring him to her that, during the afternoon of the following day, Edith took her seat at the organ. With nervous, eager fingers she swept the key-board, and sent her troubled heart into the yearning anguish and clamorous impetration of the Agnus Dei of Haydn’s No. 2. When she had finished she rested for a little, and glanced expectantly down the aisle; but no footstep disturbed the quiet of the place. She then turned to another of the vicar’s favourites – a Gloria of Mozart’s. The volumes of throbbing sound vibrated through the stained windows, and floated across the bright churchyard to the Vicarage; but Ediths hope was not realized. She played till she felt wearied, rather with the hopelessness of her task than with the physical exertion; but the schoolboy who blew the organ for her was exhausted, and when she saw how red and hot he looked, she closed the instrument and dismissed him. Every day that week she repeated her experiment, but her music had apparently lost its magical influence. The vicar never came. She called thrice to see Miss Santley, but each time he was away from home. Once she saw him in the village, and her heart began to beat violently as he approached; but they were on different sides of the street, and instead of crossing over to her, as he had always done hitherto, he merely smiled, raised his hat, and passed on. Sunday came round at length, and she looked forward with a sad, painful wonder to the customary visit in the evening.

It was a bright, breezy sabbath morning, and the great limes and sycamores which buried Foxglove Manor in a wilderness of billowy verdure, rolled gladsomely in the sun, and filled the world with a vast sealike susurrus. On the stone terrace which ran along the front of the mansion the master of the Manor was lounging, with a cigar in his mouth, and a huge deer-hound basking at his feet; while in the shadow of the room his wife stood at an open French window, conversing with him.

Mr. Haldane was a tall, broad-shouldered, powerful man of about forty years of age. His face, especially in repose, was by no means handsome. His grave, large, strongly marked features expressed decision, daring, and indomitable force. His forehead was broad, and deeply marked with the perpendicular lines of long mental labour. The poise of his head suggested a habit of boldly confronting an opponent. His short hair and closely trimmed beard were touched with gray, and gave a certain keenness and frostiness to his appearance. A grim, self-sufficing, iron-natured man, one would have said, until one had looked into his bright blue-gray eyes, which lit up his strong, rugged face with an expression of frankness and dry humour.

“My dear Nell,” he said at length, in answer to the persistent persuasion of his wife, “do not be cross. There are two things in the world which I abhor beyond all others: a damp church and a dry sermon. Invite your vicar as often as you please. I will do my best to entertain him; but do not press me to sit out an interminable farrago of irritating platitudes in a chilly, straight-backed pew.”

“I assure you, George, you will be charmed with him, if you will only let me prevail on you to come.”

“Why cannot you Christians dispense with incense, and allow smoking instead – at least during the sermon?”

Mrs. Haldane made a little grimace of horror.

“You would then have whole burnt offerings dedicated with a devout and cheerful heart.”

“George, you are shockingly profane! I see it is no use urging you any further; but I did think you would have put yourself to even some little inconvenience for my sake.”

“For your sake, Nell!” replied Mr. Haldane, laughing. “Why did you not say so sooner? You know I would do anything on those terms. Have I not often told you the married philosopher has but one moral law – to do his wife’s will in all things.”

“Then you will accompany me?”

“Certainly I will.”

“You are a dear, good old bear,” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane, slipping on to the terrace and caressing his head with both hands. “But you know you are a bear, and you will try for once to be nice and good-natured, will you not? And you will not be cold and cynical with him because he is ideal and enthusiastic? And if you do not acknowledge that he is a delightful preacher, and that the dear little church is charming – ”

“You will not ask me to go again?”

“I was going to say that, but it will be wiser to make no promises. You know, dear, you should go to church, if it were only for the sake of giving a good example; and it is my duty to try and persuade you to go. And oh, George, seriously I do wish you could feel that it drew you nearer to God; that where two or three are gathered together, He is in the midst of them. Now, do not smile in that hard, derisive way. I know I cannot argue with you, but if I cannot reply to your reasoning, you cannot convince my heart. I do believe, in spite of all logic, that I have a heavenly Father who loves and watches over me and you too, dear; and I should be wretched – ”

“My dear little woman,” said Mr. Haldane, taking both her hands in one of his, “you have no cause to be wretched. I have no wish to deprive you of your belief in a heavenly Father. With women the illusions of the heart last longer than with men; and perhaps, in these days of change and innovation, it is as well that women have still a creed to find comfort in. For my part, I confess I hardly understand what it is attracts you in your religion. The civilized world, so far as I can see, has outgrown the golden age of worship, and latria is one of the lost arts.”

The presence of the master of Foxglove Manor created considerable surprise and curiosity among the congregation at St. Cuthbert’s. Though he had lived in the neighbourhood for the last twelve years, this was the first time he had been seen inside a church. Much more attention was paid during the service to the beautiful lady of the Manor, and the grim, powerful man who sat beside her, than was in keeping with the sacred character of the occasion. Mr. Haldane, on his part, though he did his best by imitating the example of his wife to conform to the ritual, was keenly critical of the whole service. The dim religious light of the painted windows pleased his eye, but failed to exercise any influence on his feelings. The decorations of the church seemed to him insincere and artificial. He missed in the atmosphere that sense of reverence which he had experienced in the old cathedrals in Spain and Italy. The ceremonies appeared dry, joyless, and uninteresting, and as he watched the congregation bowing, kneeling, praying, singing, pageants of the jubilant mythic worship of the ancient world crowded upon his imagination.

“What are you thinking of?” his wife once whispered, as she caught a sidelong glance at his abstracted face.

“Diana at Ephesus!” he replied, with a curious twinkle in his keen gray eyes.

Once or twice during the sermon a saturnine smile passed across his face, and Mrs. Haldane pressed his foot by way of warning; but otherwise he listened gravely throughout, with his large, strongly marked features turned to the preacher.

“Well, have you been interested, dear?” asked Mrs. Haldane, when the service was over, and they were waiting in the churchyard for the vicar.

“Yes,” he replied drily; “your vicar is interesting.”

“Now, what do you mean by that?”

“He will repay study, my dear.”

Mrs. Haldane looked sharply into her husband’s face, but was dissatisfied with her scrutiny.

“You don’t like him?”

“I have no reason yet to like or dislike him. In a general way, I should prefer to say that I do like him.”

“But what do you mean by your remark that he will repay study?”

“Perhaps you will not understand me,” he answered thoughtfully. “Your vicar has a soul, Nell.”

“So have we all, I suppose.”

“At least he believes he has one,” said Mr. Haldane, with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“Well!”

“And he is trying to save it.”

“We all are, I hope.”

“I beg your pardon, Nell; the phenomenon in these days is a psychological rarity, and, being rare, is naturally interesting. It is one of the obscure problems of cerebration. Ah! here comes your vicar.”

With a bright smile Mrs. Haldane advanced to meet him, and cordially shook hands with him. “You must allow me to introduce you to my husband. George, Mr. Santley.”

“My wife tells me,” said Mr. Haldane, as they shook hands, “that she was an old pupil of yours.”

“Yes,” said the vicar, with an uneasy glance towards her, “many years ago.”

“It is a little curious,” continued Mr. Haldane, “how people lose sight of each other for years, and then are unexpectedly thrown together into the same small social circle, after they have quite forgotten each others existence.”

The vicar winced at the last words, but replied with a faint smile, “The great world is, after all, a very little world.”

“Ah, my dear sir, I see I have started a familiar train of thought – the littleness of the world,” said Mr. Haldane, with a dry light in his eyes.

“And you fear I may improve the occasion?” asked the vicar a little coldly.

“Pray do not misunderstand my husband,” interposed Mrs. Haldane. “He was delighted with your sermon to-day; and I do not wonder, for you have the power of appealing to the heart and raising the mind beyond earthly things. It was only a few moments ago that he told me he was deeply interested.”

“I perceived that he was amused once or twice,” replied the vicar, with a smile.

“I confess that I may have smiled at one or two points in your discourse.”

“Excuse my interrupting you,” said Mrs. Haldane; “will you not walk? You can spare time to accompany us a little way?”

Mr. Santley bowed, and Mrs. Haldane signed to the coachman to drive on slowly towards the village.

“For example,” resumed Mr. Haldane, “I see you still stick to the old chronology and the mythic Eden.”

“Certainly I do.”

“And yet you should be aware that at least a thousand years before the date you fix for the creation of Adam, tribes of savage hunters and fishers peopled the old fir-woods of Denmark, and set their nets in the German Ocean.”

“It may eventually prove necessary to revise the chronology of the Bible,” replied the vicar; “but there is at present too much conflict of opinion among your archaeologists to decide on the absolute age of these tribes. After all, the question is one of minor importance.”

“Granted. But you cannot say the same of the efficacy of prayer.”

Mrs. Haldane laid her hand on her husband’s arm, and stopped abruptly. “Ask Mr. Santley to dinner, George, and then you can discuss as long and as profoundly as you like; but I will not allow you to argue now. Besides, I want to talk to Mr. Santley.”

Mr. Haldane laughed good-naturedly. “Just as you please, my dear. If Mr. Santley will favour us with his company, I shall be very glad. Your predecessor was a frequent visitor at our house. A jovial, rubicund fellow, whose troubles in this life were less of the world and the devil than of the flesh! A fat, ponderous man and a Tory, as all fat men are; a sort of Falstaff in pontificalibus; a man with a wit and a shrewd palate for old port. Poor fellow! he was snuffed out like a candle. One could have better spared a better man.”

“Will you come to-morrow?” asked Mrs. Haldane; “and, if your sister can accompany you, will you bring her? You will excuse our informality and so short a notice.”

“I shall be very happy to call tomorrow.”

“Then, if you can spare me a few moments I will have a better opportunity of speaking to you. I must learn all about the parish, and I have a whole catechism of questions to ask you. You will come to-morrow, then?” she concluded, with one of those flashing looks from her great dark eyes.

He watched them drive away with that look burning in his brain and the pressure of her hand tingling through every nerve. He stood gazing after her with a passionate light in his eyes and an eager, yearning expression on his pale, agitated face. This was the woman he had lost, and now they were again thrown together in the same small social circle, after she had completely forgotten his existence! Those words of her husband had cut him to the quick. Could she so soon, so easily, so completely have forgotten him? It seemed incredible. If she had used any such expression to her husband, was it not rather to forestall any jealous suspicion on his part? Clearly she had not divulged the secret of those schoolgirl days. He knew not the story of that sweet, imperishable romance; those burning kisses and unforgotten vows had been hidden from him; and in that concealment the vicar found a strange, subtle pleasure. It was at least one tie between him and her; one secret in common in which her husband had no share.

CHAPTER V. THE LAMB AND THE SHEPHERD

The vicar was standing close beside the village school, and as he turned to go back home he saw the schoolmistress in the doorway of her little cottage. He started as though she had been looking into his heart, instead of watching the carriage as it bowled along towards the village. Without a moment’s hesitation, however, he opened the schoolyard gate and went up to her.

“Well, Miss Greatheart, how are you to-day?”

Dora, a bright, merry-looking woman of about thirty, dropped a curtsy, and invited the vicar into the house.

“Thank you, no; I must not stay. I have just been speaking, as you have seen, to my new parishioners. I call them new, though I suppose they are older in the parish than I am myself.”

“Old as they are, this is the first time I ever set eyes on Mr. Haldane in our church, sir. His pretty wife must have converted him.”

“Then they have not been long married?”

“Somewhere about two years, I should think. All last year they were away in Egypt and Palestine; and perhaps now that he’s seen the Land, he believes in the Book.”

“Indeed!”

“Seeing’s believing, you know, sir; and if all tales be true, he used not to believe in anything from the roof upward. Oh, you may well look shocked, sir, but he was quite an atheist and an infidel; but you see he was so rich that the gentry round about didn’t care to give him the go-by. I suppose you haven’t been to the Manor yet, sir? The old vicar, Mr. Hart, was always there. People did say he paid more court to the people at the Manor than he should have done, considering the need for him in the parish; and when Mr. Hart got his second stroke, there were those that said it was a judgment on him for high living, and the company he kept. But you know, sir, how folks’ tongues will wag.”

“Is the Manor far from here? Of course I have heard of the place, but I have never been near it.”

“It’s about four miles, sir, and a lonely place it is, and dismal it must be in winter, with miles of wood about it. In summer it is not so bad, but it is awfully wild and solitary. I went over the grounds once, years ago. I became acquainted with one of the housemaids, you see, sir – quite a nice young person – and she invited me to tea. I remember it was getting dusk when I left, and she took me through the woods. Dear me, what a fright I got! I happened to look up, and there was a man, quite a giant, standing among the trees. I screamed, and would have run had not Jane – that was the maid, sir – laughed, and said it was only a statue. And so it was, for we went right up to it. All the woods are full of statues – quite improper and rude, and rather frightening to meet in the dusk. But now he is converted, Mrs. Haldane will have them all taken away, I should think. I don’t believe the place is haunted, though there are some strange stories told about it; but I do know that the chapel – there is an old chapel close by the house – is shut up, and no one goes near it but Mr. Haldane and his valet – a dark foreign person, with such eyes! Queer tales are told about lights being seen in it at all hours of the night, and some of the old folk believe that if any one could look in they would see that the foreign valet had horns and a cloven foot, and that his master was worshipping him. I think that’s all nonsense myself; but there’s no doubt Mr. Haldane used to be dreadfully wicked, and an atheist.”

“If he was so very bad,” said the vicar, smiling, “surely it was strange that Mr. Hart used to associate with him so much.”

“Well, you see, sir, he was always liberal, and kept a good table, and Mr. Hart was a cheerful liver. Then Mr. Haldane was always ready with his purse when there was a hard winter, or the crops were bad, or any poor person was ill.”

“I see, I see,” said the vicar.

“But his charity could not do him any good, people said, when he didn’t believe there was a God, or that he had a soul.”

“So they didn’t consider it worth while to be thankful?”

“I don’t think they did, sir.”

“And was Mrs. Haldane staying at the Manor the first year of their marriage?”

“Yes; he brought her back with him after the honeymoon.”

“And do they speak as kindly of her in the village as they do of her husband?”

“Oh, indeed, sir, they worship her. Even old Mother Grimsoll, who said she wanted to make a charity woman of her when you bought her that scarlet cloak last winter, has a good word for Mrs. Haldane. She isn’t the least bit conceited, and she knows that poor people have their proper pride; and when she helps any one she makes them feel that they are doing her a favour. When Mr. Hart was alive she used to go round with him, devising and dispensing charities. It’s only a pity she is married to – to – “ – and Miss Greatheart beat impatiently on the ground with her foot in the effort to recall the word – “to an agnostic. Mr. Hart said he wasn’t an atheist, but an agnostic, though I dare say if the truth were known one is worse than the other.”

“You are not very charitable, Miss Greatheart; come, now, confess,” said the vicar, good-humouredly.

“Perhaps not, sir; but I have no patience with atheists and agnostics.”

“An atheist,” continued the vicar, “is a person who does not believe in a God; an agnostic is one who merely says he does not know whether there is a God or not.”

“Doesn’t know!” exclaimed Dora, indignantly. “Wherever was the man brought up?”

That evening, as Miss Santley and Edith went across from the church to the Vicarage together, the vicar joined them, and Miss Dove remained to supper as usual. The time passed pleasantly enough; but Edith was conscious of a certain restraint, in the conversation, a curious chilliness in the atmosphere. When at length she rose to go home, the vicar went to the window, and looked out for a few seconds.

“I think, Mary, you might accompany us; and when we have seen Miss Edith home, we could take a turn round together. It is a beautiful night.”

Mary nodded assent, and Edith felt her heart sink within her. She was certain now that he was avoiding her. As she followed Miss Santley upstairs to put on her things, a sudden thought flashed upon her.

“I shall be with you in a moment, Mary,” she said; “I have dropped my handkerchief, I think.”

She ran back to the parlour, and met the vicar face to face as he paced the room.

She stood still, and looked at him silently for a moment. She had taken him by surprise, and he too stood motionless.

“Well,” he said at last, with a faint smile.

“Do you hate me, Charles?” she asked in a low, steady voice.

“Hate you! Why should I hate you, my dear Edith? What should put such thoughts – ”

“I have only a few seconds to speak to you,” Miss Dove continued hastily. “Answer me truly and directly. You do not hate me?”

“I shall never hate you, dear.”

“‘Why do you avoid me?”

“Have I avoided you?”

“You know you have. Why?”

“I have not avoided you, Edith.”

“Do you still love me?”

“You know I do.”

“As much as ever you did?”

“As much as ever.”

“Can I see you to-morrow – alone?”

“You know I am going to the Manor.”

“I know,” said Edith, with a slight tone of bitterness. “You will return in the evening, I suppose? I shall wait for you on the road till nine o’clock.”

“I may be detained, you know, Edith.”

“Then I shall be practising in the church on Tuesday afternoon as usual.”

“Very well,” he assented.

“Am I still to trust you, Charles?” she asked, raising her soft blue eyes earnestly to his face.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” She dwelt upon the word, still looking fondly up to him. He understood her, and bent over and kissed her.

“You will try to return home tomorrow before nine? I have been miserable all this week, and I have so much to say to you.”

“I will try to see you,” said the vicar.

“I must run now; Mary will wonder what has kept me.”

The great woods about Foxglove Manor were certainly lovely, and in the winter, with the snow on their black branches, and snow on the fallen leaves and the open spaces between the clumps of forestry, the place might have seemed dreary and dismal; but on this July afternoon the vicar experienced an indescribable sense of buoyancy and enlargement among these vast tossing masses of foliage. Their incessant murmur filled the air with an inarticulate music, which recalled to his memory the singing pines of Theocritus and the voices of the firs of the Hebrew prophets. A spirit of romance for ever haunts the woodland, as though the olden traditions of dryad and sylvan maiden had not yet been wholly superseded by the more accurate report of science. In the skirts of the great clusters of timber, cattle were grazing in groups of white and red; in the open spaces of pasture land between wood and wood, deer were visible among the patches of bracken. In the depths of the forest ways he came upon the colossal statues copied from the old masters; and at length, at a turn of the shadowy road, he found himself in view of the mansion – an ancient, square mass of brown sandstone, stained with weather and incrustations of moss and lichens, and covered all along the southern exposure with a dense growth of ivy. The grounds immediately in front were laid out in formal plots for flowers and breadths of turf traversed by gravelled pathways. A little withdrawn from the house stood the ruined chapel of which the schoolmistress had spoken. The ivy had invaded it, and scaled every wall to the very eaves, while patches of stonecrop and houseleek, which had established themselves on the slated roof, gave it a singular aspect of complete abandonment.

As Mr. Santley entered one of the walks which led to the terraced entrance, Mrs. Haldane, who had observed his approach, appeared on the stone steps, and descended to meet him.

“How good of you to come so early!” she exclaimed. “George will be delighted. He is in his laboratory, experimenting as usual. We shall join him, after you have had some refreshment.”

“No refreshment for me, thank you.”

“Are you quite sure? You must require something after so long a walk.”

“Nothing really, I assure you.”

“Well, I shall not press you, as we shall have dinner soon. Shall we go to Mr. Haldane? Have you visited the Manor before – not in our absence? How do you like it?”

“I envy you your magnificent woods.

“Yes; are they not charming? And you will like the house, too, when you have seen it.”

“Do you not find it dull, however?” asked the vicar, looking into her face with an expression of keen scrutiny. “You are still young – in the blossom of your youth – and society must still have its attractions for you.”

“One enjoys society all the more after a little seclusion.”

“No doubt.”

“And we have just returned, you must recollect, from a whole year of wandering and sight-seeing, so that it is a positive relief to awaken morning after morning and find the same peaceful landscape, the same quiet woods about one.”

“That is very natural; but the heart does not long remain content with the unchanging face of nature, however beautiful it may be. Even the best and strongest require sympathy, and when once we become conscious of that want – ”

“Have you begun to feel it?” she asked suddenly, as he paused.

“I suppose it is the inevitable experience of a clergyman in a country parish,” he replied, with a smile.

“Yes, I suppose it is. So few can take an interest in your tastes, and aspirations, and intellectual pleasures, and pursuits. Is not that so?”

“It may seem vanity to think so.”

“Oh no; I think not. The people you meet every day are mostly concerned in their turnips or the wheat or their cattle, and their talk is the merest village gossip. It must indeed be very depressing to listen day after day to nothing but that. One has, of course, a refuge in books.”

“But books are not life. The daydreams of the library are a poor substitute for the real action of a mans own heart and brain.”

“Then one has also the great fields of natural science to explore. I think you will find the work of my husband interesting, and if you could turn your mind in the same direction, you would find in him inexhaustible sympathy.”

As she spoke, they reached the low-arched portal of the chapel. The thick oaken door, studded with big iron nails, was open, and before them stood a man who bowed profoundly to Mrs. Haldane, and then darted a swift, penetrating glance at the vicar.

“Mr. Haldane is within, Baptisto?” she asked.

“Yes, senora.”

He stood aside to allow them to pass, and as Mr. Santley entered he regarded the man with an eye which photographed every feature of his dark Spanish face. It was a face which, once seen, stamped itself in haunting lineaments on the memory. A dusky olive complexion; a fierce, handsome mouth and chin; a broad, intelligent forehead; short, crisp black hair sprinkled with grey; a thin, black moustache, twisted and pointed at the ends; and a pair of big, black, unfathomable eyes, filled with liquid fire. It was the man’s eyes that arrested the attention first, gave character not only to the face but to the man himself, and indeed served to identify him. In the village, “the foreign gentleman with the eyes” was the popular and sufficient description of Baptisto.