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CHAPTER II. AT THE VICARAGE

When he reached the house he found that his presence was needed at the bedside of a labourer, who had met with a serious accident a day or two before, and who was now sinking rapidly. Mr. Santley was a man who never begrudged time or trouble in the interests of his parishioners; and, though he had yet another service to attend, and was already fatigued by the work of the day, he readily signified his willingness to comply with the request of the dying man, and at once started for the village.

He felt at the moment that the duty placed before him would be a relief from the thronging recollections and the wild promptings which had set his heart and brain in a turmoil. As he went down the road, however, the face of the dying man who had sent to seek his priestly aid, and the face of the beautiful wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor, seemed to be striving for mastery over him; he was unable to concentrate his attention on any subject. His will was in abeyance, and he appeared to himself to be in a sort of waking nightmare, in which the most distorted thoughts of marriage and death, of a lost love and of a lost God, of the mockery of life, the mockery of youth, the mockery of religion, presented themselves before him in a hideous masquerade, till the function he was about to fulfil appeared to him at one moment a sacrilege and at another a degrading folly.

To understand in some degree the vicars mental condition, it is necessary to glance back on his past life. In early manhood Charles Santley had been seriously impressed with the sense of a special vocation to a religious life. He was the son of a wealthy merchant, whose entire fortune had perished in one of our great commercial crises, and whose death had followed close upon his ruin. Up to that period Charles had been undecided as to his choice of a pursuit; but the necessity of making an immediate selection resulted in his devoting himself to the Church. Barely sufficient had been saved from the wreck of their property to support his widowed mother and his sister. For himself, he was endowed with a splendid physique, a keen intellect, and indomitable energy; and he at once flung himself into his new career. He supported himself by teaching until he was admitted to orders, when he obtained a curacy, and eventually, through the interest of some old friends of his father, he was presented with the living of St. Cuthbert’s. In the course of these years of struggle, however, there was gradually developing within the man a spirit which threatened to render his success worse than useless to him. Ardent, emotional, profoundly convinced of the eternal truths of revelation and of the glorious mission of the Church, the young clergyman was at the same time boldly speculative and keenly alive to the grandiose developments of the modern schools of thought. It was not till he stood on the extreme verge of science and looked beyond that he fully realized his position. He then perceived with horror that it was no longer impossible – that it was even no longer difficult – to regard the great message of redemption as a dream of the world, the glorious faith of Christendom as a purely ethnic mythology, morality as a merely natural growth of a natural instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the difficulty consisted in believing otherwise. The Fatherhood of a personal God was slipping away from his soul; the Sonship of a Saviour was melting into a fantastic unreality; the conviction of a personal immortality was dissipating into mental mist and darkness. The mystery of evil was growing into a fiendish enigma; virtue passed him, and showed herself to be a hollow mask.

His whole nature rose in revolt against this horrible scientific travesty of Gods universe. He shrank back alike from the new truths and from the theories evolved from them. His faith could not stand the test of the wider knowledge. If God were indeed a myth, immortality but a dream, virtue an unprofitable delusion, man simply a beast gifted with speech, better the old faith concerning all these – accepted though it were in despite of reason and in outrage of immortal truth – than the hideous simulacra of the new philosophy. He cast himself back upon the bosom of the Church; he clung to her as to the garment of God; but he was powerless to exorcise the spirit of scepticism. It rose before him in sacred places, it scoffed at his most earnest and impassioned utterances; he seemed to hear within himself cynical laughter as he stood at the bedside of the dying; when he knelt to pray it stood at his ear and suggested blasphemy; it converted the solemn light of the Church into a motley atmosphere of superstition; it stimulated his strong animal nature to the very bounds of self-restraint. Still, if he was unable to exorcise it, he had yet the strength to contend with and to master it. Precisely because he was sceptical he was rigid in outward doctrine, zealous for forms, and indefatigable in the discharge of his clerical functions. In his passionate endeavour to convince himself, he convinced his hearers and confirmed them in the faith in which he was himself unable to trust.

To-day the old conflict between the sacerdotal and the sceptical was complicated by new elements of spiritual discord. After seven years of hopeless separation, Charles Santley had once more stood face to face with the embodied dream and inspiration of his early manhood, and had found her, in the full lustre of her peerless womanhood, another man’s wife. During those years he had, it was true, reconciled himself to what then had been forced upon him as the inevitable, and he had sternly set himself to master the problem of his existence, without any secret hope that in the coming years his success might bring her within his reach; but he had never forgotten her. She was to him the starry poetry of his youth. He looked back to the time when he had first known and loved her, as a sadder and a wiser world looks back to the Golden Age. The memory of her was the ghost of an ancient worship, flitting in a dim rosy twilight about the Elysian fields of memory, and, it being twilight, the fields were touched with a hallowed feeling of loss and a divine sentiment of regret. And now – oh, bitter irony of time and fortune! – now that, he had achieved success, now that all the old gulfs which had separated them were spanned with golden bridges, now that he might have claimed her and she might have been proud to acknowledge the claim, she once more crossed his life – a vision of beauty, a star of inspiration – and once, more he knew that she was hopelessly, infinitely more hopelessly than ever, raised beyond his seeking.

He was detained so long at the bedside of the dying man that, by the time he had again reached the Vicarage, the bells were ringing for evening service and the western sky was ablaze with sunset. In the church the light streamed through the lancets and the painted casements, filling the air with motley breadths of glowing colour, and painting pillar and arch and the brown sandstone with glorious blazonry. Even in the curtained nook near the organ the space was flooded with enchanted lights, and Edith Dove sat beside the tall gilded instrument like a picture of St. Cecilia in an illuminated missal. In the pulpit the vicar stood as if transfigured. He spoke, too, as though he felt that this was the splendour of a new heaven opening upon a new earth, and the glad rustle of the trees in the cool breeze outside was the murmur of paradise.

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” were the words of his text, and throughout the fervid exposition of the apostle’s faith in the resurrection the sweet, blue eyes and the eager lips of the organist were turned towards the preacher. He seemed this evening, however, to be unconscious of her presence. He addressed himself entirely to the listeners in the pews in front of him, and never cast even a solitary glance towards the aisle where she sat.

At the close of the service Edith found Miss Santley waiting for her at the entrance. It had now been customary for several weeks past for Miss Dove to go over to the Vicarage on Sunday evening and remain to supper with Mr. Santley and his sister. They went slowly through the churchyard together, and took the little path which led to the house. They remained chatting at the wicket for a few moments, expecting the appearance of the vicar. When Mr. Santley issued from the church, however, he passed quickly down the gravelled walk to the high-road. He had thrown a rapid look towards the plantation, and had seen the young women, but he gave no indication of having observed them.

“Why, Charles is not coming!” exclaimed Miss Santley, with surprise, as she saw her brother; “he surely cannot be going down to Omberley again.”

“He is not going to Omberley, dear,” said Edith, who had been watching for the vicar, and had been keen enough to notice the hasty glance he had cast in their direction; “he is going up the road.”

“Then wherever can he be going to? And he had not had tea yet, poor fellow!”

Miss Santley stepped a few paces back into the churchyard, and stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of him over the hedge; but the vicar had already passed out of sight.

“Never mind, dear,” she said to Edith. “Shall we go in and have a little chat by ourselves? He may have some sick call or other, and he is sure to be back soon, or he would have told me where he was going. Come, you needn’t look so sad,” Miss Santley continued, as she observed the expression of her companion’s face.

“I didn’t think I was looking sad,” replied Edith, blushing.

“Oh yes, you were; dreadfully,” said Miss Santley, laughing in a bantering manner.

“You don’t think Mr. Santley is – is not quite well?” asked Edith, timidly.

“Oh no; Charles is quite well, I am sure.”

“Perhaps he is displeased with something,” said Edith, as if speaking to herself rather than to Miss Santley.

“What a little fidget you are!” said her companion, taking the girl’s arm. “I know what you are thinking of. I am sure he has no cause to be displeased with you, at any rate.”

“I hope not,” replied Miss Dove, brightening a little. “Only I felt a misgiving. You do feel misgivings about all sorts of things, don’t you, Mary, without knowing why – a sort of presentiment and an uneasy feeling that something is going to happen?”

“Young people in love, I believe, experience feelings of that kind,” said Miss Santley, with mock gravity, “Come in, you dear little goose, and don’t vex your poor wee heart like that. He will be back before we have got half our talk over.”

The vicar strode rapidly along the road until he reached the summit of a rising ground, from which he could see two counties spread out before him in fruitful undulations of field and meadow and woodland. The sunset was burning down in front of him. Far away in the distant landscape were soft mists of blue smoke rising from half-hidden villages, and here and there flashed points of brightness where the sun struck on the windows of a farmstead. On either hand were great expanses of yellowing corn swaying in the cool breeze and reddening in the low crimson light. He left the road, and passed through a gate into one of the fields. Following a footpath, he went along the hedge till he reached a stile. Here he was alone and concealed in a vast sea of rustling corn. He sat down on the top of the stile, and resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, gazed abstractedly into the glowing west.

A single word which escaped him betrayed the workings of his mind: “Married!”

Seven years ago, when Charles Santley began his struggle in life, he obtained through a clerical friend a position as teacher of classics in a seminary for young ladies in a small sea-side town in a southern county. He found his new labour especially congenial. A handsome young professor, whose attention was fixed on the Church, and who purposed to devote himself to her service, was cordially-welcomed by the devout ladies who conducted the establishment. They were three sisters who had been overlooked in the wide yearning crowd of unloved womanhood, and who had turned for consolation to the mystical passions of religion. Under their care a bevy of bright young creatures were brought up as in the chaste seclusion of a convent. Their impressionable natures were surrounded by a strange artificial atmosphere of spiritual emotion; life shone in upon them, as it were, through the lancets of a-mediaeval ecclesiasticism, and their young hearts, breaking into blossom, were coloured once and for ever with those deep glowing tints.

It was here that the young man, in the first dawn of the romance of manhood, met the beautiful girl who was now the wife of the owner of Foxglove Manor. She was then turned of seventeen, and had become aware of the first shy longings and sweet impulses of her nature. She was his favourite pupil, and sat at his right hand at the long table when he gave his lessons. He used her pen and pencil, referred to her books, touched her hand with his in the ordinary work of the lesson. Her clothes touched his clothes beneath the table. At times their feet met accidentally. She regularly put a flower in a glass of water before his place. All these trifles were the thrilling incidents of a delicious romance which the school-girl was making in her flurried little heart. He, too, was not insensible to the trifles which affected his passionate pupil. Her great dark eyes sent electric flashes through him. Her breath reached him sweeter than roses. Her beautiful dark hair rubbed against his shoulder or his cheek, and he tried to prevent the hot blood from flushing into his face. When their hands touched he could have snatched hers and kissed it.

Ellen Derwent was happily not a boarder at the establishment, but resided with her aunt. Her family were wealthy country people, and Ellen, who had been ailing for a little while, had been ordered to the sea-side for change of air. Early in the bright mornings, and after the day’s schooling was over, Ellen wandered about the sea-shore or took long walks along the cliffs. Santley met her first by accident, and after that, though the meetings might still be called accidental, each knew that to-morrow and to-morrow and yet again to-morrow the same instinctive feeling – call it a divine chance or love’s premonition – would bring them together.

Ah! happy, radiant days by that glad sea and in the wild loveliness of those romantic cliffs! Oh, vision of flushed cheek and shining eyes, and sweet red lips and throbbing bosom! Oh, dim heavenly summer dawns, when the sea mists were just brightening, and the little birds were singing, and the sea-side town was still half asleep, and only two lovers were walking hand in hand along the green brow of the cliffs! Oh, sweet autumn twilights which the shining eyes seemed to fill with dark burning lustre! Oh, kisses, sweeter than ever pressed by woman’s lips before or since! Oh, thrill of clasped hands and mad palpitations of loving bosoms!

The swaying corn sounded like the sea as the breeze passed over it, and the-murmur broke the vicars reverie.

“Married!”

Married? yes, married! The sweet secret could not be kept for ever, and when Miss Lilburn, Ellen’s aunt, discovered it, she at once spoke to Mr. Santley. She did not oppose his suit – indeed, she liked him greatly, but love, after all, was no mere school-girl’s dream. Was he in a position to make Ellen his wife? In any case, they must know about it at home. If Mr. Derwent approved, she would be most happy that Mr. Santley should visit her; but, in the meantime, it was only prudent that Ellen should discontinue these pleasant rambles.

He had never seen Ellen since, until her face made his heart stand still in the midst of his sermon.

The vicar rose from the stile with clenched hands and set teeth.

“Bitter, bitter!” he said, raising his face to the sky and shaking his head as though he saw above him an invisible face, and spoke half in exquisite pain, half in stoical endurance.

CHAPTER III. “THERE IS A CHANGE!”

When Edith and Miss Santley reached the Vicarage, they went into the parlour, which, besides having a western exposure, commanded to a considerable distance a view of the high-road along which the vicar had passed.

“I always think this is the pleasantest room in the house,” said Miss Santley, as she drew an armchair into the recess of the open window, and Edith seated herself on the couch. “Charles prefers an eastern frontage, for the sake of the early morning, he says; but I am always. busy in the morning, so I suppose I like the afternoon light best, when I have a little time to sit and bask.”

“Isn’t it natural, too,” suggested Edith, “that men should prefer sunrise and women sunset? Men are so active and sanguine, and have so many interests to engage their attention, and women – well, as a rule – are such dreamers! Is it not almost constitutional?”

“And when did you ever see me dreaming, may I ask?” inquired Miss Santley.

“Oh no; you are not one of the dreamers,” replied Edith, quickly. “You should have been called Martha instead of Mary.”

“Insinuating that I am a bit of a busybody, eh?” said Miss Santley, with a sly twinkle of humour.

“You know I did not mean to insinuate that.”

“Or that you had yourself chosen the better part, eh?” she continued gaily.

Edith coloured deeply, and cast her eyes on the floor, while an expression of pain passed across her face.

“Nay, my dear, do not look hurt. You know that was only said in jest.”

“You cannot tell how such jests hurt me,” replied the girl, her lips beginning to tremble.

“Even between our two selves?” asked Miss Santley, taking Edith’s hand gently and stroking it with both of hers. “You know, my dear little girl, how I love you, and how pleased I was when I discovered the way in which that poor little heart of yours was beating. You know that there is no one in the world whom I would more gladly – ay, or a thousandth part so gladly – take for a sister. Don’t you, Edith? Answer me, dear.”

“Yes,” replied the girl, letting her head hang upon her bosom, and feeling her face on flame.

“And have I not tried to help you? I know Charles is fond of you – I am sure of that. I have eyes in my head, my dear, though they are not so young and pretty as yours. And I know, too, that a little while ago he was anxious to know what I would say if he should propose to take a wife. I shall be only too pleased when he makes up his mind. It will relieve me of a great deal of care and anxiety. And he could not in the wide world choose a better or a dearer little girl.”

Miss Santley was not ordinarily of a demonstrative disposition, but as she uttered those last words she drew Edith towards her and kissed her on the forehead.

The vicar’s sister was some twelve years his senior. A stout, homely, motherly little woman, with plain but pleasing features, brown hair, a shrewd but kindly expression, clear grey eyes, and a firm mouth and chin, she was as unlike the Vicar in personal appearance as she was unlike him in character and temperament. This family unlikeness, however, had had no prejudicial effect on their mutual affection, though in Miss Santley’s case it was the source of much secret uneasiness on her brother’s account. As unimaginative as she was practical, she was at a loss to understand her brother’s emotional mysticism and dreamy idealism; but her knowledge of human nature made her timorously aware of the dangers which beset the combination of a splendid physique with a glowing temperament which was almost febrile in its sensuous impulsiveness. She was spared the torture of sharing that darker secret of unbelief; but she was sufficiently conscious of the strong fervid nature of the vicar, to feel thankful that Edith had made a deep impression on him, and that when he did marry it would be a bright and congenial young creature who would be worthy of him and attached to herself.

“So why should it hurt you, if I do jest a little?” asked Miss Santley, as she kissed Edith. “Love cannot always be transcendental, otherwise two people will never come closely together. The best gift a couple of lovers can possess in common, is a capacity for a little fun and affectionate wit. Your solemn lovers are always misunderstanding each other, and quarrelling and making it up again.”

“But we are not lovers yet, Mary,” said Edith in a timid whisper.

“Not yet, perhaps; but you will be soon, if I am capable of forming any opinion.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Edith replied with a sigh; and her soft blue eyes filled with tears. Then raising her eyes imploringly to Miss Santley, and nervously taking her hand, she continued: “Oh, Mary, do not think me too forward and eager and unwomanly. Do not judge me too hardly. I know a girl should not give her heart away till she is asked for it. But I cannot help it – I love him – I love him so! I have done all I could to prevent myself from loving him, but it is no use – oh! it is no use.”

She burst into a paroxysm of passionate sobbing, and Miss Santley, without saying a word, put her arms about her and softly caressed her soft flaxen hair.

The outburst was gradually subdued, and Edith, with a hot glowing face hidden on her friend’s shoulder, was too ashamed to change her position.

“Do you feel better now, dear? asked Miss Santley in a kindly voice.

“Oh, Mary, are you not ashamed of me – disgusted?”

Miss Santley replied in a woman’s way with another kiss, and again fondled the girl’s head.

After a pause of a few moments, she gently raised her face and regarded it affectionately.

“You must come upstairs and wash away those tell-tales before he returns. And” – she added a little hesitatingly – “will you not trust me with the cause of all this trouble?”

“I am afraid you will laugh at me, dear, it must seem such a foolish cause to you. And I know you will say it was all simply my fancy.”

“What was it?”

“You know, dear, where I sit in church?” Edith began, nervously playing with the lace on Miss Santley’s dress. “Well, he always used to turn twice or thrice in my direction during the sermon. I used to think he did it because he knew I was there. And he did it this afternoon. But in the evening he never looked once during the whole time.”

Miss Santley began to smile in spite of herself.

“Then when he came out of the church he saw you and me waiting for him – I saw him give one single sharp look – and then he went on as if he had not perceived us. He would not have gone away like that, Mary, if I had not been with you.”

“And is that all?” inquired Mary as Edith paused.

“I think it is quite enough,” the latter replied sorrowfully. “It means that he is tired of me; he was displeased that I was with you; he did not want to speak to me.”

“My dear girl, all this is simply silly fancy; you will make your whole life miserable if you imagine things in this way.”

“I knew you would say that; but you do not understand. I hardly understand myself; but I know what I say is true. You remember old Harry Wilson down in the village – he has a wooden leg, you know, but when there is going to be a bad change of weather, he says he can feel it in the foot he has lost; and he is always right. I think I am like him, dear; I have lost something, and it makes me feel when there is a change, long before the storm breaks.”

“All this is nothing but nonsense, my little woman!” said Miss Santley reassuringly. “Come with me upstairs, and let us make ourselves presentable.” When Edith had bathed her face, the two came downstairs again, but instead of returning to the parlour they went into the library. This was specially the vicar’s room, and, more than any other, it indicated the tastes and character of its occupant. The whole house, indeed, was tinged with the mediaeval colouring of the church, and in all parts of it you came upon indications of the ecclesiastical spirit of the owner; but here the vicar had given fullest expression to his fancy, and the room had as much the appearance of an oratory as of a library. At one end a small alcove jutted out into the plantation, and the windows were filled with stained glass. On the walls hung several of Raphael’s cartoons; on the mantelpiece stood, under glass, a marble group of The Dead Christ; the furniture, which was of carved oak, suggested the stalls in the chancel; the brass gasalier and brackets were of ecclesiastical design; and, lastly, the library shelves were solemnly weighted with long rows of theology, sermons, and Biblical literature in several languages. In a separate bookcase, which was kept locked, were gathered together a number of scientific works and volumes of modern speculative philosophy. A third bookcase was devoted to history, poetry, travels, and miscellaneous works. The great bulk of the library, however, was clerical, and the vicar had within arm’s reach a fair epitome of all that the good men of all ages and many countries had discovered regarding the mystery of the world and the relationship of man.

In one corner of the room stood a tall richly carved triangular cupboard of black oak, and it too, like the bookcase of science, was kept perpetually locked.

As Edith entered the room her eyes fell upon it, and turning to her companion she asked —

“Oh, Mary, have you discovered the skeleton yet?”

“No,” replied Miss Santley, with a laugh. “Charles is forgetful enough in some things, but he has never yet left the key in that lock. I once asked him what it was he concealed so carefully, but he refused to satisfy my curiosity; so I resolved to trust to chance and his carelessness. I have waited so long, however, that my curiosity has at last been tired out. I don’t suppose, after all, it is anything worth knowing.”

“And why does he always keep this bookcase locked too? The books all look so fresh and new, and they are much more attractive than those dusty old fellows any one can look into. I should like to read several of those, one hears so much about them. There is Darwin, ‘The Descent of Man’ – I have read articles about that book in the magazines, and I know he believes Adam and Eve were apes in Paradise or something like that.”

“Oh, my dear, Charles would never allow you to read those books on any account. They are all dreadfully wicked and blasphemous. He only reads them himself to refute them and to be able to show how false and dangerous they are.”

Edith, who had approached the window, now suddenly started back, and a bright flush rose to her face.

“Here is Mr. Santley, Mary! How pale and wearied he looks!”

A moment or two later the vicar entered the library. At the sight of Miss Dove he paused for an instant, and then advancing, held out his hand to her.

“You here, Miss Edith!” he said coldly. “How are you, and how is your aunt?”

He did not wait for an answer, but went to his writing-table and sat down.

The two women exchanged glances of surprise, and Edith’s face grew sad and white.

“Are you not well, Charles?” his sister asked, going up to him and looking solicitously into his face.

“I am not very well this evening,” replied the vicar; “it is the weather, I think. If Miss Edith will excuse me, I think I will leave you and lie down. I feel tired.”

He rose again abruptly, and Edith stood regarding him with large, wistful eyes. He moved towards the door, and then suddenly stopped and turned to her.

“Good evening,” he said once more, holding out his hand and speaking in a cold, distant manner. “Present my compliments to your aunt.”

“I hope you will be well in the morning,” said Edith, timidly.

“Thanks. Yes; I expect I shall be all right again after a little rest.”

He turned and left her, and Miss Santley, glancing at her significantly, followed him to his room.

“He has over-exerted himself to-day,” said Mary a little later, as she accompanied Miss Dove to the garden gate. “He had a sick call in the afternoon, and was unable to take his usual rest. You will excuse my not accompanying you home, will you not?”

“Oh certainly,” said Edith. “I hope it is nothing serious. Would you not like to see Dr. Spruce? I can call, you know.”

“He says he does not need the doctor; he knows what is the matter with him, and only requires rest. Good night, dear! I am so sorry I cannot go part of the way with you.”

“Do not think of that,” said Edith, shaking hands. “It is not late, and you must not leave him.”

The sunset had lowered down to its last red embers, but it was still quite light as Edith turned away from the Vicarage gate. She proceeded slowly down the road towards the village for a few moments, and then paused and looked back. No one was on the road. Retracing her steps, she passed the Vicarage at a quick pace, and took the direction which the vicar had taken an hour before. Strangely enough, she stopped at the top of the rising ground where he had stopped; went through the same gate, into the same field, and, following the same path, reached the stile on which he had sat. Here she sat down, with the great sea of corn whispering and murmuring about her, and the distant landscape growing-gradually more and more indistinct in the bluish vapour of the twilight. Alone and hidden from observation, she sat on the step with her arms on the cross-bar of the stile and her head laid on them, weeping bitterly.

“I have lost something, and it makes, me feel when there is a change!”