Robert Williams Buchanan

“ Haldane enter and take her seat.
Two minutes later, Mr. Santley, clothed in his white, priestly robes, ascended the steps of the reading-desk, and bent his beautiful head in prayer. As he rose to his feet, Edith, who had been watching him in extreme fascination, saw his gaze wandering round the church, and finally fix upon the face of the mistress of Foxglove Manor. She saw, or thought she saw, the lady’s eyelids quiver and finally droop beneath that glance; while the clergyman arose, like a sick man suddenly restored to health, and began to read the lessons for the day. ”

“ Here, on the other hand, am I, physically and intellectually his master, knowing almost every creed beneath the sun, and the slave of none; indifferent to vulgar human passions, and disposed to disintegrate them one and all with the electric current of a negative philosophy. Between us both, trembling this way and that, is that fair thing of flesh and blood, my wife, zealous to save her own soul alive, and fearful at times, I fancy, that I have sold mine to the Prince of Darkness. It is another version of science against superstition, common sense against a lie; and Ellen Haldane is the prize. ”

“ He turned the leaves of his gold-clasped volume, and as his rich voice filled the church, and the congregation rose, he gazed once more about him. This time his cheek flushed slightly, and a soft sigh of relief and happiness escaped his parted lips. Mrs. Haldane was again in her place, calmly joining in the prayers.
That afternoon the clergyman preached like one inspired; all were impressed but none were cognizant of the cause. Though the clergyman’s eyes wandered continually around the church, he saw only one face, was conscious only of one presence. ”

“ Mrs. Russell, murmuring something about household affairs, had left them together. Walter was reclining in an armchair, smoking his cigar and watching his cousin, who was busily engaged embroidering crosses upon a handsome altar-cloth, intended for the decoration of the church.
“These have been pleasant evenings,” he said—“pleasant for me, that is. I shall be sorry enough when they come to an end.”
Edith looked up and smiled sadly.
“If we always had pleasure it would become a pain,” she said. “Though we rebel against pain and suffering, it is, after all, a very great boon to the world.” ”

“ Santley could hear you! He wouldn’t call you an atheist then!”
Haldane’s face darkened angrily.
“What? Does the man actually——”
“Don’t misunderstand,” cried Ellen, flushing scarlet. “I do not mean that he really calls you an atheist, but he is so sorry, so deeply sorry, that you do not believe. He does not know you, dear, and takes all my bear’s satirical growling for solemn earnest. Now, when I tell him——”
“You will tell him nothing,” exclaimed Haldane, with sudden sternness. “I will have no priest coming between my wife and me!” ”

“ For ten years I have been happy with a wife who seemed the perfection of human gentleness and beauty; who, although unfortunately we have been blest with no offspring, has shown the tenderest solicitude and sympathy for the children of my brain; and who, in her wifely faith and sanctity, seemed to be the sole link still holding me to a church whose history has always filled me with abhorrence, and a religion whose infantine theology I despise. ”

“ Surely it is better than moral stagnation, which is death. There are certain deflections from duty which, like the side stroke of a bird’s wing, may waft us higher. In the arms of this woman, I should surely be nearer God than crawling alone on the bare path of duty, loving nothing, hoping nothing, becoming nothing. What is it that Goethe says of the Eternal Feminine which lead us ever upward and onward? Which was the highest, Faust before he loved Marguerite, or Faust after he passed out of the shadow of his sin into the sphere of imperial and daring passion? ”

“ But you and I used to be such friends! More like brother and sister than mere cousins. Is that all over? Are we to drift farther and farther apart as the years pass on? It seems to me as if it might come to that.”
“How absurd you are!” said Edith, trying to force a laugh, but failing lamentably. “You know I was always fond of you and—and—of your mother.” Walter winced under the sting of the last sentence, so unconsciously given.
“I don’t mean that at all,” he exclaimed. “Of course you liked us, as relations like each other; but am I never to be more to you than a mere cousin? ”

“ Then Walter shook hands with her and left, taking the way to the inn instead of to the Vicarage. He would make no appeal to the clergyman. The sight of Mr. Santley, so different to the benevolent, elderly gentleman of his imagination, had decided him on that point; it had also brought with it other trouble, for it threw an entirely new light on Edith’s religious fervour.
Was it, then, the man or the church, infatuation or fanaticism? He asked himself the question for the first time. Was Edith among the mass of simple girls who were breaking their hearts for his sake? Probably. ”

“ What is it to you if I am engaged to Mr. Santley? and if we choose to keep our engagement a secret, what is that to you? I am my own mistress; I can act just as I think fit, without the fear of coercion from any one. You, at any rate, have no right to regulate my actions or to dictate them. I suppose you think I have no right to marry any one, simply because I refuse to be coerced into marrying you!”
It was a cruel thing to say; but Edith was simply dealing him, secondhand, some of the stabs which she herself had received from her beloved pastor in the morning. ”

“ But materialism degrades the believer, and sooner or later comes a disbelief in all that is holy, beautiful, and sanctified. It is a humble creed, the new creed of science, and fatal to spiritual hopes.”
“Does it matter so much what one believes, if one’s life is good?”
“It matters so much that I would rather see one I loved dead before my feet than an avowed unbeliever. But there, I have not come to preach to you. When does Mr. Haldane return?” ”

“ When life becomes a mere experiment, a mere thing of mechanism, what will be left? If we knew everything, even what we are, and why we exist, the world would be a tomb—with no place in it for the Living God.”
Touched by her manner, Haldane drew her down by his side and kissed her; then, with more earnestness than he had yet exhibited, he answered her, holding her hand in his own and pressing it softly.
“My dear Nell, do me the justice to believe that I am not quite a materialist; simple agnosticism is the very converse of materialism. ”

“ Now, he had never seen the clergyman, but he had pictured him as a middle-aged, benevolent-looking man, perhaps with spectacles; a gentle fanatic in religion, willing, through the very bigotry of his nature, to sacrifice everything for the good of the Church, but still, perhaps, amiable. He might be open to reason, and an appeal made directly to him might be the means of putting an end to all the trouble.
Breakfast over, the young man issued from the inn, and strolled deliberately through the village in the direction of the Vicarage. ”

“ She knew by her cousin’s manner that he was more than usually agitated, and she dreaded what was coming—what had come, indeed, on several occasions before. She did not answer, but almost unconsciously heaved a deep sigh.
“Does that mean that you are sorry too?” asked Walter, leaning towards her to see her face.
“Of course I am sorry,” she replied, with a certain constraint.
“I wish I could believe that. Somehow or other, Edith, it seems to me that you would rather be anywhere than here. Well, you have some cause; for the house is dreary enough, and we are all dull people. ”

“ I was sorry, senor, when I came back to this world.”
“You hear!” cried Haldane, turning to his wife. “After all, death itself may be a glorious experience; for ‘in that sleep of death what dreams may come!’ It is quite clear at least that all the phenomena of death, such as we shrink from and shudder at, may be accompanied by some kind of pleasant psychic consciousness. Bravo, Baptisto! After this, we shall call you Lazarus the second. ”

“ Without paying attention to her cousin’s remarks, Edith was looking thoughtfully at Haldane.
“When do you return to Omberley?” she asked.
“I am not sure—in a fortnight, at the latest. I am going on to France.”
“And Mrs. Haldane will remain all that time alone?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Oh, she will not miss me. She has her household duties, her parish, her garden—to say nothing of her clergyman. And you, do you stay long in London?” ”

“ She flushed impatiently.
“George, why have you such a dislike for religion? Why do you hate everything I love?”
“Pardon me, my dear Nell, it was you, not I, that spoke of hating. Philosophers never hate.”
“But you do worse; you despise it. Thank God we have no children. It would be horrible to tell them that their father forbade them to go to church, or pray!” ”

“ Then he returned to the Vicarage, where Mrs. Haldane was comfortably seated with his sister, and enjoyed her society until the hour of his labours returned.
When he entered the church that afternoon, all the congregation thought he was looking more seraphic than ever. Many a young heart fluttered with holiness, and many an eyelid drooped reverently, before the calm serenity of his gaze. As he stood facing his people, he cast his eyes around the church. Edith was not there. ”

“ I try!”
“You should have more confidence, more faith. You know how much I care for you.”
“Yes; but sometimes I feel afraid. Mrs. Haldane is so much cleverer, so much more beautiful, than I am, and she was your first love. They say men never love twice.”
“That is nonsense, Edith.”
“But you do love me, dear? you do?”
Ugh, the satyr! He answered her with kisses, straining her to his heart and she, sobbing and clinging round him, was quite conquered. I felt sick to see her at his mercy. Then their voices sank, and he whispered, and I saw the bright blood mount to her cheek and brow. ”

“ I love this woman. In her heart she loves me. Her superior spiritual endowments are mystically alive to those I myself possess. Her husband is a clod, an unbeliever, with no spiritual promptings. In his sardonic presence, her aspirations are chilled, frozen at the very fountain-head; whereas, in mine, all the sweetness and the power of her nature are aroused, though with a certain irritation. If I persist, she must yield to the slow moral mesmerism of my passion, and eventually fall. ”

“ Haldane laughed, for an idea suddenly occurred to him which seemed to explain the mystery of his servant’s request.
“My good Baptisto, I think I understand the cause of your complaint, and I am sure a little travel will do you good. It is that dark-eyed widow of the lodge-keeper who attaches you so much to the Manor. The warm blood of Spain still burns in your veins, and, despite your sad experience of women, you are still impressionable. ”

“ Santley is like all his tribe, I suppose—a meddler and a mischief-maker. That is the worst of other-worldliness; it gives these traders in the Godhead, these peddlers who would give us in exchange for belief in their superstitions a bonus in paradise, an excuse for making this world unbearable. Well, my atheism, if you choose to call it so, against his theism. Mine at least keeps me a man among men, while his keeps him a twaddler among women.”
Haldane spoke with heat, for the word “atheist” had somehow stung him to the quick. ”

“ Ellen shook her head. The very name seemed horrible.
“His elixir of death?” she repeated.
“Yes. A chemical preparation, the fundamental principle of which is morphine. By its agency he can so produce in a living organism the ordinary phenomena of death, that even rigor mortis is simulated. I saw the experiment tried on two rabbits, a Newfoundland dog, and, to crown all, on the human subject. They were all, to every appearance, dead; the rabbits for twenty-four hours, the dog for half a day, and the woman for an hour and a half.” ”

“ No woman on earth could possess a more spiritual countenance than his cousin Edith—yet his eyes had assured him of the blackness and impurity of her soul. Disappointment was turning his heart to gall.
At last the service was ended: the congregation streamed forth, Walter amongst the rest. The crush was so great he could hardly get along—for Mr. Santley was a popular preacher. Once outside the edifice, Walter paused to draw his breath and look about him. He started, turned first hot, then cold, for not many yards from him was Edith herself, calmly leaving the church with the rest. ”

“ Yes, I shall give you the sketches—that is to say, if you will accept them; and when I have taken my departure—and I shall do so soon—I shall try to forget that such a village as Omberley ever existed at all.”
“And the people,” said Dora; “of course you will try to forget the people?”
“That is the first thing I shall try to do!”
We are most of us selfish in our grief, and Walter was no exception to the rule. Mortified and suffering himself, it never once entered his head that he might be unpolite, and even rude, to another. But the knife entered Dora’s little heart, and made her wince. ”

“ But Edith’s face looked brighter than it had done for many a day.
“I forgot to ask you,” he said suddenly, “if your headache was better.”
“My headache?” she replied. She had been so engrossed with happy thoughts at the reconciliation, that the question took her completely by surprise.
“Ah yes,” she added, suddenly recollecting herself; “it is so much better, that I had quite forgotten it. You see what a good night’s rest will do!”
Walter uttered an impatient sigh, and turned on his heel; while Edith added—
“You are coming up to dine with us to-day, you know. Shall we walk together?” ”