|Mr. Santley’s reply was as sincere at the moment it was spoken as
it was impulsive. The saner and better part of him rose in sudden
sympathy towards this young, confiding girl who had laid her whole
being in his hands, to be his treasure or his plaything. He resolved
to be faithful to the solemn pledge he had given her, and to cast
from him for ever all thought of Mrs. Haldane, and all memory of that
passionate episode of the past. He drew Edith’s hand under his arm and
held it there. That warm little bit of responsive flesh and blood had
still, he felt, a power to thrill through his nature. He bent down
and kissed it. For some time their conversation was embarrassed, but
gradually all sense of doubt and estrangement vanished, and he was
telling her about his visit to the Manor. A pressure was laid upon
him to make her such amends as he was able for his coldness during the
past week, and he determined to break the spell which Mrs. Haldane’s
beauty threw over him by revealing their old friendship to Edith. It
was not wise, but under the stress of remorse and a reviving passion
men seldom act wisely. Except in the case of a jealous disposition, a
woman is always pleased to hear of her lover’s old vaguely cherished
love affairs, when there is no possibility of their ever coming to
life again. She knows instinctively, even when she is not told so
adoringly, that she supersedes all her predecessors and combines
all their virtues and charms. He loved this one for her beauty and
sweetness, that one for her clear bright intelligence; each in a
different way; but her he loves in both the old ways, and in a new way
also which she alone could inspire.
“Mrs. Haldane was an old pupil of mine--indeed, a favourite
pupil--many years ago; so, naturally, I am much interested in her,”
said the vicar in a tentative manner.
The words were a revelation to Edith; they explained to her all her
uneasiness and all his change of manner.
“And you find that you still love her a little?” Edith ventured to say
in a sad, faltering tone.
“I never said I loved her, my dear,” replied the vicar, with a forced
laugh.
“But you did, did you not? She was your favourite pupil.”
How uncomfortably keen-sighted this young person seemed to be, in
spite of her soft, endearing ways!
“Would you be a little jealous if I said I did?” he asked, regarding
her with a scrutinizing look.
“Jealous! Oh no. Why should I? Is she not married? And am I not really
and truly your little wife?”
He pressed her hand gently for answer.
“And when you saw her again last Sunday, and saw how beautiful she
was,” Edith continued, “you felt sorry that you had lost her--just a
little regretful, did you not?”
The vicar hesitated, and then did the most foolish thing a man can do
in such circumstances--confessed the truth.
“You will not be vexed, darling, if I say that I did feel regret?”
“You loved her very much?”
“She was my first love.” replied the vicar. “But you must remember it
was years ago. Long before I knew you; when I was quite a young man.”
“And was she very fond of you?” Edith went on quietly.
“I used to think she was.”
“But she was not true to you?”
“I do not blame her. I do not think it was her fault. Her people were
wealthy, and I was poor, a poor teacher.”
“And it was this made you so cold and hard to me all last week?”
Mr. Santley did not answer at once.
It would be brutal to say yes, and he dared not hazard a denial.
“Oh, Charles, she never loved you as I have.”
“Never, never,” replied the vicar hurriedly; and a flush rose to his
face.
“When you meet her, when you see her again,” said Edith, grasping his
arm with earnest emphasis, “will you remember that? Promise me.”
“I will never forget it,” said the vicar in a low voice.
He did not see Mrs. Haldane again, however, during the week. On the
following Sunday his eyes wandered only for a moment towards the Manor
pew, and he perceived that she was alone. When he met her after the
service his manner was constrained, but she appeared not to notice it.
She spoke again of the parish work, and told him that in a day or two
she would drive over and accompany him on some of his calls. He looked
forward with uneasiness and self-distrust to her cooperation in his
daily work. There was an irresistible something, a magical atmosphere,
an invisible radiation of the enticing about this woman. Her large
glowing black eyes seemed to fasten upon his soul and draw it beyond
his control. Her starry smile intoxicated and maddened him. Beside
her, Edith was but a weak, delicate child, with a child’s clinging
attachment, a child’s credulity and trust, a child’s little gusts of
passion. His lost love was a woman--such a woman as men in old
times would have perished for as a queen, would have worshipped as a
goddess--such a woman, he fancied, as that Naomi whose beauty has been
the mysterious tradition of five thousand years.
Early one afternoon, about the middle of the week, the vicar was
just about to set out on his customary round of visitation, when
Mrs. Haldane’s pony-carriage drove up to the gate. He assisted her to
alight, and returned with her to the house.
Miss Santley, who had been as sensitive to the change in her brother
as Edith herself, regarded Mrs. Haldane with little favour. She was
ready to acknowledge that it was very good and kind of the mistress of
Foxglove Manor to interest herself in the wants and suffering of the
parish, but she entertained grave misgivings as to the prudence of
her brother and this old pupil of his being thrown too frequently
together. She was just a little formal and reserved with her visitor,
who announced her intention of going with the vicar to this sick-call
he had spoken of.
“You will have to walk, however,” said Mr. Santley, “as the cottage is
some little distance across the fields.”
“I came prepared for walking,” she replied, with a laugh. “James can
put up at the village till our return.”
“Will you do us the favour of taking tea with us?” asked Miss Santley,
“You will, require it, if my brother takes you his usual round.”
“Thank you, I shall be very glad. If James calls for me at--what time
shall I say?--six, will that be soon enough?” The coachman received
his instructions, and Mr. Santley and Mrs. Haldane set out on their
first combined mission. They traversed half a dozen fields, and came
in sight of a small cluster of cottages lying low in a green hollow.
A narrow lane ran past them to Omberley in one direction and to the
high-road in another. Half a dozen poplars grew in a line along the
lane, and the cottages were surrounded by small gardens, filled with
fruit trees.
“What a picturesque little spot!” exclaimed Mrs. Haldane. “I think
nothing looks so pretty as an English cottage with its white walls and
tiled roof peering out from a cluster of apple; and pear trees.”
“Pretty enough, but damp!” replied the vicar. “In wet weather they are
in a perfect quagmire. Ah, listen!”
They were now very near the houses, and the sound to which Mr. Santley
called her attention was the voice of a man crying out in great pain.
“What can it be?” asked Mrs. Haldane, with a look of alarm.
“It is the poor fellow we are going to see. He was knocked down and
run over by a cart about two years ago. His spine has been injured,
and the doctors can do nothing for him. He is quite helpless, and has
been bedridden all that time.”
“Poor creature! what a dreadful thing it must be to suffer like that!”
“Sometimes for weeks together he feels no pain. Then he is suddenly
seized by the most fearful torture, and you can hear his cries for a
great distance.”
As they approached the cottage the man’s voice grew louder, and they
could distinguish his words: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me
what to do?”
Mrs. Haldane shuddered. In that green, peaceful, picturesque spot that
persistent reiteration of the man’s agony was horrible.
“Will you come in?” asked the vicar doubtfully.
His companion signed her assent, and Mr. Santley knocked gently at the
door. In a few seconds some one was heard coming down the staircase,
and a little gray-haired, gray-faced woman, dressed in black, came to
the door and curtsied to her visitors.
“Mansfield is very bad again to-day?” said the vicar.
“Ay, this be one of his bad days, sir. He have been that bad since
Sunday, I haven’t known what to do with him.”
The voice of the sick man suddenly ceased, and he appeared to be
listening.
“Who’s there?” he shrieked out, after a pause. “Jennie; blast you!
who’s there?”
“He be raving mad, ma’am!” said Mrs. Mansfield, apologetically. “He
don’t know what he is saying.”
“Jennie, you damned little varmint----”
“Hush, John, it be the parson!” his wife called up the staircase.
“To hell with the parson! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll tell me what
to do?”
“I’ll go up to him, sir, and tell him you’re here. He be very bad
to-day, poor soul! Will it please you to walk in, ma’am?”
The little woman went upstairs, and her entrance to the sick-room was
greeted with a volley of foul curses screamed out in furious rage.
Gradually, however, the access of passion was exhausted, and the man
was again heard repeating his hopeless appeal for relief.
“How do they live?” asked Mrs. Haldane, glancing about the small but
scrupulously clean room in which she stood. “Have they any grown-up
children?”
“No, only their two selves. She is the bread-winner. She does knitting
and sewing, and the neighbours, who are very kind to her, assist her
with her garden and do her many little kindnesses.”
“Poor woman! And she has endured this horrible infliction for two
years!”
“If you please, sir, you can come up now,” said Mrs. Mansfield from
the top of the stairs.
The vicar went up, and Mrs. Haldane followed him. They entered a
pretty large whitewashed bedroom, with raftered roof and a four-post
bedstead in the centre of the room. Though meagrely furnished,
everything was spotlessly clean and tidy. On the bed lay a great gaunt
man, panting and moaning, with his large filmy blue eyes turned up
to the roof. He was far above the common stature, and his huge wasted
frame, only half hidden by the bedclothes, was piteous to look at. His
large venerable head, covered with thin, long white hair, filled
one with surprise and regretful admiration. His face was thin and
colourless, and a fringe of white beard gave it a still more deathly
appearance. One could scarcely believe that the wreck before him was
a common labourer. It seemed rather such a spectacle as Beatrice Cenci
might have looked on had her father died cursing on his bed.
“Here’s parson come to see thee, and a lady wi’ him,” said Mrs.
Mansfield, raising her husband’s head.
He looked at them with his glazed blue eyes, made prominent with pain,
and his moaning grew louder, till they could again distinguish the
constant cry for release from pain: “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, who’ll
tell me what to do?”
“Try to think of God, and pray to Him for help,” said the vicar,
bending over the suffering man.
“Oh, I have prayed and prayed and prayed,” he replied querulously;
“but it does no good.”
“He were praying all day yesterday and singing hymns,” said Mrs.
Mans-held. “I don’t know what’s gotten hold of him to-day, but he have
been dreadful. And he were ever such a pious, God-fearing man. It fair
breaks my heart to hear him swearing like that. But God will not count
it against him, for he’s been clean beside himself.”
“Well, let me hear you pray now, Mansfield,” said the vicar. “Turn
your heart and your mind to God, and He will comfort you.”
“O God,” said the sick man, with the obedient simplicity of a child,
“I turn my heart and my mind to Thee; do Thou comfort me and take me
to Thyself. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of mankind,
do Thou remember me in Thy paradise. Look down upon me, O Lord, a
miserable offender, and spare Thou them which confess their faults and
are truly penitent.”
With a strange light on his white, wasted face, with his gaunt hands
folded on the counterpane before him, the old man sat up in bed and
prayed in the same loud voice of pain and semi-delirium. A wild,
inconceivable, interminable prayer; for long after they had left
the house, old Mansfield could be heard some hundreds of yards away,
screaming to God for mercy and consolation.
“We had better leave him praying,” said the vicar softly; “and when he
begins cursing and swearing again, Mrs. Mansfield, just kneel down and
pray in a loud voice beside him. It will suggest a new current to his
thoughts.”
“God won’t count his cursing against him, sir, will he?” asked the
little woman. “He were ever a sober Christian man till this misery
came on him.”
“No, no,” said the vicar; “God judges the heart, not the tongue of
delirium.”
“How old is your husband?” inquired Mrs. Haldane.
“He be eighty-one come Martinmas, ma’am.”
“Poor old man! And you do sewing and knitting, do you not?”
“Yes, ma’am, what he lets me do. He be main fractious whiles.”
“And have you plenty to go on with at present?”
“I have what’ll keep me busy for a fortnight yet.”
“I will see you again before then. I hope your husband will soon be
better.”
“There be no hope of that, ma’am. The only betterness for him ‘ll be
when God takes him.”
“I know you will be able to find a use for this,” said Mrs. Haldane in
a whisper, as they went, out of the house. “Goodbye for the present.”
“Oh, ma’am! God bless you!” said Mrs. Mansfield, the tears springing
into her eyes as she looked at the gold coin in her hand.