Foxglove Manor, Volume I (of III). Robert W Buchanan
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