Foxglove Manor (Vol. 1-3). Robert Williams Buchanan
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!”
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