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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ