George Haldane returned home in the best of spirits. His paper had been received with enthusiasm by the savants of France, and his life in Paris had been one pleasant succession of visits, learned conversaziones, and private entertainments. Thanks to his happy pre-occupation, he scarcely noticed that his wife’s manner was constrained, nervous, yet deeply solicitous; that she looked pale and worn, as if with constant watching; and that, in answer to his careless questioning as to affairs at home, she made only fragmentary replies.
On entering his dressing-room to change his apparel, he found Baptisto, who was quietly undoing his portmanteau and selecting the necessary things with a calm air, as if his services had never been interrupted.
“So, my Baptisto,” he said, clapping that worthy on the shoulder, “you are not dead or buried, I see? Ah, you may smile, but I am quite aware of the trick you played me. Well, you have been the loser. You would have had a pleasant time of it in Paris, the best of entertainment, and nothing whatever to do.”
“I am glad you have returned, senor,” replied Baptisto, with his customary solemnity.
“I hope you have given satisfaction to your mistress during my absence?”
“I hope so, senor.”
“Humph! we shall see what report she has to make concerning you, and if that is favourable, I may forgive your freak of laziness.”
“I have not been lazy, senor,” said Baptisto, quietly preparing the toilette.
“Indeed! Pray, how have you been employing yourself?”
Baptisto did not reply, but smiled again.
“How is your inamerata and her family? I saw the little woman curtsying as I passed through the lodge-gates.”
Baptisto shook his head solemnly.
“Ah, senor,” he said, “you are mistaken. The woman of the lodge is a stupid person; and for the rest, I put no faith in women. Cuerpo di Baccho, no! They smile upon us when we are near; but no sooner do we turn our backs, than they smile upon some other man.”
“Pretty philosophy,” returned Haldane, with a laugh. “Why, you are a downright misogynist, my Baptisto. But I don’t believe one word you say, for all that. Men who talk like you are generally very easy conquests, and I would bet twenty to one on the little widow still.”
“Ah, senor, if all women were like your signora, it would be different. She is so good, so pure, so faithful at her devotions. It is a great thing to have religion.”
As Baptisto spoke his back was turned to his master, so that the extraordinary expression of his face was unnoticed, and there was no indication in his tone that he spoke satirically. Haldane shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, not caring to discuss his wife’s virtues with a servant, however familiar. Presently he went downstairs to dinner. All that evening he was very affectionate and merry, talking volubly of his adventures in Paris, of his scientific acquaintances, and of such new discoveries as they had brought under his notice. In the course of his happy chat he spoke frequently of a new acquaintance, one Dr. Dupré, whom he had met in the French capital. “The French, however far behind the Germans in speculative affairs,” he observed, “are far their superiors, and ours, in physiology. Take this Dupré, for example. He is a wonderful fellow! His dissections and vivisections’ have brought him to such a point of mastery that he is almost certain that he has discovered the problem poor Lewes broke his heart over—how and by what mechanism we can’t think. I don’t quite believe he has succeeded in that great discovery, but some of his minor discoveries are extraordinary. Did you read the account in the papers of his elixir of death?”
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.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Ellen, with a shudder. “Do you actually mean he experimented on a living woman?”
“Yes; on a strapping wench, the daughter of his housekeeper; and a very fine thing she made of it. We subscribed together, and presented her with a purse of a thousand francs.”
“I think such things are wicked,” cried Ellen, with some warmth. “Mere mortals have no right to play, in that way, with the mystery of life and death.”
“My dear Nell,” cried Haldane, laughing, “it is in the interests of science!”
“But I am sure it is not right. Life is given and taken by God alone.”
“Your argument, if accepted, would make all mankind accept the religion of the Peculiar People, who will cure no diseases by human intervention. As to this business of suspended animation, it is merely a part of our discoveries in anodynes. Dupré’s experiment, I know, is perfectly safe.”
“But that is not the question.”
“How so, my dear?”
“What I mean is, that death is too solemn and awful a thing to imitate as you describe. Such experiments are simply blasphemous, in my opinion.”
“Come, come,” cried the philosopher. “There is no blasphemy where there is no irreverence. According to your religious people, your priests of the churches, there was blasphemy in circumnavigating the globe; in discovering the circulation of the blood; in ascertaining the age of the earth; and, still later, in using chloroform to lessen the pangs of parturition.”
“But what purpose can be served by such experiments as that?”
“A good many,” was the reply. “For example, it may help us to the discovery of the nature of life itself, which has puzzled everybody, from Parmenides down to Haeckel. If we can by a simple anodyne suspend the vital mechanism for a period, and then by a vegetable antidote restore it again to action, the resurrection of Lazarus will cease to be a miracle, and the pretensions of Christianity——”
Ellen rose impatiently, with an expression of sincere pain.
“My dear Nell, what is the matter?” cried her husband.
“I cannot bear to hear you discuss such a thing. Oh, George, if you would leave such wicked speculations alone, and try to believe in the mystery and sovereignty of God!”
“You mean, burn my books, and go to hear your seraphic friend every Sunday?”
Had he not touched, unconsciously, on another painful chord? Why, otherwise, did his wife flush scarlet and partially avert her face? Conquering herself with an effort, she went over to him, and bending over him, looked fondly into his face.
“You are so much cleverer than I, so much wiser, and do you think I am not proud of your wisdom? But, all the same, dear, I wish you did not think as you do. 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. There is not living a scientific philosopher of any eminence who does not, in his calculations, postulate a mystery which can never be solved by the finest intellect. Even if we had fully completed, with the poet—=
The new creed of science, which showeth to man
How he darkly began,
How he grew from a cell to a soul, without plan;
How he breaks like a wave of the ocean, and goes
To eternal repose—
A tone that must fade, tho’ the great Music grows! ‘=
even then, we should know nothing of the First Cause. That must for ever remain inscrutable.”
“But how horrible it would be to believe in annihilation? Can you believe in it?”
“Certainly not,” replied the philosopher.
Ellens face brightened.
“Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that!”
“My dear Nell, annihilation is absurd.”
“Now, isn’t it?” she cried triumphantly.
“It is refuted, on the face of it, by the doctrine of the conservation of force. Life is eternal, in one shape or another; no force can be destroyed, be sure of that!”
“I wish Mr. 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!”
“Mr. Santley would never do that,” she returned, now trembling violently.
“Mr. 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. This man, who rejected all outward forms of belief, and whose conversation was habitually ironical, was in his inmost nature deeply and sincerely religious; humbly reverent before the forces of nature; spiritually conscious of that Power beyond ourselves which makes for righteousness. True, he rejected the ordinary forms of theism; but he had, on the other hand, a deep though dumb reverence for the character of Christ, and he had no sympathy with such out-and-out materialists as Haeckel and hoc genus omne. For the rest, he was liberal-minded, and had no desire to interfere with his wife’s convictions; could smile a little at her simplicity, and would see no harm in her clerical predispositions, so long as the clergyman didn’t encroach too far on the domain of married life and domestic privacy.
His indignation did not last. Seeing his wife greatly agitated, and fearing that he had caused her pain, he drew her forehead down and kissed it; then, patting her cheek, he said—
“Forgive me, Nell. I did not mean to scold; but one does not like hard names. When any one calls me ‘atheist,’ I am like the old woman whom Cobbett called a ‘parallelogram;’ it is not the significance of the epithet, but its opprobrium, that rouses me. Besides, I do not like any man to abuse me—to my own wife.”
“No one does that,” she cried. “You know I would not listen.”
“I hope not, my dear.” He added after a little, looking at her thoughtfully and sadly, “Man and wife have fallen asunder before now, on this very question of religion. Well, rather than that should happen, I will let you convert me. Will that satisfy you?”
“I shall never be quite satisfied till I know that you believe as I do.”
“What is that, pray?”
“That there is a just God, who made and cherishes us; and that, through the blood of His Son we shall live again although we die!”
“Well, it is a beautiful creed, my dear.”
“And true?”
“Why not? I will go with you thus far. I believe that, if there is a God, He is just, and that we shall certainly live again, if it is for our good.”
The emphasis with which he spoke the last words attracted her attention.
“For our good?” she queried.
“I am quoting the saddest words ever written, by the saddest and best man I ever knew. * He, too, believed that a God might spare us, and give us eternal life, if—mark the proviso—eternal life were indeed for our good. But suppose the contrary—suppose God knew better, and that it would be an evil and unhappy gift? Alas! who knows?”
He rose from his chair, still encircling his wife’s waist, and moved towards the door.
“Come to the drawing-room,” he cried gaily. “After so much offhand theology, a little music will be delightful. Ah, Nell, one breath of Beethoven is worth all the prosings of your parsons. Play to me, and, while the music lasts, I will believe what you will.”
The next morning Haldane was busy in his laboratory. When he came in to lunch, looking disreputable enough in his old coat, and smelling strongly of tobacco, he said to his wife—
“By-the-by, Nell, do you remember what I told you last night about Dupré’s wonderful elixir? I forgot to tell you that I have brought some of it with me, for purposes of private experiment.” Ellen looked horrified.
“Don’t be afraid,” he continued, laughing; “your cats and dogs are safe from me. I have found a better subject, and mean to operate on him this very afternoon.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“As a sort of penance for his shamming illness, I shall kill Baptisto.”
She uttered a cry, and raised her hands in protest.
“For heavens sake, George, be warned! If you have any of that horrible stuff, throw it away.”
“Now, my dear Nell,” said the philosopher, “be reasonable; there is not the slightest cause for alarm. You will see this experiment, and it will, I hope, treble your faith in miracles.”
“I will not see it. I beseech you, abandon the idea. As for Baptisto——”
At this moment the Spaniard entered the room, carrying certain dishes.
“I have been telling your mistress, Baptisto, that you are ready to be a martyr to science. At four o’clock precisely, you will be a dead man.”
Baptisto bowed solemnly.
“I am quite ready, senor.”
But here Ellen interposed.
“It is ridiculous; your master is only joking. He would not do anything so foolish, so wicked. As for you, I forbid you to encourage him.”
Baptisto bowed again, with a curious smile.
“It is for the senor to command. As he knows, he has saved my life, and he may take it whenever he pleases.”
Haldane nodded, in the act of drinking a glass of wine.
“Don’t be afraid, Baptisto. After death, there is the resurrection.”
“That, senor, is your affair,” returned the Spaniard, phlegmatically, shrugging his shoulders. “You will do with me as you please.”
And so saying, he glided from the room.
Ellen again and again entreated her husband not to proceed in his experiment; but he had long made up his mind that it was perfectly safe, and he could not be persuaded. To her gentle: spirit, the whole idea seemed horrible in the extreme; but her greatest dread was that it might be attended with danger to the subject. Haldane, however, assured her that this was impossible.
All the afternoon Haldane and Baptisto were together in the laboratory. A little after four o’clock, as Ellen was walking on the terrace, Haldane came to her, smiling and holding up a small vial.
“It is all over,” he said, “and the experiment is quite successful. Come and see.”
Not quite understanding him, she suffered him to lead her into the laboratory; but, on crossing the threshold, she uttered a cry of horror. Stretched on a sofa, lay Baptisto, moveless, and, to all seeming, without one breath of life. His eyes were wide open, but rayless; his jaw fixed, his face pale as grey marble; a peaceful smile, as of death itself, upon his handsome face. The light of the sun, just sinking towards the west, streamed in through the high window upon the apparently lifeless form. In the chamber itself there was a sickly smell, like that of some suffocating vapour. The whole scene would have startled and appalled even a strong man.
“Oh, George!” cried the lady, clasping her hands. “What have you done?”
“Don’t be alarmed,” was the reply, “Its all right!”
“But you said the experiment——-
“Was successful? Perfectly. There lies our poor friend, comfortably finished.”
“But are you sure, quite sure, that he is not dead? He is not breathing.”
“Of course not. The simulation is perfect. Place your hand on his wrist—you will detect no pulse. Turn his pupils to the light—you see, they do not contract. The case would deceive a whole college of physicians.”
As he spoke, he suited the action to the word—placed his finger upon the pulse, gazed at the glazing pupils; raised one of the lifeless arms, which, on being released, fell heavily as lead.
“Horrible, horrible! For God’s sake, recover him!”
“All in good time. He has only been dead a quarter of an hour; in half an hour precisely I shall say, ‘Arise and walk.’ Feel his forehead, Nell; it is as cold as marble.”
But Ellen drew back, shuddering, and could not be persuaded to touch the sleeper.
“Well, go back to your promenade. I will call you when he is awakened.” Sick and terrified, Ellen obeyed her husband. Standing on the terrace, she waited for his summons; and at last it came. Haldane appeared, and beckoned; she followed him to the laboratory, and there, seated in an armchair, comfortably sipping a glass of wine, was the Spaniard—a little pale still, but otherwise not the worse for his state of coma.
“Thank God!” cried Ellen.
“I thought he would never recover. But it must have been a horrible experience.”
Baptisto smiled.
“Tell the signora all about it,” said his master. “Did you feel any pain?”
“None, senor.”
“What were your sensations? Pleasant or otherwise?”
“Quite pleasant, senor. It was like sinking into an agreeable sleep. If death is like that, it is a bagatelle.”
“Were you at all conscious?”
“Not of this world, senor, but I had bright dreams of another. I thought I was in paradise, walking in the sunshine—ah, so bright! 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. You have passed beyond the shadow of the sepulchre, and returned to tell the tale.”
Despite the resuscitation, Ellen still revolted from the whole proceeding.
“Now you are satisfied,” she said, “promise me never to use that dreadful elixir again.”
“I think you may make your mind easy. The experiment is an ugly one, I admit, and I am not anxious to repeat it—at least, not on the human organism. For the same reason, my dear Nell, pray keep the affair to yourself, and make no confidences, even to your confessor—I should say, your clergyman, Will you promise?”
“Most certainly. I should not like any one to know you did such things. As for Mr. Santley, he would be shocked beyond measure.”
So saying, she left the two men together. In the mean time, Baptisto had-finished his wine and risen to his feet. While his master regarded him with an approving smile, he walked over to the door, softly closed it, and returning noiselessly across the room, said in a low voice—
“There is something, senor, I did not tell you. I had dreams.”
“So you said, my Baptisto.”
“Ah yes, but not all. While I was lying there, I thought that you were the dead man, and that the senora, your widow, had married.”
“Married?”
“The English priest.”
Haldane started, and looked in amazement at the speaker.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Ah, senor, it was only my dream; a foolish dream. You were lying in your winding-sheet, and they were kneeling at the altar—smiling, senor. I did not like to speak of it to the senora; but it was very strange.”
Haldane forced a laugh, while, with a mysterious look, Baptisto crept from the chamber. Was it in sheer simplicity or in deep cunning that the Spaniard had spoken, touching so delicate a chord? Left alone, Haldane paced up and down the laboratory in agitation. He was not by temperament a jealous or a suspicious man, but he was troubled in spite of himself. The words sounded like a warning, almost an insinuation.
“What could the fellow mean?” he asked himself again and again. “Could he possibly have dreamed that? No; it is preposterous. There was malice in his eye, and mischief.... Ellen married to Santley! Bah! what am I thinking about? The fellow is not a prophet!”
In this manner, whether in innocence or for some set purpose of his own, Baptisto contrived to poison all the sweetness of that successful experiment. When Haldane again joined his wife that evening, he was taciturn, distraught, nervous, and irritable. All his buoyancy had departed. Ellen saw the change, and puzzled herself to account for it.
She played to him, sang to him, but failed to drive the cloud from his brow.
When she had retired for the night, he still sat pondering over Baptisto’s words.
If Baptisto’s object in describing a dream so ominous was to attract his master’s attention to the intimate relations between Mrs. Haldane and the clergyman, he certainly succeeded. Once assured in this direction, Haldane’s perceptions were keen enough. He noticed that the mere mention of Santley’s name filled Ellen with a sort of nervous constraint; that, although the clergyman’s visits were frequent, they were generally made at times when Haldane himself was busy and preoccupied—that is to say, during his well-known hours of work; and that, moreover, Santley, however much he liked the society of the lady, invariably avoided the husband, or, if they met, contrived to frame some excuse for speedy parting. Now, Haldane trusted his wife implicitly, and believed her incapable of any infidelity, even in thought. Still, he did not quite like the aspect of affairs. Much as he trusted his wife, he had a strong moral distrust for anything in the shape of a priest; and he determined, therefore, to keep his eyes upon the clergyman.
A few days after that curious physiological experiment, he had the following conversation with Baptisto. It was the first day of the week.
“Baptisto, I thought you were a good Catholic?”
“So I am, senor,” returned the Spaniard, smiling.
“Yet you went to an English church-yesterday, I hear?”
“Yes, senor. I go there very often.”
“Why, pray?”
“Simply out of curiosity. Mr. Santley is a beautiful preacher, and has a silvery voice. While you were away, I went once, twice, three times. There is a young senora there who plays sweetly upon the great organ; I like to listen, to-watch the congregation.”
“Humph! By-the-bye, Baptisto, I have been thinking over the dream of yours, when—when you were lying there.”
“Yes, senor?”
“Pray, what put such a foolish idea in your head?”
“I cannot tell, senor; all I know is, it came. A foolish dream, do you say? I suppose it is because the clergyman was here so often, when you were away. And madame is so devout! I trust, senor, my dream has not given you offence; perhaps I was wrong to speak of it at all.”
Haldanes face had gone black as a thunder-cloud. Placing his hand on the other’s shoulder, and looking firmly into his face, he said—
“Listen to me, Baptisto.”
“I am listening, senor.”
“If I thought you would come back to life to tell lies about your mistress, I would have let you lie the other day and rot like a dead dog, rather than have recovered you at all. You hear? Take care! I know you do not love your mistress, but if you dare to whisper one word against her, I will drive you for ever from my door.”
Baptisto bowed his head respectfully before the storm, but retained his usual composure.
“Senor, may I speak?”
“Yes; but again, take care!”
“You should not blame me if I am jealous for your honour!”
Haldane started, and uttered an expletive.
“My honour, you dog? What do you mean?”
“This, senor. I would rather die than give you offence; and as for the senora, I love her also, for is she not your wife? But will you be angry still, when I tell you, when I warn you, to beware of that man, that priest? He is a bad man, very bad. Ah, I have watched—and seen!”
“What have you seen?” cried Haldane, clutching him by the arm. “Come, out with it!”
“Enough to show me that he is not your friend—that he is dangerous.”
“Bah! is that all? Now, listen to me, and be sure I mean what I say. I will have no servant of mine spying upon my wife. I will have no servant of mine insinuating that my honour is in danger. If I hear another word of this, if you convey to me by one look the fact that you are still prying, spying, and suspecting, I shall take you by the collar and send you flying out of my house. Now, go!”
Baptisto, who knew his master’s temper perfectly, bowed and withdrew. He had no wish to say one word more. He had thrown out a dark hint, a black seed of suspicion, and he knew that he might safely let it work. It did work, rapidly and terribly. Left alone, Haldane became a prey to the wildest fears and suspicions. He remembered now that his wife had been acquainted with this man in her girlhood; that there had even been some passage of love between them. He remembered how eagerly she had renewed the acquaintance, and with what admiring zeal the clergyman had responded. He pictured to himself the sympathetic companionship, the zealous meetings, the daily religious intercourse, of these two young people, each full of the fervour of a blind superstition. Could it be possible that they loved each other? Questioning his memory, he recalled looks, words, tones, which, although scarcely noticed at the time, seemed now of painful significance. The mere thought was sickening. Already he realized the terrible phrase-of the poet Young—“the jealous are the damned.”
Haldane was not habitually a violent man. Though passionate and headstrong by temperament, he had schooled himself to gentleness after a stormy youth, and the chilly waters of philosophy, at which he drank daily, kept his head cool and his pulses calm. But the stormy spirit, though hushed, was not altogether dead within him, and under his habitual reticence and good-humoured cynicism, there lay the most passionate idolatry for his beautiful wife. He had set her up in his heart of hearts, with a faith too perfect for much expression; and it had not occurred to him, in his remotest dreams, that any other man could ever come between them.
And now, suddenly as a lightning flash illumining a dark landscape, the fear came upon him that perhaps he had been unwary and unwise. Was it possible, he asked himself, that he had’ been too studious and too book-loving, too reticent also in all those little attentions which by women, who always love sweetmeats, are so tenderly prized? Moreover, he was ten years his wife’s, elder—was that disparity of years also a barrier between their souls? No; he was sure it was not. He was sure that she was not hypocritical, and that she loved him. Wherever the blame might be, if blame there were, it was certainly not hers. She had been in all respects, a tender and a sympathetic wife; encouraging his deep study of science, even when she most distrusted its results; proud of his attainments, and eager for his success; in short, a perfect helpmate, but for her old-fashioned prejudices in the sphere of religion. Ah, religion! There was the one word which solved the enigma, and aroused in our philosopher’s bosom that fierce indignation which long ago led Lucretius into such passionate hate against the Phantom,=
Which with horrid head
Leered hideously from all the gates of heaven!”
It needed only this to complete his loathing for the popular theology, for all its teachers. Yes, he reflected, religion only was to blame. In its name, his wife’s sympathies had been tampered with, her spirit more or less turned against himself; in its name, his house had been secretly invaded, his domestic happiness poisoned, his peace of mind destroyed. It was the old story! Wherever this shadow of superstition crawled, craft and dissimulation began. Now, as in the beginning, it came between father and child, sister and brother, man and wife.
It so happened that when George Haldane came forth from having his dark hour alone, he rather avoided meeting his wife at once, and, taking his hat, stepped out from the laboratory on to the shrubbery path. He had scarcely done so, when his eye fell upon two figures standing together in the distance, upon the terrace of the house. One was Mrs. Haldane, wearing her garden hat and a loose shawl thrown over her shoulders. The other was the clergyman of the parish.
Haldane drew back, and watched. In that moment he knew the extent of his humiliation; for never before had he been a spy upon his wife’s actions.
Their backs were towards him. Santley was talking eagerly; Ellen was looking down. Presently they began to move slowly along the terrace, side by side.
Haldane watched them gloomily. The sunlight fell brightly upon them, and on the old Manor house, with its brilliant creepers and glittering panes, while the old chapel, with the watcher in its ruined porch, remained in shadow. It seemed like an omen. In the darkness of his hiding-place, Haldane felt satanic. Yes, there they walked—children of God, as they called themselves—in God’s sunlight; and he, the searcher for light, the unbeliever, was forgotten.
Presently Santley paused again, and, with an impassioned gesture, pointed upward. Ellen raised her head, and looked upward too, listening eagerly to his words. Haldane laughed fiercely to himself, with all the ugliness of his jealousy upon him.
Presently they disappeared into the house. A little afterwards Santley emerged from the front door, and came walking rapidly down the avenue. His manner was eager and happy, almost jubilant, and Haldane saw, when he approached, that his face looked positively radiant.
He was passing, when Haldane stepped out and confronted him. He started, paused, and a shadow fell instantaneously upon his handsome face. Recovering himself, he held out his hand. Haldane did not seem to see the gesture, but, nodding a careless greeting, said, with his habitual sang froid—
“Well met, Mr. Santley. Here I am again, you see, hard at work. Have you come from the house?”
“Yes,” answered Santley.
“On some new message of Christian charity and beneficence, I suppose? Ah, my dear sir, you are indefatigable. And the old women of the parish must indeed find you a Good Shepherd. Did you find my wife at home?”
“Yes.”
“And zealous, as usual, I suppose?’ Ah, what a thing it is to be pious! But let me beg you not to encourage her too much. Charity begins at home; and what with soup-kitchens, offertories, subscriptions for church repairs, and societies for the gratuitous distribution of flannel waistcoats, I am in a fair way of being ruined.”
Santley forced a laugh.
“Don’t be afraid. My errand to-day was not a begging one, I assure you.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“I was merely bringing Mrs. Haldane a book I promised to lend her. To tell the truth, she finds your library rather destitute of works of a religious nature.”
“Do you really think so?” exclaimed Haldane, drily. “Why, I thought it unusually well provided in that respect. Let me see! There are Volney’s ‘Ruins of Empire,’ Monboddo’s ‘Dissertations,’ Drummond’s ‘Academical Questions,’ excellent translations of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, not to speak of thirty-six volumes of Diderot, and fifty of Arouet.”
Santley opened his eyes in horror and astonishment.
“Arouet!” he ejaculated. “Do you actually mean to call Voltaire a religious writer?”
“Highly so. There is religion even in ‘La Pucelle,’ but it reaches its culmination in the ‘Philosophical Dictionary.’”
“And you would actually let Mrs. Haldane read such works as those?”
“Certainly; though, am sorry to say, she prefers ‘The Old Helmet’ and the ‘Heir of Redclyffe.’ May I ask the name of the work you have been good enough to lend her?”
“It is a book from which I myself have received great benefit—Père Hyacinthes ‘Sermons.’”
“Père Hyacinthe?” repeated Haldane. “Ah! the jolly priest who reverenced celibacy, and proclaimed himself the father of a strapping boy. Well, the man was at least honest. I think all clergymen should marry, and at as early an age as possible. What is your opinion?”
Santley flushed to the temples, while Haldane watched him with a gloomy smile.
“I think—I am sure,” he stammered, “that the married state is the happiest—perhaps the holiest.”
“With these sentiments, of which I cordially approve, why the deuce are you a bachelor?”
The clergyman winced at the question, and his colour deepened; then, as if musing, he glanced round towards the house—a look which was observed and fully appreciated by his tormentor.
“I am sure my wife would encourage you to change your condition. Like most women, she is by instinct a matchmaker.”
Santley did not seem to hear; at any rate, he made no reply, but, holding out his hand quickly, exclaimed—
“I must go now. I am rather in haste.”
Haldane did not take the hand, but put his arm upon the clergyman’s shoulder.
“Well, good day,” he said. “Take my advice, though, and get a sensible wife as soon as possible.”
Santley tried to smile, but only succeeded in looking more pale and nervous than usual. With a few murmured words of adieu, he moved rapidly away.
Haldane watched him thoughtfully until he disappeared down the avenue.
“I wonder if that man can smile?” he said to himself. “No; I am afraid he is too horribly in earnest. I suppose, the women would call him handsome—spiritual; but I hate such pallid, waxen-featured, handsome dolls. A pretty shepherd, that, for a Christian flock to follow; a fellow who makes his very ignorance of this world constitute his claim to act as cicerone to the next. Fancy being jealous, actually jealous, of such a thing as that!”
He turned back into his laboratory and tried to dismiss Baptisto’s suggestion from his mind; but it was impossible. He could not disguise from himself that Santley, with his seraphic face and sad, earnest eyes, was the kind of creature whom the weaker sex adore, and that he was rendered doubly dangerous to women by the radiant mesmerism of a fascinating and voluptuous celestial superstition.
I am about to set down, in as concise a manner as possible, and at present solely for my private edification (some day, perhaps, another eye may read the lines, but not yet), certain events which have lately influenced my domestic life. Were it not that even a professed scientist might decline to publish experiments affecting his own private happiness, the description of the events to which I allude might almost form a chapter in my slowly progressing “Physiology of Ethics,” and the description would be at least as interesting as many of Ferriers accounts of vivisection on dumb animals. But, unfortunately, I am unable, in this case, to apply the dissecting knife to my neighbours heart, without laying bare the ugly wound in my own.
To begin then, I, George Haldane, recluse, pessimist, moral physiologist, and would-be moral philosopher, have discovered, at forty years of age, that I am capable of the most miserable of all human passions; worse, that this said ignoble passion of jealousy has a certain rational foundation. 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. Well, nous avons changé tout cela. My mind is no longer peaceful, my hearth no longer sacred; and the woman I love seems slowly drifting from me on a stream of sensuous spiritualism—another name for a religious rehabilitation of the flesh.
If any other man were the victim, I should think the situation highly absurd. Here, on the one hand, is a fanatical Protestant priest, with the face of a seraphic monk, the experience of a schoolgirl, and the gaucherie of a country chorister who has never grown a beard; a fellow whose sole claims to notice are his white hands, his clean linen, and his function as a silly shepherd; a man fresh from college, ignorant of the world. 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. A fiery Spaniard, like Baptisto yonder, would end the affair with a stiletto-thrust; but I, of colder blood, am not likely to do anything so courageous or so foolish, but am content to watch and watch, and to feel the sick contamination of my suspicion creeping over me like an unwholesome mildew. A stiletto thrust? Why, the mere tongue, a less fatal weapon, would do it all. If I could only summon up the courage to say to my wife, “I know your secret; choose between this man and me, between his creed and mine, between your duty as a wife and your zeal as a Christian,” I fancy there would be an end to it all. But I am too timorous; I suppose, too ashamed of my suspicions, too proud to acknowledge so contemptible a rival. As a Spaniard covers his face with his mantle, I veil my soul with my pride; and, under the mantle of unsuspicion, rest irresolute, while the thing grows.
Once or twice, I have thought of another way—of taking my wife by the hand and saying, “To-morrow, my dear, we shall leave this place, and return to Spain or Italy—some quiet place abroad.” I could easily find an excuse for the migration, which, once effected, would make an end of the affair. But that, in my opinion, would be too cowardly. It would, indeed, be an admission that the danger was real and imminent; that, in other words, the fight for honour could only be saved by an ignominious retreat. No; Ellen Haldane must take her chance. If she is not strong enough to hold out against evil, then let her go—au bon Dieu or au bon diable, as either leads.
Yet what am I saying? It is precisely because I have the utmost faith in her purity of heart that I watch the struggle with a certain patience. I believe there will be a victim, but not my Ellen. Surely, if there is a good woman in the world, she is that woman. As for the other, every day, every hour, brings the cackling creature further and further into my decoy. Even if he tried to turn back now, I do not think I should let him. No; let him swim in and on, and in and on, till he reaches the place where I, like the decoy man, can catch him fluttering, and—wring his neck? Perhaps.
It is quite clear that the man takes me for an idiot. At first he used precautions, invented subterfuges; latterly, certain of my stupidity or indifference, he comes and goes without disguise. When I meet him driving side by side of my wife in the phaeton, on some pretended errand of mercy, he gives me a careless bow, a nod. As he goes by my den, on his way to invite her out to visit his sister or his church, he makes no excuse, but passes jauntily, with a conversational pat for the stupid watch-dog: that is all. It would be amusing, I say, if it were not almost insufferable.
This afternoon, as Ellen was going out, I blankly suggested that she should stay at home.
“But you are busy,” she said—“always busy with your books and experiments.”
“Not too busy, my dear Nell, for a tête-à-tête with you. Where are you going? To the Vicarage?”
“Yes.”
“To see the parson, or his sister?”
“Both. We have a great deal to discuss, about the designs for the new stained-glass windows, which have just come from London.”
“Very interesting; but they will keep for a day. I fancy I could show you something quite as interesting, in my laboratory.”
“I hate the laboratory,” she cried, “and those horrible experiments.”
“My dear, you should not hate what your husband loves.”
“I don’t mean that I hate them, quite; but I think them so useless!”
“More useless than stained-glass windows?”
“It is certainly not useless to beautify the House of God. Oh, I do so wish you could feel as I do about these things! What is the world without them?”
“Without stained-glass windows?” I suggested sarcastically.
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!”
It was like a stab into my heart of hearts, that cry of thanks to God. Despite myself, I lost my composure. She saw it instantly, and in the manner of her sex, encroached.
“Oh, George, do try to think sometimes of these things, for my sake! You would be so much happier, you surely would have so much more blessing, if you sometimes prayed.”
“How do you know that I do not pray?”
“Because you do not believe.”
“I do not believe precisely as your priest believes, that is all.”
She looked at me eagerly; then, after a moments hesitation, cried—
“George, if I asked a favour, would you grant it?”
“Try.”
“Let Mr. Santley come sometimes, and speak with you about God!”
This was too much, almost, for even me to bear with equanimity. I am afraid I did not look particularly amiable as I answered, sharp and short, turning from her—
“After all, I think you had better go and look at those designs.”
“There, you are angry again!” she cried; and I knew by the sound of her voice that her throat was choked with tears. “You are always angry when I touch upon religion.”
“You were not talking of religion,” I retorted; “you were talking of that man.”
“Why do you dislike him so? Because he is a preacher of the Word?”
“Because he is a canting hypocrite, like all his tribe,” I cried.
She saw that I had lost my temper, as was inevitable, and, sighing deeply, moved to the door. I followed her with my eyes. I would have given the world to call her back; to clasp her in my arms; to tell her my aching fears; to promise her I would worship any God she choose, in any place, in any way, so long as she would only be true, and answer my eager impulse with a little love. But I was too proud for that.
“Then you are going?” I said.
She turned, looking at me very sadly.
“Yes, if you do not mind.”
I shrugged my shoulders, and after another sad, reproachful look, she left the room. A minute afterwards, she drove her ponies past the window, without looking up.
Thursday, September 15.—A golden autumn day, so warm and still that it reminded me of the Indian summer. Not a leaf stirred, but the insects in the air were like floating blossoms, and seemed to sleep upon their wings. Even all round my den the shadows were sultry, and intertangled with slumberous shafts of light.
This fine weather rather disappointed me, for I had arranged for a day’s recreation. In my youth, before I was caught myself in the tedious snares of speculation, I used to be an ardent fisherman, and I still retain sufficient knowledge of the gentle craft to cast a fly tolerably. So, tired of work, and a little weary of my own thoughts, I determined, for the first time, to take advantage of the permission my neighbour, Lord ————, has given me, and spend a day upon the river banks.
Despite the sunshine, and the absence of even a breath of wind, I shouldered my basket, lifted my rod, and set off. Ellen was already out and about; so I did not see her before I started. Taking a short cut through the shrubberies, I soon came to the banks of the Emmet—as pretty a little stream as ever rippled over golden sands, or reached out an azure arm to turn some merry watermill. Arrived there, I soon saw that it would be useless to try a cast till there was a little wind; so, without putting my rod together, I strolled on along the river-side, till I was several miles away from the Manor house.
The stream was rather low, but here and there were good deep pools, but so calm, so sunny, that every overhanging tree, every finger of fern, every blade of grass, was reflected in them as in a mirror. Still, as the time was, the waters were full of life. Over the pools hung clusters of flies like glittering spiders’ webs, scarcely moving in the sunshine; and when, from time to time, a trout rose, he leaped a full foot into the golden air above him, and sank back to coolness beneath an ever-widening ring of light. Sometimes from the grassy edge of the bank a water-rat would slip, swimming rapidly across, with his nose just lifted above the water, and his tail leaving a thin, bright trail. Water-ouzels rose at every curve, following swiftly the winding of the stream; and twice past my feet flashed a kingfisher, like an azure ray.
The way lay sometimes through deep grassy meadows, sometimes by the sides of corn-fields where the sheaves were already slanted, oftentimes through thick shrubberies and woods already yellow with the withering leaf. From time to time I passed a farm, with orchards sloping down to the very water’s edge, or pastures slanting down to shallows where the cattle waded, breaking the water to silver streaks and whisking their tails against the clustering swarms of gnats. It was very pleasant and very still, but, from a fishing point of view, exceedingly absurd.
By-and-by, however, a faint breeze began to touch the pools, and putting my rod together, and selecting my finest casting-line and two tiny flies, I tried a cast. Fortunately the wind was blowing sunward, and as I faced the light, the shadow fell behind me; but, nevertheless, the shadow of my rod flitted about at every cast, and threatened to spoil my sport. My first catch was an innocent baby-fish as big as my thumb, who came at the fly with a rush, and fought desperately when hooked. When I had disengaged him, and put him back into the water, he simply gave a flip of his little tail, and sailed contemptuously and quite leisurely out of sight, making me call to mind, with unusual humiliation, the well-known definition which Dr. Johnson gave of angling—“a fish at one end of the line, and a fool at the other,” I had tried a good many, casts before I took my first respectable fish—a trout of about half a pound. I caught him in a nice broken bit of water, just below a quaint old water-mill; and just as I put him into the basket, the portly miller came out to the granary door, and looked at me with a dusty smile. He evidently thought me a lunatic, to be out with a fishing-rod on such a day.
Half a mile further on I landed another glittering picture of at least a quarter of a pound; after that, another of half a pound; then my luck ceased, the wind fell, and it was full sunshine. By this time I had wandered a good many miles from home, and reached the spot where the river plunges into the Great Omberley woods. Here the stream was so rapid and the boughs so thick, that it was useless to think of casting; so I put up my rod, and, leaping over a fence, rambled away into the woods.
How strange and dark and still it was, passing out of the sunshine into those shadows, deep and cool as the bottom of the sea! The oak trees stretched their gnarled boughs into the air, and all around them were the lesser trees of the wood-willow, elder, blackthorn, ash, and hazel. The ground beneath was carpeted with moss and grass as thick and soft as velvet, with thick clusters of fern and bluebells round the tree roots, and creepers dangling from every bough. And the wood, like the river, was all alive! Conies tumbled across the patches of light, and flitted in the shadow, like very elves of the woodland; squirrels ran up the gnarled tree trunks; harmless silver snakes glided along the moss; but here and there, swift and ominous, ran a weazel, darting its head this way and that, and fiercely scenting the air, in one eternal glitter and hurry of bloodthirsty emotion. Thrush, blackbird, finch, birds without number, sang overhead; save when the shadow of the wind-hover or the sparrow-hawk passed across the topmost branches, when there was a sudden and respectful silence, to be followed by a precipitate hurry of exultation, as the enemy passed away.
If I had been a moralist, I might have seen in this wood a microcosm of the world, with its abundant happiness, its beauty, and its dark spots of moral ugliness and cruelty. In you, Signor Weazel (who came so near that I touched you with my rod, which you snapped at ferociously, before bolting swiftly into the deep grass), I might have seen the likeness of a certain sleek creature of my own sex and species, who dwells not very far away. Nevertheless, I let you go in peace; which was no mercy to the conies, I suppose.
So I entered the Forest Primaeval—or such it seemed to me, as the blaze of sunshine faded, the boughs thickened, the air became full of dark shadows and ominous silence. My steps were now deep in grass and fern, and the scent of flowers and weeds was thick in my nostrils, but I chose a path where the boughs were thinnest, and quietly pushed through. While thus I rambled, I suppose that I fell, philosopher like, into a dream; at any rate, I seemed to lose all count of time.=
The world, the life of men, dissolved away
Into a sense of dimness,
as some poet sings. I felt primaeval—archetypal so to speak, till a sudden’ shifting of the vegetable kaleidoscope recalled from thoughts of Plato and the Archetype to a cruel consciousness of self.
I was moving slowly on, when I heard the sound of voices quite close to me. I paused, listening, and only just in time, for in another moment I should have been visible to the speakers. Well shrouded in deep foliage, I looked out to discover what sylvan creatures were disporting themselves in that lonely place; and I saw—what shall I say? A nymph and a satyr? a dryad and a goatfooted Faun?
Just beyond me, there was a broad-green road through the woodland, deeply carpeted with soft grass, but marked here and there with the broad track of a wood-waggon; and on the side of this solitary road, on a rude seat fashioned of two oaken stumps and a rough plank, the nymph was sitting. She wore a light dress of some soft material, a straw hat, a country cloak, and gloves of Paris kid—a civilized nymph, as you perceive! To complete her modern appearance, she carried a closed parasol, and a roll which looked like music.
How pretty she looked, with the warm light playing upon her delicate features, and suffusing her form in its delicate drapery; with the semi-transparent branches behind her, and flowers of the woodland at her feet!