“Oh, Mr. Santley, I am so pleased you have said that. I have often wished that I were able to answer my husband, but I have no power of argument,” said Mrs. Haldane, looking gratefully at the vicar. “You must not think he is not a good, a real practical Christian, in spite of his opinions.”
Mr. Haldane laughed quietly as his wife slipped her hand into his.
“As to the God of the Paleolithic man, Mr. Santley forgets that it was at best a personification of some of the great natural powers—wind; rain, thunder, sunshine, and moonlight; and as to Christianity, my dear, there is much in the teaching of Christ, and even of the Church, which I reverence and hold sacred. Morality, and the consequent civilization of the world, owes more to Christianity than to any other creed. It has done much evil, but I think it has done more good. Purified from its mythic delusions, it has still a splendid future before it.”
“And à propos of practical Christianity, Mr. Santley,” continued Mrs. Haldane, “I want to talk to you about the parish. I am eager to begin with my poor people again; and, by-the-bye, the children have, I understand, had no school treat yet this year. Now, sit down here and tell me all about your sick, in the first place.”
Mr. Haldane stood listening to the woes and illnesses of the village for a few minutes, and then left them together in deep discussions over flannels and medicines and nourishing food. Dinner passed pleasantly enough. The vicar had satisfied his conscience by protesting against the desecration of the chapel and the disastrous results of scientific research. Clearly it was useless, and worse than useless, to contend with this large-natured, clear-headed unbeliever. It was infinitely more agreeable to feel the soft dark light of Mrs. Haldane’s eyes dwelling on his face, and to listen to the music of her voice as she told him of their travels abroad. In his imagination the scenes she described rose before him, and he and she were the central figures in the clear, new landscape. He thought of their walks on the cliffs and on the sea-shore, in the golden days that had gone by. How easily it might have been!
The sun had gone down when he parted from his host and hostess at the great gate at the end of the avenue. He had declined their offer to drive him over to Omberley. He preferred walking in the cool of the evening, and the distance was, he professed, not at all too great. As he shook hands with her, that wild, etherial fancy of a world to come, in which her husband would have no claim to her, brightened his eyes and flushed his cheek. There was a strange nervous pressure in the touch of his hand, and an expression of surprise started into her face. He noticed it at once, and was warned. Mr. Haldane’s farewell was bluffly cordial, and he warmly pressed the vicar to call on them at any time that best suited his convenience.
They were pretty sure to be always at home, and they were not likely to have too much company.
As he walked along the high-road, bordered on one side with the green murmuring masses of foliage, and on the other with waving breadths of corn, his mind was absorbed in that new dream of transcendent love. There was nothing earthly or gross in this dawning glow of spiritual passion; indeed, it raised him in delicious exaltation beyond the coarseness of the physical, till, as it suddenly occurred to him that somewhere on his way Edith was waiting for him, his heart rose in revulsion at the recollection of her. At the same time there was a large element of the sensuous beauty of transient humanity in that celestial forecast. The pure, radiant spirit of the woman he loved still wore the sweet lineaments of her earthly loveliness. Death had not destroyed that magical face; those dark, luminous, loving eyes; that sweet shape of womanhood. The spiritual body was cast in the mould of the physical, and the chief difference lay in a shining mistiness of colour, which floated in a sort of elusive drapery about the glorified woman, and replaced the worldly silks and satins of the living wife. This spiritual being was no intangible abstraction, of which only the intellect could take cognizance. As in its temporal condition, it could still kiss and thrill with a touch. Clearly, however unconscious he might be of the fact, the vicar’s conception of the divine was intensely human, and his spiritual idealizations were the immediate growth and delicate blossom of the senses.
A great stillness was growing over the land as he pursued his way. The woodlands had been left behind him, and their incessant murmur was now inaudible. Sleep and quietude had fallen on the level fields; not an ear of wheat stirred, no leaf rustled. The birds had all gone to nest, except a solitary string of belated crows, flying low down in black dots, against the distant silvery green horizon. The moon was rising through a low-lying haze, which had begun to spread over the landscape. The vicar looked at his watch. It was after nine o’clock. He began to hope that Edith had grown tired of waiting for him, and had returned home. He had a sickening feeling of repugnance and vague dread of meeting her.
Little more than a month after Mr. Santley had settled in Omberley, Miss Dove had come to live with her aunt.