But with Mr. Bexley, Mrs. Anerley continued on the most friendly terms; and on this day, so anxious was she, poor soul, to see her husband united to her in the bonds of faith, that she talked to Mr. Bexley for a few minutes, and begged him to call round in the evening and try the effect of spiritual counsel on this sheep who had wandered from the fold.
Mr. Bexley was precisely the man to undertake such a responsibility with gladness—nay, with eagerness. Many a time had he dined at Mr. Anerley's house; but, being a gentleman as well as a clergyman, he did not seek to take advantage of his position, and turn the kindly after-dinner talk of the household into a professional séance. But when he was appealed to by the wife of the mentally sick man he responded joyously. He was a very shy and nervously sensitive man—as you might have seen by his fine, lank, yellow hair, the singular purity of his complexion, the weakness of his eyes, and a certain spasmodic affection of the corner of his lips—but he had no fear of ridicule when he was on his Master's service. Mr. Anerley and he, indeed, were great friends; and the former, though he used to laugh at the clergyman's ignorance of guns and rods, and at his almost childish optimism, respected him as one honest man respects another. The rationalist looked upon the supernaturalisms of this neighbour of his with much curiosity, some wonder, and a little admiration. Yet he never could quite account for these phenomena. He could not understand, for instance, why one of the most subtle and dispassionate minds of our day should sadly address an old friend as from the other side of the grave, simply because the latter was removed from him by a few (to Mr. Anerley) unimportant and merely technical doctrinal points. Mr. Bexley was a constant puzzle to him. Indeed, the firmest facts in Mr. Bexley's theory of life were what a Sensationalist would at once put down as delusions or mere hypotheses. He was full of the most exalted ideas of duty, of moral responsibility, of the value of fine shades of opinion and psychical experience. He worshipped Dr. Newman, whose verses he regarded as a new light thrown upon the history of the soul. He had a passionate admiration for the Spectator; and shed, at least, a good deal of political enlightenment upon his parish by insisting on the farmers around reading each number as it was sent down from London. Mr. Bexley ought never to have been in the service of a State church. He had the "prophetic" instinct. Proselytism came as natural to him as the act of walking. He abhorred and detested leaving things alone, and letting them right themselves. This Kentish Jonah found a Nineveh wherever he went; he was never afraid to attack it single-handed; and most of all, he raised his voice against the materialists and sensationalists—the destroyers of the beautiful idealisms of the soul.
When one's wife and her favourite clergyman enter into league against one's convictions, the chances are that the convictions will suffer. Such combinations are unfair. There are some men, for example, who would refuse to be attended by a doctor who was on very friendly terms with an undertaker; they fear the chance of collusion.
It was almost dusk when Mr. Bexley went round to Chesnut Bank, and then he found Mr. Anerley seated outside, on a carved oaken bench, under some lime-trees fronting the lawn. He was alone, and on the rude table before him were some decanters and bottles, one or two fruit-plates, and a box of cigars.
"Oh, good evening, Mr. Bexley," said the lost one; "will you have a cigar?"
"Thank you."
"Sit down. That's claret next you, and there's still some sparkling Burgundy in the bottle. The children are very fond of it—I suppose because it looks like currant-jelly in hysterics."
Cigars and claret don't seem quite the avenue by which to approach an inquiry into the condition of a man's soul; but Mr. Bexley was too excited to heed what he did. He had the proselytising ecstasy upon him. He was like one of the old crusaders about to ride up to the gate of a godless Saracen city and demand its surrender. Did not Greatheart, when about to engage with the giant, refresh himself with the wine which Christiana carried?
"You were not at church this morning," he said, carelessly.
But his assumed carelessness was too evident; his forte was not diplomacy.