CHAPTER XXVI. FIRST LEAVES FROM A PHILOSOPHER NOTE-BOOK
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!
CHAPTER XXVII. THE NOTE-BOOK CONTINUED NYMPH AND SATYR
And the satyr? Ah! I knew him at a glance, despite the elegant modern boots used to disguise the cloven foot.
He wore black broadcloth and snowy linen, too, and a broad-brimmed clerical hat. His face was seraphically pale, but I saw (or fancied I saw) the twinkle of the hairy ears of the ignoble, sensual, nymph-compelling, naiad-pursuing breed.
He was talking earnestly, with gestures of eager entreaty; for the nymph was crying, and he was offering her some kind of consolation.
Presently he sat down by her side, and threw his arms around her. She disengaged herself from his embrace, and rose trembling to her feet.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried. “That is all over now. I cannot bear it!”
He rose also, and stood regarding her, not with the rapturous eyes’ of a lover, but with a dark and gloomy gaze. Then he said, in a low voice, something which I could not catch. But I heard her passionate reply.
“No, it is all over,” she cried; “and I shall never be at peace again. Even, if you kept your word, it would be the same. You do not love me; you never loved me – never!”
I crept a little closer, for I was anxious to hear his answer.
“I do love you, Edith; and after what has passed between us – ”
She shrank away with a faint, despairing cry, and put her hand to her face.
“After what has passed between us, do you think that my love can change? But you are unjust to me, to yourself; too violent and too hard to please. I do not like to be suspected, to be watched; and it is painful to me, very painful, to be constantly called to an account by you. It is not reasonable. Even as your husband, I would not bear it; it would poison the peace between us, and convert our married life into a simple hell!”
He paused; but her only answer was a sob of pain. So he sermonized on:
“Between man and woman, Edith, there should be solemn confidence and trust. When that ceases, love is sure to cease. Why, look at me! My trust in you is so absolute that no action of yours could shake it; no matter how peculiar were the circumstances, I should be certain of your faith, your goodness. That is true love – absolute, implicit faith in the beloved object. I wish I could persuade you to imitate it.”
“You know that you can trust me,” sobbed the poor child, “because I have: proved my love.”
“Have I not proved mine?” he cried, with irritation. “Have I not made sacrifice upon sacrifice for your sake? Have I not remained here, in this wretched country place, when I could have been promoted to other and greater spheres of action? Have I not made you my companion, my confidante, my nearest and dearest friend? Edith, why do you persist in such accusations? What must I do to signify our attachment? Shall I marry you at once? Speak the word, and although, as you know, it would involve the ruin of all my worldly projects, I will do as you desire.”
I had-heard enough to convince me that the affair under discussion was no affair of mine, and that I had no right to continue playing the spy; so I was drawing back as gently as possible, and about to return the way I came, when I was suddenly arrested by the next words spoken.
“Give up Mrs. Haldane!”
I The nymph was the speaker. She stood with her wild eyes fixed upon the other’s face, which did not improve in beauty of expression. For myself, I started, stung to the quick; then I returned, trembling, to my place of espionage.
“Give up Mrs. Haldane!” repeated the girl. “I ask nothing more than that. I will not force you to marry me, Charles, till it is for your good; indeed, if I did, I know that we should be unhappy, and that you would never forgive me. But you can at least cease to be so familiar with Mrs. Haldane.”
He had discovered by this time, I suppose, that the pleading mood availed him little; at all events, he suddenly changed his tone, and with a cry of angry indignation, he exclaimed —
“Edith, take care! I have told you that I will not suffer it! How dare you suspect that lady! How dare you!”
And he stood towering over her (the satyr!) in the fulness of his snowy shirtfront and the whiteness of his moral indignation.
“It is no use being angry,” she returned, with a certain stubbornness, though I could see that she was cowed, in the manner of gentle women, by his violent physical passion. “After what you have told me, after what I have seen – ”
“Edith, again, take care!”
“You are always with her,” she continued, “night-time and day-time. I am amazed that Mr. Haldane does not notice it. It is the talk of the place.”
With another exclamation, he turned his back and walked rapidly away.
“Come back!” she cried hysterically. “If you leave like that, I will drown myself in the river.”
He returned and faced her.
“You will drive me mad!” he said. “I am sick of it. I am more like a slave than a free man. You will not suffer me even to have a friend.”
“She is more than a friend. You have told me yourself, that you loved her.”
“And so I did,” he answered, “though of course she is nothing to me now.”
“Why are you always with her?”
“I am interested in her, deeply interested. She is unhappy with her husband, and as a minister of the gospel – ”
With her tearful, truthful eyes, fixed so earnestly upon him, no wonder he paused and blushed.
“Charles, do not be a hypocrite! At least be honest. She is more to you than a friend.”
He raised his hands heavenward, in pulpit fashion, and protested.
“Edith, I swear to you before God, that there is nothing whatever between us. She is a stainless lady, her husband does not understand her, I am her spiritual friend and guide.”
“Yes, Charles; I understand,” she said, still earnestly watching him. “Justus you were mine!”
I think it worth while to put that little sentence in italics. It was a home stroke, and took away the satyr’s breath.
“Edith, for shame!” he cried. “You know you do not mean what you say. If I thought you meant it, I should break with you for ever. I tell you again, Mrs. Haldane is above reproach, and it is simply disgraceful to couple her name, in such a manner, with mine. And you would infer, now, that I have influenced your own life for evil; you would mock at my spiritual pretensions, and brand me as a base, unworthy creature. Well, Edith, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I have given you cause. I have shown you that I love you, beyond position, beyond the world, beyond even my own self-respect, and this is my return.”
I could have sprung out and strangled the fellow, he was so cruel and yet so plausible, so superbly selfish and yet so completely self-deceiving; and I saw that with every word he uttered he gained a fresh hold over the heart of the pretty fool who was listening. While he spoke, she sobbed as if her little heart was ready to break; and when he ceased, she eagerly held out her arms.
“Oh, Charles, don’t say that! Don’t say that my love has been a curse to you!”
“You drive me to say it,” he answered moodily; “you make me miserable with your jealousy, your suspicion.”
“Don’t say that I make you miserable – don’t!” she sobbed.
“You used to be so different,” he continued, still preserving his tone of moral injury; “you used to be so interested in my work, my daily duties. Now, you do nothing but reproach me; and why? Because I have found an old friend, who happens to be of your own sex, but who is far above the folly of a meaningless flirtation, and who little deserves the cruel slur you cast upon her. Am I, then, to have no friends, no acquaintances? Is every step I take to be measured by the unreasoning suspicion of a jealous woman?”
By this time she had put her arms about his neck, and was sobbing on his breast.
“Oh, Charles, don’t be so hard with me! It is all because I love you – ah, so much!”
“But you should conquer these wicked feelings – ”
“I try! I try!”
“You should have more confidence, more faith. You know how much I care for you.”
“Yes; but sometimes I feel afraid. Mrs. Haldane is so much cleverer, so much more beautiful, than I am, and she was your first love. They say men never love twice.”
“That is nonsense, Edith.”
“But you do love me, dear? you do?”
Ugh, the satyr! He answered her with kisses, straining her to his heart and she, sobbing and clinging round him, was quite conquered. I felt sick to see her at his mercy. Then their voices sank, and he whispered, and I saw the bright blood mount to her cheek and brow. But, alas! she did not shrink away any more.
Then whispering and kissing, with eyes of passion fixed upon one another, they moved away, taking a lonely path into the woods beyond me. My first impulse was to follow them, and to tear them asunder. But after all, I reflected it was no affair of mine, and I knew now, moreover, that nothing in the world would save her from him – or from herself.