Robert Elsmere
went back to his own work new names would occur to him, and full of the
scholar's avaricious sense of the shortness of time, he would shake his
head and frown over the three months which young Elsmere had already
passed, grappling with problems like Teutonic Arianism, the spread of
Monasticism in Gaul, and Heaven knows what besides, half a mile from the
man and the library which could have supplied him with the best help to
be got in England, unbenefited by either! Mile End was obliterated, and
the annoyance of the morning forgotten.
The next day was Sunday, a wet January Sunday, raw and sleety, the frost
breaking up on all sides and flooding the roads with mire.
Robert, rising in his place to begin morning service, and wondering to
see the congregation so good on such a day, was suddenly startled, as
his eye travelled mechanically over to the Hall pew, usually tenanted by
Mrs. Darcy in solitary state, to see the characteristic figure of the
squire. His amazement was so great that he almost stumbled in the
exhortation, and his feeling was evidently shared by the congregation,
which throughout the service showed a restlessness, an excited tendency
to peer round corners and pillars, that was not favourable to devotion.
'Has he come to spy out the land?' the rector thought to himself, and
could not help a momentary tremor at the idea of preaching before so
formidable an auditor. Then he pulled himself together by a great
effort, and fixing his eyes on a shock-headed urchin half way down the
church, read the service to him. Catherine meanwhile in her seat on the
northern side of the nave, her soul lulled in Sunday peace, knew nothing
of Mr. Wendover's appearance.
Robert preached on the first sermon of Jesus, on the first appearance of
the young Master in the synagogue at Nazareth:--
'_This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears!_'
The sermon dwelt on the Messianic aspect of Christ's mission, on the
mystery and poetry of that long national expectation, on the pathos of
Jewish disillusion, on the sureness and beauty of Christian insight as
faith gradually transferred trait after trait of the Messiah of prophecy
to the Christ of Nazareth. At first there was a certain amount of
hesitation, a slight wavering hither and thither--a difficult choice of
words--and then the soul freed itself from man, and the preacher forgot
all but his Master and his people.
At the door as he came out stood Mr. Wendover, and Catherine, slightly
flushed and much puzzled for conversation, beside him. The Hall carriage
was drawn close up to the door, and Mrs. Darcy, evidently much excited,
had her small head out of the window, and was showering a number of
flighty inquiries and suggestions on her brother, to which he paid no
more heed than to the patter of the rain.
When Robert appeared the squire addressed him ceremoniously--
'With your leave. Mr. Elsmere, I will walk with you to the rectory.'
Then, in another voice, 'Go home, Laetitia, and don't send anything or
anybody.'
He made a signal to the coachman, and the carriage started, Mrs. Darcy's
protesting head remaining out of window as long as anything could be
seen of the group at the church door. The odd little creature had paid
one or two hurried and recent visits to Catherine during the quarrel,
visits so filled, however, with vague railing against her brother and by
a queer incoherent melancholy, that Catherine felt them extremely
uncomfortable, and took care not to invite them. Clearly she was
mortally afraid of 'Roger,' and yet ashamed of being afraid. Catherine
could see that all the poor thing's foolish whims and affectations were
trampled on; that she suffered, rebelled, found herself no more able to
affect Mr. Wendover than if she had been a fly buzzing round him, and
became all the more foolish and whimsical in consequence.
The squire and the Elsmeres crossed the common to the rectory, followed
at a discreet interval by groups of villagers curious to get a look at
the squire. Robert was conscious of a good deal of embarrassment, but
did his best to hide it. Catherine felt all through as if the skies had
fallen. The squire alone was at his ease, or as much at his ease as he
ever was. He commented on the congregation, even condescended to say
something of the singing, and passed over the staring of the choristers
with a magnanimity of silence which did him credit.
They reached the rectory door, and it was evidently the squire's purpose
to come in, so Robert invited him in. Catherine threw open her little
drawing-room door, and then was seized with shyness as the squire passed
in, and she saw over his shoulder her baby, lying kicking and crowing on
the hearth-rug, in anticipation of her arrival, the nurse watching it.
The squire in his great cloak stopped, and looked down at the baby as if
it had been some curious kind of reptile. The nurse blushed, curtsied,
and caught up the gurgling creature in a twinkling.
Robert made a laughing remark on the tyranny and ubiquity of babies. The
squire smiled grimly. He supposed it was necessary that the human race
should be carried on. Catherine meanwhile slipped out and ordered
another place to be laid at the dinner-table, devoutly hoping that it
might not be used.
It was used. The squire stayed till it was necessary to invite him, then
accepted the invitation, and Catherine found herself dispensing boiled
mutton to him, while Robert supplied him with some very modest claret,
the sort of wine which a man who drinks none thinks it necessary to have
in the house, and watched the nervousness of their little parlour-maid
with a fellow-feeling which made it difficult for him during the early
part of the meal to keep a perfectly straight countenance. After a
while, however, both he and Catherine were ready to admit that the
squire was making himself agreeable. He talked of Paris, of a
conversation he had had with M. Renan, whose name luckily was quite
unknown to Catherine, as to the state of things in the French Chamber.
'A set of chemists and quill-drivers,' he said contemptuously; 'but as
Renan remarked to me, there is one thing to be said for a government of
that sort, "Ils ne font pas la guerre." And so long as they don't run
France into adventures, and a man can keep a roof over his head and a
sou in his pocket, the men of letters at any rate can rub along. The
really interesting thing in France just now is not French
politics--Heaven save the mark!--but French scholarship. There never was
so little original genius going in Paris, and there never was so much
good work being done.'
Robert thought the point of view eminently characteristic.
'Catholicism, I suppose,' he said, 'as a force to be reckoned with, is
dwindling more and more?'
'Absolutely dead,' said the squire emphatically, 'as an _intellectual_
force. They haven't got a writer, scarcely a preacher. Not one decent
book has been produced on that side for years.'
'And the Protestants, too,' said Robert, 'have lost all their best men
of late,' and he mentioned one or two well-known French Protestant
names.
'Oh, as to French Protestantism'--and the squire's shrug was
superb--'Teutonic Protestantism is in the order of things, so to speak,
but _Latin_ Protestantism! There is no more sterile hybrid in the
world!'
Then, becoming suddenly aware that he might have said something
inconsistent with his company, the squire stopped abruptly. Robert,
catching Catherine's quick compression of the lips, was grateful to him,
and the conversation moved on in another direction.
Yes, certainly, all things considered, Mr. Wendover made himself
agreeable. He ate his boiled mutton and drank his _ordinaire_ like a
man, and when the meal was over, and he and Robert had withdrawn into
the study, he gave an emphatic word of praise to the coffee which
Catherine's housewifely care sent after them, and accepting a cigar, he
sank into the armchair by the fire and spread a bony hand to the blaze,
as if he had been at home in that particular corner for months. Robert,
sitting opposite to him, and watching his guest's eyes travel round the
room, with its medicine shelves, its rods and nets, and preparations of
uncanny beasts, its parish litter, and its teeming bookcases, felt that
the Mile End matter was turning out oddly indeed.
'I have packed you a case of books, Mr. Elsmere,' said the squire, after
a puff or two at his cigar. 'How have you got on without that collection
of Councils?'
He smiled a little awkwardly. It was one of the books Robert had sent
back. Robert flushed. He did not want the squire to regard him as wholly
dependent on Murewell.
'I bought it,' he said, rather shortly. 'I have ruined myself in books
lately, and the London Library too supplies me really wonderfully well.'
'Are these your books?' The squire got up to look at them. 'Hum, not at
all bad for a beginning. I have sent you so and so,' and he named one or
two costly folios that Robert had long pined for in vain.
The rector's eyes glistened.
'That was very good of you,' he said simply. 'They will be most
welcome.'
'And now, how much _time_,' said the other, settling himself again to
his cigar, his thin legs crossed over each other, and his great head
sunk into his shoulders, 'how much time do you give to this work?'
'Generally the mornings--not always. A man with twelve hundred souls to
look after, you know, Mr. Wendover,' said Elsmere, with a bright
half-defiant accent, 'can't make grubbing among the Franks his main
business.'
The squire said nothing, and smoked on. Robert gathered that his
companion thought his chances of doing anything worth mentioning very
small.
'Oh no,' he said, following out his own thought with a shake of his
curly hair; 'of course I shall never do very much. But if I don't, it
won't be for want of knowing what the scholar's ideal is.' And he lifted
his hand with a smile towards the squire's book on _English Culture_,
which stood in the bookcase just above him. The squire, following the
gesture, smiled too. It was a faint, slight illumining, but it changed
the face agreeably.
Robert began to ask questions about the book, about the pictures
contained in it of foreign life and foreign universities. The squire
consented to be drawn out, and presently was talking at his very best.
Racy stories of Mommsen or Von Ranke were followed by a description of
an evening of mad carouse with Heine--a talk at Nohant with George
Sand--scenes in the Duchesse de Broglie's salon--a contemptuous sketch
of Guizot--a caustic sketch of Renan. Robert presently even laid aside
his pipe, and stood in his favourite attitude, lounging against the
mantelpiece, looking down, absorbed, on his visitor. All that
intellectual passion which his struggle at Mile End had for the moment
checked in him revived. Nay, after his weeks of exclusive contact with
the most hideous forms of bodily ill, this interruption, these great
names, this talk of great movements and great causes, had a special
savour and relish. All the horizons of the mind expanded, the currents
of the blood ran quicker.
Suddenly, however, he sprang up.
'I beg your pardon? Mr. Wendover, it is too bad to interrupt you--I have
enjoyed it immensely--but the fact is I have only two minutes to get to
Sunday School in!'
Mr. Wendover rose also, and resumed his ordinary manner.
'It is I who should apologise,' he said with stiff politeness, 'for
having encroached in this way on your busy day, Mr. Elsmere.'
Robert helped him on with his coat, and then suddenly the squire turned
to him.
'You were preaching this morning on one of the Isaiah quotations in St.
Matthew. It would interest you, I imagine, to see a recent Jewish book
on the subject of the prophecies quoted in the Gospels which reached me