Foxglove Manor, Volume III (of III)

He closed his eyes, and seemed to fall into a sleep, which lasted for some hours. Suddenly he started up, as if listening, and seemed about to spring from the bed.

“What is it, dear?” asked his sister, softly soothing him.

He recognized her, and became calm in a moment.

“I was dreaming. I thought I was up at the Manor. Mary, quick – speak to me! Have they buried her?”

She looked at him in wonder and terror.

“Hush, dear! The doctor says you are to keep very quiet.”

“But I must know. Tell me, or you will kill me! What has happened? How long have I been lying here?”

“Many days. But you are better now.”

“Do you know what has taken place?” he whispered. “Ellen Haldane is dead – murdered! He killed her.”

She shook her head pityingly.

“No, no! Do not distress yourself, dear, or you will be ill again. Mrs. Haldane is quite well.”

“Quite well? No, no!”

“You have been dreaming, that is all.”

“Only dreaming?” he repeated, vacantly. “But I tell you I saw her, dead, shrouded for her grave. Mary, it must be true!”

She succeeded at last, after repeated assurances, in soothing his distracted spirit, and he fell asleep again, moaning to himself.

It was quite true, as his sister told him, that Mrs. Haldane lived. She did not tell him, however, that she had left the Manor, with her husband, and gone away back to Spain.

Was it all a dream, then, after all?

A week later, when Santley was convalescent, but still horribly overshadowed and perplexed, his sister gave him a letter, which (she said) had been left for him by the master of Foxglove Manor. It was marked “strictly private.” Santley waited until he was alone, and then, tearing it open with tremulous fingers, read as follows: —

“Sir,

“I hear that you have been ill. Before leaving for Spain, I have left this with your sister, with instructions that it is to be given you when you are strong enough to read and understand. What it contains, observe, is strictly between you and me; and if you keep your own counsel, no one will know the secret of your indisposition but ourselves.

“In the first place, be comforted by my assurance that my wife is in excellent health. If, in your delirium, you have been under delusions concerning her, dispel them; all that has passed. She lives; and you will live. If you have thought otherwise (and we know sick men have wild fancies), consider that you have merely had an extraordinary dream. Yet, remembering that men have often ere now been warned by visions of calamities to ensue as the consequence of their own mad acts, accept the dream as a sort of divine admonition – an inspiration to lead you towards a better and calmer life. In your dream, sir, you have had your own heart vivisected, and have thus been made conscious of its disease; you have suffered terribly, as all patients must suffer, under the knife. But you will be healed. You will begin the world afresh, and, God willing, become a new man, thanking God, every day you live, that it was only a dream.

“By the time you read this we shall be far away. With my sincere hopes for your perfect recovery, I am, sir, yours truly,

“George Haldane.

“P.S. – My wife knows nothing of your dream, in any of its phenomena. Some day, perhaps, I shall enlighten her, but not yet. She sends you her best wishes.”

That was all Santley read and re-read in amazement, not quite comprehending, yet dimly guessing that there had been some strange mystery. At last, relieved by the thought that all his guilty agony had perhaps been a dream indeed, he sunk back upon the pillow of his armchair, and wept aloud.

That same afternoon, as he sat looking at his loving nurse, he questioned her concerning Edith. It was the first time, since his recovery, that he had mentioned her name.

“Where is she? Have they heard from her? Is she well?”

“She is well, I believe,” replied Miss Santley. “Just after you fell ill, her aunt heard from her, and went away to join her in London. They are there together now.”

“Do you know their address?”

“Yes; I heard from Rachel that they are staying at the Golden Cross Hotel, near the station.”

In the evening, Santley insisted on having pen, ink, and paper. His sister begged him not to fatigue himself by writing, but he was determined.

“Charles,” she said softly, as she brought him what he wanted, “is it to Edith you are going to write?”

“Yes,” he replied; and she stooped and kissed him approvingly. Then she left him alone, and he wrote as follows: —

“Dearest Edith,

“Come to me; come back to Omberley. I have had a dangerous illness, but through it, God has opened my eyes. I love you, darling. We will be married at once in the dear old church. Yours till death,

“Charles Santley.”

Two days afterwards, the reply came, in Ellen’s own handwriting, thus:

“I, too, have had an illness, in which, also, God has been pleased to open my eyes. I know, now, that it is all over between us. I shall never marry you; I shall never return to Omberley. I am going abroad with my aunt, who knows all I have suffered, and approves an eternal separation.

“Edith Dove.”

Some months later, the vicar resigned his living in the parish, and disappeared from the scene of his early labours. The year following, it was publicly stated in the religious newspapers that the Rev. Charles Santley, sometime Vicar of Omberley, had entered the Church of Rome.

THE END