Foxglove Manor, Volume II (of III)

CHAPTER XXIII. DR. DUPRÉ’S ELIXIR

George Haldane returned home in the best of spirits. His paper had been received with enthusiasm by the savants of France, and his life in Paris had been one pleasant succession of visits, learned conversaziones, and private entertainments. Thanks to his happy pre-occupation, he scarcely noticed that his wife’s manner was constrained, nervous, yet deeply solicitous; that she looked pale and worn, as if with constant watching; and that, in answer to his careless questioning as to affairs at home, she made only fragmentary replies.

On entering his dressing-room to change his apparel, he found Baptisto, who was quietly undoing his portmanteau and selecting the necessary things with a calm air, as if his services had never been interrupted.

“So, my Baptisto,” he said, clapping that worthy on the shoulder, “you are not dead or buried, I see? Ah, you may smile, but I am quite aware of the trick you played me. Well, you have been the loser. You would have had a pleasant time of it in Paris, the best of entertainment, and nothing whatever to do.”

“I am glad you have returned, senor,” replied Baptisto, with his customary solemnity.

“I hope you have given satisfaction to your mistress during my absence?”

“I hope so, senor.”

“Humph! we shall see what report she has to make concerning you, and if that is favourable, I may forgive your freak of laziness.”

“I have not been lazy, senor,” said Baptisto, quietly preparing the toilette.

“Indeed! Pray, how have you been employing yourself?”

Baptisto did not reply, but smiled again.

“How is your inamerata and her family? I saw the little woman curtsying as I passed through the lodge-gates.”

Baptisto shook his head solemnly.

“Ah, senor,” he said, “you are mistaken. The woman of the lodge is a stupid person; and for the rest, I put no faith in women. Cuerpo di Baccho, no! They smile upon us when we are near; but no sooner do we turn our backs, than they smile upon some other man.”

“Pretty philosophy,” returned Haldane, with a laugh. “Why, you are a downright misogynist, my Baptisto. But I don’t believe one word you say, for all that. Men who talk like you are generally very easy conquests, and I would bet twenty to one on the little widow still.”

“Ah, senor, if all women were like your signora, it would be different. She is so good, so pure, so faithful at her devotions. It is a great thing to have religion.”

As Baptisto spoke his back was turned to his master, so that the extraordinary expression of his face was unnoticed, and there was no indication in his tone that he spoke satirically. Haldane shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, not caring to discuss his wife’s virtues with a servant, however familiar. Presently he went downstairs to dinner. All that evening he was very affectionate and merry, talking volubly of his adventures in Paris, of his scientific acquaintances, and of such new discoveries as they had brought under his notice. In the course of his happy chat he spoke frequently of a new acquaintance, one Dr. Dupré, whom he had met in the French capital. “The French, however far behind the Germans in speculative affairs,” he observed, “are far their superiors, and ours, in physiology. Take this Dupré, for example. He is a wonderful fellow! His dissections and vivisections’ have brought him to such a point of mastery that he is almost certain that he has discovered the problem poor Lewes broke his heart over – how and by what mechanism we can’t think. I don’t quite believe he has succeeded in that great discovery, but some of his minor discoveries are extraordinary. Did you read the account in the papers of his elixir of death?”

Ellen shook her head. The very name seemed horrible.

“His elixir of death?” she repeated.

“Yes. A chemical preparation, the fundamental principle of which is morphine. By its agency he can so produce in a living organism the ordinary phenomena of death, that even rigor mortis is simulated. I saw the experiment tried on two rabbits, a Newfoundland dog, and, to crown all, on the human subject. They were all, to every appearance, dead; the rabbits for twenty-four hours, the dog for half a day, and the woman for an hour and a half.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Ellen, with a shudder. “Do you actually mean he experimented on a living woman?”

“Yes; on a strapping wench, the daughter of his housekeeper; and a very fine thing she made of it. We subscribed together, and presented her with a purse of a thousand francs.”

“I think such things are wicked,” cried Ellen, with some warmth. “Mere mortals have no right to play, in that way, with the mystery of life and death.”

“My dear Nell,” cried Haldane, laughing, “it is in the interests of science!”

“But I am sure it is not right. Life is given and taken by God alone.”

“Your argument, if accepted, would make all mankind accept the religion of the Peculiar People, who will cure no diseases by human intervention. As to this business of suspended animation, it is merely a part of our discoveries in anodynes. Dupré’s experiment, I know, is perfectly safe.”

“But that is not the question.”

“How so, my dear?”

“What I mean is, that death is too solemn and awful a thing to imitate as you describe. Such experiments are simply blasphemous, in my opinion.”

“Come, come,” cried the philosopher. “There is no blasphemy where there is no irreverence. According to your religious people, your priests of the churches, there was blasphemy in circumnavigating the globe; in discovering the circulation of the blood; in ascertaining the age of the earth; and, still later, in using chloroform to lessen the pangs of parturition.”

“But what purpose can be served by such experiments as that?”

“A good many,” was the reply. “For example, it may help us to the discovery of the nature of life itself, which has puzzled everybody, from Parmenides down to Haeckel. If we can by a simple anodyne suspend the vital mechanism for a period, and then by a vegetable antidote restore it again to action, the resurrection of Lazarus will cease to be a miracle, and the pretensions of Christianity – ”

Ellen rose impatiently, with an expression of sincere pain.

“My dear Nell, what is the matter?” cried her husband.

“I cannot bear to hear you discuss such a thing. Oh, George, if you would leave such wicked speculations alone, and try to believe in the mystery and sovereignty of God!”

“You mean, burn my books, and go to hear your seraphic friend every Sunday?”

Had he not touched, unconsciously, on another painful chord? Why, otherwise, did his wife flush scarlet and partially avert her face? Conquering herself with an effort, she went over to him, and bending over him, looked fondly into his face.

“You are so much cleverer than I, so much wiser, and do you think I am not proud of your wisdom? But, all the same, dear, I wish you did not think as you do. When life becomes a mere experiment, a mere thing of mechanism, what will be left? If we knew everything, even what we are, and why we exist, the world would be a tomb – with no place in it for the Living God.”

Touched by her manner, Haldane drew her down by his side and kissed her; then, with more earnestness than he had yet exhibited, he answered her, holding her hand in his own and pressing it softly.

“My dear Nell, do me the justice to believe that I am not quite a materialist; simple agnosticism is the very converse of materialism. There is not living a scientific philosopher of any eminence who does not, in his calculations, postulate a mystery which can never be solved by the finest intellect. Even if we had fully completed, with the poet – =

The new creed of science, which showeth to man

How he darkly began,

How he grew from a cell to a soul, without plan;

How he breaks like a wave of the ocean, and goes

To eternal repose —

A tone that must fade, tho’ the great Music grows! ‘=

even then, we should know nothing of the First Cause. That must for ever remain inscrutable.”

“But how horrible it would be to believe in annihilation? Can you believe in it?”

“Certainly not,” replied the philosopher.

Ellens face brightened.

“Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that!”

“My dear Nell, annihilation is absurd.”

“Now, isn’t it?” she cried triumphantly.

“It is refuted, on the face of it, by the doctrine of the conservation of force. Life is eternal, in one shape or another; no force can be destroyed, be sure of that!”

“I wish Mr. Santley could hear you! He wouldn’t call you an atheist then!”

Haldane’s face darkened angrily.

“What? Does the man actually – ”

“Don’t misunderstand,” cried Ellen, flushing scarlet. “I do not mean that he really calls you an atheist, but he is so sorry, so deeply sorry, that you do not believe. He does not know you, dear, and takes all my bear’s satirical growling for solemn earnest. Now, when I tell him – ”

“You will tell him nothing,” exclaimed Haldane, with sudden sternness. “I will have no priest coming between my wife and me!”

“Mr. Santley would never do that,” she returned, now trembling violently.

“Mr. Santley is like all his tribe, I suppose – a meddler and a mischief-maker. That is the worst of other-worldliness; it gives these traders in the Godhead, these peddlers who would give us in exchange for belief in their superstitions a bonus in paradise, an excuse for making this world unbearable. Well, my atheism, if you choose to call it so, against his theism. Mine at least keeps me a man among men, while his keeps him a twaddler among women.”

Haldane spoke with heat, for the word “atheist” had somehow stung him to the quick. This man, who rejected all outward forms of belief, and whose conversation was habitually ironical, was in his inmost nature deeply and sincerely religious; humbly reverent before the forces of nature; spiritually conscious of that Power beyond ourselves which makes for righteousness. True, he rejected the ordinary forms of theism; but he had, on the other hand, a deep though dumb reverence for the character of Christ, and he had no sympathy with such out-and-out materialists as Haeckel and hoc genus omne. For the rest, he was liberal-minded, and had no desire to interfere with his wife’s convictions; could smile a little at her simplicity, and would see no harm in her clerical predispositions, so long as the clergyman didn’t encroach too far on the domain of married life and domestic privacy.

His indignation did not last. Seeing his wife greatly agitated, and fearing that he had caused her pain, he drew her forehead down and kissed it; then, patting her cheek, he said —

“Forgive me, Nell. I did not mean to scold; but one does not like hard names. When any one calls me ‘atheist,’ I am like the old woman whom Cobbett called a ‘parallelogram;’ it is not the significance of the epithet, but its opprobrium, that rouses me. Besides, I do not like any man to abuse me – to my own wife.”

“No one does that,” she cried. “You know I would not listen.”

“I hope not, my dear.” He added after a little, looking at her thoughtfully and sadly, “Man and wife have fallen asunder before now, on this very question of religion. Well, rather than that should happen, I will let you convert me. Will that satisfy you?”

“I shall never be quite satisfied till I know that you believe as I do.”

“What is that, pray?”

“That there is a just God, who made and cherishes us; and that, through the blood of His Son we shall live again although we die!”

“Well, it is a beautiful creed, my dear.”

“And true?”

“Why not? I will go with you thus far. I believe that, if there is a God, He is just, and that we shall certainly live again, if it is for our good.”

The emphasis with which he spoke the last words attracted her attention.

“For our good?” she queried.

“I am quoting the saddest words ever written, by the saddest and best man I ever knew. 1 He, too, believed that a God might spare us, and give us eternal life, if – mark the proviso – eternal life were indeed for our good. But suppose the contrary – suppose God knew better, and that it would be an evil and unhappy gift? Alas! who knows?”

He rose from his chair, still encircling his wife’s waist, and moved towards the door.

“Come to the drawing-room,” he cried gaily. “After so much offhand theology, a little music will be delightful. Ah, Nell, one breath of Beethoven is worth all the prosings of your parsons. Play to me, and, while the music lasts, I will believe what you will.”

CHAPTER XXIV. THE EXPERIMENT

The next morning Haldane was busy in his laboratory. When he came in to lunch, looking disreputable enough in his old coat, and smelling strongly of tobacco, he said to his wife —

“By-the-by, Nell, do you remember what I told you last night about Dupré’s wonderful elixir? I forgot to tell you that I have brought some of it with me, for purposes of private experiment.” Ellen looked horrified.

“Don’t be afraid,” he continued, laughing; “your cats and dogs are safe from me. I have found a better subject, and mean to operate on him this very afternoon.”

“Whom do you mean?”

“As a sort of penance for his shamming illness, I shall kill Baptisto.”

She uttered a cry, and raised her hands in protest.

“For heavens sake, George, be warned! If you have any of that horrible stuff, throw it away.”

“Now, my dear Nell,” said the philosopher, “be reasonable; there is not the slightest cause for alarm. You will see this experiment, and it will, I hope, treble your faith in miracles.”

“I will not see it. I beseech you, abandon the idea. As for Baptisto – ”

At this moment the Spaniard entered the room, carrying certain dishes.

“I have been telling your mistress, Baptisto, that you are ready to be a martyr to science. At four o’clock precisely, you will be a dead man.”

Baptisto bowed solemnly.

“I am quite ready, senor.”

But here Ellen interposed.

“It is ridiculous; your master is only joking. He would not do anything so foolish, so wicked. As for you, I forbid you to encourage him.”

Baptisto bowed again, with a curious smile.

“It is for the senor to command. As he knows, he has saved my life, and he may take it whenever he pleases.”

Haldane nodded, in the act of drinking a glass of wine.

“Don’t be afraid, Baptisto. After death, there is the resurrection.”

“That, senor, is your affair,” returned the Spaniard, phlegmatically, shrugging his shoulders. “You will do with me as you please.”

And so saying, he glided from the room.

Ellen again and again entreated her husband not to proceed in his experiment; but he had long made up his mind that it was perfectly safe, and he could not be persuaded. To her gentle: spirit, the whole idea seemed horrible in the extreme; but her greatest dread was that it might be attended with danger to the subject. Haldane, however, assured her that this was impossible.

All the afternoon Haldane and Baptisto were together in the laboratory. A little after four o’clock, as Ellen was walking on the terrace, Haldane came to her, smiling and holding up a small vial.

“It is all over,” he said, “and the experiment is quite successful. Come and see.”

Not quite understanding him, she suffered him to lead her into the laboratory; but, on crossing the threshold, she uttered a cry of horror. Stretched on a sofa, lay Baptisto, moveless, and, to all seeming, without one breath of life. His eyes were wide open, but rayless; his jaw fixed, his face pale as grey marble; a peaceful smile, as of death itself, upon his handsome face. The light of the sun, just sinking towards the west, streamed in through the high window upon the apparently lifeless form. In the chamber itself there was a sickly smell, like that of some suffocating vapour. The whole scene would have startled and appalled even a strong man.

“Oh, George!” cried the lady, clasping her hands. “What have you done?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” was the reply, “Its all right!”

“But you said the experiment —

“Was successful? Perfectly. There lies our poor friend, comfortably finished.”

“But are you sure, quite sure, that he is not dead? He is not breathing.”

“Of course not. The simulation is perfect. Place your hand on his wrist – you will detect no pulse. Turn his pupils to the light – you see, they do not contract. The case would deceive a whole college of physicians.”

As he spoke, he suited the action to the word – placed his finger upon the pulse, gazed at the glazing pupils; raised one of the lifeless arms, which, on being released, fell heavily as lead.

“Horrible, horrible! For God’s sake, recover him!”

“All in good time. He has only been dead a quarter of an hour; in half an hour precisely I shall say, ‘Arise and walk.’ Feel his forehead, Nell; it is as cold as marble.”

But Ellen drew back, shuddering, and could not be persuaded to touch the sleeper.

“Well, go back to your promenade. I will call you when he is awakened.” Sick and terrified, Ellen obeyed her husband. Standing on the terrace, she waited for his summons; and at last it came. Haldane appeared, and beckoned; she followed him to the laboratory, and there, seated in an armchair, comfortably sipping a glass of wine, was the Spaniard – a little pale still, but otherwise not the worse for his state of coma.

“Thank God!” cried Ellen.

“I thought he would never recover. But it must have been a horrible experience.”

Baptisto smiled.

“Tell the signora all about it,” said his master. “Did you feel any pain?”

“None, senor.”

“What were your sensations? Pleasant or otherwise?”

“Quite pleasant, senor. It was like sinking into an agreeable sleep. If death is like that, it is a bagatelle.”

“Were you at all conscious?”

“Not of this world, senor, but I had bright dreams of another. I thought I was in paradise, walking in the sunshine – ah, so bright! I was sorry, senor, when I came back to this world.”

“You hear!” cried Haldane, turning to his wife. “After all, death itself may be a glorious experience; for ‘in that sleep of death what dreams may come!’ It is quite clear at least that all the phenomena of death, such as we shrink from and shudder at, may be accompanied by some kind of pleasant psychic consciousness. Bravo, Baptisto! After this, we shall call you Lazarus the second. You have passed beyond the shadow of the sepulchre, and returned to tell the tale.”

Despite the resuscitation, Ellen still revolted from the whole proceeding.

“Now you are satisfied,” she said, “promise me never to use that dreadful elixir again.”

“I think you may make your mind easy. The experiment is an ugly one, I admit, and I am not anxious to repeat it – at least, not on the human organism. For the same reason, my dear Nell, pray keep the affair to yourself, and make no confidences, even to your confessor – I should say, your clergyman, Will you promise?”

“Most certainly. I should not like any one to know you did such things. As for Mr. Santley, he would be shocked beyond measure.”

So saying, she left the two men together. In the mean time, Baptisto had-finished his wine and risen to his feet. While his master regarded him with an approving smile, he walked over to the door, softly closed it, and returning noiselessly across the room, said in a low voice —

“There is something, senor, I did not tell you. I had dreams.”

“So you said, my Baptisto.”

“Ah yes, but not all. While I was lying there, I thought that you were the dead man, and that the senora, your widow, had married.”

“Married?”

“The English priest.”

Haldane started, and looked in amazement at the speaker.

“What the devil do you mean?”

“Ah, senor, it was only my dream; a foolish dream. You were lying in your winding-sheet, and they were kneeling at the altar – smiling, senor. I did not like to speak of it to the senora; but it was very strange.”

Haldane forced a laugh, while, with a mysterious look, Baptisto crept from the chamber. Was it in sheer simplicity or in deep cunning that the Spaniard had spoken, touching so delicate a chord? Left alone, Haldane paced up and down the laboratory in agitation. He was not by temperament a jealous or a suspicious man, but he was troubled in spite of himself. The words sounded like a warning, almost an insinuation.

“What could the fellow mean?” he asked himself again and again. “Could he possibly have dreamed that? No; it is preposterous. There was malice in his eye, and mischief… Ellen married to Santley! Bah! what am I thinking about? The fellow is not a prophet!”

In this manner, whether in innocence or for some set purpose of his own, Baptisto contrived to poison all the sweetness of that successful experiment. When Haldane again joined his wife that evening, he was taciturn, distraught, nervous, and irritable. All his buoyancy had departed. Ellen saw the change, and puzzled herself to account for it.

She played to him, sang to him, but failed to drive the cloud from his brow.

When she had retired for the night, he still sat pondering over Baptisto’s words.

CHAPTER XXV. “BEWARE, MY LORD, OF JEALOUSY!”

If Baptisto’s object in describing a dream so ominous was to attract his master’s attention to the intimate relations between Mrs. Haldane and the clergyman, he certainly succeeded. Once assured in this direction, Haldane’s perceptions were keen enough. He noticed that the mere mention of Santley’s name filled Ellen with a sort of nervous constraint; that, although the clergyman’s visits were frequent, they were generally made at times when Haldane himself was busy and preoccupied – that is to say, during his well-known hours of work; and that, moreover, Santley, however much he liked the society of the lady, invariably avoided the husband, or, if they met, contrived to frame some excuse for speedy parting. Now, Haldane trusted his wife implicitly, and believed her incapable of any infidelity, even in thought. Still, he did not quite like the aspect of affairs. Much as he trusted his wife, he had a strong moral distrust for anything in the shape of a priest; and he determined, therefore, to keep his eyes upon the clergyman.

A few days after that curious physiological experiment, he had the following conversation with Baptisto. It was the first day of the week.

“Baptisto, I thought you were a good Catholic?”

“So I am, senor,” returned the Spaniard, smiling.

“Yet you went to an English church-yesterday, I hear?”

“Yes, senor. I go there very often.”

“Why, pray?”

“Simply out of curiosity. Mr. Santley is a beautiful preacher, and has a silvery voice. While you were away, I went once, twice, three times. There is a young senora there who plays sweetly upon the great organ; I like to listen, to-watch the congregation.”

“Humph! By-the-bye, Baptisto, I have been thinking over the dream of yours, when – when you were lying there.”

“Yes, senor?”

“Pray, what put such a foolish idea in your head?”

“I cannot tell, senor; all I know is, it came. A foolish dream, do you say? I suppose it is because the clergyman was here so often, when you were away. And madame is so devout! I trust, senor, my dream has not given you offence; perhaps I was wrong to speak of it at all.”

Haldanes face had gone black as a thunder-cloud. Placing his hand on the other’s shoulder, and looking firmly into his face, he said —

“Listen to me, Baptisto.”

“I am listening, senor.”

“If I thought you would come back to life to tell lies about your mistress, I would have let you lie the other day and rot like a dead dog, rather than have recovered you at all. You hear? Take care! I know you do not love your mistress, but if you dare to whisper one word against her, I will drive you for ever from my door.”

Baptisto bowed his head respectfully before the storm, but retained his usual composure.

“Senor, may I speak?”

“Yes; but again, take care!”