Salem Chapel. Volume 2/2

To this speech Vincent listened with an impatience and restlessness which he found it impossible to conceal. He paced about the darker end of his room, on the other side of that table, where the lamp shone vacantly upon his open desk and scattered papers, answering now and then with a mono-syllable of reluctant courtesy, irritated and disturbed beyond expression by the perfectly serious and proper figure seated by the fire. Somebody might come from that assembly which had met to discuss him, and he could not be alone to receive them. In the annoyance of the moment the minister almost chafed at his sister and her concerns. His life was invaded by these women, with their mysteries and agonies. He listened to the steps outside, thinking every moment to hear the steady tramp of the deputation from Salem, or at least Tozer, whom it would have been balm to his mind, in the height of the good man’s triumph, to cut short and annihilate. But how do that, or anything else, with this woman seated by his fire explaining her unintelligible affairs? Such was Vincent’s state of mind while his mother, in an agony of joy, was hearing from Susan’s lips, for the first time, broken explanations of those few days of her life which outbalanced in terrible importance all its preceding years. The minister did not know that his sister’s very existence, as well as her reason, hung upon that unhoped-for opening of her mouth and her heart.

Matters were not much mended when Dr. Rider came in, beaming and radiant, full of congratulations. Susan was saved. It was the most curious psychological puzzle, the doctor said; all her life had got concentrated into the few days between her departure from Lonsdale and her arrival at Carlingford. Neither her old existence, nor the objects that surrounded her at the moment, had any significance for Susan; only something that belonged to that wonderful interval in which she had been driven desperate, could win back consciousness to her mind. It was the most singular case he had ever met with; but he knew this was the only way of treating it, and so it had proved. He recognised the girl with the blue veil the moment he saw her – he knew it could be no other. Who was she? where had she sprung from at that critical moment? where had she been? what was to be done with her? Dr. Rider poured forth his questions like a stream. He was full of professional triumph, not to say natural satisfaction. He could not understand how his patient’s brother, at that wonderful crisis, could have a mind preoccupied or engaged with other things. The doctor turned with lively sympathy and curiosity from the anxious Nonconformist to Miss Smith, who was but too willing to begin all her explanations over again. Dr. Rider, accustomed to hear many personal narratives, collected this story a great deal more clearly than Vincent, who was so much more interested in it, had, with all his opportunities, been able to do. How long the poor minister might have suffered under this conversation, it is impossible to tell. But Mrs. Vincent, in all the agitation of her daughter’s deliverance, could not forget the griefs of others. She sent a little message to her son, begging that he would send word of this arrival to “the poor lady.” “To let her know – but she must not come here to-night,” was the widow’s message, who was just then having the room darkened, and everything arranged for the night, if perhaps her child might sleep. This message delivered the minister; it recalled Miss Smith to her duty. She it was who must go and explain everything to her patroness. Dr. Rider, whose much-excited wonder was still further stimulated by hearing that the child’s mother was at Lady Western’s, that she was Mrs. Mildmay, and that the Nonconformist was in her confidence, cheerfully undertook to carry the governess in his drag to Grange Lane, not without hopes of further information; and it was now getting late. Miss Smith made Vincent a tremulous curtsy, and held out her hand to him to say good-night. “The doctor will perhaps explain to Mrs. Mildmay why I have left little Alice,” said the troubled woman. “I never left her before since she was intrusted to me – never but when her papa stole her away; and you are a minister, Mr. Vincent, and oh, I hope I am doing quite right, and as Alice’s mamma will approve! But if she disapproves I must come back and – ”

“They must not be disturbed to-night,” said Dr. Rider, promptly; “I will see Mrs. Mildmay.” He was not reluctant to see Mrs. Mildmay. The doctor, though he was not a gossip, was not inaccessible to the pleasure of knowing more than anybody else of the complications of this strange business, which still afforded matter of talk to Carlingford. He hurried her away while still the good governess was all in a flutter, and for the first time the minister was left alone. It was with a troubled mind that the young man resumed his seat at his desk. He began to get utterly weary of this business, and all about it. If he could only have swept away in a whirlwind, with his mother and sister, where the name of Mildmay had never been heard of, and where he could for ever get rid of that haunting woman with her gleaming eyes, who had pursued even his gentle mother to the door! but this new complication seemed to involve him deeper than ever in those strange bonds. It was with a certain disgust that the minister thought it all over as he sat leaning his head on his hands. His way was dark before him, yet it must speedily be decided. Everything was at a crisis in his excited mind and troubled life – even that strange lovely child’s face, which had roused Susan from her apathy, had its share in the excitement of her brother’s thoughts; for it was but another version, with differences, of the face of that other Alice, who all unwittingly had procured for Vincent the sweetest and the hardest hours he had spent in Carlingford. Were they all to pass like a dream – her smiles, her sweet looks, her kind words, even that magical touch upon his arm, which had once charmed him out of all his troubles? A groan came out of the young man’s heart, not loud, but deep, as that thought moved him. The very despair of this love-dream had been more exquisite than any pleasure of his life. Was it all to pass away and be no longer? Life and thought, the actual and the visionary, had both come to a climax, and seemed to stand still, waiting the decision which must be come to that night.

From these musings the entrance of Tozer roused the minister. The excellent butterman came in all flushed and glowing from his success. To him, the meeting, which already the Nonconformist had half lost sight of under the superstructure of subsequent events, had newly concluded, and was the one occurrence of the time. The cheers which had hailed him master of the field were still ringing in Tozer’s ears. “I don’t deny as I am intoxicated-like,” said the excellent deacon; “them cheers was enough to carry any man off his legs, sir, if you’ll believe me. We’ve scattered the enemy, that’s what we’ve been and done, Mr. Vincent. There ain’t one of them as will dare show face in Salem. We was unanimous, sir – unanimous, that’s what we was! I never see such a triumph in our connection. Hurrah! If it warn’t Miss as is ill, I could give it you all over again, cheers and all.”

“I am glad you were pleased,” said Vincent, with an effort; “but I will not ask you for such a report of the proceedings.”

“Pleased! I’ll tell you one thing as I was sorry for, sir,” said Tozer, somewhat subdued in his exultation by the pastor’s calmness – “I did it for the best; but seeing as things have turned out so well, I am as sorry as I can be – and that is, that you wasn’t there. It was from expecting some unpleasantness as I asked you not to come; but things turning out as they did, it would have done your heart good to see ’em, Mr. Vincent. Salem folks has a deal of sense when you put things before them effective. And then you’d only have had to say three words to them on the spur of the moment, and all was settled and done with, and everything put straight; which would have let them settle down steady, sir, at once, and not kept no excitement, as it were, hanging about.”

“Yes,” said the minister, who was moving about his papers, and did not look up. The butterman began to be alarmed; he grew more and more enthusiastic the less response he met with.

“It’s a meeting as will tell in the connection,” said Tozer, with unconscious foresight; “a candid mind in a congregation ain’t so general as you and me would like to see, Mr. Vincent, and it takes a bit of a trial like this, sir, and opposition, to bring out the real attachment as is between a pastor and a flock.”

“Yes,” said Vincent again. The deacon did not know what to make of the minister. Had he been piqued and angry, Tozer thought he might have known how to manage him, but this coldness was an alarming and mysterious symptom which he was unequal to. In his embarrassment and anxiety the good butterman stumbled upon the very subject from which, had he known the true state of affairs, he would have kept aloof.

“And the meeting as was to be to-morrow night?” said Tozer; “there ain’t no need for explanation now – a word or two out of the pulpit is all as is wanted, just to say as it’s all over, and you’re grateful for their attachment, and so forth; you know a deal better, sir, how to do it nor me. And about the meeting as was called for to-morrow night? – me and the misses were thinking, though it’s sudden, as it might be turned into a tea-meeting, if you was agreeable, just to make things pleasant; or if that ain’t according to your fancy, as I’m aware you’re not one as likes tea-meetings, we might send round, Mr. Vincent to all the seat-holders to say as it’s given up; I’d do one or the other, if you’d be advised by me.”

“Thank you – but I can’t do either one or the other,” said the Nonconformist. “I would not have asked the people to meet me if I had not had something to say to them – and this night’s business, you understand,” said Vincent, with a little pride, “has made no difference in me.”

“No, sir, no – to be sure not,” said the perplexed butterman, much bewildered; “but two meetings on two nights consecutive is running the flock hard, it is. I’d give up to-morrow, Mr. Vincent, if I was you.”

To this insinuating address the minister made no answer – he only shook his head. Poor Tozer, out of his exultation, fell again into the depths. The blow was so unlooked-for that it overwhelmed him.

“You’ll not go and make no reflections, sir?” said the troubled deacon; “bygones is bygones. You’ll not bring it up against them, as they didn’t show that sympathy they might have done? You’ll not make no reference to nobody in particular, Mr. Vincent? When a flock is conscious as they’ve done their duty and stood by their pastor, it ain’t a safe thing, sir, not to turn upon them, and rake up things as is past. If you’ll take my advice, sir, as wishes you well, and hasn’t no motive but your good, I’d not hold that meeting, Mr. Vincent; or, if you’re bent upon it, say the word, and we’ll set to work and give ’em a tea-meeting, and make all things comfortable. But if you was prudent, sir, and would go by my advice, one or the other of them two is what I would do.”

“Thank you, Tozer, all the same,” said Vincent, who, notwithstanding his preoccupation, saw the good butterman’s anxiety, and appreciated it. “I know very well that all that is pleasant to-night is owing to you. Don’t suppose I don’t understand how you’ve fought for me; but now the business is mine, and I can take no more advice. Think no more of it; you have done all that you could do.”

“I have done my humble endeavour, sir, as is my dooty, to keep things straight,” said the deacon, doubtfully; “and if you’d tell me what was in your mind, Mr. Vincent – ?”

But the young Nonconformist gathered up his papers, closed his desk, and held out his hand to the kind-hearted butterman. “My sister has come back almost from the grave to-night,” said Vincent; “and we are all, for anything I can see, at the turning-point of our lives. You have done all you can do, and I thank you heartily; but now the business is in my hands.”

This was all the satisfaction Tozer got from the minister. He went home much discouraged, not knowing what to make of it, but did not confide his fears even to his wife, hoping that reflection would change the pastor’s mind, and resolved to make another effort to-morrow. And so the night fell over the troubled house. In the sick-room a joyful agitation had taken the place of the dark and hopeless calm. Susan, roused to life, lay leaning against her mother, looking at the child asleep on the sofa by her, unconscious of the long and terrible interval between the danger which that child had shared, and the delicious security to which her mind had all at once awakened. To Susan’s consciousness, it appeared as if her mother had suddenly risen out of the mists, and delivered the two helpless creatures who had suffered together. She could not press close enough to this guardian of her life. She held her arms round her, and laid her cheek against the widow’s with the dependence of a child upon her mother’s bosom. Mrs. Vincent sat upon the bed supporting her, herself supported in her weariness by love and joy, two divine attendants who go but seldom together. The two talked in whispers, – Susan because of her feebleness, the mother in the instinct of caressing tenderness. The poor girl told her story in broken syllables – broken by the widow’s kisses and murmurs of sympathy, of wonder and love. Healing breathed upon the stricken mind and feeble frame as the two clung together in the silent night, always with an unspoken reference to the beautiful forlorn creature on the sofa – that visible symbol of all the terrors and troubles past. “I told her my mother would come to save us,” said poor Susan. When she dropt to sleep at last, the mother leant her aching frame upon some pillows, afraid to move, and slept too, supreme protector, in her tender weakness, of these two young lives. As she woke from time to time to see her child sleeping by her side, thoughts of her son’s deliverance stole across Mrs. Vincent’s mind to sweeten her repose. The watch-light burned dimly in the room, and threw a gigantic shadow of her little figure, half erect on the side of the bed, still in her black gown and the close white cap, which could not be less than dainty in its neatness, even in that vigil, upon the further wall. The widow slept only in snatches, waking often and keeping awake, as people do when they grow old; her thoughts, ever alive and active, varying between her projects for the future, to save Susan from all painful knowledge of her own story, and the thankful recollection of Arthur’s rescue from his troubles. From echoes of Tozer’s speech, and of the cheers of the flock, her imagination wandered off into calculations of how she could find another place of habitation as pleasant, perhaps, as Lonsdale, and even to the details of her removal from thence, what portions of her furniture she would sell, and which take with her. “For now that Arthur has got out of his troubles, we must not stay to get him into fresh difficulties with his flock,” she said to herself, with a momentary ache in her thankful heart; and so dropped asleep for another half-hour, to wake again presently, and enter anew into the whole question. Such was the way in which Mrs. Vincent passed that agitated but joyful night.

In the adjoining room Arthur sat up late over his papers. He was not writing, or doing any work; for hours together he sat leaning his head on his hands, gazing intently at the lamp, which his mother had adjusted, until his eyes were dazzled, and the gloom of the room around became spotted with discs of shade. Was he to permit the natural gratification into which Tozer’s success had reluctantly moved him, to alter his resolve? Was he to drop into his old harness and try again? or was he to carry out his purpose in the face of all entreaties and inducements? The natural inclination to adopt the easiest course – and the equally natural, impetuous, youthful impulse to take the leap to which he had made up his mind, and dash forth in the face of his difficulties – gave him abundant occupation for his thoughts as they contended against each other. He sat arguing the question within himself long after his fire had sunk into ashes. When the penetrating cold of the night drove him at last to bed, the question was still dubious. Even in his sleep the uneasy perplexity pursued him; – a matter momentous enough, though nobody but Tozer – who was as restless as the minister, and disturbed his wife by groans and murmurs, of which, when indignantly woke up to render an account, he could give no explanation – knew or suspected anything. Whether to take up his anchors altogether and launch out upon that sea of life, of which, much as he had discussed it in his sermons, the young Nonconformist knew next to nothing? The widow would not have mused so quietly with her wakeful eyes in the dim room next to him, had she known what discussions were going on in Arthur’s mind. As for the congregation of Salem, they slept soundly, with an exhilarating sensation of generosity and goodness, – all except the Pigeons, who were plotting schism, and had already in their eye a vacant Temperance Hall, where a new preaching station might be organised under the auspices of somebody who would rival Vincent. The triumphant majority, however, laughed at the poulterer, and anticipated, with a pleasurable expectation, the meeting of next night, and the relief and delight of the pastor, who would find he had no explanations to make, but only his thanks to render to his generous flock. The good people concluded that they would all stop to shake hands with him after the business was over. “For it’s as good as receiving of him again, and giving him the right hand of fellowship,” said Mrs. Brown at the Dairy, who was entirely won over to the minister’s side. Only Tozer, groaning in his midnight visions, and disturbing the virtuous repose of his wedded partner, suspected the new cloud that hung over Salem. For before morning the minister’s mind was finally made up.

CHAPTER XIX

THE next day dawned amid the agitations natural to such a crisis of affairs. Almost before it was daylight, before Susan had woke, or the young stranger stirred upon her sofa, Miss Smith, troubled and exemplary, had returned to see after her charge. Miss Smith was in a state of much anxiety and discomfort till she had explained to Mrs. Vincent all the strange circumstances in which she found herself; and the widow, who had ventured to rise from Susan’s side, and had been noiselessly busy putting the room in order, that her child might see nothing that was not cheerful and orderly when she woke, was not without curiosity to hear, and gladly took this opportunity, before even Arthur was stirring, to understand, if she could, the story which was so connected with that of her children. She ventured to go into the next room with Miss Smith, where she could hear every movement in the sick-chamber. The widow found it hard to understand all the tale. That Mrs. Hilyard was Mildmay’s wife, and that it was their child who had sought protection of all the world from Susan Vincent, whom the crimes of her father and mother had driven to the very verge of the grave, was so hard and difficult to comprehend, that all the governess’s anxious details of how little Alice first came into her hands, of her mother’s motives for concealing her from Colonel Mildmay, even of the ill-fated flight to Lonsdale, which, instead of keeping her safe, had carried the child into her father’s very presence – and all the subsequent events which Miss Smith had already confided to the minister, fell but dully upon the ears of Susan’s mother. “Her daughter – and his daughter – and she comes to take refuge with my child,” said the widow, with a swelling heart. Mrs. Vincent did not know what secret it was that lay heavy on the soul of the desperate woman who had followed her last night from Grove Street, but somehow, with a female instinct, felt, though she did not understand, that Mrs. Hilyard or Mrs. Mildmay, whatever her name might be, was as guilty in respect to Susan as was her guilty husband – the man who had stolen like a serpent into the Lonsdale cottage and won the poor girl’s simple heart. Full of curiosity as she was, the widow’s thoughts wandered off from Miss Smith’s narrative; her heart swelled within her with an innocent triumph; the good had overcome the evil. This child, over whom its father and mother had fought with so deadly a struggle, had flown for protection to Susan, whom that father and mother had done their utmost to ruin and destroy. They had not succeeded, thank God! Through the desert and the lions the widow’s Una had come victorious, stretching her tender virgin shield over this poor child of passion and sorrow. While Miss Smith maundered through the entire history, starting from the time when Miss Russell married Colonel Mildmay, the widow’s mind was entirely occupied with this wonderful victory of innocence over wickedness. She forgot the passionate despair of the mother whose child did not recognise her. She began immediately to contrive, with unguarded generosity, how Susan and she, when they left Carlingford, should carry the stranger along with them, and nurse her clouded mind into full development. Mrs. Vincent’s trials had not yet taught her any practical lessons of worldly wisdom. Her heart was still as open as when, unthinking of evil, she admitted the false Mr. Fordham into her cottage, and made a beginning of all the misery which seemed now, to her sanguine heart, to be passing away. She went back to Susan’s room full of this plan – full of tender thoughts towards the girl who had chosen Susan for her protector, and of pride and joy still more tender in her own child, who had overcome evil. It was, perhaps, the sweetest solace which could have been offered, after all her troubles, to the minister’s mother. It was at once a vindication of the hard “dealings” of Providence, and of that strength of innocence and purity, in which the little woman believed with all her heart.

The minister himself was much less agreeably moved when he found the governess in possession of his sitting-room. Anything more utterly vexatious could hardly have occurred to Vincent than to find this troubled good woman, herself much embarrassed and disturbed by her own position, seated at his breakfast-table on this eventful morning. Miss Smith was as primly uncomfortable as it was natural for an elderly single woman, still conscious of the fact that she was unmarried, to be, in an absolute tête-à-tête with a young man. She, poor lady, was as near blushing as her grey and composed non-complexion would permit. She moved uneasily in her seat, and made tremulous explanations, as Vincent, who was too young and inexperienced to be absolutely uncourteous, took his place opposite to her. “I am sure I feel quite an intruder,” said poor Miss Smith; “but your mother, Mr. Vincent, and little Alice – and indeed I did not know I was to be left here alone. It must seem so odd to you to find a lady – dear, dear me! I feel I am quite in the way,” said the embarrassed governess; “but Mrs. Mildmay will be here presently. I know she will be here directly. I am sure she would have come with me had she known. But she sat up half the night hearing what I had to tell her, and dropped asleep just in the morning. She is wonderfully changed, Mr. Vincent – very, very much changed. She is so nervous – a thing I never could have looked for. I suppose, after all, married ladies, however much they may object to their husbands, can’t help feeling a little when anything happens,” continued Miss Smith, primly; “and there is something so dreadful in such an accident. How do you think it can have happened? Could it be his groom, or who could it be? but I understand he is getting better now?”

“Yes, I believe so,” said Vincent.

“I am so glad,” said Miss Smith, “not that if it had been the will of Providence. – I would make the tea for you, Mr. Vincent, if you would not think it odd, and I am sure Mrs. Mildmay will be here directly. They were in a great commotion at Grange Lane. Just now, you know, there is an excitement. Though she is not a young girl, to be sure it is always natural. But for that I am sure they would all have come this morning; but perhaps Mr. Fordham – ”

“Not any tea, thank you. If you have breakfasted, I will have the things removed. I have only one sitting-room, you perceive,” said the minister, rather bitterly. He could not be positively uncivil – his heart was too young and fresh to be rude to any woman; but he rang the bell with a little unnecessary sharpness when Miss Smith protested that she had breakfasted long before. Her words excited him with a touch beyond telling. He could not, would not ask what was the cause of the commotion in Grange Lane; but he walked to the window to collect himself while the little maid cleared the table, and, throwing it open, looked out with the heart beating loud in his breast. Were these the bells of St. Roque’s chiming into the ruddy sunny air with a confused jangle of joy? It was a saint’s day, no doubt – a festival which the perpetual curate took delight in proclaiming his observance of; or – if it might happen to be anything else, what was that to the minister of Salem, who had so many other things on his mind? As he looked out a cab drove rapidly up to the door – a cab from which he saw emerge Mrs. Hilyard and another figure, which he recognised with a start of resentment. What possible right had this man to intrude upon him in this moment of fate? The minister left the window hastily, and stationed himself with a gloomy countenance on the hearthrug. He might be impatient of the women; but Fordham, inexcusable as his intrusion was, had to be met face to face. With a flash of sudden recollection, he recalled all his previous intercourse with the stranger whose name was so bitterly inter-woven with the history of the last six months. What had he ever done to wake so sharp a pang of dislike and injury in Vincent’s mind? It was not for Susan’s sake that her brother’s heart closed and his countenance clouded against the man whose name had wrought her so much sorrow. Vincent had arrived at such a climax of personal existence that Susan had but a dim and secondary place in his thoughts. He was absorbed in his own troubles and plans and miseries. On the eve of striking out for himself into that bitter and unknown life in which his inexperienced imagination rejected the thought of any solace yet remaining, what malicious influence brought this man here?