Salem Chapel Volume I Part 15

"Mr. Vincent is going to leave town again this afternoon," said his mother. "Tell your mistress that I shall be glad to have a little conversation with her after my son goes away--and you had better bring the sauce--but it would have saved you trouble and been more sensible, if you had put it on the tray in the first place. Oh, Arthur," cried his mother again, when she had seen the little maid fairly out--"do be a little prudent, my dear! When a minister lodges with one of his flock, he must think of appearances--and if it were only for my dear child's sake, Arthur! Susan must not be spoken of through our anxiety; oh, my child!--Where can she be?--Where can she be?"

"Mother dear, you must keep up, or everything is lost!" cried Vincent, for the first time moved to the depths of his heart by that outcry of despair. He came to her and held her trembling hands, and laid his face upon them without any kiss or caress, that close clinging touch of itself expressing best the fellowship of their wretchedness. But Mrs.

Vincent put her son away from her, when the door again bounced open.

"My dear boy, here is the sauce, and you must eat your chop," she said, getting up and drawing forward a chair for him; her hands, which trembled so, grew steady as she put everything in order, cut the bread, and set his plate before him. "Oh, eat something, Arthur dear--you must, or you cannot go through it," said the widow, with her piteous smile.

Then she sat down at the table by him in her defensive armour. The watchful eyes of "the flock" were all around spying upon the dreadful calamity which had overwhelmed them; at any moment the college companion whom Vincent had sent for might come in upon them in all the gaiety of his holiday. What they said had to be said with this consciousness--and the mother, in the depth of her suspense and terror, sat like a queen inspected on all sides, and with possible traitors round her, but resolute and self-commanding in her extremity, determined at least to be true to herself.

"Arthur, can you think where to go?" she said, after a little interval, almost under her breath.

"To London first," said Vincent--"to inquire after--_him_, curse him!

don't say anything, mother--I am only a man after all. Then, according to the information I get.--G.o.d help us!--if I don't get back before another Sunday----"

Mrs. Vincent gave a convulsive start, which shook the table against which she was leaning, and fell to shivering as if in a fit of ague.

"Oh, Arthur, Arthur, what are you saying? Another Sunday!" she exclaimed, with a cry of despair. To live another day seemed impossible in that horror. But self-restraint was natural to the woman who had been, as she said, a minister's wife for thirty years. She clasped her hands tight, and took up her burden again. "I will see Mr. Beecher when he comes, dear, and--and speak to him," she said, with a sigh, "and I will see the Tozers and--and your people, Arthur; and if it should be G.o.d's will to keep us so long in suspense, if--if--I can keep alive, dear, I may be of some use. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, the Lord have pity upon us! if my darling comes back, will she come here or will she go home?

Don't you think she will come here? If I go back to Lonsdale, I will not be able to rest for thinking she is at Carlingford; and if I stay--oh, Arthur, where do you think Susan will go to? She might be afraid to see you, and think you would be angry, but she never could distrust her poor mother, who was the first to put her in danger; and to think of my dear child going either there or here, and not finding me, Arthur! My dear, you are not eating anything. You can never go through it all without some support. For my sake, try to eat a little, my own boy; and oh, Arthur, what must I do?"

"These Tozers and people will worry you to death if you stay here," said the minister, with an impatient sigh, as he thought of his own difficulties; "but I must not lose time by going back with you to Lonsdale, and you must not travel by yourself, and this is more in the way, whatever happens. Send word to Lonsdale that you are to have a message by telegraph immediately--without a moment's loss of time--if she comes back."

"You might say _when_, Arthur, not _if_," said his mother, with a little flash of tender resentment--then she gave way for the moment, and leaned her head against his arm and held him fast with that pressure and close clasp which spoke more than any words. When she raised her pale face again, it was to entreat him once more to eat. "Try to take something, if it were only a mouthful, for Susan's sake," pleaded the widow. Her son made a dismal attempt as she told him. Happy are the houses that have not seen such dreadful pretences of meals where tears were the only possible food! When she saw him fairly engaged in this desperate effort to take "some support," the poor mother went away and wrote a crafty female letter, which she brought to him to read. He would have smiled at it had the occasion been less tragic. It was addressed to the minister of "the connection" at Lonsdale, and set forth how she was detained at Carlingford by some family affairs--how Susan was visiting friends and travelling, and her mother was not sure where to address her--and how it would be the greatest favour if he would see Williams at the cottage, and have a message despatched to Mrs. Vincent the moment her daughter returned. "Do you not think it would be better to confide in him a little, and tell him what anxiety we are in?" said Vincent, when he read this letter. His mother took it out of his hands with a little cry.

"Oh, Arthur, though you are her brother, you are only a man, and don't understand," cried Mrs. Vincent. "n.o.body must have anything to say about my child. If she comes to-night, she will come here," continued the poor mother, pausing instinctively once more to listen; "she might have been detained somewhere; she may come at any moment--at any moment, Arthur dear! Though these telegraphs frighten me, and look as if they must bring bad news, I will send you word directly when my darling girl comes; but oh, my dear, though it is dreadful to send you away, and to think of your travelling to-morrow and breaking the Sunday, and very likely your people hearing it--oh, Arthur, G.o.d knows better, and will not blame you: and if you will not take anything more to eat, you should not lose time, my dearest boy! Don't look at me, Arthur--don't say good-bye. Perhaps you may meet her before you leave--perhaps you may not need to go away. Oh, Arthur dear, don't lose any more time!"

"It is scarcely time for the train yet," said the minister, getting up slowly; "the world does not care, though our hearts are breaking; it keeps its own time. Mother, good-bye. G.o.d knows what may have happened before I see you again."

"Oh, Arthur, say nothing--say nothing! What can happen but my child to come home?" cried his mother, as he clasped her hands and drew her closer to him. She leaned against her son's breast, which heaved convulsively, for one moment, and no more. She did not look at him as he went slowly out of the room, leaving her to the unspeakable silence and solitude in which every kind of terror started up and crept about. But before Vincent had left the house his mother's anxiety and hope were once more excited to pa.s.sion. Some one knocked and entered; there was a sound of voices and steps on the stair audibly approaching this room in which she sat with her fears. But it was not Susan; it was a young man of Arthur's own age, with his travelling-bag in his hand, and his sermons in his pocket. He had no suspicion that the sight of him brought the chill of despair to her heart as he went up to shake hands with his friend's mother. "Vincent would not come back to introduce me," said Mr.

Beecher, "but he said I should find you here. I have known him many years, and it is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance. Sometimes he used to show me your letters years ago. Is Miss Vincent with you? It is pleasant to get out of town for a little, even though one has to preach; and they will all be interested in 'Omerton to hear how Vincent is getting on. Made quite a commotion in the world, they say, with these lectures of his. I always knew he would make an 'it if he had fair-play."

"I am very glad to see you," said Mrs. Vincent. "I have just come up from Lonsdale, and everything is in a confusion. When people grow old,"

said the poor widow, busying herself in collecting the broken pieces of bread which Arthur had crumbled down by way of pretending to eat, "they feel fatigue and being put out of their way more than they ought. What can I get for you? will you have a gla.s.s of wine, and dinner as soon as it can be ready? My son had to go away."

"Preaching somewhere?" asked the lively Mr. Beecher.

"N-no; he has some--private business to attend to," said Mrs. Vincent, with a silent groan in her heart.

"Ah!--going to be married, I suppose?" said the man from 'Omerton; "that's the natural consequence after a man gets a charge. Miss Vincent is not with you, I think you said? I'll take a gla.s.s of wine, thank you; and I hear one of the flock has sent over to ask me to tea--Mr. Tozer, a leading man, I believe, among our people here," added Mr. Beecher, with a little complacence. "It's very pleasant when a congregation is hospitable and friendly. When a pastor's popular, you see, it always reacts upon his brethren. May I ask if you are going to Mr. Tozer's to tea to-night?"

"Oh, no," faltered poor Mrs. Vincent, whom prudence kept from adding, "heaven forbid!" "They--did not know I was here," she continued, faintly, turning away to ring the bell. Mr. Beecher, who flattered himself on his penetration, nodded slightly when her back was turned.

"Jealous that they've asked me," said the preacher, with a lively thrill of human satisfaction. How was he to know the blank of misery, the wretched feverish activity of thought, that possessed that mild little woman, as she gave her orders about the removal of the tray, and the dinner which already was being prepared for the stranger? But the lively young man from 'Omerton perceived that there was something wrong.

Vincent's black looks when he met him at the door, and the exceeding prompt.i.tude of that invitation to tea, were two and two which he could put together. He concluded directly that the pastor, though he had made "an 'it," was not found to suit the connection in Carlingford; and that possibly another candidate for Salem might be required ere long. "I would not injure Vincent for the world," he said to himself, "but if he does not 'it it, I might." The thought was not unpleasant. Accordingly, while Vincent's mother kept her place there in the anguish of her heart, thinking that perhaps, even in this dreadful extremity, she might be able to do something for Arthur with his people, and conciliate the authorities, her guest was thinking, if Vincent were to leave Carlingford, what a pleasant distance from town it was, and how very encouraging of the Tozers to ask him to tea. It might come to something more than preaching for a friend; and if Vincent did not "'it it," and a change were desirable, n.o.body could tell what might happen. All this smiling fabric the stranger built upon the discomposed looks of the Vincents and Phoebe's invitation to tea.

To sit by him and keep up a little attempt at conversation--to superintend his dinner, and tell him what she knew of Salem and her son's lectures, and his success generally, as became the minister's mother--was scarcely so hard as to be left afterwards, when he went out to Tozer's, all alone once more with the silence, with the sounds outside, with the steps that seem to come to the door, and the carriages that paused in the street, all sending dreadful thrills of hope through poor Mrs. Vincent's worn-out heart. Happily, her faculties were engaged by those frequent and oft-repeated tremors. In the fever of her anxiety, always startled with an expectation that at last this was Susan, she did not enter into the darker question where Susan might really be, and what had befallen the unhappy girl. Half an hour after Mr. Beecher left her, Phoebe Tozer came in, affectionate and anxious, driving the wretched mother almost wild by the sound of her step and the apparition of her young womanhood, to beg and pray that Mrs. Vincent would join them at their "friendly tea." "And so this is Mr. Vincent's room," said Phoebe, with a bashful air; "it feels so strange to be here! and you must be _so_ dull when he is gone. Oh, do come, and let us try to amuse you a little; though I am sure none of us could ever be such good company as the minister--oh, not half, nor quarter!" cried Phoebe.

Even in the midst of her misery, the mother was woman enough to think that Phoebe showed too much interest in the minister. She declined the invitation with gentle distinctness. She did not return the enthusiastic kiss which was bestowed upon her. "I am very tired, thank you," said Mrs. Vincent. "On Monday, if all is well, I will call to see your mamma.

I hope you will not catch cold coming out in this thin dress. I am sure it was very kind of you; but I am very tired to-night. On--Monday."

Alas, Monday! could this horror last so long, and she not die? or would all be well by that time, and Susan in her longing arms? The light went out of her eyes, and the breath from her heart, as that dreadful question stared her in the face. She scarcely saw Phoebe's withdrawal; she lay back in her chair in a kind of dreadful trance, till those stumbling steps and pa.s.sing carriages began again, and roused her back into agonised life and bootless hope.

CHAPTER XIX.

Vincent had shaken hands with his friend at the door, and hurried past, saying something about losing the train, in order to escape conversation; but, with the vivid perceptions of excitement, he heard the delivery of Phoebe's message, and saw the complacence with which the Homerton man regarded the invitation which had antic.i.p.ated his arrival. The young Nonconformist had enough to think of as he took his way once more to the railway, and tea at Mrs. Tozer's was anything but attractive to his own fancy; yet in the midst of his wretchedness he could not overcome the personal sense of annoyance which this trifling incident produced. It came like a p.r.i.c.k of irritating pain, to aggravate the dull horror which throbbed through him. He despised himself for being able to think of it at all, but at the same time it came back to him, darting unawares again and again into his thoughts. Little as he cared for the entertainments and attention of his flock, he was conscious of a certain exasperation in discovering their eagerness to entertain another. He was disgusted with Phoebe for bringing the message, and disgusted with Beecher for looking pleased to receive it.

"Probably he thinks he will supersede me," Vincent thought, in sudden gusts of disdain now and then, with a sardonic smile on his lip, waking up afterwards with a thrill of deeper self-disgust, to think that anything so insignificant had power to move him. When he plunged off from Carlingford at last, in the early falling darkness of the winter afternoon, and looked back upon the few lights struggling red through the evening mists, it was with a sense of belonging to the place where he had left an interloper who might take his post over his head, which, perhaps, no other possible stimulant could have given him. He thought with a certain pang of Salem, and that pulpit which was his own, but in which another man should stand to-morrow, with a quickened thrill of something that was almost jealousy; he wondered what might be the sentiments of the connection about his deputy--perhaps Brown and Pigeon would prefer that florid voice to his own--perhaps Phoebe might find the subst.i.tute more practicable than the inc.u.mbent. Nothing before had ever made Salem so interesting to the young pastor as Beecher's complacence over that invitation to tea.

But he had much more serious matters to consider in his rapid journey.

Vincent was but a man, though he was Susan's brother. He did not share those desperate hopes which afforded a kind of forlorn comfort and agony of expectation to his mother's heart. No thought that Susan would come home either to Carlingford or Lonsdale was in his mind. In what way soever the accursed villain, whom his face blanched with deadly rage to think of, had managed to get her in his power, Susan's sweet life was lost, her brother knew. He gave her up with unspeakable anguish and pity; but he did give her up, and hoped for no deliverance. Shame had taken possession of that image which fancy kept presenting in double tenderness and brightness to him as his heart burned in the darkness. He might find her indeed; he might s.n.a.t.c.h her out of these polluting arms, and bring home the sullied lily to her mother, but never henceforward could hope or honour blossom about his sister's name. He made up his mind to this in grim misery, with his teeth clenched, and a desperation of rage and horror in his heart. But in proportion to his conviction that Susan would not return, was his eagerness to find her, and s.n.a.t.c.h her away. To think of her in horror and despair was easier than to think of her deluded and happy, as might be--as most probably was the case.

This latter possibility made Vincent frantic. He could scarcely endure the slowness of the motion which was the highest pitch of speed that skill and steam had yet made possible. No express train could travel so fast as the thoughts which went before him, dismal pioneers penetrating the most dread abysses. To think of Susan happy in her horrible downfall and ruin was more than flesh or blood could bear.

When Vincent reached town, he took his way without a moment's hesitation to the street in Piccadilly where he had once sought Mr. Fordham. He approached the place now with no precautions; he had his cab driven up to the door, and boldly entered as soon as it was opened. The house was dark and silent but for the light in the narrow hall; n.o.body there at that dead hour, while it was still too early for dinner. And it was not the vigilant owner of the place, but a drowsy helper in a striped jacket who presented himself at the door, and replied to Vincent's inquiry for Colonel Mildmay, that the Colonel was not at home--never was at home at that hour--but was not unwilling to inquire, if the gentleman would wait. Vincent put up the collar of his coat about his ears, and stood back with eager attention, intently alive to everything. Evidently the ruler of the house was absent as well as the Colonel. The man lounged to the staircase and shouted down, leaning upon the bannisters. No aside or concealment was possible in this perfectly easy method of communication.

With an anxiety strongly at variance with the colloquy thus going on, and an intensification of all his faculties which only the height of excitement could give, Vincent stood back and listened. He heard every step that pa.s.sed outside; the pawing of the horse in the cab that waited for him, the chance voices of the pa.s.sengers, all chimed in, without interrupting the conversation between the man who admitted him and his fellow-servant down-stairs.

"Jim, is the Colonel at home?--he ain't, to be sure, but we wants to know particklar. Here," in a slightly lowered voice, "his mother's been took bad, and the parson's sent for him. When is he agoing to be in to dinner? Ask Cookie; she'll be sure to know."

"The Colonel ain't coming in to dinner, stoopid," answered the unseen interlocutor; "he ain't been here all day. Out o' town. Couldn't you say so, instead of jabbering? Out o' town. It's allays safe to say, and this time it's true."

"What's he adoing of, in case the gen'leman should want to know?" said the fellow at the head of the stair.

"After mischief," was the brief and emphatic answer. "You come along down to your work, and let the Colonel alone."

"Any mischief in particklar?" continued the man, tossing a dirty napkin in his hand, and standing in careless contempt, with his back to the minister. "It's a pleasant way the Colonel's got, that is: any more particklars, Jim?--the gen'leman 'll stand something if you'll let him know."

"Hold your noise, stoopid--it ain't no concern o' yours--my master's my master, and I ain't agoing to tell his secrets," said the voice below.

Vincent had made a step forward, divided between his impulse to kick the impertinent fellow who had admitted him down-stairs, and the equally strong impulse which prompted him to offer any bribe to the witness who knew his master's secrets; but he was suddenly arrested in both by a step on the street outside, and the grating of a latch-key in the door.

A long light step, firm and steady, with a certain sentiment of rapid silent progress in it. Vincent could not tell what strange fascination it was that made him turn round to watch this new-comer. The stranger's approach thrilled him vaguely, he could not tell how. Then the door opened, and a man appeared like the footstep--a very tall slight figure, stooping forward a little; a pale oval face, too long to be handsome, adorned with a long brown beard; thoughtful eyes, with a distant gleam in them, now and then flashing into sudden penetrating glances--a loose dress too light for the season, which somehow carried out all the peculiarities of the long light step, the thin sinewy form, the thoughtful softness and keenness of the eye. Even in the height of his own suspense and excitement, Vincent paused to ask himself who this could be. He came in with one sudden glance at the stranger in the hall, pa.s.sed him, and calling to the man, who became on the moment respectful and attentive, asked if there were any letters. "What name, sir?--beg your pardon--my place ain't up-stairs," said the fellow. What was the name? Vincent rushed forward when he heard it, and seized the new-comer by the shoulder with the fierceness of a tiger. "Fordham!" cried the young man, with boiling rage and hatred. Next moment he had let go his grasp, and was gazing bewildered upon the calm stranger, who looked at him with merely a thoughtful inquiry in his eyes. "Fordham--at your service--do you want anything with me?" he asked, meeting with undiminished calm the young man's excited looks. This composure put a sudden curb on Vincent's pa.s.sion.

"My name is Vincent," he said, restraining himself with an effort; "do you know now what I want with you? No? Am I to believe your looks or your name? If you are the man," cried the young Nonconformist, with a groan out of his distracted heart, "whom Lady Western could trust with life, to death--or if you are a fiend incarnate, making misery and ruin, you shall not escape me till I know the truth. Where is Susan?

Here is where her innocent letters came--they were addressed to your name. Where is she now? Answer me! For you, as well as the rest of us, it is life or death."

"You are raving," said the stranger, keeping his awakened eyes fixed upon Vincent; "but this is easily settled. I returned from the East only yesterday. I don't know you. What was that you said about Lady--Lady--what lady? Come in: and my name?--my name has been unheard in this country, so far as I know, for ten years. Lady----?--come in and explain what you mean."

The two stood together confronting each other in the little parlour of the house, where the striped jacket quickly and humbly lighted the gas.

Vincent's face, haggard with misery and want of rest, looked wild in that sudden light. The stranger stood opposite him, leaning forward with a strange eagerness and inquiry. He did not care for Vincent's anxiety, who was a stranger to him; he cared only to hear again that name--Lady----? He had heard it already, or he would have been less curious; he wanted to understand this wonderful message wafted to him out of his old life. What did it matter to Herbert Fordham, used to the danger of the deserts and mountains, whether it was a maniac who brought this chance seed of a new existence to his wondering heart?

"A man called Fordham has gone into my mother's house," said Vincent, fixing his eyes upon those keen but visionary orbs which were fixed on him--"and won the love of my sister. She wrote to him here--to this house; yesterday he carried her away, to her shame and destruction.

Answer me," cried the young man, making another fierce step forward, growing hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion, and clenching his hands in involuntary rage--"was it you?"

"There are other men called Fordham in existence besides me," cried the stranger, with a little irritation; then seizing his loose coat by its pockets, he shook out, with a sudden impatient motion, a cloud of letters from these receptacles. "Because you seem in great excitement and distress, and yet are not, as far as I can judge," said Mr. Fordham, with another glance at Vincent, "mad, I will take pains to satisfy you.

Look at my letters; their dates and post-marks will convince you that what you say is simply impossible, for that I was not here."

Vincent clutched and took them up with a certain blind eagerness, not knowing what he did. He did not look at them to satisfy himself that what Fordham said was true. A wild, half-conscious idea that there must be something in them about Susan possessed him; he saw neither dates nor post-mark, though he held them up to the light, as if they were proofs of something. "No," he said at last, "it was not you--it was that fiend Mildmay, Rachel Russell's husband. Where is he? he has taken your name, and made you responsible for his devilish deeds. Help me, if you are a Christian! My sister is in his hands, curse him! Help me, for the sake of your name, to find them out. I am a stranger, and they will give me no information; but they will tell you. For G.o.d's sake, ask and let me go after them. If ever you were beholden to the help of Christian men, help me! for it is life and death!"

"Mildmay! Rachel Russell's husband? under my name?" said Mr. Fordham, slowly. "I _have_ been beholden to Christian men, and that for very life. You make a strong appeal: who are you that are so desperate? and what was that you said?"

"I am Susan Vincent's brother," said the young Nonconformist; "that is enough. This devil has taken your name; help me, for heaven's sake, to find him out!"

"Mildmay?--devil? yes, he is a devil! you are right enough: I owe him no love," said Fordham; then he paused and turned away, as if in momentary perplexity. "To help that villain to his reward would be a man's duty; but," said the stranger, with a heavy sigh, upon which his words came involuntarily, spoken to himself, breathing out of his heart--"he is _her_ brother, devil though he is!"

"Yes!" cried Vincent, with pa.s.sion, "he is _her_ brother." When he had said the words, the young man groaned aloud. Partly he forgot that this man, who looked upon him with so much curiosity, was the man who had brought tears and trembling to Her; partly he remembered it, and forgot his jealousy for the moment in a bitter sense of fellow-feeling. In his heart he could see her, waving her hand to him out of her pa.s.sing carriage, with that smile for which he would have risked his life. Oh, hideous fate! it was _her_ brother whom he was bound to pursue to the end of the world. He buried his face in his hands, in a momentary madness of anguish and pa.s.sion. Susan floated away like a mist from that burning personal horizon. The love and the despair were too much for Vincent. The hope that had always been impossible was frantic now. When he recovered himself, the stranger whom he had thus unawares taken into his confidence was regarding him haughtily from the other side of the table, with a fiery light in his thoughtful eyes. Suspicion, jealousy, resentment, had begun to sparkle in those orbs, which in repose looked so far away and lay so calm. Mr. Fordham measured the haggard and worn-out young man with a look of rising dislike and animosity. He was at least ten years older than the young Nonconformist, who stood there in his wretchedness and exhaustion entirely at disadvantage, looking, in his half-clerical dress, which he had not changed for four-and-twenty hours, as different as can be conceived from the scrupulously dressed gentleman in his easy morning habiliments, which would not have been out of place in the rudest scene, yet spoke of personal nicety and high-breeding in every easy fold. Vincent himself felt the contrast with an instant flush of answering jealousy and pa.s.sion. For a moment the two glanced at each other, conscious rivals, though not a word of explanation had been spoken. It was Mr. Fordham who spoke first, and in a somewhat hasty and imperious tone.