Salem Chapel Volume I Part 2

"My dear!" said the old minister in reproof. "Yes, quite natural--curiosity about a stranger; but my young brother must not be elated; nor discouraged when they drop off. A young pastor's start in life is attended by many trials. There is always a little excitement at first, and an appearance of seats letting and the ladies very polite to you. Take it easily, my dear brother! Don't expect too much. In a year or two--by-and-by, when things settle down--then you can see how it's going to be."

"But don't you think it possible that things may never settle down, but continue rising up instead?" said Mr. Vincent, making a little venture in the inspiration of the moment.

Mr. Tufton shook his head and raised his large hands slowly, with a deprecating regretful motion, to hold them over the fire. "Alas! he's got the fever already," said the old minister. "My dear young brother, you shall have my experience to refer to always. You're always welcome to my advice. Dear Tozer said to me just yesterday, 'You point out the pitfalls to him, Mr. Tufton, and give him your advice, and I'll take care that he shan't go wrong outside,' says dear Tozer. Ah, an invaluable man!"

"But a little disposed to interfere, I think," said Vincent, with an irrestrainable inclination to show his profound disrelish of all the advice which was about to be given him.

Mr. Tufton raised his heavy forefinger and shook it slowly. "No--no. Be careful, my dear brother. You must keep well with your deacons. You must not take up prejudices against them. Dear Tozer is a man of a thousand--a man of a thousand! Dear Tozer, if you listen to him, will keep you out of trouble. The trouble he takes and the money he spends for Salem Chapel is, mark my words, unknown--and," added the old pastor, awfully syllabling the long word in his solemn ba.s.s, "in-con-ceiv-able."

"He is a bore and an a.s.s for all that," said the daring invalid opposite, with perfect equanimity, as if uttering the most patent and apparent of truths. "Don't you give in to him, Mr. Vincent. A pretty business you will have with them all," she continued, dropping her knitting-needles and lifting her pale-blue eyes, with their sudden green gleam, to the face of the new-comer with a rapid perception of his character, which, having no sympathy in it, but rather a certain mischievous and pleased satisfaction in his probable discomfiture, gave anything but comfort to the object of her observation. "You are something new for them to pet and badger. I wonder how long they'll be of killing Mr. Vincent. Papa's tough; but you remember, mamma, they finished off the other man before us in two years."

"Oh, hush, Adelaide, hush! you'll frighten Mr. Vincent," cried the kind little mother, with uneasy looks: "when he comes to see us and cheer us up--as I am sure is very kind of him--it is a shame to put all sorts of things in his head, as papa and you do. Never mind Adelaide, Mr.

Vincent, dear. Do your duty, and never fear anybody; that's always been my maxim, and I've always found it answer. Not going away, are you?

Dear, dear! and we've had no wise talk at all, and never once asked for your poor dear mother--quite well, I hope?--and Miss Susan? You should have them come and see you, and cheer you up. Well, good morning, if you must go; don't be long before you come again."

"And, my dear young brother, don't take up any prejudices," interposed Mr. Tufton, in tremulous ba.s.s, as he pressed Vincent's half-reluctant fingers in that large soft flabby ministerial hand. Adelaide added nothing to these valedictions; but when she too had received his leave-taking, and he had emerged from the shadow of the geraniums, the observer paused once more in her knitting. "This one will not hold out two years," said Adelaide, calmly, to herself, no one else paying any attention; and she returned to her work with the zest of a spectator at the commencement of an exciting drama. She did double work all the afternoon under the influence of this refreshing stimulant. It was quite a new interest in her life.

Meanwhile young Vincent left the green gates of Siloam Cottage with no very comfortable feelings--with feelings, indeed, the reverse of comfortable, yet conscious of a certain swell and elevation in his mind at the same moment. It was for him to show the entire community of Carlingford the difference between his reign and the old _regime_. It was for him to change the face of affairs--to reduce Tozer into his due place of subordination, and to bring in an influx of new life, intelligence, and enlightenment over the prostrate b.u.t.terman. The very sordidness and contraction of the little world into which he had just received so distinct a view, promoted the revulsion of feeling which now cheered him. The aspiring young man could as soon have consented to lose his individuality altogether as to acknowledge the most distant possibility of accepting Tozer as his guide, philosopher, and friend. He went back again through Grove Street, heated and hastened on his way by those impatient thoughts. When he came as far as Salem, he could not but pause to look at it with its pinched gable and mean little belfry, innocent of a bell. The day was overclouded, and no clearness of atmosphere relieved the aspect of the shabby chapel, with its black railing, and locked gates, and dank flowerless gra.s.s inside. To see anything venerable or sacred in the aspect of such a place, required an amount of illusion and glamour which the young minister could not summon into his eyes. It was not the centre of light in a dark place, the simple tribune from which the people's preacher should proclaim, to the awe and conviction of the mult.i.tude, that Gospel once preached to the poor, of which he flattered himself he should be the truest messenger in Carlingford. Such had been the young man's dreams in Homerton--dreams mingled, it is true, with personal ambition, but full notwithstanding of generous enthusiasm. No--nothing of the kind. Only Salem Chapel, with so many pews let, and so many still to be disposed of, and Tozer a guardian angel at the door. Mr. Vincent was so far left to himself as to give vent to an impatient exclamation as he turned away. But still matters were not hopeless. He himself was a very different man from Mr. Tufton.

Kindred spirits there must surely be in Carlingford to answer to the call of his. Another day might dawn for the Nonconformists, who were not aware of their own dignity. With this thought he retraced his steps a little, and, with an impulse which he did not explain to himself, threaded his way up a narrow lane and emerged into Back Grove Street, about the spot where he had lately paid his pastoral visit, and made so unexpected an acquaintance. This woman--or should he not say lady?--was a kind of first-fruits of his mission. The young man looked up with a certain wistful interest at the house in which she lived. She was neither young nor fair, it is true, but she interested the youthful Nonconformist, who was not too old for impulses of chivalry, and who could not forget her poor fingers scarred with her rough work. He had no other motive for pa.s.sing the house but that of sympathy and compa.s.sion for the forlorn brave creature who was so unlike her surroundings; and no throbbing pulse or trembling nerve forewarned Arthur Vincent of the approach of fate.

At that moment, however, fate was approaching in the shape of a handsome carriage, which made quite an exaggeration of echo in this narrow back-street, which rang back every jingle of the harness and dint of the hoofs from every court and opening. It drew up before Mrs. Hilyard's door--at the door of the house, at least, in which Mrs. Hilyard was a humble lodger; and while Vincent slowly approached, a brilliant vision suddenly appeared before him, rustling forth upon the crowded pavement, where the dirty children stood still to gape at her. A woman--a lady--a beautiful dazzling creature, resplendent in the sweetest English roses, the most delicate bewildering bloom. Though it was but for a moment, the bewildered young minister had time to note the dainty foot, the daintier hand, the smiling sunshiny eyes, the air of conscious supremacy, which was half command and half entreaty--an ineffable combination. That vision descended out of the heavenly chariot upon the mean pavement just as Mr. Vincent came up; and at the same moment a ragged boy, struck speechless, like the young minister, by the apparition, planted himself full in her way with open mouth and staring eyes, too much overpowered by sudden admiration to perceive that he stopped the path. Scarcely aware what he was doing, as much beauty-struck as his victim, Vincent, with a certain unconscious fury, seized the boy by the collar, and swung him impatiently off the pavement, with a feeling of positive resentment against the imp, whose rags were actually touching those sacred splendid draperies. The lady made a momentary pause, turned half round, smiled with a gracious inclination of her head, and entered at the open door, leaving the young pastor in an incomprehensible ecstasy, with his hat off, and all his pulses beating loud in his ears, riveted, as the romancers say, to the pavement. When the door shut he came to himself, stared wildly into the face of the next pa.s.senger who came along the narrow street, and then, becoming aware that he still stood uncovered, grew violently red, put on his hat, and went off at a great pace. But what was the use of going off? The deed was done. The world on the other side of these prancing horses was a different world from that on this side. Those other matters, of which he had been thinking so hotly, had suddenly faded into a background and accessories to the one triumphant figure which occupied all the scene. He scarcely asked himself who was that beautiful vision? The fact of her existence was at the moment too overpowering for any secondary inquiries. He had seen her--and lo! the universe was changed. The air tingled softly with the sound of prancing horses and rolling wheels, the air breathed an irresistible soft perfume, which could nevermore die out of it, the air rustled with the silken thrill of those womanly robes. There she had enthroned herself--not in his startled heart, but in the palpitating world, which formed in a moment's time into one great background and framework for that beatific form.

What the poor young man had done to be suddenly a.s.sailed and carried off his feet by this wonderful and unexpected apparition, we are unable to say. He seemed to have done nothing to provoke it: approaching quietly as any man might do, pondering grave thoughts of Salem Chapel, and how he was to make his post tenable, to be transfixed all at once and unawares by that fairy lance, was a spite of fortune which n.o.body could have predicted. But the thing was done. He went home to hide his stricken head, as was natural; tried to read, tried to think of a popular series of lectures, tried to lay plans for his campaign and heroic desperate attempts to resuscitate the shopkeeping Dissenterism of Carlingford into a lofty Nonconformist ideal. But vain were the efforts.

Wherever he lifted his eyes, was not She there, all-conquering and glorious? when he did not lift his eyes, was not she everywhere Lady Paramount of the conscious world? Womankind in general, which had never, so to speak, entered his thoughts before, had produced much trouble to poor Arthur Vincent since his arrival in Carlingford. But Phoebe Tozer, pink and blooming--Mrs. Hilyard, sharp and strange--Adelaide Tufton, pale spectator of a life with which she had nothing to do--died off like shadows, and left no sign of their presence. Who was She?

CHAPTER IV.

After the remarkable encounter which had thus happened to the young minister, life went on with him in the dullest routine for some days.

Thursday came, and he had to go to Mrs. Brown's tea-party, where, in the drawing-room up-stairs, over the Devonshire Dairy, after tea, and music, and the diversions of the evening, he conducted prayers to the great secret satisfaction of the hostess, who felt that the superior piety of her entertainment entirely made up for any little advantage in point of gentility which Mrs. Tozer, with a grown-up daughter fresh from a boarding-school, might have over her. On Friday evening there was the singing-cla.s.s at the chapel, which Mr. Vincent was expected to look in upon, and from which he had the privilege of walking home with Miss Tozer. When he arrived with his blooming charge at the private door, the existence of which he had not hitherto been aware of, Tozer himself appeared, to invite the young pastor to enter. This time it was the b.u.t.terman's unadorned domestic hearth to which Mr. Vincent was introduced. This happy privacy was in a little parlour, which, being on the same floor with the b.u.t.ter-shop, naturally was not without a reminiscence of the near vicinity of all those hams and cheeses--a room nearly blocked up by the large family-table, at which, to the disgust of Phoebe, the apprentices sat at meal-times along with the family.

One little boy, distinguished out of doors by a red worsted comforter, was, besides Phoebe, the only member of the family itself now at home; the others being two sons, one in Australia, and the other studying for a minister, as Mrs. Tozer had already informed her pastor, with motherly pride. Mrs. Tozer sat in an easy-chair by the fire darning stockings on this October night; her husband, opposite to her, had been looking over his greasy books, one of which lay open upon a little writing-desk, where a bundle of smaller ones in red leather, with "Tozer, Cheesemonger," stamped on them in gilt letters, lay waiting Phoebe's arrival to be made up. The Benjamin of the house sat half-way down the long table with his slate working at his lessons. The margin of s.p.a.ce round this long table scarcely counted in the aspect of the room. There was s.p.a.ce enough for chairs to be set round it, and that was all: the table with its red-and-blue cover and the faces appearing above it, const.i.tuted the entire scene. Mr. Vincent stood uneasily at a corner when he was brought into the apartment, and distinctly placed himself at table, as if at a meal, when he sat down.

"Do you now take off your greatcoat, and make yourself comfortable,"

said Mrs. Tozer; "there's a bit of supper coming presently. This is just what I like, is this. A party is very well in its way, Mr. Vincent, sir; but when a gen'leman comes in familiar, and takes us just as we are, that's what I like. We never can be took wrong of an evening, Tozer and me; there's always a bit of something comfortable for supper; and after the shop's shut in them long evenings, time's free. Phoebe, make haste and take off your things. What a colour you've got, to be sure, with the night air! I declare, Pa, somebody must have been saying something to her, or she'd never look so bright."

"I daresay there's more things than music gets talked of at the singing," said Tozer, thus appealed to. "But she'd do a deal better if she'd try to improve her mind than take notice what the young fellows says."

"Oh, Pa, the idea! and before Mr. Vincent too," cried Phoebe--"to think I should ever dream of listening to anything that _anybody_ might choose to say!"

Vincent, to whom the eyes of the whole family turned, grinned a feeble smile, but, groaning in his mind, was totally unequal to the effort of saying anything. After a moment's pause of half-disappointed expectation, Phoebe disappeared to take off her bonnet; and Mrs.

Tozer, bestirring herself, cleared away the desk and books, and went into the kitchen to inquire into the supper. The minister and the deacon were accordingly left alone.

"Three more pews applied for this week--fifteen sittings in all," said Mr. Tozer; "that's what I call satisfactory, that is. We mustn't let the steam go down--not on no account. You keep well at them of Sundays, Mr.

Vincent, and trust to the managers, sir, to keep 'em up to their dooty.

Me and Mr. Tufton was consulting the other day. He says as we oughtn't to spare you, and you oughtn't to spare yourself. There hasn't been such a opening not in our connection for fifteen year. We all look to you to go into it, Mr. Vincent. If all goes as I expect, and you keep up as you're doing, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to put another fifty to the salary next year."

"Oh!" said poor Vincent, with a miserable face. He had been rather pleased to hear about the "opening," but this matter-of-fact encouragement and stimulus threw him back into dismay and disgust.

"Yes," said the deacon, "though I wouldn't advise you, as a young man settin' out in life, to calculate upon it, yet we all think it more than likely; but if you was to ask my advice, I'd say to give it 'em a little more plain--meaning the Church folks. It's expected of a new man. I'd touch 'em up in the State-Church line, Mr. Vincent, if I was you. Give us a coorse upon the anomalies, and that sort of thing--the bishops in their palaces, and the fisherman as was the start of it all; there's a deal to be done in that way. It always tells; and my opinion is as you might secure the most part of the young men and thinkers, and them as can see what's what, if you lay it on pretty strong. Not," added the deacon, remembering in time to add that necessary salve to the conscience--"not as I would have you neglect what's more important; but, after all, what is more important, Mr. Vincent, than freedom of opinion and choosing your own religious teacher? You can't put gospel truth in a man's mind till you've freed him out of them bonds. It stands to reason--as long as he believes just what he's told, and has it all made out for him the very words he's to pray, there may be feelin', sir, but there can't be no spiritual understandin' in that man."

"Well, one can't deny that there have been enlightened men in the Church of England," said the young Nonconformist, with lofty candour. "The inconsistencies of the human mind are wonderful; and it is coming to be pretty clearly understood in the intellectual world, that a man may show the most penetrating genius, and even the widest liberality, and yet be led a willing slave in the bonds of religious rite and ceremony. One cannot understand it, it is true; but in our clearer atmosphere we are bound to exercise Christian charity. Great as the advantages are on our side of the question, I would not willingly hurt the feelings of a sincere Churchman, who, for anything I know, may be the best of men."

Mr. Tozer paused with a "humph!" of uncertainty; rather dazzled with the fine language, but doubtful of the sentiment. At length light seemed to dawn upon the excellent b.u.t.terman. "Bless my soul! that's a new view,"

said Tozer; "that's taking the superior line over them! My impression is as that would tell beautiful. Eh! it's famous, that is! I've heard a many gentlemen attacking the Church, like, from down below, and giving it her about her money and her greatness, and all that; but our clearer atmosphere--there's the point! I always knew as you was a clever young man, Mr. Vincent, and expected a deal from you; but that's a new view, that is!"

"Oh, Pa, dear! don't be always talking about chapel business," said Miss Phoebe, coming in. "I am sure Mr. Vincent is sick to death of Salem. I am sure his heart is in some other place now; and if you bore him always about the chapel, he'll never, _never_ take to Carlingford. Oh, Mr.

Vincent, I am sure you know it is quite true!"

"Indeed," said the young minister, with a sudden recollection, "I can vouch for my heart being in Carlingford, and nowhere else;" and as he spoke his colour rose. Phoebe clapped her hands with a little semblance of confusion.

"Oh, la!" cried that young lady, "that is _quite_ as good as a confession that you have lost it, Mr. Vincent. Oh, I _am_ so interested!

I wonder who it can be!"

"Hush, child; I daresay we shall know before long," said Mrs. Tozer, who had also rejoined the domestic party; "and don't you colour up or look ashamed, Mr. Vincent. Take my word, it's the very best a young minister can do. To be sure, where there's a quant.i.ty of young ladies in a congregation, it sometimes makes a little dispeace; but there ain't to say many to choose from in Salem."

"La, mamma, how _can_ you think it's a lady in Salem?" cried Phoebe, in a flutter of consciousness.

"Oh, you curious thing!" cried Mrs. Tozer: "she'll never rest, Mr.

Vincent, till she's found it all out. She always was, from a child, a dreadful one for finding out a secret. But don't you trouble yourself; it's the very best thing a young minister can do."

Poor Vincent made a hasty effort to exculpate himself from the soft impeachment, but with no effect. Smiles, innuendoes, a succession of questions asked by Phoebe, who retired, whenever she had made her remark, with conscious looks and pink blushes, perpetually renewed this delightful subject. The unlucky young man retired upon Tozer. In desperation he laid himself open to the less troublesome infliction of the b.u.t.terman's advice. In the mean time the table was spread, and supper appeared in most substantial and savoury shape; the only drawback being, that whenever the door was opened, the odours of bacon and cheese from the shop came in like a musty shadow of the boiled ham and hot sausages within.

"I am very partial to your style, Mr. Vincent," said the deacon; "there's just one thing I'd like to observe, sir, if you'll excuse _me_.

I'd give 'em a coorse; there's nothing takes like a coorse in our connection. Whether it's on a chapter or a book of Scripture, or on a perticklar doctrine, I'd make a pint of giving 'em a coorse if it was me. There was Mr. Bailey, of Parson's Green, as was so popular before he married--he had a historical coorse in the evenings, and a coorse upon the eighth of Romans in the morning; and it was astonishing to see how they took. I walked over many and many's the summer evening myself, he kep' up the interest so. There ain't a cleverer man in our body, nor wasn't a better liked as he was then."

"And now I understand he's gone away--what was the reason?" asked Mr.

Vincent.

Tozer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "All along of the women: they didn't like his wife; and my own opinion is, he fell off dreadful. Last time I heard him, I made up my mind I'd never go back again--me that was such an admirer of his; and the managers found the chapel was falling off, and a deputation waited on him; and, to be sure, he saw it his duty to go."

"And, oh, she was so sweetly pretty!" cried Miss Phoebe: "but pray, pray, Mr. Vincent, don't look so pale. If you marry a pretty lady, we'll all be so kind to her! We shan't grudge her our minister; we shall----"

Here Miss Phoebe paused, overcome by her emotions.

"I do declare there never was such a child," said Mrs. Tozer: "it's none of your business, Phoebe. She's a great deal too feelin', Mr. Vincent.

But I don't approve, for my part, of a minister marrying a lady as is too grand for her place, whatever Phoebe may say. It's her that should teach suchlike as us humility and simple ways; and a fine lady isn't no way suitable. Not to discourage you, Mr. Vincent, I haven't a doubt, for my part, that you'll make a nice choice."

"I have not the least intention of trying the experiment," said poor Vincent, with a faint smile; then, turning to his deacon, he plunged into the first subject that occurred to him. "Do you know a Mrs. Hilyard in Back Grove Street?" asked the young minister. "I went to see her the other day. Who is she, or where does she belong to, can you tell me?--and which of your great ladies in Carlingford is it," he added, with a little catching of his breath after a momentary pause, "who visits that poor lady? I saw a carriage at her door."

"Meaning the poor woman at the back of the chapel?" said Tozer--"I don't know nothing of her, except that I visited there, sir, as you might do, in the way of dooty. Ah! I fear she's in the gall of bitterness, Mr.

Vincent; she didn't take my 'umble advice, sir, not as a Christian ought. But she comes to the chapel regular enough; and you may be the means of putting better thoughts into her mind; and as for our great ladies in Carlingford," continued Mr. Tozer, with the air of an authority, "never a one of them, I give you my word, would go out of her way a-visiting to one of the chapel folks. They're a deal too bigoted for that, especially them at St. Roque's."

"Oh, Pa, how can you say so," cried Phoebe, "when it's very well known the ladies go everywhere, where the people are very, very poor? but then Mr. Vincent said a poor _lady_. Was it a nice carriage? The Miss Wodehouses always walk, and so does Mrs. Glen, and all the Strangeways.

Oh, I know, it was the young Dowager--that pretty, pretty lady, you know, mamma, that gives the grand parties, and lives in Grange Lane. I saw her carriage going up the lane by the chapel once. Oh, Mr. Vincent, wasn't she very, _very_ pretty, with blue eyes and brown hair?"

"I could not tell you what kind of eyes and hair they were," said Mr.