Salem Chapel. Volume 1/2

“And he is not in town?” asked Vincent eagerly, without noticing the insolence of the speech. The man gradually closed the door upon himself till he had shut it, and stood outside, facing his persistent visitor.

“In town or out of town,” he said, folding his arms upon his chest, and surveying Vincent with all the insolence of a lackey who knows he has to deal with a man debarred by public opinion from the gratifying privilege of knocking him down, “there ain’t no more information to be got here.”

Such was the conclusion of Vincent’s attempted investigation. He went away at once, scarcely pausing to hear this speech out, to take the only means that presented themselves now; and going into the first stationer’s shop in his way, wrote a note entreating Mr. Fordham to meet him, and giving a friend’s address in London, as well as his own in Carlingford, that he might be communicated with instantly. When he had written and posted this note, Vincent proceeded to investigate the Directory and all the red and blue books he could lay his hands upon, for the name of Fordham. It was not a plentiful name, but still it occurred sufficiently often to perplex and confuse him utterly. When he had looked over the list of Fordhams in London, sufficiently long to give himself an intense headache, and to feel his under-taking entirely hopeless, he came to a standstill. What was to be done? He had no clue, nor the hope of any, to guide him through this labyrinth; but he had no longer any trust in the honour of the man whom his mother had so rashly received, and to whom Susan had given her heart. By way of the only precaution which occurred to him, he wrote a short note to Susan, begging her not to send any more letters to Mr. Fordham until her mother’s return; and desiring her not to be alarmed by this prohibition, but to be very careful of herself, and wait for an explanation when Mrs. Vincent should return. He thought he himself would accompany his mother home. The note was written, as Vincent thought, in the most guarded terms; but in reality was such an abrupt, alarming performance, as was sure to drive a sensitive girl into the wildest fright and uncertainty. Having eased his conscience by this, he went back to the railway, and returned to Carlingford. Night had fallen before he reached home. Under any other circumstances, he would have encountered his mother after such an ineffectual enterprise, conscious as he was of carrying back nothing but heightened suspicion, with very uncomfortable feelings, and would have been in his own person too profoundly concerned about this dreadful danger which menaced his only sister, to be able to rest or occupy himself about other things. But the fact was, that whenever he relapsed into the solitary carriage in which he travelled to Carlingford, and when utterly quiet and alone, wrapped in the haze of din and smoke and speed which abstracts railway travellers from all the world, – gave himself up to thought, the rosy hue of his own hopes came stealing over him unawares. Now and then he woke up, as men wake up from a doze, and made a passing snatch at his fears. But again and again they eluded his grasp, and the indefinite brightness which had no foundation in reason, swallowed up everything which interfered with its power. The effect of this was to make the young man preternaturally solemn when he entered the room where his mother awaited him. He felt the reality of the fear so much less than he ought to do, that it was necessary to put on twice the appearance. Had he really been as deeply anxious and alarmed as he should have been, he would naturally have tried to ease and lighten the burden of the discovery to his mother; feeling it so hazily as he did, no such precautions occurred to him. She rose up when he came in, with a face which gradually paled out of all its colour as he approached. When he was near enough to hold out his hand to her, Mrs. Vincent was nearly fainting. “Arthur,” she cried, in a scarcely audible voice, “God have pity upon us; it is true: I can see it in your face.”

“Mother, compose yourself. I have no evidence that it is true. I have discovered nothing,” cried Vincent, in alarm.

The widow dropped heavily into her chair, and sobbed aloud. “I can read it in your face,” she said. “Oh! my dear boy, have you seen that – that villain? Does he confess it? Oh, my Susan, my Susan! I will never forgive myself; I have killed my child.”

From this passion it was difficult to recover her, and Vincent had to represent so strongly the fact that he had ascertained nothing certain, and that, for anything he could tell, Fordham might still prove himself innocent, that he almost persuaded his own mind in persuading hers.

“His letters might be taken in at a place where he did not live, for convenience sake,” said Vincent. “The man might think me a dun, or something disagreeable. Fordham himself, for anything we can tell, may be very angry about it. Cheer up, mother; things are no worse than they were last night. I give you my word I have made no discovery, and perhaps to-morrow may bring us a letter clearing it all up.”

“Ah! Arthur, you are so young and hopeful. It is different with me, who have seen so many terrors come true,” said the mother, who notwithstanding was comforted. As for Vincent, he felt neither the danger nor the suspense. His whole soul was engrossed with the fact that it was time to dress; and it was with a little conscious sophistry that he himself made the best of it, and excused himself for his indifference.

“I can’t bear to leave you, mother, in such suspense and distress,” he said, looking at his watch; “but – I have to be at Lady Western’s at half-past six.”

Mrs. Vincent looked up with an expression of stupified surprise and pain for a moment, then brightened all at once. “My dear, I have laid out all your things,” she said, with animation. “Do you think I would let you miss it, Arthur? Never mind talking to me. I shall hear all about it when you come home to-night. Now go, dear, or you will be late. I will come and talk to you when you are dressing, if you don’t mind your mother? Well, perhaps not. I will stay here, and you can call me when you are ready, and I will bring you a cup of tea. I am sure you are tired, what with the fatigue and what with the anxiety. But you must try to put it off your mind, and enjoy yourself to-night.”

“Yes, mother,” said Vincent, hastening away; the tears were in her gentle eyes when she gave him that unnecessary advice. She pressed his hands fast in hers when he left her at last, repeating it, afraid in her own heart that this trouble had spoilt all the brightness of the opening hopes which she perceived with so much pride and joy. When he was gone, she sat down by the solitary fire, and cried over her Susan in an utter forlornness and helplessness, which only a woman, so gentle, timid, and unable to struggle for herself, could feel. Her son, in the mean time, walked down Grange Lane, first with a momentary shame at his own want of feeling, but soon, with an entire forgetfulness both of the shame and the subject of it, absorbed in thoughts of his reception there. With a palpitating heart he entered the dark garden, now noiseless and chill in winterly decay, and gazed at the lighted windows which had looked like distant planets to him the last time he saw them. He lingered looking at them, now that the moment approached so near. A remembrance of his former disappointment went to his heart with a momentary pang as he hesitated on the edge of his present happiness. Another moment and he had thrown himself again, with a degree of suppressed excitement wonderful to think of, upon the chances of his fate.

Not alarming chances, so far as could be predicated from the scene. A small room, the smaller half of that room which he had seen full of the pretty crowd of the summer-party, the folding-doors closed, and a curtain drawn across them; a fire burning brightly; groups of candles softly lighting the room in clusters upon the wall, and throwing a colourless soft illumination upon the pictures of which Lady Western was so proud. She herself, dropped amid billows of dark blue silk and clouds of black lace in a low easy-chair by the side of the fire, smiled at Vincent, and held out her hand to him without rising, with a sweet cordiality and friendliness which rapt the young man into paradise. Though Lucy Wodehouse was scarcely less pretty than the young Dowager, Mr. Vincent saw her as if he saw her not, and still less did he realise the presence of Miss Wodehouse, who was the shadow to all this brightness. He took the chair which Lady Western pointed to him by her side. He did not want anybody to speak; or anything to happen. The welcome was not given as to a stranger, but made him at once an intimate and familiar friend of the house. At once all his dreams were realised. The sweet atmosphere was tinged with the perfumy breath which always surrounded Her; the room, which was so fanciful and yet so home-like, seemed a reflection of her to his bewildered eyes; and the murmur of soft sound, as these two lovely creatures spoke to each other, made the most delicious climax to the scene; although the moment before he had been afraid lest the sound of a voice should break the spell. But the spell was not to be broken that night. Mr. Wentworth came in a few minutes after him, and was received with equal sweetness; but still the young Nonconformist was not jealous. It was he whose arm Lady Western appropriated, almost without looking at him as she did so, when they went to dinner. She had put aside the forms which were intended to keep the outer world at arm’s length. It was as her own closest personal friends that the little party gathered around the little table, just large enough for them, which was placed before the fire in the great dining-room. Lady Western was not a brilliant talker, but Mr. Vincent thought her smallest observation more precious than any utterance of genius. He listened to her with a fervour which few people showed when listening to him, notwithstanding his natural eloquence; but as to what he himself said in reply, he was entirely oblivious, and spoke like a man in a dream. When she clapped her pretty hands, and adjured the Churchman and the Nonconformist to fight out their quarrel, it was well for Vincent that Mr. Wentworth declined the controversy. The lecturer on Church and State was hors de combat; he was in charity with all men. The curate of St. Roque’s, who – blind and infatuated man! – thought Lucy Wodehouse the flower of Grange Lane, did not come in his way. He might pity him, but it was a sympathetic pity. Mr. Vincent took no notice when Miss Wodehouse launched tiny arrows of argument at him. She was the only member of the party who seemed to recollect his heresies in respect to Church and State – which, indeed, he had forgotten himself, and the state of mind which led to them. No such world existed now as that cold and lofty world which the young man of genius had seen glooming down upon his life, and shutting jealous barriers against his progress. The barriers were opened, the coldness gone – and he himself raised high on the sunshiny heights, where love and beauty had their perennial abode. He had gained nothing – changed in nothing – from his former condition: not even the golden gates of society had opened to the dissenting minister; but glorious enfranchisement had come to the young man’s heart. It was not Lady Western who had asked him to dinner – a distinction of which his mother was proud. It was the woman of all women who had brought him to her side, whose sweet eyes were sunning him over, whose voice thrilled to his heart. By her side he forgot all social distinctions, and all the stings contained in them. No prince could have reached more completely the ideal elevation and summit of youthful existence. Ambition and its successes were vulgar in comparison. It was a poetic triumph amid the prose tumults and downfalls of life.

When the two young men were left over their wine, a somewhat grim shadow fell upon the evening. The curate of St. Roque’s and the minister of Salem found it wonderfully hard to get up a conversation. They discussed the advantages of retiring with the ladies as they sat glum and reserved opposite each other – not by any means unlike, and, by consequence, natural enemies. Mr. Wentworth thought it an admirable plan, much more sensible than the absurd custom which kept men listening to a parcel of old fogies, who retained the habits of the last generation; and he proposed that they should join the ladies – a proposal to which Vincent gladly acceded. When they returned to the drawing-room, Lucy Wodehouse was at the piano; her sister sat at table with a pattern-book before her, doing some impossible pattern in knitting; and Lady Western again sat languid and lovely by the fire, with her beautiful hands in her lap, relieved from the dark background of the billowy blue dress by the delicate cambric and lace of her handkerchief. She was not doing anything, or looking as if she could do anything. She was leaning back in the low chair, with the rich folds of her dress sweeping the carpet, and her beautiful ungloved hands lying lightly across each other. She did not move when the gentlemen entered. She turned her eyes to them, and smiled those sweet welcoming smiles, which Vincent knew well enough were for both alike, yet which made his heart thrill and beat. Wentworth (insensible prig!) went to Lucy’s side, and began to talk to her over her music, now and then appealing to Miss Wodehouse. Vincent, whom no man hindered, and for whose happiness all the fates had conspired, invited by those smiling eyes, approached Lady Western with the surprised delight of a man miraculously blessed. He could not understand why he was permitted to be so happy. He drew a chair between her and the table, and, shutting out the other group by turning his back upon them, had her all to himself. She never changed her position, nor disturbed her sweet indolence, by the least movement. The fire blazed no longer. The candles, softly burning against the wall, threw no very brilliant light upon this scene. To Vincent’s consciousness, bewildered as he was by the supreme delight of his position, they were but two in a new world, and neither thing nor person disturbed the unimaginable bliss. But Miss Wodehouse, when she raised her eyes from her knitting, only saw the young Dowager leaning back in her chair, smiling the natural smiles of her sweet temper and kind heart upon the young stranger whom she had chosen to make a protégé of. Miss Wodehouse silently concluded that perhaps it might be dangerous for the young man, who knew no better, and that Lady Western always looked well in a blue dress. Such was the outside world’s interpretation of that triumphant hour of Vincent’s life.

How it went on he never could tell. Soft questions, spoken in that voice which made everything eloquent, gently drew from him the particulars of his life; and sweet laughter, more musical than that song of Lucy’s to which the curate (dull clod!) gave all his attention, rang silvery peals over the name of Tozer and the economics of Salem. Perhaps Lady Western enjoyed the conversation almost half as much as her worshipper did. She was amused, most delicate and difficult of all successes. She was pleased with the reverential devotion which had a freshness and tender humility conjoined with sensitive pride which was novel to her, and more flattering than ordinary adoration. When he saw it amused her, the young man exerted himself to set forth his miseries with their ludicrous element fully developed. They were no longer miseries, they were happinesses which brought him those smiles. He said twice enough to turn him out of Salem, and make him shunned by all the connection. He forgot everything in life but the lovely creature beside him, and the means by which he could arouse her interest, and keep her ear a little longer. Such was the position of affairs, when Miss Wodehouse came to the plain part of her pattern, where she could go on without counting; and seeing Lady Western so much amused, became interested and set herself to listen too. By this time Vincent had come to more private concerns.

“I have been inquiring to-day after some one whom my mother knows, and whom I am anxious to hear about,” said Vincent. “I cannot discover anything about him. It is a wild question to ask if you know him, but it is just possible; there are such curious encounters in life.”

“What is his name?” said Lady Western, with a smile as radiant as a sunbeam.

“His name is Fordham – Herbert Fordham: I do not know where he comes from, nor whether he is of any profession; nor, indeed, anything but his name. I have been in town to-day – ”

Here Vincent came to a sudden stop. He had withdrawn his eyes from that smile of hers for the moment. When he raised them again, the beautiful picture was changed as if by magic. Her eyes were fixed upon him dilated and almost wild. Her face was deadly pale. Her hands, which had been lying lightly crossed, grasped each other in a grasp of sudden anguish and self-control. He stopped short with a pang too bitter and strange for utterance. At that touch all his fancies dispersed into the air. He came to himself strangely, with a sense of chill and desolation. In one instant, from the height of momentary bliss down to the miserable flat of conscious unimportance. Such a downfall was too much for man to endure without showing it. He stopped short at the aspect of her face.

“You have been in town to-day?” she repeated, pointedly, with white and trembling lips.

“And could hear nothing of him,” said Vincent, with a little bitterness. “He was not to be heard of at his address.”

“Where was that?” asked Lady Western again, with the same intent and anxious gaze.

Vincent, who was sinking down, down in hopeless circles of jealousy, miserable fierce rage and disappointment, answered, “10 Nameless Street, Piccadilly,” without an unnecessary word.

Lady Western uttered a little cry of excitement and wonder. She knew nothing of the black abyss into which her companion had fallen any more than she knew the splendid heights to which her favour had raised him; but the sound of her own voice recalled her to herself. She turned away from Vincent and pulled the bell which was within her reach – pulled it once and again with a nervous twitch, and entangled her bracelet in the bell-pull, so that she had to bend over to unfasten it. Vincent sat gloomily by and looked on, without offering any assistance. He knew it was to hide her troubled face and gain a moment to compose herself; but he was scarcely prepared for her total avoidance of the subject when she next spoke.

“They are always so late of giving us tea,” she said, rising from her chair, and going up to Miss Wodehouse: “I can see you have finished your pattern; let me see how it looks. That is pretty; but I think it is too elaborate. How many things has Mary done for this bazaar, Mr. Wentworth? – and do tell us when is it to be?”

What did Vincent care for the answer? He sat disenchanted in that same place which had been his bower of bliss all the evening, watching her as she moved about the room; her beautiful figure went and came with a certain restlessness, surely not usual to her, from one corner to another. She brought Miss Wodehouse something to look at from the work-table, and fetched some music for Lucy from a window. She had the tea placed in a remote corner, and made it there; and insisted on bringing it to the Miss Wodehouses with her own hands. She was disturbed; her sweet composure was gone. Vincent sat and watched her under the shade of his hands, with feelings as miserable as ever moved man. It was not sorrow for having disturbed her; – feelings much more personal, mortification and disappointment, and, above all, jealousy, raged in his heart. Warmer and stronger than ever was his interest in Mr. Fordham now.

After a miserable interval, he rose to take his leave. When he came up to her, Lady Western’s kind heart once more awoke in his behalf. She drew him aside after a momentary struggle with herself.

“I know that gentleman,” she said, quickly, with a momentary flush of colour, and shortening of breath; “at least I knew him once; and the address you mention is my brother’s address. If you will tell me what you want to know, I will ask for you. My brother and he used not to be friends, but I suppose – . What did you want to know?”

“Only,” said Vincent, with involuntary bitterness, “if he was a man of honour, and could be trusted; nothing else.”

The young Dowager paused and sighed; her beautiful eyes softened with tears. “Oh, yes – yes; with life – to death!” she said, with a low accompaniment of sighing, and a wistful melancholy smile upon her lovely face.

Vincent hastened out of the house. He ventured to say nothing to himself as he went up Grange Lane in the starless night, with all the silence and swiftness of passion. He dared not trust himself to think. His very heart, the physical organ itself, seemed throbbing and bursting with conscious pain. Had she loved this mysterious stranger whose undecipherable shadow hung over the minister’s path? To Vincent’s fancy, nothing else could account for her agitation; and was he so true, and to be trusted? Poor gentle Susan, whom such a fate and doom was approaching as might have softened her brother’s heart, had but little place in his thoughts. He was not glad of that favourable verdict. He was overpowered with jealous rage and passion. Alas for his dreams! Once more, what downfall and over-throw had come of it! once more he had come down to his own position, and the second awakening was harder than the first. When he got home, and found his mother, affectionately proud, waiting to hear all about the great lady he had been visiting, it is impossible to express in words the intolerable impatience and disgust with himself and his fate which overpowered the young man. He had a bad headache, Mrs. Vincent said, she was sure, and he did not contradict her. It was an unspeakable relief to him when she went to her own room, and delivered him from the tender scrutiny of her eyes – those eyes full of nothing but love, which, in the irritation of his spirit, drove him desperate. He did not tell her about the unexpected discovery he had made. The very name of Fordham would have choked him that night.