Salem Chapel. Volume 1/2
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Mrs. Vincent had flown forth with open arms – with eyes blinded. The poor soul thought nothing less than that it was her child returned. They carried her back speechless, in a disappointment too cruel and bitter to have expression. Two women – one sober, sleepy, nervous, and full of trouble, unknown to either mother or son – the other with a certain dreadful inspiration in her dark face, and eyes that gleamed out of it as if they had concentrated into them all the blackness of the night.
“You are going back, and so am I,” Mrs. Hilyard said. “I came to say a word to you before I go away. If I have been anyhow the cause, forgive me. God knows, of all things in the world the last I dreamt of was to injure this good woman or invade her innocent house. Do you know where they have gone? – did she leave any letters? – Tell me. She shall be precious to me as my own, if I find them out.”
Mrs. Vincent freed herself from her son’s arms, and got up with her blanched face. “My daughter – followed me – to Carlingford,” she said, in broken words, with a determination which sat almost awful on her weakness. “We have had the great misfortune – to cross each other – on the way. I am going – after her – directly. I am not afraid – of my Susan. She is all safe in my son’s house.”
The others exchanged alarmed looks, as they might have done had a child suddenly assumed the aspect of a leader. She, who could scarcely steady her trembling limbs to stand upright, faced their looks with a dumb denial of her own anguish. “It is – very unfortunate – but I am not anxious,” she said, slowly, with a ghastly smile. Human nature could do no more. She sank down again on her seat, but still faced them – absolute in her self-restraint, rejecting pity. Not even tears should fall upon Susan’s sweet name – not while her mother lived to defend it in life and death.
The Carlingford needlewoman stood opposite her, gazing with eyes that went beyond that figure, and yet dwelt upon it, at so wonderful a spectacle. Many a terrible secret of life unknown to the minister’s gentle mother throbbed in her heart; but she stood in a pause of wonder before that weaker woman. The sight of her stayed the passionate current for a moment, and brought the desperate woman to a pause. Then she turned to the young man, who stood speechless by his mother’s side —
“You are a priest, and yet you do not curse,” she said. “Is God as careless of a curse as of a blessing? She thinks He will save the Innocents yet. She does not know that He stands by like a man, and sees them murdered, and shines and rains all the same. God! No – He never interferes. Good-bye,” she added, suddenly, holding out to him the thin hand upon which, even in that dreadful moment, his eye still caught the traces of her work, the scars of the needle, and stains of the coarse colour. “If you ever see me again, I shall be a famous woman, Mr. Vincent. You will have a little of the trail of my glory, and be able to furnish details of my latter days. This good Miss Smith here will tell you of the life it was before; but if I should make a distinguished end after all, come to see me then – never mind where. I speak madly, to be sure, but you don’t understand me. There – not a word. You preach very well, but I am beyond preaching now – Good-bye.”
“No,” said Vincent, clutching her hand – “never, if you go with that horrible intention in your eyes; I will say no farewell to such an errand as this.”
The eyes in their blank brightness paused at him for a moment before they passed to the vacant air on which they were always fixed – paused with a certain glance of troubled amusement, the lightning of former days. “You flatter me,” she said, steadily, with the old habitual movement of her mouth. “It is years since anybody has taken the trouble to read any intention in my eyes. But don’t you understand yet that a woman’s intention is the last thing she is likely to perform in this world? We do have meanings now and then, we poor creatures, but they seldom come to much. Good-bye, good-bye!”
“You cannot look at me,” said Vincent, with a conscious incoherence, reason or argument being out of the question. “What is it you see behind there? Where are you looking with those dreadful eyes?”
She brought her eyes back as he spoke, with an evident effort, to fix them upon his face. “I once remarked upon your high-breeding,” said the strange woman. “A prince could not have shown finer manners than you did in Carlingford, Mr. Vincent. Don’t disappoint me now. If I see ghosts behind you, what then? Most people that have lived long enough, come to see ghosts before they die. But this is not exactly the time for conversation, however interesting it may be. If you and I ever see each other again, things will have happened before then; you too, perhaps, may have found the ghosts out. I appoint you to come to see me after you have come to life again, in the next world. Good-night. I don’t forget that you gave me your blessing when we parted last.”
She was turning away when Mrs. Vincent rose, steadying herself by the chair, and put a timid hand upon the stranger’s arm. “I don’t know who you are,” said the widow; “it is all a strange jumble; but I am an older woman than you, and a – a minister’s wife. You have something on your mind. My son is frightened you will do something – I cannot tell what. You are much cleverer than I am; but I am, as I say, an older woman, and a – a minister’s wife. I am not – afraid of anything. Yes! I know God does not always save the Innocents, as you say – but He knows why, though we don’t. Will you go with me? If you have gone astray when you were young,” said the mild woman, raising up her little figure with an ineffable simplicity, “I will never ask any questions, and it will not matter – for everybody I care for knows me. The dreadful things you think of will not happen if we go together. I was a minister’s wife thirty years. I know human nature and God’s goodness. Come with me.”
“Mother, mother! what are you saying?” cried Vincent, who had all the time been making vain attempts to interrupt this extraordinary speech. Mrs. Hilyard put him away with a quick gesture. She took hold of the widow’s hand with that firm, supporting, compelling pressure under which, the day before, Mrs. Vincent had yielded up all her secrets. She turned her eyes out of vacancy to the little pale woman who offered her this protection. A sudden mist surprised those gleaming eyes – a sudden thrill ran through the thin, slight, iron figure, upon which fatigue and excitement seemed to make no impression. The rock was stricken at last.
“No – no,” she sighed, with a voice that trembled. “No – no! the lamb and the lion do not go together yet in this poor world. No – no – no. I wonder what tears have to do in my eyes; ah, God in the skies! if you ever do miracles, do one for this woman, and save her child! Praying and crying are strange fancies for me – I must go away, but first,” she said, still holding Mrs. Vincent fast – “a woman is but a woman after all – if it is more honourable to be a wicked man’s wife than to have gone astray, as you call it, then there is no one in the world who can breathe suspicion upon me. Ask this other good woman here, who knows all about me, but fears me, like you. Fears me! What do you suppose there can be to fear, Mr. Vincent, you who are a scholar, and know better than these soft women,” said Mrs. Hilyard, suddenly dropping the widow’s hand, and turning round upon the young minister, with an instant throwing off of all emotion, which had the strangest horrifying effect upon the little agitated company, “in a woman who was born to the name of Rachel Russell, the model English wife? Will the world ever believe harm, do you imagine, of such a name? I will take refuge in my ancestress. But we go different ways, and have different ends to accomplish,” she continued, with a sudden returning gleam of the subdued horror – “Good-night – good-night!”
“Oh, stop her, Arthur – stop her! – Susan will be at Carlingford when we get there; Susan will go nowhere else but to her mother,” cried Mrs. Vincent, as the door closed on the nocturnal visitors – “I am as sure – as sure – ! Oh, my dear, do you think I can have any doubt of my own child? As for Susan going astray – or being carried off – or falling into wickedness – Arthur!” said his mother, putting back her veil from her pale face, “now I have got over this dreadful night, I know better – nobody must breathe such a thing to me. Tell her so, dear – tell her so! – call her back – they will be at Carlingford when we get there!”
Vincent drew his mother’s arm through his own, and led her out into the darkness, which was morning and no longer night. “A few hours longer and we shall see,” he said, with a hard-drawn breath. Into that darkness Mrs. Hilyard and her companion had disappeared. There was another line of railway within a little distance of Lonsdale, but Vincent was at pains not to see his fellow-travellers as he placed his mother once more in a carriage, and once more caught the eye of the man whose curious look had startled him. When the grey morning began to dawn, it revealed two ashen faces, equally speechless and absorbed with thoughts which neither dared communicate to the other. They did not even look at each other, as the merciful noise and motion wrapped them in that little separate sphere of being. One possibility and no more kept a certain coherence in both their thoughts, otherwise lost in wild chaos – horrible suspense – an uncertainty worse than death.
CHAPTER XVIII
IT was the very height of day when the travellers arrived in Carlingford. It would be vain to attempt to describe their transit through London in the bustling sunshine of the winter morning after the vigil of that night, and in the frightful suspense and excitement of their minds. Vincent remembered, for years after, certain cheerful street-corners, round which they turned on their way from one station to another, with shudders of recollection, and an intense consciousness of all the life circulating about them, even to the attitudes of the boys that swept the crossings, and their contrast with each other. His mother made dismal attempts now and then to say something; that he was looking pale; that after all he could yet preach, and begin his course on the Miracles; that it would be such a comfort to rest when they got home; but at last became inaudible, though he knew by her bending across to him, and the motion of those parched lips with which she still tried to smile, that the widow still continued to make those pathetic little speeches without knowing that she had become speechless in the rising tide of her agony. But at last they reached Carlingford, where everything was at its brightest, all the occupations of life afloat in the streets, and sunshine, lavish though ineffectual, brightening the whole aspect of the town. When they emerged from the railway, Mrs. Vincent took her son’s arm, and for the last time made some remark with a ghastly smile – but no sound came from her lips. They walked up the sunshiny street together with such silent speed as would have been frightful to look at had anybody known what was in their hearts. Mrs. Pigeon, who was coming along the other side, crossed over on purpose to accost the minister and be introduced to his mother, but was driven frantic by the total blank unconsciousness with which the two swept past her; “taking no more notice than if he had never set eyes on me in his born days!” as she described it afterwards. The door of the house where Vincent lived was opened to them briskly by the little maid in holiday attire; everything wore the most sickening, oppressive brightness within in fresh Saturday cleanliness. Vincent half carried his mother up the steps, and held fast in his own to support her the hand which he had drawn tightly through his arm. “Is there any one here? Has anybody come for me since I left?” he asked, with the sound of his own words ringing shrilly into his ears. “Please, sir, Mr. Tozer’s been,” said the girl, alertly, with smiling confidence. She could not comprehend the groan with which the young man startled all the clear and sunshiny atmosphere, nor the sudden rustle of the little figure beside him, which moved somehow, swaying with the words as if they were a wind. “Mother, you are going to faint!” cried Vincent – and the little maid flew in terror to call her mistress, and bring a glass of water. But when she came back, the mother and son were no longer in the bright hall with its newly cleaned wainscot and whitened floor. When she followed them up-stairs with the water, it was the minister who had dropped into the easy-chair with his face hidden on the table, and his mother was standing beside him. Mrs. Vincent looked up when the girl came in and said, “Thank you – that will do,” looking in her face, and not at what she carried. She was of a dreadful paleness, and looked with eyes that were terrible to that wondering observer upon the little attendant. “Perhaps there have been some letters or messages,” said Mrs. Vincent. “We – we expected somebody to come; think! a young lady came here? – and when she found we were gone – ”
“Only Miss Phœbe!” said the girl, in amazement – “to say as her Ma – ”
“Only Miss Phœbe!” repeated the widow, as if she did not comprehend the words. Then she turned to her son, and smoothed down the ruffled locks on his head; then held out her hand again to arrest the girl as she was going away. “Has your mistress got anything in the house,” she asked – “any soup or cold meat, or anything? Would you bring it up, please, directly? – soup would perhaps be best – or a nice chop. Ask what she has got, and bring it up on a tray. You need not lay the cloth – only a tray with a napkin. Yes, I see you know what I mean.”
“Mother!” cried Vincent, raising his head in utter fright as the maid left the room. He thought in the shock his mother’s gentle wits had gone.
“You have eaten nothing, dear, since we left,” she said, with a heartbreaking smile. “I am not going crazy, Arthur. O no, no, my dear boy! I will not go crazy; but you must eat something, and not be killed too. Susan is not here,” said Mrs. Vincent, with a ghastly, wistful look round the room; “but we are not going to distrust her at the very first moment, far less her Maker, Arthur. Oh, my dear, I must not speak, or something will happen to me; and nothing must happen to you or me till we have found your sister. You must eat when it comes, and then you must go away. Perhaps,” said Mrs. Vincent, sitting down and looking her son direct in the eyes, as if to read any suggestion that could arise there, “she has lost her way: – perhaps she missed one of these dreadful trains – perhaps she got on the wrong railway, Arthur. Oh, my dear boy, you must take something to eat, and then you must go and bring Susan home. She has nobody to take care of her but you.”
Vincent returned his mother’s look with a wild inquiring gaze, but with his lips he said “Yes,” not daring to put in words the terrible thoughts in his heart. The two said nothing to each other of the horror that possessed them both, or of the dreadful haze of uncertainty in which that Susan whom her brother was to go and bring home as if from an innocent visit, was now enveloped. Their eyes spoke differently as they looked into each other, and silently withdrew again, each from each, not daring to communicate further. Just then a slight noise came below, to the door. Mrs. Vincent stood up directly in an agony of listening, trembling all over. To be sure it was nothing. When nothing came of it, the poor mother sank back again with a piteous patience, which it was heartbreaking to look at; and Vincent returned from the window which he had thrown open in time to see Phœbe Tozer disappear from the door. They avoided each other’s eyes now; one or two heavy sobs broke forth from Mrs. Vincent’s breast, and her son walked with a dreadful funereal step from one end of the room to the other. Not even the consolation of consulting together what was to be done, or what might have happened, was left them. They dared not put their position into words – dared not so much as inquire in their thoughts where Susan was, or what had befallen her. She was to be brought home; but whence or from what abyss neither ventured to say.
Upon their misery the little maid entered again with her tray, and the hastily prepared refreshment which Mrs. Vincent had ordered for her son. The girl’s eyes were round and staring with wonder and curiosity; but she was aware, with female instinct, that the minister’s mother, awful little figure, with lynx eyes, which nothing escaped, was watching her, and her observations were nervous accordingly. “Please, sir, it’s a chop,” said the girl – “please, sir, missus sent to know was the other gentleman a-coming? – and please, if he is, there ain’t nowhere as missus knows of, as he can sleep – with the lady, and you, and all; and the other lodgers as well” – said the handmaiden with a sigh, as she set down her tray and made a desperate endeavour to turn her back upon Mrs. Vincent, and to read some interpretation of all this in the unguarded countenance of the minister; “and please, am I to bring up the Wooster sauce, and would the lady like some tea or anythink? And missus would be particklar obliged if you would say. Miss Phœbe’s been to ask the gentleman to tea, but where he’s to sleep, missus says – ”
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” said Vincent, impatiently; “he can have my room, tell your mistress – that will do – we don’t want anything more.”
“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. – God 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 God’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. “Nobody 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, God 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. God 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 passion. 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.”